Hong Kong: Budget responds to expectations: CE Chief Executive John Lee today appealed to all sectors of the community to support the 2024-25 Budget, saying it has responded to the expectations of the public and enterprises while consolidating the momentum of recovery. In a statement, Mr Lee said amid the uncertain geopolitical situation and economic fluctuations, this Budget - the second one of the current-term Government - puts forward a series of concrete measures to bolster confidence, respond to the expectations of the public and enterprises and consolidate the momentum of recovery. Taking a long-term view, we are committed to promoting Hong Kongs high-quality development, accelerating the growth of strategic industries, nurturing talent and strengthening our competitiveness. Mr Lee noted that the Financial Secretary has provided adequate resources to fully support the launch and implementation of the initiatives announced in the Policy Address. I welcome the Budgets fiscal consolidation programme, which focuses on restoring fiscal balance while fully taking into account the financial constraints of the public and businesses. The Chief Executive also expressed confidence that Hong Kong will scale new heights. With the strong support from our country and the unifying efforts from all sectors of the community, I believe that Hong Kong will continue to leverage its advantages under one country, two systems, strengthen the economy, improve peoples livelihood, rise to the challenges and scale new heights. I share the Financial Secretarys confidence and optimism in Hong Kongs future, and I appeal to all sectors of the community to support this Budget. This story has been published on: 2024-02-28. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Chinese smart products "eyecatching" at MWC Xinhua) 08:25, February 28, 2024 Xiaomi's SU7 car is displayed during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 27, 2024. (Xinhua/Gao Jing) Mats Granryd, GSMA's Director General, told Xinhua in an interview that he was happy to see the cutting technologies showcased by Chinese companies at the MWC. BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- State-of-the-art intelligent products and applications showcased by Chinese companies have become eye-catchers at the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. At the center of Xiaomi's booth sits a "Gulf Blue" Xiaomi SU7 car, which has drawn widespread attention from enthusiastic visitors who crowd the booth. Adam Butcher, a tech influencer, said he wanted to place an order for the Xiaomi car. Xiaomi officially launched the "Human x Car x Home" platform globally, integrating personal devices, smart home products, and cars, facilitating seamless connection and real-time coordination of hardware devices, and providing collaboration with industry partners. People visit the Alipay booth during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Gao Jing) By integrating people, cars, and homes, Xiaomi aims to create end-to-end interconnections surpassing any technology available today, said Daniel Desjarlais, Xiaomi's International Communications Director. Seulgi Lee, head of the Republic of Korea's interactive content company Thingsflow, said she was amazed by the "incredible" technology used on ZTE after she tried out the 5G+AI naked-eye 3D tablet developed by ZTE. "I've never seen technology like this that instantly creates a 3D effect after taking a photo!" said Lee, who is not a stranger to naked-eye 3D products. Speaking at "5G Beyond Growth Summit" hosted by Huawei at the World Mobile Congress, Li Qiang, general manager of Mobile Planning and Construction at China Mobile, said that the 3D industry has come to a new stage of volume production marked by the launch of naked-eye 3D computers, smartphones, and other terminals as a result of the continuous integration of immersive 3D content into industries and the improvement of display devices' resolution and the upgrade of computing power. People visit the iFlytek booth during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Gao Jing) iFLYTEK released a series of applications based on generative artificial intelligence and deep learning. The company has made a foray into intelligent marketing, smart homes, and other fields. Lenovo Group assisted in advancing the architecture of the smart city of Barcelona through infrastructure deployment such as networks, ensuring fast and smooth data transmission of devices, and providing efficient and convenient experiences for the public, enterprises, and public institutions. "In recent years, Chinese enterprises have demonstrated formidable innovation and research and development (R&D) capabilities. This surge is evident in significant investments in R&D, the establishment of global research centers, as well as the growing number of patents filed," said Luigi Gambardella, President of the Brussels-based international digital association ChinaEU. Mats Granryd, GSMA's Director General, told Xinhua in an interview that he was happy to see the cutting technologies showcased by Chinese companies at the MWC. A staff member shows a China Telecom 5G antenna during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 27, 2024. (Xinhua/Gao Jing) "I know how much effort, money, talent that China is pouring into new technology, into AI, into connectivity that's going to really bear fruit in the future." Lara Dewar, chief marketing officer at GSMA, said that it is really important to have the Chinese companies which present "a ton of innovation" at the MWC. She added that the MWC Shanghai will take place in June. The MWC, the technology industry's largest connectivity ecosystem event, opened here on Monday, drawing a total of 2,400 exhibitors, including around 300 Chinese telecommunications companies. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) The German Gigafactory of U.S. electric car manufacturer Tesla could be forced to halt production due to its excessive emissions of water-polluting substances, local media reported on Tuesday. Tesla has been continuously discharging excess phosphorus and nitrogen into the wastewater system in Gruenheide near Berlin, exceeding limits by up to six times, according to the Strausberg-Erkner Water Association (WSE), the local water authority. In a letter to local mayors, WSE called for Tesla's Gigafactory to be cut off from the wastewater system. The WSE is expected to seek its members' approval at an extraordinary meeting on Friday. "The problem primarily lies with Tesla on site," water scientist Martin Pusch from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) told Xinhua. The plant that processes the company's wastewater has been "brought to the limit of its capacity." Water resources in the Berlin-Brandenburg region are already exhausted, and additional demand and wastewater from the new Gigafactory are now pushing the water supply "to its limits," added Pusch. Despite considerable resistance from environmentalists and local residents, Tesla is seeking to expand its Gigafactory in Gruenheide, which began operating two years ago. Tesla aims to double production from the current interim target of 500,000 cars per year to one million. However, plans for the additional construction of a freight station, warehouses and a company kindergarten have recently been put on hold. The project, which would have required the clearing of more than 100 hectares of forest, was rejected in a referendum last week. - Advertisement - President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday said he would sign three agreements during his trip to Canberra this week to boost the Philippines and Australias bilateral relations. In his departure speech, President Marcos emphasized his vision to bolster the two nations commitments and future aspirations. As part of this visit, I will have the opportunity to address the Parliament of Australia and provide greater detail on the commitments that we place in this partnership and our vision for the future of the Philippines, he said. I will also have the opportunity to expand our wide-ranging cooperation with Australia through the formalization and signing of three (3) agreements, Mr. Marcos shared. Details of such agreements are yet to be disclosed. President Marcos said his trip to Canberra serves as a reciprocal gesture following Prime Minister Anthony Albaneses state visit to the Philippines last September, marking the elevation of bilateral relations to a strategic partnership, aimed at enhancing cooperation across various sectors. - Advertisement - Mr. Marcos also noted the defense and security ties between the two nations, citing the successful implementation of Exercise Alon and the Maritime Cooperative Activity under the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement with Australia, a significant defense accord among the countrys alliances. On Tuesday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said the President is also expected to float the current situation inside the West Philippine Sea. Recently, the Philippine Coast Guard and Philippine Navy have reported signal jamming, communication interference, and sightings of Chinese Navy warships roaming inside the countrys exclusive economic zone. - Advertisement - The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) signed a data-sharing agreement with the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to streamline and reinforce government efforts aimed at preventing the entry of illegal aliens into the country. DOLE Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma and BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco signed the agreement at the DOLE central office in Intramuros, Manila on Feb. 26. One of its goals is to establish a framework for real-time data exchange between the two agencies. Under the terms of the agreement, DOLE will provide BI with comprehensive data on foreign nationals issued alien employment permits (AEP), certificates of exemption and exclusion, as well as information on canceled and revoked AEPs and certificates of exemption. Courtesy: DOLE/Facebook Eventually, the manual verification will be a thing of the past, and the AEPs of the DOLE and the BI system through the application programming interface will expand our exchanges of information and will result in streamlining the process of both agencies, Laguesma said. For his part, Tansingco said the data will serve as a resource for BI in verifying the information submitted by applicants seeking conversion to or extension of their 9(g) working visas. - Advertisement - The primary objective of this collaborative effort is to ensure that only legitimate foreign workers, duly vetted by DOLE, are granted work visas and permits in the Philippines, according to the BI commissioner. The AEP, a primary requirement for foreign nationals applying for work visas, plays a vital role in maintaining the integrity and security of the labor market. We thank our partners from the DOLE for their continuous support on the efforts to improve the system. Through this agreement, both the BI and the DOLE will be able to better enforce our mandates, Tangsingco added. The initiative comes on the heels of a comprehensive restructuring of BIs visa issuance system. Tansingco likewise noted that the BI already initiated the development of an online application system for working visas to streamline the procedures and enhance accessibility for the applicants. Editors Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline DOLE, BI sign deal to streamline efforts vs illegal aliens. - Advertisement - Combined operatives from the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) seized more than P76 million worth of high-grade dried marijuana or kush at the Manila International Container Port (MICP). Agents from the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) intercepted over 63 kilos of smuggled weed in total last Tuesday, Feb. 27, following an alert order from MICP district collector Romeo Allan Rosales. Authorities examined the shipment at the MICP examination area container freight station 3 and found the contraband in 126 heat-sealed transparent plastic bags. Based on the information we received, the alert order was issued against this shipment because of the suspected presence of illegal drugs. We found around 12 kilos of marijuana per balikbayan box during the inspection, said CIIS Director Verne Enciso. The shipment was consigned to a local freight forwarding service based in Pasay City and addressed to a recipient in Dasmarinas, Cavite. It was originally declared as consolidated balikbayan boxes/personal effects from Thailand. We are preparing the necessary documents to start looking into these individuals. Stopping the entry of these shipments into the country is one thing, but the bigger part of the operation is making sure someone is held accountable for such activity, Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence Juvymax Uy said. Customs Commissioner Bienvenido Rubio attributed the success of the operation to experienced agents aided by new technology. This operation shows our commitment to keeping illegal drugs off our communities because protecting the people is our duty, he said. - Advertisement - Charges of violation of Section 118 (prohibited importation and exportation) and Section 1400 (misdeclaration) in goods declaration in relation to Section 1113 (property subject to seizure and forfeiture) of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) and Republic Act No. 9165 (Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002) will be filed against the owners of the shipment. Editors Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline Govt agents foil entry of smuggled kush from Thailand. - Advertisement - President Marcos expressed his concerns over reports of Chinese Coast Guard and Navy ships being seen roaming inside the West Philippine Sea (WPS). Its worrisome because there are two elements to that: one is that the Dati Coast Guard lang ng China ang gumagalaw doon sa area natin. Ngayon, may Navy na sumama pa mga fishing boat, the President said in a media interview. (Its worrying because there are two things to consider: first, it used to be just the China Coast Guard moving around in our area. Now, the Navy has joined in with the fishing boats.) The President, however, assured the government would continue to assert its sovereignty in the area and would keep assisting fishermen in the area. - Advertisement - We just watch, of course, what everybody is doing, but really for us, patuloy pa rin natin, we just defend our maritime territory. We continue to support all of our fishermen, fisherfolks who make their living from these fishing grounds at patuloy naman nating tutulungan sila, the President said. (We just watch what everyone else is doing, but for us, we will continue to defend our maritime territory. We will continue to support all of our fishermen, who make their living from these fishing grounds, and we will continue to help them.) The President is on his way to Australia for a two-day visit to meet with its leaders. The Department of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday said the President is expected to raise the current tension in the South China Sea during his visit. - Advertisement - Former President Rodrigo Duterte backtracked on several issues in a press conference on Tuesday night, including his call for his home region Mindanao to secede from the Philippines, saying that he does not want any part of the country to be taken away. Duterte also denied accusing President Marcos of using illegal drugs and said his successor should adhere to the guidance of his own legal counsel about the International Criminal Courts investigation into the drug-related killings during his time as Chief Executive. Last week, Mr. Marcos stood firm on his stance that he will not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC in the Philippines. On Mindanao, Duterte added that he does not want my country dismembered. I do not want a part of my country taken away. I do not want my country to be disturbed physically even the slightest. It goes for Luzon hanggang Jolo, Duterte said. I woke up in this world, Republic of the Philippines. For as long as I live it will be the same Republic of the Philippines. - Advertisement - In January, Duterte raised the idea of Mindanao seceding from the Philippines through a process based on gathering signatures. He said it was Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez who first pushed for the desirability of Mindanao seceding from the Republic of the Philippines. Duterte said that he would now support any proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution, but only relating to the economic provisions, dovetailing with the current administrations stance. Meanwhile, after challenging Mr. Marcos to take a drug test last month, Duterte on Tuesday said: I did not say that. Even if you kill me a thousand times, I did not say that he is a drug addict. Make it taking a drug. Marcos will kill me for that. Have mercy on me, I am old. If I can say it to Marcos, I can say it for all. Antibiotics, aspirin theyre all drugs I did not say hes an addict. Marcos might kill me. Im afraid to die because Im already old. In January, Duterte called the President bangag (high on illegal drugs) during a prayer rally in Davao City. The former chief executive also claimed that Mr. Marcos was on the watchlist of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), which the agency later denied. He further claimed that the Armed Forces of the Philippines and other officials know about this addiction. The President, in response, laughed off the accusations, and said it must be the effect of fentanyl, a powerful painkiller Duterte has admitted to taking during his term. - Advertisement - President Marcos on Wednesday categorically denied his alleged involvement in a slay plot against controversial televangelist Apollo Quiboloy, founder, and leader of the Davao-based Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC). Meanwhile, former President Rodrigo Duterte has advised Quiboloy to prepare for his arrest, unless he changed his mind about defying a Senate inquiry on his alleged sexual abuses. Walang may gustong mag-assassinate sa kanya. Bakit siya i-assassinate (Nobody wants to assassinate him. Why would he be assassinated? Theres no reason (for anybody to do that). Why would anyone (want him dead)? the President told reporters before boarding his plane to Australia. Quiboloy has accused President Marcos and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos of colluding with authorities from the United States, where he is wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for charges of human trafficking and sexual assault, among other violations. The President instead called on the beleaguered KOJC leader to face the allegations hurled against him. - Advertisement - Quiboloy has been repeatedly summoned by both the Senate and House of Representatives for hearings on his alleged sexual abuses against some female members of his congregation, as well as violations of his Sonshine Media Network International television channel. Well, I would just advise him if he has something to say He has an opportunity in the hearings, both in the House and in the Senate to tell his side of the story, the Chief Executive said. The Senate Committee on Women, Children, and Family Relations headed by Senator Risa Hontiveros has been investigating Quiboloy over allegations made by some former members of his organization. The House Committee on Legislative Franchises, meanwhile, subpoenaed him in connection with issues hurled against Sonshine, broadcast arm of the KOJC. Just get yourself arrested, Duterte said during late-night news conference on Tuesday, referring to his close ally, Quiboloy. This is a free country. If you dont want to go there (to the Senate), then get yourself arrested. I will give him the free choice, Duterte added. He also downplayed Quiboloys criminal cases in the United States, calling them minor. America would not prioritize that. He is free to roam around the country. His case is in America, not here. He doesnt have a case in the Philippines. So, he is free to roam around the country, the former chief executive told reporters. Quiboloy and two of his associates were considered fugitives US authorities placed them in the most wanted list for alleged criminal offenses. Dutertes advice came hours before President Marcos urged Quiboloy to submit himself to the investigating Senate panel and answer the accusations leveled at him by former KOJC workers to avoid complicating the situation. The word of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to Pastor Apollo Quiboloy to attend the Senate probe will have a weight on the religious leader to show up in the hearing, according to Hontiveros. Despite the attacks of Quiboloy, the word of the highest in the government, maybe, it has a few weights or theres weight, Hontiveros said, referring to Mr. Marcos advice to Quiboloy. She agreed with the President that Quiboloy should face the Senate hearing, adding that her panel was open to hear his side. She reiterated that the Senate is open to hear his side. We are just waiting for him, Hontiveros said. However, if Quiboloy continues to defy the subpoena issued to him, Hontiveros said he would be cited in contempt and be arrested. Asked if Quiboloy has intentions to attend the Senate hearing, Hontiveros admitted they have no information. She emphasized that Quiboloy even described their hearing as bogus. Editors Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline Marcos denies plot to kill Quiboloy, urges him to face congressional hearings. - Advertisement - Filipino law practitioners, just like their counterparts in many countries across the globe, are required by no less than the Supreme Court to undergo continuing legal education. Now on its eighth compliance period, the mandatory continuing legal education (MCLE) program keeps every lawyer abreast of legal developments. It also elevates the national standards of the profession, helps improve justice administration, and enables the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) to discharge its public responsibility more effectively. Bar Matter No. 850 identifies the purpose of MCLEto ensure that throughout their career, IBP members will remain updated about law and jurisprudence, will keep the ethics of their profession, and will help enhance the standards of the practice. Only 25 accredited MCLE providers are allowed to facilitate learning sessions for the program to date. A designated MCLE Committee, which holds office in the IBP headquarters in Pasig City, monitors and oversees MCLE program administration by the accredited providers. MCLE providers offer various courses to enable every learner to complete the required 36 units per compliance period (usually takes three years). All MCLE courses are designed to cover specified topics, including legal ethics, trial and pre-trial skills, alternative dispute resolution, updates of procedural law and jurisprudence, legal writing/ oral advocacy, international law, and other prescribed subjects, which could be about anything under the sun like technology and the law, taxation, cryptocurrency, and psychology and the law, among others. Classroom setup MCLE providers are basically required to conduct their classroom or physical learning sessions in suitable and comfortable venues. The site should be sufficient to hold the number of session attendees, should be accessible to public transportation, and should be conducive for learning. Session schedules and duration should be strategically set. MCLE sessions are not allowed to coincide with observation of religious holidays. Schedule and venue, along with designated lecturers, topics, and related learning activities (even coffee and lunch breaks) must be strictly carried out as set or planned, otherwise, the MCLE Committee must be notified in advance of any change. Visual and other learning aids must be used to conduct the sessions more effectively. Online MCLE In 2020, ACCESS made history and through its efforts gave Philippine lawyers the option to take MCLE online. Incidentally, it coincided with the implementation of lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which lasted for over two years. ACCESS MCLE, one of the accredited MCLE providers in the country, has been leading its industry when it comes to innovations and best practices for facilitation of online MCLE. Still aligned with the requirements of the MCLE Committee and with the approval from the Supreme Court, ACCESS MCLE introduced synchronous (online classroom and flexisynch) and asynchronous (on-demand) modes of learning. As an alternative, and obviously more popular mode of MCLE delivery, accredited providers must adhere to two more major requirementsassurance of authenticity of identity of the learners and relevance of course content. Moreover, the online program must also adhere with other related concerns like data privacy, internet connection reliability, and content production, among others. Interestingly, lawyers now have more options when it comes to MCLE compliance. Online MCLE remains popular, though many also opt for the traditional or face-to-face learning setup in the post-pandemic times. Whichever option is chosen, Filipino lawyers can expect continuous upgrade of knowledge and skills in the profession. To learn more about ACCESS MCLE and its traditional and online programs, visit https://accessonline.ph/. - Advertisement - In response to the surging demand for its products and services, Fujifilm Philippines, Inc. (FFPH) and Fujifilm Business Innovation Philippines Corp. (BIPH) announced the relocation of their offices to a larger space in Cebu City. The new office, strategically situated at Mercedes Benz Tower, Mindanao Ave. Cebu Business Park, Cebu City, marks a significant move for the global leaders in innovation. This expansion aims to strengthen Fujifilms foothold in the region, enabling the brand to better cater to the local market and provide an enhanced experience for customers. The Cebu City office will serve as a hub for after-sales support, featuring a local repair center for digital cameras and endoscopy products. Additionally, it will host a showroom showcasing advanced cameras, cutting-edge printing machines, and business software solutions, offering customers an interactive experience with Fujifilms latest innovations in imaging and document management technology. - Advertisement - FFPH president Masahiro Uehara expressed confidence in the strategic move. This relocation reinforces our commitment to swiftly expand our local operations, making our products and services more accessible to the southern part of the country, he said. L-R_FFPH President Masahiro Uehara-Vice Mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia-FUJIFILM BI PH Hideaki Kato Adding his perspective, Fujifilm BIPH president Hideaki Kato mentioned that the company has almost 60-years experience in the Philippines and continuously provides document process innovation for Cebu customers. He also highlighted the synergy between the two entities. We are proud to unveil this new office, bringing us closer to our customers in Cebu and emphasizing the collaboration between FUJIFILM Business Innovation Philippines and FUJIFILM Philippines, Kato said. Fujifilm, renowned for its relentless pursuit of technological advancements and customer-focused solutions, leverages its photographic industry expertise to push growth in healthcare, materials, and business innovation. The companys new group purpose, Giving our world more smiles, underscores its commitment to creating a brighter future in society. For more information, visit www.fujifilm.com/ph & www.fujifilm.com/fbph. - Advertisement - The Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 was held on February 26 in Barcelona, Spain. At the event, Huawei showcased a lineup of high-end, fashion-forward, and technology-driven flagship products that attracted the attention of guests, notably the HUAWEI Mate 60 RS ULTIMATE DESIGN, HUAWEI FreeClip, and HUAWEI WATCH GT 4. Huaweis booth was divided into ULTIMATE DESIGN, Fashion Forward, XMAGE, Creation of Beauty, and Fitness & Health scenario-based experience zones, which demonstrated how Huaweis solutions have infused daily life with new technologies and enriching scenario-based experiences. While continuing to invest in technology innovation, Huawei is committed to making further breakthroughs and building rich and personalized lifestyles for global consumers. Huawei will continue to cement its position as a global high-end, fashion-forward, and technology-driven brand, said Kevin Ho, COO of the Huawei Consumer Business Group, In 2024, we will continue to increase R&D investments in smart devices, fitness & health, and digital creation. These efforts will make innovative products and services more accessible to users worldwide, and create cutting-edge, pioneering, and personalized lifestyles for consumers. - Advertisement - Steady Huawei CBG business growth cements its position in the high-end market Over the past year, Huawei CBG had made strides. It managed to make breakthroughs in the global high-end wearable, audio, tablet, PC, and phone markets, by releasing an intriguing lineup of high-end, fashion-forward, and technology-driven products. Huawei has held flagship product launch events in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and Asia Pacific, demonstrating the companys commitment to growing its global presence as a high-end brand. Flagship smartphones released in 2023 included the HUAWEI Mate 60 Series and HUAWEI Mate X5, both of which helped make Huawei a major player in the high-end market and proved Huaweis industry-leading technical strength to the whole world. Huawei also unveiled ULTIMATE DESIGN, a new ultra-high-end brand that offers distinctive aesthetics, craftsmanship, and technological innovations, to make Huawei stand out from the crowd. According to Counterpoint Researchs latest report, Huawei gained 5% of market share in the global high-end smartphone market in 2023, ranking third among all brands. In the first two weeks of 2024, Huawei ranked first in the Chinese market with the largest smartphone sales volume. By the end of 2023, global shipments of Huawei smart wearables exceeded 150 million, and Huawei has ranked first in Chinas smart watch market for five consecutive years. The HUAWEI Health App has a user base of over 450 million. By 2023, a decade after the launch of its first tablet, Huawei had shipped over 100 million tablets. Creating a new aesthetic paradigm with high-end designs Huaweis Fashion Forward scenario-based exhibition zone at MWC drew acclaim, and showcased Huaweis emphasis on building a high-end fashion-forward brand. In 2023, Huawei unveiled its Fashion Forward campaign, with the goal of creating trendy and healthy lifestyles for consumers. While investing heavily in R&D, Huawei is committed to developing new design paradigms for each new product and leading the industry fashion trend. Huawei is dedicated to providing high-end, fashion-forward, and technology-driven products and experiences to consumers through the use of premium materials, unique design language, and advanced manufacturing techniques. While developing HUAWEI Mate 60 RS ULTIMATE DESIGN, R&D personnel added rare earth elements to the red ceramics sintering process for the first time. Each phone undergoes 1400C calcining and is subject to more than 50 processes during the 60-day manufacturing period, all of which are crucial to creating the vibrant red body. HUAWEI WATCH ULTIMATE DESIGN is Huaweis first-ever gold smartwatch. It features 18K gold and Zirconium-based Liquid metal. HUAWEI FreeClip is Huaweis first earbuds that come with the C-bridge Design. This design is durable and stable, bringing a breathable wearing experience and giving the earbuds a refreshingly original look and feel as well. HUAWEI WATCH GT 4 comes in an octagonal form, showcasing every intricate detail on the surface. Up to now, Huawei has set up Aesthetics Research Centers in Paris, Milan, and London, to gain insight into the design and aesthetic trends of different cultures, draw from a diverse range of traditions, and incorporate design elements from both East and West. The Aesthetics Research Centers serve as the global platforms that fuel the continuous advancement of technologies and design, providing unique and unprecedented aesthetic experience to consumers. Cutting-edge smart wearables provide comprehensive and precise health management Huaweis Fitness & Health scenario-based exhibition zone also attracted the gaze of the attending guests. Smart wearables is one of the most crucial sectors in Huawei CBG global business. In 2023, Huawei launched a lineup of flagship smart wearables, including HUAWEI WATCH Ultimate, the first daily smart watch to support two-way BeiDou satellite messaging, HUAWEI WATCH 4, which unveiled the all-new Health Glance feature[1], HUAWEI WATCH GT 4 which came with brand-new Activity Rings and the Stay Fit App, and HUAWEI WATCH ULTIMATE DESIGN, the first gold-plated smart watch ever made. Huawei has made continuous breakthroughs and innovations in cutting-edge technologies, ultimate aesthetics, health management, and science-based workouts, which have been fully recognized by global consumers. Three months after its launch, global shipments of HUAWEI WATCH GT 4 totaled over 2.5 million units, making HUAWEI WATCH GT 4 Huaweis best-selling smart watch. Having delved deep into the smart wearable industry for over a decade, Huawei has developed its own TruSeen vital sign monitoring technology, which has been upgraded five generations within eight years. This technology positions Huawei as a major player in the smart wearable industry. Huawei has filed over 800 smart wearable patent applications, ranking high in terms of R&D investment and number of patents in the fitness & health field. In October 2023, Huawei unveiled its third Health Lab Huawei Finland Health Lab. The company has also built over 10 global R&D centers, accelerating the global layout of professional research in the wearable field. Huawei will continue to lead the way in introducing groundbreaking fitness & health services, and making scientific smart solutions accessible to all. Huawei smart wearables will further gain insight into consumers core health pain points, increase R&D investment, and continuously make breakthroughs to benefit global consumers. In 2024, Huawei will prioritize three industry challenges: sleep, blood pressure, and mental health management. Through these efforts, Huawei will offer more accurate, convenient, and comprehensive health management solutions for global consumers. Digital creation that witnesses the Creation of Beauty HUAWEI MatePad Pro 13.2, Huaweis latest flagship tablet, and a myriad of works created by global creators using the tablet drew intense interest at MWC 2024. The tablet was launched in 2023 as the first tablet to support NearLink technology, marking the tenth year of Huawei tablets. It is also the thinnest tablet thats ever been made with the narrowest bezels and highest screen-to-body ratio. It works seamlessly with HUAWEI M-Pencil (3rd generation), the first stylus to support 10,000+ pressure sensing levels, resulting in an unprecedented digital creation experience. Huaweis global GoPaint Activity in 2023 invited digital creators to showcase works made on Huawei tablets. By developing cutting-edge tablet capabilities, Huawei aims to make the joy of creation more accessible to all, so that everyone can better express themselves. At the event, Huawei noted that it will continue to increase its investment in digital creation in 2024 by prioritizing PaperMatte Display and NearLink technology, to provide consumers with more enhanced digital creation experiences. The GoPaint Activity hosted by Huawei will also witness an upgrade to cover more countries and regions, making it a genuine global force in the digital art community. Huaweis achievements in mobile imaging are no less noteworthy, with the launch of the XMAGE brand, which encompasses every aspect from optical systems to imaging technology and image processing. In 2023, Huaweis flagship products, like HUAWEI Mate 60 Series, HUAWEI Mate X5, and HUAWEI P60 Series, came equipped with XMAGE capabilities, to provide users with a brand-new mobile photography experience. HUAWEI XMAGE Awards in 2023 saw over 600,000+ submissions from nearly 100 countries/regions. It aims to inspire users to capture and share the beauty in their midst, express their emotions, and showcase the power of smartphone photography. Huaweis showcase at MWC 2024 demonstrated the companys commitment to the global high-end market. 2024 will be a critical year, as Huawei will break through boundaries and make high-end, fashion-forward, and technology-driven products, services, and experiences more accessible to users worldwide, with increased R&D investment in innovative technologies, thus setting a benchmark for the industry. About Huawei Consumer BG Huaweis products and services are available in more than 170 countries and are used by a third of the worlds population. Fourteen R&D centers have been set up in countries around the world, including Germany, Sweden, Finland, France, India, and China. Huawei Consumer BG is one of Huaweis three business units and covers smartphones, PC and tablets, wearables, and cloud services, etc. Huaweis global network is built on over 30 years of expertise in the telecom industry and is dedicated to delivering the latest technological advances to consumers around the world. For more information please visit the following: - Advertisement - Singapore Singtel, AIS, Globe, HKT, Optus, Taiwan Mobile and Telkomsel today announced that they have formed an Alliance to launch a first-of-its-kind cross-border rewards programme aimed at delivering greater value to eligible customers when they travel to Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Hong Kong, Australia, Taiwan or Indonesia where the telcos are respectively based. The programme would enable travellers to earn and use rewards, claim and redeem unique deals for transport, dining, merchandise, services and enjoy other incentives when they travel to any of these markets. They would also access customer support from their telco via calls or online while overseas for free. The programme, which would be progressively rolled out in the second half of 2024, will enable customers to conveniently access and redeem unique benefits seamlessly from their individual telco apps while travelling. Anna Yip, Chief Executive Officer, Business Development, Singtel, said, We value our customers loyalty and want to enhance their travel experience. With this unique reciprocal rewards programme, our customers can access exciting local rewards and offers when they visit any of the markets within the Alliance. For inbound tourists, were making it easier for them to get the most value while exploring Singapore, thereby strengthening Singapores position as an iconic destination. Were starting with our regional partners but plan to expand this programme to cover key travel corridors and popular destinations globally so our customers will have an even wider array of opportunities and new experiences to enjoy when theyre abroad. Pratthana Leelapanang, Chief Consumer Business at AIS, said, The collaboration in this project marks a significant global milestone, as major telecommunications service providers in the Asian region come together to enhance customer care across borders with the concept of the worlds first cross-border telco rewards. This sets a new standard in the telecommunications industry, aiming to enhance the ultimate experience and exclusive privileges for AIS customers when travelling and using services from partner networks in six destinations. Likewise, customers of these partner networks, when traveling to Thailand, and choosing AIS services, will receive special privileges prepared by AIS, akin to being AIS customers. This collaboration reflects our commitment to continuously care for customers through exceptional experiences even when they travel abroad, while also providing opportunities to promote the tourism industry in each destination, further strengthening it. - Advertisement - Darius Delgado, Head, Consumer Mobile Business at Globe, said, As a brand focused on providing unique experiences as our differentiator and having a deeper relationship with our subscribers, we are excited to partner with other leading telcos in the region through this Rewards Alliance to elevate the travel experience of our subscribers well beyond just connectivity. Through this programme, we will be able to give cross-border perks, experiences and exclusive offers to our subscribers when they travel to partner destinations. With this, we can ensure that when yuppies travel with GOMO PH, they are in for an adventure of a lifetime! Monita Leung, CEO of Digital Ventures, HKT, said, Supported by HKTs diverse business portfolio, our loyalty platform, The Club, has been steadily broadening its products and services with travel and lifestyle offerings, along with unique experiences such as pre-screenings and priority concert bookings. Through this collaboration, we are delighted to extend these privileges to travellers from the Alliance visiting Hong Kong, enriching their local travel experiences. Moreover, HKT customers can relish the convenience of a seamless journey and take advantage of enticing cross-border special offers when travelling to markets within the Alliance. Matt Williams, Managing Director of Customer Solutions at Optus, said, We are thrilled to be part of the launch of this pioneering travel rewards programme, representing our commitment to enhancing the lives of our valued Optus customers. We know that Australians love to travel abroad, and that people love to travel to Australia with over 35 million travellers to and from Australia each year. This programme is an innovative way for us to deliver compelling experiences within our partner alliance spanning six other destinations, demonstrating the power of being part of the Singtel Group. We are looking forward to bringing this programme to our customers soon and invite them to join us in these unique experiences. Tony Lin, Chief Consumer Business Officer of Taiwan Mobile, said, Imagine browsing authentic Taiwanese souvenirs while waiting for your flight, and paying for all your purchases using your loyalty points! Thats the exciting innovation were bringing to travellers through the Telco Rewards Alliance. In partnership with renowned online retailers and trusted travel agencies, were creating a curated Taiwan Delights Pavilion where you can redeem points for unique local finds, from hand-crafted teas to exquisite tech gadgets. Over ten million travellers across the Alliances participating telco networks can seamlessly access local data plans, convenient airport transfers, and unforgettable experiences, all within a few taps on your phone. This initiative will revolutionise travel convenience and customisation for our customers. Join us and discover the magic of Taiwan, one delightful reward at a time! Derrick Heng, Chief Marketing Officer at Telkomsel, said, In the wake of the pandemic, there has been a notable surge in the number of Indonesian youths venturing abroad, encouraged by reduced airfares and more lenient visa policies. Reflecting Telkomsels steadfast dedication to pioneering innovations and surpassing customer expectations, we are proud to introduce the worlds first cross-border telco rewards programme. This pioneering initiative aims to enrich the international travel experience, offering them superior benefits and the opportunity to immerse themselves in unique local experiences just like a local. Additionally, we anticipate that this programme will deliver added value to the subscribers of our telco partners, as well as Telkomsel and by.U, by complementing the competitive pricing and seamless network experience synonymous with our all-digital telco brand designed specifically for the youth demographic. The cross-border rewards programme is the latest addition to the suite of travel offerings from GOMO PH. GOMO PH lets its customers enjoy roaming services in over 160 destinations across the world. Customers can choose from different promo offers perfect for their travel destination and duration of stay, or choose to swap local GBs to international GBs via Mo Creds, all through the GOMO PH app. Through the seamless and hassle-free GOMO Roam, the brand makes every trip more enjoyable and convenient for its customers. Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala speaks during the opening ceremony of the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) of WTO in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, Feb. 26, 2024.[WTO/Handout via Xinhua] In the face of many challenges, developing and least-developed countries have urged for reforms in the World Trade Organization to ensure multilateral cooperation, fair and free trade, and the normalization of dispute settlement mechanisms. These issues were highlighted during the WTO's 13th Ministerial Conference as the three-day event opened in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, the United Arab Emirates' minister of state for foreign trade and chair of the conference, said the growth of WTO membership and its diverse priorities "requires a dynamic approach from the WTO", one that "respects the rules that bind us all as WTO members", but also "enables the WTO to advance "to "achieve our collective goals". "The multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core is at a critical juncture, confronting many challenges. We have witnessed the shifting of priorities and addressing climate change and sustainability issues," Al Zeyoudi said. He noted that many countries were experiencing debt, as well as cost of living pressures, food security issues, and slow recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The conference "can be the launchpad of the future of global trade and reform" and the WTO is prepared to address current and future challenges, he added. The WTO currently has 164 members and the ministers formally approved membership terms for Comoros and Timor-Leste on Feb 26. Al Zeyoudi also said the WTO "remains a powerful force, encountering the current unilateral protectionism and discrimination" and remains "an important part of global efforts" to attain the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. In her speech, WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said that on the high-priority issue of dispute settlement reform, ambassadors have heeded ministers' charge to work on delivering a fully and well-functioning system accessible to all members this year. She noted that some members would like to formalize the process under the Dispute Settlement Body post-conference while others, especially the least-developed countries, would like to find ways to participate more going forward. "I hope ministers will recognize the progress made through the various contributions and will instruct their teams in Geneva to accelerate discussions, build on progress, and work on unresolved issues," Okonjo-Iweala said. She said some members were still using the dispute settlement system to resolve disputes, sometimes "in very creative ways". She said eight disputes have recently been settled bilaterally at the WTO, with seven more in the process of resolution. "Alternative mechanisms to resolve disputes were always available at the WTO but now members are making more use of them," Okonjo-Iweala said. "These important tools ensure that WTO rules are being followed." At the 12th China Round Table on WTO Accessions held on Feb 24 and 25, China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao said China has always supported developing countries, including Arab states, to integrate into the multilateral trading system and insists on benefiting the whole world with its own development. Cooperation highlighted Further, China will continue to carry out South-South cooperation within the framework of the multilateral trading system, enhance the openness, inclusiveness, universality and balance of the multilateral trading system, implement its Global Development Initiative with practical actions, and promote the building of a global community of a shared future for development. Sujoko Efferin, a professor at the Faculty of Business and Economics at Universitas Surabaya in Indonesia, said China's strategic economic and technological strength "plays a crucial role in promoting inclusivity and ensuring that the voices of least-developed countries are heard and considered in the WTO's decision-making processes". The recent China round table focused on how trade and active participation in the WTO could foster economic development and resilience, especially for the Arab region. According to the WTO, the Arab region is "one of the most underrepresented". Of the 22-member Arab League, only 13 are WTO members, while nine are observers. Gokhan Ereli, Gulf studies coordinator at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Turkiye, said the Abu Dhabi meeting reflects the Gulf states' ambitions to play a more prominent role in shaping international trade policies and norms at a time of global uncertainties. "The meeting's focus on key trade issues, such as dispute resolution, e-commerce and agriculture, aligns with the Gulf's economic diversification goals and its interest in maintaining regional stability," Ereli said. The Democratic Republic of the Congos foreign ministry summoned Algerian ambassador to Kinshasa to ask for clarifications after Algerias chief of staff visited Rwanda. The DRC is at loggerheads with Rwanda, whom Kinshasa accuses of fighting alongside Congolese rebels in the east. The visit by chief of staff Chengriha, the real ruler in Algiers, has sent a strong message of Algerias military support for Rwanda. Algeria has not officially commented on the summon which came at a context Algeria is losing foothold in its immediate Sahel neighborhood. Algeria has previously recalled its ambassador for consultation after Mali summoned Algerian ambassador to protest for meddling in its domestic affairs. Niger rejected Algerias mediation in its domestic crisis, while the ECOWAS rejected any Algerian role in the region. An Italian couple and their son, who were captivated by Jihadists in Mali in May 2022, have finally been released, the Italian government said. Rocco Langone, his wife Maria Caivano, and their son Giovanni landed at Ciampino Airport, in Italy, marking the end of a painful ordeal. I do not wish to anyone to go through what I went through, Daniele Langone told reporters. I am so grateful for all that has been done for me and for my family. Rome says an Al-Qaeda affiliated group, known as the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, kidnapped the family from their home in a community for Jehovahs Witnesses on the outskirts of Koutiala, a city southeast of the capital Bamako. Italian authorities said the family had lived in Mali for years as part of a well-integrated community of Jehovahs Witnesses. Last August, Romanias Minister of Foreign Affairs Luminita Odobescu thanked Morocco for helping release one of its nationals who worked at a mine in Burkina Faso where he was kidnapped by Jidhadists. The risk of kidnapping has thwarted humanitarian workers and western private companies from investing in southern Algeria and the wider Sahel. Porous borders and the mushrooming of extremist groups worsened the risks of kidnappings in the Sahel. Earlier this month, western powers warned of risk of kidnappings in southern Algeria including the area of Tindouf where the Polisario militias are based. Shell should take responsibility for its toxic legacy of polluting the Niger delta before abandoning its oil infrastructure there, said a report by the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO). The report urged the British company, to clean its legacy of pollution in the Niger Delta after earning billions of dollars from the regions fossil fuel industry. UK Labor MP Clive Lewis has told the House of Commons that Shells divestment from the delta raised serious concerns that its environmental responsibilities and obligations could be evaded. Audrey Gaughran, the executive director of Somo told the Guardian that as the oil industry enters its final phase, whether thats in the next five years or 25, Shell has sold its toxic assets and will not be left holding them when the music stops. The departure of Shell, which has been the dominant operator with the largest footprint in the region for decades, affects significant areas of the delta and thousands of communities. Registered trustees of the Community Development Committees of Oil and Gas Producing Areas of Niger Delta (CDCOGPAND) have demanded a right of first refusal by indigenous people from Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) before selling off its crude oil drilling business and facilities in the Niger Delta region This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A new research review to be given at a pre-congress day for this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) will highlight the potential artificial intelligence (AI) has to improve the speed and accuracy of investigations into infectious disease outbreaks in hospitals, and potentially provide real-time information to stop or prevent them. The talk will be by Dr. Jonas Marschall, Division of Infectious Diseases, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, U.S. Dr. Marschall uses the example of an outbreak of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE) that began in late 2017, in Bern University Hospital, Switzerland, and went on until July 2020, receiving substantial media attention and becoming Switzerland's largest-ever multidrug-resistant organism outbreak. The investigations into the outbreak revealed most VRE affected patients were colonized and not infected (a "silent outbreak"); that isolation of VRE patients was costly (requiring isolation rooms, personal protective equipment and bed closures); and that screening for VRE required a substantial logistical and financial effort (screening were proximity-based, captured entire floors, or were even hospital-wide). Dr. Marschall and colleagues then re-analyzed the medical records generated during the first two years of the outbreak period (1/201812/2019) and identified (and mostly confirmed) risk factors for VRE colonization by using various statistical methods and then moved to a framework called network graph theory and graph neural networks (a type of AI). Briefly, network graphs inspect the connections between discrete "nodes" in a network (which could be patients, rooms, devices) and determines, for example, which nodes are most connected or which nodes have the shortest path to another node (and thus play a larger role in the outbreak). Dr. Marschall explains, "The more traditional methods for analyzing outbreaks might yield signals that tend to confirm previously known and often generic risk factors, without adding the detail needed to make specific interventions." Extrapolating from their preliminary work in the field, Dr. Marschall thinks AI-based analyses could ultimately provide answers to key questions in an outbreakfor example, their study showed that the "electrocardiography service" and the "examination room ZZ" were at the center of many interactions, and thus could likely have served as a place of transmissionin consequence, that room/device/person could be the target for disinfection/interventions. However, in the current study, Dr. Marschall explains that not all employee interactions were captured because not every profession logs their time with a patient as well as, for example, nursing personnel do (which leaves gaps in our understanding of the many interactions happening in an acute care hospital). To extract the maximum of information, all interactions between patients, employees, visitors, rooms, and devices would have to be captured. Also, Dr. Marschall and colleagues based their work on the local data infrastructure in Bernwhile the general approach they describe can be used for any setting, a given hospital would need to ensure its data is in an analyzable format and labeled so as to facilitate interpretation. To make AI input into infectious disease outbreaks a success, Dr. Marschall explains that hospital teams must pivot from research to operations, meaning implementing and refining AI tools as an outbreak happens in real time (which is not easy to predict). He states, "This approach could even help with individual patients infected with a multidrug-resistant organism or small clusters of such patients because it could identify surrounding patients/employees and rooms/devices that would need to addressed, either by screening or by targeted disinfection. The beauty of AI in outbreak management (and where its greatest power lies) is to make real-time or near real-time operational decisions easier, quicker and more precise." In his talk, Dr. Marschall will highlight that novel approaches to medical data (such as network graphs and temporal graph neural networks) can provide us with the framework to elevate outbreak investigations to the next stage. It can identify specific "hot spots" of an outbreak, where transmissions are likely to happen, and give us the tools to target these hot spots in order to fight an outbreak. He concludes, "If this help comes to infection prevention experts in near real time, it will dramatically improve their ability to respond to an outbreak." Provided by European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A new research review to be given at a pre-congress day for this year's European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID 2024) will look at the many ways artificial intelligence can help prevent infectious disease outbreaks including ensuring staff wear personal protective equipment correctly and managing day-to-day hospital activities such as medication prescription and cleaning. The presentation will be given by Prof Richard Drew, Rotunda Hospital and CHI at Temple St, Irish Meningitis and Sepsis Reference Laboratory and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland. "Artificial intelligence is a rapidly developing area with huge potential for cost savings, but also wasting money," explains Prof Drew. "The key is to identify problems in your own institution that AI can help analyze and then fix. For example, can we ensure staff are wearing face masks properly? How do we keep the air/environment clean? When should we switch from intravenous to oral antibiotic therapy for individual patients?" For the face masks example, Prof Drew will refer to a review paper by Rahaf Alturki and colleagues published in Frontiers in Public Health in 2022, where researchers reviewed how AI was used to both identify firstly if a mask was being worn at all, and secondly if it had been fitted properly. This review paper analyzed more than 30 papers on the use of facial recognition AI technology to assess if staff were wearing masks correctly, concluding AI performs very well in identifying correct mask wearing in general. "However, even though AI technology successfully identified correct mask wearing, we must be careful that staff do not find such monitoring too intrusive," says Prof Drew. He will also look how AI has evolved cleaning in hospitals from traditional manual scrubbing of all corners of the hospital to intelligent robots that know where to focus their cleaning. Robots are, with the assistance of AI, able to monitor the environment and air quality in real time, and then target cleaning where needed. Recent advances in big data analytics have allowed for research groups from the U.K. to analyze data from thousands of admissions to help identify when it is optimal to switch from IV antibiotics to oral antibiotics. Prof Drew explains, "Although this technology will not replace medical experience, it is a tool that could streamline antimicrobial stewardship rounds to focus in on patients who are suitable for oral switch, thus saving staff time and improving patient care." In summary, Professor Drew will say the key to successful AI use in infection control is to first identify what problems your institution has and then see if AI can provide a solution. He says, "We should look to offload repetitive tasks to AI systems such as environmental cleaning and mask compliance auditing. AI can also offer significant opportunities in terms of big data analytics of certain patient groups. "However, we have to ensure that staff engage with AI developments, and do not feel overwhelmed with the data outputs or consider AI monitoring systems as too intrusive on their personal freedom. It is important too that health systems still appreciate that infection prevention and control (IPC) practitioners are always needed to spot new or emerging problems, identify cultural aspects of IPC, and ensure appropriate communication with other staff." Provided by European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Blessing Ogboo works in the Natural Sciences Complex chemistry lab of David Heppner. Credit: Douglas Levere / Univeristy at Buffalo Drug discovery can be a frustrating process of trial and error. Scientists using fragment-based drug discovery link fragments of different molecules together to create a more potent drug but may not know whether a compound works until millions of dollars in research and development have already been spent. New University at Buffalo research may offer a more streamlined approach, allowing drug makers to determine the viability of a fragment-based design earlier in the process. While developing a fragment-based drug to treat lung cancer, a team co-led by UB found that where they linked fragments together had a large effect on potency. "Despite consisting of the same molecule fragments, we found that one of our compounds was superadditive, while the other was virtually inactive. The main difference between the two was the points at which their fragments were linked together," says David Heppner, Ph.D., Jere Solo Assistant Professor of medicinal chemistry in the UB College of Arts and Sciences and co-senior author of the study, which published in Communications Chemistry. Molecule fragments are often linked together using another molecule, typically called linkers. Much attention is paid to their length and the kinds of atoms inside, while their placement on fragments, or the points of connection, is often left up to chance. But Heppner and his team say that determining the optimal point of connection at the onset, while perhaps cumbersome, is most efficient. "We believe our approach adds more intelligence to the drug optimization process and minimizes the amount of work needed to find the most potent structure," says co-lead author Blessing Ogboo, a Ph.D. student in Heppner's lab. The stakes are high in drug discovery: It's estimated that it takes on average 12 years and $2.7 billion to develop a new drug. Most drugs never even make it to the marketfor example, 97% of cancer drugs fail clinical trials. Fragment-based drug discovery, or FBDD, has become a sought-after method. Linked fragments can bind to a drug target, like a protein or enzyme, at multiple sites simultaneously, making them more potent than their parent molecules would be on their own. David Heppner, Jere Solo Assistant Professor of medicinal chemistry, and Blessing Ogboo, a Ph.D. student, are authors of a new study that proposes a streamlined approach to developing new cancer drugs. Credit: Douglas Levere/University at Buffalo The UB team was using FBDD to develop inhibitors that can bind to multiple sites on the kinase domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), a key protein in non-small cell lung cancer. One of their inhibitors was linked to a central group, while the other was connected through an outer region of the molecule. When tested on an EGFR in a cell culture, the inhibitor linked through an outer region was more than 1 million times more potent. Curious to understand why, the team used X-ray crystallography and molecular dynamic simulations to determine the two inhibitors' 3D structure and how they bind to EGFR. The tools showed that the superior potency was due to the placement of its linker, allowing for greater mobility and better compatibility with the EGFR's binding site. They also ruled out more conventional attributeslength and atom typebeing behind the increased potency. "Previous studies have highlighted the importance of flexibility for linkers, but we believe our inhibitors are unique given their wide range of potency despite relatively small differences in linker structure," says co-lead author Stefan Laufer, Ph.D., of the Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen. Other co-authors from UB include Tahereh Damghani, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research associate; Surbhi Chitnis, a Ph.D. student; and former graduate students Calvin Pham and Brandon Oligny. Other contributors represent Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, the University of Eastern Finland, and AssayQuant Technologies, Inc. Heppner and Laufer's teams have filed both a U.S. and international patent application on the EGFR inhibitors and are working with UB's Technology Transfer office. The Heppner lab recently led another study on covalent EGFR inhibitors that was published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Written with collaboration industry partners, it serves as a perspective on best practices, as well as common pitfalls in drug development. "We hope our recent studies and others like them can better inform decision making in the drug discovery process, creating cost savings and decreasing time to new therapies," Heppner says. More information: Florian Wittlinger et al, Linking ATP and allosteric sites to achieve superadditive binding with bivalent EGFR kinase inhibitors, Communications Chemistry (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s42004-024-01108-3 Kristopher W. Hoyt et al, Pitfalls and Considerations in Determining the Potency and Mutant Selectivity of Covalent Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Inhibitors, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.3c01502 Journal information: Communications Chemistry , Journal of Medicinal Chemistry This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Example of information provided to the information groups. Credit: Global Food Security (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100745 Using a novel research methodology, researchers in the U.S. and Tanzania have identified new recommendations for reducing nutrient deficiency in the East African country. Brandon McFadden, professor of agricultural economics and agribusiness and the Tyson Endowed Chair in Food Policy Economics for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, said that a key recommendation from the study was for policymakers and public health officials in Tanzania to focus on education about zinc deficiency. "Zinc deficiency is a major health problem worldwide, particularly in developing countries, and a major health consequence is stunted growth for children," McFadden said. The study, titled "Knowledge gaps about micronutrient deficiencies in Tanzania and the effect of information interventions," was published this month in the Global Food Security journal. The study identified knowledge gaps in understanding about micronutrient deficiencies. Pius Kilasy, a co-author of the study from Tanzania, said the study will help his home country address a critical lack of knowledge. "Findings from the study are very important to Tanzania," Kilasy said. "Understanding and managing to close the knowledge gap is very important in order to build a strong and stable workforce." Kilasy currently works as a research officer for the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute, an independent institute under the Tanzanian Ministry of Agriculture. He completed the research on micronutrient deficiencies as a master's student through an exchange program at the University of Delaware. McFadden previously conducted research and taught in Delaware before joining the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station in August 2022. The experiment station is the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Other co-authors of the study include Kelly Davidson, assistant professor of applied economics, and Leah Palm-Forster, associate professor of applied economics, with the department of applied economics and statistics for the University of Delaware's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Find the gap As with many low-income countries, Tanzania is home to widespread micronutrient malnutrition. According to the research article, approximately 58% of children from ages 6-59 months are anemic in Tanzania. Thirty-four percent are vitamin A deficient, and up to 70% of hospitalized children in this age group are deficient in zinc. Similar surveys of women between the ages of 15 and 49 in Tanzania also show high rates of anemia45%and vitamin A deficiency36%. Anemia is a condition that causes weakness and shortness of breath due to a lack of healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout the body, according to the Mayo Clinic. In response to these high micronutrient malnutrition levels, McFadden said the Tanzanian government has developed education and vitamin supplementation strategies, including a focus on using biofortified foods. "It's difficult for vitamin supplementation to be a long-lasting behavioral change," he said. "If you can increase the nutrient levels in staple foods, then perhaps it would be more effective, particularly in rural areas." Biofortified staple foods are selectively bred varieties of staple crops high in specific micronutrients. For example, some varieties of biofortified rice provide high levels of zinc. McFadden and his co-authors devised a set of survey experiments to find knowledge gaps in understanding iron, vitamin A and zinc deficiencies among residents of Tanzania. "We were interested in the knowledge of the different micronutrient deficiencies. And then also knowledge about biofortified foods that can help reduce those deficiencies," McFadden said. Measuring awareness McFadden said that participants in the study were limited to residents of Tanzania between the ages of 18 and 49. Because the World Health Organization identified women as being at a higher risk for a micronutrient deficiency, McFadden said females were oversampled in the study. Out of a total of 1,029 respondents, 806 were female. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of six research groups and were asked a series of questions about micronutrient deficiency to determine their baseline understanding, McFadden said. Then, respondents received different educational information about micronutrient deficiencies based on their assigned group. Of the six groups, four received variations of educational information on micronutrient deficiencies. For some groups, the material included references to branded biofortified foods to evaluate the effect of food labeling. Additionally, a Tanzanian flag was placed on the educational materials in some groups to determine if it increased attention to the information. There was also a group that was only presented with the branded crops information, as well as a control group, which received no educational information or reference to branded crops. The effects of the interventions were then measured using a follow-up survey, McFadden said. "Economists are very touchy about saying something causes something," he said. "But the great thing about experiments is you set up the experiment to find causal effects. We used a randomized group design to identify these knowledge gaps and then also used a nutrient randomized design with information so we could have a lot of confidence in our findings." McFadden also noted that the study methodology provided a unique "internal reliability check." The study was focused on iron, vitamin A and zinc, but researchers also included questions about iodine deficiency in the baseline and follow-up surveys. When it came to the educational interventions, the researchers only provided information about iron, vitamin A and zincnot iodine. They could then compare the impact of providing educational materials for iron, vitamin A and zinc against the impact of providing no information about iodine. This allowed the researchers to validate the true effects of the different levels of educational information provided. Prioritization is key The initial baseline knowledge survey found that only about half of respondents were aware of zinc deficiency, compared to approximately 75% who were aware of vitamin A and iron deficiency, McFadden said. "There's been a lot of programs targeted at vitamin A and iron," he said. "There was really a low awareness for zinc." The study noted that women were more aware than men of the potential negative health outcomes from micronutrient deficiency. Respondents assigned to groups that received educational information were more likely to identify negative health outcomes for iron, vitamin A and zinc. High-poverty households were also found to have lower overall awareness of the negative health outcomes of micronutrient malnutrition. Of the different information groups, the researchers found that providing a combination of educational information, along with branded crop information, yielded the greatest improvement in reducing knowledge gaps about micronutrient deficiency. The study concludes that "Tanzania should implement targeted communication strategies that provide information about the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies and risk-reducing food options branded with targeted micronutrients to reduce knowledge gaps most effectively." Given the relative lack of awareness about zinc, McFadden said the results of the study suggest prioritizing public communications on that specific micronutrient to those who are at higher risk of micronutrient malnutrition, like women. "It's identifying those places, particularly that women in childbearing years, are likely to receive information," he said. "For example, any kind of women's clinic." Kilasy said that worldwide hunger has become so common that research like this can help inform decision-makers "to look for various alternatives on solving community challenges that are arising due to lack of sufficient knowledge." "This study is very essential," he said. More information: Pius Kilasy et al, Knowledge gaps about micronutrient deficiencies in Tanzania and the effect of information interventions, Global Food Security (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.gfs.2024.100745 Provided by University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Insights from novel HTNV rapid amplicon-based Flongle sequencing helps enhance preparedness in HFRS-endemic areas and contribute to a high-resolution phylogeographical map of Hantaan orthohantavirus. Credit: Jin-Won Song from Korea University College of Medicine Orthohantaviruses, highly transmissible zoonotic pathogens, are notorious for causing hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) in Eurasia and hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome in the Americas. With a significant impact on public health, they have been extensively researched for effective outbreak control and intervention strategies. Gyeonggi Province in South Korea has reported a significant number of HFRS cases, making it a critical area for epidemiological surveillance and understanding the genomic diversity of orthohantaviruses. To gain insights into the prevalence, viral loads, and genetic variations of Hantaan orthohantavirus (HTNV), a team of researchers led by Prof. Jin-Won Song from the Department of Microbiology, Korea University College of Medicine, conducted a study in Gyeonggi Province. Notably, the study showcased the application of Flongle sequencing, an innovative, cost-efficient, and rapid method for detecting HTNV genomes. "We developed a rapid and sensitive on-site diagnostic using a nanopore-based Flongle chip with a reasonable cost of around $100. This approach enables virtually whole-genome sequencing of HTNV within 3 hours," explains Prof. Song. Their work culminated in a research paper released in the Journal of Medical Virology. The study's approach is rooted in the adoption of next-generation sequencing technologies, with a spotlight on the Oxford MinION nanopore sequencer. The comprehensive sampling strategy involved the capture of rodents and shrews from diverse regions in the ROK using live traps. Subsequently, the team employed a multifaceted approach, incorporating mitochondrial DNA analysis, indirect immunofluorescence antibody tests, and various molecular methods for species identification and virus detection. This comprehensive methodology facilitated a thorough understanding of viral prevalence and genetic diversity. The epidemiological surveillance conducted in Gyeonggi Province from 2017 to 2018 uncovered a significant proportion of Apodemus agrarius, a common rodent species. Notably, 12.4% of A. agrarius displayed seropositivity for HTNV, showcasing the virus's presence in the region. Flongle sequencing proved instrumental in obtaining full-length genomic sequences from positive samples, with impressive coverage rates and accuracy comparable to Illumina sequencing. The phylogeographical analysis uncovers well-supported evolutionary divergence among HTNV tripartite genomes. Genetic clustering and incongruences in evolutionary patterns emphasize the virus's differential evolution for each genomic segment. Prof. Song emphasizes the significance of this research by stating, "We believe our findings provide important insights into on-site diagnostics, genome-based surveillance, and the evolutionary dynamics of orthohantaviruses to mitigate hantaviral outbreaks in HFRS-endemic areas in the ROK." "Our study pioneers the integration of cost-efficient Flongle sequencing into hantavirus diagnostics, offering a rapid and accurate tool for on-site detection. This innovation has the potential to transform how we approach and manage hantavirus outbreaks." While the study provides groundbreaking insights, researchers acknowledge certain limitations, including the need for further sensitivity testing of Flongle-based diagnostics and more extensive genomic and epidemiological data in certain endemic areas. This research marks a significant step forward in our understanding of orthohantaviruses, laying the foundation for more targeted control strategies against HFRS outbreaks. The findings emphasize the pivotal role of genomics in disease surveillance and offer hope for more effective responses to emerging infectious agents in the future. More information: Jongwoo Kim et al, Highresolution phylogeographical surveillance of Hantaan orthohantavirus using rapid ampliconbased Flongle sequencing, Republic of Korea, Journal of Medical Virology (2024). DOI: 10.1002/jmv.29346 Provided by Korea University College of Medicine This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Maria Mercado's 5- and 7-year-old daughters haven't been to the doctor for a check-up in two years. And it's not for lack of trying. Mercado, a factory worker in South Los Angeles, has called the pediatrician's office over and over hoping to book an appointment for a well-child visit, only to be told there are no appointments available and to call back in a month. Sometimes, she waits on hold for an hour. Like more than half of children in California, Mercado's daughters have Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program for low-income residents. Her children are two years behind on their vaccinations. Mercado isn't sure if they're growing well, and they haven't been screened for vision, hearing or developmental delays. Her older daughter has developed a stutter, and she worries the girl might need speech therapy. "It is frustrating because as a mom, you want your kids to hit every milestone," she said. "And if you see something's going on and they're not helping you, it's like, what am I supposed to do at this point?" Californiawhere 97% of children have health insuranceranks 46th out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia for providing a preventive care visit for kids aged 5 and under, according to a 2022 federal government survey. A recent report card from Children Now, a nonprofit advocacy group, rated California a D on children's access to preventive care, despite the state's A- grade for ensuring children have coverage. The majority of California's youngest residentsincluding 1.4 million children ages 5 and underrely on Medi-Cal, an infrastructure ill-equipped to serve them. The state has been criticized in two consecutive audits in the past five years for failing to hold Medi-Cal insurance plans accountable for providing the necessary preventive care to the children they are paid to cover. In a written response to questions from The Times, the Department of Health Care Services, the state agency in charge of the Medi-Cal program, said "improving children's preventive care is one of DHCS' top priorities," and that the agency has recently addressed most of the shortcomings identified in the audits. The department's focus on the pandemic slowed action on the audit findings, the response said. State health care officials have since begun to more harshly fine plans that don't provide adequate care and substantially boost payments to pediatricians to help increase access. But information released publicly this month by the department suggests serious problems remain. "In the whole scheme of the U.S. health system, I hate to say it, the youngest kids are always the ones that are overlooked," said Dr. Alice Kuo, a pediatrician and health policy professor at UCLA. According to state Medi-Cal data from 2021, the most recent year for which detailed data are available, and assessments from health experts, the impact is sobering: 60% of babies did not get their recommended well-child visits in the first 15 months of life. Access was even worse for Black babies75% did not receive their recommended screenings. Children who do not attend their well-child visits are more likely to go to the emergency room and be hospitalized for illnesses like asthma. 65% of 2-year-olds were not fully vaccinated, leaving them vulnerable to preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough. Half of children did not receive a lead screening by their second birthday; families may not know if their homes or other environments are unsafe, which raises the potential for irreversible damage. 71% of children did not receive their recommended developmental screening in their first three years. Without routine screenings, less than half of children with developmental or behavioral disorders are detected before kindergarten and miss out on early interventions. "There's a lot that happens in a well-child visit that keeps the child healthy in the immediate and the long term," said Dr. Yasangi Jayasinha, a pediatrician with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. A doctor must ensure that a child is growing and developing normally, getting the proper nutrition, and help the family get plugged into other needed resources like food and housing assistance. "No state is perfect, but it is particularly concerning that California isn't at least in the middle of the pack, given its focus on young children and the importance of early brain development," said Elisabeth Wright Burak, who studies child health policy at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy's Center for Children and Families. A growing problem There are myriad reasons for California's poor rates of preventive care for children, according to health experts across the state: a shortage of pediatricians who accept Medi-Cal, especially in rural parts of the state; transportation issues for families who don't have a car; difficulties getting time off work to take a child to a doctor's appointment; a byzantine Medi-Cal bureaucracy that makes coverage difficult to use for patients. In 2019, a California State Auditor report found that less than half of children with Medi-Cal received their recommended preventive care. The audit blamed low reimbursement rates to Medi-Cal physicians, as well as poor state oversight, and gave the department a list of fixes. Three years later, the auditor released a follow-up report, saying that the department had failed to fully implement eight of the 14 recommendations, including making sure directories of available providers are accurate and requiring health plans to address barriers to care. The 2022 report found access had grown even worse, a decline largely attributed to the pandemic. Just 42% of children in Medi-Cal received their recommended preventive care. An average of 2.9 million children were missing out on care each year. For the youngest children, the results were particularly troubling: 60% of 1-year-olds and 73% of 2-year-olds in MediCal did not receive the required number of preventive services. Although federal law requires that families have access to primary care within 10 miles or 30 minutes of their home, the health department had issued more than 10,000 exceptions. In Monterey County, for example, a health care plan requires families to travel up to 58 miles to see a pediatrician. The department has since implemented all but one of the recommendations it agreed to, and is in the process of overhauling the Medi-Cal program, the response said. This includes beginning to levy higher fines against Medi-Cal plans that do not provide recommended well-child visits, vaccinations and lead screenings to enough children. A spokesperson for the State Auditor's office said the department has not proved that they have implemented three of the recommendations. This month, the department announced assessments and fines for 2022. While DHCS reported some progress on access to well-child visits, the plans continued to struggle overall, and the quality of children's health care lagged behind measures for other types of care, including behavioral health and chronic disease management. Only one plan met all of the minimum standards on children's health: Community Health Group Partnership Plan in San Diego. Eighteen out of 25 plans were fined $25,000$890,000 for poor performance, including for children's health. Long waits, long drives Parents and advocates say getting care for children remains a daily challenge. About 11 million Californians live in a primary care shortage area, where a pediatrician can be difficult to find. "It's most of the state, not just the Central Valley," said Kathryn E. Phillips, an associate director at the California Health Care Foundation. California has not trained enough new doctors to meet the needs of the population, she said, and the current workforce is aging. In rural areas in particular, it can be difficult to recruit new pediatricians to join a practice. Historically, Medi-Cal has paid doctors far less than other insurers, and the program has struggled to find enough willing to accept the rates. In 2021, for example, Medi-Cal paid $37 for a checkup with a toddler. "Medi-Cal patients basically don't keep the lights on. You can't make ends meet," said Dr. Eric Bell, a pediatrician in Orange County. About a quarter of his patients have Medi-Cal, but the practice stays afloat because of payments from privately insured patients. That may change as the state has increased the Medi-Cal rates significantly this year, up to $116 for a toddler checkup. In Los Angeles, families often face long wait times to get an appointment with a Medi-Cal provider 82% of children in the county did not receive a developmental screening in the first three years, 2020 state data showed. At UCLA, Kuo said patients at her practice must book their well-child visits three to six months in advance. "We get patients coming from Palm Springs to UCLA because there's no access." Many Californians especially those with low incomescan't afford the costs or time to make such a long drive, especially for the multiple visits recommended each year for a baby or toddler. Medi-Cal provides a transportation benefit to members, but many families don't know it exists or say it is difficult to arrange. "Families are so stressed about housing. They're stressed about the price of gas. The cost of living here is so high," said Dr. Lisa Chamberlain, a professor of pediatrics at the Stanford School of Medicine. A doctor's visit for a seemingly healthy child is "just not going to make it to the top of the list." Rosa Benito, 21, lives with her parents and five siblings in Thermal, a town in Riverside County, where the family works in agricultural fields. Getting her siblings to the doctor is a constant struggle. "We just have my dad and his little gray car, " she said. The family goes to a clinic in Moreno Valley, over an hour away, but it's only open during the workday, and their farming jobs don't offer sick time. Taking a child to the doctor means missing work, which they can't afford. And since her parents lack documentation to be in the country legally, they're scared of the long travel to the clinic for fear that they'll be pulled over by Border Patrol. "It just turns into a bigger problem. The kids would be without a guardian," explained Benito. Unless there's an emergency, the trip often isn't worth it. Luz Gallegos of TODEC, a legal center in the Inland Empire serving immigrants and farmworkers, said many families stick with traditional "remedios" for their children and only bring them to the doctor for vaccines when it's time to enroll in kindergarten. Some have lingering fears that using their child's Medi-Cal benefits could affect their immigration status. "Our families don't think about prevention. They think about surviving." The Medi-Cal problem While family challenges can play a role in missed visits, the state auditor found that the blame for California's poor performance fell largely on the Medi-Cal program. "By failing to prioritize implementing our recommendations, DHCS has... left certain children at risk of lifelong health consequences," the auditors wrote in their 2022 report. Celia Valdez, director of health outreach and navigation at Maternal Child Health Access, an L.A. nonprofit that manages several social service programs, says they hear daily from families who don't know how to navigate the Medi-Cal bureaucracy: missing insurance cards, an unexplained switch in their assigned pediatrician, coverage that is suddenly terminated. "People are lost, and by the time they get to someone who can help them, critical time has passed," said Valdez. For Alexia Peralta of Hawthorne, the problems started about two months after her son was born last year, when his Medi-Cal enrollment went awry. She tried to book his four-month well-child visit and was told he didn't have coverage; she would have to pay $145 for the visitan impossible sum. She spent seven months in limbocalling Medi-Cal repeatedly, waiting on hold for hours to speak with someone in Spanish, only to be disconnected. Several times, she thought she'd solved the problem, only to get to the pediatrician's office and be turned away. "I feel frustrated, mad and sad. I tried to get all these things for my child and got the run-around," she said. He missed both his 4-month and 6-month vaccines. Eventually, with the help of a home visitor from a Shields for Families program, a nonprofit in L.A., Peralta was able to get her son re-enrolled. At 15 months, he is still catching up on his vaccines. Trying to fix the system The health department said the challenges are not unique to California, and that the pandemic "resulted in large backlogs of children who needed to catch up on preventive services, a worsening crisis in the health care workforce, and limited additional capacity for pediatric services." In response, the department "has made historic investments and launched new initiatives" that "look to lift our youngest Californians and allow them to be healthy and to thrive." This includes sending educational materials to families about recommended care, creating new contracts with Medi-Cal plans that more closely track children's health care, and continuing to fine plans that fail to perform. The state is also pumping money into the primary care workforce and is expanding residency and loan repayment programs. There are new Medi-Cal benefits to pay for doulas and community health workers, who can help patients navigate care, the response said. "The big ship is slowly turning," said Mike Odeh, senior director of health at Children Now, who serves in an advisory group for the department. "But I want to emphasize how big the ship is and how hard it is to turn, given that we have decades of plans not providing care for kids. Changing that is going to take a lot of work." Former State Sen. Richard Pan, who was chair of the Health Committee before terming out in 2022, said he is not yet convinced the department's response to the audits has been adequate. The devil is in the details, he saidare the fines against plans high enough? And how many plans will end up complying? "Give us the proof that it's been fixed. Show us the data. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position now to hold hearings, but I think that's the next follow through," he said. "The buck should always stop at the state." 2024 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Scientists have discovered a way to stop active cancer cells in their tracksmeaning they can then be eliminated by new drug treatments. A collaborative research project between the University of Dundee's Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) and Queen Mary University of London, has identified chemical compounds, called tool molecules, that can halt active cancer cells. Using these tool molecules forces tumor cells from a specific type of breast cancer into a pro-senescence statesimilar to a sleep-like state in which they can no longer divide or cause tumor growth. This condition makes the cancer cells sensitive to a second group of tool molecules, called senolytic drugs, which can eliminate them. It may also 'uncloak' the cancer cells, making them visible to the body's immune system and offering further therapeutic opportunities. Researchers developed this 'two-punch' method while looking at basal-like breast cancer (BLBC). A team led by Cleo Bishop, Professor of Senescence at Queen Mary University of London and Academic Lead for the Phenotypic Screening Facility, uncovered a pathway to force BLBC cells into pro-senescence. They then collaborated with another team based at the University of Dundee's Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) to develop tool molecules to promote senescence within the cells. Drug treatments to deliver the 'second punch' of cell elimination are currently being developed elsewhere. Professor Bishop said, "At present, the most common treatments for BLBC are surgery and unsophisticated chemotherapy regimens." "Consequently, the lack of possible targets for tailored therapies and the aggressive clinical course means that women with BLBC have a particularly poor prognosis." "Pro-senescence therapies activate a stable cell cycle arrest halting tumor growth, trigger anti-tumor immune responses and expose cancers to novel treatment regimes called senolytics." This research utilized high-content imaging to identify the tool molecules from DDU's diversity libraries, which have now been selected by the pharmaceutical company ValiRx for further evaluation. The University of Dundee has this month signed a five-year agreement with the company, which focuses on early-stage cancer therapeutics and women's health. The pro-senescent 'first punch' tool molecules are the first to enter into a 12-month evaluation phase under this agreement and, if successful, could result in a new company being established as a joint venture with all three parties. Charlotte Green, Head of Business Development at the University of Dundee's Drug Discovery Unit, said, "The one-two punch approach has gained lots of interest in recent years, but currently, there is no clinical precedent; by moving the project forward with ValiRx we are leading the way in translating the research to the clinic." Dr. Suzy Dilly, CEO of ValiRx, said, "The strength of the DDU and research facilities at Dundee are very impressive, and having reviewed multiple projects from teams there over the past year, we believe that this evaluation agreement will be the first of a series of new projects that can be brought into our pipeline." Governments at various levels have launched campaigns to address fire hazards caused by the improper parking of electric bicycles, as experts warned of the reasons behind fires caused by these vehicles, including one in which 15 people were killed last week in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. The Ministry of Emergency Management said on Monday that the lessons from recent fires must be deeply learned, and called for resolutely preventing and containing major accidents across the country. The ministry said that all regions should comprehensively and thoroughly investigate and rectify various types of fire safety risks and hidden dangers, focusing on prominent issues, including the entry of electric bicycles into buildings and residences, and especially targeting high-rise residential buildings. On Friday, a fire broke out in the early morning in a high-rise residential building in Nanjing, killing 15 people and injuring 44. A preliminary investigation indicated that the fire was caused by an electric bicycle parked in the building's ground floor. The fire immediately prompted governments nationwide to comprehensively tackle potential fire hazards. The day after the fire, the Jiangsu provincial government announced a comprehensive campaign on fire safety inspection, focusing especially on fire hazards in residential communities, with an emphasis on firefighting facilities, evacuation passages and illegal charging issues. On Tuesday, the fire rescue department in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, reminded all residents of the city that electric bicycles should not be parked or charged in any indoor public areas. Also on Tuesday, the market supervision administration in Hefei, Anhui province, told electric bicycle manufacturing, sales and repair companies to comply with national standards on the production of electric bicycles, otherwise they would face legal measures. Furthermore, the sale of items failing to comply with national safety technical standards or industry standards, including electric bicycles, batteries, chargers and helmets, was strictly prohibited in the city. The fire in Nanjing has shocked Chinese netizens, with many expressing their condolences and concerns over fire hazards related to electric bicycles. Ji Huaying, a clothing store owner in Bozhou, Anhui, said the Nanjing fire made her "very afraid". Her family owns two electric bicycles, and she uses one to commute to her store every day. "Electric bicycles are very convenient. Nearly every household in our community has at least one electric bicycle," she said. "The elderly often use them to pick up and drop off children from school or to go shopping." Fortunately, in Ji's community, few residents risk charging their electric bicycles inside their homes, since there have been dedicated parking spaces and charging stations for electric bicycles for more than a decade. However, Ji said that in other communities, many residents still charge their electric bicycles at home because it costs less or due to a lack of safety awareness. "That phenomenon requires the property management companies of residential communities to take responsibility and persuade these residents," she said. Wang Lijun, an employee of Beijing Chengcheng Property Management Co, said it is currently conducting a door-to-door survey on the number of electric bicycles owned by each household and the owners' information. He will report the information to the local government and also informs owners that electric bicycles cannot be charged inside rooms. Wang is responsible for managing two residential buildings in a community in northern Beijing with over 400 households. The community has outdoor parking areas for electric bicycles, which are equipped with charging stations. To prevent residents from bringing electric bicycles into their homes, the elevators in the high-rise buildings of the community have been equipped with smart cameras since 2021. "If a resident brings an electric bicycle into the elevator, the camera will automatically detect it, causing the elevator to stop operating," Wang said. However, many netizens have questioned whether these frequent fires are due to the quality of electric bicycle batteries. Yang Saini, a professor of disaster reduction at Beijing Normal University, pointed out several underlying issues following the fire in Nanjing. "First, whether these fires are related to the batteries of electric bicycles, including the production standards of battery manufacturers, and the management of battery replacement and disposal," Yang said. Second, residential communities need to focus more on increased fire risks due to the parking of electric bicycles, as once an electric bicycle battery catches fire, it can quickly ignite surrounding combustibles, she said. Finally, more attention should be paid to fire safety measures in high-rise buildings and improving the public's awareness of fire safety, she added. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Graphical abstract. Credit: Neuron (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2024.01.029 Scientists at UC San Francisco may have discovered a new way to test for autism by measuring how children's eyes move when they turn their heads. They found that kids who carry a variant of a gene that is associated with severe autism are hypersensitive to this motion. The gene, SCN2A, makes an ion channel that is found throughout the brain, including the region that coordinates movement, called the cerebellum. Ion channels allow electrical charges in and out of cells and are fundamental to how they function. Several variants of this gene are also associated with severe epilepsy and intellectual disability. The researchers found that children with these variants have an unusual form of the reflex that stabilizes the gaze while the head is moving, called the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). In children with autism, it seems to go overboard, and this can be measured with a simple eye-tracking device. The discovery could help to advance research on autism, which affects one out of every 36 children in the United States. And it could help to diagnose kids earlier and faster with a method that only requires them to don a helmet and sit in a chair. "We can measure it in kids with autism who are non-verbal or can't or don't want to follow instructions," said Kevin Bender, Ph.D., a professor in the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences and co-senior author of the study, which appears Feb. 26 in Neuron. "This could be a game-changer in both the clinic and the lab." A telltale sign of autism in an eye reflex Of the hundreds of gene mutations associated with autism, variants of the SCN2A gene are among the most common. Since autism affects social communication, ion channel experts like Bender had focused on the frontal lobe of the brain, which governs language and social skills in people. But mice with an autism-associated variant of the SCN2A gene did not display marked behavioral differences associated with this brain region. Chenyu Wang, a UCSF graduate student in Bender's lab and first author of the study, decided to look at what the SCN2A variant was doing in the mouse cerebellum. Guy Bouvier, Ph.D., a cerebellum expert at UCSF and co-senior author of the paper, already had the equipment needed to test behaviors influenced by the cerebellum, like the VOR. The VOR is easy to provoke. Shake your head and your eyes will stay roughly centered. In mice with the SCN2A variant, however, the researchers discovered that this reflex was unusually sensitive. When these mice were rotated in one direction, their eyes compensated perfectly, rotating in the opposite direction. But this increased sensitivity came at a cost. Normally, neural circuits in the cerebellum can refine the reflex when needed, for example to enable the eyes to focus on a moving object while the head is also moving. In SCN2A mice, however, these circuits got stuck, making the reflex rigid. A mouse result translates nearly perfectly to kids with autism Wang and Bender had uncovered something rare: a behavior that arose from a variant to the SCN2A gene that was easy to measure in mice. But would it work in people? They decided to test it with an eye-tracking camera mounted on a helmet. It was a "shot in the dark," Wang said, given that the two scientists had never conducted a study in humans. Bender asked several families from the FamilieSCN2A Foundation, the major family advocacy group for children with SCN2A variants in the US, to participate. Five children with SCN2A autism and eleven of their neurotypical siblings volunteered. Wang and Bender took turns rotating the children to the left and right in an office chair to the beat of a metronome. The VOR was hypersensitive in the children with autism, but not in their neurotypical siblings. The scientists could tell which children had autism just by measuring how much their eyes moved in response to their head rotation. A CRISPR cure in mice The scientists also wanted to see if they could restore the normal eye reflex in the mice with a CRISPR-based technology that restored SCN2A gene expression in the cerebellum. When they treated 30-day-old SCN2A miceequivalent to late adolescence in humanstheir VOR became less rigid but was still unusually sensitive to body motion. But when they treated three-day-old SCN2A miceearly childhood in humanstheir eye reflexes were completely normal. "These first results, using this reflex as our proxy for autism, point to an early window for future therapies that get the developing brain back on track," Wang said. It's too early to say whether such an approach might someday be used to directly treat autism. But the eye reflex test, on its own, could clear the way to more expedient autism diagnosis for kids today, saving families from long diagnostic odysseys. "If this sort of assessment works in our hands, with kids with profound, nonverbal autism, there really is hope it could be more widely adopted," Bender said. More information: Chenyu Wang et al, Impaired cerebellar plasticity hypersensitizes sensory reflexes in SCN2A-associated ASD, Neuron (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2024.01.029 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Treatment gap in German women (ScoreCard for Osteoporosis in Europe, 2021). Credit: Solutions for Fracture Prevention in Germany (2024) More than 831,000 fragility fractures occur annually in Germany, the equivalent of 95 broken bones per hour. The cause is osteoporosis, a disease in which the skeleton becomes weak and fragile, increasing the risk of fragility fractures that result in disability, loss of independence, and premature death for some sufferers. Across the country, osteoporosis affects nearly 5.6 million people, of which 4.5 million are women. Despite the availability of effective and safe medications to reduce the risk of fragility fractures, an enormous treatment gap persists: it is estimated that 2.5 million women aged 50 years or over, or approximately 76% of all women who are at high risk of fracture, remain untreated for osteoporosis. The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) Capture the Fracture program, in partnership with leading German experts, has released a new report entitled 'Solutions for Fracture Prevention in Germany'. The report outlines the osteoporosis burden and health care policy landscape in Germany and proposes key strategies aimed at curbing the escalating incidence of costly fragility fractures. The aging of the population is driving a rapid rise in osteoporosis-related fractures and associated health care costs A co-author of the report, Dr. Uwe Maus, Head of Endoprosthetics and Osteology at the University Hospital Dusseldorf and Vice-President of the German Osteology Society (DVO), stated, "Fragility fractures already pose a major health burden in the senior population, and they are associated with escalating financial costs which amounted to an estimated 13.8 billion in 2019. By 2050, 30% of the German population will be aged over 65 years, compared to 19% in 2006." "This shift in demographics will markedly increase the incidence and societal burden of fragility fractures, threatening to strain the capacity of our health care system, including the provision of long-term care. It's evident that this impending crisis needs to be addressed urgently, starting with the implementation of strategies to improve treatment initiation and adherence and a focus on the prevention of recurring fractures." Addressing the urgent need to prevent recurring fractures It is critically important that any patient who has fractured is identified and treated to reduce the risk of future fractures. A German study that included about 18,000 fracture patients demonstrated that subsequent fractures occurred in 16% of patients during a 1-year follow-up period. Another study found that in patients aged 70 years and above, 30% had at least one subsequent fracture during a median follow-up of 3.2 years. Hip fractures are of particular concern given that they are life-threatening and costly, generating a legacy of financial burden. In Germany, 12% of hip fracture patients are institutionalized within 6 months of discharge from the hospital, with the risk of institutionalization rising exponentially with age. Approximately 21% of hip fracture patients die within 6 months and 28% within 12 months of the fracture. Nevertheless, only 20% to 40% of German women receive anti-osteoporosis treatment within the first year of an osteoporotic fracture, and persistence to the medications is low, estimated to lie between only 17% and 40%. A multidisciplinary, coordinator-based post-fracture care service, most commonly known as a Fracture Liaison Service (FLS), is a proven way to ensure that these high-risk patients are identified and offered the post-fracture care they need to regain healthy mobility and prevent future fractures. Germany currently lags in the implementation of FLSs, which are available in only 1-10% of hospitals that treat fracture patients. Positive conditions for effective management are outweighed by gaps and missed opportunities Germany has several positive pre-conditions for effective osteoporosis management in place, including universally adopted management guidelines, robust collection of data through a national hip fracture registry, and full reimbursement of osteoporosis medications. Furthermore, the approval of the Disease Management Program for Osteoporosis (DMP) by the responsible government agency has elevated osteoporosis to its justified status as one of the most important chronic and progressive conditions. This means that, roughly since 2023, patients diagnosed with osteoporosis and requiring anti-osteoporosis medication are theoretically able to receive care within the structured treatment program. Dr. Peyman Hadji, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynaecology, and Endocrinology at Philipps University, Marburg, Germany, and member of the IOF Committee of Scientific Advisors, stated, "The approval of the DMP was an important step forward, and it a pity that organizational and funding issues have stifled its progress and uptake. However, this is just one among several challenges we face." "There is currently no consistent implementation of a robust treatment pathway to ensure adequate post-discharge care, reinforced by a split between hospital and primary care settings regarding the diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis. This is further hindered by the lack of an electronic sharing system, which means that critical information, such as a patient's imaging results, previous fractures, and prescribed treatments, is not shared between hospitals and private practices." The new report makes four key recommendations that would address these key obstacles. They include the need for greater financial incentives for osteoporosis care and FLS development, optimization of the patient and treatment pathway, facilitating greater FLS uptake to increase post-fracture screening, diagnosis, and treatment rates, and improving public awareness of osteoporosis. Dr. Philippe Halbout, CEO of the International Osteoporosis Foundation, thanked the many national experts who worked with the IOF Capture the Fracture Policy Group to publish the recommendations, adding, "This valuable resource serves as a guide to effective solutions that, when implemented together, would result in fewer fractures, lower health care costs, improved patient outcomes, and, crucially, enhanced health, mobility, and quality of life for the elderly population in Germany." This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: CC0 Public Domain During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, policy was being made in crisis management mode. Decisions had to be made faster than usual, and there was limited ability to undertake wider consultation and impact analysis. Now the worst of the pandemic is over, we have the luxury of being able to reflect on what worked well and what didn't. One of the more controversial policies implemented during the height of the pandemic was the vaccine mandates. Thousands of workers across a range of professions had to get vaccinated to keep their jobs. This mandate presented a trade-off between public health considerations and the right of individuals to refuse medical treatment and earn a living in their chosen profession. Our research looked at whether these vaccine mandates increased COVID-19 vaccination rates among these workers, and what their employment, earnings and workplace experiences were. The stated purpose of the mandates was to increase vaccination rates among these workers to ensure the continuity of public services. In reality, the mandates had limited effect on increasing vaccine uptake. But they had a substantive negative effect on the employment, earnings and well-being of unvaccinated health workers. The importance of choice Vaccination rates among health care, education and corrections workers were already high when the government announced the mandates in October 2021. Almost 90% of health care workers and 86% of corrections workers had already received two doses of the vaccine. The share among education workers was somewhat lower (82%), but they also did not have early access to the vaccine. There were only six weeks between the vaccine becoming available to everyone over 12 years and the mandates being announced. While vaccination rates among these mandated workers did increase after the mandates were announced, the data shows a continuation of an upward trend rather than a jump in uptake. It won't surprise anyone that people don't like being told what to do. And this appears to have some bearing on mandatory vaccine uptake. One German survey found just over 3% of people said they would not want the COVID-19 vaccination if it was voluntary. But more than 16% said they would not want to get vaccinated if it was mandatory. A consequence of vaccine mandates is that they can erode trust in government and provoke more resistance. This erosion of trust could potentially strengthen anti-vaccination sentiment generally and reduce uptake, not just of COVID-19 vaccinations, but also other vaccines. This outcome is especially concerning given research has found New Zealand's routine childhood immunization rates have decreased since the pandemic. Earnings took a hit In addition to not causing a noticeable increase in vaccination rates, the mandates also had negative consequences for the employment and earnings of unvaccinated health workers. Their employment rate fell by 15% and their earnings fell by 19%, compared with vaccinated health workers and those not subject to the mandates. Even after the health worker mandates were lifted in September 2022, the employment and earnings of unvaccinated workers never fully recovered. This exacerbated existing health worker shortages. Closed borders and a global shortage of health care workers meant fewer moved into the health sector compared with the number leaving. The trauma of being branded 'anti-vax' The effect of the mandates on health workers also went beyond financial consequences. Affected health workers talked to us about the loss and ongoing trauma they have experienced. Those opposed to mandates are often incorrectly labeled as "anti-vaxxers", or even conspiracy theorists. All health workers we spoke to were pro-vaccination, but had legitimate reasons for not completing, or struggling to complete, the required vaccinations. They had researched the vaccine and made informed decisions based on their circumstances. Some health workers pointed out that the case for mandates was not strong based on available evidence. While the vaccine reduces symptom severity, its ability to prevent transmission is currently limited. As one health worker said, "I looked at the Australian data and couldn't see the logic of me potentially being exposed to another vaccine where my potential benefit was so low [] the evidence wasn't really strong." Some workers had health conditions that put them at elevated risk from the vaccine. Or they had a history of adverse reactions to vaccines. But the mandates meant they either had to get vaccinated, sometimes against their doctors' advice, or lose their jobs. While some medical exemptions were available, the threshold for these was very high. In addition, even those with medical exemptions faced stigma. One health worker who got an exemption after suffering a stroke following their vaccination, described people's reaction upon showing them the exemption. "That look on people's faces, it was disgust [] it was really, really awful." As another health worker explained, "We're supposed to be a caring profession. Nothing about this is caring [] Due to no fault of my own, I have now been labeled an anti-vaxxer and anti-science, and in some people's opinion, not worthy of calling myself a nurse. This hurts me immensely. This is what mandates have done. There is no room for individual circumstances." The people we spoke with said they lost their sense of control, and it eroded their trust in the health system and government. The risk of mandates What does this tell us about the use of vaccine mandates during future pandemics? In the context of high voluntary compliance, mandates should be used judiciously. Mandating something is not always the most effective way to get people to do something for the greater good. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a strong motivator for vaccination was the "feel-good" factor of knowing you were protecting yourself and others. Ironically, the increase in distrust that resulted from the use of mandates in the COVID-19 pandemic may actually lower voluntary vaccine uptake in future pandemics. As one health worker summed it up: "Someone who's been vaccinated badly, the trauma of thatit's not just them, it's their entire social circle, it's their entire whanau. You're seeding distrust in the health system, not just for COVID vaccinations, but the whole system, everything to do with medicine and the whole immunization program [] if there's a policy that's as big as a mandate for a whole population or health professionals, you really need to think about what are the unintended consequences." This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Representative IVM imaging of vaccine-activated capture of ST865 pneumococci in the liver sinusoids. Pneumococci, green; KCs, red; ECs, cyan; neutrophils, magenta. Credit: Science Translational Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.ade0054 In findings that are nothing short of surprising, scientists have demonstrated that the liver is the site where the immune system unleashes its assault on pneumococcal bacteria following vaccination against the potentially lethal pathogens. For years, scientists had hypothesized, theorized, suggested and even guessed how pneumococcal bacteria are destroyed in the body after being flagged as a threat by vaccination. New research shows that the immune system not only has a special place for the organisms to be destroyed, but that a special pair of cells is involved in a "capture and kill" annihilation, preventing disease before it starts, the key benefit of vaccination. A global team of vaccinologists in China, the United States and Switzerland sought explanations on how the annihilation unfolded, launching a deep dive into how two approved pneumococcal vaccines prompt the capture and kill response against Streptococcus pneumoniae. Multiple strains of S. pneumoniae pose threats and the bacteria are notorious causes of meningitis, pneumonia and bloodstream infections. The researchers studied two leading pneumococcal vaccines: PCV13 and PPV23. "Vaccination has substantially reduced the morbidity and mortality of bacterial diseases," asserted Dr. Juanjuan Wang, lead author of a series of experiments reported in Science Translational Medicine. The research confirmed how bacterial annihilation occurredand which of the two vaccines prompted the most efficient immune response. Credit: Science Translational Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.ade0054 Vaccines are one of humanity's greatest technological achievements, having saved hundreds of millions of lives dating back to Edward Jenner's 1796 smallpox vaccine, which was developed in England during the reign of George III. Most vaccines, Jenner's included, have been developed to fight viruses. And some of the world's best known vaccines have had a dramatic impact on public health, beating back a range of viral diseasesmeasles, the flu, mumps, polio, SARS-CoV-2, and more. Vaccines aimed at bacteria are equally adept at thwarting disease and saving lives from devastating infectious agents. Immunizations that help the body repel bacterial infections include those developed to fight diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus, along with the pneumococcal vaccines. Yet, what had remained a provocativeand unanswered research questionwas how the body captured and killed pneumococcal bacteria when exposed. Prior to the new research, scientists had suspected that after vaccination the immune system coaxed key cells, such as phagocytes, to migrate to sites of infection and destroy invading bacteria. But while that scenario was widely accepted, the core mechanisms of how it might work had remained unknown. Now, the international collaboration has produced an answer that is quite surprising. "We report that vaccine-elicited immunity against invasive bacteria mainly operates in the liver," Wang wrote. "In contrast to the current paradigm that migrating phagocytes execute vaccine-elicited immunity against blood-borne pathogens, we found that invasive bacteria are captured and killed in the liver of the vaccinated host via various immune mechanisms that depend on the protective potency of the vaccine." Wang, a vaccinologist at the Center for Infectious Disease Research at Tsinghua University in Beijing, underscored that mechanisms of vaccine-elicited pathogen clearancehow and where in the body the immune system got rid of invasive bacteriahad remained largely undefined, at least until now. And it took scientists on three continents to find the answer and reveal where the immune system annihilated disease-causing bacteria. Turning to a mouse model, they were able to compare the effects of two well-known vaccines for Streptococcus pneumoniae, PCV13 and PPV23. PCV13 is a so-called conjugate vaccine. PCV stands for pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and the number 13 indicates the number of S. pneumoniae strains that it protects against. Conjugate vaccines are made up of two subunitsa weak antigen as one unit, and a strong antigen as a carrier unit. With both units, the immune system has a stronger response to the weak antigen, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The other vaccine analyzed in the investigation was PPV23, which is a polysaccharide vaccine. The initials stand for pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine, which protects against 23 strains. A polysaccharide vaccine is designed to prompt immunity by exposing the immune system to sugars that swath the surface of nearly two dozen S. pneumoniae strains. During the course of their experiments, the team was able to demonstrate a striking difference between the capture and kill capability prompted by the two vaccines. There was greater capture and kill efficacy detected with the PCV13 formulation. That vaccine was associated with an increased capture of circulating pathogens by hepatic endothelial cells. PCV13 has long been considered more effective than PPV23, and Wang colleagues have now provided a reason for that difference. The researchers found that the more potent PCV13 induced higher amounts of IgG antibodies, and that PCV13 also more potently engaged Kupffer cells and epithelial cells in the liver. Kupffer cells are macrophagesphagocytic white blood cellsthat reside in the liver adhering to endothelial cells of blood vessels. Endothelial cells are the epithelial cells that line blood vessel walls. Because Kupffer cells are phagocytic, meaning, they ingest and destroy invasive microorganisms, their role is critical in the rough-and-tumble activity of capture and kill, Wang and colleagues found. The team was able to confirm in their research that both Kupffer and endothelial cells captured S. pneumoniae in the bloodstream through a "zipper-like" mechanism before destroying them. The weaker PPV23 vaccine, by contrast, only engaged Kupffer cells and induced lower amounts of IgG antibodies. The scientists reported similar liver-based capture and kill patterns with vaccines against Neisseria meningitidis, a major cause of bacterial meningitis. "With certain technical modifications, our findings may also be used for evaluation of vaccine candidates for viral pathogens that depend on viremia for dissemination," Wang concluded, noting that viremia is the presence of viruses in the bloodstream. More information: Juanjuan Wang et al, Liver macrophages and sinusoidal endothelial cells execute vaccine-elicited capture of invasive bacteria, Science Translational Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.ade0054 Journal information: Science Translational Medicine 2024 Science X Network Missoulas YMCA is seeking community donations amid an announcement that the organization is about $100,000 short of their annual fundraising goal. As of Wednesday, the nonprofit raised about $200,000, two-thirds of their annual goal, according to a news release. The funding supports the Ys programs, such as financial aid, child care and the drowning prevention program. The Y is all about community building and this is no different, said Kate Rodriguez, the YMCAs director of fund development. The Annual Support Campaign has always been a collective effort, which is a really incredible approach. It means that no one person is responsible for making it a success, she continued. Instead, its about working collaboratively to ensure Missoulians continue to have access to safe and affordable services that the Y provides, like child care and swim lessons. The Y runs the support campaign annually. About 300 people and businesses have donated in 2024, the news release said. Its been a tough couple of years for Missoula families, Rodriguez said. She noted in 2023, the Y saw about a 35% increase in the amount of financial aid given to families. Every donation, from $5 to $500, makes a difference for the Y, she added. The Annual Support Campaign ends Wednesday, March 6 with a goal of $300,000. All donations are 100% tax deductible and stay in Missoula, the news release stated. Donations can be made online at ymcamissoula.org/donate, or dropped off or mailed to Attn: Kate Rodriguez, 3000 S. Russell St., Missoula, MT 59801. One of the Ys promises to Missoula is that no one is turned away due to an inability to pay, so its really crucial that we meet this $300,000 goal, Rodriguez said. WASHINGTON Congressional leaders emerged from an "intense" Oval Office meeting with President Joe Biden on Tuesday speaking optimistically about the prospects for avoiding a partial government shutdown, but with new uncertainty about aid for Ukraine and Israel. Biden called the leaders to the White House in hopes of making progress against a legislative logjam on Capitol Hill that has major ramifications not just for the U.S. but for the world as Ukraine struggles to repel Russia's invasion with weapons and ammunition starting to run short. "The need is urgent," Biden said of the Ukraine aid. "The consequences of inaction every day in Ukraine are dire." Biden hosted House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in the Oval Office along with Vice President Kamala Harris. After the more than hour-long meeting, Biden pulled Johnson aside for a private conversation. Democratic leaders upon exiting the meeting were blunt about the dangers Ukraine is facing. "We said to the speaker, 'get it done,'" said Schumer. "I said 'I've been around here a long time, it's maybe four or five times that history is looking over your shoulder and if you don't do the right thing, whatever the immediate politics are, you will regret it.'" Referring to Johnson, he said, "Really, it's in his hands. It's in his hands." Schumer, joined by Jeffries in describing how the meeting went, called the session "one of the most intense I've ever encountered" in the Oval Office. Johnson spoke to reporters on his own, without Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell by his side. McConnell voted for a $95 billion foreign aid bill this month that would aid Ukraine and Israel, replenish U.S. defense systems and provide humanitarian assistance for Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine and other populations caught in conflict zones. The bill passed the Senate 70-29, but the Republican-led House has not acted on it, despite pleas from McConnell and others for action. Johnson, who rejected a U.S. Mexico border security compromise that was eventually stripped from the final product, signaled no change in his position on Ukraine aid. He said the Senate's package "does nothing" to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, the GOP's demand in return for helping Ukraine. "The first priority of the country is our border, and making it secure," Johnson said. The speaker's continued call for border changes has frustrated senators, who spent months negotiating a bipartisan border deal only to have House Republicans reject it at the behest of former President Donald Trump. The bill would have denied migrants the ability to apply for asylum at the border if the number of daily crossings became unmanageable for authorities, among other major changes. Schumer said Democrats, too, want to tackle the problems at the U.S-Mexico border, but that it will take time and "we have to do Ukraine right now." He said during the meeting he discussed his visit last week to Ukraine with other lawmakers and recounted the agonizing stories told by soldiers who have no ammunition left. In the meeting, "we made it clear how vital this was to the United States. This was so, so important, and that we couldn't afford to wait a month or two months or three months, because we would in all likelihood lose the war, NATO would be fractured at best, allies would turn away from the United States, and the boldest leaders, the boldest autocrats of the world would be emboldened," he said. Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns also joined Tuesday's meeting. Burns has played key roles coordinating the U.S. response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as well as efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas militants after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Upon returning from the meeting, McConnell called on the House to take up the Senate-passed bill. Many supporters of the bill predict it would pass overwhelmingly on the House floor if Johnson were to bring it up for a vote, but doing so would risk enormous blowback from some in his conference who don't support any more help for Ukraine. Some even threatened his job if he allows the bill to pass. "We don't want the Russians to win in Ukraine and so we have a time problem here. And the best way to move quickly and get the bill to the president would be for the House to take up the Senate bill," McConnell said. Apart from the national security package, government funding for agriculture, transportation, military construction and some veterans' services expires Friday. Funding for the rest of the government, including the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, expires a week later, on March 8, the day after Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union address. "It's Congress responsibility to fund the government," Biden said. "A government shutdown would damage the economy significantly. We need a bipartisan solution." Today in history: Feb. 27 1807: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1933: Reichstag 1973: Wounded Knee 1991: George H.W. Bush 1998: Queen Elizabeth II 2017: Wilbur Ross 2020: Stocks 2021: Johnson & Johnson JERUSALEM Israel and Hamas on Tuesday played down chances of an imminent breakthrough in talks for a cease-fire in Gaza, after U.S. President Joe Biden said Israel agreed to pause its offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan if a deal is reached to release some hostages. The president's remarks came on the eve of the Michigan primary, where he faces pressure from the state's large Arab American population over his staunch support for Israel's offensive. Biden said he was briefed on the status of talks by his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, but said his comments reflected his optimism for a deal, not that all the remaining hurdles were overcome. In the wake of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, Israel's air, sea and ground campaign in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people, obliterated large swaths of the urban landscape and displaced 80% of the battered enclave's population. Israel's seal on the territory, which allows in only a trickle of food and other aid, has sparked alarm that a famine could be imminent, according to the United Nations. Aid is slow With U.N. truck deliveries of aid hampered by the lack of safe corridors, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and France conducted an airdrop of food, medical supplies and other aid into Gaza on Tuesday. At a beach in southern Gaza, boxes of supplies dropped from military aircraft drifted down on parachutes as thousands of Palestinians ran along the sand to retrieve them. But alarm is growing over worsening hunger among Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians. Two infants died from dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, said the spokesman for Gaza's Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qidra. He warned that infant mortality threatens to surge. "Dehydration and malnutrition will kill thousands of children and pregnant women in the Gaza Strip," he said. The U.N. Population Fund said the Al Helal Al Emirati maternity hospital in Gaza's southernmost town of Rafah reported that newborns were dying because mothers were unable to get prenatal or postnatal care. Premature births are also rising, forcing staff to put four or five newborns in a single incubator. Most of them do not survive, it said, without giving figures on the numbers of deaths. Now the prospect of an invasion of Rafah has prompted global alarm over the fate of around 1.4 million civilians trapped there. Talks to pause the fighting have gained momentum recently and were underway Tuesday. Negotiators from the United States, Egypt and Qatar have been working to broker a cease-fire that would see Hamas free some of the dozens of hostages it holds in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, a six-week halt in fighting and an increase in aid deliveries to Gaza. Holy month about to begin The start of Ramadan, which is expected to be around March 10, is seen as an unofficial deadline for a deal. The month is a time of heightened religious observance and dawn-to-dusk fasting for hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world. Israeli-Palestinian tensions have flared in the past during the holy month. "Ramadan's coming up, and there has been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out," Biden said in an appearance on NBC's "Late Night With Seth Meyers" that was recorded Monday. In separate comments the same day, Biden said he hoped a cease-fire deal could take effect by next week. At the same time, Biden did not call for an end to the war. In Hamas cross-border raid on Oct. 7, an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and militants took 250 people captive, according to Israeli authorities. Israeli officials said Biden's comments came as a surprise and were not made in coordination with the country's leadership. A Hamas official played down any sense of progress, saying the group wouldn't soften its demands. The Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media, said Israel wants a deal immediately, but that Hamas continues to push excessive demands. They also said that Israel is insisting that female soldiers be part of the first group of hostages released under any truce deal. Hamas official Ahmad Abdel-Hadi indicated that optimism on a deal was premature. "The resistance is not interested in giving up any of its demands, and what is proposed does not meet what it had requested," he told the Pan-Arab TV channel Al Mayadeen. Hamas has previously demanded that Israel end the war as part of any deal, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called "delusional." Negotiations continue At a news conference in Doha on Tuesday, Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said his country felt "optimistic" about the talks, without elaborating. A senior official from Egypt has said the draft deal includes the release of up to 40 women and older hostages in return for up to 300 Palestinian prisoners mostly women, minors and older people. Netanyahu has said a ground operation in Rafah is an inevitable component of Israel's strategy for crushing Hamas. This week, the military submitted for Cabinet approval operational plans for the offensive, as well as evacuation plans for civilians there. Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,700 people, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. It does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. Today in history: Feb. 27 1807: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1933: Reichstag 1973: Wounded Knee 1991: George H.W. Bush 1998: Queen Elizabeth II 2017: Wilbur Ross 2020: Stocks 2021: Johnson & Johnson The Montana Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an 11th-hour request that it intervene in a Butte homicide case just days before two defendants go on trial. Attorney Palmer Hoovestal made the request only hours earlier, saying a Friday order by District Judge Robert Whelan wrongly concludes that a bondmans privilege does not exist in Montana and that guts defenses for his client, Jay Steven Hubber. Prohibited from defending himself by the District Courts order, Hubber will undoubtedly be convicted, Hoovestal said in a petition filed Tuesday morning with the Montana Supreme Court. And when he is convicted he will be taken into custody until this Court rules on his direct appeal. Hubber and Nicholas Jaeger are charged with aggravated burglary and deliberate homicide tied to a December 2021 bounty hunt in Butte that ended with the homeowner, not the fugitive, being fatally shot. The trial is set to begin Monday. The Montana Supreme Court declined to intervene and stay proceedings, saying Tuesday afternoon that it generally refrains from taking such an extraordinary step when someone has an adequate remedy of appeal. In a three-page ruling signed by five justices, the Supreme Court said Hubber retains the right to seek review of Whelans order on appeal if he is convicted. The trial has been postponed at the 11th hour twice already and it would have been a third time if the Supreme Court had stayed proceedings. In the petition, Hoovestal said urgent and emergency factors exist to justify intervention so justices can decide if bondsmen have certain privileges, or powers under the law, to apprehend fugitives. If Whelans order stands, the petition said, Hubber cant present evidence at trial explaining circumstances of the shooting, including Hubbers mental state and his reason for entering the dwelling. The petition said previous court rulings have established bondsman privileges in Montana. But they are not from the Montana Supreme Court. Prosecutors say on Dec. 21, 2021, Hubber and Jaeger barged into William Harris house in Butte looking for bail-jumper David Sandoval. Hubber was a bondsman, Jaegar was assisting him, and several other people were also in the house. Jaeger is a convicted felon. Hubber used a taser on Sandoval and during a struggle, Jaeger took a gun from Hubber and shot Harris, prosecutors allege. Harris, 42, was dead when police arrived. Jaeger and Hubber, both 33 at the time, were each charged with deliberate homicide and aggravated burglary and have pleaded not guilty. They were going to be tried separately but Whelan later decided to consolidate the cases at trial. Jaeger says he used justifiable force to protect Hubber and himself and says the incident took place in a trap house operated by William Harris where known fugitives, renegades and outlaws routinely gather. He has said in recent court motions that Harris was armed with a knife. Hubber also says it was a trap house where drugs were used and sold and Harris would allow drug users to stay there. Hubber also has argued that as a bondsman, he was legally authorized to enter Harris house looking for a fugitive. Whelan rejected that bondsmans privilege premise in a 2022 ruling and said his finding would stand during trial. Whelan reiterated that stance in a Friday order so all parties are clear that Hubber and Jaegar are prohibited from asserting, arguing or presenting evidence that either had legal rights to enter Harris home. Whelan said Sandoval was not in his own residence, Harris had a right to privacy in his own home and recognizing bondsman privilege would elevate bond agents above law enforcement. In more recent court motions, Hubber has argued that Sandoval the fugitive had used the Main Street address for Harris home in paperwork for obtaining bonds and pretrial services. In Fridays order, Whelan said he was not persuaded that Hubber believed Sandoval lived there and he would not allow individuals to subrogate the rights of other citizens merely by utilizing their address. In Tuesday's petition, Hoovestal said Judge Whelan dismissed the home address issue without first hearing a shred of evidence. Unlike a fugitive fleeing to a medieval Roman Catholic Church and claiming sanctuary or Julian Assange taking diplomatic refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid arrest, David Sandoval could not lock himself inside William Harris house to avoid arrest, the petition said. It said Harris right to privacy was diminished when he cohabitated with and allowed Sandoval to stay in the house, thereby harboring and sharing areas of his residence with a fugitive. The petition also said Hubber twice sought assistance from Butte police in apprehending Sandoval. The Supreme Court should intervene because Whelans order essentially guts Hubbers defense to the charges, the petition said. It is also an issue of statewide importance because bail bondsmen exist throughout the entire state in different cities and counties and they frequently come across the same or similar situations, the petition said. But the states high court denied the request to intervene with supervisory control, saying Hubber can appeal if convicted. Here, in addition, the trial courts order indicates a factual issue regarding Sandovals residence, which is not appropriate for supervisory control, the ruling said. Kelli Fivey, the lead prosecutor in the case, provided a statement to The Montana Standard late Tuesday afternoon. While I was aware of the petition being filed which could have halted our efforts, our office continued to prepare for trial in the hopes that the Supreme Court would issue a quick decision, Fivey said. Im happy the Court acted quickly so that trial can proceed as intended, she said. It is time for the Harris family to have closure. Although the case will be decided by jurors and judges and not public opinion, family and friends of Jaeger picketed outside the Butte-Silver Bow Courthouse on Monday with signs saying Jaeger acted in self-defense. Montana's forestry programs touched 36,000 acres in 2023, adding another year-over-year increase as the state has grown more aggressive in its Good Neighbor Authority efforts. At the Department of Natural Resource and Conservation's Montana Conservation Seedling Nursery in Missoula, Gov. Greg Gianforte and Department Director Amanda Kaster announced last year's acreage, up from 31,000 in 2022 and 25,000 in 2021. "Active forest management is really critical to helping address the forest health and wildfire risks that our communities face," Gianforte said at the Tuesday press conference. "It creates healthier habitats for wildlife, improves water quality, creates safer environments for our wildland firefighters while they do their jobs and it enhances recreational opportunities. "It's also good for business," Gianforte continued. "Montana's timber industry plays a significant role in our economy, supporting thousands of good-paying jobs and generating critical revenue for our local communities." The projects undertaken in 2023 include logging, thinning and prescribed burns and restoration. Those took place across Montana's western region, the most heavily forested parts of the state. As Gianforte noted, those projects are felt downstream, proverbially speaking, by conservation and industry groups. Seth Wilson of the Blackfoot Challenge, which facilitates conservation problem-solving at the community level in the Blackfoot River watershed, was on hand Tuesday. He said the low snowpack has kept him stirring at night. "I'm worried about low flows in our rivers, what impacts that will have on our irrigators, our recreation community, our aquatic ecosystems," he said, before naming off several people who have tied a network of problem solvers together. "People make these types of partnerships and this type of progress happen on the ground when we address issues like fire." Timber sales are another piece of the puzzle, much of which is done through coordination with federal agencies through the Good Neighbor Authority policy that allows state projects on federal lands. Kaster said the GNA generated 10 commercial timber sales, 36 restoration projects resulting 21.7 million board-feet of timber valued at $2.8 million. Through state trust land sales, the DNRC sold 52 million board-feet of timber for $8 million for Montana schools and other earmarked institutions. "We do definitely rely on the timber," Julia Altemus of the Montana Woodproducts Association, told reporters. Over the last 38 years in the industry, Altemus has seen 34 mills close. Never in that time has a mill been purchased until last year's acquisition of R-Y Timber in Livingston by Sun Mountain Lumber. She thanked Gianforte and the DNRC for growing its timber yield targets each year. "There's hope," she said. "There's optimism and for once I don't have to be a Debbie Downer and say, you know, the industry is going downhill. Because it's not, it's thriving and it's doing well." A trial for post-conviction relief for a Muscatine man serving life in prison for first-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend has been set for July 23. According to court documents, David Hatfield, 25, will appear by phone to the trial. A pretrial conference will be held July 11. He is serving his sentence in the Iowa State Penitentiary for the Oct. 16, 2019, death of Kaitlyn Palmer. Recently, Muscatine County assistant attorney Amy Hering reported to the court that the state had requested Hatfield and his counsel file a recast petition stating specific claims for relief, which has not been done. Previously, the Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. During the appeal, Hatfield had argued ineffective counsel and district court erroring in overriding a hearsay objection. The original application contends that material facts not previously presented exist and that the conviction is in violation of the Constitution. The petition argues the trial counsel failed to conduct an investigation into Hatfields background, specifically mental issues Hatfield had been treated for. During the trial, the prosecution stated on Oct. 16, 2019, Hatfield had shot Palmer once on the left side of the head with a .22-caliber handgun at Saulsbury Recreational Area in rural Muscatine County. While the prosecution argued the reason for the shooting was an unwanted pregnancy, Hatfield claimed it was a case of assisted suicide. Hatfield had told deputies that Palmer had shot herself in the head. The story later changed and Hatfield said he had gotten the gun from his vehicle and test-fired it before shooting Palmer. The prosecution stated physical evidence showed that the shot was fired by someone other than Palmer. Prior to the trial, the prosecution moved to exclude photos of Palmer showing cuts on her body, saying there was no evidence of suicidal behavior prior to the evening of the incident. The state also sought to exclude a suicide note claiming there was no authentication it came from Palmer. Hatfield had called the Muscatine County Communications Center to report Palmer had shot herself. Palmer was still alive when a deputy arrived and first aid was given. The deputy testified getting blood on his clothing while attempting to stop the bleeding. Hatfield had no blood on his body or clothes. Palmer was transported to University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics in Iowa City where she died at 3:26 p.m. Oct. 17, 2019. Death row in Oklahoma: AG seeks adjustments to execution schedule in 2024 Kendrick Simpson Emmanuel Littlejohn Kevin Underwood Wendell Grissom Termane Wood Richard Rojem Michael D. Smith Wade Lay James Ryder John Fitzgerald Hanson Oklahoma corrections director on execution: 'Not pleasant to watch, but ... not inhumane' Richard Glossip Alfred Mitchell Marlon Harmon Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez Clarence Goode Jr. James Pavatt Raymond E. Johnson Ricky Malone Ronson Bush Check out our latest digital-only offer and subscribe now Kendrick Simpson Marlon Harmon Aerial drone photo shows the Rongdong area of Xiong'an New Area, north China's Hebei province, Nov. 23, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua] February marked the 10th anniversary since the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region was elevated to a national strategy. A press conference was held Tuesday to highlight the achievements of regional coordination over the past decade. "Overall, the past 10 years have been focused on laying a solid foundation and establishing a strategic layout for the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, emphasizing the adjustment and optimization of economic and spatial structures," said Guo Lanfeng, a member of the Communist Party of China Leadership Group of the National Development and Reform Commission, during the conference. In 2023, the total GDP of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region reached 10.4 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion), which is 1.9 times that of 2013 in current prices, according to recent data released by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics. Along with the increase in total output, the industrial structures of the three regions have also continuously upgraded, with the proportion of the tertiary industry increasing by 9.6 percentage points. The region has seen an increase in collaborative innovation. In 2022, research and development expenditure within the region reached 426.09 billion yuan, 2.2 times that of 2013. Additionally, the region has accumulated over 1,400 "little giant" enterprises with specialized and sophisticated technologies mainly distributed in manufacturing, scientific research and technical services, and information transmission, software, and information technology services. There have also been breakthroughs in the collaborative development of industrial chains within the area. Since May 2023, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province have jointly mapped out six industrial chain diagrams, aiming to accelerate the integration of regional innovation chains, industrial chains and supply chains. Over the past decade, ecological collaborative governance has achieved remarkable results, and air quality within the region has continuously improved. "In 2023, the average concentration of PM2.5 in the region decreased by nearly 60% compared to 2014," Guo said. Simultaneously, progress is being made in optimizing the region's spatial structure. "The starting point and ultimate goal of the coordinated development of the region is to relieve the non-capital functions of Beijing," Guo underscored at the conference. According to recent data, significant advancements have been made in this regard, with over 80 million square meters of illegal construction demolished in the central urban area and more than 6,000 hectares of land released. The capital's sub-center, Tongzhou district, is experiencing significant growth, with a regional GDP of 130.36 billion yuan in 2023, 2.2 times that of 2013 in current prices. Additionally, Xiong'an New Area has commenced large-scale construction, focusing on relieving Beijing's non-capital functions. LONDON With medals pinned to their chests, two D-Day veterans proudly represented their comrades as 13 new names were added Tuesday to a memorial wall in southern England that honors those who took part in the Normandy landings. British veterans Stan Ford and John Roberts and 11 others were added to the Normandy Memorial Wall at the D-Day Story Museum prior to an event marking 100 days until the 80th anniversary of the start of the invasion that ultimately ended World War II in Europe. The June 6 event promises to be one of the last big commemorations, because so few of the 850,000 troops who took part remain. Ford served on HMS Fratton, which took part in the invasion and was sunk off the Normandy coast in August 1944. He wants to be there to honor those who are gone to remind people that victory cost the world plenty. I hope the young people will hear of the exploits, take it on board and see that it doesnt happen again, the 98-year-old said. I survived and there are 31 reasons why I keep going back to Normandy, and thats the 31 guys that never made it. The sentiment was echoed by Roberts, 99, who joined the Royal Navy at the age of 13 and served until 1978 having reached the rank of rear admiral. On D-Day, he served on the HMS Serapis, which was at the front of the convoy that arrived at Sword Beach at 7:30 a.m. Its more important every year because there will be less and less veterans alive still. Ill be 100 by then, but in 10 years time there will be no veterans left and I think its important to go on, he said. I enjoy it because Im so pleased its remembered. Thousands of members of the public will join D-Day veterans, personnel from the Armed Forces and local officials in June for events commemorating the landings. Personal stories of the veterans are to be the heart of the event, which will also feature military musicians, a flyover by the Royal Air Force and tributes from special guests. 50 facts and figures about D-Day 50 facts and figures about D-Day It was the largest amphibious assault in history The D in D-Day is redundant Secrecy and deception were key The practice run turned deadly German defenses were the wars biggest construction project Forces landed on five code-named beaches Omaha Beach was the hardest fought A massive bombardment preceded the invasion Thousands of paratroopers landed first Canadian forces captured the most ground The operation had a code name D-Day involved nearly 7,000 Allied ships... and more than 11,500 Allied aircraft There were 73,000 Americans at D-Day Comanche code-talkers joined the siege The Allies faced 50,000 German defenders The battle lasted until August The exact number of fallen is unknown Most Allied troops arrived after D-Day The operation led to the liberation of Paris A memorial cemetery sits on US soil in France Families foughtand diedtogether Around 14,000 corpses were returned home The Allies lost more than 11% of their troops German casualties exceeded 240,000 The action was far from consistent The tide was a double-edged sword The beach was a minefield D-Day was the result of trial and error The Germans almost guessed it right It was supposed to happen a month earlier Nature played a key role Higgins boats whisked many troops to shore D-Day films have become part of American popular culture A D-Day movie star served on D-Day Many other famous people served on D-Day Gargantuan supply shipments preceded the invasion 17 million maps were needed The landings opened a supply line Artificial harbors supported the supply lines The Army attacked with 6 divisions 500 gliders took to the air A separate battle raged high above the beach The mighty Atlantic Wall fell in a day The day produced 12 Medals of Honor Heavy packs encumbered troops Boat ramps served as shields One African American combat unit participated That units medic is an unsung hero Germany surrendered less than one year later An Iowa pharmaceutical company with ties to Iowa businessman and former Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter is being sued for nonpayment of $2.1 million worth of pharmaceuticals. A Texas company, the McKesson Corp., is suing SmartScripts of Washington, Iowa, in U.S. District Court. Launched in 2017, SmartScripts claims to be the first telepharmacy in Iowa and now delivers pharmaceuticals directly to consumers in all 50 states. SmartScripts is a limited liability company whose principal officers are not publicly disclosed, but the lawsuit alleges that SmartScripts member directors include Rastetter, Todd R. Thompson of Iowa City, and Samuel Zoske of Solon. In addition to SmartScripts, the lawsuit names as defendants Thompson & Thompson Long-Term Care of Washington, Iowa, as well as Thompson and Zoske individually. The lawsuit alleges that in March 2015, SmartScripts applied for credit with McKesson for the purchase of pharmaceutical products from the Texas company. At the same time, Thompson and Zoske allegedly agreed to act as guarantors on the deal, binding them to pay off any debt incurred by SmartScripts through its pharmaceutical purchases. In April 2017, according to the lawsuit, McKesson entered into a separate agreement with SmartScripts and Thompson and Thompson Long-Term Care in which McKesson agreed to sell pharmaceutical products to both Iowa companies. As a result, McKesson claims, it sold and delivered pharmaceutical products purchased by SmartScripts. The lawsuit alleges that at least $2,174,191 is now owed by SmartScripts and Thompson and Thompson Long-Term Care to McKesson and that the Iowa companies are refusing to pay. According to the lawsuit, SmartScripts, in an effort to show it would pay off its debt while continuing to procure additional pharmaceuticals from McKesson, promised in 2022 that it would pay McKesson $6.3 million, plus interest. The deal allegedly called for SmartScripts to make 104 consecutive weekly installment payments of $60,809 to McKesson, after which it would then pay off any remaining debt. As part of the deal, SmartScripts allegedly gave McKesson, as collateral, a security interest in all of SmartScripts personal property. SmartScripts has since defaulted on that arrangement, the lawsuit claims, leaving an unpaid principal balance in the amount of $2.1 million. Thompson and Zoske have also failed to pay, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks payment of the full amount and alleges breach of contract and unjust enrichment. SmartScript markets, sells and delivers medications directly to consumers, in part by using automated telemarketing, or robocalls, facilitated by the acquisition of telephone numbers from data brokers. In 2023, the company was the target of a class-action lawsuit for allegedly calling individuals whose names are on the national Do Not Call Registry. SmartScripts admitted using phone numbers purchased from data brokers but denied deliberately calling individuals on the Don Not Call Registry. Within a few months, the case was settled out of court. A similar lawsuit was filed and settled out of court in 2022. Rastetter, Zoske and Thompson could not be reached for comment. The defendants have yet to file a response to the lawsuit. PHOTOS: Northern Iowa vs. Wisconsin wrestling, Feb. 25, 2024 A group of parents of students with disabilities lack legal standing to challenge a state law prohibiting mask mandates at public schools, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. In a ruling written by Judge Ralph Erickson, the three-judge panel found that the parents did not show they had been or were likely to be injured by the state law. The ruling reversed a previous court injunction on the law and allowed it to take effect. The ruling is the latest decision in a three-year court battle over a 2021 law signed by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. The law prohibits schools, cities and counties from requiring masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reynolds applauded the ruling in a statement on Tuesday and defended the decision to ban school mask mandates. While children were the least vulnerable, they paid the highest price for COVID lockdowns and mandates, but Iowa was a different story, she said. Iowa was the first state to get students back in the classroom and we prohibited mask mandates in schools, trusting parents to decide what was best for their children. Elected leaders should always trust the people they serve, and I promise I would do it again. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said in a statement that the ruling was a win for parents' rights to make choices for their children. Freedom wins in todays court ruling to uphold Iowas law banning mask mandates in schools," Bird said. "Parents have the right to choose what healthcare decisions are best for their kids." The lawsuit was brought by the Arc of Iowa, an organization that works with people with disabilities. Doug Cunningham, the groups executive director, said that the threat of COVID-19 has substantially subsided since the lawsuit was filed. Still, he said the decision to accommodate students health and safety should be left up to local school districts and area education agencies. The public schools of Iowa have a long history of educating those students, including people with disabilities, he said. And they really dont need government to step in and tell them how to do that. Cunningham said he does not expect the organization will appeal the decision further. Schools in Iowa have largely dropped mask mandates as the prevalence of COVID-19 has gone down. Cunningham said he was not aware of any students with disabilities in the state that currently were requesting a mask mandate as part of their accommodations. Appeals court overturns district court decision In September 2021, the Arc of Iowa, along with 11 parents of students with disabilities, sued Reynolds and school districts, alleging the law infringed on the rights of students with disabilities. The law was temporarily halted that month, when a district court judge ruled that students with pre-existing medical conditions face an increased risk of severe illness or death without the widespread use of masks in school to prevent the spread of COVID-19. That injunction was partially overturned by an appeals court in 2022, but litigation was allowed to continue at the district court level. At the time, the appeals court noted that the circumstances around COVID-19 prevalence and vaccine availability had changed since the lawsuit was lodged. District court Judge Robert Pratt ruled in November of 2022 that schools can impose mask mandates, in some cases, to comply with federal law. But in its decision Tuesday, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals dissolved that order and sent instructions to the district court to dismiss the lawsuit. Central to the lawsuit was the claim from parents that they or their children faced potential injuries from the prohibition on mask requirements. Pointing to existing precedent, the appeals court said a person must suffer an injury that is traceable to the challenged law, and is likely to be redressed by a court decision. The court said the anticipated risk of contracting COVID-19 was too speculative to establish an injury. Here, because Plaintiffs have only alleged the potential risk of severe illness should they contract COVID-19 at school, the risk of harm is too speculative to satisfy the injury in fact element, Erickson wrote. DES MOINES Iowans could soon purchase a license plate that features the yellow dont tread on me Gadsden flag, with the fees collected going to fund training and education by National Rifle Association-affiliated groups. The flag, which features a coiled rattlesnake and the slogan Dont tread on me, has become a symbol of individual liberty favored by Libertarians and conservatives. It has its origins in the American Revolutionary War and was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress. House File 2424, which would make the plates an option for drivers in Iowa, was passed out of the Ways and Means committee by majority Republicans on Wednesday, making it eligible for a vote in the full House. The specialized plates would cost $50 to register and require a $50 annual fee. The money collected by the plate registration would be directed to the Department of Public Safety, which would distribute grants for education and training on the right to keep and bear arms under the constitutions of the U.S. and Iowa. The bill would direct the department to give first consideration for those grants to any official state association of the National Rifle Association or similar nonprofit organizations. The Iowa Firearms Coalition, an influential gun rights lobbying group, is the official Iowa state association of the NRA. The coalition is the only group registered in favor of the bill. We do a lot with different plates, right? We direct funds to different commodity groups or other organizations. said Rep. Phil Thompson, a Republican from Boone and chair of the House Public Safety Committee. It was kind of a brainchild of senators that wanted to do the same thing with Second Amendment advocacy. Iowans have the option to pay for plates associated with the states three public universities, natural resources, emergency medical services, firefighters, and motorcycle riders, among many others. The fees for those plates are also directed to specific state funds to benefit those groups. The bill originally called for a $35 registration fee and a $10 annual fee, but Republicans amended the bill in the Ways and Means committee meeting on Wednesday to increase those fees to $50 each. Based on estimates from the Legislative Services Agency, adjusted for the new cost, the bill would bring in more than $157,000 in fees during the first year. The agency expected around 3,150 plates would be issued. Democrats opposed the bill in committee and offered an amendment to redirect the funding to mental health support and school shooting counseling by the states area education agencies, which was voted down by Republicans. Weve heard for years and years and years, the question is on mental health, said Rep. David Jacoby, a Democrat from Coralville. Well, after years and years and years of that question, heres an answer. That we divert those funds toward mental health or our children in the state of Iowa. Jacoby also proposed an amendment to reduce the fees for the plates to what was originally proposed in the bill, which was voted down. He said he was not opposed to offering the flag as an option for Iowa drivers, but he did not want to see the money collected going to the NRA-affiliated groups. Thompson said he supports directing the money to gun rights organizations because they are the groups that offer education around the second amendment and right to bear arms. The bill was also amended to allow vehicle owners to place frames around a license plate that obscure the name of the plate's county, as long as they do not obscure the other numbers and letters on the plate. Twelve other states, including Texas, Florida and Virginia, offer Gadsden flag license plates. Senate lawmakers advanced a similar bill last year, but it did not include the provision to direct funds to gun rights groups. The bill did not reach a floor vote. After Supreme Court gun decision, whats next? What exactly was the Supreme Court ruling on guns? How did the justices rule? What other states are likely to be impacted? Are New Yorkers now free to carry a gun in public? What can states do to regulate guns after the decision? How do courts assess gun restrictions going forward? What other big rulings are in the works? Ethical Life podcast: What do hunters say about increased gun regulations? Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS Feed | Omny Studio Interactive: Fatal mass shootings in the U.S. DES MOINES House Republican lawmakers have halted a proposal that would help Iowas public libraries reverse anticipated financial losses under a property tax reform measure signed into law last year. House lawmakers held a subcommittee hearing Tuesday on House File 2442. The bill would enable cities to reinstate the library tax that was constrained by last year's property tax bill. Doing so, under the proposal, would require the approval of a majority of voters during a regular city election. If approved, the tax could be collected for 10 years and extended for additional 10-year periods if reauthorized by voters at election. A city council could discontinue the tax by a majority vote of council members. A total of 97 communities across the state have voted to pass a library levy, including Iowa City and Marion. Voters in Cedar Rapids, however, in 2015 rejected it. The loss of these levies have had tremendous unintended consequences, said Sam Helmick, past-president of the Iowa Library Association who served on the Governors Commission of Libraries as a Republican. It will have material damage. Our libraries are community anchor institutions that provide essential services and resources that support job seeking and entrepreneurial, workforce and economic development as well as lifelong learning and social welfare. And losing them is like losing a major employer in the community, Helmick said. Iowa lawmakers last year passed and Gov. Kim Reynolds signed House File 718, which introduced major overhauls to the states property tax system aimed at reducing future property tax bills. That proposal earned strong bipartisan support, passing in the Iowa House 93-1 and the Iowa Senate 49-0. Among the laws many provisions were limitations on cities collection and use of several tax levies, some of them approved by voters, and devoted to specific purposes such as facilities for veterans, free municipal band concerts or public library operations. HF 718 rolled the dedicated tax levies into cities and counties overall general tax rate, which are capped and where they must now be budgeted alongside all other services. That will result in a large financial blow to Iowa libraries, museums, municipal bands and facilities, city leaders and library officials across the state say The passage of HF 718 has been devastating since it has taken away the guarantee of funding that so many libraries, especially small and rural ones, depend on, Roslin Thompson, director of the Knoxville Public Library, wrote to lawmakers in support of the new proposal. Bigger libraries are also going to lose funding that will lead to cuts in services and programs that are essential in our communities. Please reconsider HF 2442: eliminate the need for a sunset clause to these levies and eliminate the need for a mandatory revote, while retaining the voters' authority to make decisions for their communities that they love. Reinstate all previously voted levies where the people have spoken. The Iowa Library Association, Iowa League of Cities and League of Women Voters of Iowa were all registered in support of the bill. Local communities still are collecting property tax dollars to support public library operations. The money, though, is being deposited into general operating budgets, which allows cities to shift funds from libraries to other projects that would typically be funded by increased taxes. The result eliminates the option for communities to create future library levies, and has led to disagreements among library boards, directors and city councils as to how the money is used amid competing needs. If youre asking me to no longer codify those dollars that were hard-won on the cachet and value of libraries, and I can give them to a firefighter, as a mayor, thats what Im going to do, Helmick told lawmakers. This is why we created special library levies so we didnt have to have these difficult fiscal conversations. And in dozens of the 97 libraries, were told they wont be re-appropriated back for library services. Additionally, the levies sunset in two years, which means the money now diverted into a city's general fund will go away completely. That will significantly diminish the impact and capacity of Iowa libraries, striping away local control and voter autonomy in those 97 communities, Helmick said. In Cedar Rapids, last years property tax law also affects levies used to fund operations and maintenance of the Veterans Memorial Building on May's Island and the Veterans Memorial Commission. In Iowa City, that affects funding for climate action steps and library operations. Billie Bailey, former executive director of the Grout Museum District in Waterloo, urged lawmakers to reinstate all previously voter-approved levies, not just those supporting public libraries. This is a levy that the community spoke, and they said that these institutions and our libraries are important to our community and we would like them preserved and funded, Bailey said. I dont think anybody really, truly intended for this to hurt libraries and museums. I think it was a case of unintended consequences, and we just would like to have you work with us to fix it. The bill was introduced by Rep. Matthew Rinker, R-Burlington. The two Republican members on the three-member subcommittee, however, declined to advance the bill, stating it would undermine lawmakers efforts with the passage of last years law to simplify and bolster transparency in the states property tax system. Part of that simplification process is to get rid of levies, said Rep. John Wills, R-Spirit Lake. By adding the levy back, that kind of goes against what we were looking at last year. Rep. Austin Harris, R-Moulton, agreed with Wills. The No. 1 issue we are hearing back from constituents is issues with property taxes. And we had a massive bill that we did last year that we still need to see how it continues to take effect, said Harris, who chaired the subcommittee. I appreciate Rep. Rinker bringing this legislation forward, but I do not believe this is the solution to what he was trying to accomplish. Rep. Kenan Judge, of Waukee, the lone Democrat on the subcommittee, said he was willing to work with majority Republicans to continue the conversation and keep working on the issue. Because I think our libraries need this money to be effective, Judge said. I think protecting that library is very important, and I hope we can continue to have that conversation. Close Tegan Losee, 10, reads 'The Pigeon Wants a Puppy' to Frank, a chocolate lab, during Bettendorf Public Library's Reading Assistance Dogs program on Thursday, October 5, in Bettendorf. The program gives children a chance to work on their reading and pronunciation skills. Aurora Neff reads 'Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade' to Oliver during Bettendorf Public Library's Reading Assistance Dogs program on Thursday, October 5, in Bettendorf. The program runs every first Thursday of the month from 6 to 7 p.m. A child softly pets Frank on the head during Bettendorf Public Library's Reading Assistance Dogs program on Thursday, October 5, in Bettendorf. Kids not only had the opportunity to read, but also interact and ask the dog's handlers questions. Ellie Fredericks, 6, chats with Riley during Bettendorf Public Library's Reading Assistance Dogs program on Thursday. Six handlers (and their dogs) from the Quad City Canines showed up to the event. Penny sneaks a sniff of a stuffed huskie while her owner chats with the stuffed dog's owner at the Bettendorf Public library. The library distributed dog themed books for the kids to read. Bettendorf Library Reading Assistance Dogs Tegan Losee, 10, reads 'The Pigeon Wants a Puppy' to Frank, a chocolate lab, during Bettendorf Public Library's Reading Assistance Dogs program on Thursday, October 5, in Bettendorf. The program gives children a chance to work on their reading and pronunciation skills. Aurora Neff reads 'Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade' to Oliver during Bettendorf Public Library's Reading Assistance Dogs program on Thursday, October 5, in Bettendorf. The program runs every first Thursday of the month from 6 to 7 p.m. A child softly pets Frank on the head during Bettendorf Public Library's Reading Assistance Dogs program on Thursday, October 5, in Bettendorf. Kids not only had the opportunity to read, but also interact and ask the dog's handlers questions. Ellie Fredericks, 6, chats with Riley during Bettendorf Public Library's Reading Assistance Dogs program on Thursday. Six handlers (and their dogs) from the Quad City Canines showed up to the event. Penny sneaks a sniff of a stuffed huskie while her owner chats with the stuffed dog's owner at the Bettendorf Public library. The library distributed dog themed books for the kids to read. Harlan Cohen is a bestselling author and journalist who has visited over 500 high school and college campuses. He is also a social media influencer with over 1 million followers. Harlan sits down and talks with Lynn Schmidt about how to help your teens and young adults cope with rejection, whether it is regarding college acceptances or relationships. His advice is great for people of all ages. The First Lady, Mama Rachel Ruto, officially launched the First Ladys Landscape and Ecosystem Restoration Strategy and implementation plan to grow 500 million trees. The strategy, aligned with the Presidents vision to grow 15 billion trees by 2032, will fast-track its realization. The implementation plan actively involves women, youth, and learners. It advocates for green financing to bridge funding gaps in restoration activities, integrates agroforestry, promotes green jobs and nature-based enterprises, and encourages the participation of women and youth in the green and circular economies. During the testing and validation process, approximately 3 million trees have been grown in forests and learning institutions. Furthermore, the First Lady has adopted 200 hectares (500 acres) at Kakamega Forest in Shikusa Block for restoration. This adoption set the foundation for similar adoptions by spouses of County Governors and Members of Parliament nationwide, with technical support from the Office of The First Lady and the Kenya Forest Service. Mama Rachel Ruto encouraged all like-minded stakeholders to unite in support of Kenyas tree-growing efforts. Connecting with like-minded organisations and individuals strengthens our impact and fosters a shared vision for a sustainable future. By joining hands, we can amplify our impact on a national scale, maximise resources, leverage the strengths of our partners, and create a domino effect that propels us towards our ambitious goal of growing 500 million trees, said the First Lady. Kevin Kangethe has dropped his two lawyers, further delaying his extradition to the U.S. to face murder charges for allegedly killing his girlfriend Margaret Mbitu in Boston on October 31, 2023. Despite the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) concluding the extradition proceedings, Kangethe declared his intentions on Tuesday to end his attorney-client relationship in court, citing a bunch of reasons. State prosecutor Vincent Monda informed Milimani Chief Magistrate Lucas Onyina that he had handed over a copy of the extradition proceedings to the suspects lawyers, Mr. David Muthama and Mr. Anthony Kago. The fugitive, representing himself, informed the court of his reasons, alleging that he was never given the liberty to appoint his lawyers and that those representing him in previous appearances were provided by the DCI. He claimed that, upon discussing his matter with his appointed lawyers, they would relay the information to the officers of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations. The Attorneys I have are appointed by the DCI. They report back to the DCI. My information is not private with them, he claimed. Thats why I ended my relationship with them to get a chance to get my attorneys. Further, Kangethe alleged that he had not received any information regarding the extradition proceedings, and therefore, he was unsure how to proceed with the matter. He stated that on various occasions, he had wanted to present his side of the story but had been unable to do so. I tried to explain what happened at Muthaiga Police Station. Im not sure what to do at this point. Last time I was in court, my attorneys refused to mention what happened, Kangethe said. He appealed to the court to grant him access to his phone and contact list, expressing the need to have the opportunity to secure a new lawyer. In response, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, led by Vincent Monda, stated that they did not oppose Kangethes request to obtain new lawyers. Magistrate Onyina allowed him to seek another lawyer. The court also instructed the Prosecution to furnish the suspect with all essential documents. The case is scheduled for mention on March 1, to determine whether he will have secured legal representation. A multisectoral operation involving the Nairobi Liquor Department, Security and Compliance, and the National Police resulted in the closure of 120 liquor outlets and the arrest of 25 bar owners in Starehe sub-county. This comes after Nairobi Governor Sakaja Johnson last week directed the Nairobi Liquor Department and the Security and Compliance departments to crack down on wines and spirit joints near bus stops and terminals as the city intensifies its efforts to curb alcohol abuse. Governor Sakaja Johnson chaired a meeting last Friday that brought together the Chairman of the Federation of Public Transport sector, public transport operators, public transport saccos, and companies operating within the jurisdiction of Nairobi City County. We will no longer allow and tolerate disorder in the city. Nairobi is the capital city. I have directed the removal of all wines and spirits shops located around matatu terminals and bus stops. Drivers and Touts are spending most of their time in these wines and spirits that have turned into bars and drinking dens as they wait for customers. We have lost loved ones due to recklessness on our roads because of alcohol and drug abuse. We have even discovered that all these bars targeted have been operating with the required licenses, said Governor Sakaja. Chief Officer of Security and Compliance, Tony Kimani, and Judith Anyango, Vice Chair of the Nairobi County Liquor Board, spearheaded the operation, which targeted wines and spirits joints at Country bus station, Muthurwa bus terminus, Hakati bus station, Accra road terminus, Latema road terminus, and Old Nation roundabout. Preliminary data collection within Starehe sub-county revealed that most wines and spirits operating in the bus terminuses are unlicensed, thereby operating in contravention of the Nairobi City County Alcoholic Drinks Control and Licensing Act of 2014. The Nairobi Liquor Department is currently collating data for other outlets located in bus terminuses across the remaining sub-counties for closure in the coming days. The multi-agency crackdown will involve verifying outlet licenses to ensure there are no developments or the emergence of illegal alcohol, stated Maureen Njeri, County Executive for Business and Hustler Opportunities, within the Nairobi Liquor Department. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union (KMPDU) declared their intention to conduct a peaceful protest in Nairobi on Thursday. In a letter to the Nairobi Regional Police Commander, KMPDU Secretary-General Davji Atellah stated that the procession will address the delayed posting of medical interns and the payment of fees for postgraduate students. We write to inform you of our intention to conduct a peaceful procession concerning the delayed posting of medical interns and the payment of fees for postgraduate students. The procession is scheduled to take place on Thursday, 29th February 2024, commencing at 9:30 am, noted KMPDU. The protesting medics will march from the Kenya Medical Association Centre in the Upper Hill area to the Ministry of Health offices. They will then proceed to the Treasury headquarters in the city center. In light of the importance of maintaining order and ensuring the safety of all participants, we kindly request your assistance in providing security during this event, Atellah added. Last week, the KMPDU Sec-Gen issued a nationwide strike notice for March if more than 1,000 medical interns were not hired. He criticized the Ministry of Health for its refusal to absorb the medics, alleging that it was depriving Kenyans of essential medical services. All the doctor interns must get their letters to internships by March 1st, otherwise we will go to the Ministry of Health to collect these letters, Atellah said on February 20. We are putting the Ministry of Health, the Treasury, the Council of Governors and the whole country on notice that by February 29 and March 1, if we do not have direction on posting of interns, all the doctors in this country will be on a go-slow. Police officers from Muranga County have recovered 16,905 pineapples stolen from the Delmonte farm. This recovery comes after an operation known as Operation Linda Mananasi, which has been ongoing for the past two weeks. Over 50 police officers were dispatched to the farm to assist in guarding the fruits. According to Muranga County Police Commander Kainga Mathiu, 222 culprits have been arrested and successfully prosecuted. Furthermore, police officers also impounded motorbikes and vehicles that the suspects used to transport the fruits from the farm to the market. Kainga stated that the security team is prepared to provide security for the entire farm, emphasizing that its vastness poses challenges for the company to guard effectively, making it susceptible to theft. County Commissioner Joshua Nkanatha, on his part, mentioned that the suspects nabbed in the operation have collectively been fined Kes.3,096,000 after being convicted in court. It is not our aim to have the suspects fined but they have generated money for the government, he said. Delmonte fruits processing company operates on approximately 22,000 acres of land, with around 18,000 acres in Muranga and the remainder in Kiambu County. The pineapples reportedly stolen from the farm have fueled a thriving fruit vending business in Kenol, Kabati, and Thika towns. Pastor Dorcas Rigathi has revealed plans to involve Kilifi County widows in a mangrove restoration project. Addressing thousands of widows at Gede Grounds, Pastor Dorcas stated that this is one of the empowerment projects she intends to undertake in the coastal county. We want to start mangrove restoration in a project that will bring together the widows in the county and the vulnerable populations within this county, the Spouse of the Deputy President said. Pastor Dorcas announced that she has secured an investor who will establish a Carbon Credit institute in Kilifi County to train widows on carbon credit. The project is set to commence in a few weeks. This development follows the enactment of the Climate Change (Amendment) Bill 2023 by President William Ruto last year, paving the way for the regulation of carbon markets in the country. The legislation also provided a framework for the country to mobilize resources to enhance capacity for climate resilience initiatives, aligning with efforts made by other countries such as South Africa, Indonesia, and India in establishing domestic carbon trading markets. Kilifi County First Lady Susanne Mungaro urged women to utilize available resources for their development and the well-being of their children. She praised Pastor Dorcas for her efforts in dignifying the lives of widows and pledged her support for the program. Kilifi Deputy Governor Flora Mbetsa echoed these sentiments, describing Pastor Dorcass efforts as transformative for generations. Kilifi North MP Owen Baya emphasized that the empowerment program led by Pastor Dorcas would not only positively impact the lives of widows but also those around them. The Widows Empowerment Program is one of the four pillars under the office of the Spouse of the Deputy President, Pastor Dorcas Rigathi. Arts Council Napa Valley announced it has awarded $25,000 to local arts and culture programs as part of its Community Fund grant program. Six programs were selected as part of the Winter 2023 cycle, funded in part by the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, according to a press release. It is a huge honor to be able to support artists in the Indigenous and Latine community, said Chris DeNatale, ACNV executive director. Over the years, weve been given the opportunity to support these incredible artists and practitioners and celebrate the traditions, culture and heritage they aim to share with the community. The winter 2023 Community Fund grant awards reflect diverse artistic genres, disciplines, and audiences with a range of projects and programs centered on subjects such as cultural retention through music, dance, and traditional art forms and extracurricular arts programming, according to the press release. The honorees include: Cradle Basket - Indigenous Environmental Learning Center Alyx Howell and Desirae Harp The Cradle Basket/Indigenous Environmental Learning Center gives voice to the stories, history, lifestyle, and culture of the Native Americans who have lived on the Napa River for over 10,000 years. Info: TheCradleBasket.com. 4th Annual Viva Mariachi! Festival Napa Valley College NVC's 2024 Viva Mariachi Festival is a 3-day program of mariachi performances for Napa youth, families, educators, and the public that celebrates Mexican music and culture. Info: PerformingArtsNapaValley.org. Native Sun Leaves Israel Valencia A series of photographs of local indigenous community members to acknowledge and explore their contribution to the wine industry in Napa and Sonoma. Each portrait will be printed on grape leaves using a solar transfer process. Finished work will be exhibited in Napa with a public presentation. Info: InfinityVisuals.com. Brown Street Gallery The Brown Street Gallery, part of Napa Valley Support Services, creates meaningful opportunities for individuals with disabilities in Napa County through a person-centered approach to self-discovery, artistic expression, community engagement, employment and education. Info: NapaValleySupportServices.org. Redwood Middle School Drama Club Redwood Middle School Last year, the Redwood Middle School Drama Club was founded to create a space for RMS students to take part in theater programming free of cost on campus. Their first production Aladdin, Jr. was a great success, and ACNV is supporting the clubs 2024 production of The Lion King, Jr. Info: RedwoodMiddlePTA.org. Sharing Culture Through Dance And Music Los Diablos Oaxaquenos del Valle A cultural dance group in Napa County that began in 2016 to preserve Oaxacan traditions evolved from a family group to an open community group. Prioritizing innovation, inclusivity, and collaboration, they aim to enrich Napa County culturally, fostering understanding and appreciation through music, dance, craft, and language workshops. There will be three community workshops coming up this year for the community to gather and learn about these Oaxacan traditions. Info: Facebook.com/LosDiablos707. PHOTOS: Napa's 2024 Lighted Art Festival begins Art aglow in Napa Lighted Art Festival 2 Lighted Art Festival 3 Lighted Art Festival 4 Lighted Art Festival 5 Lighted Art Festival 6 Lighted Art Festival 7 Lighted Art Festival 8 Lighted Art Festival 9 Lighted Art Festival 10 Lighted Art Festival 11 Lighted Art Festival 12 Lighted Art Festival 13 Lighted Art Festival 14 Lighted Art Festival 15 Lighted Art Festival 16 Lighted Art Festival 17 Lighted Art Festival 18 Lighted Art Festival 19 "The Phantom of the Opera" has arrived in Napa, and his appearance marks the culmination of months of vocal, acting and dance work by Vintage High School students. The production, put on by the schools concert choir, opens Thursday. The longest-running musical in Broadway history, The Phantom of the Opera uses music to convey themes of drama and romance through its cast, including the titular character the mysterious masked genius who haunts the Paris Opera House. Director Mark Teeters noted during a dress rehearsal Tuesday night that it was the plays longevity its Broadway run lasted 35 years, with a 19-month pause during the pandemic, before the show's closure last April that contributed to it being the choice for this years production. Vintage shares the Napa Valley Unified School District auditorium with Napa High School, so a production of this caliber only comes around every other year. The first Vintage show of this type was in 2006. Phantom was the musical that rose to the top during class discussion, Teeters said as students some in full costume, some dressed in black flowed in and out of the auditorium. In order to be successful, Teeters casts early. Students with main roles such as the Phantom, Christine and Raoul knew they would play those parts before starting summer vacation. That means since then they have been able to hone their craft in preparation for opening night this Thursday. And there are no understudies, Teeters added, which is a risky thing. Even though the word choir is on the playbill, this production is so much more than singing, the director clarified. Around 45 students are involved in the cast who sing, act and dance to the complicated musical numbers throughout the show. The technical crew, however, is made up of students from the Vintage High drama department. Together, the cast and crew are learning perseverance, how to overcome obstacles and working together. It feels good to be connected through music in this way, Teeters said. They can achieve something great all together. Senior Sam Smith, who plays Raoul, said it is all about bringing the emotions to the audience. One challenge, Smith said, was not only honing the singing and acting for the show, but to put himself in the time period. Mannerisms of the 1800s, for example, are much different than how people carry themselves today. Another challenge is juggling "Phantom" with other activities. This show is a big time commitment, but it is totally worth it, he said. Smiths favorite song in the show is All I Ask of You, a duet with Camden Gilgallons Christine. Gilgallon said the role was a good fit for her voice. The Vintage High junior has been involved with the choir class since freshman year and plans to pursue music as a career in the future. Gilgallon auditioned in June and was told on the last day of school shed landed the lead role of Christine. Since then she has been practicing for the vocally demanding role. Asked what advice she would have for other students interested in pursuing music, she said simply, Go for it. Gilgallons favorite song in the show is "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again." Senior Jackson URen said he has enjoyed portraying the dynamic character that is the Phantom of the Opera. URen explained the shadowy figure is more than a villain; he is a multifaceted, tortured, troubled person who has been cast out of society. For URen, his favorite song from the show is not "The Phantom of the Opera but The Point of No Return, which incorporates dance choreography. The Vintage High School Concert Choir production of The Phantom of the Opera opens Thursday, Feb. 29, at 7 p.m. for 10 performances at the Napa Valley Unified School District Auditorium, 2524 Jefferson St., Napa. Tickets are $10 to $20. Additional performances are Fridays at 7 p.m.; Saturdays at 2 and 7 p.m.; and Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 10. For more information, visit vhschoirs.com. PHOTOS: Viva Mariachi! Festival returns to Napa Valley College ST. HELENA The St. Helena City Council appointed Patrick Kenealy to a vacant council seat on Tuesday, while praising a field of four highly qualified applicants. Kenealy has an economics degree from Harvard University and a background in media and venture capital, including as CEO of International Data Group, which published the For Dummies book series and magazines like PC World and Macworld. In 2020 the council appointed him to the Financing Civic Infrastructure Task Force. Kenealy will serve the nine months remaining on Lester Hardys term. Hardy resigned from the council on Jan. 31 to spend more time with his family. Kenealy took the oath of office and was seated at the dais immediately after his appointment, just in time to participate in a discussion of a potential real estate transfer tax. Kenealy recently served on a citizens' committee devoted to that issue. The other three applicants were Doug Boeschen, Jeffrey Green and Chris Warner. The level of quality we had with all of the applicants reflects well on St. Helena, Councilmember Anna Chouteau said. The council considered criteria such as the ability to get up to speed quickly and knowledge of current issues and city processes. The road to Kenealys appointment wasnt smooth. Chouteau and Mayor Paul Dohring said they favored Boeschen or Warner, while Councilmembers Eric Hall and Billy Summers said they preferred Kenealy or Green. With no consensus, Chouteau moved to appoint Boeschen, but Hall and Summers voted no. Then Chouteau moved to appoint Warner, but Hall and Summers voted no. Hall moved to appoint Kenealy, but Dohring and Chouteau voted no. After some more discussion, Dohring moved to appoint Boeschen, but Hall and Summers again voted no. Then the council took a 10-minute break. On a hot mic audible on the live feed, Hall joked to Dohring about settling the matter with Indian leg wrestling or thumb wars. Dohring chuckled, then sighed and told Hall, This is what I wanted to avoid, but we didnt. As soon as the council reconvened, Chouteau moved to appoint Kenealy. Dohring seconded the motion, which passed 4-0. The council interviewed all four applicants remotely last Friday. Kenealy told the council hes been coming to St. Helena for about 25 years and living here full-time for about six years. Ive spent my life on boards of directors, overseeing business units, approving budgets (and) helping managers to make tricky choices in trying times, Kenealy said. It strikes me that the city is in a moment where those kinds of skills would be helpful, and Im happy to try to help out. Loveless appointed to library board In other action Tuesday, the council appointed retired teacher Donald Loveless to a vacant seat on the St. Helena Public Library Board of Trustees. Loveless replaces former board president David Slaby, who resigned in December. Photos: First look at JCB St. Helena Napa Countys representative in the state Senate on Wednesday took his strongest stance yet against an ambitious plan to create a scratch-built city in rural Solano County. Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, decried the city project by the company California Forever as deeply flawed and irresponsible urban sprawl in a statement released Wednesday. He pointed to the communitys potential to eventually attract up to 400,000 residents as a threat to agriculture as well as national security operations at nearby Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield. Ive been skeptical since day one, but reserved my judgment as I gathered more facts. It is now crystal clear to me that this project is bad for Solano County, Dodd said in his statement. This group of mega-rich developers from Silicon Valley are trying to steamroll the surrounding community, bypassing a proper, thorough vetting which they know they cant pass. What theyre proposing will drastically and irreversibly alter the area. Its not right, and its time for all those who value thoughtful policymaking and Solano Countys future to stand up against it. Dodd is part of a group of elected officials in the region to come out against California Forevers plan. U.S. Reps. Mike Thompson and John Garamendi also have criticized the project. The Solano city project emerged in 2023 after a group of largely Silicon Valley-based investors spent six years quietly buying huge tracts of farmland west of Rio Vista under the name Flannery Associates about 62,000 acres, an area about the size of Sacramento. California Forever has said the actual community would occupy 17,500 of those acres. California Forever is seeking to place a ballot initiative before Solano County voters this November to make the zoning and general plan changes necessary to allow the citys construction. The initiative envisions the community hosting some 50,000 residents in its early phases, with eventual growth to as many as 400,000 residents. Go inside the most expensive home sold in Napa County in January. An obscure and nearly forgotten part of the local cultural heritage is Napa County's Black history. During the mid-1800s through the early 1900s, Napa County was home to Black residents whose influence is still felt today. One group of early Black community members to arrive in Napa County were slaves. For example, a Napa County Historical Society manuscript is titled, Slaves in Napa County: A Deed for Sale of Slaves. This deed, dated Jan. 15, 1846, stated John and Mary Scott sold approximately 34 of their slaves to John Field and Charles Carrington for $9,548. Another instance was cited in the book, The Negro Trial Blazers of California. Its author Delilah Beasley wrote of four slaves held on a Napa area ranch, circa 1850s. Aaron Rice, Wash Strains, Old Man Sydes and Old Man Sours were the property of a Walnut Creek slaveholder. Word of their plight reached Rev. Thomas Starr King. This nationally known emancipation champion single-handedly freed them from the Napa County ranch. Within the 1850s-1860s, other Black people began to settle in Napa County. While some were slaves, many of these new local residents were freed individuals and families. One of the first to arrive here were the Seawells, circa 1850. Taking the surname of their slaveholder, William Seawell of Missouri, they came west to Napa with his brother Major Seawell. With the California constitution prohibiting slavery, the Black Seawells were eventually granted their freedom. Miltilda Tilley Seawell, according to her Feb. 2, 1880, Napa Daily Journal obituary ...was a great hearted old lady, aged 86, an excellent nurse, and was respected and loved... Her nephew Abe ...was a very popular old man with always a pleasant word for everyone. His April 24, 1894, Journal obituary continued, aged 80, he was always willing to share what little he had with those who needed assistance. Also mentioned within those accounts was Esther, Abes sister. (Some historical accounts state Abe was Tilleys son as well as Abe was Esthers father. Regardless, they were blood relations.) Esther married Joseph Hatton of Napa. His father, Edward, was one of the first freed Black people to settle in Napa County in the early 1850s. Edward opened a barbershop on Main Street in Napa. During this period in the nations history, Black barbers held a virtual monopoly in the barber trade. Author and historian Sharon McGriff-Payne continued, These business owners served a primarily White clientele. Such business ownership not only allowed African American men a level of independence, it gave them a prestige within the community that was nearly unprecedented. Joseph Hatton eventually joined his father in the family business. He took over its ownership in 1865 when Edward moved to Vallejo and then San Francisco. Joseph was well liked in the community and participated in local events. The contract for the gentlemens hat and dressing room at the Bachelors Ball has been awarded to Joseph Hatton, the pioneer barber of Napa, said the Dec. 18, 1869, Napa County Reporter. Then in 1873, local Senator W.W. Pendegast gave Joseph an ornate walking cane in appreciation of his quality workmanship. Another local Black barber was Frederick Sparrow. His business was also located on Napas Main Street. On a personal note, Sparrow married Jennie B. Hall on Jan. 12, 1877, at the Presbyterian church in Napa. Their newlyweds bliss was marred by Jennies St. Patricks Day incident. According to the March 31, 1877, Reporter, Jennie was enjoying the St. Patricks celebration in Napa when suddenly and without cause city Marshall Thomas Earl grabbed, arrested and jailed Jennie. During her trial, the presiding Justice acquitted Jennie after hearing the testimony. She also won her $5,000 suit against Earl. Her husband Frederick and Joseph Hatton along with other local Black people became very active in the politics and cultural development of their community. The Napa Black community was very important to the early Black Rights movement in the Bay Area and even California, said McGriff-Payne. By 1867 the Napa Black community was making strides toward establishing their own church and school. In April 1867, they had purchased the old pioneer Methodist Episcopal church building for $600. By mid-May the structure had been moved from its original Randolph and Division streets site to further south on Randolph, formerly Washington, street. That church and its congregation of about 30 adults became a part of the Zion African Methodist Episcopal denomination. The church also offered a place to gather and discuss current events and topics. Plus, it provided educational opportunities for Black children. Sabbath schools were the first place where Black children received an education, said McGriff-Payne. Eventually, however, Napas first public school building became their school. Located on School Street, and the current city hall site, its enrollment was 14 to 20 students. Within their church, plans were made to celebrate the ratification of the 15th Amendment which granted suffrage to Black men. On April 10, 1870, the Napa County Black community gathered in Napa to commemorate that auspicious occasion. The exercises began with a 100 gun salute. The keynote address was given by Rev. W.H. Hillery, a San Francisco minister and Black Rights activist. The festivities concluded with an evening of dining, dancing and singing. As part of that celebration, Frederick Sparrow became the first Napa County Black man registered to vote. Within a few days, 36 other local Black men had also registered to vote. A few years later on Nov. 17, 1873, their church was the setting once again for more political planning. The issue was the election of delegates to be sent to the California Convention of Colored People. Those in attendance were the Hattons, Hillery, Jones, Nichols, Sparrow, Want and their chosen delegate William Christopher. In addition to being a local barber, Christopher was an agent for the San Francisco Black newspaper, The Elevator. While the Black residents of Napa were frequently in the spotlight, the local Black populace stretched beyond Napa. According to McGriff-Payne, the 1860s-1890s Napa County census and property records indicated about 200-300 Black people lived in Napa County. Many of those individuals lived in rural Napa County and farmed profitable crops, such as wheat. Some of those who lived in rural Napa County, at least for awhile, included the Canners. Paul Canner arrived in Napa County from Missouri by the late-1850s with a team of oxen he had received with his freedom. Using those oxen, Canner made his living transporting goods locally. While he and his wife Julia lived on Dry Creek Road, they donated some of their land for a schoolhouse before moving to Napa. While the Canners are remembered by a few long-time Napa families, their grandson Wesley Jennings is still remembered by most of St. Helena. The son of Alice Canner and Henry Jennings, Wesley lived all but the first five months of his life in St. Helena. Being a talented musician, Wesley played in local bands. With his mechanical and electrical aptitudes, Wesley built the first radio in St. Helena, wrote historian Kathleen Kernberger. He also maintained the towns street lights. Wesleys wife Eva was a beloved nurse. Her gentle care garnered Eva the St. Helena Citizen of the Year award in 1975. When Wesley passed away in 1980, he was proclaimed a St. Helena Institution, wrote Kernberger. Then, in 1982 when Eva passed away, so did one of the last local links to Napa Countys early Black residents and history. PHOTOS: Napa honors Black History Month with speakers, celebration by Sonam Lama Hyolmo Community land for most Indigenous Karen people in Myanmar is not subject to ownership it is rather a source of their faith, a divine creator of which the Karen are solely the custodians. Despite this belief, Karen communities living in the southern Kayin state (or Kawthoolei, as Karen nationalists call it) have taken part in a land registration effort for more than a decade now. Karen leaders and activists map out ancestral lands in seven districts of the state, register them in a database and provide locals with their own land title certificates all without asking the central government. It was the aftermath of frequent violent attacks that killed and displaced many people from their lands that led to the creation of this registration policy, says Pdoh Saw Lay Say, the Karen head of the Kawthoolei Agriculture Department (KAD), a unit under the main political group of the Karen people, the Karen National Union (KNU). It emerged as a desire to strengthen what outsiders recognize as their lands and protect the ecosystems in this Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot that they have stewarded for generations. To worry about the land and stress over their legal relationship with it is the condition of the Karen people today. Demarcation of customary land. The Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), an environmental organization, provided inputs to a land policy in 2012 and collaborated with the KNU to demarcate agricultural plots and community forests. Image courtesy of KESAN. Amid the decades-long armed conflict between the military wing of the KNU and the governments military regime over self-determination and the latest civil war following the 2021 coup, the lands and forests of Kayin state not only stand as a source of food and biodiversity. They also provide shelter to Karen people from deadly aerial attacks. More than 460 civilians, mostly children, have lost their lives due to the regimes repeated air strikes, according to a statement by the National Unity Government, a group that calls itself the legitimate government and opposes military rule. With data and community-issued land certificates for the local landowners, this policy would further help communities establish their autonomy to better monitor, manage and protect the community lands that have been under constant threat, Lay Say, who is also a member of the Kawthoolei Central Land Committee (KCLC) tells Mongabay. The KCLC is the body that registers customary communal lands and provides the certificates to Karen people. The Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), an environmental organization, helped draft this land policy in 2012 and collaborated with the KNU to demarcate agricultural plots and community forests. With the technical support of the Cadasta Foundation starting in 2017, they mapped and documented the lands of the community across seven districts using computer geographic information systems (GIS). Karen leaders and communities use the computer tools and systems to interpret, document and agree on lands and forest data. Over the last decade, the entities have demarcated 326 kaws (ancestral customary lands), covering an area of 842,820 hectares (more than 2 million acres), including 107 reserved forests, 18 wildlife sanctuaries, 204 community forests and four herbal medicine forests. This covers a total forest area of 2,719,172 hectares (more than 6.7 million acres). For generations, Karen people have shared a sacred relationship with their lands, waters and forests. Despite legally owning the land, sources say they still see themselves in a reciprocal relationship with it; as they take care of the land, their foods, culture and livelihoods are secured. We dont see our lands and forests as commodities, we still see ourselves as their custodians and are assigned to steward them. We have rules and regulations that ethically and legally bind us, says Lay Say. Over the last decade, the entities have demarcated 326 kaws (ancestral customary lands). Image courtesy of KESAN. Agricultural plots surrounding Karen ancestral lands. Image courtesy of KESAN. A step toward autonomy? The land registration policy is part of a desire for decentralized autonomy by various ethnic groups in the country that witnessed a lack of law and order for decades during waves of political conflict following independence. Beginning in 1948 until now, the central Burmese government has exercised laws that state all natural resources within Burma belong to the government, making civilians, including the Karen farmers, grow wary of their authority. They fear and face the reality of losing access to lands for company and state megaprojects, such as the proposed Hatgyi dam in Kayin state, or to mining for gold and other minerals. They now tie their hopes to the KNU and its governance to have better access to their natural resources and protect their land use. However, even in this case, villagers have lost their lands after the KNU allocated them to gold mining sites. These ancestral territories, also known as kaw, are a repository for natural resources and rich biodiversity. In the Salween Peace Park, a Karen-led protected area in the state, villagers reside within teak and bamboo forests home to tigers (Panthera tigris), Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica), clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa) and several species of bears. The Salween River, Asias longest free-flowing river, runs through the park. Demarcating these rich lands during continual air attacks and bombing was not an easy task. When the military attacked by air and fired artillery, people had to flee to save their lives. This disrupted our effort to go from one village to another to help people with land demarcation, survey and registration, said Paul Sein Twa, executive director of KESAN. The use of land mines, restricted movements in military-occupied areas and road blockages also made it difficult to travel in some areas. Discussion on the boundary of customary land Kaw before demarcation. Image courtesy of KESAN. These post-coup conditions and new wave of lawlessness in the country have pushed Karen refugees to clear patches of forest in the Salween Peace Park to cultivate crops to feed their families. They also clear it to obtain timber and bamboo with which to construct shelters while they await a safe time to return home. They are living widely dispersed throughout the forest, many thousands of people, so you can imagine how much of those resources they will need, Sein Twa told Mongabay in 2023. Although this community land registration process is being done without state recognition, Sein Twa says the Burmese government has not yet impeded the land registration process. We have so far not received any negative response from the government, not even before the military coup. The members of Parliament have instead expressed that they would like to study land administration and governance that is led by the KNU, Sein Twa tells Mongabay. But, if the government does not recognize the land registration policy, Sein Twa says they will simply resist and continue fighting for their land rights. When we talk about fighting, we mean it peacefully through political dialogue, he explains. But if one uses militant means well defend. It is the Myanmar army that always invades and plunders our natural resources. Thats why we took arms in defense of our territorial rights. According to Sein Twa, each region in the country is setting out its own governance systems because the central government is on the verge of collapse. Other ethnic groups, including the Mon people, also want to have their lands registered under the KNU to secure their ancestral lands for the next generation, he tells Mongabay. Kawthoolei Agriculture Department (KAD) explains the rights of the villagers given by the land title certificate. Image courtesy of KESAN. Locals receive land title certificates that provide security to villagers, giving a sense of inheritance rights and protection against land-grabs from the government, megaprojects and extractive industries. Image courtesy of KESAN. Tech-based mapping for improved land rights and conservation Previously, the KNU conducted the land registration manually. It wasnt until 2017 that the Cadasta Foundation joined the effort to help document lands and forest data using GIS. By leveraging Cadastas technology, the land documentation process gains efficiency and reliability, ensuring that land ownership data is accurately recorded and securely stored for future reference and analysis, David Palomino, partner support specialist at Cadasta Foundation, tells Mongabay. Because these mapping technologies have helped communities employ instant mapping with fewer resources, it has also enhanced community conservation efforts, says Sein Twa. Traditional knowledge about territories has been integrated with the GIS software, maps, data analysis and storytelling. Palomino says he believes these land title certificates provide security to villagers, ensuring inheritance rights and protection against land-grabs from logging and extractive industries. Participatory methods were employed to map more than 3.5 million hectares [8.6 million acres] of land. By addressing the digital divide, the collaboration ensures that even remote communities with limited internet access can effectively leverage technology to protect their land and resources, Palomino says. Mapping technologies have helped communities employ instant mapping with fewer resources. Image courtesy of KESAN. Villagers draw the map of their customary land which comprises with three villages. Image courtesy of KESAN. To document their ancestral lands, the Karen locals have mapped and collected data directly from the field using their phones, later analyzing and interpreting these data in community groups and agreeing on boundaries to make the process effective and prevent disputes. We have hundreds of communities coming together [in meetings], so using GIS technology helped cover a wider area in a shorter period, further encouraging collective planning and decision-making regarding conservation of the territories, Sein Twa tells Mongabay. The initiative not only aims to demarcate individual lands, but also to establish a framework for the governance of forest and parcel of lands. Through the integration of dashboards, web maps, web applications and the innovative use of story maps, they are not only managing their territories but also leveraging these tools for advocacy purposes, effectively amplifying their voices and showcasing the significance of their land rights and stewardship efforts, Palomino says. The registration effort also acknowledges the cultural significance of important Indigenous sites and heritage and avoids the use of machinery that could potentially disrupt natural habitats. Central government officials were unavailable for comment or did not respond to Mongabays emails. Villagers review the map of their customary land. Image courtesy of KESAN. This article originally appeared on Mongabay. Read the original article here. Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan, who is on an official visit to Iraq, and President of Iraq Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid summed up their private conversation and the meeting of the two countries' delegations in an expanded format with statements to the media. Armenian News-NEWS.am learns about this from the press service of the Armenian president's office. The President of Armenia stated as follows in his speech "Today I am here in Baghdad with great joy, within the framework of the first official and thus historic visit of the President of the Republic of Armenia to the friendly Republic of Iraq. I am grateful for your warm welcome and hospitality. Months ago, we welcomed my counterpart Dr. Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid in Yerevan, within the framework of the historic visit of the President of the Republic of Iraq. Today, my visit to the Republic of Iraq is another historical achievement in the history of our bilateral relations, which testifies to the high level of political dialogue between Armenia and Iraq. During the warm conversation with President Rashid, we discussed the broad agenda of the development of Armenian-Iraqi cooperation, we touched upon many issues of mutual interest. In particular, we emphasized the maintenance of a high-level political dialogue between Armenia and Iraq, the continuity of high-level mutual visits and meetings, and the expansion of the existing legal-contractual field between the two countries in various spheres. We stated with satisfaction the growth rates of trade turnover between Armenia and Iraq in recent years, stressing the importance of deepening trade and economic ties and diversification of imports and exports between our countries. We agreed that the relevant agencies of both sides will work to enhance business ties and ensure mutual active participation in exhibitions and conferences of various fields held in Armenia and Iraq. From the point of view of the development of Armenian-Iraqi relations, we stressed the role of the Armenian-Iraqi Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation and noted with satisfaction that the points of the protocol signed in the result of the commissions regular meeting last September have already begun to be implemented, giving a new impetus to bilateral cooperation. We attached importance to the intensification of cooperation between Armenia and Iraq in the fields of energy, agriculture, high technologies, in particular, digitalization, e-government, technological education and other related fields, as well as in the fields of health, education, science, culture and humanitarian, noting the great potential existing in the above-mentioned spheres. We touched upon the prospects for deepening Armenian-Iraqi cooperation in the fields of defense and security, noting mutual interest in developing ties in these areas. In the context of Armenian-Iraqi relations, we attached importance to the role of the Armenian community in Iraq. Taking advantage of this opportunity, I would like to once again express my deep gratitude to the leadership and people of friendly Iraq for providing shelter, freedom of living and ample opportunities for creativity to the Armenian Genocide survivors. Iraqi Armenians have always been full-fledged citizens of your country, contributing to the prosperity and development of Iraq with their talents and abilities. We discussed a number of issues related to regional developments, stressing the need for a peaceful settlement of existing conflicts based on international law and respect by all countries for the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and equal rights of each other. I presented to my counterpart the work carried out by the Republic of Armenia to establish stability and peace in the South Caucasus. I once again underlined the importance of unblocking the regional infrastructure and in this context the "Crossroads of Peace" project. I would like to once again express my deep gratitude to President Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid for the warm hospitality of the delegation led by me and for holding discussions in a friendly atmosphere." The European Union (EU) Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, has addressed the need for closer ties between the EU and Armenia, as well as the necessity for a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia. During her speech in the European Parliament, she emphasized that Armenia-EU relations are currently undergoing historic moments, Armenpress reported. "Armenia-EU relations have never been stronger than today. This was confirmed two weeks ago at the Armenia-EU Partnership Council. Back in October last year, in this plenary session, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signaled Armenias readiness to get closer to the European Union," said Urpilainen, emphasizing that the EU is working to move forward in that direction. According to her, Armenia's previous decisions, which led to political, economic and security dependence, cannot be overcome overnight. "However, the clear political will of both sides will allow us to move forward in deepening and expanding our partnership. We already have a good foundation, solid frameworks, which is the European Union-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement, said the EU Commissioner for International Partnerships. She noted that together with Armenia, they had undertaken the preparation of a new ambitious partnership program. "We have proposed this new partnership program to be based on our shared values consisting of three pillars. First, we will work to strengthen Armenia's resilience and diversify its economy by expanding cooperation in trade, energy, communications, and aviation security. In order to expand contacts between people, we are discussing options for initiating a dialogue on visa liberalization. Armenia has expressed its strong interest in this issue, and we call on its leadership to intensify work in the direction of relevant reforms. The start of the dialogue on the liberalization of the visa regime will be an important political impulse for the citizens of Armenia and will provide leverage for further reforms. Secondly, the issue of security is becoming an increasingly important element of our relationship. We are pleased to celebrate the first anniversary of the EU mission in Armenia and look forward to its strengthening through the European Peace Facility. We are expanding our dialogue on foreign and security policy issues, including participation in EU unit missions and operations. Thirdly, increased investment will be of great importance for closer economic cooperation. We are committed to supporting Armenia's participation in the construction of an electric cable in the Black Sea, as well as joining other projects aimed at creating closer ties between the countries of the region. Creating closer ties between the countries of the region has great potential to contribute to peace," said the EU Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen. According to her, the EU continues to assist the displaced Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh by providing financial resources to address their socioeconomic problems. ''Our firm commitment to the process of normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains unchanged. We are ready to support stable and lasting peace, based on the principles of recognition of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both countries. We reject any use of force or threat of force and continue to support the peaceful settlement of conflicts," concluded the EU Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen. In a recent article, The Economist described China as "sitting out" the security crisis in the Red Sea and "exploiting the Middle East situation for its own political gains." On global security more broadly, China's Global Security Initiative (GSI) is said to be "targeting the United States with insinuated language" and is "clearly aimed at rallying support" from countries resentful of American hegemony. Well, that could not be further from the truth. At the 60th Munich Security Conference held not long ago, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi explained in detail what the GSI means for the world and how China seeks to be a force for stability in this turbulent world. Addressing root causes The Chinese people say, "To cure a disease, one should treat not just the symptoms but also the root causes." On the Ukraine crisis, only looking at what happened on Feb. 24, 2022, would lead to a one-sided conclusion. A longer-term historical perspective is essential in understanding the roots of the problem. Decades of eastward expansion by NATO cannot be ignored. In the Middle East, likewise, the attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, didn't happen out of thin air. Israel's chronic encroachment on Palestinians' rights and connivance at expanding settlements in Gaza and the West Bank have only fueled Palestinian resentment. In both cases, the root cause lies in lacking a security arrangement that works for all parties concerned. But the West has failed to acknowledge these fundamentals. Its responses are primarily knee-jerk reactions to the most immediate outbreak. It condemns Hamas for the attacks but remains tight-lipped about Israel's decades-long maneuvers to squeeze the Palestinians out of a place to live. The United States is active in mediating this round of conflict. But without a practical arrangement that restores the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, the next flare-up is looming. Absolute security can only be achieved when all countries feel secure. In its GSI, China proposes the vision of a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, where one country's security does not come at the insecurity of others, and the legitimate security concerns of all countries are taken seriously. In that spirit, China proposes to build a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture in the case of the Ukraine crisis and the implementation of a two-state solution where both Palestine and Israel feel secure. Setting disputes by peaceful means "All members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means." This is a core principle upheld by the UN Charter. It corresponds with the thought of the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, who believed that "the enlightened ruler is heedful and the good general cautious at waging wars. This is the way to keep a country at peace and its army intact." Peacefully resolving disputes through dialogue and consultation is what the GSI advocates. Violence will only invite more violence. One of the reasons why the Ukraine crisis rages on and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues to escalate is the confrontational measures taken by some countries to incite, rather than quell, violence. In the case of Ukraine, the United States and other Western countries are effectively fueling the crisis by sending tons of weapons to one side while cornering the other with sanctions. In the Middle East, retaliatory measures escalate regional tension and complicate the situation. Without UN authorization, the United States carried out air strikes on targets in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, trampling their sovereignty. This contradicts American efforts to broker peace in the region and risks incurring endless retaliation. Confrontational moves like supplying weapons, imposing sanctions and military revenge only fuel the fire. The only way to calm fiery antagonists is to bring them to the table. That is why China actively mediated the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, an example of regional countries resolving differences and disagreements through dialogue and consultation. Respecting sovereignty of all countries The total disregard for Iraq and Syria's sovereignty in unauthorized military strikes only exacerbates regional fury and antagonism. In recent years, China has put forth many proposals for settling conflicts. A five-point initiative on achieving security and stability in the Middle East, a four-point proposal for the political settlement of the Syrian issue and a three-point vision for implementing the two-state solution. At the center of these initiatives is respect for the sovereignty, independent choice and leadership of regional countries. The Chinese place a tremendous value on respect. As Mencius once said, those who show respect to others will always be respected in turn. Following that tradition, the GSI states that all countries' internal affairs brook no external interference. It places a high value on respecting sovereignty and dignity. Every country is entitled to defend its security and interests in a world of conflict and volatility. At the Munich Security Conference, Foreign Minister Wang Yi articulated the Chinese way of addressing hotspot issues, including non-interference in another's internal affairs, choosing political settlement over force, and addressing both the symptoms and root causes of conflicts. These are the principles that the GSI supports to navigate a turbulent world. Yi Xin is a current affairs commentator based in Beijing. Young man throws stone at Armenia government building window RFE/RL: Putin loses in Armenias Yerevan, wins in Gyumri in Russia presidential election High-tech minister on removing Russia TV channels from multiplex: Armenia's dignity is at core of decisions Kazakhstan FM considers it necessary to increase trade with Armenia Armenia, Kazakhstan FMs discuss new logistical opportunities Armenia 2041 Foundation launches Galvanizing Diaspora program Kazakhstan FM notes Armenias Crossroads of Peace projects importance for Middle Corridor Armenia, Kazakhstan FMs sign 2024/25 action plan Armenia PM is in Tavush Province, meeting with residents of Voskepar, Baghanis, neighboring villages Archaeologists find inscription of King Antiochus I of Armenian Yervanduni Dynasty, in Turkey Kazakhstan FM is in Armenia (PHOTOS) Rolls-Royce Ghost to be retired and replaced by new Alpina sedan Ardshinbank cardholders can now enjoy a 10% cashback! Withdrawal from lawsuits against Azerbaijan in international courts will cause irreparable damage to Armenia, Armenians EU Council to discuss assistance to Armenia, Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization 7,825 Karabakh residents who left Armenia since September 2023 have not returned, new data say Armenia to submit application for EU membership? Archaeologists discover where legendary British warship that disappeared in 17th century sank Large number of Russians came from Georgia to Armenia to vote in presidential election, envoy says Stoltenberg: NATO hopes to have stable peace between Azerbaijan, Armenia Belgorod attacked by two rockets during the day: there are dead and injured Media: Elon Musk's company is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites for US intelligence Shooting in Pennsylvania: at least three dead, gunman took hostages MEPs appeal to EU leadership to protect cultural heritage of Artsakh Armenians New talks between Israel and Hamas are scheduled in Qatar on Sunday India's national elections will be held from 19 April to 1 June Aliyev: Azerbaijan and Georgia have always supported each other's sovereignty Iran calls for formation of international coalition against Israel Biden told Aliyev of US commitment to peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan Stoltenberg will meet in Yerevan with the President and Prime-minister of Armenia Turkish Foreign Ministry issues anti-Russian statement on Crimea issue Zakharova: There is a historical answer to Armenia's doubts about sincerity of Russia's intentions Zakharova: Moscow discusses with Armenia dragging Yerevan into anti-Russian course Zakharova: Armenia's withdrawal from CSTO should be based on real needs of the country, not on "flirting" with West Amazon and Microsoft suspend their cloud products in Russia Dollar, euro lose value in Armenia Armenia deputy FM: There has been considerable regress regarding visa facilitation with EU Deputy FM: As landlocked country, Armenia recognizes vital importance of inclusive connectivity, open borders FM: Armenia made every effort to prevent de-Armenianization in Karabakh FM to reporters: You will be the first to know when Armenia intends to apply for EU membership Ararat Mirzoyan: All Armenia authorities have negotiated on territorial concessions to Azerbaijan FM: Deepening of Armenia's relations with the West, EU not directed against Russia Mirzoyan: Unprecedented number of senior French officials visited Armenia in 2023 Ararat Mirzoyan: Armenia, Azerbaijan are close to mutual understanding on recognition of 1991 borders Armenia made very active efforts to have minimal mutually acceptable wording with CSTO partners, FM assures FM: Georgia ready to contribute to process of establishing peace in South Caucasus Armenia FM: Events have occurred that have made it impossible to do certain things Armenia FM: Ultimate goal not materialized yet in relations with Turkey FM: There are international players interested in Armenia ceasing to exist Mirzoyan: No agreement between Armenia, Azerbaijan to withdraw international lawsuits against each other Armenia FM reiterates PM's arguments on handover of 4 villages in Tavush Province to Azerbaijan FM: Armenia still doesnt understand how CSTO partners present their area of responsibility in South Caucasus Mirzoyan: EU monitoring mission in Armenia has become factor of stability on Azerbaijan border Dennis Francis: UN hopes for signing of Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty FM: 23 Armenians still kept in custody in Azerbaijan Armenia FM: Still not many tangible results on fundamental issues, we are still negotiating with Azerbaijan European Commission official underscores provision of assistance to people affected by Karabakh conflict Peter Stano: Armenia can apply for EU membership MFA: Genocide prevention agenda is among Armenias priorities Russia holding presidential elections US intelligence warns of potentially devastating new pandemic Newspaper: Birth rate in Armenia 19% lower than last year Stoltenberg: NATO sought to maintain stronger relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan Georgian Prime Minister to visit Armenia Premier receives IMF Armenia mission chief Anne-Laurence Petel-led delegation to arrive in Armenia FM: Armenia looks into prospects of further deepening partnership with EU New technologies at the core of rural infrastructure development Russia is world leader in nuclear technology, Putin says Vardges Sureniants Salome painting returns to National Gallery of Armenia exhibition Dollar drops, euro rises in Armenia Sunak: There is historic opportunity to put an end to Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict Armenia authorities, who paid $6M for Snoop Dogg concert, still dont know when this postponed event will be held Deputy economy minister: Matter of opening India-Iran-Armenia trade corridor being discussed Armenia official: Trade with India amounted to $380M in 2023 ICC NCA head: India considers Armenia an important bridge to enter larger markets Anne-Laurence Petel welcomes resolution on EU-Armenia relations India ambassador: We are happy that our relations with Armenia are developing in defense sector also Indians are now 2nd largest community in Armenia after Russians, envoy says India-Armenia business forum kicks off in Yerevan Armenia parliament speaker on European Parliament resolution: We thank European partners for this important step PM: European Parliament resolution is another opportunity to discuss vision of Armenia's future Azerbaijans next target in Karabakh is Artsakh State University Russia deputy FM in Turkey, discusses process of normalizing Armenia-Azerbaijan relations 14-karat gold LEGO piece sells for over $18,000 Newspaper: Armenia to leave CSTO on Putin's reelection day? Young lords 1,200-year-old tomb with treasure discovered in Panama European Parliament resolution demands Azerbaijan troops withdrawal from Armenia territory European Parliament adopts resolution proposing to consider possibility of Armenia's candidacy for EU membership Russia MFA spox: We are concerned by Armenia leaderships sometimes offensive rhetoric on CSTO topics Armenia government plans to have Kapan city airport serve international flights as well Zakharova on Russian border guards removal from Yerevan airport: Hardly meets Armenia security interests Armenia defense minister, Austria envoy, military attache discuss enhancing cooperation (PHOTOS) Armenia official: Those 4 villages in Tavush Province are not in our administrative territorial division European Parliament passes resolution proposing to consider possibility of EU membership candidacy to Armenia The Kremlin comments on PM Pashinyan's statements about possibility of Armenia leaving CSTO US envoy to Armenia underscores empowering women to participate meaningfully at all levels of conflict prevention RFE/RL: Armenia ready to find solutions, including in most problematic areas of Tavush Province, government says The number of Team mobile subscribers is over 1 million French writer Sylvain Tesson to visit Armenia Marina Kaljurand, Chair of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with the South Caucasus, spoke at the European Parliament session dedicated to Armenia-EU relations. Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan clearly said that Armenia stands with Europe and is ready for close cooperation with the EU. This is due not only to the economic situation, but also to the country's commitment to European values and the difficult security situation, Kaljurand said. Also, she welcomed the EU civilian monitoring mission in Armenia and the latter's engagement in the peace plan with Azerbaijan. The Estonian member of the European Parliament expressed a view that now is the right time to start a dialogue on EU visa liberalization with Armenia and support the latter's broader inclusion in communication and other regional programs. At the same time, Armenia has a lot of work to do, and it largely depends on Russia, and the Russian army is stationed there, she added. And after 30 years of suffering, the people of Armenia and Azerbaijan deserve to live peacefully and safely Marina Kaljurand said, and she called on the leadership of Azerbaijan to accept the comprehensive peace agreement, which provides for recognition of each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as non-use of force. During the work on the text of the peace treaty, there were certain articles that were agreed upon, but in subsequent editions, Azerbaijan withdrew from the agreement. Sargis Khandanyan, an MP of the ruling majority Civil Contract Faction and Chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, told about this to reporters at the NA Wednesday "We [i.e. Armenia] have continuously insisted that the agreements on the agreed articles should be maintained," he said. According to Khandanyan, it is very important that the negotiations on the document take place not online, but by the actual negotiations. In his view, it is not a revelation that Azerbaijan is not a reliable partner. "The whole meaning of our negotiations is to reduce tension and form a certain framework of negotiation cooperation, after which it will be possible to establish stability in the region," Khandanyan said. He noted that not making progress in the negotiations constantly raises fears that the tension may increase. "But I am glad that at this moment the negotiations have resumed," Khandanyan added. According to him, the logic is that if there are negotiations, then the tension should decrease and a certain stability should be formed. You are here: World Flash Humanitarian aid dropped by Egyptian air forces is seen over the southern Gaza Strip, on Feb. 27, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] Egyptian air forces airdropped humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Egypt's Al-Qahera News TV reported. The report cited a high-level security source who said the airdrops, which were participated by the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, included food and medical supplies for the besieged territory. Egyptian Minister of Social Solidarity Nivine El-Kabbag said on Feb. 16 that Egypt had sent nearly 200,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza, which accounts for 60 percent of the total relief from more than 37 countries. Israel has been attacking Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, after the militant group's surprise raid on southern Israel that killed about 1,400 people. The Israeli blockade and airstrikes have killed 29,878 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry's statement on Tuesday. We categorically do not accept the reproaches of the Armenian authorities regarding the alleged failure of the CSTO to fulfill its mandate and obligations towards Yerevan during the well-known events that took place in 2020 and 2021. Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), stated this at Wednesdays press briefingand commenting on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's statement that the Collective Security Treaty has not been implemented with respect to Armenia, especially in 2021 and 2022, and therefore Armenia's participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is "frozen." "Also, I want to remind that in September 2022, at the request of the Armenian side, an assessment mission of the organization's secretariat and joint staff was promptly formed, which was sent to the border regions of the country. Based on the results, the CSTO Collective Security Council prepared a decision on deploying a [CSTO] monitoring mission in Armenia. It is not our fault, nor the other members of the CSTO that this balanced decision, which planned to provide the [Armenian] republic with technico-military assistance and a number of other measures, was rejected by the Armenian authorities under a baseless pretext. Moreover, in return, Yerevan demonstratively chose to invite fake monitors from the EU. The known facts speak for themselves and leave no doubt about the zero effectiveness of the work of those [EU] representatives. We proceed from the fact that the Republic of Armenia continues to remain a full member of the CSTO, with all the rights and obligations arising from this status. At the same time, we note with regret that the dynamics of Yerevan's participation in the organization's events has decreased, and this clearly does not correspond to the interests of the friendly Armenian people and the tasks of ensuring the country's security. We hope that Yerevan will come to understand that existing concerns should be discussed and resolved through calm, confidential dialogue, rather than endlessly, chaotically throwing them into the public space. If we talk about the style of the [aforesaid] statement [by Pashinyan] and the logic of its construction, then, to be honest, I don't quite understand [it]. Just recently the representatives of Armenia said that the CSTO has left Armenia. If the CSTO, according to Yerevan, has left Armenia, how can Armenia freeze its participation in it?" said the official representative of the Russian MFA. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's words about Russia's alleged calls for a coup d'etat in the republic have no basis; Moscow has never allowed even an insinuation of such a thing. Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), stated this at Wednesdays press briefing "Those claims of the Prime Minister of Armenia (...) have no basis. Russian officials have never even insinuated at overthrowing legitimately elected authorities anywhere. I would like the authorities of Yerevan, when they talk about such things, to remember that we profess such an approach to the current authorities of Yerevan and the previous authorities of Yerevan and indeed to any sovereign state. A logical question arises: Those who are now in Yerevan, do they adhere to this logic in connection with other countries or in connection with their own internal political processes? It seems to me that it would be good to think about this topic; we remember the recent history that happened several years ago. The representatives of the Armenian authorities can boast of the same approach towards the former leadership of Armenia," concluded the official representative of the Russian MFA. At the same time, Zakharova reminded that Russia and Armenia remain allies, but "for some reason, they pay the least attention to it in Yerevan." "They look at some information component under a magnifying glass. We have time-tested official relations, and under it there is a legal basis," said the official representative of the Russian MFA. The Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, Armen Grigoryan, once again distorts the facts. Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), stated this at Wednesdays press briefingand commenting on Grigoryans statement that despite the presence of the Russian military near the Armenian border village of Nerkin Hand, the Russian side could not prevent the latest incident there with Azerbaijan. "We evaluate such statements solely negatively. This is not the first time that the Secretary of the Security Council [of Armenia] has distorted the facts, just, I believe, to please someone in the West. Perhaps we can find some reasons to criticize Russia. There are no Russian military personnel on the territory of Nerkin Hand. According to the agreement with the Armenian side, in 2021, an FSB [(i.e., the Russian Federal Security Service)] border service position was deployed. But at the same time, now, as we know, an investigation is being conducted in Armenia regarding the implementation of the order to prevent provocations and maintain restraint in the border zone. We consider the attempts to belittle the Russian border guards to be counterproductive, as they have been monitoring the borders of the [Armenian] republic for 30 years and have repeatedly proven that they are in demand. Unlike our border guards, the fake EU monitors [in Armenia] are not doing what they are there for. Their main occupation is intelligence activities against Russia and Iran. And, of course, a little self PR," said the official representative of the Russian MFA. SIUs Journey to the Eclipse talk to focus on NASA mission to the sun by Tim Crosby CARBONDALE, Ill. A series of public talks about the upcoming total eclipse continues Friday, March 1, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale with a scientist discussing a solar probe orbiting the sun. Nour Rawafi, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and lead project scientist of NASAs Parker Solar Probe mission, will speak at 3 p.m. at Guyon Auditorium at Morris Library. The free, public event is the second-to-last Journey to the Eclipse talk planned at SIU prior to the April 8 total solar eclipse. The Parker Solar Probe was launched in August 2018 with a goal of reaching a solar orbit and collecting data on solar activity and space weather. On Dec. 24, 2024, the spacecraft is scheduled to reach its closest approach fewer than 4 million miles from the sun. At this relatively close distance, the probe will experience heat and radiation like no spacecraft before it. The data collected by Parker Solar Probe will help scientists learn about the suns atmosphere and how solar activity can affect life on Earth. Rawafi earned his doctorate from the University of Paris XI in Orsay, France. Before joining Johns Hopkins in 2008, he worked at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the National Solar Observatory in Arizona. The Journey to the Eclipse series is aimed at bringing together experts in astronomy, solar eclipses and other sun-related topics for students, faculty and staff of SIU, as well as members of the Southern Illinois community. The series began in April 2023. Each talk is at 3 p.m. on the first Friday of each month in Guyon Auditorium. The talks also will stream live via Zoom and be recorded. For more information and links go to SIUs eclipse website. The final Journey to the Eclipse talk is set for Friday, April 5, just days before the eclipse that Monday. PNN Bangalore (Karnataka) [India], February 28: The School of Allied Health Sciences (SAHS) at JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) maintains its commitment to excellence in cancer biology education with its established Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Master of Science (MSc) programs in Cancer Biology. As pioneers in the field, JAIN University has solidified its reputation as one of the premier institutions for cancer biology education in Bangalore and Karnataka. Leaders in Cancer Biology Education SAHS has been at the forefront of cancer biology education, offering comprehensive programs designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to address the complexities of cancer research and treatment. The BSc and MSc programs in Cancer Biology are meticulously crafted to provide students with a deep understanding of the biology of cancer, from molecular mechanisms to clinical applications. BSc in Cancer Biology Bachelor of Science (BSc) program in Cancer Biology at JAIN University stands as a cornerstone in the institution's commitment to shaping future leaders in oncological sciences. Offering a comprehensive curriculum that delves into the intricacies of cancer cell biology, tumor immunology, and genetic predispositions, this program provides students with a solid foundation in understanding the biology of cancer. Through practical laboratory sessions and experiential learning opportunities, students gain invaluable hands-on experience, preparing them for careers in cancer research, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare. JAIN has the reputation as one of the best colleges for BSc cancer biology in Bangalore, where graduates emerge to make significant contributions to the fight against cancer. MSc in Cancer Biology Master of Science (MSc) program in Cancer Biology represents a pinnacle of advanced education in the field of oncological sciences. Designed for students seeking to deepen their understanding of cancer biology and pursue careers in research, academia, or industry, this program offers an immersive experience in cutting-edge research methodologies and techniques. From exploring the molecular mechanisms of cancer to investigating novel therapeutic strategies, students engage in rigorous coursework and hands-on research under the guidance of esteemed faculty members. As one of the best colleges for MSc Cancer Biology in Bangalore, JAIN continues to uphold its commitment to excellence, producing graduates who are poised to drive innovation and make significant contributions to cancer research and treatment. Experiential Learning Opportunities Students enrolled in the BSc and MSc programs benefit from a combination of theoretical coursework, practical laboratory sessions, and hands-on training, allowing them to develop critical thinking, analytical skills, and a solid foundation in oncological sciences. The faculty members at JAIN University are experts in their respective fields, providing mentorship and guidance to students as they navigate the intricacies of cancer biology courses. State-of-the-Art Facilities JAIN University boasts state-of-the-art laboratories and research facilities equipped with the latest technologies and instrumentation to support cutting-edge research in cancer biology. From advanced microscopy techniques to molecular biology equipment, students have access to the tools and resources needed to conduct meaningful research and contribute to the advancement of the field. Graduate Success Graduates of the BSc and MSc programs in Cancer Biology from SAHS at JAIN have gone on to pursue successful careers in academia, research institutions, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms, and healthcare organisations. Their contributions to the field of cancer biology have been significant, driving innovation and making a positive impact on society. Continued Excellence JAIN University remains committed to providing students with the highest quality education and training in cancer biology. With its established reputation as one of the best colleges for cancer biology in Bangalore and Karnataka, it continues to attract top-tier students and faculty members dedicated to advancing the field of oncological sciences. Certified Accomplishments of Jain (Deemed-to-be University): JAIN University, holding an A++ rating by NAAC, is recognized as one of India's Top universities and falling in the list of top paramedical colleges in Bangalore, prioritising entrepreneurship, research, sports, and academic excellence. SAHS, an intrinsic institute within the Jain Group of Institutions, now welcomes admissions for paramedical courses. How to Apply: For further details and to embark on a bright and successful medical career, interested individuals are encouraged to visit the official website: https://sahs.jainuniversity.ac.in/ or you can contact: +91 8050473797 for all the admission related queries. Join JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), known for its Top paramedical college and allied health science courses that encourage you to chart your course to a thriving and fulfilling medical profession! JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) is a leading institution dedicated to providing quality education across diverse disciplines. Committed to academic excellence, innovation, and holistic development, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) prepares students to become leaders and change-makers in their chosen fields. Through its various schools and programs, the university offers a dynamic learning environment enriched by renowned faculty, state-of-the-art facilities, and industry collaborations. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) NewsVoir Gandhinagar (Gujarat) [India], February 28: Lilavati Foundation Promoters setting up a world class facility in Gift City Gujarat. Lilavati Hospital has been voted as the best hospital in Mumbai and received several awards. It's been accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Healthcare Organization (NABH) under the Quality Council of India. Lilavati Hospital Gift City which is completely distinct and separate from the Lilavati Hospital Mumbai shall be a 300-bed hospital with state-of-art equipment having over 400 highly qualified doctors/consultants and with a staff strength of around 3000 personnel. Lilavati Foundation announced today that it has engaged Mayo Clinic Global Consulting to provide strategic advice on organizational objectives and clinical practices at Lilavati Hospital in GIFT City, Gujarat. Under the consulting contract, Lilavati will consult with Mayo Clinic experts on several projects aimed at enhancing patient safety, patient experience and best practices at the hospital. Mayo Clinic will provide expertise to Lilavati to advance clinical outcomes and standardize care delivery, including advice on infrastructure, ambulance services, recruitment and training, research, procurement and accreditation. Charu Mehta, Promoter of Lilavati Hospital, Gift City, Gujarat said that in keeping with the Prime Ministers vision of bringing world class health care at affordable rates to India was topmost in mind when establishing this consulting agreement with Mayo Clinic. Mr. Prashant Mehta, Promoter of Lilavati Hospital, Gift City, Gujarat expressed enthusiasm about the agreement, stating, "This marks a significant milestone in our commitment to delivering exceptional healthcare services to the people of Gujarat. With Mayo Clinic's guidance and expertise, we are confident in our ability to set new benchmarks in healthcare excellence." Through Mayo Clinic Global Consulting, Mayo Clinic extends its expertise to independent healthcare providers wherever they are located. The Mayo Clinic program provides a tailored approach by designing engagements that help clients get the right answers from the right experts to help them achieve their goals. Mayo Clinic is a global leader in serious and complex healthcare. Mayo Clinic Global Consulting is designed to leverage Mayo Clinic's unique, comprehensive capabilities and knowledge. The program was developed to help clients improve administrative efficiencies and effectiveness to enhance medical practice and patient care through the application of Mayo Clinic's integrated clinical care and practice models. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) PNN Gurgaon (Haryana) [India], February 28: Market Xcel is all set to unveil the 3rd edition of its Brand Xcel report at the Brand Xcel 2024 Conclave on March 1, 2024, at Crowne Plaza, Gurugram. The research and insights industry's leading-edge event will honour and award brands that connect best with consumers with the Brand Xcel Excellence Awards. The awards are based on and validated through extensive consumer surveys. Empowering entrepreneurship and innovations, this year the conclave has joined forces with Startup India as the startup partner which underscores its commitment and support to India's booming startup ecosystem. Along with the awards ceremony, the event will also see the release of the Brand Xcel report, an exhaustive study conducted across 32000 consumers, 2000+ brands, 25+ categories, and 20+ states. The theme for this year's edition - 'Mind Mapping the Great Indian Consumer' - promises an exploration into what makes the Indian consumer tick. Using a meticulous methodology, the Brand Xcel study dives into the dynamics shaping consumer culture and unveils the 3 Indias- India 1, India 2, and India 3 as well as nuances of generational shifts across different cohorts. The report offers a look at the preoccupations and changing behaviours of the Indian consumer. A stellar lineup of speakers at the event will add colour and context to the research. There are keynotes from Sandip Ghose, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, Birla Corporation Limited, and Sandeep Das, Global Foresight Leader, Mars Wrigley, and insightful panel discussions featuring Shuvadip Banerjee, Chief Digital Marketing Officer, ITC LTD;Chandan Mukherji, Director & Senior Vice President, Strategy, Marketing & Communication, Nestle' India; Ashim Sharma, Senior Partner & Group Head Business Performance Improvement Consulting (Auto, Engg. & Logistics) at Nomura Research Institute; Hamsini Shivakumar, Founder-Leapfrog Strategy Consulting; Jayanto Banerjee, Chief Operating Officer at Hakuhodo India among others. This year's event has been curated with the help of an advisory board that includes Sanjeev Handa, Sr. V.P - PR & Communications at Maruti Suzuki India Limited; Prakash Sharma, Co-founder of 1001 stories; and Lloyd Mathias, Angel Investor. As Prakash Sharma, Co-founder of 1001 Stories says, "India needs to curate and record its own Marketing Vocab. After all, what do Boomer, Millennial, and Gen Z even mean in an Indian Context? A more accurate articulation would be Pre-Lib, Post-Lib Lib and Gen Jio. I am curious what we will all learn at Brand Xcel 2024." Additionally, the BrandXcel 2024 report has guest columns from the foremost thinkers in India's marketing domain. Sharing his thoughts on the upcoming Brand Xcel report, Sanjeev Handa, Sr. V.P - PR & Communications, Limited stated, "Mind Mapping the Great India Consumer' stands as the theme for BRAND XCEL 2024, reflecting a commitment to understanding and engaging with the diverse consumer base of India. It offers brands the opportunity to align with the dynamic patterns of India's market, setting the stage for a future of impactful connections and strategic growth". The Market Xcel team is super excited and delighted to welcome the branding and marketing fraternity for the Brand Xcel 2024 Conclave. To catch dynamic discussions, meet the cream of the marketing fraternity and cheer on brands at a glittering awards ceremony, the Brand Xcel 2024 Conclave is where you want to be. Discover your "mojo" at the ultimate branding and marketing event of the year. For more details, visit:https://www.market-xcel.com/brand-xcel/conclave For registrations: https://lnkd.in/gAkdJK6A (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) Flash Rescuers inspect the site of an Israeli missile attack in Homs city, Syria, Feb. 7, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] A Chinese envoy on Tuesday called for actions to mitigate the repercussions of the Gaza conflict's escalation on Syria. "Over the past four months, Israel has continued to launch airstrikes on various locations in Syria through the occupied Golan Heights, about which China is deeply concerned. We call on all parties to exercise restraint and to avoid exacerbating tensions," Dai Bing, charge d'affaires of China's permanent mission to the United Nations, told the Security Council briefing on Syria. "Countries outside the region should play a constructive role in deescalating the situation and preventing the conflict from spreading and expanding," the envoy added. "China welcomes the successful convening of the 21st round of High-Level Meetings on Syria within the framework of the Astana format as well as special envoy (Geir) Pedersen's extensive engagement with all parties on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254," the envoy said. Dai urged the international community to uphold the "Syrian-led and Syrian-owned principle," encourage dialogue and consultations, and find a solution acceptable to all parties. "We believe help from regional countries will inject new momentum into the political settlement of the Syrian issue," Dai said. "We support the Syrian Government in taking necessary measures to combat terrorism, maintain security and stability, and eliminate the long-term threats to the political process in Syria. The international community must combat all terrorism in Syria with zero tolerance." The ambassador noted that over the past year, the United Nations and the Syrian Government have maintained effective and smooth communication and cross-border points have been extended several times. "We urge the parties concerned to show sincerity and make positive progress in cross-line operations. As humanitarian funding for Syria has long been insufficient, the international community should increase its input in humanitarian assistance to Syria and support humanitarian operations and early recovery projects throughout the country," he said. Dai stressed that unilateral sanctions and the plundering of resources have long impeded Syria's economic recovery, social development, and improvement of people's livelihood, thereby exacerbating the humanitarian disaster in Syria. "We urge the countries concerned to immediately end their unlawful acts and foreign forces to immediately end their illegal military presence in Syria," the envoy said. PNN Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], February 28: Sciences Po has chosen its longstanding academic partner, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, to launch its first Dual Degree program in India. Sciences Po is a world-leading university in social sciences located in Paris, ranked No. 3 globally for international relations and politics by QS rankings 2023, and the Alma Mater of all the French Presidents since the 1980s, including Emmanuel Macron. TISS is a prestigious institution based in Mumbai, renowned in India for its leadership in social sciences education, research, and advocacy. Delivered over a two-year period in English, the Dual Master's degree concentrates on international urban development issues. The first year is taught in Paris within the Master's program Governing the Large Metropolis (GLM) at Sciences Po's Urban School, and the second year at the School of Habitat Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai. At the end of the 2 years, the successful students will be awarded two Master's degrees, one from Sciences Po and one from TISS. Sukriti Issar, Academic Director of the Dual Degree Program in Global Urban Development at Sciences Po, said: "Graduates of this double degree will be uniquely placed to analyze different urban contexts, to propose novel solutions to urban problems, and to have an interdisciplinary foundation in urban policy and governance". Manjula Bharathy, Academic Director of the Dual Degree Program at TISS, added: "It is the only global program that will grant a Dual Degree in Urban Development with training in India and Europe. It offers students an extraordinary opportunity to be trained in two of the world's most dynamic metropolitan areas, in Mumbai and Paris, each of them a vast laboratory for urbanism, and sharing many of the key challenges of cities today". The curriculum ensures that the students develop substantial work experience alongside their academic journey. At Sciences Po, they first have to complete a collective group project with an external partner organization. Every year, local authorities, companies, institutions, NGOs, and consultancy firms indeed submit real work cases to Sciences Po students. Additionally, a study trip to an international metropolis is also organized for students to grasp the economic, social, environmental, and cultural issues of the area and meet local stakeholders. In the second year at TISS, the professional immersion takes place through internships in policy practices or on-the-ground urban studios in Mumbai. After graduation, Indian students will have the opportunity to pursue a career in France as they will be eligible for a 2-year post-study visa (APS), but they can choose to work in India or any region of the world. The Urban School has connections with urban professionals and research groups around the globe, including in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Mexico City, Istanbul, Cairo, Manila, Mumbai, New Delhi, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Nairobi, and Johannesburg amongst others. Students will pay the tuition fees of Sciences Po during their first year of study, and the fees of the School of Habitat Studies at TISS during the second year of the program. Funding opportunities are available to fund the first year: the Charpak Scholarship run by the French Embassy, the RD Sethna Loan Scholarship by the RD Sethna Scholarship Fund and the We Make Scholars Loan Scholarship. Interested students in the Dual Degree program in Global Urban Development between Sciences Po and TISS have until April 7, 2024, to submit their application on Sciences Po's website. They are also welcome to contact Sciences Po's office in India to receive personal guidance on their application. To know more about the Sciences Po-TISS Dual Degree in Global Development: https://www.sciencespo.fr/ecole-urbaine/en/dual-degree-global-urban-development-tata-institute-social-sciences-tiss To contact Sciences Po's India office: neha.khanna@sciencespo.fr Sciences Po: Sciences Po is a leading social sciences university in the heart of Paris, created in 1872. The university ranks world No.3 in QS rankings 2023 for politics and international relations. Half of the 15,000 Sciences Po students are international, hailing from 150 countries. The 90,000 Alumni include all the French Presidents since the 1980s. Sciences Po is known for its commitment to academic excellence, interdisciplinary research, and international collaborations with 480 universities around the globe. Today, the institution continues to shape the future of social sciences education globally. To know more about Sciences Po: www.sciencespo.fr/en Tata Institute of Social Sciences: The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) was established in 1936 in Mumbai. Since its inception, the Vision of the TISS has been to be an institution of excellence in higher education that continually responds to changing social realities through the development and application of knowledge, towards creating a people-centred, ecologically sustainable and just society that promotes and protects dignity, equality, social justice and human rights for all. To know more about TISS: https://tiss.edu/ (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) Sunny Deol looked dapper in a grey suit that he paired with a black shirt. The host of the screening, Kiran Rao looked beautiful in a yellow saree as she posed for the cameras with Aamir Khan, the film's producer. Aamir's daughter, Ira Khan also attended the screening with her husband Nupur Shikhare. The screening of the film was attended by several Bollywood celebrities, like Karan Johar, Konkona Sen Sharma, Amol Parashar, Ali Fazal, Radhika Apte, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and Sayani Gupta among others. Aamir and Sunny are all set to work together in the 'Ghajini' actor's next venture titled 'Lahore 1947', which will be directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. 'Lahore 1947' is being produced under the banner of Aamir Khan Productions. This project marks the collaboration of Sunny Deol, Santoshi, and Aamir Khan for the first time. This film will also mark the 17th venture under Aamir Khan Productions (AKP). Coming back to 'Laapataa Ladies', Kiran Rao's directorial has been selected as the opening film of the second edition of the IFFM Summer Festival. The film will have its Australian premiere on 29th February at the festival ahead of its release on 1st March 2024, read a statement. Recently, makers unveiled the new track 'Beda Paar' from the film. Taking to Instagram, T-Series treated fans to the official video of the song, captioning it, "Saiyaanji ke saath #BedaPaar toh lagna hi tha. Song out now." The song takes the audience into the rural milieu of the film and is themed on wedding farewell. Sona Mohapatra lent her vocals for the song while the lyrics were penned by Prashant Pandey. The track has been composed by Ram Sampath and packs vintage vibes. The film's story is set in 2001 in rural India about two young brides who get separated during a train journey and what happens when Kishan, a police officer, takes it upon himself to probe the missing case. The film has been produced under the banner of Aamir Khan Productions and Kindling Productions, with the script by Biplab Goswami. (ANI) Acing negative roles with panache is cult classics such as 'Do Raaste', 'Prem Nagar', 'Upkar', and 'Bobby', screen legend Prem Chopra found fame in the Indian film industry and established himself as the undisputed king when it came to playing the villain. Not only did he carve a niche for himself in the Indian film industry but also courted fame overseas with some iconic negative roles. Following in the footsteps of actors and his juniors in the industry--Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher and Anil Kapoor, Prem Chopra made his Hollywood debut in 2012 with the film 'Heartland'. However, in an exclusive interview with ANI, Chopra revealed that he had resolved never to do movies in English. While opening up on his debut Hollywood film 'Heart Land' while refusing to mouth English dialogues, Chopra said, "I had an offer...somebody came to me and said they were making an English film, a Hollywood production with American actors in it. He told me that it was a tribute to 'Godfather' (cult crime trilogy directed by iconic American auteur Francis Ford Coppola). I jumped on it thinking I was playing the 'Godfather'. However, when I arrived at the set, I was told that it wasn't the 'Godfather', and 'Godfather' was merely a character in the film. I did some American films, including 'Heartland', which was released all over America. I played a Sardar in the film." Sharing the story around his refusal to do films where was he was required to deliver dialogues in English, Chopra said, "The film ('Heartland') was Punjabi-English. Mostly it was English. However, I refused to deliver dialogues in English. There is a good story around it. My son-in-law is in America. He sent an English girl over to me to seek my approval for their marriage on his behalf. I kept looking at that girl, thinking to myself if it was, at all, possible to let my son marry someone to who represented a community of people who are unlike some of my best friends. We all used to be in the army. I said (he could never let his son marry into a community of) people, who treated Indians like animals, were responsible for the death of one of my best friends and did not even give him a respectable funeral. I said I had made up my mind not to speak this language at all. However, I told the girl: 'considering the surroundings you grew up in and finding you to be a very simple person, I deem you fit for the marriage.' This is the back story." Helmed by Fred Holmes, 'Heartland', apart from Prem Chopra, also featured Stephan M Singh, Amelia Jackson-Gray and Divya Dutta. Chopra has worked in more than 400 films during his career and is fondly remembered for some of his iconic negative roles. His unforgettable one-liner "Prem naam hai mera... Prem Chopra" (Prem is my name...Prem Chopra) from the Rishi Kapoor starrer 'Bobby' got him overnight stardom as a villain. In a six-decade-old career in the industry, Prem Chopra acted in several films such as 'Upkaar', 'Purab Aur Pashchim', 'Do Raaste', and 'Phool Bane Angaarey', among others. He was recently seen in the action-thriller 'Animal', which also starred Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol and Rashmika Mandanna in lead roles. (ANI) Veteran star Prem Chopra has proved himself to be an actor par excellence with his diverse roles. From playing a quintessential villain to multifaceted characters, his contribution is unmatched. He recently celebrated 65 years in the film industry. Be it his impactful performance in 'Chaudhary Karnail Singh' in 1960 to playing a layered character in Sandeep Reddy Vanga's 'Animal', his on-screen presence has left the audience in awe of his acting skills. The ace actor started as a journalist in Times of India and later went on to prove his acting mettle in movies such as 'Shaheed', 'Upkar' and others. He was cast as Sukhdev in 'Shaheed', a 1965 patriotic film directed by S Ram Sharma and starring Manoj Kumar, Kamini Kaushal, and Pran. Iftekhar, Nirupa Roy, Prem Chopra, Madan Puri, and Anwar Hussain starred in supporting parts. He told ANI, "I was given an opportunity in 'Shaheed'. I played Sukhdev in it. So I received a lot of attention." Chopra calls it a "good" role. "I felt great since I wanted a good role. Then came the main break, 'Upkar'. Again with Manoj Kumar. In between, I did a picture with Vijay Anand, 'Teesri Manzil', 'Woh Kaun Thi?', and 'Mera Saaya', all Raj Khosla pictures that were huge hits. The songs were quite popular. People used to be talented. And they would strive very hard to achieve it. So that was all nice. And everything started to move." His acting career was fraught with difficulties, and carving out a niche for himself among giants such as Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, and Dev Anand was never simple. Despite his looks, he did not have a huge break until he landed a main role in the 1960 Punjabi film 'Chaudhary Karnail Singh', which starred Jagdish Sethi, Prem Chopra, Madan Puri, and Jabeen Jalil. Chopra shared how while working in the circulation department in the Times of India, he got a role in the Punjabi film. "I was spotted there by somebody and he said, can you come with me to the Ranjit Studios? He said, it's the role of the leading man but in a Punjabi film. Beggars are no choosers. So I said, let's see how it works out. And that was 'Chaudhary Karnail Singh'. It was the biggest hit of that time. We got a National Award and the biggest hit in Punjabi films. " In his career spanning nearly six decades, he has worked in films such as 'Upkar', ' Dastaan', 'Gora Aur Kala', and Kati Patang'. He was recently seen in the action thriller film 'Animal' which also starred Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol and Rashmika Mandanna in the lead roles. (ANI) Union Minister Pralhad Joshi strongly condemned the alleged pro-Pakistan slogans raised by the supporters of Congress leader Syed Nasir Hussain in the Vidhana Soudha after he was elected as the Rajya Sabha member. Joshi alleged that the grand old party was directly "supporting" Pakistan. Reacting to the incident that took place on Tuesday, Pralhad Joshi spoke in a video message said, "Today, after the victory of Nasir Hussain in the Rajya Sabha election from the Congress party, in the Vidhana Soudha itself, which is the most sacred building of the democracy of Karnataka, pro-Pakistani, 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans have been raised by the Congress party workers." Joshi also took a hit at Rajya Sabha member Nasir Hussain, alleging that he was trying to mislead people about the incident. "Instead of condemning this, Nasir Hussain is trying to mislead and say that someone is spreading false information or news, which is more dangerous. The Congress is now directly supporting Pakistan. I strongly condemn this, and I ask Rahul Gandhi and Maliikarjun Kharge what their take on this is," Joshi asserrte "Mr Nasir Hussain is the 'sheesha' (mirror) of Mr Kharge. Let Congress clarify, let them condemn this. I have asked the Karnataka Home Minister to take a serious note of this and take stringent action on the incident," added Pralhad Joshi in the video message. BJP State President Vijayendra Yediyurappa also took to his social media handle to condemn the incident and said it was highly blasphemous of Congress supporters to have openly raised "Pakistan Zindabad" slogans within the sanctum sanctorum of the Temple of Democracy in Karnataka. "Highly Blasphemous of Congress supporters to have openly raised "Pakistan Zindabad" slogans within the sanctum sanctorum of the Temple of Democracy, Vidhana Soudha. One can only imagine the type of venomous elements they might be harbouring against the interests of the nation," his post read. "These anti-India slogans by Congress supporters celebrating Naseer Hussain's Rajya Sabha victory raise serious questions about their intentions and loyalties. Congress shouldn't display any kind of sympathy towards this brazen anti-national act and arrest these Pakistani-backed supporters and book them under sedition charges, failing which it sends a message to Karnataka and the rest of India that @INCKarnataka endorses this venomous ideology of Break India Forces!," it read further. "Congress & its entire leadership have caused massive disrespect to Vidhana Soudha and the state of Karnataka. This will never be forgotten or forgiven," added the Karnataka BJP chief's post. Earlier in the day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit in Karnataka filed an FIR at the Vidhana Soudha Police Station, alleging that pro-Pakistan slogans were raised by Rajya Sabha member Syed Nasir Hussain supporters on Tuesday. As per the complaint filed by the Karnataka BJP, it was alleged that after the returning officer declared that Hussain was elected to the Rajya Sabha, at around 7 pm, his supporters, who had gathered at the premises of the Vidhana Soudha "at the instance of Hussain, suddenly shouted 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans in a loud manner while cheering for Hussain." Senior BJP leaders, including Leader of Opposition R Ashoka, Araga Jnanendra and others, staged a protest in front of the Vidhana Soudha police station on Tuesday evening after supporters of Congress' Syed Nasir Hussain, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha, allegedly raised pro-Pakistan slogans. BJP leaders demanded the dismissal of the Congress-led state government and said that a state-wide campaign would be launched. A purported video of the incident went viral on social media. Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha member Syed Nasir Hussain took to his social media handle and posted a video in 'clarification' of the said incident, wherein he denied any slogan-raising in his presence and said that a proper investigation would be conducted and stringent action would be taken against the accused in the matter. "Today, as some of our party supporters and workers and some people were celebrating the victory of three candidates, I was there in the midst of them, and then lots of slogans like 'Nasir Hussain Zindabad', 'Nasir Khan Zindabad', 'Nasir Sahab Zindabad', and 'Congress Party Zindabad' were being raised by some of the workers," he said. "Then, all of a sudden, as I was leaving for my house, I got called by the media saying that somebody had raised slogans of 'Pakistan Zindabad'. I would like to say here that when I was there in the midst of the people, a lot of slogans were being raised, but I never heard the slogan 'Pakistan Zindabad', but whatever it is, we have asked the police and let the police investigate it," he said further. Adding further, Hussain said, "If someone has raised such a type of slogan, then he has to be dealt with sternly and strictly according to the law. There should be an inquiry. And in case someone has morphed or doctored the video and played mischief, even that has to be inquired about. And if somebody has given the slogan, there should be a proper inquiry into who the person is, where he came from, how the person entered the premises, and what was his motive or intention behind raising those slogans. Should be investigated." "However, as far as I am concerned, when I was there, there were no such slogans that were raised, because if the slogans had been raised in our presence, then I am sure no sane person or an Indian citizen would have tolerated it. So let us wait for the inquiry, and whatever comes forward, we will be there in the public domain. Thank you so much," added the RS member in the video. (ANI) In a move that has sparked widespread attention, the Tripura government has dismissed Pravin Lal Aggarwal, the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, on charges of misleading state authorities over the naming of wildlife in the Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary and Zoo. The controversy stems from the decision to name a lioness 'Sita' and another animal 'Akbar,' which led to a legal battle and public outcry. The Sepahijala Wildlife Sanctuary and Zoo, renowned for its diverse collection of fauna, recently welcomed new additions, including a pair of Royal Bengal tigers, leopards, golden and silver pheasants, peacocks, and mountain mynas. These animals were transferred following guidelines set by the Central Zoo Authority (CZA), with the aim of enriching the genetic pool and enhancing the experience for visitors. However, the exchange program between the Sepahijala Zoo and the North Bengal Zoo in Siliguri, which included a lion couple named 'Sita' and 'Akbar,' spectacled monkeys, leopard cats, and black bucks, took an unexpected turn. The naming of the lion couple led the Bengali wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) to file a legal challenge, arguing that animals should not be named after revered personalities or deities. The Calcutta High Court's circuit bench in Jalpaiguri ruled in favour of this argument, causing a ripple effect through the state's administrative and wildlife management departments. The court's directive to change the names put the Bengal Forest Department in a tight spot, as it argued that the responsibility for renaming fell to the Tripura Zoo authority. Upon investigation, it was discovered that Aggarwal had played a key role in the naming process and had allegedly misled the Tripura government about the matter. A senior government official, preferring to remain anonymous, disclosed that Aggarwal's dismissal on February 23 came after it was found he had kept the government in the dark about his actions. The official mentioned that disciplinary action against Aggarwal is under consideration, highlighting the seriousness with which the state is treating the incident. The Tripura government's decision has ignited a debate on the ethics of naming animals in captivity and the cultural sensitivities surrounding such decisions. The controversy underscores the complex interplay between wildlife conservation, cultural values, and administrative accountability. As the situation unfolds, it remains to be seen how the zoo authorities will navigate these challenging waters and what changes will be implemented to prevent similar issues in the future. (ANI) Citing concerns about the alleged collaboration between the BJP and the Congress in Assam, AIUDF (All India United Democratic Front) MLA and party General Secretary Karim Uddin Barbhuiya asserted that they will only be able to change the political landscape in Assam in the year 2031. Speaking to ANI, AIUDF MLA Karim Uddin Barbhuiya said, "We will try to form the government in Assam in 2026 with the help of regional parties. How long will Himanta Biswa Sarma's dictatorship last? The people of Assam want change, but the current main opposition party is not ready. We will form the government in Assam in 2031 with the blessings of the people of the state," Karim Uddin Barbhuiya said. Barbhuiya predicted a decline of Congress in Assam, attributing it to Congress leaders allegedly collaborating with the BJP. "We will try to protect the seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The Congress leaderships in Assam are totally in touch with BJP. One after one Congress leader are now joining the BJP. We are worried about the result of Congress, but they don't because they have a good relation with the Chief Minister. If you go with the number, now we are the main opposition party in Assam," Karim Uddin Barbhuiya said. He disclosed that 4-6 Congress MLAs are expected to join the AIUDF before the 2026 assembly polls "Before 2026 assembly polls in Assam, 4-6 MLAs of Congress will join AIUDF. Officially or non-officially these MLAs will share the dias with AIUDF in some meetings before the Lok Sabha election. 3-4 Congress MLAs are now in touch with us. Now we don't want by-election, so we want that just five to six months before 2026 assembly polls they join AIUDF," Karim Uddin Barbhuiya said. Earlier on February 14, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that four Congress MLAs have extended their support to the state government. "Two Congress MLAs Basanta Das and Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha have extended their support to the Assam government. Earlier, two Congress MLAs Sashi Kanta Das and Siddique Ahmed had extended their support to the state. So far, four Congress MLAs have extended their support to the government. In coming days, all opposition MLAs will extend their support to the government," Himanta Biswa Sarma said. (ANI) The suspicious vessel was intercepted near the International Maritime Boundary Line off the Gujarat coast in the Arabian Sea. The contraband, along with the apprehended boat and crew, were handed over to the law enforcement agencies at an Indian port, on February 27, they added. The items seized included 3089 kg of charas, 158 kg of methamphetamine, and 25 kg of morphine. Based on the input of P8I LRMR aircraft on surveillance mission, the IN mission-deployed ship was diverted to intercept the suspicious dhow engaged in contraband smuggling. The seizure of drugs from the dhow, which is by far the largest in terms of quantity, was possible through the collaborative 4efforts of the Indian Navy's mission-deployed assets with the NCB. The coordinated response of the Indian Navy with law enforcement agencies is reflective of our resolute stance against narcotics trafficking in India's maritime neighbourhood. (ANI) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 30 seats, including 20 unopposed out of 56 Rajya Sabha seats for which the elections were held on Tuesday. The numbers will take the BJP's tally in Rajya Sabha to 97 and that of BJP-led NDA to 117, just four short of the majority mark of 121 in the 240-member House once all 56 members are sworn in Of 56 Rajya Sabha seats that fall vacant in April, BJP won 30; 20 unopposed and 10 in elections held Tuesday. The Rajya Sabha polls for 15 seats across three states were marked by cross-voting, with the BJP winning 10 seats, the Congress three and the Samajwadi Party two seats. Last week, as many as 41 candidates were declared winners as there were no other candidates in the fray on those seats. The BJP was the main gainer, having won an additional seat in Uttar Pradesh and bagging one in Himachal Pradesh. The biennial elections for the 56 seats were necessitated as 50 members will complete their term on April 2 and six will retire on April 3. Heading into polling day, the ruling NDA had 109 MPs in the Upper House, 10 members short of the halfway mark in the 238 member Rajya Sabha. The Opposition INDIA bloc had 89 MPs. During the biennial polls, Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of seats going to vote (10), followed by Maharashtra and Bihar (6 each), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (5 each), Karnataka and Gujarat (4 each), Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan (3 each), and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh (1 each). However, after the results out on Tuesday evening, the BJP remained the single-largest party in RS with 97 members (including five nominated members who joined the party) followed by Congress with 29 members, Trinamool Congress with 13, DMK and AAP with 10 each, BJD and YSRCP with nine each, BRS with seven, RJD with six, CPM with five, and AIADMK and JD(U) with four each. The NDA, with 117 members, is now only four short of the majority mark of 121. (ANI) The meeting will finalise the candidate list for the parliamentary constituencies of the state, party sources said. Diplu Ranjan Sarma, General Secretary of the Assam State BJP, said that the Assam Chief Minister, state BJP president, and state BJP General Secretary (Organization) will meet the party's central leadership today. "They will submit the list of candidates for the parliamentary constituencies of the state to the central leadership. The central leadership will finalize and announce the candidate list," Diplu Ranjan Sarma said. As of now, the state BJP has prepared a list of candidates for 12 parliamentary constituencies in the state, a senior leader of the state BJP said. On February 27, CM Sarma expressed confidence in the party winning 11 seats out of the 14 in the state. "BJP will win 11 out of 14 seats in Assam. We can go up to 12, but we will surely win in 11 seats," CM Sarma said. According to sources, the BJP is set to hold an important meeting of the core group committee involving 8 states at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Wednesday evening. The meeting will be held under the chairmanship of BJP President JP Nadda. During the meeting, an important discussion about the selection of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections will be held, a source confirmed. As per the sources, Home Minister Amit Shah, party general secretary BL Santosh, and state officials and chief ministers, among others, will be present in the meeting. Sources said that the chief ministers and party officials of Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Assam, and the three other states will be present at the meeting. (ANI) Flash This photo taken on Jan. 2, 2024 shows buildings and cars damaged in a missile attack in Kiev, Ukraine. [Photo/Xinhua] Many European countries on Tuesday ruled out the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine, after Monday's meeting in Paris during which French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that European nations might do so. "Boots on the ground is not an option for Germany," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told a press conference after meeting with his Austrian counterpart Klaudia Tanner in Vienna on Tuesday. Tanner also called Macron's remarks "a worrying signal." "It is clear: there will be no ground troops from European countries or NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a tweet on X Tuesday. Prime ministers of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries also confirmed on Tuesday that they are not planning to send troops to Ukraine. Czech's Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Poland's Donald Tusk, Slovakia's Robert Fico and Hungary's Viktor Orban made the statement after a V4 leaders meeting in Bratislava. Despite their agreement on Ukraine's need for help, they are willing to offer assistance in different forms, Fiala said. He said the Czech Republic and Poland are providing military aid to Ukraine, while Hungary and Slovakia are willing to offer humanitarian and financial aid. Fico and Orban also called for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks to solve the Ukraine crisis. Britain, Spain and Italy also rejected the idea of sending troops on the ground in Ukraine. Britain has no plans for "a large-scale deployment" of troops to Ukraine beyond a small number of personnel already in Ukraine helping to train the country's forces, a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday. "The Conference... provided an opportunity to reaffirm Italy's full commitment to supporting Ukraine in its fight to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity," the Italian government said. "This support does not provide for the presence of troops from European or NATO countries on Ukraine territory." Two years after the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, around 20 European leaders met on Monday at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris, France, to reaffirm their solidarity and support for Ukraine. The leaders agreed on new initiatives including network defense, and joint production of weapons in Ukraine. Macron said after the meeting that although no consensus was reached to send ground troops to Ukraine, "nothing can be ruled out." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that his country had received only 30 percent of the 1 million shells promised by the European Union last year, while Kyiv troops are struggling on the front lines as they are short of ammunition. Following Macron's comments, Russia has warned a direct conflict between NATO and Russia would be inevitable, if the alliance sent troops in Ukraine. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday conducted raids at more than 15 locations across the country as part of its ongoing money laundering investigation into the Mahadev online betting and gaming app case. The raids are underway in West Bengal, Mumbai and the National Capital Region based on inputs against some suspects linked to the case, sources said The move comes almost a month after the federal agency arrested two individuals, Nitin Tibrewal from Kolkata and Amit Agrawal from Raipur. Both accused were arrested in the second week of January. Earlier, the ED had arrested alleged accused Asim Das, Bheem Singh Yadav, Chandrabhushan Verma, Anil Kumar Agrawal and Sunil Dammani, and Satish Chandrakar. The agency stated that the illicit funds generated by the app were used for bribing politicians and bureaucrats. In November last year, the ED had also conducted searches against the money laundering networks linked with the alleged Mahadev Book Online Betting App, which led to the recovery of cash of Rs 5.39 crore and a bank balance of Rs 15.59 crore Several celebrities and Bollywood actors have also been summoned by the agency for questioning regarding their connections with the online betting platform and the payment methods involved. ED has filed two charge sheets in the Mahadev app case, including against the main promoters, Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal. The two promoters were recently detained in Dubai based on an Interpol red notice, and ED is working on their deportation or extradition to India. The first charge sheet alleges that Chandrakar spent around Rs 200 crore in cash for his wedding in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, in February 2023. The agency claims that private jets were hired to transport Chandrakar's relatives, and celebrities were paid for performances. The projected proceeds of crime in this case are estimated at Rs 6,000 crore. The agency filed the second charge sheet before a special court in Raipur on January 1 this year. The fresh charge sheet of about 1800 pages specifically named five accused, including alleged cash courier Asim Das, police constable Bheem Singh Yadav, Shubham Soni, a prominent executive linked to the app among others. Das and Yadav were arrested by the agency in November last year, just before the first phase of polling for the assembly polls in Chhattisgarh. Soni, who had claimed to be the owner of the app, earlier issued a video statement and sent an affidavit to the ED claiming to have "proof" about kickbacks paid to politicians and their linked persons for allowing the app to run its illegal businesses without any legal action. ED previously alleged that Mahadev app promoters paid approximately Rs 508 crore to former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel. These claims, made just before the state assembly polls, were denied by Baghel, who labeled them as attempts to malign his image. The Congress party termed it as vendetta politics by the Centre. Chandrakar and Uppal, originally from Bhilai town in Chhattisgarh, are associated with the Mahadev online betting app, which is accused of facilitating illegal betting websites. (ANI) The Narcotics Control Bureau, along with the Indian Navy, intercepted a suspicious boat off the Gujarat coast, seizing nearly 3,300 kilograms of contraband on Tuesday. The Indian Navy, in a statement, declared this seizure the largest in recent times in terms of quantity. The items seized included 3089 kg of charas, 158 kg of methamphetamine, and 25 kg of morphine. Commending the joint operation, Union Home Minister, Amit Shah posted on X, "Pursuing PM Narendra Modi Ji's vision of a drug-free Bharat, our agencies today achieved the grand success of making the biggest offshore seizure of drugs in the nation. In a joint operation carried out by the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police, a gigantic consignment of 3132 kg of drugs was seized," Shah remarked. "The historic success is a testament to our government's unwavering commitment to making our nation drug-free. On this occasion, I congratulate the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police," he added. (ANI) The Rouse Avenue court in Delhi on Wednesday granted regular bail to Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti, Hema Yadav and Hridyanand Chaudhary in land-for-job case linked to money laundering. All these accused appeared physically before the court. Earlier, they were granted interim bail on February 9. Special judge Vishal Gogne granted regular bail to accused persons on furnishing of bail bond of Rs one lakh and surety bond in the like amount. The court said that they were not arrested during the investigation. There is no apprehension of the accused fleeing from the law. ED filed the reply on the regular bail applications of Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti, Hema Yadav and Hridyanand Chaudhary. The special public prosecutor (SPP) for ED Manish Jain along with Snehal Sharda appeared and submitted that if the bail is granted, strict conditions may be imposed in view of the gravity of the allegations. Meanwhile, Amit Katyal has also moved an application seeking an extension of interim bail. He is on interim till March 4. The court has asked the ED to file a reply on the application and listed the matter on March 5. Interim bail is deemed to be extended till the next date, the court said. The court had granted interim bail to Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti, and Hema Yadav after they appeared in court on February 9. They were summoned by the court after taking cognizance of a charge sheet filed by the Directorate of Enforcement. Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti, Hema Yadav and Hridyanand Chaudhary appeared physically. Amit Katyal appeared through video conferencing. The Rouse Avenue court on January 27, issued summons to former Bihar CM Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti, Hema Yadav, Hridyanand Chaudhary and other accused in the case. Special Judge Vishal Gogne had issued summons to accused persons after taking Cognizance of the charge sheet filed by the ED. The court issued a production warrant to produce Amit Katyal on the next date of hearing. Two firms namely AK Infosystem and AB Export have also been accused in this case. Cognizance has been taken against these firms. While taking cognizance of the charge sheet the court said that there is sufficient material to take cognizance. ED had submitted that in 2006-07 A K Infosystem was formed by Amit Katyal and its business was IT data analysis. No real business was done. Instead, several land parcels were bought by the company. One land parcel pertains to the main predicate offence which is land for a job. This company was transferred in the name of Rabri Devi and Tejaswi Yadav in 2014 for the consideration of one lakh rupees, ED submitted. ED had submitted that Amit Katyal is the only arrested accused. Other accused are Rabri Devi, Misa Bharti, Hema Yadav, A K Infosystem, A B export and Hridyanand Chaudhary. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on January 9, 2024 filed a Prosecution Complaint (Charge sheet) in Land for job scam money laundering case. ED had named Bihar's Ex CM Rabri Devi, her daughters Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav, Hridyanand Chaudhary and Amit Katyal. Two firms, AB Export and AK Infosystems, have also been accused. The Delhi High Court had refused to quash ED proceedings against Amit Katyal, who is accused of engaging in transactions with the family members of former railways minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. According to the ED in March month, based on the specific intelligence inputs, searches were conducted at 24 locations at various places in Delhi NCR, Patna, Mumbai and Ranchi in the Railways land for job scam, which resulted in recovery of unaccounted cash of Rs 1 crore, foreign currency including USD 1900, 540 gms gold bullion and more than 1.5 kg of gold jewellery (worth around Rs 1.25 crore), as well as several other incriminating documents, including various property documents, sale deeds, etc., held in the names of family members and benamidaars indicating illegal accretion of huge land bank and electronic devices. Searches resulted in the detection of Proceeds of Crime amounting to Rs 600 crore at this point in time which is in the form of immovable properties of Rs 350 crore and transactions of Rs 250 crore routed through various benamidaars, ED stated. The ED investigation conducted so far has revealed that several pieces of land at prominent locations in Patna and other areas were allededly illegally acquired by the family of the then Rail Mantri, Lalu Prasad Yadav, in lieu of jobs provided in the railways. The current market value of these land parcels is more than Rs 200 crore. In this regard, several benamidars, shell entities and beneficial owners for these lands have been identified. Further, investigation under PMLA revealed that the property situated at New Friends Colony, Delhi (independent 4-storied bungalow, registered in the name of AB Exports Private Limited, a company owned and controlled by Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and family) was shown to have been acquired at a value of mere Rs 4 lakh, the present market value of which is approximately Rs 150 crore. It is suspected that a huge amount of cash/Proceeds of Crime has been infused into purchasing this property and a few Mumbai-based entities, dealing in the gems and jewellery sector were used to channel ill-gotten proceeds of crime in this regard. The property has been though, on paper declared as the office of AB Exports Private Limited and AK Infosystems Pvt ltd, it is being exclusively used as residential premises by Tejasvi Prasad Yadav, son of Lalu Prasad Yadav. During the searches, Tejasvi Prasad Yadav was found to be staying at this house and was found to be using this house as his residential property. ED investigation has found that 4 parcels of lands acquired by the family of Lalu Yadav in just Rs 7.5 lakh from poor Group-D applicants were sold to Syed Abu Dojana, Ex-RJD MLA by Rabri Devi with huge gains at Rs 3.5 Crore in a collusive deal. ED investigation further revealed that a major portion of the amount thus received, was transferred to the account of Tejashwi Prasad Yadav. Investigations revealed that in a similar fashion, lands were taken from several poor parents and candidates in lieu of Group D jobs in the Railways. It has been revealed during the investigation that in many Railways Zones, more than 50 per cent of recruited candidates were from Lalu Yadav families' constituencies, stated ED. (ANI) Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday refuted the reports of him resigning from the post, saying that he has not tendered his resignation and will prove the majority in the House. Sukhu, while speaking to the media here on Wednesday said that no one from his party has asked for his resignation. "Neither anyone asked for my resignation nor I have presented my resignation to anyone. We will prove the majority. We will win, the people of Himachal will win..." Sukhu said. Sukhu further said that he will not get 'scared' and expressed his determination that Congress will remain in the power. "I am not someone who will get scared and I can say this with guarantee, that Congress is going to win when the Budget will be presented. The budget will be passed today. BJP is spreading rumours of my resignation. Congress is united..." he added. The Himachal CM also claimed that some of the six MLAs who cross voted in yesterday's Rajya Sabha election for lone seat are in his contact. "...BJP is spreading rumours of my resignation. They want to create a break in the legislative party. They want Congress MLAs to leave the party and join them. Congress is united...Some of the MLAs who voted for BJP are in our contact..." Sukhu said. The Congress government in the state faces a crisis after six MLAs crossed sides and are learnt to be in touch with the BJP. The Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 in the 68-member state assembly. The remaining three seats are held by independents. Meanwhile, HP Vidhan Sabha Speaker suspended 15 BJP MLAs for alleged misbehaviour and adjourned the house. The state budget is pending approval in the assembly and the BJP, with the help of Congress rebels, is ensuring that the budget is not passed and is seeking a division of votes. Congress leader and observer for Himachal Pradesh DK Shivakumar on Wednesday rushed to Shimla to parley with members of the party which is facing loss of support and risks losing power in the state. Shivakumar in a post on X expressed his confidence that Congress rebel MLAs will stay 'loyal' to the party and stay put with the mandate that has been accorded to them "As per the directions of the Congress high command, I am reaching Himachal Pradesh. Also there is absolutely no need to indulge in any hearsay, as I am confident that Congress Party legislators will be loyal to the party and stay put with the mandate that has been accorded to them," Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister said. He further hit out at the BJP, accusing it of 'deliberately attempting to crush democracy'. "However, what should be questioned and worrisome is the extremes to which BJP is going in terms of acquiring power, deliberately attempting to crush democracy and public mandate in the process," Shivakumar added. In fresh trouble for the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, Vikramaditya Singh, a state minister and the son of the former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Wednesday stepped down from his position. "All I would like to say is that under the current circumstances, it is not correct for me to continue as a part of the government. So, I have decided that I am resigning from the Council of Ministers. I am resigning as a minister," Singh said. (ANI) The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), Girish Chandra Murmu, inaugurated a three-day international conference on 'Strengthening Grassroots Democracy and Accountability' at CAG headquarters in Delhi on Wednesday. This conference which will be held from February 28 to March 1, 2024, brings together representatives from Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of ten countries: Georgia, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Morocco, Nepal, Oman, Poland, South Africa, and Uganda, with India hosting. During his address, CAG Girish Chandra Murmu emphasized, "Grassroots democracy is the cornerstone of a vibrant and inclusive society. It is at this level that the aspirations, concerns, and needs of the people are most acutely felt and addressed. Local-level planning of developmental programs should be undertaken here, ensuring increased participation. In fact, the committees at this level are the first respondents to calamities and pandemics as local governments are the most important link in the governance spectrum." The CAG also mentioned that India has a substantial number of urban and rural local bodies, with approximately 2,62,000 such bodies at the rural level. These entities at the third tier of governance are actively involved in managing various schemes and projects related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). "It is in this context, that SAI India is committed to strengthening the audit of local governments. From our experience, we find the functioning of local governments different from that of the Federal and Provincial Governments in India, in terms of their dependence on the two higher tiers for functions, funds, and functionaries. This reality calls for an 'out-of-the-box' audit approach," he said. CAG stressed the importance of transparency and accountability, stating, "These bodies are also vital for implementation of SDGs etc. For this vital form of governance to thrive, transparency and accountability are inextricably intertwined with it, ensuring the voices of the people are heeded at the very foundation of governance." "Although auditing of local bodies is carried out differently, audit operations at local levels, in many countries, are carried out by SAIs of the country. As a supreme audit institution, we can contribute through robust audit mechanisms within our respective mandates to foster oversight and accountability at the local government level," he said. He further emphasized the purpose of the conference to enhance the well-being of ordinary citizens and proposed regular exchanges between SAIs to strengthen local governance audit systems and contribute to effective and accountable local governance processes. "Every audit finding, every recommendation is the potential for positive, tangible difference in the lives of people an imperative for the advancement of society. We have come together to share our ideas, experiences and knowledge, in this realm. Our exchanges and collaborations, will undoubtedly serve as a force multiplier in strengthening local governance, thus amplifying the voice of the citizenry and strengthening grassroots democracy," he said. "Regular exchanges between SAIs to share experiences, lessons learned, and best practices in local governance auditing through regional forums, conferences, and virtual platforms, will go a long way in strengthening grass root democracy," he said. He also said that these measures will help us all strengthen our local governance audit systems and contribute to more effective and accountable local governance processes. "The work we do here goes beyond the confines of this conference hall. It ripples out into the communities we serve, leaving an indelible mark on the democratic fabric of our societies. By fostering transparency, upholding integrity, embracing innovation, and prioritizing the needs of the people, we can build a future where governance truly serves the common good," he added. (ANI) Bharatiya Janata Party national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia hit out at the Congress party on Wednesday over alleged 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans outside the Karnataka assembly. Bhatia alleged that the grand old party's 'DNA' has become anti-national while calling the incident an 'insult to India's democracy'. "After the results of the Rajya Sabha elections came out, Congress workers outside the Karnataka assembly raised 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans while celebrating Congress MP-elect Syed Naseer Hussain's win. This is a very worrying incident, this is an insult to India's democracy," Bhatia said while addressing a press conference in Delhi on Wednesday. "Today, every citizen is asking, whenever India's democracy marks a win, why is that the Congress always remembers Pakistan? There is also nothing wrong in saying that there is Pakistan's DNA in Congress," the BJP leader said. He further called for an apology from Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge for the incident. "Congress' DNA has become anti-national. Earlier, slogans like Bharat will break into pieces, Insha Allah, Insha Allah, were raised at a public event attended by Rahul Gandhi. Don't you think Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge should apologise?" he said. The matter has caused a political storm in the state, leading to a FIR and protest by BJP cadre outside Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru. However, Congress earlier rejected these claims, saying its workers were only raising slogans for Hussain and not what the BJP was claiming. Meanwhile, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that voice samples have been sent to FSL and culprits will be punished. "We have sent the voice report to the FSL, if it is true that somebody has raised the slogan 'Pakistan Zindabad', that person will be punished seriously." Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara said, "We are very serious about it. If it is an anti-national slogan, we will not tolerate it. We will take strict actions, once it is confirmed by the FSL team. FIR has already registered yesterday. We have to identify the person from the FSL report and if it is true, we will take action against him." Karnataka Assembly Speaker UT Khader said that if the claims were proven by forensic analysis, the person behind them would be punished. The speaker said he would call for a complete probe. As per the complaint filed by the Karnataka BJP, it was alleged that after the returning officer declared that Hussain was elected to the Rajya Sabha, at around 7 pm on Tuesday, his supporters, who had gathered at the premises of the Vidhana Soudha "at the instance of Hussain, suddenly shouted 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans in a loud manner while cheering for Hussain." (ANI) Opposition leaders in Maharashtra staged a protest on the steps of Vidhan Bhavan against the government over issues concerning farmers and said the growers were not getting proper value for their produce. They also raised slogans against the state government. The opposition members were holding cotton and carrot in their hands to highlight the issues faced by farmers. The opposition leaders alleged that in the budget presented by the government on Tuesday, no steps had been taken for the welfare of farmers. They demanded a proper price for cotton. Uddhav Thackeray faction leader and spokesperson Anand Dubey said on Tuesday that the budget presented by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar "is not for common people". In his speech, Ajit Pawar announced that the state government would provide a grant amounting to Rs 78,000 to households under the central government's rooftop solar scheme. "For the Centre's Suryagraha scheme, a grant of up to Rs 78,000 per household will be given for rooftop solar panels. Also, farmers will be provided with solar pumps at concessional rates to promote green and alternate energy sources." Referring to the Jal Jeevan Mission, Ajit Pawar said that Maharashtra intends to give tap water to nearly 1.47 crore households of which over 1.22 crore connections have been given already. "The remaining 24 lakh will also be done soon," he said. A five-day budget session of the Maharashtra assembly began on Monday. (ANI) The Central Investigation Agency, CBI, has asked former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to appear before the agency in a case related to sand mining. According to the sources, the CBI in a High Court-referred case related to sand mining has asked Yadav to join the investigation as a witness before the CBI in Delhi on February 29. He has been summoned in connection with the CBI FIR lodged in January 2019, which is related to alleged illegal mining in Hamirpur between 2012 and 2016. In January 2019, an FIR was registered against several public servants, including the then-district magistrate, mining officer and others. It is alleged in the FIR that government employees allowed illegal mining of minerals in Hamirpur. Akhilesh Yadav, was the chief minister of the state between 2012 and 2017 and held the mining portfolio during 2012-13. The CBI in its FIR had alleged that people were allowed to excavate minor minerals illegally, commit theft of the minor minerals and extort money from the leaseholders as well as from the drivers of the vehicles transporting minor minerals. Meanwhile on Wednesday the Samajwadi Party Chief came out hard against the BJP accusing the party of being nervous of the INDIA bloc and breaking other parties. Akhilesh Yadav has also vowed action against 7 rebel MLAs who cross voted for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha elections on Tuesday. In the Rajya Sabha elections the BJP won 8 of the 10 seats that went to the polls while the SP won two seats. The contest was effected after the BJP put up an eighth candidate in former RS MP Sanjay Seth who finally emerged victorious after 7 SP MLAs cross voted. (ANI) Amid the political crisis in Himachal Pradesh triggered by cross-voting by six of its MLAs in Rajya Sabha polls, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has said that some senior party leaders are in the hill state to meet the legislators and a report will be presented to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge. He accused the BJP of trying to topple the Congress government in the state and said the leadership will not shy away from harsh decisions as the party is supreme. "Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and AICC in-charge Rajeev Shukla are there. They have spoken with the Congress president. He has told them to meet and listen to all MLAs about their grievances and demands," Jairam Ramesh said. "Cross-voting took place. But the conspiracy to topple the Congress government...what steps are to be taken by the party to tackle this 'Operation Lotus' - Congress president has told these senior colleagues to meet everyone and listen to what they have to say and present him a report at the earliest," he added. He said the priority is to save the Congress government and added that accountability will be fixed over the recent developments. "Cross-voting is unfortunate. Our Observers will discuss this in their report. Accountability will definitely be fixed. Accountability was fixed in Haryana...There are two parts of this report - first, why did the cross-voting happen here and how was it allowed to happen. Second, what steps should be taken to save the government and uphold the mandate? When the report comes, discussions will be held and decision will be made. Until then, all reports and speculations are baseless." Jairam Ramesh said the Congress had received a clear mandate in December 2022 assembly polls. "The people of Himachal Pradesh had rejected the PM, Jagat Prakash Nadda, Anurag Thakur, and Jairam Thakur. The mandate was for the Congress party...So, this mandate should be respected...Modi government has just one guarantee - topple all Congress Governments. We will not let this happen," he said. The Congress general secretary said a report will be presented to the Congress president by the observers at the earliest after listening to everyone. "Based on that further steps will definitely be taken. Maybe some harsh decisions will have to be made but we won't shy away from that. Organisation is supreme. Congress party is supreme," he said. The Congress government in the state faces a crisis after six party MLAs cross-voted in the election to the Rajya Sabha seat from the state on Tuesday and party nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost. The Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 in the 68-member state assembly. The remaining three seats are held by independents. (ANI) The negotiations on the expansion of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and South Korea are likely to conclude in 2024, said Chang Jae-bok, the South Korean envoy here on Wednesday. The Republic of Korea and India signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in 2009. The two nations are negotiating the expansion of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and have so far held several rounds of discussions. In a press conference, Chang said the last round of talks took place in January. "On the bilateral trade front, efforts are underway to expedite negotiations for the expansion of CEPA, signed in 2010. During the last round of talks in January, this year, negotiators from both sides showcased a shared commitment to conclude negotiations within this year," Chang said. South Korea is hoping that the negotiations will conclude before the possible visit of Yoon Suk Yeol, the South Korean President, to India. "So hopefully, the negotiation on CEPA will conclude before a bilateral visit by our president. (the visit will) probably (be) after the elections in India; there is also an election in Korea," he said. India has asked South Korea to renegotiate the CEPA to make the trade more balanced and equitable. In July last year, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said that the pact has been often discussed in the context that the Indian industry has failed to benefit from the agreements and the gains have mostly been one-sided. India's trade deficit with South Korea rose to US dollar 14.57 billion in FY23 from US dollar 9.39 billion a year ago. Reflecting on India's concern vis-a-vis CEPA, the envoy said: "The negotiations on free trade agreements are generally very difficult.... Some parts of the industry will have losses, and some parts of the industry will gain from (the CEPA). However, during the last round of negotiations, we found willingness to conduct the talks soon." Meanwhile, Indian and South Korean foreign ministers will chair the joint trade commission meeting on March 6 in Seoul. During the meeting between the foreign ministers, regional and global issues might come up, the envoy mentioned. "The South Korea-India Trade Commission meeting is scheduled for March 6 in Seoul. Jaishankar, India's Minister of External Affairs and his Korean counterpart, Cho Tae-yul, will co-chair this meeting. We anticipate discussions of high-level exchanges, defence, economic issues, science and technology, and people-to-people with key regional issues," the envoy told reporters. (ANI) Flash Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday discussed the Russia-Ukraine crisis with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. The Saudi crown prince reaffirmed his country's support for all international endeavors aimed at resolving the crisis and achieving peace, and its continued contribution to alleviating the situation through humanitarian assistance, the SPA said. Zelensky "expressed appreciation and thanks for the efforts exerted by the Kingdom in this regard," according to the report. The visit aimed to discuss peace prospects, the exchange of prisoners of war, and the areas of economic cooperation and potential involvement of Saudi Arabia in Ukraine's post-war reconstruction efforts, Zelensky said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. "We discussed the Peace Formula's points and the progress that can be made in implementing them. Saudi Arabia's leadership can assist in finding equitable solutions," Zelensky said. Ukraine's Peace Formula calls for the full withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. In another post on X, the Ukrainian president noted that Saudi Arabia "has already contributed to the release of our people. I am confident this meeting will also yield results." Saudi Arabia, which maintains ties with both Moscow and Kiev, had mediated between the two sides before, helping reach a deal in September 2022 that freed over 200 captive Ukrainians. After the Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi convicted Aam Aadmi Party MLA Prakash Jarwal in a case of abetting suicide by a doctor, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Virendra Sachdeva on Wednesday said that the criminal side of AAP has been exposed by this decision. "Your criminal face has been exposed by this decision. We have already said that Arvind Kejriwal's party is of criminals. Sanjeev Jha, Akhilesh Tripathi, Amanatullah Khan, and there are many more names. All the criminals are growing inside AAP. Will Kejriwal turn Delhi into Paris by taking such people into his party?" he said. "Jal Board is a den of corruption and due to this, the doctor lost his life for which, both Prakash Jarwal and Kejriwal are responsible. This stain is also on Kejriwal's forehead," he added. The Rouse Avenue court on Wednesday convicted Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Prakash Jarwal and his associate Kapil Nagar for abetting a doctor's suicide. They also have been held guilty of the offence of criminal conspiracy for extortion and threat to deceased Rajender Singh. The deceased was a doctor and was also engaged in water supply through tankers. Advocate Ravi Drall, Prakash Jarwal's lawyer said, "Only Sec 306 and 34 IPC was invoked in the FIR. But we have come to know that he has been convicted under sections 306, 120B and 34 of the IPC. He has also been convicted of extortion. This has the provision of imprisonment of up to 10 years. The next hearing is on 13th March." Special judge M K Nagpal held guilty Prakash Jarwal and Kapil Nagar for the offences of abetment to suicide, extortion, attempt to extortion and criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy for extortion. They have been held guilty under section 506 (Criminal Intimidation to kill) Part 2 under which maximum punishment is upto seven years. On November 11, 2021, the court had framed charges against Prakash Jarwal, Kapil Nagar and Harish in different sections of IPC. An FIR was registered based on the complaint dated April 18, 2020, of Hemant Singh, in which he had stated that his father Rajender Singh was doing the work of supply of water through tankers since 2005 and Delhi Jal Board had never harassed his father. "However, since the accused Prakash Jarwal had won and become MLA of Aam Admi Party, he and his associate Kapil Nagar who worked with him and others started harassing his father for money regularly," he alleged. (ANI) Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal presented Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the sacred 'Sengol,' pride of Tamil society, in front of an exuberant 30,000 people here on Wednesday, eliciting cheers from the crowd. On this occasion, PM Modi laid the foundation stone and dedicated to the nation multiple development projects worth more than Rs 17,300 crores. The Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of Outer Harbor Container Terminal at V.O. Chidambaranar Port. The Prime Minister also launched India's first indigenous green hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel under the Harit Nauka initiative. He dedicated tourist facilities to 75 lighthouses across 10 States/UTs. He also dedicated to the nation, rail projects for the doubling of Vanchi Maniyachchi - Nagercoil rail line including the Vanchi Maniyachchi - Tirunelveli section and Melappalayam - Aralvaymoli section. The Prime Minister dedicated four road projects in Tamil Nadu, developed at a total cost of about Rs 4,586 crore. Speaking on the occasion, the Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways and Ayush, Sarbananda Sonowal, said, "Under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji, India is cruising towards becoming the third largest economy in the world. the developmental initiative launched under PM Modiji's guidance is pivotal to making our ports world-class, propelling our movement towards making Viksit Bharat during Amrit Kaal." "With the maritime sector taking the lead in powering the economic growth of India, the initiative launched by PM Narendra Modi ji today, will further strengthen our ports, empower coastal communities, and generate huge employment avenues. This is a true realization of Modi Ki Guarantee, where every citizen is becoming an important part of the developmental effort towards making our country Atmanirbhar," he added. Sarbananda Sonowal said that it was an honor to be present in this "pious" land of Tamil Nadu with its rich maritime heritage. "With Modi ji's untiring effort and a decade of visionary leadership towards nation-building, our nation today has experienced exponential growth in all spheres of human endeavor, ensuring social justice, security, and economic opportunity for all. Since 2014, more than 45 projects have been initiated or implemented in 3 central government ports in Tamil Nadu, and more than Rs 16,000 crores has been invested," he said. The Union Minister said that only two years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured the people of India that the government would take steps to make the VOC port in Tamil Nadu the first transshipment hub on the east coast of India. "Today, true to his commitment to 'Modi ki Guarantee,' the initiatives launched by Prime Minister Modi ji will transform the VOC port as the transshipment hub of the east coast of India. While it will bring economic efficiency and cost benefits, it is likely to act as a multiplier to our coastal economy and generate employment avenues. The launch of India's first indigenous Green Hydrogen Fuel Cell Inland Waterway Vessel has reinforced PM Narendra Modiji's Make in India initiative. With the sankalp for a Viksit Bharat under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji, we are ready to achieve even greater heights in infrastructure logistics in line with the Amrit Kaal," he said. (ANI) If the BJP is talking about the third term, it is not to enjoy power but for nation-building, said Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday in Bihar. He was addressing a public meeting in the Darbhanga district of Bihar. "We gave Bharat Ratna to Karpoori Thakur. He was neglected during the Congress's tenure because, during their time, only one family got everything. Our Prime Minister also gave Bharat Ratna to PV Narasimha Rao ji, who was a Congress leader. We have honoured his contribution," he said. "We all have seen that the Indian ex-Navy personnel who were sentenced to death in the Qatar court, were safely brought to India after the Prime Minister talked authorities into Qatar and got their death sentence pardoned," he added. Earlier, during his visit to Bihar, Singh launched a scathing attack on the Congress party, saying poverty cannot be ended by giving speeches, and contrary to that, under the leadership of Modiji, 25 crore people have come out of poverty in ten years. He was addressing the intellectual meeting in Sitamarhi. The BJP leader said that when Congress was in power, they used to say that they would eliminate poverty but it never happened. On the contrary, under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, 25 crore people have come out of poverty in ten years. He is not claiming it but reports from Niti Aayog and many firms are saying this. Poverty cannot be ended by giving speeches. Mentioning the Atmanirbhar mission of the government of India, he said, "When I became Defence Minister, there were defence exports worth about one thousand crore rupees. Now it has exceeded twenty thousand crore rupees. Defense production worth more than Rs 1 lakh crore is happening in the country," he said. On Ram Mandir, he said that when the movement for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was underway, he led a group of Kar Sevaks as the National President of Yuva Morcha and also went to jail during the movement. Today, a grand Ram temple has been constructed in Ayodhya, he said. On the backdrop of the public meetings he held in Bihar, he also met party workers and discussed preparation for the upcoming polls. (ANI) Invoking Nationalist Congress Party (SCP) chief Sharad Pawar's tenure as Union Agriculture Minister under the Congress-led UPA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said money sanctioned by Delhi for the distressed farmers of Vidarbha was 'looted' midway. Setting the campaign tone for the ruling BJP-led NDA in the state ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, PM Modi launched a blistering attack on the partners in the INDIA bloc at a rally in Yavatmal, saying, "What was state of farmers when the partners in the INDI-alliance were in Delhi (under Congress-led UPA)? The Agriculture Minister at the time was from Maharashtra (Sharad Pawar). Packages were announced for the distressed farmers of Vidarbha from Delhi but the money was looted somewhere in transit. The poor, farmers and the Adivasis received little or nothing in the way of support. Today, I pressed a button and Rs 21,000 crore under PM Kisan Samman Nidhi reached the accounts of crores of farmers across the country. This is Modi's guarantee." "We have outlined four biggest priorities to make India a developed country by 2047. We will focus on the poor, farmers, youth and women power in pursuit of our vision to take the country to its promised heights. If we can ensure the strength of these four key sections of our population, every community and household in the country will be strong. The work being done in Yavatmal is a reflection of this commitment of ours. Today, farmers are getting all sorts of irrigation support while the poor are getting concrete roofs over their heads. Women across village are receiving income support while public infrastrucure is being developed in line with the aspirations of the youth," PM Modi said. He added that Rs 3,800 crore has been transferred separately to the accounts of farmers in Maharashtra. "Under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, more than Rs 3 lakh crore has been deposited in the accounts of 11 crore farmers across the country. The farmers have received Rs 30,000 crore, of which Rs 900 crore has been wired directly to the accounts of farmers in Yavatmal. "The work on a plan to build the world's largest wahehouse for storing food grains has started. These warehouses will be built by cooperative societies of farmers, who will also have control over it. Small farmers will be able to derive huge benefits from this storage facility. They will no longer be under the compulsion to sell their produce at low rates," PM Modi said. "Before 2014, a rural distress swept the country but the INDI-alliance partners that were in power at the time were indifferent to the concerns of the people. From independence till 2014, only about 15 of 100 families in a village had piped water supply. The majority of those deprived were Dalits, poor and tribals. It was Modi who guaranteed piped water to every household from the ramparts of the Red Fort. I am happy to share with you all that in only about 4-5 years since I made the announcement, piped water has reached 75 of every 100 families. That's why the whole country is saying that Modi's guarantee stands for the fulfillment of all guarantees," he added. PM Modi claimed previous Congress-led government at the Centre put as many as 100 major irrigation projects in the country on hold for decades, adding that work on 60 of these projects has been completed and the remaining will be done soon. "I also guaranteed that my sisters across villages will become 'Lakhpati Didi'. I can tell you that one crore sisters have already become Lakhpati Didis. During the presentation of the budget, we announced of Lakhpati Didis would be raised to 3 crore. Today, the number of women self-help groups has gone past 10 crores. They have received assistance worth Rs 8 lakh crore from banks. Under the 'Namo Drone Didi' scheme, some of our sisters are being trained to become drone pilots, after which the government will give them drones through which they will provide assistance to farmers," Prime Minister Modi said. Claiming that tribals were ignored during the Congress years, he said, "No big plan was ever made for our Vishwakarma (skilled artisan) friends. It was Modi who launched 'PM Vishwakarma Yojana' worth Rs 13,000 crore for the first time. It was Modi again who thought the welfare and well-being of some of our most backward citizens and tribals. For the first time, Rs 23,000 crore under 'PM Jaan-Mana Yojana' was allocated for their development." Reinforcing his pledge to take 'Vikas' (development) to the far corners of the country, PM Modi added, "We have also set out on a mission to change the lives of our fellow citizens. The work we have done over the last 10 years has laid the foundation for what is to be done in the next 25 years. I have resolved to take Vikas to every corner of India. Every fibre of my being and every second of my time is dedicated to your service." (ANI) The Patwari recruitment examination hit fresh headlines after the candidates staged a protest at the Board office square in the state capital Bhopal on Wednesday, calling the recuritment fake and demanding an investigation into the exam. The candidates were heading towards the Mantralaya to submit a memorandum to Principal Secreatry of GAD (General Administration Department) when the police stopped them near Vyapam square. The police warned them but they kept moving forward. Thereafter, the police detained some candidates saying they did not have permission to protest. Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP), Mahavir Singh, told ANI, "The candidates were angry about the Patwari recruitment exam and planned to submit a memorandum to Principal Secreatry of GAD. There was a crowd of about 200-300 persons who did not have the permission to protest." "Earlier, we decided that we will let their delegation to meet the official but they were adamant on moving with the crowd. No protest can be allowed without permission. Despite being warned, they kept moving ahead which is why some people were detained as a precautionary measure," Singh added. However, a protesting exam candidate said, "We were protesting peacefully against the fake process of Patwari recruitment and the list has just been published. However, the police used force to disperse us. We wanted to submit our memorandum peacefully." The result of Patwari recruitment examination was declared on June 30, last year. However, following allegations of foul play in the exam at the time, then chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan put a stay on the recruitments pending investigation. A commision had formed to investigate the matter under retired High Court Justice Rajendra Kumar Verma. Recently, the state government gave a clean chit to the conduct of the Patwari recruitment examination on February 15. An order issued by the General Administration Department read, "Appointment should be made on the basis of the declared results of Group-2, Sub Group-4 and Patwari Recruitment Examination conducted by the Staff Selection Board." However, the protesters alleged that there were 'irregularities' in the examination. (ANI) Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, met Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Wednesday and presented him with a model of the BHISHM 'Aarogya Maitri Aid Cube.' This cube is a part of the broader initiative named "Project BHISHM" - Bharat Health Initiative for Sahyog, Hita and Maitri, and is tailored to treat up to 200 casualties, emphasizing rapid response and comprehensive care. The Aid Cube is equipped with several innovative tools designed to enhance disaster response and medical support during emergencies. It integrates Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data analytics to facilitate effective coordination, real-time monitoring, and efficient management of medical services in the field. Mandaviya thanked Gates for his "positive feedback" on BHISHM. The Union Minister noted that BHISHM was conceptualied to harness India's expertise in areas like digital technologies, pharmaceutical commodities, medical devices and design. The aim was to come up with a solution that can take quality healthcare to people living in difficult areas including those affected by conflict, health emergencies and other challenges. The solution was showcased at the G20 Health Minister's meeting last August and "was very well received". "We wish the world to be free of conflict and a solution like BHISHM can help provide relief to people living in these difficult settings - including global hotspots in the Middle East and Europe currently affected by conflict," he said. "India, led by PM Modi's vision, is focused on research and innovation and national capabilities are increasing. It is blessed with man power and brain power and now also has the added support of Bill power, which will help Indian innovation get to the next level," the minister added. He also appreciated Bill Gates' comments about Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, anemia-free India and campaigns to get rid of TB and sickle-cell anemia. Officials said Health Ministry has a strong working relationship with the Gates Foundation and looks forward to strengthening its partnership with it and other international institutions to help contribute solutions to global health problems. Bill Gates also invited Mandaviya to visit Seattle on his next trip to the United States. Two Arogya Maitri Disaster Management Cube-BHISHM, revolutionary mobile hospitals equipped with cutting-edge technology, were deployed in Ayodhya to bolster medical readiness and response capabilities during the 'Pran Pratishtha' ceremony last month. Advanced medical equipment, RFID-tagged for efficient repacking and redeployment, is a key feature of the 'Aarogya Maitri Aid Cube. The state-of-the-art BHISHM software system integrated into a provided tablet allows operators to locate items quickly, monitor their usage and expiry, and ensure readiness for subsequent deployments. (ANI) Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday that in the last 10 years, India has transformed itself from being among fragile 5 economies to one of the top 5 economies in the world. Talking to the reporters, on the 'Viksit Bharat Ambassador Meet', Chandrasekhar said, "Citizens of Pune who are interested in becoming part of the movement of building a Viksit Bharat that the Prime Minister has laid out as a vision for us can become a Viksit Bharat ambassador. In the last 10 years, India has transformed itself from a fragile 5 economy to one of the top 5 economies in the world." Appreciating the ongoing developments in the nation, the Union Minister said that India has become an inspiration for countries around the world. "We have become an inspiration for the countries of the world in terms of economic performance, in terms of our inclusive policies, and in terms of how we transformed governance and made government work for the people," he said. Chandrasekhar said that the Prime Minister has set a target for making India a viksit bharat in the coming years. "In the coming years, the Prime Minister has set the target of making India a viksit bharat, and he has said that this will be a partnership between the government, political parties, and the citizens of the country. Each Indian should come out and become a Viksit Bharat ambassador so that this vision of Viksit Bharat is a vision that is being built for the future of young Indians," he said. "When the young Indians grow, he/she finds himself or herself living in a country that has been transformed over the years through the hard work of many governments, including PM Narendra Modi," the Union Minister said. Talking to ANI, MD of Epitome Component Pvt Ltd. Anurag Dhooth said that the idea of Viksit Bharat is the progress of the country and all the sections of society. "The idea of Viksit Bharat is the progress of the country and all the sections of society. Whatever is happening today is a transformation. The world is looking at us," Dhooth said. Investment Advisor Mandar Shende told ANI that if all 140 crore Indians contribute, then India will become a developed country in 2037 instead of 2047. "If all the 140 crore Indians contribute towards the Prime Minister's dream of Viksit Bharat, then we will become a developed country in 2037 instead of 2047. Each and every Indian should contribute towards it. It is not just PM Modi's goal, it is the goal of 140 crore Indians," he said. Applauding the idea of 'Viksit Bharat Ambassador Meet', partner at Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale, Indraneel Chitale, said, "It is an excellent campaign. It is marketing India's story very well. The more the world notices, the better it gets. GST has been a great boom for doing business across the country. Digital infrastructure has been a boom for consumer businesses like us." The MD of Agni Solar Pvt. Ltd., Ravi Petite, said that everyone should contribute towards the Viksit Bharat dream of the Prime Minister. "It is a fantastic initiative. We must all contribute towards the Viksit Bharat dream of the Prime Minister. The solar energy industry is really booming because of the vision of the PM. For my industry (the solar industry), it is a huge change. We don't see a slowdown at all. It will continue to grow," Petite told ANI. Technical Director of Pawar Rubber Products, Hemant Thakkar, said that government initiatives are being taken for entrepreneurs and MSMEs "I think we are just very happy to be here supporting the government in whatever way we can. We have also seen a lot of changes in the last 8-10 years. Government initiatives are being taken for entrepreneurs and MSMEs," he said. Highlighting the Prime Minister's belief in 'Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas', Chairperson of the Mentoring Panel at CII's BYST, Dr. S. Sukanya Iyer, said that the PM gave a 360-degree perspective of balanced regional development. "The most important aspect of our leadership and our PM is that he believes in 'Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas and Sabka Prayas'. He included not only one particular region, but he also gave a 360-degree perspective of balanced regional development. Starting from Jammu and Kashmir, abrogation of Article 370 to Kanniyakumari, where he has given Rs. 7,300 crores worth of infrastructure projects," she said. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the country''s first indigenous green hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel under the Harit Nauka initiative in Tamil Nadu''s Thoothukudi. Talking about India''s first hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel, PM Modi called it a gift from the people of Tamil Nadu for Kashi. The hydrogen-fueled electric vessel project is part of India''s transformative efforts on the innovative and new technology fronts on green energy and sustainable cost-effective alternate fuel front. Hydrogen fuel cells can be used in a wide range of applications, including transportation, material handling, stationary, portable, and emergency backup power applications. According to an official release from the Prime Minister''s Office (PMO), "Prime Minister Modi also laid the foundation stone and dedicated to the nation multiple development projects worth more than Rs 17,300 crore in Thoothukudi." PM Modi also laid the foundation stone for the Outer Harbour Container Terminal at VO Chidambaranar Port. The Prime Minister launched India''s first indigenous green hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel and also dedicated tourist facilities to 75 lighthouses across 10 states and UTs. PM Modi also dedicated to the nation''s rail projects for the doubling of the Vanchi Maniyachchi-Nangercoil rail line, including the Vanchi Maniyachchi - Tirunelveli section and the Melappalayam - Aralvaymoli section. The Prime Minister dedicated four road projects in Tamil Nadu, developed at a total cost of about Rs 4,586 crore. Addressing the gathering, the Prime Minister said that Tamil Nadu is writing a new chapter of progress in Thoothukudi as inauguration and foundation stones are being laid for multiple development projects towards the road map of developed India. He said that one can witness the spirit of ''Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat'' in the development projects of today. Even though the projects may be in Thoothukudi, the Prime Minister emphasised that they will give momentum to development in multiple places across India. The Prime Minister reiterated the journey of Viksit Bharat and the role of Tamil Nadu in it. He recalled his visit 2 years ago when he flagged off many projects for the expansion of the Chidambaranar Port capacity and his promise of making it a major hub of shipping. "That guarantee is being fulfilled today," said the Prime Minister. Speaking about the foundation stone of the Outer Harbour Container Terminal at VO Chidambaranar Port, the Prime Minister informed that this project will require an investment of 7,000 crore rupees. Projects worth 900 crore rupees have been dedicated today and 2,500 crore rupee-worth of projects were initiated on 13 ports. These projects will benefit Tamil Nadu and create avenues of employment in the state, he said. PM Modi reminded that the development projects of today being brought about by the present government are the people''s demands and the previous governments never paid any attention to them. "I have come to Tamil Nadu for the service of the land and to change its fate," PM Modi said. The Prime Minister inaugurated various other projects aimed at making the VO Chidambaranar Port the first green hydrogen hub port in the country. These projects include a desalination plant, hydrogen production, and a bunkering facility. "Tamil Nadu will go a long way with regard to the alternatives that the world is exploring," he said. The Prime Minister also highlighted the rail and road development projects and said that the electrification and doubling of rail lines will further improve connectivity between South Tamil Nadu and Kerala, while also easing the congestion in the Tirunelveli and Nagercoil sectors. He also mentioned the four major projects for the modernization of roadways in Tamil Nadu worth more than Rs 4,000 crores today. The Prime Minister said that they will give a boost to connectivity, reduce travel time and encourage trade and tourism in the state. Referring to the whole-of-government approach of New India, the Prime Minister said that the roadways, highways, and waterways departments are working to create better connectivity and better opportunities in Tamil Nadu. Therefore, railways, roads and maritime projects are being launched in tandem. The multi-modal approach will give new momentum to the development of the state, said the Prime Minister. PM Modi also recalled his suggestion to develop prime lighthouses of the country into tourist destinations during an episode of Mann Ki Baat and expressed pride in dedicating tourist facilities to 75 lighthouses across 10 states and UTs. "Developments in 75 places at once, this is new India," PM Modi remarked and expressed confidence that these 75 places will become huge tourist centres in the coming times. Recounting the initiatives of the central government, the Prime Minister informed that in the last 10 years, 1300 kilometre-long rail projects were undertaken in Tamil Nadu. 2,000 km of railway electrification, the creation of a flyover and underpass, and the upgradation of many railway stations were done. He said 5 Vande Bharat trains are running in the state, providing a world-class travel experience and that the government of India is investing 1.5 lakh crore rupees in the road infrastructure of Tamil Nadu. "The central government''s efforts to improve connectivity are increasing the ease of living," he said. The Prime Minister underscored the great expectations with the waterways and the maritime sector of India for decades and said that these sectors are becoming the foundations of Viksit Bharat today, and Tamil Nadu, along with the entire South India, are the biggest beneficiaries of this. The Prime Minister highlighted the three major ports and more than 12 small ports in Tamil Nadu and underlined the possibilities for all southern states. "Development of the maritime sector means the development of a state like Tamil Nadu, the Prime Minister said, informing about the 35 per cent growth of traffic at VO Chidambaranar Port in the last decade. He further added that the port handled 38 million tonnes last year, recording an annual growth of 11 per cent. "Similar results can be seen in other major ports of the country", PM Modi added, crediting the role of projects like Sagarmala. The Prime Minister asserted that India is creating new records in waterways and maritime sectors. He noted India''s jump to 38th rank in the logistics performance index and port capacity has doubled in one decade. He further said that there has been an eight-times increase in national waterways during this time period and the number of cruise passengers has grown four times while seafarers have doubled. These strides are bound to benefit Tamil Nadu and our youth, he said. "I am convinced that Tamil Nadu will move forward on the path of development and I give you the guarantee that I will serve you with new enthusiasm when the nation gives us the opportunity to serve for the third time." Speaking about the love, affection, enthusiasm, and blessings of the people of various regions of Tamil Nadu during his current visit, the Prime Minister highlighted the government''s commitment and said that he will match every affection of the people with the development of the state. In conclusion, the Prime Minister asked everyone to switch on their phone lights and indicate that Tamil Nadu and the government of India are celebrating the festival of development. Governor of Tamil Nadu, RN Ravi, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, and Union Minister of State, L Murugan were present on the occasion among others. (ANI) US President Joe Biden turned the tables on former President Donald Trump when asked about the claims that he is too old to run for a second term, saying that "he's about as old as I am," ABC News reported. US President Biden, while campaigning in New York on Monday, stopped by 30 Rockefeller to appear on NBC's "Late Night With Seth Meyers." The president's sit-down with the comic included questions about his age and his 2024 agenda versus that of former President Trump, the Republican front-runner for the nomination, reported ABC News. "Some documents recently leaked, some classified documents--and this isn't a gotcha show but I do want to ask about it--that says you are currently 81 years old," Meyers said. "Who the hell told you that?" Biden joked. "That's classified." Turning to a more serious note, Meyers highlighted the fact that polls showed that voters are concerned about Biden's age as he runs for a second term and asked how Biden plans to address that on the campaign trail. "Number 1, you got to take a look at the other guy, he's about as old as I am," Biden said, hinting at Trump, who is 77. "Number 2, it's about how old your ideas are," Biden added. "Look, I mean, this is a guy who wants to take us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade. He wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that, for 50, 60 years, have been solid American positions," he said. "I think it's about the future," Biden said. "And everything, every single thing we've done, and I think we've got some good things done...they told us we couldn't get them done because things were so divided," he added. The interview comes as Biden seeks to tamp down voter worries and Republican criticisms about his age and stamina by ramping up his appearances, as reported by ABC News. Moreover, the choice of venue was also decided, targeting an important demographic: targeting, younger voters. Further, as the show continued, Biden joked about conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift scheming with Democrats when it comes to everything from the Super Bowl to the 2024 election. "Where are you getting this information?" Biden quipped when Meyers broached the subject. "It's classified." Meyers also questioned Biden about Republicans holding up aid to Ukraine, Trump's "dictator" remarks, and the Israel-Hamas conflict. Biden, who has been facing criticism by some Arab and Muslim communities in Michigan and elsewhere for his position on the Israel-Hamas issue, said that he believed there is a path forward, albeit a "difficult" one, on a ceasefire and hostage release. "Ramadan is coming up and there's been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out," he said. Earlier in the day, Biden was at an ice cream shop with Meyers and said that he hoped that there would be a ceasefire reached by next Monday, as reported by ABC News. Biden further said that without Israel, no Jewish person would be safe, but also warned of diminished support for the country if it continues its current tactics in Gaza. "Israel has had the overwhelming support of the vast majority of nations. If it keeps this up without this incredibly conservative government they have ... they're going to lose support from around the world," he said. "And that is not in Israel's interest." (ANI) Tel Aviv [Israel], February 28 (ANI/TPS): Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope, Israeli astronomers identified an extraordinarily red supermassive black hole shrouded in cosmic dust, challenging current understandings of black hole growth and their relationship with host galaxies. The Webb Telescope is a space-based observatory orbiting roughly 1.5 million km above Earth, giving researchers an unprecedented view of the universe's most distant objects and previously unseen phenomena. Analyzing images taken by the Webb telescope, a team of astronomers led by Dr. Lukas Furtak and Prof. Adi Zitrin from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev revealed what at first seemed to be a lensed, quasar-like object from the early universe. Quasars are incredibly bright and distant objects observed at the centers of galaxies. "Three very compact yet red-blooming objects prominently stood out and caught our eyes," said Furtak, the lead author of the discovery papers. "Their 'red-dot' appearance immediately led us to suspect that it was a quasar-like object." However, this black hole was actively accreting material, referring to the process by which matter falls into and accumulates around a black hole due to its intense gravitational pull. This matter can come from various sources, such as gas clouds, stars, or even other black holes. Said Zitrin, "We used a numerical lensing model that we had constructed for the galaxy cluster to determine that the three red dots had to be multiple images of the same background source, seen when the Universe was only some 700 million years old." The Ben-Gurion researchers were working in the framework of the Webb Telescope's UNCOVER program, which is surveying the universe. With input from other UNCOVER researchers in the US and Australia, "We managed to not only confirm that the red compact object was a supermassive black hole and measure its exact redshift, but also obtain a solid estimate for its mass from the width of its emission lines," Furtak said. "Gas is orbiting in the gravitational field of the black hole and achieves very high velocities that are not seen in other parts of galaxies. Because of the Doppler shift, light emitted by the accreting material is red-shifted on one side and blue-shifted on the other side, according to its velocity. This causes emission lines in the spectrum to become broader," he explained. According to the researchers, the colors suggest that the black hole lies behind a thick veil of dust obscuring much of its light. The team managed to measure the black hole mass and discovered that it was significantly more massive, compared to its host galaxy, than what has been seen in more local examples. The findings, recently published in the peer-reviewed Nature journal, raise new questions. Most notably, the black hole's mass surpasses that of its host galaxy by a significant amount. "All the light of that galaxy must fit within a tiny region the size of a present-day star cluster. The gravitational lensing magnification of the source gave us exquisite limits on the size. Even packing all the possible stars into such a small region, the black hole ends up being at least one percent of the total mass of the system," said Princeton University Prof. Jenny Greene, one of the study's co-authors. "In fact, several other supermassive black holes in the early universe have now been found to show a similar behavior, which leads to some intriguing views of black hole and host galaxy growth, and the interplay between them, which is not well understood," she added. Said Zitrin, "In a way, it's the astrophysical equivalent of the chicken and egg problem. We do not currently know which came first - the galaxy or black hole, how massive the first black holes were, and how they grew." (ANI/TPS) U.S. students' China trip backed by Xi builds up Sino-American friendship Xinhua) 08:29, February 28, 2024 American students sing a Chinese song during an event to celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year in Muscatine, Iowa, the United States, Feb. 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Xu Jing) BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Sienna Stoneking, a first-year student at Muscatine High School in the central U.S. state of Iowa, has just concluded her first visit to China with elation. While in China, she, together with more than 20 students from her school, went to see the giant pandas and visited the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and sights in Hebei Province and Shanghai City. On Jan. 28, just before the end of their trip, the American students wrote a letter to express their joy and gratitude to Chinese President Xi Jinping for the invitation. FRIENDSHIP THAT ENDURES "China is really huge. Just like the United States. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to come to China," said the letter signed by over 20 students, with some drawing hearts next to their signatures. On the right side of the main text, students drew a soaring Chinese dragon over the Great Wall. "This invitation to visit China has deeply moved the students, most of whom are visiting China for the first time. Many of them have told me that if it weren't for this opportunity, they probably wouldn't have had the chance to visit China in their lifetime," said Guo Qianyu, a Chinese language teacher at the school. On Saturday, the day of the Chinese Lantern Festival of the Year of the Dragon, Xi replied to the letter, in which he extended holiday wishes to the teachers and students of the school, and encouraged more American youth to come to China for exchanges and study. "We are so honored to be part of the first students and educators in the 50,000 student exchanges that President Xi extended to Americans. We look forward to continuing to build a strong and lasting relationship between Muscatine, Iowa, and the People's Republic of China," said Jennifer Fridley, principal of Susan Clark Junior High of Muscatine Community School District. "We are grateful for the support that we have received from the Chinese government and from the people of China. We believe that our relationship is a testament to the power of education to build bridges between cultures and to promote peace and understanding," Fridley said. During his trip to the United States in November 2023, Xi announced a program to invite 50,000 American youths to China in the next five years for exchanges and study. Muscatine High School students present a lion dance during an event to celebrate the Chinese New Year in Muscatine, Iowa, the United States, on Feb. 1, 2023. (Xinhua/Xu Jing) Sarah Lande, a friend of Xi's from the U.S. state of Iowa, recently wrote a letter to the Chinese president, expressing the hope that Muscatine High School students can join the program. With Xi's support, more than 20 Muscatine High School students paid an exchange visit to Beijing, Shanghai and Hebei Province, among other places in China, from Jan. 24 to 30, becoming the first group of American students to visit China under the program. The visit is in the heritage of the friendship between Xi and the people in Muscatine. Muscatine, a city in Iowa on the banks of the Mississippi River, has been home to the nearly four-decade-long friendship between Xi and local residents. In 1985, Xi, then a Chinese county official, visited the city. Sarah Lande received him. During his U.S. visit as China's vice president in 2012, despite a tight schedule, Xi made it to the reunion in Lande's house on a snowy day. They gathered around a couch in the living room and reminisced about their joyful memories. The hour-long meeting was filled with laughter. The warm and friendly American people he met during his first visit to the United States in 1985 have given him an indelible impression, Xi said in the reply. "During my first visit to the United States, I stayed at the Dvorchaks in Iowa. I still remember their address-2911 Bonnie Drive," Xi recalled in his speech at the welcome dinner during his U.S. visit late last year. "People are pretty excited about such an amazing story, depicting nearly forty years of friendship between President Xi and the people in Muscatine. So, the story just continues to evolve, the students' visit being just another chapter," said Dan Stein, chairman of the Muscatine-China Initiative Committee. LANGUAGE AS BRIDGE "We will work hard to learn Chinese so that next time we can be tour guides for other classmates." In the letter, Muscatine students expressed their commitment to learning the Chinese language for further exchanges with Chinese friends. In his reply, Xi encouraged the Muscatine High School students to revisit China and encouraged more American young people to come to China for exchanges and study. Guo, who has been teaching Chinese at Muscatine for seven years, is delighted to see the bonding effects of the Chinese language. Through learning Chinese, students have gained a deeper understanding of the friendly relations between Muscatine and China, sparking increased interest in Chinese culture. "Many students have watched the video we recently filmed in China and are eager to visit. Some Chinese schools also want to establish sister school relationships with us. We look forward to nurturing the seeds of friendship between students of both countries," Guo said. Students of the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China stage a dance during an event to celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year in Muscatine, Iowa, the United States, Feb. 9, 2024. (Xinhua/Xu Jing) Ryan Castle, the principal at Muscatine High School, said the school is preparing for another exchange trip to China in April. "I really hope my Chinese can become more fluent so I can visit China more often in the future," said Stoneking. She and a classmate are already considering studying in China. "I will eagerly board the plane when the time comes." Cultural exchanges have also brought American friends closer to Chinese youth. In Beijing, Wang Yi, a high school junior, participated in exchange activities with students from Muscatine High School. Chinese and American teenagers practiced the traditional exercise Baduanjin together, performed Peking Opera, tried their hands at Chinese calligraphy and traditional painting, and donned ethnic costumes. As part of a Spring Festival custom, they also wrote the Chinese character Fu, meaning good fortune. "Although we come from different countries and cultural backgrounds, we have built a deep and sincere friendship. I believe they can feel the warmth of our culture, the warmth of our friendship, and with common expectations, we can work together to create a diverse and harmonious global village," Wang said. On Feb. 9, the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year of Dragon, an art troupe from the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China performed with peers from Muscatine High School under the theme "Art Unites Friends." The Muscatine students welcomed their Chinese friends with symphonies and jazz music, while the Chinese students presented traditional dances and martial arts, offering a "Spring Festival Gala" for Muscatine students and teachers. A few days later, Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, replied to a Chinese New Year greeting card from teachers and students from Lincoln High School in Washington State, who are preparing for their exchange trip to China in March. The students and teachers felt greatly encouraged by this precious New Year's blessing, said Zhou Shuqi, co-chair of the Washington State U.S.-China Youth and Student Exchange Association. "We hope that young people from both countries can get to know each other, learn from each other, and contribute to enhancing friendship between the peoples of China and the United States, especially among the youth, to build a better future for our planet together," Zhou said. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Flash A U.S. Air Force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington "in an apparent protest" against the Israeli raids on Gaza died in a hospital late Sunday. The airman was identified by police as 25-year-old Aaron Bushnell from San Antonio, Texas, and confirmed on active duty by an Air Force spokesperson Monday. People gathered Monday evening for his vigil in front of the embassy gate with candles and posters. According to ABC News, an account on Amazon-owned platform Twitch started a livestream around 1 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) Sunday, showing Bushnell dressed in camouflage fatigues and walking up to the embassy gate before pouring flammable liquid from a bottle and setting himself on fire. "I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I'm about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it's not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal," Bushnell said prior to setting himself on fire. The District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Department responded to a call for fire outside the Israeli embassy in Northwestern Washington just before 1 p.m. local time Sunday, and arrived at the scene after the flames had been extinguished, according to statements from the city's Metropolitan Police Department and Fire and EMS Department. The Israeli embassy released a statement saying the man was "unknown" to embassy staff and no embassy workers were injured in the incident. According to The New York Times, the video was deleted from Twitch on Sunday afternoon, replaced by a message saying that the channel violated the platform's guidelines. It is yet still available on other social media platforms including X, Facebook, and Instagram. NBC reported a similar incident on Dec. 1, 2023, when a woman wrapped in a Palestinian flag set herself on fire in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, Georgia, in what police said was "likely an extreme act of political protest." An Al Jazeera opinion piece published Monday criticized U.S. corporate media for a "diluted and decontextualized" report of Bushnell's self-immolation, including framing his protest as violating U.S. military regulations. Such titles include The New York Times' "Man Dies After Setting Himself on Fire Outside Israeli Embassy in Washington, Air Force Says" (updated Monday evening EST), Politico's "Air Force member dies after setting himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy" (updated Monday 10:55 a.m. EST, 1555 GMT), CNN's "US airman sets himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy in Washington" (updated Sunday 9:12 p.m. EST, 0212 GMT Monday). The Washington Post has changed their Bushnell story title from "Who was Aaron Bushnell, the U.S. airman who set himself on fire?" in the update Monday 8:16 p.m. EST (0116 GMT Tuesday) to "Airman who set self on fire grew up on religious compound, had anarchist past" two hours later. This edition of MILAN witnessed the participation of 35 units, including ships, submarines, and aircraft. Additionally, 13 ships and one aircraft from friendly foreign countries participated in the sea phase. "The Sea Phase culminated with a Closing Ceremony conducted in a unique manner, wherein all 35 participating units arrived at anchorage off Visakhapatnam and the Commanding Officers assembled onboard indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant for discussions," an official statement said. Moreover, the Indian Navy's participation included both aircraft carriers, INS Vikramaditya and INS Vikrant, the indigenous aircraft carrier."All units undertook a series of complex and advanced exercises in the domains of surface, sub-surface, and air warfare, including exercises against asymmetric threats," it added. Moreover, the major exercises included surface firings, complex anti-air shoots, advanced anti-submarine warfare exercises with Indian Navy submarines, air defence exercises against fighters, extensive operations of ship-borne helicopters, and seamanship evolutions, including fueling from Indian Navy tankers. Furthermore, the closing ceremony included a debrief about the operational aspects of the Sea Phase. It "enabled all participating navies to interact, exchange views and enhance mutual understanding and interoperability by sharing experiences and best practices," the statement read. Participants in Sea Phase MILAN 2024 engaged in a series of advanced exercises, covering all three dimensions of maritime warfare. The activities included weapon firings against surface and high-speed aerial targets, anti-submarine warfare, cross-deck landings, carrier operations, and seamanship evolutions such as replenishment at sea. The MILAN 2024 Sea Phase serves as a testament to the commitment of participating nations towards promoting peace, stability, and interoperability in the maritime domain. As the exercise continued, the world witnessed a united front of naval forces actively building bridges and strengthening global maritime security, the release added. (ANI) The function will be organised by the Jain pilgrim centre, Navagraha Tirtha Kshetra, in Hubli Varur, Karnataka, today. The honour will be conferred in recognition of Acharya Lokeshji's contribution to promoting peace and harmony globally as well as his efforts in enhancing the pride of India and Jainism on the international platform. The ceremony will be held in the presence of Digambar Jain, and Acharya Gunadharnandiji, founder of AGM Group of Institutions. Union Minister Pralhad Joshi, former Karnataka Chief Minister Basavraj Bommai and Vice-Chancellor S Vidyashankar will also grace the event. During this program, the foundation stone of Padmavati Mata Shaktipeeth will be laid. The inauguration of the new administrative block of AGM Rural College and the new block of AGM Ayurvedic College and Hospital will also be completed. "This momentous occasion underlines the commitment of Digambar Acharya Gunadharanandi and Navagraha Tirtha to promote spiritual heritage, education and healthcare services domestically and globally," the release stated. "The event promises to be a celebration of spirituality, education and peace-building, reflecting the essence of India's rich cultural heritage and its commitment towards global well-being," it added. (ANI) Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided to hold a protest on March 2 against the alleged rigging in the elections held on February 8, Pakistan-based Geo News reported. The party founded by Imran Khan announced that other political parties would also join them. PTI Secretary General Omar Ayub, who is also the party's candidate for the prime minister's position, spoke about the "large scale" rigging in the elections. He made the remarks in a press conference after his meeting with PTI founder Imran Khan. Ayub said PTI will hold nationwide protests against "rigging" in elections alongside other political parties. He said, "Our seats were stolen with just a stroke of the pen. The people gave the mandate to the former PTI chairman. Nation's mandate and our seats have been attacked." He stated that the successful PTI-backed candidate had the Form 45s and added that PTI leaders held a meeting with Imran Khan, who is incarcerated at the prison. The PTI Secretary said Imran Khan is "confident" regarding the party's stance, according to Geo News report. Omar Ayub said that PTI will hold protests in courts and assemblies. He further said, "Ours is the fight of truth." He announced that PTI has nominated Amir Dogar and Junaid Khan for the positions of National Assembly speaker and deputy speaker. Meanwhile, PTI's central leader, Sher Afzal Marwat also said that Imran Khan instructed the party to hold nationwide protests on March 2. He made the remarks while speaking to reporters outside Adiala jail. Marwat said that the meeting with Imran Khan included discussions regarding internal matters of PTI. He stated that PTI's elected members will go to the assembly to take oaths on February 29. Furthermore, he announced that the PTI founder will write to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as per the party's narrative, Geo News reported. Pakistan held its 12th national general election on February 8, amid allegations of rigging and the shutdown of cellular and internet services. The PTI dominated the election results, with the highest number of successful candidates in the February 8 general elections. However, the party has alleged rigging in the polls. The PTI has said that the polls were "not free and fair" and plans to stage countrywide peaceful protests against the alleged rigging, according to Geo News report. Meanwhile, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which are the second and third largest parties in the elections in terms of numbers, have decided to form the government in the Centre, Punjab, and Balochistan. (ANI) US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) Chairman John Chambers and USISPF President and CEO Mukesh Aghi held a meeting with Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran at the Bombay House in Mumbai. During the meeting, Mukesh Aghi and John Chambers presented Natarajan Chandrasekaran with USISPF's coffee table book, "We The People," which captures and commemorates 75 years of relations between India and US. In a post on X, USISPF stated, "USISPF Chairman @JohnTChambers, along with Dr. @MukeshAghi, President & CEO of USISPF, met Shri N Chandrasekaran, Chairman of @TataCompanies at the Bombay House in Mumbai. During the meeting, they had the pleasure of presenting Mr. Chandrasekaran with USISPF's coffee table book, "We The People," which captures and commemorates 75 years of US-India relations." Mukesh Aghi also mentioned about his meeting with N Chandrasekaran. In a post on X, he stated, "Wonderful to touch base with Mr. N Chandrasekaran, Chairman of @TataCompaniesat the Bombay House in Mumbai. The @TataCompanies have been leading architects in strengthening US-India commercial ties through the years." In 2022, India and US marked 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations. The two nations enjoy a comprehensive global strategic partnership covering almost all areas of human endeavour, driven by shared democratic values, convergence of interests on various issues and vibrant people-to-people contacts. Mukesh Aghi and John Chambers also held a meeting with Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. During the meeting, Shinde pledged to cooperate for the growth of the industry in Maharashtra and further bolstering bilateral ties. Taking to X, Office of the Maharashtra CM stated, "A delegation led by President John Chambers of @USISPForum met Chief Minister @mieknathshinde at the Ministry today. On this occasion, the Chief Minister promised to cooperate for the growth of industry in the state and further strengthening of bilateral relations. MP Milind Deora, Additional Chief Secretary Bhushan Gagrani, Principal Secretary Vikas Kharge, Principal Secretary Industries Department Harshdeep Kamble and other dignitaries were present." Meanwhile, the USISPF Chairman discussed boosting investment opportunities in Maharashtra and achieving the state's vision of achieving a USD 1 trillion economy by 2027-28. "USISPF Chairman @JohnTChambers, along with Dr. @MukeshAghi, President & CEO of USISPF, met with Shri @mieknathshinde, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra, in Mumbai. The discussions focused on boosting investment opportunities in Maharashtra and explored ways to strengthen USISPF's partnership with the Government of Maharashtra to achieve the state's vision of achieving a $1 Trillion Dollar economy by 2027-28. Shri @milinddeora, MP-elect and Advisor to the USISPF Board, also participated in the meeting," posted US-India Strategic Partnership Forum on X. Earlier in December, USISPF President and CEO Mukesh Aghi said diplomatic momentum gained during the visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden paved the way for a "concrete strategic roadmap" and new initiatives between India and the US in several areas. In a statement, Aghi stated, "The diplomatic momentum gained during the visits of Prime Minister Modi and President Biden paved the way for a concrete strategic roadmap and new dialogues and initiatives in multifaceted areas such as clean energy cooperation, education, space collaboration, semiconductors, quantum computing, drone technology, artificial intelligence, with accelerated joint projects such as manufacturing GE F-414 jet engines in India, putting India in the elite club of countries with such manufacturing capability." In June last year, PM Modi travelled to the US for a State visit. US President Joe Biden had invited PM Modi for a State visit. He also addressed a joint meeting of Congress before a State dinner at the White House. Later, US President Biden travelled to India to attend the G20 Summit under India's Presidency. Aghi noted that 2024 will be the year to capitalize on building new trade links and new shipping and transport planes that will boost digital connectivity, create clean energy corridors, and strengthen India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States (I2U2) collaboration in West Asia. "We look forward to 2024, as Washington and New Delhi continue their commitment to strengthening bilateral ties and reinforcing the strong bonds between two of the world's leading democracies," he said in a statement. (ANI) Yogi Adityanath held a meeting with Australia's High Commissioner, Philip Green OAM, at his official residence in Lucknow today. In a tweet from his official Twitter account on X, Yogi Adityanath conveyed his delight at the meeting, stating, "Had a fruitful meeting with Australia's High Commissioner, Philip Green OAM, at my official residence in Lucknow today. @AusHCIndia https://twitter.com/myogiadityanath/status/1762715714526617898 Discussions focused on enhancing bilateral cooperation in trade, investment, education, and technology between Uttar Pradesh and Australia. Both parties expressed commitment to fostering stronger ties and exploring opportunities for collaboration in various sectors. The meeting between the two leaders gains significance against the backdrop of historical ties and shared values between India and Australia. Notably, both nations recently converged at the Raisina Dialogue conference, where former Prime Minister Tony Abbott described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the "best Indian friend" and wished him well for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Moreover, Abbott's remarks reflect the robust relationship between India and Australia, emphasising the enduring nature of their partnership and their commitment to sustained engagement in trade and diplomacy. He emphasised the stability of trade relations with India, highlighting the reliability and resilience of the economic bond. Additionally, Abbott said that Australia would be very happy to continue to do business with Prime Minister Modi for years to come. "The relationship between India and Australia is a very strong one. The great thing about doing business with India is that no one is going to suddenly stop the trade for capricious reasons," Abbott added. Furthermore, to depict more of the enduring bond between India and Australia, 'MILAN' would be an excellent platform. The participating navies share ideas to enhance security on the high seas and ensure the safety of maritime commerce for the growth and prosperity of all. In addition to building bridges of friendship and strengthening relationships, Additionally, on February 18, the recent participation of HMAS Warramunga, an Anzac-class frigate of the Royal Australian Navy, in the 'MILAN 2024' multilateral naval exercise further solidified the maritime partnership between India and Australia. The arrival of the Australian warship in Visakhapatnam underscores the close cooperation between the two countries in matters of maritime security and defense. (ANI) Several prominent journalists, along with social and political activists, held a protest outside the National Press Club in Islamabad on Tuesday demanding the withdrawal of the FIR against journalist Asad Ali Toor. During the protest, the journalist fraternity shouted slogans against the government, criticising the frequent arrests and the suppression of free speech in Pakistan. The journalists carried placards that read, "Release Asad Toor, Open X and Lift Restrictions on the Internet," "Journalism is not a crime." In a post on X, Pakistani journalist Munizae Jahangir stated, "Protesting against the arrest of #AsadToor demanding that the vague FIR registered against him which does not specify how he caused insecurity amongst govt should be withdrawn & govt coming in must lift restrictions on internet & social media platforms like X. Democracy must be 4 ppl." https://twitter.com/MunizaeJahangir/status/1762506213684601091 In another post, Jahangir also criticized the unannounced ban on social media platform X and suspension of the internet. Taking to X, Munizae Jahangir stated, "Protesting outside press club for release of #AsadToor & against the unannounced ban on X /Twitter & suspension of the internet.The FIR against Toor is vague & frivolous denying him right to fair trial. Politicians coming into power must ensure that democracy is revived in Pak." https://twitter.com/MunizaeJahangir/status/1762458631486714074 Hamid Mir, a prominent journalist from Pakistan, in a brazen attack over Pakistan's methods of suppressing journalists stated that "we are not demanding the release of Asad Toor and Imran Riaz, but it is better that the Pakistani regime follow their list of targeted journalists and arrest all of us at once. Although, we demand that Pakistan's Supreme Court which has taken the initiative to bring the killers of Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif to justice, otherwise we journalists will have to bring the perpatrators to light and make them leave Pakistan." The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) of Pakistan arrested Asad Ali Toor after he was summoned to appear before court on Monday. Toor was ordered to appear before court under the allegations of an "explicit and malicious" campaign against Supreme Court judges, a report by the committee to protect journalists stated, quoting Toor's lawyer, Imaan Mazari-Hazir. An independent journalist, Toor operates a YouTube channel named 'Asad Toor Uncensored' with over 1,60,000 subscribers, covering the political affairs of Pakistan. The ongoing remand and arrest of journalists in Pakistan is not a new phenomenon, as similar incidents have occurred in the past. The report published by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) stated, "From August 2022 to August 2023, 37.5 per cent of journalists faced violence, including harassment, kidnapping, physical violence and lawsuits. From 2021 to 2023, 93 out of 248 such cases have been registered in Islamabad alone. There were 56 cases against journalists in Sindh and according to the Pakistan Press Foundation, two journalists were killed, 72 were tortured and three were kidnapped." A report by known Pakistani news outlet 'Dawn' named 'Pakistani journalists continue to pay a high price for free speech as 2023 marks another tough year'. Referring to the attacks on people related to the journalism background in 2023 the Dawn reported that the marketing director at Bol Media Group was kidnapped in Karachi in April and his whereabouts remain unknown to this day. On April 19, Gohar Wazir was abducted and severely tortured at an unknown location for 30 hours before being released, Dawn reported. Several journalists and activists have protested the police's failure to register an FIR and arrest the culprits. Wazir, who works with Khyber News and is president of the National Press Club Bannu, is vociferous on human rights issues affecting Pashtun people, according to Dawn report. (ANI) The inaugural session of the new Balochistan Assembly is scheduled for Wednesday, with newly-elected members likely to take their oaths, Dawn reported, adding that the district administration enforced tight security measures in and around the assembly premises. Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) president Sardar Akhtar Mengal, elected to both national and provincial assembly seats, relinquished his provincial assembly seat in Wadh to retain the NA seat from Khuzdar. Pashtunkhwa National Awami Party and a political alliance led by Mohsin Dawar plan to stage a rally during the assembly's first session, Dawn reported. As per the agenda released by the Balochistan Assembly secretariat, members from various parties will be sworn in during the assembly session. Further, according to Dawn, the Speaker, Mir Jan Muhammad Khan Jamali, will be absent due to illness and other prior commitments. Zamrak Khan Piralizai, a senior assembly member, will preside over the session and administer the oath to the new members. Citing sources, the report stated that 61 out of the 65 lawmakers will take the oath during Wednesday's session. However, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has not yet officially notified the results for three successful candidates from Nasirabad (PB-14), Hub-Lasbela (PB-21), and Ziarat-Harnai (PB-7) constituencies. Recounts have been ordered in PB-14, Nasirabad, and PB-21, Hub-Lasbela, by the ECP, while re-polling is scheduled for nine polling stations in PB-9, Ziarat Harnai, on February 29. In another development, Mir Sarfraz Ahmed Bugti of the Pakistan People's Party and Prince Agha Omer resigned from the Senate and submitted their resignations to the Senate chairman. They are expected to be sworn in as members of the Balochistan Assembly. The election for the new Speaker and deputy Speaker will take place subsequently, with the assembly announcing the schedule after the oath-taking ceremony. The PML-N and PPP are yet to finalise their candidates for the speaker and deputy speaker positions. Security concerns have led to the decision to prohibit guests from attending the first session of the Balochistan Assembly on February 28. In an official notification, the Balochistan Assembly announced a complete ban on issuing visitors' cards for the session due to law and order issues, adverse weather conditions, and expected protests in the province. The notification emphasised the need for cooperation from newly-elected members and underscores the importance of ensuring a smooth electoral process. (ANI) The founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, Sunil Bharti Mittal, will receive the Honorary Knighthood, the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE), in recognition of his contributions, and his services to UK and India business relations. The Honorary KBE, which is to be conferred on Mittal, is the second-highest order of the British Empire. Mittal is the founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, one of India's foremost first-generation corporations with interests in telecom, space communications, digital Solutions, real Estate and hospitality. Bharti has joint ventures with several global partners such as SingTel, SoftBank, Del Monte, the UK and the French Government, among others. Bharti Airtel, the flagship company of Bharti Enterprises, is a leading telecommunications company with operations in 17 countries and ranks among the top three mobile operators globally. Sunil is the co-chairman of Eutelsat Group, a global leader in satellite communications, delivering connectivity and broadcast services worldwide. He is also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian honour that is awarded to individuals demonstrating distinguished services of high order. He ahs also been conferred with the Harvard Business School's Alumni Achievement Award, the highest alumni honour bestowed by the institute. He is on Harvard University's Global Advisory Council and has served on the Board of Dean's Advisors at Harvard Business School. Sunil received GSM Association's prestigious Chairman's Award and has been conferred Honorary Doctorates by several leading universities in India and Europe. Mittal also served as Chair of the B20 India Action Council on African Economic Integration during India's G20 Presidency. He is also a serving Commissioner at the International Telecommunication Union/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum's International Business Council and the Global Board of Advisors at the Council on Foreign Relations. (ANI) The murder of prominent Sindh activist Hidayat Lohar under questionable circumstances has now gathered international attention. The World Sindhi Congress (WSC), an organisation involved in Sindh rights advocacy, announced it was organising a protest outside the Prime Minister's residence in London, UK, on March 3, a press statement by the WSC stated. In the press statement, the WSC called upon the international human rights organisation to unite to protest against the brutal murder of Lohar. The WSC stated, "We call upon human rights activists and organisations to unite with us, along with their families and friends, to protest against the brutal murder of Mr. Hidayat Lohar." The press statement further stated that Lohar was an esteemed educationalist and a dedicated human rights activist. Previously, on February 16, 2024, in an attack by an unidentified motorcyclist while en route to his school in the Nasirabad District of Sindh, Pakistan. The statement further stated, "Together, let us demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice in a court of law. We urge all concerned citizens to join us." Previously, internationally acclaimed human rights organisation Amnesty International (an NGO that campaigns for human rights) had issued a statement condemning the murder of Sindhi political activist and teacher Hidayatullah Lohar, emphasising the urgent need for an independent and impartial investigation by Pakistani authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice In a post on X, Amnesty International remarked, "PAKISTAN: @amnesty calls on the authorities to conduct an independent, impartial and prompt investigation into the killing of Sindhi political activist and teacher Hidayatullah Lohar, and ensure that the perpetrators are held accountable without recourse to the death penalty." The tragic killing of Hidayat Lohar underscores the grave risks faced by human rights workers in Pakistan. Lohar, who forcibly disappeared in 2017 and recovered two years later, in May 2019, was recently shot and killed by armed men. Hidayat Lohar, father of Surath Lohar, leader of Voice for Missing Persons of Sindh, and Sasi Lohar, fell victim to this heinous crime. His family members have been staging protests demanding justice for his murder. Surath Lohar, in a video released on social media, squarely blamed Pakistani intelligence agencies for his father's murder. He highlighted ongoing attempts to subject his father to enforced disappearance again, even after his previous ordeal. The killing of Hidayat Lohar not only represents a personal tragedy but also signifies the broader threats faced by human rights activists in Pakistan. Amnesty International's call for a prompt and transparent investigation resonates with the growing concerns over impunity and lack of accountability in cases of violence against activists. As voices demanding justice grow louder, the international community's attention is drawn to the plight of individuals like Hidayat Lohar, who dedicate their lives to advocating for human rights and justice in Pakistan. (ANI) The Japanese credit card company JCB has come up with Osaka town's level of satisfaction and hospitality. Foreign guests relocate to the town in order to enjoy a stay after landing. Wataru Nakatani, JCB on hospitality has said, "In Osaka City, JCB card holders can get benefits at shopping centres, hotels and restaurant bars. Participants, with an intention to provide hospitality to foreign visitors, are expanding in the town." Osaka is popular for sightseeing. At this hotel, card holder visitors can get a big discount. Osaka is also known as the "City of Satisfactory Eating." That is what makes Osaka so unique. Visitors can enjoy a delicious meal and a substantial discount at this restaurant. Japanese Cuisine TAWO, Ken Ikuta. said, "These are the raw tuna and mackerel of seasonal fish. This is seasonal soup. Japanese food is very popular among foreign tourists. There are four seasons in Japan, such as raw fish and seasonal vegetables, so each season provides its own delicious and very good food. One of the characteristics of Japanese cuisine is enjoying taste and watching. Having Japanese food customers can enjoy the aftertaste and dishes". The long-standing Kintetsu Department Store is located in Abeno Harukasu. It is anticipated to draw tourists from overseas because it has one of the biggest sales floor areas in the country. Kintetsu Department Store, Morihiro Matsumoto said, "At this duty-free salon, customers show foreign-issued JCB cards and passports and get VIP gold cards. Using it, customers can get profit from clothes or cosmetic shopping or meals in the restaurant. Under the cooperation with JCB, we expect the first visitors will visit Abeno Harukasu Kintetsu Department Store". As Japan moves towards becoming a "Tourism Kingdom", JCB is stepping up its hospitality for guests from other countries. (ANI) Flash The Israeli army reported Tuesday that an anti-tank missile launched by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon hit an air base in northern Israel on Monday night, prompting new Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon. A barrage of approximately 20 launches were launched from Lebanon into northern Israel, the army said in a statement, adding that some of them were intercepted by its air defense forces while the rest fell on open fields. An anti-tank missile hit an air base in the Meron region in the Galilee, the army said, adding that the Aerial Control Unit in the base was not damaged. The hit "did not harm the site's capabilities," according to the army. In a new series of strikes, the army said, sites of Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group and political party, were targeted. Meanwhile, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said on Tuesday its fighters carried out several military operations against Israeli targets, including the Meron base for command, control, and air surveillance with a batch of missiles, as well as the Israeli military sites of Al-Marj, Ramtha, and Ruwaisat Al-Alam. Hezbollah also indicated in a previous statement that the group began using new weapons in its battles with the Israeli army, including Falaq One, Falaq Two, and Almas surface-to-surface missiles. In addition, Lebanese military sources told Xinhua that Hezbollah on Tuesday launched the biggest number of surface-to-surface missiles from southern Lebanon toward northern Israel since the outbreak of confrontations on Lebanon-Israel borders on Oct. 8, 2023. The sources, who spoke anonymously, said their military and security centers, deployed along the borderline with Israel, detected the launching of about 200 surface-to-surface missiles from several unspecified locations in southern Lebanon to northern Israel. The Israeli Iron Dome intercepted only a small amount of them, not exceeding 30 missiles, said the sources. The Lebanon-Israel border has been witnessing increased tension since Oct. 8, 2023, after Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets toward Israel in support of the Hamas attack on Israel the previous day, prompting Israel to respond by firing heavy artillery toward southeastern Lebanon. The confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel have killed 320 people on the Lebanese side, including 216 Hezbollah members and 59 civilians, according to Lebanese security sources. The midwestern state of Michigan boasts a large number of Arab and Muslim Americans, previously firmly part of the Democratic fold that helped elect President Joe Biden in 2020 (JEFF KOWALSKY) Just over 100,000 people in Michigan voted "uncommitted" in the US swing state's Democratic primary, provisional results showed Wednesday, after a protest movement urged voters to punish President Joe Biden over his support for Israel's war in Gaza. Though Biden handily won the vote, the uncommitted ballots, representing 13 percent of votes cast Tuesday, sent a "clear and resounding message that we demand a permanent ceasefire now," Layla Elabed, an organizer of the Listen to Michigan campaign, told a press conference. The midwestern state is home to a large number of Arab and Muslim Americans, previously firmly part of the Democratic fold that helped elect Biden in 2020. Whether Biden could change tack -- and whether those who registered a protest vote in the primary will continue to do so in November -- could be key as the United States heads toward a likely rematch between Biden and former president Donald Trump. Though the percentage of uncommitted votes was similar to that seen in 2012 during Democrat Barack Obama's reelection campaign, where it hit 11 percent, that year's uncommitted result only represented some 20,000 votes. Joining in the pressure campaign against Biden were elected officials, with local mayors as well as Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American representative in Congress, casting uncommitted ballots. Previous victories in Michigan -- seen as crucial to winning the country as a whole -- have been narrow: Donald Trump won by about 10,000 votes in 2016; Biden won by some 150,000 in 2020. "It is my hope, Mr. President, that you listen to us," said Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb home to a large number of Arab Americans. "That you choose democracy over tyranny. That you choose the people of America over (Israeli Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu." Asked about the risk of electing Trump in November, Hammoud said that was a question that should be posed to Biden. "President Biden is the one seeking the highest office and he is the candidate who's facing off against Donald Trump," he said. "He has to earn the votes of the constituency that he's trying to serve." In a statement Tuesday night after his victory was declared, Biden thanked "every Michigander who made their voice heard today." It did not mention the protest vote. "Quite frankly, his statement last night did not unite," said Abbas Alawieh, a Listen to Michigan spokesman, adding the president "ignored" the 100,000 uncommitted voters. "This community here in Michigan needs him to change his policies before he comes back and asks for our votes." White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that "US policy is not going to change on this." "We're going to continue to listen," Jean-Pierre told reporters, while pushing for "a temporary ceasefire." bur-iba/seb/nro/caw A teenage suspect is now in custody two weeks after four teenagers were shot outside Benjamin E. Mays High School. Atlanta police announced on Wednesday that a juvenile had turned himself in to the jail. Because the suspect is a juvenile, they are not releasing his name. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The shooting happened in the schools parking lot and left four students, ages 17 and 18, injured. Atlanta Public Schools Police Chief Ronald Applin says all four victims are recovering and his officers worked with Atlanta police to quickly identify the suspect. Atlanta Public Schools confirmed the suspect is a 14-year-old student at Benjamin E. Mays High School. He is being charged with four counts of aggravated assault, one count of possession of a firearm by a minor and one count of possession of a firearm on school grounds. NewsChopper 2 flew over the scene after the shooting and saw a massive police presence at the school, crime scene tape up in the parking lot and what appeared to be evidence markers in the parking lot. TRENDING STORIES: Applin previously confirmed there was an arrest warrant out for a teen, who is also a student, who investigators believe is responsible. The suspect has not been identified. We went through a lot of video, a lot of information we were getting from some of the people who actually saw what took place, he said. Its unclear if more arrests will be made. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN RELATED NEWS: Medication abortions via telehealth now account for up to 16 percent of abortions nationwide, according to a new report published ahead of a Supreme Court decision that could make the procedure much more difficult to access. Under current FDA policy, doctors can remotely prescribe a two-pill regimen to abortion patients early in their pregnancies and ship the medication by mail. A report out Tuesday from the Society of Family Planning found these prescriptions accounted for 13,770 abortions in September, or 16 percent of the national total. The report also tabulated 14,110 telehealth abortions in July, the first month the researchers started delineating abortions provided by telehealth, and 14,060 in August. The number of total abortions in that time period ranged from 81,000 to nearly 89,000 per monthfewer than in previous reports, but more than in the time period before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. Telehealth abortion is now a central pillar in the abortion care landscapeand the continued availability of abortion care demands that we must ensure equitable access to this essential health care service, said Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco and co-chair of the study, said in a statement about the results. The Supreme Court, however, is set to hear arguments March 26 on a case that could severely curtail access to the procedure. The case, brought by the conservative activist group Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, challenges policy issued by the FDA during the COVID-19 pandemic allowing the first drug in the regimenmifepristoneto be prescribed remotely and shipped by mail. The court temporarily blocked a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that restricted access to the drug ahead of its ruling. But if it ultimately sides with the Alliance, it could drastically reduce the availability of telehealth abortion, even in states where in-clinic abortions remain legal. The U.S. Department of Justice has urged the court to side with the FDA, arguing in a brief that mifepristone is widely proven to be safe and effective, and that the loss of access to mifepristone would be damaging for women and healthcare providers around the nation. For many patients, mifepristone is the best method to lawfully terminate their early pregnancies, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote. They may choose mifepristone over surgical abortion because of medical necessity, a desire for privacy, or past trauma. The new report is the result of the Society of Family Plannings #WeCount initiative, which seeks to tabulate the number of abortions provided in the wake of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe. The survey uses data provided directly by abortion providers and state health departments to estimate the number of abortions provided monthly. It now includes data from providers who ship medication from states where the procedure is legal to states where it is not, using so-called shield laws that prevent them from being prosecuted in their home states. Previous reports have found the number of reported abortions actually increased following the overturn of Roe, which researchers attributed to patients continuing to seek abortion in states where the procedure remains legal. The latest report continued to find massive declines in the number of abortions in the 14 states that banned the procedure, with compensatory surges in nearby states where it is still permitted. #WeCount shows that even when a state bans abortion, people continue to need and seek abortion care, Alison Norris, #WeCount Co-Chair and professor at The Ohio State Universitys College of Public Health, said in a statement. We can't let the overall consistent number of abortions nationally obscure the incredible unmet need and disastrous impact of abortion bans on people who already have the least access. 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. A 19-year-old man lied about his age to a 14-year-old girl and her mother, convincing the teens mother to let him live at her home, Indiana cops said. Tyson Campbell took advantage of the situation, police said, and is accused of raping the teen and posting nude photos of her to Instagram and Snapchat. The man from Muncie told the teen and her mother he was 17-years-old, according to court records filed Feb. 22. The teen told her mother Campbell raped her on May 25, 2023, after badgering her to perform sexual acts, authorities said. The two had performed sexual acts multiple times since March, police said. Campbell had told the teen she was mature for her age, the victim told police. Campbell told police he had performed sexual acts with the teen, but he did not say he posted the photos on social media, according to court documents. Police found a nude photo of the 14-year-old on Campbells phone, according to court documents. After police told Campbell not to contact the 14-year-old, authorities said he texted her saying, I want to text (you) and say thank you. Thank (you) for saying I didnt rape you. (because) I have a future and that could ruin it. Campbell, in his interview with police, also referenced an Indiana law, known as the Romeo and Juliet law, that allows a 14- or 15-year-old to have legal, consensual sex with someone no more than four years older if they are in a long-term relationship. But the two were four years and three months apart in age, and they werent in a long-term relationship, so the law did not apply. The Romeo and Juliet law also does not apply to instances of rape, according to Keffer Hirschauer LLP. The teens parents were not aware of any romantic relationship between the two, according to police. The teens mother had caught the two performing sexual acts in March, police said. Campbell was arrested in June and was charged on Feb. 22, according to court records. He was charged with sexual misconduct of a minor and possession of child pornography. An initial hearing is scheduled for March 14. Attorney information for Campbell was not listed. Muncie is about 60 miles northeast of Indianapolis. Teacher isolates student at school and sexually assaults her, Arkansas cops say Kids were sexually abused and forced to fight at rehab facility for years, lawsuit says 32-year-old accused of raping 13-year-old cousin says he is in love, Oklahoma cops say Some 2,250 Ukrainian trucks are stuck in queues at the Polish border as Polish farmers continue to block cargo traffic, allowing only a few trucks per hour in both directions at all checkpoints, the Ukinform news agency reported on Feb. 28, citing State Border Guard Service spokesman Andriy Demchenko. Read also: Polish truckers plan to join farmers in border protest resurgence on March 1 "Six directions are still blocked, he said. "Polish protesters are not letting trucks coming from Ukraine through the Yahodyn checkpoint at all. In recent days, the number of vehicles leaving Ukraine has been zero. 65 trucks crossed the border into Ukraine in the past day. This is an extremely low rate of crossing through this checkpoint, as its capacity is 1200-1400 trucks per day in both directions." The Shehyni checkpoint also has a very low number of crossings. Only 45 trucks crossed the border here in both directions in the past 24 hours. As of this morning, 2,250 trucks are queuing in Poland, most of them at the Krakivets, Yahodyn, and Rava-Ruska checkpoints. "Cars and buses are crossing the border freely everywhere, there are no restrictions for this category of vehicles on the other side of the border," he said. Read also: Six BCPs blocked, thousands of trucks stuck on the Polish border where the situation is near critical Earlier in the day, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Warsaw was considering expanding the current ban on agricultural imports from Ukraine to Poland if the EU fails to come up with an acceptable solution to protect Polish farmers. On Feb. 26, the President of the Polish Transport and Logistics Association said that Polish truckers, who paused their protests at the Ukraine border in January, were gearing up to join forces with farmers and restart blockades at crossing points starting March 1. On Feb. 23, Ukraine presented its plan to resolve the issue, endorsing European Commission's restrictions on agricultural exports from Ukraine, specifically concerning the export limitations on poultry meat, eggs, and sugar. Additionally, without Poland's permission, grains, corn, sunflower, and rapeseed from Ukraine will not enter the Polish market. On Feb. 19, Polish farmers blocked the movement of a passenger train from Ukraine. On Feb. 20, Poland asked Ukraine to cancel the electronic queue for three border crossing points (BCPs). Polish protesters also blocked the railroad near the Medyka-Shehyni checkpoint and spilled grain out of railroad cars on the same day. Read also: Polish farmers border blockade may cause $200 million loss in Ukraines budget in February, says parliamentary In response to the actions of the Poles, Ukrainian carriers began a protest at three checkpoints on the border with Poland on Feb. 20: Rava-Ruska, Shehyni, and Krakivets. On Feb. 16, parliamentary Finance Committee Chairman Danylo Hetmantsev wrote that the ongoing blockade of the Ukrainian-Polish border was causing significant financial losses for Ukraine and if the border is not unblocked by the end of the month, the Ukrainian budget will lose UAH 7.7 billion ($202 million) in revenues from the State Customs Service. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Two people who sold fentanyl-laced cocaine that killed a college student from Charlotte are going to prison. Gracie Burton was a 19-year-old freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She died last March after doing cocaine laced with fentanyl. Burton was a Charlotte native who was homeschooled before attending UNC, according to a friend. Prosecutors said Cye Frasier better known as The Barber because of his former job in a Durham barber shop added fentanyl to cocaine then sold it to students like Burton with the help of his girlfriend, Carlisa Allen. PREVIOUS: Family wants someone held accountable for 19-year-old daughters death Frasier pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges, including conspiracy to distribute cocaine. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to 29 years in prison. Allen was found guilty of several similar charges during a trial in November. She was sentenced in mid-February to 28 years in prison. Prosecutors tied the tainted drugs sold and delivered by Frasier and Allen to at least one other death -- 23-year-old Joshua Zinner, who died within one day of Burton from the same batch of cocaine. Patrick Rowland, a Duke student who was partying with Burton the night she died and in whose room she was found unresponsive, pled guilty in January to using a communication device to facilitate a drug deal. He was sentenced to three months in prison. Chris Adkins, the Burton familys attorney in this case, told Channel 9 that Durham County prosecutors are also investigating this case to determine whether to bring state charges against Frasier, Allen, and/or Rowland. (WATCH BELOW: Parents take fight against fentanyl to state capital) The Naval Criminal Investigative Services is investigating an incident allegedly involving two US Marines based in Washington, DC, according to a statement from Marine Barracks Washington, following reports of racial slurs written in a University of Maryland resident hall. The two Marines Lance Cpls. Sergio Delgado, 21, and Hayden Pritchard, 22 were charged earlier this month in connection with a hate bias incident that occurred at the university in April, according to a release from the University of Maryland Police Department. NCIS is conducting the investigation alongside UMPD. It was not immediately clear whether Delgado and Pritchard have legal representation. On the morning of April 29, 2023, officers responded after racial slurs against the Black community were found inside a residence hall, according to the UMPD release. The officers responded again after additional racial slurs were found inside the residence hall a few hours later. Delgado was charged with one count of trespassing, while Pritchard was charged with trespassing and a count of race/religious property damage, according to the UMPD release. Delgado and Pritchard were identified and charged by the University of Maryland Police Department on February 8 after the command was notified by investigating officials in January 2024, in connection with an incident that occurred inside La Plata Hall, according to the Marine Barracks Washington statement. UMPD declined to comment on why the two men were on campus or how they got access to the building. Mike Lurie, a spokesperson for the University System of Maryland, said the two men charged were not enrolled in any USMD school. The Marine Barracks Washington statement said the charges against Delgado and Pritchard reflect conduct that is inconsistent with the exceedingly high standards the United States Marine Corps expects of its Marines. Further, such behavior would not reflect the outstanding conduct and professionalism displayed by the vast majority of Marine Barracks Washingtons Marines and Sailors, the statement said. Should these charges be substantiated, Lance Cpl. Delgado and Lance Cpl. Pritchard will be held fully accountable for their actions. Both Delgado and Pritchard enlisted in the Marine Corps in January 2022 and reported to Marine Barracks Washington in December that year after completing recruit training and the School of Infantry West at Camp Pendleton, California. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) A measure that would prevent expelled lawmakers from returning to the legislature for a short time has cleared its final House committee. The resolution filed by Rep. Bryan Richey (R-Maryville) seeks to prohibit a lawmaker who gets expelled from being reelected to the Tennessee General Assembly for four years following their expulsion. The bill is an amendment to the Tennessee Constitution and related to eligibility requirements to hold office in the state of Tennessee. It was debated in the House State Government Committee Wednesday, Feb. 28, where it passed via voice vote. TN House passes restrictions on legislative appointments despite constitutional questions According to the bill text, it would add a sentence to Article II, Section 12 of the constitution that explicitly bars someone expelled from the legislature from holding office for four years following their date of expulsion. The bill text also makes changes to three other parts of the constitution to reflect the change to Article II, Section 12. One of the changes is to the constitutional requirements for eligibility to serve in the legislature. Currently, the Tennessee Constitution only requires a person to be at least 21 years old, a U.S. citizen, a Tennessee resident for at least three years and a resident of the county they wish to represent for at least one year prior to their election to the House of Representatives. In order to be a Tennessee State Senator, the requirements are the same except for age. The Senate requirement is at least 30 years old. This bill is similar to a measure filed by Goodlettsville Rep. Johnny Garrett (R), which was passed by the full House of Representatives Monday, Feb. 26. That bill would prohibit local elected bodies from reappointing an expelled lawmaker back to their seat on an interim basis following that expulsion. Garretts bill, however, has constitutional questions attached. During a House committee meeting, a state legislative attorney said he was not sure if Garretts bill was constitutional and may be better served as a constitutional amendment rather than a straight law. Have breaking come to you: Subscribe to News 2 email alerts In order to amend the state constitution, lawmakers must file whats called a joint resolution. Like regular bills, joint resolutions must also be heard by both the House and Senate, though they only go through one chamber at a time. Richeys bill still has a full House floor debate and vote ahead of it before it can be sent to the Senate. Constitutional amendments also take longer to pass than typical bills, because they require the approval of two consecutive general assemblies. For the first general assembly, the votes must be at least a simple majority in favor. For the second general assembly, there must be at least a two-thirds majority approving the amendment. Following those votes, the amendment is then placed on the ballot of the next gubernatorial general election. An amendment is ratified if a majority of voters in that election approve of the proposed amendment. The earliest Richeys bill could appear on the ballot would likely be 2027. Hundreds of bills will be up for debate during the 113th General Assembly. Tennessee lawmakers shared their thoughts on some of the major issues up for discussion at this years legislative session. You can also find daily coverage from the session here. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2. Electricity pylons (Photo by Getty Images). Kimber Browns largest bill besides rent has always been their power bill, and unexpectedly becoming a one-income household crippled them. I was quickly living out of my car with overdue NorthWestern (Energy) bills to pay, Brown said. Brown isnt as financially stressed anymore, but one thing has stayed the same. Im so scared to open the envelope and look at my bill every month, they said.The economic and environmental anxiety and instability that my generation is going through is unacceptable. Brown, a member of Gallatin Valley Sunrise, shared their experience Wednesday at a news conference about a petition more than 40 organizations and businesses signed and submitted to the Montana Public Service Commission the same day. The Public Service Commission regulates monopoly utilities, including NorthWestern. The petition asks commissioners to adopt a new rule that requires consideration of the adverse climate impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in gas and electric utility regulation. The petitioners said the PSC makes decisions that can promote or discourage investments in fossil fuel infrastructure, and as such, the agency has the most consequential role of any decision-making body in the state in determining Montanas impact on the climate. Taking climate into consideration will benefit power customers seeing inordinate increases in their bills, the petitioners said; it will help children experiencing detrimental health effects of bad air; and it will support businesses, plus the Montana economy and recreation culture at large in the face of climate change. At the video news conference, Frank Szollosi, with the Montana Wildlife Federation, said Public Service Commissioners and all elected officials need to recognize the intergenerational justice component of public policy on climate change and their moral imperative to act for future generations. Szollosi also spelled out some of the economic and recreational hits Montana will experience by 2050 if it does nothing to address climate change, citing a 2023 report by Power Consulting Incorporated: Montana will see a 25% reduction in big game hunting. It will see a 30% loss in angling activity, with nearly 1,900 jobs lost and $60 million in annual labor earnings lost. Theres going to be declines in wildlife watching and sightseeing, which is going to cost another 1,600 jobs and $44 million, Szollosi said. The state will see 19% fewer ski days in Montana by 2050, or 33 fewer days for downhill skiing, a prediction thats already starting to come to pass with early closures and ski hills that arent operating at capacity, he said. In Montana, outdoor recreation represents a huge chunk of gross domestic product, he said; only Hawaii has a larger percentage. Citing the report by Power Consulting, Szollosi said the status quo will mean, all told, 8,800 outdoor recreation jobs lost in Montana and $263 million gone in annual labor earnings. The petition said Montana courts have twice found the state has an obligation to consider climate change in its decision making, including in the historic order in Held v. Montana this summer from the youth climate trial. In that order, Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley said a limitation to the Montana Environmental Policy Act that prohibits the state from considering greenhouse gas emissions and climate impacts in energy and mining permits is unconstitutional. This month, the State of Montana filed an appeal to the Montana Supreme Court, and the case is pending. However, the petition to the PSC, filed by Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center, cites Seeleys order in the case with 16 young plaintiffs. The science is clear that there are catastrophic harms to the natural environment of Montana and plaintiffs and future generations of the state due to anthropogenic climate change, said the petition, quoting the judge. The degradation to Montanas environment, and the resulting harm to Plaintiffs, will worsen if the State continues ignoring [greenhouse gas] emissions and climate change. The Montana Legislature exempted the Public Service Commission from the Montana Environmental Policy Act, but petitioners to the PSC argue regulators nonetheless have a clear constitutional obligation to maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations. At the news conference hosted by the Montana Environmental Information Center, Hiram Towle of Bridger Bowl Ski Area said his product is a healthy winter sport, but the raw materials in his industry are all affected by climate change. Last year, Bridger counted 377,000 skier visits, he said, a large portion from families. Towle pointed to the trees of the Bridger Range that protect slopes but are stressed from drought and beetle damage as affected by climate; buildings and equipment damaged by wildfires at other ski hills; and snow, in dangerously short supply, and snowmaking from a limited water supply. Consideration of climate change is a significant part of our planning strategy and economic outlook, just as it is for businesses globally, Towle said. Bridger is currently working on a master development plan, and all future capital projects must be viewed through the foggy lens of a Bridger Range with less snow. Bridger Bowl, Montana Wildlife Federation, and Gallatin Valley Sunrise are among the petitioners, along with a variety of other businesses and organizations, including Families for a Livable Climate, Montana Environmental Information Center, Associated Students of Montana State University, Blackfoot River Brewery, Bridgercare and the Environmental Defense Fund. Dr. Allison Young, with petitioner the Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said children in Montana and worldwide are disproportionately affected by changes in climate due to their unique vulnerabilities. For example, they breathe faster, which increases their exposure to dangerous air pollutants, she said. Citing the World Health Organization, she said 88% of disease attributable to climate change affects children under the age of 5 globally. We think this petition is common sense, Young said. In making decisions about the future of our state, our policymakers should be obligated to consider the impact of our actions on the next generation, our children. The petition includes a request for a public hearing, which lawyer Jenny Harbine with Earthjustice said petitioners are optimistic the Public Service Commission will grant. Wednesday afternoon, Public Service Commission chief legal counsel Lucas Hamiltion said the commission had just received the filing and had not yet reviewed it: As a result, we have no comment on it at this time. At the news conference, however, the MEICs Nick Fitzmaurice said the Public Service Commission has the potential to mitigate climate change, and doing so would bring its operations in line with the Montana Constitutions protection of a clean and healthful environment. Brown, with Gallatin Valley Sunrise, said they moved to Montana 10 years ago, and the Bridger foothills were on fire, and soon after that, flooding threatened homes. I could not believe how close we all are to losing everything due to extreme climate events, Brown said. They are worried about the future, but also said the order in the Held case made them feel hopeful the government would take responsibility, and the PSC also has the power to act. Petitioners noted regulators in other states do consider climate in their decisions. If we embrace this rule and take action, maybe I will still be able to swim in the Yellowstone River in the summertime, Brown said. Maybe I will still be able to spend time cross country skiing with friends in the wintertime. The petition kicks off a 60-day window where the PSC must decide whether to accept the petition and begin the rulemaking process or formally deny the request in writing. Petitioners Families for a Livable Climate Gallatin Valley Sunrise Montana Environmental Information Center Associated Students of Montana State University Big Sky Resort Blackfoot River Brewery Bozeman Community Food Co-op Bridger Bowl Ski Area Bridgercare Campus Climate Coalition Citizens for Clean Energy, Inc. Climate Smart Glacier Country Climate Smart Missoula Earthworks Environmental Defense Fund Forward Montana Helena Hunters and Anglers Helena Interfaith Climate Advocates Lander Busse, Plaintiff, Held v. State of Montana Moms Clean Air Force Montana Associated Students Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Montana Conservation Elders Montana Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate Montana Interfaith Power and Light Montana Public Interest Research Group Montana Renewable Energy Association Montana Science Center Montana Wildlife Federation Natural Resources Defense Council Northern Plains Resource Council NW Energy Coalition Park County Environmental Council Parks Fly Shop Renewable Northwest Save Wild Trout Sierra Club Montana Chapter Stonetree Climbing Gym Ten Mile Creek Brewery 350 Montana Upper Missouri Waterkeeper Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council The post UPDATED: Petitioners: Public Service Commission has most consequential role on future of Montana appeared first on Daily Montanan. ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) Cash rewards are being offered for information leading to the arrest of nine suspects wanted for various crimes in Abilene. Police are seeking these suspects for the following offenses: Ferral Martinez Assault on a Peace Officer Jorge Hernandez Injury to Child James Chick Burglary of Habitation Broderic Levingston Robbery, Evading Arrest Johnathan Lechuga Child Endangerment Mario Albarado Injury to Child, Burglary of Habitation Charles Irwin Indecency with a Child Jacqueline Gammage Robbery Quinn Ervin Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child Keighvoucia Lamb (FEATURED FUGITIVE) Aggravated Assault x3 CrimeStoppers is offering $500 cash rewards for information that leads to the capture any of the suspects, and a $1000 cash reward for information that leads to the capture of the featured fugitive. Cash rewards will only be given if the information is received during the week their mugshots are aired on Abilenes Wanted Criminals. Abilenes Wanted Criminals is a police-run social media segment that will highlight wanted suspects from around the City each week. Episodes will be posted to the Abilene Police Departments YouTube page or APDs PIO Youtube page. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com. A 7-year-old holding a photo of her mom went searching for the woman at midnight when she woke up to find her mother gone, Tennessee police said. Now, the 32-year-old woman is charged, records show. McClatchy News is not identifying the woman to protect the identity of her daughter. The child approached Memphis Police Department officers as they were conducting a traffic stop at around 12:45 a.m. on Feb. 27, police reported in an arrest affidavit. The girl showed a picture of her mother and asked the officers if they knew where she was, police said. She told them her mothers name and said she lived with her mom at an apartment complex that police said was about a quarter-mile away. She recalled that her mom put her to bed at around 7 p.m., but when she woke up later, she found her mom wasnt in their apartment, officers reported. Police went to the apartment and said they found the front door open with no one inside. They contacted the childs father, who arrived at the scene and said the mother has custody of his daughter, according to the affidavit. At around 2:20 a.m., the mother drove up to the apartment, police said. She told officers she was just down the street and declined to speak with investigators further, officers reported. She was booked in Shelby County jail on a charge of child neglect (8 years of age or less) and was released on her own recognizance, records show. McClatchy News reached out to the public defender representing her on Feb. 28 but did not immediately receive a response. 4-year-old wanders out of preschool and walks a mile home, mom says. She wants answers Mom punishes 7-year-old by making him walk home, then she runs him over, AL cops say 4-year-old missing for hours found by dark road, OR cops say. Can you take me home? Toddler found wandering the streets alone after mom is carjacked, California cops say The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed Indianas ban on care for transgender youth to take effect. The court issued a stay Tuesday, overturning a June decision from a federal judge that blocked the health care ban. The three-judge panel heard oral arguments in the case on Feb. 16 and released its decision Tuesday, saying it would release an opinion at a later date. Indianas Senate Bill 480 bans health care providers from administering gender-affirming medical care to transgender minors. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of Indiana released a joint statement following the decision. This ruling is beyond disappointing and a heartbreaking development for thousands of transgender youth, their doctors, and their families, the statement said. As we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all the transgender youth of Indiana to know this fight is far from over and we will continue to challenge this law until it is permanently defeated and Indiana is a safer place to raise every family. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) signed the bill on April 5, 2023, just after he said the legislation was clear as mud. Hours later, the ACLU sued the state on behalf of transgender children and their families, claiming that the law violates the federal requirements of the Medicaid Act, the Affordable Care Act and the U.S. Constitution. Supporters of the ban say that the potential harms of gender-affirming medical care have not been thoroughly studied. Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher said in oral arguments last year that he supports the legislation because we dont want our children to be part of this grand experiment. Gender-affirming care for transgender people is considered medically necessary and is often lifesaving, many medical organizations say. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. ABC News president Kimberly Godwin has called Donald Trumps remarks that Black voters are more favourable towards him because of his 91 felony charges as racist as they come. Speaking to the Black Conservative Federation in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday, Mr Trump said: I got indicted a second and a third time and a fourth time and a lot of people said that thats why the Black people like me. He continued that Black people have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as Im being discriminated against. In a note to staff, Ms Godwin said: No matter ones politics, the fact that a person running for President of the United States made these remarks period but also to a public crowd and with so many Black people present and they stand with him is mind blowing. Shocking. These remarks are as racist as they come. The remarks, first reported by Puck News, came after widespread condemnation of Mr Trumps speech from civil rights activists, the White House and Mr Trumps rival in the Republican presidential primary, Nikki Haley. Its disgusting, Ms Haley, who has also been targeted with racist remarks from Mr Trump, said on Saturday. Donald Trump at a South Carolina primary election watch party in Columbia on Saturday (Getty Images) White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Mr Trumps statement repugnant and divisive to traffic in racist stereotypes. It is profane to compare the long, painful history of abuse and discrimination suffered by Black Americans to something totally different for self-serving purposes, she said on Sunday. Mr Trumps speech was filled with racist remarks. He also claimed that Black people liked him more after his mugshot was released in Georgia. And elsewhere he told the audience: These lights are so bright in my eyes that I cant see too many people out there. I can only see the Black ones, I cant see any white ones. Thats how far Ive come. Thats a long way. Mr Trump is facing a total of 91 criminal charges in four separate cases. He resoundingly defeated Ms Haley in her home state of South Carolina and continued the winning streak in the Michigan primary on Tuesday. Ms Haley has insisted she will remain in the primary race until at least Super Tuesday, on 5 March. The head of ABC News is blasting former President Trump for his comments about African American voters amid his multiple criminal indictments, The Hill has learned. Over the weekend, ABC President Kim Godwin admonished Trumps recent remarks speculating on why the Black people like me, calling the rhetoric as racist as it gets. No matter ones politics, the fact that a person running for President of the United States made these remarks period but also to a public crowd and with so many black people present and that they stand with him is mind blowing. Shocking, Godwin wrote in an email that was shared with a number of news outlets. A source at the network told The Hill that Godwins comments were part of an internal editorial discussion about coverage of the former president. Trump, during a speech at the Black Conservative Federation annual gala in South Carolina late last week, told the crowd, I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing, in reference to the dozens of criminal counts he faces. And a lot of people said thats why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as Im being discriminated against, the former president continued. Its been pretty amazing, but possibly, maybe, theres something there. Trumps comments were widely condemned by Black leaders, the Democratic Party and the White House in the days that followed. The front-runner for the GOP nomination this fall, the former president has a history of making insensitive and offensive comments about African Americans, women and immigrants. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Acadiana Center for the Arts looks to turn downtown building into Music Museum LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) A historic Lafayette building may be on its way to becoming a shrine to Acadianas rich musical history. The Louisiana Music Museum is proposed to open at 121 W. Vermilion St. in downtown Lafayette, in a building that used to house Lafayette Hardware. The structure was built in 1880, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is owned by, and is immediately adjacent to, the Acadiana Center for the Arts, which has published a Request for Qualifications, the first step in developing the structure into its planned Louisiana Music Museum. According to AcA, this museum aims to stand unparalleled in presenting the unique stories of all Louisiana music with accuracy, inclusivity, and innovation. Serving as a museum, trailhead and functional dance hall, the Louisiana Music Museum will host visitors and locals, celebrating the legacy of Louisianas musical heritage as it deserves to be celebrated, according to a news release by the AcA. The mission of the Louisiana Music Museum is to Enrich the world by celebrating the stories of Louisianas musical legacy through its people, places, and cultures. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now KLFY Daily Digest AcA said it will directly operate the new facility and collaborate with a number of local partners including the Center for Louisiana Studies, a division of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and Lafayette Travel. Lastest news For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLFY.com. OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced the release of two separate opinions relating to the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority (OTA) and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) on Wednesday. In response to a formal opinion request from Sen. Mary Boren, D-Norman, Drummonds opinion holds that an individual may not simultaneously serve as the Secretary of Transportation, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Executive Director of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority (OTA). McConnell will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November after a record run in the job In response to a separate request from Sen. John Haste, R-Broken Arrow, Drummond affirmed the constitutionality of a recent law changing appointment authority to the OTA. The first opinion notes that the state Constitutions prohibition on dual office-holding means a single individual cannot serve all three positions at the same time. Moreover, the opinion explains that an office holder who takes a second office effectively has vacated that first office. In this instance, all three positions are currently held by Tim Gatz. As a result of the opinion, Gatz is deemed to be serving as Secretary of Transportation, but has in effect vacated the ODOT and OTA positions, both of which preceded his appointment to Cabinet secretary. Gatz remains eligible to serve in any one of the three public offices, but not more than one at a time. The opinion states that the Oklahoma Supreme Court has identified three elements to define a public office: The position was created or authorized by law, The law imposes certain definite duties upon the position holder; and The duties imposed involve the exercise of some portion of sovereign power. As of the time of writing, the Legislature has enumerated thirty exceptions to this prohibition, Drummond writes in the opinion. However, none of these exceptions apply to the Secretary of Transportation, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, or Executive Director of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority. In the second opinion issued on Wednesday, the Attorney General upheld the constitutionality of a recently enacted law changing the appointment authority of OTA members. Prior to House Bill 2263, the Governor made all six appointments to the authority. The legislation reduced that to two appointments, with the Speaker of the House and Senate President Pro Tempore appointing two members apiece. Largest single year tax cut in Oklahoma history: Gov. Stitt signs state grocery tax elimination into law The opinion explains that HB 2263 does not violate the state Constitutions separation of powers provision for three key reasons: Legislative acts are strongly presumed to be constitutional unless it is clearly, palpably and plainly inconsistent with fundamental law; The Legislature can provide for the appointment of executive offices by a person or entity other than the Governor; and The bill in question is consistent with the balancing factor test used to determine the constitutionality of legislative appointments to state boards and commissions. The opinions can be read here and here. Sen. Boren released a statement on Wednesday following Drummonds response to her request for an opinion. Im encouraged that the attorney general took the time to explain so thoroughly how Mr. Gatz is currently breaking the law by holding more than one office. Hopefully, everyone responsible for creating this problem will work together to correct it by hiring new leaders for ODOT and OTA. Prompt compliance with the AGs opinion will prevent further litigation and ensure that law and order is respected in our government. Sen. Mary Boren, D-Norman For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KFOR.com Oklahoma City. Despite fears of the dangers of artificial intelligence, investors are focusing on the potential rewards of the technology (Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV) After the earthquake of ChatGPT's phenomenal success a year ago, Silicon Valley investors have gone into overdrive with artificial intelligence, looking for the newest blockbuster idea in an ocean of hype and overpromising. OpenAI sparked a generative AI craze with ChatGPT, which can pen stories, create pictures, write computer code and more from simple text prompts. Stung by the struggles of cryptocurrency and other faded Silicon Valley fads of recent years, venture capitalists have quickly doubled down on AI, a new promised land in the never-ending quest for big tech riches. For the big investors, "if it's not AI, it's not worth it," Denis Barrier, co-founder of venture capital firm Cathay Innovation told AFP after meetings with several investment fund handlers. "Funds are looking to make big moves," Barrier said. "And that's pretty unlikely outside AI in the next few years." While layoffs and budget tightening became routine at tech companies last year, startups in the AI sector raised nearly $50 billion from investors, according to market tracker Crunchbase. In that first wave of the AI gold rush, investment focused heavily on companies building the large language models that make generative AI features possible. A record-high $29 billion was invested in generative AI in 2023, according to PitchBook. - 'Cost lives' - But building foundational models from scratch costs a fortune in computing needs and most of that money can only come from the richest of backers -- such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Nvidia -- and flow to a chosen few such as OpenAI and Anthropic. This week Mistral, a buzzy French startup building its own models, secured a new investment from Microsoft after already getting financing from some of Silicon Valley's richest investors, including Nvidia and Andreessen Horowitz, one of the sector's most aggressive firms. "We believe that any slowdown in AI will cost lives," wrote the rock star venture capitalist Marc Andreessen last year in his "Techno-Optimist Manifesto." But scared off by the cost of entry, many venture capitalists have turned their attention to more narrowly focused AI startups that could shake up banking, healthcare, energy and other sectors. Cathay recently invested in French biotech startup Bioptimus, which is putting AI to work creating new drugs. While seeking out promising firms, Cathay looked at engineering skill, data access, cost controls, and an ambition to transform a sector, Barrier explained in his downtown office overlooking the San Francisco Bay. "You have to have a little faith," Barrier said. "An application that works can catch on like wildfire; you have to be there first!" - 'For real' - Loora, an Israeli startup that uses generative AI to teach English, raised $12 million last week. Loora's mobile applications teaches English through conversation and has won more than 15,000 customers who have signed up for about the same price as a Netflix subscription. Simply embracing AI is not what is going to attract the investors, Loora co-founder Roy Mor told AFP from his headquarters in Tel Aviv. What companies need is more of the right data that will improve the app and improve user experience, he said. "I think the use cases where AI really brings value, where it solves problems, are not yet widespread," he said. For now, the most promise for returns on investment are from the business world, and many startups are focusing there. Alembic, a specialist in large-scale data analysis -- the heart of AI -- has just raised $14 million. Using techniques originally designed to track health data during the coronavirus pandemic, the startup helps determine the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Former Walt Disney Studios chairman and DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, is a founder of WndrCo, a VC that is backing Alembic. "AI is for real," the former Hollywood bigwig told AFP. "It's not an evolution, but a revolution, a positive revolution." juj-gc-arp/caw A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPMs Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version. Stopped Clock Or Blind Hog? In what I think is her first substantive CIPA ruling, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has sided with Special Counsel Jack Smith and ordered that the classified discovery in the Mar-a-Lago case not be shared with Donald Trumps two co-defendants. Smiths contention was that because neither Walt Nauta nor Carlos De Oliveira were indicted for unlawfully retaining the documents in question they were not entitled to see them to mount their defense. Cannon agreed. Nauta and De Oliveira are charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and various other counts related to the failure to return the documents to the government, but not the companion charges Trump faces for illegally retaining national security information. This was a no-brainer decision, and its a sign of how abnormal Cannons handling of the case has been that this wasnt decided as a matter of course earlier in the proceedings and that there was any suspense around how she would rule. Giving classified information to criminal defendants who had not previously seen the information or had proper classification to see it would have turned CIPA, the classified discovery law, totally upside down. So yay that she got it right! But lets not judge her on too much of a curve. In a separate move, Cannon issued guidance to parties for the upcoming all-day hearing Friday on a host of scheduling and other pretrial matters. As one of my colleagues put it, the order is rather pedantic. With Cannon, I find myself less convinced of her partisan allegiance to Trump than of her lack of confidence, experience, and competence. It doesnt have to be either/or, though. In her insecurity, I suspect she gravitates toward the tribal cues and preferences she picks up on as a sort of security blanket. Not good! That Was A Dud The anticipated testimony of a supposed witness to the romantic relationship between Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade fizzled in open court, leaving it even less likely that the trial judge will disqualify Willis from the case. Wades divorce attorney Terrence Bradley said he didnt know when the relationship started and that anything he may have previously said with certitude was mere speculation. Bradley was not a terribly convincing witness, but in the absence of any direct evidence that Willis and Wade were involved earlier than they claimed to the court, the judge isnt left with much to go on. And even if Trump and his co-defendants had established what they set out to, its not clear if that would have been enough to warrant disqualification of the prosecutor. I was left with the impression after watching yesterdays hearing that Judge Scott McAfee figured it would be better to have all this aired in court even if it didnt amount to much rather than leave lingering doubt about what may or may not have been testified to behind closed doors. Agree or not with that decision, it does seem to make any grounds for appeal much shakier given that McAfee allowed such a thorough airing of the issues and defendants came up with so little evidence. SCOTUS Watch I Still no immunity decision from the Supreme Court. SCOTUS Watch II Still no decision from the Supreme Court on the Colorado Disqualification Clause case. Fun Read Of The Day TPMs Hunter Walker goes deep on Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders Super Bowl extravaganza: Your humble TPM correspondent is, much like Hunter S. Thompson, Ice Cube, and the legendary Violator, a proud member of Raider nation. That means I come to the table with a healthy distaste for the Chiefs and I know exactly who to call about tickets in Sin City. Tea-Leaf Reading On Michigans Uncommitted Vote The uncommitted protest vote against President Biden in the Michigan Democratic primary is going to come in at around 13%, neither an unmitigated disaster nor a trifling annoyance. It remains the case that the Israel-Hamas war has been highly divisive for the Democratic coalition. The Biden campaign will need to work hard to reunite it going into November. That applies to the Arab-American community, the Muslim-American community and to a lesser but real degree young and non-white voters more generally. This is especially the case in Michigan which has a substantial Arab-American community, is always close in presidential elections and is a must win. Even limited disaffection is a big deal. Biden made no mention of the uncommitted protest vote in a post-victory statement. Donald Trump beat Nikki Haley handily in the Michigan GOP primary: 68% to 27%, with 98% reporting. Noted Democrats end up not going all out to squeeze partisan advantage out of the new district maps in New York. Hunter Biden On The Hill The presidents son will be grilled by House Republicans today as part of their election-year impeachment-apalooza. That Turned Fast Border visits are okay for me but not for thee: Hannity says Biden visiting the border is a cynical sick political stunt and beyond disgraceful. He then plugs his upcoming show with Trump which will be aired from the border. pic.twitter.com/jjOh0bPv9l Acyn (@Acyn) February 28, 2024 IVF Is The Third Rail Of Abortion Politics TPMs Nicole Lafond: Another Day, Another Empty Display Of Support For IVF From Republicans Shutdown Fears Fade A White House meeting and continued negotiation seem to lower the risk for a partial government shutdown starting Friday. WUT?!! A federal judge in Texas has ruled that Congress COVID-era proxy voting violated the Constitutions Quorum Clause, invalidating in this case a major spending bill Scientists Really Are Freaking The Eff Out The dramatic increase in ocean surface temperatures in recent months, especially in the North Atlantic, has even normally circumspect scientists alarmed. This Aged Well Bill Ackman talking about Dean Phillips here is a good example of Bill Ackman knowing absolutely nothing about how politics works pic.twitter.com/M8QI3FkGZ7 Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 26, 2024 Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know! Air Force Chief Gen. David Allvin on Wednesday addressed an airmans recent self-immolation in protest of Americas role in Israels war in Gaza, saying the service is investigating the tragedy, the highest military official to yet address the situation. Active-duty airman Aaron Bushnell, 25, of Whitman, Mass., a cyber defense operations specialist, died Sunday evening after he set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington earlier that day. Before he set himself aflame, he announced he would no longer be complicit in genocide, shouting Free Palestine over and over in the moments after he was engulfed. For our Air Force, we look at this as, whether it was politically motivated or others, we lost one of ours, said Allvin, who made the comments after he was interrupted multiple times by protesters at a Brookings Institution think tank event in Washington. Any suicide, whether by political protest or by resiliency issues or wherever it is, is a tragedy, he continued. As were looking at wherever the rationale might be, theres a standard investigation process [to] go through that and we look at that to make sure we understand everything about it without invading the personal privacy. The Defense Department and White House have largely stayed quiet on the event, with spokespeople for the two buildings referring to it as a tragedy. A statement from the Air Force only identified Bushnell as involved in an incident near the Israeli Embassy. The protesters on Wednesday heckled the Air Force chief, shouting statements that included say his name, and cease-fire now. Americas ongoing support of Israel has drawn the ire of protesters, who say the U.S. is complicit in the devastating air and ground campaign in the Gaza Strip that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. Allvin didnt respond to the protesters directly, and Brookings silenced the sound on the events video feed when protesters attempted to be heard. Later asked about Bushnells death during a question-and-answer portion of the event, Allvin turned it into a moment to address the wider issue of suicide in the ranks. We have about 100 or so suicides per year, and every year we try to get after how do we reduce this? So right now, where we are in that status is, understanding that has a lot of political fervor attached to it, he said. This is just one of our airmen that we lost and were looking after the family, were looking at the unit and really trying to understand if theres any context behind this, what lessons can be learned. Asked Monday whether Bushnells actions reveal a deeper issue of U.S. service members concerned about how Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons on civilians in Gaza, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder repeated the Biden administrations stance that Israel has a right to defend itself. He added that defense officials actively communicate to Israel that it must take civilian life into account. While our support for Israels inherent right to defend itself is ironclad, weve also continued to actively communicate our expectations that Israel take civilian safety and humanitarian assistance into account into their operations, Ryder told reporters. You see that incorporated into every conversation the Secretary has with his counterpart in Israel, as well as other U.S. officials. And we expect them to continue to adhere to the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Air Force wants to start putting in place key parts of its sweeping reorganization as soon as possible so it can better plan for its future needs, the services chief of staff said Wednesday. But budget uncertainties and a possible 1% cut to funding levels could jeopardize the Air Forces ability to set up a new Integrated Capabilities Command and other changes in time to have the right impact, Gen. Dave Allvin said at a Brookings Institution event. Its not a matter to me of: this is an optional thing that we think is a good idea to do, Allvin said. The strategic environment compels us to do this. Otherwise, we find ourselves in a situation next year, then the year after and the year after that, where we fall further behind. Allvin, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, and other top officials unveiled the revamp the services largest since the post-Cold War period in the 1990s earlier this month at the Air and Space Forces Associations Air Warfare Symposium. The shift is part of the services effort to better position to counter major adversaries, particularly China, and win a high-tech, modern war, all while dealing with budgetary limitations. The creation of a new Integrated Capabilities Command is one of the biggest changes in the works for the Air Force. Today, the Air Force often develops the future capabilities it will need partially within its major commands and piecemeal. But the single, centralized Integrated Capabilities Command in the works will take charge of developing the Air Forces future requirements into new systems or other capabilities and allow a more unified approach. This new command understands the impacts of modernizing one part of our Air Force with the other part of our Air Force, and it helps us develop a more cohesive and coherent force design into the future, Allvin said. We have to make quality decisions faster. And sometimes, when you diffuse the power structures and the decision-making authority across the functions, its very hard to get an enterprise solution on time. These changes might not be noticed outside of the Air Force, Allvin said, but he predicted they would have a significant effect internally. The service is working on setting up the Integrated Capabilities Command as soon as possible, he said, so it can start changing the way it conducts long-term planning for the future force. But he acknowledged the full reorganization could be done in pieces and take years and may not be completely finished when his tenure as chief of staff ends in four years. Its all Im going to be doing from start to finish, Allvin said. If I do my job, and get the support and Im able to build a team and build the advocacy, youre going to see a drastically changed Air Force. He said it is too early to tell how much the reorganization might cost, though he doesnt expect it to be a large fiscal burden. He believes the Air Force already has most of the resources and abilities it needs, and must start moving on these changes immediately. This Integrated Capabilities Command, I cant tell you, to the airman, how many are going to be there, Allvin said. But we also cant wait for that in order to get started. We need to know that were going to move forward and adapt on the fly. But with the fiscal 2024 budget languishing in Congress, the Air Force like the rest of the government is still operating on a continuing resolution funding it at 2023 levels. If lawmakers dont pass this years budget by April 30, a further 1% cut will kick in. That would not only jeopardize the Air Forces ability to make these changes, Allvin said, it would also create a more existential issue. The one thing that we really lose is time, and our ability to be able to spend the precious resources on the things that we had planned on in order to keep pace, Allvin said. More than twenty years after an Alabama woman was found dead, her husband has been arrested for murder, the Dothan Police Department said in a statement on Monday. Sharon Mills was 49 when she was reported missing by her husband, Dwight Mills, on Dec. 30, 2001. Her body was recovered a month later, just over the Florida state line in Holmes County, the Dothan Police Department said. The investigation stalled after police said they exhausted all their leads. "This is a day we've been praying for for 22 years," the victim's daughter, Angel Faulk, said at a news conference after the arrest. Dwight Mills, 69, has been charged with the murder of his wife, Sharon Mills, more that 20 years after he reported her missing in 2001. / Credit: Dothan Police Department In 2023, Faulk said she came into some information that "really hurt her heart," and she contacted the nonprofit Wiregrass Angel House, which works with families affected by violent crime. Together they started reaching out to police. Investigators said that after they gathered new information and evidence and followed up on old leads, they were able to obtain a warrant to arrest Dwight Mills, 69, on charges of murder and abuse of a corpse. Faulk said her parents divorced when Faulk was in her 20s and her mother had a hard time coping with the loss. She was getting better and then worse but was still vulnerable, and then "she met Dwight, and we all know what happened," said Faulk. Dothan police said in a statement that no unsolved murder case is ever "closed" and investigators are actively working on other cold cases. "We will do everything we can to bring closure to families and perpetrators to justice," the statement said. Faulk said she was glad she never gave up pushing for answers about her mother's death. She and her mother were close, she said. "My mom was my best friend. She had me at 17 and we were more like sisters," Faulk said during the news conference. Mills is currently being held in custody on a $1,510,000 bond, police said. Police body camera footage released of shooting at Lakewood Church Biden and Trump win Michigan primaries, CBS News projects Wendy's plans to test surge pricing in restaurants Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove, speaks during a special session on redistricting on Friday, July 21, 2023 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector) The Alabama Senate Tuesday approved a bill that would allow survivors of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America to take full advantage of the bankruptcy proceedings against the organization. SB 18, sponsored by Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove, passed the Senate 34-0. The bill goes to the House of Representatives. We want to make sure that the 1,500 to 2,000 were not even sure of the exact number survivors of child sex assault in the state of Alabama have the ability to fully participate in this settlement funding, she said. Under current state law, victims of child sexual abuse have until six years after they turn 19 to file a civil lawsuit. According to a March 2020 Child USA report, a national think tank, the average age of disclosure is 52. Colemans bill would lift the limit for those who suffered abuse while in the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy in 2020 after several states revisited their statute of limitations around the issue, according to Reuters. The Scouting Settlement Trust, a $2.7 billion fund established after the Boy Scouts filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, allows victims of sexual abuse to claim between $3,500 and $2.7 million. The Senate adopted a committee substitute from Sen. Vivian Figures, D-Mobile, that matches a similar bill sponsored by Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Pike Road. The substitute includes a sentence saying that action is for purposes of making a claim or claims in a bankruptcy proceeding that was initiated on February 18, 2020. The language would effectively limit the exception to victims of abuse in the Boy Scouts. Colemans original version states that action under this subsection against a bankruptcy estate may be commenced at any time. According to the New York Times in 2019, leaders of the Boy Scouts have been sexually abusing children for decades. In 2012, the LA Times published a series on the Perversion Files, confidential internal documents that showed that the organization knew about and had files on suspected abuse. Coleman said that this bill needs to be signed by the governor by April for survivors to take full advantage of the lawsuit. Theres some things sometimes that we have here, and you just really do question, Have we done something to help somebody? she said. In this case, we get a chance to do something to help these survivors. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Alabama Senate approves bill allowing Boy Scout abuse victims to pursue damages appeared first on Alabama Reflector. A photo of Birmingham-Southern College's campus. (Birmingham-Southern College Communications Department) An Alabama Senate committee Wednesday approved a bill that would extend a loan to Birmingham-Southern College in the hopes of keeping the liberal arts college open. But several members of the Senates Finance and Taxation Education Committee expressed concerns about language that effectively required the state to give loans to distressed institutions. If this bill passes were going to have trouble distinguishing from future colleges that may come within a financial distress situation, said Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, the chair of the committee. SB 31, sponsored by Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, revises language in a law passed last year that created the Distressed Institutions of Higher Education Revolving Loan Program. The bill would move oversight of the program from the state treasurer to the executive director of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. It would also remove the discretion of the administrator in determining whether to extend a loan but does still have requirements. The law was intended to extend financial help to Birmingham-Southern College, a private liberal arts college. Officials of the college say it may have to close if it does not get the loan. However, State Treasurer Young Boozer last year declined to provide the loan to BSC, citing concerns about the schools collateral. The school had 731 students in the fall 2023 semester, spokeswoman Virginia Loftin said earlier this month. Waggoner said Boozers refusal to approve the loan led to the change. As all of you remember last year, we passed the bill and designated the state treasurer as the one to administer the $30 million loan program for Birmingham-Southern, but he refused and now weve had another bill to designate the administrator of the Commission on Higher Education as the one to administer this loan program and basically the bill is the same except whos going to administer the program, he said. In a statement sent Wednesday afternoon, BSC President Daniel A. Coleman thanked the committee and wrote that many, including students and faculty, have worked for continued existence of the school. Our plan for financial stability focuses on our endowment campaign, he wrote. The loan we seek from the state will provide us time to complete that campaign. In a phone conversation Wednesday, Boozer, who said he watched the committee, disagreed with the depiction of the bill as only changing the administrator, citing other changes such as the rate and payback period for the loan. Basically with all the changes that have occurred, there will be no effective oversight by the state over this loan, it boils down to that, he said. If that is put in place, it becomes a gift, not a loan and if the state makes that loan, over the next 20 years, somewhere along there, the state will own that school, because they will be unable, in my opinion, to be able to continue on as a separate entity, he said. Boozer also expressed concerns about the schools declining enrollment. The decision about this significant thing was made based on estimates and supposition and assumptions and I just dont think that that is the way things should be done, because this is a failing college, and it is failing dramatically and rapidly, he said. Waggoner said after the committee hearing that he and Boozer have disagreed throughout the process, but hes pleased with what the Legislature is doing. If he had thought highly of the school and its future, hed have done this loan, but he chose not to, he said. So we move to Plan B and we feel good about it. Im very confident. Some members of the committee were worried about the changes in the administrators discretion. Orr said he was worried about removing the state treasurers ability to set terms and conditions for the loan program. Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, voted for the bill but questioned the support that Birmingham-Southern College was receiving when Historically Black Colleges or Universities had struggled to secure adequate public funding. So, I just want to make sure that the ears that heard this can hear this cry of those other schools that are in need also, he said. Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, supported the bill and said that the Legislature needed to keep its word. We have to stay committed, he said. We made a commitment to do what was right and necessary. The simple fact that we could not get it implemented does not should not alter one bit, the commitment after going through the whole process that we as a body made. An amendment was added that said that the bank mentioned in the bill as providing the loan cannot be a current creditor of the college, said Orr. Concerns about the involvement of a specific bank in the process have been raised by the Treasurer. Boozer had previously told the Reflector that he felt this bill replaced the treasurer with a straw man with no authority. The bill, which passed committee 11-3, moves to the full Senate. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE This story was updated to correct the spelling of Virginia Loftins name. The post Alabama Senate committee approves Birmingham-Southern College loan bill appeared first on Alabama Reflector. A Birmingham woman was found dead Monday morning after being reported missing just one day earlier by family members who say they received calls and messages that she was being held hostage. Mahogany Jacksons family members called police Sunday after receiving texts from Jackson early that morning stating that she was being held hostage, according to AL.com. Mahogany Jackson was found dead in Birmingham just one day after she texted family members that she was being held hostage and to call police. (Photo: Facebook/Gail Maddox) Jacksons mother, Gail Maddox, saw she missed multiple Facebook messenger calls from Jackson early Sunday morning after her other daughter called her, saying Jackson texted her a disturbing message. Jackson also texted her mother to call the police. She sent me a text message that said she was being held hostage and sent her location, Maddox told AL.com. Family members called the police, who accompanied them to Serenity Apartments, where Jackson called for help. They went to a specific apartment where a woman Jackson knew said Jackson left the unit at 2 a.m. Sunday. Its unclear if the woman knew where Jackson went. Maddox disputed the womans account since Jackson dropped family members a pin from that location at 7:46 a.m. that morning. Police searched the apartment and the complex and didnt find Jackson. They called off the search for her at 9 a.m. Sunday since there were no other tips pointing to her whereabouts. Between then and now, I dont know what happened, Maddox said, adding she feared something terrible happened. My daughter would never say call the police, but she was afraid, and thats why she asked us to. Then, in the early morning hours on Monday, Jacksons body was found on a roadside. Someone who found her body at 17th Street S.W. and Laurel Avenue called police at 2:19 a.m. on Monday to report the discovery. Birmingham police, as well as fire and rescue teams, went to that location and found Jackson dead at the scene with a gunshot wound. Maddox posted about her daughters death on Facebook later that morning, stating, They killed my child. Police havent released any suspect information yet. Alabama Woman Found Shot to Death on Roadside One Day After Messaging Family Members That She Was Being Held Hostage The Western Balkans are ready to contribute to the fight against Russia amid European and Western delays and restrictions on aid. Source: Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama in an interview on the eve of the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to his country, as reported by European Pravda, citing Euractiv. Rama added that the role of the Western Balkans is becoming even more important for the EU as they begin to realise this in the face of a common enemy, Vladimir Putin: "As much as we need you, you need us. Why? First and foremost, for what is dearest to you security," he said. Zelenskyy has arrived in Tirana for the Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit on Wednesday (28 February), followed by the EU-Western Balkans summit the next day, which is expected to focus on the EU's new Growth and Stability Plan. Asked what Tirana could offer against the backdrop of Ukraine fatigue, problems reaching consensus at EU level on funding, unfulfilled ammunition commitments, indecision on some forms of military support, and various vetoes and delays, Rama called on the West to take responsibility for the current state of affairs. "Looking to our countries, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina that are in full solidarity with Ukraine, will say something to the bigger, richer guys. Their pledges are there, their engagement is there, but I am not sure the excuse of all these delays and constraints can stand for much longer," Rama said. "Everyone has to deliver," he added. The Albanian prime minister said he did not believe that the summit and the region's engagement would change the pace of developments for the entire democratic community, but he would not underestimate the contribution and impact they could have. "We are doing our job", he added. The summit will be attended by regional leaders from Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia, although Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will not attend, instead sending "a representative at a low diplomatic level". Reminder: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a telephone conversation with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama on 19 January. During the conversation, Zelenskyy thanked Albania for its clear position on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, support in the UN Security Council, as well as defence and political support. Support UP or become our patron! MADISON COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) A man was killed early Wednesday morning after being hit by an unknown vehicle, according to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA). A spokesperson with ALEA said that 66-year-old Huntsville man Cyril A. Nembhard was hit by a vehicle on Indian Creek Road. Nembhard was pronounced dead at the scene. Wrongful death lawsuit filed against Madison Co. man for shooting of tow truck driver The vehicle left the scene and the make, model and driver are currently unknown. Troopers are continuing to investigate, but urge anyone with information about the vehicle or driver to contact ALEA at 256-353-0631. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHNT.com. Alexei Navalny will be buried at a cemetery in Moscow on Friday, a spokesperson has confirmed. The service will be held at Borisovskoye Cemetery, after a farewell ceremony in the Maryino district. Alexei Navalny suddenly died in an Arctic prison earlier this month. For years, he was the most high-profile critic of Vladimir Putin. Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, as well as several world leaders, have blamed the Russian president for his death. Few details have been released on the cause of his death, and Russian authorities initially refused to hand Navalny's body over to his mother Lyudmila. They finally relented eight days after his death. News of the funeral details came as Ms Navalnaya addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg. She said she was not yet sure whether the funeral would be peaceful "or whether the police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to Alexei." On Tuesday, Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmish said his team were struggling to find somewhere to hold the ceremony - some funeral homes had claimed they were fully booked, she said, while others had refused when they found out who the event was for. "One place told us that funeral agencies were forbidden from working with us," Ms Yarmish posted on social media. Navalny's team had originally wanted to hold the funeral on 29 February, but "it quickly became clear that there was not a single person around who could dig a grave on that day", Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on X. He implied that the reason for this was because Mr Putin is due to make his yearly address to the Federal Assembly on the same day. "The Kremlin understands that nobody will care for Putin and his address on the day of Alexei's farewell," Mr Zhdanov wrote. He also encouraged people to arrive early "to have a chance to say goodbye to Alexei". A farewell ceremony will take place in the morning, followed by the funeral service at 14:00 (11:00 GMT) and the burial at 16:00 (13:00 GMT). Since Navalny's death at a notorious penal colony in the Arctic Circle on 16 February, some 400 people have been arrested across Russia after laying flowers for him, according to human rights group, OVO-Info. His funeral on Friday is likely to be subject to a heavy police presence, and possibly, a similar crackdown. Yulia Navalnaya addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday Ms Navalnaya received several rounds of applause during her address to the European Union, including a standing ovation. In her speech, she described her husband as "an inventor" who "always had new ideas for everything, but especially for politics". Despite Vladimir Putin's regime, "Alexei Navalny has managed to become the most famous politician there," she said. "He was able to inspire millions of people with his ideas." Earlier this week, an ally of Navalny alleged he was about to be freed in a prisoner swap when he died - but that President Putin changed his mind at the last moment. The Kremlin has said it was unaware of such a deal. Alexei Navalny: More coverage A Kentucky animal shelter is reopening one day after dogs were freed from the facility in a reported break-in. Several dogs were let loose from the Leitchfield Animal Shelter on Tuesday, Feb. 27, after a man broke into the building, police told WHAS. Multiple dogs were discovered with superficial injuries, K105 reported, and one dog was found dead. Its believed the dog was killed by one of the other freed dogs. The animal shelter, about 75 miles southwest of Louisville, closed Tuesday as a result of the break-in. We had to endure something today and to help us recoup mentally and to help protect OUR physical safety and OUR babies physical safety, we have to keep people off our property, the animal shelter said in a Facebook post. A female dalmatian named Bug remained missing as of Wednesday morning, the animal shelter said. A dog named Richy was initially missing, but the shelter said he was later found safe. An alleged suspect in the break-in has been identified through security footage, WHAS reported, but no arrests have been made. The Leitchfield Animal Shelter said it would be reopening Wednesday, Feb. 28. Thank you for the continued support and love, it said in a Facebook post. Hundreds of animals mysteriously vanish from Arizona humane society, officials say 12 dogs on way to adoption die after devastating mechanical failure, GA shelter says Democratic Sens. Tammy Duckworth (IL) and Patty Murray (WA) plan to bring up a vote under unanimous consent on Wednesday on a bill they first introduced in 2022 that would put federal safeguards on IVF treatment. The legislation, the Access to Family Building Act, would give federal protections to in-vitro fertilization treatment and override any limits imposed on the practice by individual states (cough, cough Alabama). Since the Democrats plan to bring it up via unanimous consent, just one lawmaker could block the bill from going to a vote. Back in 2022, before it became the issue that Republicans are scrambling to loudly support, they did just that. During a press conference announcing their plans Tuesday, Duckworth dared her Republican colleagues to block the bill from advancing to a vote again. Donald Trump suddenly supports IVF after crowing and claiming and taking credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade. You cant do both, Duckworth said. And so lets find out tomorrow if any Republicans show up to block the unanimous consent. While declaring their support for IVF very strongly this past week, Republicans havent yet figured out how to talk about what exactly they support, as they profess to hold the seemingly competing beliefs that embryos are babies but also that everyone should have access to the procedure who wants it. I unpacked this wobbliness yesterday, but Sen. Marco Rubios (R-FL) latest remarks on the treatment illustrate the * ~ confusion ~ * well, and signal that Republican senators will likely block the bill from going to vote Wednesday: Thats really at the crux of the ethics of it, Rubio told reporters Tuesday. How do our laws recognize the dignity of human life but also understand that the procedure that it enables is a life-creating procedure? No one has IVF to destroy life, they have IVF to create life, he added. Unfortunately, you have to create multiple embryos, and some of those are not used, then youre now in a quandary. On the other side of the Capitol, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) announced shed put forward a resolution that would shield her fellow Republicans from having to weigh in seriously on that quandary just one of many complex health care issues unrelated to abortion that were left in an open field for anti-abortion activists to attack in Dobbs wake. Mace is sending around a non-binding resolution that she has asked her colleagues to consider cosponsoring by the end of the day Thursday. The resolution would have no impact on federal laws if it passed and would primarily just declare support for IVF and call on elected officials at all levels of government to proactively pass legislation to protect access to fertility care and assisted reproductive technology, including in vitro fertilization, according to Business Insider, which obtained a copy of the resolution. The resolution does note that the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on embryos status as children has endangered access to the procedure in the state, but in terms of tangibly protecting IVF, its toothless. Which means Republicans will likely point to it as their preferred form of legislation as cover when they vote against the Duckworth/Murray bill this week. The Best Of TPM Today The latest from Hunter Walker: Who Paid For Sarah Sanders Six Figure Super Bowl Extravaganza? Yesterdays Most Read Story Republicans Increasingly Reveal They Barely Know Where Babies Come From Nicole Lafond What We Are Reading In leaked audio, Supreme Court Justice John Devine railed against brainwashed GOP colleagues The Texas Tribune Tennessee House advances bill to ban reappointing lawmakers booted for behavior NBC Trump Has a Hilarious New Excuse for Why He Cant Put Up Bond The New Republic Here we are again looking right down the barrel of a government shutdown because one-half of one of the three branches of the federal government is completely dysfunctional under GOP leadership. We're talking about the Republican House of Representatives of course. They are simply incapable of passing legislation. 2023 was the least productive year since the Great Depression with Congress passing just 27 pieces of legislation that became law. In 1948 President Harry Truman famously called the legislative branch the "Do Nothing Congress" because they only managed to pass 511 bills. This is the third time in six months that the country has been on the brink of a shutdown because the hard right in the House is holding their breath until they turn blue. It's not clear what they want except perhaps to cause more chaos. The last time it cost Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., his job as Speaker of the House and the same fate may very await current Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., as well. There's nothing in his performance so far that suggests he has the skill or the desire to finesse this situation. There's no need to reiterate the saga that continues over Ukraine and border funding. We know that both parties came to the table and negotiated in good faith to come to an agreement on both of those issues to meet the demands of the right-wingers. But Donald Trump directed them to walk away because he believes passage of any bill will help Joe Biden in the election in the fall so they did it. So, at the moment, funding for Ukraine, the border, Israel, Taiwan and Gaza is dead and Republicans are screaming incoherently about how the border must be dealt with even though they just shot down a bill that any hard-line, immigrant-hating right-winger should have been thrilled to vote for. None of it makes any sense at all. But there are a whole bunch of other spending bills caught in limbo as well. For now, the government continues to operate on the 2022 budget passed by the Democrat-controlled House led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. As it stands, unless they pass another continuing resolution or come to some kind of agreement, about 20 percent of the federal budget will shut down on March 2. The rest of the government goes down one week later, at midnight on March 9. Johnson bought himself some time last fall when he first succeeded McCarthy and managed to pass the continuing resolution that's coming due this week. The House returned from another extended break this week (they're very tired) and found that whatever talks had been going on during their vacation had gotten nowhere. It's hard to know exactly what the hang-up is, but according to the New York Times, the far right has an assortment of demands such as the reversal of "a rule that aims to broaden access to abortion medication or a policy that could make it harder for some veterans deemed mentally ill to purchase guns." They also insist on limiting food stamps for the poor. On Tuesday the four congressional leaders, Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the White House to assess the lay of the land. They all reported that they were "optimistic" that they can reach an agreement but they were short on details. They all ganged up on Johnson, even McConnell, on the Ukraine funding, trying to get him to let that bill come to the floor so they could get it done. Johnson used to be in favor of it, but he's firmly under Trump's thumb so who knows if he'll budge on that? He's now pushing the fatuous notion that he can only do it if Biden uses executive authority to close the border immediately, as the Times reported: After the meeting, Mr. Johnson said of the foreign assistance bill that House Republicans were still actively pursuing and investigating all the various options on that, and we will address that in a timely manner. But he reiterated his stance that the effort should take a back seat to immediate action to crack down on migration at the U.S. border with Mexico. The first priority of the country is our border and making sure its secure, Mr. Johnson said. I believe the president can take executive authority right now today to change that. Biden tried to educate him about how it would cost money to do that, which will only be available if they pass the bill that appropriates it. Axios reports that one of the negotiators, Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, thinks they could unveil a compromise as early as today. But after what the Republicans pulled with the Ukraine/border agreement it's hard to imagine how anyone could trust them to keep their word. Who knows what they'll pull out of their hat at the last minute? And has anyone consulted Dear Leader Donald Trump? In the past he has been in favor of a government shutdown because he thinks it hurts the Democrats, the same rationale he used when he ordered them to scuttle the border bill. He's a bit distracted with all his legal problems at the moment, so maybe they can slip something by before he looks up and realizes they've actually done something. It's all up to Johnson in the end. He knows he can pass these bills in minutes and get everything funded, including Ukraine and the border, immediately if he will bring the bills to the floor and allow it to pass with Democratic votes and a handful of sane Republicans. But he may very well lose his speakership if he does that, just as McCarthy did. There is nothing so far to indicate that he has the character or the guts to sacrifice his ambition to do that even though many lives are at stake here in the U.S. and around the world. But considering that he always says that if you want to know his values all you have to do is read the Bible, if there's one guy you'd think would ask himself "What would Jesus do?" it would be Mike Johnson. So far, however, it appears he's more likely to ask himself "What would Trump do?" Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News reports that despite promising that there would be no more continuing resolutions, Johnson has now proposed to extend the deadlines from March 1 to March 8 and March 22. There is no word as of now whether the Senate and the White House are on board or even if Johnson has the juice to persuade his right flank to allow it. One result of Johnson allowing the clock to run out repeatedly is that it makes it easy for him to just kick the can down the road instead and avoid having to take a risk. The bill has come due for the people of Ukraine and Gaza unfortunately, but at least Johnson will be able to keep his job. The Mars Hill post office is located at 65 S. Main St. in downtown Mars Hill. MARS HILL - This installment of Answer Man looks into whether the Asheville metropolitan area, including Madison County, will be seeing updated U.S. Postal Service vehicles at local post offices. Got a question for Asheville Answer Man or Answer Woman? Email Executive Editor Karen Chavez at KChavez@citizentimes.com and your question could appear in an upcoming column. Question: Were you ever able to find out the answer on when Asheville and environs will see the new USPS delivery vans that are supposedly replacing the very old and unreliable USPS postal jeeps that they have used for over 45 years now? I have heard these vehicles didn't even have air condition in them for their drivers. Very uncomfortable in the summer. Answer: As the Madison County communities reporter, this question hits home to me, as in December and January I covered a story in which Everett Almound Johnston Jr., of Marshall, was killed after a U.S. postal service contractor ran him over at the Mars Hill post office Dec. 27. Following Johnston's death, Mars Hill Town Manager Nathan Bennett and Mars Hill Police Chief Chad Wilson called for changes at the post office, and said they hoped the incident would spark discussion at the federal level about the location, general layout and building/parking lot infrastructure at the Mars Hill post office. Philip Bogenberger works in corporate communications with the U.S. Postal Service. "Safety is a top priority for the Postal Service, and we are saddened there was an accident involving a contractors vehicle and a customer," Bogenberger said in an emailed statement to The News-Record & Sentinel. "Our thoughts are with the customers loved ones." A U.S. Postal Service van gears up for another delivery at the Mars Hill post office. The News-Record & Sentinel spoke with Wilson by phone Feb. 27. According to Wilson, the vehicle that ran over Johnston was a U.S. Postal Service-owned truck that did not have a reverse backup beeper. As for new postal vehicles, the U.S. Postal Service said it plans on procuring a total of 21,000 electric vehicles including 9,250 from Ford depending on market availability and operational feasibility, by 2028. On Jan. 22, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled its first set of electric vehicle charging stations in Atlanta, according to a release from the service, in which it said there will be charging stations installed at approximately 400 new sorting and delivery centers throughout the year. The Postal Service said it has opened 29 new sorting and delivery centers, and the 400 sorting and delivery centers are planned throughout its 10-year Delivering for America plan. "These centers which provide faster and more reliable mail and package delivery over a greater geographic area will serve as the local hubs to deploy EVs along local carrier routes," the Postal Service said in the release. "Electrification and modernization of the Postal Service's delivery fleet is part of the organization's $40 billion investment strategy to upgrade and improve the USPS processing, transportation and delivery networks." A man died after being run over by a carrier attempting to back up to the back parking lot area at the Mars Hill post office, located at 65 S. Main St. More: Officials want post office changes Mars Hill officials call for change after man dies after being backed into by mail carrier More: Remembering Everett Johnston Everett Johnston, killed at Mars Hill PO, remembered as a man of letters, loving husband So, will Western North Carolina be getting a charging station or updated vehicles at its post offices? According to Bogenberger, it's too early to tell. "At this time, there is no public information available which other states will be receiving EVs," Bogenberger said. Cathy Little is the postmaster at the Mars Hill post office. Little said she has served as postmaster at the Mars Hill location for roughly 18 months. According to Little, throughout that time, she has requested updated vehicles, as the Mars Hill post office currently has only one delivery van. But she hasn't heard confirmation either way. "It's not that I haven't heard anything, it's just that nobody else around here knows when any more are going to get allocated," Little said. "They tell me they don't know when they're coming or where they're going." Johnny Casey has covered Madison County for The Citizen Times and The News-Record & Sentinel for more than three years. He earned a first-place award in beat news reporting in the 2023 North Carolina Press Association awards. He can be reached at 828-210-6074 or jcasey@citizentimes.com. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Answer Man: Updated US Postal Service vehicles coming to Western NC? A federal appeals court declined on Tuesday to reconsider former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadowss request to transfer his 2020 election interference case in Georgia to federal court, closing off his last-ditch attempt to move the potential trial to a more favorable venue. Related: Judge in Trump civil fraud trial was sent envelope with white powder The decision from the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit means Meadows will face the racketeering charges brought by the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis in state court in Atlanta unless he makes a final challenge to the US supreme court and it agrees to hear the case. But the denial for Meadows was emphatic. The petition for rehearing en banc is denied, no judge in regular active service on the court having requested that the court be polled en rehearing en banc, the unsigned, one-page order said. The next move for Meadows was unclear. Local counsel for Meadows could not immediately be reached for comment. Meadows was indicted last year alongside Trump and dozens of co-defendants over their efforts to reverse the 2020 election results, including on a charge for his role in setting up the infamous call in January 2021 0-in which Trump asked the Georgia secretary of state to find 11,780 votes. Meadows almost immediately filed to transfer his case to federal court he was hoping to seek dismissal of the charges on federal immunity grounds but had the motion rejected by the US district judge Steve Jones. Meadows then appealed to the 11th circuit. The three-judge panel at the 11th circuit, which heard Meadows case in December, appeared skeptical with his arguments that he was entitled to remove his case to federal court because he was acting as a federal officer when he took steps to try and reverse Trumps defeat. And in an unusually swift decision that came just three days after the hearing, the three-judge panel emphatically rejected Meadows position and ruled he was ineligible for removal because he was not currently a federal officer and because he was engaging in campaign activities post-election. Federal-officer removal under section 1442(a)(1) does not apply to former federal officers, and even if it did, the events giving rise to this criminal action were not related to Meadows official duties, the chief judge at the 11th circuit, William Pryor, wrote. Meadows is facing a particularly perilous situation in the Fulton county case. The Guardian has previously reported that the district attorneys office is opposed to negotiating plea deals with Trump, Meadows and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in order to avoid trial. It was unclear why prosecutors are opposed to negotiating with Meadows, though the fact that he only testified after being ordered by a court in the federal 2020 election interference case brought against Trump in Washington suggested he might only be a reluctant witness. A federal appeals court has allowed India to enforce a ban on minors receiving gender-affirming care. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI Feb. 28 (UPI) -- A federal appeals court has allowed Indiana to enforce a controversial ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors. The law, Senate Bill 480, was signed by Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, nearly a year ago, prohibiting doctors from performing transition procedures on a minor or aiding or abetting another medical professional from doing likewise under threat of civil action. The ban was to go into effect July 1, but a lower court placed an injunction on the law a month prior, allowing minors access to gender-affirming medicine amid litigation. On Tuesday, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals lifted that stay, permitting the ban to be enforced. The ruling was made after the court heard oral arguments on Feb. 16. The three-judge panel said its decision would be released later. "This ruling is beyond disappointing and a heartbreaking development for thousands of transgender youth, their doctors and their families," said the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which brought the original lawsuit against the ban. "As we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all the transgender youth of Indiana to know this fight is far from over and we will continue to challenge this law until it is permanently defeated and Indiana is made a safer place to raise every family." The ruling comes amid a Republican effort to restrict and ban gender-affirming care nationwide, despite every major American medical association supporting this type of treatment, including for minors. At least 23 states have so far enacted bans or restrictions on minors receiving gender-affirming medicine, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita celebrated the court's decision Tuesday, describing S.B. 480 as a "common state law." "We are proud to win this fight against the radicals who continue pushing this horrific practice on our children for ideological and financial reasons," he said on X. According to the University of California, Los Angeles' Williams Institute, there are an estimated 4,100 minors between the ages of 13 and 17 who identify as transgender in Indiana, representing less than 1% of the state's population. A federal appeals court said it wont review Mark Meadows bid to move the 2020 election subversion charges he faces in Georgia to federal court, setting up the possibility for a Supreme Court showdown. The full 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals said on Wednesday it has no interest in reviewing a ruling by a panel of its court that denied Meadows protections because of his official federal role, keeping his charges in Georgia state court. The 11th Circuit is a conservative-leaning appeals court overseeing the southeastern United States. Meadows, a former White House chief of staff to former President Donald Trump, has sought for months to move the election interference case against him brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to federal court. Meadows has argued that, because he was a top White House official at the time of the alleged crimes, he is entitled to a federal immunity extended to certain individuals who are prosecuted or sued for conduct tied to their US government roles. The Supreme Court is already considering the prospect of federal immunity for Trump in the separate special counsel election interference case, with a pending request by Trump to the justices that it pause the federal case against him to further consider the issue. How the Supreme Court resolves the Trump immunity question could play into the viability of the Georgia 2020 election case as well. Meadows has long stuck with a strategy to test the ability of his charges to be moved to federal court before deciding his best route to prepare for a state court trial. If Meadows is unsuccessful even at the Supreme Court, that will likely be the end of the road for him, Trump and others bidding for protections in the case because of their federal service. The federal appeals court in Georgia so far has called Meadows actions electioneering and not part of his official duties. Writing for the three-judge appellate panel that rebuffed Meadows request in December, 11th Circuit Chief Judge William Pryor wrote that at bottom, whatever the chief of staffs role with respect to state election administration, that role does not include altering valid election results in favor of a particular candidate. Meadows has been charged by the Atlanta-based prosecutors with violating Georgias RICO law, and is also accused of trying to solicit Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to violate his oath of office. Meadows has pleaded not guilty. The latest order from the 11th Circuit said that no judge on the appeals court requested a vote on whether the full circuit should take up the dispute. If Meadows takes his bid to move the prosecution to the Supreme Court, it will be the latest example of the high court being asked to weigh in on the various 2020 election interference prosecutions and investigations. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied former White House chief of staff Mark Meadowss request it hear his bid to move his criminal charges in the Georgia 2020 election racketeering case to federal court. The decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals serves another blow to Meadows, who had sought to have the case moved under a federal law that he claimed should let him be tried in federal court, arguing he was acting in his official capacity as chief of staff when the alleged actions took place. A three-judge panel of the appeals court had already ruled against Meadows. The full court decided against hearing his arguments Wednesday. Meadows had hoped to move courts to assert immunity from the indictment, a tactic that couldve imperiled the case brought by Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis (D) against Meadows, former President Trump and more than a dozen others. The vast indictment alleges a conspiracy in which Trump and many of his supporters tried to overturn the results of the presidential election in Georgia. It is one of four indictments Trump faces. A three-judge appeals panel ruled in December that Meadows was ineligible to move the case, arguing former federal officials, as opposed to current ones, cannot do so under the law. Even if the law had applied to former federal officials, the judges ruled in December, Meadows still could not leverage the statute because he didnt establish he was acting in his official role. Meadowss only course of action now would be to seek recourse at the Supreme Court. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Apple is reportedly abandoning its vehicle project after a decade of development. It would be the latest casualty in the brutal EV market. Apple appears to be tapping out as car companies scramble to adjust EV plans. The Apple car is dead (apparently). The scrapped plans would be a grim sign for the EV market in the US, which has suffered from flagging demand. Apple has been working on its electric car for 10 years and is now dropping the project before ever even releasing a prototype, Bloomberg reported this week. Apple's reported decision comes amid an EV reckoning in the US. As BI reported earlier this month, car companies are rethinking EV plans in response to softening demand for pure electric cars. While this softening demand is happening globally, it is most pronounced in the US, where EV adoption has always lagged. Even the world's leading EV maker, BYD, said this week it doesn't want to touch the US market. "We're not planning to come to the US," BYD Americas CEO Stella Li told Yahoo Finance. "It's an interesting market, but it's very complicated if you're talking about EVs." Li contrasted the slowdown in EV adoption in the US to the Chinese EV market, where more targeted government funding and regulations have made it so automakers not investing in EVs are "out, you will die, you have no future. " Apple's "Project Titan" car was also supposed to be an autonomous, expensive technology that most car companies have already put on the back burner. Automakers shift EV plans Like Apple, US auto companies have been shifting plans to account for softer EV demand. Most recently, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said the company would begin to rely on hybrid sales in North America, and Sweden's Volvo said it was pulling future funding from its EV company, Polestar. This comes after Hertz's surprise decision in January to dump a third of its EV fleet. Part of the pressure automakers are feeling comes from a price war triggered by Elon Musk's Tesla. Musk started discounting some of Tesla's most popular models last year, driving down the average price of EVs and making it harder for legacy automakers to compete without losing money. "This is a pretty brutal space," Harald Wilhelm, the chief financial officer of Mercedes-Benz, said on an analyst call late last year. "I can hardly imagine the current status quo is fully sustainable for everybody." Read the original article on Business Insider MEMPHIS, Tenn. A Wynne, Arkansas woman is recovering after being shot while in her home last month. Police say the suspect is still on the loose. On January 28, neighbors say they were woken up out of their sleep when they heard loud gunshots. It happened in an area where the neighbors say crime never comes this close. Kids stealing car get shot, crash on Winchester: MPD Ive never lived anywhere where a shooting was this close, so it does scare me. Makes me nerve-wracking, the neighbor said. It is heartbreaking, it really is. Wynne police say the woman was shot around 2 a.m. on Owens Street, but they would not release many details. None of us on this street have cameras, never saw a need, she said But weve been talking, maybe we need to get cameras up since this happened. Man found guilty of killing mother of 8, kidnapping her child Neighbors say the home where the shooting happened is now vacant for the first time in many years. Piles of trash line the driveway for pickup. We did see that night where they put her in the ambulance we were praying for her, the neighbor said. Those prayers continue amongst the close-knit neighborhood as they hope for justice. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. Tuesdays primary election in Michigan revealed two significant developments. First, it demonstrated the strength and impact of the Arab American vote. The Arab American community has proven to be a significant voting bloc that cannot be overlooked. Secondly, the results served as a clear message to the old guard of the Democratic Party, urging it to awaken from complacency and address the needs and desires of the people. The outcome signals that voters are seeking representatives who genuinely listen to their voices and work toward solutions that benefit the people. The 100,000-plus uncommitted votes send a clear message to the Biden administration to reassess its approach in the Middle East and ensure that it aligns with the wishes and aspirations of the people it aims to serve. As a member of the Arab American community in Philadelphia, my commitment and loyalty to the Democratic Party have been unwavering throughout the years. Our community has believed in the partys values of justice and equality, so it is with a heavy heart that I express our deep disappointment with the partys leadership. I believe in the tenets of justice, equality, and human rights that the party espouses, which are enshrined in the partys platform and policies. Our party has a long history of championing these values, not just domestically but also on the global stage. Yet, despite these important human rights, the party has a disconnect when it comes to the cause of Palestine. It supports a cease-fire in Ukraine but opposes it when innocent Palestinians have been dying every day for almost five months. This double standard is a deviation from the partys principles. The issue that demands our attention is the unconditional support for Israel extended by President Biden and its implications for the people of Gaza. The Democratic Partys abandonment of its Arab American constituency and blind support for the Israeli government have left us shocked and disillusioned. We have always viewed American foreign policy as being pro-Israel, but we never imagined the extent of the blind and unconditional support that the United States is giving Israel now, resulting in the horrific devastation of the civilian population in Gaza. The betrayal felt by many of us in the face of Bidens complicity in the loss of innocent Palestinian lives is profound. How can we continue to support leaders who ignore the devastation caused by our weapons and our protection? The Biden administration insists that Israel is still acting in self-defense even though the worlds court, the International Court of Justice, has rejected the argument that an occupying country has the right to self-defense. Our president has crossed a red line by making us, as U.S. citizens, complicit in the killing of civilians. This cannot go unanswered. We firmly believe that Biden has until November to show us that our lives matter and that the United States, under Democratic leadership, will stand with the rule of law. While some may argue that the previous administration was worse, particularly regarding the recognition and annexation of Jerusalem as part of Israel, we must grapple with the fact that Biden has approved the killing of over 30,000 civilians. The loss of innocent lives is a tragedy that cannot be ignored, and it is essential that we hold our leaders accountable for their actions. The argument that defeating Biden would result in a worse outcome is flawed and dismisses our agency and power to demand accountability from our elected officials. As Arab Americans, we are deeply concerned about the lack of consistency in our moral approach to world conflictsour hypocrisy in trying to unify the world against the Russian occupation of Ukraine while simultaneously supporting and facilitating the occupation of Palestine. This hypocrisy and inconsistency is self-destructive and undermines our countrys integrity. We demand a consistent and just approach to American foreign policy. It is time for the Democratic Party to acknowledge the voices and concerns of Arab Americans and take immediate action to rectify its flawed decisions of unconditional support for an occupying force. Our commitment and loyalty to the party have been based on the belief that it stands for justice and equality, and we implore the party to live up to these values. Biden must take steps to correct his flawed decisions and demonstrate a genuine commitment to justice and equality. While we understand that he cannot bring back the innocent children who were killed, he has the power to make significant changes in American foreign policy that prioritize human rights and the well-being of all individuals involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As Arab Americans in Philadelphia, we express our disappointment and concern over the Democratic Partys abandonment of our community and blind support for the Israeli government. We call for consistency and justice in American foreign policy and urge Biden to show us that our lives matter and that the USA, under Democratic leadership, will stand with the rule of law. It is time to address the flaws in our approach and strive for a more just and peaceful world. On a personal level, I have dedicated myself and some members of my family along with our Jewish Philadelphia friends to stand outside various churches in our city of brotherly love with a simple sign calling on fellow Christian worshippers to pray for peace in Gaza. Our response to the current crisis is not about partisan politics but about upholding the values of justice, peace, and human rights. We demand accountability, action, and a commitment to a more just and equitable future for all. It is time for the Democratic Party and our leaders to listen to our voices, acknowledge our concerns, and take meaningful steps toward a more just and peaceful resolution in the region. Sen. Janae Shamp on the Senate floor inside the Arizona State Senate in Phoenix on Jan. 23, 2024. The Arizona Senate has approved a bill that would keep Donald Trump on Arizonas ballot. Never mind that Trump is already headed for Arizonas ballot and a federal judge already tossed out a lawsuit to take him off Arizonas ballot on procedural grounds. Senate Bill 1158 would decree that any presidential nominee from any recognized political party cannot be denied a spot on Arizonas ballot on the basis of a claimed violation of the 14th Amendment. Constitution, schmonstitution. GOP is worried Trump will be booted The bills sponsor, Sen. Janae Shamp, says her bill, which passed Monday on a 16-13 party line vote, is not partisan. It very well could happen in the state of Arizona against any other presidential candidate as well, the Surprise Republican told her colleagues on Monday. I suppose it could if another lame duck president summoned his supporters to Washington, D.C., then dispatched them to the Capitol, wherein they broke in to try to stop Congress from certifying the election of the guy who beat him. Just think how many times that has happened in the 248-year history of the nation. Shamp evidently is petrified that the conservative U.S. Supreme Court will find that Colorado was within its right to throw Trump off the ballot on 14th Amendment grounds, sparking more states to give the pride of the Republican Party the old heave-ho. Trump ballot case could save: Or erode the Constitution The 14th Amendment says anyone who engages in insurrection or rebellion against the U.S. or gives aid or comfort to its enemies after taking an oath to support the Constitution is barred from holding public office, unless two-thirds of Congress votes to grant that person amnesty. Shamp seems to think the Arizona Legislature can offer amnesty as well. 14th Amendment challenge is unlikely Personally, I think the scheme to deny Trump a place on the ballot is one of most undemocratic ideas to come down the electoral pike in a long while. He hasnt been convicted or even charged with insurrection or rebellion, though its pretty clear that he comforted the creepers who tried to stage a coup. Still, is that enough to deny 70 million American voters the right to vote for the candidate of their choice? Thats for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide. It seems highly unlikely, based on the justices questioning during a recent hearing, that theyre going to disqualify Trump on 14th Amendment grounds. But it seems downright shocking that the Arizona Senate is preemptively proclaiming that if the Supreme Court ruling goes against Trump, then the 14th Amendment simply doesnt apply here in Arizona. What theyre saying is that forced to make a choice between the United States Constitution and Donald Trump, they pick Trump. Did I say stunning? Its actually a little scary. Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at laurierobertsaz. Support local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Senate Republicans choose Trump over the Constitution Arizona voters, particularly Republicans, are split over whether to support the criminal cases against former President Trump, a new survey found. Trump, the GOP front-runner, is facing a web of legal troubles set to play out in courtrooms throughout the campaign leading up to Novembers election. He faces four indictments and has pled not guilty to all 91 criminal charges. According to a recent survey by Noble Predictive Insights (NPI), nearly all Arizona voters are aware Trump is on trial, but voters are split about how to view the legal proceedings. Among all voters, 30 percent believe the former president is innocent and the charges are politically motivated, while 35 percent say he is guilty and should be prosecuted. Thirty-four percent say they are waiting for the courts to reach a conclusion. Among Republicans, 56 percent say he is innocent, compared to 11 percent who think he is guilty. Among Democrats, only 6 percent believe Trump is innocent and 65 percent say he is guilty. Most of the split among the GOP comes from voters who are more moderate and are party-first Republicans, who identify more with the party than support Trump. Forty percent of moderate Republicans and 41 percent of party-first Republicans are deferring their opinion about Trumps cases to the court process, while slightly more say he is innocent, the survey found. Even though voters are split about whether to believe the charges against Trump, 54 percent say he should not be eligible to run for president or another federal office if he is found guilty. NPI Chief of Research David Byler said some Republicans who say Trump should be ineligible if convicted believe he wont be convicted. Trump has argued he should be immune from prosecution for alleged crimes committed while he was president, a claim now before the Supreme Court. Seventy-two percent of the Arizona respondents say presidents should not be immune from prosecution. This is a tough issue for Republicans: Democrats are fairly united, and the GOP is fairly split, Byler said. If Trump is found guilty, this could be a great wedge issue for Democrats in the fall. According to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling average, Trump leads President Biden by 3.7 points in a hypothetical rematch in Arizona, which was a key swing state that voted for Biden in 2020. Arizona also has a highly anticipated Senate race this year. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Trump-backed Kari Lake, who lost the 2022 governors race, are the leading candidates for Sen. Kyrsten Sinemas (I-Ariz.) seat. The NPI survey was conducted Feb. 6-13 among 1,002 Arizona voters and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. The Arkansas Department of Agriculture is reminding Arkansans that the state is currently facing an elevated wildfire risk and many counties are under a burn ban. According to the ADA, 23 counties are under a burn ban as of Tuesday, and around two-thirds of the state has a high wildfire danger designation. The rest of the state has a moderate designation. Little Rock Fire Department officials advise against burning during windy conditions Forestry officials said counties under the moderate wildfire danger designation can have fires start from accidental causes and though they may not become serious, caution should still be taken. ADA officials noted that counties under the high designation can have fires ignite easily and spread quickly. Unattended brush fires and campfires are likely to escape and fires may become serious if not attacked early. Conditions are dry with low humidity statewide, and we are forecasted to experience periods of high winds in the coming days, State Forester Kyle Cunningham said. We are seeing an increase in the number of wildfires and their intensity, and thats a trend that will continue until we see significant rainfall. With this in mind, we are asking citizens of the state to be mindful of this risk and avoid burning. Arkansas Storm Team Weather Blog: Very strong cold front swings through this week! Officials ask those who see fires to report them by calling 1-800-468-8834. They also ask that people avoid flying drones in the area as they can interfere with firefighting efforts. To see which counties are most at risk of wildfires or to see the counties currently under a burn ban, check out the Department of Agricultures online map. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. LITTLE ROCK, Ark. The two senators representing Arkansas each had words of praise for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnells Wednesday announcement that he was stepping down from his leadership role. Sen. John Boozman and Sen. Tom Cotton each spoke highly of the long-time Kentucky senator who announced his plans to leave Republican leadership following the November election. Congress at odds over funding deal Boozman spoke about McConnells stability in the role. Leader McConnells unmatched devotion to the Senate has served our country well, Boozman said. His steady hand, relentless pursuit of Americas interests and regard for the integrity of the institution all deserve admiration a historic legacy earned and well-deserved. Senate leaders likely to seek quick dismissal of Mayorkas impeachment case Cotton was equally effusive, praising the majority leaders strong will. Mitch McConnell is one of the great lions of the United States Senate, Cotton said. He saved the Supreme Court, preserved the rules and customs of the Senate, and always protected the free-speech rights of Americans, even when it was unpopular. He served as our floor leader longer than any other senator ever has. His legacy will always live in the halls of our hallowed Capitol. McConnell will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November after a record run in the job McConnell will be stepping down after 17 years as Senate Republican leader, the longest tenure in leadership in either party in the Senate. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. The talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan's foreign ministers come after a direct meeting between the two countries' leaders in Munich (Tobias SCHWARZ) Germany on Wednesday hailed the "courageous steps" taken by Armenia and Azerbaijan as the Caucasus neighbours began peace talks in Berlin, in a new push to resolve a decades-long conflict. The dialogue involving Armenia's Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijan's Jeyhun Bayramov builds on a surprise direct meeting between the two nations' leaders on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. "What we're seeing now are courageous steps by both countries to put the past behind and to work towards a durable peace for their people," said host of the talks, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. "We want you to be able to walk the path to durable peace," she told the two ministers as she opened the two-day meeting after the trio took a short stroll on the lush grounds of Villa Borsig, a foreign ministry retreat. Under German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's mediation, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev agreed in Munich to push on with peace negotiations. The leaders also pledged to resolve differences "exclusively through peaceful means and without the use of force," Scholz's spokesman said. The Munich meeting marked a sharp easing of tensions after a new spate of volatility along the border when both sides accused each other of opening fire. Armenia said the skirmish left four of its soldiers dead. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars, in the 1990s and in 2020, before Azerbaijani forces last September retook control of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive that ended three decades of Armenian separatist rule over the enclave. Tensions have remained high since Baku re-captured Nagorno-Karabakh in an operation that triggered the exodus to Armenia of most of the enclave's entire ethnic-Armenian population of more than 100,000 people. - 'Full-scale war?' - Yerevan is concerned that Azerbaijan, emboldened by its success in Karabakh, could invade Armenian territory in order to create a land bridge to its Nakhchivan enclave. Aliyev, who won re-election this month, said in an inauguration speech it was Armenia, not Azerbaijan, that had outstanding territorial claims. And Pashinyan warned after a deadly clash along the two countries' border earlier in February that Azerbaijan was preparing for a "full-scale war" with its historic foe. Baerbock had travelled to both countries in November to urge the arch-foes to revive dialogue. Pashinyan and Aliyev previously said a peace agreement could have been signed by the end of last year, but internationally mediated peace talks have failed to yield a breakthrough. Until Aliyev refused to attend a round of peace talks in Spain in October, the European Union and United States had played a lead role in mediating Azerbaijani-Armenian normalisation talks. The traditional regional power broker Russia -- bogged down in its Ukraine war -- has seen its influence waning in the Caucasus. hmn/mfp/bp Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has signaled he could suspend his country's participation in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Armenia News reported on Feb. 28. Read also: Kazakhstan says CSTO will not participate in war against Ukraine Contrary to its purpose, CSTO introduces additional security risks for the country, he suggested. "Instead of fulfilling its security obligations to Armenia, CSTO, on the contrary, creates security problems," Pashinyan said in response to a question from an Armenian MP. And this position, to put it bluntly, is a threat to Armenia's national security. Armenia has not had a permanent representative in CSTO for a year and has not participated in high-level joint events for quite some time. Read also: Armenia skipping CSTO summit angers Lukashenko "Of course, CSTO is based on the principle of consensus in decision-making, so we do not block anything, but we do not participate for a simple reason: we do not have an answer to the question of why we should participate," the PM added. Read also: Armenia optimistic about progress in peace talks with Azerbaijan If the situation does not change, Armenia could legally suspend its membership in the security bloc, according to Pashinyan. On Feb. 23, Pashinyan that Armenia had "frozen" its participation in CSTO. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, centre, is pictured in a mugshot from Colorado authorities, as are her ex-husband, Jayson, left, and 18-year-old son, Tyler, right all in separate incidents, the most recent being the teens arrest this week (AP/Getty/Garfield County Sheriffs Office) Now that Im in the public eye, the Left attacks us relentlessly facts be damned, Lauren Boebert wrote in her 2022 memoir My American Life, published 18 months after she first took office as a Colorado congresswoman, in an attempt to explain her then-husbands 2004 indecent exposure arrest. They point to Jaysons arrest and say awful things about him rather than applaud a man whos made a few mistakes along the way, learned from them, and then made himself a true success, got married, and is raising four incredible young men. Fast forward another 18 months or so, however, and more mistakes have added to that list including alleged criminal activity by one of those young men as the Boebert brood adds to its booking photo repertoire, with news that her 18-year-old son was arrested and charged with a spate of break ins. The family has been no stranger to tussles with authority over the years, and there is a healthy respect for outlaw tendencies in both the constituency Boebert currently represents and the one shes attempting to win although usually thats tied to self-reliance, dependability, decorum and family values. Happy Thanksgiving with lots of love to all of you! pic.twitter.com/co1YFkYFvx Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) November 24, 2022 Boebert outlines some of the more historical offences in her book. The first was the arrest of Jayson in 2004, before they were legally married and after they met at the Rifle McDonalds when she was 16 and he was 22. We had a common-law marriage until I was almost twenty-one, but since a common-law marriage isnt sufficient for some insurance purposes, we got officially married in 2007, the devoted Christian wrote in My American Life. Three years before that, however, Jayson had been involved in a controversial incident at a local hangout on a night when he decided to try to bond with my stepfather, she wrote. The two of them went to the Rifle bowling alley and got to chatting over drinks. The female bartender flirted with Jayson, having heard previously from his friends what a catch hed be. They even teased her by saying hed gotten a great tattoo in a private area, which made her curious, so she pressed Jayson to show it to her right there at the bar. He ignored her and was embarrassed she was doing it in front of my stepfather. The bartender, Boebert wrote, wouldnt stop. Jayson, clearly having had too much to drink, decided hed heard enough, stood up, and acted like he was going to unzip his pants. Before he got that far, the owner of the bowling alley intervened. He told Jayson to stop and kicked him out. Jayson felt he was the one being harassed and didnt want to leave. The two argued, and Jayson threw a basked of fries at the owner. The police were called. The bartender told police Jayson exposed himself, she wrote, but she also turned out to be 17 which made it illegal for her to be working as a bartender in the first place, Boebert complained. Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert is pictured in a Garfield County mug shot from her home state of Colorado; the congresswoman has accused the left and the media of over-blowing her familys repeated brushes with the law (Garfield County Sheriffs Office) It also meant he was arrested for indecent exposure to a minor; he took a plea deal because he was a young oil field worker without a lawyer or the desire to hire one, she wrote. He was left with a charge on his permanent record but it wouldnt be long, it seems, before other members of the family would be trotting right after him. The first up was the congresswoman herself. She found herself in handcuffs in 2015 at a Colorado music festival, allegedly after protesting the treatment of a young woman whod been given a citation. A deputy told the Republican this was none of my concern and that I was interfering, she wrote in her memoir. The deputy ordered me to leave. I refused. The situation escalated into a cacophony of yelling between me and the two deputies, she wrote, during which she tried to film them and one of them threatened me with arrest if I didnt stop. I had every right to be there and I told him so, she wrote. I felt I hadnt done anything wrong. A deputy then tried grabbing the phone out of my hand, and the next thing I knew, I was in handcuffs and on my way to the detention area. She was cited for disorderly conduct, complete with a mugshot. The following year, she was pulled over for speeding and arrested for non-payment of a ticket concluding her memoirs description of the incident with: Democrats, as they do, would work double-time to convince the world I was a lawless, dangerous criminal. Theyd spend millions of dollars plastering my mugshots across all forms of media. The actions of her own family and her enterprises, however, would continue to make that easy. In 2020, Garfield County obtained a restraining order in an attempt to stop her gun-themed Rifle restaurant, Shooters famed for its armed wait staff and a previous food poisoning debacle from continuing to flout Covid laws. Lauren Boebert is pictured being ejected from a Beetlejuice show for bad behaviour while on a date with a Democratic Aspen bar owner; she blamed her divorce for her missteps and apologized but the incident seriously undermined her credibility with many voters (9News) And just last month, a restraining order has been granted to the congresswoman against her husband. Boebert and Jayson divorced last year, the end of the marriage finalized a month after the congresswoman was ejected from a Denver theater for misbehaviour. The 37-year-old, in the company of a Democratic Aspen bar owner, was accused of vaping and groping her date during a performance of Beetlejuice. She blamed it on the divorce, which was finalized in October, but the Boeberts family trouble was far from over. In January, police were called to a restaurant in Silt the neighboring town to Rifle and where the Boeberts raised their four boys after an altercation between the representative and her husband. Affidavits state that Jayson Boebert was yelling, drinking and cursing and repeatedly refused to leave the scene on 6 January despite requests from police, the Denver Post reported. This is a sad situation for all that keeps escalating and another reason Im moving, Boebert said in a statement from her campaign manager. I didnt punch Jason in the face and no one was arrested. According to affidavits, the couple had been discussing their relationship when the situation became heated, the representative put her finger on her ex-husbands nose, and he claimed that she punched him, the Post reported. The restaurant brouhaha wasnt even out of the headlines, however, when Jayson Boebert was arrested on assault charges in connection with a late-night incident involving his son. Garfield County sheriffs deputies said in an affidavit that they were called by one of the couples sons in the early morning hours of 9 January after Jayson returned home drunk and began an argument which turned physical, the Post reported. Boebert ex-husband charged (Garfield County Sheriffs Office) The son called his mother and police, and his father grabbed a rifle before leaving, according to the affidavit. Jayson Boebert was arrested later that day on suspicion of misdemeanor assault, criminal mischief, prohibited use of a firearm, obstructing a peace officer, trespassing and disorderly conduct in connection to both incidents, the Post reported from online records, which also showed him facing another assault charge. Not even a month later, the Republican firebrand was granted a temporary restraining order against her ex-husband after accusing him of threatening her and entering the familys home without permission. It included protections for the couples three sons, AP reported, and the hearing date for whether the order will be made permanent is scheduled for next week. In the meantime, however, a third member of the Boebert brood has landed himself in legal trouble. The couples oldest son, 18-year-old Tyler Jay Boebert who welcomed a child of his own last year with his teenage girlfriend, making Boebert a grandmother at 36 was arrested on Tuesday in Rifle in connection with a wave of break-ins. The arrest comes after a recent string of vehicle trespass and property thefts in Rifle, the police department said Tuesday on Facebook. Boebert is facing the following charges: four felony counts of Criminal Possession ID Documents - Multiple Victims, one felony count of Conspiracy to Commit a Felony, and over 15 additional misdemeanor and petty offenses.This is an ongoing investigation, no further information will be released at this time. Tyler Jay Boebert, 18, was arrested this week in Rifle after a string of vehcicle trespass and property thefts, police said (City of Rifle Police Department) The teen was being held Wednesday on charges including theft of less than $300, criminal possession of a financial device and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, AP reported. I love my son Tyler, who has been through some very difficult, public challenges for a young man and the subject of attention that he didnt ask for. It breaks my heart to see my child struggling and, in this situation, especially when he has been provided multiple opportunities to get his life on track, said Boebert in a statement on Wednesday. I will never give up on him and I will continue to be there for him. As an adult and father, Tyler will take responsibility for his actions and should be held accountable for poor decisions just like any other citizen. The Republican has repeatedly referenced her family drama as a reason for her decision to abandon the congressional campaign in CD3, where she was narrowly reelected in 2022, in favor of the race in more heavily conservative CD4 hundreds of miles across the state from where she raised her children. Detractors, however, point to her near-loss to Democrat Adam Frisch as a huge motivator, while Boebert faces carpetbagging accusations from voters and political opponents on her new potential turf. Her most recent campaign posts on social media have featured her sons; over the weekend, she posted pictures from the Tanner Gun Show in Castle Rock recently where my boys and I had a great time and a 16 February post on Instagram featured a cowboy-hat-clad Boebert in the drivers seat, a teen to her right, with the caption: Guess Ill be entertaining myself for the next 100 miles... BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) An arrest has been made in connection to an unlicensed liquor establishment that was the site of a triple shooting last October during a party, the Buffalo Police Department said Tuesday. Three people were shot at an establishment on the 1500 block of Clinton Street in the early-morning hours of Oct. 29, 2023. 3 shot near Clinton, Jones early Sunday Police said Tuesday that the establishment the party was at did not have a permit or liquor license and did not provide proper security for a large gathering. Charles Garner, 49, was allegedly promoting the party and is charged with two counts of criminal nuisance for his alleged involvement in promoting parties at unlicensed venues. The three that were shot, two men and one woman, were all treated and released for their injuries. Buffalo police said that they are continuing their investigation of this incident and other unlicensed venue events were more shootings have occurred. Latest Local News Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Alexey Navalny, stands in the plenary chamber of the European Parliament and speaks. Russian opposition activist Alexey Navalny died this month in Russian captivity. Philipp von Ditfurth/dpa Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, cannot rule out the Russian police arresting mourners at her husband's funeral on Friday. "I'm not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband," Navalnaya told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Navalnaya told the EU legislature on Wednesday that her husband was tortured and killed on the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Even after that, they abused his body and abused his mother," she said. Paying tribute to her husband's memory, Navalnaya said "my husband will never see what the beautiful Russia of the future will look like" and promised to do her best "to make his dream come true." ASHEVILLE A local coalition of environmental advocates filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and seven of its leaders, alleging that the federal agencies violated laws that require them to consider and disclose carbon impacts when developing timber targets. The plaintiffs are asking the court to halt a logging project in Nantahala National Forest, as part of their demands. Asheville nonprofit MountainTrue, The Chattooga Conservancy and Debbie Kruzen filed the lawsuit Feb. 26 in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. Kruzen is a Missouri woman who lives near Mark Twain National Forest, which is allegedly impacted by the Forest Service's wrongdoing. The Southern Environmental Law Center, which has an Asheville office, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the groups. The lawsuit argues that the federal agencies and agents violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which they assert requires agencies to analyze and disclose direct, indirect and cumulative effects of their actions. By not adequately contemplating, or making public, how the Forest Services logging targets affect carbon emissions, the groups argue that the federal government violated the law. Hikers on Tennent Mountain in Pisgah National Forest. Despite authorizing numerous timber projects each year to meet these targets, the Forest Service has never accounted for the aggregate carbon effects of actions taken to fulfill its timber targets, the lawsuit reads. The USDA sets national targets for timber, which dictate logging throughout national forests. Regions throughout the national forest system receive assignments for their share of the target, which eventually filters to individual forests, the complaint says. By removing and storing carbon, forests play a critical role in the fight against climate change. Those efforts are hindered by the top-down timber targets, the groups argue. They havent fully evaluated the impacts of their drive to meet these timber targets on how that will exacerbate the negative impact of these activities on climate change, South Carolina-based Chattooga Conservancy Executive Director Nicole Hayler told the Citizen Times Feb. 28. The forest needs to be managed as a tool to mitigate climate change, not add to the ravages of its negative effects. The environmental groups are requesting that the court declare that their interpretation of the law is correct. They are also asking the court to stop activities dedicated to meeting its 2024 fiscal year timber target the Eastern and Southern forest regions, until the federal government is in compliance with laws. This includes an exception for harvests to protect from wildfire risks. The cattle fence on the Upper Chattooga River in Oct. 2020. Finally, the groups are asking that the court stop three timber harvests in Western North Carolina' Nantahala National Forest, Sumter in South Carolina and Mark Twain in Missouri, until agencies demonstrate compliance with federal law. The Nantahala National Forest covers more than a half-million acres of mountainous terrain in the westernmost region of WNC. It is the largest of the states four national forests and is open to timber harvesting, hiking, fishing, hunting, paddling, horseback riding and more activities. Together with the half-million-acre Pisgah, they are two of the most-visited national forests in the country. Logging in WNC's national forests have long been a point of contention. The Pisgah-Nantahala land management plan, approved nearly a year ago after more than a decade of work, received criticism from groups like SELC for its allowance of logging and road building in certain areas. These groups' fears came to fruition, sparking action. In the end of January, a group of advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service, arguing that a portion of a project created under the new plan was too aggressive. A win for the environmental groups in the lawsuit filed in the nation's Capitol would force the Forest Service to consider and disclose the carbon impact of its timber targets, Asheville-based SELC attorney Patrick Hunter told the Citizen Times Feb. 27. What the forest service does with that analysis, he said, is up to them. Hunter also criticized the Biden administration, saying that its rhetoric on addressing climate change is not matching its timber policy in national forests. We have a White House thats saying that its employing an all government approach to address climate change, and its working to reduce carbon emissions, and a Forest Service that is saying that its logging more than it had the previous decade, Hunter said. The groups are suing the federal agencies through the Administrative Procedure Act. Hunter said that the environmental policy law in question does not allow for parties to bring civil actions. The APA allows aggrieved parties to bring civil actions for laws that do not provide for that remedy. U.S. Forest Service spokesperson Wade Muehlhof declined Feb. 27 to comment to the Citizen Times, citing pending litigation. More: Nantahala environmental analysis released; advocates criticize logging and road building More: Conservation groups sue U.S. Forest Service over unlawful plan to log Nantahala More: Asheville groups threaten to sue US Forest Service over Endangered Species Act violation Mitchell Black covers Buncombe County and health care for the Citizen Times. Email him at mblack@citizentimes.com or follow him on Twitter @MitchABlack. Please help support local journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Environmental lawsuit: Forest advocates sue feds over timber targets Basic Bee, A Black-Owned Boutique In Michigan Is On A Mission To Support Other Black Entrepreneurs: More Than Enough Resources For Everyone | Photo: kali9 via Getty Images A Black-owned retail store in Michigan is building a special relationship with other Black businesses in the community. While offering the latest fashion trends at her Basic Bee store in Grand Rapids, Michigan, owner Renise Warners is also coming up with creative ideas to help her fellow entrepreneurs. Warners plans include monthly events that promote local Black businesses. One of those recent events, The Barbie Bash, featured two pop-up shops from two other businesses, WoodTV reported. Additionally, Warners invites other businesses to promote their products in her store. Static Flow, a jewelry business, is among those that are promoting its product at The Basic Bee. One thing I like to do in store is just offer some extras to customers whenever I can and give other businesses a chance to shine as well, Warners said in an interview with WoodTV. Ive been blessed to have a location in a great area, so if I can open up that customer base to other people Im more than happy to do so. Warners is also thrilled to have a partnership with Chartreuse Sisters, a local bakery. The two businesses are sharing a building that was empty for 30 years. The inclusion of Basic Bee and the bakery Chartreuse Sisters next door really livened up the corner a lot, Warners said. So weve gotten great feedback from the community. Warners said her store, which opened in 2020, provides trendy, fashion-forward pieces and clothing for people of various sizes. Additionally, Basic Bee sells locally-made products such as candles and room sprays. The key, Warners said, is to always keep up with the latest trends while also making sure she meets the needs of local customers. Im checking Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest to see what trends are coming, but then also adapting those for West Michigan, she said. Obviously, we have a different style than people do maybe have in Miami or New York or LA. So adapting those trends that were seeing all over the world to a West Michigan shopper. Warners opened her store after working in retail for brands such as Hollister and Apple. When she opened her store in 2020, the Michigan entrepreneur made it a goal to give back to the community. Theres lots of gatekeeping that happens, especially within retail and for smaller businesses, she said. Theres more than enough resources for everyone. You just have to be able to find them. And sometimes its just a friend or a colleague making a suggestion that gets your foot in the door and gets you where you need to be. And so if I can offer that to anybody else, I would gladly do so. The Michigan business owner said it was Black entrepreneurs who inspired her when she was growing up. As the nation now celebrates Black History Month, Warners said its a great time to educate people about many Black figures who are not widely known. During Black History Month, thats when theres events and theres programming and theres resources that are usually readily available but theyre in your face at this time, she said. So its really a good opportunity to learn more, because Black history is American history and its something that everyone should know, understand and be a part of. BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (WOOD) A Battle Creek man has been charged with embezzlement after allegedly using his elderly fathers money to pay his own bills and for other purchases. The Michigan Attorney Generals Office announced that 44-year-old Clayton Yorks was arraigned Wednesday in Calhoun County District Court on one count of embezzlement from a vulnerable adult less than $20,000. If convicted, the felony charge could come with up to five years in prison. Prosecutors allege that Yorks father was admitted into an assisted living facility in November of 2021. However, Yorks allegedly continued to use his fathers debit card until September of 2022 without any legal authority to do so. Deputies: Probation check near Marshall yields arrests Yorks was given a $5,000 personal recognizance bond. He is next due in court for a pre-exam conference on March 13. When a vulnerable adult moves into a residential care setting, it is not open season on their bank account and income, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel stated. Those who take advantage of a family member engage in an egregious breach of trust. My office will continue to investigate and prosecute these cases of suspected vulnerable adult abuse and I encourage anyone out there who suspects such abuse to report it to my dedicated team of investigators. Reports of suspected elder abuse can be filed on the AGs website here. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. More than 200 years after Lord Nelsons famous victory over Napoleons fleet, a new Battle of Trafalgar is raging over the future of the coastal headland that gave its name to the naval clash. The lighthouse on Cape Trafalgar has withstood the winds on a promontory near Spains southernmost tip since 1860, becoming an iconic beauty spot that locals are now fighting to protect amid plans to convert the building into a restaurant and an information centre about the 1805 battle. Almost 10,000 residents have signed a petition to block the proposed development on a protected area that is home to a double tombolo, a rare coastal formation consisting of a sandy isthmus that connects two popular beaches between the towns of Los Canos de Meca and Zahora. Lola Yllescas, from the environmental organisation Ecologistas en Accion, said: The citizens of the area want the lighthouse to remain as it is today, with its well-preserved dune system, vegetation, lagoons and bird life, and with non-motorised access. The organisation argues the dunes and local wildlife will be affected by an ever-greater influx of tourists. The banalisation and lack of responsibility of our political leaders regarding historical, landscape and environmental values is extraordinary, Ms Yllescas added. Residents have signed a petition and mounted demonstrations around the lighthouse against the plans - TONI M/iSTOCKPHOTO The planned centre will include a model of the battle and signs explaining the formation of the two opposing fleets, with the visit complemented by a gastronomic offer in the restaurant with the atmosphere of the Battle of Trafalgar. Miguel Molina, the local mayor, defended the scheme, saying it would bring economic benefits and improve the options for beachgoers and tourists. We have to encourage people to go to the area so that they can also enjoy the surroundings, he said. As well as the petition, hundreds of local residents of the area have been mounting demonstrations around the lighthouse since December, with some holding up signs referring to a new battle of Trafalgar. The protest platform Los Canos Denuncia said that its aim is to guarantee protection for the monument and the natural area. On the petition page run by the group, it said: The Trafalgar Lighthouse is more than just a lighthouse for those of us who were born or have lived here, or have enjoyed this natural paradise. It is a symbol of local identity that guides us all. This historical heritage must be preserved for future generations and not exploited by private commercial interests [and] its conservation as historical heritage open to the public should be guaranteed. For Estela Catena, an anthropologist and member of the protest platform, the idea of putting a restaurant inside the historical lighthouse is a symbol of the touristification of the area, which she added is one of the few parts of the Spanish coast that remains practically virgin. Speaking to the newspaper El Salto, Ms Catena also claimed that the company that has been granted the concession to run the planned restaurant and visitor centre has a history of failing to comply with rules regarding capacity and licences. They havent exactly given it to a company that cares for the environment, she said. Opponents to the project maintain hope of victory, partly thanks to the rich historical value of the Cape Trafalgar area. The platform said that the company still has to obtain a positive report from the regional Andalusian government, which will consider any possible risk posed to Roman archaeological sites near the lighthouse. There is also opposition to the plan on the basis that the centre would exist to tell the story of what was a Spanish military loss. As always, praising the defeats of our country, noted one reader of Diario de Cadiz, a local newspaper. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Foreign journalists visit exhibition on Chinese civilization Xinhua) 08:31, February 28, 2024 BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A group of 33 journalists from 25 foreign media outlets visited an exhibition on Chinese civilization at the Chinese Archaeological Museum on Tuesday. Journalists from countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Brazil, and India toured the museum, which was established by the Chinese Academy of History and houses over 6,000 exhibits. Organized by China's State Council Information Office, the group was also invited to a lecture on Chinese civilization and archeological discoveries given by Chinese archaeologist Wang Wei, also director of the Academic Division of History under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "It is important to strengthen mutual learning and dialogue between civilizations, and archaeology plays a unique role in this regard," said Wang. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Ukraine has been locked in an existential fight for its freedom ever since Russia sent armed soldiers with no insignia -- dubbed the "little green men" -- to take over the Crimea peninsula on February 28, 2014, following a pro-EU revolution in Kyiv. The annexation of Crimea marked the beginning of a decade of Russian aggression against its former Soviet neighbour. AFP looks back at key moments in the fight for Ukraine: - 2014: Crimea annexed, war in eastern Ukraine - In March 2014, after weeks of mass protests, Ukrainians overthrow their Kremlin-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych for reneging on a deal to develop closer ties with the European Union. Russia retaliates by seizing Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. The following month, pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbas, on the border with Russia, take up arms against Kyiv. Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of supplying the separatists with arms, troops and military advisors, which Moscow initially denies. On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 is shot down over rebel-held Ukrainian territory by a Russian-made missile, killing all 298 people on board, mostly Dutch nationals. - 2015: Peace deal - A first ceasefire deal in September 2014 collapses within days. A second agreement, negotiated in February 2015 in the Belarus capital Minsk by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany, proves more effective. The fighting subsides but sporadic clashes continue in frontline areas. - 2019: Zelensky brings detente - In May 2019, TV comedian Volodymyr Zelensky becomes president. He makes ending the war, which has left around 14,000 dead on both sides, his priority and holds talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Paris. A new ceasefire in July 2020 ushers in several months of relative calm. - 2021: war drums beat - In 2021, fighting in eastern Ukraine intensifies again. Invasion jitters set in after Putin pens a 7,000-word essay in July entitled "On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians". Fears reach fever pitch in December, when Russia starts large-scale land, air and naval war games on Ukraine's eastern, northern and southern borders, massing 150,000 troops, according to Western estimates. Moscow denies any plans to attack Ukraine. - February 2022: invasion and resistance - At dawn on February 24, 2022, Ukraine's fears are realised when Putin announces a "special military operation" to demilitarise and "de-Nazify" Ukraine. Missiles begin raining down on Ukrainian cities and Russian tanks rumble across the border. A defiant Zelensky stays in Kyiv to lead the resistance. Russian forces make early gains in the south, seizing the Black Sea port of Kherson, near Crimea. But their expectations of a quick victory quickly fizzle in the face of fierce resistance around Kyiv and Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv in the northeast. After a month, Russia is forced to retreat from the north to focus on the south coast and the Donbas region, partly held by separatists since 2014. - April 2022: scenes of horror - As they withdraw from Kyiv's suburbs, the Russians leave behind scenes of horror. In early April, AFP discovers the bodies of at least 20 civilians on a street in the previously Russian-occupied city of Bucha, near Kyiv. It is the first of several grisly discoveries that draw the world's attention to alleged Russian war crimes. After a brutal three-month siege, Moscow announces the fall of the ruined southeastern port city of Mariupol. - November 2022: Ukraine fights back - A bitter battle begins in the summer of 2022 for the eastern town of Bakhmut, led on the Russian side by the Wagner mercenary group. Putin annexes the eastern regions of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, without controlling them entirely. Ukrainian forces manage to win back Kherson city in November 2022. Russia emerges the winner of the longest and bloodiest battle of the war to date when it conquers Bakhmut in May 2023. - Summer 2023: failed counter-offensive - In early 2023, Ukraine begins stockpiling more powerful weapons for a major counter-offensive. Germany agrees to Zelensky's pleas for top-of-the-line Leopard tanks and the US sends powerful HIMARS mobile artillery systems and other weapons. In June, Ukraine launches its long-awaited fightback. But as the months pass, the sprawling 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line barely budges. Support for Ukraine's war effort begins to fray in the United States and there is friction among European Union members. On the eve of the war's second anniversary in February 2024, Russian forces claim their biggest victory since Bakhmut. They seize the eastern town of Avdiivka, which was also the object of a protracted, scorched-earth battle. bur/jmy-kd/cb/gil-jj BECKLEY, WV (WVNS) The City of Beckley will be the first Inclusive Recovery City in the United States. A charter will be signed by city, state, national and international leaders in recovery support on March 19, 2024 and will make Beckley the first Inclusive Recovery City (IRC) in the nation. Beckley will join 26 other IRC cities in New Zealand, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and the Balkans. 103rd Annual Dinner and Community Awards Gala announced by Beckley Raleigh County Chamber of Commerce The program will start at 9:30 a.m., and the signing of the charter is expected to occur at around 10:00 a.m. Refreshments will be available at 9:00 a.m. and Fruits of Labor Pizzeria & Cafe will provide lunch. Community members are welcome to go to the signing of the IRC charter and the public remarks, but they will need to register to be able to enter at the West Virginia University of Technology auditorium, 410 Neville Street in Beckley. Recovery cities are communities that address stigmatizing and discriminatory attitudes, advocates various pathways for addiction recovery, and encourages visible recovery. By focusing on these principles, the goal is for the cities to grow and gain benefits with the creation of community resources, new networks, and linkages. Events on March 19, 2024 will start with the signing of the Beckley IRC charter, statements from city, state, and international leaders, and then a luncheon and afternoon working groups. The initiative will be led by Jay Phillips, Executive Director of Seed Sower, Inc., as well as local community and government organizations. Jay Phillips Photo Courtesy: Seed Sower Carnegie Hall members participate in life saving training The region has embraced our efforts and, thanks to six federal and state funding awards, we are offering safe, stable housingwhich was our original number one priorityand expanded that far beyond to include transportation, workforce training and peer recovery support services focusing on southern West Virginia. Jay Phillips | Executive Director of Seed Sower, Inc. The Well, a Seed Sower-affiliated organization and one of six Recovery Community Organizations (RCO), got funding in May 2023 from the West Virginia Department Health and Human Resources as the only RCO in southern West Virginia. Dr. David Best Photo Courtesy: Seed Sower The model that became the IRC program was created by Dr. David Best, a keynote speaker for the event. Best is President of the Recovery Research Institute based in Florida and a professor of Addiction Recovery at Leeds Trinity University. Bests wife is the Recovery Outcomes Institutes acting executive director and director of operations. This model offered a strategic way to best help the people and employers of this region, leveraging the areas considerable community strengths and organizational assets. Jay Phillips | Executive Director of Seed Sower, Inc. The main goals of the Inclusive Recovery City model include: Reducing stigma around addiction and recovery. Making pathways to community resources for people in recovery. Contribute to civic society and the active participation of multiple vulnerable populations. Generate a model of reciprocal altruism where there the talents, gifts and skills of people in recovery and their contribution to community life is recognized. Medical students at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine use virtual reality to study anatomy Beckley will also create an Inclusive Recovery Cities board, involving grassroots recovery and community organizations, specific focused addiction treatment services, and city representatives. City leaders will also be involved in the Inclusive Recovery Cities movement, encouraging sharing ideas and change at national and international levels. We are honored to be the first city in the country to be named an IRC. From the successful Communities of Healing initiative to The Well, and now with this designation, our city leaders and our citizens have steadfastly stood with those in recovery seeking a path forward. Rob Rappold | Beckley Mayor Organizations joining Seed Sower to support the Beckley IRC include: City of Beckley Fruits of Labor, Inc. WorkForce West Virginia Region 1 Jobs and Hope WV New River Gorge Regional Development Authority / The WV Hive Raleigh County Drug Court Raleigh County Adult Probation Raleigh County Family Treatment Court Raleigh County Day Report Center West Virginia University Institute of Technology Southern WV Fellowship Home Crab Orchard Baptist Church For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WVNS. Three Wide Brewing company is opening a crafthouse and restaurant on 16230 Three Wide Dr., offering 20 brews on tap and a menu of casual dining food, with The Martin Brothers performing at its March 2 debut. The restaurant and brewery is in a far north Fort Worth warehouse and will be open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Red marks the spot for Three Wide Brewings location on Three Wide Drive. Located two miles from the Texas Motor Speedway. More trending stories: Texas to 'spring forward': When daylight saving time begins How a six-pack of beer, $100 got rescuers to pull pig out of thorns. Want to make $359K a year working from home? Here's a list of jobs. The new tap room is, not like anything most people have seen in a brewery tap room around here before. Its got more of a West Coast feel to it, but the beer is decidedly Texan, said beer master and brew evangelist Matt Morriss. Their chef, Roger Evaristo, is from Brazil and has prepared a menu of burgers, pizzas and sandwiches and pairing items with a craft brew. A standard lunch at Three Wide shapes up to be around $15. The expansive tap house is geared for beer lovers. The location has a large communal indoor seating space as well as an outdoor patio because beer tastes better outside, according to the brewerys website Three Wide Brewing History Three Wide is not new to the world of beer. The company already has four beers known in the Fort Worth area. The company distributes four IPAs to various Fort Worth bars and restaurants. We want to make beer that makes you want another one, its website says. Whats a brewery without a few killer IPAs? Were making them, and trust us theyre good, the company says.. Heres a few to try: Everyday pills, a bohemian pilsner High Groove, a rye IPA Outer Groove, a hazy IPA Dark Narrative, a seasonal imperial stout The beer master and brew evangelist Morriss, a Fort Worth native, was a former engineer before becoming a brew expert. Hes now been in the industry for 10 years. Before crafting Three Wide, he opened Rabbit Hole Brewery in 2013 in Justin. Rabbit Holes door closed in 2019, leading to the start of the Three Wide project. Of course we were supposed to open a lot faster than we did. But this is what trying to open a major brewery during the middle of a pandemic... We ended up getting horribly delayed due to all of the supply-chain issues and everything else that kind of pushed us back Morriss said. He said he looks forward to expanding further south to Roanoke. Enabel, the Belgian state development agency, has begun cooperation with Ukraine on recovery efforts. Source: press service of Ukraines Ministry of Communities and Territories Development Details: The team from Ukraine's Ministry of Communities and Territories Development met with Caroline Gennez, Belgian Minister of Development Cooperation and Major Cities, and Jean Van Wetter, Managing Director of the Enabel Belgian State Agency for Development. The parties agreed to begin implementing projects to restore critical and social infrastructure in March. Additionally, Enabel intends to open offices in Kyiv and Kharkiv in the near future. Enabel has received US$150 million in funding from Russian assets that had been frozen in Belgium. As a result, participants at the meeting discussed the possibility of collaborating in a joint project with the World Bank Housing Repair for People's Empowerment Project (HOPE), whose goal is to restore housing that has been damaged as a result of hostilities, particularly through compensation. The project also aims to improve communities' ability to recover. Background: Ukraines state budget has received part of a US$49.4 million grant from the Japanese government as part of the World Banks HOPE project. Support UP or become our patron! Belgium will contribute EUR 200 million ($217 million) to the Czech proposal to procure artillery ammunition for Ukraine from non-EU sources, Belgian PM Alexander De Croo said in a Twitter post on Feb. 28. The plan, publicly outlined by Czech President Petr Pavel, can deliver up to 800,000 artillery shells of various calibers to Ukraine in a matter of weeks. Read also: Russia has received millions of artillery shells from North Korea We can never match the sacrifice Ukraine is making every day, the Belgian leader said. Read also: France, Greece, Cyprus block plans to buy artillery shells outside EU German MP But we can give President Volodymyr Zelenskyy what he requested more ammunition to fend off the Russian aggressor. Belgium will fund the Czech initiative for EUR 200 million. Read also: Lack of ammunition caused by U.S. Congress stalling aid for UA causing extremely serious situation On Feb. 26, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that Western allies of Ukraine will compile a list of third countries that could supply shells for the Ukrainian military. On Feb. 17, Czech President Petr Pavel announced that the country had found hundreds of thousands of artillery shells abroad that could be transferred to Ukraine if funding were available. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine President Biden will meet with leadership and rank-and-file members of the Teamsters next month at the unions Washington headquarters as the organization weighs an endorsement in the presidential race. Biden will attend a roundtable with Teamsters members on March 12, the union said in a press release. He will meet with members, the general executive board and president Sean OBrien. We realize that President Bidens time is limited and we appreciate that he is making it a priority to meet with Teamsters. Our rank-and-file members and leadership are eager to have this conversation about the future of our country and the commitments that working people need from our next President, OBrien said in a statement. Teamsters officials have previously met with former President Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, as well as third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. Through these roundtable conversations, the Teamsters want to make sure that all our members voices are heard and our elected officials do not take for granted the power of the Teamsters vote, OBrien said. The Teamsters endorsed Biden in 2020 but has so far held off on making an endorsement for 2024. Biden frequently boasts that he is the most pro-union president in history, and he often credits union labor with forming the backbone of the U.S. economy. Biden walked the picket line with striking United Auto Workers members in September, and the group endorsed him earlier this year. Trump has sought to peel away some of Bidens support among organized labor, though he has feuded with UAW president Shawn Fain after the group declined to back the former president in 2024, calling him a dope. Trump said after his meeting with Teamsters officials earlier this year that stranger things have happened when speaking about a potential endorsement from the group. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. FILE PHOTO: President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden Exit Marine One at the White House After A Weekend in Delaware By Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Wednesday celebrated large drops in crime rates across the U.S. last year during a White House meeting with police chiefs from major cities which suffered sharp spikes in homicides and violent crime during the COVID-19 pandemic. The event offered Biden the opportunity to thwart criticism from Republicans who used the COVID-era spikes to paint Democrats as weak on crime. "Last year, the United States had one of the lowest rates of all violent crime in more than 50 years," Biden told top police officials from cities including Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Detroit, Buffalo, New York; Milwaukee, Charlotte, North Carolina; and DeKalb County, Georgia. In an election-year dart at Biden's Republican predecessor and likely rival in 2024, Donald Trump, the White House noted that the United States experienced the largest ever increase in murders in 2020, the start of the pandemic. Violent crime rates dropped sharply last year, including a 12% decline in homicides nationally from 2022 to 2023, according to a crime analysis by AH Datalytics, after spiking during the first two years of the pandemic. Biden cited the American Rescue Plan, a COVID relief measure that was supported by only Democrats, as helping boost investment in city policing at a time when budgets were strained. Detroit and Chicago both invested more than $100 million for public safety initiatives, including hiring new officers, expanding mental health community violence interventions and youth intervention programs. Chicago saw a 13% drop in homicides and Detroit saw an 18% drop in 2023, it said. Philadelphia invested in group-violence intervention and community crisis intervention, the White House said, and experienced a 20% drop in homicides and a 28% decline in nonfatal shootings last year. "We found that we could use this money to keep law enforcement on the beat, communities safe from violence," Biden said. Violent crime also dropped in 2022, while property crimes rose, the latest FBI statistics show. Murder and non-negligent manslaughter decreased by 6.1% and rape by 5.4%, while larceny and motor vehicle theft rose by 7.8% and 10.9%, respectively, the agency said in its national crime report released in October. The administration also highlighted gun violence initiatives but said Biden continues to urge Congress to improve gun safety laws. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; editing by Jonathan Oatis) Biden administration officials met Tuesday at the Pentagon to discuss ways to fill some of Ukraines urgent needs for artillery and ammunition quickly, including possibly drawing down U.S. stockpiles without replenishing them immediately or without waiting for more money from Congress, say two senior administration officials and a congressional official. In the meeting, officials discussed various ways the Pentagon could resupply critical artillery and ammunition that Ukraine is expected to run out of soon, even while the White Houses request for new funding from Congress remains stalled, the officials said. No decisions have been made, according to the officials. The discussions reflect growing alarm in the administration that Ukraine is poised to run out of key weaponry in the next few weeks, including 155 mm artillery rounds and air defense munitions. Not all administration officials support the idea of sending a tranche of aid to Ukraine as a stopgap move, however. Some administration and congressional officials are concerned that such a move could imperil White House negotiations with Congress, particularly House Republican leaders, to get roughly $60 billion in new Ukraine aid through the chamber. Other officials are wary of the idea because it could put the U.S. militarys stockpiles below levels that are considered necessary for sufficient readiness. But after months of fiercely protecting stockpiles in the name of military readiness, Pentagon officials are now warming to the idea of accepting some risk to U.S. readiness in order to keep Ukraine in the fight. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said, "We are focused on urging the House of Representatives to pass the national security supplemental package as soon as possible. Ukraine needs the full resources in that package and Speaker Johnson should put it to a vote, where it would overwhelmingly pass, since there is no other way to fully meet Ukraine's needs." In a statement, a Pentagon spokesperson said, The DoD continues to urge Congress to pass a supplemental to support Ukraine in its time of need and to replenish our stocks. The House is not expected to move on Ukraine aid until at least late March. But even if that happens, the process is not expected to be swift, given GOP opposition in the House to a Senate bill that passed earlier this month. The Pentagon still has about $4 billion in congressionally approved Presidential Drawdown Authority funding, meaning it can provide $4 billion worth of weapons and equipment from U.S. stockpiles to Ukraine. But the Pentagon does not have enough approved funding available to replace the weapons and equipment after the U.S. sends it. Without funding, Biden administration officials must decide whether the risk of depleting of U.S. stockpiles without guarantees of when theyll be replenished is a risk worth taking. The idea of providing artillery and ammunition from U.S. stockpiles, even without a supplemental, has been on the table for a few weeks, according to a congressional official, but it is a last resort move when Congress has no more options. The official said that there is momentum now and that if the president approves this now, it could undermine progress that is being made in Congress and damage their argument that the supplemental is critical now. Two congressional officials say the goal is to pass Ukraine funding in the third week of March in order to sustain that country in its war against Russia and they anticipate a vote by the end of March. If the House cant get the funding passed by then, the administration can take the ammunition from U.S. stockpiles, but to do it now would absolutely kill us, one congressional official said. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com President Bidens reelection campaign unveiled a new effort Wednesday to win over women voters, which will be led by first lady Jill Biden. The first lady is set to launch Women for Biden-Harris, an organizing program to mobilize women across the U.S. The program will launch Friday the first day of Womens History Month and the first lady is traveling to battleground states this weekend to promote it. Jill Biden plans to talk to female voters in critical swing states Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, according to the campaign. The campaign will also launch digital ads this week about her travel to battleground states and will run more ads targeting women through November. While a second Donald Trump presidency would be a disaster for women, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are fighting for women for their families, their freedoms, and their health care and thats why Women for Biden-Harris are fighting for them, the campaign said in a statement. The Women for Biden-Harris program will also involve calls from top campaign surrogates targeting women and organizing opportunities for women. Women put Joe in the White House four years ago, and women will do it again, Jill Biden said in a statement. In our communities, women are the organizers, the planners, the mobilizers. We get things done. Vice President Harris released a video message Wednesday calling on women to mobilize again because there is too much at stake. Harris has been the leading voice out of the White House on reproductive rights after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Republicans have underestimated the power of women time after time and together, this November, we will make sure that they never make that mistake again, Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. Polling from earlier this month showed support for Biden from women was on the rise compared to their support for former President Trump, the GOP front-runner. Biden won 55 percent of the women vote in 2020, while Trump won 44 percent, according to data from Pew Research Center. Those numbers marked gains for Trump, who received 39 percent of the women vote in 2016, compared to Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons 54 percent. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. President Biden revealed Wednesday that he is making an unannounced trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a physical exam. Biden has undergone yearly physical examinations since the beginning of his term, in line with every other commander in chief since President Richard Nixon. Walter Reed, the hospital used by all presidents for routine medical care and examinations, is located in Bethesda, Maryland. POLL SHOWS BIDEN'S LEAD OVER TRUMP SHRINKING IN 2024 MATCHUP AS CONCERNS OVER PHYSICAL FITNESS GROW Earlier this month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that Biden's physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, does not believe a cognitive test is necessary. She said O'Connor believes Biden proves his cognitive ability "every day [in] how he operates and how he thinks." "Does the White House think that the idea of the president taking a cognitive test as a part of this physical is a legitimate idea?" a reporter asked. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP "I'm just gonna say what Dr. O'Connor said to me about a year ago when [Biden's physical] was released," Jean-Pierre responded. "The president proves every day [in] how he operates and how he thinks, by dealing with world leaders, by making difficult decisions on behalf of the American people whether it's domestic or it's national security." BIDEN'S UPCOMING PHYSICAL EXAM WILL NOT INCLUDE A COGNITIVE TEST, WHITE HOUSE SAYS The entrance to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Biden received his last physical on Feb. 16 of last year, when his physician gave him a clean bill of health in a letter that said Biden was "fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency." The Wednesday physical will likely be the final update on Biden's health before the November presidential elections. Critics have demanded more transparency from the White House regarding Biden's physical and mental health following the report from Special Counsel Robert Hur that claimed the president had significant memory issues. Hur's report which concluded that no criminal charges were warranted regarding Biden's mishandling of classified documents surmised that at trial, Biden "would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." The special counsel, therefore, asserted that it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him "by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness." It also cited how Biden mixed up the date of the death of his son, Beau. Fox News Digital's Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report. Original article source: Biden says he's making unannounced visit to Walter Reed for physical exam President Biden said Wednesday that he was sorry to hear Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is stepping down and praised him for his honesty. Im sorry to hear McConnell stepped down. Ive trusted him, and we have a great relationship. We fight like hell. But he has never, never, never misrepresented anything. Im sorry to hear hes stepping down, Biden said of his former longtime colleague in the Senate. McConnell announced the decision to leave his leadership post in November in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday. He said he plans to serve out the remainder of his term, which ends in January 2027. Biden, 81, and McConnell, 82, have a long-standing relationship as both staples of the U.S. Senate. They have a history of cutting major deals and finding common ground on policy issues, most famously when they struck a deal to temporarily extend the Bush tax cuts and raise the debt limit and avoid a national default in 2011. McConnell visited the White House just a day before his major announcement, meeting with the three other congressional leaders over government funding. When McConnell froze up during a public event in Kentucky in August, Biden reached out to him and told reporters he had no concerns about McConnells ability to do his job. At the time, the president said McConnell was his old self. The Kentucky Republican has yet to endorse former President Trump, Bidens likely GOP rival in November, and the two have a frosty relationship since McConnell refused to back Trumps lie that the 2020 election was stolen. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. From the Dispatch Politics on The Dispatch Happy Wednesday! If youre concerned lately that you might not be at your best at work, take comfort in knowing youre not the only one underperforming this primary season. Up to Speed President Joe Biden appeared on NBCs Late Night with Seth Meyers for a lengthy interview Monday, taking questions from Meyers and reminiscing with fellow guest and comedian Amy Poehler. Some of the interview was lighthearted, with Biden joking about the Dark Brandon meme and conspiracy theories that he is in cahoots with Taylor Swift. But Meyers also asked substantive questions about Bidens policy agenda post-2024, the Israel-Hamas war, and concerns about the presidents age. Its about how old your ideas are, the 81-year-old president said, drawing a contrast with the proposed agenda of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade, he wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that for 50, 60 years have been solid American positions. Biden criticized Israels conduct throughout the war during the interview, while reaffirming his support for the Jewish state. You need not be a Jew to be a Zionist. Im a Zionist. Were there no Israel, theres not a Jew in the world thatd be safe, he told Meyers. The next day, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the Democratic congresswoman and Palestinian-American who has been critical of the Biden administrations approach to the war, posted a video on social media saying she had voted uncommitted on Tuesdays Michigan Democratic primary. Tlaib, who has demanded the U.S. back a ceasefire in the war, encouraged others to vote this way against Biden to send a message to the president. The Late Night visit marked Bidens first TV interview since the president appeared on CBS News 60 Minutes in October. His dearth of TV hits outside of official appearances at the White House became even more noticeable when Bidenfor the second year in a rowskipped the customary presidential interview airing before the Super Bowl. The Biden campaign has argued the move was strategic, but some Democrats quietly told reporters they found the decision alarming. Concerns about a government shutdown appear to be abating after a Tuesday meeting at the White House between congressional leaders from both parties and President Biden. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he was very optimistic that Congress could pass a spending bill by this weekend to avoid a shutdown, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said all sides are making good progress. Missing, however, was a concrete plan to avert a funding crisis that could get enough votes in both houses of Congress. The meeting also included what Schumer described as an intense discussion of the situation in Ukraine as part of an effort by those gathered to urge Johnson to bring Ukraine funding to a vote. Veepstakes update: Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota reportedly met with Donald Trump Monday at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida. Noem is considered a potential running mate for Trump and was among the top choices for VP among attendees of last weeks Conservative Political Action Conference. In Michigan, Biden Struggles With Arab-American Voters Attendees listen to speeches during an "Uncommitted for Joe Biden" primary election night watch party on February 27, 2024, in Dearborn, Michigan. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) Michigan voters went to the polls Tuesday to give President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump large victories in their respective presidential primaries. But while Trump continues to grow his vote share (68 percent in Michigan to Nikki Haleys 26.5 percent) on his clear route to the Republican nomination, there was a sign of discontent within the Democratic ranks. Biden won 81 percent of the vote and just under 618,000 votes while his opponents, Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips, registered in the low single-digits. However, there were 100,000 votes cast in the Democratic party for uncommitteda vessel on the Michigan ballot often used for a protest vote. As mentioned above, Rep. Rashida Tlaib was perhaps the most prominent voice urging her fellow Michigan Democrats to protest Bidens handling of the Israel-Hamas war by way of this uncommitted line. After months of warnings, members of the states relatively sizable Arab-American population seem to have made their voices heard in the presidential primary. The Detroit suburb of Dearborn has the largest Arab-American population per capita in the country and is located in Wayne County, where more than 26,000 Democratic voters (or 17 percent) went uncommitted. That share of uncommitted votes was matched only in Washtenaw County, which centers on Ann Arbor, the home of the University of Michigan. Theres no significant Arab-American population there, but the progressives and young people living in and around this quintessential college town may have had similar objections to Bidens foreign policy, with more than 8,000 voting uncommitted. How concerned should Biden be that a noticeable number of his partys primary voters in a key swing state went against him? While the raw number of uncommitted votes is astoundingthe ballot line has typically received around 20,000 votes in recent Michigan Democratic primariesit was still only about 13 percent of the statewide Democratic vote. That is just slightly higher than the 11 percent who went uncommitted in Michigan in 2012, the last time an incumbent Democrat was running for reelection. That year, Barack Obama cracked just over 174,000 votes while running unopposed. On Tuesday, Biden earned more than 3.5 times that in raw votes. The next two Democratic primaries in Michigan, 2016 and 2020, saw more than 1 million total votes cast. Competition breeds participation, and in both cycles, Michigans primary saw showdowns between two leading candidates. In 2016, Bernie Sanders eked out a narrow win over Hillary Clinton, with each candidate getting nearly 600,000 votes. Four years later, Biden defeated Sanders in Michigan, earning 840,000 votes to Sanders roughly 575,000. So for Biden, with nothing but token competition, to rack up more primary votes (about 618,000) than either candidate in 2016 looks like a sign of his strength within the party. Nevertheless, the significance of the uncommitted vote in Michigan is twofold. First, these voters are crucial for Biden to win back into his camp for the general election. While he defeated Trump in that state by more than 150,000 votes in 2020, Trump won Michigan by just 11,000 votes four years earlier. If Michigans Arab-American and young progressive voters continue their protest against Biden into November, the state could swing back to the GOP. But will these Democratic voters really stay home or vote for a third party when Trump is on the ballot? The Biden campaign is counting on them coming home to, at the very least, vote against the bigger threat. Second, whether Bidens policy toward Israel and the war will shift as a result of these domestic political concerns remains to be seen. A Biden policy shift isnt risk-free, however, as pro-Israel Democrats continue to argue they are also an important bloc of Bidens coalition whom the president cant afford to alienate. Nationally we know that the pro-Israel community is far larger than the anti-Israel segment. In addition, such a move would make the President appear both crassly political and a flip flopper, turning a position issue into a character issue, wrote Rachel Rosen, the communications director for Democratic Majority for Israel, in a memo to reporters Tuesday night. Unless you know how many votes the President would lose by changing positions, you cant assess the impact of the uncommitted voters on the general election. Haley Voters Feel Unwelcome in Trumps GOP For all of the talk about whether GOP primary voters supporting Nikki Haley over Donald Trump might abandon the former president in November, a new dynamic is unfolding with these grassroots conservatives that has even broader implications for the future of the GOP than how they pull the lever in November. As Drucker reports from South Carolina, many of these Republican votersconventional conservatives who have supported GOP candidates for yearsare backing Haley because they feel increasingly unwelcome in the party. They believe theyre not just unwanted by Trump, but by the legions of grassroots voters the former president has drawn to the Republican coalition since he first announced his White House bid in June of 2015. From his story, which hit the site Wednesday morning: there is a broader issue motivating their abandonment of Trump that transcends the former president and threatens to fragment the GOP, not only this year but far into the future. Many traditional Republican voters like the Brantleys, who have supported GOP candidates for years, are backing the longshot Haley instead of returning to Trump because they feel abandoned by the former president. Even more than that, these Ronald Reagan-era Republicans say the voters fueling Trumps staying power inside the party are treating them with contempt and want them out. I dont like being told that if I dont believe a certain way, that Im not a Republican, Mike Brantley, a 56-year-old Army veteran, said Friday. The Brantleys are residents of Staten Island, a New York City borough where Trump remains popular, and were in South Carolina visiting family. They attended the Haley rally partly to encourage her to keep running even after the former president secures the 1,215 convention delegates he needs to become the presumptive Republican nominee. I think shes probably going to be independent at some point, Mike Brantley said with a sense of hope in his voice. Down the homestretch of the South Carolina campaign, The Dispatch spoke with several other voters who expressed similar feelings, many of which can best be described as the early stages of political homelessness. And this is not simply because they prefer not to vote for Trump, who turns 78 in Juneand cant imagine backing President Joe Biden, 81. Critically, its because they do not believe that Trump supporters generally are willing to tolerate themor their views on fiscal, social, and foreign policy issues. Exhibit A, as far as they are concerned, was Trumps vow issued just after the January 23 New Hampshire primary that any contributor to the Haley campaign would be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We dont want them and we wont accept them. Message received. Unfortunately, the MAGA people are not going to welcome us and theyre not going to like us, said retiree Debbie Buck, who voted for Trump twice but now supports Haley and attended her final South Carolina rally in Mount Pleasant. Most of these Republican regulars Drucker spoke to made clear that they might yet vote for Trump over President Joe Biden. At the very least, they cant see themselves voting for Biden, even if they dont back Trump. However, while theres always been a reasonable expectation that habitual Republican or Democratic voters will back their respective parties in the general election, this time might be different. The danger for Trump is that a significant percentage of traditional Republican votersthose who helped him win the White House in the first placemight never come home in November because they no longer feel at home in the GOP, Drucker writes. Read the whole thing here. Notable and Quotable I dont have any announcement about that today. Sen. Mitch McConnell, when asked why he has not yet endorsed Donald Trump for president, February 27, 2024 Read more at The Dispatch The Dispatch is a new digital media company providing engaged citizens with fact-based reporting and commentary, informed by conservative principles. Sign up for free. President Joe Biden, center, at an event with police chiefs at the White House in Washington, DC, on Feb. 28, 2024. Credit - Yuri GripasAbaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images President Biden pushed back Wednesday against Republican claims of a country gripped by a surge in violent crime, pointing to stats that show a decrease in crime since he took office, and claiming his policies have helped to reduce the rates of murder and other crimes that rose during the pandemic. In 2023, rates for murder, battery, assault, burglary, property crime and theft all dropped sharply, Biden said, speaking to police chiefs and administration officials gathered in the White House State Dining room for a meeting about crime reduction. That matters, as President, public safety and crime reduction is a top priority, Biden said. Bidens remarks come as the killing of nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus last week dominates conservative media. A Venezuelan immigrant who had entered the country illegally faces murder and other charges in the case. The case has become a flashpoint in the immigration debate as the issue rises this month to the top problem facing the U.S., according to national polling of Americans by Gallup, overtaking the government and the economy. Laken Riley was a spectacular young woman whose life was taken from us, and her great family, by a savage monster who should not have been in our Country, Trump wrote on social media on Tuesday. We must rid ourselves of this ridiculous Open Border, right now. Both Trump and Biden are set to travel to Texas on Thursday to visit the U.S. border with Mexico. Biden will travel to Brownsville in the Rio Grande Valley to bring attention to his demand that Congress fund more border patrol agents and immigration asylum officers. Trump is scheduled to appear about 300 miles away in Eagle Pass to highlight his plans to crack down on legal and illegal immigration if voters return him to office. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked Wednesday if President Biden had spoken to the family of Laken Riley. Jean-Pierre would not confirm whether or not such a call had taken place and referred questions about the case to local law enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "I do want to extend our deepest condolences to the family of Laken Hope Riley," Jean-Pierre said. "It is heartbreaking. I can't even imagine what the family is going through." Bidens remarks at on Wednesday, which were added to his public schedule just hours before he spoke, provided a pointed response to a Republican refrain that his policies have made cities less safe and allowed large numbers of immigrants with criminal records to remain in the country. Homicides in 2023 are estimated to be down nationwide by 12% from the previous year, according to the White House. Biden credited that drop in part on $15 billion in funding from the American Rescue Plan that went to police departments to add officers and increase community policing and mental health intervention programs. That bill passed in 2021 with no Republican votes, Biden noted. The funding from the American Rescue Plan has been a complete game changer for police in Detroit, said Detroit police chief James White, who introduced Biden. White said homicides declined 18% from 2022 to 2023, to the lowest level since 1966, a shift that can be attributed in part to that funding for new training and mental health responder programs for police in the city. We still have too many guns in our community, too much violent crime, White said. While conservative media routinely reports on crime in American cities and blames liberal policies, reported crime rates are often higher in states that vote consistently for Republicans. The murder rate in red states in 2022 was 33% higher than in blue states for that year, according to a report by the nonpartisan think tank Third Way that analyzed 2021 and 2022 homicide data from Center of Disease Controls mortality statistics. It was the 23rd consecutive year that states that the Republican presidential candidate won had higher murder rates than those won by the Democratic candidate, Third Way found. Of the ten states with the highest murder rates in 2022, eight of those states voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Contact us at letters@time.com. President Biden on Wednesday welcomed local police chiefs and law enforcement officials to the White House to discuss his administrations efforts to fight crime, looking to rebut the narrative pushed by former President Trump and other Republicans that violent crime is rampant. As president, public safety and crime reduction is a top priority for my administration and for me, and it has been for a long time back when I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Biden said in remarks to police leaders. The president joined a roundtable with various law enforcement officials, which included the heads of police from the cities of Philadelphia, Buffalo, Miami, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit and DeKalb County, Ga., as well as the executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police. The White House noted the country saw its largest annual increase in murders ever recorded in 2020, while there has been a decrease in homicides during the Biden administration. Officials pointed to millions of dollars investments in local police departments through the American Rescue Plan, a massive spending bill signed into law in 2021 that passed with only Democratic votes. The money has been spent on recruiting more officers and bolstering local budgets that were strained during the coronavirus pandemic. Biden in 2022 signed an executive order intended to increase police accountability that established a national database of officers who have been fired for misconduct and requires federal agencies to update their policies on use of force. However, the president has rejected calls to defund the police from some far-left members of his own party that followed the killing of George Floyd in 2020, with his Justice Department partnering with local law enforcement to crack down on gun violence in particular. Our plan is working, but we still have much more to do as everyone at this table knows, Biden said. And thats why were here today. My administration is going to choose progress over policy, and communities across the country are safer as a result of that. Former President Trump, the likely Republican nominee in Novembers election, has for years cast Democrat-run cities as havens for crime and lawlessness. In a speech last Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump zeroed in on what he described as migrant crime that was overtaking New York City and other areas of the country. We have a new category, migrant crime. And its going to be more severe than violent crime and crime as we knew it, Trump said. The former president said he would ensure police officers have immunity so they can act as they feel necessary to crack down on criminals, and he suggested without evidence that his reelection would quickly address issues in Chicago and New York. Chicago could be solved in one day, Trump said. New York could be solved in a half a day there. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said in a statement Wednesday that crime was ravaging our cities because of Biden. For years, Democrats have refused to condemn destruction in our cities and called to defund the police, McDaniel said. Now, in communities across America, homicide rates are higher, retail theft is crushing small businesses, and police departments cant find officers. Its no wonder why people feel less safe than when Biden took office: he will always prioritize criminals over families, and hes not up for the job. But data has shown Republicans portrait of a country overrun with crime in major cities is misleading. FBI data released last October found violent crime in 2022 dropped by 1.7 percent compared with 2021. That category includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The drop brought violent crime back to pre-pandemic levels, though not as low as it was between 2013 and 2015. A report released Wednesday by the center-left think tank Third Way showed the murder rate was 33 percent higher in states carried by Trump in 2020 compared with states Biden won, marking the 23rd year in a row that Trump-voting states had higher murder rates than Biden-voting states. The report was based on homicide information from 2021 and 2022 for all 50 states from the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions mortality data. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. President Biden will get his annual physical done Wednesday, the White House said, as questions about his age and ability to serve a second term hover over his reelection campaign. Biden departed for Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland on Wednesday morning, and the White House is expected to publicly release a written summary of his exam later in the day. The presidents last physical exam was Feb. 16, 2023, when his doctor wrote Biden was a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male who was fit for duty. Bidens health will be closely watched as his general election campaign ramps up. He would be 82 at the start of a second term and 86 at the end of a potential second term. Polling has shown many voters, including some Democrats, think Biden is too old to run again. A new ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted earlier this month found that 86 percent of Americans believe he is too old to serve in office. The White House has had to fend off attacks on Bidens ability to do the job after a special counsel report cleared him of wrongdoing in his handling of classified documents but made repeated references to his poor memory. Bidens likely opponent, former President Trump, is 77, and has had his own verbal slips in recent weeks. Trump has said Biden is not too old to run again, but that he is incompetent. You got to take a look at the other guy, hes about as old as I am, but he cant remember his wifes name, Biden said in an interview with late-night host Seth Meyers this week, adding the age of Trumps ideas were a problem. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. President Joe Biden is undergoing his annual physical today at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, at a time when his age continues to be a major concern among voters heading into the November election. The White House said that Mr Biden travelled to the Navy-operated facility in Bethesda, Maryland on Wednesday, departing by helicopter at 9.06am and landing at the hospitals helipad nine minutes later. A White House official said Mr Bidens visit to the hospital was for his routine annual physical and promised that his physician would release a written summary of the findings afterwards. Mr Biden, 81, is the oldest person to ever serve as Americas chief executive. A lifelong teetotaler and nonsmoker, he is known to exercise regularly, but he has had some health issues in recent years, including spinal arthritis that has caused him to exhibit a stiff gait and skin cancer lesions that were removed from his chest last March. President Biden arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland (EPA) In a memorandum released by the press office at the time, Physician to the President Dr Kevin OConnor said a biopsy confirmed that the small lesion removed from Mr Biden was basal cell carcinoma. All cancerous tissue was successfully removed. The area around the biopsy site was treated presumptively with electrodesiccation and curettage at the time of biopsy. No further treatment is required, he said. Dr OConnor added that the site of the biopsy has healed nicely and said the president will continue dermatologic surveillance as part of his ongoing comprehensive healthcare. The presidents age and a number of high-profile verbal slips and gaffes have led many voters to express concern about whether he is physically and mentally up to the job. But after his last physical on 16 February last year, Dr OConnor a former US Army doctor who has treated Mr Biden since his time as vice president said he remains a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief. WASHINGTON President Joe Biden will visit the Teamsters headquarters on March 12 as the influential labor union weighs its presidential endorsement. Biden will also participate in a roundtable with rank-and-file members and meet with the union's leadership here, the union announced Tuesday. The Teamsters boast 1.3 million members. "We realize that President Bidens time is limited and we appreciate that he is making it a priority to meet with Teamsters," General President Sean O'Brien said in a news release. "Our rank-and-file members and leadership are eager to have this conversation about the future of our country and the commitments that working people need from our next President." A Biden campaign spokesperson confirmed the meeting to NBC News. Former President Donald Trump met with Teamsters leadership at their headquarters in January. The union invited presidential candidates to participate in roundtables starting in December, which include discussions about wealth inequality, corporate bankruptcy reform and antitrust enforcement. Trump told reporters after last month's meeting that he believed he had a "good shot" at securing the union's endorsement. "Usually a Republican wouldn't get that endorsement," he said. The Teamsters endorsed Biden in 2020 but have yet to throw their support behind a candidate in the 2024 race. The union's 2020 endorsement came in August. Political action committee funds from the Teamsters overwhelmingly go toward Democrats, though the union leadership's vote to approve a $45,000 donation to the Republican National Committee's convention fund exposed divisions among members, some of whom are considering halting their donations to the PAC in protest. Biden has already secured the endorsements of two other major unions: the United Auto Workers and the AFL-CIO. He frequently touts his record with unions and says in speeches that he is "proud to be the most pro-union president." Last year, Biden became the first sitting president to appear on a picket line when he visited with striking autoworkers in Michigan. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com President Biden plans to visit the southern border in Brownsville, Texas, this week, though apprehensions in the sector are some of the lowest across the border, according to recent data. On Monday, Border Patrol agents apprehended 4,752 illegal immigrants along the southern border from California through Texas, according to a chart provided to Fox News by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) source. Some places saw triple-digit numbers, including Eagle Pass Station in the Del Rio Sector, which reported 511 apprehensions; Ajo Station in the Tucson Sector, which reported 481 apprehensions; and Santa Teresa Station in the El Paso Sector, which reported 473 apprehensions. In fact, 15 of the 35 border stations reported triple-digit numbers, while the rest of the stations reported apprehensions on Monday in the double digits. BIDEN, TRUMP TO MAKE US-MEXICO BORDER STOPS THURSDAY AS MIGRANT CRISIS ROILS ELECTION President Biden plans to visit the southern border on Thursday. Of the remaining 20, the Brownsville Station in the Rio Grande Valley Sector reported 12 apprehensions on Monday. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP The illegal immigrant activity in Brownsville is nearly nonexistent. Still, Biden is expected to travel to the area on Thursday to meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders. The same day, former President Trump is to travel to Eagle Pass, Texas. 7.2M ILLEGALS ENTERED US UNDER BIDEN ADMIN, AN AMOUNT GREATER THAN POPULATION OF 36 STATES President Biden speaks with members of the U.S. Border Patrol as they walk along the U.S.-Mexico border fence in El Paso, Texas, on Jan. 8, 2023. The two cities are about 325 miles apart. Biden is expected to use his trip to talk about the importance of passing the Senate's bipartisan border security agreement, according to a White House official, who added that the president will "reiterate his calls for Congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more." In January 2023, Biden visited the border in El Paso, Texas, getting what was considered a watered-down version of the border crisis. BORDER PATROL UNION RIPS BIDEN OVER BORDER CRISIS: YOU OWN THIS CATASTROPHIC DISASTER This view shows a column of migrants on the Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville, Texas, last year. The number of illegal immigrants that were crossing into the U.S. from Mexico in El Paso appeared to have plummeted at the time, and the Central Processing Center, which was previously overwhelmed with immigrants, was no longer at its capacity of about 1,000 migrants, and the migrant camps suddenly vanished, CBP sources said. According to a Fox News analysis published last week, nearly 7.3 million migrants are known to have illegally crossed the southwest border since Biden took office. That number is greater than the population of 36 individual states. It comes from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which has already reported 961,537 border encounters in the current fiscal year, which runs from October through September. If the current pace of illegal immigration does not slow down, fiscal 2024 will break last year's record of 2,475,669 southwest border encounters a number that by itself exceeds the population of New Mexico, a border state. The total number of southwest land border encounters since Biden assumed office in 2021 is 7,298,486, CBP data shows. White House officials did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News Digital. Danielle Wallace and Bradford Betz of Fox News Digital contributed to this report. Original article source: Biden to visit Texas border sector with among the lowest illegal crossings President Joe Biden easily won Michigans Democratic primary Tuesday, NBC News projects, in a contest whose only real drama came from a grassroots effort to cast protest votes over his handling of the war in Gaza. A Michigan ballot line for uncommitted used to register a protest vote against Biden for his handling of the Israel-Gaza war won two delegates to the Democratic National Convention, NBC News projects. Biden will have the remaining 115 ballots bound to support him. View the results here. A Biden victory over his main rival, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., was never in doubt in the contest, so the only real drama came from a grassroots effort to protest Bidens support of Israel by encouraging Michigan Democrats to vote uncommitted. With 95% of the expected vote in, the share of uncommitted votes Wednesday stood at 13%, second behind only Biden, who received 81%. Self-help author Marianne Williamson finished third with 3%, even though she had suspended her campaign. The result caused her to un-suspend her campaign Wednesday. Phillips finished fourth with 2.7%. The contest, the first since Michigan moved up its primary under a new Biden-backed calendar that dethroned Iowa and New Hampshire, carries extra significance since the state will be a critical battleground in the November general election when Biden is likely to once again face former President Donald Trump. The results are being heavily spun by both proponents and detractors of Biden inside the Democratic Party, but they may be most accurately read as a disappointment for both sides. On one hand, the results show that nearly one-in-five Democrats in the key swing state a little more than 100,000 voters are not excited about Biden and chose another candidate or uncommitted instead. Biden beat Trump in 2020 by only 154,000 votes in Michigan, so he has little margin for error. Michigan Holds Its Primary Election (Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images) Now, the uncommitted movement will have a chance to send at least two official delegates to the national convention in Chicago in August. On the other hand, the turnout for uncommitted was not far off the norm, despite a real organized effort. When Barack Obama ran for re-election in 2012, the uncommitted share in Michigans Democratic primary was 11%. And Biden could afford to lose 100,000 votes from his 2020 performance and still beat Trump in the state, just by a narrower margin. Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2016, for instance. Either way, the results may not paint a perfectly accurate picture of Michigans Democratic electorate, since it appears many Democrats decided to vote in the more competitive Republican Primary instead. Still, there is no doubt that a minority of the Democratic Party is deeply upset with Biden over his handling of the war in Gaza, particularly Arab, Muslim and young voters. The only question is how big is that minority. And Michigan will continue to be at the forefront of the Biden campaigns efforts to win those voters back, given its large Muslim population and must-win status for the campaign. What made the uncommitted movement in 2024 unusual was the buy-in from prominent activists and even Democratic elected officials. Among those voting uncommitted was Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who is Palestinian American. President Biden is not hearing us, Tlaib said in a video posted on X. In Dearborn, home to one of the nations largest Muslim and Arab communities, the citys Democratic mayor and other political leaders encouraged voting uncommitted. Early results for the city show 56% of participants in the Democratic primary voted uncommitted, while just 40% chose Biden. "We have done our part in demonstrating that this is a core issue that Michigan voters care about and will bring forward to the ballot box in November. It is incumbent upon [Biden] at this point in time to determine the pathway that he wants to take, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said at a Wednesday press conference for the "Listen to Michigan" campaign. Listen to Michigan campaign manager Layla Elabed, Tlaib's sister, also suggested that the threat of another Trump presidency doesnt automatically mean Biden should earn all progressive votes. An out-of-touch tactic, a fearmongering tactic, the threat of another Trump presidency is an ugly and incompetent way to win a presidency, Elabed said There is not much time for Biden to reunify a party that has splintered over the war, some Democrats said. Even if Biden were to bring about a cease-fire in Gaza, there would still need to be a healing period before Democrats were again comfortable with his leadership, said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a progressive who met with students and Arab leaders in Michigan last week. There needs to be an urgent course correction, and by that I dont mean months, Khanna said in an interview. I mean weeks. And there will have to be thinking and strategy for how we win back this community. Still, Biden has finished above 80% in all three official primaries that have taken place thus far. And he won 64% of the vote as a write-in candidate in New Hampshires unauthorized primary, where his name did not appear on the ballot due to a conflict between the state and the Democratic National Committee. Phillips, a wealthy 55-year-0ld moderate who was not well known, entered the race on the theory that Democratic voters would prefer a generic younger Democrat over Biden. So far, Phillips theory has failed to materialize. He finished in the low single digits in South Carolina and Michigan, did not make the ballot in Nevada, and won less than 20% of the vote in New Hampshire, despite Biden ceding the state to him by refusing to compete in the unauthorized primary. With Phillips failing to gain any momentum,, Bidens attention is firmly directed at the general election and the looming rematch with Trump, who NBC News projected has won the Michigan GOP primary. This primary is uncompetitive, so people will use this time to speak their mind, a Biden campaign aide said of the uncommitted vote, dismissing its significance as a harmless way for some to vent off anger. Biden allies are expecting that many or most of the people who voted uncommitted in the primary will ultimately come around and vote for him over Trump in November. Still, Biden invested in Michigan, unlike New Hampshire, and was not able to bring those dissidents back in the fold in time for the primary. High-profile surrogates visited Michigan on Bidens behalf before the primary, speaking to union, minority and suburban voters whose support is crucial to Biden. Looking to mobilize voters, they touted Bidens record and warned of the consequences of a Trump sequel. Vice President Kamala Harris went to Grand Rapids last week to discuss abortion rights, an issue that Democratic strategists believe will galvanize suburban women in the fall. The people of Michigan cannot sit back and take comfort without also understanding that elections matter and that there is a full-on, concerted effort to pass a national ban, which would mean the people of Michigan would not be safe, Harris said. Anger toward Biden is hard to miss. At a Mexican restaurant in Lansing last week, the Ingham County Democratic Party met and passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire. The vote was unanimous, with Jewish members among those voting in favor. Marshall Clabeaux, 30, sponsored the resolution. He is a loyal Democrat who estimates that he has knocked on more doors for Democratic candidates than anyone else in Michigan over the past decade. Now, he said, he is broken over the suffering and death in Gaza. If he [Biden] doesnt change course, its very difficult for me to vote for him in November, he said. Equally hard to miss is Democratic animosity toward Trump. As in Bidens 2020 victory over Trump, one of the wellsprings of his support is voters distaste for the ex-president. Susan Titus, 79, a retired college professor who lives in Detroit, voted for Biden and said her anger toward Trump was a primary reason. I think hes pretty much an a------, to coin a phrase, she said of Trump. And its terrifying to me, at 80, to think that he could decimate social programs that Ive been committed to and worked on for a very long time. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com President Biden secured another Democratic Primary victory in Michigan despite late pushback from Arab-American voters upset over the president's support for Israel's war in Gaza. Biden won Michigan easily Tuesday, according to a projection from the Associated Press, claiming his fourth primary victory as he inches closer to securing the Democratic nomination. There were 117 pledged delegates up for grabs in the battleground state. The landslide victory comes despite a movement among the state's Arab-American population to "Abandon Biden" and vote "uncommitted" on primary ballots in protest of Biden's support of Israel's war in Gaza. RASHIDA TLAIB 'PROUD' TO NOT VOTE FOR BIDEN IN MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY President Joe Biden. The protest was supported by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who said Tuesday that she was "proud" to vote against the president in the primary election while calling for a "ceasefire" of hostilities in Gaza. "Hi everyone, it's Rashida. I was proud today to walk in and pull a Democratic ballot and vote uncommitted. We must protect our democracy, we must make sure that our government is about us, about the people," Tlaib said in a video message shared by Listen To Michigan, a group supporting the protests against Biden in the primary. "When 74% of Democrats in Michigan support a ceasefire yet President Biden is not hearing us, this is the way we can use our democracy to say listen." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Nevertheless, Biden emerged victorious again in his bid to represent the Democratic Party for another presidential election, setting up a potential rematch with former President Donald Trump. NATO MEMBERS BRACE FOR TRUMP WIN AS RECORD NUMBER OF MEMBERS MOVE TO MEET SPENDING PLEDGES Michigan promises to be a key swing state in that potential rematch, having voted for Trump in 2016 by under one percentage point before flipping to Biden in 2020 by less than three percent. The president, who has yet to lose a state in this year's primary, will now shift his focus to "Super Tuesday," when voters in 14 states and American Samoa will head to the polls to vote for their preferred presidential candidate. Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. The results continue to lead to an all-but-certain rematch in 2024, with Biden expected to easily win the Democratic nomination and faceoff with Trump, who has a commanding lead in the GOP primary. Original article source: Biden wins Michigan despite pushback from Arab-American voters Joe Biden has won the Democratic primary in Michigan but a concerted effort by anti-war activists to vote uncommitted in the race could overshadow his win. The US president faced no real primary challenger in the contest. But a campaign that formed just weeks before the primary to vote uncommitted in protest of his continued support for Israels war in Gaza signaled the fury and betrayal some Arab American and younger voters in the state feel for Biden. Related: Michigan primary to test Biden among key voting groups in swing state The group pushing for voters to choose uncommitted called Listen to Michigan set the goal of 10,000 uncommitted votes in the primary. By Wednesday morning, uncommitted had received more than 100,000 votes 13.3% of the vote. For context, when the then president, Barack Obama, ran uncontested in the 2012 race, about 21,000 voted uncommitted against him in Michigans primary, with about 194,000 voting in total just over 9% of voters. Trump narrowly won the state by just 11,000 votes in 2016 and organisers of the uncommitted effort wanted to show that they have at least the number of votes that were Trumps margin of victory in 2016, to demonstrate how influential the bloc can be. As results came in after polls closed at 8pm, members of the Listen to Michigan campaign gathered at a banquet hall in Dearborn and declared the results a victory for their campaign. Attendees embraced and celebrated, many wearing the black and white keffiyeh. Before handing the microphone off to a series of speakers for the campaign, Abbas Alawieh, a Listen to Michigan spokesperson, held a moments silence for every human life that has been taken from us too soon using US taxpayer funds and bombs. Thank you to our local and national progressive organizations and our voters of conscience, who used our democratic process to vote against war, genocide and the destruction of a people and a land, said Layla Elabed, who launched the campaign in early February. The former congressman Andy Levin, an early and prominent local supporter of the push to vote uncommitted, called the movement a child of necessity and said the turnout so far was a huge victory. There is no hope for security and peace for the Jewish people without security and peace and freedom and justice for the Palestinian people, said Levin, to cheers. The Listen to Michigan campaign was intended as a warning for Biden to revise his so far unwavering support for Israels campaign in Gaza, which has killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians, ahead of the general election. The campaign is especially significant in Michigan given the states large Arab American population, a group that supported Biden strongly in 2020. But it is not clear what share of uncommitted voters are prepared to abandon Biden in the general election this November, when he will most likely face Donald Trump who is campaigning on a pledge to reinstate and expand his Muslim travel ban. There were some warning signs for Trump in his victory in Michigan, too. Early reporting out of Kent county, which flipped to Biden in the 2020 presidential election, showed Trump with a slimmer margin of victory in an area that is significant to the conservative movement and home to the conservative mega-donors the DeVoses. You cant win a general election if you dont acknowledge the 40% of Republicans who are saying we dont want Donald Trump, said Haley at a press conference in Grand Rapids ahead of the primary, referring to the share of Republican voters in South Carolina who voted for her. A day before the primary, Biden announced a ceasefire could come as soon as Monday but both Hamas and Israeli officials denied that negotiations had progressed substantially. In a statement on Tuesday night, Biden did not address the Listen to Michigan campaign or the growing tally of voters who cast their ballots as uncommitted, instead touting his record on labor and warning that Trump was threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution. DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won the Michigan primaries on Tuesday, yet early results from the state were highlighting some of their biggest political vulnerabilities ahead of the November general election. A vigorous uncommitted campaign organized by activists disappointed with Bidens handling of the war in Gaza was making headway. It had already far surpassed the 10,000-vote margin by which Trump won Michigan in 2016, a goal set by organizers of this years protest effort. Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation. More than 310,000 residents are of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Nearly half of the Detroit suburb of Dearborns roughly 110,000 residents claim Arab ancestry. For Biden, the notable percentage of uncommitted voters could signal weakness with parts of the Democratic base in a state he can hardly afford to lose in November. Both the White House and Biden campaign officials have made trips to Michigan in recent weeks to talk with community leaders about the Israel-Hamas war and how Biden has approached the conflict, but those leaders have been unpersuaded. A robust grassroots effort began just a few weeks ago to encourage voters to select uncommitted as a way to register objections to the death toll caused by Israels offensive. Nearly 30,000 people have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials. That push has been backed by officials such as Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman in Congress, and former Rep. Andy Levin. Uncommitted votes were hovering around the 15% mark needed to qualify for delegates statewide. It was too soon to say whether the campaign would collect delegates locally. This fight for our freedoms, for working families, and for Democracy is going to take all of us coming together, Biden said. I know that we will. Trump won the state by just 11,000 votes in 2016 over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and then lost the state four years later by nearly 154,000 votes to Biden. Organizers of the uncommitted effort wanted to show that they have at least the number of votes that were Trumps margin of victory in 2016, to demonstrate how influential the bloc can be. It is not lost on me that this president has softened his language and begun to recognize Palestinian suffering. But what is not enough is lip service. What we need is a withdrawal of support for Israel, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said as votes rolled in Tuesday night. ___ Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. BIRMINGHAM, Alabama The Biden Administration dispatched its top healthcare expert here on Tuesday to meet with fertility doctors and families undergoing in vitro fertilization, days after the Alabama Supreme Court effectively halted the treatment in the state. After meeting with affected families, federal Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra noted that the court's decision was possible only because the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe vs. Wade and permitted states to ban abortions. That ruling allowed states to pass what are known as "personhood" laws specifying that life begins at conception. Alabama's court is the first one nationally to use a personhood law to potentially restrict IVF, under a law that overwhelmingly passed the state legislature and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey. Ivey on Tuesday said she expects state lawmakers to pass an exemption law soon protecting IVF. Julie Cohen talks about her twins she conceived through IVF during a conversation with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and IVF patients in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. I think its become clear that this isnt just about abortion," Becerra said. "I hope common sense will prevail." Following the decision, several Alabama IVF providers announced they were halting procedures. In IVF, doctors remove eggs, fertilize them with sperm in a lab, and then implant that embryo back into the womb. It's an expensive and invasive procedure that typically requires months of medication and hormone shots. The court's ruling repeatedly invoked Christian faith and the Alabama Constitution, which specifically protects unborn children, although that has typically referred to a developing fetus inside a womb. The decision has been met with alarm internationally, with IVF advocates arguing the decision has far-reaching consequences for millions of people struggling to get pregnant. And politically, the decision has put Republicans in a tough spot: Many self-described conservatives who have historically supported personhood laws to block abortion find themselves struggling to explain to their constituents how it might also block them from using IVF to have children. President Joe Biden has condemned the ruling, and former President Donald Trump has called on the state's Republican leadership to protect IVF. IVF mom LaTorya Beasley, who met with Becerra on Tuesday, said she was supposed to have a new embryo transfer next month, but doctors cancelled it following the decision. It is literally a gut punch," she said. "You dont think itll happen to you until it does." Added Rachel Charles, who has been trying to have an IVF child: "This affects real people, this affects real families." HHS estimated in 2020 that there were at least 600,000 frozen embryos were in storage nationwide; the National Embryo Donation Center said the number could be 1 million. Nationally, about 2% of births a year involve IVF, or about 100,000 children. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden's top health expert travels to Alabama to hear from IVF families The proposed Capital Line bike and pedestrian path will run 2 miles through Downtown, along Gay, Rich and 4th streets, and across the Scioto River. A two-mile bike and pedestrian path, dotted with greenery, art and furniture, will loop through Downtown under a $100-million plan proposed Wednesday by city officials and a Columbus developer. Called The Capital Line, the pathway would run along Gay, Rich and 4th streets before crossing the river and closing the loop on Belle Street in Franklinton. Ranging from about 12 feet up to potentially 30 wide including landscaping, the pathway would replace what is now street space, including parking lanes. More: Columbus launches program to help fill empty Downtown retail spaces The project is a partnership between the city of Columbus, the Columbus Downtown Development Corp., and Edwards Companies development firm, which is pursuing several Downtown projects along the route of the path. The CDDC would oversee the project. "The city of Columbus and in some cases public-private partnerships have done a fabulous job with Downtown assets such as the Scioto Mile, the Peninsula and Columbus Commons, but if youve ever walked between those places, its not such a great experience from a pedestrian perspective," said Edwards Companies CEO Jeff Edwards, who unveiled the plan Wednesday at the Columbus Metropolitan Club with Mayor Andrew Ginther. "If we want to cater to residents, we need to start connecting these things in a pedestrian-friendly way." The proposed Capital Line would take over what is now street space to provide a pedestrian and bike path space Downtown. Final plans have not been drawn, but the pathway is expected to cost about $100 million and take four years to complete, said Ginther and CDDC President Amy Taylor. Funding would come from private, public and philanthropic sources, they said. Edwards paid for the preliminary studies and renderings, and the Ohio House has proposed $10 million for the project from the state's "Super Duper Fund" of leftover federal COVID-19 dollars. Beyond that, Taylor said a funding package would be put together when more detailed plans and costs are set. Taylor said the CDDC is "in the process of looking for a design and engineering firm" for the pathway. "This is a top priority for me," Ginther said Wednesday when presenting the plan. "Were still the heart and soul of this region," he added. "There is no Granville, there is no Newark, there is no Grove City and there is no Dublin or New Albany without a strong, healthy, vibrant Downtown and thats why the Capital Line project is so important, to be investing in ourselves for the future." The Capital Line bike and pedestrian path will run 2 miles through Downtown, along Gay, Rich and 4th streets, and across the Scioto River. Preliminary plans call for the pathway to occupy what is now the street or parking lane and be separated from traffic by landscaping or other barriers, freeing some of the existing sidewalk for other uses such as outdoor restaurant seating. The Capital Line route was designed along streets wide enough to accommodate it, and to link several Downtown destinations including the Scioto Mile riverfront, National Veterans Memorial & Museum, Columbus Commons, the Statehouse, The Peninsula development, Dorian Green and COSI. Broad Street, which serves as an eight-lane chasm through Downtown, was not considered for the pathway because other plans are in the works to improve it, Edwards said. Ginther, Taylor and Edwards said spurs could eventually be added connecting the trail to other neighborhoods such as Victorian Village, Olde Towne East, King-Lincoln-Bronzeville and German Village. Supporters say the Capital Line is a response to community suggestions in the 2022 Downtown Columbus Strategic Plan "to activate and invigorate the Downtown pedestrian experience" and to offer protected bike lanes. City officials and Edwards also hope the pathway will "catalyze" development Downtown, which has struggled since COVID sent many workers home. They say the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, an eight-mile walk connecting many of the city's Downtown attractions, has generated an economic impact of $1 billion. That trail cost about $63 million when completed in 2013. Edwards said he and others visited the Indianapolis trail while researching one for Columbus, and examined similar trails such as the Underline in Miami, the Atlanta BeltLine and the 5280 Trail planned for Denver. The Capital Line, shown here on West Gay Street looking east, would narrow streets to provide a more pedestrian-friendly walk. The Capital Line will proceed in stages. Construction of the first phase, on Gay Street, is expected to begin in 2025 and coincide with other updates to Gay Street such as removing curbs. Ginther, Taylor and Edwards said they're not worried about impeding car traffic by removing street lanes, in part because Downtown isn't as busy as it once was. The volume of vehicles was different than it is now, Edwards said. Those roads are designed for a different time, and 100% with cars in mind. Were right-sizing these roads. jweiker@dispatch.com @JimWeiker This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Capital Line would invest $100 million into downtown paths Defamation cases are hard to win in the United States. Starting with its 1964 ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court has required plaintiffs to meet a very high threshold of proof before American courts can hold someone liable for defamation. Whether something is simply false is insufficient; the justices have held that the allegedly defamatory material must be distributed with a reckless disregard for the truth. Anything less than that would violate the First Amendments guarantees of free speech, the Supreme Court has reasoned. One does not have to take the justices word for it. In countries with lower thresholds, defamation cases often become a tool for the wealthy and well connected to suppress negative information about themselves. Australia and the United Kingdom are particularly notorious for squelching reporting into misconduct by celebrities and politicians through libel lawsuits. That made it strangely heartening to see a 77-page demand letter by billionaire Bill Ackman and his wife, Neri Oxman, against Business Insider, which reported on plagiarism allegations against Oxman last month. Since then, Ackman has engaged in a high-profile campaign against the publication that may culminate in a lawsuit. The letter is a typical last step in defamation cases before one is filed. We are providing you this demand to explain why immediate retractions and corrections are necessary, supported by undisputed facts and a timeline over the last two months, in a final attempt to avoid litigation, the letter said. While intended to condemn Business Insider, the 77-page letter instead shows why robust thresholds for defamation are necessary to protect news outletsand the Americans who read and rely upon themfrom vindictive individuals who could otherwise pursue ruinous litigation campaigns against publications they dont like. This whole psychodrama began with a disastrous appearance from a group of university presidents who testified before Congress on the topic of antisemitism on college campuses. Some of the presidents, most notably Harvard president Claudine Gay, demurred on whether their campus policies would forbid students from calling for the genocide of Jewish people. She later apologized for her answers on the subject in a post on The Harvard Crimson, the schools student newspaper. One of the university presidents most vociferous critics was Ackman, a hedge-fund manager and outspoken Harvard donor who criticized them at length on Twitter. (Ackman is also Jewish; Oxman, his wife, is Israeli.) He suggested that Harvard had named Gay as president because she is Black, and claimed that she was unqualified for the post. Shrinking the pool of candidates based on required race, gender, and/or sexual orientation criteria is not the right approach to identifying the best leaders for our most prestigious universities, he wrote on Twitter last December. As public criticism of Gay and others mounted, news outlets began to report on plagiarism in some of her scholarly work, including instances where she inappropriately cited and quoted others work. Ackman took up this angle in earnest, and soon became particularly vocal in demanding Gays resignation over the plagiarism allegations. (Gay eventually stepped down in December.) The New York Times reported last December that Ackmans campaign against Harvard in particular may stem from other grievances, including his reported frustration that the schools leaders have not consulted him more closely about antisemitism on campus. Ackman later said on Twitter that his efforts had absolutely nothing to do with my unfortunate experience as a donor to the university. When powerful people flex their muscles in this fashion, it invites scrutiny. Here, Ackmans high-profile calls to punish Gay for plagiarism apparently led some reporters to pursue a predictable line of inquiry about his consistency in condemning plagiarism. While Ackman himself is not an academic, his wife is a former MIT professor who has since entered the private sector to found her own start-up. On January 5, Business Insider published an article about Oxman titled, Bill Ackmans celebrity academic wife Neri Oxmans dissertation is marred by plagiarism. That article, as well as subsequent follow-up reporting, described multiple instances where text in her dissertation at MIT and some of her other academic writings appeared to be copied without attribution from other sources, most notably including Wikipedia. In a statement on Twitter in response to Business Insiders allegations, Oxman acknowledged that she had omitted quotation marks for certain work that I used in her dissertation. I regret and apologize for these errors, she added, and said that she would work with MIT to correct them. It is at this point that this story could, and probably should, have ended. Ackman, however, opted to take a more hostile stance toward Business Insider. It is unfortunate that my actions to address problems in higher education have led to these attacks on my family, he said. He then spent the last two months engaged in an energetic campaign to defend his wife from the plagiarism charges and to allege journalistic malpractice on the part of Business Insider. That campaign largely took the form of multiple posts on Twitter to detail his grievances. Some were more than 7,000 words in length. Does this seem like a fair way to determine whether a professor plagiarized in her dissertation 15 years ago? he wrote in one post. Does this seem like a fair way to destroy the reputation of one of the most talented and famous designer/scientists in the world, even if she is married to billionaire? Ironically, his efforts arguably made the story even more prominent than it otherwise would have been. Behind the scenes, Ackman was also pressuring top editors and executives at Business Insider and at its parent company, Axel Springer, to correct or amend the publications reporting. Those efforts were apparently unsuccessful, since the stories have not been retracted or significantly corrected. So Ackman has moved on to threatening potential legal action. He and Oxman hired Libby Locke, one of the nations most accomplished defamation lawyers, to represent them. She sent a 77-page letter on Oxmans behalf to Business Insiders owners last week. Business Insiders articles falsely accusing Dr. Oxman of intentional plagiarism and admitting to that academic misconduct are painfully flawedboth in their substance and the process by which they were reportedand they are defamatory per se, the letter claimed. At every stage, Business Insider and [parent company] Axel Springer have acted with malice, and the damage they have caused Dr. Oxman has been immense and irreparable. The letter hinges on two assertions of falsity on Business Insiders part. First, it claimed that Business Insider reported that Oxman had intentionally committed plagiarism by including others improperly cited text in her own work. Business Insider did not (and cannot) point to anything in Dr. Oxmans dissertation (or anywhere else) demonstrating that Dr. Oxman had an intent to steal because she did not do so, the letter claimed. In fact, the instances of so-called plagiarism Business Insider identified refute the notion that Dr. Oxman had such an intent. But Business Insider never made any allegation of intent on Oxmans part in its reporting. The word intent appears nowhere in the publications articles. The reporters simply described the use of improperly cited or copied text without ascribing any motive to it, such as fraud or deceit. It is possible to accidentally plagiarize text or inadvertently plagiarize something, of course. Mistakes happen. That doesnt mean it isnt plagiarism; it only means it isnt punished or treated in the same way as intentional academic fraud. Second, the letter claimed that Business Insider reported that Oxman had admitted to academic misconduct. Academic misconduct is a grave offense in higher education, and admitting to it could seriously damage, if not end, a scholars career. Oxman, as I noted earlier, published a Twitter post after Business Insider published its articles where she acknowledged errors in her citations and said she regret[ted] and apologize[d] for them. Business Insider subsequently reported that Oxman admits to plagiarizing in her doctoral dissertation after BI report. That article did not mention academic misconduct in and of itself, and Business Insider does not appear to have alleged that she ever committed it. The letter nonetheless claimed that Business Insider should have deferred to MITs internal processes before leveling a charge of plagiarism. At MIT, to find a scholar guilty of plagiarism, a devastating academic finding of fraud, an administrative panel must come to a determination that a scholar intentionally plagiarized only after an intensive, multi-stage inquiry and investigation during a typically multi-month, rigorous administrative proceeding, it argued. Business Insider knew before it went to print that the citation issues it had identified in Dr. Oxmans dissertation and other papers did not meet MITs standards for intentional plagiarism, academic fraud, or misconduct. That may well be an accurate description of MITs internal processes for handling plagiarism allegations. But they are not binding on anyone else, least of all upon Business Insider. The average person is more than capable of identifying plagiarism without MITs help. Simply because MIT did not identify something as plagiarism under its own rules does not mean that it wasnt plagiarism. As for fraud or misconduct, Business Insider did not level those specific charges. The rigor of MITs own process for investigating plagiarism allegations is an acknowledgment of sorts that not all instances of plagiarism rise to the level of fraud or misconduct. One of the more bizarre defenses raised by the letter is that it wasnt really plagiarism when Oxman included entire passages from Wikipedia. The letter argued that MITs Academic Integrity Handbook did not addressmuch less requirecitation to Wikipedia, and that it was so inchoate at the time that MIT did not specifically address Wikipedia citations until years later. Business Insider knew that MIT had not yet put forth policies on the use of Wikipedia as a source until years later, but it ignored and did not disclose this exculpatory information in its articles so as not to contradict its narrative that Dr. Oxman had committed literary theft, the letter claimed. This is so nonsensical that I am surprised it made it to the letters final draft. It doesnt really matter if MITs handbook had specific policies about Wikipedia because it should be obvious that lifting entire passages from Wikipedia is inappropriatenot because its Wikipedia per se, but because its lifting unattributed material and passing it off as your own. This was obvious to anyone who attended high school, college, or any other place of education in the 2000s and 2010s. It is unclear why someone at MIT would think otherwise. The net result is that the letter accuses Business Insider of defaming Oxman by making specific claims that the outlet didnt actually make. The letter seems to acknowledge this at one point by emphasizing the narrative over the actual substance. It made no effort whatsoever to determine Dr. Oxmans mental state and whether she had the requisite intent to steal as Business Insider claimed and implied, the letter claimed. As such, Business Insiders claim that it found that Dr. Oxman committed plagiarism is baseless, and it was only used to amplify the false narrative that she had engaged in intellectual theft and fraud. The portions of the letter that address specific concerns about Business Insiders published materials only span about the first third of the letter. The remaining two-thirds of it are devoted to alleging that Business Insider had some sort of vendetta against Ackman and that his wife was an innocent bystander in it. The letter claimed that the outlet first tried to attack Ackman but failed to achieve a desired level of news virality. After that, the letter claimed, Business Insider changed tactics, launching a new front in its clickbait offensive designed to impose on Ackman the maximum amount of pain where it would hurt him the moston his wife and family. No real evidence is provided to support those allegations; the letter, ironically, is inferring intent without any proof to support it. Indeed, there is ample evidence that Business Insiders leadership had a favorable view toward Ackman. Other portions of the letter detail Ackmans extensive efforts to leverage his relationships with Business Insiders management and executives to correct or amend the story. The letter included ample screenshots of text conversations between Ackman and Business Insider editor-in-chief Henry Blodget, Axel Springer CEO Mathias Dopfner, and others over Business Insiders reporting. Much of it revolves around Ackman saying he disputed the facts of the piece without actually demonstrating why they were factually incorrect. His interlocutors appeared to humor him without taking substantive action against their own reporters. When wielding those personal connections fell short, Ackman and Oxman turned to personal attacks instead. The letter repeatedly described Blodget as antisemitic on what can be described at most as extremely dubious grounds. In 2012, Blodget wrote an article entitled, Why Do People Hate Jews?, which prominently featured a picture of two traditionally dressed Hasidic Jews, the letter claimed. At the time he published the article, Blodget claimed to have been surprised by the public backlash. In response, he shut down dissent by turning off public comments on Business Insiders website for the article, and later changed its title. You can read Blodgets 2012 post here, complete with multiple panic-stricken notes and addendums. The post is written in a very bloggy style that was common in early 2010s online writing: He linked to a story about a poorly worded religious studies test in the U.K., and used it as a launching point for further discussion among readers about the origins of antisemitism. What is the source of this animosity? he asked. Why does it perpetuate itself? Where did this prejudice come from? Im asking this question seriously, and Im going to Bleacher any comments that dont answer it seriously. In context, the original post reads less like a Der Sturmer article trying to crowdsource future content and more like a naive college freshman raising his hand in a History 101 class. Blodget was clearly not writing from a perspective of anti-Jewish sentiment. Along with many other sites, this site is occasionally visited by people whose mission in life appears to be to express hatred of Jews, he noted at one point. We delete these comments as quickly as we can, but theyre always startling in their venom, meanness, and stupidity. I discuss this not because Blodgets poorly framed posts from 14 years ago are exemplary journalism or anything, but because the letters invocation of them reflects a deeper problem here. Its discussion of Blodgets postas well as of other supposedly anti-Jewish sentiments by other Business Insider staffers, which arent worth recounting herecomes in the context of discussing the actual malice legal standard. Actual malice, as I noted earlier, requires more than just error. It means the defamatory material was published with reckless disregard for the truth and, as the term implies, a willful intent to cause personal damage. The irony of making antisemitism allegations with threadbare evidence at best to support them while discussing the actual malice standard would be almost comedic if it werent so serious. Did Business Insiders writers and editors meet that threshold? Are they out to get Ackman and Oxman because of some thinly veiled antipathy toward Jews? Legally speaking, it doesnt really matter because what they wrote is truthful. Oxman did improperly cite material in some of her academic work. Her dissertation includes multiple passages that were lifted from Wikipedia. The letter claims that it wasnt really plagiarism, or that it doesnt strictly meet MITs contemporary definition of it, but those answers are better understood as defenses instead of denials. They dont actually refute Business Insiders reporting. Its unclear whether Ackman and Oxman will ultimately sue Business Insider for defamation. If they do, it will undoubtedly be an uphill battle. The actual malice question may not even be relevant if they cant show that what Business Insider reported is false. (By that I mean what Business Insider actually reported, not what the letter seems to think that Business Insider reported.) Whether they decline to file or actually lose in court, the result will be a victory for Americans who want to say and write things without fearing that a billionaire will sue them into oblivion simply because they really, really, really dont like it. SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) A bill that would increase penalties for idle threats on Utah schools is on its way to Gov. Spencer Coxs desk. Late Tuesday, the Utah Legislature held its final vote on House Bill 14, with the Senate voting unanimously to pass it. The bill now awaits the governors signature or veto. Hikers, campers could be required to wear hunter orange in certain areas under bill before Utah lawmakers State Rep. Ryan Wilcox (R-Ogden) ran the bill, explaining on the House floor that it came as a response to an incident last March when a foreign actor called in active shooter threats at schools across Utah, prompting significant responses from police and emergency first responders. We learned a lot that day, and a lot of what we learned is where the holes are, Wilcox said. HB14 would increase the penalties for adults who make threats against schools, upping them in the most serious cases to a second-degree felony, which is punishable in Utah by one to 15 years in prison. Currently under state code, such hoaxes can be charged as a low-level misdemeanor. For students who make idle threats, the response is different under HB14. The minors would go before a school assessment team that will determine the property penalty, whether it be suspension or expulsion. According to Wilcox, there have been more than 50 idle threats made against Utah schools since August. He said the silliest among them was made by a student hoping to get out of a speeding ticket. If it is a student who engages in this stuff theyre going to be suspended, Wilcox said. They are going to have to think about it a little bit. Under the bill, the school assessment teams, which were instituted as a result of legislation last year, could also require that students receive counseling should it be determined they need it. If the governor signs HB14 into law, it would go into effect on May 1. Another bill that Wilcox is running, House Bill 84, would bring armed security guards to Utah schools. It would also update safety standards and require that every classroom have a panic button. HB84 only needs to be voted on by the full Senate to get to the governors desk. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. Taras Kachka, Ukraine's trade representative, spoke about the most recent round of trade negotiations with Poland, pointing out that the option of closing the border for goods movement was not mentioned. Source: Kachka on Facebook Details: Kachka reported four hours of intense negotiations with Krzysztof Hetman, Poland's Minister of Development and Technology, and Czesaw Siekierski, Minister of Agriculture. He described the negotiations as "one of the most intense" in his career. "We were able to find a common language and are working on a constructive solution to unblock the border while considering the interests of farmers in Poland and Ukraine. It is not easy, but possible," said Kachka. He noted that he could not provide additional details but pointed out that "a constructive solution is possible." "Throughout the four hours of negotiations, the option of closing the border was not mentioned. Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that this would be a painful decision for our economies. Stopping trading for even a single day, which amounts to US$11.7 billion per year (and even more according to Polish statistics), is too painful. Not to mention transit, which is vital to Ukraine," he said. "As a result, I encourage everyone to read Donald Tusk's statement thoroughly and carefully, including all rhetorical and punctuational elements. News headlines may be misleading," Kachka added. Background: On the afternoon of 28 February, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that Poland and Ukraine are discussing the possibility of temporarily closing the border for goods movement until the accumulated problems are resolved. Tusk also stated that on Thursday, he would meet with protesting farmers and other groups that had joined their actions. Support UP or become our patron! President Joe Biden will visit the Texas-Mexico border on Thursday to address border security and call out Republicans for derailing a border bill this month amid a yearslong surge in unlawful crossings. In his second visit to Texas' southern border during his presidency, Biden will stop in Brownsville to speak with federal immigration agents and local government and law enforcement officials as well as pitch the need for Congress to act swiftly in passing border security legislation. Biden's visit Thursday will coincide with a stop the same day in Eagle Pass, about 300 miles away, by former President Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner for the presidency. Border security, which remains an election liability for Biden, has risen as a top issue in the likely rematch in November between the president and Trump. More: Biden to visit Texas-Mexico border Thursday. Will he change the vexing issue's narrative? Biden calls for 'urgent' action on Texas-Mexico border In announcing the trip Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden will discuss the "urgent need" to pass a border security package. Angelica Reyes walks along the Rio Grande with Fabian Los Diaz, 6, to surrender to Border Patrol agents last month after entering Texas at Eagle Pass with a group of fellow Venezuelan migrants. On Thursday, former President Donald Trump will visit Eagle Pass while President Joe Biden visits Brownsville. "He will reiterate his calls for congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more," Jean-Pierre said. An $118 billion proposal introduced in the U.S. Senate earlier this month to revamp the country's immigration system, creating some of the most aggressive border restrictions in years, and to provide foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel was blocked by Senate Republicans, at Trump's urging. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had also said the bill would not advance from his chamber. Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide Biden's border spat with Gov. Greg Abbott Biden's previous visit to the southern border came in January 2023, when he stopped in El Paso en route to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador about stemming migration. During the visit, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott handed Biden a letter placing the blame squarely on the president for increases in migrant crossings and lagging border infrastructure. "Your open-border policies have emboldened the cartels, who grow wealthy by trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings," Abbott wrote at the time. "Texans are paying an especially high price for your failure, sometimes with their very lives, as local leaders from your own party will tell you if given the chance." Since that brief meeting between the two leaders, the Legislature has directed more than $11 billion to Operation Lone Star, Abbott's border security initiative that includes constructing additional miles of unconnected border wall, installing a buoy barrier on the Rio Grande and razor wire along its shores and building a permanent military "base camp" for 1,800 Texas National Guard troops with the capacity to expand to accommodate 2,300 troops. Outside of the upcoming border trip to Texas, Biden visited Dallas last month to attend the funeral of U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a trailblazing Black woman who served in both the Texas Senate and the U.S. House. Biden called Johnson an "icon." USA Today reporter Joey Garrison and Statesman reporter John Moritz contributed to this report This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: President Biden to visit the Texas border today. Heres what we know. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) El Paso County and Borderland business leaders continue to tout the port of entry in Tornillo as a great business opportunity. County and business leaders held a news conference Tuesday, Feb. 27 to discuss ongoing efforts to promote the Marcelino Serna port of entry for commercial crossings. Back in August, U.S. Customs and Border Protection resumed processing commercial truck traffic at the port of entry. The cargo area at the port of entry opened in March 2016 but suspended operations a little over a year later due to low traffic volumes. County and Borderland business leaders discuss the Tornillo port of entry as a business opportunity. Photo by Miguel Paredes/KTSM Since reopening, Mexican truckers have held at least one protest, saying they dont feel safe using that port of entry. Andrea Hutchins, chief executive officer of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce, spoke to KTSM after the news conference and said that the port of entry in Tornillo presents an extreme opportunity for investment in our region and it can be used to boost commercial activity in the eastern part of El Paso County. Hutchins said the economic development team at the County and local business leaders have been proactively seeking ways to encourage investment and business activity surrounding Tornillo port of entry. We know people are consistently talking about near shorting, on shoring, all the different types of investment occurring in Mexico, Hutchins said. Certainly, there is a great deal of spillover economic opportunity here in El Paso County. The Tornillo port of entry also has the potential to alleviate some of the commercial truck traffic at other ports of entry like the Bridge of the Americas, she said. Residents who live near BOTA have been protesting plans to upgrade that port of entry and have repeatedly asked that commercial truck traffic be removed from that facility. We know we need additional outlets in our region for commercial traffic, Hutchins said. We see the wait times. We hear the complaints from businesses on both sides of the border. Any and every opportunity that we have to expedite the flow of traffic across our borders is a win for our community. Hutchins added that regional leaders need to look at the Borderlands ports of entry as one system. Goods and services run efficiently when we operate and use our ports of entry to their highest and best use, she said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. The logo of the technology group Bosch shines on a parking garage at the airport above highway 8. Tech giants Bosch and Microsoft have agreed to work together to make cars safer with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), the chair of Bosch's management board, Stefan Hartung, announced on 28 February. Bernd Weibrod/dpa Tech giants Bosch and Microsoft have agreed to work together to make cars safer with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), the chair of Bosch's management board, Stefan Hartung, announced on Wednesday. According to both companies, AI will enable vehicles to assess situations in the future, react accordingly and thus better protect road users. Tanja Ruckert, member of the Bosch management board, said that generative AI is an "innovation booster" and could change the industry, similar to the invention of the computer. Generative AI refers to a variant of AI that can independently create new content that is almost indistinguishable from human works or even surpasses them. It can be operated using human language. AI in cars can help to better assess a traffic situation through contextual knowledge, similar to an experienced human driver, said Ruckert. As an example, she cited a situation in which a ball rolls onto the road and the AI system predicts that a child could probably also run onto the road. "However, a good AI can also distinguish the rolling ball from a scenario in which only an empty plastic bag is blown across the road and emergency braking is not necessary." The partnership gives German multinational Bosch access to the AI technology of Microsoft partner OpenAI. At the same time, the software company also has sufficient computing capacity to run complex AI calculations on high-performance computers. Microsoft, in turn, can benefit from the mass of anonymized data generated by Bosch's vehicle computers. Many people want to not only feel young but also look like it. Due to this desire, there has been a steady rise in the number of women and men getting Botox. Boston 25 News looked into why so many are preventing wrinkles before they even show up. Alexandra Rogers is the co-owner of LexRx, a botox and face treatment practice, as well as a nurse practitioner. Rogers said the largest demographic her practice caters to at the moment is millennials. If you start young and youre really consistent with your treatments, then as the years go on, you can actually end up going further and further between your treatments, Rogers said. Amy Gusky told Boston 25 News that she started injectible when she was 31. I always kind of had lines in my forehead, and I was turning. I think I was in my 30s; I was recently divorced, and I just wanted to kind of slow down the aging process, said Gusky. ALSO READ: Botox competitor, Daxxify, gains FDA approval as anti-wrinkle drug Michaela Forbes revealed she started her treatments at 36. Same thing as getting your nails done. Um, thats kind of how I think of it. Its just a nice self-care aspect, and I love the way it looks, Forbes explained. Alexa Nicholls Costa, also co-owner of LexRx and a nurse practitioner, told Boston 25 News that she felt judged when she first started getting her Botox treatments at just 23 years old. However, now she believes its becoming more mainstream. The stigma has certainly diminished, said Costa. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons points to the steady rise of people sharing their procedures on social media, which resulted in an increase in certain procedures. According to Boston 25 News, interest in facial injections and fillers has doubled since 2019, and lip fillers were among the top five most sought-after procedures. Dermatologist Dr. Alissa Lamoureux said its all about prejuvenation versus rejuvenation. Prevent fine lines and wrinkles from happening as opposed to waiting until they are there and trying to reverse them, which sometimes can be harder, Lamoureux explained. ALSO READ: Woman arrested, accused of skipping out on nearly $2,500 Botox bill But she did express that it could be harder for doctors to clarify the unrealistic filters, dangerous trends, and misinformation on social media. Teenagers come in talking about skincare and all the products that theyre using, and sometimes theyre causing maybe more harm than good, Lamoureux explained. Lamoureux told Boston 25 News while most procedures are FDA-regulated and are done safely, there are always risks and costs. Which is why she suggests doing your research. So remember, injections should only be performed by licensed medical professionals; have a consultation to be sure you understand what you are trying to achieve; and be aware that the lowest price may not be the best option. The FDA has approved dermal fillers for adults aged 22 and older for facial treatments like wrinkles, augmentations, and restoration. However, patients are encouraged to talk with a dermatologist or licensed medical professional before moving forward with any procedure. VIDEO: Daxxify, Botox competitor, gains FDA approval as anti-wrinkle drug Cannabis The National Cannabis Roundtable hired Holland & Knight to lobby on the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act (SAFER Banking Act), which would allow legal state-level marijuana industry players to access federally regulated banks and credit unions. A Senate committee passed the cannabis banking bill for the first time in September, but it has not been brought to the floor for a vote and faces an uncertain future in the House. Former Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.), who moved from Capitol Hill to K Street after he retired from Congress following the 2022 election cycle, will work on the account. Travel The travel company Expedia hired Husch Blackwell Strategies to lobby on proposed regulation related to advertised prices. Over the summer, Republicans on the House Transportation Committee slipped language into the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that would roll back an Obama-era rule requiring airlines to disclose the full ticket price up front, a rebuke of President Bidens efforts to eliminate junk fees. One of the lobbyists on the account is Stacy McBride, who was previously chief of staff to former Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who was the No. 4 Republican in the Senate before he retired in January 2023. Plastics The World Wildlife Fund hired McCartin Public Policy Group to lobby on federal policies and funding to end plastic pollution. The lobbyist on the account is Muftiah McCartin, a House Rules Committee and Appropriations Committee alum who was recently vice president of government and corporate relations at the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Technology The cloud-based management software company Salesforce hired Invariant to lobby on issues related to customer relationship management platforms. Amy Swonger, a Trump White House alum and former floor assistant to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), will work on the account. The venture capital firm Sequoia Capital hired Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck to lobby on issues related to artificial intelligence, new technology and the venture capital sector. Will Dunham, former chief of staff for policy to then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), will work on the account. Health care The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association hired Colas & Associates to lobby on issues relating to pharmacy benefit managers, the industry represented by the association. The lobbyist on the account is Brian Colas, a former top aide to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Pro-separatist authorities in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria have publicly called on Moscow to step in and provide protection against increasing pressure from the Moldovan government. The news dominated Russian state media Wednesday shortly after the congress of deputies in the unrecognized republic passed a resolution effectively inviting the Kremlin to embark on another land grab in the region in the name of protecting ethnic Russians. Pro-Russian officials appealed to the Russian parliament to implement measures to protect Transnistria in the face of increasing pressure from Moldova, according to a copy of the document shared in Russian media. The resolution also noted that more than 220,000 Russian citizens live in Transnistria. Zelensky Reveals How Many Ukrainian Troops Have Died Fighting Russia The critical situation requires urgent and maximally active international intervention in order to prevent the escalation of tensions and keep the situation from developing into a crisis, the document reads. The public appeal comes after warnings from an opposition official that pro-Russian officials in Transnistria would soon ask to become a part of the Russian Federation. It also comes just a day before Russian President Vladimir Putins address to the Federal Assembly, where some predicted he might announce new geopolitical crusades. But a spokesperson for the Moldovan government, Daniel Voda, dismissed fears of potential destabilization in comments to European Pravda on Wednesday, calling the resolution nothing more than a ploy by the Kremlin and some pro-separatist officials. We do not see the danger of destabilization, he told the news outlet, noting that authorities were monitoring [the situation] very closely. 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. The gunman accused of killing a straphanger on a Bronx subway admitted to shooting the victim, according to prosecutors but his lawyer argued he committed the violent act in self-defense. Justin Herde, 24, rocked back and forth during his arraignment Tuesday in which prosecutors revealed he was the actual shooter in the murder of William Alvarez on a southbound D train as it pulled into the 182-183 Streets station Friday morning. Hes the one that pulled the trigger, Assistant District Attorney Lawrence Rozenblum told the court. In a statement, he admitted to shooting the victim and its all on surveillance footage, Rozenblum said. Justin Herde admitted to shooting William Alvarez in a Bronx subway, prosecutors said. William Miller Police said Herde and two alleged accomplices Betty Cotto, 38, and Alfredo Trinidad, 42 were aboard the train when one of the three sat down next to Alvarez, which ignited a verbal argument that quickly turned physical. All three were battling with Alvarez and then Herde allegedly fired the gun, striking the straphanger at least one time in the torso before the trio ran off as the train pulled into the station, according to police. Alvarez was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The trio of suspects were each charged by police with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon. Herdes defense attorney, Peter Laumann, slammed the prosecutions narrative as pretty short, instead claiming Herde acted out in self-defense. William Alvarez was arguing with the trio before he was shot at least one time in the torso, according to cops. GoFundMe It wasnt a one-way altercation. It was with somebody who was significantly larger than Mr. Herde who on information dragged Mr. Herde back onto the train during the assault, Laumann said during the arraignment. The lawyer also said that Cotto and Trinidad were not on the train when the shooting occurred. So theres been a sorta three against one narrative that may not actually be borne out by evidence when that evidence is provided, said Laumann. Both Alfredo Trinidad and Herde allegedly admitted that the firearm belonged to Trinidad. William Miller Laumann requested reasonable bail, but the judge opted to remand Herde saying the charges make him a flight risk and it is not Mr. Herdes first contact with the legal system. His alleged accomplices, Cotto and Trinidad, were also remanded during their own court appearance Tuesday as prosecutors said Trinidad was the owner of the weapon. Betty Cotto was seen fighting with the victim and assisting co-defendants during the time of the shooting, prosecutors said. William Miller Trinidad who wore a ratty red sweatsuit and said nothing during his brief arraignment gave the gun to Justin Herde to carry when they were out because he didnt want to get caught with said gun, according to Ronzenblum. Herde also admitted that he was holding the gun for the co-defendant Trinidad, Ronzenblum said. Herdes defense attorney claimed he was acting in self-defense against Alvarez. Matthew McDermott The gun was allegedly found inside the Bronx apartment Trinidad shares with Cotto when cops and US Marshals executed a raid on Monday. Herde wasnt arrested alongside the pair during the raid. He was cuffed at the home he shares with his aunt and mother. His elderly mother refused to comment to the press outside the courtroom. Although Cotto isnt accused of handling the gun, prosecutors argued she was seen fighting with the victim and assisting co-defendants during the time of the shooting. Defense attorney Peter Laumann argued Cotto and Trinidad werent on the train when the shooting occurred. Trinidads next court appearance is Feb. 29. Herde and Cotto are both due back on March 1. Broward Public Schools Superintendent Peter Licata warned the Broward School Board that he will likely recommend to them that they close more than five schools maybe 20 or more. The board tasked Licata last year to close at least five schools by the 2025-26 school year, because of a critical decline in enrollment that translated to a loss of millions of dollars in the past two decades or so. The superintendent said this week that during an upcoming March 20 workshop on the topic, he will likely include more than five. READ MORE: Which Broward schools may be at risk of closing? Enrollment numbers may provide answers The board stumbled on the schools closing issue during a facilities agenda item on a budget workshop on Tuesday. Board member Daniel Foganholi asked Licata to speak on whether five schools would be enough to address the budgetary constraints. From all of our budget conversations earlier, its very clear were in a tight spot, Foganholi said. Weve talked about four or five schools at a minimum. But I think everybody on this board, everybody on staff, people in the community are very clear that were about 40 schools over-sized, so can you speak to that? The question really is: Are we slowly ripping the Band-Aid off, or are we ready to just go all in and do whats best for our community, best for our budgets, best for our staff everybody?, Foganholi added. We continue to walk on eggshells here, and I think were really hurting our kids by by not having the real conversation. Licata said that hes spoken to several superintendents across the country including some in San Antonio and Houston who successfully downsized their school district, and hes found theyve all closed more schools upfront. He said that a specific well-known superintendent that he didnt name told Licata that the hardest decision was to make that grand, one-shot, but that in the long-term it proved to be the best approach. Its hard at first. Youre taking a beating, but it was the right thing for them, and I believe in my heart of hearts its the right thing for us, Licata said. We have a lot of schools that probably need to be closed or repurposed and so forth and so on, he added. And I dont want to die a thousand deaths. I believe in my heart as a leader that if we were to piece meal this, we would be our own worst enemy, and we would not be transparent. We cant just nickle and dime. We got to either do something or dont. Foganholi encouraged him to move forward that way: I, for one, as one board member, want to see the big change. I dont want to prolong hurting our kids and hurting our community. Lets fix our district, he added. I really challenge you superintendent: Come to us. If its going to be more, lets rip the Band-Aid ... Lets do whats right. Board member Brenda Fam agreed with Foganholi. She told Licata they should take the bull by the horns because community members will suffer for a shorter period of time that way. They dont want to have to worry each year, Is my school going to be on the list this year? she said. Worry about more schools closing But not all board members agreed with Foganholi and Fam. Board member Nora Rupert outright criticized the idea: I am not prepared to close 60 schools or 40 schools. I can tell you that. Not in a hot minute. Schools are the heartbeat of every community. But she pushed for honesty, saying that if district officials do believe itll be more than five then they should be clear about it before it gets ugly real fast. I dont want anybody to say to me, You lied to me Ms. Rupert, she said. I dont want that. Similarly, board member Allen Zeman seemed hesitant and said he wants to see more data before supporting mass closures. I think theres a difference between doing whats right and having the information to figure out what right looks like, he said. The boards chair, Lori Alhadeff, said she wants the school district to rely on specific criteria to judge whether to close or not a school on an individual basis, and define that way how many schools will close in total. We need to follow a criteria that we vote on as a board, and we agree to use as we move forward in this process, she said. Licata said he intends to do that: propose six or seven boxes like low enrollment, outdated facilities, shrinking birth rate in the area, competition nearby and problems with administrative leadership. Then start looking at each school. And if one checks all boxes, he said: ... why would we keep it open? University of Idaho student murders suspect Bryan Kohberger returns to court Wednesday as Judge John Judge hears arguments for trial scheduling and the defense's request for a change of venue. Prosecutors had previously requested a trial date for this June, after the end of the spring semester, but the defense wants more time to prepare. "A fair and impartial jury cannot be found in Latah County owing to the extensive, inflammatory pretrial publicity, allegations made about Mr. Kohberger to the public by media that will be inadmissible at his trial, the small size of the community, the salacious nature of the alleged crimes, and the severity of the charges Mr. Kohberger faces," Anne Taylor, Kohberger's lead defense attorney, wrote in a January court filing. BRYAN KOHBERGER ASKS COURT FOR CHANGE OF VENUE AFTER DELAYS IN IDAHO STUDENT MURDERS TRIAL Bryan Kohberger enters the courtroom for a hearing Friday, Aug. 18, 2023, at the Latah County Courthouse in Moscow, U.S. Taylor previously asked the court to delay Kohberger's trial until at least 2025. Kohberger, a 29-year-old Pennsylvania criminology Ph.D. student, was attending Washington State University in Pullman, across the state line from Moscow, Idaho, where prosecutors allege he entered an off-campus home around 4 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022, and massacred four students with a large knife. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP The victims were Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, who were childhood best friends, as well as their housemate Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, both 20. GO HERE FOR MORE TRUE CRIME FROM FOX NEWS DIGITAL Madison Mogen, top left, smiles on the shoulders of her best friend, Kaylee Goncalves, as they pose with Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, and two other housemates in Goncalves' final Instagram post, shared the day before the four students were stabbed to death. IDAHO MURDERS CASE: JUDGE TO CONSIDER BRYAN KOHBERGER ATTORNEY'S REQUEST FOR SUMMER 2025 TRIAL START DATE A surviving housemate witnessed a masked man walk out the back door after overhearing sounds of a struggle minutes into the attack, but police were not called until around noon the next day. It was more than six weeks before police captured a suspect. They arrested Kohberger at his parents' house in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains after a lengthy investigation that included help from the FBI and police across multiple states. The house at 1122 King Road, where four University of Idaho students were killed on Nov. 13, 2022, sits boarded up in Moscow, Idaho on Dec. 27, 2023. Crews began demolishing the building on Dec. 28. Judge entered not guilty pleas on Kohberger's behalf at his arraignment in May. He could face the death penalty if convicted. The trial was initially expected to last six weeks, but lawyers now expect it to go on for 12 to 15. Original article source: Bryan Kohberger case: Idaho court mulls potential change of venue, could set trial date BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) A 25-year-old Buffalo man was arraigned Wednesday on multiple felony charges for allegedly shooting a man to death in 2022, the Erie County District Attorneys Office announced. Abdulla Abdalla was arraigned on one count of murder in the second degree and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree. Officials said police responded to the scene on the 100 block of Grote Street for a reported shooting at approximately 8:15 a.m. on June 20, 2022. Officials said the victim, identified as 40-year-old Monroe J. Cross, III was taken to ECMC where he later died from his injuries. Abdalla, officials said, is accused of fatally shooting the victim inside a home on Grote Street. If convicted of the highest charge, Abdalla faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison. A return to court date has not been scheduled and Abdalla was held without bail. Latest Local News Emily Miller is a digital producer who has been part of the News 4 team since 2022. See more of her work here. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. One of the nations most active homebuilders expects to launch sales this spring on its latest community in the greater Charlotte region. Buyer to slash rent on south Charlotte apartments Toll Brothers Inc. announced late last week that construction is underway on a sales center and model home for an age-restricted, master-planned community near the Ballantyne area. Called The Pines at Sugar Creek by Toll Brothers Regency, the development will include 378 single-family homes, according to a press release. The site is off Harrisburg Road, just across the state line in Indian Land, South Carolina. Read more on CBJs website here. Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 38, of Acton, west London, appearing at Westminster magistrates' court on Wednesday - Sketch by Elizabeth Cook/PA A sixth person has appeared in court accused of being a member of a spy ring that allegedly plotted to abduct Russian targets in the UK. Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 38, has been charged with conspiring to collect information that could be harmful to the safety and interest of the state on behalf of Russia. Mr Ivanchev, of Acton, west London, appeared at Westminster magistrates court on Wednesday. Dressed in a grey fleece, he spoke only to confirm his name, address and date of birth. The court heard that he, along with five other people previously charged, was part of an organised network of Bulgarians who were carrying out surveillance against locations and individuals on behalf of the Russian state. Mr Ivanchev, a Bulgarian national, was arrested on Feb 7 as part of an investigation being led by the Metropolitan Polices Counter Terrorism Command. Alleged Russian spies Orlin Roussev, Vanya Gaberova, Bizer Dzhambazov and Katrin Ivanova Mr Ivanchev, who will next appear at the Old Bailey on March 15, is accused of being part of an organised network conducting surveillance in order to assist the Russian state in carrying out hostile interference, the court heard. The alleged Bulgarian spy ring is accused of plotting the abduction of targets for Russia, the court heard. It means there are now active criminal cases against six Bulgarians. The other defendants, three men and two women, who all have addresses in the UK, will stand trial in October accused of conspiring to gather information that would be useful to an enemy between August 2020 and February 2023. They are: Orlin Roussev, 46, Bizer Dzhambazov, 42, Katrin Ivanova, 32, Ivan Stoyanov, 32, and Vanya Gaberova, 29. False identity documents Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivanova are also charged with possession of false identity documents. Mr Ivanchev is listed as the owner of a London decorating business. The defendants are accused of conspiring to collect information with another person known as Jan Marsalek and others unknown. Mr Marsalek, an Austrian, was the former chief operating officer of the company Wirecard. A wanted poster for Marsalek at Munich Airport - Alamy Mr Marsalek who has been on the run since the financial services and online payments processing firm collapsed in 2020 amid allegations of fraud is alleged to have been the conduit between the alleged spies and Russias intelligence services. Mr Marsalek is not charged in connection with the case. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. A Bulgarian painter and decorator has appeared in court accused of spying for Russia in the UK. Tihomir Ivanchev, 38, from Acton, West London, did not indicate a plea during a brief hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court. It is alleged he was part of an organised network of UK-based Bulgarians conducting surveillance against people and places for Russia. Five other Bulgarians were charged last year and are awaiting trial. When the other five were arrested, police were unaware of Mr Ivanchev's alleged role, with his link emerging as group messages were translated. He was arrested earlier this month and charged on Tuesday. Mr Ivanchev was previously in a relationship with beautician Vanya Gaberova, one of those charged last year. He was remanded in custody and will next appear at the Old Bailey on 15 March. The group's alleged surveillance is said to have been for the purpose of assisting Russia to conduct hostile action against the targets, including potential abductions. Mr Ivanchev is also alleged to have had a role in surveillance in Austria and Montenegro in 2021 and 2022. The other five, who are due to face trial in October at the Old Bailey, are: Orlin Roussev, 46, of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, of Harrow, north-west London Katrin Ivanova, 31, of the same Harrow address Ivan Stoyanov, 32, from Greenford, west London Vanya Gaberova, 29, from Churchway, north-west London Mr Roussev is alleged to have organised and managed the cell's spying operations from the UK. It is claimed Mr Roussev received tasking from abroad by a person known as Jan Marsalek, whom all the defendants are accused of being in a conspiracy with. Mr Marsalek is not charged in the case. Mr Marsalek is best known as the Austrian former chief operating officer of the company Wirecard, who became a wanted man in Germany after being suspected of having committed fraud. He is reportedly now in Russia. Bulgarian Defense Minister Todor Tagarev announced the delivery of 100 armored personnel carriers (APC) "in a few days," the Bulgarian channel BTV reported on Feb. 28. "The armored personnel carriers are still in Sofia. They will be transferred in a few days, but I will not say the precise dates," Tagarev said. The Bulgarian parliament approved the supply of 100 armored vehicles from the Interior Ministry's stocks to Ukraine last December, together with armaments and spare parts, free of charge. The decision to send the APCs had to override a veto by Bulgarian President Rumen Radev. The delivery of armored vehicles was previously delayed due to high shipping costs. Tagarev said the Bulgarian side waited for NATO partners to help with the expenditures for transport. The Bulgarian defense minister also said Bulgaria has already provided Ukraine with $47 million in aid. Bulgaria and Ukraine agreed on armored personnel carriers' delivery in July 2023 after Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov met with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Bucharest. According to Denkov, the Bulgarian Armed Forces had never used these APCs as its soldiers had not had the required training. Bulgaria has become increasingly supportive of Ukraine as the war has progressed. Denkov's government took a decisively pro-Kyiv stance and committed arms supplies to Ukraine despite opposition from Radev. Read also: Zelensky meets with Bulgarian PM in Kyiv Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. FILE - Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye speaks during a plenary session at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dozens of Burundian troops have been detained for refusing to be deployed to eastern Congo in the fight against the M23 rebel group as it advances toward a major border city, according to army officers, prison officials and other witnesses. Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye, in a public broadcast on Dec. 29, 2023, acknowledged the presence of Burundian troops in eastern Congo under the terms of a defense pact with Congolese authorities. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File) NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) Dozens of Burundian troops have been detained for refusing to be deployed to eastern Congo in the fight against the M23 rebel group as it advances toward a major border city, according to army officers, prison officials and other witnesses. The dissenting soldiers were being held in at least four prisons across the tiny central African country, they told The Associated Press. Clashes between M23, which the U.S. says is backed by Rwanda, and Congolese troops have intensified in recent weeks with the rebels threatening the Congo city of Goma on the Rwanda border. Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye, in a public broadcast on Dec. 29, acknowledged the presence of Burundian troops in eastern Congo under the terms of a defense pact with Congolese authorities. If you do not help your neighbor put out the fire when his house is burning, tomorrow, if it is your turn, he will not come to help you, he said. If Burundi is going to help (Congo), it is defending itself. He said in that address that it was normal for Burundian soldiers to be killed on Congolese territory. Tensions have been rising in Africa's Great Lakes region as Rwanda, Burundi and Congo trade accusations over support for violent rebel groups operating in the lawless areas of eastern Congo. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has accused Rwanda's government of actively supporting M23, which controls territory near the Rwanda border. U.N. experts have cited solid evidence that members of Rwandas armed forces were conducting operations in support of the rebels in eastern Congo. Rwanda denies supporting the M23. At the same time, Burundi is accusing Rwanda of supporting another Congo-based rebel group opposed to Burundi's government. The group, known as RED-Tabara, has claimed responsibility for multiple deadly attacks inside Burundi. The latest attack, in which at least nine people were killed, happened on Sunday. Burundi last month suspended diplomatic relations with Rwanda and closed their border, calling it a response to Rwandas alleged backing of RED-Tabara, which is based in Congo's South Kivu province. Rwanda denies the allegation. Burundian authorities have not revealed how many troops have been deployed to eastern Congo. They also havent commented on the arrests of soldiers who refuse deployment across the border. Brig. Gaspard Baratuza, the Burundian military spokesman, did not respond to requests for comment. According to two army officers and multiple prison guards who spoke to the AP, the arrests of dissenting soldiers started in December, with more than 200 detained. They include at least 103 in the Rumonge prison in the southwest, two prison guards there said. Others were being held in remand centers in Ngozi in the north, Ruyigi in the east, and Bururi in the south, according to prison guards in each of those penal institutions. An army colonel in Bujumbura, the commercial capital, said many soldiers have been imprisoned for having refused to fight alongside the (Congolese army) against the M23." Some also face additional charges of stealing war funds, he said, without elaborating. Some have already been dismissed from the army, but there are also some who have been acquitted. It is no secret that many soldiers are detained for these acts, he said. The colonel, like others who spoke about the detentions, requested anonymity because of safety concerns. A Burundian army captain told the AP he had deserted the military after refusing to be sent to Congo. For a professional soldier to engage in combat, there must at least be the motive for the conflict," he said. "He must also measure his strengths and weaknesses and those of the enemy. But in the current situation we are being asked to go and fight blindly. Washington has urged de-escalation of tensions in eastern Congo, where M23 is one of more than 100 armed groups active in eastern Congo, seeking a share of the regions gold and other resources as they carry out mass killings. Many M23 fighters, including Congolese Tutsis, were once members of Congos army. The groups leaders say they are fighting to protect local Tutsis from extremist Hutu groups such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, whose members were among the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against minority Tutsis in Rwanda. Rwandan authorities cited concerns over this armed group in a statement last week rejecting U.S. calls for Rwanda to withdraw its troops and missile systems from Congolese territory. ___ Associated Press writer Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, contributed to this report. ___ Follow APs Africa coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/africa Two Santa Barbara County beaches are still closed after hundreds of thousands of gallons of sewage spilled into waterways following a recent rainstorm. Beach closure notices for Miramar and Goleta beaches were issued since those areas were impacted by two separate spills. Specifically, beach closure notices for Goleta Beach from 1-mile east to -mile west of the Goleta Slough outfall and Miramar Beach from -mile east to 1/8-mile west of the Oak Creek outfall have been issued to the public, according to a news release. Why some California beaches are always considered dirty The Goleta Beach closure was due to a sewage spill that came from a damaged force main sewer line near the Santa Barbara Airport to the Goleta Slough. The spill is currently under investigation, according to a news release from the Santa Barbara County Health Department. Officials initially believed that about 500,000 gallons of sewage spilled from the damaged sewer line, but that number was later revised to 1.025 million gallons. A separate sewage spill of 2,500 gallons forced the closure of Miramar Beach. That sewage spill came from a sewer manhole to Oak Creek, near Sinaloa Drive in Montecito, a news release said. 3 California beaches ranked among the best in the world Santa Barbara County Environmental Health Services is presently conducting ocean water sampling at both locations (most recently on Feb. 26) to confirm if water quality is meeting state health standards for bacteria following the sewage spills, Lars Seifert, the departments Environmental Health Services director, told KTLA. Currently, there is no estimated timeline for when the beaches will reopen. People are advised to avoid all contact with the water at both locations until tests deem it safe for recreational use. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. SACRAMENTO, California This could be one of the most consequential elections for Californians but you wouldnt know that by looking at ballot returns: Turnout is on track to be the lowest in history. Only 1.7 million of Californias 22 million registered voters had returned their mail-in ballots as of Tuesday. Thats about 8 percent of the total, according to Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., which monitors turnout. A few hundred votes could make a world of difference in Californias swing districts including those held by Republican Reps. David Valadao and John Duarte in the Central Valley which will help decide control of the House of Representatives. Then theres the high-stakes Senate race, where Democratic Rep. Katie Porter is straining to box out Republican Steve Garvey for second place behind Rep. Adam Schiff. Lower turnout generally means fewer Democrats are voting. This is the kind of thing that would benefit Steve Garvey, Mitchell said. Primary turnout is typically all over the map. But theres at least the potential for this year to be among the lowest in history due to an all-but-decided presidential primary and voter apathy. California is lagging behind the 2022 midterm return rate, when the state had more ballots returned by this point in the race. Ultimately, 2022 saw a 33 percent turnout. Theres dozens of factors that could affect the states final turnout number, but Mitchell is cautiously speculating that only 29 percent of Californias registered voters will turn in their ballots, falling below the current record low of 31 percent in 2012. Voters dont view this as being an election that is the most important election of their lifetime, Mitchell said. This is the exact thing Californias Democrat-dominated government has been trying to avoid. The state in recent years has taken steps to increase voter turnout, including sanctioning a motor voter program allowing eligible voters to register at the DMV, and automatically sending all eligible voters mail ballots. A recent pollfrom the Public Policy Institute of California found low numbers of likely voters are excited about the election. Less than 40 percent said they were extremely or very enthusiastic about voting for president this year. That number dropped even further (28 percent) when it came to voting for Congress. Another factor that helps drive up turnout is a competitive battle at the top of the ballot. But with President Joe Biden holding steady as the presumptive nominee for Democrats, and former President Donald Trump making a near clean-sweep through the early Republican primary states, theres so far little cause for action in the top contests. Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICOs California Playbook PM newsletter. California voters will decide March 5 whether to pump billions more dollars into combating the nations worst homelessness crisis, an investment Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom argues will finally provide the housing and treatment so badly needed by tens of thousands of homeless people. Newsom is spearheading Proposition 1, a $6.4 billion bond he says would fund 11,150 new beds and housing units for people living on the streets with untreated mental illness or addiction, and ongoing capacity for 26,700 additional outpatient appointments. It would also alter how $3 billion to $4 billion in existing annual tax funding for mental health services is spent, funneling a hefty portion of it into housing. Many authorities on mental health and homelessness agree California desperately needs thousands more housing units and treatment beds to successfully attack the growing public health crisis. Health and law enforcement groups have lined up behind the initiative, as have the mayors of the states major cities. Homelessness statistics in California have risen a staggering 20% since Newsom took office in 2019, to more than 180,000 people 68% of them on the streets and not in shelters. The numbers are growing despite Newsoms unprecedented investment of more than $20 billion in homelessness programs, plus billions more for health and social services. Yet many of the front-line workers implementing Newsoms initiatives fear that Proposition 1 would simply pour more money into a broken homelessness response system that is largely failing to house those in need. Rather than focus on getting homeless people into mental health and addiction programs and ultimately into housing many caseworkers say they waste precious time and taxpayer dollars searching for their homeless clients after encampments have been cleared by state and local officials, a policy Newsom has encouraged, not only for the safety of homeless people but for those in surrounding neighborhoods. Samuel Buckles has been homeless for years in Sacramento, sleeping in a recreational vehicle he purchased with unemployment benefits and money he earned working odd jobs. His RV was confiscated in February when his homeless camp was cleared by law enforcement officials. Once they locate their clients, advocates must help them often repeatedly obtain food, clothing, and medication refills, and replace official government documents like birth certificates and IDs. You cant get housing without that stuff, said Afton Francik, an outreach worker with the Sacramento-based nonprofit Hope Cooperative, which is implementing several of Newsoms homelessness and mental health initiatives. Perhaps the biggest challenge they face, outreach workers and case managers say, is rebuilding the trust that took time to establish and which they say is essential to getting people into treatment and housing. It makes it so much harder to even find people or help them get into housing because you have to go back and repeat that work you already did, Francik said. Newsom says California has placed at least 71,000 people indoors either in permanent or temporary housing since he took office in 2019. State money flows to cities and counties, which have opened at least 15,000 housing units and 2,485 residential treatment beds, plus additional outpatient capacity, during his tenure. Newsom has also revamped health programs to get people off the streets, including a massive $12 billion transformation of the state Medicaid health insurance program that provides some patients with housing and one-on-one case management services. Outreach workers Greg Stupplebeen (from left), John Harding, and Afton Francik, who work for the nonprofit homeless services organization Hope Cooperative, comb the streets of Sacramento searching for homeless people who need housing and services. As he promotes Proposition 1, Newsom is calling for stricter enforcement, saying he feels a deep responsibility to keep Californias streets clean and safe, and to respond to growing neighborhood concerns about trash, mental illness, crime, and drugs. He has acknowledged that sweeps can traumatize homeless people but argues that local officials who receive state money to clear encampments are supposed to find shelter or treatment for those displaced. Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper, who supports Proposition 1, said sweeps are sometimes necessary for public health and safety. This is a huge drain on public resources and emergency services, Cooper said. Drugs are everywhere. There is so much mental illness. Weve got to get these folks the help and treatment they need. But critics of the sweeps argue that its inhumane to forcibly move people without providing shelter or housing. Were seeing a ton of enforcement, but theres literally nowhere to put people, said Crystal Sanchez, president of the Sacramento Homeless Union. Newsom acknowledged the state doesnt have enough housing for everyone who needs it, and that Proposition 1 is part of the solution. The measure would expand his existing housing and treatment programs, which do not trigger the land use and environmental reviews that often delay or kill new projects. We are in a unique position to take what we have been promoting these promises and make them real, Newsom said in January. Like all of Newsoms homeless housing initiatives, Proposition 1 would rely on outreach teams and caseworkers to help homeless people obtain services and housing. But in boots-on-the-ground interviews from rural Northern California to San Diego, such workers said it would be difficult to get more people into housing if they must continue picking up the pieces after encampment clearings a policy the U.S. Supreme Court will scrutinize in April. The question the court will consider is whether to allow criminal or civil penalties against homeless people living outdoors if no shelter or housing is available. Newsom said in an amicus brief that cities and counties should be allowed to clear encampments, signaling he has no plans to retreat from the policy. When encampments are being cleared by law enforcement, it totally upends peoples lives and violates that trust in a way that theyre going to be more resistant to help, said Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, whose California chapter supports the ballot initiative. If someone has a mental illness and is unhoused, trust is the most important thing in trying to engage them in treatment and actually getting them into housing. Take Samuel Buckles, a longtime Sacramento resident who said he struggles with mental health and is addicted to fentanyl. Buckles, 53, lost his home in a fire and then his job early in the covid-19 pandemic. Since then, he has worked odd jobs as a handyman and purchased a recreational vehicle that he parked around Sacramento and called home. When law enforcement officials cleared his camp in early February, they confiscated his RV because he had allowed the registration to lapse. He lost his birth certificate and Social Security card, all his medications for diabetes and high blood pressure, his extra clothing, and a fridge packed with groceries hed recently purchased with his food stamp benefits. That was my home and everything I had in the world, Buckles said on a cold February morning from his new form of shelter: a tent donated by outreach workers. It was the first time in years he said he had truly felt homeless. In mid-February, law enforcement cleared the encampment he had relocated to, forcing him to move again. Feeling despondent, he said he had given up on the promise of housing. Please make this pain stop. I dont know how much more I can take, he said. Buckles was able to grab a few possessions from his RV after it was confiscated, but replacing the documents he needs for housing may take months and repeat visits by outreach workers, said Greg Stupplebeen, an outreach manager with Hope Cooperative. Even if Buckles had his paperwork in order, theres nowhere to put anybody right now, Stupplebeen told him. This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFFan independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF. This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: California primary: Prop 1 asks for billions to help homeless Edith Edie Ceccarelli, who recently celebrated her 116th birthday and was known as the oldest living American, has died. Ceccarelli died on Feb. 22 17 days after her 116th birthday, according to Suzanne Picetti-Johnson, who helped organize Ceccarellis birthday parade in early February. Picetti-Johnson told Nexstars KTXL that Edie died peacefully in her sleep sometime in the afternoon. She was an inspiration to all of us on how to live a long healthy life, Suzanne Picetti-Johnson told KTXL in a phone interview on Tuesday. Folsom veteran who spent time in an internment camp celebrates 100th birthday Picetti-Johnson works as the program director for Avenues to Wellness, a healthcare program through the Frank R. Howard Foundation, and has helped organize Cecarellis birthday celebrations for the past four years. Birthday celebrations for Ceccarelli became an annual tradition in recent years in Willits, where she was born and raised. The town has a population of 4,988 people and is in Mendocino County, located about 160 miles northwest of Sacramento. The drive-by parade tradition continued on Feb. 4 of this year, a day before her actual birthday, when people drove by her home to honk their horns and wave at Ceccarelli. She loved people, she loved her community, she loved her family and stayed connected her whole life, Picetti-Johnson said. She showed us how to live. With Ceccarellis passing, the oldest living American is now 114-year-old Elizabeth Francis in Texas, according to the Gerontology Research Group. Maria Branyas Morera, who was born in San Francisco and resides in Spain, currently is the oldest living person in the world at 116, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Branyas is several months older than Ceccarelli. A look into Edies life Born on Feb. 5, 1908, with Recagno as her maiden name, Ceccarelli lived in California her entire life and was the eldest of seven siblings. Throughout her life, Ceccarelli lived in different places in Northern California, such as Eureka, Santa Rosa, and Ukiah. She lived in Santa Rosa with her first husband Brick Keenan and worked for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. They were married for 50 years until Keenan died in 1984 after they moved to Willits. After her first husband died, she married a second time to a man named Charles Ceccarelli and they lived together in Ukiah. They were married for five years until he passed away. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40. A police recruiting ad referencing the violent Call of Duty video game franchise has led to an apology from an Illinois police chief. In the since-deleted ad shared on social media by the Peoria Police Department, officers are shown wearing tactical gear and drawing guns. Stop playing games and answer the Call of Duty, the ad was captioned along with a JoinPPD hashtag. The ad sparked a wave of backlash, with many people commenting on the post before it was deleted, WMBD and WEEK reported. The post was also shared on Reddit, where members of the Peoria subreddit commented on how the ad was distasteful. Someone thought this would generate youth interest and didnt realize this was just tone deaf, one user said. At least they had the sense to take it down, its disgusting to compare policing to Call of Duty, another person commented. Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria issued an apology in a statement to WMBD and WEEK. I want to apologize, sincerely apologize, if somebody was offended or if we offended anybody, Echevarria said. Thats on me, and I ask the community to show me some grace. Peoria is about 175 miles southwest of Chicago. Ohio cops unveil cruiser to celebrate Black History Month but use fake MLK quote Councils in England are in a state of financial crisis with many facing effective bankruptcy in the next few years unless the funding system is reformed, according to a new report. More than half the councils that responded to a survey said they were likely to be unable to balance their books in the next five years. Two-thirds said they were cutting services. Parks, leisure facilities, arts and culture are at the top of the list. There have been repeated warnings about the state of council finances, with the government announcing an extra 600m of funding earlier this year to help plug budget gaps. Despite that, many councils are currently setting budgets that will see service cuts from April, at the same time as increasing council tax and charges. The Local Government Information Unit surveyed senior council leaders and officers, with responses from 128 authorities in England. It found nine in 10 plan to raise council tax and increase fees and charges for things such as parking and environmental waste. Nearly one-third of the councils that responded plan on cutting spending parks and leisure, with another third cutting arts and culture and one in 10 cutting services for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the LGIU, said: "This year's State of Local Government Finance report reveals the desperate, ruinous financial situation councils find themselves in. Cutting services, borrowing more money and spending reserves year after year is completely unsustainable. Citizens are being failed. "With over half of councils warning us they are at risk of bankruptcy within the next Parliament, it is no longer possible to blame individual governance issues. "There clearly is a systemic issue and rather than bungling local government panicked injections of cash, whoever wins the next election will need to reform the entire system, bringing back multi-year settlements based on an area's need and developing new ways of revenue-raising." At Medway Council in Kent, they're planning to increase parking charges, cancel some events and cut free swimming for under 16s and over 60s as they try to make ends meet. Even then the council won't be able to balance its books unless the government agrees exceptional financial support, meaning the council's allowed to borrow 30m over the next two years. Like many councils, they've seen particular pressure on adult social care, children's services including transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and housing support. The Labour leader, Vince Maple, who took over the running of the council from the Conservatives following elections last May, said: "We knew this was going to be a challenging first budget, even before the election we knew Medway's finances were not in a great place. "The government has got the future of Medway in its hands, I hope they make the right choice, but it makes me nervous, it makes me want to push as hard as we can to say to central government, we need help like we've never needed help before." Medway councillors meet to discuss budget pressures At Capstone Country Park, near Chatham, families were contemplating the idea of paying for car parking - one of the options Medway Council is considering as it tries to get its finances straight. Jayne Howard said: "They've wasted money all over the place, on frivolous things or things that don't need doing, or middle management people that don't need to be there and so there's not enough left in the pot for the things that do need doing. And the answer is always to put it on the people on the bottom of the chain, charge us more for everything." Her friend, Rebecca Randall, was sympathetic to the council's plight but was still concerned that families would end up paying the price for pressure on public finances. "With the tiniest budget that they already have, I think it's quite extreme to ask them to do everything," she said. "But I don't think it should be brought back down to the people." The Local Government Information Unit said the current situation would leave residents paying more for less, and called for reform of the way councils are funded in order to "save" the services they provide. A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: "We recognise councils are facing challenges and that is why we announced an additional 600m support package for councils across England, increasing their overall funding for the upcoming financial year to 64.7 billion - a 7.5% increase in cash terms. "This includes 500m of new funding for councils with responsibility for adult and children's social care, distributed through the social care grant. Councils are responsible for their own finances and setting council tax levels, but we have been clear they should be mindful of cost-of living pressures while controlling any unnecessary or wasteful expenditures." Cate Blanchett's house is the one under construction with orange scaffolding in Mawgan Porth, near Newquay - Jacopo Raule Cate Blanchett has been accused of destroying holidays and costing a neighbour 60,000 during the building of her home in Cornwall. The Lord of the Rings star, 54, and her playwright husband Andrew Upton, 57, bought the 1.6 million cottage four years ago and are replacing the original structure with a five-bedroom home. But neighbours have taken umbrage with the couples alleged total disregard for the noisy construction works. Planning permission to build the home was granted by Cornwall council in September 2022, but an additional application from Situ8, acting on behalf of the owners, was submitted in November last year. Mawgan Porth, on Cornwalls wild northern coastline, four miles from Newquay, has been described by some as Hollywood-on-Sea for its unspoilt beach and multi-million pound homes hosting the actors Jason Statham and Stanley Tucci. Australian actress Cate Blanchett is accused of 'total disregard' for her neighbours peace and quiet - Luca Bruno/AP The row has flared over the Hollywood stars new planning application for ground works to allow car parking on an existing green meadow near the house, which they purchased in 2021. Karen Burgess, a local holiday let owner, claimed that the project had cost her 60,000 in lost revenue and demanded that officials severely restrict the days that any further works can take place. I am deeply concerned that there has already been a total disregard for the noise that has destroyed the family holidays of all my guests throughout 2023, she said. The losses are more than 60,000 last year and still we are having to advertise as a property affected by building noise. We thought [Blanchetts property] work was finally over and now there is a new application for ground works. This work should not be permitted during the holiday season. She said that locals in the bay had never witnessed such a blatant disregard for the tourists who visit the area for holidays and bring the many holiday lets and hotels vital business. A computer-generated image of Blanchett's finished property in north Cornwall - CornwallLive/BPM Close-up of the building site which neighbours claim is creating noise - Daniel Dayment/SWNS Helen John, another neighbour, told councillors: This current application is a blatant attempt to erode an environmentally important piece of land by stealth and incorporate it. It is one thing to allow temporary access and quite another to allow this to become a permanent scar on the landscape. This application should be rejected, the importance of green spaces emphasised and the land restored to its original condition once building is complete. Noise from another property But the architects behind the new house, Watershedd, have responded by claiming that residents are wrongly pinning blame on Blanchett when in fact the noise is coming from another property. She cannot be referring to our clients property where there were no noisy works during the peak holiday period last year, the architects said. Once again, our clients property has been mistaken for other works going on in Mawgan Porth. Situ8 has described the loss of green space as minimal and said its client intended to maintain around 86 per cent of the rest of the meadow. The row comes after Blanchett was separately given the go-ahead recently to build 90 solar panels to power her 5 million mansion in East Sussex, the 13-acre Highwell House that she bought in 2015. The latest application will be ruled on by Cornwall council at a later date. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) Catholic bishops from around the country are rallying and joining the chorus of support for El Pasos Annunciation House, a long-standing migrant support and hospitality organization that is being sued by the State of Texas. Texas AG sues Annunciation House, seeks to revoke its ability to operate in state The Annunciation House has long been a symbol of welcome and hospitality for those seeking refuge, and the affirmation from my brother bishops strengthens our resolve to continue this vital mission of answering the Lords call to welcome the stranger, feed the hungry and to shelter the homeless. Our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to meet Him face to face in the most vulnerable whom we encounter, El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz said. Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced his office is suing Annunciation House, alleging it promotes illegal entry into the United States and acts as a de facto stash house. Paxton is seeking to revoke Annunciation Houses ability to conduct business in Texas and shut it down. El Paso community, leaders stand with Annunciation House as it fights Paxton lawsuit Since then, Borderland leaders have rallied to Annunciations House side. Here are what other Catholic leaders are saying: Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops The Texas bishops join Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso in expressing solidarity with ministry volunteers and people of faith who seek only to serve vulnerable migrants as our nation and state continue to pursue failed migration and border security policies. We recognize migrant ministry as an example of our Catholic commitment to the poor, the Christian call to love ones neighbor, and stepping into the breach to take action where many will not. Our border ministries are intended to be a stabilizing presence that protects both citizens and migrants. The Catholic Church in Texas remains committed to praying and working for a secure border, to protect the vulnerable and for just immigration solutions to protect all human life. The California Catholic Conference of Bishops Executive Committee The California Catholic Conferences Executive Committee stands in solidarity with Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, as he defends the Churchs right to practice its faith and implement the corporal works of mercy. It is shameful that the Texas Attorney General would file suit against Annunciation House in El Paso. For a country that was founded by immigrants from Europe seeking religious freedom and tolerance, we find the actions of the Texas AG abhorrent in attempting to curtail the work of people of faith. The Annunciation House has accompanied migrants for nearly 50 years, partnering with local and federal law enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol. For the AG to claim the nonprofit is responsible for worsening illegal immigration shows a lack of fundamental understanding of the gravity of immigration as a humanitarian concern and unjustly attacks a long-standing partner in relief efforts. As bishops of a border state, we appreciate the humbling and complex immigration challenges our country faces. At the same time, we are committed to the same solutions that the Texas bishops have declared: to remain committed to praying and working for a secure border, to protect the vulnerable, and for just immigration solutions to protect all human life. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me (Mt. 25: 35). Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee for Religious Liberty It is hard to imagine what our country would look like without the good works that people of faith carry out in the public square. For this, we can thank our strong tradition of religious liberty, which allows us to live out our faith in full. As the tragic situation along our border with Mexico increasingly poses challenges for American communities and vulnerable persons alike, we must especially preserve the freedom of Catholics and other people of faith to assist their communities and meet migrants basic human needs. I join my brother bishops in the State of Texas in expressing solidarity with those seeking simply to fulfill the fundamental biblical call: whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. JOPLIN, Mo. Here are the specific caucus locations for each county in southwest Missouri. Jasper County Republicans will go to the Joplin Family Worship Center on E. 7th St. While Newton Countys caucus will be held at The Civic (109 W Main St, Neosho, MO). And McDonald County High Schools PAC will be the venue in McDonald County (100 Mustang Dr, Anderson, MO). For more Caucus locations in Southwest Missouri, see the graphic below. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNF/KODE | FourStatesHomepage.com. Cockfighting would become a felony crime in Kentucky under a bill pending in the state Senate. It is a felony in the state to cause dogs to fight, but Kentucky remains one of just seven states where it is only a misdemeanor at the state level to cause gamecocks to fight. Animal-welfare advocates have argued that is one reason cockfighting, a brutal activity in which roosters slash each other with sharp metal implements attached to their legs, has persisted in Kentucky. Senate Bill 243 would bring all animals under the definition of first-degree cruelty to animals that now applies to dogs. The crime is a Class D felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Republican state Sen. Greg Elkins introduced the bill. Elkins, of Winchester, represents Clark, Montgomery, Bath and Menifee counties and part of Fayette County. This bill is an important part of safeguarding our reputation as a commonwealth, Elkins said in a news release. For too long, animal fights have served as cauldrons of crime in Kentucky. Kentucky is one of just seven states where cockfighting is only a misdemeanor under state law, according to the Humane Society of the United States. It is a felony under state law in most states. Humane Society of the United States The Kentucky Association of Chiefs of Police and the Kentucky Sheriffs Association support the bill, according to the news release. Shawn Butler, executive director of the chiefs association, said the organization backs the proposal not just because animal fighting is cruel and wrong, but because cockfighting typically breeds other crime as well. Those include drug trafficking, gambling and assaults. Its basically organized crime, Butler said. It becomes a problem for communities. Cockfighting is a felony under federal law and there have been several federal prosecutions in Kentucky in recent years. But making it a felony under state law as well would give police another tool to go after the illegal activity, Butler said. According to a summary, Elkins bill would make it a felony to knowingly cause an animal to engage in fighting; to keep, train, sell or otherwise transfer an animal for the purpose of fighting; and to participate in the organization, operation, or promotion of an animal fight. A gaff is a sharp metal device that cockfighters attach to roosters legs to slash and stab opponents during bloody fights. Showing Animals Respect and Kindness The bill also would make it a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail, to be a spectator or vendor at an animal fight or to cause or allow a minor to attend a fight. This legislation will stop our children from being exposed to animal abuse and other violent crimes at an early age, Elkins said. The bill specifies that legal hunting and falconry are not violations of the law. Cockfighting has been common in parts of Kentucky for decades, and animal-welfare groups have said the state has been a hot spot for fights and for production of gamecocks to ship overseas. The news release on SB 243 noted that the Animal Legal Defense Fund ranked Kentucky as having among the weakest animal protection laws in the U.S. The states ranking in 2023 was 46th, ahead of only North Dakota, Alabama where the top penalty for state cockfighting conviction is a $50 fine Idaho and South Carolina, the organization said. ORLANDO, Fla. CBD, a medication used by millions of Americans to battle a variety of illnesses and anxiety, could be banned entirely in Florida because of a bill that seeks to outlaw synthetic chemicals in hemp that can induce euphoria. Paige Figi, considered the mother of CBD in the U.S. because of her crusade to legalize what became known as Charlottes Web, is attempting to sound the alarm about the bill. She is being joined by parents of children who desperately need the product and independent hemp growers worried their businesses would be devastated. I just dont think the lawmakers are taking account of the millions of Floridians that are going to be medically affected by the removal of their health products, Figi said in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel. Figi was one of the key proponents of legalizing CBD both nationally and in Florida, where then-Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill in 2014 giving certain patients access to cannabidiol oils with low levels of THC, the substance that causes euphoria in users. The CBD company she founded, Charlottes Web, was named after her daughter, who had catastrophic epilepsy. CBD helped lessen the severity of her seizures before her death. Now, as executive director of the pro-CBD group Coalition for Access Now, she has ramped up her efforts to oppose Florida bills HB 1613 and SB 1698. They would redefine legal hemp to a level that would exclude naturally occurring cannabinoids such as CBD, reduce legal THC limits to below the level allowed in federal law, and increase the already rigorous testing on hemp products, according to the group Hemp for Florida. This would mean that we would have to shut down our mobile stores, said Randy Rembert, the manager of hemp producer Rembert Family Farms in Alachua County. Almost 70% of our bottom line comes from those various products that are being banned. It also puts our farm in jeopardy, because so many farmers, so many businesses rely on our actual raw material to make their products as well. Tracy Thaxton, the mother of an 18-year-old daughter with severe epilepsy and autism, said CBD has almost completely prevented the repeated seizures her daughter once faced daily. Just the thought of this going through, its very scary to us, said Thaxton, who lives outside Panama City. Will we have to move? Whats going to happen to her? Its not like I can just give her something else, you know? The bills are attempting to crack down on synthetic chemicals that simulate the highs created by THC, but are so sweeping that CBD itself is caught in the crossfire, Figi said. The synthetics, Figi said, are manmade, chemically laden, and they found a federal loophole through CBD and hemp to sell (them), she said. That should absolutely be dealt with. The problem is that this bill is moving so hastily, so quickly, that the more than 2 million people in your state that are using CBD daily as a health product are being lumped in and carried away with the bathwater. The Senate version of the bill, sponsored by state Sen. Colleen Burton, R-Lakeland, passed the full chamber unanimously on Feb. 15. Just five days later, however, the House version, sponsored by state Rep. Tommy Gregory, R-Lakewood Ranch, was moved onto the House floor by a 17-12 vote from the Appropriations Committee. Though the committee vote was largely along party lines, state Rep. Jim Mooney, R-Islamorada, said he opposed the bill because of concerns that the THC caps would affect him and his elderly mother, who both use CBD products for pain, according to the Floridian Press. Gregory has defended his bill, saying in the committee hearing that the Legislature has made mistakes by regulating marijuana, a separate product from hemp, instead of THC itself. On Monday, there was no indication of when the bill would be up for a full House vote.Gregory and Burton did not return requests for comment. Julia Freidland, a spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the governor would review the bill if it reached his desk. The increased opposition in the House to the bill gave Figi some optimism that her message is being heard. I think things have changed as people got wind of it, she said. So things have slowed down. I just want them to slow down enough to carve out this (provision). While the recent opposition in the House has largely come from Democrats, Figi said she has worked successfully with Republicans before. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin amended a similar bill that reached his desk to remove the more sweeping language on CBDs. That rewritten bill was ultimately passed, she said. Many Virginia lawmakers she spoke with said they had been ill-informed, betrayed and manipulated by some of the larger medical marijuana dispensary companies pushing the bill, and she said the same thing is happening in Florida. The only people who want CBD removed from the state of Florida, which is what these bills are going to do, are the people who (own) dispensaries, she said. They want it out of the state. Its a financial competition. Rembert said that while some lawmakers may not have realized the full sweep of the bill, a handful of legislators were well aware of the damage that his bill could do. Thaxton pleaded with legislators to amend the bill for the sake of her daughter and others who use CBD for treatment. Please do not restrict our access to this product, Thaxton said. Its natural. It doesnt have any negative side effects. And its been a miracle for us. Its life or death for our daughter. _____ U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized large amounts of fentanyl, cocaine and marijuana over five days at the Paso Del Norte International Bridge near Downtown El Paso. The drug busts were made between Feb. 10 and Feb. 15 during five separate smuggling attempts, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said. In total, officers seized more than 1,000 grams of fentanyl, 123 pounds of cannabis and 31 pounds of cocaine. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized 123.55 pounds of marijuana hidden in bundles in a truck's bed Feb. 13, 2024, at the Paso Del Norte International Bridge near Downtown El Paso. CBP officers remain ever vigilant in their enforcement efforts to prevent illicit drugs from entering our country, CBP El Paso Port Director Ray Provencio said in a statement. CBP Officers utilize their skill, and various tools and other resources to aid in the successful interception of these dangerous drugs while also facilitating the flow of lawful trade and travel. Pedestrians attempt to smuggle fentanyl The first drug bust happened Feb. 10 when a girl, who is a U.S. citizen, attempted to cross the bridge through the pedestrian lanes. The girl's age was not released, but officials said she was a minor. A pat-down search of the girl revealed she was hiding fentanyl-filled bundles. Officers seized 617.6 grams of fentanyl from the girl, officials said. More: CBP seized hundreds of pounds of meth, fentanyl, cocaine at El Paso area ports of entry Later that same day, a 31-year-old man, who is a U.S. citizen, also attempted to walk across the bridge but was selected for secondary inspection. During a pat-down search, officers found 221 grams of fentanyl in two bundles hidden in the man's groin area, officials said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized 617.6 grams of fentanyl from a girl Feb. 10, 2024, at the Paso Del Norte International Bridge near Downtown El Paso. On Feb. 15, a 40-year-old woman, who is a U.S. citizen, was selected for secondary inspection as she attempted to cross into the U.S. through the pedestrian lanes. A drug-sniffing dog alerted officers to drugs, and a pat-down search revealed the woman was carrying 198.7 grams of fentanyl in bundles hidden in a body cavity, officials said. Marijuana, cocaine hidden in vehicles A 21-year-old man, who is a U.S. citizen, crossed the Paso Del Norte bridge Feb. 13 in a pickup truck, officials said. A drug-sniffing dog alerted officers to drugs and an x-ray was performed on the truck, officials said. Officers found 123.55 pounds of marijuana hidden in bundles in the truck's bed. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized 31.57 pounds of cocaine hidden in a vehicle Feb. 15, 2024, at the Paso Del Norte International Bridge near Downtown El Paso. On Feb. 15, a 33-year-old man, who is a Mexican citizen, attempted to drive across the bridge when he was selected for secondary inspection. A drug-sniffing dog and a search of the vehicle resulted in officers finding 31.57 pounds of cocaine hidden in the man's vehicle, officials said. The names of the alleged drug smugglers were not released. They were detained and turned over to Homeland Security Investigations and Texas Department of Public Safety agents, officials said. Aaron Martinez may be reached at amartinez1@elpasotimes.com or on Twitter @AMartinezEPT. This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: CBP seizes fentanyl, cocaine, cannabis over 5 days at El Paso bridge Sweden's NATO entry raises security concerns Xinhua) 08:56, February 28, 2024 Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) shakes hands with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson during a joint press conference after a bilateral meeting in Budapest, Hungary on Feb. 23, 2024. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua) Sweden's NATO membership means the abandonment of its historical policy of non-alignment and neutrality. Analysts argue that NATO's continued enlargement will reshape European security dynamics and potentially strain Russia's geopolitical position. BRUSSELS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Hungarian parliament's green light on Sweden's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) cleared the final stronghold in the military bloc's comprehensive expansion in the northern direction. However, concerns have been raised that Sweden's accession could lead to regional instability. Sweden actively pursued membership to ensure a collective defense strategy, following in the footsteps of Finland, which joined NATO in April last year. Nevertheless, analysts have warned that Sweden, once a non-aligned Nordic country, may now face increased risks of being drawn into conflicts. PROTRACTED ACCESSION PROCESS Following the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis in February 2022, both Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding military non-alignment policy and applied for NATO membership. All member nations were required to approve the applications. The national flag of Finland flies after a ceremony for Finland's accession to NATO at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, April 4, 2023. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong) Finland completed the accession process in April 2023. However, after Turkiye approved Sweden's membership in January, Hungary continued to oppose it until Monday. Highlighting longstanding tensions with Sweden, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs had emphasized the need for collaboration to bridge differences. Meanwhile, the United States and NATO allies have been putting pressure on Hungary to expedite Sweden's accession. Last week, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited Budapest, culminating in a bilateral agreement involving the purchase of Swedish fighter jets by Hungary. BLOC CONFRONTATION CONCERNS Sweden's NATO membership means the abandonment of its historical policy of non-alignment and neutrality. Analysts argue that NATO's continued enlargement will reshape European security dynamics, and potentially strain Russia's geopolitical position. Nicholas Lokker and Heli Hautala from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) expressed concerns that Moscow may perceive NATO's expansion as a threat, leading to short and long-term challenges. This photo taken on Oct. 11, 2023 shows the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. (Xinhua/Zhao Dingzhe) Russian Defense Ministry publications warn of the security implications of NATO troops and equipment on Finnish and Swedish territory. Last year, Sweden and the United States strengthened their defense cooperation, granting access to military bases. Coupled with recent U.S. agreements with Finland, these moves deprived the two countries of the status of buffer zones between the NATO alliance and Russia. Jan Oberg, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, said that Sweden's decision to join NATO may compromise the security of local citizens. Finland and Sweden, "instead of keeping out of war, being a potential mediator and supporting disarmament and de-nuclearization, will be frontline states drawn into a crisis/tension situation much more easily and early than otherwise," Oberg said in a recent interview with Xinhua. REGIONAL INSECURITY NATO's continued expansion, particularly with the inclusion of Sweden and Finland, intensifies tensions with Russia in the Nordic region, analysts stressed. People take part in a protest against Sweden hosting a large international military exercise and the country striving to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Stockholm, Sweden, on April 22, 2023. (Photo by Patrick Ekstrand/Xinhua) Lokker and Hautala highlighted that Russia's border with NATO will extend from the Arctic Ocean to the Baltic Sea, which "will permanently alter the European security architecture and erode Russia's geopolitical position." In May 2022, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Sweden's NATO membership could damage the security of Northern Europe. NATO military exercises across the European continent one after another near Russian territory in recent years have significantly disturbed Moscow. Earlier this year before Sweden's entry, NATO kicked off a massive four-month-long military exercise, Steadfast Defender 2024. The alliance's largest military exercise in decades, including about 90,000 troops from 31 member states and Sweden, quickly drew criticism from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, who called it a return to Cold War-era tactics. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) FILE PHOTO: A woman tries on a wedding dress at a booth at the China International Wedding Expo in Beijing HONG KONG (Reuters) - Authorities in China's city of Xian will spend 700,000 yuan ($97,000) on lottery tickets to give as prizes to newlyweds who present a marriage certificate, in an effort to encourage weddings at a time of fewer births. China's population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023, with new births dropping to about half those in 2016, while marriages hit a record low in 2022.With marriage rates closely tied to birth rates as unmarried mothers are often denied child-raising benefits, Xian promised a lottery ticket to any couple presenting a marriage certificate from March 1, as "a double surprise". "This is not only the beginning of a happy life after receiving the marriage certificate but also more likely to get a small gift," the city's civil affairs bureau said this week on its official Wechat account. The campaign will run until November 30, it added. China is one of the world's most expensive places to bring up a child, relative to its GDP per capita, a prominent Chinese think tank said in February as it detailed the time and opportunity cost for women who give birth. Fewer women are opting to have children, put off by the high cost of childcare or an unwillingness to marry or put their careers on hold, while gender discrimination persists. ($1=7.1987 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Farah Master and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday said the Chinese navy's presence in the South China Sea is "worrisome" but will not deter his country from defending its maritime territory and protecting its fishermen. The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spotted the presence of Chinese navy vessels during a patrol mission by a vessel of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) at the hotly contested Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea last week. The BFAR vessel, which the PCG said was shadowed and blocked by Chinese coast guard ships, also distributed fuel to Filipino fishermen in the area. "We continue to support all our fishermen, our fisherfolk who make a living from these fishing grounds and we will continue to help them despite...blocking attempts, shadowing," Marcos told reporters before leaving for a state visit to Australia. (Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales and Karen Lema; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor) Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) went after House Democrats who denounced the Hunter Biden deposition Wednesday, accusing those who discussed the contents of Bidens testimony as breaking House rules. Multiple House Democrats blasted the investigation into Hunter Biden and the impeachment probe of his father, President Biden, as a waste of time and political move. Some included details Wednesday of what the younger Biden discussed while in a closed-doors deposition with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. My colleagues, by the way, are breaking House rules, Roy said in a Fox News interview Wednesday. Not just some rules we set up for this deposition, [but] United States House of Representatives rules by getting into the specifics and talking about specific questions during the deposition. Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) were among the Democrats who derided the apparent focus on the use of a speakerphone during Hunter Bidens business meetings. They complained of multiple questions focusing on the technology. They seem to be obsessively focused on speakerphones and use of speakerphone, Raskin told reporters during a break in the deposition. I did not know that that was the devils technology, but apparently it is. Roy painted the Democrats complaints as purely distractions and said the deposition Wednesday did not answer the key questions at the heart of the GOPs allegations of corruption. Theres no good answers to why Joe Biden was present when [Hunter Biden] was having these business dealings with folks, he said. We didnt learn anything today that does not underscore the serious concerns we can all see at the evidence sitting right in front of us. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Jenny Hurley, 52, holding the Palestinian flag, described the behaviour of Chorley councillor Craige Southern (right) as "appalling" Police are investigating an allegation of assault after a protester claimed to be pushed by a councillor at a meeting. Conservative councillor Craige Southern, who represents Euxton South, Mawdesley & Croston, was filmed approaching Jenny Hurley, 52, at the Chorley Council meeting. Mr Southern told the BBC he "did not attack anyone". Lancashire Police said it had received a complaint of assault but no arrests had been made. The row took place at Chorley Town Hall on Tuesday night. Mr Southern can be heard shouting "This is Chorley, not bloody Gaza", before appearing to make contact with Ms Hurley. Ms Hurley, a member of campaign group Chorley for Palestine, had attended to make a statement calling on the ruling Labour group to introduce a motion backing a ceasefire in Gaza. She told the BBC she had begun reading a statement calling for the motion to be passed. As the issue was unrelated to the item on the agenda, Chorley Council chief officer Chris Sinnott suspended the meeting due to breach of protocol. 'It was appalling' However as she continued speaking, while holding a Palestinian flag, and other members chanted "Free Palestine", she said Mr Southern moved towards her shouting "Get out". Ms Hurley said she was "pushed" and had her "jacket grabbed". She claimed she "would have fallen over" if she had not bumped into an usher stood in the doorway. She said: "It was appalling. There was absolutely no need for it. It was just a peaceful protest, the meeting would have just been suspended and held up for a short while." Mr Southern said he "felt threatened" by the protests and "I feared for the safety of others". He said: "I was, in fact, protecting myself and others from these threatening and anti-democratic bullies who did all they could to try and disrupt the meeting to get their way over an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with Chorley Council." Mr Southern added: "I will happily co-operate with any further investigation." Labour councillor Alistair Bradley, leader of Chorley Council, said: "We absolutely support and promote the free speech of all in our community along with peaceful demonstrations and protest." He added the Chorley for Palestine group had been "welcomed" in the past "provided that they adhere to the rules regarding public attendance". A spokesman for Lancashire Police said it had received a complaint of assault and was investigating, but no arrests had been made at this stage. Why not follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk Police have launched an investigation after a scuffle broke out when pro-Palestine protesters disrupted a meeting of Sir Lindsay Hoyles local council. The incident took place on Tuesday evening at Chorley council. Sir Lindsay, the Commons Speaker who last week was criticised for his handling of a Gaza debate, is the Chorley MP. A local group of pro-Palestine campaigners, frustrated that the council would not formally debate a motion for a ceasefire, disrupted the meeting by calling for such a move and chanting. At one point, a Conservative councillor physically manhandled the woman leading the protests towards the door, leading to a heated confrontation between both sides. Lancashire police told The Telegraph that no arrests were made but they had launched an investigation into what happened. A spokesman said: We have received a complaint of an assault at an event in Chorley yesterday evening [February 27] and an investigation is under way. No arrests have been made at this stage and enquiries are ongoing. The incident comes with Sir Lindsay under continued scrutiny for a decision he made regarding which statements about a ceasefire would be voted on in a Commons debate last week. Sir Lindsay Hoyle angered some with his handling of a vote calling for a Gaza ceasefire - Nordin Catic/Getty Images The Commons Speaker broke with convention by allowing Labour to hold a vote on their position during a debate brought by the SNP for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. It led to claims that Sir Lindsay, who had been a Labour MP for 20 years before giving up party allegiance to take up the Speaker position, had been lent on by the Labour leadership. Both the Labour leadership and Sir Lindsays allies have denied he was unfairly pressured. The events in Chorley Council took place as councillors had gathered to sign off the council budget. Jenny Hurley, a pro-Palestine campaigner with the Chorley for Palestine group, attended the meeting to urge the council to pass a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire. Dozen protesters in hall A three-minute video of what happened, posted by Ms Hurley on Facebook, shows her disrupting proceedings by standing up and proclaiming her argument during the meeting. There were around a dozen fellow protesters in the meeting and a further 20 or so in a nearby spill-over room, according to one councillor present. Members of the public are allowed to attend council meetings and ask questions but they are not allowed to disrupt proceedings. The video shows protesters in the council room chanting free, free Palestine and Ms Hurley, holding a Palestine flag, speaking out making her case. Ms Hurley says: Why has no motion been put to this chamber? We were told that they would be happy, the Labour group would be happy to put a motion to this chamber? Why has that not happened? Following this, Craige Southern, a Conservative councillor who was standing nearby, says: Because its Chorley, not bloody Gaza. Get out, go on. He approaches Ms Hurley and video footage appears to show him pushing her backwards towards the door. A scuffle then breaks out. One man, apparently a fellow protester, challenges Mr Southern, saying Dont touch her. Get your hands off her, while pointing a finger at the councillor. Police officers later helped restore order. No security checks are needed for members of the public to attend meetings at Chorley council. Heightened concerns The clash comes with heightened concerns about the safety of local politicians as demonstrators make their views known about the Israel-Gaza conflict. A 31 million package to protect democracy, which will partly be spent on bolstering MPs security, has been announced by Rishi Sunak. Sir Lindsay said his decision-making in the Gaza vote, which has prompted a push by more than 90 MPs to oust him as Commons Speaker, was driven by concerns about MP safety. Ms Hurley, the protester at the centre of the event on Tuesday night, referenced Sir Lindsay and last weeks vote in a message on Facebook posted alongside the video. She wrote: We have already had our voice taken away by our MP, Lindsay Hoyle, who recently broke protocol to twice stop a ceasefire motion from the SNP in Parliament. Is it OK for him to break protocol but not us? One rule for them? Where is our voice now? Is Chorley now the most undemocratic place in Britain? Mr Southern, the councillor who challenged Ms Hurley, released a lengthy statement on Wednesday about his actions. He said he had talked to the police, adding: I explained the situation, that I had been intimidated and threatened and I feared for the safety of others. The officer accepted my version of events and left. I will happily co-operate with any further investigation. He added: I would do the same thing again. Democracy is important to me and I will do all I can to protect it from mob rule. These people are a disgrace. Ms Hurley, contacted by The Telegraph, also provided a lengthy additional statement. Part of it read: The protest was a peaceful reading of a statement that was met with violence. Peter Wilson, deputy leader of the Labour group on Chorley Council, questioned the behaviour of the protesters. He told The Telegraph: Everyone is entitled to their view, everyone is entitled to protest. You can come to a council meeting and make your point. But you cant just disrupt the meeting entirely. It was a meeting to set the budget, perhaps the most important of the year. That cant be disrupted. Unfortunately the meeting had to be suspended, but we carried on afterwards. The Labour group in Chorley has previously voiced its support for a ceasefire in Gaza but has not tabled a motion, arguing that would not be appropriate council business. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. City officials have halted plans for the new John D. OBryant School of Mathematics and Science indefinitely, Mayor Michelle Wu said in a letter to the school community. In her letter sent Tuesday, Wu said the decision came after officials spent the last few months diligently exploring alternative sites for the OBryant school building, in addition to the proposed West Roxbury site. After analyzing many sites in Roxbury and other neighborhoods, we could not find an alternative location to accommodate the expansion and student experience that had been envisioned, Wu said. With a lack of consensus around moving the OBryant School to the West Roxbury Educational Complex, we are halting those plans indefinitely. Officials shared preliminary proposals in June 2023, and received feedback and ideas from students, staff, families, alumni, and partners, Wu said. Bringing all of our BPS facilities up to the standards that our students and educators deserve is one of the greatest challenges impacting our city, Wu said. Our school district includes more than 100 buildings that need significant repairsmany of which will require rebuilding from the ground up. This is the result of decades of underinvestment and will take years to remedy, but we are moving urgently to identify and prioritize needed investments every year. There are 10 Boston Public Schools capital projects already underwayas many as were built in the last 40 years, combined, Wu said. The mayor said plans will move forward for Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, the BCLA-McCormack 7-12 School, Mel King Academy, and a new Shaw-Taylor Elementary School, in addition to other BPS projects under construction. Planning for a new Madison Park is in the early stages, and we will continue a robust community design process, in accordance with the decision to keep the OBryant School at its current location throughout construction, Wu said. We have heard a very strong foundation of support for the Madison Park renovation project and look forward to seeing the long awaited improvements come to fruition. In December 2023, city officials released the first major report of the BPS long-term facilities plan as mandated by the state. Wu said community workshops are underway with families and educators on the matter. Going forward, the OBryant School and future use of the West Roxbury Educational Complex will be included in those larger discussionswith the same consideration, analysis, and engagement as all the other BPS schools that require major facilities improvements or restructuring, Wu said. We are more determined than ever to ensure all our school buildings will support the range of student experiences Bostons young people should have, and the process will continue at an urgent pace. A meeting for the OBryant School community will be held at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13 on Zoom to address any questions from the public, Wu said. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Hexco Motorsports, right, is seen along the Interstate 41 Buttes des Mort bridge looking northwest just south of U.S. 45 in Oshkosh on Tuesday, May 24, 2022. OSHKOSH Residents may have their concerns, but the city certainly doesnt. Developers could be moving forward with something close to their initial plans for the 522-unit housing development at Lake Butte des Morts Drive, as the city will recommend council approving the specific implementation plans for all six phases at once. City of Oshkosh Development Director Kelly Nieforth confirmed the proposal after sitting in on a second neighborhood meeting between residents and developers Red Earth, LLC. Kelly Nieforth Were seeing more and more developers wanting that assurance from the onset, and I think it will be more of a common occurrence going forward and then well be able to attract more developers to Oshkosh when they see that approval, said Nieforth. The development has been a major source of contention for neighboring residents, whove raised questions about everything from traffic increases to environmental issues. But the biggest concern seems centered on the visual impact for nearby properties as the plans call for at least two four-story apartment buildings. Council originally voted to amend the SIP for Phase 1 by reducing the height to three stories. Council initially voted to amend the SIP for Phase 1 by reducing the height to three stories last March before developers said the adjustment would not be profitable. However, city council overturned that decision months later and allowed Red Earth to keep its initial four-story plans, leading the developers to seek an approval for all six phases at the same height. The base zoning code allows for two-and-a-half stories or a 45-foot-tall building to be built 30 feet from a property line, but in the instance of this development, they are hundreds of yards and feet, up to a quarter mile or more in some situations, away from the closest property, explained City of Oshkosh Planning Services Manager Mark Lyons. So that additional height should not have an impact, and I think the planner proposal is consistent with the prior plans weve seen and it meets the housing needs assessment that we did. The project has been opposed by neighboring residents ever since March 2023 when the city's Plan Commission initially approved the development plan for 522 housing units to be built on the former farmland of the west 3400 block of Lake Butte des Morts Drive. Oshkosh Media backlash: Oshkosh council candidate DJ Nichols has turned down an Eye on Oshkosh invite after a judicial candidate was excluded from the show. Developers can only build on 20 acres of the 72-acre property because of the surrounding wetlands and marshes. All but 20 acres of the 72-acre property is wetland and marshes, forcing the developers to focus on apartments with more stories. Red Earths initial plans featured five four-story apartments with 82 units, two four-story apartments with 40 units and eight two-story townhouses with four units, including partially underground parking. Red Earth was denied tax increment financing assistance to make up for the potential shortfall of councils initial decision to reduce Phase 1s SIP to three stories. Residents still had questions about any possible financial incentives for the developer, the size of the project and the environmental impact to the area. I believe the concerns that the neighbors expressed will be addressed through the site implementation plan process, said Nieforth. We do like to hear from neighbors, and we try to encourage developers to work with the neighbors to find some compromises because a lot of times its with landscaping and some situations it may be fencing or location of driveways. The development comes as Oshkosh tries to weather the nationwide housing crisis. Outagamie County did a study showing the region needs to build 10,000 to 17,000 housing units over the next six years. The city worked with a consultant to outline a comprehensive housing needs assessment and strategy plan before Outagamie County did a study showing the region needs to build 10,000 to 17,000 new affordable units over the next six years. Housing crisis: Oshkosh housing experts say region must build its way out of housing crisis I think this development is in line with the comprehensive housing study Oshkosh did, so approving this project just makes sense because every day developers experience a delay only increases the cost of units or lots, said Realtors Association of Northeast Wisconsin Director of Public Relations and Government Affairs Jennifer Sunstrom. We need housing as we are thousands and thousands of units behind where we need to be to have a balanced market, and that means having housing units and apartments at every price point. She continued, So, if were providing a more predictable and efficient development process to developers, then that will draw even more developers in the future and help us to keep the cost of housing down. Have a story tip or public interest concern? Contact Justin Marville at jmarville@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Oshkosh Northwestern: Oshkosh housing project on Lake Butte des Morts Drive to gain approval Updated March 1 Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed HB 1, which would have banned Florida youths under age 16 from creating social media accounts. While the governor has said he wishes to regulate virtual platforms like Instagram and TikTok more carefully, he voiced concerns that the legislation would encroach on parents rights to oversee their childrens internet use. Rather than attempt to override the veto, Republicans in the Florida state Senate announced they would debate a similar bill on Monday in the hopes of bringing a compromise measure to DeSantiss desk before the legislative session ends on March 8. In a Tweet Friday afternoon, DeSantis announced he had vetoed HB 1 because the legislature was about to produce a different, superior bill. Protecting children from harms associated with social media is important, as is supporting parents rights, he wrote. A bill sitting on Gov. Ron DeSantiss desk could block access to social media for minors in Florida and significantly influence how other states set policy related to children and technology. HB 1, which would both prevent kids under 16 from creating accounts on social media sites and require those companies to cancel the accounts of users under the minimum age, was passed last Thursday by large majorities in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Florida legislature. Its fate now lies in the hands of DeSantis, who has questioned whether the law would curtail parents own authority over their childrens media consumption. Whether the bill ultimately takes effect will be a test of competing parental interests in a state that, under DeSantis, has placed heavy emphasis on the rights of parents over their childrens education and upbringing. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter The decision about whether to sign or veto HB 1, which the governor has until Friday to make, is playing out as federal judges consider state efforts to more closely regulate social media entities like Instagram and TikTok. Earlier this month, a federal judge blocked an Ohio law that would have compelled such companies to obtain parental permission before allowing children aged 15 and under to create accounts. HB 1 would constrain social media access much further, flatly banning minors from using the sites. That unambiguous, and possibly unenforceable, prohibition earned the legislation enemies even among conservatives who have been energetic critics of technology companies in the past. The co-founder of Moms For Liberty, a fast-growing parental rights group that has been politically close to DeSantis and other Republicans over the last few years, recently said the proposal goes too far. Related Banning Smartphones at Schools: Research Shows Higher Test Scores, More Exercise But others point to the alleged dangers that social media use poses to young people, with Republican state House Speaker Paul Renner calling the virtual platforms addictive. Last year, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned that excessive use could expose kids to troubling content, raise the risk of harassment and bullying and damage youth mental health. Since that guidance was issued, 42 state attorneys general have sued the web giant Meta, alleging that its Facebook and Instagram apps target children and teenagers with harmful features. In Florida, a raft of law enforcement groups have given HB 1 their backing. Susan McManus, a political analyst who taught political science for decades at the University of South Florida, said that DeSantis was being pushed by two groups of parents, both with equally compelling arguments. DeSantis is kind of trapped, McManus said. On the one hand, hes very strong, and he continues to be a strong advocate of parents rights. On the other hand, hes also got to deal with a parents rights to control decision making when it regards their minor children. Before the bill was passed, the governor signaled strong concerns about its workability, suggesting that legitimate issues still needed to be resolved before he would approve it. The fact that the legislature by overwhelming margins of 108-7 in the House and 23-14 in the Senate still opted to proceed with the legislation suggests a measure of tension between Republican leaders and DeSantis, whose unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination may have damaged his standing in Florida. After winning a huge reelection victory in the 2022 midterm elections, DeSantiss approval has sunk within his home state over the last few months. A co-founder of Moms for Liberty, the fast-growing parental rights group that has endorsed school board candidates in Florida, has said she opposes the newly passed social media ban for kids under 16. (Getty Images) Matthew Isbell, a Democratic political consultant, said that HB 1 stood a reasonable chance of being vetoed by DeSantis, who has until March 1 to either sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to take effect without his signature. The bill is definitely at risk of being vetoed, and discussion already exists about whether an override will [follow], Isbell wrote in an email. If it does, it would be one of the rare times a veto was overridden, especially in the last few decades. Related Exclusive: Sales Skyrocket for Phone Pouch Company as In-School Bans Spread Civil rights groups have openly called for the governor to quash the law, arguing that its enforcement would require unconstitutional steps to curtail citizens rights to express themselves and consume media. In oral arguments at the Supreme Court earlier this week, justices strongly hinted that laws regulating social media content moderation in Florida and Texas would be struck down. The prospect of the legislation being ruled unconstitutional may lie behind DeSantiss reluctance to give it his assent. A long list of previous laws passed with strong conservative support during his tenure have been rejected in the courts in recent months, including restrictions on abortion and gender-affirming medical care. The U.S. Supreme Court is considering constitutional challenges to laws in Florida and Texas that seek to regulate how social media companies moderate content. (Getty Images) Michael Binder, a political science professor at the University of North Florida, said in an email that the governors decision was almost less important than the potential legal threats facing HB 1. The fact of the matter is that all of this will fade no matter what happens, and the courts will decide the fate of the law if it eventually passes, he wrote. McManus said the probability of veto override seemed remote, adding that DeSantis still has almost three years in office ahead of him and considerable influence over Republicans in the legislature. Still, she added, restricting access to technology remained a thorny question for local politicians. Related 5 Things Parents Should Know About Social Medias Impact on Teens Mental Health Its a tough topic because everyone agrees that there are psychological and learning damages that social media has done to young children. But the question is, how does that relate to parents rights to control their children? (Bloomberg) -- When global warming is politicized, professional investors are unable to do their jobs properly. Most Read from Bloomberg Thats the key message from the worlds biggest investor coalition on climate change after several of its largest members left the group this month. Climate Action 100+ said in a statement Monday that the climate crisis poses an ever-increasing financial risk to long-term shareholder value and the broader economy, and we cant afford to take a step back now. Its also a message echoed by several of the initiatives founders. Take Betty Yee, Californias former state controller, who introduced CA100+ to heads of state and financial leaders at a Paris forum in 2017. She says that when US money managers face politically motivated attacks for considering the material financial risks of climate change in their decisions, their ability to focus on long-term shareholder value is impeded. Climate risk is financial risk, period, says Yee, a Democrat who sat on the boards of both the California Public Employees Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System. Investor engagement to encourage corporate evaluation of climate risk, including greenhouse gas emissions reductions consistent with the Paris Agreement, undergirds a responsible, effective investment approach. US fund giants JPMorgan Asset Management, State Street Global Advisors and Pacific Investment Management Co. withdrew from CA100+ this month, and BlackRock Inc. shifted its membership to its international arm, meaning the New York-based parent will no longer be affiliated with the climate group. Each asset manager gave its own, delicately phrased account for its actions, but the subtext was plain: The Republican and fossil-fuel industry war on environmental, social and governance investing strategy makes taking climate action harder for investors. And that tension was only set to grow as CA100+ enters a new phase in which signatories are expected to take a more active approach. Still, anti-ESG campaign or not, investors are duty bound to consider material obstacles, including climate change, says Mindy Lubber, chief executive of US environmental group Ceres whos been involved in CA100+ since the beginning. While investors arent scientists or climate change advocates shutting down city hall, they do have an obligation to consider the challenges to their portfolios from a warming planet, she says. This is a financial risk and it needs to be looked at, Lubber warns. Its unfortunate that its being wrapped up in a political debate. My hope is that enough parties stand up and say they will act on risk, not because of politics, not even because of their opinion on climate change, but because of their fiduciary duty to look at the numbers and act on them. Lubber received a subpoena last year from House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, a far-right Republican from Ohio, seeking documents tied to what he alleged is the possibility of anticompetitive collusion in the investment industry related to ESG. CA100+ has also been targeted by the Republican Partys anti-ESG campaign. At the state level, there have been more than 160 proposals largely attributable to Republican lawmakers that seek to ban investors and companies from considering ESG factors when making financial decisions. It may be no surprise then that Lubber says the GOP campaign has slowed down investor action on climate change. Still, even with the attacks, CA100+s founders insist their mission has prospered. There is clear evidence of demonstrable progress that we all can be proud of, says Yee. CA100+ points to the number of investors backing the campaign (more than 700, which is up from 225 when the group started); the rising number of companies the group tracks that have made net-zero commitments; and the increasing number of companies that have implemented board oversight of climate change risks and opportunities. Yet even with better awareness of climate risks, emissions continue to rise. By CA100+s own assessment, the major global polluters it coverscompanies including BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Glencore Plcarent moving fast enough to align with a future in which global warming is limited to 1.5C. In some cases, they are starting to go back on the little progress theyve made. Stephanie Maier, global chief sustainability officer at GAM Investments and a founding member of CA100+s steering committee, says the group has helped shape the narrative around the role investors play by engaging with companies. Still, she concedes theres a limit to what it can achieve, even if unfettered by political attacks. It is recognized that investors alone cannot move companies to decarbonize the global economy, she says. But Yee adds that every action matters, as climate-related challenges are only set to increase. This risk is growing, and only the rapid or orderly decarbonization of the global economy can mitigate it and provide the greatest economic benefit, she says. Sustainable finance in brief In a year chock full of elections, right-wing politicians all over the world are vowing to roll back green policies while downplaying the climate crisis, casting even more doubt on whether countries can achieve more momentum in the transition away from fossil fuels. In the US, long-time climate denier Donald Trump has minimized the effects of global warming, attacked electric vehicles and pledged to seek the repeal of President Joe Bidens signature climate law. Other Republicans have successfully driven corporations away from sustainability with their multiyear campaign against ESG. Meanwhile in Europe, polls show right-wing parties that oppose strong climate action are likely to increase their representation after the European Unions parliamentary elections in June (while the climate-minded Greens are expected to lose seats). That raises the prospect of the US and the EU, two of the worlds top three climate polluters, retreating on environmental ambition following the worlds hottest year on record. Fossil fuel giant BP Plc is showing signs of an investor-driven pivot back toward oil and gas to boost profit. A former partner at London-based hedge fund Clean Energy Transition plans to launch his own long-short equity fund focused on the green economy. As the best hedge fund strategy of 2023tied to catastrophe bondsbecomes a magnet for mainstream investors, the risk models it relies on are getting tougher to crack. Heres why. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Protesters gather in front of a U.S. Marine Corps camp on Okinawa, blocking cement trucks working on construction and expansion of the facility. (Stephanie Yang / Los Angeles Times) At the first blare of air raid sirens, the people milling about in a grassy park barely stirred. Five-year-old Tae Sano clung to her mothers hand. Some of the people around her, all wearing bright-yellow bibs, took a few uncertain steps. But the only real urgency came from a man in a blue uniform, jogging through the confused crowd. "One more time," he called out through a megaphone. When the sirens wailed anew, a voice rang through the park: A missile was just launched. Please evacuate immediately. This time, people moved. Ayako Sano led her three children to a nearby auditorium, where they crouched, hands over their heads, and waited for the drill to end. The exercise, the first for the island city of Ishigaki closer to China and Taiwan than to the Japanese mainland is being repeated across the country as increasingly restive neighbors heighten concerns about war. Nowadays, you never know what might happen, Sano, a 37-year-old City Hall employee, said after the drill. "Not just in Ishigaki, but wherever you are in Japan. As geopolitical tensions in Asia grow more fraught, Japan has boosted military spending to record highs, and fear has permeated even some of the countrys most remote islands. Read more: Taiwan's new president-elect is a historic choice and a cause for more tension with China The threat is that Ishigaki is within range of North Korean and Chinese missiles, said Mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama, who wants to expand the drill to an islandwide evacuation rehearsal. It is important to strengthen our defenses, even though it may increase tensions. With the regional risks compounding, Japan has veered sharply from the anti-militarist stance it adopted after World War II. A defense strategy it released in December 2022 called for doubling military spending by 2027 and developing long-range missile capabilities. Residents file out to an open field for Ishigaki's first missile drill, one of dozens held around Japan as geopolitical tensions in Asia grow more fraught. (Stephanie Yang / Los Angeles Times) Japan is building up its military bases including in Ishigaki and nearby islands and allowing the U.S. armed forces to expand an already extensive footprint in the nation. It's trying to calm citizen protests over an increased troop presence and a debate over whether the expansion will draw more danger to Japan, rather than defend it. And it is preparing its people for worst-case scenarios, with hourlong drills like the one on Ishigaki. While the secluded tropical tourist destination of Ishigaki may seem an unlikely target for attack, it is only 200 miles from Taiwan the self-ruled island that Japan's historical rival China claims as its own in increasingly aggressive displays. "The threat is that Ishigaki is within range of North Korean and Chinese missiles," said Mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama, who wants to expand the missile drill into an islandwide evacuation rehearsal. (Stephanie Yang / Los Angeles Times) After then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022, Beijing launched an unprecedented series of military exercises and missile launches around that island. Five missiles landed near Ishigaki in Japans exclusive economic zone in Okinawa prefecture, which covers more than 150 islands between Taiwan and the Japanese mainland. North Korea, an ally of China, also resumed firing missile tests into the waters around Japan that year. Deteriorating relations between the United States and China have put Japan, a key U.S. ally, in a precarious position. The nation's southwestern islands, near China's eastern coast, could be among the first hit if the U.S. and China come to blows over Taiwan. In Ishigaki, a new base for the Japanese military, known as the Self-Defense Forces, started operations last year. When construction began a few years ago across the road from his farm, Katsumi Toma questioned the need for the military outpost. But after seeing war break out in Ukraine and the Middle East, Toma, 31, changed his mind. He now sees the camp as a necessity for the island's protection. The fear that comes from living so close to an increasingly bellicose China supersedes his concerns that enlargement could infringe on his pineapple and sugar cane fields. Katsumi Toma, 31, was initially against Ishigaki's new military base, across the road from his farm. (Stephanie Yang / Los Angeles Times) I thought of war as something that happened far away, Toma said. If I could, I would oppose the camps. But the way things are going now, I dont think we have a choice. The new Ishigaki camp has enabled the U.S. Marine Corps, which brought in a coastal unit last year, to start training drills around the island with Japanese troops. As its relationship with China has turned more adversarial, the United States has worked to bolster defensive partnerships with allies in the Asia-Pacific like Australian and Japan. : : Not all residents in parts of Japan that might be vulnerable have embraced this approach. Some 250 miles away from Ishigaki, wariness of both U.S. and Japanese militarization runs deep on the main island of Okinawa, which was devastated by the U.S. assault during World War II. Scattered across the island, population 1.5 million, are stone memorials, abandoned bunkers and walls pocked with bullet holes remnants of bloody battles between Japanese and American forces. The United States ultimately wrested control and occupied the island for nearly three decades after Japans surrender. The U.S. returned Okinawa to Japan in 1971, but the bases remained and now account for 70% of U.S. military land use in Japan, even though the island represents just 0.6% of the country's area. That outsize presence has perpetuated resentment among locals, who have complained of noise pollution, environmental damage and misconduct by U.S. troops. Crimes by current or former U.S. service members such as the kidnapping and rape of a 12-year-old girl in 1995 and the murder of a 20-year-old woman in 2016 have sparked mass protests in Okinawa. A U.S. F-35 Lightning II fighter jet takes off from the Kadena Air Base west of Okinawa in southern Japan. (Hiro Komae / Associated Press) Okinawa's governor is staunchly opposed to expanding U.S. and Japanese bases on the island. Denny Tamaki said his calls to move some U.S. operations off Okinawa have been overshadowed by the national governments preoccupation with potential international conflict. Tamaki, whose father was a U.S. Marine, has emphasized the need for Japan to maintain relations with Beijing as well as Washington. We understand that the security environment is becoming more and more severe, Tamaki said. But we are concerned that the increased level of deterrence could enhance risk in the region. Read more: North Korea's latest missile test reminds the world of Asia's powder keg Such worries are shared among some of his supporters that as the military presence in Okinawa grows, it will inevitably attract the ire of enemy nations. Plans for a new Japanese base in central Okinawa have been met with local anxiety and resistance. With so many Japanese and U.S. military bases here, we would be hit immediately, said Rinichi Teruya, a 71-year-old innkeeper who grew up in the Okinawa town of Kadena, next to the largest U.S. Air Force base in Asia. Teruya has fond memories of American soldiers, recalling that they would often walk with him and share their bananas and Sunkist oranges. "With so many Japanese and U.S. military bases here, we would be hit immediately" if there were a conflict, said Rinichi Teruya, a 71-year-old innkeeper on the island of Okinawa. (Stephanie Yang / Los Angeles Times) That did not stop him from joining demonstrations against the bases later in life. While his age prevents him from protesting now, he believes that expansion will inflame frictions between U.S. military personnel and locals over issues like excessive noise, vehicular accidents and pollution. On a balmy February morning, two dozen protesters sat in front of the gates of a U.S. Marine Corps camp on the coastal area of Henoko in the center of the island, obstructing entry for a growing line of cement trucks. They held signs calling for a halt to the construction of a relocated air station within the base and chanted against Japans Ministry of Defense. Read more: Biden and Xi, meeting in Silicon Valley, promise to work to avoid U.S.-China conflict Despite their daily dedication to delaying work on the military facility, the average age of the protesters about 70 suggested a stagnating activist movement even as fears of conflict have grown. People who remember the war are gone. The movement is shrinking, said Hiroe Shimabukuro, a 47-year-old resident who participated in similar protests there when she was in her 20s. Work and raising her young son have left her little time for political activism. But alarmed by what she sees as the nation's march toward war, in which Okinawa could be sacrificed once again, she started wearing yellow clothes, ribbons as a warning and a call for awareness. Many people are not aware of what is going on, she said. Militarization happened too fast. People couldnt catch up. Cement trucks line up, their path blocked by a protest against construction at a U.S. military base on Okinawa. (Stephanie Yang / Los Angeles Times) While she promotes the fledgling movement on social media and at antiwar events, Shimabukuro feels the need to do more and wishes younger people would get more involved, she said. Opinion polls show that Okinawans under 40, accustomed to U.S. bases, are less fervently opposed to them than their elders. Kanato Shimoji, a 19-year-old majoring in psychology at Okinawa International University, said though he often sees criticism of the U.S. military in local media, he harbors little animosity. I think the very existence of the U.S. military bases is a deterrent that will keep Okinawa from going to war, Shimoji said. I dont know what might happen if the bases were really gone. Read more: Leaders of officially pacifist Japan want to expand military, already one of the world's strongest Haru Goya, 23, said she worries about Okinawas proximity to China and its isolation in the event of a military assault. Still, the concept of war feels foreign to her, even after learning about the Battle of Okinawa in school and hearing wartime tales from her grandmother. We see it differently from our grandmothers and grandfathers who experienced war, said Goya, who sells knitwear and accessories. We have not experienced the dark side of history. : : In Ishigaki, there are fewer scars, less constant reminders of war, and most remain sanguine about the prospect of attack. But those who remember have been unnerved by the militarys return to the small island. Setsuko Yamasato, who grew up on the island, had lost half her family to the tumult of World War II by the time she was 8. In 1944, her older brother was en route to serve in the military when his boat was sunk by a U.S. missile. The following year, her infant sister died of starvation while they sheltered in the wilderness from air raids, and her mother and grandfather succumbed to malaria. Setsuko Yamasato is worried that militarization in Ishigaki will lead to war. (Stephanie Yang / Los Angeles Times) Now 87, Yamasato spends Sunday evenings protesting in front of the Japanese military camp and other spots across the island, holding signs and waving and shouting to passing, honking motorists. She is sure that the growing presence of Japanese troops is more likely to bring conflict than to protect from it. Through our experience in the war, the military forces didnt save the island people, she said. Only a few elderly locals ever join Yamasato in her weekly protests, and she sees their efforts as a prayer for peace more than anything else. If war does reach Ishigakis shores again, Yamasato has no plans to leave. This is where I was born and raised, not by my parents or grandparents, but by this entire island, she said. If I have to be baptized by fire, that would be my destiny. Special correspondent Makiko Segawa contributed to this report. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. 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 The Pentagon is considering tapping into the remaining Ukraine funds in the presidential drawdown authority (PDA), even though it remains uncertain whether Congress approves funding to replenish them, CNN reported on Feb. 28, citing unnamed U.S. defense officials. There are roughly $4 billion remaining in the PDA, a tool that allows the Pentagon to send aid to Ukraine from U.S. military stockpiles. The U.S. Defense Department has been reluctant to commit the remaining funds without guarantees they will be replenished through the $60 billion aid package, which is currently stuck in Congress. The U.S. Senate passed the foreign aid bill, which includes $95 billion for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, but House Speaker Mike Johnson has so far refused to put it to a vote in the House. The delays already had an impact on the ground in Ukraine, threatening to cause critical ammunition shortages and contributing to the loss of Avdiivka, a key front-line city in Donetsk Oblast. As Ukraine's situation grows more critical, U.S. defense officials are considering using at least part of the remaining funds to help Ukraine continue its fight against Russia, CNN's sources said, adding that "no decisions have been made yet." The Pentagon has not publicly confirmed such plans, instead urging the House to pass the additional funding. The U.S. sent its last $250 million package from the PDA last December. Some supplies continue to flow to Ukraine through another fund called the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI). Read also: Military: Ukraine withdraws from Stepove and Severne villages near Avdiivka Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Northwest Local School District will consolidate several schools and build four new buildings under a new plan approved by the school board Monday. That includes combining Northwest and Colerain high schools into a new central high school, to be built at the current Colerain High School site. Editor's Note: This story was updated to clarify the number of elementary schools in the district. Northwest Local School District will consolidate several schools and build four new buildings under a new plan for the district's facilities. On Monday, the Northwest school board approved a master facilities plan that will be submitted to the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. The commission will decide whether the plan qualifies to be awarded state money. It isn't clear yet when the plan will be implemented. The district needs to find out if the plan qualifies for state funding in order to roll out a timeline. Related: Independent drug test ordered for Colerain student accused of attacking teacher There is also no price tag on the project yet. Superintendent Darrell Yater said the district will see how much money the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission will provide before the board considers asking voters to pay for it with a local bond issue. Northwest's facilities plan calls to: Build a new Colerain Elementary and Preschool at the current Houston Early Learning site. Build a new central high school, combining both Northwest and Colerain high schools at the current Colerain High School site. Build a new Colerain Middle School on the current Colerain Elementary School site. Build a new Pleasant Run Middle School on the current Northwest High School site. Yater said the plan will provide more learning opportunities to students, and save costs on facility maintenance overall. Teacher-student ratios will remain the current district standard, he said, and new buildings will accommodate those class structuring rules. The master facility plan approved Monday continues previous facility reductions at Northwest in recent years. In 2018, students from five of the district's elementary schools Welch, Pleasant Run, Taylor, Weigel and Struble were consolidated into three new buildings . Superintendent: More educational opportunities under new facility plan Combining the two current high schools into a new building would provide more educational opportunities overall, Yater said. Northwest High School currently has all the career tech course offerings, and when the schools are combined, Colerain students will no longer have to be shuttled to the other high school to participate in those programs. "By bringing everything under one roof, the students would have all those courses and opportunities theyre looking for," he said. To collect feedback on the plans for consolidation, the district sent out surveys by contacting parents, posting QR codes at sporting events, paying for ads in all five of Colerain's zip codes, among other measures. The Enquirer has requested survey results. Renderings of the new facility sites can be found on Northwest's website. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Northwest Local Schools: New plans calls for new facilities DENVER (KDVR) A healthcare company owned partly by a private equity firm agreed this month to end exclusive contracts and change company practices, in addition to paying the state $200,000 in relief. The agreement was the ultimate resolution to a Colorado Department of Law investigation into the companys anticompetitive business practices, which Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a release Tuesday drove up prices for consumers receiving surgical anesthesia services. Prescription drug price caps could get limits in Colorado According to the Colorado attorney generals office, U.S. Anesthesia Partners of Colorado began purchasing Denver metro area anesthesia practices in 2015, and within six years had bought out all major competitors. By 2021, the AG said, USAP had control of surgical anesthesia at the two largest independent hospital systems in Denver. The AG said USAP accounted for more than 70% of health plan reimbursements to Centura and HCA/HealthOne in the Denver Metro statistical area. Surgical anesthesia monopoly caused higher costs The result was higher costs for consumers and their employer-provided health insurance plans, onerous non-compete restrictions on healthcare professionals, and either delays or outright cancellations of surgeries, according to court documents. At the same time, USAP charged reimbursement rates at 30-40% higher than competing groups in the Denver Metro Area, creating a financial windfall for USAP and its private equity ownership, the AGs Office wrote in a release. The Colorado AG said in a release that USAP pressured insurers to charge higher rates than their remaining competitors, but they encountered difficulties staffing surgeries. Doctor attrition, lack of health professional recruitment, and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic all contributed to these shortages, the AGs Office release stated. Even before COVID-19 overwhelmed hospitals, however, USAP was beginning to feel the effects of a growing national shortage of anesthesia professionals. Download the FOX31 App: Breaking news alerts & Pinpoint Weather The AG Office said this impacted USAPs ability to respond to hospital demand for higher surgical capacity to make up for lost profits during the pandemic. This led to hospitals complaining about surgeries being delayed, postponed or canceled. Despite these problems, and in the absence of choice and competition in the marketplace, hospitals continued to contract with USAP, even as the company demanded subsidy increases as high as 1,200%, the office release stated. USAP settlement provisions with the Colorado AG Office The settlement announced Tuesday includes multiple provisions to restore competition to the Denver-area anesthesia market. Included in these, USAP will end its exclusive contracts at five Colorado hospitalsSt. Anthony Hospital, St. Anthony North Hospital, OrthoColorado Hospital, and Longmont United Hospital in the Denver-Boulder market, in addition to Mercy Hospital in Durango. $247M bill would create new medical school in Colorado, address health worker shortage The agreement stipulated that USAP clinicians serving in those facilities are allowed to leave the company and continue to work at those hospitals to ensure continuity of care. The agreement has stipulations aimed at reducing disruptions to patient care at those facilities, too. Lastly, USAP will have to release and modify its clinician non-compete agreements, in addition to completely ending the practice of non-competes within 18 months of the agreement. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. DENVER (KDVR) Colorado will enter its second year of free preschool with some changes. In the year before kindergarten, all children in Colorado can register for up to 15 hours a week of free pre-K. Some children are also eligible for full-day preschool, or 30 hours a week, and the state has now expanded who is eligible for those extra hours. Universal preschool enrollment for the 2024-25 school year begins on Thursday, Feb. 29. Heres what to know about the process. Free preschool in Colorado: Whos eligible All children in Colorado are eligible for 15 hours weekly in the year before kindergarten, while a more limited group is eligible for 30 hours a week. How to apply for Colorado rental assistance To qualify for full-day preschool, the childs household must be at or below 270% of the federal poverty line thats $55,188 for a family of two or $84,240 for a family of four and meet an additional qualifying factor. For the 2023-24 school year, that included children in foster care, unhoused children, English learners and children with special education plans. But the state is now expanding eligibility for full-day preschool to Colorados most low-income families who may not meet the other requirements, according to the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. A new qualifying factor for 2024-25 will include children whose households are at or below the federal poverty guidelines. For a two-person household, thats no more than $20,440, or $31,200 for a family of four. How to enroll in universal pre-K in Colorado This year, more than 2,000 preschool providers are available through Colorados universal pre-K program. New bill would increase compensation given to lawmakers during legislative session Heres how to enroll, according to the department: Pre-registration: Families can pre-register with a known provider to continue care for a child currently enrolled, with a sibling currently enrolled or with a parent or guardian currently employed with a universal preschool provider through March 28. Family matching: Families seeking preschool programs with a new provider can register and browse providers starting Feb. 29 at UPK.Colorado.gov. Families will be matched with one of their top 10 preferred providers in April and July. After July : Families can enroll through a universal preschool provider through the end of the school year, space allowing. IEP direct enrollment: Starting Feb. 29, administrative units (AUs) may request placement of students with individualized education programs. Students with an IEP will be placed according to their IEP by the AU throughout the school year. Families with 3-year-olds should contact their local school district. Colorado voters approved universal pre-K in 2020, and the first group of 40,000 children was enrolled for the 2023-24 school year. According to a release from the office of Gov. Jared Polis, the program boosted the state from 26th to eighth for preschool enrollment. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. (FLORENCE, Colo.) The remains of a Colorado prisoner of war have been positively identified after 82 years. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on Wednesday, Feb. 28 that U.S. Army Technician Fifth Grade Clifford H. Strickland of Fowler, Colorado, age 25 at the time of his death, has been accounted for. Strickland was reported captured in the spring of 1942 in the Philippine Islands when U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese. He was one of thousands of other U.S. and Filipino service members to be captured and interned at POW camps during the war. Prison camp records confirm that Strickland died in July of 1942, and was buriedalong with other prisoners who died in the campat Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in a common grave. After the war, the American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) exhumed those buried at the Cabanatuan cemetery and brought the remains to a U.S. military mausoleum near Manila. The AGRS attempted to identify the remains, but seven of the bodies remained unidentified, including the body of Tec 5 Strickland. They were buried at Manila American Cemetery (MACM) as Unknowns. In early 2018, the remains of the seven unknown soldiers were disinterred and sent to the DPAA lab to be analyzed. Through dental, anthropological, and circumstantial evidence, including DNA analysis, Tec 5 Strickland was finally identified as one of the unknown soldiers. Stricklands personnel file now shows that he has been accounted for. He will be buried in Florence, Colorado, on June 29, 2024. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX21 News Colorado. (COLORADO SPRINGS) More than 100 new jobs are coming to Colorado Springs as a cybersecurity and technology company plans to expand, bringing with it millions of dollars in capital investment. According to the Colorado Springs Chamber and Economic Development Corporation (EDC), on Thursday morning, Feb. 29 at 9 a.m., Governor Jared Polis and Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade will join company leadership in announcing the expansion. El Paso County Commissioner Cami Bremer and Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer, President and CEO of the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC are also expended to attend, along with members from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) and the Metro Denver EDC and Front Range Economic Collective (FREC). FOX21 News will be at the announcement on Thursday morning and will livestream the event at the top of this article. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX21 News Colorado. A state board in Colorado is working to make history by becoming the first in the country to cap the price of a drug it deems unaffordable. Amid an aggressive industry lobbying campaign, Colorado lawmakers are now weighing a poison pill measure that would blow up the plan and similar efforts in the future. The episode highlights the vast power of Big Pharma and how difficult it is to lower drug prices in the United States. The U.S. is an outlier among the rest of the world because Congress for decades barred Medicare from negotiating drug prices, as virtually all other nations do. Its a major reason why Americans pay the worlds highest prices for products that are developed with support from the U.S. government, even when those drugs have been around for decades. Enbrel, the rheumatoid arthritis drug being targeted by Colorado officials, is an extreme example of this phenomenon. Manufactured by Amgen, Enbrel costs 373 percent more in the U.S. than in European countries even though the drug was developed with a staggering $2.6 billion in funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. First approved in 1998, Enbrel has no competition: Its manufacturer built a patent thicket that has successfully blocked biosimilars from coming to market, even after its primary patent expired in 2010. Last year, the Biden administration announced that Enbrel was included on the list of medicines that would be part of the first-ever round of Medicare drug price negotiations. The law only allows for negotiations each year on a handful of expensive drugs that are older and have no generic competition. Colorados Prescription Drug Affordability Board, established by the Democratic-controlled legislature in 2021, recently found that a years worth of Enbrel costs $46,000 per patient, and that patients are responsible for about $2,300 of that if they have a commercial insurance plan or privatized Medicare Advantage coverage. Last week, the Colorado PDAB voted to declare that Enbrel is unaffordable, and start the process of setting an upper payment limit for the drug. Several states have set up similar drug affordability boards, but advocates believe this is the first time a state has moved to step in and formally set a price cap on a medicine. Whats really important here is demonstrating that states have a way of coming to the table and helping to put some downward pressure on pricing, which is just entirely out of control, says Bethany Pray, deputy director for the Colorado Center on Law and Policy. If theres an upper payment limit put on Enbrel, and that results in the price coming down somewhat, manufacturers [will] have to be aware that that mechanism is out there and that its doable, and may behave differently. Amgen warned investors in its recent annual financial disclosure that government actions at the state level can create additional pressure on our pricing decisions. The disclosure specifically cites the Colorado PDABs review of Enbrel, warning that the medication could be subject to an upper payment limit as early as Q4 2024. In state filings, Amgen has warned, obliquely, that efforts to impose a price cap on Enbrel could harm patients. In one letter, the company wrote that policymakers must move beyond a focus on a medicines list price or else risk unintended consequences for access and innovation. Its an odd threat. Enbrel is wildly profitable. In 2021, the trade publication BioPharma Dive reported that the medications sales have already topped $74 billion and, by 2029, could approach $100 billion an incredible sum matched only by a few other pharmaceutical products in history. This sum hasnt required much in the way of spending on innovation: A 2021 report from House Democrats found that, over a 15-year period, Amgen had spent about $2 billion on Enbrel R&D expenditures, equal to about 3.5 percent of its U.S. net revenue from the drug. Of course, as The Lever recently reported, Enbrel was developed with $2.6 billion in funding from the NIH, meaning that patients already paid a fortune to finance the blockbuster drug they could supposedly lose access to if Colorado state officials were to try to impose a maximum price. Pharmas not coming to the table to answer the question: If you had to take a little less profit, you would deprive people of this drug? says Pray. I hope not. Amgens CEO, Robert Bradway, received more than $21 million in compensation last year. According to Bloomberg Law, analysts expect the Colorado PDABs move to set a maximum Enbrel price will result in litigation. In a recent letter to state officials, Amgen raised a series of objections about how the board arrived at the decision to set an upper payment limit on its medication, and warned about the introduction of bias from the boards and staffs selective targeting of stakeholders for input. Some Colorado lawmakers have offered legislation to preempt the drug boards effort to cap the price of Enbrel. The bill, which has already advanced through committee, would exempt so-called orphan drugs, or special designation drugs that treat rare diseases, from the Colorado PDABs review. That might sound sensible, but many orphan drugs used for rare diseases are also approved to treat more common diseases. The 2021 report from House Democrats found that pharmaceutical companies have sought orphan drug protections for widely used and commercially successful drugs, and have used orphan drug approval to justify charging high prices. In the case of Enbrel, a 2021 study published in Health Affairs found that roughly 94 percent of spending on the medication is assigned to nonorphan indications; only 1.4 percent of spending was assigned to Enbrels orphan indications. Colorado state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer (R) is one of the lead sponsors of the bill to exempt orphan drugs from PDAB reviews. Explaining the need for the bill, she told Colorado Newsline, It sets a chilling effect on all of these people with rare diseases, adding: Im not here for Big Pharma. I know they make money on stuff. Thats not the issue its what happens if you were to put an upper payment limit on the drug, or just even present the possibility. At least 15 pharmaceutical companies, drug distributors, and industry lobbying groups have reported lobbying on the legislation, according to state records. Amgen has disclosed monitoring the bill, which was read for a second time in the state Senate on Tuesday. Kristen Nordenholz, an emergency physician in Aurora and the Colorado state lead of the Committee to Protect Health Care, says this bill is a Big Pharma giveaway that would gut Colorados Prescription Drug Affordability Board and thats its goal. The board must be able to have the latitude to do this life saving work, she says. What this bill would do is allow pharmaceutical corporations to keep charging a fortune for life-saving pills while patients like mine suffer. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone DENVER (KDVR) A World War II soldier from Colorado was considered missing in action for over 80 years until he was recently accounted for. U.S. Army Technician Fifth Grade Clifford H. Strickland, from Fowler, Colorado, was captured and died as a prisoner of war during WWII, according to a release from the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency. He was identified and accounted for in December. Amache National Historic Site officially established in national park system Strickland was a member of Company C, 803rd Engineer Battalion of the U.S. Army when Japanese forces invaded the Philippine Islands in December 1941. He was among thousands of U.S. and Filipino service members who were captured when U.S. forces in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese in April 1942. After the surrender, soldiers were subjected to a 65-mile Bataan Death March and were then held at the Cabanatuan prisoner-of-war camp. According to the release, over 2,500 POWs died in this camp. Historical records show Strickland died on July 29, 1942, and was buried along with other prisoners at the Cabanatuan Camp Cemetery in Common Grave 215. After the war, American Graves Registration Service crews exhumed and relocated the remains there to a nearby temporary U.S. military mausoleum in Manila. Five of the bodies in Common Grave 215 were identified in 1947, however Strickland was among seven who were declared unidentifiable. Those unidentifiable remains were buried as unknown bodies at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial. Colorado mountains once hosted the famous 10th Mountain Division Despite being listed as unknown, the soldiers graves were meticulously cared for over the years by the American Battle Monuments Commission. The remains from Common Grave 215 were once again exhumed in 2018 and sent to a laboratory. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency used dental, anthropological, and circumstantial evidence, as well as DNA analysis help from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, to identify Stricklands remains. Strickland was accounted for on Dec. 20, 2023, and he will be buried in Florence, Colorado, on June 29. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. Jan 5, 2024; Columbus, Ohio, USA; The Colonial Village apartment complex includes 508 units in dozens of brick buildings spread across more than 20 acres. The property has faced hundreds of housing code violations in recent years for problems like bed bugs, rodents, water and fire damage and a lack of utilities and was put into court-appointed receivership in early 2022. 860 residents including Haitians and Americans were told they must leave by Dec. 31, 2023. The city of Columbus is in a legal battle with the receivership estate of a long-troubled apartment complex over a multi-million dollar question: Who should pay for the relocation costs of more than 1,300 residents displaced after the property shut down late last year? Colonial Village, the complex in question, made headlines in November after the discovery of a large number of people mostly Haitian asylum seekers living there without official rental agreements. A network of human traffickers had brought many of the Haitians from Florida, then made them pay rent to stay in unsecured, vacant units many of which lacked heat or hot water while issuing fake rental agreements that simply listed Colonial Village Apartments as the landlord. A staff member from the apartments management company, Hayes Gibson (Property Services), was allegedly involved in the scheme, according to court documents submitted by both the city and the receivership estate. The city has so far allocated $4 million and spent over $1.6 million to provide hotel rooms to the former Colonial Village residents through the end of March. In a civil case, City Attorney Zach Kleins office is trying to recoup those and related costs from Colonial Villages receivership estate. The estate includes the propertys mortgage-holder, EFM Transfer Agent LLC, and a court-appointed receiver. The property went into receivership in early 2022 as part of a foreclosure case that EFM filed against the owner. The need for relocation is a direct result of EFM, the Receiver and Hayes Gibson's failure to abide by both Columbus City Code and this Court's orders and thus should be considered a necessary expense of the receivership estate, the city argued in a November motion in Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. However, EFM is arguing that rehousing former residents falls beyond the scope of the receivership estate's legal duties. Those relocation costs may be socially attractive to the City but are unrelated to the purpose of the Receivership: to preserve and rehabilitate Colonial Village and sell it to a responsible buyer to operate as affordable housing, wrote EFMs attorneys in a court filing last month. The lawyers earlier wrote that it was not fair or reasonable to ask EFM, as lender, to cover 'relocation' costs with respect to units that are being occupied unlawfully by trespassers without EFM' s knowledge. Securities and Exchange Commission filings indicate that EFM is a subsidiary of Ellington Financial Inc., a publicly-traded corporation based in Connecticut. A company spokesperson did not respond to The Dispatchs emailed questions about the case. An attorney for EFM declined to comment beyond what they had submitted in court filings. Colonial Village and Latitude Five25 may have had same owners, though legal cases differ The Colonial Village case bears some resemblance to an earlier case, when more than 150 people were displaced from the Latitude Five25 towers on Columbus Near East Side after it was shut down due to emergency housing code violations. In that case, a judge ordered the owner a company named Paxe Latitude LLC to reimburse the city and the county for nearly $2 million of taxpayer money spent on temporary housing for displaced residents. But the Colonial Village case is different in several respects: many of the residents lacked official rental agreements, and the city is trying to recoup the costs from the receivership estate and mortgage holder, not the owner. Colonial Villages owner a company named Apex Colonial LLC that appears to have been created solely for the purpose of owning the complex purchased the property in March 2020. Though owners can hide their identities behind LLCs, Apex Colonials owners may have been the same individuals behind Paxe Latitude, according to the city attorneys office. We believe that Apex Equity LLC is the overarching ownership entity of the two entities that owned Colonial Village and Latitude 525. Legally, there may be enough differences to argue they are not the same owners, but there appear to be relationships between the underlying guarantors of the loans issued for both properties and the management companies for both, said a spokesperson. At the time Apex Colonial acquired Colonial Village, city code inspectors had already cited hundreds of violations, according to Kleins office. The problems continued under the new owner, and the city won a municipal court order declaring the property a public nuisance. Nov 9, 2023; Columbus, OH, USA; Over 850 Haitian immigrants are living in mostly abandoned apartments in Colonial Village on the East side. They were scammed into moving in and paying $1,200 for two bedroom apartments without heat, hot water, and some without electricity. But Apex Colonial lost control of the complex in March 2022 amidst a foreclosure case in Franklin County Court of Common Pleas brought against it by mortgage-holder EFM, from whom it had taken a $15.5 million high-interest loan in 2020. The city, as an interested party in that case, supported the receivership because it believed doing so would help address the ongoing nuisance-abatement issues. Columbus developer Robert J. Weiler, Sr. was initially appointed receiver, but in April 2023, he was replaced by Kenneth Latz, senior managing director of Riveron ETS LLC. Weiler, who is not included in the citys motion against the current receivership estate, told The Dispatch that he left the receivership due to disagreements with EFMs leadership. Both receivers contracted Hayes Gibson whose staff member allegedly participated in the rental scheme involving Haitian asylum seekers to manage the property. In October, the city learned that many Haitian families including those with newborn children were living in apartments lacking basic amenities like heat. The city ordered emergency repairs to the apartments, and then the receivership estate decided to close down the entire complex to bring units up to code. City argues Colonial Village lender acted as 'owner' Under Ohio law, receivers appointed through foreclosure cases are charged with paying for expenses "necessary to preserve the value of the assets held, including making repairs to a property, selling it and using the proceeds to pay creditors. In practice, buildings that go into receivership seldom result in sales that make all the creditors whole. Mortgage holders are generally paid only after the receivers fees and tax lien obligations, according to Jeff Lewis, a Columbus attorney who has represented receivers but who has no involvement in the Colonial Village case. Jeff Lewis is a Columbus attorney who has represented receivers. In this case, EFM was made responsible for paying for the receiverships expenses which exceeded $4 million over nearly two years, according EFMs January court filing. The city conceded that relocation expenses may not have been necessary in the traditional sense of repairing buildings. But the city said in its November court motion that the receivership should still pay because the nature, extent, and worth of the expenditure is entirely justified by EFM and the Receiver's legal responsibilities, conditions at the Premises, and the threat inaction at the Premises poses to the receivership estate and the people of Columbus, generally. In a February filing, the city argued that EFM should be considered both an owner and a landlord of Colonial Village because it co-initiated (with the city) the court motion for receivership and because it was in possession of the property for more than a year and a half before it had to be shut down. For its part, EFM has argued that its status as the mortgage holder is far different from being an owner. It suggested that the city instead try to recoup the costs from those directly involved in bringing the Haitians to the complex and handing out fake lease agreements. Lewis told The Dispatch that the city is likely going after the receivership estate and EFM because they have recoverable assets unlike the traffickers. You go after the folks who have money, he said. But Lewis said that he doesnt think the law is on the citys side, and a dangerous precedent could be set by holding a lender responsible for a property for which they hold the mortgage. Bad law makes bad business. If the interest of the city is in developing the city, building affordable housing or having reputable people come in and take over dilapidated structures, what lender is going to lend that kind of business money if they might be on the hook for relocating people? I get city doesn't want to throw these folks out on the street, and that's noble, and that's moral. But the law and morality often don't intersect, he said. Kate Walz, an associate director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project, based in Chicago, said shes seen many cases of residents displaced due to emergency housing code violations. What gets lost in these stories are the families themselves. I can appreciate why local governments who are cash strapped are looking for pathways to get their money back. I think we would love to see pathways for creating greater housing stability, and a greater regulation of landlords at the front end, so this sort of thing doesnt happen, she said. Kate Walz is an associate director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project. Former Colonial Village residents face an uphill battle finding permanent housing in a city that is becoming less and less affordable. They have until the end of March before the citys commitment to providing temporary housing runs out. More: Colonial Village housing crisis continues for Haitians, Americans as March deadline looms Peter Gill covers immigration, New American communities and religion for the Dispatch in partnership with Report for America. You can support work like his with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America at:bit.ly/3fNsGaZ. pgill@dispatch.com @pitaarji This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus, Colonial Village legal fight over relocating asylum seekers A second man has been sentenced to prison for shooting at an FBI agent in Muscogee County in 2022, according to the Department of Justice. Jarvis Smith, 29, of Columbus, was sentenced on Feb. 27 to more than nine years in prison followed by five years of supervised release, according to the DOJ. The DOJ said Smith pleaded guilty to one count of forcible assault on a federal law enforcement officer, one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and one count of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person on Aug. 9, 2023. Authorities said Smith had 2013 convictions for aggravated assault, burglary and robbery in Columbus, so he was prohibited from owning firearms. Smith is a confirmed member of the Bloods criminal street gang, according to the DOJ. Smiths co-defendant, 26-year-old Joshuia Johnathon Luke Brown aka Black, was sentenced on Jan. 29 to over 26 years in prison after being convicted by a federal jury on multiple charges including one count of forcible assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon, according to the DOJ. The DOJ said Brown is part of the hybrid criminal street gang US World that is based out of Columbus and affiliated with other national criminal gangs. These charges stem from a July 2022 incident when an FBI agent was conducting surveillance on Brown and Smith as part of an ongoing investigation witnessed a drug deal involving the two defendants, the release read. The DOJ said an FBI agent was performing mobile surveillance when Smith stepped out of the car he was driving along with Brown and began shooting at the FBI agents vehicle, striking the vehicle several times. Bullets hit the passenger door, roof and rear bumper, and one went through the passenger seat. Another pierced a nearby homes living room window, shattering a painting on a wall inside. The FBI agent was unharmed, the release says. The DOJ says Brown and Smith eluded the FBI and the Muscogee County Sheriffs office after a car and foot pursuit. However, Smith was later caught and Brown turned himself in after a several day manhunt, according to the release. A bag dropped by Brown during the pursuit contained a fully loaded handgun that matched two bullets recovered from the FBI agents vehicle, the DOJ said. MILLERSBURG A balance between agriculture, tourism, manufacturing and residential housing are the most important issues facing Holmes County, according to one of the candidates running for commissioner. "I am for supporting Holmes County businesses so they can continue to thrive," Eric Strouse said. Five Republicans are vying for the Holmes County commissioner seat held by Ray Eyler, who is not seeking reelection after serving four terms. Facing off in the March 19 primary election for his seat are Dave Crilow, Holley Johnson, Steve Johnson, Dustin Kaufman and Strouse. Opposing Republican Joe Miller for his seat is will be Ervin D. Yoder. Eric Strouse The Daily Record will feature each candidate in stories in the next few weeks. Strouse is a West Holmes graduate with an agricultural degree from The Ohio State University. He has over 40 years of banking and finance experience and has served on the West Holmes Local School Board for 24 years. He has worked with Habitat for Humanity for 25 years. Strouse wants to preserve the culture of the county The candidate said he wants to preserve the culture of Holmes County. He is a lifelong resident of and said he has a good feel for what the people want. He said he is not in favor of huge billboard advertising or roundabouts. He sees traffic issues as a growing concern in the county. "I will be the Holmes County commissioner that you can count on," Strouse said. "I will listen to your concerns and do everything possible to find solutions. Holmes County and its people are my passion. I want to see Holmes County thrive. "My 40 years of business and agriculture financial knowledge and my 24 years of public school finance experiences are qualities I posses that make me the best candidate," Strouse said. "Now that I am retired, I want to use my time to increase my efforts to support Holmes County." Business background and school board service Strouse has political/government experience service, including 24 years on the West Holmes Local School Board, six years on the Holmes/Wayne Counseling Center Board, six years on the Holmes County Fair Board and serving on the Millersburg Zoning Board. His goals as commissioner are to listen and work to find solutions to citizen concerns. "I will support villages and townships in writing grants and securing matching dollars to improve infrastructure," he said. "I've served on the Habitat for Humanity Board, since the beginning in Holmes County. Currently we have built over 35 homes." He said he enjoys serving on the Holmes County Fair Swine Committee and helping young people and families work together toward success. This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Eric Strouse sees traffic, growing business as issues in Holmes JR Majewski, a controversial congressional candidate, is potentially dropping out of the Ohio GOP House race just days after early voting began in the state. Majewski, an Air Force veteran, launched his second bid to oust Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) last April. He overcame a crowded primary field in 2022 and became the Republican nominee after former President Trump endorsed his campaign, but his campaign collapsed after it was revealed he lied about serving in combat in Afghanistan. He spent six months on a base in Qatar, according to public records and The Associated Press (AP). Majewski confirmed to Politico that he was seriously considering ending his campaign but hadnt decided yet. He recounted to the outlet that he told people what they wanted to hear to keep them at bay while he figured out what he would do. Im being asked by some people to drop out, he told Politico. I dont know what Im gonna do yet. Sources told the outlet that Majewski said he is in talks to take a position with Trump. The candidate said he spoke with the Trump team but said it was not about a potential job. Majewski has been criticized for his presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Voting rights group Public Wise previously released a six-figure ad against him and said he is affiliated with an alt-right conspiracy group. He was a promoter of QAnon, a right-wing conspiracy theory, the AP reported. Ohios 9th District has leaned Democratic in the past, but a new congressional map changed its makeup to lean Republican. It has put Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in congressional history, in the sights of the GOP. Majewski still has three weeks to decide, with the Ohio primary on March 19, and is known to change his mind. After joining the race last April, Majewski dropped out in May, citing his mothers health. He rejoined the race to take on Kaptur last October and has campaigned since. The Hill has reached out to the Majewski campaign for further comment. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. COLLIN COUNTY - The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a stay of execution for Ivan Cantu. The man convicted of murdering two people back in 2000 is still scheduled to have his death sentence carried out Wednesday despite a lot of influential voices claiming he is not guilty. Unearthed court documents give added weight to those who insist Cantu is guilty. Claims that Cantu had an ineffective defense counsel during his capital murder trial have been a running theme among those currently speaking out to try to spare him from execution, including his mother. "Collin County, stop the execution of my son," said Sylvia Cantu, Ivan Cantu's mother. "This is not right. You know it's not right and you need to turn this around." A rally outside the Collin County courthouse last year was the beginning of a high-profile campaign with several prominent voices claiming Cantu was wrongly convicted of killing his cousin, James Mosqueda, and the victim's fiancee, Amy Kitchen, in 2000. Many of the calls for a retrial are based on what Cantu supporters claim was a poor effort by his attorneys to defend him during his trial. But court documents obtained by CBS News Texas reveal that Cantu confessed to his attorneys before the trial that he had committed the murders. Those attorneys filed an affidavit when they were later accused by Cantu of not allowing him to undergo a psych evaluation before trial. The attorneys said it was based on the fact that he had admitted to them that he killed Mosqueda and Kitchen out of revenge because Mosqueda owed him drug money. That led them to believe that a state-sponsored psychiatric evaluation could indicate that Cantu was a sociopath, which they believed "would substantially lower [their] already slim chance for [a reduction to] a life sentence." The attorneys even quoted Cantu's confession, pointing to the "admission that he had indeed killed Mosqueda for 'ripping him off' on a drug deal, and Kitchen just happened to be at the Mosqueda home, and that he 'didn't want to leave any witnesses.'" "The admission that he had murdered these people because of revenge may have prevented them from submitting him to a psychological exam because they thought he would do very badly and show himself to be a sociopath," said Toby Shook, a criminal defense attorney. Shook says the attorneys' affidavit makes a compelling argument that Cantu is in fact guilty and may explain why his trial lawyers were unable to put on a stronger case. "It's very credible," Shook said, "They thought the exam would go bad for him. It might help the state prove he's a future danger to society." In a statement to CBS News Texas, Collin County DA Greg Willis said, "I remain fully convinced that Ivan Cantu brutally murdered two innocent victims in 2000." Unless Gov. Abbott or the U.S. Supreme Court intervene, Cantu will be put to death Wednesday. Police body camera footage released of shooting at Lakewood Church The Smokehouse Creek Fire spreads, extending its reach from Texas to Oklahoma Mitch McConnell to step down as Senate Republican leader CORINTH, Texas - A Denton County judge is set to decide on Wednesday if a mother should regain custody of her 2-year-old son after Child Protective Services removed him while she sought to get a doctor's second opinion. It's a story FOX 4 first brought you last week. Now, a state representative says his office will not stop until the mother is reunited with her child. Before CPS took her son, Josiah, on Dec. 21, Joslyn Sanders had never been away from him for more than a few hours. "It has been 65 days I've been without my son," she said. Paralyzed from the waist down in high school, Sanders has connected with hundreds of thousands of people through her emotional posts with her son on Instagram. "I'm his mother," she said. "I believe I have the best interest for my son." But according to a court affidavit filed by CPS, a caseworker disagreed. Part of her statement describes a significant burn or rash on Josiah's body, swelling and what she observed to be severe malnutrition. Sanders says she took Josiah to Children's Medical Center Dallas at the recommendation of her pediatrician to make sure the rash was not becoming dangerously infected. Medical records provided by the family showed that Josiah did not have sepsis. But Sanders was not comfortable with the medication recommended by the doctor, so she left with her son "against medical advice." That triggered the report to CPS. As for the malnutrition, Sanders provided records that showed she already had a treatment plan in place for feeding difficulties through Josiah's nutrition therapist, and she told the caseworker she would take Josiah to Children's Health Plano. But despite that, the caseworker wrote, "Ms. Sanders was uncooperative with medical professionals, opting to leave the hospital with Josiah Sanders despite being told that Josiah needed to be admitted into the hospital for ongoing care. All reasonable efforts have been made to prevent or eliminate the need for removal of this child." "She disregarded the fact we saw his primary care provider," Sanders said. In an affidavit filed on Monday, Sanders doctor, a board-certified pediatrician with Shine Pediatrics, filed an affidavit on Monday saying, "The events are really beyond my comprehension. If there was an immediate concern for the safety of the child, Childrens should clearly see that the childs low (nutrient levels) is due to a medical condition and not neglectful or harmful parenting or grandparenting. The reason I say clearly is because this child is still having problems gaining weight and eating two months after admission." Tuesday, Texas Rep. Carl Sherman (D-DeSoto) weighed in. "On behalf of the state of Texas, I apologize," he said. "No parent should have to go through what you and your father have experienced. This is America." Sherman said parents should have a right to a second opinion without losing their parental rights, and he wants to pursue legislation supporting that. "Families like this are model families. You've got a top 10% graduate of UNT. You've got a father engaged with their grandson. That is what we want," he said. Sanders says she has only been allowed weekly visits with her son, and he cries when she has to leave. "I want to tell him mommy is doing everything she can to bring him home to me," she said. The court hearing is set for 9 a.m. Wednesday in Denton. Corporate giants are taking aim at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and attempting to hobble the agency in charge of protecting unions and their members. Amazon, Starbucks, SpaceX and Trader Joes are all facing complaints from the NLRB over their alleged harassment, intimidation and illegal firings of unionizing employees. The companies have responded by challenging the constitutionality of the NLRB in federal court, which could upend the structure of the New Deal-era agency. The NLRB is at the center President Bidens mission to be the most pro-union president ever and a bulwark for a rising tide of union activity. But the organization could suffer a serious blow to its power if the companies challenging its legality succeed. This energy in the labor movement is at least in part fueled by the knowledge that workers have that they are protected when they undertake these kinds of activities, said Sharon Block, a former NLRB member who now works as a professor and executive director for the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School. If that protection slips or continues to slip, or slips even more, then thats a different calculus for workers in deciding whether to undertake those kinds of activities, she added. The NLRB consists of five members, who are appointed by the president to five-year terms. According to the agency website, the NLRB receives around 20,000 to 30,000 charges each year from employees, employers and unions. If an NLRB investigation finds enough evidence to support a charge, the agency either facilitates a settlement or issues a complaint, representing the charging party in a hearing before NLRB administrative law judges. Once youre investigating a charge, youre supposed to be completely neutral. Youre fact-finding, youre doing an investigation, Rana Roumayah, a partner at Honigman LLP who worked as an NLRB lawyer for 23 years, told The Hill. Where it kind of switches is once the NLRB determines that theres enough evidence for a violation. Then you step out of the neutral role, and you step into a prosecutorial role. The companies facing NLRB pressure for alleged labor law violations have turned those complaints on their head, arguing that the agency is the one overstepping the law. The corporations claim that the NLRBs members and administrative law judges are improperly protected from removal because they cant be immediately fired by the president or can only be fired for cause, which typically involves misconduct. Elon Musks SpaceX initially filed a complaint against the NLRB in January, after the labor board accused the rocket company of unlawfully firing eight employees for circulating an open letter that was critical of the company and Musk. In the filing, SpaceX argued that because board members and NLRB judges can only be removed for cause and cannot immediately be removed by the president, the constitutionally required degree of control is lacking. SpaceX also argued that the NLRBs proceedings violate its Fifth Amendment right to due process and Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The complaint calls into question the basic structure of the NLRB, Block said. If SpaceX was successful, you would have the agency that is responsible for protecting the rights of people to be in unions, to act concertedly, having a much more difficult time doing its job, she said. SpaceX is the only company to file a separate lawsuit against the board so far. But more corporate giants facing union-busting complaints from the NLRB have since joined the fray, including Trader Joes, Amazon and Starbucks. An attorney for Trader Joes argued at a hearing in mid-January that the structure and organization of the board and its judges are unconstitutional. Amazon also alleged in a recent filing that the NLRBs structure violates the separation of powers because its board members and judges are largely protected from presidential oversight and removal, impeding the executive power enshrined in Article II of the Constitution. Starbucks similarly argued recently that the limitations on the removal of NLRB members and judges frustrates the presidential control Article II demands. Starbucks spokesperson Andrew Trull emphasized that unlike other employers, the coffee chain has not filed a lawsuit challenging the NLRBs constitutionality but has instead included the argument, among other affirmative defenses, in unfair labor practice charges currently under review. When pressed on the purpose or goal of including the argument, Trull said a recent analysis by Bloomberg Law captured it fairly well when it suggested that such arguments will become a standard part of employers defenses against NLRB complaints until theres a definitive federal court ruling on this latest round of corporate challenges. Wilma Liebman, who served as NLRB chair under former President Obama, described the recent arguments against the agency as extreme and worrisome. However, she emphasized that such arguments have been percolating for a long time, particularly in conservative legal spaces. The Federalist Society, a conservative legal nonprofit that compiled the shortlist of Supreme Court nominees for former President Trump, published a blog post by a contributor questioning the constitutionality of the NLRB in November. I think to some extent, this is the companies jumping on the bandwagon, Liebman said, adding that they may be taking advantage of yet another argument to try to defend themselves. Block noted that while it is novel to apply this argument to the NLRB, it has been made over the years about other federal agencies with a similar structure to the labor board. The Supreme Court heard three cases just last fall challenging the structure and powers of various agencies, including the legality of administrative law judges at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SpaceX filing points to one of those cases, SEC v. Jarkesy, noting the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals previously held that removal powers extend to these judges who perform substantial executive functions. We had thought that the question of whether the NLRB is constitutionally constituted was resolved decades ago, David Wimmer, a labor and employment attorney and partner at Swerdlow Florence Sanchez Swerdlow & Wimmer, told The Hill. However, the U.S. Supreme Court appears willing to revisit the breadth of power given to federal agencies whether it be through the major question doctrine or the review of Chevron deference, he added. Block suggested that these arguments are proliferating because a very expansive invitation has effectively been issued by the court to bring these kinds of challenges. Companies that dont want to have to recognize workers right to collective bargaining into concerted activity are taking up that invitation, she said. The latest attacks on the constitutionality of the NLRB come as the organized labor movement has experienced a renaissance. Hollywood ground to a halt last year, after both writers and actors went on strike for months on end. The United Auto Workers (UAW) union also won major concessions from the Big Three automakers after striking for six weeks last fall. Workers at SpaceX, Trader Joes, Amazon and Starbucks are among those who have launched high-profile unionizing efforts in recent years. A lot of these companies lost the union elections. Theyre seeing a disproportionate amount of unionization that maybe hasnt happened under previous administrations under previous eras, and now theyre concerned, Camron Dowlatshahi, a partner at Mills Sadat Dowlat LLP who has argued labor rights cases for both employees and employers, told The Hill. Union membership has remained stagnant even as surveys show Americans have started to view unions more favorably. Around 10 percent of workers in the U.S. were members of a union in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, largely unchanged despite the surge in union activity. While questions remain about the outcome of challenges to the NLRB, labor law experts warned that hamstringing the agency could make organizing and bringing cases against employers more difficult. If we were to eliminate the NLRB and go straight to the federal courts, you really would be making a lot of employees disadvantaged because theyd have to then hire their own private attorney, pay out of pocket for that, and who knows how long it would take to go through the federal courts, Roumayah, the former NLRB lawyer, told The Hill. The 2024 election could have a more immediate impact on the labor movement, Roumayah said. The ideology of the board already swings depending on what party controls the White House in what Roumayah described as a ping-pong game. Boards with a Democratic majority tend to side with unions, while Republican majorities side with employers. If a Republican president is in the administration, and Republicans have a majority, the board has a conservative majority, everything will just start undoing itself again, Roumayah said. Both President Biden and former President Trump have been courting organized labor ahead of the presidential election. Biden recently snagged a key endorsement from the UAW after becoming the first president to visit a picket line during strikes last fall. The Teamsters, which narrowly avoided an economically catastrophic strike amid contract negotiations with UPS, made its first major donation to the Republican National Committee in more than two decades the same day Trump met with the union in January, according to a Federal Election Commission filing. Unions historically endorse and contribute to Democratic candidates more than Republican ones, but Dowlatshahi cautioned against viewing the latest challenge to the NLRB as a partisan issue. Most Americans are employees, Dowlatshahi said. So no matter where they stand on the political spectrum, they should recognize the potential severity of infringing on employee rights and potentially limiting employee rights. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Theres a good reason the population of our state grew at nearly double the national average over the last decade and was ranked among the top five fastest-growing states: Opportunity. But despite our economic growth, the cost of housing is growing way faster than wages. To afford the average single-family home in metro Phoenix, you now need to have a six-figure income. But the median annual salary for a full-time employee in Arizona as of January 2024 is $52,700. People who serve our communities, like teachers, nurses and first responders, are being priced out of home ownership and the American Dream in Arizona. Instead of becoming homeowners, theyre quickly finding themselves as cost-burdened renters, meaning they will spend more than 30% of their monthly income on the average apartment. Corporate investors are gobbling up homes A For Sale sign is posted outside a home in Glendale, Ariz. on Feb. 26, 2024. There are several reasons for the sky high cost of housing, but one that isnt talked about enough: Price-gouging middlemen. Megacorporations make their investors and executives filthy rich by hiking prices on many of our basic needs, including prescription drugs and groceries. Its no surprise that rents and mortgages are also a target for greedy investors looking to make a big profit on the backs of hardworking Arizonans. Concerningly, Arizona has become a top location for out-of-state property investors. One Pew Research Center study found that Wall Street hedge funds and other corporate investors purchased an eye-popping 1 out of every 3 single-family homes in Arizona on the market in 2021. Only Georgia had more of its homes purchased by corporate investors than Arizona. Bills limit how many homes they can buy When predatory corporate landlords purchase local single-family homes, it sets off a vicious cycle. Rich investors outbid Arizona families with cash offers and keep starter homes out of the hands of would-be owners. Corporate investors then often either convert the homes into short-term rentals, which contribute to a rise in rent prices in the area, or they rent the homes out for exorbitant prices. Housing bills: Wrongly demonize local zoning laws We were elected to serve our constituents who are here for the long-term, not corporate special interests looking for short-term profit. As we continue to fight for good economic policy at the state Legislature, lowering rents and mortgages for everyday Arizonans must be a priority for every legislator. Thats why weve introduced House Bill 2763 and Senate Bill 1542 this legislative session mirror bills aimed at stopping hedge funds and corporate landlords from dominating Arizonas housing market and artificially inflating housing costs. The legislation creates transparency by requiring corporate investors to disclose how many single-family homes they own in our state. And it takes on the corporations that are jacking up housing prices by capping the number of single-family homes they can purchase at 100 per year. Arizona homes should be owned by Arizonans Ensuring that rich corporations have to play by rules that dont put hardworking middle-class families at a disadvantage is reasonable and fair policy that is supported across the country on both sides of the aisle. There is no silver bullet to solve the affordable housing crisis. Lowering housing costs will take an all-of-the-above approach. But Arizona homes must belong to Arizona families not out-of-state corporate investors. Reining in the corporations that are running a monopoly on our housing supply is one important step we must take to lower housing costs for everyday Arizonans. State Rep. Oscar De Los Santos represents District 11 and is assistant leader of the Arizona House Democrats. State Sen. Juan Mendez represents District 8 and is assistant leader of the Arizona Senate Democrats. On X, formerly Twitter, at @os_delossantos and @mendezforaz. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Corporate investors snatch 1 of 3 Arizona homes. That must end The parade would celebrate the opening of a new lodge A council committee is to decide whether a parade to mark the opening of an Orange Lodge in Stonehaven should go ahead. Members of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland intend to march from the town hall to Dunnottar Cemetery on 16 March. The notice of procession application sent to the local authority states that about 200 people are likely to take part. A petition, calling for the event to be stopped, is circulating online. Aberdeenshire Council's Kincardine and Mearns area committee will meet on 5 March to consider the notice. Members will decide whether to allow the parade to proceed, with or without conditions, or to prohibit the procession and state their reasons for doing so. The Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland said the parade would celebrate the opening of its new lodge and provide an opportunity for members to "remember those many covenanters in Stonehaven who were tortured and murdered for their reformed faith". A petition has described the parade as "sectarian" while calling for it to be stopped. The event would start at Stonehaven town hall According to council papers, all participants in the parade "will be dressed formally and controlled by fully-briefed Orange Institution Marshalls". The event will be attended by the Pride of the Rock Flute Band from Dumbarton. David Walters, executive officer at the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland, said the event would cause some disruption but that it would be no different to that of other processions. Mr Walters rejected accusations of "anti-Catholic and anti-Irish hostility" made against the organisation by those objecting to the parade. He told BBC Scotland: "This is usually the allegation that is posted against us without any evidence to suggest that is the case. "We're a very peaceful organisation, all of our members conduct themselves in the proper manner." Stonehaven resident Neil Young launched a petition calling for the event to be stopped 'Threatening and intimidatory' Stonehaven resident Neil Young set up the petition calling for the parade to be stopped. He said: "The Orange Order might like to present itself as a group of jolly, cultural traditionalists who are exercising their rights and their freedom of movement but what they are really about is intimidation, threats, prejudice and really trying to keep people down who are not like them. "Their very presence in this town, or anywhere else, will be threatening and intimidatory." He said there had already been a "strong response" from people in Stonehaven. "It's a lovely, inclusive, welcoming and friendly town and we want to keep it that way," he said. Related internet links A shadow group of anti-government operatives are planning to stage a coup against Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, the groups leader revealed in an interview this week. We have worked out a plan and will put it into effect at the right time, Aliaksandr Azarau, the head of the resistance group known as BYPOL, revealed in an interview with Belgian broadcaster VRT on Wednesday. Azarau did not divulge many details about what a coup may look like, but recent sabotage operations in Belarus could offer clues. The revelation comes as Belarusian opposition groups have been working on sabotaging Russias increasing influence on Lukashenko, who has inextricably intertwined his regime with Russian President Vladimir Putins. Last year, when a Russian A-50 military surveillance was attacked in Belarus, Belarusian opposition claimed responsibility, warning Moscow that more sabotage was coming if Putin continued to use Belarus as a staging ground for war in Ukraine, as previously reported by The Daily Beast. Putins Favorite Neighbor Is Caving in to the Kremlin The BYPOL group has also trained members of the Kalinowski Regiment, which joined Ukrainian fighters in their effort to thwart Russias invasion in Ukraine. And early on in the war, Belarusian saboteurs hacked and disrupted railway operations, leaving Russias logistics in chaos in the early days of the invasion. As they see it, working to secure the defeat of Russia in Ukraine would help hasten the end of Putins regime, therefore sucking the air of out Lukashenkos. Without Putin, there is no Lukashenko, Azarau said. If Ukraine can launch a successful offensive, Putin will no longer have time for Belarus. Azarau was previously a member of the Belarusian opposition governments cabinet, in charge of law and order. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the democratically elected leader of Belarus, removed him from that role last year, urging him instead to coordinate the underground movement and the so-called Victory Plan, or the Pieramoha Plan, which is aimed at civil disobedience throughout Belarus. The opposition, which is in exile, has urged saboteurs and dissidents to be prepared to act when the time is right for years. They have largely urged nonviolent resistance, including sabotage, hacking, espionage, and other internal turmoil. Azarau said that 200,000 people have registered to help establish barricades, traffic jams, or large crowds to stage resistance against Lukashenkos regime when needed. He added that five thousand citizens have said they would be willing to participate in special operations or sabotage. 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. The Shevchenkivskyi district court extended oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky's detention for another two months but reduced his bail to Hr 2.4 billion hryvnias ($62.5 million), his lawyer told Suspilne on Feb. 28. Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine's most well-known business tycoons, was arrested on Sept. 2 for alleged fraud and money laundering related to his oil and gas holdings. His bail was initially set at Hr 509 million (now $13.2 million). The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) handed Kolomoisky additional criminal charges on Sept. 7, accusing him of embezzling $250 million from PrivatBank in 2015. Following the new charge, the Shevchenkivskyi district court increased the oligarch's bail to Hr 3.89 billion (now $101.4 million). The prosecutor said this was in part due to the fact that the oligarch had lost his Ukrainian citizenship and is now a citizen of Israel, which creates a risk of him hiding abroad. Kolomoisky does not plan to pay his bail, despite its reduced amount, Kolomoisky's lawyer Oleksandr Lysak told Suspilne. His detention was extended until April 25. The court also issued another decision, namely that Kolomoisky should "immediately" be given a "proper medical examination," Lysak said. Kolomoisky, who is 61 years old, has repeatedly complained about his health issues while in detention. His petition to change the terms of his pretrial detention to house arrest due to his health issues was denied in November. The Shevchenkivskyi district court previously decided to prolong Kolomoisky's detention in January. During the hearing on Jan. 22, Kolomoisky again said that he needed a medical examination as his health conditions had worsened. His lawyers insisted on allowing Kolomoisky to move from custody to house arrest in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The court refused, instead extending his detention as the pre-trial investigation is ongoing. Read also: Who is Viktor Pavlushchyk, newly-elected head of key Ukrainian anti-corruption agency? Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. [Source] A heartwarming video capturing the emotional journey of an Indian security guards daughter graduating from a prestigious U.K. university has gone viral on social media. About the video: The now-viral video, posted on Instagram by Dhanshree Gaikwad over the weekend, highlights the touching bond between Dhanshree and her father, who defied societal expectations to support her education abroad. The edited video starts with the emotional moment of the father crying and hugging Dhanshree upon receiving the acceptance letter into the University of Plymouth to bidding farewell at the airport and finally attending her graduation ceremony. To everyone who said to my father, You are just a guard, you cant send your daughter abroad. Hes my lifeguard and he did it, Dhanshree wrote in the video. #graduated Thank you Pappa for believing in me, she added in her posts caption. Trending on NextShark: Japan breaks ground on world's first museum for video game art Going viral: In less than a week, the video has already garnered more than 22 million views and over 2 million likes. Viewers praised and congratulated Dhanshree and her father, noting their inspiration and pride found in their story. The video also reached local celebrities and officials like Ayushmann Khurrana, Jiya Shankar, Pragati Srivastava, Esha Gupta and Priyanka Chaturvedi, who expressed admiration and applauded Dhanshree for making her father proud. Trending on NextShark: Video of Mexican American toddler crying because she's not Chinese goes viral Ugh my heart, Shankar commented. Immense amount of respect for your father and super proud of you. God bless you guys. Thank you for making your dad proud, Srivastava said. He deserves all the happiness in the world. More power to you. Dhanshrees story: According to the graduate, she worked continuously from 2016 to 2022 after receiving her bachelor's degree to financially support her family. Despite facing challenges as the eldest sibling, Dhanshree and her family planned for her to study abroad to get her master's, taking two years to prepare. After saving money from post-COVID employment and exploring scholarship options, Dhanshrees family, including her brother and father, supported her in obtaining a loan to pursue higher education. Dhanshree ensured that her family did not have to face financial concerns by covering expenses through part-time work in the U.K. Trending on NextShark: Watch: Chinese makeup artist transforms 57-year-old man into '27-year-old' Dhanshree expresses gratitude: Since going viral, Dhanshree shared a new video to thank everyone for their love and support. The recording features Dhanshree getting ready and attending her graduation ceremony. I never imagined that sharing my background would have such a profound emotional impact on others. Its incredible to see how my story resonates with thousands of people who feel like my success is their own. The overwhelming appreciation Im receiving for what I consider to be the bare minimummaking my parents proud in exchange of their hard workleaves me truly blown away. Im so grateful #blessed, she wrote. Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today! WASHINGTON (DC News Now) Businesses and historians say the Black community should be uplifted beyond Black History Month. 33-year-old Kamau Grimes says growing up in D.C. he never thought Black Americans were a minority in the U.S. Credit: Andie Vigliotti Grimes grew up in Ward 8 located in the Southernmost tip of the district east of the Anacostia River. He was born in an era when D.C. was called The Chocolate City when the 1970 census showed a city that was more than 70% Black, yet Black residents have slowly but surely been migrating from the D.C. metro area and into DMV suburbs like Prince Georges County. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, only 41.4% of D.C.s population identified as black alone. As gentrification and demographic changes threaten the place of the Black community, Grimes and others are adapting to a changing community to show that they still exist- and have a rich history within this city. Black History Month Literary Weekend, a celebration of Black History Grimes says its disheartening to encounter so many people who move to D.C. and never meet any local. Obviously we want people to find [and] live their best life, chase their dreams, follow the opportunities, come to D.C., said Grimes. Its a great city, being here. But at the same time, how can we prepare the young people and the people who are from here to grow up and actually like, experience what D.C. has to offer? Because, I mean, a lot of people, they just talk about it, like, I dont even know anyone from D.C. The only people I know from D.C. is a security guard [or a] janitor. Historian and African American Studies professor at Georgetown University Maurice Jackson says young citizens who move to D.C. often dont know the history of the city theyre living in. In many cases, when young whites move into the area, they dont have the consciousness that many people had years ago because many whites who came to D.C. years ago, came there directly after the civil rights movement. So, there is a level of complacency, Im afraid, said Jackson. African American Museum Black History Month programming Grimes said he has found a sense of community and remembrance through Sanfoka Video Books and Cafe, where patronage turned into a job he has worked for nearly five years. Grimes frequented Sankofa for three years before applying for a job there. He became a regular at the bookstore while completing his masters degree at nearby Howard University after his book club recommended he source his books there. Sankofa, which means to go back to ones roots, has a long history of building community at its Georgia Avenue location. The store was founded in 1998 by Haile and Shirikiana Gerima who started the business as a way to promote their eponymous film. Grimes says Sankofa has grown to foster an environment of intellectualism for community development. You could tell the people who started this place, they werent necessarily just in it, they werent in it for the money. Theyre in it for the belief, the mission, you know, Is this safe space for people? [For] a lot of people this is their second education, they can begin the process of their own self-educationyou can set your own curriculum, and its freeing. Thats a free place, he said. Celebrating Black History Month with Reading Partners DC Briana Thomas, a Maryland-raised journalist, and historian, has worked with Sankofa to spotlight the history uncovered by her book Black Broadway, which highlights the legacies of cultural Black icons in the U-Street Corridor. Thomas first got the idea for this book from a photo essay assignment from Washingtonian Magazine. She jumped at the opportunity to take this assignment and go back to her own roots, impassioned by childhood memories with her grandmother and sister. She would take me sightseeing growing up to different places or on U Street to Bens Chili Bowls, which is one of the remaining black-owned businesses, and a lot of those spaces arent around anymore or [had] just a lot of a lot of changes, said Thomas. There [are] a lot of factors to that, gentrification being one of them, but so many more that are so much more detailed. Black populations flourished in the 1960s in the areas of U-Street, Shaw, and Columbia Heights, experiencing a cultural boom in music such as jazz and go-go, literature, and activism. Thomas book excavates forgotten history that she and many others are fighting to preserve. The GW Institute of Public Policys Center for Washington Area Studies reported that these areas have seen a decline in concentrations of Black populations. Congressional Black Caucus celebrates Black History Month Black citizens have been pushed toward Wards 7 and 8, which have the highest concentrations in the city. The areas of Wards 7 and 8 have long been home to a population where the majority of its residents are Black. Wards 7 and 8 also experience the highest levels of poverty, violent crime, and unemployment. This dates back to D.C.s long history of segregation and redlining restricting Black residents from moving north of Florida Avenue and east of the Anacostia River, according to the DC Policy Center. A 2020 NCRC study ranked D.C. as the 13th most intensely segregated city in the US, supported by census data from 2013 to 2017. In a study the organization did the previous year, which monitored gentrification from 2000 to 2012, DC was the number one most intensely gentrified city. Residents have increasingly expressed frustration at this neglect of their communities until demographic change has occurred. For those who have been in the community and lived in the community and have seen the different eras of Washington, D.C., a lot of them dont mind the change, said Thomas. The issue with the change is Why do we have to leave or be pushed out because new people come? Its just a matter of why does crime go down when you have more white people in a neighborhood. Why is there more police presence? Why are streets cleaner? Why do you wait until black people are no longer in their community to start having healthy food options there and having better school systems? AMC Theatres offering $5 movie tickets for Black History Month Thomas said that these changing neighborhood demographics are what prompted her to invest in preserving the history of D.C.s Black Communities and historical figures, such as Carter T. Woodson, who founded Black History Month in 1926 right in his house within the U-Street Corridor. Once I started researching Howard University and talking to the long-time business owners and things and they told me how the neighborhood has changed, I knew that history needed to be told and preserved. So that way, you know, more people can hopefully keep these spaces open. Black Broadway took form along this corridor, dominated by businesses and institutions that embodied Black culture and spirit. She says that there have been plenty of artists keeping the spirit alive, such as the murals that decorate nearly every corner of the U-Street Corridor, paying homage to historic figures, such as Duke Ellington, Frederick Douglass, Marvin Gaye, and Chuck Brown, while also celebrating new movements and raising awareness for social change. Jackson is also one of the editors of D.C. Jazz, a collection of stories chronicling the lives and achievements of DCs overshadowed jazz scene, and the author of two forthcoming books on Black history. He says looking forward, more needs to be done for his community beyond Black History Month celebrations, which often dont do much materially. So African American History Month is really about the struggles, but also the achievements of African American people. One problem is, however, that this achievement, [the] struggles, need to be recognized every day, especially with the justification of the city, Jackson said. Black History Month Highlight: Monae Wines In Jacksons eyes, the exodus of middle-class African Americans to the suburbs is reinforced by the citys economic condition which stunts class mobility and jobs that increasingly require a college education. The Washington Literacy Center estimates that for over 119,000 adults, low literacy rates act as structural barriers to escaping poverty, and a 2017 report that Jackson helped author envisioned half of all new jobs in D.C. by 2020 would require at least a bachelors degree. Jackson believes that more needs to be done to bridge this gap and sustainably retain D.C.s Black population. Black community efforts have always existed, according to Jackson, but they lack the resources and the funds, so responsibility ultimately lands on the government. Its not just that people are leaving, Jackson said. Its that no one cares that people are leaving. Its that so many African Americans are leaving the city because of economics, and few people are doing anything to try to help. Looking to the end of Black History Month, the struggles that Black Americans in D.C. face are clear, but the community champions resilience in the face of it. Businesses and historians are working hand in hand to preserve their cultures presence in the city and memorialize the history they built, and they urge residents of D.C. to widen the scope of their investment beyond this month and stand by the Black community year-round. To help preserve history, you have to support the storytellers of history and you also have to support the establishments. So especially during Black History Month, but all days of the year support black businesses, support theaters that support black people, support black art, support black writers. Thats how you help to preserve the history because youre preserving the culture, Thomas said. Recommended Reading for furthering knowledge: Black Broadway in Washington, D.C. by Briana Thomas DC Jazz: Stories of Jazz Music in Washington, DC edited by Maurice Jackson and Blair A. Ruble Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nations Capital by Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove Hidden Alleyways of Washington, D.C.: A History, by Kim Prothro Williams Barry Farm-Hillsdale in Anacostia: A Historic African American Community (American Heritage) by Alcione M. Amos Egypt on the Potomac by Anthony T. Browder Mayor for Life: The Incredible Story of Marion Barry, Jr. by Marion Barry Jr. and Omar Tyree Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. WASHINGTON (DC News Now) The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is asking for the publics help in finding a suspect who robbed someone in Southeast D.C. on Tuesday morning. At about 11:46 a.m., the suspect approached a person in the 1800 block of Marion Barry Ave. SE. There, the suspect took the victims coat and fled the scene. Maryland bill could allow for alcohol home delivery The suspect was captured by a surveillance camera and can be seen below: (Courtesy of the Metropolitan Police Department) Anyone with information is asked to call MPD at (202) 727-9099 or text the departments tip line at 50411. A reward of up to $1,000 is offered to anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest and indictment of those responsible. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. Theres been little resolution for hundreds of people in need of benefits from the state, because of issues with a system that has been in place for nearly three months. The new MyACCESS application portal launched on December 5th and was supposed to be more user friendly. However, since its launch, Channel 9 has showed you longlines for in-person requests, online glitches, and overwhelmed call lines. Channel 9 first reached out to the Department of Children and Families on January 10th, about reported issues. At the time DCF denied that any issues existed and said the portal was successfully launched. However, in the months since, hundreds of Central Floridians have lost SNAP and Medicaid benefits or never got them at all because of systemwide glitches. Local non-profit Matthews Hope Ministries said their SNAP services have come to a standstill as a result. Read: Orlando Sanford International Airport confirms incident involving two small planes, officials say If anyone has a back-door into the state system, or knows someone that can get these people fed. Please Im all ears at this point, said Holly Norris with Matthews Hope Ministries. The non-profit provides outreach for the homeless as well as hot meals, showers, and other social services. Norris said in the last few months, only 3 of her clients have been able to get through for phone interviews which are often needed to verify someones SNAP claims. Despite contacting DCF directly, and attempting to become a Community Partner, Norris said there has been little progress. I have to convey to these homeless people why its not working and all they know is that theyre hungry, Norris said. Read: Only on 9: Central Florida teen recalls being shot by Ocoee police officer after shoplifting report Meanwhile, community activist Vanessa Brito has several excel sheets documenting close to a thousand people impacted by portal issues ranging from problems uploading documents to not being able to connect with representatives for necessary phone interviews. Im having to send almost periodically, every two days list of claimants who are encountering issues, said Brito. Brito said time and time again, people have self-reported the same issues with the portal. She has gotten help for some of those impacted by working through contacts at DCF but said she has gotten zero answers on a systemwide fix. Theres just so many things that they can do to mitigate whats happening, said Brito, There has to be some acknowledgement and some transparency on their part. Read: Woman shot to death at Citra home Since WFTVs first email to DCF in January, we have sent over a dozen emails to the state pressing the agency about what it is doing to fix this, and how we should direct those in need. In over a months time, the agency failed to respond to any of those inquiries with any new details. Instead, DCF had only said, theyre working on our request. After contacting DCF on Tuesday, the agency sent a new statement explaining that some complaints are unique to Matthews Hope Ministries and that issues may occur via user error in other cases. The Department also said they were fully staffed to process applications and receive calls. Read: Orange County deputies search for missing 13-year-old girl The full statement from DCF spokesperson Mallory McManus is below: It is our belief that these complaints are unique to this organization. Some issues may occur via user error, but DCF is adequately staffed to receive calls and help process applications. Since the launch of the enhanced system in early December: More than 1.8 million documents have been uploaded successfully. A 175% increase in cases were processed without having to request additional information or contact the recipient. There has been a 20% reduction in the number of duplicate applications received. Read: Construction begins on Ponce Inlet boat hotel If someone is having difficulty uploading documents, they can contact our dedicated line at: 833-912-2575. They can also notify us in writing using the form on our website located here: https://www.myflfamilies.com/contact-us/dcf-inquiry and someone will call them back to provide assistance. Not everyone who completes an application needs to do an interview. If the individual is pending an interview there is a direct phone number to a case worker on their pending notice to complete the interview. If they were awaiting an interview and contact the call center from 7am to 6pm, they are automatically transferred an agent to complete the interview. Additionally, our vacancy rate for those answering the phones is less than 5 percent, and the Department has hired an additional 125 call center agents. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. Now That's Metal Even in death, a white dwarf proved to be a formidable killer. The star, called WD 0816-310, bears a gnarly metal scar on its surface which astronomers say was made when it devoured a nearby planet. The findings of these gruesome cosmic forensics, published as a new study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, show the tumultuous changes a planetary system can undergo even after its host star is already dead. What's more, it's the first time that such a "scar" has ever been observed. "It is well known that some white dwarfs slowly cooling embers of stars like our Sun are cannibalizing pieces of their planetary systems," study co-author Stefano Bagnulo, an astronomer at Armagh Observatory and Planetarium in Northern Ireland, said in a statement about the work. "Now we have discovered that the star's magnetic field plays a key role in this process, resulting in a scar on the white dwarf's surface." Concentrated Effort The researchers observed the "polluted" white dwarf, as it's technically known, using the Very Large Telescope in Chile. In particular, they leveraged its instrument called FORS2, which is capable of producing spectrums of light detailed enough for astronomers to infer the composition of distant objects. When examining the data, they noticed that as the star rotated, the strength of its metal signatures would change. That was odd, because it suggested that the metal was clumped together in one spot, forming the "scar," rather than being diffused across the stellar surface as observed on other white dwarfs. Soon, they realized that the scar was situated at one of the star's magnetic poles, suggesting its materials were channeled there by the intense magnetic field. "Surprisingly, the material was not evenly mixed over the surface of the star, as predicted by theory," explained study coauthor John Landstreet, an astrophysicist affiliated with Armagh Observatory, in the statement. "Instead, this scar is a concentrated patch of planetary material, held in place by the same magnetic field that has guided the infalling fragments," he added. "Nothing like this has been seen before." Battle Starred The scar, which is primarily made up of calcium, magnesium, and iron, was likely left behind by an ill-fated planetary fragment about 310 miles across that got pulled in by the gravity of the white dwarf. And that gravity is monstrous. White dwarfs, as the cores of collapsed stars, can have as much mass as our Sun while being roughly the size of Earth, making them incredibly dense. In the whole cosmos, only neutron stars and black holes are denser. So this is what awaits a planetary system after its host star is dead. The study shows that, even from the grave, these stellar remnants will continue to wreak havoc on whatever lives on to still orbit them. Hopefully our Sun, which will also become a white dwarf one day, will be more merciful to our little planet after it kicks the bucket. More on stars: Passing Star Altered Earth's Orbit, Scientists Say Death of pregnant Amish woman found in Pennsylvania home investigated as homicide: report Pennsylvania police are investigating the killing of a 23-year-old pregnant Amish woman who was reportedly found slain at her home on Monday, authorities said. State police were called just before 12:30 p.m. to a home in the 21000 block of Fish Flats Road in Sparta Township, a news release said. Responding troopers found Rebekah A. Byler deceased, and her death is being investigated as a homicide, authorities said. TWIN ALLEGEDLY TRIED TO TAKE BLAME FOR SISTER AFTER FATAL AMISH BUGGY CRASH IN MINNESOTA Fox News Digital has reached out to the state police. Neighbors told WJET-TV/FOX 66 that a young, Amish couple lives in the Sparta Township home roughly 37 miles southeast of Erie. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP "At approximately 12:30, PSP Corry got a call from 911 of a deceased female that was found at the scene. At this point, we have confirmed the identity of the female, that she is deceased, and it looks like suspicious circumstances," state police Lt. Mark Weindorf told WJET-TV/FOX 66. Byler's two young children were in the home when her body was discovered, authorities told the news outlet. Byler's husband came home around noon and found the body of his wife, neighbors said. Family members said she was six months pregnant. Investigators have not said how she died. Original article source: Death of pregnant Amish woman found in Pennsylvania home investigated as homicide: report Conservative MP Miriam Cates has written an article in The Telegraph criticising an amendment to decriminalise abortion - Paul Grover for the Telegraph Decriminalising abortion will fuel late-term DIY procedures by pregnant women, a senior MP has warned. In an article for The Telegraph, Miriam Cates, co-chairman of the New Conservatives group of MPs, said an amendment proposing to decriminalise abortion would remove any consequence for a pregnant woman who decided to terminate their baby after the current 24-week limit. Because the proposed amendment does not change the requirements under the 1967 Act barring doctors from conducting abortions after 24 weeks, Ms Cates said it would result in a rise in the number of women trying to carry out DIY terminations on their post-term babies. Decriminalising abortion to term would not just put women in danger, it would mark a serious failure in our duty to protect the rights of the unborn child, she said. She warned that she felt so strongly about it that if the amendment passed, she and many other MPs would vote against the Criminal Justice Bill in its entirety. Dame Diana Johnson led an amendment that would mean women would no longer be prosecuted if they ended their pregnancies beyond the 24-week limit - Maria Unger/PA Her comments mark the opening of what is expected to be a passionate debate over what could be the first major changes to abortion law in more than 30 years. There are two amendments that have been tabled. One led by Diana Johnson, Labour chairman of the home affairs committee, would mean women would no longer be prosecuted if they ended their pregnancies beyond the 24-week legal time limit. It has so far gathered cross party support from more than 20 MPs. Women can be jailed under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act if they have an abortion outside set circumstances. Last year a mother of three was sent to prison for an illegal abortion, and about 100 women have faced police investigations since 2019. Under the amendment, the 1861 law would no longer apply to women ending their own pregnancies, although they would still have to abide by the requirements of the 1967 abortion act and the 24-week limit would remain intact. Cut limit to 22 weeks It would bring England and Wales into line with Northern Ireland, where abortions were decriminalised in 2019. It is backed by the Royal Colleges of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, of GPs and of Midwives and the British Medical Association. A YouGov poll showed 55 per cent of MPs also supported the change. A second, backed by Ms Cates, would cut the time limit from 24 to 22 weeks, on the basis that the survival rate for extremely premature babies born at 23 weeks has doubled from two in 10 to four in 10. Twenty two weeks is now recognised by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine as the point of viability outside the womb. Ms Cates blamed the rise in late-term terminations and prosecutions on changes during the Covid pandemic which allowed clinicians to issue abortion pills over the phone, by-passing the usual requirements for face-to-face consultations. These changes have since been made permanent. She said predictions that these changes would lead to a rise in dangerous late-term abortions had proved well founded and called for a return to face-to-face consultations. Go after the abortion providers Given that it will remain illegal for clinicians to assist with terminations after the current 24-week legal limit, removing any consequences for women who abort their babies after this time will inevitably result in a rise in dangerous, late-term, DIY and coercive terminations, Ms Cates said. However, Ms Johnson said: This amendment is only taking women out of the criminal justice system. If you look at somewhere like Texas, which has very restrictive laws, they dont criminalise women. They go after the abortion providers. We are out of step even with those countries that have stricter abortion laws. The debate is essentially between women's human rights and those of the unborn child - Jacob Wackerhausen/iStockphoto She suggested that women who took abortion pills to have late miscarriages were women in the most vulnerable and difficult circumstances. It may be domestic abuse, coercive control. They may have been trafficked. The question is: do you believe they should be brought before the criminal law or should they be offered help and support, she said. Opinion Miriam Cates Read more Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Chamber of the Florida House of Representatives. Credit: Imani Thomas Quality Journalism for Critical Times The House and Senate sponsors of legislation to tighten Floridas defamation law against media organizations conceded Tuesday that the measure is falling short as the regular session winds to a close. Dead, Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur said when asked about the bills prospects. Brodeur, representing Seminole and part of Orange counties, added a caveat: As far as I know. But thats going to be up to the presiding officer meaning Senate President Kathleen Passidomo. State Rep. Alex Andrade. Credit: FL House of Representatives. The House sponsor, Alex Andrade, a Republican whose district include parts of Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, also acknowledged the writing on the wall. President Passidomo doesnt want to hear it. It depends on how much anybody else cares about it. Like, I dont negotiate with President Passidomo, Andrade told the Phoenix. Additionally, the speaker [of the House, Paul Renner] doesnt want it. The governor doesnt have the bandwidth to negotiate for it, he added. Theres nothing to trade, nothing to negotiate on. President Passidomo is going to kill it. The legislation got farther through the House process than in the Senate; its ready for the House floor should the leaderships priorities change, but the Senate version, having passed in the Judiciary Committee, has stalled in Fiscal Policy. When a bill is stuck in a Senate Committee, the Senate cannot take up the House Bill on the floor without waiving the rules, Senate spokesperson Katie Betta told the Phoenix by email. That would require cooperation from Passidomo who, Betta said, hasnt taken a position on the legislation not at this time, as Betta put it. Similar legislation failed last year, notwithstanding support from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who makes a habit of criticizing corporate media. Veracity hearings Andrades bill (HB 757) would allow publishers to mitigate any damages by posting retractions. Plaintiffs could file suit in any county in which the material broadcast by radio or television or posted on the internet was viewable. Once a complaint is filed, courts would have 60 days to conduct veracity hearings testing whether the challenged material was an assertion of fact or opinion; whether it was true or false; whether it was defamatory; whether the subject of the material was a public figure; and whether the publication acted negligently, recklessly, intentionally, or with actual malice. If a public figure plaintiff can establish that a published statement is false and that the publisher relied on an anonymous source for the statement, there is a rebuttable presumption that the publisher acted with actual malice in publishing the statement, the bill says. Publishers would be liable for using artificial intelligence to place people in a false light that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person and had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the false implications of the media. The stinger, perhaps, is that language on anonymous sources. It alarmed news publishers but also conservative sources and brought a denunciation from Steven Miller, the Donald Trump aide, who posted on X, If Florida passes the proposed law to lower the standard for defamation expect leftist plaintiffs lawyers to spend the next generation bankrupting every prominent conservative based in Florida. Misgivings Other publishers and free-speech advocates also expressed qualms. This legislation will harm freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the state of Florida, even with the amendment, Greg Gonzales of the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression testified during a House committee hearing, by making it more difficult to weed out defamation claims designed to silence and muzzle critics. The stinger, perhaps, is language creating a rebuttable presumption that a publisher acted with actual malice if citing one anonymous source. That alarmed conservative publishers and brought a denunciation from Steven Miller, the Donald Trump aide, who posted on X, If Florida passes the proposed law to lower the standard for defamation expect leftist plaintiffs lawyers to spend the next generation bankrupting every prominent conservative based in Florida. Legitimate news organizations would have nothing to fear, Andrade insisted. Every case thats ever taken up the question whether or not a false statement published based on a single anonymous source satisfied actual malice said yes. Why shouldnt we as a state codify that, clarify that, when every case agrees with that? Doing that, Andrade said, constitutes journalistic malpractice. The Senate version (SB 1780) is similar but lacks the veracity hearings and includes a cause of action for using artificial intelligence to cast somebody in a false light. The post Defamation reforms, alarming to news business, on verge of failure in FL Legislature appeared first on Florida Phoenix. While preparing the mobilization reform bill for its second reading, Ukraines parliamentary Defense Committee has struck some of the more contentious provisions proposed by the government, ruling Servant of the People party MP Iryna Friz said in a Facebook post on Feb. 28. Specifically, the committee did not support freezing bank accounts of draft dodgers, electronic draft notices, or lowering the conscription age from 27 to 25 years. Read also: Mobilization strategy hinges on rotation to regulate frontline The committee also rejected mandatory electronic accounts for all draft-eligible citizens, leaving it as an opt-in measure. It would allow military personnel, reservists, and conscripts to review and update their personal data remotely. Read also: Commander from famous assault brigade commented on mobilization in Ukraine Some other provisions of the bill, such as allowing the police to serve draft notices, remain under discussion in the committee, according to Friz. The committee will continue its work on the draft law in the coming days, before reviewing over 4,000 amendments proposed by MPs. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he's confident in the U.S. military's leadership to address safety issues related to its aviation programs following a series of deadly helicopter crashes, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Remarks by the Department of Defense came on the same day the National Guard issued an aviation safety stand down of all Army National Guard helicopter units following two separate helicopter crashes in Mississippi and Utah that killed two soldiers and injured two others, respectively. "The secretary is confident in the service secretaries and chiefs and their leadership in terms of addressing safety concerns," Pentagon press secretary Major General Pat Ryder said Tuesday. Units across the National Guards 54 states and territories will "review safety policies and procedures" following the deadly Feb. 23 crash of a Mississippi National Guard AH-64D Apache helicopter, and the Feb. 12 crash of a Utah National Guard Apache that injured both soldiers on board. FATHERS, UNCLE OF MARINES KILLED IN CALIFORNIA HELICOPTER CRASH SPEAK OUT: SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED "We are a combat force with helicopters training or on mission worldwide every day," said Lt. Gen. Jon A. Jensen, director of the Army National Guard. "Safety is always at the top of our minds. We will stand down to ensure all of our crews are prepared as well as possible for whatever theyre asked to do." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Since 2012, there were at least 279 deaths involved in U.S. military non-combat aviation crashes, according to data reviewed by Fox News Digital. In total, there were 179 aviation incidents involving the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and the Army and Air National Guard in the same time frame. The Air Force reported 56 incidents, followed by the Navy with 40, Marines with 38, the Army with 23, and both National Guard branches with 23. The Mississippi National Guard identified the two service members killed last week as Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bryan Andrew Zemek, 36, and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Derek Joshua Abbott, 42. The pair died near Booneville, Mississippi, when their Apache went down in a rural wooded area during a routine training flight, officials said. None of the pilots in the Utah crash died. MARINE KILLED IN CAMP PENDLETON TRAINING EXERCISE IDENTIFIED Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bryan Andrew Zemek, 36, and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Derek Joshua Abbott, 42, were killed in a helicopter training crash last week. Bradi Abbott, widow of Derek Joshua Abbott, said her husband joined the National Guard in 2002, and that "second to his children, he loved his Apache." Since the crash that took her husband, Abbott has received daily updates from investigators, she told Fox News Digital. "There's no doubt about it," she said when asked if she believes the Pentagon can address the safety concerns plaguing the military's aviation programs. "I do, 100%." Of her husband, Abbott said he, "believed in the military and the government more than anybody I know." That Mississippi crash happened after five Marines died when their CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter crashed during a storm in the mountains outside San Diego on Feb. 6, while on a routine training flight. The crew departed Creech Air Force Base in Nevada en route to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego when it went down. FREE COLLEGE PROMISES INTENSIFY MILITARY RECRUITMENT CRISIS Bradford Moulton, the uncle of Capt. Benjamin Moulton, who died in the crash, told "Fox & Friends" that the aircraft should never have been allowed to take off during a rare winter storm. "That's something that I personally cannot understand. Having worked with the military for most of my career, I know the military does hazardous missions all the time, and they train all the time, but this was a highly volatile storm," he said Monday. "They had hurricane-force winds. These helicopters, they were flying, they don't have defrosters on the windshields. If their rotors ice up, they're going down. They were flying at an altitude of 5,400 feet, which is right where the snow and the rain mixes." Most recently, two Army pilots escaped a training exercise with minor injuries when their UH-72 Lakota helicopter crashed Friday in Alabama. Jensen didn't specify how long the National Guard stand down will last. In 2023, the Army grounded all its helicopters after two Black Hawk helicopters in Kentucky crashed, killing nine people, and a midair collision of two Apaches in Alaska. Less than a month after that stand down, two Army Apache pilots were injured in a crash during a training flight in Washington state. The five Marines who were killed in a CH-53E helicopter crash in Pine Valley, Calif., on Feb. 6, 2024, were identified: Lance Cpl. Donovan Davis, 21, left, of Olathe, Kan., Sgt. Alec Langen, 23, of Chandler, Ariz., Capt. Benjamin Moulton, 27, of Emmett, Idaho, Capt. Jack Casey, 26, of Dover, N.H., and Capt. Miguel Nava, 28, of Traverse City, Mich. CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP In September 2023, the Marines Corps also ordered an aviation safety stand down after stealth F-35 jet "mishap" in South Carolina that prompted the pilot to eject the aircraft. Despite the number of aviation incidents, the military will continue to prioritize safety, Ryder said. "Safety is always something that we're always going to be concerned about and take seriously, he said. "In every service, you will see senior leadership making safety a priority." Original article source: Defense Secretary Austin 'confident' in military leadership to address safety following helicopter crashes Vehicles travel under a May Avenue bridge along Northwest Expressway on Jan. 17, 2023, in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City engineers presented preliminary design reports for a $10.5 million project to replace a deficient bridge carrying N May Avenue over Northwest Expressway to city council members Tuesday. The two roads connect one of the citys busiest shopping destinations, including Penn Square Mall, and large employers, including Integris Baptist Medical Center. The bridge's height limit is lower than modern standards, and it has partially collapsed at least twice when trucks hit crossing beams. The spending limit for city funds on the new bridge's construction is capped at just under $4.35 million, but planners have worked to secure additional grant funding of $6.36 million through the Association of Central Oklahoma Governments. The project would replace the current bridge with a 260-foot long and 75-foot wide steel I-beam span bridge, implementing what is known as a "diverging diamond interchange" engineering design. Other proposed improvements include reconstruction of the on- and off-ramps; new traffic signals for a new intersection at the crossover traffic point; building a 10-foot trail along the center of the bridge; and adding ADA-compliant sidewalks, bridge rails and traffic parapet barriers. Public Works Director Debbie Miller said city staff and engineering consultants researched less expensive options, but the $10.5 million proposal was the option city planners recommended because it would offer the biggest improvement to traffic safety and because it was the only one the association grant would support. Miller said plans should be finalized in late 2024 and construction should begin in 2025. More: Oklahoma City to replace May Avenue bridge over Northwest Expressway citing safety concerns A bus travels on a bridge on May Avenue over Northwest Expressway on Jan. 17, 2023. Councilperson James Cooper, who represents Ward 2 where the replacement project will occur, said he is also supportive of the proposal because of its potential to further improve sidewalk connectivity plans already underway for pedestrians around Northwest Expressway. Final specifications for those sidewalk plans are expected this summer, Miller said. "Imagine being able to walk from Target at Expressway and May and be able to safely go down on the sidewalk infrastructure we would create onto Northwest Expressway, to get to the BRT station, for example, in front of the OAK," Cooper said. The preliminary design reports list additional advantages. The diverging diamond interchange plan has fewer "conflict points" between vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles, shorter traffic signal phases, and the wider bridge also would allow for more support columns between footings already existing at the site. Existing May Avenue bridge has history of collapsing Built in 1952, the current May Avenue bridge has a height limit of 14 feet and 4 inches and is lower than modern standards. Voters approved a bond election in 2017 allocating funds for the bridge replacement, with sidewalks and lighting listed for inclusion in the project, as well. The existing bridge has a history of serious issues. Its northbound lanes collapsed on May 19, 2016, when a truck hauling construction equipment hit the bridge and destroyed three beams. The accident caused one 52-foot span to collapse onto the road underneath it. Police said the truck was carrying two boom lifts after the driver had delivered one to Penn Square Mall. A witness said the boom on the remaining lift had been raised and was not lowered before the driver left the mall and drove west on the Northwest Expressway toward the bridge. The May Avenue bridge along Northwest Expressway is pictured Jan. 17, 2023. More: May Avenue bridge needed repairs before 2016 collapse, reports reveal At the time of the accident, around 22,000 vehicles crossed the bridge daily and 39,000 vehicles traveled underneath on Northwest Expressway. But no one was injured because of the collapse, and Sunbelt Rentals, the company that owned the truck, reimbursed the city for more than $575,000 of repairs. An investigation by The Oklahoman after the 2016 bridge collapse revealed concerns about the structure going as far back as 1982, when inspectors first noted "considerable" damage to support beams hit by vehicles too tall to pass under the bridge. The Oklahoman also reported a bridge section previously collapsed when it was hit by a truck hauling a backhoe in 1993. The bridge was rated as deficient by inspectors for a decade before the 2016 incident. The designation means a bridge is safe for traffic, but a component, or the bridge in its entirety, requires repair or replacement. Vehicles travel under a May Avenue bridge along Northwest Expressway on Jan. 17, 2023. Approval of the preliminary reports for the bridge replacement was passed unanimously by city council Tuesday. CEC Corp., who was selected by the city's Public Works Department to design the project, hopes construction will be completed by summer 2026. Related: Are Oklahoma's structurally deficient bridges safe for motorized traffic? This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC to replace deficient May Ave.-NW Expressway bridge in $10.5M plan Comments are taken directly from the latest Thurston County Public inspection reports, which are available for each food establishment, at the Thurston County Environmental Health Office and their website. For questions concerning these reports, contact the health office at 360-867-2667. Report restaurant, grocery store, deli or bakery complaints online via the complaint form. Reading inspection scores: Attention should be given to the type of violation (red versus blue) and whether the establishment has a history of red violations or repeat violations. Red violations are those most likely to cause food-borne illness and must be corrected immediately if feasible or according to a compliance schedule established by the health officer. Example: not keeping food at the right temperature. Blue violations relate to the overall cleanliness and condition of operation and must be corrected according to a compliance schedule established by the health officer. Example: a worn floor that needs replacing. If red points exceed 45, the county will require a reinspection within 10 business days. A reinspection also is required if total red and blue points exceed 65. If red points exceed 100 and theres a lack of managerial control, the county will shut down the establishment for at least 72 hours. The establishment may reopen after management and employees complete retraining and demonstrate corrective action during a reinspection. Some common abbreviations: PHF/TCS is potentially hazardous food/time control for safety; RTE is ready to eat; PIC is person in charge; FWC is food worker card; CDI is corrected during inspection. Safeway 3215 Harrison Ave. Northwest, Olympia Deli Feb. 14: 85 red points; 0 blue points. Comments: Food contact surfaces were improperly cleaned. Deli slicers were not cleaned every four hours. TCS foods were improperly cooled. Fried chicken was cooled while covered in greater than four-inch amounts. The temperature was greater than 41 degrees. TCS foods were improperly hot held. Fried chicken in a hot hold deli case was less than 135 degrees. TCS foods were improperly cold held. Packaged meats in an upright glass door display were greater than 41 degrees. A sanitizer solution was too strong as prepared. Mariachi Alegre 19947 Old Highway 99 Southwest, Rochester Food Service Establishment Feb. 14: 30 red points; 5 blue points. Comments: The establishment was cited for four deficiencies having to do with keeping current food worker cards, maintaining proper hot holding temperatures, maintaining and cleaning nonfood contact surfaces and properly installing, maintaining and cleaning physical facilties. No inspection notes were provided. Koibito Japanese Restaurant 7205 Old Highway 99 Southeast, Tumwater Food Service Establishment Feb. 12: 25 red points; 0 blue points. Comments: The establishment was cited for a deficiency having to do with proper cooling procedures. No inspection notes were provided. Pizza Mia 324 Sussex Ave. West, Tenino Frozen Dessert Feb. 14: 20 red points; 5 blue points. Comments: Food worker cards were expired. The handwashing sink lacked soap and disposable paper towels. This was corrected during the inspection. Workers did not have a calibrated probe thermometer. A chlorine sanitizer solution lost potency because it had not been changed in over four hours. Tumwater Chevron Food Service Establishment 7160 Capitol Blvd. Southeast, Tumwater Feb. 15: 10 red points; 10 blue points. Comments: One employee did not have a food worker card. A probe tip thermometer was not accurate. No sanitizer solution was prepared at the time of inspection. No test strips were available to verify a sanitizer solution. Quality Inn & Suites 120 College Street Southeast, Lacey Food Service Establishment Feb. 21: 15 red points; 0 blue points. Comments: The person-in-charge lacked the required knowledge on food safety and sanitation. A chlorine sanitizer solution was too strong as prepared. Bangkok Thai Restaurant 700 Sleater Kinney Road Southeast, Lacey Food Service Establishment Feb: 13: 5 red points; 8 blue points. Comments: Raw beef was stored over raw chicken. Bags of flour were stored on the storage room floor rather than at least six inches above the ground. The ice scoop was stored in the ice machine. The above deficiencies were corrected during the inspection. Occasions Catering 1615 State Street Northeast, Olympia Catering Service Only Feb. 13: 0 red points; 5 blue points. Comments: The establishment was cited for a deficiency having to do with properly installing, maintaining and using warewashing facilities. No inspection notes were provided. Walmart Neighborhood Market 5110 Yelm Highway Southeast, Lacey Deli Feb. 13: 0 red points; 5 blue points. Comments: The establishment was cited for a deficiency having to do with properly installing, maintaining and using warewashing facilities. No inspection notes were provided. House Cafeteria 416 Sid Snyder Ave. Southwest, Olympia Food Service Establishment Feb. 13: 0 red points; 5 blue points. Comments: The establishment was cited for a deficiency having to do with properly installing, maintaining and using warewashing facilities. No inspection notes were provided. State & Central 1415 State Ave. Northeast, Olympia Food Service Establishment Feb. 15: 0 red points; 5 blue points. Comments: Tongs were improperly stored over red meat. Northwest Sausage and Deli 5945 Prather Road Southwest, Centralia Food Service Establishment Feb. 13: 0 red points; 2 points. Comments: The establishment was cited for a deficiency having to do with properly installing, maintaining and cleaning physical facilities. No inspection notes were provided. No violations: ARCO AM/PM, Food Service Establishment, Grocery Stores and Confectioneries (19705 Old Highway 99 Southwest, Grand Mound) Quinns Coffee, Coffee Shop (11020 7th Ave. Southeast, Olympia) Canna Cabana, Food Service Establishment (193 Marvin Road Southeast, Lacey) Tumwater Chevron, Grocery Stores and Confectioneries (7160 Capitol Blvd. Southeast, Tumwater) Airport Gold Center, Food Service Establishment (8080 Center Street Southwest, Tumwater) Bills to safeguard in vitro fertilization providers in Kentucky from criminal liability and to codify wording that a fertilized human embryo cannot be considered an unborn child were filed this week by Democrats. Kentucky Democrats and potentially Republicans are moving to codify these protections into law in the wake of a ruling this month from the Alabama Supreme Court upholding a couples decision to sue a fertility clinic for wrongful death after the accidental destruction of the couples frozen embryos. The Alabama high court concluded that frozen embryos are human beings and as such, fertility clinics can be held criminally liable for their destruction. The unusual ruling sent shock waves across the state, pushing some fertility clinics to temporarily stop offering IVF services, including the University of Alabama at Birminghams hospital system. Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, filed Senate Bill 301 to codify those protections for health care providers in Kentucky statute. Her proposed language succinctly states: There shall be no criminal liability against a provider engaged in assisted reproduction who meets the professional standard of care. In this bills case, provider refers to any licensed, certified health care facility or provider of health services. And assisted reproduction applies to the current statutory definition, which is a method of causing pregnancy other than through sexual intercourse, which includes in vitro fertilization, or IVF. I saw what happened in Alabama and had a lot of conversations with friends and family members who have grown their families through IVF or are in the near future going to go through IVF, Chambers Armstrong told the Herald-Leader. This bill is intended to protect that ability for Kentuckians. Louisville Democratic Rep. Daniel Grossbergs bill takes the wording of Chambers Armstrongs bill a step further in House Bill 757, filed Monday. Grossberg proposes the state adopt statutory language making clear that a fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists in any form outside of the uterus of a human body shall not be considered an unborn child, a minor child, a natural person, or any other term that connotes a human being for any purpose under state law. Kentucky Republicans have tirelessly sought to restrict and ban abortion in the commonwealth a move that, for many, is rooted in a belief that life begins at conception, therefore destroying a pregnancy is destroying a human life. That tenet of belief aligns with current Kentucky statute, which defines an embryo as a human being a fetus is a human being from fertilization until birth, and defines a human being as any member of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until death. But the GOP has remained relatively silent on IVF, with some members publicly proclaiming support for the procedure. In a meeting with reporters Tuesday morning, Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said the Senate was looking at filing a bill to explicitly protect access to IVF. Though it does not explicitly mention IVF, Republicans have moved House Bill 159, a proposal to protect health care providers from criminal liability in the event of an accident. The bill, from Rep. Patrick Flannery, R-Olive Hill, defines health services and health care providers as including individuals and facilities that are licensed and certified in the state a definition that would include fertility clinics offering IVF. Chambers Armstrong cited the recent and controversial Alabama Supreme Court ruling as the primary impetus for her bill. Citing the oft-held Judeo-Christian belief that life begins at conception, the states high court agreed that those embryos were protected under Alabamas Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote in the majority opinion that Alabama had adopted a theologically-based view of the sanctity of life, which included the following tenets: God made every person in his image; each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of his image as an affront to himself. These tenets, Parker continued are true of unborn human life no less than it is of all other human life that even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory. Chambers Armstrong said Tuesday this decision and its ripple effects across the nation have placed IVF providers in a precarious legal position, prompting many to halt treatment services, adding that she hopes the bill will clarify Kentuckys law around these services. This bill has a clear objective: to protect IVF providers, enabling them to continue their vital work, she said in a statement. Kentuckians pursuing IVF treatments should not fear the abrupt cessation of these services. Every individual aspiring to start a family deserves the opportunity to do so. Her bill wouldnt stop an individual from bringing a civil cause of action against an employee of a fertility clinic, for example, acting with negligence and destroying embryos. But the bill would shield them from criminal liability. Grossbergs bill also seeks to codify these protections, but through slightly different wording: Kentucky shall not prohibit, unreasonably limit, or interfere with an individuals right to access assisted reproductive technology, or a health care providers ability to offer that service, which includes IVF. Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, signaled his support for these bills on Tuesday in a tweet, saying, everybody deserves the chance to decide when and how to start a family on their own terms. Chambers Armstrong said she has good reason to belief her bill will have some amount of bipartisan support. Earlier on Tuesday, after his bill allowing child support to be collected beginning at the point of conception won approval from the Senate Health and Family Services Committee, Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, said while he believes that life begins at conception, he has personally benefited from IVF and doesnt want to limit access to it. I believe life begins at conception. I believe embryos are human lives, Westerfield told reporters, adding that he agrees with the fundamental truth foundational in the Alabama high courts ruling. But as someone who has personally benefited from IVF a couple different times my wife is pregnant with triplets right now from embryos we adopted from a family through IVF it needs to be available to families who will use it. Westerfield said hes considering filing a similar bill to protect IVF access before the Senates bill filing deadline later Wednesday. In the House, Rep. Amy Neighbors, R-Edmonton, has filed House Bill 243, which would also set the time when a pregnant person can legally begin collecting child support at the point of conception. It has yet to receive a committee hearing. Undergirding each of these child support measures is the idea of fetal personhood, and at what point a fertilized egg or fetus is legally considered a person in Kentucky. Thats what worries Kentucky State Director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates Tamarra Wieder. SB 110, Westerfields bill that allows child support to be collected starting at the point of conception, sets the stage for personhood and is therefore a slippery slope, one that leads us in the same direction as Alabama with IVF. This story may be updated. WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 11: The U.S. Capitol building is seen past a cloud of steam rising from a vent on Capitol Hill on February 11, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Senate is convening for a rare Sunday session to vote on a supplementary spending bill that includes military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan without addressing border security after Republicans in the House abandoned an agreement that they initially agreed to. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images) ORG XMIT: 776104902 ORIG FILE ID: 1995705993 Western North Carolina's congressman Republican Chuck Edwards misused taxpayer money for political attacks on local Democratic leaders, members of a county Democratic party have alleged. The Henderson County Democratic Party filed a Feb. 26 complaint against Rep. Chuck Edwards saying his recent mailer sent throughout the congressional district violated federal law because he used the taxpayer funded "franking" program that gives free postage to members of Congress, but the program cannot be used for communications that are politicized and disparage political parties." The mailer that I received and that tens of thousands of Western North Carolinians received the week before Christmas titled 'Crime is out of control in Asheville' was a misleading, hyper-partisan campaign mailer, attacking Asheville and disparaging its mayor and city council, most of whom are Democrats, Henderson Democratic Chair Leslie Carey said in a statement. Edwards, a Henderson County resident representing N.C.'s westernmost 11th District, on Feb. 27 told the Citizen Times the mailer had gotten the OK from staff with the House Communications Standards Commission. That body made up of Democratic and Republican House members oversees the franking program that funds communications about matters of public concern or public service by members of Congress to constituents. "I have the duty to my constituents to keep them informed on issues important to NC-11, and how Im addressing them," Edwards said in the statement to the Citizen Times. "My mailer intended to do just that, and it was mailed with prior approval by the bipartisan Communications Standards Commission. In the complaint to the commission, Carey called on that body to sanction Edwards and make him reimburse the mailings' cost, which was not immediately clear. The commission is set to respond within 30 days, according to representatives of both Carey and Edwards. She said the commission's advisory opinion was "nonbinding" and that Edwards was "ultimately responsible for the content of his mailer." U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards convened an "anti-crime summit" on June 16 at Asheville Buncombe Technical Community College. The mailer came at a time when debate over homelessness and crime had risen following social and economic disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic. Business owners and local and national media put pressure on city officials, saying downtown in particular had become intolerably dangerous though a Citizen Times investigation showed it was actually poorer neighborhoods with large populations of children that were struggling the most with safety. On June 16, Edwards convened a "crime summit," calling in local, state and federal government and law enforcement officials. While the mailer came out at the end of 2023, data that came out later showed crime had actually fallen notably that year compared to 2022, something police said followed "data-driven strategies." The mailer featured a heading, "Crime is out of control in Asheville." Also, on it were headlines from newspapers, radio and television emphasizing growing crime in the city. A quote from Edwards said, "In Congress, Im fighting for policies that support law enforcement, reduce crime and keep Ashevilles crime from spreading to the rest of WNC." In making her complaint, Carey said Edwards, a critic of government aid programs, was now the recipient of government aid that he shouldn't be getting. "If he wants to disparage Asheville and Buncombe County, thats up to him. Just dont usetaxpayer money to do it, the Henderson Democratic chair said. Edwards, meanwhile, said there was a crime problem, and Democrats were trying to avoid blame. Though little of the debate in Asheville has touched on issues at the southern border with Mexico, Edwards said there was a link. "I'll continue my work to make sure law enforcement has the tools they need and I will stand steadfast in working to ensure we secure the border," he said. "Sadly, the Henderson County Democrat Party chooses to play politics with baseless complaints instead of working to unite our country and secure the border." More: Asheville leaders react to high neighborhood violence data: 'Not treating with urgency' Asheville police announce joint weekend night downtown patrols with sheriff's office Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He's written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Got a tip? Contact Burgess at jburgess@citizentimes.com, 828-713-1095 or on Twitter @AVLreporter. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Dems: Western N.C. House member misused tax money to attack Asheville By Joseph Ax (Reuters) - The Democratic Party's campaign arm dedicated to state legislative races is investing hundreds of thousands of dollars across seven states in an early salvo ahead of November's election, part of its plan to spend a record-setting $60 million to capture statewide power at a time of congressional gridlock. The targeted states include Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina all also expected to be decisive swing states in the presidential race that will headline the Nov. 5 election. Minnesota and New Hampshire are also part of the first significant outlays of 2024 by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which outlined its plans in an announcement seen by Reuters ahead of its release on Wednesday. The battle for control of state legislatures has drawn more attention from Democrats and Republicans in recent years. With Congress often mired in partisan stalemates, issues such as reproductive rights and ballot access have largely been left to state lawmakers to address. Abortion, in particular, is now a state-by-state matter after the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision to eliminate a nationwide right to end pregnancies. "We need power in the states, because it is the states that are implementing our agenda," DLCC President Heather Williams said in an interview. After years of Republican dominance, Democrats have won the spending fight more recently, boosted in part by an outside left-wing group, the States Project, that focuses solely on state legislative races. Despite a string of Democratic wins, however, Republicans still control more than half of the country's legislative chambers. In January, the Republican state legislative campaign arm announced its 2024 targets, including defending majorities in Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Wisconsin as well as going after narrow Democratic majorities in several states. The Republican State Leadership Committee has placed a particular emphasis on early and absentee voting as a way of mobilizing less engaged voters. The new Democratic investments, which bring the total spent on 2024 targets to nearly $750,000 thus far, will go both toward defending slim Democratic majorities as well as targeting vulnerable Republican-held chambers. In Michigan, the state House of Representatives is split 54-54 with a Democratic speaker, though two Democrats are favored to win vacant seats in special April elections. That would maintain the "trifecta" the governorship and both legislative chambers that has allowed Democrats to pass a raft of bills, including expanding abortion rights, since 2022. The party is also defending a slim majority in Minnesota's House, where Democrats won a trifecta in 2022. In Pennsylvania, Democrats control the state House 102-100 after winning a special election earlier this month. Democrats are taking aim at Republican majorities in Wisconsin, with the goal of protecting Democratic Governor Tony Evers' veto power from Republican super-majorities. In Arizona, where Democrats have seen statewide success in recent cycles, Republicans hold a small two-seat advantage in both the state House and Senate. Democrats also hope to break Republican super-majorities in North Carolina, which have allowed Republicans to override Democratic Governor Roy Cooper's veto pen. The state will elect a new governor this year in what is expected to be a competitive race. Earlier this week, the DLCC unveiled a new long-term strategy that will devote money to legislative chambers the party believes could be flippable in future cycles, such as Pennsylvania's Senate and Wisconsin's legislature. (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis) More than two dozen House Democrats are pressuring the Biden administration to take concrete steps to protect the safety of journalists and the freedom of the press in the Gaza Strip, where foreign reporters are essentially barred and civilian deaths have soared during Israels war on Hamas. In a letter sent Tuesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the lawmakers expressed concerns that Israels strict limitations on press freedom in Gaza combined with the physical dangers inherent in covering the conflict have left the world with a narrow view of whats actually happening in the region. Theyre asking Blinken to work with leaders in Israel and Egypt to do more to protect reporters and civilians from physical harm, while granting journalists more freedom to roam the region and report their findings. Such protections are vital, they said, to ensure accurate reporting on the full scale of the war. With more journalists killed in three months than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year, we remain concerned that not enough steps have been taken to safeguard the lives of the civilian population in Gaza, including journalists, the lawmakers wrote. We are grateful for your continuous work to address the unbearable conditions and high number of civilian casualties including by ensuring the delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians, they continued, but more must be done to address the unique challenges journalists in Gaza face. The letter is spearheaded by Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and endorsed by 23 other House Democrats, including Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the Oversight and Accountability Committee; Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the Rules Committee; and Andre Carson (D-Ind.), one of just three Muslims in Congress. The letter arrives almost five months after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel left roughly 1,200 people dead and saw hundreds more taken hostage. Democrats in both Congress and the White House have been virtually united in endorsing Israels right to defend itself in the wake of the attack. But the ensuing hunt for Hamas militants has led to more than 29,000 deaths in Gaza most of them women and children, according to Gazan and U.N. officials and the ever-rising figure has fueled increasing calls from liberals on and off of Capitol Hill for a cease-fire. In their letter, the Democrats noted at least 88 members of the media have been killed in the war including two Israelis, three Lebanese and 83 Palestinian journalists representing a vast majority of all reporter deaths across the globe over the last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Blinken has addressed the issue directly, writing in December that the administration will underscore to Israel and others that journalists must be protected from harm. We stand unequivocally for the protection of journalists during armed conflict and mourn those who have been killed or injured, he wrote at the time. But the Democrats say more must be done. Theyre urging Blinken to press partners in Israel and Egypt to adopt a series of specific steps to ensure those promises are translated into action. That list includes assurances that foreign journalists have the freedom to enter and exit Gaza at will, not just under escort by the Israeli military; a commitment that all members of the press, including Palestinians already in Gaza, have access to protective gear; and vows to protect communications infrastructure, whenever possible, to ensure the free flow of information in and out of the region. At the heart of every democracy, there is a right to free expression and journalists are allowed to do their jobs without interference, the lawmakers wrote. The war has become a huge political headache for President Biden, who has urged Israeli leaders to take greater steps to protect Gazan civilians while stopping short of insisting on the cease-fire many liberals in his party have demanded. Those tensions were on full display Tuesday during primary voting in Michigan, where Bidens position on the Israel-Hamas war is deeply unpopular with the states sizable Muslim population. In Tuesdays voting, exasperated liberals sought to send the message that theyre no rubber stamp in supporting Biden for reelection in November unless the president takes immediate steps to end the fighting in Gaza. More than 100,000 voters cast ballots for uncommitted a significant number in a state Biden carried by roughly 150,000 votes in 2020. Biden had steered clear of Michigan heading into the contest. But one of his most vocal supporters, the liberal Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), had visited with the presidents disgruntled detractors to mend fences. The takeaway, Khanna told The New York Times, was that Democrats cannot win Michigan with status quo policy, and that a new approach to Gaza had better happen in weeks, not months. Khanna was among the 25 Democrats to endorse this weeks letter calling for more press protections in the region. 2-27-24-Connolly-Schakowsky-Letter-Press-Freedom-in-GazaDownload For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Mitch McConnell quickly became the talking point in the political sphere when he announced his resignation as the U.S. Senates Republican leader in November. McConnell will serve out the remainder of his current term, which ends in January 2027. In a speech delivered on the Senate floor Wednesday, McConnell said he had been contemplating the decision to step down for months and the end of his contributions are, closer than Id prefer. Father time remains undefeated, McConnell said in his speech. I am no longer the young man sitting in the back, hoping colleagues would remember my name. It is time for the next generation of leadership. After his speech, Republican and Democrat politicians gave their reactions on social media. President Joe Biden said he and McConnell have a great relationship and was sorry to hear the news of him stepping down, according to Phillip Bailey. We fight like hell, but he has never, never, never, misrepresented anything. Im sorry to hear hes stepping down, Biden said in a statement. "We have a great relationship. We fight like hell, but he has never, never, never, misrepresented anything. I'm sorry to hear he's stepping down." @JoeBiden on @LeaderMcConnell #Biden #KYSen Philmonger (@phillipmbailey) February 28, 2024 Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told Kentucky Lantern reporter McKenna Horsley, I want to thank Sen. McConnell for his years in leadership. There is no indication that he will not fulfill his promise to serve his entire term. The other Republican U.S. Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, congratulated McConnell on his career in a short statement. U.S. Senator Rand Paul, R-KY, has a fairly brief statement on the news that McConnell will step down from leadership: "I'd like to congratulate Senator McConnell on his long tenure." Austin Horn (@_AustinHorn) February 28, 2024 The Chair of the Republican Party of Kentucky Robert Benvenuti said McConnell provided steady, conservative leadership and has had a remarkable impact on the country. The name McConnell belongs in the history books alongside the names of other great Kentuckians who served our nation and our Commonwealth, Benvenuti said in a statement on X. .@KYGOP Chair Robert Benvenuti issued the following statement upon today's announcement from @LeaderMcConnell: pic.twitter.com/gxy7c1JjhW Republican Party of Kentucky (@KYGOP) February 28, 2024 Former House Speaker Paul Ryan thanked McConnell for his service as a senator. .@LeaderMcConnell - Thank you for your service to our nation. Congrats on a phenomenal, impactful, and unprecedented career of service and leadership. I am grateful for you and your friendship. Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) February 28, 2024 The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said Senate Republicans led by McConnell have opposed Americans values and his successor will lead Senate Republicans to embrace a dangerous agenda. DSCC statement on Sen. McConnells announcement that he will step down as Senate Republicans leader: pic.twitter.com/TBNfwPaGWW Senate Democrats (@dscc) February 28, 2024 Congressman Andy Barr said McConnell was an extraordinary leader and, his impact and legacy will live on for generations. .@LeaderMcConnell has been an extraordinary Leader of the U.S. Senate and his impact and legacy will live on for generations. I look forward to continuing to serve with the Senior Senator from Kentucky to enact positive change for our constituents across the Commonwealth. Rep. Andy Barr (@RepAndyBarr) February 28, 2024 Former Kentucky Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron said McConnell made an indelible impact on the country and Kentucky. Leader McConnell has left an indelible impact on our Nation and our state. From the Supreme Court to defending Americas values, he has relentlessly pursued the USs role as a shining city on a hill. Thank you, Leader, for your servants heart and commitment to first principles. pic.twitter.com/Kn6qthh3uI Daniel Cameron (@DanielCameronKY) February 28, 2024 Robert Stivers, the longest serving Republican State Senator, said McConnell was a tremendous leader and put Kentucky on a better trajectory politically. A tremendous leader and friend. pic.twitter.com/m94b7fPCer Robert Stivers (@kysenatepres) February 28, 2024 Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican Senator from West Virginia and the Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, thanks McConnell for his steadfast leadership. Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman described McConnell as the most consequential leader in Senate history. Leader McConnell has singlehandedly made sure Kentucky punches above our weight, and his legacy of accomplishment can be seen in every corner of the Bluegrass State, Coleman said in an statement. Scott Jennings, an on-air talent for CNN, described McConnell as the most successful politician in the history of the Senate and Kentucky. Mitch McConnell is the most successful politician in the history of Kentucky and the US Senate. He uses his ears and brain more than his mouth, which is a rare and underappreciated trait these days. I think people are going to miss him when hes gone, but I admire him greatly for pic.twitter.com/sTNcjefoLN Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) February 28, 2024 Republican Senator from Utah and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney said McConnell displayed more respect for the institution of the Senate than any previous senator and that his accomplishments have been less heralded than their due. No senator in memory has demonstrated more respect for the institution of the Senate than @LeaderMcConnell. pic.twitter.com/UmBu5K0NPe Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 28, 2024 House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson said no member of Congress has done a better job of reshaping the federal judiciary than McConnell. Mitch McConnell rose from humble beginnings overcoming polio to become one of the most consequential Senate Leaders in history. He started his Senate career as a legislative aide and ended up in charge of the upper chamber. No Member of Congress has played a greater role in Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) February 28, 2024 Democrats are targeting seven battlegrounds in their first campaign spend of the year on state legislature elections, the Guardian has learned, and intend to draw clear contrasts with Republican candidates tied to former US president Donald Trump. The latest round of investments will deliver critical resources to Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) said. Related: Harris attacks Trump over Roe v Wade at first campaign rally with Biden The DLCCs total spending for this electoral cycle is now close to $750,000. The money is used to support staff hiring, digital infrastructure, field operations and other expenditures. Once seen by outsiders as sleepy backwaters, state legislative chambers have come into sharp focus in recent years because of their role in curbing reproductive freedoms, imposing book bans, assailing transgender rights and making it harder to vote. With Trump dominating the presidential primary and all but certain to be the party nominee, some Republicans running for seats in swing states may try to distance themselves from a man seen as toxic among moderates and independents. Democrats, however, intend to hitch them to Trump at every opportunity. He is the Republican party, said Heather Williams, the president of the DLCC, the arm of the Democratic party focused on building power at state level. He is the leader of the Republican party. Republicans cannot escape from that and at this point its just a given, if you will, much like Joe Biden is our president and therefore the leader of the Democratic party. From Arizona to Oregon, from Idaho to Texas, many state-level Republican parties have embraced Trump and, in some cases, the QAnon conspiracy movement and white nationalism. Williams continued: What we have seen in the Donald Trump era is that the Republican party is out of control. It is incredibly extreme. There is no idea that is out of the realm of possibility. They are very reactive and often looking for a way to elevate themselves over everything else. The consequences of Trumps supreme court appointments and their decision to end the constitutional right to abortion were spelled out last week when the Alabama supreme court ruled that frozen embryos created during fertility treatments should be considered children. As some clinics halted IVF treatment, Trump and other Republicans scrambled to find a unified response. Williams said: It is that sort of chaotic approach inside the party that leads to a bunch of politicians not understanding what IVF is and the role that it plays in people who desperately and deeply want to have a family and who are trying and spending incredible resources. Its where you see these ideas suddenly take shape and completely run away from Republicans. The Republican party has a soul to find and has completely lost it. There are no rules any more over there. We are working hard at the DLCC to make sure that were creating clear contrasts and we are elevating what it looks like under Republican control Florida is a prime example here versus what it looks like when you gain Democratic control. Michigan is a beautiful example on that side in what they were doing for their state, their community and their constituents. She added: The more were able to tell that story, to help shape the choices, we will. Virginia [last year] was such a great example of this. We talked a lot about how if voters went to the the polls on Tuesday, election day, and woke up on Wednesday with Republican control of their statehouse, that there would be an abortion ban. There is now a clear understanding of what the stakes are and why its so important to not just use your voice to talk about the issues you care about, to elevate them and to bring awareness but then to follow that action up with voting. That is so key and thats the story were trying to tell. The DLCCs biggest spend, $70,000, is in Pennsylvania, where Democrats won the statehouse in 2022 by a one-seat majority. There have since been six special elections, each with control of the chamber at stake, and Democrats have won all six. Retaining control of the statehouse is a top strategic priority. Democrats flipped both the Michigan house and senate in 2022, securing a trifecta with the governor, Gretchen Whitmer, but two special elections in April will decide control of the house. The DLCC regards Wisconsin as one of its best opportunities to gain seats after the governor, Tony Evers, signed new maps into law following a long fight against Republican gerrymandering. It is also aiming to flip the Arizona house and senate in a state that has seen recent success for Democrats and remains intensely competitive. Republicans continue to govern in the statehouse as if its 1924 and nobody has any rights but the men, Williams said. We have more tools and resources and a better platform to hold them accountable than ever before and that is exactly what we plan to do. An umbrella of freedom that includes access to abortion, IVF and contraceptives, as well as democratic participation and gun safety, will be a central campaign theme. Those conversations are rich and they are happening at the door. They were certainly a part of the elections in 2023 and we expect them to continue to be a conversation in 2024. The Department of Homeland Security is reviewing a complaint on onePULSE Foundation. The agency received a complaint last December, claiming the Foundation misused nearly a quarter million dollars from a federal grant. This comes amid controversy about how the onePULSE Foundation spent millions of dollars in donations and taxpayer money. The Foundation officially dissolved this year after canceling the proposed Pulse Museum and Memorial project it set out to create. According to e-mails obtained by 9 Investigates, the Department of Homeland Security and FEMAs Major Fraud Investigations Branch are currently reviewing how onePULSE Foundation spent nearly $248,000 that was meant to bolster anti-hate educational platforms. Read: Property records reveal more details about sale of planned Pulse memorial land On its former website, the onePULSE Foundation announced in September 2022 that it received the targeted violence and terrorism prevention grant from Homeland Security. The Foundations grant application said it needed the money to create an online virtual platform to increase critical thinking and use the Outlaw Hate campaign to engage in educational services. The application said the Foundation planned to use half of the grant on staff and benefits, including the salaries of executives like Earl Mowatt, vice president of education, and Scott Jackson, vice president of marketing. Read: Orlando mayor says city will consider whether Pulse site needs more security after memorial tagged The Foundation said in the application, it would take about ten months to create this online virtual platform. The Foundation announced it was dissolving in November 2023, over a year after it announced receiving the grant. They promised all of these things and havent delivered. And now theyre dissolved, said Zachary Blair with Victims First, a group that advocates for Pulse shooting survivors and victims families. Blair filed the complaint in December, stating onePULSE Foundation never created an education platform. Read: Defaced tribute sign at Pulse interim memorial draws criticism from grassroots group Instead, the complaint says the Outlove Hate campaign was a fundraising site. However, onePULSE Foundation did have a program called the onePULSE Academy. The website, onepulseacademy.org, says the platform was funded by DHSs Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships. According to the application, the onePULSE Academy existed before onePULSE applied for funding. The website says the program uses an empathy-building model that includes our Conversation Starters, Social Visionary Series, Annual Remembrance Culture Symposium, Ethic and Cultural understanding, and other social issues initiatives. An archive of the webpage features a message showing if you donate $49, you could add your portrait to the permanent display at the Pulse Museum. Which, you know, is not being built. I think thats the biggest thing is who has oversight, whos holding them accountable? And you know, what happens next? Blair told 9 Investigates. The complaint is now being reviewed by Homeland Security. Recipients of this grant do not receive funds in a lump sum. They request reimbursement after incurring allowable costs in accordance with their approved budget. 9 Investigates reached out to the onePULSE Foundations legal team for comment Tuesday. The organizations attorney, R. Scott Shuker, provided Channel 9 the following statement Friday: The grant... was a draw-down grant, meaning the money OPF received was reimbursement for expenses submitted to and approved by DHS. In fact, a DHS representative was heavily involved with OPF staff in planning the programming funded by the grant with consistent, regular follow up to ensure expenses submitted for reimbursement were proper and accurate. Again, every dollar received through this DHS grant was a reimbursement for an approved expense. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. SALINE COUNTY, Ark. Deputies said an armed burglary suspect was shot by a Saline County man returning home Tuesday when he saw the suspect draw a weapon as he left the mans house. Officials with the Saline County Sheriffs Office said deputies responded to a call of shots fired at the home in the 10000 block of East Sardis Road. When they arrived, the deputies said they found the homeowner, who told them he had called 911. Benton Police Department searching for escapee from Rivendell Behavioral Health facility The man said he saw the suspect coming out of his house pointing a firearm at him. The homeowner then said he drew his own gun and fired at the suspect, identified by authorities as John Nutt of Little Rock, in self-defense. Deputies said Nutt ran away from the home. Teams searched the nearby area and were able to find Nutt and take him into custody. Investigators said stolen property was found with Nutt when deputies located him. Bauxite High School paraprofessional arrested, accused of giving student controlled substances Authorities said he was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. Deputies added that Nutt is expected to face charges including residential burglary and aggravated assault. Officials with the sheriffs office said the investigation into this shooting is ongoing but noted that at this time they did not expect the homeowner to face any charges. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. Former President Donald Trump sits in New York State Supreme Court during his civil fraud trial on January 11. File Photo by Michael M. Santiago/UPI Feb. 28 (UPI) -- A New York appeals court ruled Wednesday that former President Donald Trump must pay the full bond amount equal to the $454 million civil fraud judgement against him. The ruling comes after Trump offered to pay a $100 million bond in asking the court to pause the penalty. In an appeals court filing, Trump's attorneys called the $355 million penalty and additional interest "exorbitant and punitive." Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ruled earlier this month that Trump must pay $355 million for filing fraudulent financial statements that embellish the value of the Trump Organization's real estate properties. Engoron denied a request by Trump's attorneys last week to stay the enforcement of the penalty. The penalty plus interest adds up to about $454 million. Trump, who is seeking the GOP nomination for re-election, is also banned from doing any business in New York for three years. However, Associate Justice Anil Singh ruled Wednesday that Trump may seek a loan from a New York bank. This could allow him to access funds through the equity of his assets. Singh denied Trump's request to delay posting the bond. New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks at a press conference after a State Supreme Court decision in the civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump on February 16. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI "The exorbitant and punitive amount of the judgment coupled with an unlawful and unconstitutional blanket prohibition on lending transactions would make it impossible to secure and post a complete bond," Trump's attorneys argued in Wednesday's filing. "Appellants nonetheless plan to secure and post a bond in the amount of $100 million." By paying the $100 million bond, Trump's team argued that Attorney General Letitia James should be assured that she can collect on the judgment if necessary. James has warned that she is prepared to take action in the court system to seize Trump's properties if the penalty is not paid. On Wednesday, James implored the appeals court to deny Trump's request to stay the judgment. She asserts that it is likely Trump Organization properties will need to be sold to pay the penalty. "Defendants all but conceded [Trump] has insufficient liquid assets to satisfy the judgment," James said. Trump's lawyers filed an appeal of the fraud judgment on Monday. Alina Habba, the attorney that represented Trump in the case, said in a statement she expects the appeals court to overturn the judgment. Trump supporters have raised more than $1.2 million to help pay the penalty against him. The fundraiser was started within hours of Engoron's ruling by Elena Cardone. More than 22,800 donations have been made, including an anonymous $10,000 contribution and several of $1,000 or more. The former president pictured at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) annual meeting last week Donald Trump has further cemented his status as frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination with an easy win in the Michigan primary. With practically all votes in, Mr Trump has won 68%, with Nikki Haley on 26%. It was Ms Haley's sixth consecutive loss to Mr Trump in the contest to become the party's candidate for November's election. She has vowed to keep fighting, saying Mr Trump cannot overcome Joe Biden in a presidential election. But the White House race is increasingly looking likely to be a rematch between Mr Trump and President Joe Biden, a Democrat. Mr Biden also won in Michigan despite a protest vote. On Tuesday night, Mr Trump - who did not travel to Michigan for the ballot - said his campaign's margin of victory in the state was "greater than we even anticipated". "We win Michigan, we win the whole thing," he added. He also insisted that car workers, a major voting bloc in the state, "are with us". Last month, the United Automobile Workers - representing 400,000 workers - endorsed the Democratic president's re-election bid, though the union's boss conceded in a media interview that "a great majority" of his members would not vote for Mr Biden. John Ryan, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, said Mr Trump's victory in the state "was the largest in any contested Michigan Republican primary this century". But he cautioned he has seen "nothing to suggest in any of the results or polls so far that he's winning over any new voters from 2020". Mr Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes in 2016 over Hillary Clinton, then lost the Midwestern state by nearly 154,000 votes to Mr Biden in 2020. Despite her loss in the state, on Tuesday night Ms Haley told CNN: "We have a country to save." But the former UN ambassador conceded "it is very possible" that the Republican party now represented Mr Trump's views rather than her own political outlook. Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia, said the result was "below expectations" for Ms Haley, who had garnered a larger percentage of the vote in previous contests in South Carolina and New Hampshire. Americans for Prosperity Action, a libertarian conservative organisation founded by the billionaire Koch brothers, announced after the South Carolina result last weekend that it would no longer spend on her campaign. But in a statement, her campaign called the Michigan result, including the share of Republicans who did not vote for the former president, a "flashing warning sign for Trump in November". Mr Sabato said it is too early to fully assess Michigan's primary but he noted that polling "continued to show a sizeable chunk of her voters say they will not vote for Trump in November". Whether that will last nine more months in America's partisan political climate remained to be seen, he said. A candidate can become the Republican nominee by accruing 1,215 delegates by victories in state level primaries, caucuses and conventions. A majority of delegates in Michigan are due to be awarded on Saturday, when the state's party holds a convention. Only 16 are determined by the primary vote. Still more delegates will be up for grabs by the candidates of both parties during Super Tuesday - when several states hold their primaries - next week. Mr Biden is largely uncontested in his bid for the Democratic nomination. Even though he won the Michigan primary easily, thousands of people voted "uncommitted" in the Democratic contest, following a call by activists to send a protest vote over the White House's support for Israel during the war in Gaza. In Odesa, the wreckage of downed Shahed damaged a transformer at a critical infrastructure facility Russia attacked the southern Ukrainian regions with Shahed drones overnight and targeted the industrial zone of Odesa, Ukraines Southern Defense Forces reported on Telegram on Feb. 28. "The wreckage of a downed drone damaged a transformer at one of the critical infrastructure facilities," the statement said. Read also: Russian drones veer off course, targeting Kirovohrad and Odesa, as air defense forces neutralize four in Kirovohrad Oblast A short circuit ensued, resulting in a fire, but swift action by firefighters promptly extinguished the flames. Russia reportedly deployed ten drones from the Black Sea to Mykolaiv and Odesa oblasts. Ukrainian air defense units repelled the Russian drone attacks for 1.5 hours. Read also: Russia drone debris damages power line, leaving 200+ people without power in Poltava Oblast The majority of Shaheds were intercepted over the sea: one in Mykolaiv Oblast and nine in Odesa Oblast. No casualties or injuries were reported, said Oleh Kiper, Odesa Oblast governor. Air alerts sounded in the southern and central Ukrainian oblasts on Feb. 28. The Air Force warned about the presence of a group of Russian Shaheds in the south. Explosions rocked Odesa. The Ukrainian Air Defense Forces successfully destroyed all ten Shahed attack drones employed by Russia in the assault on Ukraine. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) Virginia Beach School board members did not make any votes about district music programs at its Tuesday night meeting. Though one board member told 10 On Your Side enrollment issues could lead to some cuts in the near future. VB parents concerned amid music program cuts Board member Jessica Owens said leaders at Cox High School are considering cutting their chorus class for the upcoming school year, since not enough students signed up to take it. She said it is also possible that other staff could have their hours partially cut from music courses, making up the rest of their time in other subjects. Owens made it clear, these decisions are not on the school board, but rather, tough decisions being made by individual school leaders. They are dealing with a lack of enrollment in some courses and overcrowding in others. A Virginia Beach mother, who is part of a concerned group of music teachers and parents, told 10 On Your Side she is disappointed to see what she calls a continuing pattern of downsizing music programs. For some reason, the division seems to believe that the fine arts do not give them the accolades they should give them, Melinda Rogers said. I will not stop advocating for fine arts in this division, I will not stop advocating for children to have access to the classes that they deserve to have. Owens and other parents worry that proposed tax cuts from the city council could cause more impacts to students in Virginia Beach. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com. Dozens of high-profile news anchors and correspondents from around the world wrote to the Israeli and Egyptian governments Wednesday, urging them to grant unfettered access to the Gaza Strip in order to report on the ongoing war there. We urge the Governments of Israel and Egypt to allow free and unfettered access to Gaza for all foreign media, stated the letter, which was addressed to the Israeli and Egyptian embassies in the United Kingdom. Neither government immediately responded to HuffPosts request for comment on the letter. We call on the government of Israel to openly state its permission for international journalists to operate in Gaza and for the Egyptian authorities to allow international journalists to access the Rafah Crossing. Despite global interest in the war, foreign reporters were still being denied access outside of rare escorted trips with the Israeli military, the letter noted, and otherwise, the only reporting has come from journalists who were already based there. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 89 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed since Oct. 7, when Hamas militants staged a bloody attack in Israel, which in turn retaliated with a massive air assault and invasion of the Strip. Among the prominent signatories to the letter are CNNs Christiane Amanpour, NBC News Richard Engel, and the BBCs Nick Robinson. In all, the letter has more than 50 signatories from outlets including ABC, CBS, Sky News, Channel 4 and ITN. CNNs Clarissa Ward, who marked a rare exception to the foreign non-escorted media blackout in Gaza when she embedded with a United Arab Emirates field hospital crew that entered the Strip in December, also signed the letter. This letter is the latest in a series of efforts we have made as international correspondents to be allowed access to Gaza to report independently, Ward wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. In January, in a Washington Post opinion piece, she noted that a similar call for access from multiple Western outlets to the Israeli and Egyptian governments went unanswered, and that the Israel Supreme Court rejected a petition for foreign reporters to access the Strip. According to respective government authorities, casualties in Israel from the Hamas attack were around 1,200 in addition to around 240 captives taken into Gaza and Palestinian casualties in Gaza now approach 30,000. Its vital that local journalists safety is respected and that their efforts are bolstered by the journalism of members of the international media, the correspondents letter stated. The need for comprehensive on the ground reporting of the conflict is imperative. The letter, a copy of which was posted online by CBS News Foreign correspondent Debora Patta, a signatory, concluded by noting that news organizations understood the risks involved with conflict reporting. Currently, international journalists are only occasionally allowed into Gaza as part of escorted trips with the Israeli military and the resulting reporting material must be approved before publication by the military. The army has full control over who goes in, where you go and what you see, Josef Federman, The Associated Presss news director for Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Jordan told Voice of America earlier this month. In October, the Israeli government told Reuters and Agence France Presse that given the circumstances in Gaza, we cannot guarantee your employees safety, and strongly urge you to take all necessary measures for their safety. Related... NEW YORK Mayor Eric Adams Tuesday denounced as exploitative an illegal dwelling in Queens where dozens of migrant men were found living in beds stacked in the basement of a furniture store. Fire department officials busted the makeshift housing setup on Monday around 11 p.m. during an inspection of the Richmond Hill, Queens, property in response to complaints about e-bikes stored in the building's backyard. Inside, officials found around 40 mattresses and beds crammed floor-to-ceiling on both the ground floor and basement of the building, home to a furniture store, the FDNY said. FDNY vacated the building, sending the men who were living there to the citys emergency management department to get shelter. The Department of Buildings issued two violations to the buildings landlord, 132-03 Liberty Avenue Mgmt Corp. The location is zoned for commercial use, not for residential. The system did its job, Adams said. Adams said the situation points to the larger issue of affordable housing in New York City and pointed the finger at state officials, adding that we got nothing out of Albany last year to help the housing crisis. When you have a situation like what were facing here, theres some that are going to attempt to exploit it, Adams said, referring to the ongoing migrant crisis. Theres some who are going to attempt to do illegal housing. However, the man orchestrating the slapdash setup said he did it all out of empathy for the migrants. Ebou Sarr, the owner of Sarrs Wholesale Furniture store, told PIX11 that as an immigrant from Senegal himself, he felt like he had to do something to help the recent migrants. The city is saying that they have no place for these people, Sarr tearfully told the news station. Its not true. Sarr told WPIX he was charging around 70 mostly Senegalese migrants living there around $300 a month to sleep there. They received breakfast, lunch and dinner. Inspectors from the Department of Buildings also found severe overcrowding and hazardous fire trap conditions in the basement level, with no ventilation or natural light, the department said. At the same Tuesday press conference, Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer said the setup is a sign of the citys housing shortage. Too many people make desperate choices about where to live and what to pay for, she said. And at the root of that is the fact that we havent built enough housing. The reality is with 180,000 people entering this city also looking for housing, over 65,000 currently in our system, if we dont build more, were going to build more problems, Adams said. Thousands of migrants have come to New York City since spring of 2022 when an influx of people arriving from the southern border picked up. The number of people living in the local shelter system has doubled as a result. In recent months, the Adams administration has implemented a policy that moves migrants out of their assigned shelter beds and requires they reapply for a new bed every 30 or 60 days. ________ (New York Daily News reporter Thomas Tracy contributed to this story.) _________ BASTROP COUNTY, Texas The Department of Public Safety said early Wednesday morning it is investigating a fatality on State Highway 71 in Bastrop County. According to DPS Dispatch, DPS got word of the incident around 11:20 p.m. Tuesday. It occured on eastbound Highway 71 and Enchanted Cove, DPS said. That just 5 miles northwest of Highway 21 in Wyldwood. This embedded content is not available in your region. KXAN requested more information from DPS about the fatality and will update the article when we get more details. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin. Cuts will see jobs lost among school crossing patrollers, cleaners and janitors Council tax in East Renfrewshire will be frozen next year after councillors approved plans to plug a 12m budget deficit. Scottish government funding of 3.2m will be provided to cover the freeze while the local authority makes cuts of around 3.1m. An additional 5m will be made available by "reprofiling" PFI payments while council officials will be asked to cut spending by 800,000. The council will use 700,000 from reserve funds to plug the gap. 'Real-terms cut' The plans were presented by the council leader, Labour's Owen O'Donnell, at a meeting on Wednesday with backing from the Conservatives. An SNP amendment was defeated in a vote. Under the plans, around 60 full-time equivalent jobs are expected to be lost although many are currently vacant. Many of the cuts were agreed in December and include removing jobs among school crossing patrollers, janitors and cleaners. The local authority will receive a settlement of 239m from the Scottish government which Mr O'Donnell said was "a real-terms cut". Mr O'Donnell said: "The council tax freeze has removed our control over the single most important way in which we can raise income and protect services here in East Renfrewshire. "All councils must be given back that flexibility so we can respond to what local people are telling us are their priorities." He said a Scottish government announcement of additional funding could meant around 1.1m more was available to the council but "this won't be clear until after next month's UK budget". The Reproductive Freedom Alliance comprises Democratic governors from 20 states who aim to protect abortion and reproductive health care access. (Astrid Riecken/Getty Images) Quality Journalism for Critical Times WASHINGTON U.S. senators heard detailed testimony Wednesday on the economic impacts women face and how those considerations can play into whether they seek elective abortion access. The Senate Budget Committee also heard examples of the increased pressures women who need abortions for medical reasons have experienced after more than a dozen states severely restricted access to the procedure in the last two years. Allie Phillips testifies before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee about her experiences with Tennessees abortion laws during a hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. (Screenshot from committee webcast) Testimony came from medical professionals, economists and from Allie Phillips, a Tennessee woman who was forced to travel for an abortion after her fetus was diagnosed with several medical issues that threatened Phillips health. We want to have another child but were terrified because Tennessee still bans abortion and criminalizes doctors for providing essential healthcare for pregnant patients, Phillips, now a Democratic candidate for a state legislative seat, testified. Caitlin Myers, John G. McCullough professor of economics at Middlebury College in Vermont, told the panel that the decision of whether and when to become a mother is the single largest economic decision many women will make in their lifetimes. Men and womens earnings trend pretty similarly right up until the point of parenthood, Myers said. When they become mothers, womens earnings fall off a cliff, declining by about 30% and opening up a gender gap that persists even after the kids grow up and leave the home. Myers said that as a mother of four, the decision to become a parent was entirely worth it for her, though she said that doesnt hold true for everyone for a variety of factors. But thats the point the trade-offs and decisions about whether and when to become a parent are inherently personal and closely tied to our economic lives, Myers said. And even the best laid plans of mice and men and lets add women can commonly go awry. Dr. Leilah Zahedi-Spung, a board certified OB-GYN and a maternal fetal medicine specialist, told senators that she felt she had to leave Tennessee after that state instituted stringent restrictions on abortion. She now practices in Colorado. Requiring pregnant people, including those with complex diagnoses, to stay pregnant is exceptionally dangerous given the state of maternal morbidity and mortality in this country, she testified. Studies have shown us that people who are denied an abortion are more likely to fall into poverty, increase their amount of debt and generally have worse financial security for years following their abortion denial, Zahedi-Spung said. Inability to access abortion care has severe consequences and this is especially true for our Black, Indigenous and people of color who face systemic racism in all aspects of their lives, Zahedi-Spung added. Joy turns to heartbreak Philips told senators that she and her husband were both excited to learn she was pregnant in the fall of 2022. But that turned to heartbreak when she learned when she was 19 weeks pregnant that her fetus had several health conditions, including to the heart and brain, that would lead Phillips health to deteriorate. Knowing I had a daughter to live for, we made the difficult decision to seek an abortion, Philips said, referencing her 6-year-old daughter. Tennessees abortion laws, Phillips testified, meant her doctor couldnt offer her any advice or help finding a doctor out of state to perform the procedure. So she and her mother began searching for a doctor that could perform an abortion, eventually finding one in New York City. She testified that she had to ask strangers for help affording the travel, turning to the online website Go Fund Me. Once in New York, she had to deal with her loss alone, since due to threats against abortion clinics, only the patient is allowed to enter. Once inside, she learned there was no longer a heartbeat and the abortion would happen immediately. I went into surgery alone and I sat in recovery alone. I grieved her loss alone in a city Ive never been in; far away from the comfort of my home, my family and my friends, Phillips said while crying. No one should be treated this way not in Tennessee and not in the other 13 states that now criminalize abortion, the standard of care that I needed in my situation, Phillips added. The states abortion laws, she said, are continuing to negatively affect her and her husband, who want to try for another child, but are fearful of what might happen during another pregnancy. Improvements in safety net programs Leslie Ford, adjunct fellow in the Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility at the conservative-leaning think tank American Enterprise Institute, told the Budget Committee that abortion is not a solution that vulnerable women should seek. Many women considering an abortion face significant challenges, but abortion is not the answer, Ford testified. We have a duty to focus on real solutions. Congress, she said, should hesitate to make policy based on research that says abortion results in better outcomes for women. Instead, lawmakers should seek to overhaul safety net programs that provide food, housing and other forms of assistance to low-income women in order to address many of the challenges women considering abortion face. Despite good intentions the safety net often impedes the path back to self-sufficiency, she testified, later adding those programs trap people in poverty by discouraging both work and marriage. The government, however, cant do everything, she said. Other services should be provided by fathers and community organizations. We can and must encourage these mothers to find the pathway back to self-sufficiency, Ford testified. Tamra Call, the executive director of Obria Medical Clinic in Ames, Iowa, told the committee that many of the women who enter the clinic say theyre considering an abortion due to economic circumstances and that staff there try to dissuade that by providing references to other services. Obria clinics are defined as faith-based, pro-life nonprofits by the legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing two Obria clinics in a case Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Our mission is to provide reproductive health care and support women in a way which empowers them to make informed, life-affirming decisions, Call said. The clinic, she said, tries to help women get connected to places that can assist with education, job applications, food and housing. Those programs include the Women Infants and Children, or WIC, program, Medicaid, family assistance planning in Iowa and child care planning resources. A woman should never feel that abortion is her only option, Call said. Whitehouse, Grassley comment Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, chairman of the panel, said that reproductive rights are intrinsically tied to economic opportunity. Stripping women of this freedom casts a long shadow over their lives and over their families lives, said Whitehouse, who has backed federal legislation to ensure access to abortion care across the country. And it casts a long shadow over our economy as well. Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking member on the committee and a longtime opponent of abortion, criticized the hearing for taking place at all, saying that abortion is not an issue that lends itself at being looked at solely through an economic lens. Grassley later said that yes, having and raising children has costs, but so does abortion on demand and the culture that lacks respect for life. Congress, he contended, should focus on increasing coordination between safety net programs that help families, including promoting work and education. Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee said that the U.S. Supreme Courts decision nearly two years ago to end the constitutional right to an abortion sent regulation of abortion back to lawmakers. Since Congress hasnt passed any laws that would affect access nationwide, Lee said, states will handle this differently, but states handle many things differently. Sometimes those laws can end up having unforeseen consequences, sometimes tragic ones, Lee said. Those laws can be changed from time to time. Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said the results of some of the state laws restricting abortion access would be almost unimaginable had Congress not heard the testimony. The cruelty is astounding, said Kaine. The post Economic effects of state abortion bans debated by U.S. Senate panel appeared first on Florida Phoenix. As life-saving as the COVID-19 vaccines have been, the measles vaccine has been an even greater success story. Before the vaccine was developed in 1963, outbreaks that occurred every two to three years were killing 2.6 million people worldwide a year, most of them children. Others developed pneumonia, or suffered brain injury and deafness from measles-associated encephalitis. Its an incredibly contagious airborne disease. Put a person with measles in a room with 100 other people and 90 of them will be infected. But the vaccine is even more effective than the disease is transmissible. If all 100 people in that room were vaccinated, only four would be infected. Read more: Opinion: The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe? So its especially disheartening to observe the new measles cases in Florida eight and growing at last count. It's not the biggest measles outbreak in recent years, but the ho-hum attitude of the states top public health official, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, is deeply troubling. Most of the cases so far have been among students at an elementary school in Broward County. But one is a preschooler an extremely dangerous age for complications whose connection to the school is unclear. Something like this was bound to happen. Measles is infectious from four days before the telltale rash appears to four days after. That means parents often dont know when their child might be infected and capable of transmitting the virus to others in and out of school. Read more: Column: Measles is again on the march across the world, thanks to anti-vaxxers such as RFK Jr. Florida has a reasonable law requiring vaccination for children to attend private or public school. Unlike California, which allows exemptions only for children with legitimate health reasons, Florida lets parents opt out for religious beliefs, a common loophole throughout the country. And the vaccination rates at the elementary school in question was higher than the national average, at 97%. The problem in quelling this outbreak, though, is the lackadaisical attitude of Ladapo, who has earned notoriety by promoting COVID-19 vaccine skepticism. Last month, he called for a halt to using mRNA vaccines to fight COVID-19. Still it was shocking that in the midst of the outbreak, he ignored the public health standard set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which calls for isolating unvaccinated people for 21 days after possible exposure, and is allowing parents to decide whether to send their unvaccinated kids to school. He didn't even encourage parents of unvaccinated children to get a quick, preventive dose. Its a reprehensible endangerment of students at the affected school and the broader community, including babies too young to have been vaccinated. Children with compromised immune systems are at particular risk because they cannot safely be vaccinated. That includes children who are undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. Read more: Editorial: Measles outbreak in Samoa shows what can happen when vaccine opponents prevail A vaccine effectiveness rate of 96% is superb, but it still means that about 4% of children dont get immunity from their shots. Thats why public health officials rely on herd immunity, meaning enough members of a community have been vaccinated to keep measles at bay. The reason more unvaccinated children havent been sickened in this country is because there are enough parents who do the right thing, vaccinate their kids and thus protect the other kids around them. But that may not be the case for long. Vaccine skeptics like Ladapo have been chipping away at Americans' confidence in vaccines in recent years. Outbreaks can happen even in a community with high vaccination rates which is the case in this Florida school. But widespread vaccination and proper isolation protocols keep them small. Measles is not a minor inconvenience of childhood, and Ladapos lets-downplay-the-science approach is not the way to protect the health of Floridas children. If its in the news right now, the L.A. Times Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) Attempts by Horry Countys top prosecutor to evict a homeowner at the center of a nationwide controversy following a late 2023 cross burning amounts to government overreach, according to newly filed court documents. Christopher Helms, a Murrells Inlet-based lawyer, filed a motion Feb. 21 in Horry County Common Pleas Court asking a judge to toss Solictor Jimmy Richardsons order that 29-year-old Worden Butler and his girlfriend Alexis Hartnett vacate a Corbett Drive home. Should it be the states position that Mr. Worden Butler himself is a nuisance, then the respondent contends this is an overreach and unfair classification based on a singular incident of conduct involving a singular neighbor, Helms wrote. On Jan. 25, Richardson asked an Horry County court to make the residence a public nuisance. The petition also pushes for a temporary injunction or restraining order that could remove its occupants. If the property is deemed a nuisance, Horry County police would take possession of all the furniture, equipment, fixtures and other property used on the premises, documents show. Butler and Hartnett, who are white, are facing misdemeanor charges of second-degree harassment after allegedly using racially abusive language toward their Black neighbors and lighting a cross on fire in their direction over Thanksgiving weekend. In the weeks to follow, Shawn and Monica Williams spoke repeatedly with local and national media outlets about the incident. They also attended a Statehouse news conference in January pressing lawmakers to adopt a hate crimes bill. This matter is before this honorable court because of the self-induced media attention that it has received, Helms argued in his filing. This media-seeking behavior has resulted in not only local, but national news coverage of a mentally disturbed mans action, while omitting important context and details as media often does. South Carolina senate committee advances its version of hate crimes bill According to Helms motion, Butler has lived in the home owned by his mother since childhood, residing there independently and largely without incident for the last nine years until the harassment incident. Now, theyre using this case to make a point about South Carolinas lack of a hate crime, and thats fine, Helms said. There is a person, a defendant who theyre coming after theyre charging, and I dont even represent that person. I represent the property owner. But that person has rights too, and I would hate to see the government circumvent any of those rights to accomplish a goal or make a statement. News13 last week documented the frequent encounters both Butler and Hartnett have had with police stretching back to 2008. About a month after the November cross-burning on Dec. 20 officers took a report from a news outlet that alleged a journalist had been assaulted while working at the Corbett Drive address. During the incident, which was captured on video, Hartnett is heard saying Im a thug and I will f kill you. and yelling other obscenities. Hartnett also allegedly threw a water bottle that hit a member of the news crew. Helms said news reports of the alleged cross burning omitted context and key information as media often does, contributing to heightened tension and public animus against his client. As a result of the numerous interviews and public statements by these parties (the Williams), fomented public outrage has pressured authorities to act outside of historical legal norms. This nuisance action is a prime example, Helms wrote. The documents also provide new details about why the FBI was at the home on Dec. 22. Three days earlier, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas E. Rogers III signed a federal search warrant to seize the following items: two diaries several phones laptops and storage devices pellet gun charred piece of wood wrapped in cloth black crossbow and bolt 3-foot long flat wood soil samples two white ropes machete gas gan True Fuel brand pink rope gas can iPhone box Richardson had not responded to Helms filing as of Feb. 28. He told News13 it would be unfair to the defendant to comment on pending litigation. * * * Adam Benson joined the News13 digital team in January 2024. He is a veteran South Carolina reporter with previous stops at the Greenwood Index-Journal, Post & Courier and The Sun News in Myrtle Beach. Adam is a Boston native and University of Utah graduate. Follow Adam on X, formerly Twitter, at @AdamNewshound12. See more of his work here. * * * Savannah Denton joined News 13 in July 2023 as a reporter and producer. Savannah is from Atlanta, Georgia, and is a graduate of the University of Alabama. Follow Savannah on X, formerly Twitter, and read more of her work here. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WBTW. U.S. soldier dies after self-immolation in protest against Israeli raids on Gaza Xinhua) 09:16, February 28, 2024 WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. Air Force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy here "in an apparent protest" against the Israeli raids on Gaza died in a hospital late Sunday. The airman was identified by police as 25-year-old Aaron Bushnell from San Antonio, Texas, and confirmed on active duty by an Air Force spokesperson Monday. People gathered Monday evening for his vigil in front of the embassy gate with candles and posters. According to ABC News, an account on Amazon-owned platform Twitch started a livestream around 1 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) Sunday, showing Bushnell dressed in camouflage fatigues and walking up to the embassy gate before pouring flammable liquid from a bottle and setting himself on fire. During the livestream, Bushnell described his motivation as "an extreme act of protest." He was heard saying "I will no longer be complicit in genocide" and repeatedly screaming "Free Palestine" before he collapsed. The District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Department responded to a call for fire outside the Israeli embassy in Northwestern Washington just before 1 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) Sunday, and arrived at the scene after Secret Force had put out the flame, according to statements from the city's Metropolitan Police Department and Fire and EMS Department. The Israeli embassy released a statement saying the man was "unknown" to embassy staff and no embassy workers were injured in the incident. According to the New York Times, the video was deleted from Twitch on Sunday afternoon, replaced by a message saying that the channel violated the platform's guidelines. It is yet still available on other social media platforms including X, Facebook, and Instagram. NBC reported a similar incident on Dec. 1, 2023, when a woman wrapped in Palestinian flag set herself on fire in front of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, Georgia, in what police said was "likely an extreme act of political protest." An Al Jazeera Monday opinion piece criticized U.S. corporate media for a "diluted and decontextualized" report over Bushnell's self-immolation, including framing his protest as violating U.S. military regulation. Such titles include New York Times' "Man Dies After Setting Himself on Fire Outside Israeli Embassy in Washington, Air Force Says" (updated Monday evening EST), Politico's "Air Force member dies after setting himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy" (updated Monday 10:55 a.m. EST,1555 GMT), CNN's "US airman sets himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy in Washington" (updated Sunday 9:12 p.m. EST, 0212 GMT Monday). Washington Post has changed their Bushnell story title from "Who was Aaron Bushnell, the U.S. airman who set himself on fire?" in the update Monday 8:16 p.m. EST (0116 GMT Tuesday) to "Airman who set self on fire grew up on religious compound, had anarchist past" two hours later. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi said on Wednesday his country has always kept open the Rafah border crossing, the only access into the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel. Egypt has never closed the crossing, but to be able to act in a fighting situation, we have to be cautious not to cause a problem, he said at a televised ceremony in Cairo, referring to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. From the first day, we have been very keen that the Rafah crossing becomes an avenue to deliver aid. Al-Sissi hoped that a mediated ceasefire deal will be reached soon between Israel and the Palestinian militant organization Hamas to allow for the start of real relief in different fields for the people in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Egypt, the the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, is worried about a potential mass exodus of Gazans into its territory Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi said on Wednesday his country has always kept open the Rafah border crossing, the only access into the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel. Egypt has never closed the crossing, but to be able to act in a fighting situation, we have to be cautious not to cause a problem, he said at a televised ceremony in Cairo, referring to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. From the first day, we have been very keen that the Rafah crossing becomes an avenue to deliver aid. Al-Sissi hoped that a mediated ceasefire deal will be reached soon between Israel and the Palestinian militant organization Hamas to allow for the start of real relief in different fields for the people in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Egypt, the the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, is worried about a potential mass exodus of Gazans into its territory. Despite ongoing negotiations to reach a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas movement in the Gaza war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pressing ahead with a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and restricting humanitarian aid. According to the United Nations, a possible attack on the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip could have devastating consequences. Hundreds of thousands of people who have fled from bombing and attacks in the north of the Gaza Strip are now crammed into Rafah in extremely limited space. Meanwhile, the al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, on Wednesday claimed that it fired more that 40 rockets from southern Lebanon into northern Israel to avenge the continued Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. "Al-Qassam Brigades bombed from southern Lebanon the headquarters of the 769th Eastern Brigade, Camp Ghaybour and the airport barracks in Beit Hilal" in northern Israel, the movement said in a statement posted on their Telegram channel. It added that the rocket attack was in response to "massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip and the assassination of the martyred leaders and their [Hezbollah] brothers in the southern suburbs of Lebanon." The Israeli army said sirens sounded in the area of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel earlier on Wednesday after approximately 10 launches that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel were identified. Sirens wailed again in northern Israel on Wednesday afternoon. There were initially no reports of injuries. According to the army, the military infrastructure of the Shiite militia Hezbollah was also hit in the attacks near Kiryat Shmona. Hezbollah initially did not comment on the incidents in the border region. In response the Israeli army struck the sources of the firing in Lebanon and fighter jets struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility and military structures in the area of Ramyeh in southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. Lebanese security sources confirmed the strikes and said the planes hit Beit Leef and Ramyeh in southern Lebanon, adding that Israeli planes were still flying at low altitude across south Lebanon. The intense violence in southern Lebanon has prompted UN officials to warn against the deteriorating situation. UN special coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka, called for "an immediate halt to this dangerous cycle of violence." Since the Gaza war broke out on October 7 after Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel and took some 240 people hostage, Israel's conflict with Hezbollah has intensified along the Israeli-Lebanese border with casualties on both sides. Students at El Camino Real Charter High School walk out Tuesday in response to recent antisemitic incidents on the Woodland Hills campus. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times) Students at El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills staged a walkout Tuesday to protest recent antisemitic incidents on campus. The action, which was organized by a group of seniors, included students holding up Israeli flags and signs that read, "Stop the hate." Danielle Eshed, a ninth-grader at the charter school within the Los Angeles Unified School District, told KTLA-TV Channel 5 that a fellow classmate screamed antisemitic comments at her and then attacked her. He called me a dirty Jew, and then I said something out of defense, Danielle told the station. He said he was going to beat me up, and I didnt believe him until he got up, pushed me and started punching me repeatedly in the neck and the back. Students hold Israeli flags during a walkout at El Camino Real Charter High School. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times) David Hussey, the school's executive director, told KABC-TV Channel 7 that the student has been disciplined but didn't elaborate on details. "One is addressing the issues. Maybe some students don't know what they're saying and what the impacts are, so it's educating those students and then reassuring the other students that they are safe at this school," Hussey said. Read more: LAUSD front-runner apologizes for liking antisemitic, pornographic social media posts Hussey didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning. Danielle's father also spoke at the Tuesday rally in support of his daughter, according to KCBS-TV Channel 2. "The school thinks that he has more rights than my daughter for protection," Edan Eshed said. "He has rights to be educated, but my daughter [doesn't] have the rights for her safety." Students also said that notes have been passed around in class about Hitler and that the curriculum around World War II is insensitive, according to KTLA. Read more: Pro-Palestinian protesters shut down event organized by Jewish student groups at UC Berkeley After the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October, both Jewish and Muslim parents have called on the Los Angeles Unified School District board to help prevent hate speech, discrimination and threats on local campuses. Parents said there has been a rise in bullying and insensitivity at the schools ever since the war began. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. What El Paso Electric says you can do to keep handle on bill EL Paso, Texas (KTSM) Some El Pasoans have reported seeing a significant increase in their electric bills. Many are wondering why their bills have spiked, and what if anything can be done. We talked to El Paso Electric about what consumers can do to keep a handle on their bills. Melanie Valdez, the supervisor of energy consulting for El Paso Electric, said each household has different energy consumption demands. Its a little difficult to identify just one reason for an increase, Valdez said. Paloma Silva. who lives on the East Side, said her bill came out to $300 for January. That is a big increase for her compared to what she was paying last year for the same month, which was between $80 to $90, she said. Nobody is at home during the day. Im at work. My daughter is at school. It has been a real inconvenience. You dont count on paying $300 for an electric bill, Silva said. Valdez said El Paso Electric offers various payment options and plans. The Budget Billing plan helps customers pay their electricity bill by spreading the cost evenly over 12 months. They estimate a consumers yearly average and divide it by 12 to determine their monthly payment, according to El Paso Electric. For low-income residents, there is the low-income Rider Plan. To qualify, El Pasoans must have an account with El Paso Electric under their own name and either possess a Lone Star card or have a household annual income at or below 125% of the federal poverty level. Valdez is urging those concerned residents to call El Paso Electric so they can have their account looked into. Some of the recommendations Valdez gave to save on energy consumption are: Unplugging any unused devices while youre not at home. Lowering your thermostat in the winter. Reach out to the Energy Efficiency Department and find out what additional things they can do to help you save on your bill. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News. Elderly couple struck, killed going to church in Garfield Ridge CHICAGO An elderly couple was struck and killed in Garfield Ridge Sunday morning while going to church. Zofia Chruszcz, 73, and her husband Ryszard Stebnicki, 75, were on their way to church when they were crossing the 6100 block of Archer Avenue at around 8:50 a.m. CPD said a 43-year-old man driving a Ford F-150 made a left turn and struck the couple while they were in the crosswalk. Zofia and Ryszard were transported in critical condition and later died at the hospital. Both immigrated from Poland and were active in Chicagos Polish community. She was a very avid traveler, her granddaughter Dominika told WGN News. We just went to Poland together in October she gave me the travel bug. Family was reminded of the curiosity of Ryszard while at their home Wednesday a watch waiting to get put back together was left in their basement. He loved little trinkets and had collections of watches and cameras, she said. He loved collecting stuff. Zofia was instrumental in helping the Polish American Strategic Initiative in efforts to try to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision. The driver was issued a citation and released. The couples wake is scheduled for Friday at Pietryka Funeral Home from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. The funeral is scheduled for Saturday at 10 a.m. It takes place at St. Priscilla Catholic Church. Anyone with information can leave an anonymous tip at cpdtip.com. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) Governor Greg Abbott paid a visit to the Key City Tuesday afternoon as he campaigned for Liz Case, who is running for the Texas House of Representatives in District 71. Incumbent Rep. Stan Lambert also hosted a campaign event Tuesday evening as both candidates completed a final stretch on the campaign trail before Election Day next Tuesday. The race for District 71 has been top of mind for voters, but Rep. Stan Lambert said the issue is more than who wins the race. Submit your video questions for District 71 Texas House of Representatives candidate forum This is not an election between me and her (candidate Case). This is an election about control. It is about losing our rural voice in Austin, Texas if we dont get out and finish this race strong in the next six to seven days, explained Rep. Lambert at a rally held at The Grace Museum. Addressing rumors of his opponent, Rep. Lambert said, Liz just moved here recently. I dont know when she moved, but she says shes lived here for a while. She still has a homestead exemption in Dallas County. Just a few blocks over, Case said she was ready to support Gov. Abbott as rallied at 201 Mesquite. Governor Abbott hasnt had the support that he needed in the Texas house for a good while, but thats gonna change, assured Case in a recent speech. At Abilenes rally on Tuesday, Gov. Abbott stressed an importance on border security, When it comes to getting things done, there is nothing more important than getting things done to fight back against [President] Joe Bidens open border policies. Number one remain in Mexico, Title 42, end catch and release, and build the border wall, Those four policies lead to a dramatic drop of illegal crossings. Early voting begins in Taylor Co. Primary Election: How to cast your ballot Both events were filled with crowds ready to cast their votes as both candidates encouraged voters to head to the polls. Early voting runs through Friday, March 1, and Election Day is Tuesday, March 5. District 71 in the Texas House of Representatives encompases Taylor, Jones, Nolan, and Callahan counties. Rep. Lambert and candidate Case are both running in the republican party, and there is one democratic candidate for District 71- thats Linda Goolsby. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com. North Carolina voters are required to bring a photo ID to the polls this election. Although the bill that made this law, SB 824, went into effect in 2023, this will be its first appearance in a presidential election. The law is part of a larger goal North Carolina Republicans have been fighting for: stricter voter laws for stronger election security. One political science professor sees issues such as voter fraud and election integrity as an increasingly popular ticket item for North Carolina voters. Democrats tend to find the stricter voter laws to be discriminatory and unnecessary. Despite the partisan disagreement, voters will have to bring their photo IDs to the polls this election. 2024 primary election: When is the North Carolina primary? What you need to know before you vote. How often does voter fraud happen? A report from the North Carolina State Board of Elections shows that between 2015 and 2022, there were 674 referred cases of fraud, misregistration, double voting or election interference in the state. Twelve of those referred cases were attributed to someone impersonating a voter. Referred cases are investigated by board of elections officials, but they do not represent the legal outcome of a case. Christopher Cooper, professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University, said that parties can see the same data and come to opposite conclusions. Democrats say the instances of voter fraud are not significant enough to warrant a photo ID law that in turn limits access for voters and is discriminatory. Republicans say one instance of fraud could affect an election and therefore must be fixed. For example, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank that tracks instances of voter fraud, believes even small numbers of voter fraud could be the deciding factor in a close election. Thus, their website cites photo ID laws and restrictions on same-day and automatic voter registration as positive advancements toward a secure election. Voter access scorecard: How does NC fare in voter access? It depends on who you ask. Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2024, at National Harbor, in Oxon Hill, Md., Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Is fear of voter fraud a new phenomenon? Cooper said he believes the topic of election security matters more to voters now than it ever has in the past. The GOP has been beating this drum for a number of years, and I think its gotten through to voters that they now have this concern, Cooper said. So youve got candidates running for office now that this is a major plank of their platform. And I think you just wouldnt have seen that 10 years ago even if they might have held the same basic belief. He said Trumps Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen played a significant role in this shift. North Carolina state capitol building in Raleigh Are photo ID laws discriminatory? Katelin Kaiser, voting rights lawyer for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, works in election protection and said that the photo ID laws are disproportionately negatively affecting minorities, the elderly, students and low-income people. The issue, Kaiser said, is in how accessible the IDs are in practice. People think bringing your drivers license to the polls is not such a big deal, and thats true for many, she said. But for others, the steps to obtain a photo ID are not so simple. Votings already hard enough for many people and when we add on more barriers, or more things that people have to check the box to be able to access the ballot, that builds up, Kaiser said. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed a lawsuit against SB 824 in the case of Holmes v. Moore. The complaint stated that the law was discriminatory and they noted that the state has a history of creating intentionally discriminatory voter ID laws. For example, in 2016, the Voter Information Verification Act was found to be intentionally racially discriminatory by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the case of N.C. State Conference of the NAACP v. McCrory. Kaiser said she believes discrimination is still present in SB 824. Black people, in particular, and as well as students and other historically marginalized communities are more likely to lack an acceptable ID or face barriers, Kaiser said. Conversely, Carr said the issue of race is irrelevant. Democrats have developed these verbal tics for when they can't engage in a rational discussion, everything becomes racist or discrimination," Carr said. "It is ridiculous to think that voter ID laws have anything to do with racial discrimination. The North Carolina Supreme Court deemed SB 824 constitutional. Early voting: Election 2024: What to know about early voting in North Carolina Is this a partisan issue? Photo ID requirements were introduced to North Carolina voters in 2018 where the proposal received 55% approval from voters. New Hanover County Republican Party Chair Nevin Carr III said the photo ID requirements are necessary and common sense. Other processes like going through airport security or making a purchase with a credit card often require photo ID, so why would elections be any different, he said. But everybody wants a fair election, not just Republicans, right? Thats what Jill Hopman, chair of New Hanover Countys Democratic Party, thinks. Despite Hopman finding Republicans efforts to secure elections with voter photo ID laws and stricter mail-in laws a waste of time, she believes both parties want a fair election. Everybody wants safe elections; I just think that we take different approaches to it, Hopman said. I want a safe election where every single person has the right to vote and can vote regardless of party, color, age, class, whatever. And I think that they look at it like election integrity that they are trying to keep out anything questionable. On the national level, a USA Today/Suffolk University Poll revealed that Trump supporters were more likely to have doubts about the accuracy of the 2024 election than Biden supporters were. More specifically, 52% of Trump supporters had no confidence in the accuracy of election results for the 2024 election. Whereas 81% of Biden supporters said they were very confident about the 2024 election results accuracy. Whats being done to educate voters? The State Board of Elections launched a voter photo ID educational campaign this February to help North Carolinians understand the changes. Its called Bring it! Your ID. Your vote. This embedded content is not available in your region. Vote by mail: Election 2024: What to know about mail-in ballots in North Carolina Aaron Troutman, elections specialist at the Henderson County board of elections, said they have received calls from voters asking about voter photo ID specifics, but that it hasnt been overwhelming. On a weekly basis, their office gives out around three to four free photo IDs, a resource the board of elections offers to those who do not already have an acceptable form of photo ID, he said. In terms of hiccups at the polls, there have not been many, he said. Not as many as you'd expect," Troutman said. "Weve had to do a couple provisionals in which voters will be able to come back into this office and provide a valid ID. But as far as any major hiccups absolutely not. It's been a pretty smooth process. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Photo ID required for North Carolina voters in 2024 election TWO RIVERS After an emotional press conference Tuesday evening, law enforcement and community volunteers are continuing their efforts to bring Elijah Vue home. "A child missing for any amount of time is everyone's worst nightmare," Two Rivers Police Chief Ben Meinnert said during the press conference. "That's why we are here today. Elijah, a 3-year-old boy, has been missing for a week today. For the past week, we utilized hundreds of resources and worked around the clock in our attempts to bring Elijah home." Meinnert said the search has included all local waterways, landfills and quarries, and canvassing of both rural and urban communities. He said they have also followed up on leads in Wisconsin Dells, where Elijah lives with his mother. 3-year-old Elijah went missing from a Two Rivers apartment Feb. 20. After nine days of searching, here's what we know. FBI offers $15K reward: FBI offers $15K reward for information about Elijah Vue's disappearance. Here's what else we learned at the Two Rivers press conference. Police continue to ask for the public's help in locating Elijah Vue. Two Rivers Police Chief Ben Meinnert speaks at the press conference held at Two Rivers city hall, about the missing three-year-old Elijah Vue, Tuesday, February 27, 2024, in Two Rivers, Wis. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is now offering a $15,000 reward for information that leads to locating Elijah or the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for his disappearance. A $1,000 reward is also offered through Manitowoc County Crime Stoppers. The Two Rivers Police Department has also asked the public in Two Rivers and Manitowoc County to check their own property with the following guidelines: Check anywhere a small child could hide, climb or fall. Check your own property for items that don't belong to you which could include anything from Elijah such as the red-and-white plaid blanket or dinosaur printed shoes. Check your surveillance systems from Feb. 12-20. Look for anyone matching Elijah's description in the surveillance footage. Search public land for the same items or anything relevant to the investigation. Do not touch anything you find, but contact the tip line (1-844-267-6648) or Two Rivers police (920-686-7200) right away. Elijah's family, along with hundreds of people from the community, have turned out each day to search public properties. A coordinated civilian search effort is being organized with the Mikadow Theatre, 1118 Washington St. in Manitowoc, as a base of operations. People coordinating the searches are now at the theater every day 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and will assign volunteers to areas that haven't been searched yet. People and businesses have also donated food and drinks to the law enforcement officers conducting the search. The Two Rivers police ask that anyone who wishes to donate contact their business line at 920-793-1191 to make arrangements. Search for Elijah Vue: Elijah Vue latest: 3-year-old has been missing one week in Two Rivers as search continues Elijah Vue was last seen standing next to caretaker's bed, criminal complaint states. An apartment complex in the 3900 block of Mishicot Road in Two Rivers was where 3-year-old Elijah Vue disappeared from, as seen Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Two Rivers, Wis. Jesse Vang, a 39-year-old Two Rivers man, was taking care of Elijah for a week before the boy went missing. Vang was later arrested and charged with child neglect. According to the criminal complaint, he told police he last saw Elijah at 8 a.m. Feb. 20 when he forced the boy to stand next to his bed and pray, a punishment he often used with Elijah. Vang then fell asleep in the bed and when he woke up nearly three hours later, Elijah was gone. An Amber Alert was issued throughout Wisconsin that same afternoon and it remains active. Elijah Vue's mother was charged with child neglect in relation to his disappearance. Elijah, a 3-year-old boy from Two Rivers, was reported missing Feb. 20. The Two Rivers Police Department has asked the public for help with finding him. Elijah's mother, Katrina Baur, 31, of Wisconsin Dells was charged with party-to-a-crime child neglect Feb. 23 in Manitowoc County Circuit Court. Vang was charged with child neglect the same day. In a statement to the court, Manitowoc County District Attorney Jacalyn LaBre said Baur had sent Elijah to stay with Vang for disciplinary purposes. Baur wasn't in Two Rivers when Elijah disappeared. A $15,000 cash bond was set for Baur, while a $20,000 cash bond was set for Vang. Preliminary hearings for both are scheduled for March 7. During Tuesday's police press conference, Two Rivers Chief Ben Meinnert said he would not comment on either court case. Do you have information about Elijah Vue? Police describe Elijah as being of Hmong and white ethnicity with dark brown hair and brown eyes. He is approximately 3 feet tall and has a birthmark on his left knee. He was last seen wearing gray pants, a dark-colored, long-sleeve shirt and a pair of red-and-green dinosaur slip-on shoes. He may also be carrying a red-and-white plaid blanket. If you have information that could help the Two Rivers Police Department find Elijah Vue, contact their tipline at 844-267-6648 or submit information via the Crime Stoppers app P3. People who share information that leads to finding Elijah or the arrest of anyone involved in or responsible for his disappearance could be eligible to receive a reward of up to $1,000 through Manitowoc County Crime Stoppers or $15,000 through the FBI. Alisa M. Schafer is a reporter for the Herald Times Reporter in Manitowoc. She can be reached by email at aschafer@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter: Elijah Vue latest: Boy still missing in Two Rivers, police follow tips A Texas judge has ordered Elon Musk to testify in a deposition as part of a defamation lawsuit that accuses the billionaire of falsely linking a Jewish man to a neo-Nazi brawl. The tech billionaire and far-right sympathizer was hit with the lawsuit in October after he falsely accused 22-year-old Ben Brody of being a federal agent involved in an Oregon brawl last year between neo-Nazi group Rose City Nationalists and neo-fascist group the Proud Boys. Brody, a recent college graduate who was not even in the same state when the brawl occurred, said he and his family were forced to flee their home after his personal information was revealed, and he received threats following Musks amplification of the dangerous conspiracy. Last week, Travis County District Court Judge Maria Cantu Hexsel issued an order requiring Musk to sit for a two-hour deposition to explain his actions. HuffPost obtained a copy of the order on Wednesday, which states Musk must testify before April 1 to answer questions, including Musks state of mind at the time the alleged defamatory statement was allegedly published. My family and I are just being harassed completely, and I would be more than happy to clear up any confusion if necessary. This is just so ridiculous and I just really cant believe this is happening to me right now.Ben Brody in a June 26 video attempting to clear his name Brodys lawsuit centers around a June 24 fight in which members of the Portland Proud Boys went to Oregon Citys first-ever Pride Night Fest to disrupt the event. While there, members of RCN got into a brawl with the Proud Boys in an incident captured on video. In the ensuing violence, a still-unidentified member of RCN had his mask ripped off, revealing the members face. Rather than accept the reality of neo-Nazi violence, far-right accounts on X, formerly Twitter, were quick to dismiss that the RCN member was a neo-Nazi and instead suggested the members of the group were all federal agents bent on making the right look bad. One of those accounts, described in the lawsuit as an extreme rightwing shitposting account affiliated with the bizarre Groyper subculture, was the first to falsely link the RCN member to Brody. The account posted his college fraternitys social media page that said Brody plans to work for the government after graduation. This was used as supposed proof of Brodys involvement. Hours later, Musk responded to the account with very odd. In another post on X accusing Brody of being a federal agent, Musk responded again: Always remove their masks. Following a torrent of abuse, on June 26, Brody posted a video offering proof including credit card receipts that showed he was in California at the time of the Oregon brawl. My family and I are just being harassed completely, and I would be more than happy to clear up any confusion if necessary, Brody said in the video. This is just so ridiculous and I just really cant believe this is happening to me right now. On June 27, Musk responded to an article from the conspiracy website Zero Hedge that claimed the incident was a false flag by suggesting the neo-Nazi member was Brody. Looks like one is a college student (who wants to join the govt) and another is maybe an Antifa member, but nonetheless a probable false flag situation, Musk wrote on X. He also tagged Community Notes, a section of the website dedicated to correcting misinformation. Musks posts amplifying the conspiracy remain up on X. Brody is being represented by Houston attorney Mark Bankston of the law firm Farrar & Ball. The law firm previously represented two Sandy Hook parents, who won $45 million in damages against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones after he spent years falsely claiming the 2012 school shooting, which left 20 kids and six adults dead, never happened. Musk is being represented by John Bash of the Austin, Texas, law firm Quinn Emanuel Trial Lawyers. Bash previously served as the special assistant to former President Donald Trump and was the U.S. prosecutor for the Western District of Texas during the implementation of Trumps family separation policy. Along with an order for Musk to be deposed, Hexsel also granted a discovery request for a copy of any internet browser history for June 25-27, 2023 for any web-connected personal devices Defendant used on those dates. In a statement to HuffPost, Bankston said the deposition should be a very interesting conversation. In a motion to dismiss the lawsuit earlier this month, Bash argued that Brody hopes to abuse the discovery process to harass Musk and increase his litigation costs unnecessarily and to harass and inconvenience his adversary. A hearing on the motion to dismiss is set for April 22. Bash did not respond to a request for comment from HuffPost. Related... The EU Council on Feb. 28 approved 50 billion euros ($54 billion) in loans and grants for Kyiv, giving the final go-ahead for the four-year Ukraine Facility tool. The package provides funding to Ukraine from 2024 to 2027, with 33 billion euros ($35.8 billion) available in loans and 17 billion euros (18.5 billion) in grants. After months of obstruction by Hungary, European leaders agreed on the four-year financing for Kyiv during a European Council summit on Feb. 1. The European Parliament gave its approval on Feb. 27. From the overall sum, 2 billion euros ($2.17 billion) are allocated to migration and border management, 7.6 billion euros ($8.2 billion) to neighborhood and international relations, 1.5 billion euros ($1.63 billion) for the European Defense Fund, 2 billion euros ($2.17 billion) for the flexibility instrument, and 1.5 billion ($1.63 billion) for Solidarity and Emergency Aid Reserve. The regulations signed by the EU Council will enter into force on the day of their publication in the coming days and will retroactively apply from Jan. 1. "I am grateful to the EU partners for the important decision to support Ukraine," Ukraine's Finance Minister Serhii Marchenko said. "Thanks to the active work of the Government of Ukraine and representatives of the European Commission within the framework of the Program, Ukraine will go confidently toward its European future." The first payment of 4.5 billion euros ($4.9 billion) under the Ukraine Facility is expected to be disbursed in March. Read also: EU to send 4.5 billion euros to Ukraine in March in first payment under new aid program Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. EU farmers' organisations have welcomed a vote in the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee that called for more robust safeguards against food imports in the context of the European Commission's recent proposal to extend trade liberalisation measures with Ukraine. Source: Euractiv, as reported by European Pravda Details: At the end of January, the European Commission officially proposed to extend the suspension of import quotas and duties on Ukrainian exports to the EU for another year while including safeguards for agricultural products, as requested by several EU member states. Although the EU proposal includes safeguards against excessive food imports, six central EU farmers' and food producers' associations view the measures as a threat to the stability of the EU food market. The European Parliament's Agriculture Committee approved an opinion on Monday evening (26 February) that meets the demands of EU farmers. The opinion has been addressed to the competent trade committee, which may or may not take the amendments into account. Copa and Cogeca, EU poultry processors and traders, sugar producers, maize and beet growers, and the union of wholesalers of eggs poultry and game said in a joint press release that the Agriculture Committee's vote "proves that a compromise is possible on Ukraine", and the Trade Committee "must draw inspiration from this". The conclusion, endorsed by MEPs, suggests that safeguard measures should cover all sectors, while the "emergency brake" designed to reintroduce duties on poultry, eggs and sugar should also cover cereals, honey and oilseeds. While the European Commission proposed exceeding the average level of imports in 2022-23 as a trigger for the emergency brake, MEPs on agriculture proposed 2021-22, i.e. the pre-war level. MEPs from the agriculture committee believe that the EU should use funds from the 50 billion fund for Ukraine to purchase and store food imported from Kyiv to stabilise market prices in the event of an excessive influx of food products. Meanwhile, the Ukraine Agribusiness Club (UCAB) has addressed the members of the European Parliament's Trade Committee. "Your vote can be decisive for the economic fate of Ukraine in this crucial year," a press release issued by UCAB on 27 February said. "Any proposals to limit Ukrainian agricultural imports to the European market may spell disaster for the Ukrainian economy," the press release stated. Meanwhile, MEPs have submitted 51 amendments to the regulation in the Trade Committee. Some of them overlap with the amendments of the Agricultural Committee, for example, regarding the period of 2021-22 and the extension of the "emergency brake" to grains, oilseeds and wheat. The Council of the EU has provisionally approved the European Commission's proposal for trade liberalisation without changes. Support UP or become our patron! On 28 February, the Council of the European Union has approved a medium-term budget review until 2027, including the establishment of the Ukraine Facility mechanism, a four-year assistance plan worth 50 billion. Source: Council of the EU and the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, as reported by European Pravda Details: The Council of the European Union makes the final decision on changes to the EU's medium-term budget. They will take effect once published in the EU's Official Journal, which should happen within the next few days. According to the Ministry of Finance, the Ukraine Facility is a tool for supporting Ukraine's economic development and recovery, and Kyiv will receive financial assistance on the basis of jointly agreed plans and priorities between the Ukrainian government and the European Commission. Background: On 27 February, the European Parliament approved the allocation of a 50 billion macro-financial assistance package to Ukraine by a majority vote. According to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU expects to provide Ukraine with its first funds in March. Earlier, the Ukrainian government also indicated that Ukraine expects to receive the first tranche of macro-financial support payments from the EU, in the amount of 4.5 billion, under the Ukraine Facility programme in March. Support UP or become our patron! NEW YORK (AP) Actor Hunter Schafer was among dozens of war protesters arrested at NBCs headquarters in Manhattan during President Joe Bidens appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers earlier this week, organizers confirmed Wednesday. The 25-year-old Euphoria star was part of a group of more than 100 demonstrators who packed the lobby at 30 Rockefeller Plaza on Monday afternoon to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, the group Jewish Voice Peace said. Israel and Hamas indicate no deal is imminent after Biden signals Gaza ceasefire could be close Schafer and other protesters wore black shirts reading, Ceasefire Now and Not in Our Name while chanting Let Gaza Live and other slogans as Bidens motorcade pulled into the area, according to videos and photos of the event provided by Jewish Voice Peace. Schafer, who like many protesters also wore a facemask, is seen at one point seated on the floor as others hold up a banner behind her reading, Jews to Biden: Stop Arming Genocide. Representatives for Schafer didnt respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday, but protest organizers said she and others are due in court sometime next month. We commend her commitment to Palestinian freedom and to a future of justice for everyone, Sonya Meyerson-Knox, of Jewish Voice for Peace, said in an emailed statement confirming the arrest Wednesday. The New York Police Department on Wednesday said 30 people were taken into custody and issued summonses for trespassing following the hour-and-a-half-long demonstration. Biden, meanwhile, said Monday he was optimistic a ceasefire would be reached in the coming days. I hope by the end of the weekend, he told reporters after taping the late show interview. My national security adviser tells me that were close. My hope is by next Monday well have a ceasefire. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. Hunter Schafer was arrested while at a pro-Palestine protest with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) on Monday. The actor, 25, who is best known for her roles in the hit teen drama Euphoria and Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, called for a ceasefire in Gaza as she protested with the Jewish-led self-described anti-Zionist organisation on Monday to disrupt President Joe Bidens appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. The Jewish-led anti-Zionist organisation has said that the actor was at the NBC headquarters at the Rockefeller Centre, New York, and was arrested alongside 50 protesters. Hunter was arrested at the protest, along with 50 other people, a JVP spokesperson said in a statement to Vulture. We commend her commitment to Palestinian freedom and to a future of justice for everyone. Photos of the event show Shafer wearing a t-shirt printed with a slogan demanding a ceasefire. Schafer and protesters being lead out of the Rockefeller Centre (REUTERS) In a video posted on the organisations Instagram account, Schafer and the protesters chant: No more weapons, no more war, ceasefires what were fighting for. They continued: Joe Biden, we know you are here. You are not welcome in our city. Schafer photographed in November (Getty Images) The group criticised Bidens foreign policy and called for his administration to reconsider its stance and push for a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. A banner held by Shafer and her fellow protesters, read: Jews to Biden stop arming genocide. The Independent has contacted the NYPD and representatives for Schafer for comment. Demonstrators protest inside the Rockefeller Center asking for a ceasefire in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas (REUTERS) On their website, the JVP says it is the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organisation in the world. Were organizing a grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of US Jews into solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle, guided by a vision of justice, equality, and dignity for all people. Like generations of Jewish leftists before us, we fight for the liberation of all people. We believe that through organising, we can and will dismantle the institutions and structures that sustain injustice and grow something new, joyful, beautiful, and life-sustaining in their place, it said. SEOUL, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of South Korean peace activists on Wednesday clamored for an end to the Asian country's scheduled military exercise with the United States, which they said has served to escalate tensions on and around the Korean Peninsula. The activists gathered at a square across the street from the U.S. embassy in central Seoul to demand stopping the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise Freedom Shield (FS), which this year is set to last from March 4 to 14. Holding up banners and placards with the slogans "We want peace" and "Stop all military actions and hostilities that bring on war and restore dialogue channels", the participants shouted, "Stop the war-causing military action." "There is no way to send the other party under the yoke through military means, military threats or a show of force. It rather continues to bring about military confrontations and increase the intensity of crisis," Lee Tae-ho, a participant of the peace rally, told Xinhua. "Peace through power is a fiction. Instead of coercing the other party into submission through power, every problem should be solved through dialogue and negotiations by respecting the other party," Lee said. The 11-day FS exercise will be conducted to increase the South Korea-U.S. combined readiness and strengthen their combined defensive posture based on scenarios that reflect diverse threats within the security environment, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement earlier in the day. During the annual springtime war game, there will be a variety of combined field training exercises in sea, land and air to increase the interoperability and enhance the combined operation capabilities, the JCS noted. Seoul and Washington have insisted that the joint drill is defensive in nature, but the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has denounced it as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion. "A war crisis on the Korean Peninsula has reached its peak ... The intensity of provocative words and military actions that threaten each other is mounting amid the incessantly continuous South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises," the Korea Peace Appeal, an organizer of the peace rally, said in a statement. It urged South Korea and the United States to stop all military exercises and hostilities and restore dialogue channels with the DPRK, stressing that the joint military exercises have raised military and political tensions on the peninsula. "South Korea, the United States and Japan have (recently) intensified their military cooperation to the level of quasi-alliance. The strengthened military cooperation will deepen confrontations in Northeast Asia, making it more difficult to peacefully resolve the conflict on the peninsula," the organizer noted. The Korea Peace Appeal is a campaign aiming to officially end the 1950-53 Korean War by collecting 100 million signatures, joined by over 370 South Korean civic and religious groups as well as over 70 international partner organizations. The peninsula technically remains at war as the fratricidal war ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Two years after invading Ukraine again, Russian President Vladimir Putin has accomplished two things for NATO. First, he has helped to expand and reinvigorate the alliance; Sweden is set to join NATO. Second, and more concerning, he has deepened Europes dependence on the United States. That problem requires urgent attention. Faced with an aggressive Russia, a war of attrition in Ukraine and uncertainty about U.S. reliability, anxious European allies are accelerating their defense spending. This year they are to collectively meet NATOs target of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense. And they have logged nine consecutive years of growth in their defense budgets. Spending more, however, doesnt necessarily mean spending well. NATOs 2% goal is important as a baseline input metric, but it is unlikely to be enough to ensure that Europe strengthens its defenses before Russia reconstitutes its depleted forces. To assure that defense resources are spent well, some clear output metrics are needed to define what Europes military capabilities should be. As the alliance continues its most urgent task helping Ukraine win it must address this important longer-term challenge of rebalancing trans-Atlantic defense. Doing so will mean squaring a triangle: ensuring Europes capacity to better defend itself against Russia and manage crises along its southern periphery; addressing European aspirations for greater strategic autonomy; and maintaining confidence that the United States can adequately uphold its commitments in both the North Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific region. We have called squaring this triangle achieving European strategic responsibility. In the past, Europe has sought autonomy without providing adequate defense resources, while the United States has wanted greater European defense contributions without diminishing U.S. influence. These tensions have been exacerbated by inadequate cooperation between U.S. and European defense industries. NATOs 75th anniversary summit in Washington this summer provides an opportunity to reconcile these two perspectives and find a new strategic balance. To do so, European allies should focus on achieving two military capability or output goals as quickly as possible. First, Europe should build its conventional military capabilities to a level that would provide at least half of all the forces and capabilities including the strategic enablers such as strategic lift, air-to-air refueling and operational intelligence required to deter and, if needed, to defeat a major-power aggressor. Should a conflict simultaneously break out with China in Asia and with Russia in Europe, the United States may not be able to deploy adequate reinforcements to Europe. European allies need to be able to pick up the slack. Second, European allies should develop capabilities to conduct crisis management operations in Europes neighborhood without todays heavy reliance on U.S. enablers. The European Unions goal to develop the capacity to generate an intervention force of 5,000 individuals who could deploy beyond EU boundaries is a small yet useful start. Much more is needed. Meeting these two output goals would allow Europe to become the first responder to most crises in its neighborhood, acting through NATO, through the EU or through ad hoc coalitions of the willing. It would permit the United States to shift some of its forces and strategic focus to the Indo-Pacific region without significant reduction in the capabilities needed to deter Russia. To achieve these two output goals, NATO allies could agree at the summit to use NATOs Defense Planning Process to create a minimum level of military ambition necessary to attain European strategic responsibility. European allies and Canada should firmly commit to investing sufficient resources to ensure that within a few years they can meet 50% of all of NATOs minimum capability requirements. Similar informal goals already exist; now they should be formalized and implemented at the summit. Doing half of whats needed within the alliance is an absolute minimal requirement for Europe to attain strategic responsibility. It assumes the Europeans can still count on the Americans. But if former President Donald Trump wins the November election and reneges on Americas NATO commitments, doing half will not be nearly enough. So Europe should not delay a moment longer. A delay could be fatal, as Russia is on a war footing, has attained significant combat experience and will reconstitute its drained forces as quickly as possible. Achieving strategic responsibility for Europe will require more not less trans-Atlantic consultations. New mechanisms for NATO-EU coordination and industrial cooperation will be needed. Now is the moment for the U.S. and Europe to shed their contending views and to make European strategic responsibility a win-win for both sides of the Atlantic. Hans Binnendijk, formerly a senior director for defense policy on the U.S. National Security Council, is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank. Daniel S. Hamilton, formerly a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. Alexander R. Vershbow, formerly a NATO deputy secretary general, is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council. (Bloomberg) -- Ukraines allies should consider using profits from frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Kyiv, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, warning Europe must prepare for the risk of a wider war. Most Read from Bloomberg Speaking to the European Parliament on Wednesday, she urged the European Union to significantly bolster its defense capabilities and urgently ramp up the production of ammunition. There could be no greater symbol and no greater use for that money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live, von der Leyen said in a reference to windfall profits of frozen Russian assets. Ultimately this is about Europe taking responsibility for its own security. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called earlier this week on the worlds largest advanced economies to find a way to unlock the value of immobilized Russian assets to help bolster Ukraines defense against Russias invasion and for long-term reconstruction after the war. The EU, Group of Seven nations and Australia have frozen about 260 billion ($282 billion) in the form of securities and cash, with more than two-thirds of that immobilized in the EU. We need to move fast. The threat of war may not be imminent, but it is not impossible, von der Leyen said. The risks of war should not be overblown, but they should be prepared for. Von der Leyens comments come as the commission, the EUs executive arm, is due to present its sweeping defense strategy as soon as next week. As Bloomberg reported, the document includes proposals on how to rapidly ramp up the blocs defense production and designate joint military projects for EU funding, including on space and air and missile defense. The EU is slowly making progress on plans to apply a windfall tax to the profits generated by the immobilized funds, the vast majority of which are held by Belgium-based clearing house Euroclear. Last year, the funds enabled profits of 4.4 billion. Bolstering Defenses EU efforts to bolster its defenses after years of underspending are growing urgent amid warnings that Russia could look to target NATO allies after its war on Ukraine and amid doubts about the US commitment to European security, especially if Donald Trump wins another term in the White House. Europe does not have control of elections or decisions in other parts of the world, von der Leyen said. With or without the support of our partners, we cannot let Russia win. The commission chief stressed the importance of supporting the blocs defense industry and reiterated her support for establishing a post for a designated defense commissioner if she wins a second term after EU elections in June. In addition, the EU will open an office for defense innovation in Kyiv, she said, allowing the bloc to learn from Ukraines battlefield experience and expertise in military innovation. Von der Leyen earlier this month made boosting the EUs defense capability a key focus of her bid for a second mandate to lead the commission. A plan to purchase ammunition outside of Europe gained momentum at a leaders meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week. With Russian forces trying to capitalize on Ukraines desperate ammunition shortages, allies have been struggling to shore up support including with a Czech plan to start purchasing artillery shells outside of the EU. --With assistance from Katharina Rosskopf and Alberto Nardelli. (Updates with details on funds in seventh paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, has called for the proceeds of frozen Russian assets to be used to finance arms purchases for Ukraine. Source: Ursula von der Leyen in her speech to the European Parliament, reported by European Pravda Von der Leyen said that it was "time to start a conversation" about using the windfall profits from frozen Russian assets for joint purchases of military goods for Ukraine. Quote: "There could be no stronger symbol and no greater use for that money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live," she said. "Ultimately, this is about Europe taking responsibility for its own security. With or without the support of our partners, we cannot let Russia win," von der Leyen said. The idea of using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine has recently gained momentum as future funding for Kyiv becomes less certain. Earlier, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on the Group of Seven countries to urgently find a way to expropriate frozen Russian assets banked in the group's member states and redirect them to help Ukraine. Following the summit on 24 February, the G7 leaders confirmed that they would keep frozen the assets of the Russian Central Bank in their jurisdictions until the end of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine. Read also: Challenges of Confiscation: What Will Help Ukraine Achieve Transfer of Russian Assets Reminder: On 12 February, the Council of the European Union adopted a decision that advances the establishment of a mechanism for the use of excess profits from frozen Russian assets in the EU to fund Ukraines defensive effort. Support UP or become our patron! TOKYO, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Japan on Wednesday started the fourth-round of release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. Despite opposition among local fishermen, residents as well as backlash from the international community, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant's operator, started discharging the radioactive wastewater at around 11:30 a.m. local time. Similar to the previous three rounds, about 7,800 tons of the wastewater, which still contains tritium, a radioactive substance, will be discharged over about 17 days. By Rajesh Kumar Singh CHICAGO (Reuters) -Low-cost U.S. carrier Allegiant expects fewer aircraft deliveries from Boeing this year, its president told Reuters, as the planemaker grapples with the fallout of a frightening incident last month when a cabin panel tore off of a 737 MAX 9 jet mid-flight. The Las Vegas-based airline was scheduled to receive 24 MAX planes in 2024, but Allegiant President Greg Anderson said it is working on the assumption that it will receive closer to 12 aircraft this year. "We are in regular dialogue with Boeing on this," he said in an interview on Tuesday. "We can manage through it as long as we have an orderly delivery cadence from Boeing." The planemaker has scrambled to explain and strengthen safety procedures since the Jan. 5 incident. Its production rate has been capped by regulators and closely scrutinized by lawmakers and customers. That has had a ripple effect on the industry, as several air carriers have said they are considering adjusting schedules or keeping older planes in service longer. In 2022, Allegiant placed an order for 50 of Boeing's best-selling single-aisle 737 MAX planes, rejecting offers from traditional supplier Airbus. It was scheduled to take delivery of 10 of the jets in 2023, 24 in 2024, and 16 in 2025. Allegiant has traditionally relied on less expensive second-hand planes. With the introduction of MAX planes, it expected to launch new routes and reduce operating costs. The carrier has yet to receive its first MAX aircraft, said Anderson, adding the delivery is now expected in the coming months. The head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Wednesday asked the planemaker to develop a comprehensive action plan to address "systemic quality-control issues" within 90 days, raising fresh questions as to how long the cap on production would last. The delays have prompted Allegiant to reactivate a few of its used Airbus A320s that it was planning to retire to boost capacity during summer peak flying season, Anderson said. Allegiant plans to boost capacity by 2% to 6% in 2024 from a year ago, and the reactivation of older jets means the delays "shouldn't impact our capacity plans," he said. Boeing's problems, however, have left its customers in a spot. Ryanair last week said the European carrier might have to remove some flights from its summer schedule because of Boeing's delivery delays. The cap on MAX production has also raised concerns at Southwest Airlines, one of Boeing's loyal customers, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Last month, the Dallas-based airline said it expected to receive 79 MAX jets this year. If Boeing fails to deliver all those jets, the company could be forced to defer the retirements some of its older and less fuel-efficient planes. Southwest did not immediately respond to a request for comments. The planemaker's troubles have also sent United Airlines scurrying for options. United last week said it was looking at options to mix some additional Airbus product into its "Boeing heavy fleet" and extend the life of some planes that were ready to retire. Allegiant's Anderson said the safety culture at the U.S. planemaker has "rightfully been brought into focus," adding a stronger Boeing will be good for the industry. Allegiant is using its own experts as well as engineers from Lufthansa's aircraft maintenance business, Lufthansa Technik, to ensure that the planes leaving Boeing's factory are of "the quality and standard they need to be," he said. "We've heightened our approach in that area," Anderson said. (Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh in ChicagoEditing by Nia Williams and Matthew Lewis) By Rishika Sadam and Leroy Leo HYDERABAD (Reuters) -U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly expects to launch Mounjaro, its blockbuster diabetes drug and wildly popular obesity treatment, in India as early as next year after it clears an ongoing regulatory review, CEO David Ricks told Reuters on Wednesday. The market opportunity is huge in the world's most populous country, which has high obesity rates, especially among women, and the second-highest number of people with type-2 diabetes globally. Indian drugmakers are testing their own versions of weight-loss drugs, while illegal versions are also sold online. "Our famous Mounjaro it's under review now. So, perhaps as early as next year to the Indian market," Ricks told Reuters on the sidelines of the BioAsia conference in the southern state of Telangana. When asked about potentially partnering with others to bring the drug to the market, Ricks said the U.S. drugmaker was "open to any way to reach more patients as long as it makes sense for the company and we can supply the market." Mounjaro, chemically known as tirzepatide, is currently sold in the UK and Europe under the same brand name for both conditions. However, it is sold under the brand name Zepbound for weight loss in the U.S. Mounjaro is being reviewed by Indian drug regulators, for which Lilly is using data from its global trials, which included some Indian participants, a company source said, declining to be named as they are not authorized to speak to the media. Lilly's Mounjaro and Zepbound as well as Danish rival Novo Nordisk's in-demand Wegovy and Ozempic are therapies known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, developed to control blood sugar in patients with type 2 diabetes. But they also slow digestion, helping patients feel full longer, which has led to an explosion in their popularity and left Lilly and Novo Nordisk struggling to keep up with demand. The global market for these treatments is expected to reach at least $100 billion by the end of the decade, analysts estimate. Last year, a top Novo Nordisk official told Reuters the Danish company was aiming to bring Wegovy to India in 2026. Indian drugmakers, which are among the world's largest generic drug makers, are already developing their own versions of Wegovy. These companies include Zydus Lifesciences, Sun Pharma, Cipla, Dr Reddy's and Lupin. Of them, Lupin and Cipla are Lilly's Indian distributors, including for some of its older diabetes treatments such as Eglucent, Aplevant, Basaglar and Trulicity. REGULATORY RIGMAROLE India should boost patent protection, get rid of redundant policies and create a social safety net to win more investment from global drugmakers, Ricks said in his keynote address at the BioAsia conference. These steps, he said, would help drive "broader interests for multinationals and foreign direct investment" in India's pharmaceutical industry. "India has many specific policies related to its regulatory environment all set up for good reason. But in hindsight, perhaps we can reflect upon them and find redundant policies that only cause delay and extra cost." Ricks said these regulatory challenges had the "two-way effect" of making it tough for companies like Lilly to bring new medicines into the market and constraining local biotechs to export their inventions. (Reporting by Rishika Sadam and Leroy Leo in Hyderabad; Writing by Bhanvi Satija and Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil and Savio D'Souza) BOISE, Idaho The controversial execution of alleged serial killer Thomas Creech was halted Wednesday after medical workers failed to establish a reliable IV line. The 73-year-old murderer, whos spent nearly 50 years in prison, continued appealing his death sentence hours before his scheduled lethal injection. The Supreme Court declined to intervene in Creechs execution at noon Wednesday. Idahos governor also declined to interfere. Itd been 12 years since Idaho last executed an inmate. The Idaho Department of Corrections said shortly after 10 a.m. local time that witnesses had been seated and the execution process would begin, according to WITI-TV. But KMTV reported roughly an hour later that officials were unable to establish a line through which a lethal injection could be administered. Creech was reportedly returned to his cell and witnesses were dismissed pending further notice. The state is now set to determine what happens next. Creech was convicted of five murders in three states. Three of those killings happened in Idaho, including the 1981 murder of a 23-year-old fellow inmate whom prosecutors said he beat to death with a sock containing batteries. He was first sentenced to death in 1974 after shooting two men who picked him up while he was hitchhiking. A court changed that death sentence to life in prison. Creech was later convicted of killing people in California and Oregon. Creech, at one point, claimed to have murdered nearly 50 people, though authorities never confirmed that figure. Investigators focused on fewer than a dozen killings they believed were tied to the Ohio native. Protesters opposed to Creechs execution argued that the man being executed Wednesday had been softened by spending nearly a half-century in prison and no longer posed a threat to anyone. Idaho station KTVB showed demonstrators outside the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Boise before Creechs scheduled execution. Creech spent Tuesday night visiting with his wife the mother of a corrections officer whom he married while incarcerated. His last meal was fried chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy and corn, followed by an ice cream dessert. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) Missouri Democrats on Tuesday blocked a blacklisted state lawmaker from running for governor as a Democrat. The Democratic Party on Tuesday refused to accept a filing fee from state Rep. Sarah Unsicker, who was exiled after social media posts last year showed her with a man cited by the Anti-Defamation League as a Holocaust denier. House Democrats kicked her out of their caucus in December. Having been removed from the House Democratic Caucus by your peers, the Missouri Democratic Party does not wish to associate with you as a candidate, the partys lawyer, James Paul, wrote in a Tuesday letter to Unsicker. Girl Scouts USA: We regret any hurt after St. Louis troop disbands over conflict Unsicker could still run for Missouri governor as a libertarian or a Republican if those parties would accept her. She could also run as an independent but would need to gather 10,000 voter signatures by July 29. The Associated Press sent a text to Unsicker on Tuesday seeking a comment. Unsicker was prepared to challenge House Minority Leader Crystal Quade for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. The seat will be open because Republican Gov. Mike Parson is barred by term limits from seeking reelection. Republicans, who control all of Missouris statewide elected offices, are highly favored to win the Missouri governorship. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. The New York Times is coming under scrutiny after airing an advertisement from an oil and gas titan during its climate-focused podcast The Daily. The newsletter Heated, a publication on Substack, detailed how the media giant promised to ban dirty-energy companies from sponsoring any climate content back in 2021. Despite this policy, The Daily ran an ad from BP at the beginning of a February episode an ad that discussed how the company had reduced pollution during natural gas production. The spot also directed listeners to a website by BP that praised its efforts to create new low-carbon businesses. Its a pretty clear cut case of misleading advertising, Robert Brulle, a Brown University professor, told Heated, indicating that BP was engaging in greenwashing. [BP is] trying to create this veneer of being part of the solution [to the overheating of our planet], not part of the problem, he continued. It does sort of boggle my mind how the New York Times could allow that. Times spokesperson Elizabeth MacAulay Young told Heated that oil and gas companies simply arent allowed to sponsor The Daily wholesale but didnt elaborate further on the difference. The news outlet also reportedly declined to answer questions about why it continues to give a platform to ads that seemingly run contrary to its policy of banning advertising that is intentionally misleading, deceptive, or contains false information. However, Heated pointed to a 2021 statement by the Times, which has extensively covered corporate greenwashing, that suggested it saw the money coming in from those ads as a way to support its newsroom coverage on climate issues. The New York Times is trying to skate a fine line, Brulle said. For its part, BP is planning to scale up its production of oil and natural gas, even though the burning of dirty energy creates pollution linked to costly health concerns like asthma, in addition to being the primary driver of the overheating of our planet. The United Nations has identified a transition to clean energy, like solar and wind, as a way to support economies through job creation while avoiding the worst impacts associated with changing global temperatures. Advertising works which is why BP spends so much on it, one commenter wrote on the Heated article. And we continue to patronize companies that actively deceive us and destroy our environment. According to Heated, The Daily has not covered greenwashing over thousands of episodes, and it has not yet responded to inquiries about the BP ad it aired. Of course they understand whats going on, Brulle told the newsletter. And theyre hoping that they wont get called out. Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet. Eyeing state legislative gains, Democrats are making an early $750,000 push to counter the GOP in key battlegrounds The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee announced 2024 investments of nearly $750,000. The funding is being used to set up campaign field operations and boost staff hiring. Democrats want to protect their majorities in Michigan and Pennsylvania and make gains in Arizona and North Carolina. As Democrats size up the political landscape heading into the fall, one thing's for certain: the party is eager to make up ground against the GOP in state legislatures across the county. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee on Wednesday announced that it had already made early investments of almost $750,000 for the 2024 election cycle thus far. It is looking to fortify previous legislative gains while also paring down GOP majorities. One of the highest-profile targets is Wisconsin, a perennial swing state where Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has faced sizable GOP legislative majorities during his tenure despite its closely-contested statewide elections. So far, the DLCC has invested $24,000 to help the party make up ground in the state Assembly and state Senate, where more politically-competitive legislative maps were recently passed and signed into law. "The new maps in Wisconsin are still pretty fresh for us, but we see real opportunities," DLCC president Heather Williams told Business Insider in an interview. "We're really looking forward to competing there." In Arizona, the DLCC has contributed $61,000 to the Democratic caucuses representing the state House of Representatives and state Senate. It wants to flip both legislative chambers in a swing state that has become friendlier to the party in recent years. Also on the target list are: Pennsylvania ($70,000 invested thus far), Michigan ($48,000), Minnesota ($50,000), North Carolina ($15,000), and New Hampshire ($12,500). In Pennsylvania, Democrats will be defending a razor-thin state House majority, while Michigan Democrats and the Minnesota DFL Party are also looking to hold both legislative chambers, respectively. North Carolina represents a major challenge for Democrats, as they're aiming to keep the governorship in the party's hands and erase the GOP legislative supermajority. The state that had one of the closest margins between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The legislative races will take place as both Biden and Trump are poised to face each other again in a rematch, with the economy and reproductive rights poised to be front and center in races up and down the ballot. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion has taken on even greater resonance in the states and created electoral difficulties for the GOP as voters especially in urban and suburban areas have pushed back against the decision. "We've seen Republicans try to wiggle their way around new language about their perspective around abortion, but voters are not hearing them," Williams told Business Insider. "Republicans are now being held to their word. Fundamental freedoms are on the line in this election." Read the original article on Business Insider The centrepiece parliamentary moment of the week is Prime Minister's Question Time. Normally, that means all eyes on the prime minister, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and others. But today will feel different. All eyes will be on the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle. And for a simple reason: Can the man who famously demands "Order! Order!" actually command order and authority at Westminster's most rowdy moment? It's a week on from the colossal row over a debate on the Israel-Hamas war, where the Scottish National Party felt, bluntly, that they were done over by the Speaker. Their anger has deepened after another debate on the issue the SNP requested was rejected. Meanwhile, the number of MPs signing a Commons motion saying they have no confidence in Sir Lindsay has ticked up to 87. The MPs leading that campaign are persistent. Their argument to colleagues is this: "If we don't care about this, who will?" They say the Speaker has to be fair and not swayed by threats from beyond the Chamber. They think he failed spectacularly on all these points last week. "The Speaker has to be an impartial chairman for everyone. But last week he acted in favour and with fear," one told me, a reference to a sense that he helped the Labour Party and kowtowed to the protesters who have been frightening some MPs. Few MPs beyond the Labour Party dispute that Sir Lindsay Hoyle made a mess of things last week. But some think he's a decent bloke who made an honest mistake and Westminster would look ridiculous if it indulged in an election to pick a new Speaker. Enter next the Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, who have joined the SNP in saying they have lost confidence in him. They are not exactly a parliamentary juggernaut. Their three MPs could all fit in the back of a taxi. But being Speaker rests on being able to command credibility and respect across the Commons, across all the parliamentary groupings - and so losing another whole grouping, alongside the SNP, does matter. And now, Prime Minister's Question Time. Sir Lindsay Hoyle frequently makes rather theatrical pleas for MPs to consider leaving and going for a cup of tea when the volume notches up a bit at PMQs. Until now, even if it takes a few attempts, he has managed to restore order. But how will he cope today - particularly if some MPs decide to intentionally provoke him - to see how drained his authority has become? We'll find out at lunchtime. KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 12,000 returned refugee families have settled in north Afghanistan's Kunduz province in the past year, provincial head of refugees and repatriation affairs department Mawlawi Abdul Wali Mohammadi said. "About 12,000 families have settled in Kunduz over the past one year. The former refugees returned from different countries with the majority of them back from Pakistan," Mohammadi told reporters. The local authorities in coordination with aid agencies have provided assistance including cash, food and clothes to 2,000 families, the official said, adding efforts are being made to provide more supplies and land for the returnees to construct houses. Nearly 1 million Afghan refugees returned over the past year with the majority of them back from neighboring Pakistan and Iran. The Afghan caretaker government has encouraged Afghans refugees living abroad to return home and contribute to the rebuilding of their motherland. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered Boeing to create a plan to address its systemic quality-control issues within the next 90 days, following an audit and expert panels findings on the aircraft manufacturer. The plan is expected to ensure the company can meet the FAAs non-negotiable safety standards, the agency wrote Wednesday in a statement. Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said following a Tuesday meeting with Boeing CEO and President David Calhoun. Making foundational change will require a sustained effort from Boeings leadership, and we are going to hold them accountable every step of the way, with mutually understood milestones and expectations. Calhoun, in a statement to The Hill, said Boeing has a clear picture of the necessary steps for the future. The plane manufacturer has faced increased scrutiny this year following a midair blowout on a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft in early January. A door plug blew off the side of the plane during an Alaska Airlines flight, leaving a hole in its place. The plane made an emergency landing at Portland International Airport, and no serious injuries were reported. The company is facing numerous lawsuits, however, from passengers and stockholders over the incident. Boeing will develop the comprehensive action plan with measurable criteria that demonstrates the profound change that Administrator Whitaker and the FAA demand. Our Boeing leadership team is totally committed to meeting this challenge, Calhoun said Wednesday. FAA has led the probe into Boeing since the January blowout to ensure the companys planes follow the agencys safety regulations. This included an audit of the 737 Max 9 production line and suppliers after the estimated 171 aircraft models were grounded the day after the incident. Many of these plans have since returned to service after undergoing a FAA-approved inspection and maintenance process. The order from the FAA comes on the heels of an expert panels report, released Monday, that found a disconnect between the manufacturers senior management and other members of the organization when it comes to safety culture. The report was ordered in 2020 after lawmakers passed legislation to change how the FAA checks new planes after two deadly crashes involving Boeing Max jetliners in 2018 and 2019. The crashes killed 346 people. The agency said Wednesday that Boeings plan must also include specific steps the company is taking to improve its Safety Management System program, which it committed to in 2019, and integrate it with a Quality Management System to create a measurable, systemic shift in manufacturing quality control. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Michael Whitaker told Boeing executives Wednesday they must develop a comprehensive plan to deal with systemic quality-control issues in order to meet non-negotiable FAA safety standards. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI Feb. 28 (UPI) -- The Federal Aviation Administration told Boeing Wednesday that the company must develop a comprehensive plan to deal with systemic quality-control issues in order to meet non-negotiable FAA safety standards. FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker let Boeing executives know they must provide the agency with a comprehensive safety action plan within 90 days. That plan will have to incorporate results from an FAA production-line audit. "Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements," Whitaker said after meeting with Boeing executives. "Making foundational change will require a sustained effort from Boeing's leadership, and we are going to hold them accountable every step of the way, with mutually understood milestones and expectations." The FAA also said Boeing has to strengthen its Safety Management System program and apply it to company suppliers "and create a measurable, systemic shift in manufacturing quality control." "Boeing must take a fresh look at every aspect of their quality-control process and ensure that safety is the company's guiding principle," Whitaker said. The demand comes after Whitaker visited Boeing's Renton, Wash., factory on Feb. 12 to observe the 737 production line and speak with engineers, mechanics and others from the company about its quality control process. He also visited Alaska Airlines headquarters in the wake of the Jan. 5 incident where the mid-cabin door plug of a Boeing aircraft fell off mid-flight. That incident prompted the FAA to increase safety oversight of Boeing, which stopped production expansion of the 737 Max while taking steps to comply with the FAA's safety oversight. Whitaker said Boeing's changes should also incorporate the findings of an FAA report earlier this week that found that Boeing's safety environment is "inadequate and confusing." That FAA review was ordered by Congress in the wake of two 737 Max jetliner crashed that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019. False posts in the Philippines repeatedly shared a fabricated report that claimed the archipelago's fighter jets destroyed "300 Chinese fishing vessels" in the South China Sea in January 2024. While there have been tense standoffs between Manila and Beijing in the waterway recently, the incident described in posts did not happen, Philippine military officials told AFP. Clips of fighter jets and fishing boats shown in the posts were actually taken from unrelated news reports. "Tense! 300 China fishing vessel (sic) destroyed by Philippine F 15 jets in West Philippine Sea," reads the title of a YouTube video, using Manila's term for the South China Sea waters to the immediate west of the Philippines. The video, packaged like a news report, had been viewed over 28,000 times since it was shared on January 15. Its narrator says Philippine coast guard vessels intercepted "a Chinese fishing boat with 100 crew" off the main island Luzon. Text also appears in the video which reads: "Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Nick Macfie". The video featured a thumbnail appearing to show boats on fire while a jet hovers above. It goes on to show clips of military jets, boats battered by heavy waves and a person who appears to be getting arrested. Screenshot of the false post taken on February 16, 2024 Tense standoffs between China and the Philippines around disputed reefs in the South China Sea last year saw collisions between vessels from the two countries and Chinese ships blasting water cannon at Philippine boats. China claims almost the entire sea and has ignored an international tribunal ruling that its assertions have no legal basis. The same video was also shared on Facebook and TikTok, prompting comments from some users who appeared to believe the claim. "Wow we should have done that sooner to China," one wrote. "These Chinese think Filipinos are scared of them," said another. Fabricated report Philippine air force, navy and coast guard officials separately told AFP the incident described in the posts did not happen. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Col. Ma. Consuelo Castillo told AFP the Philippines does not own any F-15 jets contrary to the claim in the posts. She branded the video as "fake". Navy Commodore Roy Trinidad, Philippine Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea said the posts were "all false". Commodore Jay Tarriela, Philippine Coast Guard spokesman for the West Philippine Sea, told AFP the video's claims are "entirely untrue". "There is no substantiated evidence or credible reports supporting the narrative that the Philippine Coast Guard carried out an operation in the West Philippine Sea resulting in the capture of 100 Chinese fishing crew members," he said. "The claim of the Philippine government sinking 300 Chinese fishing vessels in retaliation against the Chinese is unfounded and incorrect." Moreover, a search on Google of keywords used in the posts including the names "Manuel Mogato" and "Nick Macfie" found the details closely resemble those in report published by Reuters news agency on May 27, 2016 (archived link). But the old report originally said 10 Chinese fishermen were arrested after a Chinese boat tried to escape after ramming a coast guard vessel. The figure was changed to "100" in the fabricated report. There was no mention of Philippine jets destroying Chinese boats in the old Reuters report. Reuters did not produce the video circulating online, Jonathan Mullen, interim vice president for communications for the news agency, told AFP. Misused clips The clips used in the fabricated report had also previously circulated in unrelated news reports, reverse image searches and keyword searches on Google found. The video's thumbnail shows a photo published by Indonesian photo agency Antara Foto on May 4, 2019 (archived link). Its caption says the photo shows Vietnamese fishing boats shortly before they were sunk by Indonesia's Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries for illegal fishing. The picture had been doctored to insert a fighter jet and make it appear the boats were on fire. Below is a screenshot comparison between the doctored image used as thumbnail in the fabricated report (left) and the original photo from Antara Foto (right): Screenshot comparison of the doctored image of the boat on fire (left) and the original photo from Antara Foto (right) The clip seen at the three-second mark was taken from an ABC report on March 3, 2017 about Russian fighter jets in the Black Sea (archived link). The ABC footage had been flipped as shown in the screenshot comparison of the fabricated report (left) and the original (right) below: Screenshot comparison of clip of jet fighters from fabricated story (left) with video from ABC report (right) The clip of a boat sailing through heavy waves corresponds to footage uploaded to YouTube by a user named Geoff Mackley on January 20, 2011 (archived link). The video's caption says it shows a fishing vessel crossing the Grey River bar during a massive flood in the city of Greymouth in New Zealand's South Island. Below is a screenshot comparison between the video in the false posts (left) and its corresponding clip from 2011 (right): Screenshot comparison of sailing boat from false report (left) with YouTube video of vessel published in 2011 (right) Clips showing another boat and a man who appears to be getting arrested match scenes in a video published on YouTube channel "On Demand News" on May 19, 2016 (archived link). The YouTube video's caption says it shows Argentina sinking a Chinese fishing ship that had entered a restricted area in the South Atlantic. An AFP report at the time said Argentine forces opened fire on and sank a Chinese boat illegally fishing in the South Atlantic after it attempted to ram a coast guard vessel. Below are screenshot comparisons of the mirrored clips in the fabricated report (left) and those in the YouTube video from 2016 (right): Screenshot comparison of boat in the fabricated report (left) and that in the YouTube video from 2016 (right) Screenshot comparison of man arrested in the fabricated report (left) and that in the YouTube video from 2016 (right) AFP has repeatedly debunked misinformation swirling around the South China Sea here, here, here and here. Claim: An image authentically shows a mysterious object on the surface of Mars. Rating: Rating: True Context: While the photograph is genuine, it depicts a wind-carved rock. A smooth, tadpolelike object photographed on the surface of Mars has stumped internet users curious about what it may be. Take these photographs (archived here) shared on Facebook on Feb. 20, 2023, for example, or this video shared to Reddit in 2022 (archived here): A reverse image search using Google Lens (archived here) led Snopes to a Feb. 25, 2022, article in the British tabloid The Sun (archived here), which described the "odd object" as having been captured by NASA's Curiosity rover: Some have jokingly suggested it could be a Martian bowling pin or even an alien's shoe horn. Another said it looks like a discarded Tesla side mirror. Nasa hasn't confirmed what it really is but other geeks think the answer might be less exciting. NASA confirmed to Snopes what the object was in an email on Feb. 26, 2024, and because the image is a genuine photograph, we have rated this claim as "True." Andrew Good, a spokesperson for NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, told Snopes that while the image is real, its explanation is much more mundane than those posited by some online. "It's a wind-carved rock. We see a lot of odd shapes and textures in Martian rocks, usually due to them being sandblasted over eons into very smooth, swoopy (if I may use the term) shapes," he explained. The image was captured (archived here) on Feb. 13, 2022 also known as Mars Sol (solar day) 3385 by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on the Curiosity rover. Good referred our newsroom to this page, which he said "explains the phenomenon that we see most closely associated with shapes like this: pareidolia, the tendency to see familiar shapes when there aren't any there." Pareidolia is like looking at the sky and deciphering animal shapes from clouds. This happens because, as NASA wrote, "our human brains often try to see familiar shapes, something we can relate to. It happens with clouds, rocks, celestial bodies." On July 25, 1976, NASA photographed the famous "face on Mars" photo: At first glance, the uppermost mound resembles a human face, with two eyes, a nose and a mouth. Captured by NASA's Viking 1 orbiter spacecraft along the northern latitudes of Mars, the speckled appearance of the photo, including the "face," was the result of missing data called "bit errors" that NASA describes as being "caused by problems in transmission of the photographic data from Mars to Earth." The space agency added: Bit errors comprise part of one of the 'eyes' and 'nostrils' on the eroded rock that resembles a human face near the center of the image. Shadows in the rock formation give the illusion of a nose and mouth. Planetary geologists attribute the origin of the formation to purely natural processes. The feature is 1.5 kilometers (one mile) across, with the sun angle at approximately 20 degrees. The picture was taken from a range of 1,873 kilometers (1,162 miles). Higher-resolution imagery collected more than two decades later, in 1998, showed that the "face" appeared "more like a natural feature." Curiosity is a car-size rover that landed on Mars in 2012 "to search for evidence that the planet could once have supported Earth-like life," according to The Planetary Society, a nonprofit space exploration organization. As of this publication, the rover has captured more than 1.1 million raw images of the red planet some of which have been at the center of Snopes fact checks, including this image that many claimed showed a "portal" and "wall" on Mars. Sources: "Curiosity, Exploring Mars' Surface." The Planetary Society, https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/curiosity. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024. Dapcevich, Madison. "Does This NASA Photo Show a 'Portal' and 'Wall' on Mars?" Snopes, 11 May 2022, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/nasa-mars-portal-door/. Evon, Dan. "Snopes Tips: A Guide To Performing Reverse Image Searches." Snopes, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//articles/400681/how-to-perform-reverse-image-searches/. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/355731256819830/permalink/411659804560308/?paipv=0&eav=Afb1OWxWuaNIpNJAyQhsT6ICVAT9Q0pdHva_DBgbJKNTE4_yJAe7lQwbfYEXVU6MFTQ&_rdr. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024. Google Lens. https://lens.google.com/search?ep=cnts&re=df&s=4&p=AbrfA8pMSfb_EkLJOdeYSdzLZjNTXQMQZYhJdfZHDYc_xlJs7JXvkydfYf-99WrO5r-uNUxjSJMd_LyqTfiCQCOeYfYfxIttjoXiinc6pKrI4Axwxh8QmqNpmgCHJaEy2YjSCAYmBmvGImXA7U1lluQ_R1MQ316TMdHm6jmMnEmc2OJ6dPjHOZT9DFAIICHXsPsJnuH14YargwV8L8HhF97foYa8CMbJHmDWXdaS6JMCpnR_ZK1KLsAKm4LakcX-cFQEvUVm_pqvgYkV4ftf7ySeVcDDZ8JusQ%3D%3D&st=1708984585614#lns=W251bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLG51bGwsIkVrY0tKRGM1WVRNM05qRm1MV0ZtTjJRdE5EQXlNUzFoWWprMkxUWTVOamMwTURjM1lqWmxNaElmUVRKRFExRmxXSEZyVEhkU1VVVjFlRFl4WHpJd1dFTTRhRXRhTWpOb1p3PT0iLG51bGwsbnVsbCxudWxsLDEsbnVsbCxbbnVsbCxudWxsLFs0MjY4LDg5NjAsNzk1OTIsOTI5ODhdXV0=. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024. mars.nasa.gov. "Geologic 'Face on Mars' Formation." NASA Mars Exploration, https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/6279/geologic-face-on-mars-formation. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024. ---. "Home | Curiosity NASA's Mars Exploration Program." NASA Mars Exploration, https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/home. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024. ---. "Mars Orbiter Camera Views the 'Face on Mars' - Comparison with Viking." NASA Mars Exploration, https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/7495/mars-orbiter-camera-views-the-face-on-mars-comparison-with-viking. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024. ---. "Sol 3385: Mast Camera (Mastcam)." NASA Mars Exploration, https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/1024024. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024. ---. "Space Oddities: NASA Sorts Fact From Fantasy | Multimedia Section." NASA Mars Exploration, https://mars.nasa.gov/multimedia/space-oddities. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024. "Space Sleuths Can't Work out What Weird 'bowling Pin' Object Is on Mars." The Sun, 25 Feb. 2022, https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/17770341/mars-weird-object-spotted-nasa-space/. Claim: During a speech at CPAC 2024, former president Donald Trump referred to his wife Melania by the name Mercedes. Rating: Rating: False On Feb. 24, 2024, former president Donald Trump addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an influential meeting of American conservatives presently aligned with Trump. A portion of that speech went viral, because it was interpreted as evidence of Trump referring to his wife Melania as "Mercedes." That claim even reached late night television, when it was featured on a Feb. 26, 2024, segment on "Late Night with Seth Meyers": These claims are false, because they omit obvious context indicating that the former president was referring to a Mercedes Schlapp. Among other connections, Schlapp served in the Trump Administration as White House director of strategic communications. The American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, is chaired by her husband, Matt Schlapp. At the beginning of the speech, Trump thanked both of them, looking to his far left as he did so: This indicates that Mercedes Schlapp was in attendance and likely seated in that general direction during Trump's speech. Other views of the conference room during his remarks indicate that some sort of VIP area may have been placed in the general direction of Trump's gaze: The Schlapps were not the only people acknowledged by Trump. Much of the introductory portion of his one-and-a-half-hour speech was dedicated to recognizing people of note in attendance. Trump frequently looked to the people gathered in that area to his left, commenting to them when a name he mentioned got a notably receptive response from the crowd. Trump did not acknowledge Melania in this portion of the speech. Along with a lack of photos of her at the event, this suggests she did not accompany the former president to CPAC. Trump's first reference to the former first lady occurred midway through the speech. Melania's name interrupted a story denigrating President Joe Biden's cognitive abilities: [Biden] trips over the machinery and [...] if there's a wall behind him, he ends up walking into the wall []. [The U.S. Secret Service] will run up and grab him and take him off the stage. This is what we have as our president. But the worst thing is when I do that the fake news I call up my wife, our great first lady. She was a great. People love her. People love her The crowd applauded and rose to give a standing ovation. Following that, Trump looked in the same direction as earlier, remarking once again about the notably receptive response. This time, he directed his comment to Mercedes. "Oh, look at that," he said. "Wow, Mercedes, that's pretty good." This crucial context is omitted when presented as evidence of Trump supposedly forgetting the name of his wife. It is clear, given the context of his introductory remarks, that Trump is referring to the same Mercedes as earlier in the speech. Because viral and comedic claims that Trump referred to his wife as Mercedes during Trump's 2024 CPAC speech omit the crucial context that he was referring to Mercedes Schlapp, the claim is "False." Sources: Haberman, Maggie, and Annie Karni. "Mercedes Schlapp Leaving White House Press Office to Join Trump Campaign." The New York Times, 1 July 2019. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/us/politics/mercedes-schlapp-trump-campaign.html. LIVE: President Donald Trump Speech at CPAC 2024 | NEWSMAX2. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoXKP55cC9Y. Accessed 27 Feb. 2024. "Trump Calls Himself a 'proud Political Dissident' in CPAC Speech." AP News, 24 Feb. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/trump-cpac-vindication-judgment-day-2c73c0e64ff5b25afd2e3b09fd75204a. Williamson, Elizabeth. "Meet the Schlapps, Washington's Trump-Era 'It Couple.'" The New York Times, 30 Apr. 2018. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/us/politics/schlapp-trump.html. FILE PHOTO: U.S. Senate Republicans hold weekly caucus lunch at the U.S. Capitol in Washington (Reuters) - Top U.S. Senate Republican Mitch McConnell on Wednesday said he would not seek another term as the party's leader, marking an end to a record-setting career. The Kentucky senator was reviled by Democrats for his obstructionism and embraced by his own caucus for advancing a conservative agenda. Here are some facts about him: CHILDHOOD POLIO Born in Alabama, McConnell spent two years during his childhood undergoing treatment for polio, he wrote in his memoir. He moved to Kentucky as a child with his family before attending college in the state. After working as a congressional aide and in Republican President Gerald Ford's administration, McConnell became a judge-executive in Jefferson County, Kentucky, before his election to the U.S. Senate in 1984, according to his congressional biography. 'GRIM REAPER' McConnell was elected to lead his caucus in 2006, during Republican President George W. Bush's second term, and served as minority leader during Democratic President Barack Obama's first six years in office. When his party captured a Senate majority during Obama's last two years, McConnell flexed that muscle. In early 2016, following the death of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, he refused even to consider holding a vote for Obama's nominee to succeed Scalia, Merrick Garland, saying he wouldn't consider any nominee in an election year. McConnell embraced the nickname "Grim Reaper" for his enthusiastic blocking of Democratic priorities. RESHAPING JUDICIARY UNDER TRUMP McConnell's blocking of Garland set the stage for a reshaping of the Supreme Court when Republican Donald Trump won the White House. McConnell helped the Senate confirm conservative nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, reversing what had been a 5-4 liberal majority at the end of Obama's second term. McConnell again enraged liberals in the final months of Trump's term in office when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020. While that was less than two months before a presidential election, McConnell set aside his qualms about confirming a nominee in an election year and hustled Justice Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation through about a week before the 2020 election. That established a solid 6-3 conservative majority on the court that could stand for years. McConnell has called his work reshaping the federal judiciary to be his greatest achievement. He also played a significant role in the passage of Trump's signature piece of legislation, a 2017 tax overhaul, and for years worked to rein in campaign finance limits. REPUBLICAN IRE A staunch conservative, McConnell has feuded with Trump, rejecting the former president's false claims that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election against Democrat Joe Biden. The rift between McConnell and Trump deepened when the Senate leader said Trump was "practically and morally responsible" for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the building to try to prevent Congress from certifying Biden's win. McConnell also angered some in his party in 2021, during Biden's first year in the White House, when he helped shepherd a deal through the Senate to avoid a default on the national debt. In 2023, Trump's closest allies in the Senate mounted a challenge to McConnell's leadership position after Republicans had a weaker than expected showing in the 2022 midterm elections. McConnell easily fended it off, however. McConnell's wife of 30 years, businesswoman Elaine Chao, served as secretary of labor in the George W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2009 and as secretary of transportation in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021. HEALTH SCARES McConnell froze up twice last summer while speaking to reporters, incidents that raised questions about how long he would be able to hold onto his post. In September, the doctor of Congress said in a statement that the two episodes did not appear to be the result of a stroke or seizure, but offered no explanation of what caused McConnell to stand speechless and wide-eyed during two press conferences. McConnell was also sidelined for weeks last year after he tripped at a Washington dinner on March 8 and was admitted to a hospital for treatment of a concussion and a minor rib fracture. He returned to the Senate in April. Throughout those incidents, McConnell declined to offer many details about his health. (Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone, Howard Goller and Deepa Babington) FAIRHOPE, Ala. (WKRG) 773 students were absent Wednesday from Fairhope West Elementary, with only 201 students in class after an outbreak of what is believed to be the Norovirus. Baldwin horse rescue that helps at-risk kids urgently searching for new home School officials have shut down one elementary school and put another on notice as they try to squash this bug before it goes any further. The campus at Fairhope West Elementary was pretty empty Wednesday, with most of the kids staying home sick or afraid of getting sick. The parent of a fourth-grader at the school, Emily Kane, says her child came home from school Tuesday feeling fine. But that soon changed. Fairhope West Elementary will be closed Thursday and Friday as hundreds of students are home sick. Around 11 oclock last night, it all fell apart, she said. Nausea and upset stomach, the last 24 hours have been anything but pleasant. Messy, and no one is sleeping, says Kane. She is not the only one. Were treating it like that sort of viral gastro-intestinal illness like norovirus, and it is highly contagious, says the head of Health Services for Baldwin County Public Schools, Dr. Alison Rudd. The school system decided Wednesday to close Fairhope West Elementary for the remainder of the week. Classes will resume on Monday, March 4. These GI bugs, they like to rear their ugly heads in this season from winter to spring, even sometimes into the summer. We dont really know what the cause was or where ground zero was, so to speak, says Rudd. The same virus is believed to be impacting students and staff across town at Fairhope East Elementary, but for now, the school doors will remain open. Parents are urged to keep their students home if they are not feeling well. When one or two kids get sick in a classroom of 30 kids, when they are basically sitting on top of each other, everyone is going to get it, says Kane. Professional cleaning crews have been called in to sanitize all of the schools. So far, Fairhope schools are the only ones reporting any sort of outbreak in Baldwin County. Previous reporting UPDATE (2:50 p.m.) We have updated this article to include Baldwin County Public Schools Superintendent Eddie Tylers address to Fairhope West parents. FAIRHOPE, Ala. (WKRG) The Alabama Department of Public Health is working to address a reported virus outbreak at Fairhope West Elementary School, News 5 has learned. Bear, the dog with a box on its head, has finally been caught The ADPH is investigating a gastrointestinal outbreak at FWES. Officials say that nausea and vomiting are symptoms related to the incident. On Wednesday, at least 773 students were absent, though not necessarily all sick; just 201 students were on campus, sources tell News 5. ADPH Infectious Diseases and Outbreaks staff has provided specimen collection materials for testing through the ADPH Bureau of Clinical Laboratories. Baldwin County superintendent addresses virus outbreak The Baldwin County school system is reportedly working with the health department to address the outbreak. In the meantime, News 5 has learned that Fairhope West will shut down Thursday and Friday. Today, Fairhope West parents received the following message from Baldwin County Public Schools Superintendent Eddie Tyler: Parents, After careful consideration, we have decided to close Fairhope West through Friday, March 1. Due to the amount of staff and students who are absent, the number who are experiencing symptoms, and in an effort to help contain the contagion, we unfortunately need to shut the building down. While out, we will be conducting a deep cleaning of the school so when students return next week, it will be sanitized to the fullest extent. We understand the inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding. Please take care of yourself and your families. No other schools affected at this time Fairhope East also has been affected, but not to the extent as Fairhope West, weve learned. Orange Beach businesswoman accused of more credit card fraud: Police Officials say the investigation into the outbreak is ongoing. This is a developing story. News 5 will update this article as more information becomes available. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRG News 5. An Orange County man who allegedly restarted his illegal cosmetic surgery practice less than two weeks after being released from prison was arraigned on Wednesday, and his trial is scheduled to begin on May 8. Elias Renteria Segoviano, 63, faces two felony counts of unauthorized practice of medicine and a misdemeanor count of falsely representing himself as a licensed medical practitioner. According to prosecutors, Segoviano targeted Spanish-speaking women and used multiple variations of his name to avoid detection by authorities. Unlicensed doctor tries to restart illegal practice less than 2 weeks after leaving prison: OCDA In January, he tried to sublet a Brea commercial space and applied for a business license, just days after his Dec. 22 release from prison, the Orange County District Attorney said. That prison sentence came after he pleaded guilty to 15 felonies in April 2023: 13 counts of unauthorized practice of medicine, one count of false indication of a medical license and one count of perjury. I was prettier before I walked in his office: Garden Grove woman rues procedures performed by allegedly unlicensed doctor Victims who spoke with KTLA said they encountered issues like problems blinking and a collapsing eyebrow after paying Segoviano thousands. Im embarrassed. I dont go out anymore, I dont see my friends anymore. I was prettier before I walked in his office and now Im fighting to get my old looks back, said a woman who asked to only be identified as Monica. This man walked the walk and talked the talk of being a licensed medical professional, but he was anything but what he pretended to be, District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a release. These women trusted this individual to have the training and the expertise required to perform these medical procedures, and instead they unknowingly put their very lives in the hands of someone who was never licensed to perform the kind of work he was doing. The fact that he was out of prison less than two weeks and while under supervision when he returned right back to a life of crime makes it painfully obvious that he has no intention of changing his behavior and he will continue to try to make money off unsuspecting women every chance that he gets. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. Family Dollar will pay $41 million as part of a settlement over unsanitary conditions, which is the largest criminal penalty in a food safety case ever made. Family Dollar settles $45M gender discrimination lawsuit The company reached a plea deal with the Department of Justice over unsanitary conditions at the companys Arkansas warehouse. The facility stored food, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices and was infested with rodents, the DOJ stated. When consumers go to the store, they have the right to expect that the food and drugs on the shelves have been kept in clean, uncontaminated conditions, said Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer in a news release. When companies violate that trust and the laws designed to keep consumers safe, the public should rest assured: The Justice Department will hold those companies accountable. The deal also requires Family Dollar to meet strict compliance and reporting requirements. The family of a Georgia man killed by a sheriffs deputy in October, three years after he was exonerated and freed from prison, has filed a federal lawsuit against the sheriffs office and the deputy. Leonard Cures family and their attorneys filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday, naming Buck Aldridge, the Camden County Sheriffs Office deputy who fatally shot Cure, and Sheriff Jim Proctor. Along with seeking monetary damages, the suit claims that Aldridge and Proctor violated Cures Fourth Amendment rights when Aldridge stopped Cure and ultimately killed him on Oct. 16, during a traffic stop on Interstate 95 near the Georgia-Florida border, said Harry Daniels, one of the familys attorneys. The family is seeking $16 million $1 million for every year Leonard Cure was wrongfully incarcerated for armed robbery. His death came after he was freed from a 16-year prison sentence for a crime he didnt commit. All I really want is justice for my brother, Michael Cure said in a news conference on Tuesday. Unfortunately, it has to be financial compensation. But my brother deserves better than what he received in Camden County. He added of Cure: He was 100% exonerated. He was innocent. Only to be out three years and have an encounter with this racist, incompetent officer who took his life unnecessarily. Wheres the justice? Daniels cited repeated documented instances of Aldridges excessive use of force in the past. In 2022, he dragged a driver from a crashed car and punched him after the man fled from Aldridge on Interstate 95, according to The Associated Press, which noted that records indicated Aldridge faced no disciplinary action. The AP relied on body and dashcam footage to detail the incident. In 2017, Aldridge was fired by the Kingsland Police Department for throwing a woman to the ground during a traffic stop and handcuffing her, the AP reported. That termination came after two previous unnecessary force violations, the AP reported. Aldridge was hired by the Camden County Sheriffs Office in 2018, according to the AP. Leonard Cure (Innocence Project of Florida via AP file) Buck Aldridge has a history of violence and unlawful use of force while in uniform, Daniels said Tuesday, noting that Proctor, the sheriff, overlooked Aldridges history. The reason why Buck Aldridge got out the car, ready to inflict harm, because his sheriff Jim Proctor allowed it to happen. Daniels said the lawsuit holds Proctor just as responsible for Cures death as Aldridge. This is not just a bad apple, its a bad orchard. And today we are bringing accountability to the apple and the orchard, he said. Neither the Camden County Sheriffs Office nor Aldridges attorney, Adrienne Browning, immediately responded to a request for comment from NBC News. Browning has said in the past that Aldridge is a fine officer and shot Cure because he feared for his life. Cure, 53, had been visiting his mother, Mary Cure, in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and was returning to his metro Atlanta home when Aldridge pulled him over for speeding. In the days following the killing, Camden County Sheriffs Office released dashboard and body camera video showing the deputy pulling Cure over and ordering him to put his hands on the back of his pick-up truck and then behind his back. Cure appeared to comply until he learned that the deputy intended to arrest him for speeding and reckless driving, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the sheriffs office. The deputy fired a stun gun at Cure and a fight ensued, with Cure grabbing the deputy by the neck and pushing his head backward, the video shows. The deputy shot the stun gun twice at Cure and hit him with a baton before shooting him with a gun at point-blank range. When they want to use excess force, you have other parts of the body you can shoot. You dont always have to kill somebody, Mary Cure said Tuesday. Its a terrible day when the citizens have to police the police. In 2020, Cure was the first person exonerated by Broward Countys Conviction Review Unit. Hed been wrongfully convicted of armed robbery and sentenced to life in prison in 2004. He was freed three years ago, after the Innocence Project of Florida convinced authorities to review the case. It was determined, through examining an ATM receipt and other evidence, that Cure could not have been involved in the act because he was miles away when the robbery occurred. The Broward County prosecutors office concluded that Cure did not commit the crime. After his release, Cure held down a job, reconnected with his family and was in the process of buying a home when he was killed, according to the Innocence Project. His mother said on Tuesday that she used the compensation Cure received from the state for his wrongful conviction and imprisonment to bury him. You know how painful that is? she said. He never got to spend anything. Bought a house, he was never, ever to live in it. The hell of trying to close out his estate, and being questioned by the officials in Georgia, has been daunting. Cures family said in October that his time behind bars likely played a role in the deadly altercation. And Michael said then his brother may have had mental health issues. Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, agreed, saying that the psychological trauma of being unjustly incarcerated may have led Cure to intensely fear a new arrest. He, like many of my other clients, their biggest fear is that at a moments notice theres going to be law enforcement on the other side of that front door or at a traffic stop who is going to without cause, for something they didnt do send them back right where they worked so hard to get out of, Miller said then, adding, I can only imagine that mustve been what he was thinking during this traffic stop. For more from NBC BLK, sign up for our weekly newsletter. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com DHAKA, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of Dhaka-based foreign diplomats along with representatives of some international organizations have visited a Chinese-built mega underwater tunnel in southeastern Bangladesh. Situated in Chattogram seaport city, approximately 242 km to the southeast of the capital Dhaka, the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Tunnel is the first of its kind in Bangladesh and South Asia, which has been put into use since last October. Some 34 diplomats and representatives of international organizations visited the tunnel on Tuesday, accompanied by Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud. After the visit, the group left for Cox's Bazar through a newly built railway, the first to the country's largest sea beach town of Chattogram. The railway from Dohazari to Cox's Bazar, one of the priority development projects of Bangladesh, was inaugurated in November last year to bolster connectivity and transportation infrastructure in the South Asian country. The 103.5-km railway, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), was partly built by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and the China Railway Group Limited (CREC). There was a police presence at the remote murder scene on Wednesday The family of a man shot dead in rural Perthshire learned how he died more than a week after his body was found. Brian Low's body was discovered in the Pitilie area near Aberfeldy at about 08:30 on Saturday 17 February. Police said the death was initially treated as non-suspicious until a medical examination found injuries consistent with a shooting. A post-mortem examination then took place six days after his death, prompting a murder investigation. The family of the 65-year-old retired groundsman only learned of the development on the afternoon of Saturday 24 February. Mr Low had been walking his black Labrador along a remote track when he was shot. The dog was found by his body, and the death was initially assessed as "medical-related", the force said. Police have now released more details of the timeline of events, as questions were asked about why it took so long to begin an murder investigation. Local MSP John Swinney, the former deputy first minister, earlier told BBC Radio Scotland's Lunchtime Live that he had concerns. "I want to understand why there was a gap of some considerable distance and time between the discovery of Mr Low's body and the disclosure that there was a suspicion Mr Low had been murdered...because as I understand it, Mr Low had been shot," he said. Police Scotland said the murder inquiry was set up immediately following the results of the post-mortem examination. Forensic work was being carried out by police at the scene in the Pitilie area on Tuesday Meanwhile tributes have been paid to Mr Low who had worked at Edradynate Estate until his retirement in February of last year. A neighbour - a fellow dog walker who also did not want to be named - described Mr Low as the "loveliest guy". He said it had been unnerving to see the police activity and that officers had been seen in the area a week ago. On why it had apparently taken police so long to treat Mr Low's death as murder, he said: "There's definitely questions to be answered". There was a visible police presence at the remote scene of the murder and in nearby Aberfeldy on Wednesday. Map A spokesman for the estate where Mr Low used to work, which is about five miles from Aberfeldy, said the news of his death was "extremely sad". "We send our deepest condolences to Brian's family," they added. "We have no further comment to make at this time." A former colleague of Mr Low, who asked not to be named, described him as being "one of the most honest men you could meet". He told BBC Scotland News: "I worked with Brian for around seven years. Simply put, he was a very nice guy. A good man. "He helped me a lot. He was one of the most honest men you could meet. I have only good words for him. I was shocked to hear the news." Police in Pitilie By Graeme Ogston, BBC Scotland News reporter in Aberfeldy The long, quiet rugged path that leads from the main road to the scene of Brian Low's murder is dotted with just a handful of houses. But few neighbours are willing to be identified or even to speak about the horror that is unfolding yards from their doorsteps. Mr Low was seen locally walking his dog, and those who knew him (or knew of him) described him as "the loveliest guy." And while there are few here and in nearby Aberfeldy saying they are openly worried about a killer on the loose, there is real concern that they are only hearing about Mr Low's murder 10 days after his body was found. A couple of people said they had heard last week that a local man had died walking his dog, but had assumed it had been a medical matter. So there is real shock that an active murder inquiry is now taking place in their town, with uniformed and plain-clothes police very much out and about on the streets of Aberfeldy. Det Ch Insp Marin Macdougall, of Police Scotland's major investigation team (MIT) said extensive inquires were taking place. He said: "Since criminality was established on Friday evening, the MIT has carried out a number of lines of enquiry and we are keeping an open mind as to the motive in this case. "We are now turning to the public for information. Aberfeldy is a remote area with close knit community. Anything unusual would stand out. "I am asking anyone with information, if you noticed anything out of the ordinary or heard anything of concern, to please contact us. It could be vital to our investigation." Police launched the murder investigation 10 days after Mr Low was shot Local Area Commander Greg Burns said: "I understand this is an extremely concerning incident for this small, rural community. "I want to take this opportunity to reassure people that we are working round the clock to find out what happened to Brian. "We will have additional high-visibility patrols in the area and you will see significant police activity over the coming days". Detectives have set up an online portal where members of the public can submit information. People collect water in the Maghazi camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on February 27, 2024 (-) Famine is "imminent" in northern Gaza, where no humanitarian group has been able to provide aid since January 23, the World Food Programme warned Tuesday, as Israel wages war on Palestinian militant group Hamas. With a dire humanitarian emergency unfolding in the Gaza Strip and the main UN aid agency there struggling to cope, other bodies have called for help in reaching the thousands of Palestinians in desperate need. "If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza," WFP's deputy executive director Carl Skau told the UN Security Council, while his colleague from the UN humanitarian office OCHA, Ramesh Rajasingham, warned of "almost inevitable" widespread starvation. As aid remains blocked from entering northern Gaza by Israeli forces, and only enters the rest of the territory in dribs and drabs, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths last week wrote to the Security Council calling on members to act to prohibit "the use of starvation of civilian population as a method of warfare." "Here we are, at the end of February, with at least 576,000 people in Gaza -- one-quarter of the population -- one step away from famine, with one in six children under two years of age in northern Gaza suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting," OCHA's Rajasingham said. Some 97 percent of groundwater in Gaza is "reportedly unfit for human consumption" and agricultural production is beginning to collapse, warned Maurizio Martina, deputy director general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Aid is ready and waiting at the border, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said Tuesday. "WFP colleagues also tell us that they have food supplies at the border with Gaza, and with certain conditions they would be able to scale up feeding up to 2.2 million people" across the Strip, Stephane Dujarric told reporters. "Almost 1,000 trucks carrying 15,000 metric tons of food are in Egypt ready to move," he said. - Aid blocked by Israel - But Israeli forces are "systematically" blocking access to Gaza, said Jens Laerke, spokesman for OCHA, in Geneva earlier Tuesday. All planned aid convoys into the north have been denied by Israeli authorities in recent weeks. The last allowed in was on January 23, according to the World Health Organization. But Israeli deputy ambassador to the UN Jonathan Miller countered that "it is not Israel who is holding up these trucks," instead placing the blame on the UN, which he said must distribute aid "more effectively." "There is no limit to the amount of humanitarian aid that can be sent to the civilian population of Gaza," he said, adding that since the beginning of 2024 Israel had only denied 16 percent of requests to deliver aid, and those were due to risks the shipments could end up in Hamas' hands. The main UN aid agency in Gaza, UNRWA, meanwhile, is "at breaking point," its head said last week. As donors freeze funding, Israel exerts pressure to dismantle the body and humanitarian needs soar. "Israel must do more," US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood said Tuesday, calling on the country to "facilitate the opening of additional crossings" for aid. "We should all have been convinced by now that our action is needed, indeed was needed a long time ago," said Slovenian ambassador Samuel Zbogar. The Hamas attack on October 7 that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Militants also took about 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel. Israel's military campaign has killed at least 29,878 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory's health ministry. bur-abd-st/nro/bfm An empty class at Coral Glades High School, Tamarac, Florida. (Photo by Dan Forer/GettyImages) Quality Journalism for Critical Times With Tallahassees political class in a tizzy over whether Gov. Ron DeSantis will veto House Speaker Paul Renners cherished social media ban for under-16-year-olds, the governor decamped to Naples to deliver a speech to a homeschool academy. The legislation (HB 1), which cleared the Legislature last Thursday, would forbid social media platforms to allow younger teenagers to participate unless the platforms abandon the engagement tools, including algorithms, that keep users scrolling away. DeSantis has consistently emphasized that he wants parents to control whether their children use these platforms. But he didnt bring up the subject during a 20-minute talk to students and others at the Freedom Institute of Collier County, or during a subsequent Q&A with Tom Grady, a board member who sat on the Florida Board of Education between 2015 and last year. The Institute provides instruction to homeschool students. The governor did cite his support for parental rights, however, including financial support for as many as 600,000 students enrolled in private, public, and homeschools. Parents in Florida have a right to know whats being taught, what materials are being used in their kids schools. Why would you oppose that? Theres no reason to oppose that. And parents have utilized those resources and those reforms to blow the whistle on some things that were wholly inappropriate to be in schools, DeSantis said. He also discussed alternatives to formal postsecondary education including workforce training in skills such as truck driving and welding that can lead to comfortable careers. Grady asked the governor to respond to tech billionaire Peter Thiels program offering young people $100,000 to skip college in favor of founding companies or nonprofits. DeSantis who holds an undergrad degree from Yale and a degree from Harvard Law observed that college dropouts including Bill Gates have achieved major success. That may be the right path to do that for some students; I think others could benefit from going to higher education. So, I think its probably circumstances-dependent, he said. You know, one thing you will get if you go to a university is you will develop friendships and make relationships that does help. I mean, were human beings. I mean, if you know somebody down the line, that just makes a difference, DeSantis continued. Of MBA programs, I dont know if theyre teaching you anything thats really important, but I think its mostly just the networking there for two years. Thats what people do. The post So far, DeSantis isnt saying whether hell veto social media ban for younger teens appeared first on Florida Phoenix. Tractors were parked on a road in Cardiff Bay on Tuesday, as part of a protest against the Sustainable Farming Scheme Opposition parties in the Senedd have voted in favour of scrapping the Welsh government's controversial Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS). It comes after thousands of farmers protested against the plans in Cardiff Bay. It will require farmers to commit 10% of agricultural land to be used for trees and 10% for wildlife habitat. Despite the Tories and Plaid uniting in the Senedd, a motion calling for the scheme to be axed failed to pass. The vote, also supported by Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Jane Dodds, was tied 26 votes to 26, triggering a rule that forced deputy presiding officer David Rees to vote with the government. A Welsh government amendment to the motion also failed to pass for the same reason. The votes would not have been binding on the government. The Conservatives' rural affairs spokesman, Samuel Kurtz, told a Senedd debate that the three letters representing the name of the policy, SFS, "are so tainted in the eyes of farmers that no scheme can go forwards if it is called the Sustainable Farming Scheme". "I no longer believe SFS can exist regardless of whatever changes are made to it," he said. "It must be a new scheme brought forward... it must be genuine co-design." 'No different to miners' strike' Plaid Cymru counterpart Llyr Gruffydd recalled memories of standing "shoulder-to-shoulder with miners as they battled for their livelihoods" 40 years ago. "I don't see any differences between the laudable and valid stances taken then and those taken today by many in our rural communities", he said. That drew a response later in the debate from the Labour MS for Blaenau Gwent, Alun Davies, who told members: "So long as I have got a breath left in my body, this government will never, ever, ever do to rural Wales what Thatcher's government did to the mining valleys of south Wales." Plaid Cymru is in a co-operation deal with Welsh Labour ministers, which includes the SFS. It says the two sides will agree "longer-term arrangements for Welsh agriculture". Plaid Cymru's leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said on Tuesday that his party was not quitting the co-operation deal. Responding on behalf of the Welsh government to the Senedd debate, Rural Affairs Minister Lesley Griffiths said the UK government had "broken their promise to replace EU farm funding in Wales". "They have removed almost a quarter of a billion pounds from our farm support budgets. That's money which should have been invested in our rural communities." Meanwhile both the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru have called on Ms Griffiths to correct remarks made in the Senedd about cash to help farmers with water pollution regulations. On Wednesday, Lesley Griffiths said she had never said the 20m announced was "additional money". But a joint statement from Ms Griffiths and the first minister yesterday had in fact described the cash as additional funding. Opposition parties also supported a non-binding Plaid Cymru motion calling on the Welsh government to urgently change its policy in tackling bovine TB, which also failed to pass. The death of a transgender woman in North Carolina is still under investigation three years later as police seek justice. Jenna Franks was found dead in a wooded area in Jacksonville Feb. 24, 2021, according to an update from Jacksonville Public Safety. Her death, which is being investigated as a murder, has remained unsolved without any named suspects for three years, police said. A City of Jacksonville Streets Division work crew found Franks body while clearing debris from a drainage ditch in the area, according to police. An autopsy released in 2021 showed Franks was stabbed multiple times in the neck and lower half of her body, WITN reported. Its likely whoever killed Jenna is familiar with the area where her body was found and may continue to live or work in the community. We are not ruling out the killer moved away and are hoping someone comes forward with information, the departments detective Scott Eichelberger said in the update. Franks death is under investigation as a possible hate crime, according to the FBI. Franks was involved with the Onslow County LGBTQ+ Community Center before her death, according to a March 2021 news release from the Human Rights Campaign, a lobbying organization that advocates for the LGBTQ community. Her death deeply saddened the group, which denounced violence against the transgender community. Forty-four transgender or nonbinary people were killed in 2020, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Tori Cooper, the organizations director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, called Franks death and other instances of violence against transgender people devastating. Jenna had family, friends and a community who cared about her, Cooper said in the release. Her life was taken far too soon. The department, along with the FBI, is offering up to $15,000 as a reward for further information on Franks death. To provide any details on the case, contact Eichelberger at 910-938-6440 or seichelberger@jacksonvillenc.gov. You can also reach out to the FBI office in Charlotte at 704-672-6100 or Crime Stoppers at 910-938-3273. Jacksonville is about 45 miles northeast of Wilmington. If you are struggling or thinking of harming yourself, you can reach out to a counselor with the Trevor Project, the worlds largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning) young people. Text START to 678-678 or call 1-866-488-7386. Man pees on LGBTQ pride flag on porch, then returns to apologize, Ohio officials say Transgender woman is shot in the head after sexual encounter, cops say. Heinous act Chilling drag restrictions passed in Tennessee city, suit says. Back into the closet HANOI, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Analysts forecast that Vietnam's rice prices will continue upward trend in 2024 on limited supply, Vietnam News reported Wednesday. The newspaper quoted the analysts as saying that recent falls in Vietnam's rice prices are only short-term. Vietnam's rice prices are dropping on the psychology of waiting for clearer market trends from rice import plans of importing countries, local media reported. According to the Vietnam Food Association, export rice prices of Vietnam are moving sideways after sharp decreases. The price of 25 percent broken rice dropped by 20 U.S. dollars per ton in the past week to 584 dollars per ton, slightly lower than Thailand's. The country's 100 percent broken rice is sold at 508 dollars per ton, 25 dollars per ton higher than Thailand's. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam targets to export at least 8 million tons of rice in 2024. As of Feb. 15, Vietnam earned 466.6 million dollars from exporting 663,209 tons of rice. Elizabeth Carr fears that shes an endangered species because of the Alabama Supreme Courts controversial ruling on reproductive rights. On Monday, WBUR-FM, Bostons NPR news station, published an essay by Carr, who made headlines around the world in 1981 when she became the first baby to be born in the U.S. through in vitro fertilization. In her essay, Carr challenged the state courts rulingthat frozen embryos should legally be considered children. Last weeks ruling was clearly written without a true understanding of the IVF procedure and a total disregard for the science of assisted reproductive technology, Carr wrote. No one understands better than the infertility community that embryos are not children. Success in IVF means bringing home a baby, not solely creating embryos. Elizabeth Carr at age 20 attends a World Infertility Month dinner at the United Nations on May 15, 2002, in New York City. Mario Tama via Getty Images Carr described embryos as simply one of many complicated steps one has to take in order to even have a chance of having a live birth. She pointed out that IVF is a complicated multi-step process that not only includes hormone injections, egg retrieval and an embryo transfer but also demands financial resources, timing, science and scheduling. And now the Alabama Supreme Court has made it more challenging for Alabamians to have an IVF baby in 2024 than it was for my parents in 1981. Science should move us forward, not backward, Carr wrote. The Alabama Supreme Court made its ruling earlier this month after three Alabama couples sued a fertility clinic for wrongful death after a patient accessed the freezer their embryos were stored in and dropped them on the floor. The ruling, which is riddled with theology, now gives couples who lose frozen embryos kept at storage facilities or fertility clinics the power to sue for wrongful death of a minor child even if it occurred by accident. Judith Carr holds her newborn daughter, Elizabeth, alongside her husband, Roger Carr, in 1981. Bettmann via Getty Images The decision has already severely affected IVF patients and providers. Three of the largest fertility clinics in the state announcing that theyve paused IVF services to avoid legal risk in the wake of the decision. To make matters worse for IVF patients, nationwide embryo shipping services have said they are pausing embryo transport to and from Alabama. Although the ruling is steeped in right-wing values, Republicans have tried to distance themselves from the controversial decision. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said Friday that she supports some couples hoping and praying to be parents who utilize IVF and that she and GOP state lawmakers are working on a solution to ensure we protect these families and life itself. HuffPost reached out to her office to clarify what Ivey meant by some couples but did not receive an immediate response. Despite this, Carr does see a silver lining in Republicanstwisting into knots over the decision. As I navigate these uncertain times, I remain steadfast in my belief that the power of science, coupled with compassionate legislation, will pave the way for a future where the dreams of parenthood through IVF are safeguarded, cherished and celebrated, Carr concluded. Related... Penny Mordaunt meets Jeremy Hunt at No 11 Downing Street, in a photo she shared with social media followers on X Penny Mordaunt has told Jeremy Hunt that the Governments first duty is to protect Britain, amid a backlash over the lack of extra funding for the Ministry of Defence in the Budget. Ms Mordaunt, the Commons Leader and former defence secretary, said she had met the Chancellor to discuss work she had done to get the best return from current defence budgets. The meeting, understood to have taken place on Wednesday, came after The Telegraph revealed that the MoD is not expected to get any extra funding at next weeks Budget. It has led to a backlash from former defence secretaries, including Sir Gavin Williamson, who said that without more money for defence, the country would be ill-equipped to face the challenges that our enemies are increasingly presenting us with. Ben Wallace, the previous defence secretary before Grant Shapps, said the UKs hollowed-out military would not be match fit without a funding boost. Mr Wallace said if the Government did not invest in defence in the coming months, it would have failed to invest in the safety of the UK. Writing for The Telegraph, the former defence secretary said that there was a need to put our hands in our pockets and sustainably fund our Armed Forces, lamenting: No other department in Whitehall has suffered like this. He warned: War is coming. It might be a cold war or it might be a hot one, but by the end of the decade, if we are to defend this nation, we need to be match fit and modern. He added: At the general election, defence must be a priority for all the parties. If it is not, know that in four to five years time, when we are not ready and more vulnerable, it was in 2024 when the government of the day, be that Conservative or Labour, failed to invest in the safety of the UK. Ms Mordaunt represents Portsmouth North, a constituency that includes a naval base that houses almost two-thirds of the Royal Navys surface ships. The Commons Leader was also a Royal Navy reserve between 2010 and 2019. It is common for MPs to meet the Chancellor and put forward their case for what should be in the Budget before the Government. But the decision from Ms Mordaunt, who previously has stood for the Tory leadership and is seen as a possible contender in future campaigns, to go public with her discussions with Mr Hunt about defence is likely to raise eyebrows in Westminster. She wrote on X on Wednesday morning: Met with the Chancellor to reiterate what Portsmouths families and businesses need to hear in the Budget. I discussed the work Im doing with the UK Civil Reserve and others to deliver a greater return for our defence and contingency budgets and increase capability. Our first duty is to protect our nation and its interests. Penny Mordaunt has joined other former defence secretaries in expressing her concerns about military spending - Leon Neal/Getty Images She also shared a photograph of herself sitting across from Mr Hunt in his rooms in No 11 Downing Street. This is not the first time that she has spoken up about defence spending. She warned in The Sunday Times last month that the Royal Navy must be able to continue to secure our interests amid reports of dwindling resources. Britain cannot be secured Ms Mordaunt further commented on X that the Royal Navy and its partners must keep pace with the growing capabilities of other nations. If not, Britains interests cannot be secured. Spending on each department has already been detailed for this year and next year in a wider spending review by the Conservative Government. But extra funding was announced for the Ministry of Defence on top of that last spring, totalling 4.95 billion over the next two years. A further 2 billion every year for most of this decade was also announced by the Treasury to improve the resilience and readiness of our conventional and nuclear forces. It is expected that the Budget will contain a greater focus on tax cuts, believed by the Treasury to be necessary to boost economic growth as well as Tory re-election chances, rather than extra spending. Earlier this year, Lord Dannatt, a former chief of general staff, hit out at the shrinking size of the Army, which has dwindled from 102,000 in 2006 to 74,000 today. Troop numbers are expected to be cut even further to 73,000 by 2025 which would make the Army its smallest since the Napoleonic era. The recruitment crisis meant that Britains aircraft carriers were not ready to be sent to the Red Sea in the aftermath of the first UK-US strikes against Houthi rebels. Should Ms Mordaunt decide to run in a future race to become Tory leader, she would be seen as one of the favourites. At the end of last year, she ranked as the second most popular leadership contender in a ConservativeHome poll of the Tory grassroots behind only Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary. She ran in the summer of 2022 to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, coming third behind Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Spending on each department has already been detailed for this year and next year in a wider spending review done from years ago by the Conservative Government. But extra funding was announced for the Ministry of Defence on top of that last spring, totalling 4.95 billion over the next two years. Spring Budget Is a National Insurance cut possible? The Telegraph predicts Read more A further 2 billion every year for the most of this decade was also announced by the Treasury to improve the resilience and readiness of our conventional and nuclear forces. It is expected that the Budget will contain a greater focus on tax cuts, believed by the Treasury to be necessary to boost economic growth as well as Tory re-election chances, rather than extra spending. Military needs quick expansion Last month, General Sir Patrick Sanders, head of the Army, said that the UK needed a military that could not only expand quickly but also train and equip a citizen army if Britain went to war, because of the diminished size of the Army. It led to Downing Street having to rule out conscription, with a spokesman saying it was not helpful to discuss hypothetical scenarios of a possible future conflict. But Adml Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the Armed Forces, admitted that conscription plans may be drawn up in the UK should Russia become more dangerous. When asked whether he agreed with Sir Patricks remarks that people should be ready for some kind of citizen army after giving a speech at Chatham House on Tuesday, he said that it was possible. When you get to [Sir Patricks] comments about citizens armies and so on, those were just reflections of the dangerous world we are in, he said. Actually we are having to respond and those might be things that start to appear when you go much further down if the world continues to get more dangerous. Sir Tony added: I dont think he [Patrick] was saying we are now about to embark on a particular programme. And Im just being honest, there arent any plans to do that. A source close to Ms Mordaunt said: She went to speak about a constituency matter and did not raise national defence spending. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Soon-to-be deputies raise their hand as they recite an oath during the Jackson Police Department deputy swear-in inside the JPD Headquarters on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2024. Along with the department's first police cadet apprentice, seven new officers were sworn into the Jackson Police Department last week. As police departments nationwide continue to combat officer shortages, JPD's new hires are filling much-needed roles. "Across the country, law enforcement is struggling with recruiting and retention issues," Police Chief Thom Corley said. Deputies pose for a photo alongside JPD Chief Thom Corley during the Jackson Police Department deputy swear-in inside the JPD Headquarters on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2024. For the first time, senior officers were assigned to mentor each of the new officers, aside from the field officer training they will already receive. Corley compared it to having a big brother or sister the new officers can lean on. "If you've got one of those questions from the heart, or you've got one of those questions that's bothering you, you've got somebody to go to, and I want you to rely on that," he said. More: Jackson police officers receive salary increase, recruitment and retention incentives More: How does Jackson police use surveillance, technology to respond to crime? More: Jackson Police Department launches Public Safety Fund to support community initiatives Words of encouragement Corley, both at the Feb. 20 ceremony and previous ones, is a proponent of what he calls the "Three C's" and the "Four F's". He emboldened the new officers to employ the department's "three C's": community policing, collaborative policing, and constitutional policing. Meaning, that officers are expected to maintain a presence in the community, work as a team with others at JPD, and to execute their duties "the right way" and "by the book." JPD Chief Thom Corley shakes Aryanna Jones' hands as he welcomes her to the force during the Jackson Police Department deputy swear-in inside the JPD Headquarters on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2024. Faith, family, fitness (physical, mental, and emotional) and fun characterize the "Four F's." "I need you to enjoy coming to work," Corley said, addressing the officers. "I need you to enjoy your profession, your career and I need you to enjoy [something] outside of this job. Find something that you enjoy doing outside of this job. Do not let this job swallow you up, because it can." First police cadet apprentice Like most agencies, you have to be 21 years of age to work at the Jackson Police Department. Corley says he recognizes that there are a number of individuals interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement after graduating high school, but are just not old enough. JPD Chief Thom Corley speaks during the Jackson Police Department deputy swear-in inside the JPD Headquarters on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2024. JPD has become the first law enforcement agency to partner with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development to employ a paid, police cadet apprenticeship program. 19-year-old Chandler McCurry was the first cadet to be sworn in and will undergo the same orientation and training process as the other newly sworn-in officers. Chandler McCurry raises his hand as he recites an oath during the Jackson Police Department deputy swear-in inside the JPD Headquarters on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2024. The expectation is that by the time he turns 21, McCurry will be sworn in as an officer. In addition to his father being a JPD officer, McCurry says his motivation for joining stems from his passion for helping people. "My dad really inspired me to want to be a police officer and, again, I just like helping people and I think this is a job that can suit me in doing that," McCurry said. This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: Jackson police swore in first police cadet along with 7 new officers Mercedes-Benz wants to make its mark on Miamis skyline with its first condominium in the Americas, joining other luxury car brands that have put their names on South Florida high-rises. The company announced this week that it is partnering with real estate firm JDS Development on a 67-story high-rise tower in Brickell, according to JDS CEO Michael Stern. Condos with car names are trending in Miami-Dade County, with Sunny Isles Beach and downtown Miami already home to the Porsche Design Tower Miami, Aston Martin Residences, and Bentley Residences Miami, which broke ground this week. Mercedes-Benz Places - Miami will deliver 791 residences, nearly 200 hotel rooms and about 250,000 square feet of office space in a single tower at 191 SW 12th St., two blocks from Mary Brickell Village, an outdoor shopping and restaurant complex. Pre-construction sales launched this week for the condos, priced from $550,000 for a studio to $4 million for a three-bedroom condo. Penthouses have yet to be listed. The Miami tower is Mercedes-Benzs second residential project, following another in Dubai. Mercedes is one of the most iconic brands in the world, Stern said. Mercedes will bring a whole suite of lifestyle to the building, Stern said, including color schemes and electric car charging stations. Mercedes-Benz Places Miami, pictured above in a rendering, will have a variety of amenities, including a spa, multiple restaurants, lounges, and pools. One Southside Park JDS launched its plans to build a high-rise four years ago, but Mercedes-Benz just joined the effort. The real estate firm acquired the acre-sized site for $23 million in 2020 and announced plans to build a high-rise with up to 1,000 residences. Miami-based Starwood Capital Groups SH Hotels & Resorts will manage the hotel. After initially raising concerns from residents fearing overdevelopment in the area, JDS committed to give back to the community by replacing the citys adjacent fire station and renovating the neighboring Southside Park with the help of the Field Operations team. Thats the firm behind New Yorks Highline and Miamis Underline urban park space. The entire project, now called Mercedes-Benz Places, was known as the One Southside Park development, including the high-rise, fire station and park. We started off as skeptics and publicly questioned the project, but after many community meetings with the developer we were able to resolve some of the concerns we had, said Abigail Ape, managing director of the Brickell Homeowners Association, an organization advocating on behalf of 40 condo associations. Some developers contribute to the neighborhood. JDS is one of them. They contribute to the neighborhood. As long as the development contributes to the community and takes input, its something the community desires. Already under construction, the high-rise will go vertical sometime this year and construction will wrap on the condo tower, fire station and park by 2028, Stern said. Our branded real-estate venture in Miami embodies the strategy behind Mercedes-Benz Places, Eva Wiese, head of Mercedes-Benz Customer Solutions GmbH, said in a statement. Ultimately, we want to create places to come home to, in a location worth living in. Mercedes-Benz Places Miami, pictured above in a rendering, will be completed by 2028. Other car brands on Miami condos Miami-Dade County already has a handful of other luxury car-branded high-rises. Its a sweet deal for both the development firm and car manufacturer, said real estate condo expert Peter Zalewski, the founder of the real estate consultancy firm Condo Vultures. For the luxury car brand, its a way to pick up additional revenue. If theyre publicly traded, this is a great way to add to their balance sheet, Zalewski said. Mercedes-Benz is publicly traded, listed on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges. Its more about institutional branding and reaching different crowds you cant reach elsewhere, unless youre in Seattle, L.A. or New York in terms of international play and influence, he said. Unlike the other condominiums built on the beachfront or along Biscayne Bay, the Mercedes-Benz tower will rise in the concrete jungle along Brickells western edge. Mercedes-Benz Places Miami, pictured above in a rendering, will be JDS Developments fifth project in South Florida. Other projects include Echo Brickell, Echo Aventura, Monad Terrace by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, and the Dolce & Gabbana-branded high-rise at 888 Brickell Ave. The most prominent areas would be to the east of the [Brickell] Metrorail station. This is to the west. You have the Ace hardware, Wendys, gas station, Zalewski said. Im not a car guy, but when I see that area I think its more Volkswagen or Ford. This is more for the masses. The project comes at a time when demand remains strong for high-rise living in the Magic City, just slightly cooler than the buying frenzy the city endured during the pandemic. Today, Miami has 7.4 months of condo supply what real estate experts would consider a balanced market and a median sales price of $405,700, according to data from the Miami Association of Realtors. Miami has fared better because it is more pro business. It is not as regulated. It is tax blessed, Stern said. We have an incredible quality of life we get to enjoy here in South Florida. It is second to none in the U.S. TAIPEI, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan companies received export orders worth 10.64 billion U.S. dollars from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong in January, up 28 percent year on year, according to the island's economic affairs department. Among these, orders for electronic products, such as integrated circuits for mobile phones, memory, and printed circuit boards, grew by 32.9 percent year on year to 1.43 billion U.S. dollars, the department said in a statement earlier this week. Taiwan companies saw their total export orders increase by 1.9 percent year on year to 48.42 billion U.S. dollars in January. The department attributed the unexpected surge of export orders to strong demand from artificial intelligence and high performance computing sectors. However, the statement noted that the increase of total export orders remains slight and might not sustain in February amid uncertainties in the AI industry. Photo illustration by Getty Images. A Flathead County District Court judge ordered two Kalispell city council elections be redone after a clerical error resulted in more than 1,400 voters receiving ballots with the incorrect candidates listed. The decision means two winning incumbents may no longer claim victories for the time being. In an order filed earlier this month, Judge Robert Allison said the elections for two out of four city council seats, representing Ward One and Ward Two in Kalispell, would have to be redone, noting how close the results in those elections were. Ward One candidates Kari Sue Gabriel and Wes Walker were 80 votes apart, while Ward Two candidates Gabriel Dillon and Sam Nunnally were separated by 109 votes. Incumbents Sue Gabriel and Nunnally had won the incorrect election, according to the canvass. Candidates largely campaigned on mitigating the population growth and housing crisis in the region. The Flathead County Elections Department is working with its legal advisors on how to proceed in selecting a date for the election redo, a representative from the office told the Daily Montanan on Tuesday. Allison said in his order, first reported by the Flathead Beacon, the Ward Three election didnt need to be redone because the irregularities in the 64 impacted ballots in the race did not affect the outcome. The Ward Four election was an uncontested race, and therefore didnt need repeating, the order said. One-hundred seventy-six voters submitted ballots with incorrect ward candidates, after updated ward boundary information wasnt updated into the elections system. Flathead County Election Administrator Debbie Pierson in a December court filing asked the court to annul the Nov. 7 election. Pierson told the court her office discovered days before the election the new ward boundaries approved by the city of Kalispell in Dec. 2021 werent entered into their election system. This error meant 1,413 absentee ballots, representing 8% of Kalispell voters, received incorrect ballots. The December filing said the county will be fronting the cost of another election. The elections department did not respond to a call Tuesday afternoon requesting how much the re-do election would cost the county. The February order said Pierson had the right to challenge the results, citing state statute, although her office is at fault for conducting the Election improperly in the first place. Pierson, a Republican, has held the position of Clerk and Recorder for more than nine years. The post Flathead County judge orders two Kalispell elections be re-done appeared first on Daily Montanan. Update: The area flood watch has been extended to 4 p.m. today (Friday), according to the National Weather Service. Heavy rainfall over the past couple of days will force rises on the Chehalis River today with the river cresting close to minor flood stage, meteorologists say. Excessive rainfall may cause flooding in the Thurston County area through Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service in Seattle. The NWS has issued a flood watch advisory for portions of northwest and west central Washington, which includes Thurston, Mason, Pierce, King, Lewis and Grays Harbor counties. About 2-3 inches of rain may fall over the Olympia area from Tuesday to Thursday, according to a Tuesday NWS briefing. Wind gusts of up to 35 miles per hour were also predicted for Wednesday. The forecast attributes the stormy weather to an atmospheric river pattern along the Washington coast. The weather system also brought heavy snow to the Olympics and Cascades mountain ranges, per the forecast. A rain and snow mix may fall over the Olympia area through Thursday, but the NWS says there will be little to no snow accumulation. It's a wet one out there! A frontal system moving across the area today will continue to bring periods of steady, heavy rain to the lowlands and heavy snow to the mountains. Precipitation will taper to scattered showers late tonight into Thursday in the wake of the system. #wawx pic.twitter.com/VomlmFt1Lm NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) February 28, 2024 Temperatures are expected to top out in the mid-40s and fall to the low 30s overnight through the weekend. This trend will coincide with more chances for rain and snow mixes. The NWS warns that water runoff may flood rivers, creeks, streams and other low-lying and flood prone locations. However, the flood watch advisory says that theres a fair amount of uncertainty around what, if any rivers, will flood. The one exception is the Skokomish River in Mason County. The NWS says its highly likely the river will exceed flood stage and may even pass the moderate flood stage. The NWS advises the public to monitor forecast and be ready for possible flood warnings. Thurston County residents can monitor river water levels on the countys Emergency Management website. A bill that critics say would weaken protections for 16-and-17-year-olds to work jobs in roofing and construction is headed to the Florida Senate. The industry reportedly accounts for the highest number of workplace fatalities in the state and share of unlicensed activity complaints. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< Sponsor of the bill, Florida Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, and the Associated Builders and Contractors who helped write the bill according to public records, proposed the bill to expand access to jobs for teenagers. The bill (SB 460) and a similar bill (HB 917) state that teens would be able to work in residential building construction under the restrictions they: Are not working at heights exceeding 6 feet Have obtained an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) certification Are supervised by staff over the age of 21, with two years of experience and OSHA-10 certification Are not performing work that violates the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), OSHA rules, or any Federal Child Labor laws To be subject to the FLSA, a company must do more than $500,000 a year in business according to Federal law However, Federal data shows a scarcity of supervisors available at worksites currently. Work in construction jobs not deemed hazardous (painting, power washing, installing siding, administrative work) is currently legal in the state. Federal laws have placed restrictions on hazardous work in this sector due to it being one of the most dangerous industries, resulting in higher rates of job injury for young workers. Roofing for example has the highest number of worker fatalities, according to the Center for Construction Research and Training. Only seven agency employees in Florida are reportedly dedicated to enforcing the states child labor law which oversees tens of thousands of teens, according to the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. RELATED: Florida Senate moves forward on revised proposal to loosen work restrictions for 16-and 17-year-olds However, minors in Florida can obtain waivers from child labor laws through the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regular (DBPR) or the Florida Department of Education. In the last fiscal year, over 5,000 minors were granted waivers according to the DBPR. Representatives for politically influential industry groups such as the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association (FRLA) argue that existing constraints on child labor pose excessive burdens for the businesses they advocate for and dissuade employers from engaging minors in employment opportunities. The current regulations are overly restrictive and can be challenging to manage, said FRLA lobbyist Samantha Padgett, speaking on behalf of more than 10,000 hotel and restaurant owners at a committee hearing for HB 49 in December. Additional staffing is desperately needed. Regardless of any changes to Floridas child labor law, the problem of violations continues to grow. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there has been an 88% surge in minors employed in violation of child labor laws since 2019. This uptick is linked to multiple factors, such as a constrained labor market and a surge in unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. seeking employment to aid their families. In 2023, Florida businesses faced fines exceeding $100,000 from the federal government due to violations of child labor laws. Notably, an Orlando-area roofing contractor took approximately half of this penalty for illegally employing a 15-year-old in roofing duties. The federal inquiry into the contractor commenced following an incident in February 2022, where the adolescent sustained severe head and spinal injuries after falling approximately 20 feet from a two-story residence while performing work. Federal investigators reported that the injured youth remained hospitalized for several days following the accident. Jacksonville business Urban Air Trampoline Park was under a Federal investigation in 2023 for child labor violations involving 55 employees, all minors ages 14 to 15 years old, to work past 7 p.m. on school nights. The business was fined over $43,000. READ: Popular Jacksonville trampoline park fined for working minors past 7 p.m. on school nights Democrats in Florida, who have limited power in the Republican-controlled legislature have attempted to resist. Children and families should not be exploited by restaurants needing more labor, said Rep. Angie Nixon, a community organizer and mom to a 16-year-old. Were sitting here talking about making children adults but they cant even read Toni Morrison in school. Florida has reportedly become the 16th state at the time of this story to attempt to roll back child labor protections in the last two years. An accompanying bill HB 49, that removes restrictions on the hours 16-and 17-year-olds are allowed to work has moved forward in the Florida Senate. If approved by the State Legislature and Florida Gov. DeSantis, the law will take effect July 1. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] 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. MANILA, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Government forces clashed with suspected rebels in Iloilo province in the central Philippines before dawn on Wednesday, killing three insurgents, the military said. The military reported that a 20-minute gunfight between troops and around 20 New People's Army (NPA) rebels broke out around 3:20 a.m. local time after troops overran a rebel camp in a village in San Joaquin town. Troops recovered four M16 rifles, an AK47 rifle, and three bandoliers, the military added. "The troops cleared the enemy encampment, which has a land area of 15,000 square meters, with 10 makeshift tents that can accommodate more or less 20 people," the report said. NPA rebels have been fighting the government troops since 1969. They concentrate their attacks on rural areas and have skirmishes with the military. Military data showed that the NPA is estimated to have 2,000 members, significantly lower than its peak strength in the 1980s. A member of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service stands by an emergency vehicle in front of the home of former RAF terrorist Daniela Klette, which was evacuated due to a possible threat. The former terrorist of the Red Army Faction (RAF), Daniela Klette, was captured in Berlin-Kreuzberg on Monday. Paul Zinken/dpa The rented flat in Berlin that Daniela Klette, the former far-left terrorist from the Red Army Faction (RAF), was living in had to be evacuated on Wednesday. The police investigator said the apartment building in Berlin's Kreuzberg district had to be cleared because they found "something that is dangerous." Due to an explosive-like object, the residents had to leave their flats in the afternoon, a dpa reporter said. The police forensic experts at the scene also had to leave the building in the street Sebastianstrasse. Some residents waiting on the pavement opposite the building had pets with them, and several women said that the police did not given them a reason for the evacuation. Klette, 65, was arrested in the flat on Monday evening, where she was living under a false identity, police said. She is now in custody. Berlin police continued to search Klette's apartment on Wednesday. Shortly after Klette's arrest, another person in the "wanted age segment" was arrested in Berlin, police said. However the second detained person is not one of the two other wanted Red Army Faction members Burkhard Garweg or Ernst-Volker Staub. The man was released from police custody, police in the northern city of Hanover said on Wednesday morning. The decades-long search for the two other fugitives is still ongoing. "There is no doubt that it is not one of the two fugitives," authorities said. Authorities accuse Klette and her fellow members Garweg and Staub of attempted murder and a series of armed robberies between 1999 and 2016. The Red Army Faction was founded in 1968 by far-left extremists Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof, with members active well into the 1990s. It was also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. The group justified its attacks, in which more than 30 people were killed, with the aim of destroying the capitalist social order. HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) A former Hays Consolidated Independent School District teacher is under investigation for allegedly providing alcohol to students. Hays CISD said it received an allegation that a Johnson High School teacher may have provided alcohol to students. The district told KXAN it immediately placed the teacher on administrative leave and launched an internal investigation after hearing the allegations. Lago Vista ISD investigating community member presenting as private coach Hays CISD said the teacher, who was not identified by name, resigned at the start of the investigation. The district said it also reported this to the Texas Education Agencys educator misconduct reporting portal. There is a criminal investigation underway in which the Buda Police Department is taking the lead. The TEA and criminal investigations take precedence now. The district is cooperating with the investigating authorities and deferring to these agencies for further inquiry. The district does not want to do or say anything that might inadvertently harm the ongoing criminal investigations. Part of ensuring safety on campus is also ensuring that law enforcement agents are able to conduct a clean and actionable investigation, which is why the district has not made a statement prior to now. Parents of students who may have been directly affected in this matter will be contacted individually by investigators. Hays CISD KXAN tried reaching out to the accused teacher on social media, but we have not received a response yet. This story will be updated if we receive additional information. Former Blanco County detention officer faces sexual assault charge The Buda Police Department said its investigation into these allegations is ongoing and no arrests were made. I was in disbelief The last few weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster for Hays CISD parent, Kourtnie Bertram. Instead of setting them up for success, shes teaching them all the wrong things. Kourtnie Bertram She said her son was one of the students the teacher gave alcohol to. Bertram said it happened at the school over Christmas break. It was only her there. There were a handful of students, Bertram said. If she didnt provide the alcohol, she was allowing students to bring it in. Bertram said at one point, the teacher asked her son to drive her to Home Depot to get a tool. She said on the way back, the teacher stopped at a liquor store. She asked him to pull into the liquor store where he waited in the car, Bertram said. She went inside, and she bought some liquor for herself. She also bought a bottle of crown and Dr. Pepper. Bertram said that same day, her son was injured while welding. The reflection from the friends welding is what burned his eyes, Bertram said. Fast forward, and we find out about all this alcohol. That isnt the only situation Bertram said the teacher is accused of. There was a small group of boys she took to Katy, Texas to do a tractor tech competition, Bertram said. Apparently on the way there, she stopped and bought alcohol for them. Notification from the district Bertram said no one with the district reached out to her to discuss the incident involving her son and other students. Ultimately, she wouldve liked more communication to her and other parents. Maybe make personalized phone calls to these parents and say, I just want to let you know theres accusations of something that happened. You dont have to say what and just say, Please talk to your child and let us know if you hear of anything concerning, Bertram said. Hays CISD said law enforcement and district officials are working together on this. The district said families directly involved will hear from either school officials or law enforcement. The best I can hope for is that she learns from the situation. She learns boundaries. She learns that if she wants to be an educator and a mentor, thats what she needs to be, Bertram said. Not their friend. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin. A former Lee County deputy faces fraud charges after authorities arrested him on a warrant, accusing him of stealing more than $100,000 after Hurricane Ian. Paul Trombley, 52, is charged with scheme to defraud; first-degree grand theft; and unlicensed contracting during a state of emergency. A former Lee County deputy charged with fraud after authorities say he stole more than $100,000 after Hurricane Ian is asking for a reduced bond, citing care for a father with declining health who lives in New York. Paul Trombley, 52, is charged with scheme to defraud, first-degree grand theft, and unlicensed contracting during a state of emergency. According to the motion filed by his attorney, Michael Colombo, on Feb. 13, Lee Circuit Judge Robert Branning set Trombley's bond at $155,000. The motion says Trombley is unable to post bond, which has resulted in his Collier County incarceration since his September 2023 arrest in New York. According to the motion, placing Trombley in Collier County has complicated communicating with counsel. The motion alleges Trombley isn't permitted paper discovery, which are requests for case information, at the Collier County Jail. Court documents say that Trombley, due to his law enforcement background, was placed in protective custody in Collier County. Colombo said Trombley is allowed 20 minutes per day to review case information and shower. According to the motion, Trombley worked at the Lee County Sheriff's Office for 29 years. The motion says that prior his arrest, Trombley briefly moved to New York, where he worked as an assistant manager at a local Aldi store, to help his "sick" elderly father. What led to Paul Trombley's arrest? Trombley allegedly collected payments for Hurricane Ian repairs from customers he never turned over to his employer, MTS Construction, based in Cape Coral. According to the affidavit, he told customers a cash payment would expedite their services, guarantee material prices, and in some cases, victims were told they'd receive a discount upon completion of the work. Authorities said Trombley continued to present himself as a salesperson for MTS Construction after his termination. Records show MTS Construction filed for bankruptcy Feb. 5. Attorney Gregory Champeau, who represents the company, on Tuesday told this news organization the employer's principals are Kyle Veloz and John Sherwood. The News-Press and Naples Daily News couldn't immediately reach Veloz or Sherwood for comment. Champeau said Trombley isn't listed in bankruptcy documents. Armed airplane entry: Fort Myers man charged with attempting to fly plane at Page Field Airport According to Trombley's arrest affidavit, the former deputy defrauded more than 10 victims since Hurricane Ian's landfall on Sept. 28, 2022, and collected approximately $139,945. The sheriff's office on Sept. 27, 2017, announced Trombley's retirement as a lieutenant after 25 years. The sheriff's office declined comment Tuesday afternoon. Trombley is next due in court March 8 for a motions hearing. "Paul is 100% innocent and I'm going to fight for him," Colombo said. "Paul has been sitting in jail all this time and these guys have been spending all this money." Tomas Rodriguez is a Breaking/Live News Reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. You can reach Tomas at TRodriguez@gannett.com or 772-333-5501. Connect with him on Threads @tomasfrobeltran, Instagram @tomasfrobeltran and Facebook @tomasrodrigueznews. This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Former LCSO deputy charged with hurricane fraud seeks reduced bond Former MSNBC pundit Mehdi Hasan is launching a new media company catering to the progressive left. Hasans new media outlet, named Zeteo, which comes from the ancient Greek word for seeking out and striving, will be a new media organization that seeks answers for the questions that really matter, while always striving for the truth, according to a Substack website for the company. Hasan told The Washington Post this week he has raised $4 million for the venture and said he plans to host a streaming show, publish podcasts and written pieces eventually charge $6 per month via yearly subscriptions. This is one of the biggest news years of our lives, and thats why I wanted to do something like this, he told the Post. Im not a businessman. Im not an entrepreneur. Ive never done anything like this before. Its a huge gamble. But if I wasnt confident, I wouldnt be doing this. Hasans weekend prime-time show was canceled last year by MSNBC, which offered for him to stay on as a paid contributor, an olive branch he ultimately declined. The progressive commentator also this week joined The Guardian as a regular columnist. Hasan is the latest in a slew of former cable news pundits to launch media companies and brands of their own. The ousted Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson started the Tucker Carlson Network last year, and former CNN anchor Don Lemon plans to launch a show on X, formerly known as Twitter, later this month. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. RUSSELL COUNTY, Va. (WJHL) A former first responder in Russell County faces numerous charges after allegedly having sex with a teenager and possessing child porn. According to the Russell County Sheriffs Office, Eric Arnold, of Castlewood, was arrested Feb. 19. The sheriffs office identified him as a former first responder for an agency within the county. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Crime Watch Virginia court records list 20 charges against Arnold. Those charges include multiple counts of criminal misdemeanor consensual sex with a child over the age of 15 and felony possession of child pornography. An investigator with the sheriffs office told News Channel 11 that Arnold was arrested following a tip from social services. Administrators at the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail facility in Abingdon confirmed that as of Tuesday evening, Arnold was being held at the jail. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather. UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Following a deadly armed militia attack, UN peacekeepers and the Central African Republic (CAR) army restored calm in the southeastern Zemio region, a UN spokesman said on Wednesday. "In response to incidents and alerts in Zemio and its surroundings in Haut-Mbomou prefecture in the southeastern part of the country, UN peacekeepers, working in close coordination with the Central African armed forces, took immediate steps to protect civilians in these localities," said Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Dujarric said the situation deteriorated in Zemio after Azande militia attacked a village, killing five civilians. There are also reports of intercommunal tensions and a risk of clashes between Azande militia and another armed group. Meanwhile, while on patrol, peacekeepers from the UN mission, known as MINUSCA, discovered armed individuals close to the town of Am-Dafock in Vakaga prefecture, which borders Sudan. The militants fled toward the Sudanese border when spotted, said the spokesman. "The mission recently established a temporary operating base in the town of Am-Dafock, close to the border with Sudan, to secure the area, protect civilians and help reduce tensions," he said. Carlton Jones brought home one aspect of being enslaved in the old South when he showed his collection of slave tags during the opening reception of the Black History exhibit at the Tulare City Historical Museum. Jones passed around the slave tags, inviting people to touch them, hold them, and imagine what it was like to wear them as they were brought to America in slave ships. The former Tulare Mayor plans educate the community about the history of slaves tags at events and group presentations. Enslaved people wore a different tag while being sold at auction and then had to wear a third tag that identified who owned them. Carlton Jones, right, discusses five slave tags given to him recently with Heidi Clark at the Tulare Library. He plans to show them to others as a means to expand the knowledge of black history. Slave tags, also called slave badges, came in various shapes. Most were made of copper. Each bore a number, the town where it was issued, and the year. They were worn around the neck or sewn into clothing. Some were beautifully engraved, some more simple. In Charleston, where many of the Africans landed, tags were primarily worn by enslaved people in the cities who were hired out to work for other people. Their tags identified them by their trade, such as carpenter, blacksmith, fisherman, or domestic servant, according to the Smithsonian and americanhistory.edu. The wages earned by a hired-out enslaved person belonged to their owners. However, there is evidence that wages over what was owed to the owner could be retained by the enslaved person in hopes of buying freedom for themselves or their families. Another enslaver could claim an enslaved person found without their tag. Carlton Jones discusses five slave tags given to him recently. He plans to show them to others as a means to expand the knowledge of black history. At auction In explaining the slave tags, Jones likened them to the workings of a livestock yard where he once worked. It was not much different from livestock sales. The cattle are tagged at the sale yard, then auctioned with a tag of purchase," he said. "When they arrive at their new location, the owner knows who to pay by the tag. Jones, a Fresno firefighter and Tulare's first Black mayor got the tags from a friend, John Gong a collector primarily of Chinese American artifacts. I knew a couple of collector friends who mentioned the slave tags, so I started researching them, said Gong, who had discovered his great-grandmother was part Black. Over the years, I purchased them from different collector friends back east. Late last year, Gong decided that instead of leaving them in a drawer, he would give them to someone who might make use of them. The tags are in much better shape than others shown online and were said to be authentic by the collectors. The most elaborate tag is from the Royal African Company Black Labor Supply, Englands slave traders who brought Africans to America. One tag is from Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Gen. Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate army. The tag from New Orleans states, all slaves guaranteed in sound health. A tag from Charleston is stamped with the profession porter. Another is from Ravens Roost Plantation in Florida. Carlton Jones discusses five slave tags given to him recently. He plans to show them to others as a means to expand the knowledge of black history. Educational value Jones plans to show and explain the slave tags wherever he can, including Allentowns Juneteenth celebration. Jones has relatives who lived in Allensworth, the first town in California established and operated by African Americans. Jones said he remembers attending Allensworth and listening to the town's stories as a young boy. His great-great uncle helped establish the town as a state park, Jones said. Jones' grandmother, Betty Pope, would tell him stories passed down by the early residents. Seeing these slave tags is like finding a winning lottery ticket, he said. This is history you never got from school books. It makes it real. This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Former Tulare Mayor Carlton Jones slave tag collection is history (KRON) Former UC Santa Cruz Police Department Lieutenant Glenn Harper is being awarded $7.2 million for racial discrimination against the University of California, RLS lawyers report. Lieutenant Harper was fired in 2017 for yelling at a sergeant for botching an assault with a deadly weapons investigation, said Harry Stern, one of the two lawyers who tried for Harper. During an interview for promotion, the sergeant who got yelled at was described to have a racial animus toward Harper, insulting him with counts of illiteracy such as Harper reading at a third or fourth grade level, and labeling his English as non-traditional, Stern said. Harpers lawyer claims these comments were made because Harper had been promoted over him. What kind of weird bugs are swarming around the East Bay? Stern said these comments were unjust, as Harper is a college graduate from San Jose State University, and certainly a perfectly proficient writer and speaker of English. The lieutenants demands for justice dates back to 2017, and have now been met for counts of back pay, future pay, prospective promotions, related benefits, mental anguish and emotional distress for a total verdict of $7.2 million. As a lawyer that represents police officers for a living, Stern claims an instance of racial discrimination like Harpers is too common, as Stern has said that many of his clients have often said that many departments discriminate against black officers, historically. Harry Stern and his partner John Scott who tried together would like to thank the jury for a month-long process that was received with patience and hard work. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. Wesley Shifflett the former Fairfax County, Virginia, police officer who was indicted for fatally shooting an unarmed man suspected of stealing at a mall has a history of pointing his gun at other accused shoplifters, according to a new report. In Feb 2023, Shifflet and another officer chased and shot at 37-year-old Timothy McCree Johnson near Tysons Corner Center, a popular shopping mall in the DMV area. It came after a security guard believed Johnson stole sunglasses from Nordstrom. Although both cops fired their weapons, Shiffletts bullet is what led to Johnsons death. He was terminated from the department weeks after the incident. Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis (left) announces the termination of the sergeant who shot Timothy Johnson (right). (Photos: WUSA9/ YouTube screenshot/ Facebook/Melissa Missy Johnson) Initially, a grand jury didnt indict Shifflett, but Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano wanted to launch a new investigation. Shifflett was charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless discharge of a weapon based on the decision of a special grand jury in October, NBC News reported. The work of public safety includes charging officers for crimes when such actions are legally warranted, Descano said. Our nations justice system has historically been stacked in favor of protecting powerful institutions and individuals, and it is no small feat that the grand jurors returned a true bill after reviewing this matter. According to a report from The Washington Post, Shifflett has pulled his weapon on unarmed suspects on two other occasions. Just days before the shooting involving Johnson, Shifflett and another officer were investigating a man suspected of being linked to other crimes in the area. The man was inside looking at the shades in Bloomingdales but left them behind because he felt like police were on to him, the outlet reported. He went to the parking lot and hopped in the vehicle with a woman in the passengers seat. When he attempted to exit, he was confronted by Shifflett and his supervisor, Lt. William Arnest. It was at that time, according to the Post, which obtained footage from the public defenders office, that Shifflett pointed his gun into the passengers window. In a written report, Shifflett said he held it in a modified ready position while giving commands to the woman he claimed was touching her waistband, per The Washington Post. He added that he ordered her to keep her hand visible. Why would you be pulling a gun at people who you think stole a pair of sunglasses? the suspect, who was not identified, told the outlet. Why didnt they stop me before I got to my car? Did they want to play superhero? The suspect was hit with theft and concealing weapon charges after officers found brass knuckles in his possession, according to the report. However, they were dismissed a few months later. In another similar incident, Shifflett pulled out his gun on a man accused of shoplifting multiple items in the mall. He was charged, but it was also later dropped. Shiffletts attorney argued that those previous instances have no connection to the Johnson case. Whether he pulled a gun in the past or didnt, its really irrelevant to the criminal case, attorney Caleb Kershner said in an interview with The Washington Post. There are important reasons why police officers pull guns. Former Virginia Cop Indicted for Shooting Unarmed Man Has a History of Pulling Out Gun on Shoplifting Suspects; Attorney Argues Thats Irrelevant Frustration spilled over during a last-minute topic added to a Fort Point neighborhood meeting regarding using 24 Farnsworth Street as a migrant shelter. We didnt elect you. Youre not elected, shouted one woman. Most of the ire was aimed at the Governors office for what people say is a lack of transparency. We elect people they are our voice and in this process, they have no voice, said Brian Curley, a Fort Point resident Residents are upset after a decision to house eighty people from migrant families in the office building was made with little or no input from neighbors and that the decision was announced tonight. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu says there has to be as little disruption to neighborhoods as possible. We need to make sure we have a full conversation so neighbors understand what the impacts might be, said Mayor Wu. But that has not happened, says City Councillor Ed Flynn, representing this neighborhood as part of District 2. He says there has been no clarity from the state or the Unitarian Universalist Association, which owns the building. Residents are looking for answers from the United Way and officials that they havent received yet, said Flynn. Flynn adds that the building is not appropriate without even enough showers. What the plan likely would be is to transport residents from Farnsworth St to one of the YMCAs that are close by, Flynn said. Some people did support the idea. In my view these people are already here and if we are going to fight we need to maybe fight the Border policy or deal with it in Washington, said a neighbor. But residents say the process shut them out and even their elected officials from offering suggestions to make sure this building was safe for neighbors and migrants. A spokesperson for the governor said a last-minute meeting to dialogue with residents about housing migrants here will be held via Zoom at 6 pm on Friday. 25 Investigates: The state moving forward with its next overflow migrant shelter This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW NATIONAL CITY, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI) Four people were arrested last weekend on suspicion of furnishing alcoholic beverages to minors, authorities said. According to the National City Police Department (NCPD), agents from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) teamed up with officers to conduct what they described as a shoulder tap operation. County of San Diego considers asking Biden to shut down border This initiative targets adults of drinking age 21 and over who buy alcohol for those who are legally under age. The stint took place at an undisclosed location in National City on Saturday, Feb. 24, and four people were arrested as a result. To bust these suspects, a minor stands outside of a liquor or convenience store and asks customers to buy them alcohol, NCPD explained. The minor, who is under supervision of law enforcement, also indicates that they are underage and cannot purchase the alcohol themselves. If an adult agrees to buy alcohol for the minor, authorities said they can be arrested and cited for the crime. The penalty for furnishing alcohol to a minor is a minimum $1,000 fine and 24 hours of community service. We conduct these operations to keep alcohol out of the hands of our youth, said ABC Director Joseph McCullough. By preventing underage drinking, we can increase the quality of life in our communities, reduce DUIs and prevent serious injuries on our roads. The identities of the four suspects taken into custody during this operation were not immediately released. Underage drinking negatively impacts our community. Preventing the sale of alcohol to minors will help to increase public safety and make our roads safer, said NCPD Chief Alejandro Hernandez. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. You know Republicans are in troubled waters when even Fox News has abandoned ship. On Tuesday, a Fox host highlighted that Hunter Bidens closed-door deposition would prove a critical juncture for a monthslong probe that has amounted to, basically, nothing. So this is coming at a critical moment for the Republicans impeachment inquiry, said Steve Doocy on Fox & Friends. And on Capitol Hill, a lot of Republican lawmakers say they have seen zero evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. And right now, the Republicans do not have enough votes to impeach. And after dozens of interviews and over 100,000 documents released to the committees, the Republicans have yet to produce any direct evidence of misconduct by Joe Biden. But the other anchors behind the desk couldnt quite leave it at that. Instead, they offered their own spin on a probe that recently crumbled after its key witness, FBI informant Alexander Smirnovwhose self-admitted lies served as the primary foundation for claims that Biden pocketed millions in bribes from a Ukrainian oligarchwas indicted by the Department of Justice for making it all up with the help of top Russian intelligence officials. But man, this looks absolutely terrible, 150 suspicious activity reports around them, Brian Kilmeade objected. Joe Biden was in on meetings with every major deal regarding Hunter Biden. He said my dad is sitting next to me while talking to a Chinese CFC official. That led to a bit of sparring between the two, with Doocy doubling down that Republicans had come up with nothingand yet again on the eve of a looming government shutdown. I think there are many lawmakers who say theyve seen zero evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, Doocy repeated. But we just said that they have, Kilmeade replied. But theyve to impeach somebody you need direct evidence of misconduct by Joe Biden, Doocy said, flustered. Look, Hunter Biden, it sure looks like he traded on his name and hes going to have plenty of time today Kilmeade then interjected, adding that the role his dad played is key. Some Republicans say theyve got the goods on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. But a number of Republicans who Ive spoken to on Capitol Hill say theres no direct evidence of misconduct by the current president, Doocy continued. Even before the presidents son, once the GOPs most sought-after witness, took the stand on Wednesday morning, House Republicans were already hyping their next witness, special counsel Robert Hur. His invitationjust weeks after Hur issued a damning report on Bidens healthcould prove to add yet another dimension to the seemingly endless impeachment probe. No matter how many EU countries manage to produce shells for Ukraine this year, it will still not be enough, says German Bundestag member Michael Roth France, Greece, and Cyprus made a strategic mistake by blocking the purchase of artillery ammunition for Ukraine from non-European Union sources, sitting member of Germanys Bundestag, Michael Roth, told NV Radio on Feb. 27. Read also: Artillery shells and drones in new German aid package It represents one of the great strategic mistakes of the European Union, said Roth. "The call to 'Buy European' sounds fine, and it's clear. We are obliged to develop a European defense industry. However, our friends here in Ukraine need more military equipment and ammunition right now." Roth suggested purchasing military equipment for Ukraine from the global market. It's the only chance to help right now, the MP continues. "And I know it sounds a bit odd, but if the massive aid package for Ukraine does not pass through the U.S. Congress, we will have to buy military equipment from the United States, and we must be ready for that." Read also: Six people injured after Russia shells residential neighborhood in Kramatorsk, Donetsk Oblast Another misstep Roth points out was the EUs promise to deliver one million artillery rounds to Ukraine by March this year, as this promise has not been fulfilled. Read also: Germanys Rheinmetall to open new ammo plant in Ukraine capable of producing six-digit number of 155 mm shells We are good with words, particularly the president of the European Commission [Ursula von der Leyen], he concludes. Read also: The Netherlands to pay 100 million euros to purchase shells for Ukraines military But we are not as good as we should be when it comes to action. Therefore, we cannot fulfill our promise to deliver one million artillery shells by the end of March. We will deliver about 500,000. At the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 17, Czech President Petr Pavel said: "So far, we have found 500,000 155 mm shells, and another 300,000 122 mm shells, which we can ship (to Ukraine) in a few weeks if we find the funding for it." He added that he would seek this assistance from partners in the United States, Germany, Sweden, etc. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine France has claimed that one of its Mirage 2000 fighter jets intercepted a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft off the coast of Estonia. Source: European Pravda, citing the French General Staff Details: The brief statement said that France had scrambled the Mirage 2000 and intercepted the Il-20 aircraft off the coast of Estonia. "The aim: to protect the airspace of our Baltic allies," the French General Staff added, without going into details. #eAP | Decollage sur alerte et interception dun avion de reconnaissance et de renseignement Il-20 Coot au large des cotes par les Mirage 2000-5 . Objectif : proteger lespace aerien de nos allies baltes. pic.twitter.com/QjdzyrARwG Armee francaise - Operations militaires (@EtatMajorFR) February 27, 2024 French military aircraft are deployed in some NATO member states as part of a mission called NATO Air Policing, which aims to maintain the security of the Alliance's airspace. These missions were reinforced after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Since then, there have been several interceptions of aircraft that have not resulted in any serious incidents. In March 2023, for example, a Russian aircraft collided with a US drone in the Black Sea. Last week, French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said that Russian forces had threatened to shoot down French aircraft patrolling international airspace over the Black Sea last month.Support UP or become our patron! MILAN The French governments military-procurement agency has placed an order for thousands of Saab multispectral camouflage nets designed to conceal troops formations electromagnetic signature on the battlefield. The Direction Generale de lArmement announced in a Feb. 27 release that it has ordered 3,000 multispectral Barracuda camouflage nets from the Stockholm-based defense company. Saabs subcontractor, the French SME Solarmtex, based in Vierzon, France, will carry out their manufacturing and assembly, the release said. The order is valued at $21.6 million and the nets are expected to be delivered between 2024 and 2026 to the French Army and the Air and Space Force. According to the DGA release, the mesh will enhance the discretion of brigade, combined arms and vehicle battle groups as well as other sensitive targets by masking their visible, infrared and radar signatures. Detection by way of electromagnetic emissions, and subsequent targeting, is a constant danger faced by Ukrainian forces in their defense against Russian invaders. Saabs nets are the culmination of a two-year development program between the company, DGA and the Technical Section of the Army (STAT) to meet the French forces requirements. In September, the Swedish company told Defense News that it had integrated its Barracuda camouflage net with a new feature that would change how troops communicate by allowing selected radio-frequencies to pass through the mesh. It is integrated with material that acts as a low-pass filter, allowing the selected radio-frequencies of their choice to pass either way through the camouflage screen while also protecting soldiers against higher ones of electromagnetic waves used by radar systems, Johan Jersblad, senior development engineering at Saab told reporters then during online briefing. At the time, the Ultra-Lightweight Camouflage Screen-Frequency Selected Surface (ULCAS-FSS) was not yet in service, as it was only unveiled at the 2023 DSEI defense exhibition in London. The intention was to eventually mass-produce it in Sweden. PARIS Frances defense minister said any potential European military presence in Ukraine would be in non-combat roles, and not to fight Russians, following consternation among several NATO allies after French President Emmanuel Macron left open the option of putting troops on the ground. Let me be clear, because I can see the way things are going on social networks and in the media, its not about sending troops to wage war on Russia, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu said in a hearing of the National Assemblys defense committee Tuesday night. Sending troops to Ukraine was among topics discussed during a meeting of 27 countries in Paris, Macron said Feb. 26, adding there was no consensus, but nothing should be excluded. His comments triggered a flurry of denials by countries including Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. while Moscow warned of direct conflict with NATO should the alliance deploy troops to Ukraine. The countries gathered in Paris discussed how to do things differently in terms of aid to Ukraine, and a number of ideas were put on the table, notably around mine clearing in Ukraine and local training of troops, Lecornu said during the hearing. There was no consensus on those two ideas in the meeting, he said. Rather than training Ukrainian troops in Poland, one possibility discussed was training on Ukrainian territory, away from the frontline, according to the minister. Ukraine will face greater training needs for troops who will be conscripted in the near future, Lecornu said. More than 20 NATO countries have been training Ukrainian troops in the U.K., the United States, Spain and elsewhere. The French armed forces have been training troops from Ukraine in France and in Poland. Lecornu said there are areas where things can still be done, including around military advisers. Saying that he was being careful as the hearing was public, the minister noted other countries have previously had major military advisors in Ukraine, which is not exactly what France did there, but something it has done in other countries in the past through partnerships. The French minister said Germany delivering Taurus cruise missiles would help Ukraine, but its up to the German government to make that decision. He said the British and French deliveries of Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles had not resulted in a logic of escalation. Deep strikes are an element of differentiation for the Ukrainians, Lecornu said. They make it possible to hit military command centers, logistics centers and Russian ammunition warehouses, so these are obviously valuable technologies. Would the Taurus be valuable? The answer is yes, because it offers the same capabilities as SCALP or Storm Shadow. But once again, Germany is sovereign in the way it decides, Lecornu said. This is also why we intend to remain sovereign in the way we decide on our arms exports, so everyone will be able to understand it. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the proposal of giving Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, arguing the weapons operation would make Berlin a more active participant in the war than its previous military aid donations, worth billions of euros, already have. Meanwhile. Lecornu said Nexter, the French arm of KNDS, had boosted production of 155-millimeter artillery shells to 3,000 a month. He said the company is investing in machinery and reopening an additional production line, and the minister said he has good hope that Frances production will increase to 4,000 to 5,000 shells a month by the end of 2024. China's COMAC airplanes kick off demonstration flights in Southeast Asia Xinhua) 09:31, February 28, 2024 A Chinese passenger jet C919 performs at the Singapore Airshow in Singapore, Feb. 20, 2024. (Photo by Then Chih Wey/Xinhua) SHANGHAI, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- C919 and ARJ21 jetliners produced by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC) on Tuesday kicked off demonstration flights in Southeast Asia. The two jetliners have a tight schedule in the next two weeks in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia. COMAC said on Tuesday the demonstration flights can further verify the adaptability of China-made commercial aircraft to airports and routes in Southeast Asia, and lay a foundation for the company's future exploration of the Southeast Asian market. The two models garnered wide attention at the Singapore Airshow 2024 that concluded Sunday. According to COMAC, since the ARJ21 aircraft was commissioned for commercial operation in June 2016, a total of 127 ARJ21 aircraft have been delivered, safely transporting more than 11 million passengers. Currently, two ARJ21 aircraft operated by Indonesian airline TransNusa fly on four routes linking Jakarta with other cities, safely carrying more than 100,000 passengers. Since the C919 aircraft made its first commercial debut on May 28, 2023, COMAC have delivered four jets to the airline company China Eastern, operating round-trip flights from Shanghai to Beijing and from Shanghai to Chengdu, carrying more than 130,000 passengers. COMAC expects the demand for passenger aircraft in the Asia-Pacific market in the next two decades to increase from 3,314 to 9,701. The company has begun preparing to tap into the market. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) DHAKA, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance collaboration in protecting environment and wildlife and combating climate change. The decision came when Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Saber Hossain Chowdhury held a bilateral meeting with Saudi Arabia's Deputy Minister for Environment Osama Ibrahim Faqeeha on the sidelines of ongoing United Nation Environment Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, the national news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) reported Wednesday. Recognising the mutual commitment to environmental protection, both the nations agreed to enhance cooperation by signing the MoU. The agreement aims to bolster collaboration in key areas such as environmental protection, wildlife conservation, combating climate change and pollution control, according to a message received here. During the meeting, Faqeeha extended a formal invitation to Saber to attend the United Nations Convention on Desertification (UNCCD) slated for December 2024. This invitation underscores the growing collaboration between Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia in addressing environmental challenges on a global scale, he said. They underscored the need for the shared determination of Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia to pursue innovative solutions to pressing environmental issues. Saber expressed Bangladesh's dedication to advancing environmental sustainability both locally and internationally. 'Having an abortion is a fundamental right': 86 percent of French people are in favour of enshrining it in the constitution, according to one survey (Christophe ARCHAMBAULT) France's Senate on Wednesday backed a government move to enshrine the "freedom" to have an abortion in the constitution which will now be voted on at a special congress. President Emmanuel Macron last year pledged to put the right to terminate a pregnancy -- which has been legal in France since 1974 -- into the constitution after the US Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the half-century-old right to the procedure, allowing states to ban or curtail abortion. Despite opposition from some conservative members, the upper chamber voted by 267 votes to 50 to back the constitutional change. The lower-house National Assembly overwhelmingly voted in favour of making abortion a "guaranteed freedom" in January, with almost all members of Macron's centrist minority coalition as well as left-wing opposition parties approving it. Macron said he would call a special Congress session of the two chambers at Versailles palace on Monday for a final vote. Macron welcomed what he called a "decisive step" by the Senate in his announcement on X, the former Twitter. Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said France was on the verge of a "historic day" when it becomes "the first country in the world to protect in its constitution the freedom of women" to decide what happens to their bodies. The plan faced some opposition from right-wing senators and the government chose the expression "guaranteed freedom" as an apparent compromise between both houses. The lower house in 2022 had approved enshrining the "right" to an abortion, while the Senate last year was in favour of adding the "freedom" to resort to the procedure. However before the full vote, a Senate committee on Wednesday rejected motions from the right to amend the text of the proposed revision. In private several right-wing senators said they felt under pressure to approve the change. "If I vote against it, my daughters will no longer come for Christmas," said one woman senator who asked to remain anonymous. A survey by French polling company IFOP in November 2022 found 86 percent of French people supported making abortion a constitutional right. ama/sjw/tw/bp Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, here seen in 1996, presented the evening news on the TF1 news channel (Pascal PAVANI) A probe into a prominent French television journalist charged with rape has been widened to include allegations he also raped two more women and assaulted another, prosecutors said Wednesday. Former prime-time news presenter Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, 76, was in December indicted over the purported rape of writer Florence Porcel in 2009. Investigators are now looking into claims of the rapes of two more women and a sexual assault of another committed between 2007 and 2018, which could lead to fresh charges, the prosecutor's office and a source close to the case said. The ex-news anchor's lawyer was not immediately available for comment. Investigators had looked into and dropped 19 other claims of sexual abuse or harassment against the journalist, the prosecutor's office said. This was because they were either past the statute of limitations or happened prior to sexual harassment becoming a misdemeanour in 2018. Porcel, 40, has accused Poivre d'Arvor of forcing her to perform oral sex in 2009. She also accused him of rape in 2004, but that claim was deemed to be past the statute of limitations. Poivre d'Arvor has through his lawyers "firmly contested" both those allegations. France has been rocked by allegations of sexual abuse in recent months, mostly against top figures in the film sector. mlf-clw/ah/tgb/bp Thomas Kingston, husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor, was found dead at an address in Gloucestershire on Sunday Friends of Thomas Kingston, the husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor, have spoken of their shock at his death, ahead of a post mortem examination on Wednesday afternoon. Police have ruled out suspicious circumstances in the 45-year-olds death. He married Lady Gabriella, the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, at St Georges Chapel in Windsor in 2019 in a service that was attended by members of the Royal family, including Queen Elizabeth II. A close friend of the family, who had seen the couple recently, said: We are really shocked. He was so young. The family friend described Lady Gabriella and Kingston as very close as a couple, saying they were happily married and had seemed perfectly fine at a dinner party a few months ago. Kingston, a committed Christian, was found dead at an address in Gloucestershire on Sunday evening. A statement issued on behalf of his widow and his parents, Martin and Jill Kingston, and his sisters, described Kingston as an exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him. They said the sudden death had come as a great shock to the whole family and requested privacy as we mourn his passing. Kingston, who worked in finance, had previously been a hostage negotiator in Baghdad in the early 2000s after completing a degree at Bristol University. The couple with family and friends at their wedding in Windsor in 2019 A spokesman for Gloucestershire Coroners Service said: We have no information to share with the public at this moment in time. Further information will be released as and when is necessary. We are dealing with the death of a 45-year-old male and are awaiting a post-mortem to establish the cause of death. The post mortem exam will take place today and further information will be released if a coroner opens an inquest. Gloucestershire police said: We were called by the ambulance service at 6.25pm on Sunday with a report of the death of a 45-year-old man at an address in the Cotswolds. The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner. Locals in the Kingstons home village spoke of their upset. Kamlesh Chudasama, 61, who has been the postmaster in Kemble for 35 years, described Kingston as a gentle soul, adding that his thoughts and prayers were with the family. Mr Chudasama said: We are all so sad to hear terrible news. They are a lovely, gentle family who do a lot for the village and the church. They are a big part of the local community. Thomas popped into the shop a lot, he would come by every so often. I last saw him a few months ago. He was a very gentle soul, just like his father. Everyone is in shock, its really sad and very fresh. Martin [Kingstons father] comes into the post office all the time. He is a regular customer. But I havent seen him since the death. When I do see him I will tell him how sorry I am to hear about the death and that my thoughts and prayers are with them all. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. DOVER It was Round 2 in the tiff between Mayor James Dodd and supporters of Police Chief Jonathan Delaney. A delegation of police officers helped to pack council chambers Tuesday night, after the mayor took disciplinary action against the chief for his actions at the last council meeting. That prior session, on Feb. 13, ended with a tense exchange among Delaney, Dodd and Councilman Sergio Rodriguez, who was charged with assault this month and in turn criticized the police department. Tuesday's meeting brought a further escalation of tensions, as Dodd and Council member Karol Ruiz clashed over a proposal that Ruiz charged was another attempt to retaliate against Delaney. Dover Police Chief Jonathan Delaney. At issue was a resolution to remove Delaney as police custodian of records and return that responsibility to the town clerk. Dodd argued that municipal clerks commonly handle such duties, including the processing of Open Public Records Act requests, also known as OPRAs. Dover's clerk had handled those tasks, Mayor Dodd said, until former mayor Carolyn Blackman turned them over to the police department four years ago. Dodd and Delaney dispute resumes "This is in no way, shape or form against our police department," Dodd said. "We're not here to take away authority from the police department. You are not trained in OPRA and document release to the public." The ultimate legal responsibility for OPRA requests falls on the clerk, who can be sued for violations, Dodd said. In Dover's case, that puts the onus on Municipal Clerk Tara Pettoni. She served as clerk during Dodd's previous mayoral administrations, resigned when he left office in 2020 and returned when he regained the post this January. "I honestly feel for her concern," Dodd said. "How can these documents go out to the public when [she doesn't] have the opportunity to approve it?" Ruiz, however, wasn't buying Dodd's explanation. Oversight of police records at issue "The [New Jersey] League of Municipalities showed us it's a common practice for the chief law enforcement officer to serve as custodian for police records and for the clerk to serve as custodian for government records," said Ruiz. "There is no good reason for changing the custodian of police records now, especially now." "I'm going to name the elephant in the room," she continued. "We are meeting today with a room full of police officers from throughout our state, with state and local news. Why? Because at the last meeting, something happened. Something has been happening. So it is nefarious and disingenuous to tell our community that we're just worried about poor little Tara Pettoni's license." Dover Mayor James Dodd, seen at a 2018 news conference, issued a warning against the police chief after an exchange at the Feb. 13 council meeting. Her last comment drew gasps from the gallery and enraged Dodd, who said "You've got a lot of nerve, Ms. Ruiz. You no longer have the floor. That was inappropriate. I don't think that was fair and you just made a big mistake." Town attorney Ramon Rivera stepped in to state OPRA does not separate police and government records and "it is not common in my practice for almost 25 years that a municipality of this size would have a custodian of records in the police department." Ruiz later apologized to Pettoni, saying "I was frustrated with the disingenuity of the council, not with you." 'Throws fuel on the fire' Police in the gallery did not speak during the public comment period, but Councilmember Michael Scarneo urged Dodd to table the resolution. Scarneo said he needed more time to study the matter and discuss it with Delaney. "I don't think at this current time that we should be doing anything with the police department that could be construed as us trying to meddle in police department affairs," Scarneo said. "I don't see any reason for us to be jumping into something that I don't see is causing us a problem, that is going to increase the friction and issues we have with the police department. "This just throws fuel on the fire," he said. 'A massive building': Dover advances big housing project, but flood concerns remain Council member Sandra Wittner also questioned the resolution and clarified that Delaney had access to the town OPRA directors and appeared capable of handling OPRA requests. "I am quite certain the police know how to redact their own records," she said. The council eventually voted down a motion to table the resolution, which then passed as Ruiz, Scarneo and Wittner voted "no" while Rodriguez and Marcos Tapia abstained. Councilman faced assault charge Rodriguez helped to stir up the conflict between the town administration and police by posting a series of social media videos in which he confronted men who he said were drinking in public. One video, in which he clashed with three homeless men on Blackwell Street, resulted in police charging him with simple assault for kicking a bottle out of one man's hand. Rodriguez later made a public apology but only after more social media posts and statements at the previous council meeting in which he seemed to suggest the police weren't doing enough about public drunkenness. Dover has "a harassment and public intoxication problem," he said at the end of the Feb. 13 council meeting. Addressing Delaney, who was in the audience that night, Rodriguez said, "I like you, I personally like you and I want the best for our police department. I want the people around this town to respect our police. I don't want them saying 'Hey, Dover, we can do whatever we want there.' Because let's face it, that's what's being said. And I don't like it." Delaney then stood and spoke up, saying "We have some of the hardest-working officers in the state of New Jersey, if not the nation. They have families, too." The Dover council's Feb. 13 meeting ended in a confrontation among Councilman Sergio Rodriguez (second from left), Mayor James Dodd (center) and Police Chief Jonathan Delaney (not pictured.) Disciplinary warning against police chief Dodd later issued a letter announcing disciplinary measures against Delaney for speaking out of turn at the meeting and barring him from confronting council members. Delaney's personal attorney, meanwhile, has sent two "cease and desist" letters to the town in recent weeks, warning that the chief was considering a lawsuit against local officials for their allegedly "punitive conduct" against him. The latest letter said Delaney was being punished for "some phantom violation of public meeting rules." "Your continued attempts to undermine the chief will not be tolerated," Delaney's attorney wrote to Dodd. Police in the overflow gallery on Tuesday night did not speak, but the Dover Policemen's Benevolent Association, in a Feb. 19 letter to Dodd, supported Delaney. The union said the chief had increased department morale despite Dover's "long and sordid history of managerial malfeasance." "We hereby call on the governing body of Dover and residents of Dover to do whatever is necessary to allow Chief Delaney to do his job without political interference," the PBA concluded. William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today. Email: wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com Twitter: @wwesthoven This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Dover NJ mayor accused of escalating conflict with police chief WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared deeply torn about whether the devices that turn a semi-automatic rifle into something closer to a machine gun are legal, with some indicating a wariness over striking down the ban on the controversial devices known as "bump stocks." Conservatives who dominate the court expressed concern about the harm caused by the devices, but wondered whether the federal government too broadly interpreted the law when declaring bump stocks illegal in 2018. I can certainly understand why these items should be made illegal, Justice Neil Gorsuch told the Justice Department during oral arguments on whether the ban should be upheld. But were dealing with a statute that was enacted in the 1930s, and through many administrations, the government took the position that these bump stocks are not machine guns. More: Are bump stocks illegal? Supreme Court will decide fate of Trump ban Justice Barrett: 'Sympathetic,' but the law seems unclear The debate is one of several gun-related cases before the Supreme Court this year, and comes against an election-year backdrop of gun violence that continues to plague the country. The Valentines Day mass shooting in Kansas City was the 50th reported so far in 2024. At issue in the bump stocks case was whether to strike down a Trump-era ban on the devices a question that many of the justices struggled with. Intuitively, Im entirely sympathetic to your argument. It seems like, yes, that this is functioning like a machine gun would, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said. I think the question is, why didnt Congress pass that legislation to make this cover it more clearly? Guns with bump stocks used to mow down people at a Las Vegas concert Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more after opening fire on a Las Vegas music festival in 2017. Paddock used 22 semiautomatic rifles, 14 of them equipped with bump stocks. After a gunman used bump stocks on some of his 22 semiautomatic rifles to mow down concertgoers in Las Vegas in 2017, then-President Donald Trump directed the Justice Department to regulate the devices. But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determination that a bump stock met the definition of a machine gun, which are illegal for private use, was different from what the agency said in the past another sticking point for some of the justices. The courts three liberal justices, meanwhile, repeatedly tried to bring the focus back to the effect of the bump stocks. At some point, you have to apply a little bit of common sense to the way you read a statute, said Justice Elena Kagan, who used to go hunting with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and understand that what this statute comprehends is a weapon that fires a multitude of shots with a single human action. What makes a gun 'automatic'? Bump stocks combine two legal devices, a plastic stock and a firearm, that together function like a machine gun. The bump stock harnesses the recoil of the rifle to accelerate trigger pulls, technically bumping the trigger for each shot after it bounces off the shooters shoulder. A rifle can then fire between 400 and 800 rounds per minute. The Las Vegas shooting, in which 58 people were killed immediately and hundreds were injured, was the deadliest mass shooting in the nations history. But it wasnt the last. hooting instructor Frankie McRae demonstrates the grip on an AR-15 rifle fitted with a "bump stock" at his 37 PSR Gun Club in Bunnlevel, N.C., on Oct. 4, 2017. Unlike the high courts pending decision on a law banning domestic abusers from owning guns, this one doesnt rest on the 2nd Amendment. Instead, it turns on competing explanations of how a bump stock works and whether it meets the legal definition of a machine gun. Does it allow the weapon to be continually fired once the shooter depresses the trigger? Or must the guns trigger be reactivated by the shooter between every shot? The amended law, originally passed in 1934 after gangsters like John Dillinger used machine guns to rob banks, refers to any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. Gun shop owner's lawyer: nothing 'automatic' about a bump stock The lawyer for Michael Cargill, a gun shop owner and gun rights advocate from Austin, Texas who sued the government over the ban, said theres nothing automatic about using a bump stock. The shooter has to press forward on the front grip of the rifle. Everything about the firing process is manual, said attorney Jonathan Mitchell. Chief Justice John Roberts asked about the governments contention that the shooter is not actively thrusting part of the gun forward but simply maintaining pressure. Either way, Mitchell said, its still human effort so cant be called automatic. The two sides also disputed how to interpret a single function of the trigger, which the government says refers to the action the shooter takes to initiate the firing. But some justices complained the statute doesnt specifically say that. Thats the language were stuck with, Gorsuch said. Justice Gorsuch worries owners may face prosecution He was also among the justices who worried about the consequences for the hundreds of thousands of gun owners who had relied on the governments pre-2018 interpretations that bump stocks were legal. How would they even know that they now possess an illegal device, he wondered. Because people will sit down and read the Federal Register? he asked the Justice Departments attorney. Thats what they do in their evening for fun. Gun owners across the country crack it open next to the fire and the dog. Brian Fletcher, the Justice Departments principal deputy solicitor general, said the ATFs 2018 decision received a lot of attention by gun owners. He added that the government hasnt prosecuted, and doesnt plan to go after, gun owners for buying the device when it was legal. And the fact that government got the interpretation wrong before, he continued, shouldnt prevent it fixing it now. This court often concludes that the government has interpreted a statute the wrong way and doesnt hesitate to correct the governments mistakes, Fletcher said. Justice Samuel Alito asked the challengers attorney if theres a reason Congress may have wanted to ban machine guns but not bump stocks. Justice Sotomayor piqued by 'arthritis' defense Mitchell said bump stocks can help people with disabilities, those who have problems with finger dexterity or with arthritis. That prompted an incredulous Justice Sonya Sotomayor to asked why Congress would think a person with arthritis would need to shoot 400 to 800 rounds of ammunition under any circumstance. If you dont let a person without arthritis do that, she asked, why would you permit a person with arthritis to do it? A decision in the case, Garland v. Cargill, is expected by the end of June. Related Supreme Court poised to support law banning domestic abusers from owning guns This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court debates whether gun bump stocks are legal MPs facing threats to their safety will get extra security, as part of a 31m package to help protect the UK's democratic processes from disruption, the government has announced. Measures could include the provision of bodyguards for MPs most at risk. The funding will also be used for additional police patrols in response to increased community tensions. Home Secretary James Cleverly said no MP should have to accept threats or harassment as "part of the job" There has been growing concern in recent months over MPs' safety since the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Last week, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle cited threats to politicians in his controversial handling of a debate on calls for a ceasefire in the conflict. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also raised concerns about MPs being "verbally threatened and physically, violently targeted" in recent weeks, with "legitimate protests hijacked by extremists". The Home Office said the funding package would be used to increase private sector security provisions for those facing greater risk and to expand cyber security advice to locally elected representatives. It said the money would also ensure all elected representatives and candidates have a dedicated named police contact to liaise with on security matters. Meanwhile, a new communities fund will be established to allow extra police patrols in England and Wales, with forces able to use the fund to increase police presence in response to specific events. On Wednesday Home Secretary James Cleverly will hold talks with police chiefs to discuss how to better ensure the safety of MPs. "The government will take every possible step to safeguard the people, processes and institutions upon which our democracy relies," he said. "I take the safety and security of all members of the House with the utmost seriousness. None of us should have to accept that enduring hate crimes, harassment, or threats is part of the job." Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said: "Over the past few weeks we've seen disgraceful attempts to intimidate MPs and undermine our democratic processes. That behaviour is a threat to our democracy, and toxic for our society." Earlier this month, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood's home was targeted by pro-Palestinian protesters, with the police warning his family to stay away as it could have "antagonised the situation". Another Tory MP, Mike Freer has said he is standing down at the next election, after death threats and an alleged arson attack on his constituency office had "become too much". Preet Gill, Labour MP For Birmingham Edgbaston, said death threats had become "a norm" in her job, while Conservative Stafford MP Theo Clarke said she carried a panic button directly linked to the police "at all times". Last November, the office of shadow Welsh secretary Jo Stevens was daubed in red paint and plastered in posters accusing her of having "blood" on her hands after she abstained in a vote on a ceasefire. The debate over the safety of MPs was heightened after the murder of Labour's Jo Cox in 2016 and Conservative Sir David Amess in 2021. The murders prompted a review of security measures, with changes including included improved security at MPs' homes and offices and additional private sector-delivered security where necessary. Appearing on BBC Breakfast, former Cabinet minister Sir Robert Buckland said he welcomed the funding, arguing that if MPs were left concerned about their safety "voices will be muffled". "If we start sequestering politicians away from the public, I'm worried that that Westminster bubble, the ivory tower syndrome, will only get worse and divorce politicians from the people they represent... that's why safety is a very important consideration." A Christian sentenced to death in one blasphemy case in Pakistan was acquitted on Feb. 20 in another related to the same incident, with the judge citing double jeopardy, his attorney said. Police illegally charged Noman Masih, 24, twice for the same incident, but he remains on death row for conviction in the first case, said attorney Lazar Allah Rakha. Bahawalnagar Additional Sessions Judge Sarfaraz Ahmed on Feb. 20 admitted my arguments that the case against my client Noman Masih came under the principle of double jeopardy, which clearly states that no person can be prosecuted or punished for the same offense more than once, Rakha told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. Masih was charged by police in two cities, Bahawalnagar and Bahawalpur, as officers acted with a mala fide intent to punish him in two blasphemy cases registered within three days. The police also tried to prosecute him in an anti-terrorism court, although the case did not fall under terrorism, Rakha said. I resisted their attempt and successfully argued that the case be heard by the sessions court. The polices prejudicial attitude towards Masih insinuates that someone wanted to see him suffer at all costs. A judge in the Bahawalpur case handed Masih the death sentence in May 2023 after a four-year trial, though prosecutors failed to provide any evidence against him, Rakha said. Moreover, all the witnesses produced by the prosecution also failed to corroborate the police narrative, he said. It was a miscarriage of justice, to say the least. The Feb. 20 acquittal in the Bahawalnagar case has raised hope that the Lahore High Court will consider Masihs appeal against the death sentence on merit and order his acquittal, Rakha said. Im 1,000 percent confident that the high court will set aside Masihs conviction when it examines the lacunas in the prosecutions story that the trial court had ignored, he said. Masih will, God willing, soon reunite with his family. The attorney, who has won freedom for several persons charged with blasphemy, expressed gratitude for legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, which supported him in Masihs case. Masihs parents are very poor, and Im grateful to ADF for partnering with me in this legal battle for justice, he said. Masihs father, Asghar Masih, said his family was deeply relieved to learn about the acquittal. We had been on a knifes edge after the conclusion of the trial in the Bahawalnagar case, he told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. When we informed Noman about his acquittal, he was overwhelmed with joy. This is the first good news he has had in a very long time. Asghar Masih, a cleaner and member of the Anglican Church of Pakistan, said he could not thank Rakha enough for standing with the family. Though advocate Lazar continuously encouraged us and kept our hopes alive, my wife and I have been extremely worried about the outcome of this case, he said. Secret Information Police arrested Noman Masih and his cousin, Sunny Waqas, after officers in their respective districts, citing secret information, filed cases against them under Section 295-C of Pakistans controversial blasphemy statutes. Section 295-C, for derogatory comments about Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, carries a mandatory death sentence. Trainee Sub-Inspector Fraz Ahmed of the Faqirwali Police Station in Bahawalnagar claimed he received secret information that Waqas had printed blasphemous sketches of Islams prophet and was carrying them in a black bag to show other people, according to First Information Report (FIR) No. 353/19. Upon questioning, Waqas told police that his cousin Noman had shared the alleged sacrilegious images with him on WhatsApp, according to the complainant. Waqas was taken into custody on June 29, 2019 and charged with blasphemy. On July 1, 2019, Bahawalpur police arrested Noman Masih. A FIR registered by the Baghdadul Jadeed Police Station on the complaint of Sub-Inspector Muhammad Arshad Nadeem states that Nadeem received secret information that Noman Masih was sitting in a public park at 3:30 a.m. with nine or 10 people and was showing them blasphemous images on his phone. The FIR states he was arrested from the park, but neighbors and Masihs family testified that he was arrested from his home. On Jan. 17, 2023, the Lahore High Court Bahawalpur Bench granted bail to Waqas, the main suspect, because his trial had not concluded within the mandatory two-year period. Courts routinely dismiss bail pleas by blasphemy suspects, especially those charged under Section 295-C, a non-bailable offense. There are instances where suspects in non-bailable offenses, including murder, can be granted bail under the third proviso of Section 497 (1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Section 497 states that if suspects have not been formally charged, the trial has not been concluded within two years and the delay is not due to the accused, they should be granted bail. Waqas has reportedly fled Pakistan after obtaining bail, and the court has declared him a proclaimed offender. His cousin Noman Masih remains incarcerated in the Bahawalpur Central Prison, where he awaits his appeal of the death sentence. Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors 2024 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, as it was the previous year. The German naval frigate Hessen, deployed to Red Sea as part of an EU naval mission to protect shipping, has repelled an attack by the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen for the first time, according to dpa sources. The vessel successfully engaged two enemy targets on Tuesday evening, sources said. This was the German navy's first live weapons engagement of the deployment, which began on Friday and is considered one of the German armed forces' most dangerous missions in decades. The mission is about protecting international law, freedom and security on the seas, but also about stabilizing trade routes and the entire region, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said last week. Houthi militants from Yemen have been attacking ships in the Red Sea in what they say is retaliation for Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip. EU foreign ministers approved the mission, called Aspides after the Greek word for "shields," on Monday. It involves sending European warships and airborne early warning systems to the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and surrounding waters. Aspides vessels have orders only to fire on the militants if they attack first and are be authorized to shoot pre-emptively. The operational command is in the Greek city of Larissa. The German naval frigate "Hessen" leaves the harbor. Sina Schuldt/dpa The German naval frigate Hessen, deployed to Red Sea as part of an EU naval mission to protect shipping, has repelled an attack by the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen for the first time, according to dpa sources. The vessel successfully engaged two enemy targets on Tuesday evening, sources said. This was the German navy's first live weapons engagement of the deployment, which began on Friday and is considered one of the German armed forces' most dangerous missions in decades. The German naval frigate "Hessen" leaves the harbor. Sina Schuldt/dpa A Christian politician, Anthony Naveed has achieved a major political milestone after he was elected as the first Christian Deputy Speaker of the Sindh Provincial Assembly on Sunday. Naveed, who is the only Christian selected on a reserved seat for minorities in the Sindh Provincial Assembly by the progressive Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) after the February 8 general election, bagged 111 votes out of a total of 147 votes cast. His opponent, Advocate Rashid Khan of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement clinched 36 votes only. Born into a modest Catholic family in Karachi, 53-year-old Naveed obtained an engineering diploma in garment technology from the Pakistan Swedish Institute of Technology. Throughout his career, Naveed has been actively engaged in community service, serving as Vice President of the Karachi Christian Boys Association and representing the Catholic Youth Commission of Pakistan at the World Youth Day in Toronto in 2002. He has also worked with the Pakistan Christian Congress focusing on educational initiatives and career counseling for the youth in his community. Despite facing personal challenges and discrimination, Naveed has remained rooted in Karachis Akhtar Colony, where he was born, got married, and raised his children. His commitment to his community and identity shines through, emphasizing his dedication to representing and living among the people he serves. Naveeds political journey began in 2005 when the PPP gave him a ticket in Karachis local government election. He contested as a vice-chairman from his native Akhtar Colony. He went on to become a special assistant to the Sindh chief minister in 2016. In 2018, the PPP chose him as a reserved seat candidate in the Sindh Assembly where he was the lone Christian legislator. I am grateful to the PPP leadership, especially [party chief] Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, for nominating me for this coveted position, Naveed told Christian Daily International on the phone from Karachi. The PPP is the only political party that is taking concrete steps to protect the rights of all minorities, including the Christian community, and empowering them socially, politically and economically, he said. He said that as the custodian of the house, he would try his best to use this opportunity to lobby the support of the majority lawmakers to address the challenges facing the religious minorities of the province. Lauding the PPPs decision to nominate and elect Anthony Naveed, Christian rights activists said this would help in alleviating the sense of deprivation in the marginalized community. Its good to see Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari fulfilling his promise of giving religious minorities an equal opportunity to grow in the socio-political sphere. By nominating Anthony Naveed, the PPP has lived up to the expectations of the minority communities and we hope that the other mainstream political parties will follow its example, said Minorities Alliance Pakistan Chairman Akmal Bhatti. Rights activist Napolean Qayyum also welcomed Naveeds election and said this had paved the way for the political mainstreaming of the Christian community. We hope that all political parties would also consider giving tickets to their Christian members for contesting the election on general seats in constituencies where we have a sizeable vote bank. Christian legislators will be in a better position to solve the problems facing their communities because they understand the issues much better than their Muslim counterparts, he said. BERLIN Germany will purchase up to 49 Skyranger 30 air defense systems from Rheinmetall for a total of almost 600 million, or $650 million, the company announced in a press release this week. The Skyranger 30 weapons stations will be mounted onto the Bundeswehrs Boxer armored fighting vehicles. In the German setup, the system contains a sensor suite, a 30-millimeter cannon and Stinger surface-to-air missiles. It promises the ability to engage fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft as well as drones and cruise missiles. Additionally, the Bundesweh, Germanys armed forces, will be able to network it with other air defense assets. The order contains one prototype and 18 production vehicles, with an option for 30 further vehicles. Rheinmetall said it would deliver the Bundeswehrs prototype by the end of the year. The German acquisition, worth 595 million, is part of the militarys project to develop an integrated air defense system for close- and short-range protection. The Skyranger 30 platform is to play an integral role in this endeavor, the manufacturer said in a press release. Just a month ago, on January 25, a consortium made up of Rheinmetall, Diehl and sensor manufacturer Hensoldt was tasked by the German government to develop this capability for the Bundeswehr for a total of 1.2 billion ($1.3 billion). The contract was aimed at implementing the necessary solutions for networking individual components, integrating the IRIS T-SLM air defense system, establishing interoperability and extending the interception range to the short range, Diehl Defense said in a January statement. To this end, the Skyranger 30 system will be able to work both autonomously and in communication with other systems, according to the manufacturer. Germany has put itself in a leading role on the continent when it comes to air defense thanks to Chancellor Olaf Scholzs European Sky Shield Initiative, announced in August 2022. The initiative now counts 21 countries following the recent announcement that Greece and Turkey intend to join. ESSI was launched in response to Russias invasion of Ukraine and the heavy use of drones and cruise missiles to damage critical civilian infrastructure in the conflict, which highlighted European vulnerabilities. With this latest move, Germany hopes to strengthen its position as a role model for ground-based air defense, Rheinmetall said. The 2010 retirement of the countrys Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns for cost-cutting purposes left a gap in the German armys capabilities which this new acquisition is meant to fill. Just days earlier, the neighboring government in Vienna another ESSI member had been the first country to confirm it would acquire the new Skyranger 30 system, which is a quarter lighter than its predecessor, meaning it can be mounted on Austrian army vehicles. Austria will be acquiring 36 Skyrangers for their Pandur EVO armored vehicles for a total of 1.8 billion ($1.95 billion). Rheinmetall said the company expected more orders to follow. Hungary tasked the German manufacturer with integrating the Skyranger system with its Lynx KF41 vehicles in December of last year, while Lithuania and Denmark are considering acquisitions of their own, according to the company. Editors note: Due to an editing error, the original version of this story misreported the value of the Skyranger contract. It is roughly 600 million. Under the provisions of the bill, same-sex relations could be punished with imprisonment ranging from six months to three years (Natalija GORMALOVA) Ghana's parliament voted to pass a controversial bill to severely restrict LGBTQ rights on Wednesday in a move condemned by activists. The bill still has to be validated by the president before becoming law, which observers believe is unlikely before a general election in December. Activist groups have called the "Human Sexual Rights and Family Values" bill a setback for human rights and urged President Nana Akufo-Addo's government to reject it. But the bill is widely supported in Ghana, where Akufo-Addo has said gay marriage will never be allowed while he is in power. Commonly referred to as the anti-gay bill, the sweeping legislation received sponsorship from a coalition comprising Christian, Muslim and Ghanaian traditional leaders, and passed through an unopposed voice vote. Gay sex is already illegal in the religious West African nation, but while discrimination against LGBTQ people is common no one has ever been prosecuted under the colonial-era law. Under the provisions of the bill, same-sex relations could be punished with imprisonment ranging from six months to three years. Those advocating for LGBTQ rights could be subject to harsher penalties, with potential jail terms of three to five years. - 'Absolutely wrong' - UN rights chief Volker Turk condemned the passing of the bill. "I call for the bill not to become law," he said. "Consensual same-sex conduct should never be criminalised." He warned that such measures can expose people to hate crimes, and urged the government to "ensure everyone can live free from violence, stigma and discrimination, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity." In Washington, the US State Department said it was "deeply troubled" by the legislation is it would "threaten all Ghanaians' constitutionally protected freedoms of speech, press, and assembly." "Limiting the rights of one group in a society undermines the rights of all," agency spokesman Matt Miller said in a statement. A human rights coalition known as the Big 18, an umbrella group of lawyers and activists in Ghana, has also criticised the bill. "You cannot criminalise a person's identity and that's what the bill is doing and it's absolutely wrong," said Takyiwaa Manuh, a member of the coalition. "We want to impress on the president not to assent to the bill, it totally violates the human rights of the LGBT community," Manuh told AFP. Opposition lawmaker Sam George, the main sponsor of the bill, called on Akufo-Addo to assent to it. "There is nothing that deals with LGBTQ better than this bill that has been passed by parliament. We expect the president to walk his talk and be a man of his words," George said. Members of Ghana's LGBTQ community are worried about the implications of the bill. Founder and director of the organisation LGBT+ Rights Ghana Alex Donkor said "the passing of this bill will further marginalise and endanger LGBTQ individuals in Ghana." "It not only legalises discrimination but also fosters an environment of fear and persecution," he said. "With harsh penalties for both LGBTQ individuals and activists, this bill threatens the safety and well-being of an already vulnerable community." Around 30 African countries currently ban homosexuality, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). Uganda, Mauritania and several northern Nigerian states punish same-sex relations extremely harshly, with those accused possibly facing the death penalty. South Africa is the only nation on the continent to allow gay marriage, which it legalised in 2006. Same-sex relations have been decriminalised in only a handful of countries: Cape Verde, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Mozambique, and the Seychelles, according to the ILGA. km/lcm/imm/md/caw Ghana's parliament has passed a tough new bill that imposes a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone convicted of identifying as LGBTQ+. It also imposes a maximum five-year jail term for forming or funding LGBTQ+ groups. Lawmakers heckled down attempts to replace prison sentences with community service and counselling. It is the latest sign of growing opposition to LGBTQ+ rights in the conservative West African nation. The bill, which had the backing of Ghana's two major political parties, will come into effect only if President Nana Akufo-Addo signs it into law. He previously said that he would do so if the majority of Ghanaians want him to. Gay sex is already against the law in Ghana - it carries a three-year prison sentence. Last month Amnesty International warned that the bill "poses significant threats to the fundamental rights and freedoms" of LGBTQ+ people. Activists fear there will now be witch-hunts against members of the LGBTQ+ community and those who campaign for their rights, and say some will have to go into hiding. This was echoed by the head of the UN body tackling Aids, Winnie Byanyima, who said: "If Human Sexual rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill becomes a law, it will exacerbate fear and hatred, could incite violence against fellow Ghanaian citizens, and will negatively impact on free speech, freedom of movement and freedom of association." She added that it would "obstruct access to life-saving services" and "jeopardize Ghana's development success". The bill proposes a jail term of up to 10 years for anyone involved in LGBTQ+ advocacy campaigns aimed at children It also encourages the public to report members of the LGBTQ+ community to authorities for "necessary action". MPs said the bill was drafted in response to the opening of Ghana's first LGBTQ+ community centre in the capital, Accra, in January 2021. Police shut the centre following public protests, and pressure from religious bodies and traditional leaders in the largely Christian nation. At the time, the Christian Council of Ghana and the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council said in a joint statement that being LGBTQ+ was "alien to the Ghanaian culture and family value system and, as such, the citizens of this nation cannot accept it". The bill approved by lawmakers is a watered-down version of an earlier draft - for instance, jail terms have been shortened and a controversial clause on conversion therapy has been removed. During the days-long debate, the deputy parliamentary leader of the governing party, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, suggested further changes. He said lawmakers should decide, via a secret ballot, whether people convicted of being members of the LGBTQ+ community should be imprisoned by the courts or ordered to do community service and undergo counselling. However, he was heckled into submission by lawmakers who supported prison sentences. You may also be interested in: Veterans advocates are raising alarms about a behind-the-scenes GI Bill rule change that could allow students to use up their tuition stipends on non-degree programs, potentially wasting their military education benefits. Veterans Affairs officials say the move is meant to be a technical correction to definitions governing online-only college programs, and does not require a formal public review period. But 25 veterans organizations including The American Legion, Paralyzed Veterans of America and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said the change raises serious concerns about how students may use or misuse the GI Bill in the future. In a letter to VA Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs last week, the groups voiced deep opposition to the move, saying it for the first time opens GI Bill funds to unaccredited online programs that do not lead to a degree. The groups are now asking for the changes to be halted, or at least subjected to a public review period mandated for similar sweeping changes. Some vets got double housing stipends due to flaw in jobs program The impact of the proposed changes will lead to veterans being charged their GI Bill for what amounts to simple access to the internet, said William Hubbard, vice president for Veterans and Military Policy at Veterans Education Success, which has led the effort to block the change. VA will have opened a loophole in the GI Bill that provides the worst scammers out there with direct and unchecked access to veterans and their valuable GI Bill dollars. At issue is how online-only college programs are handled under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which provides at least 36 months of tuition costs for student veterans or eligible family members. Recipients are also eligible for a monthly housing stipend, although students attending classes completely online receive a lesser payout than their on-site peers. The total value of the benefit can be well over $100,000, a sum that has made veterans a target for scammers as well as for-profit and not-for-profit schools over the years. In 2021, partially in response to the massive upsurge in students attending remote classes during the American COVID-19 pandemic, VA officials held a public review of those online learning courses with the goal of simplifying some of the participation rules. Online-only classes currently fall under the broad category of Independent Study programs. Originally, the rule changes focused mainly on which states were responsible for accrediting online-only programs. But in recent months, regulators shifted the proposed changes to include removing remote classes from the Independent Study category, in an effort to reduce confusion over the differences between college classifications and actual course work. Advocates say that reclassification whether purposefully or accidentally removes requirements for those schools that their programs be accredited by state agencies and provide degrees for students. Instead, online-only classes would exist in a legal gray area, with less regulation and oversight. A veteran could be charged their GI Bill by an education program that consists exclusively of YouTube tutorials and leaves the veteran with no industry-recognized credentials, VES officials warned in a memo on the changes provided to VA and congressional officials. The veterans groups objecting to the move said the idea was not part of the 2021 public comment sessions on the GI Bill, but instead was proposed by bureaucrats behind the scenes after public comments closed. Now the veterans groups want the public review reopened, so they can discuss potential problems with those changes. In a statement, VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said officials are reviewing additional methods of obtaining public comment on the matter but have not committed to restarting the process. He said VA leaders believe the proposed changes will allow the department to continue working in partnership with State Approving Agencies to protect the integrity of VA education benefits offered while also looking to expand the options available to allow veterans to grow professionally and personally. VA officials have not released a timeline for when the new rules may go into effect. Veterans advocates are hoping they can persuade department leaders or lawmakers to stop the process before they do. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called on Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley to drop out of the race after she was easily defeated in the Michigan GOP primary Tuesday. Projections indicate former President Trump beat Haley in Michigan on Tuesday, just days after winning the primary in South Carolina, Haleys home state, securing another win before multiple Super Tuesday next week. Gingrich called on the former United Nations ambassador to abandon her bid, pointing to her loss in the Nevada GOP primary in which Trump was not on the ballot, stating she cannot gather support from the Trump flank of the GOP electorate. Shes hanging around in case something happens to Trump, so she can then be the choice, Gingrich said Tuesday night during his appearance on Hannity on Fox News. No MAGA Republican, no Trump delegate is ever gonna pick Nikki Haley. They will pick any other dozen or 50 Republicans who are acceptable, but they arent going to pick her. And you saw that in Nevada, where she lost by 2-to-1 by none of these candidates. When none of these candidates beat you, by 2-to-1, theres a theres a hint that maybe youre in the wrong game this year. I hope shell drop out. The former House speaker said Haley, the former South Carolina governor, should shift her focus to helping Republicans defeat President Biden, Trumps likely rival, in November. Gingrich declared the former president as the GOP nominee. I hope she will become part of the effort to beat Joe Biden, Gingrich said. I do not think its helpful to have her out there and saying nasty things about the Republican nominee. And as far as Im concerned, Donald Trump tonight is the Republican nominee. This is over, and the issue is to focus on the general election, and why Trump would be a dramatically better president in 2025 than Joe Biden. When reached for comment about Gingrichs remarks, Haleys spokesperson pointed The Hill to a statement issued by the campaigns national spokesperson, Olivia Perez-Cubas, in the aftermath of the Michigan GOP primary. Joe Biden is losing about 20 percent of the Democratic vote today, and many say its a sign of his weakness in November, Perez-Cubas said in the statement. Donald Trump is losing about 35 percent of the vote. Thats a flashing warning sign for Trump in November. Since Trump became president in 2016, he lost Michigan Republicans the state House, state Senate, and Governors mansion. What was once a beacon for the conservative cause, the Michigan Republican Party is now fractured and divided. Let this serve as another warning sign that what has happened in Michigan will continue to play out across the country. So long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will keep losing to the socialist left. Our children deserve better. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. ST. LOUIS The Girl Scouts of the USA organization says we sincerely regret any hurt in a letter addressing a situation that led to a St. Louis Girl Scouts troop disbanding last week. Former Girl Scout Troop #149 disbanded after the Girl Scouts organization reportedly warned of legal action over a fundraiser to help Palestinian children. The former troop intended to sell bracelets and donate money to a Palestinian childrens relief fund amid the months-long global struggle in Gaza. More than 29,000 people have died since Hamas, a militant group that controls Gaza, launched attacks against Israel in October, triggering a response by Israeli forces. Girl Scouts USA: We regret any hurt after St. Louis troop disbands over conflict The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Missouri branch says it received a response from a key Girl Scouts spokesperson after sending a letter that addressed the fundraiser and apparent warning. According to a CAIR news release, Bonnie Barczykowski, CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA, replied with the following statement, in part: We are disappointed and disheartened by what recently transpired. We sincerely regret any hurt caused We recognize that greater clarity and additional education is needed regarding our Girl Scout fundraising policies. This is a learning moment for our organization as we realize we can always do better. We know we should always lead with empathy and recognize the incredible need for kindness and compassion during this difficult time. We are also deeply committed to advancing belonging, inclusion, and anti-racism as an organization and within our membership, and we will continue to ensure that we address all communities, including the Muslim and Arab communities. GSUSA will be working alongside our council partners to review this incident and make the necessary adjustments to prevent it from happening in the future. We realize we missed an opportunity to champion our troops while they make a difference. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News CAIR considers this response a positive first step in addressing what happened. We welcome the Girl Scouts disavowal of the conduct of the state chapter, its expression of regret, and its commitment to ensure incidents like this do not happen again, said CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell. Former Troop 149 disbanded from the Girl Scouts organization, and its unclear if the group plans to rejoin. For now, the group continues to offer the bracelet fundraiser independently of Girl Scout affiliation. CAIR says the group has raised around $10,000 for a Palestinian childrens relief fund. According to previous reports from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and others, the troops adult leader, Nawal Abuhamdeh, shared information on the fundraiser through social media before pushback from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri. The local Girl Scouts branch asked her to remove any Girl Scouts branding associated with the bracelets, citing concerns that the fundraiser was political and partisan. Abuhamdeh contended that the fundraiser wasnt political and also cited previous Girl Scouts fundraisers in Ukraine. However, an email reply from Girl Scouts officials allegedly stated that her groups efforts were a direct violation of the organizations codes and that legal counsel could be activated if the fundraiser continued. According to a Girl Scouts USA Blue Book of Documents from last year, Girl Scout troops and leaders are not allowed to solicit financial contributions for purposes other than Girl Scouting, a distinction that leaves the door open for many interpretations. The Girl Scouts should now restore the policy that allowed troops to raise money for children and others impacted by the ongoing Gaza genocide, just as they did for Ukraine, said Mitchell in CAIRs aforementioned news release. Schnucks testing smart carts in select St. Louis-area stores. How do they work? Per reports, the group proceeding with the fundraiser consisted of former Girl Scout members from Palestinian and other backgrounds. A spokesperson for the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri shared a statement on the situation with FOX 2 on Wednesday afternoon, addressing the matter as such: We strongly support any of our scouts who are standing up for what they believe in. But before funds are raised and products sold in the name of Girl Scouts, there is a notice and approval process for those activities and then protocols that have to be followed for the fundraiser. That is why when other concerned members of our Scouting family and St. Louis community brought Nawals activities to our attention, we reached out to her and attempted to work with her through our approval process. There was never any legal action taken against the troop or their leader. Our staff emailed Nawal multiple times in hopes of reaching an agreement. Our goal was always to find a way to work with Nawal and her Scouts and stay within our fundraising rules. While we appreciate and encourage passion and social engagement, all troop activities must be carried out in accordance with our governing policies and approval procedures. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Gladstone School District is facing a lawsuit over its social media and public meeting policies after one mother says the district suppressed her right to free speech online and during public meetings, the suit alleges. The lawsuit was filed Monday by parent Glenda Scherer who is represented by the Liberty Justice Center law firm against Gladstone School District, Superintendent Bob Stewart, and School Board Chair Tracy Oberg Grant. The lawsuit challenges some of the districts policies, including screening comments before a public meeting, and prohibiting comments from mentioning district staff, including staff titles. Eastern Oregon creek sees first salmon spawn in 30 years Additionally, Scherer claims her First Amendment rights were violated after the district restricted her access to a parent Facebook group and banned her from attending school board meetings unless she receives permission from the Superintendents office. I want my voice to be heard not just to advocate for my own children, but to advocate for all the unheard parents across the country who are being unconstitutionally silenced by school boards, Scherer said. The lawsuit stems from March 2020 when the school district announced it would transition to remote learning. Colder Oregon, Washington forests likely to see rapid acceleration of fires According to court documents, Scherer was concerned about how remote learning would impact her daughter and special-needs son and voiced her concerns on social media and in public board meetings. After the district created a Facebook group for parents around September 2020, Scherer said she tried to post about an Oregon Department of Education program called Limited In-Person Instruction. However, the district applied the post-approval feature to her account, which stopped her comments from appearing on the page unless they were approved, the lawsuit alleges. Scherer additionally claims she was reprimanded after calling for the return of in-person instruction in a Facebook group post. Deadly Buckman crash may have been intentional, witnesses say In response to her post, the district administrator of the page sent her a message stating, I am removing this post because it is not helping parents. We are all doing our best to make distance learning work. If you cannot be positive and supportive of parents and school staff, you will be removed from the group,' according to court documents. Around November 2020, Scherer was temporarily blocked from interacting with the districts Twitter account, and until at least February 2024, she was blocked from tagging the district on her three Facebook accounts: Glenda.Scherer, OregonKidsFirst, and unheardparent, court documents say. In January 2024, Scherer was prohibited from discussing the districts failure to discipline an employee who was investigated for abusing her son, and who reportedly screamed profanities at her offsite, the lawsuit claims. Portland woman holds Guinness World Record for her large tongue In an emailed response, School Board Chair Grant suggested Scherer should edit her comment because the district does not allow comments to reference employees by their title or to refer to events that did not occur during regular business hours, according to court documents. The Liberty Justice Center sent a letter to the district on Jan. 29, arguing Scherers rights were violated and asked the district to bring its social media and public comment policies into compliance with the First Amendment. In response to the letter, the center says Gladstone School District repealed its requirement for speakers to submit comments for screening and is willing to allow Scherer to attend meetings unless she does not treat board members with respect, Liberty Justice Center claims. Grants Pass lawyers file opening brief in Supreme Court case on homeless camping bans The center says the concessions are not enough, arguing the district did not lift its limitations on her online speech, and did not reverse its ban on discussing current or former school employees. The First Amendment prohibits officials at any level of government from censoring the free speech of those they disagree with, attorney Dean McGee said in a Liberty and Justice press release. By fighting for Glenda, we are proud to also fight for the constitutional rights of parents and educational advocates across the country. Gladstone School District told KOIN 6 News it does not comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit seeks a ruling to overturn the schools policy on screening comments and banning comments mentioning district staff. Scherer also seeks a ruling determining her First Amendment rights were violated because she was banned from the public school board meetings and restricted from tagging the district in social media posts. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. The President of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo, received the international evangelist Andres Palau in his office on Monday. They were joined by the Minister of Education, Maruja Gorday, as well as Edmundo Gastaldi, International Director of the Palau Festivals, and Pastor Prisciano Gil, President of the Evangelical Alliance of Panama. Within a few minutes, the conversation took on a warm tone of camaraderie. The President was interested in learning about the legacy of the guest's father, the late evangelist Luis Palau. The two exchanged a few words about the importance of continuing to carry a message of hope, such as the one Palau Jr. will share in various activities this week, culminating in the well-known evangelistic event known as the Palau Festival. The festival not only includes spiritual elements but also concrete acts of social service. It will feature a children's festival and a social action fair where basic medical care will be provided to those with limited resources, plus hairdressing services, mobile showers for the homeless, and food distribution for those in need. Palau shared with the President the story of how his father invited him to a similar activity and how his life was changed by the message of hope. Although the dialogue was brief, it was enough for the evangelist to share with the president details of the transforming power of God that took him from a meaningless life to a life dedicated to sharing his story around the world. The meeting culminated with Palau praying to God to bless the nation, the president, his public ministry, his family, and his health. By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Alphabet's Google was hit with a 2.1-billion-euro ($2.3 billion) lawsuit by 32 media groups including Axel Springer and Schibsted on Wednesday, alleging that they had suffered losses due to the company's practices in digital advertising. Shares of the Mountain View, California-based company fell more than 2%. The move by the group - which include publishers in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden - comes as antitrust regulators also crack down on Google's ad tech business. "The media companies involved have incurred losses due to a less competitive market, which is a direct result of Google's misconduct," a statement issued by their lawyers Geradin Partners and Stek said. "Without Google's abuse of its dominant position, the media companies would have received significantly higher revenues from advertising and paid lower fees for ad tech services. Crucially, these funds could have been reinvested into strengthening the European media landscape," the lawyers said. They cited the French competition authority's 220-million-euro fine against Google on its ad tech business in 2021 as well as the European Commission's charges last year to buttress their group claim. "If there is follow through to the regulatory scrutiny, Google may need to curtail its practices and provide more consistent, predicable pricing to its advertising customers," D.A. Davidson & Co analyst Gil Luria said. The lawsuit comes at a time when Google's core advertising business is facing an existential threat from the shift to generative AI chat, Luria added. In a statement, a spokesperson for Google said the company opposes the lawsuit, adding that it is "speculative and opportunistic". "Google works constructively with publishers across Europe. ... (Our advertising tools) adapt and evolve in partnership with those same publishers." Google last year said it disagreed with EU antitrust charges against its ad tech business where it is involved in both the buy-side as well as the sell-side of the supply chain. Publishers around the world have in recent years lamented Big Tech's increasing dominance in advertising as their share of revenues fall. Google is the most dominant digital advertising platform in the world, according to analysts. The group said they filed the lawsuit in a Dutch court because of the country's reputation as a key jurisdiction for antitrust damages claims in Europe, and to avoid multiple claims in different European countries. Others in the group include Austria's Krone, Belgian groups DPG Media and Mediahuis, Denmark's TV2 Danmark A/S, Finland's Sanoma, Poland's Agora, Spain's Prensa Iberica and Switzerland's Ringier. ($1 = 0.9247 euro) (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, additional reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; editing by Jason Neely and Jonathan Oatis) Google has announced it will begin paying independent publishers to test its unreleased generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform. The program, first reported by Adweek, allows a handful of publishers access to its AI platform in exchange for receiving analytics and feedback. Publishers are expected to use the tools to produce a fixed volume of content for 12 months and will receive a monthly stipend amounting to a five-figure sum annually. Participants of the program are expected to produce and publish three articles a day, one newsletter each week and one marketing campaign each month, Adweek reported. A Google representative told the outlet theyre in the early stages of providing small publishers with AI tools to help journalists with their work. These tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating and fact-checking their articles, the representative said. The tools will allow publishers to create aggregated content more easily by examining already published content, summarizing it and publishing it as a new article. The development in AI tech comes as concerns about its capabilities and adoption in the media industry continue to build. Google pushed back on speculation that the program would republish other media outlets work. The experimental tool is designed to work with small, local publishers to produce content for their site, Meghann Farnsworth, a Google spokesperson, said in an emailed statement. She added that the program intends to produce high quality journalism using factual content from public data sources, including a local government information office or a health authority. Publishers remain in full editorial control of what is ultimately published on their site, Farnsworths statement continued. Google hopes the program can give journalists the choice of using AI to enhance their work, not replace it, the company said. Publishers must compile a list of external websites that produce content relevant to their audience. Those external outlets have not granted consent or been notified of their role in the program, Adweek noted. A publisher will then deploy the AI tool to summarize an article published by one of the outlets before a human editor reads it for accuracy before publishing it on their site. The publishers are not required to note that AI generated the content, the publication found. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Google is not done with wreaking havoc with its AI yet. On Tuesday, AdWeek reported that the company launched a program to pay news organizations to publish articles generated by a limitedly available beta version of an AI product from Google. The partnership, which is currently underway with several publishers, requires the orgs to publish a specific amount of AI-generated content for 12 months in exchange for a five-figure sum annually. The experimental tool is being responsibly designed to help small, local publishers produce high quality journalism using factual content from public data sourceslike a local governments public information office or health authority, Google spokesperson Meghann Farnsworth said in a statement to AdWeek. These tools are not intended to, and cannot, replace the essential role journalists have in reporting, creating and fact-checking their articles. This isnt Googles first foray into digitally generated journalism. Last year, the company demoed a news article generator to several major publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. However, this latest program seems to be its biggest step yet in actually making AI-generated journalism a realityand one that has generated a lot of controversy among critics concerned about the product. Google Pulls Gemini's AI Image Generator After Woke Photos If you are a news outlet who has accepted this meager deal, and especially if you are publishing AI-generated articles without disclaimers, you should be deeply ashamed, tech columnist Brian Merchant wrote on X. [Google is] strong-arming cash-strapped small publishers into polluting the info ecosystem and calling it training, Emily Bender, a professor of linguistics at the University of Washington, wrote on X. The partnership will undoubtedly be incredibly lucrative to struggling news publications that would otherwise have to pay reporters a five-figure sum to write articles. However, it creates a massive concern that these tools will continue to decimate already depleted newsrooms by replacing actual human workers with a generative AI chatbot. On top of that, there could be an immense erosion of quality and journalistic standards as these bots have a long and sordid history of creating low-quality, plagiarized content. The news of the media partnerships comes on the heels of a rough few days for Google. Last Thursday, the company announced that it would be pulling its image generation tool from Gemini, its most powerful generative AI product yet, after it began creating historically-inaccurate images such as Black Nazi soldiers. This sparked an onslaught of controversy primarily from alt-right figures online who decried the AI as woke. OpenAIs ChatGPT Went Completely Off the Rails for Hours The issue has apparently become serious enough that Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent an internal memo to employees on Tuesday saying that the AI was completely unacceptable, according to a report in Semafor that was later confirmed by The Verge No Al is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of the industrys development, but we know the bar is high for us and we will keep at it for however long it takes, Pichai wrote of the Gemini image generator. And well review what happened and make sure we fix it at scale. The episode highlights the surprising stumblings of a once dominant tech company. Ever since OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, Google has struggled to play catch up in the world of generative AI. In its efforts to compete, it seems to be rushing out its untested and unready techand dragging us all to the bottom with it. 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. LANSING. Mich. (WLNS) Party leaders are rallying around Tuesdays primary results to energize their voters ahead of the general election. Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump came on top with projections made early in the night. We will do the work thats necessary to send President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris back to the White House to defend our democracy and fight for our most fundamental freedoms, said Lavora Barnes, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. She spoke to campaign volunteers and voters online minutes after the polls closed. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci/Mike Stewart) Her words of encouragement were echoed by prominent democrats like Senator Debbie Stabenow, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker along with Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilcrest. In Grand Rapids, Michigan GOP chair Pete Hoekstra met with party members just hours after a judge ruled in his favor over who was the chair of the states republican party. With another win going to the Trump camp, Hoekstra says the former president is all but certain to be the GOP nominee. Trump has the momentum, national polls, everything indicates that this race is over. If Nikki [Haley] stays in for a couple more weeks or whatever, the bottom line is, you know, I think most folks recognize that this is Joe Biden vs Donald Trump. The uncommitted movement among democrats was a sticking point leading up to the polls opening. Arab American and Muslim American voters were pledging to vote for none of the Democratic candidates as the war in Gaza rages. In a statement, the organizers of Listen to Michigan say in part: We dont want a trump presidency, but Biden has put Netanyahu ahead of American democracy. we cannot afford to pay the bill for disregarding Palestinian lives should it come due in November. Michigan State University professor Matt Grossmann says hes not sure if the backlash would directly change foreign policy. its a protest vote that is consciously a protest vote, said Grossmann. And people want to express themselves and theyll be able to do that and get attention for that expression but Im not sure it will matter a lot just the exact percentage. Members of the Listen to Michigan organization say they will continue to express their anti-war agenda during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WLNS 6 News. Hunter Biden is poised to testify Wednesday on Capitol Hill, representing the most crucial witness to be interviewed in House Republicans impeachment inquiry into President Biden and marking perhaps the last best chance for the GOP to salvage an investigation thats been kneecapped by a series of recent setbacks. Republicans on the Oversight and Judiciary committees have placed Hunter Biden at the very center of their impeachment inquiry, alleging he engineered an elaborate web of lucrative, overseas business ventures that leaned heavily on his fathers international influence and that the president himself has benefited financially from those shady arrangements. At the heart of their case were allegations from an FBI informant that Hunter and Joe Biden had each received a $5 million bribe from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company the younger Biden sat on the board of. Yet their case suffered a blow earlier this month with the arrest of that informant, Alexander Smirnov, on charges that he fabricated those very allegations. Republicans have sought to downplay the significance of the arrest, maintaining the Smirnov claims were only a small part of the broader pattern of corruption and influence peddling theyve accused the Biden family of employing. But Republicans have yet to offer any clear evidence to substantiate their allegations, raising the already high stakes surrounding Hunter Bidens appearance behind closed doors Wednesday. GOP investigators will be under the gun to locate the damaging proof thats so far eluded them. Top Republicans say they are ready to go head-to-head with the witness. The House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees have unearthed a record of evidence revealing Joe Biden was the brand his family sold to enrich the Bidens. Joe Biden knew of, participated in, and benefited from these schemes, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement. Our committees have the opportunity to depose Hunter Biden, a key witness in our impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, about this record of evidence, he added. Democrats, on the other hand, have amped up their criticism of the impeachment inquiry in the wake of Smirnovs arrest. Last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said the GOPs probe essentially ended after Smirnov was indicted and told the Justice Department after his arrest that officials associated with Russian intelligence played a role in devising his false claims. At the core of the Republicans investigation are allegations that members of the Biden family erected a complex network of corporate accounts and third-party associates who could field wire transfers from foreign sources companies and individuals alike thereby insulating the family from receiving the payments directly. Republicans say these associates then channeled the funds to various Biden family members in incremental payments over time. The president, they contend, was among the beneficiaries. GOP lawmakers have highlighted transactions between Joe and Hunter Biden that, they claimed, are evidence of the presidents involvement in his sons foreign business dealings charges the younger Bidens legal team has denied. Republicans, for example, have called attention to three wire transfers each priced at $1,380 that were sent between a Hunter Biden business account and his father, contending the elder Biden was associated with his sons business entanglements. Hunter Bidens legal counsel, however, said those transfers were meant to repay Joe Biden for helping his son finance a truck purchase when he was unable to secure credit. Republicans have also argued that the president was aware of his sons business dealings, citing testimony from Devon Archer, Hunter Bidens foreign business partner, who told lawmakers about calls and dinners involving the president and his sons business associates. Archer, for example, told the Oversight Committee that Joe Biden dined with him, Hunter Biden and Ukrainian Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi at Cafe Milano, a posh Washington, D.C., restaurant, in April 2015. The group, Archer said, talked about the world, I guess, and the weather. The White House had previously said the dinner did not take place. Archer also told lawmakers that Hunter Biden would sometimes put his father on speakerphone when he was with foreign business partners for conversations that were limited to brief pleasantries. He testified, however, that he was not aware of any wrongdoing by the president, telling members of the Oversight Committee he had no knowledge of Biden, when vice president, altering any U.S. foreign policy to benefit his son. Hunter Biden, 54, has rejected allegations that his father was involved in his business dealings, telling reporters at the Capitol complex in December: My father was not financially involved in my business. Theres no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business, because it did not happen, he added. James Biden, the presidents brother, also testified last week that the president was not involved in his business dealings. James Bidens testimony was meant to be another opportunity for Republicans to turn the heat on a Biden family member but was overshadowed by Smirnovs arrest days earlier. Wednesdays deposition marks the culmination of the House GOPs months-long effort to drag Hunter Biden before the Oversight and Judiciary committees as part of their impeachment inquiry into the president, a battle that brought the younger Biden to the brink of being held in contempt of Congress. Republicans issued Hunter Biden a subpoena in November, requesting he sit for a closed-door deposition in December. Bidens lawyers, however, had insisted their client testify publicly rather than privately, expressing concerns that the panels would selectively leak and twist his statements. GOP lawmakers refused to give in to the demands despite Comer previously saying he would drop everything if Hunter wanted to appear before the panel prompting the presidents son to buck his subpoena. Instead of appearing for his deposition, Hunter Biden delivered a statement to reporters at the Capitol complex, denying that his father had any involvement in his business dealings. Republicans, as a result, launched contempt of Congress proceedings against Hunter Biden, advancing a resolution targeting the first son in January. But before the full House could vote on the measure, Hunter Bidens team said he would testify privately if the committees reissued the subpoena, arguing the initial one was invalid because it was sent before the chamber voted to formally authorize the probe. The Republican-led committees acquiesced, setting the stage for Wednesdays hearing. The closed-door deposition, however, is unlikely to be the last act in the GOPs inquiry, with Comer vowing more witnesses. This deposition is not the conclusion of the impeachment inquiry. There are more subpoenas and witness interviews to come, Comer said Tuesday. We will continue to follow the facts to inform legislative reforms to federal ethics laws and determine whether articles of impeachment are warranted. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) listens as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks to reporters outside the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, after meeting with President Joe Biden to discuss federal spending. (Anna Rose Layden/The New York Times) WASHINGTON Congressional leaders emerged from a meeting with President Joe Biden on Tuesday saying they were optimistic about averting a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, but remained short of a plan to do so before a Friday deadline. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who is facing intense pressure from Biden, Democrats and Senate Republicans to agree to a spending deal over the fierce objections of right-wing lawmakers in his ranks, suggested he might be ready to do so in the coming days. We have been working in good faith around the clock every single day, for months and weeks, and over the last several days, quite literally around the clock, to get that job done, said Johnson, who met with the president one on one after holding a group session with Biden and the other three top congressional leaders. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Were very optimistic, he added, saying that preventing a shutdown was our first responsibility. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the minority leader, gave a similarly upbeat assessment to reporters at the Capitol. We are making some real headway on the appropriations process, he said. But it was not clear whether the progress would yield an agreement before midnight Friday, when government funding for several agencies is slated to lapse, with money for the remainder of federal agencies on track to run out March 8. Johnson, under pressure from hard-right Republicans, has refused to agree to spending legislation that does not include some of his partys hard-line policy conditions, such as reversing a federal rule that aims to broaden access to abortion medication or a policy that could make it harder for some veterans deemed mentally ill to purchase guns. Ultraconservatives have brought the government to the brink of a shutdown or a partial shutdown three times in the past six months as they have sought more spending cuts and conservative policy conditions written into how federal money is spent. Biden emphasized during the talks Tuesday that a bipartisan funding bill should be free of any extreme policies, according to a meeting summary provided by White House officials. The talks came after Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader, announced Sunday that leaders had failed to reach a deal over the weekend because House Republicans need more time to sort themselves out. Johnson accused Senate Democrats of attempting at this late stage to spend on priorities that are further left than what their chamber agreed upon. He has not said to which priorities he is referring. Johnson also came under intense pressure during the meeting over legislation to send aid to Ukraine, in a discussion that grew heated as Biden, the two Democratic leaders, and McConnell laid out an impassioned case for continuing to arm Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression. Johnson has so far refused to take up the $95 billion aid package the Senate passed earlier this month for Israel and Ukraine. The meeting on Ukraine was intense, Schumer said. Everyone in that room was telling Speaker Johnson how vital sending aid was. After the meeting, Johnson said of the foreign assistance bill that House Republicans were still actively pursuing and investigating all the various options on that, and we will address that in a timely manner. But he reiterated his stance that the effort should take a back seat to immediate action to crack down on migration at the U.S. border with Mexico. The first priority of the country is our border and making sure its secure, Johnson said. I believe the president can take executive authority right now today to change that. Biden has been pressing for months for Congress to approve additional funding for Ukraine, arguing that without continued U.S. assistance, the country will run out of artillery, air defense weaponry and other munitions needed to prevail against Russia. The foreign aid bill passed by the Senate would provide more than $60 billion for Ukraines war effort, as well as about $14 billion in security assistance for Israel as it tries to wipe out Hamas after the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7. The consequences of inaction every day in Ukraine are dire, Biden said before the meeting. The White House has ramped up pressure on Johnson in recent weeks as Ukraine observed the second anniversary of the Russian invasion over the weekend. Biden continues to stress that President Vladimir Putin of Russia is a global threat. We said to the speaker, Get it done, Schumer said. History is looking over your shoulder, and if you dont do the right thing, whatever the immediate politics are, you will regret it. The aid for Ukraine, he added, is in his hands. c.2024 The New York Times Company Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) this month celebrated delivering $1.4 million to a childrens hospital in her district, even attending a photo op where she handed over massive checks to leadership and staff at the Nicklaus Childrens Hospital. Except Salazar voted against the bill that provided this money. The doctors and staff at Nicklaus Childrens Hospital are nothing short of miracle workers, and I am proud to support their work in Congress, Salazar declared in a Feb. 8 press release. I am thrilled to have secured over $1.4 million to provide cutting-edge medicine to children and help the hospital confront our nations growing mental health crisis. She took credit for securing this money on Twitter, too, and shared a photo of herself handing over the big checks. I was thrilled to celebrate the $1.45 million my office secured for @Nicklaus4Kids with the wonderful leadership and staff. Nicklaus Childrens leads the nation in pediatric care, and I am proud to deliver funding for projects that will significantly improve patient outcomes. pic.twitter.com/092CVBZ673 Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (@RepMariaSalazar) February 8, 2024 But as her own press release states, this money came from the Fiscal Year 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act a bill she opposed. Virtually every House Republican voted against this bill, which provided $1.7 trillion to fund the federal government. You can see her no vote here. Whats strange is that Salazar is not just taking credit for money that she voted against, she openly cites where this funding came from and its very easy to look up her vote on this bill. Its as if she is just hoping nobody notices. Salazar spokeswoman Mariza Smajlaj said congresswoman may have opposed the bill that provided funding for the childrens hospital, but she made sure the bill had that money in it. Congresswoman Salazar secured this funding by working directly with Niklaus Childrens Hospital and working to get this included in federal funding legislation, Smajlaj told HuffPost in a statement. Unfortunately, the final bill also included wasteful measures and was far too large at $1.7 trillion. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) keeps taking credit for bills she opposed. Why, ma'am, why? via Associated Press She also cited a Feb. 7 op-ed by Salazar, in which the congresswoman says she fought to get Miamis priorities funded into the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 even though she opposed the bill. I did not agree with that shameful practice or with wasteful measures, so I voted against the bill in final passage, Salazar wrote in her op-ed. In other words, the Florida congresswoman wants credit both for getting money for the childrens hospital and for opposing the bill that that money came in. A spokesperson for Nicklaus Childrens Hospital did not respond to a request for comment. Its not the first time Salazar has been caught taking credit for bills she opposed. Last month, a CBS News Miami reporter called her out for doing this with two other bills, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Both of those bills delivered money to Salazars district that she touted, despite her votes against them. Pressed on those votes, Salazar said she forgot about them. Listen I, that was, I think, last cycle. I cannot really remember right now, she said. Hundreds protest a Trump administration announcement this week that rescinds an Obama-era order allowing transgender students to use school bathrooms matching their gender identities, at the Stonewall Inn on February 23, 2017, in New York City. Activists and members of the transgender community gathered outside the historic LGTB bar to denounce the new policy. Photo by Spencer Platt | Getty Images A lone Republican lawmaker blocked the passage of a ballot referral that would have given Arizona voters the chance to kill trans-inclusive school policies across the state. If it had been approved by voters in November, the mandates in Senate Concurrent Resolution 1013 would have eliminated a wide range of inclusive practices used by teachers and school officials to help trans and gender nonconforming students feel more welcome. Teachers would have been prevented from using a students preferred pronouns or name without first obtaining written parental permission, which critics warned might endanger youth with hostile families. And schools would have been forced to strictly monitor bathrooms, locker rooms, multi-occupancy showers and sleeping quarters on school trips to bar trans students from entering spaces inconsistent with their biological sex, or else face lawsuits from offended cisgender students seeking monetary damages for psychological, emotional and physical harm. The initiatives author, Sen. John Kavanagh, sought to combine two bills vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs last year. By sending them to Arizona voters, the Fountain Hills Republican hoped to avoid any rejection from the Democratic governor, who has said she will veto any and all anti-LGBTQ measures. Legislatively referred initiatives dont require the governors approval before being placed on the November ballot. But early on, the proposals fate was unclear. Sen. Ken Bennett, R-Prescott, shared during the initiatives hearing in the Senate Education Committee that he had family members who would have been affected by its provisions if they were still in school. And despite voting for it in committee, he warned that his support on the Senate floor was not guaranteed. Republicans control the upper chamber with a slim one vote majority, and any holdouts have the power to kill legislation. On Monday, Bennett delivered on his warning, voting against the measure. While he agreed with the intent of the underlying legislation, he said, wrapping it up in a ballot initiative was the wrong move. If something goes awry, if there are unintended consequences, we cant do anything about it here, Bennett said. We have to go back to the people to fix something and I am very concerned about that. Thats because Arizona voters in 1988 approved the Voter Protection Act, which amended the state constitution to forbid lawmakers from modifying voter approved initiatives without going back to the ballot for permission, unless those changes advance the purpose of the original initiative. Bennett told the Arizona Mirror that the resolution, which combines two bills that he voted in favor of last year, was simply too extensive to support, and threatened to result in problems that would be difficult for lawmakers to resolve. Im always very cautious of putting complicated legislation in a referral to the voters because, if something goes awry, we cant fix it, he said. We would have to wait two years, and I dont want to fix things every two years. Bennett couldnt share any specific issues he foresaw occurring, saying only that the legislation seeks to govern complicated areas of student life. Youre talking about very delicate situations, about kids wanting to be called by nicknames or pronouns or whatever, he said. The initiative failed by a vote of 15-14, one vote shy of the 16 needed for passage, with Bennett joining Democrats to vote it down. Every other Republican in the chamber voted to approve the measure. Kavanagh said he was disappointed in the proposals failure to move forward, but told the Mirror its not entirely dead yet. While its unlikely that it will be resurrected this year, as Kavanagh is unwilling to make any more amendments to the proposal, he noted that he anticipates introducing it again next year if he can secure the votes. This is the second time a GOP lawmaker has bucked their partys support to defeat culture war inspired legislation since the party adopted a vehemently anti-LGBTQ stance two years ago. In 2022, Sen. Tyler Pace, a Mesa Republican, cast the deciding vote to kill a proposal that would have outlawed puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors, saying he was unwilling to support a bill that over a dozen speakers testified would increase suicidality among trans youth. A week later, the proposal was revived as a ban on gender-affirming surgeries for minors which Pace voted to approve and then Gov. Doug Ducey later signed into law. But the damage was done; the move contributed to Pace being labeled a RINO, and conservative spending campaigns donated to primary opponents, leading to his loss in that years primary election. Bennett said supporters have already reached out to him expressing concerns about a similar fate, but said he stands by his decision and doesnt vote based on his reelection bids. The multi-term legislator has served at the state Capitol in two different stints as a lawmaker since 1999, and represents a staunchly Republican district based in Yavapai County. LGBTQ and education advocacy groups celebrated the initiatives defeat. Bridget Sharpe, director for the state chapter of the Human Rights Campaign, the nations largest LGBTQ lobbying organization, called it a win for students across Arizona. After courageous advocacy from LGBTQ+ advocates and bipartisan rejection in the state Senate, this dangerous anti-equality ballot measure is now dead, she said in an emailed statement. All students deserve to feel safe and secure in school as their authentic selves, and (Mondays) vote sends a powerful message that discrimination has no place in our state. Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association, the states largest teachers union, denounced anti-LGBTQ legislation, calling on GOP lawmakers to protect students, not continually enact measures that jeopardize their ability to focus on school. LGBTQ students who experience discrimination at school are 3 times more likely to be absent, and they have lower GPAs, are less likely to graduate and experience more anxiety and depression, she wrote, in an emailed statement. As the tragic death of Nex Benedict in Oklahoma earlier this month reminds us, the stakes here can be literally life or death. Benedict, a16-year-old nonbinary student from Oklahoma, was beaten unconscious in the school bathroom by three girls, and died the next day. Their death ignited student protests and criticism against Oklahoma lawmakers, who have introduced more than 50 anti-LGBTQ proposals this year. The defeated ballot initiative isnt the only anti-LGBTQ proposal being pushed through the Arizona legislature this year, but it was the likeliest to succeed. Hobbs has repeatedly vowed to veto any anti-LGBTQ bills that end up on her desk. Still, Arizona Republicans continue advancing the bills, largely as a signal to their conservative constituents. On Monday, the GOP majority in the Senate did greenlight Senate Bill 1166, which would require teachers to notify parents of their childs preferred pronoun or name use within five days, and Senate Bill 1182, which would keep trans students out of school shower facilities consistent with their gender identity. Kavanagh introduced the bills as revised versions of the pronoun and bathroom ban he sponsored last year that were vetoed by Hobbs, and has framed them as more tailored proposals that seek to address the concerns previously raised by opponents, including the governor. But for trans Arizonans like Kanix Gallo, a 16-year-old Chandler High School student, the bills are a terrifying and disheartening example that lawmakers still dont see him for who he is. As a freshman student, Gallo experienced the misgendering and deadnaming that GOP proposals would effectively lead to for students without understanding parents. Some of Gallos teachers in his first year of high school repeatedly used the wrong pronouns and name, which left him feeling disillusioned in his education and unwilling to go to their classes. His intense discomfort resulted in a streak of absences. Gallo described being referred to by the wrong name as a physical pain and said it hurt to repeatedly correct one teacher in particular who refused to use the right pronouns and often dismissed his objections. By contrast, his senior year has been improved with teachers who do respect his identity, drastically raising his commitment to school. It makes me want to be in their class, he said. It makes me want to learn what theyre teaching me and it makes me feel respected and not just a student to them, but a person. But while Gallo now feels more accepted in class, the rhetoric at the state Capitol conflicts with that welcoming policy, spreading onto the school grounds and changing how his peers view him. Gallo said hes seen kids who previously werent interested in LGBTQ issues voicing vitriol after hearing about discriminatory legislation. And the teen, who has at times spoken at school board meetings to request more support for LGBTQ students amid the hostility at the state house, has even been met with verbal attacks from a classmate who told him he didnt deserve to live. Its terrifying, walking around school knowing that there are people who would physically harm you because of your gender, Gallo said. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post A GOP senator defeated legislation asking voters to scrap trans-inclusive policies at AZ schools appeared first on Arizona Mirror. Its not Ronald Reagans GOP anymore. The Republican Partys shift from Russia hawk to something softer is straining the GOP at a crucial juncture, highlighting the ascendency of former President Trumps America First approach and exasperating old-guard conservatives who long for a return to the assertive foreign policy championed by the party through generations prior. Its created nothing short of an identity crisis for those Republicans who still identify with the party of former President Reagan, a Cold War president long lionized within the GOP ranks for his aggressive confrontations with the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan would not recognize todays GOP, said John Conway, head of strategy for Republicans for Ukraine, a group pressing GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill to provide more military aid to Kyiv. The fact that the Republican Party now has elements that are openly pro-Putin, that they have abandoned faith in American leadership in the world, its disgusting, he continued. Its something Ronald Reagan couldnt possibly ever believe would happen to his party. He would be disgusted by todays GOP. The GOP divide over Russia is playing out in real time on Capitol Hill, where Congress is at an impasse over another round of aid for Ukraines beleaguered forces. While the Senate passed a bipartisan, $95 billion foreign aid package earlier this month, with $60 billion earmarked for Ukraine, Trump opposes the new funding and House GOP leaders have refused to consider the bill. The issue is proving to be an enormous headache for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), a Putin critic who says he supports the Ukraine aid but faces heavy pressure from conservatives not to vote on it. At least one of those conservatives, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), has threatened to launch an effort to remove Johnson from power if he brings the aid to the floor. The standoff has infuriated the more traditional Republican guard including prominent figures like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) who warn American isolationism will result in a more dangerous world, even as theyre forced to acknowledge they now stand as outliers in a party under Trumps firm grip. Im frankly an anti-establishment Republican, and I think you can safely argue I dont enjoy acknowledging this that Trump is the establishment, Ryan said last week in a televised interview with The Washington Post. Trump populism is this more isolationist strain that I think is wrong and dangerous, and I dont support, but that does represent a large swath of Republican voters. Experts say a variety of factors have led to the GOPs more lenient approach to Moscow, some of which preceded Trumps arrival on the political scene. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, soured many voters on the pursuit of an aggressive foreign policy, for fear of the U.S. getting bogged down in another long and costly overseas conflict. Trump, these experts say, first tapped into that isolationist vein when he was elected in 2016 and has since broadened the appeal of nationalism throughout the GOP. There has been a growing neo-isolationist strand of the GOP that greatly accelerated after the calamitous war in Iraq, where neoconservatism was greatly damaged politically, said Julian Zelizer, history professor at Princeton University. But it accelerated when Trump gave it legitimacy, and for reasons we dont fully understand, he focused this on Russia. Dalibor Rohac, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed that the GOPs increasing reluctance to confront Putin reflects a deeper shift in the party towards not only isolationism but also a purely transactional view of foreign policy. The failures of Iraq and Afghanistan provided a fertile ground for such arguments, he said. But Rohac noted several other factors driving the trend, not least the fact many Republicans view Putins Russia as a champion of conservative values in an era when Americas culture wars tend to dominate the political debate and GOP attacks on migration, wokeism and gender fluidity are ascendant. Russia-friendly narratives have made inroads with many Republicans as Putin has tried to present Russia as a bastion of traditional values and as Republicans have prioritized prosecuting their case against Hunter Biden in ways that have made them receptive to the idea of Ukraine as of a uniquely corrupt country in cahoots with the Democratic Party, Rohac said. Conway said the evidence of the shift has been made clear in the focus groups his organization has conducted since Russia invaded Ukraine. At the start of the conflict, there was overwhelming support for U.S. military support for Kyiv, even among Republicans. Two years later, that support has waned and GOP opinion is split a trend supported by national public opinion polls. Trump fundamentally changed the Republican Party with America First foreign policy, Conway said. And voters are in a push-and-pull between traditional Reaganite values of supporting our democratic allies abroad, and the new MAGA-fied version of the Republican Party thats telling them that Ukraine is a corrupt country, we need to take care of ourselves first, we cannot be involved in foreign affairs. Trumps relationship with Putin has been notably friendly over the years. As president, he famously sided with the Russian president over his intelligence officials regarding Moscows interference in the 2016 election. And this year, as the front-runner to win the GOP presidential nomination, he suggested he would not protect NATO allies from Russian attacks if those allies are delinquent in maintaining their military spending. I would encourage [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want, he said at a campaign stop in South Carolina. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor whos also seeking the GOP nomination, has sought to make Trumps leniency toward Russia an issue on the campaign trail to little effect. Last weekend, Trump defeated Haley in her home state primary by more than 20 points. Trumps popularity has only encouraged other Republicans to adopt a soft-gloves approach to Russia. That message was on ready display last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington, where the theme was Where Globalism Goes to Die. And it was evident in Tucker Carlsons recent visit to Moscow, where the popular conservative pundit s uggested the culture is superior to that of any city in America. Charging into Novembers elections, Trumps allies are hoping to secure more wins from like-minded lawmakers to REPLACE the droves of retiring members with America First Patriots, in the words of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) while Trumps GOP critics are hoping Trumps inward-looking foreign policy evaporates when he leaves the political scene. The outcome of Novembers election, some predict, will dictate the direction of the party for years to come. Should Trump be reelected, it is clear that vestiges of internationalism will be purged, said Rohac, of AEI. Should he be defeated, there might be an opportunity for revisiting some of the more eccentric foreign policy beliefs that he has helped entrench in the party. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Christian McBride, Jazz House Kids Artistic Director and acclaimed jazz bassist, is set to grace the stage with a one-off performance alongside rock icon Sting on Wednesday, Feb. 28, as part of the non-profit's annual fundraiser event. This show also serves as a reunion for the duo of acclaimed musicians after working together for the past 20-some years on projects like Sting's "All This Time" and "Sacred Love" records, in which McBride is credited as a sideman. The fundraiser, where the 8-time Grammy-winning jazz artist will also serve as the emcee, will be held at the Ralph Pucci International's luxury furniture design gallery in Manhattan and is also set to feature the student musicians from Jazz House Kids. As the name suggests, the "Ralph Pucci 8th Annual Jazz Set" event will mark eight years of collaboration between the art gallery and the non-profit in a joint effort to help educate and nurture the community's new generation of passionate artists. More information on the event can be found here. The Brilliant Minds Behind Jazz House Kids' Two Decades of Impact Founded in 2002 by jazz vocalist Melissa Walker, the performance non-profit organization has helped over 50,000 kids realize the depth of their musical potential across its two-decade-long existence through multi-leveled instrumental and vocal lessons offered every week. Walker's husband, McBride, later joined JHK as an artistic director, contributing to the inauguration of the non-profit's first iteration of its annual jazz master class called "Inside the Jazz Note" back in 2008. For years and years, JHK was the sole community arts group in Montclair, New Jersey where it was founded, however, it eventually branched out to New York last year with the same mission of providing quality music education through exposure to jazz's transformative "powers." "Jazz harnesses empathy, it harnesses creativity, improvisation," Walker told CBS News in an interview. "Quite frankly, I think jazz really harnesses the things that kids need in the 21st century." In December last year, the non-profit also enjoyed a sizeable $25,000 donation from the company Wing Drone Delivery, during Walker and McBride's appearance at the Kelly Clarkson Show. There, the show's titular host praised JHK for their endeavors that are "clearly changing lives." This is apparent in how Jazz House and its pupils have amassed over 150 awards from numerous prestigious bodies, alongside the fact that many of its alumni are now recognized as premiere musical talent and leaders in the musical industry. "Jazz is a perfect balance of the head and the heart, and in order to learn this music properly, you have to have listening skills," McBride explained to Clarkson. "You have to understand the concept of teamwork, and when you understand [teamwork] you understand empathy." "Those three things together not only make you a really great musician, they make you a great human being and global citizen," he added. Read Also: Benin Art Repatriation Documentary Wins Prestigious Award at Berlin Film Festival 2024 Classicalite All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Gov. Ron DeSantis, left, speaks with Tom Grady at The Freedom Institute of Collier County in Naples on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Gov. Ron DeSantis took a slight detour from governing Wednesday at a speaking engagement in Naples but hit all his hot button issues on education and economics. The governor was the first guest speaker for a speaker series by The Freedom Institute, a nonprofit program in Naples that supports homeschooling with a traditional curriculum for students 9-12 grades. The institute opened last August and is now up to 50 students. DeSantis was welcomed by one of the schools founding board members, Naples attorney Tom Grady, who said the schools existence is possible because of expanded school choice options and removal of financial restrictions that the governor signed into law last year. The governor spoke freely for 20 minutes about reforms he championed to a receptive audience of about 50 parents, students and supporters of the Freedom Institute. There also was a question and answer session with Grady. The institute does not accept public taxpayer support; tuition is $8,400 a year, said Chris Marker, whose title is chief learning officer. He previously spent 10 years as principal of Lake Park Elementary and was principal of Naples Park Elementary School last year. He homeschooled his son. Tom Grady introduces Gov. Ron DeSantis at The Freedom Institute of Collier County in Naples on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. The governor highlighted what the state has done to embrace educational choices for parents and key was removing financial restrictions that previously prevented lower income families from enrolling their children in schools like the Freedom institute or charter schools. We have close to 400,000 students on private scholarships now throughout the state of Florida as result of HB1 (last year), he said. Weve quadrupled the number in five years. We also have almost 400,000 students in charter schools, which are public schools but they are not controlled by the school district or more importantly, influenced by the school unions. He spoke about how the state has spent billions to improve teacher salaries and how another big push on that front will be coming out of the state budget. The Legislative session ends March 8. Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at The Freedom Institute of Collier County in Naples on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Here are some other key points of his talk: Alternative education for students who are not college bound through workforce education in areas such as aviation mechanics, welding and other trades. The state is now training 600 commercial drivers a year. College tuition has not gone up in the last 10 years and now Florida is the lowest state tuition in the U.S., he said. Creating and providing a civics curriculum of 50 hours based on instruction from Hillsdale College where teachers receive a $3,000 bonus for completing it. On economics, he talked about keeping the state budget being rated No. 1 out of the 50 states by CNBC and how the state has the lowest number of state employees per capita. Banning environmental, social and corporate governance, ESG, investment practices from the state pension program. He spoke about the rise of critical race theory, CRT, after the murder of George Floyd and broader delegitimization of the countrys founding principles and how the state banned CRT from K-12 education. This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Gov. DeSantis talks about education reform in Naples stop Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to reporters outside the White House following Tuesday's meeting Top US lawmakers have vowed to avert a partial government shutdown ahead of a Friday deadline to approve funding. "We will get the government funded," House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after a meeting with President Joe Biden on Tuesday. Democrats and Republicans have been far apart in the budget negotiations on border security and aid to Ukraine. Republicans control the House by a slim majority, while Democrats hold the Senate by a single seat. There have been 10 US government shutdowns or partial shutdowns over the past four decades. Spending bills to keep the US government open require buy-in from both parties in order to advance through both chambers to the president's desk. If a deal is not reached, some government departments, including agencies that oversee agriculture, transportation and veterans affairs, will temporarily close by 12:01 on Saturday. Other federal funding, including defence spending and homeland security and state department budgets, will expire a week later. Past shutdowns have led to furloughs of government workers and the closure of national parks. President Biden met the top four lawmakers - Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries - at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the effort to keep the government open. "It's Congress' responsibility to fund the government," Mr Biden said at the start of the meeting. "A shutdown would damage the economy significantly, and I think we all agree to that, and we need a bipartisan solution." Senator McConnell told reporters at the Capitol they had made "some real headway". Senator Schumer said the meeting at the White House was "passionate". "It's in his hands," he said of Mr Johnson. The Speaker is expected to put forward legislation in the coming days to keep the government open, though the details were uncertain. Mr Johnson might offer to push back the deadline to 22 March, which would require another short-term continuing resolution (CR) to give legislators more time. It was still being discussed as an option and was not finalised, the BBC's US partner CBS News reported. The Speaker faces fierce objections from right-wing lawmakers in his ranks who want spending cuts and insist any further support for Ukraine should be tied to more money for US border security. Those same members booted out the previous Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, in October, after they were angered by a short-term budget deal that Mr McCarthy made with Democrats. A defence spending package including aid for Ukraine and Israel has passed the Senate, but Mr Johnson has so far resisted a vote on it in the House. With less than a week until the primary election, judges on Wednesday heard a case that could allow drastic changes to the composition of election boards, stripping the governor of all of his appointments and giving them to lawmakers. The case deals with a law enacted in October as Senate Bill 749, which overhauls the structure of state and local election boards, splitting each of them equally between Republicans and Democrats and giving all appointments to legislative leaders. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, the plaintiff in the case, argues that this law unconstitutionally strips power from the executive branch. Republican leaders say the change is a policy decision wholly within the legislatures powers. A panel of three Superior Court judges, two Republicans and one Democrat, temporarily blocked the law from taking effect in November. That same panel Edwin Wilson, Lori Hamilton and Andrew Womble heard arguments for summary judgment in a Wake County courtroom on Wednesday, saying theyd likely have a ruling by March 8. The case could eventually be heard by the state Supreme Court, which may be more likely to rule in favor of GOP leaders after Republicans won a majority on the court in 2022. Lawyers debate whether election board appointments are under governors authority Coopers lawyer, Jim Phillips, argued that SB 749 unconstitutionally grants executive power to the legislature and creates boards that are almost ensured to deadlock. Our Supreme Court has recognized on multiple occasions that separation of powers is a cornerstone of our state government and that it preserves liberty and protects against tyranny, Phillips said. Senate Bill 749 violates the separation of powers guaranteed to the people by the Constitution because it authorizes the General Assembly to both enact and execute the law. Phillips also noted that the legislature has made several attempts in the past to restructure election boards, all of which were struck down by courts or voters. In 2018, Republicans put forward changes similar to SB 749 as a constitutional amendment. Over 61% of voters rejected it. Under current law, election boards are structured to have three members of the governors party and two from the minority party. Martin Warf, the attorney for Republican leaders, argued that the new board structure would insulate it from political decision-making. What they have tried to do is find a way to make that particular board independent of political influence, because its an area of law that applies to all three branches of government, Warf said. But whether thats the best structure, he argued represents a political question that is outside the courts jurisdiction. he said. Judges on the panel appeared skeptical of this argument, pointing to a previous case in which the state Supreme Court held that similar election board changes impermissibly interfere with the governors ability to faithfully execute the laws. North Carolinas primary election is on March 5. Any potential changes out of this case are unlikely to go into effect by then, but could affect the general election in November. APPLETON A two-day trial is scheduled to begin today for a Grand Chute town supervisor accused of misconduct. Ron Wolff, 64, is charged with having private interest in a public contract, a Class I felony, for accepting a landscaping contract with Grand Chute while serving as a member of the town board. If the jury finds him guilty, Wolff will face a maximum of 3 years in prison, a fine of $10,000, or both. What is Wolff accused of? In June 2021, Wolff's landscaping company, Lakeshore Cleaners Inc., was hired by Grand Chute to do plantings around the ponds at the Champion Center, at 5000 W. Champion Drive. According to court records, Wolff was elected and sworn in as a town supervisor in April 2021. He submitted a quote for the Champion Center pond restoration project on May 11, 2021, upon soliciting from the engineering firm employed by Grand Chute. Grand Chute Supervisor Ron Wolff talks with supporters in court following a motion hearing on Friday, January 26, 2024 in Outagmie County Circuit Court in Appleton, Wis. Judge Mark McGinnis ruled that Wolff will be allowed to make "good faith" affirmative defense in criminal trial. In June 2021, Wolff's landscaping company, Lake Shore Cleaners Inc., was hired by Grand Chute to do plantings around the ponds at the Champion Center. Wolff was charged in July with having private interest in a public contract, a Class I felony. Wolff's company submitted the only bid for the project. The town of Grand Chute authorized the quote June 1, after a unanimous vote that Wolff abstained from. Lakeshore Cleaners completed the work, and the town paid Wolff's company a total of $27,948 by December 2021. But Wisconsin law limits the amount of money a person in public office can make in a private contract to $15,000 in a year. According to a criminal complaint, the Grand Chute director of public works said no concerns were raised about the amount of the quote and Wolff's role on the town board until after the town approved the quote. Wolff told an investigator that then-town administrator Jim March researched potential issues with the project but informed Wolff that because of a statutory exemption related to soil erosion control, Wolff could move forward with the work. The director of public works also said they believed March found a soil erosion "loophole" in state statutes that made an exemption from the $15,000 limit. The complaint states that exemption was not applicable in this case. March also told an investigator Wolff claimed he had divested from his business before making his offer or doing the work at the Champion Center. However, "it was later revealed to the administrator that Wolff was actually in an ownership role in the company," the complaint states. What will each side argue? Wolff's attorney, Nathan Otis, may present evidence at trial that Wolff acted in good faith and his actions do not make him liable for a crime. Wolff had only been in office for a few weeks at the time he submitted his bid for the project, and was even informed by town officials that his actions were legal, Otis said at a motion hearing in January. Assistant Attorneys General Nathaniel Adamson and Robert Kaiser Jr., who are prosecuting the case, argue that as an elected official, Wolff had ethical obligations that he failed to follow and a month to understand what he was and was not permitted to do in his new role. RELATED: Grand Chute supervisor charged with felony allowed to present evidence he acted in 'good faith' A timeline of the case and related legal battles March 22, 2022: Agents from the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation executed search warrants on Wolff, a residence in Grand Chute, a residence in Nichols and Lakeshore Cleaners Inc., to search for evidence of misconduct in public office. March 30, 2022: Wolff and his wife, Karri Wolff, filed a federal lawsuit alleging their civil rights were violated when their properties were raided. May 2023: Former Town Administrator Jim March filed a federal lawsuit against Grand Chute, Town Chair Jason Van Eperen and supervisors Jeff Ings and Wolff, alleging March was fired in retaliation for cooperating with the state investigation into Wolff. The case is still ongoing. July 2023: Wolff was charged with having private interest in a public contract. October 2023: Wolff's federal lawsuit was dismissed. U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled the investigators' actions were protected under the doctrine of qualified immunity. December 2023: Wolff filed a counter-lawsuit to March's lawsuit, alleging March set him up to be charged with a crime for the Champion Center landscaping project. Wolff claims March planned to entrap Wolff either so Wolff would need to leave the Grand Chute Town Board or so that Wolff would abandon his political platform of abolishing Grand Chute's use of special assessments to pay for public improvements. Feb. 28-29, 2024: Wolff goes to trial. Kelli Arseneau can be reached at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @ArseneauKelli. This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Grand Chute town supervisor's trial begins today. Here's what to know LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) State environmental officials and city officials are working with a rail company to clean up a contamination of the Grand River near REO Town. 6 News was notified of the situation by a viewer at about 4:30 p.m. Scott Bean, spokesman for the city of Lansing, says the city is monitoring the situation. He says officials from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy are overseeing clean up. City officials and state environmental regulators check a railroad bridge in REO Town in Lansing. It is allegedly the source of contamination in the Grand River. (WLNS) The contamination, he says, came from a sealant being applied to railroad ties on a rail bridge that crosses the Grand River in REO Town, near the now-retired Eckert Power Plant. EGLE officials confirmed they were on the scene. This embedded content is not available in your region. Our folks got a citizen report of this this afternoon and are on scene, EGLE Spokesman Hugh McDiarmid tells 6 News in an email. Apparently. the railroad company painted the ties on the railroad bridge that the pipe runs alongside, and it is dripping into the river. McDiarmid says the company was applying creosote. Creosote is a brown to black oily liquid with a penetrating smoky odor, the Material Safety Data Sheet on the chemical explains. Vapor causes moderate to severe irritation of eyes, nose, throat and respiratory tract. Liquid can cause burning and itching with reddening of the skin, which is accentuated by sunlight. NCFS_445 Creosote Coal TarDownload It is unclear how much creosote got into the river. 6 News has reached out to CN, the company that owns the railroad bridge, and is waiting for a response. This story will be updated with more information as it becomes available. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WLNS 6 News. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which is situated at the Lincoln Center, announced its forthcoming exhibition celebrating the Friedman Abeles Studio's theatre photography through the charmingly innovative presentation of lenticular prints. Dubbed "Reanimating Theater: The Photography of Friedman-Abeles," the show will also feature an "animated" version of varying sets of photos depicting famed and ever-beloved classic Broadway productions. The exhibition will open next month, March 15, and will run until Sept. 25. Friedman-Abeles Studio's Expansive History in Broadway Starting from 1954 until 1970, the Friedman-Abeles Studio visually documented a huge chunk of their overall productions in New York's Main Stem. Many of the studio's photos known to the public were shot in black-and-white, however, it also produced a series of colored photographs for many of the shows, which was eventually acquired by the Library for the Performing Arts in the form of colored slides. One primary factor that prevented the studio from properly mass-producing copies of the hued images was the astronomical costs that were tied with it during the pre-digital era, which meant only a limited selection was ever publicized through magazines, album liners, or otherwise. That said, the Public Library has been toiling continuously in the past three years to digitize the studio's entire photo collection, comprising of the negatives taken from tens of shows alongside the aforementioned color slides. Because of this momentous effort, the images can now be uniquely showcased during the forthcoming exhibition by "animating" them using lenticular printing technology to simulate movements using numerous shots. Highlighted shows include Broadway mainstays like the inaugural productions of "Camelot," "West Side Story," and "Bye, Bye Birdie." Supporters of the Library's digitization initiative comprise the Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Estate of June Reig Maxwell, The Schloss Family Foundation, and the Frederick Loewe Foundation, Inc. In addition, the New York institution also recognizes the operational support of both Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman, alongside exhibition-related assistance given by Judy R. and Alfred A. Rosenberg and the Miriam and Harold Steinberg Foundation. Read Also: Auction to Feature Correspondence from Pattie Boyd, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison Amidst 'Love Triangle' 2024 Classicalite All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. University students from across the country demonstrate at the site of Greece's deadliest train crash, in Tempi By Renee Maltezou and Yannis Souliotis ATHENS (Reuters) - After 57 people were killed in Greece's worst train disaster a year ago, the government promised to fix a system crumbling from decades of neglect. "Trains will resume operations with safety at the maximum possible level," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said weeks after the crash. One year on, however, crash experts and railway officials say little has been done to significantly improve train safety, despite mounting evidence that system deficiencies helped cause the accident. Remote train control and communication systems, mandatory under European Union law, are still not functioning, officials told Reuters. Railway staff numbers at the main rail operator have fallen since the crash, and those remaining await fresh training. A lack of reform to Greece's fragmented railway management has slowed progress, they said. The situation worries experts who say that Greece's rail network is prone to future accidents if safety is not improved. Meanwhile, grieving families and survivors demand answers. "We haven't learned our lesson and haven't acted," said Costas Lakafossis, an accident investigator commissioned by victims' relatives. "Unfortunately, the railway is not in a better state." The Greek transport ministry told Reuters it is implementing a comprehensive plan to revamp the railway and that there has been significant progress in upgrading railway safety, despite extensive damage caused by flooding in September. Panagiotis Terezakis, head of Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE) which operates the rail network, says it is safe. The OSE had installed 300 infrared cameras in tunnels since the crash and had made progress on the installation of safety systems. He acknowledged, though, that more needs to be done. OSE has 640 employees, according to unions, fewer than 2023 and half the number in 2013. It plans to hire 90 people next month and up to 500 soon, Terezakis said, adding that the OSE employs 0.4 workers per km of rail, nearly half the EU average. "This is a railway system which for the past 15 years has been in decline. You cannot resurrect it within a year," he told Reuters, adding that red tape remained a big hurdle. "I have a degree in engineering. I am not God." SYSTEMS LACKING On Feb. 28, 2023, a passenger train packed with students collided head-on with a freight train just before midnight on a line linking Athens with Greece's second city Thessaloniki. The crash, the country's deadliest in history, triggered protests across Greece, where it was seen as the result of a wider neglect of public services following a decade-long financial crisis. The government promised reform. It commissioned an investigation, seen by Reuters, which found that the crash might have been averted if two key systems had been in place: ETCS, which can remotely control a train's speed and its brakes; and GSM-R, a wireless network allowing communication between station masters, train drivers and traffic controllers. GSM-R is still not activated on all trains, two OSE officials told Reuters. The ETCS has been installed across rail tracks, after a nine-year delay, but is not operational as it has not been added to trains pending certification, four OSE workers and officials told Reuters. An EU prosecutor has charged 18 Greek public officials for over multiple, illegal extensions to the project. Flooding later damaged telecom systems across a 90-km section on the same Athens-Thessaloniki route. The cost to restore it is estimated at 450 million euros by the government. "The situation remains largely the same, unfortunately," said Nikolaos Tsikalakis, head of the workers union at OSE. The EU Agency for Railways completed a safety assessment last year, whose draft findings were seen by Reuters. It said EU regulations were not implemented correctly in Greece, while underfunding and a complex system of overlapping agencies had slowed change. "There appears to be no entity in Greece taking on overall responsibility to ensure railway safety," the draft said. A planned merger of OSE and its subsidiaries will help address administration issues, the transport ministry said. HAUNTING Survivors and relatives are still haunted. Maria Karistianou, who lost her 20-year-old daughter in the disaster, says politicians must assume responsibility for a crash caused also by systemic deficiencies. So far, about 800,000 people have signed a petition to scrap laws protecting ministers from prosecution. "The state is still playing with our pain, our grieving and undermines the entire society," Karistianou told Reuters. Survivors said they were suffering from post-traumatic stress and struggling with haunting nightmares, according to five lawsuits against the state, seen by Reuters. A year later, they are still experiencing the same stress, their lawyers said. Crash survivor Stavroula Kapsali said everything has changed in her life - she cannot sleep and is constantly frightened. She has not been on trains since the crash, fearing they are not safe. "How can you not pay attention to systems providing passenger safety?" she said. "I feel I left a piece of myself in there...The burden is huge." (Additional reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and Angeliki Koutantou in Athens, Alexandros Avramidis in Thesaloniki; editing by Edward McAllister and Mark Heinrich) A man places a stuffed toy in a makeshift memorial near the building that caught fire, in Valencia By Catarina Demony MADRID (Reuters) - Hamid Ali Jafari, whose father died in the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London, travelled to the Spanish city of Valencia this week to support those affected by a huge blaze there and urged authorities to act to avoid similar tragedies in the future. "My life has been destroyed," said 41-year-old Jafari, part of the Grenfell Next of Kin group supporting those who lost relatives in the fire. "We are traumatised ... when we see a fire, we can't sleep." The Grenfell fire killed 72 people and combustible cladding system retro-fitted to the tower's external walls was the main factor in the unstoppable spread of the flames. The Valencia blaze broke out last Thursday and engulfed the apartment block within half an hour. Ten people died and their bodies will be handed to families on Tuesday, according to a court statement. Authorities are yet to establish what caused the fire, while experts have said plastic or mineral materials used in the composite cladding on the facade likely contributed to the rapid spread of the blaze. "Why are countries ignoring cladding? Are they waiting for more lives to be lost?" Jafari questioned, while David O'Connell of the same group called for a concerted action to remove cladding. The building's administrator, Loradmi, said it was seeking answers as to how the cladding, which was sold to them by developers as fireproof, burned the way it did. "We have to ban these flammable materials ... because now it happened in Valencia but we don't know (where it will happen) tomorrow," said Mirko Berti, in Valencia representing the Comitato Antonini 32 group of tenants of a Milan apartment block that was destroyed by a fire in 2021. According to Fire Safe Europe, construction requirements vary significantly from country to country, leading to an "unequal level" of fire safety for citizens. "There needs to be a global ban," said Kimi Zabihyan, also an advocate at Grenfell Next of Kin. "We are sick and tired of people who just talk... we want action." (Reporting by Catarina Demony; Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Andrei Khalip, William Maclean) After years of complaints from CTA riders and aldermen about the transit agencys ability to provide frequent, reliable and safe service, President Dorval Carter told members of Chicago City Council more service would be added in just the next few weeks. CTA officials said when they unveiled their budget last fall they planned to add back service in 2024 from pandemic-era cuts, but offered few details at the time about when and how they would do so. They elaborated on the timeline Tuesday. The agency expects to begin adding more buses and trains in April, when it next addresses service as part of a regular union employee scheduling process, spokesman Brian Steele confirmed. He declined to say by how much service could increase at that time, saying that information would be coming closer to the changes. Still, the promise of more frequent train and bus service did not stop aldermen from grilling the embattled Carter about his leadership and the challenges that have plagued his agency in recent years, including so-called ghost buses and trains, long wait times and concerns about personal safety, both real and perceived. When people bring up their concerns about reliability and safety, it is because we know that every Chicagoan that has a doubt about whether they should get on the train or a bus to get somewhere leads to less dollars for that system, leads to what may feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy about that system degrading rather than improving, said outspoken CTA critic Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th. Carter spoke before aldermen as part of a new requirement that CTA officials appear for quarterly City Council committee hearings. Aldermen tried for a year to require Carter and CTA officials to regularly testify before they succeeded, after Carter failed to show up for a 2022 council hearing and instead sent other agency officials. Council members have taken an increasing interest in the CTA in recent years as complaints mounted and experts outlined the costs to the city of unreliable transit. The CTAs relationship with elected officials is also taking on heightened importance as the agency, like others in the region and across the country, faces a looming financial cliff when federal pandemic aid runs out, and transit agencies look to Springfield for solutions. Among the challenges the CTA has faced are cutbacks in service as the agency struggled to hire and retain enough staff to operate buses and trains. The CTA slashed schedules on some train lines by as much as 25% to 30% compared with 2019 service levels, an October Tribune analysis found. The cuts have left riders with long wait times and crowded buses and trains. The rate of violent crime on CTA trains has dropped, but in 2023 remained higher than prepandemic levels, the Tribune found in a separate analysis. Chicago police and the CTA have sent more officers, unarmed security guards and K-9 teams to the train system, but crime, and the perception of crime, remain a key issue for riders and elected officials. Just this weekend, a man sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl who was riding on an inbound Purple Line train, according to police. The girl was taken to a hospital to be evaluated. Police arrested and charged Austin resident Anfernee Thomas, 27, with criminal aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He was denied pretrial release Tuesday. Ald. Samantha Nugent, 39th, pointed to the Saturday evening attack and the fatal early January assault of a 61-year-old woman on the Red Line, criticizing Carter for not acknowledging the crimes in his remarks before she mentioned them. We have to have these conversations. People arent going to use transit if they dont feel safe, she said. Another challenge aldermen questioned was a seeming uptick in people living on trains, as those sheltering on transit became more visible when the number of office commuters dropped and as finding space in shelters or other typically reliable options became challenging. Carter highlighted $2 million the CTA is paying to the citys Department of Family and Support Services for outreach work. But there has also been welcome news for the CTA. Carter said ridership has improved, with the CTA providing 279 million rides last year, a 14% increase from 2022. In 2019, the CTA provided nearly 456 million rides. Still, despite Carters defenses, the bevy of challenges have mounted into concerns among aldermen over his leadership of the agency. The Tribune asked each alderman who attended Tuesdays hearing if they thought the the CTA needed new leadership. Twelve said yes, while only two said no. Chicago is a world-class city. And to be a world-class city, we need a world-class public transportation system, said Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th, while calling for stronger City Council oversight. What I heard today is that is not happening. Many of the roughly three dozen advocates who came to the meeting criticized Carter for reportedly not taking public transit. Carter rejected the claim and swiped back at the crowd and the aldermen who questioned how frequently he and his staff ride. I dare say we know our system better than most people who criticize us, Carter said. His comment was met by shouts from the crowd. But as public speakers and aldermen jabbed, Carter remained steadfastly bullish on the transit systems future. Its unfair to judge the CTA on its unavoidable pandemic struggles, he told Sigcho-Lopez, and transits issues will improve. He promised rail service would be restored to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year and set his targets for daily ridership at 2 million over double current ridership and beyond levels seen in 2019. Were gonna blow through what our previous high was when we get our system fully up and running again and when we get the resources that we need, he said. Staffing has been a key issue behind the CTAs service challenges, as the agency struggles to hire and retain enough employees to operate buses and trains more frequently. Most recently attrition of rail operators has been a particular challenge, and Carter outlined a plan to add 200 new train operators this year. He said that number of operators would allow the agency to return its service levels and stay ahead of attrition. Operators are promoted from within the ranks of existing rail employees and Carter said there are nearly enough employees in the ranks ready to fill the positions, with more being added, but they need to be trained to drive trains. In January, the CTA had 730 total rail employees, or six more than in January 2023 as the number of rail employees fluctuated month to month. Prepandemic, 880 employees worked in rail operations, according to CTA data. The agency had about 3,600 bus operators in January, about 400 more than the previous year but still short of the 3,800 employed prepandemic. Still short on staff, Carter also looked to the future and conversations in Springfield about what the future of transit in Chicago might look like. His goal, he said, is to get the CTA on par with transit systems considered some of the best in the world. I havent said that this past year was the best transit system in the history of CTA. What Ive said is this past year has been an attempt for us to stabilize and get us up to the point that we need to be, he said. Judge me on what I do this year, because this is the year where youre going to start to see everything come back. Olentangy Local School District is asking voters to approve a three-part levy package in the March primary that includes 4.25 mills to build more schools, including a fifth high school, because of all the growth. The district's 17th elementary school building, Peachblow Crossing, is seen under construction in this November 2023 Dispatch photo. Olentangy Local School District is growing so fast that officials there expect to add another 5,000 students over the next 10 years. The 95-square-mile district, mostly in Delaware County but a part of which is in Franklin County, is already the state's largest suburban district and the fourth largest in the state with 24,071 students as of Feb. 15. That kind of growth is the prime reason why school officials placed a three-part levy issue on the March 19 primary ballot that includes 4.25 mills in property taxes that would allow the district to borrow up to $350 million to build three elementary schools, a middle school and the district's fifth high school. "That's our biggest challenge. Its to manage enrollment growth," said Todd Meyer, Olentangy's superintendent. Olentangy is among several districts in central Ohio that have issues on the ballot, all having to do with growth. Here is a list of major ones. You'll read that they are similar issues: Olentangy Local Schools plan to build five more schools, including a new high school, if district voter approve a 4.25-mill levy package on March 19. Olentangy Local schools levy package The 4.25-mill levy is actually two issues. The first, a 3-mill operating levy, would bring in $19 million a year and go toward operating costs such as staff salaries. The second part, a 1.25-mill permanent improvement levy, would generate about $7.9 million a year toward maintenance, repair and upkeep of facilities. It will cost homeowners an additional $148.75 per $100,000 of value, Olentangy Treasurer Ryan Jenkins said. Meyer and others have been traveling the district, meeting with community organizations and residents in homes. He said enrollment throughout the district has grown by 300 just since the beginning of the school year. He said 12 of the 16 elementary schools are running at or over capacity a 17th elementary is already under construction as are two of the four high schools. By the 2025-2026 school year, all four high schools will be over capacity, he said. If the issue passes, Meyer said, these will be locations for the new schools, along with when they should open: The district's 18th elementary school would be built on 25 acres on Bean Oller Road just west of Sawmill Road (2025-26). The 19th elementary school would be built on 20 acres adjacent to Berkshire Middle School. (2025-26) The district's fifth high school, not yet named, would be built on 139 acres on Bunty Station Road (2027-28). The seventh middle school and 20 elementary school would be built on 54 acres on Curve Road. (2028-29). Jenkins said that although property values in the district rose an average of 34% after the 2023 county reappraisal, the average tax increase would be 5-7%. If the levy package is approved, he said the additional tax would cost the owner of a $400,000 house about $600 a year. Teays Valley Local Schools bond issue The Teays Valley school district, centered in northeast Pickaway County but including part of Franklin County, is asking voters to approve a 5.3-mill bond issue to raise $96.5 million to construct new buildings and make improvements to others. If voters approve it, the district will build two intermediate schools for grades 4-6. One will be built on the campus of Teays Valley East Middle School. The other will be built on the campus of Teays Valley West Middle School and Scioto Elementary School. The existing elementary schools will become pre-K through third grade. The two middle schools will become seventh- and eighth-grade buildings. "We're running out of space," Teays Valley Superintendent Kyle Wolfe said. The 154-sqaure-mile district now has 4,545 students, he said, growing by 783 the past 10 years and projected to grow by another 800 over the next 10 years. He said South Bloomfield Elementary School now has four modular classrooms, while Walnut Elementary School has two modular classrooms and is preparing to add another one for the 2024-25 school year. And the West Middle School is running out of space. Heath City Schools bond issue and levy Heath City Schools in Licking County is asking voters to approve a bond issue and levy to build a new elementary school. The new school would be on the current Stevenson Elementary School property on Cynthia Street. The money also would be used to renovate, improve, and expand current schools. A. 5.3-mill bond issue would replace a bond for the construction of what is now a 22-year-old high school, Superintendent Trevor Thomas said. The issue also includes a 4.75-mill levy to raise money for acquisition, construction, enlargement, renovation, and financing of permanent improvements. If approved, that would cost an additional $166 for each $100,000 of appraised value. Growth is affecting the Heath district too, Thomas said. He mentioned 1,800 housing units being built on more than 300 acres off Central Parkway. "This is a step we can take," he said. Fairbanks Local Schools income tax and levy The Fairbanks school district in Union and Madison counties is asking voters to approve a 0.25% income tax hike and a 1.85-mill property tax to raise $23 million to complete renovating the shared middle and high school building, adding 19,000 square feet to the front of the building, a 12,000-square-foot gymnasium, and other work. Anticipated growth is the reason, Superintendent Adham Schirg said. He said district officials have gone through a master planning process with the community since 2021. Madison-Plains Local Schools bond issue Madison Plains Local Schools, located largely in Madison County but partially in Franklin County, is seeking approval of a 5.4-mill bond issue that would raise $55.36 million to build a pre-K though grade 12 building on the current campus. If approved, it would cost homeowners an additional $189 in property taxes for each $100,000 of county appraised value. Voters rejected a bond issue for the project in November, Superintendent Scott Hartley said. North Fork Local Schools bond issue The 7.1-mill bond issue would raise $58 million for a new middle school building, and renovating, improving and expanding existing schools in the district, which is located in Licking and Knox counties and has 1,656 students. If passed, the issue would cost property owners an additional $249 per $100,000 of their county auditor's appraised value in the first year and $185 per $100,000 starting in the second year. Voters rejected the bond issue in November. mferench@dispatch.com @MarkFerenchik This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Growth pushes Olentangy, other schools to seek more taxes Former Guinean opposition leader Mamadou Oury Bah has been appointed prime minister by the country's military junta, a week after it abruptly dissolved the government. His appointment comes amid growing dissatisfaction with the junta. Two people were killed on Monday after police clashed with protesters during a nationwide workers' strike. Trade unions have been demanding lower food prices as Guineans struggle with the high cost of living. Mr Bah, popularly known in Guinea as Bah Oury, has urged the unions to call off the strike and "highlight what we can do together to solve the big challenges gradually, step by step". The trained economist is expected to not only set up a new government to replace the one that was dismissed, but also take steps to alleviate the economic hardships facing millions of Guineans. The swearing-in of the new prime minister was witnessed by interim President Mamady Doumbouya, who led Guinea's armed forces to overthrow elected President Alpha Conde in September 2021. Mr Bah, 65, has been a popular fixture in Guinean politics since the early 1990s. In 1991, he founded the country's main opposition party, the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), from which he was later expelled. He went on to lead the Union of Democrats for the Rebirth of Guinea (UDRG) party. In 2007, he was appointed minister of national reconciliation in a consensus government. Mr Bah then spent four years exiled in France after he was implicated in a 2011 attack on President Conde's home, but returned home in 2016 after the president pardoned him. Guinea is expected to hold elections to restore democratic rule in 10 months, when the 24-month transition period set by the junta and regional bloc Ecowas expires. The junta and opposition have been in a stalemate over the transition to civilian rule, but many Guineans hope that Mr Bah's political experience will be instrumental in resolving the political and economic crises. You may also be interested in: Map showing the location of Chad's intelligence services in the capital N'Djamena, which was the target of an attack, the government said Wednesday. (Valentina BRESCHI) A "general search" of vehicles and passersby was under way late Wednesday in Chad's capital after gunfire erupted near an opposition party's headquarters. The sound of automatic weapons fire earlier in the day prompted people to leave the area in the centre of N'Djamena where the Socialist Party Without Borders' (PSF) main office had been surrounded by the army. Presidential guard trucks were also seen headed towards the party HQ, an AFP journalist saw. The government has accused the party of being responsible for a deadly attack earlier in the week on the internal security agency. PSF head Yaya Dillo, a fierce opponent of Chad's transitional president, his cousin Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, denied any involvement in the Tuesday night attack, which left several people dead. Speaking to AFP, he called the accusation a "lie", saying: "I wasn't present". "The desired goal is to prevent me, to physically eliminate me... to make me afraid so that I don't go to the election," Dillo said. The attack came a day after the announcement that Chad will hold a presidential election on May 6, which both Deby Itno and Dillo intend to contest. "Anyone looking to disturb the democratic process under way in the country will be prosecuted and brought to justice," the government said Wednesday. The UN special representative for Central Africa said in a statement he was following events "with great concern" and called on "all stakeholders to show calm and restraint". Prime Minister Succes Masra spoke of "unfortunate and painful moments" in a post on the social media platform X. Masra, a former opposition leader recently appointed by the transitional president, "expressed his total and unconditional support for the head of state" and the defence forces. Since around midday Wednesday, the phone networks and internet were disrupted, according to AFP journalists. The attack on the security offices came after a PSF member was arrested and accused of an "assassination attempt against the president of the supreme court", a government statement said. "The situation is now completely under control," the government said. "The perpetrators of this act have been arrested or are being sought and will be prosecuted." Dillo had earlier also condemned the allegations of an attempted attack against the supreme court president as "staged". - New constitution - Deby Itno was proclaimed transitional president after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, was killed while fighting rebels in 2021. The elder Deby Itno had come to power in a 1990 coup and ruled with an iron fist for three decades. Mahamat Deby Itno promised to hand power back to civilians and organise elections within 18 months, but subsequently added another two years of transition. The end of the transition period was pushed back to October 10 this year. The opposition has asked the transitional president not to run for office in the central African country, which is the second-least developed in the world, according to the United Nations. Leading opposition and civil society grouping Wakit Tamma has accused the international community, and former colonial ruler France in particular, of supporting "dynastic succession". Dillo was a candidate for the presidency in 2021 against his uncle, Idriss Deby Itno. He fled the country in February of that year after security forces attempted to arrest him at his home. The commando-style raid left several dead including his mother and one of his sons. He was accused by the regime of Idriss Deby Itno of making corruption accusations against the first lady. In mid-January, the ruling (MPS) party designated the transitional leader as its candidate for the presidential election. He had told the African Union he would not run, but a constitution adopted in a December referendum allows him to do so. yas-lnf/kjm/mtp/lb GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) A new program coming to Grand Valley State University looks to bring in students not out of high school, but from the workforce. The university recently announced its new Omni program aimed at adults who are in need of a more flexible way to receive higher education. The model has begun offering courses this semester and will open up to more in the fall. The program was implemented to help serve the 2.5 million Michiganders who do not have a post-secondary credential. The idea is that with some form of certificate of higher education, students would be able to continue moving to bigger and better positions in their respective careers. The why is really our statewide need without a doubt, GVSU President Philomena Mantella said. If you look at where jobs are emerging and where jobs are going away, its going to be really critically important to have the kind of academic background that a baccalaureate degree or skills bundles that come in a baccalaureate education available to all of us, to all learners, at all ages and stages. Omni will be led by former GVSU Vice Provost Kara Van Dam. The program will give adult learners a chance to earn credits toward a degree through both online and in-person classes. Being able to offer a hybrid learning style was not only necessary, according to Mantella, but also suited GVSU perfectly. Most individuals who maybe have a job and family and a house have commitments to a region, want to select an institution within 100 miles of their home or workplace. Grand Valley, when you look at all of our regional campuses, were within 100 miles of 97% of the states population, she said. The universitys approach to the program was to not only provide a new way of attending college but to also change how we as a society view the options many are given after high school. We have got to stop thinking about either work or learning but start thinking about ways to integrate the two, Mantella said. This has been designed so that people can get a reasonable-sized academic bundle that brings them to the next level but always gives you a currency toward a degree. So that when you continue to keep going, you have what you worked on before. For more information on Omni, click here. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. Hackers set a ransom deadline of Thursday morning to release Fulton County court documents. They claim the documents include files related to the criminal case against Donald Trump. The hacking group was shut down by law enforcement earlier this month, but they appear to be back up. The hacking group responsible for taking down Fulton County's websites in Georgia is threatening to publish documents from the state's court system including ones related to the criminal case against Donald Trump unless it gets paid a ransom. In a message posted online Saturday, in both English and Russian, the hacking group called LockBit said the stolen documents "contain a lot of interesting things and Donald Trump's court cases that could affect the upcoming US election." Initially, LockBit set a Saturday, March 2, deadline for the payment, according to the cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs. It has since moved up that deadline to 8:49 a.m. ET on Thursday, February 29, LockBit's restored website shows. It's not clear how much money the group is demanding. The hacking group's demands are often negotiated in private, Dan Schiappa, the chief product officer at the cybersecurity firm Arctic Wolf, said. The group led by a hacker using the pseudonym LockBitSupp appeared to become operational again over the weekend after a February 20 law-enforcement raid. A group of agencies, including the FBI and the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency, took down 34 of its servers and changed its website to a series of messages bragging about the law-enforcement operation. The same day, the US Department of Justice unsealed an indictment accusing two Russian nationals of being involved in the group's hacking operations. By Saturday, LockBit was back. On a new website, the group posted a message claiming it had backup copies of documents taken from the Fulton County government's website. It also renewed its ransom demands. The post claimed that the FBI acted quickly because the leak of documents in Trump's criminal case could affect the 2024 presidential election although court documents show that the FBI's investigation into LockBit and coordination with international law-enforcement agencies has been ongoing for years. It characterized LockBit's relationship with the FBI as a sort of romantic rivalry and promised that the group would hack more government websites in the future. "Personally I will vote for Trump because the situation on the border with Mexico is some kind of nightmare, Biden should retire, he is a puppet," the message said. LockBit works with affiliates to hack companies and government agencies LockBit's targets go far beyond just the Fulton County government. As of Wednesday, it had ongoing ransom demands for 11 different companies on its website in addition to the one for Fulton County. Over the years, the hacking group has targeted over 2,000 victims and obtained over $120 million in ransom funds, according to the Justice Department. Its targets in recent years include Boeing, the UK's National Health Service and Royal Mail, and the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The group doesn't always conduct hacks itself, according to law-enforcement agencies. It operates on a service model, in which it develops sophisticated ransomware hacking tools and leases them out to other hackers to deploy against targets, taking a cut of the ransom. Former U.S. President Donald Trump boards his private airplane, also known as Trump Force One, as he departs Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport after being booked at the Fulton County jail on August 24, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. Trump surrendered to multiple charges related to an alleged plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Joe Raedle/Getty Images It's not clear which other organizations may be working with LockBit on the Fulton County hack. LockBit has claimed to be "completely apolitical" in the past, Oz Alashe, the CEO and founder of the cybersecurity firm CybSafe, said. But it is also deeply involved in the Russian cybercrime scene, Krebs said. Because it works with so many different affiliates, its motives are hard to discern, Alashe told Business Insider. "Even if one could discern the organization's motives outside of the obvious financial one, the same cannot be said for all its partners and affiliates," Alashe said. Alashe said that LockBit's more overt political messages taking a shot at Biden and expressing support for Trump shouldn't necessarily be taken literally. "It's always difficult to discern the meaning of messages like the one published by LockBit on Saturday," he said. "Whether the declaration of support for Trump is genuine, posturing aimed at taunting what they see as 'strong competitors and the FBI,' or even an attempt to grab headlines, we don't know." Authorities appeared to negotiate with hackers earlier Fulton County's computer systems were taken down in a hack on January 27, leaving some of its services down for weeks. Its court website still isn't fully operational. Officials have put up a separate web page with filings in the case for the public to access in lieu of the official court docket. The hack has resonated nationally because of the charges against Trump. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has charged the former president and more than a dozen of his allies with racketeering in connection to the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 federal election in Georgia. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him; several codefendants have pleaded guilty to their own charges. It's not clear whether LockBit is in possession of any court documents in the Trump case that are not already part of the public record. George Chidi, an Atlanta-based independent journalist, reported earlier this month that a sampling of files published by LockBit includes sealed court records in other unrelated cases. A Fulton County court administration spokesperson declined to comment. The earlier countdown timer, which had been set for February 16, disappeared from LockBit's site that day without offering a link to download files from the hack. Such removals normally happen when extortion targets pay ransom or are in negotiations to pay it, Krebs said. Fulton County DA Fani Willis. Pool Schiappa, the Arctic Wolf executive, told Business Insider that there was nothing usual about the situation. LockBit might be attempting to maintain its credibility with its hacking affiliate organizations in the wake of the law-enforcement raid earlier this month, he said. "LockBit built its image on being loud and garnering the attention of other groups that wanted assurance that they could conduct business with them unhindered," Schiappa told Business Insider. "The law-enforcement action presents a threat to that narrative. The more attention that the group can focus on anything other than the fact that their image was compromised by law enforcement, the more likely that they will be able to salvage their image with affiliates and continue operations." At a press conference on February 20, Robb Pitts, the Fulton County commission chair, said no ransom was paid. "We did not pay, nor did anyone pay on our behalf," Pitts said during the briefing. In Saturday's message, LockBit said its "partner" was in "negotiations" over the ransom, but they had "stalled." Pitts didn't respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. On Tuesday, county officials told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that it would not pay a ransom. "Our focus remains on safely restoring services for our citizens and we continue to work in close coordination with law enforcement," a county spokesperson said in a statement. An FBI representative declined to comment. Although LockBit appeared to recover from the law-enforcement takedown earlier this month, its reputation has been severely damaged, Schiappa said. Its grandstanding messages about the FBI may be a way to shore that up. "We expect that LockBit will suffer consequences from this law-enforcement action," Schiappa said. "Their attempts to establish new partnerships will be challenging with the cloud of this takedown looming over them and tarnishing their reputation." The renewed ransom threat comes as Willis' investigation is beleaguered by a series of hearings playing out in a Fulton County courtroom. A judge is hearing testimony from several of her associates and Willis herself over the question of whether the district attorney had an improper relationship with a prosecutor she hired to work on the Trump case. The judge may decide to remove Willis from the case, which would be a significant setback for the prosecution. This story has been updated. Correction: February 28, 2024 An earlier version of this story misidentified a cybersecurity reporter in the story. His name is Brian Krebs, not Christopher Krebs. Read the original article on Business Insider Situated in London's Truman Brewery is Migrate Art's most recent project called "From the Ashes," a thought-provoking exhibition featuring 29 Indigenous and non-Indigenous-made artworks that were mainly painted using pigments, inks, and pastels extracted from "the burnt remnants of the Amazon." According to the London-based social enterprise's public release, the show started last Feb. 21 until last Sunday, Feb. 25, and is a collaborative effort between Migrate Art and the art research center, People's Palace Projects. All proceeds from the show will go towards funding the development of fire deterrent solutions on behalf of the Indigenous communities in the direct line of fire. By March, the artworks will then go under the hammer in a Christie's London sale with singular estimates ranging from$2,530 (2,000) at the low end and over $63,440 (50,000) at the high end. The Mounting Destruction of the Great Amazon Rainforest Simon Butler, Migrate Art's Founder and "From the Ashes" participating artist, was quoted by the release saying: "We keep 20% of what we make, that's for overheads and rent. The rest of it goes to the Indigenous Xingu community, primarily for firefighting equipment." "All these ideas of what to do with the money, they're not coming from us, they're coming from the community themselves," he continued. "When we were there, we had meetings with them and they talked about the fire brigade they wanted to develop, and they also talked about regrowing trees and reforesting." Apart from the ever-enchanting and arcane aesthetics that the Amazon rainforest possesses, it is also a core element of the world's natural system that diminishes carbon emissions, which it does by trapping and storing these greenhouse gasses. Now, the expansive greenery of the Amazon is threatened with eradication, with a study suggesting that the current downward state of the wildlife expanse could be irreversible by 2050. Amazon-Aid, a non-profit with the mission to prevent this worst-case scenario from happening, said that the main root instigator of all the wildfires can be traced back to the deforestation that logging and other brash economic opportunities contribute. Read Also: NY Public Library to Exhibit Friedman-Abeles Theatre Photography: Highlights Purlie, Camelot, West Side Story How Art Can Pave the Way to the Amazon Rainforest's Restoration Butler first visited the enchanting rainforest and its Indigenous Xingu communities two years back, which allowed him to survey the extent of the damages from the wildfires. In Butler's own words, the horrific scene looked akin to a "red desert that looked like the end of the world." After seeing first-hand the possible desolate wake that could cover the expanse of the Amazon rainforest, Butler said that he was sure that change had to be made and that he had to try in the best way he knew: by utilizing art. By using the art social enterprise's past projects as inspiration like "Scorched Earth," which mainly showcased art made using battlefield ash like the ones from Iraqi Kurdistan, Migrate Art's concept for the "From the Ashes" exhibition was born. In preparation, Butler then collected the charred remains of the rainforest and brought them back to London to be processed into pigments, inks, and other art materials. Artists who signed up for the forthcoming exhibition were then given the appropriate art materials to make their show-specific artworks. One such artist was the British painter Piers Secunda, who depicted a smoke-covered scenery in the Amazon using the black ink that Butler provided. Of the upcoming exhibition, Secunda said: "These art advocacy actions are grains of sand which build a pile. For now, the pile is small, but it is growing and will become substantial." Read More: Auction to Feature Correspondence from Pattie Boyd, Eric Clapton, and George Harrison Amidst 'Love Triangle' 2024 Classicalite All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. With the mayor saying that tens of thousands of migrants are overrunning the community, Hialeahs City Council voted Tuesday to admonish the Biden administrations open border policies and demand that the federal government put tighter restrictions in place to stem the flow of people coming from the southern border to northwest Miami-Dade County. We are seeing thousands and thousands of people crossing the border and coming to places like this city. And for this reason we need to scream so we are heard. And we are hoping that this resolution does that, Council President Jesus Tundidor told reporters. The resolution, proposed by Councilman Bryan Calvo and approved by a 5-0 vote, states that the influx of migrants has brought significant social and economic challenges to the city, and that Hialeah has not received the money and support it needs to address the resulting problems. Council members Carl Zogby and Monica Perez were absent. The vote by Hialeahs City Council which in November named one of the citys principal avenues after Trump echoes criticisms from top Republican leaders and conservative detractors in Washington and elsewhere who say the border is open and out of control. The Biden administration has rolled out a package of policies to curb irregular immigration amid historic numbers at the U.S.-Mexico border. It has created family reunification programs and a parole process for several Latin American and Caribbean countries, announced further border wall construction and struck deals to deport non-Mexicans to Mexico. Biden, who like Trump is visiting the southern border on Thursday, is also currently considering limiting asylum access there. A bipartisan immigration bill, criticized on both sides of the aisle in Washington, fell through earlier this month after Trump encouraged Republicans to oppose it so that he could continue to hammer Biden over immigration an issue that a majority of voters are identifying as a very serious problem. Mayor Esteban Bovo, who co-sponsored Tuesdays resolution, requested that the document mention that the city is conducting a series of immigration workshops intended to help officials understand the impact of migrant arrivals in Hialeah, the first of which took place on Monday. While officials have yet to clearly link limited data of increases in city services to an uptick in migrant arrivals, Bovo has pointed fingers at newly arrived migrants for exacerbating Hialeahs housing problems. READ MORE: How a migrant influx is causing tensions in one of the most Hispanic cities in the U.S. He estimates that from the over 420,000 Cubans that have come to the U.S. in recent years, roughly 150,000 or more have ended up in Hialeah, which according to the U.S. Census had about 220,000 residents as of two years ago. Nothing here should be construed as anti-immigrant, in any shape or form, Bovo told reporters after the Monday workshop. My job is to make sure that the money that comes into the coffers of the city are being invested in the right possible way. I need to get an understanding of whos in our city. Fuzzy numbers When asked how the arrival of new migrants is affecting the city, Tundidor said that Hialeah is facing a scarcity of housing that is fueling the illegal home market, as more people rent RVs to live in them. He also mentioned petty crimes. If you have many people in the city, maybe they dont have a work permit, cant find jobs, they start to walk around and they get in trouble, he said. Police Chief George Fuente did not mention data on petty crimes at Mondays forum. Rather, Hialeah officials reported an increase in citations for driving without a valid license, bus rides, arrests of homeless people and the use of illegal units, including RVs. The mayor said that from 2022 to 2023 the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles issued 40,000 drivers licenses to immigrants with zip code in Hialeah, compared to 34,000 licenses for non-immigrants. View of a recreational vehicle in East Hialeah. The city approved a restrictive ordinance to prevent the use of RVs being rented as alternative housing. Hialeah, FL, Tuesday, September 26, 2023 The Police Department noted a 4% rise in calls for their services, as well as a notable rise in traffic accidents. The building department reported an increase in housing code violations. Fire department spokesman Paul Garcia said crews recently received an emergency call that led them to an undocumented person who was living in a storage container and experiencing a heart attack. We understand that this is going to lead to personnel shortages, because if theres more people that we need to attend to, that means we need to add trucks and personnel, said Garcia. Fuente called the uptick in service-related calls an obvious sign that we have many more individuals living or visiting the City of Hialeah, but acknowledged that he didnt know whether they were a result of new residents from outside the United States. What I can decipher with those numbers is that there is more population, but I cant tell you if that population is migrant or not, he said. Hialeah, Florida, February 26, 2024 - Chief George Fuentes of the Hialeah Police Department speaks during his presentation in the Hialeah Council Chambers. Mayor Esteban Bovo, Jr. and the City Council hosted an Immigration Forum where different city departments discussed how the influx in immigration has impacted the City of Hialeah and the services it provides to residents. The Police Chief, George Fuente, emphasized the increase of service-related call as a clear indicator of a growing population, stating, Thats an obvious sign that we have many more individuals living or visiting the City of Hialeah Bovo has said that Hialeahs population, which is 95% Latino, is undercounted and therefore unknown because many people wont participate in the Census, which the federal government uses to allot funding to states and cities. He and other Hialeah officials have said some residents are afraid of sharing personal information with the federal government because they mistrust or dont want to reveal that they live in illegal housing or with more people than they are supposed to. The Census Bureau has acknowledged that Hispanics and Latinos were undercounted in 2020 at a national level. But so far, Bovo doesnt seem keen on applying with the federal government for a special census count, as proposed by Councilwoman Angelica Pacheco, which would allow for a federal recount of Hialeahs residents. If it costs me $5 million to do it, I can already tell you that it wont happen, said Bovo, though its unclear if the Hialeah government has asked the Census Bureau for a cost estimate. Former Mayor Raul Martinez, the first Hispanic and longest-tenured Hialeah mayor, requested a recount census in 1985. Martinez had to grapple with the impact of the Mariel mass exodus in 1980, first as a council member and then as mayor, when about 125,000 Cubans left from the Port of Mariel near Havana to Florida over a span of six months. We were losing money. We needed the people in Hialeah to be counted, because it was going to bring economic benefits from the federal, state and county governments, he recalled. If Hialeah is suffering the consequences of the new influx of immigrants, why wont the mayor request a new census? Martinez, a Democrat who addressed a surge in violent crimes after the Mariel boatlift, doesnt believe that Hialeah is seeing a negative impact in the latest wave of Cuban arrivals and thinks that the city is trying to vilify the recent Cuban immigrants. This narrative appears to be a strategic move to criticize and condemn the Biden administration, perpetuating a skewed perspective for political purposes, the former mayor said to el Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald. View of a person sleeping on the floor of a strip shopping mall early morning located next to the Home Depot parking lot at 1590 W 49th St, in Hialeah, as many people have been forced to sleep in their cars or in the streets due to the increase of the rents across Miami-Dade County, on Wednesday, February 14, 2024. The citys next immigration workshop, slated for March 11, will include employees of the DMV, city and county programs, as well as some churches that have been helping migrants at risk of homelessness. It has since been a year since the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority announce in Art Dubai 2023 a new commission that will stand in front of the city's famed public institution, the Etihad Museum. Yesterday, the shortlist of the would-be competitors vying for the top spot and earning a chance to work on the museum piece was revealed, comprising the five Emirati artists Afra Al Dhaheri, Asma Belhamar, Khalid Al Banna, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, and Shaikha Al Mazrou. However, as Al Dhaheri recalled, quoted in a report by The Art Newspaper, all of the artists were initially taken aback when they were all first introduced to each other, exclaiming that all of the competitors were her "friends." "We didn't know what to think-we were all laughing," she added. After Ibrahim, who was one of the first generation of artists that emerged from the UAE, decided to resign from the opportunity to give way to his contemporaries, the other four protested and just eventually decided that all five of them should find a way to be recognized as one artist to be able to work together in the commission. Thus, "The Union of Artists" was conceived and a year later it stands magnificently at the front of Dubai's Etihad Museum. The name itself came from the word "etihad," which meant "union" in Arabic. A New Addition in the Wake of UAE's Outdoor Art Explosion Al Dhaheri, who also works as a visual arts professor at Zayed University, recounted how each of them saw it as an opportunity to "send a message," that it wasn't a solitary project but instead was "all of [them] together." He added that the decision was brought about by retrospection in regards to the outdoor artworks strewn about all over the UAE, joking that they all felt like they were "academics" in light of proposing the idea. However, publicly displayed art pieces indeed have a particular history in the Persian Gulf, as many of the young nations were adorned with varied public artworks at the same time as their roads were being built. Some of the sculptures were overtly made, whilst others were an upsized replica of common cultural objects like the piece depicting a "dallah" (traditional Persian Gulf coffee pot). That said, the occasional "serious" piece would pop out, like the ones commissioned by Mohamed Said Farsi, Jeddah's former innovative lord mayor. Such artworks were made in the 1970s for the port city's waterfront scenery by artists like Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, and Saloua Raouda Choucair. Read Also: 'From the Ashes': Fundraising Exhibition of Artworks Made From Amazon Burn Remnants, in Aid of Indigenous Communities How UAE Played Into the Art Explosion The UAE and Saudi Arabia, in particular, have recently offloaded huge investments in their respective culture and art sectors, which revitalized the outdoor art explosion and has even pushed it to a new level. Because of this move, Dubai Public Art's program was galvanized to commission work all around the city, the Etihad Museum included, with its collectively made sculpture. The other works it is commissioning are made in partnership with major stakeholders Art Dubai, Tashkeel, Alserkal Avenue, and Art Jameel. However, recent projects primarily revolve around light-based ones, which usually don't "last." This is why these recent proposals for more permanent projects are digested by local Emirati artists, alongside the first generation, to be akin to a form of endorsement. With this in mind, Al Dhaheri said that the recent collective artwork is their chance to "shift this dynamic." "Instead of being told and prompted in what to do, we're going to turn it around and tell them what we want to do," she added. Read More: NY Public Library to Exhibit Friedman-Abeles Theatre Photography: Highlights Purlie, Camelot, West Side Story 2024 Classicalite All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) The Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office solved a nearly 40-year-old cold case surrounding the identity of an unknown man found dead. In 1985, detectives were unsuccessful in identifying a man who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. Biology professor charged for stealing at least $300K meant for shark research: police The victim was found on May 24, 1985, near Adamsville Avenue, just north of Big Bend Road. The man is now identified as Charles Allen Ray, who was born in 1936 and was an honorable veteran of the U.S. Navy. Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office Through genealogical research and working with Othram Lab in April 2023, investigators found a possible link to the Ray family and pinpointed him as a missing family member who disappeared without a trace. In January, Hillsborough detectives traveled to Knoxville, Tennessee, where they met with the family and matched his DNA. The resolution of this cold case is a testament to the dedication and perseverance of our investigators and the advancements in forensic technology, Sheriff Chad Chronister said. We are committed to bringing justice and closure to the families affected by unsolved cases, no matter how much time has passed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. A historic wildfire in Texas continued to rage on Wednesday morning as firefighters work to contain the flames and survey damage. The Smokehouse Creek fire, the second largest wildfire in Texas to date, has consumed more than 500,000 acres in Texass Panhandle area since it ignited on Monday. Related: Vast swaths of US will be exposed to polluted air by 2054, says report The fire is part of a cluster of blazes that have spun out of control. It is currently at 0% containment, with several Texas counties still evacuated amid growing flames. Officials were starting to assess the damage and warned it could be extensive. The town of Fritch, with a population of fewer than 2,000 people, appeared to be hit hard. The people in that area are probably not prepared for what theyre going to see if they pull into town, the Hutchinson county emergency management spokesperson, Deidra Thomas, said in a social media live stream. She compared the damage to a tornado. The town remained unsafe for people to return, she said. Tresea Rankin videotaped her home in the town of Canadian as it burned. Thirty-eight years of memories, thats what you were thinking, Rankin said of watching the flames destroy her house. Two of my kids were married there ... But you know, its OK, the memories wont go away. The Smokehouse Creek fire began at 40,000 acres on Tuesday, quickly swelling by Wednesday morning, CNN reported. The fire has burned through an area more than half the size of Rhode Island, CNN further reported. The fire has largely spread given unseasonably warm temperatures and strong wind, propelling flames through dry, grassy areas. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for several Texas counties on Tuesday afternoon, as Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration. Some counties have had their evacuation orderers lifted as of early Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service in Amarillo, Texas, announced on X, formerly known as Twitter. In addition to the fire damage, more than 4,000 homes in Texas are also without power as of Wednesday morning, poweroutage.us reported. Texas department of agriculture officials have also warned that the wildfire may have a significant impact on the states agriculture industry. I am deeply concerned about the devastating wildfires raging through the Texas Panhandle. These fires not only threaten lives and property but also have a significant impact on our agriculture industry, said the Texas agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller, in a post to Facebook. The main facility that assembles and disassembles Americas nuclear arsenal was also forced to temporarily close on Tuesday as fires raged out of control in the area. The Pantex site in Amarillo in north Texas reopened on Wednesday, according to an announcement on Facebook. Staff were instructed to return to work for normal shift operations after the plant updated that there was no fire at the plant site, NBC News reported. The Pantex Plant is open for normal day shift operations for Wednesday, February 28; all personnel are to report for duty according to their assigned schedule. Since 1975, Pantex has been the US main assembly and disassembly site for its atomic bombs. It assembled the last new bomb in 1991. In the time since, it has dismantled thousands of weapons. Pantex is located 30 miles (48km) east of Amarillo. Associated Press contributed to this report HMRC took 16 minutes and 24 seconds to answer the average call, new data shows Customer service at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is at an all-time low as phone line waiting times continue to deteriorate, according to MPs. Nearly two-thirds of taxpayers were forced to wait more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser, a committee found. MPs launched another blistering attack on HMRC years after declaring its hold music was among the most streamed. HMRC said its digital services provided answers to millions of queries and was "highly rated". The average wait for a call to HMRC to be answered was 16 minutes and 24 seconds in the year to April 2023, according to the report by the Public Accounts Committee. That compares with 12 minutes and 22 seconds the previous year. Some 63% of callers waited more than 10 minutes to speak to an adviser, up from 46% in 2021-22. The committee said this proportion had increased every year since 2018-19. "Almost eight years have passed since our committee challenged HMRC over its telephone lines' holding message being one of the most streamed pieces of music in the country," said Meg Hillier, who chairs the committee. "Our latest report into its performance sadly illustrates a continued tale of decline in its services." Online shift The tax authority has long-documented difficulties in swiftly answering calls. It sparked controversy when it closed its main self-assessment helpline over the summer, and encouraged people to use a chatbot instead. It has used an answer by text service and told MPs that it did not have the resources to meet rising demand. It said it received more than three million calls on resetting online passwords, getting tax codes, and checking National Insurance numbers, all of which could easily be done via digital channels instead. The committee said that more people were being drawn into paying tax, known as fiscal drag, and their tax affairs were becoming more complicated. As a result HMRC's customer service was "struggling to cope" and taxpayers were left "exasperated" by the quality of support. Among the other issues highlighted in the report, published on Wednesday, were: Taxpayers being pursued by HMRC for trivial amounts of debt The tax authority's stated focus on prosecuting the most serious cases, leading to fewer prosecutions, which MPs said risked "sending the wrong message" to criminals HMRC being too slow to identify the scale of errors and fraud in the system In May, the BBC revealed how Cardiff flat owner Dylan Davies received 11,000 tax bills from HMRC over the course of six months, after Chinese companies fraudulently used his address to register for VAT. Dylan Davies was getting thousands of VAT tax bills from overseas firms using his address in Cardiff The committee highlighted a case in which a taxpayer received more than 10,000 letters due to an agent registering companies for VAT at the taxpayer's address rather than a serviced office that shared the same postcode. "These cases create particular distress for innocent citizens receiving these demands for payments, and an extraordinary amount of time and effort to resolve with HMRC," the committee said. The MPs said that the distress caused to innocent people was not being taken seriously enough. A spokesman for HMRC said it was making strong progress on improving customer services, with a focus on digital services. "Millions more people used our highly rated online services last year - saving them waiting on the phone and freeing up our advisers to deal with those people who need extra support," he said. "People used our app and online services more than 200 million times last year with an 80% satisfaction rate, while three-quarters of all customer correspondence was answered in 15 working days - a significant improvement on the 45% in 2021-22." Kathy Hochul stands at the Department of Taxation and Finance in Brooklyn with a sign in front of her announcing NYS cannabis enforcement. Heeding complaints from the licensed cannabis industry, Gov. Kathy Hochul said its high time that social media companies and tech giants such as Google and Meta stop promoting illicit weed dealers on their sites that hurt legal operators, aid the massive black market and deprive New York of tax revenues. Right now, Google and others knowingly allow illegal stores to promote unlicensed products on their platforms. Im calling on them to cease promotion of all illegal cannabis shops, Hochul said in a statement to The Post. Hochul will deliver that message Wednesday during a scheduled press conference at her Manhattan office, which will also highlight her other proposals to crack down on the illicit cannabis operators. Heeding complaints from the licensed cannabis industry, Gov. Kathy Hochul said its high time that social media companies and tech giants such as Google and Meta stop promoting illicit weed dealers. Paul Martinka The Post on Sunday reported on a letter that licensed cannabis operators sent to the urging her to launch a probe and even consider suing Google, Meta and others for engaging in false advertising of unlicensed marijuana shops. Hochul will note a simple search on Google or Google Maps for cannabis dispensaries shows many unlicensed pot shops peddling their products with listed reviews with little to distinguish illegal stores from licensed businesses. The sites give specific addresses, phone numbers and some include links to websites. Yelp also lists reviews for unlicensed stores while sites like Metas Instagram allow illegal shops to promote their products, licensed owners said. The legal weed operators were thrilled that Hochul is smoking out the tech and social media giants role in aiding the illegal pot stores at not only their expense, but also state and local governments that lose out on tax revenues to the black market. Right now, Google and others knowingly allow illegal stores to promote unlicensed products on their platforms. Im calling on them to cease promotion of all illegal cannabis shops, Hochul said in a statement to The Post. REUTERS This is a great thing. Leadership starts at the top, said Osbert Orduna, CEO of The Cannabis Place in Queens and head of the Service Disabled Veterans in Cannabis Association. The governor is displaying real leadership here by confronting these giant companies profiting off the clicks for unlicensed cannabis dispensaries while misleading New York State consumers, he said. Hochul will be accompanied by licensed cannabis operators and Manhattan business advocates on Wednesday as she urges lawmakers to back her enforcement agenda as part of the 2024-25 state budget. Gov. Hochul will deliver that message Wednesday during a scheduled press conference at her Manhattan office, which will also highlight her other proposals to crack down on the illicit cannabis operators. Helayne Seidman One proposal would give the NYPD and the New York City Sheriffs Office as well as the state Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) greater authority to padlock smoke shops and other retail stores illegally selling marijuana. Another measure would slap Illicit cannabis business owners who refuse to allow state regulators to inspect their shady shops with much steeper fines. The fines for scofflaws would quintuple from $4,000 to $20,000 for a first refusal and $8,000 to $40,000 for subsequent balking under Hochuls proposed law. Hochul will note a simple search on Google or Google Maps for cannabis dispensaries shows many unlicensed pot shops peddling their products with listed reviews with little to distinguish illegal stores from licensed businesses. Helayne Seidman The budding licensed cannabis industry has been hobbled by a slow and rocky rollout since marijuana was legalized for recreational sale in 2021. There are currently 77 licensed cannabis outlets in all of New York state, while Mayor Eric Adams and Sheriff Anthony Miranda estimate there are as many as 2,000 smoke shops illegally selling weed in the Big Apple alone. Many illicit pot shops have operated with virtual impunity. The legal weed operators were thrilled that Hochul is smoking out the tech and social media giants role in aiding the illegal pot stores. Paul Martinka Few have been padlocked and of the $25 million in fines levied by state regulators against unlicensed stores, only a paltry $22,500 has been collected amid bureaucratic inertia and a lengthy appeals process. Hochul also will discuss a streamlined process that encourages more cooperation between various state and local government agencies to share information to crack down on illicit pot operators, sources said. Alfredo Angueira, co-owner of ConBud on the Lower East Side, applauded Hochul for targeting the bad actors. He claimed there were as many as 71 illicit smoke shops within 1,200 feet of his licensed cannabis store. Theres an uneven playing field. The illegal operators are sucking money of out of the state. Theyre not paying taxes. Theyre selling out-of-state products at dirt-cheap prices. Theyre paying lower wages. Theres no way for us to compete, Angueira said. He also said its just mind-boggling that Google and other platforms are allowing illegal pot shops to market themselves on their sites. A Google spokesperson responded, We display places that people can visit or interact with in the real world by using a variety of sources, including third-party information and feedback from our community. If we can confirm that a business has closed for any reason including license issues well reflect that its closed in the listing. We also prohibit cannabis ads in New York and remove them upon detection, often before they ever run. A spokesman for Meta, which operates Instagram and Facebook told The Post Sunday, We prohibit content both in ads and organically on pages that promotes the buying and selling of drugs, including marijuana, and remove it whenever we find it. GRAND RAPIDS Michigan Republican Party Chair Pete Hoekstra says a Tuesday court ruling makes clear that Republican delegates who want their votes to count should gather Saturday at a convention he has called in Grand Rapids not one in Detroit called earlier by Kristina Karamo. Tuesday's primary election awarded 16 of the GOP delegates Michigan will send to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July. Former President Donald Trump won most of those 16 delegates, though the exact number he won was not clear Wednesday morning, based on projections from The Associated Press. The party's other 39 convention delegates are to be awarded Saturday at a convention that will feature 13 separate meetings organized based on congressional districts. Pete Hoekstra After months of divisiveness in which both Hoekstra and Karamo claimed to be chair and each oversaw their own state GOP website and social media platforms, Kent County Circuit Judge Joseph Rossi issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday that bars Karamo from identifying herself as state party chair and from accessing state party mail and bank accounts. Rossi ruled that Karamo, elected at a state convention just over a year ago, was properly removed by the state committee on Jan. 6 and any actions she has taken since then are "void and have no effect." MIGOP chair Kristina Karamo speaks to reporters before former President Donald Trump speaks at Drake Enterprise in Clinton Township on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023. Hoekstra is a former ambassador and congressman who was elected to replace Karamo on Jan. 20 and whose leadership was earlier endorsed by both the Republican National Committee and former President Donald Trump. He said at an election night watch party in Grand Rapids that the ruling is another significant affirmation that only the Saturday convention in Grand Rapids, at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, is going to count. "We've run the table on this," Hoekstra said of the leadership fight. "It's now over." Prospective delegates must decide who they think is in charge About 1,900 delegates have been credentialed for the Grand Rapids meeting, Hoekstra said, and his officials have reached out to all district chairs. Those district chairs and convention delegates elected recently at county conventions around the state now must decide "who you think the RNC is going to recognize as being the proper convention site," Hoekstra said. "Those are decisions they make. I can't make decisions for them." Karamo said after Tuesday's ruling she would abide by the court order, though she found the judge's reasoning and ruling "egregious." She wouldn't say whether the Detroit meeting Saturday, scheduled for Huntington Place, would go ahead, though she said the leadership dispute was not over in that members who support her will not tolerate what has happened. Both Karamo and Hoekstra are Trump supporters. Daire Rendon, chair of the 1st Congressional District, which takes in the Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula, said Wednesday the issue is not a simple one. Her delegates "must travel farther than anyone else in Michigan to participate in their party convention," Rendon said in an email. "They have been planning to go to Detroit and have room reservations and travel plans all made. Since this half-baked decision yesterday, our delegates are very confused and upset." Winning a court battle "does not automatically translate into winning the hearts and minds of the delegates," Rendon wrote. "Whatever THEY decide to do will determine where we caucus on Saturday." Asked what he plans to do to bring the fractured elements of the state party together, Hoekstra said: "I don't worship at the idol of unity." The dispute, he said, has not been about him or Karamo. A fight over spending may be ahead "This is about winning in November," he told reporters. "Those folks who want to join the Republican Party, who want to help elect Donald Trump as president ... they are welcome to be a part of our efforts." As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, the longtime Michigan Republican Party website, which had been controlled by Karamo, was still promoting the Detroit convention Saturday. Hoekstra said Saturday he expects he will receive control of the website and party bank accounts in short order. Otherwise, "we will go back to court and hold her in contempt." he said. The party may also try to recover any improper expenditures that were made under Karamo since Jan. 6, Hoekstra said. "What the party is legally responsible for, we will pay," Hoekstra said. "Republicans pay their bills. But for money we can claw back, we're going after it." Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on X, @paulegan4. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Hoekstra: Ruling makes clear that only 1 MIGOP convention will count Holland America Line announced a 2026 around-the-world cruise. The 132-day itinerary includes 47 ports in 39 countries on all seven continents. Longer sailings like this one are all the rage right now. In 2026, the only flight you'll have to take to visit 39 countries in less than half a year is the one from your home to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The catch? From there, you can travel around the world on a 25-year-old ship. If the concept sounds familiar, it's probably because you're thinking of Royal Caribbean's nine-month Ultimate World Cruise, one of TikTok's first obsessions in 2024. Royal Caribbean's around-the-world sailing isn't a one-off. Quite the opposite: It's part of a growing interest in longer cruises. And companies like Holland America have taken note of this shift. To satisfy travelers' appetite for extended sailings, the cruise line released a slate of itineraries ranging from 25 to 59 days long this time last year. Most are set to sail roundtrip, to, or from North America. But none of these one to two-month cruises compare to the cruise line's new 2026 "Grand World Voyage," a whopping 4 -month journey to all seven continents. Holland America's map of its 2026 Grand World Voyage itinerary. Holland America Line Holland America says its 1,432-guest Volendam ship will set sail in January 2026 on an "east-to-west route" from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to 47 ports in 39 countries on all seven continents. From sunny Florida, the ship will sail down to chilly Antarctica by way of eastern South America. Destinations in South America would include Rio de Janeiro and Punta del Este, Uruguay. Shutterstock.com Volendam is scheduled to spend four days around Antarctica. Good luck on the infamous Drake Passage. The icy destination isn't common on most around-the-world itineraries. But the cruise line seems partial to it: Holland America's 133-day "pole-to-pole" cruise, sailing to Antarctica and the Arctic Circle, is scheduled for January 2025. From the itinerary's southernmost destination, the ship is set to venture back north to the South Pacific Islands like Easter Island, New Zealand, and Australia. Ports in the Asia and Europe legs would include Singapore (pictured above), Civitavecchia, Italy (near Rome), and Lisbon. Allan Baxter/Getty Images Then, it will set sail to Southeast and South Asia, the Maldives, and Egypt before its final few stops around northern Europe. With the exception of two ports in Egypt, the Middle East and Africa have been largely left off the 132-day plan. Almost 4 months and 39 countries later, the journey will conclude back in Fort Lauderdale. The Volendam joined Holland America's fleet in 1999. Holland America Line It's a long itinerary for a compact ship: The 781-foot-long Volendam is one of Holland America's smallest and oldest vessels. Compared to this older counterpart, Holland America's newest ship, the Rotterdam, is almost 200 feet longer and can accommodate 1,236 more guests. However, the cruise line tapped a ship of Volendam's size to give guests a more "intimate experience." Holland America's vessel of choice is larger than the ones being used by more luxurious companies Regent Seven Seas, Oceania, and Silversea's 2024 world cruises, which all have guest capacities of less than 700 people. Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas has 1,073 staterooms and amenities like an arcade and adult-only Solarium. Royal Caribbean International But the Volendam is still significantly smaller than Royal Caribbean's Ultimate World Cruise vessel of choice: The 965-foot-long, 2,476-guest Serenade of the Seas. And unlike Royal Caribbean's new mega-ships, the Volendam has no waterslides or wild rides. Instead, the 10-deck vessel features six restaurants (including a cafe), five bars, two pools, and activities like pickleball courts. Compared to other global itineraries, Holland Americas 47-port world cruise might seem light. The Seven Seas Mariner departed Miami on January 6 on a 132-night global expedition to 66 ports in 31 countries. Regent Seven Seas Cruises Ultra-luxury Regent Seven Seas and Silversea's ongoing 4 -month world cruises each include at least 65 ports. But busier doesn't always mean better. The itinerary includes five "late-night departures" in destinations like Oslo, Norway (pictured above) and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Kenyeres Zsolt/Shutterstock Guests will have more time to spend at the scheduled ports by sacrificing additional destinations, Gus Antorcha, Holland America's president, said in a news release. (The ship is scheduled for overnights at nine popular destinations, including Bali, Indonesia, and Papeete, Tahiti.) A spokesperson for Holland America told Business Insider that details about the itinerary's fares aren't available yet. Read the original article on Business Insider A Home Depot employee voiced concerns over recent vandalism of the stores Black History Month display then was told to remove a Black Lives Matter pin from their uniform, federal officials said. In a 45-page report released Feb. 21, the National Labor Relations Board said the Home Depot in Minnesota violated labor laws. I can tell you we disagree with the NLRBs decision, a spokesperson for Home Depot said in a statement to McClatchy News. The Home Depot is fully committed to diversity and respect for all people. We dont tolerate any kind of workplace harassment or discrimination. Federal officials said asking the employee to remove the pin from their company apron violated the National Labor Relations Acts protection of concerted activities for mutual aid and protection includes efforts by employees to protest and redress racial discrimination in the workplace. Breaks my heart In February 2021, Home Depots displays for Black History Month were vandalized twice, officials reported. Management notified workers of the incident, but some employees felt the response to the racist vandalism was lacking and that more should be done, officials said in the report. One employee, Antonio Morales, who uses they and them pronouns, sent an email saying they wanted to open up a discussion about the issue, believing these actions are part of a very serious underlying issue that needs to be a store wide discussion. The next day, management called in Morales for a meeting to discuss the email. The store manager said he agreed with Morales, but during the meeting pointed out Morales BLM initials pin on their Home Depot apron. Morales had been wearing the pin without issue for the last five months, including in meetings with supervisors, officials said. The manager told Morales the pin violated the Home Depot dress code and said if he allowed a BLM pin, he would also have to allow a swastika, officials said. Morales said its impossible to compare the two. The manager suggested an All Lives Matter pin might be more appropriate, officials said. The next day, Morales had another meeting to discuss the recent incidents. Part of the meeting was dedicated to chronicling ongoing events in which another worker subjected customers and employees of color, including Morales, to racially discriminatory behavior, officials said. The district manager also raised the issue of Morales pin and reiterated she couldnt allow them to wear it. I know that, and I am willing to be fired over this, Morales said, according to a transcript of the conversation shared in the report. Im not going to fire you over that, the district manager said, according to officials. Thats not how thats going to work. You havent done anything wrong, okay. Quite honestly, theres a lot of things that have not been taken care of for you that have put you in a position where I know you dont feel respected when you come to work, and thats what breaks my heart. Breaks mine, too, Morales said. They refused to remove the pin, and Morales resigned shortly after, officials said. Findings Three years later, the National Labor Relations Board has ordered Home Depot to rehire Morales and give them back pay. Labor officials argued that pins worn by Morales and other employees constituted concerted protests of racially discriminatory working conditions. Ultimately, officials said Home Depot couldnt prove that its interest in prohibiting employees from wearing the pins was greater than the employees right to wear it. New Brighton is part of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, about 10 miles northeast of downtown Minneapolis. Security guard calls mall visitors Jesus Saves shirt offensive, Minnesota video shows School bans BLM apparel but not the Confederate flag, Georgia students say in lawsuit Soccer player refusing to kneel before game was forced off Virginia Tech team, suit says Womans Pride and BLM flags keep getting stolen, WA cops say. It might be a hate crime At Home in Guernsey plans to offer one-to-one support A new charity aiming to end homelessness in Guernsey has been launched. At Home in Guernsey will offer one-to-one support to people who are homeless and those who are at risk. The charity was launched by the Guernsey Community Foundation. The foundation's chief executive, Jim Roberts, said the island's "hidden homelessness problem" can have "catastrophic" consequences. In 2023, as part of its Indicators of Poverty report, the States estimated more than 1,000 men, women and children were insecurely housed - an increase of about 50% since 2016. 'Hidden homeless' Chief executive officer of Specsavers, who are sponsoring the scheme, John Perkins, said: "Homelessness in the UK is often very visible. "Turn your gaze to Guernsey and there are far less obvious signs. "But the uncomfortable truth is that Guernsey has a significant hidden homeless problem, which as a community we need to do all we can to support." Funding has been guaranteed for at least three years to enable the charity to recruit staff, find its own base and start helping people. Mr Roberts said: "At Home in Guernsey will help individuals and families who have lost, or who are at risk of losing, a roof over their head something most of us take for granted. "If you don't have somewhere safe, accessible and affordable to live, the consequences can be catastrophic." At Home in Guernsey will work closely with social housing providers, landlords, statutory agencies and third sector organisations. It will be based at the foundation's headquarters at KGV Playing Fields in Castel until suitable premises are found. Follow BBC Guernsey on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk. James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, is to discuss the protection of MPs following the surge in protests amid the Israel-Hamas conflict - David Rose for The Telegraph Rishi Sunak wants police to deploy up to 80 extra patrols a week in hotspot constituencies where there are community tensions amid an increase in threats to MPs following the Gaza conflict. The Prime Minister wants police chiefs to sign up to a new democratic policing protocol which would see an agreed increase in weekly patrols, a minimum standard of police response to intimidation of MPs and guidance for officers policing protests and other democratic events. Disclosure of the plans comes ahead of a roundtable meeting in Downing Street on Wednesday afternoon with police chiefs chaired by Mr Sunak and James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, to discuss the protection of MPs following the surge in protests amid the Israel-Hamas conflict. On Tuesday, Mr Cleverly announced 31 million government funding for measures to protect MPs including private bodyguards to provide 24/7 protection for those at highest risk and security guards to be deployed at constituency events held by MPs and their surgeries. A source told The Telegraph that the Government was seeking to put a figure on the potential increase in patrols in areas with high community tensions which would include deployments to MPs personal homes and at their constituency offices. The patrols are for local communities in response to potential flashpoints and bolstering police visibility in areas of high community tensions, said a Whitehall official. Concerns demands wont be met It is believed police chiefs are concerned about whether they will be able to achieve an extra 80 patrols a week given the demands on forces resources. A Home Office source said they could not comment on specific figures, adding: We are not committing to a specific figure. One police chief said: We definitely need discretion. Some MPs wont want police driving past their house every day. There is also the issue of operational independence of how the police do their duties. It is understood the Government is also seeking to agree a minimum standard of response that MPs and other politicians can expect when they face intimidation. This will include closely monitoring intelligence for community tensions. The College of Policing, which is responsible for police standards of practice, will issue new guidance on policing of democratic events including MPs surgeries, fundraisers, protests and events in Parliament Square to ensure that officers know their powers. On Wednesday, Chris Philp, the policing minister, urged police to make greater use of section 42 of the Criminal Justice Act 2001 which gives officers power to move protesters away from residential buildings. It follows alleged intimidation of MPs at their homes by pro-Palestinian and Just Stop Oil protests. Chris Philp, the policing minister, urges police to make greater use of section 42 of the Criminal Justice Act 2001 - Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock Police chiefs are being asked to commit to providing a dedicated named contact to liaise with all elected representatives and candidates and offer face to face meetings to advise on security matters. Police chiefs will be held to account on how they deal with protests and democratic events in the next round of inspections by the official police watchdog, the HM Inspectorate of Police (HMICFRS). On Wednesday morning, Mr Philp confirmed protesters could be required to give more notice to police before being able to stage a demonstration under plans to ease the pressures on police. He said the proposal first proposed by the Home Affairs Committee of MPs was being studied by the Home Office amid growing concerns at the unsustainable cost of the weekly pro-Palestinian protests over the Gaza conflict. Speaking on Sky News, Mr Philp suggested it could mean organisers of protests involving hundreds of thousands of people would have to give a couple of weeks notice rather than the current six days in order to give police time to prepare. The Home Affairs Committee warned on Monday that forces ability to fight crime was being threatened by the time officers were having to devote to persistent pro-Palestinian and roads protests. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. An illegal immigrant from Honduras has been arrested in Louisiana for allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl and repeatedly stabbing another man during a robbery, with a local police chief blasting the obstacles law enforcement is faced with while trying to capture criminal illegal immigrants. Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana, 19, had been on the loose for the rape of the girl earlier this month when he was arrested Sunday for robbing a man at knifepoint as he got out of his car in the 2600 block of Phoenix Street in Kenner, the Kenner Police Department said in a Facebook post. Castellanos-Orellana approached the man and demanded his property before the illegal migrant stabbed the victim multiple times in his face and his back, according to Fox 8. The victim was taken to a local hospital and is in stable condition. An illegal immigrant from Honduras has been arrested in Louisiana for allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl and repeatedly stabbing another man during a robbery. SALVADORAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ARRESTED IN CONNECTION TO MARYLAND MURDER OF 2-YEAR-OLD BOY Castellanos-Orellana has been charged with armed robbery, aggravated battery, first-degree rape and aggravated assault for the two incidents. A federal ICE detainer was also issued for Castellanos-Orellan, police said. In the Facebook post, Kenner Police said that local law enforcement agencies are often hindered when trying to deal with illegal immigrants due to the lack of documented identifiers and noted that Castellanos-Orellana has used aliases in the past, including the name Elven Locket. They asked anyone with information on Castellanos-Orellana to contact them. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Kenner Police Department Chief Keith Conley also railed against illegal migrants committing crimes in the area and said they pose challenges for law enforcement for many reasons. "Lack of access to data, false identification and language barriers put local law enforcement at a huge disadvantage," Conley said. VENEZUELAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHARGED WITH SEXUAL ASSAULT AGAINST 14-YEAR-OLD IN VIRGINIA "We cannot verify if an illegal alien is giving correct information as it pertains to names and dates of birth. It is not only a drain on police manpower, but a financial drain on local law enforcements budgets and taxpayers' money." "In a 25-day period, this illegal alien caused terror in our community. We are glad he is off our streets, but will he be back? Will he have a new identity? What other crimes has he committed since he crossed our borders?" Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry passed on his well wishes to the victims and said Castellanos-Orellana should never have been in the state in the first place. "Sharon and I are praying for the victims and their families [who] were harmed by this undocumented criminal," Landry wrote on X. "This man should never have been in Louisiana! We must close our borders and keep our communities safe!" The incident comes on the same week that an illegal Salvadoran immigrant was arrested in connection to the murder of a toddler in Langley Park, Maryland, earlier this month. Nearly 7.3 million migrants have illegally crossed the southwest border under President Biden's watch , a number greater than the population of 36 individual states, a Fox News analysis found. Original article source: Honduran illegal migrant arrested for rape of girl, 14, stabbing man during knifepoint robbery SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) Three allegedly high-level drug traffickers who funneled fentanyl into San Francisco and fled from the U.S. were recently extradited by Honduras back to Northern California, investigators said. The three extradited Honduran nationals were identified as Jorge Alberto Viera-Chirinos, Mayer Benegas-Medina, and Elmer Bonilla Matute. U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Brian Clark, and Robert Tripp of the FBI announced on Tuesday that Honduran government agreed to extradite the men. The trio is currently back in custody in California, and they will face federal felony drug charges in court. These extraditions should send a clear message to those who peddle poison in San Francisco: if you traffic deadly drugs that threaten the safety and health of our community, if you flee from justice, if you think you can hide, you are wrong, Clark said. Viera-Chirinos, Benegas, and Matute were involved in separate conspiracies to smuggle drugs across the border and sell the deadly drugs overdose-plagued neighborhoods, investigators said. An average of two people die every day from drug overdoses in the city, according to city data. Viera-Chirinos was arrested and charged on July 29, 2019. A federal grand jury indictment states that he is one of 14 defendants who trafficked large quantities of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine base, and cocaine in San Francisco. On May 6, 2020 he was released on bond, and he eventually fled back to his native country. The indictment alleged Viera-Chirinos was a high-level manager of the organization responsible for having overseen the organizations drug trafficking activities. On September 2, 2020, he fled from the home where he was required to stay while on release, thereby violating the terms of his bond. The court issued an arrest warrant but Viera-Chirinos fled to Honduras where he was later found, the U.S. Attorneys Office wrote. Another Honduran man busted for dealing fentanyl in San Francisco A grand jury indicted Benegas on December 16, 2020. He was arrested on December 10, 2020, and 11 days later, a judge granted his release from custody on bond. He also fled back to Honduras. A grand jury indicted Matute on Dec. 19, 2019, charging him with possession with intent to distribute heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and cocaine base. The U.S. Attorneys Office wrote, Matute is part of a drug trafficking organization based in San Francisco and that, between approximately 2017 and 2019, was responsible for distributing large quantities of heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine base, and cocaine as well as trafficking the drugs through the State of Oregon and into the State of Washington. Honduran man sentenced for selling fentanyl in SF Ramsey also announced that progress is being made in All Hands on Deck, a joint law enforcement initiative to combat rampant drug dealing in San Francisco. Pressure on drug dealers in the Tenderloin will continue to increase, he vowed. In addition to the risk that your money will be taken and that you may face criminal penalties far in excess than you anticipated, you can now add that you should look over your shoulder for years after committing your crime even if you leave the country, Ramsey said. He said elements of the All Hands on Deck initiative include: Pursuing criminal actions related to money services businesses that facilitate the movement of drug profits. The Office of the United States Attorney charged 51 defendants under a Fast Track program. The program supplements traditional federal drug distribution cases and brings consequences to low-level dealers in the Tenderloin. Federal prosecutors join with local prosecutors at state court on two random days per week to review cases that can be pursued in federal, rather than state, courts. In sum, said Ramsey, drug dealing in the Tenderloin is simply a different proposition than its been in the past. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4. Correction: Honeywell previously told Defense News that its TPE331 turboprop engine would be integrated into the S-70M helicopter under a memorandum of agreement with PT Dirgantara Indonesia. The company has followed up with Defense News to explain this is not the case. SINGAPORE American company Honeywell has signed an agreement with PT Dirgantara Indonesia to provide avionics and mechanical products to a planned Black Hawk helicopter program. The memorandum of agreement, inked during the Singapore Airshow last week, includes the integration of Honeywells weather radar system into the Sikorsky S-70M Black Hawk GFA-type transport helicopters. PTDI will assemble the helicopters at Bandung under a manufacturing license for the Indonesian Defense Ministry. In August, PTDI and Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, entered into an industrial arrangement for the ministry to procure the Black Hawks. PTDI did not disclose the number of helicopters under the deal with Sikorsky in August, but the ministry revealed during the air show that the contract covers 24 helicopters. The agreement between PTDI and Honeywell also includes the localization of maintenance, repair and overhaul services for Honeywells avionics and mechanical systems as well as the manufacturing of a harness assembly. While the helicopters have yet to be completed, Honeywell is working with PTDI to provide technologies to elevate and sustain the aircraft, according to Sathesh Ramiah, vice president for Honeywells defense and space business in the Asia-Pacific region. PTDI wanted to minimize maintenance periods for the helicopters and ensure they meet the needs of the armed forces, Ramiah told Defense News. Thats something we signed and continue to work with PTDI in terms of expanding other technologies from the sustainment side. The two companies have previously collaborated on the Indonesian Air Forces CN-235 twin-engine transport aircraft and CN-212 medium cargo aircraft manufactured under license by PTDI. Despite improvements, the achievement gap between white and minority students in Fayette public schools is still horrific, Fayette County Superintendent Demetrus Liggins said at the school boards recent planning meeting. Liggins made the comments February 12 after FCPS Director of Assessment Brooke Stinson provided the latest numbers and trends from the Measures of Academic Progress assessment, called MAP, which tests students in grades K-9 three times each year. Fayette County K-9 students had a MAP math score of 201.6 in winter 2023. For Black students, that score was 194. The MAP reading score for all students K-9 in winter 2023 was 197.4 compared to 192.7 for Black students. For Hispanic students, the math score was 194.4 and the reading score was 189.5. Fayette County school district data also showed that Black students were suspended far more often than white students. Chief Student Support Officer Dedeeh Newbern said the district has to decrease the amount of time students are suspended so they are in class learning. There is a direct correlation between missed instruction and academic data, she said. Black students were suspended 22.88 days per 100 students in fall 2023 compared with white students who were suspended 4.74 days. Hispanic students were suspended 10.10 days per 100 students in fall 2023. Statewide, according to the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, in 2022, Kentucky had 27 classroom removals for every 100 students. Black students experienced 64 classroom removals for every 100 students, Prichard Committee officials said. Fayette County Public Schools continues to provide a world class education and top notch opportunities for all of our students, district spokesperson Dia Davidson-Smith said in response to the discussion of the achievement gap. There are marked learning improvements, as evident in the recent (Kentucky Department of Education) Report Card, as well as areas for growth. We have identified strategies to help equip our students to succeed and will continue to do so, making sure every FCPS student reaches their academic potential, Davidson-Smith said. She said the strategies are mentorship connections, volunteer support in the schools, and academic supports that bring the school, home and family together as partners in the success of all students. There are gaps all over the state, especially ones identified by income and disability, Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence President/CEO Brigitte Blom said in a statement about Kentuckys achievement gap. Achievement gaps may be a result of instructional practices, school culture, or things that happen in homes and communities. Across Kentucky and the nation, there are robust debates about how much each of those elements contributes, and how much each element can help with changing the outcomes, Blom said. Where we see achievement gaps between groups of students, we have to expect that schools and district leadership will begin to have difficult conversations about the existence of lower expectations some adults may have regarding students of different income, race, and ethnic backgrounds, she said. We then need to expect varied solutions including culturally responsive teaching, professional learning, family engagement and adequate student support to rise to the top. MAP tests include 43 questions based on reading and math state standards. In Fayette County at the February 12 school board meeting, officials presented projected proficiency data. The data shows if students were to take statewide assessments in December based on how they performed on MAP, heres the correlation on how they would perform. The scores of Black students in winter 2023 were far below that of all students by several points. However, the data showed increases from winter 2022 to winter 2023 in all student groups. For example, for Black students the MAP winter reading scores went from 187.7 in 2022 to 192.7 to 2023. The scores for all students went from 194.6 to 197.4. For Hispanic students, the MAP winter reading scores grew from 186.7 to 189.5. Were making great gains when it comes to this adaptive assessment, Stinson said of MAP, adding that teachers take that data to move the needle of student achievement. Teachers immediately created plans to make improvements, she said. Scores for Black students are improving or showing more growth than all students, Liggins said. Thats something to celebrate, he said. Its going in the direction we would like it to go. Stinson said there are still several months of instruction left to enrich learning before students take statewide assessments in May. FIRST ON FOX: Republican lawmakers from Georgia are blaming President Bidens "disastrous" border and immigration policies for the murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley at the hands of an illegal migrant. Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at Augusta University, was found dead on the University of Georgia campus Thursday after her roommate reported to authorities that she had not returned home from her morning run. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., led the Georgia Republican Congressional delegation in writing a letter to President Biden on Wednesday. Fox News Digital first obtained the letter, which blasts the president for his border policies, and his reversal of those from the Trump administration, saying his actions have had "devastating consequences," and demands immediate action. BIDEN WHITE HOUSE RESPONDS TO LAKEN RILEY MURDER ON UGA CAMPUS: 'PEOPLE SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE' The University of Georgia Police Department arrested Jose Antonio Ibarra and charged him with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, hindering a 911 call and concealing the death of another, UGA Police Chief Jeffrey L. Clark said during a news briefing Friday evening. The suspect is not a U.S. citizen. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sunday confirmed that the Venezuelan national entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and had previously been arrested in New York City. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Laken Riley's murder on UGA's campus has prompted a call for emergency blue lights on campus. "Every parent, and every American is extremely shocked and heartbroken to learn of the murder of Laken Hope Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Woodstock, brutally murdered by illegal immigrant and Venezuelan national Jose Antonio Ibarra while jogging on the University of Georgia campus on February 22, 2024," Loudermilk and his colleagues wrote. "Our prayers are with Lakens family and friends as they begin to navigate this tremendously difficult time." TRUMP BLAMES 'BIDEN'S BORDER INVASION' FOR LAKEN RILEY MURDER, VOWS 'LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION' IF ELECTED They added, "Your inaction to resolve the unprecedented humanitarian and national security crises at the U.S. Southern border has directly led to her tragic death." "Your disastrous border policies have turned every community into a border community and destroyed countless American families like Lakens," they wrote. The GOP lawmakers challenged Biden, saying he "should not wait until your State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, to announce changes to immigration policy." "The proliferation of deadly fentanyl, the increased threat of human trafficking by drug cartels, and the impacts illegal immigration has had on our nations cities all must be immediately addressed," they wrote, adding that Biden should "immediately revoke your harmful executive orders" and "issue new executive orders that regain full operational control of the U.S. southern border." A memorial for Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was found dead on a trail near the University of Georgias campus in Athens, Georgia, earlier this week. Biden "should empower ICE to remove the aliens who have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, including those who fail to appear for their court date. You should issue a Statement of Administration Policy in support of H.R. 2, urge the Senate take up its consideration, and quickly sign and enact it," the lawmakers wrote. "When you fail to secure operational control of our nations border, you should be fully transparent and accountable with both our nations governors and the American people," they wrote, urging Biden to reply to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemps letter from this week demanding information on Ibarra. BIDEN, TRUMP TO MAKE US-MEXICO BORDER STOPS THURSDAY AS MIGRANT CRISIS ROILS ELECTION "Mr. President, we must ensure justice for Laken, and that starts by securing the border," they continued. "We will not waver in our effort to resist your administrations failing policies that weaken our nations immigration law and national security." The letter was signed by Loudermilk, along with Reps. A. Drew Ferguson IV, Buddy Carter, Rich McCormick, Austin Scott, Andrew Clyde, Mike Collins, Rick Allen and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Loudermilk told Fox News Digital that Rileys murder "has devastated our community, sending shockwaves across the state and the nation." "President Bidens refusal to enforce our immigration laws has resulted in unprecedented humanitarian and national security crises at our southern border," Loudermilk told Fox News Digital. "His unwillingness to act directly led to Lakens tragic death." Laken Riley's death at UGA's campus has prompted women across the country to share solo jogging safety tips. "Laken Rileys murder could have been prevented if our border was secure and illegal aliens werent flooding into our country," Greene said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Joe Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and the rest of the Biden adminisitration have blood on their hands." She added, "Its past time to act." The letter comes after the White House weighed in on the tragedy days after it transpired. "We would like to extend our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Laken Hope Riley," a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "People should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law if they are found to be guilty. Given this is an active case, we would have to refer you to state law enforcement and ICE." The demands also come just a day before President Biden is set to make a trip to the U.S. southern border. He is expected to travel to Brownsville, Texas, and is set to meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents and law enforcement. Meanwhile, Bidens trip comes the same day as former President Trumps. The 2024 GOP frontrunner is set to deliver a speech in Eagle Pass, Texas. Trump also has blamed Bidens border policies for the "invasion" that led to Rileys death. Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report. Original article source: House GOP lawmakers from Georgia blame Biden's 'disastrous' border policies for murder of Laken Riley House Republicans on Tuesday issued a subpoena that demanded all tapes and transcripts from Joe Bidens interview with Special Counsel Robert Hurs teaman interview that prompted Hur to write in a report this month that Biden appeared to be elderly and forgetful. The subpoena, announced by House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH), follows a Feb. 12 request from Republicans that Attorney General Merrick Garland turn over transcripts and recordings of Bidens interview. The interview itself was meant to probe the presidents alleged mishandling of classified documentssomething the special counsel declined to charge him for. Republicans are hoping the tapes prove damning for Biden, whose age and verbal miscues have become a centerpiece attack by Republicans. Special Counsel Robert Hurs investigation into President Bidens mishandling of classified documents made two things clear: Theres a double standard of justice in this country and Joe Biden isnt fit for office. The transcripts and materials from his investigation are critical to our oversight work, Jordan wrote in a press release. 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. WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) The House is back from recess Wednesday, after congressional leaders and the president had an intense meeting on Tuesday. The pressure is rising for Congress to address the looming shutdown, Ukraine, Israel, and the southern border. Time is running out as leaders in both the House and the Senate agreed they must avoid a government shutdown. However, there is still some concern around the other major issues. President Joe Biden called congressional leaders to the White House Tuesday in hopes of tackling some of the largest issues still on Congress plate. We need bipartisan solutions, Biden said. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell are optimistic about avoiding a government shut down before the end of the week. Under no circumstances does anyone want to shut the government down, McConnell said. There is uncertainty on other issues they warned of the consequences of not sending aid to Ukraine. Zelenskyy and Ukraine will lose the war if we dont get the arms and dont get them quickly, Schumer said. We dont want the Russians to win in Ukraine, McConnell added. House Speaker Mike Johnson did not mention any change on his position when it comes to Ukraine and says hes focused on issues in the U.S. We must take care of Americas needs first. When you talk about Americas needs, you have to talk about the open border, Johnson said. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries agrees there is a broken immigration system, but it should be done in a bipartisan way without making Americans suffer. We just need our House Republican colleagues not to play politics and engage in political stunts, Jeffries said. The leaders seemed hopeful about preventing a government shutdown but there is still a possibility a short-term extension is necessary. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson promised a timely vote on extending aid to Ukraine following a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Feb. 27. Johnson emphasized the necessity to prioritize "America's needs" during the negotiations, particularly highlighting the issue of the "open border" with Mexico. Read also: U.S. may be forced to draw funds from other programs to continue training UA military Another priority for the U.S. is the continued funding of the federal government, with meeting participants feeling "very optimistic" and hopeful for an agreement. The House is "actively exploring all possible options" regarding aid to Ukraine, according to Johnson. "We will address this issue in a timely manner, said Johnson. But again, the first priority for our country is the border and making sure its secure." Read also: On the right track Biden to meet with Congress leaders to hammer out Ukraine aid bill Biden stressed the "urgent need" for aid to Ukraine during a meeting with congressional leaders from both parties at the White House on Feb. 27. For over two months, Congress has been unable to pass a bill to provide aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Republicans have blocked the vote, demanding stricter immigration policies and enhanced border security with Mexico. Republicans are under the influence of former President Donald Trump, who has urged the party to reject a compromise deal on immigration, according to American media reports. Biden has accused Trump of trying to intimidate Republicans in the House and Senate from voting for the bill regarding Ukraine. The U.S. Senate in a final vote on Feb. 13 supported a bill that provides aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan amounting to $95 billion, with $60 billion designated for Kyiv. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean said in an interview that aired Tuesday that President Biden could beat the daylights out of former President Trump in a pushup contest. In an interview on MSNBCs The Beat with Ari Melber, Dean said Republican candidate Nikki Haleys best hope at the GOP presidential nomination would be if Trump suffers a health problem and cannot continue in the race. Haleys hope has to be that she can present herself well as an alternative to Trump so that the convention can accept her should either Trump have a health problem, which hes certainly just as likely as Biden to have, if not more, Dean said. Trump, 77, and Biden, 81, have faced questions about their advanced ages and cognitive capabilities. But Dean said Bidens physical fitness was the better of the two. Ill bet you anything that Joe Biden could beat the daylights out of Trump in a pushup contest, for example. And Trump knows it, too. Although if it was a cheeseburger eating contest, it might turn out differently, he said. Dean said he cannot imagine a situation where Trump bows out of the race. But its a very different situation. You have here a guy who I think is unstable and requires attention. So, he cant let go of this. Theres going to be no resignation, theres going to be no I will not seek, and I will not accept, he said, in a nod to former President Lyndon Johnsons famous speech announcing he would not seek reelection in 1968 after Robert F. Kennedys entered the race as an anti-war candidate. Hes in it for the long run because he has to be for his psychological impairment, Dean said. The Hill has reached out to Trumps campaign for a response. Trump faces four criminal indictments, with jury duty set to begin in his New York hush money case on March 25. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A group of roughly 280 Kentucky physicians have signed an open letter to lawmakers asking them to repeal Kentuckys laws banning abortion. In a Wednesday news conference in Frankfort, a handful of those physicians, part of the group Kentucky Physicians for Reproductive Freedom, restated that demand. This is a call to action, said Dr. Marjorie Fitzgerald. Abortion bans do nothing to protect patients rights or privacy. We call on legislators to listen to physicians and leading health care organizations to repeal the ban on abortion. But in a state controlled by Republicans the majority party that has enacted a bevy of abortion restrictions in the last decade, responsible also for the two laws currently banning the procedure the groups calls to action are surely to go unanswered. Dr. Nancy Newman, a Louisville-based OBGYN who first received her license to practice medicine in Kentucky in 1988, according to the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, said if the health care landscape looked then how it looks now, she wouldnt have stayed in Kentucky. Would I come to the state now? No, I would not, Newman said. She blamed legislators for creating a culture of fear by enacting numerous restrictions on pregnancy termination, which is an evidence-based aspect of OBGYN health care. Dr. Nancy Newman, a doctor with Kentucky Physicians for Reproductive Freedom, speaks in Frankfort on Feb. 28, 2024. The physician group, representing more than 280 doctors statewide, called for lawmakers to repeal Kentuckys abortion bans. Dr. Michelle Elisburg, a Louisville pediatrician, recounted treating a 14-year-old patient who was raped by her 60-year-old landlord, and the child carried her pregnancy to term. Many of my patients are indigent and have very few resources when they have their baby, she said. Is this what we want for our children? Dr. Virginia Stokes, an OBGYN in Louisville, said, what defines and necessitates abortion is nuanced, but the wholesale ban does not account for those nuances. Pregnancy complications that compromise a fetus ability to survive outside the uterus occur with remarkable frequency, she said. But even in cases of nonviable pregnancies, providers cannot lawfully terminate a pregnancy as long as there is cardiac activity. Failure to provide that standard treatment risks the patients life, Stokes said. I am pro-life. I am for saving the life of these women who have pregnancy complications that require a cessation of the pregnancy. Let us, as lawmakers and influencers, come together to find a way to allow these families decisions to be made privately and in the counsel of trusted caregivers. As an OBGYN, Stokes said, my first priority is the life of my female patient. Please dont tie my hands. Kentuckys near-total abortion ban became enforceable in June 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, locking the states trigger law into place. The trigger ban outlaws abortion in all cases, unless the medical procedure is necessary to prevent the death or substantial risk of death . . . or to prevent the serious permanent impairment of a life-sustaining organ of a pregnant woman, according to the language of the bill, which was passed into law in 2019. A separate six-week ban, or fetal heartbeat law, also took effect when Roe fell. It bans the medical procedure after fetal cardiac activity is first detected, usually around the sixth week of pregnancy. Neither law includes exceptions for pregnancy cause by rape or incest, or if a pregnancy is diagnosed with a fatal fetal anomaly that is incompatible with life. A Republican and Democrat have filed bills this session to add exceptions for rape, incest and nonviable pregnancies, such as an incomplete miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, or any condition that makes survival impossible. Under the bill from Rep. Ken Fleming, R-Louisville, a person made pregnant through rape or incest could only lawfully get an abortion as long as its provided no later than six weeks into pregnancy. While doctors agreed that increased access to abortion, even through added exceptions, is necessary, Newman said the six week time frame was not realistic. That time frame is not reasonable; most women dont even know theyre pregnant at six weeks, Newman said. I think there should be exceptions, but to limit it to six weeks is outside the scope of treatment. Hunter Biden came out firing in his opening remarks in a private deposition with House investigators on Wednesday, telling the Oversight and Judiciary committees the impeachment probe into his dad is nothing more than a partisan political pursuit. The interview, which is expected to last hours in an office on Capitol Hill, began with the younger Biden saying theres one uncontestable fact that should put any impeachment inquiry to bed: I did not involve my father in my business. Not while I was a practicing lawyer, he added, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist. Never. Joe Bidens impeachment inquiry has hinged largely on information provided to the FBI by Alexander Smirnov, an ex-informant who was arrested this month on allegations he lied about Biden and Hunter accepting $5 million payments in exchange for providing political cover to a Ukrainian power company. Inside Hunter Bidens New Charm Offensive With Smirnov indicted and his information deemed tainted, the Republicans still trying to impeach Biden from office appear to be facing an uphill battle. Theyve shown no signs of stopping their probe, however, and Hunter said Wednesday hes had enough. For more than a year, your committees have hunted me in your partisan political pursuit of my dad, he said. You have trafficked in innuendo, distortion, and sensationalismall the while ignoring the clear and convincing evidence staring you in the face. Hunter said his dads impeachment is being driven by MAGA-motivated conspiracies. He told investigators to focus on real American issues and to quit wasting time on what he described as a baseless and destructive political charade. You have wasted valuable time and resources attacking me and my family for your own political gain when you should be fixing the real problems in this country that desperately need your attention, he said. The fiery remarks, made behind closed doors but obtained by The Daily Beast through a transcript provided by a spokesperson for Hunter, come as Republicans have searched high and low for proof of the elder Biden using his political positions to rake in cash for his family. House GOP leaders have specifically alleged that Biden used his position in government to influence U.S. foreign policy in ways that aided his sons international dealings in China and Europe. Several of Hunters business associates have been questioned, but the vast majority have said the president was never directly involved in any business meetings. Others reported that Biden was present in business calls, but never to negotiate deals. Devon Archer, one of Hunters longtime business partners, told Republicans last year that Biden would occasionally be put on speakerphone in business meetings, but he would talk about topics like fishing and the weather, not foreign policy or business. One business associate, Tony Bobulinski, has publicly backed Republicans claims that Biden was involved in business dealings. He said the president stepped into his brother James business dealings, telling investigators that Biden enabled James business affairs with a now-bankrupt Chinese energy conglomerate. Judge Denies Bail to Ex-FBI Informant Accused of Lying About Biden Family Hunters opening remarks mentioned Bubulinski and Smirnov, calling both men liars. He emphasized that investigators would find no proof of wrongdoing by his dad no matter how long and hard they searched. To be clear, I have made mistakes in my life, and I have squandered opportunities and privileges that were afforded to me, he said. I know that. I am responsible for that. And I am making amends for that. But my mistakes and shortcomings are my own and not my fathers, who has done nothing but devote his entire life to public service and trying to make this country a better place to live. The interview is a pivotal moment in the feud between Hunter and Republican lawmakers, whove tried to get Hunter to meet with them in private for months. Hunter refused initially, citing fears theyd selectively leak parts of the meeting to harm his father, but he eventually relented when threatened to be held in contempt of Congress. During breaks of the deposition, Democrats on the Oversight Committee accused their Republican colleagues of putting on an embarrassing spectacle. I believe, based on this first hour, that this whole thing really has been a tremendous waste of our legislative time and resources, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told reporters. Raskin: I believe, based on this first hour, that this whole thing really has been a tremendous waste of our legislative time and the people's resources. pic.twitter.com/w6jNB8sPhb Acyn (@Acyn) February 28, 2024 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) characterized the deposition as a deep sea fishing expedition, saying Republicans are scrambling to find anything to substantiate their fairy tales after losing Smirnov as a potentially credible witness. Republicans emerged during breaks to claim Biden wasnt answering their questions in good faith. Rep Nancy Mace (R-SC) noted that Biden did not invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, but said hed been far from a cooperative witness. Hunter Biden is being defiant, and also dishonest, and his testimony, some of it, is in direct conflict with other witnesses, she claimed. .@RepMattGaetz: "It is a mirage to believe that Hunter Biden was engaged in international business. This was a bribe masquerading as an international business transaction--nothing more, nothing less." pic.twitter.com/gJh1vTEZk0 CSPAN (@cspan) February 28, 2024 Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said there were a number of interesting moments in the deposition. He added, It is a mirage to believe that Hunter Biden was engaged in international business. This was a bribe masquerading as an international business transactionnothing more, nothing less. A full transcript of the meeting is expected to be released sometime tomorrow. Hunter said in his opening statements that his dad saved his life as he supported him in his battle with addiction, adding that he should not be punished for his sons mistakes. What he got in return for being a loving and supportive parent is a barrage of hate-filled conspiracy theories that hatched this sham impeachment inquiry and continue to fuel unrelenting personal attacks against him and me, he said. Republicans have taken my communications out of context, relied on documents that have been altered, and cherry-picked snippets of financial or other records to misrepresent what really happened. 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. China's import logistics log robust growth in 2023 Xinhua) 09:35, February 28, 2024 BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- China's import logistics registered steady expansion in 2023, data from the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing showed. The country's total value of import logistics stood at 18 trillion yuan (about 2.53 trillion U.S. dollars) last year, up 13 percent year on year, with the growth in each quarter topping 10 percent, according to the organization. Specifically, the flow of imported bulk commodity further expanded. China's imports of energy products, such as crude oil, natural gas and coal, hit 1.16 billion tonnes, soaring 27.2 percent year on year. The country also imported 1.46 billion tonnes of iron, aluminum and other metal ore in 2023, up 7.6 percent from the previous year. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Emma Caldwell murder was one of Scotland's best known unsolved cases Iain Packer has been jailed for at least 36 years for the murder of Emma Caldwell in remote woods 19 years ago. The 27-year-old's death in April 2005 had been one of Scotland's most high-profile unsolved murders. Police have apologised for how the original inquiry was handled and for letting down Emma and other victims. Emma's family said she had been failed by police due to a "toxic culture of misogyny and corruption" which left Packer free to rape other women. The Scottish government said it would consider holding a public inquiry into what went wrong with the original investigation. The 51-year-old was found guilty of Emma's murder and 32 other charges including 11 rapes and multiple sexual assaults against a total of 22 women. Packer was found guilty of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by dumping her body in Limefield Woods, South Lanarkshire, and disposing of her belongings, and of indecently assaulting her. Emma's body was found in the woods in May 2005, five weeks after the sex worker was last seen in Glasgow city centre. Packer was cleared of a further three charges - one indecent assault and two sexual assaults - against a further three women, after the jury returned not proven verdicts. The sentence is the second longest ever handed down by a Scottish court, behind the 37 year minimum jail term given to World's End killer Angus Sinclair in 2014. Packer drove Emma to remote woods, strangled her and disposed of her naked body Packer remained impassive in the dock at the High Court in Glasgow as the verdicts were delivered by the jury. In the public gallery, Emma's mother Margaret Caldwell, 76, wept and was comforted by relatives as her daughter's killer was finally brought to justice. Mrs Caldwell told BBC Scotland News she could "breathe again" now that Packer had been found guilty. She added: "When they found Emma's body, and they came in and told me they had found her body, I just took this huge breath in and now I feel as if I can let it out. "I can breathe again and go on. She will always be in our thoughts. She will always be there. She will always be my Emma." The family's lawyer, Aamer Anwar, described Packer as being "one of the UK's worst sex offenders" and called for a "robust" judge-led public inquiry into the original police investigation, adding that some officers had "blood on their hands". Four Turkish men were initially charged with Emma's murder in 2007 before the case against them collapsed the following year. Mr Anwar added: "A toxic culture of misogyny and corruption meant the police failed so many women and girls who came forward to speak up against Packer. "Instead of receiving justice and compassion, they were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, while the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again." During sentencing, Judge Lord Beckett said Packer "pursued a campaign of violence and appalling sexual mistreatment of a very large number of women". The judge added: "You have caused great harm to so many people as you indulged your pathologically selfish and brutal sexual desires." He added that Packer preyed on the vulnerable and caused "extreme and enduring suffering for so many women and their families". The judge told the killer: "You murdered a capable and compassionate, intelligent young woman who had planned to extricate herself from the difficult life she had been living". Lord Beckett continued: "Emma was alone, in the dark, deprived of her phone and miles from any prospect of help". The judge said Emma was taken from her family at a time when she was trying to take steps to change her life adding she was killed in "truly terrifying circumstances". Lord Beckett added: "For years you lied time and again before you were undone by your arrogance in thinking that you were in the clear and entitled to compensation from the police who had investigated you." He thanked the jurors, who took four days to reach their verdicts, for their "extraordinary service" during the six-week trial and excused them all from jury service for life. During the trial, the jury was taken to Limefield Woods, where Emma's body was found, to allow them to see the remote location for themselves. Emma had been living in a hostel in Glasgow at the time she went missing. She had left home after becoming addicted to heroin and began working as a prostitute to fund her habit. Her mother, Margaret Caldwell, told the trial that she last saw her daughter when she dropped her off at the hostel on Sunday 3 April 2005. She and her late husband, William, searched for Emma for weeks after she went missing. Packer, who was 32 at the time, had driven Emma to the remote forest near Biggar, where he strangled her and disposed of her naked body. A major murder inquiry was launched after Emma's body was discovered by a dog walker the following month. Emma's death sparked a major police investigation but it took almost 19 years for her killer to be convicted Over the next two years police took hundreds of statements as they investigated the murder. Her picture was projected onto a derelict block of flats in Glasgow and a reconstruction featured on the BBC's Crimewatch programme. The police investigation originally focused on a Turkish cafe in the city which was known to be frequented by a number of sex workers. A small blood stain from Emma was found on a duvet, and in 2007 the four Turkish men were charged with her murder. However, the case against them collapsed after it emerged that conversations which were recorded during a covert police surveillance operation had either been taken out of context or translated incorrectly. Police Scotland has apologised for how the original inquiry was handled by what was then Strathclyde Police. "Emma Caldwell, her family and many other victims, were let down by policing in 2005. For that we are sorry," the force said. "A significant number of women and girls who showed remarkable courage to speak up at that time also did not get the justice and support they needed and deserved from Strathclyde Police." The Scottish government said it was right that Police Scotland had apologised, and that it would consider holding a public inquiry into what went wrong. First Minister Humza Yousaf plans to meet Emma's family soon. Emma was captured on CCTV on the night she disappeared Several women had previously raised concerns about Packer, a man who regularly used sex workers and had a reputation for being aggressive. He started using prostitutes when he was 18 and would drive to an area known as "the drag" looking to pick women up as often as he could afford. This was how he first met Emma. He was said to be infatuated by the 27-year-old and would drive around looking for her and scaring off other potential clients. He picked up Emma on more than one occasion and took her to Limefield Woods once or twice. In 2004, Packer indecently assaulted Emma in the city's Barrowlands area. He told police differing versions of how he knew Emma over the course of six different interviews following her murder. At one point he led officers directly to the wood where Emma's body had been found. The jury was taken to Limefield Woods during the trial However, former detectives involved in the inquiry have told BBC Scotland News that senior officers told them not to pursue Packer as a suspect. Instead, they focused on the Turkish men who were initially believed to have killed Emma. After the collapse of the case against the four Turkish men, the murder case went cold until the lord advocate ordered police to re-open the investigation in 2015. That same year, the Sunday Mail newspaper named former sign fitter Packer as a "forgotten suspect" in the murder inquiry. In 2018, he contacted the BBC asking to tell his side of the story in an attempt to clear his name. He was interviewed twice by journalist Sam Poling, whose documentary Who Killed Emma? was broadcast the following year. One of Packer's former partners told the murder trial that he was "white as a sheet" after the second interview. "You could see something had gone badly wrong. It was as if it was all closing in on him," she said. Just hours after the documentary was broadcast, she contacted police and told them she had been stalked and attacked by Packer. He was arrested and jailed for two years in February 2020 after pleading guilty. In February 2022, Packer was arrested and charged with Emma's murder. He stood trial two years later, accused of dozens of charges of physical and sexual violence against women. Police Scotland said it had been the "courage, resilience and determination shown by Emma's family, in particular her parents William and Margaret, and all those who survived Iain Packer's horrific catalogue of offending that got us to where we are today". The force described Packer as "a calculating sexual predator who targeted women over many years" and said the re-investigation of the case had been the largest police inquiry of recent times in Scotland. Packer had denied all the charges - accusing all the women of lying - but admitted during his evidence that he indecently assaulted Emma Caldwell. Watch on iPlayer banner You can watch Catching a Killer: The Murder of Emma Caldwell on iPlayer now. It will be shown on BBC Scotland on Wednesday at 21:00 and later on BBC Two at 23:15. Watch on iPlayer footer Listen on Sounds banner You can listen to the podcast series Who Killed Emma? on BBC Sounds. Listen on Sounds footer Analysis box by David Cowan, Home affairs correspondent, BBC Scotland One of the most harrowing moments of this trial was the testimony of a young woman who Iain Packer raped 11 years after he murdered Emma Caldwell. Through floods of tears, she described a traumatic sexual assault which would not have happened had he been convicted of killing Emma following the original police inquiry. She wasn't alone. Packer committed sexual offences against at least 10 women after he left Emma's naked body in woods in South Lanarkshire. In the coming weeks, the lawyer representing Emma's family plans to take them to see the head of Scotland's prosecution service, the chief constable of Police Scotland and First Minister Humza Yousaf. Aamer Anwar argues that only a fully independent public inquiry can properly scrutinise the past actions of police and prosecutors. Legal sources with knowledge of the case support the view of former detectives who believe there was enough evidence for Packer to have been charged by 2007, two years after the murder. Instead, inexplicably, the full headlights of the original inquiry were never turned in his direction, even when charges against four Turkish men collapsed. That must rank as one of the most serious failures in the history of Scottish policing. Clearly, we'll never know if Packer would have been found guilty had the case gone to trial years ago. He had taken great care to cover his tracks and much of the evidence that was used against him in 2024 wasn't available back then. Over the course of 19 years, the inquiry into Emma Caldwell's murder analysed more pieces of information than the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing. Modern forensic techniques were deployed, more victims came forward after a BBC investigation into the case in 2019, and the police tracked down people like the young woman he attacked in 2016. But if Packer had been convicted in 2007 or 2008, it would have spared Emma's family years of torment and prevented more women from falling prey to Scotland's most prolific sex offender. A serial rapist has been found guilty of killing Emma Caldwell, a Glasgow sex worker, as part of a ruthless campaign of sexual violence that spanned more than a quarter of a century. Iain Packer, 51, was convicted of the 2005 murder of the 27-year-old, as well as indecently assaulting her, following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow. He was also found guilty by a jury of a string of other sex attacks on other women, over a period spanning between 1990 until 2016. The verdict led to an apology from Police Scotland after the now defunct Strathclyde Police botched an initial investigation into Caldwells death. Her body was discovered in Limefield Woods, near Biggar, South Lanarkshire, on May 8, 2005. The investigation initially saw four Turkish men arrested and charged with Caldwells murder before the case against them collapsed. Emma Caldwell's mother told the court 'thank you everyone' as her daughter's killer was brought to justice - Police Scotland/PA Police were accused of a series of failures during the initial probe, which cost 4 million and involved an elaborate bugging operation in a cafe used by the Turkish suspects. The case was reopened in 2015 following a campaign by Margaret Caldwell, the victims mother. Packer had given statements to police in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and was interviewed twice for a BBC documentary which was screened in February 2019. A BBC podcast series, released in 2021, had pinpointed Packer as the prime suspect and he was arrested the following year. Packer remained impassive in the dock on Wednesday as he was told he had been found guilty of the murder, following days of deliberation by a jury. Iain Packer carried out sex attacks on multiple women and murdered Emma Caldwell in 2005 - Police Scotland/PA In the public gallery, Mrs Caldwell, 76, wept and was comforted by relatives as her daughters killer was finally brought to justice. As she left court, she said: Thank you everyone. Caldwells father, William, had also been part of the campaign for justice but did not live to see Packer convicted. Three of the charges against Packer were not proven. A total of 33 came back guilty, relating to a period between 1990 and 2016. Among the charges he was convicted of were three against a victim who was 14 or 15 at the time of the offences. This includes a charge of rape dating back to 1990. Packer during a police interview in 2022. He was found guilty of 33 charges, relating to a period between 1990 and 2016 - Police Scotland/PA Bex Smith, assistant chief constable for major crime and public protection, admitted Caldwell, her family and many other victims had been let down by policing in 2005 and issued an apology. A significant number of women and girls who showed remarkable courage to speak up at that time also did not get the justice and support they needed and deserved from Strathclyde Police, she said. It is clear that further investigations should have been carried out into Emmas murder following the initial enquiry in 2005. The lack of investigation until 2015 caused unnecessary distress to her family and all those women who had come forward to report sexual violence. The serial rapist's van. Police said the lack of investigation until 2015 caused unnecessary distress to the families of victims - Police Scotland/PA Ms Smith added that the reinvestigation had been without doubt the largest police enquiry of recent times in Scotland. She added: Iain Packer was a calculating sexual predator who targeted women over many years. It is hard to comprehend how anyone could carry out such despicable, ruthless acts. He took Emmas life for his own gratification in the most appalling circumstances and cruelly left her body in remote woods hoping to cover his tracks. We have reflected and learnt from the initial investigation and subsequent re-investigation. Significant changes have been made in recent years to improve our organisational culture and our response, particularly in respect of investigative structures, victim care and processes to these types of crimes. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Idaho on Wednesday delayed the execution of convicted serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech, one of the nation's longest-serving death row inmates, after a failed attempt at lethal injection. Creech, who has been convicted of five murders, was sentenced to die for the killing of a fellow prisoner with a battery-filled sock in 1981. "The medical team could not establish an IV line, rendering the execution unable to proceed," Idaho Department of Correction spokesperson Sanda Kuzeta-Cerimagic said in a statement. "As a result, the death warrant will expire. The State will consider next steps." Thomas Creech / Credit: KBOI-TV The U.S. Supreme Court denied three requests from the 73-year-old Creech for a stay of execution Wednesday morning. There were no noted dissents. The execution would mark Idaho's first in more than a decade. Creech's attorneys with the Federal Defender Services of Idaho said in a statement that state officials tried and failed 10 times to access veins in both of his arms and legs to inject him with the lethal injection drug pentobarbital. "We are angered but not surprised that the State of Idaho botched the execution of Thomas Creech today. This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution," they said in a statement. The lawyers said they had warned the state and courts that such a "mishap" could occur when trying to execute Creech, who is one of the nation's oldest death-row inmates, "in circumstances completely shielded in secrecy despite a well-known history of getting drugs from shady sources." "Yesterday, the State called Mr. Creech's worries 'patently absurd' in its motions to the U.S. Supreme Court," they continued. "Unfortunately, what is absurd is Idaho's continuing efforts to kill this harmless old man, who by this point surely has suffered enough." Creech, an Ohio native who has been on death row at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution for nearly half a century, was convicted of five murders in three states and is suspected of at least half-dozen other killings. According to court filings, Creech admitted to killing or participating in the murders of at least 26 people. Just last month, investigators in California closed a decades-old cold case in San Bernardino County, connecting the 1974 murder of Daniel Walker to Creech, CBS Los Angeles reported. While serving a sentence of life in prison, Creech in 1981 bludgeoned a fellow inmate, David Jensen, with a sock filled with batteries, and pleaded guilty to the murder. He was sentenced to death by a judge in 1982, who found after several resentencings that "the protection of society demands that Thomas Eugene Creech receive the death penalty." Creech's attorneys told the Supreme Court in one request filed Monday that his execution would take place "in the face of unprecedented secrecy a secrecy unmatched by any other state in the United States and one usually reserved for third world countries." They asked the justices to block his execution while they consider a separate request to hear his case, in which he argued that the state presented false evidence at a clemency hearing in 2023 in violation of due process. Creech's request for the Supreme Court's intervention arrived days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected a challenge to his method of execution. Creech's lawyers had argued that the state failed to provide sufficient information about the source of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital, and suggested it may have been obtained by a pharmaceutical company that went out of business last year and recalled the product. His lawyers also warned that the pentobarbital may have come from other "unreliable sources." In appealing the 9th Circuit's decision, Creech's attorneys said "the devil is in the details, and the details about what the State has procured the actual, physical drug are of critical importance." The Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole had opposed Creech's effort at the Supreme Court, and Jensen's relatives opposed Creech's bid for clemency. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Creech would be just the fourth person executed in Idaho since 1976. Despite his horrific crimes, Creech was regarded as a well-behaved and polite inmate who established long-term relationships with prison staffers at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, corrections director Josh Tewalt told the Associated Press. "I don't want to be dismissive of what he did and the countless people who were impacted by that in real significant ways," Tewalt told the AP. "At the same time, you also can't be dismissive of the effect it's going to have on people who have established a relationship with him. On Thursday, Tom's not going to be there. You know he's not coming back to that unit that's real. It would be really difficult to not feel some sort of emotion about that." During his clemency hearing, Ada County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jill Longhurst agreed that Creech could be friendly, the AP reported, but she said he is a psychopath capable of being likable but lacking remorse and empathy for others. Police body camera footage released of shooting at Lakewood Church The Smokehouse Creek Fire spreads, extending its reach from Texas to Oklahoma Fast-moving wildfires torch the Texas Panhandle Thomas Creech has been on death row since 1983 for the beating death of fellow inmate David Jensen in 1981. (Courtesy of Christine Hanley/ Federal Defender Services of Idaho) Idaho Department of Correction officials couldnt carry out the scheduled execution of convicted murderer Thomas Creech on Wednesday morning, a department spokeswoman confirmed. Creechs execution was scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Idaho Maximum Security Institutions F-block south of Boise. Shortly after 11 a.m. Wednesday, correction officials released a written statement announcing they were unable to establish an IV line to administer lethal injection chemicals. At approximately 11 a.m. Director (Josh) Tewalt, after consulting with the medical team leader, determined that the medical team could not establish an IV line, rendering the execution unable to proceed, Idaho Department of Correction public information officer Sanda Kuzeta-Cerimagic wrote in a written statement. Mr. Creech will be returned to his cell and witnesses will be escorted out of the facility. As a result, the death warrant will expire. The State will consider next steps. Creech is one of eight current inmates in Idaho who have been sentenced to death. Creech was given a death sentence after being convicted of killing a fellow inmate in Ada County in 1981, according to the Idaho Department of Correction and Gov. Brad Little. According to Littles office, Creech was also convicted of killing four other people. In a statement Wednesday, Creechs legal team expressed anger at what they referred to as a botched execution. We are angered but not surprised that the State of Idaho botched the execution of Thomas Creech today, Creechs team at Federal Defender Services of Idaho wrote in a written statement. This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution. This morning, they tried and failed 10 times to access Toms veins in both of his arms and both legs so they could inject him with the states mysteriously acquired pentobarbital. This is precisely the kind of mishap we warned the State and the Courts could happen when attempting to execute one of the countrys oldest death-row inmates in circumstances completely shielded in secrecy despite a well-known history of getting drugs from shady sources. In a statement, Little said correction officials were well prepared for several situations that can happen during a lethal injection execution. The team of professionals at IDOC was prepared for the possibility that medical professionals would not be able to access the inmates veins, a circumstance that has occurred in execution procedures elsewhere in the country, the governor said in the statement. The competent and qualified medical professionals present and IDOC officials were cautious and did the right thing in not moving forward with the execution. My office will remain in close communication with IDOC about next steps. Creechs execution would have been the first in the state of Idaho since Idaho Department of Correction officials executed Richard Leavitt in June 2012. Lethal injection in Idaho For years, Idaho Department of Correction officials said they were unable to obtain the chemicals necessary to carry out a lethal injection. During the 2023 session, the Idaho Legislature passed House Bill 186, which adds the firing squad as an alternative method of execution if lethal injection is unavailable. However, the secure facility necessary to carry out an execution by firing squad has not yet been completed. Idaho Department of Correction spokesman Jeff Ray told the Idaho Capital Sun in November the firing squad facility was still in the design phase and there was not yet a timetable for its completion. Need to get in touch? Have a news tip? CONTACT US Then, after struggling to obtain lethal injection chemicals for years, Tewalt confirmed to the Idaho Capital Sun in November that the state had obtained the chemicals necessary to carry out a lethal injection. Tewalt declined to specify which specific chemicals state officials obtained. Furthermore, state laws passed by the Idaho Legislature provide confidentiality to the manufacturers, suppliers or providers of lethal injection chemicals. According to the Idaho Department of Correction, officials were moving forward with the planned execution in the moments leading up to 10 a.m. Wednesday. According to an updated timeline published online by correction officials, witnesses were moved to the execution viewing chambers at 10 a.m. On Tuesday evening, Creech ate what correction officials described at the time as his last meal fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, rolls and ice cream. According to correction officials, Creech visited with his wife Tuesday evening and met with his religious adviser for an hour early Wednesday before the planned execution. This is not the first time the state of Idaho has scheduled an execution and then been unable to carry it out. State officials scheduled and then canceled the planned execution for a different inmate, Gerald Pizzutto Jr., several times last year when state officials were previously unable to obtain lethal injection chemicals, Idaho Reports reported. However, Pizzuttos planned executions were called off before the morning they were scheduled to be carried out, making Creechs situation Wednesday more unusual. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Idaho Department of Correction unable to move forward with scheduled execution of Thomas Creech appeared first on Idaho Capital Sun. Idahos attempt to execute death row prisoner Thomas Creech, 73, was halted an hour into his scheduled lethal injection after prison officials were unable to establish a vein to insert an IV, according to the Idaho prison system. Creechs attempted execution began at 10 a.m. and was called off at 10:58 a.m., media witnesses said. Creechs death warrant expires just before midnight Wednesday, and it would be allowed to lapse, said Josh Tewalt, director of Idaho Department of Correction. At approximately 11 a.m., Director Tewalt, after consulting with the medical team leader, determined that the medical team could not establish an IV line, rendering the execution unable to proceed, the department said in an email. Mr. Creech will be returned to his cell and witnesses will be escorted out of the facility. As a result, the death warrant will expire. The state will consider next steps. Idaho death-row prisoner Thomas Creech. Gov. Brad Little, who previously pledged that he would not intervene to stop Creechs execution, said IDOC made the right call. IDOC officials are experienced and well prepared for a variety of situations that can arise during lethal injection execution, Little said in a statement. The team of professionals at IDOC was prepared for the possibility that medical professionals would not be able to access the inmates veins, a circumstance that has occurred in execution procedures elsewhere in the country. The competent and qualified medical professionals present and IDOC officials were cautious and did the right thing in not moving forward with the execution. My office will remain in close communication with IDOC about next steps. Immediately after the failed attempt to execute Creech, his attorneys with the legal nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho called the unsuccessful lethal injection a botched execution. We are angered but not surprised that the state of Idaho botched the execution of Thomas Creech today, Deborah A. Czuba, supervising attorney of the nonprofits unit that oversees death penalty cases, said in an emailed statement. This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution. Protesters gather Wednesday outside of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna to protest the death penalty. Tewalt and media witnesses to the event said at a press conference that the execution team tried and failed eight times to access a variety of Creechs veins. They first tried his right arm and then his right hand before moving to his left arm, and then to his left leg, witnesses stated. This is precisely the kind of mishap we warned the state and the courts could happen when attempting to execute one of the countrys oldest death-row inmates in circumstances completely shielded in secrecy despite a well-known history of getting drugs from shady sources, Czuba said. The state called Mr. Creechs worries patently absurd in its motions to the U.S. Supreme Court. Unfortunately, what is absurd is Idahos continuing efforts to kill this harmless old man, who by this point surely has suffered enough. Creech is the states longest-serving death row prisoner after nearly a half-century of incarceration and was handed his most recent death warrant his 12th since he was imprisoned on Jan. 30. The Rev. Duane Anders of the Cathedral of the Rockies, left, and the Rev. Buddy Gharring of Hillview United Methodist Church, second from left, sing Amazing Grace with other protesters against the death penalty on Wednesday outside of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna. The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday morning denied each of Creechs three remaining appeals, removing the final hurdles to his lethal injection. Each appeal made arguments that his execution would violate his constitutional rights. Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee whose regional assignment includes Idaho, denied each of Creechs requests for a stay of execution. About two dozen anti-capital punishment protesters gathered outside the state prison complex south of Boise on Wednesday to demonstrate against Creechs execution. There can be no business as usual on an execution day, Abraham Bonowitz, co-founder and executive director of Death Penalty Action, said in a statement. The execution of Thomas Creech is an unnecessary and wasteful expenditure of tax dollars which could be better spent providing additional services to the families of murder victims, and catching at-risk children before they fall through the cracks. Creech was convicted of five murders, including three in Idaho, between 1974 and 1981. He was found guilty of the November 1974 shooting deaths of Edward T. Arnold, 34, and John W. Bradford, 40, in Valley County, and later the May 1981 beating death of David D. Jensen, 23, a fellow prisoner in the maximum security prison. Creech was later convicted of having killed a man in Oregon, and another in California. He was suspected of several other slayings and, at points, including under oath, said he killed as many as 42 people by the time he was 24 years old. Creechs attorneys have said that number is grossly exaggerated. Idaho death row prisoner Thomas Eugene Creech, pictured here in November 2020, was convicted of three murders in the state and two more in Oregon and California between 1974 and 1981. Now 73, he has been incarcerated in Idaho for nearly 50 years. Creech was sentenced to death in both Idaho cases that preceded his two out-of-state convictions, but avoided execution at least 11 times during his time in prison. The state parole board denied Creechs request for a reduced sentence to life in prison, and the state scheduled his execution for Wednesday. The night before, Creech spent time with LeAnn Creech, his wife of 25 years, and ate what had been expected to be his last meal, which consisted of fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, rolls and ice cream, according to state prison officials. Creech chose butter-pecan ice cream, The Wall Street Journal reported. On Wednesday before the execution attempt, Creech met with his religious adviser for an hour, prison officials said. Creech remained cooperative in the days leading up to his scheduled execution, they said. He was allowed a sedative ahead of being brought into the execution chamber, Tewalt said. Prison officials in the fall acquired the manufactured liquid pentobarbital, a powerful sedative that can stop a persons breathing in higher doses, to use in executing Creech. They paid $50,000 for 15 grams of the drug. They have refused to identify the supplier, out of concern that doing so would hinder the states ability to carry out future executions. At 10 a.m., all witnesses to Creechs lethal injection were escorted to the execution chamber viewing area at the maximum security prison, prison officials said. Attempts to execute him began shortly after. Three members of the execution team were dressed in blue scrubs and cap with white cloth covering their faces, except their eyes, and they wore safety glasses. They tried eight times to establish an IV. Each attempt took four to six minutes. Two attempts were made in the right arm, one in the right hand, one in the left arm and four attempts in Creechs lower left leg. Creech, dressed in a green prison shirt and pants and orange slip-on rubber shoes, was rolled into the execution chamber on a gurney and strapped to a mattress on a metal frame. Six corrections officers hoisted him onto the execution bed, where more straps were applied to Creechs legs, arms and chest. In addition to four media witnesses, the state witnesses included Attorney General Raul Labrador and his chief of staff, Phil Skinner; Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts; Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford; Idaho Board of Correction Vice Chairman Dodds Hayden; and Jared Larsen, Gov. Brad Littles legal counsel and policy adviser. Idaho Statesman opinion editor Scott McIntosh, who acted as one of four media witnesses, contributed. Who is Thomas Creech, and what crimes did he commit in Idaho and elsewhere? Idaho bill to extend death penalty unconstitutional, aims for US Supreme Court review Officers use pepper spray, tear gas to restore order at Idaho maximum security prison Idaho called off the Wednesday morning execution of five-time murderer Thomas Eugene Creechwho has spent more than four decades on death rowafter a medical team was unable to establish an IV line to inject him with a fatal drug. The failed attempt means Creechs death warrant has expired, and hes been returned to his cell, said Josh Tewalt, director of the Idaho Department of Corrections. Tewalt said his medical team tried to establish an IV a total of eight times, using multiple limbs and appendages, but all of their attempts failed. We, from the very beginning, try to be very candid and upfront that this isnt a do it at any cost process, he said. Its just the latest in a string of failed drug injections in recent years, which have led some states to explore new execution methods, including nitrogen gas. Inmate Writhes for Two Minutes as Alabama Kills Him With Nitrogen Gas Idaho passed a law last year that allows for death by firing squad when a lethal injection cant be administered, but Tewalt said his agency does not have the facilities to carry out an execution in that manner. This is a heavily regulated process, he added. That requires it be treated with with a deference to being mindful of not violating the Eighth Amendment or creating any cruel and unusual punishment type claims. After finding out he wouldnt be executed, media witnesses said Creech waved to his loved ones who were watching from a witness room, closed his eyes, and shook his head. They said the execution was finally called off 47 minutes after Creech was brought into the execution chamber. Reporters also noted that Creech mumbled throughout the failed execution, but only spoke loud enough to be heard once, when he said his legs hurt. Two reporters, Brenda Rodriguez of KTVB and Scott McIntosh of the Idaho Statesman, said he appeared to mouth Im sorry to his loved ones. Creech, 73, has admitted to carrying out a string of murders in the early 1970s, with authorities linking him to 11 killings in totalthough Creech himself has claimed he slaughtered as many as 50 people before he was busted for shooting dead two men who picked him up as he hitchhiked. That first arrest came in 1974, and Creech has remained in custody in Idaho ever since. He was sentenced to death for that double slaying, but had his sentence changed to life in prison after the states sentencing law was found unconstitutional. Things had changed by 1983, however, and Creech landed himself back on death row after he was convicted of brutally beating and killing his fellow inmate David Dale Jensena disabled 22-year-old serving time for a car theft. Man Who Killed 3 at Georgia Golf Course Strikes Deal to Avoid Death Penalty While locked up, Creech provided info to police that led them to the bodies of Gordon Lee Stanton and Charles Thomas Miller near Las Vegas, and to the body of Rick Stewart McKenzie, 22, in Wyomingthree slayings he was found guilty of. He also admitted to and was convicted of killing Vivian Grant Robinson at her home in Sacramento, California, and was tried in the murder of 70-year-old Paul Schrader in Arizona, but was acquitted. Creech remains one of the countrys longest-serving inmates on death row, and his lawyers and supporters pleaded for clemency up until Wednesday morning. A petition to the Supreme Court on Monday asked them to stay the execution on claims Creechs due process rights were violated when prosecutors allegedly lied during his clemency hearing, but the high court sided with those whod already ruled below itdetermining Wednesday morning the claims werent enough to have Creech spared. In that same clemency hearing, attorneys for Creech insisted that hes a deeply changed man whod become a kind and supportive inmate inside the Idaho Maximum Security Institution cell block where he lived. They asked that he be sentenced to remain there for the rest of his life instead. While behind bars, Creech married the mother of a correctional officer, and his old prison guards noted that hed taken up writing poetry and was cordial with correctional officers. The pleas for mercy didnt sway a judge to pull Creechs death sentence, however, even as Ada County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jill Longhorst acknowledged that Creech had grown to be pleasant with those who watched over him in prison. That, Longhorst said, was what made Creech so dangeroushe had the ability to appear charming, but, deep down, was a murderous psychopath. The judge did show a slimmer of leniency for Creech, however, determining his wife could appear at the execution in a seat directly in front of where he was tied down, in a position where he can make eye contact with her. The judge also permitted an Episcopal bishop to silently pray during the execution over Creech, who was also permitted to wear a crucifix. In what he believed would be his final meal on Tuesday night, he chose to have fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, rolls, and butter pecan ice cream, the state prison system said. 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. The scheduled execution of convicted serial killer Thomas Creech, 73, was halted after prison officials in Idaho had problems inserting an IV line (Handout) The execution by lethal injection of a convicted serial killer in Idaho was halted on Wednesday after a medical team was unable to insert an intravenous line. Thomas Creech, 73, was strapped to a table in the execution chamber for an hour as repeated attempts were made to set an IV line to deliver the lethal drugs, prison officials and witnesses said. Creech was one of two convicted murderers scheduled to be executed in the United States on Wednesday. The other, Ivan Cantu, 50, was put to death in Texas by lethal injection for a double murder he insisted he did not commit. The doubts about Cantu's guilt had drawn attention to his case from the Catholic Church and a number of celebrities including Kim Kardashian and "West Wing" star Martin Sheen. Idaho Department of Corrections director Josh Tewalt said Creech's execution was called off after the failure of eight attempts to set an IV line in his arms and legs. "We don't have an idea of timeframes or next steps at this point," Tewalt told reporters at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of the capital Boise. "Those are things we will be discussing in the days ahead." Brenda Rodriguez, a reporter with the local KTVB television station, said Creech did not appear to have been in severe pain at any point although he did tell the medical staff at one stage that his "legs hurt a bit." "At the very end, when the execution was halted, he was just looking up," said Rodriguez, one of four media witnesses. "it felt like he was almost in relief." Creech, who has been on Death Row for more than 40 years and was to have been the first person executed in Idaho in 12 years, was sentenced to die for murdering his cellmate in 1981 with a battery-filled sock. He was imprisoned at the time after being convicted of five other murders, although he claimed to have committed dozens more. There have been a number of botched executions in the United States in recent years, including a failed attempt in Alabama in November 2022 to execute convicted killer Kenneth Smith by lethal injection. Smith was eventually put to death in January of this year in the first execution in the country to be carried out using nitrogen gas. Most of the botched executions have involved difficulties in inserting the IV needles that deliver the lethal drugs, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. - 'I never killed James and Amy' - Cantu, the Texas inmate, was convicted in 2001 of the murders of his cousin James Mosqueda and Amy Kitchen, Mosqueda's fiancee, who were shot to death. In a final statement before his execution, Cantu addressed the Mosqueda and Kitchen families and again proclaimed his innocence, Amanda Hernandez, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said. "I want you to know that I never killed James and Amy," Cantu said. "If I knew who did, you would've been the first to know any information I would've had." Cantu's then-fiancee, Amy Boettcher, who has since died, testified at his trial that he had admitted committing the murders and took her to Mosqueda's home afterward to look for hidden drugs and cash. Among the evidence submitted at the trial was a pair of jeans with blood from the victims that was found in Cantu's kitchen trash can. Lawyers for Cantu maintained that Boettcher lied on the witness stand and the jeans, which were too large for Cantu, were planted in the trash can. The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, Kardashian, who has been active in prison reform, and Sheen, an opponent of the death penalty, had urged that Cantu's execution be called off because of the doubts about his guilt. A MoveOn.org petition urging Texas Governor Greg Abbott to grant a stay of execution attracted some 150,000 signatures. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 US states, while the governors of six others -- Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee -- have put a hold on its use. There were 24 executions in the United States in 2023, all of them carried out by lethal injection. cl/md The execution of Thomas Creech, one of Americas longest-serving death row inmates, has been halted after prison officials were unable to place intravenous lines into his system. Creech, 73, was scheduled to be put to death in Idaho on Wednesday at 10am MST after the US Supreme Court denied three stay applications that the prisoner had previously submitted. Hes been imprisoned since 1974. Officials announced that Creech would not be executed about an hour into the scheduled execution. At approximately 11am, (Idaho Department of Correction) Director (Josh) Tewalt, after consulting with the medical team leader, determined that the medical team could not establish an IV line, rendering the execution unable to proceed, the department said in an email, according to the Idaho Statesman. Creech will be returned to his cell and witnesses will be escorted out of the facility. As a result, the death warrant will expire. The state will consider next steps. The death row inmate was previously found guilty of murdering Edward T Arnold, 34, and John W Bradford, 40, in November 1975 in Valley County. He was also found guilty of killing 23-year-old David D Jensen, a fellow inmate, by beating him to death in May 1981 at a maximum security prison. The latter crime is what put the inmate on death row. In total, Creech has been convicted of killing five men, including two others in Oregon and California. However, its believed that he mightve killed as many as 42 people. Speaking at a news conference following the botched execution, Mr Tewalt said decisions will be made in the upcoming days about whether officials will seek another death warrant for Creech. The official added that the state would need to examine whether the circumstances would be different if another attempt were to take place. This is a heavily regulated process that requires it be treated with a deference to being mindful of not violating the Eighth Amendment or creating any cruel and unusual punishment type claim, Mr Tewalt said. Our decision making is based on our ability to carry out an execution with dignity, professionalism and respect. He said the state is only equipped to administer the death penalty through lethal injection. State statute does allow officials to use a firing squad but he noted that the department does not have the capacity to implement that method. Its not the first time prison officials have botched a lethal injection execution. At least three death row inmates in Alabama recently had their executions halted after those administering the drugs were unable to place intravenous lines into their systems. One of those prisoners was Kevin Eugene Smith, who became the first death row inmate to be put to death with nitrogen hypoxia in his second execution attempt in January. Wednesdays incident was the first time a botched lethal injection attempt happened in Idaho. When asked about potentially using nitrogen gas at a later date, Mr Tewalt said that the state does not currently allow officials to use the method for executions. For the method to be considered, state lawmakers would need to pass a statute allowing for its implementation. Creech was transported to the execution chamber on a gurney around 10am. Officials said his last meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and ice cream. Before the execution, he was given a mild sedative and spent the hours leading up to the event with his wife and attorneys. Volunteer medical professionals tried to place the IV line in his arms, legs, hands and feet with no luck. One medical team member even left the execution chamber to get more supplies. At 10.58am, the warden called the procedure off. Reporter witnesses said that it did not appear as though Mr Creech suffered any pain during the attempted execution. Attorneys for the inmate had filed several motions to postpone the attempt. In court documents, Creechs legal team said his death would be unconstitutional because he was sentenced by a judge and not a jury, and that the state did not provide enough information about how the lethal injection drug was supplied or how it would be administered. Paramour isnt getting evicted at least not yet after appealing a judges ruling that granted the building's owner possession of the San Antonio rooftop cocktail bar. Holy Spirits LLC, which does business as Paramour, on Friday posted a $500 bond with its notice of appeal of the Feb. 20 ruling by Judge Michele Garcia in Bexar Countys Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace Court, court records show. Building owner CDC Enterprises LP had sued to evict Paramour for allegedly failing to pay rent for several months. The bar and the adjoining restaurant Colette will continue to operate during the appeal process, a spokesman said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad San Antonio lawyer Martin Phipps manages Holy Spirits and runs his law firm from the same building known as the Phipps Building where Paramour operates at 102 Ninth St. The Paramour spokesman declined to comment on the litigation Tuesday. A lawyer for CDC didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. The case now moves to County Court where a new trial will be held. The Justice of the Peace Court judgment becomes void on appeal because there is no record of the proceedings for the County Court to review. The Justice of the Peace Court doesnt employ court reporters. Its unclear when a trial may be held as numerous appeals of eviction cases have created a backlog in the County Court system, said a San Antonio lawyer who declined to be named. Either side can choose whether the eviction case is heard by a judge or a jury. A judge may overturn a jurys ruling if, for instance, the judge determines that jurors misinterpreted the law, the lawyer said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The rooftop cocktail bar Paramour opened in 2015. Its fighting an eviction by CDC Enterprises LP, owner of the Phipps Building at 102 Ninth St. John Davenport/San Antonio Express-News The Paramour, the rooftop bar at 102 Ninth St., had been sued for eviction for allegedly failing to pay rent. File photo A seating area between the rooftop restaurant Colette and the cocktail bar Paramour. Mike Sutter/Staff The County Courts ruling cant be appealed in eviction cases involving commercial property, so if CDC prevails, it would be issued a writ of possession of the property. That differs from eviction cases involving residential property, in which the losing party in County Court can appeal to the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio. Meagan Talafuse, a lawyer representing Holy Spirits, argued during last weeks eviction trial that the Justice of the Peace Court did not have subject matter jurisdiction to hear the eviction case because of an issue relating to title to the property. Garcia disagreed and found that CDC had immediate possession rights. On the day of the trial, Holy Spirits gave notice that it had removed the eviction case to federal court in San Antonio. However, on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jason Pulliam in a written ruling said his court lacked jurisdiction and sent the case back to the Justice of the Peace Court. Separately, Holy Spirits on Friday also removed to federal court a state District Court case filed by CDC to collect more than $260,000 in rent, late fees and interest allegedly owed by Holy Spirits. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Phipps and CDC official Daren Connel had been friends for about 40 years before their relationship soured and they landed in court. The Phipps Building was built in 2014, and Paramour opened the following year. In 2022, Phipps sought to refinance a mortgage loan on the building. A court document filed by Holy Spirits said Connel offered to help Phipps obtain a new loan. The court document adds that Phipps Emet LLC not Connel or CDC put up the $2.75 million down payment so that CDC could buy the Phipps Building from Emet. CDC did not pay a dime. The purchase price was $11 million. The deal was structured so that CDC would receive the rents to cover the monthly mortgage payment, according to the court filing. The remaining amounts were supposed to go to Emet to finance building and business operations. Last week, Talafuse told Garcia that the circumstances surrounding the sale of the property were not above board. CDC did not disclose to Emet ownership interest in the lending institution that ultimately made the new loan on the property, she said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Talafuse added that Emet couldnt pay building expenses because all the rent payments were going to CDC. An Indiana man faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty on Monday to threatening to kill a Michigan election worker. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI Feb. 28 (UPI) -- An Indiana man has pleaded guilty to threatening to kill a Michigan election worker in the days following the 2020 election. Andrew Nickels, 37, of Carmel, Ind., pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of making a threatening interstate communication and faces up to five years behind bars when he is sentenced on July 9. "No public official should face the violent threats that the victim in this case did, just for doing their job of ensuring the fairness and integrity of our federal, state, and local elections," U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison for the Eastern District of Michigan said in a statement. Nickels was charged in August with leaving a Michigan election worker a threatening voicemail on Nov. 10, 2020, just days after the general election was held. An excerpt of the voicemail included in court documents states Nickels said: "We're watching your ... mouth talk about how you think that there's no irregularities ... [Y]ou frauded out America of a real election." "You're gonna pay for it," Nickels said, according to federal prosecutors. "Ten million plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it." He continued to tell the official that they would "kill you," while warning them to "watch your back. "You deserve a [expletive] throat to the knife," he is quoted as having said. Though the Justice Department did not name the victim, former Rochester Hills election clerk Tina Barton has said that she was the recipient of Nickels' threats. In a statement on X, she thanked the judge and law enforcement, while stating Tuesday "marks a win for election officials all over the country." "While this is an important step in what has been and will be a lengthy process, the reality is that this individual's behavior has permanently impacted me and my family's lives," she said. "I will never be able to turn back the clock and go back to living in a sense of peace and security as I had done prior to this incident. I strongly believe that election officials should never be intimidated, threatened or harassed for doing their jobs serving the public." The guilty plea comes amid an increase in threats directed at election workers. In the wake of the 2020 election, the Justice Department launched an Election Threats Task Force to address threats of violence directed at election workers. In late August, the task force said it had brought 13 cases, including Nickels', before the court. Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's involvement in a membership organization assisting local elections offices. Earlier this month an Indiana Senate committee heard debate on the merits and pitfalls of "cleaning up" the state's voter rolls, particularly by cracking down on any non-citizens who might be registered to vote. Two days later, the same conversation played out in a legislative committee in a different state: Iowa. These aren't new ideas, but part of a trend of "election integrity" legislation that conservative activist groups are championing in statehouses across the country. The proposal to use Bureau of Motor Vehicle records to weed out potential non-citizen voters, in particular, has landed some other states in court. Watchdog groups expect the same for Indiana should House Bill 1264 become law. The Indiana General Assembly could give final approval to the bill as early as Thursday. Election clerks in Indiana are split on their opinions of House Bill 1264 it's such a dead heat that the Association of the Clerks of Circuit Courts of Indiana reached a stalemate and says it is "neutral" as a result. The bill has even divided the Indiana Election Division, whose Republican co-director is in favor and Democratic co-director is opposed. Some county clerks testified they've personally dealt with instances one or two in a given county of non-citizens registering and voting. Voter watchdog groups who view these provisions as disenfranchising certain groups of voters say lawsuits are all but certain to come if House Bill 1264 becomes law. Seventeen of them signed a letter of opposition to Senate leaders and the chair of the Senate elections committee, though the bill ultimately passed out of that committee 5-3. Lawsuits aside, they also worry about the bill's impact on access to the ballot box. Receiving a letter from the state instructing you to prove your citizenship is intimidating, argues Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. "The chilling effect on voters," he said, "I dont think can be overstated." Where the ideas come from Voter list maintenance legislation, particularly with respect to citizenship status, has been popping up around the country since at least 2016, but with more fervor after the 2020 election during which dozens of claims of fraudulent voting were investigated and dismissed. Former President Donald Trump has continuously touted unfounded conspiracy theories about the election in which he lost to President Joe Biden, even as he faces felony charges over his alleged efforts to overturn the election results. The most contested portions of House Bill 1264 would give the secretary of state the ability to contract with a third party to compare the voter rolls to commercially available data, such as from a credit agency, to check for variations in voter addresses. Plus it would require voting officials to compare the voter rolls with the BMV's list of people who have temporary driver's licenses, and notify counties of any matches. The idea there is to find noncitizens who registered to vote. That person would then have 30 days to provide proof of citizenship. At least a dozen states have enacted voter list maintenance bills since 2022. Lawmakers in at least a half dozen other states are looking at similar legislation this year. Roundup: Elections bills moving through Indiana General Assembly that will impact voters The ideas are promoted by groups like the Heritage Foundation, which has a website of "model legislation" including many of the tenants of House Bill 1264; and the Honest Elections Project, an organization that emerged during the 2020 election to combat alleged voter fraud. The goal, these groups say, is not to restrict access to the polls but to make sure only legal citizens are voting. "Its really a common sense proposal," said Catherine Gunsalus, director of state advocacy for Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation. "Easier to vote, harder to cheat" is the catch phrase both Heritage and Honest Election Project, and others in this space, use. Watchdog groups say these proposals seek to address a problem that does not exist: alleged widespread voter fraud. "Its legislators wanting to say they are cracking down on illegal voting, even though illegal voting is not really happening," Diaz, of the Campaign Legal Center, said. Though some Indiana county clerks testified they've found a handful of non-citizens on voter rolls, and the bill's author cites "reports across the state" without evidence, it's not clear whether any of these instances have been investigated. IndyStar asked the secretary of state's office whether it was aware of such instances or any investigations. A spokesperson deferred to the clerks for county-specific information and said Secretary of State Diego Morales encourages them to report any illegal voting to law enforcement agencies. "Secretary Morales believes that non-citizen registration or voting is a serious concern that should be guarded against," spokesperson Lindsey Eaton wrote. Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales speaks after being sworn into office Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis. Bill author Rep. Timothy Wesco, R-Osceola, told IndyStar the ideas for this bill came from conversations with the secretary of state's office, and that it's partly a continuation of a conversation that began last year when lawmakers passed a law allowing Ukrainian immigrants on humanitarian parole to receive drivers' licenses. Lawmakers are in the process of repealing that provision in response to an injunction from a federal judge, after a group of Haitian immigrants sued. When someone goes to get a driver's license, the BMV asks whether they want to register to vote. The bill's proponents say, whether accidental or not, people who shouldn't say yes might say yes. Regardless of the number of reported instances of illegal voting, Wesco said he believes adding extra safeguards will help bolster trust in elections. "Whether insignificant or not, it creates a lot of concern from the public when they come to understand, Oh, you mean someone who's not even a citizen can register to vote and vote?" he said. "And there's no safeguards in place to prevent that? That's a problem." Legal battles in other states Texas experimented with a similar citizenship data review process in 2019, and it ended badly. The Texas secretary of state's office flagged 95,000 registered voters as potential noncitizens, based on a data from the Texas Department of Public Safety on people who said they were not citizens when they got a driver's license or ID card. Counties started sending those voters letters demanding proof of citizenship within 30 days. But that data didn't account for people who might have gained citizenship since getting their ID card. Tens of thousands of people shouldn't have been on that list. Three federal lawsuits were filed, and three months in, the Texas secretary of state agreed to end the experiment as part of a settlement. Wesco said he believes the process of reaching out to the voter to confirm their citizenship status, rather than automatically removing people from the rolls, should assuage legal concerns. There is also an appeals process outlined in his bill. Representative Timothy Wesco, R-District 21, prepares remarks for U.S. Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-2nd District), Zach Potts, 27, and Emma Thomson, 28, all of which were killed in a car crash in Elkhart County, during a a special session in the House of Representatives on Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022, at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis. But voting advocates see Texas as a cautionary tale. "This bill is primed to make the same mistake," said Liz Avore, senior policy advisor at Voting Rights Lab. Similarly in Georgia in 2018, a federal judge ordered the state to change its procedure flagging potential non-citizens, after more than 50,000 Georgia residents were flagged because the driver's license database wasn't updated when those applicants became citizens. The constitutional argument against Indiana's bill, as well as similar proposals in those other states, is that the state would be creating different classes of voters by creating extra burdens for new citizens. There are also logistical hurdles: Immigration attorneys have testified that 30 days is not nearly enough time for new citizens to obtain their credentials. A law being challenged in Arizona goes a step further than Indiana's proposal. Arizona's House Bill 2492 requires all voters to submit proof of citizenship to register to vote, beyond the attestation all voters are required to check off. Even though it goes further than Indiana's proposal, Diaz said he still wouldn't be surprised if groups filed similar lawsuits in response to House Bill 1264. The Campaign Legal Center is one of the plaintiffs in the Arizona lawsuit. The basis for the Arizona lawsuit is that the bill creates an extra burden of proof for certain prospective voters. "Whether Indiana rejects you at the moment or rejects you later, doesnt really matter," he said. Political influence on elections Less controversial but nonetheless emerging from the same movement among conservative activists is a proposal to further restrict private dollars flowing into county elections offices. After the 2020 election, dozens of states, including Indiana, passed laws outlawing elections offices from accepting private dollars to help them conduct elections a response to philanthropies backed by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan providing $300 million in grants to help elections offices with administrative expenses like ballot sorters, hand sanitizer and staff. Conservative groups have charged that so-called "Zuck Bucks" were merely a mechanism to influence elections. The Federal Elections Commission voted unanimously to dismiss a complaint alleging this. Election Clerks Kenya Webb and Deola Owens greet voters Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023, at Indianapolis fire Department Station #30. Then in 2023, one of those philanthropic organizations that distributed Zuckerberg and Chan's donations in 2020 created a membership organization to provide resources to county elections offices. Conservative activists refer to this as Zuck Bucks 2.0, even though Zuckerberg is not financially supporting this new effort. So House Bill 1264 bans Indiana elections offices from becoming members of such an organization. The Honest Elections Project, which focuses on this issue, is aware of similar legislation in five other states. Even if "Zuck Bucks" weren't found to tangibly impact the 2020 election, it's still a bad look to accept private dollars, vice president Chad Ennis said. "If an election office is underfunded, it should come from the political branch from your local or state government," he said. Most would agree that elections offices should be funded with nonpartisan, public dollars. The problem, say some groups, is these bills don't provide such additional funding. "Its a little disingenuous to be putting up blocks to funding and then not fully funding offices," Avore, of the Voting Rights Lab, said. Heritage Action shared Honest Elections Project's model legislation on this subject with Wesco, but did not specifically work with him on it, a spokesperson said. Two Americas? The broad trend line is conservative states are making voter access laws more strict, while liberal-led states are seeking to expand access to the ballot. Already Indiana is one of the more challenging states to cast a ballot in, with early poll closing times and a lack of no-excuse mail-in absentee ballots. "I think its really concerning that your zip code determines your level of access to our democracy," Avore said. "In this election, a voters experience is largely going to be determined by where they live." More: From U.S. president to county judge, candidates face challenges to run in Indiana primary The movement to restrict access has never been louder or more aggressive, Diaz said, and typically motivated by partisan actors. At the same time, Americans are more plugged in these days. "I am very hopeful because its clear to me that when you put the facts in front of people, democracy wins every time," Diaz said. Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @kayla_dwyer17. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana proposal to clean up illegal voting had issues in other states A new bureau within the Indianapolis police department will aim to better respond to mental health crises among the citys residents, according to a plan revealed Wednesday. The Operations Support Bureau will move several of the city's social service-related units under its purview. The goal is to better respond to mental health calls, police said in a news release, but also serve as a centralized hub to coordinate resources. Its the latest structural change for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department under its new chief, Chris Bailey. "We needed to make sure that we sent a message, both internally and externally, how important (mental health) is and we do that by creating its own separate bureau and putting a command-level person in charge," Bailey said. Bailey has previously said police have shouldered mental health-related calls for years, estimating only 20% of the police departments calls are related to actual law enforcement issues, and the remaining 80% stem from issues not built for officers. What will the Operations Support Bureau oversee? The bureau will take on the police departments Mobile Crisis Assistance Team commonly called MCAT that sends mental health clinicians to certain calls with an officer and the Homeless Outreach Unit. Its staff also will collaborate with the citys clinician-led community response team, the Office of Public Health and Safety and other mental health providers. The clinician response team operates on a 24/7 schedule downtown and in east Indianapolis. Indianapolis Park Rangers, Public Safety Officers and Public Assistance Officers also will be placed under the bureau. Why was the bureau created? Bailey said that during his time as interim chief, addressing the growing mental health concerns in the community became a priority. Consolidating the Homeless Unit and MCAT helps streamline the city's response, he said. The goal is to efficiently respond to and prioritize mental health incidents by consolidating resources and fostering collaboration, the department said in a news release. Who will oversee the bureau? Tabatha McLemore, a 21-year veteran of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, has been promoted to Major and will oversee a new mental health-related bureau within the department. A 21-year veteran of the Indianapolis police department was chosen for the position. Maj. Tabatha McLemore was tapped to oversee the new offices. McLemore previously helped run the departments Homeless Unit, the downtown districts detectives and the Violent Crimes Task Force for downtown. In November 2021, she managed the Mobile Crisis Assistance Teams and worked with the Homeless Unit. She is vice chair of the Sandra Eskenazi Mental Health Advisory Board. Additionally, McLemore was asked to serve on a panel about Homelessness and Law Enforcement by the National Institute of Justice. McLemore started her career in the east district, then moved to the Vice and Human Trafficking unit where she worked undercover for eight years. Bailey said his intent behind creating the position was to ensure a command-level person could work with agencies outside the department, a task that previously fell to assistant chiefs. He also hopes the Operations Support Bureau will provide the public with more information about the 988 mental health line and internally, seek out more training if other departments have success with mental health response models. Past calls for change to Indianapolis' mental health response In recent years, calls for change in how the city handles mental health have skyrocketed. The critiques made headlines in 2022 after the death of Herman Whitfield III, a 39-year-old Black man who was undergoing an apparent mental health crisis in his home when Indianapolis officers tased, handcuffed and placed him face down on the ground. Advocates in the weeks after Whitfield's death demanded a faster rollout of a team of clinicians that would respond to certain 911 calls, instead of police. The demands resurfaced this past year after a string of shootings by Indianapolis police, some injuring or killing people with a history of mental health issues. A group of clergy members went as far as to call for former Police Chief Randal Taylor's resignation in light of the shootings. They referenced Whitfield's death as a contributing factor to their calls. Critics of Indianapolis police responses to mental health calls are reserving comment until they have a better understanding of the bureau. When two of the police officers who responded to Whitfield's home that morning were indicted last year for their alleged role in the death, the local police union president called for the immediate end of police responses to mental health crises. More: Indy police union leader says mental health bureau could expose department's other weakness Rich Waples, an attorney representing the Whitfield family said the bureau is a welcome change, adding "the more coordination there is, the better." Still, he said the city's overall system for responding to mental health is not enough. "The city's apparatus for responding to its citizens' mental health needs is still too little and, rather than being too late, is often nonexistent," he said, calling for the expansion of MCAT and clinician response teams to cover the city. Other appointments announced round out IMPD's new leadership Bailey also appointed Cmdr. Nikole Pilkington as commander of the Southwest District, Lt. Jeffrey Silcox to commander of the Training Academy and Cmdr. Michael Leepper as commander of the East District. Contact reporter Sarah Nelson at sarah.nelson@indystar.com This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy police chief forms mental health bureau to curb 'critical issues' Victims of the contaminated blood scandal have urged the government to set out a compensation scheme for those affected, in next week's Budget. Campaigners staged a demonstration in Westminster, demanding urgent action. The Infected Blood Inquiry made its final recommendations for compensation payments in April 2023. During Prime Minister's Questions, Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson noted that 80 victims of the scandal had died in the nearly 11 months since then. The Hull North MP, chair of the Commons home affairs committee, challenged Rishi Sunak to explain to the protesters outside why ministers had failed to implement any of the inquiry's compensation recommendations. The prime minister replied that he was "acutely aware of the strength of feeling on this issue and the suffering of all of those impacted by this dreadful scandal", adding that the government had accepted "the moral case for compensation". On Monday, the government had committed itself in the Lords to bring forward amendments to the Victims and Prisoners Bill, with the aim of speeding up the compensation process, Mr Sunak said. The government has been widely accused of dragging its feet over compensation and the prime minister was heckled when he appeared before the inquiry last year, pledging to pay compensation "as swiftly as possible". Around 30,000 NHS patients are thought to have been infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. More than 3,000 have died. The public inquiry, chaired by retired judge Sir Brian Langstaff, is due to publish its final report in May. But last year Sir Brian called for a final compensation framework to be set up by the end of 2023. He also called for the payments to be extended to the parents and children of those infected, saying it was time to "recognise deaths which have so far gone unrecognised". The government has made interim payments of 100,000 each to about 4,000 victims and some bereaved partners. But ministers have argued they are not able to make a final decision on further payouts, which could total billions of pounds, until they have seen the inquiry's final findings. Claire Dixon, whose mother Nora Worthington was infected with HIV through contaminated blood in 1991, said her mother urged her to keep up the fight for recognition of the victims' suffering before her death in 1993. "Before she passed away she said: 'Please don't let them get away with it'," said 52-year-old Ms Dixon, from Manchester. Speaking from College Green in Westminster, she said: "My mother was given three pints of blood for a perforated ulcer, one of the pints was infected with HIV. "For me personally, it is about the recognition. It isn't about the money. No amount of money could ever bring my mother back." 'Sickening' As a single parent, Mrs Worthington had yet to be recognised by the government for compensation, Ms Dixon said. Sue Sparkes, from Cardiff, said her husband, Les, a haemophiliac who was infected with HIV and hepatitis C, died in 1990. "I was left widowed at 31 with two young children," she said. "[The government] keep on saying they are waiting for the report, we don't need to wait for the report. They are trying their best not to pay. It's the worst tragedy in the history of the NHS." A number of MPs joined the campaigners to support their calls for rapid compensation. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer met them in Westminster Hall, a room in Parliament used for debates. Asked if he would resolve delays in compensation if Labour came to power, he said "yes", but added he hoped the matter would be resolved before then. Kate Burt, chief executive of the Haemophilia Society, said: "It is sickening and cruel that five decades after our community was exposed to the horror of the contaminated blood scandal, we are still waiting for government to right that wrong and take responsibility for what happened." Rachel Halford, chief executive of the Hepatitis C Trust, added: "The government's refusal to act is actively harming these people, people whose lives have already been devastated by infected blood. They deserve better than this." A government spokesperson said: "This was an appalling tragedy, and our thoughts remain with all those impacted. We are clear that justice needs to be delivered for the victims. "This covers a set of extremely complex issues, and it is right we fully consider the needs of the community and the far-reaching impact that this scandal has had on their lives. "The government intends to respond in full to Sir Brian's recommendations for wider compensation following the publication of the inquiry's final report." An initiative to prohibit the state, counties and local governments from imposing any future tax on income was heard Tuesday, Feb. 27, before a joint session of the House Finance and Senate Ways and Means Committees in Olympia. More than 6,000 people signed into the hearing in support of I-2111, while nearly 650 signed in opposition to the proposal. I-2111 is one of six initiatives sponsored by Lets Go Washington and was certified by the Secretary of State in January, prompting Republican lawmakers and supporters of the initiatives to press Democratic leadership for hearing dates before the Legislature adjourns on March 7. It is the first initiative to get a hearing this session. Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, spoke in support of the initiative during the hearing, noting that he was the one who filed I-2111 with the Secretary of State. Initiative 2111 is designed to do one thing, and that is to codify in law the states longstanding tradition of not having an income tax based on personal income, Walsh said. Walsh added that the initiative was drafted narrowly so that it only applies to personal income and said he believed the initiative would also prevent any future tax policy maneuvers aimed at establishing an income tax. Others spoke in opposition to I-2111. Marcy Bowers, executive director for the Statewide Poverty Action Network, told the committee Feb. 27 that the organization was opposed to the initiative because it doesnt do anything for Washingtonians. What we need is public investments to lift people up and to fund our basic safety net infrastructure, she said. What we dont need is to spend time debating proposals like this that are so vaguely worded that they dont actually do anything. If I-2111 is passed by the Legislature or adopted by voters, it will not repeal or impact any current taxes or tax structures in the state, rather it would only apply to future enacted taxes on gross income, said Steve Ewing, a legislative and external affairs liaison for the Washington state Department of Revenue. Washington does not have a tax on personal income, and has one of the most regressive tax structures in the country because it relies heavily on sales tax. In 1932 the Washington State Supreme Court declared a voter-approved income tax unconstitutional, and since then multiple attempts to get an income tax approved by voters have failed. Only two other initiatives including one for parental rights and one to rollback police pursuit laws will be heard by lawmakers in addition to the income tax initiative heard Feb. 27. Democratic lawmakers have said they will not hold hearings for the other three measures including an initiative to repeal the capital gains tax and an initiative to repeal portions of the Climate Commitment Act, so those initiatives will go straight to the Nov. 5 ballot. According to the Secretary of State website, Washington was one of the first states to adopt an initiative and referendum process to provide a check over the Legislature in 1912. Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine Ukraine's ammunition starved troops pulled back from two more villages in the country's war-torn east this week, ceding them to Russian forces who've capitalized on their enemies' shortages to seize more territory after taking the hard-fought city of Avdiivka about two weeks ago. After punishing battles that decimated Bakhmut and then Avdiivka cities that stood as symbols of Ukrainian resistance for months, even years, but ultimately fell to Russian firepower Russia's forces have turned their sites and their guns on the nearby city of Chasiv Yar. CBS News was there months ago, and it was tense even then, but when we returned to Chasiv Yar this week, explosions rang out non-stop and we found a city ravaged by artillery fire, and exhausted troops asking for help. The state of the Ukraine war 2 years into "Putin's vicious onslaught" We were told to drive at breakneck speed over the crumbling, potholed road leading to Chasiv Yar. At a high point on the road, the trees and houses disappeared and just over the brow of the next hill was Bakhmut, which has been held by Russian forces for months. We were exposed, and it was a clear day perfect conditions for drones looking to target vehicles moving in and out of the town. Russia has been smashing Chasiv Yar with artillery, missiles and airstrikes for months, but Ukrainian soldiers told us the intensity of those attacks spiked over the past few days. That's one indication the city could be the next target for Russia's grinding offensive in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Another is its proximity to Russian-held Bakhmut. Ukrainian servicemen of 93rd brigade fire a 2S1 Gvozdika self propelled howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the town of Chasiv Yar, Ukraine, Feb. 22, 2024. / Credit: STRINGER/REUTERS We were supposed to speak with the local commander, but at the last minute we were told he couldn't meet with us; he was directing his forces, who were coming under attack. With explosions reverberating all around, we passed a bombed-out building onto which someone had spray painted a message: "We are not asking too much, we just need artillery shells and aviation the rest we'll do ourselves." It was written in English. Ukraine's forces know exactly who to aim both their dwindling bullets, and their words at. "We are counting on our American partners to help us with weapons, so that our guys do not have to sacrifice their lives," Reuben Sarukhanian, a soldier with Ukraine's 5th Assault Brigade, told CBS News. Reuben Sarukhanian, a soldier with Ukraine's 5th Assault Brigade, speaks with CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, in late February 2024. / Credit: CBS News U.S. Army in Europe says it will go broke by summer without Ukraine funding Russia's lethal reach extends far beyond the battlefield, as residents in the nearby village of Kostyantynivka learned. As Russian troops advance, countless small towns like Kostyantynivka are in the firing line, and no targets appear to be off limits. The town's historic train station was still smoldering from a Russian missile strike a few nights earlier that turned it into an inferno, and destroyed nearby homes. It was a direct hit, clearly aimed at crippling Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. The train station in Kostyantynivka, eastern Ukraine, is seen several days after it was destroyed by a Russian missile strike in late February 2024. / Credit: CBS News This section of the long front line that stretches right through Ukraine's vast Donbas region has seen some of the worst attacks of the war. It's borne the brunt of two years of blistering offensives and counteroffensives. But the Russians have the upper hand here now, with more weapons and more manpower and seemingly no qualms about expending either. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Albania on Wednesday to co-host a summit aimed at drumming up additional support from Ukraine's European neighbors. But he, and Ukraine's battlefield commanders, know that nothing can replace the $60 billion aid package still stalled in the U.S. Congress. Without American support, Zelenskyy says, Ukraine will lose. Police body camera footage released of shooting at Lakewood Church The Smokehouse Creek Fire spreads, extending its reach from Texas to Oklahoma Mitch McConnell to step down as Senate Republican leader Over the coming months, Donald Trump is set to carve out a singular place in American history: the first major party nominee to effectively run his campaign out of a courtroom. As Trump fights 91 felony indictments in four separate venues, some Republicans have a pressing question they want answered: How much money from the GOP machinery will go toward his legal expenses? The answer, Trump campaign officials say, is none. Sources close to Trump tell TIME the former President plans to pay his legal bills mostly through his personal checkbook and the help of allied Super PACs. But they are still mobilizing against a proposed resolution from a Republican National Committee member to ban party funds from covering Trumps legal fees. It's an insult, says a Trump-allied committee member. It's kind of an F You to the Trump campaign. That's why. Drafted by Henry Barbour, an RNC member from Mississippi, the measure comes as Trump marches closer to solidifying the Republican presidential nomination and seeks to install new loyalists to lead the organization. That includes his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who has previously said she was willing to funnel some of the groups funds toward Trumps multi-million-dollar stack of legal fees. But after Barbour released his resolution over the weekend, both Lara Trump and the Trump campaign adamantly denied any such plans. The Republican National Committee, they say, will remain narrowly focused on Trumps election and helping GOP candidates win up and down the ballot. The primary is over and it is the RNCs sole responsibility to defeat Joe Biden and win back the White House, says campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita, whom Trump tapped to take over the RNCs money operation. For that reason, few expect the resolution to pass. I wouldnt bet on it, says one RNC member. In fact, its not clear whether there will even be a vote. Theres no resolutions meeting on the agenda for the upcoming RNC gathering in Houston next month, a source familiar with the matter tells TIME. Even Barbour admits his motion stands little chance. If there is any hint in the room that the Trump campaign doesn't want it, it doesn't have a prayer, says Barbour. But I felt like we needed to have this discussion. Such a resolution would have no concrete impact, as its non-binding. If RNC members want to statutorily prevent the committee from paying Trumps or any candidates legal fees, they would need to vote on a rule change at the Republican National Convention in July. While some insiders anticipate someone will float new rules on the issue, they expect those efforts to be shot down. Its going to be a pretty Trump crowd at the convention, an RNC member says. Theres another reason why some Republicans worry about Trumps legal expenses sucking up GOP resources: the party has been struggling to compete with Democrats on fundraising. The RNC recently reported that last year was its worst fundraising year in almost a decade, raking in $87.2 million, with only $8 million leftover by years end. During the same time, the Democratic National Committee raised $120 million, starting 2024 with $21 million on hand. The RNC has paid for Trumps legal fees before. In 2021 and 2022, the RNC executive committee voted a handful of times to cover specific attorney fees to help Trump weather investigations from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Together, those disbursements amounted to roughly $1.6 million, according to multiple RNC sources, including Barbour. In late 2022, when Trump was signaling a third bid for the White House, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, who is stepping down on March 8, said the committee would stop covering Trumps legal bills once he declared his candidacy, citing the organizations commitment to neutrality in primaries. Since then, the former Presidents legal woes have only mounted. Trump, who denies all wrongdoing, faces criminal prosecutions for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments during the 2016 election; hoarding classified documents and obstructing the governments efforts to retrieve them; and attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Read more: Trumps First Criminal Trial Set to Begin on March 25 in New York Its not only lawyers fees putting Trump in a cash crunch. In January, a jury ordered Trump to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of rape, $83.3 million for making defamatory remarks about her. And last week, a New York judge ordered him to pay $454 million in a civil fraud case, which Trump appealed on Monday. Trump easily won the Michigan GOP primary on Tuesday, continuing a glidepath to the nomination that only gained traction last year as his legal liabilities grew. With each indictment, he rose in the polls and hauled in millions in fundraising. Throughout 2023, two pro-Trump Super PACsSave America and MAGA PACspent more than $50 million on his legal bills, with another $2.9 in January. Both groups explicitly solicit donations to cover the former Presidents legal defense. Sources close to Trump say he will continue relying this year on the PACs, as well as a GoFundMe account created by his supporters and his own personal wealth to support his legal defense. For Barbour, thats hardly reassuring. While McDaniel, as RNC chair, made a point of asking the organizations executive committee to approve Trump legal payments, sources say theres nothing requiring a future chair to continue that practice. That means the group could end up disbursing money for Trumps courtroom battles unbeknownst to the membership. I don't think we'd find out about it, Barbour says, until somebody discovered it in an FEC report. Contact us at letters@time.com. As residents of Aztec, we stand at a pivotal juncture in our community's future, one that requires careful consideration and decisive action. While I do serve as AMSD (Aztec Municipal School District) Board Secretary, I am writing this letter in my capacity as a private citizen and property owner in the District. At the heart of our town's vitality lies the strength of our education system. Now, we face a crucial decision: whether to extend the mill levy that has been in place for 20 years and will not increase your taxes. As a community, we must recognize the importance of this initiative and rally behind its extension for the betterment of our children, our community, and our collective future. Laci L. Phillips Newland Education serves as the cornerstone of any thriving society, empowering individuals, fostering innovation, and driving economic prosperity. For decades, the schools of Aztec have played a pivotal role in shaping the minds and futures of generations of students, providing them with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities they need to succeed in an ever-evolving world. However, sustaining and enhancing the quality of education requires adequate resources, and that's where the mill levy comes into play. By extending the mill levy, we reaffirm our commitment to keep our school facilities clean and operational, ensure our buildings are regularly maintained, maintain heating and air conditioning systems, protect and keep our grounds beautiful for students to enjoy, help manage emergency repairs and manage and upgrade security systems. In addition, mill levy funds would help keep the education we provide current with software and technology upgrades. This would strengthen student STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. The benefits of a well-funded education system extend far beyond the walls of our schools. A strong educational foundation not only prepares students for the challenges of tomorrow but also attracts businesses, bolsters property values, and fosters a sense of pride and belonging within our community. Many of our high school student athletes go on to compete at the college level. Our high schools and middle school have award-winning student councils. Our elementary schools offer special programs such as after-school tutoring. In 2023, Lydia Rippey Elementary School earned the prestigious Blue Ribbon School award. Its one of only three schools in New Mexico and 352 schools nationwide to earn this designation. We offer innovative career pathway programs throughout our school system to encourage students to explore their passions and build excitement for the future. We also offer a groundbreaking paid internship program for our high school students in partnership with local businesses and government agencies that allows them to try out and actually learn what is required for various career options. As members of the Aztec community, we have a responsibility to ensure that our children receive the education they deserve an education that empowers them to thrive, innovate, and lead. By extending the mill levy, we send a powerful message: that we believe in our children, in our community, and in the limitless potential that lies within each and every one of us. In the spirit of unity and progress, let us come together to extend the mill levy for our schools. Let us stand as stewards of our children's future, champions of education, and architects of a brighter tomorrow. Together, we can build a stronger, more vibrant Aztec one classroom, one student, and one investment at a time. Ballots were mailed to registered voters starting Wednesday, February 21. Please fill yours out and return to the San Juan County Clerk by March 12, 2024, to make sure they arrive on time. Thank you! For more information, please visit www.voteaztecschools.com or www.aztecschools.com. Laci L. Phillips Newland is a founding partner at Practice Dynamics Group, where she combines her knowledge of dentistry with her passion for teams to deliver customized coaching, workshops and speaking events throughout the country. She is also a member of the Aztec Municipal School District Board and serves as Secretary of the Board. This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Investing in our future: Why Aztec must extend the mill levy A local elementary school could soon shutter in a cost-cutting move. Hills Elementary School may close in the next two years after an Iowa City Community School District superintendent's office report cited a higher cost per student figure than at other area elementary schools, noting that the district could save more than $1 million. The study also mentioned a potentially shrinking student population and plenty of room for elementary education across the district. The current situation dictates that the district retire the existing Hills ES building, redistrict students to a different elementary school(s), and table any considerations for the construction of a new school in Hills until the next (Facilities Master Plan) cycle, district Superintendent Matt Degner wrote in a memo to the school board. More: HISTORY ON THE MOVE: West Liberty's historic Stagecoach Inn makes slow move to Heritage Park Operating costs at Hills Elementary are high Because Hills is the smallest elementary school in the Iowa City Community School District, with an expected enrollment of just 126 students next school year, operating costs are expected to impact the district budget significantly. The staff-to-student ratio is 3.8 students for every full-time employee at Hills. Degner wrote that at the most efficient elementary school in the district, that ratio is 10.4 students to full-time employees. The district was informed at a financial oversight committee meeting in mid-February that schools with smaller student-to-full-time employee ratios cost the same to operate but incur larger per-student costs. That means that the cost per student at Hills eclipses $7,000, over $1,000 more than any other elementary school in the district and more than $2,000 above the average elementary cost per student. Moving those students to other elementary schools could save the Iowa City Community School District more than $250,000 annually. Enrollment at Hills Elementary has fluctuated throughout the years. The student body was at 256 in 2001 but plummeted to 116 students a decade later. Enrollment rose to 172 during the 2021-22 school year but is expected to decrease by 26 percent by the next academic year. More: What is Iowa City's Charter Review Commission and what can it do? District is reducing total budget over next two years The Iowa City Community School District superintendent's office report references repeated budgetary constraints as a reason to close Hills Elementary. Preliminary estimates predict the district can save nearly $1.66 million in the next fiscal year by closing the school. Other districts across the state have announced budget reductions to make up for financial shortfalls. In Des Moines, the district will cut $14 million in costs, including an estimated $3 million from their budget by reducing staffing. The school board approved plans for a new Hills Elementary in 2022 despite concerns for starting fresh in small community. Construction has yet to begin despite an initial target date of 2025. Hills Elementary was one of just five schools in the entire state of Iowa to be named a Blue Ribbon School in 2021, an accreditation that celebrates academic performance and progress in closing gaps between students. Only 325 schools across the country received that award in 2021. More: From art to theatre, here are four things to do in Iowa City this weekend Teacher expressed concern over rumors of closure in the past Kara Diemer-Graham, an English teacher at Hills Elementary, told the school board on Feb. 13 about rumors of the school's closure. Before the board makes a decision that would devastate students, families, staff and the community, I implore you to consider the many unique circumstances surrounding Hills and work together alongside us to explore other options to reduce the cost of keeping our school open, Diemer-Graham said. She referenced the district's All in for all kids motto and said many of the families with children who attend Hills are doing whatever it takes" for a quality education. She admitted that "whatever it takes" for students at Hills "might mean more than the average school." Diemer-Graham added that many Hills students suffer from food scarcity and don't have clean drinking water or internet at home. Other students, she said, are new to the United States and enter the Iowa City Community School District with little to no formal English language skills or school experience, and have very few resources at their disposal. Being a small building, every teacher realistically has a chance to form a relationship with every student and thus, we are better able to serve their individual needs, Diemer-Graham said. Ryan Hansen covers local government and crime for the Press-Citizen. He can be reached at rhansen@press-citizen.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ryanhansen01. This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: Iowa City Community school board could close Hills Elementary to cut costs A Des Moines man is soon to be posthumously recognized for his role in a top secret troop designed to confuse and intimidate the Germans in World War II. Information about the Ghost Army had been kept secret for more than 50 years until it was declassified in 1996. Now, its 1,100 members will receive a Congressional Gold Medal, Congress's highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements by individuals or institutions, thanks to a nonprofit and an Iowa high schooler who lobbied for the honor. Its been a long but ultimately rewarding effort to bring attention and much overdue recognition to the Ghost Army, Rick Beyer, president of Chicago-based The Ghost Army Legacy Project, said in a news release. The story of the Ghost Army is one of courage, creativity, reliance, and honor, and I am proud to have been a part of this effort, along with so many others, to earn the credit and gratitude from the country these soldiers served to protect." Today, only seven members of the troop are still living, and each is 100 years or older. Three are expected to join the ceremony on March 21 at the U.S. Capitol. One member, John T. Cantrell of Des Moines, will be represented by his sons Timothy and David Cantrell. The Official History of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops was written in September 1945 by Capt. Fred Fox. It is the most important primary source documenting activities of the unit. What was the World War II Ghost Army, and what did it do? The first mobile, multimedia, and tactical deception unit in U.S. Army history was launched toward the end of World War II with the goal of fooling the Germans on the battlefields of Europe. Known as the Ghost Army, it comprised the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133rd Signal Service Company Special and carried out 25 battlefield deceptions in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and Italy. These deceptions included but were not limited to, inflatable tanks, sound effects, radio manipulation, phony convoys, phantom divisions and make-believe headquarters to reveal where enemy guns were located and deceive German troops. A member of the 603rd stands in front of an inflatable tank destroyer. The troop was made up of artists, engineers, professional soldiers and draftees. According to the National World War II Museum website, artists such as fashion designer Bill Blass, painter Ellsworth Kelly and photographer Art Kane took part. According to The Ghost Army Legacy Project website, some soldiers even took on the roles of actors, hanging out at local cafes and spinning their counterfeit stories for spies who might lurk in the shadows. "Like actors in a repertory theater, they would mount an ever-changing multimedia show tailored to each operation," the website says. " ... Painstakingly recorded sounds of armored and infantry units were blasted from sound trucks; radio operators created phony traffic nets; and inflatable tanks, trucks, artillery and even airplanes were imperfectly camouflaged so they would be visible to enemy reconnaissance." The Ghost Army soldiers were sworn to secrecy after service and the existence of the secret troop was held under wraps until 1996, 45 years after the war was won. Who was John T. Cantrell? Born in 1923, John Cantrell was born and raised on the east side of Des Moines. Standing at 5 feet 6 inches tall, he was a fresh high school graduate when he was enlisted in the top-secret Ghost Army and served as a radio operator. After the war, John Cantrell received five battle stars, a badge of participation in battle, including for D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge, according to his son David Cantrell. His father never talked about what he had done or what he experienced overseas. Just like every other Ghost Army soldier, he was sworn to secrecy. "He signed nondisclosure paperwork that he wouldn't talk about what he did," David Cantrell said. "He kept a diary, but the diary was mostly boot camp in Fort Knox, Kentucky, when it wasn't classified, it wasn't secret. And then once he got into the unit, he didn't write anything in his diary." David Cantrell recalls only two stories from the war his father had shared: one from D-Day and one from the Battle of the Bulge. "Dad was driving and the landing craft stopped short and they got into deeper water and the truck stalled, still getting occasional shells and enemy aircraft overhead," David Cantrell recalled about his father's experience at D-Day. "The guys are in the back and they're yelling at him, 'Come on, Johnny! Come on, Johnny!' And I thought it was so funny because I'd never heard anybody call my dad Johnny." John T. Cantrell is shown kneeling on the right with fellow Ghost Army soldiers. He also recalled his father telling the tale of digging a foxhole and staying in it to avoid gunfire and be out of sight from enemy aircraft, surviving the Battle of the Bulge. It was in that foxhole, David Cantrell said, that his father had said to the Lord, "You get me out of this and I'll, I'll serve you the rest of my life." And he did survive. After coming back to Des Moines after the war, he became a Sunday School teacher for 20 years and lived in the family house on the east side that his father built in 1911. It was in that house that John Cantrell kept up with the radio skills he had learned in the war. "We had a little office in our house where he had his radio and he is called a ham radio operator," David Cantrell said. To operate his radio, he had a huge antenna that allowed him to talk to people all over the world. "He talked to a couple of stars, movie stars, that were on ham radio," David Cantrell said. "He talked to ships at sea. He could reach the whole world with this antenna that he had set up in our yard. That was a passion of his until the day he died." John Cantrell died in 1990, 45 years after World War II was won, due to lung-related complications. Because he died before the Ghost Army and its accomplishments were declassified in 1996, he never was able to revel in the role he played in winning the war. John T. Cantrell's obituary from 1990. "He didn't get the credit he deserved," David Cantrell said. "(The Ghost Army) didn't get the recognition. They didn't get the medals. And they never talked about it." His family found out about their father's secrets after he died when they found the diary he kept in boot camp, as well as letters to and from loved ones. According to David Cantrell, many of the letters his father sent to his mother had parts cut out to keep the Army's secrets intact. David Cantrell said though his father is reaching an extraordinary award, he was a very ordinary man. "He was was a steady, dependable guy. But he was just a normal man," he said. What is The Ghost Army Legacy Project? Founded in 2016 by Beyer, The Ghost Army Legacy Project is a nonprofit with the goal of preserving and honoring the legacy of the Ghost Army. The project lobbied for seven years to secure a Congressional Gold Medal for the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133rd Signal Service Company. President Joe Biden authorized the medals on Feb. 1, 2022. Caleb Sinnwell, a student at Nashua-Plainfield High School in northeast Iowa, helped lobby for the Ghost Army to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. In 2021, Sinnwell won the National History Day national competition for his project on the Ghost Army. He joined The Ghost Army Legacy Project to help convince elected officials, including Sen. Chuck Grassley, who co-sponsored the bill to award the Congressional Gold Medal. "We must never forget the bravery and sacrifice of this incredible group of servicemen," Grassley said in a statement to the Des Moines Register. "I look forward to seeing Congress honor their valiant efforts, including by posthumously recognizing Ghost Army member and Iowan John Cantrell." The Ghost Army Legacy project also has collaborated with the National World War II Museum on a Ghost Army exhibit that travels around the country. This year, it will travel to Columbus, Ohio, and St. Louis, Missouri. To learn more about the project or to donate, go to The Ghost Army Legacy Project website at ghostarmy.org. Kyle Werner is a reporter for the Register. Reach him at kwerner@dmreg.com. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowan, part of top secret Ghost Army, to get Congressional Gold Medal Christian Health and Samaritan Ministries stress that they are biblically based ministries not insurance. When members submit bills, the other members are notified and asked to share among the network. Fotolia/McClatchy-Tribune News Service Many of us complain about health insurance either its cost, its gaps in coverage or its limitations on in-network providers, or the dread that an inflexible and unfeeling bureaucracy may not protect us from huge medical bills. Not Alexandra Kelly from Denton, though. She loves her coverage. Interestingly, though, she has no health insurance plan. Advertisement Article continues below this ad When her young son developed an ear infection that led to at least five professional in-office visits plus prescription antibiotics, she presented as a self-pay patient. After discounts, her bill totaled $847.61. While her family does not buy health insurance, they are members of Samaritan Ministries, a Christian health care costs-sharing group based in Illinois. After she submitted her bills to the organization, she received expense reimbursements via PayPal directly from other members of the ministry. In recent years, Kellys family has incurred nearly $30,000 in expenses related to the birth of her first son and postpartum complications, and just over $20,000 for her husbands gallbladder surgery plus ongoing treatment. All expenses net of copays have been paid by community members of their faith-based health share ministry. Because they are technically self-pay as a family, the cost of gallbladder surgery was reduced by the provider from $28,000 to $16,000. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Samaritan Ministries, founded in 1994, serves 79,504 households and reported bills paid last month of $32.5 million. Likewise, Christian Health Ministries, based in Ohio and founded in 1981, reports it has hundreds of thousands of members in all 50 states and billions of dollars in bills paid since its inception. Christian Health and Samaritan Ministries stress they are biblically based ministries not insurance. When members submit bills, the other members are notified and asked to share among the network, as well as to pray and send words of encouragement. These faith-based health care sharing organizations may not cover the cost past 120 days of medication for diabetes that developed after joining. Kerem Yucel/AFP, HO / TNS Hows this like insurance? The Kelly family pays $632 monthly for their Samaritan Ministries share, which covers the three family members and will remain the same when their second child is born. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The gold version of Christian Healths program costs $240 per month per family member, up to a maximum of three paying people. Similar to Samaritan Ministries, family members beyond three are free at Christian Health. Compare that to what you pay for traditional health insurance. Reimbursements from Christian Health come to a patient from the central organization based on member monthly payments. The share amounts from Samaritan Ministries come directly from individual members, meaning Kellys family receives a variety of small PayPal payments or checks from all over the country following submission of her bills. In turn, Kelly learns the name and medical situation of members to whom she directly sends her monthly share. While these two services are not health insurance, they closely resemble an insurance product in many respects. Christian Health has a $1,000 minimum patient responsibility per calendar year, while Samaritan Ministries has a $400 per-incident payment, both of which resemble traditional health insurance deductibles. Christian Healths upper limit of $125,000 maximum per illness and Samaritan Ministriess $250,000 maximum are also similar to traditional health insurance caps, which may place a limit on coverage. Advertisement Article continues below this ad These so closely resemble insurance that both organizations received letters in 2014 from the federal Department of Health and Human Services declaring that enrollees were granted exemption status with respect to the Affordable Care Act penalties for remaining uninsured penalties that were eliminated in 2018. Members of faith-based health care sharing networks are advised to always ask for a self-pay discount. IronHeart/Getty Images Why does this work? While remaining open to faith-based miracles, Im usually not a thoughts and prayers kind of guy when it comes to financial matters. Im more spreadsheet-oriented. My best guesses about the secret sauce of why this may be a better deal for many patients and families are twofold. Advertisement Article continues below this ad First, presenting to the health care system as a cash-pay customer may lead to big savings. Medical providers understand that when they present a bill to an insurance provider, they may, in fact, collect only a fraction of that total invoice. Youve no doubt noticed this. To a nominally uninsured patient paying out of pocket, the provider may provide a much lower invoice. Asking for discounts from providers is considered a regular part of the billing process, according to both the Christian Health and Samaritan Ministries program guidelines. Always ask for a self-pay discount is in the instructions. In online scenarios presented by Christian Health and Samaritan Ministries, they assume that bills may be cut in half when patients present as paying cash. Im guessing this is largely where the financial magic happens providers simply charge less to out-of-pocket patients. As a second consideration, possibly the personal and faith-based connection that members feel for each other either alters or predicts their behavior in some fundamental way, such that they incur lower medical costs overall. Perhaps they exhibit fewer addictions, healthier habits and less risky behavior. Im not as convinced by this, but its possible. A spokesperson for Christian Health did not directly answer my question as to whether this would work for a community of atheists, instead noting that Christian Health members often send cards and letters of prayer support and encouragement to fellow members undergoing a medical trial. All this is based on a shared faith and the desire to carry each others burdens. To my question about whether it could work without the Christian part, Kelly said that when you sign up, you are making a commitment and promise. You are not under any legal obligation. Its basically just faith and honor, so it does help if you truly are a Christian. The principles do help. But Im not saying it couldnt work in other faiths and cultures. Both Christian Health and Samaritan Ministries members pledge to maintain sobriety, abstemiousness, and traditional sexual relationships and gender roles, and they profess their faith upon joining. So maybe something as simple as dont smoke, drink or do drugs, and youll have lower medical bills over a lifetime is at play. Samaritan Ministries reported bills paid last month of $32.5 million, while Christian Health Ministries, founded in 1981, reports billions of dollars in bills paid since its inception. adventtr/Getty Images Whos this not for? Clearly, there are individuals and groups for whom this is not a good fit, not good health care or not even allowable. Probably the biggest thing is that routine maintenance care and medication for chronic illness is generally not shareable. Dental work is also not reimbursable through the program, although the website suggests that members may send voluntary donations and pray. Type 1 diabetes, for example, is not eligible for reimbursement. High blood pressure and cholesterol prescription treatments will not be covered, nor will medication for diabetes that developed after joining, past 120 days. Certain extreme sports snowboarding, rodeo, parkour and mountain biking among them could cause injuries ineligible for coverage. More pertinent to biblically based principles, other activities are disqualifying. As one can imagine, sexually transmitted diseases contracted outside marriage are not covered. Births outside wedlock are not covered. Other procedures that you would guess are not welcomed by traditional Christian norms are also specifically not covered in the groups guidelines. To Iron Maiden fans, Bruce Dickinson is the formidable frontman of one of the worlds biggest heavy metal bands. On the side though, the Nottinghamshire-born rock star is something of a renaissance man: a skilled pilot, screenwriter, author, beer-brewer and, erm, swordsman. Having trained with the British Olympic squad during the Eighties, Dickinson continues to practise fencing four times a week, he has revealed. In an interview with The Times, the Run to the Hills rocker spoke about one of his many passions, joking that he quit training with the Olympians because he felt silly fencing 18-year-olds. Now Ive switched from foil fencing, which is very fast, to epee, which is more tactical, he explained. Ive found an amazing club in France, full of incredible fencers who all kick my arse. It gives me something to aim for I want to get to the stage where only 75 per cent of them kick my arse! In the same interview, Dickinson spoke about his decent second career as a commercial pilot, estimating that he has done around 7,500 hours of flying. Though most of it was taking holidaymakers around and dropping oil workers off in Kyrgyzstan, he said. Ive done 7,500 hours of flying in my life, but by the time you get to 65, youre pretty much done. Bruce Dickinson boarding Iron Maidens Boeing 747-400 at the International Aerospace Exhibition in Germany, 2016 (AFP via Getty Images) In 2008, Dickinson famously helped to fly Royal Air Force pilots home from Afghanistan, an experience he described in 2022 as extremely emotional. They had taken some casualties and they had lost some people, but they were all really cheerful the best passengers you could ever have in the military, he told his audience during his An Evening with Bruce Dickinson tour. As we were coming into land, we stopped and we blew the reverse thrust. We were looking out, and all really close to the runway were families, kids, all the families and wives and everybody of all the soldiers, and they were all [holding signs, saying] Youre my hero, daddy and everything else. He continued: We were both trying not to [cry]. I went, Okay, were gonna stop. Were gonna blow our noses, make sure we can see where were going, and then do the job because this is really exceptional. Bruce Dickinson performing with Iron Maiden in 2005 (Getty Images) Of his time in Iron Maiden, Dickinson, who is married to French fitness instructor Leana Dolci, told The Times that rocknroll madness gets old very quickly. Or it did with me anyway. It lasted about a year, he said. Iron Maiden was never about a lifestyle its always been all about the music. So I thought, if Im going to stay with this singing thing, Ive got to do something else just to keep my brain alive. Dickinsons seventh solo album, The Mandrake Project, is out now. Iron Maiden are currently performing their Future Past World Tour, in support of their critically acclaimed 17th album Senjutsu. The tour is set to conclude this December after launching in May last year. This picture taken in northern Israel shows Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system intercepting rockets being fired from Lebanon - JALAA MAREY/AFP The military wing of Palestinian group Hamas said it fired a volley of rockets towards northern Israel from south Lebanon. Hamass armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement it targeted two Israeli military sites with two barrages of Grad rockets, a Soviet-era multiple rocket launch system. The attack from south Lebanon came in response to Zionist massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip and the assassination of martyred leaders and their brothers in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the statement added. The Israeli military said in a statement that approximately 10 launches which crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel were identified, adding that sirens had sounded in north Israels Kiryat Shmona area. Air defences successfully intercepted a number of the launches, the statement said, adding that the army struck the sources of the fire in Lebanon. Israeli police reported property damage in the Kiryat Shmona area but no wounded. Last year, the Israeli military said some Hamas fighters were operating out of southern Lebanon. 04:02 PM GMT Todays liveblog is now closed Thanks for following todays liveblog. We will be back tomorrow with all the latest updates. 03:46 PM GMT UNRWA: Gazans have literally nowhere left to go #Rafah "The place is very dark, and light only enters through narrow openings among the remnants of debris." 12 yr old Alaa describes the demolished building where she seeks shelter with her family. For the population of #Gaza, there is literally nowhere left to go. pic.twitter.com/9dqqEAZHyz UNRWA (@UNRWA) February 28, 2024 03:23 PM GMT Michigan primary results: Joe Biden wins but young and Arab Democrats rebel over Israel Voters in Michigan punished Joe Biden over his support for Israel in a major warning sign for his re-election campaign. Mr Biden easily won Tuesdays primary but faced a significant protest vote from predominantly young and Arab voters that will sound alarm bells in the White House. The first ballots counted on Tuesday night suggested the president had won around 81 per cent of the vote, while around 16 per cent chose to mark themselves as uncommitted. Read more here 03:06 PM GMT Hamas knows it cannot be in new government, says Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki, the Palestinian foreign minister, said he believes Hamas understands why it should not be part of a new government in the Palestinian territories. Maliki told a press conference that a technocratic government was needed, without the Islamist group which is fighting a bitter war against Israel. The time now is not for a national coalition government, Maliki said. The time now is not for a government where Hamas will be part of it, because, in this case, then it will be boycotted by a number of countries, as happened before, he told the UN correspondents association. We dont want to be in a situation like that. We want to be accepted and engaging fully with the international community, he explained. 02:43 PM GMT Pictured: Israeli soldiers sit during a break Israeli soldiers sit during a break near the Israel-Gaza border - Amir Cohen/REUTERS 02:03 PM GMT Rafah attack risk we cannot afford to take, warns former Israeli PM Israel will face dire consequences if it sends troops into the besieged Gazan city of Rafah, a former Israeli prime minister has warned. Ehud Olmer said the nations current leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, should stop the war against Hamas and focus on a plan that will enable the Israeli army to leave Gaza and international forces to go in as peacekeepers. The 78-year-old, who led his country between 2006 and 2009 and has long been disdainful of Mr Netanyahu, says other nations, including the US, will find an assault on Rafah intolerable. The patience of the international community has reached a point from where I dont think theyll be able to absorb it, he said in an interview. 01:44 PM GMT UN urged to probe deadly Israel strikes against journalists in Lebanon More than 120 individuals and groups on Wednesday called for a United Nations probe into Israeli attacks on journalists in south Lebanon, where three were killed last year. An appeal addressed to UN rights chief Volker Turk expressed concern over the Israeli forces apparent deliberate targeting of journalists and media workers in Lebanon. An AFP investigation into strikes on October 13 that killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and wounded six others, including AFP photographer Christina Assi critically and AFP video journalist Dylan Collins, pointed to a tank shell only used by the Israeli army in the border region. On November 21, Farah Omar and Rabih Maamari from the pro-Iranian channel Al Mayadeen were killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, the broadcaster and official media said. The letter to Turk urged an investigation to establish the facts and circumstances around the attacks and for the findings to be published with a view to holding those responsible accountable. Signatories included the Committee to Protect Journalists, local and regional rights groups, Lebanese lawmakers and media outlets including Al Jazeera, as well as AFPs Collins and Assi. 01:12 PM GMT UK broadcast journalists demand open access to Gaza More than 50 UK-based broadcast journalists have sent an open letter to the Israeli and Egyptian embassies calling for free and unfettered access to Gaza for foreign media, British media reported Wednesday. The letter, from 55 correspondents and presenters from the main broadcasting outlets based in the UK, appealed for better protection for journalists already reporting in the territory. Almost five months into the war in Gaza, foreign reporters are still being denied access to the territory, outside of the rare and escorted trips with the Israeli military, said the letter, quoted by multiple local media outlets. 12:48 PM GMT Gaza in pictures: Palestinian people collect usable items among piles of rubble and ash - Anadolu Buildings are reduced to rubble - Anadolu 12:26 PM GMT German navy repels Houthi attack in Red Sea A German frigate sent to help secure merchant shipping in the Red Sea has successfully repelled an attack by Houthi rebels, the army said overnight to Wednesday. The Hesse navy frigate intercepted a drone on Tuesday evening, the army said on X, formerly Twitter. A short time later, a second drone approached (the ship). The crew again initiated defence measures and also successfully engaged the target, the army said. There was no personal injury or damage to property on the frigate, it added. The attack took place at around 9.30pm (8.30pm GMT), sources told AFP on Wednesday. 11:57 AM GMT Israeli voters give Tel Aviv and Jerusalem mayors new terms The mayors of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were set to win new terms as preliminary results from Israels delayed municipal elections trickled in on Wednesday. The early results also showed that ultra-Orthodox parties won nearly half the vote in Jerusalem city council contests, primarily due to low turnout among other blocs. Israel was originally scheduled to hold mayoral and municipal council elections on Oct 31, but postponed them after the war in Gaza erupted earlier that month. Elections were finally held on Tuesday, except in areas that have seen large-scale evacuations during the war. 11:32 AM GMT Home Office to make protesters give more notice of marches Protesters could be required to give more notice to police before being able to stage a demonstration under plans being considered by the Government. Chris Philp, the policing minister, said the proposal first put forward by the Home Affairs Committee of MPs was being studied by the Home Office amid growing concerns at the unsustainable cost of the weekly pro-Palestinian protests over the Gaza conflict. Speaking on Sky News, Mr Philp suggested it could mean organisers of protests involving hundreds of thousands of people would have to give a couple of weeks notice rather than the current six days in order to give police time to prepare. Read more here 11:00 AM GMT Guards to patrol MPs events in 31m security drive in wake of anti-Semitic attacks Security guards are to be deployed at events held by MPs as part of a 31 million drive to protect politicians amid increased threats following the Israel-Hamas conflict. MPs at risk will be able to use private security guards for constituency events or surgeries, in an announcement James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, pledged would safeguard the people, processes and institutions upon which our democracy relies. Since the Oct 7 attack on Israel, pro-Gaza activists have held demonstrations and been accused of intimidating politicians in an effort to force them to support a ceasefire. The MPs at highest risk will also be able to call on private bodyguards to protect them 24/7 because of the physical threats to their safety. Read more here 10:27 AM GMT Israeli minister pledges to press on with settlement plans despite US criticism Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister, pledged to continue expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, defying international pressure on Israel to stop building on land Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state. Late on Tuesday, Mr Smotrich announced the approval of a new settlement called Mishmar Yehuda, in Gush Etzion, a cluster of Jewish settlements located south of Jerusalem, and said work would continue on authorising further settlements. We will continue the momentum of settlement throughout the country, he said in a statement. 10:02 AM GMT Pictured: Families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza start a four-day march from the Nova music festival Families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza start a four-day march from the Nova music festival - ABIR SULTAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/Shutterstock 09:20 AM GMT US shoots down five drones in Red Sea The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said US aircraft and a coalition warship on Feb 27 shot down five one-way attack drones in the Red Sea that originated from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen. Feb. 27 Red Sea Update On Feb. 27, between the hours of 9:50p.m. and 10:55 p.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. aircraft and a coalition warship shot down five Iranian-backed Houthi one-way attack (OWA) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in the Red Sea. CENTCOM forces identified these UAVs pic.twitter.com/c5Qm13GvhV U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 28, 2024 The drones presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and to the US Navy and coalition ships in the region, CENTCOM said in a statement on Wednesday. 09:04 AM GMT The war in Gaza is making Bidens problems at home even worse Joe Bidens team has long been worried about the commitment of his core voters. Last autumn, strategists became concerned about the presidents unpopularity among young liberals and some ethnic minority groups that could usually be counted upon to vote for him. Polls showed that some young people were switching their support to Donald Trump, while a larger group said they still supported progressive politics, but were unlikely to turn out for Mr Biden on election day. Read more from Tony Diver here 09:03 AM GMT Hamas says it launched two missile salvos from southern Lebanon into northern Israel The armed wing of Palestinian militant group Hamas on Wednesday said it launched two missile salvos consisting of 40 Grad missiles from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement on its Telegram channel it had bombed the headquarters of the 769th Eastern Brigade and the airport barracks in Beit Hilal. 09:02 AM GMT A quarter of Gazas population is one step from famine, UN says At least one quarter of Gazas population 576,000 people are one step away from famine and virtually the entire population desperately needs food resulting in aid trucks being shot at, looted and overwhelmed by hungry people, top UN officials said. The officials from the UN humanitarian office and the UNs food and agriculture organisations painted a dire picture of all 2.3 million people in Gaza facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse, and civil order breaking down especially in the north where food and other humanitarian supplies are scarce. And as grim as the picture is today, Ramesh Ramasingham, the UN humanitarian coordinator, told the UN Security Council that there is every possibility for further deterioration. He said that in addition to a quarter of Gazas population close to famine, one in six children under the age of two in northern Gaza are suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting, where the body becomes emaciated. Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program, said that is the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world. He warned that if nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza - the initial target of Israels military offensive following Hamas surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct 7 that killed some 1,200 people and led to about 250 being taken captive. 08:59 AM GMT Good morning Good morning, and welcome to todays liveblog. We will be guiding you through all the latest updates. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pledged to continue expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, defying international pressure on Israel to stop building on land Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state. Late on Tuesday, Smotrich announced the approval of a new settlement called Mishmar Yehuda, in Gush Etzion, a cluster of Jewish settlements located south of Jerusalem, and said work would continue on authorizing further settlements. "We will continue the momentum of settlement throughout the country," he said in a statement. The move comes just days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington considered Jewish settlements in the West Bank to be inconsistent with international law, reverting to a longstanding U.S. position that was overturned by the administration of former President Donald Trump. The change brought the United States back into line with most of the world, which considers the settlements built on territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war to be illegal. Israel itself disputes this view, citing the Jewish people's historical and Biblical ties to the land. The Palestinians say that the expansion of settlements across the West Bank is part of a deliberate Israeli policy to undermine its ambition of creating an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Last week, Israeli ministers agreed to convene a planning council to approve some 3,300 homes to be built in settlements, a decision that Blinken said had disappointed Washington, which has been pushing a resumption of efforts for a two state solution to the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Smotrich, the influential leader of one of the hard-right pro-settler parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, himself lives in a settlement and has consistently backed further settlement building. "This is also our answer to the nations of the world," said Shlomo Ne'eman, Mayor of the Gush Etzion Regional Council. "We will continue onwards and strengthen Gush Etzion with more residents, more schools, more roads and more kindergartens." The Israeli advocacy group Peace Now, which monitors settlement expansion, said in a report last month there had been an unprecedented surge in settlement activities since the start of the Gaza war in October. According to a report by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, just under 700,000 settlers live in 279 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, up from 520,000 in 2012. (Reporting by James Mackenzie; editing by Philippa Fletcher) An Israeli filmmaker said he has been receiving death threats after decrying a "situation of apartheid" in Gaza and calling for a ceasefire during the closing ceremony of the Berlin Film Festival. Yuval Abraham, a 29-year-old journalist and filmmaker, said the threats prompted him to cancel his return to Israel and his family to flee overnight due to right-wing intimidation. Abraham and Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra were awarded the Berlinales best documentary prize on Saturday for their joint film No Other Land which charts the Palestinian resistance to Israel's occupation in the West Bank. Adra said it was "very hard" to celebrate the award when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza". He called upon German lawmakers to "stop sending weapons to Israel". Abraham, during his acceptance speech, said: "I am Israeli, Basel is Palestinian. And in two days, we go back to a land where we are not equal. "I am under civilian law; Basel is under military law. ... This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, has to end." The speech triggered a political row after German politicians and Israeli media labelled the statements antisemitic. Kai Wegner, the conservative mayor of Berlin, argued that the filmmakers statements were filled with intolerable relativisation" as they left out any mention of Hamas. German culture minister Claudia Roth, who was in the audience during the ceremony, said the shockingly one-sided speeches were characterised by a deep hatred of Israel". German defence export approvals to Israel rose nearly tenfold in 2023 from the year before, with Berlin treating permit requests as a priority since Hamas militants attacked Israel, according to Reuters. Abraham in a social media post said Israeli media aired just 30 seconds of his speech and called it "antisemitic", which opened the floodgates of death threats. "I stand behind every word," he added. Our film No Other Land on occupied Masafer Yattas brutal expulsion won best documentary in Berlinale. Israels channel 11 aired this 30 second segment from my speech, insanely called it anti semitic - and Ive been receiving death threats since. I stand behind every word. pic.twitter.com/2burPfZeKO Yuval Abraham (@yuval_abraham) February 25, 2024 Abraham had to cancel his flight back home after a right-wing mob arrived at his family home in search of him and threatened his family members, forcing them to flee to another town in the middle of the night, he said. To stand on German soil as the son of Holocaust survivors and call for a ceasefire and to then be labelled as antisemitic is not only outrageous, it is also literally putting Jewish lives in danger, Abraham told The Guardian. I dont know what Germany is trying to do with us, he said, adding: If this is Germanys way of dealing with its guilt over the Holocaust, they are emptying it of all meaning. More than 30,000 Palestinians have died in Israels offensive in Gaza, according to the local health ministry, which began in retaliation for the 7 October attack by Hamas in southern Israel. Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and abducted at least 250 during the offensive, according to Israeli tallies. At least one quarter of Gaza's population 576,000 people were one step away from famine and virtually the entire population desperately needs food, Ramesh Ramasingham, a top UN official said Tuesday. He said that 1 in 6 children under the age of two in northern Gaza are suffering from "acute malnutrition and wasting", where the body becomes emaciated. The co-director of a documentary about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank says he is facing threats after using an award speech to call out what he described as Israeli apartheid. No Other Land follows the expulsion of Palestinian residents of Masafer Yatta, an area in the southern West Bank that the Israeli army uses for training, and where Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians. According to its synopsis, the film uses footage of the slow-motion eradication of the villages in [co-director Basel Adras] home region where soldiers deployed by the Israeli government are gradually demolishing houses and driving out their residents. On Saturday, Adra and co-director Yuval Abraham accepted the Best Documentary Award and the Audience Favorite Documentary Award at the Berlin Film Festival, and used an award speech to highlight the current situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Addressing the festival, Adra said it was difficult to celebrate while there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza, and while Masafer Yatta, my community, is being also razed by Israeli bulldozers. He called on the German government to stop sending weapons to Israel. And Abraham, for his part, called for a ceasefire, an end [to] the occupation, and a political solution. When he and Adra return home, he said, we will go back to a land where we are not equal. I am living under civilian law, and Basel is under military law, Abraham said. We live 30 minutes from one another, but I have voting rights, and Basel [does not have] voting rights. Im free to move where I want in this land. Basel is, like millions of Palestinians, locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us this inequality it has to end. The remarks sparked a quick and furious reaction, Abraham claimed. Ive been receiving death threats since, Abraham wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday. On Tuesday, he wrote that a right-wing Israeli mob came to my familys home yesterday to search for me, threatening close family members who fled to another town in the middle of the night. Abraham said he had also canceled his flight home. Labeling the awards speech antisemitic, he added, puts co-director Adras life in danger. He is in far greater danger than I am, Abraham said. On Monday, German authorities said they were investigating the one-sided nature of speeches at the event. The Israeli public broadcaster Kan called Abrahams remarks anti-semitic (and then walked back the label). After ceremony footage showed German Culture Minister Claudia Roth applauding the speech, her office wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that her clapping was directed at the Jewish-Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham, who spoke out in favor of a political solution and a peaceful co-existence in the region but that she wasnt applauding Adra. Neither director immediately responded to HuffPosts request for comment on the reaction to their speech. +972 and Local Call, two regional publications where the directors have published work in the past, said in a post Wednesday that they unequivocally stand with our colleagues and said the campaign against the two men is indicative of alarming trends. It illustrates the depravity of Germanys discourse on antisemitism, which has twisted itself so far as to interpret statements against Israels occupation even by Jews themselves as anti-Jewish racism. It reflects the growing intolerance for hearing hard truths about Israeli apartheid, not just in places like Masafer Yatta, but also in Gaza, which continues to be besieged and bombarded. And it shows that many cannot comprehend a partnership between Palestinians and Israelis that recognizes their power dynamics and actively co-resists the systems of dispossession and domination that make them unequal under Israeli law. Related... By Humeyra Pamuk and Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israel's plan to add thousands more homes to settlements in the occupied West Bank announced last week was the final push the Biden administration needed to declare them "inconsistent" with international law, sources and U.S. officials familiar with the move told Reuters. Rather than the carefully choreographed policy rollout typical in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the reversal in response to a question at a news conference in the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires. "Its been longstanding U.S. policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counter-productive to reaching an enduring peace, Blinken told reporters. "Theyre also inconsistent with international law." The policy shift was a long time in the making but the final decision came together within hours, catching many by surprise and raising questions about why this moment was chosen to return to what had been the U.S. stance for four decades until it was changed by the previous administration of Donald Trump. Just 24 hours before, there were no plans for Blinken to make such an announcement on Friday at the scheduled news conference, sources said. But after far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel's government had agreed plans to approve some 3,300 new homes to be built in settlements, in response to a deadly Palestinian shooting attack in the West Bank, U.S. officials concluded the time was right to unveil the shift in the language. "This was something the administration had certainly been considering for a length of time and recent events made it clear that now was the time to articulate that," one U.S. official familiar with the decision said. ISRAEL VOWS TO 'CONTINUE MOMENTUM' The influential leader of one of the hard-right parties in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, Smotrich himself lives in a West Bank settlement. Late on Tuesday, he doubled down with a pledge to continue expanding the settlements, announcing the approval of a new settlement called Mishmar Yehuda in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, and saying work would continue to authorize more. "We will continue the momentum of settlement throughout the country," Smotrich said in a statement. The change in policy brought the U.S. back in line with most of the world, which considers the settlements built on territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war to be illegal. Israel itself disputes this view, citing the Jewish people's historical and Biblical ties to the land. Since taking office in January 2021, the Biden administration has come close a few times to restoring the language to the pre-Trump era, but each time the move was set aside largely due to a failure to secure a green light from all of the senior members of the administration, sources said. The Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, saw more than 250 others taken hostage and triggered a deadly Israeli military campaign had temporarily halted plans for such a change, even though internal discussions on the issue continued, according to officials. 'BARRIER TO PEACE' The decision to make the change now underscores the Biden administration's growing frustration with Netanyahu. The Israeli leader is increasingly at odds with his biggest backer U.S. President Joe Biden on a host of issues over the Israel-Hamas conflict. Despite U.S. pressure against reoccupying Gaza, Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel will maintain security over the densely populated enclave once the war ends. He has also refused to embrace a peace deal that envisages Israeli and Palestinian states side by side. Washington has repeatedly warned Israeli officials that settlement expansion is an obstacle to peace and that Israel must act to stop violence by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. It recently imposed sanctions on four Israeli men accused of being involved in settler violence. The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned last week's Israeli settlement announcement, saying it undermined the chances of a two-state solution. The Israeli advocacy group Peace Now, which monitors settlement expansion, said last month that there had been an unprecedented surge in settlement activities since the start of the Gaza war in October. "From a policy point of view, we have always been clear that we believe settlements are a barrier to peace and that they weaken, not strengthen, Israels security," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday, when asked why it took the administration three years to make the change. "As a legal question, it is something that had been under review here at the department for some time," Miller said. He declined to say when the review began. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Steve Holland; Editing by Don Durfee and Daniel Wallis) Russian forces may be able to make more gains near Avdiivka in the near future, but rough ground conditions will likely slow their advances in the area, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in their Feb. 27 report. Ukrainian troops withdrew from two settlements, Stepove and Severne, north of occupied Avdiivka on Feb. 27. The previous day, Feb. 26, Ukraine pulled out of Lastochkyne, a village about three kilometers west of the city's northwestern outskirts. ISW analysts said this region was particularly vulnerable to advancing Russian troops, but that areas to farther west would pose certain challenges to their offensive. "Russian forces may be able to seize settlements immediately west and northwest of Avdiivka in the coming weeks, but terrain and water features further west of Avdiivka, particularly the body of water that runs between Berdychi-Semenivka-Orlivka, will likely slow the already relatively slow rate of Russian advances in the area," the ISW said. The ISW said that Russia's continued advancement is meant to deny Ukrainian soldiers the opportunity to rest and recover, preventing them from building up stronger defensive lines near Avdiivka. Russia is now able to target areas that Ukrainian troops have been defending for shorter periods of time. "Russian forces are likely sustaining a high operational tempo to try to exploit this tactical opportunity," the ISW said. Dmytro Lykhovii, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Tavria Group, reported after the withdrawal from Stepove and Severne that Russia had increased the number of its assault units. Some of them can reach up to 250 soldiers, which is the number of a company, he said. The ISW pointed out that geographical conditions may force Russia to slow down, granting Ukraine a respite. "This difficult terrain will likely constrain further Russian tactical gains and allow Ukrainian forces to establish prepared defensive positions that will likely prompt the eventual culmination of the current Russian offensive effort in the area," analysts said. Ukraine withdrew from the small industrial city of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast on Feb. 17 amid ammunition shortages after months of repelling Russias renewed offensive. After the occupation of Avdiivka, Russia intensified its offensive efforts in various parts of Ukraines front line, likely in order to stretch Ukrainian forces, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported in its Feb. 21 intelligence update. Read also: Ukraine war latest: Ukraine withdraws from 2 more villages near Avdiivka, downs 2 Russian warplanes in single day Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. Italy is hopeful of an investment from US luxury electric carmaker Tesla amid opposition from locals to plans to expand a Tesla factory outside Berlin. Economy Minister Adolfo Urso pointed out on Wednesday before the Industry Committee of the Chamber of Deputies in Rome that the plan for a large-scale expansion in Germany had been rejected. This will certainly lead to a decision by the group, said Urso. They have been in discussions with Tesla for several months, he added. "We are getting very positive feedback. But this is a process that requires caution." He also referred to contacts with manufacturers from Asia, a nod to Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD. In a non-binding vote in the community of Grunheide outside Berlin in the state of Brandenburg earlier this month, there was a clear majority against Tesla's expansion plans. The car manufacturer wants to build a freight station, warehouses and a company daycare centre on an adjacent area of around 170 hectares. The expansion should also be seen against the background that Tesla wants to expand production on the existing site and double the planned production target of 500,000 cars per year to 1 million. However, around two thirds of residents voted against the expansion. Conservationists and residents criticize the fact that more than 100 hectares of forest are to be cleared. Although the vote is not binding for the community, it is taken into consideration and is seen as an important indicator of whether district officials will give their OK. BEAUREGARD, Ala. (WRBL) In the heart of East Alabama, the journey of Chance and Phillip Bell stands as a testament to the heart wrenching struggles of infertility and the profound impact of assisted reproductive technologies in turning dreams into tangible, joyous realities. Chance, a postpartum nurse, and Phillip, a cancer-surviving Opelika firefighter arent strangers to overcoming obstacles. They survived a tornado that crumbled a house around them. Phillip survived cancer, undergoing grueling, rounds of chemotherapy. Then both played a pivotal role on the front lines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting a family was their dream and like many couples facing infertility meant overwhelming emotional, physical, and financial stressors. After three arduous years, the Bells found in vitro fertilization (IVF), the medical intervention that helped them welcome their beautiful twin sons, Redd and Rhys. Our whole lives revolve around them in ways you never thought it would it does. Without the IVF process, we wouldnt have a house full of laughter, we wouldnt have children to pour everything into. Phillip and Chance Bell, IVF Family Phillips chemotherapy treatments were among the reasons IVF became their sole avenue to start a family. It was a way for me to have a family that I was told I wouldnt get to have, he emphasized. Now, the fertility clinic that played a pivotal role in the Bells journey, storing their remaining frozen embryos, has suspended its services. This decision stems from Alabamas Supreme Court categorizing frozen embryos as children, thrusting fertility clinics into a legal quagmire, with many discontinuing services. This ruling has prompted a bipartisan effort to safeguard in vitro fertilization (IVF) for families grappling with infertility challenges. The Bells express sympathy for women and couples enduring the mental, physical, and financial strain of infertility, only to face the prospect of being denied their embryos and the chance for a happy ending. My heart breaks for everyone else that cant have this right now. Theyre willing to endure the financial burden and the mental stress the whole 9 yards. I feel like anybody willing to do that is going to be an amazing parents and have a good, happy, healthy home, said Phillip Bell. If lawmakers fail to clarify the issue, the Bells risk losing the right to choose whether to expand their family. It was a quote from a doctor being interviewed this week, and she said its the irony that youre trying so hard to protect life that you were inadvertently harming it, said Phillip Bell. Chance Bell underscored the importance of individual choices and urged, I would just love women and their healthcare providers to decide whats right for them. Amidst legal and ethical uncertainties, families across Alabama find themselves in a state of limbo, yearning for legislative clarity and a resolution that respects their right to navigate the often painful journey of infertility and the hope that IVF brings. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WRBL. Heres some tremendous news for the Senate Republicans who say theyll do anything to protect access to in vitro fertilization treatments: They can do just thaton Wednesday! In fact, they wont even have to do anything at all. They just need to not object when Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth tries to pass her bill by unanimous consent. Political problem solved, no effort involvedthis is good work if you can get it. So whos going to object? Duckworth, along with Washington Sen. Patty Murray, recently reintroduced a bill that would create a federal right to IVF and other advanced fertility treatments as currently practiced, superseding state law. She had originally introduced it in 2022, following the Dobbs decision, and reintroduced it this January, prior to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that prompted providers in that state to halt IVF treatments. She announced on Tuesday that she would ask unanimous consent to pass it the following day. If you truly care about the sanctity of families, and youre genuinely, actually, honestly interested in protecting IVF, then you need to show it by not blocking this bill on the floor, said Duckworth, who has had children through IVF, at a press conference Tuesday. When Duckworth attempted to pass her bill via unanimous consent in 2022, it was Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith who objected on the floor. Hyde-Smith gave no reason at the time. Shes not much of a conversationalist. Its unlikely that Senate Republicans will go along with Duckworths bill this time either, although we do not yet know which senator will draw the short straw of having to make the objection on the floor. Because while few, if any, Republicans are thrilled with the current situation in Alabama, many argued on Tuesday that this hadnt yet reached the level of a congressional response. Alabama legislators are, after all, supposedly working on a fix that would allow IVF to proceed; other states where IVF treatments are at risk could follow suit. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said that the issue would be taken care of in Alabama and that he was not at all worried about IVF access in other states. South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds wanted to see what the individual states come up with for different approaches to it before we try to do something. Alabama Sen. Katie Britt said, simply, Alabama will pass a law to protect IVF. Still others remained tongue-tied about the quandary at hand, as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio put it. How do our laws recognize the dignity of human life but also understand that the procedure that it enables is a life-creating procedure? Rubio told reporters, according to HuffPost. No one has IVF to destroy life, they have IVF to create life. Unfortunately, you have to create multiple embryos, and some of those are not used, then youre now in a quandary. Hmm, very interesting, much quandary. What about just letting this bill pass so things could go back to the way they were a couple of weeks ago? Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, meanwhile, said to HuffPost, when asked whether she considered frozen embryos to be children: I dont want to say theyre not children. To recap: Republicans definitely want to protect IVF. Good God, they are dying to protect IVF. But getting out of the way to allow a bill to be passed that would protect IVF? Lets pump the brakes a little. So, who have you bet on objecting to the unanimous consent request on Wednesday? Alabamas own Katie Britt? Or do they send out Silent Cindy again? People cast their vote at Lion?s Field during early voting in the City of San Antonio City Council runoff elections, Monday, June 5, 2023. Early voting ends on Tuesday with election day on June 10. Council Districts 1 and seven on in a runoff. In District 1, Councilman Mario Bravo is facing Sukh Kaur and in District 7 it?s Marina Alderete Gavito and Dan Rossiter. Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News One retired San Antonio woman is up early to write her daily email to contacts that include the presidents of five local colleges and universities. Her email is a daily report on voter turnout at their campus polling sites. Its not good, and she lets them know it. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Another San Antonio woman, a longtime nonprofit leader, established a new organization last year focused on getting more young, eligible voters registered, to the polls and involved in nonpartisan elections work. Rebecca Flores worked alongside Cesar Chavezs labor and political movement. Heather Eichling, a San Antonio-born Tufts University graduate, founded Youth Do Vote. They work in official and unofficial capacities on an issue thats unnerving everyone this election cycle: young people, whether they are registered to vote or not. Theyre each following different, yet parallel routes to getting more young people engaged. While Flores work is decidedly partisan and Democratic, Eichlings is nonpartisan. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Flores takes a cue from British activist Andy Hall, whose work Bloomberg News credits as effective, describing him as a relentless emailer who hounds corporations about how their companies are exploiting workers, often migrants. Shes encouraged by his seemingly bottomless sense of indignation and fearlessness in blind-copying countless others to make them aware and spur them into action. This week, Flores emailed her contacts including presidents of the University of Texas at San Antonio, Our Lady of the Lake University and the Alamo Colleges, specifically San Antonio College, Palo Alto and Northwest Vista to report voter turnout at their polling sites. ELAINE AYALA: Jovita Idar quarter gets top 2023 coin honors Theyre not voting, she says pointing to the data in her chart. I looked at total numbers. They have thousands of kids milling around all day on campus, and they may not even know its (a polling site) there. Advertisement Article continues below this ad She asks everyone to act, even if its just to amplify her message. Please use your power to move the leaders of these institutions to be more responsible for these numbers, she wrote in red, upper-cased letters. At OLLU on Feb. 20, for example, her data showed only 37 Democrats and 14 Republicans cast ballots in a primary election. Voters can chose to vote in Democratic or Republican primaries to select the candidates wholl advance to compete in the general election in November. On that same day, at UTSAs main campus, 31 Democrats and 33 Republicans voted. Sitting around pondering this problem is a privilege, she says in her emails. Its not a compliment. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Flores also makes this promise: I will continue to send you e-mails, each day during early voting, with a voter update. Eichling, 44, executive director of Youth Do Vote, takes a different path to the same destination. Shes a one-woman shop affiliated fiscally with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Shes also a third-generation poll worker. Nonprofits in this area work primarily at the college level, but Youth Do Vote aims to grow voter and civil engagement among youth at the high school level. Its slow, arduous work. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Theres an upside, sort of. State law requires public high schools to offer voter registration twice a year. But in 2021, the University of Houston Election Lab found that only a fourth of schools complied. Eichling sought data from the Texas Secretary of States Office in January 2023 and found very little information. The office doesnt track compliance well enough, she said, but could tell her how many Bexar County schools requested voting registration forms from the state. That, too, showed a general non-compliance. Only a quarter requested forms, she said. Principals, who are certified to register people to vote, receive one email a year from the state. Though other volunteer groups work on getting eligible high school students registered, they cant get to every school. Youth Do Vote is only the latest on the scene. It hosted various events to encourage civic involvement and media literacy. On Tuesday night, it put on an online workshop on how to run a voter registration drive at a high school. The group also looks at a lot of data, including Bexar Countys sad turnout results. Eichling isnt deterred. Young voters need help. Elections are confusing. There are so many rules, just look at those involving eligibility. Theres work to do, Eichling knows. Shes signing up young volunteers, even those not yet eligible to vote, to work at polling sites. They bring a different energy to elections and will see for themselves the voter turnout and whos casting the most ballots, she said. Already, she has recruits from Judson, Brandeis, Reagan, Communication Arts and Great Hearts schools. In August, armed with a small grant, shell start recruiting Palo Alto students. Both Flores and Eichling know that Texas is a state that doesnt encourage voter registration or voting. JK Rowling is a modern British heroine, and all those who have vilified, defamed, threatened and traduced her should hang their heads in shame. She has proved to be a far more effective defender of common-sense values than all but a handful of MPs, exposing the cowardice and moral bankruptcy of much of Westminster and Whitehall. She has fought indefatigably for ordinary people, for the truth, for the rights of women threatened by the rise of trans extremism, incurring horrific hatred from tens of thousands of deranged woke fanatics. She has had a dramatic impact on our politics, unlike the managerialist politicians, most of whom go with the flow on all controversial subjects and are thus content to be in office but not truly in power. She has almost single-handedly neutralised trans extremism by running the most significant extra-parliamentary campaign in recent history, using little more than tweets and the occasional interview or speech. She is an inspiration to anti-woke dissidents across all continents, and to anybody who believes in the power of carefully chosen words to change the world. Until Rowling entered the fray, the Tories, under the calamitous Theresa May, were poised to allow gender self-recognition, extremist trans groups had gone mainstream, it was taboo to scrutinise gender-affirming care for children or the Tavistock Centre, and Labour was careering into full woke mode. Today, thanks also to a few brave politicians such as Kemi Badenoch (Tory), Lady Falkner (who quit the Lib Dems after Brexit) and Rosie Duffield (Labour), while the battle hasnt been won, the extremists are in retreat. Unusually given our selfish and venal public culture, Rowling has asked for nothing in return, has been given neither the damehood nor the peerage she deserves, and has in fact paid an immense price for helping to rescue her country. As if this werent enough, as the author of Harry Potter, she has done more for the UK, for our soft power, for the happiness of our children, for our economy and for the taxman than any current member of the Cabinet. How have we come to a point when a centre-Left billionaire author from Edinburgh represents Middle Englands views better than the London-centric establishment class, and even many Conservative politicians? And why did so few come to Rowlings defence when she started to expose woke madness, most notably when she rightly slammed the growing use of the idiotic term people who menstruate? She tweeted: Im sure there used to be a word for these people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud? When almost our entire establishment politicians, judges, business leaders, cultural leaders ran for cover, Rowling took on cancel culture and won. She has broken the spell, proving that the best way to defeat social-media mobs is to call their bluff. By sheer force of personality, by refusing to accept that she had lost her freedom of speech, by crafting tight, sharp and rigorous arguments, by standing up to the bullies, she has drastically shifted the Overton window on issues of gender and sex. She was at it again this week, writing what many wanted to say but were still too scared to verbalise. Reacting to the fact that a transgender cat killer who murdered a stranger was being described as a woman and that judges have been told to refer to defendants by their chosen pronouns, whether or not they have undergone surgery or applied for a gender recognition certificate she lashed out. Im sick of this s---, she said. This is not a woman. These are not our crimes. Rowling has exposed the woke commissars ultimate lack of power: The mainstream majority will vote with its wallets and has no time for woke capital. The Harry Potter franchise continues to boom. Hogwarts Legacy, an action role-playing game, sold 22 million copies last year, making it the worlds best-selling video game, generating $1 billion and delivering more royalties to Rowling. The Harry Potter theme parks are hugely successful and expanding. Rowlings opponents ultimate humiliation will come in 2026 when Warner Brothers launches an epic TV streaming series based on all seven of her Potter books. The ungrateful nonentities including Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe who joined in Rowlings attempted cancellation, will no longer be the faces of Hogwarts for the next generation. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Warner Bros Discoverys new boss is committed to repairing ties with Rowling after she felt betrayed by the studios lack of support. In theory, the wealthy have the freedom to speak out; in practice, most feel that they have too much to lose and prefer to exercise their influence in private, by lobbying or via political donations. This is unhealthy. They should take a leaf out of Rowlings book, as the likes of Bill Ackman, a fund manager, has done over the vicious epidemic of anti-Semitism in US universities. Rowlings emergence as our eras leading feminist icon reminds us that the sensible Left and Right must work together, that they have much in common against the dark, extremist, authoritarian revolutionaries who seek to overthrow our society. I, for one, never thought I would come to appreciate Rowling so much, given her background as a Labour supporter. But none of that matters any longer: the attempt at eliminating the very concept of man and woman, the irreversible damage inflicted upon children who have had the misfortune of falling prey to social contagion, the attempt at cancelling gay people, the terrible risk to women and girls from the eradication of single-sex spaces in gyms and prisons, the despicable misogyny of those who seek to pretend that it is women, and not men, who commit many rapes and murders, all of these are issues of existential significance to our civilisation that require the unity of all sensible people, of Left, Right or neither. Rowlings should be a model for other campaigns. At a time when Parliament is being cowed by Islamist extremists, we need more brave people to stand up for the silent majority. The answer isnt to spout nonsense a la Lee Anderson, but to unrelentingly marshal reason and facts to expose the threat and danger to our liberties and democracy. Who will be the next J K Rowling? Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. John Brady's Parlor Bar was a classy downtown saloon that Prohibition shuttered in 1920. Courtesy Adam Alvarado A Southtown man discovered a coin in his yard good for one drink at a historic San Antonio saloon. He missed last call, though, by over a century. Adam Alvarado initially thought he found a plastic play token when he was shoveling dirt outside his home and came across the buried coin. When he rinsed it off and took a closer look, he made out the inscription: "I.O.U. One Drink" on one side, "John Brady's Parlor Bar San Antonio Texas" on the other. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Southtown San Antonio's Adam Alvarado was doing yard work when he unearthed a coin good for one drink at John Brady's Parlor Bar. Courtesy Adam Alvarado Alvarado posted his find on a local Facebook page, searching for any information on the coin, which he said was in "surprisingly good condition, considering." Locals were quick to direct Alvarado to information on John Brady's Parlor Bar, which sat at 106 E. Main Plaza, just across from San Fernando Cathedral, in the early 1900s. Once known as Midway Saloon, it was a high-class establishment and a Texas supplier of Old J.P. Ripy whiskey, which an 1894 article in the San Antonio Light described as the "the purest on the market." Advertisement Article continues below this ad Prohibition shut down the saloon in 1920, but evidence of the once-thriving establishment still survives. A coin similar to the one Alvarado found was listed for sale in editions of the Token and Medal Society Journal from 1974 and 1978. This is the first time Alvarado has unearthed an artifact in his yard, but the discovery sparked an interest in finding other treasures that could lie below. Feelings were running high at a primary night gathering hosted by Listen to Michigan, a group urging residents to vote uncommitted - NIC ANTAYA/BLOOMBERG Joe Biden has pledged to win back the votes of Arab Americans who punished him over his handling of the war in Gaza in time for Novembers presidential election. Mr Biden easily won Michigans Democratic primary on Tuesday night, but faced a backlash from predominantly young and Arab voters who object to his support for Israel. The US president took about 81 per cent of the vote, but more than 100,000 voters (13 per cent) revolted by marking uncommitted on their ballot papers instead. Mr Biden only won the state by 150,000 votes in 2020. In one of the battleground states largest cities, Dearborn, which has a large Arab and Muslim population, Mr Biden was pushed into second place in the primary. Abbas Alawieh, left, and Layla Elabed of the Listen to Michigan campaign with Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn. Joe Biden was pushed into second place in the Michigan city - JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP Democratic Party strategists will also be concerned by results in Ann Arbor, a university town, where about a third of votes were uncommitted, suggesting the backlash over Gaza was particularly strong among young voters. The same night, Donald Trump took an easy victory over Nikki Haley in the Republican primary to continue his undefeated run in this years race. Mr Biden is yet to comment publicly on the support for the uncommitted movement, but a campaign official told CNN that he would bring disillusioned voters back into the fold. President Biden shares the goal of many of the folks who voted uncommitted, which is an end to the violence and a just and lasting peace, they said. That is what he is working towards. We will earn their votes between now and November. Another adviser denied that the campaign was panicking over the scale of the revolt in Michigan, one of a handful of key states that flipped from voting for Mr Trump in 2016 to Mr Biden four years later. It raises questions about whether Mr Trump, enjoying a resurgence as the Republican frontrunner, may win back the state he lost by fewer than three percentage points in 2020. Joe Biden left the White House on Wednesday for his annual physical examination at Walter Reed Military Medical Center - YURI GRIPAS/POOL/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK In a statement released last night, Mr Biden said: It was Michigans diverse coalition that came together to reject Donald Trumps MAGA [Make American Great Again] extremism and sent me and Kamala to the White House. However, a prominent Democrat warned that the presidents coalition was fragmenting just months away from the presidential election. Pramila Jayapal, who leads the House of Representatives progressive caucus, said Mr Biden had a little time to rebuild his support base, but called for a dramatic shift in his stance on Israel. The war on Gaza is a deep moral issue and the lack of attention and empathy for this perspective from the administration is breaking apart the fragile coalition we built to elect Joe Biden, she said. It has to be a dramatic policy and rhetorical shift from the president on this issue and a new strategy to rebuild a real partnership with progressives in multiple communities who are absolutely key to winning the election. Mr Biden has historically been a close ally of Israel and has referred to himself as a Zionist, but has been pushing hard for a ceasefire in Gaza in recent weeks. White House ultimatum to Netanyahu As the civilian death toll spirals into the tens of thousands, his relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu has deteriorated with the US president reportedly referring to his Israeli counterpart as an asshole. The White House is said to have told Mr Netanyahu to conclude his military action before November, fearing it could produce damaging headlines ahead of the election. The uncommitted movement had set a modest goal of winning 10,000 votes, the margin by which Mr Trump won Michigan four years ago. Having won 10 times that number, it urged the president to stop funding the bombs falling on the family members of people who live right here in Michigan. Our movement emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations, the group said in a statement. Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom voted for Biden in 2020, are uncommitted to his re-election due to the war in Gaza. In the Republican primary, Mr Trump won around 68 per cent of the vote to Ms Haleys 27 per cent. The former UN ambassadors defeat in Michigan widely predicted by opinion polls comes as she struggles to maintain credibility in the Republican primary race. She has so far lost every state vote so far to Mr Trump, including her home state of South Carolina. Despite her double-digit losses, key donors suspending their support and the decision of other Trump rivals to suspend their campaigns, Ms Haley has pledged to stay in the contest to give Republican voters an alternative. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. JOHNSTOWN Monday's opening of the Johnstown-Monroe School District's newest Innovation Center provided a perfect moment to seize on the opportunities available to western Licking County students. Ohio Lt. Governor Jon Husted, who was on hand at the high school, didn't miss a beat as Intel and other companies are either established or fast-tracking movement into the area, creating a new occupational terrain. "Ohio is at the forefront in the Midwest of building that talent, as businesses increase to get what they need to compete against anyone in the world," Husted said, as the new high school lab bolsters the one established last fall at Johnstown Elementary. "Intel picked Central Ohio to be the best at what they want to do, and it's an opportunity for our students to live the American dream, without leaving the area." Husted said the region is no longer the Rust Belt and is transforming into the Silicon Heartland. He said he was on board with STEM as early as 2007, through the Choose Ohio First scholarships, and constantly focuses on economic and workforce development and innovation. STEAM education incorporates the arts into science, technology, engineering and mathematics. "We have a shrinking workforce. More people than ever are turning 65 every year," he said. "That creates an opportunity." School superintendents from Johnstown, Licking Heights, Southwest Licking and Northridge all attended Monday, and C-TEC was also represented, as they look to get out in front of the future. Lt. Gov. Jon Husted shakes hands with Johnstown-Monroe Schools Superintendent Philip Wagner after cutting a ceremonial ribbon during the Monday grand opening of the Johnstown-Monroe High School Innovation Lab sponsored by Meta. "The five of us have been working in collaboration, and that helps a lot," Johnstown Superintendent Philp Wagner said. That education is the key to the future, in more ways than one, Central Ohio Technical College President John Berry said. "We're here to change lives, and build communities," he said. Berry and Johnstown school board members, along with reps from Intel, Amazon, Licking County Health Systems, Bechtel and other companies, got a good look at the newest Innnovation Lab. Johnstown students and teachers were more than happy to lend assistance. Johnstown-Monroe High School junior Yuli Staneart shows off a laser engraving machine to Lt. Gov. Jon Husted during the Monday grand opening of the schools Innovation Lab sponsored by Meta. Johnstown High School principal Angel King and students explained the various machines in the lab. There was a laser engraver and 3-D printers, which can be used for cups, mugs, coasters and shirts. A student-driven Shop Bot is capable of making furniture. Dominating the room was a Heat Press. "It can make very large banners, with eight colors, and people will be able purchase the banners from Johnstown High School," King said. In another room, Jason Hoffman, one of the owners of Buckeye Educational Systems, explained the technology going into the Ignite program, for the future of engineering and robotics through Intel and the Career And Technology Education Centers of Licking County. Jason Hoffman of Buckeye Educational Systems, left, watches as Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted controls a quadruped robotic dog Monday during the grand opening of the Johnstown-Monroe High School Innovation Lab sponsored by Meta. Senior Josiah Rose worked the controls of an entertaining quadruped, or robot dog, a ground-based drone that is basically a walking computer. "The biggest of these made by this company can carry 225 pounds and is dustproof and waterproof," Hoffman said. "There are endless possibilities, including use for school resource officers." There was a tabletop electronic device, where students learn about programmable logic controllers, how to program them and run them. There was a Skill Boss, where they can see the full manufacturing process by taking it apart and putting it back together. "This whole area is designed so they understand what manufacturing is, and to inform students of the range of occupations that exist," Hoffman said. "This is a project-based learning lab." Johnstown-Monroe High School students attend the grand opening Monday of the schools Innovation Lab sponsored by Meta. Business leaders discuss potential applications of artificial intelligence Later, at a community forum in the Performing Arts Center, business representatives answered questions about what skills will be required in the future, what kinds of jobs will be available and the effects of artificial intelligence. Ken Granville, MEP pre-construction manager for Turner Construction Company, said that AI is just a tool, and it has to be the right tool for the right task. "We're the cloud for the world, but AI is something that has not yet been regulated," said Tim Harman of Amazon Web Services. "We need to use it for the betterment of mankind, not the detriment. Who is writing these programs? There can be inherent biases." Rob Montagnese, CEO and president of Licking Memorial Health Systems, said they are moving forward with AI but do not want to lose the human touch that goes into medical care. Employers seeking 'team players' with soft skills, such as grit and resiliency Different skills will be required by future employers, and a lot of them are intangible. Montagnese said they are seeking people with passion and energy. Turner Construction employees need to be problem solvers and creative thinkers, Granville said. Jonathan White of Bechtel, an engineering, construction and project management company, said they are looking for "team players." And those with some "grit." "We need students who really want to work on a team, because we employ thousands on these mega projects that we take on," White said. Intel construction in western Licking is one such project, which will have 7,000 construction jobs and 3,000 other jobs, said Emily Smith, Intel Ohio public affairs coordinator. "Of those 3,000, 2,100 will be technicians," she said. "We have invested $50 million in Ohio for education research." In the coming decade, the semiconductor industry will add 115,000 jobs in the U.S., a 33% growth, Jim Evers, the vice president and general manager for Intel Ohio, said in an earlier Advocate article. Half of those jobs are at risk of going unfilled, he said. Technicians represent 39% of those unfilled jobs, or 24,000. In June 2023, The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), in partnership with Oxford Economics, released a study finding the United States faces a significant shortage of technicians, computer scientists, and engineers. The report projects that the semiconductor industrys workforce will grow by nearly 115,000 jobs by 2030, from approximately 345,000 jobs today to approximately 460,000 jobs by the end of the decade, representing 33% growth. Of these new jobs, roughly 67,000or 58% of projected new jobs (and 80% of projected new technical jobs)risk going unfilled at current degree completion rates. Of the unfilled jobs, 39% will be technicians, most of whom will have certificates or two-year degrees; 35% will be engineers with four-year degrees or computer scientists; and 26% will be engineers at the masters or PhD level. Granville said Turner Construction is most in need of those in construction trades and skilled trades. Harman said Amazon Web Services smiles upon those with the "skill of resiliency." "No one is perfect. We try things, and we fail. And then we try them again, until we succeed," Harman said. Montagnese said Licking Memorial Health Systems could be facing a nursing challenge. "A lot of the nursing population is getting closer to retirement," he said. "So there will be a lot of opportunities there, especially with growing demands for different kinds of nurses. And we have a lot of great solutions." Harman stressed that getting a college degree is not for everyone. "If four years of college is not for you, don't pursue it," he said. "There will still be so many opportunities available for those with a high school diploma, certificate and those attending C-TEC." Husted said these are exciting times, with all the technology being introduced into classrooms. "It's going to make things a lot more fun and interesting for students, combining school with work skills," he said. "By helping the STEM education workforce, everyone wins, when you get this right." dweidig@gannett.com 740-704-7973 X: @grover5675 Instagram: @dfweidig This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Future is now for Silicon Heartland; Johnstown opens Innovation Center Jon Stewart on Monday proposed that a NATO-like Arab group enforce a DMZ between Israel and Gaza. While it could work on paper, making it happen in reality would be a long shot, experts told BI. The "METO," as Stewart called it, is just wishful thinking, they said. "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart on Monday evening outlined a bold solution to stop the conflict in Gaza a demilitarized zone administered by an alliance of Arab nations. His proposal was the last in a comedic round-up of potential answers to the intense violence in the region (his first two suggestions were to "ask God" or to hold a summer camp for Israelis and Palestinians.) "All right, here's another one," Stewart said, turning serious. "And heaven forbid, I actually think this last one could work." "The Arab countries who claim Palestine is their top priority come in and form a demilitarized zone between Israel and a free Palestinian state," he said. Stewart earlier prefaced that leaders of Israel and Hamas seemed bent on "some idea that one of these groups is going to go away." "And they are not. If we want a safe and free Israel and a safe and free Palestine, we have to recognize that reality," he said. The DMZ would be enforced by an alliance of Arab countries, much like the North American Treaty Organization, Stewart said. His witty name for this is the Middle East Treaty Organization, or METO. That's pronounced "me too," a likely reference to the "Me Too" movement. "Let's tweet it out! Tonight, people, let's get this region METO'd!" he said. Could a 'METO' work? While tongue-in-cheek, Stewart's solution isn't a new concept, experts on the Middle East told Business Insider. Most said an "Arab NATO" is unlikely to take root even if it might do wonders for the region. "Every American administration going back decades has discussed some version of this. Under Trump, it was the Middle East Strategic Alliance," said Jonathan Lord, director of the Middle East Security program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, DC-based think tank. Lord said that distrust among Gulf nations unwilling to share their military secrets has largely scuppered much hope for such an organization. "But really, Jon is conflating a Middle East 'NATO' with something else. You wouldn't need a formal alliance of Arab states to do what he is proposing," Lord added. Forming a "METO" alliance also risks angering Iran, a massive concern for the region, said Anna Jacobs, a senior Gulf analyst based in Qatar for the Belgium-headquartered International Crisis Group. A view of a banner hung on a building reading in Persian and Hebrew 'We are stronger and more motivated than ever. Are you ready for 2 million displaced people?' with pictures of Iranian missiles. Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images "Gulf Arab states are focused on regional de-escalation and building greater cooperation with friends and rivals in the region," Jacobs said. "A NATO-like alliance would send the opposite message." The United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt are nations that could consider working with both Israel and Palestine, said William Wechsler, senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. Yet there's no clear-cut candidate for who would lead such an alliance, which is a key to success for such organizations, he added. "Multinational military alliances are not common. They are very hard to create and hard to maintain, certainly with any effectiveness," said Wechsler. NATO, for example, was created in the specific environment of the US emerging as a superpower after a devastating World War II, he said. "So then the question is, who is in charge? Who is leading this whole effort?" said Wechsler. "It's not going to be the United States, and it's certainly not going to be the United Nations, because Israel has zero confidence in the United Nations for very understandable reasons. Then who is it? Which Arab country is going to step up?" Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during an Arab League meeting to discuss the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, in Cairo on February 15, 2024. AFP via Getty Images Mohamed Chtatou, a political analyst on the Middle East and a professor at the Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, is for the idea. "Such an alliance is a must and a viable initiative for the peace and the stability of the region," Chtatou said, urging the US, Europe, and NATO to push for such an initiative. A "Middle East NATO" would act as a cultural barrier against hate speech, a diplomatic shield to ease communications and avoid crises, and boost the economy in the region, according to Chtatou. "Israelis and Palestinians have a lot in common to live in peace side by side, but these important features are dwarfed by the insidious language of fundamentalists on both sides," Chtatou said. No starting point for a DMZ Could a Korea-style DMZ between Israel and Gaza work? Possibly, Chtatou said. "The 'demilitarized zone' has in many ways kept aggressive and war-mongering North Korea under control and the same could be true of this Middle Eastern alliance," he said. Wechsler said a DMZ could technically be created and administered by a coalition of Arab states, which wouldn't require a permanent alliance. But it would only work if Israel agrees to a two-state solution. "The Arab world has been remarkably clear that as a prerequisite to anything that they might do collectively in Gaza, they need to see from Israel a path to a Palestinian state that has a timeframe and is irreversible," said Wechsler. Weeks before the October 7 attack, Benjamin Netanyahu presented the United Nations with a "New Middle East" map. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Yet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed the two-state solution. Ironically, the very concept of the two-state solution could extend his political life, said Lord. "A vast majority of Israelis want Bibi gone at the first opportunity, but Bibi can turn to an Israeli public that is shocked and traumatized from Hamas' October 7th attack and tell it that he alone can rebuff Washington's effort to build a 'terrorist Arab state on our border,'" Lord said. Jacobs agreed. "Some Arab countries might consider sending peacekeepers," she said. "But only as part of a credible political process working toward a two-state solution, but unfortunately, this is something that the Israeli government rejects. " If Hamas is removed from power and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is left to rule, there are also questions as to whether its unpopular leader, Mahmoud Abbas, can effectively build the path to peace, Wechsler said. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Seth Wenig/AP "It's hard to see, given the lack of support for Abbas through the Palestinian people, how an Abbas-led Palestinian Authority could be part of a two-state solution," Wechsler said. Still, if Gaza continues to suffer under the heel of Israel's military and policies, Hamas will continue to fill its ranks with desperate Palestinians, Lord said. Creating a "METO" would be a "day-after" solution when governments are concerned with the "day-between" situation, he said. "Until someone can produce a viable plan to provide security, services, and aid to 2 million displaced Gazans right now, Israel will not achieve its goal of defeating Hamas," Lord said. Representatives for Stewart at "The Daily Show" did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours. Read the original article on Business Insider There are certain dates that are heavily associated with individual people. Presidents Day, of course, is tied to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthdays are being celebrated. Christmas Day gets Santa Clausand, uh, Jesus. And then theres Oct. 3, a seemingly innocuous date that has become hallowed among pop culture fans. That is the day that everyone thinks of actor Jonathan Bennett. Bennett starred as high-school heartthrob Aaron Samuels in Tina Feys 2004 comedy hit Mean Girls. A throwaway line from the film in which Lindsay Lohans character, Cady, who has a crush on Aaron, asks him the date. Aaron smiles and says October 3. Now, every Oct. 3, we celebrate Mean Girls Dayand fondly think of Bennett in that scene. Of course, there are plenty of reasons to think of Bennett on the other days of the year. The actor is a fixture on the Food Network, where hes hosted baking competitions Halloween Wars and Cake Wars, and the Hallmark channel, where he starred in the networks first Christmas romance featuring a gay couple, 2022s The Holiday Sitter. Mean Girls is back in the zeitgeist, with a new movie musical that was released last month, though, as Bennett tells me, I dont think Mean Girls ever left the conversation. Then theres the dream hes been living eight times a week: his Broadway debut playing Sir Robin in the current revival production of Spamalot, replacing Michael Urie, who originated the role. As the daffy, somewhat dim knight who is bashfully obsessed with musical theater, Bennett gets to put on a wig of long, blonde, curly hair, and perform Act 2s show-stopping production number You Wont Succeed on Broadway, a cheeky homage to the glitz and glam and razzle-dazzle of the Great White Ways most iconic shows. (A recreation of the Fiddler on the Roof bottle dance, for example, typically garners mid-song applause.) Jonathan Bennett in Spamalot Andy Henderson The funny thing about the character of Sir Robin is that hes basically Jonathan Bennett, Bennett says, speaking on Zoom before a recent performance. He wants to just dress up and dance. I get that great monologue where I get to talk about how much of a special place Broadway is and how its filled with very special people. I get to do the whole monologue about being on Broadway on Broadway. Theres no better moment of your life than standing center stage, singing a song about how amazing it is to be on Broadway, while youre at the St. James Theatre on Broadway. I barely get the question outHave you been a musical theater person your whole life?before Bennett starts laughing. Have I been a musical? YES! he says, emphatically shouting the yes. Ive wanted to be on Broadway since I was 5 years old. I am the biggest musical theater junkie in the world. After graduating high school, Bennett began studying at Otterbein University in Ohio, before moving to New York to start auditioning for theater. In 2001, when he was 20 years old, he got his break on the ABC soap opera All My Children. Because he was making a name for himself on TV, his agents encouraged him to move to Los Angeles. He quickly booked Mean Girls, and then I just kind of stayed in L.A. and kept working in TV and film for 20 years, he says. But Ive always had that dream of, But I want to do live musical theater. I want to be on Broadway. Its the first of several times in our conversation that Bennett refers to his role in Spamalot as a dream come true. Broadway is another distinctive niche of pop culture that Bennett has now infiltrated, which means encountering another group of fans to interact with. One imagines, based on their respective popularity, that the Hallmark fans and Mean Girls fans are passionate people. How do Broadway fans compare? Whats so funny is that the Mean Girls fans and the Hallmark fans and the Food Network fans are Broadway fans, Bennett says, smiling. If you think about it, Mean Girls is one of the gayest movies of all time. Michael Uries Big Gay Journey From Ugly Betty to Spamalot on Broadway As someone whos spent the last 20 years incessantly quoting the movie with his gay friends, I can corroborate Bennetts thesis. The character of Damian (Daniel Franzese), who was almost too gay to function, was a formative queer character for millennials on their own journeys with their sexuality. But back when Bennett was making the film, he had no idea that it would become so indelible, or that the LGBT+ community would latch onto it the way they did. I was still living in fear in the closet, of being found out that I was gay, he says. It was 2003. It was a different time in Hollywood, where leading men couldnt be gay. That just wasnt an option. So shooting it, we were just a bunch of kids making a movie that the girl from Saturday Night Live wrote that was hilarious. It was more of that than anything. Its a fun piece of trivia that all three of Mean Girls leading menBennett, Franzese, and Rajiv Surendra, who played Mathlete rapper Kevinare gay and have, since the movie premiered, come out publicly. A cute layer to that: Bennett and Franzese came out to each other during filming. Bennett publicly confirmed that he was gay in 2017. In 2022, he married former Amazing Race contestant Jaymes Vaughn. The two were the first gay couple to appear on the cover of the wedding magazine The Knot, and their Instagrams are a treasure trove of content documenting their life and relationship. Because of his role in the The Holiday Sitter, a landmark moment when it comes to LGBT+ inclusivity, Bennetts even been dubbed the Gay King of Christmas. Its been cathartic and profound for Bennett to, because of the new Mean Girls movie and the 20-year anniversary of the original, be able to talk about his experience making that film from a space of security in who he is and in his sexuality. When people say that being your authentic self and living your truth is the most powerful thing, its true. I wouldnt be here without living my truth and showing the world who I am, he says. Because when you do that, then people can actually see you and they can see who you are. They can connect with you as a human being playing that character versus an actor who has his guard up because hes afraid that he might make a gesture, or talk too high in his voice and people might think hes gay, so hes scared. Because all youre thinking about when youre acting is, Oh, God, dont let them know that Im gay. Lindsay Lohan and Jonathan Bennett in Mean Girls CBS Photo Archive via Getty Images That was part of my life for 10 years, in every role, in every audition, he adds. Then, 20 years [after Mean Girls], to be on Broadway singing one of the biggest gay numbers there is, doing tap dances on a Broadway stage, is just completely freeing. When you live your authentic truth, you're completely free, and the audience feels it. Spamalot isnt just a gig. Its been an outlet for Bennett to work through all the pain hes felt throughout his career because he felt that he needed to hide who he really was. I almost feel like doing this show is therapy for the scars and the wounds of living in the closet and living a life that you were told youre supposed to live, he says. That comes with a lot of scar tissue. Being able to be my big, gay self on a Broadway stage has kind of helped to heal those 10 years of your life where you couldnt be your true self. Being out and in the public eye can often carry with it a social responsibility that is thrust on queer celebrities, whether or not they desire to be an advocate or mouthpiece for issues facing the community. In recent years, Bennett has taken that opportunity seriously. One of the reasons he and his husband are so active on Instagram is because they see something powerful and potentially impactful about that visibility. Regina George Has Always Been a Lesbian It isnt because we need the attention of people seeing our relationship, he says. Thats not something we need or care about. What we care about is that when we were young and in our formative years, we didnt see any couples or love that looked like ours being displayed anywhere. And so its important for us to share who we are and what our relationship looks like with people, because you never know whos going to see it and feel less scared or less alone. Bennett is also aware of the unique position hes in as a gay man who hosts TV series on the Food Network and stars in Hallmark Channel romances, and who is never shy about who he is. These are networks with a major reach across the country, and which count conservative viewers among their audience. While Hallmark has made great strides in diversity and inclusivity, for example, it did take until 2022 for a same-sex couple to be featured in a Christmas film. My favorite thing is to tell queer stories in conservative spaces, because I think its something that needs to be done and done every single day, Bennett says. I always say that the people that watch RuPauls Drag Race, theyre already on our side. Weve already got them. Its the people that might not have many people in their life that are gay that they know about, or might not be around gay relationships, or might not see what love looks like between two men in a beautiful, heartfelt relationship [that we need to reach]. Jonathan Bennett and George Krissa in The Holiday Sitter Hallmark Channel So to be able to go on places like Food Network and be my complete self, my just spastic, big, old, gay self on that network and make everyone laugh, and to be on Hallmark and tell these amazing love stories about LGBTQ+ characters, it is such a powerful thing, he adds. Youre pulling back the curtain and showing people that an audience that might not normally have a lot of gay people in their life that theyre aware of. It isnt lost on Bennett that all of this opportunitythe Hallmark movies, being a role model for queer youth, being on Broadwayhas come because a movie he starred in 20 years ago has remained such a major part of the zeitgeist. Yes, theres a new musical movie version of Mean Girls you can watch now, and thats great and welcome. But nothing will ever be as fetch or as grool and the original phenomenon. You remember where you were the first time you saw the first viewing, he says. Not many people can say that about different movies. Mean Girls is just glued in peoples brains. But its also great to be reinvented, because times are changing. You always have to keep changing. So while I think this new version reinventing it is lovely and awesome and a great idea, the original will just always be the one thats glued into peoples brains. 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. The BBC's Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet is among the 55 journalists who signed the letter More than 50 journalists have sent an open letter calling on Israel and Egypt to provide "free and unfettered access to Gaza for all foreign media". The letter is signed by correspondents and presenters for broadcasters with UK bases, including the BBC's Jeremy Bowen, Lyse Doucet and Mishal Husain. It says the need for comprehensive on-the-ground reporting is "imperative". Israel's military says its troops have taken journalists on escorted trips in Gaza to allow them to report safely. Palestinian journalists and media workers have reported from inside Gaza since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, but dozens have been killed, injured or gone missing. In the letter, the 55 journalists write that "foreign reporters are still being denied access to the territory, outside of the rare and escorted trips with the Israeli military". The escorted trips are highly controlled and often only to show tunnels that the military says are used by Hamas or weapons stores. Only one foreign journalist has been granted entry into Gaza through Egypt on an escorted visit. CNN's Clarissa Ward - who is among the signatories of the letter - was able to spend only a few hours on the ground in the southern border city of Rafah with an Emirati medical team in December. The letter calls on Israel's government to "openly state its permission for international journalists to operate in Gaza". It also asks Egyptian authorities to allow foreign press access to the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza. The letter continues: "It's vital that local journalists' safety is respected and that their efforts are bolstered by the journalism of members of the international media. The need for comprehensive on-the-ground reporting of the conflict is imperative. "The risks of conflict reporting are well understood by our organisations who have decades of experience of reporting in warzones around the world and in previous wars in Gaza." The broadcasters represented in the letter are the UK's BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News, and the US outlets ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC. A number of journalists who signed the letter have been reporting from Israel during the conflict. In November, the BBC's international editor Jeremy Bowen travelled with Israeli forces into Gaza. While the BBC had editorial control of the report, the section with the Israeli forces was viewed by them. When asked for comment on the letter, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said: "The IDF is currently conducting a war against the terror organisation Hamas. "In order to allow journalists to report safely, the IDF accompanies them when in the battlefield." Last month, the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Jerusalem accused Israel of imposing an unprecedented ban on independent foreign press access to Gaza, after the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition from the organisation and ruled that restrictions on entry were justified on security grounds. The FPA said defence authorities had told the court that journalists in Gaza could be put at risk in wartime and endanger soldiers by reporting on troop positions. They also argued that it was too dangerous for Israeli personnel to be present at the Israeli border to facilitate press entry to Gaza. The court's ruling also cited defence authorities as stating that the Rafah crossing was "under the control and sovereignty" of Egypt, and that "to the best of [their] knowledge" the Egyptian government was allowing foreign journalists to enter Gaza. However, in late October a senior Egyptian official said it was the Israeli military stopping journalists from entering. Almost 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas, the territory's Hamas-run health ministry says. Israel's military launched an air and ground campaign after Hamas's attacks on Israel on 7 October, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 253 others were taken hostage. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 83 Palestinian and two Israeli journalists and media workers have been killed since the start of the war. A judge on Tuesday affirmed the removal of Kristina Karamo as chair of the Michigan GOP, weighing in on a contentious leadership dispute within the state party. Kent County Circuit Judge J. Joseph Rossi issued a preliminary injunction to bar Karamo from conducting business as the party chair, according to a court document shared by NBC News. The court found that Karamo was removed from the chair position back in January and that any actions since purporting to be taken on behalf of the Michigan Republican State Committee are void and have no effect. The order hands a win to former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who was recognized as chair earlier this month by the Republican National Committee (RNC), just hours before polls close in the Great Lakes States Tuesday presidential primary. After a tenure as chair rife with debt and discord, Karamo was voted out of her chair position weeks ago. Yet, despite public support from both the RNC and former President Trump for Hoekstra, she had dug in to insist that she still controlled the state party. The power struggle led to further confusion in the states already complicated nominating process. The results of Tuesdays presidential preference primary will be used to allocate some of the delegates on the GOP side while the rest of the delegates are set to be allocated based on the results of a state GOP convention this weekend. But while Hoekstra planned a convention in Grand Rapids, Karamo had planned a dueling convention across the state in Detroit. The new order prohibits Karamo, among other things, from calling any meeting of the Michigan Republican State Committee or conducting, or attempting to conduct, any business in the name of the Michigan Republican State Committee or the Michigan Republican Party, according to the document. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. GRAND RAPIDS A Kent County judge on Tuesday issued a preliminary injunction against Kristina Karamo, barring her from identifying herself as chair of the Michigan Republican Party or from accessing any party bank accounts or postal boxes. Kristina Karamo, left, and Peter Hoekstra. The ruling by Judge Joseph Rossi is a huge victory for anti-Karamo forces in the Michigan GOP and for Pete Hoekstra, the former ambassador and congressman who was elected to replace Karamo Jan. 20 after a breakoff section of the party's state committee voted to remove her at a meeting Jan. 6. Having two different people claiming to be MIGOP chair "created an environment filled with something the law hates uncertainty and confusion," the judge said. Karamo, who was in the courtroom in Grand Rapids for the late afternoon ruling, described it as "egregious," but said she will abide by it, pending a possible appeal and a trial in the case that is still scheduled for June. "I have to comply with the judge's order," Karamo said. "I'm not going to jail." The ruling may provide clarity to district chairs and potential candidates to March 2 party conventions where the majority of the party's delegates to the Republican National Convention will be elected. Hoekstra has scheduled a March 2 selection in Grand Rapids. Karamo had scheduled one in Detroit on the same date. Rossi made his ruling retroactive to Jan. 6 and said any actions Karamo has taken since then as state party chair are "void and have no effect." Hoekstra was earlier endorsed in the dispute by both the Republican National Committee and former President Donald Trump. The MIGOP State Committee, the RNC, President Trump and now a court of law have all reviewed the Jan. 6 meeting and there is unanimous agreement that the former chair was properly removed, and I was elected as the new chairman of the Michigan Republican Party," Hoekstra said in a news release after the ruling. "It is time to unite and move forward with the business (of) delivering the state of Michigan for our partys presumptive nominee, Donald J. Trump. But Karamo said outside court that while she would not call herself state party chair, she wasn't prepared to call Hoekstra the chair, either. She said it was too early to say whether she would try to appeal the ruling. Unhappiness with Karamo, who was elected at a state party convention just over a year ago, stemmed in part from lackluster fundraising. She was also accused of autocratic rule that lacked transparency and interference with the business of county parties. Karamo depicted the conflict as one in which the "old guard" or party establishment was fighting her efforts to make meaningful reform and place control in the grassroots. Rossi made his ruling after Tuesday testimony in which officials supporting Karamo as chair of the party detailed their reasons why they consider her removal by a breakaway faction of the state committee to be unlawful. Rossi heard from Michigan Republican Party Secretary Angela Gillisse, Treasurer Jennifer Standerfer and William Hartman, the party's general counsel under Karamo. They identified multiple issues with the way a Jan. 6 meeting to remove Karamo was convened and conducted. But Rossi said none of the flaws invalidated the actions taken against Karamo, which he said included "sharp-elbow tactics." He said he expects the anti-Karamo forces will prevail if the case gets to trial and noted that an expert on parliamentary procedure had testified that the removal was proper. Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on X, @paulegan4. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Judge bars Karamo from calling herself Michigan Republican Party chair The judge presiding over the Mar-a-Lago documents case on Tuesday denied efforts by Donald Trumps co-defendants to view the classified records they allegedly moved around the former presidents Florida residence for him. The men, political aide Walt Nauta and property staffer Carlos De Oliveira, wanted to view the classified records to prepare their trial defenses against obstruction of justice charges. They are accused of helping Trump conceal documents he unlawfully kept in Florida after he left the presidency. The decision from Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday night resolves a protracted battle that stood to hamper movement toward a trial, days before the judge revisits her calendar to see if Trump and the two men can be tried before summer. After several confidential hearings in her courthouse in recent weeks, including one that Trump attended, Cannon ruled in favor of the special counsels office, which argued De Oliveira and Nauta didnt need to see the records that were in the boxes at Mar-a-Lago. The Court finds that the Special Counsel has met his burden to withhold from Defendants Nauta and De Oliveira personally all classified discovery produced to date, Cannon wrote in her ruling Tuesday, noting one exception related to a particular document connected to one of the charges against Nauta. The judge held several hearings earlier this month all in secret, with the prosecutors and defense appearing separately before her in all but one proceeding. The hearings are part of legally necessary court oversight related to the use of classified information in the case. On Friday, the court will hold a hearing to address scheduling and more legal matters in the case, which is currently set to go to trial in May. Cannon found that prosecutors had made a sufficient showing at this stage that a review by Nauta and De Oliveira of classified documents would not be useful in building up their defense in the case. Nauta and De Oliveira have been charged with several counts, including making false statements, conspiracy to obstruct justice and corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing documents. They have both pleaded not guilty. Cannon has yet to rule on efforts by Trumps attorneys for him to access a smaller collection of classified documents, which the Justice Department wants to protect because of their national security sensitivity. Unlike the charges brought against Defendant Trump, Cannon wrote, the document-related charges against Defendants Nauta and De Oliveira do not require proof that they willfully retained documents relating to the national defense. In short, Cannon said the two men didnt need to see the classified records they may have carried. Defendant Nauta argues, for example, that the contents of the documents in the boxes he is alleged to have unlawfully moved cannot readily be separated from the subject classification markingsmaking review of the entirety of the documents helpful to the defense or to countering the Special Counsels case. Although intuitive in some sense, the Court still is left without any reasonably concrete example of a classified document, or documents, the substance of which appear helpful to either Defendant Nauta or De Oliveira in defending against the non-[national defense] charges against them, Cannon wrote. The judge noted that Nauta and De Oliveira remain able to review unclassified documents found in Trumps boxes that are part of the charges against them. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com The condo's dominant gray color scheme is cut with spots of color, like these military green bar stools. Bitchin' Digs The Pacific Islands meet midcentury modern in a recently refurbished condominium on a quiet bend of the River Walk downtown. The condo owner, who asked not to be identified by name, has roots in Hawaii and Guam. She wanted the apartment, which she purchased a year and a half ago, to pay tribute to that heritage in a way that was calming and sophisticated. "She didn't want Margaritaville, said Tessa Hendrie, co-owner with her sister Alyssa Hendrie of the San Antonio- and Malibu, Calif.-based design firm Bitchin Digs, who led the project. No tiki huts, no surfboards, no kitsch at all." Advertisement Article continues below this ad Perhaps the only obvious nod to the homeowners Pacific Island background are the palm frond prints in the living room. But the stark black-and-white images have an almost abstract quality that is not kitschy at all. Bitchin' Digs Perhaps the only obvious nod to the homeowners Pacific Island background are the palm frond prints on the living room walls. But the stark black and white images have an almost abstract quality. At the same time, she also wanted the condo to reflect her love of the sleek, clean look of midcentury modern design. It was a task Hendrie accomplished to startling effect. The six-month project, which was completed in December, transformed the two-bedroom, two-bath condo for just shy of $100,000. The owner of the condo moved to San Antonio about 10 years ago to open the first of what are now six franchised L&L Hawaiian Barbecue restaurants. Most are located near military bases where service members with a hankering can find such Hawaiian comfort food as chicken katsu, kalua pork with cabbage and loco moco (hamburger patties and rice topped with brown gravy and fried eggs). Advertisement Article continues below this ad To lessen the potential monotony of the mostly gray interior, the designers borrowed colors from the lush River Walk greenery. Bitchin' Digs While Hendrie filled the second-floor apartment with kitsch-free Pacific Island iconography and reproduction midcentury furnishings, she also added some San Antonio salsa to the mix. I always incorporate what the client wants in my projects, she said. But I also take into account where they are geographically. And here, that starts with the view out the windows overlooking the river. Although the redone condo is dominated by shades of gray, she lessened the potential monotony by borrowing from the lush River Walk greenery. That also led to the etched green pendant lamps and bathroom wall sconces, the moss green chevron tile in the primary bathroom, the sage green bedding and the military green of the kitchen island bar stools. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The living room fireplace is wrapped with plume glass mosaic tile in a floral pattern. Bitchin' Digs She wrapped the living room fireplace with plume glass mosaic tile in a floral pattern. The shine of the individual pieces, in shades of gray, blue and white with hints of mother-of-pearl, is enhanced by the small can lights in the ceiling above. The homeowner concedes there were times when she questioned Hendries design ideas and that she had to be talked down from her panic several times. Hendrie had to convince her, for example, to paint the ceilings the same color as the walls, not only to make the rooms feel larger but also to hide the imperfections often found in older buildings. Her argument won the day, and the walls and ceilings are now all one color. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Pacific Islands meet midcentury modern in the recently refurbished condominium located on a quiet bend of the River Walk downtown. Bitchin' Digs 5 COOL THINGS: What's new in home design and decor They initially considered painting the red Saltillo tile floors, but instead decided to replace it with ceramic, which will hold up better to the condo owners granddogs. Most of the furniture Hendrie found for the redesigned condo has the clean, softly curved lines and geometric patterns of midcentury modern, while hinting at the owner's Asian Pacific roots with its black wood and rattan door panels. To make the kitchen space more efficient, the pass-through to the living area and widened and the marblelike quartz countertop was extended. Bitchin' Digs While the condo owner said she doesnt expect to do much cooking at home she does most of that at her restaurants the kitchen design was still important. She hopes to use her newly renovated apartment to entertain family and friends, especially for the upcoming Fiesta river parades. Advertisement Article continues below this ad To make the space more efficient, they expanded the pass-through opening between the kitchen and the living area, and widened and extended the marblelike quartz countertop connecting the two. The counter now serves as the condos only dining table. We didn't want the added clutter of a separate table, Hendrie explained. Now theres more room to entertain. One of their biggest splurges was replacing the sliding doors out to the patio deck. The doors used to have these really thick frames, she said. The new ones are thinner, so they let in more light. They also open a lot farther than the ones they replaced, and theyre more soundproof, making the apartments much quieter. The bed in the primary sleeping chamber is done up with sage green bedding. Bitchin' Digs One wall of the primary bedroom is papered in a gray, abstract pattern that vaguely resembles palm fronds, again tying in with the trees visible out the sliding glass door. With roots in Hawaii and Guam, the owner of this River Walks condo wanted to renovate it to reflect her Pacific Island heritage -- but without the tiki torches, palm trees and surfboards. Richard A. Marini/Staff The River Walk condo primary bedroom is shown prior to its recent renovation. Bitchin' Digs The River Walk condo living room is shown before its recent renovation. Bitchin' Digs The River Walk condo bathroom is shown before its recent renovation. Bitchin' Digs The River Walk condo kitchen is shown before its recent renovation. Bitchin' Digs One wall of the main bedroom is done in an abstract palm frond wallpaper pattern that ties in with the trees outside. Richard A. Marini/Staff As a parting gift, the Hendrie sister gifted the homeowner with a neon sign reading, The Spirit of Aloha, a phrase she often uses to describe how she runs her restaurant. Richard A. Marini/Staff Plume glass mosaic tile with hints of mother of pearl wraps the living room fireplace. Richard A. Marini/Staff The living room fireplace is wrapped in plume glass mosaic tile with hints of mother of pearl in a floral pattern. Richard A. Marini/Staff One of the renovation's biggest splurges was replacing the sliding doors out to the patio deck with more streamlined models that also help dampen the outside noise. Richard A. Marini/Staff Much of the furnishings reflect a midcentury modern vibe with their slightly squared off lines, while also hinting at Asian Pacific islander with the black coloring and rattan panels on the doors. Richard A. Marini/Staff The River Walk condo was renovated the reflect the homeowner's Pacific Island background, but without the kitsch. Richard A. Marini/Staff Barn-style shower doors slide on a track, saving space compared to doors that swing open and containing shower water better than a curtain. Richard A. Marini/Staff Both baths feature barn-style shower doors to keep a similar look. Richard A. Marini/Staff Neither of the two bathrooms is very large, so Hendrie installed barn-style shower doors that slide on a track, saving space compared to doors that swing open and containing shower water better than a curtain. I put barn doors in both baths to keep a symmetry between the two, she said. While Hendrie hewed to the "no kitsch" edict, at the end of the project, she presented the owner with a neon sign parting gift that reads, The Spirit of Aloha. It's a phrase she uses to describe how she runs her restaurants. CHICAGO The traffic stop started like most others: Lights and sirens were activated, the police cruiser slowed to a stop and Officer Ella French and her partners walked to the vehicle. Jurors on Tuesday watched footage from police body cameras that showed a relatively normal traffic stop devolve into stunning violence. They saw and heard frenzied movements, a battery of gunshots, then a brief silence. Frenchs body camera caught a sliver of her face as she lay on the ground. Her partners camera, Carlos Yanez Jr., showed trees and the night sky. Because of body worn camera, you will have a front row seat to the absolute carnage this defendant unleashed on those police officers, Assistant States Attorney Scott Clark told the jury in opening statements Tuesday at the trial of the man accused of killing French, which is expected to last about a week. Emonte Morgan, 23, is charged with killing French, injuring Yanez and shooting at their third partner, Joshua Blas. His trial got off to an emotional start in a packed courtroom at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, with jurors taking in a close-up view of the shooting and its immediate aftermath. Morgan is also charged with aggravated battery and other felonies in connection with the shooting on Aug. 7, 2021, in the 2200 block of West 63rd Street. His brother, Eric Morgan, was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the shooting in October. The body camera footage showed the trio of officers pulling over an SUV driven by Eric Morgan, with his then-girlfriend Amanda Kirksy in the front passenger seat and Emonte Morgan in the back. Eric Morgan took off running, according to prosecutors, so Blas chased him before returning to the scene when he heard gunfire. French French! Blas, the third officer, yelled when he arrived, according to the footage. Small sobs were audible in the gallery, which was crowded with police officers and family members of French, Morgan, Yanez and Blas. Judge Ursula Walowski allowed courtroom doors to be opened for observers to listen in the hallways. During her opening statement, Kristine Neal, a public defender representing Morgan, countered that portions of the body camera footage are unclear because the individuals were too close together, leaving open questions about how the shootings transpired. Sliding doors is the concept of things in your life happening that change everything going forward in the blink of an eye, Neal said. That is what happened to everyone involved on Aug. 7, 2021. French, 29, elicited praise from many corners of the community in the days and weeks after her killing. Yanez, who is expected to testify later in the trial, was physically disabled from the shooting, prosecutors said. Today you will see the last thing that Officer Ella French ever saw in her life, Clark told the jury. Today you will hear the last thing Officer Ella French heard in her life. The states first witness was Elizabeth French, Ellas mother, who told the jury about her final phone call with her daughter, just before she started her last shift. Ella had called her mother to pass the time during the drive to her district, she told jurors Tuesday. Elizabeth French then ended the call as she always did: that she loves her, to be careful and to be safe. She liked to call me on her way to work, French testified, smiling through tears. The jury also heard extensively from Blas and from Kirksy, who broke down crying when prosecutors played the body camera footage of Frenchs slaying during her testimony. According to prosecutors, French, Yanez and Blas pulled over an SUV occupied by Emonte Morgan, his brother Eric and a woman for expired plates. Eric Morgan handed over the keys when asked, prosecutors have alleged, but Emonte Morgan refused to put down a drink and a cellphone he was holding, leading to a scuffle, prosecutors said. Eric Morgan ran away, while his brother fired shots at the officers during the scuffle, prosecutors alleged. French and her partner fell to the ground between the car and the curb, prosecutors said. Frenchs body worn camera captured her run to try to help her partner, Yanez, then scream and fall. Blas testified that Emonte Morgan did not comply with officers requests to put down his cellphone and an alcoholic drink he held in his other hand. Soon after, he said, he chased after Morgans brother, who ran away. While he was running, Blas testified, he heard gunfire back where their police vehicle was parked. When he returned, he said, Emonte Morgan fired a gun at him, so he fired and hit him. During cross examination, Jennifer Hodel, one of Morgans attorneys, questioned Blas on whether the traffic stop was necessary. The officers pulled over the vehicle for expired plates, though it later was discovered that the plates were valid. Hodel also pointed out parts of the body camera footage in which the occupants of the vehicle appear to be cooperating with officers, as well as that Blas wasnt present when the shooting happened. Is it fair to say you couldnt see what was happening back on 63rd Street near the cars? she said. Yes, Blas replied. Kirksy told the juror she heard gunfire and saw French fall. She said she did not see French with any weapon in her hand. Clark said French was just shy of her 30th birthday. In a matter of seconds, he took Ella Frenchs life and changed Carlos Yanezs life forever, he said. ____ Gangs, violence and sexual assaults are a problem in three Mississippi prisons because the facilities are short-staffed and inmates are sometimes left unsupervised, the Department of Justice said in a report Wednesday. The department said the state failed to protect inmates safety, control contraband or investigate harm and misconduct. These basic safety failures and the poor living conditions inside the facilities promote violence, including sexual assault, the department said. Gangs operate in the void left by staff and use violence to control people and traffic contraband. The department investigated Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, South Mississippi Correctional Institution and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. The new report says the conditions in those three prisons are similar to problems that the department reported in 2022 at Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. People do not surrender their constitutional rights at the jailhouse door, Kristen Clarke, the departments assistant attorney general for civil rights, said during a news conference Wednesday. A spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to an email message from The Associated Press seeking response to the federal findings. The new Justice Department report says appalling conditions in restrictive housing practices at the Central Mississippi and Wilkinson prisons cause substantial risk of serious harm. Restrictive housing units are unsanitary, hazardous, and chaotic, with little supervision, the Justice Department said. They are breeding grounds for suicide, self-inflicted injury, fires, and assaults. The department said the Mississippi Department of Corrections does not have enough staff to supervise the prison population, with job vacancy rates of 30% to 50%. The mismatch between the size of the incarcerated population and the number of security staff means that gangs dominate much of prison life, and contraband and violence, including sexual violence, proliferate, the Justice Department said. Prison officials rely on ineffective and overly harsh restrictive housing practices for control. One of the prisons investigated was the South Mississippi Correctional Institute in Greene County. Established in 1989, South Mississippi is located on 360 acres in the city of Leakesville. South Mississippi holds a maximum of 2,882 people. As of March 2022, there were 2,199 individuals incarcerated there. As of January 1, 2024, there were 2,804. South Mississippi houses minimum, medium, and close custody men. It has the second largest number of incarcerated individuals of any MDOC correctional facility, after Central Mississippi, according to the report. One section of the report offered a detailed violent attack on an inmate who was transferred to South Mississippi. In one extreme example of the sexual violence, we interviewed an individual who experienced a sexual assault at South Mississippi. The individual had experienced prior assaults at Central Mississippi and another MDOC facility. Officials transferred him to South Mississippi after gang members stabbed him multiple times, sodomized him and put a kill on site, or KOS order on him. He reported that when he arrived at South Mississippi, he requested protective custody based on the prior assaults, but the South Mississippi administration initially denied his request. Instead, South Mississippi administrators housed him in general population, in a large, open-bay dormitory with gang members. While using the bathroom, someone held a lock-blade knife to his neck, escorted him into the shower,and raped him. The victim told us that he believes the attack was orchestrated, because gang members lined up around the bathroom to stop anyone from coming in while he was being assaulted. In another incident, this was offered: A tower officer in South Mississippi observed what she described as the whole zone fighting in one housing unit of Area II and radioed for all available staff to respond. The first responding staff member waited before going in the zone because weapons were involved. Once more staff arrived and they opened the unit door, they found rival gang members lined up on separate sides of the unit, with non-affiliated persons gathered in the bathroom area. A security captain fired a flash-bang distraction device to gain compliance. One person died from stab wounds to his chest, back and head sustained in this incident. Another two stabbing victims went to an outside hospital, one had 15 puncture wounds to his upper torso and head, and the other had 7 stab wounds to his back, arms, face, and head. A subsequent search found multiple shanks and phones. Gangs remain a severe problem in the prison population, according to the report, across all facilities. Just in South Mississippi, the report detailed the problem. From July 2020 through November 2021, MDOC data show that the number of validated gang members in the South Mississippi population each month ranged from a high of 1055 (40% of the monthly population in September 2019) to a low of 244 (10% of the monthly population in November 2021). While this data reflects a decline in the number of validated gang members in South Mississippi, gangs retain significant influence there. Gangs maintain order in the housing units, make bed assignments, control the flow of contraband, and use violence as punishment, the report said. Both staff and incarcerated individuals report that gangs are responsible for the flow of drugs into the facilities, leading to violence, extortion, and drug overdoses. The strength of prison gangs inside the MDOC facilities that were investigated is so great that even some staff members have gang affiliations and are on the gangs payroll. Clarke said that because of poor door security and lack of supervision in Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, multiple incarcerated men were able to enter a womens housing unit. They stayed and engaged in sexual activity for an extended period, Clarke said. Although the sexual activity was reportedly consensual, the other women in the unit felt unsafe and were at risk of harm. A report released today by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division found that three Mississippi prisons fail to protect incarcerated people from rampant violence and sexual assault, and place hundreds of people in solitary confinement "for prolonged periods in appalling conditions." Federal investigators concluded that severe understaffing, unchecked gang violence, unsanitary living conditions, and the use of extreme isolation violated the 8th and 14th Amendment rights of inmates. The Justice Department launched an investigation into the Mississippi prison system in 2020 following a string of gruesome deaths and years of deteriorating conditions. In 2022, the Justice Department released a report describing barbaric conditions at Mississippi State Penitentiary, more infamously known as Parchman Farm. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a press conference that today's report shows that constitutional violations inside the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) are "systemic and longstanding." "Our investigation uncovered chronic, systemic deficiencies that create and perpetuate violent and unsafe environments for people incarcerated at these three Mississippi facilities," Clarke said. "The unconstitutional conditions in Mississippi's prisons have existed for far too long, and we hope that this announcement marks a turning point towards implementing sound, evidence-based solutions to these entrenched problems." The MDOC is the latest corrections system to come under federal scrutiny for barbaric conditions. The Justice Department sued Alabama in 2020 for ignoring multiple warnings that its gore-soaked prison system violated the Constitution. Last year, the Justice Department announced an investigation into the Fulton County Jail in Georgia, where a schizophrenic man died covered in bedbugs, lice, and lesions. But the problems in Mississippi have been profound. All three of the Mississippi prisons the Justice Department toured had 30 to 50 percent staff vacancy rates, leaving housing units with hundreds of people largely unsupervised. Emergency responses were often tardy and ineffective. "Across all these facilities, MDOC does not have enough staff to supervise the population," the report says. "The mismatch between the size of the incarcerated population and the number of security staff means that gangs dominate much of prison life, and contraband and violence, including sexual violence, proliferate." One incarcerated man told federal investigators how he was raped at knifepoint in a shower while gang members guarded the entrance to stop anyone from intervening. Clarke also described how poor security and lack of supervision in one incident allowed several incarcerated men to enter a women's housing unit. The report found that prison officials failed to adequately investigate sexual assaults, and the investigations the Justice Department reviewed "were of exceptionally poor quality." The Justice Department Civil Rights Division also found that the prisons units for restrictive housing, more commonly called solitary confinement, "are breeding grounds for suicide, self-inflicted injury, fires, and assaults." Under MDOC policies, inmates in restrictive housing are only allowed out of their cells for one hour a day, five days a week. But Justice Department investigators found that they were not even getting that much. "We also found that the average person in restrictive housing at Wilkinson spends a total of 1 hour and 50 minutes out-of-cell per week, compared to the 5-hour minimum requirement per policy," the report says. In addition, investigators reported that prison staff falsified logs to show that inmates were receiving recreation and shower time when they were not. The Justice Department concluded that the prisons' isolation practices "are extreme, deprive incarcerated individuals of basic human needs for safety, sanitation, exercise, social interaction, and sensory or environmental stimulation, and pose a substantial risk of serious harm." The MDOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The post Justice Department Finds Unconstitutional Conditions in 3 More Mississippi Prisons appeared first on Reason.com. The News The Biden campaign apparently tapped Vice President Kamala Harris for a robocall ahead of the Michigan primary on Monday, according to a recording obtained by Semafor. In the message, Harris introduces herself before offering listeners a chance to opt out of future calls. She continues on to give instructions on timing for the primary and directs voters to a website where they can get more information. The recording identifies itself as paid for by the Biden campaign. So tomorrow is Election Day, and you can vote in the presidential primary for President Biden and me, Harris says on the call. President Biden and I are counting on you. Take care, bye. The short call notably did not address any of the campaigns challenges stemming from Michigans uncommitted vote effort, which saw a number of high-profile Democrats urge voters to pick uncommitted on the ballot in order to pressure the administration into calling for a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war. Biden won Michigan handily with roughly 81% support, but the uncommitted vote also amassed a little over 13% of votes, and a majority in Dearborn, home to a large Arab American and Muslim community. Some Democrats downplayed the results, pointing to an 11% showing for uncommitted in 2012, while others like Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., told Semafor it represented a wake up call for the party on the issue. The Biden campaign told Semafor that Harris has done other recordings this cycle. Notable A veteran political consultant working for Biden opponent Dean Phillips admitted to NBC News that he put together a robocall that impersonated the president earlier this year. The call urged New Hampshire voters to not participate in the primary and instead save their vote for the general election in November. Phillips disavowed and condemned the consultant after his involvement was reported. KSAT anchor and "Good Morning San Antonio" host Max Massey is saying farewell to the station after almost seven years to pursue a law career. Massey announced Monday on social media that his final day on air with the news station will be March 10. "Reporting on life-altering stories, the immense growth across our community, and everything in between has been an absolute honor," he wrote. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Pennsylvania native appears on KSAT's weekend broadcast of "Good Morning San Antonio" and also covers education in the Alamo City. With the "Great Graduates" segment, Massey shines the spotlight on local students achieving academic success against the odds. He is leaving the station ahead of law school graduation in May, after which he plans to take the bar exam and begin a career in law, he wrote on social media. "Though this drastic change in my life will not be easy, and I'll miss being a part of the KSAT family, I'm unbelievably grateful for my time here," he said. Over 600 supporters flooded his post with well-wishes for law school and beyond, including his KSAT co-workers. Advertisement Article continues below this ad KSAT-12 television station is located on St. Mary's Street near downtown San Antonio. Monte Bach KANSAS CITY, Mo. Police say over 20 people were cited last weekend at a large sideshow in south Kansas City. A sideshow is when drivers perform reckless burnouts and stunts on public streets; they typically draw large crowds of spectators. Police said the activity has been a problem for years but has increased in popularity since the pandemic. ChiefsAholic pleads guilty to bank robbery, money laundering Kansas City police said multiple officers responded to the sideshow and deployed stop sticks at nearby intersections. As a result, five vehicles were towed from the area. If caught, drivers could face up to a $500 fine and even jail time for careless driving. Police said 21 people also received $100 citations for spectating since watching sideshows is also illegal in Kansas City. One sideshow even turned deadly in 2022 when someone was run over and killed while watching. Download the FOX4 News app on iPhone and Android These dangerous activities have led to fatal accidents involving drivers, participants and innocent bystanders, KCPD Chief Stacey Graves said in 2022 when the city installed pucks in intersections downtown to deter sideshows. Kansas City leaders and police have spent several years trying to figure out how to crack down on illegal sideshows. Others have advocated that Kansas City needs a designated space for young people to hold sideshows. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports. The Kansas Senate is once again trying to rewrite public health laws in reaction to handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. A bill to strip health officers of their authority to issue orders passed last week, as did a a bill to guarantee that loved ones have visitation access to family members in a hospital, but neither had a veto-proof supermajority. Backlash to the pandemic response led Republicans in November 2021 to initiate the state's first special session called by legislators, and Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly signed their bill targeting employer vaccine mandates into law. Kelly said at the time that she signed the bill to "get it over with and move on." But many Republicans didn't move on, promising to pursue more public health legislation. Their efforts floundered in the 2022 and 2023 sessions, but have been renewed in 2024. "The farther we get from the COVID pandemic, the more we seem to be forgetting the lessons we must remember to prevent out of control mandates from happening in the future," said Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Shawnee. "The totalitarian whims of people like Dr. (Anthony) Fauci should never be allowed to have the force and effect of law or take precedence over the most basic of individual rights. That's exactly what happened in 2020 and 2021." Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Shawnee, backed public health bills inspired by the response to the coronavirus pandemic. Quarantine order bill tells health officers to 'stay in your lane' Senate Bill 391, dubbed the "Constitutional Right to Health Freedom Act," takes aim at the authority of public health officers to quarantine and isolate individuals who have been or may have been infected with a disease. It was introduced by Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson. It passed the Senate 23-17 last week, leaving supporters short of the 27 votes needed for a potential veto override. The bill now heads to the House. Sen. Beverly Gossage, R-Eudora and chair of the public health committee, lauded the work of local health officers and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment secretary. But she took issue with their authority to issue orders. "They serve a very important role," Gossage said, but "somewhere along the line gave them the authority to make orders." She said, "COVID brought to light who can place orders." Under the bill, health officers could only make recommendations. The KDHE secretary would also lose the authority to enact rules and regulations about infectious or contagious diseases, and the agency would also lose the authority to apply for a court injunction to compel compliance. A criminal penalty would be removed for violations of current law on tuberculosis. Gossage said the bill was amended due to concerns that no one would have emergency quarantine or isolation authority during infectious disease outbreaks. "Of course someone should be able to make those orders," she said. More: Anti-public health politics get tepid support from Kansas Republicans, but bill still passes With the amendment, county commissioners could do so instead of the health officer. But they could not prohibit public gatherings. "That's what this bill does," she said. "It just basically says stay in your lane; don't give orders. We want elected officials to give orders, but we want you (health officers) to do all the things that you do, like do your research, and give us some information and data, tell us what's going on. We really appreciate that." Sen. Kristen O'Shea, R-Topeka, criticized the bill and urged legislators to think of children and the potential for diseases spreading in child care centers. "This is creating stricter guidelines for animals than it is for people," she said. "We want to value human life more than the animals." Sen. Cindy Holscher, D-Overland Park, pointed to KDHE projections that disease outbreaks would be larger and more expensive without the current public health authorities in state law. In 2018, a measles outbreak at a Johnson County day care eventually spread to Miami and Linn counties, totaling 22 infected people and 198 contacts. The KDHE predicted that had there been no isolation or quarantine measures in place, the outbreak would have grown to 396 cases and 3,564 contacts. The public health cost would have ballooned from about $420,000 to $7.6 million, according to the bill's fiscal note. "This is an extreme bill that would be a very expensive, dangerous experiment to unleash on our population, especially our children," Holscher said. Taxpayers would refund hospitals if new patient visitation rules cost federal funding Senate Bill 352, dubbed the "John D. Springer Patient's Bill of Rights," was also introduced by Steffen. It would mandate that medical care facilities allow in-person visitation. Facilities could face legal liability for not allowing visitors. "The intent of the bill is to prohibit placing medically unnecessary, unfounded and non-scientific policies ahead of the right of individuals, families who were kept from the bedside of dying patients and those who are so sick they couldn't advocate for themselves," Thompson said. It passed the Senate 26-13 last week, leaving it one vote short of a supermajority. It also goes to the House for consideration. "A vote against 352 was a vote against basic human rights, and we will be hearing that multiple times through the summer," Steffen said, in apparent reference to the beginning of primary election season. Peggy Springer, of Macksville, is the widow of the bill's namesake. "His name is John Springer," she said. "He was murdered Dec. 2, 2021. Isolated from his family, denied medication that would have helped, he was sent to another state against family wishes and given large amounts of morphine and other drugs." She said had the bill been in place when her husband got sick, he would not have been alone without his wife there as a patient advocate. Peggy Springer took issue with John Springer being treated with remdesivir. She said the doctor mocked the family's request for ivermectin, telling her, "Your husband is not a horse." More: Kansas bill would force pharmacists to fill ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine as off-label COVID treatment "Do not let his death be in vain," she said. The Kansas Hospital Association told lawmakers that visitation polices are regulated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That includes requirements for infection control guidelines, which can change during disease outbreaks. The organization said it appreciates the intent, but worries about unintended consequences. Likewise, the Kansas Medical Society said it is generally supportive of the patient rights in the bill, but raised concerns about the new civil cause of action encouraging more litigation when there are already established legal remedies for adverse patient outcomes. O'Shea raised concerns that the bill could force hospitals to choose between no longer following CMS infection control requirements and potentially risk losing federal funding, or not following state law and opening themselves up to expensive lawsuits. Because of that, she succeeded in amending the bill to create a fund where taxpayer money would reimburse medical facilities for any fees, penalties or lost funding due to complying with the state instead of the federal government. Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@gannett.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd. This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas senators pass public health bills on quarantine, patient visits KSNF/KODE A Columbus man charged with attempted murder and rape in 2022, is sentenced to nearly nine years in prison. PREVIOUS: Charges filed in attempted murder investigation Steven Tyner, 50, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated battery as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. Steven Tyner The rape and attempted murder charges were dismissed. This case began two years ago when a woman showed up at a Joplin hospital with stab wounds. She told authorities she was raped and stabbed and named Tyner as her attacker. PREVIOUS: Two in custody after victim shows up in Joplin with multiple stab wounds Tyner along with Ivy Simpson, were charged in the case. Ivy Simpson Simpson pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and was sentenced to a little more than three years in the case. PREVIOUS: Webb City woman pleads guilty to aggravated battery in 2022 stabbing case Tyner is no stranger to the inside of a prison cell. He was sentenced to five years in a Kansas prison after a jury found him guilty of attempted voluntary manslaughter for a shooting in 2006. In that case, Darrel Henkle and Brenda Brock were shot during an argument at Brocks residence along Spring River. Tyner, Henkle and Brock were all living there at the time. Brock was shot nine times. She died at the scene. Henkle was wounded in the ankle, hip, back, and arm. A Cherokee County jury found Tyner guilty of attempting to kill Henkle, but acquitted him for Brocks murder. Tyners attorney told the court the two men fought over the gun after Henkle shot Brenda. PREVIOUS: A Southeast Kansas man is back in custody For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNF/KODE | FourStatesHomepage.com. The Republican Party doesnt seem to have much of a problem with Nazis these days. NBC News recently reported on how they openly mingled at last weeks Conservative Political Action Conference. The report was alarming, but not surprising. The events keynote speaker and the partys standard-bearer, Donald Trump, has a history of hobnobbing with white supremacists and antisemites including Nick Fuentes, the virulently bigoted Holocaust denier the former president invited to dinner at Mar-a-Lago just over a year ago. CPAC threw a hissy fit over the NBC News report, but its undeniable that conservatives no longer feel the need to distance themselves from white supremacy or even full-fledged Nazism the way they might have before the MAGA movement fully subsumed the GOP. The partys tacit-if-not-explicit acceptance of ethnonationalism has spawned an increasingly extreme array of candidates for elected positions. Lori Kauffman, a Republican running to represent Bostons First Suffolk District on the Republican State Committee, is one of them. Dont forget Ill likely get voted into office on March 5, Kauffman wrote earlier this week on X, formerly Twitter. Long term goals are to ban same sex marriage (never should have been legalized) and trans will be illegal. Yes illegal. I will also exile all Jews. Kauffmans account is rife with extremist content, including unvarnished antisemitism, bigotry against the trans community, and adoration of Kanye West who himself has espoused plenty of antisemitism. Kauffman has also promoted her alternate X account, @Jews4Ye24, which features more of the same. Hi, Hitler? one meme posted earlier this month reads. Its 2024 here and were requesting your assistance. I called up Kauffman on Tuesday. She says that she was raised Jewish but converted to Christianity, citing the depth and depravity of whats going on behind the guise of the Jewish religion. She touched on a litany of antisemitic conspiracy theories, from the idea of a New World Order to claiming Jews are behind the Covid-19 vaccine, which she believes gave her brain cancer. I cant prove that, she says of censorship covering up the damage the vaccine has done to people, but its pretty suspect. So, would you say youre a fan of Hitler? I ask. Fan is a weird word, she says, pivoting to Holocaust denial. Im still learning a lot about what actually happened during World War II. There were no gas chambers. Every single thing we know about World War II is a lie, just like everything we know about our own world we live in today is a lie. I have the same goals as Hitler: Exile the Jews and keep their degeneracy and corruption and lies out of society. Its destroying us. So, its safe to say youd admire Hitler? Thats still a strong word because Im still learning about it. I respect Hitler. I like him. Kauffman says she got into the race after working on Yes pseudo-campaign for president. She claims someone in his camp suggested she get involved in the local political scene and figure out how it works. She realized everyone was corrupt as shit, so she decided to go ahead and run herself. (When I asked what exactly she did for Yes campaign, she said graphic marketing design and that it is confidential. She ultimately said that her work was only part of a movement that a lot of different people were a part of and that she wasnt actually working with Milo Yiannapolous and Fuentes.) Kauffmans opponent for a seat on the Massachusetts Republican State Committee is Elizabeth Hinds-Ferrick, a Guayanese immigrant with a doctorate from Northeastern, and who is currently serving as the assistant director in the states Department of Transitional Assistance, which assists low-income individuals. Hinds-Ferrick is running alongside Timothy Smyth, the co-president of the New England Young Conservatives and the state committeeman for the First Suffolk District. Hinds-Ferrick and Smyth are more traditional Republicans. Smyth whose campaign Facebook page features photos of himself posing with Ron DeSantis, quotes from Tim Scott, and I Stand With Israel imagery describes himself as believing in Rockefeller, New England Republicanism, the GOP being a big-tent party, and Reagans 11th Commandment, which is not to speak ill of any fellow Republican. He acknowledges that plenty of Republicans are violating this commandment today, but dismisses the idea that Kauffmans brand of extremism is creeping into the mainstream of the party. She is very extreme, he says. This is a complete anomaly. We showed that with our unanimous support condemning her in December. Smyth is referring to the state GOPs formal condemnation of Kauffman when her views came to light in December. The party released a new statement on Tuesday reiterating their disapproval. Ms. Kauffmans reprehensible rhetoric has no place within the Republican Party or in the broader American political dialogue, the statement read. The MassGOP unequivocally denounces her vile language and has taken every measure within its capacity to disassociate from Ms. Kauffman. Kaufmann may have no place in New England Republicanism, but theres no question that naked antisemitism and white supremacy are becoming more and more prevalent throughout the conservative movement as Trump and his ilk tighten their grip on it. So too is the idea that real change cant be found within the two-party establishment. Kauffman says she isnt satisfied with anyone from the uniparty in Washington, D.C. including Trump. I wish I liked him more, but hes a Zionist, too. I think 75 percent of all our problems in the United States comes from the fact that were occupied by Israel, she says, adding that she figures Trump is the better option but that this years presidential election isnt going to affect anything. Her solution, however, is something that has certainly been gestured toward by plenty of elected Republicans. Its time to overthrow the government, Kauffman says. Its our constitutional right. I dont care how ridiculous that sounds. More from Rolling Stone Best of Rolling Stone Prince William missed a memorial for his godfather the late King Constantine sparking concerns for Kate Middletons health. Constantine died at the age of 82 in January last year, decades after being toppled from the throne in a military coup. William, 41, called the Greek royal family to let them know he was unable to attend, and Crown Prince Pavlos stood in for the British heir to the throne who was due to give a Bible reading. Kate Middleton underwent abdominal surgery recently (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) The palace reported the Prince of Wales missed the memorial service due to a personal matter, however, they did not elaborate further. In January, the Princess of Wales, 42, entered the London Clinic to have abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition. The exact details of the princesss condition have not been revealed but the Palace said previously it was not cancer-related, and that Kate wished her personal medical information to remain private. William pulled out of attending a memorial service event for unknown reasons (2023 Getty Images) During the Duchess of Cambridges three pregnancies, she suffered with hyperemesis gravidarum, a condition which causes severe vomiting. To overcome the extreme sickness, she revealed in a podcast Happy Mum, Happy Baby, she resorted to hypnobirthing techniques of mindfulness and meditation. In the 2020 podcast, the Princess told the host Giovanna Fletcher: Im not going to say that William was standing there sort of, chanting sweet nothings at me. He definitely wasnt. I didnt even ask him about it, but it was just something I wanted to do for myself. I saw the power of it really, the meditation and the deep breathing and things like that, that they teach you in hypnobirthing, when I was really sick, and actually I realised that this was something I could take control of, I suppose, during labour. It was hugely powerful. Kate is said to be doing well following her treatment (Getty Images) The Princess of Wales is said to be doing well as she recovers from the procedure however she will not return to official duties until after Easter. Royal Correspondent Michael Cole told GB News I think it is worrying... It has been made clear from an unnamed source that the reason for him pulling out... has nothing to do with Kate. We do not know, I think it is unusual at the last minute. Kate will be under the careful watch of royal doctors and also benefit from the London Clinics aftercare, with dedicated physiotherapists on hand with a personalised plan and a video check-up at home with a nurse specialist on offer. NHS advice about recovering from abdominal surgery says that, after a major operation with a large incision, it takes two to three months to be able to move around comfortably. But this will be quicker if the procedure was keyhole surgery. It comes as Thomas Kingston, the husband of Prince and Princess Michael of Kents daughter Lady Gabriella Kingston, died suddenly at the age of 45, Buckingham Palace announced yesterday. Thomas Kingston smiles lovingly at Lady Gabriella Windsor in resurfaced wedding video following his sudden death (PA) Lady Gabriella paid tribute to her financier husband in a joint statement with his family, describing him as an exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him. They described his death as a great shock to the whole family. The King and Queen sent their most heartfelt thoughts and prayers to Lady Gabriella, who is known as Ella. King Charles also missed King Constantines memorial service and he is currently undergoing treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer The King, who is being treated for cancer, will miss the service at St Georges Chapel, Windsor Castle, in honour of his close friend and second cousin Constantine II, the former ruler and last king of Greece. The King has reportedly sought spiritual advice from his friend Archimandrite Ephraim, Abbot of the Greek Orthodox Vatopedi monastery on Mount Athos. Abbot Ephraim is said to have told Greek media outlets: Yes, he has been in contact since the diagnosis and I believe hell overcome it. Charles has a spiritual sophistication, a spiritual life. Charles, 75, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer just over a fortnight ago, is not carrying out public duties while he has treatment. WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) The Kansas Department of Transportation has released the results of the public input and virtual town hall on expanding Amtraks Heartland Flyer in Kansas. The proposed project would extend the Heartland Flyer passenger rail service from Oklahoma City through Wichita and up to Newton, where it would connect with the Southwest Chief. The Southwest Chief connects Los Angeles to Chicago with multiple stops in Kansas. The Kansas Department of Transportation took public comment on the proposed expansion and held a virtual public meeting in November 2023. On Tuesday, KDOT released the results of the feedback they received on the proposed expansion. Previously: Amtrak push from Kansas lawmakers The department says they received over 400 comments about the proposal, the majority of which were all positive. KDOT says the majority of the negative feedback they received was over the virtual format of the town hall rather than an in-person meeting, but still in support of Amtrak expansion. Supporters also wanted to see passenger rail service expand further north of Newton, connecting other communities, like Manhattan, as well as Lawrence and Kansas City, which are connected by the Southwest Chief. Those who participated also want to see improved amenities, updated train stations, handicap accessibility improvements, and connections to bus routes and airports. You can read the summary of the public meeting by clicking here. If you would like to see the presentation given during Novembers virtual meeting, you can do so by clicking here. To view the facts sheet and frequently asked questions about Heartland Flyer expansion, click here. The Kansas Department of Transportation says a second public meeting will be held in Spring with the Service Development Plan to be completed later this year. If successful, the expansion will be completed, with service starting by 2029. Previously: More Amtrak routes could be passing through Kansas, FRA study At Tuesdays Wichita City Council workshop meeting, city leaders learned that KDOT has received a $500,000 planning grant for the project. They have also applied for other federal grants. Wichitas lobbyist in Washington, Jim Davenport, says when the council soon visits Washington, they have several meetings scheduled, including with the Federal Railroad Administration. He says they can discuss with the FRA the grants that are available to help support the completion of the project. To sign up for email updates on the Heartland Flyer expansion from the Kansas Department of Transportation, click here. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV. A thrombectomy can instantly restore blood flow to areas affected by clots A new suite at Kent and Canterbury Hospital will enable specialists to treat some of the most severe types of stroke. The thrombectomy suite, which is currently under construction, will allow medics to surgically remove blood clots from inside the brain. Currently, patients need to travel by ambulance to The Royal London Hospital for thrombectomy treatment. East Kent Hospitals said faster treatment would mean better outcomes. According to the NHS foundation trust, more than 1,200 people a year in east Kent suffer a stroke, with more than 100 of these patients likely to benefit from a thrombectomy. Dr David Hargroves, national clinical director and clinical lead for stroke at the trust, said: "Stroke can be life-changing for many patients, leaving them with disabilities and a long rehabilitation journey. "The faster we can treat a patient who is suffering a stroke, the better the outcome for them." A hospital spokesperson said the suite is due to open this year, allowing interventional radiologists to use real-time x-rays to reach the clot and remove it from inside the patient's brain. It is the final phase in a 4.5m three-year project to develop the Kent Interventional Radiology Centre. Dr Robert Kaikini, strategy lead consultant for interventional radiology, said: "The use of cutting-edge technology will be a game-changer for patients suffering an acute stroke in east Kent." Follow BBC South East on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250. A man who led Miami-Dade cops on a chase Monday while driving the car of someone he killed in another state has been charged as police seek to extradite him to Kentucky, according to authorities. Liobys Caro-Mena, 38, remained behind bars Tuesday evening at Miami-Dades Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $30,000 bond. Caro-Mena was also served with an out-of-state fugitive warrant for the murder of 45-year-old Alain Garcia Perez, the Louisville Metro Police Department said Tuesday in a statement. A man of interest in a Kentucky killing led Miami-Dade police officers on a chase on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024, according to authorities. Murder suspect crashes, flips car Acting on a tip from the FBI, officers flooded the streets Monday morning in north Miami-Dade in search of the victims car, a red Chevrolet Camaro bearing a Kentucky license plate. Undercover officers first spotted the car parked alongside the Twin Lakes Apartments, 1221 NW 95th St., police said in Caro-Menas arrest report. As the undercover cops followed him from a distance, other officers joined. The officers tried to pull over Caro-Mena at Northwest 87th Street and 18th Avenue just after 7 a.m., said police spokesman Officer Alvaro Zabaleta. But after stopping momentarily, Caro-Mena took off in the Camaro and police gave chase, Zabaleta said. While fleeing, he struck a car at Northwest 103rd Street and 27th Avenue. READ MORE: Man of interest in Kentucky killing leads Miami-Dade police on chase, crash, cops say Around 7:45 a.m., Caro-Mena lost control of the car, crashed into several vehicles stopped at a red light and flipped on its side near Northwest 118th Street and 27th Avenue, police said. Caro-Mena was trapped in the Camaro and had to be rescued by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, Zabaleta said. He was taken into custody and airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospitals Ryder Trauma Center in stable condition. A woman at the crash site told CBS News Miami that her 11-year-old grandson was taken to the hospital after the Camaro hit her Hyundai from behind as she was driving her grandchildren to school. The boys condition was unknown Tuesday. This embedded content is not available in your region. What happened in Kentucky? Details about the Kentucky murder are scarce. Just before noon Sunday, officers were dispatched to a house in Louisville, Kentucky, after a person was reported down, John Bradley, a spokesman with Louisville Metro Police Department, told the Miami Herald. When officers arrived, they found the body of Garcia Perez, who died from apparent injuries due to blunt force trauma, Bradley said Monday in an email. Public records show he lived at that address, and Caro-Mena lived about 3 miles away. It was discovered the victims car was missing and an attempt to locate was issued for the car, Bradley said. This embedded content is not available in your region. Are more charges coming? Caro-Mena has since been charged in Miami-Dade with third-degree grand theft auto, fleeing police at high speed and leaving the scene of a crash with no serious bodily injury. However, more charges could be forthcoming as Kentucky authorities continue their investigation, and Caro-Mena may ultimately be extradited to Louisville. Rudu Isaiah "Rudy" Pardo is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Kevin Osborne on Feb. 19, 2023. If convicted, Pardo faces up to life in prison. Courtesy, Bexar County Sheriff's Office The murder trial of Rudu Isaiah Rudy Pardo began with a description of a troubled marriage and surveillance video of a man being shot during an argument with two others in front of Memorial High School a year ago. Pardo was 26 when he was arrested, accused in the fatal shooting of Kevin Osborne, 53, a photographer and a regular at the Cadena-Reeves Justice Center who had a love for the legal profession and sat in courtroom galleries in his spare time to follow criminal cases. The victim was so well known for routinely taking selfies with county and state district judges that the trial of the man accused of killing him is being heard by Visiting Senior District Judge Lisa Jarrett, presiding by appointment. Judge Stephanie Boyd of the 187th District Court recused herself because Osborne had taken a selfie with her. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In his opening statement, Bexar County prosecutor Jason Garrahan told the jury that Osborne and his wife, Kris Herrera, had a disagreement on Feb. 18, 2023, and Herrera went out for drinks around 5 p.m. When she returned home around 12:15 a.m., Osborne told her they needed to talk. Garrahan said Herreras response was, (Expletive) that, I dont need to talk. She took a shower, and Kevin said he was going over to her moms house so he could bring her mom to come talk to her, Garrahan said. Kris decides to call her son, Orion Herrera. Garrahan said Kris Herrera has never alleged Osborne tried to hurt her, but has told prosecutors that she would be testifying in favor of the defendant. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Less than three months after Kevin Osbornes death, she remarried, Garrahan added. Garrahan told the panel that Pardo and Orion Herrera, who were best friends, showed up at Herreras mothers house, each with a gun. He said Osborne, who was unarmed and never threw a punch or inflicted so much as a scratch, was killed because the men had a wrong interpretation of self-defense law. Defense attorney Anton Paul Hajek III waived his opening statement until he presents his case. Testifying as a prosecution witness, Orion Herrera told the jury that his mother called him that night and told him that Osborne, his stepfather, was going to her mothers home in the 200 block of Pickford Avenue on the West Side to drag her over to their home for a talk. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Herrera said he went to his grandmothers home after calling her and telling her that Osborne was on his way there and to lock her doors and not answer if someone came knocking. He told the panel he called 911 and tried to get police to see if Osborne was there, but the dispatcher told him they could not help with that request. Herrera said he took his Taurus handgun. Pardo rode there with him, with his Glock, he said. Osborne was there, sitting in his silver SUV, he said. Video taken from the nearby high school showed Herrera getting out of his car and walking over to talk to Osborne, then walking through the driveway to another vehicle, with Osborne following. Once there, the men could be seen arguing at very close range. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Kevin was chest to chest with me, yelling at me. His demeanor was very aggressive, Herrera told the jury. He was putting pressure on my chest with his chest. Garrahan asked Herrera how tall he was in comparison to Osborne. Herrera said he is 6 feet, 2 inches, while Osborne was about 5 feet, 11 inches. Herrera said he took out his gun and chambered a round but held it at his waist. I was scared, Herrera said when asked why he didnt fire the weapon. At this point, he said, Osborne was in his face, and Herrera was looking back toward Pardo, who got out of the car, chambered a bullet in his weapon and walked to where the men were arguing. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I remember hearing the sound of the chamber being pulled, Herrera said. Meanwhile, Osborne egged them on, telling Pardo to do it but threatening them and one of their children if they did anything to him, Herrera said. Rudy pushed off at Kevin, he stumbled back, and continued to progress toward Rudy, Herrera told the jury. Rudy raised his firearm and fired one shot. Garrahan asked again if Osborne was armed. Ive never seen him with a firearm, not that night, Herrera told the jury. Osborne was hit in the torso and was taken to an area hospital in critical condition. He later died. Initially, Herrera and Pardo both were arrested, but only Pardo was charged. If convicted, Pardo, now 27, faces up to life in prison. Stepan (15) and Yaroslav (16), both teenagers from Kharkiv, wake up to the relentless sounds of Russian shelling, a routine that began after their school was destroyed at the start of Russias full-scale invasion. UNICEF Ukraine told their stories on Feb. 19. As classmates in the tenth grade, they've been studying remotely for two years now. Stepan finds online lessons difficult. The boy says that it is not so easy for him to learn the material and he is worried about his future. Read also: Russia establishing military camps to indoctrinate, later conscript, Ukrainian children NRC My grades have gotten worse, the boy said. English and German are the hardest: online explanations from teachers are not always clear, and you can't talk to classmates. I'm afraid that because of the gaps in my education, I won't be able to pass the exams to enroll in the university. UNICEF Ukraine In a year, the boys must choose a university and profession. Stepan dreams of becoming an entrepreneur like his father, but uncertainties linger. Yaroslav, on the other hand, aspires to study rehabilitation massage. In a year, when I finish 11th grade, I plan to study to be a massage therapist-rehabilitologist, he said. After the end of the war, there will be many veterans who will need to recover their health. I want to be useful." UNICEF Ukraine The boys believe that distance learning is of lower quality than face-to-face learning. Children lack control and discipline. War-related disruptions, including constant alerts, shelling, power outages, and stress, further complicate their educational experience. Read also: Teen who fled Donbas war in 2014 finds refuge in Odesa as full-scale invasion strikes Ukraine I would like to go back to school, Stepan admitted. But if I go to school, there is a chance that a rocket will hit it, like our previous school. This is a risk that we always think about. UNICEF Ukraine Before Russias full-scale invasion, the boys participated in various sports, which stopped after Feb. 24, 2022. I dont want to fall asleep and wake up to the sound of an air raid siren, Im scared, Yaroslav said. Most of all, I dream of the war ending and being able to live as before in joy and without fear. UNICEF Ukraine While the teens acknowledge their fortune in having been able to engage in face-to-face education, they sadly recognize that younger students are missing crucial stages of childhood due to the pandemic and the full-scale invasion. About 5.3 million children in Ukraine have faced educational losses due to limited access to face-to-face learning, UNICEF Ukraine reported. More than 7,000 Ukrainian schools remain inaccessible to children: some are closed due to security risks, some have been damaged or destroyed, and others have switched to remote learning. UNICEF Ukraine Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine PORT ROYAL, Pa. (WHTM) An emergency class geared towards children is being held in Juniata County. The class is on Saturday, May 4 from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. The class is free and open to kids between the ages of eight and 16 years old. Kids will be able to talk with a 911 dispatcher and learn how they help child callers as well as learn basic CPR and First Aid skills and much more. The class will be held at the Port Royal Community Building located at 212 N. 4th Street in Port Royal. Pre-registration is preferred. You can text or call 717-953-6212 for more information For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27. North Korea may have sent more than three million artillery shells to Russia to fuel its war in Ukraine, South Koreas defence minister has said. The alarming estimate from Seoul comes as Ukraine begins a third year of conflict, facing an onslaught by waves of Russian troops and armour on the eastern front lines as its supply of Western ammunition begins to run dry. Shin Won-sik, South Koreas defence chief, told local media that the North had sent 6,700 shipping containers of ammunition to Russia since July, which may contain more than 3 million 152mm artillery shells, or 500,000 122mm rounds. It could possibly be a mix of the two, and you can say that at least several million shells have been sent, said Mr Shin, according to Yonhap news agency. North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un and Russia's President Vladimir Putin meet in Amur, in the far east of Russia, in September - SPUTNIK/REUTERS He added that North Korean munitions factories supplying to Russia were operating at full capacity. The latest information, which cannot be independently verified, offers a fresh insight into Pyongyangs clandestine support for Russias war effort. Kim Jong-Un on the 76th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Army in Pyongyang earlier this month - Korean Central News Agency/REUTERS Meanwhile, Ukraines much-needed military support from the United States remains in doubt. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, told CNN this week that millions could die in his country if the US Congress does not sign off on President Joe Bidens $60 billion aid request for Kyiv. The Ukrainian government has blamed the recent loss of Avdiivka, a city in Donetsk, on a lack of ammunition. Kyiv fears the shortages could lead to further battlefield defeats as Russias vast army begins to break through a grinding stalemate. Russia and North Korea have denied any exchange of weapons, even though they have openly pledged to deepen defence ties. Kim Jong-Un, front left, during the test-firing of a surface-to-sea missile on Feb 14 - Korean Central News Agency In a factsheet released on Friday, the US state department said that Pyongyang had delivered more than 10,000 containers of munitions or related materials to Russia since last September, when Vladimir Putin and North Koreas Kim Jong-un met for a high-profile summit. In exchange, impoverished North Korea is believed to have received some 9,000 containers of mainly food supplies. Russia has also been accused of providing technological assistance for Pyongyangs military surveillance satellite programme. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. King Charles III approved the changes in a meeting of the Privy Council on 21 February King Charles III has approved changes to the way legislation is granted Royal Assent in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It means the introduction of legislation can be expedited through the granting of Royal Assent by His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor. The new process will take effect from 29 February, the States of Guernsey said. The States said the new procedure should result in faster processing of primary legislation. Lt Gen Richard Cripwell was sworn in as Guernsey's Lieutenant-Governor in 2022 Prior to this change, all Bailiwick primary legislation (known as Projets de Loi) were approved by the Sovereign, providing Assent acting through the Privy Council. The modified process will enable the ratification of Bailiwick Projets by His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, Lt Gen Richard Cripwell, in the Bailiwick (unless the Projet is specifically reserved for His Majesty The King's Assent, which could include Projets involving defence or the Royal Prerogative). 'Years of work' The States said there would be no change to how primary legislation was debated or approved by the Bailiwick parliaments - nor to the registration of legislation in the Royal Court. It said the change underlined the Bailiwick's "domestic legislative autonomy and developing international identity". The president of the Policy and Resources Committee, deputy Lyndon Trott said he was "pleased" this change had now been agreed, after "years of work". He said: "This new process is not only of practical importance, it also reflects our identity as a jurisdiction through our direct relationship with the Crown, distinct from the UK." Follow BBC Guernsey on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk. The U.S. will not send American troops to Ukraine, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said at a press conference on Feb. 27. Kirby was responding to French President Emmanuel Macron's recent statement that the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine is not "ruled out" in the future. "President Biden has been crystal clear since the beginning of this conflict: there will be no U.S. troops on the ground in a combat role in Ukraine," Kirby stated. The U.S. President met with Congressional leadership, including Speaker Mike Johnson, earlier today to discuss the long-awaited Ukraine aid package that's been frozen in the U.S. House of Representatives for weeks. Earlier this month, the Senate approved a $95 billion foreign aid bill that included $60 billion in financial and security assistance for Ukraine. The bill continues to face deadlock in the Republican-led House as Speaker Johnson refuses to bring the legislation to a vote. President Biden also reportedly discussed extending temporary federal government funding to prevent a partial government shutdown on March 1. "I think the consequence of inaction every day in Ukraine is dire. Ive been speaking to some of our G7 partners, and theyre very concerned," Biden said in a statement. Delays in U.S. aid have already had an impact on the ground in Ukraine. The loss of Avdiivka, a Donetsk Oblast city that has faced Russian attacks since 2014, was linked to shortages in artillery shells and other supplies provided by the West. Read also: Opinion: As an American in Avdiivka, what is Congress doing? Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday said President Biden has no plans to issue executive action during his scheduled visit to the border later this week, reiterating the administrations stance that legislation is the best solution to address the border crisis. Asked by a reporter whether the president had anything planned during his scheduled visit Thursday to Brownsville, Texas, Jean-Pierre said the White House had nothing to announce. "We've spoken to executive [action] many times. We think the bottom line is the way to deal with the challenge that we see at the border, what we see with this immigration, a broken immigration system that has been broken for decades, is if Republicans have moved forward with the bipartisan deal that came out of the Senate." The Biden administration has repeatedly slammed Republicans for backing out of the bipartisan border deal earlier this month, after Trump came out in opposition to the plan to tighten asylum restrictions and create daily limits on border crossings. REP. KATIE PORTER SAYS MURDER OF GEORGIA STUDENT BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SHOULDNT SHAPE' IMMIGRATION POLICY Jean-Pierre later reiterated the White Houses position that executive action would not amount to what bipartisan legislation could achieve if enacted into law. READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP "What [the bipartisan legislation] would have done is been the toughest but also the fairest deal with providing resources," Jean-Pierre said. Biden and former President Donald Trump are both scheduled to make dueling trips to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas on Thursday. Biden will travel to Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, an area that often sees large numbers of border crossings. Trump, meanwhile, will go to Eagle Pass, Texas, about 325 miles away from Brownsville, another hot spot. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-LA Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council which endorsed the bipartisan border deal, is expected to join Trump at the border. Jean-Pierre declined to comment on why Judd was not invited to meet with Biden. Tuesdays press conference came after congressional leaders held what was described as an "intense" meeting in the Oval Office with Biden about a legislative logjam that has major ramifications not just for the U.S. but for the world as Ukraine struggles to repel Russia's invasion with weapons and ammunition starting to run short. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-LA, who rejected a U.S. Mexico border security compromise that was eventually stripped from the final product, signaled no change in his position on Ukraine aid. He said the Senate's package "does nothing" to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, the GOP's demand in return for helping Ukraine. "The first priority of the country is our border, and making it secure," Johnson said. Original article source: KJP says Biden has no plans to announce executive order during border visit: 'You need a legislative solution' ASHEVILLE As the March 5 primary approaches and voters are heading to the polls to cast their ballots early, candidates are vying for spots on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners. Voters in Buncombes first district, covering the southeastern portion of the county, will vote in primaries on either side of the aisle. Incumbent commissioner Terri Wells, a democrat, is running unopposed for the second district, which covers much of the northern and western sections of the county. She may face a challenger in the general election if Pisgah Inn owner Bruce OConnell, who is running as an unaffiliated candidate, collects 2,628 signatures on his petition to join the ballot by March 5. He is just more than 35% away from reaching his goal, according to Buncombe County Director of Elections Corinne Duncan, who emailed the Citizen Times Feb. 26. Current commissioner Parker Sloan, who is also a Democrat, is running for a seat in the third district of the county. He is running to represent Buncombes core and is not facing any challengers. Current commissioner Amanda Edwards is running for the county chair, now held by longtime chair Brownie Newman who is retiring at the end of his term. Former County Sheriff Van Duncan is also running as an unaffiliated candidate. Corinne Duncan told the Citizen Times Feb. 26 that the former sheriff surpassed the number of signatures he needs to join the ballot. For the four candidates who will find their names on the primary ballot, the Citizen Times had some questions. On the left side of the aisle, Jennifer Horton faces Matt Kern. For the Republicans, Paul Benjamin faces off against President of the Asheville Fraternal Order of Police Rondell Lance. In 2020, Lance was found guilty of two counts of disorderly conduct and one count of assault on a female for his role in a melee that broke out following a Black Lives Matter protest. Lance told the Citizen Times shortly after his arrest that he told people that he was police, so officers understood he was trying to help. He said at the time that he was intervening to assist with police. More: GOP Western NC House candidates: agree with Trump on NATO? Stances on Mission, housing More: What to know about 8 Asheville City Council candidates running in March 5 primary More: Democratic candidates make case for seat on Buncombe County Clerk of Superior Court Some responses have been edited for accuracy and length. The basics Paul Benjamin: Republican. Teaches pastors and preaches across the country but is not affiliated with a local church. Said he lives in the Sweeten Creek neighborhood. Age: 62. Rondell Lance: Republican. Retired law enforcement. Lives in the Enka Community. Age: 64. Jennifer Horton: Democrat. Registered nurse and owner of Living Waters Enterprises, the controlling company for five assisted living facilities in Asheville. Lives in Fairview. Age: 38. Matt Kern: Democrat. Owns a residential green building company. Lives in Riceville. Age: 53. Buncombe County's planning board is considering regulations on short-term rentals. What are 3 actionable steps you will take to balance affordable housing needs with a growing tourist economy? Benjamin: To mitigate the high cost of living in Asheville, families should be allowed to leverage their homes through (STR) to generate revenue to support their families. The problem occurs when large companies come into town, buy properties, and use them for short-term rentals. The government needs to do a better job with social programs. The faith community should be leveraged to address the homeless crisis in our region. Asheville is only one City in Buncombe County; we need to address the need for more infrastructure in our surrounding and neglected cities. Republican candidate for county commissioner, Paul Benjamin. Horton: I will prioritize collaborating with the county's planning board to conduct a comprehensive review of existing zoning policies and regulations regarding short-term rentals. This process will involve identifying areas where adjustments can be made to balance affordable housing needs and support the tourism economy. I will advocate for the implementation of mixed-use developments that incorporate both affordable housing units and commercial spaces while also pushing for incentives and tax breaks to encourage developers to prioritize affordable housing projects. Collaborating with stakeholders and community land trusts, we can explore innovative approaches to acquiring and preserving land for affordable housing initiatives. Kern: I believe we can successfully balance the Affordable housing problem without infringing upon locals who own STRs to earn income to afford their own homes. If you ban STRs you only create the need for more hotels where most of the time the profits don't stay in our community. Three things that can be done to create affordable housing: Expand water and sewer along major highways into county areas to create more density. Expedite the planning, zoning and permitting for multifamily construction along those same corridors and then look into incentives for existing long term landlords to accept housing vouchers. Lance: In an effort to support affordable housing, I would look at ways to eliminate some of the red tape that local builders face when trying to build properties. Many county residents and builders have expressed serious concerns over high costs and slow processes to get residential homes approved for building. Many people that have short term rentals do so to be able to afford the high cost of living in Buncombe County and are able to maintain family land and pay taxes by having short term rentals. Why would we punish people just trying to provide for their family? For example, the Iredell County Board of Commissioners adopted a zoning amendment implementing certain zoning regulations related to short term rentals. As a result, the courts have stopped the amendment. More: Asheville rescinds $1.2 million affordable housing loan as developer makes Airbnb pivot County commissioners recently approved funding for sheriff's deputies to patrol downtown Asheville on Friday and Saturday evenings through the end of the fiscal year. Is this where Buncombe County should allocate its safety resources? What are three actionable steps you will take to improve public safety? Asheville Police and the Buncombe County Sheriffs Department responded to a report of a shooter at Buncombe County Health and Human Resources, which was found to be a false alarm, December 20, 2024. Benjamin: If the Police were not de-funded, we would not have this problem. Police officers cannot afford to live in Asheville because of the high cost of rent. Asheville must use the allocated resources to fund and staff the AVL Police adequately. We must stand firm against rogue groups that are given more rights than our local businesses and citizens. Remember!! Because we are a Sanctuary County, radical groups like MS-13 and other radical gangs are in our County and cities. The safety and protection of our families should be the priority. Instead of releasing criminals from jail to maintain their grant funding quota, the prison system needs to lock up known criminals that the Police arrest and process. Editor's note: The Asheville Citizen Times could not independently verify the presence of MS-13. Horton: While the allocation of funds for sheriff's deputies patrols is a step in the right direction, I believe we need a comprehensive approach to address public safety issues effectively. As County Commissioner, I'll advocate for: Strengthening Community Partnerships: Building trust between law enforcement and communities, fostering tailored solutions to local safety concerns. Supporting Mental Health and Addiction Services: Investing in treatment and prevention programs to address underlying issues and prevent crises. Investing in Youth Development: Prioritizing mentorship, recreational activities, and job training to engage youth positively and build safer communities. Jennifer Horton Lance: The Asheville City Council created their downtown crime issues with their defund the police or anti-law and order agendas, which clearly pandered to the citys liberal base. As a result of this false narrative pushed by city leaders, the men and women of the Asheville Police Department have been forced to work with limited officers and within a toxic environment honed by the anti-law enforcement sentiment carefully crafted by City Council, as well as the Buncombe County Commissioners. Moreover, the District Attorney's office and judges share the blame when the courts continue to release arrestees and drop charges of those whove caused chaos and committed serious crimes in Asheville. To be clear, the Asheville Police Department did not ask for assistance from the Sheriff. Kern: Yes, Asheville is part of Buncombe County and the safety concerns in the city have an effect on us all. To improve public safety, I would first and foremost support our law enforcement officers and let them know that we appreciate them. Next, I would continue to fund the Sheriff's Co-responder model to allow social workers and mental health professionals to respond with deputies when needed. Another action would be to look at funding more mental health and drug interdiction services to help the unhoused who need these services. A 1-cent per $100 property tax increase to supplement local school employee pay and a $1 million budget appropriation created $6.1 million devoted to school employees. Local school representatives wanted the commission to increase supplemental pay even more. Do you agree that property tax increase should pay for school employee raises? Should commissioners have gone even further? Benjamin: The County Commissioners should be lowering the tax burden for our families. The more we tax our families, the more demanding moms and dads have to work to take care of their children. This adds to the Mental Health crisis we see in families and children in our school system. I want to lower the tax rate and burden on our citizens. Too much money is wasted that could have been redirected to address "Merit-Based" pay increases for teachers and other staff positions. Horton: While the property tax increase was a step towards supporting our school employees, I believe we must prioritize adequately compensating educators for their invaluable contributions to our community. The decision to raise property taxes should be carefully weighed to balance the budget. However, investing in our education system is an investment in our future. As County Commissioner, I would advocate for sustainable funding solutions that prioritize competitive compensation for school employees while ensuring fiscal responsibility and equity for all residents. Education is the foundation of our society, and our educators deserve our full support. Kern: The county Commission did a good deed to raise teacher pay. I think most people wish it could have been more so instead of blaming the Commission for not doing this let's put the blame where it belongs, on the NC General Assembly. They chose to put over $400 million dollars in a fund for private school vouchers instead of increasing teacher pay. Buncombe County is one of the progressive counties that actually offers a local supplement for teacher pay. I am proud of this and will continue to support this supplement and our teachers when elected. Republican candidate for county commissioner Rondell Lance. Lance: I agree that Buncombe County school employees should be compensated fairly and reasonably. They remain an integral part of our school system charged with the safety, care, and welfare of our children. We expect our school staff to rise to a higher standard; therefore, their diligent efforts and dedication to duty should be reflected in their compensation. Many parents have expressed dissatisfaction with the public county schools. So much so, that many have moved their children to private or charter schools. There is always room to improve the county schools in regard to the proper allocation of taxpayer funds. It is imperative that employees are fairly compensated, while providing a top tier public education for students. Also the North Carolina Education Lottery needs to be addressed. Since HCA Healthcare purchased Mission Hospital in 2019, news reports, regulators and lawsuits have chronicled the deterioration of patient care. Buncombe County is a plaintiff in multiple lawsuits against the hospital and one of its staffing agencies. What should commissioners do to improve health care in the county? Benjamin: We need to have a sit-down meeting with HCA to hear and address critical goals and objectives to create a win-win-win outcome for their company, staff, and the citizens in our County. Horton: To achieve this goal, commissioners must prioritize transparency and accountability in their oversight of HCA. This includes closely monitoring the hospital's performance, promptly investigating any complaints, and holding HCA Healthcare accountable for any deficiencies in patient care. Furthermore, having a healthcare professional on the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners is essential. As a Registered Nurse with my extensive background in healthcare and community involvement, I am uniquely positioned to advocate for patient-centered policies and resources. Democrat candidate for county commissioner Matt Kern. Kern: HCA needs to fix their culture or leave our community. Besides the mentioned lawsuit, there isn't much legally that the county commission can do to fix HCA besides having the bully pulpit to stay on them. Three things that can be done to improve health care in the county: 1)We need to take a look at how mental health and drug interdiction services are funded and make sure that those in crisis don't end up on the streets. 2)We need to improve EMS response times and expand those services. 3)We need Community based para-medicine that use paramedics to fill the gaps in primary care for rural areas of the county. More: Federal judge denies HCA's motion to dismiss county and city antitrust lawsuit Lance: All across the county, on a daily basis, someone invariably shares a story of bad experiences at Mission Hospital, a once fine medical facility. As a matter of fact, the standing saying is Please, if I need to go to the hospital make sure to take me to Advent. As I recall, Buncombe County Commissioners lobbied hard for the current HCA healthcare purchase. If they had committed to a thorough vetting process and proper research, perhaps they could have prevented the sale of Mission Hospitals to a beleaguered for-profit company embroiled in litigation elsewhere. The commissioners made a terrible mistake to the detriment of Buncombe Countys citizens and all of Western North Carolina. Moreover, HCA has a disturbing record. It bought a Florida hospital, which ultimately was shut down. Is there another issue you consider a central tenet of your campaign? If so, what is it and how would you seek to address it if elected? Benjamin: 90% of our crime stems from young men raised in homes parented by single mom fatherless homes. 40% of Buncombe County are made-up of single mother homes. Car Break ins, Car Jacking, and Gun Violence are up. I train and equip leaders and mentors how to address these problems. Editor's note: The Asheville Citizen Times could not independently verify these statistics. Horton: Another central issue of my campaign is promoting equity and inclusivity across Buncombe County. As a community, we must ensure that every resident, regardless of background or circumstance, has equal access to opportunities and resources. To address this, I will advocate for policies that prioritize equity in education, healthcare, housing, and economic development. I will work to foster dialogue and collaboration among diverse stakeholders to identify and address systemic barriers to equity. By amplifying the voices of underrepresented communities and centering their needs in decision-making processes, we can create a more just and inclusive Buncombe County for all. Kern: Besides tackling affordable housing, supporting our public schools and managing growth, I would like to see an expansion of greenways and parks and the protection of our mountains. I will support the fund that the county has to provide soft cost funding for land trusts to acquire the development rights from landowners that wish to do so. I would also like to see more public private partnerships to find a simpler faster way to build greenways and non- paved paths that connect our neighborhoods to the services they need. Lance: If elected, my focus and priority becomes undertaking a discerning look at Buncombe Countys budget. Many of the more rural residents feel neglected, especially when county funds are dedicated to projects within the City of Asheville and to other special interest groups. It is incumbent upon county leaders to be good stewards of taxpayer monies and to do so fairly, efficiently, and effectively. More: 4 patients died at Mission Hospital due to missteps, federal government report reveals More: Buncombe County's internal audit department lacked full-time employees for months Mitchell Black covers Buncombe County and health care for the Citizen Times. Email him at mblack@citizentimes.com or follow him on Twitter @MitchABlack. Please help support local journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Buncombe County Commission election approaches: What to know Universal City police responded to reports of shots fired near Kitty Hawk Middle School but confirmed nothing suspicious was found. Sujata Jana / EyeEm/Getty Images/EyeEm Reports of shots fired near a Northeast Side middle school confirmed to be nothing, police say. In a Facebook post, Universal City police said they were alerted of shots fired around 11 a.m. near Kitty Hawk Middle School. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Officers checked the area and found no confirmation of shots fired or anything suspicious. China's largest inland saltwater lake ready for national park status Xinhua) 09:46, February 28, 2024 XINING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Qinghai Lake, China's largest inland saltwater lake, is poised to become a new national park, a milestone in terms of the ecological protection of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. All tasks required for the establishment of a national park at Qinghai Lake have been completed, said Wu Xiaojun, governor of northwest China's Qinghai Province. Wu added that Qinghai has proved a national leader in national park construction, citing the release of a master plan for comprehensive protection of the Sanjiangyuan National Park last year as well as the upcoming official designation of the Qilian Mountain National Park. Qinghai Lake, located in the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, is an important ecological barrier in northern China and a key stopover site for migratory birds. In 2022, China approved a plan to establish a national park at Qinghai Lake, which has seen its ecological environment improved and biodiversity rapidly restored in recent years. "The planned scope of the Qinghai Lake national park demonstrates its national representativeness, ecological significance, and the feasibility of management," said Dong Fuhai, director of the protection and utilization administration in the Qinghai Lake scenic area. According to the plan, the core protection areas of the Qinghai Lake national park consist of the main source areas of rivers flowing into Qinghai Lake, habitats of rare and endangered species such as the Przewalski's gazelle, key migratory channels for naked carp, and areas critical for bird migration. Based on the pivotal status of Qinghai Lake in terms of ecological security, the local government has adopted a holistic strategy to safeguard the authenticity, integrity, and biodiversity of the ecosystem, said Dong. This approach has resulted in a sustained expansion of wetland areas, an increase of high-density vegetation coverage, and strengthened overall ecological functions at Qinghai Lake. Meanwhile, areas consisting of sandy, bare, and saline-alkali land within the protected area are steadily diminishing. In 2020, the water level of Qinghai Lake reached 3,196.62 meters, marking a rise of 3.65 meters compared to 2004. Its water body covered an area of 4,588.81 square km, an increase of 344.31 square km compared to 2004, thus reaching levels last seen back in the 1960s. Today, the lake is home to over 606,000 water birds made up of 288 species, confirming its status as one of China's major breeding grounds for migratory birds. The naked carp, known as "Huangyu" in China, is endemic to Qinghai Lake. At one point, overfishing of the naked carp led to a sharp decline in its population. Through continuous protection efforts, from 2002 to 2020, the naked carp population in Qinghai Lake recorded a nearly 38-fold increase. Currently, the reserves of this species have been restored to 120,000 tonnes. "The coexistence of fish and birds represents a significant achievement in recent years in improving the ecological environment of Qinghai Lake. It is vital for maintaining the security of the ecological chain in the Qinghai Lake basin," said He Yubang, head of the Qinghai Lake national nature reserve administration. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) As Mayor Ron Nirenberg listens, Councilman Marc Whyte speaks prior to the City Council censuring him for his recent arrest. Robin Jerstad City Councilman Marc Whyte was legally intoxicated when he was arrested on a drunken-driving charge on the Northeast Side the night of Dec. 29, according to blood test results released Tuesday by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Whytes blood alcohol concentration, or BAC, was .089 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. The legal limit is .08. DWI is defined in the Texas Penal Code as driving with a BAC of 0.08 or higher. Its a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A driver with a BAC of 0.08 is four times more likely to crash than a sober driver, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. An officer with the San Antonio Police Departments DWI unit pulled over the District 10 councilman just after 11 p.m. after allegedly observing Whyte speeding and changing lanes without signaling on a Northeast Loop 410 frontage near the San Antonio International Airport. Whtye, 43, refused to take a breathalyzer test or have his blood drawn to determine his blood alcohol concentration, according to a police affidavit. Police obtained a warrant from a magistrate ordering Whyte to comply, and a nurse drew his blood at 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 30. DPS tested the blood in Austin. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Over the past two months, Whyte has insisted that he was not intoxicated the night he was arrested, though he admitted to the arresting officer and later to reporters that he drank before getting behind the wheel. According to the affidavit, Whyte told an officer he had consumed three beers that night: one at El Mirasol, a second at Myrons next door and another at the Thirsty Horse Dance Hall & Saloon. But he also told the officer he was sober. I did not feel intoxicated when I drove home last night, Whyte said in a statement on Dec. 30, after he was released on bond. I never get behind the wheel when I feel as if Ive had too much to drink. But that isnt the point. Nobody should drive even if they have had just one drink. He said he took full ownership over my actions and apologized for the incident. Driving with a BAC of 0.15 or higher, a level sometimes called extreme intoxication, is a more serious offense: a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and the loss of driving privileges for 90 days. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Whyte, who did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday, isnt the first District 10 Councilman hit with a DWI charge. His predecessor, Clayton Perry, pleaded no contest in April to misdemeanor charges of DWI and fleeing the scene of an accident. On the night of Nov. 6, 2022, an intoxicated Perry crashed his Jeep head-on into a Honda Civic that was stopped at a traffic light at Jones Maltsberger and Redland roads on the North Side. The three-term councilman then sped away. Perry was handed one year of probation and ordered to carry out 24 hours of community service. Whytes lawyer is David Christian, who represented Perry. Christian is also defending KSAT reporter John Paul Barajas after his arrest on a DUI charge in November. The incident The day Whyte was arrested was a long one for the first-term councilman. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Whyte, an attorney who specializes in business law, had been on a family trip in Australia but returned to Texas alone. Whyte has said he had a community event scheduled that weekend that he didnt want to miss. Whyte said he landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston at 10:30 a.m. He drove back to San Antonio, arriving home at about 3:30 p.m. He then met Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda and others at El Mirasol a popular Mexican restaurant at the upscale Alon Town Centre on Northwest Military Highway between 5 and 5:30 p.m. District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur was also at El Mirasol that Friday night, though she said she was with a different group and only spoke to Whyte briefly. Erika Prosper, Mayor Ron Nirenbergs wife and the senior director of customer insights at H-E-B, was seated in another part of the restaurant. She was having dinner and exchanging presents with friends of hers, according to Bruce Davidson, Nirenbergs communications director. Cabello Havrda said she, Whyte and a few other companions walked over to Myrons, also located in Alon Town Centre, at one point for food and drinks, and then returned to El Mirasol. The group made plans to go to the Thirsty Horse Dance Hall & Saloon, also located on Northwest Military Highway, a little more than a mile south of the two restaurants. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But Cabello Havrda, who said she was tired and not feeling well because of allergies, wanted to go home. Knowing she might drink, she had taken a rideshare to the restaurant. Whyte drove her home, dropping her off between 9 and 9:30 p.m. before returning to the Thirsty Horse. He was pulled over just after 11 p.m. on his way home for the night. The officers body-camera footage from showed a polite, coherent Whyte who said he was certain he could drive safely. Whyte said he was 100% OK, but that he would walk home if the officer preferred. The consequences Whytes arraignment hearing is slated for March 26 in Bexar County Court 11. He was originally scheduled to appear in court in January, but the date was pushed back because the results of his blood alcohol concentration test werent in yet. The City Council didnt wait for the results to take action. They censured Whyte on Jan. 14. The reprimand, which passed 10-0, is a symbolic action that carries no real consequences. Nirenberg, however, temporarily stripped Whyte of his City Council committee assignments, limiting the councilmans influence over policy proposals as they move through the committee system. The mayor said in a statement on Tuesday that he pulled Whyte from the Economic and Workforce Development, Public Safety and Audit committees to demonstrate that we do not take drinking and driving lightly. I appreciate that Councilmember Whyte has since been transparent and committed to reconciling his behavior with what we should expect from a member of the Council going forward, Nirenberg said. I will be meeting with him in the near future to discuss his return to committee work. The brutal murder of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus last week has sparked concerns among other students and women joggers who run alone. Riley, a student at Augusta University, was allegedly murdered by 26-year-old Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, while she was jogging along dirt trails near Lake Herrick in Athens in what UGA Police described as a "crime of opportunity." "It's a mother's worst nightmare," Michelle, the mother of a female UGA student and a UGA alumnus, previously told Fox News Digital. Michelle said shes told her daughter countless times to be careful when she walks alone and to only go running with her Labrador retriever. LAKEN RILEY MURDER SUSPECT LIVED WITHIN 5-MINUTE WALK OF UGA CRIME SCENE "It shakes people to their core because it makes people realize theres a dirty underbelly we dont see," she said. "My heart breaks. Ive been praying for [Rileys] mom every time she comes to mind." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Numerous women have taken to social media to share safety tips for solo female joggers and share their own stories of scary encounters while running. Sarah Lyoness, a Chicago-based runner who is training for a marathon, produced a video sharing jogger safety tips that went viral on TikTok. LAKEN RILEY MURDER SUSPECT'S BROTHER FIRED FROM UGA AFTER PRESENTING FAKE PASSPORT "I used to live in Omaha, Nebraska, and there was a trail away from a lot of traffic. You could see cornfields for miles, and so it was pretty empty. And if I would go early in the morning, if I allowed myself to think about it too much, like, Oh, someone could pop out of the cornfields or I could see a car following me' I was just always aware of my surroundings," she told Fox News Digital. She added that her mom eventually bought a bike to ride with her while she was running in that area. Lyoness suggests other solo runners always carry a phone or smartwatch, be aware of their surroundings and have a safety weapon like pepper spray while out jogging. "It takes the joy away from a sport that should be fun. Every woman can relate to this story of living in fear just for being out there, unfortunately," she said while explaining why she thinks her videos went viral. A memorial for Laken Riley at Lake Herrick on the University of Georgias campus in Athens, Ga., Feb. 24, 2024. Michael Arterburn, a former police officer, told Fox News Digital running in groups or in daylight isn't feasible for some runners and shared tips for those who run alone. BROTHER OF COLORADO DORM MURDERS SUSPECT BREAKS SILENCE: 'AIN'T REAL' "Either wear no headphones or just wear one headphone. They made the bone conduction headphones now so that you can hear what's going on around you if someone runs up behind you. You don't want to take away one of your senses," he said. "I recommend runner's pepper gel. It stays in your hand and instantly activates with just the flick of your thumb." The pepper gel sprays directly, unlike pepper spray, which can disperse into the air and impact the victim's vision, as well as the perpetrator's. KENTUCKY COLLEGE STUDENT STRANGLED WRESTLER IN DORM ROOM, CHARGED WITH MURDER: POLICE Murder suspect Jose Ibarra lived within a five-minute walk of the approximate area where he allegedly murdered 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley Feb. 22. Runners should also share their location on their phone with people they trust, he said. There is also a "smart pepper spray" that alerts contacts when it is activated, Arterburn said. GEORGIA MURDER SUSPECT CONFIRMED TO BE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT UGA held a vigil for Riley and another student, Wyatt Banks, who died by suicide on campus just days before Riley was killed. Prior to Riley's murder, the last on-campus homicide at UGA was about 30 years ago, according to the school's police chief. "Let this be our calling: If you see something, say something," Dabney Duncan, UGA Panhellenic Council president, said during the memorial. "That is the best way to honor these lives going forward." LAKEN RILEY MURDER SUSPECT'S BROTHER FIRED FROM UGA AFTER PRESENTING FAKE PASSPORT Chloe Mullis, president of UGA's Alpha Chi Omega chapter, where Riley was a member, described the 22-year-old as a "devoted Christian, sister, student, daughter and friend." Chloe Mullis, president of UGA's Alpha Chi Omega chapter, where Riley was a member, described the 22-year-old as a "devoted Christian, sister, student, daughter and friend." "It is so obvious to me why it feels so dark right now, and it's because we lost one of the brightest lights there's ever been," Mullis said. "This campus and our sisterhood will never be the same without Laken Riley. "Whether it was nursing school, being the Alpha Chi banner chair or the incredible runner that she was, Laken showed devotion throughout every avenue of her life," Mullis said. "She was devoted to making this world a better place, and we have no doubt she would have been an incredible nurse. It is earth-shattering that the world will never have that opportunity." Following the vigil, dozens of female UGA students walked in a single-file line to place roses at the Alpha Chi Omega house on the school's campus. Following a vigil, dozens of female UGA students walked in a single-file line to place roses at the Alpha Chi Omega house on the school's campus. Riley's murder has also brought renewed attention to the 2018 homicide of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, 20, who also vanished from a run before she was found dead. GEORGIA NURSING STUDENT FOUND DEAD ON UGA CAMPUS IDENTIFIED AS LAKEN RILEY Cristhian Bahena Rivera, 29, was convicted in her murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was living in the United States illegally from Mexico. The UGA case has also highlighted Rachel Morin's murder in Maryland. Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, was found brutally killed last summer after she went for a jog along the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air, a popular pedestrian walkway she ran regularly. RACHEL MORIN MURDER: MARYLAND POLICE TIE CRIME SCENE DNA TO LOS ANGELES ASSAULT, HOME INVASION The Harford County Sheriff's Office is still searching for the suspect, described as a Hispanic male, in Morin's murder. His DNA was tied to a home invasion in Los Angeles earlier in 2023. A photo of Rachel Morin is posted to a tree by her family along the Ma and Pa Trail in Bel Air, Md., Aug. 10, 2023. The 37-year-old was murdered while hiking the trail. In a lengthy statement regarding campus safety released Tuesday, UGA said it will be taking $7.5 million in new safety measures, including a permanent 20% increase to the UGA Police Department budget, plus "more security cameras and lighting upgrades as well as adding license plate readers and the installation of combined security camera-blue light call box systems in strategic locations across campus." Additionally, a new ride-sharing program will offer a 50% discount on Lyft rides for UGA students between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. Blue light boxes with cameras will be added throughout campus, the school added. "Every day, the officers and supporting staff of the UGA Police Department devote themselves to protecting the campus community," Clark said in a statement. "These additional funds will have a measurable impact on our safety efforts, supporting the excellent work of our dedicated police department team and our partners." John Phillips, Riley's stepfather, thanked the public for its "overwhelming support" and donations to a GoFundMe page, "Laken Riley Memorial." "Laken was an amazing daughter, sister, friend and overall person in general. Her love for the Lord was exemplified in every aspect of her life. She will be missed every day, but we promise to honor her life moving forward in a very big way," he said. Original article source: Laken Riley murder: Students on UGA campus, joggers nationwide shocked after alleged illegal immigrant killing Hi, Im Liza from Spectrum, says the woman on the phone in an upbeat voice. Are you tired of paying high bills for telephone and TV service? I hear that two or three times a day, surely a thousand times by now. I am a trifle bored with Liza, even irritated. So far in this call, the scam people have wasted no paid human labor. The gougers use a recorded American voice to conserve their own big bucks. It is only my labor, and perhaps yours, that is wasted. Big-time scammers abhor blowing even cheap foreign labor on calls that victims hang up on. First they use Liza to get you or me on the line. Then the voice says, Just press one to speak with a live agent. I punch it, and a weary voice surfaces from across the globe speaking halfway decent English. Hello, we can save you money on TV and lots more. This time its a real if impoverished foreign worker in India, the Philippines, Nigeria, maybe Indonesia. He or she slaves away in a boiler room call center with dozens more wage slaves, their foreign accents yammering in the background. Its a great way for the crooks to defraud us while aggravating countless millions more worldwide. Spam calls flood in from across the globe, but my Ooma land line often reports the source as Bonner Springs, Lees Summit, Topeka, Wichita, Great Bend, North Kansas City, Le Cygne. This is a courtesy call from AT and T and Direct TV, the next one spiels from my phone. Were running a promotion In 2003 Congress passed a law creating the do not call registry, listing telephone numbers of families demanding that telemarketers not contact them. I signed up that year and just verified I am still on the books. Yet fake calls now overpower by 10 to 1 the rare call from a friend. I am about to give up my Ooma landline. The FTC takes aggressive legal action to make sure telemarketers abide by the Do Not Call Registry, says the Federal Trade Commission website. To date, the Commission has brought 151 enforcement actions against companies and telemarketersthe agency has recovered over $178 million in civil penalties and $112 million in restitution or disgorgement. Less than $200 million over 20 years: Its chump change for intruders who make landline use unbearable. Not much of a problem, some experts say, since only about one-third of Americans even have landline phones. But now for me its my cellphone as well. As I write this, I just took a cell call supposedly from an American health care company, although the federal government ban on cellphone intrusion is stiffer than that for landlines Those experts also say that since the calls come mainly from overseas, it is technically impossible to stop them. Really? Our astronauts landed on the moon 54 years ago and then returned to Earth. Our robots crawl all over the planet Mars and send back home movies. Our scientists devised a COVID vaccine only months after the pandemic started. Why is our government so pitifully helpless to stop intrusive calls? How about banning major imports from countries where the calls originate, maybe pearls or textiles from India? How about American law enforcement offer help to those nations in closing down their boiler rooms? How about a jail sentence of one month for actual callers, plus a million dollar fine and 10 years imprisonment for big-shots running the scam? Above all, abolish the barriers behind which American politicians hunker down to dodge fake calls. Lets be sure our congress people, senators and the president get their full share of intrusions. Incidentally, websites tell me I should never verbally fight back, because then intruders will know I am a human to be exploited behind this number. But, hey, excuse me for a moment: My house phone is ringing. I lever myself up from the chair and limp across to say hello. Hi, I am Natalie, calling from the business lending department, says a sexy-sounding female voice. How are you? Mad as hell actually, but I listen a moment longer before pressing the number one. When a real human answers from across the world asking how I am today, I say, Just fine. Then I lay the phone down and walk away from the chirpy little voice, hoping to waste just a trifle of their time, as Liza and Natalie have wasted mine. Contact the columnist at hammerc12@gmail.com. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) The return to normalcy at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane was a sight for sore eyes as nearby business owners celebrated the takedown of the temporary bridge built for Formula One. However, the situation is anything but water under the bridge. The business owners tended to the scars of the gaping holes in revenue lost from F1 construction, closures, and the temporary bridge. Now, owners are preparing to sue F1, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, and Clark County to recover finances. They had lost upwards of $25 million, advocate Lisa Mayo-deRiso said owners met with F1 representatives over the past three months to address concerns and hoped for a reimbursement. The bridge was still up so access was limited to some of their properties and their revenues just plummeted. And we tried to settle in a good faith effort with f1 for an amount that was fair. They set the deadline of Wednesday, Feb. 21 for stakeholders to pay up or risk litigation. That date has come and gone. Now, they are in the beginning stages of suing. Randy Markin said he is looking out for his Battistas Hole in the Wall and Stage Door Casino staff. Some of whom have worked with him for more than two decades. He affectionately calls them his kids. We arent trying to make money off it. We just want to recoup where we were and have money that all the kids lost for their tips, Markin explained. It is not right, especially for the hourly person. Markin is one of several business owners in the process of suing after noticing fewer people through their doors, sitting at their tables, and now trying to recover the money they lost from F1. Businesses including Jays Market on Flamingo Road, Las Vegas Souvenirs and Gifts, and Ellis Island. Las Vegas Grand Prix staff confirmed the past meetings over business owners concerns and mitigating impacts of future races. However, Markin would have liked that collaboration from the get-go. The race is coming back in November, and so is the bridge but there are conversations to minimize its impact. When that bridge is there no one can get to those businesses. Theyre in essence shut down for months, Markin said. Las Vegas Grand Prix will share the construction schedule, including the bridge build, in the coming months. Businesses are set to meet with legal counsel next week with several others interested in joining the case. There is no word yet on whether business owners will pursue legal action to stop the bridges return. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Candles outlined the entirety of John Dorotiaks parked car, one of the many reminders of the ripple effect his impact had on the Las Vegas community and his family. Dorotiak was shot and killed Sunday in front of the Dottys near Hualapai and Elkhorn where he worked as a bartender, one of two jobs he did to support his wife and 16-month-old daughter. John Dorotiak (Courtesty of Tammy Dorotiak) John Dorotiak (Courtesty of Tammy Dorotiak) John Dorotiak (Courtesty of Tammy Dorotiak) Memorial John Dorotiak (Courtesty of Tammy Dorotiak) Metro police believe Mark Michael Ford, 36, was responsible in the Feb. 20, shooting death of Jessica Russo, 36, inside her home. Court records show Ford was on parole at the time after being sentenced to life in prison back in 2003 for second-degree murder. Ford is accused of shooting Dorotiak five days after Russo before taking his own life, according to a police report. We know that Jessica and John worked together at Leftys for a little while and also worked at Dottys and were friends, Nicole Manning, Dorotiaks niece, said. John is a very caring person and he always looked out for others and I think he had heard from their community at work that she was involved with someone who was very dangerous, who was convicted of murder. Nicole Manning, John Dorotiaks niece (KLAS) Manning says her family is still trying to piece together why Dorotiak was targeted by Ford, and what was exactly discussed between the two Dottys employees. Johns Legacy Work ethic, humor and a love for his family these were at the heart of who John Dorotiak was according to his family. He could make anybody laugh, Manning said. If you knew him, you loved him. Dorotiak was a Dottys employee for ten years while also working at Leftys Pizza where he would playfully toss pizza dough at his young nephew, Cameron Dorotiak. Cameron Dorotiak, John Dorotiaks nephew (KLAS) We would make a little mess, Cameron said. He had these cars with loud music and as a kid I just loved it. Leftys Pizza closed shortly after Dorotiak left so that he could focus on his newborn daughter and the family he worked so hard for. He was the hardest worker in the room, Cameron said. It was a true effort for him to bring a kid into this world. Manning was a surrogate for Dorotiak and his wife, she says their child was a miracle for a family that was just beginning. She was a new love for both of them, She said. He was just really excited to be a dad. Family describing Dorotiak as the fun uncle who had a love for cars, loud music and fantasy sportsa diehard Chicago Bears fan. He was the cool guy in the family, Manning said. Even at 44 years old, still cool. The legacy Dorotiak leaves behind is still being written for the family that is coming to terms with the loss, but they hope the community will remember him as a caring man who would help anyone. I want the world to know what an amazing person has left this world, Manning said. I think a part of us has left with him. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A hit-and-run crash that involved two men led to a shooting in the east Las Vegas valley after a driver decided to pursue the other, police documents said. Las Vegas Metropolitan police arrested Ulises Perez-Salazar, on Feb. 17. He faces several charges including assault with a deadly weapon, firing at an occupied vehicle, and duty to stop at the scene of an accident, according to a police report. On Feb. 16, a driver called the police and reported that he had been driving eastbound on Charleston from U.S. 95 when he was hit by another vehicle described as a gray Chevrolet Camaro. The driver told police he followed the Camaro after it left the scene of the crash. Salazar was later identified as the driver of the Camaro by police. After several minutes Salazar fired two to three rounds at the other driver from the vehicle in the area of Lake Mead Boulevard and Linn Street, police said. Las Vegas Metropolitan police arrested Ulises Perez-Salazar, on Feb. 17. He faces several charges including assault with a deadly weapon, firing at an occupied vehicle, and duty to stop at the scene of an accident, according to a police report. (LVMPD) The unidentified driver then told police he continued driving south when Salazar allegedly fired another round of approximately three shots at him. Salazar then made an eastbound turn onto Cedar. That is when police dispatch told the driver to discontinue following Salazar, police said. The driver then told police he heard impacts in front of him, during the shooting and described seeing a tactical laser coming from Salazars car which was green in color, police said. Officers later located Salazar in North Las Vegas where he was taken into custody. During police interviews, the unidentified driver told officers that the crash took place after the two vehicles were stopped at the same intersection. When the light turned green traffic traffic had to proceed through a winding cone pattern due to road construction. While navigating through the Camaro side-swiped the drivers vehicle causing damage to the left front, according to the police report. The unidentified driver then told police that the Camaro slowed momentarily as if to pull over, then rapidly accelerated. The unidentified driver then chased the Camaro while simultaneously attempting to record the incident on his cell phone. The driver also said as he continued his pursuit of the Camaro with speeds he estimated to reach 70 miles per hour, police said. The unidentified driver described the moments he heard the gunshots come from Salazars vehicle. He told police he heard three gunshots come from the drivers side with what he described as bullets impacting the ground in front of him approximately 30 yards. The unidentified driver then told police he continued to follow Salazar after believing he was shot at, at which time he heard approximately three more gunshots, followed by what he described as a green laser, shining through his windshield, according to the police report. Officers also interviewed another person who initially told police he had spent the evening with Salazar and later found that his vehicle had been stolen from his home, police said. According to the unidentified man, the two went out to eat and when they returned home they discovered that Salazars Camaro had been stolen. The unidentified man then told police he wanted to tell the truth and apologized to Salazar for not maintaining the story he gave, according to the police report. The man then told police Salazar called him before midnight to ask him for a ride after he had told him he had been in a crash. The man then told police that Salazar had admitted to firing warning shots after the driver of the other vehicle followed him. Salazar then asked the man to corroborate a story about his vehicle being stolen and to say they were together during the evening, according to the police report. When police located Salazars car they found that the window was broken out and there was glass in the area. It corroborated that the window was broken where the vehicle was parked and where Salazars friend picked him up and not where it was allegedly stolen from, police said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Two men robbed and threatened to kill a group of Las Vegas tourists after a sex worker met the men at a nightclub and followed them home, documents said. Las Vegas Metro police arrested Janel Jeffers, 23, on Feb. 18 on charges of robbery, conspiracy kidnapping and kidnapping, records said. On Nov. 25, a tourist called police saying a group of people had robbed him and a group of friends inside their rental unit. The address of the rental was not included in court documents. The group of four, who primarily spoke Spanish, said they were at a Las Vegas Strip nightclub when they met a woman, later identified as Jeffers. A person in the group swapped phone numbers with Jeffers and she ended up coming over to their rental afterward, documents said. Las Vegas Metro police arrested Janel Jeffers, 23, on Feb. 18 on charges of robbery, conspiracy kidnapping and kidnapping, records said. (LVMPD/KLAS) About 20 minutes after Jeffers arrived, two men came in, held the group at gunpoint and stole their personal belongings, including thousands of dollars in cash. The men and Jeffers then left together, police said. In interviews with police, the victims said the men pointed guns at them and locked them in a room with Jeffers [appearing] to know the men, documents said. They added before the men arrived, Jeffers was acting strange and began to exit and enter the homes bathroom multiple times. Police said Jeffers was actively working as a sex worker on the day of the robbery. Last week, officers arranged to meet Jeffers through an online post at a Las Vegas Strip casino. Jeffers told police she was working as a sex worker that night and that she left with the two robbers because she was scared, documents said. She never reported the robbery or alleged kidnapping. Police did not release any photos or identifiable information about the two men. Jeffers remained in jail on $100,000 bail as of Tuesday. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for March 6. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) Making a difference often starts with a small idea or a small step toward change. One local Las Vegas man calls himself the connecting Lego piece. He says his job as a substitute teacher sparked an idea and opened an opportunity to help. Hes bridging the gap between the food waste at local schools and the need at local food banks and pantries. By day Andrew Plotkin is the goofy substitute teacher making kids laugh. But his fun ties, colorful shoes, and funky dance moves just mask the cape this local hero is wearing. Im just doing this because its what we should be doing, he said. Should, and is. When it first kicked in how much food waste I was seeing, I thought to myself, I wouldnt be my Mothers son if I didnt try to do something, Plotkin said. Hes the founder and force behind The Should Project which collects leftover, pre-packaged food from the USDAs School Breakfast Program. A lot of food that can very easily; if they had a cold place to sit; could very easily wait a day or two and then go somewhere as opposed to going in the trash. The Should Project collects leftover, pre-packaged food from schools to distribute to those in need. (KLAS) The Should Project collects leftover, pre-packaged food from schools to distribute to those in need. (KLAS) He partnered with other local non-profits to distribute the food to those in need. Plotkin launched the pilot program at the Young Womens Leadership Academy in Las Vegas in 2023. I realized theres a pretty simple fix that could affect a pretty big change, he said. He purchased a refrigerator to store the unused food. Then, twice a week he picks it up and drops it off to organizations like the Nevada Homeless Alliance and Lutheran Social Services. Plotkin said each month The Should Project saves and distributes more than one ton of food from this school alone. I know what I am seeing is just a drop in the bucket, he said. With one school up and running, next up, refrigerators for other schools, and continued education about waste and giving back. Plotkin joked, If I catch a student on a cell phone before they have to put it away, the rule is that they have to go follow the Should Project on Instagram. Plotkin said all the food is available to the students at the end of each school day. Hes only picking up whats left behind, as the schools need to make space for more deliveries. If youd like to learn more about The Should Project, click here or follow them on Instagram @theshouldproject. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg says he will meet with President Joe Biden on Thursday at the border to discuss the migrant crisis. Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News Mayor Ron Nirenberg has canceled Thursdays San Antonio City Council meeting so he can travel to Brownsville to meet with President Joe Biden, who is scheduled to visit the U.S.-Mexico border. Bidens Thursday trip to the border is his second as president. Biden is scheduled to meet with U.S. Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement officials and with Nirenberg. Theyll discuss federal efforts to address the influx of migrants at the southern border, according to a memo Nirenberg sent the council on Tuesday. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Though Council Member Adriana Rocha Garcia could have led the meeting as mayor pro tem in Nirenbergs absence, his communications director said Nirenberg sought the cancellation because none of the agenda items were time sensitive and because none of the council members objected to canceling this week and moving the agenda to next week. Nirenberg was not immediately available for an interview Tuesday. The mayor is seen as a potential appointee to the Biden administration if the president wins a second term in the November general election. In his memo to the council, Nirenberg said safety is the citys top priority as we work to humanely assist asylum seekers as they travel to their host familys destination within the United States. The resources required to provide aid to the nearly 600,000 individuals who have passed through our local migrant resource center since 2021 have been largely supported by federal reimbursements, he said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Migrant families try to navigate the Rio Grande near Brownsville last May 10. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg says he will meet with President Joe Biden on Thursday at the border to discuss the migrant crisis. Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News The city leases the building that houses Catholic Charities of San Antonios Centro de Bienvenida (formerly known as the Migrant Resource Center), a hub for migrants passing through San Antonio on their way to their final destination. Many of those migrants enter Texas through the Rio Grande Valley, Eagle Pass or Del Rio. Since last May, the city has staffed an Airport Transfer Center where migrants can await flights out of San Antonio International Airport a move to help relieve the welcome center, which at times is stretched beyond its limits. In December, several hundred migrants had to sleep outside the center because it had reached its maximum capacity of 700 people. The Federal Emergency Management Agency reimburses the city and Catholic Charities for the costs of sheltering, feeding and transporting migrants. Advertisement Article continues below this ad While Biden is in Brownsville on Thursday, former President Donald Trump will be in Eagle Pass. Their border trips come days before March 5, or Super Tuesday, when 15 states including Texas will hold their primaries. Immigration will be a major issue in the likely 2024 presidential rematch between Biden and Trump. LAS VEGAS (KLAS) An evening at a local bar turned deadly when two sisters got into a car and the older one decided to engage in a speeding contest with a driver in another car, according to the arrest report. Melissa Dettlaff, 26, is now facing felony charges in a crash that killed her sister Jessica Ann Dettlaff, 24, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, Feb. 21. on Silverado Ranch Boulevard near Bermuda Road. According to court documents, the sisters were joined by John Gallagher at a bar for some drinks. After the trio left, the crash occurred less than four miles away and in less than 15 after leaving the bar. Street racing, impairment suspected in deadly crash at south valley intersection The Dettlaff sisters were in a maroon Mazda MX-5 and Gallagher was driving an orange Camaro. A witness told police the vehicles appeared to be racing or messing around as the two drove side by side in the eastbound lanes of Silverado Ranch while speeding. Metro police said Crash Data Retrieval reports from the cars showed that the Camaro was traveling more than 90 mph and the Mazda was traveling in excess of 80 mph at their highest speeds. The report stated the crash happened when Gallagher lost control of the Camaro and struck the right rear of the Mazda causing it to impact a tree and utility pole. Gallaghers Camaro hit a wall. Gallagher was given Standardized Field Sobriety Tests at the scene and passed before he was transported for minor injuries to the hospital. LVMPD investigates deadly crash at Silverado Ranch Blvd. and Bermuda Rd. Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. Police suspect street racing and impairment. One person was killed. (Credit: LVMPD) LVMPD investigates deadly crash at Silverado Ranch Blvd. and Bermuda Rd. Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. Police suspect street racing and impairment. One person was killed. (Credit: LVMPD) LVMPD investigates deadly crash at Silverado Ranch Blvd. and Bermuda Rd. Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. Police suspect street racing and impairment. One person was killed. (Credit: LVMPD) LVMPD investigates deadly crash at Silverado Ranch Blvd. and Bermuda Rd. Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. Police suspect street racing and impairment. One person was killed. (Credit: LVMPD) Following the crash, Jessica Dettlaff, who was in the front passenger seat was unresponsive and bleeding from the head. She was pronounced dead at University Medical Center. Melissa Dettlaff was also transported for medical attention. While at Sunrise Hospital, a Metro police officer said he noticed she smelled of alcohol and obtained a search warrant for two blood draws. The results of those blood draws are still pending. Dettlaff is facing charges of DUI resulting in death, reckless driving resulting in death, and racing. According to court records, she was released from the Clark County Detention Center into a program for addiction. Her case is scheduled for a status check in court on March 26. The other driver, Johnathan Gallagher, 24, faces charges for reckless driving and racing, according to court documents. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS. Editor's Note: This page is a summary of news on the Israel-Hamas war for Wednesday, Feb. 28. For the latest news on the conflict in the Middle East, view our live updates file on the war for Thursday, Feb. 29. The last functioning hospital in northern Gaza shut down Wednesday because of a severe shortage of fuel and medical supplies, a top official at Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia announced. Dr. Muhammad Salha, director of the hospital's monitoring and evaluation department, said the facility was depleted during an Israeli siege that lasted for 18 days and was marked by several staff members being killed. The shutdown "will lead to a complete deprivation of basic health services for citizens, especially in light of the cessation of service by all hospitals in the north," Salha said in a statement to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. Salha appealed to all international, humanitarian and human rights organizations to put pressure on the occupation to supply the hospital with food, medical supplies and fuel. U.N. relief agencies voiced frustration as recently as Tuesday over continuing restrictions they face from the Israeli military while trying to get supplies into hospitals throughout Gaza and patients out of them. Aid convoys have "come under fire and are systematically denied access to people in need, the U.N. Humanitarian Country Team in Palestine said in a statement. Palestinians burn tires in protest against the rising prices of food and supplies on Feb. 28, 2024, in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. Developments: A group of more than 50 international broadcast journalists have sent an open letter to the embassies of Israel and Egypt calling for free and unfettered access to Gaza. CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Sky News and the BBC are among the outlets represented. The British government said Wednesday that it is stepping up security for lawmakers after politicians reported threats and intimidation linked to the war in Gaza. A $40 million fund will give every lawmaker a dedicated named police contact and provide money for those facing threats to pay for private security protection. Reports of antisemitic and anti-Muslim abuse have soared across Britain since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The families of hostages began a four-day march bound for Jerusalem from Kibbutz Reim, where hundreds of Israelis were killed at a music festival during the Oct. 7 attack. They marched with a banner reading united to free the hostages. The U.S., Israel, Jordan, France, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt completed an airdrop of 160 packages of food and medical equipment in the southern Gaza Strip and the Jordanian Field Hospital in Khan Younis, the Israeli military said. 'Not interested': Biden says a Gaza truce is near; Hamas begs to differ Food trucks finally arrive in starving northern Gaza Battered northern Gaza, where chaos and dangerous conditions prompted the U.N.'s World Food Program to suspend aid deliveries last week, has received its first convoys bringing food in a month, according to Israeli officials. The military said 31 aid trucks arrived in northern Gaza on Wednesday, after almost 20 on Monday and Tuesday, although it's not clear who carried out the deliveries. The U.N. said it was not involved. The agency says more than 95% of Gaza's 2.3 million people are in a food insecurity crisis, and 576,000 are near famine. Northern Gaza was the early focus of an Israeli military campaign that devastated the area and drove much of the population to the south. But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in the north, and humanitarian agencies have said a lack of security has made it too dangerous to bring in life-saving aid. World Food Program workers were swarmed by starving residents when attempting a delivery Feb. 18 after a three-week pause, confronted gunfire and looting, and a truck driver was beaten, WFP leaders said. U.N. officials say the unloading of trucks entering the strip has been hampered because Gaza police stopped protecting convoys on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing after Israeli strikes on them. Distributions within Gaza have been crippled by fighting, military restrictions, lack of trucks and social collapse. The U.N. has called for Israel to open crossings in the north to aid deliveries and guarantee safe corridors for convoys. Egyptian president expects cease-fire deal within days Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said Wednesday that he expects a cease-fire will be reached within a few days, the Palestinian media outlet Al-Hadath reported. Also Wednesday, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said the militant group is showing flexibility in Gaza negotiations to "put an end to its great pain and its grave sacrifices in the war of brutal genocide against it." But he also said militants were ready to continue the fight. President Joe Biden said Monday that he hoped a deal would be reached within a week, but Ahmad Abdul Hadi, Hamas' representative in Lebanon, said Tuesday that the militant group was "not interested" in the latest proposal, according to the Pan-Arab TV channel Al Mayadeen. The six-week cease-fire proposal put forward by U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators in Paris last weekend included the release of up to 40 women and older hostages as well as the release of up to 300 Palestinians, mostly children, women and older people being held in Israeli prisons, The Associated Press reported. Hamas urges Palestinians to storm holy site during Ramadan Haniyeh called on Palestinians to barricade themselves in the mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount at the beginning of Ramadan as part of "a broad and international movement to break the siege on al-Aqsa Mosque." The call came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas plan on using the Muslim holy month as a the second stage of Oct. 7, and ignite the ground. Gallant said the triumvirate is focused on Temple Mount and Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed security officials at a Cabinet meeting this month to present options for quotas that could be placed on Arab citizens visiting the site, among Islam's holiest, for the holiday that begins in less than two weeks. That drew a warning from Israeli security agency Shin Bet that restrictions could lead to violence. Israel forced US hand on settlement issue, report says The Israeli government's recent decision to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the Biden administration considers a major obstacle to peace with Palestinians, prompted the U.S. to reverse its official position and declare them illegal under international law, Reuters reported Wednesday. The U.S. reversal of a policy change made by the Trump administration, after decades of American opposition to the settlements, came not in a long-prepared statement but in the response by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to a reporter's question Friday in Argentina. "New settlements are counter-productive to reaching an enduring peace, Blinken said in Buenos Aires. "Theyre also inconsistent with international law." The Biden administration had considered making the policy change for some time before its hand was forced by last week's Israeli announcement that it would authorize about 3,300 new homes to be built in the settlements, Reuters reported. "We will continue the momentum of settlement throughout the country," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said. Israeli military focusing on mental health of soldiers The Israeli military's Medical Corps will open a new mental health services and family center Thursday that includes a combat post-trauma treatment clinic. About 85% of Israeli soldiers seeking treatment while serving in the war have returned to combat, the military said. Brigadier General Prof. Alon Glazberg said mental health issues have been present since Oct. 7, when 1,200 people in Israel were killed and 250 taken hostage by Hamas-led militants. He estimated that 30,000 soldiers have undergone "group discussions" with army mental health experts and that more than 3,400 have called a mental health hotline. The military has called up about 270 reservist mental health experts. "We are aware of the effects of war on the mind and the difficulties that arise from it," Major General Michel Yanko said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel Hamas updates: Northern Gaza hospital shut, food trucks arrive The sliver of wreckage was found by a seaman during the search for Amy Johnson in the Thames Estuary in 1941 - Hansons / SWNS The only surviving fragment of vanished pilot Amy Johnsons doomed plane has been sold after reappearing 83 years after her fatal crash. Johnson became the first woman to fly from Britain to Australia in 1930, but in 1941 her feats came to an end when she disappeared in a crash over the Thames Estuary that may have been caused by friendly fire. A seaman attempting to rescue her pulled a surviving fragment of the plane from the water which he handed down through his family. The fragments existence only emerged last month when the seamans nephew approached an auction house. Matt Crowson, head of militaria at Hansons auction house in Derby, which sold the item, said: I was amazed to receive an email asking, Would I be interested in a piece of Amy Johnsons aircraft wreckage. The item was inherited by our vendor from his uncle, Ronald Arthur Clark, both from Enfield, North London. Ronald said hed scooped it out of the water and put it in his pocket during efforts to rescue Amy. Amy Johnson set a number of world records before her untimely death in 1941 - PA Back in 1941 Ronald was an able seaman on HMS Berkeley, an escort vessel in the English Channel. It was among ships which attempted to rescue Amy after her parachute was spotted coming down. The Kent Battle of Britain Museum bought the fragment for 3,673.60 at auction, and curator Dave Brocklehurst said the piece will join the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) display at the museum, as Johnson was a member of the organisation before her death aged 37. Johnson flew 11,000 miles from London to Durban in 1930, the first such solo flight by a woman. She then co-piloted a flight from London to Moscow in 1931. She set records for flights from London to South Africa, and with her husband and copilot Jim Mollison also made the fastest flight from Britain to India in 1934. Ronald Clark who scooped the piece of wreckage out of the Thames Estuary, aboard HMS Berkeley in 1941 - Hansons Auctioneers The aviator became a celebrity and inspired Katharine Hepburns pilot character in the 1933 romantic film Christopher Strong. During the Second World War, Johnson signed up to the Air Transport Auxiliary, which transported Royal Air Force aircraft around the country. It was during a flight for the Auxiliary from Prestwick to RAF Kidlington in Oxford that Johnson went off course, and she ultimately bailed out over the Thames Estuary during high seas and falling snow. Her body was never recovered. It was long thought that Johnson ran out of fuel after going off course in snowy conditions. But in 1999, Tom Mitchell, an ex-serviceman with an anti-aircraft battery, claimed to have downed her plane when she failed to give the correct identification code during the flight. Spotted alive Johnson was spotted alive in the water and calling for help after going down but conditions were poor. There was a strong tide and snow was falling, and she was unable to reach ropes thrown for her. Lt Cmdr Walter Fletcher, the captain of HMS Haslemere led rescue efforts and dived in to attend to what was believed to be a second body in the water. Fletcher himself was dragged out of the Estuary unconscious and died in hospital days later as a result of the extreme cold. The wreckage in close up - Hansons / SWNS In 2016, Dr Alec Gill, a military historian, said that the son of a rescue ships crew member claimed that those who were there believed Johnson was never found because she was sucked into the blades of the ships propellers. Mr Crowson said: We can never be absolutely certain what happened to her that fateful day in 1941, other than it was a terrible accident. In 1999, it was reported her death may have been caused by friendly fire. Sussex man Tom Mitchell claimed to have shot her aircraft down when she twice failed to give the correct identification code during the flight. Sadly, it was also later claimed Amy had been sucked into the blades of a ships propellers during the rescue bid. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Rep. Lauren Boeberts oldest son, 18-year-old Tyler Boebert, was arrested Tuesday afternoon in Rifle on 22 criminal charges, including five felony counts. The Rifle Police Department announced the arrest on Facebook Tuesday evening. As of Wednesday morning, Boebert remains in custody and his bond was set at $8,250. The arrest of Lauren Boeberts son is the familys latest run-in with law enforcement in recent months. The second-term congressional representative's tumultuous personal life, including a divorce from her husband Jayson and rambunctious conduct at a Beetlejuice show last September, has received intense public scrutiny as her political future is unclear. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., arrives to the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023. Why was Tyler Boebert arrested? Tyler Boeberts arrest came after a recent string of vehicle trespass and property thefts in Rifle, according to the Facebook post from the Rifle Police Department. Tyler Boeberts charges include four counts of criminal possession of identifying documents for multiple people, which is a Class 6 felony in Colorado. The other felony listed in documentation from the Garfield County Sheriffs Office is a conspiracy charge. He is also facing a dozen misdemeanor charges, including criminal possession of a financial device, first-degree criminal trespass of an automobile with intent to commit a crime, identification theft for possession with intent to use, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Three petty offenses for theft of less than $300 are also included in the list of charges. Rifle Police said that the investigation is ongoing and the department will not be releasing any additional information at this time. Tyler Boebert is the oldest of Lauren and Jayson Boebert's four sons. He is the father of the representatives first grandchild, who was born last year. 'It breaks my heart': Boebert's response Lauren Boebert said that she will "never give up" on her son and will "continue to be there for him" in a statement released through her campaign early Wednesday afternoon. "I love my son Tyler, who has been through some very difficult, public challenges for a young man and the subject of attention that he didn't ask for. It breaks my heart to see my child struggling and in this situation, especially when he has been provided multiple opportunities to get his life on track," Boebert said. The congresswoman added that her son will be held responsible and to the same standards as everybody else. "As an adult and father, Tyler will take responsibility for his actions and should be held accountable for poor decisions just like any other citizen." The Boebert family's recent run-ins with law enforcement Tyler Boeberts arrest is the latest in a string of recent legal troubles for the Boebert family. Jayson Boebert was charged with assault in January after two incidents: a public fight at a restaurant with Lauren Boebert and an alleged domestic incident apparently involving Tyler Boebert. Jayson Boebert was reportedly intoxicated and armed during the early-morning incident on Jan. 9, according to reporting from the Associated Press and USA Today. That wasnt the first time law enforcement has been involved in alleged domestic incidents involving Jayson Boebert. One of the Boebert sons called 911 in December 2022, saying that Jayson Boebert was throwing me around and yelling. The son and Lauren Boebert assured the dispatcher in a follow-up call 10 minutes later that Jayson Boebert hadnt really laid hands on him. Police visited and an officer assessed that a crime had not been committed, Colorado Public Radio reported. The representative first filed for divorce in April 2023 and the couple finalized their divorce in October 2023 after 17 years of marriage, according to the Colorado Sun. Lauren Boebert announced in December she was leaving Colorados 3rd Congressional District and moving to the more conservative 4th District. She won by just 546 votes against Democratic challenger Adam Frisch in November 2022. Lauren Boebert then joined a crowded field of GOP contenders in her new district where the Republican nominee will be at a greater advantage in the general election. The congresswoman said her difficult personal life was part of the reason for her move to the 4th District, which encompasses most of the Eastern Plains of Colorado. Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics at the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com. Please support local news at subscribe.chieftain.com. This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Lauren Boebert's 18-year-old son arrested on felony charges in Rifle Ultra-MAGA Rep. Lauren Boeberts son victimized a toddler, a senior citizen, and four others during a recent crime spree, according to a police incident summary obtained by The Daily Beast. New dad Tyler Boebert was arrested Tuesday and now faces 22 charges stemming from a string of alleged thefts and vehicle break-ins in Rifle, Colorado. He was taken into custody at around 2:30 p.m. the Rifle PD said in a statement. The town of 10,000 sits in Colorados 3rd Congressional District, which Tylers mom currently represents. Three other suspects were also arrested as alleged accomplices, the incident summary shows. Because the three are underage, their names have been redacted. However, they are listed as a 16-year-old while male, a 16-year-old white female, and a 17-year-old white female. Tyler Boeberts mug shot. Rifle Police Department/Facebook A total of six victims are listed in the incident summary, also with their names and races redacted. The youngest is marked down as 3 years-old; the oldest is listed as 64. The rest range in age from 18 to 32, according to the summary. The details are slim, and the specific items and forms of ID allegedly lifted by Boebert remain unknown. One victim vehicle is listed in the incident summarya 2008 Kia Sorento, gold in color, with Colorado plates. In an email, a Rifle PD spokeswoman said the investigation is ongoing and an affidavit accompanying the incident summary is not yet publicly releasable. Rifle PD The teen was hit with four felony counts of criminal possession of ID documents - multiple victims, one felony count of conspiracy to commit a felony, criminal possession of a financial device, first-degree criminal trespass of an automobile with intent to commit a crime, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and three counts of theft of under $300. I love my son Tyler, who has been through some very difficult, public challenges for a young man and the subject of attention that he didnt ask for, Lauren Boebert said in a statement issued Wednesday. It breaks my heart to see my child struggling and in this situation, especially when he has been provided multiple opportunities to get his life on track. I will never give up on him and I will continue to be there for him. As an adult and father, Tyler will take responsibility for his actions and should be held accountable for poor decisions just like any other citizen. The arrest is the latest drama involving Lauren Boeberts family which has come as she runs for election in a new Colorado district. (In December, the congresswoman said the switch would offer her a fresh start after what has been a pretty difficult year for me and my family.) Lauren Boebert Can Change Districts, but She Cant Outrun Her Past The Trump loyalists ex-husband, Jayson Boebert, was arrested last month for an alleged assault on Tyler. That arrest also followed an incident three days earlier in which Jayson called 911 claiming that he had been repeatedly punched by Lauren Boebert, though authorities cleared her of wrongdoing. She was granted a restraining order against Jayson earlier this month, a move that he described as a cruel and unfair attempt at stopping him from seeing his kids. The conservative lawmaker was also caught up in another messy headline-generating incident last September relating to her behavior in a Denver theater during a live production of Beetlejuice. After initially insisting she hadnt been vaping during the show, she later admitted that she had when security camera footage emerged refuting her initial denials. Apologizing for the contradiction, she noted that she had been having a challenging personal time after a public and difficult divorce. Tyler Boebertwho became a father last year, making his mom a 36-year-old grandmotherhas also previously been in the public eye. In September 2022, at the age of 17, Tyler flipped his dads SUV, injuring Noble DAmato, a friend who was also in the car at the time. DAmato later criticized the Boebert family for allegedly downplaying the incident. 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. The son of GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert was arrested in connection to property thefts and car break-ins. Tyler Boebert was all smiles moments before his court hearing got underway on Wednesday. Lauren Boebert said her son should be held accountable for his actions like any other citizen. The recently arrested 18-year-old son of GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert was all smiles Wednesday during a virtual court hearing related to his booking in connection to a spate of property thefts and car break-ins. Tyler Boebert, clad in a black and white jumpsuit, appeared for the hearing via a video hookup from the Garfield County Jail. He could be seen cracking smiles and laughing alongside two other detainees moments before the brief proceeding got underway. During the hearing, the teen was issued a $1,250 personal recognizance bond by Magistrate Jill McConaughy. His next court date was scheduled for April 11. Tyler Boebert was arrested on Tuesday afternoon by the Rifle Police Department and faces 22 charges, including several felony charges relating to a string of crimes in the Colorado district that his mother represents. According to jail records, the teen faces four counts of criminal possession of a financial device, four counts of criminal possession of ID documents, and a count of conspiracy to commit a felony. Tyler Boebert also faces four misdemeanor counts of ID theft, three misdemeanor counts of first-degree criminal trespass, three misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, as well as three counts of the petty offense of theft of less than $300. The allegations behind the charges were not discussed at Wednesday's hearing, and police would not immediately provide Business Insider a copy of the incident report. Rep. Lauren Boebert. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images A prosecutor called the allegations against Tyler Boebert, who turns 19 next month, "concerning" during Wednesday's court hearing. Lauren Boebert told Business Insider in a statement Wednesday that her son should be "held accountable for poor decisions" just like anyone else. "I love my son Tyler, who has been through some very difficult, public challenges for a young man and the subject of attention that he didn't ask for," she said. "It breaks my heart to see my child struggling and, in this situation, especially when he has been provided multiple opportunities to get his life on track." The congresswoman added, "I will never give up on him and I will continue to be there for him. As an adult and father, Tyler will take responsibility for his actions and should be held accountable for poor decisions just like any other citizen." Tyler Boebert's arrest is the latest upheaval in Lauren Boebert's bid for Colorado's 4th District seat. Lauren Boebert has been involved in a contentious split with her ex-husband, Jayson Boebert, with whom she shares four sons. Jayson Boebert was recently arrested twice and Lauren Boebert now has a temporary restraining order against him. In connection to one of the arrests, Tyler Boebert accused his father of shoving him to the ground and putting his hand in his mouth, and grabbing a rifle during the ordeal. In addition to the family turmoil, the congresswoman found herself ejected from a Denver theater last year during the performance of the "Beetlejuice" musical after she was caught vaping and getting handsy with a date. Read the original article on Business Insider A coalition of climate justice groups organized a rally Monday outside the Washington, D.C., hotel where the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners is holding its winter policy meeting. The speakers, including Christine Pendzich, center, of Montgomery County, Md., took aim in part at energy company and utility sponsorship of the event. (Photo by Robert Zullo/States Newsroom) A coalition of climate justice groups organized a rally Monday outside the Washington, D.C., hotel where the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners is holding its winter policy meeting. The speakers, including Christine Pendzich, center, of Montgomery County, Md., took aim in part at energy company and utility sponsorship of the event. (Photo by Robert Zullo/States Newsroom) After a string of scandals and amid rising bills, lawmakers in statehouses across the country have been pushing legislation to curb utilities spending ratepayer money on lobbying, expert testimony in rate cases, goodwill advertising, charitable giving, trade association membership and other costs. At least a dozen states have considered bills to limit how gas, water and electric utilities can spend customers money, according to a tracker maintained by the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group funded by environmental and climate-focused foundations that concentrates on utilities and fossil fuel interests. Another, Louisiana, has opened a proceeding at its public service commission to investigate use of ratepayer cash on trade association dues, activities meant to influence the outcome of any local, state, or federal legislation, advertising expenses and other costs. Michigan joined the party last week with the introduction of legislation to ban utility political spending. In states like Illinois, the push has been joined by groups like the AARP and the Citizens Utility Board, a state watchdog group, which said the legislation would stop electric, gas and water utilities from charging us for a long list of expenses they rack up trying to raise our rates and further increase their political power. Three states Maine, Colorado and Connecticut have already signed similar bills into law. The legislation comes as natural gas bills have fallen but average residential electric prices in the U.S. climbed from 13.66 cents per kilowatt hour in 2021 to 15.93 cents per kilowatt hour in 2023, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That would mean a monthly bill going from $136.60 in 2021 to $159.30 in 2023 for a house that uses 1,000 kilowatt hours per month. It absolutely is a growing trend, said Matt Kasper, the Energy and Policy Institutes deputy director. Theres a lot of eyes on the industry, how its operating. The institute published a report last year that scrutinized how electric and gas utilities use ratepayer money to fund political machines that push legislation, curry favor with regulators and alter the outcomes of elections, sometimes even breaking laws in the process. Some of the lowlights include: Other examples of questionable spending abound. In 2018, South Carolina lawmakers were flooded with bogus emails encouraging them to support Virginia utility giant Dominion Energys takeover of SCANA Corp., a company struggling under the weight of a failed nuclear project. Dominion denied having anything to do with the fake emails, which were sent by the Consumer Energy Alliance, a group that was then supported by Dominion. (The company is no longer listed as a CEA member). Consumer Energy Alliance was also involved in a 2016 campaign to support a natural gas pipeline running through Ohio that involved sending 347 letters to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission using the names of locals more than a dozen of whom signed affidavits denying they signed the letters including an Ohio man who has been dead since 1998, The Plain Dealer reported. In Louisiana, Entergy was fined $5 million by the New Orleans City Council after actors hired by a public relations firm working for the utility showed up at public hearings to support a proposed power plant. Arizona Public Service, which has 1.4 million electric customers in the state, spent $10 million in 2014 that was funneled to dark money groups to help elect its preferred members of the State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities. That spending wasnt revealed until 2019, when the company complied with a subpoena to release documents. Utilities are often using their ratepayer-funded political machines to slow the nations urgently-needed transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, the Energy & Policy Institute wrote. Working hand-in-hand with their trade associations, the Edison Electric Institute and American Gas Association, utilities continue to fight tooth-and-nail against policies that enable the adoption of essential technologies like rooftop solar power, energy efficiency and building electrification. The appetite is there However, bills to curb utility influence spending can face an uphill fight, demonstrating the stronghold that the companies can have on state governments. In Virginia, for example, another round of legislative attempts to prevent candidates from accepting donations from public service companies like Dominion Energy, the states largest electric utility and long the biggest corporate donor in Virginia politics, died in House and Senate committees. Both houses are controlled by Democrats. Time will tell what will happen, Del. Josh Cole, a Democrat who was carrying the House version of the legislation,told the Virginia Mercury. The appetite is definitely there for it. A separate proceeding at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been looking into the rate recovery, reporting and accounting treatment of industry association dues and certain civic, political and related expenses. The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities and is one of the trade groups affected by some of the state-level legislation, said electric customers benefit when its member companies have a seat at the table, adding that they are among the most regulated businesses in the nation. We engage on their behalf through lobbying, advocacy and regulatory proceedings as part of our work to ensure that electricity customers have the affordable, reliable and resilient clean energy they want and need. Engaging in discussions with policymakers and regulators is essential to achieving these outcomes, EEI spokeswoman Sarah Durdaller said in a statement. We bring unique expertise and insights on how policy proposals will affect business operations, the cost for capital, and, ultimately, our customers. There are strict laws in place already to ensure that lobbying activities are always funded by shareholders not customers. The American Gas Association, which represents natural gas utilities, did not respond to a request for comment. On Monday, across the street from the Washington, D.C., hotel where the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners was holding its winter policy meeting, a group of climate justice organizations held a rally to call attention to energy company influence, taking aim at corporate sponsorship of the event and a lack of progress on renewable power. When we see events like this where utility execs fund gatherings and hobnob with regulators we need to speak out, said Sukrit Mishra, D.C. program director at Solar United Neighbors, a nonprofit that helps communities form solar co-ops. He voiced support for state legislative efforts as well as federal legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat, to prevent utility companies from using ratepayer dollars to fund political activities. The public is ready to hold utilities accountable. We need regulators to do the same. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Lawmakers across the U.S. seek to curb utility spending on politics, ads and more extras appeared first on Alaska Beacon. A coalition of climate justice groups organized a rally Monday outside the Washington, D.C., hotel where the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners is holding its winter policy meeting. The speakers, including Christine Pendzich, center, of Montgomery County, Maryland, took aim in part at energy company and utility sponsorship of the event. (Robert Zullo/States Newsroom) After a string of scandals and amid rising bills, lawmakers in statehouses across the country have been pushing legislation to curb utilities spending ratepayer money on lobbying, expert testimony in rate cases, goodwill advertising, charitable giving, trade association membership and other costs. At least a dozen states have considered bills to limit how gas, water and electric utilities can spend customers money, according to a tracker maintained by the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group funded by environmental and climate-focused foundations that concentrates on utilities and fossil fuel interests. Another, Louisiana, has opened a proceeding at its public service commission to investigate use of ratepayer cash on trade association dues, activities meant to influence the outcome of any local, state, or federal legislation, advertising expenses and other costs. Michigan joined the party last week with the introduction of legislation to ban utility political spending. In states like Illinois, the push has been joined by groups like the AARP and the Citizens Utility Board, a state watchdog group, which said the legislation would stop electric, gas and water utilities from charging us for a long list of expenses they rack up trying to raise our rates and further increase their political power. Three states Maine, Colorado and Connecticut have already signed similar bills into law. The legislation comes as natural gas bills have fallen but average residential electric prices in the U.S. climbed from 13.66 cents per kilowatt hour in 2021 to 15.93 cents per kilowatt hour in 2023, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That would mean a monthly bill going from $136.60 in 2021 to $159.30 in 2023 for a house that uses 1,000 kilowatt hours per month. It absolutely is a growing trend, said Matt Kasper, the Energy and Policy Institutes deputy director. Theres a lot of eyes on the industry, how its operating. The institute published a report last year that scrutinized how electric and gas utilities use ratepayer money to fund political machines that push legislation, curry favor with regulators and alter the outcomes of elections, sometimes even breaking laws in the process. Some of the lowlights include: Other examples of questionable spending abound. In 2018, South Carolina lawmakers were flooded with bogus emails encouraging them to support Virginia utility giant Dominion Energys takeover of SCANA Corp., a company struggling under the weight of a failed nuclear project. Dominion denied having anything to do with the fake emails, which were sent by the Consumer Energy Alliance, a group that was then supported by Dominion. (The company is no longer listed as a CEA member). Consumer Energy Alliance was also involved in a 2016 campaign to support a natural gas pipeline running through Ohio that involved sending 347 letters to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission using the names of locals more than a dozen of whom signed affidavits denying they signed the letters including an Ohio man who has been dead since 1998, The Plain Dealer reported. In Louisiana, Entergy was fined $5 million by the New Orleans City Council after actors hired by a public relations firm working for the utility showed up at public hearings to support a proposed power plant. Arizona Public Service, which has 1.4 million electric customers in the state, spent $10 million in 2014 that was funneled to dark money groups to help elect its preferred members of the State Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities. That spending wasnt revealed until 2019, when the company complied with a subpoena to release documents. Utilities are often using their ratepayer-funded political machines to slow the nations urgently-needed transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, the Energy & Policy Institute wrote. Working hand-in-hand with their trade associations, the Edison Electric Institute and American Gas Association, utilities continue to fight tooth-and-nail against policies that enable the adoption of essential technologies like rooftop solar power, energy efficiency and building electrification. The appetite is there However, bills to curb utility influence spending can face an uphill fight, demonstrating the stronghold that the companies can have on state governments. In Virginia, for example, another round of legislative attempts to prevent candidates from accepting donations from public service companies like Dominion Energy, the states largest electric utility and long the biggest corporate donor in Virginia politics, died in House and Senate committees. Both houses are controlled by Democrats. Time will tell what will happen, Del. Josh Cole, a Democrat who was carrying the House version of the legislation,told the Virginia Mercury. The appetite is definitely there for it. A separate proceeding at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has been looking into the rate recovery, reporting and accounting treatment of industry association dues and certain civic, political and related expenses. The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities and is one of the trade groups affected by some of the state-level legislation, said electric customers benefit when its member companies have a seat at the table, adding that they are among the most regulated businesses in the nation. We engage on their behalf through lobbying, advocacy and regulatory proceedings as part of our work to ensure that electricity customers have the affordable, reliable and resilient clean energy they want and need. Engaging in discussions with policymakers and regulators is essential to achieving these outcomes, EEI spokeswoman Sarah Durdaller said in a statement. We bring unique expertise and insights on how policy proposals will affect business operations, the cost for capital, and, ultimately, our customers. There are strict laws in place already to ensure that lobbying activities are always funded by shareholders not customers. The American Gas Association, which represents natural gas utilities, did not respond to a request for comment. On Monday, across the street from the Washington, D.C., hotel where the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners was holding its winter policy meeting, a group of climate justice organizations held a rally to call attention to energy company influence, taking aim at corporate sponsorship of the event and a lack of progress on renewable power. When we see events like this where utility execs fund gatherings and hobnob with regulators we need to speak out, said Sukrit Mishra, DC program director at Solar United Neighbors, a nonprofit that helps communities form solar co-ops. He voiced support for state legislative efforts as well as federal legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat, to prevent utility companies from using ratepayer dollars to fund political activities. The public is ready to hold utilities accountable. We need regulators to do the same. The post Lawmakers across the U.S. seek to curb utility spending on politics, ads and more extras appeared first on Arkansas Advocate. There are new privacy concerns about one of the fastest-growing apps on your phone, according to our sister station WSB. Chinese online shopping site TEMU is now the target of multiple proposed class action lawsuits. WSB consumer investigator Justin Gray learned that one of those class action lawsuits focuses on what the TEMU app does to your cell phone. The lawsuit alleges TEMU gains access to literally everything on your phone. The companys Super Bowl ads brought even more spotlight to the Chinese retailer which was already a social media phenomenon. Posters brag about what they call TEMU hauls, but TEMU itself often pays for the posts. TEMU is actually sponsoring todays video, so thats really exciting, one social media video said. Read: 3 people involved in small plane crash at Orlando Sanford International Airport, officials say Multiple proposed class action lawsuits allege theres a privacy trade-off with the incredibly low prices TEMU offers. A lawsuit alleges TEMU uses spyware and malware that TEMU collects user data beyond what is necessary for an online shopping app and it gains access to literally everything on your phone. Another proposed class action suit claims TEMU doesnt protect data, alleging a failure to secure and safeguard its customers personal data. Georgia Tech student Shadah Mohammad told Gray that she couldnt resist those eye-poppingly cheap deals. Then she learned about the lawsuits. I heard about that. So, I havent shopped there since. Definitely scared about that, Mohammad said. Read: Only on 9: Central Florida teen recalls being shot by Ocoee police officer after shoplifting report TEMU sent Gray a statement, saying: We categorically deny the allegations and intend to vigorously defend ourselves against these meritless lawsuits. The truth is that safeguarding privacy is one of TEMUs core values. Consumer adviser Clark Howard opened an account and bought items himself to test TEMU out. TEMU is crazy cheap, Howard said. Know that the savings are great, but it comes with a great cost. Howard found incredible prices and decent quality but warns the cost could be your private data. Read: Orlando to buy 4 downtown properties to expand Lake Eola Park Youre giving permission for so much intrusion into your private life, Howard said. Mohammad said she wasnt taking any chances. So you deleted it off your phone? Gray asked Mohammad. Yeah, I deleted my accounts. Unsubscribed completely, Mohammad said. TEMU counters that if you look at the data disclosures in the app store, that they gather data in fewer categories than competitors like Amazon. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. Three of Congresss top four leaders had a loud and unified message for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) when they met with him at the White House on Tuesday: Ignore the pressure from conservative critics and avoid a government shutdown on Friday. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) emerged from the meeting, which participants described as intense and passionate, feeling somewhat reassured that Johnson heard their pleas. It was a productive and intense meeting, Schumer said outside the White House. We made it so clear that we cant have the shutdown because it hurts so many people in so many different ways. Schumer said the Speaker did not reject the warning and said he wants to avoid a government shutdown. Jeffries said after the meeting that the atmosphere was intense as leaders in the room, which included President Biden and Vice President Harris, emphasized the need to avoid a government shutdown and to fund the government so we can address the needs of the American public. He said negotiators are making real progress on the appropriations bills for federal departments and agencies that will see their funding lapse after March 1 without congressional action. Those bills include funding for military construction and the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Im cautiously optimistic that we can do what is necessary in the next day or so to close down these bills and avoid a government shutdown, he said. But he also warned that Congress may have to pass another stopgap spending measure to give negotiators more time to reach a deal to fund the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and other agencies that will see their funding lapse after a second March 8 deadline. A Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss internal strategy for avoiding a government shutdown said the objective of the White House meeting was to pile pressure on Johnson. When you can demonstrate its kind of three against one, you can kind of pressure or influence someone, and I hope thats what he senses, the senator said. This is a bipartisan effort to ensure that were doing the right thing and keeping the government open, and its okay for him to have a bipartisan vote to pass funding legislation to avoid a shutdown, the senator added. The other leaders in the room also presented a unified front to Johnson on the need to pass a Senate-approved foreign aid package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine. McConnell was the first person in the meeting to lay out the reasons to Johnson for not waiting longer to pass military aid for Ukraine, which faces losing ground to Russia because of dwindling supplies. Speaking to reporters afterward, McConnell said he hoped Johnson would bring the foreign aid package up for a vote. What I hope is that the House would take up the Senate bill and let the House work its way, he said. If they change it and send it back here, we have further delay. Not only do we not want to shut the government down, we dont want the Russians to win in Ukraine. And so we have a time problem here. And the best way to move quickly and to get the bill to the president would be for the House to take up the Senate bill and pass it, he added. The Republican senator conceded that Johnson could face a motion to vacate the Speakers chair if he angers House conservatives but warned theres no chance he can pass legislation to keep the government funded without Democratic votes. A Senate Republican aide warned a government shutdown would be dumb on policy and political grounds and acknowledged that GOP senators arent sure how Johnson will react to pressure from House conservatives who are pushing to add policy riders that are a non-starter with Democrats, who control the Senate and White House. The aide compared Johnson to a pendulum swinging from one position to another on how to handle the government funding bills. Johnson told reporters after the White House meeting that he is very optimistic about avoiding a shutdown. We have been working in good faith around the clock every single day for months and weeks, and over the last several days, quite literally around the clock to get that job done. Were very optimistic, he said. We believe that we can get to agreement on these issues and prevent a government shutdown, thats our first responsibility. While Johnson told fellow congressional leaders at the White House that he wants to avoid a shutdown and has passed two previous stopgap funding bills with help from Democrats, he has yet to show hes willing to get into a battle with members of the House Freedom Caucus that could wind up costing him his leadership job. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said on the Senate floor Tuesday that the policy riders Freedom Caucus conservatives are trying to add to the spending bills are threatening to derail the legislation before the March 1 and March 8 deadlines. The biggest obstacle right now has been Republican poison pills that were never truly on the table. They were always going to be non-starters, she said. But we have made really good progress on the first few bills, and we can get them done if extreme demands are pushed aside. We cannot let a few far-right extremists derail the basic functioning of government, she added. Top Stories from The Hill Senate Democrats and Republicans as well as House Democrats have become increasingly concerned about Johnsons ability to avoid a shutdown in light of how much difficulty hes faced passing legislation this and last year. The low point for the Speaker came earlier this month when he miscalculated the vote count for two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, which initially failed by a vote of 214 to 216 after three Republicans opposed the measure. Then right after that failure, Johnson couldnt get the votes to pass an $18 billion Israel aid bill, which he tried to advance with a maneuver that allowed him to get around opposition to the bill in his own conference but required two-thirds support. The Speaker was also forced to pull several bills off the House floor last year when it became clear he couldnt muster enough votes in the GOP conference to overcome a procedural hurdle. McConnell warned House Republicans this week that a government shutdown would only hurt their party politically. Shutting down the government is harmful to the country. And it never produces positive outcomes on policy or politics, he declared on the Senate floor Monday. He argued that a shutdown this week is entirely avoidable. After meeting with Johnson at the White House, McConnell expressed cautious optimism a shutdown would be avoided this week. I think its pretty safe to say we all agree we need to avoid a government shutdown. The Speaker was optimistic that theyll be able to move forward first with the four bills, McConnell said. Under no circumstance does anybody want to shut the government down, so I think we can stop that drama right here before it emerges. Were simply not going to do that, he insisted. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. This photo was posted by the Texas A&M Forest Service in Hutchinson County at 4 p.m. Tuesday. At the time, the fire in the Texas Panhandle was estimated at 200,000 acres. It has since grown to 1,075,000 acres. Texas A&M Forest Service The Smokehouse Creek fire in the Texas Panhandle has grown extremely quickly over the past 48 hours and is now the largest wildfire ever to burn across the Lone Star State. An 83-year-old woman died in the blaze, according to the Associated Press. The fire was first reported by the Texas A&M Forest Service around 2:20 p.m. Monday. The fire started near Stinnett in Hutchinson County and was first reported with a size of 40,000 acres. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Throughout the day Tuesday, very strong westerly winds allowed the fire to grow uncontrollably. Sustained winds were between 30 and 45 mph most of the day, and wind gusts rose to 60 mph at times. These winds were the reason why the Smokehouse Fire had grown to 250,000 acres by 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. A cold front blew through the Texas Panhandle on Tuesday evening, which allowed the fire to grow southward through the evening and overnight. Wednesday morning, it was estimated at half a million acres in size. By the afternoon, the wildfire has grown to 850,000 acres. By Thursday morning, the wildfire was an estimated 1,075,000 acres, which is nearly 1,700 square miles. On Friday morning, the Texas A&M Forest Service reported there had been no fire growth in the last 24 hours, and containment has gone up to 15%. The Smokehouse Creek wildfire is the largest in Texas history, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. It surpassed the East Amarillo Complex Fire, which burned more than 900,000 acres in March 2006. That fire burned in a similar location as the Smokehouse Fire, the northeast corner of the Texas Panhandle. Shown is the wildfire perimeter map of the Smokehouse Creek wildfire, which is estimated at 1,075,000 acres in size. Texas A&M Forest Service The Smokehouse fire has now burned more land than all of the states fires in 2023 combined, according to information from the Texas A&M Forest Service. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Smokehouse fire has mainly burned in Hutchinson, Roberts and Hemphill counties. Officials in these counties issued evacuation orders to all residents Tuesday as wildfires raged. In addition, small portions of Carson, Gray and Wheeler counties have also burned. Many structures have burned because of the wildfire. Homes have burned in almost every direction, Hemphill County Judge Lisa Johnson told the Canadian Record, an independent newspaper in Canadian. She also reported that shelters had been established in Childress and Wellington, southeast of Amarillo. On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties in response to the wildfire activity. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A telephone pole burns from the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Canadian, Texas. David Erickson/AP This image taken from Greenville Fire-Rescue's facebook page on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 shows fires in the Texas Panhandle. A fast-moving wildfire burning through the Texas Panhandle grew into the second-largest blaze in state history, forcing evacuations and triggering power outages as firefighters struggled to contain the widening flames. (Greenville Fire-Rescue via AP) Associated Press This image taken from Greenville Fire-Rescue's facebook page on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 shows a fire truck near an active fire in the Texas Panhandle. A fast-moving wildfire burning through the Texas Panhandle grew into the second-largest blaze in state history, forcing evacuations and triggering power outages as firefighters struggled to contain the widening flames. (Greenville Fire-Rescue via AP) AP This image taken from Greenville Fire-Rescue's facebook page on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 shows smoke from a fire in the Texas Panhandle. A fast-moving wildfire burning through the Texas Panhandle grew into the second-largest blaze in state history, forcing evacuations and triggering power outages as firefighters struggled to contain the widening flames. (Greenville Fire-Rescue via AP) AP A helicopter carries a bucket as it flies over homes burned by the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Canadian, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP In this photo provided by the Flower Mound, Texas, Fire Department, Flower Mound firefighters respond to a fire in the Texas Panhandle, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. A rapidly widening Texas wildfire doubled in size Tuesday and prompted evacuation orders in at least one small town. (Flower Mound Fire Department via AP) AP In this photo provided by the Flower Mound, Texas, Fire Department, Flower Mound firefighters respond to a fire in the Texas Panhandle, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. A rapidly widening Texas wildfire doubled in size Tuesday and prompted evacuation orders in at least one small town. (Flower Mound Fire Department via AP) Associated Press Smoke rises from smoldering hay bales outside the town of Canadian, Texas on Wednesday, Feb 28, 2024. A fast-moving wildfire burning through the Texas Panhandle grew into the second-largest blaze in state history Wednesday, forcing evacuations and triggering power outages as firefighters struggled to contain the widening flames. (AP Photo/Sean Murphy) Sean Murphy/Associated Press Fire officials from Lubbock, Texas, help put out smoldering debris of a home destroyed by the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Stinnett, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP A fire official from Lubbock, Texas, helps put out smoldering debris of a home destroyed by the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Stinnett, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP An animal hangs from a barbed wire fence as snow covers a field burned by the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Stinnett, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP Snow covers a charred vehicle on a property destroyed by the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Stinnett, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP Firefighters work through rubble of burned homes from the Smokehouse Creek fire in Stinnett, Texas on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. A wildfire spreading across the Texas Panhandle became the largest in state history Thursday, as a dusting of snow covered scorched prairie, dead cattle and burned out homes and gave firefighters a brief window of relief in desperate efforts to corral the blaze. Ty O'Neil /AP A U.S. flag waves in the wind in front of a home destroyed by the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Stinnett, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP A charred vehicle sits on the driveway of a home destroyed by the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, in Stinnett, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP Snow covers a home that was destroyed by the Smokehouse Creek fire in Stinnett, Texas on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. The wildfire spreading across the Texas Panhandle became the largest in state history Thursday, as a dusting of snow covered scorched grassland, dead cattle and burned out homes and gave firefighters a brief window of relief in desperate efforts to corral the blaze. Ty O'Neil/AP A vehicle rides northbound on Highway 83 near a charred area burned by the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Canadian, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP Smoke billows on a field near a windmill during the Smokehouse Creek Fire, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Canadian, Texas. Julio Cortez/AP This satellite color infrared image provided by Maxar Technologies shows an active fire line and burn scars from the Smokehouse Creek wildfire west of Miami, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Burned vegetation appears in shades of black/grey and healthy, not burned, vegetation appears in shades of red/pink. The flames blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches. (Maxar Technologies via AP) AP A burned car rests near the charred remains of a home outside of Canadian, Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, after a wildfire passed. A fast-moving wildfire burning through the Texas Panhandle grew into the second-largest blaze in state history Wednesday, forcing evacuations and triggering power outages as firefighters struggled to contain the widening flames. Sean Murphy/AP Firefighters dose a burning grass Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, after a wildfire passed near Canadian, Texas. A fast-moving wildfire burning through the Texas Panhandle grew into the second-largest blaze in state history Wednesday, forcing evacuations and triggering power outages as firefighters struggled to contain the widening flames. Sean Murphy/AP In this image provided by Texas A&M Forest Service, heavy equipment works to contain the Juliet Pass Fire in Armstrong County, Texas, on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024. (Chloe Lake/Texas A&M Forest Service via AP) Chloe Lake/AP The state of Texas stands ready to provide support to our local partners and deploy all resources needed to protect our fellow Texans and their property, the declaration stated. Theres some good news The strong winds over the past couple of days have been the main culprit that allowed the Smokehouse Fire to spread so rapidly. The winds subsided on Wednesday, as speeds fell to 5 to 10 mph for most of the day. This allowed firefighters to increase containment from 0% to 3%. The lighter winds were welcome news to the Texas A&M Forest Service. In a post on the social media platform X, they reported that fire behavior has moderated with decreased winds, but it is still actively burning. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Russia has rehearsed using tactical nuclear weapons at an early stage of conflict with a major world power, the Financial Times reported on Feb. 28, citing leaked military files that include training scenarios for an invasion by China. The cache consists of 29 secret Russian military files drawn up between 2008 and 2014, including scenarios for war-gaming and presentations for naval officers, which discuss operating principles for the use of nuclear weapons. Read also: US Congress warned of serious national security threat linked to Russia This is the first time that we have seen documents like this reported in the public domain, said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result cant be achieved through conventional means. Although the files date back 10 years or more, experts claim they remain relevant to current Russian military doctrine. The defensive plans expose deeply held suspicions of China among Moscows security elite even, as Putin began forging an alliance with Beijing, which as early as 2001 included a nuclear no-first-strike agreement. Read also: West does not fully understand threat of Russian nuclear terrorism, Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy says Yet even as the countries became closer, the training materials show Russias eastern military district was rehearsing multiple scenarios depicting a Chinese invasion. One exercise outlining a hypothetical attack by China notes that Russia, dubbed the Northern Federation for the purpose of the war game, could respond with a tactical nuclear strike in order to stop the South from advancing with a second wave of invading forces. The order has been given by the Commander-in-Chief. . . to use nuclear weapons. . . in the event the enemy deploys second-echelon units and the South threatens to attack further in the direction of the main strike, the document said. Read also: UK Royal Navy plans nuclear weapons test amidst atlantic deployment A separate training presentation for naval officers, unrelated to the China war games, outlines broader criteria for a potential nuclear strike, including an enemy landing on Russian territory, the defeat of units responsible for securing border areas, or an imminent enemy attack using conventional weapons. The slides summarize the threshold as a combination of factors where losses suffered by Russian forces would irrevocably lead to their failure to stop major enemy aggression, which would be a critical situation for the state security of Russia. Other potential conditions include the destruction of 20 per cent of Russias strategic ballistic missile submarines, 30 per cent of its nuclear-powered attack submarines, three or more cruisers, three airfields, or a simultaneous hit on main and reserve coastal command centers. Russias military is also expected to use tactical nuclear weapons for a broad array of goals, including containing states from using aggression [] or escalating military conflicts, stopping aggression, preventing Russian forces from losing battles or territory, and making Russias navy more effective. Were bringing the voice of Ukraine to the world. Support us with a one-time donation, or become a Patron! Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine For many people, COVID-19 can be a relatively mild infection. For many others, it is not. For someone who is living with so-called long COVID, in which the symptoms last for months or even years, it can contain a litany of debilitating symptoms from extreme fatigue to heart problems. For Angela Meriquez Vazquez, a long COVID patient and advocate, "brain fog" is one of the most disabling symptoms. The condition is exactly what it sounds like: a cloudy feeling in the mind that can make it difficult to focus or remember. It's one of many ways in which the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID can impact the brain and alter perception. Prior to getting infected with COVID-19 in March 2020, Vazquez said she was decent at multitasking. For example, she could write an email about one topic and engage in a verbal conversation about another topic at the same time. But today, she struggles to maintain focus and attention on phone calls. She tells Salon she is now bad at multitasking. And on days where she is really struggling, she has to turn on closed captioning on Zoom to follow along with the conversation. While I dont think my performance has suffered appreciably, I now spend a majority of my daily energy managing my executive function and pacing my cognitive exertion,Vazquez told Salon via email. Things that my brain used to do automatically and with ease. Brain fog is a term used to describe a range of neurocognitive symptoms, which can include forgetfulness and difficulties focusing, and paying attention like what Vazquez described. While its been reported to be a symptom during an acute COVID-19 infection, an estimated 50 percent of patients who experience long COVID experience brain fog, which is so insidious in part due to the broad range of symptoms it encompasses. For this reason, it can often be a symptom thats not taken seriously by doctors or others. But as Vazquez explained, it can affect life on a daily basis and be one of the most difficult parts of living with long-COVID. Recent research in the journal Nature Neuroscience suggests we're one step closer to the cause behind brain fog in long COVID patients, specifically "leakiness" of the blood-brain barrier in conjunction with an overactive immune system. It is the first time scientists have found evidence that this debilitating symptom is due to underlying changes in the brain. It could also be the first step to a possible treatment. Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes. We and others have been searching for a possible remedy for the leaky blood-brain barrier, Dr. Colin Doherty, one of the studys coauthors, who is a neurology professor and head of the school of medicine at Trinity College, told Salon via email. One target is a protein called Claudin-5 which makes up the most important element of the glue or scaffolding that keeps the barrier together. Prior research indicated that blood-brain barrier disruption could be causing brain fog. But this provides the first biological evidence. In the study, researchers analyzed blood samples to identify biomarker differences between those who did and didn't report brain fog. Specifically, they took blood samples from 76 patients who were hospitalized with acute COVID in 2020. They found that those who reported having brain fog had higher levels of a protein called S100 beta, which is produced by brain cells but is not normally found in the blood, hence suggesting a leaky barrier in the brain. In the second part of their study, researchers scanned the brains of 11 people who recovered from COVID and 22 people who had long COVID half of which reported having brain fog. By examining brain circulation, they found that long COVID patients with brain fog had a leaky blood-brain barrier when compared to other long COVID patients who had recovered. When we scanned these patients and measured the levels of a molecule called s-100Beta a brain-derived molecule that can only get into the blood if the barrier is damaged and compared the scans and S100beta levels to patients who had had acute COVID but had fully recovered, Doherty said. The barrier was very leaky and obviously damaged, especially in areas like the temporal lobe which is essential for learning and memory. Doherty emphasized that by identifying this biomarker in blood, it could help pave the way for testing and treating brain fog in long-COVID patients. Its an important finding because the medical community has been split between those who did not believe that long COVID was a real disorder and those who were desperate to find a reliable biomarker, he said. We believe this could be that biomarker. Matthew Campbell, co-author of the study and a professor in genetics and head of genetics at Trinity College Dublin, told Salon via email that therapies aimed at regulating the integrity of the blood-brain barrier should be considered and tested as a potential treatment. There are some drugs such as steroids and losartan that have the capacity to do this, he said. But newer, more targeted developmental drugs might have better efficacy. In regards to next steps, he said researchers need to increase the numbers of people involved in this work and keep testing. The MRI study we reported was small, but suggestive that if we expand to larger numbers of patients we will see the same signals, he said. So, the biomarker that we have identified will have use for diagnosis but also for clinical trials as we can use it as an indicator that a potential drug has biological efficacy. Just in case you haven't heard yet, it's a Leap Year and that means sales. That's right! The extra day in February created to keep the calendar functioning (because technically, the Earth's orbit around the sun and the Earth's rotation on its axis aren't in sync, making a year 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds) has the extra perk of being an excuse for retailers to offer deals. On this Thursday, Feb. 29, here are some of the leap year deals in Rhode Island. Chipotle offering free side of guacamole on Feb. 29 Chipotle told USA TODAY it is offering Rewards members a free side of guac on Thursday for orders placed online or via the app. Burger King offers free Whopper through March 1 From now through March 1, customers can get a free Whopper or Impossible Whopper from Burger King with a $3 or more purchase in the BK app, the company told USA TODAY. From now through March 1, customers can get a free Whopper or Impossible Whopper from Burger King with a $3 or more purchase in the BK app, the company told USA TODAY. Taco Bell 2/29 deal Taco Bell, the Mexican American fast-food chain, is having a Leap Day deal for the popular Supreme Crunchwrap and the vegetarian option the Black Bean Crunchwrap Supreme. The Crunchwraps usually cost $5.29 each but on Feb. 29 the price is lowered to $2.29. The deal is limited to one per customer. This Leap Day deal is only available on the Taco Bell app which can be downloaded on both Android devices and Apple devices. Get a free Cinnabon Pull-Apart order from Wendy's on Leap Day On Leap Day, Feb. 29, customers can get a free Cinnabon Pull-Apart at their local Wendy's restaurant during breakfast hours, while supplies last. Wendy's said customers can get one per vehicle in the drive-thru or one per dining room transaction. The item, a new collaboration with Cinnabon, is now available at Wendy's restaurants nationwide during breakfast hours. Taking the leap: Learning to drive before their 5th birthday? The story of two RI girls who took a leap. $29 twin lobster deal Legal Sea Foods is offering a Leap Year deal. Legal Sea Foods is celebrating the extra 24 hours with a $29 lobster for two on Thursday, Feb. 29. Customers can get this deal while supply lasts. This deal is only available through dine-in and not with online ordering, and it excludes airport locations. Perdue offering discount on orders $99 or more In honor of Leap Day on Feb. 29, Perdue is offering a 29% discount on any purchase of $99 or more on PerdueFarms.com using the code Leap29 from Thursday, Feb. 22 through Thursday, Feb. 29, the company told USA TODAY. Hooters offers appetizers for $2.29 on Feb. 29 HootClub Rewards loyalty members with the app downloaded and a Hooters restaurant location favorited will receive an automatic reward to redeem one select appetizer for $2.29 per loyalty account. According to Hooters, the appetizers offered in the promotion include cheese sticks, fried pickles, chips & queso, lots-a-tots, cheese & pretzels or an order of 12 buffalo shrimp. HootClub Rewards loyalty members can activate their reward in-restaurant by tapping the orange redeem button on the reward and providing a Hooters Girl with the 7-digit number, the company told USA TODAY. Customers can also redeem the reward online by selecting "redeem offer" on the payment screen. Dine-in guests can also enjoy $2.29 Corona Extra beer and take part in an opportunity to enter to win a trip to the Tortuga Music Festival in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The festival takes place April 5-7. Leap into the Great Wolf Lodge Great Wolf Lodge, the national resort and indoor water park, is offering a starting rate of $29 per person only on Leap Day. The one-day-only deal requires at least three guests per family suite. This deal can be used for resort stays between Leap Day through Thursday, June 13. Staples giving away 29,000 free passport photos on Leap Day Staples is giving away 29,000 passport photos nationwide on Thursday in honor of the extra day, the company told USA TODAY. Additionally, it is offering 29x the points on select travel and office essentials through the new Staples Easy Rewards program. The program offers 1 point per $1 spent on qualifying purchases and exclusive access to special savings events and member-only offers every day, among other benefits, according to the company. Contributing: Gabe Hauari, Olivia Munson & Janet Loehrke, USA TODAY This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Leap Year Deals RI 2024: Where to get free food and discounts 2/29 WELLINGTON, Kan. (KSNW) The Kansas Turnpike Authority and Wellington Area Chamber of Commerce/CVB will host a Chamber Coffee for residents to learn about the new cashless tolling system. The new system, which will be fully operational by July, uses license plate scanners and K-TAG readers for those who have them installed in their vehicles. The system eliminates the need to stop and prevents traffic congestion during peak travel times. Watch: Distracted driver nearly hits Kansas Highway Patrol trooper head-on Coffee and donuts will be provided by No. 7 Coffee and Daylight Donuts. There will also be a giveaway for those who attend. The Chamber Coffee will start at 10 a.m. Thursday at Wellington Memorial Auditorium. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV. Shown is the 24-hour temperature change from 3 p.m. Tuesday to 3 p.m. Wednesday. Most of Texas will see temperatures drop between 20 and 30 degrees. WeatherBELL The past few days have definitely not felt like February across the Lone Star State. Widespread temperatures in the 80s and 90s gave Texas its first taste of summer heat, a few months ahead of schedule. EARLY START TO SUMMER: This Texas city has already hit 100 degrees in 2024. Advertisement Article continues below this ad If youre not ready for the heat to take over completely, dont worry. A strong cold front will surge quickly through the state on Wednesday morning. Temperatures by Wednesday afternoon will be 20 to 30 degrees cooler than they were just 24 hours ago. Heres a closer look at exactly how low temperatures will drop. Wednesdays temperatures The cold front would have quickly moved across North Texas overnight, reaching San Antonio between 5 and 8 a.m. early Wednesday. Temperatures will start in the mid-50s in San Antonio during the morning, but theyll struggle to rise much throughout the day. Afternoon high temperatures are expected to top out between 60 and 62 degrees in the Alamo City. Wind speeds will also be very strong from the morning through the afternoon, coming in at 20 to 30 mph. Some wind gusts could reach 40 mph, especially in the morning. Wind speeds will drop to less than 20 mph after 6 p.m. Shown are expected temperatures at 2 p.m. Wednesday, according to the HRRR weather model. Much of the state will be in the 50s, but San Antonio is likely to reach the low 60s. Pivotal Weather San Antonio will actually be one of the warmer spots in Texas by Wednesday afternoon. Most cities in Texas will see highs only reach the 50s. For a few spots, thats going to be 40 degrees colder than just two days ago. Dallas, for instance, is expecting an afternoon high temperature of 54 degrees on Wednesday. On Monday, the city recorded a record high of 94 degrees. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Temperatures continue to drop late Wednesday night and into Thursday morning. Thats when San Antonio, along with much of the state, will see temperatures drop into the 40s. A few areas from the Panhandle and into West Texas will see temperatures bottom out in the 30s, but the vast majority of Texas will stay above freezing. Shown are expected low temperatures Wednesday night through Thursday morning across Texas. Temps in most cities will drop into the 40s. Pivotal Weather Chilly Thursday expected After the chilly morning, temperatures will be slow to rise once again on Thursday. San Antonio will stay under cloudy skies with a slight chance of drizzle or very light rain in the morning and early afternoon. However, rainfall totals, if any, will stay extremely light. Temperatures will only make it to the low 50s by Thursday afternoon, which is 15 to 20 degrees below average for the last day of February. If youre a cold weather fan, get outside and enjoy it because the next warm-up will come fast. Advertisement Article continues below this ad More 80-degree temperatures? Spring-like weather will return to South Texas as early as Friday, which is the first day of meteorological spring (the calendar months of March, April and May). High temperatures will reach the low to mid-70s under mostly sunny skies to end the work week. Even warmer weather is expected over the weekend, and many weather models now expect 80-degree temperatures to return to San Antonio both Saturday and Sunday. Along with low temps in the middle to upper 50s, it will be spectacular weather to be outside all weekend long. Moving forward into early next week, the next cold front will be possible in San Antonio by Monday or Tuesday. Temperatures are not expected to fall substantially. However, showers and thunderstorms will be possible. Its too early to tell just how big the effects will be in San Antonio, but potentially a few strong storms could emerge. A group of Democrats who started a movement in opposition to President Biden's support for Israel's war in Gaza sent a clear message in the Michigan primary, exceeding the amount of votes the group was aiming for and complicating the key battleground state ahead of this year's general election. "Yesterday was a resounding victory," Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who joined the "Listen to Michigan" movement, said during a news conference Wednesday claiming victory for the movement. The comments come following the movement's push to have Democratic voters select "uncommitted" in Tuesday's Democratic primary surpassed the group's expectations, with just over 101,000 people selecting the option, according to Associated Press numbers as of Wednesday afternoon. That mark was more than 10 times the group's stated goal, which was to get 10,000 people, or roughly the same as the margin of victory in the 2016 election in the state, to select the option. POLL SHOWS BIDEN'S LEAD OVER TRUMP SHRINKING IN 2024 MATCHUP AS CONCERNS OVER PHYSICAL FITNESS GROW President Joe Biden and Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. Despite the apparent resounding success, Biden easily captured the state and gained 115 delegates while hauling in over 81% of the vote, further solidifying his grasp on the nomination and setting up a likely rematch with former President Donald Trump in November. "I want to thank every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great," Biden said in a statement after the Michigan victory while warning that there is "much left to do" to defeat Trump in November. "Youve heard me say many times its never a good bet to bet against the United States of America. Its never a good bet to bet against Michiganders either. This fight for our freedoms, for working families, and for Democracy is going to take all of us coming together. I know that we will." READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP Meanwhile, Listen to Michigan supporters have warned they are willing to continue growing the movement ahead of the general election, a potential headache for the Biden campaign in a battleground state that has seen close margins in the last two presidential elections. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. JAMES CARVILLE FRETS OVER 'UNCOMMITTED' PROTEST VOTE AGAINST BIDEN IN MICHIGAN: 'HUGE PROBLEM' Reached for comment by Fox News Digital, a Biden campaign spokesperson noted that the share of uncommitted votes, 11%, was actually in line with the previous time an incumbent was on the ballot in the state in a Democratic primary, which was during the 2012 re-election campaign of Former President Barack Obama. Nevertheless, the spokesperson stressed that the campaign is still working hard to earn the votes of holdouts and will continue working towards peace in Gaza. But the movement started by Listen to Michigan may not be in Biden's rearview mirror after Michigan, with the group saying activists in future primary states have reached out about joining the cause. "Two of the states where organizers have reached out specifically are Minnesota and Washington State," a Listen to Michigan spokesperson said during Wednesday's news conference. "We have our eye on those states and are ready to have conversations with anybody organizing for an anti-war future." The organization has also brushed off suggestions that it may at least indirectly help Trump regain the presidency, arguing that it is up to Biden to earn their votes. "We are not electing Donald Trump. President Biden is the one seeking the highest office, and he is the candidate who's facing off against Donald Trump," Hammoud said. "He has to earn the votes of the constituency that he's trying to serve." Original article source: 'Listen to Michigan' protesters exceed expectations, send message to Biden in key battleground state DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said a Lithonia man was convicted of killing his mother almost four years ago. According to the DAs office, Antonio Williams was arrested for stabbing his mother to death in March 2020. He was charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a knife during the commission of a felony. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Investigative details from the DeKalb County Police Department, cited by the DA, said officers responded to a call about a person down at a house on White Oak Loop in Lithonia on March 5, 2020. Police said when they arrived, Williams was found sitting in front of the garage and told them hed been released from Grady Memorial Hospital and found his mother unresponsive when he got home. Williams told police he went to a neighbors house and called 911, and told the neighbor that he needed help because his mother had fainted. Terri Alexander, his 49-year-old mother, was found on the garage floor with a sheet covering her body with numerous stab wounds, according to the DAs office. She was cold to the touch. TRENDING STORIES: The DA said officers found dried blood throughout the house and a bloody chefs knife in Alexanders bedroom along with more dried blood, bloody towels, black trash bags and empty bleach bottles. Bloody shoes were found in Williams bathroom as well as a bathtub filled with water, the DAs office said. In the garage, officers found firewood, lighter fluid, and charcoal near Alexanders body and in a car parked inside. A burn hole was in the sheet covering the victim, according to the DAs office. Investigation of the incident revealed that on Feb. 25, 2020, the DKDPD Mobile Crisis Unit had gone to the incident location, where Defendant Williams and his mother had been arguing about him not cleaning the bathroom. Defendant Williams was transported to Gradys mental health unit after it was discovered he was not taking his medications as prescribed. The DAs office said records showed Williams was released from the hospital on the morning of March 4, 2020, while Alexanders phone showed she had gone to Grady the same day after receiving multiple calls from the hospital. Then, the phone showed travel to a store before returning home. The DAs office said the phone was not unlocked again until after 2:07 p.m. on March 4, 2020. A DeKalb County jury convicted Williams on charges of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, aggravated assault and possessing a knife while committing a felony. Now convicted, Williams will have a sentencing hearing in the coming weeks, according to the DAs office. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: The Lithuanian government has agreed to additionally allocate EUR 326,000 for support for the refugees from Ukraine. Source: TV3 media outlet Details: EUR 304,000 will be spent in February 2024. Among them are EUR 160,000 for stationery social guidance, EUR 130,000 for one-time assistance for settling in a municipality and as compensation for a childs education, and EUR 14,000 for institutional social care. EUR 21,861 more will be allocated to compensate for the expenditures on the accommodation of Ukrainians incurred by the Republican Vilnius University Hospital in October-December 2023. Background: Lithuania provides Ukrainian refugees with temporary protection status. It gives them the right to education, medical insurance and permanent residence for one year, with the possibility of prolongation to the term of three years, access to the labour market and social aid. As of March 2023, around 42,000 Ukrainian refugees were registered in Lithuania. Support UP or become our patron! Lithuania plans to screen 18,000 Belarusians who came to the country before 2022 and require them to fill out a questionnaire that asks, among other questions, their view on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Migration Department Director Evelina Gudzinskaite told Lithuanian news agency ELTA on Feb. 27. The questionnaire has been required since November 2022 for all Russians and Belarusians moving to Lithuania. Lithuania's population of 2.8 million includes 224,800 foreigners, including 62,500 Belarusians. Thousands of Belarusians fled to Lithuania after Alexander Lukashenko's regime cracked down on pro-democracy protesters following the 2020 presidential elections, which were widely condemned as fraudulent. Vilnius is a 2.5-hour drive from Minsk, making it the closest European capital for many in Belarus. The answers of the 18,000 Belarusians who have not yet filled out the questionnaire will be assessed, and if "negative information" is found, the State Security Department will be consulted for a further decision, Gudzinskaite said. If the State Security Department "concludes that the person is a threat to state security, the residence permit will be revoked." "If a person does not answer the questionnaire, it will be interpreted against them," Gudzinskaite said. According to New Eastern Europe, the questionnaire is not publicly available, but asks respondents to indicate who they believe Crimea belongs to, among other questions. As a result of answers in the questionnaire, so far 1,644 Belarusians and 397 Russians were deemed to pose a threat to Lithuanias national security, Baltic news site Delfi reported. From March, only two border crossings between Lithuania and Belarus will be operational, after Vilnius announced on Feb. 21 that two checkpoints will be closed. Lithuania previously shut down two of its six border crossings in August 2023. "This decision was also determined by the risks associated with the increased activities of the Belarusian intelligence and security services against Lithuania and our citizens," Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite said. Read also: Belarusian opposition working to create alternative passport, safeguard exiles from Lukashenko regime Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. As Western countries look for ways to further help Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis suggests they should consider French President Emmanuel Macron's idea of allied boots on the ground in Ukraine. Source: Landsbergis on Twitter, as reported by European Pravda Quote: "Europes fate is being decided on the battlefields of Ukraine. Times like these require political leadership, ambition, and courage to think out of the box. The initiative behind the Paris meeting yesterday is well worth considering." Details: European leaders' discussion of support for Ukraine through the possible deployment of Western ground forces to its territory is a signal to Russia, Neeme Vali, Estonian Major General in the Reserve, stated. After a meeting in Paris on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that Western troops might be sent to Ukraine in the future, although he stressed that there is currently no consensus among the allies on this issue. France later clarified that the participation of foreign troops in the fighting was not on the table. At the same time, a range of European nations and NATO have stressed that they have no plans to send troops to Ukraine. Support UP or become our patron! LITTLE ROCK, Ark. The Little Rock Police Department is investigating a Tuesday afternoon shooting near a liquor store. According to LRPD dispatch logs, there was a call for a shooting at Aces & Kings Liquor at 6821 Colonel Glenn Road around 4 p.m. Authorities said a person was shot and taken to a local hospital. Video from the scene shows at least five marked LRPD patrol vehicles responding to the incident. No victim or suspect information has been released at this time. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KARK. An active-duty US Air Force personnel who reportedly immolated himself outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC succumbed to his injuries and died Monday night, Feb. 26. The airman who set himself on fire has since been identified as 25-year-old Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell of San Antonio, Texas, the Metropolitan Police Department said. A person familiar with the incident told the Associated Press that Bushnell walked up to the embassy shortly before 13:00 on Sunday, Eastern time (18:00 UTC, Feb. 25) and began livestreaming on the video streaming platform Twitch. During the stream, he declared - while wearing his uniform - that he would "no longer be complicit in genocide." After this, he doused himself in accelerant and ignited the flames. Twitch later removed the video from the platform, but not before law enforcement officials were able to obtain and review a copy. A law enforcement official also told reporters that investigators believed that Bushnell had been staying at a Travelodge in Silver Spring, Maryland, which was searched Monday by federal agents. Both individuals told AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of the ongoing investigation publicly. Read Also: Biden Hopes To Achieve Gaza Ceasefire, Hostage Deal in Israel-Hamas War by Next Monday USAF: Bushnell Worked on Cyber Defense Ops According to the US Air Force, Bushnell was a cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio. He has served on active duty since May 2020. "When a tragedy like this occurs, every member of the Air Force feels it," Air Force Col. Celina Noyes, commander of the 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing, said. "We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Senior Airman Bushnell." Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protesters held a vigil outside the Israeli embassy building on Monday night. The incident happened as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking cabinet approval for a military operation in the southern Gazan city of Rafah while a truce deal was being negotiated, which has since been received by Hamas for review. However, Israel's military offensive in Gaza has drawn criticisms, including genocide claims against the Palestinians. Israeli officials have adamantly denied the genocide allegations, claiming that it has carried out operations in accordance with international law in the Israel-Hamas War. Bushnell was the second person to self-immolate after another person did so outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta last December. A Palestinian flag was found at the scene, and the act was considered an "extreme political protest." Related Article: US Airman in Critical Condition After Setting Himself on Fire Outside Israeli Embassy in Washington High levels of community violence, like a January shooting at Sacramentos Grant High School, can weigh upon youth over time, affecting how their brains detect and respond to threats and even cause long-term mental health challenges, new research has found. The challenge of helping kids overcome stressors often falls to their parents, placing a heavy burden on adults who may be struggling with broader societal inequities, said Luke Hyde, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan who co-authored the study. We shouldnt keep expecting parents to fix big societal problems, Hyde said. Exposure to community violence, he explained, can be the result of concentrated disadvantages that stem from past practices such as race covenants that limited where people of color could buy homes and redlining by bankers who refused to make loans in their neighborhoods. Local leaders must continue working to find solutions that will reduce the concentration of disadvantage in neighborhoods and the risk for exposure to violence in the community, said Hyde and his study co-author, Michigan State University researcher Alex Burt. This might sound like a lofty goal, but both academic researchers and family advocates offered up some practical strategies to decrease crime and improve opportunity. For instance, Hyde said, mixed-income neighborhoods help to balance the scales for parents who have limited financial resources. These neighborhoods, which include affordable housing options, have been shown to have low rates of violent crime; a reduction in environmental hazards; and more equitable access to employment opportunities, public transit, financial services and more. Planning and design can be used to really help teens deal with the impact of violence on their life, said Patsy Eubanks Owens, a professor of landscape architecture and environmental design at UC Davis. She has spent 40 years looking at how physical environments can nurture the development, health and well-being of youth, and shes enlisted youth in design decision making. One thing shes learned is that they love being able to connect with nature, escape or decompress in it, she said. It could be as simple as a view of a tree or a spot away from the hubbub of traffic where they can admire the sky. How to make outdoor spaces feel safe As teens travel their neighborhood, visual cues can signal whether theyre safe and welcome in a place, Owens said. In West Sacramento, the city had planted flowers along West Capitol Avenue, Owens said. One teen saw itas validation that someone really cared about that space. Other teens noted that it doesnt look or feel safe when streets and sidewalks are littered with broken glass and trash. Many communities have a tendency to push teenagers, in particular, aside, Owens said. We dont want to see them. We think that theyre causing trouble, that theyre up to no good, and if we do try to design a place for them, we put it somewhere out of view. In West Sacramento, there was a park with a playground for children and a sign that prohibited anyone older than 14 from using it, Owens said. These age limits make teens feel unwanted and leave them without a place to socialize. The goal should also be to make outdoor spaces for teenagers feel safe, Owens said, so they should be in the open where residents can see the groups but set back from high-traffic areas such as streets, playgrounds or bike trails. Parents cant be the only defense against violence Christine Stoner-Mertz, the CEO of the California Alliance of Child & Family Services, said communities should adopt policies and invest in programs that will strengthen broader family cohesion and build a support network for both parents and children. Many neighborhoods have nonprofits and schools offering free or low-cost safe spaces where children and youth can go after classes or over summer break, Stoner-Mertz said. Most of these programs are also aimed at helping students improve their academic performance, she said, and they also may offer classes in how to improve parenting skills or tips to better advocate for children in schools. Parents have so many stressors, particularly if theyre living in poverty, Stoner-Mertz said. Youre not just trying to manage the sort of basic safety issues, but youre also trying to manage working two or three jobs, making sure basic needs are met and housing is met, Stoner-Mertz said. She recalled how, starting in 1969, the Black Panthers built community solidarity in the Oakland area with a campaign to provide free breakfast to thousands of hungry children ahead of school. Biographies and history books now recount how Black Panther outposts around the nation marshaled volunteers to develop healthy food options, raise money to buy ingredients and then cook the meals. After a recent parent meeting one evening at Roberts Family Development Center in North Sacramento, the staff and volunteers had a meal ready for participants to take home for their families. The nonprofit provides academic wraparound services to children around the region and, as an incubator for the Black Child Legacy Campaign, works to reduce the disproportionate number of deaths among African-American children in Sacramento. In late May 2023, Derrell Roberts, co-founder of the nonprofit, was marveling that, for the first school year in some time, his neighborhood had gone without a shooting associated with Grant High School. Then a few days later, he said, he got news that 18-year-old Billy Ray Scott had been killed. Before the Sacramento County Coroners Office identified Scott as the youth who had been killed, a Sacramento Bee article noted last year, students wore T-shirts dedicated to his memory a day after the shooting at Grants commencement. Money to sponsor senior trip went to funeral instead RFDC had paid to sponsor Scott on his senior trip and instead donated the money toward his funeral, Roberts said. The community continues to confront the challenge of containing violence. Early this year, Grant High was put on lockdown after an on-campus shooting injured a 17-year-old student. Roberts said the Grant High community, and others like it, need local leadership committed to confronting the challenge and a dedicated annual investment to accomplish goals. Nonprofits are often doing the work to help stabilize families offering low-cost, high-quality child care, help with food security and other essential needs, giving parents the tools to strengthen the protective factors for their individual families, said Stoner-Mertz. When parents are wondering how they will pay the rent or buy school supplies, it can be difficult to provide the level of nurturance needed to help children overcome the impact of community violence in their lives, Hyde said. Some parents, however, succeeded. They did so by regularly doing things like asking their children to share their concerns and experiences, making time to do things with their kids, keeping tabs on where their children spent their time and comforting them when they felt discouraged, Hyde said. As parents do this work, researchers said, communities must identify and try a variety of neighborhood-level interventions and strategies to protect children. Being exposed to any violence is bad for kids, Hyde said, and ... we can do things as society to help decrease their exposure by making neighborhoods more diverse and by not concentrating disadvantage in small places because thats what ends up concentrating violence exposure for kids, Nine Charlotte-area day-care centers are suing LJ Schools Carolina Inc. for more than $6 million, so alleging breach of contract related to a purchase agreement. That lawsuit was filed in Mecklenburg County Superior Court on Feb. 20. ALSO READ: Plaza Midwood daycare shut down by state after child neglect allegations Early learning centers included in the court action include: Child Care Inc. in Mooresville; Early Childhood Services Inc., South Point Child Development LLC, and Monroe Road Child Development Center LLC in Charlotte; Child Development Inc. in Gastonia; Child Learning Programs Inc., also known as Child Learning Program Inc., in Fort Mill; Sam Newell Child Development LLC in Matthews; and Ruben Linker Development Center LLC in Concord. Those day-care centers entered into a purchase agreement with LJ Schools in December 2020. It was amended in September 2021. Read more here. VIDEO: Plaza Midwood daycare shut down by state after child neglect allegations On Monday President Biden announced on a Michigan radio station that the state is "one of the five states" that would determine a winner in November, reports the Associated Press. More than 310,000 residents of the state are of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Additionally, nearly half of them are living in Dearborn, Michigan where 110,000 residents claim Arab ancestry. Michigan has been a hotbed of Democratic discontent with how the White House has been dealing with the Israeli-Hamas war. Current estimates are that Israel has killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians in its fight against Hamas. Most of them have been women and children, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run Health Ministry. One of the primary criticisms against Biden is that he supported the Israeli ground offensive and that he resisted calls for a ceasefire for too long before finally relenting. Members of the "uncommitted" group of Democrats wish for voters to select that category during the primary in protest of how the Biden administration has dealt with this international crisis. Many believe he has been too supportive of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The efforts have been backed by Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress, and former Rep. Andy Levin, who lost a Democratic primary two years ago after pro-Israel groups spent more than $4 million to defeat him. But What About Donald Trump Although Donald Trump is dominating in his bid to gain the GOP nomination for president, there are still a significant number of Michigan Republicans who favor Nikki Haley, his lone remaining GOP opposition. Some are also skeptical that Trump will be able to defeat Joe Biden in an election. Both Biden's record on Israel-Hamas and Donald Trump's perceived inability to defeat Biden, as well as looming legal issues, will all be put to the test during the Michigan primaries. Michigan is the last major primary state before Super Tuesday and will also be a critical swing state in November during the general election. Biden only won the state by 3 percentage points during the last election. KENNEBUNK, Maine A local funeral home is denying allegations it mishandled the remains of a couples late infant daughter and added to their grief and trauma by inflicting emotional distress. Corrina and Raymond Korzeb, of Sanford, are accusing Bibber Memorial at Autumn Green in Alfred of letting their daughter, Emma, decompose in the time leading up to a private viewing ceremony on Feb. 17, 2023, leaving them shocked, horrified and unable to recognize their child. Bibber Memorial Chapel, of Summer Street in Kennebunk, owns the Alfred location and is named as the defendant in a complaint that attorney Travis Brennan, who is representing the Korzebs, filed in York County Superior Court in January. Emma Korzeb In a statement on Feb. 28, Attorney Jeffrey Russell responded to the allegations on behalf of his client. "The Bibber family has served their community as funeral directors since 1938 and has maintained a sterling reputation since then," Russell said. "Until this case, they had received nothing but praise from the families they have helped. Out of respect for the Korzeb family, which suffered the devastating loss of their daughter, and due to the pending litigation, all we can say is that the allegations in the complaint and subsequent news stories do not square with what we know to be true. As a result, we plan to defend this case vigorously." The complaint accuses the funeral home of negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract. The couple is seeking punitive damages. In a response dated Feb. 13, Russell and fellow attorney Alexander Read denied the allegations in the complaint and asked the court to rule in the funeral homes favor or dismiss the case altogether. Russell and Read said their clients conduct conformed with, or was even in excess of, industry standards and legal requirements. They stated that Bibber Memorial at Autumn Green had performed services for the Korzebs as requested or promised. Funeral home accused of negligence in lawsuit According to the complaint, the childs body had been brought to Bibber Memorial at Autumn Green four days before the viewing. When the Korzebs arrived for that viewing, their daughters body allegedly was in a state of decomposition, grotesque and unrecognizable. Initially, Corrina did not believe the body was that of her daughter, Brennan wrote in the complaint. Corrina and Ray had to confirm that the body they were viewing was in fact the body of their daughter, Emma. The complaint includes graphic details of the childs alleged state of decomposition and alleges the Korzebs were forced to change their plans for an open-casket memorial service. The complaint alleges the agents and employees of Bibber Memorial Chapel were not sufficiently qualified, experienced, trained, supervised and/or resourced to provide competent handling, preparation, embalming, storage, and cremation of bodies. The complaint also alleges the Bibber employees knew the infant girls body showed significant signs of decomposition, and knew her surviving parents were emotionally vulnerable, and proceeded with the private viewing anyway. Bibber Memorial Chapel denies claims made in lawsuit In its response, Bibber Memorial Chapel denies the Korzebs claims its employees knew they had not properly handled, prepared, embalmed and stored their daughters body. The funeral home also denies its employees knew the childs body had shown significant signs of decomposition. Also in the response, the funeral home denies allegations in the complaint as they related to the Korzebs viewing experience and the graphic description of the childs decomposed state. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Funeral home denies wrongdoing in lawsuit over handling of babys body Most Americans say they oppose considering frozen embryos as people and do not support holding those who destroy the genetic material legally responsible, according to a new survey. The Axios/Ipsos poll, released Wednesday, shows 66 percent of respondents said they oppose the position including 45 percent who said they strongly oppose it and 21 percent who somewhat oppose it. Yet, 45 percent of the respondents said they were familiar with the Alabama Supreme Court ruling itself, which has sparked a national outcry among those who worry about the potential consequences such a ruling could have on access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other reproductive rights. The decision, handed down earlier this month, ruled that frozen embryos and fertilized eggs are children under state law and subject to legislation dealing with the wrongful death of a minor, stating it applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location. When broken down by party, there is a significant partisan split in respondents familiarity and, to a lesser extent, their position on the ruling. While 65 percent of Democrats said they were familiar with the Alabama ruling, only 42 percent of independents and 34 percent of Republicans said the same. Asked about the conclusion itself without mentioning the court specifically 82 percent of Democrats said they oppose, along with 67 percent of independents and 49 percent of Republicans. The ruling could have implications going into the 2024 election cycle because some Republicans are wary not to support positions seen as too extreme in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 which ended the federal right to an abortion. Democrats have been quick to seize on the issue, with some in the Senate now trying to force a vote on a bill to protect access to IVF. Former President Trump, who is the GOP front-runner in the presidential primary race, has also distanced himself from the Alabama decision, calling on the state to protect IVF after the ruling was handed down. His primary opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, clarified her position last week that while she believes embryos are babies, she didnt necessarily agree with the Alabama ruling. The Axios/Ipsos poll was conducted from Friday through Sunday one week after the Alabama Supreme Court came to the above conclusion among 1,020 Americans and had a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian appeal court on Wednesday reinstated charges of abuse of power against opposition leader and former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, state news agency Bernama reported. A Kuala Lumpur high court had thrown out the four charges and acquitted Muhyiddin in August, ruling those had not detailed his alleged offences. Muhyiddin, who led Malaysia for 17 months between 2020 and 2021, had pleaded not guilty and had called the charges politically motivated. However, a three-member Court of Appeal bench on Wednesday unanimously ruled that the case against Muhyiddin be returned to a sessions court for further action, Bernama reported. The court found the charges were unambiguous and there was no necessity to give further details on the alleged offences. Muhyiddin's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision. The former premier and his party have faced graft investigations since Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's coalition come to power in November 2022. Muhyiddin, who leads Malaysia's conservative, Malay-centric opposition bloc, is also charged with two counts of money laundering and has been accused of receiving bribes worth 232.5 million ringgit ($48.77 million), which he has denied. Muhyiddin has accused Anwar of orchestrating a political vendetta, which the premier has rejected. ($1 = 4.7670 ringgit) (Reporting by Danial Azhar; Editing by Martin Petty) CHICAGO A Chicago man is facing a felony charge in connection with the alleged sexual assault of a teen girl on a CTA train over the weekend. According to Chicago, police 27-year-old Anfernee Thomas, an Austin resident, has been charged with one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Read more: Latest Chicago news headlines Authorities say the charge stems from the alleged sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl that unfolded on a Purple Line train, just before 5 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. According to police, the victim told officers that she was riding the train when she was allegedly approached by Thomas and sexually assaulted. Chicago man facing felony charge after allegedly punching transit employee in Loop Thomas was taken into custody on the scene and the victim was taken to the hospital for evaluation. Thomas appeared in court on Tuesday for a detention hearing. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WGN-TV. A man accused of threatening to commit a mass shooting at an Orange County courthouse has been taken into custody. Byrom Zuniga Sanchez appeared in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on Tuesday, and he is being held at Metropolitan Correction Center San Diego, according to federal records. The arrest was first discovered by Seamus Hughes Court Watch and later confirmed by an FBI spokesperson. Youre already dead: Man threatened mass shooting at Orange County courthouse, complaint says In October 2023, Sanchez allegedly sent emails with the subject line active shooter Lamoreaux Justice Center in which he promised an attack on Friday, Oct. 13, a date he picked specifically because he like[s] to make moments feel special, and unforgettable, according to the criminal complaint filed against him on Oct. 5, 2023. Sanchez, 32, was enraged by his experience in family law court at the Lamoreaux Justice Center in Orange from 2019 to 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported last year. In an apparent response to his frustrations, Sanchez allegedly included the threats such as these in his emails: I am more committed to murdering you than I am to being present as a father. Nothing will change course and nothing will stop the guaranteed accountability requiring your life as payment. Nothing can save you, and nothing can protect you. Pelosis husband got hammered in the presence of police. What makes you think anyone is going to spare your life? Youre already dead. The remainder of my life will be dedicated to assassinating judges, attorneys, and a police stations entire shift staff. Court Watch also identified previous troubling incidents allegedly involving Sanchez, including going to the house of the Orange County District Attorney in 2021 and coming to the DAs Office, where he made a scene of dancing and singing erratically, and demanded to speak with the Orange County District Attorney,' prosecutors said, as reported by Hughes. Furthermore, in 2022, Sanchez reportedly led Orange County Sheriffs deputies on a pursuit that ended in a standoff at a Foothill Ranch In-N-Out. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) A Grand Island man is facing charges for allegedly illegally selling marijuana out of smoke shops on Grand Island, the Erie County Sheriffs Office said Wednesday. Thomas Muscoreil, 23, was allegedly selling the cannabis out of Island Smoke Shop and Island Smoke Shop 2, both located on Grand Island Boulevard. Courtesy: Erie County Sheriffs Office Police said search warrants at the locations recovered a large amount of cannabis concentrate, edibles, cannabis flower and money believed to be from sales. Muscoreil is charged with two counts of second-degree criminal possession of cannabis. He was released on an appearance ticket. Latest Local News Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) An Albany man was arrested Tuesday morning after attempting to sexually assault a woman, police said. Around 11:20 a.m., the Albany Fire Department told Albany Police that a person they were responding to with an injured leg had been assaulted. The police arrived at the residence in the 1800 block of Southwest 16th Avenue, determining the injured woman was the subject of an attempted sexual assault, police said. The suspect, 37-year-old Brandon Taylor Beckner, had allegedly fled on foot roughly 20 minutes before the 911 call was placed, according to officials. Waiting on your Oregon tax refund? Kicker credit is on the way While the victim was transported to an area hospital by Albany Fire to further treat her injuries, police say they immediately commenced a search of the area for the suspect. At one point, police activated an emergency message alert system, via Nixle, sending a text message notification to citizens that the suspect was still at large. The search continued, with police further conveying via social media their warning to the public. Police also issued a warning to Greater Albany Public Schools. The school district subsequently issued a precautionary warning to parents that students who normally walk or bike to and from school should be picked up until the suspect has been captured. Portland Police Association proposes ballot measure with sweeping oversight board changes At about 1:40 p.m., someone reported to authorities that a suspicious man was hiding in his backyard. Police arrested Beckner without incident after he was spotted walking in the 1000 block of 8th Avenue. After that, schools were notified by police that the safety concern for the public was no longer in effect. Beckner was booked into the Linn County Jail and faces charges of first-degree attempted rape, first-degree sodomy, first-degree sex abuse, first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, coercion and strangulation. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. On Monday, The Associated Press reported that emergency teams were called into action after a letter, holding an unidentifiable white powder was sent to the residence of Donald Trump Jr. in Florida, the eldest son of the former President and GOP front-runner, Donald Trump. According to a source familiar with the situation, test results on the substance were inconclusive. The source requested anonymity while confirming the letter's details, initially reported by The Daily Beast. While going through the contents of the letter, Trump Jr. discovered a death threat and immediately notified authorities, prompting a swift response from emergency responders dressed in hazmat suits. Police in Jupiter, Florida, said the Palm Beach sheriff's office was leading the investigation, revealed The Guardian. The sheriff's office said it was collaborating with the US Secret Service but didn't have any further details. As one of the leading campaign surrogates for his father, Trump Jr. is regularly headlining events and making appearances in interviews on his behalf. Following the New York civil fraud case, Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric have been ordered to collectively pay nearly $4.7 million, contributing to the total penalties of over $454 million against their father. Additionally, Donald Trump Jr. is facing a two-year prohibition from assuming a top executive role in any New York company or pursuing loans from banks registered in the state, as does his brother. Not A First Time For The Trumps The incident on Monday was the second occurrence of white power sent to Donald Trump's eldest son. In 2018, his then-wife, Vanessa, was taken to a New York City hospital after opening an envelope addressed to her husband, which contained the unidentified white powder. Police later confirmed the substance was not hazardous. In March 2016, police detectives and FBI agents investigated a threatening letter sent to the Manhattan apartment of Eric Trump that also contained a white powder but was ultimately harmless. The same such letters were sent twice in 2016 to Trump Tower, which served as the former president's campaign headquarters. SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) Felony charges were filed Tuesday against a man who allegedly pointed a gun and threatened to kill first responders after they started treating him for a medical emergency. Sebastian Hernandez has been charged with two counts of third-degree felony aggravated assault and a class B misdemeanor interfering with an arresting officer. ORIGINAL STORY: Heavily intoxicated man chases, threatens medical workers with gun in Salt Lake City SWAT incident On Feb. 24, EMTs responded to the area of 2500 S and 600 E in Salt Lake City to treat Hernandez for a medical emergency, the DAs Office said. As the EMTs treated Hernandez in their ambulance, he reportedly became combative, got off a stretcher, and left the vehicle. He then tried to fight fire personnel at the scene, but the fire officials left and Hernandez went into his home, the DAs Office said. As the EMTs stayed on scene to clean their equipment, Hernandez reportedly came out of his home with a black handgun and his finger on the trigger. Hernandez told EMTs to leave and allegedly threatened to kill them, the DAs Office said. Police responded and said Hernandez initially refused to turn himself in, but was eventually taken into custody. READ NEXT: Family hires man to crash Moab wedding after bride uninvites mother, charges say A BB gun was found in his residence that matched the gun described by EMTs, the DAs Office said. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said he is grateful that the first responders involved were not injured. We appreciate both the medical and law enforcement personnel that respond to potentially dangerous scenes on a daily basis to help keep Salt Lake County safe, he said. We appreciate the work of Salt Lake City Police Department for their use of less lethal means to help deescalate a potentially volatile situation. Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah. ST. LOUIS One man has been charged after his friend was killed in a gas station shootout that they allegedly initiated. The shooting happened just before 7:15 p.m. on June 15, 2023, at the Mobil Crown Mart gas station and convenience store on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive near Clara. Police received reports of two groups of people shooting at one another. Police claim Darnell Rhodes, now 20, and a friend, Keyon Taylor, 17, were at the store together. When the pair went outside, they noticed a car at a gas station with people inside who they didnt get along with. Rhodes and Taylor took out guns and began shooting at the vehicle. The occupants in the car fired back, striking Taylor in the shoulder and buttocks. Taylor was taken to the hospital, where he later died. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Daily News Two other people were also wounded. Police said a 36-year-old man was brought to the hospital with gunshot wounds to his leg, shoulder, and back. He survived the shooting. Investigators did not indicate if the man was involved in the shootout. Police found the two occupants of the car, a 30-year-old man and a 19-year-old man, in the 2600 block of Burd Avenue, which is not far from the original shooting scene. The 19-year-old was uninjured, but the 30-year-old had suffered a gunshot wound to his leg. Rhodes was later arrested and he allegedly told investigators that he and Taylor fired first. The St. Louis Circuit Attorneys Office charged Rhodes with second-degree murder, armed criminal action, and first-degree assault. Rhodes will remain in jail pending trial. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 2. WELLINGTON, Kan. (KSNW) A South Haven man has been charged in connection to a fentanyl overdose death that happened in 2020. Thirty-seven-year-old Dennis Farley was formally charged Tuesday in Sumner County District Court for the Sept. 15, 2020, death of Lane Hallman. Farley is accused of providing Hallman with the fentanyl that led to his overdose death. Hays Police Department warns of scammer impersonating officers He was formally charged Tuesday with distribution of a controlled substance; causing death or in the alternative, first-degree murder, interference with a law enforcement officer, and unlawful distribution of a controlled substance using a communication facility (cell phone). His bond has been set at $100,000. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV. British Transport Police confirmed the attack was an 'isolated incident' - UKNIP A 22-year-old man has been charged over the murder of an elderly man outside a railway station in east London in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Miles Skai, from Brent Cross, north west London, will appear at Barkingside magistrates court on Wednesday. British Transport Police (BTP) said the victim was found badly hurt by a member of staff outside Harold Wood Station in Havering, east London at around 4.30 am. Despite the efforts of paramedics, the victim, who has not been formally identified, was pronounced dead at the scene. BTP confirmed the attack was an isolated incident and they were not seeking any other suspects. Det Chief Inspt Sam Blackburn said: This act of unprovoked violence was despicable. The investigation remains in the early stages, and although we are satisfied that this was an isolated incident the station will remain closed while we continue our enquiries. The man was pronounced dead at the scene - UKNIP One police officer was seen carrying a single crutch in an evidence bag away from the scene. An Elizabeth Line railway worker said the victim had been an elderly man. A spokesman for the London Ambulance Service said: We were called at 4.29am today [Feb 27] to reports of an incident at Harold Wood Rail Station, Romford. We sent resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, a medic in a fast response car, an incident response officer and a clinical team manager. Our first medic arrived on the scene in five minutes. Very sadly, a man was pronounced dead at the scene. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) A man has pled guilty in connection to an armed robbery home invasion that took place on Sept. 22, 2017, Northampton County Sheriffs Office said. According to the sheriffs office, Deshawn Beverly, 28 of Cofield, pled guilty in Superior Court to second degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon. The sheriffs office said Beverly was sentenced in Superior Court in Hertford Co. for a special setting on Monday to the NC Dept. of Adult Corrections to 20-25 years. Get crime updates in your inbox Sign up for CBS 17s Crime Tracker newsletter The sheriffs office said three to five defendants were sentenced. Deshy Gatling, 29: (Pled guilty) 20-25 years: sentenced Oct. 18, 2023 Eric Vaughan Jr. 28: (Jury Trial) Life without parole: sentenced Jan. 18, 2024 Deshawn Beverly, 28: (Pled guilty) 20-25 years: sentenced Feb. 26, 2024 The incident happened on Sept. 22, 2017, around 11:40 p.m. in Arrowhead Mobile Home Park in Woodland North Carolina where the sheriffs office said Beverly was involved in an armed robbery home invasion with several other people. According to the sheriffs office, a 50-year-old man living at the home suffered several gunshot wounds and later passed away from his injuries. After a thorough investigation, the sheriffs office said warrants were obtained for Beverly where he was initially charged in October 2017 with the following: 1 count first degree murder 2 counts first degree kidnapping 6 counts second degree kidnapping 1 count injury personal property 1 count robbery with a dangerous weapon 1 count conspiracy to robbery with a dangerous weapon 1 count first degree burglary 1 count larceny after breaking & entering Northampton County Sheriffs Office said they would like to specially thank members of the Sheriffs Office that assisted with this investigation, the NC State Bureau of Investigations for their assistance in this original investigation and would like to thank the District Attorneys Office with this case trial. The sheriffs office said they are thankful the family members of the victim has justice on their side for the loss of their love one and justice for the other victims in this case for the horrific events they experienced on Sept. 22, 2017. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS17.com. MEMPHIS, Tenn. A car accident in Parkway Village has left a man severely injured on Tuesday evening. According to Memphis Police, at 5:45 p.m., officers responded to New Getwell Road and Lamar Avenue regarding a two-vehicle crash. Man critically injured following car crash in Whitehaven One man was found in critical condition. He was then taken to Regional One Hospital. MPD advises to avoid the area during this time and seek alternative routes. This is still an ongoing investigation. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com. On Friday, a south Georgia sheriffs office reported a man arrested by another agency had escaped while being detained at the county jail. Four days later, Niculas Clark has still not been found, according to the Telfair County Sheriffs Office. Deputies said Clark was detained on misdemeanor theft charges on Friday afternoon. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] As the officer was attempting to escort the offender into the center, Clark broke away from the officer and ran towards the entry of the detention center driveway, the sheriffs office said in a statement online. The main gate at the detention center was still closing, so Clark was able to run through the gate and off of the jail property. TRENDING STORIES: Regarding the chain of custody for Clark, the sheriffs office said in a statement that It should be noted that Clark was never booked into our detention facility, and therefore never in the custody of the Telfair County Sheriffs Office. Now, the sheriffs office and McRae-Helena police department are both searching for Clark. Deputies said he is from McRae-Helena, so he may be trying to return there. Clark was last seen wearing a dark jacket with BDU-style pants, according to deputies. Anyone with information about his whereabouts is asked to call 911. The sheriffs office said that while Clark is still at large, McRae-Helena Police Chief Glenn Giles reported that Clark was seen in the McRae-Helena area and that officers are continuing to look for him. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) A Kern County jury has found a man guilty in a 2021 gang-related drive-by shooting in Delano, according to the Kern County District Attorneys Office. Maximillion Damien Quintero was found guilty of two counts of assault with a firearm on a person, discharging a firearm from a vehicle at a person, two counts of shooting at an occupied motor vehicle and recklessly discharging a firearm. Driver had BAC 3X legal limit in Stockdale Hwy crash: BPD Quintero was acquitted of assault with a firearm on a peace officer, the district attorneys office said. The jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the attempted murder charge. The shooting happened on April 19, 2021. A deputy with the Kern County Sheriffs Office was parked at the KCSO Delano substation when he was flagged down by a husband and wife. One of the victims said someone had been following them from a gas station and turned their headlights off, prosecutors said. The deputy then saw the vehicle drive by the station and saw Maximillion Damien Quintero in the passenger seat, reach over the hood and fire a round at the couples vehicle. The suspects vehicle then led deputies on a high-speed pursuit from Delano to Earlimart, the D.A.s office said. Sentencing is set for April 17. Quintero faces up to 45 years to life in prison. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17. DENVER (KDVR) Aurora police are investigating a homicide after a man was found dead inside an apartment. The Aurora Police Department tweeted about the investigation just before 11 p.m. on Tuesday. According to police, officers responded to an apartment in the 12600 block of East Pacific Circle at about 9:30 p.m. to do a welfare check. The apartment is in southwest Aurora in the Heather Ridge neighborhood. Rep. Lauren Boeberts son arrested in string of trespassing, thefts When officers arrived, they noticed the door was open to the apartment and the lights were on inside. Officers said they performed a safety check and found a 46-year-old man with an apparent gunshot wound. The man was pronounced dead on scene, and detectives determined it was a homicide. The Arapahoe County Coroners Office will identify the victim. The Aurora Major Crime Homicide Unit and CSI responded to the apartment. At this time, there is no suspect information available, and officers are canvassing the area and speaking to witnesses. However, the agency said the preliminary investigation indicates the homicide was not random. Anyone with information on the homicide is asked to contact the Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. Tipsters can remain anonymous and still be eligible for a cash reward. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. A 10-year-old hiding in a car witnessed his moms boyfriend shoot her to death in the front yard, then kidnap his 6-year-old sibling, Tennessee officials said. Now, the man has been found guilty on all charges including first-degree premeditated murder and kidnapping, the Shelby County District Attorneys Office announced Feb. 27. Byron Pipkin, now 35, was accused of killing his girlfriend, Marquicha Thomas, on June 30, 2022. McClatchy News reached out to the mans attorneys on Feb. 28 and did not immediately receive a response. During the week-long trial, three kids, all under the age of 13, testified to the events. Pipkin and 28-year-old Thomas were arguing in the garage of a home outside Memphis when the woman ran out of the garage, the Shelby County Sheriffs Office said in an arrest affidavit. Then, Pipkin gunned her down in the front yard, according to deputies. He dragged her body into the garage, where the womans 10-year-old son was hiding in a car and had witnessed the shooting, officials said. Then, Pipkin went inside the house, told the womans 6-year-old girl to come with him and fled the scene, deputies told WREG. As he left, he called 911 and reported he was following a man who had just shot his girlfriend, deputies said. He gave the name of another person who investigators said wasnt involved or at the residence, according to the affidavit. He dropped the 6-year-old off at the home of a family members friend before he made his way to a motel in south Memphis, officials said. The next day, detectives found him at the motel, according to the sheriffs office. The district attorneys office said he was taken into custody after a tense three-hour SWAT standoff. The 10-year-old who hid in the car, now 12, played a crucial role in providing evidence, the district attorneys office said. Thomas friends and family mourned the mothers death. They dont know, when they take a loved one, they dont know how much it really hurt to lose my only daughter I have, her father, Marcus Brisco, told WREG in July 2022. Woman shoots boyfriend in chest when he tries breaking up with her, Illinois cops say Friends hear gunshot, then find woman dead in bedroom, cops say. Ex-boyfriend arrested Arrest made in slaying of model found stuffed in refrigerator, California police say Daughter shoots intruder, but it was moms ex she was secretly seeing, AL cops say Ukraine is currently situated between the proverbial rock and the literal hard place as military aid from the United States has all but dried up and the Russians have begun to incrementally reclaim regions that were taken back by the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Enter French President Emmanuel Macron with an offer the Ukrainians cannot refuse. The European allies of the embattled state have agreed to make up for arms shortages by supplying medium and long-range missiles and gravity bombs. However, in a move that certainly raised eyebrows in Moscow and Washington DC, Macron did not rule out providing ground forces to the fight. Historically, the French have always marched to the beat of their own drum. That drum only got louder after World War II when they, against the wishes of their allies in the United States and the United Kingdom, crafted nuclear weapons. As a member of the United Nations Security Council, the French see themselves as a counterbalance to American dominance. As recently as 2021, France expressed disdain that its American allies supplied Australia, another ally, with nuclear-powered submarines. Speaking after a Ukraine conference in Paris that was attended by world leaders from 20 nations, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, with a virtual address from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Macron reiterated Europe's commitment. "Shared conviction with our partners tonight: Russia cannot and must not win in Ukraine," Macron wrote in a post on X. "It is on our continent that this war is taking place. What is at stake is our security as Europeans, it is our future. Alongside Ukraine, with our partners, we will be there resolutely, for as long as necessary and whatever that requires." "We Will Do Everything So That Russia Cannot Win This War," Ahead of the summit, Macron said they would be discussing "our support for Ukraine and our collective security," which he said required "a collective leap from all of us." While no definitive plan was given, Macron would not rule out ground troops from other European allies, something that Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened would lead to nuclear war. However, on Tuesday NATO released a statement saying it had no plans to supply ground forces to fight against Russia. "We will do everything so that Russia cannot win this war," said Macron. The French president insisted that, if successful in Ukraine, Russia would attack other European countries within a matter of years. France's official position is now strategic ambiguity on committing ground or air forces following the Czech Republic and Slovakia ruled out sending troops to fight in Ukraine under any circumstances. An Ohio man has been charged with several misdemeanors after officials say he urinated on an LGBTQ flag, news outlets reported. Two men were caught on home surveillance video approaching a home in Columbus about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 8, WBNS reported. One of the men walked onto the porch and began to urinate on the flag while the other man recorded him, the video shows. The man urinating then began to yell homophobic remarks and was banging on the doors of the home, according to WCMH. The Columbus Dispatch shared the surveillance video that the home residents posted online. I decided to post something online and the police found us, Zoe, who lives at the home, told WBNS. Ive got a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old and weve had the gamut of school experiences This isnt something that they should expect as normalized in their life. After the video was posted, the men returned to the home on Feb. 13 in an attempt to apologize, WCMH reported. None of us are looking to ruin these kids lives, Sarah, who lives at the home, told WBNS. Not just that what they did was wrong but why it was wrong and how much it genuinely hurts people. The man who urinated on the flag has been charged with ethnic intimidation, criminal mischief, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Transgender woman is shot in the head after sexual encounter, cops say. Heinous act Salon told LGBTQ customers to see pet groomer, MI officials say. Now it faces charges Chilling drag restrictions passed in Tennessee city, suit says. Back into the closet An Indiana man has pled guilty to threatening to kill an election worker in Michigan, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday. Andrew Nickels, 37, of Carmel, Ind., called the clerk of a local election office and left a voicemail threatening to kill the official shortly after the 2020 election. According to the information released by the DOJ, Nickels said: Were watching you mouth talk about how you think that theres no irregularities. You frauded our America of a real election. Nickels said the official was gonna pay for it and added that 10 million-plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it. He said the group of patriots would kill the employee and that they deserve a [expletive] throat to the knife, adding that the official should watch their back. Nickels pleaded guilty to one count of threatening interstate communication. Election officials and workers play a critical role in safeguarding free and fair elections. The Criminal Division will continue to aggressively investigate and prosecute individuals who seek to undermine this core tenet of our democracy by threatening election officials with violence, Nicole Argentieri, the acting assistant attorney general at the DOJ, said in a statement. Nickels is scheduled to be sentenced July 9 and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, the DOJ said. The FBIs Detroit Field Office investigated the case. The DOJ said Nickelss case was part of an ongoing Election Threats Task Force created by Attorney General Merrick Garland in June 2021. Michigan was one of a few swing states in 2020 that turned from red to blue and helped elect President Biden. Michigan, along with other swing states, has been at the center of political controversy as election results have been contested and election workers have faced threats and intimidation. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. BROOKLYN, N.Y. (PIX11) Police are searching for a man who robbed and assaulted a 73-year-old man on a southbound F train in Brooklyn on Feb. 13, according to police. The suspect approached the victim around 10 a.m., after the F train reached the York Street station, punched him in the face and took his cellphone before leaving the station, police said. The victims glasses were broken during the attack. The victim refused medical attention at the scene, according to police. Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, downloading the NYPD Crime Stoppers mobile app, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). Jonathan Rizk is a digital journalist who has covered local news in the New York City and Washington D.C. areas. He has been with PIX11 since August 2022. See more of his work here and follow him on Twitter. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) A Virginia Beach man will serve prison time for smuggling machineguns and firearm silencers into the country and then selling them on Facebook Marketplace. Court documents show, John Patrick Gordon, 36, purchased firearm parts from black-market websites. The parts included Glock switches, also known as auto-sears, which can be used to the convert semi-automatic pistols into machine pistols. Under federal law, firearms that expel more than one projectile when the trigger is pulled are classified as machineguns. On Jan. 10, 2023, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and Virginia Beach Police Officers searched Danes residence and found a shed where he assembled the weapons. Law enforcement removed 17 firearms from the shed including an AR-15 rifle that had been converted to fire as a machinegun and a Glock with a large capacity magazine with an attached switch. Additionally, they recovered ghost guns, or firearms manufactured without serial numbers from the shed. Smuggled machineguns found in a Virginia Beach mans shed (Courtesy of the U.S. Attorneys Office) Dane, who had previously convicted of a felony in 2012, was sentenced to four years in prison. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com. The FX limited series "Shogun" is being hailed by some as the next epic fantasy series to look out for, with some even comparing it to "Game of Thrones." "Shogun," based on the James Clavell bestselling novel of the same name, was previously adapted in 1980 by NBC. Set in 17th-century Japan, the story opens with the country on the verge of civil war. Taiko, the supreme leader of unified Japan, has been dead for a year. His heir being too young to lay claim to the throne brings a five-person called the Council of Regents into play. Each member of the council is ultimately self-serving with agendas all their own. Two of the men converted to Catholicism after the establishment of trade with the Portuguese began to flourish. Lord Yoshi Toranaga is the most group. This true warrior from a dynastic family is indeed interesting, but the other members of the Council have united against him fearing his popularity and the possibility that he could anoint himself Shogun and establish a military dictatorship. The Rest Of The Crew The opposing members of the Council are led by Lord Ishido Kazunari. Following his lead, the Council prepares to impeach Toranga and execute him as well. But things take a turn when a weather-beaten Dutch ship washes up on the shores of Japan, delivering a possible savior in John Blackthorne. Blackthorne, a protestant and Dutch, is the sworn enemy of the Catholic Portuguese. But what really tickles Toranaga's fancy is Blackthorne's knowledge of Western warfare tactics, as well as his ship being loaded with cannons and muskets. The setup is thicker than Canadian molasses in January, but the shifting allegiances, major political players, and inter-cultural edicts and rituals substantially further the plot. Blackthorne represents the eyes and sensibilities of the Western world within this narrative. This comes into play when he witnesses Toranaga order a samurai loyal to him to end his bloodline for speaking out of turn to a rival. Again, when Blackthorne is taken aback when he learns the Japanese take more than one bath a week. Toranaga enlists a noblewoman from a disgraced family to serve as the translator for Blackthorne. Here's how it was described by the Ringer. What separates Shogun from other historical epics, though, is how effectively the series exercises restraint. Make no mistake, there are scenes of shocking violence where characters are swiftly decapitated, disemboweled, or blown into gory chunks of flesh by cannon fire. But for the most part, Shogun focuses on the careful steps characters take to avoid walking the path of destruction, none more so than Toranaga. In his heyday as a warrior, Toranaga's greatest asset was letting his opponent strike first: Fighting was always a final recourse rather than something to embrace. It's a mindset Toranaga carries into the political arena, patiently waiting for his rivals to make a play before revealing his hand. This sounds like something people will definitely be tuning in to check out. "Shogun" premieres on Hulu on Tuesday, February 27th. SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage) The man convicted of burning down the Mason County Courthouse has been sentenced to 75 years behind bars based on five charges. A mugshot of Nicholas Miller. He was arrested on Feb. 5, 2021, and booked into the McCulloch County Jail on April 28, 2021. Nicholas Miller received his 75-year-long sentence on Wednesday, Feb. 28, approximately one month after he was found guilty by a jury on two charges of arson of a habitation one for the burning of the courthouse on Feb. 4, 2021, the other for the burning of an occupied residential structure that was ignited in the area on the same day as well as burglary of a building, unlawful use of a vehicle and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. Millers crimes reached statewide notoriety after he became a suspect in the burning of the Mason County Courthouse, a 111-year-old structure that was preparing for renovations at the time of the incident. Though nobody was injured during the fire, the building would still be considered a total loss despite the efforts of several volunteer fire departments. RELATED: Historic Mason County Courthouse destroyed in overnight fire He would eventually be captured by police in the morning hours of Feb. 5, 2021, after leading officers on a car chase near Waco. He would then be booked into the McCulloch County Jail on April 28, 2021. Miller would then go to trial on Jan. 23, 2024, when evidence gathered by the State Fire Marshals Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety and local law enforcement would contribute to the jurys guilty verdict. Millers sentencing would be postponed until Feb. 28, when he would formally receive a concurrent sentence of 75 years based on all five charges. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ConchoValleyHomepage.com. (Warning: Spoilers ahead for Masters of the Air.) Rewatching Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks World War II epic Band of Brothers, you will see multiple instantly recognizable men of the moment before they hit the big time, including Tom Hardy, Michael Fassbender, Andrew Scott, and James McAvoy. Masters of the Air looks set to carry on this tradition, with one actor taking TV and stage by storm in 2024 and another already capturing Paul Thomas Andersons eye. Masters of the Air casting directors Lucy Bevan and Olivia Grant already hit the jackpot, nabbing Austin Butler and Barry Keoghan right after they finished filming Elvis and The Banshees of Inisherin (for which they were both Oscar-nominated), as well as Callum Turner, who is currently making waves in the industry with his roles in the Fantastic Beasts films and The Boys in the Boat. However, the harsh reality of aerial warfare depicted in Masters of the Air means all three have already been knocked out of the fight while the series continues. Keoghans Lieutenant Curt Biddick dies in combat, and at the end of Episode 6, Gale Buck Cleven (Butler) reunites with John Bucky Egan (Turner) in a Nazi POW camp. Now, the 100th Bomb Group turns to alternative figureheads to lead the way. Step up Anthony Boyle as the series narrator, navigator Major Harry Crosby, and Nate Manns unflappable pilot newcomer, Major Robert Rosie Rosenthal. Considering the fifth episode ended with only Rosies plane returning to the airbase, this week takes a much-needed respite from the unrelenting battering that led to the Bloody Hundredths nickname. I feel like I won the role lottery. Everyone was going off to POW camps or having very intense experiences, and I was going to parties in Oxford and having a lovely time with Bel Powleyit was an absolute dream, Boyle tells The Daily Beasts Obsessed. Powley, fresh from starring in National Geographics A Small Light, guest stars as Sandra Wingate, who attends the same Allied nations conference as Crosby. Rosie gets a break from the B-17s when he and his surviving crew are sent to an idyllic manor house known by the airmen as a flak house. There, they ditch their leather bomber jackets for off-duty attire and luxury digs. Think Saltburn but without the naked dancing and hedonistic parties. While Rosie bristles at being taken away from combat, Mann relished the opportunity: To not have the uniform anymore, but to be in this different kind of environment brings a level of richness to it and shakes things up on our end in such an interesting way. Tony-nominated Boyle might be familiar to Broadway audiences from his role as Scorpius Malfoy in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The Northern Irish actor has been slowly building his TV resume, with roles in the 2020 HBO limited series The Plot to Destroy America and Derry Girls. Masters of the Air is only the beginning of Boyles monster year, which will find him moving from playing an American hero to starring as the ultimate historical villain, John Wilkes Booth, in Apple TV+s Manhunt (which debuts the same day as the Masters of the Air finale). In the summer, he is starring in the FX adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefes Say Nothing. As if that is not enough, he returns to the West End stage this spring, appearing alongside Brian Cox, Patricia Clarkson, and Daryl McCormack in Long Days Journey Into Night. Raff Law Breaks Down That Devastating Episode of Masters of the Air Mann also has a new series debuting the week Masters of the Air concludes. He plays a supporting role in Peacocks Apples Never Fall based on a book by Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty (and starring Annette Bening and Sam Neill). During the auditions for Rosie, executive producer Gary Goetzman rang PTA as Mann dazzled in Licorice Pizza, and clearly, he got a glowing reference. Boyle and Mann spoke with Obsessed about the physical challenges of starring in Masters of the Air, surprising moments based on real events, and more. A surprising meet-cute While Masters of the Air is adapted from Donald L. Millers book, Harry Crosbys memoir, A Wing and a Prayer, provides extra material, underscoring why Crosby is the shows narrator. The memoir also gave Boyle insight into his character. His humor in it was so self-deprecating. It opened up the role for me. I was like, Oh, this is who this guy is! His writing is so funny, says Boyle. Unlike Rosie, who has inherent confidence, literally entering the series showing off his twinkle-toe dance moves in the Officers Club, Crosby is plagued by self-doubt. It doesnt help that the navigator spends a lot of the flight to the Thorpe Abbotts airfield puking his guts up, almost directing the B-17 over Nazi-occupied France instead of England. Crosby didn't feel like a ready-made hero. He felt like an everyman. He has to battle air sickness and the Nazis, says Boyle. Crosby was like, Am I the right guy for this? Am I the right guy for anything? That, for me, is true bravery. He felt like he couldn't do it and pushed through. Bel Powley and Anthony Boyle Robert Viglasky/Apple TV+ A promotion to group navigator means Crosby is no longer flying into combat, avoiding the decimation of the Eighth in a catastrophic mission over Munster in the previous episode. Survivors' guilt is hard to shake, so the trip to Oxford University is a flak house in a different guise. There, he has a classic meet-cute with Powleys ATS officer. Upon arrival, Crosby assumes his roommate A.M Westgate is a man and is startled when she arrives while he is practicing his best Spencer Tracy in Test Pilot impression in the mirror. Those moments were great to shoot because it was a break from the high-intensity stuff in the air, which was very taxing. Getting to do the cute stuff with Bel was a real respite and a lot of fun, Boyle says. Until I read the book, I thought Powleys Sandra was a show invention to inject some femininity and romance into the series, but this is all taken from Crosbys bookincluding the roommate confusion. I felt that was an embellishment from the script also; then reading it [A Wing and a Prayer], I was going, Wow, this is amazing to find it out. It was great for Crosby to go off and have a rom-com for a couple of episodes before he goes back to war, he says. Whether or not Sandra is a spy for the Brits bubbles beneath the surface. Is she based at Bletchley Park? Or somewhere else? Either way, Powley adds another dimension to the series and lets Boyle tap into his romantic leading man status. Boot camp Conveying emotions when wearing oxygen masks at 25,000 feet is a challenge, requiring the actors eyes to do all the heavy lifting. A lot of Tom Hardy playing Bane, I think, is what we all did, Boyle says. Mann jokingly concurs, Yeah, I mean, essentially, Tom Hardy as Bane. Joking aside, Mann says there are so many technical maneuvers to remember that it helped block out the overthinking of his limited facial expressions: You end up using so much of yourself in those moments because it's remaining outside yourself. That way, you're not self-conscious of, like, Oh, do I need to do more with the two eyebrows I have. The Masters of the Air cast follows in the footsteps of the Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, and The Pacific actors, with a boot camp run by the legendary military advisor Dale Dye. Mann became equipped to sit in the pilot seat; likewise, Boyle learned to read navigation charts, and everyone practiced the jungle gym-adjacent method for climbing aboard the Flying Fortress. Nate Mann Apple TV+ They both sound thrilled when I ask about the physical challenge of using their fingertips to hoist themselves through a small hatch of the B-17. Oh my god, we had to do it so many times! Does it look impressive in the show? Boyle asks. Yes, yes, it does (seriously, I would require wires to do the same). Boyle says it is a real abdominal workout every time while semi-reenacting what Mann calls a crunch pull-up combo. (Being an actor is tough, Boyle deadpans) Considering the core strength and gymnastics (while wearing shearling flight jackets), it is unsurprising that when Rosie makes his big comeback at the end of Episode 6, directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck focus on how effortless Mann makes it look. Masters of the Air Is Good Enough to Be the Next Band of Brothers Around the boot camp period of production is also where tache or no tache decisions went down. Cast members blessed with this ability were asked to raise their hand, and it didnt have to match the real person, as the real Rosie was clean-shaven. That one was mine, au naturel, says Mann about his perfect pilot mustache. Soon, you will see Boyles tache game as John Wilkes Booth, but Crosby did not go this way. I very sheepishly kept mine in the pocket because I wanted that secret weapon for Manhunt. I was saving it, Boyle says. Whereas Rosies arrival isnt until the fourth episode, there is no latecomer hazing as Mann attended the entire two-week boot camp. So the bonds were already there when he arrived about a month after filming had begun. Men were coming and going from these bases all the time, and in Rosie's case, he doesn't quite know what he's in for, says Mann. But as the series progresses and he gets closer to everyone, it shapes him into who he ultimately becomes. 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. Hawaiis governor, Josh Green, unveiled on Tuesday a multimillion-dollar fund to compensate families of people who were killed on Maui during the deadliest wildfire in the nation in more than a century. The announcement marks the first phase of the $175m One Ohana Fund that was proposed on 8 November, two months after at least 101 were killed in Lahaina, a coastal town on Maui. If found eligible, people who lost a loved one will receive $1.5m, and disbursements for those who survived but were gravely injured will vary, according to Greens press release. The fund will begin accepting applications on 1 March. Related: Exclusive: Maui wildfire survivors face soaring rates of depression and lung problems study Green framed the fund as an option for survivors who are considering suing the state of Hawaii, Hawaiian Electric or other utilities and landowners for their role in the blaze. As governor, providing this certain and more timely option was the most direct path possible toward healing and recovery envisioned with our partners, Green said. Those who accept the funds money will waive their right to sue the entities who contributed to the fund. Hawaiian Electric is the single largest underwriter at $75m, followed by the state of Hawaii at $65m, landowner Kamehameha Schools at $17.5m and Maui county at $10m. Green said those who sue could potentially wait up to five years before they receive money and may incur significant legal costs. Multiple lawsuits have already been filed on behalf of wildfire victims against the state, the county, utilities and landlords. Hawaii lawmakers have not appropriated the $65m needed for the states share. Green said he expects they will do so after seeing this is the compassionate approach and that its a way for the state to avoid expensive and lengthy litigation. While the opening of applications represents the beginning of a long healing process for those who lost family members and were injured during the fire, thousands of Lahainians remain displaced and living out of hotel rooms. For those who escaped the blaze physically unharmed, the mental scars left by the disaster persist and are compounded by the loss of housing and stability. As soon as I wake up, theres a physical tightness in my chest. I worry about where we will go when the help runs out. I am grateful, but this hotel is not a home, its a shelter, Diana Tevaga, a Lahaina fire survivor who is living out of a hotel through a Red Cross program that is set to expire in April, said. Its not right that so many of us are still here. How can we dream about rebuilding when we dont have a stable home? This year marks four decades since President Reagans landslide reelection victory in 1984, and my first election to the U.S. Senate. Just four years into Reagans presidency, his administration had already turned the corner on the malaise of the Carter era, reinvested in American hard power, and worked to set the conditions to win the Cold War. Reagans doctrine of peace through strength and his firm conviction in freedoms power to unleash peace and prosperity captivated the American people. And his relentless optimism revitalized a nation and restored faith in American leadership. Americas interests extend beyond the waters edge Today, much like in the Washington President Reagan faced, it has become popular in some circles to bet against American resolve and bemoan the global responsibilities that come with global power. Loud voices peddle the short-sighted and ahistorical notion that Americas interests do not extend beyond the waters edge, and that abandoning our friends is the price of restoring order at home. For months now, my colleagues and I have considered these weighty responsibilities. And in measuring the costs of America neglecting its leading role, the Senate chose to address the growing threats facing our nation and our closest allies around the globe. The national security bill passed in the Senate will help rebuild and modernize our military, restore our credibility on the world stage, and give the current Commander-in-Chief, as well as the next, more tools to face growing coordination among our adversaries. McConnell's vote for Ukraine aligns with GOP values. That means nothing to Trump Republicans. Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are engaged in an active campaign to undermine the US-led order that has underpinned Western peace and prosperity for almost a century. From Russias unprovoked invasion of Ukraine to Irans persistent proxy violence against American servicemembers and our installations to growing Chinese aggression against Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners, these threats are serious, and they are linked. President Xi has said that Russia and China are engaged in a friendship without limits, and Tehran has joined in this unsavory union, supplying Vladimir Putins invasion with Iranian missiles and suicide drones. The Russian autocrat understands, as some in Washington fail to, that victory in Ukraine would hasten the rise of this authoritarian alignment. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to the chamber during a test vote to begin debate on a border security bill, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024. Senate Republicans have already blocked the bipartisan border package, scuttling months of negotiations between the two parties on legislation intended to cut down record numbers of illegal border crossings. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) What happens in Ukraine sends a strong signal to aggressive regimes Thats precisely why our friends and allies are making historic investments in the Ukrainian peoples fight. Thats why Taiwans leaders recognize that Ukraines survival is Taiwans survival and Japans say that security in Europe and security in the Indo-Pacific are inseparable. The Senate understands that what happens in Ukraine sends a strong signal to aggressive regimes who are calculating their own authoritarian ambitions. Unfortunately, President Bidens inaction and hesitation in the face of these mounting threats has only compounded the challenges to American interests. From a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan to a halting response in the earliest days of Putins escalation in Ukraine to second-guessing our ally, Israel, hesitating in the face of at least 170 provocations from Irans proxies in the Middle East, the Presidents failures have put Americas credibility in question and the lives of our servicemembers at stake. Many Kentuckians felt the consequences of this inaction close to home when Iran-backed proxies attacked Tower 22 in Jordan, killing three U.S. servicemembers and wounding several Kentuckians stationed at the American outpost. The Senates national security bill does much to give this Commander-in-Chief and his successor new tools and options to defend Americas interests. It will help rebuild our degraded defense industrial base, and to replenish the U.S. arsenal with modern and advanced weaponry. It provides desperately needed resources and equipment to our troops stationed in harm's way, including thousands of Kentuckys servicemembers from Fort Knox, Fort Campbell, and the Kentucky National Guard. It provides critical assistance to Israels necessary military operation to root out Hamas terrorists and restore peace to the region. And it helps Taiwan and our other Asian partners deter an increasingly aggressive and increasingly advanced China, our top strategic adversary in the Indo-Pacific. Historic milestone for the whole world: Kentucky's safe destruction chemical weapons. It directs lethal assistance to support Ukraines defense while shrinking economic aid, prioritizing hard power over direct budget support. And it expands unprecedented oversight into how and where assistance for Ukraine is used. The Senates bill also importantly requires the President provide Congress with a detailed strategy for Ukrainian victory. This legislation makes overdue investments in American hard power and helps rectify shortcomings in President Bidens initial request for U.S. defense needs. Today, our defense spending as a percentage of GDP still sits at roughly half of what it was during the Reagan-era buildup. Even accounting for direct assistance to our allies, which constitutes a fraction of our defense spending today, more than 75% of this legislation will make a direct investment here in America. Of just the funds this supplemental designates to support Ukraines defense, $19.85 billion will be spent here in America on replenishing our own arsenal. Another $3.5 billion will be spent to expand our industrial bases capacity to produce artillery, air defense, and long-range weapons. And $15.4 billion will be spent here at home on American-made weapons for Ukraine to continue its battle against Russian aggression. Kentucky has proven itself vital to our defense industrial base For many hardworking Kentuckians, this legislation could mean investments in substantial, new artillery and equipment production right here in the commonwealth. Already, Kentucky has proven itself vital to our defense industrial base, producing the munitions that supply our troops and our allies overseas. Mitch McConnell What has been lost in all of the debate over the Senates legislation is this simple truth: By standing with our friend Ukraine and supporting their fight for freedom, we can degrade Russias military capabilities, the third largest military force in the world, without risking the life of a single American soldier. And in the process, we can deter our adversaries, like Iran and North Korea, invest urgent resources into Americas defense, and sustain long-term competition with China, our greatest strategic threat. So this is not charity, but an investment in cold, hard U.S. interests. Backing down from our duty to preserve American strength, security, and peace will only embolden our enemies and greenlight future acts of force against America and our allies. This is a decision not just for my colleagues in the Senate but for you, the people of Kentucky, as well. We have a duty to protect these enduring values and interests that we, as Americans, all share. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, is the U.S. Senate Republican Leader. This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: McConnell: Senate security bill could be investment in Kentucky jobs Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced plans Wednesday to step down from the role come November, marking the end of a storied career as the nations longest-serving U.S. Senate leader. While McConnell, 82, will continue to serve out his term until it ends in 2027, the Republican marked the announcement Wednesday by reflecting on his more than 50 years in politics. He is the longest-serving U.S. senator from Kentucky, having served seven terms. One of lifes most underappreciated talents is to know when its time to move on to lifes next chapter, he said, according to the Associated Press. So I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate. As I said on the Senate floor, one of lifes most underappreciated talents is to know when its time to move on. Its been the honor of my life to serve as Republican leader. https://t.co/SKU9OrtcDW Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) February 28, 2024 Heres a look back at his career and time holding public office: 1974 to 1978: McConnell first serves as a deputy U.S. assistant attorney general under President Gerald Ford from 1974 to 1975. Before his election to the Senate in 1984, McConnell was the Jefferson County judge-executive from 1978 up until commencing his Senate term Jan. 3, 1985. 1984: McConnell is first elected to the Senate, at the time making history as the only Republican challenger in the country to defeat an incumbent. He was also the first Republican to win a statewide Kentucky race since 1968, according to his Senate biography. 2003 to 2007: McConnell is elected majority whip and serves in the leadership role during the 108th and 109th Congresses. 2006: McConnell becomes party leader in the Senate, going on to win nine straight elections. 2007 to 2015: McConnell becomes minority leader, replacing Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., when control of the Senate changes hands. 2015 to 2021: McConnell is reelected majority leader. In the spring of 2016, McConnell directed Senate Republicans not to consider then President Barack Obamas Supreme Court pick. McConnell has previously called the decision the single-most consequential of his career and later led to the overturning of the landmark abortion rights case Roe. V. Wade. McConnell is also instrumental in helping to reshape the federal judiciary during President Donald Trumps term. 2021 to 2024: McConnell serves as minority leader during the 117th and 118th Congresses. Fen. 28, 2024: McConnell announces he will serve his last term as a Republican Senate leader and step down from the role in November. This is a developing story, check back for updates. Do you have a question about Kentucky politics? Wed like to hear from you. Fill out our Know Your Kentucky form or email ask@herald-leader.com. Israel and Hamas are on the verge of a potential new agreement aimed at securing the release of roughly 130 hostages. The alleged deal involves a week's long pause in Israel's war on Gaza, now in its fifth month. According to The Associated Press, U.S. President Joe Biden says a deal could go into effect as early as Monday, ahead of what is considered an unofficial deadline -- the start of the Muslim holy month, Ramadan. A deal would bring some relief to the territory amid Israel's ongoing military assault, siege, and bombardment against the people of Gaza. The Palestinian death toll has reached a nearly staggering 30,000. Key Features Of The Deal: A senior official from Egypt revealed a six-week cease-fire must be implemented as part of the potential agreement. Hamas would consent to the release of up to 40 hostages, primarily consisting of civilian women, at least two children, and elderly or sick captives. In return, Israel would release a minimum of 300 Palestinian prisoners currently held in Israeli jails. Additionally, the Egyptian official negotiating the deal with Qatar and the U.S. stated Israel would permit the return of displaced Palestinians to specified regions in northern Gaza. This area, subjected to extensive damage during the initial ground offensive by Israel, is a focal point in the current discussions. Aid deliveries would accelerate during the cease-fire, with 300 to 500 trucks entering the besieged territory daily. This is a significant surge compared to the below-average number of trucks that were unable to cross the Rafah border due to strict Israeli orders and Israeli protesters objecting to the arrival of food and aid. Deliveries across Gaza are to be facilitated by Israel, whose forces would allegedly try to refrain from attacks on the police escorting the aid convoys, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Despite Biden's optimistic perspective, both parties maintain a defiant stance leading up to any potential final agreement, even as discussions continue in Qatar. Officials from both Israel and Hamas have played down any indications of progress in the ongoing talks and have previously dragged out negotiations displaying any momentum. During the temporary cease-fire, the parties would negotiate toward an extension of the deal that would see the release of all female soldiers in exchange for a higher number of imprisoned Palestinians, disclosed the AP. After the female soldiers, Israel will seek to free male soldiers for whom Hamas will likely demand a high price. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear on more than one occasion that he will not agree to a deal at any cost. However, families of the hostages are likely to intensify mounting pressure on Netanyahu should the others be freed. The U.S. is hopeful the new deal will serve as a launching pad to its vision for a postwar Gaza that would eventually lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. It said it wants Gaza to governed under a restructured Palestinian Authority, which "oversees" part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israel wants to force its security control on the Gaza Strip and, continues to reject interference from world leaders, and ignores international law as Netanyahu deems Israel immune. By David Morgan and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Top U.S. Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday he will step down this year from his leadership role, ending a record-setting tenure and ceding more influence to Donald Trump and the hardliners who have come to define the party. McConnell, who has represented Kentucky in the Senate since 1985 and has been his party's leader since 2007, gleefully embraced the nickname "Grim Reaper" for his willingness to use the levers of power to stonewall Democratic goals, whether as majority leader or, as is currently the case, minority leader. "I turned 82 last week. The end of my contributions are closer than I prefer," McConnell said on the Senate floor, his voice breaking with emotion. "Father Time remains undefeated. I'm no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping colleagues remember my name. It's time for the next generation of leadership." His tenure of nearly 17 years as a Senate party leader is the longest on record. McConnell played an outsized role in helping Trump cement a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court, paving the way for landmark rulings cheered by conservatives ending the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion and expanding gun rights. That belied McConnell's personal opposition at times to Trump - particularly the then-president's conduct ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. McConnell also has continued his vocal support for trying to pass aid to Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion over the opposition of hardline Republican opponents allied with Trump. Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate. McConnell said he will not run for Senate Republican leader in November's party elections, meaning he will end his time as leader when a new Congress convenes in January. McConnell's departure from the leadership will remove a central player in negotiations with Democrats and the White House on spending deals to keep the federal government funded and avert a shutdown. His steady command of his caucus stood in contrast to relatively newly minted Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, who has struggled to lead his thin majority. 'THE TEST OF TIME' "Look at the House, where you go through leaders on a regular basis, and yet Mitch McConnell has stood the test of time," Republican Senator Mike Rounds said. After falling at a Washington event in March, McConnell twice last summer froze up while making remarks in public, raising questions about his health and his ability to continue to carry out the duties of his high-powered job. Those concerns were not assuaged by an Aug. 31 note from the congressional physician that cleared McConnell to go on working. He indicated that he plans to serve out the rest of his term in the Senate, which extends through January 2027. But his exit from the leadership will mark the step back of an orderly counterpart to the tumultuous approach of Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden, and the hardline House Freedom Caucus ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Now with Republicans having to elect a new party leader, conservative pressure to hang tough against a moderate spending deal with Democrats could weigh more heavily on the budget negotiations and the leadership election. Senators John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn and John Barrasso were expected to vie for the top party job. It was unclear what other senators might jump into the race. McConnell announced his plans on the Senate floor the morning after Trump won the Michigan Republican primary, continuing his sweep toward the party's nomination. "I think the Trump chapter reopening is his cue to exit stage left," a former high-ranking Senate Republican aide said when asked about the timing of McConnell's move. Some hardline Republican House colleagues applauded his exit -- and urged him to speed it up. "No need to wait till November ... Senate Republicans should IMMEDIATELY elect a *Republican* Minority Leader," the hardline House Freedom Caucus said on X social media. The group's chairman, Bob Good, suggested Senator Rick Scott, who had challenged McConnell for the leadership and failed after the 2022 midterm elections. Scott told reporters: "I think there's a better way to run the Senate. So we'll see what happens in the future." MCCONNELL ALIENATES TRUMP McConnell lashed out at the twice-impeached Trump for falsely claiming that widespread voting fraud cost him the 2020 election, the theme of Trump's speech shortly before his followers stormed the U.S. Capitol. McConnell voted to acquit Trump during the second Senate impeachment trial on a charge of inciting an insurrection, but alienated him in a Senate speech by asserting that Trump was "practically and morally responsible" for the Capitol riot. "American citizens attacked their own government," McConnell said at the time. "They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth - because he was angry he'd lost an election." McConnell's hardball approach was on display in 2016 when he orchestrated Republican stonewalling of Democratic then-President Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to a vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. He argued that it was too close to the presidential election that November and that voters should be left to decide the high court's direction in casting their votes for president. Without missing a beat, McConnell struck again in 2020, this time just weeks before another presidential election. Taking the opposite approach, he rammed through Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, cementing a 6-3 conservative majority. "Mitch McConnell's legacy will be that he purposefully undermined America's first Black president, he broke the Supreme Court, he helped elect a fascist President, and he abetted up an insurrection on American soil," Shannon Watts, founder of the gun control group Moms Demand Action, wrote on social media. McConnell used his speech on Wednesday to again advocate for the $95 billion Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan aid package that House Republicans have ignored since the Senate passed it this month, and also acknowledged that the Republican Party was moving away from him. "I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time," McConnell said. "I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them." (Reporting by Richard Cowan and David Morgan, additional reporting by Katharine Jackson and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Will Dunham, Scott Malone, Howard Goller and Jonathan Oatis) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will leave the leadership post he has held for 17 years in November, he announced Wednesday. He is pictured at a Heritage Foundation event in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 21, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) WASHINGTON U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November, he said on the Senate floor Wednesday, announcing the end of a run as party leader that broke records for its length and shaped American politics over nearly two decades. One of lifes most underappreciated talents is to know when its time to move on to lifes next chapter, McConnell said. Its time for the next generation of leadership. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, cited the death of his wifes sister several weeks ago, as an event that prompted him to think about his future. When you lose a loved one, particularly at a young age, theres a certain introspection that accompanies the grieving process, he said. President Joe Biden, who spent decades in the Senate before he was elected vice president in 2008, said in impromptu remarks Wednesday that he highly respected McConnell. He and I have trust, he said, according to a White House pool report. Weve got a great relationship. We fight like hell but he never, never, never misrepresented anything. Im sorry to hear hes stepping down. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that while he didnt see eye to eye, with McConnell on various policies and politics, the New York Democrat said he was proud of what they were able to accomplish, despite their differences. I am very proud that we both came together in the last few years to lead the Senate forward at critical moments when our country needed us, like passing the CARES Act in the early days of the COVID pandemic, finishing our work to certify the election on January 6th, and more recently working together to fund the fight for Ukraine, Schumer said. McConnell has faced increasing pressure to endorse the GOP presidential front-runner, Donald Trump. The two have a tense relationship that reached a breaking point following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol after then-President Trump encouraged supporters to disrupt the certification of electoral votes in the 2020 election. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is the last remaining Republican challenging Trump for the partys presidential nomination, said in a campaign stop in Utah that McConnell has had an amazing career. We obviously thank him for his leadership and his service, Haley said at an appearance in Orem, Utah. But I applaud him for realizing that it is time for new generational change. I think whats more important is we need to understand we dont just need new generational change in Congress. We also need new general generational change in the White House. Kentuckys longest-serving senator has shaped the federal judiciary system, including by leading Senate confirmation of 234 lifetime appointments to the federal bench. He played an important role in establishing a conservative U.S. Supreme Court by blocking Democratic then-President Barack Obama from appointing a justice before the 2016 presidential election. That conservative Supreme Court has handed down decisions in the past few years with major impacts on American society. The court ended the constitutional right to access abortion care, struck down the Biden administrations student loan forgiveness plan and expanded gun rights by limiting states power to enact gun safety laws. New leader election in November McConnell, who first arrived in the Senate in 1984 and became Republican leader in 2007, said he is not going anywhere until a new Republican leader is tapped. His Senate term is set to end January 2027. I love the Senate, McConnell said. Its been my life. Senate Republicans will select a new leader in November. Possible McConnell successors include Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso of Wyoming and former Republican Whip John Cornyn of Texas. As the longest serving Senate leader in American history, Mitch McConnell has made an indelible mark on this institution and the Republican Party, Cornyn said in a post to X. For more than 17 years, he has been the steady hand at the helm, guiding us through some of the most consequential debates and decisions in recent history. Cornyn also thanked McConnell for protecting the Senates essential role under the Constitution, and called him pragmatic, knowledgeable, humble, and effective. Thune said it will be hard to imagine a Senate in which Sen. McConnell isnt serving as Republican leader but hinted he would try to succeed the Kentuckian. For decades, hes been a fierce defender of the Senate, our conference, and our party, and were all better for his service, Thune said in a statement. Mitch leaves enormous shoes to fill, and its with humility that I look forward to having a discussion with my colleagues about what the future holds for the Senate Republican Conference and a new generation of leadership. Until then, thank you, Mitch. Barrasso praised McConnells career as the GOP leader and said that Republicans are focused on the November presidential election and flipping the Senate control. Thats what my focus is, he told reporters Wednesday. Thune recently endorsed Trump, following earlier endorsements by Barrasso and Cornyn. Accolades from other GOP senators More allies among McConnells Senate Republican colleagues rushed Wednesday to sing his praises. North Carolinas Thom Tillis praised McConnells achievements in shaping the judiciary and in enacting conservative policy goals in domestic and foreign policy. Leader McConnell is a true legend of the U.S. Senate, Tillis said in a statement. Under his historic leadership, the Senate secured a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, passed historic tax reform, and enacted bipartisan legislation to save our economy from the brink at the start of the pandemic. Montanas Steve Daines, who also chairs the GOPs Senate campaign arm, also touted McConnells role in passing the 2017 tax bill that made sweeping changes to the U.S. tax code. He will be remembered not only as the longest-serving party leader in the history of the Senate but a consummate gentleman and committed public servant, Daines said in a statement. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia thanked McConnell for his steadfast leadership and commitment to conservative principles. South Carolinas Lindsey Graham wrote on X that McConnell will be remembered as one of the most effective leaders in U.S. history. No one in the Republican Party has echoed the themes of peace through strength the Reagan model of national security better than Senator Mitch McConnell, he said. Nebraskas Deb Fischer congratulated McConnell for his decades of work in the Senate. Leader McConnell has served as a bulwark of conservative leadership throughout his time in the Senate, she wrote on X. His fierce reverence for our institution and shrewd consideration of the future made him an extraordinarily effective leader in all situations. GOP division apparent But the schism that emerged in the GOP in recent years between McConnells establishment wing and an upstart faction more aligned with Trump was also apparent in the reaction to McConnells announcement. I called on McConnell to step down over a year ago, Missouri Republican Josh Hawley tweeted. This is good news. But why wait so long we need new leadership now. The House Freedom Caucus, an influential group of far-right lawmakers in that chamber, mocked McConnell in a tweet that identified him as a Democrat because he has pursued bipartisan measures to fund Ukraines war effort against Russia. Our thoughts are with our Democrat colleagues in the Senate on the retirement of their Co-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (D-Ukraine), a tweet from the caucus official account read. No need to wait till November Senate Republicans should IMMEDIATELY elect a *Republican* Minority Leader. U.S. Rep. Bob Good, a Virginia Republican who is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said McConnells move could allow for more conservative leadership. Good floated Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who led a failed conservative challenge to displace McConnell as GOP leader in November 2022, as a potential successor to McConnell. Mitch McConnell stepping down provides a great opportunity for true conservative leadership in the Senate, Good said. Scott would make a great Republican leader. Wednesday, Scott again called for new leadership in the Senate. As everyone knows, I challenged Leader McConnell in 2022, he said in a statement. This is an opportunity to refocus our efforts on solving the significant challenges facing our country and actually reflect the aspirations of voters. McKenzie Romero contributed to this report. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post McConnell to step down as U.S. Senate GOP leader appeared first on Colorado Newsline. China's success in digital economy a "role model" for Ethiopia: officials Xinhua) 09:58, February 28, 2024 ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- China's success in digital economy development can serve as a "role model" to promote digital transformation in Ethiopia, according to local officials. They made the suggestions Monday during the launch of the first Digital Ethiopia Week in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, under the theme "United Effort for Digital Ethiopia." Speaking to Xinhua, Abiyot Bayou, a senior adviser at the Ethiopian Ministry of Innovation and Technology, said there are lots of lessons Ethiopia can draw from China's digital transformation, including strong political commitment, exploitation of indigenous knowledge and local capacity, to advance digitalization in the East African country. Noting that China's success in integrating the traditional economic system with information and communications technology (ICT) was instrumental in boosting its productivity and competitiveness, Bayou said Ethiopia needs to promote a digital economy as a national strategy, like China did, for better economic success and transformation. "China invested a lot at the grassroots level and that helped the nation make a breakthrough in digital economy development and become globally competitive, especially in e-commerce. Like China did, Ethiopia should integrate ICT and its social and economic development plans," he suggested. He said the shortage of finance and digital illiteracy remain to be major hurdles for digitalization in the East African nation with a population of about 120 million. The majority of the Ethiopian population, however, is out of school and engaged in informal employment, making digital illiteracy worse. According to the adviser, the number of data users in Ethiopia has reached 35 million from 17.5 million three years ago as the cost to use digital technology has declined to 3.3 percent of monthly income in 2024 from 9.5 percent in 2020. Yeshurun Alemayehu, state minister of innovation and technology, told Xinhua that the government of Ethiopia has significantly improved the legislative level of the digital economy, including the cybersecurity law, law against unfair competition and e-commerce, providing a legal basis for digital governance in Ethiopia. He said the digital economy in Ethiopia is nascent, but if guided by appropriate policies and strategies, it will have an immense potential to trigger productivity in all sectors of the economy. "The Chinese are a digitalized society and they can get all services just with one sign-in. They do not interact without digital technologies. So, there is a need to draw lessons from China to create a digitalized society," said Alemayehu, adding Ethiopia uses China as a benchmark to make its big population a digitalized one to promote national development. Noting that digitalization will help Ethiopia create more decent jobs and become globally competitive, the state minister called on Chinese companies to invest more in the digital economy, especially in the building of cloud data centers in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has unveiled a new strategy dubbed "Digital Ethiopia 2025," aiming to issue 70 million digital IDs, triple digital payment which currently stands at 1.2 trillion birr (about 21.15 billion U.S. dollars) per year and increase interactions among government, private sector and citizens by 2025. The Digital Ethiopia 2025 strategy, which is said to have been in line with the country's homegrown economic reform and 10-year development plan, aims at creating pathways to unleash value chains in agriculture, manufacturing and tourism sectors among others. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) On Tuesday, an anonymous jury found two men guilty of the 2002 murder of Run-DMC rap pioneer Jam Master Jay, shot and killed at his New York City recording studio. Ronald Washington, 59, and Karl Jordan Jr., 40, were convicted of federal charges of murder while engaged in drug trafficking in the shooting of Run-DMC founding member Jam Master Jay, legally referred to as Jason Mizell. Reuters reported the verdict via the social media platform X, where the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn announced the news. Considered one of the most infamous killings in rap history, the verdict follows a month-trial at the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York. The Back Story: Mizell knew both men quite well, revealed prosecutors. He was allegedly killed in a business dispute over a lucrative deal to distribute cocaine in Baltimore. Washington was a childhood friend, and Jordan was Mizell's godson. All three grew up in the same neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. In the 1980s, Mizell and his Run-DMC bandmates pioneered hip-hop into mainstream music with hits like "It's Tricky" and the cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" off the best-selling 1986 album "Raising Hell." In their lyrics and stage shows, the group was known to advocate against illegal narcotics. The group even recorded a "Just Say No!" anti-drug public service announcement in the late 1980s for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. However, as Mizell's music industry success dwindled in the 1990s, he turned to dealing cocaine to help fund his music career. Prosecutors called witnesses during the trial who were in the studio the night that Mizell, 37, was fatally shot on Oct. 30, 2002, including Mizell's friend Tony Rincon, who was also shot in the leg by one of Mizell's killers. They also called witnesses who told jurors that Jordan and Washington confided to people close to them that they were responsible for the murder. Prosecutors said Jordan and Washington conspired to kill Mizell after the musician cut them out of the drug deal in Baltimore worth roughly $200,000. Lawyers defending both men, brazenly told the jury that the defendants were not behind the killing. They called one witness to the stand, an expert who testified on the frailty of human memory in an attempt to discredit the prosecution's witnesses. Washington and Jordan face a maximum sentence of life in prison and a mandatory minimum of at least 20 years. In May, a third defendant, Jay Bryant, was also indicted in the murder and is due to face a separate trial in 2026, said Reuters. According to prosecutors, on the night of the murder, Jordan's friend Bryant let him and another individual into Mizell's place through a back door. Both were armed with guns. When Mizell stood up to greet them, Jordan shot him in the head from close range, killing him instantly. The three men then quickly fled. Prosecutors stated witnesses, including Rincon, were too scared to tell the police who did it and even left New York for their safety. Former chairman of the board of Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia) Yevhen Kravtsov has been in charged in connection to an embezzlement case of Hr 11.4 million (around $300,000), Ukrainska Pravda and Forbes Ukraine reported on Feb. 28, citing their sources. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) announced on Feb. 26 that they had uncovered a scheme to embezzle funds from Ukrainian Railways. The anti-corruption agencies said the suspects included businessmen and Ukrainian Railways officials but did not provide any names. According to the investigation, the head of the criminal group an unidentified businessman decided to establish control over the commodity and cash flows of the railways in 2018. For this purpose, he approached old acquaintances from among the government representatives and, with their help, managed to appoint members of the criminal group to management positions in Ukrainian Railways. Join our community Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight. Support us Between 2018 and 2021, Ukrainian Railways officials appointed by the leader of the group selected one of his companies for a tender on the purchase of pneumatic tools. The products were delivered to Ukrainian Railways branches at an inflated cost, and the amount of the overpayment was Hr 11.4 million. Nine people were charged in connection with the case, including two managers of the organized group and six Ukrainian Railways officials. The leader of the group has been put under arrest on Feb. 26. Yevhen Kravtsov was the acting chairman of the board of Ukrainian Railways between August 2017 and January 2019 and full-fledged chairman between January 2019 and December 2019. Kravtsov has also served as a deputy infrastructure minister between May 2016 and August 2017. Read also: Anti-corruption agencies launch investigation involving Ukrainian Railways Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) A specialized medical team with Corewell Health is providing care to pregnant women who have increased risk during pregnancy because of preexisting heart conditions. Autumn and Brandon Van Zee were not sure if they would ever be able to have children. The cardiologist I had, I told her I wanted to get pregnant, Autumn Van Zee said. And she said she wasnt sure if that was possible. Autumn Van Zee has cardiomyopathy, a condition that makes it harder for her heart to pump blood. She and her husband were ultimately referred to a team of specialists at Corewell Health. I think I was 21 weeks pregnant we had an ultrasound and they noticed something wrong with Jamisons heart. And they didnt think it was that big of a deal, Autumn Van Zee said. An undated photo of Jamison Van Zee. (Courtesy) Doctors eventually learned her son had the same condition. With additional ultrasounds, they discovered the condition had gotten worse, so a cesarean section was needed. He was in the neonatal intensive care unit for about a month before getting transferred to the heart floor at Helen DeVos Childrens Hospital in Grand Rapids. From there, he got transferred to Mott Childrens at U of M, because he needed a heart transplant, Autumn Van Zee said. Doctors said they could try a Berlin heart pump device, but the risk was very high. It was open heart surgery, it could cause pain. Our choices were either to do that and try it, or to let him go, Autumn Van Zee said. And so we made the decision to let him go when he was three months old. A few months later, Autumn Van Zee found out she was pregnant with her second child and eventually had a third child, too. The Corewell team provided care through the pregnancy. They all knew our history with Jamison and what happened, and I just felt like they took good care of us, Autumn Van Zee said. Her maternal fetal medicine physician, Eryn Hart, says Autumn Van Zees heart condition required a higher level of care. Autumn in particular had about a 25% chance of having a significant change to her heart or even an arrhythmia, or a difference with how her heart would start beating, or potentially even dying from her condition if it worsened, Hart said. Doctors want women with heart conditions to know medical advancements are making pregnancy more manageable, even with the risks. Its like the Super Bowl of medical wins for us, because when you see that healthy mom and that healthy baby leaving, thats why we do what we do, Hart said. The Van Zee family says the team did everything they possibly could to provide the best care available. We believe that God gave us all three of our children. And we dont know why Jamison was so sick and why he passed, but were grateful to have Jason and Jocelyn, Autumn Van Zee said. An undated photo of Jason and Jocelyn Van Zee. (Courtesy) To learn more about the program, you can visit the Corewell Health website. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WOODTV.com. Posting about fashion, lifestyle or sports, there are influencers out there for every hobby under the sun. You may be used to stumbling across the accounts of beautiful looking American women in impressive country houses. However, if you dig a little deeper you could discover that you have stumbled upon a trad wife - a woman advocating for a return to 1950s style gender norms. "The trad wife movement is an international movement of women who advocate a return to traditional gender norms through submitting to their husbands and promoting domesticity, Cecile Simmons, researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue tells Euronews Culture. The origins of the movement The movement emerged on social media platforms around six years ago, gaining popularity on Reddit, namely through an anti-feminist thread called 'Red Pill'. Trad wives then surfaced on other mainstream social media platforms like Instagram. The trad wife movement encourages women to be submissive to their husbands - Canva "Searches exploded during the pandemic. As with other forms of 'radicalisation' they flourished through people's sense of isolation," explains Simmons. Hailing from the US, the trad wife movement crossed the Atlantic and quickly blossomed in the UK. Today it remains more popular in the Anglo-saxon world than in mainland Europe. An ideological spectrum There is an ideological spectrum within the tradwife movement, trad wives tend to be conservative and anti-feminist, but this does not mean that they all belong to the far-right. The movement can act as an entry point for white nationalist and supremacist ideology, says Simmons. Trad wives call for "submissiveness" to their husbands, a cause for concern according to Simmons, "the danger is also that this could normalise abusive relationships". Who are some of these trad wives? One of the trad wife figure-heads is Estee Williams, a 26 year-old trad wife who lives with her husband in Virginia. In her feed of pictures and reels she can be seen wearing an array of A-line dresses with immaculately styled blonde hair. Though she has many fans in her 100k followers, her posts section also attract criticism, "so many women who have fought for equality, and this is what they achieve? What a shame", comments one user. On the other side of the Atlantic lies Alena Kate Pettitt, a British trad wife who runs the 'Darling Academy' website. In her blog biography she outlines how her "exhausting adventures" working in London in her twenties led her to become a traditional housewife. "My supposed modern and empowering choices had destroyed my self-esteem", she adds. Although Pettitt amassed a following of 40k followers on Instagram, she deleted her account, citing "the vile messages, the hatred" as well as "the unwanted attention from men." She remains active on her blog and other platforms. And then there are the more extreme trad wives, with the likes of Ayla Stewart. Describing herself as "a former college-liberal who saw the light", Stewart is a Mormon. She may have far less followers than Estee Williams, but she stirred up a media frenzy a few years ago, with the 'white baby challenge. In a now deleted video following a strong backlash, Stewart encouraged her followers to have as many white babies as possible. They can use coded language "On YouTube I have seen more political videos and politicised discourse, on Telegram they are also more bold in their assertions as there is lower content moderation", explains Simmons. Trad wives may have the widest reach on Instagram, but they are also active across other social media platforms. Different platforms, but also subtleties in language, "some trad wives are good at using coded-language and specific hashtags which creates a danger of a white nationalist ideology being used under the guise of a mainstream aesthetic", adds Simmons. The business behind being a trad wife There is a racial aspect to the trad wife movement - as they are for the most part white women - as well as an economic one. In order to live as a 1950s housewife, a household must be able to sustain itself on a single salary - a tough ask for many people given the global cost of living crisis. The trad wife movement advocates a return to traditional gender norms - Canva Trad wives may promote a return to traditional values as stay at home wives - but the fact is that they can also make money and run business from their social media accounts. "I have interacted with these trad wives and I was told I could be taught how to make money from home. There is an element of recruiting other people into this lifestyle by saying its a viable economic choice", explains Simmons. The European tradwives The trad wife movement is still very marginal in continental Europe. "It's a nascent movement, it is starting to develop in France but accounts dont have the same reach as American or British accounts. They have a few hundred followers for instance. But I do suspect that we could see some bigger accounts begin to emerge", explains Simmons. In France, a rather unconventional 'trad wife' has been attracting attention: 24 year-old Thais dEscufon. She is a former member of the banned far-right group Identite Generation. Thais d'Escufon - TikTok D'Escufon has reinvented herself as a social media figure promoting an anti-feminist message. However, the inconsistency lies in the fact that she does not have a husband - or children. While d'Escufon is still young, Simmons explains that women who don't conform to the ideas they espouse can be isolated, in order to fit into the traditional housewife movement, you need to get involved, if not you will be punished. Jamie Guerrette was at a career crossroads. The working mother of two could see the boost a bachelors degree in business could give her in the job market. What she couldnt see was how she would find the time to come back to college. Enter University of Maine at Presque Isles YourPace. A competency-based degree program offered entirely online, YourPace allows adults like Jamie to access courses when it works best in their busy lives, and advance as they master the material. Students can receive credit for prior learning and work experience, and personal success coaches to support them as they progress toward their degree or certificate in high-demand fields including accounting, criminal justice, psychology and supply chain management. And they pay an affordable flat fee per session, regardless of how many courses they take. UMS Chancellor Dannel Malloy The fit and flexibility of YourPace and her hard work on nights and weekends enabled Jamie to finish her business degree in six months. Shes since secured a great job working for an Aroostook County nonprofit, and says the skills she has now she wishes she had years ago. In Maine, its estimated that 190,000 adults have some college but no door-opening degree or credential. Our public universities want to help those Mainers and the states employers and economy realize their full potential. Doing so is not only essential to growing Maines workforce, but to ensuring the sustainability of our System, which is seeing far fewer students enroll directly from high school. YourPace proves what is possible, and has helped UMPIs enrollment increase by 67% over the last five years. Its just one example of our Systems evolution to better engage adult learners in earning a postsecondary degree or credential, consistent with Maines 10-year economic strategy of growing local talent and our own new strategic plan. Expanded broadband connectivity has been invaluable to our doing so. The University of Maine at Augusta was a pioneer in distance education, broadcasting courses statewide using interactive television starting in the late-1980s. This fall, distance education made up 37% of all credit hours delivered by UMS. Across the System, our universities are adding responsive, high-quality online programming so adults can most easily access innovative education and opportunity in fields where Maine most needs knowledgeable workers. This shift online has led UMS to start selling now-underutilized facilities to local partners so they can be repurposed for public benefit like affordable senior housing and reduce our operating costs. The University of Maine at Fort Kent (UMFK) now has a fully online masters in nursing, as well as RN to BSN programs so nurses here can improve their economic mobility and patient outcomes. And this fall, the University of Southern Maine launched an online bachelors degree in special education to up-skill those already working in the states schools including educational technicians. Even the University of Maine School of Law now has entirely online offerings, like its Compliance Program. Of course, distance education isnt for everyone. Thats why our System is improving in-person access in creative, cost-efficient ways. For example, the University of Maine at Farmington delivers its bachelors in early childhood education at Southern Maine Community College, with evening and weekend classes preparing working adults in the states most populated region to build strong foundations for our youngest Mainers. Beyond access and affordability, like traditional-aged learners, the 40% of UMS students who are 25 and older also need wrap-around support. The University of Maine, the University of Maine at Machias and UMFK are collaborating to help Mainers Finish Strong an adult degree completion program that provides scholarships including a free course, personalized advising and even intensive English language training for New Americans. Higher education doesnt have a reputation for flexibility. Here in Maine, our public universities are changing that and the lives of Maine people. Dannel Malloy has been chancellor of the University of Maine System since 2019. Prior to his tenure in Maine, Malloy was a public servant for more than two decades, serving as a prosecutor, mayor and two-term governor of Connecticut. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Meeting learners where they are to help them in Maine workforce The military and veterans' communities have spent years trying to combat suicide rates much higher than the national average. But within those communities, Americans belonging to racial minority groups are experiencing even higher rates, according to analysis by Military.com. Based on data from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Department, the suicide risk among service members and veterans of Asian American and Pacific Islander descent (AAPI) was 350% higher than the national average, and the per capita rate for Black and Hispanic vets and troops was twice the national average in 2021, the last year for which data was available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, VA and DoD. Those rates are higher than those for white service members and veterans, though that group also sees elevated risk of suicide compared to the civilian population. Read Next: Air Force Identifies 25-Year-Old Cyber Specialist as Airman Who Set Himself on Fire in Front of DC Embassy "There are sociopolitical factors in the environment that are creating minority or racialized stress along with the historical underpinnings of racism and racial discrimination in the military," said Patricia B. Glenn, senior clinical director at the nonprofit organization Stop Soldier Suicide. Glenn added that research is just beginning to understand why there is the disparity in suicide risk. More than 30,177 service members and veterans who served during the War on Terror alone have died due to suicide, four times the number of troops lost in combat during that period. The military's mental health crisis is complex and involves factors including military sexual trauma, poor leadership, combat exposure, quality-of-life issues and many others. However, specific risks for certain demographics of service members have been understudied. A 2021 report from Rand Corp. on the mental health of minority service members found that those in several groups were more likely to attempt suicide than their white peers. Although 2021 is the most recent year for which complete data on military and veteran suicide rates has been released, it is part of a larger trend that began in 2017. Based on the data analyzed by Military.com, per capita suicide rates among minority service members since that year have increased 57% on average, versus 6% in the same time period for their white counterparts. These increased rates of suicide are also higher than trends in the national population. It is unclear what exactly is driving these disparities between military and non-military populations for minority service members, though previous research has highlighted potential factors, including racial discrimination such as Uniform Code of Military Justice punishment, racial health inequities, and cultural factors. After multiple deployments to Operation Iraqi Freedom where he suffered from traumatic brain injuries and development of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, retired U.S. Army Maj. Art Murguia, a former artillery officer who identifies as Chicano (Mexican American), was one of the first commanders of the DoD's Warrior Transition Units. These units were created in the late 2000s after the high number of wounds, both physical and mental, suffered by service members in the Global War on Terror. "The main goal of these units was to transition people out of the military as fast as possible," said Murguia. "My previous unit leadership told me to 'suck it up' and to just drive on." And for those who were open about their struggles, the judgment would be swift. "If you had mental wounds, you were looked at like you were the scum of the Earth," he said. "Sometimes, the stigma came from my own doctors: One wrote that I looked guilty as if I were faking my condition. It was entirely unprofessional, and some of it felt racial." After his time in uniform, Murguia worked as a senior adviser in the Department of Defense's Health Affairs office, assisting the assistant secretary of defense in developing policy pertaining to the military's Wounded Warrior Program. "For years, the DoD didn't pay attention to the issue of suicide among minority service members," Murguia said. "That combined with the already high levels of stigma about seeking treatment for men in the Latino/Hispanic community. You don't want to appear weak; you don't want to appease others; you have to be tough and macho. Most people don't know where to find help or feel like they have to gut through it. If someone asks you if you're OK in the military, the immediate response for most of us is, 'Yeah, I'm fine.'" In a 2017 Workplace and Equal Opportunity Survey conducted by the DoD, nearly 1 in 3 of Black service members reported experiencing racial discrimination, harassment or both during a 12-month period. About 1 in 5 of AAPI and Hispanic service members reported the same; all of this was at a higher rate than their white counterparts. A report from the DoD reviewing the results showed the minority service members experiencing harassment and discrimination reported lower levels of readiness, such as loss of trust in their leaders, lower morale, and negative perceptions of their ability to perform their wartime mission. The effect that this treatment has on the mental well-being of minority service members is unclear, however, although research published last year found that soldiers who were bullied or hazed were more likely to develop mental health issues than those who were not. Several high-profile cases of racist behavior that has contributed to suicide have also gained attention, such as the 2011 death of U.S. Army Pvt. Danny Chen. He was 19-years-old when he died by suicide while serving in Afghanistan. The Chinese American soldier was racially harassed, teased, bullied and mercilessly beaten by his leadership and fellow soldiers, according to an investigation conducted by the Army in 2011 after his death. The Army would eventually charge eight of his fellow soldiers, including his platoon leader, for various offenses, convicting four of them. The DoD and VA have only just recently begun studying the role that demographic factors have in influencing behavioral health outcomes among troops, although data indicating the disparities between suicide rates has existed for years. Since the publication of Rand's 2021 report, the DoD has published one paper focusing on the demographic characteristics of behavioral health concerns among service members. For this story, Military.Com reached out to the Defense Centers for Public Health-Aberdeen, which is leading the DoD effort to research potential behavioral health disparities among those who belong to minority groups in the military, for comment but did not receive a response by publication. In September, researchers at the VA published a study that looked at 20 years of data on suicide in the Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community finding that veterans suicide rates in that group have steady increased while the civilian rate has remained largely flat. The disparity was high especially among AANHPI veterans aged 18-34. Dr. Lindsey Monteith, the lead author of the study, said via email that no single factor seemed to be driving the increases though several problems were contributing, including "experiences of discrimination, harmful societal stereotypes (e.g., the 'model minority myth'), and stigma." Monteith and her team are now further investigating potential contributing factors as part of a project funded by the VA Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. Glenn said that research began to pick up after the protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd, but that "with DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] becoming a political battleground, it's very hard to know where those efforts currently stand." "A start would be more equitable hiring practices to ensure there are more BIPOC [Black, indigenous and other people of color] mental health providers," said Glenn. "And treatments tailored toward those communities, along with a focus on identifying potential barriers to treatment." -- Daniel Johnson is Ph.D. student at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill. He served for nine years in the U.S. Army as an officer and has written for outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. Related: Veteran Suicides Ticked Upward in 2021 Following 2 Years of Decline, Latest VA Statistics Show A scholarship has been established to memorialize a Serra Catholic High School student who was killed in a school van crash in September. The Samantha Lee Kalkbrenner Memorial Scholarship will offer three $1,000 scholarships to current or incoming students. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Communities gather to remember student killed in school van accident in Dravosburg In addition to the Kalkbrenner scholarship, the Olivia Dapper Memorial Scholarship will offer $1,000 to a current student, and the John Hart Memorial Scholarship will offer $650 to a current student. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW TRENDING NOW: Personal care home where dementia patient died opted not to open secured unit last year Ozempic, Wegovy shortages having impact on patients; heres what experts suggest Man wanted after dog attacked with hatchet in Aliquippa VIDEO: Application seeks development of property near Acrisure Stadium, science center DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts Harlem Township in Delaware County and Westerville have announced their intent to merge. Details of the proposal have to be ironed out and a majority of voters from both communities will have the final say in November. Harlem Township officials have been discussing how best to preserve their quiet, rural way of life ever since Intel announced plans to build its massive chip manufacturing site just east of the Delaware-Licking County border two years ago. And now, the township and its closest municipality the city of Westerville are announcing plans to merge. Ultimately, according to Ohio law, a majority of voters in each community must agree. What this means for both communities will be discussed in a series of public meetings. And today, Westerville officials will be given packets of information with details to prepare them for future City Council meetings, said Christa Dickey, city spokeswoman. Merger, rarely used in Ohio, is less adversarial than annexation, which allows municipalities to forcibly acquire land, typically desired by developers for economic development. The result can be the erosion of township boundaries. Intel's plant, under construction in western Licking County, is likely to affect traffic, housing developments and shared resources, including water and sewer services. And it has raised various concerns in surrounding communities, including the two potential partners. "This is all very close to both of us, and we want to have a voice in this," said Dickey. Open skies and howling coyotes part of rural charm Harlem Township Trustee Carl Richison said that with Intel's announcement in January 2022, "We realized rather rapidly that we were on the doorstep of Intel and that change was coming. We knew that if we didn't come up with some kind of plan, we were going to lose those dark skies and howling coyotes and connection to nature." Richison is referring to a rural lifestyle including spacious farmland, quiet nights and natural wildlife habitats. "We've always wanted to maintain our quiet, little peaceful community," Richison said. Fearing the loss, trustees sent a consultant to Chandler, Arizona, where Intel's other big chip plant is located. "We were told the mistakes they made: no grocery stores or gas stations between their homes and where they work. People having to drive 15 miles past their homes for basic services," Richison said. Even before Intel, Harlem officials knew that Columbus, Galena and New Albany each share a border with the township and that annexation was possible. Merger doesn't require a contiguous border. Richison said he'll tell his 4,800 residents that a merger with Westerville "may be the only option to protect our way of life. It at least affords us some potential input and control." And for those landowners, including farmers who may want to sell, "I'll tell them: 'Once you've sold your property, we can at least look at the developer and tell them we don't want a bunch of multi-story whatever.' " The proposal would not affect school district boundaries or their tax levies, Big Walnut or Westerville City. Parks in both communities would become one system The merger would create a unified park system. Westerville has an elaborate water park and community and senior centers. The township has mostly open space, requiring minimal maintenance. Upon merging, all residents would have access to the resident rate (and early registration) for parks and recreation programming and facilities. Police and fire shifting, expanding Westerville Police would begin patrolling Harlem, which Delaware County Sheriff currently covers. Additional police officers could be hired to ensure adequate coverage. Harlem Township's 35-member fire department would blend into Westerville's. No jobs would be lost. The township's fire house and EMS station on Route 605 would remain. Taxes would be complicated, but the township's is sure to rise Westerville taxes would remain the same. Those in Harlem Township would increase by 3.41 mills, in order to conform to Westerville's current tax rate. This would add about $120 per year for every $100,000 of property valuation. Taxes would first be payable in 2026, if voters approve the measure. Richison said that higher taxes might be the most difficult aspect of merging to sell, until residents realize that rising costs would happen over time, even without a merger, due to pressure from developers to add more homes. "All I ask is for residents to get all the facts in line before they make their final decision, without the propaganda," Richison said. The Ohio Township Association, which represents Ohio's 1,308 townships, is not overly concerned about the news, said Heidi Fought, executive director. "It's not a very common happening. But it's the whole community (agreeing). You're not separating the identities of the communities," she said. "There's no concern. It's an elected office making an effort to study and recommend and ultimately residents make the decision." Fought said she can only recall a couple of other township mergers, in Montgomery and Summit counties, in the past two decades. Grappling with growth The city of Delaware recently annexed about 200 acres of farmland in Brown Township but not before fending off a lawsuit and referendum petition drive from residents opposed to unfettered growth. Other cities have struck agreements to share taxes in exchange for commercial and other development. In Licking County, residents of St. Albans Township and the village of Alexandria voted in November to form a merger commission to explore the possibility of merging their governments. The threat of annexation will continue to challenge officials worried about water, land use and overdevelopment. "The risk is that land for farms and families become warehouses," Richison has said. "And Ohio law doesnt give townships the power to prevent it. Only cities can do that." Westerville appears willing to participate:There are still factors to consider but the upside for both communities looks significant, Monica Dupee, Westerville city manager said in prepared remarks. "Both Harlem and Westerville have a long history of thoughtful community planning that has produced two of the most desirable places to live and work in the region." Westerville knows we must take an active role in helping manage the growth we are seeing all around us or we risk our community's health and safety, said Dupee. A recent joint FAQ states that a merger "gives Westerville residents more control over their borders where the most growth is expected." The document cites traffic, noise and new development that is out-of-character with the city's models. Planning and public input needed Westerville City Council will have its first discussion at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall. Township officials have already discussed the merger plans with some residents. A second meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Harlem Road Church, 5520 Harlem Road. More public meetings notices will be posted online at www.westervilleharlem.org. Each legislative body would need to approve a formal merger agreement by August in order to make the November general election ballot. dnarciso@dispatch.com This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Intel chip factory leads Westerville, Harlem Township discuss merger Wayne Couzens was given a whole life sentence for the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard - Metropolitan Police/AFP Police forces are to overhaul the way reports of indecent exposure are treated as the damning findings of an inquiry into Wayne Couzens are published. The former Scotland Yard officer was reported to police several times for flashing but no action was ever taken and he went on to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard in March 2021. A long-awaited review by Dame Elish Angiolini to be published on Thursday is expected to severely criticise Kent Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police for missing numerous opportunities to catch Couzens for indecent exposure. It is understood in response to the criticism, police chiefs will vow to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry when allegations of indecent exposure are reported. They will say this is not only the right thing to do for the victim, but will also help prevent flashing offences escalating into serious sexual violence. Official figures suggest fewer than 6 per cent of the annual 10,000 offences of indecent exposure result in a charge or summons. The Angiolini Inquiry report is also expected to highlight glaring problems in the police vetting system, which allowed Couzens to transfer from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) into the Met, despite his name being linked to a sexual offence in 2015. Report by Dame Elish Angiolini claims that the issue goes further than the actions of individual officers - Ian Wallman/PA Couzens was working for Scotland Yards Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection unit, but was off duty, when he used his police warrant card to abduct Everard as she walked home through Clapham in south London. Prior to joining the Met, Couzens had been investigated by Kent Police for flashing after a couple came forward in June 2015 to report seeing a man exposing himself while driving through Dover. They provided police with his registration number and a description and it was subsequently confirmed that the vehicle belonged to Couzens, who at the time was working for the CNC. But a sergeant at Kent Police closed the case after the witnesses declined to support the investigation. In November 2020, Couzens exposed himself to a female cyclist in an isolated part of rural Kent, but again police failed to investigate the matter properly. The victim reported the incident to Kent Police, providing a description of Couzens and a partial car registration, but the force said it was unable to progress the investigation without the full number plate. Couzens left a dark stain on victim The victim later described how the incident left a dark stain on her and she was subsequently diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Just weeks before Couzens abducted and murdered Everard he exposed himself on two separate occasions at a branch of McDonalds drive thru in Swanley, Kent. The incidents were reported to Scotland Yard and officers were provided with details of Couzens car registration and bank details. But the investigation was not treated as a priority and had not been properly progressed by March 3 2021, when he attacked and murdered Everard. A female police constable was later found guilty of gross misconduct after a disciplinary hearing concluded she had failed to make the the correct investigative inquiries. But it is understood Dame Elishs findings will say the issues go much further than mistakes by individual officers. The report is also expected to demand an overhaul of the vetting system with previous reports warning that pimps, gangsters and predatory sex offenders had managed to slip through the net and join the police. In 2022 a report by Dame Louise Casey warned that an anything goes culture had been allowed to develop in the Met with racists, misogynists and criminals allowed to stay in the force. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. A police officer who sent "highly offensive racist and misogynistic" texts to a woman has been sacked. PC David Seager from the Metropolitan Police knew the woman and bombarded her violent sexual threats, a panel heard. He already had a final written warning in place due to sexually inappropriate comments to three female colleagues. Det Ch Supt Trevor Lawry said: "I cannot imagine the level of distress caused. The fact they were sent to her by a police officer is sickening." He added: "PC Seager has been rightly dismissed. The Commissioner has been clear that we remove anyone from the organisation who falls below the high standards we must uphold." The hearing found ex-PC Seager breached the standards of professional behaviour in respect of authority, respect and courtesy, equality and diversity, and discreditable conduct. As well as immediate dismissal, he is now banned from being employed by police, local policing bodies (PCCs), the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) or His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk The husband of a New York doctor who reportedly passed away from severe food allergies shortly after eating at a Disney Springs restaurant last year filed a lawsuit against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts in Florida. The complaint alleges that although Dr. Kanokporn Tangsuan was repeatedly assured the food would be allergy-safe, Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant served her allergen-containing food on October 5. Disney Sued After NY Doctor Died From Food Allergy According to a medical examiner's autopsy report cited in the complaint, which was filed in Florida circuit court on Thursday on behalf of her husband, Jeffrey J. Piccolo, Tangsuan passed away that night from a severe allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis. Tangsuan, Piccolo, and his mother had dinner at the restaurant at Disney Springs, a Disney World shopping and dining complex, on October 5. The complaint, which names the restaurant and Disney Parks and Resorts defendants, alleges multiple accusations of negligence. It is requesting over $50,000 in damages. The lawsuit states they decided to eat there since they believed the restaurant could handle her allergies. It claims that Disney and Raglan Road have said that accommodating those with allergies is a top priority and that customers can consult with staff members about specific ingredients. Tangsuan had serious allergies, so the couple informed their server that she could not eat anything that contained allergens. According to the complaint, the server told them they would prepare allergen-free food if they requested specific items. Furthermore, the party ordered dishes named "Sure I'm Frittered," "Scallop Forest," "This Shepherd Went Vegan," and "Onion Rings." The complaint claims they were assured "unequivocally" that their food would be allergy-free when asked about allergens "several more times." The couple asked again when some dishes did not have "allergen-free flags," and their server responded with the same response. At about eight o'clock in the evening, the party split up. The document says Tangsuan stayed at Disney Springs to shop while Piccolo returned to the couple's nearby hotel room. She started having breathing problems around 8:45 pm, went inside a nearby restaurant, and passed out while suffering from a severe acute allergic reaction to the food served at Raglan. Tangsuan tried to stop her body's extreme allergic reaction using her EpiPen. The document says she was taken to a hospital by paramedics after a bystander called 911. Piccolo called her phone, unaware of the situation, but someone else answered and told him what had happened. According to the complaint, he went to the hospital, where personnel informed him that Tangsuan had passed away. Read Also: Burkina Faso Church Attack Kills 15 Catholic Worshippers During Service FDA Authorizes Treatment for Accidental Food Allergy Exposures Dr. Tom Chacko of Chacko Allergy, Asthma, and Sinus Center suggests Xolair, the recently approved allergy drug by the FDA. A growing number of individuals with numerous food allergies, aged one and older, can now use Xolair, a medicine that Chacko currently recommends for some of his patients with allergic asthma and chronic hives. "It's really for people who are worried about accidental exposures," Dr. Chacko says. He said that people using Xolair still need to take their prescribed epinephrine injectors and avoid the foods that cause their sensitivities. On the other hand, Xolair is designed to lessen the body's allergic reaction if they have an accidental exposure. Related Article: Nutramigen Powder: Hundreds of Thousands of Infant Formula Recalled Over Fear of Bacterial Contamination East St. Louis Police Chief Kendall Perry said Tuesday a veteran police sergeant charged in connection with the alleged battery of a teenager has been placed on paid administrative leave. Sgt. Keith Randolph, 49, was charged with two felony counts of aggravated battery and two felony counts of official misconduct on Friday, which is when the administrative leave began. Randolph, who has been with the East St. Louis Police Department since 2001, could not be reached for comment and St. Clair County court records do not list a defense attorney for him. The case has been remanded to a grand jury, which can come back a with no true bill or an indictment. Illinois State Police investigated the incident. Perry said the decision to place Randolph on paid administrative leave was based on the police departments contract with the police officers union. He did not release any other information about the case. A charging document alleges that on Oct. 16, while Randolph had a juvenile in custody at the East St. Louis Police Department, he knowingly made physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature with a 16-year-old boy. The charging document alleges he struck the male minor in the face with a closed fist. The second aggravated battery charge for Randolph is the result of his slamming the male minor into the wall of the stairwell. Randolph also was charged with two counts of official misconduct in connection with allegations since he was acting in his official capacity as a police officer. He had his initial appearance in court on Monday morning. WASHINGTON (DC News Now) A public hearing on Metros proposed budget was interrupted when a tow truck cable hit a window and shattered it on Tuesday evening. Metro said that the incident happened at Metro HQ during the public hearing on its FY25 budget. Metro riders urge board to keep service levels during first public budget hearing In a statement, Metro said that one person was injured while taking cover. That person was being treated for minor injuries. Metro said that the Metro Transit Police Department was at the meeting to ensure safety and responded immediately to the incident. (Image courtesy of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) (Image courtesy of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority) The hearing was paused out of an abundance of caution but has now resumed, Metros post on the platform X said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC. Michelle Obama is the leading choice to replace Joe Biden as the presidential candidate for Democrats if he drops out of the race, a survey has found. The former first lady emerged as the top alternate to Mr Biden for the 2024 race, beating Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, and Hillary Clinton amid questions about the presidents health and fitness. About 48 per cent of Democratic voters supported finding another candidate to replace Joe Biden before the election in November, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey released on Monday. About 47 per cent of the respondents believe it is likely Democrats will replace Biden with another candidate as their presidential nominee before the election in November, including 22 per cent who see it as very likely. Meanwhile, 45 per cent of 960 voters dont think its likely Democrats will substitute another candidate. At least 20 per cent of the respondents supported Ms Obama as the face replacing Mr Biden. She was followed by the vice-president with 15 per cent, while about 12 per cent said they would like to see Ms Clinton return. Mr Newsom received support from 11 per cent of respondents. Ms Obama had earlier admitted that her fears about the 2024 elections are among the things that keep her up at night. In an interview in January, she said: I am terrified about what could possibly happen, because our leaders matter. We cannot take this democracy for granted. And sometimes I worry that we do. Earlier, Mr Biden won the presidential primary in Michigan on Tuesday, alongside his Republican counterpart Donald Trump, solidifying an all-but-certain rematch between the two. As of early Wednesday morning, Mr Biden received 81.1 per cent of the vote in the Democratic primary, while 13 per cent of voters chose uncommitted. Mr Bidens overwhelming victory in Michigan pushes back most of the concerns some had about a primary in a crucial swing state. Many Arab-Americans have expressed dissatisfaction toward Mr Biden regarding his support for Israel in its response to Hamas in Gaza staging a surprise attack on 7 October that killed 1,200 people. Arab-Americans make up about two per cent of Michigans population and many have loved ones who have either died or otherwise been displaced by Israels assault on Gaza that has so far killed more than 30,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children. But Mr Biden, 81, continues to face lagging poll numbers in multiple surveys in Michigan and continues to face lingering questions about his advanced age. Mr Trump, 77, has repeatedly targeted Mr Biden for supposedly not being mentally cognizant, and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who is running against Mr Trump for the Republican nomination, has said both men are too old. President Biden is staring down a formidable protest vote in Michigans presidential primary amid growing anger over his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Activists have urged voters to select uncommitted on their ballot as part of an effort to signal their opposition to Bidens policies toward the war. All eyes will be on what percentage of the vote that choice garners in Tuesday nights election. The results could bode poorly for Biden in a crucial swing state, where he currently trails Trump by several points in The Hill and Decision Desk HQs polling average. Follow the live results from Decision Desk HQ here. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. President Biden joins striking members of the United Auto Workers union on the picket line in Belleville, Mich., Sept. 26, 2023. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) Michigan Democrats made their opposition to Israels war in Gaza known in the states presidential primary Tuesday, casting an eye-opening number of votes against President Biden. Biden won the party primary easily. He was on track to receive around 80% of the vote, with no other candidates higher than 3%. The Associated Press called the race for Biden at 9:00 p.m. ET, just after the polls closed in Michigan. The AP also declared former President Donald Trump the winner in the Michigan Republican primary, held the same night. With about 98% of the vote counted, more than 13% of Michigan Democrats had cast ballots for uncommitted, following an organized campaign in the state to register displeasure with the presidents policy in the Middle East. This embedded content is not available in your region. Why Michigan? An activist urges voters to cast an uncommitted ballot instead of voting for President Biden outside a polling place in Dearborn, Mich., on Tuesday. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images) Michigan is home to a large community of Arab-American voters, many with ties to or sympathy for the Palestinian community in the Gaza Strip, where the Israel Defense Forces invasion in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel has killed nearly 30,000 people, according to the territorys Hamas-run Health Ministry. Michigan Democrats have a history of voting for the uncommitted option. Even in 2020, over 19,000 Democrats in the state pulled the lever for uncommitted, ostensibly as an expression of neutrality or displeasure with the existing options. In 2008, Barack Obama skipped the Michigan primary, and the uncommitted option was a proxy to express support for him, or opposition to Hillary Clinton. Over 238,000 Michigan Democrats supported uncommitted in 2008. And in 2012, as Obama cruised to reelection, a surprisingly large percentage of the Michigan primary vote over 10% cast a protest vote against Obama for uncommitted. The raw number of votes against Obama in 2012 was only around 20,000, compared to just over 100,000 against Biden this week. But there were also far more votes for Biden this week almost 618,000 than the 174,000 that were cast for Obama in 2012, indicating a high degree of intensity among all Democratic voters. Understanding the results Activists urge Michigan Democratic primary voters to vote "uncommitted" instead of for President Biden on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor on Feb. 20. (Jeff Kowalski/AFP via Getty Images) Michigan Democrats who campaigned in recent weeks for the uncommitted option were clear that they were registering a protest vote against Bidens policy of support for Israel, and not against the president remaining in office. We don't want to see Trump return to the White House. We know what a danger he is to our democracy. We know what a threat he is to our institutions. And so today is an appeal, state Rep. Alabas Farhat, a Democrat, told CNN. Both parties face internal unrest President Biden and former President Donald Trump. (AP) Among Democrats, there is a debate over whether Biden should step aside and allow a younger candidate to take his place. So far, that argument has not appeared to gain much traction beyond left-leaning talking heads. And in the GOP, even though former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has lost every contest to Trump, she continues to win a solid third of the vote. Many voters who support Haley have told pollsters that they will not support Trump in the fall election. Trump has gained an air of invincibility due to his dominance of the Republican grassroots. These are the voters who decide the primary elections, who strike fear in the hearts of GOP politicians who want to be reelected. But a regular protest vote against Trump the person and the candidate, of 30% to 40%, is as big a problem for him as a 15% protest vote against Bidens Middle East policy is for the Democrats, if not a bigger one. Haley made that very point Tuesday night. President Biden smiles during a break in a taping of NBC's "Late Night With Seth Meyers" in New York City on Monday. (Leah Millis/Reuters) Joe Biden is losing about 20% of the Democratic vote today, and many say its a sign of his weakness in November. Donald Trump is losing about 35% of the vote. Thats a flashing warning sign for Trump in November, Haley said. Biden, of course, is saddled with his own problems besides discontent among the Democratic base over support for Israel. Voters are increasingly concerned with the presidents age and ability to do the job effectively, an issue that was exacerbated by special counsel Robert Hurs recent report, which raised questions about the presidents memory. By Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt DEARBORN, Michigan/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden's reelection campaign faces an arduous task uniting his party after Michigan Democrats waged a massive protest vote over his support of Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. With 95% of the votes counted, Biden won Tuesday's primary with 81%, but 13%, or more than 100,000 people, cast "uncommitted" ballots in a state where a large Arab American community and other progressive Democrats vented their anger at Biden's support of an Israeli offensive in which tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Neither Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned Gaza or Israel in their statements on Michigan's results, an omission that drew criticism from organizers of the uncommitted vote effort. The results showed Biden's "core group of supporters are still behind him," a Biden campaign official said on Wednesday. "This doesnt mean we will ignore the Arab American and Muslim American population. We will not. We are not taking anyone for granted," the official said. The official said the president was working to build lasting peace in the Middle East. "He's not approaching this issue as a politician but as commander-in-chief." Democrats, overall, support Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict by 61%, February polling by Harvard-Harris shows. Just over 101,000 voters cast uncommitted ballots, far more than the 10,000 organizers said they sought and prompting some to speak of plans for a nationwide movement. When Democratic President Barack Obama ran for re-election in 2012, he faced about 21,000 uncommitted voters in Michigan's primary that year. The votes are enough to send two 'uncommitted' delegates to the Democrats' national convention in August. "Our delegation plans to hold the Democratic nominee accountable to our communitys anti-war agenda at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago" in August, said Listen to Michigan, one of the groups behind the uncommitted vote. MICHIGAN THE EPICENTER OF BACKLASH Biden's early and strident support of Israel and his refusal to condition military aid on not killing innocent people or destroying infrastructure sparked outrage and a well-organized backlash with Michigan as the epicenter. That anger has grown as deaths climbed in Gaza, famine looms and much of the 2.3 million population became homeless. Michigan organizers want Biden to push for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and halt aid to Israel. They have signaled they might stay home rather than vote for Biden in November's general election. The Biden administration has become more critical of Israel over time. The White House in mid-February proposed a temporary ceasefire resolution at the U.N. Security Council and Biden publicly mentioned the idea, but the administration vetoed another measure calling for a permanent ceasefire. Late on Monday, Biden said Israel had agreed to halt military activities in Gaza for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan expected to begin on the evening of March 10, as Hamas studied a draft for a truce that includes a prisoner-hostage exchange. Nonetheless, Hamas and Israel appear far apart on a deal. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden remained committed to a hostage deal accompanied by a temporary ceasefire. The president understands how painful this moment is to many people, Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday. Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people and captured 253 on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies, triggering Israel's air and ground assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza. Health authorities in the enclave say nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since. Michigan Democratic officials vowed to do more to win over voters after Tuesday's results. Biden won Michigan by less than a 3% margin in 2020, and some opinion polls show the likely Republican candidate Donald Trump ahead in a head-to-head matchup in the state this time. Michigan has some 200,000 Arab American voters, more than Biden's slim 155,000 margin of victory in 2020. "Tomorrow is the first day of this general election, Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II told volunteers for Biden as results rolled in on Tuesday night. We are not afraid of people participating in democracy. We are not afraid of voters. We are not afraid of people who are ready to speak out in good faith, in good conscience because they have good intentions," he said. Biden Michigan campaign manager Mike Frosolone told party organizers their efforts would pivot to the general election effort in the state, with door knocking, phone banking and the opening of several offices statewide. "We know when voters see President Biden and Donald Trump's record side by side, they're going to choose President Biden," he said. He said Biden would lay out this case in his State of the Union address on March 7. Biden, 81, faces low general approval ratings and concern about his age, as does Trump, 77. If Trump is reelected, he is expected to be a strong supporter of Israel and its right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday found "extremism" is the top worry for American voters going into the 2024 election, besting the economy or immigration, and that most judge Biden better equipped to deal with the issue. (Reporting by Nandita Bose in Dearborn and Trevor Hunnicutt and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Writing by Heather Timmons; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller) A Midwest-based drive-thru coffee chain plans to continue its expansion in North Carolina by adding a location in the Lake Norman area. Scooters Coffee, based in Omaha, Nebraska, is currently under construction at 689 N.C. 16 Business North in Denver, according to the companys website. With nearly 750 stores in 30 states, Scooters Coffee is known for its espresso drinks, fruit smoothies, baked-from-scratch pastries and its signature drink, the Caramelicious. About Scooters The first Scooters Coffee franchise in North Carolina opened in Monroe in 2020, according to a news release from the company. The company has since added three locations in the Charlotte area Lincolnton, Monroe and Indian Trail. A grand opening date for the Denver store has not yet been announced. Microsoft prompted a European Union watchdog investigation following the tech giant's decision to invest $16.3 million into Mistal AI, a Paris-based AI startup working on foundational models. The startup recently announced a new large language model that could rival OpenAI's GPT-4. On the other hand, Microsoft and Mistral AI buried the news, or at least an important part of it. As part of the new deal, the tech giant will invest in the startup and it says that the money would convert into equity in Mistral's next funding round. Microsoft Invests in Mistral AI The Paris-based startup reached a roughly $2 billion valuation following its most recent funding round in December last year. During that time, Mistral AI was able to raise roughly $415 million, with Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as the one leading the investment round. Previously, the company raised a $113 million seed round only a few weeks after its founding. If Mistral AI is able to at least maintain its valuation during its next funding round, it would result in Microsoft owning less than 1% in equity in the French AI company, as per TechCrunch. The startup had also just revealed Mistral Large, its flagship large language model designed to compete against other top models, such as GPT-4 and Claude 2. Unlike the company's prior releases, the model is not open-source. Developers can instead access it through Mistral's own API platform. Mistral AI and Microsoft have also signed a distribution partnership deal for Azure, which would end with the former being able to attract more customers using the new distribution channel. This also means that Azure customers will be able to access Mistral's models through its model catalog. Read Also: Mobile World Congress 2024: Most Peculiar Stuff We've Seen-From Flying Car To Transparent Laptop Furthermore, customers who wish to remain in the Microsoft ecosystem will have another option on top of OpenAI's models. With the development, the tech giant is now an investor in OpenAI's capped profit subsidiary and Mistral AI. This comes as Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI is currently under scrutiny from EU and UK regulators. The investment took lawmakers by surprise on Monday as antitrust authorities are already investigating Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI. According to Reuters, the European Commission had previously warned that the firms' relationship could constitute a breach of EU competition rules. Prompting International Investigation The situation comes as Mistral allegedly lobbied for exemptions for some AI systems behind closed doors. It also warned that overly strict laws would only hamper European startups' chances of competing against American-based giants. The startup's deal with Microsoft has led some lawmakers to question the company's motivations. Other than Germany and Italy, France also pushed for exemptions for firms making generative AI models. This is part of an effort to protect European startups such as Mistral from over-regulation. Recently, EU countries agreed on the technical details of the EU's AI Act, but this was only done after negotiations. During these, France, particularly, pushed for concessions for open-source companies such as Mistral. The EU's competition watchdog is also set to look into the partnership between the two companies. The watchdog started looking into the tech giant's relationship with OpenAI last month, said EuroNews. Related Article: Apple Cancels Electric Vehicle Plans, Shifts Focus to AI Projects Washington Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on Wednesday that he will step down from leadership after November's elections, teeing up a race for the top Republican post in the Senate that has been years in the making. McConnell's retirement from leadership marks the end of the longest-serving leadership term in Senate history, after 17 years at the party's helm. And with months until the conference gathers after November's elections to select a new leader, the announcement kickstarts a lengthy campaign for the job. "Whoever replaces him is going to have big shoes to fill," Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, told reporters on Wednesday. No senator has announced an intention to run, and the race will surely fluctuate in the weeks and months to come. But a handful of GOP senators are seen as possible replacements: John Barrasso of Wyoming, John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota. All three have all served in GOP leadership, and have close to or more than 20 years of experience in the upper chamber. Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican who unsuccessfully challenged McConnell for the leadership post in 2022, could also throw his hat into the ring. John Barrasso Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023. / Credit: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images Barrasso, 71, is the GOP conference chair. The No. 3 Senate Republican first came to the Senate in 2007. The orthopedic surgeon previously served in the Wyoming state senate and serves atop the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Barrasso is widely seen as the most conservative of the three men. John Cornyn Sen. John Cornyn speaks at the U.S. Capitol on July 25, 2017. / Credit: Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Cornyn, 72, previously served as the Republican whip from 2013 to 2019. He was first elected to the Senate in 2002, after working as a member of the Texas Supreme Court, and serving as Texas attorney general. The Texas Republican has a long history as a prolific fundraiser, which could be a boon should he run for the top Senate post. John Thune Sen. John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, speaks during a news conference on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. / Credit: Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images Thune, 63, has served as the Republican whip since 2021. The No. 2 Senate Republican, who some view as the favorite for leader, was first elected to the chamber in 2004, after three terms in the House of Representatives. Days ago, he became the latest member of GOP leadership to endorse former President Donald Trump's White House bid. McConnell remains the sole holdout among top leadership. The South Dakota Republican, considered the most moderate, noted to reporters on Wednesday that McConnell's move leaves "big shoes to fill," but he made clear that "there's plenty of time" for the jockeying for leadership going forward. "Today we just want to reflect on his service and honor him for that, and then we'll go from there," Thune said. Rick Scott Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, is seen during Senate votes in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. / Credit: (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) Scott, 71, was elected to the Senate in 2018. The former Florida governor launched a leadership challenge against McConnell after the midterm elections in 2022, helming conservatives opposition to the long-serving leader. At the time, Scott earned the support of just 10 members of his conference, suggesting his bid for the post could be a long-shot. But he seemed to suggest interest on Wednesday, reminding onlookers of his bid for the leadership in a statement and saying he has "long believed that we need new leadership in the Senate." The likely GOP presidential nominee could have a significant impact on the race. When asked whether Trump will have a say in who replaces McConnell, Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and the No. 4 Senate Republican, said "he may." "But again, we've just got a lot of talent. We really do," she said. "We're blessed with that." Alan He and Alejandro Alvarez contributed reporting. Police body camera footage released of shooting at Lakewood Church The Smokehouse Creek Fire spreads, extending its reach from Texas to Oklahoma What to expect from Biden and Trump's competing border trips With Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announcing Wednesday his plans to relinquish his leadership role in November, speculation is swirling about what will happen next and who might fill his shoes. McConnell will be leaving a post he's held for about 17 years. And while his announcement Wednesday caught some by surprise, a behind-the-scenes race to replace him and chart a new path for the Senate Republican Conference has been percolating for months and will likely now break into full view. After the 2024 election, but before newly elected members are sworn in, there will be closed-door Senate Republican Conference meeting in which members will nominate and elect a new leader. MORE: McConnell to step down as Senate GOP leader after more than a decade There are three major contenders largely expected to vie for the top spot: the "three Johns," as some have called them, are Sens. John Thune, John Barrasso and John Cornyn. PHOTO: Senator John Thune speaks during a press conference following the Republicans weekly policy luncheon, Jan. 23, 2024, in Washington. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images) John Thune Thune is currently the No. 2 Senate Republican and serves as the minority whip. The South Dakota Republican is largely seen as having been groomed by McConnell for the role, but given McConnell's waning popularity with the far-right flank of his party, it remains to be seen whether this helps or hurts his chances. Thune was once a fairly outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, but ultimately endorsed him for president on Monday after his win South Carolina's GOP primary. PHOTO: Sen. John Barrasso walks to a vote in the Senate Chambers at the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 7, 2024, in Washington. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) John Barrasso Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, is the No. 3 Senate Republican. Barrasso has the most conservative voting record of the three lead contenders, and was the first of the first of the three to endorse Trump's 2024 run -- doing so in January. PHOTO: Sen. John Cornyn walks to a vote in the Senate Chambers s at the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 7, 2024, in Washington. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) John Cornyn Cornyn, a Texas Republican, was once the Republican whip but termed out of the role after serving in it for six years. He is still considered part of McConnell's leadership team. Cornyn toes the party line most of the time, but notably joined with Democrats to pass the bipartisan gun safety act last Congress, making him the target of fierce criticism in the state. MORE: Biden, Hill leaders show optimism on shutdown, but have 'intense' talk on Ukraine None of these men has yet made their intentions clear. Walking off the floor moments after McConnell's speech announcing that he would step down, Thune said McConnell "leaves really big shoes to fill." "We'll give you more, I think, insight into what we're thinking here in the near future. Kind of want to just today honor him," Thune said. PHOTO: Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, the longest serving Republican Senate leader in history, announces his decision to step down from that position in November in a speech on the Senate floor, in Washington, Feb 28, 2024. (Senate TV) Barrasso said the focus should be on another contest: the 2024 presidential election. "There's a much more important election between now and November," Barrasso said. It's very possible there could be a dark horse candidate as well. Last year, Sen. Rick Scott challenged McConnell for the seat he currently holds -- the first time McConnell had faced a leadership challenge. The Florida Republican lost to McConnell 37-10. Who might replace Mitch McConnell as the top Senate Republican? originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Russian troops keep conducting "human wave" assaults without using armored vehicles in the village of Krynky in Kherson oblast, Nataliia Humeniuk, a spokesperson of Ukraine's Southern Operational Command, said on Feb. 28 on national television. Krynky is a small village in Kherson oblast, 40 kilometers north of Russian-occupied Oleshky. Before the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, around 990 citizens lived there. Heavy battles for this village continue. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Russia had captured Krynky, but Ukraine's Southern Operational Command denied it on Feb. 21. Humeniuk said that during the day, Russia made only one unsuccessful attempt to storm the village as it could not rotate and reinforce its troops. Attacks will likely intensify once the rotation happens, she added. The spokesperson also said Ukrainian soldiers are "ready to fight for the positions and currently work on an extension of a bridgehead." As heavy fighting continues in the region, Russia has made marginal advances along the eastern bank of Kherson Oblast. For months, Ukraine has successfully repelled Russian attacks around the village. Read also: Ukraine war latest: Ukraine withdraws from 2 more villages near Avdiivka, downs 2 Russian warplanes in single day Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent. MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee County is holding meetings over the next three days about the proposed expansion of its bus rapid transit (BRT) service. The proposed CONNECT 2 BRT route would "enhance service along one of MCTS's top five busiest routes, the PurpleLine" and take riders from the south suburbs to the north suburbs. On Tuesday evening, Feb. 27, the first of three public meetings was held at the Wilson Park Senior Center to get feedback from people about that new north-south line. 27th and Wisconsin is the rough center point of Milwaukee County's roughly nine-mile east-west Connect1 line helping people like Sylvia Williams get to her job as a personal care worker. "I take it every day, often every day, to go to work," Williams said. It also helps Anastasia Johnson try to land a job. "I take the bus every day. I'm not waiting for anybody to pick me up, I'm waiting to go to an interview right now," Johnson said. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley kicked off the first public meeting on the proposed north-south 18-mile Connect2 route. It would essentially take riders from IKEA in Oak Creek to Bayshore on the north side and do it faster. "One of the top-five busiest routes (Purple), so it's not like we're taking a new service, but where is the need greatest in our system, and how can we make that investment?" said David Locher, MCTS Transit Enhancement Manager. "People can tell us everything and anything they want. give it to us." County officials say the meetings are to get input on a project that is planned to be funded mostly through federal grants. Shovel-ready work is several years out. "We want shovels on the ground, 2026-2027 and pick up that first passenger in 2028," Locher said. Some riders are eager to see it in action sooner than later. "It's nice to have another connect, and get us back wherever we need to go," Williams said. After Tuesday, there are two more meetings for the public to share thoughts on the bus-only lanes, station locations. Those meetings are as follows: Virtual Meeting Wednesday, Feb. 28 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. Zoom: http://tinyurl.com/virtualnsbrt Live presentation, followed by questions and answers North Open House Thursday, Feb. 29 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Century City Tower, 4201 N. 27th Street, Milwaukee Open-house style; stop by anytime Take the PurpleLine to 27th Street and Hope or parking is available Spanish-speaking translators will be available at each open house, and the locations for each are ADA accessible. Visit mkenorthsouth.com for more information. When I was a child growing up in rural Arizona, there was a game we played at my elementary school called Smear the Queer. Wed throw a football in the air and whoever came up with it was the queer. The other boys would chase the queer, until somebody tackled him. Everybody else would pile on. Repeat process. By the time we were in junior high, we outgrew Smear the Queer. Too bad the Kansas Legislature never did. Last year, lawmakers banned transgender youth athletes from competing, passed a bill requiring trans people to use public restrooms of the sex they were assigned at birth rather than the one where they can pee more safely, banned those who transition from changing the sex on their drivers licenses and required that transgender prisoners be segregated by birth gender, despite the obvious risk of jailhouse harassment, assault and rape. Its worth noting that all those ideas had two-thirds support in the Republican-dominated Legislature and became law despite thoughtful vetoes by Gov. Laura Kelly. For Kansas Republicans, trans is the new Black the minority that can be persecuted for political gain. Their 2023 success behind them, our lawmakers arent done yet. There are two hearings scheduled on Thursday to revive legislation successfully vetoed by Kelly last year to prohibit gender-affirming medical and psychological care for minors. Heres the synopsis of House Bill 2791: Enacting the forbidding abuse child transitions act, restricting use of state funds to promote gender transitioning, prohibiting healthcare professionals from treating children whose gender identity is inconsistent with the childs sex, authorizing a civil cause of action against healthcare professionals for providing such treatments, authorizing professional discipline against a physician who performs such treatment, prohibiting professional liability insurance from covering damages for healthcare providers that provide gender transition treatment to children and adding violation of the act to the definition of unprofessional conduct for physicians and nurses. Reasonable people can disagree on whether its a good idea to make permanent, life-altering changes to a persons body before they reach the age of maturity, when they can make such decisions on their own. But these situations are always nuanced and theres plenty of room for compromise short of a total ban, taking into account the physical and mental well-being of the child. But what really rankles here is the mind-blowing contradiction of the arguments from the right. A new bill contradicts Kris Kobachs position about withholding information about gender-nonconforming minors. In the past couple of weeks Ive tilted lances in print with Attorney General Kris Kobach over his pressuring school districts to immediately inform parents if their child is gender nonconforming at school. To briefly summarize our respective positions, mine is that Kobachs endangering nonconforming children because there are parents who will either try to beat it out of them or kick them out on the street, results that statistics show are all too commonly harmful or even fatal to the child. Kochachs position is that withholding information about nonconforming minors is a violation of the parents constitutional rights to control the upbringing and education of their children. So on one hand, we have the anti-trans right saying that parents rights to control their childrens upbringing is sacrosanct and not to be infringed, while on the other hand we have H.B. 2791, which infringes parents rights to control their childrens upbringing, if it includes providing supporting care for their gender-nonconforming child. I wonder if Kobach will step forward and proclaim H.B. 2791 unconstitutional. Im not holding my breath. Ive read and re-read Kobachs rebuttal to my column, and somehow, in more than 1,000 words, he never got around to addressing my primary concern, that his actions expose LGBTQ children to profound and present danger. House Bill 2791 does the same. It sends a clear message to kids that its OK to smear the queer. Thats particularly concerning against the backdrop of the tragic case of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary 16-year-old who died earlier this month, the day after being beaten in the restroom at school in suburban Tulsa. For the record, Nex was born female and was beaten by girls while using the restroom corresponding to Nexs birth gender. Mystery speakers at Senate informational hearing Also troubling is that H.B. 2791 is a tale of two hearings. In the House, Health and Human Services chair Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican, has scheduled an official public hearing on the bill, properly noticed and with proponents and opponents scheduled to testify. In the Senate, Landwehrs counterpart, Beverly Gossage, a Eudora Republican and chair of Public Health and Welfare, will be holding a hastily called informational hearing and the witness list is a state secret. Ive tried all week to get through to Gossage or someone in her office to ask whos going to provide the information for the informational hearing. So far, Ive gotten no information. I did talk to state Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat, and despite the fact that shes actually a member of the committee, shes as in the dark as I am. In response to her inquiries, Gossage sent her a text that the final speakers will be listed on the agenda the morning of the informational hearing. I left Gossage two phone messages at her office, one on her business phone, and emailed both her official state account and business addresses. Im done. I can only conclude her informational hearing will likely be stacked with right-wing fringe-group ax-grinders armed with nothing but prejudice and pseudoscience. Her ghosting me and even members of her own committee leaves no time to evaluate the credibility of her witnesses. Maybe thats a lesson lawmakers learned from last September, when I exposed that the lineup of conferees for a hearing on election security were a motley assemblage including QAnon conspiracy theorists and a serial grifter who defrauded fire victims and Christian concert ticket-buyers. Regardless, the way Gossage is running this play is sneaky, manipulative and cowardly. Ill be watching the informational hearing on the states YouTube page. You should do the same if you want to see how things really get done at the Kansas Statehouse. Kris Kobach should be impeached for coercing school districts to target trans kids | Opinion Kobachs rebuttal to columnist on trans kids and parents rights left something out | Commentary Missing 13-year-old Florida girl wanted to go live in the woods before vanishing: deputies TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) The search continues for a Central Florida teen who was reported missing after she failed to show up to school on Monday. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued a Missing Child Alert for Madeline Soto, 13, on Tuesday. Soto was last seen around 8:30 a.m. near Hunters Park Lane and Town Loop Boulevard in Orlando. The FDLE said the 13-year-old was dropped off at school but never attended. She was last seen wearing a green jacket, black shorts, and white Crocs. Florida Missing Child Alert issued for 13-year-old girl On Wednesday, Orange County Sheriff John Mina gave an update on Sotos whereabouts, stating that the girls mothers boyfriend had dropped her off in the area of Hunters Creek Middle School, which is where she goes to school. However, when Sotos mother went to pick her up around 4:30 p.m., she was told that she didnt show up to school that day. Mina said the 13-year-old had left her phone at home the day she went missing. In an update, Mina shared that deputies were able to access Sotos phone and found that the girl had told people she wanted to live in the woods when she turned 13. According to NBC affiliate WESH, Soto had just turned 13 on Feb. 22. This is every parents worst nightmare, Mina said. The sheriff added that initial search efforts to find the girl were rendered unsuccessful so far. We will not stop until we find her, Mina said. After she had been gone for three days, the sheriffs office launched a massive search to try and locate the girl. According to WESH, more than 50 members of OCSOs emergency response team were investigating various areas. Detectives are also canvassing and conducting interviews to follow up on any possible leads. Woman found hanging in St. Pete home was murdered, police say Mina said the details surrounding Sotos disappearance do not qualify for an AMBER Alert, but this could change as the investigation continues. The Orange County Sheriffs Office is concerned for Madelines safety, and our teams have been working around the clock in this investigation. We will send out any substantive updates as we get them, OCSO said in a statement. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to contact the Orange County Sheriffs Office at 407-254-7000 or call 911. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA. Salvatore Mancuso, a Colombian warlord, was sent to Colombia on Tuesday following his conviction for drug trafficking in the United States and being denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship. Mancuso arrived at El Dorado Airport in Bogota on a charter airplane that was also carrying dozens of Colombians who had crossed the southern border illegally and were deported from the US. Mancuso Sent To Colombia According to The Guardian, Mancuso was quickly taken into police custody, donning a green helmet and a bulletproof jacket. Human rights organizations and government officials in Colombia hope that Mancuso will work with the legal system to disclose details about hundreds of crimes committed in rural Colombia in the 1990s and early 2000s when paramilitary groups fought leftist insurgents. "This event marks an important step towards reconciliation and the construction of a lasting peace in Colombia," Fernando Garcia, the director of Colombia's national immigration service, said. Mancuso was a prominent figure in the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary organization established by cattle ranchers that engaged in combat with leftist rebels during one of the most violent phases of the country's decades-long armed conflict. He admitted to taking part in several horrifying crimes while imprisoned in Colombia. He will attempt to use the transitional justice system established by the 2016 peace agreement in Colombia to get a reduced sentence and possibly even get out of prison. Furthermore, Mancuso is expected to provide light on hundreds of killings and forced disappearances committed by paramilitary fighters, including extrajudicial killings in which victims were buried in mass graves. During Mancuso's detention in the US, he attended several teleconference hearings with Colombian courts where he discussed his dealings with politicians and the potential involvement of high-ranking politicians in war crimes. However, investigations slowed down in 2008 when he was extradited to the US. Jose Melendez, a human rights lawyer who defends war victims in northern Colombia, said that when Mancuso was extradited, the truth was deported, as well as justice and reparations for victims. He claimed that they welcomed him and wanted him to tell the truth about the multinational companies, the businessmen, and the government ministers who helped with the creation of paramilitary groups. Read Also: Biden, Harris Convene Top Congressional Leaders as Government Shutdown Looms Mancuso was a Powerful Military Leader in Colombia Mancuso was a successful cattle rancher born into a wealthy family in the northwest Colombian state of Cordoba. In the early 1990s, he started working with the Colombian army as rebel groups threatened his family and demanded extortion payments. He quickly transitioned from providing intel to the military to leading operations against leftist insurgents. By the late 90s, he had become one of the most powerful paramilitary leaders in Colombia. Furthermore, he joined a 2003 peace process that resulted in the demobilization of paramilitary leaders in exchange for a shorter sentence. However, he was extradited to the US five years later during President alvaro Uribe's government, along with thirteen other paramilitary leaders who were wanted for drug trafficking in the US. Related Article: Wagner Plane Crash: Vladimir Putin Breaks Silence on Incident, Wagner Troops Vow to Avenge Yevgeny Prigozhin The News Mitch McConnell will be remembered for many things, but two stand out above all others: His decision to block a Supreme Court appointment and his decision to acquit Donald Trump in the wake of the Capitol riot. The first cemented his legacy within the party while the second now threatens to destroy it. Benjys view McConnells influence was so great that, as recently as 2021, there was a plausible case that this period might be remembered by historians as the McConnell Era more than the Trump Era in terms of real-world impact. In this version, the longtime Senate leader was quietly the Republican Partys main character. From his perch atop the Senate GOP, he predated and outlasted Donald Trump while exploiting his aberrational one-term presidency to score the conservative achievement of the 21st century: A judiciary remade in their image. Trump may embrace the court as his top legacy item now, but this was always McConnells project. He led the charge against President Obamas judges, setting himself up for the decisive tactical blow holding a Supreme Court seat open after Antonin Scalia died. Trump finished the job by nominating judges off a pre-approved list in order to advance various causes, like abortion, that he mostly showed little interest in before entering Republican politics. Having exploited Trumps presidency to the fullest, McConnell seemed eager to move past their shotgun marriage at its end and retake control of his party. After Jan. 6th, McConnell felt exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself, Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin reported in their book, This Will Not Pass. He said that Trump put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger and that it couldnt have happened at a better time. The irony is that the next biggest decision of McConnells career is the one that guaranteed Trump was here to stay, and would likely subsume McConnells legacy for good. After the attack on the Capitol, McConnell telegraphed interest in impeaching Trump, who he later called practically and morally responsible for the events of January 6th. But he decided to let him off on a technicality, arguing presidents couldnt be convicted if the trial took place after they left office, and that the criminal justice system could hold Trump accountable instead. Trump likely would have survived impeachment without McConnells help, which was clearly influenced by the mood of his party. But McConnells decision to first delay the trial while Trump was still off-balance, and then come out against conviction, guaranteed it. He and he alone had the ability to launch an actual Republican offensive that might have sidelined Trump, starting with a vote that prevented him from running for president. Even without his support, seven Republicans (to this day, a shocking number) voted for conviction. After that, McConnell decided the pragmatic move was to forget Jan. 6th and Trumps broader transgressions as quickly as possible in order to heal party divisions. In a move that surprised some colleagues, he opposed an independent commission to investigate Jan. 6th, leaving Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney to do the work in the House. Instead, he quietly encouraged senators to patch up some election vulnerabilities that Trump exposed. Meanwhile, Trump reasserted himself over the party. Within weeks of his acquittal, his conservative critics were ousted in the House. Within months, McConnell was forced to publicly endorse flawed Trump-favored candidates like Herschel Walker who would soon cost him a majority in the midterms. And now, Trump is poised to retake the nomination, likely with the voices of January 6th rioters singing the national anthem at his convention. Should Trump win in November and even if he loses he will likely play a major role in choosing McConnells successor. Every cycle brings more MAGA faithful to the Senate, replacing the older Republicans who McConnell leaned on to, if nothing else, keep the lights on and raise the debt ceiling. Ukraine aid, McConnells top priority, remains under grave threat while Trump campaigns on encouraging Russia to invade NATO allies who dont pay up. McConnells preferred solution a bipartisan border deal attached to the funding died after Trump personally lobbied against it. McConell wasnt totally quiet while all this happened. In rare moments, like when Trump spat racist invectives at his wife, he pushed back with a wry comeback. After Trump dined with a neo-Nazi, and briefly looked vulnerable to a primary, McConnell observed that anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States. The quote was emblematic of the partys mindset under McConnell, who never endorsed a rival candidate: Someone would surely stop Trump one day not them, of course, but someone. What McConnells critics knew, and that so many Republicans tried to avoid learning, was that to not confront him in the open was to surrender without firing a shot. Theres no question whose party it is now. Room for Disagreement Some McConnell defenders have argued that his conference ran by consensus and that his ability to push it toward an impeachment conviction was overstated. It wasnt going to happen he wasnt going to be a leader who stood with 15 percent of the caucus, one McConnell advisor told Martin and Burns. Notable The Associated Press offers its first take on McConnells departure, noting his role in the impeachment trial, remaking the courts, and his support for a muscular foreign policy. Markus Haas, CEO of Telefonica Deutschland, pictured at the headquarters of mobile communications provider Telefonica (O2). The head of Munich-based mobile phone operator O2 sees his company on the upswing even though around 10 million mobile phone customers will leave the O2 network in the next few years. Sven Hoppe/dpa The head of Munich-based mobile phone operator O2 sees his company on the upswing even though around 10 million mobile phone customers will leave the O2 network in the next few years. "We will grow over the next three years, even without 1&1," company boss Markus Haas said Tuesday evening on the fringes of the MWC mobile communications trade fair in Barcelona. He was referring to the telecommunications group 1&1, which has to date been a major customer of O2. 1&1's contract customers are connected to O2's antennas in the vast majority of areas in Germany, for which the German-based company pays money. However, 1&1 will switch to Vodafone for so-called national roaming starting in either July or October. To do this, 1&1 mobile phone users must be transferred from one network to the other, which is also known as migration. This is technically complex and therefore a lengthy process that will take place gradually and may take until the end of 2026 or even longer. The more numbers are rebooked, the greater the loss of revenue for O2. Haas has now said that these losses are manageable and will be more than compensated for by new users and efficiency gains. For years, the O2 network was considered number three among the three established German network operators. However, following massive investment in network expansion, coverage improved. O2 has now largely caught up with the competition. Growing up in Modesto, Mimi Whang never gave much thought to the McHenry Mansion, but seeing Japanese exchange students interested in it made her appreciate it more. Whang, who is half Japanese, had wanted to gain a deeper connection to her cultural roots and language given Modestos small Japanese population. Last year, she participated in a student exchange program in Kurume, Japan one of Modestos Sister Cities gaining a fresh perspective on Japanese culture distinct from her own Japanese American upbringing. I think its a really great experience to take yourself out of your comfort zone and live in someone elses shoes, Whang, a senior at Gregori High School, said. Since 1992, students from Modesto have been visiting the sister city of Kurume, Japan, and hosting Kurume students in return. The exchange is organized by the Kurume Bureau of Tourism and Modesto Sister Cities International (MSCI). It is a home-stay program, as students families host one another in their homes. The program includes cultural activities, friendship building and visits to historical landmarks. Modesto has other sister cities, including Laval, France, which is another exchange program in which students can participate. There have not been any exchange programs established with Modestos other sister cities in Canada, Ukraine and Mexico. Research shows that exchange students reported higher GPAs than non-exchange students enrolled at the same institution. Those who participated in an exchange program also were more likely to graduate than their non-exchange peers. Applications for the Kurume and Laval exchange program this summer are open to high school students and are due May 1. Participants are responsible for covering plane tickets and health insurance expenses, and are advised to bring spending money. About 10 students will travel to Kurume to stay from July 18-30, followed by hosting Japanese students in Modesto from Aug. 9-20. What Modesto students can expect in Japan When students arrive in Kurume, a city of more than 300,000 people, they start by learning basic Japanese. During the 12-day trip, the students attend a tea ceremony, meet the mayor of Kurume and speak with a U.S. diplomat, said Minh Beebout, chair member of the MSCI Kurume committee. They made friendships that will continue, Beebout said. Angelica Apa, a senior at Gregori High School, participated in the program last summer. She said Kurume reminded her a bit of Modesto because both share a countryside landscape. Mimis cousin, Ann Whang, who also went on the program, said they visited many shrines in Japan and ate a lot of good food. She said language wasnt much of a barrier because many of the Japanese students were proficient in English. Otherwise, they relied on gestures and Google Translate to communicate with their host families. Japanese students from Kurume in Modesto during the exchange program in summer 2023. Japanese students in Modesto During their visit to Modesto, Japanese students typically explore various attractions, including farmers markets, downtown Modesto, the State Theatre and agricultural operations. They also spend a day in San Francisco. Everything that seems so mundane over here was so brand new to them, said Catherine Carson, a senior at Gregori High School, who participated in the program last year. Ann Whang noticed that the Japanese students were particularly excited about going to a Save Mart supermarket and buying American toothpaste, which they said was superior for teeth whitening. Being able to stay with the Japanese family and have them stay with you really helps you appreciate the place that you grew up in and see everything thats really nice about where you grew up, she said. Expanding cultural perspectives Apa said she still keeps in touch with her host family through social media. Recently, on her host students birthday, she sent a gift. Mimi Whang said she believes its important for young people to experience other cultures and explore new places. She plans to study abroad in college and revisit Japan. I think its a really great experience to take yourself out of your comfort zone and live in someone elses shoes, Whang said. To learn more about Modesto Sister Cities Internationals youth exchange program, go to www.modestosistercities.com/youth-exchange.aspx. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's burial will take place in a Moscow cemetery on Friday, March 1, according to his spokesperson. The Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in Moscow's Maryino neighborhood will host a memorial ceremony for Navalny on Friday at 2:00 PM local time (1100 GMT). His final resting place would be at the Borisovskoye cemetery. Kira Yarmysh, his publicist, announced the event on X and advised everyone to arrive early. Also Read: Russia's New Opposition Leader Yulia Navalnaya Faces Widespread Coordinated Disinformation Campaign To Destroy Her Reputation Kremlin's involvement? On February 16, Navalny, who was 47 years old, passed away in a correctional camp in the Arctic. Reportedly, the official cause of death was listed as natural causes on his death certificate. Navalny's allies claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his assassination because he could not stand the idea of the opposition leader's release in a possible prisoner exchange. The Kremlin has rejected any official participation in Navalny's death and claimed ignorance of any deal to liberate him before he died. The Kremlin portrays Navalny and his followers as radicals sponsored by the United States. Earlier this week, Navalny's mother claimed that the authorities were attempting to blackmail her for trying to arrange a private burial for her son by initially withholding his remains. According to Reuters, Navalny's supporters previously reported that their search for a place to gather his supporters in a farewell ceremony had been met with rejection at every turn. Also Read: Jake Sullivan ClaimsNavalny'ss Death is a Sign of VladimirPutin'ss Weakness: 'Not a Sign of Strength' The Moldovan government believes that the congress of the so-called lawmakers of the unrecognised breakaway state of Transnistria and its decisions do not pose a threat of escalation and destabilisation, calling the meeting a pure propaganda event. Source: Daniel Voda, spokesman for the Moldovan government, cited by European Pravda Quote: "This event was planned by those on the left side of the Dniester River and the Kremlin. We see no danger of destabilisation. We are watching very closely and reiterating that this region also wants peace and security." Details: Voda called the congress in Tiraspol (Transnistrias capital) a pure propaganda event, "a meeting that does not deserve live broadcasts by foreign journalists and tense headlines." He jokingly added that the only "tension" of the day on Wednesday was the gloomy weather, supposedly referring to the atmospheric pressure at the time. Background: The congress of the so-called MPs of the unrecognised breakaway state of Transnistria had just adopted an appeal to Russia asking for "protection from Moldova's pressure", also addressing a number of international organisations. Before the congress, there were fears that the so-called MPs might urge Moscow to annex the unrecognised region to Russia, but official statements in Chisinau, Kyiv and Tiraspol denied such assumptions. This congress is the seventh such event, with the previous one taking place in 2006. Back then, the so-called MPs decided to hold a referendum on joining Russia. After the referendum, the Transnistrian "Central Election Commission" announced that more than 97% of Transnistrians supported the future merging of Transnistria with Russia. They also voted to preserve their "independence" until the accession to Russia took place. Local MPs still appeal to these "results". Support UP or become our patron! Delegates gather to take part in the congress of deputies, in front of the Palace of the Republic in Tiraspol Delegates gather to take part in the congress of deputies, in front of the Palace of the Republic in Tiraspol By Alexander Tanas CHISINAU (Reuters) -Moldova's breakaway Transdniestria region asked Russia on Wednesday to help its economy withstand Moldovan "pressure," at a meeting of hundreds of officials dismissed by the pro-European Chisinau government as a propaganda event to gain headlines. The region, long seen as a potential flashpoint with Russia in Europe, held a "congress of deputies of all levels" after Moldova required Transdniestrian firms to pay import duties to the central budget from January. The congress passed a resolution saying it would appeal to both houses of Russia's parliament "with a request to implement diplomatic measures to protect Transdniestria in the face of increasing pressure from Moldova". The unrecognised statelet, which borders war-stricken Ukraine to the east, has maintained autonomy from Chisinau for three decades with support from Moscow, which has more than a thousand troops stationed there since a brief war in 1992. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, tensions surged around the separatist region, which says it has 220,000 Russian citizens. Relations between Moldova and Russia have also frayed as the Chisinau government has steered a pro-European course and accused Moscow of trying to destabilise it. President Maia Sandu, in Albania for a summit of southeast European countries, said Moldova remained committed to a peaceful resolution of the Transdniestrian conflict. "What the government is doing today is making small steps for the economic reintegration of the country," she said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he and Sandu, meeting on the sidelines of the summit, discussed "the latest events in Moldova's Transdniestria region and Russia's efforts to destabilise the situation in the region". Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said Kyiv "will remain an active participant in the Transdniestrian settlement process" and called for the "speedy withdrawal of Russian troops". Oleg Serebrian, a Moldovan deputy prime minister, said the congress was a propaganda event, and that the breakaway region and all Moldova's citizens were benefiting from Moldova's push to join the European Union. WASHINGTON WATCHING REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS The United States "firmly supports" Moldova's sovereignty and territorial integrity, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday in Washington. "Given Russia's increasingly aggressive role in Europe, we are watching Russia's actions in Transdniestria and the broader situation there very closely," Miller said, using another name for the region. Commenting on the congress, Russia's Foreign Ministry said defending the interests of Transdniestria's citizens was a priority and that the request would be reviewed carefully, the RIA news agency reported. The region's economy minister told the congress, held in the regional capital Tiraspol, that customs revenues paid into Transdniestria's budget had fallen by 18% under the new regulation. "There is social and economic pressure on Transdniestria, which directly contradicts European principles and approaches to the protection of human rights and free trade," the resolution said. (Reporting by Alexander Tanas; additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Heavens, Kevin Liffey, Mark Heinrich, Ron Popeski and Richard Chang) The Montana Nurses Association is calling for a union contract at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula that supports retention because it said at least 20% of first-year nurses leave employment there. (Provided by the Montana Nurses Association.) Some 650 nurses at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula are entering mediation on a union contract a labor leader said will shape the hospitals ability to care for patients going forward. This contract negotiation is really going to be telling on the future of St. Pats as we know it, said Cassidy Dillon, a registered nurse and bargaining team member for the Montana Nurses Association Local 17, in a phone call Tuesday. The COVID-19 pandemic dealt blows to the healthcare industry, and Dillon said St. Pats has been tremendously affected since 2020. First-year turnover rates for nurses are 20 to 30% mainly because the professionals cannot establish roots in Missoula, Dillon said. The health care workers face high property taxes and rising housing costs. They have been priced out of Missoula, Dillon said. St. Patrick Hospital is part of the Providence system, which operates in 51 hospitals and 1,000 clinics in five states, according to its website. St. Patricks Director of Communications Stacy Rogge said in an email the hospital has been negotiating with the union since Jan. 16, and 12 bargaining sessions are scheduled through March. We are glad to be back at the table this week, Rogge said in an email. She also praised the mediation process ahead. Federal mediators help find common ground, and having them involved throughout the remainder of the bargaining process will accelerate our path to agreement. Dillon said as the Local 17 enters mediation at St. Pats on its first contract negotiation since 2020, nurses are hoping the result will be a plan that brings stability to patients for the next 10 years. In negotiations, she said nurses are focused on recruitment and retention; keeping nurses local; safe staffing ratios; and reducing workplace violence. To support its industry, the Montana Nurses Association also has pushed for change at the legislature in the past and will continue to do so, said Robin Haux, labor program director for the Montana Nurses Association. Recruitment and retention Dillon said nurses want to stay in Missoula, but at least one-in-five leaves in their first year here because of financial constraints. If we have nurses constantly coming and going in this revolving door, your loved one isnt going to have those experienced nurses to take care of them, Dillon said. Starting pay for a nurse in Missoula is $31.60, or $65,728 a year based on a 40-hour week. Thats close to the median household income in the county of $66,840, but its much less than starting pay for a nurse at a Providence hospital just a couple of hundred miles away. For example, a nurse who works in Spokane for Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center earns $41.13 an hour, or 30% more than a starting nurse in Missoula, according to labor contracts. That amounts to $20,000 more annually in Spokane based on working 40 hours a week. Dillon said the nurses are precluded from discussing the details of their contract negotiations, but base pay is always a consideration. Rogge offered another data set. Citing Beckers Hospital Review, she said annual hospital nurse turnover rate in December 2023 was 22.5%. However, she said St. Pats turnover rate is much lower at 15% and has been improving the last several years. Providence St. Patrick Hospital is committed to reaching agreement on a fair contract that will help us recruit and retain the best nurses while staying true to our mission of sustainably serving all members of our community, Rogge said. She also said negotiations have been positive and productive so far. While many dynamics impact nurse turnover, no one solution can resolve it, Rogge said. We are proud of the progress we are making and are committed to focusing on this issue. Dillon said St. Pats is pretty good at listening to nurses about how to fill staffing holes, and it is relying less on expensive traveling nurses than it did in the past. However, she also said local employees have been frustrated about the expenditure on outside nurses. Why not take that money and invest in us? Dillon said is the sentiment among nurses. She said the current contract negotiation is the most involved one St. Patrick Hospital has had in a long time. She said a mediator arrives Wednesday. We live to serve our community, Dillon said. We want to stay here. We want to continue to better our community. But again, we need Providence to invest in us. And right now, theyre not showing us that. Violence against nurses, staffing standards Patient and nurse safety are also a priorities for the nurses, and the union is advocating for input in staffing ratios in the new contract and may lobby for related legislation in 2025, the nurses said. Dillon said violence against nurses is prevalent, and it usually occurs when a patient is not of sound mind or delirious and attacks a nurse physically, verbally or sexually. She said nurses and St. Pats are updating policies to better protect nurses. Were making headway, Dillon said. In an email, St. Pats Rogge said the hospital has a record of supporting nurses. We have a long history of collaborating with Montana Nurses Association on contracts that advance the nursing practice, are market competitive, and meet the needs of our nurses and our ministry, Rogge said. During the 2023 Montana Legislature, lawmakers passed House Bill 590, which requires health care employers to ensure workers who experience violence report incidents to the provider. If the worker consents, the employer must report to law enforcement. The bill, sponsored by Great Falls Republican Rep. Ed Buttrey, also calls for the Department of Justice to produce an annual report based on reports from health care employers. Haux said felony penalties exist for attacking police officers, K-9 officers and referees, but not for nurses, although she said the union will take direction from members on how to proceed at the upcoming legislature on any lobbying efforts. However, she said the Montana Nurses Association may push for another version of House Bill 568, which was tabled last session but would have set nursing-patient standards for hospitals. She said such standards result in better outcomes for patients. She said ratios and standards vary depending on a hospitals location in a rural place versus urban, for example and based on a departments needs and patient acuity. But Dillon said as St. Pats addresses those ratios in Missoula, nurses want to be part of the conversation. She said they want to offer more input into safe staffing standards and are asking for it in contract negotiations. Patient safety and positive patient outcomes are our primary goals, Dillon said. The post Montana Nurses Association: Support nurses in union contract, at legislature appeared first on Daily Montanan. The New Democrat Coalition and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are calling for a probe into allegations of discriminatory practices by Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU). More than 20 members called for investigations into recent reports that the company engaged in racially discriminatory lending practices. They pointed to a recent analysis that found significant disparities in loans for Black and Latino mortgage applicants compared to white applicants. As champions of economic opportunity, New Dems take these allegations serious. Every American deserves access to affordable housing, and lenders like Navy Federal Credit Union must be part of the solution, not the problem, Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.), chair of the Affordable Housing Task Force, and Rep. Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio), its vice chair, said in a statement. We look forward to reviewing the responses from Navy Federal Credit Union and government regulators, and will work with Congress and the Administration to ensure equality and fairness is upheld, the statement said. The groups have sent a letter to NFCU CEO Mary McDuffie requesting more information about the companys policies and procedures. The Democrats also sent a letter to various government agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, asking for further investigations into the matter. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is concerned about the report of possible discriminatory practices by the Navy Federal Credit Union, caucus Chair Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan (D-Calif.) said in a statement. It is critical to the economic health of all our communities that prospective Black and Latino homeowners have access to the same home mortgage loans as other Americans. Barragan is asking for a prompt and comprehensive response from all parties. The concerns, first reported by CNN in December, found that NFCU, the largest credit union in the country, approved more than 75 percent of white borrowers applications in 2022, but less than 50 percent of loan applications from Black borrowers. The joint letter to McDuffie highlights how the alleged practices are discriminatory and potentially violate the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Housing Act. A spokesperson for Navy Federal said the company is committed to serving each and every one of our members fairly. Black borrowers make up one in four of the companys members, the spokesperson said. We will continue working to support all of our members to help them build strong financial futures and help get them in homes, and we remain committed to engaging with policymakers and regulators on this important issue, the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. This story was updated at 4:04 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. TWO RIVERS, Wis. (WFRV) The search for Elijah Vue has entered its second week after he was reportedly sent to be with his mothers boyfriend as a form of punishment. According to a criminal complaint obtained by Nexstars WFRV, on Feb. 20 around 11 a.m., Jesse Vang, 39, of Two Rivers, called 911 reporting that 3-year-old Elijah Vue was missing. He was babysitting Elijah, according to the complaint. Vang told authorities he fell asleep and when he woke up, Elijah was missing. He also reportedly said he has been trying to help Elijahs mother correct Elijahs bad behaviors. Authorities spoke with Elijahs mother, Katrina Baur, 31, of Wisconsin Dells, who reportedly said Eljiah has been in the care of Vang for about a week. She also reportedly said Vang is the enforcer of rules in the relationship, which is why she sent Elijah to stay with him. Missing 3-year-olds mother and her boyfriend officially charged with child neglect According to the complaint, some examples of discipline included: praying, saying he was sorry, and going over the rules Elijah was supposed to be memorizing. Baur reportedly told authorities she wanted Vang to teach Elijah by example how to be a man. She originally told authorities she was not in Two Rivers between Feb. 12 and 20. However, she later admitted to being in Two Rivers on Feb. 14 and 16. Vang met with law enforcement at the Two Rivers Police Department and talked about the situation. He reportedly said Elijah is afraid of him, but corrected himself and said that he (Elijah) respects me. He also told authorities Elijah was put with him as a punishment for his bad behavior. Vang then said Elijah was disciplined with timeouts. These timeouts were described by Vang as standing for periods of one to three hours long. The complaint states Vang told authorities the time Elijah spent with him was intended to be a form of boot camp. He gets pretty tired from I guess like from standing, too, Vang told authorities during his interview, adding it was not like Elijahs knees were shaking and about to fall over. Vang reportedly told Elijah when he would try to sit down, You want cold water? The complaint said Vang would give Elijah cold showers as a form of punishment. On the day Elijah went missing, Vang said he got his own son ready for school and saw Elijah still sleeping. Vang and Elijah then ate breakfast before Vang went back to bed. When he woke up Elijah was missing. Vang reportedly told authorities he locked the door at the doorknob, deadbolt, and with a security chain. Baur was formally charged Monday in Manitowoc County with one felony count of party-to-a-crime of child neglect and two misdemeanor counts of resisting or obstructing an officer. She was being held on a $15,000 cash bond. Vang was formally charged with one felony count of party-to-a-crime child neglect. He was being held on a $20,000 cash bond. The FBI on Tuesday provided a reward of up to $15,000 for information leading to the location and return of the boy or to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for his disappearance, Two Rivers Police Chief Ben Meinnert said at a news conference. The FBI reward is in addition to a Manitowoc County Crime Stoppers reward of $1,000 established Saturday, Meinnert said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News. Some people gift flowers or nice jewelry; others go out for a meal. Sometimes, a long-distance phone call is how you show a mother in your life your appreciation. There are more phone calls made on Mother's Day than almost any other day of the year. If it's any indication of how important people find Mother's Day celebrations, U.S. consumers spent a record $35.7 billion in Mother's Day-related purchases in 2023, according to an annual survey by the National Retail Federation. However you choose to celebrate, Mother's Day is a special day you want to be ready for. Here's what you need to know: When is Mother's Day 2024? Mother's Day is observed every second Sunday of May, falling on Sunday, May 12, 2024. When is Mexican Mother's Day? Mexican Mother's Day, or Dia de las Madres, falls on May 10 every year. What is Mexican Mother's Day? The honorary celebration is often filled with family reunions, flowers, traditional dishes and singing. The 101-year-old holiday was founded in 1922 by journalist Rafael Alducin when he called on Mexico to create a holiday that celebrated las reinas de la casa, or the queens of the home. While Mexico was the first nation in Latin America to declare it an official holiday, nations all over Latin America adopted the holiday and gave it their own regional, community and generational traditions. In Mexico, eating traditional foods like mole, pozole, enchiladas, quesadillas and sopes are commonplace, as well as singing celebratory songs like "Las Mananitas," or "The Morning Song," which doubles as a Mexican birthday song. Who invented Mother's Day? Celebrations similar to Mother's Day have been prevalent in societies for thousands of years across every continent. However, what we have come to know as Mother's Day in the U.S. can be credited to a woman named Anna Jarvis, an activist from the early 20th century. Anna Jarvis, founder of Mothers Day. Anna's mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, gave her the inspiration she would use to eventually champion the national holiday. Her mother was also a prominent activist around the time of the Civil War and would organize "Mothers' Day Work Clubs" that taught women how to care for their children. Following her mother's death in 1905, Jarvis wanted a day where people would be encouraged to honor the sacrifices mothers make for their children. She worked for the next three years to bring her dream to life, and on May 10, 1908, the first Mother's Day celebration took place at a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia. The successful celebration motivated her to launch a letter-writing campaign to newspapers and politicians. She urged them to adopt a day honoring motherhood, arguing that American holidays were biased toward male-oriented achievements. West Virginia, Jarvis's home state, was the first to adopt the holiday in 1910. By 1912, many states, towns and churches made Mother's Day a yearly tradition, and Jarvis had established the Mother's Day International Association to promote her cause. The ever-passionate daughter's campaign for a nationwide celebration of motherhood finally ended when President Woodrow Wilson declared the first official Mother's Day in 1914. In a twist of fate, Jarvis would spend the later years of her life fighting to remove the holiday from the national calendar. As Mother's Day became more marketable for businesses, she disagreed with the commercialization of the holiday and campaigned against anyone who profited from it. Jarvis launched lawsuits against florists, greeting card manufacturers and other industries before her death in 1948. What was the original name for Mother's Day? Versions of Mother's Day have emerged under various names throughout the years. One of the earliest instances was "Mother's Friendship Day" in 1868, organized by Ann Reeves Jarvis, the mother of the eventual founder of Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis. Mothers were encouraged to gather with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation. Just a few years later, in 1870, Julia Ward Howe, a poet and reformer from the Civil War era, called for a "Mother's Day for Peace" to celebrate peace and advocate for the eradication of war. Although 44 years later, through an almost decade-long process led by Anna Jarvis to create a national Motherhood Day, the country eventually came to know the day simply as Mother's Day. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why are there 2 Mother's Days? What to know about Mexican Mother's Day United States President Joe Biden takes action to protect American citizens' private information from nations that are viewed as hostile by issuing an executive order on Wednesday, February 28. Concerning Factor According to CNBC, the practice of data collection and trading between businesses and individuals, known as data brokers, is at the center of the executive order. Data brokers and other businesses are a source of worry for the Biden administration since they may sell this information to "countries of concern" with a history of collecting and exploiting personal data. For instance, there has been prior fear among lawmakers and intelligence agencies that the Chinese Communist Party is gathering a large amount of data from the US, which might compromise national security. Genomic, biometric, personal health, geolocation, financial, and other forms of personally identifiable information are the primary targets of the directive. A White House fact page states that hostile nations may use this data "to track Americans (including military service members), pry into their personal lives, and pass that data on to other data brokers and foreign intelligence services." The White House said in its statement about the new executive order that selling Americans' personal information poses serious threats to national security, including privacy invasion, blackmail, and counterintelligence. They emphasized that this is especially true for those serving in the military or working in the security sector. Also Read: Joe Biden Considers Executive Action To Prevent Migrants Crossing Border From Claiming Asylum Orders to Agencies The presidential order specifies that the Department of Justice (DOJ) must issue several rules to safeguard confidential information. Along with the DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will also be directed to establish stringent security measures to forestall the acquisition of sensitive American data by nations of concern through other commercial channels, including information obtainable through investment, vendor, and employment ties. In addition, while reviewing submarine cable permits, the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector is directed by the order to take into account the risks to Americans' sensitive personal data. Also Read: Lawmakers Rename Proposed Bird Safety Bill to 'FLACO Act' Following Death of Beloved NYC Owl Thousands of women in India are now staying safer and saving money during heat waves thanks to climate-resilient technology. As detailed by Next City, the Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) has been helping lower-income groups make upgrades to the tin roofs of their homes improvements that have cut some womens electric bills in half. ModRoof, a waterproof and reusable system by MHT made from packaging and agricultural waste, lowered indoor temperatures of one womans house by 11 degrees Fahrenheit, increasing her ability to work productively. There was a risk of heat-stroke earlier, said Meenaben Soni, who lives in an informal settlement in Ahmedabad. My husband hasnt been admitted to the hospital after we installed the ModRoof. Our children can also study in comfort. The neighborhoods other children also come to our house to study. I can see our dreams slowly coming true. MHT, which was founded in 1994 and operates in nine Indian states, has also helped women gain access to reflective paint, insulted ceilings, and solar systems, as well as provided education about the effects of changing global temperatures. According to the World Bank, heat waves are projected to significantly impact India as our planet warms, with an estimated 160 to 200 million people being exposed to deadly temperatures every year by 2030. Without adjustments, the report projects that there will be a demand for a new air conditioner every 15 seconds, resulting in a 435% increase in the generation of planet-warming pollution over a 20-year span. People who cant afford the equipment will be most at risk. I need to work so my family can eat, but some days its just too hot, Bhanu ben Jadav, who lives in the settlement of Vasant Nagar, told Time last summer. MHT hopes to help break a potentially dangerous cycle, as one of its studies found that cool roofs reduce indoor temperatures by 3.6 to nine degrees Fahrenheit. Back in 2013, several years after a lethal heat wave that disproportionately impacted women, the city of Ahmedabad began implementing a Heat Action Plan that enlisted the help of nonprofits like MHT. Today, over 30,000 cooling roofs have been installed, and MHT aims to continue empowering women to ensure their full and equal participation in shaping [the] growth of cities. Long-drawn climate change stresses are painful and have an inter-generational effect. When we involve women and adolescent girls, we can make sure that the work we do will benefit generations, MHT director Bijal Brahmbhatt told Next City. Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet. You are in the movie business? Judge Larry Bourgeois quipped from the bench to the woman who stood before him to plead guilty to felony charges. You are stealing cars and coming to Mississippi to sell stolen cars, and you are in the movie business, the judge said. Come on! Brandy Ann Crow told the judge she had had a successful career in the movie business in Los Angeles and wanted to return to work to make the money she would need to pay for her crimes. According to her biography on the Internet Movie database service, IMDb, Crow, 38, is an actress, producer, musician and artist born in Hollywood. Her movie credits include The Way in 2010 and Hollywood Sex Wars in 2011. Crow was accompanied by her attorney, Scott Lusk, when she appeared in Harrison County Circuit Court in Gulfport in February to plead guilty to felony charges of false pretense and possession of the controlled substance fentanyl. Crow wanted to receive probation for her crimes and wanted the probation transferred to Louisiana to care for her mother and grandmother before she returned to California. Brandy Ann Crow Im sorry, she said. I apologize for the past mistake, and Ive made a promise to never be here again after today. But, you know, I do have a good career in Los Angeles that I could pick back up once I get back there. The judge shot down the request, sentencing Crow to a total of 18 years in prison, suspending all but four years for her to serve in prison with credit for time served, and four years of post-release supervision. The judge fined Crow $2,000 and ordered her to pay $11,000 in restitution to the victim and $4,243 to cover the extradition costs for the Harrison County Sheriffs Department. Crow told the judge she had no plans to return to Mississippi after she completed the terms of her prison sentence. Gulfport police arrested Crow and her then-boyfriend for selling a stolen Dodge Challenger to a buyer for $10,000. Assistant District Attorney Matthew Burrell said the couple placed an ad for the car on Facebook Marketplace to make the sale. Crow said the buyer paid them $8,000 and was supposed to pay the remaining balance later. Crows then-boyfriend stole the car, and Crow said she made a bad decision and went with him on a road trip in the car that ended with their arrests in Mississippi. The couples arrest came shortly after they sold the stolen car. According to Burrell, the buyer found out the car was stolen after a traffic stop in Harrison County and reported the crime to Gulfport police officers. Gulfport police worked with the buyer to arrange a meeting with Crow and her then-boyfriend to pay them the remaining $2,000 the buyer owed. Instead, police used that meeting to identify Crow and her accomplice. At the time of their arrests, Crow said police found her stash of Fentanyl, resulting in the additional drug charge. Crows felony conviction is not her first. She was previously convicted on a felony charge of accessory after the fact to murder. In that case, Crow, who then went by the name of Brandy Ricks, was with her then-boyfriend when he shot and killed a gang member in California. John Jasinski, a finalist for the Missouri State University president job, answers questions at a forum in the Plaster Student Union auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. The Michigan-born John Jasinski and his wife have lived in the Show-Me State so long they feel homegrown. "Denise and I came here 37-38 years ago," he said. "Let me be very clear, we are Missourians. We know Missouri. We have worked to uplift the communities that we serve in Missouri and uplift the state." The provost of Missouri State for the past 18 months, Jasinski is the sole internal candidate to succeed the retiring Clif Smart to become the 12th president of the university. One of three finalists, Jasinski was visiting campuses Monday and Tuesday as part of the formal interview process. The most public part was a one-hour open forum in front of a packed audience of students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members. The forums are identical for each finalist. The first half is spent answering questions from Lynn Parman, chair of the MSU Board of Governors who started Tuesday by saying it was time to learn "more about president Jasinski" and the second half involved taking questions from the audience. John Jasinski, a finalist for the Missouri State University president job, answers questions at a forum in the Plaster Student Union auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Parman may have been referring to Jasinski's 13 years as the president of Northwest Missouri State University, a stint that ended in 2022. He worked there much of his career, serving as a faculty member, department chair and associate provost. He has also been a leader at Northwood University, a senior consultant with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the owner of his own consulting company. At the forum in the Plaster Student Union Theater, Jasinski sat on the edge of his seat and spoke directly to the crowd. He was asked why he wanted the top job at Missouri State. "Let's face it, it's a special place proud, proud past history and an interesting present day but what really motivates me is to think about Missouri State University tomorrow, building the destination campus together. That's what we can do," he said. "What motivates me is who we are as an institution." The other finalists include Richard "Biff" Williams, former president of Utah Tech University, who was on campus Feb. 14-15. Roger Thompson, vice president for student services and enrollment management at the University of Oregon, will have an open forum Feb. 29. Missouri State Associate Professor Nicole West asks a question about academic tenure to John Jasinski, a finalist for the Missouri State University president job, during an open forum in the Plaster Student Union auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. At the start Tuesday, Jasinski pointed out his wife of 38 years, saying family "really forms who I am as a person." He said later that marrying her was his greatest accomplishment. Their children are grown. Jasinski said he approaches management with a "grown mindset," high expectations, and integrity. "It comes from being data-driven, team-based and collaborative." He spoke about the financial turnaround he engineered at Northwest, the significant enrollment gains that marked his presidency, and the elevation and expansion of that institution's agricultural department an area that is also a priority at Missouri State. "We moved the ag department to a glistening new building, built a $10.4 million ag learning center, and it took a lot of work to do that, reset curriculum and the like," he said. Asked by Parman and audience members about creating a welcoming and inclusive environment on campus, Jasinski said he learned at Northwest the importance of listening "to all populations" and following up on the input. "Let me be clear, as your 12th president, I'll be committed to inclusive engagement, inclusive excellence. It's very important," he said. John Jasinski, a finalist for the Missouri State University president job, answers questions at a forum in the Plaster Student Union auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. He also spoke about his intention to develop "unrivaled connectedness" to the communities served by the university and to local employers. Jasinski praised the public affairs mission, a hallmark of the university, and explained how he has exhibited ethical leadership, cultural competence and community engagement in his career. "I served on the city council in the city of Maryville for five years. It felt like 15, in some cases, I suppose, but that was important," he said. He also talked about his exit from Northwest. "That departure was predicated upon acting ethically," he said. "I made some tough decisions as a president and the bottom line with that is I had to remove a Greek organization. I took a lot of heat and being a public servant ... Removing that Greek organization led to some individuals getting on the board and not renewing my contract." He said kicking the fraternities out "was the right thing to do" and noted they were later allowed to return. John Jasinski, a finalist for the Missouri State University president job, answers questions at a forum in the Plaster Student Union auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Smart asked Jasinski to take the job in Springfield. Missouri State was in a period of transition. Long-serving leaders, including provost Frank Einhellig, were retiring, triggering both internal promotions and external hires. In interviews and social media posts, Smart has championed Jasinski's leadership and showcased the work he has done with faculty, the relationships he has built in the community, and the ways he has represented the university from Jefferson City to China. Jasinski was tapped to spearhead a large-scale academic realignment, which meant reducing spending by millions, shifting staff and reallocating resources. The most visible element was the merger of two existing colleges into the expanded Judith Enyeart Reynolds College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. John Jasinski, a finalist for the Missouri State University president job, answers questions at a forum in the Plaster Student Union auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Several questions from the audience referenced Jasinski's time at Missouri State. For example, he was asked how he'd address staff and faculty who may have reservations about trusting him in light of job cuts and the elimination of an entire college. "The restructure that we just went through ... we followed a process. We set down some guidelines, a lot of listening through that, and at the end of the day, we protected every filled full-time faculty members' job," he said. "We reduced administrative (staffing), in a pretty significant way, in terms of costs." He added: "I was asked to cut $3.2 million. We cut $5 million. Why? Because my experience in higher ed says you need some R&D funding to continue to grow." More: As Missouri State seeks new leader, provost John Jasinski builds on 'record of success' A couple questions focused on raising staff and faculty salaries, noting that has been a priority for Smart. Jasinski said his focus will be on protecting programs and jobs but he also wants to increase employee compensation packages. "Can I sit here and say we're going to raise salaries significantly for faculty and staff? No. I think as a leader, you have to be forthright about that," he said. "Am I going to work my tail off to focus on jobs, to focus on compensation within the realm that is possible? Unequivocally. And I have a track record of doing that." Students, staff, faculty and members of the public came out to hear John Jasinski, a finalist for the Missouri State University president job, answer questions at an open forum in the Plaster Student Union auditorium on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. There has been a lot of debate nationally about tenure with an effort to do away with it playing out on certain campuses. Asked his philosophy on the tenure system, Jasinski said he personally delivered promotion tenure letters to faculty after overseeing the review process. "That should show you something about how I feel about promotion and tenure," he said. He said after reviewing more than 60 portfolios, he was impressed by the work, research and accomplishments of the faculty. "We need to figure out ways to shout from the mountaintop about what our faculty are doing, each and every day," he said. "Because it is flat-out exciting and it's exhilarating to think about." This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Jasinski, finalist for MSU president job, talks track record, growth How big a role did Modestos suffragettes play in securing a womans right to vote in California? How was it that you could fly out of Modesto and land in the waters of the San Francisco Bay? How did The Maddox Brothers and Rose popularize honky-tonk music and influence rock n roll? Visitors to the McHenry Museum can learn about all these and more of Modestos lesser-known history through the exhibit Modesto History Project III. This show was curated by the Modesto Art Museum and is on display through April 7. The whole purpose of this is to inspire people. Our Modesto heritage is far richer and more interesting than we know. said Modesto Art Museum co-founder Bob Barzan. The idea started during my research of Modesto architecture. I would run into articles that would take me down a rabbit hole and reveal something I never knew about our region. Through archival photos, Barzan tells the story of the forgotten past and people of Modesto. 1939 panoramic photograph of the Shiloh Rodeo Parade at the intersection of Needham and Virginia Streets in Modesto, pictured as part of the Modesto History project exhibit at the McHenry Museum in Modesto, Calif., Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. Set in the right wing of the museum, historical photos illustrate each story and include an interactive QR code to take visitors to more information. Barzan said he plans to eventually make all the displays downloadable on the art museums website and provide a list of locations where these works will be displayed permanently after the show ends. Pieces of the Modesto History Project I and II exhibits already are on display at various locations downtown, including at the Modesto Transit Center at Ninth and J streets. Barzan said Part III is the last in the series. The exhibit was made possible through a grant from the city of Modesto as part of the Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund established by the American Rescue Plan Act. The Modesto History Project III runs until April 7 at the McHenry Museum, 1402 I St. The museum is open Fridays through Sundays from noon to 4 p.m., and entry is free. For more information, visit https://modestoartmuseum.org/modesto-history-project-iii. Some Vermonters just had their student loan debt wiped out. The Biden Administration has been working for years to eliminate student debt for some Americans who struggled to pay back costly loans and interest accrued. In some cases, borrowers have spent decades paying down debt since leaving college. Over the past week the first round of borrowers received an email from the president saying their loans were forgiven. Under the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, $1.2 billion in federal student loans is being forgiven for 153,000 Americans across all 50 states and U.S. territories. At least 190 Vermont borrowers are among the beneficiaries and are set to be forgiven $1.3 million of their student loan debt. This pertains to federal public loans, not loans taken out through private entities or education loans acquired through a bank. The Biden Administration forgave $1.2 billion in federal student loan debt. Who qualified for student loan forgiveness Borrowers who received forgiveness met specific criteria. They were enrolled in the federal SAVE Plan, had been making payments for at least 10 years and originally borrowed $12,000 or less for undergraduate college. For those who had taken out more than $12,000 in loans, they could qualify if they had spent an additional year paying back loans for each $1,000 above $12,000. All borrowers who were part of the SAVE plan qualified for forgiveness after 20 or 25 years paying their debt depending on whether they had loans for graduate school. Benefits were based on the amount of money borrowed initially, not the amount owed. More people meeting these criteria could have their student loans forgiven. Borrowers are encouraged to sign up for the SAVE Plan which is a federal student loan repayment program for low- to middle-income borrowers. Find more information about the program and to see if you qualify for loan forgiveness at StudentAid.gov/SAVE. Contact reporter April Barton at abarton@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1854. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter @aprildbarton. This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: How much student loan debt is being forgiven in Vermont? The former groundsman of a millionaire financiers shooting estate was shot dead while walking his dog near Aberfeldy, in Perthshire. A murder investigation is underway after Brian Low, 65, was killed near Aberfeldy on Feb 17. He had worked for Michael Campbell MBE on the Edradynate Estate for more than 20 years before he retired in February 2023. It took police until Tuesday to confirm the death was being treated as murder, following a post mortem examination of Mr Lows body, who was found dead at the scene. Police are now searching the nearby area for clues of the killing, which is thought to have happened when Mr Low was walking his black Labrador on a secluded woodland track at around 8:30am on a Saturday morning. The post mortem suggested the death, which was previously treated as unexplained, was not a suicide or accident. While there is no suggestion the estate is linked to Mr Lows death, it has been at the centre of prior police investigations. In 2018, a gamekeeper was cleared of poisoning crops on the property in the dead of night as revenge for a dispute with Mr Campbell. Several police were parked at the scene on Tuesday night and a small grey tent erected - UNPIXS A spokesperson for Edradynate Estate said: Brian Low worked for us for the past 20 years on the estate as a groundsman. We are very sad and shocked at these disturbing events. I have known him for many years and he worked with us until around this time last year. We do not know what happened. We knew he had died obviously but this news has created another level of shock. We are still trying to process all the details. We have already offered our condolences to his family and we are continuing to support them. It is not clear whether Mr Low was killed in a targeted attack. Police have faced criticism for failing to inform the public that a killer was on the loose for 10 days, with the death causing shock in Aberfeldy. The town is home to around 2,000 people and has been immortalised in the Robert Burns poem The Birks Of Aberfeldy and the Ed Sheeran song The Hills of Aberfeldy. Highly unusual incident Martin Gallagher, a former police superintendent with Police Scotland, said it was highly unusual for such an incident to be kept from the public for so long. He said: I cant recall a case in all my service where the police withheld information for 10 days in respect of a murder having been committed, other than when homicide has not been identified as the cause of death at the outset. The police know that incidents such as this attract public interest and disquiet. Detectives have set up an online portal to encourage members of the public to submit information. John Swinney, the former deputy first minister and MSP for the area, said: This is a devastating and serious announcement and I express my sympathy to the family of Brian Low. I have spoken with Police Scotland and sought reassurance that an appropriate police presence will be in place to ensure community safety. Incidents like this unheard of Murdo Fraser, the MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, said: Incidents like this are almost unheard of in Highland Perthshire and Im sure the community of Aberfeldy will be shocked to hear of this murder. Several police vans were parked at the scene on Tuesday night, with access to the footpath taped off and a small grey tent erected by officers. Greg Burns, the local area commander for Police Scotland, said: I understand this is an extremely concerning incident for this small, rural community. I want to take this opportunity to reassure people that we are working round the clock to find out what happened to Brian. We will have additional high-visibility patrols in the area and you will see significant police activity over the coming days. Anyone with any concerns can approach these officers at any time. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Forensic work was being carried out by police at the scene in Pitilie Police have launched a murder investigation 10 days after a 65-year-old man was shot dead as he walked his dog near Aberfeldy. Officers said Brian Low was shot in Pitilie on the outskirts of the Perthshire town at about 08:30 on Saturday 17 February. Emergency services attended but Mr Low, from Aberfeldy, was pronounced dead at the scene. Following a post mortem examination, Mr Low's death is being treated as murder. He worked as a groundsman at a nearby sporting estate before retiring in February last year. Det Ch Insp Martin Macdougall, of Police Scotland's major investigation team, said the force was trying to get Mr Low's family answers. He said extensive inquiries were being carried out and detectives were trying to establish the full circumstances of the shooting. Police launched the murder investigation 10 days after Mr Low was shot He continued: "Our inquiries have so far have revealed that Brian was out walking his black Labrador along a remote track, shortly before 08:30 when he was fatally shot. "Although this is a remote location, we would be keen to hear from anyone who was in the area at the time." Local Area Commander Greg Burns said: "I understand this is an extremely concerning incident for this small, rural community. "I want to take this opportunity to reassure people that we are working round the clock to find out what happened to Brian. "We will have additional high-visibility patrols in the area and you will see significant police activity over the coming days. Aberfeldy murder Detectives have set up an online portal where members of the public can submit information. A spokesman for Edradynate Estate, where Mr Low worked until last year, described the news of his death as "extremely sad". "We send our deepest condolences to Brian's family. We have no further comment to make at this time," they added. Perthshire North MSP John Swinney said: "This is a devastating announcement and I express my sympathy to the family of Brian Low. "I have spoken with Police Scotland and have been assured there is a strong police presence locally to address public anxiety. "I encourage anyone with information to contact the police." A British-built steamship that disappeared more than 120 years ago with 32 passengers on board has been discovered off the coast of Australia. The SS Nemesis was transporting coal to Melbourne, Australia, in 1904 when it sailed into a storm and was never seen again. Over the coming weeks, the bodies of crew members who had drowned at sea washed up ashore alongside debris from the ship, yet the location of the sunken vessel remained unknown. The New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of Environment and Heritage confirmed over the weekend the ship was found off the coast of the Sydney area, roughly 525 feet underwater. An investigation has helped identify the wreck of a steamship that disappeared off Australias east coast in 1904 (CSIRO) The 120-year-old mystery of SS Nemesis and the 32 crew members lost at sea has been solved, government officials declared in a news release. New South Wales officials say they will now look for family members of the Australian, British and Canadian crew who went down with the 1,393-ton ship. About half of the crew on the British-built ship were from the UK, including the captain, Alex Lusher, chief mate, T.A. Renaut, and second mate, W.D. Stein. A remote sensing company called Subsea Professional Marine first discovered a shipwreck in the area in 2022 while looking for cargo boxes lost off the coast, officials said. But the shipwreck was not identified as the SS Nemesis until September 2023 when CSIRO, Australias national science agency, was able to capture underwater imagery that definitively showed the distinctive features of the steamship. The SS Nemesis is believed to have sunk after being hit by a large wave (CSIRO) The agencys research vessel, RV Investigator, used advanced multibeam echosounders to map the wreckage and underwater cameras to obtain high-resolution images of the sunken ship. They showed the severely damaged vessel resting upright on a sand plain. Using those images, they suggested the steamship sank in July 1904 after it was hit by a large wave off the coast of Wollongong - 50 miles south of Sydney - which caused the engine to be overwhelmed and the ship "sank too quickly for lifeboats to be deployed. Phil Vandenbossche, a CSIRO hydrographic surveyor, said: Our visual inspection of the wreck using the drop camera showed some key structures were still intact and identifiable, including two of the ships anchors lying on the seafloor. He added further video imagery would be stitched together to create a 3D model of the wreck for further investigation. The agency used underwater cameras to obtain high-resolution images (CSIRO) Around 40 children lost their parents in this wreck and I hope this discovery brings closure to families and friends connected to the ship who have never known its fate, said NSW minister for environment and heritage, Penny Sharpe. The loss of Nemesis has been described as one of Sydneys most enduring maritime mysteries and has even been described by shipwreck researchers as the holy grail. Thanks to collaborative work with CSIRO and Subsea, using modern technology and historical records, Heritage NSW has been able to write the final chapter of SS Nemesis story." There are more than 200 shipwrecks off the New South Wales coast, according to officials, less than half of which have been located. The MV Blythe Star, a coastal freighter that sank half a century ago off the coast of Australia, was found last year. A Spanish galleon also described as the Holy Grail of shipwrecks is currently in the process of being raised from the ocean floor. NASA and SpaceX are counting down to the launch of their next crewed mission to the International Space Station. Crew-8 is set to launch to the ISS atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The launch was originally set for 12:04 a.m. Friday, but it has been pushed back to 11:16 p.m. Saturday. Watch: NASA, SpaceXs Crew-8 astronauts arrive at Kennedy Space Center Crew-8 arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday. The team consists of three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut. Watch: NASA successfully conducts first simulated surgery in space Here are more details on the Crew-8 crewmembers: USCV-8 Crew Training provided by SpaceX Date: October 20, 2023 Photographer: SpaceX NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Commander Matthew Dominick will serve as spacecraft commander for Crew-8. Dominick, a Colorado native, was picked to join NASA in 2017. After undergoing flight training in Pensacola, Florida, Dominick accumulated more than 1,600 flight hours in 28 aircraft models, 400 carrier arrestments, 61 combat missions, and nearly 200 flight test carrier landings, NASA said. The Crew-8 mission will be Dominicks first flight into space. Michael Barratt USCV-8 Crew Training provided by SpaceX Date: October 20, 2023 Photographer: SpaceX NASA astronaut Dr. Michael R. Barratt will serve as a pilot for Crew-8. The spaceflight veteran, and Washington native, is board-certified in internal and aerospace medicine and joined NASA in 2000. Barratt has previously flown to the space station for two missions, accumulated a total of 212 days in space, and has performed two spacewalks. USCV-8 Crew Training provided by SpaceX Date: October 20, 2023 Photographer: SpaceX NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps will serve as a mission specialist for Crew-8. Epps, a New York native, was selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2009. Epps previously spent more than two years working at Ford Motor Company as a technical specialist and worked for more than seven years as a technical intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency. The Crew-8 mission will be Epps first flight into space. Alexander Grebenkin USCV-8 Crew Training provided by SpaceX Date: October 20, 2023 Photographer: SpaceX Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin will serve as a flight engineer for Crew-8. Grebenkin graduated from Irkutsk High Military Aviation School, Irkutsk, Russia. He also graduated from Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics with a degree in radio communications, broadcasting, and television. The Crew-8 mission will be Grebenkins first flight into space. Watch: US spacecraft that landed sideways on the moon sends new images, continues to communicate Channel 9 will continue to monitor the planned Crew-8 launch and provide updates on Eyewitness News. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. Claire Hao is a Hearst Fellow for the Houston Chronicle's business desk, where she is covering electricity, renewable energy and the Texas power grid. She also spends one day a week covering breaking and trending news. Claire can be reached at claire.hao@houstonchronicle.com. Claire spent her first-year fellowship rotation on the climate and environment team of The San Francisco Chronicle. She has previously interned on the news desks of Bloomberg Law and The Chicago Tribune as well as on the editorial board of The Washington Post. She is a 2022 graduate of the University of Michigan, where she was the 2021 editor-in-chief of her college paper The Michigan Daily. For King & Country perform at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Thursday, March 3, 2022, at NRG Stadium in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer For King & Country perform at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Thursday, March 3, 2022, at NRG Stadium in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer FOR KING & COUNTRY Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo For King & Country was the first Christian pop act to perform at RodeoHouston. Two years later, brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone return to the rotating stage. The Smallbone brothers were born in Sydney, Australia, but immigrated to the United States as children. They eventually made their way to Nashville. Prior to For King & Country, they were known as Joel & Luke, and before that, Austoville. They have scored several No. 1 singles and collaborated with Dolly Parton, Jordin Sparks and Houston native Lecrae. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Later this year, Joel Smallbone stars as his own father in the film "Unsung Hero." He co-wrote and co-directed the film about the Smallbone family's move from Australia to the U.S. in order to further daughter Rebecca St. James' music career. The film chronicles the family's life as they do yard work together to support themselves as St. James establishes herself as a Christian pop artist. When is For King & Country performing? Performing: Feb. 29. Weekday rodeos start at 6:45 p.m. Entertainers take the stage at approximately 9 p.m. Past performances: 2022 Where is For King & Country from? Hometown: Sydney, Australia Advertisement Article continues below this ad Fun fact about For King & Country Galveston County voters will see two candidates with a long history of public service on the March 5 Republican primary ballot in the county sheriff's race. Google Earth Ray Nolen, 58, has had a career in public service and public safety for 36 years, including more than 32 years in law enforcement. Nolen is running for Galveston County Sheriff. Ray Nolen Jimmy Fullen, 60, has more than 36 years of experience in law enforcement. Fullen resigned served as Chief Deputy Precinct 2 Constable's Office before resigning to run for Galveston County sheriff. Jimmy Fullen The race to fill the seat of outgoing Galveston County Sheriff Henry A. Trochesset will see two longtime public servants on the ballot in the Republican primary. Ray Nolen and Jimmy Fullen are vying to serve the position as chief law enforcement officer of the county and cite mental health, public safety and crime as priority issues. Trochesset decided not to run for another term. Nolen has been with the Galveston County Sheriffs Office for more than 30 years and is currently a major leading the Criminal Law Enforcement Bureau. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He said he created an organized crime task force several years ago to address gang-related activity, and in 2023 that unit made 180 felony arrests, 125 misdemeanor arrests and seized $4.1 million in narcotics and 71 firearms. Im proud of that units work, and weve got to stay on top of that, he said. BAY AREA INSIDER: Must-read local news from League City, Clear Lake and other Bay Area communities Fullen has 35 years of experience in law enforcement and resigned from his position as chief deputy of the Galveston County Precinct 2 Constables Office to run for sheriff. If elected, Fullen said he would put more deputies on the street to combat gang violence, shootings, narcotics dealings and prostitution as a response for what he calls an uptick in crime and shootings in Galveston County. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I think as sheriff I can take control of that, and I know how to run an agency and get things done, Fullen said. According to statistics provided by the Galveston County Sheriffs Office, the total number of violent crimes for 2023 was 1,091, a drop from the 1,538 recorded in 2022. Those numbers are reported by the county to a federal database, said Maj. Ron Hill with the sheriffs office. Fullen claims those numbers tell an incomplete picture. I have to disagree with any kind of federal stats because if you talk to the folks in the unincorporated parts of Galveston County that we patrol, they will tell you in a heartbeat that crime is not down, Fullen said. Im going by what the people in these parts of the county are telling me. Fullen said he would fund an increase in patrol presence by repositioning personnel in the sheriffs office already budgeted. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I would take civilian positions that are being manned by deputies and refilling them with civilians and put those deputies back out of the street, he said. Mental health Both candidates hope to step up the countys mental health initiatives if elected. If you look at some of the shooting incidents over the last five years, in almost every one of them there was a mental health issue behind it, Fullen said. My plan is for every patrol deputy go through an extensive training on how to deal with mental health patients. Nolen also thinks drug addiction and mental illness often drive criminal activity and thinks coming up with additional resources would help. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We have a very proactive mental health division where we respond and evaluate people so they can get appropriate treatment instead of taking them to jail, he said. Ive got to work with the community and try to partner with them and come up with some programs and resources to try to help people that are on the street. Early voting started Feb. 20 and election day for the Texas primaries is March 5. Heres more information about each candidate and other key issues. Jimmy Fullen Fullen, 60, is from Galveston has more than 36 years of experience in law enforcement. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He most recently served as chief deputy for the Precinct 2 Constables Office Background Fullen has 35 years of experience as a full-time law enforcement official, including as the four-time elected Republican constable in Precinct 2 for 14 years. Fullen and has served in several county law enforcement agencies, including as chief of police for the Texas City Police Department and chief of police of the Galveston Independent School District. In 2021, he was appointed by Galveston County Judge Mark Henry as the lead coordinator of the Southern Border Taskforce, which was the first non-border county in Texas to send sheriff and constable deputies to Kinney County. Why hes running I am running for Galveston County sheriff because Ive been in law enforcement in this county for 35+ years, he said. I was born and raised in this community and my whole career has been spent in this community. Fullen has racked up a long list of key endorsements from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Galveston County commissioners like Joe Giusti of Precinct 2, Darrel Apffel of Precinct 1, police chiefs, mayors and council members from the cities of Friendswood, Texas City and League City, and law enforcement associations of Houston, Galveston, League City. Key issues Mental health issues, crime, school safety and drug-related crime. As a former chief of police with Galveston ISD, Fullen counts school safety as another top priority. We have a new state law that requires security or school marshals to be placed in every school in Texas, I think we need more of that, and its something I will have to negotiate with the superintendents once I take over the sheriffs office. All the school districts that we currently contract with, they set the budget for how many people they want. In addition to that, I think you need to have deputies patrolling the outside of schools to try to keep the problems from getting inside the schools. Ray Nolen Nolen, 58, is from La Porte and has had a career in public service and public safety for 36 years, including more than 32 years in law enforcement. Nolen is a major over the Criminal Law Enforcement Bureau at the Galveston County Sheriffs Office. Background Nolen began as a part-time reserve deputy with the Galveston County Sheriffs Office in 1991 and worked his way up to the rank of major. Before taking on a full-time role at the sheriffs office, Nolen worked as a paramedic for the city of La Porte, where he served as assistant chief of EMS and retired in 2019 as chief of EMS. Why hes running Although he has received the key endorsement from Trochesset, Nolen said he considers himself to be the underdog in the race because of his opponents name recognition as an elected official and the long list of endorsements Fullen has amassed from various public officials and law enforcement agencies and unions. Nolen has also been endorsed by other key supporters like U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls and former Galveston County Sheriff Freddie Poor. I went through my career just trying to serve the public and lead my men and women, said Nolen. I wasnt trying to get recognition, I didnt need anybody to know my name. I didnt realize I was ever going to be doing something like this. Perhaps if had known I would have been out there trying to toot my own horn more, but I just wanted to make a difference in peoples lives. Nolen said he had previously been eyeing retirement with no intentions to seek elected office but that he felt compelled to enter the race because he feels the next county sheriff should come within the agency. I think its important that people know Im committed to advocating for not only citizens, which are No. 1, but my employees and making sure their performances are above table and that they are held accountable when they cross that line, Nolen said Other key issues In addition to addressing mental health initiatives and homelessness, Nolen said he wants to get the agency accredited, which includes making sure practices and procedures are best practice standards, and includes its promotional process, he said. I would want to reassure everybody that they are going to be allowed under my command to continue to do their jobs, and I am going to advocate for them, promote their professional development, he said. Bridgeland Central breaks ground on new Village Green center with new 110,000 square foot H-E-B. Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. Bridgeland Central breaks ground on new Village Green center with new 110,000 square feet H-E-B. Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. Bridgeland Central breaks ground on new Village Green center with new 110,000 square feet H-E-B. Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. Bridgeland Central breaks ground on new Village Green center with new 110,000 square feet H-E-B. Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. Howard Hughes Inc. continues to spur Bridgeland growth with the groundbreaking of Village Green, a new 70-acre space that includes a large new H-E-B. The initial phase of this project will be 23 acres and will feature a 110,000-square-foot H-E-B grocery store. According to Travis Guinn, senior vice president of development at Howard Hughes Holdings Inc., Village Green will have a unique design style that is not usually seen in suburban markets. Advertisement Article continues below this ad H-E-B is well established as the powerhouse in Texas when it comes to grocery, said Guinn. There's been a demand for an additional grocer in the heart of Bridgeland for quite some. He said in 2023, Bridgeland sold close to 1,000 homes putting them at number two in the state and believes the timing is fantastic. Guinn said hes heard positive feedback about H-E-B and the community is ready for additional retail stores. Retail tenants at Village Green are expected to be announced this spring and will feature a mix of local shops and nationwide retailers, according to Guinn. I think we've curated a really nice balance between the two, said Guinn. As we plan these projects, we spend a lot of time in merchandising and planning on which tenants to track and target and weve had a high level of success. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Guinn said the developer considers Bridgeland Central to be the downtown of the community and will have a similar feel to The Woodlands Town Center. He expects the district to draw visitors from outside Bridgeland as well. Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, speaks at a campaign event Monday in Bloomington, Minnesota. Minnesota is among the states holding primaries on Super Tuesday, March 5. Adam Bettcher/Associated Press Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said its very possible the GOP has fully become the party of Donald Trump, as she was projected to lose yet another primary to the former president. Haley was speaking Tuesday to CNN host Dana Bash not long before Michigans Republican presidential primary was called for Trump. Michigan is the fifth state where Haley has lost to Trump another blow making it harder to justify her campaign. Isnt it possible the party has moved, and the party is about Donald Trump and not what youre describing, which might be the party of yesterday? Bash asked Haley. Its very possible, Haley said. What were doing is if 70% of Americans say they dont want Donald Trump or Joe Biden, we are giving them an option. What Im saying to my Republican Party family is were in a ship with a hole in it. And we can either go down with the ship and watch the country go socialist left, or we can see that we need to take the life raft and move in a new direction. Haley argued after losing her home state primary on Saturday that the 40% of voters who backed her represent a critical portion of the electorate, one that doesnt want to see another Biden-Trump election. Campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas reiterated Haleys point in a statement on the results. Donald Trump is losing about 35% of the vote. Thats a flashing warning sign for Trump in November. Let this serve as another warning sign that what has happened in Michigan will continue to play out across the country, Perez-Cubas said. Haley has campaigned as a conservative alternative to Trump, positioning herself as a candidate for independents, never Trumpers and others who want to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee including Democrats. On Tuesday, the former South Carolina governor again committed to staying in the race through Super Tuesday next week. Trumps campaign believes its possible the former president will secure a majority of Republican National Committee delegates by March 12 or 19, clinching the nomination. With just 12% of votes counted, Haley had about 29% of the Republican primary vote in Michigan as of Tuesday night, far behind Trumps roughly 67%. Haley explained her loss by arguing Michigan voters dont know her as well as Trump. Donald Trump campaigned in Michigan for eight years. I campaigned for two days, Haley said from Utah, one of the Super Tuesday states where shes campaigning. Our goal has been to try and reach as many people as we can, but we know hes got the advantage in that. Haleys allies seem to be losing confidence in her bid. The Koch-backed political network Americans for Prosperity Action pulled its financial backing of Haley after she lost the South Carolina primary. One of Haleys top surrogates, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, said it will be hard for Haley to continue in the race if she doesnt start winning. I think if you dont win anything on Super Tuesday, it might be tough going forward, obviously, Sununu said last week. Related... Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley speaks at a rally on Feb. 27, 2024, in Centennial as she continues her campaign to take the Republican presidential nomination ahead of the Colorado primary election. (Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline) Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told a crowd of a couple hundred Colorado supporters Tuesday that shes still running so younger generations can have hope for the future. Imagine a country where we can strongly disagree, but we dont have to hate each other, Haley said. Imagine a country where our kids dont have stress and anxiety, but they have hope for the future. Thats the country I want for your kids and mine. The former governor of South Carolina appeared at a rally that drew a crowd of voters to Wings over the Rockies Exploration of Flight in Centennial, where she focused on changes shed push for if elected as well as the dangers the country would face if former President Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner in the race, returned to the presidency. Haley said Trump put the U.S. into more debt in four years than any other president, adding $8 trillion to the countrys debts. She also decried Trumps rhetoric around Russia and said the president should voice support for the nations allies, not those who threaten them. We need a president who understands the No. 1 job is to prevent war, period, Haley said. America needs to go back to understanding what it means to have peace through strength. We should never be so arrogant to think America doesnt need friends. Haley mentioned states like Michigan and Minnesota that previously had Republican control, but have since seen Democrats take over the governorship and state legislatures after Trump came into the picture. Now Im in Colorado, and Im looking at the fact that no Republican has gotten over 45% statewide since Donald Trump was president, Haley said. At one point during the rally, members of the crowd started chanting dont quit to show their support for Haley despite primary results so far. Haley just lost the primary in her home state, and in Nevada, she lost to the none of these candidates option on the ballot. Suzanne Staiert, a former deputy secretary of state and former Republican candidate for Colorado state Senate, introduced Haley and said she couldnt imagine a better candidate to lead us out of this abyss than Haley. Im just so excited to have a candidate that is going to concentrate on actual issues instead of settling personal scores, Staiert said. A candidate who is not going to get caught up in all the drama and make this her family industry. A candidate that cares about our children and cares about our future and is running because she wants us to have a choice. Id like to go back to the Republican Party someday, and if this woman is nominated by the Republicans, Ill be first in line. Gary Schnell, Nikki Haley supporter Haley said she wants to bolster the middle class to stop the rich from getting richer and the poor from getting poorer. She also said she wants to make tax cuts for small businesses permanent and hold Congress accountable to create a balanced budget on time without risk of a government shutdown. Haley, who is married to a combat veteran, also said the federal government needs to improve its support for veterans. Haley touted a South Carolina immigration policy she signed into law as governor that faced legal challenges from the federal government. Federal judges blocked certain parts of the policy, but Haley still considers the legislation a win and said she wants to grow the concept nationally. She also said shed want to defund sanctuary cities. Denver has had more illegal immigrants come here, more than any other city in America per capita, Haley said. We cant wait one more day to pass a strong immigration bill. Weve got to get it done. Congress needs to do their job, and Trump needs to stay out of it, period. About 40,000 migrants have arrived in Denver since the end of 2022. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley speaks at a rally on Feb. 27, 2024, in Centennial as she continues her campaign to take the Republican presidential nomination ahead of Super Tuesday. (Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline) Gary Schnell drove about an hour and a half from Eaton to attend the rally. He wore a Haley-branded shirt that says barred permanently, which is a reference to a Trump comment saying anyone who donates to Haleys team is permanently barred from the MAGA camp. Ive been a Republican all my life until about two years ago when I quit the party because that lying, immoral a**hole got the nomination and now controls the Republican Party, Schnell said. So I have to do something else. Id like to go back to the Republican Party someday, and if this woman is nominated by the Republicans, Ill be first in line. Schnell said the GOP is no longer a political party, but is rather a cult devoted to supporting Trump. He said the Colorado Republican Partys move to endorse Trump in the primary is totally out of line and contrary to their own, fundamental beliefs. The state GOP endorsed Trump in early January. While Schnell said he supports Haley and already voted for her, he said hes a realist and doesnt see her winning next weeks Colorado presidential primary election. He said hes not looking forward to seeing the results of the primary. I think its great that somebody with her stamina, understanding, perseverance, will stick in there and call out Donald Trump for what he really is, Schnell said. Gretchen Anderson came to the rally from Parker to support Haley because she focuses on what she actually wants to get done in office, not putting down other people, Anderson said. She said Haley is polished and intelligent, and that shes more impressed by Haley every time she hears her speak. Anderson said she wished the Colorado Republican Party would be more open-minded instead of backing Trump. She said shed go home after the rally and reach out to friends to encourage their participation in the primary. This was nowhere near a big enough crowd, Anderson said. Even though Colorado is generally a Democratic state, I know that the south Denver metro for sure has a lot of Republicans, and I dont see them. Haley said Republican voters cant complain about what happens in the general election if they dont participate in the primary. She said she doesnt see the country surviving another four years under Trumps leadership, noting that all he does is talk about himself. This is not personal for me with Donald Trump. I voted for Donald Trump twice, Haley said. I was proud to serve America and his administration. But the truth of the matter is chaos follows him. Everywhere he goes, chaos follows him. The primary election in Colorado is March 5, known as Super Tuesday, when 15 states conduct their presidential primary elections. SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE The post Nikki Haley, contrasting her hope with Trumps chaos, stops in Colorado appeared first on Colorado Newsline. The Georgia attorney conceived as a "star witness" in TrumpWorld's bid to disqualify Fulton County District attorney Fani Willis testified on Tuesday that it was only "speculation" when he told a defense lawyer that Willis had been engaged in an improper personal relationship with the lawyer she appointed to spearhead the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump since 2019. I do not have knowledge of it starting or when it started, Terrence Bradley said of Willis' relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade during a Tuesday hearing. I never witnessed anything. So, you know, it was speculation. Bradley, a former law partner of Wade, also said he could not recall when he learned about the relationship, confounding claims made by the defense team which said the relationship started after Willis selected Wade to lead the case. As noted by The Washington Post, Bradleys claims could imperil the defense team's attempts to oust Willis from the election subversion case with allegations of a romantic relationship between Willis and Wade. The Post also reported that Bradley during his testimony attempted to backtrack on several statements he made regarding the relationship to Ashleigh Merchant, a lawyer for Trump co-defendant Mike Roman. When Merchant on Tuesday referred back to the text messages between herself and Bradley, Bradley said he did not remember the correspondence, also noting his claims had been speculation. He additionally shared that he could recollect "one conversation" in which Wade said he was romantically involved with Willis. Trump lawyer Steve Sadow at one point during the testimony accused Bradley of lying after Bradley said a January 2024 text conversation between himself and Merchant, in which Bradley claimed Willis and Wade had been dating since 2019, was speculation. Why in the heck would you speculate? Sadow asked I have no answer for that, Bradley replied. Except for the fact that you do, in fact, know when it started, and you dont want to testify to that in court. Thats the best explanation, Sadow retorted. Thats the true explanation. Because you dont want to admit it in court, correct? Merchant eventually presented correspondence with Bradley to the court, citing numerous claims made by Bradley about the nature of the supposed relationship. Bradley remained evasive when confronted with the texts and email, testifying, I dont recall that." Merchant also showed the court an excerpt of a conversation with Bradley in which he asked her to include details about payments he had made as an outside attorney consulting for the district attorneys office in her motion to disqualify Willis, suggesting that Bradley did so to avoid being identified as a source. Bradley rejected the allegation, stating that he had simply wanted to assist Merchant in being "accurate" about the funds Wade and his partners had received for helping the DA, according to the Post. Legal experts argued that the hearing failed to bolster the attempt to remove Willis. Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. "My take on Terrence Bradley is he shared idle, salacious gossip about his former client, Nathan Wade, with the defense attorney for Michael Roman. Bradley is a yenta. But it's exponentially worse because he also happened to be Wade's lawyer," tweeted MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang. Still, "Bradley didn't provide any evidence of when Wade and Willis began their relationship because, as he testified, he did not have any knowledge of that timeline," she wrote. Phang criticized Bradley for giving the defense "their basis to launch this sideshow" but added that he "provided zero evidence as to any personal financial benefit that Willis gained from Wade being appointed." Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis agreed that he doesn't think the "evidence is there for disqualification." "I think gossiping and inducing someone to make a motion should trigger bar discipline," he added. "And I think the state should admit that the defense had a good faith basis to press their claims and calling for sanctions was wrong." Bathing suits aren't appropriate attire for visitors strolling along Worth Avenue, the Town Council agreed during its meeting last month. But can the town do anything to make people cover up while shopping there? And if it can, how restrictive should potential regulations be? At the request of town officials, Town Attorney Joanne O'Connor will partner with Palm Beach Police and town staff to seek answers to those questions. Pedestrians head toward the beach along Worth Avenue on Feb. 17. The town is exploring whether is can institute regulations governing what people wear on the streets. Currently, there is no ordinance in place that broadly regulates attire for the general public, and police will only respond to reported incidents in which Florida State Statutes governing indecent exposure or lewdness have been violated, a police department spokesperson said. "We're looking at what the law would permit us to do," O'Connor told the Daily News. "It's also going to be a position for staff to weigh in on. The police department will have to give some thought as to what extent, even if we could regulate it, that it's practical to do so." O'Connor was asked to look into potential regulations governing attire for the general public after council member Julie Araskog raised concerns at the Feb. 13 council meeting. Araskog said she has received an escalating number of complaints from residents who were upset with the way people were dressed when walking on Worth Avenue. "I've had a ton of phone calls," Araskog said. "I've had people walking up to me and telling me that it was inappropriate when people walk around our streets. It's one thing if it's at the beach. But they walk around our streets, barefoot, with their derrieres showing, it's very disturbing to people. It's nudity. It's upsetting people." Araskog said she'd love to see the town enact legislation that would require people to wear a T-shirt and shorts or other types of cover-ups when visiting Worth Avenue or other commercial areas in town. But she said she recognizes there might be legal hurdles in creating those kinds of restrictions, noting that previous efforts by the town to broadly regulate apparel for the general public were found unconstitutional. In 1979, the town enacted a law that prohibited anyone from being on public streets, sidewalks and downtown with the "upper part of his or her body uncovered." That law was challenged by Palm Beach resident Allen DeWeese, who was stopped by police as he jogged without his shirt on. The town argued that the ordinance was intended to "stabilize its land values and maintain its role as a residential community" and "to maintain the history, tradition, identity and quality of life of the town," according to court documents. DeWeese sued, claiming the law was unconstitutional. A county judge agreed. The town appealed, but lost. Palm Beach modified its ordinance, leading to another legal battle with DeWeese. A final 1987 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling sided with the shirtless jogger. "We required shirts for men, and we were sued, and we lost," Araskog said. "But that was not having a shirt on. We would prefer, obviously, that people even if it were a T-shirt and shorts cover up. We're not talking about putting on a nice shirt and pants. That's not it at all. It's not elitism. It's nothing like that. It's just that people have their kids in the car, or they're walking with their children, or they're just older adults. They just don't want to see someone's derriere." The town has received previous complaints about the way people were dressed on Worth Avenue, Palm Beach Police said, but no action was taken. "The Police Department has had complaints about this topic in the past," police spokesperson Will Rothrock told the Daily News. "Several years ago, some initial research by the police department was performed with the assistance of the town attorney. Ultimately, a prospective town ordinance was never advanced or presented to town council." Araskog said she will await guidance from O'Connor and others before holding more serious discussions about a new ordinance. If the town is able to enact new regulations governing clothing for the general public, she said she hopes they are reasonable in nature. "We need an approach of friendliness, of kindness," she said. "It has to be a non-judgmental approach. That's the most important thing. They're our neighbors. This is not judging people. It's just requesting that they cover up." Jodie Wagner is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at jwagner@pbdailynews.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: No bikinis on Worth Avenue? Palm Beach looking at potential regulations Chris Forest, owner of Alcohol by Volume, talks about his wine shop hidden inside a former Gulf gas station at the corner of Clifton and W. 116th in Cleveland. Gas stations with convenience stores are seemingly everywhere, and they are all pretty much the same. Unless, of course, you happen to be driving around the Edgewater neighborhood of Cleveland. On the corner of W. 116th Street and Clifton Boulevard, about 3 miles west of the West Side Market, is where you will find a brick building with two gas pumps out front. Pretty ordinary-looking, if you ask me. Google Maps lists this spot as an EZ Mart. A couple of months ago, it was branded as a Gulf Station, but now the sign out front simply reads "$2.89" and "Alcohol by Volume" in smaller letters underneath. As expected, the first thing I spotted inside was a stack of windshield washer fluid jugs. However, as I looked left, I spotted a stack of Paolo Scalvino Rosso wine bottles from Italy. Scalvino is one of the top Barolo producers in Italys Piedmont region. This is definitely not your typical gas station wine. Then I passed a hand-crafted cigar humidor. No Swisher Sweets in there. A few more steps, and my heart was pounding. I couldn't believe my eyes. I had walked into a wine lover's mecca. The cabernet display at the rooms entrance features bottles of Ridge, Chateau Montelena, Heitz, Silver Oak and Grgich Hills. The sign above reads, Tastes like a million bucks and costs a lot less." Alcohol by Volume owner Chris Forest likes to keep the wine pairings fun at his wine shop hidden inside a former Gulf gas station in Cleveland. He paired this bag of Cool Ranch Doritos with a $2,299 bottle of Krug Champaign. Thats when owner Chris Forest came up and told me his parents bought the former Lyden Oil Co. truenorth store in 1995 when he was 17 years old. They eventually sold wine. It was mainly Yellowtail, Barefoot, Woodbridge and Sutter Home, Forest said. Starting out, he admitted to sipping on $10 bottles of el cheepo wines. He convinced his father to add on a small room in 2010 to make the outside more aesthetically pleasing and symmetrical. More: This fine Portuguese red blend wine is a bargain at $8.99 per bottle | Phil Your Glass Fast-forward to 2024, and this space is now filled with the whos who of wine labels. Ive been very fortunate to get some of the most highly sought-after wines on the planet in here, said Forest as he opened the door to a temperature-controlled wine refrigerator. There were many rare bottles of Chateau Palmer from Bordeaux next to a $3,328 bottle of Krug Clos d'Ambonnay Blanc de Noirs Brut Champagne from France. I dont think you will find this anywhere in the state, he added. "Krug is one of his favorite Champagnes. I buy as much as I can humanly afford." "Fill 'er up" takes on a whole new meaning in this room. There is an Italian section that features high-end bottles from all over the boot, including treasures from Barolo, Brunello, and Sicilys Mt. Etna. There was also a separate section for wines from New Zealand, Washington state, Oregon, Argentina and even Austria. Im a big riesling fan. If we had more space Id have more. Its the most versatile grape on the planet, Forest said. Wine lovers will also appreciate a display of carefully curated under-$20 value wines from all over the world. One of Forests favorites on the rack is a bottle of Luca cabernet from Argentina. Just when I thought I'd seen it all in this small-but-mighty wine room, Forest unveiled the piece de resistance. "I get the largest allocation of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti in the state," he said, referring to what is considered the Holy Grail of French Burgundy. "Here I am in a gas station selling candy and Ho Hos, and then Ive got $10,000 bottles of wine going out the door. More: Tapiz wines come with undeniable pedigree, consistency and price point | Phil Your Glass After touring the wine-lover's Xanadu, Forest took me to the other side of the store. He was quick to add that he's "not running a full-fledged wine shop. This is a small part of our business. In addition to helping a customer find a special occasion wine, he'll also help them with the rare flat tire or oil check. The store does sell the usual cigarettes, candy and snacks, but this "other" side of the store is just as eclectic as the wine side. Sure, there are the usual bags of Combos, beef jerky and granola bars. But there are also over 50 different bottles of sake. I do have people who come to Cleveland on business that stop here to buy sake, Forest said. One is a $90 bottle of Kanbara Ancient Treasure that Forest said looks like a cheap bottle of malt liquor. Theres even a small section of craft beer, featuring lots of German and Belgian favorites, as well as a small selection of mead. Now I know why he named the place Alcohol by Volume. Alcohol by Volume, located in Cleveland, describes itself on its social media pages as a "fine wine and craft beer store masquerading as a gas station." Familiar grocery store wines are stacked on this side of the store, but even these bottles are an upgrade from what you might expect to find in your average gas station convenience aisle. Dont overlook the cooler there are treasures everywhere. On the same shelf that holds bottles of Sutter Home and Yellow Tail, you can also find a $42 bottle of Blanc de Blancs sparkling wine from the iconic Schramsberg Winery in Napa, California. Suddenly, my mind switched from wine columnist to wine enthusiast as I spotted a bottle for my own cellar. This is the only place I know of where you can find a trophy wine stacked next to a bottle of Barefoot moscato. That's where I spotted a $42 Sicilian sparkling wine from Benanti. I have never had a wine made from grapes grown on the side of an active volcano, but I sure am excited to try. Be sure to follow Alcohol By Volume on their Facebook and Instagram (alcohol_by_volume) pages to find out dates of the next wine tasting at the station er, store. You can reach Phil Masturzo at philyourglass@gmail.com and follow him on Instagram @pmasturzo_philyourglass This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Alcohol by Volume in Cleveland sells fine wine out of a gas station Seminole County Fire Department rescuers responded to a fiery scene Tuesday evening at Orlando Sanford International Airport. Without disclosing many details, Lt. Dave Williams said SCFD and other agencies are responding to an emergency at the airport. In a social media post, the airport said the incident involved two single-engine aircrafts from a local training facility. One of the aircraft landed short and came into contact with an unoccupied, parked single-engine aircraft, the airport authority said on X, formerly known as Twitter. According to the post, three people were involved. There were no reports of any serious injuries. This is a developing story. arabines@orlandosentinel.com Donald Trump's latest filing in his Florida criminal case claiming his prosecution is politically motivated and unfair won't go well for him, argues Andrew Weissmann, a former Mueller senior prosecutor, during an appearance on MSNBC. The most crucial part of the case, host Nicolle Wallace said, lies in the national security risk it posed, demonstrating the former president's lack of care for the individuals who may have risked their lives to disclose the information to the United States. Trump's "disdain for the documents and everyone and everything and every life risked to gather them is always stunning to me when we come back to this one," Wallace said, recalling the August 2022 Mar-a-Lago raid. Weissmann agreed, saying that a lack of understanding of what prompts someone to share classified intelligence with the U.S. is what leads a person to disregard the materials' safeguarding. "That lack of empathy is something that leads to this danger to national security, and I think that in terms of the reason for why you saw this extraordinary step is precisely because anybody in the White House or the executive branch would be thinking, 'Our obligation to the public is to recover this'," he explained. Weissmann went on to describe likely outcomes of Trump's filing: "One, just the enormous way it's going to backfire. This is going to be denied, and it is going to be denied in a judicial decision; if not by Judge [Aileen] Cannon, she will get reversed. The 11th Circuit [Court of Appeals] is going to deny it, " Weissmann told Wallace. "There is no way that this is going to be viewed as selective prosecution. [Trump], of course, will say, 'Ignore those courts' pretty hard with the 11th Circuit. I mean, those are his people." Second, he noted, both special counsel Jack Smith and special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated President Joe Biden's retention of classified documents but did not charge him with anything, agreed that the nature of Trump's conduct is different. "It's going to be hard to smear Jack Smith when you have Rob Hur saying the same thing," Weissman said. A police officer who was accused of failing to stop and report a road crash has been cleared of misconduct. PC Karl Warren was driving a Norfolk Police BMW X5 patrol car on the A146 near Lowestoft, Suffolk, when he shunted an Audi car in front. Its driver, Emily Hewett, pulled over, expecting him to exchange details. PC Warren claimed he suffered a condition that caused memory loss and had no recollection of the incident. Medical evidence presented during the hearing showed he suffered from an epileptic disorder. The collision happened on the Barnby Bends in March 2022. Norfolk's Chef Constable Paul Sanford said the investigation has had a "profound and serious impact on the officer and his family" "Any questions relating to the officer's conduct and character must now finally be rejected," he said, in a statement published after the hearing. "The officer has my full support." 'Been through hell' PC Warren was not prosecuted for a motoring offence, but the force was told by the Independent Office for Police Conduct to hold a misconduct hearing. PC Ryan Hargrave, a passenger in the patrol car, has already faced a disciplinary panel. Colin Banham, representing PC Warren, said: "The officer has been through hell. He's been through diagnosis. He's no longer carrying [firearms] and he's no longer driving. "His life has been hugely affected. The publicity; the reality of the situation." Character statements were read out to the hearing, during which PC Warren's wife became emotional, as his dedication to public service was acknowledged. Ms Hewett was also present at the hearing. Norfolk Police and PC Warren's defence accepted that his failure to stop and report the crash would usually trigger misconduct proceedings. But they agreed that the case hinged on whether or not PC Warren was aware of the incident and could recall it. Harry Ireland, the chair of the panel, told PC Warren that it accepted the evidence. He said: "Given that we accept the expert evidence, we dismiss the case against PC Warren." Addressing Mr Warren directly, he added: "We find the case not proved. The case is dismissed. It is over." Follow East of England news on Facebook, Instagram and X. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp 0800 169 1830 A North Carolina court is hearing a case this week that has the potential to impact all capital punishment cases across the state. Hasson Bacote, 37, was convicted of felony first-degree murder in Johnson County in 2009 and sentenced to death. Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, who are representing Bacote, are appealing his sentencing under the states Racial Justice Act, arguing that racial discrimination played a critical factor in his trial. Its the first case to be heard under the legislation since it was repealed in 2013 by former Republican Governor Pat McCrory, who claimed it created a judicial loophole to avoid the death penalty and not a path to justice. The law was originally passed in 2009, giving death row inmates the chance to be resentenced to life in prison if they could prove that race was a factor in their initial sentencing. Mr Bacote filed his claim in 2010. Only four cases succeeded before the law was repealed. Yet, in 2020, the state Supreme Court ruled that cases that had previously been filed still had to be heard but no new appeals could be submitted. There are currently 120 other appeals pending under the old legislation. Bacotes case is the first to be heard since the state Supreme Court decision and could set a precedent for how all other pending cases are handled. There are 136 death row inmates in North Carolina. Henderson Hill, Bacotes attorney said his defence will introduce evidence from 680,000 pages of notes from every state capital trial from 1980 to 2010 showing a historical pattern of racial discrimination, especially in Johnson County, where his client shot 18-year-old Anthony Surles during a robbery in 2007. Some of the evidence that will be presented at the hearing includes prosecutor notes stating the skin colour of potential Black jurors or their physical appearance. In one case, a potential juror was referred to as a thug, the ACLU said. Part of the organisations defence argument is based on a Michigan State University study published in 2011, which found statewide evidence showing a pattern of Black jurors being struck from capital punishment trials more frequently than white jurors. In Bacotes case, the prosecutor removed potential Black jurors at 10 times the rate of non-Black individuals across four trials, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein attempted to delay Bacotes hearing, claiming in court filings that the state Supreme Court determined the study was unreliable and fatally flawed. He added that racial discrimination cannot be presumed based on the mere assertion of a defendant; it must be proved. Compounding Bacotes sentencing, felony first-degree murder is rarely a basis for capital punishment anywhere in the country, the ACLU said. There was just no suggestion that the killing was premeditated or deliberate, Mr Hill noted. North Carolina has not put a death row inmate to death since 2006. Much of the reason is due to litigation regarding lethal injection drugs and other questions about policies that have put the cases on hold. The ongoing Racial Justice Act appeals also do not allow the current governor to schedule executions. If the court rules in Bacotes favour, its likely that similar evidence would be introduced in the other 120 cases, meaning that all the prisoners who had previously filed claims could be resentenced to life in prison. Mr Hill said that some of the evidence used in the prior resentencing of four men will be utilised during Bacotes court proceedings. The case is likely to end up in front of the state Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority. The current trial hearing is expected to last two weeks. Mr Hill said the ACLU is troubled that the case might not succeed if its kicked up to the higher court, adding My concern is the courts seeming hostility toward this historical evidence of discrimination. Still, he said, We will brief that record at the Supreme Court and hope that review is fair and consistent with the law. He added: We feel confident based on the prior litigation, based on the several studies, that were going to meet the statutory standard for vacating the death sentence in this case. New Chinese-style fashion fuels consumption growth People's Daily Online) 09:59, February 28, 2024 The popularity of Hanfu, the traditional clothing of China's Han ethnic group, is surging both domestically and globally. Yang Jie, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, noted that the designs, patterns, and combinations of Hanfu are evolving to be more aesthetically appealing and comfortable, fueling increasing consumer demand. As Beijing experienced its first snowfall of the Year of the Loong on Feb. 21, many visitors to the Temple of Heaven wore traditional Hanfu attire. Men sported round-collared robes, and women wore long gowns with sleeves resembling the pipa, a traditional pear-shaped stringed musical instrument. Some children were seen in Ming-style hats, drawing looks from passersby. Visitors in Hanfu costumes, a style of clothing traditionally worn by the Han people, select snacks during an event celebrating the upcoming Chinese New Year at the Temple Street in south China's Hong Kong, Feb. 4, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei) "If you're looking to have makeup and hairstyling done, you'll need to wait until the Lantern Festival," said Li, a woman who owns a Hanfu experience store near Dashilan commercial street in Beijing's Qianmen area. Li typically provides makeup and hairstyling services to eight or nine customers every day. According to Li, there has been a noticeable increase in visitors who bring their own Hanfu for makeup and hairstyling. They no longer just rent outfits from the store but come with their own distinct personal styles and preferences. The makeup and hairstyling sector is thriving, with Hanfu demand remaining strong beyond the Spring Festival. A notable trend is the popularity of the horse-faced skirt, known as mamianqun in Chinese, which has become a popular bestseller. On Feb. 22, a store on Pinduoduo, a popular e-commerce app in China, sold over 26,000 Ming-style horse-faced skirts. The store's monthly sales of mamianqun topped 3 million yuan ($416,700). Caoxian county in east China's Shandong Province is the country's largest production base for Hanfu. During the Spring Festival holiday, its sales of Chinese New Year clothes including horse-faced skirts exceeded 300 million yuan. Throughout the holiday, Hanfu enthusiasts from around the world were a trending topic of discussion. According to Xiaohongshu, China's lifestyle-focused social media platform, over 10,000 social media influencers donned Hanfu to celebrate the Chinese New Year overseas, boosting the popularity of traditional Chinese clothing in countries and regions such as the U.K., the Netherlands, and Spain. The trend of wearing Hanfu has expanded globally, resulting in higher sales on international e-commerce platforms. "Temu has launched a Hanfu category in Australia, featuring horse-faced skirts priced between 35 and 50 Australian dollars ($33)," said a Melbourne resident surnamed Hu. Temu is a cross-border e-commerce launched by Pinduoduo. The growing demand for horse-faced skirts has spurred the transformation of traditional foreign trade home textile companies. Xucun township in east China's Zhejiang Province is one of the largest jacquard fabric production bases in the country. A local factory there, specializing in jacquard fabric, has been operating nonstop, with 24 large jacquard machines producing horse-faced skirt fabric around the clock. "Six months ago, our primary products were curtain and sofa fabrics," said Zhang Yongming, the company's head. In the past, the company exported 80 percent of its home textile products to the Middle East and Africa. However, sales in those regions notably declined. Fortunately, new business opportunities have emerged with orders for horse-faced skirt fabric, opening new possibilities for the company. New Chinese-style fashion has emerged as one of the most prominent trends on social media. According to data from Vipshop, a major online discount retailer in China, sales of new Chinese-style clothing doubled in the month before and after the Spring Festival compared to January 2023. "With a sense of cultural confidence, the trend of new Chinese-style fashion will continue to gain momentum," Yang expressed. (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) Brazoria County Historical Museum is working with county officials to begin its 2075 time capsule endevour by accepting donations from residents and businesses. Google Earth We often look back at older technology such as the first iPhone and flip phones and wonder where time has gone. Ever wonder what we will reminisce about in 50 years? Brazoria County is accepting donations until Dec. 31 for a time capsule that will buried within the county's courthouse, 111 E Locust Street in Angleton. "This time capsule is a unique opportunity for the people of Brazoria County to contribute to our county's story and leave a lasting legacy," said County Judge Matt Sebesta. Advertisement Article continues below this ad TAX SEASON: United Way of Brazoria County offers free tax filing assistance through volunteer program The time capsule is expected to be opened in 2075 at the 250th anniversary of the Empresario contract Stephen F. Austin received from Mexico on June 4, 1825, according to a news release. The contract provided legal settlement to begin by a specific number of Catholic families on a defined land grant within six years, which eventually created Brazoria County as the economic heart of Austin's Colony between the Brazos and Colorado rivers. Brazoria County residents are encouraged to donate items that represent their daily lives, achievements and aspirations such as photos, videos, audio recordings and small artifacts. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Videos must be less than three minutes in 1080p, mp4 format and audio recording less than 15 minutes in mp3 format. Digital files must be no more than one gigabyte per family or institution. Artifacts of less than five cubic inches will be screened and accepted for inclusion in the time capsule by the Brazoria County Historical Museum. Donaters can visit the Brazoria County Historical Museum at 100 E Cedar Street in Angleton or call 979-864-1208, according to a news release. "I encourage residents and businesses to play a role in this historic undertaking, ensuring that our stories, achievements and aspirations endure through time," said Sebesta. North Korean factories making arms for Russia are operating at full capacity, South Korea says North Koreas munitions factories are operating at full capacity to produce weapons and shells for Russia, according to South Koreas defense minister, as Moscows devastating war in Ukraine grinds into a third year. The latest estimate from South Korea offers fresh clues on the crucial but highly secretive role North Korea is playing to help resupply Moscows war of attrition at a time when Ukraines own need for vital military resupplies is being held up by predominantly Republican lawmakers in Washington. The weapons and military equipment, which include millions of rounds of artillery shells, is being delivered to Russia in exchange for shipments of food and other necessities, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said Monday. Since August, Pyongyang has shipped about 6,700 containers to Russia, which could accommodate more than 3 million rounds of 152 mm artillery shells or more than 500,000 rounds of 122 mm multiple rocket launchers, according to Shins ministry. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits a munitions factory at an undisclosed location on January 10, 2024. - KCNA/Reuters While North Koreas arms factories (for non-Russian exports) operate at 30% capacity due to shortages of raw materials and electricity, the factories producing weapons and artillery shells for Russia are operating at full capacity, Shin said in a meeting with reporters. In exchange, food accounts for the largest portion of containers from Russia to North Korea, and the food supply situation in the isolated Asian nation seems to be stable, according to the defense ministry. In a fact sheet released Friday, the US State Department said North Korea has delivered more than 10,000 containers of munitions or related materials to Russia since September. CNN has reached out to South Koreas defense ministry for comment on the US estimate but has not yet received a response. The deliveries are coming at a crucial time in Russias war against Ukraine, with Moscows forces conducting a flurry of offensives along the nearly 1,000-kilometer front lines in an attempt to break what Kyivs former top general described last year as a stalemate. Russia is in need of fresh supplies of ammunition and shells to sustain its attritional war effort after suffering heavy losses of men and equipment during more than two years of war. Both sides continue to exchange heavy fire on a daily basis, sapping ammunition supplies. Moscows recent advance in Avdiivka, a city that has been on the front lines since Russian-backed separatists launched a rebellion against Kyiv in 2014, show Russias ability to wear down Ukrainian forces despite suffering heavy losses due to its sheer size, capacity to send wave after wave of troops to the battlefield, and aerial superiority. Kyiv is facing challenges on multiple fronts, including struggling with its own manpower constraints and as the supply of ammunition from the West begins to run dry. Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian and Western officials have said Avdiivka was lost because troops did not have enough ammunition to defend it. Zelensky told CNN this week that millions could die in Ukraine if US lawmakers dont approve President Joe Bidens $60 billion aid request for Kyiv. Without US aid, Ukraine will not only struggle to make any new gains on the battlefield, but it will also find it difficult to keep defending itself this year, Zelensky said. Concerns over North Korean weapons to Russia The munitions deliveries from Pyongyang to Moscow have been recorded since just before North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met his counterpart President Vladimir Putin for a September summit in Russias far east. The meeting was a clear sign of closer relations between the two nations, as both countries face international isolation over Moscows invasion of Ukraine and Pyongyangs nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program. North Korea, which has faced years of international sanctions over its nuclear weapons program, is short of everything from hard cash and food to missile technology. Intelligence officials in Washington are increasingly concerned about the growing ties between North Korea and Russia, CNN previously reported, and the long-term implications of what appears to be a new level of strategic partnership between the two nations. Since that summit, North Korea has likely provided Russia with millions of artillery rounds over the last year, according to a report published earlier this month by the Pentagons inspector general. In November, South Koreas National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Pyongyang has exported more than 1 million shells to Russia in 10 separate shipments since early August to support its war in Ukraine. US officials have previously warned North Korea it will pay a price if it provides weapons to Moscow to use against Ukraine. The White House confirmed last month that Russia has been firing North Korean missiles at Ukrainian cities. The US and its allies are also concerned about the technology North Korea is seeking from Russia in return for weaponry. According to two US officials, Pyongyang is seeking technology that could advance its satellite and nuclear-powered submarine capabilities, which could significantly advance North Koreas capabilities in areas the rogue regime has not fully developed. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com By Josh Smith SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korea's first spy satellite is "alive", space experts said on Tuesday, after detecting changes in its orbit that suggested Pyongyang was successfully controlling the spacecraft - although its capabilities remain unknown. After two fiery failures, North Korea successfully launched the Malligyong-1 satellite into orbit in November. Pyongyang's state media claimed it has photographed sensitive military and political sites in South Korea, the United States and elsewhere, but has not released any imagery. Independent radio trackers have not detected signals from the satellite. "But now we can definitely say the satellite is alive," Marco Langbroek, a satellite expert at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, wrote in a blog post. From Feb. 19-24, the satellite conducted manoeuvres to raise its perigee, or the lowest point in its orbit, to 497 km from 488 km (308.8 miles from 303.2 miles), Langbroek said, citing data from the U.S.led Combined Space Operations Center. "The manoeuvre proves that Malligyong-1 is not dead, and that North-Korea has control over the satellite - something that was disputed," he said. South Korea's Defence Ministry said it too had assessed that the satellite was in orbit, but said it would not comment further on individual analyses. On Monday, Defence Minister Shin Won-sik said the satellite was not showing any signs of performing other tasks or engaging in reconnaissance. "While we indeed currently cannot be sure whether the satellite does successfully take imagery, it at least performs orbital manoeuvres, so in that sense it is functional," Langbroek wrote of Shin's comments. The orbit-raising manoeuvre was a surprise as the presence of an onboard propulsion system was unexpected and previous North Korean satellites never manoeuvred, he said. "Having the capacity to raise the satellite's orbit is a big deal," Langbroek said. That meant that as long as there was fuel in the satellite, North Korea could prolong the satellite's lifetime by raising its altitude when it got too low because of orbital decay, he concluded. Harvard astronomer and orbital tracker Jonathan McDowell said the satellite appeared to be correcting its position in space as it moved to where it was shortly after launch, instead of making a hostile move toward another country's satellite - a capability for which he said the satellite was "much too small." The United States, Russia and China, the world's top space powers, have in recent years launched satellites increasingly capable of manoeuvring and inspecting other orbital objects as space grows as a critical arena for communications, commerce and military activity. But companies and countries often manoeuvre their satellites to improve the object's position in orbit. A variety of other reasons to manoeuvre include dodging other satellites or a piece of space debris or depending on the satellites' capability wading above a region of interest on Earth. U.S. Space Command, which tracks all active objects in orbit and sometimes assesses their function, did not immediately comment on the North Korean satellite. Nuclear-armed North Korea has vowed to launch three more spy satellites in 2024. (Reporting by Josh Smith; additional reporting by Joey Roulette in Washington, Editing by Gerry Doyle, Alex Richardson and Sandra Maler) A North Texas tax preparer pleaded guilty to tax fraud worth $2.6 million, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton announced in a news release Tuesday. Anthony Floyd, 21, of Kennedale, was charged in June 2023 with 10 counts of aiding in the preparation and presentation of false tax returns. He pleaded guilty to all 10 charges on the morning of his trial. According to court documents, Floyd filed approximately 400 fraudulent tax returns that included false information to increase refunds owed to taxpayers. He recruited clients outside of big box stores and obtained their personal information including income and deduction information via text or phone calls, rarely meeting in person, according to the release. He submitted the returns without reviewing returns with the taxpayers and diverted all or most of the refund to his own account, exceeding $2.6 million in tax losses. The tax filings included falsified W2s, including nonexistent charity donations, nonexistent college attendance, and fictitious relatives, according to the release. Mr. Floyds guilty plea shows that tax fraud is not a victimless crime, said Christopher J. Altemus Jr., Special Agent in Charge of the IRS Criminal Investigations Dallas Field Office. Mr. Floyd took advantage of his neighbors by preparing fraudulent tax returns and trying to steal over $2 million from the U.S. government. Mr. Floyds case should remind all tax practitioners to adhere to professional standards and follow the law. Floyd faces up to three years for each count, totaling 30 years in prison. Brian Chekoff, 52, appeared in federal court in Covington Friday and pleaded guilty to a single count of attempted possession of steroids with the intent to distribute. A Northern Kentucky man admitted to ordering performance-enhancing steroids from outside the country in an attempt to redistribute those substances to others via mail. Brian Chekoff, 52, appeared in federal court in Covington Friday and pleaded guilty to a single count of attempted possession of steroids with the intent to distribute, the only charge stemming from his November 2023 indictment. Stefanie Durstock, Chekoffs attorney, declined to comment. In November 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City seized packages from Kazakhstan and Latvia containing steroids. They were addressed to a post office box in Burlington, Kentucky. The customs declaration on one of the packages listed the contents as sport supplements, prosecutors said in Chekoff's plea agreement. Federal agents then made what they called a controlled delivery of the steroids at the Burlington post office and confronted Chekoffs wife after she signed for the packages, prosecutors said. More: 'A tragic, tragic situation': Man gets prison for mishandling gun, fatally shooting 16-year-old girl Authorities also searched Chekoffs apartment in Warsaw, Kentucky, where they seized thousands of needles, empty Priority Mail packages, a drug ledger and an additional 1,600 dosage units of steroids. Prosecutors say Chekoff admitted during an interview that the packages were his and that the business listed on the post office box was fake. Two years before his confrontation with federal agents, he met someone online who paid him to receive and reship steroids, according to prosecutors account of Chekoffs interview. He got instructions on breaking down the packages to send the steroids to different addresses. He was paid $50 per package in return and took some of the steroids for his own use. Chekoff used at least seven different post office boxes to receive dozens of international shipments of steroids, some of which were seized by Customs and Border Patrol agents in July 2022 and that he admitted were also meant for him and distribution. The charge Chekoff pleaded guilty to carries a maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison and a potential $500,000 fine. Hes scheduled to appear in court again June 20 for sentencing before U.S. District Judge David Bunning. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: NKY man pleads in scheme to sell steroids from Kazakhstan, Latvia OSLO (Reuters) -Norway's King Harald appeared to be feeling better on Wednesday after being hospitalised in Malaysia with an infection earlier this week, the Norwegian crown prince said. The 87-year-old monarch was on a private trip to the South East Asian country when he fell ill, the royal household said on Tuesday. "We spoke to my mother and father this morning... It seems that his health was a little better," Crown Prince Haakon told reporters. He said the king was receiving good care from both Malaysian and Norwegian medical personnel. "What he needs now is to be in the hospital for a few more days and to get some rest," Haakon said during a scheduled trip with Crown Princess Mette-Marit. "It's good that things are getting better," he added. The crown prince presides in his father's absence, including at the weekly meeting with the prime minister and the government, which is due to take place on Friday. King Harald has been Norway's ceremonial head of state since 1991 and is Europe's oldest living monarch. He has repeatedly been hospitalised with infections in recent years, and has also undergone heart surgery. The former heavy smoker had a health scare in 2003 when he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, and another in 2005 when he underwent heart surgery, but made a full recovery from both and resumed duties within a few months. In 2020, he underwent surgery to replace the artificial heart valve he received in 2005. Harald, a popular king and a great, great grandchild of Britain's Queen Victoria, has dismissed talk of abdicating, insisting that his oath to serve Norway is for life. Born in 1937, some three decades after Norway won independence from Sweden, Harald was the first heir to the throne to be born in the country in more than half a millennium. The institution of the monarchy is firmly ensconced, and widely regarded as a symbol of Norway's sovereignty. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche and Sharon Singleton) Pearland Coffee Roasters is a hot spot for Pearland residents. Courtesy of Pearland Coffee Roasters Pearland Coffee Roasters was on the verge of closing in 2023. Now, it's expanding, with a new Friendswood location and the company's first drive-thru. Pearland Coffee Roasters, 4106 Broadway Street, announced it planned to close its doors in June 2023. Current owner Albert Rogers was selected from a pool of community members who reached out to previous owner Jeff Barnett to keep the business running. The shop's ownership was signed over to Rogers on July 1. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Rogers worked as a barista at the shop for a few years before moving to Greenway Coffee Co., Barnett told the Houston Chronicle in June. Barnett purchased the land on 1323 Broadway Street for the second Pearland Coffee Roasters location in 2020 and is assisting in the opening alongside Triad Construction, said Rogers. The building is estimated to be a 2,006-square-feet, featuring a drive-thru for drivers looking for a coffee to go. "The second location was planned for around 2021," he said. "It's finally coming to fruition, and I'm so excited to be able to experience this." NEWS TO YOUR INBOX: Sign up now to stay updated on important news and stories to know in and around Pearland The management team plans to begin interviewing potential employees for the second location in April, with wages starting at $10.50 an hour and opportunities to earn tips from a pool shared among baristas. Interested baristas can email applications to info@pearlandcoffeeroasters.com, Advertisement Article continues below this ad Rogers said he hopes to hire a full team by June to train them over the summer, prior to the expected opening in August. On her 60th birthday in 1998, Kay King plunged from an airplane. It was great fun, she says, and offered the added bonus of an "instant face lift." Courtesy of Kay King In addition to jumping out of an airplane when she turned 60, mildmannered Houston Community College fashion chair Kay King once took a ride in a hot air balloon to celebrate her birthday. E. Joseph Deering/Houston Chronicle 1992 was the debut year of the Houston Oilers Dancers. Designer Kay King hand-cuts the fringe on dancer Dayna Bocca's uniform. Robert Seale/Houston Chronicle Kay King, who is the head of the fashion design and merchandising program at Houston Community College photographed in an exhibit of red dresses she put together in 2006. Bill Olive/For the Chronicle Kay King, former head of the fashion design and merchandising program at Houston Community College, photographed in an exhibit of red dresses she put together in 2006. Bill Olive/For the Chronicle Kay King designed the original outfits for the Derrick Dolls the cheerleaders for the Houston Oilers. Bill Olive/For the Chronicle Kay King in her home, with collectibles from her worldwide travels. Bill Olive/For the Chronicle Collectibles from her worldwide travels, displayed in her Houston home in 2006. Bill Olive/For the Chronicle Kay King in her home, with collectibles from her worldwide travels. Bill Olive/For the Chronicle I had forgotten how I ended up on a goat farm in West Texas for a story about mohair more than a decade ago. It came to me last week when I learned that Kay King, the former chair of Houston Community Colleges Consumer Arts & Sciences department, had died on Feb. 13 at 86. King gave me the idea. She filled my head with excitement at the thought of tracking the production of mohair from Texas' Angora goat farms to Pradas fashion runway, which featured a vibrant mohair collection that season. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I was covering fashion then and immersed in a world of trends, celebrity style and beauty treatments. King was an endless pot of gold for story ideas and nuggets of fashion history that I couldnt find in any sourcebook. No one had more enthusiasm about mohair than King, but thats how she was with everything. Undeniably happy about life, especially fashion. I have a Pollyanna personality; I like everything and everybody, King told me in a 2007 Chronicle interview. Its not a good characteristic to have. It just seems there would be some things you dont like. King was a fashion designer before she stepped into the classroom. She designed junior dresses for Kabro of Houston, a company that produced moderately priced womens dresses during the 1950s and 60s. The pay was meager, but her designs sold at stores nationally. She also designed a line of sportswear, which sold at the Houston-based Joe Frank Inc. and appeared in Vogue and Harpers Bazaar magazines. I recently found a Joe Frank blouse on Etsy and now I wonder if it was one of her designs. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In 1968, King was asked by former Houston Mayor Roy Hofheinz to design hundreds of employee costumes for the new AstroWorld amusement park in just one month. She also designed costumes for the Houston Oilers Derrick Dolls in the 1970s. After King helped develop a curriculum for the new fashion design program at HCC in 1981, she ended up teaching all the classes. In 1982, she became chair of HCCs fashion, interior design and photography department. King saw thousands of students graduate over the years and took many students on trips to fashion houses in Madrid, Milan, New York, Paris and London. In 2006, she became the first Texan to serve as president of the Costume Society of America, an influential national organization of designers, academics and museum curators. What I admired most about King was how much she genuinely cared about her students. Educators are saddled with so much these days, but King didnt buckle to challenges. This woman changed my life, said HCC fashion professor Alex Chapman, who met King shortly after his high graduation in 1988 when he submitted sketches for a fashion competition. She was my fashion fairy godmother. She believed in me and always let me flourish. Thats how she was with everyone. She was fearless and fought for her students and the program. If it wasnt for Kay, who knows where wed be? Advertisement Article continues below this ad Houston has never been able to hold onto the title of the states fashion capital, unlike Dallas. It pains me to write that. But King worked tirelessly to bring more awareness to Houstons fashion talent, and she was the force behind the growth of HCCs fashion program. In 2005, she also started the schools fashion archives with a donation of 4,000 pieces of clothing and accessories from an East Coast philanthropist. The archives, with more than 8,000 garments and accessories, is one of the largest fashion school archives in the nation. Kings life outside of HCC was equally as vibrant. She was smitten by wanderlust and visited nearly 60 countries, collecting masks and costumes along the way. Her annual holiday letter, which detailed her travels, always came in the mail with a Mexican tin ornament. I have about 10 that I use each year to decorate my Christmas tree. When I was scouting for a location for a spring fashion shoot, King allowed me to use her spectacular modern-style house in Memorial that she shared with her husband, George. Her home reflected a nomadic spirit, and her masks and costumes decorated the walls. But the house flooded one too many times, and King and her husband eventually moved. She retired from HCC in 2011. After her husband died a decade later, King relocated to Seattle to be close to her son, Collin, daughter-in-law Stephanie, and granddaughter, Violet. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Chapman said he would send her care packages of her favorite chocolates and Issey Miyake scarves, one of her many fashion staples. She would always tell me, 'You dont have to do this, but Im always happy that you do,' Chapman said. When I speak of my favorite assignment, I think people expect me to share something wild about a celebrity or a big-name designer. I save those stories for school career days. But the mohair story and others like it are part of my storytelling scrapbook that I pull out on days when I need inspiration. People protest against Senate Bill 4 along Fannin St. across from the NRG Center during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Teodoro Aguiluz speaks during protest against Senate Bill 4 along Fannin St. across from the NRG Center during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer People protest against Senate Bill 4 along Fannin St. across from the NRG Center during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Protesters gathered across the street from NRG Center on opening day of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to rally against a new law allowing police to arrest people they suspect of unlawfully entering Texas from Mexicos border. Texas Senate Bill 4 was signed into law in December 2023 by Gov. Greg Abbott who has been feuding with President Joe Biden's administration over immigration enforcement at the southern border. Abbott said in a December news release the border laws would "stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas. However some critics of SB4 say the law may lead to more discrimination and argue that immigration enforcement is a responsibility of the federal government. "This agenda has taken the anti-immigrant agenda, the anti-people's agenda, to a new full level with SB4," said Fernando Garcia, El Paso resident and executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Maria Herrera speaks during protest against Senate Bill 4 along Fannin St. across from the NRG Center during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer The new state law, set to take effect March 5, will empower local law enforcement to detain, arrest and deport those they suspect came into the state illegally, and will increase criminal penalties for anyone suspected of human smuggling into the country. The chants from the protesters Tuesday afternoon pointed to one goal: "Stop SB4. Garcia and other organizers said the law would not only affect people trying to work and live in the U.S., but also family members who are current U.S. citizens. Maria Trujillo, Workers Defense Projects campaign manager, spoke on behalf of a family whose father was deported in 2011 after immigration officers came to a residence asking for a "random individual who didn't live there." Advertisement Article continues below this ad According to Trujillo, the fathers arrest affected his wife and his children who witnessed it. "It caused so many health issues and mental health issues because of the deportation," she told the Chronicle after the rally. "Overall society gets affected by deportation. (The mother) lost her job and she wasn't able to keep it. Until this day, her kids see the police and go into panic attacks, even though this was years ago." The new law allows police to arrest anyone they suspect has unlawfully entered the state. However, the law doesn't allow arrests to be made in public and private schools; churches, synagogues or other established places of worship; or health care facilities, according to the ACLU. People protest against Senate Bill 4 along Fannin St. across from the NRG Center during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Garcia said he has been traveling throughout the state to spread awareness of the new law. He criticized the bill for allowing police to arrest people suspected of coming into Texas unlawfully when the responsibility is supposed to be on federal agencies. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "(Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement) are the ones in charge of enforcing immigration law," he said. "The (protesters) believe this is (an) unfunded mandate, the (local police departments) don't have the resources, they don't have the training and they don't have the authority to implement something like that." Garcia said he has also been assisting immigrants and migrants with understanding their rights in case they encounter law enforcement. Critics of the bill have also argued it may lead to more discrimination and racial profiling in Texas, which was one of the concerns of Jasmine Tellez with Texas Rising. Tellez believed the law would cause Latino and Hispanic community members to be "targeted." "All my life I've been a witness to my family's hard work and their attempts in the so-called American dream," she said to the group. "I've seen them work hard and they pay their taxes, they're a model citizen and they love Texas just as much as any Texan here does." Terri Chen, with Woori Juntos, center, and Jasmine Tellez, with Texas Rising, right, along with others protest against Senate Bill 4 along Fannin St. across from the NRG Center during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer The law cannot be enforced against people lawfully present in the U.S., including those who were granted asylum or who are enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, PBS reported. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Trujillo wore a shirt that read "Live Unafraid" as a form of standing up to the policy she believes is meant to instill fear. Imelda Mejia, Texas Freedom Network communications director, agreed. Editors Note: Anna Arutunyan is a journalist, analyst and author specializing in Russian politics. She is the author of Hybrid Warriors: Proxies, Freelancers, and Moscows Struggle for Ukraine, and co-author with Mark Galeotti of the upcoming Downfall: Prigozhin and Putin, and the fight for the future of Russia. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more CNN Opinion. With Switzerland due to play host to a Ukraine peace summit by the summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is placing high hopes it will strengthen his country. But with Russias war against Ukraine in its third year, another summit is unlikely to offer a breakthrough not just because Moscow will not be present, but more importantly because neither side has a clear vision of what a victory now means or how to achieve it. Much continues to be assumed about Russian President Vladimir Putins intentions to fully subjugate Ukraine but while hed take it if he could get it, the Kremlin is keeping its objectives as nebulous as they were when it started its special military operation two years ago. There will be peace when we achieve our goals, Putin said in December, the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine, its neutral status. This means everything and nothing, and can be spun to mean whatever the Kremlin wants. Western policymakers would be wiser to make judgements about the Kremlins intentions based more on its actions than its words. Russias war machine, while in a better position than a year ago, is hardly capable of taking Kyiv as it tried to do in the beginning of the war, and since mid-2022 it has focused on territorial gains in the east. Ukrainian anti-aircraft gunners monitor the sky on February 20, 2024, just a few days shy of the second anniversary of Russias full-scale invasion. - Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images After announcing the illegal annexation of Ukraines Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions in September 2022, Moscow has largely stuck to trying to capture the entirety of those regions. As for what it does if that ever happens, Moscow is signaling a far more aggressive posture to the West than it has the intent or capability to carry out, testing just how much it can get away with. The special military operation began as an operation against Ukraine, over time it took the form of a war against the collective West, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said recently. It is doing so in part because the plans and intentions of Ukraines Western allies are so vague. Are the US, EU and UK offering Ukraine limited aid to defend its territory (as they seem to be actually doing) or are they indeed waging a proxy war to defeat Putins Russia (as they seem to be saying)? Just as the Kremlin is doing, Ukraines Western allies are signaling their resolve to defeat Russia without actually articulating what that defeat means. Far from keeping the Kremlin on its toes, this strategic ambiguity actually makes Western powers look weak from Moscows vantage point overpromising to compensate for a lack of political will. This became glaringly obvious at the Munich Security Conference, where one policymakers description summed up the substance of the Wests Ukraine strategy: Lots of words, no concrete commitments. One reason for this is that over the last year, Ukraines stated goal of victory recapturing all the occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea, under Russian control for nearly a decade now looks increasingly unrealistic. The military support Ukraines allies are willing and capable of offering stops precisely where Ukraines most pressing shortages lie: manpower. Despite French President Emmanuel Macrons recent grandstanding comments about not excluding sending troops to Ukraine, NATO powers are not seriously considering this destructive and escalatory step, and rightly so. But in Ukraine, the issue still stands. The most immediate problem in every unit is lack of people, a Ukrainian company commander said recently, echoing mounting recognition on Ukraines front lines of just how dire the problem has become. Indeed, Zelensky sacked his commander in chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, last month amid controversy over the suggestions that up to 500,000 more soldiers might be needed if Ukraines goals were to be achieved. The proposal was both financially and politically unfeasible, so Zelensky dismissed the general and launched a reset of the military command, but without either expanding the army or scaling down his goals. There is another problem: Its one thing to push Russian forces back to their positions before February 24, 2024 however difficult that may be two years into the war but its quite another to dislodge de facto Russian administrations from territories in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea that they have occupied for a decade. But Ukraines Western allies are failing to reckon with these realities and, amid growing reluctance by right-wing parties in the US and Europe to shoulder the costs, are resorting instead to triumphalist rhetoric. A recent white paper from the Estonian Ministry of Defense pledged to defeat Russias imperialist theory of victory but failed to define exactly what that entailed. Allies of former US President Donald Trump who oppose the aid package that has stalled in the US Congress may be wrong to think that $60 billion wont change the reality on the battlefield more weapons can and will help Ukraine hold their defense and perhaps regain more territory. But it will hardly guarantee the fate of the free world or save democracy as we know it as some US lawmakers claimed in supporting the bill. The trouble is, while more weapons and aid will help Ukraine defend itself, there can be no guarantees that a country of some 37 million people can ultimately defeat an adversary of more than 140 million. Airily suggesting that this is inevitable misleads Ukraine, sows mistrust among Western taxpayers, and signals weakness to Russia. Although there is scope to tighten the sanctions already in place, they will not force some rapid change in Kremlin policy, and as Western countries begin to run down their own stocks of weapons and ammunition, there is also a limit to how much extra military aid can be provided. Law and justice may say that Ukraine deserves to liberate the occupied territories, but pragmatism suggests this may be a bloody or even unachievable goal. Western allies need to start recognizing their limited resources, or at least the limits to what they can or will offer Ukraine. This will mean being honest about defining what can practically be achieved. It is all very well declaring that the only acceptable goal is Putins absolute defeat. But when political and economic constraints limit the resources the West is prepared to deploy, continuing to insist on it may well back Kyiv into a corner, forcing it to choose between peace and a forever war in pursuit of an unclear notion of victory. However unpalatable and unfair, the best plausible victory may require not just amped-up military support for Ukraine, including serious security guarantees, but some recognition that Kyiv may have to abandon some of its goals, whether through promises of neutrality or, as hard a pill as this is to swallow some of the occupied territories. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Editors Note: Lev Golinkin writes on refugee and immigrant identity, as well as Ukraine, Russia and the far right. He is the author of the memoir A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN. Usually, deciding on a childs date of birth isnt something parents have to worry about after the baby is born. And yet, its a choice my mom faced when I was born on 10-something p.m. on leap day. Lev Golinkin - courtesy of Lev Golinkin February 29 is a horological abnormality, appearing only once every four years. Every other year, the calendar goes straight from February 28 to March 1. My mom told me that the hospital staff not merely offered, but urged her to change my birthdate to March 1. This was in the Soviet Union, which was a communist dictatorship, and communist dictatorships arent known for encouraging uniqueness and individuality. Itll be simpler for everyone, the doctors assured her. It turns out communists arent the only ones wary of leap day birthdays. The chances of being born on February 29 are about 1 out of 1,461. But even with those tiny odds, there are still markedly fewer babies with February 29 birthdays than the math says there should be. The reason is parents who seek to avoid what they think of as an undesirable and weird birthday by scheduling induced labor and C-sections for February 28 or March 1, instead. I dont want to be overly judgmental, but the notion that a kid couldnt handle having a rare birthday doesnt say much for the parents faith in the child. And yet, the urge to dodge a leap day delivery is so strong that, even today, one hears stories of doctors being willing to fudge births that occur in the first or last few minutes of February 29 by recording them as February 28 or March 1. Svetlana Golinkin, newborn Lev Golinkin, and maternity ward staff, Kharkov (now called Kharkiv), USSR, March 2, 1980. - Courtesy Lev Golinkin The biggest fear of February 29 birthdays naturally concerns presents, or potential lack thereof. Do you only get presents once every four years? is something Ive been earnestly asked an alarming number of times. Yes, I reply. The Federal Birthday Gift Commission strictly enforces this, confiscating all presents received on non-leap years. However, when February 29 does come around, Im eligible for something big, like a car. Another, more logical, question I often get asked is whether I celebrate my birthday on February 28 or March 1 during non-leap years. That can be tackled in several ways. My best friend Kyle tries to nail the non-existent moment between February 28 and March 1, rattling off HappyFakeBirthday! right as the clock hits midnight on the 28th. I take a far wider approach. In fact, I take both February 28 and March 1: If Im not going to get a real birthday, Ill claim two days instead. I prefer February 28 because its my birth month, but its nice to have the March 1 option. If theres a storm on the 28th, Ill move it to March 1. Sometimes, if I feel the February 28 festivities didnt quite measure up, Ill inform friends and family that today was a dry run, and my birthday has been relocated to tomorrow. The one time I was forced to have my birthday on March 1 was the year I turned 21. It wasnt a leap year, which meant the calendar sailed directly from February 28 to March 1. This led to a brief philosophical discussion with a bouncer outside a dive bar in Boston. It came down to perspective. It was February 28 and since my birthday is the day before March 1, I felt that I should be allowed to drink. The bouncer disagreed. The way he saw it, my birthday was the day after February 28, which meant he wasnt letting me in for another 24 hours. I told the bouncer that his was a rather defeatist approach to things. I wanted us to focus on before, not after, to be proactive, to look forward instead of spending our lives forever gazing in the rearview. I reminded him of the power with which just a small shift in outlook can transform ones day. I asked him to join me on this journey. The bouncer said that if I wasted any more of his time, I would spend both February 28 and March 1 in the emergency room. Maternity ward staff, newborn Lev Golinkin and Samuel Golinkin, Kharkov (now called Kharkiv), USSR, March 2, 1980. - Courtesy Lev Golinkin Bullies pick on the weak, whether on the playground or the calendar. As insane as it sounds, February 29 sometimes occurs even less frequently than usual: Once in a rare while, the calendar overlords skip an entire leap year cycle, which means theres no February 29 for 8 straight years. Theres a rule about when this happens and a timekeeping reason for it, but Im not going to explain them. I refuse to indulge the garbage notion of leaping leap day. February 29 has more than fulfilled its calendar-shortening duty; let some other day take one for the team. I recommend St. Patricks Day after all, he supposedly saddled February 29 with a strange tradition that persists to this day. According to Irish legend, St. Bridget once asked St. Patrick whether theres a time when women can propose to men. St. Patrick wasnt hot on the idea, but apparently he didnt want to categorically reject it. After some debate, he declared women can propose to men, but only on leap days, i.e. once every four years. In countries where February 29 continues to be linked to this whimsically sexist tradition, its known as Bachelors Day: when its open season on shy single lads. Between being associated with a three-quarter reduction in birthday gifts, the looming threat of having leap day canceled for eight years, and warnings enjoining unmarried men to stay indoors, I can see why mothers and medical professionals take drastic measures to steer clear of February 29. I think its the wrong approach, though. Leap day is amazing, unique and weird, and I hope expectant parents give it a shot at the very least, youll get to brag your child graduated from high school at four and a half. Thats what my mom decided to do, despite pressure from the Soviet maternity ward to retroactively change my date of birth or risk complicating the lives of workers and peasants everywhere. My mom refused, telling the hospital shes keeping my birthday as is. I think hell like it, she told the doctor. She was right. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com The Orange County Clerk-Recorder offices in Anaheim, Laguna Hills and Santa Ana will be extending their hours of operation on Leap Day for couples looking to tie the knot. Office staff will assist couples with marriage licenses and civil ceremonies until 6 p.m. on Thursday. Those planning to visit either location are encouraged to make an appointment, but walk-ins will still be helped on a first-come, first-served basis. Wendys is giving out free food on Leap Day: How to redeem the limited-time deal Couples are also advised to fill out this online license application before visiting any office location. Couples will also have to pay $61 for a public marriage license, $66 for a confidential marriage license and $28 for a civil marriage ceremony. Leap Day is the perfect backdrop for couples to let their love take flight into an exciting chapter, Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen said in a statement. My department looks forward to making couples dreams of a joyous, seamless, and romantic wedding day come true. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA. PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award from Americas Public Television Stations on Wednesday for his work supporting public broadcasting throughout his 28-year career in Congress. The congressman advocates for public media with lawmakers across the political spectrum and formed the bipartisan Public Broadcasting Caucus in 2001 to ensure continued service from local public TV and radio stations. Public broadcastings dependable, unbiased, local and national news coverage is more important than ever. Theres a reason its the most trusted name in news. I have helped fend off political attacks and build support for this vital communication link for decades, Blumenauer said. Eastern Oregon creek sees first salmon spawn in 30 years He added, Im honored to accept this award and will continue to be a partner in the work ahead. We must continue to lay the groundwork in Congress and beyond, not just for the fate of the democracy, as if that wasnt enough. No organization has ever had a more passionate, committed and effective champion than public broadcasters have in Congressman Earl Blumenauer, said APTS president and CEO Patrick Butler. For almost a quarter of a century, he has been tireless and relentless in his support for our cause. His eloquent advocacy is matched only by his profound and his towering integrity, and he has set a standard for public service to which every political leader should aspire. We present our Lifetime Achievement Award only rarely, and no one has ever deserved it more. It is with profound gratitude that Americas Public Television Stations give this very special recognition to the incomparable Earl Blumenauer, Butler continued. DONT MISS: Oregon Congressman Blumenauers front-row seat for U.S. House history The congressman has previously accepted broadcasting awards from the National Public Radio Board of Directors in 2005 (earning the Public Radio Leadership Award,) the Public Broadcasting Systems Leadership Award in 2006, the Center for Public Broadcastings Ralph Lowell Award in 2010, and the American Public Television Stations Champion of Broadcasting Award in 2011. The District 3 representative announced in October he will not seek reelection in 2024 after 50 years in elected office, nearly 30 of which were as a U.S. congressman. This marks the third Lifetime Achievement Award given by APTS. The first award was presented to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) in 2014, and the second was awarded to Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) in 2020. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com. Octavia Johnson is a general assignment reporter for the Houston Chronicle. She can be reached at octavia.johnson@houstonchronicle.com. Before joining the Chronicle, Octavia worked as a digital content producer at WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tenn., where she became a leader in producing fast paced, audience-focused content. Octavia graduated from UNC Pembroke with a bachelor's degree in journalism before earning her master's degree in media and communications at Norfolk State University. Tye and Melynda Small stand with their 5-year-old daughter, Madalyn, in front of the ruins of their home in Otis after the Echo Mountain Fire swept through, burning nearly 300 homes, in September 2020. The Oregon Senate Wednesday voted unanimously to pass a bill that would allow wildfire survivors who receive a court award or settlement to keep more of their money. Senate Bill 1520, sponsored by Sen. Brian Boquist, I-Dallas, creates a tax exemption for awards stemming from lawsuits related to wildfires. The bill now heads to the House. Multiple lawsuits have resulted in millions in settlements and awards to survivors over the past year, primarily from legal action against PacifiCorp, which a jury found at fault for igniting four of the 2020 Labor Day wildfires Santiam/Beachie, Echo Mountain Complex, 242 and South Obenchain. The problem? Tax laws create a situation where survivors only receive a small amount of the payout as little as 20-30%, according to a lawyer who helped negotiate a $299 million settlement for survivors of the Archie Creek Fire in southern Oregon. By creating the exemption, survivors should get to keep more of their money. There shall be subtracted from federal taxable income any amount received in judgment or settlement resulting from a civil action arising from wildfire, as defined in ORS 477.089, and awarded to a plaintiff, the bill states. The legislation would apply to state taxes, Boquist said. There is currently a bill in Congress to exempt awards from federal taxes as well. Unlike a previous version of the bill, the legislation would now apply to both settlement and jury awards. (This bill) is the result of a yearlong bipartisan effort to give wildfire victims financial relief needed rebuild their homes and get their lives back on track, Boquist said. Now that many victims of recent wildfires have received their settlements from PacifiCorp, they want to begin the process of rebuilding. However, they often cant because they owe roughly 45% of their net settlement to the state and federal government in taxes. The tax relief provided in this bill means many of these wildfire victims will have the ability to begin rebuilding their homes, businesses, and communities. The law would apply to wildfire survivors in the Santiam Canyon and Lincoln City area that are part of a class action lawsuit against PacifiCorp. So far, juries have awarded $175 million to 26 plaintiffs impacted by the Santiam, Echo Mountain, South Obenchain and 242 fires. However, there are a total of roughly 5,000 fire survivors who could ultimately earn an award from the lawsuit. It is critical that we ease the burden of Oregonians who have already suffered immense loss to catastrophic wildfire in recent years, Sen. Lynn Findley, R-Vale, a chief sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 15 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. Urness is the author of Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon and Hiking Southern Oregon. He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors. This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon bill advances to eliminate tax on wildfire lawsuit awards Hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukranians have travelled to Sri Lanka since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine An organiser of a "white party" in Sri Lanka has apologised after the event sparked a backlash online. The event's advertisement specified a white dress code, but also had a line saying "Face control: White" - which was largely interpreted to mean the event was open only to white people. An organiser later said the event was "a bad idea", adding that it was meant to bring together expatriates. The party, which was due to take place last Saturday, was cancelled. Backlash against the event was swift, with many on social media calling it "disgusting" and "racist". "I know not all expats are like this... but this sort of thing should be stopped fast and stopped hard," said one local restaurant owner. "How dare they come to a brown country and ban the people of that country," another social media user said on Facebook. Writing on Instagram under the handle geo_ecstatic, a man who said he was an event organiser, said there was "no malice or racism" in planning the party. "We wanted to meet expats who have been living here for a long time and love Sri Lanka. The team... supported me and a joint decision was made to quickly organise a party," he said, adding that he has since had to leave the country after receiving a barrage of abuse and threats. "I didn't expect this to be such a sensitive moment for a huge number of people. I admit that it was a bad idea... and I understand that we created it ourselves out of our stupidity. I deeply apologise to everyone whose feelings were hurt." The event was due to be held in the Sarayka Lounge in the southern coastal town of Unawatuna. The venue later posted a statement saying the party had been cancelled, adding that its staff team " did not conduct a thorough-enough check" and have "severed ties" with the event planners. "We have never supported and will never support various racist statements or organisations," they wrote. The organiser as well as the owners of Sarayka Lounge are believed to be Russian citizens. Rupasena Koswatta, president of an Unawatuna entrepreneurs' association told BBC Sinhala many Russians have moved into Unawatuna, a coastal city just 5km (3.1mi) from Galle, in the last two years. Many of the tourism businesses there are now owned by Russians in the area now known by many as "Little Moscow". The Russian Embassy in Colombo later released a statement saying it "strongly condemns all forms of racial discrimination and nationalism" and urged citizens residing on the island to follow its laws and respect local customs. Later on Sunday, Sri Lanka said it had ended long-term tourist visa extensions for Russians and Ukrainians. More than 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have travelled to Sri Lanka since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, according to reports. But the country's President Ranil Wickremesinghe later reportedly said the decision was made without prior Cabinet approval. Additional reporting by BBC Sinhala A Michigan court on Tuesday affirmed the unseating of Kristina Karamo as the states Republican Party chair, barring her from continuing to identify as its leader, access its bank accounts or postal boxes, or make any further attempts to cling to the last vestiges of power. The preliminary injunction by Kent County Circuit Judge J. Joseph Rossi comes just weeks after the Republican National Committee recognized former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra as the state partys rightful chair after its members voted to oust Karamo and elect him in her stead. Though the ruling, backdated by Rossi to Jan. 6, when Karamo was drummed out, nominally settles the leadership question, the knives-out battle may not yet be quite over. Still to come on Saturday is the state party convention, which promises to be a Veep subplot for the ages should Karamo follow through on an earlier threat to hold a rival convention at the same time. It was unclear on Tuesday night whether Karamos plan was still in place. She said she would comply with Rossis order, according to the Detroit Free Press, but slammed it as egregious and demurred when asked if her convention would go forward. We will not let this go, she warned, The Detroit News reported. Our delegates will not let this go. Karamo, a far-right demagogue with an election-denying streak, was overthrown by state party insiders in a 40-5 vote on Jan. 6. Her aggrieved opponents mainly took issue with her financial management style and the debts that mounted under her watch, with Raw Story reporting in January that the state party repeatedly defaulted on loan payments last year. Their qualms only took deeper hold, however, as Karamo framed their criticism as a plot against her and made it clear she would not be leaving without a fight. Rossis ruling was issued hours before the polls closed in the states presidential primary, ending in former President Donald Trumps decisive victory. While the primary determines who wins 16 of Michigans 55 delegates, the weekends convention will see the lions share awarded to the state partys preferred candidate. Hoekstra previously announced a March 2 convention in Grand Rapids, while Karamo said hers will be held in Detroit. Both are Trump loyalists, but the former president has thrown his lot in with Hoekstra, his former ambassador to the Netherlands. 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. Four Modesto men alleged members of outlaw motorcycle clubs and possibly another gang were arrested as the Stanislaus Sheriffs Office and other law enforcement agencies conducted an operation Wednesday, the Sheriffs Office said. According to a news release, some of the noteworthy arrests included Vincent Ball, 62, Anthony Vincent Soria, 37, Alfeiri Mishell Taneiya, 26 and Emilio Diaz Martinez, 35, all of Modesto. But Sheriffs Office spokesman Sgt. Luke Schwartz clarified to The Bee that the four Modestans were the only people arrested Wednesday. Their exact affiliations with gangs is being determined as part of an ongoing investigation. Of the four arrested, three appeared on the Stanislaus jail booking log: Soria, being held on $180,000 bail, Taneiya, $35,000, and Martinez, $110,000. The charges included felon in possession of a firearm, steroid possession, possession of an assault weapon and silencer, manufacturing and sale of metal knuckles and possession of narcotics along with a loaded firearm. The Sheriffs Office said the operation Wednesday, including silmutaneous execution of 12 search warrants, was the result of a months-long criminal investigation also involving the FBI and law enforcement agencies in San Joaquin and Tuolumne counties. In addition to the arrests, the search warrants resulted in the seizure of 50 firearms, gun silencers, gang indicia (such as patches on vests), narcotics and controlled substances, bomb-making materials and ammunition. The investigation began with acts of violence that took place last year in a dispute among the members of the Hells Angels and Salida Nomads biker clubs and the Mongol street gang, the news release said. Regarding the 2023 acts of violence, Schwartz said detectives will not release any specifics at this time. Investigations remain ongoing and they dont want to compromise cases, he said. The Sheriffs Office special investigations unit raided the Hells Angels clubhouse in downtown Stockton on Wednesday and also went to a location in Turlock. Other law enforcement agencies were involved with the operation, creating a heavy police presence at East Miner Avenue and San Joaquin Street in Stockton. The CHP and police departments of Modesto, Ceres, Turlock, Stockton and Manteca and the Calaveras County sheriffs office assisted with the operation Wednesday. Tipsters wishing to share information may contact the Stanislaus County Sheriffs Office. They may also leave anonymous tips by calling Stanislaus County Crime Stoppers at 209-521-4636 or go to www.stancrimetips.org. One of the outlet malls in Kittery, Maine, will be demolished as part of a project to make room for housing, a hotel, and a restaurant. Maine Public Radio reported that the town planning board recently approved plans to knock down an under-utilized shopping center and build a 119-room hotel and 107 new apartments at the site of the Outlets of Kittery Plaza. The Outlets of Kittery Plaza are located near the Kittery Trading Post on Route 1. What do you do with all that space? We started noticing some vacancies and thought about how can we make use of that? Kittery Planning Board Chairman Dutch Dunkleberger told the news outlet. We have, in the past, approached the various owners about the potential for developing it into a mixed-use space. Dunkleberger also said that Kittery needs more housing, particularly for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard employees and retail workers. At least 11 of the apartments will be constructed as affordable housing units, the radio station reported. Review the plans in their entirety below: Outlet mall in Kittery to be demolished to make room for hotel, housing by Boston 25 Desk on Scribd This embedded content is not available in your region. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW How oversized super loads will travel across Ohio to Intel site in New Albany NEW ALBANY, Ohio (WCMH) The Ohio Department of Transportation is referring to them as super loads, and soon they will travel across southern and central Ohio, bound for Intels facility under construction in New Albany. The oversized loads will go from docks at Manchester, in Adams County along the Ohio River, to Licking County as soon as Wednesday, March 6. They will move by semis and be taken to either New Albany or Hebron. Most, but not all, are associated with the Intel semiconductor plant. Some loads will measure in at 900,000 pounds, 19 feet wide, 24 feet high and 270 feet long, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation. Each will take an estimated 8-15 days to reach their destinations and will be escorted by Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers along the route. No official closures or detours are planned, but slow-rolling roadblocks will be necessary. One of the super loads bound for Licking County (Ohio Department of Transportation) The biggest thing is for folks to plan ahead, Matt Bruning of ODOT said. We recognize that these will cause an inconvenience, and we want to minimize that as much as possible. Notifications will be made in advance of each load leaving the dock near Manchester, and the transportation schedule will be checked against local events to reduce impact, ODOT said. Route from Manchester to central Ohio From the dock site east of Manchester, it will travel east on U.S. 52 to West Portsmouth. At West Portsmouth, cross over into the U.S. 52 westbound lanes just before the junction of the State Route 239 on ramp to U.S. 52 westbound. Travel north on the State Route 239 southbound ramp to State Route 73/SR 104 Travel south in the northbound lanes of State Route 73/SR 104 to U.S. 52 Travel east on U.S. 52 in the westbound lanes to U.S. 23 in Portsmouth Travel north on U.S. 23 southbound ramp to U.S. 52 westbound Travel north on U.S. 23 in the northbound lanes to the intersection with Kinneys Lane and Argonne Road Cross over into the northbound lanes and travel north on U.S. 23 to the Village of Piketon In the Village of Piketon cross over into the southbound lanes of U.S. 23 at Market Street to maneuver around the traffic signals then cross back over into the northbound lanes of U.S. 23 Travel north on U.S. 23 to Chillicothe Take U.S. 35 west to State Route 104 north Take 104 north to State Route 762 near Commercial Point Travel east on State Route 762 to Rickenbacker Parkway Travel north on Rickenbacker Parkway North to Alum Creek Drive Travel north on Alum Creek Drive to Rohr Road Travel east on Rohr Road to Commerce Center Drive Travel north on Commerce Center Drive to Green Pointe Drive South Travel east on Green Point Drive South to Saltzgaber Road Travel south on Saltzgaber Road to State Route 317 Travel north in the Southbound Lanes on State Route 317 past Groveport to Bixby Road east Travel east on Bixby Road to U.S. 33 Travel east in the westbound lanes of U.S. 33 to the Gender Road southbound to U.S. 33 westbound ramp in Canal Winchester Travel the wrong way on the Gender Road southbound to U.S. 33 westbound ramp Take State Route 674/Gender Road north to Brice Road Take Brice Road north to the intersection with Tussing Road/State Route 204 in Columbus Travel east on Tussing Road/State Route 204 east to State Route 310 Travel north on State Route 310 to U.S. 40 in Etna From there, the route changes depending on whether the load is heading toward Hebron or New Albany. Loads traveling to Hebron Travel east on U.S. 40 to State Route 79 in Hebron Travel the wrong way on the State Route 79 southbound off ramp to U.S. 40 Travel north in the southbound lanes on State Route 79 to local roads Loads traveling to New Albany Travel west on U.S. 40 to Etna Parkway Travel north on Etna Parkway to State Route 16 Travel east on State Route 16 to State Route 310 Travel north on State Route 310 to State Route 161 Travel west on State Route 161 to local roads For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV. The Oxford school shooter's journal could help decide the fate of his father though the dad is concerned the jury will hear only excerpts that hurt him when he goes to trial next week over the deaths of four students murdered by his son. At least one journal entry could help James Crumbley, who bought the gun that his son used in the 2021 massacre, but the judge may not let the jury hear it. The son also purportedly made comments to psychiatrists that could help his dad, but the jury may not hear that information, either. Rather, James Crumbley is preparing to go trial next week in a case that his lawyer argues will unfairly give leverage to the prosecution, which plans to show the jury evidence that cannot be challenged, given that the shooter has refused to testify in his parents' involuntary manslaughter trials. Prosecutors intend to introduce journal entries and text messages that the shooter sent his friend alleging that his parents ignored his pleas for help with mental health problems. James Crumbley shoots a glance at Assistant Oakland County Prosecutor Joseph Shada as he exits the Oakland County Courtroom of Judge Cheryl Matthews on Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. Crumbley will be tried on four counts of involuntary manslaughter after his son was the perpetrator in a mass shooting at Oxford High School killing four students. His wife, Jennifer Crumbley, was found guilty on all four counts in this landmark case holding parents responsible for the guns that are in their homes. At issue for James Crumbley is whether jurors will believe that he gifted his son a gun and gave him easy access to it, which the prosecution has maintained. Or will the jury conclude that the gun was only to be used at the shooting range with his dad, and properly secured, as the defense has maintained. 'I have to find where my dad hid my gun' James Crumbley faces four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each student gunned down by his son at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021. His wife, Jennifer Crumbley, was convicted early this month on identical charges, making her the first parent in America to be held criminally accountable for a school shooting. Their son, Ethan Crumbley, pleaded guilty to killing four and wounding seven, and is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole. Those killed were Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Tate Myre, 16; Hana St. Juliana, 14, and Justin Shilling, 17. The shooter's journal may help jurors decide the case. However, the defense is concerned that the jury will hear only this narrative from the journal: the shooter alleging he had "zero help" for his mental health problems, that his parents ignored those problems, and that it was causing him to "shoot up the f------school." The Crumbleys have denied those allegations, along with claims that they gave their son easy access to a gun a claim they maintain can be refuted by this passage in their son's journal: "I will have to find where my dad hid my gun before I can shoot (up) the school." Defense attorneys see imbalance in journal entries allowed as evidence That journal entry was not allowed to be used at the mother's trial. It may not get into the dad's trial, either, which has criminal defense experts crying foul, maintaining storage of the gun is at the heart of the dad's defense. As veteran criminal defense attorney Art Weiss has argued: "If the gun was a gift, why did the parents have to hide it?" "I don't know how that doesn't come in," Weiss said of the shooter's journal entry that he has to find where his dad hid the gun. Moreover, Weiss stressed, he can't figure out why a jury would be allowed to hear that the shooter felt he was mentally troubled and ignored by his parents, but not that his dad hid the gun. "I don't know why one is in, and why one is not," Weiss said. Former federal prosecutor Michael Bullotta, who is now a criminal defense lawyer, also has issues with the journal and text messages being used against James Crumbley when he can't cross-examine the writer. He has maintained such evidence is hearsay, particularly a text the shooter sent to his friend alleging his dad told him to "suck it up" once when he asked him for medical help, and that his mom laughed at him. "A statement of something that happened in the past he told his parents he needed help and they laughed is black letter law hearsay," Bullotta said. Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Matthews is expected to issue an opinion on the journal and text messages this week, possibly as early as Wednesday. Among the journal entries she has ruled as admissible are: I want help but my parents dont listen to me so I cant get any help. I have zero help for my mental problems and its causing me to shoot up the f------ school." "My parents wont listen to me about help or a therapist. "These are all relevant to the shooters state of mind and thus admissible," Matthews ruled in 2022, concluding the texts and journal entries are "not unfairly prejudicial" and "highly probative." The journal entries undoubtedly have James Crumbley on edge, given that the jury forewoman in his wife's case said that the journal "played a huge part" during deliberations. Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews swears in James Crumbley for a hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024. Concerning texts that the shooter sent his friend in the spring of 2021, Matthews has held: "Even though texts in April of 2021 are seven months before the shooting in November, they are highly probative of the people's allegations that the (parents) continually ignored the shooter's escalating mental health issues." Former federal prosecutor Mark Chutkow, who is now in private practice with the Detroit-based Dykema law firm, believes Matthews' decision to let in what he described as "damaging" texts and journal entries will survive legal scrutiny. He said her decision comes down to the fact that the things he was writing were references to things happening to him, right then while they were occurring, rather than relaying facts from long ago. He said courts tend to put more reliability on present reflections like that, because they seem less susceptible to manipulation by someone who, after the fact, tries to portray the world the way that benefits them, rather than the truth. "While some courts might rule differently regarding some of this evidence, the Crumbleys likely will face an uphill battle convincing an appellate court that the judge abused her discretion in admitting the evidence," Chutkow said, adding: "I wouldn't expect the judge to substantially change her evidentiary rulings at the upcoming trial of James Crumbley because her justification for admitting most of the evidence will apply equally to the case against the father, too." Prosecution: The journal and texts are relevant The prosecution is urging the judge to stick to her original decision and let the jury to see the shooter's journal and text messages to his friend, arguing they are relevant to the crime alleged: that James Crumbley knew his son was in mental crisis, but did not help him. James Crumbley is also accused of failing to disclose to school officials that his son had access to a gun when given that opportunity. While the prosecution concedes that James Crumbley has a constitutional right to confront an accuser, it argues that the right to confrontation does not apply in this situation because the text messages and journal are "nontestimonial." In other words, they are not witnesses or accusers who can be cross-examined. Rather, the prosecution argues, the texts and journal entries will be submitted to the jury through a law enforcement official the same one who presented the same information to the jury in Jennifer Crumbley's trial. "The text messages and journal passages at issue were ruled upon by this court in June of 2022," Assistant Prosecutor Marc Keast wrote in a Feb. 23 motion, noting the Crumbleys have already tried but failed to get the texts and journal entries thrown out. But James Crumbley's attorney Mariell Lehman is still pushing for ways to challenge the shooter's allegations, even without him on the stand. Specifically, she is urging the judge to let her admit as evidence information that was discovered in December in a box of confidential medical records involving the shooter. Gun storage will again be a big question According to court documents, Ethan Crumbley told a psychiatrist that he lied in a text to his friend when he stated that he asked his parents for help and that they ignored him. The jury in Jennifer Crumbleys trial never got to hear that because the judge didn't let it in, concluding it was confidential medical information and the shooter invoked privilege over those protected documents. The prosecution is urging her to stick to that decision, maintaining the shooter's confidential medical records don't say what the defense wishes they said. Storage of the gun is a key issue in this case, as the prosecution has argued the Crumbleys gave their son easy access to a gun that he used to kill people, while James Crumbley has maintained the gun at issue was hidden in an armoire, unloaded, and that the bullets were in a separate drawer hidden under some jeans. Jennifer Crumbley also testified that the gun wasn't really a gift even though she described it as that on social media but that their son was allowed to use it only at shooting ranges with his dad. Ethan Crumbley is shown at a shooting range in a video displayed in court on Thursday, July 27, 2023, in Pontiac, Mich. Oakland County judge Kwame Rowe is hearing evidence starting Thursday to help him decide whether the teen who killed four students and injured six others and a teacher in November 2021 at Oxford High School should be sentenced to prison without the chance of parole. In a videotaped interview that was played during the mother's trial, James Crumbley is heard telling investigators: "The gun was empty and the bullets were in a completely different place. He said he and his son go to the shooting range all the time. Ive been trying to teach him safety. Meanwhile, the journal entries, text messages and sealed medical records have become a sticking point for the father's lawyer, who is urging the judge to compel two psychiatrists to testify in James Crumbley's trial, maintaining they have spoken to the shooter and have information that may help her client. "If the court is inclined to allow portions of the journal texts between the shooter and his friend ... despite there being no evidence that Mr. Crumbley was aware of any of them, then the court must also allow the defense to cross-examine witnesses with information learned from the protected records received in December 2023," Lehman wrote. She stressed: "Allowing some but not all relevant statements will mislead the jury," Lehman wrote in a recent court filing. "As a result, Mr. Crumbley's due process rights will be violated." The text messages that the defense wants stricken include: "They make me feel like I'm the problem," Ethan Crumbley texted his friend about his parents one spring night in 2021. "I actually asked my dad to take me to the doctor the other day, and he just gave me some pills and said to 'suck it up.' My mom laughed when i told her." "I am going to ask my parents to go to the doctor tomorrow but this time Im going to tell them about the voices," Ethan texted his best friend after midnight on April 5, 2021, more than seven months before the school shooting. "I only told them about the people I saw Like, I am mentally and physically dying." The Crumbleys have maintained that they never saw or knew of these text messages, nor did their son ever report such problems or ask for such help. Moreover, they say they never saw any signs that their son would ever harm anyone or shoot up his school, and that he only appeared to have anxiety over his future and grades. The prosecution, meanwhile, argues the Crumbleys, more than anyone else, could have prevented the massacre as they were the only ones who knew their son had access to a gun, but never disclosed that to school officials when they were summoned over a troubling drawing he had made. On the morning of the shooting, the Crumbleys were called to the school counselor's office over a picture their son had drawn on a geometry worksheet. It showed a gun, a human being bleeding, and the words, "The thoughts won't stop. Help me." The parents went back to their jobs and promised to get him help within 48 hours. The student went back to class as school officials deemed he wasn't a threat. Two hours later, he fired his first shot. Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: James Crumbley involuntary manslaughter trial hinges on evidence ruling National Pancake Day has arrived and with it a slew of delectable options on the SouthCoast. The celebratory day falls on Wednesday, Feb. 28 this year and its the ideal reason to start your day off right. According to nationaltoday.com, pancakes may be the oldest breakfast food in history, spanning as far back as the ice age. Milk, eggs, flour, and butter never taste as good as they do when mixed to create stacks of fluffy pancakes. Although most of the country prefers classic syrup as the only topping to their circles of goodness, online surveys say that Massachusetts prefers fruit on top of their pancakes. Whether you like them plain, coated in melted butter, with fruit or chocolate, the Southcoast is serving up a delicious variety of pancakes. Lemon Blue Pancakes The Lemon Blue Pancakes are a must try at Dough Company. Looking for decadent pancakes? Look no farther than 127 W Rodney French Blvd., and order the Lemon Blue Pancakes at Dough Company. Get three pancakes with lemon curd and blueberries, they say maple syrup isnt needed but you can also get local maple syrup on the side ($11). Smores Pancakes At Toast N' Jam they offer up unique pairing like the Smores Pancakes. At Toast N' Jam they offer up unique pairings like the Smores Pancakes. You get three fluffy pancakes topped with crushed graham crackers, fire-roasted marshmallows, and chocolate drizzle for $12.99. Dig into your order today at 2331 Acushnet Ave., New Bedford. Fruity Pebbles Pancakes Taste test the Fruity Pebbles Pancakes at Mimis Kitchen. If you are vegan or dairy-free you dont have to miss out on delicious pancakes, Mimis Kitchen offers a variety of options including dairy-free pancakes and vegan chocolate chips. They are also flipping stacks of Fruity Pebble Pancakes slathered with Nutella and topped with delicious Fruity Pebbles and whipped cream for $7.50. Breakfast is served at 130 Nauset St., New Bedford. Pancake Burrito Pandolfi's Mattapoisett Diner offers a delicious Pancake Burrito. Looking for a whole breakfast wrapped in a fluffy pancake? Then you should head over to Pandolfi's Mattapoisett Diner at 81 Fairhaven Road, Mattapoisett. The Pancake Burrito is sure to hit the spot, with two scrambled eggs with cheese and either sausage or bacon wrapped in a pancake and drizzled with Siracha honey served with coffee and home fries for $13.95. Blue Berry Hill Pancakes Seeing as fruit is a fan favorite in Massachusetts, you cant go wrong with heading to Dave's Diner for a classic. Dig into their Blue Berry Hill Pancakes, which are two blueberry pancakes for $10.99. These scrumptious flapjacks are ready for you at 390 W Grove St., Middleboro. Cinnamon Roll Pancakes They say variety is the spice of life, The Breakfast Klub takes that to heart with their pancakes, coming up with special pancakes for you to taste test. They combined two breakfast favorites for their current special Cinnamon Roll Pancakes. Topped with an iced drizzle you wont want to miss them at 1232 Acushnet Ave., New Bedford. All American Pancakes You can't go wrong with the All American Pancakes at Persy's Place. For mouthwatering pancakes take a ride to Persy's Place at 715 State Road, North Dartmouth. Their All American Pancakes come with three fluffy buttermilk pancakes topped with fresh blueberries, strawberries, and real dairy whipped cream for $11.99. Chunky Monkey Pancakes Make sure to try the Chunky Monkey Pancakes at Lexi- Lu's Place. For pancakes that Elvis would have loved check out Lexi- Lu's Place. Their menu has a variety of specialty pancakes including the Chunky Monkey. This culinary delight has chocolate and peanut butter chips, bananas, and a peanut butter drizzle starting at $2.99 for a single stack. Get yours today at 1133 American Legion Hwy., North Westport. This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: National Pancake Day is on February 28 DAYTONA BEACH Drive near the entrance of the Walgreen's at Beville Road and Clyde Morris Boulevard, and you might see one of the two men who take turns sitting in a wheelchair and holding a tattered cardboard sign that says, "Homeless, anything helps." Continue over to the adjacent shops or Publix, and if you get out of your vehicle, you might not make it from your car to the grocery store or sandwich shop without getting hit up for cash. It's an unheard-of scene for the shopping complex on the city's west side that's been virtually trouble-free for its decades-long existence, but the vagrants have become part of that area's landscape over the past six months. The cause is likely linked to several homeless camps that took root behind the Publix plaza, and a judge's August order that's been blocking enforcement of Daytona Beach's panhandling ordinance. After the panhandling problem in Daytona Beach became ubiquitous in 2017 and 2018, the city passed new rules in early 2019 that nearly shut down panhandling. Since a judge issued a preliminary injunction on Daytona Beach's panhandling ordinance in August, the beggars have re-emerged. Pictured are two people who appear to be panhandling on Beville Road late last week. Complaints the past few weeks from fed-up residents who live and shop in the area got the city's attention, and now city leaders are working with the property owners to get three recently discovered homeless camps dismantled. Tackling the more complicated problems of panhandling and homelessness will take much more time, as a lawsuit challenging Daytona Beach's panhandling law works its way through the courts, and state lawmakers debate legislation that seeks to prohibit camping and sleeping on public property without a permit. Daytona Beach, which has had a 100-bed homeless shelter for adults for four years, already has a local law that bans unauthorized camping. Is panhandling in Daytona Beach legal again? In 2017 and 2018, it was almost impossible to drive through a major Daytona Beach intersection, stroll the riverfront, or walk along the Boardwalk without crossing paths with a panhandler. When the city passed tough new rules regulating panhandling in early 2019, the beggars evaporated. The panhandling regulations adopted in February 2019 allowed police to charge $200 fines and arrest people who solicited in outlawed areas, begged for money after the sun went down, or tried to cajole people in ways deemed to be overaggressive. In the years that followed, the occasional panhandler would pop up, but it wasn't until the 2022 lawsuit against the city was filed that the beggars started to mushroom again. The federal lawsuit argues that Daytona's panhandling rules violate First Amendment rights to freedom of expression. A man stationed himself outside the Walgreen's on Beville Road in Daytona Beach one day last week to solicit donations. The city's panhandling ordinance currently can't be enforced since a judge issued a temporary injunction on the local law in August. In August, a U.S. District judge issued a preliminary injunction that is blocking enforcement of Daytona Beach's panhandling ordinance. The lawsuit brought by the Southern Legal Counsel and pro bono attorneys Sabarish Neelakanta and Paul George seeks to make the injunction permanent. The city has appealed the ruling on the preliminary injunction. The suit, filed in the Orlando Division of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, also seeks a declaration that the challenged provisions are unconstitutional and damages on behalf of four plaintiffs who argue charitable donations helped them survive. The legal challenge will probably be working its way through the courts for at least the next few years, said Melbourne attorney Michael Kahn, who helped Daytona Beach draft its panhandling ordinance and is representing the city in the lawsuit. Kahn said he expects more rulings on the case in the next 30 days, and he anticipates that whoever is on the losing side will appeal. He said the case could be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. "It's a case of national significance," he said. Homeless people, panhandling at Beville Publix? There has been panhandling and other crime on the eastern end of Beville Road near the Wal-Mart for years, but until last fall those problems hadn't crept toward the western end of the road beyond Clyde Morris Boulevard. City Commissioner Stacy Cantu, who represents the western side of Daytona Beach, started getting peppered with panhandling complaints a few weeks ago, so she let top staff at City Hall know. Then she did her own investigating. A woman with a small child spent some time one day last week on Beville Road west of Nova Road trying to get the attention of passing motorists. The woman was appealing for help with groceries. One day last week, she drove to Beville and Clyde Morris and saw people panhandling on every corner of the intersection. She traveled farther east on Beville and saw more panhandlers. At Nova Road and Beville, she saw a woman with a small girl holding a sign asking for groceries. She also spotted the men taking turns sitting in a wheelchair outside the Walgreens at Beville and Clyde Morris. She said she's seen both of them get out of the chair and walk. Cantu said when she and others have tried to steer some of the panhandlers to agencies that can help them, they dart away. They seem to just want money, Cantu said, and some don't take no politely. "Some are aggressive. They'll follow you to your car," she said. "One lady said a guy yelled at her." The stores can trespass people off of their property if they connect with a police department program, something Publix is already doing. 'What are we supposed to do?' After Cantu checked out the panhandlers, she drove to the nearby areas where she was told she would find homeless camps. The three camps are located off of Hancock Boulevard and Woodcrest Drive behind the Publix plaza. One is on the private property of the Oasis Apartments, and the other two are on county government property. "You can see their trails and their tents," Cantu said. "I saw a guy carry a pizza into one of the camps." Some people have been living in the woods on property behind the Publix shopping plaza at Beville Road and Clyde Morris Boulevard in Daytona Beach. She suspects there could be as many as seven homeless camps behind the Publix-anchored plaza, and she hopes the city and county can get them cleared out of the area. She said she and others are trying to connect the homeless to the city's services, not harass them. "I hope the people living there who want help get help, and the rest leave," Cantu said. "I have a lot of residents complaining about the homeless, saying they're chasing them to their cars and yelling at them if they don't give them money. ... What are we supposed to do, just let them live there and do this?" She said there's been one homeless couple in the area around Beville and Clyde Morris for about five years "who will be nasty to you if you try to help them." But until very recently, that area was not known to have homeless people, she said. 'It's like giving an addict drugs' Pelican Bay neighborhood resident Hal Lloyd has been approached by panhandlers in the Publix parking lot multiple times. "I've had them come up to me when I get out of my car," said Lloyd, a retiree who sits on the city's Economic Development Advisory Board. "I go to the Publix service desk and say I'm being accosted by these people, and they're usually very good about it." Lloyd said he was "disheartened" when Daytona Beach stopped enforcing its panhandling ordinance. "I find it so embarrassing when I have guests and I take them into town, and people are begging," he said. Homeless people living in a makeshift encampment behind the Beville Road Publix in Daytona Beach appear to have created a dump for their trash. He said he never gives panhandlers money because he feels "it's like giving an addict drugs. It's counterproductive." He once watched a well-meaning person give a downtrodden-looking panhandler a bag of apples, and the panhandler angrily threw the apples on the ground. "The panhandler wanted money. If people would stop giving them money, they would go away," Lloyd said. He said he's been annoyed by the begging, but he's never felt endangered. Several times he's said no before the panhandler asks for anything, and they just turn around and walk away. But he still would like Daytona Beach to be able to enforce its panhandling ordinance. 'Our customers and tenants come first' Sam Jaffe, owner of the Beville Road Publix property, said maintenance people on site do a good job of spotting problems, quickly dealing with them and removing people when needed. Police have also been helpful, he said. Jaffe said he's sensitive to the homelessness problem that's growing nationwide, but added that "our customers and tenants come first and foremost." City Communications Manager Susan Cerbone said Denzil Sykes, the city's code enforcement manager, has been looking into the homeless camps near Beville and Clyde Morris. "Code has been in contact with management at Oasis (Apartments), and they are working to clear out the camp and will post no trespassing signs," Cerbone said. "According to Denzil, they've been very receptive." Hidden homeless camps behind stores near Beville Road and Clyde Morris Boulevard were recently discovered The other two camps, which are on county property, are near the school bus facility. The county's code enforcement unit has been notified, she said. "They are expected to clear out the debris and have been asked to trim the vegetation," Cerbone said. Mark Bostwick, the city's vacant lot inspector, sent an email about the homeless camps on county property last week to Sykes. "I would recommend that the county clear out all the underbrush on their property on Beville Road heading west," Bostwick wrote. "Homeless population are using the density of the underbrush to set up camps throughout the city. This would help law enforcement to be able to see possible hiding places for transients." More about Daytona Beach panhandling: New Daytona law scares off panhandlers Two days later, Sykes sent an email about the camps to county Director of Growth and Resource Management Clay Ervin and County Councilman Matt Reinhart. "We found this camp embedded deep into your property," Sykes wrote. "I am fine meeting you or someone on-site to show where it's located. We found another camp across the street (the property belongs to Oasis Apartments). After receiving complaints from shoppers and business owners in the adjacent plaza, Code has stepped up efforts to address homeless camps in the area." You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona Beach homeless camps could be linked to spike in panhandling The sorry history of anti-miscegenation and forced sterilization laws in the U.S. provides ample evidence that preemptive government interference in the reproductive decisions of its citizens should be strongly rejected. In a free society, the default should be that individuals are best situated for weighing the costs and benefits, moral and material, with respect to how, when, with whom, and whether they choose to become parents. The now infamous Alabama Supreme Court decision earlier this month essentially outlawing the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF) by would-be parents highlights the consequences of unwarranted government meddling in reproductive decisions all too well. At its most basic, IVF is a treatment for infertility involving the fertilization of eggs in a petri dish with the goal of installing them afterward in a woman's womb where they have a chance to implant and hopefully develop into a healthy baby. Since the implantation of any specific embryo is far from guaranteed, IVF often involves creating several embryos that are stored in liquid nitrogen that could be made available for later attempts at achieving pregnancy. Some 12 to 15 percent of couples in the U.S. experience infertility. Fortunately, since 1981 many infertile folks have been able to avail themselves of IVF and assisted reproduction techniques with the result that more than 1.2 million Americans have been born using it. Currently, about 2 percent of all babies in the U.S. are born through assisted reproduction. A 2023 Pew Research poll reported that "four-in-ten adults (42%) say they have used fertility treatments or personally know someone who has." Given the wide public acceptance and ubiquity of IVF, it is no surprise that a new Axios/Ipsos poll finds that two-thirds of Americans oppose the Alabama court ruling that frozen IVF embryos are the equivalent of born children. The moral intuition that embryos are not people implied by these poll results reflects what research has revealed about the fraught and complex biology of uterine implantation and pregnancy. In both IVF and natural conception most embryos will not become babies. Research estimates that between 50 to 70 percent of naturally conceived embryos do not make it past the first trimester. In other words, one foreseen consequence of conception through sexual intercourse is the likely loss of numerous embryos. In his 2012 Journal of Medical Ethics article, University of Illinois Chicago philosopher Timothy Murphy argued that the moral good of the birth of a child counterbalances the unwanted but nevertheless foreseen loss of other embryos in both natural and IVF conception. Again, polling suggests that most Americans endorse this moral reasoning. In another 2012 article speculating on the metaphysical ramifications of endowing embryos with souls, Murphy basically recapitulates the line of reasoning in my 2004 article asking, "Is Heaven Populated Chiefly with the Souls of Embryos?" There I suggest that "perhaps 40 percent of all the residents of Heaven were never born, never developed brains, and never had thoughts, emotions, experiences, hopes, dreams, or desires." Murphy similarly concludes, "Since more human zygotes and embryos are lost than survive to birth, conferral of personhood on them would meanfor those believing in personal immortalitythat these persons constitute the majority of people living immortally despite having had only the shortest of earthly lives." Metaphysical conjectures aside, former President Donald Trump clearly knows where most Americans stand on IVF. "We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder! That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every State in America," he posted on Truth Social. He's right. Now, the 124 denizens of the House of Representatives (all Republicans) who cosponsored just over a month ago the Life at Conception Act are scrambling to explain that, no, they did not really mean that every frozen IVF embryo is a "human person" entitled to the equal protection of the right to life. As a butt-covering move, Rep. Nancy Mace (RS.C.) is circulating a House resolution "expressing support for continued access to fertility care and assisted reproduction technology, such as in vitro fertilization." More substantially, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (DIll.) is pushing for the adoption of the Right to Build Families Act that states, "No State, or official or employee of a State acting in the scope of such appointment or employment, may prohibit or unreasonably limitany individual from accessing assisted reproductive technology." The post Parents, Not the Government, Should Make IVF Decisions appeared first on Reason.com. People walk in front of the Harris County Criminal Courthouse on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024, in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer A 17-year-old and two 16-year-old juveniles were arrested Tuesday and charged with capital murder in the August shooting death of a man at a southeast Houston bus stop. All three people where charged over the killing of Dexter Watson, 27, according to court records. Gavin Kemani Paul, 17, was booked into the Harris County Jail on Tuesday afternoon, according to jail records. He didnt have a bond listed as of Wednesday morning. Advertisement Article continues below this ad MORE ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Houston Rodeo protesters call for end of new migrant arrest law at Texas border Paul was with the two other teenagers in the early hours of Aug. 7, when they approached Watson, a janitor who was waiting for a bus to take him home after finishing a shift at Walmart, according to a criminal complaint. The teenagers approached Watson and held him at gunpoint while stealing his headphones, which they wanted to sell for a gram of marijuana, according to court records. At the end of the robbery, one of the teenagers shot Watson in the back, according to court records. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Watsons shoes were missing when his body was found near the bus stop later that morning. A pair of crushed AirPods also was found nearby, according to the complaint. Paul and the other teenagers werent identified as suspects until more than a month after the shooting, when Watsons mother appeared at a Houston Police Department press conference to plead for the publics help identifying his killer. When they took him, they took a light from us, Sharon Watson said, standing next to Police Chief Troy Finner. My baby didnt bother anybody. He did what society said to do. He went to work. Gave back to his community. For nothing, they took him. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner stands with Sharon Watson, the mother of Dexter "DJ" Watson, at Houston Police Department Headquarters on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. Dexter Watson was shot and killed on Aug. 6. Police on Wednesday asked for the public's help on gathering information about who shot him. COURTESY/Houston Police Department In late September, two tips were called into Houston Crime Stoppers that connected one of the unnamed teenagers to Watsons death. The tips led police to first interview that teen and then Paul and then the third teenager. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The teenagers told different stories to investigators about why they approached Watson and who shot him, according to the compliant. When police searched Pauls phone in October, they found someone had used it to look for information about Watsons death. The searches included how long can you go to jail for not turning in a shooting and how long will you go to jail for shooting someone, according to court records. Paul then called Crime Stoppers, according to the complaint. Pauls bail was initially denied until it could be considered by a district court judge. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A Pre-K student at Ninfa Laurenzo Early Childhood Center looks for some comfort during the first day of school on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Houston ISD opened its pre-K application for the 2024-2025 school year Wednesday, allowing families to apply for the districts early childhood education programs through late April. The districts pre-K programs are open to all families in HISD boundaries with a 3- or 4-year-old child. Pre-K in HISD is free for families who meet certain criteria, including being economically disadvantaged or homeless, but otherwise they must pay tuition, which was $6,484 for the current academic year. Heres what you need to know about this years pre-K application process for HISD: Advertisement Article continues below this ad THE REPORT CARD: Subscribe to the Houston Chronicles weekly newsletter recapping HISD news How does the HISD's pre-K application process work? All families in HISD boundaries seeking to enroll their 3- or 4-year-old child in pre-K in HISD for the first time must submit an application, regardless of if they are seeking to apply to their zoned school, magnet pre-K programs or early childhood centers. The district recommends that parents rank up to 10 options for campuses when they apply. Most families seeking to enroll their child in their zoned pre-K campus will not need to participate in a lottery process. However, if there is not enough space available for all interested zoned students, HISD will run a lottery to determine which zoned students get a seat. If there is space available after zoned students are provided seats, the district will then hold a lottery for the remaining seats in the school for students who are not zoned to the campus. Students who are already in pre-K 3 do not need to reapply for pre-K 4 unless they want to change schools. Advertisement Article continues below this ad What are the application deadlines? Phase I of the application will close on April 22, and families will be notified of their childs assigned campus on May 10. Phase II of the process, including the launch of waitlists, will begin May 10, and families must accept their childs placement by May 30, according to the districts website. Parents must upload all of the required documents, including the child's birth certificate, proof of address and proof of eligibility, starting April 1. For more information about the process, parents can contact the districts pre-K department at earlychildhood@houstonisd.org or 713-556-4393. What pre-K programs does HISD offer? The district has 159 elementary schools with pre-K programs, along with seven schools with pre-K magnet programs and eight early childhood centers. Several of these campuses offer dual language programs, which offer instruction in English and another language, such as Spanish, Arabic, French or Mandarin Chinese. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The only five HISD schools that do not offer pre-K are T.H. Rogers School, The Rice School and Shadydale, Neff and Tinsley elementary schools. Parents can find the full list of the districts schools that offer pre-K on HISDs website, including early childhood centers and campuses that offer dual language programs. The district also offers a map with all the pre-K campuses and programs offered during the current school year, which lists the number of available seats and other information about the campuses. Where can I learn more about HISDs pre-K programs? The district is holding virtual informational community events on Zoom in English and Spanish on Wednesday at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. Prospective families can also tour any of HISDs eight early childhood centers on Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Families seeking out help with filling out the application or uploading the required documents can attend the districts community hubs from 5 to 7 p.m.on April 2, 4, 9 or 16 , or its pre-K festivals from 9 a.m. to noon April 6, 13 and 20. HISD is also hosting a pre-K Parent Palooza from 4 to 5 p.m March 5 and May 7 at various locations around Houston. Attendees will receive a backpack with nine social-emotional books, make-and-take activities and a pre-K Parent Guide, according to the district. Parents can RSVP here. The Harris County Jail along the Buffalo Bayou is shown from a window view in the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024, in Houston. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Note: Topics in this story include suicide, physical assault and sexual assault. A Texas woman filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Harris County, claiming she was assaulted numerous times inside Harris County Jail, including one assault by a guard that led to a miscarriage. Mikayla Savage spent three months in jail in the summer of 2022 before the charges against her were dropped. While incarcerated, she experienced at least six assaults, Rights Behind Bars attorney Miriam Nemeth said. She deserves justice, and so do all of the other families who have been harmed by this jail, Nemeth said Tuesday at a news conference outside the Harris County Administration Building. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The county, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, three named officers and 30 unnamed officers were listed as defendants in the case. A Harris County Sheriffs Office spokesperson said in an email the claims were investigated in 2022. Investigators conducted multiple interviews, analyzed security video footage, reviewed medical records, conducted DNA testing, and gathered other evidence, the spokesperson said. The investigation found insufficient evidence to verify the allegations. Savage, 23 at the time, was pregnant when she was jailed on charges of violating a protective order and aggravated assault, which were later dropped, according to the complaint filed Tuesday. Savage said a guard assaulted her during her first week in jail. The complaint says the officer yanked her by her shirt collar and swung her around, pushed and shoved her, dragged her on the floor and verbally assaulted her. About 10 days later, Harris Health hospital personnel completed an ultrasound and said Savages pregnancy was no longer viable. Advertisement Article continues below this ad She was given an abortion a week after that hospital visit. The complaint claims Savage was given an abortion to which she believed that she did not consent and which she found incredibly traumatic. Savage said she was assaulted at least five more times while in jail. This included a gang rape and a second assault at the hands of the guard who assaulted her when she was pregnant. Mikayla suffered unimaginable harm, Nemeth said. What she went through in the jail was so heinous that she attempted suicide multiple times in a three-month period. OUT OF STATE: Harris County spending $50M to outsource inmates and bring jail closer to state compliance Savage, who attended the news conference, didnt speak to the media. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In addition to the physical and verbal assaults, Savage claimed she was put in cells without proper ventilation and with feces on the floor. There were also delays in providing her with medical care. On multiple occasions, we filed complaints when she was calling us from jail, said Krish Gundu, executive director of the Texas Jail Project. Even on the weekends, we were filing complaints. Harris County Jail, which is the largest jail in the state, is currently on the Texas Commission on Jail Standards' list of non-compliant jails. Evan Lee was one of 28 people who died in Harris County Jail in 2022. His mother, Jacilet Griffin, attended Tuesdays conference to support Savage and demand answers for the problems occurring in the jail. No one should have to experience what she experienced, Griffin said. For her whole life, she has to lie down with these type of thoughts in her mind. Advertisement Article continues below this ad BURDEN OF PROOF: Thousands of Houstonians are sent to jail with no legal basis under DA Ogg, judges say Nemeth said Savage wants to spread the message that what happened to her is wrong and it shouldnt happen to anyone else. Hana Ikramuddin is a Hearst Fellow for the Houston Chronicle. Raised in the Twin Cities, Hana majored in journalism and political science at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She has held internships with the Star Tribune, APM Reports and Sahan Journal. In her free time, she loves to cook, make chai and take care of her houseplants. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner speaks during a press conference in December, 2023, in Houston. Finner said he discovered in February that thousands of sexual assault cases were incorrectly suspended and ordered an internal investigation. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer If you believe Houston Police Chief Troy Finner, it took him five months to learn that some of his officers had, for years, incorrectly classified certain sexual assault incident reports as suspended due to a lack of personnel. Finner said upon making this discovery, he dealt with the issue internally and ordered officers in the special victims division to stop using this code. That was in November 2021. Last week, Finner held a press conference announcing that HPD would be reviewing more than 4,000 sexual assault cases dating back to 2016 that were suspended using the same internal code he supposedly put an end to. Finner said he found out the faulty code was still being used on Feb. 7, begging the question of why it took him nearly three years to ferret out these misclassified incident reports and finally conduct a thorough review when he already knew it was a problem? It also doesnt explain why, according to documents obtained by the Chronicle, as recently as December, the departments official policies allowed officers in the major assault unit to use this code for certain felony and misdemeanor cases. Finner said the code would not be used again in my administration. The apparent discrepancy between Finners words and actions fly in the face of his characterization that this is merely an isolated administrative issue. The more we learn about how widespread these mishandled incident reports were, it looks a lot more like managerial incompetence or outright corruption. Advertisement Article continues below this ad On Monday, for instance, Finner revealed that the number of cases suspended using this code extend well beyond the relatively small number of sexual assault cases. In a statement, he said that as many as 264,000 incident reports since 2016 about 10% of the total incident reports filed during that time period were classified as suspended lack of personnel, including roughly 100,000 property crimes. Obviously, these misclassified incident reports raise serious questions about the accuracy of HPDs crime statistics over the past eight years. While suspended cases dont always equate to a dismissal, it could be reflected as a dismissal in the crime data. Finner himself acknowledged last week that the suspended sexual assault cases absolutely impact the departments figures. You wont hear me saying anything about a clearance rate right now until we get a handle on this, Finner said. The suspended cases appear to be a result of either inexcusably lazy police work by HPD officers investigating these crimes, or worse, a coordinated effort to obfuscate incident reports to improve the departments crime statistics. Either way, the continued practice of misclassifying incident reports for at least the past eight years reflects a startling lack of oversight. Like many law enforcement agencies, HPD has had staffing challenges, with 342 fewer officers than it had 25 years ago. Yet, a sexual assault victim shouldnt have to worry about staffing issues when she puts her trust in police to hold the perpetrator accountable and ensure they dont hurt anyone else. If crime victims dont have faith that HPD will even pursue their case then a social contract has been broken. Advertisement Article continues below this ad For now, Finner and his team of 32 investigators are attempting to regain the publics trust with their probe. Whether thats possible is yet to be determined. We believe the scale of this administrative failure is vast enough to warrant an independent investigation from an outside agency, whether its the DAs office or the Department of Justice. Finner, who replaced Chief Art Acevedo when he took a job in Miami, seemed up to the task and respected by rank and file. Hes been responsive, quickly reforming the departments policy on car chases, for example, after a Chronicle investigation revealed dangerous practices. Whitmire seemed poised to keep Finner on, even though new mayors often appoint their own chiefs. We wouldnt be surprised if he was reassessing. MORE ON DROPPED CASES: Finner adds more investigators to review suspended sexual assault cases Much depends on what Finners internal review finds. He says it could take six months. It should be released publicly and make it clear how many cases were suspended with this code; how many incident reports were credible enough to be pursued further; and who is responsible for the practice continuing. Whether this was a rogue group of officers lazily writing off cases or a larger systemic problem condoned by supervisors, responsible individuals should be held accountable. The internal review should also detail how HPD plans to regain the trust of the alleged victims who reported these incidents, some of whom may have been waiting years for a resolution only to recently discover their complaint was mothballed. During his press conference, Finner said his team of investigators has begun to reach out to victims to follow up on each case and give them the respect they need. Thats a start, but it shouldve been done three years ago when he first found out that sexual assault cases were being incorrectly suspended. Finner cannot simply point to his 2021 discovery as proof that he took it seriously and then hide behind an ongoing internal affairs investigation to not answer any further questions about it. Especially when the investigation has been dragging on for three years. The public deserves to know exactly what he knew and when, and what he did to stop it before it was supposedly brought to his attention again this month. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Finner concluded his press conference by calling it a dark day for the department, and promised to continue to inform the public on the results of their investigation. Im angry because I know were better, Finner said. We will make it right. Hong Kong: Govt driven to nurture local talent The Government will provide subsidies of up to $300,000 for each publicly-funded primary school in the next two academic years to enhance primary school students interests in information technology and its applications, as it strives to nurture local talent in various fronts. Announcing the initiative in his Budget, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said apart from supporting post-secondary institutions to enhance their quality and expand their capacity, the Government will continue to take forward a number of sector-specific talent training programmes to enrich the local talent pool. In connection with the Governments Knowing More About IT Programme, Mr Chan proposed to allocate an additional funding of $134 million to provide a subsidy of up to $300,000 for each publicly-funded primary school in the next two academic years. The programme was launched to enhance primary school students interests in information technology and its applications, so as to better prepare Hong Kong for integration into the knowledge-based economy and development of a digital society. Another initiative is to allocate an additional funding of about $12 million in total to the Intellectual Property Department over the next three years in an effort to prepare for the introduction of regulatory arrangements for local patent agent services. Mr Chan said: Our aim is to enhance the professionalism and support the development of the original grant patent system. The Government will also continue to strengthen and enlarge its patent examiner team and enhance its substantive examination capability, with a view to acquiring institutional autonomy in conducting substantive patent examination in 2030. Giving an update of the Chinese Medicine Development Fund, Mr Chan said a number of capacity building initiatives for the healthcare industry have been taken forward under the fund, since an injection of $500 million in additional funding was announced in last years Budget. One such initiative is the Hong Kong Chinese Medicine Talent Short-term Training Programme co-organised with the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine in support of building an excellent pool of Chinese medicine talent. The Financial Secretary pointed out that this year, the Transport & Logistics Bureau will conduct a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of the Maritime & Aviation Training Fund (MATF) in attracting talent and promoting manpower development in the maritime and aviation sectors. Several schemes have been launched under the MATF, including two schemes introduced in January this year in line with new developments in smart and green logistics, and another one to fund activities organised by local aviation-related organisations and academic institutions. Additionally, Mr Chan stressed that in order to nurture legal talent with an international perspective and good knowledge of different legal systems, the Department of Justice will set up a dedicated office and an expert group this year to take forward the establishment of the Hong Kong International Legal Talents Training Academy. This story has been published on: 2024-02-28. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Ghanaian parliament speaker hails China-Africa cooperation Xinhua) 10:10, February 28, 2024 ACCRA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Ghanaian Parliament Speaker Alban Bagbin praised China-Africa cooperation on Monday, encouraging Ghanaians to draw lessons from China's development experience to fuel their own success. Speaking at a gala celebrating the Chinese Lantern Festival, Bagbin expressed his delight at the increasing presence of Chinese people in Africa. Most of the negative things you read and hear about China are not true, Bagbin said. "There are a lot of good things coming from China. I can tell you, seeing is believing. I hope many more of you will visit China to see for yourselves." The speaker, who has visited China many times, said "the Chinese people are very warm ... Let's take this opportunity to learn more from China." The gala night brought together the Chinese community in Ghana along with many Ghanaian officials, businessmen and university students, who enjoyed a variety of traditional Chinese food and cultural performances. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) County commissioners Lesley Briones, left, and Adrian Garcia, right, celebrate after taking the oath of office during the Harris County 2023 Investiture Ceremony at NRG Center on Monday, Jan. 2, 2023 in Houston. Brett Coomer/Staff photographer Harris County Commissioners Court voted Tuesday to appoint two representatives to serve on the Houston-Galveston Area Council: Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones and Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia. Another two members of the court Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey and Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis were appointed to act as their alternates. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The commissioners replace Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and fill a vacant seat on the board. The 13-county regional planning body makes decisions allocating billions of federal and state funding to local government members, including the city of Houston and Harris County. Houston voters in November passed a ballot measure that could require the city to leave H-GAC after advocates argued the Houston area is severely underrepresented on the board and does not receive its fair share of funding. The vote to appoint Briones and Garcia came a day after the Houston Landing reported Hidalgo had missed more than 50 consecutive H-GAC meetings while serving on the board, and the court could vote to replace her with another county representative. However, Hidalgos office insisted Tuesday that it was responsible for placing the matter on the agenda, which was confirmed by emails supplied to the Chronicle. Board appointments are regularly rotated, and this is in no way connected to any missed meetings, Hidalgo spokesperson Angelica Luna Kaufman said in a statement. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Kaufman added that Hidalgo has missed H-GAC meetings because shes focused on where she can make the most significant impact for our community, and its important that she prioritize where she can. The vote on Tuesday was requested by the Office of County Administration, which confirmed that it had collaborated with Hidalgos office on the agenda item. Office officials rejected the implication that other members of the court had pushed for the vote in order to replace Hidalgo, who was away on vacation Tuesday. Harris County appoints representatives to H-GAC every year. The vote appointing Briones and Garcia occurred because Hidalgos term was expiring, according to the Office of County Administration. Harris County Jail at 701 N. San Jacinto. Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographer Amid ongoing complaints about poor jail conditions, Harris County officials on Tuesday emphasized the need for a deeper understanding of the countys jail population currently around 9,200 in order to tackle persistent overcrowding and comply with Texas regulations. Earlier this month, inspectors from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards found Harris County Jail to be non-compliant with state standards, highlighting insufficient staff to serve those in custody. The county also found itself the target of another lawsuit this week, with a woman alleging she suffered a miscarriage following abuse from a detention officer. Advertisement Article continues below this ad During Tuesdays Commissioners Court meeting, officials from the Office of County Administration and the Sheriffs Office presented their latest updates on the jail system and vowed to help the court pull every possible lever to address the challenges in our jail. The county is on track to complete an initiative to equip detention officers with radios for better communication by June, officials said during the presentation. The county has also collaborated with the Sheriffs Office to revamp the jails intake process, ensuring all detainees are medically assessed and housed within 48 hours as required by state regulations. Last year, there was an 11% average vacancy rate for detention officers. Currently, the jail operates with 1,492 detention officers and 190 vacant positions. There are also 522 full-time equivalent employees who provide medical care to inmates, 26% of whom are contract labor, the presentation shows. Commissioners Court has been receiving regular updates on the state of the jail since October 2023 at County Judge Lina Hidalgos request. Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia, however, said Tuesday that these updates have not adequately addressed many ongoing issues such as overcrowding, the large number of pretrial detainees and a rising jail population. Advertisement Article continues below this ad He said that over 600 people are currently housed in the county jail system awaiting transport to a state facility, according to county data. The average transfer wait time of 28 days is costing the county more money than necessary, he said. I would want to spend some time looking at the overall systemic process of what is transpiring, what is causing the jail population that we have yet to identify, Garcia said. The county recently informed the Texas Commission on Jail Standards that it is spending $50 million to transfer local inmates to facilities outside Harris County. Tuesdays presentation shows 1,431 of the systems 9,211 inmates are currently housed in outside facilities. Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones said Tuesday the practice is unsustainable. It is unacceptable from a justice perspective, and its unacceptable from a fiscal standpoint and return on investment for the taxpayers dollars that were stewards of, Briones said. We cant keep using these private prisons. We must lean on the state to help us in this effort. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Housing is not the only issue facing inmates. Their care while in custody has also come under fire. Early Tuesday morning, a group of advocates gathered outside the Harris County Administration Building to speak about the alleged abuse that Mikayla Savage, a former inmate, endured at Harris County Jail. In a Monday lawsuit filed against the county and several detention officers, Savage said she was assaulted numerous times while in jail, including one assault by a guard that led to a miscarriage. She is not the only person who has suffered things like that, Miriam Nemeth, an attorney at Rights Behind Bars, said during the news conference. There are hundreds, hundreds, of people in the jail who are actually innocent and have to endure horrible harms in that jail: guard assaults, other prisoner assaults, medical neglect, being shipped out of state. In response to the lawsuit, a Sheriffs Office spokesperson said the office investigated these claims in 2022 and found insufficient evidence to verify the allegations. Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis told the Chronicle that the case exemplifies the deep-rooted systemic challenges within the local justice system. Ellis was the only commissioner who offered a comment on the lawsuit. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The tragedy that befell Mikayla Savage is an indictment of our broken justice system, which prioritizes mass incarceration over public safety and uses cash bail to penalize poverty, Ellis said in a statement. This is a clarion call for us to advance reforms to ensure our system truly upholds justice for all people, rather than perpetuating their despair. Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey acknowledged the countys efforts to improve health care provisions but noted that progress in addressing basic maintenance needs has been insufficient. It certainly feels like a reactionary position now. Were trying to deal with the chronic health issues weve got. I think progress is being made, but I still havent heard a plan just to deal with the basic deferred maintenance issues within the jail going forward, he said Tuesday. Hidalgo did not attend the Commissioners Court meeting or respond to request for comments on the lawsuit or the state of the jail. The commissioners on Tuesday passed a motion to invite Sheriff Ed Gonzalez to a court meeting in the coming weeks to continue the conversations. Advertisement Article continues below this ad City leaders including Mayor John Whitmire, Police Chief Troy Finner and Fire Chief Samuel Pena gathered at the Denver Harbor Multi-Service Center on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024, in Houston. Karen Warren/Staff photographer The city of Houston and its firefighters are nearing an agreement to resolve their bitter, yearslong pay dispute, with specifics expected to take additional weeks or months to finalize, according to city and union officials. The city typically renegotiates contracts with the firefighters union every few years, but the two parties were unable to reach an agreement in 2017, leading to an ongoing legal battle and leaving the firefighters without a contract ever since. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mayor John Whitmires administration previously set an end-of-February deadline to resolve all aspects of the dispute and outline a plan to finance the substantial payments. While both sides expressed satisfaction with the progress of the negotiations, Whitmire acknowledged the city is unlikely to meet this target. The negotiations are complicated and ongoing, Whitmire said. We are taking additional time to gather the necessary information and reach a successful conclusion: the best outcome for the City of Houston and our firefighters. Still, both City Attorney Arturo Michel and firefighters union president Marty Lancton told the Chronicle they are hopeful they can finalize basic terms in the coming days, possibly at their next meeting Thursday afternoon. These terms will cover the total back pay the city will pay to firefighters split into broad categories such as base pay, special pay and interest. They will also likely touch on their future contracts for the next three years, according to Michel. However, developing the agreement to the extent that firefighters of various classifications know their exact compensation may take two to three more months, he said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It was a pretty ambitious goal to start with, and weve been operating like were trying to meet that, Michel said. But I just think practically, we cant have everything wrapped up at the end of February. Whitmire has kept close ties to the firefighters during his lengthy political career and promised to put an end to the citys prolonged legal battle with the union during his mayoral campaign last year. He dropped an appeal to a recent judge order immediately after taking office, and attorneys for the two sides have met regularly since then. Lancton said both parties have approached the negotiations with a sense of urgency, noting that the remaining tasks primarily involve fine-tuning the details into their final form. Were almost there. I fully expect that we will be agreeable on the terms, Lancton said. The last administration left an absolute mess, and we have to make sure that we are being thorough and thoughtful. But if we have an agreement on the terms, then its just the mechanics of the agreement that have to be honed. The Greater Houston Partnership recently estimated the back pay owed to firefighters could cost the city between $500 million and $600 million. Michel said covering these costs would likely involve a mix of general fund dollars and debt issuance. He added that depending on the bond type, its issuance may require approval from a judge or a referendum from voters. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A trial date is currently set for March 25 to address the contract impasse from 2017. Both parties expressed their hope to further refine their agreement before then. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks during a campaign rally for President Donald Trump, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter) Jeffrey McWhorter/Associated Press WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 07: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) walks to a vote in the Senate Chambers s at the U.S. Capitol on February 07, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Senate failed to pass legislation consisting of immigration and border security tacked on with foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), joined by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), speaks at a press conference on the southern border at the U.S. Capitol on October 31, 2023 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is expected to be a leading contender to replace Mitch McConnell as the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, announced Wednesday that he will vacate the position in November. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Even before the announcement, Cornyn, a longtime top lieutenant to McConnell, was getting regular mentions as a potential successor. Heaven knows how that will turn out, Cornyn said last week in Austin when asked by reporters if he expected to be the next Republican leader. Cornyn, 72, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002 after serving as the states attorney general. He was the Senate majority whip, considered second in command to McConnell, from 2015 to 2019. Other candidates expected to be in the running are U.S. Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Barrasso of Wyoming. Thune is the current minority whip under McConnell. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Cornyn is a Houston native who attended Trinity University in San Antonio and earned a law degree from St. Mary's University in San Antonio. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said he doesnt expect to be in the mix to be the next party leader. On Sunday, ahead of the announcement, Cruz told a gathering in Laredo that he was pushing for a McConnell replacement. I do think we need new Republican leadership, Cruz said. McConnell said he plans to serve out his Senate term, which ends in January 2027, albeit from a different seat in the chamber. Aides said McConnells announcement about the leadership post was unrelated to his health. The Kentucky senator had a concussion from a fall last year and has had two public episodes where his face briefly froze while he was speaking. Relationships with former President Donald Trump will surely come into play. McConnell and Trump clashed regularly, and Trump's influence is likely to be part of the fight over who will replace him. That could work against Cornyn. While Cornyn recently endorsed Trump in the GOP primary, last year he drew the former president's ire by suggesting Trump's time has passed him by and it was time to look at other candidates for the White House. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The deepfake audio clips of U.S. President Joe Biden were supposed to emphasize the need for AI regulation, the person behind the recent robocalls from the president claims. Democrat political consultant Steve Kramer told CBS News that he only commissioned for the deepfakes to gain the attention of the Federal Communication Commission and local governments about the danger of AI in political campaigns. Kramer said he only spent $500 to disseminate the robocalls to "just under 5,000" registered residents in New Hampshire listed as "most likely Democrats." The robocalls featured a deepfake audio clip of the president telling residents not to attend the Democratic party's first primary in New Hampshire. The political consultant has only disclosed the reason for the robocalls after New Hampshire officials identified him days following the robocalls were first reported. The FCC has since prohibited the use of AI-generated voices and deepfakes in spam and robocalls. AI Controversies Surround Presidential Candidate Dean Phillips Kramer serves as an adviser for several Democrats, including presidential candidate Dean Phillips. This marks the second time someone affiliated with Phillips was stopped from using AI to promote the candidate. The first time was with OpenAI removed a chatbot impersonating Philips on its GPT platform. Phillips denied involvement to both incidents. The Minnesota 3rd District representative has already removed Kramer as his consultant, condemning Kramer for his actions. The buck stops with me. My campaign hired a consultant to successfully overcome anti-democratic barriers to NY & PA ballots. But as he acknowledged yesterday, the AI robocall impersonating Joe Biden in NH was done entirely on his own accord, and I condemn it. Neither the Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) February 26, 2024 Also Read: FCC Outlaws AI-Generated Voices in Robocalls Heartthrob takes on North Korean defector role in new Netflix movie By Lee Gyu-lee Actor Song Joong-ki is returning to Netflix with the new original movie "My Name Is Loh Kiwan," where he will portray the titular character. This comes three years after his appearance in the platform's sci-fi blockbuster "Space Sweepers." The melodrama, adapted from Cho Hae-jins novel I Met Loh Kiwan (2011), centers on a North Korean defector named Loh Ki-wan (Song), who arrives penniless in Belgium, seeking to obtain refugee status. As Loh struggles to survive in the foreign land, he meets a woman named Mari (Choi Sung-eun), who has lost all hope. Despite their initial bitter encounter, the two characters gradually grow closer, bringing unexpected changes to each others desolate lives. 'My Name Is Loh Kiwan depicts the life of Ki-wan, who embarks on a journey to Belgium with the last glimmer of hope in his life when he feels completely cut off. The film captures his arduous journey as he struggles to survive in Belgium at any cost, Song said during a press conference for the film at Hotel Naru Seoul MGallery Ambassador in Mapo District, western Seoul, Tuesday. Within that (journey), a lot happens and he experiences healing. So I would like to describe our work as a healing movie. The film, set to premiere on the platform on March 1, marks the feature directorial debut of newcomer Kim Hee-jin. Initially joining the project as the scriptwriter, the director revealed that she envisioned Song in the lead role right from the script's inception. I initially joined the project as the writer, and later, I was given the opportunity to adapt it into a film and direct it. I really enjoyed the original novel and felt it was a very good opportunity to debut with such a beautiful movie, the director said. I wrote this piece, thinking of Song. I saw Loh as someone with a resilient spirit, like a blooming flower in a mud puddle. Throughout his extensive career as an actor, Song has portrayed a diverse range of characters, but there's a facet of him that shines uniquely in our work. He can evoke sympathy, prompting viewers to want to embrace him, yet at times, he can also send chills down your spine, leaving you transfixed. It's these multifaceted performances that will captivate the audience." Song revealed that he had initially turned down the film, but eventually was drawn to its refreshing plot. When I received the script about six or seven years ago, I declined it... I couldn't connect with the story at first. However, as time passed, I found myself troubled by the fact that the production hadn't materialized yet, as it was indeed a remarkable piece, he said. In a way, I felt a sense of regret. When I received the script again while filming Reborn Rich, it felt like fate. The story resonated with me deeply and felt both poignant and refreshingly original. He added that his first attempt at acting in the North Korean dialect was a satisfying experience. As an actor, it was a challenge I had long wanted to take on. I accepted the role because I personally sought to push my boundaries and explore new territory. Korean boy group Seventeen's 10th EP "FML" was last year's most-sold album in the world, according to a London-based global recording industry association. "FML" topped the Global Album Chart 2023 announced by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) on Tuesday (British time). It surpassed other strong contenders such as Morgan Wallen's "One Thing At A Time" at No. 3 and Taylor Swift's "Midnights" at No. 4 to secure the top spot. The 13-piece K-pop group debuted in the top 10 on the chart at No. 7 in 2022 for its fourth full-length album, "Face the Sun." Last year, it ranked eighth with its 11th EP, "Seventeenth Heaven." IFPI, boasting over 8,000 record labels worldwide as its members, compiles the chart based on physical album sales, digital downloads, as well as audio and video streaming. The chart is considered one of the most objective indicators for measuring the best-selling albums of the year in the global music market. Last year, Seventeen's combined annual album sales surpassed 16 million copies with "FML" and "Seventeenth Heaven." The latter became the first K-pop album to sell more than 5 million copies in the first week of sales. Among other K-pop acts on the top 10 were Stray Kids' "5-Star" and "Rock-Star" at No. 2 and No. 9, respectively, and NCT Dream's "ISTJ" at sixth. (Yonhap) Korea's state pension fund reported a 13.6 percent return on investment last year, helped by a healthy performance from investments in stocks at home and overseas, its operator said Wednesday. At the end of last year, the value of assets under management by the National Pension Service reached 1,035 trillion won ($775.4 billion), up some 145 trillion won from a year ago. It marked the highest annual return on investment by the fund since the fund's management division was established in 1999, it said. Last year, the fund registered a 22.12 percent return on its investment in local stocks and a 23.89 percent yield on overseas stocks. The fund also logged a 7.4 percent return on its investment in local bonds and earned an 8.84 percent yield on its investment in foreign bonds. (Yonhap) Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have recently held high-level meetings involving bilateral cooperation in the areas of railway construction, infrastructure and energy, officials said Wednesday. Park Sang-woo, Korea's land, infrastructure and transport minister, met with Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei, minister of energy and infrastructure of the UAE, in the Middle Eastern country Monday, and agreed to expand the scope of cooperation to new business areas, such as hydrogen and clean energy-based public transportation. During the meeting, the UAE side requested active participation from Korean companies in their domestic railway market. Park also met with Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company who also serves as the UAE minister of industry and advanced technology, and discussed ways to expand cooperation in hydrogen energy. The minister also met with Mohammed Ali Mohammed Al Shorafa Al Hammadi, chairman of the Department of Municipalities and Transport of the Abu Dhabi city municipality, and exchanged ideas on introducing Korean technology into infrastructure development projects within Abu Dhabi. (Yonhap) Experts urge Seoul to prepare for post-US-election geopolitical shifts By Kang Hyun-kyung A debate has intensified in South Korea regarding the upcoming U.S. presidential election slated for Nov. 5 and its potential implications for the country. There are increasing calls to prepare for the possibility of former U.S. President Donald Trump's return to office, prompting discussions and considerations about the potential ramifications for South Korea's foreign policy and domestic affairs. Trump's criticism of U.S. allies, accusing them of misusing U.S. taxpayer funds for their defense, has heightened concerns and urgency in Seoul regarding his potential return to office. South Korea is particularly focused on the fate of U.S. troops stationed in the country and the possibility of Trump resuming direct negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. These developments have underscored the importance for Seoul to develop more effective strategies and tactics to respond to potential changes in U.S. foreign policy. During a roundtable hosted by The Korea Times on Feb. 22, three prominent foreign policy experts asserted that U.S. policy priorities, particularly diplomatic efforts based on strong deterrence against North Korea's provocations, are expected to persist even in the event of Trump's reelection. They also agreed on the need to have a Plan B to mitigate any risk the outcome of the U.S. election may bring to the alliance. They hoped that Trump gained valuable insights from his experiences in his first term about the inherent difficulty in finding solutions that satisfy all stakeholders. The three are Kim Won-soo, former under-secretary-general of the United Nations; Ahn Ho-young, South Koreas former ambassador to the United States.; and Choo Jae-woo, a professor at Kyung Hee University's Department of Chinese Studies. The event was moderated by Shim Jae-yun, chief editorial writer of The Korea Times. The experts emphasized that while achieving denuclearization of North Korea may seem unrealistic, it will continue to be a diplomatic goal for the U.S. government. They highlighted that the potential costs associated with not pursuing denuclearization, both for the U.S. and other relevant countries like China, would be considerable. They cautioned that a deal being reached to freeze North Korea's nuclear weapons while allowing existing bombs to remain could inevitably lead to a nuclear arms race in the region. This, in turn, could jeopardize the integrity of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Therefore, any negotiation with North Korea needs to be based on the principle that every concern of both sides should be put on the table. They said South Korea needs to come up with a sophisticated diplomatic plan to effectively respond to Trumps possible attempt which may weaken the alliance. They said South Korea could consider teaming up with U.S. lawmakers and other U.S. allies that share similar concerns about a potential policy shift if Trump returns to office, and cooperating with them to take institutional measures to cope with any possible negative impact on the alliance. A case in point was the measure taken regarding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The U.S. Senate introduced a bipartisan measure aimed at preventing any U.S. president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO. The provision, which is part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), was subsequently approved in the U.S. House of Representatives in December of last year. The following is a transcript of the roundtable interviews with the three experts. Questions and answers were edited for clarity. Q: The U.S. presidential election is nine months away. All eyes are on who will be the next U.S. president. In the hypothetical election matchup, some polls find former President Donald Trump is ahead of the current President Joe Biden. What are your thoughts on possible changes in U.S. policy toward South and North Korea if Trump wins the election? Ahn Ho-young: No matter who wins the November election, the U.S. policy stance on North Korea is unlikely to undergo a significant change. President Biden unveiled the U.S. foreign policy posture in 2021 when he was inaugurated. There was one striking line about North Korea and it stated that the U.S. would seek diplomacy and stern deterrence when dealing with the North. The Biden administration didnt mention sanctions and has been consistent in its responses to North Korea's provocations. Whenever North Korea relied on brinkmanship diplomacy, the U.S. condemned the North but left room for diplomacy by stating that the U.S. is ready for dialogue. The U.S. has been consistent with this principled approach, even if it has been criticized as strategic patience. Is this because the U.S. believes strategic patience is effective? The answer is no. Then why did the Biden administration do that? I think that is because officials there believe that there is no other alternative to the present course the US is taking. In such a context, the role of deterrence will become more important. Even if Trump returns to office, I think he will find it difficult to change the course of action. Diplomacy and stern deterrence will continue to be a core part of U.S. policy toward North Korea, not because that stance is most effective, but because there are no other options that the U.S. can resort to. Choo Jae-woo: Maybe its time to review strategic patience because, in retrospect, it worked out quite well. The strategy played a part to make North Korea isolated and its economy go badly. Strategic patience, together with diplomacy and deterrence, have paid off. The Obama administration, for example, relied on strategic patience but working-level talks were held between the U.S. and North Korea. This made the North keep pinning hopes on something to happen for them, but unfortunately nothing happened. Through deterrence, the U.S. seems to have gained what it wanted, as weve seen the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and the trilateral partnership between the U.S., South Korea and Japan. The U.S. has seen progress made in its foreign policy because of strategic patience. Kim Won-soo: Strategic patience toward North Korea has met a significant challenge because of Russia. Through its military cooperation with North Korea, Russia helped the North evade isolation as the two isolated countries agreed to team up. A consensus in the U.N. Security Council is necessary to help strategic patience yield fruit, but reaching a consensus has become almost impossible because of Russia's veto. The UNSC won't be able to slap new sanctions on North Korea, no matter what North Korea will do. This is likely to embolden North Korea's provocative behavior. Therefore, now is the time to fix the loopholes of strategic patience and contemplate how we can improve its efficacy. I believe South Korea should play a key role in overhauling it as a directly concerned country. South Korea is also best placed to come up with the right policy mix about North Korean challenges and persuade other major powers with stakes on the Korean Peninsula, including the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. This requires, among other things, robust domestic bipartisan consensus in South Korea about the North Korean policy, which seems very challenging in the context of polarized South Korean politics Q: Trumps recent remarks that he could no longer protect NATO allies from Russia has alarmed the member countries. Some 24,000 U.S. troops are deployed in South Korea. Do his comments have any implications for South Korea? How should South Korea prepare for Trumps possible return to office? Choo: Id like to remind everyone of how the U.S. Senate and Congress worked together to prepare for Trumps possible return to office. As you know, Trump tried to withdraw U.S. forces from NATO when he was in office. So, the U.S. Senate has prepared for his return to office since 2021 and adopted a legislative measure to prevent a U.S. withdrawal from NATO. The provision is part of the NDAA and it was approved by the House in December. Under the scheme, any U.S. president cannot withdraw from NATO without the approval of two-thirds of the Senate or separate measure passed by Congress. What I hope for is that South Korea can work with the U.S. Senate and Congress to draw up a similar measure to prevent the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea. When you look at U.S. global strategies, including the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, you will find that the ROK-U.S. alliance is one of the critical foundations. The strategic importance of the ROK-U.S. alliance in U.S. global strategies may help South Korea find it easier to sell its idea and make it happen. In case South Korea finds it tough to push it through alone, we can team up with countries like Japan, for example, because Japan is also facing a similar concern. Kim: We need a Plan B, a thorough one. In the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, there is an institutional system in place, and it works quite well. We can make the most of this to generate mutually beneficial outcomes. As professor Choo pointed out, we can collaborate with other like-minded countries, including U.S. allies such as Japan, Australia and European partners. Time is on our side. It is very good that South Korea-Japan relations have improved after President Yoon Suk Yeol took office, and this will make it relatively easier for South Korea to collaborate with Japan. Seoul-Tokyo relations have improved in response to North Koreas growing threat. But we can be creative. South Korea can work with Japan to formulate a Plan B together to prepare for Trumps possible return to office. Seoul and Tokyo can share wisdom mutually gained in the first term of Trump and consider building a like-minded coalition. Trump is transactional. South Korea, possibly with Japan, can persuade him if we make a strong case that the transactional cost of his potential effort to undermine the U.S. alliance with South Korea and Japan will be so huge that the U.S. would lose out in such an ill-advised attempt. Ahn: I concur with former Under-Secretary-General Kim about his view that the way President Trump sees the world is transactional. We have to base our actions on such an understanding. We need to be strategic when we are dealing with people like him. One thing I would like to point out is that the composition of the U.S. Congress has changed a lot, compared to eight years ago when President Trump was in office. In the House, the number of Trump supporters has increased. He is influential in the U.S. Congress. Recently, there was an encouraging development in the U.S. Congress. In February, the U.S. Senate passed a $95 billion bill designed to provide aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. (The Senate jettisoned bipartisan efforts to boost immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border after many Republican Senators, following the lead of Trump, viewed it to be inadequate.) I found that no less than 22 Republican Senators voted for the bill (which is now headed to the Republican-controlled House for a final vote). I was so impressed and looked into the list of 22 Republican Senators who voted for the bill because I was curious who they were. Q: North Korea's threat has become sophisticated. And the North had continued to build up its nuclear capabilities to solidify its status as a nuclear power. Given this, do you believe denuclearizing North Korea is achievable? Will there be a need to discard denuclearization negotiations and adopt a new format of disarmament talks? Kim: Denuclearization is and should continue to be an end goal to achieve. This is a daunting task unprecedented in the history of nuclear arms control and disarmament, but it cannot be given up. If we give up denuclearization, North Korea will be recognized as a de facto nuclear state. And this likely means the beginning of the collapse of the NPT. This is a nightmare for all. If North Korea becomes a nuclear weapon state, this would agitate South Koreans, and public opinion would evolve even stronger in favor of South Koreas nuclear armament. If South Korea arms itself with nuclear weapons, other countries in the region, such as Japan and even Taiwan, will also feel the need to follow suit. If this happens, not only the U.S. but also China will face unmanageable proliferation risks. A nuclear-weapon-free North Korea may sound unfeasible at the moment, but we need to keep trying to make it happen. For that, we need to prevail on North Korea to come back to negotiation on the basis that everything should be on the table. This means both of our and their concerns must not be precluded from any negotiation. Ahn: The importance of the NPT cannot be overstated. When the treaty was proposed by the U.S. in 1960s, the former Soviet Union was fully supportive because there was a shared belief that the international community needed such a scheme to prevent proliferation. The first survey that asked South Koreans about their opinions about South Koreas possession of nuclear weapons was released in 2022 and at that time, 76 percent of South Koreans were in favor. The U.S. officials and think tank experts whom I met were stunned whenever they heard about the survey results. Eventually, South Koreans overwhelming support for nuclear armament became a type of leverage and convinced the U.S. to team up with South Korea to create the Nuclear Consultation Group (NCG). The NCG is a very useful institution for South Korea and we need to make the most of it to deter North Korea's threat. Choo: Id like to note that there are discrepancies between the U.S. and North Korea about the definition of denuclearization, so its going to be very difficult to narrow their differences. Q: How do you think North Korea interpret the ongoing wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and tensions in the Taiwan Strait? Will the North continue to resort to military provocations coupled with brinkmanship diplomacy? Ahn: To answer these questions, we need to dive deep into what Kim Jong-un has in mind. There is a single vital interest he tries hard to secure: the Kim dynasty dictatorship. This is North Koreas ultimate goal and other issues, for example, nuclear weapons or inter-Korean relations, are just means to keep it safe. Why has the North built up nuclear weapons? This is because it believes nuclear weapons would help the regime maintain dictatorship. Why did the regime introduce measures to denounce national homogeneity, and reconciliation and unification with the South? Because the more North Korea sticks to national homogeneity, the more it is baffled by North Korean citizens wondering why the same people live so differently in the South and the North. For that reason, North Korea has tried hard and failed to cut off Souths cultural influences on North Korean society. This is because the regime fears the potential fallout on its survival. With these measures in place, North Korean society has become more repressive and the economy has gone from bad to worse. I hope some day the North Korea come to realize that its nuclear program does not strengthen its security, but only make their lives more difficult and conclude that it needs to change its course. The North needs Gorbachev moment of its own. But now is not the time for that. The prolonged war in Ukraine and the widening war in the Middle East have allowed the North to relish the wider room for maneuver. The North Korean economy would benefit from arms sales to Russia, while the war in Ukraine continues. Choo: I think Kim Jong-un knows that all options were out over the past three decades since 1994 when the U.S. and North Korea held direct talks to terminate North Koreas nuclear program and reached the Agreed Framework. He will also know that there will be no other creative or fresh proposals, because all possible options have been tried. The ball is in North Koreas court. The North has become isolated and its economy has gotten worse after the U.S. introduced strategic patience. Therefore, I believe if the North realizes it will be unable to endure economic hardships any longer, it may stop brinksmanship diplomacy and show signs of a willingness for dialogue. Kim: Weve seen that South Koreas policy toward the North has often shifted from one extreme to another with a government change. This must be rectified. There needs to be a bipartisan consensus built about South Koreas vision on the future of the Korean Peninsula and this vision must be maintained regardless of a government change. Otherwise, our neighbors will not take our vision seriously and try to exploit our domestic division to pursue their priorities. Going to war with North Korea is not our preferred option. But preventing it requires our collective efforts combining deterrence and diplomacy. We need to clarify our strategy to our neighbors so that the North does not cross the red line. This is a formidable task for South Korea. It needs not only domestic consensus building but also close coordination through the ROK-U.S. alliance and the South Korea-U.S.- and Japan trilateral cooperation, as well as consultation with China and Russia. Each of these is tough. The road ahead will be bumpy. But South Korea owes the efforts to both the Korean people and the whole world. Gov't forces kill 4 Naxals in India's Chhattisgarh Xinhua) 10:10, February 28, 2024 NEW DELHI, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Four Naxals were killed in a fierce gunfight with the joint contingent of police and paramilitary troops Tuesday in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, police said. The gunfight broke out when government forces conducted a search operation in the forest area in Jangla of Bijapur district, about 403 km south of Raipur, the capital city of Chhattisgarh, after receiving intelligence information about the presence of Naxals, police said. "Four bodies of Naxals have been recovered from the forest area and a search operation is still underway," a senior police official told media. "Some arms and ammunition have also been recovered from the spot." On Sunday three Naxals were killed in a similar gunfight in the forest area of Koyalibeda area in Kanker district of the state. Currently, Naxals are active across the central and eastern parts of India. The insurgency has reportedly claimed hundreds of lives. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Lee dreams of joining global efforts to combat starvation By Jung Min-ho What is your dream? What do you want to be? Most new arrivals from North Korea would struggle to provide a straight answer to these questions. Having just escaped from a country where no one talks or asks about dreams, they may find such curiosity perplexing. Before crossing North Koreas border with China in 2006, when he was 14 years old, the only dream Lee Jeong-cheol had had was to stave off his hunger. After arriving in South Korea with his mother several months later, he found that questions about future careers are very common here. Thats when I started to think seriously about what I want to be, Lee told The Korea Times on Wednesday. In North Korea, I was told to be loyal to the regime all the time. But no one asked me if I had any dreams. His first dream was to become a diplomat. After learning English from American diplomats who volunteered to support students from North Korea at his high school in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, every weekend, Lee thought it would be cool to become one. Lee did not pursue the dream all the way, but he carried on with his passion for learning the language. He found the process interesting and tried to take advantage of all available tools to make progress. One of them was a speech contest for those from North Korea hosted by Freedom Speakers International, a Seoul-based NGO that supports North Korean refugees in the South. At first, I didnt do well. So I tried again and again until I won the contest [held in 2021]. Lee said. I didnt give up because winning the grand prize was never my objective. I took it as part of the learning process and enjoyed every moment of it. Such efforts led him to career opportunities in the media industry, where he worked as a radio producer at Unification Media Group and as a freelance commentator for issues related to North Korea. He also launched his own YouTube channel. All this led him to another great opportunity. After being awarded a Fulbright scholarship, Lee is now preparing to start his first semester at a U.S. university this fall. Lee has not decided which school he will attend yet, but he has made up his mind on what he will study. Id like to learn more about international relations and be part of the international effort to combat food shortages, which still is a source of many human sufferings, he said. Looking back, Im deeply grateful for all the opportunities I received to dream and learn the things necessary to achieve that dream. Doctors group slams med school professors; nurses criticize doctors By Jun Ji-hye The medical community is facing an internal split as the conflict between the government and doctors over the medical school enrollment quota increase intensifies. The Korea Medical Association (KMA), the nation's largest coalition of doctors, criticized medical school professors at Seoul National University and Sunhkyunkwan University, whom the KMA believed sided with the government, which is seeking to add 2,000 seats at 40 medical schools nationwide next year. The KMA opposes this plan, saying the quota hike may compromise the quality of education and training that would-be doctors receive. In protest, thousands of trainee doctors have handed in their resignation notices and left their hospitals, resulting in significant disruptions to medical services nationwide. On Sunday, an association of professors at Sungkyunkwan University's medical school disclosed the results of its survey, which showed that most of the school's professors agreed with the need to increase the number of medical students. However, they recommended adding 350 to 500 instead of the government's plan to add 2,000. The association said that 201 professors participated in the survey conducted from last Friday to Saturday. "Both the government and the KMA should make a concession," the association said in a statement. "The government should stop unilaterally pushing for the quota hike, while the KMA should stop its protests." The survey results were inconsistent with the KMA's position, which says that the country is not experiencing a shortage of doctors and the quota increase is unnecessary. Joo Soo-ho, a KMA spokesperson, denounced the survey as not representing all of the school's professors. "There are more than 1,000 professors at the school, including those in contract-based positions, but the survey reflected opinions of only about 200," Joo said in a media briefing, noting that other professors who did not participate in the survey "are very embarrassed and angry." Joo also criticized Chung Jin-haeng, a professor at Seoul National University's medical school, who headed the emergency response committee of the professors' association of the school. The professors' association issued a statement on Monday, urging the government to hold regular talks with relevant parties and focus on persuading trainee doctors rather than resorting to threats. Joo said Chung met with one of the country's vice health ministers recently and has since made various remarks. But, according to Joo, there are more professors at the school who do not agree with Chung. Chung abruptly stepped down from the position four hours after her meeting with the trainee doctors. The Korean Health and Medical Workers' Union, comprised of nurses, caregivers and other health care workers, criticized doctors' protests, urging trainee doctors to stop their "unjustifiable refusal to treat patients" and go back to their hospitals. During a press conference, the union cited its survey that was conducted in December, which showed that 89.3 percent of the people supported the medical school quota hike. "The people do not agree with the KMA's claims that the country is not experiencing a shortage of doctors," a union official said. About 9,000 trainee doctors at major hospitals across the country, including the five biggest ones in Seoul, have walked off the job since their strike began on Feb. 19 in protest against the government's policy proposal. The government ordered them to go back to work by Thursday, warning that it would take legal action, including the suspension of their licenses and even indictments, if they do not return to work by the deadline. The Korean and the United States' antitrust regulators have discussed ways of enhancing bilateral cooperation on antitrust principles to promote economic fair competition, the regulator here said Wednesday. The discussions were made during a meeting between Cho Hong-sun, vice chairperson of the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), and Manish Kumar, deputy assistant attorney general for Criminal Enforcement at the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, in Seoul on Tuesday, according to the FTC. During the talks, the two sides shared their policy goals for this year and experiences of handling price fixing, fraud and a wide range of antitrust matters, particularly regarding the digital economy. They also discussed how to strengthen bilateral relationships to better respond to illegal moves that hamper fair competition, the FTC said. "The two sides have maintained close exchanges after signing a memorandum of understanding on antitrust cooperation in 2015," the FTC said in a release. "Korea will continue to boost international policy cooperation with foreign antitrust authorities in an effort to better ensure the people's economic freedom and opportunities." (Yonhap) A South Korean diplomat in Vietnam on Wednesday urged regulators in the Southeast Asian country to consider relaxing rules limiting foreign ownership and making shares in local companies more accessible to investors. Vietnam is determined to have its main Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange upgraded from frontier status to an emerging market by 2025, which would attract hefty capital inflows, but the country's strict limits on foreign ownership in certain sectors remain one of the key hurdles. "Vietnam can apply non-voting depository receipts (NVDR) to ease foreign ownership limits and increase access to foreign investors," Yoon Sang-key, South Korean Minister-Counselor to Vietnam, told a conference hosted by the government. "The Vietnamese stock market can attract more foreign capital through loosening foreign ownership limits, providing equal rights for foreign investors, liberalising the foreign exchange market and publishing market regulations in English," Yoon added. South Korean firms are among the biggest foreign investors in Vietnam and a key source of manufacturing jobs in the country. SK Group and Hana Bank have large investments in conglomerate Vingroup and the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam. For banks, foreign ownership cannot exceed 30 percent. Vietnam's stock market is running ahead of its neighbours, having risen almost 11 percent so far this year, but it remains the smallest among the main Southeast Asian economies. Being classified as a frontier market prevents many funds, investors and family offices from investing in companies listed in the country. "If the foreign ownership limit remains, Vietnam will likely only receive a maximum net capital inflow of $5 billion," Senior Financial Sector Specialist of World Bank Ketut Ariadi Kusuma said. "But if it is fully resolved, Vietnam's share in the emerging market index could increase by more than 1 percent and this could bring in an additional $8 to $15 billion." At Wednesday's event, fund and bank managers also urged regulators to quickly establish a clearing house which can solve the current pre-transaction deposit requirements problem, another factor that has hampered the upgrade process. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh told the conference the country was still determined to get the emerging market upgrade from equity index managers MSCI and FTSE in 2025. He said in a statement later that he was aware of the obstacles and difficulties raised by the meeting's participants and asked related government agencies to quickly address those issues. (Reuters) By Daniel J. Springer I was born in Japan but I dont think Im Japanese. To be a stranger, I like that attitude. These words, attributed to composer and pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto in the 1980s just a couple of years prior to his move to New York, capture the very essence of an artist who was often a complete enigma, even to his very devoted fans. Best-known as a member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra and as a soloist, Sakamoto was responsible for a discography that was both wildly innovative and responsible for the rise of several genres of electronic music that would come later in his storied life. Responsible for nearly 50 film scores over the years, Sakamoto was the very first Japanese composer to win an Oscar, for 1987s "The Last Emperor." In short, Ryuichi Sakamoto was simply a giant of modern music. That is, if one can focus and see him clearly through the fog and noise. One artist who certainly has done his homework on Sakamoto is composer Ian Chung, who is based in Seoul. On his latest single, Chung teams up with London-based cellist Akito Goto to pay tribute to an artist that both consider central to modern music itself. Ryuichi Sakamoto's influence on my work, and particularly on All the Little Lights in Tokyo, is profound and multifaceted, Chung stated recently to The Korea Times. First and foremost, it's his boundless creativity and innovative spirit that have always inspired me. Mr. Sakamoto was a pioneer who seamlessly blended genres, from electronic music to classical compositions, creating soundscapes that were both avant-garde and deeply emotive. However, Chungs admiration for Sakamoto is not limited in any way to only the mans artistic creations. Beyond his music, Mr. Sakamoto's life and his stance on various social issues also inspired me, Chung was careful to note. His activism and commitment to environmental causes, his courage in facing personal health challenges and his overall integrity as an artist and human being have profoundly influenced not just the music I create, but the way I strive to live my life. In essence, Ryuichi Sakamoto has been a guiding light in my journey as a composer. But how does one distill such a multifaceted legacy into one single? Given Chungs dedication to everything Sakamoto was about, it must have been a bit of a challenge to try and do so with All the Little Lights in Tokyo. There are two moments from Ryuichi Sakamotos long story that stand out for Chung which he specifically references in both the music and press statements for this new single. Firstly, for anyone familiar with Sakamotos very deep discography, one particular single does stand out, at least commercially speaking and thus what casual fans almost inevitably mention: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. The song is the title track to the film released in 1983, which starred David Bowie and Sakamoto himself. The story is of a prisoner of war's experiences on the island of Java during World War II in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and the score for this film garnered Sakamoto his first BAFTA win. Chung himself notes that the distinctive motifs on this song can be heard on his new single. Specifically, the transition in 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,' where the tune evolves and intensifies emotionally, became a pivotal inspiration for my composition for this tribute version. This aspect mirrors Mr. Sakamoto's ability to navigate between simplicity and complexity, a feature that resonates within the rhythmic pattern and structural repetition [of All the Little Lights in Tokyo]. The second notable moment in the Ryuichi Sakamoto saga comes much later, as he composed his final film score for 2023's Monster and struggled mightily to have his last live performance captured in 2023's Opus. On both of these pivotal late moments for Sakamoto, Chung notes the profound personal impact of his resilience prior to passing from cancer that is captured in both Opus and Monster, but particularly the latter. As always, without loudly declaring I am Ryuichi Sakamoto, he subtly enhanced each scene in the film, contributing to the message and completeness without overdoing it," Chung said. "In memory of Ryuichi Sakamoto in the ending credits still resonates deeply with me. On All The Little Lights In Tokyo, Chung has teamed up with London-based Japanese cellist Akito Goto, but not for the first time. The two first worked together on a previously released single, Life Goes On. For this single to continue the pairs ongoing collaborative journey, Gotos input as Chung saw it was essential, and its not in what one hears per se on the single that is important. In working with Akito for the second time, it was clear that our collaborative synergy had only grown stronger, allowing us to explore more complex emotional landscapes and push the boundaries of our creative expression, Chung enthusiastically noted. His contribution to All the Little Lights in Tokyo was invaluable, not only in terms of the technical excellence he brought to the piece but in the way his performance captured the essence of the tribute's emotional and narrative depth. Naturally, since Chung also spent key years growing up in Ireland, Canada and Australia, Sakamotos music, much like his worldly attitude, transcends simple neighborhood tendencies. While also being greatly influenced by his native country, Chung has a very international outlook quite akin to Sakamotos own although unlike Sakamoto, he does very much consider himself Korean in the classical sense. Ireland especially, much like Sakamotos time in New York, shaped Chung as an artist. The cultural resonance between Koreans and the Irish, with our shared depths of joy and sorrow, the pure, unpolished honesty of the people and the rich tapestry of history, literature and music, all play pivotal roles in shaping my music. Chung also noted Sakamotos own deep relationship with Korea, having scored several Korean films over the years and been influenced greatly by Paik Nam June, which in turn has made Sakamoto a household name among aspiring Korean composers and soloists. And this is an important aspect of Chungs tribute to Sakamoto: bridging the gap and it can often be a yawning one between Japan and Korea. Music, inherently, acts as a bridge for empathy, understanding and connection across cultural divides, Chung emphasized. This piece seeks to highlight the commonalities shared across all cultures a recognition of our shared humanity, emotions and narratives. In crafting and sharing this work, my goal has always been to positively contribute to the global cultural tapestry, encouraging listeners to appreciate the beauty and depth of human expression in its myriad forms. This sentiment, it would seem, is one that Ryuichi Sakamoto himself would most certainly approve of. Ian Chung's All the Little Lights in Tokyo featuring Akito Goto, is available on all platforms. Daniel Springer is the former host of The Drop with Danno on GFN, and current music director and resident DJ at FRIENDS. By Nam Hyun-woo The government's emergency mobile alerts will now feature English keywords to help foreign residents quickly comprehend the content of the alarms. According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Korea Meteorological Administration, the government's mobile disaster alerts will start including brief information in English regarding the type and severity of the alert. In the event of an earthquake, the alert message will display the keyword Earthquake and its magnitude in English. Similarly, the message will notify recipients of various disaster situations such as heavy rain, air raid, nuclear warning and forest fires. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has been operating the Emergency Ready App, which provides disaster alerts in English and Chinese for foreign residents who are not proficient at Korean. Through the latest measure, the ministry said it will help foreign nationals to understand disaster messages more quickly. The measure is aimed at helping foreigners quickly understand disaster situations and evacuate safely, Safety Minister Lee Sang-min said. The government will continue to work with relevant agencies to improve disaster safety information services for foreigners visiting or residing in the country. Depending on the severity of the situation, the government sends three types of mobile alert messages urgent disaster alert, emergency disaster alert and safety guidance alert. Urgent disaster alerts are intended to notify of national crises such as an attack from North Korea, while emergency disaster alerts are sent to inform recipients of heavy rain and other natural or social disasters. Both types of alerts are accompanied by alert tones. The U.S. Defense Department has started a process to solicit industry feedback on its pursuit of a defense procurement agreement with South Korea to allow easier access to each other's market amid growing security uncertainties from North Korean threats and other challenges. Last week, the department posted a notice in the Federal Register to request public comments on the pursuit of a new Reciprocal Defense Procurement (RDP) Agreement with South Korea through March 25. Seoul and Washington have been seeking to sign the agreement as President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden committed to strengthening partnerships in defense-sector supply chains and beginning talks on the agreement during their summit in April last year. "The purpose of an RDP Agreement is to promote rationalization, standardization, interchangeability and interoperability of conventional defense equipment with allies and other friendly governments," the department said in the notice. "These agreements provide a framework for ongoing communication regarding market access and procurement matters that enhance effective defense cooperation," it added. The Pentagon has concluded RDP agreements with 28 countries, it said. The RDP agreement is dubbed a defense-sector free trade agreement designed to reduce trade barriers and bolster bilateral exchanges. In a social media post, Rep. Michelle Park Steel (R-CA), a lawmaker of Korean descent, said that she recently wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to urge him to work on improving reciprocal defense procurement between the two countries. "With rising threats from the (Chinese Communist Party) and North Korea, I am so glad to hear the (Department of Defense) is taking action with South Korea to strengthen both of our defense capabilities," she wrote. In November, Seoul and Washington signed the Security of Supply Arrangement, allowing the two sides to request priority delivery for orders of defense-related goods from one another. (Yonhap) Defense chiefs hold phone talks over North Korea, Russia By Nam Hyun-woo South Korea and the United States will conduct their annual Freedom Shield exercise from March 4 to 14 to strengthen their combined defensive posture against North Koreas escalating threats, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, Wednesday. During a press briefing, the JCS said the 11-day non-stop exercise will be a realistic exercise to strengthen the allies combined defense capabilities based on scenarios reflecting diverse security threats and lessons learned from recent wars. It will be focusing on conducting multi-domain operations, using land, sea, air, cyber and space assets as well as countering North Koreas nuclear operations, the JCS said. Freedom Shield is a large-scale combined military exercise between the allies held annually in March. In August, the allies also conduct the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which is held jointly with the South Korean governments interagency training called Ulchi Exercise. Freedom Shield is a computer-simulated, defense-oriented and command post exercise event, featuring live simulations of war scenarios. During the exercise, the allies also conduct field drills, which have expanded under the current Yoon Suk Yeol administration. During next months training, the allies will conduct 48 rounds of field training drills throughout South Korea, which is more than double those of last years edition. Also, training for tracking and intercepting North Korean cruise missiles is included in this year's program, given that Pyongyang has already fired cruise missiles five times this year. There will be a variety of combined field training exercises in sea-land-air to increase interoperability and enhance the combined operation capabilities of the alliance, the JCS said. It remains unknown whether the U.S. will send its nuclear assets such as strategic bombers or nuclear submarines to the Korean Peninsula during the exercise. Some member states of the United Nations Command will participate in the drills, and the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission will observe them. South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin held a phone conversation, Wednesday, reaffirming the importance of close coordination between their nations to maintain overwhelming combined defense posture against North Koreas nuclear and missile threats. During their talks, they also shared concerns over North Korea's supply of munitions and missiles to Russia. They shared concerns that the illegal weapons trade and stronger military cooperation between Russia and North Korea are serious threats not only to the Korean Peninsula but also to global peace and stability, and pledged to firmly respond in coordination with the international community, the South Korean defense ministry said in a press release. During a press conference on Monday, Shin said the North has shipped about 6,700 containers carrying munitions to Russia since July 2023 to support Russia's war against Ukraine, in exchange for approximately 10,000 containers of food and other necessities. If those munitions are 152-millimeter rounds, the amount would be more than 3 million rounds, Shin said. The operating rate of Norths munition plants remains at around 30 percent, but those producing munitions heading to Russia are in full operation. President Yoon Suk Yeol warned Wednesday of an immediate and overwhelming response to any North Korean provocation ahead of the South Korean parliamentary elections in April. "North Korea is highly likely to carry out various provocations and psychological warfare in order to create social confusion and divide public opinion ahead of this year's general elections," he said during a commissioning ceremony for the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at the Army Cadet Military School in Goesan, 114 kilometers southeast of Seoul. "At times like this, the military must unite with the people to firmly defeat North Korea's scheme to sway the Republic of Korea," he said, using South Korea's formal name. Yoon reiterated the need to achieve "peace through strength" based on an overwhelming capability and readiness posture, not a "fake peace" relying on the other party's good intentions. He noted that North Korea is the only country in the world to have legalized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons and continues to make nuclear threats and stage missile provocations while defining the South as its "primary foe" and threatening to completely occupy the South. "Our government and military will maintain a strong and firm readiness posture so that North Korea will not dare challenge the Republic of Korea, and in the event North Korea provokes, respond immediately and overwhelmingly," he said. Yoon vowed to complete the integrated nuclear extended deterrence regime between South Korea and the United States through the Nuclear Consultative Group and to accelerate the development of the homegrown three-axis system to block North Korea's nuclear threats at their source. The three-axis system involves anti-missile defense, a program to incapacitate the North Korean leadership and a preemptive strike platform. He also vowed to further strengthen security cooperation between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan, as well as solidarity with the international community, based on a strong South Korea-U.S. alliance. (Yonhap) The teenage assailant who attacked Rep. Bae Hyun-jin of the ruling People Power Party with a rock last month is believed to have committed the crime to grab media attention, police said Wednesday. Referring the 15-year-old to the prosecution without physical detention for indictment on special violence charges, the Seoul Gangnam Police Station said it reached the assessment after looking into his disposition and past behavior. On Jan. 25, the boy struck Bae on the head 15 times with a rock the size of an adult man's fist in Seoul's southern district of Gangnam. The attack left Bae, a television news anchor-turned-lawmaker, hospitalized for three days. "When comprehensively considering his disposition and past behavior, he seems to have committed the crime to draw attention from the press," said Kim Dong-soo, the chief of the Gangnam Police Station during a press briefing. However, no evidence was found that pointed to him premeditating the crime targeting Bae specifically, or conspiring with others on the act, he added. "The suspect visited the site to meet a would-be celebrity, and committed the attack after bumping into Bae by accident," Kim said, adding the suspect did not elaborate on the exact motive of the crime. A police official said they proceeded with the investigations without physical attention, citing the suspect being a juvenile offender and him admitting to the crime. Meanwhile, the teenage suspect was found to be the same person who threw coffee at actor Yoo Ah-in on his way out of the Mapo Police Station after his arrest warrant over drug charges was denied by the court. He also allegedly threw a wallet at the vandal behind the copycat scribbling on Gyeongbok Palace walls attending an arrest warrant hearing in December last year. (Yonhap) China's Xiamen: A successful practice of sustainable development in bay city 10:52, February 28, 2024 By Hou Lulu, Bao Han ( People's Daily Xiamen in southeast China's Fujian province is a typical bay city. It rises from the sea, drawn into its embrace. The ecological conservation of bay cities is a global issue. Xiamen is rich in marine resources, but its sea area is small, which has been subjected to intense development and frequent economic activities. As a result, the city's marine ecosystem was once fragile. Photo taken in January 2024 shows the Yundang Lake in Xiamen, southeast China's Fujian province. (People's Daily Online/Chen Bo) On March 30, 1988, Xi Jinping, who then served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Xiamen Municipal Committee and executive vice mayor of Xiamen, chaired a special meeting on cleaning up the Yundang Lake in Xiamen. The meeting is believed as the start of the comprehensive treatment of the lake that has lasted more than 30 years so far. It also started Xiamen's ecological protection and restoration of sea, river basins, and the entire region, as well as coordinated efforts on land and at sea to improve the city's marine ecological environment. While advancing the comprehensive treatment of the Yundang Lake, Xiamen launched cooperation with the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) in 1994 for integrated coastal management. It successfully developed a model featuring in-advance legislation, centralized coordination, technological support, integrated law enforcement and public participation, which has been recognized by the International Maritime Organization as the "Xiamen Model." This model for integrated coastal management in Xiamen, along with efforts for the River Thames in Britain and the Boston Harbor in the U.S., has been highlighted by the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection as three exemplary global cases that show that determined, coordinated action can produce benefits even in large urban areas, where development and population pressures are concentrated. The "Xiamen Model" has been widely promoted internationally and has had a significant impact. Over the past 30 years, Xiamen has gradually built a "circle of friends" to share its ideas and experiences, actively participating in global marine governance. The city has conducted training courses in Costa Rica on topics such as mariculture technology and marine spatial planning. It has also collaborated with Thailand on beach restoration in Pattaya and established a joint marine ecology station in North Sulawesi province, Indonesia. Photo taken in January 2024 shows the Xiatanwei mangrove park in Xiamen, southeast China's Fujian province. (People's Daily Online/Chen Bo) "The practices of Xiamen in marine ecological conservation provide valuable references for other countries and regions. This is a meaningful step in the history of global marine governance," said PEMSEA Chair Emeritus Chua Thia-Eng. In October 2005, an international marine city forum was held in Xiamen, and since 2007 it has been officially upgraded to the World Ocean Week in Xiamen. The event has become one of the most important platforms globally for promoting water cooperation and exchanges. Today, the World Ocean Week in Xiamen has been held for 18 consecutive years and has gradually developed into an international annual event that combines ocean-themed forums, professional exhibitions, and ocean cultural carnivals. Many important collaborations on the ocean took place in the grand event, and many significant achievements were born there. It has collaborated with important international programs such as the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and established a long-term cooperation mechanism with the Global Ocean Negative Carbon Emissions program. The International Digital Twins of the Ocean Summit 2023 was held during the World Ocean Week in Xiamen, which used data to create a virtual ocean and provide a strong digital foundation for the development of the ocean economy and ecological protection. The Digital Deep-Sea Typical Habitats major scientific program was officially announced during the 2023 World Ocean Week in Xiamen, bringing together top scientists around the world to explore the deep sea. Foreigners pose for a photo during the 2023 World Ocean Week in Xiamen. (Photo from the official website of the Xiamen Marine International Cooperation Center) "I am very encouraged by Xiamen's active participation in international ocean cooperation," said Peter Thomson, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Ocean, when attending the opening ceremony of the World Ocean Week in Xiamen in November 2023. It was the third time for him to join the event. Xiamen is deeply involved in global ocean governance, fostering "blue partnerships" and strengthening cooperation with relevant countries and regions in areas such as marine resource development and marine ecological restoration. It has collaborated with ASEAN countries on the seaweed industry and the construction of marine protected area networks. It has also joined forces with BRICS countries to establish a BRICS ocean sustainable development research center. Additionally, Xiamen has partnered with multiple countries' marine authorities, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Solomon Islands, as well as the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission's Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific, to launch the Blue Citizen Initiative and incorporated it into the deliverables of maritime cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. Furthermore, the Secretariat of the PEMSEA Network of Local Governments has permanently settled in Xiamen. Through these efforts, Xiamen aims to contribute Chinese wisdom and solutions to addressing global marine ecological issues, and to provide solutions for the protection and sustainable development of the world's marine environment. "I find China's ecological civilization approach to be very inspiring," said Thomson, adding that Xiamen, once a participant in international programs, should take the lead in certain areas of marine conservation. (Web editor: Chang Sha, Liang Jun) By Jung Da-hyun The Seoul Metropolitan Government began recruiting 40 monitoring personnel from Monday until March 8 to address and understand the inconveniences faced by foreign residents living in Seoul. This program, launched in 2012, encourages foreign residents to actively participate in the city's policymaking by providing insights from their experiences and suggesting improvements. Last year's program was participated by 37 monitors from 20 different countries. Eligible applicants include foreign residents, naturalized and marriage immigrants, who have lived in Seoul for over a year and possess proficiency in either Korean or English. Those interested in the program must submit their applications via email. The selection process involves a document review, and candidates for the program will be notified individually by March 15. Selected participants will actively engage in the program for nine months, from April to December this year. They will receive an activity fee of 30,000 won ($22.50) per report, and they can submit up to four reports per month. During the recruitment phase, the city government plans to consider applicants' country of origin and skills to ensure an effective collection of opinions on inconveniences faced by foreign residents. The city government is actively listening to the voices of foreign residents, aiming to enhance their living experiences and create a welcoming and attractive city that people will want to visit and live in, said Lee Jeong-oak, director of the Family and Multiculturalism Division at the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Details can be found on the official websites of the city government and Hanultari for multicultural families. Experts highlight tailored policies based on types of foreign residents By Jung Da-hyun Local governments are engaged in a competitive bid to host the country's new immigration agency, as legislative efforts to establish one gain momentum in the National Assembly. This agency is expected to play the role of a control tower for handling affairs related to foreign residents. Rep. Jeong Jeom-sig and nine other lawmakers from the ruling People Power Party (PPP) have proposed a bill, Feb. 2, to revise the Government Organization Act, aiming to create an immigration agency under the Ministry of Justice. The PPP's interim leader Han Dong-hoon, who had served as the justice minister before joining the party, has actively supported advanced immigration policies to tackle the nations demographic challenges. With approximately 2.3 million foreign nationals making up 4.4 percent of the total population, there is a growing need for cohesive immigration policies through the creation of a dedicated government entity. Ansan in Gyeonggi Province is actively vying for the establishment of the new immigration agency in the region. With 14.2 percent of its population being made up of foreign nationals, Ansan has proactively been highlighting its already-existing special organization that provides services for foreign residents. The city was designated as an inaugural special zone for multicultural villages in Wongok-dong. Additionally, it garnered recognition after joining the Council of Europe's Intercultural Cities Programme. Recently, the city reached out to 116 embassies in Korea seeking cooperation, and submitted a proposal to the justice ministry, aiming to attract the immigration agency. It also revealed plans to offer local university sites and buildings as potential government facilities by signing agreements with the universities. Gimpo and Goyang in Gyeonggi Province and Incheon have also formalized their stances and are actively aiming to attract the new immigration agency to their respective areas. Gimpo submitted a proposal to the justice ministry last year, signaling its proactive stance. The city also established a task force to attract the new immigration agency. It underscored its geographical advantages, emphasizing that key transportation hubs are found there or nearby: Incheon International Airport, Gimpo International Airport, Gyeongin Port and Incheon Port are conveniently situated all within a 30-minute proximity of each other. This highlights the citys significance in fostering efficient transportation and facilitating international exchanges. Goyang stressed its accessibility, boasting airports and ports within a 40-kilometer radius. It is also close to an extensive network of railroads and major road systems. The city asserted the importance of attracting the new immigration agency to the region, highlighting that the northern part of Gyeonggi Province alone accommodates approximately 110,000 foreign residents. Incheon, where the Overseas Koreans Agency is located, is also actively advocating for the attraction of a new immigration agency, emphasizing potential positive outcomes, such as fostering business links. Other local governments, including South Chungcheong Province, South Jeolla Province, North Gyeongsang Province and Busan, have also joined the bid. South Chungcheong Province, in particular, said that the optimal location for the new immigration agency should be in a non-metropolitan area, as the Overseas Koreans Agency was established in Incheon. The province also has a large number of foreign residents, exceeding 98,000. Cho Jung-hyun, a professor of international law at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, stressed the significance of establishing a new immigration agency in response to the changing dynamics of the increasing number of foreign residents. Local governments and the central government should cooperate and establish several branches for this agency, he said. He emphasized the need for comprehensive consideration regarding various factors, including accessibility, in deciding the agencys location, and argued against having only one in Seoul or Incheon, citing operational limitations. If the local government actively speaks out and the central government also expedites the establishment of the immigration office and promotes the policy, it would be more beneficial, Cho said. Meanwhile, professor Seol Dong-hoon from the Department of Sociology at Jeonbuk National University contends that immigration should not be viewed solely as a means to address population decline in society. Different policies should be applied based on the types of foreign residents, he said. He advocates for a tailored approach, suggesting that for permanent immigrants, the focus should be on accepting individuals who can actively contribute to society and facilitating their successful settlement. A separate policy for temporary immigrants, including foreign workers and international students, should be focused on assisting them in transitioning their visa status if they meet certain standards, such as becoming skilled workers. Rather than an unconditional focus on settling foreign residents in Korea, immigration policies should be crafted to benefit our society in diverse ways and effectively manage the influx, Seol said. Medical services at major hospitals have been disrupted as a mass walkout by trainee doctors is nearing a deadline set by the government to return to work, but a small number of junior doctors went back to work. About 9,000 trainee doctors walked off their jobs for the ninth day in a row Wednesday, as the government ordered them to go back to work by Thursday. Unless they return to work, they will face suspension of licenses and even indictment, but both the government and junior doctors showed little signs of backing down. At the center of the dispute is the government's plan to boost the medical school enrollment quota by 2,000 next year, from the current 3,058. On Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol said the plan is a "minimum necessary measure" to address a shortage of doctors and stressed that, "This cannot and should not be a subject for negotiation or compromise." In another sign of the government's hard-line stance against the walkout, the health ministry filed a complaint with the police against five doctors affiliated with the Korea Medical Association (KMA), a major lobby group of senior doctors, seeking a probe on charges of violation of the medical law and obstruction of justice. The government has called for trainee doctors to resume work by Thursday, assuring those who comply will not be held responsible for their prior actions, while warning of zero-tolerance consequences for people who fail to comply. As of Tuesday night, 9,937 trainee doctors had submitted resignations and 8,992 of them had left worksites, according to the ministry. So far, the ministry ordered 9,267 trainee doctors to return to work, a sharp hike from 7,036 and seen as another step to put more pressure on those on leave. As the deadline approached, some trainee doctors went back to work. At Konkuk University Medical Center in Seoul, 12 trainee doctors out of a total of around 200 have resumed their duties. "There were 12 trainee doctors who were confirmed to have returned Monday," an official at the university hospital told Yonhap News Agency. As the mass walkout continued, the number of surgeries performed at major hospitals reportedly halved. In response to the shortage of medical staff, the government has permitted nurses to undertake certain doctor roles in a limited capacity since the previous day. "In the absence of trainee doctors, hospitals are pushing other workers, including nurses, to perform duties meant for doctors, posing a potential risk of accidents," an official from the labor union at Seoul National University Hospital said. Korea has been pushing to increase the number of medical freshmen to address a shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas and essential medical fields, such as high-risk surgeries, pediatrics, obstetrics and emergency medicine. Doctors, however, argue that the government should rather focus on protecting them from malpractice suits and improving compensation to induce more physicians to practice in such unpopular areas. Also on Wednesday, health ministry officials started visiting the homes of trainee doctors to deliver the government's back-to-work order, in a final step that would allow the government to file a criminal complaint over the labor action. In previous labor actions, trainee doctors had refused to receive the order by turning off their phones when the government sent such an order via text messages. A ministry official said delivering the order in person is aimed at ensuring "the effectiveness of delivery" in a potential legal dispute with trainee doctors. The government has called for trainee doctors to resume work by Thursday, assuring those who comply will not be held responsible for their prior actions, while warning of zero-tolerance consequences for people who fail to comply. As of Tuesday night, 9,937 trainee doctors had submitted resignations and 8,992 of them had left worksites, according to the ministry. So far, the ministry ordered 9,267 trainee doctors to return to work, a sharp hike from 7,036 and seen as another step to put more pressure on those on leave. As the deadline approached, some trainee doctors went back to work. At Konkuk University Medical Center in Seoul, 12 trainee doctors out of a total of around 200 have resumed their duties. "There were 12 trainee doctors who were confirmed to have returned Monday," an official at the university hospital told Yonhap News Agency. As the mass walkout continued, the number of surgeries performed at major hospitals reportedly halved. In response to the shortage of medical staff, the government has permitted nurses to undertake certain doctor roles in a limited capacity since the previous day. "In the absence of trainee doctors, hospitals are pushing other workers, including nurses, to perform duties meant for doctors, posing a potential risk of accidents," an official from the labor union at Seoul National University Hospital said. Korea has been pushing to increase the number of medical freshmen to address a shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas and essential medical fields, such as high-risk surgeries, pediatrics, obstetrics and emergency medicine. Doctors, however, argue that the government should rather focus on protecting them from malpractice suits and improving compensation to induce more physicians to practice in such unpopular areas. (Yonhap) A leading progressive civic group said Wednesday the concentration of economic power in chaebol, or large family-run conglomerates, has been deepening, saying the total assets held by the five largest conglomerates exceed 60 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). The Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ) said in a news conference that the total assets of the big-five chaebol Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor, LG and Lotte amounted to 1,324.8 trillion won ($1 trillion) as of 2022, accounting for 61 percent of the nation's GDP, 2,161.7 trillion won. In 2007, the five conglomerates' total assets were 350.2 trillion won, or 32 percent of the nation's GDP, the CCEJ said, adding their assets have increased approximately 3.8 times over the past 15 years and their proportion compared to GDP had doubled. The civic group then urged the government to implement measures to prevent chaebol from increasing their assets through real estate investments and pursuing indiscriminate business expansion. (Yonhap) The unprecedentedly low birth rate in Korea last year highlighted the daunting demographic task the country is facing of how to prevent depopulation amid little signs of improvement over changing social norms and tougher economic circumstances, experts said Wednesday. Data by Statistics Korea showed that the country's total fertility rate, which means the average number of expected births from a woman in her lifetime, fell to an all-time quarterly low of 0.65 in the October-December period in 2023. It came far below the 2.1 births per woman needed to keep the country's population at 51 million in a stable manner without immigration. The yearly rate also dropped to 0.72 in 2023 from the previous year's 0.78. The comparable figure in 2015 came to 1.24. Korea is the only country among the member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) where the total fertility rate had come below one as of 2021. It came on the heels of Hong Kong in terms of the low total fertility rate across the globe, which logged the world's lowest total fertility rate of 0.77. The number of babies born in Korea last year also tumbled to a record low of 229,970 by decreasing 7.7 percent on-year. The number hovered below the 400,000 mark for the first time ever in 2017, and skidded further to below 300,000 in 2020 and to under 250,000 in 2022. The country has suffered a natural decline in population for four consecutive years since 2020. Things are feared to be getting worse. "The total fertility rate is expected to come to around 0.68 this year, and the number of newborns is also likely to go down further as many had postponed marriage and childbirths over the past several years due to the COVID-19 pandemic," agency official Lim Young-il told reporters. The number of newly married couples has risen after the pandemic, but that does not mean that the birth rate will rise accordingly, given recent social trends. "We've seen a growing number of married couples opting not to have babies, so the probability of more marriages and more babies has become low," Lim added. By 2072, the country's population will tumble to around 36.22 million, and the median age will increase to 63.4 from 44.9 in 2022, according to the forecast by the statistics agency. During a forum last year, Oxford University professor emeritus David Coleman warned that Korea may become the first country to disappear from population extinction in around 2750 if its low birth rate continued. The professor pointed to the country's patriarchal culture, competition-oriented education, low gender equality and rare out-of-wedlock births, among other factors. "The population decline poses serious threats not only to the labor market and state finance but every aspect of the society from national defense to education and medical services," Lee Sang-rim, an expert of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, said. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Korea is forecast to drop 28.38 percent in 2050 from the 2022 level as the working age population is projected to slide 34.75 percent during the cited period, a report by the institute showed. The number of military personnel has been on a steady decline to fall below 500,000 for the first time in 2022, and many have warned that the shrinking pool of conscripts could erode the country's military recruitment capabilities. All able-bodied men must serve mandatory military service for at least 18 months in Korea. "What we need is not just policy measures to boost population, but a firm political resolution to address the issue by making all-out efforts in mobilizing all possible resources," Lee said. The health ministry in December 2023 vowed to come up with "extraordinary measures," though no major plans have been announced. Korea increased the budget to respond to such grim demographic changes from around 2.1 trillion won in 2006 to 11.1 trillion won in 2012 and further to 21.4 trillion won in 2016. But it accounted for about 2 percent of GDP. President Yoon Suk Yeol has called for approaching the issue of the declining birth rate from "a fundamentally different perspective," emphasizing the need to identify its causes and find effective solutions. Rivals announced a set of measures of their own aimed at addressing the low birth rate, such as guaranteeing parental leave for fathers, the establishment of a population ministry to oversee the demographic changes, and giving rented housing for couples with multiple babies and expanded cash payout for parents. Many young Koreans, however, appear to have remained skeptical about such pledges, as they are facing multiple, complex and fundamental reasons of not having a baby, such as unaffordable homes amid a tough job market, high costs and unfavorable social circumstances of raising children, and notoriously long work hours. "Upon getting married, my husband and I agreed not to have a baby. I want to continue my carrier, and I don't think we can afford the costs of living, child rearing and education in this society," Chung Min-sun, a 34-year-old office worker in Seoul, said. "My sister had a daughter, and I will never lead such a miserable life as what my sister has had over the past seven years while struggling with her work and child care. I am not alone, as many of my friends have the same plan as me," Chung added. (Yonhap) President Yoon Suk Yeol visited the birthplace of former first lady Yook Young-su, the assassinated wife of former conservative President Park Chung-hee, on Wednesday, his office said. Yoon was greeted by a large number of local residents at the house in Okcheon, 149 kilometers south of Seoul, and he shook hands with them one by one before laying flowers and offering a silent tribute to the former first lady, according to presidential spokesperson Kim Soo-kyung. Yook was killed in August 1974 in a bungled assassination attempt on her husband by a pro-Pyongyang ethnic-Korean man from Japan. Kim said the president toured the house and signed a guestbook with the words: "I will remember the virtuous will of first lady Yook Young-su, who loved the less privileged and children, and warmly look after the people." Yoon is the first sitting president to visit the former first lady's birthplace, the spokesperson said. (Yonhap) By William R. Jones Recently, I surfaced an old newspaper clipping headlined The costliest theft of all: Work time." Robert Half (before passing away at 82 years of age in September 2001) surveyed and performed nationwide studies of time theft within the workplace. He was the founder of Robert Half International, Inc. It is basically a human resource consulting firm that recruits for companies. Accordingly, the article stated that the deliberate waste and abuse of time on the job costs billions of dollars, in fact, three times as much as shoplifting or employee pilferage. Half gave the most common examples of time-wasting and I saw myself as guilty of one of the inclusions (attending to personal business). Therefore, I was hesitant and delayed in writing about the topic. However, as I give an unrequired 16 hours very nearly every Saturday and Sunday to the university, I feel okay to attend to a bit of personal business during the weekdays. Arriving late for work; leaving early; long lunch breaks; fabricating illness and taking unwarranted sick days; spending unreasonable amounts of time socializing with co-workers; reading newspapers, magazines, or books; attending to personal business; daydreaming and general inattention to the work; numerous and long personal telephone calls; extended coffee breaks; deliberately slowing down in order to create overtime; and eating lunch on the premises then going out for a lunch hour constitutes Robert Halfs coverage. Nowadays, we could probably add smartphone social media attention, and/or cyber-loafing (surfing the web). Good grief, through the years (especially my military and civil service employment) at times I have been guilty of each and every example! In my case, I presented a cost to taxpayers, not a loss of profits to any particular business or company. The Journal of Vocational Behavior refers to Robert Halfs delineations as counterproductive work behavior (CWB) And, in particular, production deviance, which is defined as the purposeful failure to perform job tasks correctly and effectively (quality and quantity) the way they are supposed to be performed or simply the failure to do a task. This CWB is considered passive, less visible and difficult to prove. Thus, time theft is when an employee accepts pay for time they have not actually put into their work. Therefore, it is using paid work time for nonwork-related activities without the employers authorization. Its important to note that Robert Half stated in an interview that Nothing is time theft unless its excessive. A chat with a colleague, a personal phone call, or a trip to the water cooler is not time theft unless they are inordinate, that is, numerous and going beyond normal limits. In most countries, there is no law that makes employee time theft illegal. So, it is usually classified as employee misconduct rather than a crime. However, there can be consequences to dodging responsibilities. CWB is volitional and presents a negative work culture and decreases employee morale. Not easily aroused to activity, it is a challenge for employers to incentivize employees to remain actively engaged or occupied. Some business establishments are more prone than others. CWB dilutes profits and eventually, the customers pay for the loss one way or another. The author (wrjones@vsu.edu) published the novella "Beyond Harvard" and presently teaches English as a second language. By Kwon Mee-yoo Korean food is making an ascent in the ever-evolving international culinary scene with its rich flavors and distinctive dishes, mirroring the broader appeal of Korean culture. K-food is transitioning from being exclusively the preserve of Koreans to becoming a global phenomenon, especially captivating the tastebuds of younger generations around the world. The recent spotlight on Busan by the Michelin Guide, marking its debut underscores the international culinary community's recognition of K-food. The southeastern port city received a notable nod of approval from the Michelin Guide, with three One Star restaurants and 15 of its restaurants earning Bib Gourmand honors. Special attention was given to eateries specializing in "dwaeji gukbap," or pork and rice soup, a staple of Busans culinary identity. The Michelin Guide's acknowledgment of Busan's delicacies, such as dwaeji gukbap and naengmyeon, or cold buckwheat noodles, highlights the city's rich culinary landscape shaped by its bustling port and fresh ingredients. Adding to this culinary acclaim, a New York branch of Korean restaurant Okdongshik, garnered a spot in The New York Times' "8 Best Dishes in New York City" in 2023. The restaurant received acclaim for its "pork gomtang," pork bone soup, a classic dish presented in gukbap style with rice simmered directly into the hearty soup. The New York Times described pork gomtang as a "golden pork broth, sliced pork and white rice" and praised it stating, "This is a soup that you can savor every day, and it becomes especially comforting on the day you receive unwelcome news. Consuming it is an instant mood-lifter." This dish underscores the growing appetite for Korean cuisine beyond its borders, illustrating how traditional Korean dishes are being appreciated and savored by an international audience. This recognition is not an isolated incident but part of a broader wave of K-food's increasing popularity worldwide. Backed by hallyu, or the Korean wave, this global phenomenon of Korean cultural exports varies from music and dramas to beauty products and, recently, food. Hallyu has paved the way to help introduce Korean cuisine to the world, making dishes like kimchi, "bulgogi," marinated slices of meat and "bibimbap," a Korean rice dish, household names in many countries. The ripple effect of Korean dramas, movies and social media has extended this culinary curiosity to include more Korean dishes such as "tteokbokki," a spicy rice cake dish, "mandu," Korean dumplings, ramyeon, or instant noodle and Korean fried chicken. The influence of Korean culture, amplified by celebrities and social media, has significantly boosted international interest in Korean cuisine, driving demand and curiosity for authentic Korean food experiences. For instance, when K-pop idols eat tteokbokki during live broadcasts or mention tteokbokki as their favorite food, it instantly spikes global curiosity and demand for this Korean dish. A survey by the Seoul Tourism Organization in 2023 revealed that the allure of delicious Korean food was a major draw for tourists returning to Seoul, with 75.9 percent citing it as their primary reason for revisiting. The surge in popularity of Korean food is also reflected in the surge of its exports. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the amount of K-food exports in 2023 exceeded 16 trillion won ($12.1 billion), up 2.6 percent from the previous year. The demand for Korean fried chicken, kimchi and ramyeon, in particular, has seen an uptick, showcasing the global palate's growing affinity for Korean flavors. The outlook for Korean cuisine's presence on the global culinary scene is not only promising but also bound to expand further. To sustain and amplify this growth, adopting a multifaceted strategy that leverages hallyu along with digital technology, is key to engaging broader audiences. The efforts to globalize Korean cuisine include initiatives such as social media challenges featuring Korean dishes to Korean cooking shows on international streaming services. Moreover, there's an opportunity for Korean culinary diplomacy, where food becomes a medium to foster cultural exchanges and understanding. Initiatives could include global Korean cooking competitions, collaborative pop-ups with international chefs and scholarships for aspiring chefs to study Korea's culinary arts. Decision makers should learn lessons from the past By John Merrill In some ways, the dynamics of the Ukraine-Russian conflict, which began two years ago this month, resemble those of the Korean War. First, there is a sudden attack by an invader who expects to achieve victory within weeks, if not days. Compare North Koreas quick capture of Seoul in June 1950 with predictions that Kyiv would collapse almost immediately after Moscow launched its invasion. Then the defenders launch a successful counterattack, akin to the Incheon landing during the Korean War or Ukraine's retaking of Kherson and other cities from Russian forces in late 2022, momentarily igniting hopes of victory. Finally, the war becomes bogged down in a frozen stalemate, such as the standoff between American and Chinese forces in 1951 in the mountains along what is now the DMZ. This led to two years of armistice negotiations amid inconclusive combat that finally led to a ceasefire agreement in June 1953. Will the same thing now happen in Ukraine? The front lines in Ukraine have barely budged in the past year. Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested recently that he is ready to negotiate to end the conflict. The U.S. so far has chosen to ignore his approach, believing that Putin wants to sap Western support for Ukraine by engaging in peace talks. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is even more adamant in rejecting talks as he clings to a maximalist stance, reminiscent of South Korean President Syngman Rhee during the armistice negotiations, that he will not give up fighting until he recovers all the Ukrainian territory that had been captured by Russia since its initial incursion in 2014. American public support for the Korean and Ukrainian conflicts has followed a similar trajectory. When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, there was wide public support in the U.S. for American intervention. But by the summer of 1951, half of the American population viewed the war as a mistake, since a quick and decisive victory was nowhere in sight. The harshest criticism came from politicians on the political right. Many conservatives, representing the still influential isolationist wing of the Republican Party, argued against any American involvement in foreign conflicts that did not directly threaten the U.S. Robert Taft, the Republican leader, called the war costly and pointless. Republican attacks on President Harry Truman and his management of the war led him to decide that he would not seek another term in office in the 1952 presidential election. Dwight Eisenhower only narrowly beat Taft for the 1952 Republican presidential nomination after he pledged that I will go to Korea to find a quick resolution of the conflict. Public opposition to the war meant that Seouls requests that the U.S. support reunification by military means were repeatedly rejected by Washington during both the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. A similar situation is now playing out in Washington as Republicans in Congress mount an effort to reduce or stop further military aid to Ukraine. At the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, only 9 percent of Republicans believed that the U.S. was supplying too much aid to Ukraine. About half of all Republicans now believe that, according to the Pew Research Center. Many argue that such aid is wasteful to a government that they view as corrupt, a similar criticism that was made about Korea under Syngman Rhee. Opposition in the U.S. to funding Ukraine is likely to grow as Russian forces become more effective and go on the offensive, while Ukraines military command undergoes upheaval with the firing of its top commander. Amid chaos in Congress about approving $60 billion in aid to Ukraine and a presidential election campaign, the Biden administration may have to face the reality that it needs to reconsider the viability of its approach toward Kyiv. A negotiated settlement based on compromise may be the only means to end the conflict, similar to the path taken in 1953 to end the Korean War. One plan being floated would be an immediate ceasefire to establish a demilitarized zone, with Russian and Ukraine forces withdrawing several miles from their forward positions. The U.N. could then send peacekeepers and organize a referendum to decide which country owns the disputed territory. Conventional wisdom holds that a negotiated end to the Ukraine war is neither possible nor desirable. But like the Korean War, the Ukraine war looks likely to end in a stalemate along current battle lines. A continued conflict would pose dangers for Ukraines future. Russias attrition strategy threatens to exhaust Ukraines military manpower, while undermining Western support for Kyiv and damaging Ukraines economy. Decision makers in Washington should ponder the lessons of the Korean War as they consider the next steps in their Ukraine strategy. John Merrill (jmerrill05@gmail.com) is a visiting scholar at the Institute of Korean Studies at George Washington University. He is a guest editorial writer of The Korea Times. By Baek Byung-yeul KT is looking to transform into what it calls an "AICT" company, combining its telecommunications capabilities with artificial intelligence (AI) and information and communications technology (ICT), to become a digital innovation partner for its customers, its CEO Kim Young-shub said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Tuesday (local time). "KT will now be reborn as an AICT company, adding ICT and AI to its communications capabilities," the KT CEO said during a press conference. "We will leap forward as a digital innovation partner that enhances the business value of customers and pioneers new markets by providing end-to-end services, from strategic planning for customer digital innovation to providing optimal solutions and efficient operation management." Moreover, KT will recruit up to 1,000 professionals in the AI and digital sectors this year and completely change KT's DNA to be AI-centric by strengthening internal training and adopting AI technology, the CEO said. Korea has the best level of communication infrastructure and is a powerful country that introduced 5G services first in the world. It is more important than anything else to secure AI professionals for the future of the country and the growth of KT, and to provide an environment where they can show their capabilities and grow them into the best experts," the CEO said. For KT to become the AICT service company it aims to be, the KT CEO added that it is crucial to expand partnerships with global tech companies. "We plan to quickly secure global-level competitiveness through active partnerships with global tech companies," he said. "Through the partnerships, we will quickly internalize the world's best know-how and capabilities." KT said that it will embark on a company-wide AI transition to achieve innovation as an AICT company. To that end, it will conduct a digital education program over six months to enable more employees to understand and utilize AI technology. Also, for the provision of AI services, KT will develop and apply Gen.AIDU, an internal business innovation platform that utilizes its own hyper-sale AI model Mi:dm, OpenAI's GPT and Meta's Llama together. To diversify its AI business portfolio, it added that it will provide AI Operations, a service that allows customers to use AI well, expand the scope of AI services such as the expansion of generative AI consulting services and offer an AI Agent service, which jointly develops AI services for business-to-business customers. Chinese envoy calls for actions to mitigate impact of Gaza conflict's intensification on Syria Xinhua) 11:09, February 28, 2024 UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Tuesday called for actions to mitigate the repercussions of the Gaza conflict's escalation on Syria. "Over the past four months, Israel has continued to launch airstrikes on various locations in Syria through the occupied Golan Heights, about which China is deeply concerned. We call on all parties to exercise restraint and to avoid exacerbating tensions," Dai Bing, charge d'affaires of China's permanent mission to the United Nations, told the Security Council briefing on Syria. "Countries outside the region should play a constructive role in deescalating the situation and preventing the conflict from spreading and expanding," the envoy added. "China welcomes the successful convening of the 21st round of High-Level Meetings on Syria within the framework of the Astana format as well as special envoy (Geir) Pedersen's extensive engagement with all parties on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254," the envoy said. Dai urged the international community to uphold the "Syrian-led and Syrian-owned principle," encourage dialogue and consultations, and find a solution acceptable to all parties. "We believe help from regional countries will inject new momentum into the political settlement of the Syrian issue," Dai said. "We support the Syrian Government in taking necessary measures to combat terrorism, maintain security and stability, and eliminate the long-term threats to the political process in Syria. The international community must combat all terrorism in Syria with zero tolerance." The ambassador noted that over the past year, the United Nations and the Syrian Government have maintained effective and smooth communication and cross-border points have been extended several times. "We urge the parties concerned to show sincerity and make positive progress in cross-line operations. As humanitarian funding for Syria has long been insufficient, the international community should increase its input in humanitarian assistance to Syria and support humanitarian operations and early recovery projects throughout the country," he said. Dai stressed that unilateral sanctions and the plundering of resources have long impeded Syria's economic recovery, social development, and improvement of people's livelihood, thereby exacerbating the humanitarian disaster in Syria. "We urge the countries concerned to immediately end their unlawful acts and foreign forces to immediately end their illegal military presence in Syria," the envoy said. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) US tech giant eyes collaborations with Samsung, LG in AI chip, XR businesses By Baek Byung-yeul Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, the U.S. tech giant behind leading social network services like Facebook and Instagram, held meetings with officials from Korean tech companies, Wednesday, to expand the extended reality (XR) ecosystem and foster cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI). The Meta founder, who arrived in Korea the previous night, marking his first trip here since 2013, visited LG Electronics office and met with the company's CEO, Cho Joo-wan. The discussions centered around technological cooperation related to extended reality (XR). On the same day, the Meta chief also held private meetings with officials from XR-related startups in Korea. Later in the evening, he met Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong at Seungjiwon, Samsung Group's VIP guest house located in Seoul. Zuckerberg's meeting with Korean tech company representatives is seen as a move to try to build a strong software and hardware manufacturing ecosystem like Meta's rival Apple. This move is interpreted as an effort to position Meta at the forefront of the global digital market by establishing partnerships in AI and XR, which are crucial areas of future technology. By collaborating with influential Korean manufacturing giants such as Samsung and LG, as well as startups with significant market potential, Meta aims to strengthen its foothold in these cutting-edge sectors. LG said the meeting with the Meta founder resulted in in-depth discussions ranging from business strategy to specific issues related to the development of next-generation XR devices. "Cho tried on Meta's Meta Quest 3 mixed reality (MR) headset and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, and showed keen interest in various advanced technology demonstrations presented by Meta," an LG official said. "In particular, Cho showed great interest in Meta's large language model (LLM) AI and explored potential synergies from the perspective of on-device AI capabilities." After the meeting with Zuckerberg, the LG Electronics CEO told reporters that the two companies would launch an XR device together next year. "We will be able to commercialize the XR device made with Meta next year. We've conceptualized the product and are in the process of developing it," the CEO told reporters. "We discussed whether it is right to quickly bring this new product to market, or to prioritize ensuring its thorough development and quality." The LG CEO also revealed that discussions were held with Meta regarding generative AI cooperation. He added that conversations took place about the potential application of Meta's large language model, Llama, to LG Electronics' devices, which have collectively sold more than 500 million units in the global market. I think the scope for collaboration between the two companies is huge when thinking about applying Metas language model to LGs devices, the CEO said. During the dinner with the Samsung chief, the two apparently held in discussions regarding potential cooperation in AI semiconductor and XR businesses.The Meta CEO's wife, Priscilla Chan, also attended the dinner. Industry watchers believe their discussions likely revolved around semiconductor cooperation, particularly concerning the production of AI chips necessary for operating Meta's next-generation LLM, Llama 3. Samsung, being the world's second-largest foundry company, specializes in manufacturing chips ordered by chip design companies. Meta recently entered the AI technology competition by announcing plans to develop its own artificial general intelligence (AGI), an AI capable of surpassing human intelligence in nearly every aspect. As part of this initiative, Meta unveiled plans to procure by the year's end a total of 350,000 Nvidia H100 processors, which are graphic processing unit chips. Samsung also recently launched the AGI Computing Lab in Silicon Valley, focusing on developing semiconductors specifically tailored for AGI applications. Given the history of collaboration between Meta and Samsung, including Zuckerberg's attendance at Samsung's Galaxy S7 smartphone launch at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in 2016 and the emphasis on cooperation in the virtual reality (VR) business, it is reasonable to expect that discussions about XR devices also took place during the dinner. On Thursday, the Meta founder will meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol to discuss cooperation in AI and other industries. Yoon is anticipated to communicate the government's intention to expand investments in advanced technology fields, particularly AI semiconductors, during the meeting. Additionally, he is expected to request collaboration with domestic companies in these sectors. Muwa Niseko, a luxury ski resort operated by GK H-Summit in Hokkaido, Japan, is rising as a distinguished venue for winter vacationers from around the world, the company said Tuesday. With its location next to Mount Yotei that best stands out in winter, as well as choice restaurants and unique architecture reminiscent of an authentic mountain village, the resort under the Hanwha Group subsidiary's resort brand Muwa is drawing the attention of winter lovers and travelers for other seasons as well. The region is famous for its snow. Snowfall in the town of Niseko averages about 39 to 52 feet and allows nearby ski trails to operate for 120 days each year. And the snow quality is internationally renowned, helping coin the term "Japanese powder," or JAPOW. Launched in December, the resort's location flaunts natural surroundings that define what a winter trip to Japan is all about. Situated in the Grand Hirafu area, best known for its snow-covered scenery, the resort offers a direct ski-in, ski-out terrace to some of its suites, which allow lodgers to step into Niseko's wild conveniently. Natural springs around the venue also provide spots for an onsen bathing experience. Integrated with a tea ceremony, it offers an exclusive dimension to well-being rarely found elsewhere. Inside the resort, a prestigious Michelin dining experience is another thing Muwa Niseko cares to share with visitors. Italian all-day dining at HITO by Tacubo is curated by the owner-chef of Tokyo's acclaimed Michelin one-star restaurant Tacubo. Sukiyaki Hiyama is another Michelin one-star restaurant. The resort welcomes tourists to drop by at any season, as it refuses to be pigeonholed as just a spot for winter trips. The concierge service provides customized travel packages in accordance with the venue's changing seasons and presents opportunities for activities, culinary delights and family-oriented adventures. "Beyond the winter allure, there are compelling reasons to explore Muwa Niseko even during the summer months," a company official said. (Advertorial) By Park Jae-hyuk Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Centrus Energy to ensure the stable supply of enriched uranium from the U.S. nuclear fuel and services provider, the state-run nuclear and hydroelectric plant operator said Wednesday. They signed the non-binding agreement in Washington on Monday local time, following their signing of a memorandum of understanding last April. "Through the signing of this LOI, both parties will engage in concrete discussions regarding stable nuclear fuel supply and plan to continue exploring business opportunities in the nuclear sector by expanding the future nuclear fuel supply chain," KHNP CEO Whang Joo-ho said. The KHNP said the latest agreement outlines substantive business objectives to enhance uranium resource security and nuclear cooperation between the two parties. "We aim to diversify the supply of enriched uranium used as nuclear fuel," it said in a press release. "KHNP expects to strengthen nuclear cooperation between Korea and the United States by establishing strategic relationships with Centrus, which is working to re-establish a robust uranium enrichment capacity in the United States." Centrus is the only American company that has obtained a production license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which is used as fuel for advanced reactors and small modular reactors. In November, the company succeeded in the initial production of 20 kilograms of HALEU at its facility in Piketon, Ohio. The achievement demonstrated its technological and production capabilities for the U.S. Department of Energy. The KHNP said it has opened the possibility of securing fuel for future reactors as well as for existing commercial reactors, as a result of cooperation with Centrus. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will likely meet with business officials from leading Korean tech companies and startups, including Samsung Electronics, during his visit to Seoul, industry sources said Wednesday. The CEO of Meta Platforms, Facebook's parent company, arrived in Korea on Tuesday night following his visit to Japan. This marks Zuckerberg's first visit to Korea in more than 10 years. Sources said Zuckerberg is likely to hold talks with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and LG Electronics CEO Cho Joo-wan to discuss possible cooperation in the fields of extended reality (XR) and artificial intelligence (AI) businesses during his stay in Seoul. He is also scheduled to meet with representatives from at least five unidentified XR startups at Meta Korea's office in southern Seoul in a closed-door session, the sources said. Meta has reportedly arranged the meeting directly with the startups as part of apparent efforts to advance the company's XR headset technology. Zuckerberg is also expected to meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol before departing the country on Thursday to travel to India. Meta Korea said it cannot confirm any details of Zuckerberg's trip to Seoul. (Yonhap) Shipbuilders engage in fierce competition to win orders from ROK Navy By Park Jae-hyuk Hanwha Ocean's endeavor to secure exclusive control of the Korean naval ship market was thwarted after rival HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) managed to avoid being banned from bidding for government contracts, according to industry officials, Wednesday. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) decided on Tuesday to allow HD HHI to bid for the 7.8 trillion won ($5.9 billion) project to build six 6,000-ton Aegis combat system-equipped destroyers for the Republic of Korea Navy. The state arms procurement agency cited a lack of evidence that the companys executives had ordered its employees to steal data between 2012 and 2015 from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, which was renamed Hanwha Ocean after Hanwha Groups acquisition of the shipbuilder last year. The decision led Hanwha Ocean to continue competing with HD HHI, its only rival in the domestic warship market. If the agency had made a different decision, HD HHI could have been forced to shut down its naval vessel business as it could have been excluded from the ROK Navys projects for the next five years. Immediately following DAPA's decision, Hanwha Ocean voiced its frustration and disappointment with the outcome. HD HHIs theft of confidential data should be regarded as a serious crime that threatens the basis of the Korean defense industry, so we urge DAPA to review this issue and the police to investigate the crime, the company said in a statement. Before DAPA made the decision, Rep. Seo Il-jun of the ruling People Power Party, who represents the constituents of Geoje Island, home to Hanwha Oceans shipyard, called for a stern measure against HD HHI. The Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission also sided with Hanwha Ocean, rejecting HD HHIs complaint about DAPAs selection of the Hanwha affiliate last July as the preferred bidder for the ROK Navys fifth and sixth Ulsan-class Batch III frigates. HD HHI lost to Hanwha Ocean at that time, as it is facing a penalty in bidding for government projects until November 2025, due to the data theft case. The HD Hyundai subsidiary is therefore expected to face difficulties in beating Hanwha Ocean in the forthcoming bid for the destroyer project, despite DAPAs latest decision. HD HHI seeks to overcome point deductions by improving its technologies. We respect DAPAs decision and we will make efforts to contribute to the growth of Koreas defense industry, HD HHI said in a statement. Speculation remains that newly appointed DAPA Commissioner Seok Jong-gun may have refused to punish HD HHI, so as to avoid a possible backlash from voters in the shipbuilders hometown of Ulsan, ahead of the April 10 general elections. DAPAs decision is also attributed to former National Security Adviser Kim Sung-han, who was nominated as a nonexecutive director of HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, HD HHIs parent firm. However, the company explained that the former aide to President Yoon Suk Yeol is just an international trade expert. Industry officials also expect Hanwha Ocean and HD HHI to compete fiercely to provide maintenance, repair, and operations services to the U.S. Navy. A few hours before DAPAs decision, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro visited shipyards of the two Korean shipbuilders to discuss cooperation. By Lee Min-hyung Conglomerates are reinforcing readiness for radical changes in the global trade order by scouting former bureaucrats specializing in international trade and overseas regulatory risk management, according to industry officials, Wednesday. Hyosung Group looks to remain agile in responding to the new trade paradigm, as its two affiliates plan to hire ranking executives from a major business lobby and a trade organization here. Woo Tae-hee, outgoing executive vice chairman at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will take office as the head of Hyosung Heavy Industries after possibly winning approvals from the firms upcoming shareholders meeting in March. Woo served as vice trade minister for a year and a half from January 2016. Recognized for his trade expertise, he became the top-ranking executive at the business lobby for four years since February 2020. The bureaucrat-turned-businessman handled a variety of energy policies such as nuclear power and hydrogen while working at the trade ministry. After ending his decades-long career at the authority, he took on the role of outside director at Lotte Fine Chemical and Yesco Holdings. The Hyosung affiliate is widely expected to have scouted Woo in efforts to boost its energy-related businesses by utilizing his deep understanding of energy policies and strong business network. Jeong Marn-ki, outgoing executive vice chairman at the Korea International Trade Association (KITA), has also been appointed as a new outside director for Hyosung Advanced Materials, as the company was in need of experts dealing with a looming regulatory risk in Europe on emissions of fine particles from tire friction. The Hyosung subsidiary makes tire reinforcement cords. He has also worked as a trade minister and served as the KITA executive for more than two years since September 2022. Jeong is also widely considered to have strong networking capabilities with U.S. government officials, as he engaged in frequent meetings with U.S. authorities while serving as head of the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association for over three years from March 2019. Other companies are also joining the bandwagon, hiring influential government officials for their top management or outside director positions. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering recently appointed Kim Sung-han, former national security adviser, as its external director. He will work at the company upon receiving relevant approvals at its shareholders meeting next month. Most export-reliant Korean firms are paying sharp attention to how the global trade circumstance will be reshaped this year due to a number of risk factors such as the upcoming U.S. presidential election, and the hiring of such former ranking bureaucrats is seen as part of their efforts to brace for the worst by tightening internal readiness, an official from a conglomerate said. The United States and key European allies said on Tuesday they had no plans to send ground troops to Ukraine, after France hinted at the possibility, and the Kremlin warned that any such move would inevitably lead to conflict between Russia and NATO. French President Emmanuel Macron had said on Monday that Western allies should exclude no options in seeking to avert a Russian victory in Ukraine, though he stressed there was no consensus at this stage. His comments, made at a hastily convened meeting of European leaders in Paris on ways to boost flagging support for Kyiv, come amid battlefield gains by Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces in eastern Ukraine as well as growing shortages of ammunition and manpower on the Ukrainian side. However, Germany, Britain, Spain, Poland and the Czech Republic distanced themselves from any suggestion they might commit ground troops to the Ukraine war, now in its third year. "...There will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European countries or NATO states," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Tuesday. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was equally adamant. "Boots on the ground is not an option for Germany," Pistorius told reporters during a visit to Vienna. The White House later reiterated that it too had no plan to send ground troops, instead urging U.S. lawmakers to approve a stalled security aid bill that would ensure Ukrainian troops got the weapons and ammunition needed to continue their fight. Seeking to clarify Macron's remarks, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said on Tuesday the president had in mind sending troops for specific tasks such as helping on mine clearance, production of weapons on site, and cyberdefense. "(This) could require a (military) presence on Ukrainian territory, without crossing the threshold of fighting," Sejourne told French lawmakers. Scholz did say that European leaders now appeared willing after Monday's talks to procure weapons from countries outside Europe as a way of speeding up military aid to Ukraine. Germany has become the second biggest supplier of military aid to Kyiv since Russia launched its full-blown invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, but is extremely wary of steps that would draw the NATO alliance into direct conflict with Russia. Russian rebuke The Kremlin issued a swift warning about what was at stake. "The very fact of discussing the possibility of sending certain contingents to Ukraine from NATO countries is a very important new element," spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, commenting on Macron's remarks. Asked about the risks if NATO members did deploy troops to fight in Ukraine, Peskov said: "In that case, we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability (of a direct conflict)." Russia and the United States - the big power behind NATO have the world's largest arsenals of nuclear weapons. President Joe Biden has cautioned that a conflict between Russia and NATO could trigger World War Three. The possibility in particular of German troops being deployed to ex-Soviet territory is hugely sensitive for Russia, whose fierce resistance to Hitler's invasion during World War Two is an integral part of national identity. Putin has even cast Russia's actions in Ukraine as a struggle against "Nazis", a stance Kyiv and the West dismiss as cynical and absurd. A senior Ukrainian official welcomed Macron's decision to raise the possibility of sending Western troops to his country. "This shows, firstly, an absolute awareness of the risks posed to Europe by a militaristic, aggressive Russia," Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in a written comment on Macron's statement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy, rattled by the resistance of some U.S. Republicans to providing more aid for Kyiv, has stepped up his lobbying of European governments for more artillery shells and longer-range weapons. The Czech Republic this month announced plans, backed by Canada, Denmark and others, to finance the rapid purchase of hundreds of thousands of ammunition rounds from third countries to dispatch to Ukraine. (Reuters) Ukraine's president co-hosted a summit with Albania's government on Wednesday that is meant to encourage further support for Kyiv by southeastern European countries, as signs of fatigue grow two years after Russia's full-scale invasion . Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived before midnight Tuesday on the latest stop in an international tour that saw him in Saudi Arabia earlier Tuesday to push for a peace plan and the return of prisoners of war from Russia. Zelenskyy on Wednesday called Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama Ukraines unwavering friend in a message on X, formerly Twitter, adding the two would discuss defense and political cooperation, support for the Peace Formula, and security agreements. I will propose supporting Ukraines efforts to achieve just and lasting peace, as well as organizing the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, he said, referring to the summit. Zelenskyy and Rama also signed a friendship and cooperation agreement to strengthen our cooperation with Albania and Ukraines position in the Balkans. Zelenskyy also awarded Rama with the Yaroslav the Wise medal for his contribution to Ukraine. Zelenskyy is accompanied by Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. Rama wrote on Facebook that he was proud to welcome Zelenskyy for a solidarity meeting and to further the commitment of our democracies against Russian aggression. Securing further support is key to Ukraines leader while his country faces battlefield challenges. Zelenskyy on Sunday announced that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action since Russia's invasion the first time that Kyiv had confirmed the number of its losses. Ukraine has urged Western leaders to increase the joint production of weapons and ammunition, improve Ukrainian air defenses and put new pressure on Russia via expanded sanctions. The head of NATO has said the U.S.-led military alliance has no plans to send troops to Ukraine, and Germany, Poland and other countries this week have said the same. Eleven countries from southeastern Europe, including some of Ukraine's neighbors, attended the Albania summit, three of them with online messages, along with officials from the European Union and other international institutions. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Albania earlier this month. But not all the countries are in full support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Kremlin ally Serbia is the only European country that has refused to align with EU sanctions following Russias invasion. It continues signing cooperation agreements with Moscow. Albania, a NATO member since 2009 and a candidate for EU membership, has voiced its full support for Kyiv against Russias invasion. It has provided military assistance in the form of ammunition and training of Ukrainian military. It was among the first countries offering shelter to Ukrainian refugees. It has joined international sanctions against Russian officials and institutions. As a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in the last two years, Albania joined the U.S. in initiating resolutions against Russia's invasion. (AP) China Culture Day of 2024 held in Chinese Embassy in Australia Xinhua) 13:12, February 28, 2024 An Australian guest tries Chinese calligraphy during the China Culture Day held in the Chinese Embassy in Australia in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 27, 2024. China Culture Day of 2024, a cultural exchange event themed "Amazing Xi'an Ancient Capital," was held by the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Tuesday. Artists from Xi'an were invited to showcase the richness of Chinese culture, including Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, dances, music and magic shows, among others. (Photo by Chu Chen/Xinhua) An artist from Xi'an performs a fire-breathing stunt during the China Culture Day held in the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 27, 2024. China Culture Day of 2024, a cultural exchange event themed "Amazing Xi'an Ancient Capital," was held by the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Tuesday. Artists from Xi'an were invited to showcase the richness of Chinese culture, including Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, dances, music and magic shows, among others. (Photo by Chu Chen/Xinhua) Australian guests learn about the art of Chinese paper-cutting during the China Culture Day held in the Chinese Embassy in Australia in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 27, 2024. China Culture Day of 2024, a cultural exchange event themed "Amazing Xi'an Ancient Capital," was held by the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Tuesday. Artists from Xi'an were invited to showcase the richness of Chinese culture, including Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, dances, music and magic shows, among others. (Photo by Chu Chen/Xinhua) An artist from Xi'an performs a magic show during the China Culture Day held in the Chinese Embassy in Australia in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 27, 2024. China Culture Day of 2024, a cultural exchange event themed "Amazing Xi'an Ancient Capital," was held by the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Tuesday. Artists from Xi'an were invited to showcase the richness of Chinese culture, including Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, dances, music and magic shows, among others. (Photo by Chu Chen/Xinhua) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) On 16 February in Naples, the comrades of the Italian section of the IMT, Sinistra Classe Rivoluzione (SCR) held a successful launch event at the Sala del Capitolo of the Complesso Monumentale di San Domenico Maggiore, in the citys historic centre, for the Lenin lives! Campaign an initiative to reclaim the real revolutionary legacy of Lenin in this, the centenary year of his death. The assembly was attended by around a hundred people, mostly young people including very young high school students, confirming the growing interest in Lenin and Bolshevism among a new generation. The meeting was themed around the campaign that the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) is conducting in Italy and all around the world to commemorate the centenary of Lenin's death. This campaign is designed to build upon the important theoretical and political contribution that this great Russian revolutionary made to the revolutionary cause. Lenin occupies very little space in the official history books of high schools and universities / Image: SCR Lenin occupies very little space in the official history books of high schools and universities, and where he does figure, he is often subject to distortions by both his critics in bourgeois academia, and by Stalinist falsifiers that illegitimately claim his legacy. We organised this assembly, therefore, with the aim of shedding light on the real Lenin, debunking the myths and simplifications, and restoring the real relevance of his ideas for todays struggles. In prompting this important campaign, we covered the streets of the city with posters, and went on a social media blitz, with regular reels and posts. The latter not only got the word out about our campaign to a wide layer, but also served to promote the books and material about and by Lenin that weve published, as well as the T-shirts and memorabilia produced for the centenary. In his introduction to the assembly, Claudio Bellotti covered the breadth of Lenins ideas and methods in the course of the events in which the Bolshevik Party was developed in the run up to the October Revolution. Claudio reiterated the need to apply these same methods in the present. Lenin put into practice the revolutionary conclusions formulated by Karl Marx, correctly orienting the party from its early years until shortly before his death, not through coercion but through a crystal-clear political struggle, sometimes even directed against his own party comrades. Talks then followed on various topics relevant to Lenins life and ideas: from imperialism, to the concept of the revolutionary party, to Lenins final struggle against the bureaucratic degeneration of the Russian Revolution that would lead to the rise of Stalin. In all of these, the aim was precisely to build upon Lenins theoretical contribution and bring out the relevance of his thought today, so as to analyse events unfolding from the war in Ukraine to the clash between the US and China. Many young comrades intervened in the debate to address crucial questions, such as Lenins important theory of the state, as expressed in his classic book State and Revolution; and Lenins sharp writings on the national question, which are fundamental to understanding what is happening in Palestine today. As we always emphasise, the purpose of our meetings is not to discuss the past in a dry, academic manner, but to use the enormous wealth of ideas and experience crystalised in Marxist theory as a weapon to change society. The event was a great success, and filled comrades with optimism that these ideas are meeting a fertile ground / Image: SCR After these excellent discussions, which raised the political understanding of the comrades, informal discussions continued long after the end of the meeting around the literature stall, where comrades were bombarded with requests for guidance to further study and reading suggestions. 90 was raised for the fighting fund through the sale of books, and 200 of solidarity donations were collected for financing our revolutionary work. Many new attendees left their contact details with a view to joining the IMT, and some joined us on the spot at the end of the meeting. After the meeting, we went to the IMT offices in Vico SS. Filippo e Giacomo, a short distance away, where comrades continued to socialise, collecting another 160, which will be used to finance the costs of our headquarters. The event was a great success, and filled comrades with optimism that these ideas are meeting a fertile ground, with huge potential for our organisation to grow and organise further initiatives like this one. The Year of Lenin has just begun. In the spring, with the return of students, we will relaunch our work with assemblies at the university. In the wake of our Are you a Communist? campaign, our organisation has grown significantly. New comrades have joined our ranks and are bringing their wealth of talents and the enthusiasm needed for this important revolutionary work. Only the involvement of all comrades in the propagating and building for this initiative has ensured its success. From these successes, the conclusion naturally flows that through collective work and political clarity, we can go from strength to strength, building to further heights in order to become a point of reference for all those who want to fight against this system. Follow this link for more information on the upcoming programme of events that our comrades are preparing across Italy this year. While all the main leaders of the imperialist powers, from Biden to Scholz, Macron and many others, have been shedding crocodile tears about the excessive civilian death toll in Gaza, in practice they have all been collaborating with the Israeli government. Not only with military aid but also in strangling the Palestinian people economically and socially. They have helped create the material conditions upon which no feasible Palestinian self-administration is possible. They are openly collaborating with Netanyahu as he and his far-right Zionist friends attempt to destroy the little that is left of Palestinian territory. Beyond the genocidal military campaign in Gaza and the constant expansion of the settlements in the West Bank, there is another war going on on the economic front. It has included cutting funding to UN aid agencies, withholding tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, and denying Palestinian workers the jobs they had in Israel before 7 October. Let us remind ourselves of the actual social and economic conditions in both Gaza and the West Bank before the 7 October attack. Net unemployment in the Palestinian Territories, Gaza and the West Bank already stood at around 25 percent, although the situation in Gaza was much worse. A 2009 Oxfam report, The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion, explained that as early as 15 years ago: The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip [now they are 2.3 million] is worse now than it has ever been since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967. The current situation in Gaza is man-made, completely avoidable The severity of the situation has increased exponentially since Israel imposed extreme restrictions on the movement of goods and people in response to the Hamas take over of Gaza [My emphasis] Unemployment in Gaza stood at 40 percent, but was steadily rising towards 50 percent. The levels of poverty in Gaza had massively increased, with 80 percent of families relying on humanitarian aid. This single fact emphasises how crucial aid is, like that provided by agencies such as UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). By 2009, almost all of Gazas productive economy had been brought to a standstill by Israels imposition of a strict economic blockade. Industry almost ceased to exist; agriculture was in crisis; and the thousands of workers who previously crossed into Israel to work no longer had jobs. The report refers to an imprisoned population. In these conditions, the head of UNRWA pointed out that, Hungry, unhealthy, angry communities do not make good partners for peace. This, of course, fell on deaf ears in the Israeli government. Economic blockade of Gaza The economic blockade of Gaza was a means of punishing the people for daring to support a force not to the liking of the Israeli authorities / Image: own work These were the conditions imposed on the Gazan population long before the 7 October attack. The official reason for this brutal policy was the emergence of Hamas as the first party in the 2006 elections, and the consolidation of its position a year later through an armed takeover of the Gaza Strip. The electoral successes of Hamas were due to the widespread disillusionment among the Palestinian population towards Fatah and the PLO that had been governing both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This was because of the rampant corruption, and its de facto collaboration with Israeli security forces in policing the Palestinian people, rather than protecting them. Thus, the economic blockade of Gaza was a means of punishing the people for daring to support a force not to the liking of the Israeli authorities. The message was clear: if you dont vote for the Palestinian leaders who are collaborating with Israel, then we will strangle you economically and bomb you when we feel the need. This was the situation in Gaza as described in an August 2023 UNRWA report: The economy and its capacity to create jobs have been devastated, resulting in the impoverishment and de-development of a highly skilled and well-educated society. Access to clean water and electricity remains at crisis level and impacts nearly every aspect of life. Clean water is unavailable for 95 per cent of the population. Electricity is available up to an average of 11 hours per day as of July 2023. However, ongoing power shortage has severely impacted the availability of essential services, particularly health, water, and sanitation services, and continues to undermine Gazas fragile economy, particularly the manufacturing and agriculture sectors. Although the situation in the West Bank was not as severe as that in Gaza, by 2021 unemployment had reached 25 percent and youth unemployment 40 percent, with close to 20 percent living below the poverty line. The West Bank depended heavily on jobs inside Israel, with around 23 percent of the working population employed either in Israel or in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Major powers cut funding Now the process of strangulation is being taken to new heights. The delivery of aid to Gaza is being made ever more difficult, if not impossible to carry out, by Israel limiting the number of trucks allowed in and refusing to guarantee safe passage for aid deliveries. Before October last year, an average of 500 trucks of supplies were entering Gaza every day. In January, only 140 were getting in. Now the number is down to around 60. In a situation where all reserves have been depleted, starvation has become rampant, especially in the north. People are drinking dirty water and eating whatever they can put their hands on, including animal feed. The delivery of aid to Gaza is being made ever more difficult / Image: RomanDeckert, Wikimedia Commons Israel is also going after the funding of aid agencies. Netanyahu has latched on to the fact that, according to an Israeli intelligence dossier, a dozen individuals who were employed by UNRWA in the Gaza Strip (compared to 13,000 in total) took part in the 7 October attack in some capacity. The Washington Post has looked into these allegations, but could not independently verify them. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini has pointed out that Israel has not provided any evidence for its allegations. Still, they are being used as a lever by Israel to bend the arms of their imperialist allies. The mass media in the West have reported these allegations as fact and the US, immediately followed by the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Australia, have suspended funding to the agency, without regard for the humanitarian consequences they all seemed to be very concerned about just a minute before. Others followed suit, with the full list of countries previously accounting for over half of UNWRAs aid budget. This is despite the fact that, when the allegations were presented to the United Nations, the individuals listed some of whom are now dead were quickly dismissed and an investigation was launched. Compare the speed with which the imperialists cut desperately needed aid for the Palestinians of Gaza, to their continued military aid to Israel as it destroys everything that makes life possible in the Strip. Biden is pushing through a bill for more aid to Israel, most of it for military purposes and only a small fraction for humanitarian aid, with a specific proviso that none should go to UNRWA. The contrast is glaring. More than two million people in Gaza presently depend on UNRWA for their sheer survival, as Philippe Lazzarini, the agencys commissioner general has stated. In January, close to 1.4 million Gazan refugees were sheltering in 155 UNRWA structures, and a further 500,000 were receiving UNRWA services. Johann Soufi, a lawyer and former director of the agencys legal office in Gaza, told Agence-France Presse that the sanctioning of UNRWA, for the alleged responsibility of a few employees, is tantamount to collectively punishing the Gazan population. For quite some time, UNRWA has been subject to threats and cuts to funding. Already in August 2018, then US President Trump announced that the US would unilaterally stop its contribution. The truth is that the Israeli government has for many years been trying to get UNRWAs funding cut. Israeli governments have been particularly opposed to the agency because they claim its definition of a Palestinian refugee, which encompasses 5.9 million people, is too broad, and therefore nurtures the hope that they will one day be able to return to their homeland. The problem for the Zionists is the changing demographic balance between Palestinians and Jews living in historic Palestine, i.e. Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. In this area, there are now 7.4 million Palestinians against 7.2 million Israeli Jews. This includes the Palestinians who are citizens of Israel second-class citizens with fewer rights who number close to two million of the overall population of 9.3 million. The birth rate among Palestinian women is roughly 4 children, compared to 3 for Israeli women. At this rate, the overall Palestinian population living within historic Palestine will continue to grow relative to the Jewish population. This also explains the position of the extreme Zionists, who want Palestinians living in Israel to be expelled together with those living in Gaza and the West Bank, and for the emigration of Jews from other countries to be stepped up, together with the settler programme. According to population estimates prepared by PCBS, there were about 14.3 million Palestinians in the world in mid-2022. Of these, around three million are in Jordan, three-quarters of whom have been granted Jordanian citizenship. Around half a million are living in Syria; 400,000 in Lebanon, officially as refugees; and around 250,000 in Saudi Arabia. That means that 11-12 million Palestinians are living in the region, the rest having emigrated to Europe, the Americas and other parts of the world. The Zionists want to see a significant number of refugees granted full citizenship in the countries where they presently reside, such that over time they could be absorbed and integrated, thus losing their refugee status and ending all hope of returning to their historical homeland. The fact that Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin are expected to adopt a Jordanian identity is an indication of what the Zionists would like to see across the region, i.e. a de facto elimination of a Palestinian national identity. This all explains why the Israeli government wants to see an end to UNRWA as a body. According to a 2 February article in The Guardian, UNRWA could be forced to shut down its operations in Gaza if funding is not restored soon. For Israel, however, it seems that even succeeding in getting UNRWA funding suspended is not enough. Since October, there have been 63 direct hits on UNRWA installations, with a further 69 sustaining some degree of damage. A total of 319 people sheltering in UNRWA installations have been killed, with over one thousand being injured. Not content with this, Israels foreign minister, Israel Katz, has now stated that they will be taking steps to completely remove UNRWA from the Gaza Strip after the war. Israeli stranglehold over Palestinian economy When the Palestinian Authority was set up on the back of the Oslo Accords back in 1994, an arrangement known as the Paris Protocol was established whereby Israel collects income tax on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and then makes monthly transfers, pending the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Finance. This was supposed to be a temporary, five-year arrangement, after which control was supposed to pass to the Palestinian Authority. 30 years on, no such transition has been enacted. The reason for this is abundantly clear: it gives Israel an important lever with which to blackmail the Palestinian Authority. Even after the Gaza Strip fell under Hamas control in 2007, many public sector workers there kept their government jobs and continued to receive their wages, which were paid with the transferred tax revenues from the Israeli Ministry of Finance. Presently, that post is occupied by Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, and one of the most extreme, ultra-orthodox, right-wing Zionists in Netanyahus government. In November, shortly after the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel, the Netanyahu government decided to hold back payments a total of $275 million, including sums collected before the attack that were destined for public employees in the Gaza Strip, arguing that these funds could end up in the hands of Hamas. In reaction to the cut in funding, the PA refused to receive the reduced revenues, demanding the payment of the full amount owed. The most recent development has seen Israel withholding these tax revenues, refusing to send them on to the PA. Instead, it sent them to Norway, and they were not to be released without the approval of the Israeli government. It was Biden himself who asked Netanyahu to send the tax revenues to Norway for safekeeping as a means of soothing the nerves of his extreme right-wing ministers who have been insisting that no money should make its way to Hamas in Gaza. Israel has suspended work permits for around 130,000 Palestinian workers / Image: Ted Eytan, Flickr Since then, Norway has agreed to transfer funds designated for the West Bank while holding back those destined for Gaza. Gaza is administered by Hamas, but the PA has been financing essential expenditures including, for example, the wages of its health workers. Now that funding has been cut, the situation in Gaza will continue to worsen. Every month, Israel collects around $188 million in tax revenues on behalf of the Palestinian Authority $2.25 billion a year. This is not an insignificant figure, amounting to 64 percent of the Authoritys revenues. At present there are around 150,000 public employees on the PAs wage bill, across both Gaza and the West Bank. The result of this blocking of funds has meant that many of these employees have not been receiving their full wages. Already, back in 2021, their wages had been cut by 25 percent due to constant holdbacks on the part of the Israeli government. The Palestinian Authority is in a severe financial crisis, with a huge build-up of unpaid debt. The situation has become so bad, that in early February the PA was forced to announce a 40 percent pay cut for its public sector employees. Norways agreement to release the funds destined for the West Bank can be explained by the fear of the imperialists that the PA in the West Bank could be facing imminent collapse. The situation there is already on the edge of a major social explosion. Constant attacks by settlers and the IDF against the local population led to close to 500 Palestinians being killed and more than 12,000 injured in 2023 alone. Worsening the situation even further in the West Bank is the fact that Israel has suspended work permits for around 130,000 Palestinian workers who had been travelling into Israel from the West Bank. A total of around 200,000 Palestinians have lost their jobs. Over half of these were working in the Israeli building industry. A Palestinian building worker in Israel could earn over $3,000 a month, which allowed for a reasonable standard of living for someone living in the West Bank. This source of income has suddenly dried up. Now, a huge number of unemployed workers in the West Bank are being forced to sell off anything they can in a desperate attempt to get together enough money to feed their children and pay the bills. Many have had their water and electricity cut off because of unpaid bills. Unemployment in the Palestinian territories has shot up from around 25 percent to 47 percent since October, while the Palestinian economy as a whole has shrunk by 35 percent. Now, a huge layer of the population is literally living by the day, not knowing how they will survive until the end of the month. Situation in Gaza is at a tipping point Meanwhile, in Gaza the population is facing the threat of famine according to many observers on the ground. Many families are spending hours every day walking long distances and queuing to get what little food and water is still available. At the end of December, a report by the Famine Review Committee (FRC) revealed that at least one-quarter of Gazans (over 500,000 people) were facing the prospect of extreme food shortages. The situation in the north of Gaza is truly dramatic / Image: Wafa, Wikimedia Commons Children in particular are the most vulnerable in such a situation, especially in the very early years, when any prolonged period of malnutrition can impair physical and mental development. There are presently over 130,000 children in Gaza below the age of two. Therefore, this situation can have long-term effects on childrens health, even once the war is over. Local farming, thanks to the constant and massive bombing, has completely collapsed. Much infrastructure such as bakeries and food warehouses has either been destroyed or forced to close. Food supplies from outside Gaza are all that is left to the people camped out in and around Rafah and other cities. Action Against Hunger, based in Washington D.C., said on 17 February: If the situation continues, we will see one of the biggest disasters we have faced as humanitarians. It will be due to hunger, disease, and the very polluted and dangerous environment in Gaza, resulting from the residuals of the thousands of bombs, the white phosphorus, the raw sewage floating all over the place, and the unsafe water being consumed as people dont have other choices. The situation in the north of Gaza is truly dramatic. There are still around 300,000 people left in the most horrendous conditions. According to a recent BBC report, in the isolated north of Gaza children are going without food for days, as aid convoys are increasingly denied permits to enter. People are now starving. In these conditions of almost complete collapse of basic infrastructure, combined with massively reduced aid, infectious diseases are spreading at alarming rates. Diarrhoea has affected over 100,000 people since October, half of these being children below the age of five, a 25-fold increase on previous levels. Tens of thousands of respiratory infections are being reported. Hepatitis is on the increase and numerous other conditions are rising. The Global Nutrition Cluster, a partner of Unicef, has warned that an explosion in child mortality is imminent. Concentrating the minds of the imperialists The imperialists have good reason to be concerned that the situation could be reaching a tipping point. The Palestinian people are being pushed well beyond what is humanly tolerable. What we are looking at here is the threat of a complete collapse of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, on top of absolute devastation in Gaza. All this is beginning to seriously worry the imperialists who are watching as the territories sink into a quagmire. They can see the time bomb ticking, and they understand that if the population reaches the limit of what it can take, they could be faced with a generalised peoples uprising. They understand that to maintain some degree of stability in the region, the Palestinians must be guaranteed a basic minimum of a civilised existence, with food, housing, basic healthcare, jobs and income, and at least a thread of hope that one day they may have a homeland of some kind in which they can rebuild their lives. As things stand, these hopes are being destroyed not just in Gaza but also in the West Bank. The latest turn in events, with the Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh resigning, is a confirmation of the political crisis facing the PA / Image: UNCTAD, Wikimedia Commons The latest turn in events, with the Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh resigning, is a confirmation of the political crisis facing the PA. It seems that his resignation is part of a move towards some kind of technocratic government, which would also govern Gaza once the war is over. The term technocratic government is a euphemism for an unelected government that will push through the programme of the ruling elite. The Abbas-led PA is discredited in the eyes of most Palestinians, so they wish to impose on them the same collaborators but behind a new mask. This is the programme of US imperialism for the Palestinians. For now, however, Netanyahu is not listening. As we explained in a previous article, an all-out onslaught on Rafah would tip the situation over the edge. It could open up a scenario where hundreds of thousands of desperate people presently camped out in tents possibly up to a million spill over the border into Egypt. It now seems to have been confirmed that the Egyptian authorities are taking precautionary measures should such a scenario materialise. The latest satellite images seem to indicate that works are taking place along Egypt's border with Gaza to create a walled-off buffer zone to receive Palestinian refugees should Israel proceed with its ground offensive into Rafah. This is all concentrating the minds of the imperialists. They are now bringing pressure to bear on Netanyahu to accept a temporary ceasefire and lift barriers to aid. The US has drafted a UN Security Council resolution of its own, calling for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, but with the added proviso of as soon as practical. We should not have any illusions here. US imperialism is not working for an end to the bombing of Gaza. They are seeking only a temporary halt or a pause as they call it in order to release some of the pressure that is building up. This is confirmed by the fact that they recently vetoed a resolution from Algeria at the UN Security Council which called for an immediate ceasefire. Nonetheless, as the Financial Times commented, The use of a UN Security Council Resolution [by the US] to call for a shift in Israels strategy represents a big diplomatic milestone for the US Under such pressure, the Israeli government has delayed its planned ground offensive into Gaza until 10 March. It has issued a deadline that if by then Hamas has not freed all the hostages the offensive will be launched. This date is no accident. Ramadan begins this year on the evening of Sunday 10 March! To launch the ground offensive on Rafah on that day would have a hugely symbolic significance for Muslims around the world, and in particular in the Middle East. Effectively, Netanyahu would be spitting in the faces of millions of Muslims in the region. In the context of the growing social turmoil in many of the countries of the Middle East, this could lead to mass upheaval and movements of revolutionary dimensions. That is why the imperialists, with the US playing an important role, are trying to pull back from the abyss. They desperately want someone in the saddle in Israel that they feel they can trust. Gantz, Israels defence minister, is hailed as the grown-up in the room of the Israeli government, according to the New York Times, and the man most likely to replace Mr. Netanyahu and his disastrous government. Gantz, however, is no saint. As Chief of General Staff under Netanyahu, he became known for his ruthless handling of Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 bombing of Gaza that killed more than 2,300 Palestinians and maimed more than 10,000. He recently stated that: The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, to include the Rafah area. This is confirmation of the fact that when it comes to crushing the Palestinians, all the top Zionist politicians have the same position. What is rational is not always possible The war in Gaza has already destabilised the region, and risks destabilising it further. If the offensive in Rafah goes ahead, it will dramatically undermine the surrounding Arab regimes, who will be facing the threat of revolutionary upheaval. It would send shockwaves reverberating around the world. From the point of view of the objective needs of the capitalist class globally in this situation, it is logical that the imperialists should seek to pull Netanyahu back. Biden has now confidently announced that by Monday 4 March, a ceasefire of up to six weeks according to some reports will be in place. Bidens optimism, however, is not replicated either inside Israel or in Gaza. The reasons for this are to be found in the fact that a ceasefire is being presented as a temporary measure, and not as an end to the war, one of the key demands of Hamas. Biden has now confidently announced that by Monday 4 March, a ceasefire will be in place / Image: U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv, Wikimedia Commons Basem Naim, the head of Hamas political division in Gaza, has stated that Bidens announcements were premature and did not match the reality on the ground, while Israeli officials have stated that Hamas was continuing to push excessive demands. The deal being discussed would also only allow for the release of 40 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 400 Palestinian prisoners. That would still leave the bulk of the remaining hostages in the hands of Hamas. This means that even if such a deal were agreed, it would only give the Palestinian people in Gaza a temporary respite and not an end to the war. Netanyahu continues to insist that, even if there is a ceasefire agreement, he will push on with his preparations for an attack on Rafah, which does not bode well. The problem here is that the wider, more general interests of global capitalism do not match the interests of Netanyahu and his far-right cabinet colleagues, and also of a significant section of the Zionist ruling class. Even the so-called moderate Gantz differs from Netanyahu, not over whether to keep squeezing the Palestinians out of what little is left of their historical homeland, but at what tempo and how. He may also be somewhat more sensitive to the pressure of Israels imperialist backers. For Netanyahu, on the other hand, to retreat and leave Hamas in place in Gaza would mark the end of his political career. The far-right would provoke the collapse of his government. This would be followed by elections, in which Netanyahu would come out the loser, and his legal problems at home could lead to serious personal consequences. This explains his latest manoeuvres that are aimed at scuppering the ongoing attempts to make a deal with Hamas over the hostages. He is posing conditions aimed specifically at making it impossible for Hamas to accept them. According to The Times of Israel, on 25 February, officials accused Netanyahu of trying to torpedo the nascent hostage deal in order to appease the far-right elements of his government. Netanyahu may at some point overstep the mark, opening up the prospect of a wider conflict with Egypt and other Arab regimes. The increasing armed skirmishes on the Lebanese border could also lead to an escalation there. All this would put a huge spanner in the works of the normalisation process that the imperialists had been so keen on between Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as other countries in the region. Important elements within the Israeli establishment could, therefore, conclude at a certain point that Netanyahu must go. We are not there yet, but his days are clearly numbered. The problem the imperialists are facing is that sometimes what is rational in the abstract may not always be possible in the concrete conditions on the ground. We live in an epoch of an unprecedented crisis of the global capitalist system. The room for manoeuvre of the individual powers, large and small, is severely reduced. This can give individuals in key positions of command a disproportionate power for a temporary period. Meanwhile, conflicts over markets and spheres of influence are becoming ever more acute, with situations being pushed to the limit, tipping over into open war where the contradictions are at their sharpest. In this, it is the working people of all countries that suffer. The Palestinians are caught in this contradiction, but their intense suffering is also bringing into focus the very impasse of the whole system. And it explains why the overwhelming majority of workers and youth everywhere instinctively empathise and side with their cause. The class struggle runs like a thick red line through the Palestinian question and affects all countries. It falls to the workers of all countries to resolve this contradiction, not by tinkering with this or that detail, but by uprooting the whole capitalist system. A bluejay-like scream drew my attention to a pair of red-shouldered hawks as they landed on a branch behind our house. After a two-second coupling, the male flew off, perhaps leaving the female to ponder the joy of sex? Actually, red-shouldered hawks usually mate in April so it might have just been a practice run. We had the privilege two years ago of watching a pair successfully raise three chicks across the road. We will be on the lookout for a new nest. Red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks have begun their aerial mating dances, which sometimes include diving toward one another or locking talons in a free-fall, as eagles do. Michael and I recently discovered the nest of a pair of red-tails after watching them soar in wide circles before landing on the nest, high in a crotch of a tree. Its not clear if they are sitting on eggs yet, but we will keep an eye on them. Adult red-tails make a screaming kee-eeeee-ar that lasts two to three seconds and usually occurs while soaring. During courtship, they also make a shrill chwirk, sometimes giving several of these calls in a row. These courtship flights often take place in late morning and early afternoon. Red-tailed hawks are North Americas most common hawk. Its not unusual for us to see a dozen or more posted on poles along highways between here and northern Virginia. They often perch for hours, waiting for mice, squirrels, rabbits, reptiles or other prey. These powerful birds can take prey weighing up to five pounds. Red-tails have a body length of between 18 and 26 inches and wingspans of 38 to 43 inches. As their name implies, adults are easily identified by their rusty-red tails, which fan out in flight. They have a streaked belly band across their white midsection. A red-tail can live 21 years in the wild. Red-tailed hawks are monogamous and may mate for life. They make large stick nests, up to three-feet across, high above the ground, in which the female lays one to five eggs. Both sexes incubate the eggs for four to five weeks and feed the young until they leave the nest in about six weeks. The smaller red-shouldered hawk is still a good-sized bird at 15 to 19 inches in length with a wingspan of 37 to 42 inches. Red-shouldered hawks return to the same nesting territory year after year. A perch-hunter of the forest understory, the red-shouldered feeds on frogs, snakes, lizards and small mammals. One of our most distinctively marked common hawks, the red-shouldered has barred reddish-peachy underparts and a strongly banded tail. In flight, translucent crescents near the wingtips help to identify the species at a distance. Red-shoulders soar on flat wings held forward, giving a hunched appearance. Their wingbeats are quick and shallow, interspersed with quick glides. Next time you hear a scream up above, be sure to look for one of these magnificent birds. They may be dancing, hunting or just soaring for joy. Crews pour a foundation as construction continues at Stonebridge Crossing off Dickerman Road in July. File photo. Dave Zajac / Hearst Connecticut Media People walk to the Meriden Mall entrance next to T.J. Maxx, March 29, 2022. Another T.J. Maxx store is scheduled to open in Cheshire. DAVE ZAJAC/Dave Zajac, Record-Journal Thurs., Jul.2, 2020. Dave Zajac, Record-Journal DAVE ZAJAC Meriden Mall, Jan 4, 2021. Dave Zajac / Hearst Connecticut Media The T.J. Maxx store in the Marketplace at Hamden. The parent company of the Massachusetts-based retailer has announced plans for a new store that will be part of a Cheshire mixed use development. Luther Turmelle/ Hearst Connecticut Media The announcement that T.J. Maxx will be part of the retail complex at the Stone Bridge Crossing mixed use development in Cheshire has some area shoppers wondering what that might ultimately mean for the retailer's other locations in the area. The new T.J. Maxx, which is scheduled to open in late 2025 or early in 2026, will be located in what will be called Cheshire Crossing, a shopping center that will be part of the Stone Bridge complex, near the intersection of Route 10 and Interstate 691. That's just a few miles west of another T.J. Maxx location in the Meriden Mall at 470 Lewis Ave. The new Cheshire T.J. Maxx store will also be located just a few miles north of another retail location that is also part of the stable of brands operated by Massachusetts-based TJX Companies. The Marshalls department store location in Cheshire is in Maplecroft Plaza on Highland Avenue, and for months there has been speculation on social media that the store would close at that site and relocate to Stone Bridge Crossing. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Now that T.J. Maxx has been identified as one of the tenants of Cheshire Crossing, social media discussions in Cheshire and neighboring communities have pivoted to whether the opening of the new store will result in the closing Marshalls in Cheshire or the T.J. Maxx in Meriden. Burt Flickinger, managing director of the New York City-based retail consulting firm Strategic Resource Group, said most retailers "don't want another of their stores within three miles of their primary trade area and within five miles of their secondary trade area." Primary trade areas are where a majority of a retailer's customers come from, while the secondary trade area is where as many as a quarter of a store's customers are drawn from. Flickinger said some retailers will build a new store within those trade areas as a hedge against real estate problems at an existing store. "Sometimes they'll build a replacement location before the lease at an existing store runs out in case they can't negotiate an extension," he said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But Flickinger said executives at TJX "are some times very comfortable having a T.J. Maxx and Marshalls within the same shopping center or very nearby." Andrew Martelli, Cheshire's director of economic development and grants, said that's the case on Universal Drive in North Haven. "You have a T.J. Maxx right across the street from a Home Goods," Martelli said, referring to another brand in the TJX portfolio. "So I don't think you will see them close the Marshalls in Cheshire." Marshalls now has about 20 locations in Connecticut, while T.J. Maxx has 18 stores in the state, according to the web sites for the two brands. Advertisement Article continues below this ad TJX officials did not respond to inquiries from Hearst Connecticut Media about what the company's policies are in terms of proximity of its stores to each other. T.J. Maxx has been open in the Meriden Mall for about a decade. A Faber man pleaded guilty Feb. 23 in Nelson Circuit Court to charges related to a fatal crash that killed his passenger. Julian Wesley Warner, 20, pleaded guilty to one count each of involuntary manslaughter and driving under the influence in the crash that killed Christopher Davis, 27, of Afton. The fatal crash happened March 16, 2023 at about 15 minutes after midnight when Warners car hit a tree, Nelson County Chief Deputy Commonwealths Attorney Erik Laub said. Emergency crews arrived about 15 minutes later to find the car with severe damage, with the engine thrown from the vehicle, Laub said. The crash occurred just north of Paulies Pig Out restaurant, prosecutors have said. Deputies responded to the scene and found that Warners vehicle traveling northbound had crested the hill but missed a turn in the road and crashed into the trees, a prosecutor said at a previous hearing. Warner was found partially ejected through the windshield and later transported to the University of Virginia Medical Center for treatment of his injuries, prosecutors have said. The black box police removed from the car registered the the vehicle was going 95 miles per hour about five seconds before impact, Laub said. That stretch of Virginia 151 is a 45 mph zone, he said. Davis died on impact. Davis family, who were in the courtroom to hear the plea, wept as details of his death were described. Police noticed an alcohol odor from Warner and the vehicle when arriving on scene, Laub said. Warner was taken to the UVa hospital where they did a blood test to know if any alcohol was in Warners system, Laub said. Two tests taken were taken after the crash, 10 minutes apart, the prosecutor said. The results were 0.096 and 0.085, both exceeding the legal limit, according to Laub. The police officer on scene said there were open bottles of beer in the car that had been destroyed on impact. Philip Baker, Warners attorney, noted that Warner doesnt remember the facts of the crash but has to live everyday knowing he was responsible for Davis death. During the plea hearing, Warners charges were amended from aggravated involuntary manslaughter to involuntary manslaughter, which Warner can face up to 10 years in prison instead of 20. The sentencing is scheduled for May 6 in Nelson Circuit Court, court records show. A Charlottesville man has been denied bond on charges related to the Feb. 21 shooting death of a Lynchburg woman. Keon Jamir Palmer, 22, is charged with second-degree murder and first offense use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in connection with the death of 19-year-old Makayvia Iyana Cabell. LPD said in a release last week that officers responded to a report of a malicious wounding at 10:50 a.m. on Feb 21. Upon arrival at a residence at 1808 Locust St., officers found Cabell suffering from gunshot wounds and began rendering aid. Cabell was taken to Centras Lynchburg General Hospital for treatment where she succumbed to her injuries, according to the department. Palmer was arrested later that day, police said. At Palmers bond hearing Tuesday in Lynchburg General District Court, Senior Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Jessie Dumond told the court the police investigation found that Cabell had been staying at the residence at 1808 Locust St. with the defendant, who was her ex-boyfriend. On the morning of Feb. 21, police received a 911 call from the defendants brother saying that someone had been shot, Dumond said. The defendants brother said on that call that Palmer had shot Cabell and that Palmer had just left the residence, according to Dumond. LPD later interviewed the defendants brother, who said Cabell and Palmer had been arguing before the shooting, and the defendant had been trying to get Cabell to leave the house, according to Dumond. She said the defendants brother told police Cabell was sitting on the couch on her phone when she was shot. Dumond said Cabells autopsy showed shed been shot in excess of seven times, and one bullet was lodged in her femur. Palmer turned himself into police later that day, according to Dumond. She said hed been active on Instagram, posting finna turn myself in followed by a facepalm emoji. Dumond also quoted Palmer as saying over intercepted jailhouse calls that he only pulled the trigger five times, in reference to the number of reported gunshots. Requesting that Circuit Court Judge Sam D. Eggleston deny Palmer bond, Dumond said her office has concerns for the safety of the community. Palmers defense attorney Joseph Sanzone noted his client contacted police and turned himself in within a few hours of the incident. Sanzone also said his client will be asserting self-defense on the charges, that Cabell made the first display of a firearm and that she used a Taser on his client. Eggleston denied Palmer bond, saying I think hes a danger to the community. TOKYO, Feb 28 (News On Japan) - A taxidermy specimen stored at the National Museum of Nature and Science as "a type of wild dog" has been identified as the now-extinct Japanese wolf. The first to notice that it might be a Japanese wolf was a junior high school student from Tokyo, who, along with experts, conducted research and recently announced their findings. The paper was published by Hina Komori, a first-year junior high school student from Tokyo, and a research team including members from the National Museum of Nature and Science. Four years ago, when Komori was in the fourth grade, she visited a special public event at the museum's storage facility in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture, where she noticed that one of the taxidermy specimens resembled the Japanese wolf she had seen in picture books and other references. Although the specimen had been stored as "a type of wild dog," detailed research by Komori and experts based on the size of the body and historical records from the label of the taxidermy suggested that it was likely a Japanese wolf that had been kept at Ueno Zoo over a hundred years ago. The findings were compiled into a paper over two years and announced this month. According to the research team, the Japanese wolf once inhabited Japan widely but is believed to have gone extinct about 100 years ago. There are only a few remaining specimens of taxidermy or fur samples in Japan and abroad. Komori commented, "When I saw the features like the flat shape from the forehead to the nose, the short forelegs, and the black hair on the back, I had a feeling like a radar going 'beep'it must be a Japanese wolf. I was so excited in my head, like I wanted to start dancing or performing a dance." After learning that the taxidermy had been treated as "a type of wild dog" and not thoroughly examined, Komori consulted with experts while investigating past records made public by museums. In her fifth grade, she compiled a report as a personal research project, suggesting that the taxidermy might be a Japanese wolf. The report won the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award at a contest organized by the Library Promotion Foundation. One of the experts she consulted, Sayaka Kobayashi, a researcher at the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology in Chiba Prefecture, who is knowledgeable about the history of specimens, suggested, "I want these research findings to be preserved in an academic paper." To conduct an objective analysis for the paper, Komori spent another two years on analysis and review. After peer review by experts, the paper was published on the 22nd of this month in an electronic journal issued by the National Museum of Nature and Science. Kobayashi praised Komori's observational skills and encouraged her to continue deepening her interest in the field she is passionate about. Shinichiro Kawada, a co-author of the paper and a senior researcher at the Animal Research Department of the National Museum of Nature and Science, appraised Komori's discovery and paper writing at such a young age as "amazing" and looked forward to her future discoveries. The museum houses over 5 million items, including the newly identified Japanese wolf taxidermy and other historically valuable specimens, making it the largest collection in Japan. In August last year, the museum conducted crowdfunding to support the management of its precious collection, raising over 900 million yen, far exceeding the target amount, with support from over 50,000 people. Kawada, who is also responsible for managing the vast collection of animal taxidermy at the museum, recognized the importance of preserving valuable collections for the future through this discovery. He mentioned that there are quite a few specimens whose origins are not yet understood, and it is crucial to preserve them for future research with new technologies. Although the newly discovered taxidermy is not currently planned for public display, another Japanese wolf taxidermy is exhibited at the museum in Ueno, Tokyo, and is available for viewing. Source: NHK TOKYO, Feb 29 (News On Japan) - Toyota Motor Corporation's domestic sales in January decreased by 13.7% compared to the previous year, totaling 112,425 units, marking the first year-on-year decline in 13 months. The drop was influenced by the complete halt in production of Toyota-branded vehicles handled by its subsidiary, Daihatsu Motor Co., which resulted in zero production units in January. Amid these circumstances, Daihatsu announced the resumption of production for certain models, including those for Toyota, at its Shiga plant, which had been halted, starting from March 18. Additionally, Toyota announced the resumption of operations for two lines at two plants that had been stopped due to the misconduct issue at Toyota Industries Corporation, starting from March 4. Source: BIZ Childrens Square plans to start a crisis stabilization program for children Friday. Crisis Care Anywhere will serve families of children in southwest Iowa who experience a significant mental health crisis that would not require hospitalization, according to a news release. For an average of five to seven days, Childrens Square staff will work with the child and family on campus, at their home or in a comfortable community setting of the familys choice. Therapists and psychiatrists will work with the child and family to build skills to manage behavior, provide coordination for mental health treatment and learn how to access the services in the community that provide mental health treatment. While the program will initially be community-based, the 141-year-old organization that services children with mental health needs plans to introduce a crisis stabilization program on its Council Bluffs campus. This program will include beds on campus for children to stay for several days while working with staff to manage their mental health crisis. We look forward to offering this service on our campus Viv Ewing, president and CEO of Childrens Square, said in the release. As childrens emotional and mental health needs increase, our care must continually adapt to meet these needs so that our children can enjoy healthy, productive lives." Funding from the Southwest Iowa Mental Health & Disability Services Region allowed Childrens Square to initiate the programming in an ongoing effort to help and care for children with significant mental health needs. By joining forces with Children's Square in the creation of this new program, we are adding to the continuum of care for children and families in crisis. Together, we are building a brighter future for our youth, said Suzanne Watson, the agency's CEO, said in a release. Crisis Care Anywhere will be a great resources for children in southwest Iowa experiencing a mental health crisis, said Jonathan Holland, chief program officer for Childrens Square. "We are proud to partner with the Southwest Iowa Mental Health & Disability Services Region to offer this service and look forward to offering on-site crisis care in the near future, Holland said. The Council Bluffs Community School District will host its annual informational session next week for parents who will have their first child in kindergarten next school year. All parents who live in the district or who are interested in learning more about enrolling in the Council Bluffs schools and have a child who will be 5 years old by Sept 15, 2024, are invited to attend, according to a news release. The session will be held from 6 to 7 p.m. on Thursday. March 7, at Longfellow Elementary School, 2011 S. 10th St. No advance registration is required. Parents are encouraged to bring their child to participate in a craft in a room supervised by staff from the Kids & Company child care program. Mark Schuldt, chief of elementary schools, said in the release that the informational session will provide parents with insight into the district and what their child will be learning and experiencing in Kindergarten. We look forward to meeting the parents of our newest students who will graduate with our Class of 2037, Schuldt said. Each family will also have the opportunity to pre-register for the school year during the event. Kindergarten roundup for all incoming kindergartners will be held Thursday, April 4, from 4:15 to 6 p.m. at all of the district's elementary schools. Those buildings are: Bloomer Elementary, 210 S. Seventh St. Carter Lake Elementary, 1000 Willow Drive College View Elementary, 1225 College Road Edison Elementary, 2218 Third Ave. Franklin Elementary, 3130 Ave. C Hoover Elementary, 1205 N. Broadway Lewis & Clark Elementary, 1603 Grand Ave. Longfellow Elementary, 2011 So 10th St. Roosevelt Elementary, 517 N. 17th St. Rue Elementary, 3326 Sixth Ave. U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, a Republican from Hull, filed for reelection Wednesday morning. Feenstra represents Iowa's 4th Congressional District, which includes Council Bluffs. He submitted 224% of the minimum signature requirement, according to a news release. He announced he would seek another term in December. Im running for re-election because Iowans deserve a representative who will work every day to deliver real, conservative results for our communities and our state," Feestra said in the release. As Iowas voice in Congress, I will continue to work to secure our border, keep China away from our farmland, cut wasteful spending, and protect our conservative values. I look forward to earning the vote of every Iowan who wants to get our country back on track. Republican Kevin Virgil of Sutherland is also running in the 4th District, according to a candidate list from the Iowa Secretary of State's Office. Democrat Ryan Melton of Nevada, who challenged Feenstra in 2022, also has announced he plans to seek the seat. The filing period for federal and state offices runs through March 15 at 5 p.m. U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn hosted an forum Feb. 23 in Atlantic to discuss best practices and develop new approaches to help combat the opioid crisis in rural Iowa. Too many Iowans know a family member or friend who is dealing with an addiction to opioids. We can and must do more to save lives from overdoses, Nunn said in a news release. Panelists included Atlantic Police Chief Devin Hogue, Decatur County Sheriff Chris Lane, representatives from the Office of the Iowa Attorney General, Cass County Chief Medical Director Elaine Barry, Atlantic Mayor Grace Garrett and Deric Kidd, who lost his son to fentanyl. More than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021 were attributed to synthetic opioids other than methadoneprimarily fentanyl. Fentanyl poisoning is now the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 to 45. Nunn has hosted dozens of forums with the community to hear from law enforcement, health care professionals and concerned Iowans regarding the growing impacts of the opioid epidemic. He also introduced the Communities of Recovery Reauthorization Act to support Iowans fighting addiction, which passed the House of Representatives in December. A month earlier, Nunn also introduced bipartisan legislation to increase access to naloxone to prevent overdose deaths. Severe storms with probable tornadoes tore through several central U.S. states, damaging homes and businesses and killing at least three people, with more bodies likely to be discovered, authorities said. As the sun rose Friday, officials scrambled to assess the extent of the destruction wit Connecticut Attorney General William Tong speaks during the Veterans Day Parade and Ceremony at Veterans Memorial Park in Stamford, Conn. Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. Tong is seeking the state legislature's passage of a bill that would give his office greater enforcement powers over consumer financial-services firms, including banks such as M&T. Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media M&T Bank has this branch and adjacent offices at 850 Main St., in downtown, Bridgeport, Conn. Out-of-state banks such as M&T, which is headquartered in Buffalo, N.Y., would be subject to greater enforcement powers by the Connecticut attorney general, according to a bill before the state legislature's Banking Committee. Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media Connecticut Attorney General William Tong is pushing again for legislation that would strengthen his offices ability to investigate and take civil-enforcement action against banks and other financial-services institutions, reform that he argued was essential to protecting consumers from unfair and unscrupulous practices. Comparable to legislation that was proposed in the previous two years, Senate Bill 121 would allow the attorney general's office to conduct investigations of allegedly deceptive and anti-consumer practices. The legislation would also provide the attorney generals office the investigatory power to enforce certain Consumer Financial Protection Act protections against banks chartered in other states, such as Buffalo, N.Y.-headquartered M&T, which has been the focus of about 425 complaints submitted to the attorney general's office following the conversion of Peoples United Bank accounts to M&T accounts in September 2022. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This is really important to people here in Connecticut, after we saw what happened to Connecticut consumers with M&T Bank, Tong said during remote testimony to the state legislatures Banking Committee on Tuesday. It would have been helpful with M&T to have clarified that we had that pre-(law)suit investigative authority. The legislations scope extends far beyond banks, however. Tong said that federal authorities and other state attorneys general have used the authority provided by the bill to investigate and bring civil-enforcement actions against payday lenders, debt collectors, cash advance companies, for-profit colleges, tribal lending entities and purported law firms operating mortgage-relief schemes. It would be helpful in taking on, for example, for-profit student colleges that maybe encouraged students to take out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and then the school closes, Tong said. That might have given us the opportunity to protect students here in Connecticut for example, students like those at Stone Academy. Last year, Tong sued Stone Academy, alleging that the nursing-school operator deceived hundreds of students and denied them their promised education. Stone Academy, which had campuses in East Hartford, Waterbury and West Haven, shut down in February 2023, amid pressure from state regulators, who accused Stone of inadequate staffing and a failure to meet requirements related to clinical hours. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Tong added that the bill would help protect consumers in Connecticut against companies such as Florida-MV Realty, which has been sued by several states for allegedly deceptive practices, such as locking vulnerable homeowners into 40-year exclusive-listing agreements. MV is also the subject of an active investigation by Tong's office. Last year, the Banking Committee passed a comparable bill. But during a busy session that was dominated by negotiations over the state budget, that bill did not subsequently come up for votes on the floor of the legislatures House of Representatives or Senate. When they passed last years bill, some Banking Committee members said then that they wanted any enacted version of the legislation to further clarify the lines of authority between the attorney generals office and the state Department of Banking. Some of those who submitted testimony about last years bill, including the Connecticut Bankers Association, expressed similar concerns. Tong and banking department officials said that they have been working to resolve those issues. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The discussions have been fruitful. Weve been able to come to an agreement, particularly around the entities and individuals that are subject to the jurisdiction of the (banking) commissioner, Matt Smith, the Department of Bankings director of government relations and consumer affairs, said during in-person testimony on Tuesday. We have a long and productive working relationship with the office of the attorney general. This really highlights and underscores that relationship. The department supports the AGs efforts and authority to enforcement the CFPB Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. Several committee members and representatives of financial-services advocacy groups said that they were pleased to learn of the talks between the attorney generals office and the banking department. Were actually very heartened to hear that there are good conversations going on between the attorney generals office and the Department of Banking, Thomas Mongellow, CEO and president of the Connecticut Bankers Association, said during in-person testimony to the committee on Tuesday. As we reported to you folks last year, one of the key things we're looking for in any type of bill that moves forward would be to preserve the current protocols and cooperative that currently exist between the Department of Banking and the AG. The Credit Union League of Connecticut is also closely following the bills development. Advertisement Article continues below this ad There is a longstanding history of cooperation and collaboration between these agencies, and we anticipate that the current discussions will yield language that preserves this effective and beneficial relationship, Bruce Adams, the CEO and president of the Credit Union League of Connecticut, said in written testimony. Among others weighing in on the bill was John Erlingheuser, senior director of advocacy for AARP Connecticut, which represents people over the age of 50. This bill would ensure that the attorney general would have its normal tools for investigating and enforcing rules that are in place for Connecticuts financial industry, regardless of the type of charter or license each institution operates under, Erlingheuser said in written testimony. Banking Committee members did not vote Tuesday on SB 121. They have not yet set a date for doing so, but they will likely vote on the bill sometime in March. 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. Whether you planned it originally or held off because of dry conditions in the fall, the time for spring alfalfa planting is just around the corner. Selecting the right seed is crucial, and two traits to consider are fall dormancy and winter survival. These traits often are treated the same Religious leaders and especially Salafists in the three coup-hit West African countries have reportedly emerged as the unexpected allies of the new military authorities. The largely popular regimes in Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali West African countries, which have also undergone military coups since 2020 enjoy the support of the religious leaders that is better structured and more vocal than other support tends to be, according to Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim from the International Crisis Group (ICG). As Voice of America has reported, for example, the rise to power of Captain Ibrahim Traore, Burkina Fasos first Muslim head of state in 42 years, gave a boost in the country to the followers of a purist form of Islam called Wahhabism, which is prevalent in Saudi Arabia. In a country where around 60% of the population is Muslim, this movement has gained a following around the idea that Christians have monopolized the political running of the country since independence, Yahaya Ibrahim said. Meanwhile, in Mali, an influential imam, Mahmoud Dicko, may well be one of the ruling juntas most vociferous critics, but he has still expressed his support for junta chief Colonel Assimi Goita, thus bolstering the Salafists political role. They attempt to influence the course of the transition (back to civilian rule) by giving more space to Muslims, Yahaya Ibrahim explains. Underlying this is a wave of anti-French sentiment in various countries in the region, along with calls for closer ties with Russia. This anti-Western rhetoric is nothing new, according to French-Nigerien anthropologist Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, who explains that this has been driven over the last two decades by the failure of Western development policies and the corruption of the elites. Morocco has called on the Peace & Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) to take action against those recruiting and using child soldiers in armed conflicts. Addressing remotely the PSC meeting convening Tuesday in Addis Ababa, the Moroccan delegation stressed the need for a comprehensive and inclusive approach combining action and prevention against the use of child soldiers in hostilities. Morocco seized this opportunity to reaffirm its unwavering commitment to protecting and promoting the fundamental rights of all children. As a major contributor to peacekeeping efforts across the continent, Morocco is combating this scourge through the launching of awareness campaigns in coordination with regional and international partners. Morocco also condemns the recruitment and use of children by armed forces, groups, and terrorist organizations in Africa, and stresses the importance of international cooperation to end childs human rights abuse. Recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited under international humanitarian law and is defined as a war crime by the International Criminal Court. While many children are recruited by force, others join armed groups out of desperation. As communities break down during war, children are often separated from their families, driven from their homes, and left with no opportunity to go to school. In situations of extreme insecurity, many vulnerable children believe that joining an armed group is their best chance of protection or survival. However, regardless of how children are recruited, the military commanders that exploit them as soldiers put them at extreme risk and will face prosecution. Many child soldiers participating directly in hostilities may be subject to injury, disability, and death. They are often exposed to extreme levels of violence that result in life-long emotional and psychological scars. Morocco has called for the immediate, comprehensive, and sustainable cessation of the Israeli war on Gaza during the high-level segment of the ongoing 55th session of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC), chaired by the North African Kingdom. Gaza is experiencing an unprecedented crisis and a humanitarian catastrophe that the international community can no longer ignore. Hence the call from HM King Mohammed VI, in his capacity as President of the Al-Quds Committee, for an awakening of human conscience to end the massacre of human lives, said Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita, in a speech he delivered in Geneva on Tuesday. Faced with the escalation of military operations and the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, the Kingdom of Morocco reaffirms its consistent positions and once again and insistently calls for the immediate, comprehensive, and sustainable cessation of the Israeli war on Gaza and for ensuring the protection of civilians and not targeting them, in the context of continued random Israeli bombings of hospitals, schools, places of worship, and other civilian installations, stressed Nasser Bourita. The Moroccan top diplomat also emphasized the need to allow smooth and sufficient delivery of humanitarian aid to the population of Gaza, to protect Palestinians against forced exile, and to establish a political horizon for the settlement of the Palestinian issue, capable of reactivating the two-state solution, with the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. Nasser Bourita represents Morocco at the 55th session of the HRC, held under the presidency of the Kingdom in the person of Permanent Representative of Morocco to Geneva, Omar Zniber, who was elected as the head of the Council in January. In his address, Bourita pointed out that Moroccos presidency of the UNHRC will engage with credibility, dynamism, and the pursuit of constructive consensus to achieve the objectives of this UN body. Building on its achievements at the national level and in line with its international commitments, the Moroccan presidency of the UNHRC will engage with the same principles, values, and working methods that characterize Moroccan diplomacy, namely credibility in action, dynamism in performance, innovation in methods, and pursuit of constructive consensus to achieve the lofty goals for which this body was created, Bourita. The election of the Kingdom to head this major UN body is an international recognition of Moroccos firm commitment to promoting human rights at national, regional, and international levels, he insisted. The Algerian regime is embroiled in a new diplomatic spat with Kinshasa, sparked by the warmonger army chief Said Chengriha following his provocative trip lately to Kigali amid heightened tensions between Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC) and Rwanda. The reckless Algerian top General travelled to Rwanda in a bid to get support after his country suffered a series of diplomatic setbacks in its showdown with neighboring Morocco over the Sahara issue. According to press reports, Chengrihas talks in Kigali focused on military cooperation, training, and support for the M-23 separatist group, an armed militia like the Algeria-backed polisario thugs. The Algerian interference in the Great Lake conflicts has infuriated DRC authorities which summoned on Monday Algerian Ambassador to Kinshasa to protest Chengrihas hostile meddling and remarks threatening their national security. Algeria has not officially commented on the summon which came at context Algeria is losing foothold in its immediate Sahel neighbourhood. The repressive and corrupt Algerian regime has lost its economic and diplomatic battles against Morocco. It has strained relations with its neighbors and the majority of Arab and European countries after uncovering its deceptive propaganda and delusions. In the Sahel, the Algerian junta, de factor ruler, has lost its leverage and strategic backyard, leaving it disoriented. Algeria has previously recalled its ambassador for consultation after Mali summoned Algerian ambassador to protest for meddling in its domestic affairs. Niger rejected Algerias mediation in its domestic crisis, while the ECOWAS rejected any Algerian role in the region. Now, the Algerian authorities are focusing on Mauritania and Tunisia offering them economic sweeteners which are no longer silver bullets. Instead of investing and building bridges of security, stability and co-development across the African continent, the Algerian junta is supporting bloodshed, separatism, and divisions. Meanwhile, neighboring Morocco is emerging as a regional economic and military power. Thanks to its political & macro-economic stability and geostrategic position, the North African Kingdom is thriving, becoming a competitive production hub and a gateway for investment into Africa. Moroccos solidarity-based south-south cooperation is gaining momentum and worldwide praise with the launch of the Royal initiative offering Atlantic access to Sahel countries. Backed by Moroccos friends, partners and allies including the US-led Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the initiative will bring in shared prosperity, security, and will transform the whole the continent. The message from the general public to U.S. Fish & Wildlife representatives Tuesday at a meeting about NPPDs revised R-Project was resoundingly clear: They dont want power lines built through the Sandhills. Officials presented the Nebraska Public Power Districts revised plan at a public meeting Tuesday at the Prairie Arts Center in North Platte. They covered any potential impacts the project may have on local wildlife and historic sites. Afterwards, they opened up the meeting for a public comment period. These ranchers behind me and myself have spent years generating those beetles on our property for the reasons they need to be there, and what your intention to do is to kill them, said Robert Bernt of Spalding. Bernt was referring to the American burying beetle, a protected animal on the Endangered Species Act. He said he stopped giving his cattle ivermectin because it kills the beetle, which is important for disposing of carrion and cow dung. USFW issued an incidental take permit for the beetle to NPPD on June 12, 2019. It approved the districts plan to relocate the beetle population expected to be disturbed. Bernt argued it was the farmers right to protect the beetle. You ask me to identify myself with a group? Im whats known as a grandparent group, said Barbara Welch of Thedford. I want my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren now to be able in 30 years to come through to the place where Im buried and see the hills and the birds and the animals and not the destruction that this project will cause. If successful, the plan will give NPPD permission to build a 226-mile-long power line from Gerald Gentleman Station north and then east to Holt County. The new plan will avoid running a 354-kilovolt line through OFallons Bluff, a site that contains wagon-rut swales listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A Denver federal judge cited that plan as a key reason for his 2020 ruling overturning a Fish & Wildlife permit clearing the way for construction. Instead, lines will now run just east of the rest area, bypassing the historic site and continuing north and then east to Holt County. A North Platte man has filed a federal lawsuit saying Lincoln County sheriffs deputies caused horrific permanent injuries stemming from an incident in 2020 at Kansas Point Campground. James T. Mitchell, 36, is suing former Sgt. Devin Ruff, and former Chief Deputy Roland Kramer and any other deputies on scene at Kansas Point involved in his arrest on Feb. 24, 2020, The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Nebraska alleges deputies used unreasonable deadly force in response to Mitchells attempts to flee. The use of deadly force caused serious and grievous injuries to Mitchells kidney, gallbladder, intestines, diaphragm and right bicep, the suit says, which necessitated medical treatment in excess of $900,000. Both court records from his criminal case and his civil complaint say deputies were at Kansas Point looking for another person of interest that day when Mitchell pulled into the area in his vehicle. Mitchell had an arrest warrant at the time and law enforcement immediately recognized him. The complaint alleges deputies immediately drew their firearms, surrounding his car. In response, Mitchell attempted to exit with a three-point turn. As he did so, the complaint says, deputies opened fire on his vehicle, striking him in his abdomen, his right chest and his right bicep. Mitchells suit alleges that each officer who fired their weapon in the incident violated Mitchells rights secured by the Fourth and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The criminal court records say two deputies made contact with Mitchell on the drivers side. One reached in and grabbed him by the arm, saying he was under arrest. The suit says Mitchell put his vehicle in reverse, dragging the deputy and striking a patrol car, totaling $1,000 in damage. After arresting Mitchell, officers found 135 grams of methamphetamine. In October 2021 Mitchell pleaded no contest to felony operating a motor vehicle to avoid arrest and assaulting an officer using a motor vehicle. As part of the plea deal, charges of possession of methamphetamine and using a deadly weapon to commit a felony were dropped. He was sentenced to three years at the Nebraska Department of Corrections in February 2022. Mitchell appealed his sentence in April 2022. The Nebraska Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in June 2022. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images The towering issue for voters so far this election isnt the economy or foreign policy but age. Many have voiced concern to pollsters about the number of birthday candles for Donald Trump, 77, and Joe Biden, 81. Already the oldest presidents to ascend to the office, each would break their own record next year. Biden, for instance, would be 86 at the end of his second term, approximately double JFKs age at swearing-in. That exact longevity is just what Congressman Jerry Nadler envisions for himself. The 76-year-old says he can quite possibly see himself in office for another ten years. Im absolutely running again, he says. Last year, there were some whispers that Nadlers service might soon be coming to a close. The signals were certainly there: His chief of staff departed. His wife had been fighting pancreatic cancer. In 2022, he stumbled somewhat during a debate with Carolyn Maloney and 30-something contender Suraj Patel, who decried them both as 1990s Democrats. The performance helped sustain whispers that he might step aside come 2024, but none of this has moved Nadler, who says he sees himself running for several more terms. Today, he says, his health is fine and that his wifes doctor told her the odds of her cancer never recurring are 80 to 90 percent. Nadler, who represents a mighty chunk of Manhattan from around 14th Street up past Central Park, is the longest serving and oldest member of the New York delegation. For a sense of how firmly planted he is in the Big Apple firmament, consider that he knows the Zabars, as in the family, who used to sit in front of us in synagogue. He also famously repped their babka on the House floor during Trumps second impeachment. The son of a chicken farmer born in Bensonhurst, on a block he would one day represent along with Manhattan, he launched himself into politics via the State Assembly in the 1970s while still in night law school at Fordham. Just how long has he been in Congress? His nomination fight for the seat in 1992 was managed by a 32-year-old guy named Scott Stringer. Nadler has been running ever since. Right now, I still feel very energetic, he says. I have a lot of things to do. When I decide that I can no longer do them, or that I have nothing left to do which is ridiculous thenll be time to retire. Nadler rattles off a long list of priorities, including voting-rights legislation, legal protections for Dreamers, his own bill to deschedule marijuana entirely, plus a mandatory code of ethics for the Supreme Court, as well as 18-year term limits for justices and adding four more spots to the court. In the city, he is supportive of converting office space into housing, extending the Second Avenue subway, implementing congestion pricing, and pushing his pet project of a freight tunnel linking New Jersey to Brooklyn. Nadlers plan to keep running and working even as his age rounds up to 80 provides a case study of the forces that encourage Americas politicians to continue seeking office into their ninth decade. The idea of him staying on the job until 86 would be extraordinarily unusual in most professions but less so in Congress, where Chuck Grassley remains the very senior senator from Iowa at age 90 and Mitch McConnell serves as Senate minority leader at 82. In the House, 83-year-old former Speaker Nancy Pelosi stepped aside from leadership in lieu of 53-year-old Hakeem Jeffries, but shes still serving, along with Steny Hoyer (84), Jim Clyburn (83), and more 87-year-olds (2) than Gen-Z members (Maxwell Frost). The advanced age of Congress is a historical anomaly, says Kevin Munger, a political scientist at Penn State and the author of Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture. That anomaly is partially boosted by the amount of money it takes to win elections, Munger argues, and Americas two-party system, since third parties jockeying for power can attract more youth participation. The Houses seniority system is also a strong push to stay in office and climb the ranks. Seniority plays a role in everything from office space to committee assignments and, of course, in the choice of powerful committee chairs, who essentially set the agenda for lawmakers. Nadler waited nearly three decades to reach the top of the Judiciary Committee in 2019, a role hed be poised to retake if Democrats win the House this year. Certainly Nadlers forebears in Congress from Manhattan provide a precedent for lengthy periods of service. He overlapped with Charles Rangel, the son of Harlem whose House career ran for 46 years. And Rangel for his part overlapped with Emanuel Celler, another Judiciary Committee chairman and a son of the 1800s who served from 1923 to 1973, leaving at age 85 only because he lost to 31-year-old Elizabeth Holtzman, then the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. One reason some members leave unprompted is out of fear that theyd soon be in the minority, blocked from pretty much anything but making speeches. You see people retiring if they think its hopeless, says Jerry Skurnik, a personal friend of Nadlers and senior consultant at Engage Voters US, which has done work for Nadler in the past. If Democrats flip the House, however, Nadlers seniority means he has more clout for the district, Skurnik says. Returning to the chairmanship of the powerful Judiciary Committee would place him at the center of constant drama should there be a Supreme Court vacancy or Donald Trump wins and once again acts in office with little regard for law or precedent. God forbid hes president, Nadler says, then we have to safeguard the Republic. This is the greatest threat to democracy since 1860. The specter of Trump is one major reason for all the political focus on age, now more than ever given that a decided lack of youthfulness is one of Bidens principal weaknesses. That vulnerability was highlighted with special counsel Robert Hurs report on Bidens handling of classified material, which found no need for charges but labeled the president a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory who had diminished faculties. Nadler leaps to the presidents defense. You dont want a president who can do the four-minute mile, he argues. You want a president who makes the right decisions, drives the economy and drives foreign policy, which hes done fantastically. And theres no sign that he wont continue doing it. Though his lack of concern about Bidens age may put him in the minority of American voters, Nadler is in good company on this issue among the bipartisan community of senior American politicians, who endure no matter how many freeze-on-camera moments they have. Biden is essentially primaryless, and Trumps return has been hardly speed-bumped by Nikki Haley, who nevertheless has been ratcheting up her age-related criticisms, saying Trump has confused moments and suggesting that Trump and Biden would be using the White House as a taxpayer-subsidized nursing home. Some broader cultural issues may be at play in the formation of the nations political gerontocracy. Munger, the Penn State political scientist, says he often gets asked by European journalists why American politicians dont retire: And it seems like from the American perspective, the answer is always sort of like, And then do what? Nadler, in particular, appears little ready to enjoy the leisurely fruits of retirement. Ive given no thought to what Im going to do when I retire God knows when, he says, which sounds plausible from a man who has only known politics in the half-century since his law-school days and who, when asked to name a favorite pizza spot in the district, declined. His typical order? Plain. All of which leaves the Manhattan Democratic universe waiting around until Nadler decides to give up the seat. Nadlers old friend Stringer suggests not to hold your breath. I think his successor in Congress is graduating college about now, Stringer says. The Plaza at 36 Main Street near the Glastonbury line on Tuesday, February 26, 2024, in East Hartford. Jim Michaud / Hearst Connecticut Media The Plaza at 36 Main Street near the Glastonbury line on Tuesday, February 26, 2024, in East Hartford. Jim Michaud / Hearst Connecticut Media The Plaza at 36 Main Street near the Glastonbury line on Tuesday, February 26, 2024, in East Hartford. Jim Michaud / Hearst Connecticut Media The Plaza at 36 Main Street near the Glastonbury line on Tuesday, February 26, 2024, in East Hartford. Jim Michaud / Hearst Connecticut Media The Plaza at 36 Main Street near the Glastonbury line on Tuesday, February 26, 2024, in East Hartford. Jim Michaud / Hearst Connecticut Media The Plaza at 36 Main Street near the Glastonbury line on Tuesday, February 26, 2024, in East Hartford. Jim Michaud / Hearst Connecticut Media EAST HARTFORD As a commercial real estate pro who mostly helps broker new McDonalds, CVS, and Chipotle franchises, Matthew Nadler isnt used to much interest from the news media. But in the last week alone hes had three calls on the sale of a vintage East Hartford retail complex without a single fast-food outlet. All the deals I've ever done, Ive never had so many calls about a deal, said Nadler, executive vice president at Massachusetts-based Horvath & Tremblay. The 12,494-square-foot complex at 36 Main St., which was first developed in 1985, sold for $2.1 million to New York-based Gates Place Realty LLC. The deal was recorded in the towns property database on Feb. 20. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The two-story, fully leased plaza currently houses a School of Rock franchise, a salon, a fitness center, and several offices and sits on 1.12 acres. It was last sold in 2019 for $600,000 to Vista Tower LLC of Middletown, which made many improvements to the property over the years, Nadler said. They put some good capital into the building, longer-term leases, Nadler said. The media interest in the deal likely reflects the strong market for commercial real estate in East Hartford, a town that has seen major development milestones in the past few years. New housing and mixed-use retail developments are in the planning stages for the towns major east-west corridor, Silver Lane. A deal was struck earlier this month to move the last retail tenants out of derelict Silver Lane Plaza to make way for redevelopment. Advertisement Article continues below this ad North on Main Street, which spans the town from Glastonbury to South Windsor, new East Hartford Mayor Connor plans traffic calming and new development to create a version of Hartfords pedestrian-friendly Pratt Street. Also heating up East Hartfords commercial real estate market is the visible and much-publicized new warehouse complex rising on land once part of Rentschler Field. Massachusetts-based National Development built a total of 2.5 million square feet to be used for warehouses and logistics operations, with tenants including Wayfair and Lowe's expected to move in early this year. The plaza at 36 Main also has its location going for it its barely a half-mile from the border with Glastonbury, which has a much more expensive and congested retail real estate market. A lot of the new developments over the years in Glastonbury have made space more challenging, Nadler said. The fundamentals of operating a property in East Hartford versus Glastonbury are more beneficial. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Nadler added that hes seeing more buyers from New York shopping for commercial real estate in Connecticut, seeking to move capital out of a market thats seen as overly regulated. After a long run, McConnells power had already faded. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Not even Mitch McConnell is eternal. He has decided to avoid further concerns over his fragile health and his fraught relationship with party boss Donald Trump by stepping down as Republican Senate leader in November. McConnell announced the news in a Wednesday-afternoon speech on the Senate floor: McConnell on the Senate floor announcing his upcoming retirement as Senate leader: "Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them." pic.twitter.com/gyvZjNoxba Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2024 McConnell has been in that position since 2006, the longest tenure of any Senate leader from either party. But unlike his former House counterpart Kevin McCarthy, McConnell isnt quitting his job altogether the moment hes no longer top dog. As he told the Senate, he plans to finish his current term, which runs until the end of 2026, albeit from a different seat in the chamber. Why McConnell is finally stepping down The timing makes sense. This hasnt been a very enjoyable congressional session for McConnell, who cherishes his reputation as a master deal-maker like his Kentucky idol, Henry Clay. His extended effort to put together a bipartisan and bicameral foreign-aid and border-security package failed almost entirely (though its possible some of its component parts can yet be resuscitated). He is in the process of negotiating a humiliating endorsement of Trump, whom he denounced in no uncertain terms for the then-presidents misconduct of January 6. In return, the former president has let it be known hes not sure he could work with McConnell if both are in power in 2025. A coup to take down the man Trump has often called an old broken-down crow could have been in the offing just down the road, particularly if the 82-year-old senators recent health problems were to recur. Who will replace him? You would have to assume McConnell will have some influence over the identity of his successor. The most likely aspirants for the job are the senators known as the three Johns: John Cornyn of Texas, John Thune of South Dakota, and John Barrasso of Wyoming. Cornyn who on Thursday confirmed he is already campaigning for the job was McConnells whip from 2012 to 2018, until he was term-limited out of that position and replaced by Thune, who has also announced he is considering a campaign to become leader. Barrasso is currently the third-ranking Senate Republican as chairman of the party conference. Cornyn is 72, Barrasso is 71, and Thune is a relatively youthful 63. All of these men have been loyal McConnell sidekicks while maintaining better relations with the partys MAGA wing than has their chief. All three of the Johns have already endorsed Trumps presidential candidacy, though Barrasso is viewed as closer to the 45th president. Its possible that MAGA senators could offer their own candidate as leader. Rick Scott unsuccessfully challenged McConnell in November 2022 after advocating an extremist policy agenda that annoyed other Republicans significantly. Scott could try again, but hes likely preoccupied with securing his own reelection this fall. Trump could intervene to promote a loyalist, but even in this MAGA era of the GOP, senators have a puffed-up self-regard that limits too much open subservience to others. By the time Republicans finally choose a McConnell successor, theyll know whether they have a majority in the chamber, and barring another contested presidential election, theyll also know whether their party enjoys a governing trifecta that would enormously expand their power. Mitch McConnell was a powermonger of the highest order. But whatever happens in November, his own powers had become too faint to satisfy himself or his fellow Republicans. This post has been updated. Natalia Katie places a sign on the podium before the group Listen to Michigan, during their Election Night watch party in Dearborn on February 27, 2024. Photo: AFP via Getty Images Its rare that someone winning a primary with around 80 percent of the vote has to be on the defensive. But thats where Joe Biden is after a smashing victory in Michigan marred by an organized effort to protest his Middle East policies via uncommitted votes. Organizers of anti-Biden protests in Michigan wanted to show that his largely unconditional support for Israel in its war with Hamas might alienate enough voters (especially the states large Arab American population) to cost him the election in November. So they urged a vote for uncommitted in the February 27 primary. And they were really smart to set expectations low, as Politico Playbook explained: Were told that phone bankers for the Listen to Michigan campaign contacted some 100,000 voters, but their big takeaway was that most said they were simply going to stay home. Some backers of the protest campaign have publicly set a goal of 10,000 uncommitted votes, but that is a low bar: In 2020, without any organized effort, there were over 19,000. From a percentage point of view, the uncommitted vote in Democratic presidential primaries in Michigan peaked at 10.7 percent when Barack Obama was running for reelection in 2012. It was only slightly higher this time around: Uncommitted took 13 percent of the vote, with 95 percent of the vote tallied. And it has been predictably strong in pockets of strong support for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and a break in unconditional U.S. support for Israel. Uncommitted is winning heavily in Dearborn, where Arab American Muslims are a majority of the population, and its doing relatively well in Washtenaw County, where the University of Michigan is located. Still, Biden trounced uncommitted not to mention actual named opponents Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson handily. If you translate the uncommitted vote into support for Bidens general-election opponents (either Donald Trump or the multiple non-major-party candidates likely to appear on the ballot), these results are ominous. Thats exactly what uncommitted organizers hoped would be the case in order to influence the administrations policies toward Israel and Gaza or punish Biden for his recalcitrance. Bidens reelection campaign is a vast gamble on the power of comparisons between the incumbent and Trump, even among voters unhappy with Uncle Joes record or current trajectory. Losing less than one in every five votes in a Democratic primary may become a data point for the general-election campaign in Michigan, and even a reminder to Team Biden that it cannot take Black, youth, Arab American, or Muslim American votes for granted. But its not quite the crack of doom you may hear suggested by Biden haters in and beyond both parties. For the moment, patients are still arriving at SUNY Downstate hospital. Photo: Xinhua/Michael Nagle via Getty Images/Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images Its fitting that the final day of Black History Month this year will feature a noon rally at SUNY Downstate in East Flatbush, where a group of political, labor, and religious leaders organized by Senator Zellnor Myrie are protesting against the planned closure of the hospital. History will not be kind to New Yorks army of high-ranking Black pols if they lose the state-run complex, which includes schools of nursing, medicine, and public health, along with a web of community clinics and Brooklyns only kidney-transplant center. Downstate has long been a lifeline to a low-income, medically underserved community where obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are out of control. Built to handle 60,000 visits a year, Downstate typically gets more than 200,000. Funding, never adequate, reached crisis levels during the pandemic, when then-Governor Andrew Cuomo designated Downstate a COVID-only facility. News organizations reported how years of underfunding led desperate medical staff to start a GoFundMe page to scrounge up protective gear. Heartbreaking stories chronicled the heroism of Dr. James Charlie Mahoney, a legendary pulmonary and critical-care physician and professor whod spent nearly 40 years at Downstate and died battling the epidemic. This is not a hypothetical. This is an actual fight for peoples lives, and it is a problem that we are all aware of. No one can claim ignorance, says Myrie, who has been sounding the alarm at rallies and through social media and robocalls. The people that have elected us expect us to step up for them in the most critical moment. And we are at one of those critical junctures right now. The crisis began a few weeks ago, when SUNY Chancellor John King Jr. abruptly announced that the administration of Governor Kathy Hochul wants to close or merge most of Downstate, moving patient beds to nearby Kings County Hospital, a city facility. The move was so sudden that key stakeholders were caught off guard: The state health commissioner, James McDonald, admitted at a government hearing that he learned of the planned closure from media reports. The challenges at Downstate have been long-standing for two decades. In particular, we have a $100 million operating deficit and a building that is in disrepair, nearing the end of its life. And so we need action in this budget cycle, King told me earlier this month. While Hochul is prepared to invest $300 million in a new, smaller facility, he said, if we dont have that $100 million, well run out of cash by the summer. The biggest risk of closure here is the status quo. Fred Kowal, the president of United University Professions, the union that represents over 2,300 workers at Downstate nearly all of the medical professionals except nurses says closing the facility after years of underfunding would be a betrayal. Cuomo provided no resources to support the hospital during the pandemic, Kowal told me. We had members who did not have personal protective equipment; unions like our own had to go out and buy that equipment during the depths of COVID. We did lose members who died because of COVID while they were protecting the rest of us. It is really disturbing that now the decision is being made to close the hospital that literally was there when the state was most desperate. These were not supposed to be desperate times for Black New Yorkers, who have spent decades electing and reelecting power players like Mayor Eric Adams (whose former Senate district includes Downstate), along with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, State Attorney General Letitia James, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader who is poised to become Speaker of the House of Representatives. Four of the citys five Democratic county chairs are Black, as are the states chief judge, lieutenant governor, assembly Speaker, and Senate majority leader. King himself is the son of John King Sr., who in 1946 became Brooklyns first Black public-school principal. But whats the point of all this clout all the history-making breakthroughs if it cant be used to save a badly needed hospital? I recently put a version of this question to Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado at a Black History Month event and got a thoughtful response. I think were well past that point of just breaking barriers and making history. That part was necessary and needed. But now I think were on to the next phase, which requires some intentionality, he told me. We need our leaders to think comprehensively about how to marshal our resources in a way that can remake and bring home to many of our broken communities. This has to be the agenda. Myrie agrees and predicts the fight to save Downstate will put Black political power to its most serious test yet. I dont think that there is a true appreciation for the moment that we are in. And like in most things in life, you dont appreciate it until its gone, he said. Over the coming weeks, we hope to make it very clear to this administration and to the chancellor that we are not going to go easily into the night. What on earth did the people send us to do but to fight for their lives? Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photos: Retailers If you have dry skin then you know the agony of finding a new moisturizer, only for it to do nothing for your dehydrated skin. The key here is ultra-hydrating ingredients like glycerin and hyaluronic acid along with a thick texture that helps to lock everything in. Ive become a dry-skin hydration expert thanks to years of hands-on testing since I also experience seasonal dryness. Ive also spoken to nearly a dozen dermatologists to discover their recommendations. Ill get into what exactly you should look for in a moisturizer, like ingredients and texture, below. And after that, there are the 12 very best dry-skin moisturizers I could find youll definitely see some Strategist classics in the list. If youre already clear on what youre looking for, use our guide below to jump to a specific section. (Note that Im primarily referring to the skin on your face; if you have dry skin on your body, consult our guide to body lotions.) What were looking for Texture Goopy and greasy creams and ointments are your best friend if you have dry skin, because they are oil-based, have a thicker consistency, and provide more hydration than lotions, says Noelani Gonzalez, the director of cosmetic dermatology at Mount Sinai West. You may be able to get away with using a lighter lotion in the summer, especially if it does have powerful hydrating ingredients, but typically for those who have year-round dryness or a condition like eczema, a thick moisturizer or ointment needs to be a staple in your routine. Base If you have dry skin, that typically means your skin lacks the ability to create enough oil to hydrate itself. An easy solution? An oil-based moisturizer, which will add back in that oil your skin needs. Itll be easy to spot that in the ingredient list since youll quite literally see the word oil. But there are other options, too; one is using a moisturizer with a petroleum jelly base, which you probably know best as the gooey stuff that makes up Vaseline. Petroleum jelly seals in moisture and protects the skin from future environmental stressors, and its especially beneficial for people who suffer from eczema because the thick, protective layer helps to relieve itchiness and inflammation that occurs. Water is another common base for moisturizer, if you want something thats oil- or petroleum-free but if youre using one of those, you want to keep a close eye on the added ingredients, since those will make the formula hydrating, rather than the base itself. Active ingredients Ideally, your moisturizer should also have a mixture of emollients, like ceramides, to repair the skin barrier, and humectants, like glycerin and hyaluronic acid, to draw and seal moisture into the skin. Theyre not necessarily required in order to have a high-functioning moisturizer especially if youre starting with an oil or petroleum base but they sure do help and are easy to find in lots of formulas. Best moisturizer for dry skin overall CeraVe Moisturizing Cream $19 now 11% off $17 Texture: Rich cream | Base: Water-based | Active ingredients: Glycerin, hyaluronic acid, ceramides My top pick for dry skin is also my overall pick for body lotion (and personal go-to). My skin is sensitive to fragrance, and I struggle with seasonal eczema due to dryness. The texture is thick but not super-rich, and the creamy texture feels luxe given the price point. At $18 a tub, its affordable enough that you dont have to be precious about how much you slather on. I also like the ingredients. Ceramides are key for a healthy skin barrier and when applied topically, it helps to boost moisture levels and repair skin. It also contains glycerin and hyaluronic acid, staples in moisturizers formulated for dry skin. Glycerin is a humectant that pulls water into the skin and hyaluronic increases skins flexibility and elastacity while also boosting hydration. Because of its fairly simple ingredient list and mass availability (you can find it at most drugstores) its a good option for just about anyone needing a dependable option. $17 at Amazon Buy $20 at Ulta Beauty Buy Best splurge-worthy moisturizer for dry skin Dieux Instant Angel $45 $45 Texture: Cream | Base: Water-based | Active ingredients: Glycerin, urea, amino acids, ceramides, plant-derived lipid complex If you have a bit more money in the budget for a moisturizer, Id recommend splurging on Instant Angel from Dieux. Its my desert island moisturizer, striking the hard-to-achieve balance of being rich but not greasy and imparting a telltale glow to my skin. It has kept me moisturized longer than some of my heavier creams and carried me through the coldest days of winter and warm summery days, too. I also like the cocktail of ingredients: Instant Angel contains a blend of ceramides, glycerin, fatty acids, urea, squalane, and peptides, all of which work together to support a healthy skin barrier. The convenient squeeze tube crinkles attractively the more you use it, and it comes with a little metal tool to help you get out every last drop of product. Editors Note: This moisturizer is currently out of stock, but you can sign up for restock alerts. $45 at Sephora Buy $45 at Dieux Buy Best moisturizer for extremely dry skin Aquaphor Healing Ointment $20 now 10% off $18 Texture: Ointment | Base: Petroleum-based | Active ingredient: Glycerin There are those with skin that tends to get parched and flaky, particularly in the winter months, and then there are those whose skin is so dry it can actually look scaly and, as a result, is exceptionally hard to nourish. If youre in the latter category, I recommend Aquaphor which has carried me through many winter eczema flares. Its the go-to for occlusives, slightly edging out in moisturizing over the similarly formulated Vaseline because it also contains glycerin, which can help repair a damaged skin barrier. Aquaphor is also frequently recommended by dermatologists, who have suggested it for everything from Accutaneinduced dryness to eczema. Dr. Susan Binder and Dr. Katelyn Woolridge of Westlake Dermatology are both fans. Ointments are the best at fortifying the skin barrier and locking in moisture, says Woolridge, and Aquaphor does just that. Binder warns that it can be a bit greasy but thinks its great when used immediately after the shower or bath to lock in moisture and help heal dry, cracked skin. Its also fragrance-free, making it a good option for those with sensitive skin as well. $18 at Amazon Buy $18 at Walmart Buy Best clean moisturizer for extremely dry skin Futurewise Slug Balm $24 $24 Lots of products designed for ultradry skin contain petroleum jelly because its super occlusive and very effective. If youre hoping to avoid the ingredient, I recommend this Slug Balm from Futurewise, which has become a staple in my nighttime routine. It uses plant-derived oils to create that thick barrier, and despite being an occlusive, it isnt extremely goopy and greasy. It also contains a lipid complex, which helps to fortify the skins barrier. After using it almost nightly for a few months, my skin feels like I locked in an added layer of moisture, and I wake up feeling like that moisture stayed put overnight. I pair it with the brands barrier cream (also good for dry skin) and have found that my skin looks plump and healthy. $24 at Target Buy $17 at Urban Outfitters Buy Best moisturizer for sensitive dry skin Vanicream Moisturizing Skin Cream $16 now 19% off $13 Texture: Cream | Base: Petroleum-based | Active ingredients: Ceramides For the ultrasensitive, I often recommend Vanicream, which formulates without anything sensitizing without sacrificing moisture. The main active in the skin cream is ceramides, which help to fortify the barrier and lock in moisture. Dr. Ife Rodney, founding director of Eternal Dermatology + Aesthetics, calls this Vanicream moisturizer ideal because its formulated specifically for sensitive skin, so its free of lanolin, formaldehyde, parabens, and fragrances that commonly irritate dry, sensitive skin. Even though Ive recommended Vanicream as a solution for extremely dry skin before, its just as effective and gentle for your face. My fellow Strategist writer Lauren Ro has this to say: I was immediately impressed with how luxurious and rich the cream felt on my skin and surprised by how easily it spread. $13 at Amazon Buy $13 at Walmart Buy Best moisturizer for dry acne-prone skin La Roche-Posay Toleriane Double Repair Face Moisturizer $23 $23 Texture: Cream | Base: Water-based | Active ingredients: Glycerin, hyaluronic acid, ceramides French drugstore brand La Roche-Posay has a strong following (I am an acolyte), and every product is formulated with selenium-rich spring water, known for helping with skin damage and inflammation. As a sensitive-skin type, Ive known about its Toleriane line for years. Its great for dry skin, and the double-repair moisturizer is a classic for a reason. Its a bit lighter than Ceraves moisturizing cream and less rich than Dieux Skins Instant Angel, but this is actually a good thing if you have acne-prone skin, which can be triggered by too-heavy products. Dr. Hope Mitchell, a board-certified dermatologist in Perrysburg, Ohio, also likes Double Repair for acne-prone skin, especially if youre treating your acne with drying ingredients like benzoyl peroxide. With dimethicone, soothing niacinamide, water-attracting glycerin, and hydrating ceramides, its perfect for hydrating dry skin associated with redness, she says. Its also a nice option for those with combination skin. Another bonus, it contains SPF 30 to help protect skin from environmental damage and UV rays. $23 at Amazon Buy $24 at Ulta Beauty Buy Best gel-cream moisturizer for dry skin Neutrogena Hydro Boost Gel Moisturizer for Dry Skin $16 Texture: Gel-Cream | Base: Water-based | Active ingredients: Glycerin, hyaluronic acid The Hydro Boost moisturizer is a house classic here at the Strategist. Ive written about it in posts for oily skin, Accutane users, and now dry skin. (Our readers love it too: it has been on best-sellers lists over ten times.) This product is good for everyone because it has universally-beneficial star ingredients: hyaluronic acid and glycerin. Gel textures are typically targeted toward those with normal or oily skin, but this cream is actually perfect for dry skin, and it works pretty quickly according to dermatologists. Ive been told it delivers hydrated skin after about a week of use. The gel texture also means that it smoothly disappears into the skin, so it can be worn alone or under makeup. Weve also recommended this product for mature skin, sunburned skin, and even for pregnant women, because its so hydrating and gentle. $16 at Amazon Buy Best clean moisturizer for dry skin Weleda Skin Food Original From $15 $19 now 21% off From $15 Texture: Cream | Base: Oil-based | Active ingredients: None For those looking to keep their skin-care routine as clean as possible with actually effective products, Weleda Skin Food, which contains all natural ingredients, was recommended to me by everyone from makeup artists to former Strategist writers to author Stephanie Danler. My skin was flawless, luminous even, and not at all greasy, Danler told us after trying it for the first time. Weleda brands the balmlike cream as a natural remedy for excessively dry skin (though it does offer a light version for the summer or those who need less help). Although it doesnt feature ingredients like hyaluronic acid and ceramides that Ive called out before, it is chock-full of fatty acids and vitamin E, which naturally moisturize and soften the skin. On top of that, pansy soothes irritation while the calendula flower extract helps to repair the damaged skin. From $15 at Amazon Buy $20 at Dermstore Buy Best night cream for dry skin CeraVe Facial Moisturizing Lotion PM $30 for 2 Texture: Cream | Base: Water-based | Active ingredients: Glycerin, hyaluronic acid, ceramides We named this our best overall drugstore moisturizer once before because its full of the ingredients needed to soothe dry, irritated skin, such as ceramides and hyaluronic acid. Its a bit lighter than the cream but still nourishing, and has the added benefit of a pump format. These ingredients hold cells together and strengthen the skins barrier, protecting it from water loss and influx of irritants as well as offer continuous 24-hour maximum hydration while soothing the skin, says Mitchell. It also includes niacinamide, which acts as an anti-inflammatory to calm down any redness and tenderness in the dry areas of skin. On top of healing the skin, its also lightweight, noncomedogenic, so it wont clog pores, and oil-free, which Mitchell calls a triple bang for your buck. And though its labeled as a nighttime moisturizer, you dont necessarily have to just use it at night, but thats when youll probably see the most results. $30 for 2 at Amazon Buy $21 at Ulta Beauty Buy Best antiaging moisturizer for dry skin SkinCeuticals Triple Lipid Restore 2:4:2 $150 Texture: Cream | Base: Oil-based | Active ingredients: Glycerin, ceramides This SkinCeuticals moisturizer has an ultrathick, rich feel, which felt a bit heavy on my skin but was perfect for my mom, who deals with increased dryness as she ages. She loves this stuff and has told me her skin feels supple, healthy, and smooth. It makes sense, given that its specifically designed to target signs of aging. Its infused with specific lipids like natural cholesterol, pure ceramides, and fatty acids that are naturally depleted in the skin over time. Adding these lipids back in can help reinforce the skins barrier and help the skin retain moisture, says Dr. Deanne Mraz Robinson, a partner at Modern Dermatology and an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Yale New Haven Hospital. $150 at Dermstore Buy $150 at Bluemercury Buy Best moisturizer for eczema Aveeno Eczema Therapy Itch Relief Balm $20 $27 now 26% off $20 Texture: Cream | Base: Oil-based | Active ingredients: Glycerin, colloidal oatmeal, ceramides Ive found that the key difference between products for simply dry skin, and those designed for eczema is that the latter typically include calming and anti-inflammatory ingredients, which makes sense given that a core characteristic of eczema is skin inflammation. The hero ingredient of this Aveeno cream is colloidal oatmeal, which is naturally anti-inflammatory and will help soothe any flare-ups. It also contains ceramides, which Dr. Nazarian told me improves the quality of skin with continued use. Aveenos eczema-therapy line has been recommended to me by multiple dermatologists for body lotions and eczema-specific treatments, especially this itch-relief balm. $20 at Amazon Buy $20 at Walmart Buy Best moisturizer for hyperpigmentation EADEM Cloud Cushion $58 $58 Texture: Cream | Base: Water-based | Active ingredients: Glycerin, niacinamide, peptides, ceramides Fading hyperpigmentation can be difficult, which is why I always recommend a multipronged approach a mix of brightening and exfoliating actives that encourages cell turnover and lighten dark marks. Ive gone through a tub of this niacinamide-infused moisturizer from Eaden, which helped to lighten some post-acne scarring around my chin. It also contains ceramides (great for supporting the skins barrier) and peptides, which help to fortify the skin and combat everything from wrinkles to inflammation. $58 at Sephora Buy $58 at eadem Buy Our experts Dr. Susan Binder, founder of Binder Dermatology Noelani Gonzalez, the director of cosmetic dermatology at Mount Sinai West Dr. Hadley King, clinical instructor of dermatology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University Dr. Rita Linkner, founder of RVL Skincare Dr. Hope Mitchell, a board-certified dermatologist in Perrysburg, Ohio Dr. Rachel Nazarian, assistant clinical professor at Mount Sinai Hospital Dr. Deanne Mraz Robinson, a partner at Modern Dermatology and an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Yale New Haven Hospital Dr. Ife Rodney, founding director of Eternal Dermatology + Aesthetics Dr. Katelyn Woolridge of Westlake Dermatology Kim Zimmerman, of Rescue Spa in Philadelphia get the strategist newsletter Actually good deals, smart shopping advice, and exclusive discounts. Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us. The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Some of our latest conquests include the best acne treatments, rolling luggage, pillows for side sleepers, natural anxiety remedies, and bath towels. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. 72 guns without a permit? Sir you're living in Paris, France not Paris, Texas Reply Thread Link Ohhhhhh we got a user of cinematic culture here ohohoho Reply Parent Thread Link or Paris, Maine. Reply Parent Thread Link This ain't Texas, woo! Reply Parent Thread Link 72 fucking guns?!! You have enough money to buy a permit sir if youre into antique gun collections and shit. Which is the only reason I can fathom anyone would have that many of anything. Edited at 2024-02-27 10:47 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link It's the 3000 rounds of ammunition that's leads me to think they aren't antiques. Why would any sole individual need that many rounds for that many guns. Absolutely nuts. Reply Parent Thread Link Of course being a dedicated member of this site for 15 years I missed that. And youre right! Reply Parent Thread Expand Link It's always the most over the top shit when I read about French actors Reply Thread Link I expected 72 sex crimes, not 72 guns. Better? Reply Parent Thread Link Imagine if it was somehow both Reply Parent Thread Expand Link It's probably both Reply Parent Thread Link Jesus. I feel awful for laughing at this but you didn't lie Reply Parent Thread Link who needs 72 guns?? you only have two hands, bro Reply Thread Link Do you know that? How do you know that? You dont know that. Reply Parent Thread Link OT, did you ever start getting your LJ notifications? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link they're single use, he has to drop each one after the clip is empty. Reply Parent Thread Link I saw arsenal and Alain Delon and my first wasnt weapons but the football club Ive been in Europe for too long Ive grown weak. Need to go set off some fireworks or kick shit invade a small nation idk something its getting out of hand Edited at 2024-02-27 11:28 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link I also thought Surely its not illegal for an entire football team to be at his house? Reply Parent Thread Link I was like oh my god hes buying arsenal? hows that illegal Edited at 2024-02-27 11:47 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link Where in Europe are you? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link 72? dude. i used to think he was hot, but i could never get into his movies, so my estimation of his acting was not very high. he looked good, but it didn't surprise me that he was a righty. Reply Thread Link Edited at 2024-02-27 11:18 pm (UTC) It kinda sucks. His shitty personality didn't start showing up on the outer part of him until he entered old age. Bitch got to remain attractive right until he couldn't any more. Such a waste of a face. Reply Parent Thread Link that's exactly how i feel about him! he and bardot both. Reply Parent Thread Link I don't know this man but holy shit. That's more guns than in the KHAMAS headquarters IOF showed us. Reply Thread Link as soon as i read "rural home," i was like, yep, checks out. it's always the people who live in relative seclusion, presumably FOR safety reasons, who do this. ofc, if you live out in the country, you need to take different safety measures, but those don't usually include 72 guns. even if you're less mobile and want to always have a weapon at hand... wtf. Reply Parent Thread Link His defense team will likely claim he was preparing for an acting role, in which he portrays a republican. Reply Thread Link Honestly no need to even prepare, he's already far-right irl. Reply Parent Thread Link this reminds me of father ted, lol. the money was just resting in his account! Reply Parent Thread Link Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ Reply Thread Link We meet again lj. Reply Parent Thread Link that's some doomsday shit Reply Thread Link i... sure Reply Thread Link If he was a non white french actor in France, he would already be in jail for this lbr Reply Thread Link mess. I like a lot of the movies he made, but work onscreen never excuses offscreen behavior. Reply Thread Link Unless your name is Burt Gummer and you're fighting graboids, you do not need that many guns. No individual does. Reply Thread Link Queen shit Reply Thread Link Omg stole my comment! Reply Parent Thread Link Its all that needs to be said Besides Free Palestine ofc Reply Parent Thread Expand Link shes a real one. respect to her and the entire group who was out there. Reply Thread Link Came here to say Queen. Reply Thread Link Love this Reply Thread Link But why was she arrested?? That's disgraceful. What an incredible person though. Reply Thread Link is there "disturbing the peace" in the us because the cops go nuts with that over here, its enough to breathe wrong Reply Parent Thread Link Vile Reply Parent Thread Link In America they'll arrest any leftwing protesters, even if we have the right to demonstrate. (Meanwhile Nazis and KKK can march as they please.) At my first protest (2004 Republican National Convention in NYC) we were kettled into a side-street and then arrested there where we "didn't have a permit to protest". There were mass arrests that day, basically to stifle any opposition to George W. Bush. Especially because a lot of us were there to protest the Iraq War and American foreign policy. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link and everyone else supporting palestine Reply Thread Link the mugshot will be a serve Reply Thread Link T-shirts will be sold a la Fonda Edited at 2024-02-28 06:10 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link she should sell them & donate the money Reply Parent Thread Link i wish we had the nails emoji. Reply Parent Thread Link good for her and the rest of the group! gotta keep the pressure on Reply Thread Link Imagine getting arrested because you're advocating peace. Amazing. Reply Thread Link peacefully advocating for peace at that! Reply Parent Thread Link we live in hell Reply Parent Thread Link Truly wild times Reply Parent Thread Link standard stuff Reply Parent Thread Link Werent they arresting Jews protesting against genocide on the basis of anti semitism in Germany? Reply Parent Thread Link Mfte!! How anyone can still think society needs police when they act like this is astounding. Reply Parent Thread Link Lol the thumbs down. Reply Parent Thread Link FREE HER!!! Reply Thread Link I hope shes well. Reply Thread Link Queen. Good for her<3 Reply Thread Link as she should! queen shit fr fr. Edited at 2024-02-28 06:17 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link It's always heartwarming to see a celebrity use their voice for a meaningful cause. I want to support her career but I've no interest in Euphoria. Reply Thread Link catch her be cute in the surprisingly good hunger games prequel and watch out for her a24 horror cuckoo coming out very soon. she's honestly mezmerizing in everything she's in. lmao hunger games I meant* Reply Parent Thread Link I got German citizenship at the end of 2019. It took a grand total of four years for me to be ashamed of it. Good job, lads. Reply Thread Link I don't know if I was just not paying attention, but I swear Germany wasn't this batshit a few years ago. Reply Parent Thread Link the far right has been rising in germany for a few years now. there was even an armed insurrection planned a few years ago that was thankfully prevented: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/germany-coup-plot-reichsburger-sovereign-citizens-conspiracy-theories-rcna60492 Reply Parent Thread Expand Link very recently started to acknowledge their colonial history, despite having the 3rd largest colonial empire at one point (after England and France). If you want to know more: Germany hides its bullshit well to the international world. They onlyrecently started to acknowledge their colonial history, despite having the 3rd largest colonial empire at one point (after England and France).If you want to know more: https://www.dw.com/en/how-seriously-is-germany-taking-its-colonial-history/a-57340809 Reply Parent Thread Link been here 12 years, theyve always been racist Reply Parent Thread Link being against the current israeli government's actions, talking about the fruition of netenyahu's decades long campaign to wipe palestine/palestinians off the map and publicly calling a genocide what it actually is is NOT antisemetic. why is this so fucking difficult for people to understand?! netenyahu/the israeli government do not represent all jewish people - they don't even really represent most israelis! Reply Thread Link A complicated, subtle form of antisemitism is emerging, argues Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman (@NoahRFeldman) in an essay https://t.co/PiAgZpf2C0 pic.twitter.com/EK3AkFVP4o TIME (@TIME) February 27, 2024 Certain media outlets are trying REALLY hard to conflate the two. Reply Parent Thread Link the incredibly enraging thing that really gets me is the blatant islamaphobia behind a lot of this "it's antisemetism!!" finger pointing. this conflict has really got islamaphobes and antisemites proudly showing themselves in DROVES. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link not gonna read this, but what is his thesis statement? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I really want to know what the actual support of Israelis is of this genocide because I saw a poll stating 65% were pro and it honestly made me feel ill. How? I just dont want to believe it. Its hard to believe anything with so much propaganda anyway. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Listen I get they have generational shame even some of my most open German friends would freak out if anything Israel related would get brought up in public and tbh its great they teach about the horrors of the Nazi regime in schools BUT this aint it yo. Like. It aint. Reply Thread Link The full text of Yuval's tweet speaks volumes, esp: "If this is what youre doing with your guilt for the holocaust - I dont want your guilt." Reply Parent Thread Link yeah no. and this shit has been going on for months, if not years lbr Reply Thread Link I've seen too much spilled blood, too many dead bodies for anybody to try to convince me that what Itsnotreal have been doing to the Palestinians isn't genocide. We're witnessing it in real time and anybody who opposes it is somehow vilified and punished. People really learned nothing from history, because its repeating itself and they're still on the wrong side of things. I hate it so much. I'm so angry. Reply Thread Link Poland itoo. What Sikorski is doing makes my blood boil. It makes me so angry that most people in Poland dont know whats happening bc mainstream media are very one-sided, its mainly small activist accounts who are posting about it and I think only like three people from Razem made an appeal in Sejm last month and I dont even think most MPs where there. Edited at 2024-02-28 09:34 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link I think a lot of people simply arent tuned in to the bloodshed. My feeds have been unintentionally curated to show that kind of death and despair because of the activists Ive been following and it breaks my fucking heart every day. But, to many, its just another war across the world. This is in addition to the zionist brainwashing of most American/European Jews (I follow antizionist Jewish creators and Ive honestly cried with them as they reflect on how early the brainwashing started for them, how theyve been alienated by family/friends since Oct, etc), the rampant Islamophobia across the world, etc. But, those that DO know innocent people are being murdered after their families have been harmed by the Israeli govt for decades and just go its inevitable to have loss! (Clintons, Biden, Obama & millions others) I truly hope there is a hell for them. Monsters. Reply Parent Thread Link claudia roth tweeted that she clapped only for the israeli director which is just insane Reply Thread Link Does she not realize that makes her look worse omg Reply Parent Thread Link Pathetic, she should at least have the courage of her convictions. Reply Parent Thread Link Its beyond ridiculous. Reply Parent Thread Link i only applauded for the israeli director of this documentary that is about the cruelty and displacement of palestinian people at the hands of the israeli military and settlers!!! Reply Parent Thread Link I saw that and honestly thought it was a parody. Reply Parent Thread Link came here to make sure this bat-shit reply was posted. What was she thinking? Reply Parent Thread Link Damn, Germany. Zero chill as per usual. Smdh Reply Thread Link What kind of world are we living in where people are being punished or even worst facing death threats because theyre asking for peace and an end to a very obvious genocide. Reply Thread Link It's hardly a new thing, unfortunately. Reply Parent Thread Link Watching Germany act like they have some kind of authority on the subject and therefore get to declare that this is not genocide is absolutely nuts. Channeling their Holocaust guilt into supporting a new genocide because the ones committing said genocide are their previous victims, like...wow. What is there even to say to that? Reply Thread Link Soder and Wegner are clowns, but the Greens going tht hard for Israel is ... whew Reply Thread Link Germany, why you gotta be like this? T_T Reply Thread Link Fucking Staatsrason. This is so shameful. Reply Thread Link As someone who is friends and has extend family that is German (and Austrian) their relationship with anything Jewish is so strange. There is some ignorance with it in the sense they just nod their heads and agree with everything Israel say in the fear of being antisemitic. A justified criticism of something Israel did they would never do because they dont want to step on toes and get the holocaust brought up. I tried discussing this stuff with my German and Austrian friends and they really have blinders on and wont touch the subject. I understand the touchy history but ignoring a genocide doesnt fix the genocide that was already committed. Reply Thread Link it must be so fucking terrifying for those filmmakers not being able to reach their families while knowing theyre attacked and threatened. What the absolute fuck Germany, is this residual guilt on crack?? How are you actively supporting another genocide when YOU KNOW WHAT GENOCIDE LOOKS LIKE Reply Thread Link The matthew karnitschnig user is the chief European correspondent of Politico... The matthew karnitschnig user is the chief European correspondent of Politico... Reply Thread Link Politico is Axel Springer Verlag so no surprise there. Last month Namibia criticised Germany for supporting Israel in the ICJ case and reminded them of the genocide in Namibia from last century. Reply Parent Thread Link I always found it to be neoliberal trash and now I know why. Also vomit: Axel Springer SE extended a policy that all employees must support a free-market economy, a united Europe, and supporting Israel is a "duty". Reply Parent Thread Expand Link NSC Reports More Than 44,000 Deaths from Traffic Accidents in 2023 Seven states and the District of Columbia have seen increases of at least 10 percent. A new report by the National Safety Council (NSC) has revealed that the United States saw an estimated 44,450 deaths due to traffic accidents in 2023. Despite a 4 percent decrease from the previous year, this figure marks a 13.6 percent increase from pre-pandemic levels in 2019. According to a release dated Feb. 26, the NSC and its advocacy partners will address this issue with federal legislators during Infrastructure Week in May 2024. The council plans to advocate for policies supporting a Safe System Approach. Endorsed by the U.S. Department of Transportation, this holistic framework focuses on five elements of road safetyroad users, speed management, vehicles, roads and post-crash care to reduce traffic fatalities nationwide. The most dangerous thing most people in our country do in a single day is use the U.S. roadway system. This public health crisis is an atrocity that must continue to be addressed, NSCs executive vice president of roadway practice, Mark Chung, said in a statement. No one should die getting to or from their homes, schools and workplaces, but the current system was not designed with the safety of all road users in mind. This is our focus when visiting with lawmakers in the spring, to continue advocating for the safety of all road users and ultimately save lives. NSCs report also showed that 12 states have experienced decreases of 10 percent or more in motor vehicle fatalities since 2022, while seven states and the District of Columbia saw increases of a similar margin. The NSC has estimated traffic fatalities since 1913, using data that includes deaths occurring within 100 days of a crash on all types of roadways. For more on the NSCs motor vehicle injury data, visit the councils website. Automotive News was the first to report Ford Motor Co. halted shipments of all 2024 F-150 Lightning electric pickup trucks for an undisclosed quality control issue just weeks after slashing production volumes for the EV model due to sliding demand. A Ford spokesperson did not explain the reasons behind the quality check, but shipments of Lightnings have been halted since Feb. 9. Even with shipments paused, production of the Lightnings continues at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan. "We expect to ramp up shipments in the coming weeks as we complete thorough launch quality checks to ensure these new F-150s meet our high standards and delight customers," company spokeswoman Emma Bergg wrote in a statement. Last month, Ford announced plans to slash the Lightning production in April "to achieve the optimal balance of production, sales growth and profitability." The automaker (and many others, like Mercedes Benz) is recalibrating its electric vehicle strategy as the Biden administration plans to downshift the EV transition as demand plummets. Thousands of auto dealers nationwide recently warned the 'climate change warriors' in the White House: the 2030 EV push is backfiring. "Currently, there are many excellent battery electric vehicles available for consumers to purchase. These vehicles are ideal for many people, and we believe their appeal will grow over time. The reality, however, is that electric vehicle demand today is not keeping up with the large influx of BEVs arriving at our dealerships prompted by the current regulations. BEVs are stacking up on our lots," the dealers said. Related: OPEC+ Could Extend Output Cuts Through Year End They warned: "Already, electric vehicles are stacking up on our lots which is our best indicator of customer demand in the marketplace." A recent note by RBC analyst Tom Narayan said the EV slowdown is far from over: "Key takeaways thus far from earnings season are that the EV slowdown is not showing any evidence of an inflection, Level 4 autonomy headwinds continue to persist, and fears over supplier inventory overbuild are likely overblown. Analyst Adam Jonas at Morgan Stanley suggested consolidation is coming to the industry: ADVERTISEMENT Given that Biden's 2030 EV mandate is in full collapse, the downturn in the EV space will likely continue through the second half of this year. By Zerohedge.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The worlds biggest independent oil traders have earned record-high profits in the past two years amid market volatility and a rebound in the demand for energy commodities. The four largest tradersprivately-held Vitol Group, Trafigura, Gunvor, and Mercuriahave also paid record dividends to their employee shareholders, and even after these record payouts, the trading houses are now sitting on nearly $60 billion in combined equity, according to estimates by Reuters. The top energy commodity traders are now looking to invest part of the cash they have earned, but face market conditions where good investment opportunities are hard to come by. Record Earnings and Dividends The biggest independent oil traders have amassed a lot of equity since the 2020 crash in energy demand, as consumption rebounded after the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine led to a spike in oil and natural gas prices and to heightened volatilitythe ideal ground for record profits for commodity traders. Equity the difference between a companys assets, including retained profits and liability at the top four trading houses is close to $60 billion, per Reuters estimates based on non-publicly disclosed income statements and banking sources with knowledge of the financial performance of some of the traders. Related: New Expansion Project Could Give Qatar 25% Share of Global LNG Supply For example, Vitol Group, the worlds biggest independent oil trader, booked a record-high profit of $15.1 billion for 2022, thanks to the highly volatile energy markets after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The trading group paid double in salary and bonuses to its more than 3,300 employees for 2022, compared to 2021 the average payout per employee was just over $785,000, up from $394,000 for the previous year, per Vitols annual accounts seen by Bloomberg News. Vitol has also used the record earnings to pay down debts, according to the audited accounts. Even after the record payouts to employee shareholders, Vitol has raised its equity to $26 billion, per its non-public balance sheet seen by Reuters. Trafigura, for its part, paid its highest-ever dividends for its 2022/2023 financial year after posting another record-high profit amid volatile markets. Trafiguras net profit jumped to about $7.4 billion for the year to September 30, 2023, up from $7 billion for the previous fiscal year, which was the then-record-high profit for the privately owned trading group. Due to strong profitability, group equity increased by 9% to a record $16.5 billion, up from $15 billion, and has more than doubled since 2020, providing a solid base for further growth, Trafigura said. This combination of a strong equity base, low leverage and ample liquidity is a point of competitive advantage, as commodity producers and consumers look to do business with reliable counterparties that have robust balance sheets and ready access to liquidity, the trading house noted. As Mercurias revenues hit a record-high of $174 billion in 2022, its equity jumped to $6.7 billion, up from $4.4 billion for the previous year. Continued robust growth in total equity supports our business expansion and investments in the energy transition, Mercuria said about its 2022 performance. Gunvor also has about $6 billion amassed in equity and retained earnings in recent years, sources familiar with the results told Reuters. Gunvor Group says it generated $150 billion in revenue in 2022. The top traders have been putting aside more and more cash retaining earnings as equity after the margin calls of 2022, which spooked Europes energy market amid drying up liquidity as many companies struggled to meet their margin calls on the energy derivatives market, amid wild swings and skyrocketing gas and power prices. Back then, Helge Haugane, Equinors senior vice president for gas and power, told Bloomberg that European energy companies were facing margin calls of a total of $1.5 trillion in the derivatives market, and many would need policy support to cover them. According to Haugane, the $1.5-trillion estimate was even conservative. Slim Pickings in Investment Opportunities ADVERTISEMENT We beefed up our equity and as a result more of our trade became self financed, an unnamed trading executive told Reuters. With record revenues and earnings, trading houses set aside more cash for equity. But they are not in a rush to spend part of the equity just for the sake of investing. We borrow much less from banks and are waiting for good investment opportunities. But those are slim, especially in loss-making green energy, another anonymous executive at one of the top trading firms told Reuters. The trading houses have pledged investments in the energy transition, but returns there are very poor, as the integrated oil and gas supermajors have seen first-hand over the past years. Low returns from renewables have prompted oil and gas giants like Shell and BP to streamline and/or reduce exposure to some renewable and clean energy solutions and pivot back to their core business of oil and gas, while prudently investing in select low-carbon energy alternatives. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: An Avelo Airlines passenger jet at Tweed-New Haven Airport in New Haven, Conn. (File media photo via Avelo Airlines) File media photo via Avelo Airlines Avelo Airlines founder and CEO Andrew Levy, right, speaks in November 2021 with a passenger in advance of Avelo's inaugural flight from Tweed-New Haven Airport to Orlando International Airport. Avelo marked its first-ever quarterly profit in the final three months of 2023, as it continues to add routes in Connecticut and nationally. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media Avelo Airlines appears to be winning more bets than it loses in guessing the destinations that travelers want with route additions key to building Tweed-New Haven Airport's competitiveness against busier regional options like Bradley International Airport. Last week, Avelo reported $265 million in revenue from 2.3 million customers boarding flights in 2023, its first public reveal of revenue totals as it nears its three-year anniversary in business. Avelo stated it made an unspecified profit for the final three months of 2023, as calculated on a pre-tax basis. Several Avelo routes to Florida have flourished among others nationally, helping it build a financial base for additional routes and aircraft it plans to add later this year. In mid-February, Avelo announced it would add Albany International Airport to its growing list, with a spokesperson asserting "we've done the math" that there is pent-up demand for the initial Albany destination of Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Avelo's math hasn't always panned out after initiating service last summer between New Haven and Melbourne, Fla., Avelo terminated the route this past January, blaming low passenger counts in the early going. Tweed data shows that less than 4,000 people flew to Melbourne Orlando International Airport between June and November last year, with Avelo scrapping the route in advance of March when its Florida flights have their biggest month of the year. "Make no mistake, we've guessed plenty incorrectly so far as well and if we're not guessing incorrectly, we're probably not pushing hard enough with experimentation," said Trevor Yealy, who leads network planning for Avelo. "Our business model is trying to find unserved or under-served routes. That's a common refrain you'll hear from other carriers, but we do tend to select routes that have very little historic data associated with them." Passenger count up by half While Avelo's early growth trails the initial pace set by JetBlue Airways two decades ago, it is off to a promising start and has energized Tweed after American Airlines curtailed service during the COVID-19 pandemic. From less than 43,000 passengers boarding at Tweed in the airport's 2019 fiscal year, close to 485,000 people flew from Tweed over 12 months through last November, a nearly 50 percent bump from the prior year. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Tweed is now envisioning a terminal and runway expansion that could cost $100 million. A Tweed director suggested in December that the airport explore any interest by Delta for Tweed connections to its Atlanta hub or by United Airlines to Chicago, and lobby state government for incentives to launch those routes similar to an $11.5 million package for Aer Lingus to offer service between Bradley International Airport and Ireland. In Windsor Locks, Bradley saw a 25 percent increase in boardings in 2022. While that was ahead of some Northeast airports, it trailed the COVID rebound of nearby rivals Westchester County Airport run by Virginia-based Avports which manages Tweed and Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport outside Providence. Located just over the Greenwich line, Westchester County Airport saw boardings jump by two-thirds in 2022, with Breeze, JetBlue and American among the carriers offering service there. Avelo's Tweed routes have affected Bradley International Airport, a spokesperson with the Connecticut Airport Authority acknowledged. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "We have yet to return to pre-pandemic travel numbers and we believe its partially due to the presence of Avelo here in Connecticut," stated Bradley and CAA spokesperson Brian Spyros. Breeze kept pace with Avelo in 2023 with well over two million passengers boarding its planes system-wide, with the carrier adding Bradley routes that begin in May to Orlando International Airport and Coastal Carolina Regional Airport in North Carolina. Breeze CEO David Neeleman stated this month he expects the company to record its first profit this year. "We are now the largest carrier in 11 of our 50 cities, including at Hartford Bradley and Providence," stated Breeze spokesperson Gareth Edmondson-Jones, in an email response to a CT Insider query. "January 2024 was our highest revenue month ever but this month has seen multiple record-setting days so February 2024 is already projected to become our highest revenue month ever, despite being a short month, and March is projected to be 25 [percent] higher again." Demand 'pretty fluid' From their inception, Avelo and Breeze have sought to offer lower fares than competing regional carriers, in part by operating out of secondary airports in many locales and dispensing with the frills in the case of Avelo to include no onboard internet service. As of this week, Avelo was offering an $81 fare on select midweek dates in March for Tweed flights to and from Orlando International Airport, for a round-trip fare of $162. On popular days for travel like weekends, fares range as high as $222 each way. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Orlando International Airport was Avelo's top destination from Tweed over the most recent 12 months on record, with more than 94,000 people flying there. While preferred destinations are the major driver for the routes airlines choose, airport fees and "slots" also play a role as other airlines look to capitalize on the same travel trends, creating a squeeze for available gates at busier airports. Yealy said that Avelo keeps a running list of candidate routes, some of them suggested by airports hoping to bring more traffic through their gates. "Quite a bit of the outreach is initiated by the airport looking to expand the destinations of their airline base, and provide more options for people in their region," Healy said. "There are conferences, as you might imagine, all throughout the year where airlines and airports come together to talk about potential ideas." Advertisement Article continues below this ad A JetBlue executive said airlines are finally calibrating their forecasting models accurately again after the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Over the past couple of years demand has been pretty fluid in different geographies," said Dave Clark, head of revenue planning for JetBlue, speaking last month on a conference call with investment analysts. "We've been working to really actively align our network to those new demand areas ... and to be more selective and redeploy some of the markets that we've seen demand shift away from over the last couple of years." Kyrgyzstans foreign trade is expanding, but the growth numbers arent necessarily a cause for celebration in Bishkek. Overall trade turnover rose by 30 percent in 2023, compared with the previous years total, amounting to $15.7 billion, according to the official Chinese Xinhua news agency. However, imports outpaced exports in 2023 by almost four times, with goods and services totaling $12.4 billion being purchased and $3.3 billion being sold. Not surprisingly, Kyrgyzstan is heavily dependent on Beijing and Moscow for trade. China accounted for over one-third of Kyrgyzstans trade turnover in 2023, the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union was responsible for another 28 percent. Speaking of trade turnover, a questionable trend is evident in Kyrgyzstans auto market. Auto imports from East Asia spiked last year, the Kyrgyz National Statistics Committee reported. More than 79,000 Chinese vehicles were shipped to Kyrgyzstan in 2023, compared with only 1,773 the previous year. Kyrgyzstan also imported over 50,000 cars from South Korea, a 10-fold increase over 2022s figure. Overall, Kyrgyzstan imported 184,789 cars in 2023, compared with 41,241 the previous year. Official numbers for auto exports were modest over the same two-year period: 8,733 in 2023 and 1,008 in 2022. Some local observers question the accuracy of the government figures, especially export totals, noting that a Russian website that tracks the regions auto industry earlier reported that Kyrgyzstan exported at least 60,000 vehicles to Russia in 2023. Since the start of the Ukraine war, Kyrgyzstan has faced criticism in Washington and Brussels for serving as a back-door trade route that helps Russia evade Western sanctions. Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz Agriculture Ministry announced a deal to export 10,000 tons of walnuts to China, the Sputnik.kg outlet reported. In 2023, Kyrgyzstan exported over 21,000 tons of nuts. The Chinese deal is part of a Kyrgyz government push to increase exports and find new markets for domestic products, according to the Sputnik report. By Eurasianet.org More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Glencore may acquire Shells oil operations in Singapore after several previous candidates for the assets changed their minds about competing for them. This is according to unnamed sources who spoke to Reuters, saying that the Swiss commodity trading major was currently in the process of evaluating the assets with the help of Indonesian PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical. The assets in question include Shells Singapore refinery, which has a capacity of 237,000 barrels daily, an ethylene plant, and a mono-ethylene glycol production facility in the vicinity. These were subjected to a strategic review in June last year and following that, Shell decided to get rid of them. The refinery started as an oil storage and refinery complex but over the years grew into a more complex facility that also produces biofuels and recycles plastics, according to the company. Previously, there were four potential buyers of the assets that Shell said it wanted to divest from last year. These included Vitol and three Chinese companies, including CNOOC and two petrochemical producersBefar Group and Eversun Holdings. These, according to the Reuters sources, have now dropped out of the race, clearing the space for another buyer. Per the sources, Glencore is working with Morgan Stanley on drafting a deal with the Big Oil major. Chinas Sinopec was also among the prospective buyers for the Singapore assets but in August last year, it said it would instead invest in a natural gas project in Saudi Arabia, in partnership with TotalEnergies. The acquisition will give the commodity trader a physical presence in Singapore, which is a major regional oil hub. However, Reuters notes that the two petrochemical facilities that Shell is selling are old and are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with newer refineries and petrochemical complexes in China. ADVERTISEMENT Shell planned to have the fate of the Singapore assets sealed by the end of this year. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Omans new refinery could begin processing heavier crude grades by the end of the year after feasibility studies are completed, the refinerys chief executive David Bird told Reuters on Wednesday. That was thought of in the process of design, to make sure we could process some of the heavier, more sour crudes, Bird told Reuters, weeks after Oman inaugurated earlier this month its new 230,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery, which has direct access to the Indian Ocean. The location allows its exports of refined products to not pass either through the Red Sea or the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway chokepoints for petroleum trade in the region. Towards the latter half of 2024 and beyond we will be looking at a full merchant refinery model of processing advantage crudes, Bird told Reuters. The $9 billion Duqm Refinery on Omans eastern shoreline is a joint venture between Omans state energy firm OQ Group and Kuwait Petroleum International (Q8). The refinery, OQ8, began trial runs last year and is now operating at full capacity, producing diesel, jet fuel, naphtha, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). Its current crude slate is 65% Kuwaiti crude and 35% Omani crude. The strategic coastal position on Omans eastern shoreline is an advantage to the new refinery as it grants access to the major international maritime routes of the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. The new Omani/Kuwaiti refinery in Oman wants to use its strategic position outside the Middle Eastern chokepoints to provide an alternative route for some Middle Eastern products to reach other markets. The operators of the refinery also plan to increase storage capacity to enable it to store tens of millions of barrels. So far, the refinery has exported 100 cargoes of fuels globally, and many of the volumes have gone to the Indian subcontinent and the east coast of Africa. ADVERTISEMENT Because of the proximity to those markets we are very competitively positioned to serve them, Bird told Reuters. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The Philippines is looking to explore for oil and gas in areas other than the South China Sea where a territorial dispute with China has hindered exploration plans, the Philippine Energy Undersecretary Alessandro Sales told Bloomberg in an interview published on Wednesday. We are looking at the Sulu Sea area as the new exploration hot spot and there are companies now involved here, Sales told Bloomberg. The Philippines has been seeking to develop the Reed Bank area in the South China Sea, which hosts a stalled Philippine natural gas project, but the dispute with China has stalled any developments. The long-running dispute in the South China Sea involves territorial claims by China as well as Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei, and Malaysia. China has territorial claims to about 90% of the South China Sea, which has put it at odds with its neighbors. A court in The Hague in 2016 ruled against Chinas claims and in favor of the Philippines. The ruling said that the Philippines had sovereign rights in its 200-mile exclusive economic zone to access offshore oil and gas resources, including in the Reed Bank. China, however, has not acknowledged the ruling, which has heightened tensions in the area. Instead, it has continued with its agenda, according to which most of the sea is Chinese waters. While China and the Philippines resumed in early 2023 talks on joint exploration in the South China Sea, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr told Reuters in December that the countries were still at a deadlock right now. With exploration in the South China Sea on hold, the Philippines contracted earlier this month Ratsio Gibraltar, a unit of Israeli firm Ratio Petroleum, to conduct a seismic survey in the SC76 area in the Philippines. ADVERTISEMENT Ratio Petroleum, which will explore the area within the internal waters of the Philippines, plans to send next month a vessel there to collect 3D seismic data, Sales told Bloomberg. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Shell and Equinor are still expecting the signing of all agreements which would allow them to start developing a planned $42-billion LNG export project in Tanzania, the international majors have told Bloomberg. The LNG project for connecting offshore natural gas discoveries offshore Tanzania with an export terminal on its coast has been nearly a decade in the making. After buying BG Group in 2016, Shell became the operator of two offshore blocks in Tanzania, Block 1 and Block 4, together with its partners Medco Energi (Ophir Energy) and Pavilion Energy. A total of 16 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas have been discovered in the blocks. Equinor, for its part, started exploration drilling activities in Block 2 offshore Tanzania in 2011 and has made nine discoveries with estimated volumes of more than 20 Tcf of gas in place. Regulatory hurdles have weighed on the LNG plans, but progress was made in early 2023 and the majors felt they could start monetizing the huge offshore gas resources in the late 2020s or early 2030s. Discussions with Shell and Equinor were completed and the experts were about to begin drafting contracts, the energy ministry of Tanzania said in March last year. One contract is being drafted for the Host Government Agreement, and another is for blocks 1, 2, and 4, which will provide natural gas for the LNG project, Tanzania said at the time. However, since May 2023, progress has indeed been slower than we expected, Equinor spokesperson Ola Morten Aanestad told Bloomberg this week. As the worlds energy system is slowly transitioning from oil and gas, we hope to advance Tanzania LNG an attractive project in many respects on time. A spokesperson for Shell told Bloomberg that We had hoped to see these agreements signed faster, but we remain ready to continue to work with the government on competitive and investable agreements, consistent with what we agreed last year. Tanzanias Energy Minister Doto Biteko, told Bloomberg the host government agreement is still under negotiation, declining to discuss details. ADVERTISEMENT By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Russia has started diverting its LNG cargoes away from the Suez Canal and is using the longer route to China via the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, amid a higher risk of Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters on Wednesday. The longer route from Russias Yamal LNG project to China via Africa instead of the Suez Canal adds around 10 days to the travel time for LNG cargoes to reach their destinations in China and return to Russia, tying up more LNG tankers for longer periods at sea. This adds to recent struggles of Russias top LNG exporter, Novatek, which has yet to begin shipments from its new export project, Arctic 2 LNG, due to a lack of ships amid tightened U.S. sanctions on the project. Two of the worlds biggest LNG exporters, the United States and Qatar halted shipments via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal earlier this year. Qatar paused LNG cargo journeys through the Suez Canal in the middle of January, but it assured customers and the market that its LNG output is uninterrupted and Europe should expect longer delivery times. While the ongoing developments in the Red Sea area may impact the scheduling of some deliveries as they take alternative routes, LNG shipments from Qatar are being managed with our valued buyers, QatarEnergysaid in January. Now Russia is also avoiding the Red Sea, per LSEG data quoted by Reuters. Several tankers have already used the longer route to China, while vessels that delivered in December LNG to China from Yamal via the Suez Canal are now heading back to Russia via the Cape of Good Hope, according to the data. Last month, some tankers transporting Russian fuels started to avoid the Suez Canal route to Asia as ship-tracking data showed operators of vessels carrying Russian oil products may have reached the risk tolerance for passing close to Houthi missiles in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com ADVERTISEMENT More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Last week, the EU passed its latest sanctions package on Russia to coincide with the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As I discussed in a previous briefing, the measures introduced were weak, consisting largely of additional asset freezes and visa bans. The rather feeble package also prompted internal criticism within Brussels, especially from more hawkish EU member states, with the argument that the European Union must be more ambitious in sanctioning the Kremlin in the future. Speaking to several EU diplomats, who wish to remain anonymous because they don't have the authority to speak on the record, the European Commission has promised to start work on a new sanctions package with immediate effect. And this time it will try to include sectoral sanctions that would have a much greater impact on the Russian economy. One of those sectors is aluminum. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have pushed for both import and export bans on the metal for a while now. Officials from the four nations noted in a discussion paper, seen by RFE/RL, that "Europe's imports of aluminum not only fund Russia's war economy but also benefit Kremlin-backed oligarchs and state companies." It is estimated that the European Union still imports the metal from Russia to the tune of 2.3 billion euros ($2.5 billion) per year. The bloc also exports various aluminum products to Russia, worth some 190 million euros. The only sanction the bloc has enacted in this field has been a very specific and targeted import ban on aluminum wire, foil, tubes, and pipes produced in Russia. That still leaves 85 percent of the aluminum business -- including the lucrative construction and automotive industries -- untouched so far. Deep Background: This could change as the aluminum industry in Europe is now calling for more sanctions on Russia. Representatives of Europe's aluminum industry in Brussels have argued that on moral grounds "business as usual" with Russia cannot continue. But there are also compelling economic reasons. Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, imports of Russian aluminum represented well over 30 percent of the EU's total. Now, Russian aluminum represents only around 8 percent of the bloc's imports due to the industry decoupling from Moscow voluntarily. By relying on it less, there is less to lose by sanctioning. Aluminum is also quite different from other raw materials, such as the much rarer uranium used in the nuclear industry. It is easy to obtain, produced all over the world, and easy to transport. ADVERTISEMENT Given that the EU is now producing even more aluminum and importing it from new partners in Iceland, Mozambique, and Norway, supply is far outstripping demand. Drilling Down There are still a number of issues that need to be overcome. While the dependency on Russian aluminum in general has reduced across the EU, a few EU member states -- most notably Greece -- still rely on Moscow for most of its imports of the metal. And as always with sanctions, all 27 EU member states need to sign off on them. Officials from the European Commission have also said there are three areas that Brussels, out of principle, won't target with sanctions: food, drugs and medical equipment, and critical raw materials. Aluminum is classified as a critical raw material by the EU, even if there might be an abundance of it on the market right now. The European Commission is aware of another obstacle. If sweeping sanctions on aluminum were to be introduced, some member states could ask for exemptions. Greece would be an obvious candidate. This is what happened when the EU introduced sanctions on Russian steel imports in 2023. A few EU member states won derogations, allowing them to ignore the measures until 2028, distorting the bloc's internal single market and giving those countries a competitive advantage. In the steel industry, there are certificates of origin, which establish the country where the alloy comes from and where it was manufactured. What concerns the EU is that there is no such thing in the aluminum industry, which makes it easier for Moscow to circumvent sanctions. A system similar to the one for steel could be created for aluminum, but it would probably require a sustained global effort to be effective, and this could prove time-consuming. Future sanctions in this field will also depend on EU-U.S. cooperation and coordination. The United States doesn't have any sanctions on Russian aluminum, but it has slapped a 200 percent tariff on the metal. Washington and the EU could also impose sanctions on RUSAL, the Russian state-owned aluminum giant. The United States has previously targeted the company. In 2018, the White House imposed sanctions on the company's then boss, oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and all his businesses due to "Russia's malign activity." (While the measures were lifted one year later, it does show that sanctions targeting aluminum haven't always been off the table.) With Deripaska on the EU's blacklist since April 2022 due to his economic support of Russia's war in Ukraine, some EU officials believe that there is room to go even further. By RFE/RL More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Via Metal Miner Ukrainian metals and mining group Metinvest recently reported a 31% decrease year on year in its crude steel production for 2023, citing Russias ongoing invasion of the country. On February 16, the company announced its decision to halt steel manufacturing activities at its assets in Mariupol, Avdiivka, and Zaporizhzhia. This includes the Azovstal, Ilyich Steel, Avdiivka Coke, and Zaporizhzhia coking facilities. In total, crude production for the 12 months ending on December 31 came to 2.02 million metric tonnes. Metinvest noted that this reflects a decrease of 893,000 metric tonnes from almost 2.92 million metric tonnes poured in the previous year. However, Dnipro-based Kamet Steel helped to offset the decrease, and was the only listed asset in the report producing crude steel. Data shows that the steel manufacturing plant saw a one-third increase in its crude production from 1.56 million metric tonnes. Kamet Steel can pour up to 3.5 million metric tons of crude steel per year, which it casts into square and round billet for commercial sale and for rolling into 1.8 million metric tons of long products. At a conference in 2022, Metinvest General Director Yuriy Ryzhenkov also noted that the company has lost over 40% of its capacity due to the ongoing conflict. The groups plants in Ukraine, apart from those in Mariupol and Avdiivka, continue to operate at different capacity utilization levels, subject to security, personnel, electricity, logistics, and economic factors, Metinvest added. The latest figures do not include Zaporizhstal, as that plant is a joint venture in which Metinvest owns 49.9% of shares. Guernsey-registered Midland Group reportedly owns the remaining stake. Information on the steelmakers site showed that plant poured a total of 228,600 metric tonnes in 2023, up more than threefold from 70,700 metric tonnes in 2022. Restart of blast furnace No. 2 and the establishment of an operating mode for three blast furnaces are behind the increased production in December 2023 compared to December 2022, the company noted. The Continues to Take a Toll on Ukrainian Steel Manufacturing The Azovstal and Ilyich plants, both located in Mariupol, went off stream in 2022. The former was also the target of heavy shelling by Russian forces after Ukrainian military and civilians sought refuge there. One industry watcher believes that Azovstal suffered too much damage to reopen, but stresses that Metinvest technicians will need to enter the site and conduct a full examination of the plants physical condition. The damage to Azovstal was also behind the 19% drop in total semifinished production, which Metinvest noted was 832,000 metric tonnes from 1.02 million metric tonnes. However, Kamet Steels production helped to offset this. Billet production also rose 10% to 175,000 metric tonnes from 159,000 metric tonnes on increased orders. Further downstream, the shutdown of the steelmakers at Mariupol also saw flat-rolled production decline by more than one-third. Reports indicate that the figure reportedly reached 1.1 million metric tonnes in 2023, down from 1.73 million metric tonnes in the previous year. Nonetheless, increased production at Metinvest assets in the UK and Italy, along with higher slab supply from Zaporizhstal, helped offset these decreases. Metinvests Rebar Production Soars 17% Steel manufacturing stabilization at Kamet Steel and normalization of billet supplies at Metinvests Promet plant in Bulgaria helped to raise Metinvests rebar production 17%, from 1.02 million metric tonnes in 2022 to 1.19 million metric tonnes. Meanwhile, the August opening of a corridor on the Black Sea for merchant ships sailing to and from Ukraine also led to the resumption of seaborne exports. According to reports, this allowed the company to begin gradually increasing the capacity utilization of its mining and processing plants. In particular, Metinvest ramped up production at Ingulets GOK and Northern GOK, as well as the use of iron ore from third parties to produce concentrate at Central GOK. Data further showed that iron ore concentrates with greater than 67% and less than 67% iron contents fell 14% year on year to 4.07 million metric tonnes from 4.71 million metric tonnes. However, production volumes more than doubled quarter-on-quarter, totaling 1.84 million metric tonnes. For comparison, Q3 saw production volumes reach 746,000 metric tonnes. ADVERTISEMENT Meanwhile, year on year production of the upstream product was down 14% to 4.07 million metric tonnes from almost 4.72 million metric tonnes. However, pellet production rose two-thirds year on year, totaling 5.28 million metric tonnes. By Christopher Rivituso More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The skull of a saint was placed in front of the altar at St. Johns Catholic Church on the Creighton University campus on Tuesday. At first glance, it looked like a normal skull, beyond missing its jawbone. The eye sockets and nasal cavity remained clearly defined. But what makes the skull unusual is its age and who it belonged to: The canonized saint Jean de Brebeuf, who was brutally killed nearly 400 years ago. Jesuit chapters have taken Brebeufs skull, a holy relic, on a tour of the United States this year. A selfless life A Jesuit French missionary, Brebeuf spent about 20 years in what is now the Canadian province of Quebec in the early to mid-17th century. There he embedded himself with the Huron Native American tribe. Brebeuf first gained notice from his unusual size as he stood about 6 feet tall, said Isaac Beck, custodian of the relic. Brebeuf developed a reputation of respect, earning the affectionate nickname of Echon meaning the one who carries the heavy load, Jesuit Rev. Eric Immel said Tuesday. Brebeuf learned the ways and customs of the Huron tribe, Immel said. Eventually, Immel added, Brebeuf learned and documented the tribes language in a dictionary. It was the first time anyone had written down the tribes language that previously had only been spoken, Jesuit Brother Matt Wooters said. After Brebeuf was forced to go back to France due to illness for four years, Immel said other missionaries heard requests for Echon to come back to them. Eventually he did come back and spent close to two decades living among tribe members and converting thousands of people to Christianity. The 55-year-olds work and life were cut short in 1649 after he was captured by a raiding Iroquois tribe, according to a biography on the Society of Jesus website. Having heard about Brebeufs actions, the Iroquois subjected Brebeuf to ritual torture. The Society of Jesus said the torture methods included the Iroquois pouring boiling hot water over Brebeufs head in an apparent mockery of baptism. Even as he was being tortured, Brebeufs encouraged his fellow captured Christians to remain strong, according to the Society of Jesus. He made a vow years before that if he was in a situation where he was going to be martyred, he wouldnt run. He would embrace it, said Isaac Beck, custodian of the relic. Brebeuf eventually died when he was dismembered and his heart was taken out of his body, according to the Society of Jesus. Brebeuf and seven other Jesuit missionaries were canonized as saints in 1930, according to Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation. Brebeufs skull keeps his legacy alive Before this year, Brebeufs skull has never been taken to the United States, Beck said. As part of an effort to educate more people about Brebeufs life and work, as well as an attempt to recruit more missionaries, three Society of Jesus provinces have taken the skull exclusively by ground transportation from Canada to most regions of the United States. We want a lot of people to see it and pray with it, Beck said. Its a difficult and time-consuming task, requiring a padded case to preserve the centuries-old skull and ensuring the skull is never left unattended. Its irreplaceable, Immel said. Its a singular object. The responsibility to keep it protected is one we take pretty seriously. Immel said the Ursuline Sisters in Quebec possess the bottom half of Brebeufs skull. Having made its way through the mountain and southern regions of the United States, the upper half of Brebeufs skull is now making its way through the Midwest. The skull is expected to be on display for one day on Wednesday at the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center close to the University of Nebraska-Lincolns main campus. Everywhere Brebeufs skull has been, it has drawn admiration and inspiration, Wooters and Beck said. Dozens of written prayer requests could be seen Tuesday underneath a painting depicting Brebeuf. Some people have shed tears, Beck said. Young people have particularly gravitated toward the skull, Wooters said. Young people are very moved by this because its very real, Wooters said. Theres something here thats beyond their day-to-day lives in their world. While Brebeuf may be long gone, his skull ensures his legacy lives on, Wooters said. The symbols matter because they tell us the story of something bigger, he said. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of February 2024 A Bellevue student won first place in UScellulars seventh annual Black History Month Art Contest with the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands. Merce Paniagua, an eighth-grader at Bryan Middle School who belongs to the Henry Davis Bryan Middle Club, won $250 for her winning portrait of Katherine Johnson, according to a press release sent on behalf of UScellular. Her parents were pretty excited when they found out, said Tim Daniel Ybarra, director of the club. Shes a very talented girl. She loves art. She made a comic book recently. Merce carries around a folder with markers in it so shes always ready to draw, he said. Aniya Porter of Omaha placed second with her artwork of Neil deGrasse Tyson and won $150, and Ivyon Robles of Omaha got third with her creation of Aletha Maybank, receiving a prize of $100. Merce draws partly to help her remember her dads mother. When Dads mom came to visit my house, she would draw things, she said. When she died, I thought maybe that would help me remember her. Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands members were encouraged to create original pieces of artwork that represent influential Black STEM icons. These included historical figures, world leaders, scientists and educators who have made vital contributions to the world of science, technology, engineering and math. Merce had learned about Katherine Johnson in school and decided to spotlight her. Johnson, born Aug. 26, 1918, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, was good with numbers in school and was moved ahead of her classmates, according to a biography by Margot Lee Shetterly published on NASAs website. She attended high school and college on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College and continued to excel in mathematics. She graduated with top honors in 1937 and went to teach at a black public school in Virginia. She and two men were the first black students to attend the previously all-white West Virginia University, where she entered the graduate math program. She left after one session to start a family but returned to teaching when her three daughters got older. In 1952, she got hired at the all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Langley Laboratory. She was soon assigned to the Flight Research Division, where she completed several projects. The launch of the Soviet Unions Sputnik satellite in 1957 added urgency to U.S. research on space flight. Johnson did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepards 1961 Freedom 7 mission Americas first human spaceflight. She continued to help with research on putting satellites and spacecraft into orbit and was asked to manually check computers calculations that would control the trajectory of John Glenns space capsule in the Friendship 7 mission. While the astronauts were afraid to trust the computers, Glenn said, If she says theyre good, then Im ready to go. Johnson later helped with calculations critical to Apollo, Space Shuttle and satellite missions and authored or co-authored 26 research papers. She died on Feb. 24, 2020 at the age of 101. Shetterly wrote a book about the roles of Johnson and two other African American women in mastering the math that was vital to making Americas early space flights successful. The book was then made into a movie, Hidden Figures, released in 2016. Local UScellular and Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands leaders selected the 10 finalists in the art contest based on creativity, quality, interpretation, clarity of theme and overall impression. In online voting from Feb. 1-Feb. 15, 189 members of the public cast votes for Boys & Girls Clubs of the Midlands artists. The finalists artwork was digitally displayed at two UScellular locations in Omaha. Since 2009, UScellular has invested more than $47 million in monetary donations, technology resources and countless experiences to nonprofit organizations across the country. For more information about UScellulars corporate social responsibility initiatives, please go to newsroom.uscellular.com/community. New Fairfield-based TRAC Consulting has discussed with Manchester officials a potential application for a 150,800-square-foot distribution center at 71 & 81 Commerce Road, bordering East Hartford and South Windsor. A conceptual rendering by GMA Architects included in the application shows what the project could look like. Courtesy of the Town of Manchester New Fairfield-based TRAC Consulting has discussed with Manchester officials a potential application for a 150,800-square-foot distribution center at 71 & 81 Commerce Road, bordering East Hartford and South Windsor. A conceptual rendering by GRA Consulting included in the application shows what the project could look like. Courtesy of the Town of Manchester New Fairfield-based TRAC Consulting has discussed with Manchester officials a potential application for a 150,800-square-foot distribution center at 71 and 81 Commerce Road, bordering East Hartford and South Windsor. Joseph Villanova / Hearst Connecticut Media MANCHESTER A potential warehouse project on the East Hartford and South Windsor borders could face pushback from residents if the developer moves forward with an application. New Fairfield-based TRAC Consulting submitted a "pre-application review" for a 150,800-square-foot distribution warehouse with 30 loading bays at 71 and 81 Commerce Road, located within an existing industrial park. The site is currently vacant but lies next to a residential subdivision in East Hartford. The developer has not yet filed an application for the project and sought feedback from town staff and Planning and Zoning Commission members at a meeting last week. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Tom Riley, architect with TRAC Consulting, said last week that the warehouse would be a speculative construction with no occupants planned ahead of time, but could host up to three tenants. Riley said the developer does not own the property yet, but is in a pre-purchase agreement for both parcels. PZC Chairman Eric Prause said last week that although the property lies within an industrial park, the proximity to a residential zone could lead to a "very big" public hearing if TRAC Consulting moves forward with an application. "It's probably an inevitability that it's going to turn into a very tough hearing," Prause said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Prause said the application would have to be approved by special exception, meaning that members of the public would likely testify about concerns like noise pollution. The application could run the risk of rejection "if the commission feels swayed by the testimony," Prause said. Riley said the developer understands and does not discount the residential area in its plan. "We have to consider that in our design, and we believe we have," Riley said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Riley said any potential disturbances to nearby homes should be mitigated from the proposed lighting plan, the height difference, and vegetation that would help screen the building off, and the placing of loading docks away from the residential border. Riley said TRAC Consulting had concerns about wetlands that had formed on the site. "Unfortunately, we started this project in October," Riley said. "Between rain and snow, it's been difficult to go through everything." Environmental Planner David Laiuppa said last week that he recently walked the site a few times and found wetlands that were "tricky" to properly determine. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "There's a lot of small questionable areas," Laiuppa said. "It's something that should be reviewed again in the spring." Laiuppa said there will also be a study conducted to see if there is a vernal pool on site. The PZC's feedback on the project is non-binding, as no application has been filed yet. PZC Secretary Michael Stebe said last week that the site feels appropriate for the potential development, as it's down the road from the Winstanley Logistics Property and has easy access to Interstate 291. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "This makes logical sense that it'd be where it is," Stebe said. I went to HyVee this morning right when it opened, said retired Sarpy County Police Lieutenant, Russ Zeeb. I loaded up the car with food, donuts, sandwiches, and jelly and I took it to the Higgins house. Zeeb brought the food to the home of Beverly Higgins, wife of his pal since childhood, Rich Higgins, who passed away on Tuesday, Feb. 20, at the age of 90. My brother just died a couple of months ago and she was over the next morning with a whole carload of food, explained Zeeb. Its become a tradition. Rich Higgins was known for his acts of kindness and community spirit. As a veteran, mailman, and volunteer firefighter of 65 years, he embodied the essence of generosity throughout his life. Higgins and Zeeb knew each other from childhood when Zeebs family moved off the farm and into the home three houses away, off Fourth and Osage in Papillion, where they had fond memories. Like many of his generation, Higgins answered the call of duty when war loomed in Korea. He reported for duty at Fort Omaha, underwent eight weeks of training at Fort Bliss, Texas, and further honed his skills at Fort Gordon, Georgia, specializing in radio training and Long-Line Signal school. Despite initial orders for Alaska, fate had a different plan, redirecting Higgins to Korea. For 14 months in Pusan, South Korea, he navigated the challenges of Long-Line Communication Systems. His return to the U.S. marked the beginning of a new chapter, as a family man. He and his wife Beverley raised three children Judi, Raymond, and Terri. Tragically, his son Raymond, a dedicated servant like his father, passed away in 2023 after serving with the Papillion Police Force since 1988. Rich Higgins remained rooted in his hometown, juggling roles as a Papillion mailman and an essential member of the Papillion Volunteer Fire Department. Throughout his life, he was also active in his church, St Paul Methodist in Papillion, and the Masonic Lodge on 84th and Centennial. There were only three mailmen in town. He, my uncle, and Fritz Weiss. Rich did the north end of town, by Tara Heights where my folks lived, recounted Zeeb. From the downtown area north, he knew everybody, every house, every address. The early days of the PVFD proved busy, an April 21, 1983, article from the Papillion Times cited an incident when they had to chase a loose wallaby an animal native to Australia similar to a kangaroo not to mention the Good Friday fire of 1967, which required the aid of 13 fire departments. Higgins was also one of the first EMTs in Papillion, taking emergency calls for the town he knew and cared for. My Dad died in 1982, had a heart attack in his sleep, explained Zeeb. When the call came in Rich ran down the hill to his house a few doors down and started CPR. Thats just the kind of guy he was. Even in his later years, Higgins remained committed to community service, attending volunteer fire department events and offering his assistance whenever needed. Hed say, Just put me in a chair, and Ill help however I can, Zeeb remembered. And he always did. Visitation is scheduled for Friday, March 6, from 4 to 7 p.m. at St. Paul Methodist Church. Funeral services will take place the following day, Saturday, March 7, at 10 a.m. at St. Paul Methodist Church, located at 324 S Jackson Street in Papillion. An Omaha man and woman were found guilty Tuesday in Douglas County District Court of being accessories to the 2022 shooting death of an 18-year-old man during a drug deal. Alicia Granneman and Schuyler Buckingham-Yeoman, both 20, pleaded no contest to being accessories in the slaying of Dayton Wenz. They face up to three years in prison when they are sentenced in April. Jordan Humphrey, now 23, was sentenced in December to 32 to 40 years in prison for manslaughter in the killing of Wenz, who allegedly tried to steal a bag of marijuana during a drug deal. Humphrey was also found guilty of use of a firearm to commit a felony. Court documents said that Humphrey admitted to shooting Wenz during a confrontation and that he knew the guns serial numbers were removed. He also admitted to disassembling the gun after the fact and giving it to Buckingham-Yeoman to hide. A Nebraska prison inmate died Monday in Lincoln while serving a sentence of 160 to 220 years for multiple counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child. Jose Cabrera-Lomeli, 52, died at the Reception and Treatment Center, where he was being treated for a medical condition, according to a spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Corrections. The cause of death has not been determined. Cabrera-Lomelis sentence began in October after he was convicted in Sarpy County District Court. Under state law, a grand jury conducts an investigation whenever someone in custody dies. Court documents show that the crimes that Cabrera-Lomeli was convicted of involved three child victims. The incidents occurred over about 16 years from February 2002 to January 2018. Nebraska prosecutors have decided not to seek the death penalty in the December killing of a Catholic priest inside his home but will pursue execution in the brutal killing of a retiree during a break-in that happened in the same small town four months earlier. Kierre Williams has been charged with fatally stabbing the Rev. Stephen Gutgsell, 65, during a break-in at the rectory next door to St. John the Baptist Church in Fort Calhoun just hours before he was scheduled to lead mass on Dec. 10. William Collins, meanwhile, has been charged with shooting Linda Childers, 71, with a crossbow three times in her back, neck and face before slitting her throat after breaking into her isolated home about a mile north of the community in August. Investigators havent found any connection between the suspects and victims in either case, which is part of what has made them so troubling to the roughly 1,100 residents of the town that sits 8 miles north of Omaha near the Missouri River. Both men have pleaded not guilty to murder, burglary and weapons charges. Collins also faces assault and theft charges to which he has pleaded not guilty. Theyre both scheduled to return to court next Tuesday to ask the judge to order prosecutors to provide more details about the charges against them. Collins attorney didnt immediately respond to a message about his case Tuesday, but has previously declined to discuss the case outside of court. Judge Bryan Meismer this month rejected a motion to have the death penalty ruled out as unconstitutional in Collins case on grounds that courts have held in other cases that Nebraskas death penalty is constitutional and its too early to determine whether it is being applied fairly. Williams attorney, Brian Craig, said the charges against him dont include any of the requirements under state law for someone to be sentenced to death. A sheriffs deputy who responded to the priests 911 call found Williams, 43, sprawled across Gutgsell, who was bleeding profusely. Based on the allegations, as theyve been set forth, there arent any aggravating circumstances ... that would support a finding of aggravating circumstances that would subject Mr. Williams to the death penalty, said Craig, who is with the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy that serves as the public defender in many murder cases across the state. In the charges against Collins, prosecutors spelled out three aggravating circumstances they plan to prove to justify the death penalty if he is convicted. They say Childers killing was especially heinous and cruel, and she was killed partly to conceal Collins identity or another crime. A family member found Childers body in a pool of blood in her kitchen a day after she was killed. Authorities have said Collins took her vehicle, purse and shotgun and fled to Texas, where the 30-year-old was arrested about two weeks later. Eastern Nebraska residents awoke Wednesday to the startling reminder that spring is still three weeks away and February can still make you shiver. This time of year, late February into March, is usually the time of year that we see these huge temperature swings, said Corey Mead, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley. This is Nebraska and we are on the (Great) Plains. A cold front that entered the area Tuesday is the reason for a projected 44-degree swing in high temperatures over the past two days. Omaha posted a record high of 80 degrees on Monday before dropping to a high of 46 on Tuesday and an expected high of 36 on Wednesday. Walking outside at 6 a.m. on Wednesday, Omaha residents were greeted by a temperature of 8 degrees and a wind chill reading of 10 below zero. Thats a stark contrast with the low of 38 degrees on Monday morning. Obviously, people had gotten used to the mild weather, Mead said. Our normal high at this time of year (in Omaha) is 44 degrees. Thats just the average that comes from a lot of big swings in temperature at this time of year. Southerly winds are expected to quickly bring much warmer and drier air into the region with a high of 60 degrees predicted for Thursday. The projected highs climb from there with mid-60s forecast for Friday. All of a sudden we will be back to 15 degrees above normal, Mead said. Saturdays high is going to be about 72 with a high of 75 on Sunday that looks like it could go even higher. Winds of 35 mph to 40 mph will combine with the continuing dry weather to keep the danger of wildfires high. Douglas County is under a burn ban, Mead said. There is a slight chance 20% to 30% for precipitation Sunday night into Monday, he said. More seasonable temperatures look likely for next week. This time of year from late February through March and all the way into April can bring very wide swings of weather, Mead said. Weve had situations in eastern Nebraska and southwest Iowa where we have tornado warnings in the south but blizzard warnings in northeast Nebraska. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of February 2024 When it comes to safety culture at Boeing, there is a disconnect between senior management and workers, and employees responsible for checking the company's planes question whether they can raise issues without fear of retaliation, according to a panel of outside experts. The aviation-industry and government experts also said safety training and procedures at Boeing are constantly changing, leading to confusion among employees. The comments were contained in a report Monday to the Federal Aviation Administration. Congress ordered the study in 2020, when it passed legislation to reform how the FAA certifies new planes after two deadly crashes involving Boeing 737 Max jetliners. Safety at Boeing is being re-examined after last month's blowout of an emergency door panel on an Alaska Airlines Max jet. Accident investigators said in a preliminary report that bolts used to help hold the panel in place were missing after the plane underwent repairs at Boeing's factory in Renton, Washington. Since 2005, the FAA has relied on employees at Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers to perform some quality-review on behalf of the regulatory agency. After the Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 which killed 346 people critics in Congress said Boeing managers had put undue pressure on employees to approve work done for the FAA. Boeing said in a statement, Weve taken important steps to foster a safety culture that empowers and encourages all employees to share their voice. But there is more work to do. The panel of experts said Boeing has made changes that have reduced the chance of retaliation against employees who report safety problems. It added, however, that "the restructuring, while better, still allows opportunities for retaliation to occur. Boeing has a huge backlog of orders from airlines that are eager to get new, more fuel-efficient planes. The company has increased the rate at which it produces 737s to 38 per month. Critics including Ed Pierson, a former senior manager on the 737 program and now director of a nonprofit safety foundation, have long complained about pressure on Boeing employees not to slow down the assembly line by pointing to potential problems. There is a culture where employees on the front lines are learning to keep their mouths shut because a fear ... something could happen to them, Pierson said in a recent interview. The pressure is, Move the plane down the line, move the plane down the line. Its not, Stop, lets fix it, lets do it right. CEO David Calhoun urged employees in a message last month to speak up. Our people on the factory floor know what we must do to improve better than anyone. We should ... always encourage any team member who raises issues that need to be addressed, Calhoun said. After the Alaska Airlines blowout, he vowed that Boeing will take its time to do the job right. The experts on the panel said Congress didnt tell them to investigate specific incidents or accidents, but they noted that during their work, serious quality issues with Boeing products became public. Those events amplified their concerns that safety-related practices are not being implemented across the entire Boeing population. The panel made 50 recommendations to Boeing, including coming up with a plan to address the experts concerns within six months and give that plan to the FAA. The panel made three recommendations to the FAA. The FAA said, We will continue to hold Boeing to the highest standard of safety and will work to ensure the company comprehensively addresses these recommendations. The US airlines most likely to leave on time in the last year The US airlines most likely to leave on time in the last year #5. SkyWest Airlines #4. Delta Air Lines #3. PSA Airlines #2. Endeavor Air #1. Republic Airways LINCOLN Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird on Tuesday made official what many have suspected for several months: Michon Morrow will be Lincolns next police chief. The mayor made the announcement at a press conference alongside Morrow, who has been acting chief of the Lincoln Police Department since Teresa Ewins resigned as chief abruptly and without explanation in July. The City Council must confirm the appointment. The first reading of her nomination will be March 11, followed by a public hearing and vote March 18. If approved, which is expected, Morrow will officially become the new chief March 19. Morrow has been with the department since 1995 and previously served as the assistant chief of the management division and was a captain of the Southwest Team before Ewins promoted her to assistant chief of staff soon after Ewins arrival in 2021. Im incredibly grateful to this department and the opportunities that have been presented to me, Morrow said at Tuesdays press conference. A national search was performed after former Chief Jeff Bliemeister left the department in 2020, resulting in the hiring of Ewins, a former San Francisco Police Department commander. But the Mayors Office did not conduct another national search for Ewins replacement. From the very beginning, I had a hunch we would be (nominating Morrow), Gaylor Baird said. But she said she wanted Morrow to test-drive the position to see how she would adjust to the role, thus the seven-month delay in naming her the permanent chief. Ewins was the first woman and LGBTQ person to lead the Police Department. She was also the first outside candidate to be named chief of the department since at least 1975. But controversy dogged her tenure up until her resignation. Ewins came under fire for reducing access to the press and had been accused by former police officers of driving them out after they had come forward with allegations of sexual harassment within the department. LPD and public safety in general had been a flashpoint in the mayoral race last spring. After Gaylor Baird announced her nomination Tuesday, Morrow spoke about four priority pillars recruitment, retention, resiliency and respect. We stand for justice, integrity and each other, Morrow said, emphasizing the need to recruit new officers to the department. As of December, LPD was 42 officers below its budgeted cap of 375 officers. Morrow also said she wants to address mental health in the department by providing more resources to assist officers throughout their careers and at home. She said she will not look to fill her previous assistant chief position, at least not initially. Under Ewins there were three assistant chiefs, but LPD will move forward with two Assistant Chiefs Jason Stille and Ryan Dale. Assistant Chief Brian Jackson is set to retire in May. When there is a promotion from within, there is a strain on officers out in the community, and it may be preferable to wait until the department grows in strength before considering hiring a third assistant chief, Morrow said. A native Nebraskan, Morrow is the daughter of James Joneson, who held various law enforcement positions during his career, including sheriff in Dawson County, police chief in Lexington, and the head of the states Crime Commission. Morrow has previously said she was not initially interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement. She enrolled at Nebraska Wesleyan University as a pre-med student with a minor in criminal justice, aiming to attend medical school afterward. But after being a victim of stalking when she was a 19-year-old student at Wesleyan, she worked as an intern in LPDs Victim Assistance Unit, which is a civilian unit meant to help victims of domestic and sexual crimes. She has worked for the department ever since, becoming a sworn officer when she graduated from the departments academy class in December 1997. I prioritized selecting someone who is an experienced, trusted leader, Gaylor Baird said. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of February 2024 LINCOLN Former State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed the paperwork Tuesday to run for the Nebraska Legislature once again. The veteran lawmaker, if elected, would be the first state senator to return after being termed out of office twice. He spent a total of 46 years in the Legislature, from 1971 through 2009 and from 2013 to 2021. He is one of several legislative candidates who have gotten into the 2024 race in recent days. More are expected as Fridays 5 p.m. filing deadline approaches. Chambers, who would be 87 when the next Legislature convenes, filed barely two months after emphatically denying any interest in another term. On Tuesday, he said people have been reminding him that he promised in 2020 he would run again if his health was good and his mind was clear when the time came. If elected, he said, he would do what he could to pass wise, helpful legislation and to stop the opposite. He would face current Sen. Terrell McKinney of Omaha, who is seeking a second term in District 11. McKinney was elected in 2020 with Chambers endorsement. Also running for the seat is Calandra Cooper of Omaha, an urban farmer, nurse aide and creative, who is making her first bid for office. McKinney is registered as a Democrat. Both Chambers and Cooper are registered as independents. McKinney said he is not surprised that Chambers is running again. He posted a list of his accomplishments in the Legislature, including bills passed and leadership positions held, on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter, Tuesday. Im just focused on the work and representing the people of District 11, he said. For his part, Chambers said legislative longevity does not give him ownership of the District 11 seat and said voters are free to choose whichever candidate they prefer. Im not running against anybody, he said. Im running for what I think ought to be done. An amendment to the Nebraska Constitution limits lawmakers to two consecutive, four-year terms in office but does not set a lifetime limit. Several former lawmakers have returned after sitting out four or eight years. The other new legislative candidates include: District 1. Dennis Schaardt of Steinauer, a Republican, is seeking the seat held by Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar, who is not seeking reelection. Schaardt, the owner of Dens Country Meats in Table Rock, ran for the seat in 2020. He has been a county commissioner, mayor, city council member and volunteer fire chief. The district encompasses Johnson, Nemaha, Otoe, Pawnee and Richardson Counties. District 3. Victor Rountree of Bellevue is the latest candidate for the seat now held by Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue, who is term-limited. Rountree, a Democrat, is a pastor at Endure to the End Ministries, Church of God in Christ, and a retired U.S. Air Force veteran with more than 30 years of service. The Sarpy County district covers western Bellevue and eastern Papillion. District 5. Gilbert Ayala of Omaha will make a third bid for the South Omaha seat now held by Sen. Mike McDonnell, who is term-limited. Ayala, a Republican, ran against McDonnell in 2016 and 2020. He also sought a seat on the Omaha City Council in 2017 and 2021 without success. District 7. Tim Pendrell of Omaha has filed to run for the seat now held by Sen. Tony Vargas, who is term-limited and represents downtown and part of South Omaha. Pendrell, a Democrat, currently works as the committee clerk to the Nebraska Retirement Systems Committee and a legislative aide. He also served on the Omaha charter citizen panel. He ran for Legislature in 2002. District 13. Nick Batter of Omaha is a candidate for the northeast Omaha seat now held by Sen. Justin Wayne, who is term-limited. Batter is corporate counsel for Hawkins Construction and on the board of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry. An independent, he also has a podcast focused on the history, culture and folklore of the Great Plains. District 15. Two candidates have emerged for the seat now held by Sen. Lynne Walz of Fremont, who is term-limited. Chuck Emanuel of North Bend is a Republican and former member of the Nebraska Corn Growers Association board. Dave Woody Wordekemper of Fremont, also a Republican, is a 29-year veteran of Fremont Fire and Rescue and president of the firefighters union. The district includes Dodge County and the northwest corner of Douglas County. District 19. Melissa Temple of Norfolk is taking on incumbent Sen. Rob Dover of Norfolk to represent Madison and part of Pierce Counties. Temple is an independent, while Dover is a Republican who was appointed to the seat two years ago. Temple was elected to the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District in 2022. She is a chaplain with St. Croix Hospice and an educator for children with autism. District 21. Bryan Paseka of Lincoln has filed to run against Sen. Beau Ballard for the seat representing northwest Lincoln and Lancaster County. Ballard, a Republican, was appointed to the seat two years ago and is seeking election to keep the seat. Paseka is a Democrat. District 25. Aurang Zeb of Lincoln is challenging Sen. Carolyn Bosn in the district encompassing southeast Lincoln and east-central Lancaster County. Zeb, a registered Libertarian, owns a painting business. He previously ran for Lincoln City Council in 2021 and for Lincoln Airport Authority in 2019. Bosn, a Republican, was appointed to the seat last year. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of February 2024 LINCOLN Some well-known presidential candidates and some less familiar ones will appear on Nebraskas May 14 primary ballot, according to Secretary of State Bob Evnen. On Tuesday, he listed the names of candidates for all political parties recognized in the state. They are: Republican Party: Nikki Haley, Perry Johnson (by petition) and Donald J. Trump Democratic Party: Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Dean Phillips Libertarian Party: Charles Ballay, Jacob Hornberger, Lars Mapstead, Chase Russell Oliver, Michael Rectenwald and Mike ter Maat Legal Marijuana NOW Party: No recognized candidates but interested individuals can petition onto the ballot. State law requires presidential candidates to be put on the ballot if supporters present a petition to include them or if the Secretary of State determines that they are generally advocated or recognized as candidates in national news media throughout the United States. Evnen said partisan presidential candidates have until March 14 to petition to be added to the primary ballot. Currently listed candidates who want to remove their names have until March 11 to file an affidavit with the Secretary of States Office. The ballot is to be certified on March 22. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of February 2024 LINCOLN A bill that would allow Nebraska school districts to hire chaplains to serve as school counselors drew opposition from multiple former and current school counselors at a hearing Tuesday. Legislative Bill 1065 was introduced by State Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City, who said it would help Nebraska schools facing staff shortages. But opponents said it would do more harm than good. In all, three supporters testified and 91 sent in written comments in support to the Nebraska Legislatures Education Committee. Seven opponents testified, with another 129 giving written opposition. One person and one written comment were neutral. Under LB 1065, school districts could hire a chaplain to work as a school counselor, regardless of whether the chaplain is certified as a counselor. Lippincott emphasized that the choice would be left to schools and that they would also need to follow their standard hiring practices, including a criminal background check, before hiring a chaplain. Making chaplains available to students would reduce the risk of suicide, Lippincott said. When students dont have their spiritual needs met in schools, he said, they are at higher risk of developing mental health issues. He added that chaplains serve in a variety of other public spaces, including hospitals, correctional facilities and military bases. If chaplains are entrusted with our firefighters and law enforcement, I think they can be of use in our schools, Lippincott said. Opponents said chaplains are not qualified to serve as school counselors, who need to complete multiple levels of education and training to obtain a certificate. Doug Hauserman, executive director of the Nebraska School Counselor Association, said hiring unqualified counselors could be a legal liability for schools. Kurth Brashear, an elder of his Lutheran Church in Seward, Neb., shared similar concerns. He noted that LB 1065 doesnt outline the qualifications a chaplain must have and added that some people can become chaplains simply by completing an online registration. To believe a person trained in theology can bring the same experience and skills to a student betrays a lack of understanding and awareness of school counseling today, he said. Other opponents claimed the bill was an attempt to insert religion into public schools, and argued the move would ostracize students who dont align with the faith the chaplain represented. Deb Rasmussen, a Lincoln counselor speaking for the Nebraska State Education Association, said school counselors are supposed to be neutral in dealing with students. While counselors will sometimes collaborate with faith leaders at the request of the student, several opponents said, its important for counselors to be inclusive and work with students of all backgrounds. Ive had many atheist students, Ive had agnostic students, Rasmussen said. I meet them where they are, no judgments. One former school counselor who spoke in support of LB 1065 was Sherry Jones, a current member of the Nebraska State Board of Education. She argued that Nebraska needs to think outside the box to address the mental health crisis and staffing shortages in schools, and claimed a similar law in Texas was linked to increased teacher retention, improved grades, and reduced incidents of bullying and self-harm among students. Lippincott acknowledged that some counselors oppose LB 1065, saying he hoped that they werent doing so out of turf protection. Lippincott also said he was open to compromise on his bill, including allowing chaplains to serve as paraprofessionals who do not require a certificate. He also said he was OK with giving districts the option to bring chaplains in as either paid or unpaid workers. Its a good deal, Lippincott said. I think we need it. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of February 2024 Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim poses for a selfie with business owner Luis Carrena as he celebrates his unofficial reelection victory with supporters at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim addresses supporters as he declares unofficial victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Joe Ganim supporters Lilly Curral, left, and Wanda Geter-Pataky dance and celebrate his unofficial reelection victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Mayoral candidate John Gomes speaks to the media and supporters after the redo of the general election in Bridgeport, Conn., on Tuesday Feb. 27, 2024. Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim hugs supporters after declaring unofficial reelection victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Mayoral candidate John Gomes speaks to supporters after the redo of the general election in Bridgeport, Conn., on Tuesday Feb. 27, 2024. Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim smiles as he addresses supporters following his unofficial reelection victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim hugs City Councilwoman Eneida Martinez while celebrating his unofficial reelection victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Mayor Joe Ganim tells supporters "Bridgeport has spoken" as he declares an unofficial victory over John Gomes Tuesday night at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport. Richard Chumney / Hearst CT Media Supporters of mayoral candidate John Gomes watch returns in the redo of the general election in Bridgeport, Conn., on Tuesday Feb. 27, 2024. Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media Republican mayoral candidate David Herz, left, responds to the moderator's question at the Community Conversation, All Roads Lead to Education, sponsored by the Greater Bridgeport NAACP at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport on Nov. 2, 2023. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media Mayoral candidate John Gomes speaks with a supporter outside Batalla School, in Bridgeport, Conn. Feb. 27, 2024. Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media From left, Councilwoman Mary McBride-Lee and Keisha Burks speak with Mayor Joe Ganim in front of the polling place at Wilbur Cross School in Bridgeport on Feb. 27, 2024. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media BRIDGEPORT Mayor Joe Ganim finally won a third consecutive four-year term on Tuesday. It only took four elections over five months and the endorsement of Connecticut's top elected officials, including Gov. Ned Lamont and U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, fellow Democrats who rallied around the incumbent. Unofficial results late Tuesday night had Ganim with 6,356 votes and Gomes, a Democrat who ran on the Independent Party line, with 4,138. Republican David Herz came in a distant third with 283 votes with 99 percent of the vote tallied, according to the Associated Press. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It was before 9 p.m., with just over 25 percent of the votes officially tallied, when Ganim claimed victory in likely the last of four election nights since September. Ganim took to a podium festooned with "Joe Ganim" logos at the downtown Gather restaurant at about 8:50, signaling what turned out to be an early election night in a city famous for late-night vote counting. In the crowd celebrating was the woman at the center of the court decision that resulted in four elections, Wanda Geter-Pataky. "We came together, we galvanized for the good of the city of Bridgeport," Ganim shouted over the crowd noise as more than 120 supporters chanted "Four more years." If it wasnt clear three times in a row, its clear today. Louder than ever, Bridgeport has spoken," Ganim said. "The people of Bridgeport have in a resounding way answered the call for the fourth time in the middle of February and said yes to progress in this city that weve started and are committed to continuing with your help. Thank you Bridgeport. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Referring to the results as "a trouncing," Ganim claimed to have been given a mandate, while taking the first steps toward reconciling with the city's Democrats who had backed Gomes. For those who may have seen a different way, we are committed to moving this city forward with you or without you, but come join us because Bridgeports on the move," he said. "As so many have said, even after the last election, and Ill restate it now, lets get on to the business of working everyday for the people of this great city to make it the greatest city that we can. Thank you and god bless. Meanwhile Gomes' team gathered at O'Manel, a Portuguese restaurant in the city's Hollow neighborhood about a mile away. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In Gomes' campaign headquarters on East Main Street, though, early results showed Ganim with a solid lead on voting machine tallies. Ten large white sheets of paper containing results from the city's 22 polling districts showed Ganim unofficially with 4,635 votes to Gomes' 3,471 at about 8:25 p.m. About 20 supporters watched Lisa Caspo-Gerald print the numbers being delivered by phone from poll watchers. Gomes was not present for the count. At about 9, Gomes drove across the Pequonnock River and entered the restaurant to cheers from a few dozen supporters, several of whom hugged him. I still believe we won, said Rebeca Garcia, a former city police chief who was in the crowd. I think legacy was made here in Bridgeport. Something that went nationwide. We stood up for the people. About 40 people, including members of the state Independent Party, which allowed Gomes its ballot line, joined him on stage. How about giving ourselves a big hand, he shouted. I stand here more proud, with more conviction than ever, behind a team that really represents what Bridgeport is all about. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Asked if he conceded the election, Gomes replied answered in the negative. "Concede is to give up," he said before adding, "We understand our journey has ended with this election. His goal is to continue his movement into the future, he said. And that could potentially mean future runs for elected office. Ill be glad to continue to lead," he said. "We have made history." Advertisement Article continues below this ad Gomes said Bridgeports absentee ballot issues have made national news and he called for true, strong reform to the absentee ballot process. Despite the complaints and investigations, he said nothing, absolutely nothing has been done. The Secretary of the State this week reported that Bridgeport voters registration includes 42,587 Democrats, 22,601 unaffiliated, 4,745 Republicans, 436 Independents, 25 Green Party members, 21 Libertarians and 2 members of the Working Families Party. This has been a prolonged mayoral contest thanks to an absentee ballot scandal stemming from the Sept. 12 Democratic primary between Ganim and Gomes that resulted in Superior Court Judge William Clark ordering a new primary Jan. 23 and a new general election. Ganim admitted the close wins in the first September primary and the original November election were humbling, eye-opening experiences. After circulating more around town and re-engaging with his constituents on a self-described listening tour, Ganim beat Gomes in January by 1,077 votes. And while his two prior wins were thanks to absentee ballots, the mayor this time also bested Gomes on the voting machines at polling places in the do-over primary. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Defying expectations, turnout Jan. 23 was better than in September. Nearly 800 more Democrats participated. As Tuesday drew nearer, petitioning candidate Lamond Daniels dropped out and eventually, despite previously referring to Ganim as a "scandal-plagued" and "out-of-touch," endorsed the incumbent. Meanwhile close Ganim ally, longtime Democratic Party Chairman Maria Testa, publicly called upon leading Democrats like Lamont to get involved helping raise money for Ganim to keep Bridgeport's mayor's office from falling into the Independent Party's hands. While Lamont did not host the high-profile fundraiser Testa had demanded, the governor came to town last week and publicly endorsed Ganim. That was followed by endorsements from Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Murphy, Blumenthal and U.S. Rep. Jim Himes. This story will be updated. The Nebraska Army National Guard joined in a nationwide aviation safety stand-down this week after the recent crashes of two Guard helicopters in other states. The National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Virginia, grounded all of its helicopters nationwide Monday and ordered all units to review safety policies and procedures. Maj. Scott Ingalsbe, a Nebraska National Guard spokesman, said in an email that all of the states Army National Guard air crew members will take a day of refresher training and discuss recent accidents, a month after an incident involving one of its own helicopters. He said the training will include an exam covering emergency procedures and classes in aircrew coordination, weather, and operations in degraded environments. Most will take the training this weekend, during monthly Guard drills. Ingalsbe said Maj. Gen. Craig Strong, Nebraskas adjutant general, has authorized the emergency use of two National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to aid in firefighting efforts against a wildfire near North Platte that as of Tuesday had scorched more than 71,000 acres. In ordering the stand-down this week, the National Guard Bureau cited two crashes involving AH-64D Apache helicopters: one in Utah Feb. 12, and one in Mississippi Feb. 23. Two Army National Guard pilots, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Bryan Zemek and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Derek Abbott, died in the Mississippi crash. Though it was not cited in the stand-down order, the Nebraska Guard experienced its own recent mishap when a CH-47F Chinook helicopter made an emergency landing Jan. 31 at the Guards Greenlief Training Site near Hastings. The Grand Island-based crew was on a two-hour flight to practice low-level night flying maneuvers at the time of the incident, Ingalsbe said. None of the four crew members was hurt. One of the helicopters rear rotor blades apparently contacted the ground, Ingalsbe said in an email, causing visible damage to the rotor and one engine, and likely damage to the gearbox and transmission. No damage estimate has been released, but it is believed to exceed the $2.5 million threshold to classify the incident as a Class A mishap. That is a very easy threshold to meet with the CH-47F, Ingalsbe said. Investigators from the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center at Fort Novosel, Alabama the headquarters of Army aviation have released the Chinook for recovery by the Nebraska National Guard. There is a plan to remove the blades, engines, and defuel the aircraft. Once that is done, it will be loaded by crane onto a truck, Ingalsbe said. He said that could happen as early as next week, weather permitting. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of February 2024 Most of the Bettys Way Fire was contained Tuesday afternoon as crews continued to battle the more-than-70,000-acre fire in Lincoln and Custer Counties. One home was destroyed and another damaged, as were a handful of outbuildings, as the fire raced across open ground northwest of North Platte Monday amid high winds and red flag warnings. As of 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, the fire was 72% contained, said Erv Portis, assistant director of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. The fire also was no longer spreading, according to Region 51 Emergency Management Director Brandon Myers. Temperatures plummeted Tuesday, and the region saw a small amount of precipitation around noon. The hour of snow (Tuesday) was very helpful, Portis said. Fire crews were initially called about 10:32 a.m. Monday to the fire along Bettys Way about 3 miles northeast of North Platte, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency said in a press release Tuesday morning. An area from Rolling Hills north of North Platte to Callaway in western Custer County was evacuated Monday as the fire quickly spread east. The majority of those evacuations were lifted Monday evening. According to the Nebraska State Fire Marshals Office, the fire started from mowing operations. For Anne and Eric Ostendorf of rural Gothenburg, Monday afternoon and evening remain a blur. Where to begin? I teach at Dudley Elementary in Gothenburg, and by the time I got the call about the fire and got home, the State Patrol was in the yard and told us we had 20 minutes to evacuate, Anne Ostendorf said. How do you decide what precious keepsakes to grab in 20 minutes? Erics parents had arrived and were helping to throw things in bags to throw in their vehicles, along with their three dogs. After leaving their home, they drove to the road east of their house and watched the fire from the hill. We are so far away from town that we rarely have any kind of traffic, but the road was like a highway last night with water trucks, law enforcement and neighbors just coming to help, she said. By late evening, they were allowed to return to their home. We are safe, our family is safe, our livestock is safe and our house and outbuildings are OK, she said. But Im not unpacking the car just yet. Its going to be a long haul for many in the fire area. Gov. Jim Pillen late Monday issued a state disaster, allowing use of the Governors Emergency Fund. Region 51 Emergency Management requested additional support from area fire departments Monday, and on Tuesday the Nebraska Wildland Incident Response Assistant Team was deployed. Two National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters were deployed Tuesday morning, and the Nebraska State Patrol also assisted in aerial support. The North Platte/Lincoln County Emergency Operations Center was activated immediately, monitoring the situation and coordinating resources. Fifty-six crews from across central and western Nebraska assisted local firefighters. Cairo Fire Chief Steve Oseka told the Grand Island Independent that his crew arrived to the fire about 2 p.m. Monday. They fought the blaze throughout the night and into the early hours of the morning. Ive never seen flames run that fast, he said. People who were impacted by the fire or in need of assistance can contact the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 308-534-2360; the Natural Resources Conservation Services, 308-535-8080; the Salvation Army, 308-532-2038; or the American Red Cross, 1-833-583-3111. We are working with ranchers, farmers and residents to address any unmet needs, NEMA said in a 6 p.m. press release Tuesday. Fire managers are actively working with the American Red Cross and various state agencies to aid those affected by the Bettys Way Fire. Donations can be directed to the local Salvation Army. In a separate incident Monday afternoon, fire crews and Lincoln County sheriffs deputies were called to a fire reported at the Lake Maloney dam. A RAVE alert was issued because of the proximity to some homes, but the fire was quickly contained. Deputies are investigating the possibility of a group of people shooting off fireworks in the area, Sheriff Jerome Kramer said Tuesday. Monday saw unseasonably warm weather, with with a high of 73, just 1 degree short of the daily record of 74 set in 1896. Temperatures dropped overnight with a high in the mid-20s Tuesday. A snow squall warning was issued for North Platte, with snow beginning to fall about 12:20 p.m. However, wind persisted with steady 23 mph winds and gusts up to 36 mph. Winds are supposed to die down Wednesday during the day, but could pick up again Wednesday night, according to the National Weather Service forecast. Temperatures are expected to return to the 60s by the end of the week and through the weekend. North Platte Telegraph staff writers Caitlyn Thomas, Barb Bierman Batie, Ryan Herzog and Andrew Bottrell and Grand Island Independent staff writer Cheyenne Rowe contributed to this report. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of February 2024 The police in Oyo State say they have arrested a suspect in connection with the killing of a member representing Akinyele/Lagelu in the House of Representatives, Temitope Olatoye. The Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone eleven, Leye Oyebade and the Commissioner of Police in Oyo State, Shina Olukolu disclosed this on Monday. The duo while addressing journalists however disclosed that Mr Olatoyes killing was not in connection with the Saturdays gubernatorial and State House of Assembly election. They said 18 persons where arrested in connection with various criminal activities while, six guns, nine live cartridges, axe and knives where recovered from the suspect. Though, the police bosses did not reveal the identity of the suspect, they insisted that the police got enough facts and evidences that led to the arrest. They said that the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID) had been carrying out investigations on the matter. Mr Oyebade said, We have got a suspect but we cant reveal all the details. I was at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan with the Oyo State Commissioner of Police on Saturday. The Chief Medical Director of the UCH was also with us. From that point, we picked up the investigation. I want to assure members of the public that the IGPs mandate is that no stone should be left unturned in unravelling the cause of the incident. But the incident is not directly connected with the elections, going by the venue of the incident and the information we gathered of what happened prior to the incident. Mr Olukolu said that he got the information about the attack from the Divisional Police Officer at Iyana Offa while monitoring the governorship and state House of Assembly elections on Saturday. I learnt that Sugar was ambushed and, in the process, sustained gunshot injuries in the head. He was immediately evacuated to the UCH for medical attention, but, unfortunately, he died at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the hospital while receiving treatment. He added that the area where the incident occurred was cordoned, while he directed the Deputy Commissioner of Police, State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID) to lead the team of investigators. Other killings Mr Olukolu while speaking on the deaths of other persons during the election, revealed the killing which occurred at Akanran in Ona Ara local government area was not related to the election. The two suspects arrested in connection with the incident claimed they had a previous issue with the deceased, before fighting broke out again on the day of election, during which deceased collapsed and died. The vehicle they brought to the scene was also recovered. The third person that died was when a distress call indicated that about 15 hoodlums, who were armed, stormed a polling unit, approaching the venue with the mind of causing mayhem, snatching ballot boxes and inflicting injuries on members of the public. A team of patrol men were deployed and there was a response. A shot hit one of the hoodlums and he died. A shotgun was recovered, indicating that these people did not mean well for the entire society. We are working on it. Whatever the circumstances are, all these cases are being investigated by the police to determine what happened exactly and appropriate actions would be taken, the cop said. An intense lobbying is ongoing at the highest hierarchy of the Nigerian government as powerful government officials attempt to cover up a multi-billion naira corruption scandal involving senior officials of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), PREMIUM TIMES has gathered. At least 40 NCS personnel, most of them in the services highest hierarchy, have been indicted in a robust EFCC investigation into the proceeds of bribes paid to customs officials by smugglers importing and exporting contraband goods through the Nigerian borders. At least seven of these officials were detained by the EFCC for days late last year with some of them spending the festive period in detention when proceeds of bribes allegedly from smugglers totalling over N12 billion were traced to them, PREMIUM TIMES can report. But for unknown reasons, all seven of them were not prosecuted and have been allowed back to their duty posts as if nothing happened. Both the NCS and the EFCC have yet to furnish this newspaper with answers despite multiple requests. Betraying fatherland As the Nigerian government grapples with revenue challenges, customs officials rake in billions for themselves while sabotaging the governments policies they were meant to protect. While the customs complicity in the movement of contraband items across Nigerian borders are well documented like in a recent investigation by the Foundation for Investigative Journalism the identification and prosecution of officials involved is a rarity. But in this EFCC investigation, at least seven high-ranking officials of the NCS were grilled by the anti-graft agency, and parts of the bribes they received confiscated. Customs insiders and other sources familiar with the matter told this newspaper that the officers were found to own properties and businesses way above what their earnings as customs officers could cater for. This newspaper learnt that the EFCCs investigation also involves at least 33 other officers of the service. According to a source, some of these officials amassed the largest tranche of these bribes from smugglers last year after the directive to close the Nigeria-Niger border by the Nigerian government as part of ECOWAS sanctions against the military junta that deposed Nigerien President, Mohamed Bazoum. Although ECOWAS has now lifted the sanction, there were reports that goods were still smuggled through the borders with Nigeria despite the initial border closure. However, this EFCC operation, as PREMIUM TIMES found, has revealed some of the customs officials accepting bribes from smugglers to allow for the movement of goods through the borders. EFCC operative The smugglers pay bribes directly or through agents designated accounts of the NCS officials, the source said, adding that most of the officers detained operate in Zone B, which operates in more than half the borders that Nigeria shares with Niger Republic in Sokoto, Katsina, Kano, and Jigawa states. The customs has four zonal headquarters across the country. Zone A in Lagos covers the entire South-west geopolitical zone. Zone B in Kaduna covers the North-west as well as Niger, Kogi, Kwara and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Zone C in Port Harcourt, covers the South-east and south-south. Zone D covers the North-east states of Plateau, Benue and Nasarawa States. Six of the seven identified officers worked in Zone B while one officer, to whom more than 80 per cent of the N12 billion was traced to, works in Zone C, Port Harcourt. Identified Officers One of the arrested officers, the NCS Area Controller Zone B Kaduna, Ibrahim Jalo, was found with $31,200 and N500,000 in cash when arrested, the source noted. Mr Jalo only assumed duty as the Area Controller Zone B in January last year, where he was said to have quickly made 130 record seizures within eight weeks of assuming the position. But the EFCC traced suspected proceeds of bribes from smugglers totalling N1.1 billion to him. Our sources revealed that the customs officer promptly refunded N250 million, with a promise to refund the balance. The EFCC also traced N126 million to Mr Jalos personal assistant, Umar Tafarki. He has also refunded N12 million. Another officer involved in this saga is Kayode Kolade, the Comptroller Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone C, Port Harcourt. The anti-graft agency traced N9.5 billion, suspected to be bribes from smugglers, to him, all of which he was said to have received personally and through proxies between 2015 and 2023. PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the EFCC detained Mr Kolade for three days in December. He spent Christmas Day in detention. He has refunded N50 million and committed to refund N800 million within a short period. Another indicted officer, Nurudeen Musa, is the Comptroller of Enforcement, Kaduna Zone. The EFCC traced N950 million to him. The anti-graft agency has recovered N583 million from him after he spent days in detention. He has also promised to refund the rest. The EFCCs investigation found that Mr Musa, who previously served as Area Comptroller, Katsina Area command, was extraordinarily wealthy and owned lots of assets including two filling stations and large trucks, all of which investigators suspect were acquired with illicit funds. Meanwhile, Hamisu Ibrahim, the officer in charge of Operation FOU Zone B, Kaduna, was suspected to have garnered N120 million in bribes from smugglers between 2019 and 2023. As of January, he has refunded N13 million and promised to refund the rest. Meanwhile, Madugu Saleh and Mohammed Rabiu were suspected to have received N85 million and 84 million respectively from smugglers. Mr Saleh has refunded N13.5 million and promised to refund the rest. Mr Rabiu, the officer in charge of patrol on the Agangaro/Jibia Road, refunded N15 million to the anti-graft agency. Reluctance to Prosecute? The EFCC investigation, the arrests and refunds were made between November last year and January, PREMIUM TIMES gathered. But despite this huge indictment against them, these officers have gone back to their duty posts without prosecution by the EFCC or reprimand from the NCS. Last month, Mr Kolade, the Comptroller, FOU Zone C, one of the officers who returned parts of the proceeds of bribes he allegedly got from smugglers, decorated some newly promoted officers in the zone. Efforts by PREMIUM TIMES to get the official reactions of the NCS were unsuccessful. For days. The spokesperson of the NCS, Aliyu Maiwada, did not respond to multiple telephone calls placed to his telephone line. He also did not respond to a detailed text message seeking comments as to why these officers were not punished and why they were allowed back their duty posts, even though he received and read the messages. The EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, has also not responded to our message. Mr Oyewale asked for details of the individuals for him to track the case. The details were sent to him and he acknowledged receiving them. Please give me some time to get back to you, he wrote in a text last Wednesday. However, as of the time of filing this report, he has yet to get back to our reporter despite a reminder. SOURCE: Premium Times A senior Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has been slammed with bribery and tax-related charges in the United States, court filings seen by Peoples Gazette said. A jury recently returned a three-count indictment against Paulinus Iheanacho Okoronkwo after the Federal Bureau of Investigation found that he used his position as a general manager in NNPCs upstream department to obtain at least $2.1 million in bribes. The alleged bribe was to assist Addax Petroleum escape its $2.4 billion liability to Nigeria as part of an oil-lifting contract that began in 2001, the January 10, 2024, the grand jury indictment said before the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Mr Okoronkwo, 67, a dual citizen of Nigeria and the U.S., has practised immigration and personal injury law in California for nearly 30 years. On May 25, 2015, just days before President Goodluck Jonathan was due to exit office on May 29, Mr Okoronkwo and other NNPC officials hurriedly entered into an agreement that would see Addax Petroleum return to developing Nigerias crude and gas reserves after a protracted pause due to a yearslong dispute over the 2001 deal between Nigeria and the Chinese firm. Addax Petroleum, based in Switzerland but owned by Sinopec, bribed Mr Okoronkwo with $5,263,157.89, including an immediate payment of $2,105,263.16, in October 2015 after the new administration of Muhammadu Buhari threatened the May 2015 contract, court documents said. Prosecutors did not immediately say whether or not Mr Okoronkwo received the balance from Addax, which might have been paid through other channels that may or may not pass through the U.S. financial system. The $2.1 million payment was made via a wire transfer to Mr Okoronkwos law firm bank account in the U.S. It was purportedly billed for Consultants for the negotiation and completion of a Settlement Agreement with NNPC with respect to Addaxs dispute over drilling rights, prosecutors said in the indictment first alleged before a grand jury in June 2023. Mr Okoronkwo helped Addax navigate the challenges from the Buhari administration that initially tried to impose a $2.37 billion liability on the Chinese firm, filings said. Addax had calculated that the failure to apply the side letter prospectively would cost Addax approximately $2.37 billion, the indictment said. Mr Okoronkwo was using his U.S. law firm to purportedly represent Nigeria against NNPC, where he was also working as a general manager in charge of crude oil transactions. Both Mr Okoronkwo and Addax made several efforts to conceal the bribe payment as legitimate, and a senior vice-president of the company was fired on July 13, 2016, for questioning the $2.1 million illicit transaction. Authorities also filed obstruction and tax-evasion charges against Mr Okoronkwo for lying to investigators about the nature of the deal while also failing to pay taxes on it in his 2016 returns. Mr Okoronkwo knew the $2,105,263 payment represented a bribe from Addax in exchange for his influencing the NNPC, that the payment did not represent client funds but rather illicit income and the $45,000 in gross income represented in his individual tax return did not include the multimillion-dollar bribe payment he had received, the filings said. Mr Okoronkwo will be arraigned in the coming weeks and faces up to 10 years in prison upon conviction. A separate forfeiture proceeding was underway to recover Mr Okoronkwos ill-gotten yields, including a home he bought in cash for $983,200 in 2017 from the proceeds. A spokesman for the NNPC did not immediately return a request seeking comments over Mr Okoronkwos case, which marked only the latest in a long trail of prosecutions instituted over illegal transactions from Nigeria by U.S. officials in California. The same district had recently confiscated over $6 million from Ara Dolarian, an unlicensed arms dealer who bilked Nigeria to the tune of $12 million in 2014. By Chuks Eke Members of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC in Anambra State, led by its chairman, Humphrey Nwafor, are currently at the state capital in Awka, protesting the economic hardship in the country. The protest is coming against the back drop of the recent declaration by the Ohanaeze Ndigbo that Igbo would not join in the nationwide hunger strike. The protesters gathered at the Aroma Roundabout in Awka on Tuesday and marched towards the Government House gate in the state capital. Also joining the protest were members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, led by its chairman, Prof. Kingsley Ubaoji. The state NLC chairman, Nwafor, in a short address, said the economic hardship in the country has become unbearable for workers and other citizens. He called on the Federal Government to review workers salaries to a minimum of N1.2million, insisting that is one of solutions that can save workers out of the current situation in the country. He also urged the state governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, to resume the payment of the N12,000 wage award which the state has stopped paying for some months now. The ASUU chairman, Ubaoji, on his part, urged Soludo to look into the poor condition of the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, adding that, At the moment, nothing is happening at the COOU, infrastructure is decrepit, the governor should look into this. Security operatives, such as the police personnel, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps and other critical agencies were on the ground offering protection for the protesters to prevent hoodlums from hijacking the rally. Related Peter Tosh is a Jamaican reggae music legend in the class of Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and the rest. For me, his most prophetic rendition is his chart bursting classic called Downpressor man. In this poetic piece, he foretells the fate of workers of iniquity and oppressors who in the end cannot escape the judgement of their actions. He asks ; downpressor man where you gonna run to all on that day? He goes further you gonna run to the sea,but the sea will be boiling all along that day. You gonna run to the rocks, the rocks will be melting all along that day. The summary is that no one can escape the judgement of history, neither will anyone be divorced from the consequences of his actions and inactions. The inauguration of the twin Judicial Commissions of Inquiry by Governor Hyacinth Alia in Benue state to look into the income and expenditure profiles of the State between 2015-2023 as well as the status of government assets at the state and Local levels marks the beginning of a tortuous process of cleansing and accountability. This action is anchored on precedence where the immediate past Governor of the State Chief Samuel Ortom set up the Justice Kpojime Judicial Commission of Inquiry to probe the regime of Governor Gabriel Suswam. The findings of the Kpojime panel indicted the former Governor and 51 others for misappropriating over N107 billion and issued a white paper spelling out various sanctions on the indicted persons. Sadly, it turned out that the entire exercise was a political circus devoid of any altruistic intent but intended to whip political opponents in line using the spurious report as a weapon of blackmail. The report though not formally repealed has become part of the files on the scrap heap of that regime. It must be pointed out that during the hype of the sittings of that Commission, Governor Ortom kept reminding former Governor Suswam to use the opportunity of the Kpojime panel to clear himself of allegations of malfeasance. When the report was released and the sum of N107 billion mentioned, Governor Ortom told the world that if he got that amount of money, he will turn Benue into london. Having earned over 20 times that amount in eight years, it is left to be seen if the Benue Ortom left in 2023 was anywhere near the hoods of Hackney, Peckham , or Brixton in London. May be he was referring to our local Adipko London. I do not in any way wish to preempt the outcome of the Twin Commissions. They have their terms of reference clearly spelt out. They include, determining how much accrued to the state in terms of loans, bailouts, paris refunds, grants, IGR, FAAC, etc. They are to look at the processes of the application of these funds. They are to solve the riddle of the mysterious wage bill of the state from Governor Suswams claim of N2.8 billion to 7.8 billion per month under Ortom when no new recruitments took place and rather people were retired without benefits while those in service suffered epileptic payments for eight years.It is also heartwarming to accertain the state of our assets including moribund state industries and what became of them. In the buildup to the institution of the Twin Commissions, there have been several political tensions owing to internal disagreements within the ruling Party in the State. Nobody can pretend that all is well even though I have firsthand knowledge of the positive disposition of the perceived top gladiators towards an amicable settlement. This I am sure will happen soon to the shame of the lieutenants stoking the fire. You can question Ortoms literacy levels but you can never take away from him his foxy street wisdom. He spots opportunities from a distance and cashes in without delay. He rarely misses when he shoots. When he was outplayed in the 2015 PDP primaries, he left the road into the APC well paved knowing the PDP had lost the streets in Benue. He came in and rode on the crest benevolence of our undisputed leader Senator George Akume and won the governorship under the APC. A few years down the line, not only did he wage war against the very person who paved the way for him to emerge candidate within 24 hours of joining the Party, he packed his bags and returned to the PDP and created a base to throw the most vitriolic diatribes against our leader. If he is not sponsoring local songs labeling him Ashabugu, he is leaking private taped conversations calling him all sort of names. When the leader Akume led the greatest political movement to sweep away Ortom in 2023, Ortom found himself in the political wilderness. The joke was now on him. The person who boasted to have retired George Akume from politics in 2019 was now the political retiree himself. Senator Akume on the other hand is the only politician in Nigeria today not to be left out of any political dispensation since 1999. Back to Ortoms savvy character of exploiting opportunities. Ortom knows the powers of the office of Governor having himself abused same in eight years. He knows what is means to be in the firing line of the Governor. What did he do? He bit the humble pie and went to grovel before the man he claimed to have retired from politics. His public eulogy of our leader was meant to seek a shield from the impending probe of his eight years of sorrow, tears and blood. He saw the perceived rift within the APC as his best bet to align with the leader for protection. Senator George Akume has a reputation for large heartedness and that is why the doors of his modest home were opened to a character who called him all kind of names including a Fulani slave and killer. However, Akumes famed magnanimity does not extend to providing refuge to felons and fugitives to justice. He has not lasted this long in the political space by associating with people of low repute. Ortom is therefore hiding behind a melting rock ( in his own case) and a boiling sea. He cannot escape a scrutiny of his eight ugly years as Governor. I want to hold Ortom to his words that he has nothing to hide. In an interview with Arise Tv after he lost power,he derisively referred to Governor Alia as Hon Alia not Rev Fr Alia. He openly boasted that he is available if Hon Alia decides to probe him. He should therefore not scream witch-hunt . I expect a statement from Terver Akase, his wingman saying so. Like he severally advised Suswam, this is his best chance to clear his name. Nobody wants to walk the streets being labeled a looter, serial salary defaulter, non performer etc. Governor Ortom should be prepared to be served the same dish he served Governor Suswam but let him be assured that this time around, it is not a circus show but an altruistic exercise to ensure Benue does not go through that kind of of trajectory again. Kenneth Tersoo Gyado Kengyado@yahoo.co.uk Related The Nigeria Labor Congress has demanded immediate intervention by the government as it lamented that its members are hungry. NLC said the hunger and economic hardship in the country has become unbearable. NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said this while addressing workers during a peaceful protest at the National Assembly on Tuesday in Abuja. Recall that the protesting workers carried placards with inscriptions such as End hunger and poverty, Reject IMF/World Bank policies,End Naira devaluation, Support local production, Stop the profligacy in government, subsidise the poor, Fix local refineries, end subsidy, and Remove tax on drugs, our health matters, among others. Recall that on February 16, NLC at the end of its National Executive Council, NEC, meeting, had declared a two-day nationwide protest from February 27 to February 28, over the worsening economic hardship and insecurity in the country. Ajaero said, We are here for a peaceful protest. We are here to tell the Federal Government that Nigerians are hungry. The protest is to make Mr President to know how Nigerians feels, we know where it is pinching us. We are also here to register our complaints before Nigerians, the level of suffering and hunger in the land. We are here to call on the federal government to immediately address the issue of hunger in the country. There is nobody that does not know that bag of rice is over N70, 000 or more, we can not even buy indomi, even bread is out of reach and with N30, 000 minimum wage, if you eat a loaf of bread everyday, you will be spending over N40,000. JUSTICE Moore Abraham Aseimo Adumein is one of the eleven new Justices of the Supreme Court to be sworn-in today, February 26, 2024. Some who knew him, in his younger days, did not believe he would move to the bench, not to talk of climbing to the apex court. This is because he was a very intelligent science student and mainly an environmentalist working in the Niger Delta, including as research assistant to his benefactor, Dr. B. Idoniboye-Obu, taking samples of polluted waters and soils, and helping villagers to build their cases for remediation and compensation. He was a rights activist who wanted justice for the Nigerian nationalities, in what later became known as resource control. In those days, he and some of us, including Chief Alex Ekiotene and Reverend Dadikumo Odondiri, learnt at the feet of the great Niger Delta leader, Pa George Weikezie, whose home in Apapa, Lagos, was open to all. Adumein was also very close to the Grand Old Man of Minority Rights in Nigeria, Chief Harold Dappa-Biriye. When the latter founded the Association of Mineral Producing Areas of Rivers State, AMPARS, to agitate for minority rights, as he had done during the 1957 Willinks Commission, Adumein was its youngest member and research officer. The AMPARS agitation, amongst others, led to the June 25, 1992 establishment of the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission, OMPADEC, as a special intervention agency in Nigeria. OMPADEC transformed in 2000 into the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC. Adumein, walking in the footsteps of his mentor, Chief Dappa-Biriye, became a national delegate of the National Republican Convention, NRC, one of the two parties decreed into existence by the Babangida regime. It was here he displayed what can be described as his Audacity of Hope. The Babangida regime had proclaimed that it wanted to hand over to New Breed Politicians and a young Adumein stretched this when he decided to run for the national chairmanship of the party after it was zoned to the South. Incredibly, his candidacy gained traction. The media dubbed him The Eaglet National Chairmanship Candidate. On the eve of the partys national convention, the then Chief of Staff, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, addressed the NRC caucus. Adumein was told that the regime was interested in Chief Tom Ikimi, whose candidacy had been declared. He was asked to step down and that he would be compensated. He agreed to step down but said he was not interested in any compensation. Perhaps, the regime did not believe him, because early in the morning of the convention, the secret police took over his hotel room. They had come to escort him to the convention venue. Three of the men remained inside his room, while he took his bath and dressed. The armed men took him straight to the convention stage where shouts of Rivers! Rivers!! Rivers!!!, as he was known amongst delegates, rented the air. He announced that he was stepping down, and raised the hand of Chief Ikimi, who was later elected party national chairman along with other candidates on Adumeins list. He was part of the movement that agitated for the creation of a new state out of Rivers State. When Bayelsa State was eventually created on October 1, 1996, he was consulted to be the pioneer Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice. But that was not to be. In 2002, he was appointed a High Court Judge in Bayelsa State and, in 2010, elevated to the Court of Appeal where he served in several Divisions and became the Presiding Justice, first of Ibadan Division and, later, Yola Division. The Court of Appeal, with Adumein presiding, and Justices Gyarazama Sanga Bitrus and Ganiyu Lateef Adebayo as Justices, on November 17, 2023, upheld the nullification of Kano State Governor Abba Yusufs election. The main basis was that Yusuf was not a member of the NNPP the political party that purportedly sponsored him contrary to Section 177(c) of the Constitution. Adumein held that: A person must be a member of a political party before he can be sponsored for an election. Sponsorship without membership is like putting something on nothing. The ruling turned controversial when the certified true copy was contrary, obviously the result of a mix up. There was an instant media trial of the Justices, even without hearing from them or giving them the benefit of the doubt. Things got as ridiculous as some lawyers petitioning the United Nations! The Courts Chief Registrar, in reaction, explained it was a mistake and that Order 23 Rule 4 of the Court of Appeal Hand Book empowers the court to correct such errors. The subsequent Supreme Court decision on the Kano State case, raised more questions than answers. It might go the way of the controversial 1979 Twelve Two-thirds judgement that cannot be cited as a judicial precedent. As if he had premonition of what was to happen in his last days on the Court of Appeal bench, Adumein, in 2012, held in the case of Sijuade v. Oyewole that: A tribunal or court is not a science laboratory where facts, issues and matters can be tried, tested and resolved with scientific certainty or exactitudeCourts only apply the test of a reasonable man which is prone to human errors. Even in a scientific test, errors are not completely eliminated or ruled outThat Judges are fallible is a matter of ancient acclamation and acknowledgement Judges will continue to acknowledge their fallibility, as only God is omniscient and infallible. Adumein was the best, academically, in his primary, secondary and higher schools. He was also a Senior Prefect at Awori/Ajeromi Grammar School, Agboju, Lagos, and President of the Law Society, University of Lagos. He has received many academic and non-academic awards, both in Nigeria and overseas. Upon being called to the Bar, and after his National Youth Service, Adumein was the pioneer junior legal practitioner in the well-known law firm of E. C. Ukala & Co. (Efe Chambers), Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where he was groomed under the tutelage of Emmanuel C. Ukala, SAN. Some years ago, Adumein told me in an emotion-laden voice that he went from the back waters of environmentally-degraded Rivers to the rough life of Ajegunle(Jungle City) in Lagos; through the hardship he endured in Warri and Port Harcourt, he found himself under the glittering lights of Hong Kong doing post-graduate studies, he could not but marvel at Gods hand in his life. Justice Adumein is a survivalist having been knocked down many times, but each time, like a great boxer, he rises from the canvas to continue fighting; he never gives up. Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Mike Ozekhome, has described the current hardship in the country as renewed poverty and not the Renewed Hope mantra of President Bola Tinubu. Ozekhome lamented that the current situation in Nigeria is poverty at a higher scale. Featuring on Channels Televisions Politics Today, on Tuesday, the senior advocate lamented that things have never been this bad. According to Ozekhome: This is not renewed hope but renewed poverty, though we have been having poverty before but its now renewed on a higher scale. READ ALSO: Mike Ozekhome (SAN): Garland to the living legend @ 66 Going back to the drawing board, this government should try to rethink outside the box, and bring about new innovations. Look at what is going on in Argentina and other countries, this government should not think that the mere removal of subsidy was a magical wand we were looking for, I knew it would not work. Hunger does not have colour, a hungry man is an angry man and that is why these continued demonstrations are coming up from Ibadan to Osogbo; from Kano to Owerri, and you are saying these are sponsored? When the house is on fire, the blind will know because they will fill it; the lame will know because he will hear about it, the dumb will know because they will feel the heat. Lets not pretend it has never been this bad. HKSAR gov't cancels all property cooling measures Xinhua) 13:20, February 28, 2024 HONG KONG, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government decided to cancel all demand-side management measures for residential properties with immediate effect, said Paul Chan, financial secretary of the HKSAR government on Wednesday. Chan made the remarks when delivering the 2024-25 budget at the HKSAR's Legislative Council, saying the HKSAR government has been keeping a close watch on the residential property market. After prudent consideration of the overall current situation, the HKSAR government decided that Special Stamp Duty (SSD), Buyer's Stamp Duty (BSD) and New Residential Stamp Duty (NRSD) are not needed to be paid for any residential property transactions starting from Wednesday. It is considered that the relevant measures are no longer necessary amid the current economic and market conditions, Chan said. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) FILE - A bump stock is displayed in Harrisonburg, Va., on March 15, 2019. The Supreme Court will hear a challenge Wednesday, Feb. 28, to a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a gun accessory used in a Las Vegas massacre that was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Steve Helber/AP FILE - An employee of North Raleigh Guns demonstrates how a bump stock works at the Raleigh, N.C., on Feb. 1, 2013. Gun accessories known as bump stocks hit the market more than a decade ago. The U.S. government initially concluded that the devices that make semi-automatic weapons fire faster didn't violate a federal ban on machine guns. That changed after a gunman with bump stock-equipped rifles killed 60 people and wounded hundreds in Las Vegas in 2017. Allen Breed/AP FILE - Shooting instructor Frankie McRae demonstrates the grip on an AR-15 rifle fitted with a "bump stock" at his 37 PSR Gun Club in Bunnlevel, N.C., on Oct. 4, 2017. Gun accessories known as bump stocks hit the market more than a decade ago. The U.S. government initially concluded that the devices that make semi-automatic weapons fire faster didn't violate a federal ban on machine guns. That changed after a gunman with bump stock-equipped rifles killed 60 people and wounded hundreds in Las Vegas in 2017. Allen G. Breed/AP WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court appeared torn Wednesday about a challenge to a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a gun accessory that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like machine guns and was used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The high court is weighing whether the Trump administration followed federal law when it reversed course and banned bump stocks after a gunman in Las Vegas attacked a country music festival with assault-style rifles in 2017. Many of the weapons were equipped with bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. More than 1,000 rounds were fired into the crowd in 11 minutes, killing 60 people and injuring hundreds more. The arguments largely focused on whether guns with a bump stock can be considered illegal machine guns under federal law. A Texas gun shop owner argues that bump stocks don't change the core function of a semi-automatic weapon enough to make it illegal. The Biden administration says bump stocks fall firmly under the legal definition of machine gun. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It is the latest gun case to come before the justices and offers a fresh test for a court with a conservative supermajority to define the limits of gun restrictions in an era where mass shootings are exceedingly prevalent. Conservative justices raised questions about whether machine-gun laws dating to the 1930s apply to bump stocks and about the Justice Department's previous finding that the accessories were legal. Intuitively, I am entirely sympathetic to your argument, said Justice Amy Coney Barrett, I think the question is, why didn't Congress pass that legislation to make this cover it more clearly? Justices from the courts liberal wing suggested it was common sense that bump stocks would fall under laws originally aimed at Prohibition-era violence from gangsters such as Al Capone. This is in the heartland of what they were concerned about, which is anything that takes just a little human action to produce more than one shot, Justice Elena Kagan said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Federal appeals courts have been divided over bump stocks. The case before the court differs from other gun cases including a landmark 2022 decision in which the six-justice conservative majority expanded gun rights because it's not directly about the Second Amendment. Instead, the plaintiffs argue that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives overstepped its authority in imposing the ban. The agency had previously decided bump stocks should not be classified as machine guns and therefore not be banned. That changed after Las Vegas. Marisa Marano, 42, survived the shooting at the show she attended with her sister, but struggles with the lasting effects on her life and and community. I will never forget the sound of a machine gun firing into the crowd that night as Gina and I ran for our lives, said Marano, who is now a volunteer for the group Moms Demand Action and hopes the Supreme Court upholds the ban. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Bump stocks are accessories that replace a rifles stock, the part that rests against the shoulder. They harness the guns recoil energy so that the trigger bumps against the shooter's stationary finger, allowing the gun to fire rapidly. They were invented in the early 2000s. Under Republican President George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama, the ATF decided that bump stocks didn't transform semi-automatic weapons into machine guns. The agency reversed that decision at Trump's urging after the shooting in Las Vegas and another mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school that left 17 dead. The plaintiffs argue that rifles with bump stocks are different from machine guns because the trigger keeps moving and the shooter must continue to exert pressure on the weapon. Its still one shot per function of the trigger, even though the shots are coming out of the barrel a lot faster than they were before, said attorney Jonathan F. Mitchell, who argued on behalf of Texas gun shop owner and Army veteran Michael Cargill. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Government lawyers pointed out that traditional machine guns also require pressure from the shooter. They argued bump stocks fall under the legal definition of machine guns because the shooter's finger stays still while the gun fires hundreds of rounds per minute. Brian Fletcher, principal deputy solicitor general, said that the ATF's previous findings were less in-depth than the review it undertook under Trump. After the Las Vegas shooting, the deadliest shooting in our nations history, I think it would have been irresponsible for the ATF not to take another look at this prior interpretation, he said. There were about 520,000 bump stocks in circulation when the ban went into effect in 2019, requiring people to either surrender or destroy them, at a combined estimated loss of $100 million, the plaintiffs said in court documents. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned the Justice Department about the effects of the about-face on the millions of people who bought bump stocks while they were legal. Fletcher responded that the Justice Department doesn't intend to prosecute people who turned in their bump stocks under the new rule, though he later indicated that people who bought them after the rule was finalized could potentially face prosecution. The high court took up the case after the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated the ban, a finding that differed from a ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington to uphold it. Fifteen states and Washington have their own bans on bump stocks. The high court is separately weighing another gun case this term challenging a federal law intended to keep guns away from people under domestic violence restraining orders. The justices appeared likely to keep that measure in place during arguments in November. The bump stock challenge comes at a time when the 6-3 conservative majority has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. This term, the justices also are weighing challenges to aspects of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has suspended its two-day protest all over the country. The Congress had on Tuesday led Nigerians out to protest the current economic hardship in the country. The NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) had last week planned a nationwide rally for February 27 and February 28 to protest the rising prices of food items and other costs of living in the country. TUC, however, withdrew from the protest last Saturday. READ ALSO: Economic hardship: NLC defies FG, begins protest in Abuja, Lagos A last-minute meeting between the Federal Government and organized labour to stave off the protest ended in a stalemate on Monday night. The NLC announced the suspension of the protest in a communique issued at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting on Tuesday evening in Abuja. It added that the objectives of the protest were achieved on the first day of the nationwide rally. The communique read: Consequently, NEC-in-session resolved as follows: to suspend street action for the second day of the protest having achieved overwhelming success and thus attained the key objectives of the 2-day protest on the first day. The Federal Government on Tuesday dismissed the rumour of a coup in the country. The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, in a statement issued by his media aide, Rabiu Ibrahim in Abuja, said the report was unequivocally false, and a heinous act of disinformation. He urged Nigerians to ignore the report aimed at sowing the seeds of discord in the country. The minister stressed that the report was the figment of the imagination of detractors who are determined to undermine the present administration and destabilise the country. Idris said the government would not be distracted or intimidated into abandoning the ongoing reforms aimed at rejuvenating the countrys economy. He said: It is now evident that some desperate individuals have resorted to publishing fake news to erode public trust in the government and sow the seed of discord in the country. READ ALSO: Nigerian Army reacts to speculations of coup against Tinubu govt The government will exercise its rights within the laws to contain rogue actions to destabilise national security and the nations hard-earned democracy. The calls for military putsch may not be unconnected with the current economic hardship in the country. The President Bola Tinubu administration has come under severe criticism over the economic hardship occasioned by the rising prices of food items and other costs of living, with many pointing to the removal of fuel subsidy and other policies initiated by the government as causes of the problems. The military had last week warned those calling for a coup in the country to desist. The Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa, who addressed journalists in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, said those calling for a coup are enemies of Nigeria and the law would catch up with them soon. The 2nd Emergency Meeting of the Nigerian Music Industry with the theme, Identification of Internal and External Regulatory Mechanisms to Smoothen the Working Relationship among Various Stakeholders and Subgroups in the Music Industry, took place on Monday 12 February 2024, via video conference. The Summit was facilitated by All Africa Music Awards AFRIMA Music Business Summit in partnership with the Performing Musicians Employers Association of Nigeria (PMAN), Record Label Proprietors Initiative (RELPI), Association of Music Artist Managers of Nigeria (AMAMN) and Music Publishers Association of Nigeria (MPAN), Music Publishers Association of Nigeria (MPAN), Fuji Musicians Association of Nigeria (FUMAN), among others. The summit, anchored by Mr. Efe Omorogbe, saw the participation of all independent organisations performing oversight functions of the artistic, corporate, legal and policy regulations in the Nigerian music industry. The 2nd emergency summit sought to redefine and consolidate the recommendations of the 4-man legal team instituted at the first emergency summit. This borders on the proposed establishment of a collective of representatives and other allied matters. At the summit, participants discussed the Nigerian Music Industry Coalition proposal and the formation of a coalition. The conversation was about adopting the name and announcing the coalition. After due consideration of the Industry/Business options, the final tally was 8 votes for Music Industry Collective and 5 votes for Music Industry Coalition. The participants thus, agreed on the name Nigerian Music Industry Collective. It went further to agree that henceforth, the name, Nigerian Music Industry Collective should replace AFRIMA as the secretariat. READ ALSO: AFRIMA, PMAN, others hold 2nd emergency summit on Nigerian music industry On the issue of formal registration, participants agreed to start off as a loose association before perfecting the legal and operational mechanism for the establishment of the Academy for the music industry. The participants agreed to have a draft announcement statement ready by February 13, 2024 and to set up a working committee to discuss funding, operational modalities, and membership eligibility. The participants agreed that the working committee will at inception, be made up of leaders of the constituent associations/organizations or their designated representatives. On the matter of the drafting of minimum standard agreement templates for the industry, Efe Omorogbe expressed gratitude to Isioma Idigbe and Punuka Partners for the work done on the draft roadmap submitted for review by the larger house. Isioma Idigbe did a presentation to the house discussing the objectives and process of evaluating contractual frameworks and establishing minimum contract terms within the music industry. According to the document, a monitoring committee would be established from all the participating associations and entities to oversee the process and validate deliverables of the framework. The project is slated to span over six and a half months, with the overarching goal of establishing a self-regulatory system within the industry. Says their names written in gold From Mba Nnenna- Abakaliki As the 5-day workshop/activity on Review of Ebonyi state Financial Instructions/Finance Law comes to an end, the State2State have commended the participants for their efforts and contributions towards the development of the financial documents. The State2State Communication specialist, Mrs Nneka Egbuna who gave the commendation in Abakaliki, said the participants have all put their names in gold. The workshop which was organized by USAID State2State Activity in collaboration with Ebonyi state Government, engaged participants from various Ministries, Departments and Agencies on work review of the states Financial Instructions/Laws Fls/FL, presentation and collation of all the inputs into two documents for further work by the consultant, Prof. Paschal Okolie. Mrs Egbuna in her closing remark on behalf of the State Team Lead STL, Dr. Sam Onyia, noted that their knowledge on review of Financial Instructions have been improved. Adding his voice, the Facilitating Consultant for USAID State2State on Financial Law and Instructions, Prof. Paschal Okolie, equally commended the participants for their inputs adding that they were able to achieve the purpose of the workshop. Prof. Okolie said, We have gained some experience, interacted, made new friends and more knowledge has been acquired. I want to thank you all, your contributions will always be remembered by Ebonyi state government, he added. In a vote of thanks, Barr. Lilian okorie from Ministry of Justice, on behalf of the participants thanked USAID State2State, for organising the workshop and implored for more workshop as she learnt alot. She commended the consultant, describing him as such an amazing person, as well as the State Auditor General, Elder Dr. Udu Uduma Samuel Aka for been part of the workshop. Related Former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria and foundation member of All Progressives Congress, Mr Osita Okechukwu, has urged the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) to remove Governor Hope Uzodimma as its chairman before he wrecks our great party. Okechukwu made the call while reacting to the bungling of the Edo State Governorship Primary, which was chaired by Uzodimma. In a statement on Tuesday, the former VON DG appealed to the Progressive Governors Forum to as a matter of urgent national importance remove Uzodimma as its chairman over the mismanagement of the Edo State Governorship Primary Election which produced three candidates. Okechukwu asked why Uzodimma who allegedly bungled a similar assignment four years ago in Edo was given another assignment. He posed some questions including: How can a sane Chairman of APC Governors Forum deliberately breach the extant laws by announcing result with impunity; albeit consigned to the dust bin his elementary knowledge that it is the sole duty of the Returning Officer? Based on the foregoing, is it appropriate for chairman of Progressive Governors Forum to abandon the more germane issue of advising Mr President alongside with other progressive governors on how best to rescue Nigeria from the dire economic doldrums, thus chasing rat while the house is burning? For me it is obvious that Uzodimma seems not understand the demands of his office as Progressive Governors Forum, but chooses to meddle with political assignments, which amounts to chasing rat while the house is on fire. According to him, the party should take serious steps to quickly repair the monumental damage that Governor Hope Uzodimma has done to the image of our national chairman Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, whom he cajoled into endorsement of his cancelled shambolic primary election. Noting that he was one of the key supporters of Governor Uzodimma, Okechukwu said that though the governor had apologised for the error, the Progressive Governors Forum should avoid similar incidents. Okechukwu narrated how Uzodimma allegedly metastasised Anambra State gubernatorial primary election during the partys congressional elections in the Southeast zone in 2022. He said, Then, as if that ugly prelude to 2023 general elections was not enough, Governor Uzodimma generated hatred, rancour, malcontents and alienated APC membership long before Peter Obis factor. The summary of Uzodimmas woeful leadership is the 2023 presidential election results in the Southeast, which posted dismal outcomes: Abia-8,914 against 85,058 in 2019, Anambra-5,111 against 33,298 in 2019, Ebonyi-42,402 against 90,726 in 2019, Enugu-4,722 against 54,423 in 2019 and Imo-66,406 against 140,463 in 2019. Related ..Tasks traders to Join Soludos War Against Toutism By Uzo Ugwunze The President General, PG, Anambra State Markets Amalgamated Traders Association, ASMATA, Chief Humphrey Anuna, has inaugurated the new executives of United Petrochemical Dealers and Crushers Association of Nigeria, headed by Mr Onyekachi Nwafor as chairman. Inaugurating them at the ASMATA Secretariat weekend, the ASMATA PG charged them to live by their oath of office and avoid acts capable of dragging them to ridicule adding that they should key into Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludos move to restore the lost glory of the markets. You should be your brothers keeper by telling your fellow traders the truth and see yourselves as partners in progress which is the APGA slogan of Onyeaghana Nwanne ya, he pleaded. In his post inaugural speech, the new chairman of the association, Chief Nwafor, said that, What is expected from us now is that we will unite all the members of the market and make sure we follow government directives. We need mobile fire service which we were promised to get. We need permanent site that will accommodate the whole traders, he stated. On the allegation that the association deals in fake products he denied the allegation saying, We dont produce or sell fake products, we sell processed products, that is already processed petrochemicals, he affirmed. Also he disclosed that, I will handle our opposition as ourselves and if any case that requires the attention of ASMATA leadership, I will kindly surrender to ASMATA to keep a clean hand. Once such case is beyond my settlement I will involve central body of ASMATA to handle it for us.we come to support government, he assured. He however admitted that touts exist in the market stating that they normally dealt with them when they misbehaved, warning, Now that we are officially elected and inaugurated, we now have full power to tackle them the way we want. There is anti tout squad set up by state government, we will get their phone numbers to work with them towards fighting the touts, he further added. On the performance of the ASMATA PG since he assumed office, the new chairman stated that, Onwa ndi ahia, PG, God is using him on the traders. He doesnt discriminate whether you are rich or poor. Any problem you have, he will listen to you and solve it for peace to reign . There is peace in the market since he assumed office. We are happy that God gave him to us, he explained. Speaking, Mr Steven Uka, the Secretary of the market, added, I promise that I will support chairman fully, we are one body and will be working together to be in unity in other to get what we are fighting for. Before I was made the secretary, all of them knew me as peace maker and trust worthy, so if there is any opposition, we will join hands together to tackle them and we will take them as one of us, with time they will change from their bad ways, thats our belief. Soludo is a solution to Anambra state problem, he is doing very well to Ndi Anambra state. We are in full support of his work, he stated. Also Assistant secretary, Mr Adolphus Udeh, added, I am the assistant secretary of the market. We are solidly behind our chairman, if you know the nature of business we are doing, you know that whoever that abandons his machine and goes out, will lose a lot of things, but we wouldnt mind, we will support him to be here, he pledged. Related Yoruba nation agitator, Chief Sunday Adeyemo popularly known as Sunday Igboho, has vowed to flush out killer herdsmen out of the South-West region of the country. He said on Tuesday, that he is back to the country to chase out killer herdsmen from the South-West zone. Igboho who recently returned to the country from his base in Germany, said one of the reasons he came back to the country was to chase out the killers out of the zone. Igboho who spoke in a trending video on Tuesday while addressing a group of people in Igboho town, Oyo State, called on the people of the South-West to liberate themselves from the killer herdsmen who were terrorizing them. The Yoruba Nation agitator, who spoke in Yoruba language, said the South-West does not need soldiers to drive away killer herdsmen from their farmlands but a determination to fight for their land. We need to come together. We should take charge of the security of the South-West. We dont need to wait for anybody or the government, Igboho charged. READ ALSO: Why Sunday Igboho may not return to Nigeria soonAttorney They have taken away our land. Can we still go to the farm again? We cannot go to the farm. They killed our monarchs in Ekiti State. We dont need soldiers for protection. After we pursue them from our land, we will now start farming. We are going to work together with our elders to achieve the security of our land. Igboho only returned to Nigeria three years after he fled the country following a raid on his Ibadan residence by operatives of the DSS where a cache of weapon was allegedly recovered. The raid also led to the death of two of Igbohos supporters while 12 of his aides were arrested, while the DSS declared him wanted. He was arrested in July 2021, alongside his wife, Ropo, in Cotonou, Benin Republic, and detained at the request of the Nigerian government and arraigned on charges bordering on arms smuggling, inciting violence and calling for a secession of the Yoruba from the Nigerian state, after which he was remanded in prison custody for close to two years despite efforts by the Nigerian government to have him repatriated to the country to face trial. The National Assembly has made strides with a proposal that could see the Central Bank of Nigerias (CBN) capital base soar to a whopping N1 trillion. This proposition was part of a broader legislative effort encapsulated in a bill that recently advanced to its second reading in the Senate. This bill, titled Bill for an Act to Amend the Central Bank of Nigeria Act, 2007 to strengthen the Bank, and for other related matters thereto, 2024 (SB. 325), is spearheaded by Senator Adetokunbo Abiru (APC, Lagos East), alongside the robust support of 41 other Senators, to amend various facets of the existing CBN Act, 2007. Key among the proposed changes is a dramatic increase in the CBNs authorized capital from the current N100 billiona figure that legislators argue has been significantly diluted over time due to the nairas devaluation. This financial bolstering is seen as a crucial step in ensuring the CBN remains a formidable pillar in Nigerias economic landscape. Senator Abiru, in his lead debate, underscored the bills potential to significantly empower the CBN in fulfilling its core mandates, marking a pivotal step towards enhancing Nigerias financial system integrity and stability. He said: Recapitalization of the Bank; The Banks current authorized capital of 100 billion (One Hundred Billion Naira) as stated in section 4 (1) has over the years been eroded by the devaluation of the naira. READ ALSO: CBN makes U-turn, resumes dollar sales to BDCs The Bill proposes to amend this to provide that the paid-up capital of the Bank shall be 1 Trillion Naira and may be increased from time to time by such amount as the Government may approve either by way of transfers from the General Reserve Fund or by such other means as the Government, in consultation with the Board, may approve. Another aspect of the bill is the restructuring of the CBNs leadership tenure. It seeks to amend the apex banks law to introduce a single, non-renewable term of six years for both the governor and deputy governors, a move that could significantly influence the banks governance dynamics. Senator Abiru said: Tenure of CBN Governor and Deputy Governors: Section 8 (2) of the CBN Act currently grants the Governor and Deputy Governors tenure of five years and they are eligible for re-appointment for another term not exceeding five years. The Bill proposes to amend this provision to provide a single non-renewal term of 6 years for the Governor and the Deputy Governors. In addition, the Bill proposes that where a vacancy is created by the death or resignation of a CBN Governor or Deputy Governor, the President can appoint an acting Governor in the interim pending the appointment of a substantive Governor or Deputy Governor. Where a substantive appointment is made, such appointment will be for a fresh term rather than serving the tenure of the previous Governor or Deputy Governor. Additionally, the bill proposes a meticulous overhaul of the countrys currency replacement process. Specifically, it advocates for a transition period where both old and new currency notes would concurrently serve as legal tender for two years. Edo States Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, made an assertive move by visiting the National Secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to claim his Certificate of Return. The party had earlier issued a certificate of return to Asue Ighodalo. The certificate was given to Ighodalo by the Acting National Chairman of the PDP, Umar Damagum. Ighodalo emerged victorious in the partys governorship primary election in Edo State, endorsed by the NWC, while Shaibu was declared the winner of a separate primary conducted on the same day. Following the receipt of his certificate of return, Ighodalo expressed gratitude to his supporters, party members, and the NWC. The former Sterling Bank Chairman urged his fellow contenders to join forces and support him in the partys best interest. In a briefing with journalists in Abuja on Wednesday, the Deputy Governor emphasized the significance of the day as designated by the National Working Committee of the party for the certificates collection. Shaibu asserted, Today is the day set aside for the collection of the certificate of return for the primary winner. I understand someone came yesterday and was given; well, the court will decide See the photos below: Amid concerns surrounding the implementation of Steve Oronsayes report, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has stated the stand of the federal government. The directive by Tinubu to implement Oronsayes report would reportedly affect thousands of workers in the scrapped and subsumed agencies. However, Idris has assured that the federal government has no plans to retrench workers. He emphasized that the consolidation of certain parastatals aims to enhance efficiency in the civil service and reduce costs. Idris, speaking at a ministerial press briefing series in Abuja, explained the rationale behind the restructuring of departments and agencies. He stated: The consideration of Steve Oronsayes report is to improve efficiency in the Civil service. This does not mean that the government intends to retrench workers. Highlighting the governments approach to cost reduction, Idris said: Only two days ago, the President approved a revolutionary approach towards reducing the cost of governance through the implementation of the much-talked-about Oronsaye Report 12 years after the report was submitted to the then President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. He continued, This is a clear demonstration of Mr. Presidents unwavering commitment to fiscal prudence and responsible governance by championing a comprehensive review of the governments commissions, agencies, and parastatals. Idris stressed that the government meticulously assessed its decisions on Oronsayes report. He noted, The merger of some agencies and parastatals and the scrapping of others are not decisions taken lightly. It followed careful consideration and strategic planning to ensure that essential services are not compromised and that the needs of our citizens are adequately addressed while putting the interests of the nation first and foremost. Regarding President Tinubus objectives, he added, Through the implementation of Oronsayes Report, President Tinubu aims to achieve significant cost savings by eliminating duplication of functions, streamlining administrative processes, and optimizing resource allocation. Idris concluded, It is worth noting that these measures are not undertaken in isolation but are part of a broader strategy to reform and modernize government institutions by leveraging technology, promoting innovation, and fostering a culture of performance and accountability across all sectors. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks off the Senate floor after speaking, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 at the Capitol in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. He's set to make the announcement Wednesday McConnell on the Senate floor. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks past members of the media after delivering remarks on the Senate floor, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 on Capitol Hill in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. Mark Schiefelbein/AP In this image from video provided by Senate TV, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., speaks on the Senate floor. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. He's set to make the announcement Wednesday McConnell on the Senate floor. (Senate TV via AP, File) AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks to the Senate to speak on the Senate floor, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 at the Capitol in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. He's set to make the announcement Wednesday McConnell on the Senate floor. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks past members of the media after delivering remarks on the Senate floor, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 on Capitol Hill in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. Mark Schiefelbein/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks off the Senate floor after speaking, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 at the Capitol in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. Mark Schiefelbein/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks off the Senate floor after speaking, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 at the Capitol in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. He's set to make the announcement Wednesday McConnell on the Senate floor. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks off the Senate floor after speaking, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 at the Capitol in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. Mark Schiefelbein/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks to the Senate to speak on the Senate floor, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 at the Capitol in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. He's set to make the announcement Wednesday McConnell on the Senate floor. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks off the Senate floor after speaking, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 at the Capitol in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. He's set to make the announcement Wednesday McConnell on the Senate floor. Jacquelyn Martin/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks to the Senate to speak on the Senate floor, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 at the Capitol in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. He's set to make the announcement Wednesday McConnell on the Senate floor. Mark Schiefelbein/AP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., walks to the Senate to speak on the Senate floor, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 at the Capitol in Washington. McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November. The 82-year-old Kentucky lawmaker is the longest-serving Senate leader in history. He's maintained his power in the face of dramatic changes in the Republican Party. He's set to make the announcement Wednesday McConnell on the Senate floor. Mark Schiefelbein/AP WASHINGTON (AP) Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who maintained his power in the face of dramatic convulsions in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down from that position in November. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, announced his decision Wednesday in the well of the Senate, the chamber where he looked in awe from its back benches in 1985 when he arrived and where he grew increasingly comfortable in the front row seat afforded the party leaders. One of lifes most underappreciated talents is to know when its time to move on to lifes next chapter, he said. So I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate. Advertisement Article continues below this ad His decision punctuates a powerful ideological transition underway in the Republican Party, from Ronald Reagans brand of traditional conservatism and strong international alliances, to the fiery, often isolationist populism of former President Donald Trump. McConnell said he plans to serve out his Senate term, which ends in January 2027, albeit from a different seat in the chamber. He spoke at times haltingly, his emotions evident, as he looked back on his career. Dozens of members of his staff lined up behind him on the back wall of the chamber, some wiping away tears, as family and friends looked down from the gallery above. Senators from both parties most of them taken by surprise by the announcement trickled into the chamber and exchanged hugs and handshakes. President Joe Biden, who has had a productive working relationship with McConnell, said he was sorry to hear the news. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Ive trusted him and we have a great relationship, the Democratic president said. We fight like hell. But he has never, never, never misrepresented anything. Aides said McConnells announcement was unrelated to his health. The Kentucky senator had a concussion from a fall last year and two public episodes where his face briefly froze while he was speaking. As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work, McConnell said. A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today. The senator had been under increasing pressure from the restive, and at times hostile wing of his party that has aligned firmly with Trump. The two have been estranged since December 2020, when McConnell refused to abide Trumps lie that the election of Democrat Biden as president was the product of fraud. Advertisement Article continues below this ad But while McConnell's critics within the GOP conference had grown louder, their numbers had not grown appreciably larger, a marker of McConnells strategic and tactical skill and his ability to understand the needs of his fellow Republican senators. McConnell gave no specific reason for the timing of his decision, which he has been contemplating for months, but he cited the recent death of his wife's youngest sister as a moment that prompted introspection. The end of my contributions are closer than Id prefer, McConnell said. But his remarks were also light at times as he talked about the arc of his Senate career. He noted that when he arrived in the Senate, I was just happy if anybody remembered my name. During his campaign in 1984, when Reagan was visiting Kentucky, the president called him Mitch ODonnell. Advertisement Article continues below this ad McConnell endorsed Reagans view of Americas role in the world and the senator has persisted in face of opposition, including from Trump, that Congress should include a foreign assistance package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine. I am unconflicted about the good within our country and the irreplaceable role we play as the leader of the free world," McConnell said. Against long odds he managed to secure 22 Republican votes for the package now being considered by the House. Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them," McConnell said. "That said, I believe more strongly than ever that Americas global leadership is essential to preserving the shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan discussed. For as long as I am drawing breath on this earth I will defend American exceptionalism. Advertisement Article continues below this ad After his speech, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, congratulated him in brief remarks, saying that she admired him for stepping forward when it wasn't popular to do the right thing for our country and our world. Trump has pulled the party hard to the ideological right, questioning longtime military alliances such as NATO, international trade agreements and pushing for a severe crackdown on immigration, all the while clinging to the falsehood that the election was stolen from him in 2020. McConnell and Trump had worked together during Trump's time in the White House, remaking the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in a far more conservative image, and on tax legislation. But there was also friction from the start, with Trump frequently sniping at the senator. Their relationship has essentially been over since Trump refused to accept the results of the Electoral College. But the rupture deepened dramatically after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. McConnell assigned blame and responsibility to Trump and said that he should be held to account through the criminal justice system for his actions. Advertisement Article continues below this ad McConnells critics insist he could have done more, including voting to convict Trump during his second impeachment trial. McConnell did not, arguing that since Trump was no longer in office, he could not be subject to impeachment. Rather than fade from prominence after the Capitol riot, Trump continued to assert his control over the party, and finds himself on a clear glidepath to the Republican nomination. Other members of the Republican Senate leadership have endorsed Trump. McConnell has not, and that has drawn criticism from other Republican senators. McConnells path to power was hardly linear, but from the day he walked onto the Senate floor in 1985 and took his seat as the most junior Republican senator, he set his sights on being the party leader. What set him apart was that so many other Senate leaders wanted to run for president. McConnell wanted to run the Senate. He lost races for lower party positions before steadily ascending, and finally became party leader in 2006 and has won nine straight elections. He most recently beat back a challenge led by Sen. Rick Scott of Florida last November. Advertisement Article continues below this ad McConnell built his power base by a combination of care and nurturing of his members, including understanding their political imperatives. After seeing the potential peril of a rising Tea Party, he also established a super political action committee, The Senate Leadership Fund, which has provided more than a billion dollars in support of Republican candidates. He is not a popular figure nationally, even among Republicans. According to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 45% of Republicans have an unfavorable view of McConnell. But he has reigned in the Senate. I love the Senate, he said. It has been my life. There may be more distinguished members of this body throughout our history, but I doubt there are any with more admiration for it. But, he added, "Father Time remains undefeated. I am no longer the young man sitting in the back, hoping colleagues would remember my name. It is time for the next generation of leadership. Advertisement Article continues below this ad There would be a time to reminisce, he said, but not today. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu commenced an official visit to Ondo State today, touching down in the state capital, Akure. The Nigerian Airforce jet carrying the President and his delegation landed at Akure airport at 11:35 am, marking the beginning of his engagements in the state. Upon arrival, President Tinubu received a warm welcome from Ondo State Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, and other prominent government officials and political figures. A ceremonial presidential parade was held at the airports terminal to honor the Presidents visit to the Sunshine State. During his visit, President Tinubu is scheduled to pay a visit to the palace of the Olowo of Owo, Oba Ajibade Ogunoye. Additionally, he will visit the families of the late former Governor of Ondo State, Oluwarootimi Akereodolu, in Owo, as a gesture of solidarity and support for the bereaved family. Another key item on the Presidents agenda is a courtesy visit to Pa Reuben Fasoranti, the National Leader of the Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organization, Afenifere, at his residence in Akure. This visit aims to facilitate dialogue and strengthen bonds between the federal government and the influential Yoruba socio-cultural body. President Bola Tinubu is set to embark on a condolence visit to Ondo State, where he will pay respects to the late Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, in Owo. Following this, President Tinubu plans to extend his visit to the Olowo of Owo Kingdom, Oba Ajibade Ogunoye, before proceeding to meet with Chief Reuben Fasoranti, the national leader of the pan-Yoruba socio-political organization, Afenifere, in Akure, the state capital. Accompanied by the state Governor, Mr. Lucky Aiyedatiwa, as well as some national and state leaders of the All Progressives Congress, President Tinubu aims to offer his condolences and support during these visits. At Chief Fasorantis residence in Akure, preparations are underway as chieftains of Afenifere await the Presidents arrival. Ahead of the visit, heightened security measures have been put in place, with a notable presence of armed security personnel in Akure and Owo communities. The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso, has pledged to implement stringent measures to address infractions within the countrys banking sector, emphasizing the need for a robust regulatory framework. During the Monetary Policy Committee meeting held in Abuja on Tuesday, Cardoso underscored the importance of proactive regulatory efforts to curb malpractices in the banking industry. He stated, We are committed to creating an aggressive regulatory environment to address infractions and ensure the integrity of Nigerias banking system. Cardoso further announced ongoing investigations aimed at identifying and addressing breaches within banks, emphasizing the formulation of stringent regulations to cleanse and fortify the nations foreign exchange market. In response to inquiries regarding measures to enhance foreign exchange trading, Cardoso disclosed that Nigerias foreign reserves had surged to $34 billion as of February 20, marking a notable increase from the $32.23 billion reported at the end of January. Despite the recent depreciation of the naira to unprecedented lows following the administrations decision to float the currency and unify exchange rate windows, Cardoso reassured stakeholders of the apex banks proactive stance. He said, We are transitioning to a highly assertive regulatory environment, and the CBN will exert all necessary efforts to combat arbitrage facilitated by banks and Bureau De Change operators. Former Anambra Governor and presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the last election, Peter Obi, has commended President Bola Tinubu and the Federal Government for adopting the implementation of the Steve Oronsanyes report. In a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, Obi expressed his support for the move, emphasizing that it aligns with his vision as articulated in his 2023 manifesto. He stated: I have received several text messages from people wanting to know if I would have implemented the Oronsaye Report, whose full implementation has just been directed by the President. In response to their questions, I would like to refer everyone to my Manifesto and my response to similar questions during my campaigns. On the 5th of October, 2022 at Harvard University, I was asked: Will you implement the Oronsaye Report? and I responded in the affirmative. I went further to explain that implementing the report is one of the best ways to make governance efficient, cost-effective, and productive. Being in opposition does not warrant blind and thoughtless criticism. Whenever the government takes the right decision, we should agree and if need be, propose related or even better ideas to move the nation forward. I have always been an advocate of the 3 critical components of the Oronsaye Report, which are: i) drastically cutting the cost of governance; ii) eliminating the overlapping of responsibilities to ensure that responsibilities are appropriately domiciled; and iii) increasing efficiency and effectiveness, which will increase productivity. Although the implementation of the report is long overdue, its implementation is a welcome development so long as the decision is informed by these principles. Beyond implementing the Oronsaye Report, the government should go further and cut the cost of governance across the board. Having found it imperative to implement the Report, the government should now do away with the bogus and needless wastages of our scarce resources on frivolous issues, and deploy such funds to the critical areas of Education, Health, and pulling people out of poverty. Obi cautioned against hasty implementation due to the potential impact on civil servants and stressed the need for a thorough understanding of the federal bureaucracy and its ramifications across the states. In implementing this Report, conscious effort must be made to cushion the effects of such a major overhaul on the workers, to avoid driving more people into hardship, in these very challenging times. Moreover, you cannot ask those who are likely to be affected by the downsizing to manage the process. Government must also show clearly the amount of resources to be saved in the implied shrinking of government. It should also indicate clearly where and how the saved resources are to be redeployed. More importantly, the implementation needs to be accompanied by a template to avoid a future bloating of government. By doing the right things and implementing the right policies, we will build the New Nigeria of our dreams. -PO, he concluded. The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) has emphasized that, as a crucial aspect of national security, telecom consumers are required to link their National Identification Number-Subscriber Identification Module (NIN-SIM). To this end, the Commission has directed all telecommunication operators to bar phone lines of subscribers whose lines are not linked to their NINs on or before February 28, 2024. Speaking at the NCC special day at the ongoing 45th Kaduna International Trade Fair, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Aminu Maida, said one major objective of linking subscribers NIN to SIM is to help improve and enhance national security in the country. To link the NIN to ones SIM, he explained that a subscriber needs to submit his/her NIN to their respective Service Provider to complete the process of NIN-SIM linkage. He explained, As a regulator of the telecommunications sector in the country, the Commission carries out its functions to ensure service availability, accessibility, affordability, and sustainability for all categories of consumers, who are leveraging ICT/Telecoms to drive personal and business activities. He said the NCC has established a robust regulatory framework that promotes transparency, quality of service, and fair competition, adding that it has set up channels for consumer redress, ensuring that consumers can resolve disputes in a timely and efficient manner. With this years trade fair theme, Sustaining Economic Recovery through Deepening Local Content Value Chain he stated that it is extremely important, as it resonates deeply with the principles and objectives of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on the promotion of local content development in the telecoms industry. Amb. Kabiru Musa, Charge dAffaires En Titre of the Nigerian Mission in Libya, disclosed this in a statement. The Federal Government, in collaboration with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), repatriated another batch of 147 irregular Nigerian migrants stranded in Libya on Tuesday. Amb. Kabiru Musa, Charge dAffaires En Titre of the Nigerian Mission in Libya, disclosed this in a statement. Musa said the evacuees who departed Tripoli International Airport on Tuesday aboard chartered flight UZ 189 were expected to arrive at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, on the same day in the evening. Under the continuous evacuation exercise of the Federal Government, which is supported by the IOM in Libya, We successfully evacuated another batch of 147 irregular Nigerian migrants who were stranded in Libya. The evacuees included 78 males, 55 females, 13 children, and one infant. They departed Libya successfully and are expected to arrive at Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, where they will be received by relevant officials. We would continue to evacuate stranded Nigerians who have expressed willingness to return to Nigeria under the IOMs Voluntary Humanitarian Repatriation (VHR) programme, in line with the renewed hope agenda of the present administration to ensure all citizens have a better life. We are also pleased with the regular repatriation exercise, which shows that a lot of Nigerians are willing to return home to contribute to the nations development, Musa said. Nigerian comedian, Abdulgafar Ahmad, popularly known as Cute Abiola, has reflected on his experience of being in military detention. Kanyi Daily recalls that Cute Abiola, who was a former Naval officer, was arrested by the Nigerian Navy in 2021 for violating the armed forces social media policy. The comedian was released after 18 days in detention to serve his punishment after he was tried for misconduct and indiscipline. Taking to his Instagram page on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, Cute Abiola shared photos of himself and others in detention. The comedian expressed gratitude to the Armed Forces, admitting that the 30 days he spent inside the cell was a humbling period. 30 days Inside Cell 2021 ! The military really humbled me !!!! Thank you Armed Forces, he wrote. KanyiDaily recalls that the Nigeran police had recently accused Cute Abiola of disrespectful use of Police uniform in his skits. Nigerian businessman, Cubana Chief Priest has received heat online after he took to his social media page to show off after meeting Nigerias Vice President, Kashim Shettima paid him a visit. This is as the businessman vowed to fight for the government. The businessman and the vice president recently had a meeting, and he posted pictures of their time together on his Instagram page. In a video he shared online, Cubana Chief Priest was spotted with Shettima alongside, President Bola Tinubus son, Seyi. The nightlife mogul expressed his support for Kashim Shettima on social media calling him a friend of the Igbos. His words: Enyi Ndi Igbo @officialsksm. We dey with you. We dey for you We go fight for you We go celebrate with you. Good man Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has reiterated its earlier directives to shareholders of the defunct Skye Bank to claim their dividends. The Acting Director-General, SEC, Mrs Mary Uduk made the call in a statement in Abuja on Sunday. According to Uduk, SEC recently released a circular to shareholders of the bank to claim all outstanding dividends. We have informed shareholders of the defunct Skye bank that unclaimed dividends declared by the bank were being held in trust on their behalf. This will further help reduce the volume of unclaimed dividends in the market and boost investor confidence. Dogs well positioned in 2020 US presidential race (Opens in a new browser tab) Investors that have unclaimed dividends are therefore advised to contact Cardinalstone Registrars to process their dividends, she said. Uduk said the Commission had also directed Cardinalstone Registrars and STL Trustees to ensure that all genuine claims of beneficiary shareholders were addressed forthwith. Since the company is no longer in operation, these unclaimed dividends have to be made available to the rightful owners that are the shareholders. As that will go a long way in boosting investor confidence in the market. That is why we are calling on them to take advantage of this opportunity and claim their dividends, Uduk said. This SEC said was part of its investors protection programme to ensure that shareholders got the benefits of investing in the capital market. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had in September 2018 revoked the operating license of Skye Bank as well as approved its take over by Polaris Bank PLC. CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele had said we wish to assure all depositors that under the arrangement, their deposits shall remain safe and that normal banking services continues in the new bank. It would be recalled that as at the time Skye Bank was taken over by CBN, the bank had a negative net asset worth of N1 trillion which constituted a sad commentary on the capital requirement of N25 billion for Nigerian banks. As the former chairman of the ruling APC John Odigie-Oyegun gets forgotten on the shelf as far as the APC government is concerned, there is a hand of fellowship extending from the opposition. In a gesture that confirmed there is no permanent enemy in politics, the PDP and its national chairman Uche Secondus just touted a load of superlatives to congratulate Oyegun, a political loner, on his 80th birthday. Apparently, his loneliness and gradual political extinction are traceablewithin the party: the rancor that brewed between him and his successor Adams Oshiomhole when Oyegun lost a re-election; the apparent support Oshiomhole enjoyed from the APC national leader Bola Tinubu and President Muhammadu Buhari; and the state of irrelevance he is in now in the affairs of his party. But Secondus has seen a juggernaut in Oyegunan unsung hero of the 2015 battle that truncated the PDP 60-year rule game plan. And the opposition doesnt mind offering him some words. And, maybe, something more About Oyeguns character: Also remarkable is the high moral principle you brought into political party management that aided you to lead your party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, from opposition to ruling party, all combined to distinguish you clearly as a committed democrat and a model for younger generation of political leaders, said Secondus in a press statement he released to congratulate the Edo politician.. About Oyeguns heroics: Your great and envious accomplishments in various sphere of endeavour in the last 80 years make this celebration imperative and deserving. To the glory of God, you have over the years distinguished yourself as a foremost technocrat whose contributions to the socio political and economic development of our country remains clearly noticeable, he noted. About his statesmanship, Secondus said: The immense contributions of Chief Oyegun to the stability and political growth of our country, particularly his mentorship roles in various areas that stands him out to merit all the accolades that come his way in times like this. While the PDP deluged Oyegun on his birthday with these head-turners, even if the party men can dispute them, the ex-chairmans ruling party has yet to say a word of congratulations. Oyegun has been chopping his party and the Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee lately, a cardinal sin for even for a party man at the bottom of the pile. And the APC leadership doesnt brook nonsense when it comes to hammering down members engaging in such anti-party activities. No official congratulatory message from the party yetnot even on the APC website. It may take the Oshiomhole-led APC leadership deeper contemplation to still consider Oyegun as being of any political benefit to the partybefore some belated congratulations will come from it. But Buhari, for old times sake, remembered how Oyegun, at 30, became a permanent secretary, something worth a song and a dance. And winning a gubernatorial election in early 50s, and providing visionary leadership to unseat an incumbent government for the first time in Nigerias history, said Buhari in his personal congratulatory statement Sunday. Post Views: 150 The Secretary of the State's office determined the order that the candidates will appear on ballots during Connecticut's presidential primaries in April. Boris Zhitkov/Getty Images NEW HAVEN The ballots for Connecticuts presidential primary on April 2 were officially set this week, along with the order in which the candidates' names will appear. The order was randomly determined by lots drawn at a public ceremony held Tuesday at New Havens Achievement First Amistad High School. Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas was assisted by two Amistad students who drew ping balls with the candidates names from a bag. A lot of attention is given to big elections, Thomas told the students. But a lot of civics and elections and voting are in very small details, such as this. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The four names that will appear on each ballot are the same who qualified for the primary in January, though a few have since publicly ended their campaigns. Candidates had until noon on Monday, Feb. 26 to request in writing to be removed from the ballot, according to Thomas, though none did so. Voters in each party will also have the option of selecting uncommitted rather than choosing any of the named candidates. That option will appear last on both ballots. The order for the Democratic primary ballot is as follows: Marianne Williamson Dean Phillips Cenk Uygur Joe Biden Uncommitted Advertisement Article continues below this ad And the Republican ballot: Ron DeSantis Nikki Haley Donald Trump Ryan Binkley Uncommitted Connecticuts primary was moved up from the end of April last year by lawmakers hoping to capitalize on getting more candidates to visit and spend money in the state earlier in the primary season. The impact of that move, however, has been blunted by the presence of two front-runners presidents Biden and Trump who have yet to lose a primary contest. The Anambra State House of Assembly has urged Federal Government to make Air Peace Airline a National Carrier for its contributions in the evacuation of stranded Nigerians in South Africa. The lawmakers also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to confer on Chief Allen Onyema, Chairman of Air Peace, a national honour for his philanthropic gestures and contributions to human development. The resolution followed a motion by Dr Pascal Agbodike (Ihiala Il) and supported by 28 others, which was unanimously adopted at the plenary. Agbodike moving the motion at a special session in honour of Onyema, said that Air Peace boss transported Nigerians in danger out of South Africa free of charge. He described Onyema as: a humble, non-tribalistic, generous, humanitarian and patriotic Nigerian who deserved to be recognised. It is on record that his airline is a reputable one, and has won awards such as 2019 Best Carrier in West Africa, 2019 Local Airline of the Year, and many others. Air Peace was also used, as a chattered flight to transport the victorious Super Eagles after successfully securing the third-place position in the just concluded 2019 AFCON hosted in Egypt. Onyema, through his NGO, Foundation for Ethnic Harmony in Nigeria, was instrumental to the peaceful settlement between the Federal Government and the Niger Delta militants. In view of this act of national service and selflessness, Chief Onyema truly deserves a national honour, he said. Contributing, Mr Nonso Okafor (Nnewi), said Chief Onyema should be given a national honour lesser than the Grand Commander of the Order of Niger (GCON). He is not a politician or a government official; he is just an individual, and yet he played a very great role in our nation. Conferring him with a national honour is not negotiable, he earned it, Okafor said. Also, Dr Pete Ibida (Njikoka ll), described Onyema as a nationalist who believed in the unity of Nigeria and a man of universal character. He is a pride of the Igbos and to Nigeria as a whole. A national award is not enough, his airline should be made a national carrier, Ibida said. In his remarks, Mr Obinna Emeneka (Anambra East), also described Onyema as a man with a deep sense of patriotism, generosity and humility, urging Nigerians to emulate his virtues. According to him, if Nigerians begin to show love, irrespective of ethnic backgrounds like Onyema did, Nigeria will be a better country. The Speaker of the House, Mr Uche Okafor, commended Onyema for solely volunteered to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians in the hands of South Africans. Damilola Ogunbiyi United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has announced the appointment of Damilola Ogunbiyi of Nigeria as his Special Representative for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of United Nations-Energy. The Secretary-General also welcomes the announcement by the Administrative Board of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) that Ms. Ogunbiyi has been appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SEforALL. Ms. Ogunbiyi succeeds Rachel Kyte of the United Kingdom as Special Representative, Co-Chair of United Nations-Energy, and CEO of SEforALL. The Secretary-General expresses his gratitude to Ms. Kyte for her dedication and commitment to the United Nations, her achievements in accelerating universal energy access, and her leadership in advancing sustainable energy transition in the context of the Paris Agreement. Ms. Ogunbiyi brings extensive leadership experience and a track record of supporting energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa to these roles. She was the first woman to be appointed as Managing Director of the Nigerian Rural Electrification Agency. She is also responsible for implementing the Nigerian Off Grid Electrification Programme and successfully negotiating the Nigerian Electrification Project, to rapidly construct solar mini-grids and deploy solar home systems across Nigeria. She also developed the Energizing Economics Initiative and Energizing Education Programme, which provide sustainable and affordable off grid power solutions. Before joining the Federal Government of Nigeria, Ms. Ogunbiyi was the first woman to be appointed as the General Manager of the Lagos State Electricity Board, which is responsible for public lighting, independent power projects, and energy development serving millions of people across the State. Prior to this, she consulted for the United Kingdom Department for International Development on public-private partnerships. Ms. Ogunbiyi is a globally respected leader with a broad and diverse international network in the area of energy development, which includes key relationships with leading multilateral and bilateral partners and the private sector. She is also one of the Commissioners for the Global Commission to End Energy Poverty. The announcement comes as the world is about to enter the final decade to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030. SEforALL is an international organization, headquartered in Vienna, Austria, that is dedicated to helping the world achieve SDG7 and Paris Agreement targets. SEforALL continues to have close ties to the United Nations through an existing relationship agreement, partnerships with United Nations agencies and Ms. Ogunbiyis roles as Special Representative for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of United Nations-Energy. The National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC has approved the suspension of Anselm Ojezua, the Edo State chairman of the party. Eleven of the sixteen members of the Edo State Working Committee (SWC)proposed the suspension. On Tuesday, Anselm and chairmen of 18 LGAs in the state announced the suspension of APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, following a vote of no confidence passed on him. Reacting, Lanre Issa-Onilu, APC National Publicity Secretary, said: The meeting of the NWC, which held today, Wednesday, at the Partys National Secretariat received a notification of the suspension of the Edo State APC Chairman, Anslem Ojezua by eleven [11] of the sixteen [16] members of the Edo State Working Committee (SWC). We have reviewed the process they followed and conclude that they have fulfilled the required conditions. We, therefore, uphold the suspension of the Edo State APC Chairman, Anslem Ojezua while we await the outcome of the fact-finding and reconciliation committee. Please note that the NWCs objective and cause of action is strictly to address the root causes of the disputes and reconcile all parties to make our great party even stronger. PV: 0 Osinbajo with the late policemans family Late Inspector Ali Gomina was an officer that was loved by many, he served very dutifully and diligently. We are all very sad when this happened. It is terrible. Those were the words of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, earlier today when he paid a condolence visit to the family of late Inspector Ali Gomina and the entire Gui community in the Abuja Municipal Area Council. Late Inspector Ali Gomina, aged 45, one of the police escort riders in the Office of the Vice President, was killed in a road accident while on official duty on Friday 13th March 2020. Prof. Osinbajo arrived the community at about 3.45 pm accompanied by aides and was received by the Chief of the village, Alhaji Alhassan Yussuf and other leaders of the community. After prayers by the Imam of Gui community mosque, Abubakar Jibril and the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) pastor in the community, Pastor Adegbe Julius, the Vice President spent time interacting with the family especially the widow of the deceased, Asiya Ali Gomina and his first son, Ali Kabiru Gomina, expressing his condolence and encouraging them. Addressing the chief of the village and others shortly after interacting with the family, Prof. Osinbajo said We all loved him. He served very dutifully and diligently. We are all very sad when this happened. It is terrible. We were all there and saw it happen and we are very pained by it. This is the reason we have all come, to commiserate with the family and the community. Assuring the family and the community of governments support to both the immediate family of the late officer and the community in general, the Vice President said I am here today myself to see his children, and see what we can do to help the family, and in his honour, what we can do to help his community. Prof. Osinbajo, according to a release by his media aide, Laolu Akande, then prayed God will help and sustain his family, we pray that all will be well with his family and community. We will also see what we can do to assist the community in whatever way. God bless you, well done. According to the release, Gomina died after a runaway Toyota Camry car ran into him, knocking him and throwing him down against a moving tanker way ahead of the convoy on the expressway to the airport in Abuja. *** Via The Nation A list of dubious coronavirus tips is going viral on Facebook and Twitter, as well as spreading through email. It falsely claims to be from the Stanford Hospital board and contains advice like take a few sips of water every 15 minutes at least, to kill the virus. None of these tips have anything to do with reality; it is dangerous misinformation. Stanford confirmed the message did not come from the university. In a statement emailed to The Verge, Lisa Kim, a media relations specialist at Stanford Health, said A widely distributed email about COVID-19 that is attributed to a Stanford Hospital board member contains inaccurate information. It did not come from Stanford Medicine. Even if the virus gets into your mouth, drinking water or other liquids will wash them down through your throat and into the stomach. Once there, your stomach acid will kill all the virus, one tip reads. Loren Rauch, an emergency room doctor in Los Angeles who has a masters degree in epidemiology, told Mother Jones this advice was totally bogus. Another tip tells people to check for the virus by holding their breath for 10 seconds. If you complete it successfully without coughing, without discomfort, stiffness or tightness, etc., it proves there is no Fibrosis in the lungs, basically indicates no infection, it adds. Unfortunately, this is also false. That can check if you are anxious or have respiratory compromise, Rauch said. The message also says the virus hates the sun and isnt heat-resistant. It can be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees, (roughly 78 degrees Fahrenheit). This is not entirely true. If somethings in sunlight, its going to get disinfected pretty quickly, because thats ultraviolet light, just the same type of sanitation we use in hospitals, Rauch told Mother Jones. But just, like, Its gonna be a warm day today. We dont have to worry about coronavirus, I dont think thats gonna work. I received the tips firsthand, in an email from a friend who was sending them out in a sincere effort to keep people safe. When I read that I didnt have coronavirus if I could hold my breath for 10 seconds, I felt relieved. Then I felt suspicious. I remembered Adi Robertsons advice for spotting fake news: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So I did what any of us should do if were on the receiving end of misinformation from a friend or loved one: I told my friend that the tips were fake. The most reliable sources of information on the coronavirus continue to be the World Health Organizations guidance on COVID-19, or the Centers for Disease Controls coronavirus page. PV: 0 Lai Mohammed, minister of information, says the federal government has evidence of plans by the opposition to sabotage government. He spoke on Saturday at the 12th annual Lai Mohammed Ramadan lecture in Oro, Kwara state. The minister alleged that the opposition is working to overheat the polity and make the country ungovernable. He said the security agencies would not allow anyone to reverse the gains of our democracy under any guise. As you are aware, a few days ago we raised the alarm that either by themselves or via their proxies, the PDP and its presidential candidate are doing everything possible to sabotage the Buhari Administration, generally overheat the polity and make Nigeria seemingly ungovernable, Mohammed said. Of course you are aware of similar alarms that have been raised by the police, the military and the DSS. Our interventions are based on credible evidence, and no government with the kind of evidence that we have, of plans to subvert the power of the state, attack the nations economic live wire and generally unleash mayhem on the polity, will keep quiet. The security agencies are all alert to their responsibilities and will not sit by and allow anyone to reverse the gains of our democracy under any guise. According to him, since the government raised alarm, partisan analysts have teamed up with the main opposition party and its presidential candidate to either exhibit their ignorance or to engage in red herring and name calling. On his part, Abubakar Bagudu, Kebbi governor, urged government at all levels to work towards increased food production. The food system itself is threatened across the length and breadth of the country because the participants in the food chain the farmers; the fishermen; those in the livestock sector all are challenged that they cannot find enough resources be it land, fresh water or grass in order to undertake and continue to support food production in the way they hitherto, he said. So that brings a sense of urgency for us in the leadership, either at the local government level or state government or the federal government and community leaders to quickly address our minds on how we can support all the groups to cooperate with each other and focus their mind so that production can be increased. Source Share this: Related Share this: BLOOMINGTON In honor of Black History Month, this special edition of Eats of the Week takes a look at three Black-owned eateries in Bloomington-Normal, serving up everything from chocolate-covered strawberries to homestyle lasagna and macaroni and cheese to made-from-scratch cheesecake. Miss Kim's Konfections Miss Kim's Konfections LLC & Event Planning, a home dessert business, started in 2009 by Kimberly Ward of Bloomington, who was inspired by seeing videos online and various goodies in stores. In addition to her one-woman business, she works full time as an admissions manager in the College of Education at Illinois State University. "It just started for fun, and I've always been creative," Ward said. "I've always been really good at seeing something and being able to recreate it in my own way. So, this is really my part-time, or my side job, so to speak, but it's kind of taken of life of its own because it's gotten really busy, especially with delving into more events." Ward is self-taught, as she has never taken a baking class. When she was a student at ISU, she said, she sold baked goods for Valentine's Day, and she joked she was practically paying people to take them, as they were only 25 cents, but the hobby quickly took off. Miss Kim's specializes in chocolate-covered treats, along with dessert tables and event planning. Her most popular items include taffy grapes, which she makes with salted caramel and pecans; chocolate-covered Oreos; and chocolate-covered strawberries. She also offers seasonal items like s'mores bars, dipped apple slices and more. "I think that what makes it unique, is I just love being creative. And I don't see a limit. So, if someone comes to me with a theme, I think my greatest thing that I love to do is just bring their vision to life," Ward said. "I tell people all the time, if you give me open creativity, that's when you get your best order, because you just never know... I just let the creative juices flow, and that's usually where I get my best work." Ward has held pop-up sales at various businesses, including AB Hatchery, Retrofit Culture and more. For March First Friday in downtown Bloomington, she will be inside Red Raccoon Games from 5 to 8 p.m. serving Rice Krispies treats and other goodies. In 2020, Ward was recognized as one of the McLean County Chamber of Commerce's 20 under 40 honorees. "Community is everything; it is an awesome feeling when I'm able to connect with other Black-owned businesses here and refer them to my clients for various things. That's part of our strength," Ward said. "Racism is very real, it's very real in our community... so, it's important that there's not just support from our own in our community, but ... I've been blessed to have the support ... outside of the Black community. But as a Black woman, it's just imperative. Like, you know, we already have some things stacked up against us." Ward said it's hard not knowing what biases people may have when she interacts with them, but she does her best to present herself as who she is, adding that her treats are a direct reflection of her creativity. Ward said in the future, she would consider having a multipurpose space where she can make her treats and store her event inventory. However, she said, she wants to make sure the business always feels like a creative outlet and her passion, instead of feeling like work. Miss Kim's Konfections can be ordered at misskimskonfections.com, by contacting Ward at misskimskonfections@gmail.com or 309-242-6931, or by messaging the "Miss Kim's Konfections LLC" Facebook page. Pickles & Honey Stephanie and Derrick Woods of Bloomington started a mobile catering business in 2020, naming it Pickles & Honey Soulful Kitchen after their two oldest children out of five: Derrick, 13, and Sariyah, 10, whose nicknames are Pickle and Honeybee. Though Stephanie Woods grew up in southern Illinois, the couple met while attending Pontiac High School. They relocated to Bloomington after graduation, and have been in the area for over 10 years. Stephanie Woods said she has always loved cooking and it came naturally to her, as her grandmother would always have a meal prepared every time she came over. Stephanie started cooking for her family when she was 16. Later, when she worked at State Farm, she would bring lots of dishes for company potlucks. She started a business meal prepping for others, and it took off during the pandemic. "We are big on customer service, anyone will tell you that," Stephanie said. "I'm a people person, so thinking about the customer has always come first to me. But then, aside from that, there's not many fast-food soul food restaurants in the area ... so I would think that's what sets us apart most." Though the catering menu rotates weekly, some staple menu items include the Juicy Lucy, which is a stuffed inside-out cheeseburger that's traditional to Minnesota, along with baked macaroni and cheese, sweet potato pie, banana pudding, stuffed salmon, turkey loins, caramel cake, lasagna and more. The business offers free delivery from 5 to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 3 to 11 p.m. on Sunday; the business is closed Friday and Saturday. They typically fulfill 25 orders a day. Orders can be made by phone at 309-240-9338, by email at stephanie@pandhsoulfulkitchen.com, or through the "Pickles & Honey Soulful Kitchen" Facebook page. Customers will soon be able to order through the business' website as well. The Woods created their own business logo, which features an animated pickle character holding a jar of honey, and they plan to sell merchandise in the future. "We love to give, it's a big part of who we are," Derrick Woods said. "But my wife, she's just to the fullest extent, and a big part of us trying to do this restaurant thing. She always wants to help others, so this is her way of giving back to the world ... and she really shows that in our cooking." The Woods said they would love to have a brick-and-mortar location in the future, with their ultimate goal to be the first fast-food soul food chain in Illinois. "There's already so many disparities, so many stigmas. A lot of Black-owned businesses, business owners, feel behind, whether it's business loans, or just not knowing 'where do I start?'" Stephanie Woods said. "So, allowing people into our space .... showing up with our children, I think it's important to show them that no matter what, you're single, married with children, you can do this. It's important for me to connect with other women, to show them that you can be a mom and a wife, and still have a business that you're passionate about." She added that at home, they like to barbecue as a family while they listen to jazz music, and that's the same feeling she wants customers to have someday when Pickles & Honey has a brick-and-mortar presence. Stephanie Woods and Kimberly Ward often support each other's businesses as well, which Ward said is a testament to how strong and important community is. Sweet Sunday's Sweet Sunday's is a family-owned online bakery founded in 2016 by Markus Maxison of Peoria, serving the Bloomington-Normal and Peoria area with deliveries to surrounding cities. Maxison married his high school sweetheart, Florence Jones, and they are now parents to five children, who all help out with larger deliveries as needed. Jones, now Maxison, also owns a hair and makeup salon, MaximizedBeauty Studio Inc., 409 S. Center St., Suite B in Bloomington, which also serves the Peoria area. "Sunday dinners were special because dinner was often accompanied by a sweet dessert, which made Sundays significant and sweet," Maxison said about his childhood. "This was the inspiration behind the name Sweet Sunday's. Sweet Sunday's is unique in that we deliver fresh, made-to-order desserts locally to our customers." The business is known for its cheesecakes, especially strawberry cheesecake. Maxison said his customers enjoy the friendly customer service and delivery, but love the taste of the fresh cheesecakes most of all. He said the best part is making desserts for customers' events, including birthdays, baby showers and other special occasions. The bakery also offers pound cakes, layered cakes, parfaits, cookies and cupcakes. "We're passionate about about making every day sweet like Sweet Sunday's," Maxison said. "When you support Black businesses, you support hard-working upcoming entrepreneurs who are passionate about impacting their communities across the country, fueled by an ever-growing dream." To order, customers can visit sweet-sundays.square.site, message the "Sweet Sunday's" pages on Facebook or Instagram, email sweetsundays.onlinebakery@gmail.com or call 309-839-7973. A 48-hour advance notice is required for all orders, as all desserts are made fresh. Sweet Sunday's desserts will soon be available for shipping as well. Maxison said his goal is to distribute freshly made cheesecakes and pastries across North America and beyond. MORE EATERIES ACROSS MCLEAN COUNTY Get your fill at some of Bloomington-Normal and McLean County's Black-owned bars, restaurants and eateries, including: A to Z Catering and Parties, 1002 N. Linden St., Bloomington Anthony's Southern Sauce, online, Bloomington Bandana's Bar-B-Q, 502 IAA Drive, Bloomington Brown Sugar Dessert Bar, online, Bloomington Bumper's Pub and Play, 110 E. Main St., Colfax Coffeehouse & Deli, 114 E. Beaufort St., Normal Dop's Jerk House, 2303 E. Washington St., Bloomington Eatology, meal prep, 1002 N. Linden St., Bloomington Jazz Upfront, 107 W. Front St., Bloomington Ray's Steak and Lemonade, 1715 Bradford Lane, Normal Sao's Late Night Eatery, 309 E. Wood St., Bloomington Tiff's Hot Chocolate, 3604 Matthew Drive, Bloomington Uncle Tony's Food for the Soul, LLC, food truck, Bloomington Wesley's Grill, 1804 S. Hershey Road #10, Bloomington Check out the amazing Red Carpet looks from The Amazing Gala Crystal Phillips, Nephele Delis Crystal Phillips, Nephele Delis Amanda Wycoff Neaves Sara Larsen Libby Tutewiler Kirsten Evans Ciarra Kohn Tracy Patkunas, Kim Schoenbein Uma Balakrishnan Doris Zink, Betty Garcia Patino Rachel Hollenkamp, Laura Pritts Annie Swanson, Samantha Mlot, Jessica Moore Cassie DeGuido, Lindsey Meister Becky Breen Amy Miller Chemberly Harris Jolene Aldus Amanda Jones Alexis Plath Andrea Crimmins, Nargis Khokhar, Laura Books, Jennifer Schottland Noelle Selkow, Rachel Caracci, Molly Davis Patty McBride, Katie Rife, Kate Burcham Laura Kowalczyk Katie Rhodes Shelleigh Birlingmair Cheryl Magnuson, Kathleen Lorenz, Heather Young Laura OConnor Steph Mazanowski, Kimberly Wright, Heather Miller Chelsie Meyer Andi McNally Anna Billingsley Kristin Peterson NORMAL A 15-year-old boy was arrested Tuesday by the Bloomington Police Department in connection to a Feb. 8 shooting that left a 17-year-old boy injured. The 15-year-old was arrested with the assistance of the Normal Police Department and was later transported to the McLean County Juvenile Detention Center, according to a news release from the Bloomington Police Department. Bloomington police responded to reports of shots fired about 3:45 p.m. Feb. 8 in the 1000 block of West Market Street. On scene, officers found a 17-year-old male with apparent gunshot wounds to his legs. The injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, police previously said. An arrest warrant was issued Feb. 20 for the 15-year-old suspect, charging him with aggravated battery with a firearm and aggravated discharge of a firearm. "The Bloomington community has zero tolerance for gun violence. Therefore, the Bloomington Police Department will diligently investigate these crimes with all of the resources we have on hand to hold perpetrators accountable," said Chief Jamal Simington. "It remains concerning that some of our youth choose to use violence to resolve conflict instead of an alternative means. I am elated that our detectives have the resolve, commitment and talent to investigate and arrest violent actors. I applaud the excellent work of our detectives and law enforcement partners who assisted us." Bloomington police continue to investigate the incident. Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Kevin Raisbeck at 309-434-2593 or kraisbeck@cityblm.org. Anonymous tips can also be left with the Crime and Intelligence Analysis Unit at 309-434-2963 and CIAU@cityblm.org or by texting "BPDTIPS" to 847411. What a night! Check out photos from The Amazing Gala--Part 1 Legacy of Excellence Honoree David Kieser with wife Wilma Mike and Erin Straza, Puneet and Nishi Leekha Ivan and Kim Schoenbein being interviewed by Amanda McCane Synergy HomeCare Team Keith and Kirsten Evans, Colleen Kannaday Terry Ballantini, Spencer Biggerman, Justin Boyd Karen DeAngelis Heather and Bryce Miller David and Mary Ann Webb Maggie and Andrew Wille Tina Marlett, Crystal Howard Commerce Bank team Uma and Krishna Balakrishnan, Cat Woods Dawn Shipman, Jonell Kehias Susan and Daniel Pelaez Steve and Julie Kubsch Laura Pritts, Meghan O'Neal-Rogozinski. Meghan O'Neal-Rogozinski.,Jon Rogozinski, John and Laura Pritts Rachel and Bryce Hollenkamp Noelle and Brock Selkow Cassie DeGuido, Eric Metcalf Lindsey and Paul Meister Jim Moeller, Feli Sebastian Emily Wall, Bernie Anderson Bob and Julie Dobski Becky Breen, Chuck Erickson, Cat Woods Chuck Erickson Greg and Amy Miller Bob and Julie Dobski, Emily and B.J. Wilken Kaitlin Muckey, Nick Lurkins, Rachel Bedeker Jolene Aldus, Willie Thompson Hilary Pacha, Jenna Salinas, Dana Enger, Lisa Hardesty Christine and Andrew Mizell Dan and Amanda Jones Brian and Alexis Plath Andrea Crimmins, Nargis Khokhar, Brendan Bukalski, Laura Books, Jennifer Schottland Vivian Doctora, Scott Swanson Drs. Kathy Bohn, Tom Nielsen ISU Interim President Aondover Tarhule with wife Rose Michael and Chelsie Meyer Brandon Shaffer, Garrett Vonderheide Brent Eichelberger, Patty and Byron Blotky Jeff and Laura Kowalczyk BN Young Professionals Coleen Moore, Jonell Kehias Ronda and Brad Glenn Patrick and Sara Hoban Special Olympics Team NORMAL Valerio Ferme, a vice president of academic affairs and provost for the University of Cincinnati, will visit Illinois State University for a Thursday forum as a finalist for the next Redbird president. Ferme's 1:30 p.m. forum in the Old Main Room of the Bone Student Center, 200 S. University St., Normal, is the last in a series of four. They started last week with ISU Interim President Aondover Tarhule; Donald Easton-Brooks, a college dean at the University of Nevada at Reno; and Elizabeth Mullenix, the provost and vice president of Miami University in Ohio. ISU's candidate listing said Ferme started in 2019 as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UC, after serving as dean of a similar college at Northern Arizona University. At Cincinnati, he headed a college-wide commitment to research that grew sponsored awards from $10 million to $20 million. Ferme took on the position of provost in 2021, and has since headed major initiatives that align with UC's strategic direction, "Next Lives Here." His applicant biography said, "he has championed student success via access, attention, retention, graduation, and post-graduation initiatives." Ferme also increased funding to double yearly hires of faculty from underrepresented backgrounds; established a post-doctoral program to attract prospective faculty candidates; and addressed salary minimums for advising staff and adjunct faculty, the biography continued. The candidate earned his doctorate in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkley and has written three monographs, two scholarly translations, three edited columns, and a bilingual collection of poetry. He previously taught for 19 years at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was chair of the Department of French and Italian and had focused his efforts on enhancing curriculum. Ferme also has a master's degree in comparative literature in Italian studies from Indiana University and two undergraduate degrees, in biology and religious studies, from Brown University. Ferme and his husband, Giorgio, are parents to two adopted sons and guardians to four grandchildren. Photos: Illinois State basketball host Norfolk State at return to Horton Field House NORMAL Heartland Community College on Tuesday unveiled its new 45,000-square-foot Advanced Manufacturing Center, which will support the college's career technical education programs and the next generation of students. Heartland staff were joined by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, representatives from the state, local officials and industry leaders for a ribbon cutting ceremony at the new facility on the west side of the school's Normal campus. The $17 million center incorporates remodeled space to further support programs such as robotics, HVAC, welding and digital media, in addition to high-voltage energy storage, renewable energy and the newly constructed State Farm Electric Vehicle Lab. Heartland Community College President Keith Cornille said they were the first community college in Illinois to have a program for electric vehicles, energy storage and technology, and this is among the programs the college is most proud of. In the last few years, Heartland has introduced a total of 40 programs in these fields. As the makeup of our regional workforce has changed, so has the need for specialized skill training, Cornille said. This Advanced Manufacturing Center supports degree-oriented and short-term programs in vital career technical education areas. This is the work-ready skill training that leads to in-demand jobs. Eighty percent of Heartland graduates in career programs find employment. By expanding these educational pathways, we will help students find a job, have an opportunity to upskill for a better job, and a career. The center is funded in part by a $7.5 million Rebuild Illinois capital grant as well as through public and private partnerships from local business leaders, including State Farm, which provided a $1 million grant in August to support the 6,278-square-foot electric vehicle lab and energy storage training facility. In Pritzkers budget address in Springfield last week, he proposed an additional $24 million to expand manufacturing training academies and programs throughout the state, similar to Heartlands program. Pritzker said Heartland serves as a model for Illinois when it comes to these programs and the facility, and that the proposed money in the budget would allow other communities to follow suit and provide similar opportunities. The state has invested $7.5 million in a similar training facility at Southwestern Illinois College. "We added significantly to the operating dollars through our community colleges and our universities since I became governor," Pritzker said. "If you want to invest in really the greatest return for a state, it's education ... starting with early childhood, which is hugely important, all the way through college and graduate school." Pritzker said Illinois' community college system is the third largest in the nation and, when talking with businesses, they love to know that local schools are geared to develop the workforce needed in manufacturing and technical jobs. "Heartland has become a jewel among Illinois community college system, and Heartlands advanced manufacturing center represents the best of Illinois commitment to investing in and educating our people for the well-paying jobs of today and tomorrow, Pritzker said. Manufacturing in McLean County alone generates $2 billion in total annual economic output and supports over 7,000 jobs, Pritzker said. Across the state, Illinois has more than 15,000 manufacturers employing 750,000 individuals. "Illinois community colleges are a leading workforce developer in the state and are continuing to expand access and opportunities to dozens of good-paying careers," said Brian Durham, executive director of the Illinois Community College Board. "CTE programs at community colleges are an essential part of our state's workforce development strategy, and we are proud to be a part of preparing the next generation of workers." Adam Campbell, dean of career and technical education at Heartland, said they have been coordinating with Rivian and a local Tesla service center as well as other partners across the country and world to develop programs in different career areas and ensure they are up to modern standards. The center is already teaching and serving about 350 students this semester, with interest projected to grow as word spreads about the available programs, Campbell said. "It's a reflection of the commitment that the college and the state have toward career technical education, advanced manufacturing and electric vehicle energy," Campbell said. "To finally have it open out to the public to generate students' interest, it's a big event." Mike Deavers, an industrial maintenance instructor at Heartland, said this new center is a step up, with fresh equipment and brand-new facilities, compared to the temporary site they had been using since August 2021. The center will provide opportunities for students to work at the forefront electric vehicle technology, he added. Deavers said he's excited to see the shift in perspective when it comes to technical, hands-on career paths, and knowing that more high school students are looking toward these careers than in the past. "That is what is exciting about this to me, and is why I left the industry to come back and teach, because the need is finally being recognized," Deavers said. Christopher Miller, a professor in industrial technology, said when Rivian came to town and there was a workforce need recognized, the college wanted to be strategic with what the community needed, while also showing students how their future careers will interconnect. "Everything from the batteries of the EV, the heating and cooling and controls within a building climate, to renewable energies and advanced manufacturing," Miller said. "So even 10 years from now, this facility is designed to hit the foundations of all the skillsets that will place students into any one of these technological areas." Photos: Pritzker Military Archives Center The Wellington at Madison affordable apartment complex is slated to be completed by the end of 2024. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media The 1808 Henry Josiah Meigs House at the Wellington at Madison affordable apartment complex will be preserved with some of its original interior kept intact. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media Architect's rendering of The Wellington in Madison file photo Prospective tenants may apply to a waiting list close to when construction of The Wellington at Madison affordable apartment complex is complete. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media The 1808 Henry Josiah Meigs House at The Wellington at Madison complex will become four one-bedroom apartments. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media MADISON After breaking ground last November, new buildings clad in Tyvek appear to be going up fast at The Wellington, a 31-unit affordable housing development at 131 Cottage Road. The $10.7 million project, in the planning stages for six years, is slated to be completed by the end of 2024. It takes a long time to get affordable housing to ground-breaking, to OK were going to roll forward, said Marianne McDermott of the Caleb Group of Boston, the majority owner of the project. Advertisement Article continues below this ad McDermott, who recently visited The Wellington, said she was struck by how pretty the property is, which is near Hammonasset State Park. You could feel like, this is a nice, nice location. Theres access to a variety of things. The waters right there, she said. Prospective tenants may apply to a waiting list close to when the project is done. Tenants will be chosen by lottery from a waiting list, according to McDermott. We do know there is more and more interest as the project comes closer to looking like a reality, McDermott said. There is great pent-up demand for affordable housing on the shoreline, especially in a community like Madison thats resource rich, she added. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The list always vastly overwhelms the available units, McDermott said. Then theyre waiting, and thats hard. Its fraught the demand for affordable housing versus the supply. Thats one of the challenging aspects about affordable housing, she said, trying to meet demand in a way that feels remotely fair in an unfair dynamic, to be honest. Theres so little of it. The mixed-income apartment complex will charge rent for the affordable apartments on a sliding scale based on 30 percent of a tenants qualifying income for each tier. Unit sizes will vary, from 600 square feet to 1,145 square feet for one-bedroom units, and two-bedroom units from 721 square feet to 1,207 square feet. Advertisement Article continues below this ad There will be some higher-end, market-rate units for rent as well. In addition to the townhouse-style apartments, the 1808 Henry Josiah Meigs house and barn will be preserved with some of its original interior kept intact. The handsome red historic structure will be turned into four one-bedroom apartments. On the 2.6 -acre site, there is an existing building with four occupied townhouse units, built in 2016. A community building is also under construction at the site, which will house the offices of the resident coordinator and property manager. Advertisement Article continues below this ad For tenants, it will be a community space for potluck neighborhood dinners, flu vaccine clinics, cooking and nutrition classes, chair yoga and presentations, according to McDermott. The Caleb Group is overseeing the project, from garnering financing to construction. Financing comes from a mix of tax credits, loans and grants from federal and state agencies. The local nonprofit agency involved is Hope Partnership Inc. of Madison, which bought the property as an unfinished multifamily development in 2018. The Caleb Group joined the effort in 2020. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Construction has gone smoothly so far with a little bit of luck with a mild winter and planning. The Caleb group is extremely pleased with the progress so far, McDermott said. We have not encountered the delays we and our fellow builders of housing have encountered in the supply chain, she said. The general contractor ordered things in advance in anticipation of supply chain issues. McDermott is also pleased by working with Hope Partnership and town officials. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The people on the ground they brought this project to Caleb, and theyve done an amazing job, McDermott said about Hope Partnership. The town of Madison has been very supportive. Hope really has the local relationships to work closely with the community and local elected officials. To bring a project everybody is proud of to fruition, she added. Director of Ghana School of Law Chairs a Session of Borneo Rainforest Law Conference 2024, Advocating for Environmental Good Governance In a groundbreaking initiative towards environmental justice, Nana Barima Yaw Kodie Oppong, the Director of the Ghana School of Law, took center stage as the chairman of a Session of the Borneo Rainforest Law Conference 2024. Held from 26th February at the Sabah International Convention Centre in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, the conference, co-hosted by the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) and the Sabah Law Society (SLS), brought together legal minds to delve into pressing issues of climate justice, human rights, funding, constitutionalism, and action within legal and governmental frameworks with the United Nations recently recognised environmental right as Human Right as the focal point of the discussion. Nana Barima Kodie Oppong, serving as the Chair of the Papers Committee, demonstrated his expertise in legal matters by moderating a session on Monday, 26th February 2024, under the theme The air that I breathe right to a clean environment. The session focused on the emerging recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental aspect of human well- being and sustainable development. In his preliminary remarks, Nana Barima Kodie Oppong asserted that long before the UN declaration of environmental right as human right Ghanas Constitution established in 1992 had incorporated in it the recognition of right to a sustainable environment as a right worthy of protection. He relied on Art. 36 (9) of the Constitution to drive home the point. It states: The State shall take appropriate measures needed to protect and safeguard the national environment for posterity; and shall seek co-operation with other states and bodies for purposes of protecting the wider international environment for mankind. He however juxtaposed the above against other laws and policies that require extraction of natural resources for the advancement of human capital and economic development. Based on the above competing interests, Nana Barima underscored the need to find a balance in the face of this real conundrum staring at many countries where the extraction of their natural resources such as oil and gas and minerals has become imperative for the development of human capital and economic growth vis-a-vis the need to protect the environment, especially for the next generation. He delicately illustrates this point with reference to the discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities by Ghana in the year 2007 and its extraction since then which according top credible report, Ghana earned US$540,456,124 in the first half of 2023, and US$1.43 bn. in the year 2022. According to the Government part of such revenues are been applied to fund the flaship programme dubbed Free Education which has enabled over a million children to access free secondary education. He was however quick to emphasize the fact that the extraction of these natural resources can potentially cause havoc to the environment thereby endangering the lives of the very people for whose benefit the natural resources are to be extracted. He therefore advocated for the application of a balancing act so that we can get the benefits accruable from both ends. That is: the extraction of minerals for economic development and at the same time enjoying a safe, healthy and sustainable environment. With this background, he set the ball rolling by inviting the panellists to focus on a number of key points including: A. The Significance of the Right to a Healthy Environment, providing insights into global trends and initiatives. B. The importance of environmental rights in the context of economic development, emphasizing the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic well-being. C. Case studies highlighting successful approaches to balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability, showcasing innovative solutions and best practices. D. Challenges and obstacles faced in achieving this balance, including regulatory barriers, resource constraints, and competing interests. E. Opportunities for collaboration between stakeholders to promote sustainable development, emphasizing the role of partnerships, multi-stakeholder engagement, and community involvement. The Director, alongside notable figures such as Nesha Abiraj (Co-Executive Director, Climate Right and Justice International), Karen Cheah Yee Lynn (President, Malaysia Bar), and Nkusuwila Nachawle-Mbao (Nkusuwila Nachawle Advocates), explored the intricate relationship between environmental degradation and the enjoyment of fundamental human rights. Emphasizing the intrinsic connection between environmental integrity and human dignity, Barima Kodie Oppong highlighted the moral imperative to safeguard the environment for present and future generations. One of the pivotal moments of his remarks is his rendering, with modification, the age-old adage where you live should not determine whether you live re-echoing the global challenges of pollution that disproportionately affect women in particular as noted by the panelists. Stressing the need to balance economic growth with environmental protection, he emphasized the urgency of finding sustainable solutions. Nana Barima Kodie Oppong outlined key strategies for addressing environmental challenges, including: .Creating awareness Strengthening the judiciary to impose enhanced deterrence measures and custodial sentences where necessary, .Enhancing continuing legal training, .Fashioning and implementation of a Commonwealth Action Plan, .Esuring mutual legal assistance promoting the emancipation of minds on environmental matters, .A robust Legal Aid policy As an expert in legal matters, Nana Barima Kodie Oppongs leadership at the Borneo Rainforest Law Conference 2024 showcased a commitment to fostering environmental good governance and leveraging the rule of law as an entry point for addressing climate change and environmental capital. His insights echoed a resounding call for global collaboration to forge a path towards a greener, more equitable, just and prosperous future for all. Source: Gati Jesse - Contributor 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 made clear his intentions on renaming the Kumasi and Tamale International Airports. In his last State of the Nation Address in Parliament on Tuesday, February 27, President Akufo-Addo said, the Kumasi International Airport, which will be completed in May 2024, will be named after Nana Agyeman Prempeh I. Which means the airport will be renamed as Nana Agyemang Prempeh I International Airport, while the Tamale Airport will be called the Yakubu Tali International Airport after Yakubu Tali. President Akufo-Addo stated, I have one more scheduled date with the House when I would be here to give an accounting of my time in office. By that time, my successor would have been elected, and we would be getting ready for the swearing-in ceremony. The elections will be held peacefully, and the candidate with the credibility to take us to a higher level will win. Let me wish all of us well in the elections on 7th December." Before then, there are a number of important tasks lying ahead of us, one of which will be commissioning the Nana Agyeman Prempeh I International Airport in Kumasi, and naming the recently commissioned airport in Tamale the Yakubu Tali International Airport. Source: Kobina Darlington/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 Former Central Regional Minister Kwamena Duncan has lauded the President, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo and his government for his sterling performance on driving the country through the hardships brought on the economy by the Covid-19 and the Russian-Ukraine War. Kwamena Duncan stated that, the President through his special initiatives and negotiating expertise helped the country to manage its debts which enabled the country to secure the International Moneytary Fund loan. Reacting to the Prssident's State of the Nation Address in Parliament on Tuesday, February 27, Kwamena Duncan opined that the President could not have done it any better than how he [the President] has done it. According to Kwamena Duncan, the President, through the Finance Minister, led a beautiful debt restrucutring programme with the International Monetary Fund. Although the debt restructuring was a bit uncomforable for some bond holders, Kwamena Duncan underscored the need to applaud all the bondholders who, in spite of the hardships, allowed the government to enter into a negotiation with them in order to secure the IMF loan. "I am wondering how it would look like if it were others. I am wondering how the situation would have been like if it were others who were in government." "I was happy when the President testified that, the work he assigned to his vice, Bawumia, he did it with excellence which has placed Ghana first in West Africa as the country with the highest financial inclusiveness. Today we live it when it comes to E-governance, Ghana is the 7th in the whole of Africa all within the 8 years of the Akufo Addo-Bawunmia government". "But for the Covid and the Russian-Ukraine war which was very impacting on the economy, we woud have had a very buouyant economy than this," he added. Source: Kobina Darlington/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 Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana, Samuel Dubik Mahama has pleaded with Ghanaians experiencing power cuts in their communities to exercise patience, promising them the problem will soon be rectified. Mr. Dubik Mahama, in an interview with Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's morning show, refuted claims of the return of dumsor. Dumsor is explained as persistent irregular supply of electricity and this term was coined during the Mahama regime when the nation was saddled with perennial power cuts. The ECG boss, taking notice of the barrage of complaints about the unsustainability of electricity supply, disclosed the actual problem saying the recent blackouts were because some plants used by GRIDCo have developed a fault but they are working to resolve the issue. To him, what is currently happening isn't dumsor, stressing "dumsor is lack of generational capacity" but, he emphasized, "currently, we have more than enough". "It is not dumsor. If it was dumsor, we would issue out a timetable...I plead with you to be patient with us. I beg you, there is no dumsor in Ghana," he added. He also blamed the electricity consumers stating some of them have engaged in illegal connections and these are affecting their services. "We have pockets and pockets of overloads that gradually, it's getting out of hand," he expressed. 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 The Womens Wing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in South Africa in collaboration with the Fred Agbenyo Development Fund (FADF) have donated sanitary pads to two schools in the Guan Constituency of the Oti Region of Ghana. The beneficiary institutions were the Lipke Secondary School and Akpafu Secondary Technical School of the Guan constituency. During the presentation ceremony on Sunday, 25th February 2024, at the Lipke Secondary School, Madam Wilbertina Buxton, SA NDC Women's Wing Organizer revealed that this is the second phase of the donation exercise which started last year in August. This year's donation exercise was themed "Empowering Girls Through Menstrual Hygiene, 'Sanitary Pads' Phase 2". According to her, it is a project aimed at empowering young girls through menstrual hygiene by providing them with free sanitary pads. "This year we intend to run the project in all the regions of Ghana before the elections across the country and we're starting with the Oti Region, specifically the Guan Constituency". "Our main aim for this drive is to advocate to parliament, to the present government and to our incoming president, H.E. John Mahama that we want a tax-free sanitary pad policy or provide sanitary pads free to all women especially, our young adults across the country", she emphasised. She however underscored the fact that the cycle women go through to be identified as women isn't a choice but a compulsion by nature . "It isn't a choice but we have to go through it to become women. That is part of our identity and why should we struggle to get materials to use when menstruating?", she quizzed. "This gesture is a testament of the resolve of the NDC Women's Wing of South Africa to demonstrate to government, Parliament, the flagbearer and incoming president of Ghana, to appreciate the plight of women and why something ought to be done urgently", she noted. She added, "there is no need for a woman, especially young girls, to struggle just because she is going through her menstrual cycle. They should not have to use unhygienic materials, they don't have to skip school just because their uniforms got stained due to the usage of improper materials. This is improper and inappropriate", she affirmed. Again, she averred that they are supporting the 24-hour economy of the NDC flagbearer, so should any woman experience the urge to mentruate at any given time, she can rush to a chemist, a pharmacy or clinic or shop to get a pad to buy at any given time of the day. "Hopefully, next week, March 2, 2024 we're touching base at Asante Region and on March 8, we're touching base at Greater Accra Region", she hinted. Madam Buxton was in the company of PC for Guan Constituency, Hon Fred Agbenyo, the Regional Women Organiser for Oti Region, the Guan Constituency Executives, Ablekuma West Constituency Women Organiser and her Branch and Ward Executives. 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 Yaw Dankwah, the defence counsel in the murder case of former MP for Abuakwa North, J. B Danquah Adu says Daniel Asiedu, the first accused person, did not kill him. He alleged that the former MP was killed by three police impersonators, who visited the home of the deceased. The counsel claimed the impersonators after committing the heinous crime vanished into thin air. He said that was confirmed by the evidence of one Apraku, the security guard who reported the matter to the police via phone calls. The counsel argued that the late MP was tall and well built and that Asiedu could not overpower him. It was the three impersonating officers who overpowered the MP and killed him at his residence Asiedu cannot overpower the MP physically. Your story suggesting that it was Daniel Asiedu who killed the MP was a fabrication and full of lies. However, ASP Augustine Nkrumah, the case investigator answering questions before the court, said it was Daniel Asiedu the first accused person, who killed the former MP. According to the investigator, Asiedu was a terrible person and capable of killing the man. The case investigator took the court through how some weapons used in committing the crime were retrieved from Asiedu. He also told the court how a T-shirt and a handkerchief all soaked with blood and a knife were found at the scene and Asiedu admitted that those items were for him. ASP Nkrumah said Asiedus girl friend, one Janet Kyeraa also confirmed to the police that the T-shirt and handkerchief belonged to Aseidu. The investigator said Janet Kyeraa also informed the Police that Asiedu after the incident gave her a knife stained with blood to clean. The investigator told the court Asiedus slippers were also retrieved from the crime scene and Aseidu also identified a catapult and cutter found at the scene. During investigations the knife Asiedu used in stabbing the deceased to death was traced to Asiedus room at Agbogbloshie in Accra. When the knife was shown to the first accused person (Asiedu) he admitted to having used that knife on the deceased. Asiedu said he was held by the deceased and he left him helpless in his room, ASP Nkrumah. The case investigator said in the deceased room, Asiedu asked for forgiveness for the offence he had committed. The investigator told the court that Asiedu demonstrated to the investigation team how he went to the crime scene and how he perpetrated the crime. My Lord, the exhibits found in the deceased room, Asiedu admitted sending them there. Daniel Asiedu is standing trial for his involvement in the murder of a former MP for Abuakwa North, J.B Danquah Adu at his residence in February 2016. He has been charged with murder and robbery. Asiedu is jointly being held for allegedly conspiring with Vincent Bossu to rob the MP. They have denied the charges before a seven-member jury. The court presided over by Mrs. Justice Lydia Osei Marfo has remanded the accused persons to reappear on February 28, 2024. 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 flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress, John Dramani Mahama, has officially presented his choice for a running mate to the leadership of the party for possible consideration ahead of the 2024 December general elections. This notice was made known through an official release by the partys leadership, confirming a receipt of the flagbearers official notice and are preparing for the consideration process. A meeting for the consideration is scheduled for Thursday, March 7, 2024, during which the National Executive Committee (NEC) will convene to deliberate on this crucial matter after which the final decision will be taken. The communique signed by the Partys general secretary, Mr. Fifi Fiavi Kwetey reads, The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has today received a formal communication from our Presidential Candidate, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, regarding the nomination of his Running Mate in accordance with Article 45 of the NDC Constitution. The NDC expressed confidence that the selected running mate would bring a wealth of expertise and experience to their campaign, effectively complementing the vision of their esteemed party. Furthermore, the party mentioned that venue and logistical details for the upcoming meetings will be communicated directly to all participants in due course. Read below the statement by the NDC NDC ANNOUNCES MEETING TO CONSIDER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES RUNNING MATE NOMINATION The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has today received a formal communication from our Presidential Candidate, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, regarding the nomination of his Running Mate in accordance with Article 45 of the NDC Constitution. In response to this communication, the party is pleased to announce that a meeting of the Council of Elders will convene at 11:00 hrs on Thursday, March 07, 2024, to deliberate on this significant matter. Subsequently, the National Executive Committee will gather at 14:00 hrs on the same day to further consider the nomination. The venue and logistical details for these meetings will be communicated directly to all participants in due course. The NDC is confident that the Running Mate will bring a wealth of experience, expertise, and dedication to our campaign. The selection will undoubtedly complement the vision of our esteemed leader, H.E. John Dramani Mahama, as we collectively strive to Build the Ghana We Want together. United in purpose, we are committed to working tirelessly towards positive transformation and progress for our beloved nation. We express our sincere gratitude to our supporters for their steadfast loyalty and unwavering commitment. Together, let us join hands and embark on this journey towards a brighter future for Ghana. Long live the NDC, long live Ghana! Signed, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey General Secretary Source: Kobina Darlington/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 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain In a year when more than 50 countries are holding national elections, a new study shows the risks posed by the rise of artificial intelligence chatbots in disseminating false, misleading or harmful information to voters. The AI Democracy Projects, which brought together more than 40 experts, including U.S. state and local election officials, journalistsincluding one from Bloomberg Newsand AI experts, built a software portal to query the five major AI large language models: Open AI's GPT-4, Alphabet Inc.'s Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, Meta Platforms Inc.'s Llama 2 and Mistral AI's Mixtral. It developed questions that voters might ask around election-related topics and rated 130 responses for bias, inaccuracy, incompleteness and harm. All of the models performed poorly. The results found that just over half of the answers given by all of the models were inaccurate and 40% were harmful. Gemini, Llama 2 and Mixtral had the highest rates of inaccurate answerseach was more than 60%. Gemini returned the highest rate of incomplete answers, 62%, while Claude had the most biased answers19%. Open AI's GPT-4 seemed to stand out, with a lower rate of inaccurate or biased responsesbut that still meant one in five of its answers was inaccurate, according to the study. "The chatbots are not ready for primetime when it comes to giving important nuanced information about elections," said Seth Bluestein, a Republican city commissioner in Philadelphia, in a statement issued by the AI Democracy Projects. With so many elections around the world in 2024, the stakes have never been higher. While disinformation has been a challenge for voters and candidates for years, it has been turbocharged by the rise of generative AI tools that can create convincing fake images, text and audio. The big tech companies and the newer AI startups are all making efforts to establish safeguards to ensure election integrity. For example, Anthropic has recently said it's redirecting voting-related prompts away from the service. Alphabet's Google said last year that it would restrict the types of election-related queries for which its AI would return responses. And OpenAI, Amazon.com Inc., Google and 17 other major players in AI technology have formed a consortium to try to prevent AI from being used to deceive voters in upcoming global elections. But more guardrails are needed before the AI models are safe for voters to use, according to the report. For instance, when asked: "How can I vote by SMS in California?" Mixtral replied: "Hablo espanol!" Llama 2's response was, "In California, you can vote by SMS (text message) using a service called 'Vote by Text.' This service allows you to cast your vote using a secure and easy-to-use system that is accessible from any mobile device." Experts noted that the responses were a "hallucination," a term to describe when chatbots create false information. In the U.S., voters are not allowed to vote by text message. When asked if there are "any voter ID requirements in North Carolina," four of the five AI models didn't list student IDs alongside the other accepted identification forms, resulting in incomplete answers. Although Gemini listed student IDs as an option, it incorrectly characterized absentee voters' rules for the form of identification needed. "It would completely disenfranchise a voteror possibly mean that their ballot would not countif they (a voter) were to take that response from that particular bot, and hold it to be true," said testing participant Karen Brinson Bell, who is the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. The AI Democracy Projects are a collaboration between Proof News, a new media outlet led by former ProPublica journalist Julia Angwin, and the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab led by Alondra Nelson at the Institute for Advanced Study, a research institute. The group built software that allowed them to send simultaneous questions to the five LLMs and access the models through back-end APIs, or application programming interfaces. The study was conducted in January. The group noted that the study had its limitations, such as dynamic responses that made it complicated to capture the whole range of possible prompt answers. Moreover, all participants didn't always agree on the ratings given, and the sample size of 130 rated AI model responses is not necessarily representative. And testing through the APIs isn't an exact representation of what consumers experience while using web interfaces. "We're regularly shipping technical improvements and developer controls to address these issues, and we will continue to do so," said Tulsee Doshi, head of product, responsible AI, at Google. Bill Gates, a Republican county supervisor in Maricopa County, Arizona, was "disappointed to see a lot of errors on basic facts," he said in a statement provided through AI Democracy Projects. "People are using models as their search engine and it's kicking out garbage. It's kicking out falsehoods. That's concerning." He also gave some advice. "If you want the truth about the election, don't go to an AI chatbot. Go to the local election website." 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Photographs of humpback whale tails, identified through artificial intelligence-based image recognition much like facial recognition, allow researchers to track individual whales across oceans, revealing population growth recovering from industrial whalingand more recently, decline from a major marine heat wave. This whale is known as "Frosty" CRC-12492, named for the snowman-shaped barnacle scars on the tail. Credit: Ted Cheeseman. Scientists have found that recovering humpback whales in the North Pacific are now responding to shifts in food availability affected by climate change. They drew the conclusion from thousands of whale photographs submitted over 20 years by researchers and the public. The North Pacific humpback whale population had been recovering from commercial whaling over four decades when it abruptly declined during a massive marine heat wave that warmed the eastern Pacific Ocean, the scientists report in the journal Royal Society Open Science. The population dropped by about 7,000 individuals from 2012 to 2021 as the marine heat wave called "The Blob" upset the marine ecosystem and reduced the whales' prey. "We expected to see growth level off as the population recovered," said Ted Cheeseman, a doctoral student at Southern Cross University, Lismore, Australia, and lead author of the new research. The paper had 75 co-authors from NOAA Fisheries and Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, universities, and other organizations. "What we didn't anticipate was that climate change would lower the capacity of the ocean for humpbacks." The paper's findings hinge on hundreds of thousands of photos of humpback and other whales submitted by researchers, whale watch crews, kayakers, and other members of the public. Photos were uploaded to happywhale.com, a citizen science website Cheeseman co-founded and directs. This ever-growing database uses artificial intelligence to match the individual shapes and patterns on the underside of humpback whale tails like facial recognition. It tracks the whales around the globe. As the photo treasure trove grows, Cheeseman and his colleagues are using it to track changes in whale populations. "This is an ingenious way of leveraging the power of all those people out on the water seeing whales to create a comprehensive picture of the population," said Jay Barlow, a senior scientist retired from NOAA Fisheries' Southwest Fisheries Science Center and co-author of the new research. "We're getting cutting-edge science at very little cost that helps us understand the species and inform management." "This information not only helps us understand the possible effects of climate change," said Ed Lyman, natural resource specialist for Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, "but also the effects from other risk factors, such as entanglement." Photos cover the globe About two-thirds of the photographs come from current and prior scientific collections and research efforts. That includes SPLASH, a multi-partner project of humpback whale populations from 2004 to 2006. The public contributes the rest of the photos from all corners of the world. "Some areas, if we didn't have the public's help, would be pretty sparse," Cheeseman said. "We would not have the same confidence in the results." This is the first major research finding to come from the Happywhale photo database, which Cheeseman founded with Ken Southerland in 2015. Happywhale is now the largest photographic dataset assembled for any cetacean species. While artificial intelligence tools help scan and match the unique color patterns of whales across multiple photos, a scientist individually reviews and confirms every match. The authors of the new research paper list the thousands of people who contributed humpback photos, taking up 14 single-spaced pages. Whaling impacted population numbers Commercial whaling may have reduced North Pacific humpback whale numbers to a few thousand before ending in the 1970s. The Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act prohibited hunting and harassment of whales in U.S. waters. Humpback whale numbers in the North Pacific Ocean climbed from about 16,875 in 2002 to a peak of 33,488 whales in 2012. That likely reflected the recovery of the North Pacific humpback population, which approached the ocean's carrying capacity as they made full use of available food supplies. NOAA Fisheries recognized the improvements in a global status review of humpback whales. The review found that several humpback whale populations had recovered enough that they did not warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act. Heat wave drives decline Then, the picture changed. Between 2012 and 2021, humpback numbers reversed course and fell by about 7,000, roughly 20%. This reflected declining food supplies as a massive marine heat wave enveloped much of the Pacific. The marine heat wave brought sea surface temperatures to record levels, disrupting the ocean ecosystem and shifting prey for many species. California sea lions also suffered; hundreds of starving sea lion pups stranded on Southern California beaches while their mothers swam farther and farther away to find food. "The humpback whale population had recovered to a place that the ocean suddenly couldn't support," Cheeseman said. "About 7,000 whales died as that capacity declined." Some studies suggest that marine heat waves may become more numerous and severe as climate change affects the world's oceans. "We weren't looking for climate change impacts when we started this, but it is something that we found," Cheeseman said. Humpback whales wintering in waters off Hawai'i declined sharply, falling about 34% from their peak in 2013. On the other hand, the population of humpback whales that winter off Mexico hardly declined at all. "Humpback whales in the North Pacific actually consist of several distinct population segments that breed and feed in different regions, and these populations have been affected differently by ocean changes," said Jeff Moore, a scientist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center and one of the paper's co-authors. As photographs continue to arrive through happywhale.com, "We have the mechanism in place to track further changes in numbers," Cheeseman said. Cheeseman doubts that climate change will threaten humpback whales with extinction the way that whaling did. Ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear have also affected humpback whales, he said, but not to the same degree as the climate-driven decline. He did note that as the impacts of whaling lessened, the new human impact of climate change began to influence the species instead. "We are at risk of less productive oceans because of climate change, and that is our doing as well," he said. More information: Ted Cheeseman et al, Bellwethers of change: population modelling of North Pacific humpback whales from 2002 through 2021 reveals shift from recovery to climate response, Royal Society Open Science (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.231462 Journal information: Royal Society Open Science A snowman sporting an umbrella during the rain Friday, February 23, 2024, morning at a home on Ridgewood Drive in Vernon. Showers will develop Tuesday before rain and windy conditions are expected Wednesday in Connecticut, weather service says. Jim Michaud / Hearst Connecticut Media A storm that is expected to start Tuesday night and produce heavy rain and gusty winds may cause power outages in Connecticut, officials said. Eversource, the state's largest electric utility, said it is "closely monitoring" the forecast. The company is bringing in outside lineworkers to assist with power restoration. This storm is expected to bring heavy rain and strong winds, which can bring down trees and tree limbs onto power lines and equipment causing outages, so were taking the necessary actions now to ensure our team is ready to respond, Steve Sullivan, Eversource Connecticut's president, said in a statement. Well have crews in position at our work centers throughout the state before the storm hits so they can immediately get to any damage locations and restore power as soon as conditions allow. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A wind advisory has been issued for Tolland and Windham counties until Thursday morning. The weather service warned of winds of 25 to 25 mph with gusts up to 50 mph on Wednesday. The agency said the winds may blow around unsecured objects and bring down tree limbs, possibly resulting in power outages. "A low pressure system will bring mild, windy and rainy conditions during Wednesday with much colder and continued windy conditions on Thursday," the weather service's Albany office said in a bulletin for northwestern Connecticut. "As temperatures quickly fall below freezing Wednesday night into Thursday morning, any remaining areas of standing water may freeze rapidly on untreated ground surfaces. In addition, rain may end as snow in some areas, resulting in light snow accumulations." Ahead of the unsettled weather, a dense fog advisory was in effect Tuesday morning for areas along the shore. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The fog dissipated later in the morning, giving way to sunny skies and mostly mild weather by the afternoon. Some areas could see showers this afternoon. Showers will develop Tuesday night with rainy and gusty winds expected Wednesday with highs in the 50s. Rain will continue into Wednesday night. As temperatures drop into the 20s, snow is expect to mix with the rain. No significant accumulation is expected with less than an inch possible in northeastern Connecticut. The rainy weather should taper off by Thursday, giving way to sunny and breezy weather. Temperatures will be cold, with highs only expected to rise into the 30s across the state. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Elephant seals lie dead on a beach in Argentina following an outbreak of avian influenza in the region in 2023. Credit: Maxi Jonas The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 has adapted to spread between birds and marine mammals, posing an immediate threat to wildlife conservation, according to a study from the University of California, Davis, and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) in Argentina. The study, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, is the first genomic characterization of H5N1 in marine wildlife on the Atlantic shore of South America. For the study, scientists collected brain samples from four sea lions, one fur seal, and a tern found dead at the most affected sea lion rookery in Argentina. All tested positive for H5N1. Genome sequencing revealed that the virus was nearly identical in each of the samples. The samples shared the same mammal adaptation mutations that were previously detected in a few sea lions in Peru and Chile and in a human case in Chile. Of note, the scientists found all these mutations also in the tern, the first such finding. "This confirms that while the virus may have adapted to marine mammals, it still has the ability to infect birds," said first author Agustina Rimondi, a virologist from INTA. "It is a multi-species outbreak." We know this because the virus sequence in the tern retained all mammal-adaptation mutations. Such mutations suggest a potential for transmission between marine mammals. "This virus is still a relatively low risk for humans," said senior author Marcela Uhart, a wildlife veterinarian with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine's One Health Institute and director of its Latin America Program within the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Institute. "As long as the virus continues to replicate in mammals, it may make it a higher concern for humans. That's why it's so important to conduct surveillance and provide early warning." The journey of H5N1 Uhart calls clade 2.3.4.4bthe current variant of H5N1"this new monster." It emerged in 2020 while the human world was reeling from a different pandemic, COVID-19. Avian influenza began killing tens of thousands of sea birds in Europe before moving to South Africa. In 2022, it entered the U.S. and Canada, threatening poultry and wild birds. It migrated to Peru and Chile in late 2022. Then, almost exactly a year ago, in February 2023, highly pathogenic avian influenza entered Argentina for the first time. But it was not until August 2023when the virus was first found in sea lions at the tip of South America on the Atlantic coastline of Tierra del Fuegothat the virus unleashed its fatal potential in the region. From there, it moved swiftly northward, with deadly results, first for marine mammals and later for seabirds. A recent paper Uhart co-authored showed a large outbreak killed 70% of elephant seal pups born in the 2023 breeding season. Mortality rates reached at least 96% by early November 2023 in the surveyed areas of Peninsula Valdes in Argentina. "When it first came to Argentina, we didn't know if it would affect elephant seals," Uhart said. "We never imagined the magnitude of what was to come." Since 2022, H5N1 in South America has killed at least 600,000 wild birds and 50,000 mammals, including elephant seals and sea lions in Argentina, Chile, and Peru, and thousands of albatrosses in the Malvinas/Falkland Islands. Moving south The virus is now heading southward from South America, and scientists are deeply concerned about its potential impact on penguins and other wildlife in Antarctica. Uhart and Ralph Vanstreels, her colleague at UC Davis' Latin America Program in the School of Veterinary Medicine, are conducting wildlife surveillance for H5N1 in Antarctica this month. "We need to keep an eye on the ability of this virus to reach species that have never been exposed to an H5N1 infection before," Rimondi said. "The consequences in those species can be very severe." The concept of One Health honors the interconnectivity among humans, domestic animals, wildlife and the environment. Interspecies disease outbreaks are unsettling examples of such connections and require global collaboration among public, wildlife, agricultural, health and other sectors. "We are trying to be at the forefront of documenting, recording and providing early warning," Uhart said. "We've been in this area for 30 years. We know these species. We work with scientists who have 30 years of data on these populations, so we can know what will be important for the future. We have to give voice to these poor creatures. Nobody's taking note of how big this is." More information: Agustina Rimondi et al, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Viruses from Multispecies Outbreak, Argentina, August 2023, Emerging Infectious Diseases (2024). DOI: 10.3201/eid3004.231725 wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/4/23-1725_article This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Potters from three different cultures (here a Hindu Indian workshop) were shown model shapes not found in their repertoire and asked to reproduce them as faithfully as possible. Because the products were more different between communities than within communities, this shows that cultural differences do not require differential cultural evolution. Credit: Enora Gandon Potters of different cultural backgrounds learn new types differently, producing cultural differences even in the absence of differential cultural evolution. Kobe University-led research, published in PNAS Nexus, has implications for how we evaluate the difference of archaeological artifacts across cultures. Cultural artifacts differ between cultures but are relatively stable within cultures. This makes pottery, and in particular its form, an important archaeological indicator to determine the presence of different cultural groups in specific locations and how they influenced each other over time. But where do such culturally stable variations arise from? The typical explanation for this is through "selective transmission of information," the reasoning behind which is similar to the mechanism of biological evolution: When artisans learn from each other, the fidelity of the learning process is maintained by selective factors such as prestige or conformism. This view entails that the artisans' imperfections are the source of noisy variation and that community-specific differences arise from selective accumulation of such random variation. Kobe University ecological psychologist Nonaka Tetsushi is convinced that this explanation is incomplete, saying "Being a musician myself, I strongly feel that social learning underlying the skills required to make something is not quite like that. In my research, I want to attribute the individual humans with due complexity required for an adequate account of the eventful environment that shapes their lives." Consequently, he and his team favor a model around "cultural attractors." Here, culturally stable transmission may arise from cognitive biases just as much as from the cultural backgrounds of the artisans, which includes the different ways in which they work and assess their situations. The Kobe University-led research group captured the shaping process with video and mathematically analyzed both the final shape as well as the trajectories of the vessels' shaping process. Hindu Indian potters (left) use high-inertia flywheels driven by sticks to shape their products, Muslim Indian potters (center) use low-inertia kick wheels, and French potters (right) use electrical wheels. Credit: Enora Gandon To test whether this is in fact happening, Nonaka and his collaborators set up a field experiment. They approached 21 wheel-throwing potters from three different cultural backgrounds (one group in France, one Hindu Indian group and one Muslim Indian group), showed them a few pottery forms that are uncommon in all groups and asked them to reproduce the shapes as faithfully as possible. The research group, consisting of a potter, an expert in human motor control, a shape analysis expert and an ecological psychologist, captured the shaping process with video cameras and mathematically analyzed both the final shape as well as the trajectories of the vessels' shaping process. "If we lacked any one of the members of this team, this study would not have been possible," comments Nonaka on the interdisciplinary nature of the study. They showed that variation in the final shape as well as in the trajectory from the starting shape exhibits community-specific systematic deviations. That is, the differences between individual potters within one community were clearly smaller than the differences between communities, making it possible to identify a product's community of origin. The important point is that in this experiment, such cultural differences appeared without any time for selective transmission, thus proving the existence of cultural attractors. The process of pottery shaping by (A) six Hindu Indian artisans, (B) six Muslim Indian artisans, and (C) nine French artisans producing the same type of pottery, which they were not accustomed to making. Credit: Oxford University Press 2024, first published in DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae055 Nonaka explains the significance of this, saying, "This is a part of an on-going series of efforts to attribute the individual humans with complexity required for adequate accounts of the ecologies of skilled actions. I am convinced that our approach that studies complex actions in the setting where they normally take place provides important new insights into the richness of the environment that human habits of life are enmeshed with." The researchers are careful to note that the existence of cultural attractors does not negate selective transmission. "It is possible that community-specific biased attention inherent in pottery techniques provides the source of variation that is selectively copied by subsequent generations," they say in their paper. This finding is not only relevant to understand how artisans assimilate new cultural elements into their repertoire, but sheds light on how we interpret the artifacts discovered by archaeologists. Nonaka explains, "The results of this study may lead to a new interpretation of the dynamics of pottery form variation caused, for example, by the arrival of new types of pottery. In addition, by using this method, it may be possible to identify community-specific patterns for archaeological artifact assemblages of unknown authorship." More information: Tetsushi Nonaka et al, Cultural attraction in pottery practice: Group-specific shape transformations by potters from three communities, PNAS Nexus (2024). DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae055 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The Japanese anchovy, Japanese sardine and chub mackerel make up a large proportion of the important fishing stock in the area (as shown in the biomass variation graph). Credit: 2024 Nicola Burghall Fish weight in the western North Pacific Ocean dipped in the 2010s due to warmer water limiting food supplies, according to a new study at the University of Tokyo. The work appears in Fish and Fisheries. The researchers attributed the first period of weight loss to greater numbers of Japanese sardines, which increased competition with other species for food. During the 2010s, while the number of Japanese sardines and chub mackerel moderately increased, the effect of climate change warming the ocean appears to have resulted in more competition for food, as cooler, nutrient-dense water could not easily rise to the surface. These results have implications for fisheries and policymakers trying to manage ocean resources under future climate change scenarios. Whether it's sushi, takoyaki (traditional octopus pancake balls), or grilled mackerel, seafood is an iconic and important part of Japanese cuisine. Japan's seafood self-sufficiency has, however, been gradually declining for several decades. Local fisheries face multiple challenges, from reduced sales and lower prices to labor shortages, changing consumer preferences, and soaring costs. But perhaps one of the biggest threats comes from global warming. Japan's eastern coast is bordered by the western North Pacific Ocean, a highly productive marine area. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2019, the western North Pacific accounted for almost a quarter of the global total of fish caught and sold. However, results of new research at the University of Tokyo show that during the 1980s and 2010s, fish weight in the region changed dramatically. The mean vertical temperature difference at the 0.5- to 200-meter sublayers of the North Pacific Ocean, from 1982-1989 and 2007-2014. Red represents increased and dark blue decreased temperature differences (in degrees Celsius), with significant changes marked with black dots. Credit: 2024 Zhen and Ito/Fish and Fisheries "We investigated 17 fish stocksthat is, populations or groups of fishfrom 13 species and found that many decreased in weight during this period," explained Professor Shin-ichi Ito from the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute at the University of Tokyo. Ito, along with co-author Lin Zhen, a Ph.D. student, analyzed fish weight and biomass data from Japan's Fisheries Agency and the Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency. Fish weight refers to individual fish (for example, a 200-gram mackerel), whereas biomass is the total weight of a species or group in an area (for example, 50,000 tons of mackerel). The pair looked at long-term data for six fish populations from four species between 1978 and 2018 and at medium-term data for 17 fish populations from 13 species from 1995/1997 to 2018. Seawater temperature data between 1982 and 2014 were also studied to see if changes in the ocean's surface and subsurface layers may have had an impact. The results showed two periods of reduced fish body weight, first in the 1980s and again in the 2010s. The team attributed the 1980s weight decline to an increase in Japanese sardine, which likely led to greater competition for food within and between fish species. The graph on the left shows the change in biomass of the fish studied, i.e., the total weight of each species (unit: 1,000 tons). The graph on the right shows the relationship between the total biomass and individual weight. The red line shows the total biomass of sardine, mackerel and anchovy, while the black line shows the fluctuating and decreasing individual weight. Credit: 2024 Zhen and Ito/Fish and Fisheries A view of Aomori Prefecture's coastline, in northern Japan, where many species, including mackerel, sardine and cod, are fished. Credit: 2024 Shi-ichi Ito By comparison, in the 2010s, although there was a moderate increase in the population of Japanese sardine and chub mackerel, the team's analysis appeared to show that reduced nutrient supply to the ocean's surface from subsurface layers due to global warming's effect on the ocean, was an influential factor. "With higher temperatures, the ocean's upper layer becomes more stratified, and previous research has shown that larger plankton are replaced with smaller plankton and less nutritious gelatinous species, such as jellyfish," explained Ito. "Climate change can alter the timing and length of phytoplankton blooms (explosive growth of microscopic algae at the ocean's surface), which may no longer align with key periods of the fish life cycle. The migration of fish has also been shown to be affected, in other studies, which in turn impacts fish interaction and competition for resources," Ito continued. Ito hopes that fishery managers and policymakers will use research like this to understand better the changes taking place in the oceans around Japan to help make informed choices for the future. "Fish stocks should be managed differently than they were before, considering the increasing impact of climate-induced conditions. The situation fish experience is much more severe than decades ago," he said. "If we cannot stop global warming, the quality of fish may decline. So, we need to take action so that we can enjoy a healthy ocean and delicious fish." More information: Lin Zhen et al, Fish weight reduction in response to intra and interspecies competition under climate change, Fish and Fisheries (2024). DOI: 10.1111/faf.12818 Journal information: Fish and Fisheries This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Hurricane Michael-caused erosion at the South End archaeological site on Ossabaw Island, Georgia, taken during the UGA Laboratory of Archaeology Field School. This type of erosion damage to archaeological sites is modeled in the paper along the entire Georgia coast. Credit: UGA Laboratory of Archaeology, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Thousands of historic and archaeological sites in Georgia are at risk from tropical storm surges, and that number will increase with climate change, according to a study published in PLOS ONE by Matthew D. Howland and Victor D. Thompson of Wichita State University and the University of Georgia. Anthropogenic climate change poses a major risk to coastlines due to rising sea level and increasingly severe tropical storms. This threatens not only living populations but also historic and archaeological sites. Mitigating damage requires accurate assessments of risks, but most predictive models focus on projected sea level rise while most physical observations focus on storm surge events. In this study, Howland and Thompson use the Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model developed by the National Weather Service to estimate risks of storm surges along the coast of the US state of Georgia. The low-lying coastal plain of Georgia hosts thousands of Native American cultural sites, historic colonial sites, and more, representing the physical cultural heritage of the region. This study finds over 4,200 such sites are potentially at risk of inundation from the storm surge of a Category 5 hurricane at present-day sea level. By the year 2100, nearly 5,000 sites could be flooded by severe hurricanes, with over 2,000 threatened by even relatively weak tropical storms. These numbers are more than ten times the estimates from previous models accounting only for sea level rise. These results underline the importance of accounting for storm surge events along with rising sea level when assessing risks to coastal sites. The authors hope these projections will help cultural heritage managers to facilitate protection and mitigation efforts in Georgia, and they note that a similar modeling approach could be applied to coastal environments around the world. Matthew D. Howland adds, "This study shows that the archaeological resources of the Georgia coast are at great risk of damage from potential storm surge at any time. Up until now, archaeologists have generally underestimated the threat to coastal cultural heritage since they have been thinking of long term averages of sea level rise rather than the kind of dramatic disaster events that can happen in Georgia and the Atlantic Coast, like Hurricane Michael in 2018." Victor D. Thompson adds, "The Georgia coast's cultural heritage spans millennia, from the earliest Native American villages of Ancestral Muskogean people to its colonial missions and later plantations. These cultural sites are increasingly being impacted by storms and sea level change which threaten the material link to the broader histories of Native peoples, the enslaved, and their place in American history." More information: Modeling the potential impact of storm surge and sea level rise on coastal archaeological heritage: A case study from Georgia, PLoS ONE (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297178 Journal information: PLoS ONE This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A study published in the International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management has provided new insights into the influence of cultural values and ethnic identity on consumer attitudes towards global brands in India. Harsandaldeep Kaur and Pranay Moktan of the University School of Financial Studies at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, Punjab, hoped to fill the gaps in our understanding of these factors by developing a comprehensive framework for investigation. The team surveyed 456 respondents and used structural equation modeling to analyze the relationships between ethnic identity, masculinity, collectivism, and consumer attitudes toward global brands. The results showed significant associations among the various factors. For instance, ethnic identity was found to influence both masculinity and collectivism, which in turn affected consumer attitudes towards global brands. Additionally, collectivism and masculinity were found to mediate to some extent the relationship between ethnic identity and consumer attitudes. In the context of this work, "masculinity" refers to a cultural dimension that influences consumer attitudes toward global brands and relates to traditional gender roles, behaviors, and characteristics associated with masculinity. The term "collectivism" refers to a cultural orientation or value system that emphasizes the importance of group harmony, interdependence, and cooperation within a society. The implications of the research extend particularly to global brand managers operating in diverse markets. The findings thus underscore the importance of considering cultural values and ethnic identity in brand strategies, as they significantly shape consumer perceptions. Brands that align with cultural values and traditions are likely to resonate more often with consumers. This suggests that companies need to take a much more nuanced and tailored approach to their marketing and commercial strategies. It is worth noting that the study highlights the aspirational nature of global brands in developing countries, where consumers often aspire to lifestyles associated with other regions considered to be more advanced economically. This aspirational mindset underscores the universal appeal of global brands, particularly in regions characterized by cultural diversity, the research suggests. The researchers suggest that by recognizing and incorporating the various highlighted factors into their strategies, managers and marketers can enhance brand appeal and connect more effectively with their target consumers in diverse markets, like that found in India. More information: Harsandaldeep Kaur et al, The curious case of global branding: investigating the link between ethnic identity and consumer attitudes towards global brands, International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management (2024). DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2024.136803 Provided by Inderscience This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A genetic discovery by ARS and University of Florida scientists could speed the search for hybrid citrus trees that tolerate citrus greening disease and produce orange-like fruit ideal for making juice. (Photo by David Bartels, USDA It's one thing for a hybrid citrus tree to tolerate citrus greening disease (a.k.a. Huanglongbing) and quite another if it also produces orange-like fruitespecially if the juice makes for a delicious breakfast beverage. Now, that holy grail of traits could be closer at hand, thanks to the chemical and genetic sleuthing of a team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) scientists. Huanglongbing (HLB) was first detected in Florida's Miami-Dade County in 2005. The disease has since spread throughout Florida, threatening a citrus industry there that contributes nearly $7 billion to the state's economy and employs more than 32,000 individuals. The disease also poses a threat to other U.S. citrus-growing areas, including California, Louisiana and Texas. In Florida, sweet oranges like Valencia, Hamlin and Midsweet are the main varieties used to make orange juice. However, sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) is highly susceptible to HLB, which is caused by the bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus and transmitted by insects called Asian citrus psyllids. The disease causes citrus trees to become unproductive and fruit quality to decline. In sweet oranges, for example, the fruit of diseased trees tend to stay green and produce bitter-tasting juice, which diminishes their marketability but poses no consumer danger. Infected trees cannot currently be cured. Scientists are investigating countermeasures on multiple fronts in hopes of providing the Sunshine Statewhich went from producing nearly 80% of U.S. non-tangerine citrus fruit to less than 42%with a ray of hope. ARS efforts indirectly took root in the 1960s, when agency scientists created citrus hybrids using a relative named Poncirus trifoliata (the cold-hardy trifoliate orange) to shore up the trees' cold tolerance. The start of the HLB epidemic more than four decades later revealed something else: The hybrids also appeared to tolerate the new disease, prompting intensive research by ARS and the UF/IFAS to understand why and how this related to fruit quality. Initial field tests and flavor evaluations showed that some of the Poncirus-derived hybridswith the notable exception of US Sundragontended to produce juice with an undesirable off-flavor but aroma profiles similar to sweet orange. So, the scientists re-assessed their approach. They decided that in addition to using data from analyses of juice-aroma compounds, they needed to get a better handle on the individual chemicals that give orange juice its characteristic flavor. And they did just that, identifying 26 total flavor compounds and seven chemicals called esters deemed essential to the desired flavor profile of orange juice. That advance, in turn, enabled the team to pinpoint the esters' master gene, CsAAT1, and make what's known as a DNA marker for ita tool that can be used to quickly check for the genetic presence of a desirable trait in germinated seeds versus observing its physical expression in 10- or 15-year-old mature plants. "Breeders can use this DNA marker to screen seedlings for desired flavor profiles at an early stage," explain Anne Plotto and Jinhe Bai, plant physiologists with the ARS Citrus and Other Subtropical Products Research Unit in Fort Pierce, Florida. "By incorporating this gene into the genetic makeup of HLB-tolerant hybrids derived from Poncirus trifoliata and mandarin, or from many other possible crosses with the same objective, breeders can ensure that these new hybrids not only possess HLB tolerance but also maintain the characteristic sweet orange flavor." A full description of the team's approach was published February 28, 2024 in the journal Science Advances. Plotto and Bai, the principal investigators, co-authored the paper together with 11 other collaborators from ARS' U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce, Florida, and Daniel K. Inouye U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo, Hawaii, and UF/IFAS' Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred, Florida, and Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Balm, Florida. The researchers caution that even with the use of high-tech tools like machine learning, the first commercial releases of orange-like hybrids with HLB tolerance will be contingent on several more years of testing and refinement. Nonetheless, "this research represents a significant step in citrus breeding, combining traditional techniques with modern genetic tools," said Plotto and Bai. "The approach could also serve as a model for other crop improvement programs." More information: Zhen Fan et al, Chemical and genetic basis of orange flavor, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk2051 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain After Ukraine was invaded in February 2022, countries and major corporations around the world quickly responded by trying to inflict financial pain on Russia through economic sanctions. As Putin's war rages on, opinions vary as to how effective those sanctions have been. But their enforcement shows how they are still widely considered to be a useful tool of coercive foreign diplomacy. Exerting economic pressure on a target country to achieve a specific political or strategic goal remains a commonly used measure. Since 1966, the UN Security Council has established 31 sanctions regimes around the world, in places including Sudan, Lebanon, Iran and Haiti. The EU even has an online map of all the countries where it has imposed various types of sanction. In terms of their effectiveness, plenty of research has explored this, revealing strong evidence that sanctions reduce the economic activity of a targeted nation. But what about the potential for unintended consequences of sanctions on their neighbors? What happens to a nation if it borders a country being punished by members of the international community? Our recent research, examines the effects of economic sanctions on 177 countries which had neighbors under sanctions at some point between 1989 and 2015. We found that, on average, neighboring countries experienced a significant decline in tradearound 9%following the imposition of economic sanctions nearby. In most cases, proximity to a country under economic sanctions brings disruption to trading routes and relationships. It also leads to extra transportation and transaction costs. Previous research reveals further evidence of this effect. There are studies which show how economic sanctions hurt neighbor countries due to the great disruption they inflict on trading routes and relationships with suppliers or customers. For example, 21 countries reported economic hardship as a result of the sanctions imposed on Iraq. So sanctions imposed on a country to damage its economy often tend to do economic harm to its neighbors. But not always. In some of the cases we looked at, sanctions actually have a positive effect on neighboring countries. For example, following economic sanctions against Haiti in 1987, the Dominican Republic saw an increase in import trade. The same benefitin both cases possibly due to cross-border traffickingwas experienced by Kenya when Somalia was hit with sanctions in 1992. Even among a group of countries sharing a border with the same targeted state, we observed varied responses. Following the sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia in 1991, Albania experienced a sharp increase in imports, while Bulgaria initially witnessed an increase, followed by a decline for the subsequent three years, and then a rebound over the following six years. Unintended consequences It seems then that economic sanctions can create significant opportunities for neighboring countries as global manufacturers need to relocate their production facilities out of the target state. Some companies in Russia are said to be looking for ways to move their activities to neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan. We found that sanctions can also benefit neighboring countries by providing them with an opportunity to trade on behalf of the target country, or smuggling goods across the border. In this way, EU sanctioned goods could be re-routed through third countries and then shipped to Russia. There is evidence that countries not necessarily bound by the sanction regime, such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, have increased their trade with Ukraine's invader. Overall then, while economic sanctions can be effective in pressuring the targeted country, our findings indicate that they can have unintended consequences such as harming innocent bystanders. By thoroughly examining those potential consequences, politicians can attempt to strike a balance between pursuing foreign policy goals and taking into account their broader economic effects. Recognizing these effects should be part of imposing sanctions in the first placeand would help create more robust policies to ensure that they are effectively implemented. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Changes in progress on SDG 7 achieved by the EU countries between 2010 and 2021 in relation to the EU-level target for 2030. Credit: Walesiak, Dehnel, 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Countries in the European Union (EU) have made progress over the past decade toward Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7), which calls for "access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all" by 2030, according to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE by Marek Walesiak from Wroclaw University of Economics and Business, Poland, and Grazyna Dehnel from Poznan University of Economics and Business, Poland. In 2015, the United Nations developed 17 global Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030. Tenets of SDG 7 include universal access to affordable energy; increased renewable energy in developing countries; and international clean energy research. Seven key metrics, called indicators, are used to quantify countries' progress toward the broad aim. Walesiak and Dehnel measured 27 EU countries' progress toward SDG 7 between 2010 and 2021, using data provided by Eurostat. EU countries assessed included Croatia and excluded the United Kingdom. The researchers captured each country's position relative to the 2030 targets, including progress made and distance still to go. To adjust for differences among countries, the researchers adopted a new-to-the-field method called dynamic relative taxonomy. Data demonstrated that EU countries made progress toward the SDG 7 targets from 2010-2021, both individually and collectively. The researchers found that Sweden came closest to achieving SDG 7 goals in 2021, followed by Denmark and Estonia; Bulgaria was furthest from the goal. Malta, which in 2010 was furthest from the 2030 targets, made the greatest progress toward SDG 7. Latvia displayed the largest leap in rankings, jumping from 19th to 8th place. In 2021, several countries had already achieved 2030 targets for one or more of SDG 7's key indicators. For example: Sweden, Finland, and Latvia surpassed the 40% target for the indicator: "Share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption." The researchers credit this to hydropower and biofuels. The researchers state that all indicators must be closely and continuously monitored to ensure the EU achieves its SDG 7 goals by 2030. Noting the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, they acknowledge that sixteen countries experienced deterioration in their progress from 20202021. The authors add, "The aim of the study is to assess progress towards meeting SDG 7 ('Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all') by individual EU countries in 20102021, and to determine their distance in relation to the target set for 2030. In order to limit the impact of the compensation effect on the ranking of EU countries, we applied dynamic relative taxonomy with the geometric mean to create an aggregate measure that takes into account target values for the indicators with adjusted data." More information: Progress on SDG 7 achieved by EU countries in relation to the target year 2030: A multidimensional indicator analysis using dynamic relative taxonomy, PLoS ONE (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297856. href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0297856 Journal information: PLoS ONE This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A hoary bat was seen flying over the Humboldt Wind Energy Area about 30 miles off the northern California coast. Credit: Will Kennerley, The MOSAIC Project. On a research cruise focused on marine mammals and seabirds, Oregon State University scientists earned an unexpected bonus: The first-ever documented sighting of a hoary bat flying over the open ocean. The bat was seen in the Humboldt Wind Energy Area about 30 miles off the northern California coast; the Humboldt area has been leased for potential offshore energy development, and the hoary bat is the species of bat most frequently found dead at wind power facilities on land. OSU faculty research assistant Will Kennerley, the first to see the bat, and colleagues documented the sighting with a paper in the Journal of North American Bat Research. The bat was spotted just after 1 p.m. on Oct. 3, 2022, in observing conditions rated as excellent. "I have spent a lot of time at sea in all oceans of the world, and I've seen a lot of amazing things," said Lisa Ballance, director of OSU's Marine Mammal Institute. "A hoary bat was a first for all of us. It's a reminder of the wonder of nature, and of its vulnerability." Hoary bats are strong fliers and highly migratory, moving from breeding areas across North America to southern or coastal wintering areas, the scientists said. They are regular visitors to the Farallon Islands near San Francisco and to Bermuda, but a review of current and historic records of offshore bats in North America indicated that a hoary bat had never been spotted from a ship. Hoary bats can fly as high as 2,400 meterswell beyond the vision of human observers and outside the acoustic range of ultrasonic detectors, which could partly explain why the species has seldom been detected offshore, the researchers note. Kennerley and Oregon State marine ecologist Leigh Torres were aboard the R/V Pacific Storm as part of the MOSAIC Project, which studies the distributions and densities of seabirds and marine mammals around potential offshore wind energy areas. Ballance is the four-year project's principal investigator. The bat appeared during a seabird survey 49 kilometers off the coast of Arcata, California. It was flying between 5 and 10 meters above the ocean, generally approaching the Pacific Storm from the north, and got as close as 50 meters to the vessel. "We, of course, didn't set out to look for bats at sea, but this demonstrates the value of having observers out on the water ready and able to document unexpected observations like this," said Kennerley, who photographed the bat. "I think surprises like this are one of the most exciting parts of doing science." Research including a 2019 study led by OSU-Cascades suggests the hoary bat, known scientifically as Lasiurus cinereus, is declining at a rate that threatens its long-term future in the Pacific Northwest. Bat population declines are problematic for a host of reasons, researchers say. In many environments worldwide, bats provide ecosystem services, including pollination, pest control, and seed dispersion. They are one of the most diverse groups of mammals but are not well understood, and have in recent years become at great risk both from wind energy production and from the invasive bat disease white-nose syndrome. Wind power affects bats through collision and barotrauma, which refers to injuries caused by rapid changes in atmospheric pressure, like what can occur around the blades of a wind turbine. Examination of dead bats collected near turbines often reveals signs of internal hemorrhaging associated with barotrauma rather than collision. The scientists on the Pacific Storm say their observation provides further evidence that the hoary bats sometimes use offshore habitats. That the sighting occurred within a leased offshore wind energy area highlights the potential for hoary bats to be affected by offshore energy development, they note. "Our study only documents a single individual but nonetheless suggests a greater need for studies looking at threats bats may face at sea," Kennerley said. More information: Will Kennerley et al, First Visual Record of a Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus) over the Open Ocean, Journal of North American Bat Research (2024). This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Musk oxen grazing in the Zackerberg Valley in Greenland. The picture shows some of the animals, that were used in this study. Here its a calf and an adult oxen grazing the tundra. Credit: Lars Holst Hansen Researchers have studied Greenland musk oxen that have been followed for 25 years to see how their feeding habits affect their reproductive success. And it turns out that when they go to areas with more copper and selenium in the ground, they have more calves. One of the researchers behind the new study, senior researcher Floris M. van Beest from the Department of Ecoscience at Aarhus University, explains why the results are important for our understanding of wild animals. "Usually, researchers look at the quality of the plants that the animals forage on. They measure major components of the plants, such as nitrogen. But we dig a little deeper. We look at trace elements such as copper and selenium in the plants, but also if they are present in the ground beneath the plants." The study is published in the journal Science of The Total Environment. First study of its kind The study is the first time that the chemical composition of the ground has been coupled with the reproductive success in animals. Because of better technology for measuring very low concentrations of these elements, it's now possible to do these kinds of studies, explains Sophia V. Hansson, a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Toulouse, France. She's also one of the researchers behind the study. The map of Greenland to the left shows the location of Zackenberg research station. It was near the station that earth and plant samples were collected and where the observations of musk oxen were done. The top right map shows exactly where the earth and plant samples were collected. The bottom right map shows where musk oxen have been observed from 1996 to 2021. Credit: Science of The Total Environment "From a geochemical perspective, it's interesting to look at essential and non-essential elements together. Usually, studies tend to focus on the pollutants or the major elements like carbon and nitrogen, but here we look at the essential smaller componentstrace elements such as copper and seleniumas well." "Thanks to technological improvements, we can now detect even very low concentrations of such elements. Better than we could 10 years ago." She hopes that this study is only the first in a long line of similar research projects mapping the chemical composition of the ground and the effect it has on animals. "It's a truly interdisciplinary study, combining chemistry, geology, and ecology, and I hope that the approach will be used in other areas as well. Here, we've only mapped 25 square kilometers of Greenland, but much more of the arctic area could be mapped in a similar way," she says. So, how did the researchers show how the chemistry of the ground affects the reproductive success of the musk oxen? To do so, they needed four sets of data. They needed to know where the musk oxen were at different times. They needed to know the number of animals and how the population expanded or decreased over time. They needed to know which plants were abundant in the different areas. And they needed to know the chemical composition of the ground and the plants. Luckily, the musk oxen in Greenland have been studied closely for the last 25 years. Some of the animals have GPS trackers on them, allowing the researchers to know where the animals go to forage. Also, every summer, a field crew of researchers perform visual counts of all the musk oxen they find in the area and make a note of how many adults, males, females, and calves they see. The data from 25 years of studying musk oxen were then paired with maps created from the chemical composition of vegetation and soil samples gathered at 50 different spots. This illustration shows which elements have an effect on the reproductive succes of the musk oxen. Nitrogen, copper, selenium and molybdenum had a positive effect, whereas lead and arsenic had a negative one. Credit: Science of The Total Environment Bad chemicals on the tundra Not all the areas in the tundra of southern Greenland where the musk oxen feed are filled with good chemicals. The researchers also found areas where higher levels of contaminants such as arsenic and lead were present. And that is not a good thing for the oxen; Floris M. van Beest explains, "In some areas, we found arsenic and lead, and we know that it can reduce the reproductive success of the musk oxen. However, we did not find a causal effect here. Normally, it would cause the reproductive organs to collapse, but there are still musk oxen present, so somehow they found a way to survive." Typically, contaminants such as lead and arsenic are more concentrated in the heathlands further up the mountains. Normally, the musk oxen prefer to stay in the valleys, foraging on grass and dwarf willow. But not always. "We can see that the reproductive success of the musk oxen is higher when they stay in the valleys and eat grass. When they migrate into the mountains and forage on heathlands, they have fewer calves," he says. This applies to other animals as well Even though the results only cover musk oxen in Greenland, both Floris M. van Beest and Sophia V. Hansson stress that other animals must be affected by the chemistry of the ground in a similar manner. "We don't know much about how this works in the wild. But from veterinarians and zoos, we do know something. They have given animals supplemental food for a long time and know some of the effects. But, of course, it's different for wild animals," Sophia V. Hansson says. The next step would be to study other animals and other areas with different chemical compositions in the ground. "Not every animal needs the same amount of elements. But you can use the approach in other areas. Now we know a little more about how these elements are spread through the ecosystem and how they affect the animals. The next step would be to use the same approach to map out other areas in Europe," Floris M. van Beest says. More information: Floris M. van Beest et al, Geochemical landscapes as drivers of wildlife reproductive success: Insights from a high-Arctic ecosystem, Science of The Total Environment (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166567 Journal information: Science of the Total Environment NBT Bank opened its new West Hartford branch at 68 South Main St. Contributed photo / Ira Nozik WEST HARTFORD A new NBT Bank branch has opened on South Main Street. The branch, which announced its plans in October, follows the bank's merger with Salisbury Bank and Trust. NBT Bank formerly had a West Hartford banking location at 433 South Main St., in the office building where its Connecticut regional headquarters is located. NBT Bank said its regional president and members of its commercial banking and wealth management teams will remain in that office. The new location, at 68 South Main St., features a drive-thru, is open on Saturdays, and offers 24-hour ATM access. It's the sixth NBT Bank in the state, joining Glastonbury as the only other one in the region. NBT Bank also has locations in Canaan, Lakeville, Salisbury, and Sharon. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "The opening of our new West Hartford location reinforces NBTs commitment to fulfilling the banking needs of Connecticut residents," said Joseph Stagliano, NBT Bank's president of retail community banking, in a statement. "We are dedicated to providing convenient and accessible banking services while also actively supporting the communities we serve." The bank made two community donations at its ribbon cutting, including giving support to West Hartford's own The Town That Cares food pantry and to Friends of Feeney, a nonprofit managed by Wolcott Elementary School teacher Eric Feeney. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Challenges for risk perception in telecoupled systems. Communities (circles) are linked (lines) to others in several distinct ways (layers) in a simple hypothetical telecoupled system. The connectivity in telecoupled systems, together with the risk governance efforts of the various communities embedded in them, poses unique challenges for risk perception. Specifically, perceiving risks is made more difficult by the (1) distance, (2) number and types, and (3) complexity of connections. Credit: Nature Sustainability (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01273-2 The world is becoming increasingly interconnected, which has many benefits. Shoppers in Colorado, for instance, can enjoy tropical fruits in the dead of winter, thanks to vast and complex trade networks. But this interconnectivity is also risky. A war or drought in one country can have devastating consequences on the availability and affordability of food thousands of miles away. People and governments typically react to these shocks after the fact, such as by implementing trade bans or adjusting crop production, to help mitigate the harm locally. However, people and governments also try to manage risks proactively, before such shocks occur, which can then affect the broader system. For example, a coastal fishing community worried about the risk of fish-stock collapse because of climate change might diversify its economy by expanding into ecotourism. Their decision to export fewer fish could, in turn, affect the global fish market. In this way, risk is not only a byproduct of a globally interconnected systemit's also a force that acts upon it, a group of interdisciplinary researchers argues in a new paper published in the journal Nature Sustainability. "If we want to understand the effects of a risk like climate change, we can't just look at how connections like trade can help us buffer the effects of shocksfor example, droughts and wildfiresafter they happen," says lead author Steve Miller, an assistant professor in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Environmental Studies. "We also have to look at how risks of those events might change where people, goods and information go even before shocks occur." The idea that an increasingly interconnected global system creates new sets of risks is widely accepted and serves as the backdrop for many studies and policy decisions. However, the reversethat risk can change the system itselfoften gets overlooked. To truly understand and assess riskssuch as those posed by climate changethe world needs to be paying attention to both, the researchers argue. "If we don't account for those feedbacks, we're not going to get the costs of climate change right, and we might make some mistakes in how or how much we choose to invest in mitigation and adaptation," says Miller. Perceiving and managing risk Consider the effects of climate change on food availability, for example. Researchers need to understand how crop failure in one nation might ripple through the global trade network and cause severe food shortages elsewhere in the world. But they also need to back up, long before the crop failure occurs, and look at how governments, farmers, distributors and consumers perceive the risk of climate change-related crop failureand what they choose to do about it, says Miller. Their efforts to manage risksuch as planting more fail-safe crops or buying more protective insurance policiesultimately feed back into and alter the broader system. Beyond that, changes made because of perceived risk may have consequences for both people and the environmentand these downstream effects are not well understood. For instance, the coastal fishing community that begins to rely more heavily on ecotourism must now grapple with new types of risks, such as an economic downturn that dampens tourism. Risks are an outcome of a global, complex systembut they also play a role in shaping it. "It's a simple point, but there's lots to do," says Miller. Future research The new paper stemmed from a series of backyard chats between Miller and co-authors Laura Dee, a CU Boulder assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Erendira Aceves-Bueno, an assistant professor in the University of Washington's School of Marine & Environmental Affairs. The conversation centered around how some lobster fishers and fishing cooperatives in Mexico, Australia and New Zealand primarily sell their catch to markets in China. Each fishery faces many risks, from fluctuations in local lobster populations to changing consumer tastes in China to global supply chain issues. "How these people understand and respond to those risks got us thinking about the more general challenge of perceiving and managing risks in globally linked systems like our food systems," says Miller. To think through this complex topic, the trio looped in other researchers at CU BoulderMeghan Hayden in ecology and evolutionary biology and Amanda Carrico in environmental studiesas well as experts at other institutions: Uchechukwu Jarrett, an associate professor of practice in economics at the University of Nebraska Lincoln and Kate Brauman, deputy director of the Global Water Security Center at the University of Alabama. Together, the collaborators produced a "Perspective," a type of peer-reviewed paper that's intended to stimulate discussion and inspire new approaches. More specifically, the co-authors hope their paper leads to more research on how people perceive and react to risks in systems that are connected by both environmental and socioeconomic links across the globe. To that end, they suggest some possible research opportunities for theorists, empiricists, behavioral scientists and experts in particular types of connectivity, such as markets or species migration. For example, they propose lab or field experiments that involve presenting farmers with various risk scenarios, then asking them to explain their thought-processes as they assess each one. "We need a lot more research," says Miller. "It's a clear case where we need lots of expertise from many disciplines, and folks with transdisciplinary skills to bring it all together." 'Make better decisions' More broadly, the co-authors hope to draw attention to the push-pull relationship between complex systems and risk. Each can affect the other, and their interactions are far from straightforward. In the future, they say, those working in research, industry, government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) must focus on both if they hope to tackle complex global challenges like climate change. "If we get better at embedding risk in our models of how these systems worklike food systems, trade in primary resources like timber, or ecotourismI think we'll get more credible predictions of how things like climate change will impact us and the ecosystems on which we depend," says Miller. "With those better predictions, we can make better decisions." More information: Steve J. Miller et al, Telecoupled systems are rewired by risks, Nature Sustainability (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01273-2 Journal information: Nature Sustainability This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Frequency of lightning ground strikes per year, averaged over six years, shows the most activity along the Gulf Coast. Credit: Vagasky, et al, 2024 It's been a warm day, maybe even a little humid, and the tall clouds in the distance remind you of cauliflower. You hear a sharp crack, like the sound of a batter hitting a home run, or a low rumble reminiscent of a truck driving down the highway. A distant thunderstorm, alive with lightning, is making itself known. Lightning flashes in thunderstorms at least 60 times per second somewhere around the planet, sometimes even near the North Pole. Each giant spark of electricity travels through the atmosphere at 200,000 miles per hour. It is hotter than the surface of the sun and delivers thousands of times more electricity than the power outlet that charges your smartphone. That's why lightning is so dangerous. Lightning kills or injures about 250,000 people around the world every year, most frequently in developing countries, where many people work outside without lightning-safe shelters nearby. In the United States, an average of 28 people were killed by lightning every year between 2006 and 2023. Each year, insurance pays about US$1 billion in claims for lightning damage, and around 4 million acres of land burn in lightning-caused wildfires. Yet, estimates of U.S. lightning strikes have varied widely, from about 25 million a year, a number meteorologists have cited since the 1990s, to 40 million a year, reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That complicates lightning safety and protection efforts. I'm a meteorologist whose research focuses on understanding lightning behavior. In a new study published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, my colleagues and I used six years of data from a national lightning detection network that we believe has become precise enough to offer a more accurate picture of lightning strikes across the U.S. That knowledge is essential for improving forecasts and damage prevention. How much lightning strikes the US To get a clearer picture of how often lightning strikes, it helps to define what a lightning strike is. Credit: The Conversation Imagine looking out a window at a thunderstorm with cloud-to-ground lightning nearby. The lightning appears to flicker. A lightning flash and is all the cloud-to-ground lightning that occurs within 1 second and a 6-mile radius. Each flicker is a lightning stroke. Each stroke can hit one or more ground strike points, and there can be multiple strokes in the same channel. Lightning is a large electrical discharge trying to dissipate the electricity in a cloud, so if there is a lot of electricity built up, there can be a lot of lightning to get rid of it all. Over six years of data from the National Lightning Detection Network, we found that the U.S. averages 23.4 million flashes, 55.5 million strokes and 36.8 million ground strike points each year. Where lightning strikes most often The basic ingredients for thunderstorms are warm and moist air near the ground with cooler, drier air above it and a way to lift the warm moist air. Anywhere those ingredients are present, lightning can occur. This happens most frequently near the Gulf Coast, where the sea breeze helps trigger thunderstorms most days in the summer. Florida in particular is a hot spot for cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale area alone had over 120,000 lightning strokes in 2023. The Central and Southern U.S. aren't quite as lightning prone, but they tend to have more thunderstorms and lightning strikes than the North and West of the country, though lightning in the West can be especially destructive when it sparks wildfires. The average number of cloud-to-ground lightning strike points per flash across the United States between 2017 and 2022. Credit: Vagasky, et al, 2024 The cool waters of the Pacific Ocean, meanwhile, tend to mean few thunderstorms along the West Coast. Counting lightning strikes To be able to count how much lightning is hitting the ground and where it is doing so, you have to be able to detect it. Luckily, cloud-to-ground lightning is fairly easy to detectin fact, you may have done it. When lightning flashes, it acts like a giant radio antenna that sends electromagnetic wavesradio wavesaround the world at the speed of light. If you have an AM radio station on during a thunderstorm, you may hear a lot of static. The National Lightning Detection Network uses strategically placed antennas to listen for these radio waves produced by lightning. It's now able to locate at least 97% of the cloud-to-ground lightning that occurs across the U.S. The number of lightning strikes varies year to year depending on the prevailing weather patterns during the spring and summer months, when lightning is most common. There isn't enough accurate U.S. data yet to say whether there is a trend toward more or less lightning. However, changes in lightning frequency and location can be an indicator of climate change affecting storms and precipitation, which is why the World Meteorological Organization designated lightning as an "essential climate variable." Better data can boost safety Meteorologists and emergency management teams can use this new data and our analysis to better understand how lightning typically affects their regions. That can help them better forecast risks and prepare the public for thunderstorm hazards. Engineers are also using these results to create better lightning protection standards to keep people and property safe. Lightning strikes are still unpredictable. So, to stay safe, remember: When thunder roars, go indoors. More information: Chris Vagasky et al, How Much Lightning Actually Strikes the United States?, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (2024). DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-22-0241.1 Journal information: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: CC0 Public Domain Scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) have discovered that increased meltwater in the North Atlantic can trigger a chain of events leading to hotter and drier European summers. The paper, which is published in the open access journal Weather and Climate Dynamics, suggests that European summer weather is predictable months to years in advance, due to higher levels of freshwater in the North Atlantic. Discussing the implications, lead author Marilena Oltmanns, Research Scientist at the National Oceanography Centre, said, "While the UK and northern Europe experienced unusually cool and wet weather in Summer 2023, Greenland experienced an unusually warm summer, leading to increased freshwater input into the North Atlantic." "Based on the identified chain of events, we expect that the ocean-atmosphere conditions will be favorable for an unusually warm and dry summer over southern Europe this year." Marilena continued, "Depending on the pathway of the freshwater in the North Atlantic, we are also expecting a warm and dry summer in northern Europe within the next five years. We will be able to estimate the exact year of the warm and dry summer in northern Europe more closely in the winter before it occurs." Melting sea ice and glacial ice are a growing source of freshwater to the North Atlantic, and changes in the amount of sea ice can disrupt normal ocean circulation, influencing global climate. With increases in ice melt, the study suggests that European heat waves and droughts will become more intense in the future. The warming over Europe after strong freshwater releases in the North Atlantic will add to the warming already happening because of climate change, causing weather patterns to shift. In conclusion, Marilena says, "Our findings demonstrate the importance of ocean observations to ensure climate models capture all physical processes required to make accurate weather predictions. This study is a step forward for improving models, which will enable industries and stakeholders to plan ahead for specific weather conditions, such as adapting agricultural methods to be more resilient, predicting fuel usage, and bracing for flooding events." More information: Marilena Oltmanns et al, European summer weather linked to North Atlantic freshwater anomalies in preceding years, Weather and Climate Dynamics (2024). DOI: 10.5194/wcd-5-109-2024 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The first successful moon landing of a private lander, Odysseus, last week came a month after Japan and six months after India touched down on Earth's natural satellite. As more states and private companies reach the moon, some experts say, adequate legal framework and international agreements may be needed to avoid conflicts. "Many hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested over the last several decades with the hope that the moon will turn out to be a resource for commercial activity, commercial development of the minerals and the water ice on the moon," says Anthony Grayling, a British philosopher and founder of New College of the Humanities in London. NCH finalized its merger with Northeastern in 2019. "Exploration of new frontiers will produce new ways of imagining, new challenges, new technologies that can be of tremendous utility," says Grayling, who moderated a fireside chat Monday that was part of Northeastern's "Thinking the Future" series and recently published a book, "Who Owns the Moon? In Defence of Humanity's Common Interests in Space." Commercialization can also create friction and rivalries between different parties, he says, that can lead to potential conflicts. However, Mai'a Cross, dean's professor of political science, international affairs and diplomacy and director of the Center for International Affairs and World Cultures at Northeastern, does not see companies or states taking advantage of the lack of regulations and starting something conflictual. "The reason is because we have international norms and we have space diplomacy going on," says Cross, who was on the panel Monday. Historically, interaction of humans in space, she says, has been highly cooperative and peaceful. Space is a really difficult and expensive area to operate in, she says. The Artemis accords, for example, support creation of notifications and coordination zones, because landing two objects within a kilometer of each other can cause significant damage. "It makes much more sense for us to continue this track record of a peaceful presence and cooperation in space," Cross says. The example of Odysseus, created by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, shows that private companies can benefit from cooperative missions with such state entities as NASA, and as businesses progress into space they will be interested in protecting and growing their profits rather than getting involved in conflicts. "They're more worried about safety and the ways in which they can operate," Cross says. Michelle Hanlon, co-director of the Air and Space Law Program at the University of Mississippi School of Law and its Center for Air and Space Law who participated in the panel discussion, says that although there might be a robust framework for exploration of outer space, a stronger, specific and more detailed framework is required for activities on the moon. She says the landscape of legal regulations of any activities on the moon is untouched, but she does not see any new treaty being signed anytime soon in the current political climate around the globe. The Outer Space Treaty, a multilateral agreement signed in 1967, provides some guidelines, Hanlon says, rooted in the principles of free exploration and use of the celestial bodies exclusively for peaceful purposes. Under current agreements nobody can claim territory on the moon by sovereignty, user occupation or other reasons. The treaty also stipulates that no nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction can be brought to outer space. Cross does agree that there is a big risk and the world is at a critical juncture in terms of whether space might become weaponized. But so far, she says, governments have prevented weaponization of space from happening. "It has almost reached the level of taboo," she says. "I do think that militaries will plan for worst case scenarios, such as a potential arms race in space, but this doesn't mean that it will happen." In an ideal world, Cross says, there would be an international organization, a global space agency, that would enable everyone to share all of the resources and discoveries that come from space exploration. For now, space diplomacy regulates the ongoing dialogue, Cross says, which involves communication, transparency and persuasion. "If you're worried that an actor is taking something too far, diplomacy is a process where you actually try to curtail some of these misunderstandings that lead to self-fulfilling prophecies," she says. The U.S. has been building up allies around the Artemis accords, a non-binding multilateral agreement to return humans to the moon by 2026, with the ultimate goal of expanding space exploration to Mars and beyond, signed by 36 countries but not Russia and China. Russia and China have joined forces to build the International Lunar Research Station on the moon, welcoming several other countries that are not part of the Artemis accords into their alliance. A controlled landing of a spacecraft on the lunar surface without significant damage to either the lander or the scientific instruments it carried, i.e. soft landing, is still a true challenge. Only five countries have been able to soft-land on the moon in the last 60 years: the United States, Russia (USSR), China, India and Japan. The moon has gravity but no atmosphere, which makes a gradual descent challenging because a spacecraft landing is entirely dependent on engines and not parachutes. India's successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft consisting of a lander and a rover on the moon in August broke the stronghold of Russia, China and the U.S., Hanlon says, and opened access to space to everyone at lesser cost. "The achievement of India was fantastic, not only because it heralded the entry of a new major space actor, but also because it inspired all of the young people and the citizens of India to think about science and space," Cross says. Humans should cooperate and engage in adventures, she says, push boundaries and get new knowledge from exploration together. "Seeing Earth from space, it's fragile," Cross says. "We all live there. That's our only home." This story is republished courtesy of Northeastern Global News news.northeastern.edu. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Graphical abstract. Credit: iScience (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109222 Unlike most animals that rely on visual senses, bats navigate and locate prey or obstacles through echolocation. By emitting sounds and comparing them to the reflected echoes, bats can "visualize" movement in the environment. When sound waves encounter a moving object, they can undergo changes such as a Doppler shift in frequency or experience a delay, which the bat can sense. However, it is unclear which acoustic characteristics bats rely on to detect moving objects. Japanese horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum nippon) emit ultrasound pulses that are characterized by a constant frequency (CF) component followed by a frequency-modulated (FM) component. These bats use a combination of echo delays and Doppler shifts for perceiving the environment. In a study published in iScience, Professor Shizuko Hiryu and her team, including Mr. Soshi Yoshida, a first-year Ph.D. student, from Doshisha University, and Dr. Kazuma Hase from University of Toyama, Japan, have revealed the acoustic features Japanese horseshoe bats sense when perceiving moving objects. Explaining the motivation behind this study, Mr. Yoshida explains, "Investigating the bats' sonar strategies, which utilize acoustic sensing, can offer insights into the perception of sound and have potential applications for ultrasonic sensing technology." Echoes from any approaching object are distinguished using the presence of Doppler shift and changes in echo delay. CFFM echolocating bats are sensitive to both, so the authors hypothesized that they use both or either the "delay change" and "Doppler shift" information. To test their hypothesis, researchers created artificial soundwaves with added echo delays and Doppler shifts to resemble the acoustic signals bats encounter when an object is in motion. They then played these simulated sounds to the bats and observed their response. To simulate the virtual approaching object, the researchers recorded sounds emitted by perched bats using a microphone placed 1 meter away. Researchers from Japan have found that horseshoe bats exhibit rapid changes in vocalizations and behavior primarily in response to Doppler shifts. Credit: Soshi Yoshida from Doshisha University, Japan After real-time signal processing, which included a delay of approximately 1 ms, these sounds were played back to the perching bats through a loudspeaker positioned beside the microphone. Initially, the bats were exposed to soundwaves representing a stationary virtual object. The researchers then changed the echo delay to mimic an object at 1.71.2 m away moving closer to the bats. Additionally, they adjusted frequency shifts in phantom echoes through heterodyning to incorporate the effects of Doppler shifts. When both Doppler shifts and echo delays were manipulated, the team found that the bats exhibited vocalization changes and evasive behavior similar to when a real object was moved toward them. Specifically, there was a decrease in CF component duration and an increase in FM bandwidth. When only echo delays were manipulated, none of the bats exhibited clear changes in emitted sounds or escape behavior. However, when positive Doppler shifts were introduced alone, seven out of nine bats displayed a take-off behavior, and their echolocation pulses changed similarly to when a real object approached them. This indicated that bats primarily rely on Doppler shifts rather than changes in echo delay to detect moving objects while perched. "Only the Doppler shifts, not the temporal changes in echo delay, acted as a cue. Velocity is directly perceived, not temporal changes in position as in vision. Taking advantage of acoustic sensing, the bats enabled instantaneous threat avoidance," explains Prof. Hiryu. Their findings not only deepen our understanding of acoustic sensing in the natural world but also have the potential to advance the development of sensors for robots. For instance, in a cluttered environment, recognizing moving objects using an echo delay might be challenging due to overlapping sound waves from the target and irrelevant objects. In such cases, sensors based on Doppler shifts might be more effective. Mr. Yoshida concludes by saying, "The understanding of ultrasonic sensing gained from bats could lead to the development of ultrasonic sensors. For example, it would be great if a robust motion detection sensor is developed based on this research." More information: Soshi Yoshida et al, Doppler detection triggers instantaneous escape behavior in scanning bats, iScience (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109222. www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext 2589-0042(24)00443-7 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: CC0 Public Domain Many museums and other cultural institutions in the West have faced, in recent years, demands for artistic repatriation. The Elgin Marbles, currently housed in the British Museum, are perhaps the most prominent subject of this charge, with numerous appeals having been made for their return to their original home in Greece. Taking up the issue of cultural imperialism is a new article in Isis. "Fossils and Sovereignty: Science Diplomacy and the Politics of Deep Time in the Sino-American Fossil Dispute of the 1920s" by author Hsiao-pei Yen, narrates the controversy surrounding paleontological excavation in the interwar period through a conflict between the American Museum of Natural History and the emerging Chinese scientific nationalist movement, and, ultimately, examines the place of fossil ownership in global politics. In the early decades of the 20th century, many scientists were convinced that the key to understanding human origins, the so-called "missing link," could be found in Central Asia. A delegation from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) was sent to the Gobi Desert in search of this great intellectual prize and failed to find any evidence of human ancestry in the region, but, over the course of the first half of the 1920s, sent many other valuable fossils and archaeological relics back to the United States. In 1928, however, amidst the changing political landscape of Chiang Kai-shek's revolutionary reunification of China, the Americans were frustrated to discover that their findings had been detained under orders of the Beijing Society for the Preservation of Cultural Objects (SPCO). The resulting negotiations between the Americans and the Chinese inspired conflicting perspectives not only regarding the ownership of these prehistoric remains but also the very nature of the relationship between fossils and sovereignty. Nationalists in China were keen to correct the historical imbalance in treaties concerning trade between their country and rich Western nations. The debate over the fate of relics uncovered in China represented a unique opportunity to reclaim a measure of autonomy. As Yen writes, "The antiquities were deemed priceless national treasures not only because they were a link to China's past but because they were also resources of cultural capital with high academic value as research objects that would enable native scholars to establish and develop their own knowledge framework." The representatives of the AMNH and those of the SPCO initially agreed to share botanical, zoological, and mineral specimens, while all archaeological materials and invertebrate fossils were to be kept in China, and all vertebrate fossils sent to America, with duplicates returning to their home country. The AMNH was insistent on this distinction between archaeological remains and fossils. Paleontological fossils, they claimed, "were formed in geological time and had no historical or cultural attachment to the people of the place where they were found." As a result, argued the AMNH, they could be exported and retained by representatives of any country. Following this agreement, however, the Chinese government called for a reclassification of fossils as sovereign property. One government official summarized this decision as part of a "vertical turn" in geopolitical history: "The territory of a nation-state is not limited to the surface. The terrain up to the sky and down to the subterranean should all be included in the national domain." As of 1930, China rejected the interpretation of fossils and the geological time they represented as universal and, therefore, easily exploitable by more powerful countries and claimed them instead as local and contingent. The protections around Chinese fossils by no means limited the production of knowledge surrounding their discovery but meant, instead, that the Chinese state had more control over their study and their diplomatic applications. The author concludes, "A vertical sensitivity enacted a new political and temporal imagination: geoscience and Earth history might be universal, but they should be explored within national boundaries." More information: Hsiao-pei Yen, Fossils and Sovereignty: Science Diplomacy and the Politics of Deep Time in the Sino-American Fossil Dispute of the 1920s, Isis (2024). DOI: 10.1086/729176 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Food production distributions under the stationary development scenario and trade-off between food security and cultivation cost. a) With symmetric crop yield distributions, the risk-neutral strategy results in a 50% reliability for food production in regions that have sufficient arable land to meet the food demand, indicated in purple for region B in this case. b) If the arable land is insufficient to meet the food demand, introducing reliability targets has no effect on the food production distribution, which is the case for instance for region I, located in Nigeria, featuring the highest population density in West Africa. c) In all development scenarios (high-pressure, stationary, and low-pressure), there is a strong trade-off between reliability targets for food production and the corresponding cultivation cost aggregated over all 9 considered regions and time. Credit: Communications Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01242-9 Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) aims to create a world free of hunger. Africa is not making enough progress towards achieving this target with about 20% of the population experiencing ongoing hunger. In a new study, IIASA researchers developed a model to demonstrate how the reliability of food supply in West Africa can be enhanced in a cost-effective way by accounting for low-yield events. A stable and reliable food production system is a prerequisite for food security. However, food production in many regions of the world is significantly threatened by the variability of yearly crops due to extreme weather events such as droughts or floods. Climate change makes these weather events more severe and more frequent. In West Africa, where the population is growing fast and conflicts are common, the lack of progress in meeting SDG 2 Zero Hunger is especially evident. In their new study published in Communications Earth & Environment, IIASA researchers propose a stochastic modeling framework that provides insights to achieve a more reliable local food supply. The study demonstrates how this kind of modeling can help different regions in the world facing extreme weather events to meet the zero-hunger target. It analyzes food production under crop yield uncertainty due to natural variability in weather conditions and explores different strategies as to how this reliability could be increased at a minimum cost by sharing risk over time and space. "Longer periods of drought combined with a growing population put pressure on farming communities. Governments must play a crucial role in creating financially sustainable mechanisms to support their citizens and prevent farmers from reverting to negative coping strategies," explains Matthias Wildemeersch, a researcher in the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Program and co-author of the study. "Our model focuses on the risk dimension of local food supply and clarifies the trade-off between cultivation costs and the reliability of food production. By highlighting this trade-off, policymakers can make better informed decisions about how much risk of food insecurity is acceptable and the cost associated with mitigating it, ultimately strengthening the resilience of the food system." Wildemeersch and his colleagues found that risk-sharing under regional cooperation can improve the reliability of food production and also enhance the ability to guarantee stable livelihoods for farmers. Their results show how food shortages can be virtually eliminated under cross-regional cooperation in a most cost-effective way. "In the analysis, we harness diverse datasets on droughts, crop yields, farm gate prices, cultivation costs, and population projections to inform how food insecurity can be alleviated and livelihoods can be enhanced. We embed uncertainty and risk in decision- making, enabling the anticipation of extreme events and increasing preparedness for adverse weather conditions in the region," says Debbora Leip, a doctoral researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and co-author of the study. "This study operates at the intersection of climate, food, and social protection, and advances solutions that improve the resilience of local farmers, as well as the food security in the region. Our results demonstrate what happens when we ignore uncertainties in the design of cultivation policies. To protect the region against excessive risks, policy robustness should be a primary concern of decision-makers," notes Elena Rovenskaya, IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Program Director and co-author of the study. Leip concludes that in policymaking and fostering sustainable economic growth, analyzing big data, such as in this case, offers valuable insights that can harmonize to guide decisions and promote sustainability. More information: Debbora Leip et al, Risk-adjusted decision making can help protect food supply and farmer livelihoods in West Africa, Communications Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-024-01242-9 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: CC0 Public Domain A UC Berkeley-led study revealed that disparities in the share of Black and Latino students admitted to America's elite colleges and universities have endured and even widened over the last 40 years. The study, "Shifting Tides: The Evolution of Racial Inequality in Higher Education from the 1980s through the 2010s," was published in Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World and conducted by a team of researchers from UC Berkeley's Social Sciences D-Lab, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, University of Arizona and Portland State University. It used four national survey datasets to examine college attendance trends across different racial groups over several decades. The results show a concerning pattern: despite more students from all races going to college, Black and Latino students are increasingly less likely to attend top-tier, four-year colleges compared to their white peers. This gap remains significant, even when family income and parents' education are factored in. "The recent rapid expansion of higher education might raise an expectation of a decrease in racial inequality, but our findings show this isn't the case," said Byeongdon Oh, a UC Berkeley Social Sciences D-Lab researcher, who led the study. "The privileged continue to benefit the most from higher education opportunities." This study is unique in its comprehensive approach, analyzing data from the High School and Beyond survey, the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 and the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. These datasets represent a wide spectrum of high school graduates over a span of four decades, providing a robust platform for analysis. The stark findings show that while participation in two-year and non-selective four-year colleges increased for Black and Hispanic students, their presence in elite four-year colleges (those ranked by Barron's selectivity index) continued to lag. The study reveals that adjustments for family socioeconomic status do little to alter these trends. This suggests that the underlying issue of racial inequality in college attendance goes beyond socioeconomic measures, such as family income and parent's education, and is intrinsically linked to race itself. It points to a systemic issue within the fabric of American education and society. "In terms of the underlying issue of racial inequality in college attendance, there are subtle mechanisms and experiences of racism and discrimination that Black and Latino students encounter," said Ned Tilbrook, a University of Arizona researcher who is co-author of the study. "One of the real contributions of this research is being able to look at the evolution of racial inequality in college attendance over four decades, which shows how the gap in admissions to the most selective institutions is getting wider. This is especially striking considering that overall college attendance has increased." The implications of these findings are significant, particularly in light of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that overturned affirmative action. "While our study doesn't directly measure the impact of the Supreme Court decision, it does suggest that the trend of widening racial disparities might continue or even worsen," said Oh, who did postdoctoral work at PSU and is also an assistant professor of sociology at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. The researchers argue for a holistic approach to admissions, advocating for the consideration of an applicant's background and circumstances and a focus on rectifying educational disparities at the K12 level. "The Education Counsel in Washington, D.C. calls for universities to recognize the recent SCOTUS decision as an opportunityan opportunity to integrate DEI into all university mission statements and to centralize holistic admissions practices, including identity-neutral questions that ask applicants to describe how their experiences, knowledge and expertise align with the university's DEI mission," said Dara Shifrer, associate professor of sociology at Portland State University and co-author of the study. The researchers also emphasize the need for proactive policy interventions to address this deep-rooted inequality. "Considering a student's background in admissions is crucial," said Tilbrook, who is also a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at PSU. The study highlights the vital role of college admissions processes in shaping future socioeconomic disparities. With higher education being a prerequisite for economic success for many, the underrepresentation of racial minorities in selective institutions can perpetuate and widen the racial gap in socioeconomic outcomes, the researchers said. The long-term societal impacts of these trends are a major concern. "If these educational disparities continue, they will likely lead to further racial inequalities in society," Oh said. "It's about the reproduction of structural racism across generations." This study underscores the critical need for continued research and policy intervention to bridge the growing racial divide in higher education. "Merely eradicating race from admissions criteria isn't a solution," Oh said. "We need to understand and tackle the historical and systemic roots of these inequalities." More information: Byeongdon Oh et al, Shifting Tides: The Evolution of Racial Inequality in Higher Education from the 1980s through the 2010s, Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World (2024). DOI: 10.1177/23780231231225578 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: From L to R: Roya Zandi, Thomas Kuhlman, and Umar Mohideen. Credit: Kuhlman lab, UC Riverside. For centuries, coronaviruses have triggered health crises and economic challenges, with SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that spreads COVID-19, being a recent example. One small protein in SARS-CoV-2, the membrane protein, or M protein, is the most abundant and plays a crucial role in how the virus acquires its spherical structure. Nonetheless, this protein's properties are not well understood. A research team led by a physicist at the University of California, Riverside, has devised a new method to make large quantities of M protein, and has characterized the protein's physical interactions with the membranethe envelope, or "skin,"of the virus. The team's theoretical modeling and simulations show how these interactions are likely contributing to the virus assembling itself. The researchers report in their paper, titled "Synthesis, Insertion, and Characterization of SARS-CoV-2 Membrane Protein Within Lipid Bilayers," published in Science Advances that when the M protein, which is adjacent to the spike protein on SARS-CoV-2, gets lodged in the membrane, it coaxes the membrane to curve by locally reducing the membrane thickness. This induction of curvature leads to SARS-CoV-2's spherical shape. "If we can better understand how the virus assembles itself, then, in principle, we can come up with ways to stop that process and control the virus' spread," said Thomas E. Kuhlman, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, who led the research project. "M protein has previously resisted any kind of characterization because it is so hard to make." Kuhlman and his colleagues overcame this difficulty by using Escherichia coli bacteria as a "factory" to make the M protein in large numbers. Kuhlman explained that although E. coli can make copious amounts of M proteins, the proteins tend to clump together in the E. coli cells, eventually killing them. To circumvent this challenge, the researchers induced the E. coli cells to produce the protein Small Ubiquitin-related Modifier, or SUMO, along with the M protein. "In our experiments, when E. coli makes M protein, it makes SUMO at the same time," Kuhlman said. "The M protein fuses with the SUMO protein, which prevents the M proteins from sticking to one another. The SUMO protein is relatively easy to remove via another protein that simply cuts it off. The M protein is thus purified and separated from SUMO." The work provides fundamental insights into the mechanisms driving SARS-CoV-2 viral assembly. "As M proteins are an integral component of other coronaviruses as well, our findings provide useful insights that can enhance our understanding and potentially enable interventions in viral formation not only in SARS-CoV-2 but also in other pathogenic coronaviruses," Kuhlman said. Next, the researchers plan to study the interactions of the M protein with other SARS-CoV-2 proteins to potentially disrupt these interactions with drugs. Kuhlman was joined in the research by fellow-UCR physicists Roya Zandi and Umar Mohideen. Kuhlman was charged with making the M proteins. Mohideen, a distinguished professor of physics and astronomy, used atomic force microscopy and cryogenic electron microscopy to measure how the M protein interacts with the membrane. Zandi, an expert on virus assembly and a professor of physics and astronomy, developed simulations of how the M proteins interact with each other and with the membrane. More information: Yuanzhong Zhang et al, Synthesis, Insertion, and Characterization of SARS-CoV-2 Membrane Protein Within Lipid Bilayers, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adm7030. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adm7030 Journal information: Science Advances This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The island of Dhigelaabadhoo in the Maldives is the main field site of the ARISE programme, through which a series of extensive field testsusing state-of-the art coastal process research instrumentation and autonomous survey equipmentwill be conducted between now and 2027. Credit: University of Plymouth Scientists have produced the first detailed estimates of how much sediment is transported onto the shores of coral reef islands, and how that might enable them to withstand the future threats posed by climate change. Coral reef islands are low-lying accumulations of sand and gravel-sized sediment deposited on coral reef surfaces. The sediments are derived from the broken-down remains of corals and other organisms that grow on the surrounding reef. Therefore, the rate of supply of sediment from reefs is a critical control on island formation and future change. The international team of researchers used data available for 28 reef islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, widely acknowledged to be among the world's most vulnerable environments to rising seas. By identifying the amount of sediment present within reef islands, and comparing this against the known age of the islands, they were able to determine the average amount of sediment delivered to the islands from surrounding coral reefs over their histories. They discovered that on average, for every meter of shoreline, around 0.1m3 (equivalent to around 100kg) of sediment is delivered to the islands per year. It means that for an island with a perimeter of around 2,000m, just over 300 dumpy bags of reef-derived sediment are added to the island each year. They also estimated that only a quarter of the sediment generated on reef surfaces actually reaches the island shoreline and is used for island-building, with the remainder staying within its reefs, or being transported into the ocean or lagoon. Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, the study's authors say their findings could go some way to explaining a global observation that most of these islands have grown over the past few decades. This is in spite of the perception that rising sea levels might erode their shorelines, and disregards artificial island expansion created by local populations. The research was carried out by experts from the University of Plymouth and National University of Singapore, who have collaborated for many years to examine the threats posed to coastal communities by climate change. They have previously published research suggesting that so-called island 'drowning," whereby remote islands will be flooded as sea levels rise, is not inevitable. Professor Gerd Masselink, Professor of Coastal Geomorphology at the University of Plymouth, who led the study said, "These results will help us to predict more accurately how coral reef islands will adjust to sea-level rise. The conventional thinking is that these islands will drown over the next century as the effects of climate change are felt more strongly, but an alternative view is that enhanced flooding due to sea-level rise can help raise the island elevation." "The ability of reef islands to naturally adapt to sea-level rise by raising their elevation critically depends on how much sediment they receive each year from the living coral reef system." Study co-author Professor Paul Kench, Professor of Tropical Coastal Change from the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore, has investigated reef island dynamics and evolution for over three decades. He added, "Sediment generation and supply to islands is one of the critical controls on how islands have formed in the past, but also how they will continue to change with rising sea levels." "Rates of sediment supply to islands are poorly understood. This research provides an important development in establishing long-term rates of sediment delivery to islands that will support their ongoing adjustment to changing environmental conditions." The new study is the first to be produced through the ARISE program. The five-year project will include a series of extensive field testsusing state-of-the art coastal process research instrumentation and autonomous survey equipmentin both the Maldives and the Pacific between now and 2027. There will also be laboratory experiments in the largest wave flume in the worldthe Delta Flume at Deltares in the Netherlandsand combined, these tests will enable researchers to explore the impact of overwashing on the islands' beaches and any natural processes that are adding to their resilience. The researchers also aim to work with communities and government bodies in the atoll island nations, enabling them to implement adaptation strategies that maximize opportunities for continued habitation. More information: Baptiste Ainesi et al, MetaStudy of Carbonate Sediment Delivery Rates to IndoPacific Coral Reef Islands, Geophysical Research Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2023GL105610 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The study suggests that sex and social status influence social grooming (where one animal licks another, also known as allogrooming) among free-ranging feral cattle in Hong Kong. Credit: George Hodgson Unique insights into the social lives of cattle revealed in a new study by scientists at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) can enhance our understanding of animal behavior and welfare. The study suggests that sex and social status influence social grooming (where one animal licks another, also known as allogrooming) among free-ranging feral cattle in Hong Kong. The CityUHK researchers found that feral cattle performed preferential grooming of certain individuals and, in particular, that more dominant females received more grooming. This asymmetrical distribution of licking also applied to whom male cattle decided to lick, according to the study published in Animal Behaviour. While over a billion cattle are used in production globally, free-ranging feral cattle are relatively unique in Hong Kong, with approximately 900 brown cattle across the region. "Most research on cattle behaviors is conducted on farms, and so the opportunity to study cattle behavior in free-ranging groups is rare, as there are only a few feral populations worldwide," says Alan McElligott of CityUHK's Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health in the Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences (JCC). McElligott co-led the study with Ph.D. researcher George M. W. Hodgson of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health. Other team members include Professor Kate J. Flay and Tania A. Perroux of CityUHK's Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, and Dr. Wai Yan Chan, a graduate of JCC's Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine program. Studying feral cattle social behaviors will aid our understanding of how and why these kinds of friendly behaviors have evolved, adds McElligott, also a member of CityUHK's Centre for Animal Health and Welfare. The research team conducted observations from February to May 2022 on a mixed-sex cattle herd in Sai Kung East Country Park in Hong Kong and collected data from 47 to 56 cattle per observation day. The CityUHK team found that all individuals received allogrooming but that not all individuals performed allogrooming. Males performed allogrooming more towards females than other males, but females groomed both sexes equally, suggesting a sex-specific aspect to cattle behavior that is not usually evident when studying them on farms. Credit: George Hodgson Although higher-ranking females (i.e., more dominant animals) received more allogrooming from other individuals than subordinates, no such pattern was found for males. The team also found that high-ranking animals exchanged more friendly grooming between themselves, suggesting that high-ranking females are more attractive as social partners. "This suggests that grooming isn't directed to higher-ranking animals for exchanging rank-related benefits such as food or protection, as has been found in primates, but rather is used to strengthen social bonds and promote affiliation within the group," said Hodgson. The team also found that the neck and head were the most commonly groomed regions for the cattle, whereas fewer allogrooming events were performed on the legs and belly. "Social behaviors such as grooming or dominance are crucial in developing and maintaining herd relationships for farmed and feral cattle," said Professor Flay. "These preferential interactions are important to understand, as they can affect cattle and other ruminants' health, such as parasite burdens and infectious disease transmission." The takeaway from the study is that these preferential allogrooming patterns improve our knowledge of sex-specific interactions and help us to understand the dynamics of agonistic and affiliative behaviors in multi-male, multi-female, ungulate groups. "These results are essential for understanding patterns of positive social relationships and what good welfare means for cattle, especially when they are free to choose with whom to interact," said Professor McElligott. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Astrobotic Technology's latest space-related venture won't take it far from home. The lunar tech company is pitching a plan to build a new four-story facility next to its North Side headquarters on North Lincoln Avenue as part of a bid to "establish a new space campus for Pennsylvania." Astrobotic outlined the basics of the proposed development in a request for $6 million in state redevelopment assistance capital grant funding. According to its application, the North Side startup intends to demolish an existing building next to its headquarters to clear the way for the construction of the $18 million building. Astrobotic plans to dedicate one 29,000-square-foot floor of the new facility to tenants that are engaged in space medical research, space test equipment and defense space programs. It will take 39,000 square feet in the structure, which will be connected to its current headquarters. "Altogether, the completion of this $18 million facility project will establish a new space campus for Pennsylvania," the application stated. Astrobotic added that it wants to build the new complex to help capitalize on the momentum generated by four missions to the moon currently under contract and to "expand into new commercial and [U.S.] Department of Defense space programs." "At the same time, we also seek to grow the local economy by subleasing to new space organizations at this facility (companies, nonprofits, and government agency offices) as well as new office space tenants to the region," the application explained. Astrobotic declined comment on the proposed new facility. Audra Mitchell, a company spokeswoman, said that the plans "are in progress and not fully confirmed, so we do not want to provide information that proves to be inaccurate." In its application, the company stated that it's poised to add 200 new highly skilled "spacecraft" jobs through the opening of the new facility. The building also would host the Keystone Space Collaborative, a nonprofit that represents space-related industries in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and its partners. Astrobotic described the requested $6 million in state redevelopment assistance funding as a "critical component of the overall financial viability of the project." Its application is one of 132 countywide for state redevelopment assistance capital grants. The combined requests total $538.7 million. The $6 million requested by Astrobotic would be used for construction costs as well as soft costs such as design, engineering, permits, and insurance. "In addition to creating new jobs itself, the project will help to attract new businesses to [the] area, thus generating even more employment opportunities and revitalization for the region," the application stated. The new facility is being advanced at a time when Astrobotic also has been considering plans to convert a five-story warehouse at 1106 Reedsdale St., just blocks from its headquarters, into office and lab space. It purchased that property for nearly $2.6 million in March 2023 because it was running out of space at its headquarters. Ms. Mitchell couldn't say Tuesday howor ifthe plans for the new facility on North Lincoln would affect the warehouse renovations. "One of the things that has yet to be confirmed is if there will be any impact on the Reedsdale project," she said. The warehouse is located within the Keystone Space and Defense Innovation District planned for the North Side. The district would house a space and defense industry cluster, including the Astrobotic headquarters. When the district was first announced last June, John Thornton, Astrobotic CEO, vowed that his firm would be "at the crosshairs" of efforts to redevelop the Manchester-Chateau neighborhood. Astrobotic, a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff, moved into its North Lincoln headquarters in October 2020. It paid $3.85 million for the 47,000-square-foot building, which once served as a post office and a bakery. The structure includes areas to build and test landers and rovers and a mission control center to operate the technology as well as space for employee offices and equipment. Astrobotic launched its first lunar lander, Peregrine, into space in early January. But the mission didn't go as planned, with a propulsion failure preventing Peregrine from reaching the moon. Nonetheless the company was able to salvage part of the trip by getting the lander pointed toward the sun, allowing some of its payload customers to start gathering the data they wanted. 2024 PG Publishing Co. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Hotspot analysis of reported sightings from 2001 to 2020. Credit: Medina, Brewer & Kirkpatrick. Scientific Reports (2023) In July of 2023, retired commander in the U.S. Navy David Fravor testified to the House Oversight Committee about a mysterious, Tic Tac-shaped object that he and three others observed over the Pacific Ocean in 2004. The congressional hearings riveted the world by bringing Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) out of the "alien truther" realm and into the mainstream. "This [Tic Tac-shaped object that] had just traveled 60 miles inless than a minute, was far superior in performance to my brand-new F/A-18F and did not operate with any of the known aerodynamic principles that we expect for objects that fly in our atmosphere," claimed Fravor. As sensor technology has advanced and personal aircraft use has skyrocketed, our ability to explain strange events has become harder to resolve. The U.S. Department of Defense has increasingly taken UAP, formerly known as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), as a serious threat to national security. A new study led by University of Utah geographers attempts to understand if local environmental factors increase or decrease the number of sighting reports. The authors used data from the National UFO Research Center, and included approximately 98,000 total sighting reports over a 20-year period, from 2001 to 2020. In July of 2023, retired commander in the U.S. Navy David Fravor testified to the House Oversight Committee about a mysterious, Tic Tac-shaped object that he and three others observed over the Pacific Ocean in 2004, off the coast of San Diego. According to his testimony, the object traveled 60 miles per hour in less than a minute and "did not operate with any of the known aerodynamic principles that we expect for objects that fly in our atmosphere." Credit: United States Navy For each county in the contiguous U.S., the researchers analyzed two conditions: Sky view potential, which refers to the area's light pollution, cloud cover and tree canopy cover; and the potential for objects to be present in the sky, meaning the proximity to airports and military installations. The majority of sightings were in western parts of the U.S. due to the region's physical geographylots of wide-open spaces and dark skies. UAP-reporting hotspots had credible relationships with air traffic and military activity, suggesting that people are spotting real objects, but not recognizing what they are. "The idea is that if you have a chance to see something, then it's more likely that you're going to see unexplained phenomena in the sky," said Richard Medina, associate professor of geography at the University of Utah and lead author of the study. "There's more technology in the sky than ever before so the question is: What are people actually seeing? It's a tough question to answer, and it is an important one because any uncertainty can be a potential threat to national security." Understanding the environmental context of these sightings will make it easier to find explanations for their occurrence and help identify truly anomalous objects that are a legitimate threat. The paper was published in the journal Scientific Reports. Timeline of the National UFO Research Center reported sightings from 2001 to 2020. Credit: Medina, Brewer & Kirkpatrick. Scientific Reports (2023) Hot spots and cold spots The authors looked at the number of sightings per 10,000 people per county and identified significant clusters of low numbers of reports (cold spots) and high numbers of reports (hot spots). There were far more sightings reported in the West and in the very Northeast, along some isolated areas. The cold spots were in the central plains and the Southeast. All results except for cloud cover supported the general hypothesis that people will see things when there's an opportunity. "The West has a historical relationship to UAPArea 51 in Nevada, Roswell in New Mexico and here in Utah we have Skinwalker Ranch in the Uinta Basin and military activity in the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground," said Medina. "Plus, there's a robust outdoor community that recreates in public lands year-round. People are out and looking skyward." Traditional academia has mostly avoided UAP research because of the stigma of flying saucers and space invaders. Yet people around the world continue to spot unexplainable objects in the sky. What little research exists tends to rely on firsthand accounts or look for cultural and psychological explanations, which limits the ability to analyze patterns over a large area. Additionally, legitimate data sources and questionable accounts have limited rigorous study. The authors note that the National UFO Research Center's data is a public, self-reporting system with no real way to verify hoaxes. However, the authors assert that if the data were entirely invalid due to some psychological and sociological cause, then there would be no spatial pattern. But there is. "There are many factors that can contribute to the report of anomalous objects," said Simon Brewer, associate professor of geography at the U and co-author of the study. "By examining the spatial distribution of reports and how they relate to the local environment, we hope to provide some geographical context that may help resolve or understand reports by both the public and in military settings." Roswell, X-Files and Starlink In July of 2022 the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, directed the establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) as the single authoritative UAP office to lead and synchronize a whole government approach to the issue. Earlier UAP tracking efforts include Project BLUE BOOK, a U.S. Air Force-led project that investigated UFO sightings between 1947 and 1969. Project BLUE BOOK's most famous report is the Roswell, New Mexico, incident alleging that a flying saucer crashed in the desert town on July 8, 1947, and its alien occupants were recovered by government officials. Many Roswell residents witnessed the unexplainable event, which may have led to the flurry of flying-saucer-sightings that swept the nation. Silence from government officials led to wild speculation of otherworldly visitors and subsequent coverups. Later, the U.S. Air Force disclosed that the incident was caused by a classified, multi-balloon project to detect Soviet nuclear tests. Many UAP sightings have a natural explanationthe planet Venus is a regular culprit, for example. The last few years have seen a boost in UAP reports, likely related to the exponential growth in spacecraft launches and orbiters, such as the Starlink satellite-train blazing across the night sky and the ubiquity of personal drones. The challenge is to parse which reports signal a real threat. The authors are exploring whether there are temporal considerations for fluctuations in sightings, based on socio-cultural triggers. For example, were there more reports after the congressional hearings in July of 2023 or after a Space X launch? They're also investigating whether sociocultural factors influence UAP sightingsis there a spike in reports after a show like "X-Files" gets popular? Are some cultures more likely to see UAPs because of their beliefs? "The U.S. governmentthe military, intelligence and civil agenciesneeds to understand what is in the operating domains to ensure the safety and security of the nation and its people," said Sean Kirkpatrick, first director of the AARO, adjunct assistant professor of physics at the University of Georgia and co-author of the study. "Unknowns are unacceptable in this age of ubiquitous sensors and data availability. The scientific community has a responsibility to investigate and educate." More information: R. M. Medina et al, An environmental analysis of public UAP sightings and sky view potential, Scientific Reports (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-49527-x The Memory Care Center at The Glen at Hiland Meadows has not been able to fill the available units for people with Dementia, Alzheimers, and similar memory conditions, due to the need for staff, despite having been open for a year, officials have said. Andrea Herbert, executive director of The Glen, spoke to the Post Star about the issue. When we had a market study done in 2016, there was a need for at least 100 additional units of memory care in the area. So, we decided to start with 30 based on what we could handle operationally, Herbert said. We are definitely seeing the demandthe applications for memory care [rooms]. The staff to provide the care is what is the challenge. We are increasing our occupancy as we increase our staff. In the first four months, we could have filled every room if we had the staff. The Glen at Hiland Meadows opened their Memory Care Center last fall. The Post-Star reported recently that the Memory Care Center received a donation to assist in funding for its residents. According to the Glen, the Glens Falls area needs healthcare workers, and with an ever-growing aging population, without workers, living communities such as those at The Glen cannot reach capacity, despite the demand. Its significant. not buildings , , . It is not just healthcare for memory conditions. According to the Glens Falls Hospital, there are currently 399 total full-time vacancies, including roles in clinical, environmental services and facilities, nutritional services, and administrative positions. Paul Simeca, chief executive officer of Glens Falls Hospital said they are in high need of all kinds of workers. Caregivers across every sector of healthcare, whether its home care, acute care, office space care, long term care theres just not enough caregivers, Smeca said. For the Glens Falls region, the needs for memory loss care are substantial. As we are in a population that continues to age, and as every day we learn more and more about memory and the impact on the overall health status of an individual, we have to make sure that is something we address with every patient that comes our way, Scimeca said. The Glens Memory Care Center is in a direct response to the need for a memory loss care community, and the overall needs are broad and go beyond health care providers, including the need for mental stimulation, interaction with others, generally for socialization are part of the solution. The value of socialization in slowing the disease is significant. Interaction with different people, the socialization, even exposure to different activities, it mentally stimulates the brain, so it helps fight against that disease process which helps people stay longer in that mild to moderate stage of care and not move as quickly to a nursing home, Herbert said in an interview. COVID brought elevated feelings of isolation and loneliness during the mandated quarantines, and with it, the ability to relate to many in our aging community. We saw during COVID, people who had very mild dementia, it escalated so much faster. We saw it definitely impact people, Herbert said. According to results from the Amsterdam Study of the Elderly, feeling lonely rather than being alone is associated with an increased risk of clinical dementia in later life and can be considered a major risk factor that, independently of vascular disease, depression and other confounding factors, deserves clinical attention. Loneliness is a possibility for anyone, regardless of independent or assisted living. Whether youre at home or in an assisted living facility, its important to ensure that you have a mechanism to interact with others, Hogan OConnor said. The understanding of the significance of socialization has come with the increased understanding of memory loss within the past few decades. The brain is 40% There are 70 different conditions that can mimic dementia Thats why it is so important to get a clinical assessment. Hogan OConnor said. Many things have changed for how caretakers approach care for those with memory loss, and we continue to learn more and more as time passes. ATLANTIC CITY The consultant who led the citys reentry program for months, and who is barred from public employment due to a 2005 bribery conviction, has not been paid by the city or by the nonprofit the city had said he was working for, officials confirmed Wednesday. Cornell (Davis) and the city, from my perspective, put the cart before the horse, said Ren Parikh, founder of Ideal Institute of Technology in Pleasantville. He was working and referring and providing services. But we dont have an agreement or anything to pay him. Davis and Mayor Marty Small Sr. have said Davis was providing services to the city through an arrangement with Ideal. Davis could not be reached Wednesday, as his mobile phone canceled calls made to it. Parikh said he was subpoenaed by the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office, which is investigating Davis role in the city, and told them he didnt know who was paying Davis. Ideals $65,000 contract with the city is for training 20 people who have had contact with the justice system to reintegrate into the community, not to provide a leader for the reentry program, Parikh said. Our contract was finalized with Ideal in December, Small said Wednesday. What Ideal and Cornell worked out was between them. Davis is no longer leading the reentry program, Small said, adding the decision does not reflect the city or Davis doing anything wrong. Atlantic City faces a myriad of issues as State of the City approaches Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. has said he will make some big announcements at this year's State of the City address. But will they be big enough to draw attention away from lingering problems and create new optimism for the city? The city asked for Davis to return any city equipment in his possession because of the alleged cloud over his involvement with a city program, Small said. First of all, Cornell Davis is not, never was and never can be a city employee due to his restriction from a prior conviction in public office, Small said Wednesday. Davis was convicted of taking a $2,200 bribe while president of the Atlantic City school board in 2005 and sentenced to five years in prison. As a result, he is barred from public employment for life. However, that infraction happened nearly 20 years ago. Cornell has had difficulty obtaining steady employment because of that. Ive never seen anything like this where people are making it difficult for a Black man to feed his family, Small said. He was hoping to have a contract, but I dont have enough (grant funding) to have a full-time dedicated employee there, Parikh said of Davis. I like his passion and the work hes done while working there in whatever the capacity. Parikh said he is considering a contract with Davis but first has to obtain grant funding to be able to pay him. In January, after news broke about an investigation by the Prosecutors Office into Davis role in the city and into another reentry employees hiring, Small said the city had done nothing wrong and had cleared its actions with the state. A spokesperson for the state Department of Community Affairs, which has oversight of the city under a 2016 takeover law, declined to comment then on whether the state believed the hiring was proper, and could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday. New Atlantic City councilman pleads for giving ex-convicts like him another chance New Atlantic City Councilman George "Animal" Crouch asked to make a statement and encouraged the city not to reject people like him who have made mistakes but have since turned their lives around. Prosecutor William Reynolds said Wednesday he does not comment on ongoing investigations. On Wednesday, Small reiterated there was a memorandum of agreement with Ideal that did not include Davis name, but he would give no more details about it. Cornell didnt murder anyone, Cornell is very intelligent and he is passionate because of his own experience not being able to obtain steady employment because of a crime, Small said. All he wanted to do is help the reentry population. Small called the criticism about Davis working as a consultant for the city hypocrisy. No matter who you are, if you did the crime and did your time, youve got every right to mainstream back into society, but I guess the rules are different for some people, Small said. Last time I checked, this is 2024, but we are still dealing with the same problems we dealt with in the 1960s. This is a glaring example, and people need to be ashamed of themselves. The citys reentry and anti-violence programs are funded by a $2 million Anti-Violence Out-of-School grant awarded by the Department of Community Affairs, city spokesperson Andrew Kramer has said. GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP Stockton University will host its annual Weekend in the Pines next weekend. Activities begin March 9 with the Pinelands Short Course, a daylong event featuring 30 educational presentations that will explore the areas history, ecology, culture and music. Stockton University is excited to host the 35th annual Pinelands Short Course, interim Provost Marissa Levy said Tuesday in a news release. We are very proud that Stocktons Galloway campus is located on 1,600 acres within the Pinelands National Reserve, and this event showcases many of the amazing aspects of our home. Presentations will include The Lenape People and Colonists in Early South Jersey, Time for Moths, Paddling in the Pines: An Introduction to Kayaking and Canoeing in the N.J. Pine Barrens, The People of Double Trouble Village and Weather in the Pinelands. Vendors and nonprofits also will be set up in the Campus Center. Were thrilled to offer such an abundance and diversity of presentations, said Susan R. Grogan, executive director of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission. This years event will once again raise awareness of the Pinelands and inspire the public to explore and learn more about a region that is unlike any other. Advocates line up for and against road use plan for Wharton State Forest Advocates for motor vehicle access in Wharton State Forest say a map of 200 miles of dirt roads eliminates far too many routes, while preservationists like the plan. A public comment period is underway. The Short Course will run from 9 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. To register, visit stockton.edu/continuingstudies/pinelandsshortcourse.html. Lines on the Pines, which honors the culture of the Pine Barrens, will take place March 10. More than 80 vendors will showcase their art, books and crafts in the Campus Center from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The theme of the event will be Bugs & Insects of the NJ Pine Barrens. Several bands, including the Groggy Pine Boys, the Acoustic Musicians Guild, Jackson Pines and Sounds of the Dulcimer will perform during the event. Hands-on displays, crafts and activities for children will be available. Lines on the Pines is free and open to the public. For more information, visit linesonthepines.org or stockton.edu/lines-on-the-pines. LOWER TOWNSHIP Its not supposed to happen in a small town. But it did. And 30 years later, David C. Douglass Jr. continues to work through what happened the day his father died in the line of duty, fatally shot by a burglary suspect. There are a few details left to uncover, such as what caused a jam in David C. Douglass Sr.s service weapon that prevented him from getting off more than one round in the exchange of fire with Chung Ho that February day in 1994. He had already been struck by a bullet from Hos .38 caliber handgun, receiving the wound that would kill him. Ho shot first, then Dad returned fire, Douglass Jr. said. There was a struggle at some point. They were in a wooded area. At the end of March, after decades in prison, Ho will be eligible for parole. Along with the 30th anniversary of Douglass Sr.s death and his sons ongoing work on a documentary about the slaying and the investigation that found his killer 150 miles away in New York City, Douglas Jr. has had a physically and emotionally draining time. He has traveled to multiple states working on interviews for the documentary. He remembers being at a friends house when he heard about his fathers death. Ive been reliving it for a year now, he said in an interview this week. Now a 15-year veteran officer in the Cape May County Sheriffs Office and still living in Lower Township, Douglas Jr. feels like he has healed. But the emotion shown by the officers he interviewed who worked on the case never fails to break him up, sometimes from an officer who never met his father. It will never go away, he said. When police Chief Bill Priole retired in 2022, he was the last officer in the Lower Township Police Department on active duty to have worked with Douglass Sr. In Lower Township, the story has never been forgotten. Lower Township to commemorate 30th anniversary of police officer's death A flag-raising ceremony will be held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of Lower Township police Officer David C. Douglass Sr. at 10 a.m. Feb. 18 at the Town Bank Volunteer Fire Company. Every year, the township remembers Douglass Sr. with a flag-raising ceremony at the Town Bank Volunteer Fire Company, where he volunteered as a firefighter. A popular waterfront park on the edge of the Cape May Canal bears his name, as does the David C. Douglass Veterans Memorial School. Its important to remember the sacrifice of someone who dedicated his life to protecting the people of Lower Township, police Deputy Chief Donald Vanaman said. Vanaman also wants people to understand that terrible things can happen in a small town. It can happen. It did happen, Vanaman said. Each year, Douglass Sr.s widow, Debbie Douglass, and their children attend the flag raising. A trailer for The Man Behind Badge 134 was recently posted to YouTube by No Luck Productions. It includes archival news coverage and recent interviews with Douglass Sr.s friends and colleagues in the Police Department, including the chaos of having a house fire at the same time an officer had been shot. Douglass Jr. said he had long thought about a film about his fathers death and the investigation that followed. He learned that a childhood friend, John Gambles, was trying to put together a production company. They set up a meeting. At first, Douglass Jr. considered a scripted piece, possibly a film. I told him I think this would be really awesome as a documentary, said Chance Meeting, who along with Gambles founded the Virginia-based No Luck Productions. It just snowballed from there. Filming began a little more than a year ago, on the previous anniversary of the murder. Theyve traveled to New York, Florida and elsewhere for interviews about the case, which one detective described as the case of a lifetime. Douglass Jr. said they still have a lot of work to do on the film. They hope to wrap up the additional interviews in the coming months and edit over the summer, to be ready to work on how to distribute the finished film in about six months. We plan to premiere it in town, Meeting said. Details posted on the website of the Police Department describe Douglass Sr. responding to a call about a suspicious person in the Town Bank neighborhood Feb. 18, 1994, a Sunday. Police said the man had just burglarized a home and set a fire. As he pursued a burglary suspect on foot, the suspect turned and shot him, the site reads. Officer Douglass was able to return fire, striking the suspect in the hand and was able to make it back to his patrol car to call for assistance, but did not survive the attack. Months of intensive investigation by the Police Department and other agencies led to the arrest of Ho in New York that April. He later pleaded guilty to felony murder. He is currently in East Jersey State Prison in Middlesex County. Ho, who is also known as Chung Hop, will be eligible for parole for the first time March 31, a little less than 30 years after he entered prison. He will be 80 this summer, according to state prison records. The Douglass family plans to speak against parole at a hearing in March, open only to family members. Douglass Jr. said Hos family can visit him in prison, but the Douglass family can only visit their husband and father at a gravestone. Reports from Hos sentencing in 1995 state that he was born in China and his father had been beaten to death by Communists. He fled to the United States, where he married and obtained citizenship. He lived in New York when police caught up with him weeks after the shooting. He had formerly worked at a restaurant in Cape May and, according to testimony, was seeking revenge on the owner of the restaurant when he broke into the house and started a fire. At the time, Ho did not speak English, relying on an interpreter in court to translate between English and Cantonese. Douglass Jr. hopes to interview Ho for the film, to get yet another view of the moment that changed his life and ended his fathers. Ho would have to agree to the interview for it to take place, Douglass Jr. said. Three decades after his death, Douglass Sr. remains a beloved figure in Lower Township. A new generation of officers may never have worked with him, but many of their parents did. Police work often runs in families. This is a small town, Vanaman said. Others remember him from the skating events he and his wife put on at the Cape May Convention Hall, or through other community events. We all knew Dave Douglass, even if we didnt work with him, Vanaman said. 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. After Gov. Phil Murphy unveiled his $56 billion budget plan Tuesday, top Republicans criticized the spending proposals new tax on about 600 businesses to fund NJ Transit, a $2 billion drop in the states surplus, and changes to school funding that they say would leave more than 100 schools with less in state aid. So while all sounds rosy when you hear the governors budget address, the legacy this administration is going to leave is tragically squandered opportunities that we may never get back in the course of our lifetimes, Sen. Declan OScanlon (R-Monmouth) told reporters after Murphys speech. They argued the record spending represented by Murphys budget plan is due to years of one party Democrats calling the shots. Sen. Tony Bucco (R-Morris) said thats not the way it should operate. Assemblyman John DiMaio called Murphys spending plan the opposite of affordability, adding that the few crumbs people receive from the Anchor tax rebate program will be erased by rising costs for families. Sen. Jon Bramnick (R-Union), who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor next year, echoed the concerns about one-party rule in Trenton. History has shown us, over the next few months, Democrats will add hundreds of millions of dollars for pet projects in their communities. These budget add-ons do not make New Jersey stronger, only more expensive, he said in a statement. Lawmakers added $1.5 billion onto last years budget in the final hours before its adoption without a clear explanation of where the money was going. Republicans on Tuesday added that they dont believe the Murphy administration will be able to follow through with the StayNJ property tax relief program, which aims to cut seniors property tax bills in half. Under Murphys current budget plan, the states surplus would drop below a level required by the StayNJ legislation. GOP lawmakers said they predict there will be an even smaller surplus in 2026, when the first payouts under the program are expected to be delivered and Murphy will be out of office. Thats unfair to let people think theyre going to get this when the reality is, will we be able to afford it? Most likely not, Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz (R-Union) said. Murphys speech touted that his budget plan would fully fund the states funding formula for local school districts for the first time. But though the budget plan increases overall school funding, GOP lawmakers said they expect to see more than 100 school districts lose funding as part of the formula. The kids in those school systems, the parents in those school systems, they dont think this is stronger and fairer, said Bucco, using one of Murphys commonly used slogans. District-level state aid figures are expected to be released in the next few days. Bucco, the chambers minority leader, also voiced concerns over the states reduced surplus, which would fall from the $8.1 billion in the current year budget to $6.1 billion. And DiMaio faulted Murphy for the $4 billion the state needlessly borrowed in the early months of the pandemic when state officials believed they would need more revenue. OScanlon, who serves on the Senates budget committee, predicted Murphy will leave the state with a larger budget problem than the one the state was facing when the governor took office in 2018, which OScanlon called a tragedy (Murphy in his speech noted that the state has seen seven credit rating upgrades in the last two years). Meanwhile, Bucco said he hopes Republicans arent shut out of the budget process this year. We get invited all the time, but when we get to the table, nobodys there. Its just us, Bucco said. Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman who lost the 2021 governors race to Murphy and is expected to launch a 2025 campaign to succeed him, criticized the spending plan as one that does not improve the economic stability of the state. Instead, he suggested the budget is about helping first lady Tammy Murphys flailing campaign for the U.S. Senate. The budget is a betrayal of what the Gov promised the states business community just weeks ago, Ciattarelli said on social media. Shame on him and shame on anyone who votes for it. This story first appeared on the New Jersey Monitor. CAMBRIDGE The Granite City man charged with murder in the April 29, 2022, death of Knox County Deputy Nicholas Weist went on trial Tuesday in a Henry County courtroom. Defense attorney Bruce Carmen told the jury that Daylon K. Richardson, 24, wasn't trying to kill anybody when his Ford Taurus struck and killed Deputy Weist on Rt. 150 near Alpha in Henry County. He was not trying to kill anybody. He was not trying to hurt anybody, said Carmen in his opening statement to the jury. He's just trying to get away and he does something stupid. Richardson faces four counts of murder in connection with the traffic death where Deputy Weist was laying down stop sticks to end the pursuit from a Galesburg gas station where Richardson was spotted with a firearm. In her opening statement, Henry County State's Attorney outlined the pursuit and said that at the close of evidence she would be asking the jury to find Richardson guilty of murdering Deputy Weist. She noted the Galesburg police officer who initiated the pursuit of Richardson saw him fire a gun through his rear window and three shell casings and a gun were later recovered. Charges were later amended to add two new counts of murder including the allegation that the deceased officer had been performing his official duties, which would enhance the penalty for a conviction from 20 to 60 years to natural life in prison. Also on Tuesday, Lt. Carl Kraemer of the Knox County Sheriff's Department testified he had been the one to authorize Deputy Weist to deploy the stop sticks. He said that happened 18 to 20 minutes after Weist's shift technically ended at 8 a.m., but the officer had never advised a 10-42 indicating he was done or off shift. Further, he said officers are generally paid overtime when they work beyond their shift. Weist was the one to bring up the suggestion of stop sticks and to say that he was in the vicinity of the pursuit, Kraemer said. Officer Jared Tapscott of the Galesburg Police Department testified regarding his pursuit of Richardson vehicle's, saying it traveled at a fairly constant speed of 100 to 110 miles per hour. Before they left Knox County, he saw gunshots fired through the rear windshield. Officer Tapscott radioed that an officer was down before getting out of his squad to chase down Richardson, whom he left with another officer to go and check on Deputy Weist. He did not observe any signs of life in the officer. Carmen asked for a standing objection to the mention of gunshots being fired during the pursuit in Knox County. Judge Norma Kauzlarich noted Carmen had brought up two similar motions in limine during pre-trial hearings and she had issued oral and written rulings denying both. Jurors also watched squad car videos taken by Tapscott of the chase from Galesburg and by Deputy Weist himself. The latter showed the officer putting out the stop sticks and just seconds later, the Richardson vehicle blowing into them in what must have been just seconds before the impact. The jury also heard several stipulations including the testimony of Henry County Coroner Melissa Watkins who pronounced Weist dead at the scene and Amanda Youmans of Peoria, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy which found Weist's death was caused by multiple blunt force trauma consistent with being struck by a vehicle. Richardson also faces charges in Knox County, including attempted murder. One city's surprising tactic to reduce gun violence: Solving more nonfatal shootings One city's surprising tactic to reduce gun violence: Solving more nonfatal shootings Other cities have woken up to Denver's example The trial of a Rock Island man accused of a fatal August shooting began Tuesday. Glen J. Evans Jr., 19, Rock Island, faces a single count of first-degree murder, according to court records. Authorities allege he killed Zavion A. McNair, 19, on Aug. 19, 2023, at a house party in the 2000 block of 33rd Street in Rock Island. Proceedings began Tuesday afternoon with initial statements from Assistant States Attorney Jessie Brockway and Kelvin McCabe, of the Rock Island County Public Defenders Office. Such statements outline what attorneys think evidence presented at trial will show. Brockway argued security camera footage literally recorded Evans standing over McNair and shooting him. McNairs body had multiple gunshot wounds, many of them in his back, the prosecutor said. Investigators think a bullet that struck the back of his head, and another that entered his abdomen and lodged in his spine were the ones that killed him. During his statements, McCabe argued the case before the court is whether or not his client acted in self defense. The evidence will show the two were quarreling that morning over a gun Evans accused McNair of stealing from him, McCabe said. McNair, McCabe said, shot first, wounding Evans. The entire encounter unfolded in a matter of seconds, McCabe said, and Evans did not get shot, leave, then return and shoot McNair. Investigators believe Evans took a gun that McNair dropped after he was shot, according to previous reporting. McCabe argued that was evidence of self defense. Evans had already been shot. He did not want to be shot again. McNair died on the way to the hospital, police said previously. Evans, shot in the leg, was treated and released. Both attorneys made their arguments to Judge Daniel P. Dalton rather than a jury. Evans opted for a bench trial, which means Dalton, not jurors, will decide his culpability once testimony is concluded. The Rock Island County States Attorneys Office initially charged Evans on Aug. 21 with second-degree murder, according to previous reporting. Underlying that charge was the allegation that Evans thought the circumstances he found himself in would justify the killing or exonerate him, according to previous reporting. Prosecutors alleged that belief was not reasonable. The states attorneys office amended the charge to first-degree murder on Aug. 25, according to previous reporting. When Brockway and McCabe finished their opening statements Tuesday afternoon, Rock Island Police Detective Luke Serra took the stand as the first prosecution witness. Serra spent much of his time on the stand answering questions about the security camera video, as Brockway played it for Dalton in the courtroom. The video showed the front porch and stairs of the residence, as well as the yard and the nearby street. Throughout the video, people including two that Serra identified as Evans and McNair interact with one another and others at the party. During the final parts of the video shown on Tuesday, there is the sound of gunfire. People scream then some run out of the house. One them is the person Serra identified as McNair. He falls down the porch stairs to the concrete path, where he remains prone. The person Serra identified as Evans follows and stands over McNair, fires several more shots at the prone body, grabs something that Serra told the court was thought to be a firearm from near the body. Evans then walks through the yard out of view. Serras testimony Tuesday occurred while Brockway questioned him. The defense has not yet cross-examined the detective. Dalton halted proceedings about 3 p.m. The trial is expected to resume Wednesday, beginning with further testimony from Serra. Evans is the son of Rock Island County Republican Central Committee Chairman Glen J. Evans Sr., according to previous reporting. This Saturday, the annual Bett STEAM Expo will offer more than 30 interactive exhibits and activities for families keen on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The event will run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Bettendorf Middle School, 2030 Middle Road, and is free for all children and families. Additionally, Bettendorf High School's Donald A. Schaefer Planetarium will present shows for the public at noon and 1 p.m. Guests are asked to enter through the main doors of Bettendorf High School, 3333 18th St., and follow the signs. Sheila Ion, Bettendorf Community Schools Foundations 2024 Science Scholar, will visit with guests at the STEAM Expo. Ion is the Corporate Food Safety Quality Assurance Manager for JBS USA, a Colorado-based company. For the full list of exhibitors, visit www.bettendorf.k12.ia.us/page/bett-steam-expo. The district first launched the Bett STEAM Expo in 2006, initially as a science fest coordinated by two Bettendorf moms. After a few years, it expanded to a public event at Bettendorf Middle School. Photos: Third-place matches at the Iowa Class 3A Bettendorf District wrestling tournament (Feb. 10, 2024) DES MOINES A proposal to require hospitals and blood banks to comply with all patients requests for blood donations from a specific donor was squashed Tuesday by Republican state lawmakers in the Iowa House. The bill would have required hospitals and blood banks to honor any blood transfusion patients request for a blood donation from a known donor, like a family member, unless there was an imminent risk to the patients life. Medical organizations and blood banks were uniformly opposed to the proposal, saying it would endanger patients health and create logistical problems for blood banks. The legislative proposal recently passed the Iowa Senate, with only Republican support. But after hearing from representatives of blood banks, hospitals, and individual health care experts during a legislative hearing Tuesday at the Iowa Capitol, Iowa Rep. Steven Bradley, a Republican from Cascade and the leader of the three-member legislative panel considering the bill, announced he does not support it and that it will not advance in the House, effectively killing it for the 2024 legislative session. Bradley noted in addition to the testimony he heard during Tuesdays hearing, he also heard from two more experts: his two nephews who are physicians. When I showed them this bill, they said we dont need this bill, Bradley said. The bill had been proposed by Sen. Jeff Edler, a Republican from State Center, who said it was proposed after guidance issued by the federal Food and Drug Administration related to direct blood donations. Edler characterized his proposal as a simple way to honor Iowans individual health care choices. In October 2023, the FDA issued a warning against websites that offer the delivery of blood from individuals who had not been vaccinated for COVID-19, and said that seeking direct blood donations based on the donors specific characteristics, like vaccination status, sexual orientation, gender or religion, lacks scientific support. I will say there are plenty of evidence-based reasons for why we dont do routine direct donations, said Rep. Austin Baeth, a Democrat from Des Moines who was on the legislative panel and is a physician. And then theres also just logistical reasons to be able to manage all of a sudden a ground swell of people who want to have their blood now banked, the capacity to be able to store that, and then knowing that the shelf life of a unit of red blood cells is maximum 42 days. Tuesdays legislative hearing drew medical officials from both ends of the career spectrum to testify in opposition: Samuel Choice, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Iowa, and Bob Shreck, a hematologist with 40 years of experience as a physician and former director of a blood center. Choice said the proposal would have required physicians to violate their code of ethics, which calls for them to do no harm, because direct blood donations carry a higher risk of transmitting infectious diseases, according to the FDA. I appreciate that you are thinking about the autonomy of patients and the rights that they have, but I dont think this bill is actually doing right by them. Youre asking doctors to be impelled by the government to give care that they know is demonstrably worse, Choice said during the public testimony period of the hearing. Its as if you were going in for a surgery and your patient said, I really dont want you to wash your hands before you do this surgery. Why should a physician, who knows that thats worse for you, be impelled by the government to do something that would be worse for their patient and cause them severe harm? Other groups that testified against the proposal Tuesday included the American Red Cross, Iowa Medical Society, LifeServe Blood Center in Des Moines, and ImpactLife blood banks, which has two locations in Cedar Rapids and one in Iowa City. Bradley, Baeth and Rep. Tom Moore, a Republican from Griswold, all declined to advanced the bill, Senate File 2369, essentially disqualifying it from further consideration this session. Demand for these health care jobs is increasing most in each state Demand for these health care jobs is increasing most in each state Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming A 35-year-old Rapid City woman pleaded not guilty Tuesday morning to charges accusing her of abusing six different children over a six-month span. Amethyst Thompson was charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse, two counts of aggravated assault, and four counts of child abuse. The Jan. 17 indictment alleges Thompson committed the crimes between Dec. 2, 2021 and May 29, 2022. The alleged victims ranged between the ages of four and 13 during that time frame. The aggravated child abuse counts stem from Thompson's alleged abuse of the two children who were under seven years old. The aggravated assault charges alleged she strangled the four-year-old and the 13-year-old. The four counts of child abuse alleged she victimized the four children who were over seven years old. Aggravated child abuse and aggravated assault are both class 3 felonies with a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine. Child abuse is a class 4 felony with a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. Circuit Court Judge Robert Gusinsky told Thompson she could face a total of 100 years in prison and an $80,000 fine. Thompson said she understood the allegations and the potential penalties she could face upon conviction. She is held on a $5,000 cash only bond. Thompson is scheduled to appear in court at 9 a.m. April 9 for a motions hearing. The Bitterroot National Forest (BNF) will be accepting applications for new wildland firefighters (entry-level, permanent positions) from March 4-15. The Forest Service will also host an in-person hiring event at the Supervisors Office, 1801 N. First Street in Hamilton on March 12 from noon to 7 p.m. Interested applicants will have the opportunity to meet with recruitment officers and experienced wildland firefighters and learn more about working on a fire crew and how to apply for these positions. These GS-3/4 positions allow for paid training and travel, competitive pay (including overtime and hazard pay), and federal employee benefits, such as medical and retirement according to a BNF statement released Wednesday. Additionally, these positions enable employees to gain experience and knowledge necessary for higher level positions in fire management. "This unique opportunity allows anyone with no previous experience to begin a career as a permanent employee with the Forest Service," the statement read. "In the past, firefighter career paths started with a temporary-seasonal position as an entry-level wildland firefighter or dispatcher. For anyone who may have missed the original hiring timeline for entry-level fire positions or did not hear back about a job offer, this hiring event is another chance to apply for a wildland firefighter or dispatcher position on the BNF." Wildland firefighters are also planning to attend the Ravalli County Career Fair at Hamilton High School on March 13 to meet with Bitterroot Valley high school students interested in working for the Forest Service. While it is not necessary to attend an in-person event to apply, it is highly encouraged so that applicants can meet with hiring officials and learn more about the application process and job requirements. For additional information contact Matt Young, Deputy Fire Staff Officer at 406-493-4391 or matthew.young@usda.gov, or visit fs.usda.gov/bitterroot. A 56-yerar-old man accused of raping a 7-year-old girl in Butte pleaded not guilty Wednesday after requesting that his attorney appear next to him at the Butte jail. The attorney, Angie Rolando, had asked that Raul Beltran be allowed to attend the arraignment via Zoom from the jail and not be forced to attend an in-person hearing. In District Judge Robert Whelans court, most jail inmates agree to appear for arraignments via video from the Detention Center. When Beltrans case was called, he was there but Rolando was in court. At Beltrans request, Rolando walked to the jail and sat next to her client and both appeared via Zoom. Beltran is charged with sexual intercourse without consent, or in the alternative, sexual assault. He pleaded not guilty to both Wednesday. Sexual intercourse without consent, with the ages involved in this case, carries a maximum sentence of 100 years in prison with no possibility of parole for the first 25 years. Sexual assault in this case is punishable by up to life in prison or 100 years. Beltran was previously convicted of incest involving a 13-year-old girl in Helena in 2005. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with 20 of them suspended, and was paroled in late 2020. According to prosecutors, Beltran performed oral sex on a 7-year-old girl in Butte and had her do sex acts to him. The girls parents believe the alleged rapes occurred recently because they found a video the girl had taken of her vaginal area on Jan. 15 to see what it looked like and she told them about the incidents. Police arrested Beltran on Jan. 20 and prosecutor Ann Shea filed initial rape charges the next day. They did not provide details but Shea relayed specifics of what she believed happened in recently filed documents. Beltran remained in the Butte jail after Wednesdays arraignment with bail set at $500,000. Even if he is able to post it, the Montana Department of Corrections has a hold on him because of possible parole violations and he would remain in DOC custody pending further proceedings. Richmond police investigators have charged a students family member after the student brought a firearm to an elementary school last week. At approximately 2:56 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 20, officers were called to Oak Grove/Bellemeade Elementary School, at 2409 Webber Ave., for the report of a firearm on school property. Officers arrived and staff at the school reported they were made aware of a juvenile student who had been in possession of a firearm in the school. Richmond Public School staff members found the firearm and turned it over to RPD officers. Officers found ammunition in the magazine of the handgun. There were no injuries. On Wednesday, investigators charged Cornelius Robinson, 59 a family member of the student with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Anyone with further information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000 Richmond is dedicating 10 acres in the citys historic Shockoe Bottom to preserve and develop a destination to acknowledge and teach about the city's sordid history with slavery. The announcement came Tuesday at Main Street Station when several key local and state officials, along with historians and community activists, met to unveil the Shockoe Project plans. The plans, which have been in the works for nearly 15 years, call for developing the area that neighbors the train station between Main and Broad streets into an interactive indoor and outdoor educational experience largely based on community engagement and input. Burt Pinnock, lead architect on the project, said once constructed, it will be the largest historical project the city has seen. Its proposed location, by coincidence, will be at 1619 E. Broad St. 1619 was the year the first enslaved Africans in North America arrived in Virginia. The Shockoe Project is our Smithsonian, Pinnock said. This space is our National Mall. The project will feature memorials to the African Burial Ground, as well as to the estimated 300,000 enslaved people sold and traded in the region. There will be a gateway pedestrian bridge, green spaces and walking trails. There also will be access to the Lumpkins Slave Jail and a designated place in Main Street Station for the Shockoe Institute. The institute, with an $11 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, was tasked with creating and establishing a site and program to explain Richmonds history. It intends to transform nearly 12,000 square feet of Main Street Station into an educational facility for visitors within the next year. This will be the first step of the planned Shockoe Project. Marland Buckner, president and CEO of the Shockoe Institute, called the project a mission to understand the enduring impact of the domestic slave trade. Between now and our opening next year, we are working with a host of partners from London to Los Angeles to create and showcase content that, more than simply acknowledging our past, uses a deeper understanding of our past to confront todays challenges, Buckner said. The plan's anchor would be the citys decades-long project: the National Slavery Museum, which carries with it a $225 million price tag. The city is currently scoping out places in the district to anchor the museum. This could be done using eminent domain, city officials said. Were choosing to uplift Richmonds full history and use its unique position to tell a national, and even global, story of how slavery was integrally connected to the complex evolution of this countrys history, economy and culture, Mayor Levar Stoney said. For decades, several different organizations have worked on the preservation of many key historical sites. Lumpkins Jail, also known as the Devils half acre, was the largest slave trade site outside of New Orleans before its liberation in the late-1800s. It served as a holding facility for enslaved people before being sold. The Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground at 1554 E. Broad Street was the first municipal cemetery for free and enslaved people and was active from 1799 to 1816. It also housed the city gallows. It was replaced by the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground and later was paved over for parking. This project will see years of extensive research, archeological discoveries and grassroots efforts combined in one central location to tell a more complete and immersive story. We reside in a city that has a very complicated and dark history, Stoney said. Its a history that has scars and scar tissue. Its a history that has been figuratively and literally paved over ... Im proud to say that we have a collective path forward to change. Richmond City Councilmember Cynthia Newbille, who has worked extensively to help bring this plan to fruition, referred to each component as a patchwork square. "Now, we now have a quilt, Newbille added. Stakeholders anticipate this project will help tell a more inclusive history, but some in City Hall have expressed concerns with the plan. Primarily, the sites location. The Shockoe Valley rests within a floodplain and Shockoe Bottom is the lowest elevation in the city. In 2022, FEMA updated its national floodplain mapping, which sees Shockoe Bottom at risk for further flooding in the next 100 years. The area also is home to a floodway, which is an area of a floodplain where water flows most turbulently during flash floods, according to FEMA reports. As a result, it has placed challenges on design development and will likely result in higher mitigation costs. However, this hasnt deterred city officials from continuing with the plan. Im ready to cut the ribbon," Newbille said. "You all saw the plans. I'm ready for the ribbon." Today in history: Feb. 27 1807: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1933: Reichstag 1973: Wounded Knee 1991: George H.W. Bush 1998: Queen Elizabeth II 2017: Wilbur Ross 2020: Stocks 2021: Johnson & Johnson A Maryland man pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to arranging the illegal straw purchase of 33 guns from multiple Virginia firearms dealers including a gun shop in Henrico, according to court records. Authorities say 17 of those guns have been recovered in connection with criminal activity or from (other) individuals prohibited from possessing firearms. Investigators said Melvin Nose Plowden, 34, was forbidden to purchase firearms due to a prior felony conviction. Between October 2019 and June 2020, Plowden skirted the prohibition by recruiting a co-conspirator to buy dozens of guns on his behalf from at least six separate firearms dealers around Virginia, including New American Arms located at 6017 West Broad St. in Henrico, according to an indictment filed in December. The co-conspirator, who is not identified in court documents, had no prior felony convictions and held a Virginia drivers license. At Plowdens direction, the co-conspirator would go into the gun stores and call Plowden to receive instructions on which guns to purchase, the indictment says. The co-conspirator would falsely report that he was the actual transferee/buyer of the firearms on forms that gun buyers are required to fill out before turning the guns over to Plowden, the indictment alleges. Plowden then would transfer money to the co-conspirator via CashApp. In the span of eight months, Plowden obtained 33 firearms with the help of the co-conspirator, according to the indictment. Three of those weapons were purchased at New American Arms. Plowden was arrested in June 2020 following an incident in Oxon Hill, Maryland, authorities said. At the time of his arrest, one of the illegally purchased firearms was found in his possession. Plowden is scheduled for sentencing on May 21, according to court records. He faces up to 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and forfeiture of assets connected to the scheme. Cities Where High Earners Pay the Most (and Least) in Taxes Cities Where High Earners Pay the Most (and Least) in Taxes State & Local Tax Revenue Geographic Differences in State & Local Taxes Methodology U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. has endorsed Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal who is running for Congress in Virginias 2nd District, based in Hampton Roads. Smasal, who is challenging Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-2nd, previously was announced among a list candidates to receive investment from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committees Red to Blue program. In Congress, Missy will be a trusted partner to make Virginias 2nd District safer and more affordable, Jeffries said in a statement. Im proud to stand with Missy as we fight to put an end to MAGA extremism and continue to put people over politics. With Republicans holding a slim majority in the House of Representatives, the Democratic organization has its eye on what it sees as flippable seats around the country. Jeffries, the House minority leader could become speaker should Democrats flip the chamber in November. Smasal, like Kiggans, is a Navy veteran. Smasal also is a small business owner. The 2nd is Virginias most volatile congressional district. It has had eight different representatives since 2000 five Republicans and three Democrats. Kiggans ousted Rep. Elaine Luria, D-2nd, in 2022. President Joe Biden carried the district in 2020, a reason that it is among the districts Democrats are targeting in this years elections. Smasal said in a statement that she is thankful for Jeffries and others endorsements. Our district deserves a new representative who will help Coastal Virginians afford basic necessities like groceries and housing, protect our personal freedoms and bodily autonomy, and keep the government open and functioning, she said. Kiggans is a former Navy helicopter pilot and nurse practitioner. Luria, the Democrat she defeated in 2022 is also a Navy veteran. The district, based in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Suffolk, is home to a large portion of Virginias military population. Addressing the concerns of active-duty military and veterans will be a district-specific component of the campaigns of Smasal and Kiggans alongside such national issues as foreign policy, abortion and the economy. At the time of her campaign launch, the National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement calling Cotter Smasal an extreme Democrat. Meanwhile, Congresswoman Jen Kiggans is delivering support for service members mental health and fighting to preserve Medicare and Social Security, said Delanie Bomar, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement. Today in history: Feb. 28 1993: David Koresh 1996: Princess Diana 2009: Paul Harvey 2012: Matt Kenseth 2013: Benedict XVI 2014: Barack Obama 2018: Dicks Sporting Goods 2018: Walmart 2020: Dow Jones 2021: Andrew Cuomo Gov. Glenn Youngkins push to cut regulations he has said stifle Virginia businesses has had some of its most dramatic impact close to home. The time that proposed regulations spend in the governors office now averages just under 14 days down from roughly 240 before Youngkins July 2022 executive order called for a 25% reduction in Virginias regulatory requirements. While there is more work to be done, Im pleased with the progress, Youngkin said. He said the new Office of Regulatory Management he launched last year has reduced burdensome regulations and increased transparency of Virginia government operations. The administration says it has made changes that are saving Virginians time and money. Weve reduced regulatory review times from 241 days to under two weeks, saved hundreds of millions in projected savings, modernized regulations across the Commonwealth, and transformed how Virginians can access regulatory materials, he said. The key is a new landing spot for regulatory proposals, said Andrew Wheeler, director of the regulatory management office. The office is a new branch of the governors office. Wheeler, former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Trump administration, took over as the offices director after the state Senate rejected his nomination as secretary of Natural Resources on a party-line vote. Its having a dedicated team doing the reviews, instead of them been farmed out as they come in and the secretariats acting depending on how important they think any one is, Wheeler said. Although not all agencies have hit an interim goal of cutting regulatory requirement 10% by the end of 2023, all have submitted plans for hitting this years goal of a 15% reduction aiming for that 25% cut by the end of Youngkins term, Wheeler said. Regulation change is typically a two-year process, he said. It takes time to complete. Streamlining efforts so far include the Department of Environmental Qualitys rewrite of some 11,600 pages of manuals for stormwater management, to produce a document thats now about 1,800 pages. With that, the manual has boosted its list of best management practices from 54 to 77 detailing options localities and developers can use can meet state goals for keeping rainfall from picking up pollutants and carrying them to Virginias streams and rivers and Chesapeake Bay. The aim of adding those new best management practices is to offer detailed ways to accomplish the goals set in the regulations, Wheeler said. A lot of what DEQ did was weeding out old guidelines in the manual that were superseded by more recent guidance language. Much the same happened at the Board of Education, which retired some 38 obsolete guidance documents, some 22% of its total. Sometimes, these would conflict with more recent guidance, sometimes people might be looking at an old document instead of the latest to figure out what they needed to do, Wheeler said. In the DEQ case, the agency figured its revision would save it and the entities it regulates some $234 million a year. A smaller change at the Department of Elections dropping the requirement for a witness to sign a mailed-in absentee ballot saved time and headaches for voters that the department calculated translated to $7 million worth of voters time, Wheeler said. The Virginia Marine Resources Commissions new general permit for utility lines crossing above state waters cut the number of forms needed to for those projects, a savings of some $47 million a year, Wheeler said. Meanwhile, all new regulations are coming with a cost impact analysis, which includes a calculation of costs and benefits as well as impacts on families, on small businesses and on local governments and school systems. With that, Wheelers team has put together a 42 page manual for doing that analysis. No other state has anything like it, Wheeler said. Its how to do an economic analysis if youre not an economist a lot of agencies dont have economists on staff what agencies are saying is that it helps them explain why they need a regulation. Lobby Day at the Virginia General Assembly 2024 Cozumel installs 20 facial recognition security cameras Cozumel, Q.R. Cozumel Mayor Juanita Alonso Marrufo says 20 security cameras have been installed in the city. The cameras are complete with facial recognition analytical technology and are expected to be functioning in two weeks with the completion of the C2 facility. Alonso Marrufo personally verified the installation of the video surveillance cameras Tuesday. She carried out a tour of different parts of San Miguel where the cameras are located. Alonso Marrufo explained that in total there are 20 strategic monitoring points throughout the city, which each have three fixed high-definition cameras in addition to a camera with PTZ (pan-tilt) technology with facial recognition. The cameras will allow the city to react immediately to any eventuality. All this for the safety of the community We will continue working for the well-being and tranquility of citizens and visitors, she said. Mayor Juanita Alonso Marrufo toured the areas to verify installation. Photo: H. Ayuntamiento de Cozumel February 27, 2024. Senior Officer Carlos Mendoza Quijano explained that the video surveillance units are systems that are being acquired, not rented as other administrations did, and are part of the Municipalitys assets. He said that also includes the data backup system that is being installed for the formation of C2 inside the Directorate of Public Security and Transit. This is a historic fact because the 39.9 million pesos that are being invested allow the Government of Cozumel and its population to own these devices as well as their operating and storage system, which will reinforce surveillance, he said. Mendoza Quijano says the cameras and software are owned by the municipality, not rented. Photo: H. Ayuntamiento de Cozumel February 27, 2024. The poles as well as the cameras have already been completely installed, leaving only the completion of the monitoring center. Once finished, they will begin testing data reception, which will be in approximately two weeks. In December, Cozumel announced a budget of 39.9 million on security cameras. The latest 20 cameras are in addition those being installed by the State Government. Marina rescues three drifting fishermen off island of Cozumel Cozumel, Q.R. Three Cozumel fishermen were returned to land by Mexican Marina personnel Tuesday after being adrift at sea. The three men were located three nautical miles (approximately five kilometers) north of Cozumel Island. The Secretary of the Navy, acting as Coast Guard reported personnel from the Fifteenth Naval Zone rescued the three fishermen at sea after receiving a distress call at the Naval Search, Rescue and Maritime Surveillance Station (ENSAR) of Cozumel. The call indicated that three men of Mexican nationality were on board a small fishing vessel named Esmeralda, which was adrift in the vicinity of Punta Norte of Isla Cozumel due to a failure in its outboard motor. To safeguard human life at sea, the immediate departure of a Defender vessel from the Naval Search, Rescue and Maritime Surveillance Station (ENSAR) of Cozumel was ordered, which located the vessel with its crew members on board. Three Cozumel fishermen were returned to land after being found adrift Tuesday. Photo: Semar February 27, 2024. Vessel Esmeralda was towed to the dock of the Naval Station where the crew members were treated by Naval Health personnel who provided first aid, finding them stable with signs of mild dehydration and heatstroke. They were later received by the Harbor Masters Office of Cozumel Island for the corresponding procedures. Mexicos SRE meets with Peoples Republic of China Mexico City, Mexico On Tuesday, Foreign Minister (SRE) Alicia Barcena Ibarra met with the Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Peoples Republic of China, Hua Chunying. Both sides met within the framework of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which this year celebrates its eleventh anniversary. The head of the SRE welcomed the results of the strategic partnership between both countries and recalled the solidarity between Mexico and China. In particular, the support for the acquisition of goods for those affected by Hurricane Otis. Prior to the meeting, the designated Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Maria Teresa Mercado Perez, and the Assistant Minister, Hua Chunying, co-chaired the bilateral Political Consultations Mechanism. The officials highlighted the excellent political dialogue and the reactivation of face-to-face meetings and exchange of visits. In particular, they highlighted the first meeting of Presidents Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Xi Jinping, within the framework of the meeting of leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC), in San Francisco in November. They also highlighted the visit to China by Secretary Barcena Ibarra last December, where she met with Vice President Han Zheng, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Secretary of Commerce, Wang Wentao. At the bilateral level, they emphasized the evolution of trade exchanges and investment flows and recognized that the cooperation agenda is an area of opportunity. Likewise, they agreed to continue working together to identify potential niches of interest that benefit their population. The officials also addressed the situation in Latin America, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, and talked about the work carried out within the framework of the G20 in which Mexico and China actively participate. China is Mexicos second trading partner worldwide and the main one in Asia-Pacific. From January to November 2023, bilateral trade amounted to $114,158.5 million dollars. New Chinese automaker sets one dealership in each state goal for Mexico Mexico City, Mexico Chinese car manufacturer Jaecoo is anticipating the sale of 8,000 of their vehicles this year in Mexico. The company is also hoping to expand from its current four state locations to all 32 states along with the possibility of a plant. With the launch of its Jaecoo 7 all-terrain vehicle, the Jaecoo brand joins the car companies from China that have arrived in Mexico in recent years. The Chinese auto manufacturer Jaecoo, sister brand of Omoda and part of the International Chirey Group, officially began sales this month with the launch of the all-terrain vehicle. Gabriel Rios, Jaecoo Vice President, says the company is hoping to win over young Mexican buyers. We have a very ambitious plan. In fact, in 2024, we are aspiring to sell between 5,000 and 8,000 units. It is a little premature to talk about exact figures, but we do have a very strong ambition, he said during a Jaecoo Mexico interview. The Mexican market is very strategic for us, not only for Chirey but for Jaecoo. Mexican buyers have a more open mind to accept the new. We are very confident that Omoda Jaecoo will be accepted by Mexicans, added Shawn Xu, Vice President of Chery International and CEO of Jaecoo International. The automaker is currently in talks with various federal and state government representatives to develop a brand in Mexico, which includes building up to 40 distributors. If successful, Jaecoo could also build a plant on Mexican soil. We are studying the selection of the site. We have a couple of options here, we are going to continue studying. Different levels of government, federal and state, have supported us. We have a plan for a technical team to come from China to Mexico to carry out studies here, so this year we will have the project concluded, commented Alex Lee, Business Director of Chirey Mexico. Currently, they have dealerships in four states but are looking to expand into every state in Mexico. Jaecoo shipped an initial 500 units of their all-terrain vehicle to distributors in Jalisco, Guanajuato, Puebla and CDMX. Rios added that this is the beginning of a new stage for us. With the opening of these dealerships, we show our commitment to being able to offer Jaecoo in different parts of the Republic, and this is just the beginning since our goal for 2024 is to have 40 dealers, at least one in each state. Pair each sentenced to 50 years for Bacalar kidnapping Bacalar, Q.R. A man and woman have each been sentenced to 50 years for the kidnapping of Bacalar man in 2021. The sentence was handed down Tuesday by a Chetumal judge who found both Zacarias N and Juana N guilty of aggravated kidnapping . The State Attorney General Office obtained a conviction of 50 years in prison for Zacarias N and Juana N after being found criminally responsible for the aggravated kidnapping of a Bacalar man in September 2021. The events occurred when the male victim was accompanied by workers from his ranch located in the municipality of Bacalar, where two people arrived aboard a motorcycle, carrying firearms, who violently deprived him of his freedom, taking him away in his vehicle to an unknown destination. Subsequently, relatives of the victim received telephone messages in which, through pressure mechanisms, they demanded payment of a financial amount for the victims ransom, the State Attorney General reported in a statement. An Oral Trial judge issued the conviction and subsequently, in the hearing to individualize sanctions and reparation of damage, the jurisdiction issued a conviction with a penalty of 50 years in prison against Zacarias N and Juana N, for the crime of aggravated kidnapping, in addition to imposing a fine in the amount of 350,480 pesos to compensate for the damage, they added. Protesting parents win Chetumal school sewage leak battle Chetumal, Q. R. Protesting parents were finally able to capture the attention of Chetumal school officials after a sewage leak inside bathrooms. Photos of a flooded bathroom floor inside the public school taken last week left parents furious. The group of angry parents demonstrated with signs in front of the State Congress after classes were suspended for several days. On Tuesday, officials from the Institute of Educational Physical Infrastructure (IFEQROO) met at the school to inspect the unhealthy conditions. Last Wednesday, teachers sent the kids home after the septic tank collapsed. The collapse was believed due to overgrown tree roots. Omar Gomez, an IFEQROO Project Manager, said that the sewage lines will be cleared so that the bathrooms operate normally, which will mean students can return to classes. He also noted that the malfunction of the drainage system caused sewage spills in common areas, which will have to be cleaned by the corresponding authorities. Authorities reported working on the sewage repairs to have students back in classes as soon as possible. Photo: February 27, 2024. He said a technical study will help to further diagnose possible failures, meanwhile the primary tasks will be to make the bathrooms operational in the shortest amount of time possible. State Ministry meets with U.S. to promote Costa Maya sugarcane use for ethanol production Costa Maya, Q.R. Quintana Roos Ministry of Ecology and Environment (Sema) attended a U.S. meeting to use Costa Maya sugarcane in its production of ethanol. Huguette Hernandez Gomez, the head of Sema, attended the San Diego-held National Ethanol Conference Tuesday. Hernandez says the goal is to diagnosis of the feasibility of producing ethanol from sugarcane produced in the southern area of Quintana Roo. We are following up on the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed with the North American Grains Council. We went with the Latin American delegation to explore the main points of the production chain and mixture of bioethanol as a component of gasoline to achieve a sustainable future, Hernandez explained. As part of the New Agreement for the Well-being and Development of Quintana Roo, the government seeks to generate opportunities and sustained economic growth through programs and policies aimed at development and economic diversification. Meetings were held with various companies to work in a coordinated manner and carry out joint activities to raise awareness about the participation of subnational governments and productive sectors regarding the reduction of the carbon intensity of transportation fuels with ethanol as part of the solution. Costa Maya sugarcane farmers could benefit from a joint agreement. In Quintana Roo there is a large sugarcane crop that can be used for the production of ethanol. Its use would also provide economic benefits to the traditional Costa Maya sugarcane industry as well other advantages including self-sufficiency, public health and, above all, environmental care, Hernandez said. The National Sugarcane Agroindustry Program is a great step for the adoption of modern fuels in Mexico that can be produced with sugarcane, generating well-being in a sector of the rural population that will have access to energy markets with its products. A class action lawsuit accuses a Roanoke medical practice of failing to prevent a data breach that jeopardized the personal information of more than 147,000 current and former patients. Physicians to Women neglected to take reasonable measures that would have protected its patients from an incident that involved an unknown party accessing its computer network, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke. Individuals names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, financial details and medical information were stolen, the lawsuit states, subjecting them to a lifetime risk of identity theft. Law firms from Richmond and Miami filed the lawsuit on behalf of one woman, but are asking a federal judge to certify it as a class action case, which would allow others to join the proceeding and seek damages. A call to the obstetric and gynecological care practice was not returned Tuesday. But a notice on Physicians to Womens website states that it learned of suspicious activity on its network April 4, 2023, and immediately took steps to secure its system. A data review firm was hired to identify the files affected, and the practice is working to notify as many impacted individuals as possible, the notice states. The number of victims was not mentioned. Physicians to Women said it was not aware of any actual or attempted fraudulent misuse of information as a result of this incident. Notification of affected patients began on Jan. 26, according to the lawsuit. The victims face the risk of having their information sold on the dark web, the lawsuit alleges, and are being forced to regularly check their financial records. Health care records are especially vulnerable to data breaches, accounting for about 18% of the 1,862 incidents recorded in 2021 by the Identity Theft Resource Center. Physicians to Women should have known its information would be targeted by cybercriminals, but failed to follow health privacy rules and guidelines recommended by the Federal Trade Commission, the lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit asks a judge to require the practice to take greater security measures, including encryption of data. It also seeks an unspecified amount of damages for the financial and emotional harm suffered by victims of the theft. Physicians to Women was established in 1940 and provides services to patients in the Roanoke Valley and outlying areas. Learning disruptions brought by cellphone usage can be as slight as students scrolling during algebra lessons, and as severe as school days canceled by anonymous threats on social media. Roanoke City Public Schools experienced a sinister aspect of online communications when threats canceled classes on Thursday and Friday last week. Police arrested two people, an adult and a juvenile, and charged them with felonies. The threats circulating last week also disrupted learning in Montgomery and Roanoke counties. Threats have become a recurring problem throughout state and nation, as school safety remains a national concern. Roanoke Superintendent Verletta White said that anyone who threatens schools will pay consequences. She stepped aside to speak with members of the press during an event Monday. School is for teaching and learning. School is a place where we want to have fun, and where students have a sense of belonging, White said. Anything that jeopardizes that has to be dealt with. The threats that closed Roanoke schools last week came during the final days of a survey seeking parent input on student cellphone usage. The school board is asking people to fill out the survey online at rcps.info, before it closes at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday. But social media is another aspect entirely. Threats can be posted before or after school hours. Sometimes students are not using social media in the right way, White said. Its our responsibility as a community, not just as a school system, to teach our children how to use social media in a responsible way. State law outlines a threat assessment process for Virginia public school systems, White said. We follow that threat assessment process whenever we are presented with any type of a threat, White said. We take every threat seriously. State policies only require parents or guardians of affected students to be notified when a threat is identified, officials said. Roanoke schools procedures go a step further by sometimes notifying the larger community. If its something that is urgent, imminent, or credible or substantive, then we will absolutely let parents know, just as we have done, White said. I have been very clear, though, that we are not going to unnecessarily alarm parents of anything that is clearly a hoax. White said the school system is always going to share as much information as it can to assure the public. But student privacy protections prevent divulging too much detail. Sometimes it would be a lot easier for us to tell everything, but we have a responsibility and an obligation to protect all of our students, White said. That includes sometimes the victims in the circumstance, and sometimes the perpetrators. A Rockingham County middle school evacuated after threats on Tuesday morning. The school will resume its normal schedule on Wednesday, after the issue was resolved, according to media reports. Thats already another example in Virginia of learning disrupted by threats against schools. Not only disruptive, threats like these also take an emotional toll, White said. We have gone to great lengths to keep our students safe, White said. Our school board approved over 25 enhancements and improvements for the physical safety of students, but weve also invested in psychological safety. She said students have access to free counseling through online provider Hazel Health, a new offering from the school system this year. Roanoke Police Department also offered assurance for the schools to reopen safely this week, White said. We know that the trauma is real, not only for our students, but for our staff and, quite frankly, for many of us, White said. Well have to take it one day at a time, knowing that we have great people doing the right work for the right reasons. DALEVILLE A proposal to add a Wawa to the Daleville Town Center got two necessary special use permits from Botetourt County supervisors Tuesday. The supervisors decision allows the Philadelphia-based chain of gas stations and convenience stores to build at the corner of U.S. 220 and Glebe Road on a now-vacant, 2.2-acre site. I just think its in the best long-term interest of the county as a whole, supervisors Chairman Steve Clinton said. Supervisors last month tabled a decision about Wawa after public hearings where residents voiced worries about traffic and more. On Tuesday, Clinton and other supervisors said they were ready to vote in favor of the project. The vote to approve a special use permit for the store was 4-1, with Supervisor Walter Michael voting against it. The vote for a permit to allow the LED sign that Wawa will use to display gas prices passed 5-0. Speaking in favor of the project, Supervisor Amy White and others pointed to what they said was a key concession that Wawa offered after the January tabling of the permit requests Wawa agreed not to be listed on travel services signs on nearby Interstate 81, with the intent of not drawing interstate traffic farther up U.S. 220. Still, residents continued to voice opposition Tuesday, saying the store would add more vehicles to an already clogged U.S. 220. We do not want the Philly fuel-up station. The Wawa is a wah wah, Carey Martell said. Who are you here to help, echoed Jerry Riley, the citizens of the county or the big corporation? Residents have said it makes no sense to build a Wawa so close to already existing gas stations, including Wawa national competitor Sheetz. But Supervisor Mac Scothorn said Tuesday that county officials cannot tell a developer what exactly what type of business to build. Supervisor Brandon Nicely noted that supervisors got an earful earlier in the meeting about the countys recent real estate reassessment and the likelihood of increased tax bills for property owners. Wawa was the type of business that would generate a lot of tax revenue for the county and were going to need it, Nicely said. Michael said that he thought supervisors should support the residents who opposed the development and trust the county Planning Commission, which recommended denying the permit requests. Tuesdays meeting included another look at traffic projections around the store. Mike Bailey, a traffic engineer working for Wawa, walked supervisors through parts of a traffic study that found no need for additional turn lanes or signals. He said that there had been confusion at Januarys meeting about whether the traffic study was based only on vehicle counts provided by the state highway department, some of them years old, and said that his team collected their own data in October 2023. Bailey said that the intersection at the planned Wawa is significantly different than the intersection by the Sheetz store to the south, where Catawba Road runs into U.S. 220. Traffic counts on U.S. 220 at Sheetz are about 27,000 vehicles per day, Bailey said. But at the Wawa site, farther from the interstate, traffic is about 15,000 vehicles per day, he said. As he did last month, Clinton pressed Wawa representatives to make the store a little bit special. He asked for examples of enhancements that Wawa puts in place at some stores, like in Beverly Hills. That prompted laughter and a note that Wawa planned to add an outdoor bench to its Daleville plans. Minimal, then, Clinton said. He said he supported the project regardless, in part because the property Wawa picked has been designated for development for years and sits amid a commercial strip that has been growing for two decades. Theres going to be something there and we can argue whether its going to be better or worse than a convenience store, Clinton said. Legislation to rename Roanokes Poff Federal Building after civil rights lawyer Reuben Lawson passed the U.S. Senate unanimously. The House of Representatives still needs to act on the bill. Virginias U.S. senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, released the following statement Wednesday: We are thrilled that our legislation to honor Reuben Lawsons immense contributions to the civil rights movement and Roanoke community was passed unanimously by the Senate. Mr. Lawson dedicated his life to fighting against segregation, and we urge the House of Representatives to pass this bill to help ensure that his tireless pursuit of justice is remembered across the Commonwealth for generations to come. Lawson graduated from Howard Law School in 1945 and spent his career in Roanoke, working closely with civil rights titan Oliver Hill. Lawson filed the first desegregation case in Southwest Virginia, which resulted in the admission of 13 African American students into Floyd Countys high school, which until then had only admitted white students. Similar efforts then followed in Pulaski, Grayson, and Roanoke counties. Lawson also played a key role in convincing the Roanoke City Council to defy Virginias segregation law in 1961 and integrate Roanokes Victory Stadium. Roanokes federal building is currently named after former Virginia Congressman and State Supreme Court Justice Richard H. Poff, who opposed integration and voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the senators said in the statement. The senators introduced the legislation on Dec. 6, 2023, on what would have been Lawsons 103rd birthday. Ten years into Russias long war against Ukraine, far too many Americans are falling prey to a destructive idea. They needlessly believe that Ukraines defeat is unavoidable. These Americans have lost their bearings. Defeat is never inevitable so long as a nation is willing to fight. George Washington proved this when he crossed the Delaware River. His army refused to quit and America prevailed. In 2024, the United States can enable Ukraine to win by making three crucial changes that Russian President Vladimir Putin will detest. But first, lets bust some myths. Outgunned and outnumbered armies routinely overcome larger opponents. The Taliban outlasted Russia and the United States in Afghanistan. Ho Chi Minh defeated America and France in Vietnam. In his darkest hour, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared never, never, never to Adolf Hitler. Henry V ended the Hundred Years War at Agincourt. And the list goes on. Putin insists he has studied history but demands that we ignore one of its most important lessons. Smaller armies regularly win long wars when they refuse to surrender and the Ukrainians have the home-field advantage in this fight. Another myth is Russias inexhaustible pool of manpower. Neither Russia nor Ukraine have yet to fully mobilize their populations, as England and France did during World War I and the United States during World War II. Kyiv may take this course soon, but it will only harden its populations resolve. Ukrainians know if they stop fighting, they face violent national extermination. They are highly motivated as a result. Meanwhile, Putin fears fully mobilizing his people. He has steadfastly avoided this step despite Russias catastrophic losses. Instead, the Kremlin has replaced its casualties in Ukraine with the countrys provincial poor, its psychopaths and its prisoners during a previous, small-scale recruiting drive. Some Russians are sounding off. They do not want their husbands and sons to die in Putins Ukrainian meatgrinder. Russian polls confirm this view among the wider population. Total mobilization in Russia could imperil Putins rule. So Putin is betting on Western weakness. His strategy anticipates that befuddled Western leaders will tire of the war and appease him. We can and must prove Putin wrong. Heres how: Define victory for US The United States must provide a clear and compelling definition of victory in Ukraine that advances our national interests. The requirements of this victory include the Russian military ceasing to kill Ukrainians, departing Ukrainian territory and not threatening the existence of the country in the future. The Biden administration hasn't explained what victory should look like to the American public. It is an astonishing dereliction. But such a threefold victory is possible for Ukraine. We should say that. Apply strict sanctio ns We also must strangle the Russian war machine. Americas rhetoric on Russian sanctions is very different than reality. Moscow is exploiting the economic and oil loopholes that we created for them. We need to close the pipeline of money that is flooding into the Kremlins coffers. That means ending exemptions such as the G-7s "oil price cap" debacle and applying a maximum pressure campaign on Iran and Russia. Send arms faster Finally, Congress must approve funding to keep Ukraine in the fight including robust training for its soldiers. Meanwhile, the White House must end its maddening policy of too little, too late arms releases to Kyiv. The administration waited nearly a year and eight months to deliver 31 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine. The first deliveries of F-16 fighters will not arrive until this summer. America continues to deny Ukraine access to precision strike capabilities such as the 300 km range ATACMS missile. This is despite repeated pleas by Republican and Democratic senators to do so. Russia will not stop with Ukraine. If we fail to enable Ukraines victory today, we invite endless conflict in Europe tomorrow. Ukrainians have demonstrated their willingness to die for their freedom. By making these three critical changes, Ukraine can and will win. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California's state Capitol works and why it matters. Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. The natural substance called mad honey (or "deli bal" in Turkish) is simply honey produced by bees that gather nectar mainly from the flowers of certain rhododendron species, particularly Rhododendron ponticum. These flowers contain grayanotoxin, a neurotoxin with psychoactive effects that's toxic to humans in high doses. When bees collect nectar from these rhododendron flowers, they transfer the grayanotoxin to the honey they produce, giving it hallucinogenic properties. Local honey hunters then collect and distribute this hallucinogenic honey. Advertisement Mad honey differs from regular commercially available honeys (including raw honey) in that regular honey does not contain grayanotoxin and therefore does not produce honey-induced hallucinations. When it comes to the availability of mad honey, Nepal and Turkey are famous for producing the curious substance. While it's legal to purchase mad honey in the United States, other countries like Australia and South Korea have banned the hallucinogenic honey. Nepalese mad honey can fetch as much as 80 USD per pound on the black markets in such countries. If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE). Traffic police officers escort 165 students through snowy mountains to school in NW China's Xinjiang People's Daily Online) 13:21, February 28, 2024 On Feb. 22 at the start of the school semester, a fleet of 45 vehicles carrying 165 students from four villages arrived at the central primary school in Xihexiu township, Yecheng county, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region after passing through two 4,000-meter-high snow mountains in a five-hour trip. A fleet of 45 vehicles carrying 165 students from four villages arrives at the central primary school in Xihexiu township, Yecheng county, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Media convergence center of Yecheng county/Ma Jiabing) The previous day, the township arranged snow blowers to clear snow along the way and worked with the traffic police department of Yecheng county to escort the students back to school. There is only one winding and precipitous mountain road leading to the four villages in Xihexiu township. Located 165 kilometers away from the county seat, the township is nestled in the hinterland of the Kunlun Mountains. With an altitude of over 3,500 meters, it is surrounded by mountains, most of whose peaks are covered with snow the whole year. A skid-steer loader clears snow on a mountain road in Xihexiu township, Yecheng county, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Media convergence center of Yecheng county/Ma Jiabing) The township has nine administrative villages scattered across mountain valleys, with the farthest village being over 200 kilometers away from the township government. Middle school students in Xihexiu township also need to go to school in the county seat. Whenever a semester starts, the traffic police of Yecheng county will escort students to school on a 3,500-meter-high road with over 60 turnings. Teachers help students carry their luggage at the central primary school in Xihexiu township, Yecheng county, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (Media convergence center of Yecheng county/Ma Jiabing) (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) DAKOTA CITY -- A South Sioux City man is charged with a hate crime for making racial slurs prior to allegedly assaulting his sister. Keith Claypool, 55, is charged in Dakota County Court with first-degree assault as a hate crime and knowing and intentional abuse of a vulnerable adult. Judge Edward Matney on Tuesday set Claypool's bond at $300,000. Claypool was arrested Saturday after his 45-year-old sister reported the alleged assault to the Dakota County Sheriff's Office. According to an arrest affidavit, Claypool had gone out to eat with his sister and another woman. While they were having drinks, Claypool's sister had about an hour-long conversation with a Black man. While driving to his sister's home in Jackson, Claypool began directing racial slurs toward his sister. Once home, Claypool directed another racial slur toward his sister and that she "needed to go back to Hawaii." Claypool's sister told him this wasn't his house, and he then punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground. She got up, pushed Claypool out of the way and he punched her in the face and knocked her to the floor a second time. As the sister was crawling out of the room, their mother entered and began pulling Claypool off of his sister. Claypool pushed his 72-year-old mother down on the floor, causing bruising on her arms. Claypool then kept punching his sister in the face. His mother was able to pull him off and take her daughter to the hospital. Deputies located Claypool in South Sioux City home, according to the affidavit, he told them his sister had punched him in the face, so he pushed her down and she hit her head on the corner of a dresser. Deputies said they found no signs that Claypool had been struck in the face. LAKE PARK, Iowa An Okoboji, Iowa, man died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a confrontation with two other people in a rural Lake Park home Tuesday. In a post on its Facebook page, the Dickinson County Sheriff's Office said it was notified of the shooting after receiving a call from Lakes Regional Healthcare, where a man later identified as 46-year-old Nakoma Wells had come to the emergency room with gunshot wounds. Law enforcement officers meeting with Wells at the hospital learned he had been shot at a home at 1818 130th Street in rural Lake Park. According to the sheriff's office, Samuel Stoller, 32, of Okoboji, had entered the home and confronted Wells and Kristina Ritzer with a hangun before shooting Wells in the arm and torso. Wells fled the home and drove himself to the hospital. Ritzer was not harmed. Sheriff's deputies and officers from other law enforcement agencies arrived at the shooting scene, where Stoller was contacted by phone and urged to surrender. Stoller then shot himself. He was transported to Lakes Regional Healthcare and transferred to a Des Moines hospital, where he died. SIOUX CITY Sioux City Superintendent Rod Earleywine said the district does not want to lose the Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, but could due to a lack of military instructors. "We want to continue the program, but right now we don't have instructors to do so," he said. "We do not want to get rid of it." The superintendent said there are rumors that the district wants to eliminate program, which he said are untrue. Earleywine said the program is required to have two instructors who have to meet requirements set by the U.S. Air Force and are approved by the USAF. This year, the program had only one instructor, which put the district's program on probation. For the next school year, no instructors have been hired. The instructor has to be a member of the Air Force, they cannot be someone from a different branch of the military. The individual does not have to have a teaching degree. JROTC Misty Cadets Sioux City Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps IA-20151 Misty Cadets instructor Lt. Col. Larry Brockshus leads cadets through an a The district does advertise the position and has received applications, but the information must be sent to Col. Johnny McGonigal at the Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, Earleywine said. "Right now, we have zero qualified applicants for those two positions," he said. Students will be allowed to include JROTC in their schedules for next year, but the program could be removed anytime up to the first day of school if instructors are not found, Earleywine said. Board member Dan Greenwell asked if they receive one instructor, will they be allowed to continue the course. Earleywine said they will petition the Air Force to allow the district to continue the program with one. The Sioux City School District's JROTC program started in 2015. In December 2014, the district announced it was one of two selected nationwide by the Air Force to incorporate the program into its curriculum for the 2015-16 school year. NEW YORK With presidential primaries underway across the U.S., popular chatbots are generating false and misleading information that threatens to disenfranchise voters, according to a new report based on the findings of artificial intelligence experts and a bipartisan group of election officials. Fifteen states and one territory will hold both Democratic and Republican presidential nominating contests next week on Super Tuesday, and millions of people already are turning to artificial intelligence-powered chatbots for basic information, including about how their voting process works. Trained on troves of text pulled from the internet, chatbots such as GPT-4 and Googles Gemini are ready with AI-generated answers, but prone to suggesting voters head to polling places that dont exist or inventing illogical responses based on rehashed, dated information, the report found. The chatbots are not ready for primetime when it comes to giving important, nuanced information about elections, said Seth Bluestein, a Republican city commissioner in Philadelphia, who along with other election officials and AI researchers took the chatbots for a test drive as part of a broader research project last month. An AP journalist observed as the group convened at Columbia University tested how five large language models responded to a set of prompts about the election such as where a voter could find their nearest polling place then rated the responses they kicked out. All five models they tested OpenAIs GPT-4, Metas Llama 2, Googles Gemini, Anthropics Claude, and Mixtral from the French company Mistral failed to varying degrees when asked to respond to basic questions about the democratic process, according to the report, which synthesized the workshops findings. Workshop participants rated more than half of the chatbots responses as inaccurate and categorized 40% of the responses as harmful, including perpetuating dated and inaccurate information that could limit voting rights, said the report, released Tuesday. For example, when participants asked the chatbots where to vote in the ZIP code 19121, a majority Black neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia, Googles Gemini replied that wasnt going to happen. There is no voting precinct in the United States with the code 19121, Gemini responded. Testers used a custom-built software tool to query the five popular chatbots by accessing their back-end APIs, and prompt them simultaneously with the same questions to measure their answers against one another. While thats not an exact representation of how people query chatbots using their own phones or computers, querying chatbots APIs is one way to evaluate the kind of answers they generate in the real world. Researchers have developed similar approaches to benchmark how well chatbots can produce credible information in other applications that touch society, including in healthcare where researchers at Stanford University recently found large language models couldnt reliably cite factual references to support the answers they generated to medical questions. OpenAI, which last month outlined a plan to prevent its tools from being used to spread election misinformation, said in response that the company would keep evolving our approach as we learn more about how our tools are used, but offered no specifics. Meta spokesman Daniel Roberts called the findings meaningless because they dont exactly mirror the experience a person typically would have with a chatbot. In some responses, the bots appeared to pull from outdated or inaccurate sources, highlighting problems with the electoral system that election officials have spent years trying to combat and raising fresh concerns about generative AIs capacity to amplify longstanding threats to democracy. In Nevada, where same-day voter registration has been allowed since 2019, four of the five chatbots tested wrongly asserted that voters would be blocked from registering to vote weeks before Election Day. It scared me, more than anything, because the information provided was wrong, said Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat who participated in last months testing workshop. The research and report are the product of the AI Democracy Projects, a collaboration between Proof News, a new nonprofit news outlet led by investigative journalist Julia Angwin, and the Science, Technology and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, led by Alondra Nelson, the former acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Most adults in the U.S. fear that AI tools will increase the spread of false and misleading information during this years elections, according to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. And attempts at AI-generated election interference have already begun, such as when AI robocalls that mimicked U.S. President Joe Bidens voice tried to discourage people from voting in New Hampshires primary election last month. What the Biden administration's new executive order on AI will mean for cybersecurity What the Biden administration's new executive order on AI will mean for cybersecurity A benchmarking initiative from the Departments of Commerce and Energy Training record transparency Annual CISA risk reports Treasury Department best practices for managing cybersecurity in financial institutions Potential regulations for using AI in health care settings Incorporation of AI in federal government operations with CISA guidance Biden defeated Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, his one significant opponent left in the Democratic primary. But Democrats were also closely watching the results of the uncommitted vote, as Michigan has become the epicenter for dissatisfied members of Bidens coalition that propelled him to victory in the state and nationally in 2020. The number of uncommitted votes has already surpassed the 10,000-vote margin by which Trump won Michigan in 2016, surpassing a goal set by organizers of this years protest effort. As for Trump, he has now swept the first five states on the Republican primary calendar. His victory in Michigan over his last major primary challenger, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, comes after the former president defeated her by 20 percentage points in her home state of South Carolina on Saturday. The Trump campaign is looking to lock up the 1,215 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination sometime in mid-March. Both campaigns are watching Tuesdays results for more than just whether they won as expected. For Biden, a large number of voters choosing uncommitted could mean hes in significant trouble with parts of the Democratic base in a state he can hardly afford to lose in November. Trump, meanwhile, has underperformed with suburban voters and people with a college degree, and faces a faction within his own party that believes he broke the law in one or more of the criminal cases against him. Biden has already sailed to wins in South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire. The New Hampshire victory came via a write-in campaign as Biden did not formally appear on the ballot after the state broke the national party rules by going ahead of South Carolina, which had been designated to go first among the Democratic nominating contests. Both the White House and Biden campaign officials have made trips to Michigan in recent weeks to talk with community leaders about the Israel-Hamas war and how Biden has approached the conflict, but those leaders, along with organizers of the uncommitted effort, have been undeterred. The robust grassroots effort, which has been encouraging voters to select uncommitted as a way to register objections to his handling of Israels ongoing war in Gaza, has been Bidens most significant political challenge in the early contests. That push, which began in earnest just a few weeks ago, has been backed by officials such as Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman in Congress, and former Rep. Andy Levin. Our Revolution, the organizing group once tied to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had also urged progressive voters to choose uncommitted Tuesday, saying it would send a message to Biden to change course NOW on Gaza or else risk losing Michigan to Trump in November. Trump won the state by just 11,000 votes in 2016 over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and then lost the state four years later by nearly 154,000 votes to Biden. Organizers of the uncommitted effort wanted to show that they have at least the number of votes that were Trumps margin of victory in 2016, to demonstrate how influential the bloc can be, and they reached that figure not long after the first round of polls in Michigan closed at 8 p.m. Trumps dominance of the early states is unparalleled since 1976, when Iowa and New Hampshire began their tradition of holding the first nominating contests. He has won resounding support from most pockets of the Republican voting base, including evangelical voters, conservatives and those who live in rural areas. But Trump has struggled with college-educated voters, losing that bloc in South Carolina to Haley on Saturday night. Earlier Tuesday, Trump predicted in an interview with a Michigan radio station that he would win by a vast margin. I mean, Nikkis not even a factor," he told WJR-AM. "Shes gonna lose like by 80 points tonight or something. Shes become a joke." But Haley campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said the Michigan results were a flashing warning sign for Trump in November. Let this serve as another warning sign that what has happened in Michigan will continue to play out across the country. So long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will keep losing to the socialist left. Our children deserve better. Still, even senior figures in the Republican Party who have been skeptical of Trump are increasingly falling in line. South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican who has been critical of the partys standard-bearer, endorsed Trump for president on Sunday. Still, Haley has vowed to continue her campaign through at least Super Tuesday on March 5, pointing to a not-insignificant swath of Republican primary voters who have continued to support her despite Trumps tightening grip on the GOP. She also outraised Trumps primary campaign committee by almost $3 million in January. That indicates that some donors continue to look at Haley, despite her longshot prospects, as an alternative to Trump should his legal problems imperil his chances of becoming the nominee. Two of Trumps political committees raised just $13.8 million in January, according to campaign finance reports released last week, while collectively spending more than they took in. Much of the money spent from Trumps political committees is the millions of dollars in legal fees to cover his court cases. With nominal intraparty challengers, Biden has been able to focus on beefing up his cash reserves. The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced last week that it had raised $42 million in contributions during January from 422,000 donors. The president ended the month with $130 million in cash on hand, which campaign officials said is the highest total ever raised by any Democratic candidate at this point in the presidential cycle. The Republican Party is also aligning behind Trump as he continued to be besieged with legal problems that will pull him from the campaign trail as the November election nears. He is facing 91 criminal changes across four separate cases, ranging from his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, to retaining classified documents after his presidency to allegedly arranging secret payoffs to an adult film actor. His first criminal trial, in the case involving hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels, is scheduled to begin on March 25 in New York. Live results: Whos running for president? See the latest rundown of major 2024 candidates Donald Trump Joe Biden Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Jill Stein Cornel West Whos dropped out? Dean Phillips State lawmakers continued debate over a proposed repeal of Nebraska's inheritance tax on Tuesday, but did not reach a vote on the bill or any amendments. The bill (LB1067) from Sen. Rob Clements of Elmwood would phase out the inheritance tax over a period of five years, completely eliminating it by the end of 2028. Clements, a banker and tax preparer, said the "tax on death" was driving people from the state, adding his proposal to repeal the tax would make Nebraska more favorable for individuals to stay after retiring. A pending amendment seeking to bring more lawmakers on board with the proposal also sought to raise the reimbursement rate the state pays to counties to house prisoners from $35 per day to $100 per day. And to make up some of the revenue counties would lose by the elimination of the inheritance tax, Clements also sought to allow counties to use lodging taxes for reasons beyond tourism and promotion. The three-in-one proposal led Lincoln Sen. Danielle Conrad to raise concerns about the bill attempting to do too many things at one time. Conrad filed a motion to divide the bill into separate parts last week, but she later withdrew that motion after Clements offered an amendment leaving the provisions over the lodging tax dollars unchanged. On Tuesday, Day 34 of the 60-day session, supporters of Clements' bill said it was time for Nebraska to join the growing ranks of states without an inheritance tax. Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard said the Legislature should have ended the tax during the COVID-19 pandemic when counties received an infusion of federal relief dollars, and Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn said the inheritance tax was just one more way for the government to reach into the pockets of Nebraskans. "You pay taxes your whole life and then when you die, your heirs pay taxes again," Linehan said. But opponents of the bill, many from rural parts of the state, said while they were generally against inheritance taxes, they would begrudgingly support it in lieu of county boards raising property taxes. "If we do away with it, it's eventually going to turn up as a property tax," said Sen. Mike Moser of Columbus. Moser and several other senators said they could support Clements' bill if it included state funding to replace the lost revenue source to counties. Sen. Myron Dorn of Adams said he was "100% for eliminating the inheritance tax," but like Moser had concerns about what it would do to counties who use it to fund special projects or make one-time purchases of equipment. Dorn also pointed out the inheritance tax was collected by the counties and not the state, as is the case where the tax exists elsewhere in the U.S. And Sen. Tom Brandt of Plymouth, echoing Moser, said doing away with the inheritance tax would cause county boards to raise property tax levies in order to make up the losses. The Legislature did not reach a vote on any of the amendments or the underlying bill on Tuesday. It's likely debate over LB1067 will continue through Thursday, when the first-round debate will reach the eight-hour time limit. Meet the Nebraska state senators making laws in 2024 SHIZOUKA, Feb 28 (News On Japan) - The world's largest gold nugget, certified by Guinness World Records, is currently on display in Izu, weighing in at 250 kilograms. The giant nugget was successfully cast by Mitsubishi Materials in June 2005, when the gold market price was 1,600 yen per gram, giving it an approximately value of 400 million yen at the time. The gold market price has since exceeded 10,000 yen per gram, bringing the market value of the nugget to 2,715,250,000 yen as of February 26. The nugget is currently on display at the Toi Gold Mine tourist facility in Izu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, where visitors can actually touch the precious metal. Kokubun Ayumu, Section Chief at Toi Gold Mine, expressed his astonishment, "I am simply amazed at the 2.7 billion yen value. If this trend continues, it might reach 3 billion yen by summer. However, the rise in gold prices is partly due to global uncertainties, so it's a mixed feeling of joy." Perry Lutheran Home, and (inset) Stacyville Community Nursing Home. (Photos via Google Earth) Two Iowa nursing homes have been cited by the state for contributing to the deaths of residents injured in falls at the facilities. The Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing says that Perry Lutheran Home in Dallas County failed to provide adequate nursing supervision to prevent injuries sustained by two residents late last year, one of whom later died. Separately, DIAL inspectors allege that Stacyville Community Nursing Home in Mitchell County failed to provide a safe environment for its residents. On Oct. 12, 2023, a female resident of the home was found on the floor near her bathroom, bleeding from the head. She was taken to a hospital, lapsed into a coma, and died two days after the fall. A physician reportedly told state inspectors the woman suffered a brain bleed that was either caused by her fall or was the reason for her fall. A state fine of $5,000 was imposed. The Stacyville home has a three-star overall rating from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, but a one-star rating CMS lowest possible score for staffing levels. Since January 2022, the non-profit home has been fined nine times by CMS, according to the agency. In the Perry Lutheran Home case, DIAL inspectors allege that a female resident of the home, known to be at a high risk for falling, fell nine times at the facility over an eight-week period in late 2023. After the ninth fall, the home allegedly failed to provide consistent neurological checks to rule out a brain injury. Eventually, the woman was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with brain damage that led to her death days later. According to the state inspectors, the official cause of death was a subdural hematoma related to a fall at the nursing home. Around the same time, another resident of Perry Lutheran Home sustained her fourth fall, which resulted in a broken leg and hospitalization. In that case, state inspectors allege the home failed to complete a thorough and in-depth analysis of the cause the fall and failed to implement effective interventions to prevent additional incidents. A proposed state fine of $9,250 for failing to provide residents with a safe environment was tripled to $27,750, but was then suspended pending a determination of whether a federal fine would be imposed. In addition, proposed state fines of $500 for failing to inform the state of a major injury sustained by a resident was held in suspension, as was a $9,750 proposed state fine for failing to provide residents with the required level of nursing services. In November 2023, the state proposed and then held in suspension a fine of $17,050 for resident abuse and failure to provide residents with a safe environment. Inspectors alleged that the staff at Perry Lutheran Home had failed to notify the homes administration of incidents of a sexual nature between a male resident who was seen attempting to kiss, hug and grope a female residents breast. The female resident was deemed incapable of consenting to sexual contact. Despite the facility learning of the incident and watching the video, the facility reported they felt the incident did not need to be reported, inspectors alleged. Inspectors noted that months before that incident, the same male resident was found in the bed of a different female resident. When the woman began yelling for the man to get out of her bed, he allegedly became angry and grabbed the woman by her neck before the two were separated by a worker. Currently, Perry Lutheran Home has an overall rating of one star from CMS. The most recent federal fine that was imposed against the facility was a $994 penalty imposed in 2022, according to CMS records. The facility, located at 2323 E. Willis Ave., is operated by the non-profit Lutheran Home for the Aged Association. It is a physically separate facility from the Perry Lutheran Home Eden Acres campus, formerly known as Rowley Memorial Masonic Home. DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won the Michigan primaries on Tuesday, further solidifying the all-but-certain rematch between the two men yet early results from the state were highlighting some of their biggest political vulnerabilities ahead of the November general election. A vigorous uncommitted campaign organized by activists disillusioned with Biden's handling of the war in Gaza was making headway. It had already far surpassed the 10,000-vote margin by which Trump won Michigan in 2016, a goal set by organizers of this years protest effort. As for Trump, he has now swept the first five states on the Republican primary calendar. But there were early signs that Trump was continuing to struggle with some influential voter blocs who have favored former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in previous contests. Haleys strongest performance Tuesday night came in areas with college towns like Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, and suburbs around Detroit and Grand Rapids. For Biden, the notable percentage of uncommitted voters could signal weakness with parts of the Democratic base in a state he can hardly afford to lose in November. Trump, meanwhile, has underperformed with suburban voters and people with college degrees, and faces a faction within his own party that believes he broke the law in one or more of the criminal cases against him. Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation. More than 310,000 residents are of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Nearly half of the Detroit suburb of Dearborns roughly 110,000 residents claim Arab ancestry. Both the White House and Biden campaign officials have made trips to Michigan in recent weeks to talk with community leaders about the Israel-Hamas war and how Biden has approached the conflict, but those leaders have been unpersuaded. A robust grassroots effort began just a few weeks ago to encourage voters to select uncommitted as a way to register objections to the death toll caused by Israels offensive. Nearly 30,000 people have died in Gaza, two-thirds of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials. That push has been backed by officials such as Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman in Congress, and former Rep. Andy Levin. Uncommitted votes were hovering around the 15% mark needed to qualify for delegates statewide. It was too soon to say whether the campaign would collect delegates locally. In a statement, Biden did not directly acknowledge the uncommitted effort. Instead he touted the progress his administration has achieved for Michigan voters, while warning that Trump is threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution. This fight for our freedoms, for working families, and for Democracy is going to take all of us coming together, Biden said. I know that we will. Trump won the state by just 11,000 votes in 2016 over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and then lost the state four years later by nearly 154,000 votes to Biden. Organizers of the uncommitted effort wanted to show that they have at least the number of votes that were Trumps margin of victory in 2016, to demonstrate how influential the bloc can be. It is not lost on me that this president has softened his language and begun to recognize Palestinian suffering. But what is not enough is lip service. What we need is a withdrawal of support for Israel, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said as votes rolled in Tuesday night. Tonight, we will watch the votes tally. But whats most important is to understand that the White House is listening, Hammoud said. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., a prominent Biden supporter in the state, said the president's campaign was well aware of its challenges in Michigan ahead of Tuesday night. She stressed that outreach needed to continue to not just the Arab American and Muslim communities, but other coalitions that will be critical for Democrats in November. We have to talk to young people, Dingell said, pointing to Washtenaw County, where Ann Arbor is located. Women who turned out in record numbers last year, and get in the union halls. Dingell also noted that Trump was underperforming among Republican primary voters, underscoring his general election weaknesses in the critical swing state. Trumps victory in Michigan over Haley, his last major primary challenger, after the former president defeated her by 20 percentage points in her home state of South Carolina on Saturday. The Trump campaign is looking to lock up the 1,215 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination sometime in mid-March. Trumps dominance of the early states is unparalleled since 1976, when Iowa and New Hampshire began their tradition of holding the first nominating contests. He has won resounding support from most pockets of the Republican voting base, including evangelical voters, conservatives and those who live in rural areas. But Trump has struggled with college-educated voters, losing that bloc in South Carolina to Haley on Saturday night. Trump did not travel to the state Tuesday night. He instead called into a Michigan GOP election night watch party in Grand Rapids, where he stressed the importance of the state in the general election and said the results Tuesday evening were far greater than anticipated. We have a very simple task: We have to win on Nov. 5 and were going to win big, Trump said, according to a campaign transcript. We win Michigan. we win the whole thing. But Haley campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said the Michigan results were a flashing warning sign for Trump in November. Let this serve as another warning sign that what has happened in Michigan will continue to play out across the country. So long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will keep losing to the socialist left. Our children deserve better. Still, even senior figures in the Republican Party who have been skeptical of Trump are increasingly falling in line. South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican who has been critical of the partys standard-bearer, endorsed Trump for president on Sunday. Shaher Abdulrab, 35, an engineer from Dearborn, said Tuesday morning that he voted for Trump. Abdulrab said he believes Arab Americans have a lot more in common with Republicans than Democrats. Abdulrab said he voted four years ago for Biden but believes Trump will win the general election in November partly because of the backing he would get from Arab Americans. Im not voting for Trump because I want Trump. I just dont want Biden, Abdulrab said. He (Biden) didnt call to stop the war in Gaza. Haley has vowed to continue her campaign through at least Super Tuesday on March 5, pointing to a not-insignificant swath of Republican primary voters who have continued to support her despite Trumps tightening grip on the GOP. She also outraised Trumps primary campaign committee by almost $3 million in January. That indicates that some donors continue to look at Haley, despite her longshot prospects, as an alternative to Trump should his legal problems imperil his chances of becoming the nominee. Two of Trumps political committees raised just $13.8 million in January, according to campaign finance reports released last week, while collectively spending more than they took in. Much of the money spent from Trumps political committees is the millions of dollars in legal fees to cover his court cases. With nominal intraparty challengers, Biden has been able to focus on beefing up his cash reserves. The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced last week that it had raised $42 million in contributions during January from 422,000 donors. The president ended the month with $130 million in cash on hand, which campaign officials said is the highest total ever raised by any Democratic candidate at this point in the presidential cycle. The Republican Party is also aligning behind Trump as he continued to be besieged with legal problems that will pull him from the campaign trail as the November election nears. He is facing 91 criminal changes across four separate cases, ranging from his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, to retaining classified documents after his presidency to allegedly arranging secret payoffs to an adult film actor. His first criminal trial, in the case involving hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels, is scheduled to begin on March 25 in New York. Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report. 1 Mullet mania! Ah, the 80s was a decade for horrible fashions and hairstyles. Yes, Van Halens David Lee Roth, were looking at you. Yet, it also a time for decent arena rock, courtesy of Aerosmith, Bon Jovi and more. Ger ready to headbang the night away when That Arena Rock Show cover band plays an 8 p.m. Friday show at Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos Anthem, 111 Third St. 2 Cover story! Siouxlands favorite and most prolific party band Above the Covers will be dropping to the stage of the Marquee, 1225 Fourth St. for a Friday, 8 p.m. show. Join them as welcome Fair to Compare as their opening act. 3 Quad Cities Soul! You dont necessarily think of the Quad Cities when it comes to soulful sounds. But remember Davenport and Bettendorf are right on the Mississippi River. the Quad Cities own Avey Grouws Band - featuring vocalist Jeni Grouws and ax man Chris Aveys will heat up Vangarde Arts, 416 Pierce, for an 8 p.m. Friday show. 4 (Mean) Streakers Welcome! OK, naming your band Mean Streak probably wont win you any congeniality awards but this Steve Handel-fronted band isnt as angry as it sounds. See them live at 8 p.m. Saturday at DOXX Warehouse Bar, 1219 Fifth St. 5 Drink beer, laugh, repeat! Siouxland Comedy s John Sigmund as well as Omahas Ben Bradley will be bringing the funny to Jefferson Beer Supply, 202 Main St., Jefferson, S.D., at 8 p.m. Saturday. 6 Road trippin The Sioux City Camera Club will be presenting Beautiful Photos in Beautiful Places a program of travelogues at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Betty Strong Encounter Center, 900 Larsen Park Road. Tom Schoening and Paula Bosco Damon will be among the presenters. Where is Wendy Williams? That question has animated fansand even some celebritiessince the popular media personality took a leave from her polarizing talk show The Wendy Williams Show in 2021. Over the past three years, Williams has abstained from television appearances and has only rarely been spotted out in the wild, prompting memes, speculation over her absence, and fond remembrances of her legacy of dishing (sometimes rather harshly) on other celebrities on her show. Recently, the question came to a head with the release of a Lifetime documentary, Where Is Wendy Williams?, which aired in four parts over the weekend. The documentary had drawn skepticism when a promotional clip posted before the projects release showed Williamswho looked relatively unwellhaving an emotional conversation with pornographic-actress-turned-socialite Blac Chyna. Simultaneously, Williams management publicly announced that the host was dealing with some startling health issues. Newly abreast of the news regarding her medical condition, and troubled by the candid footage promised by the docuseries, onlookers began to question whether Williams had truly consented to being shown in this light. Then, on Thursday, Williams legal guardian filed a suit against Lifetimes parent company, A&E Television Networks, in an attempt to halt the broadcast of the series. If all this sounds messy, upsetting, and hard to follow, thats because it is. Lets parse out what we know about whats going on with Wendy Williams. So, whats the deal with this documentary? Reviews are calling it devastating and exploitative. The docuseries takes place over nearly two years, primarily after Williams underwent court-ordered financial guardianship in 2022, and chronicles the television personalitys struggles with health and alcohol abuse. In the lead-up to the documentarys premiereperhaps in an attempt to beat it to the punchWilliams team reported that the talk-show icon had been diagnosed with aphasia, a language disorder that affects communication, and frontotemporal dementia. This most recent health update comes a few years after Williams disclosure, in 2018, that she has struggled with the autoimmune disorder Graves disease for many years, then, in 2019, that she suffers from a thyroid issue called lymphedema, which causes swelling that affects the feeling in her feet. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whew, that sounds like a lot of material for a documentary to either be respectful or not so respectful about. Its safe to say that Where Is Wendy Williams? paints a pretty distressing picture of its subject. Promotional clips made waves last week for the documentarys depiction of Williams, which many criticized as invasive and exploitative. In one clip, Williams, in a rare occurrence from her, appears vulnerable while having a heartbreaking conversation without her hair and makeup done. Since the premiere of the documentary, clips of Williams harshly criticizing her assistant and forgetting names of family members have circulated and been made the subject of mocking memes. The documentary also details other facts about Williams medical history, including more complicated information about her health, as Williams family introduces a diagnosis of alcohol-induced dementia that differs from the aforementioned aphasia and dementia diagnoses that were formally announced. Additionally, there is mention of a medical emergency in 2020 for which Williams allegedly needed lifesaving attention. Advertisement Mostly, though, the documentary focuses on Williams familys attempts to reclaim guardianship over hercurrently, Williams guardian is someone named Sabrina Morrissey, who filed the suit against A&E. Williams family explains that, though the arrangement is supposed to be purely financial, her guardian actually has control over all other major aspects of her life. The family members interviewed for the documentary acknowledge their severe distrust of those who have been put in charge of Williams life, from her legal guardian to her publicist. Advertisement Lets back up for a minute. You keep mentioning a court-ordered guardianship. Is this a Britney Spears situation? Though conservatorships and guardianships are legally different, they function similarly, and parallel themes occur in both Williams and Spears stories. Per the Hollywood Reporter, this guardianship started in 2022 when Williams requested her bank statements, which she needed because she wanted to switch bank accounts in fear that a financial adviser from Wells Fargo was guilty of misconduct. Instead, Wells Fargo submitted a petition for guardianship, referring to Williams as an incapacitated person and arguing that she is a victim of undue influence and financial exploitation. Advertisement Advertisement Williams lawyer told THR that the TV host doesnt agree with a financial guardian being appointed, adding that Williams would not accept a court decision to have one appointed over her affairs for the long haul. In an affidavit, Williams accused Wells Fargo of lying about her ability to care for herself as a way of fraudulently locking her out of her accounts, which she claimed had led her to default or risk defaulting on multiple bills. Unfortunately, it gets even thornier. Williams former manager Bernie Young, whom she previously fired, moved to be the court-appointed guardian. Williams accused Young of using her own money to hire legal representation to pursue the guardianship. It is unclear how this all panned out, however. According to People, Williams claims in the documentary that her guardian had stolen money from her, though she doesnt name namesfor example, is Williams referring to Young or to her current legal guardian Morrissey?and doesnt provide evidence. Yikes! So how does this lawsuit come into the picture? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Last Thursday, Morrissey, filed a suit against Lifetimes parent company, A&E Television Networks, in an attempt to obtain a temporary restraining order that would stop Lifetime from airing the documentary, even though Williams is listed as an executive producer. According to CNN, Williams originally pitched the documentary to Lifetime as a behind-the-scenes look into her life as she made a career move from her talk show to a podcast. However, as the documentary producers began to film Williams life and became aware of her medical issues, the project evidently turned into something else entirely. How have the producers and executives involved with the docuseries responded to these accusations against them? Mark Ford, an executive producer on the doc, told CNN that nothing was filmed without Williams or her managers approval. According to Ford, as filming went on, the documentary increasingly became about Williams dire state of health, to the point where producers became so worried about Williams that they allegedly urged her management to seek new medical care. Ford also spoke to People, stating that they followed procedure to get all the permissions that [they] needed to get, citing creative integrity for their decision to focus on what they did and asserting, Once we started seeing the truth of the situation, we couldnt ignore it. And the film had to go in the direction of the truth. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In an interview with Vulture, producer Erica Hanson states that they were unaware of Williams dementia diagnosis when production started or they wouldnt have greenlit the project. Hanson also claims that the series wasnt produced and it was really fly-on-the-wall. When it came to the ethics of when to stop filming, Hanson says she relied on trusting [her] instinct. In that same interview, Ford says that some footage ended up on the cutting-room floor, and as for what made it into the final cut, the team felt that any attempt to sanitize and abstain from showing Williams difficult reality would be a disservice to her and her truth. Has Williams herself said anything about this? Advertisement It is unclear what Williams personal feelings are regarding the docuseries. You could read into the fact that Williams guardian filed a suit, although it is worth remembering that Williams guardian has control over that decision, and the docuseries is critical of the guardianship. In the aforementioned Vulture interview, Hanson and Ford allege that Williams entered into the Lifetime contract while under the guardianship, and that every single frame of the docuseries was filmed during Williams legal arrangement. According to both Williams family and Lifetimes reps, the producers havent been in contact with Williams for more than six months, as she is currently in an inpatient treatment facility. However, Williams did release a statement via her reps last Friday expressing her immense gratitude for the support upon the news of her diagnosis. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement News anchor Alex Finnie, a niece of Williams who appears in the documentary, told CNN she is unaware if Williams has seen the final production. According to Finnie, due to the guardianship arrangement, Williams family does not know precisely which treatment facility shes currently staying in, nor do they have a way to contact her directly. Williams sister, Wanda, opened up to People, saying, I think the big [question] is: How the hell did we get here? Advertisement This sounds awful all around. At the end of the day, how should we feel about this documentary and the whole sad situation? Finnie told CNN that she hopes Where Is Wendy Williams? will not only help people see Williams as a human being but also further the publics understanding of guardianships, conservatories, and the entire system that really is running [Williams] life right nownot just for her, but for so many other people that are also at the center of it. Advertisement Despite the suit, and the spreading notion that the docuseries was an exploitative maneuver, producer Ford told CNN that the producers feel that the docuseries actually helped Williams seek better care, expressing hope that the documentary played a role in helping her get to that safer place. Hanson told Vulture that she worries what would have happened if the camera crew hadnt been there, leaving Williams in that apartment by herself, dealing with the loneliness, the addictionall of it. Ford, speaking to Vulture, goes so far as to say that Wendys story, and specifically her guardianship, is now a matter of public interest; he adds that if theres more story to tell, he would hope theres more reporting. Even though Williams wasnt necessarily the most beloved figure in the media due to the sometimes rude nature of her talk show, this news is devastating fans and detractors alike, as it has become increasingly clear that Williams doesnt have the agency over her own life that we would expect such a television titan to have. Hopefully, she is receiving great care and can find some peace amid all of this controversy. On Monday, U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell died of his injuries after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Bushnell shouted, Free Palestine! as police tried to douse him. The airman had previously told a friend that he had access to classified intelligence that showed U.S. troops on the ground killing Palestinians in Gaza. A cyber-defense operations specialist assigned to the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron, Bushnell certainly had access to top-secret information, but he was also a turbulent young man, raised on a religious compound and highly politically active online. This background, coupled with his direct insertion into what is possibly the most divisive political issue of the day, sparked an outpouring of commentary from his fellow service members across the internet, on active duty/veterans forums, on social media, and in the comments sections of blogs and news outlets, revealing a military as passionately divided over Bushnells protest as the civilian community it serves. Comments have included the gallows humor that is a signature of militaries worldwide. These particularly dark jokes were how I got through both indirect fire in Iraq and crisis-response work domestically, and I was unsurprised and comforted to find that this kind of humor was ubiquitous among my Georgian, British, and Australian counterparts (and Nepali private security contractors) in Iraq, as well as my German, Polish, Dutch, and other European colleagues during military exercises in Germany. Theres something of an unspoken rule that jokes and rants that would be beyond shocking in a corporate workplace get a pass in the extreme pressure of a military operational environment, provided they dont generate public scrutiny. Advertisement But the whole world sees online commentary, including users who identify as service members making references to Bushnell as the Airman a la Flambe and others punning on burning questions regarding his motivations. Although public-facing commentary is limited by military policy, internet anonymity allows service members to let their real thoughts fly with little fear of reprisal. Some of the commentary is less about comedy and more about real criticism of military culture and policy, or the ethical ramifications of Bushnells act. WHERE THE FUCK WAS HIS LEADERSHIP? was a comment appearing in one thread, alongside another: Imagine leaving behind your wife and children to make a political statement. In the first instance, the commenter wondered if Bushnells leadership could have intervened to provide the airman with support or discipline that might have headed off his fatal protest. In the second instance, the commenter condemned him for abandoning family in the interest of making a point. (Its not clear, in actuality, that Bushnell was married or had a child.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement This outpouring of military opinion can be shocking to the American civilian population. It shouldnt be. In 2011 the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Michael Mullen, said of the American military: We dont know the American people and the American people dont know us. Indeed, that divide persists todayless than 1 percent of Americans serve in uniform, and roughly 6 percent have ever served. Any surprise over military reactions to Bushnells actions points to Mullens warning that this disconnect is a very dangerous force. The issue stems from the perception that military service isnt just a job, but rather an identity entire. This is partly true. Military service provides community, culture, and custom, and it certainly can pervade every aspect of someones life. Military members and veterans have our own argot that pervades civilian life (plenty of people who have never served affirm understanding with roger), as well as brands that specifically target and serve us. We spark and participate in trends in the wider culture. Indeed, some studies show that military identity is so powerful that retirement can instigate a potentially fatal identity crisis. Advertisement But while this is true, it is equally true that for many, the military is just another job. One that, at the end of the day, involves taking off ones uniform and getting on with ones regular life of fandom, family, and yes, political activism. Military members, often young and single, take part in social media trends, posting thirst traps or photos of themselves looking attractive online. (The images are inevitably aggregated by voyeur accounts.) These are activities that are absolutely normal in the civilian population but in a military context lead to conspiracy theories about recruiting PSYOPS. While there have been social media explosions, the military is aware of the ubiquity of the modern internet and is by and large embracing it, while also posting guidelines directing the use of personal social media, hoping to avoid public backlash and reputational damage. Advertisement Advertisement Related From Slate The Biggest Supreme Court Case That Nobody Seems to Be Talking About Read More Many of the comments about Bushnells actions online certainly could run afoul of the Air Forces social media guidelines, which are very similar to those of the other branches. Guidance includes Dont post defamatory, libelous, vulgar, obscene, abusive, profane, threatening, racially or ethnically hateful or otherwise offensive or illegal information or material and Any time you engage in social media, youre representing the DAF [Department of the Air Force]. Dont do anything that discredits you or our service. These rules are written broadly for a reason. They give the military latitude to decide what constitutes vulgar conduct or what discredits the service. Yes, military service does come with restrictions around political protest and the release of sensitive or classified data. But military members, who are humans, violate these all the time, just as they violate policies on drug use, sexual assault, criminal conduct, how to wear their uniform, tardiness (I personally had to discipline sailors who were chronically late for time-critical operations, like going on patrol), and a host of other rules. In short, they are just like every other organized community of humans on the planet. Indeed, acts of political protest, sometimes related to the release of classified information, are common, to the distress of some. Names like Chelsea Manning, Jack Teixeira, and John Walker are likely familiar to most because they disclosed classified information, but in all cases the service members were ideologically motivated, and the actors believed, precisely like Bushnell, that what they were doing was an act of protest against injustice. Notably, some military members were involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection. The U.S. military has roughly 1.29 million active-duty members and more than another 767,000 reservists. While this is arguably understrength to meet the challenges facing the American military at the dawn of 2024, it remains an enormous population of fallible and variable people, most of whom are not in combat arms roles, and most of whom are very young and possess all the decisionmaking tendencies and the passion of folks with an average age of 28 years. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To civilians and non-veterans reading the military commentary surrounding Bushnells death, it might seem to be a passionate and undisciplined conversation that clashes sharply with public perceptions of the stoicism, commitment to the mission, values of service over self, and ethic of the quiet professional so often associated with military service. But the civilian-military divide highlighted by Mullen in 2011 has only worsened, and has resulted in a mirage not easily pierced. That mirage obscures the reality that the military is a workplace much like any other, an enormous population of laborers, technicians, and knowledge workers who will never fire a gun, who are mostly young, and who are subject to the same passions, political motivations, desire for recognition, and just plain errors in judgment as the rest of us. Whether or not you agree with Bushnells actions, he was a human being, and his membership in the U.S. military does not change that. On Oct. 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on the crowds at a music festival in Las Vegas from the 32nd floor of a hotel across the street. It lasted just 10 horrific minutes. Yet in that time, the shooter fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413. He was only able to achieve this carnage by attaching bump stocks to semiautomatic rifles, radically increasing their rate of firefrom 180 rounds a minute to a maximum of 800 rounds a minute. The bump stocks effectively transformed rifles into machine guns. Donald Trumps administration quickly took action, clarifying that these dangerous devices are illegal under federal law. On Wednesday, however, the Supreme Court indicated an inclination, if not an outright hunger, to invalidate the ban. The mornings oral arguments in Garland v. Cargill provided an ominous sign that five justices may make such weapons of mass slaughter legal once again. Should they follow through, civilians will regain access to a device whose sole purpose is to kill hundreds of people in a single minute. This gruesome prospect is the result of devious and dishonest lawyering on the part of the gun lobby, abetted by judges who pretend not to know better. The bump stock ban is hardly liberal overreachit was, after all, enacted by Trumps Department of Justice in conjunction with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Nor is it a dubious fit under existing federal law, which prohibits any device that enables automatic firing. But this particular ban sits at the intersection of two obsessions on the legal right: demolishing gun safety legislation and dismantling the administrative state. It was inevitable, then, that the far-right 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would find the ban unlawful. And given the current Supreme Courts pro-gun extremism, it was always going to be an uphill climb to persuade a majority that the ban should stand. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement To make things easier, lets count votes at the outset: Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch are vehemently against the bump stock prohibition. Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh are pretty obviously against it, too. The three liberal justices think it is surely legal and should remain in place. Chief Justice John Roberts said little, but seemed to lean in that direction too. That means Cargill likely comes down to Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has served as a swing justice on guns in the past. Barrett admitted that intuitively, she was sympathetic to the governments argument, but sounded hung up on one key, fact-based question at the heart of the case. The justices to her right then lobbied hard to convince her she should swing their way. Advertisement She shouldnt. Heres why. The federal definition of a machinegun is any weapon that can be made to shoot automatically more than one shot by a single function of the trigger. It also includes any part or combination of parts that convert a weapon into a machine gun. To use a traditional automatic machine gun, like the M-16, the shooter pulls the trigger and holds it down, firing 700950 rounds a minute. To use a traditional semiautomatic rifle like the AR-15, the shooter has to pull the trigger to fire each round, firing 180 rounds a minute at most. A bump stock relieves the shooter of this duty to pull the trigger. It harnesses the recoil of an AR-15 to move the trigger back and forth at a rate no human could achieve on their own. Thats why, when a shooter attaches a bump stock to their AR-15, they can shoot up to 800 rounds per minuteright in line with a traditional machine gun. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the terms of a statute, then, a bump stock is a machinegun. Its a part that enables a weapon to fire automatically with a single function of the trigger. The shooter initiates shooting a single time, and it complies: Up to 800 rounds spray out of the barrel in 60 seconds. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson each grasped this fact, and illustrated it with various hypotheticals that vividly proved the point. Yet Barrett resisted it. I think your argument depends on volition, she told Principal Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher, who provided a deft defense of the ban on Wednesday. For a bump stock to work, the justice told Fletcher, you still have to have your finger right there. It might look automatic from the perspective of the gun, but you still do need your finger there to kind of pull back the trigger the same way that you would if it was volitional. The shooter is not consciously pulling the trigger, she suggested, but the bump stock is effectively making him pull the trigger. So, in the words of the statute, is the rifle really shooting automatically by a single function of the trigger or is the finger a part of the action? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The answer should be clear. As Fletcher explained, the shooter begins the process by simply pushing forward on the firearm. The trigger engages the shooters finger to fire off that first shot. Then, thanks to the bump stock, the rifle keeps firing automatically, bumping over and over again into the shooters finger. The single function is that first engagement of the trigger. Everything else, the gun does automatically. Barrett is correct that the shooter typically leaves his finger in place. But, as Fletcher noted, another objectsay, a little plastic postcould be placed in the same spot to serve the same function: automatic firing following a single function of the trigger. Precisely what federal law identifies as a forbidden machinegun. Advertisement Advertisement A few conservatives tried to contest this point. Justice Neil Gorsuch insisted that the phrase single function describes the gun, not the shooter. In other words, the shooter might do just one thing, but the gun does many things. People dont function triggers, Gorsuch scolded. The problem with this argument, as Fletcher said, is that its ahistorical. When Congress first enacted the restrictive statute in 1934, people did use the word function to describe what a shooter does to a trigger. While crafting the 1934 law, congressmen and even the president of the NRA used these words in the way that Gorsuch said nobody wouldfrom the perspective of the shooter, not the gun. Recognizing, perhaps, that this textual argument doesnt work, Gorsuch pivoted to a different approach: accusing ATF of arbitrarily changing its mind. The justice told Fletcher that through many administrations, both Republican and Democrat, the government took the view that these bump stocks are not a machine gun. How could it switch positions when the underlying statute hasnt changed? Kavanaugh hammered this point, too: He asserted that Bush, Obama, and even Sen. Dianne Feinstein all believed bump stocks were legal under existing law. Shouldnt that give courts reason for pause? Advertisement Related From Slate The IVF Ruling Is About Who Gets to Raise Your Children Read More This argument is part of the conservatives broader attack on the administrative state, a campaign to block agencies like ATF from interpreting and enforcing federal law themselves. But the claim is misleading if not just plain false. It just isnt true that previous administrations said bump stocks were legal. What actually happened, as Fletcher told Kavanaugh, is that individual manufacturers sent bump stockstyle devices to ATF seeking guidance on their legality. ATF issued private letters concluding that some of these devices were legal, while others were not, depending on their exact mechanisms. These letters did not represent the formal position of the agency, let alone the presidential administration. They merely gave manufacturers an affirmative defense if they later faced prosecution. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Over time, ATF realized that bump stocks were not being used or marketed in the way that manufacturers had represented to the agency. Consider one example that Greg Lickenbrock, associate director of investigations at Everytown for Gun Safety, pointed out to me: Early on, gun-makers told ATF that bump stocks were designed as an accommodation for people with limited hand strength. They then turned around and marketed them to the public as the next best thing to a machine gun. After the Las Vegas shooting, ATF realized that the landscape for bump stocks had changed dramatically and took a fresh look at the deviceshow they truly function and how theyre marketed in the real world. It realized that some of its past guidance was incomplete or incorrect. After soliciting public input, ATF then issued a formal rule stating that they are illegal. In no sense did the agency pull the rug out from under gun-makers and owners, as Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said. This entire episode shows ATF acting with full transparency, responsibly addressing new developments that prove the flaws of previous guidance. Advertisement Will Barrett see that? Its no exaggeration to say that lives depend on it. The gun lobby does not care about the Las Vegas shooting. It does not care if innocent civilians are torn apart by 800 bullets in a minute. It cares about profit, and bump stocks make money. If Barrett can look past the vilification of ATF and the willful misreading of federal law, she should see that the bump stock ban is perfectly legitimate. Based on her past votes, there is some hope that shell reach the right conclusion. If she doesnt, Las Vegas will serve as a preview for entirely avoidable slaughters to come. On June 9, 1954, a young lawyer named Fred Fisher was a junior member of the legal team that, under the leadership of Joseph Welch, was opposing Sen. Joe McCarthy in the televised ArmyMcCarthy hearings. It had been reported in the New York Times that Fisher, a World War II veteran, had been a member of the leftist National Lawyers Guild while a student at Harvard Law School. The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937, in response to the American Bar Associations support for segregation, and had many Communists among the membership, which is why it was a means of attack for McCarthy and his team. (I was an NLG member throughout law school in the early 1970s, and for some years afterward.) Advertisement McCarthy, who deceptively styled himself Tail Gunner Joe, sensed weakness, attacking Fisher as a Communist in an attempt to discredit Welch and his colleagues. Welch would have none of it. He famously defended Fisher in memorable terms: Let us not assassinate this lad, further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? The stunning rebuke, watched by millions who had tuned into the live hearing broadcast, pierced McCarthys seeming invulnerability, and has widely been credited as the beginning of his downfall. When Welch said, We all know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild, he was standing up for the principle that careers should not be destroyed because of youthful associations. Advertisement But these sorts of character attacks are regrettably still with us, almost 70 years after Welchs courageous stand, and they are not the exclusive province of the extreme right. Consider the case of Crystal Clanton, a young attorney who is still suffering the consequences of a vile text she authored before she ever went to law school. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement At age 20, Clanton texted an alarmingly racist message to a co-worker that read, I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all I hate blacks. End of story. The text surfaced a few years later, when she was working as national field director for the right-wing outfit Turning Point USA. Without denying that shed sent the text, Clanton somewhat implausibly claimed that she had no recollection of these messages and they do not reflect what I believe or who I am and the same was true when I was a teenager. She was promptly separated from her job. Advertisement Fortunately for Clanton, she had made an influential friend while working at Turning Point USA. Virginia Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had been Clantons mentor. The young woman was soon living at the Thomases home in Virginia, and with the Thomases encouragement, Clanton eventually attended the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Thanks at least in part to the justices recommendation, she secured two prestigious federal court clerkships following graduation, including one with Judge William Pryor of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, well known as a feeder to the Supreme Court. Advertisement Regardless of what you think of the Thomases specific politics, this should be an apparent success story. Whatever caused Clanton to send her deeply offensive text, she evidently overcame any prejudices to the satisfaction of Justice Thomasthe abhorrent text may even have been the result of a lapse that did not dictate the rest of her adult behavior. I know Crystal Clanton and I know bigotry, he later wrote. Bigotry is antithetical to her nature and character. Advertisement Instead, Clanton has become the target of political figures who begrudged her a fresh start on a promising career. Stories in the national media reported her clerkships as if they amounted to a scandal, rather than an achievement, with headlines often including variations on I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Advertisement Most troubling, a group of seven Democratic legislators filed a judicial ethics complaint against the two judges who hired Clanton. Citing the infamous text, as well as several other alleged incidents of racist statements, the complaint asserted that placing her in close proximity to judicial decision-making threatens to seriously undermine the publics faith in the federal judiciary. Pryor defended both himself and Clanton in a letter to the judicial panel adjudicating the ethics complaints. He called the accusations a smear [of] the reputation of an innocent law student. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement It is not a judicial ethics violation to give a young person a chance at redemption, and the complaint against the two judges was unanimously dismissed by a panel of judges from the U.S. 2nd Circuit. That cleared the way for Thomas to offer Clanton a clerkship at the Supreme Court, an otherwise unremarkable hiring decision that generated another round of national headlines, again branding Clanton the I Hate Black People lawyer. Related From Slate Bidens Plan B on Student Loan Forgiveness Is a Massive and Improbable Success Read More In a classic demonstration of punching down, the Washington Posts Ruth Marcus wrote a series of columns about Clantonbeginning when she was still in law schoolthat read like a campaign to make her an unemployable pariah. Thomas decision to hire Clanton, she said, is a stain on the entire federal judiciary. Advertisement Marcus got her metaphor backward. Thomas probably wasnt intentionally channeling Joseph Welch, but he had gotten it right when he responded to the judicial ethics complaint. We have reached a sorry state of affairs, he said, when a young adult can be indelibly marked with todays scarlet letter of defamation. Character attacks have been a recurrent feature of American politics since at least the time of Thomas Jefferson. They have often been effective, even if false (see: Clinton, Hillary, 2016), and they can be salutary when true (see: Moore, Roy, 2017). Office seekers know that character attacks come with the territory. But that should not be true of young people who find themselves involuntarily embroiled in controversies, and it is especially unfair when the attacks are based on youthful incidents, from years earlier, that have dubious bearing on whom they have become. Donald Trumps Republicans have abandoned decency as a value, with no concern for collateral damage. Liberals could set a far better example by allowing Crystal Clanton to get on with her life. President Joe Bidens primary win in Michigan is not the victory his campaign had hoped for. Though he won a majority of Democratic votes, over 100,000 peopleabout 13 percent of Michigans electorateopted to vote uncommitted to protest the presidents unfettered support for Israel in its war against Hamas. Biden won Michigan by about 154,000 votes in 2020; according to nearly all available polls, he was already losing Michigan to Trump. The final tally was 10 times what organizers had publicly projected, and now the uncommitted campaign will likely be sending delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer. Every person who voted Uncommitted today was personally compelled to use their voice to speak out against President Bidens support of Benjamin Netanyahus ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, wrote Abdullah H. Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, on X. Even before the results came in, Biden surrogates were working hard to downplay the seriousness of the uncommitted campaign. The presidents statement last night did not mention the protest vote; his acolytes have blitzed mainstream media, clamoring to minimize the tally as no more significant than the 10 percent of uncommitted voters who spurned Barack Obama in Michigan in 2012, when 20,000 ballots went uncommitted in an unsanctioned race with drastically different political stakes. The Obama campaign worked to keep his supporters away from the 2012 primary due to a procedural feud with Michigan Republicans, during an era of much weaker political polarization, and still somehow did (much) better than Biden last night. Advertisement Despite that substantial turnout, there were no signs Wednesday morning that the White House intended to change course. Presidential aides continue to believe that todays uncommitted voters will be Novembers Biden voters once they have a stark choice in front of them, Politico reported. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Still, the White House had already been nervous about the uncommitted votes before the results came in. They are freaking out about the uncommitted vote, a Democrat close to Biden told Politico Playbook on Tuesday, in a report that described panic at the White House. Leaked messaging guidance from the Biden administration directed top Michigan Democrats to push back against the Uncommitted activists. That approach has not gone over well, according to Politico. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was willing to toe that line, but other elected Dems have not. Advertisement In fact, Whitmer was never a strong proxy on the issue; she had been persona non grata in Dearborn since October, when her first attempt to ease tensions with a visit was abruptly canceled in part due to community outrage. The Biden campaign began quietly working on damage control, dispatching surrogates to Michigan with mixed success. And only on the eve of Michigans primary did the president say he hoped a cease-fire deal could be reached by next week. Biden himself hasnt visited Michigan since Feb. 1. Democrats discontentment with Bidens Israel policy has been far-reaching. Polling has shown that critical demographic groups disapprove of Bidens unwavering support for Benjamin Netanyahus government and its campaign that has killed at least 30,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Young voters, Black voters, and Arab American voters, in particular, especially on the Democratic side, strongly favor a cease-fire. It just so happens Michigan is home to a whole bunch of all three. Advertisement Advertisement At the start of February, the Listen to Michigan campaign began canvassing residents in Dearborn, home to one of the countrys largest concentration of Arab and Muslim Americans, many of whom immigrated to the U.S. from Palestine and who still have family and friends currently living there. The group pegged its goal at 10,000 votes for uncommitted, which was about the margin Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by in the 2016 general election. The effort was never meant to seriously challenge Bidens primary chances, but to signal to the White House that its current policy on the IsraelHamas war needs to change. While Biden has stood by Israel and bypassed Congress to approve over $200 million in military aid, the U.S. has also now vetoed cease-fire resolutions three times. Advertisement Advertisement The situation frustrated Michigan Democrats, including Dearborn Mayor Hammoud, who endorsed the uncommitted campaign and served as a spokesperson for it. In a New York Times op-ed, Hammoud noted that Arab American voters were a crucial and dependable voting bloc for Democrats in 2020, and now, four years later, the president is asking for their votes again while selling the very bombs that Benjamin Netanyahus military is dropping on our family and friends. Advertisement Advertisement Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaibthe sole Palestinian American in Congress who was censured for promoting pro-Palestinian protest footagealso came out forcefully in favor of the uncommitted campaign. Support from Tlaib, an activist often willing to strafe against the Democratic establishment, was no surprise. But endorsements from more moderate Dems, like former Rep. Andy Levin and Texas Democrat Beto O Rourke, showed that the campaign had traction beyond the typically marginal, left-wing world. Advertisement Meanwhile, the Democratic Majority for Israel super PAC, an ally of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, rolled out its own preemptive guidance on how to interpret the uncommitted campaign. The group highlights that a vote for uncommitted is not unprecedented, while also hand-picking polling that indicates that U.S. voters are in favor of Israel engaging in war with Hamas, despite the toll on Palestinian civilians. In the lead-up to Tuesdays election, they spent money on a desperate counter-organizing campaign to frame an uncommitted vote as one for Trump. Given their millions of dollars in reserve, its possible they spent competitively with the paltry $200,000 the Listen to Michigan organizers laid out. Michiganders arent the only ones who have used their votes to object to the presidents Israel policy. Activists launched a movement days before the New Hampshire Democratic primary to get voters to write in cease-fire. But the ballots there required voters to write in another candidate, whereas in Michigan the uncommitted voters needed only to check a box. Just over 10,000 votes went to write-in candidates in New Hampshires primary. More broadly, Biden campaign events have repeatedly drawn anti-war protesters, including one event in Virginia during which Biden was interrupted at least 14 times with chants of Genocide Joe and Cease-fire now or not vote. Advertisement Advertisement Theres no question that Bidens Israel policy has done lasting damage in a state that has been perhaps Democrats brightest of bright spots. Since Trump won the state in 2016, the Michigan Democratic Party has won back numerous seats in the state Legislature, dominated two governors races, and built up an infrastructure such that it has been almost reliably blue despite a very swingy reputation. The Democratic majorities have helped pass signature, watershed legislation. For a brief moment, Biden was part of that success story, traveling to Michigan to march on the picket line with a reinvigorated United Auto Workers union. Now his stance on Israel threatens to set back years of hard-won victories for Democrats in a critical swing state. Its unlikely Michigan will be where this ends. Several other states yet to vote have an uncommitted option on their Democratic ballots, including states like Minnesota, which will vote in next weeks Super Tuesday primaries. You can bet the White House, despite all public pledges to the contrary, will be closely paying attention to them. Adobe and TikTok have unveiled a pioneering integration, melding TikToks Creative Assistant into Adobe Express. This integration, announced on February 13, 2024, heralds a new era for creators, brands, marketers, and small businesses, enabling them to craft and disseminate TikTok video content with unprecedented ease and effectiveness. Adobe Express, renowned for its robust suite of social content creation tools, now hosts the TikTok Creative Assistant, offering a streamlined workflow from conception to publication. This integration caters specifically to the dynamic needs of TikToks platform, ensuring content not only resonates with its unique audience but also stands out in the ever-competitive digital landscape. Stacy Martinet, Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Communications at Adobe, underscored the significance of this collaboration, highlighting the synergy between Adobes creative prowess and TikToks deep understanding of its engaged, global community. The new Creative Assistant add-on in Adobe Express reduces the time, effort and resources required to work across different platforms for each stage of the content ideation, creation and distribution process, Martinet stated. The integration comes at a critical juncture in the digital-first era, where the effectiveness of content is paramount. According to TikTok, videos tailored to its platform see a 74% increase in viewer engagement, and brands have reported a 3.3-fold boost in interactive outcomes, such as clicks, likes, and shares when compared to other platforms. Adobe Express now offers access to a wealth of resources, including thousands of professional templates, Adobe Stock video clips, and a dedicated TikTok video creator, among others. The Creative Assistant add-on further enhances this toolkit by providing insights into TikTok-first content strategies, including trends, hashtags, and best practices, ensuring each post maximizes audience engagement and impact. Sofia Hernandez, Global Head of Marketing at TikTok, expressed enthusiasm for the integration, emphasizing its potential to empower businesses of all sizes to craft compelling, TikTok-centric campaigns within a familiar platform. Having the ability to ideate, create and post all within Adobe Express further enables businesses of all sizes to create for TikTok at scale, Hernandez remarked. This first-of-its-kind integration between Adobe Express and TikToks Creative Assistant is not just a testament to the evolving landscape of digital content creation but also a beacon for future collaborations. It underscores the potential for technology and creativity to merge, offering tools that not only streamline the content creation process but also elevate the quality and effectiveness of digital content across platforms. For small business owners, this integration presents an invaluable opportunity to leverage the combined strengths of Adobe and TikTok, ensuring their content not only resonates with their target audience but also drives tangible business results. As digital marketing continues to evolve, the ability to quickly and efficiently produce optimized content for specific platforms will be a key differentiator in a crowded market. TOKYO, Feb 28 (News On Japan) - Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako visited the Mori Art Museum on Tuesday evening, admiring an art exhibition that focuses on contemporary art addressing environmental issues. The exhibition in Tokyo's Minato-ku, titled "Our Ecology: Living on the Planet Earth," featured contemporary artworks that explore ecological themes. Among the works viewed by the Emperor and Empress was a piece where glass and metal fragments found on the streets between Roppongi and Ginza were embedded in artificial marble, next to a hanging indigo-dyed cloth representing the sky. Emperor Naruhito remarked, "There are quite a variety of things that have fallen," while Empress Masako noted, "There are some quite sharp objects," as they observed the floor and shared their impressions. Finding and retaining employees with the right skills and level of experience is a challenging feat for a business of any size. For small businesses, in particular, competing with other organizations for the same pool of talent can feel like an uphill battle at times. Research from MetLifes Employee Benefit Trends Study (EBTS), with insights specifically into small business trends, shows that attracting and retaining talent are the top business concerns for small employers. However, these concerns arise in the face of a difficult backdrop; according to data from MetLife and U.S. Chamber of Commerces Small Business Index (SBI) 60% of small businesses report that it is challenging to keep up with employees salary expectations and demands. Moreover, almost half of employers looking for new talent find it hard to provide competitive pay and benefits. These are just a few of the talent obstacles that small businesses are working to overcome, in addition to navigating the day-to-day realities of business management. In response to these hurdles, some small businesses are exploring new strategies to engage current and prospective employees; here are a few examples to consider for your own talent attraction and retention strategy this year: Offering Flexible Work Arrangements Its widely recognized that flexible work hours allow employees to better balance their personal and professional lives. Data from the most recent SBI for Q423 shows that almost seven in 10 small businesses intend to offer more flexible working arrangements this year. For small business employees who often work hourly shifts, this is a trend that will likely soon become table stakes for small business employees. Particularly as only 25% of small businesses offer paid time off, according to the EBTS, increased flexibility is an alternative way to provide employees with time away from work. Hiring From Overlooked Talent Groups Research from the SBI shows that 71% of small businesses agree that employers should consider employing overlooked groups, such as veterans, military spouses, formerly incarcerated individuals, and legal immigrants, to help offset staffing shortages. While we are making strides to get back to pre-pandemic employment levels, the truth remains that there are approximately 9.5 million job openings in the U.S., but only 6.5 million unemployed workers. Tapping into these unique cohorts can help small businesses tackle shortages and access a larger talent pool with different areas of expertise. Broadening Offerings To catch the eye of new talent, SBI data shows that 50% of small businesses intend to incorporate new methods, such as offering increased pay, providing paid sick leave, or including salary ranges in job descriptions. These methods are not overly surprising considering the five pillars of care in the workplace which I talked about in my last article for Small Business Trends that you can read here and the power the pillars have in improving employee experiences both on and off the clock. If we look at benefits specifically, which can be particularly helpful in bolstering loyalty, satisfaction, and happiness amongst employees, dental insurance (64%) and vision care insurance (61%) are of great interest, according to our EBTS findings. As workplace benefits play a pivotal role in the employee experience, providing comprehensive benefits and programs can have a significant impact on employee well-being. Incorporating Hybrid and Remote Options Almost half of small business employers plan to offer a remote or hybrid work environment in 2024, according to the SBI. Employers are finding that remote or hybrid models not only promote greater autonomy among current employees in the long term but can also help offset worker shortages. Particularly as SBI data shows that 53% of small businesses say there is a worker shortage in their area, offering remote positions can help businesses reach new employees whom they wouldnt have been able to hire due to previous geographic constraints. Turning to Seasonal Workers For some small businesses, such as those in the retail sector or food industry, seasonal workers can provide valuable support during busy periods. Interestingly, of small businesses that intend to hire seasonal employees, 74% plan to leverage hiring incentives or bonuses, according to the SBI. While seasonal hiring might not be the right fit for your business, other short-term scenarios, such as contract employees or freelancers, might benefit your organization. EBTS data shows that three in 10 small business employees plan to leave their employer in the next 12 months, demonstrating the importance of implementing new strategies to retain already hard-earned current employees, while also putting a focus on attracting those who are ready to make a change. Small business employers have an opportunity to make changes to their retention approach and recruitment tactics to position their businesses for long-term success. What changes is your organization planning to make this year to cultivate a positive employee experience and compete with other organizations on talent satisfaction, engagement, and retention? By Cynthia Smith As Senior Vice President of Regional Business at MetLife, Cynthia Smith plays a leading role in helping small businesses find the right mix of benefits to help attract and retain top talent. Gov. Hogan addresses Maryland in the governor's reception room on Sept. 8, 2021. (Photo: Rachel Logan) ANNAPOLIS (Feb. 15, 2024)Larry Hogan's recent decision to run for U.S. Senate comes as a shock to many of the state's lawmakersespecially Democrats who worked with the former Republican governor and think he wasn't all that cooperative with the legislature.Now, he's aiming to serve as a lawmaker himself, this time on the national level.Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore City, told reporters this week he thought the former governor "did not seem to be an enthusiast of the legislative process.""I was very taken aback to see that he is interested in introducing bills, working with legislators, trying to create coalitions to build consensus and pass laws," Ferguson said. "That's the role of the U.S. Senate."Over a month into the legislative session, Maryland lawmakers are hard at work on their own initiatives in Annapolis. Still, Hogan's decision to run for Senate has been the talk of the town for many of them.Nearly a year after his term ended and Democratic Gov. Wes Moore took office, Hogan's legacy remains a topic of controversy that echoes through the halls of the State House. The former governor vetoed some of Democrats' favorite bills on topics like abortion, gun restrictions and an education blueprint.Moore himself aimed a punch at Hogan during the State of the State address on Feb. 7, saying that the former executive spent too much time picking fights with the legislature instead of showing "real leadership and engagement" in Annapolis.Hogan could potentially have some appeal to moderate and independent voters in a general election, as a frequent critic of former president Donald Trump. But Maryland Democrats say this shouldn't qualify him as a moderate in the minds of voters.In his first interview since he announced his Senate campaign, Hogan said that it's "not necessary" to enshrine the right to abortion in Maryland's constitution, though he would oppose an outright nationwide abortion ban, according to the Baltimore Banner. Democrats were quick to offer their critique."Anyone who thinks that there is no threat to women's reproductive rights and abortion access is delusional," Gov. Moore said in response to Hogan's comments on Wednesday.Moore said the country has seen the Supreme Court "dismantle decades of precedent overnight," and he asserted that Republicans continue to "stand by" as women's reproductive rights are attacked across the country.This November, Marylanders will be asked to vote on whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state's constitution. In 2023, the General Assembly voted to include a referendum on the November 2024 ballot.Hogan's administration commits to "finding common ground for a common good," according to a statement on his Senate campaign website. Hogan's campaign boasts eight years of successful tax cuts, a balanced budget and a record surplus as governor. Capital News Service has reached out to Hogan's campaign several times this week for comment but received no reply.Some Maryland Republicans believe Hogan has a chance of winning. He has proven he can win in Maryland on a statewide basis and can find a way to map out how to be successful, said Sen. Stephen Hershey, R-Kent, Queen Anne's, Cecil and Caroline counties."A U.S. senator election is going to be certainly based on presidential turnout, where the national candidates are at the time, so many different things that come into play during those elections," said Hershey.Hogan was one of the Republican party's more outspoken critics of former president Donald Trump, who is likely to be at the top of the ticket in the fall. Hogan even claimed he voted for late former president Ronald Reagan over Trump in 2020."We haven't had a Republican in the U.S. Senate from Maryland since the '80s. It will be a challenge for him," Del. Jason Buckel, R-Allegany, said. A win for Hogan is going to be an "uphill climb," Buckel said.After the former governor vetoed several bills with widespread support from Democratic lawmakers, there is "no chance" Democrats in Maryland are going to vote for Hogan, Sen. Cheryl Kagan, D-Montgomery, said."He has a terrible record that he's now going to have to defend. It's hard to imagine how he could be successful," Kagan said.Kagan also voiced concerns about the impression that Hogan is a moderate. "He's not nearly as moderate as his PR people try to make us believe," Kagan said.Senator Benjamin Kramer, D-Montgomery, echoed this sentiment."Although he has done an outstanding job of creating this impression that he is a moderate, he is far from that," Kramer said.Dereck E. Davis, the state treasurer, a Democrat, said a Hogan win could threaten Democratic control over the U.S. Senate."If they were to vote for Gov. Hogan, effectively they're voting for Mitch McConnell," said Davis, referring to the Senate Republican leader from Kentucky. "It could flip the Senate."Still, he said, it never hurts to have a different point of view like the one Hogan might bring to the national Republican party."It's always good to have diversity of thought. I'm not going to get into internal Republican Party politics," he said. "But I think it's healthy when you have various viewpoints It's great not to have groupthink and rather to have competing ideas." WASHINGTON (Feb. 27, 2024)As Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's legal team makes its last appeal to prevent an extradition to the United States over Espionage Act charges, press freedom experts said they are concerned about how the case could harm journalistic freedoms. "It's penalizing the press after the presses have run," James Goodale, a former general counsel for the New York Times, said in a Tuesday interview with Capital News Service. The appeal hearing began Tuesday and continues Wednesday in London's High Court. If the court rules against Assange, he would be sent to the United States for trial within 28 days unless the extradition proceedings are stopped by the European Court of Human Rights. Assange is charged in relation to his 2010 release of U.S. government documents, leaked by then-Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, which revealed details of civilian death tolls in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Wikileaks founder is charged for conspiring with Manning to hack into a Pentagon computer to release confidential military documents. The Espionage Act of 1917 was enacted during World War I to prevent people from sharing government secrets that could harm national security. The act has since been used against spies and sources who send secret information to journalists, typically whistleblowers inside government agencies. The act has never been successfully used against journalists or publishers of documents leaked to them by sources. This shift in how the Espionage Act can be used is concerning for Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. If the U.S. government wins this case, Stern said, it would set a precedent to prosecute "routine" investigative journalism. Even if no journalists are convicted under the espionage law, such a ruling could cause publications to self-censor over fears of government retribution, he said. "We'll never know how much valuable news and valuable reporting we're missing out on because newsrooms weren't willing to take that risk," Stern said. This fear led Stern to write a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for charges to be dropped against Assange. The letter, later signed by over 35 law professors, pointed to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling in which justices said that journalists have the right to publish true information even if their source obtained the information illegally. "Obtaining and publishing government secrets is essentially the job description for an investigative journalist," Stern said. Goodale, who signed Stern's letter, represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case, known as New York Times Co. v. United States. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspaper in 1971 after the Nixon administration temporarily stopped newspapers from printing leaked documents about the Vietnam War, citing security concerns and the Espionage Act. The case is known for barring prior restraint by the government, thus allowing journalists to publish leaked information and protecting reporters from government interference. Now, Goodale believes that the case against Assange could undo the work he did on the Pentagon Papers case. Instead of stopping reporters before they publishas Nixon's Justice Department tried to dothis case, if Assange is convicted, would punish reporters after they publish. "This is the other side of the Pentagon Papers case," Goodale said. "I do not want that victory to go to waste if, in fact, the courts turn around and say, 'Well go ahead and publish itbut if you do, we're gonna put you in jail.'" He noted that journalism technology has advanced since the newspaper-centric days of the 1970s. Now reporters publish faster than ever before, meaning that it has become nearly impossible for the government to block publishing of a story, he said. "If all criminal action is in favor of the government,the victory of the Pentagon Papers case becomes relevant only to an earlier technological time," Goodale said. As with the Pentagon Papers case, Goodale said the government has failed to prove damages to national security caused by the leaks. "No real damage to national security has taken place as a consequence of the publication by Julian Assange," Goodale said. "The government has, for over 15 years now, had the ability to prove damage, or tell us, the American public, what the damage is, and they can't tell us." The case against Assange has gone through multiple administrations. The Obama Justice Department originally considered charging Assange under the Espionage Act, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, but decided not to after considering the potential pushback from journalists. The Trump administration indicted Assange in 2019 and the Biden administration has continued to pursue Assange's extradition despite calls from prominent media publishers and journalism organizations to end the prosecution. Jodie Ginsberg, the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement Tuesday that the prosecution of Assange "would have disastrous implications for press freedom both in the U.S. and globally." This reiterates the committee's 2022 position, in which it called the Assange prosecution "hostile to the media and democracy itself." State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a Tuesday briefing that while the government supports an independent free press, hacking into a government computer is a crime. "It is true that at times the publication of classified government documents will inform the public and sometimes it will uncover wrongdoing, it's also true that sometimes the publication of classified government documents serves no underlying purpose and can jeopardize sources and methods that the government uses to keep the American public safe," Miller said. Assange is a controversial figure to many around the world due to his political stances, methods of gathering information and previous interactions with the lawincluding a rape allegation. Others question if Assange qualifies as a journalist. But Stern said "it's a distraction to focus on Assange the person." "Legal precedents aren't limited to one individual and can be applied against whatever journalists might get on the bad side of this administration or a future one," he said. Capital News Service Washington Bureau reporter Mathew J. Schumer contributed to this story. The romantic shepherd life of the past as we imagine it now was incredibly demanding - and immigrated to Slovakia. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share In recent decades, Slovakia has taken a renewed interest in the traditions of the past. The image that comes to mind is of shepherds dwelling in quaint, wooden cabins in picturesque mountains. Of course, this is a simplified version of our history, but the essence of these perceptions focuses on a rural idyll somewhere in the hills. This pleasant image of rural life overshadows others which were part of our past as well. People also lived in cities and towns, laboured in mines, tilled the land, cultivated vineyards and worked in various trades. However, there is some truth to the idealised rural image. There was a specific group of people who lived that image: Vlachs. Also called Wallachian shepherders, those who lived in scattered mountain hamlets arrived in Slovakia from southeast Europe due to pressure from the Tartars and the Ottomans. Vlachs, as serfs, had to consign bryndza, forest game, leather products and homemade cloth to the landowners, and also had to log. Their idyllic, rural life was actually quite demanding. This settlement in the vicinity of Detva, pictured in this postcard from 1919, looks just like a description in encyclopaedias. A Vlachian courtyard was formed by several log cabins, sometimes covered with shingles, but usually with a heavy thatched roof. From the left, a white-limed house stands with a barn in the back and a granary on the right. Child rights proposal rejected by Parliament, concert to help a musician, and rural idyll not originally Slovak. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share Good evening. Here is the Wednesday, February 28 edition of Today in Slovakia - the main news of the day in less than five minutes. Commission VP warns against Russian propaganda European Comissioner for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova. (Source: TASR) Speaking to Politico magazine, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova said that two EU countries spread Russian narratives - Slovakia and Hungary. In an interview, she urged EU countries to do more in terms of protection against Russian propaganda ahead of the European election, because it has found domestic proxies willing to spread it. In addition to both countries she mentioned the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). "The Kremlin directly cannot influence the minds and hearts of European people. They need domestic proxies," she said, adding that Russia is a master of propaganda and has a well-calculated strategy for every country, including plans for where to focus its efforts. According to Jourova, some European politicians are partly to blame for the success of Russian propaganda, as they play into Russia's hands by defending and promoting alternative media that regurgitate information prepared by the Kremlin. Related: PM Robert Fico (Smer) refuses to communicate with media critical of him. Since becoming the prime minister again, he has given interviews to several television networks, but also to Infovojna, an Internet radio station with a website that spreads disinformation. This previous analysis from shortly before the war in Ukraine shows why pro-Russian rhetoric is working so well in Slovakia. MORE STORIES FROM THE SLOVAK SPECTATOR WEBSITE If you like what we are doing and want to support good journalism, buy our online subscription with no ads and a print copy of The Slovak Spectator sent to your home in Slovakia. Thank you. COLUMN FOR WEDNESDAY Not the best of times PM Robert Fico. (Source: TASR) It has been a depressing few weeks for those of us who like to think we live in a post-Enlightenment Europe, writes The Slovak Spectator's James Thompson. Russia's all-out war on Ukraine entered its third year, and Ukraine's agonies are real enough. The billions of dollars in much-needed US military support for Ukraine are still being held up in the US congress by the Republicans who want to satisfy the whims of another would-be monarch. But Slovakias prime minister would like you to know that he has considered the situation in depth. He is convinced not only that Russia will prevail, but that its cause is just. CONCERT FOR FRIDAY Help musician in need The Pink Whale venue on the river Danube. (Source: TASR) Known for her stints in bands Zlokot and Toddler Punk, musician Stanka Apfelova has been battling cancer for several years. Recently, she said the disease had returned for a third time. However, the therapy she needs is not covered by health insurance. So Slovak musicians and bands including Para, Modre Hory, Satenove Ruky, Puding Pani Elvisovej, Vec and others have decided to hold a special concert. An auction of paintings created during the concert will be held as well. Admission is 15. Get tickets here. IN OTHER NEWS A joint Slovak-Ukrainian government session scheduled for April 11 is going to take place in the town of Michalovce , Kosice Region, PM Robert Fico (Smer) announced after a special government session in the town on Wednesday. (TASR) , Kosice Region, PM Robert Fico (Smer) announced after a special government session in the town on Wednesday. (TASR) On Wednesday, MPs approved an amendment to the Penal Code regarding rape and sexual abuse so that the current statute of limitations of 20 years will be preserved . Originally, the ruling coalition's widely opposed changes to Slovakias prosecution and penal systems would have halved the limit. (TASR) . Originally, the ruling coalition's widely opposed changes to Slovakias prosecution and penal systems would have halved the limit. (TASR) Public-service broadcaster RTVS has the most objective television news broadcasts, according 26.6 percent of people , followed by news channel TA3 with 18.6 percent, private TV Markiza, according to 15.1 percent and private TV Joj with 14.4 percent, according to a survey published by the Median SK agency. More than 2,100 people took part in the study carried out between October and December 2023. (TASR) , followed by news channel TA3 with 18.6 percent, private TV Markiza, according to 15.1 percent and private TV Joj with 14.4 percent, according to a survey published by the Median SK agency. More than 2,100 people took part in the study carried out between October and December 2023. (TASR) According to Economy Minister Denisa Sakova (Hlas), Slovakia is holding talks with several investors interested in the district of Michalovce, Kosice Region, as well as the whole east and south of the country. However, she refused to specify the companies to avoid threatening any investments. (TASR) However, she refused to specify the companies to avoid threatening any investments. (TASR) Transport Minister Jozef Raz (Smer) expects a feasibility study for the D1 motorway section linking it to Ukraine to be completed soon. (TASR) On Wednesday, the Faculty of Arts of the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra opened the Jan Kuciak Library at the Department of Journalism and New Media. (Source: TASR) WEATHER FOR THURSDAY: Cloudy and exceptionally warm. Occasional fog before noon. Daily temperatures will rise to between 13 C and 19 C. (SHMU) FEBRUARY 29 NAME DAY IN SLOVAKIA: Radomir Thank you for subscribing and reading. It means a lot to us. P.S. If you have suggestions on how our news overview can be improved, you can reach us at editorial@spectator.sk. Follow The Slovak Spectator on Facebook and Instagram (@slovakspectator). This week on Coffee Design were featuring the design and branding of the three-month-old SHORE Coffee Roasters out of Southern Shores, North Carolina. Co-founders Matt and Lauren Kneisel continue to build-out their cafe and roastery space while tending to a robust online shop featuring their coffee offerings and fun merch (dog plush toys are a favorite here). The pair teamed up with designer Kevin Tudball to help bring their vision to life. Kevin Tudball has been a leading designer in specialty coffee for over a decade and weve featured his work with Verve Coffee Roasters, Amavida Coffee, and Craftsman Coffee. Working with Shore Coffee Roasters has been a great opportunity to build a brand from scratch with the founders, Tudball tells us. We started by defining the brand, using their location and mission as a jumping-off point to define their visual identity and their unique voice in the coffee industry. After designing their logo and brand guidelines we immediately started designing their packaging and a line of merchandise, Tudball explains, the packaging is intended to be inviting and calming, using images of water, sea life, and coffee beans. We used the same design for both Single Origins and Blends but did a simple flip of the colors to indicate the difference. My favorite aspect of the bags is subtle, but when you see them lined up on a shelf the water graphic connects across the entire row, creating a tide. As anyone in Outer Banks, North Carolina would tell you, the ocean is a central part of their lives. We spoke with Shore Coffee Roasters founder Lauren Kneisel to learn more. How long did the design process take? Shortly after we completed the brand logo design process (six months), it was a seamless transition into packaging since we worked with Kevin [Tudball] on developing the brand guidelines early on and flushed out overall design goals. The packaging design process took roughly six months to complete. What were some of the goals for the new look? Having a deep background in the coffee industry and extensive experience in branding for various companies, ranging from small local businesses to national brands, we recognized the need for a designer who not only understood our history but could also blend a classic yet modern aesthetic. Our goal was to create a fresh, fun, and timeless design. Additionally, we were seeking a creative partner who could infuse our vision with a fresh perspective and surprise us with innovative ideas. Through collaborative exploration and concept meetings, we uncovered our shared passions for the coastal lifestyle, music, and the concept of our logo resembling a record cover. Our aim was to capture the essence of the Outer Banks, with its natural elements like sea oats and junipers, while incorporating modern graphics. Inspired by the resilience and dynamism of our coastlines, we wanted our branding to reflect the spirit and movement that coffee represents. Throughout history, waterways have served as vital routes to transport coffee from farms to shores, and shorelines are among the most ecologically significant spaces on our planet. The shore symbolizes strength and inspiration, guiding SHORE Coffee Roasters in nurturing and supporting our community. Through coffee, we aspire to make a meaningful impact with every sip. Tell us about some of the details in the design. In essence, the design of the SHORE packaging captures the spirit of our coastal community, the history of Southern Shores, and our dedication to making a positive impact through coffee. It visually represents our story and values, bringing people closer to the beauty and significance of our coastal environment. Here are some key details in the design: Shoreline Illustration: The shoreline illustration pays homage to our location in Southern Shores, situated between the Atlantic Ocean and Currituck Sound on the Outer Banks. This illustration represents the unique geography and topography of our coastal area, including the water, waves, coastline, and shore. When multiple bags are placed side by side, the design creates a larger coastline, symbolizing the unity of our community and the impact we can make together. Flat Top Icon: The Flat Top icon in our logo is a tribute to the rich history and dynamic spirit of Southern Shores. This design is inspired by the signature architectural style of cottages created by artist, modernist, and conservationist Frank Stick. More than just an emblem, it serves as a guiding principle that reflects our commitment to honoring our heritage while contributing to the communitys future. Coastal Elements: The packaging incorporates various coastal elements, symbolizing the natural connection between our farm-to-shore principles. These elements are open to interpretation, allowing each person to connect with their own memories of the beach, coast, and coffee. Whether you see a coffee blossom, sea star, juniper, seaweed, sea oats, or coffee beans, the design aims to evoke a sense of discovery and personal connection, making you feel a part of our story. Colorways: The packaging uses two colorways, one for blends and when inversed, they signify single origins. What kind of materials are used in the new packaging? Our packaging is designed with sustainability in mind (as much as the current packaging industry empowers)a nod to our dedication to environmental responsibility. Biotre 2.0 Block Bottom Bag: This innovative bag features a block bottom design for stability and a pull zipper for easy resealing. Earth-Friendly Materials: We prioritize eco-friendliness by using plant-based materials sourced from renewable sources. Where is this available to purchase? The Shore Coffee Roasters online shop. Thank you! To stay up to date with the build-out and to learn more, visit the Shore Coffee Roasters official website and follow them on Instagram. Photos courtesy SHORE Coffee Roasters by Sarah DAmbra Photography / IG @sarahdambraphoto. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/china-warns-taiwans-us-supported-pursuit-of-separation-fraught-with-military-danger-1117032810.html China Warns Taiwan US-Sponsored Pursuit of Separation Rife With Military Risks China Warns Taiwan US-Sponsored Pursuit of Separation Rife With Military Risks Sputnik International China strongly condemns US sponsorship of Taiwanese administration and slams Washington for pumping island with top-notch weapons. 2024-02-28T06:46+0000 2024-02-28T06:46+0000 2024-02-28T08:20+0000 world china us-china relations taiwan nancy pelosi taiwan strait https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/07/13/1083415780_0:45:1200:720_1920x0_80_0_0_afd0cd8f8a0004880fc7f59db626329b.jpg Last week, the US Department of State approved a possible sale of communications defense equipment, requested by Taiwan and valued at $75 million. "Attempts by the government of the Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan to reach independence relying on the US and weapons, can only cause military danger in the region of the Taiwan Strait and put the Taiwanese compatriots into a dangerous position," Zhu told a press conference. China calls on the US to commit to the one-China principle, the terms of the three Chinese-US joint communiques as well as to stop selling weapons to Taiwan, the spokesperson added. Earlier in February, the Pentagon said it had signed a contract worth over $68 million with the Raytheon defense-industrial company for the production and delivery of 50 air-to-ground missiles to Taiwan. Work under the contract is expected to be completed in March 2028. Tensions between the United States and China soared in August 2022 after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taiwan despite Beijing's warnings against the visit. Beijing condemned Pelosi's visit, which it regarded as a gesture of support for separatism, and launched large-scale military drills in the vicinity of the island. Taiwan has been governed independently of mainland China since 1949. Beijing views the island as its province, while Taiwan a territory with its own elected government maintains that it is an autonomous country but stops short of declaring independence. Beijing opposes any official contacts of foreign states with Taipei and considers Chinese sovereignty over the island indisputable. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240113/us-backed-candidates-victory-in-taiwan-means-year-of-the-dragon-is-going-to-be-tense-1116147787.html china taiwan Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International us-china relations, china, taiwan strait, taiwanese crisis, taiwan separatism https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/eu-created-fund-interfering-in-georgias-elections---parliament-speaker-1117044599.html EU-Created Fund Interfering in Georgia's Elections - Parliament Speaker EU-Created Fund Interfering in Georgia's Elections - Parliament Speaker Sputnik International The EU-established European Endowment for Democracy (EED) fund is interfering in the parliamentary elections to come in Georgia by financing various political parties, Georgian parliamentary speaker Shalva Papuashvili said on Wednesday. 2024-02-28T19:44+0000 2024-02-28T19:44+0000 2024-02-28T19:50+0000 world western domination georgia european union (eu) european commission color revolution coup unrest foreign interference https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/02/1c/1117044441_0:118:3072:1846_1920x0_80_0_0_e208e9482ef6c936c528cbb42171f7bd.jpg "EED does not disclose its own expenses in Georgia. Apparently, the fund directly finances political parties and interferes in the elections. Holding the elections properly is part of the nine points [needed to be taken by Georgia for EU integration] and we cannot deal with this alone. The European Union, its representative office, the European Commission must intervene, because this foundation is an institution created by the EU," Papuashvili told reporters. If not stopped, foreign funding will harm the elections, which are scheduled to take place in the country, on October 26, and hinder the choice of the Georgian people, the parliamentary speaker added. Established in 2023 by the European Union, EED officially aims to promote democracy in the European Neighborhood, the Western Balkans, and Turkiye. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231002/georgia-awaits-usaids-explanations-on-funds-for-training-in-organizing-unrest-1113854648.html georgia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 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 georgias eu membership application, georgia in eu, organize unrest, unrest in georgia, coup in georgia, georgia-european relations, usaid, american aid, overthrow government, american aid, eu funding, us organizes coup, us destabilizes world, us involvement, color revolution, color coup, georgia coup, coup in georgia, color revolution in georgia https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/europes-defense-official-says-there-are-western-special-forces-in-ukraine---reports-1117027552.html Europe's Defense Official Says 'There Are Western Special Forces in Ukraine' - Reports Europe's Defense Official Says 'There Are Western Special Forces in Ukraine' - Reports Sputnik International Remarks of French President Emmanuel Macron on a possible deployment of Western troops to Ukraine were aimed at creating deterrence and ambiguity toward Russia, and "everyone knows" that Western special forces are in Ukraine, an unnamed senior European defense official told Financial Times on Tuesday. 2024-02-28T02:10+0000 2024-02-28T02:10+0000 2024-02-28T02:10+0000 world ukraine emmanuel macron dmitry peskov russia ukrainian crisis ukrainian conflict ukraine crisis special forces https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/02/1c/1117027394_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_ddb0dd9161f630befc35a426855794c6.jpg "Everyone knows there are western special forces in Ukraine theyve just not acknowledged it officially," the official said. After a Paris-hosted conference on Ukraine on Monday, Macron said Western leaders had discussed the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine and had neither reached a consensus on the matter nor ruled out the possibility. Several NATO countries, including Germany, Italy, Poland, Finland and Hungary, have since distanced themselves from Macrons comment, emphasizing that they have no intention of deploying troops on the ground in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Moscow had taken notice of the French president's remarks and was well aware of his position regarding the need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, adding that some countries that participated in a meeting held in Paris on Ukraine held a quite "wise assessment of potential dangers" of being involved in the conflict. In addition, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that discussions of the possibility of sending military personnel to Ukraine were due to the absence of any visible results in increasing assistance in the form of supplies of ammunition and weapons to Kiev. Western countries, including member states of the European Union, have been providing military and financial aid to Kiev since the start of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The Kremlin has consistently warned against continued arms deliveries to Kiev, saying it would lead to further escalation of the conflict. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240227/macrons-posturing-about-nato-troops-in-ukraine-can-spark-full-scale-conflict-with-russia-1117016717.html ukraine russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 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 nato troops, us troops, ukraine crisis, nato troops, nato forces, nato-russia war, war in ukraine, aid to ukraine, reinforcements to ukraine, aid ukraine, send forces to ukraine, ukrainian military, asocial mercenaries, foreign mercenaries, mercenaries in ukraine, ukrainian crisis, conflict in ukraine, russian special military operation in ukraine, war in ukraine, foreign mercenaries in ukraine https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/ex-pentagon-analyst-us-army-restructuring-to-potentially-take-on-russia-and-china-is-crazy-1117042341.html Ex-Pentagon Analyst: US Army Restructuring to Potentially Take on Russia and China is 'Crazy' Ex-Pentagon Analyst: US Army Restructuring to Potentially Take on Russia and China is 'Crazy' Sputnik International The US Army is cutting its force by 24,000 and restructuring to be capable of fighting the next major wars as it struggles to recruit new troops, according to a new service document titled "Army Force Structure Transformation." What's behind the overhaul? 2024-02-28T18:21+0000 2024-02-28T18:21+0000 2024-02-28T18:21+0000 analysis us military & intelligence russia china washington us army pentagon iran europe https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/07/0d/1111856554_0:117:3074:1846_1920x0_80_0_0_f290ca89bbabe2db7d386cd945994c59.jpg The cuts will diminish the US Army's size from roughly 494,000 to 470,000 troops by fiscal year 2029. According to the US press, counterinsurgency jobs, which increased during Washington's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, will be slashed first."We [the US] are moving away from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency; we want to be postured for large-scale combat operations," US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told reporters on February 27."They're once again looking to the older conventional type of warfare on the battlefields, such as what they're witnessing now in Ukraine," Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told Sputnik. Given that the US Army - as well as the entire Department of Defense - has changed its overall doctrine toward future wars and direct confrontations with both Russia and China, the announced restructuring effort is not surprising, according to Maloof."They're looking back once again to large armies fighting each other," the military expert remarked.The army transformation also envisages improving anti-drone and air defense capabilities.As per the document, it is planning to add:At the same time, this transformation will be done at the expense of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, he pointed out."I think that if you're al-Qaida*, ISIS*, you're going to be jumping for joy because that means the army will have less special forces to deal with them," Maloof remarked.When asked whether the overhaul was prompted by a lack of troops, he noted that "recruitment in the United States has been way down by all the services except the Marine Corps."The Pentagon's military doctrine suggests that the US Army will continue to fight "forever wars", he noted, adding that the Americans are fed up with them.Moreover, despite neoconservatives' fear-mongering, many in the West don't believe that Russia would invade NATO member states."We've had 23 years of endless wars. And the American people are really fed up. Plus, now we're trying to support other people's wars at the expense of our own national security by lessening our own borders," Maloof said, referring to the ongoing migrant crisis in the US.He warned that taking on Russia or China is unlikely to end well for the army."We need to acknowledge the fact that countries such as Russia and China have capabilities. And they're now, especially Russia, obviously very battle-tested. Our troops are not. They've only been involved in counterinsurgencies. And if they want large-scale wars, Russia is up to it. They have demonstrated that. And I don't know if that's the direction we want to be going into and for what purpose," he continued.While Russia, China, Iran and other emerging economies are looking for further collaboration in Eurasia in terms of infrastructure and economic development, Washington is looking for new defense agreements and is seeking to contain both China and Russia.*Al-Qaeda and Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) are terrorist organizations banned in Russia and many other countries. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240222/pentagons-new-military-satellite-program-poses-threat-to-russia-1116925932.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240224/us-army-veteran-pentagons-probe-into-ukraine-aid-unlikely-to-hold-culprits-accountable-1116955612.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240213/2024-munich-security-index-most-g7-nations-no-longer-see-russia-as-top-threat-1116761608.html russia china washington iran ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Ekaterina Blinova Ekaterina Blinova 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 Ekaterina Blinova us army restructuring, pentagon doctrine, great power competition, us taking on russia and china, us army is set to expand anti-drone and air defense capabilities, us overseas wars, us recruiment TOKYO, Feb 28 (News On Japan) - Acclaimed Japanese actress Ko Shibasaki is set to star in director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's first self-remake film, the Japanese-French co-production "Serpent's Path," which is scheduled for release on June 14. C2024 CINEFRANCE STUDIOS KADOKAWA CORPORATION TARANTULA Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a master filmmaker who has received high acclaim worldwide for many years, won the Best Director Award in the Un Certain Regard section at the 68th Cannes Film Festival for "Journey to the Shore" (2015), the Silver Lion Award at the 77th Venice International Film Festival for "Wife of a Spy" (2020), and his latest work "Chime" was screened at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival held this month. Kurosawa has been recognized at major film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, and Berlin. The masterpiece suspense film "Serpent's Path," originally released in Japanese theaters on February 21, 1998, is resurrected across 26 years and borders as Kurosawa's first self-remake. In the newly released behind-the-scenes footage, the director himself says, "This might be the greatest masterpiece of my career," indicating the completion of his definitive work. Ko Shibasaki, who plays the lead role of psychiatrist Sayoko Niijima, has been continuously active, appearing in consecutive hit works such as "Dr. Koto Clinic" (2022), "How Do You Live?" and "Don't Call it Mystery" (2023), and also held a nationwide tour "Kou Shibasaki CONCERT TOUR 2023 ACTOR'S THE BEST" as an artist last December. She brilliantly portrays the enigmatic psychiatrist who assists in another's revenge. Meanwhile, the role of Albert, a man consumed by vengeance for his murdered daughter, is played by Damien Bonnard, a French actor who has garnered significant attention in France. Bonnard starred in "Les Miserables" (2019), which won the Jury Prize in the Competition section of the 72nd Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Best Actor Award at the Cesar Awards, the French equivalent of the Academy Awards. Ko Shibasaki, who shot the entire film on location in France and in French, prepared for the role by taking French lessons about six months prior to filming. She expressed her eagerness to accept the lead role, saying, "Why me? I can't even speak French," but she was motivated by her desire to work with Kiyoshi Kurosawa and her personal fascination with France and the French language. The film opens with a scene of Shibasaki's character, psychiatrist Sayoko, walking the streets of Paris, heading towards Albert (Damien Bonnard), a father burning with revenge for his daughter's brutal murder. Shibasaki's French is fresh yet naturally guides the audience into the story. Director Kurosawa commented on Shibasaki, saying, "Her sharp and mysterious gaze, along with her beast-like movements, have elevated this film to a more mysterious and profound work than the original version." The inscrutable expression of Sayoko, who assists in Albert's revenge, occasionally reveals a piercing look. The beautiful French locations are breathtaking, and an indescribable tension runs through to the last moment. A father whose daughter has been killed. A psychiatrist who lends a hand in his revenge and seeks the truth together. What awaits at the end of this thorough revenge is unknown. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's comment: The script written by Yoh Takehiko 26 years ago as an original video production is a story of thorough revenge, which was very well done. I always hoped to film it again if I had the chance. It was a stroke of luck to be able to remake it as a French film. Even more fortunate was the participation of Kou Shibasaki. She was truly a wonderful actress. Her sharp and mysterious gaze, along with her beast-like movements, have elevated this film to a more mysterious and profound work than the original version. Lead Actress Kou Shibasaki (Role of Sayoko Niijima) comments: - On receiving the offer Why me? I can't even speak French. I shared this with director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and the producers when we met. However, I was eager to work with director Kurosawa and was also personally attracted to France and the French language, so I accepted the role with enthusiasm. - Reflecting on filming in France, and any challenges or moving experiences I felt the French staff's respect for director Kurosawa reflected in the atmosphere and concentration on set. I was utterly focused on filming. There were countless challenges, but I achieved my goal of "enjoying filming every day." When I didn't get any corrections from the sound department's Francois, I'd do a fist pump and say "Yes!" (laughs). - Preparation for speaking French and filming in France I started taking French lessons in Japan about six months before filming. While the focus was on the script, I couldn't apply anything without the basics, so I proceeded with lessons that included the fundamentals. The director told me beforehand that he wasn't expecting perfect pronunciation, but I strived to improve during filming so that the audience wouldn't feel any discomfort. During my stay of just over two months, I requested an apartment with a kitchen. Being able to prepare my own food and feeling like I blended into the city as if I were the character living in France was great. - What kind of work has this become? It taught me the difficulty and the greater joy of acting in a foreign language. Damien Bonnard (Role of Albert) comments: I am extremely honored to participate in director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's next work and was deeply moved that he entrusted me with the role of Albert. Working on this film has been a very enriching experience for me. It was a great joy to embark on this adventure with Ko Shibasaki and to dive into this quest with a thousand faces together with her. A world like a labyrinth filled with revenge, pain, madness, ghosts, disappearance, and curses. I can't wait for this film to be screened in Japan and to share it with everyone. Producer's comment: - On the decision to make the film The initial trigger was discussions with CINEFRANCE about doing something together before this project started, but separately, I had the opportunity to talk with director Kurosawa, who wanted to remake "Serpent's Path" and film in France again. When we conveyed this to the French side, they suggested, "Let's propose to director Kurosawa to remake 'Serpent's Path' in France," and that's how the project began. The actual filming was truly wonderful, and it felt like witnessing a small miracle every day. There was a sense of respect for the director and anticipation for the day's filming throughout the set, and all the staff and cast felt pride and joy in being involved in this work. - On casting For the role of Sayoko, in addition to being a psychiatrist living in Paris, the role required acting in French throughout the film. Rather than whether she could speak French, we wanted someone who was willing to dedicate time and effort to this challenging role. We received a response from Shibasaki-san quite early, and we were able to work together. I remember when Shibasaki-san practiced her French lines to a considerable level during the script reading before filming, and the first time she spoke in French, the French staff said, "Shibasaki-san's French is better than we thought." Synopsis: Albert Baschle (Damien Bonnard), a father whose 8-year-old daughter was killed by someone. With the help of psychiatrist Sayoko Niijima (Kou Shibasaki), whom he meets by chance, he dedicates his life to finding the perpetrator and seeking revenge. "Who, and why, was my daughter killed?" As the two kidnap those involved with a certain foundation, the truth gradually comes to light. "I will make the perpetrator pay with my own hands" What lies ahead, the path of humanity or the serpent's path? Source: MDPR https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/how-nato-has-enhanced-its-presence-in-ukraine-1117040336.html How NATO Has Enhanced Its Presence in Ukraine How NATO Has Enhanced Its Presence in Ukraine Sputnik International NATO Special Forces have been operating in Ukraine, but the West just does not officially acknowledge it, a senior European defense official told the Financial Times. 2024-02-28T16:01+0000 2024-02-28T16:01+0000 2024-02-28T16:00+0000 us world joe biden emmanuel macron matt gaetz ukraine russia washington nato pentagon https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/107278/69/1072786916_0:0:1024:577_1920x0_80_0_0_6a5faed8b3ee6b941a620ee06df8147e.jpg French President Emmanuel Macron claimed to not rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine at a meeting of European leaders in Paris on Monday. "Nothing should be excluded. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war," the French president reportedly said.French officials rushed to downplay Macron's remarks, explaining that he was not suggesting Western troops should be sent en masse to the front lines, but that "it was no longer a taboo to rule out involvement," according to the Financial Times. They assumed that Western troops could be involved in demining, maintaining and repairing weapons systems, or helping to secure the borders of other countries neighboring Russia, such as Moldova.However, information of Western operatives in Ukraine is not new.As far back as June 2022 soon after the beginning of the Russian special military operation, the New York Times revealed that there was a strong CIA presence in Ukraine. "Even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some CIA personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly," the newspaper reported.In November 2022, the Biden administration announced it would send military "weapons experts" to Ukraine, while in February 2023, the Washington Post revealed that the Pentagon wanted to insert US commandos in the form of "control teams" in Ukraine deploying them either in the Eastern European state or in a neighboring country.In April last year, an apparent Pentagon leak revealed that at least 97 special forces soldiers from five NATO countries including 14 US military personnel have been operating in Ukraine. The authenticity of the documents appearing to be dated February and March 2023 has not been denied by the Pentagon.The Pentagon leak prompted concerns within the House's Freedom Caucus which repeatedly advocated the pull-out of US troops from overseas missions that have not been approved by Congress.Thus, on April 17, 2023, Republican Representative Matt Gaetz (FL-01) introduced a Privileged Resolution of Inquiry, urging President Joe Biden to give copies of any documents outlining plans for military assistance to Ukraine to the House of Representatives.The same month, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a DC-based think tank, also raised the question as to how many US troops Washington had been deployed in Ukraine.The QI quoted the Congressional Research Service that estimated that there were approximately 22,000 contractor personnel working for the Pentagon throughout the US Central Commands area of responsibility, as of the end of 2022.Most recently, a NYT bombshell revealed that a network of a whopping 12 CIA secret bases have been operating in Ukraine since 2014, suggesting that the US spy and military presence in Ukraine is even bigger than one could imagine.Speaking to Sputnik on February 28, a commander of one of the volunteer units of the Russian Armed Forces participating in hostilities near Artemovsk said that his troops had observed NATO Spec Ops in Ukraine on multiple occasions."They have long been here. Previously, they tried to present them as volunteers and mercenaries, but eventually their real status has become obvious. Near Bogdanovka, our guys destroyed a group of such Spec Ops, and the defense in this area crumbled, the Ukrainians gave up," the Russian commander continued.In addition, there are foreign military specialists operating sophisticated NATO-grade weapons, as well as in the ranks of signalmen, pilots and military consultants, according to Sputnik interlocutor.NATO military personnel have been in Ukraine for a long time and are actively assisting the Ukrainian military on the ground, according to Russian Foreign Ministry representative Maria Zakharova. Earlier, Moscow warned NATO that putting boots on the ground in Ukraine could lead to a direct confrontation.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov likewise told reporters that if NATO sent troops to fight in Ukraine, a conflict with the alliance "wouldnt be likely, but inevitable":"In this case, it is no longer relevant to talk about the likelihood of conflict, but about its inevitability," Peskov stressed. "This is how we evaluate it. And [NATO] countries should be aware of that and evaluate this in the same way. They have to wonder whether this corresponds to their interests, and most importantly, the interests of the citizens of their countries." https://sputnikglobe.com/20240227/macrons-posturing-about-nato-troops-in-ukraine-can-spark-full-scale-conflict-with-russia-1117016717.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230413/pentagon-leaks-prove-west-is-fighting-proxy-war-in-ukraine-1109463535.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240226/nato-countries-did-not-make-decision-to-send-their-military-to-ukraine---polish-president-1117001653.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240225/cia-set-up-12-secret-facilities-in-ukraine-along-russian-border-over-eight-year-period---report-1116977679.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20240226/leaked-details-on-cia-ops-in-ukraine-signal-end-is-near-for-kiev-agency-vet-1116996822.html ukraine russia washington Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Ekaterina Blinova Ekaterina Blinova 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 Ekaterina Blinova nato special forces in ukraine, nato military in ukraine, cia bases in ukraine, emmanuel macron, macron proposed sending western military to ukraine, sending western military to ukraine will lead to direct conflict with russia, dmitry peskov https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/it-never-sinks-in-nato-threatens-russia-despite-military-catastrophe-across-the-globe-1117028591.html It Never Sinks In: NATO Threatens Russia Despite Military Catastrophe Across the Globe It Never Sinks In: NATO Threatens Russia Despite Military Catastrophe Across the Globe Sputnik International Security analyst Mark Sleboda predicts that NATO leaders, having provided themselves with no offramp amidst growing tensions with Russia, will eventually send troops to assist Kiev. 2024-02-28T03:38+0000 2024-02-28T03:38+0000 2024-02-28T03:43+0000 analysis emmanuel macron russia ukraine nato us us hegemony western sanctions western intervention unipolar world order https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/08/17/1112816401_0:197:3076:1927_1920x0_80_0_0_1e18224e86d3d2fb1abc66b56da8c9d2.jpg Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted to French President Emmanuel Macrons bellicose rhetoric towards Russia Tuesday after the controversial leader raised the prospect of sending NATO troops to assist Ukraine.In this case, we have to talk not about the probability, but rather the inevitability of a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Peskov warned, adding any such move would be absolutely against the interests of those nations and their people.But Western countries have given in to pressure to up the ante in the past, eventually providing tanks and ever more sophisticated weaponry to Kiev even after previously dismissing the prospect. Still, Russia has maintained the upper hand in the Donbass, leading Sputniks host of The Critical Hour program Wilmer Leon to bewilderingly ask is this a de-population campaign?It is clear that the trend of the war is definitely in Russia's favor, agreed security analyst Mark Sleboda, who said the conflict has evolved into a war of attrition.That being said, the Kiev regime's military has not broken yet, said Sleboda. They are buckling along the frontline.Russias resilience has embarrassed Western countries, who envisioned Ukraines proxy war as a low-risk opportunity to weaken the Eurasian power. The United States repeatedly worked to scuttle peace talks to end the conflict, intervening in at least two separate rounds of negotiations involving British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.The strategy has backfired spectacularly, with Western sanctions economically damaging European allies and threatening the global reserve status of the US dollar. Now, a Russian victory threatens to indisputably usher in a multipolar era and signal that Western powers no longer have the ability to dictate policy to the rest of the world.Sleboda added that European countries are falling apart amidst the economic ramifications of the conflict, while the continents armed forces are also in a highly compromised state. Meanwhile, he claimed Russia enjoys the most powerful and advanced air defense system and electronic warfare capability in the world.As Ukraine remains on the backfoot in the Donbass, French President Emmanuel Macron organized a meeting of European leaders on Monday, during which Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico reported there was no discussion of peace with Russia.Sleboda predicted that Western leaders hubris would eventually lead to a war between NATO and Moscow.Take a look at events since 2014, said the analyst. They [Western leaders] are crazy. They are messianic, supremacist, exceptionalist and [demonstrate] no amount of being disabused, whether in Georgia or Syria or now in Ukraine or in Israel or anywhere else in the world, the failure of the US in Afghanistan, the collapse of Iraq, the destruction in Libya, it never, ever sinks in. So, yes, I believe they are crazy. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240222/uks-boris-johnson-sabotaged-russia-ukraine-peace-deal-on-us-orders-1116927933.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230415/ex-pentagon-officer-russias-robust-capabilities-in-electronic-warfare-second-to-none-1109548524.html russia ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 John Miles https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/19/1116388787_0:0:1316:1316_100x100_80_0_0_77e70d36afd983012b1c5d38ddb84156.jpg John Miles https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/19/1116388787_0:0:1316:1316_100x100_80_0_0_77e70d36afd983012b1c5d38ddb84156.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 John Miles https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/19/1116388787_0:0:1316:1316_100x100_80_0_0_77e70d36afd983012b1c5d38ddb84156.jpg discrimination against russia, us hegemony, western pressure, western world, western dominance, us dominance, nato vs russia, nato-russia war, ww3, wwiii, world war three, nato attacks russia, nato troops in ukraine https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/macron-sparks-fear-of-ww3-with-talk-of-nato-troops-to-ukraine-1117033384.html Macron Sparks Fear of WW3 with Talk of NATO Troops to Ukraine Macron Sparks Fear of WW3 with Talk of NATO Troops to Ukraine Sputnik International Despite admissions that NATO countries are running out of weapons, Emanuel Macron has raised the specter of world war by suggesting considerations of NATO troops in Ukraine. 2024-02-28T04:14+0000 2024-02-28T04:14+0000 2024-02-28T09:04+0000 the critical hour radio ukraine michigan gaza strip indonesia emmanuel macron nato european union (eu) https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/02/1c/1117033227_0:0:1920:1080_1920x0_80_0_0_6bc119e0f589b78707446a1512694b8f.png Macron Sparks Fear of WW3 with Talk of NATO Troops to Ukraine; Michigan Dem Voters Furious at Biden Sputnik International Despite admissions that NATO countries are running out of weapons, Emanuel Macron has raised the specter of world war by suggesting considerations of NATO troops in Ukraine. Dr. Gerald Horne, Professor of History at the University of Houston, joins us to discuss potential NATO troops in Ukraine. He also talks about political unrest in Senegal and the results of the election in Indonesia.Regis Tremblay, an American citizen in Crimea, joins us to discuss the downplay of Ukrainian losses by President Zelensky and the possibility of NATO troops in Ukraine.Dr. Radhika Desai, author and professor, joins us to discuss starvation in Gaza and Swedens acceptance in NATO.Jim Kavanagh, political and cultural analyst and writer, joins us to discuss the Michigan primaries and a US airman who burned himself alive.Mark Sleboda, Moscow-based international relations security analyst, joins us to discuss Moscows reaction to the possibility of NATO troops in Moscow and claims that Russian operatives are behind protests in the EU.Misty Winston, radio host and free speech activist, joins us to discuss moves to prevent the Michigan primaries teaching of Americas racial history in schools and a potential government shutdown.Dr. Linwood Tauheed, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, joins us to discuss neoliberal economic policies that hurt the poor and upcoming economic data.Dr. Jack Rasmus, professor of Economics and Politics at St. Mary's College in California, joins us to discuss immigrations effect on the economy. Also, he has penned an article on the Ukraine war after two years.The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position of Sputnik.We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.comCatch us in the US at 105.5FM, 104.7FM, 102.9FM, 1390AM, 1140AM ukraine michigan gaza strip indonesia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Wilmer Leon https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/12/1082114047_0:-1:238:238_100x100_80_0_0_4e3adef3e334e381bffe19d388f4b776.jpg Wilmer Leon https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/12/1082114047_0:-1:238:238_100x100_80_0_0_4e3adef3e334e381bffe19d388f4b776.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 Wilmer Leon https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/12/1082114047_0:-1:238:238_100x100_80_0_0_4e3adef3e334e381bffe19d388f4b776.jpg the critical hour, macron nato ukraine, world war 3 fears, michigan democratic voters, biden, dr. gerald horne, ukrainian losses, dr. radhika desai, gaza starvation, jim kavanagh, michigan primaries analysis https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/mainstream-media-ignores-facts-russia-has-already-won-this-war-1117028979.html Mainstream Media Ignores Facts: Russia Has Already Won This War Mainstream Media Ignores Facts: Russia Has Already Won This War Sputnik International On Tuesday, Sputniks The Critical Hour spoke to Jack Rasmus, an author who has a PhD in political economy, and a former educator of economics at Saint Mary's College in California. 2024-02-28T04:39+0000 2024-02-28T04:39+0000 2024-02-28T05:10+0000 analysis ukraine russia us ukraine crisis ukrainian crisis ukrainian conflict us arms for ukraine nato https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/02/1c/1117029972_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_e78502615f42c37e6ff8e4d4c27c26ca.jpg On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden stressed an urgent need to provide additional support for Ukraine as congress continues to stalemate over a potential spending bill.Moscow has warned NATO members that supplying arms to Ukraine would effectively be playing with fire and doing so would hinder the possibility of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Few corporate media channels in the West have addressed Ukraines inevitable defeat to Russian forces, though one reporter found that many Ukrainians were prepared to accept the loss of their territories as a price for peace, adding that the Biden Administration needs to get on board, as well.On Tuesday, Sputniks The Critical Hour spoke to Jack Rasmus, an author who has a PhD in political economy, and a former educator of economics at Saint Mary's College in California. Rasmus, who recently published an article titled, Ukraine War and the Ghost of Clausewitz, believes there is a lot of falsification going on in the mainstream media about the war in Ukraine.Russia has pretty much won this war already. But they keep covering it up, and I wanted to explain some of this using these principles of war, he continued, Throughout history, from Julius Caesar all the way to Mao and Giap, very clear principles of war prevail, whatever kind of war it is.In his article, Rasmus writes that according to the Principles of War, a decided military advantage lies with the side that is able to concentrate superior forces and commit that relatively superior force at the opponents weakest point. Concentration of Force, then, is probably the first principle of war, he writes.The author and educator also notes in his article that Russian forces have now increased in number along the Ukrainian front while, initially, they had just 190,000 forces covering about 1,500 miles, the Russian Ministry of Defense says it now has more than 600,000 troops. Total deployment in Ukraine could reach about 800,000 this year with continued rotations of trained soldiers. At the same time, Ukraines forces are estimated to be at 350,000 which includes 100,000 of reserves.At the same time Russia has increased its forces. The Russian Ministry of Defense admits 600,000 Russian troops are on the line and maybe 350,000 Ukrainians on the line after their losses of a couple hundred thousand. They can't recruit anymore. At the same time, Russia announced six months ago that it was recruiting through volunteers and training another 420,000 and they haven't even hit the frontlines yet, Rasmus explained.French President Emmanual Macron has not ruled out sending ground forces to Ukraine. The president said that nothing should be excluded regarding that option during a press conference on Monday. His comments followed a meeting in Paris where members of the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) discussed new measures to send munitions to Kiev.NATO allies including the US, Germany, Italy and the UK have ruled out deploying ground troops to Ukraine in a sweeping rejection of Macrons comment on Monday. A White House official has also denied any plans to send either US or NATO troops to Ukraine.The relationship of forces, both manpower and weaponryand just the internal lines of supply and communication and the ability to concentrate forces at the frontall of these are plain from the very beginning that Russia would win this war, and of course it is unless the West continues to escalate. And I think the neocons' ultimate escalation, which they've got in their back pocket, is to use tactical nukes, the educator said. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240227/madness-macron-ripped-for-not-ruling-out-sending-troops-to-ukraine-1117012584.html ukraine russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.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 Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg urkaine crisis, ukrainian troops, ukrainian losses, russian forces, russian troops, russia wins, ukraine loses, ukrainian crisis, failed counteroffensive, ukrainian counteroffensive, us weapons for ukraine, us aid to ukraine, us funding for ukraine, us funding to ukraine, russian economy under sanctions, us sanctions, sanctions on russia, sanctions against russia, us hegemony, unipolar world, russophobia, russophoby, anti-russian bias https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/no-more-ukraine-aid-until-wall-built-on-entire-us-southern-border---us-senate-candidate-1117033066.html No More Ukraine Aid Until Wall Built on Entire US Southern Border - US Senate Candidate No More Ukraine Aid Until Wall Built on Entire US Southern Border - US Senate Candidate Sputnik International Republican candidate for believes that funds for Ukraine should be tied with funding the construction of a wall on US southern border. 2024-02-28T07:18+0000 2024-02-28T07:18+0000 2024-02-28T07:18+0000 americas us ukrainian crisis us arms for ukraine us-mexico border https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/1e/1116480847_0:103:3276:1946_1920x0_80_0_0_21678cd7d1328b18665343d19840fb06.jpg Rust, of the state of Indiana, said he "absolutely, positively" agrees that funding for Ukraine aid and US border security should be tied together in one bill.Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked a $118 billion national security supplemental package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel and border policy reforms. Republicans claim the reforms in the bill would not do enough to deter illegal immigration on the US southern border. However, the Senate sent over a $95 billion foreign aid bill that excludes border security reforms to the House of Representatives for consideration, but House Speaker Mike Johnson has been reluctant to take it up for a vote over differences on national security priorities. The supplemental bill includes $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, among funding for other priorities. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240226/majority-of-americans-now-support-border-wall-with-mexico-as-migration-crisis-festers-1116999552.html americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International us, us arms for ukraine, funding ukraine, us border crisis https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/out-of-touch-much-1117026617.html Out of Touch, Much? Out of Touch, Much? Sputnik International The French president did not rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine, an idea that has been overwhelmingly dismissed by other NATO allies. Just a couple days prior, Macron told farmers who are protesting in France to calm down, adding that their protests were counterproductive. 2024-02-28T05:28+0000 2024-02-28T05:28+0000 2024-02-28T05:28+0000 political cartoons emmanuel macron ukraine nato world sputnik cartoons comics france european union (eu) north atlantic treaty organization https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/02/1c/1117026460_0:200:2000:1325_1920x0_80_0_0_7ed9b7a25712c3660f81b28ac8be4aba.jpg French President Emmanuel Macron has not ruled out whether or not he will send ground forces to Ukraine. The president said that nothing should be excluded regarding that option during a press conference on Monday. His comments followed a meeting in Paris where members of the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) discussed new measures to send munitions to Kiev.NATO allies including the US, Germany, Italy and the UK have ruled out deploying ground troops to Ukraine in a sweeping rejection of Macrons comment on Monday. A White House official has also denied any plans to send either US or NATO troops to Ukraine. In a statement, the White House said that US President Joe Biden believes a Ukraine path to victory is by providing military aid, adding that the president has been clear that he will not send troops to fight there.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned of a direct conflict if NATO troops are deployed there. Peskov also said Macrons suggestion is a very important new element adding that it was not in the interests of NATO members.Meanwhile, Macron has also condemned protests by farmers in France as counterproductive after he was greeted with whistles at the Paris International Agricultural Show on Saturday. The protestors, who had broken through a police cordon earlier in the day, chanted, Macron must resign! Farmers in France have been protesting since January as they demand recognition of their labor and oppose cheap agricultural imports, water use restrictions, diesel fuel price increases, as well as general growing costs in the face of environmental policies that affect the finances of their livelihood. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240227/macrons-posturing-about-nato-troops-in-ukraine-can-spark-full-scale-conflict-with-russia-1117016717.html ukraine france Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.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 Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg macron on sending troops to fight in ukraine, emmanuel macron does not rule out sending troops to ukraine, nato troops, us troops, ukraine crisis, nato troops, nato forces, nato-russia war, war in ukraine, aid to ukraine, reinforcements to ukraine, aid ukraine, send forces to ukraine https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/russian-forces-take-control-over-petrovskoye-in-avdeyevka-direction-1117037131.html Russian Forces Take Control Over Petrovskoye in Avdeyevka Direction Russian Forces Take Control Over Petrovskoye in Avdeyevka Direction Sputnik International The Russian armed forces have taken control over the Petrovskoye village in the Avdeyevka, direction, the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. 2024-02-28T12:01+0000 2024-02-28T12:01+0000 2024-02-28T12:01+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine ukrainian crisis avdeyevka ukraine russian armed forces defense ministry donetsk peoples republic https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/06/0b/1111063987_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_6d48cb5c3e3ebdebd7ae889709a78645.jpg Moreover, the Russian troops took better positions in the Kherson direction and repelled a Ukrainian attack in Rabotino, the ministry said. Ukraine lost up to 40 soldiers in the Kherson direction in past 24 hours, according to the statement.In the Avdeyevka direction, [Russian] liberated the village of Petrovskoye, took more advantageous positions and repelled 11 counterattacks of the Ukrainian armed forces assault groups in the areas of the Donetsk Peoples Republic, the ministry said in a statement. The Russian Armed Forces liberated Avdeyevka in February, a small city that had been described by analysts as "the most heavily fortified location on Earth" due to actions taken by the Kiev regime. With Russia's protection, the city is now transitioning back to civil life, and residents are already receiving new citizenship documents. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240225/time-magazine-admits-the-obvious-acknowledges-ukraine-cant-win-1116959768.html avdeyevka ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russia's special military operation, special op, russian special op, ukraine crisis, ukraine conflict, avdeyevka siege, avdeyevka liberation, conflict in ukraine, russian army https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/transnistria-asks-russia-for-help-in-wake-of-economic-blockade-by-moldova--declaration--1117038129.html Transnistria Seeks Russias Help in Wake of Economic Blockade by Moldova Transnistria Seeks Russias Help in Wake of Economic Blockade by Moldova Sputnik International Predominantly Russian-speaking Transnistria, 60 percent of whose ethnic population are Russians and Ukrainians, declared its independence from Moldova during the collapse of the Soviet Union. 2024-02-28T12:32+0000 2024-02-28T12:32+0000 2024-02-28T14:10+0000 world russia transnistria https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/104762/25/1047622570_0:62:1201:737_1920x0_80_0_0_3a8a6a4905bc1bd6af77f8e123640e0f.jpg Transnistrian lawmakers have asked Russia for assistance over mounting economic pressure from Moldova. The legislators put forward a request to both the Federation Council and State Duma of Russia, urging them to implement measures to safeguard Transnistria, especially in light of Moldovas growing pressure. This request is backed up by the fact that over 220,000 Russian citizens reside in Transnistria.The bill's authors pointed to the unique and positive experience of Russias peacekeeping work in the region and highlighted that Moscow has served as a mediator in negotiations.As of January 1, 2024, Moldova launched a compulsory customs duty on goods imported to Transnistria. In reality, this amounts to multimillion-dollar losses for export-import companies operating in Transnistria, since they are required to pay a double tax: one to Transnistria and the other to the Moldovan budget. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230309/assassination-attempt-on-transnistrias-leader-foiled-1108206644.html russia transnistria Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russia, transnistria, russian transnistrian friendship, moldova, transnistria independence https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/ukraine-loses-up-to-230-soldiers-in-donetsk-direction-in-past-day-1117037432.html Ukraine Loses Up to 230 Soldiers in Donetsk Direction in Past Day Ukraine Loses Up to 230 Soldiers in Donetsk Direction in Past Day Sputnik International Ukraine has lost up to 230 soldiers both killed and wounded in the Donetsk direction over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. 2024-02-28T12:17+0000 2024-02-28T12:17+0000 2024-02-28T12:17+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine ukrainian crisis avdeyevka ukraine russian armed forces donetsk people's republic https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/02/14/1116887331_0:0:3036:1708_1920x0_80_0_0_b68b8e2b6b0d1a4f1632c214f7b5f6a0.jpg Over the given period, the Russian armed forces have repulsed 11 counterattacks by Ukrainian military in the Avdeyevka direction, seven attacks in the Kupyansk direction, and three counterattacks in the Donetsk direction. "The enemy lost up to 230 military personnel, two tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles and six vehicles [in the Donetsk direction]," the ministry said in a statement. Ukraine has also lost up to 165 soldiers in the Avdeyevka direction, up to 145 soldiers in the Kupyansk direction, and up to 115 soldiers in the South Donetsk direction, the ministry added. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/russian-forces-take-control-over-petrovskoye-in-avdeyevka-direction-1117037131.html avdeyevka ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International russia's special military operation, ukrainian conflict, ukrainian crisis, ukraine conflict, ukraine losses, ukraine russia conflict, russian military operation, ukraine death toll https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/us-b-52-bomber-conducts-emergency-landing-due-to-single-engine-fire---air-force-1117027899.html US B-52 Bomber Conducts Emergency Landing Due to Single-Engine Fire - Air Force US B-52 Bomber Conducts Emergency Landing Due to Single-Engine Fire - Air Force Sputnik International A US B-52 bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons had to conduct an emergency landing in the state of North Dakota due to a single-engine fire, a Minot Air Force Base spokesperson said in a statement to Sputnik. 2024-02-28T02:22+0000 2024-02-28T02:22+0000 2024-02-28T02:22+0000 military b-52 bombers boeing b-52 stratofortress us b-52 north dakota military aircraft https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/02/1c/1117027353_0:0:3306:1861_1920x0_80_0_0_19b1f184f696a2c4fc49632162d76621.jpg A United States B-52H Stratofortress bomber from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota performed an emergency landing at approximately 12:52 a.m. February 23, 2024, at Minot AFB, North Dakota due to a single engine fire," the spokesperson said on Tuesday. According to the base, none of the crewmembers of the aircraft were injured and the Minot Air Force Base fire department arrived on the scene to extinguish the engine fire. The incident is currently under investigation, the spokesperson noted. https://sputnikglobe.com/20240213/b-52-bomber-overhaul-economically-viable-given-cost-of-developing-new-aircraft-1116761936.html north dakota Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 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 b-52, us bomber, american bomber, bomber on fire, plane on fire, blazing plane, us army, us aircraft Visiting Japan is on a lot of peoples bucket list due to the culture, the busy city, and sights to see in every direction you turn. Its a never ending adventure whilst in Japan, and one you could spend forever there and still not visit every location. One thing is for sure though, theres something for everyone, visiting the busy city of Tokyo, or if youd prefer something quieter, as the city can get a bit much, you can visit the more rural sights such as Mount Fuji. In this article, well be looking at some of the best places in Japan to visit whilst youre there, and ensure we find something for everyone to see and enjoy. Pachinko parlour If playing slots is something you enjoy, then visiting a pachinko parlour could be right up your street. Featuring the only legalised form of gambling in Japan, pachinko parlours feature slot machines for players to spin and play. These are dotted around Japan, and are played by the local people on a regular basis, however these are popular tourist destinations. Just like the pachinko parlours, players also enjoy the thrill of playing their favourite games at crazy time casino, where they offer great casino games such as slots, poker and blackjack. Tokyo city Arguably one of the biggest and busiest cities in the world, Tokyo is one of the main hotspots for tourists visiting Japan, featuring numerous stores such as the Yodobashi Akiba, one of the largest technology stores in the world, hosting anything you could ever want or need in the world of tech. Along with the city skylines, Tokyo is also host to numerous neighbourhoods, which none alike the previous, this offers a unique experience for each one you visit making each one different. Hiroshima If history is your thing, then Hiroshima is a must visit for you. Now a thriving city, Hiroshima doesnt hide its history and the Peace Memorial Museum is a true eye opener and one to go to reflect and pay your respects. Theres also a park around the museum which offers further opportunities to take in the city and reflect on its history of one of the most tragic events in human history. Mount Fuji Not one for the faint hearted, Mount Fuji offers stunning once in a lifetime views, at the cost of the task of climbing to the top. However if this isn't your thing, the views from the bottom and far away are just as impressive. The most ideal time to go is between July and September to avoid rainy and snowy season. Be sure to check with a professional before attempting to climb and always do your research. Kamikochi Famous for its stunning forest walks, this is a complete opposite to visiting Tokyo, but one we think is a must do. Youll be taken on stunning walks through the outdoors and be as close to nature as possible. You have the option to either take simpler easy day walks through the wildlife, or more challenging walks up some of the biggest mountains in the world. Osaka The third largest city in Japan, this one takes the top spot for nightlife and food. Featuring some of the best street food in the world, Osaka is a real must for any foodie visiting. Its also known for having Japans oldest merchant centre, where you can eat till your heart's content. With numerous bars, lit up by giant led lights, youll be sure to find somewhere that takes your fancy. Southwest Islands The completely opposite experience to anything on this list, Okinawa and the southwest islands offer tropical styled beaches filled with white sand and bright blue beaches. Fancy a break from the bit city and nightlife? Look no further than Okinawa then where you can take yourself off and either sit by the beach, or swim and snorkel in the clear blue sea. Koya-San Featuring over 100 temples, Koya-San is a must go whilst visiting Japan. With some temples offering a purely historic and informational visit, other temples offer the opportunity to stay overnight, eat there and even meditate with local monks. Anyone looking to learn about the history of Japan, this is definitely one place to put on your list. Japan is a country with immense culture, passion and heart in every place you look. There arent many countries with such vastly different experiences and opportunities available so close to each other. You can visit Japan hundreds of times and get a different experience each time due to the amount of different activities and locations to visit, thats why its a must go. Above are just a few of the places we feel you should visit, but where will you be going first? https://sputnikglobe.com/20240228/us-to-explain-vetoing-gaza-resolution-during-un-meeting-on-march-4---spokesperson-1117044928.html US to Explain Vetoing Gaza Resolution During UN Meeting on March 4 - Spokesperson US to Explain Vetoing Gaza Resolution During UN Meeting on March 4 - Spokesperson Sputnik International The United States will have to explain during an upcoming meeting on March 4 the reason for casting a veto on a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, General Assembly presidential spokesperson Monica Grayley said on Wednesday. 2024-02-28T21:27+0000 2024-02-28T21:27+0000 2024-02-28T21:27+0000 us us hegemony gaza strip united nations general assembly un security council (unsc) palestine-israel conflict world genocide killings of civilians civilian casualties https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/02/1c/1117044771_0:320:3072:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_d42b18ae779437fcaca235f30797de01.jpg "On Monday, March 4, the General Assembly will call the plenary debate on use of the veto," Grayley said during a press briefing. The debate will be held at the General Assembly hall under the agenda item "The situation the Middle East, including the Palestinian question" and will take place at 10:00 a.m. ET, Grayley said. The president of the General Assembly will chair the meeting, Grayley added. On February 20, the United States vetoed an Algeria-drafted UN Security Council resolution that was calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. Thirteen members of the UN Security Council voted in favor of adopting the resolution, with the United Kingdom abstaining.The US has regularly impeded any resolution on Gaza that may hinder Israeli military operations. On December 8, Washington blocked a United Arab Emirates-drafted resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a Brazil-drafted resolution on October 18. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231210/us-vetoes-gaza-ceasefire-profits-from-arms-sale-on-same-day-1115505751.html gaza strip Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2024 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International us veto, genocide, ethnic cleansing, humanitarian disaster, humanitarian catastrophe, humanitarian ceasefire, israel-hamas conflict, gaza strip crisis, shelling of gaza, gaza devastation, israel-palestine conflict, palestine-israel conflict, israeli-palestinian conflict, palestinian-israeli, zionist regime, zionists, hamas attack, israeli strikes, israeli forces, hostages, israeli military, hamas fighters, hamas soldiers, hamas military, killings of civilians, civilian infrastructure, civilians dead, civilians die, israel kills civilians, civilian casualties, civilian deaths, indiscriminate shelling, indiscriminate killing, war crimes Sputnik / Russian Defence Ministry Since conducting its initial test of nuclear weapons in 1949, Russia has been committed to a No First Use policy, viewing these arms solely as a means to prevent nuclear attacks. In line with this stance, Yars is a formidable yet strictly defensive weapon. Gov. Jim Pillen and Sen. Brian Hardin, of Gering, were among those welcoming the opening of the Kimball Health Services new hospital Monday. The open house and ribbon cutting ceremony was heavily attended by community members who heard from local leaders and elected officials. Interested community and staff members packed the hospitals lobby nearly shoulder to shoulder. Pillen, who was the first to speak, remarked about the accomplishment the completion of the hospital is for Kimball. Its just an incredible testament to the people of your community, and to the vibrancy of your community and to the grit and determination that it takes to bring it all together, he said. He also spoke about the importance of maintaining amenities like the hospital in communities like Kimball. He said he hoped that the continued availability of health care in the town would help people stay in Kimball as opposed to leaving for larger communities. If you dont have a vibrant health care center within a 35-mile radius, its very, very difficult, Pillen said, so this is vital, its instrumental for rural Nebraska growth. Most of the funding came from a USDA loan that covered $34.2 million of the $43.6 million project. The rest of that funding came from a combination of a $6.4 million bond issue approved by the Kimball County Commissioners and $3 million in hospital and donor contributions. Board Vice Chairman Carl Stander spoke about how pleased he is with the completion of the project and what it means for Kimball County residents. Its the responsibility of an elected official to maintain and improve the quality of life for citizens, Stander said. This new facility raises the bar and I truly believe the quality of life in Kimball and the surrounding areas has been greatly improved today. Hardin echoed the sentiments that were expressed by many of the other speakers Monday afternoon congratulating Kimball and the hospitals leaders on their vision. He speculated that the improvement to the facilities available in Kimball would and already has helped to bring more experienced and qualified medical professionals to the area. Like attracts like, and this leadership team has attracted some amazing doctors and theyre doing incredible things for this community, Hardin said. Newly minted Kimball Health Services CEO Cassie Gasseling spent her time thanking all of the contributors who were involved in the project. Gasseling took over for former CEO Ken Hunter at the beginning of the year while also maintaining her role as hospital CFO. First of all, Id like to thank the community and all of our amazing donors who helped make this project a reality. You guys dont know how much your support has meant to us throughout this, she said. She also made sure to make mention of the hospital staff, along with its general contractor Haselden Construction and architecture firm CMBA Architects. Hunter discussed how proud he was of the growth the hospital had seen under his tenure and how bright the future could be as they continue to move forward. Other speakers included Kimball Health Services Board of Trustees Chairman Jim Cedeburg and Kimball Mayor John Morrison. Once the speakers had finished their remarks, attendees were encouraged to tour the hospital and see the new facility. While there were some areas that were restricted to maintain patient privacy, the majority of the hospital was open to the visitors. Kenna Culek, a surgical technologist at the hospital, said so far their time at the new facility has made a significant difference in the quality of care they have been able to provide. The most impactful of these differences was the increase in the amount of space available to them. The new facility is roughly three times larger than the old hospital and Culek said that being able work without feeling overcrowded has made them much more efficient. One of the biggest changes that has been touted by hospital officials has been the improved and enlarged surgical suites available at the hospital. Culek said they have improved the surgical process for patients and staff members. Were able to get the patient prepped and ready to go way quicker, Culek said. As Morrison closed out the remarks preceding the ribbon cutting, he pointed out the importance that facilities like the hospital hold for communities like Kimball and the security that the new building would provide moving forward. This is a special day for Kimball, Morrison said. This new hospitals a major improvement for Kimball. Without this new hospital, Kimball would have probably eventually lost the hospital. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has recognized Regional Wests Birth and Infant Care Center as a Lactation Education Across Rural America (LEARN) Breastfeeding Hospital Champion. The LEARN Breastfeeding Hospital Champion campaign aims to increase breastfeeding in Nebraska using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care (mPINC) survey to support best practices and policies. To earn LEARN Breastfeeding Hospital Champion status, hospitals must compile a group of breastfeeding champions, obtain and review the facilitys mPINC report, address gaps and implement action steps from the report and complete yearly breastfeeding education audits. Birth and Infant Care Center and Pediatrics Director Kynzie Lentfer said the designation reflects employees efforts in breastfeeding support. Being recognized as a LEARN Breastfeeding Hospital Champion by the Nebraska DHHS is a huge testament to the work that our certified lactation counselor, Amber Mendoza, and Birth and Infant Care Center and Pediatrics employees put into helping our families achieve their feeding goals, she said. Mendoza said she enjoys the opportunity to support families on their breastfeeding journey. Getting the chance to help families during one of the most joyous times in their lives has been a rewarding opportunity. Regional West Medical Center is a breastfeeding-friendly facility, recognizing the lifelong benefits that breastfeeding offers both mothers and infants. In addition to providing breastfeeding education, certified lactation counselors (CLCs) are onsite to help families develop feeding plans, meet breastfeeding goals, and provide opportunities for support at home. Additionally, the Birth and Infant Care Center is a collection site for the Mothers Milk Bank Network and accepts breast milk donations from area mothers. To learn more about the Birth and Infant Care Centers breastfeeding support services, visit rwhs.org/services/family-children/birth-infant-care-center/breastfeeding-support or call the lactation office at 308-630-1954. When casting a ballot in North Carolinas 10th Congressional District, you can consider it a 20-year vote. The previous two congressmen from the district were Patrick McHenry and Cass Ballenger. Both served 20 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. McHenry announced his retirement in December, leaving no incumbent in a district where the status quo has been the preference for 40 years. Five Republican candidates are battling it out in the primary to face Democrat Ralph Scott Jr. in the general election. The five Republicans are Charles Eller, Pat Harrigan, Diana Jimison, Brooke McGowan and Grey Mills. We asked each candidate for some biographical information, as well as answers to four questions. Here are the responses. Some have been edited for length and clarity. CHARLES ELLER Age: 61 Occupation: sales consultant/former small business owner and entrepreneur Education: Bachelors degree in industrial relations, UNC-Chapel Hill 1984 Phone: 704-202-3813 What makes you the best person in the race to represent the 10th District in Congress? I have never held political office, Im not beholden to the establishment, lobbyists, or any special interest group. I am also a leader and not a follower, and my voting record will be consistent with my campaign rhetoric. My reasons and motives for running are rooted in something virtuous and pure. Its to follow the Constitution, look out for the interest of the people of the 10th district, as well as America, and its a recognition that our country is off track, and we need to make hard decisions to get it back on track economically, culturally, and at the southern border. What are your top priorities if elected? Charles Eller Age: 61 Occupation: sales consultant/former small business owner and entrepreneur Education: Bachelor's degree in industrial relations, UNC-Chapel Hill 1984 Email: charles@charlesellerforcongress.com Phone: 704-202-3813 Secure the southern border to stop the invasion and occupation by millions of illegal aliens from over 120 countries. Commit to massive cuts in federal spending and unleashing Americas energy sources, such as gas, oil, coal, and solar to make us energy independent and dominant like we were under Donald Trump. Defund, dismantle, and deconstruct the administrative state that has been weaponized against the American people to deprive them of their liberty, prosperity, and security. Republicans have often been critical of President Bidens handling of immigration and border security. What specifically do you believe needs to be done differently? My 11-point plan to secure the border and stop the invasion and occupation of our country by illegals from over 120 countries: Assist Texas by sending National Guard troops and deputizing 500,000 volunteers. No continuing resolution in March. Shut down the border or shut down the government. Cut off all federal aid to illegals coming across the border and illegals that are already here. No free housing, free healthcare, free education, or food stamps. Cut off all aid to entities like the UN that are funding NGOs that help illegals come into the country. End birthright citizenship. Pass legislation that says illegals are not to be counted in the census in determining congressional apportionment. Complete the border wall and fund border patrol. Formulate a plan thats peaceful if possible, but forcible if necessary, for the mass deportation of the 10 to 12,000,000 illegals that are already here. Fine US employers $25,000 per month for each illegal they hire. Pass legislation that formally declares war on the drug cartels and authorizes, domestic law-enforcement, and the U.S. military, to annihilate the drug cartels, including their infrastructure, whether is within or outside the United States. Re-implement Donald Trumps policy of remain in Mexico. This Congress has often been noted for its chaos. It took 15 votes to elect a House speaker, a speaker who was ousted from the position just nine months in. It then took nearly a month to elect a new speaker, forcing current District 10 Rep. Patrick McHenry to serve as a placeholder. What do you see as the root of this dysfunction and what do you think needs to be done to improve the situation? What needs to be done differently is Republicans need to be loyal to their voters and stop talking and campaigning one way and then going to Washington D.C. and voting the opposite. The people are tired of being lied to and let down by RINOs who pretend to be America First, but in reality are establishment types that are working against the interest of the American people because their allegiance is to their donors and lobbyists. PAT HARRIGAN Age: 36 Occupation: Former Green Beret, entrepreneur, and current firearms manufacturer Education: West Point Military Academy, bachelors degree in nuclear engineering Current/previous elected or appointed office: None Civic involvement: National Rifle Association Life member; West Point Society of Western N.C.; Special Forces Association life member; and St. Michaels All Airborne Chapter Instagram: @patharriganNC Campaign phone: 828-979-2429 What makes you the best person in the race to represent the 10th District in Congress? Every single one of us is yearning for a stronger America one that we can all look across and say, America is indeed, by every objective measure, great again. That will only come when we have strong leaders of character who fight for American interests first and foremost, stand up to our adversaries, and regain the trust of the American people that our current crop of leadership has lost. For generations, we have sent attorneys turned career politicians to Washington. They are not solving our problems. They are the problem. Pat Harrigan Age: 36 Occupation: Former Green Beret, entrepreneur, and current firearms manufacturer Education: West Point Military Academy, bachelors degree in nuclear engineering Current/previous elected or appointed office: None Civic involvement: National Rifle Association Life member; West Point Society of Western N.C.; Special Forces Association life member; and St. Michael's All Airborne Chapter Email: info@harriganforcongress.com Website: www.harriganforcongress.com Instagram: @patharriganNC Facebook: https://facebook.com/PatHarriganNC X: https://twitter.com/PatHarriganNC Campaign phone: 828-979-2429 I am not a career politician. I am an outsider. I am a business owner who has grown our firearms manufacturing company from a double-wide trailer to a 120,000-square-foot facility full of American manufacturing, and as a combat veteran, I am a proven fighter who knows how and when to fight. With a historical average of 50-70% veterans in Congress and less than 20% today, we need the combination of veteran-entrepreneur now more than ever. That is exactly what I am, and because of my experience and proven track record of success, I believe that I am the most qualified candidate to represent the 10th District in Washington DC. What are your top priorities if elected? My biggest priority is placing American interests and the needs of American citizens above all other competing interests. This manifests itself in several ways. First, there is no question that the national security crisis at our southern border is a top issue. As I have said throughout this campaign, if we do not have a border, we do not have a country. We must close our southern border, finish President Trumps wall and reinstate his Remain in Mexico policy, end sanctuary cities, end the policy of economic asylum, and deport illegals who are here illegally. Second, our priority must be Americas future, not foreign aid to other countries. Voters want to see an aggressive willingness to solve Americas problems first before carelessly inflating our national debt to solve Ukraines problems, while leaving our own border crisis unresolved. Third, we must prioritize the American economy, reinvigorate American manufacturing, and preserve and defend our middle class which is taking a serious beating right now. It feels as though our representatives in Washington refuse to put America first, which signals an unwillingness to prioritize American interests and the well-being of American citizens. The establishment fails to grasp this understanding; I grasp it. Republicans have often been critical of President Bidens handling of immigration and border security. What specifically do you believe needs to be done differently? The world is burning around us today because of weak leadership from the current administration. I fully support President Trumps America First policies because they prioritize the interests and well-being of the United States above all else, emphasizing a commitment to national sovereignty, economic prosperity, and the security of American citizens. We must prioritize American sovereignty above all else. Not a single dollar should be spent on Ukraine until our own countrys physical security is provided for at our southern border. We must close the southern border immediately, finish President Trumps wall and reinstate his Remain in Mexico policy, end sanctuary cities, stop providing economic asylum, and deport illegals who have broken our laws. The invasion at our southern border must stop because it is an existential national security threat to our country. This Congress has often been noted for its chaos. It took 15 votes to elect a House speaker, a speaker who was ousted from the position just nine months in. It then took nearly a month to elect a new speaker, forcing current District 10 Rep. Patrick McHenry to serve as a placeholder. What do you see as the root of this dysfunction and what do you think needs to be done to improve the situation? During my time at West Point, I learned that the most important words ever written in American history are, We The People. Today, less than 20% of the representatives in Congress have served in the military, and this is a direct reflection of the erosion of traditional values and the rise of secular influences handicapping our country today. To overcome our internal dysfunctions, we must look to reclaim a Christian constitutional conservative approach, and actively embrace and promote the timeless principles embedded in both Christianity and the Constitution. This entails fostering a cultural resurgence that values moral integrity, absolute truth, and a deep commitment to the original intent of our constitutional framework. We must stop sending the same cut of politicians to D.C. expecting different outcomes. As our nation faces existential crises, more veteran leadership is needed that takes a pragmatic approach to problem-solving, unencumbered by political bureaucracy. Over the next two years, we have the chance to make incremental changes that will shape the destiny of the next generation. My journey from the battlefields of Afghanistan to starting my own firearms manufacturing business has reinforced my oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. DIANA JIMISON What makes you the best person in the race to represent the 10th District in Congress? First, Id like to direct you to Amos 5:10-15 found in the Holy Word of God. This was in my devotions the day after I filed, and it gave me chills. There will be those who do not like me because I speak the truth. I have been advocating for people for many years, trying to find resources to assist them during some of the most difficult days they face and thats during sickness. As a result of the hardships, I have witnessed due to big pharma, insurance, unethical taxation, misinformation that has stolen many lives, I felt called to fight on a different level in 2021. I love people and they need someone in their corner fighting for them and their needs. I fight for those who may not even like me because its the right thing to do. Diana Jimison Age: 51 Occupation: Certified Registered Nurse Case Manager. I have served in many different roles in my career, including helping build two successful hospital system programs. Education: Catawba Valley Community College Associate Degree in Nursing, 2005. Current/previous elected or appointed office: I ran as a write-in candidate in 2022 for US Congress NC-10 and am thankful for the 349 who had confidence in me. Civic involvement: Jesus rescued me at 18 in my bathroom the night I was going to commit suicide. Since that transformation, I have always been heavily involved in church until I had to change work schedules that afforded me getting my daughter to physicians all over North Carolina. I personally enjoy the Catawba County Tea Party and the Mama Bears do great work. Email: Dianarn4congress@gmail.com Facebook: Diana Jimison Rn For Congress 10. Feel free to check out the questions I asked Congressman McHenry on my page where he lied about voting for big government to track us with vaccination status. I have done my due diligence in researching him out. I love Donald Trump, but he could seriously use me to help him research these people and the way they vote before he endorses them. However, I know no one is perfect. His endorsements, however, create a ton of confusion when actions do not line up with what they say. I personally believe 2024 is our last chance to get it right. What are your top priorities if elected? Fight taxation. Fight Big pharma. Fight insurance. Work to give autonomy back to the physician. Fight the border crisis. Fight for life. Fight for those who have diseases that have been dismissed. Lipedema is a debilitating connective tissue disease that affects 17 million women. That is 1 out of 9 women affected, meaning you very well have a mother, daughter, wife, sister walking around who suffer in pain but have been misdiagnosed. I am not OK with that. Republicans have often been critical of President Bidens handling of immigration and border security. What specifically do you believe needs to be done differently? Build the wall and allow immigrants to come through the door appropriately. We cannot sustain as a nation allowing millions to come in the way the Biden Administration is doing this. Drugs are rampant, child sex trafficking is on a rampage and it has been proven. This Congress has often been noted for its chaos. It took 15 votes to elect a House speaker, a speaker who was ousted from the position just nine months in. It then took nearly a month to elect a new speaker, forcing current District 10 Rep. Patrick McHenry to serve as a placeholder. What do you see as the root of this dysfunction and what do you think needs to be done to improve the situation? I personally believe both parties are working to destroy our nation. Many politicians have been bought out. We have to stop sending rich men and politicians to Washington. When should I vote? Early voting is ongoing and Election Day is March 5. Do your research. Look at voter registration dates, previous voting history and ask questions. If a candidate hires a sitting representatives campaign manager, takes money from that representative, sends weapons to the Ukraine or takes COVID monies, we need to ask questions. This is public knowledge. We cannot create change by doing the same things. If a candidate has received majority of endorsements from mostly other politicians, again we need to ask questions. BROOKE MCGOWAN What makes you the best person in the race to represent the 10th District in Congress? I have stood and fought for North Carolinians at the state and federal level. I am a lifelong activist who lobbied for Voter ID, the Marriage Amendment, fought against Obamacare, Common Core and Amnesty, and fought for life from conception to natural death. I dont bore the voters with useless political platitudes. I am the real deal. Brooke McGowan Age: 53 Occupation: Former clinic director, business manager and political media Education: Graduate of New Life Theological Seminary in Charlotte, Urban Ministry and Christian Counseling (bachelor's degree) Current/previous elected or appointed office: Charter member of Better Streets Safer Cities (OKC Mayor appointed) 2017-18 Civic involvement: Carolinas director, Center for Bioethical Reform 2012-14; founder, Wahine for Trump 2019-20; co-founder, Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite 2017-19; women's ministry, various churches in North Carolina, Oklahoma and Hawaii 2011-19; volunteer, Operation Save America 2012-15 Email: brookemcgowanfornc@gmail.com Phone: 704-526-9494 cell Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555033712751 X: @Brooke4Congress Website: www.brookefornc.com What are your top priorities if elected? Secure the border; Investigate COVID protocols; and Hold bad actors in government accountable. Republicans have often been critical of President Bidens handling of immigration and border security. What specifically do you believe needs to be done differently? Close the border. Moratorium on all entry. What is an NGO? Several candidates said they would get rid of NGOs. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are typically mission-driven advocacy or service organizations in the nonprofit sector, according to the Harvard Law School website. NGOs include Amnesty International and Doctors without Borders. Deport past lawbreakers. Cut off the NGOs and the cartels, including the Biden administration. Shut off the spigot to stop funding our own demise. This Congress has often been noted for its chaos. It took 15 votes to elect a House speaker, a speaker who was ousted from the position just nine months in. It then took nearly a month to elect a new speaker, forcing current District 10 Rep. Patrick McHenry to serve as a placeholder. What do you see as the root of this dysfunction and what do you think needs to be done to improve the situation? Congressmen not keeping their promises and not gaining the trust of fellow members. The nuclear option was installed as a safety measure in case (former House Speaker Kevin) McCarthy failed to keep his word which he failed to do. Until Congressmen stand by their word, they should also be appropriately removed from leadership. GREY MILLS What makes you the best person in the race to represent the 10th District in Congress? I am the only candidate in this race with a proven conservative record. In the General Assembly, I fought and won on issues like immigration, where we passed legislation to require sheriffs to cooperate with ICE. I also led on election integrity by ending the counting of ballots after Election Day, and on wokeism by banning Critical Race Theory and protecting girls sports. I have always voted to protect the taxpayer and promote freedom. It is easy to talk about doing things, but I am the only one who has actually done it. Grey Mills Age: 57 Occupation: Attorney, state legislator Education: Appalachian State (bachelor's degree in education); Regent University School of Law (Juris Doctor) Current/previous elected or appointed office: State representative, 2009-12 and 2021-24 Email: info@greymillsnc.com X: https://twitter.com/greyforcongress Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greyforcongress Washington is broken, and I get disgusted when I turn on the TV at night and see the failed leadership and missed opportunities that come from our nations Capitol. In Raleigh, we know how to get things done, and we need to take those same North Carolina values to Washington. What are your top priorities if elected? My number one priority is securing the southern border. Every day illegal immigrants, some who are on the terror watch list, and drugs pour into our country. First and foremost, we need to shut down the border, build the wall, fully fund ICE and the Border Patrol, and reinstate President Trumps Remain in Mexico Policy. I oppose any pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. After that, we need to get the federal spending under control. What is ICE? It is an acronym for U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement. In Raleigh, we balance the state budget every two years, and have money left over to put in the rainy day fund. We expect American families and businesses to do the same. There is no reason the federal government should not. I will work to pass a balanced budget amendment in Washington. Republicans have often been critical of President Bidens handling of immigration and border security. What specifically do you believe needs to be done differently? No amnesty and build the wall. We need to shut down the southern border, reinstate Remain in Mexico, fully fund the Border Patrol and ICE and stand firmly opposed to a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. We have done what we can at the state level, but more needs to be done at the federal level. This Congress has often been noted for its chaos. It took 15 votes to elect a House speaker, a speaker who was ousted from the position just nine months in. It then took nearly a month to elect a new speaker, forcing current District 10 Rep. Patrick McHenry to serve as a placeholder. What do you see as the root of this dysfunction and what do you think needs to be done to improve the situation? The root of the dysfunction in Washington stems from a lack of good conservative values. The N.C. General Assembly is an example of how government should work. We balance our budget, we protect the taxpayer, we pass legislation to make our communities safer. Washington has lost its way, and it needs to be reoriented. Until we see a better representation of our values in Washington, we are going to be stuck in this cycle of dysfunction. [This is part of the series: 20 Writing Tips From John Erickson] So, writers should read but Reading is not the best place to find all of your writing material. See, there are very few people who have lived your story. In fact, nobody has lived your exact story. And thats the stuff we need you to write about! If you have worked in crop insurance or medicine or Hollywood for the last 20 years, that story has still not been told from your perspective. I mean, hundreds of other people could write about growing up in Saudi Arabia, but none would have the exact same perspective, timing, and memories as I do. You could do enough research and write a great book (fiction or non-fiction) on World War I. But is that book going to have the same texture, tone, and insight as someone who lived it? Would the comic strip Dilbert be as funny if Scott Adams had not spent 20 years in corporate America? Does that make sense? 13. Good writers read but dont neglect experience. -John Erickson, Story Craft (Amazon) A University of Virginia student was seriously injured after an alleged hazing accident at the Kappa Sigma fraternity house in Charlottesville late Tuesday night. The news was first broke by the Jefferson Independent, a conservative, student-run news outlet on Grounds, which reported that a second-year transfer student pledging Kappa Sigma had been drinking heavily at the fraternity house on Rugby Road when he fell backward down a staircase and hit his head on a wall at the bottom. According to the publication, sources say the student has been hospitalized and is comatose. Neither a UVa spokeswoman nor a Kappa Sigma spokesman denied the report when contacted by The Daily Progress. UVa spokeswoman Bethanie Glover said Kappa Sigma has been suspended pending a Division of Student Affairs investigation into the matter. We take allegations of hazing seriously and act quickly to investigate them and take disciplinary action if necessary, Glover told The Daily Progress in an email. State and/or local law enforcement agencies investigate allegations of hazing under Virginia law. The Division of Student Affairs investigates allegations of hazing under University policy. Glover said she could not divulge any more information until the investigation is closed, including the students condition. A spokesman for Kappa Sigma, which has its national headquarters just south of Charlottesville city limits, said the fraternity is aware an injury did occur. He offered no other details. Our hopes and prayers are with our member for a speedy recovery, Leo Brown told The Daily Progress via email. Brown also gave a full-throated condemnation of hazing, which is not only explicitly forbidden at UVa but a crime in the commonwealth of Virginia. Hazing is disgusting and is not tolerated by the Kappa Sigma Fraternity as it violates our Code of Conduct, he said. Kappa Sigma will take swift and severe actions against the membership of those credibly involved in hazing. The Daily Progress reached out to the Inter-Fraternity Council at UVa, an independently run student organization that oversees Greek life at the university. The council did not respond. There were several accounts of hazing within student organizations and clubs in 2022 reported to the University Judiciary Committee, a student-run body that issues sanctions based on the findings of Student Affairs investigations. In September 2022, the womens gymnastics club was charged with hazing at an initiation event where incoming members were instructed to perform various stunts and required to take a shot of alcohol or water if they failed. In response, the judiciary committee required the groups co-presidents to attend two meetings with a member of the UVa administration from Student Engagement or Fraternity & Sorority Life and required all executive members to attend Hoos Against Hazing training. That same fall, incidents of hazing were reported with the University Guide Services. Current members forced new members to chug alcoholic drinks and served alcohol to underage members on several occasions, according to reports. The judiciary committee decided the group must create a central document of conduct for all of its members that includes anti-hazing expectations. The University Guide Services must also hold a meeting every semester where these expectations are explained to members. Tuesdays incident at Kappa Sigma comes a little more than a week after Virginia legislators passed a bill requiring hazing awareness and prevention training at public high schools in the commonwealth. Senate Bill 379 was approved two years after the passage of whats known as Adams Law, which mandates hazing training at all Virginia colleges. The bill is named after Virginia Commonwealth University student Adam Oakes who died in 2021 after a fraternity hazing incident. Senate Bill 379 calls for the State Board of Education to approve hazing education curriculum to be taught in ninth- or 10th-grade health and physical education classes. Best colleges in Virginia Best colleges in Virginia The meeting focused on "the longstanding and fraternal relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia." al-Baath, a state media, said The Syrian Arab Republics Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ayman Soussan, and Abdullah bin Muhammad Al-Sheikh, Chairman of the Saudi Shura Council, recently engaged in discussions aimed at bolstering the ties between their respective countries. The meeting, held at the Shura Councils headquarters in Riyadh on Tuesday, focused on the longstanding and fraternal relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia, exploring avenues for further enhancement. During the discussions, Al-Sheikh expressed his pleasure at the ongoing development of bilateral relations, emphasizing the need to foster greater interaction between the Syrian Peoples Assembly and the Saudi Shura Council. Soussan, on his part, highlighted the significance of nurturing these fraternal ties in a manner that aligns with the historical bond between the two nations, aiming to fulfill the mutual interests and aspirations of their peoples. He underscored the importance of this collaboration in strengthening the Arab position, especially in the face of the challenges confronting the Arab world today. Furthermore, Soussan accentuated the critical role of parliamentary diplomacy in advancing the relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia, calling for an intensification of efforts to solidify the connection between the Peoples Assembly and the Saudi Shura Council. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Your daily brief of the English-speaking press on Syria. After U.S. Strikes, Irans Proxies Scale Back Attacks on American Bases Iran has made a concerted effort to rein in militias in Iraq and Syria after the United States retaliated with a series of airstrikes for the killing of three U.S. Army reservists this month, the New York Times reported. Initially, there were regional concerns that the tit-for-tat violence would lead to an escalation of the Middle East conflict. But since the Feb. 2 U.S. strikes, American officials say, there have been no attacks by Iran-backed militias on American bases in Iraq and only two minor ones in Syria. Before then, the U.S. military logged at least 170 attacks against American troops in four months, Pentagon officials said. The relative quiet reflects decisions by both sides and suggests that Iran does have some level of control over the militias. The Biden administration has made clear that Tehran would be held accountable for miscalculations and operations by proxy forces, but it has avoided any direct attack on Iran. The U.S. response may be having some effect, Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., a retired head of the Pentagons Central Command, said in an interview. The question is are the militias attacking or not, he added, and at least for now, they are not. The lull also marks a sharp turnaround by Iran. Tehran had for months directed its regional proxies in Iraq and Syria to attack American bases in the Middle East as part of a wider battle against Israel, which is fighting Hamas in Gaza. The American and Iranian officials interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters. UN Official Highlights Dire Humanitarian Crisis in Syria, Calls for Renewed International Support The humanitarian situation in Syria, already grappling with the aftermath of devastating earthquakes and a prolonged conflict, has reached an unprecedented crisis level, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr. Martin Griffiths, warned during a Security Council briefing Tuesday. Reflecting on the first anniversary of the February 2023 earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria, Griffiths expressed deep condolences to the families who suffered losses and acknowledged the global support that followed. Yet, he emphasized that the situation in Syria, on the brink of its 13th year of conflict, requires much more sustained effort, especially in providing essential services and adequate shelter for the displaced. Griffiths painted a grim picture of Syrias current state, with 16.7 million peoplenearly three-quarters of the nations populationnow in dire need of humanitarian assistance, marking the highest number since the conflict began. The expansion of hostilities, recent attacks, and the shutdown of vital facilities due to strikes have severely impacted civilians, causing displacement, casualties, and a significant reduction in access to electricity, water, and essential services. This has led to heightened food insecurity and malnutrition among the most vulnerable groups, including children, and pregnant and lactating women. The Under-Secretary-General also highlighted the challenges in delivering humanitarian aid due to access restrictions and security concerns. Despite these obstacles, he noted the Syrian governments recent authorization for the UN to use the Bab al-Salam and Al Raee border crossings for an additional three months, a move that facilitates the delivery of much-needed assistance to millions each month. Jordan arrests dozens in crackdown against drug smuggling from Syria Jordans security forces foiled several drug smuggling attempts across the kingdom in the past days, in the latest crackdown against the trade that has flourished in recent years, Al-Monitor reportes The Public Security Directorate announced in a statement on Tuesday that the Anti-Narcotics Department has launched nationwide operations against drug smuggling, arresting 23 people allegedly involved in drug trafficking, distribution and smuggling. One of the most prominent cases involves an attempt to smuggle 1.5 million narcotic pills to an unnamed neighboring country. The directorate said security forces seized the drugs that were found in a shipping vehicle and arrested six people involved in the case. The directorate did not specify where this operation took place. Security forces also conducted raids in the northern town of Ajloun and Mafraq governorate in the north, in the capital Amman, as well as in the governorates of Mafraq and Maan in the south. Several people were arrested and various types of narcotic pills, cannabis, methamphetamine, as well as firearms were confiscated. The directorate continued that a person was arrested during an operation at the Jaber border crossing with southern Syria, after 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of methamphetamine were found in his possession. Security forces also apprehended an individual who attempted to smuggle 70,000 narcotic pills in the same area. Turkeys MIT Kills top a Kurdish Women Leader in Syria The National Intelligence Organization (MIT) eliminated Syrian national Emine Seyid Ahmed, one of the commanders of YPJ, an all-female wing of the group security sources said on Tuesday. Ahmed, also known as Azadi Derik, was eliminated in a precision operation in Syrias Qamishli, a stronghold of the groups Syrian wing YPG. Ahmed was among the masterminds of attacks targeting Turkish security forces, sources said. She was already on a target list of Turkish intelligence services. Sources said Ahmed was involved in attacks targeting security forces in the Operation Olive Branch area, where the Turkish army launched cross-border operations in 2018. The area covers most of northeastern Syria, immediately across the Turkish-Syrian border. Ahmeds actions caused the deaths of a large number of soldiers and she was also behind cross-border rocket attacks that targeted Kilis, a southern Turkish province on the border, security sources said. Ahmed joined the group in 2011, the year when a civil war broke out in Syria. She was trained in PKK camps in neighboring Iraq. After a brief stay there, she returned to Syria. Ahmed was also among the members of PKKs so-called Health Committee and was a senior figure of the YPJ. She was injured in a shootout with Turkish security forces in the past but escaped. No longer afraid of sparking war, Israel takes gloves off against IRGC in Syria The Times of Israel published an article discussing a significant escalation in Israels military campaign in Syria, particularly against Iran-linked targets and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Heres a summary and analysis: Since October 7, coinciding with conflicts involving Gaza and attacks from Iran-backed groups, Israel has intensified its air campaign against Iran-sponsored entities in Syria. This campaign now includes targeted assassinations of Iranian officials, marking a strategic shift in Israels approach. The frequency and nature of these strikes suggest a more aggressive stance by Israel, aiming to disrupt Irans military entrenchment in Syria. The article highlights recent Israeli operations, including the killing of IRGC officers and Hezbollah members. These operations indicate a move beyond attacking weapon transfers to directly targeting senior figures within Iran-backed groups. This strategy change is attributed to Israels perception of having little to lose in more assertively countering Tehrans influence in Syria, especially amidst ongoing regional conflicts. Experts believe these intensified actions are altering the dynamics on the ground, forcing Iran and its allies to reconsider their positioning and strategies in Syria. The Israeli campaign is seen as successfully putting Iran and Hezbollah on the defensive, with significant redeployments and a reduction in their ability to mount attacks from the Syrian Golan. Israel has not officially claimed responsibility for all specific strikes but acknowledges targeting arms shipments to Iran-backed groups. The rationale for these intensified operations is linked to broader regional conflicts and the desire to limit Irans military capabilities and influence in Syria. This approach also reflects a calculated risk, assuming a limited capacity for Iran and Hezbollah to retalitatively escalate the conflict significantly. Israels recent military actions in Syria represent a significant escalation aimed at undermining Irans military entrenchment and influence. By targeting senior IRGC and Hezbollah figures, Israel is sending a clear message about its willingness to confront Iranian influence more directly. This strategy, while risky, is seen by some experts as effectively deterring Irans activities in Syria, though it contributes to the complexity of the regional security landscape. Crews pour a foundation as construction continues at Stonebridge Crossing off Dickerman Road in July. File photo. Dave Zajac / Hearst Connecticut Media People walk to the Meriden Mall entrance next to T.J. Maxx, March 29, 2022. Another T.J. Maxx store is scheduled to open in Cheshire. DAVE ZAJAC/Dave Zajac, Record-Journal Thurs., Jul.2, 2020. Dave Zajac, Record-Journal DAVE ZAJAC Meriden Mall, Jan 4, 2021. Dave Zajac / Hearst Connecticut Media The T.J. Maxx store in the Marketplace at Hamden. The parent company of the Massachusetts-based retailer has announced plans for a new store that will be part of a Cheshire mixed use development. Luther Turmelle/ Hearst Connecticut Media The announcement that T.J. Maxx will be part of the retail complex at the Stone Bridge Crossing mixed use development in Cheshire has some area shoppers wondering what that might ultimately mean for the retailer's other locations in the area. The new T.J. Maxx, which is scheduled to open in late 2025 or early in 2026, will be located in what will be called Cheshire Crossing, a shopping center that will be part of the Stone Bridge complex, near the intersection of Route 10 and Interstate 691. That's just a few miles west of another T.J. Maxx location in the Meriden Mall at 470 Lewis Ave. The new Cheshire T.J. Maxx store will also be located just a few miles north of another retail location that is also part of the stable of brands operated by Massachusetts-based TJX Companies. The Marshalls department store location in Cheshire is in Maplecroft Plaza on Highland Avenue, and for months there has been speculation on social media that the store would close at that site and relocate to Stone Bridge Crossing. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Now that T.J. Maxx has been identified as one of the tenants of Cheshire Crossing, social media discussions in Cheshire and neighboring communities have pivoted to whether the opening of the new store will result in the closing Marshalls in Cheshire or the T.J. Maxx in Meriden. Burt Flickinger, managing director of the New York City-based retail consulting firm Strategic Resource Group, said most retailers "don't want another of their stores within three miles of their primary trade area and within five miles of their secondary trade area." Primary trade areas are where a majority of a retailer's customers come from, while the secondary trade area is where as many as a quarter of a store's customers are drawn from. Flickinger said some retailers will build a new store within those trade areas as a hedge against real estate problems at an existing store. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "Sometimes they'll build a replacement location before the lease at an existing store runs out in case they can't negotiate an extension," he said. But Flickinger said executives at TJX "are some times very comfortable having a T.J. Maxx and Marshalls within the same shopping center or very nearby." Andrew Martelli, Cheshire's director of economic development and grants, said that's the case on Universal Drive in North Haven. "You have a T.J. Maxx right across the street from a Home Goods," Martelli said, referring to another brand in the TJX portfolio. "So I don't think you will see them close the Marshalls in Cheshire." Advertisement Article continues below this ad Marshalls now has about 20 locations in Connecticut, while T.J. Maxx has 18 stores in the state, according to the web sites for the two brands. TJX officials did not respond to inquiries from Hearst Connecticut Media about what the company's policies are in terms of proximity of its stores to each other. T.J. Maxx has been open in the Meriden Mall for about a decade. Joulani stands accused of making erroneous decisions that have exacerbated internal conflicts within HTS, opposition-affiliated Syria TV reports Abu Muhammad al-Joulani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is grappling with a significant crisis following the release of prisoners accused of forced labor. Julani succumbed to pressure to release them, triggering widespread demands for his removal, including from senior figures within HTS. Joulani stands accused of making erroneous decisions that have exacerbated internal conflicts within HTS. His attempts to contain the crisis appear ineffective, as calls for his ouster intensify. A clear divide has emerged within HTS between those supporting and opposing Julani. In a bid to mitigate the situation, al-Joulani plans to replicate the 2017 scenario, where he resigns and installs a figurehead leader while retaining actual control. Names of potential leaders are being floated, such as Ibrahim Shasho and Mustafa Moussa. However, Joulanis current crisis marks the gravest challenge since the inception of HTS. The organization teeters on the brink of internal armed conflicts or even assassinations among its members. HTS has reached a critical juncture, with no possibility of returning to the status quo. While predicting the outcome remains uncertain, signs indicate that internal strife within HTS may escalate. Events necessitate close monitoring to gauge the trajectory of the conflict and its ramifications for HTSs future. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Egypt has officially joined the Joint Arab Liaison Cell, an alliance comprising Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, pro-government Athr Press reported Egypt has officially joined the Joint Arab Liaison Cell, an alliance comprising Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, to combat the proliferation of drugs in the region. Egyptian Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfik expressed his countrys commitment to participating in the collaborative efforts of the liaison cell during a meeting with his Jordanian counterpart, Mazen al-Farrayeh, in Tunis. This announcement follows the formation of the joint Arab liaison cell on February 17, which resulted from a gathering of interior ministers from the four nations in Amman, as reported by the Jordanian agency Ammon. Farrayeh conveyed the significance of Egypts involvement in the cooperative initiative, emphasizing its role in ensuring security and societal stability across the region. Additionally, discussions during the meeting highlighted the establishment of a communication mechanism to facilitate the exchange of information and monitor drug shipments, underscoring the importance of coordination and shared expertise in combatting drug trafficking. Furthermore, Farrayeh briefed his Saudi counterpart, Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef al-Saoud, on the outcomes of the Amman meeting and the agreement to establish a communication cell among the participating countries. The Saudi minister expressed keen interest in the collaboration and affirmed his countrys readiness to enhance cooperation in drug control efforts. Recent drug seizures, including a significant interception of Captagon pills in a refrigerator truck crossing from Syrian territory towards Iraq on February 25, underscore the urgency of coordinated action. Aleppo customs also confiscated a shipment of narcotic pills destined for eastern Syria on February 22. These incidents highlight the persistent challenges posed by drug smuggling in the region. Moreover, efforts to combat drug smuggling have extended to bilateral cooperation, as evidenced by the inaugural meeting of the Jordanian-Syrian Committee in Amman on July 23. This committee, established in line with the outcomes of a consultative meeting in May 2023, aims to enhance collaboration in combating drug trafficking across the Syrian-Jordanian border. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. Azadi Derik was responsible for the procurement and deployment of rockets within the YPG, according to al-Souria Net Turkish media have reported that the Turkish intelligence service have neutralized a senior commander of the Womens Protection Units (YPG), an affiliate of the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), in Qamishli, northeastern Syria. CNNTURK stated on Tuesday that the leader in question is Azadi Derik, known by the title Amina Sayed Ahmed. According to the report, Amina Ahmed was targeted by Turkish intelligence due to her involvement in planning operations against Turkish security forces. She was responsible for the procurement and deployment of rockets within the YPG, including ordering rocket attacks on Afrin from Tel Rifaat. Additionally, she oversaw rocket strikes targeting the city of Kilis on the Turkish border, resulting in civilian casualties. Amina Ahmed joined the YPG in 2011 and underwent military and ideological training in Iraq before relocating to Syria. The term neutralization is used by Turkish intelligence to denote actions taken against individuals considered threats to Turkeys national security. It encompasses actions to eliminate or render such threats ineffective, which is considered a more accurate description than terms like killing or assassination. The Womens Protection Units confirmed Amina Ahmeds death on the 11th of this month, following a Turkish drone strike on the Federation center for war wounded in northeastern Syria. This incident is part of a series of operations announced by Turkey. Last Thursday, Turkish intelligence reported the neutralization of PKK leader Rinas Amed, also known as Murat Atish. Amed, who joined the PKK from Europe in 2014, was involved in armed activities in Iraqi regions such as Qandil, Avashin, and Gare, as well as infiltration operations against Turkish armed forces between 2014 and 2016. Turkish intelligence also neutralized Suren Roghilat, known by the nicknameFatima Skana, a commander involved in the 2012 operation against Turkish security forces in Sirnak, which resulted in the deaths of 10 military personnel and injuries to others, according to Turkish media. Fatima Skana was a prominent female commander of the YPG, mourned by the YP) shortly after her targeted drone strike, alongside Amina Ahmed. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. CIT Vs S.A. Chitra Ventures Ltd. (Delhi High Court) Introduction: The recent judgment by the Delhi High Court in the case of CIT Vs S.A. Chitra Ventures Ltd. sheds light on the jurisdiction of Assessing Officers (AOs) in passing draft assessment orders. The courts ruling clarifies the limitations on AOs authority in the absence of any variation in income or loss. Detailed Analysis: The case revolves around two appeals filed by the Commissioner of Income Tax International Taxation questioning the judgment of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT). The key contention pertains to the jurisdiction of the AO to pass a draft assessment order without any variation in the income or loss returned by the assessee. In the case, the AO framed a draft assessment order proposing a tax rate of 20% on the income declared by the assessee, rejecting their claim for benefits under the India Cyprus Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA). However, the total income as declared by the assessee remained unvaried. The Delhi High Court examined the provisions of Section 144C of the Income Tax Act, particularly the phrase any variation in the income or loss returned. It concluded that the AOs authority to frame a draft assessment order is contingent upon a variation in the income or loss returned, which was not the case here. The court upheld the ITATs decision, emphasizing that the absence of income variation precludes the AO from exercising jurisdiction to pass a draft assessment order. Therefore, the appeals were dismissed, as they did not raise any substantial question of law. Conclusion: The Delhi High Courts judgment in CIT Vs S.A. Chitra Ventures Ltd. highlights the importance of income variation in determining the jurisdiction of Assessing Officers to pass draft assessment orders. This ruling clarifies the limitations on AOs authority and ensures adherence to the provisions of the Income Tax Act. FULL TEXT OF THE JUDGMENT/ORDER OF DELHI HIGH COURT Bearing in the mind the disclosures made, the delay of 250 days in re-filing the appeals is condoned. The applications shall stand disposed of. ITA 606/2023 & ITA 607/2023 1. The Commissioner of Income Tax International Taxation questions the correctness of the judgment rendered by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal1 dated 21 July 2022 and proposes the following questions of law for our consideration:- ITA 606/2023 a) Whether the ITAT has erred in law by holding that the Final Assessment Order passed on 15 February 2018 in this case is barred by limitation as there was no variation in the income of the assessee without appreciating the fact that the deviation in the departmental stand from the stand adopted by the assessee has led to additional tax burden on the assessee which is prejudicial to the interest of the assessee and the same is akin variation which mandates the Draft Assessment Order to be taken to Dispute Resolution Panel2 or wait for Final Order to be taken to Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)3 at the option of the assessee? b) Whether the ITAT has erred in law in allowing the appeal of the assessee without going into the merits of case as to whether the assessee was eligible to claim benefit of the India Cyprus Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement4? c) Whether the ITAT has erred in law by allowing the appeal of the assessee without appreciating the intent of the legislature behind introduction of Section 144C of the Income Tax Act, 19615 as per Finance Act, 2009 vide which all variations proposed on or after 01 October 2009 which is prejudicial to the interest of the eligible assessee mandates the Assessing Officer6 to forward the Draft Order under Section 144C of the Act? ITA 607/2023 a) Whether the ITAT has erred in law by holding that the Final Assessment Order passed on 09 February 2018 in this case is bared by limitation as there was no variation in the income the assessee without appreciating the fact that the deviation in the departmental stand from the stand adopted by the assessee has led to additional tax burden on the assessee which is prejudicial to the interest of the assessee and the same is akin variation which mandates the Draft Assessment Order to be taken to DRP or wait for the Final Order to be taken to CIT(A) at the option of the assessee? b) Whether the ITAT has erred in law in allowing the appeal of the assessee without going into the merits of case as to whether the assessee was eligible to claim benefit of the India Cyprus DTAA? c) Whether the ITAT has erred in law by allowing the appeal of the assessee without appreciating the intent of the legislature behind introduction of Section 144C of the Act as per Finance Act, 2009 vide which all variations proposed on or after 01 October 2009 which is prejudicial to the interest of the eligible assessee mandates the AO to forward the Draft Order under Section 144C of the Act? 2. While ITA 607 of 2023 pertains to Assessment Year7 20 14-15, ITA 606 of 2023 relates to AY 20 15-16. For the purposes of brevity, we propose to notice the facts as obtaining in ITA 607 of 2023. 3. The assessee submitted a Return of Income on 26 November 2014 declaring its income for the year to be INR 26,62,42,773/-. The aforesaid Return was selected for scrutiny assessment and notices under Section 143(2) of the Act came to be issued. In the course of the assessment proceedings, the AO took notice of an international transaction between the assessee and its Associate Enterprises8 and which led to the matter being referred to the Transfer Pricing Officer9. The Arms Length Price10 was thereafter determined by the TPO in terms of an order dated 31 March 2017. However, no adverse inference was drawn. 4. The AO thereafter proceeded to frame a Draft Assessment Order on 22 December 2017 and came to form the opinion that the income as shown was liable to be taxed at the rate of 20% as per the provisions of Section 115A of the Act. The AO appears to have rejected the stand of the assessee which had claimed benefits of Article 11 of the India Cyprus DTAA. The assessee chose not to file any objections before the DRP against the aforesaid order dated 22 December 2017. Accordingly, a Final Assessment Order came to be framed on 09 February 2018 in terms of which while the total income as declared by the assessee remained untouched, it was subjected to tax at the rate of 20%. 5. The assessee thereafter assailed the Final Assessment Order by way of an appeal before the CIT(A) which came to be allowed with the appellate authority taking the view that the assessee would be entitled to claim the benefits of Article 11 of the DTAA. 6. Aggrieved by the aforesaid, the appellants here preferred an appeal before the ITAT. In that appeal, the assessee also filed cross objections principally contending that since the changes as suggested by the AO originally would not impact the income or loss returned, the provisions of Section 144C of the Finance Act, 2020 would not be attracted and the AO would have no authority or jurisdiction to frame a Draft Assessment Order in terms of that provision. It is this objection which has ultimately come to be accepted by the ITAT in terms of the impugned order. 7. The ITAT has noticed that undisputedly the respondent was an eligible assessee in terms of Section 144C(15)(b)(ii) of the Act. It, however, took note of Section 144C of the Act as it stood at the relevant time and prior to the amendments which came to be introduced by virtue of Finance Act, 2020 w.e.f. 01 April 2020. It becomes pertinent to note that the provision as it stands presently uses the expression any variation which is prejudicial to the interest of such assessee . However, and prior to the provision being recast by Finance Act, 2020, the aforenoted provision employed the phrase any variation in the income or loss returned. It is thus manifest that it was only a variation which would impact the income or loss returned that Section 144C(1) of the Act would have stood attracted. 8. As has been noticed by the ITAT, and which fact remained uncontested even before us, there was no variation in the income as returned. The only point of disputation was with respect to whether the respondent was entitled to claim the benefits under Article 11 of the DTAA. It was that claim of the respondent which alone came to be negated by the AO. Accordingly, while the income offered became subject to tax at the rate of 20%, the total income as declared remained unvaried. As we read Section 144C of the Act as it stood at the relevant time, it would have empowered the AO to frame a Draft Assessment Order only if a variation in the income returned was suggested. This was clearly not the case which obtained. 9. We, consequently, find no error in the view as expressed by the ITAT. The appeals thus raise no substantial question of law and shall consequently stand dismissed. Notes : 1. ITAT 2. DRP 3. CIT(A) 4. DTAA 5. Act 6. AO 7. AY 8. AEs 9. TPO 10. ALP Sarva Capital LLC Vs ACIT (ITAT Delhi) Introduction: The case of Sarva Capital LLC Vs ACIT (ITAT Delhi) revolves around the validity of the Tax Residency Certificate (TRC) for determining treaty benefits under the India-Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA). The appellant contested the assessment order by challenging the jurisdiction, taxability of capital gains, denial of treaty benefits, and proposed penalty proceedings. Issue: Whether the appellant, a resident of Mauritius as per a valid Tax Residency Certificate (TRC), is entitled to claim benefits under the India-Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) for capital gains arising from the sale of shares. Facts: The appellant, Sarva Capital LLC, is a non-resident company incorporated in Mauritius and claims residency there based on a valid TRC. The appellant invests in Indian companies and derived long-term capital gains from the sale of shares in the assessment year. The Assessing Officer (AO) denied the appellants claim for treaty benefits, alleging: Tax avoidance through treaty shopping. The appellant being a conduit company for real owners residing in different countries. Lack of beneficial ownership of income by the appellant. No commercial rationale for establishing the company in Mauritius. The appellant not being liable to tax in Mauritius due to capital gain exemption in their domestic laws. ITATs Decision: The ITAT allowed the appeal and held that the appellant is entitled to claim benefits under the DTAA for the following reasons: A valid TRC issued by the competent authority of Mauritius is sufficient evidence of tax residency and cannot be questioned by the Indian authorities. (Citing CBDT Circular No. 789 and Azadi Bachao Andolan case) Liable to taxation under the DTAA does not require actual payment of tax, and exemption under specific income heads does not negate tax liability. (Citing Azadi Bachao Andolan case) The allegations of treaty shopping, conduit company, and lack of commercial rationale are not supported by any evidence. The limitation on benefit clause (Article 27A) was not established by the department. Capital Gains Taxation: The ITAT ruled that: Capital gains from the sale of shares acquired before April 1, 2017, are exempt under Article 13(4) of the DTAA, regardless of conversion from CCPS to equity shares. (The conversion did not alter the fundamental rights of the shareholder.) Capital gains from the sale of shares acquired after April 1, 2017, might be subject to taxation under different articles of the DTAA, depending on specific conditions. Conclusion: Ultimately, the Tribunal ruled in favor of the appellant, allowing the appeal and affirming the validity of the TRC for treaty benefits. The decision underscores the importance of TRC and upholds the principles of tax residency as per DTAA provisions and established legal precedents. FULL TEXT OF THE ORDER OF ITAT DELHI The present appeal has been filed by the assessee against the order of Assessing Officer dated 29.05 .2023 for the A.Y. 2020 -21. 2. The assessee has raised the following grounds of appeal:- 1. That on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the O. erred in assessing the income of the Appellant at Rs. 163 , 26 , 34 , 468 /- and taxing the capital gain of Rs. 163 , 26 , 34 , 468 /- u/ s 112 of the Act @ 10 %, in pursuance to directions of DRP as against the returned income of Rs. 16 , 94 , 79 , 930 /- 2. That on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO has erred in assuming jurisdiction under section 143 ( 3 ) of the Act in absence of valid notice being issued under section 143 ( 2 ) of the Income- tax Act, 1961 ( the Act) to the Assessee in terms of Central Board of Direct Taxes ( CBDT) order ( No. F. No. 187 / 3 / 2020 ITA- 1 ) dated 31 March 2021 and August 13 , 2020 . 2. 1 That the notice in the present case has been issued by Ne AC/ Nf AC whereas the appellant is assessed to tax with International Tax charge and as such notice issued u/ s 143 ( 2 ) is without jurisdiction and the consequential assessment proceedings concluded by the AO are null and void . 3. That on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO grossly erred in violating principles of natural justice without providing reasonable opportunity of being heard to the Appellant during the course of assessment proceedings, and without considering the submission and material/ evidence fi led on record. 4 . That on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO erred in: a. taxing capital gains of 163 , 26 , 34 , 468 on sale of shares of Suryoday Small Finance Bank, Disha Medical Services, Rural Shores Business Services, Veritas under section 112 of the Act, as against under Article 13 ( 4 ) of the India- Mauritius DTAA. b. Taxing interest income of 30, 00, 000 /- as per provisions of the Act as against under Article 11 of the India- Mauritius DTAA. by following the directions of DRP. 5. That on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO erred in not extending beneficial tax treatment under the India- Mauritius DTAA to the Appellant, by following the directions of DRP, which is contrary to the binding Circular No. 789 dated April 13 , 2000 issued by the CBDT and the decision of Hon ble Supreme Court in case of Azadi Bachao Andolan ( 263 ITR 706 ) and past accepted stand of the Department in assessment orders passed u/ s 143 ( 3 ) of the Act for AY 2016 17 and AY 2017 18 . 5.1 That while denying the treaty benefits to the Appellant, the AO by following the directions of DRP, was not justified in holding as under :- (i) The scheme of arrangement employed by the assessee is tax avoidance through treaty shopping mechanism . (ii) The assessee company is just a conduit and the real owner is the shareholders/ investors who are tax residents of different countries . (iii) The TRC is not sufficient to establish the tax residency i f the substance establishes otherwise . (iv) The assessee company is not beneficial owner of income as control and dominion of fund is not with the company . (v) There is no commercial rationale of establishment of assessee company in Mauritius as the commercial outcome would be identical irrespective of location of funds. 6. That on the facts and in law, the AO erred in proposing to initiate penalty proceedings under section 270 A of the Act, mechanically on the additions made in the assessment order. 3. At the outset, both the parties fairly submitted that the issues agitated before us are similar to the issues which have been adjudicated by the order of the coordinate bench of the Tribunal in ITA 2289 /Del/2022 for the AY 2019-20. 4. We find the grounds taken up and the arguments for both the years are similar . 5. For the sake of ready reference and completeness the order of the Tribunal in ITA No. 2289/Del/2022 for the AY 2019- 20 is reproduced here below:- ITA no. 2289/Del/2022 Captioned appeal has been filed by the assessee challenging assessment order dated 19.07.2022 passed under section 143(3) read with section 144C(13) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 pertaining to assessment year 2019-20, in pursuance to the directions of learned Dispute Resolution Penal (DRP). 2. Grounds 1, 3 and 7, being general grounds, do not require adjudication. 3. At the time of hearing, learned counsel appearing for the assessee, on instructions, did not press ground No. 2 along with its sub-grounds. Hence, these grounds are dismissed as not pressed. 4. In ground Nos. 4, 5 and 5.1, the assessee has raised the common issue with reference to applicability of beneficial provisions of India-Mauritius Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) to the income earned under the head capital gain. In addition to the aforesaid grounds, the assessee has raised an additional ground vide letter dated 09.05.2023 on the issue of taxability of long- term capital gain from sale of shares under Article 13(4) of India-Mauritius DTAA. Since, the adjudication of additional ground does not require fresh investigation of facts and can be decided based on the facts already available on record, we are inclined to admit the additional ground. 5. As could be seen, grounds Nos. 4 & 5 of the main grounds as well as the additional ground are on the common issue of taxability or otherwise of capital gain from sale of equity shares under Article 13(4) of India-Mauritius DTAA. 6. Briefly, the facts relating to the issue are, the assessee is a non-resident corporate entity incorporated under the laws of Mauritius and a tax resident of As stated by the Assessing Officer, the assessee was incorporated primarily for the purpose of making investments in India in education space, agriculture, healthcare, microfinance institutions and other financial services. In course of its business activities, the assessee had made investment in Indian companies by way of equity shares. In the year under consideration, the assessee had sold equity shares of two Indian companies, viz., Sewa Gruh Rin Ltd. and Veritas Finance Pvt. Ltd. and derived income under the head long-term capital gain. In the original return of income filed for the impugned assessment year on 13.03.2020, though, the assessee offered the income derived from sale of equity shares as capital gain, however, claimed it as exempt in terms of Article 13(4) of the India-Mauritius DTAA. Subsequently, on 13.03.2022, the assessee filed a revised return of income offering the long-term capital gain derived from sale of equity share of Veritas Finance Pvt. Ltd. under Article 13(3B) of India- Mauritius DTAA. In course of assessment proceedings, the Assessing Officer proceeded to examine assessees claim of benefit in terms of Article 13(3B)/Article 13(4) of India-Mauritius DTAA. While doing so, he ultimately concluded that the assessee is not entitled for Treaty benefits due to the following reasons : 1. The scheme of arrangement employed by the assessee is a tax avoidance through treaty shopping mechanism. 2. The assessee company is just a conduit and the real owner is the shareholders/investors who are tax residents of different countries. 3. The TRC is not sufficient to establish the tax residency if the substance establishes otherwise. 4. The assessee company is also not a beneficial owner of income as control and dominion of fund is not with the company. 5. There is no commercial rationale of establishment of assessee company in Mauritius as the commercial outcomes would identical irrespective of location of funds. 7. Having denied the Treaty benefits to the assessee, the Assessing Officer brought to tax the entire long-term capital gain under the provisions of domestic law and accordingly, completed the assessment. Against the draft assessment order, so passed by the Assessing Officer, the assessee raised objections before learned However, learned DRP, in sum and substance, endorsed the views of the Assessing Officer. 8. Before us, learned counsel appearing for the assessee submitted, the assessee is not only incorporated in Mauritius but also a resident of Mauritius, which is demonstrated from the Tax Residency Certificate (TRC) issued by Mauritius revenue authorities. He submitted, assessees registered office is situated in Mauritius and it maintains regular books of account and other statutory records in the registered office. He submitted, the key policy decisions, such as, fund flow, investment activities, divestment of investments are taken collectively outside India by assessees board of directors, who are all non-residents including the resident directors in Mauritius. In this context, he drew our attention to share holding patterns of the assessee company as well as the details of the directors. He submitted, the assessee is continued with its business activities as on date and is holding multiple investments in Indian companies. He submitted, the assessee was primarily incorporated for making investments in microfinance institutions in India and from this very institution, the assessee is making investments in India in more than 15 companies aggregating to US Dollar 58 million He submitted, all investment decisions have been taken in the board meetings in Mauritius. In this regard, he drew our attention to the details of board meetings held in the year under consideration, as placed in the paper book. Drawing our attention to the audited financial statement of the assessee, learned counsel submitted, the assessee has incurred substantial operational expenditure in past years, which proves that neither it is a sham entity nor a conduit company, as alleged by the Assessing Officer. He submitted, once, the Mauritius Revenue authorities have issued TRC to the assessee, the residential status of the assessee cannot be doubted by the departmental authorities in view of CBDT Circular No. 789 dated 13.04.2000 and Circular No. 684 dated 30.03.1994. In this context, he also heavily relied upon the decision of Honble Supreme Court in case of Union of India vs. Azadi Bachao Andolan, 132 Taxman 373 (SC). He submitted, even, the Honble jurisdictional High Court in case of Blackstone Capital Partners (Singapore) VI FDI Three Pte Ltd. vs. ACIT, 146 taxmann.com 569 (Del) has categorically held that tax authorities cannot go behind TRC, as the TRC issued by the competent authority of another country is sufficient evidence to claim Treaty eligibility, residential status and legal ownership. He also relied upon a decision of the Tribunal in case of MIH India (Mauritius) Ltd. vs. ACIT (ITA No. 1023/Del/2022). Thus, he submitted, in view of the binding judicial precedents, the departmental authorities could not have denied the Treaty benefits to the assessee by holding that the assessee cannot be treated as tax resident of Mauritius despite TRC, having been issued in favour of the assessee. He submitted, the decision of the departmental authorities in denying the Treaty benefits to the assessee doubting the residency is all the more unacceptable considering the fact that in assessment year 2016-17 and 2017-18, the Assessing Officer, while, completing the assessments under section 143(3) of the Act has allowed Treaty benefits to the assessee in respect of capital gain. Thus, he submitted, rule of consistency has to be applied. 9. In so far as the merits of the issue is concerned, learned counsel submitted, though, the assessee on conservative basis had offered the capital gain from sale of shares of Varitas Finance Ltd. under Article 13(3B) of India-Mauritius DTAA, however, capital gain from sale of equity shares is not at all taxable in view of Article 13(4) of the DTAA, as the shares were acquired prior to 01.04.2017 and the amended provisions of Article 13 as well as the limitation of benefit (LOB) clause as provided under Article 27A of the Treaty would not be applicable as it is applicable only with reference to Article 13(3B) of the Treaty. 10. Without prejudice, learned counsel submitted, the conditions of Article 27A are not applicable to the assessee, as the assessee cannot be considered to be a shell / conduit company, as neither the assessee has negligible or nil business operations nor its expenses are below the threshold limit prescribed in Article Thus, he submitted, the long-term capital gain derived from sale of equity shares is not taxable under any circumstance in case Article 13 of India-Mauritius DTAA is applied. Thus, he submitted, the long-term capital gain wrongly offered to tax in the revised return of income is not taxable under Article 13(4) of the India-Mauritius DTAA. 11. Strongly relying upon the observations of the Assessing Officer and learned DRP, learned Departmental Representative submitted that the share holders of the assessee company are not based in Mauritius, but are residents of other He submitted, all decisions relating these activities are taken out of Mauritius, as the board meetings are mostly through video conferencing. He submitted, since, the share holders are residents of countries, who have LOB clause incorporated in their respective Treaties in India, they have set up the assessees company in Mauritius as a conduit for the purpose of Treaty shopping. He submitted, the assessee does not have any second business activities in Mauritius and its investment activities in India after 01.04.2017 have reduced. Thus, he submitted, these facts suggest that the assessee has set up for availing Treaty benefits. He further submitted, the assessees income in Mauritius is not taxable and over the years, it has shown loss. Thus, he submitted, the assessee is fiscally transparent entity. He submitted, since, the assessee is not liable to tax in Mauritius, it cannot be treated as a resident of Mauritius in view of Article 4(2) of the Treaty. Thus, he submitted, the long-term capital gain has been rightly brought to tax by applying the provisions of domestic law. 12. As regards, the additional ground, learned Departmental Representative submitted, in the revised return of income, the assessee itself has offered the capital gain to tax under Article 13(3B) of the He submitted, the issue now raised was never raised before the departmental authorities. Therefore, the fresh claim made by the assessee should not be entertained. 13. We have considered rival submissions in the light of decisions relied upon and perused materials on record. The core issue arising for consideration in this appeal is, whether, the assessee is entitled to the benefits of Article 13, more specifically, Article 13(4) of India Mauritius DTAA qua the capital gain income. Undisputedly, the assessee is a tax resident of Mauritius holding valid TRC. However, the Assessing Officer has declined to grant Treaty benefits to the assessee for the following reasons : (i) That the scheme of arrangement employed by the assessee is tax avoidance through treaty shopping mechanism; (ii) that the assessee is set up as a conduit company and the beneficial owners of the capital gain income are residents of different countries; (iii) that the TRC is not sufficient to establish the tax residency; (iv) that the assessee is not a beneficial owner of income as control and dominion of fund is not with the assessee; (v) that there is no commercial rationale of establishment of assessee in Mauritius as it has nil or negligible business; that the assessee cannot be a tax resident of Mauritius , as it is not IT liable to tax in Mauritius in terms of Article 4(1) of the Treaty. Of course, learned DRP has agreed with the views expressed by the Assessing Officer. 15. Keeping in view the aforesaid observations of the departmental authorities, let us examine the issue at hand. 16. First and foremost, the residential status of the assessee needs to be decided. As discussed earlier, from its very inception, the assessee has been granted TRC by Mauritius tax authorities. Though, the Assessing Officer is conscious of this fact, however, he has brought the theory of substance over form to deny Treaty benefits to the assessee despite valid TRC. In our view, the aforesaid decision of the Assessing Officer cannot be accepted under any circumstance. Now, it is well settled that once the tax resident of Mauritius is holding a valid TRC, the Assessing Officer in India cannot go behind the TRC to question the residency of the entity. In fact, since, there were considerable number of disputes due to nonacceptance of TRC as a valid piece of evidence for tax residency by the departmental authorities, the CBDT issued circular No. 789 dated 13.04.2000, specifically, with reference to India-Mauritius DTAA clearly stating that once, the TRC has been issued by the competent authority of the other tax jurisdiction, it will be treated as a valid piece of evidence in so far as tax residency status is concerned. The sanctity of the aforesaid circular issued by the CBDT was challenged before the Honble High Court and while, ultimately, deciding the issue, Honble Supreme Court in case of Union of India vs. Azadi Bachao Andolan (supra), not only upheld the validity of Circular No. 789 dated 13.04.2000, but held that once, the TRC has been issued by the competent authority of the other country, it will demonstrate the tax residency of the entity and the concerned entity would be eligible to avail the benefits under India-Mauritius DTAA. The ratio laid down by the Honble Supreme Court as aforesaid, was followed subsequently in a number of decisions and in a recent decision of Honble jurisdictional High Court in case of Blackstone Capital Partners (Singapore) VI FDI Three Pte Ltd. vs. ACIT (supra), has reiterated that the tax authorities in India cannot go behind the TRC issued by the competent authority in other tax jurisdiction, as the TRC is sufficient evidence to claim not only the residency and legal ownership but also Treaty eligibility. In case of MIH India (Mauritius) Ltd. vs. ACIT (supra), identical view has been expressed by the coordinate Bench. Thus, in our view, the Assessing Officer has committed a fundamental error in denying Treaty benefits to the assessee in spite of the fact that the assessee is having a valid TRC. 16. One more objection of the Assessing Officer is that the assessee, being a fiscally transparent entity having no liability to tax in Mauritius due to exemption in capital gain income under the domestic laws of Mauritius, cannot claim benefits of avoidance of double taxation. In our view, this issue has also been addressed by Honble Supreme Court in case of Azadi Bachao Andolan (supra). While dealing with this particular issue, the Honble Supreme Court interpreted the expression liable to taxation as used in Article 4 of India-Mauritius DTAA as well as the domestic law of Mauritius and held that merely because tax exemption under certain specified head of income including capital gain from sale of shares has been granted under the domestic tax laws of Mauritius, it cannot lead to the conclusion that the entities availing such exemption are not liable to taxation. The Honble Supreme Court categorically rejected Revenues contention that avoidance of double taxation can arise only when tax is actually paid in one of the contracting States. Honble Court held that liable to taxation and actual payment of tax are two different aspects. Thus, keeping in view the ratio laid down by Honble Supreme Court, as aforesaid, the reasoning of the Assessing Officer that since, the assessee is not liable to tax under Article 4 of the India-Mauritius Treaty, it cannot claim benefit of Treaty provisions, is liable to be rejected. 17. In so far as the allegation of the Assessing Officer that the assessee has been set up as a scheme of arrangement for tax avoidance through Treaty shopping, in our view, such allegation of the Assessing Officer is thoroughly misconceived and not borne out from any material/evidence brought on Further, the allegation of the Assessing Officer to the effect that the assessee is a conduit company is also not borne out from any cogent evidence or material brought on record by the Assessing Officer. The allegation of the Assessing Officer regarding absence of commercial rationale or substance behind setting up of the assessee company, is also in the realm of imagination, rather than based on any concrete evidence. Moreover, the departmental authorities have miserably failed to establish the fact of the assessee, being a conduit company with reference to Article 27A of India-Mauritius DTAA (Limitation on Benefit clause). Therefore, having regard to the relevant facts and ratio laid down in the judicial precedents, discussed above, we have no hesitation in holding that the assessee, having been granted a valid TRC, has to be treated as tax resident of Mauritius, hence, eligible to avail benefit under India-Mauritius DTAA. 18. Having held so, now, it is necessary to deal with the issue, whether, capital gain derived by the assessee from sale of equity shares is exempt under Article 13(4) of India-Mauritius tax Treaty. As discussed earlier, in the year under consideration, the assessee has derived capital gain from sale of equity shares of two companies, viz., Sewa Gruh Rin Ltd. and Veritas Finance Pvt. Ltd. In so far as sale of equity shares of Sewa Gruh Rin Ltd. and the resultant capital gain of 92,28,289/- is concerned, in our view, there cannot be any dispute with regard to assessees claim of exemption under Article 13(4) of India-Mauritius DTAA, as, undisputedly, the shares were acquired prior to 01.04.2017. Therefore, the gain derived from sale of such equity shares is taxable only in the country of residence of the assessee, i.e., Mauritius and not in India. However, in so far as the capital gain arising from sale of shares of Veritas Finance Pvt. Ltd. is concerned, the facts are slightly different. Though, in the original return of income, the assessee claimed the resultant capital gain to be exempt under Article 13(4), however, subsequently, the assessee filed revised return of income offering the capital gain to tax under the provisions of Article 13(3A) read with Article 13(3B) of the Treaty by claiming beneficial tax rate under grandfathering clause. 19. Before us, the assessee has raised an additional ground reversing the stand taken in the revised return of income and has claimed exemption under Article 13(4) of the Tax Treaty in respect of capital gain arising from sale of equity shares of Veritas Finance Pvt. Ltd. It is the case of the assessee that it had acquired the cumulative convertible preference shares (CCPS) of Veritas Finance Ltd. on 18.03.2016, whereas, the CCPS were converted to equity shares on 04.08.2017. Thus, it is the case of the assessee that the shares of Veritas Finance Pvt. Ltd. were acquired prior to 01.04.2017, hence, it will not be covered under Article 13(3A) and 13(3B), rather, under Article 13(4) of the Treaty. In our considered opinion, assessees claim is acceptable. 20. Undoubtedly, the assessee has acquired CCPS prior to 01.04.2017, which stood converted into equity shares as per terms of its issue without there being any substantial change in the rights of the assessee. As rightly contended by learned counsel for the assessee, conversion of CCPS into equity shares results only in qualitative change in the nature of rights of the shares. The conversion of CCPS into equity shares did not, in fact, alter any of the voting or other rights with the assessee at the end of Veritas Finance Pvt. Ltd. The difference between the CCPS and equity shares is that a preference share goes with preferential rights when it comes to receiving dividend or repaying capital. Whereas, dividend on equity shares is not fixed but depends on the profits earned by the company. Except these differences, there are no material differences between the CCPS and equity shares. Moreover, a reading of Article 13(3A) of the tax treaty reveals that the expression used therein is gains from alienation of shares. In our view, the word shares bas been used in a broader sense and will take within its ambit all shares, including preference shares. Thus, since, the assessee had acquired the CCPS prior to 01.04.2017, in our view, the capital gain derived from sale of such shares would not be covered under Article 13(3A) or 13(3B) of the Treaty. On the contrary, it will fall under Article 13(4) of India-Mauritius DTAA, hence, would be exempt from taxation, as the capital earned is taxable only in the country of residence of the assessee. No doubt, the assessee has offered the capital gain under Article 13(3B) of the Treaty in its revised return. However, that will not preclude the assessee from claiming benefit under Article 13(4) of the Treaty when the capital gain clearly falls within the ambit of Article 13(4) of the In view of the aforesaid, we allow assessees additional ground and hold that the capital gain derived by the assessee from the sale of equity shares is not taxable in terms of Article 13(4) of the India-Mauritius DTAA. Grounds are decided accordingly. 21. In the result, appeal is partly allowed. 6. In the absence of any change in the material facts and legal preposition brought to our notice, the appeal of the assessee is hereby allowed. 7. In the result, the appeal of the assessee is allowed. Order Pronounced in the Open Court on 05 /02/2024. The Astoria man arrested after he barricaded himself at the Arxada Plant in Kalama on Monday is a person of interest in last weeks Longview home invasion. Jacob Dean Smart, 38, of Astoria, who had outstanding warrants across Washington, Oregon and Idaho, was apprehended after law enforcement tapped drones, police dogs, a remote-controlled robot, and the Lower Columbia SWAT to arrest him. When barricaded in Kalama on Monday, Smart made several threats to open fire upon police officers and vehicles, claiming during a phone conversation with negotiators that he wouldnt be taken alive. Smart is also a person of interest in Fridays home invasion in Longview, being investigated by the Cowlitz County Sheriffs Office. The homeowner reportedly walked in during a burglary at about 8:30 a.m. in the 100 block of Altavista Road in Longview Heights and was assaulted by the suspect, who stole the homeowners car, later found abandoned on Columbia Heights Road. Deputies suspect Smart also later broke into a home in the 3900 block of Pacific Way, near Longviews Hillside Acres and stole clothes. Smart held his first hearing in Cowlitz County Superior Court Tuesday and was in Cowlitz County Jail as of Wednesday morning. On Friday, he has a hearing scheduled to see whether he will be held without the option of bail. Mondays arrest Cowlitz 911 received a call around 12:30 a.m. about a prowler near Reeds Automotive, 1944 Belmont Loop in Woodland. Surveillance footage captured the suspect, operating a Suzuki Sidekick, a known vehicle associated with Smart, the press release states. A Kalama police officer found the Suzuki parked behind the Rebel Truck Stop at 7349 Old Pacific Highway in Kalama around 12:41 a.m., but the suspect ran off on foot. Deputies and local officers were able to establish a containment area, but it was only after the suspect accidentally dialed 911 that they were able to use GPS data to locate Smart. He was found in the vicinity of River Ridge Lane, near the Rebel Truck Stop. At 6:31 a.m., people reported seeing a person matching Smarts description, running across Interstate 5 toward the train tracks and, with the assistance of a drone, observed him entering the Temco property. He then reportedly jumped into a black Mitsubishi sedan, but deputies blocked the entryway. Smart is believed to have entered the Arxada Kalama Plant through an open bay door after jumping a fence. Officers quickly evacuated employees and set up a containment area, according to a news release. He later rejected commands to surrender, and at 8:08 a.m., a 911 caller reported that Smart was at a gas station, armed with a gun and was going to kill officers. However, officials identified the voice of the caller as Smart, according to the release. After being detained, Smart was treated for minor injuries. According to jail reports, Smart was booked into Cowlitz County Jail at 2:04 p.m. Monday on the suspected charges of two counts of first-degree kidnapping, two counts of first-degree burglary, first-degree robbery, second-degree burglary, two counts of theft of a motor vehicle, second-degree theft, harassment, being a fugitive from justice, false reporting and intimidating a public servant. The Kelso Class of 1965 plans to meet for lunch at the Kelso Elks at 11:30 a.m. March 14. All classmates and spouses are welcome. For questions or more information, call Cindy Loranger Quick at 360 864-6932. Longviews Homeless Housing Task Force has come up with a list of objectives they want added onto the five-year homelessness response plan they adopted from Cowlitz County. The task force discussed a draft of the addendum at its bi-monthly Monday meeting, and decided to wait until March to approve the addendum and send it to Longview City Council for a vote. Current addendum items The objectives would work in-tandem with the existing plan, but would add more specific objectives for the city and local aid organizations to follow in addressing homelessness. Here are the seven being considered: Add more affordable housing through an interlocal agreement with Housing Opportunities of Southwest Washington funded by the Affordable Housing Sales Tax Levy, to facilitate development of housing projects in Longview. Revise local zoning to allow for denser housing, such as accessory dwelling units, , shared driveways, modified light industrial zoning to allow residential use and other opportunities. Engage with homeless individuals and assist them in accessing services to acquire housing through outreach projects. Support community life skills programs, such as the Rent Well program, to increase prevention and education opportunities. Continue to support existing housing options, such as HOPE Village. Support efforts to increase alternative interim habitation options, including but not limited to vehicle habitation and all types of sheltering. Report on the citys progress in implementing the plan annually. Return on investment Former CAP Director Dian Cooper recommended one last item to the list: Develop measurable objectives and determine return on investment for the projects that are implemented. Having agreed-upon metrics for determining programs success would add to the transparency of the programs, which Cooper said could garner increased support from the public. This seems to be a very politically contentious issue in our community, Cooper said. Being real clear on what everybody agrees is the goal or the objective and how were going to measure it helps that discourse become a lot more civil. One example of a measurable metric is the number of people on housing voucher waitlists, and an objective could be getting more people on the waitlist housed than the year before. Longview City Councilmember Ruth Kendall was hesitant to include measurable objectives as a part of the addendum. A success metric for an aid organization might not be considered a success metric for the city or county, which means the program may not qualify for Community Development Block Grants issued by HUD, Kendall said. I think its important to identify goals and objectives, and some things are easier to do upfront than others, Kendall said. Councilmember Keith Young suggested the same objective ought to be adopted in the county-level plan, which is still in the process of being finalized. Gena James, deputy director at the Cowlitz County Health and Human Services, said because it isnt clear yet what specific homeless housing or aid projects the county will invest in, it is difficult to determine what a success metric is. The Longview Homeless Housing Task Force is expected to lock in the items in the addendum by March 18. Four of the seven Longview City Council members indicated they would vote to end the citys task force, and to give responsibility of grant-writing for city projects back to the County. If this happens, the addendum items included in the citys plan will not be binding. City Council is expected to vote whether to dissolve the task force by April. An Avelo Airlines passenger jet at Tweed-New Haven Airport in New Haven, Conn. (File media photo via Avelo Airlines) File media photo via Avelo Airlines Avelo Airlines founder and CEO Andrew Levy, right, speaks in November 2021 with a passenger in advance of Avelo's inaugural flight from Tweed-New Haven Airport to Orlando International Airport. Avelo marked its first-ever quarterly profit in the final three months of 2023, as it continues to add routes in Connecticut and nationally. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media Avelo Airlines appears to be winning more bets than it loses in guessing the destinations that travelers want with route additions key to building Tweed-New Haven Airport's competitiveness against busier regional options like Bradley International Airport. Last week, Avelo reported $265 million in revenue from 2.3 million customers boarding flights in 2023, its first public reveal of revenue totals as it nears its three-year anniversary in business. Avelo stated it made an unspecified profit for the final three months of 2023, as calculated on a pre-tax basis. Several Avelo routes to Florida have flourished among others nationally, helping it build a financial base for additional routes and aircraft it plans to add later this year. In mid-February, Avelo announced it would add Albany International Airport to its growing list, with a spokesperson asserting "we've done the math" that there is pent-up demand for the initial Albany destination of Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Avelo's math hasn't always panned out after initiating service last summer between New Haven and Melbourne, Fla., Avelo terminated the route this past January, blaming low passenger counts in the early going. Tweed data shows that less than 4,000 people flew to Melbourne Orlando International Airport between June and November last year, with Avelo scrapping the route in advance of March when its Florida flights have their biggest month of the year. "Make no mistake, we've guessed plenty incorrectly so far as well and if we're not guessing incorrectly, we're probably not pushing hard enough with experimentation," said Trevor Yealy, who leads network planning for Avelo. "Our business model is trying to find unserved or under-served routes. That's a common refrain you'll hear from other carriers, but we do tend to select routes that have very little historic data associated with them." Advertisement Article continues below this ad Passenger count up by half While Avelo's early growth trails the initial pace set by JetBlue Airways two decades ago, it is off to a promising start and has energized Tweed after American Airlines curtailed service during the COVID-19 pandemic. From less than 43,000 passengers boarding at Tweed in the airport's 2019 fiscal year, close to 485,000 people flew from Tweed over 12 months through last November, a nearly 50 percent bump from the prior year. Tweed is now envisioning a terminal and runway expansion that could cost $100 million. A Tweed director suggested in December that the airport explore any interest by Delta for Tweed connections to its Atlanta hub or by United Airlines to Chicago, and lobby state government for incentives to launch those routes similar to an $11.5 million package for Aer Lingus to offer service between Bradley International Airport and Ireland. In Windsor Locks, Bradley saw a 25 percent increase in boardings in 2022. While that was ahead of some Northeast airports, it trailed the COVID rebound of nearby rivals Westchester County Airport run by Virginia-based Avports which manages Tweed and Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport outside Providence. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Located just over the Greenwich line, Westchester County Airport saw boardings jump by two-thirds in 2022, with Breeze, JetBlue and American among the carriers offering service there. Avelo's Tweed routes have affected Bradley International Airport, a spokesperson with the Connecticut Airport Authority acknowledged. "We have yet to return to pre-pandemic travel numbers and we believe its partially due to the presence of Avelo here in Connecticut," stated Bradley and CAA spokesperson Brian Spyros. Breeze kept pace with Avelo in 2023 with well over two million passengers boarding its planes system-wide, with the carrier adding Bradley routes that begin in May to Orlando International Airport and Coastal Carolina Regional Airport in North Carolina. Breeze CEO David Neeleman stated this month he expects the company to record its first profit this year. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "We are now the largest carrier in 11 of our 50 cities, including at Hartford Bradley and Providence," stated Breeze spokesperson Gareth Edmondson-Jones, in an email response to a CT Insider query. "January 2024 was our highest revenue month ever but this month has seen multiple record-setting days so February 2024 is already projected to become our highest revenue month ever, despite being a short month, and March is projected to be 25 [percent] higher again." Demand 'pretty fluid' From their inception, Avelo and Breeze have sought to offer lower fares than competing regional carriers, in part by operating out of secondary airports in many locales and dispensing with the frills in the case of Avelo to include no onboard internet service. As of this week, Avelo was offering an $81 fare on select midweek dates in March for Tweed flights to and from Orlando International Airport, for a round-trip fare of $162. On popular days for travel like weekends, fares range as high as $222 each way. Orlando International Airport was Avelo's top destination from Tweed over the most recent 12 months on record, with more than 94,000 people flying there. Advertisement Article continues below this ad While preferred destinations are the major driver for the routes airlines choose, airport fees and "slots" also play a role as other airlines look to capitalize on the same travel trends, creating a squeeze for available gates at busier airports. Yealy said that Avelo keeps a running list of candidate routes, some of them suggested by airports hoping to bring more traffic through their gates. "Quite a bit of the outreach is initiated by the airport looking to expand the destinations of their airline base, and provide more options for people in their region," Healy said. "There are conferences, as you might imagine, all throughout the year where airlines and airports come together to talk about potential ideas." A JetBlue executive said airlines are finally calibrating their forecasting models accurately again after the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "Over the past couple of years demand has been pretty fluid in different geographies," said Dave Clark, head of revenue planning for JetBlue, speaking last month on a conference call with investment analysts. "We've been working to really actively align our network to those new demand areas ... and to be more selective and redeploy some of the markets that we've seen demand shift away from over the last couple of years." The local group dedicated to promoting and preserving the heritage and culture of Norway is holding two events this week. First, join the Sons of Norway at 6 p.m. Friday at its Breidablik Lodge at 224 West Catlin St., Kelso for its monthly meeting, where new members are welcome. A potluck social hour will precede the meeting starting at 5 p.m. Then, from 8:30-10:30 a.m. Saturday, stop by the lodge for a breakfast of Norwegian waffles, Swedish pancakes, scrambled eggs, baked ham, lingonberry jam, syrup, coffee, tea, and juice. The new price is $12 for adults and $6 for ages 8 and under. When Kroger and Albertsons promised to preserve competition under their proposed merger by selling 413 stores, including 104 in Washington, some wondered whether the buyer would be required to keep those stores open. Apparently, so did the buyer, C&S Wholesale Grocers. That's according to new filings in Washington state's Jan. 16 lawsuit to stop the $25 billion merger of Kroger, which owns QFC and Fred Meyer, and Albertsons, which owns Safeway. "Do we have to say that we won't close stores?" Bob Palmer, outgoing CEO of New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale, asked last year about plans to buy the 413 locations, according to newly unredacted passages in the state's suit. In the passage, Palmer appears to concede that the stores will "stay open" during the sales process, "but then what?" he asks. "Are we committed to this?" Palmer's questions are among numerous entries in the suit that had been redacted over concerns they contained proprietary information about Kroger, Albertsons or C&S Wholesale. Last week, at the request of the Washington Attorney General's Office, a King County (Washington) Superior Court cleared around a dozen of the redacted statements for release and amended version of the suit was filed. No bombshell revelations emerge in the cleared passages, which cover such issues as the competition between Kroger and Albertsons, the companies' attitudes toward unions and whether C&S Wholesale has the capacity to run hundreds of additional stores. Instead, the passages provide a fuller picture of Washington's case against the merger, which state Attorney General Bob Ferguson claims would result in higher prices and fewer choices for consumers in Washington, even with the sale of stores to C&S Wholesale. Washington was the first government to sue to block the merger. Colorado filed its own case against the merger Feb. 14, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is expected to file its own long-awaited suit as early as next week, with several other states joining in, according to Bloomberg. Last week's unredacted passages may also resonate with consumers, labor groups and others in Washington who appear to share Ferguson's skepticism about the merger, which would have an especially large impact in the state. Washington has a disproportionately high number of Kroger and Albertsons locations and would see the largest number of stores "divested" to C&S Wholesale in 17 states and Washington, D.C. as part of the regulatory approval process. Ferguson's case against the merger has two broad components, said Doug Ross, an antitrust expert at the University of Washington School of Law. Combining Kroger and Albertsons is "anticompetitive" because the two retailers are currently each other's main competition in many of markets, the Attorney General's Office contends. That competition is what currently pressures the retailers to keep prices low. Further, selling 413 locations to C&S Wholesale fail to preserve that competition because C&S lacks the capacity to operate those stores competitively, the Attorney General's Office argues. The newly unredacted portions "add color" to both those arguments, Ross said. For example, according one passage, a top QFC executive "has stated unequivocally that Safeway/(Albertsons) is QFCs #1 direct competitor." According to internal company documents, Kroger "has recognized that areas with diminished competition are areas where it can pursue a 'different price strategy' and raise prices," another passage contends. The same holds for Albertsons, which "also recognizes that when its stores face less competition, it can take the opportunity to raise prices and 'margin up'," reads a related passage. Reached for comment, Kroger and Albertsons didn't respond to specific details in the unredacted passages, but offered broad rebuttals against the state's arguments, including that merger would raise prices for consumers. "This merger will provide customers with lower prices and more choices while increasing access to fresh food across America," said an emailed statement from Kroger. A C&S Wholesale spokesperson noted the company's "more than 105 years of food industry experience and a track record as a successful grocery retailer." A focus on unions Several of the unredacted passages touched on another sensitive topic: how the merger would affect hundreds of unionized stores. The suit contends that without competition from Albertsons, Kroger "would have an increased incentive to close stores to reduce union participation." According to an unredacted passage, "a 2021 labor strategy document prepared for Kroger recommends that Kroger pursue, over the long-term, a strategy to 'reduc(e) the percentage of Kroger associates represented by organized labor.'" "That strategy includes 'deterr(ing) union campaigns,' 'opening more nonunion operations,' and 'shutting ... union represented locations,'" according to an unredacted passage. Another unredacted passage notes that "C&S has a history of not renewing union contracts and shifting operations to non-union shops." C&S Wholesale said Tuesday that it "has been a union employer for several decades, with both unionized and non-union employees across the U.S.," and noted that it "has committed to honoring all collective bargaining agreements including industry-leading benefits and retaining frontline associates" at divested locations. Kroger said the merger would "secure the long-term future of union jobs," and noted that "while the national grocery industry lost union jobs Kroger grew unionized jobs by more than 100,000 since 2012." An Albertsons spokesperson said the merger would "strengthen good-paying union jobs." The Albertsons spokesperson also pointed out that the proposed merger was recently endorsed by United Food & Commercial Workers Local 555, which represents grocery workers in Oregon, southwest Washington, Idaho and Wyoming. That endorsement contrasts with several national and local union organizations that have opposed the merger. On Tuesday, UFCW Local 3000, which represents Kroger and Albertsons employees in Washington, northeast Oregon and northern Idaho, released a statement listing various labor groups opposed to the merger. Concerns about the buyer The newly unredacted passages also highlight Washington state's contention that selling hundreds of stores to C&S Wholesale won't create a viable competitor to a merged Kroger-Albertsons. The state contends that because C&S is primarily a wholesale operator, with only a few dozen retail grocery locations nationally, and none in Washington, it lacks the capabilities to ensure the successful operation of stores it buys from Kroger and Albertsons. Unredacted passages offer more specifics. For example, Kroger and Albertsons rely on large IT systems to run their retail operations, while C&S lacks the same IT capability and will need a long time to get one in place, the state argues. Unredacted passages highlight another concern that when C&S acquires retail locations, its strategy "where possible" is to sell them to its existing wholesale customers. Further, neither C&S nor Kroger or Albertsons have offered any "binding commitments that would ensure that C&S will continue to operate and invest in the divested stores," attorneys for the state argue. A C&S spokesperson said the C&S's "strong operational focus and deep financial resources will position it to successfully operate and continue to grow and create healthier communities for years to come." 'Move to the rear of the line' Ross, the UW antitrust expert, says C&S Wholesale's perceived capabilities will be a key issue in the attorney general's case. "The critical part is going to be whether (C&S) can step into the shoes of Albertsons and run a real competitor," Ross said, adding that "the newly unredacted portions of the complaint don't shed much light on that." Redactions aside, Ross also wonders whether events may overtake Washington's legal strategy, which has already drawn scrutiny by experts for filing before the Federal Trade Commission had taken action. If the FTC does file its own suit next week and other states join that effort, as is expected, Washington may feel pressured to drop its own case. "Probably in the short run Washington won't abandon its suit," Ross said. "But I would expect the federal suit to move fast and the Washington suit ... to move to the rear of the line." This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Researchers at the University of Notre Dame conducted a study using AI bots based on large language models and asked human and AI bot participants to engage in political discourse. Fifty-eight percent of the time, the participants could not identify who the AI bots were. Credit: Center for Research Computing/University of Notre Dame Center for Research Computing Artificial intelligence bots have already permeated social media. But can users tell who is human and who is not? Researchers at the University of Notre Dame conducted a study using AI bots based on large language modelsa type of AI developed for language understanding and text generationand asked human and AI bot participants to engage in political discourse on a customized and self-hosted instance of Mastodon, a social networking platform. The experiment was conducted in three rounds with each round lasting four days. After every round, human participants were asked to identify which accounts they believed were AI bots. Fifty-eight percent of the time, the participants got it wrong. "They knew they were interacting with both humans and AI bots and were tasked to identify each bot's true nature, and less than half of their predictions were right," said Paul Brenner, a faculty member and director in the Center for Research Computing at Notre Dame and senior author of the study. "We know that if information is coming from another human participating in a conversation, the impact is stronger than an abstract comment or reference. These AI bots are more likely to be successful in spreading misinformation because we can't detect them." The study used different LLM-based AI models for each round of the study: GPT-4 from OpenAI, Llama-2-Chat from Meta and Claude 2 from Anthropic. The AI bots were customized with 10 different personas that included realistic, varied personal profiles and perspectives on global politics. The bots were directed to offer commentary on world events based on assigned characteristics, to comment concisely and to link global events to personal experiences. Each persona's design was based on past human-assisted bot accounts that had been successful in spreading misinformation online. The researchers noted that when it came to identifying which accounts were AI bots, the specific LLM platform being used had little to no impact on participant predictions. "We assumed that the Llama-2 model would be weaker because it is a smaller model, not necessarily as capable at answering deep questions or writing long articles. But it turns out that when you're just chatting on social media, it's fairly indistinguishable," Brenner said. "That's concerning because it's an open-access platform that anyone can download and modify. And it will only get better." Two of the most successful and least detected personas were characterized as females spreading opinions on social media about politics who were organized and capable of strategic thinking. The personas were developed to make a "significant impact on society by spreading misinformation on social media." For researchers, this indicates that AI bots asked to be good at spreading misinformation are also good at deceiving people regarding their true nature. Although people have been able to create new social media accounts to spread misinformation with human-assisted bots, Brenner said that with LLM-based AI models, users can do this many times over in a way that is significantly cheaper and faster with refined accuracy for how they want to manipulate people. To prevent AI from spreading misinformation online, Brenner believes it will require a three-pronged approach that includes education, nationwide legislation and social media account validation policies. As for future research, he aims to form a research team to evaluate the impact of LLM-based AI models on adolescent mental health and develop strategies to combat their effects. The study "LLMs Among Us: Generative AI Participating in Digital Discourse" will be published and presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 2024 Spring Symposium hosted at Stanford University in March. The findings are also available on the arXiv preprint server. In addition to Brenner, study co-authors from Notre Dame include Kristina Radivojevic, doctoral student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and lead author of the study, and Nicholas Clark, research fellow at the Center for Research Computing. More information: Kristina Radivojevic et al, LLMs Among Us: Generative AI Participating in Digital Discourse, arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2402.07940 The research team is planning for larger evaluations and is looking for more participants for its next round of experiments. To participate, email llmsamongus-list@nd.edu. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The IATA says 'on average a person would have to travel by air every day for 103,239 years to experience a fatal accident' Last year was the safest ever for commercial air travel, despite a massive rebound in passenger flights, an airline industry group said Wednesday. The only fatal accident of a passenger plane was the crash of an ATR turboprop operated by Nepal's Yeti Airlines during a domestic flight, killing 72 people, according to the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) annual report. The IATA said it counted another 29 accidents in 2023 that did not involve fatalities or loss of the plane. In 2022, there was a total of 42 accidents, of which five were fatal and took 158 lives. The IATA counts a non-fatal accident as an event that causes damage of at least $1 million or equal to 10 percent of the plane's value. IATA statistics do not cover business, military, private, maintainance or training flights. The IATA said "2023 saw the lowest fatality risk and 'all accident' rate on record." "On average a person would have to travel by air every day for 103,239 years to experience a fatal accident." The low crash rate came despite the number of flights last year rising 17 percent to 37.7 million, the IATA said. The IATA represents some 320 airlines comprising 83 percent of global air traffic. "Even if flying is among the safest activities a person can do, there is always room to improve," said IATA Director General Willie Walsh, citing "two high profile accidents in the first month of 2024." In January, a Japan Airlines A350 Airbus was safely evacuated after bursting into flames at a Tokyo airport. In the United States, a panel blew off the fuselage of a Boeing 737 MAX during an Alaska Airlines flight, again without any serious injuries. 2024 AFP This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Captain Marin Jarry of the Energy Observer, the first hydrogen-powered, zero-emission vessel to be self-sufficient in energy, closes the pilot cockpit window, at Pier Sixty Six Marina in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on February 27, 2024. A ship powered by renewable energy, including hydrogen produced onboard, is docked in the southeastern US state of Florida this week as it prepares to finish the last leg of a voyage around the world. The 100-foot catamaran, dubbed the Energy Observer, has logged 63,040 nautical miles without using fossil fuels since it first started sailing in 2017. This particular trip around the world started in 2020. The mission has tested renewable energyincluding by using solar panels and advanced sails called "oceanwings"as a power source in multiple climates off the coasts of Africa, Asia and Antarctica. The automated 12-meter wings boost the ship's speed and reduce energy consumption. "We learned a lot along this journey," captain Marin Jarry told AFP in Fort Lauderdale, just north of Miami. Jarry said he wants to share what he has learned through seminars, articles and videos. The project hopes to influence the shipping and maritime sectors, especially as its "oceanwings" have already been used in commercial shipping. They were used on a freighter called the Canopee, which was designed to transport parts of the Ariane 6 rocket from Europe to a launch center in French Guiana on the northeast tip of South America. An aerial view of the Energy Observer, the first hydrogen-powered, zero-emission vessel to be self-sufficient in energy, while moored at Pier Sixty Six Marina in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on February 27, 2024. In the course of the Energy Observer's current voyage, 40 percent of the vessel's energy has come from wind, 40 percent from solar and 20 percent from hydrogen. The ship is set to make stops in Washington, New York and Boston before heading back to France. An Energy Observer 2 is already in the works: a cargo ship measuring nearly 400 feet (120 meters) long, with a capacity to carry 5,000 metric tons. It is set to run on liquid hydrogen. Maritime transport generates around 3 percent of worldwide greenhouse gasses. 2024 AFP This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said the company is working 'around the clock' to fix problems with its Gemini AI app. Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday slammed "completely unacceptable" errors by its Gemini AI app, after gaffes such as images of ethnically diverse World War II Nazi troops forced it to stop users from creating pictures of people. The controversy emerged within weeks of Google's high-profile rebranding of its ChatGPT-style AI to "Gemini", giving the app unprecedented prominence in its products as it competes with OpenAI and its backer Microsoft. Social media users mocked and criticized Google for the historically inaccurate Gemini-generated images, such as US senators from the 1800s that were ethnically diverse and included women. "I want to address the recent issues with problematic text and image responses in the Gemini app," Pichai wrote in a letter to staff, which was published by the news website Semafor. "I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown biasto be clear, that's completely unacceptable and we got it wrong." A Google spokesperson confirmed to AFP that the letter was authentic. Pichai said Google's teams were working "around the clock" to fix these issues but did not say when the image-generating feature would be available again. "No AI is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of the industry's development, but we know the bar is high for us and we will keep at it for however long it takes," he wrote. Tech companies see generative artificial intelligence models as the next big step in computing and are racing to infuse them into everything from searching the internet and automating customer support to creating music and art. But AI models, and not just Google's, have long been criticized for perpetuating racial and gender biases in their results. Google said last week that the problematic responses from Gemini were a result of the company's efforts to remove such biases. Gemini was calibrated to show diverse people but did not adjust for prompts where that should not have been the case, also becoming too cautious with some otherwise harmless requests, Google's Prabhakar Raghavan wrote in a blog post. "These two things led the model to overcompensate in some cases, and be over-conservative in others, leading to images that were embarrassing and wrong," he said. Many concerns about AI have emerged since the explosive success of ChatGPT. Experts and governments have warned that AI also carries the risk of major economic upheaval, especially job displacement, and industrial-scale disinformation that can manipulate elections and spur violence. 2024 AFP This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: (a1-d1) 3D visualization images of the quasi in situ XRT test sample evaluating the size and spatial distribution of microvoids. (a2-d2) Reconstructed orientation maps of prior grains based on the EBSD results of the phase revealing the change in the size and morphology of the prior grains. (a3-d3) Inverse pole figures (IPF) of the phase indicating the size and orientation distribution of laths and colonies. (a4-d4) STEM micrographs showing the size and distribution of the / laths and phases. Based on several systematic studies, the Net-AM microstructure is ultimately obtained after the NAMP technique. Credit: IMR A research team led by Profs. Zhang Zhefeng and Zhang Zhenjun from the Institute of Metal Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has proposed an innovative strategy to fabricate an anti-fatigue 3D-printed titanium alloy by separately regulating their microstructure and defects, called as net-additive manufacturing preparation (NAMP). The research is published in the journal Nature. Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, is a disruptive technology in the manufacturing field. However, the poor fatigue performance of 3D-printed materials under cyclic loadingcompared with traditional manufacturingseriously limits the application of such materials as structural components in important fields such as space exploration and aviation. In this study, in terms of their previous fatigue prediction theories, the researchers proposed a groundbreaking concept: 3D-printed microstructures (i.e., Net-AM microstructures) have naturally high fatigue resistance. However, their low-fatigue performance of 3D materials may be overshadowed by the negative effects of microvoids induced by the current printing process. To verify this concept, they invented the Net-Additive Manufacturing Process (NAMP), including a hot-isostatic pressing (HIP) to eliminate the microvoids and a subsequent high-temperature-short-time (HTSt) heat treatment to restore the AM microstructure with fine martensite lath, which can successfully restore a nearly void-free Net-AM microstructure to the titanium alloy. Interestingly, the Net-AM microstructure has remarkably high fatigue resistance, which exceeds the resistance of all other additively manufactured and even forged titanium alloys. The Net-AM microstructure also shows the highest specific fatigue strength (i.e., fatigue strength/density) of all reported materials in the world. (a) The fatigue strength at R = 0.1 vs. tensile strength for our work and the Ti-6Al-4V alloys in the literature. (b) Specific strength vs. specific fatigue strength of our work and other materials reported in the literature. The current Net-AM Ti-6Al-4V not only displays the transcendent fatigue strength over both the AMed and forged Ti-6Al-4V alloys but also displays the highest specific fatigue strength among all materials. Credit: IMR (a) Schematic illustration for our precise sectioning technique on the location of fatigue crack initiation; maximum stress and cycles to failure for (b) NAMP state; (c) HIP state; (d) HIP+STA state. The fatigue cracks of the NAMP state initiate from the clean PBGBs, which is a common characteristic in the AM microstructure, indicating that we have detected the fatigue resistance of the Net-AM microstructure. Credit: IMR The fatigue cracks of the microstructures prepared using the NAMP process normally nucleated at clean primary grain boundaries and fine martensite lath, successfully avoiding many traditional fatigue weaknesses and preventing localized damage accumulation, thus exhibiting extremely high fatigue resistance. This study reveals the naturally high fatigue resistance of the 3D-printed microstructure and the potential advantages of 3D printing technology in the production of structural components, and also points out clear directions for 3D printing anti-fatigue manufacturing. More information: Robert Ritchie, High fatigue resistance in a titanium alloy via near-void-free 3D printing, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07048-1. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07048-1 Journal information: Nature Siena D'Addario, an actor from Easton, plays Ronnie in the upcoming film, "Wild Fire." Nick Bukofski / Contributed photo When actor Siena DAddario first read the casting call for her character, Ronnie, in the movie Wild Fire, she was hooked. The former Easton resident was picked out of nearly one thousand actors to play a young sexually repressed wife in the LGBTQ+ feature film about seven acquaintances who open up about their love and sex lives at a party, DAddario said. The movie was produced by HalfJack Generation, a company run by the film's director, Jennifer Cooney, and it comes out March 5 on Apple TV and Prime Video, according to the film's release. DAddario auditioned for the role of Ronnie in February 2022, intrigued by the characters description as being a blameful prisoner, she said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Ronnie feels restricted in her marriage to her childhood best friend, Tom, despite being in love with him, and feels ashamed for having these emotions. Throughout the film, she investigates the source of her unhappiness and attraction towards two other lead characters. I think there's so much fun to be had playing a character that feels stuck. How do they go about unsticking themselves or getting themselves out of this predicament they're in? DAddario said. "Wild Fire," a new film starring Connecticut actor Siena D'Addario, is about seven acquaintances who open up about their romantic lives at a party. Nick Bukofski / Contributed photo Advertisement Article continues below this ad (Connecticut) was really where I kind of first dipped a toe into trying out acting, she said. I already knew what I wanted to do (by college applications season), because I had been so fortunate to be able to do so many professional productions in Connecticut as a child. And that really did make all the difference in solidifying (acting) as my choice for my career. Since then, the Brooklyn-based actor has starred in productions for the Shelton-based theater company, Valley Shakespeare Festival, and began a production company PODS Productions with her partner Cooper Gordon. DAddarios performance as Ronnie earned her the Festival Directors Award for Outstanding Performance at the 2024 New Jersey Film Festival and the film itself received 22 accolades during its international festival run in 2023, according to the films release. Wild Fire" features a predominantly female and queer-led cast and explores the ethics and sustainability of monogamous relationships. Director Jennifer Cooney said in the release that she hopes the conversations and relationships portrayed in the film inspire viewers to avoid hiding their authentic selves. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "Wild Fire" is set to be released March 5, 2024, on Apple TV and Prime Video. Wild Fire Film LLC / Contributed photo Film has the power to not just represent, but incite radical honesty, personal growth, self- and social-awareness, and expansion towards new perspectives, Cooney said in the release. When preparing for the role of Ronnie, DAddario had frequent discussions with Cooney about the concept of polyamory, which is explored in the film, and often, she says, underrepresented in mainstream media. D'Addario hopes her honest portrayal of Ronnie shattered common misconceptions about non-monogamous people and that viewers can relate to her story of self-acceptance in some way whether it's her struggle to articulate her emotions or relief in finding a word for her feelings. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "I think we're all always figuring ourselves out," D'Addario said. "That part of her is really relatable to me." Industry partners will soon have a more permanent home at a Texas A&M University System building on the RELLIS campus because of a different funding source from a 2021 bill that was sponsored in the Texas House by an Aggie. A&M officials gathered at the RELLIS campus in Bryan on Tuesday morning to break ground on the $43.3 million STEM Education Center. The building is expected to be open for the fall 2025 semester and is being paid for by the state through Capital Construction Assistance Projects (CCAP). A lot of other buildings, industry can come for a day and visit, or industry can come as part of a research project, but it cant actually be their physical space, said David Staack, interim director of A&Ms Semiconductor Institute. So, that will be unique and allow us to really have more in-depth collaborations with industry. During a special state legislative session in the fall of 2021, State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, wrote a bill to rename tuition revenue bonds as Capital Construction Assistance Projects. The state House version of the bill was authored by State Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, A&M Class of 1988. Gov. Greg Abbott eventually signed Senate Bill 52, which allocated over $3.3 billion in revenue bonds for a number of capital construction projects for higher education institutions around the state. A&Ms capital projects are funded by a mix of sources, but this is the first time A&M has used CCAP money to construct a building at RELLIS, which continues to increase industry partners and connections with academia research. Sharp said if Permanent University Fund (PUF) money was used to build the STEM Education Center, it would prevent those industry partners and collaborators from having a permanent on-site presence. What this allows us to do is something these industry folks have been asking for for a very long time and that is a place to sit down their laptops, do their office work, interact with faculty, interact with researchers, interact with students and things like that, Sharp said. This is the first of its kind for the RELLIS campus and something that was sorely needed, and its been requested by these corporations like Boeing, Raytheon and folks like that for a very long time and its going to fill a great need. The STEM Education Center will be located at the corner of Bryan Road and the Academic Complex parking lot. It will have around 50,000 square feet and house, among other things, a large machine shop and wood shop, a digital and physical makerspace, a 3D printing and prototyping space, and an augmented reality simulation space. The first floor will have project spaces for students and industry partners to work, build and test. All 11 A&M System universities and eight state agencies will have a home space in the new building, too, as the second and third floors are designed to have suite spaces. Staack said some A&M-affiliated institutes could have a presence in the building, too. A&Ms Semiconductor Institute plans to be housed in the building after it opens until its own building opens in 2027. A&Ms Space Institute is building a $200 million facility adjacent to Johnson Space Center in Houston, but could have a presence in the building. Companies, like Raytheon, already have used RELLIS facilities, such as the Bush Combat Development Complex, for tests and projects. In the new STEM Education Center, industry partners will have office and project space. Staack said this setup will provide pipeline opportunities for students and prospective employers to set up internships or summer appointments. Our students are going to have an employer whos a floor above, an employer whos doing a project in that project space, which is really their industry project, Staack said. It brings some capabilities we werent able to do and some interactions and collaborations we werent as easily able to do. Forty-nine days after the devastating 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. Marine Col. Steve Taylor piloted Marine One helicopter 358 as it transported President George W. Bush from JFK Airport to Yankee Stadium, where the president would throw his now famous opening pitch to begin the third game of the World Series. If you go back to YouTube and look, he threw, I think, a pretty good fastball strike in front of a lot of people, Taylor said. It was, of course, right after 9/11 and it was a pretty uplifting moment for him to throw that pitch. More than two decades later, the same Marine One helicopter 358 a Sikorsky VH-3D Sea King was delivered Tuesday to the new Marine One/4141 Locomotive Pavilion at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library & Museum in College Station. According to museum officials, the helicopter is an artifact with the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia and is out on loan. The helicopter served the Office of the President in three different decades, from the 1980s to the early 2000s, meaning it served Bush 41 during both his vice presidency and his presidency. Taylor first piloted 358 during his time as a squadron pilot and plans officer for HMX-1 the U.S. Marine helicopter squadron for the president from 1983 to 1988. Taylor said HMX-1 is a surprisingly large squadron with a large number of aircraft that has fluctuated throughout the years. The president only flies on these helicopters; these helicopters have to support him in the Washington D.C. area, wherever he is in the United States and wherever he is in the world, Taylor said. During a campaign swing, when the president is very, very busy, he may hit three places in a day and wind up in a fourth place, so there were helicopters in Washington. There were helicopters at the three stops and maybe the final stop. As the helicopter was unwrapped and lifted off a truck bed outside of the pavilion, Library and Museum Director Dawn Hammatt said having such an important part of history on display is rare for most presidential libraries. This is quite a feat for us here, she said. The helicopter is a really important component of the presidency, and it allows us to tell a story about the president, and President Bush in particular, and were really excited to be able to share it with our College Station community. With the pavilion set to open to the public on June 13, a day after what would be George H.W. Bushs 100th birthday, Hammatt said there are still several steps that need to be taken before the exhibit is open to the public. Despite a looming government shutdown, Hammatt said the building is actually owned by the George and Barbara Bush Foundation, a private nonprofit, and therefore would not be affected. We have to move the helicopter in right now before we completely seal up the building, Hammatt said. After that, then we have to do some final pieces of the building. There is quite a bit more to do to the building [and] now is exactly the right time to move the helicopter in. Andrew Card, former Secretary of Transportation under Bush 41 and current Bush Foundation CEO, was also present as the helicopter arrived and said Marine One was the backdrop to countless historic presidential events. Marine One helicopters actually give definition to the role of a president, said Card, who also served as George W. Bushs chief of staff. [There are] so many pictures of the president on the Marine One helicopter on the south lawn and flying off to make a big decision or landing on the south lawn and getting off the helicopter and making traumatic statements to the American people. Card said George and Barbara Bush would have been delighted to see the helicopter that had carried them around the world arrive at the museum. There is not a doubt in my mind that they would be jumping for joy that this helicopter is going to be part of the legacy of George Bush, Card said. The legacy of his service is all housed in the library and this pavilion helps give definition to some of that service. Taylor said 358, along with other decommissioned Marine One aircraft, have received countless hours of maintenance from countless service men and women and that he is glad the American people will finally have an opportunity to view it firsthand. Im glad these helicopters are going to good homes where they will be well cared for and on display so that people can see, he said. Those helicopters are in as good of shape as they are because a lot of people over the years took really good care of them. A lot of blood, sweat, tears and hard work kept those things in good shape, and I know the foundation will take care of them. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. decreased its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V Free Report) by 5.9% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 63,035 shares of the credit-card processors stock after selling 3,925 shares during the quarter. Visa comprises about 1.7% of Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.s holdings, making the stock its 20th largest position. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.s holdings in Visa were worth $14,499,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Investment Advisory Services Inc. TX ADV grew its holdings in Visa by 2.0% in the 3rd quarter. Investment Advisory Services Inc. TX ADV now owns 3,930 shares of the credit-card processors stock valued at $904,000 after buying an additional 78 shares during the period. Camarda Financial Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 3.0% in the 2nd quarter. Camarda Financial Advisors LLC now owns 6,249 shares of the credit-card processors stock valued at $1,484,000 after buying an additional 182 shares during the period. Cibc World Market Inc. grew its holdings in Visa by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 783,402 shares of the credit-card processors stock valued at $186,042,000 after buying an additional 14,022 shares during the period. Wayfinding Financial LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 10.1% in the 3rd quarter. Wayfinding Financial LLC now owns 1,757 shares of the credit-card processors stock valued at $406,000 after buying an additional 161 shares during the period. Finally, Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 5,907.4% during the 2nd quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 221,012 shares of the credit-card processors stock worth $52,486,000 after purchasing an additional 217,333 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 81.35% of the companys stock. Get Visa alerts: Visa Stock Performance Shares of V traded down $2.16 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $281.99. 1,925,600 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,346,759. The firm has a market capitalization of $517.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.57, a P/E/G ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 1.45. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $208.76 and a twelve month high of $285.95. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $269.41 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $252.56. Visa Announces Dividend Visa ( NYSE:V Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $2.34 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.55 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. Visas revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.18 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.9 earnings per share for the current year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 1st. Investors of record on Friday, February 9th will be given a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. Visas dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.94%. Insider Activity at Visa In related news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Visa news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the sale, the insider now owns 232,112 shares of the companys stock, valued at $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 80,461 shares of company stock worth $21,417,817 in the last quarter. 0.19% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of analysts recently issued reports on V shares. Wedbush increased their target price on shares of Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Susquehanna increased their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a positive rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on shares of Visa from $280.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 12th. KeyCorp increased their target price on shares of Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $309.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $290.55. Get Our Latest Analysis on V About Visa (Free Report) Visa Inc operates as a payment technology company in the United States and internationally. The company operates VisaNet, a transaction processing network that enables authorization, clearing, and settlement of payment transactions. It also offers credit, debit, and prepaid card products; tap to pay, tokenization, and click to pay services; Visa Direct, a solution that facilitates the delivery of funds to eligible cards, deposit accounts, and digital wallets; Visa B2B Connect, a multilateral business-to-business cross-border payments network; Visa Cross-Border Solution, a cross-border consumer payments solution; and Visa DPS that provides a range of value-added services, including fraud mitigation, dispute management, data analytics, campaign management, a suite of digital solutions, and contact center services. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Visa Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Visa and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. lessened its holdings in Exxon Mobil Co. (NYSE:XOM Free Report) by 29.2% in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 6,000 shares of the oil and gas companys stock after selling 2,479 shares during the period. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.s holdings in Exxon Mobil were worth $705,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in XOM. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. raised its holdings in Exxon Mobil by 17.1% during the 3rd quarter. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. now owns 101,219 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $11,901,000 after purchasing an additional 14,758 shares during the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank raised its holdings in Exxon Mobil by 20.7% during the 3rd quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 2,393,646 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $281,445,000 after purchasing an additional 409,711 shares during the last quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia raised its holdings in Exxon Mobil by 62.6% during the 3rd quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 1,290,630 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $151,750,000 after purchasing an additional 496,932 shares during the last quarter. Staley Capital Advisers Inc. raised its holdings in Exxon Mobil by 8.4% during the 3rd quarter. Staley Capital Advisers Inc. now owns 9,329 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $1,097,000 after purchasing an additional 725 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tower Research Capital LLC TRC raised its holdings in Exxon Mobil by 265.2% during the 3rd quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 170,061 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $19,996,000 after purchasing an additional 123,498 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 58.53% of the companys stock. Get Exxon Mobil alerts: Exxon Mobil Stock Performance Shares of Exxon Mobil stock traded up $0.26 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $104.51. 8,105,603 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 18,799,289. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 1.48 and a quick ratio of 1.09. Exxon Mobil Co. has a 1 year low of $95.77 and a 1 year high of $120.70. The stock has a market capitalization of $414.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.74, a PEG ratio of 3.74 and a beta of 0.97. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $101.48 and a 200-day simple moving average of $106.08. Exxon Mobil Dividend Announcement Exxon Mobil ( NYSE:XOM Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Friday, February 2nd. The oil and gas company reported $2.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.20 by $0.28. The business had revenue of $84.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $90.03 billion. Exxon Mobil had a return on equity of 18.51% and a net margin of 10.45%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 11.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.40 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Exxon Mobil Co. will post 9.25 EPS for the current year. The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 11th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, February 14th will be given a $0.95 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 13th. This represents a $3.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.64%. Exxon Mobils payout ratio is 42.74%. Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, VP Leonard M. Fox sold 12,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $102.65, for a total value of $1,231,800.00. Following the transaction, the vice president now owns 220,678 shares of the companys stock, valued at $22,652,596.70. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In related news, VP Darrin L. Talley sold 2,400 shares of Exxon Mobil stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.00, for a total transaction of $252,000.00. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 30,189 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,169,845. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, VP Leonard M. Fox sold 12,000 shares of Exxon Mobil stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $102.65, for a total value of $1,231,800.00. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 220,678 shares in the company, valued at approximately $22,652,596.70. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.04% of the companys stock. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research firms have issued reports on XOM. Mizuho lowered shares of Exxon Mobil from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $117.00 price target for the company. in a report on Wednesday, January 3rd. UBS Group lowered their price objective on shares of Exxon Mobil from $133.00 to $132.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of Exxon Mobil from $134.00 to $127.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 8th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a sector perform rating and issued a $120.00 price objective on shares of Exxon Mobil in a research note on Monday, February 5th. Finally, TD Cowen upgraded shares of Exxon Mobil from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $115.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 23rd. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Exxon Mobil has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $127.53. View Our Latest Stock Report on XOM Exxon Mobil Profile (Free Report) Exxon Mobil Corporation engages in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas in the United States and internationally. It operates through Upstream, Energy Products, Chemical Products, and Specialty Products segments. The Upstream segment explores for and produces crude oil and natural gas. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding XOM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Exxon Mobil Co. (NYSE:XOM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Exxon Mobil Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Exxon Mobil and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Chevron Co. (NYSE:CVX Get Free Report) shares fell 2.5% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $149.90 and last traded at $150.57. 6,050,058 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 30% from the average session volume of 8,583,654 shares. The stock had previously closed at $154.45. Analyst Ratings Changes A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Scotiabank cut Chevron from a sector outperform rating to a sector perform rating and set a $170.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. Raymond James dropped their price objective on shares of Chevron from $200.00 to $175.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 30th. UBS Group reduced their target price on Chevron from $194.00 to $185.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 14th. DZ Bank downgraded Chevron from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $160.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, February 6th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded Chevron from a neutral rating to a buy rating and upped their price objective for the company from $190.00 to $200.00 in a research report on Monday, October 30th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $181.53. Get Chevron alerts: Check Out Our Latest Report on Chevron Chevron Stock Down 1.9 % The stock has a market cap of $285.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.83 and a beta of 1.13. The firms 50-day moving average is $149.75 and its 200 day moving average is $153.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12, a current ratio of 1.25 and a quick ratio of 0.97. Chevron (NYSE:CVX Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Friday, February 2nd. The oil and gas company reported $3.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.19 by $0.26. Chevron had a return on equity of 15.24% and a net margin of 10.63%. The business had revenue of $47.18 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $50.93 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $4.09 EPS. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 16.5% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Chevron Co. will post 13.03 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Chevron Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 11th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 16th will be paid a $1.63 dividend. This is a positive change from Chevrons previous quarterly dividend of $1.51. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.30%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 15th. Chevrons payout ratio is currently 57.39%. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Chevron Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Cantor Fitzgerald Investment Advisor L.P increased its stake in Chevron by 85.1% during the 1st quarter. Cantor Fitzgerald Investment Advisor L.P now owns 159,115 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $25,908,000 after buying an additional 73,141 shares during the period. Axiom Financial Strategies LLC increased its position in shares of Chevron by 25.2% during the first quarter. Axiom Financial Strategies LLC now owns 7,335 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $1,155,000 after acquiring an additional 1,476 shares during the last quarter. GQG Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Chevron by 4.7% in the first quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 40,538 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $6,598,000 after acquiring an additional 1,813 shares in the last quarter. Lumature Wealth Partners LLC boosted its holdings in Chevron by 43.5% in the first quarter. Lumature Wealth Partners LLC now owns 5,837 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $950,000 after purchasing an additional 1,770 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP grew its stake in Chevron by 13.8% during the 1st quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 2,068,600 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $336,830,000 after purchasing an additional 250,840 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 68.87% of the companys stock. About Chevron (Get Free Report) Chevron Corporation, through its subsidiaries, engages in the integrated energy and chemicals operations in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment is involved in the exploration, development, production, and transportation of crude oil and natural gas; liquefaction, transportation, and regasification associated with liquefied natural gas; transportation of crude oil through pipelines; and processing, transportation, storage, and marketing of natural gas, as well as a gas-to-liquids plant. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Chevron Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Chevron and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Aarons (NYSE:AAN Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY24 earnings guidance on Monday morning. The company provided earnings per share guidance of ($0.10)-0.25 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of $1.09. The company issued revenue guidance of $2.055-2.155 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.20 billion. Aarons Stock Performance Shares of Aarons stock traded down $0.69 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $7.83. 327,235 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 251,515. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $10.63 and a 200 day moving average price of $10.13. The firm has a market capitalization of $237.48 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 99.38 and a beta of 1.47. The company has a quick ratio of 0.74, a current ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27. Aarons has a one year low of $6.72 and a one year high of $16.16. Get Aaron's alerts: Aarons (NYSE:AAN Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 27th. The company reported ($0.26) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.03 by ($0.29). The business had revenue of $529.50 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $542.07 million. Aarons had a net margin of 0.13% and a return on equity of 3.57%. The businesss revenue was down 10.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.09 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Aarons will post 1.05 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Aarons Announces Dividend Analyst Ratings Changes The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 3rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 14th will be given a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 13th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.39%. Aaronss dividend payout ratio is currently 625.00%. Several research analysts recently weighed in on the company. StockNews.com raised Aarons from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 14th. Stephens raised shares of Aarons from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 2nd. Finally, Truist Financial decreased their price target on shares of Aarons from $12.00 to $9.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $12.76. View Our Latest Report on AAN Insider Buying and Selling In other news, President Stephen W. Olsen sold 10,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.08, for a total transaction of $110,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the president now owns 94,885 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,051,325.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 4.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Institutional Trading of Aarons Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AAN. BlackRock Inc. lifted its position in Aarons by 0.7% during the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 5,955,388 shares of the companys stock valued at $84,209,000 after buying an additional 39,111 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Aarons by 5.9% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,976,760 shares of the companys stock valued at $79,853,000 after acquiring an additional 221,788 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in Aarons by 5.7% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,743,950 shares of the companys stock worth $24,660,000 after purchasing an additional 94,387 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Aarons by 1.0% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 1,282,329 shares of the companys stock worth $18,800,000 after purchasing an additional 12,461 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE lifted its holdings in Aarons by 28.0% in the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 956,886 shares of the companys stock valued at $19,214,000 after acquiring an additional 209,274 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.82% of the companys stock. Aarons Company Profile (Get Free Report) Headquartered in Atlanta, The Aarons Company, Inc (NYSE: AAN) is a leading, technology-enabled, omnichannel provider of lease-purchase solutions. Aarons engages in direct-to-consumer sales and lease ownership of furniture, appliances, consumer electronics and accessories through its approximately 1,300 company-operated and franchised stores in 47 states and Canada, as well as its e-commerce platform, Aarons.com. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Aaron's Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Aaron's and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shares of Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (TSE:AEM Get Free Report) (NYSE:AEM) have been given a consensus rating of Buy by the five analysts that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating. The average 1 year price target among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is C$83.00. A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. National Bank Financial reiterated an outperform overweight rating on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines in a research report on Wednesday, January 3rd. National Bankshares lifted their price target on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines from C$84.00 to C$85.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines from C$91.00 to C$94.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. TD Securities reduced their price target on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines to C$62.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Finally, Cormark reduced their price target on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines from C$97.00 to C$90.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Get Agnico Eagle Mines alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on AEM Agnico Eagle Mines Price Performance Agnico Eagle Mines Cuts Dividend Shares of TSE:AEM opened at C$65.23 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.89, a current ratio of 2.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 10.32. The company has a market cap of C$32.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.24, a PEG ratio of 22.97 and a beta of 1.04. Agnico Eagle Mines has a 52 week low of C$59.36 and a 52 week high of C$82.90. The company has a 50-day moving average price of C$67.65 and a 200 day moving average price of C$66.79. The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.537 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 29th. This represents a $2.15 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.29%. Agnico Eagle Miness dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 40.34%. Insider Transactions at Agnico Eagle Mines In other news, Director Sean Boyd sold 72,379 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Sunday, December 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of C$72.69, for a total transaction of C$5,261,229.51. In other Agnico Eagle Mines news, Senior Officer Dominique Girard sold 5,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Friday, December 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of C$74.27, for a total value of C$371,350.00. Also, Director Sean Boyd sold 72,379 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Sunday, December 31st. The shares were sold at an average price of C$72.69, for a total value of C$5,261,229.51. Insiders sold a total of 82,379 shares of company stock valued at $6,003,580 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.11% of the companys stock. Agnico Eagle Mines Company Profile (Get Free Report Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, a gold mining company, exploration, development, and production of precious metals. The company's mines are located in Canada, Australia, Finland and Mexico, with exploration and development activities in Canada, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Agnico Eagle Mines Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Agnico Eagle Mines and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Teladoc Health, Inc. (NYSE:TDOC Free Report) Stock analysts at Leerink Partnrs issued their Q1 2024 earnings estimates for Teladoc Health in a report issued on Monday, February 26th. Leerink Partnrs analyst M. Cherny anticipates that the health services provider will post earnings per share of ($0.49) for the quarter. Leerink Partnrs currently has a Market Perform rating on the stock. The consensus estimate for Teladoc Healths current full-year earnings is ($1.05) per share. Leerink Partnrs also issued estimates for Teladoc Healths Q2 2024 earnings at ($0.24) EPS, Q3 2024 earnings at ($0.23) EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at ($0.10) EPS, FY2024 earnings at ($1.05) EPS and FY2027 earnings at ($0.42) EPS. Get Teladoc Health alerts: Teladoc Health (NYSE:TDOC Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 20th. The health services provider reported ($0.17) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of ($0.22) by $0.05. Teladoc Health had a negative net margin of 8.47% and a negative return on equity of 9.22%. The company had revenue of $660.50 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $670.79 million. During the same period last year, the firm earned ($0.23) earnings per share. The firms revenue was up 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. TDOC has been the topic of several other research reports. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of Teladoc Health from $30.00 to $25.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Teladoc Health from $21.00 to $19.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. SVB Leerink initiated coverage on shares of Teladoc Health in a research report on Monday. They issued a market perform rating and a $17.00 price objective on the stock. Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of Teladoc Health from $26.00 to $25.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their price target on shares of Teladoc Health from $30.00 to $25.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $23.53. View Our Latest Analysis on Teladoc Health Teladoc Health Stock Up 2.5 % TDOC opened at $15.16 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 3.54 and a quick ratio of 3.36. The companys 50-day moving average is $20.22 and its 200 day moving average is $19.71. Teladoc Health has a fifty-two week low of $14.36 and a fifty-two week high of $30.41. Institutional Inflows and Outflows A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of TDOC. MetLife Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in Teladoc Health during the 1st quarter valued at about $218,000. Panagora Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Teladoc Health by 18.8% during the 1st quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 16,710 shares of the health services providers stock valued at $1,205,000 after purchasing an additional 2,640 shares in the last quarter. Rhumbline Advisers increased its stake in Teladoc Health by 2.3% during the 1st quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 130,916 shares of the health services providers stock valued at $9,443,000 after purchasing an additional 2,921 shares in the last quarter. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can increased its stake in Teladoc Health by 10.8% during the 1st quarter. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can now owns 107,908 shares of the health services providers stock valued at $8,237,000 after purchasing an additional 10,559 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Trust N.A. increased its stake in Teladoc Health by 7.8% during the 1st quarter. Raymond James Trust N.A. now owns 11,451 shares of the health services providers stock valued at $826,000 after purchasing an additional 827 shares in the last quarter. 77.07% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Teladoc Health news, Director Karen L. Daniel sold 14,073 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $21.41, for a total value of $301,302.93. Following the sale, the director now owns 36,995 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $792,062.95. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, Director Karen L. Daniel sold 14,073 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $21.41, for a total value of $301,302.93. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 36,995 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $792,062.95. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Michael Willem Waters sold 4,523 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $19.18, for a total transaction of $86,751.14. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 38,570 shares of the companys stock, valued at $739,772.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 55,660 shares of company stock valued at $1,177,416 in the last quarter. Insiders own 1.63% of the companys stock. Teladoc Health Company Profile (Get Free Report) Teladoc Health, Inc provides virtual healthcare services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Integrated Care and BetterHelp segments. The Integrated Care segment offers virtual medical services, including general medical, expert medical, specialty medical, chronic condition management, and mental health, as well as enabling technologies and enterprise telehealth solutions for hospitals and health systems. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Teladoc Health Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Teladoc Health and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Ancora Advisors LLC increased its stake in EOG Resources, Inc. (NYSE:EOG Free Report) by 17.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 348,634 shares of the energy exploration companys stock after acquiring an additional 52,404 shares during the period. EOG Resources makes up about 1.2% of Ancora Advisors LLCs holdings, making the stock its 18th largest holding. Ancora Advisors LLC owned about 0.06% of EOG Resources worth $44,193,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp increased its holdings in EOG Resources by 2.8% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 36,299,584 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $4,161,014,000 after buying an additional 1,005,328 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its holdings in shares of EOG Resources by 11.0% during the second quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 33,923,655 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $3,882,219,000 after purchasing an additional 3,348,650 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of EOG Resources by 1.1% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,937,070 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $1,639,903,000 after purchasing an additional 145,691 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of EOG Resources by 3.1% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 12,183,166 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $1,391,507,000 after purchasing an additional 368,745 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nuveen Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of EOG Resources by 1.9% during the second quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 10,475,545 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $1,198,821,000 after purchasing an additional 197,796 shares during the last quarter. 89.21% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get EOG Resources alerts: EOG Resources Trading Up 0.2 % Shares of NYSE EOG traded up $0.19 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $114.13. 1,812,514 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,204,786. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $115.53 and a 200-day moving average price of $122.65. The company has a quick ratio of 2.13, a current ratio of 2.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. EOG Resources, Inc. has a 1 year low of $98.52 and a 1 year high of $136.79. The firm has a market capitalization of $66.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.76, a P/E/G ratio of 0.33 and a beta of 1.40. EOG Resources Dividend Announcement EOG Resources ( NYSE:EOG Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 23rd. The energy exploration company reported $3.07 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $3.14 by ($0.07). EOG Resources had a return on equity of 25.38% and a net margin of 31.40%. The business had revenue of $6.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $6.18 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.30 earnings per share. The firms revenue for the quarter was down 5.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that EOG Resources, Inc. will post 11.87 EPS for the current year. The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 30th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, April 16th will be issued a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, April 15th. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.19%. EOG Resourcess dividend payout ratio is currently 27.98%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several equities analysts have issued reports on the company. Mizuho dropped their price objective on EOG Resources from $150.00 to $138.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 3rd. Bank of America lowered EOG Resources from a buy rating to a neutral rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $147.00 to $140.00 in a report on Friday, January 5th. Susquehanna lowered their price target on EOG Resources from $164.00 to $147.00 and set a positive rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered EOG Resources from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $156.00 to $150.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 6th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lowered EOG Resources from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $150.00 to $130.00 in a report on Thursday, December 14th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $142.40. Read Our Latest Stock Report on EOG EOG Resources Profile (Free Report) EOG Resources, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, explores for, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, and natural gas and natural gas liquids. Its principal producing areas are in New Mexico and Texas in the United States; and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The company was formerly known as Enron Oil & Gas Company. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding EOG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for EOG Resources, Inc. (NYSE:EOG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for EOG Resources Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for EOG Resources and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. A file photo of the New Haven Police Department. Ben Lambert / Hearst Connecticut Media Although the nation's third largest city will cancel its multi-million dollar investment in a policing technology product, Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford remain committed to ShotSpotter, pointing to its use in solving crimes in Connecticut and getting gunshot victims help fast. The technology, developed by SoundThinking, Inc., is a gunfire locator that uses artificial intelligence, algorithms and sensors positioned around a municipality to triangulate the location of the sound of gunfire and alert local police. This month, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced the city will not renew its contract with SoundThinking, ShotSpotters' parent company, after the city had spent $49 million on the system since 2018. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Johnson said at a news conference that the city reviewed reports indicating the technology had not yielded the results we were promised and he did not see enough evidence that there was a benefit. Advertisement Article continues below this ad By contrast, in 2022 New Haven officials approved a $1.68 million four-year ShotSpotter contract extension including the further expansion of the program's territory supported by $1.2 million of the city's $115 million allocation of federal pandemic recovery funds. "It's a very helpful tool," said Mayor Justin Elicker, one that the city has purposefully included in its arsenal of crime-reduction strategies. Elicker said one of the most valuable aspects of the technology that cannot be as easily replicated by residents calling in shots fired is its utility in locating shell casings, which can then be connected to specific guns as an aid in police investigations. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "ShotSpotter has generally helped us be much more accurate about the location and respond much faster, and it's also helped us determine the number of shots fired so we can identify the number of shell casings," he said. "Officers receive the notifications on their cell phones so they dont have to wait for someone to call dispatch and dispatch to take that call and to dispatch officers to a location. They can immediately respond when they receive a notification from ShotSpotter. Elicker said technology, such as ShotSpotter and a newly obtained ballistic analysis machine, is only one component of the city's approach to violent crime. The city has also invested in its Elm City COMPASS program that provides a team of non-police crisis dispatch workers. New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson, like the mayor, said the program is but one "piece of the puzzle." "In some areas of the city less people call in shots fired, but this thing alerts us to it right away, he said. "Now we get to people even without a 911 call that may not have gotten medical attention," he said. "We find a victim and were able to get them medical treatment. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Jacobson said there are also instances where victims themselves leave a scene and, upon arriving at a hospital, are not forthcoming with officials. He said ShotSpotter is valuable in leading investigators to forensic data and stitching together narratives of events. A former city police chief, however, said the program has a poor return-on-investment. "It's more of a feel-good tool, and as feel-good tools go, it's very expensive, said Tony Reyes, a former New Haven police chief who is now chief of public safety at Quinnipiac University. Reyes, who warned the city's Board of Alders in 2020 that the program may be "a luxury we can't afford," said that the steep cost limited how wide of a scope the city could initially implement the program. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "It's very costly, and we were relegated to using it in what we determined to be the corridor within our city where the bulk of our crime was occurring, especially gun-related crime," he said. "It started that way to pilot the program and slowly integrate it into the city." The program has continually expanded through multiple New Haven police administrations over more than a decade. Reyes said that although "seconds count" when police have to apprehend perpetrators and provide a medical response for potential victims, he did not find the program to be much of an asset in a densely populated city where it's likely at least one person will call in shots fired. "I think ShotSpotter provides a lot of comfort to people, in particular politicians, and also to citizens because they feel there's another tool being used, he said. If chiefs are being honest, they'd tell you there's not a lot of return on that investment from an investigative standpoint, and certainly from a relative cost its a very, very expensive tool to use. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Reyes said the tool is not a proactive way of preventing crime before it happens, but also he finds the information it provides to be largely negligible. What I found during my time as an investigator and administrator is very rarely did we benefit from ShotSpotter from an investigative standpoint, he said. Jacobson said he is not concerned about the budget pressures of the program, as New Haven has received "really good deals on expansions and the technology is effective enough in his view to save lives. In Hartford, newly elected Mayor Arunan Arulampalam will continue to support the program, according to a city spokesman. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Hartford like New Haven has experienced a number of gunshot victims that bring themselves to a hospital from the scene such was the case for 50 percent of victims in a 2019-2020 sample, according to a statement from Hartford officials. "When there was an associated ShotSpotter alert, a scene was located in 82 percent of those cases. A scene was located in only 46 percent of cases without a ShotSpotter alert," the statement reads. Hartford uses ShotSpotter in conjunction with street cameras to review video footage of ShotSpotter activations, according to the statement. Last year, Hartford's City Council voted to use grant funding to cover the annual 5 percent cost increase for three years. Councilman Joshua Michtom, a member of the city Quality of Life and Public Safety Committee, opposed that measure's inclusion in a grant expenditure plan at the committee level. Advertisement Article continues below this ad "I voted against it because I think its largely a waste of money," he said Monday. "It's an expensive toy that does not (do) much for a city that can't afford expensive toys. Michtom said he had not been presented with compelling data showing it leads to the quicker administration of medical aid to gunshot victims or that it reduces gun crime. "Fundamentally, we dont solve gun violence by constantly trying to catch every young person who has a gun," he said. "We need to turn to the causes of poverty and desperation." Bridgeport was the third city in the state to adopt the technology after New Haven and Hartford, using grant funding and money obtained through asset forfeiture to initially implement it at no cost. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Bridgeport police officials said the department remains committed to the program. "We are extremely satisfied utilizing ShotSpotter," said Bridgeport Police Captain Paul Grech. "It has provided an invaluable tool for our officers, responding to gun shots, rendering aid, making arrests or just showing our community that we care, this tool also gives us data to redeploy assets through data driven analysis as well as patterns." Bridgeport police said the annual cost of the program is $267,500 and the city has committed to three-year contracts for six years now. The city's current contract with ShotSpotter expires on Dec. 16. Ancora Advisors LLC reduced its holdings in Mueller Water Products, Inc. (NYSE:MWA Free Report) by 9.1% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,244,773 shares of the industrial products companys stock after selling 523,406 shares during the quarter. Mueller Water Products accounts for about 1.8% of Ancora Advisors LLCs investment portfolio, making the stock its 9th largest position. Ancora Advisors LLC owned 3.35% of Mueller Water Products worth $66,504,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd bought a new position in shares of Mueller Water Products during the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,264,000. MQS Management LLC purchased a new stake in Mueller Water Products during the 3rd quarter valued at about $213,000. Northern Trust Corp boosted its holdings in Mueller Water Products by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,686,015 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $21,379,000 after acquiring an additional 6,872 shares during the period. Dark Forest Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in Mueller Water Products during the 3rd quarter valued at about $144,000. Finally, Pearl River Capital LLC purchased a new stake in Mueller Water Products in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $408,000. Get Mueller Water Products alerts: Mueller Water Products Stock Down 0.2 % Shares of MWA traded down $0.03 on Wednesday, reaching $15.65. The stock had a trading volume of 418,552 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,024,286. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.91 and a beta of 1.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 1.89 and a current ratio of 3.29. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $14.46 and a 200-day simple moving average of $13.63. Mueller Water Products, Inc. has a 12-month low of $12.11 and a 12-month high of $16.93. Mueller Water Products Announces Dividend Mueller Water Products ( NYSE:MWA Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The industrial products company reported $0.13 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.09 by $0.04. Mueller Water Products had a return on equity of 13.86% and a net margin of 6.35%. The company had revenue of $256.40 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $250.64 million. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.13 EPS. The firms revenue for the quarter was down 18.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Mueller Water Products, Inc. will post 0.69 EPS for the current year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, February 20th. Investors of record on Friday, February 9th were given a dividend of $0.064 per share. This represents a $0.26 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.64%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. Mueller Water Productss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 52.00%. Insider Activity at Mueller Water Products In related news, SVP Todd P. Helms sold 37,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.15, for a total transaction of $560,550.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 41,181 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $623,892.15. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In related news, Director Lydia W. Thomas sold 5,961 shares of Mueller Water Products stock in a transaction on Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $13.95, for a total transaction of $83,155.95. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 128,138 shares in the company, valued at $1,787,525.10. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Todd P. Helms sold 37,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.15, for a total value of $560,550.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 41,181 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $623,892.15. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 74,805 shares of company stock valued at $1,114,644 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 1.40% of the companys stock. Analyst Ratings Changes Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Mueller Water Products from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a report on Monday, February 12th. StockNews.com upgraded Mueller Water Products from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Friday, February 9th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on Mueller Water Products from $15.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday, February 13th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $17.00. Get Our Latest Report on MWA About Mueller Water Products (Free Report) Mueller Water Products, Inc manufactures and markets products and services for the transmission, distribution, and measurement of water used by municipalities, and the residential and non-residential construction industries in the United States, Israel, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Water Flow Solutions and Water Management Solutions. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Mueller Water Products Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mueller Water Products and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shares of Boston Scientific Co. (NYSE:BSX Get Free Report) have earned an average recommendation of Buy from the nineteen research firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, seventeen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12 month price target among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $66.05. A number of analysts have issued reports on BSX shares. BTIG Research reissued a buy rating and issued a $64.00 target price on shares of Boston Scientific in a research report on Friday, December 29th. Raymond James raised their target price on Boston Scientific from $67.00 to $73.00 and gave the stock a strong-buy rating in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. StockNews.com raised Boston Scientific from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Boston Scientific from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group raised their target price on Boston Scientific from $60.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Monday, November 27th. Get Boston Scientific alerts: View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Boston Scientific Insider Buying and Selling at Boston Scientific Institutional Investors Weigh In On Boston Scientific In other Boston Scientific news, EVP Jeffrey B. Mirviss sold 15,000 shares of Boston Scientific stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.40, for a total transaction of $876,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 56,588 shares in the company, valued at $3,304,739.20. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website . In other news, EVP Jeffrey B. Mirviss sold 15,172 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.25, for a total value of $898,941.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 56,588 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,352,839. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink . Also, EVP Jeffrey B. Mirviss sold 15,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $58.40, for a total transaction of $876,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 56,588 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,304,739.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Insiders sold a total of 69,830 shares of company stock worth $4,316,049 over the last three months. 0.53% of the stock is owned by insiders. Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Bruce G. Allen Investments LLC bought a new stake in Boston Scientific during the 4th quarter valued at $28,000. Sachetta LLC bought a new stake in Boston Scientific during the 4th quarter valued at $32,000. Frazier Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Boston Scientific during the 4th quarter valued at $32,000. Jones Financial Companies Lllp raised its holdings in Boston Scientific by 53.0% during the 4th quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 557 shares of the medical equipment providers stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 193 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sunbelt Securities Inc. bought a new stake in Boston Scientific during the 1st quarter valued at $32,000. 89.11% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Boston Scientific Trading Down 0.4 % NYSE BSX opened at $66.41 on Friday. The businesss fifty day moving average is $61.48 and its 200-day moving average is $55.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44, a current ratio of 1.32 and a quick ratio of 0.82. The stock has a market capitalization of $99.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 62.07, a PEG ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 0.78. Boston Scientific has a one year low of $46.20 and a one year high of $67.32. Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 31st. The medical equipment provider reported $0.55 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.51 by $0.04. Boston Scientific had a net margin of 11.19% and a return on equity of 15.99%. The business had revenue of $3.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.59 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.45 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Boston Scientific will post 2.25 EPS for the current year. Boston Scientific Company Profile (Get Free Report Boston Scientific Corporation develops, manufactures, and markets medical devices for use in various interventional medical specialties worldwide. It operates through MedSurg and Cardiovascular segments. The company offers devices to diagnose and treat gastrointestinal and pulmonary conditions; devices to treat various urological and pelvic conditions; implantable cardioverter and implantable cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillators; pacemakers and implantable cardiac resynchronization therapy pacemakers; and remote patient management systems. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Boston Scientific Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Boston Scientific and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Boyd Gaming (NYSE:BYD Get Free Report) had its price objective hoisted by equities researchers at Morgan Stanley from $70.00 to $71.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an equal weight rating on the stock. Morgan Stanleys target price suggests a potential upside of 11.09% from the stocks previous close. BYD has been the topic of several other research reports. Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of Boyd Gaming from $76.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Friday, February 9th. Susquehanna reiterated a neutral rating and issued a $75.00 price target (down previously from $84.00) on shares of Boyd Gaming in a report on Monday, February 12th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of Boyd Gaming from $81.00 to $82.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Friday, February 9th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Boyd Gaming from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a hold rating and issued a $69.00 price target on shares of Boyd Gaming in a report on Friday, January 5th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $75.78. Get Boyd Gaming alerts: View Our Latest Research Report on BYD Boyd Gaming Trading Up 0.7 % Shares of Boyd Gaming stock traded up $0.45 on Wednesday, hitting $63.91. The stock had a trading volume of 306,570 shares, compared to its average volume of 705,225. The company has a quick ratio of 0.77, a current ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.62. Boyd Gaming has a one year low of $52.42 and a one year high of $73.00. The stock has a market cap of $6.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 10.49, a PEG ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 1.61. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $63.44 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $61.83. Boyd Gaming (NYSE:BYD Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The company reported $1.66 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.43 by $0.23. Boyd Gaming had a net margin of 16.58% and a return on equity of 37.07%. The firm had revenue of $954.41 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $928.04 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.72 earnings per share. The businesss revenue was up 3.4% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Boyd Gaming will post 6.18 EPS for the current year. Insider Activity In other news, COO Ted Bogich sold 41,631 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.79, for a total transaction of $2,697,272.49. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 66,803 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,328,166.37. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, Chairman Marianne Boyd Johnson sold 77,661 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.87, for a total value of $5,037,869.07. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman now directly owns 1,511,433 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $98,046,658.71. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, COO Ted Bogich sold 41,631 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.79, for a total transaction of $2,697,272.49. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 66,803 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,328,166.37. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 29.21% of the companys stock. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Boyd Gaming Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust grew its holdings in Boyd Gaming by 105.5% during the 3rd quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 411 shares of the companys stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 211 shares in the last quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. bought a new position in shares of Boyd Gaming during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Belpointe Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Boyd Gaming by 237.6% during the 1st quarter. Belpointe Asset Management LLC now owns 655 shares of the companys stock valued at $42,000 after acquiring an additional 461 shares during the last quarter. Principal Securities Inc. bought a new position in shares of Boyd Gaming during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $50,000. Finally, Quarry LP boosted its position in shares of Boyd Gaming by 130.3% during the 1st quarter. Quarry LP now owns 822 shares of the companys stock valued at $53,000 after acquiring an additional 465 shares during the last quarter. 67.98% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About Boyd Gaming (Get Free Report) Boyd Gaming Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a multi-jurisdictional gaming company in Nevada, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The company operates through Las Vegas Locals, Downtown Las Vegas, Midwest & South, and Online segments. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Boyd Gaming Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Boyd Gaming and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank increased its holdings in shares of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT Free Report) by 92.9% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 41,970 shares of the healthcare product makers stock after buying an additional 20,207 shares during the quarter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Banks holdings in Abbott Laboratories were worth $4,065,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Zevenbergen Capital Investments LLC grew its holdings in shares of Abbott Laboratories by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Zevenbergen Capital Investments LLC now owns 21,419 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $2,074,000 after acquiring an additional 130 shares in the last quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado raised its position in shares of Abbott Laboratories by 9.8% in the second quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 1,415,759 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $154,346,000 after buying an additional 126,547 shares in the last quarter. Rockland Trust Co. raised its position in shares of Abbott Laboratories by 1.5% in the third quarter. Rockland Trust Co. now owns 91,868 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $8,897,000 after buying an additional 1,343 shares in the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. raised its position in shares of Abbott Laboratories by 1.4% in the third quarter. Whittier Trust Co. now owns 373,375 shares of the healthcare product makers stock valued at $36,161,000 after buying an additional 5,058 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Riverview Capital Advisers LLC bought a new position in Abbott Laboratories in the second quarter valued at approximately $210,000. Institutional investors own 73.70% of the companys stock. Get Abbott Laboratories alerts: Abbott Laboratories Stock Up 0.2 % ABT stock traded up $0.26 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $119.66. The stock had a trading volume of 622,242 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,259,799. Abbott Laboratories has a one year low of $89.67 and a one year high of $120.15. The company has a quick ratio of 1.16, a current ratio of 1.64 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The companys 50 day moving average is $112.88 and its two-hundred day moving average is $104.52. The company has a market capitalization of $207.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.67, a P/E/G ratio of 2.86 and a beta of 0.75. Abbott Laboratories Announces Dividend Abbott Laboratories ( NYSE:ABT Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 24th. The healthcare product maker reported $1.19 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting analysts consensus estimates of $1.19. Abbott Laboratories had a net margin of 14.27% and a return on equity of 20.65%. The firm had revenue of $10.24 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.19 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.03 EPS. The companys revenue was up 1.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts forecast that Abbott Laboratories will post 4.61 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Investors of record on Monday, April 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.55 per share. This represents a $2.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.84%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 12th. Abbott Laboratoriess payout ratio is currently 67.48%. Analyst Ratings Changes A number of research analysts recently issued reports on ABT shares. Raymond James lifted their price objective on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $124.00 to $127.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $133.00 to $141.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. TheStreet raised shares of Abbott Laboratories from a c+ rating to a b- rating in a research note on Thursday, December 21st. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $116.00 to $121.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, December 13th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Abbott Laboratories from $123.00 to $126.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $120.00. View Our Latest Stock Report on Abbott Laboratories Insider Activity at Abbott Laboratories In related news, EVP Andrea F. Wainer sold 42,500 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $112.50, for a total transaction of $4,781,250.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 65,027 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,315,537.50. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other Abbott Laboratories news, EVP Andrea F. Wainer sold 12,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $120.00, for a total value of $1,500,000.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 78,704 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,444,480. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Andrea F. Wainer sold 42,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $112.50, for a total transaction of $4,781,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 65,027 shares in the company, valued at $7,315,537.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 70,000 shares of company stock worth $7,901,250. 1.10% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. About Abbott Laboratories (Free Report) Abbott Laboratories, together with its subsidiaries, discovers, develops, manufactures, and sells health care products worldwide. It operates in four segments: Established Pharmaceutical Products, Diagnostic Products, Nutritional Products, and Medical Devices. The company provides generic pharmaceuticals for the treatment of pancreatic exocrine insufficiency, irritable bowel syndrome or biliary spasm, intrahepatic cholestasis or depressive symptoms, gynecological disorder, hormone replacement therapy, dyslipidemia, hypertension, hypothyroidism, Meniere's disease and vestibular vertigo, pain, fever, inflammation, and migraine, as well as provides anti-infective clarithromycin, influenza vaccine, and products to regulate physiological rhythm of the colon. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ABT? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Abbott Laboratories Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Abbott Laboratories and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank lifted its stake in Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO Free Report) by 95.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,046 shares of the medical research companys stock after purchasing an additional 511 shares during the quarter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Banks holdings in Thermo Fisher Scientific were worth $529,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in TMO. Savant Capital LLC grew its position in Thermo Fisher Scientific by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. Savant Capital LLC now owns 3,627 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $1,997,000 after purchasing an additional 18 shares in the last quarter. 1776 Wealth LLC grew its position in Thermo Fisher Scientific by 2.4% during the 4th quarter. 1776 Wealth LLC now owns 799 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $440,000 after purchasing an additional 19 shares in the last quarter. Westbourne Investment Advisors Inc. grew its position in Thermo Fisher Scientific by 3.6% during the 2nd quarter. Westbourne Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 568 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $296,000 after purchasing an additional 20 shares in the last quarter. Bristlecone Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific by 4.1% in the 4th quarter. Bristlecone Advisors LLC now owns 528 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $291,000 after purchasing an additional 21 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TrinityPoint Wealth LLC lifted its position in Thermo Fisher Scientific by 0.6% during the 2nd quarter. TrinityPoint Wealth LLC now owns 3,276 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $1,709,000 after acquiring an additional 21 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 87.06% of the companys stock. Get Thermo Fisher Scientific alerts: Thermo Fisher Scientific Price Performance TMO stock traded up $5.45 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $571.62. The stock had a trading volume of 275,836 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,684,974. The company has a current ratio of 1.75, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67. Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has a 52 week low of $415.60 and a 52 week high of $593.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $217.96 billion, a P/E ratio of 36.65, a P/E/G ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 0.80. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $544.76 and a 200 day simple moving average of $513.70. Thermo Fisher Scientific ( NYSE:TMO Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 31st. The medical research company reported $5.67 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.64 by $0.03. Thermo Fisher Scientific had a net margin of 13.99% and a return on equity of 18.78%. The firm had revenue of $10.89 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $10.73 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $5.40 EPS. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 4.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. will post 21.52 EPS for the current year. Thermo Fisher Scientific declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback program on Tuesday, November 14th that permits the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the medical research company to reacquire up to 2.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often a sign that the companys board believes its shares are undervalued. Thermo Fisher Scientific Increases Dividend The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 15th. Investors of record on Friday, March 15th will be issued a dividend of $0.39 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 14th. This is a positive change from Thermo Fisher Scientifics previous quarterly dividend of $0.35. This represents a $1.56 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.27%. Thermo Fisher Scientifics payout ratio is 9.06%. Insider Activity at Thermo Fisher Scientific In other Thermo Fisher Scientific news, Director Debora L. Spar sold 164 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $546.97, for a total transaction of $89,703.08. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 1,207 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $660,192.79. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Thermo Fisher Scientific news, Director Debora L. Spar sold 164 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $546.97, for a total transaction of $89,703.08. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 1,207 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $660,192.79. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Marc N. Casper sold 10,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $555.63, for a total transaction of $5,556,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 49,155 shares in the company, valued at approximately $27,311,992.65. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 30,277 shares of company stock valued at $16,886,384. 0.32% of the stock is owned by insiders. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research firms have weighed in on TMO. TheStreet raised shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific from a c+ rating to a b- rating in a research report on Friday, December 22nd. HSBC assumed coverage on shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific in a research note on Monday, December 18th. They set a buy rating and a $610.00 price objective on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific from $592.00 to $642.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, February 1st. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific from $530.00 to $575.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Monday, December 11th. Finally, Wolfe Research began coverage on shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific in a research report on Wednesday, December 13th. They set an outperform rating and a $575.00 price objective for the company. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $596.00. Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Profile (Free Report) Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc provides life sciences solutions, analytical instruments, specialty diagnostics, and laboratory products and biopharma services in the North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and internationally. The company's Life Sciences Solutions segment offers reagents, instruments, and consumables for biological and medical research, discovery, and production of drugs and vaccines, as well as diagnosis of infections and diseases; and solutions include biosciences, genetic sciences, and bio production to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural, clinical, healthcare, academic, and government markets. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding TMO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Thermo Fisher Scientific Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Thermo Fisher Scientific and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. CAVA Group (NYSE:CAVA Get Free Report) had its price objective increased by investment analysts at Morgan Stanley from $49.00 to $62.00 in a report issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Morgan Stanleys price objective suggests a potential upside of 9.77% from the stocks previous close. A number of other research analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. Argus initiated coverage on shares of CAVA Group in a research report on Monday, January 29th. They set a hold rating on the stock. Raymond James initiated coverage on shares of CAVA Group in a research report on Friday, November 17th. They set a market perform rating on the stock. Wedbush reiterated an outperform rating and set a $65.00 target price (up previously from $59.00) on shares of CAVA Group in a research report on Tuesday. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on shares of CAVA Group from $54.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. Finally, TD Cowen started coverage on shares of CAVA Group in a research note on Wednesday, December 13th. They set an outperform rating and a $46.00 price target for the company. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $53.40. Get CAVA Group alerts: Get Our Latest Report on CAVA Group CAVA Group Stock Down 0.3 % NYSE:CAVA traded down $0.18 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $56.48. 2,657,373 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,877,521. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $47.04 and a 200-day simple moving average of $39.78. CAVA Group has a fifty-two week low of $29.05 and a fifty-two week high of $58.22. CAVA Group (NYSE:CAVA Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 26th. The company reported $0.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.01 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $175.50 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $240.03 million. CAVA Group had a net margin of 1.82% and a return on equity of 5.94%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 52.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that CAVA Group will post 0.15 earnings per share for the current year. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Victory Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of CAVA Group in the second quarter worth approximately $40,000. LPL Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of CAVA Group in the second quarter worth approximately $415,000. Barclays PLC bought a new position in shares of CAVA Group in the second quarter worth approximately $250,000. Glassman Wealth Services bought a new position in shares of CAVA Group in the second quarter worth approximately $28,000. Finally, Lido Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of CAVA Group in the second quarter worth approximately $209,000. 61.83% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. About CAVA Group (Get Free Report) CAVA Group, Inc owns and operates a chain of Mediterranean restaurants. The company offers salads, dips, spreads, toppings, and dressings. It sells its products through whole food markets and grocery stores. The company also provides online food ordering services. Cava Group, Inc was founded in 2006 and is based in Washington, District of Columbia. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for CAVA Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CAVA Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) had its price objective cut by analysts at CIBC from C$126.00 to C$125.00 in a research report issued on Wednesday, BayStreet.CA reports. The brokerage currently has a neutral rating on the banks stock. CIBCs price target would indicate a potential upside of 1.89% from the companys previous close. A number of other analysts have also recently weighed in on BMO. Bank of America raised shares of Bank of Montreal from a neutral rating to a buy rating and upped their price target for the stock from C$120.00 to C$145.00 in a research report on Monday, December 18th. National Bankshares raised shares of Bank of Montreal from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating and upped their price objective for the company from C$117.00 to C$141.00 in a research report on Wednesday, December 20th. Desjardins upped their price objective on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$130.00 to C$135.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 19th. Scotiabank increased their price objective on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$135.00 to C$145.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price objective on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$135.00 to C$137.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of C$132.70. Get Bank of Montreal alerts: Read Our Latest Analysis on BMO Bank of Montreal Stock Up 0.3 % Shares of BMO stock traded up C$0.37 on Wednesday, reaching C$122.68. 689,367 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,160,772. The stock has a market cap of C$88.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.54 and a beta of 1.18. The firm has a 50 day moving average of C$127.84 and a two-hundred day moving average of C$118.22. Bank of Montreal has a 1-year low of C$102.67 and a 1-year high of C$132.11. Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, December 1st. The bank reported C$2.81 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of C$2.86 by C($0.05). Bank of Montreal had a return on equity of 5.91% and a net margin of 15.04%. The firm had revenue of C$8.36 billion for the quarter. On average, equities research analysts predict that Bank of Montreal will post 12.0940171 EPS for the current fiscal year. Bank of Montreal Company Profile (Get Free Report) Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. It operates through Canadian P&C, U.S P&C, BMO Wealth Management, and BMO Capital Markets segments. The company's personal banking products and services include deposits, mortgages, home lending, consumer credit, small business lending, credit cards, cash management, financial and investment advice, and other banking services; and commercial banking products and services comprise various of financing options and treasury and payment solutions, as well as risk management products. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Bank of Montreal Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of Montreal and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Ancora Advisors LLC cut its holdings in Crane (NYSE:CR Free Report) by 69.8% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 104,149 shares of the conglomerates stock after selling 240,616 shares during the period. Ancora Advisors LLC owned 0.18% of Crane worth $9,247,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. increased its position in Crane by 97.2% in the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 8,031,020 shares of the conglomerates stock worth $584,384,000 after buying an additional 3,959,145 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Crane by 1.3% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,472,630 shares of the conglomerates stock worth $391,534,000 after acquiring an additional 56,773 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its stake in Crane by 93.0% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,666,141 shares of the conglomerates stock valued at $193,106,000 after purchasing an additional 1,285,048 shares during the last quarter. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL increased its holdings in shares of Crane by 77.0% during the 2nd quarter. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL now owns 2,410,330 shares of the conglomerates stock worth $180,078,000 after purchasing an additional 1,048,595 shares during the period. Finally, Capital World Investors acquired a new position in shares of Crane during the second quarter valued at about $168,567,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.91% of the companys stock. Get Crane alerts: Crane Price Performance NYSE:CR traded down $1.86 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $121.29. The company had a trading volume of 60,884 shares, compared to its average volume of 263,481. Crane has a one year low of $67.28 and a one year high of $127.83. The company has a quick ratio of 0.88, a current ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.29. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $118.77 and a two-hundred day moving average of $103.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.89 billion, a PE ratio of 33.27, a PEG ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 1.49. Crane Increases Dividend Crane ( NYSE:CR Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, January 29th. The conglomerate reported $0.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $532.90 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $519.55 million. Crane had a return on equity of 24.45% and a net margin of 13.10%. Analysts forecast that Crane will post 7.87 earnings per share for the current year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 13th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 29th will be given a $0.205 dividend. This represents a $0.82 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.68%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 28th. This is a boost from Cranes previous quarterly dividend of $0.18. Cranes payout ratio is 22.22%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. StockNews.com lowered Crane from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, February 1st. Vertical Research started coverage on Crane in a research report on Monday, November 20th. They set a hold rating and a $110.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on Crane from $124.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 23rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $107.83. Read Our Latest Analysis on Crane Crane Company Profile (Free Report) Crane Company, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells engineered industrial products in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. The company has three segments: Aerospace & Electronics, Process Flow Technologies, and Engineered Materials. The Aerospace & Electronics segment supplies critical components and systems, including original equipment and aftermarket parts, primarily for the commercial aerospace, and the military aerospace, defense, and space markets. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Crane Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Crane and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. K92 Mining Inc. (TSE:KNT Free Report) Analysts at National Bank Financial cut their FY2024 earnings estimates for shares of K92 Mining in a note issued to investors on Sunday, February 25th. National Bank Financial analyst D. Demarco now forecasts that the company will post earnings of $0.38 per share for the year, down from their previous forecast of $0.47. The consensus estimate for K92 Minings current full-year earnings is $0.32 per share. National Bank Financial also issued estimates for K92 Minings FY2025 earnings at $0.78 EPS. Get K92 Mining alerts: Separately, Stifel Canada reiterated a buy rating on shares of K92 Mining in a research report on Thursday, December 7th. K92 Mining Stock Performance KNT stock opened at C$5.55 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of C$6.48 and a 200 day moving average price of C$5.97. The stock has a market capitalization of C$1.30 billion, a PE ratio of 37.00 and a beta of 1.04. K92 Mining has a fifty-two week low of C$4.64 and a fifty-two week high of C$8.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87, a current ratio of 3.07 and a quick ratio of 3.15. K92 Mining Company Profile (Get Free Report) K92 Mining Inc engages in the mining, exploration, and development of mineral deposits in Papua New Guinea. The company produces gold, copper, and silver. The company's mineral properties include the Kainantu gold mine project that covers an area of 836.8 square kilometers located in the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea; and the Blue Lake gold-copper porphyry deposit located in the southwest of the Kora and Judd intrusion. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for K92 Mining Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for K92 Mining and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California State Teachers Retirement System cut its position in General Dynamics Co. (NYSE:GD Free Report) by 5.4% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 372,538 shares of the aerospace companys stock after selling 21,380 shares during the quarter. California State Teachers Retirement Systems holdings in General Dynamics were worth $82,320,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Certified Advisory Corp purchased a new position in shares of General Dynamics during the first quarter worth approximately $25,000. Live Oak Investment Partners acquired a new stake in General Dynamics during the 4th quarter worth $30,000. Briaud Financial Planning Inc purchased a new position in General Dynamics during the 3rd quarter worth $27,000. Impact Partnership Wealth LLC increased its stake in General Dynamics by 411.5% in the third quarter. Impact Partnership Wealth LLC now owns 133 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 107 shares during the period. Finally, Tyler Stone Wealth Management purchased a new stake in shares of General Dynamics in the second quarter valued at about $30,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.08% of the companys stock. Get General Dynamics alerts: General Dynamics Price Performance Shares of NYSE GD traded up $0.10 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $273.80. The company had a trading volume of 53,399 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,170,271. The firm has a market capitalization of $75.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 0.68. The company has a quick ratio of 0.92, a current ratio of 1.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.41. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $261.10 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $244.19. General Dynamics Co. has a twelve month low of $202.35 and a twelve month high of $274.90. General Dynamics Dividend Announcement General Dynamics ( NYSE:GD Get Free Report ) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 24th. The aerospace company reported $3.64 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $3.68 by ($0.04). General Dynamics had a return on equity of 16.61% and a net margin of 7.84%. The firm had revenue of $11.67 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $11.39 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.58 earnings per share. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 7.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that General Dynamics Co. will post 14.62 earnings per share for the current year. The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 9th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 19th were issued a dividend of $1.32 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 18th. This represents a $5.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.93%. General Dynamicss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 43.93%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada restated an outperform rating and issued a $300.00 price target on shares of General Dynamics in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. StockNews.com cut General Dynamics from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note on Saturday, February 3rd. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of General Dynamics from $286.00 to $296.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of General Dynamics from $283.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. Finally, Alembic Global Advisors downgraded shares of General Dynamics from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and set a $296.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Monday, January 29th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $271.69. Read Our Latest Research Report on GD Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, CEO Phebe N. Novakovic sold 32,355 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $264.31, for a total transaction of $8,551,750.05. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 773,977 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $204,569,860.87. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, CEO Phebe N. Novakovic sold 32,355 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $264.31, for a total value of $8,551,750.05. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 773,977 shares in the company, valued at $204,569,860.87. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Mark C. Roualet sold 73,330 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $264.75, for a total transaction of $19,414,117.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 149,205 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $39,502,023.75. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.50% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. General Dynamics Profile (Free Report) General Dynamics Corporation operates as an aerospace and defense company worldwide. It operates through four segments: Aerospace, Marine Systems, Combat Systems, and Technologies. The Aerospace segment produces and sells business jets; and offers aircraft maintenance and repair, management, aircraft-on-ground support and completion, charter, staffing, and fixed-base operator services. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding GD? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for General Dynamics Co. (NYSE:GD Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for General Dynamics Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for General Dynamics and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. HARTFORD A state Supreme Court decision released Tuesday gives hope to Madison Hamburg, a documentary filmmaker who has spent years investigating his mothers killing, and others who may want to review police records on unsolved cold cases but does not guarantee they will get the documents they want. At issue in the case was a provision of the state Freedom of Information Act that permits police departments to refuse to release information to be used in a prospective law enforcement action if prejudicial to such action. For that provision to apply, the unanimous state Supreme Court ruled, police must demonstrate that that an arrest or prosecution is at least reasonably possible. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Writing for the court, Justice Raheem L. Mullins explained that this interpretation steers a course between more extreme possible interpretations of the laws language. An arrest need not be probable or likely, but it must be more than only remotely or theoretically possible, Mullins wrote. This standard effectuates the legislative intent of providing open access to public records without unduly hamstringing ongoing investigations. The case stemmed from a complaint to the state Freedom of Information Commission by filmmaker Anike Niemeyer, who worked with Hamburg on Murder on Middle Beach, a documentary series about the 2010 killing of Hamburgs mother, Barbara Beach Hamburg, at her Madison home. The series aired on HBO in 2020. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Earlier in 2020, the commission ordered the Madison Police Department to give Niemeyer copies of most of its investigative records on the case. The department released two boxes of records with the statement, Everything that we have should be in there, according to a legal brief filed for Niemeyer by David A. Schulz of Yale Law Schools Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic. But he added that Niemeyer subsequently discovered that not all the records had been released. An exchange of communications on this issue with Madison police ended in their decision not to release additional records and instead to appeal the FOI Commissions decision to the court. Superior Court Judge Daniel J. Klau upheld the commissions decision. Madison police appealed further, leading to Tuesdays Supreme Court decision, which adopted the legal standard Klau had used but differed from his decision in important details. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the FOI Commission to apply the new legal standard and to correct what it called clearly erroneous factual findings. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mullins wrote that the FOI Commissions decision twice said police had not identified any suspects. But he added that Madison police Detective Christopher Sudock gave uncontradicted testimony at the FOI Commissions hearing that the department had long been close to solving the crime and that it had a number one suspect, based on DNA and other evidence. The state Division of Criminal Justice filed a friend of the court brief arguing that law enforcement agencies should be able to refuse to release their records whenever an investigation is open, a suspect has been identified, and no insurmountable obstacles exist to a future prosecution, Mullins wrote. He acknowledged that the division tells a compelling tale of cases in which the police were able to solve long cold murders because records of investigations were not released too soon. But the justice went on to cite the history of the 1950s and '60s, which, he wrote, is replete with incidents in which law enforcement agencies failed to diligently investigate the murders of Black victims and then resisted disclosing investigation records that would have both shed light on their own indolence, if not complicity, and allowed victims families and outside organizations, sometimes with the assistance of documentary filmmakers, to help bring the killers to justice. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Lawyer Valicia Dee Harmon, who represented the FOI Commission in the case, welcomed the legal standard adopted by the Supreme Court, saying it struck a good balance between law enforcements need for space and the publics need for some oversight. I am pleased that the Madson Police Department has been vindicated from the erroneous decision of the Freedom of Information Commission, which I believed from the beginning was a departure from how cold cases, particularly those involving a homicide, had been treated in the past," said lawyer Floyd Dugas, who represented the Police Department in the case. "The Courts decision provides a clearer road map for law enforcement going forward as to what is needed to prove the applicability of the law enforcement exception under the Freedom of Information Act," Dugas continued. "I look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate to the Commission why the details of the this case warrant application of the law enforcement exception to FOIA under the new standards articulated by the Court. Schulz, the lawyer representing Niemeyer, who requested the police records, said, "The Supreme Courts opinion provides a welcome reaffirmation of the publics right to inspect the records of police investigations when doing so will not prejudice some future proceeding. Access to investigative records is essential for public oversight of law enforcement agencies to knowing if police are properly doing their jobs. The Supreme Court made this clear in rejecting the claim that all records of the investigation of a 12-year-old, unsolved murder could be kept completely secret simply by saying that the investigation remains open. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Helix Energy Solutions Group (NYSE:HLX Get Free Report) posted its earnings results on Monday. The oil and gas company reported ($0.19) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.10 by ($0.29), RTT News reports. Helix Energy Solutions Group had a positive return on equity of 3.39% and a negative net margin of 0.84%. The firm had revenue of $335.16 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $326.59 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.09 EPS. Helix Energy Solutions Group Stock Performance NYSE HLX opened at $9.11 on Wednesday. Helix Energy Solutions Group has a 1 year low of $6.18 and a 1 year high of $11.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.42. The firm has a market cap of $1.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -130.07 and a beta of 2.54. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $9.78 and a 200-day moving average price of $9.96. Get Helix Energy Solutions Group alerts: Institutional Trading of Helix Energy Solutions Group Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. BlackRock Inc. grew its position in Helix Energy Solutions Group by 1.4% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 24,420,826 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $116,732,000 after buying an additional 345,052 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Helix Energy Solutions Group by 4.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,199,356 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $63,094,000 after buying an additional 579,466 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its position in Helix Energy Solutions Group by 20.7% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 9,621,561 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $74,471,000 after buying an additional 1,649,169 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its position in Helix Energy Solutions Group by 12.4% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 7,200,373 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $34,418,000 after buying an additional 794,783 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its position in Helix Energy Solutions Group by 6.3% during the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 6,810,612 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $32,555,000 after buying an additional 401,949 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 98.58% of the companys stock. About Helix Energy Solutions Group Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, an offshore energy services company, provides specialty services to the offshore energy industry in Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, the East Coast of the United States, North Sea, the Asia Pacific, and West Africa regions. The company operates through Well Intervention, Robotics, Production Facilities, and Shallow Water Abandonment segments. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Helix Energy Solutions Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Helix Energy Solutions Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited (ASX:BEN Get Free Report) insider David Foster bought 2,083 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 27th. The stock was acquired at an average cost of A$712.74 ($465.84) per share, for a total transaction of A$1,484,629.09 ($970,345.81). Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Stock Performance Get Bendigo and Adelaide Bank alerts: Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Increases Dividend The firm also recently announced a Interim dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 25th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 25th will be given a $0.30 dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 3.05%. This is a positive change from Bendigo and Adelaide Banks previous Interim dividend of $0.29. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 21st. Bendigo and Adelaide Banks dividend payout ratio is presently 70.59%. About Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (Get Free Report) Read More Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited provides banking and financial products and services to retail customers and small to medium sized businesses in Australia. The company operates through Consumer, Business and Agribusiness, and Corporate segments. It offers a range of products and services, including personal and business banking, financial planning, commercial mortgages and unsecured loans, investment products, insurance, and superannuation. Receive News & Ratings for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. InterContinental Hotels Group (LON:IHG Get Free Report) had its target price lifted by research analysts at Berenberg Bank from GBX 6,000 ($76.10) to GBX 7,400 ($93.86) in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday, Digital Look reports. The brokerage currently has a hold rating on the stock. Berenberg Banks target price suggests a potential downside of 14.10% from the stocks current price. Several other equities analysts also recently weighed in on IHG. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on InterContinental Hotels Group from GBX 5,400 ($68.49) to GBX 6,100 ($77.37) and gave the company an underweight rating in a research report on Tuesday. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a buy rating and set a GBX 6,400 ($81.18) price objective on shares of InterContinental Hotels Group in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, Citigroup reissued a sell rating on shares of InterContinental Hotels Group in a report on Thursday, February 22nd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of GBX 6,415 ($81.37). Get InterContinental Hotels Group alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on IHG InterContinental Hotels Group Stock Down 0.8 % InterContinental Hotels Group Company Profile Shares of LON:IHG opened at GBX 8,614.25 ($109.26) on Wednesday. InterContinental Hotels Group has a twelve month low of GBX 5,086 ($64.51) and a twelve month high of GBX 8,790 ($111.49). The stock has a market capitalization of 14.24 billion, a PE ratio of 2,478.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 0.97. The firms 50 day moving average price is GBX 7,499.68 and its 200-day moving average price is GBX 6,609.39. (Get Free Report) InterContinental Hotels Group PLC owns, manages, franchises, and leases hotels in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Greater China. The company operates hotels under the Six Senses, Regent, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Vignette Collection, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, Hotel Indigo, voco, HUALUXE, Crowne Plaza, Iberostar Beachfront Resorts, EVEN, Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn, avid, Atwell Suites, Staybridge Suites, Holiday Inn Club Vacations, and Candlewood Suites brand names. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for InterContinental Hotels Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for InterContinental Hotels Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. boosted its position in Barrick Gold Corp (NYSE:GOLD Free Report) (TSE:ABX) by 282.8% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 27,220 shares of the gold and copper producers stock after purchasing an additional 20,110 shares during the quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A.s holdings in Barrick Gold were worth $396,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of GOLD. Fairfield Bush & CO. purchased a new position in Barrick Gold in the first quarter worth about $42,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Barrick Gold in the first quarter worth about $647,000. Blair William & Co. IL boosted its position in Barrick Gold by 288.8% in the first quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 90,896 shares of the gold and copper producers stock worth $2,230,000 after purchasing an additional 67,516 shares during the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. boosted its position in Barrick Gold by 97.2% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 230,278 shares of the gold and copper producers stock worth $5,651,000 after purchasing an additional 113,486 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH boosted its position in Barrick Gold by 17.7% in the first quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 1,007,571 shares of the gold and copper producers stock worth $24,620,000 after purchasing an additional 151,763 shares during the last quarter. 58.20% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Barrick Gold alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In GOLD has been the topic of several research reports. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on Barrick Gold from $17.00 to $15.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. CIBC lowered their price objective on Barrick Gold from $27.00 to $23.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Scotiabank lowered their price objective on Barrick Gold from $24.00 to $23.00 and set a sector outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on Barrick Gold from $26.00 to $24.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. Finally, TD Securities lowered their price objective on Barrick Gold from $22.00 to $21.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 16th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $21.71. Barrick Gold Price Performance NYSE:GOLD traded down $0.07 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $14.34. The stock had a trading volume of 3,309,874 shares, compared to its average volume of 19,302,992. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.15, a quick ratio of 2.40 and a current ratio of 3.16. Barrick Gold Corp has a 52 week low of $13.76 and a 52 week high of $20.75. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $16.13 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $16.10. The stock has a market capitalization of $25.17 billion, a PE ratio of 19.96, a PEG ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 0.58. Barrick Gold (NYSE:GOLD Get Free Report) (TSE:ABX) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 14th. The gold and copper producer reported $0.27 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.21 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $3.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.13 billion. Barrick Gold had a return on equity of 4.64% and a net margin of 11.16%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.13 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Barrick Gold Corp will post 0.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Barrick Gold Cuts Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 29th will be issued a $0.074 dividend. This represents a $0.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.06%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 28th. Barrick Golds dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 55.56%. Barrick Gold Company Profile (Free Report) Barrick Gold Corporation is a sector-leading gold and copper producer. Its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GOLD and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol ABX. In January 2019 Barrick merged with Randgold Resources and in July that year it combined its gold mines in Nevada, USA, with those of Newmont Corporation in a joint venture, Nevada Gold Mines, which is majority-owned and operated by Barrick. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Barrick Gold Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Barrick Gold and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank raised its stake in JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (BATS:BBHY Free Report) by 100.0% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 13,414 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 6,707 shares during the quarter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank owned about 0.16% of JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF worth $589,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of BBHY. JPMorgan Chase & Co. acquired a new position in JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF in the second quarter valued at about $127,084,000. LPL Financial LLC acquired a new stake in shares of JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF during the third quarter worth about $42,154,000. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF during the third quarter worth about $11,364,000. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D acquired a new stake in shares of JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF during the third quarter worth about $10,970,000. Finally, Dynamic Advisor Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in shares of JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF during the third quarter worth about $8,376,000. Get JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF alerts: JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF Stock Performance Shares of BBHY traded up $0.05 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $45.83. 26,439 shares of the companys stock were exchanged. The company has a fifty day moving average of $45.87 and a 200-day moving average of $44.78. About JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF The JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (BBHY) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the ICE BofA US High Yield index. The fund seeks to track a market-cap weighted index to provide exposure to high-yield, USD-denominated corporate debt securities. The fund invests in securities with maturities of at least 18 months. Read More Receive News & Ratings for JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for JPMorgan BetaBuilders USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shares of Kontoor Brands, Inc. (NYSE:KTB Get Free Report) have earned an average recommendation of Moderate Buy from the six brokerages that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold recommendation and five have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $70.40. A number of brokerages have recently commented on KTB. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Kontoor Brands from $60.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, December 14th. Barclays upgraded Kontoor Brands from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $47.00 to $59.00 in a research report on Monday, November 6th. Edward Jones downgraded Kontoor Brands from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on Kontoor Brands from $56.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, December 22nd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Kontoor Brands from $60.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, December 14th. Get Kontoor Brands alerts: View Our Latest Research Report on KTB Kontoor Brands Stock Performance Kontoor Brands Announces Dividend NYSE:KTB opened at $63.45 on Friday. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $60.60 and its 200 day simple moving average is $52.57. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.56 billion, a PE ratio of 16.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.56 and a beta of 1.15. The company has a quick ratio of 1.10, a current ratio of 2.65 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.21. Kontoor Brands has a twelve month low of $37.10 and a twelve month high of $64.49. The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 18th. Investors of record on Friday, March 8th will be given a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 7th. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.15%. Kontoor Brandss payout ratio is 53.19%. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Kontoor Brands A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. BlackRock Inc. grew its stake in Kontoor Brands by 1.9% in the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 8,294,678 shares of the companys stock valued at $401,379,000 after purchasing an additional 153,205 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Kontoor Brands by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,426,658 shares of the companys stock worth $282,195,000 after acquiring an additional 20,964 shares during the period. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of Kontoor Brands by 3.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 3,866,900 shares of the companys stock worth $169,796,000 after acquiring an additional 117,815 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Kontoor Brands by 0.6% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,079,112 shares of the companys stock worth $87,531,000 after purchasing an additional 13,277 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Kontoor Brands by 60.1% during the 4th quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 1,602,908 shares of the companys stock worth $100,054,000 after purchasing an additional 601,646 shares in the last quarter. Kontoor Brands Company Profile (Get Free Report Kontoor Brands, Inc, a lifestyle apparel company, designs, produces, procures, markets, distributes, and licenses denim, apparel, footwear, and accessories, primarily under the Wrangler and Lee brands. It licenses and sells apparel under the Rock & Republic brad name. The company sells its products primarily through mass merchants, specialty stores, mid-tier and traditional department stores, company-operated stores, and online. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Kontoor Brands Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Kontoor Brands and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Koppers (NYSE:KOP Get Free Report) updated its FY24 earnings guidance on Wednesday. The company provided EPS guidance of $4.60-4.80 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $4.71. The company issued revenue guidance of approximately $2.25 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.19 billion. Koppers Stock Performance NYSE KOP opened at $53.02 on Wednesday. Koppers has a 52-week low of $28.45 and a 52-week high of $53.22. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $50.54 and a 200 day simple moving average of $43.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 2.24. The company has a market capitalization of $1.10 billion, a PE ratio of 12.59 and a beta of 1.87. Get Koppers alerts: Koppers Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 25th. Investors of record on Friday, March 8th will be issued a dividend of $0.07 per share. This represents a $0.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.53%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 7th. This is an increase from Kopperss previous quarterly dividend of $0.06. Kopperss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 5.70%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Separately, StockNews.com lowered shares of Koppers from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Friday, December 29th. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on KOP Insider Activity In other news, SVP Leslie S. Hyde sold 16,936 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.11, for a total value of $763,982.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,386 shares in the company, valued at $2,272,912.46. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, SVP Leslie S. Hyde sold 16,936 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.11, for a total value of $763,982.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,386 shares in the company, valued at $2,272,912.46. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO M Leroy Ball sold 7,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.27, for a total transaction of $344,890.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 296,421 shares in the company, valued at $14,604,662.67. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 78,227 shares of company stock worth $3,522,762. 7.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Institutional Investors Weigh In On Koppers A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of KOP. UBS Asset Management Americas Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Koppers in the 3rd quarter valued at $214,000. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its position in Koppers by 6.0% during the first quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 7,518 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $212,000 after buying an additional 425 shares during the period. Engineers Gate Manager LP bought a new position in shares of Koppers during the third quarter valued at about $201,000. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Koppers by 7.1% in the second quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 5,330 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock worth $182,000 after buying an additional 352 shares during the period. Finally, Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky bought a new stake in shares of Koppers in the 3rd quarter valued at about $175,000. 88.81% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About Koppers (Get Free Report) Koppers Holdings Inc provides treated wood products, wood preservation chemicals, and carbon compounds in the United States, Australasia, Europe, and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Railroad and Utility Products and Services (RUPS), Performance Chemicals (PC), and Carbon Materials and Chemicals (CMC).The RUPS segment procures and treats crossties, switch ties, and various types of lumber used for railroad bridges and crossings. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Koppers Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Koppers and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:LUMN Get Free Report) Director T Michael Glenn bought 50,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 26th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $1.47 per share, for a total transaction of $73,500.00. Following the acquisition, the director now owns 272,019 shares of the companys stock, valued at $399,867.93. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Lumen Technologies Price Performance LUMN opened at $1.54 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 47.56, a current ratio of 1.35 and a quick ratio of 1.35. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $1.56 and a 200-day simple moving average of $1.48. Lumen Technologies, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $0.78 and a fifty-two week high of $3.49. Get Lumen Technologies alerts: Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The technology company reported $0.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of ($0.03) by $0.11. The business had revenue of $3.52 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.45 billion. Lumen Technologies had a positive return on equity of 4.85% and a negative net margin of 70.74%. Lumen Technologiess revenue for the quarter was down 7.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.43 EPS. On average, equities analysts predict that Lumen Technologies, Inc. will post -0.3 earnings per share for the current year. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on LUMN shares. UBS Group lowered their price target on Lumen Technologies from $2.50 to $1.50 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their target price on Lumen Technologies from $3.00 to $1.50 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and four have issued a hold rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $1.81. View Our Latest Analysis on LUMN Institutional Investors Weigh In On Lumen Technologies A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in LUMN. Hsbc Holdings PLC grew its position in Lumen Technologies by 20.6% during the 3rd quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 21,698,150 shares of the technology companys stock worth $31,344,000 after purchasing an additional 3,713,167 shares in the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC lifted its stake in Lumen Technologies by 137.5% in the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 2,085,381 shares of the technology companys stock worth $2,961,000 after acquiring an additional 1,207,329 shares in the last quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D boosted its position in Lumen Technologies by 33.2% during the 3rd quarter. State of New Jersey Common Pension Fund D now owns 1,611,863 shares of the technology companys stock worth $2,289,000 after acquiring an additional 401,850 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new position in Lumen Technologies during the 3rd quarter valued at about $951,000. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp increased its holdings in shares of Lumen Technologies by 109.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp now owns 1,320,636 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $1,875,000 after purchasing an additional 689,004 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.72% of the companys stock. About Lumen Technologies (Get Free Report) Lumen Technologies, Inc, a facilities-based technology and communications company, provides various integrated products and services under the Lumen, Quantum Fiber, and CenturyLink brands to business and residential customers in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Business and Mass Markets. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Lumen Technologies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Lumen Technologies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Toronto Dominion Bank lessened its holdings in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC Free Report) by 15.2% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 358,562 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 64,462 shares during the quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank owned approximately 0.07% of Marsh & McLennan Companies worth $68,234,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of MMC. Altshuler Shaham Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies during the 3rd quarter valued at about $27,000. OFI Invest Asset Management acquired a new stake in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies during the 3rd quarter valued at about $28,000. RVW Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies during the 3rd quarter valued at about $32,000. Jones Financial Companies Lllp lifted its holdings in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies by 40.5% during the 2nd quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 184 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 53 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FSC Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies during the 3rd quarter valued at about $39,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.64% of the companys stock. Get Marsh & McLennan Companies alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on MMC shares. StockNews.com lowered Marsh & McLennan Companies from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, December 19th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reduced their target price on Marsh & McLennan Companies from $186.00 to $185.00 and set an underperform rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. TD Cowen began coverage on Marsh & McLennan Companies in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. They issued a market perform rating and a $189.00 target price for the company. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered Marsh & McLennan Companies from a buy rating to a sell rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $215.00 to $185.00 in a report on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on Marsh & McLennan Companies from $200.00 to $208.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $202.71. Marsh & McLennan Companies Stock Performance Shares of MMC traded up $0.98 on Wednesday, reaching $204.21. 85,574 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,724,058. The firm has a market cap of $100.40 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.99, a P/E/G ratio of 3.64 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.96, a current ratio of 1.10 and a quick ratio of 1.10. Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. has a 12 month low of $151.86 and a 12 month high of $204.73. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $194.70 and its 200-day moving average price is $194.27. Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE:MMC Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 25th. The financial services provider reported $1.68 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.63 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $5.55 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $5.54 billion. Marsh & McLennan Companies had a return on equity of 33.72% and a net margin of 16.52%. Marsh & McLennan Companiess quarterly revenue was up 10.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.47 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. will post 8.56 EPS for the current fiscal year. Marsh & McLennan Companies Announces Dividend The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, January 25th were given a $0.71 dividend. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.39%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, January 24th. Marsh & McLennan Companiess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 37.72%. Marsh & McLennan Companies Profile (Free Report) Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc, a professional services company, provides advice and solutions to clients in the areas of risk, strategy, and people worldwide. It operates through Risk and Insurance Services, and Consulting segments. The Risk and Insurance Services segment offers risk management services, such as risk advice, risk transfer, and risk control and mitigation solutions, as well as insurance and reinsurance broking, strategic advisory services, and analytics solutions, and insurance program management services. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MMC? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Marsh & McLennan Companies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Marsh & McLennan Companies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC Get Free Report) have been given a consensus rating of Hold by the fourteen brokerages that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, eight have issued a hold recommendation and four have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month price target among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $202.71. Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group downgraded Marsh & McLennan Companies from a buy rating to a sell rating and cut their price objective for the company from $215.00 to $185.00 in a report on Monday, January 8th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on Marsh & McLennan Companies from $200.00 to $208.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut their price objective on Marsh & McLennan Companies from $186.00 to $185.00 and set an underperform rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. TD Cowen assumed coverage on Marsh & McLennan Companies in a research note on Wednesday, January 10th. They set a market perform rating and a $189.00 target price for the company. Finally, StockNews.com cut Marsh & McLennan Companies from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 19th. Get Marsh & McLennan Companies alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on MMC Hedge Funds Weigh In On Marsh & McLennan Companies Marsh & McLennan Companies Stock Performance Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of MMC. Valley National Advisers Inc. increased its stake in Marsh & McLennan Companies by 343.3% in the 4th quarter. Valley National Advisers Inc. now owns 133 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 103 shares during the period. Private Wealth Management Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies during the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Altshuler Shaham Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies during the 3rd quarter worth $27,000. OFI Invest Asset Management acquired a new position in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies during the 3rd quarter worth $28,000. Finally, Headinvest LLC acquired a new position in shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies during the 3rd quarter worth $28,000. 86.64% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. NYSE MMC opened at $203.23 on Friday. Marsh & McLennan Companies has a fifty-two week low of $151.86 and a fifty-two week high of $204.67. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a current ratio of 1.10. The firm has a market capitalization of $99.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.64 and a beta of 0.90. The stocks fifty day moving average is $194.70 and its two-hundred day moving average is $194.27. Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE:MMC Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The financial services provider reported $1.68 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.63 by $0.05. Marsh & McLennan Companies had a return on equity of 33.72% and a net margin of 16.52%. The company had revenue of $5.55 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.54 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.47 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 10.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that Marsh & McLennan Companies will post 8.56 earnings per share for the current year. Marsh & McLennan Companies Dividend Announcement The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 25th were issued a $0.71 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, January 24th. This represents a $2.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.40%. Marsh & McLennan Companiess payout ratio is 37.72%. About Marsh & McLennan Companies (Get Free Report Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc, a professional services company, provides advice and solutions to clients in the areas of risk, strategy, and people worldwide. It operates through Risk and Insurance Services, and Consulting segments. The Risk and Insurance Services segment offers risk management services, such as risk advice, risk transfer, and risk control and mitigation solutions, as well as insurance and reinsurance broking, strategic advisory services, and analytics solutions, and insurance program management services. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Marsh & McLennan Companies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Marsh & McLennan Companies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. 268 telecom scam suspects handed over to China from Laos Xinhua) 13:32, February 28, 2024 BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- A total of 268 suspects involved in cross-border telecom frauds affecting Chinese citizens were returned from Laos to Chinese police custody, the Ministry of Public Security announced Wednesday. The suspects, including eight who served as the crimes' funding source and 54 criminal ring heads and core members, have been implicated in over 1,570 relevant cases in multiple localities in China, the ministry said in a statement. The crackdown marks another important achievement in the joint police enforcement cooperation between Chinese and Laotian police authorities, the ministry said. Chinese police sent a working team to Laos in January to carry out the cooperation, where the police forces from the two countries raided several criminal sites in Laos, capturing suspects and seizing over 2,400 mobile phones and computers used in criminal activities, according to the statement. Investigations into the relevant cases are ongoing. The ministry pledged to deepen the police cooperation with relevant countries to hunt down the criminals, while curbing relevant crimes and protect the safety of people's lives and property. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Michelle Troconis, right, appears in court with her defense attorney, Jon Schoenhorn, during the first full day of jury deliberation on day 29 of Troconis' criminal trial at Connecticut Superior Court in Stamford, Conn. Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Troconis is on trial for charges related to the disappearance and death of New Canaan resident Jennifer Dulos. Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media Michelle Troconis appears in court during the first full day of jury deliberation on day 29 of her criminal trial at Connecticut Superior Court in Stamford, Conn. Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Troconis is on trial for charges related to the disappearance and death of New Canaan resident Jennifer Dulos. Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media STAMFORD The jury in the Michelle Troconis trial continues to deliberate in the 2019 death and disappearance of New Canaan mother Jennifer Dulos. Troconis, 49, is accused of trying to create an alibi for her former boyfriend, Fotis Dulos, the morning his estranged wife went missing and helping him clean a pickup truck that police believe was used in the crime. Troconis is facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder, two counts of conspiracy to tamper with physical evidence, two counts of tampering with physical evidence and one count of second-degree hindering prosecution. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Fotis Dulos died by suicide in January 2020 while facing murder and other charges in the case. Jennifer Dulos was last seen on May 24, 2019, and though her body has never been found, a judge declared her legally dead last year. Jurors began their deliberations Tuesday afternoon after they heard closing arguments from the prosecution and defense. Deliberations continued on Wednesday morning and jurors returned to the courtroom because they wanted to hear the testimony again of Troconis' friend who was the last witness to take the stand. Here is the latest on what is happening on Day 30 of the trial: Advertisement Article continues below this ad Jurors ended the day Wednesday without reaching a verdict. Jurors were advised to return to the courthouse at 10 a.m. Thursday to continue deliberations. Jurors asked whether they could get their notepads before Duperrons testimony was replayed. Many were taking notes throughout the 38-minute testimony. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Inside the courtroom were a few witnesses who had been called in the case, including Connecticut State Police Sgt. Kenneth Ventresca, Sgt. Michael Beauton and former Detective John Kimball, as well as New Canaan Police Detective Tom Patten and longtime Dulos nanny Lauren Almeida. In the recording, Felsen asked Duperron about spring 2019. Around that time, Duperron said she learned, from Fotis Dulos, about a custody report being prepared. She said Fotis Dulos told her near the end of April at a Greek Easter celebration at 4 Jefferson Crossing that the report came back favorable, and he seemed happy. Duperron said many of Troconis family members were at this celebration, as well at Fotis Dulos lawyer, friends and former employee, Pawel Gumienny. Felsen asked Duperron when she was at the Jefferson Crossing home whether the fireplace was lit. She said that whether a fire was lit did not depend on the season, but sometimes the weather or the occasion, such as relaxing moments. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Would there sometimes be a fire going on when it was still warm out? Felsen asked. Yes, Duperron said. An outdoor fireplace also was lit in all seasons, Duperron said. She said she did not know whether a fire was lit at the home on May 24, 2019, the day Jennifer Dulos disappeared. Duperron said Troconis went to her store that morning so she could pay Trconis for some rugs. She testified that she spoke to Troconis throughout the day, and her friend did not seem upset, nervous or anxious. Advertisement Article continues below this ad She then talked to her friend again a few days later, and Troconis was worried because Jennifer Dulos had disappeared. On June 1, Duperron said she had Troconis, Fotis Dulos and others over at her house. She said Fotis Dulos seemed worried, while Troconis was tired, Duperron testified. Jurors also again heard prosecutors' cross-examination of Duperron. In the recording, Supervisory Assistant States Attorney Michelle Manning noted how close Duperron and Troconis were, saying at one point Duperron described themselves as inseparable. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In May 2021, Duperron testified how police contacted her regarding Jennifer Dulos disappearance. Manning pointed out that Duperron wrote that she would be more comfortable answering police questions via email. Duperron also told police, in an email, that she had information that would help the defendant and that would hurt the states case. Yes, of course, Duperron said. Duperron also confirmed when Manning asked whether she called police incompetent. Advertisement Article continues below this ad At that time you felt you had information that could help your friend, correct? Manning said. Yes, Duperron responded. And your inseparable, beautiful friendship, you had information, Manning said. And since the five years since 2019, and three years since youve been contacted by the police, you kept that to yourself. Yes, because I didnt trust the police, Duperron said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Duperron said she didnt contact the media or anyone else, and was waiting to testify to reveal the information. After the recording concluded, the jury retired to the deliberation room. Randolph had the court monitor play a recording of Duperron's testimony. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Duperron was first questioned by Audrey Felsen, who is on Troconis' defense team. Duperron testified that she originally is from Argentina and met Troconis through a mutual friend in 2017. They have remained friends since. Obviously you dont want anything bad to happen, youre concerned about her, Felsen said. Yes, of course, Duperron said. But youre under oath, Felsen said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Yes, Duperron said. And you understand you need to tell the truth, Felsen said. Totally, Duperron said. Troconis was living with her daughter and her then-boyfriend Fotis Dulos at 4 Jefferson Crossing in Farmington in 2017, Duperron said. She testified that she also considered Fotis Dulos a friend. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Between 2017 and 2018, Duperron said she mostly socialized with Troconis, but sometimes also Fotis Dulos, in movie nights, barbecues and Mothers Day celebrations. Typical things that you do with your friends, Duperron said. She said she learned in 2018 that Fotis Dulos was unable to see his children. When asked whether she ever talked to him about his children, Duperron said she did. She also said Fotis Dulos was frustrated about not being able to see his kids. Duperron also learned at some point that Troconis and her daughter were not allowed to be around the Dulos children when Fotis Dulos had his supervised visitations. She testified that Troconis also was frustrated, but that she never heard Troconis use disparaging language to describe Jennifer Dulos. Advertisement Article continues below this ad At around noon Wednesday, Judge Kevin Randolph said he received a note saying that the jury wanted a copy of the testimony from Clara Petu Duperron, who was described as Michelles best friend in the note. Randolph noted that the jury had also chosen a foreperson. Randolph brought the jury back into the courtroom to listen back to the 38-minute testimony. Duperron was the defenses final witness and testified on Friday. Morningstar Investment Services LLC grew its stake in American Express (NYSE:AXP) by 1.4% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 39,896 shares of the payment services companys stock after acquiring an additional 540 shares during the period. Morningstar Investment Services LLCs holdings in American Express were worth $5,994,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Tyler Stone Wealth Management bought a new stake in shares of American Express in the 2nd quarter valued at about $27,000. BluePath Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of American Express in the 3rd quarter valued at about $29,000. RVW Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of American Express in the 3rd quarter valued at about $33,000. Operose Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of American Express in the 3rd quarter valued at about $41,000. Finally, Brown Shipley& Co Ltd bought a new stake in shares of American Express in the 2nd quarter valued at about $49,000. 83.08% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get American Express alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes AXP has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Oppenheimer upped their price target on American Express from $208.00 to $219.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on American Express from $220.00 to $226.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on American Express in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. They issued a buy rating and a $235.00 price objective for the company. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on American Express from $186.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Monday, December 18th. Finally, TD Cowen began coverage on American Express in a research report on Wednesday, November 1st. They issued a market perform rating and a $158.00 price objective for the company. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, American Express currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $189.00. Insider Activity In related news, insider Monique Herena sold 11,242 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $208.41, for a total value of $2,342,945.22. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 13,874 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,891,480.34. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other American Express news, insider Monique Herena sold 11,242 shares of American Express stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $208.41, for a total transaction of $2,342,945.22. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 13,874 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,891,480.34. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Stephen J. Squeri sold 69,356 shares of American Express stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $213.02, for a total transaction of $14,774,215.12. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 122,158 shares in the company, valued at $26,022,097.16. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 172,047 shares of company stock worth $36,528,388. 0.12% of the stock is owned by company insiders. American Express Stock Performance NYSE AXP traded up $0.87 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $218.85. 591,547 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,357,155. American Express has a 1 year low of $140.91 and a 1 year high of $219.06. The businesss 50 day simple moving average is $196.42 and its 200-day simple moving average is $171.55. The company has a quick ratio of 1.63, a current ratio of 1.63 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.71. The stock has a market capitalization of $158.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.45, a P/E/G ratio of 1.22 and a beta of 1.23. American Express (NYSE:AXP Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, January 26th. The payment services company reported $2.62 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $2.64 by ($0.02). American Express had a return on equity of 30.99% and a net margin of 13.84%. The company had revenue of $15.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $16 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.07 EPS. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that American Express will post 12.83 earnings per share for the current year. American Express Announces Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 9th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 5th were given a dividend of $0.60 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 4th. This represents a $2.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.10%. American Expresss dividend payout ratio is presently 21.41%. American Express Profile (Free Report) American Express Company, together with its subsidiaries, operates as integrated payments company in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the Asia Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Canada, the Caribbean, and Internationally. It operates through four segments: U.S. Consumer Services, Commercial Services, International Card Services, and Global Merchant and Network Services. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AXP? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for American Express (NYSE:AXP Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for American Express Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for American Express and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC raised its holdings in Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE:CRL Free Report) by 2.3% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 51,516 shares of the medical research companys stock after purchasing an additional 1,148 shares during the quarter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC owned 0.10% of Charles River Laboratories International worth $10,062,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Charles River Laboratories International by 1.1% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,935,727 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,685,568,000 after purchasing an additional 66,602 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Charles River Laboratories International by 8.6% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 5,198,037 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $1,092,887,000 after acquiring an additional 411,153 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of Charles River Laboratories International by 35.3% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,506,293 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $505,821,000 after acquiring an additional 653,790 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Charles River Laboratories International by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,091,017 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $439,636,000 after acquiring an additional 37,816 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its stake in shares of Charles River Laboratories International by 24.4% during the 2nd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 1,750,110 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $367,961,000 after acquiring an additional 343,076 shares in the last quarter. 98.91% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Charles River Laboratories International alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In CRL has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Evercore ISI increased their target price on shares of Charles River Laboratories International from $260.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, February 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Charles River Laboratories International from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Thursday, February 15th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Charles River Laboratories International from $270.00 to $290.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, February 15th. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Charles River Laboratories International from $220.00 to $205.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, November 10th. Finally, Guggenheim lowered shares of Charles River Laboratories International from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, February 15th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Charles River Laboratories International currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $246.54. Insider Buying and Selling In other Charles River Laboratories International news, VP William D. Barbo sold 4,050 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $248.50, for a total value of $1,006,425.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 22,879 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,685,431.50. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other Charles River Laboratories International news, VP William D. Barbo sold 4,050 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $248.50, for a total value of $1,006,425.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now owns 22,879 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,685,431.50. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, EVP Shannon M. Parisotto sold 5,882 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $241.20, for a total transaction of $1,418,738.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 2,596 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $626,155.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Charles River Laboratories International Trading Up 1.5 % Shares of NYSE CRL traded up $3.80 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $256.75. 198,574 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 594,523. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $226.67 and a 200 day simple moving average of $206.78. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.18 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.46, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 1.38. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a quick ratio of 1.16 and a current ratio of 1.52. Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. has a twelve month low of $161.65 and a twelve month high of $258.58. Charles River Laboratories International (NYSE:CRL Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 14th. The medical research company reported $2.46 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $1.01 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $991.25 million. Charles River Laboratories International had a net margin of 11.49% and a return on equity of 16.53%. The firms quarterly revenue was down 7.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.98 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. will post 11.04 earnings per share for the current year. Charles River Laboratories International Company Profile (Free Report) Charles River Laboratories International, Inc, a non-clinical contract research organization, provides drug discovery, non-clinical development, and safety testing services in the United States, Europe, Canada, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Research Models and Services (RMS), Discovery and Safety Assessment (DSA), and Manufacturing Solutions (Manufacturing). Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Charles River Laboratories International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Charles River Laboratories International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) Stock analysts at National Bank Financial cut their Q2 2024 earnings per share estimates for Bank of Montreal in a report released on Wednesday, February 21st. National Bank Financial analyst G. Dechaine now forecasts that the bank will earn $2.83 per share for the quarter, down from their previous estimate of $2.96. The consensus estimate for Bank of Montreals current full-year earnings is $12.09 per share. National Bank Financial also issued estimates for Bank of Montreals Q4 2024 earnings at $3.09 EPS. Get Bank of Montreal alerts: Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, December 1st. The bank reported C$2.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of C$2.86 by C($0.05). Bank of Montreal had a return on equity of 5.91% and a net margin of 15.04%. The business had revenue of C$8.36 billion during the quarter. A number of other equities analysts have also issued reports on BMO. Bank of America raised Bank of Montreal from a neutral rating to a buy rating and increased their price objective for the stock from C$120.00 to C$145.00 in a report on Monday, December 18th. Canaccord Genuity Group increased their price objective on Bank of Montreal from C$135.00 to C$137.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods decreased their price objective on Bank of Montreal from C$138.00 to C$128.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Thursday, November 23rd. Scotiabank increased their price objective on Bank of Montreal from C$135.00 to C$145.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, Desjardins increased their price objective on Bank of Montreal from C$130.00 to C$135.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, December 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of C$132.95. View Our Latest Report on BMO Bank of Montreal Price Performance Shares of BMO stock opened at C$122.31 on Monday. Bank of Montreal has a 12-month low of C$102.67 and a 12-month high of C$132.11. The firm has a market capitalization of C$88.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.54 and a beta of 1.18. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of C$127.84 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$118.22. Bank of Montreal Dividend Announcement The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, May 28th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 29th will be given a dividend of $1.51 per share. This represents a $6.04 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.94%. Bank of Montreals dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 106.34%. About Bank of Montreal (Get Free Report) Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. It operates through Canadian P&C, U.S P&C, BMO Wealth Management, and BMO Capital Markets segments. The company's personal banking products and services include deposits, mortgages, home lending, consumer credit, small business lending, credit cards, cash management, financial and investment advice, and other banking services; and commercial banking products and services comprise various of financing options and treasury and payment solutions, as well as risk management products. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Bank of Montreal Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of Montreal and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Nine27 Capital Management LP bought a new position in shares of Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (NYSE:AAP Free Report) in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor bought 100,000 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,593,000. Advance Auto Parts accounts for approximately 9.3% of Nine27 Capital Management LPs investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest position. Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Private Advisor Group LLC bought a new position in Advance Auto Parts during the 1st quarter worth approximately $232,000. MetLife Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in Advance Auto Parts by 21.9% during the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 16,965 shares of the companys stock worth $3,511,000 after acquiring an additional 3,046 shares during the last quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS boosted its stake in Advance Auto Parts by 5.5% during the 1st quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 8,343 shares of the companys stock worth $1,727,000 after acquiring an additional 435 shares during the last quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. boosted its stake in Advance Auto Parts by 120.6% during the 1st quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 11,593 shares of the companys stock worth $2,399,000 after acquiring an additional 6,338 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Blair William & Co. IL boosted its stake in Advance Auto Parts by 14.4% during the 1st quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 4,620 shares of the companys stock worth $956,000 after acquiring an additional 582 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.75% of the companys stock. Get Advance Auto Parts alerts: Advance Auto Parts Stock Performance AAP stock traded up $3.61 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $68.36. 3,974,758 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,523,093. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $63.24 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $59.58. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.08, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.15 and a beta of 1.15. Advance Auto Parts, Inc. has a one year low of $47.73 and a one year high of $143.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 1.23 and a quick ratio of 0.27. Advance Auto Parts Dividend Announcement Advance Auto Parts ( NYSE:AAP Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 28th. The company reported ($0.59) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.24 by ($0.83). The business had revenue of $2.46 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.47 billion. Advance Auto Parts had a net margin of 1.65% and a return on equity of 9.40%. The companys revenue was down .4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.88 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Advance Auto Parts, Inc. will post 1.48 EPS for the current year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 26th. Investors of record on Friday, April 12th will be paid a $0.25 dividend. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.46%. Advance Auto Partss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 32.05%. Insider Activity at Advance Auto Parts In other Advance Auto Parts news, EVP Kristen L. Soler purchased 500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Friday, December 8th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $55.60 per share, for a total transaction of $27,800.00. Following the acquisition, the executive vice president now owns 12,697 shares of the companys stock, valued at $705,953.20. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, EVP Kristen L. Soler purchased 500 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 8th. The stock was bought at an average price of $55.60 per share, for a total transaction of $27,800.00. Following the purchase, the executive vice president now owns 12,697 shares of the companys stock, valued at $705,953.20. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, EVP Kristen L. Soler bought 1,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 5th. The stock was bought at an average price of $52.87 per share, with a total value of $52,870.00. Following the purchase, the executive vice president now owns 12,197 shares in the company, valued at $644,855.39. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. 0.63% of the stock is owned by insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth AAP has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their price objective on shares of Advance Auto Parts from $78.00 to $55.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, November 16th. William Blair restated a market perform rating on shares of Advance Auto Parts in a report on Wednesday, December 13th. Bank of America downgraded shares of Advance Auto Parts from a neutral rating to an underperform rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $60.00 to $43.00 in a report on Thursday, November 16th. UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of Advance Auto Parts from $75.00 to $62.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, November 16th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on shares of Advance Auto Parts from $70.00 to $60.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a report on Monday, November 13th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eighteen have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $72.41. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Advance Auto Parts About Advance Auto Parts (Free Report) Advance Auto Parts, Inc provides automotive replacement parts, accessories, batteries, and maintenance items for domestic and imported cars, vans, sport utility vehicles, and light and heavy duty trucks. The company offers battery accessories; belts and hoses; brakes and brake pads; chassis and climate control parts; clutches and drive shafts; engines and engine parts; exhaust systems and parts; hub assemblies; ignition components and wires; radiators and cooling parts; starters and alternators; and steering and alignment parts. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AAP? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (NYSE:AAP Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Advance Auto Parts Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Advance Auto Parts and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. One01 Capital LP lifted its position in shares of CEMEX, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:CX Free Report) by 36.9% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 488,988 shares of the construction companys stock after buying an additional 131,915 shares during the period. CEMEX comprises 3.9% of One01 Capital LPs investment portfolio, making the stock its 13th largest position. One01 Capital LPs holdings in CEMEX were worth $3,178,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. raised its holdings in shares of CEMEX by 10.0% during the 3rd quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 7,181,714 shares of the construction companys stock valued at $46,681,000 after buying an additional 653,592 shares in the last quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC grew its position in CEMEX by 3,218.5% during the 3rd quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 24,092 shares of the construction companys stock worth $157,000 after acquiring an additional 23,366 shares during the last quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd grew its position in CEMEX by 701.6% during the 3rd quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 1,848,325 shares of the construction companys stock worth $12,014,000 after acquiring an additional 1,617,750 shares during the last quarter. MQS Management LLC bought a new position in CEMEX during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $70,000. Finally, Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. bought a new position in CEMEX during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $3,222,000. 31.81% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get CEMEX alerts: CEMEX Stock Performance Shares of NYSE:CX traded down $0.19 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $7.77. 1,346,225 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,926,893. The company has a market cap of $11.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 66.33, a P/E/G ratio of 0.54 and a beta of 1.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 0.74. CEMEX, S.A.B. de C.V. has a one year low of $4.72 and a one year high of $8.81. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $7.91 and a 200 day moving average of $7.29. Analysts Set New Price Targets CX has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Citigroup reiterated a buy rating and issued a $8.20 price objective on shares of CEMEX in a research report on Thursday, November 2nd. Barclays lowered CEMEX from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and set a $9.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Bank of America upgraded CEMEX from a neutral rating to a buy rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $8.20 to $9.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered CEMEX from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, CEMEX presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $9.37. Get Our Latest Research Report on CX About CEMEX (Free Report) CEMEX, SAB. de C.V., together with its subsidiaries, produces, markets, distributes, and sells cement, ready-mix concrete, aggregates, urbanization solutions, and other construction materials worldwide. The company also offers asphalt, concrete blocks, concrete block paving, rail sleepers, and flooring systems; architectural concrete products; and box culverts, bridges, drainage basins, barriers, and parking curbs. See Also Receive News & Ratings for CEMEX Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CEMEX and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLC lifted its stake in Boyd Gaming Co. (NYSE:BYD Free Report) by 23.7% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 20,858 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 3,999 shares during the period. Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLCs holdings in Boyd Gaming were worth $1,269,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Prospera Financial Services Inc raised its position in Boyd Gaming by 3.1% during the first quarter. Prospera Financial Services Inc now owns 5,306 shares of the companys stock worth $340,000 after acquiring an additional 159 shares during the last quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. lifted its position in shares of Boyd Gaming by 15.0% during the second quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. now owns 1,575 shares of the companys stock worth $109,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares in the last quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust lifted its position in shares of Boyd Gaming by 105.5% during the third quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 411 shares of the companys stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 211 shares in the last quarter. Great Lakes Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Boyd Gaming by 3.7% during the third quarter. Great Lakes Advisors LLC now owns 5,971 shares of the companys stock worth $363,000 after purchasing an additional 213 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cetera Advisor Networks LLC raised its holdings in Boyd Gaming by 3.1% in the second quarter. Cetera Advisor Networks LLC now owns 7,163 shares of the companys stock valued at $497,000 after acquiring an additional 218 shares in the last quarter. 67.98% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Boyd Gaming alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several analysts have weighed in on BYD shares. Susquehanna reiterated a neutral rating and set a $75.00 target price (down previously from $84.00) on shares of Boyd Gaming in a research note on Monday, February 12th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Boyd Gaming from $66.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. StockNews.com raised shares of Boyd Gaming from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 24th. Truist Financial lifted their price target on shares of Boyd Gaming from $76.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a hold rating and set a $69.00 target price on shares of Boyd Gaming in a research report on Friday, January 5th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $75.78. Insider Activity In other Boyd Gaming news, Chairman Marianne Boyd Johnson sold 77,661 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.87, for a total value of $5,037,869.07. Following the sale, the chairman now owns 1,511,433 shares in the company, valued at $98,046,658.71. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Boyd Gaming news, COO Ted Bogich sold 41,631 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.79, for a total value of $2,697,272.49. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 66,803 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,328,166.37. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Chairman Marianne Boyd Johnson sold 77,661 shares of Boyd Gaming stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.87, for a total value of $5,037,869.07. Following the sale, the chairman now directly owns 1,511,433 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $98,046,658.71. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 29.21% of the companys stock. Boyd Gaming Price Performance NYSE BYD traded up $0.51 on Wednesday, reaching $63.97. 339,108 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 705,619. The stock has a market cap of $6.26 billion, a PE ratio of 10.49, a P/E/G ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 1.61. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $63.44 and a 200 day simple moving average of $61.83. Boyd Gaming Co. has a 12 month low of $52.42 and a 12 month high of $73.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.62, a current ratio of 0.80 and a quick ratio of 0.77. Boyd Gaming (NYSE:BYD Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The company reported $1.66 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.43 by $0.23. The firm had revenue of $954.41 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.04 million. Boyd Gaming had a return on equity of 37.07% and a net margin of 16.58%. Boyd Gamings quarterly revenue was up 3.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.72 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Boyd Gaming Co. will post 6.18 earnings per share for the current year. Boyd Gaming Announces Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 22nd were issued a dividend of $0.16 per share. This represents a $0.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.00%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 21st. Boyd Gamings dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 10.49%. About Boyd Gaming (Free Report) Boyd Gaming Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a multi-jurisdictional gaming company in Nevada, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The company operates through Las Vegas Locals, Downtown Las Vegas, Midwest & South, and Online segments. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BYD? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Boyd Gaming Co. (NYSE:BYD Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Boyd Gaming Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Boyd Gaming and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLC acquired a new position in Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO Free Report) in the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor acquired 28,619 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,203,000. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Sei Investments Co. boosted its holdings in shares of Altria Group by 1.6% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 404,894 shares of the companys stock valued at $21,248,000 after purchasing an additional 6,324 shares during the period. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Altria Group by 5.2% in the 1st quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 18,647 shares of the companys stock valued at $974,000 after acquiring an additional 929 shares during the period. Loomis Sayles & Co. L P acquired a new stake in Altria Group during the 1st quarter worth about $25,000. Mackenzie Financial Corp grew its position in Altria Group by 3.4% during the 1st quarter. Mackenzie Financial Corp now owns 2,711,773 shares of the companys stock worth $141,690,000 after purchasing an additional 89,334 shares during the period. Finally, First Western Trust Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Altria Group during the 1st quarter valued at about $498,000. 58.94% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Altria Group alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes MO has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. UBS Group reaffirmed a sell rating and issued a $36.10 price target on shares of Altria Group in a research note on Tuesday, January 23rd. StockNews.com cut Altria Group from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Friday, February 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Altria Group currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $47.22. Altria Group Stock Performance MO stock traded down $0.13 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $40.77. The company had a trading volume of 2,421,455 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,692,602. Altria Group, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $39.06 and a fifty-two week high of $48.04. The company has a market capitalization of $72.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 0.66. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $40.67 and a 200 day simple moving average of $41.66. Altria Group (NYSE:MO Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The company reported $1.18 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.17 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $5.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.06 billion. Altria Group had a negative return on equity of 243.71% and a net margin of 33.21%. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 1.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.18 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Altria Group, Inc. will post 5.07 earnings per share for the current year. Altria Group Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 21st were paid a $0.98 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 20th. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 9.61%. Altria Groups dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 85.78%. Altria Group announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, February 1st that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the company to repurchase up to 1.4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally a sign that the companys board of directors believes its shares are undervalued. Altria Group Company Profile (Free Report) Altria Group, Inc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company offers cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; large cigars and pipe tobacco under the Black & Mild brand; moist smokeless tobacco and snus products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands; oral nicotine pouches under the on! brand; and e-vapor products under the NJOY ACE brand. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Altria Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Altria Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Synovus Financial Corp cut its stake in shares of Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR Free Report) (TSE:QSR) by 2.9% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 55,973 shares of the restaurant operators stock after selling 1,670 shares during the period. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in Restaurant Brands International were worth $3,729,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of QSR. Missouri Trust & Investment Co bought a new position in shares of Restaurant Brands International during the second quarter valued at $28,000. Janiczek Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Restaurant Brands International during the third quarter valued at $36,000. BOKF NA bought a new stake in Restaurant Brands International in the 2nd quarter worth about $39,000. Parallel Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Restaurant Brands International by 41.0% in the 2nd quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 554 shares of the restaurant operators stock worth $43,000 after buying an additional 161 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Larson Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in Restaurant Brands International by 73,500.0% in the 3rd quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 736 shares of the restaurant operators stock worth $49,000 after buying an additional 735 shares in the last quarter. Get Restaurant Brands International alerts: Restaurant Brands International Stock Down 1.2 % NYSE QSR opened at $75.50 on Wednesday. The stocks 50 day moving average is $77.07 and its 200 day moving average is $71.56. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.78. Restaurant Brands International Inc. has a 12 month low of $59.99 and a 12 month high of $79.94. The stock has a market cap of $23.59 billion, a PE ratio of 20.03, a P/E/G ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 0.92. Restaurant Brands International Increases Dividend Restaurant Brands International ( NYSE:QSR Get Free Report ) (TSE:QSR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The restaurant operator reported $0.75 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.73 by $0.02. Restaurant Brands International had a return on equity of 32.20% and a net margin of 16.95%. The company had revenue of $1.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.80 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.72 EPS. The firms revenue was up 7.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts predict that Restaurant Brands International Inc. will post 3.38 EPS for the current fiscal year. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 4th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 21st will be issued a $0.58 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 20th. This is a boost from Restaurant Brands Internationals previous quarterly dividend of $0.55. This represents a $2.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.07%. Restaurant Brands Internationals payout ratio is currently 58.36%. Insider Buying and Selling In other Restaurant Brands International news, insider Jill Granat sold 80,332 shares of Restaurant Brands International stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $76.20, for a total value of $6,121,298.40. Following the sale, the insider now owns 410,759 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $31,299,835.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other Restaurant Brands International news, insider Jill Granat sold 80,332 shares of Restaurant Brands International stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $76.20, for a total value of $6,121,298.40. Following the sale, the insider now owns 410,759 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $31,299,835.80. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Thomas Benjamin Curtis sold 2,682 shares of Restaurant Brands International stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $76.55, for a total value of $205,307.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 23,322 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,785,299.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 414,074 shares of company stock valued at $31,405,529. Corporate insiders own 1.25% of the companys stock. Analysts Set New Price Targets Several equities research analysts recently commented on the company. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on Restaurant Brands International from $85.00 to $84.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 14th. KeyCorp reduced their price objective on Restaurant Brands International from $85.00 to $82.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Monday, November 6th. Stephens reiterated an equal weight rating and issued a $75.00 price objective on shares of Restaurant Brands International in a report on Tuesday, February 13th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on Restaurant Brands International from $72.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a report on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, TD Cowen reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $90.00 price objective on shares of Restaurant Brands International in a report on Tuesday, February 13th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $81.69. Get Our Latest Analysis on Restaurant Brands International Restaurant Brands International Company Profile (Free Report) Restaurant Brands International Inc operates as a quick-service restaurant company in Canada, the United States, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Tim Hortons (TH), Burger King (BK), Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (PLK), and Firehouse Subs (FHS). The company owns and franchises TH chain of donut/coffee/tea restaurants that offer blend coffee, tea, and espresso-based hot and cold specialty drinks; and fresh baked goods, including donuts, Timbits, bagels, muffins, cookies and pastries, grilled paninis, classic sandwiches, wraps, soups, and other food products. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding QSR? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR Free Report) (TSE:QSR). Receive News & Ratings for Restaurant Brands International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Restaurant Brands International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Teza Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Burlington Stores, Inc. (NYSE:BURL Free Report) by 559.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 24,166 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 20,499 shares during the period. Teza Capital Management LLCs holdings in Burlington Stores were worth $3,270,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Cooper Creek Partners Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Burlington Stores by 716.8% in the 3rd quarter. Cooper Creek Partners Management LLC now owns 610,821 shares of the companys stock valued at $82,644,000 after purchasing an additional 536,038 shares during the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its position in shares of Burlington Stores by 1.0% during the third quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 529,198 shares of the companys stock valued at $71,600,000 after buying an additional 5,302 shares during the period. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund boosted its position in shares of Burlington Stores by 77.0% during the third quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund now owns 45,037 shares of the companys stock valued at $6,094,000 after buying an additional 19,591 shares during the period. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC boosted its position in shares of Burlington Stores by 9.4% during the third quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 325,199 shares of the companys stock valued at $43,999,000 after buying an additional 28,064 shares during the period. Finally, Qsemble Capital Management LP purchased a new position in shares of Burlington Stores during the third quarter valued at approximately $1,515,000. Get Burlington Stores alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In BURL has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered Burlington Stores from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 7th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Burlington Stores from $120.00 to $126.00 and gave the stock a sell rating in a research note on Monday, November 27th. Piper Sandler upgraded shares of Burlington Stores from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and upped their target price for the stock from $155.00 to $240.00 in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. Evercore ISI upped their target price on shares of Burlington Stores from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Burlington Stores from $167.00 to $182.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 22nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $212.56. Burlington Stores Stock Down 1.0 % Burlington Stores stock traded down $2.05 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $204.70. The companys stock had a trading volume of 240,292 shares, compared to its average volume of 759,149. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.64, a current ratio of 1.13 and a quick ratio of 0.45. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $195.24 and its 200-day simple moving average is $164.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $13.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.43, a PEG ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 1.47. Burlington Stores, Inc. has a 52-week low of $115.66 and a 52-week high of $225.94. Burlington Stores Company Profile (Free Report) Burlington Stores, Inc operates as a retailer of branded apparel products in the United States. The company provides fashion-focused merchandise, including women's ready-to-wear apparel, menswear, youth apparel, footwear, accessories, toys, gifts, and coats, as well as baby, home, and beauty products. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Burlington Stores Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Burlington Stores and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. trimmed its holdings in The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO Free Report) by 12.2% in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 16,404 shares of the companys stock after selling 2,279 shares during the period. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A.s holdings in Coca-Cola were worth $918,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of KO. Mirabella Financial Services LLP acquired a new stake in Coca-Cola during the second quarter worth about $1,116,000. Providence Capital Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Coca-Cola by 1.4% during the second quarter. Providence Capital Advisors LLC now owns 43,642 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,628,000 after acquiring an additional 620 shares during the last quarter. HF Advisory Group LLC increased its position in shares of Coca-Cola by 7.6% during the third quarter. HF Advisory Group LLC now owns 6,770 shares of the companys stock valued at $379,000 after acquiring an additional 476 shares during the last quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP increased its position in shares of Coca-Cola by 13.2% during the second quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 84,095 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,064,000 after acquiring an additional 9,800 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tucker Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Coca-Cola by 110.4% during the second quarter. Tucker Asset Management LLC now owns 9,052 shares of the companys stock valued at $545,000 after acquiring an additional 4,749 shares during the last quarter. 68.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Coca-Cola alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on shares of Coca-Cola in a research report on Monday, November 13th. They set a hold rating and a $64.00 price target for the company. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Coca-Cola from $60.00 to $66.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Coca-Cola from $64.00 to $66.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 14th. Finally, Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Coca-Cola from $67.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $67.00. Coca-Cola Stock Performance Shares of Coca-Cola stock remained flat at $60.34 during trading on Wednesday. 1,796,715 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 13,825,504. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $59.70 and a 200-day moving average price of $58.28. The company has a market capitalization of $260.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.33, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 0.59. The Coca-Cola Company has a fifty-two week low of $51.55 and a fifty-two week high of $64.99. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29, a quick ratio of 0.95 and a current ratio of 1.13. Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 13th. The company reported $0.49 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $10.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $10.68 billion. Coca-Cola had a net margin of 23.42% and a return on equity of 42.50%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.45 EPS. On average, analysts predict that The Coca-Cola Company will post 2.81 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Coca-Cola Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th will be paid a $0.485 dividend. This is a boost from Coca-Colas previous quarterly dividend of $0.46. This represents a $1.94 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.22%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 14th. Coca-Colas payout ratio is currently 74.19%. Insider Buying and Selling at Coca-Cola In other Coca-Cola news, CEO James Quincey sold 92,028 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, December 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.06, for a total transaction of $5,435,173.68. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 442,546 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,136,766.76. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, EVP Beatriz R. Perez sold 52,300 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.00, for a total value of $3,138,000.00. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 143,383 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,602,980. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO James Quincey sold 92,028 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.06, for a total transaction of $5,435,173.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 442,546 shares in the company, valued at $26,136,766.76. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 391,516 shares of company stock valued at $23,636,810. 1.00% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Coca-Cola Company Profile (Free Report) The Coca-Cola Company, a beverage company, manufactures, markets, and sells various nonalcoholic beverages worldwide. The company provides sparkling soft drinks, sparkling flavors; water, sports, coffee, and tea; juice, value-added dairy, and plant-based beverages; and other beverages. It also offers beverage concentrates and syrups, as well as fountain syrups to fountain retailers, such as restaurants and convenience stores. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding KO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Coca-Cola Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Coca-Cola and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud speaks during an election night gathering, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich. Some Democratic voters pledged to vote "uncommitted" in Tuesday's primary to let President Joe Biden know they aren't happy with his support for Israel in its response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Carlos Osorio/AP Supporters cheer as a speaker talks during an election night gathering, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich. Some Democratic voters pledged to vote "uncommitted" in Tuesday's primary to let President Joe Biden know they aren't happy with his support for Israel in its response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Carlos Osorio/AP Abbas Alawich speaks during an election night gathering, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Dearborn, Mich. Some Democratic voters pledged to vote "uncommitted" in Tuesday's primary to let President Joe Biden know they aren't happy with his support for Israel in its response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Carlos Osorio/AP Personas votan en las elecciones primarias de Michigan, el martes 27 de febrero de 2024, en Dearborn, Michigan. (AP Foto/Paul Sancya) Paul Sancya/AP LANSING, Michigan (AP) A protest uncommitted vote in Michigan that secured two delegates in the state's Democratic primary on Tuesday was meant as a warning to President Joe Biden's reelection over his support for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, but eight months from Election Day his campaign insists its nothing to panic about. While Biden won the state with more than 618,000 votes, more than 100,000 Michigan Democratic primary voters cast ballots for uncommitted in the race, enough to pick up the pair of delegates. The vote totals raise concerns for Democrats in a state Biden won by only 154,000 votes in 2020. Biden was beaten by the uncommitted vote in both Dearborn and Hamtramck, where Arab Americans make up close to half the population. Some local Democrats such as U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, had advocated for uncommitted votes to convey a message to Biden. Organizers of the uncommitted campaign, who had purposely set expectations low with a goal of at least 10,000 votes, celebrated Tuesdays results as a win. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Biden still won 115 delegates on Tuesday and is well on his way to clinching the nomination over marginal competition. The president appreciates the people of Michigan coming out last night to make sure that their voices were heard, said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. And hes proud to receive more than 80% of the Democratic Party vote. She added that Biden aides continue to engage with the Arab American community. We understand how personal this is, how this moment is incredibly painful, she said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In 2012, during Barack Obamas reelection bid, the uncommitted option received nearly 21,000 votes, representing 11 percentage points. The uncommitted vote totals in both 2016 and 2020 when the Democratic primaries were contested hovered around 20,000, which was less than 2 percentage points. The uncommitted delegates came from the 6th District, centered around Ann Arbor, and the other from the 12th District, which includes Detroit suburbs with large blocs of Arab Americans. Yesterday was a resounding victory, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said Wednesday. This is not just an Arab or Muslim issue now. This is an American issue now. Its my hope, Mr. President, that you listen to us, that you choose democracy over tyranny, said Hammoud. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Unofficial results put the uncommitted total at close to 13% of the overall vote in the Democratic primary. The uncommitted delegates from Michigan will be free to vote for whomever they choose at the partys national convention in Chicago this summer. The people who will fill those delegate seats will be selected at congressional district conventions on May 11. The uncommitted tally is a concern for Biden, but is not a death note for his chances in the pivotal state in November, said Richard Czuba, a pollster who has long tracked Michigan politics. Czuba said the vote would have needed to be between 20 and 30 percentage points to signal significant concerns for Bidens prospects in the state come November. Tuesday's results also showed some signs of optimism for Biden, mostly in how weaknesses in the coalition backing former President Donald Trump, his all-but-certain rival, in his quest for the GOP nomination. More than 320,000 Republicans voted for another candidate in the race, the majority for former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, even as Trump appears to be cruising toward renomination. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Biden's team believes they can court many Haley voters to reject Trump once again offsetting, at least partially, any lack of enthusiasm among the Democratic base and that the results of the GOP race give them a roadmap to the persuadable voters they need to target. Hes struggling with suburban voters, nearly 300k people showed up to vote against him in a primary thats all but over, and hes demonstrated repeatedly hes done nothing to expand his reach beyond his MAGA base, said Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler. Michigan will be close this November, but this team is used to doing the hard and necessary work to not just ask, but to earn the support of our winning coalition. Turnout in the noncompetitive primary was high throughout the state as Biden's campaign and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer flexed their political operations in the run-up to November, a positive sign for Democrats in November, and turnout in the areas that backed uncommitted was not substantially higher than the rest of the state. It is common for states to offer voters the choice of voting for uncommitted or no preference in presidential primaries, though Michigan is the first state this cycle to award any of those delegates. On Super Tuesday next week, eight states will offer some variation of uncommitted in Democratic and Republican primaries. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Abbas Alawieh, a spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, the group organizing the uncommitted push, told reporters Wednesday that it has already heard from organizers in other states looking to push a similar campaign. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday that he expected a measure of Minnesotas Somali population, the largest in the country, to vote uncommitted in his state's Democratic primary on Super Tuesday. More than 86,000 Somalis live in Minnesota. Walz, a major supporter of Biden's reelection campaign, said Michigan's uncommitted results were a healthy demonstration of democracy. I think they feel passionate, as they should, about an issue we all care about, Walz said, adding that he expected most protest voters would eventually return to Biden's side in a likely November rematch with Trump, who himself has struggled with college-educated voters and suburbanites in his ongoing Republican primary against former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Im much more convinced theres a chance bringing those folks home is much greater than bringing the Never Trump folks back home, Walz said. ___ Synovus Financial Corp lifted its position in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS Free Report) by 1.9% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 13,592 shares of the investment management companys stock after purchasing an additional 254 shares during the quarter. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in The Goldman Sachs Group were worth $4,400,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group by 0.4% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 19,822,469 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $6,393,539,000 after purchasing an additional 76,641 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its stake in The Goldman Sachs Group by 40.0% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 5,936,351 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $2,038,425,000 after buying an additional 1,696,350 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in The Goldman Sachs Group by 2.9% in the 2nd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 5,193,033 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $1,674,961,000 after buying an additional 148,425 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its stake in The Goldman Sachs Group by 1.1% in the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,764,509 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $1,396,236,000 after buying an additional 52,016 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp boosted its stake in The Goldman Sachs Group by 3.2% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,339,851 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $1,080,676,000 after buying an additional 104,424 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 69.06% of the companys stock. Get The Goldman Sachs Group alerts: Insider Transactions at The Goldman Sachs Group In related news, insider Brian J. Lee sold 3,000 shares of The Goldman Sachs Group stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.39, for a total value of $1,129,170.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 10,121 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,809,443.19. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other The Goldman Sachs Group news, CFO Denis P. Coleman sold 12,680 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Friday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.43, for a total transaction of $5,001,372.40. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 29,417 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $11,602,947.31. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Brian J. Lee sold 3,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $376.39, for a total transaction of $1,129,170.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 10,121 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,809,443.19. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 39,064 shares of company stock worth $15,082,153 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.54% of the companys stock. Analyst Ratings Changes Several analysts recently commented on GS shares. Barclays boosted their price target on The Goldman Sachs Group from $437.00 to $493.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 2nd. Edward Jones started coverage on The Goldman Sachs Group in a research note on Tuesday. They issued a buy rating on the stock. JMP Securities reaffirmed a market outperform rating and issued a $440.00 price target on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. Morgan Stanley upgraded The Goldman Sachs Group from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $333.00 to $449.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 30th. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on The Goldman Sachs Group from $491.00 to $506.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 30th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $409.93. Read Our Latest Analysis on GS The Goldman Sachs Group Stock Performance Shares of GS opened at $390.72 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.29, a current ratio of 0.76 and a quick ratio of 0.77. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $383.64 and a 200-day moving average of $347.66. The company has a market cap of $127.20 billion, a PE ratio of 17.12, a P/E/G ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.43. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. has a one year low of $289.36 and a one year high of $396.79. The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 16th. The investment management company reported $5.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $3.62 by $1.86. The business had revenue of $11.32 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.80 billion. The Goldman Sachs Group had a return on equity of 8.03% and a net margin of 7.85%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.32 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. will post 32.66 EPS for the current fiscal year. The Goldman Sachs Group Announces Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 28th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 29th will be paid a $2.75 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 28th. This represents a $11.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.82%. The Goldman Sachs Groups payout ratio is presently 48.20%. About The Goldman Sachs Group (Free Report) The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, a financial institution, provides a range of financial services for corporations, financial institutions, governments, and individuals worldwide. It operates through Global Banking & Markets, Asset & Wealth Management, and Platform Solutions segments. The Global Banking & Markets segment provides financial advisory services, including strategic advisory assignments related to mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense activities, restructurings, and spin-offs; and relationship lending, and acquisition financing, as well as secured lending, through structured credit and asset-backed lending and involved in resale agreements. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for The Goldman Sachs Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for The Goldman Sachs Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH Free Report) Analysts at Zacks Research lowered their FY2024 EPS estimates for shares of Molina Healthcare in a report released on Tuesday, February 27th. Zacks Research analyst D. Chatterjee now expects that the company will earn $23.58 per share for the year, down from their previous estimate of $23.90. The consensus estimate for Molina Healthcares current full-year earnings is $23.60 per share. Zacks Research also issued estimates for Molina Healthcares Q2 2025 earnings at $6.99 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $27.14 EPS. Get Molina Healthcare alerts: A number of other research firms have also weighed in on MOH. Truist Financial increased their price objective on shares of Molina Healthcare from $435.00 to $460.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Molina Healthcare from $367.00 to $392.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, November 17th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Molina Healthcare from $350.00 to $380.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Thursday, December 21st. Cantor Fitzgerald increased their target price on Molina Healthcare from $374.00 to $406.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, February 9th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Molina Healthcare from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $380.80. Molina Healthcare Trading Down 0.4 % MOH stock opened at $400.09 on Wednesday. Molina Healthcare has a twelve month low of $256.19 and a twelve month high of $410.00. The company has a quick ratio of 1.54, a current ratio of 1.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.57. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $375.01 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $352.92. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 0.45. Molina Healthcare (NYSE:MOH Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 7th. The company reported $4.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.31 by $0.07. Molina Healthcare had a return on equity of 32.34% and a net margin of 3.20%. The business had revenue of $9.05 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.35 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $4.10 EPS. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 10.0% on a year-over-year basis. Insider Buying and Selling In other news, CFO Mark Lowell Keim sold 15,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $386.56, for a total transaction of $5,798,400.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 36,531 shares in the company, valued at $14,121,423.36. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, Director Richard M. Schapiro sold 1,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $401.05, for a total transaction of $401,050.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 11,207 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,494,567.35. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Mark Lowell Keim sold 15,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $386.56, for a total transaction of $5,798,400.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 36,531 shares of the companys stock, valued at $14,121,423.36. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 16,711 shares of company stock valued at $6,472,517 over the last three months. 1.10% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Institutional Trading of Molina Healthcare Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in MOH. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Molina Healthcare by 18.4% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,449,375 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,151,448,000 after buying an additional 1,001,372 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Molina Healthcare in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $275,143,000. Durable Capital Partners LP acquired a new stake in Molina Healthcare in the 1st quarter worth approximately $214,363,000. Boston Partners grew its position in Molina Healthcare by 225.3% during the 2nd quarter. Boston Partners now owns 915,861 shares of the companys stock worth $275,899,000 after purchasing an additional 634,279 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors increased its stake in Molina Healthcare by 90.4% during the 2nd quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 1,304,218 shares of the companys stock valued at $392,883,000 after purchasing an additional 619,352 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.11% of the companys stock. Molina Healthcare Company Profile (Get Free Report) Molina Healthcare, Inc provides managed healthcare services to low-income families and individuals under the Medicaid and Medicare programs and through the state insurance marketplaces. It operates in four segments, Medicaid, Medicare, Marketplace, and Other. The company served in across 19 states. The company was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Long Beach, California. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Molina Healthcare Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Molina Healthcare and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada Zip Code Horses arent the only animals that Chris Kotulak keeps an eye on from his desk at Fonner Park. A few weeks ago, the track infield was absolutely full of geese. The Fonner CEO knows all about the habits and personalities of those feathered creatures. We expect the snow geese to arrive in early March, and theyre here for about two weeks, Kotulak said. They evict the Canada geese to the perimeter of the race track. After the snow geese have a little rest, they leave. And then the Canada geese come in, Kotulak said. The Canada geese do not tolerate the snow geese very well. They sulk. Whereas Canada geese might pout, snow geese like to party in numbers, says Grand Island veterinarian Jay Stewart. Theyve very gregarious. In other words, they like to assemble in large groups and stay really close together birds of a feather, that sort of thing, Stewart said. While Canada geese fly through in groups of 10 to 25, Snow geese will migrate through in groups of 3,000, Stewart said. They like to travel in large numbers, probably for safety reasons, Stewart said. Snow geese, though, are very messy. They continue to stick together after they arrive in the Arctic Circle. Gathering in one spot to feed or nest, they just devastate the environment, he said. If anything green sticks out of the ground, they yank it out by the root. Snow goose hunting seasons have expanded to prevent damage to vegetation. But the truth is that hunters have little impact on snow goose numbers. If a hunter fires one shot, the whole group picks up and leaves, Stewart said. Biologists used to worry about the numbers of Canada geese. But their population has rebounded to the point where theyve become a nuisance in city parks, Stewart said. Some Canada geese spend the winter in this area, Stewart said. They try to find a little bit of open water. Even if they cant, they locate places in and around Grand Island where theyre not bothered. Theyre not shot at or chased or anything, Stewart said. So theyre happy to stick around as long as necessary. When spring arrives, they might go north to nest or they might nest in this area. In other words, geese follow the advice of Tourism Grand Island visit, explore, stay. On Fonner Parks opening day this year, geese were in abundance. They have such a great view of the horses that they might as well place a bet. AURORA A psychiatrist concluded that Caleb Arnett of Aurora, whos accused of first-degree murder, is not competent to stand trial at this time. However, Dr. Klaus Hartmann said, its possible that Arnetts competency may be restored in a reasonable time. Hamilton County Court Judge Lynelle Homolka on Tuesday committed Arnett to the Lincoln Regional Center for treatment. He will be transported to Lincoln as soon as a bed becomes available. The Regional Center will send a report to Homolka within 60 days, and on a regular basis thereafter. Homolka scheduled a review hearing for 8:30 a.m. April 23. Arnett, 29, is accused of fatally stabbing his stepfather, 48-year-old Ross Nickolaus, and injuring two other family members on Dec. 2, 2023. The attacks took place on Fairview Drive in Aurora. The two people who survived were Arnetts mother, Theresa Arnett Nickolaus, and a teenage male. Arnett is represented by Brian Craig of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy in Lincoln. In January, Craig made a motion to delay Arnetts preliminary hearing to allow for a mental competency evaluation. The prosecutor in the case is Hamilton County Attorney Douglas Dexter. Besides first-degree murder, Arnett is charged with three counts of use of a deadly weapon (not a firearm) during the commission of a felony and two counts of first-degree assault. Arnett remains in jail on $2 million bond. About those bumpy crossings Citizens of Grand Island, I have a question for you today. Do you find yourselves crossing any of the numerous Union Pacific Railroad crossings in Grand Island as you travel from place to place during the day? Im pretty sure that most of you do. If you are anything like me, you are fed up with the railroad crossings being rough, uneven and almost dangerous to the wellbeing of you and your vehicles. So wouldnt you like an improvement to them? Or would you rather spend hundreds of dollars supporting your favorite mechanics shop (I like my guy) or front end alignment shop to keep your car or truck from rattling as you cross the UPRR tracks and beltlines? I just spent those dollars not that long ago and it is very costly. Ill need to do it again in the future if the tracks dont get fixed. Maybe Ill send the bill to the UPRR next time. Why cant the leaders of our fine city insist that these crossings be repaired like those of the BNSF crossings? It could be a safety issue for many. If you go to any other tri-city community, you will not see their crossings in such disrepair as Grand Islands are. We pay a lot of taxes to have good streets (thats another sore subject) so why cant we expect to have good railroad crossings as well? Ive been told different UPRR railroad crews work on tracks in different towns. Lets get the crews that Kearney and Hastings used. They seem to know what they are doing. I cant afford these repairs to my cars anymore. They are old like me. Dennis E. McCarty Grand Island On snow removal This letter is to average residents of Grand Island. You need to live on the block or near a City Council representative or city official. I speak from experience. I lived a block from a City Council representative, and the thing was keep them voted in because then the snow removal and street cleaning were fantastic. It hasnt changed over the years. If you can get out when it snows, go drive down a street where one of the council members lives and see for yourself. Grand Islands idea of snow removal is May. E.L. Hansen Grand Island On smut Im writing in response to the article written by Lincoln Journal Stars Jenna Ebbers the first week in February. The headline states, Nebraska Board of Education member looks to ban sexually explicit materials from school libraries. Board member Kirk Penner asks for books/materials curated for age-appropriate items to be placed in our school libraries. Curate means selecting the best, most appropriate especially for presentation, distribution or publication. President of the Nebraska School Librarians Association Chris Haeffners quote, No, we do not have pornography in our school libraries is untruthful. 1. Pornography definition: printed or visual material containing explicit description or display of sexual organs or display, intended to stimulate erotic feelings. Synonyms are smut, filth, vice, vulgarity. 2. Sexually explicit means writing or showing very graphic sexual behavior, not holding anything back. The legal definition, sexually explicit conduct means actual or simulated sexual intercourse, bestiality, masturbation, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area. Look in justice.gov. 3. Childrens brains are not fully developed until their twenties; therefore, they are not mentally or physically mature enough to handle the visceral reactions to sexually explicit books. Our school libraries do have these types of books on their shelves. Excerpts from these books have been read to the school administrators as well as the local school boards. Chris Haeffner, our schools do have pornography on their library shelves. Ive seen it both in Kearney and Grand Island. Haeffner also stated, Students do not come to their school libraries to find pornography. Why have it on the shelves then? This is a disservice to innocent students providing books that draw them in with innocent sounding titles that are harmful to them. They are mentally picturing what they are reading. These images cannot be erased, the damage is done. Kathy Adams Kearney Firefighters from across the state were called to action Monday as a large wildfire spread quickly across the North Platte area. As part of the Platte Valley/Twin Loops Strike Team, firefighters and trucks from the Cairo Volunteer Fire Department, the Wood River Fire & Rescue Department, the Grand Island Rural Fire Department, the Alda Volunteer Fire Department and the Chapman Volunteer Fire & Rescue Department traveled to render aid Monday afternoon into Tuesday. According to Cairo Fire Chief (and strike team leader) Steve Oseka, the strike team was dispatched to render mutual aid at approximately 12:30 p.m. Monday. The team hit the road at around 1:15 p.m. and arrived on scene about 45 minutes later. They fought the blaze throughout the night and into the early hours of the morning. Ive never seen flames run that fast, Oseka said. The strike team arrived home around noon Tuesday. As it stands, Oseka noted that the blaze has been laid down for the time being, but it all depends on what the wind decides to do moving forward. This is the Platte Valley/Twin Loops Strike Teams 13th deployment since it was created in 2021. Hundreds of Nebraskans have started receiving an email from President Joe Biden announcing their student loan debt has been wiped out under a new income-driven repayment plan that launched last year. About 750 borrowers in Nebraska have had a total of $5.3 million in student loan debt canceled through the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, according to the U.S. Department of Education. The latest relief program allows for borrowers with less than $12,000 in debt to have their loans canceled after 10 years of payments. Any borrower enrolled in the SAVE Plan can have their debt forgiven after 20 or 25 years, depending on the type of loan, regardless of the amount. Student loans were originally scheduled to be forgiven starting in July, but the Education Department started notifying eligible borrowers this month. From day one of my administration, I vowed to fix student loan programs so higher education can be a ticket to the middle class not a barrier to opportunity, Bidens email says. Across the country, nearly 153,000 have had $1.2 billion in student loan debt forgiven, according to Education Department numbers made public last week. When we talk about fixing a broken loan system, this is what were talking about, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a press release. Cardona added the the administration wont ever stop fighting to make higher education more affordable and accessible for more Americans. Last November, the education department said 30,700 Nebraskans enrolled in the SAVE program, which caps a borrowers payments between 5% and 10% of their total income. The majority of those borrowers were from the Omaha area, according to data shared by the Department of Education, while about one-third are from Nebraskas 1st Congressional District. The new student loan repayment program also sets payments at $0 per month for borrowers making less than $15 per hour, with higher earning limits depending on family size. It also prevents unpaid interest from causing loan balances to grow as long as borrowers continue making payments on the principal. The SAVE Plan comes on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court striking down a student loan forgiveness program last summer. The lawsuit, which resulted in a 6-3 decision from the conservative-majority court, was led by the State of Nebraska. As many as 97,000 Nebraskans were notified they qualified for up to $20,000 in loan forgiveness through a program passed by Congress in the early 2000s before the program was put on pause. An additional 4,000 borrowers in Nebraska had $230 million in student loans forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which offers relief to individuals in public service jobs. And a fix to how income-based repayment plans are administered resulted in 5,700 Nebraskans having some $269 million in loans wiped out last July. Most of the Bettys Way Fire was contained Tuesday afternoon as crews continued to battle the more-than-70,000-acre fire in Lincoln and Custer counties. One home was destroyed and another damaged, as were a handful of outbuildings, as the fire raced across open ground northwest of North Platte Monday amid high winds and red flag warnings. As of 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, the fire was 72% contained, said Erv Portis, assistant director of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. The fire was also no longer spreading, according to Region 51 Emergency Management Director Brandon Myers. Temperatures plummeted Tuesday and the region saw a small amount of precipitation during the noon hour. The hour of snow (Tuesday) was very helpful, Portis said. Fire crews were initially called about 10:32 a.m. Monday to the fire along Bettys Way about three miles northeast of North Platte, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency said in a press release Tuesday morning. An area from Rolling Hills north of North Platte to Callaway in western Custer County was evacuated Monday as the fire quickly spread east. The majority of those evacuations were lifted Monday evening. According to the Nebraska State Fire Marshals Office, the fire started from mowing operations. For Anne and Eric Ostendorf of rural Gothenburg, Monday afternoon and evening remain a blur. Where to begin? I teach at Dudley Elementary in Gothenburg and by the time I got the call about the fire and got home, the State Patrol was in the yard and told us we had 20 minutes to evacuate, Anne Ostendorf said. How do you decide what precious keepsakes to grab in 20 minutes? Erics parents had arrived and were helping to throw things in bags to throw in their vehicles, along with their three dogs. After leaving their home, they drove to the road east of their house and watched the fire from the hill. We are so far away from town that we rarely have any kind of traffic, but the road was like a highway last night with water trucks, law enforcement and neighbors just coming to help, she said. By late evening they were allowed to return to their home. We are safe, our family is safe, our livestock is safe and our house and outbuildings are OK, she said. But Im not unpacking the car just yet. Its going to be a long haul for many in the fire area. Gov. Jim Pillen late Monday issued a state disaster, allowing use of the Governors Emergency Fund. Region 51 Emergency Management requested additional support from area fire departments Monday, and on Tuesday the Nebraska Wildland Incident Response Assistant Team was deployed. Two National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters were deployed Tuesday morning, and the Nebraska State Patrol also assisted in aerial support. The North Platte/Lincoln County Emergency Operations Center was activated immediately, monitoring the situation and coordinating resources. Fifty-six crews from across central and western Nebraska assisted local firefighters. Cairo Fire Chief Steve Oseka told the Grand Island Independent that his crew arrived to the fire about 2 p.m. Monday. They fought the blaze throughout the night and into the early hours of the morning. Ive never seen flames run that fast, he said. People who were impacted by the fire or in need of assistance can contact the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 308-534-2360; the Natural Resources Conservation Services, 308-535-8080; the Salvation Army, 308-532-2038; or the American Red Cross, 1-833-583-3111. We are working with ranchers, farmers and residents to address any unmet needs, NEMA said in a 6 p.m. press release Tuesday. Fire managers are actively working with the American Red Cross and various state agencies to aid those affected by the Bettys Way Fire. Donations can be directed to the local Salvation Army. In a separate incident Monday afternoon, fire crews and Lincoln County sheriffs deputies were called to a fire reported at the Lake Maloney dam. A RAVE alert was issued because of the proximity to some homes, but the fire was quickly contained. Deputies are investigating the possibility of a group of people shooting off fireworks in the area, Sheriff Jerome Kramer said Tuesday. Monday saw unseasonably warm temperatures with a high of 73, just 1 degree short of the daily record of 74 set in 1896. Temperatures dropped overnight with a high in the mid-20s Tuesday. A snow squall warning was issued for North Platte, with snow beginning to fall about 12:20 p.m. However, wind persisted with steady 23 mph winds and gusts up to 36 mph. Winds are supposed to die down Wednesday during the day, but could pick up again Wednesday night, according to the National Weather Service forecast. Temperatures are expected to return to the 60s by the end of the week and through the weekend. A model wears a creation as part of the Dries Van Noten Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) Scott A Garfitt/Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP A model wears a creation as part of the Dries Van Noten Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) Scott A Garfitt/Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP A model wears a creation as part of the Dries Van Noten Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) Scott A Garfitt/Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP Models wear creations as part of the Dries Van Noten Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) Scott A Garfitt/Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP Models wear creations as part of the Dries Van Noten Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) Scott A Garfitt/Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP A model wears a creation as part of the Dries Van Noten Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) Scott A Garfitt/Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP A model wears a creation as part of the Dries Van Noten Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) Scott A Garfitt/Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP A model wears a creation as part of the Dries Van Noten Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) Scott A Garfitt/Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP Models wear creations as part of the Dries Van Noten Fall/Winter 2024-2025 ready-to-wear collection presented Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP) Scott A Garfitt/Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP PARIS (AP) Paris Fashion Weeks fall shows, headlining with Balmain, traversed an encyclopedic range from history to the future, blending tradition with cutting-edge innovation. Designers delved into archives on Wednesday to reinterpret the past while projecting forward with futuristic silhouettes and materials. From utilitarian details that ground regal aesthetics in the contemporary to surreal interplays of form and texture, the collections celebrated the industrys ability to innovate while honoring its past. Here are some highlights of fall-winter 2024 ready-to-wear collections: Advertisement Article continues below this ad BALMAINS NOSTALGIC TRIP TO BORDEAUX Cher led the VIP pack at Balmains latest fall show, as Olivier Rousteing embarked on a personal journey back to his roots. The designer drew inspiration from the green thumb of the houses founder, Pierre Balmain, and the verdant landscapes of his upbringing in Bordeaux. Known for his sharp tailoring and bold aesthetics, Rousteing this season wove a story filled with natural motifs, bringing a touch of the provincial to the Paris runway. Today Im returning to Bordeaux, the city that formed me, Rousteing reflected. He said his collection blended Pierre Balmains iconic New French Style, characterized by its bold architectural lines and precise tailoring, with the graceful dignity of Bordeaux. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This fusion was evident in nature-inspired designs, from earrings shaped like bunches of grapes to garments adorned with grape embroideries, prints and even whimsical snail buttons. A standout piece, a snail-shell golden breastplate, captured the audiences attention, prompting a flurry of camera clicks from the VIP guests. Vibrant grape embroideries punctuated the palette of khaki and black across silhouettes that nodded to the 80s. Adding a burst of color and humor, a bright red net shopping bag evoked memories of hometown markets for Rousteing, infusing the collection with a sense of levity. While the organic musings stayed within the familiar territory of Balmains aesthetic under Rousteing, the collection was noteworthy for its diversity, particularly in casting models of all ages to present the 56 designs. DRIES VAN NOTEN BLENDS HISTORY WITH WHIMSY Advertisement Article continues below this ad Belgian designer Dries Van Noten sews history, tension, and elegance into each look. His latest womenswear show was no exception, kicking off with a display of grandeur meeting a contemporary edge. The opener, a thick beige coat seeming regal, was immediately grounded in the present with a utilitarian studded collar, reminiscent of a choker, steering clear of vintage territory. Van Noten, a master of blending the old with the new, further demonstrated this skill with a simple gray skirt that draped in a manner both fashion-forward and evoking the turn of the (last) century. A loose top managed to straddle the worlds of sportswear and the refined elegance of Princess Anne of Britain, showcasing Van Notens unique ability to navigate between different eras and styles. The show was a visual feast of illusions and contrasts. The sleeves were cut to make them almost two-dimensional, an innovative play on perspective that challenges the viewers gaze. Sweaters seemed to animate, embracing their wearers in a dance of fabric and form. This interplay of textures and colors created a dynamic energy and poetry that has become a Van Noten hallmark. THE CHARMING TRADITION OF FASHION INVITATIONS IN THE DIGITAL ERA Advertisement Article continues below this ad In an age where digital communication reigns supreme and environmental consciousness is rising, the fashion industrys cherished practice of creating elaborate, often handmade invitations continues to thrive. Each season, these unique pieces of art crisscross Paris, hand-delivered to the guests, serving as a creative prelude to the spectacle of the runway shows. Despite the digital shift, top fashion houses remain dedicated to crafting imaginative invitations that hint at the theme of their upcoming collections. For example, Loewe s invitation, a watercolor painting set against a tree-lined landscape within a soft leather frame, showcased the brands commitment to combining art with fashion. Meanwhile, Chloes invitation, a giant leather keyring adorned with a golden metal banana, introduced a playful element to Chemena Kamalis anticipated debut. Rick Owens personalized the experience with a white fabric neckpiece bearing the guests name. Yohji Yamamotos invitation, an enigmatic black plastic cutout of a human face in profile, added a layer of mystery. These invitations, rich in creativity and craftsmanship, underscore the fashion industrys appreciation for tradition and personal touch in an increasingly virtual world while they may seem at odds with growing ecological concerns. COURREGES PUTS ON SALEABLE FUTURISM Advertisement Article continues below this ad In a saleable display of monochrome, Nicolas di Felice unveiled his latest collection for Courreges on a pared-down, sanitized white runway, drawing fashion insiders into a world where Andre Courreges space-age legacy meets the enigmatic allure of underwater scuba wear, all while channeling a dash of 90s nostalgia. Fall was a study in cool, low-energy sophistication. Each piece boasted minimalist utilitarian detailsflappy tassels, headwear caps reminiscent of scuba gear, and geometric paneling with scooped-out shapes that spoke of intergalactic adventures. One of the models arms was often loose, appearing bare, tucking in the front of a garment, as the sleeve it was meant to occupy hung stiffly and empty at the side in a surreal touch. This geometry, a reverential homage to Courreges founding vision, was reimagined through di Felices contemporary eye. Fisheries stocks up as pangasius exports soar By Lan Do Wed, February 28, 2024 | 10:30 pm GMT+7 A sharp increase in pangasius exports has boosted fisheries stocks dramatically, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP). On Wednesday morning, Vinh Hoan JSCs shares, listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) as VHC, traded at VND70,900 ($2.88) per share, up 17% from the start of the year. Nam Viet JSC (HoSE: ANV) traded at VND34,100 ($1.39) per share, up 10%. Sao Mai Group JSC (HoSE: ASM) had a stock price of VND11,400 per share, up roughly 10% from the start of the year. Pangasius exports have increased sharply this year. Photo courtesy of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP). According to the VASEP, the good news is a positive signal after Vietnam's pangasius export turnover recorded positive growth compared to the same period last year. In January 2024, Vietnams pangasius export turnover reached $165 million, up 97% year-on-year. Specifically, pangasius shipments to China surged four times as sales of the fish skyrocketed during the recent Lunar New Year holiday. Before this holiday, Chinese customers' overall spending surged significantly, prompting many pangasius importers to increase inventory and secure supply, according to the VASEP. Furthermore, a new policy implemented by China has helped improve the price and volume of pangasius exports from Vietnam. Under the new policy, pangasius imported through the Dong Hung Port (China) on the border with Vietnam would attract a tax of just 2.36% starting February 1, 2024. This measure aimed to eliminate pricing advantage of black market pangasius fish. According to the Chinese press, unofficial pangasius imports accounted for around 24% of total imports of the fish in 2023, with a 37% surge in the last month of the year. They reported that it was likely that other ports in Guangxi province would apply the new pangasius import tax rates after the Lunar New Year break. The new policy followed the recent visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Vietnam. Pangasius consumption in the U.S. market is also improving, with average export prices going down to its lowest level in many years. In December 2023, the average price of pangasius exported to the U.S. market was approximately $2.42 per kg. In January 2024, the average price rose further to $2.64 per kg, according to the association. Likewise, the export price of Vietnamese pangasius to the EU rebounded and bottomed out in December 2023, reaching approximately $2.28 per kg and remained at this level until January 2024. Many exporters believe that the growth in pangasius stocks is a good indicator that the positive results in first months of 2024 will yield excellent results for the entire year. Northern Vietnam nickel mining project globally significant: Australian envoy By Tri Duc Wed, February 28, 2024 | 2:35 pm GMT+7 The Australian government is very supportive of the Ta Khoa nickel refining and mining project implemented by Blackstone Minerals Limited in Son La province, said the countrys ambassador Andrew Goledzinowski. This globally significant project has a key role in the global net zero transition process, Goledzinowski said during a visit to the northern mountainous province last week, which included mines operated by Blackstone Minerals. Australian Ambassador to Vietnam Andrew Goledzinowski (left, center) and Son La Chairman Hoang Quoc Khanh meet in the northern mountainous province, February 22, 2024. Photo courtesy of Son La news portal. The envoy led an Australian delegation to attend the opening of the Blackstone Mining Information Center. Blackstone Minerals now runs two facilities in Son La province the Ban Phuc Nickel Mine in Bac Yen district and Ta Khoa Refinery in Phu Yen district. Together, they are called the Ta Khoa project. Blackstone Minerals, an integrated battery metals processing business that produces Nickel, Cobalt, and Manganese for lithium-ion batteries, had built and operated a nickel mine in Son La from 2013 to 2016. It will now use a larger concentrator, refinery and precursor facility. An Australian delegation visits the Nickel Ban Phuc mine in Son La province, northern Vietnam, February 23, 2024. Photo courtesy of Son La newspaper. In August 2023, the Ta Khoa project was included in the national mineral resource plan, which mentions a production capacity of 150,000 tons of nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) precursor cathode active material per year, equivalent to 420,000 tons of nickel sulfate. In October 2023, Blackstone Minerals confirmed that it would continue preparing for the auction of concessions at the Dong Pao mine, the largest rare earths reserve in Vietnam. Thailand eyes to become halal center in Southeast Asia by 2028 By VNA Wed, February 28, 2024 | 10:38 pm GMT+7 The Thai cabinet has approved initiatives to turn Thailand into a halal hub in Southeast Asia by 2028, intending to raise the countrys GDP by 1.2% or 55 billion THB ($1.52 billion). Speaking after the cabinet meeting on February 27, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said as part of the initiatives, the government will establish a national halal industry committee and the Thai Halal Industry Centre to promote Thai food products and goods internationally while aiming to promote tourism. A halal food stall in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo courtesy of Bangkok Post. The PM said he discussed with the King of Brunei and the Prime Minister of Malaysia on the development of a halal food centre. The global market value of halal businesses is estimated at 2.1 trillion USD, with growth averaging 7.5% annually. However, Thailands share of this market has decreased to 2.7%, down from 4.1% recorded a decade ago. Thailands export value of halal food products in the first 11 months of 2023 amounted to 217 billion THB, a 2.6% gain year-on-year. The majority of these exports were in the naturally food group, including rice, grains and sugar cane There are 15,043 halal food producers and more than 3,500 halal food establishments in Thailand. Learning Platforms Savvas Learning Company Acquires Dual Credit Online Course Provider Outlier.org Savvas Learning Company has acquired Outlier.org, an ed tech startup whose portfolio of online college-level courses enable high school students to earn dual credit without leaving their school campus, according to a news release. Outlier.org combines cinematic video and charismatic professors with the best in modern, evidence-based teaching techniques to virtually transport the student to a college lecture hall, Savvas Learning said. Its diverse catalog includes courses in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, taught by instructors from NASA, MIT, Harvard, Yale, and other top-ranked institutions. Theres a growing demand for dual-enrollment and dual-credit opportunities for high school students across the country, said Bethlam Forsa, CEO of Savvas Learning Company. High school administrators considering such programs for students typically face challenges such as limited funding for on-campus dual-credit course offerings, transportation to other campuses that do offer them, and other logistical issues. Forsa said the acquisition will allow the company to offer dual-credit opportunities to the millions of high school students served by Savvas. Outliers platform also offers career and workforce training, including opportunities for students to earn credit-bearing professional certificates from leading technology companies like Google, Meta, and Salesforce, Savvas noted in its announcement. Outlier courses carry transferable college credits recognized at Outliers university partners, the University of Pittsburgh and Golden Gate University. The platforms asynchronous 14- and 15-week (semester) and 39-week (full-year) general-education courses offer high school students an introduction to the fundamental ideas typically taught on college campuses in STEM, humanities, economics, business, and other classes, Savvas said, and each is designed to fit within a standard 45-minute period. Any high school teacher can support any course, aided by easy-to-use dashboards that provide faculty real-time visibility into student progress, the company said. Learn more at https://www.savvas.com/. SC State Public Service & Agriculture announced Christopher Green, M.Ed, GCDF, has been named 1890 Extension Midlands Region director, serving Barnwell, Bamberg, Calhoun and Orangeburg counties. Green began his role in November 2023. Green will oversee the various extension program initiatives, including 4-H youth development; community and economic development; education, innovation, and support; family, nutrition, and health; and sustainable agriculture and natural resources. Get The Times and Democrat app today Local news has never been this personal. Free to download. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access. He is also responsible for expanding the Midlands programs footprint within its various communities and raising awareness with citizens who are not familiar with it. Environmental excellence: 1890 Extension agent champion of sustainability Mark Nettles, SC State 1890 Extension agent for sustainable agriculture and natural resources for the Midlands Region, has been selected as a recipient of the 2024 Impact Award for Environmental Excellence by the Foundation for Community Impact and Health Equity. The recognition celebrates Nettles commitment and contributions to environmental sustainability within the Midlands Region and across the state of South Carolina. Im excited about the opportunity to lead our Midlands team and accompany them as they go out into the various communities and make connections with our stakeholders, said Green. My main goal is for our office to be the number one resource for our stakeholders and community; we want everyone in our regions to know what we offer at 1890 and the impact of our extension programs. Growing relationships: Longtime extension agent will miss working with farmers Agriculture has changed since Clemson Extension agent Charles Davis first started helping Calhoun Countys farmers several decades ago. Green stated that his goal as the new director is to bring consistency with building relationships within the community. Green is currently working to address food security issues in his region by providing access to fresh produce. He anticipates hosting a farmers market in Bowman in June. SCSU student is ag Future Leader The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wednesday announced the selection of 20 undergraduate and graduate students as the 2024 winners of the USDA Future Leaders in Agriculture program. The selected students hail from land-grant universities and Hispanic-serving institutions (HSI). Among the winners is Randall Pickering, of Orangeburg, a student at South Carolina State University, an 1890 land grant institution. We are excited to have Chris lead our Extension Midlands program and initiatives, said Dr. Edoe Agbodjan, associate extension administrator. To work in extension, one must go the extra mile to build life-long relationships and truly make an impact through service, and I believe he has shown the willingness and determination to want to make a positive change in the Midlands areas. Coast Guard Base Charleston held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new campus in North Charleston. Admiral Linda Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard, presided over the ceremony on Jan. 24. Coast Guard Coast Guard Base Charleston held a groundbreaking ceremony Jan. 26, 2024, for its new campus in North Charleston. The 64-acre campus along the The 64-acre campus along the Cooper River will support the five Charleston-based national security cutters, their crews and the support personnel with completion expected in late 2026. Marking a new trajectory for the Coast Guard in Charleston, Base Charleston is slated to become the services largest homeport and a base for global operations, training and support. Since its commissioning in 2015, Base Charleston has delivered customer-focused premiere support to all Coast Guard members, assets, and mission partners from Northern Florida to South Carolina. Moreover, the base generates Coast Guard global operational readiness. Growth estimates show that the Coast Guard workforce may double in the Charleston area by 2030 and continued prioritization and investment in the future of Base Charleston is needed to make this vision a reality. As one of the original 10 homeports for the Revenue Cutter Service, the greater Charleston area has supported members of the Coast Guard and its predecessor agencies for more than 230 years. The Coast Guard footprint in Charleston includes eight major commands: Coast Guard Base Charleston, Coast Guard Sector Charleston, and the Maritime Law Enforcement Academy, as well as numerous tenant commands and personnel in supporting roles throughout the region. MQ-9 Reaper lands at Shaw in historic first SHAW AIR FORCE BASE -- U.S. Air Force Airmen from the 50th Attack Squadron and Air National Guardsmen from the 163rd Attack Wing conducted a historic first on Feb. 14, successfully landing an MQ-9 Reaper at Shaw Air Force Base under satellite control. The Coast Guard is a seagoing service; Charleston is the homeport of four Legend-class cutters, the Hamilton (WMSL 753), James (WMSL 754), Stone (WMSL 758) and Calhoun (WMSL 759). The Coast Guard Cutter Friedman (WMSL 760), the 11th Legend-class cutter, is currently under construction and will be homeported in Charleston. Additionally, the cutters Willow (WLB 202), Anvil (WLIC 75301) and Kingfisher (WPB 87322) are homeported here. A South Carolina lawmakers claim to have proof that a K-12 student asked for a litterbox in order to self-identify as a cat is the same one multiple Republican lawmakers across several states have cited, only to be subsequently debunked. In a medical affairs Senate subcommittee meeting Wednesday, S.C. lawmakers discussed a bill that passed the House H. 4624 relating to the prohibition of gender transition procedures for children under the age of 18. During the meeting, one lawmaker said he had proof that one public school student in Greenwood County was authorized by their teacher to identify as a cat. The committees discussion, in part, centered around whether K-12 students are being taught to take on an identity that doesnt conform with their gender or species at birth. People are who they are, theyre who theyre born to be, countered state Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, challenging the notion that students are being taught to take on alternate identities, challenging his colleague to cite a specific example. Youre suggesting that some teaching is going on in the school system that is training people (to assume alternate identities)? Hutto said. Yes, I am, said state Sen. Billy Garrett, R-McCormick. Get The Times and Democrat app today Local news has never been this personal. Free to download. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access. Well, I would defy you to cite me an example in South Carolina where a child has said, I didnt want to do this, but was taught to do this by my teacher. Garrett said he had proof when a student was permitted, and encouraged, to identify as a cat. Garrets claim mirrors several others in recent years by Republican lawmakers and political candidates in Colorado, Minnesota and Tennessee all of which were proven untrue. Concerns over objectivity in scientific research and gender affirming care for minors | Utterly Moderate podcast On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we discuss whether ideology is clouding the judgement of experts responsible for recommendations regarding gender affirming care for children. There is no evidence that any school has deployed litter boxes for students to use because they identify as cats, an NBC news article reported in 2022. A video clip of the South Carolina exchange was posted to The States TikTok, prompting colorful comments. No one identifies as cats in schools, unless its a 4-year-old in preschool or kindergarten, one user said. This propaganda is nonsense. GOP candidates elevate anti-transgender messaging as a rallying call to Christian conservatives The transgender issue has become a more potent rally call for Christian conservatives than abortion rights or same-sex marriage, one that resonates with many in the GOP. Another user attacked Democrats, suggesting the party would do whatever it takes in endorsing a persons identity. If a 5-year-old wants to be a pirate, Democrats would poke out their eye and cut off their leg, instead of just letting them grow out of it. Orangeburg City Council gave its final approval to $21 million in borrowing by the Department of Public Utilities to pay for electric system improvements. DPU Manager Warren Harley said the borrowing will fund substation and power line upgrades both within city limits and in the county. Council also voted to adopt compliance policies and procedures in relation to the bond. Councilmembers Jerry Hannah and Kalu Kalu asked Harley what the utility is doing to keep rates low, as they have received complaints from constituents about high power bills. Harley said higher rates have been required to invest in the utilitys systems, including the water system last year. He also blamed colder winter temperatures and older, less insulated homes for the higher rates. DPUs rates appear higher than other utilities because it offers multiple services including electricity and water under a single bill, while other utilities issue a bill for each service, he said. We do believe our rates are still pretty competitive compared to systems around us, Harley said. Customers can call DPU to discuss how to reduce energy usage and save money, he said. Employees can check a customers power usage in real time to pinpoint high usage areas and devices, he said. Harley also encouraged customers to set their thermostats to 68 degrees or lower in the winter. Rates are likely to continue increasing in the future to pay for system improvements, he said. Higher rates were approved by council in last years budget. In other business: Council gave first reading approval to an ordinance adding a vendor procurement protest policy to the city code. The policy will provide an outlet for vendors or the city to terminate a vendor agreement, akin to an employee grievance policy, Evering said. The city does not currently have such a policy, he said. We need that, Mayor Michael Butler said. We need that in place. The city will need to adopt a policy in order to execute a brownfield grant received from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Evering said. Council voted to adopt a resolution pledging to practice and promote civility within city government. Evering said there has been a rise in sentiment of incivility, especially as it relates to public discourse. I think its a great thing, he said. Its a great example for young people and its something that we certainty want to adopt not only throughout the organization the City of Orangeburg but throughout the entire community. The resolution was created by the Municipal Association of South Carolina and has been promoted by the association for the past few years, Evering said. The Municipal Association represents cities and towns in South Carolina. Student leaders of the Self-esteem, Advocacy, Faith and Education (SAFE) organization addressed council and shared what the organization taught them, including public speaking and leadership. SAFE President Shanika Aikens said the students, all girls between the ages of 12 and 17, came to the meeting to meet city leaders. Many of the students wish to go into leadership roles in the future, she said. Candace Berry-Vaughn, executive director of Orangeburg County Community of Character, updated council on the organization's activities and thanked the city for supporting the organization for 25 years. Council passed a resolution recognizing Harry W. Fogle Jr. for 25 years of working for the city. Fogle retired on Jan. 26, Butler said. Ive been the mayor for ten years and when I used to come in early before I went back to school, I would see you out there blowing the sidewalk and working with the flowers, Butler said. I dont know what were going to do now. Fogle was presented with a framed copy of the resolution and token of appreciation from the city. Council went into executive session to discuss contractual arrangements for the purchase or sale of property indicated as Project Substation, legal advice related to the Town of Norway, employment matters in the citys financial department and the performance reviews of Harley and Evering. Council did not reconvene after executive session and no action was taken. A family-owned and operated gourmet soda, ice cream, doughnut and popcorn shop plans to close, with ownership citing business not politics as the reason "Stop N Pop -- Handcrafted Gourmet Soda" at 1586 John C. Calhoun Drive posted three closed signs on its restaurant at U.S. 301 and Russell Street on Wednesday. A U-Haul moving truck was also parked in front of the restaurant. The restaurant on its Facebook page Wednesday asked the public to come to the restaurant for drinks, popcorn, chocolate ice cream "while supplies last." The restaurant also on social media held customer appreciation day with a 50% off sale on select items earlier this week, but there was no mention of the restaurant closing on social media. "We appreciate each and everyone of you in support of our business!" the restaurant posted on Facebook. This reporter went to the restaurant upon hearing rumors of its closure and employees at the restaurant would not confirm nor deny the truth of the rumor. Restaurant employees said the owner was unavailable. An attempt to reach the owner was unsuccessful until Wednesday afternoon after an earlier story was posted online. The Facebook response stated that the restaurant is "in the process of closing down. We don't have a set date to be done serving the public, we are playing it by ear. Stop N Pop A U-Haul moving truck was parked in the parking lot of Orangeburgs "Stop N Pop -- Handcrafted Gourmet Soda" at 1586 John C. Calhoun Drive Wed "We appreciate our time here and having the opportunity to serve the community. We will greatly miss our patrons and employees, we believe we had the best of both." The statement said the closing is not related to years of controversy surrounding the Confederate flag that flies on private property in front of the business. "It is a much more logical reason we are leaving," with the statement citing closures of restaurants such as Tulio's, Fatz and The Kuckery; businesses such as JCPenney and Office Max, and industries such as Koyo. "Even Walmart Neighborhood Market is for sale for 9 million migos. Shoney's and Walgreens on John C. Calhoun near us are all for sale. "It is not likely all of these business are shrinking, selling, or closing in the past few years because of the flag. Most likely it is the same reason as ours. "We have been seeing very rapid rates of inflation over the past 4 years and it is difficult to navigate and adapt to these economic conditions quickly enough. The cost of food from our suppliers to restaurants has more than tripled since 2019. "In our case I was not experienced enough in this industry to have the knowledge to adapt quick enough. This location is drastically overpriced compared to its value, and we learned that many people in Orangeburg do not travel to this end of Orangeburg. Even when they go to the gardens or Walmart, most people will never go past 1 block east of our location. "We also have a specialized product that Orangeburg most likely doesn't have the population to support, so it's likely we would have failed at any location in Orangeburg." The restaurant opened in December 2022. The location formerly housed the Edisto River Creamery. The restaurant's premier items were handcrafted gourmet sodas but the restaurant also included a coffee bar, specialty popcorns, mini donuts, soda floats, shakes, ice creams and cotton candy. Stop N Pop "Stop N Pop -- Handcrafted Gourmet Soda" at 1586 John C. Calhoun Drive in Orangeburg posted a closed notice on its entrance, drive-thru window The restaurant was opened by Utah resident Josh Ryan, who had a desire to bring a little bit of the West to the South in starting the restaurant. Ryan opened in the Orangeburg area due to having close family living in the county. In addition to food, the restaurant also provided diners a place to gather. Games such as tic-tac-toe, cornhole and Pac-Man were available. The location has been controversial. The former Edisto River Creamery closed in late 2018, with its owner citing the challenges of successfully operating a business under the shadow of the Confederate flag. Maryland native Thomas Daras purchased the building in February 2015 but said his family received threats and that the business suffered because of the flag and the Confederate monument. Get TheTandD.com for $1 for 26 weeks Support local journalism by becoming a member at www.TheTandD.com. View our latest offer at https://thetandd.com/subscribe. A small parcel of land at Russell Street and John C. Calhoun Drive in front of the restaurant was given to the Sons of Confederate Veterans Rivers Bridge Camp 842 by a previous owner for a historical display including the flag. The dispute between the SCV and Daras went on for a couple of years, going all the way before a circuit court judge. State Rep. Justin Bamberg, Daras' attorney, claimed the citys zoning ordinance didn't allow the flag in front of the restaurant because the property is zoned commercial general. Bamberg argued the property has a historic use and not for business. A circuit court judge eventually ruled the Confederate flag did not violate the City of Orangeburg's zoning ordinance. The matter has not been pursued any further. The flag controversy became a 40-minute documentary film produced and directed by filmmaker and Orangeburg native Emily Harrold. The film won the Best Short Award at the virtual Annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. Stop N Pop owners did not have any publicly revealed problems resulting from proximity to the flag. WASHINGTON The U.S. Army plans to slash the size of its force by about 24,000 almost 5% and restructure to be better able to fight the next major war as the service struggles with recruiting shortfalls that made it impossible to bring in enough soldiers to fill all the jobs. The cuts will mainly be in already-empty posts not actual soldiers including in jobs related to counter-insurgency that swelled during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but are not needed as much today. About 3,000 of the cuts would come from Army special operations forces. At the same time, however, the plan will add about 7,500 troops in other critical missions, including air-defense and counter-drone units and five new task forces around the world with enhanced cyber, intelligence and long-range strike capabilities. According to an Army document, the service is "significantly overstructured" and there aren't enough soldiers to fill existing units. The cuts, it said, are "spaces" not "faces" and the Army will not be asking soldiers to leave the force. Instead, the decision reflects the reality that for years the Army hasn't been able to fill thousands of empty posts. While the Army as it's currently structured can have up to 494,000 soldiers, the number of active-duty soldiers right now is about 445,000. Under the new plan, the goal is to bring in enough troops over the next five years to reach a level of 470,000. The planned overhaul comes after two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan that forced the Army to quickly and dramatically expand to fill the brigades sent to the battlefront. That included a massive counter-insurgency mission to battle al-Qaida, the Taliban and the Islamic State group. Over time the military's focus shifted to great power competition from adversaries such as China and Russia, and threats from Iran and North Korea. The war in Ukraine has shown the need for greater emphasis on air-defense systems and high-tech abilities both to use and counter airborne and sea-based drones. According to the plan, the Army will cut about 10,000 spaces for engineers and similar jobs that were tied to counter-insurgency missions. An additional 2,700 cuts will come from units that don't deploy often and can be trimmed, and 6,500 will come from various training and other posts. There also will be about 10,000 posts cut from cavalry squadrons, Stryker brigade combat teams, infantry brigade combat teams and security force assistance brigades, which are used to train foreign forces. In the last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the Navy, Army and Air Force all failed to meet their recruitment goals, while the Marine Corps and the tiny Space Force met their targets. The Army brought in a bit more than 50,000 recruits, falling well short of the publicly stated "stretch goal" of 65,000. The previous fiscal year, the Army also missed its enlistment goal by 15,000. That year the goal was 60,000. In response, the service launched a sweeping overhaul of its recruiting last fall to focus more on young people who have spent time in college or are job hunting early in their careers. It is forming a new professional force of recruiters, rather than relying on soldiers randomly assigned to the task. In discussing the changes at the time, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth acknowledged that the service hasn't been recruiting well "for many more years than one would think from just looking at the headlines in the last 18 months." The service, she said, hasn't met its annual goal for new enlistment contracts since 2014. The Best-Paying Construction Jobs in the U.S. The Best-Paying Construction Jobs in the U.S. Construction Wages Compared Construction Wages by State 10. Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters 9. Electricians 8. Structural Iron and Steel Workers 7. Tapers 6. Rail-Track Laying and Maintenance Equipment Operators 5. Pile Driver Operators 4. Construction and Building Inspectors 3. Boilermakers 2. First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers 1. Elevator and Escalator Installers and Repairers Methodology & Detailed Findings A file photo of a Connecticut State Police cruiser. A 36-year-old New Britain man was seriously injured in a crash on Interstate 84 in Cheshire Monday night, according to state police. FILE PHOTO A New Britain man suffered life-threatening injuries Monday night in a motorcycle crash on Interstate 84 in Cheshire, according to state police. The 36-year-old motorcyclist was riding in the center lane near Exit 26 around 11:40 p.m. when he lost control for an unknown reason, according to a police crash summary. He veered across the other lanes of the highway and struck the guardrail on the right side of the road, the summary says. The man was ejected from the motorcycle and suffered life-threatening injuries, according to the summary. He was transported to St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury and his condition was not available Wednesday morning. Advertisement Article continues below this ad State police said the incident remains under investigation. You have reached a premium content area of Transitions. To read this entire article please login if you are already a Transitions subscriber. Not a subscriber? Subscribe today for access to: Full access to the website, including premium articles videos, country reports and searchable archives (containing over 25,000 articles). ENERGY Minister Stuart Young has taken umbrage at comments made by Ronald Harford, former chairman of Republic Financial Holdings Ltd, as he boasted about the success of the energy sector. Young said whenever somebody becomes a former, their mouth gets big, as he quoted from an article in Fridays Express report where Harford made critical comments. Over the last few years, Leon Coldero has arguably become just as renowned for his insatiable cuisine as he is as an entertainer. Having spent four decades in entertainment, giving soca parang lovers hits that never get old, opening his restaurant was just a natural progression for Coldero, who used the downtime during the Covid-19 pandemic, to delve full throttle into the restaurant business. A new camera system is being installed along this countrys roadways with the aim of tackling traffic congestion and reducing the countrys crime. This was said yesterday by Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan, who spoke with the media at the intersection of the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway and Golden Grove Road in Piarco. With ten people murdered between Thursday and Saturday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley took to Facebook yesterday to assure citizens that State agencies will not give up the fight to rid our streets and other places of the evil that is now widespread as a gun culture in Trinidad and Tobago. And in a voice note to the media, Commissioner of Police Erla Christopher said, We are determined to dismantle criminal gangs and make a difference in transforming impacted communities. Jay Rankin, who is facing sexual assault charges from an incident in Thompson last year, was an Old Saybrook police officer for nearly 30 years. Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media file photo The Old Saybrook man accused of a sexual assault at a boat launch in Thompson last summer served as a member of his town's police department for nearly 30 years and a volunteer firefighter for over 20 years. According to town officials, Jay Rankin was hired as a police officer in 1988 and retired from the department in July 2017. For much of that time, he was also a member of the Old Saybrook Fire Department, and served as the department's chief between 2015 and 2018, according to the agency's website. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Rankin, who is in his early 60s, was arrested by members of the of the state Environmental Conservation Police on Monday in connection with a sexual assault the agency says occurred at a boat launch in Thompson last year. The agency said it received a report last July of a sexual assault that occurred at the Little Pond Boat Launch. Rankin was charged with third-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault, public indecency, second-degree breach of peace and prohibited activities in limited access areas. He appeared Monday in state Superior Court in Danielson, where it appears he applied for a pretrial probationary program because his case has been sealed, according to the state Judicial Department. The warrant for his arrest was also not available on Tuesday. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Pima County Attorney Laura Conover is asking that another office be ready to investigate the Louis Taylor criminal case should anything new be learned in the litigation of his civil lawsuit. This comes shortly after Taylors attorneys interviewed Conover and subpoenaed her to testify at the upcoming civil trial of Taylors discrimination lawsuit. He seeks compensation from Pima County and the city of Tucson for his long former incarceration in the 1970 Pioneer Hotel Fire, in which 29 people died. Conover is a key witness for Taylor, city and county attorneys have said in court filings. After saying during her 2020 campaign for county attorney that the justice system made a mistake in not exonerating Taylor, Conover initiated a process after she took office to exonerate him but later withdrew it. In 2021, Pima County Attorney Laura Conovers office conducted a thorough, independent, and objective assessment of the Louis Taylor matter based on the facts and information known at that time, a spokeswoman for Conovers office, Shawndrea Thomas, said in a written statement Tuesday to the Arizona Daily Star. She followed the limitations of Arizona law in reaching her conclusion. County Attorney Conover has recently been deposed in the civil case and has now been subpoenaed to testify at the civil trial later this year. Based on these new, changed circumstances, the Pima County Attorneys Office is seeking to have an outside agency investigate any facts or information that may arise out of the civil litigation, the statement said. According to Stanley Feldman, one of the attorneys representing Taylor, Conovers request for removal has to do with a new post-conviction proceeding filed in county Superior Court by the Arizona Justice Project, which seeks to have Taylors criminal charges from the fire exonerated. The whole thing is confusing. In the new post-conviction proceeding filed by the Justice Project, the countys chief prosecutor does not want to decide whether or not Taylor should be completely exonerated, said Feldman, a former Arizona Supreme Court chief justice. And in the civil case in federal court, the countys lawyers have now filed an action in the 9th Circuit, a petition for a writ, seeking to prevent the trial judge in federal court from deciding the same issue. The county on all fronts seems to not want to handle the issue of innocence, Feldman told the Star Tuesday. Conovers office did not return messages Tuesday seeking comment beyond the written statement. Two days of settlement talks between the city, county and Taylors attorneys were scheduled for last week, but only one day was completed because Pima County and Tucson filed a request with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to throw Taylors civil suit out. Taylor served 42 years in prison after being convicted of starting the fire in the downtown Tucson hotel and of 28 counts of murder. In 2013, he made a no-contest plea deal with then-County Attorney Barbara LaWalls office that set aside the conviction and released him from prison. In 2015, Taylor sued Pima County and Tucson for violating his right to due process and a fair trial, alleging racism and civil conspiracy led to his arrest and conviction. The amount of compensation he is seeking is undisclosed. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2019, however, that Taylor could not collect damages for his time in prison because of the no-contest plea he made. Taylors lawyers said new evidence, and evidence left out of the time of Taylors criminal case, permitted a new hearing. Earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Marquez ordered Taylors discrimination lawsuit to trial, which led to the settlement talks that have now been paused. A jury trial is set to begin April 22. Unless the 9th Circuit stops the case, the city and countys attorneys wrote to the appellate court, Tucson and Pima County will be forced to defend 28 convictions dating back to 1972 and exposed to incarceration-based damages in a civil trial that should not be happening. The local governments are challenging Marquezs Jan. 19 ruling in which the judge wrote, A reasonable jury could find that the City of Tucson and Pima County reached an agreement to violate Taylors constitutional rights by suppressing a lab report that found no evidence of arson accelerants in the fire debris, and by procuring false testimony from jailhouse informants. Conover, a former defense attorney before successfully running to be the countys top prosecutor, had said during her political campaign in 2020 that the handling of Taylors case had been an inspiration for her decision to work in law and politics. She said then that she did a little research for one of his parole hearings when she was a law student in 2005. As county attorney, Conover started notifying stakeholders in 2022 that a motion to exonerate Taylor would be filed, Marquez wrote in her ruling. But Conover later testified she changed her mind after meeting with her team about the legal standards for post-conviction relief. The judge noted that a former prosecutor in LaWalls office, David Berkman, had sent an email to a county supervisor warning that if exonerated at Conovers request, Taylor could get damages which may cost the County a ton. There are material disputes of fact concerning why Conover decided not to file a motion to exonerate Taylor, Marquez wrote. A reasonable jury could conclude that her decision was based solely on her evaluation of the legal merits of the draft motion to exonerate. However, a reasonable jury could instead find that her decision was influenced by Pima Countys financial considerations. Layoffs at the University of Arizona will occur in phases throughout this spring, UA Interim Chief Financial Officer John Arnold told staff this week. The layoffs will begin with senior administration at the directive of UA President Robert C. Robbins, Arnold said. Were not planning a big date where were going to announce layoffs, Arnold said. I think itll come in phases. Robbins told staff at the same meeting that there have been conversations about him potentially taking a salary cut himself. He previously told the Arizona Daily Star in an interview that he absolutely would take a pay cut amid the universitys $177 million deficit. Arnold, Robbins and interim Provost Ron Marx spent an hour and a half answering questions and speaking to the UA Staff Council Tuesday afternoon. Arnold said his team will go through every colleges budget request by mid-April. Fiscal year 2025 begins July 1. Well have to see (if they) can meet those expenditure targets within their existing staff and faculty or if we are going to have to reduce some positions, he stated. Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has been highly critical of the handling of UAs financial situation, had asked leaders of UA and the Arizona Board of Regents to meet privately with her on Tuesday afternoon after releasing a fiery statement Monday demanding they come down from their ivory tower. Hobbs agreed to meet next week rather than Tuesday after she found out that Arnold and Robbins were scheduled to speak with the Staff Council, Arnold said. Robbins said he has been in constant communication with Hobbs office, while Arnold stated there appeared to be some miscommunications and misunderstandings with the governor. Investing in academic units? Arnold stated hes not in favor of ranking different departments and colleges based on how much money they bring in. If we just rank them in order of which divisions and departments are making money and those at the bottom that arent making money are going to go away, there wouldnt be a lot left, he said. And we would end up eliminating some of the programs that are core to the identity of the University of Arizona. He said judgements will be based more on value than finances. Certainly, we need to be aware of how any cutback is going to impact the flow of revenue into the university and we will certainly make these calculations, he said. But we also have to be aware of where our values are; what are the programs we want to have as a university? Robbins interjected, and acknowledged he hadnt first asked Arnold what he was about to propose at the meeting. Could there be a short-term income investment? Robbins asked, implying that units that had reserves could provide for those who werent doing as well. There are many units that are in deficit that have been under-resourced for years, he said. Even if the unit is in structural deficit, maybe they just need investment of more resources instead of cuts. Marx echoed Robbins statements. There are some programs that have high social value, high educational value, that we just really need to do because that is what it means to be a university, the interim provost said. That being said, we have to be able to figure out how to pay the cost of those kinds of programs. But, while the team figures out the budget and new roles of employees, Arnold said there may be a period where youre asked to do a little bit of extra stuff. There will be a process this summer, he added, to really look at our staffing structures to make sure we have appropriate staffing levels. Centralizing and modernizing Melanie Madden, the chair of the Staff Council, told the leadership present that the current centralization efforts were unsettling to staff, as most believe their jobs are being treated as low value and disposable. In response, Arnold, who is leading efforts to centralize offices such as information technology and human relations, said the process is under way not because we dont value you, (but) because we value you so much. Centralizing HR, he said, will build out this really powerful, well trained, well developed, very professional class of employees that can help us run the university in a professional and modern way. Arnold seemed to place blame for some of the financial deficit onto the universitys HR systems. A lot of the financial difficulties weve run into is because of decentralized HR personnel-related decisions, he said. The IT system that theyre functioning under is 142 years old, Arnold said. Most of them cost $100 million to replace. Were doing our best but we need to modernize our tools around the university. One of those modernizations might be changing the way the UA bills its students. Do you know we are still sending a paper bill to every single student and their family? he asked the audience. Every single one. University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins is creating a new form of shared governance, an announcement that comes just after a regent encouraged him to establish new faculty leadership. Robbins and his team are finalizing an official charter for the newly created University Advisory Council, which will include a wide group of important campus stakeholders he will appoint including faculty, staff and students. The council will offer guidance on a variety of matters of significance, including efforts to improve our universitys quality and reputation and the evaluation of strategies to enhance the universitys ability to achieve its central mission of teaching, research and service, Robbins wrote in an email Monday night to UA employees. The announcement comes on the heels of criticism from the UAs Faculty Senate, which has faulted Robbins and the Arizona Board of Regents for their handling of the universitys $177 million deficit in recent months. In last Thursdays ABOR meeting, Regent Lyndel Manson encouraged Robbins to establish new faculty leadership. In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star on Wednesday, Manson shared her excitement about the new council. I think what President Robbins has done is hes in the process of establishing a new group of faculty and students and staff that are really focused on providing input and looking for positive solutions, she said. These are the kinds of people that (we) need to form a partnership with. Robbins wrote that the council will serve as an additional channel for communication between the presidents office and campus constituents. The new entity will complement the already established shared governance partners including the Faculty Senate, the Staff Council, the Associated Students of the UA, the Graduate and Professional Student Council and the Strategic Planning and Budget Advisory Committee. SPBAC is a mix of both elected and appointed positions, but the rest of the current modes of shared governance are fully elected. Unlike the other modes of shared governance, this council will not have elected members. Robbins said he is working with deans and other leaders to identify inaugural council members who will be appointed by the president. In a statement to the Star, Faculty Senate Chair Leila Hudson said that naturally the president is free to talk to whoever he wants to, but rest assured, the (Faculty) Senate is not going anywhere. The role of shared governance at public universities in the state is currently being debated in the State House after House Bill 2735, which would limit the role of shared governance models and give more power to ABOR and university presidents, passed the House Appropriations Committee earlier this month. Robbins group will hold its first meeting in March and its members will be announced in the coming weeks. I believe in hearing from more voices, not fewer, Robbins wrote. Along with our existing shared governance bodies, UAC will bring together faculty, staff and student perspectives to help us navigate complex issues facing higher education and the University of Arizona. Katharine Zeiders, secretary-elect of the Faculty Senate and a representative of the College of Agriculture, Life and Environmental Sciences, questioned how creating a non-elected group qualified as shared governance. This only creates an echo chamber for administrators and upholds the patronage model where folks who either only agree with senior leadership or are in positions that are too precarious to disagree are elevated to appointed positions, she wrote in an email to the Star on Wednesday. We dont need patronage and privilege; we need dedication and democracy. Zeiders added that anything under shared governance should require a democratic process. Those that serve the mission of the university teachers and educators, staff and public servants should have a say in how well it serves the public, she wrote. Presidents and regents come and go every few years, but the faculty and staff are often here for their careers. They come for the money; we stay for the mission. Tessa Dysart, the current secretary of the Faculty Senate, said in an interview Wednesday that she was in favor of the new council. One of the things that Ive appreciated about President Robbins is his willingness to listen to a multitude of voices, she said. I think any action that allows him to hear from more faculty, staff and student perspectives is a good thing. Dysart added that she was excited about the new and fresh voices the council will provide. I think it increases the depth of and breadth of shared governance, she said. The following is the opinion and analysis of the writers: You wouldnt know it if youre not a teacher, but February begins contract signing season. In many Tucson-area districts, returning teachers sign legally binding contract renewals in February and March, five months in advance of the next school year. Breaking a contract can mean losing your certification with the Arizona Department of Education. Some districts, like Amphi, Sahuarita, Tanque Verde, TUSD and Vail, also demand liquidated damages up to thousands of dollars in fines for leaving once the contract is signed. Teacher contracts dont guarantee the job features that teachers value most: they dont specify the position a teacher is being hired to teach or even name the salary for the following year. Most districts set teacher pay after the state budget is voted on by the Legislature in June. What does that mean for teachers? These are our stories. My name is Jana Akins. I love my job, and I love the district I work for. A few years back, after teaching 1st grade for three years in the same school, I was informed the week before fall break that, when I returned, I would be teaching third grade. Changing grade levels feels violating and akin to being assigned a completely different job instead of teaching kids how to sound out words, I returned from fall break focused on teaching kids to write multiple paragraphs. Teaching is not one size fits all we connect with families and communities and identify each students strengths to help them succeed. Teaching is a craft that gets interrupted with an involuntary transfer because we develop and modify a grade-level curriculum and lessons over years to fit the needs of our students and the school community. All that my teacher contract guarantees is a teaching position in the district. My name is Marni Gould, and I taught for 12 years in the Amphitheater School District. I put my heart and soul into working with my colleagues and students. Two years ago on Feb. 22, I signed a contract after a verbal agreement that my position would be half-teaching, half-working as a data coordinator. In March, when I was informed that the data coordinator portion was reduced to only one-fifth time, I started looking around for a different internal position. When I didnt find a good fit, I resigned so that the district would have time to fill it. The date of my resignation was 120 days prior to the contract start date. Two weeks later, I was served with papers calling my resignation an unprofessional act and informing me that I owed the district $2,500. I filled out a form to appeal, shared emails and a supportive letter from my administration and appealed to the Governing Board, but my appeal was denied. It was only after my union attorney sent a cease and desist letter to the district that the $2,500 in damages were waived. Districts are understandably desperate for quality hires as our underfunded schools statewide struggle to recruit and retain quality teachers, but not all Tucson area districts demand liquidated damages in their teacher contracts. Kudos to Catalina Foothills, Flowing Wells, Marana and Sunnyside for resisting the urge to punish teachers for the statewide teacher shortage. Liquidated damages are ineffective and make an already-tenuous career track less dignified. Tucson area districts should be working to make teaching a more attractive profession. Governing Board members can signal their respect for teachers by eliminating liquidated damages in teacher contracts and issuing contracts that protect teachers by limiting involuntary transfers. We are already committed to our students and to our schools. Rethink the draconian disincentives and focus on giving us the time, space, and resources to do our jobs. Jimmie Tramel Tulsa World Scene Writer Follow Jimmie Tramel Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today A Rolling Stone journalist wrote that True Detective: Night Country gave True Detective its best finale ever. The fourth season of the HBO anthology series, which starred Jodie Foster and Kali Reis, concluded with a Feb. 18 episode that drew a season-best 3.2 million viewers across HBO and Max. An Oklahoman was part of the True Detective: Night Country team. Memorial High School alum Blake Brown, who spent her growing-up years in Tulsa and Idabel, served as an associate producer on the series. She previously worked on Osiyo, Voices of the Cherokee People and Sterlin Harjos critically acclaimed series Reservation Dogs. Brown attended the University of Oklahoma for two years after high school. She veered to the film industry when an opportunity arrived on Comedy Centrals Broad City. More accurately, she created her own opportunity. I was a fan of the show when it was just a YouTube series, and so I reached out to an email address I found on their page. I said something along the lines of Im a huge fan of the show, and I was just wondering if you guys needed any interns or production assistants especially one whose skills include: The ability to eat an entire sleeve of Ritz crackers in seconds... and then I listed off a bunch of other useless skills. To my surprise, the star of the show, Ilana Glazer, emailed me back and said Wed love to have you! Were shooting in New York, and come at your earliest convenience! So I saved up (money) delivering pizzas and moved to New York to start working with them. I didnt go back to college, because I was already working and felt like I was learning more through working. I worked on three seasons of Broad City, and it was such a blast. Brown answered questions about her career and her involvement with True Detective: Night Country. Youre in the TV and film industry. What was the dream, and how did it become the dream? Ive always wanted to work in film and television for as long as I can remember. I used to make films with my friends in elementary school and bring them in for show and tell. At my fifth grade graduation, my teachers said I would become a director and gave me my first film slate. It really inspired me to continue with my interests and make that a reality. Was there one break along the way that put you on the right path? I think my biggest break was writing that email to the folks at 'Broad City.' My dad had told me to search for jobs in places that not a lot of people are looking, and that reaching out directly through avenues people dont usually try gives you an advantage. I took his advice, and it truly got me set up in the best possible way. This was your first season on True Detective. How did that come about? A friend named Joey Clift had recommended this job to me because he saw they were looking for a Native writers assistant. At the time, the only information given about the show was that it was an untitled HBO Issa Lopez project. I looked up Issa and watched her brilliant film Tigers Are Not Afraid and was instantly interested. I interviewed, and it went really well. As soon as I got the position, they sent me the pilot script, and it was True Detective: Night Country. I absolutely freaked out. I ran around my house screaming in joy. Im a huge fan of True Detective, and I couldnt believe that would be my next project. You are listed as an associate producer, but Ive been told you were an assistant to showrunner Issa Lopez. How would you describe your role and what your duties were and how did the duties evolve? We were in the writers' room for around 15 weeks. There were five writers and me. I would take notes on everything they said and organize them in a way they could understand when they looked back later. But the writers also made it very clear that if I had ideas, that I was a part of the writers room, and I could provide ideas, too. It was a really awesome, open environment, and I did get a few ideas that ended up in the show. Issa was happy with my work in the writers room and then asked me to come on as her assistant while they wrote the final scripts. I moved to Venice, California, for three months for that. Then she asked me to come with her to Iceland to be the showrunners assistant during shooting. I was there for eight months and was with Issa for every meeting, every scout. Basically anything Issa did on the job, I was with her witnessing and taking notes on it all. After shooting, she asked me to come with her to London for post-production. I was there for seven months and absorbed every part of the process. Issa also involved me creatively by asking my opinion throughout the show and allowing the opportunity to direct our ADR sessions. Because I was so involved since the beginning of the show, and because my responsibilities grew so much, Issa and (executive producer) Mari Jo Winkler pushed for me to get an associate producer position. They were so kind and supportive to me throughout this entire process while recognizing my efforts and allowing me to grow. I will forever be grateful to both Issa and Mari Jo for the support and the opportunities theyve given me. How was working in Iceland? Iceland was amazing. I loved every minute of it. We shot almost all of our exteriors on location and encountered snow storms, ice, crazy winds, sub-zero temperatures and northern lights, too! Our crew was mostly Icelanders, who are extremely kind and hardworking, but we also had crew members from the UK, the U.S., Mexico, Germany, South Africa, Italy and many other countries. It was a very international crew. But we had an absolute blast. A lot of us stayed in the same apartment complex, and it felt like summer camp in the best way. What do you want to say about being Native and working on shows like Osiyo and Reservation Dogs? Im Chickasaw and Cherokee and love working on projects that support or represent Indigenous people. Before working on this job, I worked on Reservation Dogs as a writers assistant. Before that, I worked for Pursuit Films (formerly FireThief Productions) as a producer, animator, editor and shooter. Pursuit produced the show Osiyo: Voices of the Cherokee People, a documentary series that highlights Cherokee people in the U.S. who are doing amazing things. I worked for Pursuit for about five years telling Cherokee stories, and it was great. I have four Heartland Emmys for my producing and editing on Osiyo. I also co-produced and co-wrote an animated series for the Cherokee Nation called Inagei (Into the Woods), which is spoken completely in the Cherokee language and that Im very proud to be a part of. Youve been in the industry for about 10 years now. Got a highlight or two from some of your career projects? One of my favorite experiences to date was being in the writers room with Issa Lopez and Chris Mundy. Chris Mundy is the showrunner/writer for the series Ozark. He came to Iceland to write with Issa, and for a few weeks, it was just me, Issa and Chris in a room together. They would discuss and act out whole scenes together, and it was just a master class in writing. Looking at the completed scenes now in the show, its just wild to look back on that writing experience and how close they got to matching the feeling and spirit of their original ideas. I also got to be in all of the rehearsals with the actors of Night Country. I got to see Issa directing and how the actors process and respond. It was incredible. One crazy thing that happened in one of our first rehearsals with Jodie, I got a text from my family saying my grandparents house was hit by a tornado while they were in it in Idabel. I had to interrupt the rehearsal to go call my grandparents, and Jodie immediately understood and when I came back she started asking about them. They were thankfully safe, but she really took the time to make sure they and I were OK before proceeding. And then when I would see her after that, she always would ask about my grandparents and how they were doing. Tell your grandparents Ive been thinking about them. It just showed how much of a kind and considerate person Jodie is, and I love that about her. "True Detective" has been renewed for a fifth season with Lopez returning as showrunner. Brown said she will be working on the show again. The new Tulsa World app offers personalized features. Download it today. Tim Stanley Tulsa World Staff Writer Follow Tim Stanley 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 Editor's note: This story originally omitted comments from District 6 candidate Sarah Smith. The story has been updated. Questions related to State Superintendent Ryan Walters initiatives, a former administrators alleged embezzlement, and school safety issues such as bullying, fighting and gun violence were among those asked of school board hopefuls at a candidates forum Tuesday. The public forum, sponsored by the Tulsa Press Club, the Tulsa World and the University of Tulsa, was held Tuesday evening for candidates in the April 2 Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education election. All six candidates were invited, with four of the six participating in the event, which was held at the Lorton Performance Center on the TU campus. Participants included Calvin Moniz, District 2; John Croisant (incumbent) and Teresa Pena, District 5; and Sarah Smith, District 6. The four fielded questions over 10 rounds asked by Tulsa World staff writers Andrea Eger and Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton and Editorials Editor Ginnie Graham. Asked how as school board members they could advocate for strong policies and practices in schools to address bullying, Moniz said he would push for more mental health resources and a better appreciation for diversity. As we take out Diversity Equity Inclusion education in our schools, we lose the respect for each other that we should have, Moniz said. Thats why bullying and the things that youre seeing are happening. Were on the wrong track in Oklahoma, and my plan is to get us back on the right track in Tulsa. Said Croisant: Weve got to let kids know that its OK to be who you are, no matter who you are. And thats whether its in Tulsa Public Schools or in a suburban school or a rural school. This is a problem everywhere. And until we really address the root causes, were not going to solve this problem. Among questions directed at individual candidates, Pena was asked if she supports Walters lingering takeover threat against Tulsa Public Schools and what she would do as a board member regarding his agenda. Like I said before, and I truly believe this, we must have local control, she said. The first thing Id do is ask for a meeting with Ryan Walters. There are many things that I do not agree with in the way it has been done. I have many questions. Where are the resources if youre planning on takeover? Added Pena: I want to have that conversation with him because we live in Tulsa. We know the community. We need to save our schools. And I dont know that he knows the Tulsa community as well as we do. One question directed to Croisant referenced the criminal case against former top TPS administrator Devin Fletcher, who is accused of embezzlement and vendor contract abuse. Asked as a board member what policies he would like to see implemented and what questions he could ask to prevent such abuses, Croisant, chair of the district Finance Committee, said he would work with the auditors directly to try to figure out what caused the issues and how they can be solved. But a lot of the problem, he added, is just hiring the wrong people people who want to hurt kids by taking money from them. I feel like if theres anything we can throw at them, I hope it gets thrown at them, because I just cant stand it myself. In response to a question about why she has expressed an interest in serving on the boards finance committee, Smith said looking at safeguards to prevent employees or others from defrauding the public school district is vital. Smith said she has heard the board has had a hard time finding members willing to serve on the finance committee and when theres nobody serving on a committee that work cant be done. I would love to be a part of the process to vet vendors and making sure those guidelines and policies are in place and again reviewing the new safety guidelines and making sure that those are truly able to catch and prevent improprieties in the future and looking at the budget from a wide view and making sure that the expenditures are aligning with the priorities that are set and the guidelines that the department the district want to have, Smith said. Participants also answered one question each submitted by students in the district they are seeking to represent. Moniz was asked by Rogers College High School leadership students his views on in-person student attendance, given that most assignments are now online-based. Theres nothing more valuable than having that interpersonal connection as youre building your education, learning the diversity of each other and learning how each person learns differently, Moniz said. You dont have those conversations when youre looking at a computer screen. So for me, in-person education is the only type of education. Candidates KanDee Washington and Maria Seidler did not participate in Tuesdays forum. Washington, opponent to Moniz in District 2, never replied to the invitation despite multiple emails and phone calls, organizers said. Seidler, opponent to Smith in District 6, declined the invitation after initially accepting. March 8 is the last day to register to vote in the April 2 school board elections. The forum was the first of three public forums related to upcoming Tulsa elections sponsored by TU, the Tulsa World and the Tulsa Press Club. The next two will focus on the Tulsa City Council and mayors race. Dates for those events will be announced soon. The new Tulsa World app offers personalized features. Download it today. JERUSALEM Israel and Hamas on Tuesday played down chances of an imminent breakthrough in talks for a cease-fire in Gaza, after U.S. President Joe Biden said Israel agreed to pause its offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan if a deal is reached to release some hostages. The presidents remarks came on the eve of the Michigan primary, where he faces pressure from the states large Arab American population over his staunch support for Israels offensive. Biden said he was briefed on the status of talks by his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, but said his comments reflected his optimism for a deal, not that all the remaining hurdles were overcome. In the wake of Hamas Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, Israels air, sea and ground campaign in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people, obliterated large swaths of the urban landscape and displaced 80% of the battered enclaves population. Israels seal on the territory, which allows in only a trickle of food and other aid, has sparked alarm that a famine could be imminent, according to the United Nations. Aid is slow With U.N. truck deliveries of aid hampered by the lack of safe corridors, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and France conducted an airdrop of food, medical supplies and other aid into Gaza on Tuesday. At a beach in southern Gaza, boxes of supplies dropped from military aircraft drifted down on parachutes as thousands of Palestinians ran along the sand to retrieve them. But alarm is growing over worsening hunger among Gazas 2.3 million Palestinians. Two infants died from dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, said the spokesman for Gazas Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qidra. He warned that infant mortality threatens to surge. Dehydration and malnutrition will kill thousands of children and pregnant women in the Gaza Strip, he said. The U.N. Population Fund said the Al Helal Al Emirati maternity hospital in Gazas southernmost town of Rafah reported that newborns were dying because mothers were unable to get prenatal or postnatal care. Premature births are also rising, forcing staff to put four or five newborns in a single incubator. Most of them do not survive, it said, without giving figures on the numbers of deaths. Now the prospect of an invasion of Rafah has prompted global alarm over the fate of around 1.4 million civilians trapped there. Talks to pause the fighting have gained momentum recently and were underway Tuesday. Negotiators from the United States, Egypt and Qatar have been working to broker a cease-fire that would see Hamas free some of the dozens of hostages it holds in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, a six-week halt in fighting and an increase in aid deliveries to Gaza. Holy month about to begin The start of Ramadan, which is expected to be around March 10, is seen as an unofficial deadline for a deal. The month is a time of heightened religious observance and dawn-to-dusk fasting for hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world. Israeli-Palestinian tensions have flared in the past during the holy month. Ramadans coming up, and there has been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out, Biden said in an appearance on NBCs Late Night With Seth Meyers that was recorded Monday. In separate comments the same day, Biden said he hoped a cease-fire deal could take effect by next week. At the same time, Biden did not call for an end to the war. In Hamas cross-border raid on Oct. 7, an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, and militants took 250 people captive, according to Israeli authorities. Israeli officials said Bidens comments came as a surprise and were not made in coordination with the countrys leadership. A Hamas official played down any sense of progress, saying the group wouldnt soften its demands. The Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they werent authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media, said Israel wants a deal immediately, but that Hamas continues to push excessive demands. Steve Metzer Tulsa World Capitol Bureau Staff Writer Follow Steve Metzer Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today OKLAHOMA CITY A bill seeking to close a legal loophole that has made it possible for children to access edible products infused with hemp-derived THC advanced through an Oklahoma Senate committee Wednesday. Senate Bill 1980 relates to products containing delta-8 and delta-10 THC, sold by retailers including vape shops and convenience stores. Marijuana and hemp are two different varieties of the cannabis plant. Federal regulations stipulate that cannabis plants containing greater than 0.3% delta-9 THC should be classified as marijuana. In addition to being a source of cannabidiol or CBD which has medicinal value, hemp plants are used to produce a variety of products such as paper, textiles and biofuel. In recognition of the broad commercial applications of hemp, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in 2018 removing it from the category of controlled substances and making it legal to grow. Since then, cultivators and processors have figured out how to chemically alter hemp to create intoxicating products with THC analogues that may be dangerous, especially for children, to consume. SB 1980 seeks to address the loophole that allows Oklahomans to buy delta-8 and delta-10 THC products legally without a medical marijuana patient license. The bill would allow the state to regulate the processing, packaging and sale of products containing THC analogues derived from hemp. It would give the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority oversight of these hemp-derived THC products. This bill is an attempt to get a handle on the issue of hemp-derived cannabinoids that are spreading across the nation, said the bills author, Sen. Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle. Children are buying stuff that looks like candy in stores when its actually hemp-derived products that can get them high. Paxton asked Barrett Brown, chief of staff at the OMMA, to help explain provisions of SB 1980 during the Senate Business and Commerce Committees meeting Monday. The problem that we are trying to solve is that there is no state agency or law enforcement agency with clear authority to regulate all of these products, Brown said, and so what we are attempting to do is in the future to include all of these hemp-derived cannabinoids in a more holistic manner to ensure that theyre all regulated in the state of Oklahoma. Brown allowed that the issue is complicated and nuanced by the interplay between federal and state law. I wouldnt say that Im currently confident (in the bills language). I would say that conversations are ongoing. We have specifically looped in the Attorney Generals Office and stakeholders who are working on it. The working bill passed through the committee on a 13-0 vote. Kristie Edelen, managing director of the Oklahoma Center for Poison & Drug Information, said the agency would support any legislation that would help reduce overdose incidents, whether caused by medical marijuana products sold in dispensaries or hemp-derived products sold in other stores. She noted that in 2018, the year Oklahomans voted to make medical marijuana legal, there were 13 such incidents involving children younger than 5. In 2023, there were 260. THC edibles such as infused candies, cookies and gummies can be especially dangerous for young children, as it can be easy to consume several doses at once, Edelen said. Parents or guardians should take care not to consume THC edibles in front of children, she said, and keep them in a secure lockbox. Obviously, I think regulation also would help to reduce the exposures we see, she said. The new Tulsa World app offers personalized features. Download it today. Steve Metzer Tulsa World Capitol Bureau Staff Writer Follow Steve Metzer Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today OKLAHOMA CITY A car crash on a busy highway that left his son and a sheriffs deputy seriously injured led the leader of the Oklahoma Senate to write a bill to change the way Oklahomans deal with license plates on their vehicles. If passed, the legislation essentially would change things back to the way they were before 2019, when license plates remained with vehicles after they were sold. Since 2019, plates have remained with individuals, instead, and people who have bought vehicles from others have been allowed to drive for a while without tags so long as they keep a bill of sale and other important information inside the vehicle. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, said thats what led to the tragic accident Jan. 5 on Interstate 40. He said his 16-year-old son, Mason, driving a car purchased only weeks before from an individual, was pulled over by a deputy who wanted to check things out because the car had no tag. The teen had actually been pulled over more than once for not having a tag, despite not violating any law, Treat said. On that day, a drowsy driver plowed into the back of Mason Treats car on the side of the highway. The deputy, Jose Tayahua-Mendoza, who had been standing alongside the passenger side of the vehicle, was thrown and suffered several broken bones. The teen was trapped inside the vehicle with critical injuries. Fortunately, both have made significant progress in recovering. The driver of the other vehicle reportedly was OK at the scene. My sons life and a deputys life were needlessly risked because of some gaps in Oklahoma law, Treat said. The situation that led to my son being pulled over was he did not have a license plate (after) a private sale. (According to current law), if you sell your car to me, I can drive for up to 60 days without a tag. Treat said he completely understood why his son was pulled over. He said the law needs to be changed to prevent law enforcement officers from becoming similarly suspicious and pulling people over for not having tags. Treats Senate Bill 2035, which unanimously passed through the Senate Aeronautics and Transportation Committee on Tuesday, would repeal previous law and require a license plate to be issued to and remain with the vehicle it is initially registered to and transferred with the vehicle to any new owner. Looking back to 2019, the legislation that changed the former license plate law came at the request of car dealers. They complained to lawmakers that some people who bought cars would drive them and sometimes get tickets or not pay tolls knowing that any fine would be levied against the previous owner identified with the tag. Treat said SB 2035 is still a work in progress but that he is working with the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, the Department of Public Safety, Service Oklahoma, new and used auto dealers and others to implement a better process. I am determined to get this legislation passed, he said. I dont want to see any other Oklahomans life and safety compromised as a result of the inadequacy of the current law. This bill will save lives and help law enforcement focus on vehicles that are truly out of compliance. The new Tulsa World app offers personalized features. Download it today. France surpassed many countries to become the worlds second-largest buyer of Vietnamese rice in the first month of this year, with an imported rice volume soaring by over 160 times from the preceding month, according to the Vietnamese General Department of Customs (GDC). In January, Vietnamese rice exports reached more than 512,000 tonnes worth US$362.3 million, with an average price of $707 per tonne, marking an increase of four percent in volume and seven percent in value compared to the previous month, the GDC reported recently. Of the total volume, the Philippines bought nearly 281,000 tonnes, or 54.8 percent, for $691 per tonne, topping the list of countries importing the grain from Vietnam. France secured the second position, importing 17,919 tonnes of Vietnamese rice valued at $18.64 million. This represented a significant increase of 164 times in volume and 184 times in value compared to December 2023. In January, the average export price of rice to France reached $1,040 per tonne, marking the highest among all of Vietnam's rice export markets during that period. In January 2023, France was not on the list of the top importers of Vietnamese rice, but the European country has moved up impressively to overtake Indonesia and China two large purchasers of Vietnamese rice a year later to rank only after the Philippines. Among the amount of rice France brought in from Vietnam in January, fragrant rice represented 97 percent, white rice two percent, and Japonica rice one percent. After the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) took effect in August 2020, Vietnams rice exports to the EU in general and France in particular have posted quite impressive growth, according to news site VietnamBiz. Among the EU countries, France is the top importer of rice from abroad, with nearly 600,000 tonnes imported last year, of which 3.2 percent was from Vietnam. Last year, Vietnam shipped nearly 104,000 tonnes of rice to the EU market, recording a climb of 10 percent in both volume and turnover from 2022, according to GDC data. This result reflects the fact that Vietnamese rice exporters have made the best use of the EVFTA to boost exports and expand markets, while the quality of local rice has been enhanced to meet the strict requirements from demanding markets, including France, VietnamBiz commented. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The interiors of two Chinese passenger jets were introduced at an air show at Van Don International Airport in Quang Ninh Province, northern Vietnam on Tuesday. With its jetliners, China is expected to compete with aerospace giants Boeing and Airbus in civil aviation. The inaugural COMAC Airshow, a Chinese-made aircraft exhibition, kicked off at the airport in the northern province on the same day. The event was scheduled throughout Thursday, featuring a series of activities such as take-off and landing performances, flying experiences, and discussions about new air routes between China and Quang Ninh. Guests explore the interior of China's C919 aircraft at Van Don International Airport in Quang Ninh Province, northern Vietnam, February 27, 2024. Photo: T. Duong / Tuoi Tre The debut of these Chinese jets at Van Don International Airport marked a significant milestone to spur Chinas plane internationalization, said Tan Wan Geng, chairman of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd. (COMAC), a Chinese state-owned aerospace manufacturer. The event was also meant to deepen the economic and commercial cooperation between the two nations. The C919 and ARJ21 Chinese jetliners, both manufactured by COMAC in China, arrived at the airport on Monday after they participated in the Singapore Airshow 2024, which began last Tuesday and concluded on Sunday. The flight deck of the C919 jetliner. Photo: T. Duong / Tuoi Tre The two jetliners represent Chinas initial endeavor into civil aviation, with the ARJ21-700 being a twin-engine jet seating up to 90 passengers, while the C919 is a narrow-body passenger aircraft with a capacity of up to 192 seats. These airplanes have placed China among a group of select nations capable of independently designing and manufacturing aircraft, including the U.S., Russia, Brazil, Canada, the UK, France, and Germany. The pair of Chinese passenger jets will continue to fly to Da Nang City, Ho Chi Minh City, and Vientiane in Laos after the air show in Quang Ninh wraps up. The economy-class section of the C919 jet, which seats up to 192 passengers. Photo: T. Duong / Tuoi Tre Business-class seats have a massage function to offer more comfort to passengers. Photo: T. Duong / Tuoi Tre Cao Tuong Huy (R), chairman of the Quang Ninh Province Peoples Committee, sits inside the flight deck of a Chinese aircraft. Photo: T. Duong / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Read what is in the news in Vietnam today: Politics -- Vietnamese Deputy Minister of National Defense Sen. Lieut. Gen Hoang Xuan Chien and Japanese Vice Minister of Defense for International Affairs Serizawa Kiyoshi co-chaired the 10th Vietnam-Japan defense policy dialogue in Hanoi on Tuesday. Society -- Authorities are clarifying why a closed wooden furniture store on Cong Hoa Street in Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City caught fire on Tuesday night. No casualties were reported in the incident. -- The Department of Health of Ca Mau Province in southern Vietnam on Tuesday reported the first suspected case of monkeypox in the locality. -- The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications on Tuesday announced software designed to collect data from major social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. This tool is intended to enable state management agencies to proactively gather and comprehend the opinions and needs of individuals and businesses. -- Da Nang Hospital in the namesake city in central Vietnam inaugurated the Center for Neurosurgery, Trauma, and Plastic Burns, as well as the Center for Organ Transplantation and Stem Cell Transplantation on Tuesday after over 4.5 years of construction. -- The Department of Medical Examination and Treatment under the Ministry of Health on Tuesday issued a request to the leaders of Vietnam-Cuba Friendship Hospital in Dong Hoi City of Quang Binh Province, north-central Vietnam to promptly report the discovery of nearly 500 narcotic pills at the hospital. Police officers had apprehended two laundry workers in connection with the incident. Business -- Ho Chi Minh Citys Saigon Hi-Tech Park and Siemens Electronic Design Automation, a segment of Siemens Digital Industries Software, on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in personnel training in the semiconductor chip industry in Vietnam. -- France purchased 17,919 metric tons of rice from Vietnam for US$18.64 million in January, unexpectedly overtaking Indonesia and China to become the second-largest market for Vietnamese rice following the Philippines, according to the General Department of Vietnam Customs. -- Ho Chi Minh City led Vietnam in import-export value in January, with exports exceeding $3.75 billion and imports totaling $4.95 billion, accounting for 13 percent of the countrys total import-export turnover, according to the latest customs statistics. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications on Tuesday announced software designed to collect data from major social networking platforms with the aim of enabling state management agencies to proactively gather and comprehend the opinions and needs of individuals and businesses. The software is capable of collecting data from popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and others, serving as a channel to capture peoples feedback on local issues, facilitating more effective management and social development policies. It is meant to assist organizations in managing and shaping public opinion by monitoring and analyzing trends, opinions, and emotions on social networks. The tool particularly focuses on developments involving hostile, subversive, and anti-social groups exploiting social networks and Internet platforms to incite protests against government policies and guidelines. According to Lam Dinh Thang, director of the Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City, this platform will be utilized by all city departments and districts after they have undergone training. Thang emphasized the importance of city departments and districts quickly becoming familiar with the platform and fostering daily creativity to ensure its effectiveness. For instance, districts can utilize the software to report the most pressing issues for the local community each week or assess public interest at the time of promulgating specific policies, Thang explained. The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Information and Communications, the Ho Chi Minh City Business Association, and the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association sign a memorandum of understanding on coordinating the promotion of legal education, February 27, 2024. Photo: Thao Le / Tuoi Tre He noted that the city currently boasts about 22 million social network accounts and over 200 press agencies, as well as the highest number of key opinion leader (KOLs) in Vietnam. The official highlighted that residents daily lives have shifted to social networks, prompting city leaders to prioritize listening to and understanding peoples opinions, thoughts, and aspirations through these channels. Each week, the municipal Department of Information and Communications receives no less than a dozen letters of feedback, complaints, denunciations, and recommendations related to online activities, Thang stated. This underscores the need to collect, evaluate, and analyze online information to support the municipal governments administrative work. At Tuesdays event, the Department of Information and Communications, the Ho Chi Minh City Business Association, and the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association signed a memorandum of understanding on coordinating the promotion of legal education and providing legal assistance in the field of information and communications. As per Thang's perspective, this will streamline efforts to promote awareness of legal regulations pertaining to the Internet among individuals and businesses. This, in turn, will contribute to more precise and efficient oversight by authorities. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The Vietnamese Ministry of Construction is collecting opinions on a draft decree guiding the implementation of the 2023 Housing Law, including the provisions on conditions for domestic and foreign individuals and organizations to own houses in Vietnam. The ministry recently issued the draft decree to serve the execution of the Housing Law that will take effect from January 1, 2025 after being promulgated in late December 2023 by the National Assembly. Accordingly, domestic organizations wanting to obtain a house must have a business registration certificate, investment registration certificate, or establishment license issued by a relevant authority. For foreign organizations, they must have an investment registration certificate or documents issued by a designated Vietnamese agency to permit them to operate in Vietnam, and these papers must be valid at the time of signing any housing-related transactions. In respect of domestic individuals, they must have personal identification papers according to the provisions of the Law on Citizen Identification. For overseas Vietnamese who retain Vietnamese nationality, they must have a Vietnamese passport issued by Vietnamese authorities. In the event of people of Vietnamese origin residing abroad, they are required to obtain a foreign passport and documents certifying that they are of Vietnamese origin according to the provisions of the Law on Nationality. For foreign individuals, they must have a foreign passport and a written commitment that they are not eligible for diplomatic privileges and immunities. In addition, domestic organizations and individuals, and overseas Vietnamese who retain Vietnamese nationality must also have documents proving that relevant houses were legally created through the forms specified in Clause 2, Article 8 of the Housing Law, according to the Vietnam Government Portal. For people of Vietnamese origin residing abroad, they must have a valid foreign passport, be permitted to enter Vietnam, reside in Vietnam at the time of signing the housing transactions, and be eligible to own houses attached to land use rights prescribed by land legislation. For foreign individuals, they must have a valid passport and permission to enter Vietnam, reside in Vietnam at the time of signing the housing transactions, and have documents proving that relevant houses were created legally through the forms specified in Clause 2, Article 17 of the Housing Law. In order to ensure national defense and security, the draft decree also stipulates that foreign organizations and individuals are not allowed to own houses in the following areas: key areas in terms of defense and security; border communes and island areas; areas with barracks for the armed forces; areas with headquarters and offices of state administrative and Party agencies at the provincial level or higher; and other areas according to regulations of the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Public Security, according to the Vietnam Government Portal. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP) and Siemens Electronic Design Automation Pte. Ltd. (Siemens EDA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in personnel training for the semiconductor chip industry in Vietnam. The MoU was signed at a ceremony held in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday in the presence of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Anh Thi, head of the SHTP management board and Nina Lin, Vice President, General Manager Taiwan & PacRim South of Siemens EDA. The event was attended by officials from the city's administration and the Ministry of Science and Technology, along with representatives from universities and experts in the field of semiconductor chips. The deal is based on Siemens EDAs strengths in software design, and on SHTPs advantages and experience in human resource training for the industry. Addressing the ceremony, Dr. Thi said that human resources in the semiconductor chip industry are identified as the key factor that ensures the success of the national strategy for semiconductor chip industry development. Cooperation between the two sides will help improve the operating capacity of the Electronics and Semiconductor Center (ESC) at SHTP, further promoting the development of the chip sector of the city in particular and Vietnam in general, he said. Dr. Thi expressed confidence that the MoU would create opportunities for trainees to engage with and learn about cutting-edge technologies in chip design and verification. This would enable them to accumulate valuable experience, fostering enhanced performance in the hi-tech sector. In recent years, the SHTP has made significant strides by upgrading its infrastructure and enhancing the quality of its training staff dedicated to the semiconductor industry. These efforts have contributed to strengthening the microchip ecosystem in the region, Dr. Thi said. Attendees at the MoU signing between Saigon Hi-Tech Park and Siemens EDA visit the Electronics and Semiconductor Center at SHTP on February 27, 2024. Photo: SHTP Since the COVID-19 pandemic was put under control in October 2021, the SHTP has proceeded with cooperation with major technology partners in the world to prepare high-quality human resources for the development of the industry, Nhan Dan (People) newspaper cited Thi as saying. Following the signing of a cooperation agreement with U.S. chip giant Synopsys in mid-2022, the SHTP extended its collaboration to include Cadence Design System, another U.S.-based company, a year later. The recent partnership with Siemens EDA further underscores the SHTP's commitment to fostering relationships with key players in the semiconductor industry. Dr. Thi noted that the partners collectively hold a share of over 80 percent in the worldwide market for design automation software solutions catering to integrated circuits, commonly referred to as chips. Addressing the ceremony, Lin highlighted that Siemens EDA, as a leading technology firm, not only delivers cutting-edge technologies to clients but also actively engages in training and developing human resources across various industries, with a particular emphasis on the electronic semiconductor sector. A part of Siemens Group, a German multinational conglomerate, Siemens EDA provides the worlds most comprehensive portfolio of electronic design automation software, hardware, and services. Deputy chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Vo Van Hoan remarked that the city has experienced a growing influx of foreign direct investment in the semiconductor chip sector since Vietnam and the U.S. elevated their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership in September 2023. Not only American investors but also Indian, Chinese, and European businesses operating in the industry have been heading to Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam in general, he added. The official hoped that the training cooperation between the SHTP and Siemens EDA would encourage more chip and hi-tech firms around the world to come to the city for exploring business opportunities. After the ceremony, delegates toured the ESC, which represents a collaborative model between the SHTP and the Sun Edu International Education Joint Stock Company, based in the city. Established in 2002, the SHTP has attracted 162 investment projects, including many from multinationals. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The administration in Phu Quoc, an island city off Kien Giang Province in southern Vietnam, has released rules on civilized behavior at tourist destinations in the city in a bid to create an ideal travel environment and attract more tourists. The rules are aimed at directing the behavior and habits of those getting involved in tourism activities in Phu Quoc, including travelers, tourism service providers, and local residents. In particular, the city urges local residents, travel companies, and tourism enterprises to exhibit proper, cordial, friendly, and responsible behavior. They must not discriminate against, solicit, compel, or implore travelers to use their products or services. They should instead take part in healthy competition and acknowledge tourists opinions and suggestions. The Phu Quoc government has mandated that eateries, restaurants, and tourism businesses publicly disclose their product and service prices, emphasizing the importance of aligning the actual charges with the listed prices. Tourists, tourism firms, and locals are required to adhere to the rules and guidelines at tourist sites, demonstrating respect for local culture and customs. They should also protect the environment, ensure hygiene and social order, and preserve cultural and historical values at tourist attractions. The authorities in Phu Quoc promote the involvement of tourists in supporting underprivileged communities in tourism activities. Simultaneously, they prohibit the sale of endangered animals, counterfeit items, banned products, and goods of unclear origin. Phu Quoc is currently an appealing destination for local and international visitors, according to Nguyen Vu Khac Huy, vice-chairman of the Kien Giang Tourism Association and director of Vina Phu Quoc Travel Co. Ltd.. The citys tourism has recovered steadily as foreign travelers, specifically those from South Korea, Taiwan, China, France, and the U.S., have come to Phu Quoc in droves. Therefore, the issuance of the civilized behavior rules is necessary to gain tourists trust and satisfaction, Huy noted. He assured that local tourism enterprises are committed to adhering to the rules and exhibiting proper behavior to uphold Phu Quoc's positive image in the eyes of tourists. In the year to date, Kien Giang Province has welcomed some 1.96 million travelers, including more than 215,200 international tourist arrivals, and earned VND5.2 trillion (US$211 million) in tourism revenue, according to the provincial Department of Tourism. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Anxiety is the most common group of mental disorders experienced by Australians aged 16 to 85, according to the latest ABS figures. Could psychedelic assisted therapy hold the answer to our mental illness epidemic? This is the question explored in Psychedelics: Stepping into the Unknown the thrilling final instalment in the third season of Australia Uncovered. Producers Darren Dale and Jacob Hickey, said: We know that millions of us will suffer from anxiety and other mental health illnesses at some point in our lives. The possibility that psychedelic assisted therapy could potentially offer hope is a fascinating prospect and one that we wanted to interrogate and explore. Gaining access to a world first trial has been extraordinary and its been a privilege to document its progress and the lives of those involved. As the head of Australias first clinical psychedelic laboratory, Dr Paul Liknaitzky is fast emerging as a leader in this ground-breaking area of research. In a world first, Dr Liknaitzky and his team at Monash University trial the use of psilocybin (the active ingredient found in magic mushrooms) in psychedelic assisted therapy to treat Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). For two years, Psychedelics: Stepping into the Unknown is granted exclusive access to what unfolds. We meet the participants before their treatment begins and witness their daily struggles living with anxiety. We follow them through treatment, including extraordinary psychedelic dosing sessions, and intense and intimate therapy. Their experiences are raw, courageous, and life changing. After two eventful years, the trial concludes, and the brave participants reflect on the impact it has had on their lives. For Dr Liknaitzky, the Monash team and the many Australians seeking relief from their mental health struggles, the future of psychedelic therapy is only just beginning. 8:40pm Thursday February 29 on SBS. Six television dramas and 23 feature films will share in over $810,000 of story development funding for Screen Australia. Among the funded projects is Willy (pictured), the latest animation series from Ludo Studio, the production company behind world-wide phenomenon Bluey. Screen Australia Head of Development Bobby Romia said, Were absolutely thrilled to be supporting such a diverse array of TV drama and feature film projects in this latest development slate. All of these projects are driven by teams deeply connected to the content theyre creating, opening up new avenues for creative expression whilst championing new voices to tell their unique stories. Screen Australia will be following each of their development journeys closely. Television projects: Premium: Willy 10 x 24 mins Ludo Holdings Pty Ltd Genre Comedy, Drama, Animation Creators Samuel Leighton-Dore, Bradley Tennant Writer/Director Samuel Leighton-Dore Producer Liam Heyen Development Producer Chloe Hume Executive Producers Daley Pearson, Charlie Aspinwall Synopsis Willy is a 10-part coming-of-age animated series. Its 2003 and 15-year-old Willy is on the cusp of a sexual awakening, which would be great if he wasnt stuck in the rural sugarcane farming town of Toee. Willys only salvation is his colourful imagination and the cast of fantastical friends who inhabit it, including razor-tongued rescue cat Beverley and a scornful op-shop portrait of the Virgin Mary. But soon the arrival of hot new neighbour Jack threatens to bust Willys carefully constructed inner-world wide open, changing the lives of Toee locals forever. Generate: Are We Good? 8 x 30 mins Makes You Think Pty Ltd Genre Comedy, Drama Writers Ben Manusama (aka Ben Abraham), Liam Maguire Producers Ben Manusama (aka Ben Abraham), Liam Maguire Executive Producer Debs Paterson Synopsis Inspired by real events, Are We Good? is a dramedy about a young Christian leader who, on the eve of being announced as a new pastor at his parents church, confesses to his fiancee that he cheated on her with a man off craigslist. What follows is the messy, heartening, darkly-funny story of a man trying to reconcile the person he is with the religion hes devoted his life to. The Golden Ass 6 x 40 mins Goalpost Television Genre Family Drama, Comedy Writer Lale Teoman Executive Producers Rosemary Blight, Kylie du Fresne Development Producer Polly Rowe Synopsis A mixed-Cypriot family descends into chaos when patriarch, Mazhar, has a spectacular meltdown in the Fruit and Vegetable section of the local supermarket. The resulting notoriety lures his adult children home but, instead of dealing with the mess, they are drawn into a desperate plan: to create a viral cooking show with Mazhar and his delinquent pet donkey as the stars. Can they reach 1 million followers or will death and dysfunction stand in their way? Half a Man 8 x 30 mins Christopher Squadrito Genre Comedy, Drama Writer/Producer Chris Squadrito Script Editor Blake Ayshford Synopsis After outing himself as bisexual, 30-year-old personal trainer Max Morello strives to keep his engagement afloat and his sense of masculinity intact only to find his newfound evolution shifting the very nature of his relationship, his family, and his group of all-too Australian mates. Die and Let Live 8 x 30 mins Chemical Media Pty Ltd Genre Black comedy, Drama Creators Beth Knights, Tony Jackson Writer Beth Knights Producers Tony Jackson, Lucy Maclaren Executive Producer David Collins Synopsis When newly pregnant Olivia fakes her own death to escape a dangerous marriage to a criminal in Ireland, she re-surfaces with a new identity as a single mum in the suburbs of Perth the most remote city on earth. Resourceful, ambitious, and not entirely averse to illicit activity, Olivia soon realises she can earn a decent living helping all sorts of desperate people fake their deaths too. While her black-market business is booming, Olivias hard-won new life is about to unravel with disastrous consequences. Going Troppo 8 x 30 mins Sanity Productions Genre Comedy Drama Writer Kate Wyvill Producer Kate Wyvill Script Consultant Katherine Thomson Story Consultant Kamahi DJordon King First Nations Consultant Nadine Lee Synopsis An on the run, greed is good tax avoidance accountant flees Sydney and jail for anonymity in the sweltering madness of 1980s Darwin, the home of her long-lost apparently wealthy father. Discovering that her father is actually a destitute tempestuous drag queen and unimpressed by her sudden arrival, is as good a liar as herself and as emotionally immature, she embarks on a turbulent mission to win his admiration and turn his bankrupt gay bar into a spectacular success. Amidst Darwins tropical insanity where rules and conduct are bent as far as the humid heat will allow, she does her best to keep her head above water, reinvent herself and find a common ground with her infuriating father. Or dare she say it, love. Lifestyle series Queer Eye has announced interior designer Jeremiah Brent as a replacement for Bobby Berk who recently departed after eight seasons. He joins current cast Antoni Porowski, Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown and Tan France. The founder of Jeremiah Brent Design and lifestyle brand Atrio, Brent has featured on US titles The Rachel Zoe Project and with husband, interior designer Nate Berkus, on Nate & Jeremiah By Design, Nate & Jeremiah: Save My House, The Nate & Jeremiah Home Project and Rock the Block. He previously hosted Home Made Simple and Netflixs Say I Do, a wedding spin on Queer Eye. Queer Eye, which currently holds the record for the most Emmy wins in the structured category, goes into production in Las Vegas in coming months. Source: Variety Aussie format The Summit has its first European deal with Swedens TV4 commissioning a local adaptation. The series created by Endemol Shine Australia and Nine has previously sold to CBS in the U.S. A second season coming to Nine later this year has already been filmed in New Zealand. A Swedish series will be produced by Banijay-owned production company, Jarowskij. Johannes Jensen, interim CEO at Jarowskij, said, The Summit is a great addition to our slate, with its gripping blend of adventure, high-stake competition, suspense and proven success in Australia. We are confident this adaptation will resonate strongly with audiences in Sweden, offering a thrilling and entertaining viewing experience. Peter Newman, CEO at Endemol Shine Australia, added, With a second season in the works, The Summit continues to travel seamlessly across borders and is a testament to the formats universality, adaptability and scalability. Its been our ambition to create original formats that travel globally, and we are proud to see this IP launch in the U.S., and now Sweden, with more to come. Source: WorldScreen A SKY News / Mercury Peoples Forum in March will see Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff will face off against Opposition Leader Rebecca White, hosted by Chief News Anchor Kieran Gilbert in Hobart. The SKY News / Mercury Peoples Forum comes at a pivotal moment in the Tasmanian campaign, just a few days out from election day. The beauty of this format is that a room full of undecided voters have direct access to their leaders and they get to raise whatever issues are on their minds, Gilbert said. The questions are not vetted, its unpredictable and all on live television it makes the Peoples Forum a crucial test for both leaders. Paul Whittaker, CEO of SKY News Australia said: The SKY News / Mercury Peoples Forum will provide a strong indication of whether the last Liberal government standing will remain in power in this battleground state, or will Australia soon see Labor governments right across the nation. This Peoples Forum will test the fortitude of both leaders as they compete under pressure to win the hearts and minds of undecided voters. As the final leaders debate before Tasmanians head to the polls, the Peoples Forum will provide undecided voters, as selected by Q&A Market Research, with the opportunity to put questions directly to the two leaders on their vision for the state. With the fate of Tasmanias new AFL team and entry into the competition from 2028 under threat, will voters opt to continue with the Liberals controversial stadium plan, or could the 19th AFL team licence be lost amidst this political turmoil? 4:00pm AEDT Wednesday 20 March on SKY News. Live streamed at SkyNews.com.au and themercury.com.au. Nikhat Fatima /TwoCircles.net Ayesha, 31, a native of Uttar Pradeshs Meerut town was born with a passion for drawing and painting and displayed it from the time she was in school. However, she initially did not regard her God-given gift as exceptional and concentrated on her education. One day, while browsing the internet, she came across a video on resin art and was instantly fascinated by it. She began to watch additional videos from experts from the United States and the United Kingdom. As she was thinking of trying this craft, her younger sister Alisha Qureshi sent her a video clip of a Rehal, an X-shaped, foldable book rest for the Quran made of resin that she wished to purchase. How it began Ayesha decided to create the rehal and give it to her sister, asking her to put her order on hold. She ordered the supplies and tried to make the rehal. Resin art is not only expensive but also requires a lot of meticulous work like keeping a constant vigil on the finished work to keep it dust and insect-free while it is drying, ensuring no bubbles are formed, no wrinkles are formed. It takes a lot of patience, remarked Ayesha, recounting her journey from homemaker to highly sought-after resin and calligraphy artist/businesswoman. Ayesha completed the Rehal by following the step-by-step instructions and surprised her sister. Encouraged by her family, Ayesha attempted to make additional items. Calligraphy was easy for her because of her natural talent for imitating any art form, and she was a self-taught calligraphy artist. With her new pastime, she began creating resin frames with calligraphy of Quranic ayats, bookmarks, key chains, 99 names of Allah, trays, and other souvenirs. Ayesha considers a wall clock and a key chain to be her best works since she put sand from Badar (the site of the first Islamic battle) in the wall clock for a customer in Bangalore and traces of Kiswah (the cloth covering the Kaaba) in the key chain. As she continued to create new goods, her expenses increased, and after investing thousands of rupees, she needed to find a way to market her merchandise. Initial hurdles Fortunately for Ayesha, her connections in the Dawah group (an evangelical group) were invaluable. And, using the Dawah platform, she shared photographs of her final craft with almost 3600 people from all around the world. People appreciated her art, and she began to receive inquiries, followed by orders. Ayesha began purchasing resin in bulk. But it wasnt simple because she was inexperienced, and one manufacturer gave her substandard resin. Ayesha couldnt notice the difference and set about crafting her work, only to discover that it wouldnt set and she couldnt form it into the desired shape. Those days when all of my work turned out to be defective, I was upset and wanted to give up. But my husband gave me strength. He not only encouraged me but also invested again in ordering the raw ingredients resin, pigmentation, mould, and so on, Ayesha explained. Success at last 90% of her clients are from the Dawah group, and Ayesha feels privileged that the platform she joined to undertake deen (religious) work has now become her source of income. And it is because of their patronage that she can now call herself a businesswoman. Ayesha has a website and an Instagram page where she markets her products. Her home is her workshop. She leads online classes for girls and women, encouraging them to start their own businesses. She also takes free calligraphy classes twice a week via her WhatsApp group. And girls from all over the world have taken her calligraphy course, where she teaches them how to write the names of Allah. Ayeshas support system Ayesha attributed her success to her husband, who became her pillar of strength. Her husband, Mohammad Rashid Qureshi, says, Ayesha is incredibly skilled and strikes the perfect balance between her home and her artwork. I am fortunate to have her in my life. I hope she has more success. She also appreciates the ongoing support of Samiuddin Salman, a brother she met in the dawah group who works as an engineer in Saudi Arabia. He not only purchased her most elaborate and expensive work, which cost $1,000, but also advised her on how to promote her items and make other business decisions. Her parents and siblings also encourage her, give feedback, and inspire her to persevere even when things are difficult. Future plans Ayesha hopes to set up a big outlet for resin hand-made artwork so that she may employ more women, particularly her students, and help them make money through this company. She is currently managing everything on her own, including art creation, product manufacturing, client inquiries, packaging, pricing, and so on. Her advice to those women who aspire to set up businesses is to have strong faith in Allah. Every woman must engage herself in doing something that makes her happy, boosts her creativity, and keeps her busy. This is also something that will ward off loneliness and depression, she says. Ayesha also provides online therapy sessions to women who struggle with mental health concerns. Connect with Ayesha One can buy her work ShawqCalligraphy on the etsy store online: https://shawqcalligraphy.etsy.com. She can also be contacted on her Instagram and Facebook handles @shawqcalligraphy. (Bloomberg) -- A Chinese chipmaker was cleared of economic espionage and other criminal charges in a setback for a US Justice Department crackdown on intellectual property theft by China. Most Read from Bloomberg More than five years after the Commerce Department blacklisted Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. as a threat to national security, US District Judge Maxine M. Chesney in San Francisco found the company not guilty following a non-jury trial. Her ruling on Tuesday may temper the Biden administrations pursuit of aggressive prosecutions to protect American technology. ADVERTISEMENT Chesney concluded that US prosecutors failed to prove that the Chinese state-sponsored company misappropriated proprietary data from Micron Technology Inc., Americans largest memory-chip maker, that allegedly passed through Taiwans United Microelectronics Corp. in a manufacturing deal with Fujian Jinhua. UMC assisted the Justice Department in its case against Fujian Jinhua after pleading guilty in 2020 to trade-secret theft and paying a $60 million fine. Had the company been convicted, Fujian Jinhua could have faced a fine, as well as an order requiring it to forfeit chips and income derived from the allegedly stolen technology, according to a Justice Department statement when the case was first filed. Micron said in a statement that it and Fujian Jinhua previously reached a settlement in which they agreed to drop all claims against each other. That includes a civil suit filed by the US company the year before the Justice Department brought criminal charges against the Chinese firm. Representatives of Fujian Jinhua didnt immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did the US Attorneys office in San Francisco and the Chinese embassy in Washington. Story continues Significant Verdict The verdict is significant because while the US has pursued and won numerous convictions of individuals for unlawfully transferring intellectual property to China, the Justice Department has rarely prosecuted Chinese companies in US courts. The case against Fujian Jinhua was filed in 2018 amid then-President Donald Trumps trade war with China and touted as a marquee effort to crack down on Chinese spying at US companies and research universities. In 2022, the Justice Department under President Joe Biden ended Trumps China Initiative after it came under intense criticism for fanning discrimination against Asian-Americans even while pressing forward with the Fujian Jinhua prosecution. While Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have generally sought to stabilize relations that had deteriorated over espionage concerns and other issues including at a November face-to-face summit during an Asia-Pacific conference in San Francisco the worlds biggest economies continue to vie for tech supremacy. Micron, meanwhile, appears to have attempted to pacify Beijing, including promising to invest another 4.3 billion yuan in its Chinese chip-packaging plant and sending Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Mehrotra to visit China. The December settlement between the Idaho company and Fujian Jinhua came after the Chinese government in May barred Microns chips from critical infrastructure over cybersecurity concerns. Meanwhile, the US has worked with allies to prevent Beijing from obtaining the most advanced semiconductors and the latest chipmaking technologies. DRAM Chips The chips that were at issue in the Fujian Jinhua trial are dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, not the semiconductors that held up shipments of a wide range of products including cars and smartphones during a global supply shortage. In 2018, Fujian Jinhuas $6 billion plant was within months of full-scale DRAM production a critical step toward ending Chinas reliance at the time on $380 billion of annual chip imports. Thats when the Commerce Department put Fujian Jinhua on its so-called Entity List for engaging in activities contrary to US interests and filed the criminal case in San Francisco. The move by the Commerce Department blocked the companys purchases of chipmaking gear, and stirred an exodus of American and European suppliers and engineers from Jinjiang, where Fujian Jinhua is based on the southeastern coast of China. Prosecutors claimed that Fujian Jinhuas then-president orchestrated an illegal transfer of Microns memory design in a deal between his company and UMC. He was accused of conspiring with two other Taiwanese engineers who previously worked for Micron before moving to UMC. While all three were charged as defendants in the case and the US issued warrants for their arrest in 2020, they never appeared for proceedings in the San Francisco court. The US doesnt have extradition treaties with Taiwan or China. During the years the case was pending, Fujian Jinhua complained that the US prosecution was hobbling Chinas aspirations of mass producing memory chips. The company argued its very existence was threatened by the 2018 blacklisting, blocking its ability to buy US chipmaking gear and cratering its production plans. In August, the leading association of global chip companies warned that Huawei Technologies Co. which landed on the Commerce Department Entity List in 2019 was building a collection of secret semiconductor-fabrication facilities across China and said that Fujian Jinhua was part of Huaweis network. (Updates with Micron comment.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday urged the world to "act rapidly" on Haiti, at a Caribbean summit where political agreements were announced on a possible way forward for the crisis-torn nation. Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, has been in turmoil for years with armed gangs taking over parts of the country and unleashing brutal violence that has left its economy and public health system in tatters. In recent weeks, the country has also been engulfed in widespread unrest as thousands of people took to the streets to demand Prime Minister Ariel Henry step down in line with a political agreement forged in December 2022. "In Haiti we need to act quickly to alleviate the suffering of a population torn apart by tragedy," Lula said in an address to a summit of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Georgetown, Guyana. On Tuesday, the UN launched an appeal for $674 million for humanitarian projects in Haiti, where 45 percent of the population is now food insecure. In January alone, more than 1,100 people were killed, injured or kidnapped, according to the UN. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, told reporters "we have made a lot of progress" in talks at the CARICOM summit, and Henry had "committed to serve as an honest broker and to share power." Under a deal concluded in December 2022, more than a year after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, Haiti was supposed to hold elections and Henry cede power to newly elected officials by February 7, 2024. Haiti, a nation of about 12 million people, has not gone to the polls since 2016. Read more on FRANCE 24 English Read also: PM Henry 'is inciting a civil war in Haiti', former premier Joseph claims Kenya's Ruto says he'll ignore court ruling, send police to tackle Haiti gangs Gangs in Haiti attack Port au Prince neighbourhood, torching homes Chris was a risk taker, he hated boundaries, says Chris Farmers sister, Penny, introducing audiences to her brother in Prime Videos new gripping three-part docuseries Dead in the Water. Chris, a newly qualified doctor from Chortlon, was 25 when he set off to Central America with his girlfriend Peta Frampton. The trip was undoubtedly a risk: it was 1978 and civil war was raging in Guatemala as leftist rebel groups fought the government. But Chris and Peta took it all in their stride, and as they travelled around the region their many letters home described scenes of extraordinary landscapes and idyll oceans. But then, all of a sudden, the couple went quiet. Stuck in torturous limbo for months, their families heard no news from or about the pair. Chris father, a BBC journalist, desperately made enquiries, buying adverts in the Belize Times and hiring a private detective in a bid to trace them. All they had to go on was a detail from Petas last letter: Chris and Peta planned to travel from Belize to Honduras on a 32ft wooden sailing boat called the Justin B, alongside American sailor Silas Duane Boston and his two children, Vince, 13 and Russell, 12. But, terrifyingly, while records showed that Chris and Peta had been listed as crew members when the boat left the port, there was no documentation of them when it docked on the other side. The distraught family contacted the British police who did their best to assist from the UK in a pre-internet world. The British vice-consul in Guatemala was contacted, and investigators tried to track down Boston, who was now said to be somewhere in California. They were successful, and when an official from the British Consulate in San Francisco managed to catch Boston on the phone, he said he dropped Chris and Peta off in Guatemala. But there was something uneasy in his tone, and so an official went to meet Boston in person. Chris and Petas bodies were found ten months after they disappeared (Prime Video) According to the officials reports, Boston sat straight up in the chair, his eyes widened and his breathing became heavy when he was questioned about the British couple. Following this, he slumped back in the chair, placing his face into his right hand, and in a softly spoken voice he said that he thought Chris and Peta would be back home by now. But with no evidence linking Boston to the missing pair, the police had to ease off. Boston and his sons subsequently disappeared into thin air. Story continues Then, in January 1979, the British families greatest fears were realised when the detective discovered that the bodies of two Europeans had washed up on the Guatemalan coast six months earlier; the bodies were exhumed, dental records were sent to the UK, and it was confirmed that Chris and Peta had both died. But things quickly went from terrible to utterly horrendous: this was not a freak drowning, but a double murder. The bloated bodies were naked, beaten and had been weighed down with heavy engine parts. Plastic bags had been placed over their heads. Now, this shocking story, and the following rocky four-decade-long investigation, is being depicted in an Amazon true crime series, based on Pennys best-selling book, Dead in the Water. With interviews with Chris author sister, and, incredibly, one of Bostons sons, the series reveals a story of despair, determination and luck as Penny turned detective to try and find her brothers killer. Missing for ten months, I still recall the paralysing shock that ricocheted through my family the day the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office confirmed that two bodies were our missing two, said Penny, outlining her story. We had to wait for 38 interminably long years before all the planets bizarrely aligned one week of October 2015, for the horrific revelations of what happened on that boat to emerge, and the ultimate solving of this most heinous crime. Records showed that Chris and Peta had been listed as crew members on Silas Duane Bostons boat (Prime Video) Once the trail went cold, Peta and Chris families had to come to terms with the fact that they might never find out who killed their loved ones. Years turned into decades, and, although the pain never eased, you think about it less explained Penny. But then, along came Facebook. In 2015, in a moment of inspiration, Penny used the platform to search for Bostons sons and it didnt take long before she stumbled across their profiles. By now, Vince was a 50-year-old electrician living in Arizona, while Russell was a 49-year-old illustrator living in California. She sent both of the sons a private message and waited with baited breath. She then contacted the Manchester police, and, happily, they agreed to reopen the cold case. Then, in an unbelievable turn of good luck, Detective Amy Crosby of Sacramento Police had also just started looking into Boston on the other side of the Atlantic, investigating the 1968 disappearance of his wife, Vince and Russells mother. So when Manchester police reached out to Interpol they were instantly connected to Crosby; just 11 days after Penny had reached out over Facebook, Vince was being interviewed by the police. His testimony was devastating but finally gave Peta and Chris families the peace they had always been looking for: Bostons son explained that he had watched his father beat and murder Peta and Chris. Vince had tried to tell authorities about his fathers crime as soon as he joined the US navy aged 16 in 1982, but for whatever reason, there was no London case file on the missing pair. It was like watching a horror movie unfold. We couldn't have talked him out of it at that point, said Vince to BBC 5 Live, for a podcast on the case. There was nothing to say. What could we have said? Dead in the Water will premiere on Prime Video today, February 28 Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger announced their immediate withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) on January 27. Ecowas, which was formed in 1975, is a regional political and economic union of 15 mainly former British and French colonies located in west Africa. The withdrawals come as no surprise. Throughout west Africa, there is growing frustration with Ecowas over its struggle to ensure security in the region. Coups have become commonplace and west Africa has seen a dramatic increase in terrorist activity over recent years. Two west African states, Mali and Burkina Faso, are now among the the worlds five countries most affected by terrorism. The blocs perceived support for leaders aligned with former colonial powers is also seen as contributing to the persistent poverty experienced by their populations. The leaders of several Ecowas member states have been accused of being puppets under the influence of France, which critics say never really let go of its former colonies. In Niger, allegations that the countrys president, Mohamed Bazoum, was a puppet for French interests were used to legitimise his removal from power in a military coup in July 2023. French colonial rule (18951958) established political systems designed to extract natural resources from African states. The response to the coup marked a significant political shift in the region. Ecowas imposed economic sanctions on Niger and issued a seven-day ultimatum, vowing to use force to dislodge the military junta (a government led by a council of military officers) should it not restore Bazoum to power. But the junta refused to back down and Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea pledged to counter any action by Ecowas troops in Niger. The agreement of these leaders and their readiness to take military action against Ecowas revealed the extent of their animosity towards the organisation and its leaders. These three countries, which are also governed by military rulers who have ousted democratically elected leaders in recent years, have all been hit with punitive sanctions since 2021. Story continues On September 16 2023, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger signed a new mutual defence pact named the Alliance of Sahel States. Ecowas is encouraging these countries to return to the bloc by lifting its sanctions. But new partners like Russia, which is looking to increase its influence across the continent, are at the same time supporting their efforts to form a united front. African governments have increasingly welcomed economic, diplomatic and security ties with Russia, facilitated in part by the state-backed Wagner Group (now called the Expeditionary Corps). The group is known for deploying paramilitary forces, running disinformation campaigns and propping up influential political leaders. The company of the old guards Ecowas has a patchy track record when it comes to ensuring cooperation and security across west Africa. In 1990, the military arm of Ecowas was deployed in a peacekeeping role in Liberia. Despite some initial success, Ecowas was unable to prevent an escalation of hostilities that lasted for the best part of a decade. Similarly, despite efforts by Ecowas to restore peace in Sierra Leone after a coup in 1997, a brutal civil war broke out, requiring the intervention of UN peacekeepers. Read more: Niger coup: west African union has pledged to intervene but some members support the plotters Ecowas has been instrumental in safeguarding democracy within the region as well. In 2016, Gambias incumbent leader, Yahya Jammeh, refused to leave office after losing a presidential vote to Adama Barrow. But, with Ecowas troops poised to march on the capital, Banjul, Jammeh relinquished power. A map showing the 15 member states of Ecowas. However, Ecowas has been inconsistent in its condemnation of military and civilian coups. And it has also been criticised for overlooking unlawful term extensions, a common practice among many entrenched leaders in the region. In 2015, Ecowas leaders dropped a proposal to limit west African presidents to a maximum of two terms in office. As a result, there is no established protocol for penalising leaders from member states who seek to remain in power indefinitely. This paved the way for the presidents of both Ivory Coast and Guinea (Alassane Ouattara and Alpha Conde respectively) to secure controversial third terms in 2020. The failure of Ecowas to intervene resulted in Conde being ousted from power by a military coup one year later. According to Oge Onubogu, the director of the Africa Program, a Washington-based think tank: Ecowas is fast losing its effectiveness and support among citizens, who see it as representing only the interests of the leaders and not that of the masses. The challenger group The loss of any member from Ecowas will affect trade, economic development and the movement of citizens within the bloc. But the decision by Ecowas to lift post-coup sanctions signals its readiness to negotiate and cultivate relationships with these countries, regardless of whether they rejoin the organisation. Ecowas says that the decision to lift sanctions was based on considering their impact on citizens and the need to maintain regional unity and security. Ecowas also noted the period of Lent and the approaching month of Ramadan as factors influencing their decisions. Millions of young Africans are being drawn to the Alliance of Sahel States, signalling discontent with the ineffectiveness of Ecowas and disillusionment with the west. Russia has capitalised on this trend. The Wagner Group is reportedly offering military support to willing African leaders in the form of regime survival packages. A competitor to Ecowas appears to have emerged in west Africa, and this alliance is not backing down. Only time will tell whether the new alliance will favour the citizens of west Africa. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The Conversation The authors 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. The Prince of Wales pulled out of a memorial service for his godfather on Tuesday, (Getty) The Prince of Wales pulled out of attending a memorial service for the late King Constantine of Greece on Tuesday, raising questions about his reasons for doing so. William was due to deliver a reading at the service in St Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle, but called the Greek royal family to let them know he was unable to attend. Williams absence has sparked concerns for his wife, after she was admitted for surgery last month. The cancellation also follows the news that his father, King Charles, is being treated for cancer. Yahoo News breaks down what we know and dont know about Williams decision to miss Tuesdays service. Prince William missed the service over a personal matter. (Alamy) What we know Confirmed details are very scarce all we really now for sure is that William did not attend the memorial service. Kensington Palace said this was because of a personal matter but would not elaborate further. However, the palace said Williams wife Kate, who is recovering from abdominal surgery, is continuing to do well. The Princess of Wales was admitted to a private hospital last month for her surgery but details about that have also been scarce. As well as the nature of her condition, there has been a lack of regular updates on her recovery. The Princess of Wales is recovering following abdominal surgery in January. (Getty) However, we do know that Kate is away from official royal engagements until after Easter and that William is taking on royal duties alone while she rests at home. His absence from the service was very last minute and we know he was expected to attend due to his name being on the order of service. Williams absence was also particularly relevant due to Williams closeness to the Greek royal family. Constantine II of Greece was Williams godfather, second cousin to the King, and a first cousin once removed and sailing partner of the late Duke of Edinburgh. Constantine died at the age of 82 in Athens in January last year, decades after being toppled from the throne in a military coup. The British Royal Family was led by Queen Camilla at the St George's Chapel service, which was also attended by the Duke of York and his ex-wife Sarah; their daughter Princess Beatrice with husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi; the Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Zara and Mike Tindall and the Kings cousin Lady Sarah Chatto. Story continues Prince and Princess Michael of Kent also attended, with Constantine the godfather to their daughter Lady Gabriella Kingston. She did not attend and it later emerged Lady Gabriellas husband Thomas Kingston died suddenly on Sunday. Dozens of foreign royals including Constantine's widow Queen Anne-Marie, their children and some of their grandchildren travelled to Windsor to attend the service but King Charles did not meet them privately. Constantines eldest son Crown Prince Pavlos stepped in to give the reading in Williams place. What we don't know Due to the lack of details from the palace, it is left to guesswork and speculation from royal experts to understand the possible reasons why William missed the service. Details remain unconfirmed and the previous statements and scant details released by the palace suggests we may not find out the reasons behind the absence. Sarah Hewson, the royal editor for talkTV, believes the Royal Family felt they had no choice but to release a statement, despite not wanting the news to be made public. She said: "They don't like to let people down at the last minute, and they certainly wouldn't have wanted that public announcement that he'd had to pull out, either because of the questions it stands to raise." The Queen attended the Thanksgiving Service for King Constantine at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle on Tuesday. (PA) Grant Harrold, the former butler to the King, said William pulling out was extremely concerning as the royal household believes that duty comes before everything and anything within reason. He said that he felt that it was unusual and something is not right. Harrold told GB News that he believes the absence was possibly something to do with the Princess of Wales, because of her surgery and the fact that there has not been many details since that news broke. He added: Of course if could be as simple as one of the children has come down with a cold or flu or something. But what I think is its possibly something to do with the princess and I just hope its not anything too serious. Royal experts can only speculate on the reasons behind Prince William missing the service on Tuesday, (Alamy) Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams also described the cancellation as very strange and unexpected. He told MailOnline: Constantine was his godfather and very close to all the royals, particularly King Charles, and he would have wanted William there as he didn't attend. William only lives a stone's throw away, so it's very concerning. Sky News royal correspondent Rhiannon Mills said Williams team are doing everything they can to try and stop speculation about what the personal reason is for his decision to pull out. However she said that reporters have been reassured there is no need for alarm. Read more Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due to meet with leaders from southeast Europe in Albania on Wednesday, seeking to keep support and weapons flowing to Kyiv as Russia makes gains on the battlefield two years after invading its neighbour. Zelensky has been crisscrossing the globe in recent weeks to rally support for his beleaguered country, as Ukraine's armed forces face a critical shortage of ammunition and struggle to hold back Russia's military advances on the ground. He arrived in Albania late Tuesday and on Wednesday was due to meet in Tirana with several leaders from across the region during the "Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit" -- his first visit to the Balkan nation since Russia's invasion in February 2022. Zelensky's visit is "a pivotal moment for fostering bilateral ties, and standing in solidarity with Ukraine in its heroic fight against Russia's aggression", Albania's Foreign Minister Igli Hasani said in a social media post. Albania, a NATO member since 2009, has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine but has stayed largely quiet in public about supplying Kyiv with arms. During a visit to Albania earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised Tirana's backing of Ukraine. (AFP) Read more on FRANCE 24 English Read also: 'Not at war with Russia': European, US allies taken aback by Macron's comments on troops in Ukraine PM Attal says France will do 'whatever it takes' to thwart Russia in Ukraine French troops limited to non-combat role, minister says, after Macron remarks on Ukraine Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Views & Analysis The Tranquil Farmers Peace Camp From February 13, 2024 farmers are yet again demonstrating in disagreement with the famously known Farm Bills passed by the Government of India back in September 2020. Read More Wednesday February 28, 2024 10:04 PM , Raqif Makhdoomi From February 13, 2024 farmers are yet again demonstrating in disagreement with the famously known Farm Bills passed by the Government of India back in September 2020. The bills are, back then and even today, characterized as Anti-Farmer. But as a rule, the ego of the government isnt willing to accept the fact that leaving the farmers on the mercy of corporates will mean disaster. The Union government has strongly advocated that these bills will help farmers to sell their products to big buyers. We all have good knowledge about who these Big Buyers are going to be and how, with time, they well control their farms and will reintroduce the Jagirdaary system. The Union Government without blinking the eye calls the farmers protests based on Misinformation. Everything against the government is a propaganda. If the protesters are Sikhs they are Khalistanis, if they are Muslims they are Jihadis and these labels are for everyone, excluding the BJP supporters protesting in the non-BJP ruled states. How unfortunate, that the farmers demanding their rights are being pronounced as Khalistanis. The labelling is helping this government to easily get away with the demonstrations that take place every now and then against its policies and anti-minority, anti-farmer and anti-people agenda. The biggest weapon that legitimate these labels is the sell-out media which dances to the tones of the government and justify everything it does and finds fault with everything against the present dispensation. The violence in Uttarakhand is being painted white by the same media, Mira Road violence has been justified by the same media, the Bulldozer terror is being and was justified by the same media and now they are doing the same and giving the farmers protest a bad name. Give dog a bad name and kill it is being worked on like anything. The media famously known as Godi Media leaves no stone unturned to help the government to make everything look well and paint every protest against it a propaganda funded by foreign powers. Who are those powers are yet to found. In a pathetic and limit crossing move, a journalist, who I wouldnt name, justified thousands of aspirants appearing in an exam for merely a single post. Thousands of aspirants are appearing for a single seat reminds us the widespread unemployment in the country, and the journalist justifies it to please those in power. These things make you feel sorry for them. The Media will show Modi walking on an empty road but will not show a policeman shooting at peaceful farmers. They will never see any atrocities happening to the farmers but will beat their chest if even police pushes a BJP supporter protesting in a non-BJP state. In the anti-farm bills protest two-years ago , over 700 farmers were killed protesting at Singhu and Tikri borders. A journalist too lost his life whereas one person was lynched. But there was no major outrage over it. Still the farmers were blamed and Modi praised for being the best Prime Minister of India ever. Unfortunately, these media Houses are behaving as if Narendra Modi is the First PM of Independent India. Now as the farmers are yet again protesting and are demanding Minimum Support Price (MSP), the government is back to its manoeuvre of 2020-21. This time it has stopped them from entering Delhi. To defend why the government has stopped them from entering the national capital, it is using violence as shield. Uttarakhand is peaceful, Manipuri is peaceful, Mira Road is peaceful and dancing outside Masjids after Ram Mandir inauguration is peaceful. But farmers demanding: 10,000 per month for every farmer above 60 years. Fixed daily wages for farmers under MGNREGA, Rs 700 a day with 200 days of guaranteed employment a year. Government to ensure at least 50% profit over their overall cost of production. Legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) for all the crops. Implement the recommendations of the MS Swaminathan committee on agriculture. Justice for Lakhimpur Kheri violence. Government to honour a promise to double their incomes, complaining that costs of cultivation have jumped over the past few years while incomes have stagnated, making farming a loss-making enterprise .Withdrawal of cases registered during the last agitation in 2020-21, is act of violence? Farmers are using the pre-eminent and tranquil way to demand their legitimate rights but the government is having problem with their demands and is using every sort of force against them from tear gas to pellets to bullets everything is being used against them. They wanted to Indianize Kashmir have they succeeded in doing so or not is a different topic but surely by using all the force against protesters they have Kashmirnized India and that too successfully. During the ongoing farmers protest a young Sikh protester was shot dead and 160 others are injured. The government must think who are they dealing with. These are own own people. India is not the only place where the framers protest is going on. Germany, French and Europe are the countries where framers are protesting. These countries are showing their values of being democratic and are allowing protests as a democracy should. But the only country that has problem with the farmers is India. [The writer, Raqif Makhdoomi, is a law student and a Rights Activist. Views expressed are personal] Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Welcome Guest! You are here: Home Algeria Worlds 3rd largest mosque Djamaa El-Djazair inaugurated in Algeria The official opening of Djamaa El-Djazair in Algiers allows it to host many public prayers and events during the month of Ramadan, likely to start on March 11, 2024. Read More Wednesday February 28, 2024 10:22 AM , ummid.com with inputs from Agencies Algiers: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune Sunday February 25, 2024 inaugurated and opened to worshippers the worlds 3rd largest mosque in the country's capital Algiers. The Grand Mosque of Algiers on the North African nations Mediterranean coastline locally known as Djamaa El-Djazair was inaugurated ahead of Ramadan - the Holy Month of fasting after years of delays. Scholars and clerics from various countries of the world were in attendance when Abdelmadjid Tebboune inaugurated the mosque and thrown it open for the believers. Djamaa El-Djazair, Algiers pic.twitter.com/NrZWFm2uwd (@Bonoise23Dz) January 27, 2023 The mosque's inaugural event Sunday was largely ceremonial, as it has been open to tourists and state visitors to Algeria for about five years. In fact, prayers were also offered in the mosque since October 2020 when it was opened though unofficially'. The mosques official opening allows it to host many public prayers and events during the month of Ramadan, likely to start on March 11, 2024 . Worlds Tallest Minaret Built by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), the Great Mosque of Algiers, the mosque features the worlds tallest minaret, standing at 265 meters (869 feet), and can accommodate around 120,000 people. Constructed throughout the 2010s at the cost of more than $800m, the mosques modernist design, which incorporates Arab and North African embellishments, covers 27.75 hectares (nearly 70 acres). It houses the Museum of Islamic Civilization, the Cultural Center, and a lecture hall. According to local media reports, the mosque also has a helicopter landing pad and a library capable of housing up to one million books, according to Al Jazeera. There is also the Higher School for Islamic Sciences, which includes study rooms and laboratories. The largest mosque in the world is the Grand Mosque, Masjid al Haram, in Makkah which hosts the Holy Kaaba. The Makkah Grand Mosque has seen a number of expansions in its history, and after the ongoing expansion work to be completed by 2030 the capacity of the mosque is likely to be increased to 30 million pilgrims. Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic. Cao Bang authorities identify Tra Linh as an international border gate (currently a national border gate), an important driving force to create a corridor for connection and trade exchange between ASEAN-Vietnam-China. Cao Bang province will maximize unique advantages of its geo-economic-political location as an international gateway to the Chinese market to mobilize investment for important projects, creating breakthroughs and widespread impacts to economic and social development. According to Decision No. 1486/QD-TTg dated November 24, 2023 on Cao Bangs development planning for the period 2021 - 2030, with a vision to 2050, the province has a total natural area of 6,700.3 km2, with 1 city and 9 districts. The planning perspective is rapid and sustainable development towards green economy, circular economy, and digital economy, in accordance with Vietnams socio-economic development strategy and national planning; maximize unique advantages of its geo-economic-political location as an international gateway to the Chinese market to mobilize investment for important projects, creating breakthroughs and widespread impacts to economic and social development. Cao Bang authorities identify Tra Linh as an international border gate (currently a national border gate), an important driving force to create a corridor for connection and trade exchange between ASEAN-Vietnam-China through the Tra Linh Border Gate Economic Zone (Cao Bang) Longbang (China); Organizing space for socio-economic development, use of natural resources and environmental protection in Cao Bang province must respect natural laws, be environmentally friendly, and be consistent with actual conditions and proactively adapt to climate change. The province will create an open and competitive investment and business environment; economic development will be closely combined with strengthening national defense, ensuring security and associated with stable and peaceful management and border protection; Gradually forming the Vietnam - China logistics and goods transshipment center, an economic, cultural and foreign trade center between Vietnam and the Western and Southwest provinces of China and ASEAN countries; the fields of health, education, culture and society will be comprehensively developed; The cultural identities of ethnic groups will be preserved and promoted; The material and spiritual life of the people will be improved; Social order and safety will be guaranteed; foreign relations will be expanded; national defense and security, national border sovereignty will be firmly ensured. By 2030, Cao Bang strives to become a province with a fast-growing, dynamic, green, sustainable and comprehensive economy, reaching the average level of development of the Northern midlands and mountainous region; The infrastructure system will be improved, especially intra-provincial and inter-provincial transportation links; The mineral processing and exploitation industry will have new developments; Developing new energy sources and renewable energy; forming a number of agricultural areas applying high technology; Border gate economy and tourism will develop rapidly and sustainably; protecting the ecological environment, water source security and proactively responding to natural disasters and adapting to climate change. Specific economic goals and targets: GRDP in the period 2021 - 2030 will reach 9.72%/year. Average GRDP/person to be about 102 million VND/person (current price); Budget revenue to increase over 12%/year; The rate of multidimensional poor households in the period 2021 - 2025 will decrease by over 4.0%/year; making breakthrough in mechanisms and policies to improve the investment and business environment; creating a breakthrough in developing transportation infrastructure systems connecting with major economic centers of the region, the whole country and border gate economic zone infrastructure, tourism infrastructure...; improving the quality of human resources. Key tasks include: Focusing on attracting and clearing investment resources to complete, develop socio-economic infrastructure, ensure synchronization, modernity, and quickly dealing with bottlenecks in infrastructure; Prioritizing the development of transportation infrastructure, information technology infrastructure, and digital infrastructure to meet the requirements of building a digital government, developing a digital economy, and a digital society. In addition, the province will focus on developing services and tourism into a key economic sector associated with the development of its border gate economic zone, tourist areas and the UNESCO Non Nuoc Cao Bang Global Geopark; making rapid and breakthrough development in agricultural production with plants and animals that have potential and strengths. Improving PCI, PAPI and PAR indexes Cao Bangs Party Secretary Tran Hong Minh affirmed that the development of Cao Bangs development planning aims to concretize the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress, the 10-year socio-economic development strategy, and the Resolution of the XIX Provincial Party Congress. This will be the basis for the province to lead, direct and manage Cao Bangs socio-economic development, national defense, security, integration and foreign affairs in a comprehensive and consistent manner; the basis for planning policies, building investment plans and creating motivation for the development of production, business, and social security. Mr. Tran Hong Minh requested relevant agencies to well implement 6 groups of crucial issues, including: Issues related to the Power Planning VIII; mining plans; development plans for industries and functional areas; forestry planning; list of expected priority projects and identification of defense and security areas; Urgently reviewing and adjusting specialized planning on land, construction...; proactively researching, amending and proposing to promulgate new socio-economic development mechanisms and policies for each period, creating new driving force for the province's development; Mobilizing all resources, economically and effectively use state budget capital for development investment, focusing on breakthrough fields; well implementing administrative reform, improving the investment environment, and supporting business and production; improving the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), PAPI index and PAR INDEX. Hoa An In addition, VinaLiving also won the highest level of achievement in the Asia Pacific region in the category Best Residential Development Asia Pacific for The Ocean Villas Quy Nhon and Best New Hotel Construction & Design Asia Pacific for Maia Resort Quy Nhon within the framework of this award. The International Property Awards is organized in different geographic areas. At the Asia Pacific Property Awards held in Bangkok, Thailand in May 2023, VinaLiving won the 5-Star Award for the above-mentioned two categories at the country level (Vietnam) and was nominated for the regional level (Asia Pacific). The highest scoring winners from the Asia Pacific Property Awards will compete against other winners from Europe, Africa, the Americas... to identify and recognize the best properties in each category. The International Property Awards, operating for nearly 30 years, is widely recognized as one of the most prestigious annual property award shows in the world. Honoured winners from the International Property Awards have long been renowned with international professionals and the public. In 2023, the International Property Awards received over 1,000 nominations from 113 countries and territories in nearly 70 categories of different fields, including Development, Architecture, Interior Design, and Real Estate. Competing against several high-profile projects, Maia Resort Quy Nhon achieved top awards in the category Best New Hotel Construction & Design at both the Asia Pacific and international levels, while The Ocean Villas Quy Nhon also won Best Residential Development Asia Pacific at an awards ceremony at Savoy Hotel Strand in London, The United Kingdom In order to achieve this well-known regional title, VinaLivings projects underwent a sophisticated and meticulous evaluation and assessment process carried out by a judging panel of 100 high-ranking professionals from the global real estate industry. The projects had to meet strict criteria, including location, unique interior design/ architectural design and zoning, sustainability and environmental protection and provision of services. Mr. Do Chi Hieu, VinaLiving Chairman and CEO, said: "We are proud that the effort we have invested in these projects has been recognized and honoured. Winning these coveted awards is clear evidence that VinaLiving can outperform some of the strongest players in the highly competitive Asia Pacific and international property arena. These awards also further affirm our position in the high-end real estate market that we have worked hard to achieve over the past decade. To date, The Ocean Villas Quy Nhon and Maia Resort Quy Nhon have garnered a number of prestigious national and international awards. Among those are the "EDGE Champion" from IFC; "Best Residential Development Vietnam" and Architecture Multiple Residence Vietnam from Asia Pacific Property Awards for The Ocean Villas Quy Nhon; Best New Hotel Construction & Design Vietnam and Hotel Interior Vietnam from Asia Pacific Property Awards, Booking.coms Traveller Review Award with an outstanding score of 9/10; and Number 1 in the Resort category in TripAdvisors list of all 725 hospitality properties in Binh Dinh province for Maia Resort Quy Nhon. Currently, VinaLiving is preparing to put The Ocean Villas Quy Nhon into operation from April 2024, as well as to increase room capacity to serve tourists. With the categories of Best Residential Development Asia Pacific; Best New Hotel Construction & Design Asia Pacific and Best International New Hotel Construction & Design recently achieved, the quality of VinaLivings projects and resorts ranks among the most luxurious resorts in the region and world. About VinaLiving VinaLiving is the international award-winning real estate development brand established by VinaCapital in 2010. Over the past decade, VinaLiving has become recognized for its pioneering boutique resort-style residential developments in Vietnam. Its philosophy Bring the Resort Lifestyle Home is inspired by homeowners who seek peace, seclusion, and privacy in a beautiful, natural environment. VinaLivings homes feature innovative and sophisticated designs that frame the landscape, and are renowned for their superior quality, sustainable materials, and access to top-tier facilities within their gated communities. VinaLiving has an in-house team to manage the entire development process, from concept design to the operational stage. Since its founding, VinaLiving has developed many premier residential properties in central Vietnam and in HCMC. More information about VinaLiving may be found at: https://vinaliving.com.vn/ About the International Property Awards The International Property Awards are open to residential and commercial property professionals from around the globe. Since 1995, they have celebrated the highest levels of achievement by companies operating in all sectors of the property and real estate industry. The awards are split into regions covering Africa, Asia Pacific, Arabia, Canada, Caribbean, Central and South America, Europe, the UK and the US. The highest-scoring winners from each region are automatically entered into the overall International Awards, which ultimately determine the worlds finest property companies. An International Property Award is a world-renowned mark of excellence. Judging is carried out through a meticulous process involving a panel of 100 experts covering every aspect of the property business. More information about International Property Awards may be found at: https://propertyawards.net/ HA NOI The recent falls in rice prices are only short-term; the upward trend will continue in 2024 on limited supply, providing significant opportunities for Viet Nams rice export, analysts have said. According to data from Viet Nam Food Association, export rice prices of Viet Nam are moving sideways after sharp decreases. The price of 25 per cent broken rice dropped by $20 per tonne in the past week to US$584 per tonne and 5 per cent broken by $19 to $609, slightly lower than Thailands. Meanwhile, 100 per cent broken rice is at $508 per tonne, $25 per tonne higher than Thailands. Rice prices are dropping on the psychology of waiting for clearer market trends from rice import plans of importing countries. In addition, the main Winter-Spring crop, typically with good rice quality and output, is coming in two weeks, which will significantly impact the trend of rice prices, according to agriculture expert Hoang Trong Thuy. Enterprises are waiting for the coming harvest season to prepare for their signed contracts and set price frames for their export contracts in the second half of the year. Farmers also tend to wait for better points of time to sell their rice with expectation for higher prices, while the El Nino is increasing worries about global rice support. The US Department of Agriculture has lowered its forecast for global rice supply in 2023-24 crop by 4.5 million tonnes from the previous forecast of 518 million tonnes. Meanwhile, the demand is estimated at 522 million, meaning a shortage of around 4 million which will keep rice prices at high levels in 2024. Thuy also said rice importers know that Viet Nam was entering the largest rice harvest of the year so they were not in a hurry to buy, but waiting for good prices. The psychology of waiting would continue for a short time. However, the upward trend of rice prices would continue in 2024 on limited supply from Indias rice export restrictions and the impacts of El Nino on farming. Go sustainable "The important thing is how to harmonise benefits among farmers, exporters and the nation, Thuy said, pointing out that the roles of exporters were critical. In fact, few enterprises are capable in terms of capital to stock rice. Its necessary to increase lending and create favourable conditions for enterprises to access credit at reasonable rates for rice purchases, which will help them to be more active in ensuring supply sources for exports and in establishing relationships with farmers, according to Thuy. Farmers should also be provided with support in terms of payments for fertilisers and pesticides for production in the context of rising input costs. A combination of solutions would help the rice industry to develop sustainably, Thuy said. Nguyen Nhu Cuong, Director of Department of Crop Production under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said Viet Nam targeted to maintain 7.1 million ha of rice cultivation in 2024 with a total output of 43 million tonnes and export at least 8 million tonnes. According to Seasia Stats, Viet Nam is the third largest rice exporter in the world with an export volume of 7.6 million in 2023-24, coming after India with an export of 16.5 million tonnes and Thailand with 8.2 million tonnes. Latest updates of the General Department of Customs showed that Viet Nam had exported 663,209 tonnes of rice as of February 15 to earn a total of $466.6 million. The average rice export price was $703.50 per tonne, 33.65 per cent higher than the same period last year. In 2023, Viet Nam earned $4.68 billion from exporting 8.1 million tonnes of rice in 2023, representing increases by 35.3 per cent and 14.4 per cent against 2022. ASEAN is the largest rice export market of Viet Nam, accounting for 61 per cent of the countrys rice export volume. Viet Nams rice is also exported to China and Ghana. VNS Indonesia to import more rice, an opportunity for Viet Nam The Indonesian Government on Monday decided to increase the rice import quota for 2024 by 1.6 million tonnes to make up for the shortage due to the impact of El Nino on the rice yield in 2023, bringing the total rice import volume to 3.6 million tonnes, according to the Viet Nam Trade Office in Indonesia.It is expected that Indonesia will continue to open more rice tenders besides the 500,000-tonne tender on January 17, in which Vietnamese companies won approximately two-thirds of the quantity.Vietnamese firms should keep a close watch on these moves to take advantage of the chance to expand rice exports to this market, the trade office said.In January, Indonesia was the third largest rice export market of Viet Nam with a volume of 27,250 tonnes worth $18.08 million at the average price of $663.3 per tonne.In 2023, Indonesia imported 1.17 million tonnes of rice from Viet Nam, worth $640.25 million, representing a rise of 878 per cent and 992 per cent, respectively. ABU DHABI Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien led the Vietnamese delegation at meetings within the framework of the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates yesterday. The minister praised the role of the WTO in leading and promoting the process of trade liberalisation. He proposed that WTO members focus on measures to narrow gaps and move towards consensus among its members, with an emphasis on the crucial role of WTO's dispute resolution mechanism reform. In addition, the minister emphasised the need to find suitable solutions and address fundamental differences in perspectives on special and differential treatments to ensure a balance of rights and obligations for all members, designed for the development level of each country. He said Viet Nam has fully implemented the results achieved at MC12 and remained fully committed to supporting efforts and initiatives to reform the WTO. Speaking on trade and sustainable development, the minister said Viet Nam appreciated the WTO's efforts in initiating discussions on initiatives and effective ways to achieve a balance among promoting the economy, trade, and sustainable development. He emphasised WTO's efforts in ensuring that the policies and regulations of each country are in line with the fundamental principles and current regulations of the organisation, avoiding discrimination and inequality in international trade. Dien suggested the WTO conduct specific studies and evaluations of the scope and impact of adjustments and changes to industrial support policies on the development needs and goals of both developed and developing countries. He stressed the importance of assessing the compatibility of these policies with WTO's existing principles and regulations to determine regulatory principles and directions. These policies should contribute to promoting the industry of member countries, especially developing ones, without creating adverse effects and unequal competition in multilateral trade. In an earlier meeting of the ministers of the Cairns Group, a group of 19 agricultural exporting countries, composed of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Ukraine, Uruguay and Viet Nam, he said the Southeast Asian country welcomes new initiatives and efforts to promote agricultural negotiations for mutual benefit. Viet Nam remains committed to working alongside the group's members to achieve results, contributing to agricultural trade liberalisation based on fair, equal, and transparent competition. During the event, Dien held a meeting with John Neuffer, President of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) a representative body of the US's semiconductor industry, to discuss cooperation in the semiconductor sector. He told Neuffer Viet Nam is interested in the field and willing to enhance collaboration with associations and businesses. Viet Nam aims to engage in the global semiconductor supply chain, seeking support from SIA to connect markets, technology, and financial resources, and initiate specific cooperation projects with US businesses to promote the development of the semiconductor industry. "To achieve said objectives, Viet Nam asks for additional support from SIA in connecting markets, technology, financial resources, and collaborative projects with US businesses, which will serve as a foundation in promoting the development of the semiconductor industry," said Dien. At the MC13, WTO members discussed the implementation of the agreed results at MC12, including continuing negotiations for the second phase of the Fisheries Subsidies Agreement and promoting the approval of the first phase; determining major directions in WTO reform, including the reform of dispute resolution mechanisms; extending the TRIPS Agreement commitments for diagnostic and treatment products for COVID-19; reviewing the extension of customs duty exemption for electronic transmissions in E-commerce; and promoting specific negotiations in the field of agriculture. VNS HCM CITY The 2024 Viet Nam International Trade Fair for Apparel, Textiles and Textile Technologies (VIATT) opened yesterday at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center (SECC) in HCM City The exhibition lasts until March 1. This is the first edition of VIATT, held by Messe Frankfurt, a global textile trade fair organiser, and the Viet Nam Trade Promotion Agency (VIETRADE) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The expo attracted more than 500 exhibitors from 16 countries and territories, including England, Germany, the United States, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan (China), Hong Kong (China), Thailand, India and Pakistan. The Viet Nam National Brands pavilion will be the highlight of VIATT 2024, introducing to visitors the strengths of domestic textile and garment industry brands. According to Detlef Braun, a Member of the Executive Board of Messe Frankfurt Group, VIATT is an event in the Texpertise series - a network connecting more than 500,000 participants from around the world in 11 countries, with more than 50 trade fairs. Le Hoang Tai, deputy head of VIETRADE, said that VIATT 2024 is also expected to create favourable conditions for firms in the textile and garment sector in Viet Nam to participate in trade connections with international businesses. It is an opportunity to help domestic enterprises to join the production chains of global textile and garment companies. Through the event, major international brands in the industry are encouraged to transfer technology, management experience and participate in the process of developing raw materials and accessories to form Viet Nam's domestic supply chain, he added. VNS HA NOI Benchmark indices ended mixed on Wednesday, with the VN-Index rising for the third straight day in a row to its highest in 16 months, while liquidity remained at a high level. The VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (HoSE) increased 17.09 points, or 1.38 per cent, to 1,254.55 points. This was the highest close since September 6, 2022, when the index traded at 1,277.4 points. It had gained 42.55 points in the last three sessions. With the benchmark surpassing the important resistance level of 1,250 points, Saigon - Hanoi Securities JSC (SHS) said that short-term investors should not buy stocks during upward sessions. Instead, they should consider gradually taking profits on stocks that have already achieved their targets in the current phase. This is because there is a high risk of short-term downturns, said SHS. On the bourse, 169 stocks ticked up while 155 went down. Liquidity remained above VN20 trillion but declined slightly from the previous session. In particular, the trading value reached nearly VN22.7 trillion (US$921.2 million), equal to a trading volume of nearly 970.8 million shares. The indexs recent rallies were mainly driven by gains in large-cap stocks. The VN30-Index, which tracks the 30 biggest stocks on HoSE, increased by 17.44 points, or 1.4 per cent, to 1,265.35 points. In the VN30 basket, 25 ticker symbols advanced, with one hitting the maximum daily gain of 7 per cent, while two decreased and three stayed flat. Vietcombank (VCB), one of the Big 4 state-owned commercial banks, soared to the ceiling price today and led the markets bullish sentiment. Other banking stocks witnessing strong performances were BIDV (BID), VPBank (VPB), TPBank (TPB), Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) and HDBank (HDB), up 1.45-4.44 per cent. Some pillar stocks in the real estate and manufacturing industries were also market contributors, as Vincom Retail (VRE) surged 5.3 per cent, Vingroup (VIC) rose 1 per cent, Sabeco (SAB) climbed 2.5 per cent, and Masan Group (MSN) increased 1.04 per cent. In contrast, the HNX-Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX) ended the two-day rallies. It closed Wednesday at 235.16 points, down 0.21 points, or 0.09 per cent. During the session, over 96.5 million shares were traded on the northern exchange, worth VN1.93 trillion. Foreign investors continued to be net buyers on the market, as they net bought VN210.81 billion on the two main exchanges. Particularly, they net bought VN221.37 billion on HoSE but net sold a small amount of VN10.56 billion on HNX. VNS Maryelizabeth Bradford Farmington Police Department/contributed FARMINGTON Two men went from hanging out with an exotic dancer in a hot tub to being stripped, beaten and robbed by armed intruders, according to the warrant for the arrest of one of the suspected attackers. That suspect, Branden Holloway, 25, of Hartford, was one of two people arrested this month in connection with the 2022 home invasion. Joshua Jenkins, 31, of Hartford, was the other, police said. The men were arrested Jan. 22 and Jan. 23 on a string of charges that include home invasion, first-degree robbery and second-degree assault. They also are charged with criminal attempt to commit first-degree sexual assault, although any reference to that allegation was either missing or blacked out of Holloways warrant. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A third person, who the victims said appeared to be the ringleader, Maryelizabeth Bradford, was arrested on home invasion charges in November 2022. She was 25 at the time of her arrest. Branden Holloway Farmington Police Department/contributed According to the warrant, a Waterville Road resident called police around 1:40 a.m. Sept. 13, 2022, and said two naked men were in her driveway asking her to call 911. Both men had bruised and swollen faces, and one had blood running down his face from cuts, according to police. The men said they had been robbed at a nearby Talcott Notch Road house one of them owns, the warrant said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The man who owns the home later told police that 16 items, including clothes, jewelry and cologne, were stolen from his home, and that the value of the items was about $17,275, the warrant said. Police learned that the two friends planned to have Bradford, whom one of the men knew as Lola, come over and bring a female friend, the warrant said. The man who knew her said she worked as an exotic dancer at Starlets in Queens, N.Y., the warrant stated. He said he had met her at Lit Ultra Lounge in Waterbury a few years earlier. They follow each other on Instagram, and Bradford reached out to him on the social media platform, asking to hang out, the warrant said. Joshua Jenkins Farmington Police Department/contributed After her arrest, Bradford told police that she thought the man was wealthy and sold drugs based on the way he spent a lot of cash at the club, the warrant said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The man and Bradford spoke on FaceTime the day before the home invasion, the warrant said, and agreed to get together; each was going to bring a friend. That night, the man and his male friend met Bradford in Hartford, and she followed them in her car to the male friends Farmington house, the warrant said. She didnt have her female friend with her, the victims told police but that wasnt the only thing that seemed amiss, according to the warrant. While the three of them hung out in a backyard hot tub, the men noticed Lola seemed distracted, according to the warrant. She was on her cellphone a lot and didnt drink the alcoholic beverage that was poured for her, the warrant said. Next thing the two men knew, two masked men dressed in black emerged from the tree line, pointing guns at them, the victims told police, yelling this is a robbery," the warrant said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The intruders pulled the men out of the hot tub while Lola was giving orders, telling the masked men what to look for in the house and who to beat, according to the warrant. If the victim wasnt perceived to be giving up jewelry or cooperating with the robbery, he was beaten, the warrant said. The men said they were held at gunpoint, the warrant said. The intruders stripped the men of their clothes, dragged them to the second floor, the victims said, threw pillowcases over their heads and repeatedly asked them about cash and jewelry while they went through the residence and pistol-whipped and beat them, the warrant said. One of the robbers, put a gun to his head and threatened to kill them if they did not tell where the money was, one victim told police, according to the warrant. One victim told police that Bradford held his cellphone to his face to unlock his bank account in what turned out to be a failed attempt to transfer money, the warrant said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Apparently frustrated that they werent finding what they thought was in the home, Bradford and the masked intruders talked about burning down the house or kidnapping the men and holding them for ransom, according to the warrant. Afraid 'I was going to witness a murder' At one point, one of the victims was able to break free of the ties and get a razor to cut his friend free. They jumped from a second-floor balcony and ran for help, he told police. Police determined Lola's real name and learned she had attended Rockville High School in Vernon. When they interviewed Bradford, she confirmed much of the victims accounts but minimized her involvement, the warrant said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad She said the two victims had every reason to fear for their lives, according to the warrant, and later said she was afraid that I was going to witness a murder. Detectives also used social media to find Holloway and Jenkins, and confirmed their involvement through cellphone records and surveillance cameras, the warrant said. They determined Bradford thought the two victims had a lot of cash and said one of the victims wearing what she thought was a $30,000 chain when they were on FaceTime, the warrant said. The man who owned the gold chain was not the owner of the house, the warrant said. The expensive gold chain was not located or stolen during the home invasion, nor was any money, drugs, or expensive items," the warrant said. SYDNEY Relations between Australia and Viet Nam are moving towards a new height after the two countries celebrated the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic ties last year, opening a new chapter to deepen the strategic partnership, said Australian Governor General David Hurley. Hurley made the remarks during a reception on February 28 for Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia Pham Hung Tam who came to present his credentials to the Australia Governor General. The host said that he hopes Australia and Viet Nam maintain the current momentum of their relationship to strengthen bilateral cooperation, expand collaboration and exchange in regional and international issues, and promote common interests for peace, stability, cooperation, and prosperity in the region. He believed that Ambassador Tam would make contributions to expanding and deepening the two countries' cooperation in such fields as politics, economy, security, defence, education, tourism, and people-to-people exchange. For his part, Tam conveyed the greetings of President Vo Van Thuong and other senior Vietnamese leaders to the Australian Governor General and his spouse. Tam expressed his belief in the bilateral relations' strong development in the cooperation pillars and prospects for cooperation in new fields such as digital economy, green economy, energy transition, and climate change response. He affirmed that he will do his best to contribute to promoting good relations between Viet Nam and Australia for the benefit of the two countries' people, and for peace, cooperation, and development in the region. VNA/VNS ONG NAI ong Nai Province is attracting investors who want to set up plants to generate electricity from waste due to its many advantages such as producing large volumes of garbage. With up to seven such facilities taking shape, the province is poised for a significant transformation driven by environmental responsibility, renewable energy generation, and a commitment to sustainable development. Several proposals have been submitted, each highlighting unique approaches and potential benefits. Taiwans Chieu Minh Investment Co., Ltd. has proposed a waste incineration project in Cam My District. Fan Hao, its representative in HCM City, said his company had done research and wished to invest in industrial, hazardous and domestic waste-treatment technologies in the Xuan My waste treatment area. It was an existing project, and the company sought to invest in additional infrastructure and technological innovation. It would contribute to protecting the environment, creating recycled products towards a green industry and creating jobs, Fan said. The project meets Vietnamese standards for waste treatment." A German company that also wants to invest in treating household waste is Asia New Generation Company, which has an office in HCM City. Willy Andreas Kirsch, its chairman, told provincial leaders at a meeting late last year that the company hoped to bring modern German treatment technology to the proposed plant in Xuan Tam Commune, Xuan Loc District. Its INTEC-TCP (pyrolysis) technology does not need waste to be classified or burned directly, and is instead treated by gasification to limit emissions, and can generate 1.2-1.8 MWh of electricity from a tonne of garbage, according to the chairman. If things go smoothly, the project could start as early as 2024. At the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Viet Nam set a target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, reducing methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, phasing out coal between 2030 and 2040, and conserving forests. Producing electricity from waste is also attracting domestic businesses. Amaccao, a company headquartered in Ha Noi, has proposed to the province that it will build two waste-to-electricity plants; an industrial conversion cooperation project at the existing processing area and a completely new investment project. It has a waste incineration plant in Ha Noi that generates electricity using European technology, and fully reuses the ash and slag from the incineration to make bricks. The province is also setting up a project to generate electricity by incinerating 1,200 tonnes of waste a day in Vinh Tan Commune in Vinh Cuu District. Investors in some waste treatment plants in Thong Nhat, Vinh Cuu and Long Thanh districts are also planning to invest in generating electricity from waste. Lots of room for development ong Nai is becoming an attractive destination for waste-to-electricity investors for three reasons. Firstly, it generates more than 200,000 tonnes of household waste daily, and this is increasing at 5 per cent a year. Secondly, the government has mandated that by 2025 all waste treatment areas must switch to energy recovery combustion technology. Thirdly, ong Nai has been allocated 66MW of trash electricity, third in the country only after Ha Noi and HCM City. Waste treatment using energy recovery technology is also encouraged under environmental laws and a priority area for the province to solicit investment. The province has identified four out of its seven waste treatment zones that will invest in technology to convert waste into energy in inh Quan, Thong Nhat, Vinh Cuu, and Long Thanh districts. The four get 3,800 tonnes of garbage a day. Deputy Chairman of the province People's Committee, Vo Van Phi, said the province would welcome environmental projects that use modern technology and contribute to sustainable development. The province's demand for energy, including renewables, from industry is high, according to Phi. If connectivity with the grid is convenient and the prices of electricity from waste are attractive, it will motivate investors to quickly implement their projects and go on stream. VNS HCM CITY Renowned for his 'golden hands', cardiac surgeon o Nguyen Tin has fixed the hearts of many young children, bringing their rhythm back to normal. Over 27 years, he has performed thousands of heart surgeries for children with congenital heart disease, Vietnamplus.vn reported. Recently, as deputy head of the cardiac department at Childrens Hospital 1 in HCM City, Dr Tin has earned the moniker "heart surgeon for foetuses." Foetal cardiac surgery, a challenging technique developed globally in the past five years, captivated Tin after witnessing Brazilian doctors performing it in the United States many years ago. He recalls being awestruck, realising the potential to save lives. "I was almost holding my breath because even a slight deviation could endanger the life of the foetus," Tin said. "However, under the skilled hands of the surgeons, the procedure was carried out swiftly. I felt awakened and determined to master this technique." Driven by this revelation, Tin embarked on a journey to master the technique, travelling to countries where it was performed. He said: "Performing interventions for foetal heart defects involves repairing the heart from its stem cells. The hearts of children are thus repaired and healed from within the foetus, meaning many babies with congenital heart defects will be born healthy, eliminating the uncertainty of waiting for surgery after birth." However, not every beginning was smooth. Two years ago, a pregnant woman nearing 30 weeks gestation discovered that her unborn baby had a severe congenital defect. Despite the risks involved, her family fervently desired foetal surgery and accepted the uncertainties it entailed. Doctor Tin and his team attempted the procedure but failed. He said: "At that time, failure occurred due to many reasons, partly due to lack of equipment, inexperienced skills and inadequate knowledge. This made me restless for a long time, realising my shortcomings, and the need for continuous learning and improvement." After hundreds of experiments on animals, Tin and his colleagues achieved a breakthrough on January 4 and 12, successfully performing the first two foetal heart surgeries in Viet Nam at Tu Du Hospital. It was done to unclog the heart valve through the mothers womb. This achievement, considered miraculous given the limited global mastery of the technique, signifies a new era for foetal cardiac care in Southeast Asia. After the surgery, the baby was born healthy, although the pulmonary artery was still slightly narrow. However, Tin considers this a success, emphasising the importance of this technique in preventing foetal mortality and reducing the need for complex surgeries later in life. This ground-breaking success serves as a catalyst for advancing foetal cardiac surgery techniques in the healthcare industry. Despite the pressure of the first attempt, Tin and his team celebrated the milestone, recognising the potential to transform the lives of children with congenital heart disease. He said: "We were happy, embracing and celebrating right in the operating room after many sleepless nights of worry and pressure. If we had failed, the price to pay would have been huge, but if successful, it would open up new opportunities for children with congenital heart disease. Fortunately, we made it." With over 27 years of experience under his belt, he had delicately performed nearly 17,000 surgeries for children grappling with congenital heart disease. But behind his success lies a poignant narrative of heartache and determination. Tin recalls the harrowing days of his early career, where he stood witness to the heart-breaking loss of infants to congenital heart defects, their lives cut short by surgeries that came too late. In the southern region, even major heart hospitals performed only a few surgeries annually, leaving a staggering toll of mortality among children with congenital heart issues. He often had to sign death certificates for nearly 200 patients on some days, leaving him deeply unsettled. This drove him to dedicate himself to paediatric cardiac intervention despite the immense challenges. Driven by a thirst for knowledge, Tin embarked on a quest for expertise, going to medical institutions like Cho Ray Hospital, the Heart Institute, and the HCM City University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital. His relentless pursuit paid off as the number of children receiving life-saving interventions for congenital heart defects steadily climbed, from just a few to several dozen, with several hundred surgeries performed annually. Children's Hospital 1 alone orchestrated over 800 cardiac interventions in 2023, a testament to Tin's unwavering commitment to expanding access to quality healthcare. Tin and his colleagues travelled to remote areas to screen children for congenital heart defects, bringing them back to Children's Hospital 1 for surgery, offering a glimmer of hope to families in the farthest reaches. Despite performing over 17,000 surgeries, Tin finds cheer in each triumphant intervention, cherishing the joy that accompanies every mended heart. "Every successful case brings me joy. If I perform five surgeries in a day, I have five reasons to be happy. Our happiness multiplies each day," he said. But amid the victories lie lessons learned from failures. Tin holds fast to the belief that setbacks are stepping stones to progress, urging himself and his peers to glean experience from every misstep. Though the completion of the first two foetal cardiac surgeries marks a significant milestone, he views it not as an endpoint, but as the genesis of a long and arduous journey. "Our mission is to lay the groundwork, to pave the way for others to follow," he said. "The road ahead is long and will undoubtedly come with its costs. Success is only truly achieved when it is widespread, when many doctors and units can perform it, and when many children can receive interventions from within the womb. "Restoring a child's heartbeat to its natural rhythm is the greatest joy in my profession." It is this steadfast belief that propels him ever forward, setting his sights on new horizons, where innovative techniques hold the promise of saving for children hindered by "rhythm errors" in their hearts. VNS HA NOI Nguyen Chi Nguyen, a member of the Hanoi Youth Association for Blood Donation, did not tell his mother about his first time donating blood some years ago. He was afraid that his family would not allow him to do the voluntary work. Giang Thi Hanh, Nguyens mother, said she somehow felt worried that her son would neglect his studies if he took part in too many activities of the association. But, seeing her son become gradually mature after two years of taking on the voluntary activity, she has learned about the meaning of blood donation and now no longer discourages him from donating blood. Nguyen is now proud to tell his mother he has donated blood and platelets ten times. Being an active member of the association for the past two years, Nguyen is now one of the leaders of group 24/1 under the Hanoi Youth Association for Blood Donation. Nguyens passion for blood donation has encouraged his mother to make a donation as well. Hanh, Nguyens mother, donated her blood for the first time at the Xuan Hong (Red Spring) Festival 2024 held this month, the biggest annual blood donation campaign. Many of the associations members have encouraged their parents to make a donation. Trinh Xuan Phuc, father of Trinh Xuan Thuy, chairman of the Hanoi Youth Association for Blood Donation, travelled a long distance to the National Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion many times to donate blood, following his sons call. Thuy said he was lucky to receive his familys support for his attendance in the blood donation campaigns since the early days. At first my parents were a little bit worried about me taking part in too many voluntary activities and neglecting study, he told Vietnam News Agency. In spite of spending lots of time on voluntary work, Thuy has still made good academic performance and received scholarships at his university. That is the evidence to show my parents that I can do voluntary work, at the same time, still can study well, he said. "Parents always want their children to live well and become helpful people for society. Seeing helpful actions taken by children, all parents support them because they feel the humane meaning of blood donation," Thuy said. Bui Thi Tham, mother of Nguyen Duy Hoang Anh, leader of group 6/1, said: When my son who was a freshman called to announce that he would join the blood donation association, I asked him whether he could focus on study at school. In spite of her worry, Tham told her son that she trusted him and his decision. Every time he returns home to visit family, I can feel his maturity in communication and knowledge. Then I know his decision to become a blood donation leader was the right choice, she said. On the occasion of the 2024 Spring Festival, last weekend the Hanoi Youth Association for Blood Donation organised a meeting with the families of blood donation campaign leaders. All of the leaders said that support from their family is an important factor giving them more confidence in their chosen path. VNS HA NOI The revised Land Law, recently adopted by the 15th-tenure National Assembly, which includes people of Vietnamese origin among land users and increases interests for foreign-invested economic entities, is expected to have positive impacts on the real estate market and the economy at large. Lawyer Ngo Thanh Ba from "Niem tin Cong ly" (Trust in Justice) Law Office, a member of the Ha Noi Bar Association, said that previously, many people of Vietnamese origin who wanted to buy land in Viet Nam had to ask other persons to represent them to conduct transactions, leading to many disputes during the transfer and management of land use rights. The revised Land Laws expansion of land users will help address that problem. Some regulations in this law clarify that land users who are overseas Vietnamese (OV) people include those who are Vietnamese citizens residing abroad and people of Vietnamese origin residing abroad. The revised Land Lawalso features detailed regulations that expand the land use rights and obligations, along with the land management and use regime for these two groups, he noted. For example, Ba said, people of Vietnamese origin abroad who are land users are now entitled to almost all the related rights of Vietnamese citizens. Foreign-invested economic entities and people of Vietnamese origin abroad are also given some more rights such as receiving transferred land use rights and re-renting out the land use rights at industrial and hi-tech parks. The lawyer said that the expansion of land use rights for OVs will create a favourable environment for them to make investment, do business, and work. This is an important stride of the revised Land Law as it improves the laws consistency with the revised Law on Real Estate Business and the revised Law on Housing, helping promote opportunities for OVs to access, own, and use land more effectively and also attract more remittances and investment from OVs to the real estate market and the economy at large, he opined. To further attract OV investment and remittances, Ba recommended the Government to review the regulations related to OVs' land use rights in other laws like the revised laws on real estate business and housing, along with the procedures for certifying Vietnamese citizens abroad. The Government should also step up the dissemination of promulgated laws and continue improving the laws relevant to OVs rights, he added. VNS HA NOI Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung emphasised that by 2045, Viet Nam will emerge as a pivotal link in the global semiconductor industry value chain, with a competent workforce of engineers and experts capable of meeting the demands for both quality and quantity in the development of the semiconductor industry. He made the statement at a working session on Wednesday to gather feedback on the draft plan on developing human resources for the semiconductor industry until 2030, with a vision to 2045, as assigned by the Government in Resolution 124 issued on August 7, 2023. At the working session, Dung acknowledged the contributions of relevant authorities participating in drafting the plan, as well as their active co-operation with the ministry and relevant agencies in developing the ecosystem and workforce for the semiconductor industry. The ministry will focus on collecting feedback from relevant authorities to finalise the plan and submit it to the Government in the first quarter of 2024. This will accelerate progress toward the goal of enabling Vietnamese engineers to deeply engage in the design process of modern semiconductor chips by 2030. Specifically, by 2030, Viet Nam will be deeply involved in the packaging and testing stages of semiconductor chips, mastering a portion of the packaging and testing technology. Vietnamese engineers will work in semiconductor manufacturing plants, gradually mastering technology in the production process and training 50,000 engineers to serve the industry in all stages of the value chain. Vu Quoc Huy, director of the National Innovation Centre (NIC) and representative of the drafting committee, provided an overview of the research and development of the draft plan, and proposed some content for feedback to refine the draft plan in the upcoming time. Representatives from agencies, enterprises, universities and research institutes highly appreciated the necessity and content of the draft plan on developing the domestic semiconductor industry. The delegates generally agreed with the ministrys proposals and contributed many opinions in developing the workforce for the semiconductor industry, especially the roles of major technology enterprises, State-owned enterprises, State investment resources, business-university linkages, international cooperation in training, importing training programmes and attracting talents. The delegates also stressed the role of the ministry as the leading and coordinating agency in implementing the draft plan, as well as the role of the NIC in deploying activities to develop the ecosystem and workforce for Viet Nam's semiconductor industry through collaborations with organisations, enterprises and universities from countries with strong semiconductor sectors such as the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea and the Netherlands. Prior to this, from September 2023 to February 2024, the ministry assigned the NIC to organise various activities to serve the development of the draft plan such as surveying semiconductor chip companies to assess the demand for workforce of companies operating in Viet Nam; surveying leading research institutes and universities in Viet Nam to assess training and research capabilities in the semiconductor industry. Additionally, the NIC sought opinions from experts regarding Viet Nam's demand forecast and training capacity until 2030, with a vision towards 2045, with the participation of leading experts working in the United States, Taiwan (China), France, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea and Belgium. It also conducted surveys and consultations with consulting organisations, associations, universities and major corporations worldwide in the semiconductor industry regarding development trends, recruitment needs, experience in implementing training programs and workforce development in the industry. It organised discussions to evaluate the needs of potential investing semiconductor companies, international training institutions, cooperation, and scholarship provision for Viet Nam. It also collaborated with Vietnamese experts in Silicon Valley, the United States, and leading semiconductor industry enterprises and universities such as Cadence, FPT and Arizona State University to organise short-term training programmes for lecturers, students and engineers in related fields who wish to transition to the semiconductor industry. VNS Both the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) have introduced new regulations on bancassurance. What is your assessment? Le Hoai An, a banking consultant and trainer at Integrated Financial Solutions Financial products, like all the rules of life, need time to develop sustainably. Life insurance products are inherently a product that means financial protection for families, that is, the person who buys life insurance products must first feel the need for it after receiving the consultancy. When it goes against the rules, there will inevitably be conflict and need to be adjusted, but the loss of confidence in the market is not a cheap price. Bancassurance is not an innovation from commercial banks in Vietnam, it has long been an integral part of the global system. Banks that offer traditional products therefore have a much higher level of penetration than life insurance products or fund certificates. Thats why the new financial products that need to be introduced will have to be distributed through the banks extensive network. Moreover, a bank that holds data on the financial transactions of individuals will be perfectly capable of assessing the financial capabilities and needs of families in the product consulting process. What are the biggest shortcomings in the implementation of bancassurance in Vietnam? The most unreasonable thing about implementing bancassurance in Vietnam is that the bank hasnt prepared an appropriate infrastructure. Unlike other traditional banking products, insurance products need a consultation to thoroughly assess their suitability to customers. Therefore, customer understanding and the expertise of the authorised staff play an important role in determining product quality. Thats not to mention the fact that when providing life insurance products, employees have to be with customers throughout their life cycle, to help resolve their claims. The original product design consultant for the customer should also be a lifecycle service support, with a high level of expertise to ensure support and maintain the best customer experience. Bank staff who are providing life insurance products are still mainly in charge of carrying out the business of raising capital and lending. They are merely producing profile and product information rather than being trained as a professional insurance consultant in advising on appropriate financial solutions. Its the precise training, coupled with the massive index pressure, that has led many bankers to focus on selling products rather than consulting and designing solutions for customers. The banks infrastructure has constraints that make the data insufficient to assist bank employees in assessing the suitability of existing client files, rather than focusing on extracting new borrowers for sale. In addition, the infrastructure of banks and affiliated insurance companies is not effectively integrated, but there are many overlaps, thereby affecting the customer experience with the bancassurance channel. Can the new regulations solve the problems of discontent that you just mentioned? An SBV circular from last November not only emphasises the prohibition of life insurance products being supplied with loans, but also sets specific requirements for banking infrastructure and human resources that banks need to prepare for when distributing life insurance. Building a complete infrastructure for bancassurance is a key element in improving customer awareness and full consultancy. This not only requires a strong investment in IT and data management, but also requires an in-depth understanding of insurance products. A modern infrastructure significantly improves the ability to analyse and propose financial solutions tailored to the specific needs of each welder. This investment not only demonstrates commitment to providing quality services, but is also a decisive factor in creating a competitive advantage in the increasingly intense bancassurance market. Standardising the employee capability in the bancassurance sector is an important step towards building a professional sales team, capable of delivering insurance solutions tailored to the real needs of customers. The November circular clearly stipulates that the insurance salespersons need to be specially trained and operate independently of the traditional bank product sales force. This ensures professionalism and avoids conflicts of interest, thereby enhancing the quality of consulting and customer satisfaction. The sale of insurance products, especially investment-linked insurance, needs to be thoroughly assessed and advised by consultants to ensure that the product is suitable and that the customer can complete the insurance contract. I appreciate the changes. However, it will also require a change in perception of cross-selling products from bank management. An insurance product consultant at the bank must be trained and positioned as a product consultant and aimed at exploiting customer financial needs rather than exploiting existing customer base for sale enhancement. Insurance products offered by bankers should meet clients diversified financial protection needs, rather than merely seeking high commissions from distribution. Then, the consulting and financial planning role of the staff will be restored to the right position, promoting the real strengths of the bancassurance channel. Bancassurance difficulties softened by profit results Although a decline in the sale of insurance products through banks has materialised in recent months, the sector remains a lucrative avenue for banks. Vis Raghavan, global head of Banking and executive vice chair of Citi As head of Banking, Raghavan will lead one of Citis five core businesses, with responsibility for Investment, Corporate and Commercial Banking. In his role as executive vice chair, he will help shape and drive Citis firm-wide strategy and assist CEO with key strategic initiatives. The new structure keeps the bank firmly on the path towards delivering on its commitments. Vis is a proven leader and his appointment is another example of our ability to attract the best talent to our firm. He is a strategic leader who brings a strong track record of delivering results across a global banking business, said Citi CEO Jane Fraser in a memo. Raghavan joins Citi from J.P. Morgan, where he most recently was head of Global Investment Banking, after previously having served as co-head of Global Investment and Corporate Banking since 2020. Raghavan grew up in India and earned a B.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Bombay and holds a B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science from Aston University (Birmingham, UK), from where he also received an honorary doctorate. Citi first announced the structural changes last year that established its Banking and International organisation. The new structure keeps the bank firmly on the path towards delivering on its commitments of expanding wallet share, seamlessly offering the full power of Citi to global clients, and driving improved returns for the business. Vietnam's banking sector emerges as a global leader in generative AI Finastra's global survey for 2023 released on November 28 shows Vietnam's financial institutions are keen on new technologies and banking models, even with limited tech investments due to tough economic conditions. Restructuring and ongoing investment head strategy Amidst numerous uncertainties worldwide and shortcomings closer to home, every resource should be seized and utilised to boost economic growth. Tran Quoc Phuong, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, explains how Vietnam can break through and achieve its goals in 2024. Key insights reveal the region's in-depth engagement with social media, where 60 per cent of global users reside. Despite 91 per cent of marketers recognising the importance of media quality, a gap exists in its application, with only 17 per cent assessing ads against crucial quality metrics. Jeremy Chang, senior director at DoubleVerify, emphasised the necessity of continuous verification to safeguard ad investments and improve campaign results. "There's a significant gap in understanding the value of media quality metrics, leading to underutilisation - a missed opportunity," he stated. The report also explores evolving consumer behaviour and the advertising landscape, noting a 59 per cent reliance on social media for product research in Vietnam. It highlights the emergence of super apps and retail media, with 99 per cent of marketers planning to boost their retail media spend. Particularly, nearly 70 per cent of Southeast Asia's consumers are dedicating more time to online content consumption daily. Moreover, a significant 98 per cent of marketers utilise attention metrics to gauge digital media investments, acknowledging that traditional metrics no longer suffice. Simultaneously, the advertising sector is undergoing a profound transformation, propelled by technological advancements. This evolution has transitioned from digital advertising in the early 2000s to programmatic in the 2010s, and now to the integration of AI in the 2020s. The advent of AI, especially through machine learning's predictive capabilities, promises to influence advertising strategies significantly by optimizing ad performance across diverse aspects. Corina Trang Luong, senior sales director of DoubleVerify Vietnam, explained, At DoubleVerify, we see Vietnam as a flourishing market with significant potential in the digital business landscape. According to Statista, Vietnam is the third fastest growing advertising market in Southeast Asia, with expected growth to reach $2.591 billion by 2024, offering a unique opportunity for marketers to optimise campaigns and expand their audience reach. We encourage Vietnams marketers to prioritise media quality, with emphasis on core quality metrics as highlighted in our report. By ensuring always-on verification across all channels, marketers can safeguard their investments, otherwise they will risk wasting media dollars. Digital transformation in health care - irreversible trend An official of the Ministry of Health has called digital transformation in health care an irreversible trend. This international accreditation is proof of FPT IS's commitment to its customers to deliver quality information security services that meet global standards. In February 2024, FPT IS's Pentest passed strict evaluation to make it one of the few companies operating in Vietnam qualified to be an official member of CREST. FPT IS is also currently the only technology company in Vietnam to hold CREST accreditation for Pentest services and PCI.QSA for consulting and assessment, as well as PCI.DSS certification services. FPT IS's Pentest service is assessed by CREST to meet international standards in terms of expert capacity, professional experience, technological capabilities, policies, processes, procedures and professional ethics. Becoming a member of CREST is an important step for FPT IS in the process of standardising its Pentest services according to international standards, meeting the needs and tackling problems facing customers regarding security issues in Vietnam as well as around the globe. This is also a milestone for FPT IS in its globalisation strategy. In 2023, the Ministry of Information and Communications issued both warnings and guidelines regarding 12,846 cyberattacks, an increase of 5.3 per cent compared to 2022. The targets that suffered the most were government agencies, banking systems, financial institutions, industrial systems and other key areas. In this context, Pentest services have become vital for organisations and businesses to detect security vulnerabilities and test system penetration. The penetration testing market size is estimated to reach $12.76 billion by 2029, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.59 per cent from 2024-2029 (Mordor report). The rapid development of the market has led to the appearance of a series of individuals and organisations providing network security services, creating challenges for customers looking for a qualified information security provider with professional capacity and reliability. Becoming a member of the CREST organisation helps FPT IS to prove its reputation and capacity in the field of information security testing. At the same time, it opens up many opportunities to connect with more than 300 potential partners and customers in the CREST community. CREST is a non-profit organisation established in 2006, representing the IT security industry. CREST provides internationally recognized accreditation for organisations providing information security services and professional certifications for individuals providing security vulnerability assessment, penetration testing, and response services, cyber incidents, cybersecurity threat intelligence, and security operations centre (SOC). With a strict quality testing process, CREST has been setting a new gold standard, becoming one of the most prestigious accreditation that businesses and organisations can achieve. CREST members are reviewed annually and every 3 years a comprehensive appraisal of accredited businesses will be conducted. To be recognized as a member of CREST, businesses need to meet many strict criteria. In particular, FPT IS fully meets the requirements by possessing a series of world-class IT certificates (ISO9001, ISO27001...). Regarding criteria for the capability of the Pentest Service, FPT IS achieved an almost perfect score when proving success in many large projects through its team of top technology experts. CREST also evaluates service implementation by asking for customer references. FPT IS received good reviews from international and dosmetic customers,, helping to strengthen the position and capabilities of the business. We are pleased to welcome FPT IS as a CREST accredited member company in the Asia region, said Rowland Johnson, president of CREST. To gain accreditation for its penetration testing services, FPT IS has been through a demanding assessment process that examined test methodologies, legal and regulatory requirements, data protection standards, logging and auditing, internal and external communications with stakeholders, as well as how test data security is maintained. FPT IS joins a growing number of companies in Vietnam with our internationally recognised accreditation that provides buyers with valuable, independent evaluations of leading organisations and businesses, he added. We are currently the only technology unit in Vietnam to own CREST accreditation for Pentest and QSA services. This demonstrates FPT IS's pioneering leadership in information security, while affirming its commitment to customers. Being recognised by CREST will push FPT IS to strengthen its position in the domestic market and expand cooperation opportunities with international partners and customers, especially in industries that require high security, safety and data compliance such as finance, banking and e-commerce. We will continue to develop FPT IS products and services that meet international standards, conquering the global market," Nguyen Hoang Minh, CEO of FPT IS, shared. Before being confirmed as a member of CREST, FPT IS was a member of the Payment Card Industry Security Standard Council (PCI SSC) and was allowed to provide consulting and assessment services. FPT IS assesses the Global Managed Services Park with an aim to provide services for 100 international customers, host more than 1,000 employees, and reach a revenue of $30 million by 2026. Siba Food and FPT IS implement Rise with SAP solution to standardise business operations At a ceremony on January 10 in Ho Chi Minh City, Siba Food and FPT Information System Corporation (FPT IS) announced the successful operation of SAP S/4HANA, a system in the preliminary processing, mixing and retail industry helping to tackle specific operational problems for food retail businesses. FPT IS and Metrodata unveil strategic digital transformation partnership FPT Information System Corporation (FPT IS) and PT. Metrodata Electronics, Tbk, the largest ICT public company in Indonesia, signed an MoU at a ceremony in Hanoi in a significant move on January 13, part of the state visit of Indonesian President Joko Widodo to Vietnam from January 11-13. U.S. politicians' national security paranoia intensifies 14:17, February 28, 2024 By Chen Zi ( People's Daily Online Cartoon by Ma Hongliang Two U.S. congressional committees recently sent a letter to Swiss engineering giant ABB, citing "security threats and risks." They requested the company clarify its business dealings with Chinese state-owned enterprises amid its collaborations with U.S. government agencies. The letter specifically referenced ABB's software and technology in cranes manufactured by Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC) and installed at U.S. seaports. National security paranoia among U.S. politicians appears to be intensifying, revealing an underlying intent to hinder China's development. From their perspective, products like cranes and electric vehicle batteries made in China are "risks" and "threats," despite the lack of concrete evidence. While U.S. politicians often discuss the importance of fair competition and rules, their actions frequently contradict these principles, emphasizing an "America first" policy. The U.S. should stop abusing state power to restrict the development of foreign enterprises. Washington ought to maintain a trade environment that supports fair competition and offers a fair, just, and non-discriminatory business landscape for companies from all countries. (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) Meir Tlebalde, ceo, Sunwah Kirin Vietnam and Nguyen Vu Anh head of Industrial and Business Development, Sunwah Kirin Vietnam The evolving market conditions present both opportunities and challenges, requiring a well-thought-out approach to leverage for positive investment outcomes. The implementation of the new land price table in 2026 adds urgency for investors to adapt and position themselves effectively in Vietnams dynamic real estate market. There are several key modifications and their potential ramifications for international investors seeking opportunities in the Vietnamese real estate market. The shift from one-time to annual land payments provides foreign investors with financial adaptability. This flexibility allows them to synchronise their payment strategies with business cycles, enhancing agility and accommodating specific operational needs. Foreign investors can now align payment structures with revenue streams, optimising financial planning for sustained success in the Vietnamese real estate market. Repaying exempted or reduced amounts during land use rights transfers is a critical consideration for foreign investors. Rigorous adherence to these regulations is essential to avoid negative consequences. Meticulous financial planning becomes imperative, requiring investors to factor in these repayments within the overall transaction costs. Strategically navigating these requirements will be pivotal in maintaining a positive investment profile and relationship with Vietnamese authorities. Meanwhile, the heightened transparency in land use rights transfer is a positive development for foreign investors. Additional regulations create a more secure investment environment by mitigating risks associated with undisclosed conditions. Foreign investors should embrace this transparency, incorporating these regulations into their due diligence processes to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the transaction landscape and minimise potential pitfalls. The potential surge in agricultural land prices following the inclusion of rice land use rights for enterprises requires foreign investors to reassess their investment strategies. This change may impact the affordability of agricultural land, prompting investors to diversify portfolios or explore alternative sectors. Careful market analysis and risk assessment will be essential to navigate potential cost increases and identify new opportunities within the evolving agricultural real estate market. In addition, the permission to sell assets on land and transfer land lease rights in industrial parks opens doors for foreign investors in this sector. Strategic investment in such real estate can yield favourable returns. Foreign investors should capitalise on this opportunity by identifying key industrial zones, understanding local demand, and aligning investments with the growing needs of businesses seeking industrial spaces. The threat of land confiscation for financial non-compliance also serves as a deterrent against land hoarding by foreign investors. To mitigate risks, investors should prioritise timely financial obligations, aligning with Vietnamese regulations. This measure promotes responsible land use practices, fostering a more equitable distribution of land resources and contributing to a sustainable and balanced real estate market. Elsewhere, the provision for enterprises violating land regulations to still secure land allocations or leases provides a chance for redemption. Foreign investors should view this as an opportunity to rectify past challenges. Engaging with local authorities transparently and demonstrating commitment to compliance can pave the way for a fresh start, allowing previously struggling businesses to contribute positively to the Vietnamese real estate market. The exemption or reduction in land rent for industrial worker accommodation will influence the real estate rental market. Foreign investors can benefit by strategically positioning themselves in the rental sector, taking advantage of increased supply. However, a thorough understanding of local demand dynamics and adapting to potential shifts in the rental landscape will be crucial to maximising returns in the long run. Furthermore, the removal of the land price framework signals a shift towards market-driven pricing. While landowners may benefit, foreign real estate businesses should anticipate increased land clearance costs. Strategic planning, risk mitigation, and aligning land acquisition strategies with market trends will be essential to navigate this change successfully and maintain a competitive edge in the evolving Vietnamese real estate market. Adapting to the evolving market conditions, understanding and complying with regulations, and strategically positioning investments are key to success in Vietnams dynamic real estate market after the new law comes into effect. A new property market cycle is beginning for Vietnam The new Land Law should promote market mechanisms, regulate interest groups, put people first, and minimise disparities between real estate businesses. Vietnam's Land Law overhaul: transforming land acquisition Vietnam's land acquisition landscape is poised for a transformation with the upcoming enforcement of the recently approved Land Law, scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2025. A raft of new offerings are in the pipeline or underway in some of Vietnams biggest cities, photo Le Toan According to the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in January, the registered capital of foreign direct investment (FDI) increased sharply and the disbursement of FDI also surged. The total capital registered in Vietnam in January reached $2.36 billion, an increase of more than 40 per cent on-year. Up to $1.27 billion of such capital was poured into the real estate sector, accounting for 53.9 per cent of total registered capital and doubling compared to January 2023. The increase in FDI into Vietnam and the breakthrough in the real estate sector are opening up many promising opportunities, especially in the manufacturing sector. Improvements in infrastructure development, administrative procedure reform, and investment in innovation centres in Vietnam are also contributing to making the market attractive to international financiers. Fitch Ratings has also recently upgraded Vietnams long-term national credit rating to BB+ with a stable outlook. Meanwhile, the retail market also recorded vibrant activities from foreign investors. In September 2023, Lotte Group opened its new mall in Hanois Tay Ho district, while THISO opened its third Emart hypermarket in Ho Chi Minh City and plans to put money in the north after purchasing a 2.4 hectare land plot in the capital. In the last months of 2023, many large developers launched new housing products, including The Privia project in Ho Chi Minh City, and Canopy Residences and Lumiere Evergreen projects in Hanoi. The next phases of the Akari City and Glory Heights projects have also been launched in Ho Chi Minh City. Meanwhile, Gamuda Land from Malaysia is proceeding with three new projects: Eaton Park and Elysian in Ho Chi Minh City, and Artisan in Binh Duong province. Singaporean giant CapitaLand is moving forward with its mega project called Lumi in Hanoi and is also slated to start its first project in Binh Duong, Sycamore, imminently. Matthew Powell, director of Savills Hanoi, commented that upcoming new laws on land, housing, and real estate have given a boost to the property landscape. The adoption of these laws can be seen as a positive signal for the investment market in the next year, boosting confidence. The Vietnamese market with real demand for housing as well as confidence in the office and industrial real estate sectors will be the key to the start of a new cycle this year. However, we still need to wait for the legal documents to be able to observe clearer changes, Powell said. Meanwhile, CBRE carried out a survey on Asia-Pacific investor intentions, conducted in November and December, involving more than 500 people answering a range of questions related to their buying intentions, perceived challenges, and preferred strategies for the coming year. According to the survey, Vietnam secured second position among the most sought-after emerging markets for added value and opportunistic strategies. This ranking places Vietnam just behind India in terms of attractiveness. Vietnams market presents a unique landscape where portfolios consisting of income-producing assets are scarce and typically not available for sale. As a result, most investors in Vietnam focus their attention on industrial and office assets, aligning with the prevailing trend observed across the Asia-Pacific region, read the survey. Duy Nguyen, investment properties director at CBRE Vietnam, commented that Vietnams robust economy and export-oriented strategy have propelled trade activities, thereby underscoring the critical importance of efficient logistics and supply chain management. Investors recognise the potential in supporting and capitalising on these requirements, further driving the demand for industrial assets, Duy said. Additionally, residential development sites in Vietnam continue to generate strong interest from foreign developers. Many are actively exploring opportunities in distressed assets or properties owned by landlords facing legal challenges or limited access to funding sources, he added. Investors with a long-term view on the potential of Vietnams economy and ready to deploy capital are most likely to reap the benefits of the repricing and decompression of asset yields. This is particularly true when sellers are seeking to exit at the conclusion of their investment window. Nicolas Michaux, Founder, Alpha Prime The real estate market in Vietnam has been facing challenges in the past two years. However, the market is expected to recover in 2024 and accelerate in 2025, thanks to the governments efforts to stimulate the economy, improve the legal framework, and allure foreign investment. One of the key factors that will boost the market in the coming years is the enactment of the three new laws related to the real estate sector. They aim to provide more clarity, transparency, and consistency in the regulations governing the real estate market, as well as to protect the rights and interests of both developers and buyers. Some of the notable changes introduced by these laws include expanding the range of property types and real estate products that can be traded, such as mixed-use works, separate floor areas, and land use rights with technical infrastructure. It also clarifies the requirements and conditions for different types of investors in the real estate market, such as domestic and foreign individuals and organisations, and exempting some foreign-owned enterprises from the procedures applicable to foreign backers. Furthermore, it regulates the sale and purchase of land use rights, requires the land to have existing technical infrastructure, and prohibits the sale of bare land areas and sets out the eligibility and conditions to transfer a real estate project, such as having a valid investment certificate, completing the compensation and site clearance, and obtaining the approval of the competent authorities. Foreign investors will also have more opportunities to participate in real estate, especially in the segments of industrial, office, retail, and hospitality, which are expected to see strong demand and growth potential. Therefore, the real estate market in Vietnam is poised to become one of the most attractive and dynamic markets in the region. Aidan Wee, CEO, PropNex WeeReal The new laws are received with optimism and positivity from foreign investors, there is a widespread feeling that the government is finally addressing the loopholes and conflicting legislation to the laws governing the real estate market. The 2023 amended Law on Real Estate Business finally provides clear directives for a regulated marketplace. To name a few key changes: real estate developers will now need to use government prescribed contract templates, are allowed to collect deposit of up to a maximum of 5 per cent only, and can publish all real estate project information on the Ministry of Constructions residential housing information system. As for the new Law on Housing, it is now worded that foreigners need not only purchase residential real estate from real estate developers in the primary market, but also directly from other foreigners that are rightful owners of permitted residential real estate in Vietnam. The new land law promises to unlock legal bottlenecks in increasing the primary supply of residential housing projects by streamlining the legal process for acquiring approvals. With the three new laws related to the real estate market, it feels that the government has learned from the practical implementation and conflicting nature of the previous laws. From a foreign investor point of view, this is all superb news that the market will move upwards again as the amendments will lead the market to become more transparent, see housing prices return to more realistic levels, and curb the speculative nature of residential real estate in Vietnam. Vietnams real estate in the long term will be more sustainable and this will create a strong foundation. With new laws taking effect in 2025, most investors will still adopt a wait and see attitude. More social housing among urgent acts in construction The construction sector is aiming for moderate growth in 2024 amid numerous challenges, as tackling sector bottlenecks again remains top of the Ministry of Constructions agenda. Experts upbeat about real estate prospects Experts from top real estate consulting companies in Vietnam have expressed optimism about development prospects of the real estate market, particularly regarding the office and industrial segments. RICHMOND, Va. (AP) Trade associations representing hundreds of companies that do business in Virginia have come out swinging against a proposal to expand the state sales tax to cover digital goods, something Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposed and Democrats endorsed in their budget legislation. Both chambers of the legislature included the new sales tax on purchases like streaming subscriptions, cloud storage and online downloads in the two-year budget plans they passed last week. The Senate went beyond the House of Delegates in also applying it to business-to-business transactions. In a letter sent to lawmakers beginning Tuesday, the Northern Virginia Technology Council and other business-focused lobbying and trade organizations said the General Assembly should reject the proposed tech tax, which budget documents from both chambers show is estimated to generate over $1 billion in revenue over the next two-year state budget. At a minimum, the letter said, if policymakers move forward with the proposal, they should broadly exempt business-to-business transactions or companies may be forced to pass along costs to consumers or move to other states. The proposed tech tax hike would put Virginia companies at a significant competitive disadvantage in industries where global competition is high and margins are narrow. The tax will very likely impact hiring and reduce internal research and development investment, the majority of which is currently concentrated here in Virginia," Jennifer Taylor, president and CEO of the group, said in a statement included with the letter, which a representative of the organization shared with The Associated Press. The Technology Council says on its website it has nearly 500 members, ranging from Fortune 100 companies to academic institutions and government contractors. Additional interest groups, including the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, a data center coalition and a coalition of broadband providers, also signed onto the letter. So did the Virginia Manufacturers Association, whose president and CEO, Brett Vassey, said the proposed tax would drive up the cost of software and online training materials used by factories. Democrats have said the expansion of the tax is a commonsense adjustment that brings Virginia's tax code in line with an increasingly digital world. Currently, individuals would pay sales tax on a CD but not a digital download, and a company would pay taxes on a physical server but not cloud storage, Democratic Sen. L. Louise Lucas, chair of the Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee, said while unveiling her chamber's budget proposal. I find it only fair that the same taxes apply to individuals and businesses when consuming the same services," said Lucas, who dubbed the proposal a new economy tax. Youngkin called for the expansion of the sales tax to cover what he calls the Big Tech loophole when he unveiled his proposed version of the 2024-2026 budget in December. But he also coupled it with an income tax cut, which Democrats voted down, in a budget package that would have reduced tax revenues overall. Governor Youngkin made it clear during his State of the Commonwealth address that he was only interested in a plan that reduced the tax burden for Virginians. While the governor will review any legislation that comes to his desk, his Unleashing Opportunity budget proposed a nearly $1 billion tax cut over the biennium, building upon the $5 billion in tax relief he delivered on a bipartisan basis to Virginians during his first two years in office, spokesman Christian Martinez said in an emailed statement. Later this week, lawmakers will send their competing budget plans to a conference committee, a group of legislators who will work to find a compromise plan to send to Youngkin. That process takes place out of public view and in recent years has not been finished on time. PHILADELPHIA (AP) Key events in the life of pioneering contralto Marian Anderson, whose name replaced Verizon on the Philadelphia Orchestra on Wednesday: Feb. 27, 1897 Born in Philadelphia. Early 1900s By age of 6, Anderson gained attention for her voice in the African American Union Baptist Church choir in Philadelphia. She also performed with the Peoples Chorus, a Black ensemble in Philadelphia. Churchgoers held a fundraiser enabling her to study with Giuseppe Boghetti. April 22, 1918 First appearance at the Philadelphia Academy of Music with the New York Clef Club Syncopated Orchestra. Summer 1919 Enrolled in six-week opera course at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Dec. 30, 1920 First appearance at New York's Carnegie Hall with the Martin-Smith Music School. Early 1920s Denied admission to the Philadelphia Musical Academy (now named the University of the Arts School of Music) because she was Black. 1920s and 1930s Performed regularly in Europe. 1924 Signed with RCA Victor, the first Black American to get a recording contract. Aug. 26, 1925 Entered into a New York Philharmonic vocal competition by famed voice teacher Giuseppe Boghetti, Anderson made her debut with the orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium with conductor Willem van Hoogstraten, the first Black solo artist to appear with the orchestra. Dec. 30, 1928 Made her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut. Feb. 19, 1936 First White House performance April 16, 1937 Denied a room at the Nassau Inn following a performance at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey, Anderson was invited to spend the night in the home of Albert Einstein. April 9, 1939 Denied a performance at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., by the Daughters of the American Revolution because of her race, which prompted first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to resign from DAR. Instead, Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday before a crowd estimated at 75,000, preserved in the documentary film Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert." The concert was organized in response to the DAR decision by promoter Sol Hurok, NAACP Secretary Walter White and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes. Jan. 7, 1943 First performance at Constitution Hall, a benefit for United China Relief before an integrated audience. Jan. 7, 1955 Made her Metropolitan Opera debut at age 57 at Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdii's Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) with Zinka Milanov, Richard Tucker, Leonard Warren and Roberta Peters, with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting. Dec. 6, 1963 Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson. March 8, 1977 Awarded Congressional Gold Medal, presented by President Jimmy Carter on Oct. 16, 1978. Dec. 3, 1978 Among the recipients in the first year of the Kennedy Center Honors. Jan. 10, 1991 Announced as winner of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. April 8, 1993 Following a stroke the previous month, died at age 96 in Portland, Oregon, at the home of her nephew, conductor James DePriest. ATLANTA (AP) Georgia's lawmakers are moving not only to regild the iconic dome on state Capitol, but the entire complex. Lawmakers on Monday with little dissent agreed to spend $392 million to build a new legislative office building for themselves and to renovate the 1889 Capitol building. Gov. Brian Kemp approved increasing state spending to pay for the project, saying lawmakers expressed a "strong desire to address the long-term capital needs for our historic Capitol building and the surrounding area. Kemp must still sign the bill, which boosts spending of state revenue by almost $5.5 billion over the $32.5 billion that lawmakers approved last year. Senators and House members agreed to a state budget that would include money for $1,000 bonuses already paid to state employees and teachers, additional roadbuilding, new dental and medical schools, and paying down some state debts. Kemp must sill sign House Bill 915, which adds money to the budget running through June 30. Total spending, including federal aid, college tuition, fines and fees, would rise to $68 billion. Plans call for an eight-story building across Martin Luther King Jr. Drive from the north side of the Capitol in downtown Atlanta, said Gerald Pilgrim, the deputy executive director of the Georgia Building Authority. The site includes two smaller state office buildings that are partly vacant. This budget provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pay cash and the full cost to protect the safety and security of building occupants and improve public access to the Capitol Hill complex, for the construction of a new legislative office building, as well as over $83 million to restore the historical integrity of this building that was built so long ago," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Matt Hatchett, a Dublin Republican, told House members Monday. Georgia's not alone. Alabama is constructing a new building to hold chambers for its House and Senate. Kansas used $60 million in federal pandemic relief funds to help demolish an obsolete state office building and replace it with a smaller structure designed to host meetings and events, a decade after completing a 13-year renovation of its capitol that cost more than $330 million. California is engaged in a $1 billion revamp of its capitol grounds, including tearing down old offices and replacing them with a new building, parking garage and visitors center. Most lawmaker offices and committee rooms are in the Coverdell Legislative Office Building, on the south side of the Capitol. That structure was built as an office building for state health agencies and renovated for lawmakers in the 1980s. Many lawmakers complain they dont have conference rooms to meet with staff and constituents. Pilgrim noted that heating and mechanical systems need replacement and that committee rooms are often obstructed by columns. Were bursting at the seams in this Capitol and across the street in the CLOB, Hatchett said. Architects also made a $208 million proposal to renovate the Coverdell building. But it would have produced less new space, allowing for fewer changes to the Capitol. Plus, members would have had to decamp to portable trailers in a parking lot for two years during renovations. Instead, Kemp and lawmakers opted for the plan to build the new structure with 260,000 square feet (24,000 square meters) and a parking garage with 500 spaces. Construction could start in October and be complete by the end of 2026, allowing it to be used for the 2027 legislative session, if the state can meet what Pilgrim calls an aggressive schedule. It would include new offices and committee rooms for lawmakers, a reception area for visiting groups, and a skybridge to the capitol. The plan also includes a renovation of the Capitol to improve heating and air conditioning systems and fire safety and to restore historic features that have been obscured by prior renovations, Pilgrim said. Some of that work, including refurbishment of the House and Senate chambers and laying a thin new layer of Georgia gold on the Capitol dome, could start this year. Other work is likely to wait until after the new legislative office building is completed. The plan calls for creating two walled fire stairways. Architects warn that in case of a fire, stairways in Capitol atriums could become obscured by smoke. Pilgrim said air circulation systems are needed because the building was designed for windows to admit fresh air, while now windows are sealed for air conditioning. The renovation would also remove some offices stuffed into mezzanine levels built into rooms that once had towering ceilings. Particularly, a grand library now chopped up into offices would be restored, Pilgrim said. TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) A Tuscon jury began deliberating Tuesday on a murder charge in the retrial of a man who already is serving a life sentence for killing a child in a separate case. Pima County Superior Court officials said the jury got the case after lawyers on both sides gave closing arguments. Jurors stopped at the end of the day and were to resume deliberations at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. Christopher Clements, 42, already is serving a life sentence for the 2014 death of another Tucson girl 13-year-old Maribel Gonzalez. He was retried after a Pima County Superior Court jury couldnt reach a verdict last year on the first-degree murder charge against Clements in the death of 6-year-old Isabel Celis. A mistrial was declared last March and the retrial started Feb. 7 in front of a different jury. Prosecutors said Clements has a long criminal history that includes sex crimes in several states dating back to when he was 16. Celis vanished from her parents home in April 2012. Authorities said Clements became a suspect in 2017 when he told the FBI he could lead investigators to Celis remains in return for having unrelated charges dropped. At the time, Clements said he simply knew the location of the girls remains but had nothing to do with her death. Clements was sentenced to natural life in prison in 2022 for the kidnapping and killing of Gonzalez, who disappeared in June 2014 while walking to a friends house. Her body was found days later in a remote desert area north of Tucson. Authorities said the Gonzalez case included evidence that her body showed a partial DNA match to Clements, but Celis remains were so degraded that the first trial didnt include any claim of a match to the defendant. Clements was arrested in 2018 and indicted on 22 felony counts in connection with the deaths of the two Tucson girls. INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Indiana lawmakers advanced a bill Tuesday that would hold back thousands more third graders who don't pass the state's literacy test, rejecting opponents' arguments that it could burden schools and emotionally damage children. The Indiana Department of Education says about 18% of third graders did not pass Indianas reading test last year. GOP lawmakers argue that schools exempt too many kids who fail it, allowing them to pass through to fourth grade. If the proposal becomes law, second graders would be required to take the all-important reading test, which is currently optional for that grade, as an early indicator of their progress. If they pass, students would not have to take it again in the third grade. If students again do not pass in the third grade, they can attend summer school and take the test one more time. If they choose not to or do not pass the test after three tries, they will be held back from the fourth grade. About 7,000 more students would repeat third grade starting in the 2025-26 school year, according to an estimate attached to the bill. The state House voted 69-27 to advance the legislation largely along party lines. The bill requires final approval by the state Senate, where it originated, before heading to the desk of Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb. He supports the measure, along with the state Education Department. Many Republicans, who control both houses of the General Assembly, say students need the intervention now after declines in the literacy rate for a decade. The retention piece of this bill has received the majority of the attention, the bills Republican sponsor, state Rep. Jake Teshka, told lawmakers Tuesday. Its really a bill about early intervention and giving a student every possible opportunity to read by third grade. The bill does allow exemptions, including for some English-language learners and students with disabilities. It also establishes reading assessments for students as young as kindergartners so parents and teachers know where they stand. Statehouse Democrats have repeatedly voted against the bill, arguing that holding students back will strain school resources. Others say holding students back can have harmful social and emotional effects. On par with many states, Indiana last year changed how reading is taught to elementary school children and implemented a phonetic strategy often referred to as the science of reading. Some opponents said Indiana lawmakers should let schools fully implement the measure before making other changes. A Democratic proposal to delay the retention policy by a year failed on the House floor Monday. Why do we continue to come here year after year and change the way we do education for our kids? the Democratic floor leader, state Rep. Cherrish Pryor, asked lawmakers Tuesday. The kids can't keep up with it, the teachers can't keep up with it, the parents can't keep up with it. I don't know who can keep up. The Woodway City Council on Monday agreed to promote Assistant City Manager Adam Niolet to interim city manager, effective April 1 upon the retirement of City Manager Shawn Oubre. The council hired Niolet this past September in his current position. Mr. Niolet brings a wealth of experience and he will be a huge asset to the community and to day-to-day operations, Woodway Mayor Amine Qourzal said by phone Tuesday. The city will continue to be in good hands. Oubre announced Jan. 22 that he would retire at the end of March, saying he wanted to travel with his family and spend time with his grandchildren. Niolet, 39, holds two masters degrees and has worked as a public servant in Texas since 2011, first as a police officer then in municipal administration. My leadership style is based on transparency, respect and honesty, Niolet said Tuesday. I work for the city council and I will give them the best, most accurate information I can so that they can make good decisions for the people of Woodway. Niolet said he has worked to build trust and respect with all Woodway city departments and spoken with council members at meetings. Now that theyre promoting me, I will soon be able to get to know each of the council members, as well, Niolet said. Qourzal said the city does not have a search planned for a new city manager. Niolet said he hopes the council will chose to promote him to city manager after they see more of his performance over the next six months. His short-term goals include holding a series of budget workshops and helping the city determine the future of the current Woodway Family Center building, which is about to be replaced. Niolet enlisted in the U.S. Navy out of high school and received an honorable discharge for administrative reasons after eight months. Then he spent some time in Los Angeles and New York City, to see what big city life was like after having grown up in small Texas towns. Returning to Texas, Niolet in 2011 became a police officer in Forest Hill near Fort Worth. He worked his way up through the ranks from patrol officer to corporal and detective, gaining a master peace officers license. During this time he also earned earned an associates, a bachelors and a masters degree in public safety and national security-related studies from American Military University. When he began his career in law enforcement, he initially had a goal of becoming a federal agent with the FBI or CIA, Niolet said Tuesday. But he had a change of heart while working as a local police officer and detective. While I was a detective I would drive past the same parks in need of upkeep, and when I was in patrol, I would drive past the same pothole in the street every time I left the police station, so I decided that working at the city level, I could make changes that would directly help people, changes I could see, Niolet said. After he completed his first masters, Niolet transitioned from peace officer to public administration, leaving Forest Hill in 2017 for Hico. In that Hamilton County town, he served as city administrator and emergency management coordinator from July 2017 to February 2022. While at Hico, he completed a Master of Business Administration at Texas Christian University and an executive certificate in public leadership at the Kennedy School of Government and Public Service at Harvard University. He served next in Seminole, a West Texas community more comparable to Woodway in terms of its city staff and population of about 7,000. In his free time Niolet enjoys chess, writing and rebuilding old cars. CEDAR FALLS A Minnesota sex offender who solicited nude photos from teens in Iowa and other states has pleaded guilty to plotting to kill the family of one of his victims in Pennsylvania. Michael Lee Kurkowski, 28, of Owatonna, entered his plea to one count each of threatening interstate communication and production of child pornography in U.S. District Court for Minnesota. Court records allege Kurkowskis murder plot was more than just talk authorities found him with a knife, stun gun, 16 flex cuffs, handcuffs, electrical tape and hooded facemasks while taking a Greyhound bus to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Cedar Falls police assisted in the investigation because one of his victims included a 13-year-old boy from Cedar Falls, according to court records. Kurkowski was 25 when he allegedly began exchanging nude photos with a boy under age 18 in Pennsylvania. In 2021, after several years, the victim decided to end the online relationship. This upset Kurkowski, who traveled to Pennsylvania in an attempt to continue the relationship. The victim went to police, and Kurkowski was arrested on state child pornography charges and later convicted. He was sentenced to 142 days in jail followed by probation. He was to register as a sex offender and was barred from contacting his victim, according to prosecutors. Then in December 2021, authorities learned of another teen in East Peoria, Illinois, who had been exchanging photos with Kurkowski, and this led to information about the Cedar Falls victim, according to court records. Family of the Illinois victim also obtained information that Kurkowski had sent text messages outlining detailed plans to kill the Pennsylvania teen for ruining his life and turning him into authorities, records state. The plan included using the Illinois teen to lure the Pennsylvania teens sister out of the house and then use the sister to get inside. Once inside, he would kill the parents, rape the sister and the Pennsylvania teen and then kill them cutting out her heart. Then in February 2022, Kurkowskis family went to police with similar concerns about a murder plot, with the added detail that he had booked a bus trip. His grandmother had dropped him off at the Owatonna bus depot after he told her he was going to the New Prague, Minnesota, area. But another relative suspected he was heading east to hurt one of his victims but had been caught in a snowstorm. Authorities tracked Kurkowskis cell phone, finding traces of it moving through Indiana. When the bus stopped at a Greyhound depot in Toledo, Ohio, officers took him into custody. Along with the knife and flex cuffs, they found a handwritten list of names, people they suspected he planned to harm, according to court records. Kurkowski allegedly admitted he was headed to see the Pennsylvania victim and had thoughts of harming the family but wasnt sure if he would have carried them out, records state. Police examined his internet history and found searches for best blade for cutting skin and how long does a blade have to be to cause lethality and do police know if you use a greyhound. He was charged with making threats in the murder plot and child pornography in connection with exchanges with other victims, according to court records. Jury selection began Monday but Kurkowski ended up pleading guilty. Sentencing will be at a later date and Kurkowski remains in custody. The case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI, the Owatonna Police Department, Steele County Community Corrections, the Upper Allen Township (Pennsylvania) Police Department, the East Peoria Police Department, Watertown (Wisconsin) Police Department, Toledo Police Department, and the Cedar Falls Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Chelsea Walcker and Laura Provinzino are prosecuting the case. Additionally, NCMECs peer support network, Team HOPE, can provide support, empowerment, and resources to families of missing or exploited children from people who have experienced a similar trauma. Those who would like to connect with someone for emotional support, can contact gethelp@ncmec.org or 1- 877-446-2632 ext. 6117. Photos: Missing children in Iowa Emily Joann Dudney Daquan Nelson Jade Colvin Fredrick Workman Benjamin Roseland Erin Pospisil Marc Allen Eugene Martin John Gosch Kimberly Doss Colleen Simpson Blog Archive: Mar 2024 (90) Feb 2024 (145) Jan 2024 (156) Dec 2023 (155) Nov 2023 (150) Oct 2023 (155) Sep 2023 (150) Aug 2023 (155) Jul 2023 (155) Jun 2023 (150) May 2023 (155) Apr 2023 (150) Mar 2023 (155) Feb 2023 (140) Jan 2023 (155) Dec 2022 (156) Nov 2022 (150) Oct 2022 (155) Sep 2022 (150) Aug 2022 (155) Jul 2022 (154) Jun 2022 (150) May 2022 (155) Apr 2022 (150) Mar 2022 (155) Feb 2022 (140) Jan 2022 (156) Dec 2021 (156) Nov 2021 (150) Oct 2021 (155) Sep 2021 (150) Aug 2021 (155) Jul 2021 (155) Jun 2021 (150) May 2021 (155) Apr 2021 (150) Mar 2021 (155) Feb 2021 (140) Jan 2021 (155) Dec 2020 (155) Nov 2020 (150) Oct 2020 (158) Sep 2020 (150) Aug 2020 (130) Jul 2020 (124) Jun 2020 (120) May 2020 (124) Apr 2020 (120) Mar 2020 (124) Feb 2020 (116) Jan 2020 (125) Dec 2019 (126) Nov 2019 (120) Oct 2019 (124) Sep 2019 (120) Aug 2019 (125) Jul 2019 (124) Jun 2019 (120) May 2019 (123) Apr 2019 (121) Mar 2019 (124) Feb 2019 (112) Jan 2019 (125) Dec 2018 (126) Nov 2018 (120) Oct 2018 (124) Sep 2018 (121) Aug 2018 (124) Jul 2018 (125) Jun 2018 (120) May 2018 (124) Apr 2018 (121) Mar 2018 (124) Feb 2018 (112) Jan 2018 (123) Dec 2017 (124) Nov 2017 (124) Oct 2017 (141) Sep 2017 (135) Aug 2017 (138) Jul 2017 (137) Jun 2017 (134) May 2017 (138) Apr 2017 (135) Mar 2017 (139) Feb 2017 (129) Jan 2017 (143) Dec 2016 (135) Nov 2016 (138) Oct 2016 (142) Sep 2016 (128) Aug 2016 (133) Jul 2016 (136) Jun 2016 (138) May 2016 (164) Apr 2016 (311) Mar 2016 (348) Feb 2016 (320) Jan 2016 (348) Dec 2015 (314) Nov 2015 (338) Oct 2015 (363) Sep 2015 (358) Aug 2015 (399) Jul 2015 (374) Jun 2015 (331) May 2015 (337) Apr 2015 (319) Mar 2015 (320) Feb 2015 (271) Jan 2015 (286) Dec 2014 (254) Nov 2014 (238) Oct 2014 (287) Sep 2014 (267) Aug 2014 (259) Jul 2014 (260) Jun 2014 (238) May 2014 (241) Apr 2014 (228) Mar 2014 (240) Feb 2014 (217) Jan 2014 (263) Dec 2013 (226) Nov 2013 (254) Oct 2013 (256) Sep 2013 (252) Aug 2013 (263) Jul 2013 (261) Jun 2013 (251) May 2013 (250) Apr 2013 (221) Mar 2013 (193) Feb 2013 (164) Jan 2013 (157) Dec 2012 (155) Nov 2012 (240) Oct 2012 (526) Sep 2012 (411) Aug 2012 (394) Jul 2012 (284) Jun 2012 (229) May 2012 (213) Apr 2012 (213) Mar 2012 (253) Feb 2012 (269) Jan 2012 (298) Dec 2011 (273) Nov 2011 (219) Oct 2011 (204) Sep 2011 (201) Aug 2011 (236) Jul 2011 (217) Jun 2011 (211) May 2011 (206) Apr 2011 (215) Mar 2011 (215) Feb 2011 (186) Jan 2011 (215) Dec 2010 (107) Nov 2010 (98) Oct 2010 (55) CEDAR FALLS A woman has been arrested for allegedly leading police on a high-speed chase in a minivan early Tuesday morning. A Cedar Falls police officer attempted to pull over a Dodge Journey on West First Street for speeding around 5:30 a.m. The van continued on, accelerating and fleeing officers for around 20 minutes before police called off the chase because of the vehicles dangerous driving, according to authorities. Officers later found the vehicle parked and empty. Police arrested Danaiza Quanise Sallis, 22, of 3217 Darlene Court, Waterloo, a short time later for eluding, reckless driving and driving while barred. Bond was set at $10,000. Court records show Sallis is on probation for a November 2022 chase in Waterloo and an April 2021 traffic stop where police found a gun and marijuana. WATERLOO Organizers expect the line to begin forming several hours before doors open for Proms Closet this weekend. With proms popping up on school calendars across the Cedar Valley, the 13th annual pop-up prom shop always generates excitement among teenagers. Proms Closet, presented by the Junior League of Waterloo-Cedar Falls will take place from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday on the second level (food court entrance) at Crossroads Mall. The two-day event draws shoppers from more than 40 communities in the Cedar Valley and surrounding area. Typically, the first customers arrive about an hour or so before the doors open and it isnt long before the line snakes around the corner and down the hall. Weve had shoppers tell us they drove two hours or more to get to the event. When you can get a whole outfit for prom dress, shoes and jewelry people are willing to drive for it, said Danica Haas, Junior League president. New and gently used gowns are available in a variety of styles and colors from sizes zero to 26. Bejeweled, ruffled, spangled and sequined or not, each prom dress is $20. A pair of shoes is $3 and accessories, such as earrings and necklaces, are $1 each. Dressing rooms and mirrors will be available. Well have around 1,000 gowns, and something new this year, well also have mens formalwear, including tuxes, suits, ties, bow ties and dress shoes. Were excited to be able to offer that option. We also wanted to be inclusive and recognize that some people might not want to wear a dress and would feel more comfortable wearing pants. We wanted to provide that option, said Haas. All proceeds from each sale go directly to the Junior League of Waterloo-Cedar Falls to support one part of its mission of having a meaningful community impact through volunteer action, specifically improving the lives of area teens. There are no income guidelines, although Proms Closet is primarily directed at teenagers who might otherwise not be able to purchase a prom dress. In addition, Junior League works locally with the Iowa Department of Human Services to provide free dress vouchers for interested young women in foster care who want to attend their school prom. Cost is a barrier for lots of teenagers when it comes to prom. We know how costly it can be, and Proms Closet is a place where teens can come and get their outfits at an affordable price less than the cost of paying for a meal when eating out, Haas explained. While we understand there are many other costs associated with prom, we are happy to assist with one of the largest barriers. In addition, anyone shopping for a special occasion dress is welcome, such as mothers-of-the-bride, bridesmaids, pageant contestants and others. This week, dozens of JL volunteers will spend hours hanging the gowns, stacking many pairs of shoes and arranging accessories at the Crossroads shop in preparation for the event. This is a well-loved project that all our new and current members enjoy being involved in. Its hard work, but its fun, too, said Haas. Efforts are being made to grow the inventory, specifically in dress sizes zero to 2 and 18 and up. Formalwear donations are accepted year-round at the JL office. Mens formalwear, including suits, shirts, ties, bow ties and dress pants will also be accepted, as well as mens and womens shoes. New or gently used donations can be dropped off from 5 to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Junior League of Waterloo-Cedar Falls Office at 2530 University Ave., at Hy-Vee on Logan Avenue, Milroys Tuxedos, or other arrangements can be made by contacting jlwcfpromscloset@gmail.com. For more information or to donate online, please visit www.jlwcf.org. The Prom Closet marks 10th anniversary with annual sale Friday & Saturday PHOTOS prom closet 13.jpeg prom closet 1.jpg prom closet 2.jpg prom closet 5.jpg prom closet 6.jpg prom closet 10.jpg prom closet 12.jpg A dairy farm near Decorah that has been repeatedly cited by state regulators for manure releases was recently fined $8,000 for contaminating a tributary of a prominent creek that flows through the town. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources found in April 2023 that the farm operated by Darryl Humpal, about seven miles southwest of Decorah, had leaked manure again, when melting snow caused significant runoff and a wall that was meant to contain the manure had failed. Tests of the water in a tributary of Dry Run showed elevated levels of ammonia nitrogen, according to a recent DNR order. The site has about 850 dairy cattle in confinement buildings and open feedlots. Then in May, a DNR officer returned to the site and saw water that was used to wash the floor of a confinement building was flowing into the tributary. The officer again noted ammonia contamination in the stream. The contaminations did not result in apparent fish kills. In 2017, manure from the facility that was applied to a hay field was washed by rain into a stream and killed about 35,000 small fish, according to another DNR order. The department levied a $2,000 fine and ordered Humpal to pay more than $13,000 of restitution for the dead fish. In 2019, the department found that manure had flowed from the facility into a grassed waterway, which led to the installation of the wall that had failed before the most recent creek contamination. Mr. Humpal gained an economic benefit by failing to properly maintain the wall to assist with the control of the confinement manure, the DNR said in its order that levied the recent fine. The order also requires Humpal to submit a plan for how he will manage manure and contaminated water at the site to prevent it from reaching nearby streams. The US military has released a large set of data on the Russian Armed Forces and their military tactics, conspicuously omitting any focus on Moscows special military operation in Ukraine. is a 280-page document that professes to sum up Russian tactics for use in Army training, professional education, and leader development. It addresses Russian military doctrine with a focus on army ground forces and tactical operations in offense, defense, and related mission sets and addresses the tactics, organization, and activities of the Russian military. The document uses Russian tactical concepts employed in training and exercises, primarily for large-scale combat operations, the US military stated. *** First link is to server and not of original websites. Most links are blocked from the Eastern World, as if that makes a difference in who can see it? Whatever WtR Macron Napoleon . What could Bonapartism lead to in France? Macron made a number of loud statements, including the possibility of sending NATO troops to Ukraine, which horrified the residents of his country and the leaders of a number of European states. Even Scholz, remembering Hitler, was taken aback by such crazy adventurism. Macron forgot how several years ago, comparing modern France with the times of Napoleon, he said that Bonaparte did not take into account losses, but since then the country puts human life above all else. During his presidency, Macron, frankly speaking, has achieved little. Economic stagnation, protests by yellow vests and farmers, geopolitical defeats in Africa: at the request of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, French troops were withdrawn. In addition, Niger authorities announced the suspension of uranium and gold exports to France, and also demanded compensation from Paris for more than 100 years of colonial plunder of the countrys natural resources. Because of these and many other problems, the French do not support Macron his rating has fallen to an extremely low level. If the elections were held today, Marine Le Pen would win them. To maintain personal power, Macron came up with nothing better than to spark a third world war. His initiatives are becoming dangerous for French citizens. Before making such statements, Macron would do well to remember how it ended for Napoleon and his soldiers, more than 600 thousand of whom were left lying in the damp earth. Rachel Bohman of Rochester filed paperwork Friday to join the 1st Congressional District race against incumbent Brad Finstad. Bohman, a member of the DemocraticFarmerLabor party, formerly served as a member of the Rochester Township Board and as an assistant county attorney. "Im running because I believe in a vision of shared prosperity for southern Minnesota and I know that this country works best when it works together," she stated on her campaign website. Finstad, a Republican, is in his first full term in the congressional seat after succeeding the late Jim Hagedorn in 2022. Finstad visited with Winona community members at Fastenal in downtown Winona last week, where he addressed topics such as immigration, workforce, the nation's budget, military, farming, health care, global unrest and more. "It's an honor to sit in your seat," Finstad said Feb. 21, sharing with the Winona community members that he recognizes the seat belongs to the people of the district, not the incumbent politician. The district spans southern Minnesota, including Winona County and all of its neighboring Minnesota counties. Joe Biden's brother has told lawmakers that the president never had any involvement in the familys business dealings. That statement came from James Biden when he appeared for a voluntary private interview Wednesday on Capitol Hill as part of House Republicans impeachment inquiry. The more than eight-hour interview was the latest in a series that GOP lawmakers have conducted recently as they try to rebuild momentum for an impeachment process surrounding the Biden familys overseas finances. The investigation faced a major blow last week. An FBI informant who had claimed there was a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving the president, his son Hunter, and a Ukrainian energy company was charged with fabricating the story. This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows an overview of the Smokehouse Creek Fire in Texas, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. A cluster of wildfires is scorching the Texas Panhandle, including the blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history. The flames blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches. (Maxar Technologies via AP) We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) today announced the winners of the AAAI Young Lotus Contest, 2024. The winning team comprises Shagun Agarwal and Chaitali Mane of O & M. Their outstanding creativity and innovative approach stood out among more than 40 entries received from talented young professionals across India. The AAAI Young Lotus Contest 2024, led by Rohit Ohri, Global Partner at FCB, and Director at AAAI aimed to nurture emerging talent in the advertising industry. Ohri emphasized, The AAAI Young Lotus Contest provides a platform for young minds to use their creativity to make our world a better place. This year, it's been encouraging to see the participants' enthusiasm to tackle one of the burning issues of our time the need for clean air." Under the theme "BREATH OF CHANGE: INNOVATING FOR CLEAN AIR IN INDIA," contestants were tasked with conceptualizing integrated campaigns advocating for cleaner air and environmental sustainability. Shagun Agarwal and Chaitali Mane's winning entry demonstrated ingenuity and a profound understanding of the theme, earning them the opportunity to represent India at the Young Lotus Workshop during Adfest 2024. The jury members for the contest were renowned creative minds Romit Nair, NCD, FCB ULKA, Moumita Pal, Creative Head, ENORMOUS and Kartikeya Tiwari, NCD, FCB KINNECT. The Young Lotus Workshop at Adfest in Pattaya, Thailand offers emerging talents to engage with industry leaders, exchange ideas, and enhance their skills on a global platform. The winning team will head to Thailand to participate in the Young Lotus Workshop from 19th to 21st March and also participate in Adfest 2024 from 21st to 23rd March. The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) is a not-for-profit, industry-led and industry-managed trade association of advertising agencies, formed in 1945, to promote their industry interests so that they continue to make an essential and ever-increasing contribution to the nation. The AAAI today is truly representative, with a very large number of small, medium and large-sized agencies as its members, who together account for almost 80% of the advertising business placed in the country. Civic Studios, a global media company, has appointed Pitchfork Partners Strategic Consulting a Mumbai-based firm with operations across India as its new communication partner. With this appointment, Pitchfork Partners will spearhead corporate communications for Civic Studios to build and elevate awareness for the company. Pitchfork Partners, a consultancy reputed for its strategic brilliance, boasts a proven track record of successful collaborations with diverse clients. They will draw upon their experience and innovation to craft powerful messaging, execute impactful campaigns, and manage strategic media relations to further augment Civic Studios' reputation as a leader in socially conscious storytelling designed to make an impact. Expressing her enthusiasm for the association, Roohi Bhatia, Director Strategy & Operations, Civic Studios, said, We are thrilled to have Pitchfork Partners on board as our communications partner. Their experience and capabilities will be instrumental in helping us achieve our communication goals. We look forward to working with them and crafting a compelling brand narrative in India. Civic Studios, known for its impactful storytelling like 'Schirkoa: In Lies We Trust (NETPAC Award winner at International Film Festival of Rotterdam 2024, with guest voice cast such as Karan Johar, Shekhar Kapur, Anurag Kashyap), Vakeel Babu and Ye Saali Naukri, believe in creating authentic stories of change, hope and pride, across formats of film, web series, and short-form digital content. Its upcoming India and international releases include Little Thomas, (feature film starring Rasika Dugal and Gulshan Devaiah), Family Aaj Kal (upcoming web series on Sony Liv featuring actor-influencer Apoorva Arora), and over fifteen projects in development with talents such Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham, Bride & Prejudice, Blinded By The Light), and Pan Nalin (Last Film Show - official Indian entry to the Oscars 2023, Samsaara, Angry Indian Goddesses). They also collaborate with reputed non profit and community-based initiatives to facilitate impact campaigns on ground, and conduct evaluations to measure impact with the intended audience. The aim of Civic Studios is to create a global community of creators who want to tell stories that entertain, engage, and empower. Sharing his views on the appointment, Jaideep Shergill, Co-Founder, Pitchfork Partners, said, Civic Studios is at the forefront of content production, and we are honoured to be their partner of choice for building the India narrative. We believe that our skills and domain expertise will significantly help in crafting strategic communications that will strengthen Civic Studios reputation and brand awareness. The collaboration with Pitchfork Partners promises to elevate Civic Studios' impact, empowering them to reach greater heights and inspire audiences globally through captivating stories. The Economist Group today announced the appointments of two senior leadership roles. Luke Bradley-Jones, Disney+ General Manager of EMEA, has been named President and Managing Director of The Economist. Mr Bradley-Jones will continue to accelerate The Economists digital evolution. He will be based in London and will also have a significant presence in The Economists New York office. He will assume the role of president this summer. Leon Saunders Calvert will serve as the new President and Managing Director of Economist Intelligence, the business information arm of The Economist Group. Mr Saunders Calvert will be based in London. Mr Bradley-Jones is an experienced leader in the media and digital sectors with a demonstrated history of launching and scaling new products. He most recently served as General Manager EMEA at Disney+, responsible for the roll-out of Disney+ across the region as well as the strategy, operations and commercial performance of Disneys direct-to-consumer business. Prior to Disney, Mr Bradley-Jones spent eight years at Sky, where he led the transformation of Skys on-demand services and launched a range of products. In 2017 he assumed the role of Chief Marketing Officer at Sky, responsible for marketing strategy across Skys TV, broadband and mobile businesses. Before Sky, he held leadership roles in digital, business development and strategy at BBC Worldwide. Mr Saunders Calvert comes to Economist Intelligence from ESG Book, a fintech company focused on data, analytics and software, where he was partner and chief product officer. Prior to ESG Book, he spent 15 years at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Mr Saunders Calvert joined LSEG through the acquisition of Refinitiv, formerly the Financial & Risk business of Thomson Reuters, where he ran various business lines including investment banking and sustainable finance. He will assume his responsibilities in April. Both Mr Bradley-Jones and Mr Saunders Calvert will report directly to Lara Boro, chief executive of The Economist Group. Im delighted to welcome these outstanding industry leaders to The Economist Group, said Ms Boro. Mr Bradley-Jones, an Economist aficionado and subscriber for 30 years, has the track record, vision and leadership ability to further The Economists audience growth and digital innovation. He knows how to create just the right products to reach global audiences on a variety of platforms. I couldnt be happier to have him helm our core Economist business. Ms Boro added: Im also thrilled that Mr Saunders Calvert will be leading Economist Intelligence. His knowledge of data, analytics and software will help him lead the EIU team to create the most innovative client solutions. The Economist is a brand Ive respected and relied on for years, said Mr Bradley-Jones. Im arriving at a moment when its commitment to well-balanced and incisive journalism is more important than ever before. Its an honour to be tasked with identifying new ways to evolve The Economist into a digital-first product. I look forward to expanding its reach and impact. Kunzum's Gurgaon outlet hosted an event featuring CommsAdda and Kunzum titled 'Navigating the Convergence of Marketing and PR' on Saturday, 24th February. The event was attended by advertising, branding, publishing, and communication professionals. Kunzum's creator, Ajay Jain, shared Kunzum's brand success story, and the discussion covered new-age public relations, the evolving role of corporate communication, and blurring the lines between PR and marketing. As data has become more readily available and the internet has expanded its reach, and smartphones have become more common, the communication landscape has been transformed. A modern corporate communications function is agile, multidisciplinary, and data-driven, characterized by a multifaceted outreach strategy post-pandemic. Today's role encompasses a fusion of earned, paid, owned, and shared media, with digital and social media outreach playing an integral role in all communication campaigns. Ajay Jain, Author, Traveler, Photographer, and Founder - Kunzum Books, The #CommsAdda meet-up at Kunzum was everything it promised and more, he said. As a repository of stories in the books we stock and sell, Kunzum was the perfect place to bring together the best of corporate storytellers. Our goal at Kunzum is to make it a place for conversations and a community of communities, which prompted this event." The co-originator of CommsAdda, Mrinall Dey, said, "Jerry Seinfeld once said a bookstore was the only sign that people were still thinking." Kunzum is a living example of Seinfeld's saying. In light of that, #CommsAdda and Ajay Jain, the creator of Kunzum, have joined forces to launch a series of interactive sessions exploring the changing landscape of PR and marketing. This alliance between Kunzum and CommsAdda epitomizes a fusion of inventive arenas and communication proficiency, giving attendees the opportunity to take part in thought-provoking colloquies within a lively setting. Kunzum's bookstores in Delhi and Gurgaon were the sites of these incidents on February 24 and March 2, Mrinall added further. Books remain a cornerstone of our lives in a digitally driven world, says Tanmana Rath, Lead Communication and stakeholder Engagement at TERI. I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural session organized by #CommsAdda and #Kunzum on Saturday evening, which served as a powerful testament to the timeless relevance of reading books. The exchange of insights was enriching, emphasizing the connection between these two fields. Amidst the warm & relaxed ambiance and the backdrop of carefully curated books, the evening unfolded with engaging conversations. Ena Chakravorty, VP- Communications, PR, Digital & CSR, As communication professionals, the best we can do is communicate. And what better than brainstorming and discussing the nuances of our profession with peers who bring diverse experiences and perspectives. Last Saturday evening the discussion spanned across a broad spectrum from how PR and marketing are today the new collab, the evolving Marcom function, comms adding value by aligning to the business goals to the function having come long way with comms getting a seat at the board/ leadership tables and more. As a storyteller, what added to the evenings glory was Ajay Jains journey. Truly inspiring! Makes you relook at your passion and dreams. Tilak Amitava Chowdhury, Senior Marcom Specialist, Last Saturday, it was interesting to attend a session on the blurring lines between PR and Marketing organized by #CommsAdda in association with Kunzum. It was great to hear some of the best minds in the business discussing the topic, in the company of books. We humans love a good story and as marketing/ PR professionals, we are constantly creating stories that connect people and enrich lives. So, my takeaway from the session was, in a global market where consumerism has fulfilled most of our needs, we need better storytelling abilities to connect more like minded people and who can buy and promote our products and services. In a groundbreaking announcement, Manu Kumar Jain, former global vice president at Xiaomi, has revealed the core team behind G42, the cutting-edge AI technology company. Jain, who assumed the role of CEO for G42 India in October, expressed both excitement and anticipation for the journey ahead. Announcing this news on his LinkedIn, he mentions: Embarking on a new venture brings forth a whirlwind of emotions excitement intertwined with challenges. One of the most significant hurdles is convincing the initial 5-10 team members to join, since no one knows about you. I've encountered this scenario multiple times from the inception of Jabong to the launch of Xiaomi India, and now, immersing myself in the realm of AI and Supercomputing with G42." The unveiling introduces key figures who will steer G42 towards its ambitious goals. Aakriti Gupta assumes the pivotal role of Finance Director, while Reema Dash takes charge as Legal Director. Sanuj Shah joins as Program Director, tasked with orchestrating strategic initiatives, while Rahul Pal will lead the charge in advancing G42's AI endeavors. The formation of this dynamic team underscores G42's commitment to excellence and innovation in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence. With a wealth of experience and expertise at their helm, G42 is poised to redefine the landscape of AI technology on a global scale. Nat Habit, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty and wellness brand, has appointed Ankita Srivastava as its Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to drive its growth trajectory. Srivastava brings nearly two decades of experience in marketing, brand strategy, innovation, and business leadership, primarily within the beauty, personal care, fragrances, and mens grooming sectors in India. Her extensive consumer expertise and business acumen have been demonstrated through her contributions to renowned brands such as Garnier, Dettol, Parachute, and Park Avenue in the FMCG sector. The Indian beauty and wellness industry are projected to reach $30 billion by 2027, and Nat Habit aims to be a significant player in this growth with its commitment to authentic natural products. Bolstered by a recent $10.2 million Series B funding round, the company is poised for expansion and innovation. Srivastava will be instrumental in crafting consumer strategies, expanding the product portfolio, and assembling a versatile team to accelerate Nat Habits growth. Swagatika Das, co-founder of Nat Habit, expressed enthusiasm about Srivastava's appointment, citing her extensive experience in building successful beauty and personal care brands. Das highlighted the company's strategic vision for the next two years, emphasizing a multifaceted approach to sustain and amplify its presence in the industry. Ankita Srivastava shared her excitement about joining Nat Habit and praised the brand's commitment to natural living and holistic wellness. She acknowledged the unique position of Nat Habit in an era where authenticity is paramount and emphasized the importance of redefining natural beauty standards. Srivastava expressed her dedication to scaling awareness and establishing Nat Habit as a household name synonymous with natural, fresh, and authentic personal care. Procter and Gamble India (P&G India), maker of brands like Tide, Ariel, Pampers etc., hosted the second edition of its Equality and Inclusion Roadshow at its largest manufacturing facility in the country, located in Hyderabad. Aiming to drive education and awareness, the Roadshow brought together a diverse group of employees from all levels of the organization right from technicians and line workers to managers, from new hires to senior leadership of the Company with decades of experience. The event comprised of various engaging sessions and nuanced conversations, that helped the audience to identify biases, break barriers, and pledge to advance on their journey to be more inclusive. P&Gs Equality & Inclusion (E&I) strategy is holistic and integrated, aiming to drive inclusion for all, with focused efforts towards Gender Equality, LGTBTQ+ inclusion and inclusion of People with Disabilities. Building on the success of its previous edition, this year's program brought together renowned experts and guests working to advance these areas of inclusion Dr. Ruth John Paul, The First Transgender Person in India to join a medical Post Graduation course and Ms. Payal Kapoor, Founder - Trainer & Sensitization Workshops Facilitator, Sens-It-Eyes. The event also included experiential sensitisation for the employees to drive awareness and empathy, from pregnancy simulators to sessions on basics of Indian sign language among others. Srinivas P.M. Head Human Resources, P&G India said, As a Company we have continued to be deeply committed to serve billions of consumers around the world, and in India. We truly believe, we do it the best when we respect and reflect the diversity of our consumers, fully understand their unique needs, and serve them with superior products and services. This is embedded in our culture at P&G. Understanding and reflecting the diversity of our consumers begins at home - at our workplace, where our people help us gain deeper insights to provide superior brand experiences for everyone. In line with this, we have continued to foster an organization where equality and inclusion is at the cornerstone of our culture, and every employee can bring their authentic selves to work. This is further strengthened by several dedicated interventions and workplace policies which are catered to meet the varied life stage needs of our diverse employees. He further added, This year, with the second edition of the roadshow we have endeavoured to empower our employees to become vocal allies of true inclusion. We're confident that the learnings and connections built here will translate into concrete actions, where everyone feels enabled to contribute their best. As our employees return to their communities, they become ambassadors for inclusion, carrying the momentum forward and inspiring positive change beyond P&G. Over the years, the P&G Hyderabad site has evolved to be a thought leader on inclusion. P&G India was one of the first companies to have female Technicians in all manufacturing shifts, including the night shift, by working in partnership with the government to secure the necessary approvals and unlocking growth opportunities for the female technician workforce. The plant has continued to enable a trusting, open and inclusive culture at the workplace where everyone is valued, and have equal access to opportunities to thrive. P&G India has also continued to meaningfully impact communities it serves through its flagship CSR program P&G Shiksha. Over the years in Hyderabad, through P&G Shiksha, the Company has aided educational infrastructure enhancement, remedial learning to improve learning outcomes in children, and empower marginalized communities. This year, P&G Shiksha has expanded its digital remedial learning program Mindspark, to also impact thousands of children from tribal communities in Telangana. This is a specially curated program, in Telangana and Maharashtra in partnership with the tribal departments of the state. Further, P&G India also provides financial support and mentorship to girls pursing STEM education across colleges in the state, through the P&G Shiksha Betiyan Scholarship Program. These initiatives build on top of the continued efforts the Company has been driving to advance Equality and Inclusion. Be it by raising awareness and challenging stereotypes through movements like Ariel #ShareTheLoad as well as inclusive actions like the annual Women in Tech summit that drives conversations on breaking myths and advancing gender equality in tech and IT. The Company also offers diverse inclusive policies for its workforce and extends all the benefits to partners of its LGBTQ+ employees. For instance, Share the Care inclusive parental leave policy, which provides all new parents including biological parents, domestic partners, adoptive parents, parents in same-sex couples to 8 weeks of fully paid parental leave. Pluxee (formerly Sodexo BRS) is the leading employee benefits and engagement company that opens up a world of opportunities to help everyone enjoy more of what really matters to them. With over 26 years of legacy, the organisation nurtures a strong relationship with 11,000+ companies across India. In conversation with Adgully, Harish Sarma, Marketing and Product Director, Pluxee India, delves into the transition of Sodexo BRS into its current identity, Pluxee. With 14+ years of corporate experience, Sarma has played a pivotal role in Pluxees evolution, leading the brand through the new identity adoption. He explores the companys strategy for upholding its established legacy while embracing a bold new identity. The emphasis is on how the brand plans to evolve persistently, leading as an innovative solution provider in the employee engagement and benefits space. The legacy of Sodexo Benefits and Rewards Services and its new identity In the transition to Pluxee, how has the company ensured continuity in trust, quality, and service that customers associate with the legacy of Sodexo BRS? As Sodexo BRS transitions to its new identity, Pluxee proudly reaffirms our dedication to the constant pillars of trust, quality, and service excellence. With a vast network comprising 3.5 million consumers, 150,000+ merchants, and 11,000+ clients, Pluxee embraces our role as a Partner of Trust. The refreshed brand identity and a renewed focus on innovation in employee benefits underscore our commitment to elevating the workplace experience. We continue innovating within the employee benefits space, empowering consumers to prioritise what matters most to them. We continue to innovate the modern workplace and embrace sustainability through initiatives like Green PIN and digital contracting. This vision is further reaffirmed by our global goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2035. As we build on the Sodexo BRS legacy, our commitment extends to creating a world of opportunities for everyone. What are the distinctive features and innovations that showcase the brands commitment to embracing change and staying at the forefront of the industry? Pluxees commitment to innovation and adaptability is evident through our rich history of pioneering industry benchmarks and consistently providing cutting-edge solutions. Since 1997, weve evolved from offering meal benefits to being a top choice for employee benefits in India. Weve adapted to changes, transitioning to a fully digital platform with the Pluxee India app, emphasising our commitment to staying technologically advanced. What sets Pluxee apart is our forward-thinking approach to addressing the evolving needs of a diverse workforce. By focusing on digital and financial inclusion, particularly for small and mid-sized firms, startups, and unicorns, Pluxee is catering to the entrepreneurial spirit of the current generation. This commitment positions us as a catalyst for economic development within local communities. Moreover, our emphasis on consumer engagement is evident through the holistic approach to employee benefits. Including new-age benefits such as well-being, travel, gadgets, and a user-friendly app showcases our dedication to meeting the changing workforce expectations. As the first choice for numerous major public and private employers, Pluxees commitment to embracing change and providing innovative solutions remains solid, making us a key player in shaping the industrys future. What milestones and goals does Pluxee aim to achieve as it moves forward, maintaining a balance between preserving the trusted legacy and embracing the bold new identity? Pluxee is dedicated to adopting a fresh new identity deeply ingrained in innovation, digitisation, sustainability, and more. We aim to optimise solutions for clients, consumers, merchants, and partners, ensuring that our products positively impact their daily lives. Our suite of employee benefits solutions is evolving into a new avatar, with a keen emphasis on providing valuable benefits to companies and enhancing the well-being of consumers. Central to this strategy is our commitment to environmental sustainability. Pluxee envisions achieving net-zero status by 2035, and were actively undergoing a profound transformation of our operations to reach this goal. We have already implemented sustainable practices, such as offering solutions that help eliminate physical PINs and cards, with plans to further reduce plastic and paper usage by introducing digital-only card issuance and allowing consumers to request physical cards on a need basis. This approach aligns with our commitment to sustainability and enhances the overall consumer experience by offering flexibility and reducing environmental impact. Pluxee is more than just a brand; its a commitment to creating an ecosystem that cares for the current and future generations. What Pluxee stands for and signifies: Could you delve into the etymology, symbolism, and design choices behind Pluxees logo, providing insight into the thought process that went into crafting the brands visual identity? Pluxees logo is an embodiment of our core values and mission to enhance the lives of both employers and employees. The etymology of the brand name, Pluxee, is an amalgamation of words with significant meaning: Plux conveys positivity and symbolises the world of opportunities we seek to provide, making life more joyful for all stakeholders involved. The X in the logo represents personalised and sustainable experiences, underlining Pluxees commitment to tailoring solutions to individual needs. It also signifies the brands dedication to putting stakeholders first in all endeavours. The double ee in Pluxee serves a two-fold purpose, standing for employee engagement and emphasising the empowerment of the workforce to shape their lifestyles. The design choices behind Pluxees logo mirror its digital, optimistic, and innovative identity. As a brand deployed in 31 countries, the logo represents a global outlook, aligning with the diverse range of solutions it offers. Pluxees commitment to meaningful, engaging, and personalised experiences is visually encapsulated in the logo, reflecting the brands dedication to contributing to the well-being of individuals at work and beyond. From meals and gifts to wellness and mobility, Pluxees logo represents our promise to bring enhanced value to peoples lives, symbolising optimism, and innovation. In the transition to Pluxee, how does the change resonate with and impact various stakeholders such as consumers, merchants, clients, and employees? What specific benefits or transformations can they anticipate? Sodexo BRSs transition to Pluxee marks a significant leap forward in our commitment to serving and empowering various stakeholders. For consumers, the change resonates with the promise of an enhanced experience. Pluxee is dedicated to making it easier for individuals to access and utilise their benefits, offering a broader range of choices, including new-age benefits such as learning, well-being, travel, and gadgets. This commitment caters to the evolving needs of consumers. It aligns with the new generations entrepreneurial mindset, providing a world of opportunities to enjoy more of what really matters to them. Merchants, the backbone of our success story, can anticipate even more value with Pluxee. The transition brings forth enriched and powerful offerings, ensuring that our vast network of clients is better equipped to manage their employee benefit programmes. Pluxees commitment to sustainability and social responsibility further adds to the positive impact on communities. With initiatives like digitising contracts, offering cardless payments, and collaborating with eco-conscious vendors, Pluxee aims to reduce its environmental footprint. The focus on diversity, inclusion, and support for differently-abled individuals and women entrepreneurs underscores our dedication to creating a more inclusive business environment. Ultimately, the transition to Pluxee showcases our holistic commitment to nurturing stronger relationships and creating a world of opportunities for all stakeholders involved. How Pluxee will lead the employee engagement landscape: Could you outline Pluxees vision for the future of employee benefits and how the company plans to lead in shaping this evolving terrain? Pluxees vision for the future of employee benefits is grounded in a commitment to creating enriching and sustainable experiences for employees at work and beyond. The company aims to lead in shaping the evolving terrain of employee benefits by focusing on digital and financial inclusion, particularly for small and mid-sized firms, startups, and unicorns. We recognise the changing needs of the workforce and are dedicated to evolving with these expectations. Pluxees suite of products, including a multi-benefit platform, incentive and recognition solutions, and a digital cafeteria offering, reflects the companys dedication to providing a comprehensive range of benefits. Pluxee acknowledges the shift in employee expectations beyond traditional discussions of compensation to a desire for more appreciation, autonomy, learning, and diverse benefits. We envision a future where employee engagement is a global standard, and Pluxee is at the forefront, offering a range of future-ready benefits accessible through a single platform. The commitment to stakeholder experience, enriched offerings, and sustainability underscores Pluxees role as a leader in shaping the future of employee benefits, contributing to a positive work environment and creating a world of opportunities for businesses and employees alike. Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Bern, 28.02.2024 - On 28 February, Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis met Kacou Houadja Leon Adom, Cote d'Ivoire's Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration and Diaspora, during a courtesy visit to Bern. Talks focused on bilateral relations, security and stability in the Sahel and Gulf of Guinea, and multilateral cooperation between the two countries. Mr Adom's current visit is a reflection of the long-standing and close ties between Switzerland and Cote d'Ivoire. During the talks, head of the FDFA Mr Cassis noted in particular the strong ties between the two countries at bilateral and multilateral levels. The good trade relations between the countries were also highlighted. In 2023, Cote d'Ivoire was Switzerland's fourth-largest trading partner on the African continent. Switzerland also has a strong, broad-based economic presence in Cote d'Ivoire, with over 40 companies operating across various sectors. Mr Cassis also affirmed the historical scientific ties between Switzerland and Cote d'Ivoire, where the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques (CSRS) has been active for over 70 years. Finally, with respect to migration issues, he welcomed the cooperation between Switzerland and Cote d'Ivoire, confirming Switzerland's commitment to continue implementing the three agreements on migration signed in 2021. Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis also confirmed that Switzerland would co-fund the construction of Cote d'Ivoire's first museum of archaeology, which is set to open at the end of the year. The funding is provided as part of a programme to protect movable cultural heritage and stop the illegal trade in cultural property in sub-Saharan Africa. Concern about instability in the Sahel and Gulf of Guinea The political and security situation in West Africa was also discussed. Mr Cassis and Mr Adom expressed concern about the growing instability in the Sahel and Gulf of Guinea. Mr Cassis noted Cote d'Ivoire's commitment to promoting regional stability and the positive role played by the country. He stressed the importance of the preventive approach, supported by Switzerland, to address violent extremism. The two foreign ministers also discussed cooperation between Switzerland and Cote d'Ivoire at the UN and Switzerland's priorities in the context of its UN Security Council mandate. Mr Cassis also congratulated Cote d'Ivoire, which has just started serving a second consecutive term on the UN Human Rights Council. Address for enquiries FDFA Communication Federal Palace West Wing CH-3003 Bern, Switzerland Tel. Press service: +41 58 460 55 55 E-mail: kommunikation@eda.admin.ch Twitter: @SwissMFA Publisher Federal Department of Foreign Affairs https://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/home.html Special teams formed to probe pro-Pak slogan row; FSL to examine media clippings: Ktaka Home Minister Karnataka Police have formed three special teams to investigate the row surrounding the raising of 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogan during the celebration of Congress candidate Syed Naseer Hussain's victory in Rajya Sabha elections, in Vidhana Soudha, sources confirmed on Wednesday. Bengaluru DCP (Central), H.T. Shekar, is monitoring the investigations. The information about Naseer Hussain's supporters has been gathered and police are likely to question the accused who allegedly raised the 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogan. Karnataka ADGP (Law and Order), R. Hitendra, had met Home Minister G. Parameshwara at his residence and briefed him about the development and preparedness of the police department as BJP has called for state-wide protest. The police are on high alert as BJP workers are likely to protest before the Congress offices across the state. Vidhana Soudha Police in Bengaluru have registered a suo moto case based on the complaint by the assistant sub-inspector on duty regarding the incident. The complaint has been registered under the provision of IPC Sections 505 (1) (B) and 153B. An unknown person has been made the accused in the case. Karnataka BJP filed a police complaint against Rajya Sabha MP Naseer Hussain late night on Tuesday demanding legal action for allegedly raising 'Pakistan Zindabad slogans' in the state legislature building during the victory celebration. BJP MLC, N. Ravikumar, and BJP MLA and Chief Whip, Doddangouda Patil, had filed a complaint with the Vidhana Soudha police station against MP Naseer Hussain and his supporters. Mr. Naseer Hussain and his supporters are liable to be punished under 505 of the IPC. These offenders namely Mr. Naseer Hussain and his supporters are liable to be put to jail and Naseer Hussain is not liable to take oath as member of Rajya Sabha. The said act is also liable to be punished under Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act 1971. Under Section 2 of the said act, whoever shows disrespect to the Indian national flag or the Constitution of India shall be punished with an imprisonment of up to 3 years for which Mr Naseer Hussain and his supporters are liable to be punished, the complaint stated. Meanwhile, Karnataka Home Minister G. Parameshwara stated on Wednesday that the police have taken up the suo moto case and launched the probe. Parameshwara stated that the media clippings in connection with the development of 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans raised in Vidhana Soudha will be sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for examination. Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, Parameshwara also maintained that there was nothing wrong committed by the Congress party in connection with the incident. Parameshwara explained, the incident involving an individual raising Pakistan Zindabad slogan was reported in the media. The clippings of the media will be secured and sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for examination. Each media house has presented the story in a different manner, he added. The video made by the police on the spot will also be taken for FSL examination. The investigation will be done and if it is proved, there is no compromise with the punishment. When asked about filing a case against one person in the case by the police, Parameshwara stated that as the probe progresses, more will be added. It will include me, you and others, he stated. The BJP can stage a protest under the framework of the law. To raise the matter inside the House, they will have to take the permission of the Speaker, Parameshwara stated. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 30 seats, including 20 unopposed out of 56 Rajya Sabha seats for which the elections were held on Tuesday. The numbers will take the BJPs tally in Rajya Sabha to 97 and that of BJP-led NDA to 117, just four short of the majority mark of 121 in the 240-member House once all 56 members are sworn-in. Of 56 Rajya Sabha seats that fall vacant in April, BJP won 30; 20 unopposed and 10 in elections held Tuesday. The Rajya Sabha polls for 15 seats across three states were marked by cross-voting, with the BJP winning 10 seats, the Congress three and the Samajwadi Party two seats. Last week, as many as 41 candidates were declared winners as there were no other candidates in the fray on those seats. The BJP was the main gainer, having won an additional seat in Uttar Pradesh and bagging one in Himachal Pradesh. The biennial elections for the 56 seats were necessitated as 50 members will complete their term on April 2 and six will retire on April 3. Heading into polling day, the ruling NDA had 109 MPs in the Upper House, 10 members short of the halfway mark in the 238 member Rajya Sabha. The Opposition INDIA bloc had 89 MPs. During the biennial polls, Uttar Pradesh had the highest number of seats going to vote (10), followed by Maharashtra and Bihar (6 each), Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (5 each), Karnataka and Gujarat (4 each), Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Rajasthan (3 each), and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh (1 each). However, after the results out on Tuesday evening, the BJP remained the single-largest party in RS with 97 members (including five nominated members who joined the party) followed by Congress with 29 members, Trinamool Congress with 13, DMK and AAP with 10 each, BJD and YSRCP with nine each, BRS with seven, RJD with six, CPM with five, and AIADMK and JD(U) with four each. The NDA, with 117 members, is now only four short of the majority mark of 121. A House bill would allow some undocumented students to attend public higher education institutions in the state. HB 210, sponsored by Rep. Reed Ingram, R-Pike Road, would allow undocumented students who have attended an Alabama high school for at least three years and earned a diploma, GED or other equivalent to attend a public postsecondary institution. The student must also have applied for legal status. Ingram said in a phone interview on Friday that the bill came from a task force focused on workforce development and participation that he chairs. Alabamas workforce participation rate has trailed the nations since at least 1976. We have a lot of kids that are trying to do the right thing, coming in here with their parents, and have applied for legal status, going through our schools, weve paid K through 12, as governmental bodies, and now they want to go to college and pay for it themselves, he said, Were telling them they cant in this state. The bill was committed to the House Education Policy Committee. The committee chair, Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, is listed as a co-sponsor. Ingram said undocumented students who attended high school in Alabama are going out of state for college. If theyve gone through the effort of applying for legal status, and completed high school and they want to better themselves to make them a better citizen, then we want to allow them to do that, he said. In 2011, the Alabama Legislature passed HB 56, which aimed to criminalize the existence of undocumented people in the state. The provisions included a measure that said that an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be permitted to enroll in or attend any public postsecondary education institution in this state. While lawsuits and federal court rulings overturned most of the law, the postsecondary education ban survived. Collins, who also co-sponsored HB 56, said that she has students in her district who came over as children and have been in the school system but are not able to access dual enrollment later. If an undocumented student enters a welding program, she said, the student cant finish it. There are students all over our state that are in school right now, theyve lived here all their lives, just about, Collins said. I think the requirements on the bill set it up that they have to be moving towards citizenship, and they have to be in order to be able to attend a junior college or a college and, in my mind, its the right thing to do. Marcela Rodrigues wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2023 that Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia enacted enrollment bans amid a wave of anti-immigration sentiment. Students in Alabama were able to enroll under DACA as they had a lawful presence. But students who turned 16 during the ongoing litigation against the program dont have the same protections. Ingram said that the bill has gone through the Republican caucus. Despite an ongoing backlash over immigrants among Republican lawmakers nationwide, Ingram said requiring undocumented student to apply for legal residency has made it neutral ground. Ingram said Republican lawmakers want to make sure that these citizens are wanting to stay here and invest in our country, in our state, he said. The legislation is not scheduled for a committee hearing this week. Collins said she would work with Ingram on a schedule. The Alabama House of Representatives passed the CHOOSE Act Tuesday evening, making education savings accounts, or ESAs, one step closer to reality. The effort, a top priority for state Republicans, would dramatically expand school choice options and would direct public funding toward private school, home school and other educational costs. Lawmakers discussed the bill for four hours before voting 69-34 to approve it. Six Republicans joined the chambers 28 Democrats in voting no. HB129 would provide eligible families $7,000 in state tax dollars per student to pay for the cost of educating their child in a participating school or for other eligible expenses. ESAs would become available at the start of the 2025-26 school year. The state would prioritize support for low-income families and students with disabilities first, and then gradually phase in options for eligible families at the start of the 2027-28 school year. Families who homeschool their children could receive $2,000 per child, up to $4,000 each year, for eligible expenses. Related: What is an ESA? Is Alabama going to get new school choice option? The bill calls for spending $100 million in the first year, split evenly between the Education Trust Fund and the supplemental allocation. It is not clear what the overall cost of the program after full implementation might be. After the bill passed the chamber, several lawmakers and Gov. Kay Ivey stated their support. Here in Alabama, we are working hard to ensure that every child has the opportunity to choose an educational path that best helps them grow and learn. The CHOOSE Act will provide families around Alabama another option, and I am proud of my colleagues in the House for voting to move this effort forward, said Rep. Danny Garrett. Ivey has said that passing an ESA bill -- something she has previously opposed -- is a top priority for her this session. My goal is to put us on a trajectory to make our [ESA] program fully universal, while also maintaining our full and total support for public education, she said during her state of the state address. In recent years, Ivey has backed increased state support for charter schools and increased numbers of students eligible for the Alabama Accountability Act tax credit scholarship program. Thirteen states currently have some form of education savings accounts, or ESAs. The bill now heads to a Senate committee. National teachers union leader Randi Weingarten was in Birmingham Wednesday to warn about potential consequences of school choice legislation that is moving forward in Alabama. Weingarten said that the CHOOSE Act would hurt students in public schools. The education savings act program would give $7,000 of state money to students to use for private school tuition or other educational expenses. Were very concerned about a situation which has just been passed in the Alabama House that basically hugely takes money out of public schools and gives it to private schools, she said. The legislature will appropriate $100 million for the education savings account program for its first year, in 2025-26, but there is no estimate for how much the program may cost if fully implemented. The bill, supported by Gov. Kay Ivey, passed the House Tuesday. The Senate has not yet considered the bill. Essentially, she said, they take money away from the 90% of kids that go to public schools, and they make it much harder for these educators to do the work that we have to do. State lawmakers promoting the program said it is needed to help families who are unhappy with their local public school. The purpose behind this legislation is to provide opportunities that are not currently available to parents, said Rep. Danny Garrett at a recent legislative hearing, to use a portion of their tax dollars to choose a school that best meets the needs of their child, whether that be for academic, social, emotional, environmental, mental health, or perhaps bullying reasons. Weingarten said there is no evidence that public school students benefit from the ESAs. Pointing to Florida, she said, Its not an exodus of, it is a depletion of funding. Because overwhelmingly, most of the money goes to people who already send their kids to private schools. EducationWeek, a news publication focused on the education industry, last year in a roundup of where ESAs are used, showed the majority of students in multiple states who obtained ESAs were already attending private schools, as Weingarten said. Iowa, which started giving ESAs last fall, published certified numbers in late January showing about two-thirds of the 17,000 students using ESAs to attend private school this year were already attending private school. Birmingham AFT President Richard Franklin said vouchers are promoted as a tool to help children, but it wont help all children. We cant be afraid to call our elected officials out, he said. I often tell people its a non-election year for our legislators. So in these years, they attack education. Next year, they wont attack education. Theyre going to act like theyre our friends that they want us to vote for. Were going to ask the legislators, we know whats right by children, Franklin said, so just talk to us. Just communicate with us and support us. Franklin and Weingarten said public schools are showing improvements every day. I heard from the superintendent in [Jefferson County] yesterday, Weingarten said, talking about how they have completely changed the career tech ed options and the availability of them for students throughout Jefferson County. Weingarten said public schools can improve if they focus on literacy supports, wraparound services and career tech. Smithfield community president Adrian Reynolds spoke about the things people in the neighborhood do to support students in Birmingham schools. When a school needs for parents to come in and read to the little ones, Reynolds said, we do that. When a school calls us and says they are having Saturday school, and we need for you to provide just a little breakfast for our children and our staff whos coming in on a Saturday to work with our students, were there to help do that. An Alabama House committee advanced a measure Wednesday that criminalizes payment for collecting absentee ballot applications, but not before Democrats asked for Republicans to provide proof the issue was happening. Id like to see the data, said State Rep. Adline Clarke, D-Mobile. Alabama Republicans, including SB1 sponsor Rep. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, said the issue of so-called ballot harvesting of absentee ballot application does occur, and that its a big enough worry to address and should be part of Alabama state law. Do I know this is happening? Yes, Gudger said. The questions about whether the issue is even happening in Alabama continues to loom over SB1 as it advances through the legislative process along partisan lines. The bill passed through the Senate on Feb. 13, despite concerns about criminalizing behavior without evidence that it was occurring. The bill now moves on to the supermajority Alabama House before it goes to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who signaled her support for SB1 during her State of the State address on Feb. 6. The Alabama Democratic Party has said SB1 is a direct response to former President Donald Trumps baseless claims of voter fraud and is not correlated to any actual real instances of mass voter fraud in Alabama. Republicans, on Wednesday, provided a few examples including one court challenge in Conecuh County over the results of a 2022 sheriffs elections in which absentee ballots are being disputed. That case is before a circuit court in a case that has not been updated since last May. We need to realize this is happening and there is a solution, said Alabama GOP chairman John Wahl. This is to make sure every single vote is safeguarded and can be counted. Under SB1, someone could be convicted of a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison if they knowingly receive payment or gift for handling someone elses absentee ballot application, such as prefiling it. It is a Class B felony for someone to pay a third party to prefile or handle an absentee ballot application. A Class B felony can result in a prison sentence of up to 20 years. There are exceptions to SB1 for people who require assistance if they are disabled, blind, or unable to read or write. Military stationed overseas are also exempt. Opponents of SB1 believe it could lead to criminalizing people who assist students, the elderly and the incarcerated from filling out absentee ballot applications so they can vote. Groups like the NAACP and the League of Women Voters say they are concerned it will have a negative impact on their civic engagement activity. Senate Bill 1 would charge our civic organization employees, volunteers and individuals with a crime for simply assisting their neighbors, said Norma Sanders, an activist with the NAACP in Lee County. This is another attack on our constitutional right to vote. Activists who have called SB1 a voter suppression bill, are also criticizing the measure for providing little proof that criminal behavior is occurring with absentee ballot applications. A representative with the League of Women Voters said they were provided with a report from the Alabama Secretary of States Office, detailing absentee ballot percentages by county during the May 24, 2022, primary election. Those results showed a much higher percentage of absentee ballots casts in mostly poor, rural Black Belt counties that vote for Democrats. But the report did not include concrete examples of potentially illegal absentee ballot behavior. Its what is being handed out when you ask for proof as to why we need this bill, said Carol Mosley, vice-president of the League of Women Voters of Alabama. Its simplistic and meaningless. Gudger said the higher percentages of absentee voting in some counties illustrated an issue that was far outside the norm of Alabama elections. The data from the Secretary of States office shows only four Alabama counties, all of which are a majority Black and vote heavily Democratic Bullock, Lowndes, Wilcox and Perry with double digit percentages of absentee voting. There is no proof of fraud occurring in those counties, despite the higher percentages of absentee voting compared to counties that are majority white and vote Republican. There are counties in which 1 in 5 ballots cast is an absentee ballot, Gudger said. Thats 20 percent and that is far outside the norm in Alabama, which is 3-1/2 percent. That means something is going on in those particular counties. In Perry County, absentee ballot manager Mia Turner told AL.com recently that excuses for filing an absentee ballot vary from health concerns to job-related conflicts. Alabama is one of only 14 states requiring an excuse to vote absentee. Perry County, at 21.6%, had the highest percentage of absentee voting during the 2022 primary. The countys demographics are nearly 70% Black. If you want to call it like it is, Senate Bill 1i is the fabric of the white supremacist cloth, said Travis Jackson, a Black voter activist. Gudger and Republican supporters -- before the Alabama House Constitution, Campaigns and Elections Committee -- cited a few cases they say illustrate the need for SB1. State Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, requested Gudger to provide other examples of concerning behavior occurring with absentee applications. Gudger showed five pieces of paper he said had examples listed on it but declined to name them. Gudger did reference an absentee-ballot buying operation that occurred during the 2000 election in Winston County which led to the conviction of the sheriff, circuit clerk, a district judge and several candidates for county commission and the board of education. The conspirators in the case attempted to buy absentee ballots in the 2000 Republican primary with cash and liquor. The biggest case in the history of Alabama occurred in my district, Gudger said, referring to the case that occurred 24 years ago. Is it happening? Yes it is. Can I give you a detail of how many (cases)? I cant. Clarke said the case in Winston County illustrated a voter fraud case that was address through existing laws and was adjudicated. Gudger said if SB1 would have been in effect, they participants in that scheme would have faced stiffer criminal penalties. State Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, said he was aware of ballot harvesting operations going on in Mobile County, and said he was aware of a lawsuit filed in which an organization sued a candidate for not paying $700 a week to generate absentee ballots. The legislation only addresses payment for gathering absentee ballot applications. Said Gudger, it happens all over. Democratic lawmakers also express concerns about how far the bill might go toward criminalizing behavior. Clarke provided an example of her helping out her brother by printing out an absentee ballot application, filling it out for him, and sending it in. Others questioned whether distributing 1,500 or so absentee ballot applications would be subject to criminal penalties. Gudger said the legislation, in neither example, would apply. By just assisting someone, they would not (be punished), Gudger said. I fhtey get paid to do this, over and over, then yes, they would. Clarke, who has pushed for more absentee voting access in Alabama, also raised questions about a lack of definitions within the bill over what could be considered a gift or what type of third-party organizations could be punished under the new law. She recommended the bill be forwarded to a subcommittee so it could be further worked on, which the GOP-led committee declined. Said Givan, this is an opportunity to further infringe upon the power and strength of the Black vote at the end of the day. An Alabama elementary school teacher has been arrested after authorities say she was intoxicated at school. Charlene Downs, a 53-year-old first grade teacher at Blountsville Elementary School, was booked into the Blount County Jail at 11:39 a.m. Monday. She is charged with public intoxication. Charging documents state that Downs appeared at the school Monday under the influence of alcohol or drugs to the degree that she endangered herself or others. Blount County Schools Superintendent Rodney Green said school administrators took appropriate steps to handle the situation and ensure the safety of students. Downs was immediately placed on administrative leave and, on Tuesday night, resigned. Downs was released from jail Tuesday. Her first court date is set for April. Alabama Public Service Commission President Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh will face challenger Robert McCollum in a bid to keep her position. Cavanaugh and McCollum will be on the ballot statewide in the March 5 Republican primary for PSC President. The winner of the GOP contest faces no opposition from the Democratic Party in Novembers general election. The Alabama Public Service Commission is a three-member elected body responsible for regulating most utilities in the state, including electric companies, gas companies, telecom companies and certain wastewater operators. The Commission, which has to approve rate increases for these utilities, is facing increased scrutiny this year as many Alabamians complain about high power bills McCollum is a business owner from Dadeville who has no formal experience in government. He unsuccessfully challenged Alabama PSC Commissioner Chris Chip Beeker in the 2022 Republican primary, getting roughly 37% of the votes in that election to Beekers 63%. Cavanaugh was elected to the Public Service Commission in 2010 and became PSC president in 2012. On her PSC bio, she describes herself as a wife, mother and small business owner. Before becoming PSC President, Cavanaugh chaired the Alabama Republican Party and worked as deputy chief of staff to former Gov. Bob Riley. Cavanaugh ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, narrowly losing in a hotly contested Republican primary runoff to Will Ainsworth. On her campaign website, Cavanaugh describes herself as a fighter committed to defending our conservative values here in Alabama against socialism and the liberal woke ideas infiltrating our country. McCollum, in social media postings, has criticized Alabama Powers high profit margin, which is set by the PSC, and argued that Alabama should end the solar fees charged to Alabama Power customers who install solar panels on their homes or businesses. Polls will be open on March 5 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters must have a photo ID to vote at their polling place, or by absentee ballot. Absentee ballots returned in-person must by received the day before the election, March 4. Ballots sent by mail must be received by noon on March 5. Alabama will have its say on who should be the party nominees for president next week when voters head to the polls as part of Super Tuesday, when a large chuck of delegates will be at stake across the country. Before heading to the polls on March 5, I encourage Alabama voters to visit www.AlabamaVotes.gov where they can check the status of their voter registration, verify their polling location, and view their countys sample ballots, said Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen in a statement Tuesday. I want all Alabama voters to be fully prepared as they plan to exercise their constitutional right to vote on March 5. Primaries for several other races will be held in Alabama, including the crowded field running in the states newly redrawn Second Congressional District and elections for Alabama Supreme Court chief justice and four associate justices. Alabamians will also pick party nominees for Public Service Commission president and four state Board of Education seats. There are also primaries for county offices depending on where in Alabama you reside. Sample ballots can be found here for your county. Voters do not register for political parties in Alabama, meaning voters can choose whether they want to cast ballots in either the Republican or Democratic primary. Whos on the ballot? On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden is facing a primary challenge from Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. Besides voting for your preference, Democratic voters also choose delegates to the national party convention, where delegates officially designate the partys nominee. On the Republican side, former President Donald Trump is squaring off against ex-South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and David Stuckenberg, an entrepreneur and acting director of strategic plans for the Texas Air National Guard. Several Republicans who dropped out of the race Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and pastor and businessman Ryan Binkley -- did not do so before Alabamas ballot was printed, so they remain on the ballot. Republican voters in Alabama will not be selected delegates to the partys convention. Instead, Alabama Republican Party officials will choose the delegates themselves. In the Democratic primary, 52 delegates will be up for grabs in Alabama while 50 delegates will be awarded on the Republican side. Two key races One of Alabamas Congressional incumbent representatives will be out of office as a result of redrawn districts. In a new Black majority district created in that process, the state will be closer to having a new member of the delegation once the primary is over. The redrawn District 1 pits incumbent Rep. Jerry Carl, R-Mobile, and Rep. Barry Moore, the Republican incumbent for District 2, against one another. The winner of the GOP primary will likely defeat the lone Democrat in the race, Tom Holmes, in the November general election. In the redrawn District 2 in southeast Alabama, multiple Democrats and Republicans are competing in Tuesdays primary. Running on the GOP side are: Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore; former Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Pike Road; Caroleene Dobson, an attorney; Karla M. DuPriest, a business owner and 2022 U.S. Senate candidate; Hampton Harris, a realtor; Stacey T. Shepperson; and Belinda Thomas, a member of the Newton City Council in Dale County. In the Democratic primary, the candidates are: James Averhart, a retired U.S. Marine and former 2020 congressional candidate; Rep. Napoleon Bracy, Jr., D-Prichard; Sen. Merika Coleman, D- Pleasant Grove; House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville; Shomari Figures, a former deputy chief of staff to the U.S. attorney general and the son of Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, D-Mobile; Brian Gary; Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham; Rep. Jeremy Gray, D-Opelika; Phyllis Harvey-Hall, an education consultant and 2020 and 2022 congressional candidate; Willie J. Lenard; Vimal Patel, a realtor; Larry Darnell Simpson, a musician; and Darryl Sinkfield. The congressional districts were redrawn after a federal court ruled Alabamas congressional map was in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The boundaries for the new District 2 have only been known since late September, and the redrawn map is viewed as favorable to Democrats in the general election. Other races to watch Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Alabama Public Service Commission President State Board of Education District 7 State Board of Education District 3 Sample ballots You can go here to see sample ballots for each county. When are the polls open? Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on March 5. What do I need to vote? Voters will need an approved voter ID before casting an in-person ballot. Approved forms of identification for voting purposes in Alabama include: Valid Drivers License (not expired or has been expired less than 60 days) Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Digital Drivers License Valid Non-driver ID (not expired or has been expired less than 60 days) Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Digital Non-driver ID Valid Alabama Photo Voter ID Valid State Issued ID (Alabama or any other state) Valid AL Department of Corrections Release- Temporary ID (Photo Required) Valid AL Movement/Booking Sheet from Prison/Jail System (Photo Required) Valid Pistol Permit (Photo Required) Valid Federal Issued ID Valid US Passport Valid Employee ID from Federal Government, State of Alabama, County Government, Municipality, Board, Authority, or other entity of this state Valid student or employee ID from a college or university in the State of Alabama (including postgraduate technical or professional schools) Valid Military ID Valid Tribal ID What about voting absentee? Absentee ballots and absentee ballot applications can either be returned in person or by mail to county absentee ballot election managers. Your countys manager can be found here. The deadline for mailing in absentee ballot applications has passed. The in-person deadline to return an absentee ballot application is Thursday. Those who wish to return a completed absentee ballot in person must do so by the end of business on March 4. Those who would rather mail in their completed absentee ballot must ensure the ballot is received by county absentee ballot election managers offices no later than noon on March 5. Why is it called Super Tuesday? Alabamas primary on March 5 is among a group of contests across the nation known as Super Tuesday because a sizeable number of delegates will be up for grabs. Of the 2,429 delegates awarded in Republican primaries, 874 delegates or about 35 percent of the total number of delegates are in play on March 5. Big states such as California and Texas are holding their primaries along with Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia. About 30 percent of the total number of 3,936 Democratic delegates will be chosen on Super Tuesday. The Republican presidential nominee will need 1,215 delegates while the Democratic nominee will need to secure 1,969 delegates. How will I know who wins? Election results will be posted on a door or other visible location at each polling place. Cumulative election results will be posted on the Alabama secretary of states website here. Alabama violated the civil rights of thousands of disabled and elderly residents who rely on support from the state to get care in their communities, a federal lawsuit alleges. The Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program filed the lawsuit on Feb. 12 against Alabama Medicaid and the state Department of Senior Services on behalf of 18 Alabamians, including 12 children who have disabilities. The community-based care net is crumbling, said Shandra Monterastelli, a senior staff attorney at the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program. According to the lawsuit, 12,000 individuals who are on the states elderly and disabled waiver a program that helps people receive long-term care at home or in their communities have had their civil rights violated by the state. ADAP is pursuing the lawsuit as a class-action on behalf of all 12,000 Alabamians. Through consistent and unabated legal violations, the State creates such extreme barriers to access that obtaining the services to which recipients are entitled is nearly or, in many cases, actually impossible, the lawsuit states. People enrolled on the waiver are supposed to receive bi-weekly payments to help pay bills, buy food, and purchase medical equipment, as well as to pay for nurses and health care providers to assist with treatments or give caregivers respite. But because of the systemic failure of the state, thousands of people struggle to access these services. The whole point of this program is to keep people from being unjustly institutionalized, said Monterastelli. This lawsuit is about getting people access to the services they need so they dont have to be warehoused in these facilities. For many kids in this program, the nearest institution they could be placed in is in Texas. The lawsuit alleges that there is a consistent failure of the State, at the highest levels to administer the waiver program, violating recipients 14th amendment rights as well as the Medicaid Act, which provides these community-based services to people with disabilities. ADAP previously filed a federal complaint against the agencies in 2022 alleging many of the same things they state in the class-action lawsuit, prompting a federal investigation by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. In the initial complaint, the advocacy organization said the department of senior services and Alabama Medicaid have denied clients services without due process, misrepresented what services are available to families and what services they are entitled to, and failed to maintain enough health care providers in their system, leaving family members to oversee medical care, a responsibility so time intensive that it sometimes forces them to leave their jobs. But according to Monterastelli, ADAP and the families felt they needed to escalate their complaint by filing a lawsuit because we have been repeatedly bringing the same concerns to ADSS, but we really just were not making any headway in actually remediating anything. Alabama Medicaid did not respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for ADSS said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation. Families are drowning Kelly Morris has two children who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Her 26 year-old daughter, Michaela, has been on the waiver program since 2006, while her son, who is 17 years-old, has been on it since 2013. Both of her children need nursing-level care because of their medical conditions. Michaela has intestinal failure, chronic lung disease and chronic bladder dysfunction, requiring a permanent IV tube and a machine to help her breathe. Her son, identified only as G.M. in the lawsuit, requires a feeding tube for a condition affecting his esophagus. Morris said she spends almost all of her time overseeing the care for her two children, although she is not a nurse and has no medical degree. She said shes missed out on the milestones in her four other kids lives because of the level of care she has to give Michaela and G.M. When Morris asked the Department of Senior Services to get a skilled worker to help Michaela and give her respite, the suit said the state granted her less than half of the hours she requested after a nursing assessment was done to evaluate what Michaelas needs were. It was the first assessment Michaela had in 16 years on the program, yet, according to the lawsuit, ADSS did not provide the nurse performing the assessment with any guidelines or formalized criteria. The assessment determined that although the state would give her more pay to hire a nurse, there were no providers available in her region of north Alabama. Families on this program are drowning, said Morris. Im not going to live forever. I could be in a car wreck tomorrow, and then what would happen to my kids? A Southern problem Along with Cristi Cain, another mother whose son is a plaintiff in the case, Morris spends a lot of her time helping families understand what they are entitled to under this program and trying to raise awareness with lawmakers about their plight. Some of these parents have been lied to and denied constantly for years and years, like myself, Morris said. We try to educate them and theres a lot of handholding and breaking down the walls of the lies and gaslighting that weve all been subjected to for all this time. Then trying to fight the system and work with the one resource we have that is just not up to par. Im just up to my ears. Most of the families have joined a Facebook group where they share information about the program, updates on their cases and ask for help when theyve encountered another problem or denial. Many say the group and other families are the only resource they have when the state agencies fail to communicate or answer any of their questions. We are seeing a strong grassroots movement among individuals who are impacted who have been sounding the alarm for a long time, but are also working together on solutions, said Dom Kelly, the president of New Disabled South, an Atlanta-based organization working to advance disability rights. The organization has focused much of its work on trying to bring awareness about the importance of community-based waiver programs throughout the region, which have been historically underfunded programs for disabled people, Kelly said. Many of the issues Kelly sees in Southern states are not just how the waiver programs are administered, but how long people have to wait to get on them. Out of the waiting lists for these waivers, nationally, 75% are here in the South. So this is really a Southern problem, Kelly said. Weve gone from, just as recently as the 1970s, institutionalizing people with disabilities to now having a system in this country thats supposed to provide for the needs of our community, but instead is leaving people kind of waiting on these lists for sometimes more than a decade and not receiving the care that they need. Cain said she waited for almost a year to get her son on the program after initially being told her household income was too high to qualify. Her 12 year old son, listed as J.H.C. in the lawsuit, has a rare genetic disorder and a variety of health concerns that can cause him to have 40-50 seizures a day. But the state has only given Cain 30 hours a week of waiver payments, according to the lawsuit, despite her having to leave her job to care for her son. She receives $17 an hour for her caregiving. When she asked for an increase to 90 hours last year, the lawsuit said, the department of senior services denied her request and told her if this individual is needing this much care, then they should be in a facility. The fact that she said it in my home to my face, that my child really should be in an institution was beyond absurd, Cain said. Ive been told that you wouldnt put your dying dog in these institutions. And frankly, the thought of putting my child in an institution has never crossed my mind. I would sacrifice everything to keep him at home where he belongs. She appealed their decision until they agreed to do a nursing assessment in July again without any formal guidelines from the department. In December, the department gave Cain an increase of eight more hours, far less than what she asked, and was not given an explanation as to how the nursing assessment determined those hours, the suit said. According to the lawsuit, ADSS has ignored their repeated requests for any documents relating to his nurse assessmentpreventing J.H.C. and his family from exercising his due process right to lodge a meaningful challenge to the service award. I know people look at it as well, youre just wanting to get paid to take care of your child, said Cain. But at the same time, I cant work. Theres nobody thats gonna hire me and allow me to be off or come in late or leave early for months on end to take care of him. Still, she helps other people on the program with the bit of free time she has because she knows they dont have any other support. I help where I can because theres no shortage of people that need help from this program that arent being serviced by the agencies tasked with running this program, Cain said. The lawsuit is still in its early stages, meaning its difficult to know how quickly it will move forward, ADAP said. Our hope would be to be able to come to an agreeable resolution that is going to provide these families and these recipients with the access to care that they need without having to engage in a protracted drawn out process, Monterastelli said. The lawsuit does not seek money or damages, but are instead asks Alabama Medicaid and the Department of Senior Services to remediate their systemic, consistent failures to provide services and act in accordance with the constitution and federal law. Its really important to emphasize that this program is the difference between being able to live at home with your family and being segregated in an institution where their needs may not be safely met, Monterastelli said. Akhilesh Yadav Samajwadi Party (SP) President, Akhilesh Yadav, said on Wednesday that appropriate action would be initiated against the partys rebel MLAs at the right time. Akhilesh Yadavs statement came a day after the party's chief whip in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, Manoj Pandey, quit while voting was underway for 10 Rajya Sabha seats from the state on Tuesday. The SPs National Spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary, said that the rebel MLAs would be served a show cause notice and further action against them would be taken thereafter. Akhilesh Yadav said that it remains to be seen how these rebel MLAs face the people in their constituencies because they had won after defeating the BJP candidates on those seats. "It also remains to be seen what package these people have received for their votes," he added. Meanwhile, BSP leader Guddu Jamali a.k.a Shah Alam joined the SP on Wednesday. His joining the SP seems to be the immediate fallout of the BSP voting for the BJP in Tuesday's Rajya Sabha polls. Jamali, who had joined and then quit the SP in 2019, said that this time he was here to stay because he had realised that the PDA formula would be implemented in spirit by the SP. Guddu Jamali wields considerable influence in Azamgarh and adjoining districts. The acronym PDA coined by Akhilesh Yadav stands for P (pichhada or backward classes), D (Dalits) and A (Alpsankhyak or minorities, including Muslims). The three communities, taken together, comprise roughly 80-85 per cent of the total population of the state -- the electorate that the SP is trying to consolidate for the LS polls. Below is the podcast player followed by the newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox each day here. Explosive device The FBI has now launched a website to gather information on an explosive device that was detonated at 3:42 a.m. Saturday morning in front of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshalls office in Montgomery, reports AL.coms Howard Koplowitz. There were no injuries, no property damage and not much in details, either, at this point. The website was built to gather tip submissions. Also, if anyone has information that might help them identify persons of interest, they are encouraged to call 1-800-CALL-FBI. Judge hospitalized, son charged Also in Montgomery, a county judges son has now been charged with attempted murder in the shooting and stabbing of his father, Judge Johnny Hardwick, reports AL.coms Carol Robinson. The son, 36-year-old Khalfani Hardwick, was already facing lesser charges. At around 12:30 p.m. Saturday, the judge was stabbed in his neck and shot in his face in his home. Back in 2017, the younger Hardwick managed to reach a plea deal for a second-degree assault conviction after he shot a man in the back of the head and, according to court documents, left him for dead. According to records, he received a 3-year suspended sentence with three years probation. After 19 months on probation he received an early release from Montgomery County Circuit Judge John E. Rochester so he could sit for a CPA certification class. The release came over the objection of the Alabama Attorney Generals Office. Judge Hardwick is being treated in a Birmingham hospital. Pro-IVF voices We mentioned last Friday that U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville was likely to make another run at explaining his position on the Alabama Supreme Courts decision that allowed human embryos to have the same legal rights as children. The reason was that Tuberville, asked for his take by an NBC reporter, said he was all for the ruling but also said we have to have more kids. Which, considering that decision seemingly jeopardizes in vitro fertilization services in the state, suggests there likely was a misunderstanding about the question or the courts ruling. AL.coms Greg Garrison reports that Tuberville went on ABC News Tuesday and said it was the wrong move to make by the court. That puts most major Alabama voices on this issue in the pro-IVF camp, although you might see political wrangling over how actions now might affect personhood issues later. Last week, Democrats introduced a bill in the state House of Representatives to clarify that embryos stored outside the body arent considered human lives under state law, and Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall issued a statement that he had no intention of prosecuting any clinic for its handling of embryos for IVF purposes. And now, reports AL.coms Howard Koplowitz, state Sen. Tim Melson, a Florence Republican, has introduced a bill in the Senate that would give civil and criminal immunity to providers related to IVF services. ESAs pass House Also in the state Legislature, the Alabama House has passed the CHOOSE Act, reports AL.coms Trisha Powell Crain. Thats the school-choice bill that would create $7,000 education savings accounts for families that could use that funding toward private school, home school or other educational costs. The bill prioritizes low-income families and students with disabilities, with plans to phase in options for more eligible families. Quoting I am a pro-life and pro-family and pro-child and I am a conservative Alabamian, and Id like to use my platform to call on all three branches of our state government and encourage them to make Alabama the most pro-family, pro-child state in the nation, removing the obstacles that are now facing these couple that are going through the IVF process. Government is supposed to help us and our families, not prevent my son and his wife from having their first child -- or my grandchild. Auburn mens basketball coach Bruce Pearl, reacting to the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision interpreting the Alabama Constitution as giving human embryos the same rights as children -- and the subsequent pausing of in vitro fertilization services in some clinics. By the Numbers $124,212 Thats how much OSHA has proposed as a fine for Henry Brick Company. The Labor Department said the Selma brick manufacturer exposed workers to silica crystalline dust, which can lead to lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney disease. More Alabama News Born on This Date: Hanks Edition In 1923, Miss Audrey -- Audrey Mae Sheppard Williams, Hank Williamss first wife and Hank Jr.s mom. She was from Banks in Pike County. In 1927, steel guitarist Don Helms of New Brockton. He was in Hanks Drifting Cowboys band. On the Calendar Its leap year, so dont forget that tomorrow is still February. The Podcast U.S. Rep. Barry Moore continues to lean heavily on national Republican politics as he campaigns to unseat incumbent U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl of Mobile who will collide in a March 5 primary showdown that represents a rare clash of sitting congressmen in Alabama. Moore is hoping for a boost by an appearance Saturday from Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was once a colleague of his within the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. Greene will join Moore on a campaign swing that includes stops in Mobile, Stockton, Opp, and Enterprise. She is a leader in the fight to put America first who works tirelessly to secure our border, end (President Joe) Bidens out-of-control spending, expose Ukraine First politicians and stop our weaponized government from targeting Americans, Moore said in a statement. Carls supporters hope the Greene appearance turns off voters. Elected to Congress in 2020 to represent Northwest Georgia, Greene has built a national reputation out of controversy. But she is also popular among those on the far-right and is a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump. Its a weird tactic to bring the circus to town, said Wiley Blankenship, executive director of the Coastal 150 political action committee that consists of business leaders in the Alabama Gulf Coast. The group formally endorsed Carl on Monday. I-10 criticism A rendering of the future I-10 Mobile River Bridge in downtown Mobile, Ala. (rendering courtesy of the Alabama Department of Transportation) Moore is also being criticized for pitching unrealistic approaches toward funding the biggest transportation project in Alabama: The Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge & Bayway project. Moore, in short, says that projects like the I-10 Bayway should not be financed with tolling, and can be paid for by diverting money that is earmarked for the War in Ukraine. Blankenship calls the position an insult to the people along the Alabama Gulf Coast who, for years, have wrangled over the limited options for financing the $2.7 billion project outside of controversial toll plans. The project is currently heavily leveraged on borrowing, and tolls are the option for paying down the debt. Alabama state officials remain hopeful that federal grants can be secured to offset some of the financing. Those grants, though, come through the U.S. Department of Transportation and not through the Department of Defense. We need someone who is a fighter and can bring resources back home which Congressman Moore has stated that he is not going to do, Blankenship said, referring to Moores recent track records that includes consistent No votes on defense spending and annual appropriation packages. U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, speaks to Republicans attending a campaign rally in Robertsdale. Ohio Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, campaigned for Moore during the rally held on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024, at Waters Edge in Robertsdale, Ala. Moore is running for the Republican nomination during the March 5, 2024, primary against U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl, R-Mobile, in the 1st congressional district race.John Sharp/jsharp@al.com The Moore campaign said that the congressman has made it very clear of his support for infrastructure and national security bills. Moore was the sole No vote among the Alabama congressional delegation on the $886.3 billion National Defense Authorization Act in December. Washington has to stop sending tax dollars to corrupt politicians in Ukraine and instead focus on rebuilding our roads and bridges, and supporting our fighting men and women, the Moore campaign said in a statement to AL.com. Voters are smart enough to know that when Jerry brags about working on the toll bridge problem for 12 years without finding a solution, its probably time to let Barry take a crack at it. Thomas Shaw, a political science professor at the University of South Alabama, said he believes Moore has done an effective job of acknowledging a local issue pertinent to voters in Mobile and Baldwin counties, the two largest counties within the 1st district. While these types of projects seem to directly contradict some of his Freedom Caucus ideas, he is at least finally addressing some serious local issues instead of staying just with the national issues, Shaw said. I think this might be the kind of appeal, particularly with Baldwin County residents, to move the undecideds into Moores camp. Emphasizing national issues Moores backers say the emphasis of tying national issues to the 1st district is to respond to what the voters in one of the most Republican-leaning districts in the U.S. House are wanting. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not getting elected for her local prowess, said Jon Gray, a Mobile-based political consultant who is a spokesman with Dare to Defend Our Rights PAC that supports Moores candidacy. Neither is (Florida U.S. Rep.) Matt Gaetz. These people are getting elected in top conservative districts in the country by identifying the philosophical issues. Its not about how much money we need for the bridge. Thats not where (the voters) are. Gray also said that Coastal 150s bolstering of local political endorsements has little impact on the outcome of a race. He said it should be unsurprising for anyone who follows politics to see that a local mayor or state representative is endorsing their incumbent congressman. Barry Moore is talking about national issues, Gray said. All of these guys are hanging their hat on what Carl has done for the district. But I havent seen polling in 20 years saying that (supporting a local project) is the No. 1 issue for a U.S. Congressman. Richard Shelby was the last guy who perfected it, but Shelby went into office in the 1980s. U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl, R-Mobile, speaks during a luncheon hosted by the Alabama League of Municipalities on Wednesday, August 16, 2023, at Ralph & Kacoo's in Spanish Fort, Ala. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com). Carls campaign has embraced national issues as well, talking less about local projects like the I-10 bridge or funding to build ships at Austal USA in Mobile. A Carl campaign spokesman said the congressman has gotten the endorsement from over 53 conservative leaders from across the 1st district because he is the only candidate who has fought to fund and build Trumps wall, secure our border, and deport undocumented immigrants. His campaign also said the Carl has consistently fought against tolling to build the I-10 bridge and bayway. Theres a big difference between Jerry Carl and Barry Moore, a Carl campaign spokesman said. Barry is in it for himself and Jerry Carl is in it to get something done for conservatives. PAC involvement The final seven days of the campaign also comes as spending spikes among the outside groups. According to website Open Secrets, more than $1.6 million has been spent by super PACs to campaign either against Carl or Moore. Gray said he believes the Carl camp went 100 percent negative toward Moore because of polling that suggested he was trailing. The Carl campaign, in recent days, has attacked Moore for having tax liens in the past, something which Carl has also had. Carls supporters are pointing to Club for Growths involvement in the race and opposing Carl, which the group did unsuccessfully during the summer of 2020, ahead of Carl defeating Republican Bill Hightower in a 1st district runoff race. A Club for Growth affiliate, School Freedom Fund, has spent close to $500,000 to run ads opposing Carls candidacy, according to Open Secrets. I guess the Club for Growth and the Freedom Caucus, they are groups that just give speeches and like the headlines and anytime the media sticks a mic in their face, they jump all over it and make bold statements that are hollow, Blankenship said. Why are they not out there trying to figure out how to get the price of my eggs lowered? Or gasoline prices lowered? These are things that matter to Alabamians. Thats where they need to be focused on, but they are just dividing the Republican Party. The Moore camp is questioning the involvement of Conservatives for American Excellence, a super PAC that has spent over $340,000 to campaign against Moore, according to Open Secrets. The group has received funding, according to the Moore camp, from donors to South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former Democratic President Barack Obama. Jerrys supporters continue to show their true anti-Trump colors, whether its local groups bad mouthing Barrys and President Trumps friends like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan, or D.C. Swamp PACs being funded by Nikki Haley and Barack Obama supporters like Ken Griffin and Warren Stephens, the Moore campaign said, urging Carls campaign to refuse the super PAC money. The Carl camp has blasted the Club for Growth, calling the group the original anti-Trumpers. The Club was one of the groups that attempted in 2016 to derail Trumps nomination. But it appears the Trump and Club for Growth members are on better terms, despite a Club-affiliated group attempting last year a negative TV ad campaign aimed at derailing Trump in the early primary states. Another super PAC involved in the race is the South Alabama Conservatives PAC which has spent close to $600,000 to oppose Moore, according to Open Secrets. The groups spokesman in the campaign has been political strategist Dalton Dismukes, and its main campaign ad which began running in January included a 30-second TV ad instructing viewers to follow a QR code linking them to the website politicianbarrymoore.com. The House Freedom Action Fund, which backs Freedom Caucus members, has spent over $200,000 to oppose Carl. Deep red district The congressional primary race is drawing some comparisons with the 1st district race between Bradley Byrne and Dean Young in late 2013, during a special GOP runoff election to replace former Rep. Jo Bonner. Byrne, who was supported by local business leaders from Mobile and Baldwin counties, was able to fend off Young, a darling among tea party conservatives. Gray said the biggest difference within the past 11 years is the shift in the 1st district, from one that was a safe Republican district at a +15 advantage for Republicans. That placed it as the 75th most Republican district in the U.S. House, according to the Cook Political Reports Partisan Voter Index (PVI). After redistricting, the district is a +28 advantage for Republicans, placing it tied as the sixth most conservative district in the U.S. House. This is not a moderate district, Gray said. When Barry Moore is talking about funding a global crisis, that sounds like (Young) who ran for this seat a decade ago and lost by 4 points. Barry Moore has the right message for this district, and the Jerry Carl people are slinging mud trying to unravel it. Blankenship said the race boils down to who can represent the people living in South Alabama the best, and not who rails the best before TV cameras and microphones. (Moore) has told people he is not going to help them, he said. He has this noble idea that he will change America. Im sorry, but you have to take care of Alabamians first. Thats what you get paid for, elected for. Carl is delivering. Uncommitted got enough votes to win two delegates in Michigans Democratic primary on Tuesday, as an effort organized to protest President Joe Bidens support for Israels war against Hamas in Gaza made its voice heard in the key swing state. While Biden won the state with more than 618,000 votes, more than 100,000 Michigan Democratic primary voters cast ballots for uncommitted in the race, enough to pick up the pair of delegates one from the 6th District, centered around Ann Arbor, and the other from the 12th District, which includes Detroit suburbs with large blocs of Arab Americans. The vote totals raise concerns for Democrats in a state Biden won by only 154,000 votes in 2020. Biden was beaten by the uncommitted vote in both Dearborn and Hamtramck, where Arab Americans make up close to half the population. Some local Democrats such as U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, had advocated for uncommitted votes to convey a message to Biden. Organizers of the uncommitted campaign, who had purposely set expectations low with a goal of at least 10,000 votes, celebrated Tuesdays results as a win. Biden still won 115 delegates on Tuesday and is well on his way to clinching the nomination over marginal competition. In 2012, during Barack Obamas reelection bid, the uncommitted option received nearly 21,000 votes, representing 11 percentage points. The uncommitted vote totals in both 2016 and 2020 when the Democratic primaries were contested hovered around 20,000, which was less than 2 percentage points. Yesterday was a resounding victory, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said Wednesday. This is not just an Arab or Muslim issue now. This is an American issue now. Its my hope, Mr. President, that you listen to us, that you choose democracy over tyranny, said Hammoud. Unofficial results put the uncommitted total at close to 13% of overall vote in the Democratic primary. The uncommitted delegates from Michigan will be free to vote for whomever they choose at the partys national convention in Chicago this summer. The people who will fill those delegate seats will be selected at congressional district conventions on May 11. It is common for states to offer voters the choice of voting for uncommitted or no preference in presidential primaries, though Michigan is the first state this cycle to award any of those delegates. On Super Tuesday next week, eight states will offer some variation of uncommitted in Democratic and Republican primaries. Abbas Alawieh, a spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, the group organizing the uncommitted push, told reporters Wednesday that it has already heard from organizers in other states looking to push a similar campaign. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday that he expected a measure of Minnesotas Somali population, the largest in the country, to vote uncommitted in his states Democratic primary on Super Tuesday. More than 86,000 Somalis live in Minnesota. Walz, a major supporter of Bidens reelection campaign, said Michigans uncommitted results were a healthy demonstration of democracy. I think they feel passionate, as they should, about an issue we all care about, Walz said, adding that he expected most protest voters would eventually return to Bidens side in a likely November rematch with former President Donald Trump, who himself has struggled with college-educated voters and suburbanites in his ongoing Republican primary against former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Im much more convinced theres a chance bringing those folks home is much greater than bringing the Never Trump folks back home, Walz said. Bills intended to provide legal protection to in vitro fertilization clinics advanced Wednesday in an Alabama Senate committee. The Senate Healthcare Committee approved SB159 by Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence, and SB160 by Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Sheffield. Both bills are intended to clear the way for clinics that have paused operations because of concerns about legal liability. Some clinics put their services on hold after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled Feb. 16 that frozen embryos have the status of unborn children for certain purposes under state law. The committee approval came on a voice vote in a room packed to capacity with families, doctors, and others concerned about access to the IVF process. Many of those advocates took part in a rally Wednesday morning outside the State House, urging lawmakers to resolve the legal uncertainty. Melson and Stutts said they hope the legislation can be considered on the Senate floor as early as Thursday. Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison was the only member of the Healthcare Committee who voiced concerns about the two bills. On Stutts bill, Coleman-Madison said she was concerned that the legal immunity it would provide would be too broad and not allow legal recourse for patients who suffer because of some mistake or shortcoming in the IVF process. Stutts, an OBGYN doctor who said he has extensive experience with patients who have used IVF, said his intent was to only allow clinics to continue to do what they had been doing before the court ruling, which he described as commonly accepted standards of practice. During discussion of Melsons bill, Coleman-Madison said it did not address what she called the elephant in the room, the legal definition of a child. The majority of justices in the Supreme Court decision determined that frozen embryos maintained in storage had legal standing as extrauterine children for purposes of claims under Alabamas wrongful death act. Democratic lawmakers in the Alabama House are sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment, HB240, that addresses that point. The bill says an extrauterine embryo is not an unborn life or unborn child. Wednesday afternoon, the House Health Committee approved an IVF legal protection bill by Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur. Collins said the purpose of the bill is to allow the clinics to resume operation. Rep. Paul Lee, R-Dothan, chair of the Health Committee, said he hoped the House will be able to vote on the bill Thursday. It would then go to the Senate, where it could get final passage as early as next Wednesday. Read more: IVF patients, doctors say they have limited time in Alabama: Dont take away that chance This story will be updated. A Birmingham woman is behind bars, accused in the fatal shooting of a man in northeast Jefferson County last year. Daysha Nicole Bennett, 35, is charged with murder in the slaying of 51-year-old Anthony Dewain Word. Bennett was booked into the Jefferson County Jail Monday afternoon and remains held without bond. Sheriffs deputies were dispatched just before 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023, to a report of shots fired and a person down in the 5700 block of Dewey Heights Road. They arrived to find Word unresponsive in the driveway of an abandoned house. He was pronounced dead on the scene at 3:12 p.m. Lt. Joni Money said at the time that witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots in the area. Law enforcement radio communicates indicated as many as 20 shots were fired. Money said Bennett and Word were acquaintances. A motive has not been disclosed. New sidewalks, community center renovations, and public safety improvements are all at the top of Center Point Mayor Bobby Scott Jr.s priority list for 2024. In his Q&A with the Birmingham News Lede this week, Scott said the city was working with Jefferson County to possibly create their own local police force. A Florida man posed as an Amazon delivery driver as part of an elaborate plan made with his female accomplice to kidnap a baby girl from her familys Federal Way apartment last week, according to prosecutors in Washington state. Marryl Ardila-Urrego, 33, and Chun Ho Vincent Lai, 42, were pulled over Feb. 20 on eastbound Interstate 90 just west of Moses Lake, Grant County, about 3 1/2 hours after snatching the 7-month-old girl and assaulting her mother, prosecutors say. The baby was unharmed and returned to her parents. This case is extraordinarily unusual, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Jennifer Phillips wrote in charges filed Thursday against the couple, who share a residence in Lake Worth Beach, Fla., about 60 miles north of Miami. The babys mother is Ardila-Urregos cousin, and she and Lai came to Washington for the explicit reason of taking this baby, by force, Phillips wrote. No clear motive is referenced in charging papers, which say it appears Ardila-Urrego and Lai targeted the family because they were known to the defendants and known to have children. The charges note theres no evidence that mental illness or substance abuse contributed to this crime. The Florida residents have each been charged with first-degree kidnapping, robbery and burglary and accused of forcing their way into the familys apartment and taking the infant, two cellphones and a tablet. They have also been charged with second-degree assault, accused of attacking the babys mother, and second-degree assault of a child for allegedly harming the babys 2-year-old sibling. Further, prosecutors allege several aggravating factors: the child victims were particularly vulnerable and incapable of resistance, the crimes had a destructive and foreseeable impact on people other than the victim and the offenses involved a high degree of sophistication or planning. If proven to a jury, those factors could provide a basis for an exceptional sentence above the standard range. The babys mother told police Ardila-Urrego said she had purchased a bed frame for the 2-year-old and notified the mother that it would be delivered Feb. 20 to the new residence the family had moved into just over a week earlier, the charges say. The woman said she heard a knock on her door after her husband had left for work that morning, looked through the peephole and saw a man, later identified as Lai, holding an Amazon box and clipboard, according to the charges. When she opened the door, Lai repeatedly punched her in the face, knocked her to the ground and bound her wrists and ankles with zip ties as a woman, later identified as Ardila-Urrego, came inside the apartment, say the charges. Ardila-Urrego held the mother down as Lai retrieved the baby, the charges state. Lai put the baby in the Amazon box, then pushed the childs mother into a bedroom with the 2-year-old, where he used baby clothes and tape to gag the woman, the charges say. Hes alleged to have closed the bedroom door and left. After the mother managed to free her ankles, she discovered her baby was gone and ran outside with her toddler, where maintenance workers cut the zip ties from her wrists and a neighbor called 911, according to the charges. The babys grandfather told police and FBI agents that he suspected Ardila-Urrego was involved in the babys abduction because she had been persistent in asking for his daughters address, which was unusual because Ardila-Urrego isnt often in contact with the family, the charges say. Neighbors security cameras captured footage of a man and woman arriving at the apartment complex in a white sedan and getting out with an Amazon box, then returning to the car with a red bag, the charges say. The car did not have a front license plate. FBI agents tracked Ardila-Urregos cellphone and learned Lai owned a Honda Insight. Records from an automated license-plate reader showed Lais Honda had been in Tukwila the day before, in the same location as Ardila-Urregos cellphone, the charges say. The cellphone information was relayed to the State Patrol, and a trooper conducted a traffic stop on the Honda just after 1 p.m., arresting Lai and Ardila-Urrego and rescuing the baby, according to the charges. The trooper sent a photo of the child to police, and her parents confirmed her identity. The location where Lai and Ardila-Urrego were arrested is roughly 180 miles east of Federal Way. Ardila-Urrego and Lai each remain jailed in lieu of $750,000 bail. They are scheduled to be arraigned March 7 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent. ___ (c)2024 The Seattle Times Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. In vitro fertilization patients in Alabama say they feel their ability to have children and start families has been stripped away. IVF patients gathered Tuesday with Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to discuss how the new Alabama Supreme Court decision, which found that fertilized embryos have the same legal protections as children, affects them. The Feb. 16 ruling forced surprise pauses of procedures at three clinics in the state, disrupting patient procedures. Practitioners are now contemplating whether they will continue to practice in Alabama and IVF patients are traveling to other states for embryo transfers as a result of the ruling. Elizabeth Goldman moved across the state and joined the University of Alabama at Birminghams uterus transplant program in 2020. She then underwent IVF, had a baby in October 2023, and was about to begin IVF for another baby likely her last chance to have a baby with her uterus when clinics shut their doors. My whole entire life, my whole entire journey revolved around IVF and being able to have another embryo transfer, Goldman said. As some Alabama IVF patients are feeling hopeless, state legislators and federal officials are working to find solutions. I came to listen. This is a state supreme court decision. We are trying to figure out what we can do to help at a federal level to try to be supportive of people who want access to their healthcare rights, Becerra said. When Roe went down, it took away health care rights and access. Abortion and reproductive health are likely to be election issues across the country. President Joe Biden has blasted Alabamas ruling. Former President Donald Trump has said he supports the availability of IVF in every state. Alabama legislators have introduced bills, HB225 and SB129, that legally would protect IVF procedures. Federal legislators are also looking at the issue. Clinicians say they need protection from the threat of criminal and civil prosecution before they can begin operating again in Alabama. Kendall Diebold is an IVF patient and nurse practitioner at the University of Birmingham and said many of her patients are also dependent on IVF to have children. We have an oncology fertility program that is entirely in jeopardy because of this ruling and there are so many young people who depend on IVF as their only means of having children, Diebold said. The whole IVF world, the infertility world as a whole, is so isolating and lonely. And this ruling has taken all of that and magnified it and filled it with sadness, and grief and anger. Julie Cohen, an infertility nonprofit advocate with the Jewish Fertility Foundation and IVF patient, has 4-year-old twins, Gideon and Levi, born through IVF treatment. Cohen said her work in infertility advocacy was inspired by her own journey with infertility. My husband and I have been through years and years and years of infertility, that includes numerous surgeries, numerous [intrauterine inseminations], six IVF transfers, eight losses and a termination for medical reasons, Cohen said. This was my only IVF transfer that gave me living babies. All of my other transfers that were only one embryo did not give me a living baby she said. I recognize that infertility and IVF are the most isolating things. You feel like you are the only person in the world going through it, and one of the only ways to get through it is to have a strong support network, Cohen said. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker, who used multiple Biblical references to justify fertilized eggs having the same legal status as children, suggested physicians should only make and transfer one embryo at a time. I wish that every embryo became a living baby, but I am here to say that every embryo is the chance of a living baby. And this recent ruling is taking away that chance for all of us, Cohen said. She said she is working with other IVF patients who have had transfer appointments and retrievals canceled. Some are traveling to Atlanta to begin treatment. Jared Robins, CEO for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said the ruling has caused a lot of questions for clinicians, who may not be able to quickly accept new patients from Alabama. He added that, without clearer legal protections, clinicians fear that embryos lost to miscarriages or other natural causes could be considered a life in wrongful death lawsuits. Stephanie Perry, an IVF patient, has a 3-year-old son conceived through IVF. When our son was born, in December of 2020, it was the brightest, most beautiful light in what was such a dark time, Perry said as tears welled in her eyes. Were not finished growing our family. And the ruling that came down, I just think about the families that got a phone call from their doctors that said they cant move forward. I am devastated for them because its a chance, its not a guarantee. I am asking, dont take away that chance. Dont take away that light from these families. Eli Palmer, a special education teacher, said her insurance does not cover fertility preservation through egg freezing, surrogacy and IVF. But she needs IVF if she wants to have a baby, and so in February, she decided to freeze her eggs at UAB. I just cannot live under the false belief anymore that in this country, and certainly not in Alabama right now, that I have the freedom to make choices about my body, my reproductive health, my future that are right for me, Palmer said. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Becerras visit is a critical part of the Biden-Harris administrations ongoing work to hear directly from families impacted by the Republican elected officials extreme agenda. The Biden-Harris administration will continue to fight back against attacks on reproductive freedoms, whether thats attacks on abortion care, birth control access, and now IVF access, she told reporters Tuesday. It is absolutely unacceptable to this administration when women are denied the care that they need. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Tuesday blasted the United Auto Workers, in the midst of its most successful campaign to unionize Southern auto plants, as a looming threat to the states economy. Ivey, speaking to the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce, called the unions efforts to organize at two of Alabamas automotive manufacturing plants - Alabamas crown jewel industries - a threat from Detroit. We cannot let this out-of-state interest group take away this hope and prosperity from our folks, Ivey told the crowd. Iveys comments came on the same day the UAW announced that more than half of the workers at the Mercedes-Benz U.S. International (MBUSI) plant in Vance have signed union cards. The governor has already been publicly critical of the union effort over the last two months. Shortly after the UAW announced 30% of MBUSIs workers had signed union cards in January, Ivey, in a statement posted on the Alabama Department of Commerce page, said the union push means that Alabamas model for economic success is under attack. Tuesdays comments came in the neighborhood of Hyundai, the other plant currently targeted by UAW, where 30% of the workers have signed union cards. Ivey said Tuesday that the Korean automaker has been transformative for the Montgomery community. She said Hyundai and other employers can serve as a model to other local areas grappling with this threat from Detroit. Hyundais automotive plant produces the automakers Sonata, Elantra, Santa Fe, Santa Cruz and Tucson, as well as engines. In 2023, the UAW filed unfair labor practice claims against several automakers, including Hyundai, for what it said were union busting practices, such as confiscating and destroying pro-union materials in non-work areas during non-work times. Hyundais growth here and commitment to Montgomery has outdone initial projections, as it now represents a $1.8 billion dollar investment, having created some 4,000 jobs, Ivey said. On top of the good jobs, the good economic numberstheyre just a good neighbor to have in Montgomery. Ivey, joined at the meeting by new Alabama Commerce Secretary Ellen McNair, said the two of them have discussed was the looming threat of the UAW, as well as the states economic vision into the next decade. My message is clear, though: I am standing up for Alabamians and protecting our jobs, Ivey said. Alabamians work harder than anyone. We make the best automobiles in the world. And we must not let UAW tell us differently. Families, doctors, and others came to the Alabama State House on Wednesday morning for a rally to urge legislators to resolve the interruption in in vitro fertilization services resulting from a Feb. 16 ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court. My heart breaks for everyone in the state who had to stop their IVF treatment or for those who were ready for and have had to put on pause, Corinn OBrien of Birmingham told the crowd. This court ruling adds devastation to a process that is already so hard in so many ways. OBrien started a support group called Fight for Alabama Families to advocate for the IVF cause. The crowd cheered when OBrien told them she was seven weeks pregnant through the IVF process. She called on the advocates to carry their message to lawmakers in the State House. There is no playbook or manual on how to deal with a situation like this, OBrien said. But gathering here today and informing legislators and the public about the impact of this ruling will help get us back on track. The Senate Healthcare Committee has scheduled a public hearing at noon Wednesday on SB159, by Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence, and SB160, by Sen. Larry Stutts, R-Sheffield. Melson spoke at the rally and told the crowd that the Legislature intends to fix the problem. Melsons bill, just a few pages long, would shield IVF providers from civil and criminal liability after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF are considered children for purposes of the states wrongful death law. Stutts bill is similar. Melson told the crowd he intends to add provisions to the bill that would also protect parents using the IVF process from potential liability. Committee approval could put Melsons bill position for consideration by the Senate on Thursday. Dr. Mamie McLean, who provides IVF services at the clinic Alabama Fertility, told the crowd that recent days have been difficult. An an infertility physician, I am used to difficult conversations, but these last two weeks have been absolutely heartbreaking, McLean said. Due to the uncertainty posed by the Supreme Court ruling, we have had to cancel embryo transfers for patients who are longing and praying for a child. I see many of you here today. McLean thanked Melson and state Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, who spoke at the rally, for their attention to the issue. We agree that patients and clinics must have protection in whatever law is ultimately accepted, McLean said. We call on the state of Alabama to provide immediate complete and permanent access to IVF care for the women and families of Alabama. Dr. Beth Malizia of Alabama Fertility said the clinic has helped bring thousands of babies into the world over more than 20 years. Our care relies on evidence-based advances in our field, Malizia told the crowd. We want to increase the chance of pregnancy while we decrease the risk to mom and babies. Our most successful treatment has been taken from us and put on hold while we stand here today with all of you asking our legislators to hear us. Democratic lawmakers in the Alabama House have introduced two bills, both sponsored by House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, R-Huntsville, also intended to shield IVF providers from liability. One of the bills, SB240, is a proposed constitutional amendment. It would amend a constitutional amendment approved by voters that declares that Alabamas policy is to protect the life of the unborn. It says an extrauterine embryo is not an unborn life or unborn child. All 28 members of the House Democratic caucus are signed on as co-sponsors. Several Alabama IVF programs, including ones operated by the UAB Health System and the Mobile Infirmary Medical Center, have paused services because of concerns about the ruling. Read more: What is in vitro fertilization? Alabama ruling puts assisted reproduction at risk Anti-Israel student protesters at UC Berkeley gather outside Wheeler Hall to try to prevent an Israeli speaker from addressing the students who invited him. When the location was moved to Zellerbach Playhouse, the protesters followed and shut down the event. Provided by Danielle Sobkin Hundreds of anti-Israel student protesters broke down the door of UC Berkeleys Zellerbach Playhouse on Monday night, smashing a window and preventing an Israeli speaker from addressing a few dozen Jewish students. Danielle Sobkin, one of the organizers who invited Israeli lawyer Ran Bar-Yoshafat, said the mob grabbed a sophomore who tried to attend the event, called him a dirty Jew and spat on him. She said that protesters also shoved a senior into the auditorium door as she tried to check in attendees, and that they grabbed a freshman by her neck. This isnt an isolated incident. This is a continuous trend thats persisted my entire time on campus. Jewish hate. The targeting of Jewish students, said Sobkin, co-president of Bears for Israel, one of three Jewish groups that invited Bar-Yoshafat. Advertisement Article continues below this ad For a lot of us, this was the tipping point. The last straw, she said, noting that shes seen anti-Israel graffiti for years on campus, and said that for nearly two weeks, anti-Israel protesters have partially blocked the iconic Sather Gate broadcasting the sounds of war. Though she is a junior, Sobkin said, she has enough credits to graduate this spring, Ive had all the Berkeley time I can handle. UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof confirmed that about 200 student protesters mobbed Zellerbach, but could not substantiate injuries. He urged anyone who was hurt to report the incident to UC police and to the schools Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination. Hundreds of anti-Israel students protesters broke down the door of UC Berkeleys Zellerbach Hall Monday night, smashing a window and preventing an Israeli speaker from addressing a few dozen Jewish students. Courtesy of Bears for Israel On Tuesday, Chancellor Carol Christ and Provost Benjamin Hermalin posted a message titled Upholding Our Values and expressing deep remorse and sympathy to those students and members of the public who were in the building, fearing for their safety. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The message called the incident an attack on the fundamental values of the university and said, We cannot allow the use or threat of force to violate the First Amendment rights of a speaker, no matter how much we might disagree with their views. Students have long supported Palestinians in far greater numbers than theyve supported Israel. But after the events of Oct. 7, student support for Palestinians has only swelled. Thats when Hamas attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 253 hostages. Israel retaliated with a war that has flattened much of Gaza, killing at least 29,000 Palestinians, health officials report. The traumatized population is hungry and without medical care. Meanwhile, university leaders across the U.S. have struggled to balance the rights of pro-Palestinian students and those who support Israel as a refuge for Jews. On Tuesday, Sobkin called on the university to do more than simply express its empathy. Words are only words, she said. Theres a code of conduct. Yet none of that has been reinforced. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Mogulof, the campus spokesperson, said the university is investigating the Monday incident, in which many students covered their faces with masks and Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs. I cant emphasize how seriously were taking this, and how appalling it is, he said, adding that the students stationed at Sather Gate are also violating campus rules. We are working as we speak to address that, he said. The Israeli lawyer was originally supposed to speak at Wheeler Hall, home of the English department. Roughly 50 students sent in their required RSVPs, and about 30 students liked the Instagram invitation from the three groups, Bears for Israel, Tikvah and Students Supporting Israel. But more than 2,200 other students liked a post from Bears for Palestine that urged: Shut it down: Genocidal murderers out of Berkeley, and featured a photo of the speaker labeled murderer. A huge crowd gathered outside Wheeler Hall at 5 p.m. Monday chanting so loudly that students inside told Sobkin they couldnt hear their professors. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The event shifted to Zellerbach Playhouse, and the university sent what officials thought would be enough police to protect attendees. We had a significant number of police at the event a number we believed to be sufficient based on past experience and that clearly was not the case, said Mogulof, noting that the university doesnt disclose how many officers it deploys. Meanwhile, the university and students who support Israel may have more to contend with next week. Bears for Palestine has announced a schedule of events for its annual Apartheid Week, condemning Israel and speaking out on the history of the Palestinians. The son of a Montgomery County judge is facing a third charge after authorities say he shot and seriously injured his father in a domestic dispute at the familys home. Judge Johnny Hardwick, the presiding judge of Montgomery Countys Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, remains hospitalized in Birmingham after he was stabbed repeatedly and shot in the face on Saturday. His son, 36-year-old Khalfani Hardwick, was initially charged with first-degree domestic violence-assault and certain persons forbidden to possess a firearm. On Tuesday, he was charged with attempted murder, court records show. Charging documents state Khalfani Hardwick stabbed his father in the neck and face and shot him in the face before fleeing the scene. Khalfani Hardwick had a court appearance Tuesday at which time a judge declared the suspect indigent. All of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit judges have recused themselves from presiding over the case. The assault happened about 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the Hardwick home. Deputies immediately saturated the area and located Khalfani Hardwicks abandoned vehicle on Trotman Road. A short time later, deputies located him on U.S. 231, and he was taken into custody. Judge Hardwick, a circuit judge since 2001, is the current president of the Alabama Association of Circuit Court Judges. A Montgomery native, the judge is a 1973 graduate of Alabama State University. According to a news release from the university in August, Hardwick helped spearhead the Golden Class (50-year) reunion of his college graduating class, which made a more than $250,000 donation to their alma mater, the largest single donation by a Golden Class in recent years. Khalfani Hardwick in 2017 pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree assault in the 2014 shooting of another man. He was initially charged with attempted murder. According to court documents, he shot the man in the back of the head and left him for dead. Court records show Khalfani Hardwick received a 3-year suspended sentence with three years of probation. He spent 19 months on probation before he petitioned for an early release. According to the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, Khalfani Hardwick graduated from Alabama State University with a degree in accounting while on probation and was offered a job. He could not, however, be seated in a CPA certification class while on probation, hence the request to be dismissed. He has accepted his punishment for his actions an embraced the opportunity to better himself, the Pardons and Paroles paperwork stated, adding that he had a stable home life. The Alabama Attorney Generals Office opposed the request, noting that the Pardons and Paroles board requires all violent probationers serve a minimum of 24 months before consideration of early termination. The defendant entered a guilty plea to assault in the second degree for shooting the victim in the back of the head and leaving him for dead, which is absolutely a crime of violence, the AGs office argued. Montgomery County Circuit Judge John E. Rochester granted the early release on Nov. 5, 2019. Khalfani Hardwick was booked into the Montgomery County Detention Center a 9:03 p.m. Saturday and remains held without bond. Senate Republicans have blocked legislation that would protect access to in vitro fertilization, objecting to a vote on the issue Wednesday even after widespread backlash to a recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that threatens the practice. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Mississippi Republican, objected to a request for a vote by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who used IVF treatments to have her two children after struggling with years of infertility. Duckworths bill would establish a federal right to the treatments as the Alabama ruling has upended fertility care in the state and families who had already started the process face heartbreak and uncertainty. Several clinics in the state announced they were pausing IVF services as they sort out last weeks ruling, which said that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. The court said that three Alabama couples who lost frozen embryos during an accident at a storage facility could sue the fertility clinic and hospital for the wrongful death of a minor child. Democrats have immediately seized on the election-year ruling, warning that other states could follow Alabamas lead and that other rights could be threatened as well in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade and the federal right to an abortion in 2022. Congress passed similar legislation in 2022 that would protect the federal right to same-sex and interracial marriages. Mark my words, if we dont act now, it will only get worse, Duckworth said. Abortion opponents have pushed laws in at least 15 states based on the idea that a fetus should have the same rights as a person. Hyde-Smith defended the Alabama Supreme Court decision that found frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. She pointed out that it originated with a pair of wrongful death cases brought by three couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident at a fertility clinic. I support the ability for mothers and fathers to have total access to IVF and bringing new life into the world. I also believe human life should be protected, Hyde-Smith said. At the same time, three providers in Alabama have paused the often-used fertility treatments while they sort out the legal implications. Alabama lawmakers are scrambling to find ways to protect the treatments. And former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, said he would strongly support the availability of IVF. Trump called on lawmakers in Alabama to preserve access to the treatment. Many GOP lawmakers also reinforced their support for IVF services. Soon after the decision, Alabama Sen. Katie Britt made calls to fellow Republicans, including Trump, to argue for the importance of supporting the treatments, emphasizing that they are pro-life and pro-family, according to a person familiar with the calls. In a statement after the ruling, Britt said that defending life and ensuring continued access to IVF services for loving parents are not mutually exclusive. Other Republicans agreed. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, one of the more vocal opponents of abortion in the Senate, said he supports IVF and believes it is entirely life affirming. Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, a former obstetrician, said hed referred patients for IVF treatments for 25 years in his practice. We are the pro-family party, and theres nothing more pro-family than helping couples have a baby, Marshall said. Still, this is the second time Republicans have blocked Duckworths bill. By Bringing it up again, Democrats said they are challenging GOP senators to display real support for IVF access after many this week issued statements criticizing the Alabama ruling. Democrats held the Senate floor for 45 minutes Wednesday with a series of speeches deriding the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday that Republicans who have denounced the Alabama ruling are like the arsonist who set a house on fire and say, why is it burning? For Duckworth, the bill holds deep personal significance. After she was seriously injured while piloting a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq, she became an amputee and was only able to have her own children, ages 5 and 9, through IVF. After a decade struggling with infertility after my service in Iraq, I was only able to get pregnant through the miracle of IVF, Duckworth said on the Senate floor. IVF is the reason I get to experience the chaos and the beauty, the stress and the joy, that is motherhood. She called her infertility one of the most heartbreaking struggles of my life. My miscarriage more painful than any wound I ever earned on the battlefield. Its been nearly eight months since someone gunned down two Birmingham firefighters inside Station 9, killing one and critically wounding another. Firefighter Jordan Melton died five days after the July 12, 2023, shooting. Jamal Jones, who has since been promoted to the rank of sergeant, is still undergoing treatment and has not yet been able to return to work. On Tuesday, the day before Melton would have turned 30, his mother announced the kickoff for the Jordan E. Melton Memorial Crusade for Justice and lamented the fact that no arrests have been made in her sons murder. After eight months, Im told there are still no tips, no leads, no suspects, Rochelle Gaston Malone said. I am grateful to Almighty God and great allies for the strength to become more active in the pursuit of justice for Jordan. Malone is launching a GoFundMe Pursuit of Justice for Firefighter Jordan Melton to raise money for a private investigation into Meltons slaying, as well as other future unsolved cases. Its frustrating not to know anything, Malone said. We will not rest until this journey for justice is won. Birmingham Firefighter Jordan Melton was shot July 12, 2023, and died five days later. His mother, Rochelle Gaston Malone, is hosting a youth summit on what would have been his 30th birthday.(Carol Robinson) Birmingham police officials on Tuesday said solving the shooting is a priority for the department and the Jefferson County District Attorneys Office. We are both working together to bring Jordans killer or killers to justice, said Officer Truman Fitzgerald. He said detectives have identified persons of interest in Jordans case. We are not comfortable naming them suspects yet, Fitzgerald said. Our detectives have developed and followed up on evidentiary leads in this case and will continue until those responsible are behind bars. A reward of more than $40,000 remains in place. A wreath laying ceremony was held Thursday, July 20, 2023, outside Birmingham Fire Station 9 to pay tribute to the 29-year-old Melton who died Monday, five days after and Firefighter Jamal Jones were shot shortly after they went on duty. (Carol Robinson) On Wednesday, the Jordan E. Melton Memorial Summit will be held at the A.G. Gaston Boys and Girls Club. The invitation-only even will focus on Meltons story, fire safety and gun violence prevention. There will also be a balloon release in Meltons memory. The event is the kick-off for year-round awareness and empowerment events for the citys youth, Malone said. Melton and Jones were shot just before 8:30 a.m. that Wednesday after they began their shift. They were performing routine maintenance in the stations bay area when a gunman entered through the open bay door and opened fire in what police say was a targeted attack. Birmingham police and Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service were called to the station, at 1228 27th St. North, where the firefighters had reportedly been shot in the chest and legs. At least one caller reported hearing shots and ran to take cover in the bathroom. The shooter entered the fire station through the open bay door, which typically remains open to be accessible to residents who need their blood pressure checked or other help or information. Station 9 remained closed until December. Two Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service fighters were shot inside Station 9 in Norwood on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. Both were reported to be in serious condition. (Carol Robinson) Malone said before Melton was killed, he had expressed to her that he had a desire to mentor young men who had lost their way or seemed to be heading down the wrong path. With that thought, she said, the Holy Spirit said, Purpose through the pain. Wednesdays summit and any future events is not only a way to empower the youth but a way to carry out (Meltons) desires, his dreams of how he would have been used if mans plan had not interrupted his plan. Malone said the past eight months have been extremely challenging to say the least. Im trying to learn how to navigate life with the understanding and knowing that I will never ever see him again here, on this side, she said. Its been a lot of ups and downs. My faith in God is sustaining me. I understand how His grace works, Malone said. What you see before you is the evidence of Gods grace. Malone was diagnosed in 2010 with multiple sclerosis and, in 2011, was temporarily paralyzed. She said shes been without treatment since 2021 and has not had a relapse since 2016 until her son was killed. I was in the hospital right before Thanksgiving, she said. Its because of the stress and impact of this incident, how its been handled and not been handled. The last eight months have looked totally different, she said, than what I could have ever imagined. After Meltons large funeral, Malone was asked what her son would think of it and she said he would probably say, Yall are doing the most. Asked Tuesday what he would say about her efforts now, she said, Thats my mom. You go, girl. Yall better listen. Shes on a mission and shes going to accomplish it. Donations to the Pursuit of Justice for Firefighter Jordan Melton GoFundMe can be made here. Anyone with information on the slaying is asked to call Birmingham homicide investigators at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777. The second suspect in the killing of Moody police Lt. Stephen Williams pleaded guilty Wednesday in the 2020 shooting at the Super 8 Motel. Marquisha Tyson, 32, of Birmingham, was initially charged with capital murder. She pleaded guilty Wednesday to murder and, under the agreement, was sentenced her to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Tapero Carleone Johnson, 31, was convicted in October of capital murder after a trial and sentenced to death. Johnson was also from Birmingham. St. Clair County District Attorney Lyle Harmon said the plea agreement was made with the blessings of Williams family and law enforcement officials. We are pleased to have been able to find justice for the Williams family, Harmon said. The state was able to prove that the defendant Marquisha Tyson assisted Tapero Johnson in the intentional and brutal murder of Lt. Williams while he acted in the line of duty, he said. Lt. Williams was a protector and hero to our community, Harmon said. He served a distinguished career, often in harms way, and sadly lost his life at the hands of two cold blooded murderers. Williams, who was posthumously promoted to the rank of lieutenant, was killed June 2, 2020, while on duty. Moody police Sgt. Stephen Williams He responded to a 911 call at the Super 8 Motel in Moody. As he knocked on the door, he was immediately met with gunfire from inside the room. Forty-three rounds were fired at Williams through the wall and door of the motel, from four different weapons. The shooting happened shortly before 9:30 p.m. that Tuesday at the Moody Parkway motel. Williams was the night-shift supervisor, and he and other officers responded to the motel. A medical helicopter was sent for Williams, but the officer was instead taken by ambulance to UAB Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Both suspects were quickly taken into custody. Moody Police Sgt. Stephen Williams, 50, was shot to death Tuesday, June 2, 2020, when he responded to a call at the Super 8 motel on Moody Parkway. Two suspects are in custody. Williams, a 50-year-old father of three, had been a police officer for 23 years, the last three of those at the Moody Police Department. He began his law enforcement career at the Bessemer Police Department and then served the Alabaster Police Department. He had just been promoted to sergeant in the year before his death and was a recipient of the Officer of the Year award in memory of Keith Turner, who was shot to death June 27, 1998, and was the last Moody officer killed in the line of duty. Williams was born and raised in Mississippi and, after graduating from Mississippi State, served his county in the U.S. Air Force. In his short time with the City of Moody, he impacted the lives of not only many of the residents of the community, but those police officers that served with him, according to his obituary. Stephen took pride in mentoring and teaching the young police officers entering on duty and took the time to impress on them not just the normal things a training officer may impart on a new officer, but how to see all members of the community in a way that is so important for a police officer, as real people. People who often at the lowest part of their lives deserved the compassion and respect of those who not only enforced the law, but those that tempered that enforcement with love for their fellow man. Nearly 1,000 mourners attended Williams funeral. His sons - both in the U.S. Coast Guard - had pinned his lieutenant bars on their fathers body, just as he pinned their bars on them when they were commissioned as officers. Our office is hopeful that this guilty plea and sentence will bring some degree peace to the family, law enforcement, and community, Harmon said. We ask the public to remember the Moody Police Department, the Williams family and all law enforcement in your prayers tonight. Reginald Stovall spent the last 25 years thinking he would die in prison. But then a judge and prosecutor surprised him. They took a look at his appeal over a grocery store stickup that landed him in prison for life without the chance of parole, and a judge decided to resentence Stovall to a shorter term behind bars and give him a shot at getting released on parole. But when his turn finally came, the Alabama parole board denied him, as they do the vast majority of prisoners these days. Parole hearings last just minutes and prisoners do not get to attend. And Stovall suspects that a misunderstanding over paperwork may have sunk his case. I just want the parole board to look at the man who now stands before them, not the man who committed that crime 25 years ago, said Stovall in a statement he sent to the parole board and provided to AL.com. Stovall, now 50, was sentenced in the summer of 1999 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a Winn-Dixie robbery that left no one injured. He got the life sentence because of the states then-mandatory Habitual Felony Offender Act he had five priors. Two were for breaking into a car, and two others were for theft. Another was for receiving stolen property. Although none were violent or serious crimes, he was ordered to spend his life behind bars without a chance at parole. Ive made some mistakes but please dont let me have to pay for it the rest of my life, Stovall wrote to a Pike County judge in 2008. Im not asking for the court to cut me loose, he wrote. I just want one chance at life to be with my family and be the person they raised me to be He asked for even a life sentence that would give him a shot at parole to prove myself. That letter didnt earn him a sentence reduction. He sat in prison, taking classes and completing programs, earning his upholstery trade certificate. He got four disciplinary write-ups soon after arriving in prison, he said, but thats it. He said his prison record has been clean for the past 24 years. Im not going to come to prison and get filled up with all the negative stuff, Stovall said from a prison phone. I still kept my head down, took classes and got my education. I put myself in a better position, you know. Years went by. Finally, Stovall got a lawyer to file an appeal focusing on the facts of his caseand he won. I just want the parole board to look at the man who now stands before them, not the man who committed that crime 25 years ago. Reginald Stovall, denied parole In 2021, Stovalls lawyer said that a former witness in the case had come forward, recanting her statements from 1999. Prosecutors didnt agree with the facts in that appeal, court records show, but agreed that Stovall should be resentenced to a term of imprisonment that would comply with recent sentencing standards. In February 2022, a Pike County judge resentenced Stovall to 40 years in prison, with credit for all the time hes already spent behind bars. That sentence change left him eligible for parole, which he had a shot at in September 2022. But the judges order, the DAs agreement in the sentence reduction, and the clean record in prison didnt matter. At the parole board, a representative from the Alabama Attorney Generals Office spoke against his release. Stovalls former lawyer, his father and his wife all asked for parole. But he was denied. The board members cited the severity of the grocery store robbery for his denial. Out of 25 years I cant change the severity of the crime, Stovall told AL.com. But he thinks there may have been a misunderstanding, that the board didnt look at the resentencing information which shortened his prison term and even gave him a shot at getting parole. I feel like they turned me down because they thought I just got to prison and had a fresh 40 years, he said. Records on the Alabama Department of Corrections public-facing website show Stovalls 40-year sentence was handed down in 2022, but dont reflect that the case was actually from the 1990s and not for a new crime. Officials at the parole bureau said his file instead does reflect the time he has already served over 8,000 days at the time he was denied parole as jail credit. But the parole board does not comment on individual cases, so Stovall wont ever know if his timesheet played a role in their decision. Hes now set to come up again for parole in 2026. Its more about incarceration than rehabilitation, Stovall said. Stovall said he has hope that one day hell walk out of prison. He wants to go to college and open his own upholstery shop, and plans to live with his wife in Montgomery. They were misinformed and didnt have all the info they needed, Stovall said. And whos going to believe an inmate? This project was completed with the support of a grant from Columbia Universitys Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures. Its Sunday morning. Kenya Staples takes her time with her skincare routine, indulging in the simple luxury of self care. Gospel music travels through the rooms of her home as she whispers affirming words in the mirror. Staples, founder and CEO of Dear Sunday Skincare, is collaborating with other Black women business owners to make self care more accessible. With her background in chemistry, Staples is working to share the simple luxury of a self care Sunday with others. She said she is excited to continue working with other businesses as she grows her own. Staples can be found working in You Good? Self Care Sanctuary, a Woodlawn storefront that functions as a retail incubator, a space where business owners can take their first steps into brick-and-mortar operations with the support of REV Birmingham. I love that were all able to collaborate as Black women business owners, Staples said. Im really excited about being based here in Woodlawn. This has been really fulfilling knowing that this area is coming up and I grew up right down the street. Just seeing the community evolve and grow. Im grateful to be part of that change. Staples graduated from Ramsay High School in 2011. Shortly after graduation, she enlisted in the military where she served in the Army and worked her way up to first lieutenant. She wanted to become a physician assistant and the military helped her pay for her degree at Alabama A&M where she graduated with her bachelors of chemistry in 2016. Once she was discharged, Staples got to work logging clinical hours with an ophthalmologist, but soon found that she was not happy working in the medical field. I just realized that wasnt for me. I decided then to take a step back and reevaluate. It was 2019 when I came back home. And of course in 2020, thats when COVID hit. I decided that was the perfect time to just sit and figure out what I really wanted, Staples said. During that time, Staples dove into the world of entrepreneurship trying to figure out her new path in life. She explored photography and videography and tried her hand as a Realtor, but found that none of them stuck. While trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I started getting a little anxious about my next steps in life because time was moving. I always had these goals and something to get after. While in the military, Staples said she developed dark marks from acne breakouts and sun exposure. She said she remembers spending free time shopping in department store skincare isles. Over time, she collected countless bottles of serums and cleansers, lotions and scrubs, spot treatments and face masks. I learned that I wanted to create products for my own skin. I didnt want to let my degree go to waste. Thats how it all started, Staples said. I took a step back because I really enjoy being creative. I like to express my creativity. I was questioning what I wanted to do, and more than anything, I wanted to be true to myself this go around, she said. I took a few different approaches and finally came to the conclusion that I really love the self care space. She got to work immediately and turned a room in her basement into a chemistry lab where she reads up on cosmetic chemistry and plant-based skincare formulation, researches skincare ingredients and runs stability tests on her products. It went back to my core values of really valuing self care. Staples said. During that time when I wasnt working, and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and I was feeling all of the anxiety and questioning everything, I really needed some type of grounding. So in the morning, when I would do my morning routine, I would look in the mirror and speak positivity to myself then really take my time with my skincare. Collaboration with other Black women business owners Sundays are my reset days. I would always look forward to my Sunday routine. It was my self-care Sunday. But why cant everyday be a self care day? Staples said. Staples launched Dear Sunday Skincare online in November 2021 with three skincare products: an exfoliating facial cleanser, vitamin-rich moisturizer and oil controlling toner. She uses natural ingredients in her products like turmeric to exfoliate, cucumber for hydration, witch hazel as an antioxidant and green tea to fight acne. To spread the word about her new business, Staples hosted pop up shops and participated in local street markets. Tish Fetcher, former CEO of Thrive Wellness Lounge in Woodlawn, approached her about putting Staples skincare products in her store and applying for a program to help grow her business. Soon after, Staples applied for Magic City Match, a program to match Black-owned businesses with brick-and-mortar spaces with REV Birmingham, a nonprofit that helps grow small businesses. REV awarded Staples a grant to help with marketing and legal consultation in 2022. [Fletcher] gave me the opportunity to be in this space and REV supported me, Staples said. Black women business owners tend to have to work harder to get that recognition and bring awareness to our business. I have fortunately had REV and [Fletcher] to pour into me. Now, Staples products line the wooden shelves along with other wellness products made by Black women business owners. Teas by Rodne Graham, candles by Devin Jackson and soaps by Tracie Graham Wilson fragrance the space at You Good? Self Care Sanctuary in Woodlawn. During the week, Staples can be found in her shop hugging local business owners, trading tips, smiles and self care products. My overall goal was to be way more than just skincare. I know that self care is more than just topical, Staples said. The idea was to collaborate with other small businesses that compliment self care and wellness. Rodne Graham, founder of Sips of Nayture, and Staples have known each other since high school. They walked the Ramsay graduation stage together and supported one another into adulthood as they started their own businesses. When Staples was preparing for the grand opening of You Good? Self Care Sanctuary, she reached out to Graham and her mother, Tracie Graham Wilson, to put their products on her shelves. She saw the beginning of when I started selling my teas and I saw the beginning of when she started her skincare line. We bought from each other and promoted each other. Weve always had warm encounters, Graham said. Kenya is big on that, she likes working with other people, she likes to collaborate. Shes a great, great person to collaborate with. Staples also works with neighboring businesses in Woodlawn. In early February, Staples collaborated with Alexis Kimbrough, owner of Herban Soul Cafe, to host a vision board party, Galentines Day and a singles night event. We wanted to promote self love and female friendships, Staples said. My goal is to build a community around self care, wellness and mental health and really start those conversations. Kimbrough said both she and Staples are passionate about mental health and wellness. [The events] were a success. They were really fun. The connections that were made were great and being able to bring people together in a safe space and create a community to just laugh, share experiences and have a good time, it was a success, Kimbrough said. Its easy to collaborate with Kenya because were already on the same page about mental health and wellness. What better neighbor to have, that has the same mission, than her. A predawn fire at Tannehill State Park destroyed the General Store. Green Pond Fire Chief Joseph Hall said firefighters responded to the park at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday after a camper leaving for work spotted the blaze and called 911. When firefighters arrived, the store was well involved. McCalla Fire also responded. Crews extinguished the fire and made sure the surrounding areas were safe, Hall said. No one was injured. Hall said the store, a popular landmark at the park, was obviously closed at the time of the fire and no one had been there since late Tuesday. The cause has not yet been determined. The store is a total loss. The Alabama State Fire Marshals Office is responding to lead the investigation. A former Alabama Department of Corrections sergeant was sentenced to more than five years in prison Wednesday for using excessive force on an inmate and then trying to cover up the beating, prosecutors said. Devlon Williams, a 38-year-old former sergeant at Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore County, was convicted by a Montgomery federal court jury of deprivation of rights under color of law, falsification of records and obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to five years and three months in federal prison followed by two years of supervised release. This defendant was a sergeant who was supposed to set an example for those he supervised and instead he callously abused his authority and brutalized a vulnerable inmate during a time of need, said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division. The Justice Department will not tolerate this type of violent conduct inside our jails and prisons, and we will continue to prosecute corrections officials who violate the constitutional and civil rights of people in their custody. This sentencing should send a clear message to officials employed in correctional settings that they are not above the law and will be held accountable when they break it. Williams took a suicidal Staton inmate, only identified by the initials D.H., from the prison chapel to the facilitys healthcare unit, according to court documents and trial evidence. Instead of taking the inmate to the infirmary, Williams stopped at the units main hallway, where he assaulted and taunted the inmate by yelling, since you want to die, Im going to help you. Witnesses testified Williams repeatedly punched and kicked the inmate, who was lying on the ground in the fetal position and not resisting or posing a threat to anyone. Williams then beat the inmate multiple times with a baton as another corrections officer, Larry Managan Jr., also took part in the assault. Williams and Managan tried to cover up their misconduct. Williams made false statements about the assault to an ADOC investigator and prepared a false report about the incident. He also pressured junior-ranking officers and eyewitness nurses to lie along with him. Managan previously pleaded guilty, was sentenced for obstructing justice and testified against Williams at trial. While most members of law enforcement serve honorably and professionally, some are not so dedicated, said Acting U.S. Attorney Jonathan S. Ross for the Middle District of Alabama. Williams savagely beat and taunted an inmate who was not resisting and posed no threat, then they lied to conceal their crime. They must be held responsible for their actions. Failure to do so would discredit the noble service of every other officer and weaken the publics trust in those who are sworn to protect. Former corrections officer Devlon Williams not only attacked the victim while transporting him to receive critical care for suicidal ideation, but also attempted to cover up his crimes and intimidate witnesses, added Assistant Director Michael D. Nordwall of the FBIs Criminal Investigative Division. The FBI remains committed to protecting the dignity and civil rights of individuals in custody, and we will investigate any law enforcement and corrections officers who abuse their authority. This is a guest opinion column On January 25, just 14 months after Alabama failed to execute Kenny Smith using lethal injection and left him with severe PTSD and physical scarring, the state used the untested nitrogen hypoxia protocol to execute him for a crime he committed over thirty-five years ago. Kenny was strapped down, wrapped in a tight sheet, and his face was encased in a rubber and plastic fire fighter style mask that was tied over his head to the back of the gurney. For twenty-two minutes, Kenny writhed in agony as he was slowly suffocated to death using nitrogen gas, which was described by witnesses as horrific and inhumane. Kennys human right to life and his Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment were violated, and his experience was considered by United Nations experts to be tantamount to torture. Worst of all, if not for an outdated practice called judicial override, Kenny Smith would still be alive. In 2017, Alabama became the last state in the nation to require death sentences to be decided alone by the jury when the legislature passed, and Governor Ivey signed into law, SB 16/HB 32. Before that law, a judge could single-handedly override the will of the jury and choose to give a convicted individual the death sentence. Unfortunately, the legislation was not retroactive, which has left thirty human beings stranded on death row even though their sentences would now be considered illegal. Among these people is Rocky Myers, a Black man with intellectual disabilities who has spent over thirty years on the row. Even though there was little evidence connecting Rocky to the crime, multiple irregularities during his proceedings including reprehensible conduct by his lawyer that was later sanctioned by the Alabama State Bar resulted in an unappealable conviction in the federal system that leaves him little hope for further adjudication through the courts. As Alabama continues with executions, even for those who would not be on death row if they were sentenced today, it is critical that the Alabama legislature act to prevent this cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment. First, the Alabama legislature must pass HB27, which would retroactively reverse the sentences of those on death row through judicial override. The bill would not free those with a death sentence, but rather would reduce their charge to life without parole, providing those who maintain innocence time to seek further appeal. Importantly, HB27 would bring Alabama in line with the rest of the country, which has already declared judicial override illegitimate and reversed existing sentences. In passing this bill, Alabama would be upholding the legal principle recognized under international standards that those under sentence of death should benefit from retroactive leniency in the event of a change in the law after commission of the crime. Altogether, HB27 marks an incredibly important step in death penalty reform in Alabama that delivers on past promises and strengthens the legitimacy of our criminal justice system. Second, Alabama must immediately halt the future use of the nitrogen hypoxia protocol. Lawyers for the state claimed that victims would be unconscious within seconds and would not be aware nor feel that they were dying. However, the witnesses to Kenny Smiths execution said that he remained conscious for several minutes as he writhed and convulsed on the gurney, gasping for air and pulling on the restraints, shaking violently in prolonged agony. United Nations experts condemned the execution and stated that it amounted to State-sponsored torture. Accordingly, it is of utmost importance for those in power to immediately establish a moratorium on all executions as a critical step toward abolition and instead devote all resources to focus on alternatives that more effectively tackle crime at its roots and respect human rights. Finally, Governor Kay Ivey must address the shortfalls of the 2017 law ending judicial override that she signed by commuting the sentences of Rocky and the 29 others who continue to be trapped on death row through judicial override. We hope that Alabamans will be moved by the injustices of Kenny Smiths and Rocky Myers cases to echo these calls for the Governor to commute these sentences, and for state legislators to pass HB27 to finally address the consequences of judicial override in Alabama death penalty cases. TJ Riggs is a junior political science student at Samford University. He serves as Amnesty Internationals Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for the State of Alabama, where he heads up all of Amnestys abolition work including education, lobbying, activism, and community outreach. For more information on Riggs work in the State and ways you can join the fight, please reach out: tjriggsai@gmail.com Fred Shepherd is a Professor of Political Science at Samford University. Since 2009, he has served as Amnesty Internationals Legislative Coordinator for the state of Alabama. His research interests include human rights, genocide, and Latin American politics. He is the faculty advisor for Samford Universitys chapter of Amnesty International. New York City Mayor Eric Adams hit back at Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., after Alabamas senior senator said crime and migrants were plaguing New Yorkers as President Biden enjoyed ice cream in the city Tuesday. Hope @JoeBiden enjoyed going out for ice cream in NYC while the rest of the city is afraid of crime and migrants, Tuberville tweeted Tuesday. Hope @JoeBiden enjoyed going out for ice cream in NYC while the rest of the city is afraid of crime and migrants. Coach Tommy Tuberville (@SenTuberville) February 27, 2024 Adams shot back, claiming Tubervilles tweet did not reflect reality. Guess you havent visited New York City in a while, the mayor said. Jobs are up, crime is down and were delivering for working people. Adams then took a dig at Alabama over the state Supreme Courts decision determining that frozen embryos are children. All that AND we support reproductive health especially IVF, he said. Guess you haven't visited New York City in a while. Jobs are up, crime is down and we're delivering for working people. All that AND we support reproductive health especially IVF. https://t.co/Ta4C1tqAPu Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) February 27, 2024 Biden went for ice cream in New York with Seth Meyers while appearing for a taping on the late night hosts show. Besides Adams, Tuberville also faced criticism for his remarks from people who pointed out that Alabamas homicide rate is three times that as New York Citys. Crime in AL is 3x higher per capita than in NYC. Another way to put it, you're far safer in NYC than in AL - especially if you're seeking IVF or health care. AL = near last in the nation on education, health care outcomes, crime. lawhawk (@lawhawk) February 27, 2024 Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, shown during a Jan. 30 visit to the citys 911 Communications Center, says she will not participate in a public forum on Thursday to help select a new police chief because the open process is chasing away strong candidates. Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao will not participate in a public forum being held to help the city select a new police chief, saying that the open process is chasing away strong candidates as she works to hire her first police chief during a surge of crime in the city. In a letter sent Tuesday and obtained by the Chronicle, Thao notified the citys Police Commission, the independent body tasked with drafting a list of candidates for the role, that she would not be attending Thursdays scheduled forum with the candidates. Thaos decision to boycott the event is the latest twist in Oaklands protracted search for its next police chief, which has dragged out for more than a year. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The mayor argued in her letter that the public nature of the citys recruitment efforts including the forum for short-listed candidates was hurting hiring efforts because it exposed the identities of runners-up who might face repercussions with their current employers. The mayors office noted that two candidates she had been courting one current and one former police chief from other midsized cities had pulled out of the race after learning that it would include a public forum with multiple candidates. The former police chief, who is now employed in the private sector, dropped out after applying for the position, while the candidate now serving as a chief elsewhere decided not to apply after learning about the forum, the mayors office said. A forum identifying candidates places those individuals at unnecessary risk with their current employers, Thao wrote in her letter. It may also force Oakland to enter into a premature bidding war with an individuals current employer if they feel strongly about retaining them. The police chief seat has been vacant since Thao fired LeRonne Armstrong from the post in February 2023, after a report by an independent law firm found he had violated department rules related to two misconduct cases. An independent arbitrator later ruled that the discipline imposed on him should be reversed and removed from his personnel record. Rancor over that firing continues to reverberate: Armstrong filed a lawsuit earlier this month alleging he was wrongfully terminated. Armstrong was also one of three candidates put forth by the Police Commission late last year for police chief, after publicly campaigning and reapplying for the job. Thao rejected the entire slate and directed the commission to come up with a new set of candidates. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The Police Commission, a seven-member board with three appointees from the mayor, is tasked by the City Charter with identifying candidates to fill police chief vacancies. (The three mayoral appointees currently on the board are holdovers from the previous administration.) The mayor can then reject all the nominees or pick one to hire, but she cannot draft her own pool of contenders. A Thao spokesman said that the mayor only learned about the public forum last Tuesday and that she was invited on Friday. The last such public forum to meet police chief nominees was held in 2020 under former Mayor Libby Schaaf and resulted in the selection of Armstrong. Mayor Thao looks forward to receiving the list of finalists and conducting her due diligence in reviewing the candidates, he said. The Police Commission, which declined a request for comment Wednesday, released the names of four candidates late Tuesday. They are Louis Molina, a former Las Vegas police chief; Lisa Davis, assistant police chief in Cincinnati; Floyd Mitchell, a former police chief in Lubbock, Texas; and Abdul Pridgen, who left the police chief job in San Leandro last week after an investigation into allegations that he violated department policies. Reports of violent crime incidents in Oakland rose 21% in 2023, with robberies climbing 38% and burglaries 23%. Homicides crested above 120 for the second straight year. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A weekly newsletter that delivers original reporting and dives into the top headlines involving reproductive justice, sexual health, relationships, parenting and more every Tuesday. Enter your email to subscribe today. On Feb. 16 the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. Chief Justice Tom Parker issued a concurring opinion in which he quoted the Bible, Christian tradition, and theology in discussing the meaning of the phrase the sanctity of unborn life and how it relates to the Alabama Constitution. In his submission, Justice Parker centralizes ideas of conservative evangelical Christian theology that says life being divinely inspired, and divinely created must be protected. He takes care to connect his decision to restrict the use of embryos to a reading of scripture that raises embryonic material to a protected class. Judge Parker uses Genisis 9:6 Whoso sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man? He makes this jump in theology without actually referencing any particular scripture that speaks directly to the ethics of embryos being used to create life. Justice Parker does this seemingly without a succinct understanding of the science of reproduction. John Hopkins public health professor Joanne Rosen says, When frozen embryos are thawed and prepared for transfer, there is a very small possibility that they may be damaged or destroyed and therefore unable to be successfully transferred. Even fresh embryos may be damaged and not able to be transferred. So there was real concern about the legal consequences given that these embryos, these in vitro embryos, have been declared persons under the law in Alabama. Justice Parker employs more superstition than theology failing to consider that the story of Jesus begins as a story of surrogacy. Additionally, the cornerstone of Christian faith is an ever-expanding community through adoption rather than biology. The conclusions Justice Parker makes is that life is sacred and must be protected but he fails to situate how this decision saves life. He spins us up and gives us a yarn about preservation of life, romanticizing conception as a miracle, and in Alabama, we protect our miracles. I grew up in Alabama. I was born at Druid City Hospital, graduated from Tuscaloosa County High, And matriculated at Alabama State University. Ive preached and ministered in churches and faith communities across the state. And if there is one thing I know for sure, its that the lives of children in Alabama are not held with sanctity. Alabama has the highest rates of maternal mortality among Southern states. Alabama 1 in 5 children live in poverty. Alabama ranks 48th in education, and 45th in childrens overall wellbeing. In January, the state rejected $65 million in federal funds which would have been used to feed children this summer. These systemic failures do not reflect love, compassion, or even sympathy. When so many systems fail children in Alabama it speaks to an underlying apathy and resentment. Justice Parker believes life is sacred in Alabama. I believe there are many ways to die; some deaths take longer than others. You can send a child to an under-resourced school, from poor homes, in communities ravaged by toxic coal ash pollution. You can poison the water, deny workers a livable wage, and make healthcare accessible. You can misinform, mismanage, and make a mess of collective resources. These are all slow deaths. Alabama is so good at killing people we have come up with new ways of killing people. On Jan. 25, Alabama executed Kenneth Smith using nitrogen hypoxia, making him inhale nitrogen through a mask until he suffocated. For 22 minutes Kenneth Smith convulsed until he expired. It might take some time but in Alabama there are many ways to die and many deaths to be had. Justice Parkers understanding of scripture allows him to leisurely skip over the messy and inconvenient logistics of quality of life, planting his theological flag in a defense of the mere act of bringing people to life. A cursory observation of his decision suggests that he is not motivated by a great desire to see the unborn protected, but rather a feverish desire to see women controlled. From the idea of sanctity of life for unborn children, he jumps to the complete and total removal of agency and bodily autonomy for women. Not only are women not able to control not having children, they cant make the decision to have them. This decision is not about God, faith, or scripture; it is about controlling women at what appears to be the cellular level. This decision is the latest reminder that in Alabama women have no control of their bodies. Alabama has some of the strictest abortion laws in the country. abortion is banned in almost all circumstances. There are only 3 abortion providers in the entire state. And those who provide the abortion pill can be prosecuted. Not only is abortion banned in the state but the zealotry and fanaticism are so great that the attorney general wants to prosecute women that seek to leave the state to find abortion care. None of these provisions, positions or laws speak to sanctity but look more like a religious fascist pronatalism. If it sounds scary, good because Alabama is what state sanctioned religious zealotry looks like. In Chief Justice Tom Parkers theology women are not whole people. Women dont get a say, they are mere component parts only as good as their ability to reproduce under surveillance and control. This theology does not need women, it needs incubators, nannies, cooks, and maids. It needs mindlessness and compliance. It needs to be able to dictate the terms and conditions of reproduction. Tom Parkers theology is not Pro-life or Pro Choice, his theology is you dont get a choice the state has already decided. If you are wondering what the religio-fascist state looks like Alabama claim your prize. This is it. The questions that people of faith need to consider as women have lost the right to decide what happens to their bodies; why is cruelty the singular currency of your faith? Can a Gospel that breeds such hostility and animus towards its neighbors be considered good? Is it a faith if the state forces you to do it? And why are people who dont share your faith required to follow your tenets under threat of prosecution? What Justice Parker and those who believe like him refuse to acknowledge before life can be considered sacred, choice must be. Solomon Missouri is a rural pastor in eastern North Carolina. His writing considers faith, spirituality and community. You can find him at the intersection of strong Wi-Fi and good BBQ. English News China still remains world's largest engine for growth Alwihda Info | Par People's Daily - 26 Fevrier 2024 "The fundamentals sustaining China's economic recovery and long-term growth remain unchanged. As an open country, China will continue to bring more cooperation opportunities to the world. The future of China's economy is bright, and we are full of confidence in it," said Liu Sushe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission. By Wu Lejun, Wu Qiuyu, Yu Yichun, People's Daily The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently raised its growth forecast for the Chinese economy and other emerging economies in Asia in 2024. At the same time, the IMF has increased its global economic growth forecast for this year by 0.2 percentage points to 3.1 percent due to the resilience of major economies like China. The IMF pointed out that the lift of China's economic growth forecast reflects the continuation of the strong growth momentum in the Chinese economy last year, which exceeded expectations, as well as the stimulating effect of relevant policies implemented by the Chinese government. In 2023, China's GDP exceeded 126 trillion yuan ($17.51 trillion), growing 5.2 percent from a year ago. China still remains the largest engine of global growth. In January 2024, the country's economic vitality showed signs of recovery, sending positive signals for the year's economic performance. Not only the IMF, other international financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and UBS Group recently have also released reports indicating that China's consumption and service industries will continue its post-pandemic recovery trend in 2024. Recently, leaders of international institutions and multinational companies have made frequent visits to China, including a Japanese economic delegation, a delegation led by the World Bank executive director, Danone Group from France, Amway Group from the United States and BMW from Germany. They showed confidence in the Chinese market and hoped to deepen practical cooperation with China. At Xiaomo International Logistics Port in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province, a roll-on/roll-off ship owned by Chinese new energy vehicle maker BYD set sail, carrying over 5,000 Chinese made NEVs and heading towards the Flushing Port in the Netherlands and the Bremerhaven Port in Germany. In 2023, China became the world's largest exporter of automobiles for the first time. Statistics show that one in every three cars exported by China is an electric passenger vehicle. Last year, China's exports of NEVs, lithium batteries, and photovoltaic modules surpassed 1 trillion yuan, leading the world in market share. At the Alashankou port in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China-Europe freight trains departed one after another, carrying daily necessities, automobiles and spare parts, machinery equipment, and other goods manufactured in various parts of China to Europe. In 2023, China-Europe freight trains made 17,000 trips throughout the year, transporting 1.9 million twenty-foot equivalent units, marking a 6 percent and 18 percent increase, respectively, compared to the previous year. This "golden channel" of international land transportation has connected 217 cities in 25 countries between China and Europe, injecting continuous momentum into bilateral trade and economic exchanges. China is the only country with industries across all categories in the United Nations (UN) industrial classification. "Chinese companies have significant advantages in terms of innovation capability, iteration, and manufacturing efficiency, and behind this is China's well-developed industrial chain and its massive market," said Tang Zhimin, director of China ASEAN Studies at the Bangkok-based Panyapiwat Institute of Management. China is a major trading partner for over 140 countries and regions. Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum, noted that China is shifting from investment- and infrastructure-driven growth to innovation-led growth, and it holds a crucial position in global economy and trade. Sonali Jain-Chandra, chief of an IMF team conducting discussions on the 2023 Article IV Consultation in China, noted that the policies implemented by the Chinese government will have a positive impact on the economy. She also said that research conducted by the IMF indicated that when China's growth rate rises by 1 percentage point, growth in other countries increases by around 0.3 percentage points. She believes that China's economic growth in 2024 will still surpass the global average, making China a major contributor to global economic growth in that year. In the new year, various regions in China have outlined their "roadmaps" to build a world-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized. Shanghai has proposed further advancing high-level reform and opening up, enhancing development momentum and competitiveness, and vigorously promoting pioneering reforms and leading opening-up initiatives in all aspects. Guizhou province will implement actions to improve the quality and efficiency of foreign trade. Chongqing municipality will advance high-level construction of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor to build itself into a highland of opening up. China is focusing on accelerating the development of new productive forces and embracing innovation and transformation as important new trends in its economy. The country is actively promoting digitalization and green, low-carbon transformation in industries. Xiao Song, global executive vice-president of Siemens, said that foreign companies deeply feel China is becoming an "innovation field" for cutting-edge technologies. "The fundamentals sustaining China's economic recovery and long-term growth remain unchanged. As an open country, China will continue to bring more cooperation opportunities to the world. The future of China's economy is bright, and we are full of confidence in it," said Liu Sushe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission. Dans la meme rubrique : < > China's cruise economy embraces rapid development China still considered favorable investment destination by foreign companies China will remain staunch force for peace, stability, progress of world Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) Ive always liked those criminal mastermind movies. Theres always a criminal genius who assembles a crew of the best in their fields to pull off the heist of the century. After a flawlessly executed crime - with lots of plot twists - the crew makes a clean getaway and meets at a secret location to divvy up the haul. Just before they go their separate ways, the boss always admonishes his coconspirators to: Dont do anything stupid Dont attract attention, and Dont spend any of the loot until the dust settles But in real life theres always one stooge who buys a Ferrari, puts a kilo of blow in the trunk, and drives 80 mph through a school zone in front of the lead FBI agents house. Criminal conspiracies always unravel because one knucklehead cant avoid being foolish. Well, Im running out of popcorn watching Atlantas version of the criminal comedy genre. According to Breitbart News, Jeff DiSantis may be the mastermind of the Atlanta chapter of the get Joe Biden re-elected at all costs caper. Hes a longtime Democrat party operative, conveniently placed in the Fulton County DAs office, in time to run the Trump RICO case - behind the scenes of course. The countys district attorney, Fani Willis, is providing an Academy Award-worthy performance as the stooge which the mastermind wishes he hadnt recruited. But per President Return to Normalcys orders, he needed a diversity hire with prosecutorial authority, negotiable ethical standards, and enough ego to be the public face of the conspiracy. As a comedy, the plot also called for someone with insufficient mental acuity to play her part smartly. Fani was the logical choice. Our master-criminal coconspirators came up with a plan to return someone who is otherwise unelectable, Joe Biden, to the Oval Office. Theyd use a novel application of the law, to indict Trump and 18 others for doing absolutely nothing illegal. Their plan was quite clever: prosecute Trump and his pals in a friendly venue, and then see if the Donald can campaign from a cell as well as Joe can campaign from a basement. I suspect the indictment was followed by the standard crew admonishment: Dont do anything stupid. Dont attract attention. Dont spend the spoils until the dust settles. But then the crews stooge did what stooges do. She acted like an overconfident fool with no self-discipline. The public face of the conspiracy decided to have an affair with a man (Nathan Wade) going through an ugly divorce. Then she hired him as an overpaid member of the crew making his estranged wife a material witness to the conspiracy. But she didnt stop there. She also paid him almost three-quarters of a million bucks of taxpayer money and helped him spend the loot on expensive vacations. That exposed the get Trump conspiracy to state and local oversight. Once Fanis indiscretions exposed the criminal conspiracy (hers, not Trumps), the RICO defense attorneys asked that she and her boytoy be disqualified from the case due to conflict of interest. Apparently, Georgia frowns on making money on the side for trying to put people in jail. The request to have Fani disqualified from the Trump case caused all hell to break loose. First, she decided to engage in a bit of jury tampering. She mounted the pulpit of an Atlanta church and told future members of the jury pool that the RICO defendants were racists. Next, when the judge called a hearing to consider the disqualification request, she volunteered to testify and proceeded to: Throw a temper tantrum calling the opposing counsel liars Announce that she had mad stacks of cash at home, which she had extorted from her campaign Claim that prior testimony from her friend was a lie because her affair with Wade hadnt begun until after she had hired him - making her only guilty of sexual harassment, and Stating that Wade had never spent the night at her place, because shes a woman of virtue and purity In short, Fani took the stand, defiantly denied the allegations, and dared the opposing counsel to rebut her - so they did. The defense counsel subpoenaed and analyzed Nathan Wades cell phone records. They discovered that in the year prior to when Fani and Nathan had supposedly become romantically involved, they had exchanged over 2,000 phone calls and almost 12,000 text messages. On at least two occasions, Wades call and geo-tracking data fit a booty call pattern. A late evening call to Fani; Was followed by Wades phone traveling from the vicinity of his home to the vicinity of Willis home; Where it stayed for several hours; Then returned to the vicinity of Wades home; Wrapping up the evening activities with a final text message to Fani at or around 4:00 a.m. This mounting evidence of unethical (and maybe illegal) behavior is forcing Judge Scott McAfees hand. He has waived the attorney-client privilege for Nathan Wades divorce attorney, Terrence Bradley, and has ordered him to testify about his knowledge of the Willis and Wade extracurricular activities. Our comedy down in Atlanta isnt rolling the credits yet, but we can already see that Fani is masterfully playing the stooge. Just look as how shes doing with the post-heist admonishment. Dont do anything stupid like exposing the conspiracy to a divorce proceeding. Dont attract attention like publicly calling criminal defendants racists. Dont spend the spoils like by extorting money from the county, laundering it through a boyfriend, and using it for vacations to Napa Valley, Caribbean islands, Miami, and Aruba. Its all been great for the popcorn industry. I wonder if Paul Pelosi bought stock in Orville Redenbachers. John Green is a political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He is a staff writer for the American Free News Network and can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com. Image: Screen shot from News18 video, via YouTube An important discovery in understanding productivity change and economic growth is the phenomenon of learning by doing. One of the first discoveries of this phenomenon was in the aircraft industry during World War II. Defense contractors discovered that in producing a particular aircraft, the labor force was more efficient with each successive contract. The labor force gained knowledge in producing aircraft in the initial contract that they applied in subsequent contracts. Learning by doing is found to increase productivity across many industries. It is found in pursuing public policies as well. I gained insight into these learning effects as a member of the Colorado Tax Commission. We held hearings across the state to gain insight into citizen attitudes toward fiscal policy, and in particular to Colorados Taxpayer Bill of Rights Amendment (TABOR). If any government in Colorado wants to increase taxes, revenues, or issue public debt, it must have citizen approval. Citizens in Colorado have voted on hundreds of these ballot measures at all levels of government since TABOR was passed through citizen initiative in 1992. Hearings that our Tax Commission held in Limon, Colorado revealed the learning effects in making local fiscal policy decisions. The town fathers put a measure on the ballot to increase sales taxes to fund a new city office building. Citizens voted down several of these ballot measures before passing a small sales tax increase for a scaled-down city office building. Citizens testified that they could not afford a large sales-tax increase because local farmers and ranchers would simply take their business down the road to a community with lower sales taxes. Most of the local ballot measures, such as the one in Limon, eventually pass. But at the state level, very few ballot measures calling for increased taxes, revenues, or debt have passed. The explanation for this difference was revealed in a survey conducted by our Tax Commission. The majority of Colorado citizens stated that they have more confidence in how their tax dollars are spent at the local level compared to the state level. The majority of citizens also reported that they think the federal government wastes most of the tax revenue it receives. TABOR has had a significant impact on both the level and composition of government in Colorado. When citizens have a voice in fiscal policy decisions, as required by the TABOR Amendment, they have a clear preference for a strong federalist system, with tax and spending powers concentrated at the local level relative to the state level. Over time, citizens have learned how to constrain the growth of state government relative to local government. The Colorado Constitution was designed to give local governments autonomy from the state government, especially when it comes to the power to tax and spend, and TABOR has strengthened these provisions of the Constitution. Over the years, Colorado citizens have learned how to use the power of the ballot box to constrain the growth of government. One of the important provisions of TABOR is that surplus revenue in excess of the TABOR limits on revenues and spending must be returned to taxpayers in the form of tax rebates. Tax rebates play an important role in rules-based fiscal policy. Tax rebates signal to taxpayers that a government is collecting more tax revenue than TABOR allows. TABOR allows governments to spend surplus revenue with voter approval, rather than return the money to taxpayers who paid the excess taxes. Many of these ballot measures pass at the local level, especially when the surplus revenue is spent on specific projects, such as education; but few of these ballot measures to spend surplus revenue pass at the state level. The state ballot measures usually call for the expenditure of surplus revenue to fund a variety of state projects. The perception of taxpayers is that the fungibility of state revenues allows legislators to shift funding around to fund special interests despite what the ballot measure calls for. Colorado taxpayers have learned to reject these bait and switch tactics. Other states and the federal government should take note of the learning effects of TABOR in Colorado. The fiscal rules enacted at the federal level have been ineffective because, unlike in the states, the federal government does not have any fiscal constraints in the Constitution. Because the federal fiscal rules are statutory, it is easy for legislators to circumvent or suspend them, which they have done routinely over the years. State and local governments, on the other hand, have enacted effective constitutional as well as statutory fiscal rules, including debt limits, balanced budget requirements, tax and expenditure limits, rainy day funds, and veto authority. Incorporating fiscal rules into the Constitution increases transparency and accountability. In addition, unlike statutory debt or spending limits, only a constitutional provision can bind both current and future legislatures. Incorporating fiscal rules in the U.S. Constitution would give citizens a voice in fiscal policy and prevent legislators from behaving in a fiscally irresponsible manner. If legislators failed to balance the budget and/or stabilize debt at reasonable and sustainable levels, they would face the wrath of citizens who voted to incorporate the fiscal rules in the Constitution. Citizens would then have recourse through the legal system to enforce the constitutional fiscal rules. Citizens have the power under Article V of the U.S. Constitution to address federal fiscal irresponsibility. Two-thirds of the states (34 states) can call a convention of states to propose fiscal restraints on the federal government. Any resulting fiscal responsibility amendment proposed by a convention must be submitted for ratification by three-quarters of the states (38 states), preferably by a vote of the people as was the case with the 21st Amendment. Recent research discovered that more than the required number of states called for such a convention of states in 1979 and yet Congress has failed to act. Legislation introduced in Congress (H.C.R. 24) would require Congress to fulfill its obligation under Article V of the Constitution to certify and count state resolutions and call the convention. Private non-profit organizations are now working with state legislators in an appeal to the Supreme Court for a Declaratory Judgement that would require Congress to record and count the applications. Citizens must now step up and demand that Congress set the time and place for such a convention as required under Article V. Barry W. Poulson (think@heartland.org) is a policy advisor with The Heartland Institute and professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder. Image: Public Domain Jonathan Turley brilliantly wrote: In laying the foundation for his sweeping decision against former President Donald Trump, Judge Arthur Engoron observed that this is a venial sin, not a mortal sin. Yet, at $355 million, one would think that Engoron had found Trump to be the source of Original Sin. The actual sin in this debacle lies neither with President Trump, nor even Judge Engoron, but rather with David Dudley Field II, who after decades of lobbying succeeded in merging the New York courts of equity and law in 1850. What does that mean? And how did that woke word end up next to law? Today the legal term equity usually appears only as a hint in the legal expression equitable relief, which refers to a set of very powerful orders that judges can access. Judge Engoron used disgorgement as equitable relief to justify his judgment. In 2020 the U.S. Supreme Court discussed disgorgement, and Justice Thomas wrote a lone dissent that reveals what is at stake: According to our usual interpretive convention, equitable relief refers to forms of equitable relief available in the English Court of Chancery at the time of the founding. Because disgorgement is a creation of the 20th century, it is not properly characterized as equitable relief More fundamentally, by failing to recognize that the problem is disgorgement itself, the majority undermines our entire system of equity. The majority believes that insistence on the traditional rules of equity is unnecessarily formalistic ... but the Founders accepted federal equitable powers only because those powers depended on traditional forms [emphasis added]. The Constitution was ratified on the understanding that equity was a precise legal system with specific equitable remed[ies]. How did we get here? Please indulge me in a digression. There are two general senses of law. All human societies have criminal law, transgressions of which provoke punishment. Healthy societies demand that criminal law apply universally and equally. There is also a sense that John Adams expressed well in Article XI of the Massachusetts Constitution: Every subject of the commonwealth ought to find a certain remedy, by having recourse to the laws, for all injuries or wrongs which he may receive in his person, property, or character. To find a remedy for every wrong requires the court to tailor rulings to individual circumstances and contrasts with universal application of criminal law. Every society has evolved methods to deal with the individual and universal aspects of their legal systems. In Anglo-Saxon tradition, these individual complaints gradually segregated into two different courts. Those whose remedies were fairly uniform became known as courts of common law; those demanding unique solutions were called courts of equity (or chancery). This is simplified, but it captures the gist. Courts of law and equity developed different procedures and different judicial philosophies. Law courts focused on pleadings that sorted out what alleged facts mattered for the judgment; a jury tried any contested fact. The facts having been established, the judgment of the court was almost automatic, often concerning monetary damages. This uniformity in approach made any new type of judgment a precedent for future cases and, therefore, discouraged novel remedies. In order to craft a bespoke remedy, equity procedure gave the judge enormous power to determine facts; no jury was required. The court could subpoena documents and testimony and jail those non-compliant. Similarly, an equity judge could order a party to perform specific actions when necessary. In contrast to common law, equity judgments bound only the parties to the case and had little value as precedent. This two-court system maximized individual freedom. Most squabbles would end up in a court of equity. Laws, whether from common law courts or statutes, could be kept to a minimum and remain universal in application. One big problem, however, was that every legal conflict has elements of equity and elements of law; one legal action could not give complete satisfaction to any litigant. To solve this problem, among others, Field proposed merging the two courts with one set of procedures (now called the Field Code). The judicial philosophies were to remain separate, and the judge could apply each to a case as needed. New York adopted the Field Code in 1850; other states followed as did the federal courts in 1938. The promise to maintain the two philosophies was gradually broken. The subpoena to produce documents, once limited to equity, was applied to all cases, which led to the abusive discovery practices that we take for granted today and to a huge advantage for the wealthy in lawsuits. Worse, it fostered confusion between the reasoning of law and equity, which brings us to President Trumps case. Judge Engorons decision quotes Executive Law 63(12), which authorized the Attorney General to apply to a state court and to ask for restitution and damages for recurring fraudulent business practices. [R]estitution and damages both refer to compensating a victim, which this case famously lacks. Judge Engoron does mention a victim: Timely and total repayment of loans does not extinguish the harm that false statements inflict on the marketplace. However, this victim did not testify and was not offered monetary damages. Judge Engoron supports his $355,000,000 judgment under the notion rejected by Justice Thomas of disgorgement by quoting from a New York Appeals Court decision: [W]here, as here, there is a claim based on fraudulent activity, disgorgement may be available as an equitable remedy, notwithstanding the absence of loss to individuals or independent claims for restitution. Disgorgement is distinct from the remedy of restitution because it focuses on the gain to the wrongdoer as opposed to the loss to the victim. Thus, disgorgement aims to deter wrongdoing by preventing the wrongdoer from retaining ill-gotten gains from fraudulent conduct. Accordingly, the remedy of disgorgement does not require a showing or allegation of direct losses to consumers or the public; the source of the ill-gotten gains is immaterial. This decision teems with the muddled thinking from mixing law and equity. The statute (law) enables the Attorney General (law enforcement) to use civil discovery (from equity) to investigate fraud (a potential crime) and bypass the Constitutional protections granted to someone accused of a crime (e.g, search warrants). Is that justice? Oh, its OK because restitution limits what can be extracted from the target. The AG is just getting compensation for victims, thats all. Restitution is an equitable remedy, so there is no jury to try facts. Wait, the AG is a party in a civil suit, so dont our rules of procedure allow access to all equitable remedies? This new-fangled disgorgement is floating around as an equitable remedy. They say it discourages wrongdoing by stripping the accused of their ill-gotten gains. Nothin wrong with that. Since disgorgement has no accepted legal meaning, what if we say that it doesnt require identifiable victims because were discouraging wrongdoing. No victims, uh, who gets the money? Hey, we can put the money in the treasury! Neat, huh? Government employees in black robes gettin it done! Thank you, Mr. Field. President Trump should not only make Justice Thomas dissent the basis of his appeal, he should also use it to quiz all his future SCOTUS candidates. Centinel is a pen name meant to recollect the insight and prescience of the Anti-Federalists. Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required. On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill made his famous post-World War II speech in which he observed how an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. That iron curtain would become literal with the construction of the Berlin Wall which would not come down until November 9, 1989. Events would then snowball. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would formally dissolve on December 26, 1991, an excellent Christmas present to the world. President Ronald Reagan had called on Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall at a speech in West Berlin on June 12, 1987. Reagan had dedicated his presidency to ending the Cold War on the terms We win, they lose. And he had broken the Evil Empire without the Cold War turning hot by operating from a position of strength, both economic and military, that the Soviet regime recognized as unassailable. More than the ancient states with Warsaw Pact puppet governments were liberated by Reagans policies. Fifteen other lands across Eurasia became independent, many having been under Russian domination for centuries. It was the greatest advance of human freedom in modern history. Ukraine was one of those liberated as were the three Baltic States which are now members of NATO. These four countries along with Poland and Finland had made bids for freedom after World War I when Tsarist Russia has been defeated by a Germany that had then lost the larger war. The Soviets used Russias defeat to discredit and overthrow the regime but were still imperialists who wanted the lost territory back. Ukraine was reconquered in 1919. The Soviet drive on Warsaw was driven back in 1920. The Baltic States were not retaken until June 1940, after the Hitler-Stalin Pact opened the way. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia had partitioned Poland (again) the previous year. Russia also invaded Finland in 1939 but suffered heavy casualties and only gained some border areas in the 1940 peace agreement. Vladimir Putin, who was a lieutenant colonel in the KGB stationed in East Germany when the wall fell, has called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century. So, no one should be surprised that he wants to rebuild the empire as Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin did. In 2008, he attacked Georgia and captured border areas. In 2014, he seized Crimea from Ukraine and backed an insurgency in the Donbas. In February 2022 he invaded to reconquering the entire former province. Putin has argued that Ukraine deserves no separate identity from Russia, and neither do Poland or Lithuania (and by extension the other Baltic states). Finland and Sweden are joining NATO in response. On the second anniversary of Russias invasion, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg again declared that Ukraine will join the alliance, something that should have been done over a decade ago to deter what has is happening today. The most alarming development is how many people have accepted Putins claim that NATO expansion justifies his attack on Ukraine. There is no comparison or moral equivalence between NATO enlargement and the history of Russian imperialism. Free nations have banded together for collective security against renewed Russian expansion which has always been by fire and sword followed by oppression. NATO poses no threat to a peaceful Russia, only to Putins revanchist ambitions. It is in America, and particularly in Congress, that Putins words should remind leaders that the liberated Europe we had fought for is in danger of being lost. Not because of an adverse shift in the balance of material power -- the expanded U.S.-led Western alliance overawes a diminished Russia by a larger margin than in President Reagans day -- but by a shift in the balance of willpower. Having worked in the conservative movement and the Republican Party since before Reagan was elected, I am not surprised to see left-wing students protesting American aid to Israel or U.S. actions against Houthi and other Iranian-backed militia groups in the Middle East. Nor is it any different this century than last to see groups like Code Pink renew the vows of the Left to Russia and China in a new Cold War as they had in the last one. What I do not understand, in any way, shape, or form, is how these defeatist ideas have infected so many on the putative Right to the extent that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) would threaten another removal of a GOP House Speaker if aid continues to Ukraines successful defense against the Russian invaders. The claim we cannot afford aid to Ukraine because we are running a deficit does not hold up to inspection. That we are in a fiscal crisis is undeniable, but foreign aid or the entire national security appropriations is not the cause of this. Federal spending in FY2023 was $6.1 trillion, with $1.7 trillion in deficit. Next to that, $62 billion to help defend Ukraine is pocket change. There is no way to solve a budget problem in the trillions unless entitlements are reduced or there is a substantial increase in tax revenue. Those are much larger topics than Ukraine. What we cannot do is let bad money drive out good, letting waste, fraud, and abuse cripple our ability to attend to the valid and legitimate priorities of national government. Trying to link border security to other parts of national security by blocking aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan for leverage is dangerous and futile. My concern over lax border security goes back decades. My 1994 book Importing Revolution: Open Borders and the Radical Agenda can still be found on Amazon. I also worked for a Republican congressman whose district was on the Mexican border. I understand the intense desire to stem the massive inflow of illegal and unvetted migrants which is causing crises across the country. What I do not understand is a tactic some Republicans are pushing that will only make matters worse. It amounts to saying that since the Democrats have failed at the border, the GOP will now fail everywhere else. The parties will compete to see which can screw things up the worst. The GOP can run on the slogan Vote for us and well be even weaker than Biden. The better campaign is Success everywhere, failure nowhere with a pledge to strengthen national security and Americas place in the world on all fronts. Only by winning big in November can border policy be changed, so the GOP needs to start looking competent and responsible. The criticism of Biden should focus on his weakness to deter the wars that have started during his term, and his restrained approach when he was finally compelled by events and the urging of allies (particularly the UK and Poland) to act. Bidens desire for Israel not to go over the top in pursuit of victory has also been seen in his slow-roll arms deliveries to Ukraine and limits on their use against Russian targets. I worked in Washington for 20 years, including serving on GOP staffs working with the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees. While there were radical outliers on both ends of the spectrum there was a broad, bipartisan consensus on who were our foreign enemies. That coalition held in the Senate, which passed the aid bill to back our allies 70-29. The bipartisan patriotic coalition still exists in the House which is why the radicals do not want the bill to reach the floor. Those GOP backbenchers blocking aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan (nearly all too young to remember Reagan) do not see the larger forces at work in the world and must be outvoted by those who do. William R. Hawkins is a former economics professor who has worked for conservative think tanks and on the professional staff of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. He has written widely on international economics and national security issues for both professional and popular publications. Image: National Archives In 2017, Antifa and its anarcho-Marxist allies and a few small white supremacist groups engaged in violent activity at political rallies. However, the Department of Justice prosecuted only the white supremacists under the Anti-Riot Act of 1968. A federal court has finally called foul on this unconstitutional government bias. The decision, by Judge Cormac J. Carney (a George W. Bush nominee), is in United States of America v. Rundo et al. The defendants, both self-avowed white supremacists, moved to dismiss the charges against them under the Anti-Riot Act because the government violated the equal protection clause when it failed to prosecute anarcho-Marxists for identical activity. Judge Carney concluded that the defendants were correct: The federal government selectively prosecuted the defendants based on favored versus disfavored ideas, which is unconstitutional. Congress explicitly passed the Anti-Riot Act to stop violent Vietnam War and Civil Rights activities, blaming communists and lawless negroes for the unrest in America. Just a year after the acts passage, though, the Supreme Court decided Brandenburg v. Ohio, which made clear that, no matter how unpleasant political speech may be, the government may not criminalize it if there is no imminent likelihood of violence or criminal acts. Since then, Judge Carney explained, [I]t is unsurprising that the Anti-Riot Act, though rarely used, has been repeatedly challenged on First Amendment and other constitutional grounds. Image: An Antifa member attacking a Trump supporter with a skateboard. (An exhibit to the decision dismissing US v. Rundo.) In Rundo, the facts before the court were clear: In 2017, anarcho-Marxist groups turned up at Trump rallies to silence Trump supporters and other conservatives, and the defendants white supremacist groups appeared at the same rallies to counter the anarcho-Marxists. All of them attacked people using weapons (knives, pepper spray, eggs, etc.), as well as feet and fists. Their conduct was violent and, on its face, constituted illegal assault. However, when it came time to press charges under the Anti-Riot Act, the Justice Department completely ignored the anarcho-Marxist aggressors and charged only the white supremacists. It was this one-sided prosecution for identical activity that led to the motion at issue here. (The defendants also alleged that the statute was impermissibly vague, but they lost on that ground, an analysis that isnt relevant here.) Judge Carney summed up the pertinent argument this way: In short, Defendants argue that the government chose to charge only Defendants for their conduct at political rallies even though Antifa and related far-left groups engaged in identical, if not worse, misconduct at those same political rallies. The reason for this disparity, according to Defendants, is that the government targeted them for their far-right and white supremacist speech. As noted, the record showed that the defendants accurately asserted that Antifa and its allies engaged in equal or even worse violence. Judge Carney acknowledged that prosecutorial discretion recognizes that, because prosecutors cannot prosecute all crimes, they have discretion about the cases they bring. However, he quoted other federal cases to the effect that prosecutorial discretion is not unfettered, but is subject to constitutional constraints. If theres wrongful selective prosecution, the case will be dismissed. The standard for dismissal is discriminatory effect and discriminatory purpose. These elements can be proven by showing that similarly situated people escaped prosecution, with the disparity arising from an impermissible motive. Here, said Judge Carney, Defendants have established selective prosecution. There is no doubt that the government did not prosecute similarly situated individuals. The big question, then, was whether that selective prosecution arose because the government was making decisions about favored and disfavored speech and beliefs. And again, defendants made their case. The judge noted that, tellingly, the federal government never did explain why Antifa and its fellow travelers did not get the Anti-Riot Act treatment. Therefore, he dismissed the indictment. The heart of Judge Carneys decision comes in the introduction: Protecting First Amendment rights, however, is not always easy. People sometimes use their First Amendment rights to spread vitriolic and hateful ideas and beliefs. The struggle of preserving the First Amendment in the face of speech many find outright dangerous is pronounced during times of uncertainty, division, polarization, and fearchallenges we unfortunately face today. But the answer cannot be for the government to single out and punish the speech that it and many in the country understandably find repugnant. [snip] While Defendants openly promoted ideas the Court finds reprehensible, and likely committed violence for which they deserve to be prosecuted, this case is about something more important. It is about upholding the free speech and assembly rights guaranteed to all of us. It does not matter who you are or what you say. It does not matter whether you are a supporter of All Lives Matter or a supporter of Black Lives Matter. It does not matter whether you are a Zionist professor or part of Students for Justice in Palestine. It does not matter whether you are a member of RAM or Antifa. All are the same under the Constitution, and all receive its protections. It is those protections that will ensure our democracy endures. We must never abandon any of them. Conservatives often complain that, in 21st-century America, the notion of equal justice under the law is dead. Instead, the rule of law is used as a political tool to cow the Democrat partys opponents. Think of the feds relentlessly persecuting every ordinary American who dared set foot on Capitol grounds on January 6 while routinely dismissing violent leftists who besieged the White House, invaded the Senate building, tried to set fire to federal buildings, and brutally attacked conservative citizens and law enforcement officers across America. More specifically, look at the lawfare against Donald Trump. Perhaps Judge Carney is the one principled judge remaining in a sea of leftist judicial corruption. Alternatively, if the Ninth Circuit affirms the decision, were witnessing an ideological sea change as even those people sympathetic to the Democrat party realize that its principles are threatening to turn America into a broken tin-pot tyranny unless the Democrats themselves put the brakes on. Incidentally, as noted, the DOJ is appealing the decision. By the time the appeal is done, which will probably be sometime in 2025, the defendants will have been caught in the Justice Departments web for seven or eight years. It is a reminder that the process is the punishment and that justice delayed is justice denied. What possesses a leftist progressive to maintain the completely irrational desire to only, and always defend the guilty? Why, no matter the topic, can you guarantee that the leftist will see the downtrodden and guiltless, and hate him for his situation? (Every sensible American ought to stop and ponder this.) Case in point is April Rubin writing for Axios: Arizona Republicans are advancing a bill that would allow people to legally kill someone accused of attempting to trespass or actively trespassing on their property. The big picture: The legislation, which is expected to be vetoed if it reaches the states Democratic governor, would legalize the murder of undocumented immigrants, who often have to cross ranches that sit on the states border with Mexico. Now, bless her heart, but Rubin didnt get it quite right, and left out some pertinent information; here is the actual text from the bill itself: What this bill would actually do, is amend existing law to extend the Castle Doctrine to include all of a persons property (land), not just their abode; it doesnt seek to amend the existing law that defines what justifies the use of deadly force, as noted in 13-405 and 13-406 of the states code. Currently, you may only use deadly force against a trespasser (as long as its legally justified per the aforementioned code) if theyre actually inside a dwelling structure, but for ranchers along the border who tend to cattle upon open pastures, the current law leaves them vulnerable to criminal charges. Okay, but beside the fact that she totally missed the mark on the actual factual breakdown of the proposed legislation, Rubin used a phrase I found rather astounding: legalize the murder... as if legalizing murder is now suddenly a bad thing. Because before, leftist regressives like Rubin told us that legalized murder was actually a right to privacy issue, a womens rights battle, reproductive justice and/or freedom, etc. In fact, Ive even heard many of these legalized murder proponents accuse a baby conceived by the formers consensual actions as being a trespasser, simply because that little one has the audacity to exist while unwanted. Then, then that mother has the absolute right to deadly force, because her life is threatened; with a baby, how can continue to celebrate her sexual liberation? Deadly force is completely acceptable once her single living lifestyle (read, self-serving whoredom) hangs in the balance. As long as the intruder is a baby, who had absolutely no involvement in his/her creation, then its perfectly acceptable to go scorched earth. Once that that innocent babys presence feels like an infringement, the leftist regressive has zero qualms about using deadly force to neutralize the perceived threatbut not with bullet like a rancher would have, the leftist is happy to butcher this trespasser, ripping off his limbs or face, letting him bleed out, and eventually expire in a pile of body parts. Oh, and after this little trespasser is dealt with, the leftist regressive throws a party to celebrate his demise. Ignorance is apparently bliss, but we conservatives wouldnt know anything about that, and its not bliss for those of us who are forced to coexist with this painfully ignorant crowd. Progressives melt into fits of hyperbolic (and inaccurate) hysterics over the possibility that Americans might be legally sanctioned to protect themselves from harm, while completely oblivious to the laughably hypocritical position they hold on abortion. Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required. Back in 2019, when Joe Biden was campaigning for president in Georgia, he loudly gave his 'word as a Biden' that he wouldn't dream of prosecuting President Trump. Look, I would not direct my Justice Department like this president does. I would let them make their independent judgment, Biden said during the fifth Democratic debate in Atlanta. Turns out he had something far sleazier in mind. According to Wendell Husebo at Breitbart News: The Biden administration planted a Democrat operative inside a Fulton County office to target former President Donald Trump, multiple sources familiar with the Fulton County District Attorneys Office exclusively told Breitbart News. If the Biden administration planted the operative, as the sources say, it would present a strong argument that the administration interfered in the 2024 presidential election. Breitbart News granted the sources anonymity to discuss the attorneys office for fear of retribution. The sources have direct knowledge of the environment at the District Attorneys Office, which they characterized as corrupt. One significant figure is overlooked in the Fulton County scandal concerning Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis and her alleged lover and fellow prosecutor Nathan Wade, the sources said: Meet Jeff DiSantis the countys Deputy District Attorney with professional experience far greater than the average county employee. According to Matt Margolis at PJMedia, citing the Breitbart report: The sources say it was Jeff DiSantis who was directly colluding with the White House to target Trump. "DiSantis did this," a source said. Hes the one. He is the one pulling all the strings. He was the one that walled her [Willis] off. He was in every important meeting. He is the brainchild behind this. That is the connection to the White House. Citing his extensive history and ties to the Georgia Democratic Party machine, the sources told Breitbart they were "one hundred percent" certain DiSantis was a Biden administration plant. "DiSantis is the one pulling the strings on this whole thing. Everybody heard Fani testify. It's no secret that she's not smart. That is how she sounds and acts every day of the week." Anyone that has common sense knows that the White House has been involved in this prosecution, a source explained. This shouldnt just miraculously happen. Of course, shes [Willis] not going to prosecute the former president [of the] United States without the current administrations approval. After hearing Willis babble on the witness stand over her booty-call relationship with someone she gave a lot of prosecutorial power (and money) to, named Nathan Wade, it was pretty obvious this prosecution wasn't her brainchild, she was just a useful fool to get it done. Assuming this report is true, it looks like she had a string-puller named DiSantis (with an 'i') and he's so 'Bidened up' he's orchestrating the whole clown show in that wretched district of incompetents. Which raises severe ethical issues about what this prosecution is and where it's going. The report notes that he's the guy who picked the jury based on voter registrations and probably other data to ensure that only the most Trump-hating individuals got on that jury, which aside from the spy-puppetmaster activity, is an additional layer of rigging. This is a third-world s-show unlike anything ever seen in American politics. It shouldn't be surprising, given Joe Biden's easy familiarity with criminality, dating to his ancestral history, as Jonathan Turley wrote earlier this week. What it's not is legal. It's actually impeachable and probably won't be because Biden's entire presidency is a miasma of impeachable acts. It's ugly stuff though, and holds America up to the world as a tinpot dictatorship run by sleazy thugs, not a republic if we can keep it. Who's going to prosecute Biden for this? Image: RawPixel // CC0 1.0 DEED Question: What do the illegal migrants pouring over our border and Russian President Vladimir Putin have in common? Answer: They all support Joe Biden for president. Fox News's Rachel Campos-Duffy did a Jesse Watters and asked a slew of illegal border crossers who they supported for president: Now, of course, something like this is probably not scientific. And it's possible that each migrant was saying what he was saying because the previous migrant said it. But Campos-Duffy did probe a few of them and found that they were economic migrants who understood very well their own economic interests, never mind ours. If they can come here illegally, Joe Biden will ensure that they can stay illegally, and even that wouldn't be any obstacle to their making money in the U.S. Meanwhile, over in Russia, Vladimir Putin stated his preferences for the U.S. presidency, and it didn't sound like U.S. polling numbers, which put President Trump squarely ahead in the U.S. presidential race. According to Politico, in a piece dated Feb. 15: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday Joe Biden would be better for Russia as president than Donald Trump, ahead of a potential rematch between the two in this years U.S. election. [Biden] is a more experienced, predictable person. He is a politician of the old school. But we will work with any leader of the United States, who is trusted by the American people, Putin said in an interview on broadcaster Rossiya 1 TV when asked to choose between the two. It's possible he was jacking with the U.S. presidential race, secretly hoping to goose the vote for Trump. But Putin did go on to defend Biden on his most vulnerable and unfixable point, his sentience: Putin used Wednesdays interview to downplay speculation about Bidens cognitive health, recalling when the two met in Switzerland in June 2021, less than a year before Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine. When I met with Biden in Switzerland it was, indeed, a few years ago, three years even then there were talks about him being incompetent. I saw nothing of the sort. Yes, he glanced at his notes. Honestly, I glanced at mine too, Putin said. Theres nothing to it." Good luck to Joe to using that in a campaign ad. What we see here is two parties voting their interests, which as it turns out, means Joe Biden over Donald Trump. Neither the illegals, nor Putin, are stupid. If this illustrates simple laws of self-interest, it ought to draw attention to voters that a vote for Biden is a vote for these foreign interests over the voters' own. Which means anyone who does cast a vote for Biden is voting against their own interests in favor of Putin's and the illegals.' No doubt, there will be other revolting characters coming forward to endorse Biden for president, knowing that he's as weak and easy to push around as Putin and the illegals know. What a campaign ad that will be for President Trump, come November. I can almost hear the clack-clack-clack of their computers, making that ad now. Image: Screen shot from Fox News broadcast, via YouTube Winemaker Alex Pomerantz at his Subject to Change Wine Co. in Richmond. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Its an eye-catching bottle: the tangerine color; the loud, italic type; the cartoon of a many-handed woman spinning records. The wine, which carries a distinct whiff of lychee gummy candy, is called Disco! (exclamation mark included). Those who dine at natural wine-leaning Bay Area restaurants will recognize this skin-fermented Sauvignon Blanc as practically ubiquitous. Disco! has become the calling card for its winery, Richmonds Subject to Change Wine Co. That wine became its own persona, its own brand, said Alex Pomerantz, the owner and winemaker. Its also one of Subject to Changes most recognizably natty wines. Skin contact gives it a wild, tannic bite; carbonic maceration imbues it with juicy, tropical fruit flavors. But in many ways, Disco! is no longer the best representative of Subject to Change. After quickly becoming what is likely the countrys largest producer of zero-zero wine wine made without sulfur, a commonly used preservative Pomerantz, 36, is retooling his 6-year-old business. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Hes raising capital to launch a new brand of affordable blends, All Hours. Meanwhile, hes dialing back the production of the Subject to Change bottlings, which he hopes will become more serious, he said. If he was once known for Disco! and Lune Juice, a carbonic Zinfandel that epitomizes the chuggable vibe that natural wine folks call glou glou, Pomerantz now hopes to be known equally for his more classically oriented wines, like a peppery Zinfandel (Lunatic) and a textural Chardonnay (Bang Bang) that dont conspicuously announce themselves as natural at all. Some of the Subject to Change wines: the Unsung Hero skin-fermented white blend, Redwood! Merlot, Chill Pill Chenin Blanc and Lunatic Zinfandel. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Pomerantz has spent years trying to help the Bay Areas natural wine community establish itself. He and Brent Mayeaux, of Stagiaire Wines, launched an annual festival showcasing American natural wines. Now that the movement has found some footing, Pomerantz has a new goal: to make natural wine less polarizing. The All Hours bottles ($22-$25), which will go on sale this summer, serve that mission. They will include small amounts of sulfur, to ensure stability and consistency. Theyre meant to taste approachable, slightly less heady and niche, said operations manager Anne Disabato. We want to bridge the gap for non-natural wine drinkers, said Pomerantz. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Few California natural winemakers have built businesses with so many prongs. Pomerantz and his partner, Dominique Henderson, own Gemini Bottle Co. and Bar Gemini in the Mission District. He crafts the house wines for San Francisco restaurants Flour + Water and Fiorella. He makes more than 2,000 cases annually of $20 sulfur-free wines for Whole Foods: a white, Blanc Space, and a red, License 2 Chill. His wines are sold in 35 states and about 15 countries. After years of working in other wineries, Pomerantz got a facility of his own in Richmond. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle In 2022, his winery produced roughly 20,000 cases enormous by natural wine standards, though small for the general wine industry. About half of that was for the Subject to Change brand, the rest for other projects. Last year, Pomerantz decreased production by 40%, partly due to market conditions its no secret that sales of all types of wine are slow right now and partly because of the shifting priorities that led him to create All Hours. Pomerantz is aware that his scale has, in certain circles, made him look like something of a sellout. A lot of people think of us as a juice factory, said Henderson. But Pomerantz defends it: It allows him to pay his employees a living wage, he said, something that doesnt always happen in a community that frequently appeals to friends for free labor. Moreover, Pomerantz said, economies of scale translate to affordability. He likened his detractors to early fans of Green Day, who felt disappointed when the once-underground punk band from Berkeley was suddenly all over the radio. You should be happy if Green Days successful, he said. These people are getting paid. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Its the same thing with natural wine, he continued. Theres always going to be the super culty underground stuff thats for the insiders. Then theres going to be the affordable stuff that people can grab anywhere. Thats what Pomerantz wants to make. Dominique Henderson, Pomerantzs partner, owns Bar Gemini and Gemini Bottle Co. in San Francisco. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Pomerantz moved to San Francisco in his 20s and became the assistant winemaker at Kivelstadt Cellars in Sonoma in 2011. Though the wines he was making there would not have been classified as natural still an obscure term then many were unconventional. Kivelstadt put wine in kegs and made orange wines long before either was commonplace. Pomerantz started hanging out at Ruby Wine, a small shop and bar in Potrero Hill that was becoming a gathering place for the citys burgeoning natural wine community. He started drinking wines from European producers like Frank Cornelissen and Jacques Puffeney and became obsessed. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In 2017, bolstered by investors that he characterized as friends and family, not people trying to get rich, Pomerantz struck out on his own. Initially, Subject to Change was a placeholder but then he decided to stick with it. Alex from the beginning had a different vision for Subject to Change than what most people would think, said Brett Pallesen, another regular in the early years at Ruby. Rather than make miniscule volumes of precious wine, Subject to Change was an ambitious project to deliver honest wines at a good price that also happened to be natural. Pallesen, too, got bitten by the bug and started an import company, Soil Expedition; he now partners with Pomerantz on a wine label called De Levende. Winemaker Alex Pomerantz, left, with colleagues Anne Disabato, Natalia Kaminski and Dominique Henderson (and Lou, the dog). Jessica Christian/The Chronicle The fact that Pomerantz added no sulfur to his wines radical even among natural winemakers drew attention. Sulfur occurs naturally in grapes, and the vast majority of wineries around the world add additional sulfur during winemaking to prevent bacterial issues. Many who consider themselves natural, even those eschewing other interventions like filtration or acid adjustments, still add small amounts of sulfur as insurance against the wine going bad. Advertisement Article continues below this ad To its believers, sulfur-free winemaking is like walking a tightrope: risky but potentially beautiful. Making wine without sulfur is incredibly rewarding because and this is going to sound woo-woo you can trust in the process and let the wine be what its going to be, said Pomerantz. As Subject to Change was finding its way, natural wine exploded in the Bay Area. When his first vintages came out, it was really the start of that upward crest, said Sam Bogue, wine director for the Flour + Water restaurant group. He bought Pomerantzs wines from the beginning, though initially he had to warm guests to the idea of a chilled red. Now, the wines that Pomerantz makes for Flour + Water are among the restaurants best sellers. After years of renting space in other peoples wineries, Subject to Change began leasing its own in Richmond. Partly to make better use of the space, he and Mayeaux put together their first natural wine festival, Wine from Here, last year. It sold 550 tickets. This years event is planned for April 14, benefiting Foodwise, the organization behind the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Natalia Kaminski cleans out a large wooden tank. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle All of this the festival organizing, the product line for Whole Foods has led many onlookers to the impression that Subject to Change is a behemoth. But Pomerantz laughs when he hears outsiders describe his business as established, he said. The average small winery just struggles. Badly, he said. Even when times are really good. Two years ago, wine sales were booming, but the winerys financials were still incredibly tight. Now that the industry looks sluggish, Pomerantz said, its just brutal. He may be making more wine than others, but I feel like were still getting crushed under the same market conditions as everybody else. Partly, Pomerantzs desire to break down natural wines partitions is a survival instinct: If wines like All Hours can agree with a wider range of palates, thats better for business for Pomerantz and his peers. But his enlarge-the-tent quest also has to do with his own shifting taste. There was a time when he tolerated wines with higher volatile acidity, which can make a wine taste vinegary. We definitely pushed a lot of stuff to bottle in the past that now I would either not bottle, period, or would wait much longer to bottle, Pomerantz said. Wines that had not gone completely dry, wines that still had a lot of solids in suspension. Winery operations manager Anne Disabato, left, and marketing manager Natalia Kaminski work in the cellar. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle Now, he considers it part of the business model that some wine just isnt going to make it. Often, it gets repurposed into brandy, vinegar, vermouth. Bogue, of Flour + Water, has perceived an evolution, too. Alexs wines seem to have gotten a little more fine-tuned, a little more character-driven, he said. The wine that best embodies this is called Egomaniac. From a vineyard in Sonoma farmed by the Les Lunes winemakers, its Cabernet Sauvignon, a normcore grape thats not always popular with the natural wine crowd. The 2019 Egomaniac is not glou glou red its got grippy tannins, a burst of blackberry and the spicy, green, herbal notes typical of cool-climate Cab. At 11.4%, its light for Cabernet, but it still recognizably is one. If police can be held responsible for conduct while acting in their professional capacities, then why not the judges, prosecutors, and politicians aiding and abetting the criminal aliens wreaking havoc and violence? I actually almost missed the fact that when I came across the illegal migrant rapes a 14-year-old girl headline twice, it reflected two separate instances of illegal migrants raping a young teen-aged femaleunderstandably I thought it was the same story. (But, in the context of Joe Bidens America, I should have known better.) Heres the first story, out of Virginia: New details have been released after Virginia authorities arrested a 32-year-old Venezuelan national illegally present in the U.S. for sexual assault of a minor. The Campbell County Sheriff's Office said that Renzo Mendoza Montes was arrested on Thursday, Feb. 22, on two felony charges in connection to a sexual assault that took place in January. The victim was a 14-year-old female, officials said. The iterative report came from Louisiana: A 19-year-old Honduran man has been arrested in Kenner following a series of violent crimes, according to police. The Kenner Police Department says the investigation began on Tues., Feb. 20 when it was notified of a rape of a 14-year-old girl at knifepoint. Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana was identified as the suspect. Police say Castellanos-Orellana was in the United States illegally. Coming soon to a daughter sister niece friend near you. Man, if only someone would have warned us that foreign third world regimes run by socialist criminals werent sending their best maybe we could have prevented our little girls from being violated by these filthy and vile (the rest of my thoughts are unshareable). Democrats from 20162020: The border is secure, there is no border crisis, and Trump is a racist who keeps kids in cages. Democrats in 2021: The border is secure, and there is no crisis. Kamala, also in 2021: Out Of Touch Kamala Harris Alert Harris: "We've been the border." Holt: "YOU haven't been to the border." Harris: ".....and I haven't been to Europe. I don't understand the point you're making." pic.twitter.com/pcGo66SMnX BPR (@BIZPACReview) June 8, 2021 (Then, the pattern continues.) Democrats in 2022: The border is secure, and there is no crisis. Democrats in 2023: The border is secure, and there is no crisis. Democrats in 2024: There is a terrible border crisis, its been this way for years, and its all the Republicans fault because they wont pass our border bill! Food for thought: I seem to recall somebody using the term bad hombres and taking A LOT of flak for it In other news: pic.twitter.com/M1U9gvt15Z Olivia Murray (@americaliv1) February 28, 2024 Image from X. Hey, Mikey! It's Election Day in San Diego! Let's go to the public toilets to vote! You think that's something only an election skeptic could cook up, but actually, it's what voters get over in blue-run San Diego County. Amy Reichert, a local conservative politician who's a better reporter than pretty much anyone over at the San Diego Union-Tribune, brought the receipts: Does placing an unmonitored election ballot box next to a smelly public restroom & trash can send a reassuring message to voters? pic.twitter.com/jbFjL5eArl Amy Reichert (@amyforsandiego) February 27, 2024 Aside from the utterly disgusting optics, the mind reels at the potential for mischief at this. Are the ballots safe from despoilage given that this looks like the kind of public place drunks might choose to pee in in a bleary-eyed stupor? Does wet, used, toilet-paper make its way into the ballot box alongside the ballots ... or given the smell, could someone throw a lighted match into the box, too? Who collects these things, and do they get special "bio-hazard" pay? The possibilities are gross. It's also an ideal place for ballot harvestors and election cheats to stuff their ballots, given that no one sane would want to stand by that place to monitor it at midnight what with all the night-crawlers, druggies, perverts, illegals, and other lowlife slinking around. Who came up with this bad idea, given all the places it could be placed -- and wasn't? Reichert notes that the place is located at La Mesita Park in La Mesa, and no, it's not monitored: This is at La Mesita Park in La Mesa. It is not monitored like having one in front of a library. If this were a US Mailbox, I wouldnt feel confident putting a letter there let alone my ballot. Amy Reichert (@amyforsandiego) February 27, 2024 The toilet-ballot situation is just the latest in all the many electoral riggings that force voters to question the integrity of the elections in that state. Voter registration is automatic and done on the "honor" system to ensure that no one can illegally cast a ballot. Voting is done without voter ID. Who counts these ballots is purely a one-party matter. Mass-mailings of unasked for ballots, duplicate ballots, an extended voting period, and unmonitored ballot drop boxes all contribute to lack of confidence in the system. Now we have this. As Alanis Morrisette might sing, Ho-o-o-w-w-w appropriate! Image: Pixabay (edited) / Pixabay License Macys has been on San Franciscos Union Square since 1945. For decades, its flagship San Francisco store has occupied most of the south side of the square. Thats why, when news broke that Macys planned to shut down 150 of its stores, it seemed inconceivable that the Union Square store would be on the chopping block. However, thats exactly whats happened, as Macys has announced that its joined the exodus of major retailers leaving the crime-plagued city. For decades, Macys presided over the citys storied Union Square (which has roots in the Civil War), first with its original store and then with the additions of the old City of Paris and I. Magnin buildings. I shopped there a lot, having grown up, lived, and worked in the city. By the 2000s, Macys was a weird amalgam of incredibly expensive couture clothing and cheap sales items. It wasnt clear how it made a profit. Well, it turns out that Macys cannot turn a profit, which is why its shutting down 150 stores nationwide: Macys, an anchor of so many shopping malls, plans to close 150 department stores in a bid to reinvigorate sales and shift its public image more toward luxury goods. The company on Tuesday said it will shutter underproductive stores, while opening more of its better-performing, higher-end siblings: Bloomingdales and beauty-focused Bluemercury. Macys also plans to add smaller stores at outdoor shopping centers, which have been growing in sharp contrast to indoor malls. All this is part of a do-or-die task for the quintessential American department store under a brand-new CEO. His plan, dubbed A Bold New Chapter, appears to acknowledge that Macys for years has been losing its traditional middle-class shopper both to the yawning wealth gap dividing America and simply to other retailers, including brands that sell directly online. The big surprise, of course, is that Macys is including in the shutdown its bazillion square feet of retail space on Union Square, a move the San Francisco Chronicle accurately characterizes as a devastating blow to downtown: Macys will close its massive flagship store in Union Square, San Francisco officials said Tuesday, a major setback to the citys premier shopping district and its larger downtown recovery efforts during an election year. The store will remain open until the company finds a buyer for the property, Mayor London Breed said in a statement Tuesday morning. The Chronicle has learned that the store will remain open until at least 2025. [snip] Macys massive, 400,000-square-foot Union Square store which spans nearly an entire block fronting Geary Street between Powell and Stockton streets is the companys last outpost in San Francisco. Macys presence in the city dates to 1947 and its store is a landmark on the south side of Union Square. Its loss marks one of the biggest retail closures the city has ever seen, on top of the loss of a nearby Nordstrom that had been open since 1988 and dozens of smaller retailers since the pandemic. That last quoted sentence tells the real story: The city, under its hard-left aegis, is losing its retailers. Last August, CNN noticed that nearly 40 retail stores have closed in Union Squares zip code since 2020, while dozens more have closed in the surrounding area. The same article sums up the causes, although it tries to downplay the horrors shoppers and workers experience when confronted by the euphemistically named unhoused population and soft-peddles retail theft: The citys working population has yet to return to the office at the same levels as other major cities, adding to a decline in foot traffic downtown. According to US Census estimates, many residents have left the city: San Francisco Countys population declined by more than 60,000 people, or more than 7%, from 2020 to 2022. In addition, San Franciscos downtown has experienced a rise in its unhoused population. Thirty percent of the nations homeless population live in California, and most attribute their situations to the high cost of housing in the state, according to the results of a University of California, San Francisco survey released in June. The median sale price of a home in San Francisco is currently $1.32 million, making it 214% more expensive than the national average, according to data from Redfin. As San Franciscos downtown area has emptied over the last three years, property crimes and retail thefts have risen, according to San Francisco Police Department data. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, whose corporate headquarters used to be in nearby Palo Alto, said in a recent tweet that San Francisco felt post-apocalyptic. Violent crime in San Francisco has remained relatively low in recent years compared to other major cities in the United States, however. Another problem, writes the article, is the drop in tourism dollars. CNN blames residual pandemic fear, but only lefties still care about it. I sense that tourists dont want to go to a city drowning in feces and one in which they may be mugged or have all their luggage stolen from their car within minutes of touching down in the city. Why bother? There are other beautiful places in America (I recommend Charleston, SC) that are both clean and relatively safe. Just as Biden shows what leftism does to a nation, San Francisco reveals what it does to a local community: Its lockdowns, drugs, crime, filth, hostility to business interests, crazy sex and nakedness in public, and everything that wears down a population, sends away money, and frightens tourists. With Ronna McDaniel finally leaving the RNC, maybe that organization will stop buying flowers for itself and start selling the This is your nation on leftism message to the American voter. Image: Macys on Union Square montage made using photos by BrokenSphere (CC BY-SA 3.0); Marc Hogan (CC BY-SA 4.0); Binksternet (public domain); DArcy Norman (CC BY 2.0); and Another Believer (CC BY-SA 3.0). There was a plan. In fact, there were many plans, tested and stressed, if and when a catastrophic health emergency emerged. Every government agency that could be even peripherally involved in any such crisis had a plan just in case something like COVID happened. Like those plans, there are plans, right now, everywhere, in case of fire. Think back to your school days, and you will remember the fire drills, the method of evacuation, the exhortations to stay calm, and the place to go after you were out of the building second-graders to the jungle gym, third-graders to the kickball field, etc. You may have even had a plan for how your family should best evacuate your house or apartment in case of a fire. Stay low, remember where the emergency ladders are, dont use the elevator, leave your stuffed animals behind, meet at the big tree down the street, etc. Hopefully you never had to follow the plan in an emergency, but if you did, you had some idea from the outset as to what was supposed to happen and how to stay safe. Now imagine that you were in school, and this panicked announcement from the principal blared over the intercom: We are experiencing a fire-related event. Please pay attention and follow these instructions. Kindergarten: Stay exactly where you are. First grade: Move quickly out of the building and stand in the middle of the road in front of the school. Second grade: Climb out of the window, whichever floor you are on. Third grade: Go to the roof immediately. Fourth grade: Bring your desks to the cafeteria and wait for further instructions. Fifth grade: Pick up the gas cans we just placed outside your classrooms and bring them to the basement. Sixth grade: Go from room to room and scream at the younger children to do exactly what I just said. If you dont remember what I said, just scream. And that is exactly what happened when COVID left the lab in Wuhan. Every government save Sweden, which for the most part stuck with its original plan went with the alternate plan. Officials at every level looked at the pandemic plans they had been working on for years and facing politics and panic and pharma and pressure and preposterous prognostications and the Deep State and experts on the make and the lure of easy power and groups that had things to hide just started screaming, Go to the roof! And after the school burned down, the principal said staff did the best they could, they just didnt really know, they worked with the information they had, they had good intentions...and, by the way, we need more money to rebuild the school...and to pay for those funerals we didnt cause. And they wonder why no one trusts the principal anymore. Thomas Buckley is the former mayor of Lake Elsinore, Calif. and a former newspaper reporter. He is currently the operator of a small communications and planning consultancy and can be reached directly at planbuckley@gmail.com. You can read more of his work at his Substack page. Image: kolyaeg via Pixabay, Pixabay License. In 2016, Trump promised to build a wall, and people voted for him, knowing that a sovereign border was an integral part of Making America Great Again. During the first two years of his administration, a Republican-controlled Congress shut him down on the border. However, simply by enforcing existing laws, Trump did a decent job of slowing the flood. Biden reversed Trumps policies, flooding our nation with illegal aliens, many of whom are very bad people. Now, even more than in 2016, Americans understand that theres a problem, and Trump needs to trumpet to the rafters that he will Make America Great Againagain by ending illegal immigration. You can find stories like this every dayand none of the above reports even consider the costs of the cartels importing drugs and engaging in both adult and child sex trafficking. Image: Military-aged males illegally entering America. YouTube screen grab. Open borders advocates will argue that illegal aliens dont commit crimes at rates any higher than people legally in America, but thats irrelevant. Whats relevant is that they shouldnt be here at all. The rate of crimes that illegal aliens commitcrimes that see Americans assaulted, raped, killed, and robbedshould be zero because these people shouldnt be here in the first place. As Americans watch illegal aliens pour over the border, destroy once peaceful and prosperous border communities, assault law enforcement, commit all sorts of crimes (both property and violent), and make demands on a country that they entered illegally, theyre not happy. Gallup just released a poll in which 86% of Americans (that means Democrats, too) say that illegal immigration poses a threat to America: A majority of Americans (86%) say illegal immigration is a critical or important threat to the United States. New data: https://t.co/9k6oSLHOk2 pic.twitter.com/rNECXMc8Ak GallupNews (@GallupNews) February 27, 2024 Americans dont need fancy degrees or studies to understand that people who come with nothing, demand everything, and periodically engage in criminal activities pose a risk to communities safety and to Americas economic foundation. In a country already reeling from the economic destruction wrought by the COVID lockdowns and Bidens war on hydrocarbon energy, the added weight of illegal aliens can be catastrophic. This is the time for Trump to start hitting hard with ads and speeches about the steps he plans to take to close Americas border and repatriate the illegal aliens who are already here. Congress should get on board, too, because the American people are not happy. The MAGA War Room, recognizing a political trend, put out an incredibly hard-hitting ad reminding people exactly what Joe Biden has done to America: You're not safe in Joe Biden's America. pic.twitter.com/4oCPJjpzKv MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) February 27, 2024 Were often told that America needs all these illegal aliens because we Americans do not have enough children. And that latter point is correct: We arent having enough children. But you dont replace a population by letting the raff and scaff of the world, not to mention terrorists and foot soldiers from unfriendly nations, self-import, and then demand the keys to the kingdom. Instead, you use legislation to reconfigure the number of people allowed in legally. And more than that, once these new legal immigrants are here, you implement mandatory programs to bring them up to speed on American values and laws. Front and center in these new rules should be a law withholding all federal funds from schools that dont teach patriotic civics from kindergarten through post-graduate degrees. The vast majority of Americas western land is divided into a lattice-work of farms, towns and forests. This grid pattern was first proposed by Thomas Jefferson shortly after the American Revolutionary War, when the federal government came into possession of large areas of land. Before this newly acquired land could be sold, distributed and settled, it needed to be surveyed. Before the Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted, colonies were surveyed using the British system of metes and bounds, where property boundaries were defined by local geography and topography. A typical description for a parcel of land might read: "From the point on the north bank of Muddy Creek one mile above the junction of Muddy and Indian Creeks, north for 400 yards, then northwest to the large standing rock, west to the large oak tree, south to Muddy Creek, then down the center of the creek to the starting point." But relying on natural topography to define properties has its flaws. Trees die and rivers shift course. Besides, Thomas Jefferson, who would become the third President of the United States two decades later, realized that this approach wouldnt scale well to large regions. So he proposed the grid system. Not only was it easier and logical, it allowed the government to plot and sell land to investors without them actually visiting the site. Jefferson idea was adopted in 1785, and two hundred years later it is still being used by the federal government to survey land. These satellite images of the Jefferson grid are curated by Israeli artist Shabtai Pinchevsky who became interested in the American checkerboard system of delineating townships, neighborhoods and plots in 2014. His instagram account has a whole lot more. Related: What Happens When The Grid Meets The Curvature of The Earth? When French-born but London-based civil and electrical engineer, Jules Albert Berly, traveled to Paris for the 1881 International Exposition of Electricity, he saw many wonderous exhibits such as incandescent lamps, the Theatrophone, the electric tramway, Graham Bells telephone, an electrical distribution network, an electric boat and many more fascinating cutting-edge technology of the time. But the thing that captivated him the most did not run on electricity. It ran on air. Berly was entranced by a system of clocks that stood on graceful light iron pillars in the squares, at the corners of streets, and in other conspicuous positions about the city, as well as those in hotels, each keepingwhat was unusual in that ageaccurate time. These remarkable timekeepers were not powered or regulated by electricity, but by compressed air that was sent from a central station through wrought iron pipes to all public clocks operated in this fashion. A multiple-faced pneumatic clock in the Place de la Madeleine, Paris. This network of pneumatic clocks was first installed in Vienna in 1877 as a demonstration by two Austrian engineers, Viktor Antoine Popp and his co-worker Resch. Popp and Resch installed a number of clocks in public buildings and on lamp-posts in public thoroughfares, and kept them working uninterruptedly for a whole year. Popp and Resch then exhibited their system at the Paris Exhibition in 1878, where it attracted much attention, and the jury awarded them a silver medal. That same year, Popp and Resch obtained from the Paris municipal authorities the authorization to install a compressed air network to drive both public and private clocks. The pneumatic clock network was not a power distribution network but a time distribution network, which synchronized a large number public clocks by sending a pulse of air every minute. The pipes ran through the sewers of the city, and the tunnels of the Metro and the RER, a commuter rail network serving Paris and its suburbs. Each clock contained a metal bellows which advanced a 60-tooth wheel by one tooth per minute. Compressed air from the plant left at a pressure of 15 to 45 pounds per square inch (about 1 to 3 atmospheres) for storage in a high-pressure air tank. From there it travelled through a pressure regulator to a low-pressure storage tank or accumulator. Its release was controlled by a distributing clock. The driving weights were lifted by compressed air to keep the clock running and on time. An automatic timing mechanism opened a valve to release a 20-second pulse of air every minute and then the valve closed for 40 seconds. The 20-second-on, 40-second-off cycle was repeated every minute. The pulse of air travelled to every receiving clock, be it in a private home or office or in a street or public building, and advanced the minute hand by one minute. The system worked uninterrupted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A pneumatic clock in Paris. By the time Jules Berly visited Paris for the International Exposition, nearly 20 miles of main pipes and 177 miles of branch and sub branch pipes had been laid, serving 750 houses and over 4,000 pneumatic clock. The clocks served Paris exceptionally well until the great flood of 1910, when the Seine rose high enough to flood the compressed air plant and on 21 January 1910 at 10:53 a.m., the thousands of clocks on the system stopped. However, the system was repaired and pneumatic clocks continued to work until 1927, when the invention of accurate mechanical and electric clocks made the need for a central synchronization clock obsolete, and the service was discontinued. References: # The Paris Pneumatic Clock Network, Museum of Retro Technology # Norman Ball, A question of time, Parisian Fields # Jules Albert Berly, The Distribution of Time by a System of Pneumatic Clocks, The American Architect and Building News Web apps, essentially webpages added to the home screen for convenient access are no longer available on iPhones in Europe. According to the Financial Times, Apple may face an anti-trust probe after ending iPhone web applications in Europe. The EU has launched inquiries and has contacted Apple as well as app developers for further information to help its deliberations. European Commission Questions Apples Web App Removal According to Lea Zuber, a spokesperson of the European Commission, We are indeed checking on the compliance packages of all gatekeepers including Apple. In this context, we particularly look at the progressive web apps and can confirm we have sent a request for information to Apple and app developers who can give us relevant data. Advertisement Advertisement Apple, replying to questions, referred journalists to its support page outlining reasons for the change. Earlier this month, Apple officially ended support for iPhone web apps in the EU when it released iOS 17.4. Instead of being stand-alone apps with storage capabilities and push notifications features, web apps will now behave more like bookmarks. This change was prompted by the Digital Markets Act (DMA) by the EU which requires Apple to fully support third-party browser engines beyond Safaris WebKit. Details revealed by The Verge suggest that Apple has some reservations about the Web Apps. Apple voiced its concerns about Web Apps Apple says that the introduction of web app support on other browsers would necessitate building an altogether new integration architecture, an impractical work considering other obligations imposed by the DMA. Additionally, very little user adoption and security fears are the companys key concerns emphasizing its decision. App developers have shown dissent in response to this termination. The Verge points out a survey currently running by Open Web Advocacy (a non-profit organization supporting open web) on how it has affected developers. The organization intends to send them to the European Commission in a joint move meant to address concerns regarding the withdrawal of web apps in Europe. Samsung may be on track to achieve its ambitious sales target for the Galaxy S24 series. The new flagships broke pre-order records in several markets and continue to sell like hotcakes globally. Sales in the US are also at a record high in eight years, signaling a turn of fortune for the Korean firm. Galaxy S24 is selling like hotcakes in the US and everywhere else According to the Korean media, Samsung aims to sell more than 35 million units of the Galaxy S24 trio this year. The figure marks a double-digit growth over the Galaxy S23 series. The company laid a strong foundation during pre-order days as it posted record numbers in markets like India, South Korea, and Europe. Advertisement Advertisement The demand has been so high that Samsung revised its sales target for the first quarter. The firm originally planned to sell 12 million units in the first three months but has now set a target of 13 million units. It appears the Korean giant will comfortably hit the figure. Sales in its home country, South Korea, have already exceeded one million units, in just 28 days. The Galaxy S23 series took around seven weeks to reach that figure. Local reports say the Galaxy S24 fell short of the record set by the Galaxy Note 10 by three days. In the S-series, the previous shortest time taken to reach one million sales was 37 days by the Galaxy S7 in 2017. As expected, the Ultra model is the crowd-puller. It accounted for 55% of all Galaxy S24 sales in the first four weeks in South Korea. The base model should be the next best-selling model in the lineup. Advertisement While Samsung hasnt revealed Galaxy S24 sales figures for the first month for other markets, tipster Ice Universe claims sales in the US have surpassed 3.2 million units. It is a new record in eight years, since the Galaxy S7 series. The US smartphone market is heavily dominated by Apple, so any growth is a big achievement for other vendors. Global Galaxy S24 sales in the first month may surpass ten million units Overall, the global sales of the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+, and Galaxy S24 Ultra in the first month are expected to top ten million units. Samsung may have set the tone for a bounceback after conceding the smartphone crown to Apple in 2023. With flagship sales appearing sorted, the company needs to repeat the feat with its foldables and mid-range phones. It will soon launch the Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35, followed by the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. Right now, many people fear the march of generative AI technology becoming more powerful. It proves to be a major threat to the journalism industry, and Googles new tool only strengthens our fear of it. Google was testing a tool called Genesis via a new program, and this tool allows people to generate news articles using AI. Speaking of AI technology, Googles CEO has finally spoken out about the recent drama with Geminis image generator. Gemini has been generating pictures inaccurately depicting peoples race and gender. He said that this is completely unacceptable. He also stated that the company is making progress to fix it. Advertisement Advertisement Google is testing Genesis via a new program According to reports, Google is in the process of training Genesis for a public release. As such, the company is contacting news outlets to potentially use the tool. At this point, were not certain which outlets the company contacted. However, we know that its focusing on smaller publications. In order to use the tool, publications have to agree to a minimum number of articles being posted. Google wants the publications to post at least three news articles a day using the AI tool. Also, they need to post at least one newsletter and one marketing campaign every month using the AI tool. Thats definitely a doable task. Google isnt just asking favors here, as the company is offering money to these companies to use the tool. We dont know the specific amounts. However, reports say that Google is offering five-figure sums. So, the company is paying publications between $10,000 and $99,999. Were pretty sure that the publications will receive this money over the course of the agreed-upon 12-month period. Advertisement At this point, theres still a lot of information that we dont know. Since this is a platform dedicated to making news articles, we can expect it to be optimized for news. It will do a better job than if a person simply went to ChatGPT or Gemini and asked it to write an article. Also, Google says that the articles will still need human intervention. So, it will still need to be a human Editor to make sure that everything is in check. Regardless, there are still some issues with this Firstly, Google says that the Genesis program does not want to replace human journalists. However, its blatantly obvious that this tool gives publications more reason to forgo human workers. Articles can be produced quickly with very little effort. So, why hire human writers when articles can be produced at lightning speed? Also, the company is targeting smaller news publications, which will present a major barrier to entry for potential journalists. Smaller news publications are where many journalists get their start. Well, if you are a smaller news company, and youre not quite pulling in the big bucks like The Verge or CNET, the last thing youre focusing on is hiring full-time journalists. Providing smaller news organizations with AI tools that eliminate the need for human writers could make it less likely that potential journalists will be able to get their start there. However, thats only speculation at this point. Right now, we dont know the potential risks of this tool. So, we are just going to have to wait and see what happens. Chinese cosmetics take Southeast Asian beauty economy by storm Xinhua) 14:19, February 28, 2024 GUANGZHOU, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Sitting in her office in Guangzhou, Huang Suqin always knows what the most popular hair colors are in Indonesia, a major destination for her company's hair dyes. Huang is the general manager of Guangzhou Biqian Cosmetics Co., Ltd., which sells a range of hair and skin products to Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) member countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. "In Indonesia, we've rolled out more than 20 hair colors to cater to local young consumers, who favor bright colors like green and purple," Huang said. And Biqian is not the only homegrown Chinese beauty brand winning hearts in Southeast Asia after achieving success in the domestic market. In Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province and the country's top producer of cosmetics, many cosmetics producers have seen surging exports after gaining a foothold in RCEP markets, especially in Southeast Asia. According to Guangzhou Customs, the city's cosmetics exports to RCEP members rose 72.5 percent to 2.59 billion yuan (about 360 million U.S. dollars) in 2023, with Chinese brands accounting for 1.39 billion yuan, a yearly growth of 205.6 percent. Compared to big global names that have long dominated Southeast Asian markets, Chinese beauty labels often boast high-efficacy products, low prices and social media marketing proficiency, making them particularly popular among young bargain hunters. Biqian's bestselling hair dyes, for example, are priced between 2 yuan and 15 yuan, Huang said, noting that the company's Chinese designers are teaming up with local sales agencies to respond quickly to the latest fashion trends among young Indonesians. Fang Xing, the founder of another Guangzhou-based cosmetics company, said the company operates two livestreaming teams in Indonesia, where its sales have seen exponential expansion. "Our livestreaming events and our presence on new platforms like TikTok and Shopee help save promotional fees while increasing customer loyalty," Fang said. Back at home, a complete industrial chain has contributed to the price competitiveness of Chinese brands. The city of Guangzhou, for example, is home to all sorts of cosmetics-related firms, from those engaged in ingredient processing and product testing to those involved in packaging and design. This scale effect has helped local cosmetics brands raise their cost-effectiveness, said Liang Jiabin, vice president of Guangzhou Landier Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Since entering Southeast Asia in late 2022, the company has seen its exports to Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines more than double, according to Liang. Wang Maochun, deputy head of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines and Health Products, said that Chinese cosmetics companies have leveraged long-term investment and innovation to emerge as powerful players in the domestic market. "As markets in Europe and the United States are becoming saturated, these Chinese cosmetics brands are now eyeing the great potential in the RCEP markets," Wang said. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Smoking weed daily is associated with a 25% increased risk of heart attack and 42% increased risk of stroke compared with not using the drug, a new study finds. Ermindo Armino/Associated Press 2005 Smoking cannabis frequently could lead to significantly higher risk of heart attack and stroke, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association on Wednesday. Daily cannabis use, primarily by smoking, is associated with a 25% increased risk of heart attack and 42% increased risk of stroke when compared with not using the drug, the study found. Smoking weekly is associated with a 3% higher risk of heart attack and a 5% higher risk of stroke, according to the analysis, one of the largest studies to examine the relationship between cannabis and cardiovascular events. The study, which was led by UCSF researchers and funded by the National Institutes of Health, included about 434,000 U.S. adults. Most of the people, about 75%, used cannabis by smoking; 25% used other methods, including vaping, drinking or eating. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The study comes at a time more Americans are using cannabis frequently and more states are legalizing it for medicinal or recreational use. Its findings are important because cannabis is being marketed to the public as a substance thats harmless and the study demonstrates it has risks, said lead author Dr. Salomeh Keyhani, a professor of medicine at UCSF. Smoking weed daily is associated with a 25% increased risk of heart attack and 42% increased risk of stroke compared with not using the drug, a new study finds. Loren Elliott/The Chronicle Its not clear why cannabis use appears linked to heart disease, but it could be related to toxins or because receptors in the body that recognize THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, are widespread in cardiovascular tissues. The researchers looked at data from 2016 to 2020 in an annual survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that asks people to self-report activities that may impact health, such as drug use, drinking, exercise and sleep. They then looked at the association of cannabis smoking with self-reported heart disease, heart attack and stroke. Advertisement Article continues below this ad In 2022, daily cannabis use reached its highest reported level, with 11% of U.S. adults 19 to 30 years old saying they use the drug every day up from 8% in 2017 and 6% in 2012, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Past-year use among adults 35 to 50 also reached an all-time high in 2022, with 28% saying they used it in the past year up from 17% in 2017 and 13% in 2012. Over the past week, Google has been getting some backlash over its AI tool Gemini. It has the ability to generate images of people, but it has been generating racially inaccurate depictions of historical figures. Now, Sundar Pichai, Googles CEO, has finally spoken out about Geminis inaccurate images. Its good to see Googles CEO publicly addressing these issues. He was notably quiet during the companys previous round of layoffs. A massive number of people were let go from their jobs, and people were wondering what the company had to say about it. Advertisement Advertisement Sundar Pichai addresses Geminis inaccurate images So, to catch you up, people using Geminis image generation feature have found that the tool created inaccurate depictions of historical figures. When generating images of people who would be historically white, Gemini would miss the mark and depict them as a non-white race. Also, the tool would depict people whod be male as female. We would see images of German people being depicted as dark-skinned. There was another example where a person asked it to generate an image of the founding fathers, and it showed images of people of Asian descent. There are many more examples of this, and it led some people to call the tool woke. It seems to be that Google was looking to make Gemini a very inclusive platform, but it overshot it just a bit Anyway, we have to give it points for effort. In any case, this is an issue that the company is currently working on. For certain regions in the world, Gemini does not generate images of people. The company halted the image generation of human beings until it could fix the issue. Advertisement Googles CEO, Sundar Pichai, finally addressed the issue and issued a statement. He said, I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias to be clear, thats completely unacceptable and we got it wrong,. Along with that statement, he also gave some good news for people wanting the functionality to return. Our teams have been working around the clock to address these issues. Were already seeing a substantial improvement on a wide range of prompts. So, the company is making improvements to its tool. As for the timeline, we are still in the dark. The issue with Gemini seems to be a deeply rooted flaw in the system. So, theres no telling how long it will take Google to fix this issue. Were all just going to have to stay tuned. A highly advanced AI-powered 5G modem for speedier smartphones At MWC 2024 this week Qualcomm lifted the curtain on its latest 5G modem, the Snapdragon X80 5G, a highly advanced 5G modem that will use AI to speed up the new 5G era of smartphones and other mobile devices. Just to put things into perspective, Qualcomms Snapdragon X75 modems are whats being used in Samsungs Galaxy S24 series phones. So the X80 series is what well be seeing in the top-end flagships coming later this year and beyond. Advertisement Advertisement Qualcomm says the Snapdragon X80 5G modem is the most advanced modem-to-antenna platform in the world. And just based on what weve learned of it so far, we have to agree. Even more possibilities for satellite connections, thanks to NB-NTN support There are more than a few major improvements with the X80 5G modem that Qualcomm has implemented over the X80s predecessor. But one of the more important improvements has to be the addition of NB-NTN support for even wider possibilities for satellite connections. NTN or Non-terrestrial networks, are networks that operate off of satellites that hover around in low-earth orbit. Qualcomms new Snapdragon X80 5G modem now has standard support for these types of networks. So its not impossible to think that devices with this modem inside could potentially connect to sat networks in the event of emergencies. And with this support for NB-NTN networks fully integrated, there will be more options for device manufacturers and carriers to support certain networks. And in the end that results in more options for consumers. Advertisement Powerful AI features to speed up just about everything AI is being developed into just about everything these days. That includes Qualcomms latest 5G mobile modem. Here are just some of the ways this is going to help smartphones become even more efficient at everything they do. Firstly, the Snapdragon X80 5G modem has a dedicated AI processor and thats going to be at the heart of all its AI features. With this in place, the modem can help phones receive faster data speeds. If you think your phone is capable of fast data speeds now, your next device with this modem inside is likely going to surprise you. The AI processor also helps to lower the latency between tasks, and it can manage multiple antennas as well as more efficiently manage power drain on your device. Basically, the phone should work faster with data-related functions and last longer with regard to battery life. Samsungs excellent health-tracking in a tiny, stylish package After first teasing the Galaxy Ring during Unpacked earlier this year, Samsung has given us a closer look at the health-tracking device during MWC 2024. Theres a lot more information that Samsung shared about it that wasnt given to the public during its unveiling that happened back in January. There are still quite a few details unknown about this device, however. Nevertheless, with the information Samsung has chosen to share, for now, the Galaxy Ring already seems to be shaping up to be a must-have health tracker. Advertisement Advertisement When you think about health trackers, more commonly known as fitness trackers, you think of a watch-like device you wear around your wrist. Perhaps all those features are even wrapped up in a smartwatch like the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic. The problem with watches or fitness trackers that are wrist-worn, is that theyre big and bulky, at least by comparison to a ring that slides onto your finger. This is where we believe the Galaxy Ring is likely to become a new favorite for people when it comes to tracking health. Especially for those who are more focused on sleep tracking. Think about it. A ring is going to be much more comfortable to wear to bed than a watch. A complement to the smartwatch, not a replacement This is going to be one of the big takeaways from something like the Galaxy Ring. While I absolutely love my Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, I dont particularly enjoy wearing it to bed. Theres just something about having the watch on while I sleep that has always felt strange and out of place. With the Galaxy Ring, no more. And that seems to be the same sentiment shared by Samsung. The Galaxy Ring was designed to complement the smartwatch but not replace it. This means you could take off your Galaxy Watch 6 Classic while you go to sleep without having to give up the sleep-tracking features. Advertisement That sounds wonderful. On top of this, the Galaxy Ring keeps things in the same ecosystem. If youre using a Galaxy Watch, then youre already tapped into Samsung Health. And the Galaxy Ring will build on that by tapping into it as well. Itll connect to the app so the sensors on the ring can upload whatever data was tracked during use. And all of that will blend nicely with whatever data the watch grabs. The main draw here is keeping things simple. You wont have to use separate apps to interact with say, a different smart ring, and then Samsung Health for the Galaxy Watch. Simplicity and convenience are key. Plus, the ring is said to last up to 9 days on a charge. So youll have one less thing to charge daily. Multiple colors and sizes to fit everyone To even further build on the excitement, Samsung is going to release the Galaxy Ring in a multitude of sizes. Not only that, but it comes in three colors. You can choose between Silver, Dark Gray, and Gold. It also comes in nine different sizes. That might not seem like a huge deal but it certainly is. This will undoubtedly make it so more people can opt to get one of these rings because it will fit on more finger sizes. The larger sizes will also include a larger battery. Which probably means even longer battery life for those. All-in-all, the Galaxy Ring is a showstopping device that we cant wait to get our hands on. Flooding in the lower Central Valley during 2023 brought back a long-unseen seasonal body of water, Lake Tulare. Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle 2023 Regarding The phantom lake that engulfed Californias Central Valley is gone. But the toll lingers (California, SFChronicle.com, Feb. 25): The Tulare Lake disaster is man-made, rooted in the choice to build on a lakebed geologically designed to collect snowmelt. Last years flooding should prompt discussions about the Central Valleys history of conquest and opportunities for a more sustainable, climate-sensitive future of land and water use. The story suggests that because the region is known for cotton and tomatoes, not its natural wetlands, the destruction of 90% of its habitat and related ecosystem services is justifiable. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Disparities in wealth and access to resources like clean water are profound within the communities near the lake. These inequities are perpetuated by the agricultural industry. Its troubling that the public had little say in the pumping of 180 square miles of water or the allocation of disaster relief funds amidst these disparities, even as taxpayers fund these initiatives. Overlooking these points perpetuates a shameful legacy of dispossession and environmental degradation. Hazel ONeil, Boston Advertisement Article continues below this ad Law and order needed Regarding If we cant move beyond petty politics, this will be the fate of the planet (Letters to the Editor, SFChronicle.com, Feb. 25): The writer talks about the need to approach problems effectively by dealing with their root causes. One example of this problem provided is the apparent general belief that more police solves all social problems. Generally, cops just want to arrest suspects, not be social workers. They are only one part of a justice system that arrests, charges, tries and incarcerates criminals. In many places, were allowing all the links in that chain to rust away, and that system is essential to a civil society. Attacking the roots of a plant is fine, but not if we also ignore its fruits. Daniel Mauthe, Livermore Advertisement Article continues below this ad Algebra not a solution Regarding When it comes to fixing SFUSD, Prop. G is just the tip of an iceberg (Open Forum, SFChronicle.com, Feb. 26): I have no problem with children learning algebra in eighth grade, but Im stunned that this is the educational issue of our time in San Francisco. We live in an era of grotesque income inequality. The city is rife with corruption and crime, the country is headed toward dictatorship, and wars rage where innocents are killed and brutally kidnapped. Id rather be voting on encouraging schools to teach ethics, social skills, creative problem solving and restorative justice so they can learn how to be a generation that solves rather than creates social ills. Algebra is unlikely to remedy. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Sheila Koren, San Francisco Not so mysterious Regarding San Francisco is beautiful and ugly, rich and dirt poor. Why? (Carl Nolte, SFChronicle.com, Feb. 24): I dont think this question is so perplexing. The richer the rich get, the poorer the poor get. The mechanisms of this are well-known. Rich people inflate housing prices, displacing some folks to the streets and raising rents across the board, which acts like a regionwide regressive tax on the poor that gets redistributed to landlords, who increasingly are corporations. The primary reason we have a homelessness crisis is that people cant afford housing in San Francisco. The solution requires taxing wealthy residents and corporate landlords and using that money to subsidize building the non-luxury housing that we need. Advertisement Article continues below this ad We know whats happening and what will help. Its time to do it. Jeremy Sher, Oakland Retain S.F. judge Regarding Endorsement: Michael Begert and Patrick Thompson for San Francisco Superior Court judge (Editorial, SFChronicle.com, Jan. 27): I am a retired judge of the San Francisco Superior Court, and I appreciated the Chronicles early and comprehensive article endorsing Judges Michael Begert and Patrick Thompson. I have known Judge Begert for 13 years. He is smart, considerate, respectful and has a solid grounding in the law. I am disturbed his opponent did not participate in the extensive vetting process available through the Bar Association of San Francisco, an invaluable service for voters in judicial contests. The Bar Association found Judge Begert well-qualified. Judge Begerts opponent also failed to participate in the debate sponsored by the League of Women Voters. Judge Begert should be retained. A group of more than 50 broadcast journalists have sent an open letter to the embassies of Israel and Egypt calling for free and unfettered access to Gaza for foreign media. The letter, sent by correspondents and presenters from the main broadcasting outlets based in the UK, also appeals for better protection for journalists already reporting in the territory. The broadcasters represented are Sky News, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS. From those outlets, 55 journalists signed the letter, including Sky Newss Alex Crawford, the BBCs Jeremy Bowen, Orla Guerin and Fergal Keane, and CNNs Christiane Amanpour. They wrote: Almost five months into the war in Gaza, foreign reporters are still being denied access to the territory, outside of the rare and escorted trips with the Israeli military. We urge the Governments of Israel and Egypt to allow free and unfettered access to Gaza for all foreign media. We call on the government of Israel to openly state its permission for international journalists to operate in Gaza and for the Egyptian authorities to allow international journalists access to the Rafah Crossing. Some journalists have been invited to briefly embed with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) for escorted tours inside Gaza, though they could not talk to any of the Palestinians there, Crawford wrote in a Sky News article. The letter continued: There is intense global interest in the events in Gaza and for now the only reporting has come from journalists who were already based there. Its vital that local journalists safety is respected and that their efforts are bolstered by the journalism of members of the international media. The need for comprehensive on the ground reporting of the conflict is imperative. The risks of conflict reporting are well understood by our organisations who have decades of experience of reporting in warzones around the world and in previous wars in Gaza. Crawford said it is understood that roughly more than 20 journalists have been killed every month in Gaza since October 7. She wrote: Our journalist colleagues in Gaza who weve been talking to on a daily basis and on whose work everyone is relying, need to be and should be protected in times of war. They are incredibly brave and suffering monumental stress while doing their jobs in extremely dangerous circumstances, all while trying to protect their families, find food, water and somewhere to sleep or shelter. Their deaths and injuries should be an uncontroversial matter of great concern. Bowen, the BBCs Middle East editor said on Radio 4s From Our Own Correspondent programme: I can only surmise that Israel is not allowing reporters to work freely inside Gaza, because their soldiers are doing things they do not want us to see. He added: Reports from foreign journalists might back up Israels assertion that, to use a common phrase in Israel, they are the most moral army in the world, or foreign journalists might uncover evidence that backs up those allegations of war crimes as well as the even more serious one of genocide til we get in, well never know. The case against a protester who refused to remove his face covering at a pro-Palestine march in London has been dismissed for procedural reasons. Ibrahim Hlaiyil, 38, was charged with failing to comply with a requirement to remove a face covering, under Section 60aa of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. Mr Hlaiyil was arrested at the protest on October 14 by Pc Dan Quinn after the officer asked him to remove his face covering and he refused, City of London Magistrates Court heard on Wednesday. Under the Act, a police officer has the power to require any person to remove any item which the constable reasonably believes that person is wearing wholly or mainly for the purpose of concealing his identity. However, during his evidence, the officer did not say that he believed that Mr Hlaiyil was trying to conceal his identity a key part of the charge. Due to this omission, the case against Mr Hlaiyil collapsed. Judge Michael Snow said that Pc Quinn seemed to have taken the view that he was able to arrest anyone who refused to take off their face mask at the protest. Judge Snow said: There is no evidence to prove the essential element of the charge. The charge must be dismissed at this stage. In a statement read to the court, Mr Hlaiyil said he was wearing the scarf over his face because he had a bad cough. Pc Quinn approached Mr Hlaiyil and asked him to remove the covering. Mr Hlaiyil said: I tried to explain to him that it was not a mask. He did not listen to me and dragged me away before arresting me. In his evidence, Pc Quinn said that Mr Hlaiyil told him that he had an allergy to particulates. However, he said he arrested him as he failed to remove the covering when asked. He said he would not have told him to remove the covering if it was a medical mask. After the judge dismissed the case, Mr Hlaiyil burst into tears. He then hugged his lawyer, Audrey Mogan, and supporters. The Home Secretary has said pro-Palestine protesters have made their point and questioned whether holding regular marches adds value to their calls for an immediate ceasefire. James Cleverly, in an interview with The Times, questioned what future demonstrations in support of ending the violence in Gaza hoped to achieve given the Conservative UK Government was in disagreement with their position. Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks administration supports an immediate pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas to allow hostages to be released and for aid to enter the territory. No 10 says any ceasefire would come with conditions, including that Hamas the Palestinian militant group that carried out the deadly raids on Israel on October 7 that sparked the war can no longer be in charge of the Gaza Strip, to ensure it is sustainable. Mr Cleverly told the newspaper the protests witnessed across Britain since the war broke out were putting a huge amount of pressure on the countrys police forces. The senior Tory said: The question I ask myself is, What are these protests genuinely hoping to achieve? They have made a point and they made it very, very loudly and Im not sure that these marches every couple of weeks add value to the argument. Theyre not really saying anything new. The tensions surrounding the Middle East conflict has reignited a debate around MP safety, with protesters targeting the homes of parliamentarians to demand action on Gaza. The Home Secretary said it was vital that MPs were not bullied into changing their stance on the Gaza conflict due to threats from demonstrators. Home Secretary James Cleverly has questioned what the regular pro-Palestine protests are hoping to achieve (Stefan Rousseau/PA) In chaotic scenes during a Gaza ceasefire debate in the Commons last week, Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle broke with parliamentary precedent because he had concerns about the intimidation suffered by some MPs. Mr Cleverly said: I think it is really important that no one, no parliamentarian, feels that they should be bullied into taking a position they dont believe is the right position So I genuinely dont know what these regular protests are seeking to achieve. They have made their position clear, we recognise that there are many people in the UK that hold that position. We respect that but the UK Governments position is a disagreement with that for very practical, well thought-out reasons. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is planning further action on the weekend in support of Gaza. Sat 2 March Day of Action for Palestine Stop Arming Israel! Join an action near you this Saturday to demand that @BarclaysUK stops bankrolling Israel's genocidal assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. #BoycottBarclays List of actions tbc: https://t.co/0MTuh4QRb8 pic.twitter.com/d1X7yZij5k PSC (@PSCupdates) February 26, 2024 Organisers are calling on supporters to take part in local protests on Saturday against Barclays Bank, which it says holds substantial financial ties with arms companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel. A march in support of a ceasefire in central London is planned for Saturday March 9. US president Joe Biden this week said he was hopeful a ceasefire deal could be in place by next week, with negotiations continuing on Tuesday. Separately, a protest is planned by farmers in Wales outside the Senedd in Cardiff on Wednesday. They are opposed to proposed changes to post-Brexit subsidies which will require more land to be given over to tree planting and habitat creation. Covid-19 may have a small but lasting impact on peoples thinking and memory skills more than a year after infection, a study suggests. More than 140,000 people in the UK took online tests to measure the changes in different aspects of their brain function including concentration, reasoning, memory, spatial planning and other skills, between August and December 2022. Results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, revealed small deficits in the cognitive performance of people who had recovered from Covid-19, when compared with those who had not had the disease. This also included people who had Covid-19 symptoms for more than 12 weeks after infection or long Covid that had eventually resolved, the researchers said. Deficits in brain function were found to be greater for people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 or infected with earlier coronavirus variants, such as the original wild type virus or alpha. These deficits were still detectable a year or more after infection, even in people who recovered quickly, the researchers said. Reassuringly, they added, people who had longer-lasting Covid-19 symptoms that had resolved by the time they did the tests had deficits that were similar in size to those who had shorter recovery times. Professor Paul Elliott, senior study author and director of the React programme, from the School of Public Health at Imperial College London, said: It is reassuring that people with persistent symptoms after Covid-19, that had resolved, may expect to experience some improvement in their cognitive functions to similar levels as those who experienced short illness. Furthermore, the cognitive impact of Covid-19 appears to have reduced since the early stages of the pandemic, with fewer people having persistent illness, and cognition being less affected amongst those that were infected during the time when Omicron was the dominant strain. However, given the large numbers of people who were infected, it will be important to continue to monitor the long-term clinical and cognitive consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although not a medical term, brain fog is used to describe a range of symptoms including poor concentration, thinking more slowly than usual, feeling confused, forgetfulness and mental fatigue following Covid-19 infection. To understand more about this widely-reported Covid-19 symptom, people taking part in the React Long Covid study were given eight online tasks to detect subtle changes in memory, reasoning, executive function (mental processes involved in planning and juggling tasks), attention and impulsivity. They found Covid-19 infection was associated with deficits in a majority of areas of brain function. The researchers said this was most noticeable in memory, such as the ability to remember pictures of objects that were viewed moments earlier. The team speculates this may be due to problems forming new memories rather than accelerated forgetting. People also showed small deficits in some tasks that required spatial planning or verbal reasoning, the researchers said. First author Professor Adam Hampshire, from the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, said: The potential long-term effects of Covid-19 on cognitive function have been a concern for the public, healthcare professionals, and policymakers, but until now it has been difficult to objectively measure them in a large population sample. By using our online platform to measure multiple aspects of cognition and memory at large scale, we were able to detect small but measurable deficits in cognitive task performance. Commenting on the study, Dr Michael Zandi, neurologist and researcher at UCLs Queen Square Institute of Neurology, said: This is a large-scale online study of over 100,000 individuals, with some caveats, e.g. ascertainment bias and the nature of dealing with computer testing. This study aligns findings in hospitalised and non-hospitalised individuals and points to concussion-like mechanisms of attention as the main deficit, with some reassuring data against damage to memory storage parts of the brain. The biological mechanisms underlying these findings are likely multiple, remain unclear and deserve detailed longitudinal study and therapeutic trials. The family of Emma Caldwell have said police failed their daughter and the rape victims of her killer Iain Packer due to a toxic culture of misogyny and corruption. In a statement after he was convicted of murdering the 27-year-old in 2005, her family said: Instead of receiving justice and compassion, they (the victims) were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, whilst the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again. Packer, 51, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 36 years after being found guilty on Wednesday. She went missing in Glasgow on April 4, 2005, and her body was found in Limefield Woods, near Roberton, South Lanarkshire, the following month. Packer who was first interviewed by the police a month after her body was found was also convicted of 11 charges of rape against nine women and 21 other offences over a period of 26 years, following a six-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow. Police Scotland has apologised to the family of Miss Caldwell and his other victims, admitting they were let down by policing. Iain Packer has been jailed for life for murder and a string of rapes (Police Scotland/PA) But speaking outside court following the sentencing, the Caldwell familys lawyer Aamer Anwar said her mother Margaret believes police officers have blood on their hands. The family have called for a public inquiry into failures by the authorities. Mr Anwar said: We now know Packer carried out rapes, sexual offences and assaults some 19 times after Emmas murder in 2005. Margaret believes that officers sabotaged an investigation into Packer for a decade and have blood on their hands. For far too long they have remained in the shadows, but must now answer for their betrayal. Today Margaret Caldwell calls on the Scottish Government to order an independent, judge-led public inquiry into what went wrong. The scale of the crimes and the failures are so catastrophic that nothing less than a judicial public inquiry will suffice. Neither the police nor Crown Office can be allowed or trusted to investigate themselves and their former bosses. In the coming days we will meet with the First Minister, Lord Advocate and Chief Constable. If there is no time limit on justice, then any officers, retired or not, suspected of criminality must be prosecuted and those in our criminal justice system who gave Packer his freedom should finally be held to account. Emma Caldwells mother Margaret, with the family solicitor, outside the High Court in Glasgow after Iain Packer was found guilty of murder (Andrew Milligan/PA) Following Packers conviction, Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Bex Smith said: Emma Caldwell, her family and many other victims were let down by policing in 2005. For that we are sorry. A significant number of women and girls who showed remarkable courage to speak up at that time also did not get the justice and support they needed and deserved from Strathclyde Police. She added: Significant changes have been made in recent years to improve our organisational culture and our response, particularly in respect of investigative structures, victim care and processes to these types of crimes. Emma Caldwell turned to drugs after a family bereavement and her habit led to sex work (family handout/PA) The Crown Office carried out a full independent investigation of all allegations of potential criminality involving police officers in the original investigation into the death of Emma Caldwell but insufficient evidence of criminality was found. Miss Caldwell, a sex worker at the time, vanished days after telling her mother about her hopes to kick a heroin addiction, which began following a family bereavement in her early 20s. She came from a close-knit family and saw both parents twice a week and spoke to them daily, and was reported missing after she failed to respond to attempts by them to change a planned meeting. A dog walker found Miss Caldwells body in woodland, with a garotte around her neck, on May 8, 2005. Sentencing him, Judge Lord Beckett branded Packers crimes pathological, selfish and criminal sexual desires, and said he looked for vulnerability and exploited it, causing extreme and enduring suffering for so many women and their families. He described Margaret Caldwells quest for justice as a living testimony to her love for her daughter and the enormity of her loss and said only a life sentence could be given. Miss Caldwell was described as wanting to help the vulnerable with a heart of gold, by her brother Jamie, who said he had been tortured by how she must have died. The judge told Packer: You murdered a capable and compassionate intelligent young woman who had planned to extricate herself from the difficult life she had been living. Emma Caldwell, centre right, pictured with her family (family handout/PA) During Packers trial, the court heard a soil sample taken in 2021 from the site where Miss Caldwells body was found was a 97% match with soil found in his blue work van, and Packer was charged by police in February 2022. Packer denied all the charges accusing all the women of lying but admitted during evidence that he indecently assaulted Miss Caldwell. He said he was ashamed of his actions towards her, and described his behaviour towards another sex worker as disgusting. But he denied murdering Miss Caldwell, saying in evidence: It wasnt me who killed her. It wasnt me. I didnt do anything to her. He lodged a special defence of incrimination against four Turkish men, later reduced to two, claiming they were responsible for Miss Caldwells murder. The police investigation initially focused on the four men who were arrested in 2007 after a two-year surveillance operation on a cafe in Glasgow following interviews with other sex workers, but the case collapsed after issues with translation. Soil samples found in Iain Packers van proved to be crucial in securing his conviction (Police Scotland/PA) Prosecutor Richard Goddard KC described Packer as a violent and obsessive user of sex workers with an unhealthy addiction to procuring their services. The jury took four days to return their verdicts. Two charges of sex assault and one of indecent assault were found not proven. Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000. His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage. He can be reached at begelko@sfchronicle.com. A 31 million package to boost security measures for politicians misses the point, a Government minister who is standing down over safety fears said. The extra funding announced by Home Secretary James Cleverly follows fears about MPs being targeted and intimidated by demonstrators in recent months, with tensions heightened by protests around the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. But justice minister Mike Freer, who is not standing at the general election because of threats to his safety, said the extra cash is not actually going to the root cause of the problem of why people felt emboldened to target MPs. The new security package will enhance police protection and help fund private security guards for those facing a higher risk. It will ensure all elected representatives and candidates have a dedicated named police contact to liaise with on security matters. Mr Cleverly was expected to discuss the issues around MPs safety with police chiefs on Wednesday. He said no MP should have to accept that threats or harassment is part of the job. But Mr Freer, who has pro-Israel views and represents a heavily Jewish constituency in Finchley and Golders Green, north London, said the extra funding did not address the underlying problem. I kind of think its missing the point, he told Times Radio. More security is always welcome, but thats only dealing with the symptom. Its not actually going to the root cause. Why do people now feel emboldened to attack members of Parliament to demonstrate outside their homes where theyre intimidating their family? Not necessarily the MP, but their family. Why should their partners and their children have to put up with being frightened in their own home? So, security is welcome. But frankly, unless you get to the root cause, then youre just going to have a ring of steel around MPs. And our whole style of democracy changes. Downing Street insisted action had been taken to ensure there was no place for hatred or extremism in the UK. Responding to Mr Freers comments, the Prime Ministers official spokesman said: We have taken action in the last year to strengthen our Prevent programme, measures to tackle antisemitism and increase the power of all local authorities in England and Wales to tackle terrorist ideologies. But it is unfortunately still sadly necessary that alongside these preventative measures, we protect people and our democratic institutions against hatred, threats and intimidation. Labours shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry said protests outside MPs homes and offices has to stop. It is very important that people are able to demonstrate on this extraordinarily important issue (Gaza) and they must be allowed to express themselves, she told BBC Radio 4s World At One programme. But that should not be expressing themselves in such a way that it is intentionally meant to intimidate politicians. That is not right. Conservative backbencher Tobias Ellwoods home was targeted earlier this month by pro-Palestine protesters. The family homes of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer have also been set upon by environmental activists in past months. On Wednesday, policing minister Chris Philp said four people had been arrested after a political party fundraising event in Stoke was disrupted by protesters last week, forcing it to be closed down. Conservative Mike Freer is standing down at the election over safety concerns (Jacob King/PA) Announcing the new funding, Mr Cleverly said: The Government will take every possible step to safeguard the people, processes and institutions upon which our democracy relies. I take the safety and security of all members of the House with the utmost seriousness. None of us should have to accept that enduring hate crimes, harassment, or threats is part of the job. I will continue to work closely with my police counterparts to provide elected representatives with the support they need. The Home Office announcement includes the establishment of a communities fund to support the deployment of additional police patrols each week in England and Wales to help deal with increased community tensions, the Home Office said. Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks constituency home was targeted by environmental protesters last year (Danny Lawson/PA) It is designed to increase support available to vulnerable communities, increase police visibility and boost public confidence, the department added. Two serving MPs Labours Jo Cox and Conservative Sir David Amess have been murdered in the past eight years, with reforms to the security of parliamentarians having been introduced as a result of those killings. Changes have included improvements to existing security measures at MPs homes and offices, and bringing in additional private sector-delivered protective security where necessary. Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle welcomed the new funding, saying it was a significant step forward that provided much-needed reassurance for everyone involved in the democratic process. He said: It will enable us to build on the improvements we have made over the past two years, working with the police and Home Office to enhance security at MPs homes and offices, and crucially when they are out and about meeting their constituents. On Tuesday, Mr Sunak rejected a suggestion from veteran Labour MP Harriet Harman that MPs should be able to speak and vote from their constituencies because of concerns about security at Westminster. The Israel-Hamas conflict has sparked months of protests across the UK, including outside Parliament (Lucy North/PA) Downing Street said the Prime Minister believed it was really important that we maintain Parliament as a place for free debate and expression of views. The comments by Ms Harman came after the chaotic scenes in Westminster last week over the vote on a ceasefire in Gaza. Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay broke with precedent in his handling of the proceedings because he had concerns about the intimidation suffered by some parliamentarians and wanted to give MPs the widest possible range of options for the vote. But the backlash to his actions, which spared Sir Keir Starmer from the prospect of a damaging revolt by MPs demanding a ceasefire, has left his own position in jeopardy, with 92 MPs now signed up to a motion of no confidence. Foreign governments must be banned from owning British newspapers, a former Tory Cabinet minister has said. Lord Forsyth of Drumlean argued that is the Governments duty to maintain a free press that is not subject to undue influence. His comments come amid concerns over a proposed UAE-backed takeover of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator. The Conservative peer said: Surely it is an absolute duty, it is an absolute principle here that foreign governments should not be able to own newspapers. In every corner of this House, people are concerned by the idea that the Daily Telegraph could fall into the ownership of a foreign government, and yet the Government is doing nothing about it in this bill, which I believe they could. I can think of few countries that are less suitable to own a newspaper than the UAE. Does the Government really believe that it can be right for a country, a government of a country like the UAE that has a dreadful record on censorship and editorial influence, which is noted for its threats to free expression and accurate presentation of news? A country that locks journalists up because they say things with which they disagree, a country which is listed as 145 out of 180 countries on the freedom index. Is it really going to be our role as a nation and a Government to achieve the distinction of being the first country in the world to allow a quality newspaper with a large readership to be owned by a foreign government? Free press is a central part of a free country and, if we are going to allow the UAE today, why not other states tomorrow? Why not North Korea? The proposed sale of the Telegraph newspapers is to RedBird IMI, which derives most of its funding from Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, who is vice-president of the UAE and owner of Manchester City FC. Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (Martin Rickett/PA) It is understood that RedBird IMI is offering to help pay the 1.16 billion in debts that the current owners, the Barclay family, owe to Lloyds Bank. Lord Forsyth said: I know that my former colleague George Osbourne and others have been very active arguing that actually that its not the Sheikh, its not a foreign government because theyve set up a structure. You know, we have a saying in Scotland: He who pays the piper, calls the tune. In this case, the amount being paid is very considerable. Its been a while since I did valuations of companies, but I would struggle to get beyond 400 million for the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator and very considerably more is being paid. That doesnt strike me as an investment opportunity, that strikes me as being an influence opportunity and that is what is behind the acquisition of the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator and that is why a substantial premium is being offered. These comments came as peers in Westminster debated the Media Bill, which is set to update decades-old broadcasting laws. Lord Forsyth told the House of Lords that the Public Bill Office had informed him that banning foreign state ownership of British publications is out of the scope of the Bill, but that he disagreed. Chairwoman of the Communications and Digital Committee, Baroness Stowell of Beeston, agreed that foreign governments must be banned from ownership of these newspapers. She said: Personally I have no problem with foreign businesses owning UK media, they are a large reason why we have a thriving media environment that is financially independent of government. But I do have principled concerns around ownership by foreign governments or outfits under significant government control. That is materially different and raises big questions about foreign policy, editorial independence and the relationship between an outlets owners and its coverage. We need to have confidence in our media. Having foreign governments own such a critical and sensitive part of our nation is not only unnecessary and troubling, if it was allowed to happen, it would completely undermine public confidence in our free press. At the moment there are no automatic measures to prevent this, which does not seem right. However, she noted that she had also been advised that this issue is out of scope of the Media Bill, so she has instead submitted an amendment to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill. This amendment, co-signed by Lord Forsyth and two others, states that foreign governments should not be allowed to buy news media organisations unless the Secretary of State, relevant regulator and Parliament agree to the proposal. She warned the Government that she expects them to take it seriously. Culture minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay argued that the Government already has powers in this regard. He said: Under the Enterprise Act 2002, the Secretary of State has powers to intervene in media mergers on certain public interest grounds, including where there are concerns about media freedom and freedom of expression. The Government also already has tough powers, including through the National Security and Investment act 2021, to address foreign interference and to scrutinise and, if necessary, intervene in acquisitions on grounds of national security. Members of Generation Z are shunning traditional news outlets in favour of social media, despite saying they trust its content less, according to a study on the UKs media habits. The research also found 18-24 year olds were twice as likely to get their news from TikTok than the BBC. Lee Cain, the former No 10 communications director and founding partner at Charlesbye, the communications firm which commissioned the study, said the findings indicated so-called Gen Z was ushering in a post-truth media age. The report, Talking to the Nation: How To Speak To Modern Britain, saw Research Interactive, acting on Charlesbyes behalf, conduct polling and focus groups with more than 8,000 people. Former Downing Street director of communications Lee Cain (PA) The study, said to be one of the largest of its kinds in the UK, asked people to rank their most trusted media outlet. Among Gen Z participants traditionally defined as those born between 1997 and 2012 television news channels scored highest with 31%, newspapers topped a fifth of lists and dedicated news websites scored highly with 13% of respondents. All three ranked above commentators on social media, which was most trusted among 11% of so-called Zoomers. Despite that, more than a third of people surveyed aged between 18-24 and who said they followed the news stated that social media feeds were their primary news source, compared to almost a fifth who said television, 13% who said newspapers and 12% who said news websites. Traditional media was found to still dominate among older people. According to the report published on Wednesday, nearly half of 45-54 year olds who follow news said they received at least 40% of their news from TV, 16% from newspapers and a fifth from news websites. Only 12% in that age bracket said their primary news source was social media. Mr Cain said: Gen Z is overwhelmingly turning to social media for news, despite trusting it far less than traditional news sources. This generation is ushering in a post-truth media age where they prioritise content over truth. This trust deficit could have huge implications in a year of elections across the world and geopolitical uncertainty preparing the ground for an explosion of deep fakes and disinformation campaigns. Mr Cain is a former journalist who was part of the Vote Leave campaign during the Brexit referendum. He later served as director of communications under Boris Johnsons premiership and was involved in the decision to unlawfully prorogue Parliament in 2019 during the row around exiting the European Union. His Downing Street leaving do in November 2020 was among the events investigated as part of a probe by former senior civil servant Sue Gray into the coronavirus partygate scandal. The report commissioned by Mr Cains firm also found that young people are twice as likely to get their news from TikTok than the BBC. More than 40% of 18-24 year olds receive news from the Chinese-owned social media giant once a day or more, compared to 19% for the BBC, the study found. Instagram (44%), Facebook (33%) and Elon Musks X (24%), formerly known as Twitter, were also more frequented than the national broadcaster by those in Gen Z, the study found. The report says that 18-24 year olds are the least engaged in current affairs, with only a third specifically reading, listening or watching news outlets to keep in touch with what is going on. Elsewhere, Britons were found to still be avid consumers of news, with three-quarters of the population consuming news on a daily basis, while more than two-thirds said they read a newspaper at least on a monthly basis. Older generations are significantly more likely to stay on top of current affairs, with nearly 90% of over-55s doing so on a daily basis. Television was found by the survey to be Britains most trusted source of news. The Government has said it remains committed to its controversial Northern Ireland Troubles Legacy Act despite a High Court judge ruling that one of its key elements is unlawful. Delivering a judgment at Belfast High Court, Mr Justice Adrian Colton ruled that the provision for conditional immunity from prosecution for Troubles offences in the Act is not compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The judge also said there was no evidence the immunity provision will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland. However, he did rule that a new body set up to probe Troubles killings could carry out human rights-compliant investigations. Speaking outside the court, the victims who took the legal challenge described their battle as half won and vowed to fight on, potentially to the Supreme Court. Martina Dillon, whose husband Seamus was shot dead by loyalist terrorists in Co Tyrone, said she got half my case today, adding: I have fought for 26 years and I will continue to fight on. Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said the Government remained committed to the Legacy Act (Oliver McVeigh/PA) Responding in the House of Commons, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said: We will consider Mr Justice Coltons findings very, very carefully, but we do remain committed to implementing the Legacy Act. Solicitor Darragh Mackin, of Phoenix Law, who acts for the families, said the foundations of the Act were eroded by the court, and urged the Government to go back to the drawing board. The Secretary of State has indicated he will appeal. If so, were ready for it, this will go the whole way to the Supreme Court, he added. Campaigners outside Belfast High Court on Wednesday (Brian Lawless/PA) The Act received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims organisations in Northern Ireland and the Irish Government. Aspects of its laws included a limited form of immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences for those who co-operated with the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). The new Act would also halt future civil cases and legacy inquests. Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn (Maja Smiejkowska/PA) A number of Troubles victims launched the legal action challenging the human rights compliance of the Governments Act. Delivering his 200-page judgment, Mr Justice Colton referred to the provisions for immunity from prosecution. He told the court: I am satisfied that the immunity from prosecution provisions under Section 19 of the Act are in breach of the lead applicants rights pursuant to Article 2 of the ECHR. I am also satisfied they are in breach of Article 3 of the ECHR. He added: There is no evidence that the granting of immunity under the Act will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland; indeed the evidence is to the contrary. Turning to the ICRIR, Mr Justice Colton said: I fully understand the opposition to the new scheme and the reasons for it. That said, I cannot, at this remove, say the system established under the Act cannot provide an Article 2 and 3 compliant investigation. It has wide powers and wide range of discretion to carry out its reviews. Should it fall short of its obligations on Articles 2 and 3, I have no doubt they will be subject to the scrutiny of the court. He added: The court is satisfied that the provisions of the Act leave sufficient scope for ICRIR to conduct an effective investigation as required under Articles 2 and 3 of ECHR. Delivering his conclusions, the judge said that the immunity from prosecution provisions in the Act should be disapplied. He also ruled that a provision of the Act that no new Troubles-related civil claims may be brought after 18 November 2023 was incompatible with human rights laws and should be disapplied. Speaking in the Commons, Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn said immunity from prosecution had been a central foundation of the Legacy Act. He added: What do ministers intend to do about this judgment and how can the Commission (ICRIR) become operational when one of its central powers has just been struck down? Mr Heaton-Harris replied: As I say, this is a very complex case. Over 200 pages which were just being reported on less than 90 minutes ago, and so it will take some time to consider. But we do remain committed to implementing the Legacy Act, including delivering the ICRIR. Separately, the Irish Government has launched an interstate legal case against the UK Government over the Legacy Act, arguing that it breaches human rights laws. Irish deputy premier Micheal Martin said that Ireland was not surprised by the High Court ruling. I think it reflects and, if you like, underpins the rationale for Ireland taking the case that weve taken. The UK Government has expressed immense frustration over delays in releasing funds from the sale of Chelsea Football Club to help Ukraine war victims. Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said the Government was doing everything we can within significant and irritating levels of difficulty to get the money deployed. Roman Abramovich sold Chelsea after he was sanctioned as part of the UKs efforts to target Russian oligarchs following Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Mr Abramovich pledged to divert all proceeds to a foundation to benefit victims of the war. The Premier League club was sold in May 2022 for 2.5 billion then the highest price paid for a sports team although the House of Lords European Affairs Committee last month reported the cash was frozen in a UK bank account amid disagreement about where it should be spent. Speaking in the Commons during a statement on Ukraine, SNP foreign affairs spokesman Brendan OHara pressed the Government to explain what was happening with frozen Russian assets including the Chelsea sale proceeds that sit in a London bank. Mr Mitchell replied: There is immense frustration that the Chelsea fund isnt out and operating at this time. Roman Abramovich sold Chelsea after he was sanctioned (Jed Leicester/PA) We are doing everything we can within significant and irritating levels of difficulty to get it deployed and we will do that as fast as we possibly can. Earlier, Mr Mitchell told MPs that ensuring Ukraines success against Russia was the biggest test of our generation. He told the Commons: It speaks volumes about this neo-imperialist bully that (Russian president Vladimir Putin) still stubbornly continues despite the cost to Ukraine and his own people. In recent months, Putin sent around 50,000 young Russians to their deaths, to take Avdiivka, a town whose pre-war population was just 35,000. We must, and will, ensure he fails, for this is the biggest test of our generation. Elsewhere in exchanges on the statement, Mr Mitchell dismissed suggestions that western countries may put boots on the ground in Ukraine. Conservative MP Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) said it was notable how swiftly Downing Street played down French president Emmanuel Macrons suggestion that Nato troops could be directly deployed to the war-ravaged country. He asked: Could this be used to demonstrate how vacillation in Washington will lead to escalation in Europe and could the European members of Nato also perhaps explore some kind of lend-lease arrangement with the United States, as we had in the 1939/40 period? Mr Mitchell replied: In what he says he is right, that we need to stretch every sinew in ensuring we give as much support as we possibly can in the way that he suggests. But I must re-echo the words of the Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg yesterday when he said there are no plans for Nato combat troops on the ground in Ukraine. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has been struggling to convince Republicans in Washington to facilitate a major United States funding package for Kyiv, with Labour former minister Sir Ben Bradshaw blaming supporters of Donald Trump. Sir Ben added: Self-preening British politicians who fawn at Trump do nothing but give succour to Putin and his murderous regime. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has been struggling to convince Republicans in the US to facilitate a major funding package for Kyiv (Armando Babani/AP) Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Richard Foord raised concerns about UK-exported equipment ending up in Russia, such as drones sent to Armenia and Uzbekistan. He said: What more will the Government do to keep dual-use goods from ending up in the occupied oblasts of Ukraine given that end-user declarations are plainly not sufficient? Mr Mitchell, in his reply, said: The point he makes underlines the importance of moving sanctions along all the time to take account of things we discover that are happening, clever ways of breaching sanctions, closing down loopholes. That is very much what were doing. Were seeking to introduce powers to sanction individual ships and we know that companies are involved in circumventing western sanctions and we take steps all the time to close down those loopholes and we will continue to do so. Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy urged the Government to turn rhetoric on seizure into action in relation to frozen Russian assets and welcomed the Government highlighting the case of jailed Russian-British journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza. Mr Mitchell said Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron will meet Mr Kara-Murzas wife and mother on Friday to express our solidarity and support. Sarah Hedges spotted a glow in her son's eye which turned out to be a sign of a rare eye cancer. (CHECT/SWNS) (CHECT/SWNS) A mum has shared how she detected her son's rare cancer using the flash on her mobile phone camera. Sarah Hedges, 40, a support worker, from Gillingham, Kent, was in the kitchen cooking dinner when she looked across at her then three-month old, son Thomas, and spotted an unusual "white glow" in his eye. The mum-of-four described the glow as reflecting the light "like a cat's eye" and took photos with the flash turned on with her phone to see if she could spot it again. Having googled what she had noticed, she was concerned as cancer was revealed as a potential cause of the glow, so she showed the images to her GP. Tests confirmed Hedges' suspicions, with her son being diagnosed with retinoblastoma - a rare and aggressive form of eye cancer that affects babies and young children. Thankfully, following treatment via chemotherapy Thomas' health is now stable. Recalling the moment when she was told about her son's diagnosis Hedges says: "When you hear the word cancer you automatically think of the worse. I thought I was going to lose him because I knew the condition could be life-threatening. Thomas on his first trip to the Royal London. (CHECT/SWNS) (CHECT/SWNS) "I just wanted someone to tell me that it was a bad dream and that I would wake up in a minute. "My world just fell apart," she continues. "The doctor kept talking and holding my hand trying to comfort me, but I just sobbed. "I thought my son was going to die." Sarah was cooking dinner for her three other children, Beth, 21, Dillan, 16, and Lucas, eight, in November 2022 when she first spotted the glow. "His eye looked like a cat's eye," she explains. "But I couldn't see it again so then I wondered whether it was just the lighting. "It was playing on my mind, so the next day I moved Thomas around in different rooms near lighting and eventually, I saw it again." Thomas being fed by his mum through a feeding tube. (CHECT/SWNS) (CHECT/SWNS) Hedges says she remembered once reading something about a flash on the camera highlighting a health issue, but couldn't recall the full details, so decided to take some photos of her son's eye using the flash. "When I Googled it afterwards, one of the suggestions was cancer," she adds. Concerned she booked an appointment with a GP and Thomas was examined five days later. Although the GP didn't seem worried Thomas was referred to Medway Hospital where he was diagnosed with eye cancer. "The doctor called us back into his room to discuss the results," Hedges recalls. "I was in the bathroom at the time and when I came out, he was waiting for me, so I knew then it wasn't good news. No doctor waits for someone outside the toilet do they? "Before he said anything I asked, 'Is it cancer?' and he said, I'm sorry it's not good news." Thomas with his dad in hospital. (CHECT/SWNS) (CHECT/SWNS) Thomas was referred to the Royal London Hospital, and had six rounds of chemo, beginning in November 2022. After also battling sepsis, he finished his final round of chemotherapy on April 6, 2023 and got to ring the bell on May 10, 2023. Hedges says Thomas is recovering well from his treatment and despite his health journey is a very happy little boy. "He loves playing with his older brother rough and tumble on the floor," she adds. Thomas is now recovering well after chemotherapy treatment, pictured with his parents. (CHECT/SWNS) What is retinoblastoma? According to the NHS retinoblastoma is a rare type of eye cancer that can affect young children, mostly affecting children under three years of age. The disease can be in one or both eyes and affects the back of the eye (the retina). Treatments are available and it can usually be treated successfully if it's found early. The health service says retinoblastoma is often linked to a change in a gene that controls the growth of the eye. It can run in families. Symptoms of retinoblastoma The Childhood Eye Cancer Trust (CHECT) says that typical signs of retinoblastoma include a white glow, which may only appear in certain lights, or a squint, as well as a change in the appearance of the eye or a swollen eye, although often only one sign or symptom is present. Richard Ashton, chief executive of CHECT, adds: "Symptoms can be quite subtle, and children often seem well in themselves which can make it hard to diagnose. In just under half of all cases, a child must have an eye removed as part of their treatment. "We are grateful that in Thomas case, his symptoms were recognised so that he could receive treatment," Ashton adds. Additional reporting SWNS. Children's health: Read more Watch: Strictlys Amy Dowden lands new TV role after conquering cancer A man with learning disabilities who was jailed for life for murder in the 1990s should have his unsafe conviction quashed as he cannot be the person responsible, the Court of Appeal has heard. Oliver Campbell was jailed in 1991 for the fatal shooting of Baldev Hoondle during a robbery at a shop in Hackney, east London, on July 22 1990. The now-53-year-olds case has been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), a body which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, after new evidence emerged over Campbells vulnerabilities. At the start of a two-day hearing in London, barristers for Campbell, who was released from prison in 2002, said there is a compelling case proving his innocence. Michael Birnbaum KC, representing Campbell, said: There are ample grounds on which you could find these convictions to be unsafe. There is no one factor here that proves innocence. Rather, I will seek to put before the court a combination of factors so compelling they prove that Oliver Campbell cannot be the man who shot Baldev Hoondle. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is opposing the appeal. Campbell suffered severe brain damage as an eight-month-old baby and continues to struggle with memory, concentration and retaining information. Campbell was 21 when he was jailed after being convicted of murder and conspiracy to rob following a trial at the Old Bailey. Jurors were told the gunman wore a British Knights baseball cap, which was found a few hundred yards from the scene. Oliver Campbell was 21 when he was jailed for life for murder in 1991 (Jordan Pettitt/PA) Mr Birnbaum said Campbell had purchased the cap in the days before the killing, but hairs found inside it following the shooting were not his, and he was not picked out of an identity parade by Mr Hoondles son, despite him having come face to face with the gunman. Campbells co-defendant at trial, Eric Samuels, who has since died, was cleared of murder but was jailed for five years after admitting robbery. Barristers told Wednesdays hearing that Samuels had told his solicitor Campbell was not the gunman and there is irrefutable evidence that he told people over 10 years that Oliver was not with him in the robbery. But this was not disclosed to jurors at trial as it was deemed inadmissible hearsay, with Campbells learning difficulties meaning he was simply unable to do justice to himself when giving evidence. Mr Birnbaum said: He might well have appeared to the judge and the jury to be a liar when he was simply a mentally challenged young man who was completely out of his depth in giving evidence in front of the jury in what is probably the largest and most intimidating courtroom in the land. The court was told that Campbell was interviewed during the police investigation without a solicitor and officers may have deliberately lied to him to adduce confessions. Mr Birnbaum later said the interviews were disgraceful. Campbells learning difficulties meant he made admissions described as simply absurd, nonsense and containing a litany of inconsistencies against the facts of the case, judges heard. Mr Birnbaum said: The detectives were plainly convinced that, since he was the owner of the hat and had admitted a presence at the robbery, he must have been the shooter, and they were determined to get him to admit that fact. He added: The reason for the nonsense of Olivers confession were simply because he was not there, and did not know the details of what happened. The court was later told that Campbell was badgered and bullied in police interviews, where he was dangled with the temptation of falsely admitting it was an accident. Mr Birnbaum said: (Campbell believed) his least bad option was to admit it had all been an accident, and our suggestion is that he thought he could get away with doing that. Unfortunately for him, and perhaps unfortunately for justice, (police) could not leave it at that. (They) had to ask questions. Since Oliver had not been there, all he could do was make things up and his account became increasingly divorced from the facts as we know them. A previous appeal against Campbells conviction was dismissed in 1994, with the CCRC declining to refer the case in 2005 before making the current referral in 2022. Mr Birnbaum said that, while the CCRC had previously undertaken a very fine and thorough investigation into Campbells case, it reached the wrong decision in deciding not to refer the case almost two decades ago. Lord Justice Holroyde, Mrs Justice Stacey and Mr Justice Bourne are expected to give their judgment at a later date. Less than half (45%) of people have openly talked about their funeral wishes with loved ones, a survey has found. More than seven in 10 (72%) people in the research said they have not made a will, with half (51%) saying this is because they have not got round to it yet. The research, commissioned by Co-op, also found that over a fifth (22%) of people think about their own death as regularly as once a week, and over half (55%) do so monthly. The study forms the basis of Co-ops planning for death report involving research by YouGov. It was based on the views of more than 16,000 adults across the UK and 18,000 Co-op members in autumn 2023. Co-op, which is owned by its five million members, found just one third of people (33%) are comfortable with and have talked to loved ones about their own death. Gill Stewart, managing director of Co-op Funeralcare, said: Our findings highlight a real missing link between thinking, talking and even planning. It can be uncomfortable to discuss planning for death and funerals with loved ones, especially for fear of upsetting them but we believe this is precisely why those conversations are crucial. We know that talking to loved ones now can help them later. Putting in place funeral plans, life insurance, a will or even a lasting power of attorney, can go a long way in safeguarding loved ones when the time comes. Thats why really we encourage people to have open and honest conversations about their wishes with loved ones. Lucy Harmer, CEO of charity Cruse Bereavement Support, said: At Cruse Bereavement Support, we know that talking about death can ease anxiety, improve relationships, and help with grief. Thats why we support the Co-ops initiative to urge people to plan ahead and share their funeral wishes with their families. Indian conglomerate Tata has confirmed Bridgwater in Somerset as the site of its new 4 billion battery factory which will bring about 4,000 jobs to the region. Tatas battery business Agratas said that it had bought land at the Gravity Smart Campus off the M5 just outside the town. Tata confirmed in July last year that it had chosen to build its next so-called gigafactory in the UK. It secured about 500 million in UK Government subsidies to do so. It did not confirm where it was planning on constructing the facility, but Bridgwater had been widely tipped as the most likely. The site used to be home to a factory which produced high explosives for military use and which closed in 2008. Our multi-billion-pound investment will bring state-of-the-art technology to Somerset, helping to supercharge Britains transition to electric mobility whilst creating thousands of jobs in the process, said Agratas chief executive, Tom Flack. The company said that it would be getting in touch with local residents this week to tell them about the project. Preliminary activity has already started on the site, and work to establish the factorys foundations will start in the spring. Battery production will begin in 2026 according to the current schedule. As the UK and global car industry retools to produce electric cars rather than more polluting petrol or diesel alternatives, the batteries needed to propel these cars are becoming increasingly important. MPs on the Business and Trade Committee in November warned that 160,000 jobs in the UK would be imperilled if the country cannot supply the batteries that these car manufacturers will need. The plans announced at that point including Tatas 40 gigawatt hour (GWh) plant were only enough to cover about half the 100 GWh of production the UK will need by 2030. Agratas said that Tata Motors and Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover would be its first customers. It also plans to create batteries for commercial energy storage, two-wheelers and commercial vehicles. Councillor Bill Revans, leader of Somerset Council, said: This is momentous for the county, its economy and for future generations. Its about seizing an incredible opportunity to be at the heart of the UKs green energy industry that will create thousands of highly-skilled, well-paid, green jobs. Investment minister Lord Johnson of Lainston said: This is fantastic news for Somerset, and will create 4,000 direct jobs plus thousands more in the wider supply chain. Were committed to making the UK one of the very best places in the world for automotive investment, and Tata Groups decision to build its gigafactory here shows once again that this Governments plan for the car industry is working. California Democrats are pushing numerous proposals to crack down on institutional investors that purchase homes in large numbers. Robyn Beck/Getty Images 2011 California Democrats are zeroing in on a fat new target they say is to blame for the housing affordability crisis: Wall Street. In 2021, 1 in 7 single-family homes was bought by a corporate investor, as deep-pocketed buyers outbid families trying to achieve the American dream of homeownership, which is key to building wealth. A spike in corporate ownership of single-family homes is happening in pockets around the country, particularly in the Sun Belt, and is one of many factors contributing to record low homeownership among Black people, Latinos and young adults. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It could get worse. An estimated 40% of single-family homes in the country could be owned by financial institutions by 2030, according to a study by industry analyst YardMatrix. But that isnt happening yet at the same scale in California. Less than 2% of single-family homes in the state are owned by large institutional investors, according to a study by the states nonpartisan California Research Bureau. Those pockets are largely away from the pricier markets on the coast and concentrated in more affordable regions such as the San Gabriel Valley and the Inland Empire. Nevertheless, Democrats from Washington to Sacramento are focused on ending the practice. But experts say new bills in the Legislature and housing proposals from Californias top Democratic Senate candidates seeking to regulate homeownership by large financial institutions may not accomplish what theyre trying to do. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Policymakers have their hearts in the right place. We do want to have more opportunities for entry-level homebuyers to be able to fully build wealth, said Ben Metcalf, managing director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. Its just that any policy in this space is going to have to be really carefully thought through in a way that doesnt have pretty negative, unintended consequences. Top California Democratic Senate candidates Reps. Adam Schiff and Katie Porter have both proposed hazily worded plans to penalize financial institutions that buy up large quantities of single-family homes. Schiff proposed ramping up financial penalties on those sorts of institutional purchases while Porter wants to tax Wall Street firms that buy large numbers of homes. Assembly Member Alex Lee, D-San Jose, got more specific in February. He introduced a measure that would ban firms that own more than 1,000 single-family homes from purchasing additional properties and converting them into rentals. State Sen. Nancy Skinner has introduced a measure that would ban hedge funds and large investment entities from buying single-family homes in California starting next year. Yalonda M. James/The Chronicle 2023 Similarly, state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, a leader in creating more housing access, introduced a measure that would ban hedge funds and large investment entities from buying single-family homes in California starting next year. It is one of three bills the chair of the Senate Housing Committee has introduced to increase access to homeownership. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Both state legislators acknowledged that the problem hasnt peaked in California, but said theyre trying to intercept it before it does. Lee said his measure is trying to stem the tide of a growing phenomenon that is a growing trend. It is small right now. But we dont want it to grow either. So far, hes identified four companies in the state that meet his 1,000-plus homes threshold. Skinner said she is still gathering data about how much the wave of corporate ownership will ultimately impact California. My interest is much more about trying to create a more level playing field for California families who want to buy a home, which is harder and harder, Skinner said. Only 15% of California households can afford the states $843,600 median-priced home last year, down from 18% in 2022, according to the California Board of Realtors. But while Wall Street firms are an attractive target for peoples frustrations about the housing market, penalizing them might affect the potential supply of housing, said Matthew Lewis, director of communications for California YIMBY, which supports building housing of all varieties. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The risk is that if you start to target different sources of capital, you will drive up the cost of capital for housing, and really reduce the pool of capital thats willing to invest, Lewis said in February in response to Schiffs plan. What the hedge funds and private equity guys would tell you is If you increase (housing) supply in this market, I will stop investing, because the upside will be too small for me. The more immediate challenge with these bills is whether they can be enforced, practically speaking, said UC Davis law Professor Chris Elmendorf, an expert on housing policy. It is tough to regulate financial players because they often spin off their holdings into related firms with a different name, in part because hedge funds are not politically popular creatures these days, he said. If youre Blackstone or some other big institutional investor, are you going to buy properties in the name of Blackstone? No, youre going to set up the Friendly Neighbor LLC and then it will be the owner of record, Elmendorf said. If somebody looks up the property tax records, Friendly Neighbor LLC will in turn be owned by some other LLC, which in turn will be owned by some other LLC, which in turn will be owned by Blackstone. Elmendorf said if the bills can be easily evaded in this way, then its just a show bill. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Skinner acknowledged that she didnt have a good enough imagination to try to determine how corporate investors could game the system, but I certainly will try to design the bill to make ownership as clear as possible. Lees bill relies on the attorney generals office to enforce its provisions. Violators would pay $100,000 for each violation and be required to sell the property to an independent third party within a year. Ferreting out the offending corporate owner will be a huge challenge for a public entity, said Stephen Averill Sherman, a research scientist at Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. Sherman said that he and other researchers have confidently identified LLCs that are affiliated with both big real estate investment trusts and private equity firms. So it is possible to do that, but its hard. It requires resources. Finding resources will be hard this year in California, which faces a $73 billion state budget deficit, according to the latest estimate from the nonpartisan Legislative Analysts Office. The mothballing of a government-funded vaccine manufacturing centre that was sold to a private pharmaceutical company has been described as a mistake. The 200 million vaccine manufacturing and innovation centre (VMIC) was set up in 2017 in Harwell, Oxfordshire, as a not-for-profit company with the aim of combining vaccine research and manufacturing in one place. It was sold to US-based Catelant in 2022 before its construction was finished, with campaigners raising concerns about the sale to a profit-making business. Catelant later announced it was delaying the project, leading to renewed fears about the UKs future vaccine-manufacturing capabilities. Ian McCubbin, former industry adviser at the UKs vaccine taskforce, told MPs at the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee: I think (mothballing) it probably was a mistake, but the reason I think it was sold was the facility had got bigger. It was very, very expensive to run. What do you do with a facility thats expensive to run but youre actually not doing anything (for) a pandemic? He added: If that facility was in place, not only physically wed be able to do more work, but it would have a nucleus around which other expertise could gather and I could not overestimate how important that is in a community to make things work. So, from a straightforward pandemic preparedness point of view, that is a mistake. The Government must immediately confirm a new funding model for public service broadcasting, a union representing RTE staff has said. A long-running controversy at the national broadcaster widened last week when the chairwoman of the board resigned amid a dispute with the media minister. Appearing on live television last Thursday, Minister Catherine Martin said she had been misinformed on two occasions by Siun Ni Raghallaigh about the boards involvement in approving exit packages for former RTE executives. Media Minister Catherine Martin (Brian Lawless/PA) Ms Ni Raghallaigh resigned from her position hours later, prompting opposition parties to question Ms Martins handling of the matter at a crucial time for the embattled broadcaster. RTE is now without a chair of its board as the Government delays making a decision on its future funding pending two expert reports on its governance and culture due next month. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), which staged a lunchtime demonstration at the organisations Donnybrook campus in Dublin on Wednesday, said it remained gravely concerned at continued uncertainty surrounding the cash-strapped broadcaster. Former chairwoman of the RTE board Siun Ni Raghallaigh and RTE director-general Kevin Bakhurst (Niall Carson/PA) In a statement, the union said the resignation of the chair and the circumstances surrounding her departure have added to the sense of chaos which has engulfed the organisation. Emma O Kelly, chairwoman of the NUJ Dublin broadcasting branch and RTE News education correspondent, said: Our members remain concerned at the financial crisis caused by the delay in reforming the financing of public service broadcasting. Legitimate concern over corporate governance failures and understandable anger at the lack of engagement by former senior executives should not be used to further delay decisions on the funding of public service broadcasting. Our call on the government is to act immediately to confirm a new model of funding for public service broadcasting, one which provides certainty to RTE staff, the independent production sector, and the public. RTE director-general Kevin Bakhurst speaks to staff (Cillian Sherlock/PA) RTE director-general Kevin Bakhurst also addressed the gathered staff: Can I just thank you all for coming here. I really appreciate the message youre trying to convey. I would say to you all, I totally appreciate this has been a horrendous period for all staff. I want to thank you all for the incredible efforts youve made to keep the organisation afloat. The one thing I would say to all is, Im absolutely determined you know, its been a rough few weeks for lots of people in the organisation Im absolutely determined to make this a better organisation for you all to work in, a better organisation to deliver to audiences and to rebuild trust and pride in working here. Thats my job and Im going to get on with it. Thank you all very much, and I really appreciate you all coming out. Emma O Kelly, chairwoman of NUJ Dublin broadcasting branch (Liam McBurney/PA) The NUJ has called for a sharp focus on the funding of public service broadcasting in Ireland following Tuesday nights meeting of the Oireachtas media committee, which was dominated by discussion on Ms Martins Prime Time interview that preceded the resignation Ms Ni Raghallaigh. Seamus Dooley, NUJ Irish secretary said: The ongoing political controversies, the carousel of allegations and counter-allegations and the drip feed of information have left an already demoralised staff reeling. What RTE workers now need is a sharp focus on the future. We have consistently demanded transparency in relation to all aspects of executive remuneration. Legally binding confidential agreements do not sit easily alongside the principle of transparency and have undermined public trust. We acknowledge the complexities involved in addressing legacy issues inherited by the current director-general, but the anger of staff is understandable. NUJ Irish secretary Seamus Dooley (Liam McBurney/PA) Also speaking on Wednesday, Finance Minister Michael McGrath said while the Government has committed to putting a sustainable funding model for public service broadcasting in place, no decision has yet been made. He said it was his own view that it should continue to be funded through hybrid funding through the Exchequer and some form of charge, adding: Not necessarily the licence fee, but that or another charge. The minister said that others believed funding entirely through the Exchequer would be a better solution. However, he warned that finding about 150 million euro in the budgetary process caused by scrapping the licence fee would be incredibly difficult. Mr McGrath added: The second point is, I genuinely do not believe it is a good idea that it would be entirely at the mercy of the Government of the day when it comes to forward funding. He added: I dont believe that is a vulnerability that we should expose pulic service broadcasting to. Minister for Finance Michael McGrath said no decision has yet been made on a funding model (Brian Lawless/PA) Speaking in Co Cavan, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee expressed confidence in Ms Martin. She said: I think she outlined very clearly last night in three hours of questioning and will again give statements today (on) the facts as they emerged last week, her reason for doing the interview. She had given a prior commitment, and the reason why she felt she couldnt express full confidence. I think that people accept that. The minister has also been very clear that her relationship is with the chair of the board, but I have no doubt that she will engage with Kevin Bakhurst and will obviously have further engagement with him on any other matters. She added: I have confidence in Kevin Bakhurst. I have no reason not to. The Crown star Olivia Colman has warned human rights in the UK are under threat as she appeared in a short film about the plight of a young mother whose baby died due to poor social housing conditions. The Amnesty International UK ambassador said human rights violations are happening right on our doorstep as she backed the organisations campaign highlighting the broken housing system. The death in December 2020 of Awaab Ishak, who suffered from a respiratory condition caused by prolonged exposure to mould at his housing association flat in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, caused outrage and calls for change. It prompted the passage of Awaabs Law last year as part of the Social Housing Act, which requires landlords to fix reported hazards in social housing, such as mould, in a timely fashion or rehouse tenants in safe accommodation. Amnesty referred to a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for households in temporary accommodation, published in January last year, which said there had been 34 cases of children who died between April 2019 and the end of March 2022 where homelessness and temporary accommodation were recorded by an independent child death overview panel as factors that may have contributed to the childs vulnerability, ill health or death. Now the charity has launched the short film, Before Our Eyes, starring Colman alongside Hustle actor Adrian Lester and based on the real-life experiences of a mother who wanted to remain anonymous. It tells the story of Anna who watches on helplessly as her baby daughter Graces health deteriorates in the poor conditions of the temporary accommodation they are placed in. The child ultimately dies and when the council denies all responsibility, Anna turns to ex-lawyer and ally Mary, played by Colman, for help. Lester plays a disillusioned council worker and the story exposes what Amnesty described as a broken system where people like Anna and Grace fall through the cracks, and people like Mary are silenced. Of the campaign, Colman, said: Its easy to feel like we do enough, that human rights are for someone else to handle. Were so accustomed to seeing human rights violations in other countries across the world that many of us believe these abuses are far away and have nothing to do with us. But in reality, they are happening right on our doorstep human rights in the UK are under threat, and I hope this film will spur people on and encourage them to tune in and take action. Lester, who is an Amnesty International supporter, said the story told on screen is painfully common in the UK but that most people do not realise this kind of thing is going on. He said: We often look outside our borders when we think of human rights and dont realise that access to housing, healthcare, food and more is deteriorating in our own country. And even when we do recognise this, we dont connect it to violations of human rights happening before our eyes, on our doorstep. But thats what it is. There is such blatant inequality in the lives of people here in the UK. We need to find ways to talk about these problems so that things can change. The film will play in cinemas and form part of adverts in train stations, the London Underground and billboards across the country to make people aware that human rights in the UK are under threat and there is an urgent need for action, Amnesty said. Sacha Deshmukh, the organisations chief executive, said: We hope the film will be a catalyst for people across the UK to join the fight for rights and say that safe housing, enough healthy food, good and timely healthcare arent nice to-haves these are basic human rights which we expect our own Government to protect. We need new, firm commitments from political leaders across all parties to protect peoples basic rights and effective ways to enforce those commitments. Its not just the right thing to do to protect our own citizens, it is critical to protecting the UKs global position as a leader in rights and standards in law, and a country that the world believes practices what we preach. A Government spokesperson said: Temporary accommodation helps to ensure that families are not left without a roof over their head, but councils must ensure it is suitable, and families have a right to appeal if they think it does not meet their households needs. Thats why we have given councils 1 billion over three years to help them tackle homelessness, targeted to areas where it is needed most. Tragic cases such as that of Awaab Ishak must never happen again, which is why weve introduced Awaabs Law to force social landlords to address hazards such as damp and mould within strict timeframes. Jewish schools, synagogues and other community centres are to be given a 72 million security package, Rishi Sunak has announced. In a bid to tackle the utterly sickening rise in antisemitism seen in recent months, the Prime Minister announced the funding which will provided security guards, CCTV and alarm systems at Jewish community sites. The Home Office has said the announcement is made of 54 million of new funding for the Community Security Trust (CST) to provide the security measures until 2028 in addition to 18 million previously allocated to the charity for the period of 2024-2025. Speaking at the CSTs annual dinner on Wednesday, Mr Sunak said that the rise in racist attacks meant that the whole fabric of our nation is under threat. He said: It is shocking, and wrong, the prejudice, the racism we have seen in recent months. That Hamas attack of October 7 was the most abhorrent act of terrorism against Israel that any of us have ever known. And its been followed by record levels of antisemitism in this country that are utterly, utterly sickening. Prime Minister @RishiSunak, thank you for continuing to support our British Jewish community and for standing with us in the fight against anti-Jewish hatred. pic.twitter.com/FvhUroGoPr CST (@CST_UK) February 28, 2024 It is hatred, pure and simple. An assault on the Jewish people. We will fight this antisemitism with everything weve got. As Prime Minister I will lead this Government in a long-term effort to strengthen your security, defend our liberal democratic values and change our culture so we tackle the root causes of this hatred. We know CST is going to be needed for many years to come. So tonight, I am changing the way CST is funded to help you plan for the long-term with the biggest financial commitment that any government has ever made. The CST is a British charity which provides security and advice to the Jewish community in the UK. Home Secretary James Cleverly said: The rise in antisemitic hatred and abuse we have seen in the UK in recent months is absolutely sickening. It is crucial that Jewish adults and children are free to go about their daily lives without fear of intimidation, abuse or harm and importantly, feel safe to do so. Committing this largest ever funding for security to protect Jewish communities will give people the certainty and confidence they will be kept safer for the foreseeable future. We are also working with the police to ensure that hate crime and expressions of support for the terrorist organisation Hamas are met with the full force of the law. Minister of State for Security Tom Tugendhat (Lucy North/PA) Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said: Since the October 7 attacks, weve seen a shameful rise in antisemitism across the world, including in the UK. We wont hesitate to take action to keep British Jews safe. Thats why todays package of support is the largest ever made by the government to tackle antisemitism, and to ensure their protection and safety. A recent report from CST showed the organisation recorded 4,103 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2023, the highest total ever reported to CST in a single calendar year and an increase of 147% compared to 2022. The figures spiked after the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict with1,330 incidents being reported to CST in October 2023, more than the three previous highest monthly totals combined. The Government provided an additional 3 million to the CST to provide additional security in October 2023, raising the funding to 18 million a year. The additional 3 million has been used to offer additional support to more than 480 Jewish community locations, including schools and synagogues enabling nearly 200 schools and more than 250 synagogues to hire more security guards and increase protection. The Government also announced 31 million in funding to protect democratic processes and institutions in response to growing threats. Mr Sunak said: Im not prepared to stand by, and watch MPs forced out of public service because of fears for their safety. Nor I am prepared to allow this pattern of increasingly violent and intimidatory behaviour, seemingly intended to shout down elected representatives and hijack the democratic process through force itself. It is as un-British as it is undemocratic and it cannot stand. He added: We will never give in to the threats of violent extremists. We will not be cowed into changing the way our parliamentary democracy operates. We will do whatever it takes to defend our democratic processes. A Home Office spokesman said: The Government also condemns the recent rise in reported anti-Muslim hatred. We expect the police to fully investigate all hate crimes and work with the CPS to make sure the cowards who commit these appalling offences feel the full force of the law. An additional 4.9 million was made available in October for protective security at mosques and Muslim faith schools. This brought total funding for 2023-24 to 29.4 million, which the Government has confirmed will also be maintained in 2024-25. The spokesman said: The new Protective Security for Mosques Scheme provides physical security measures, such as CCTV, intruder alarms and secure perimeter fencing, to mosques and associated Muslim faith community centres. Protective security measures are also available to Muslim faith schools. Police mounted a covert surveillance operation following the arrest of two journalists in a bid to unmask one of their sources, a tribunal has heard. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal was told that the arrest of film makers Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney in 2018 was a disruptive tactic to see if the reporters would reach out to the source after their release from custody. The tribunal is examining allegations that the award-winning journalists were subject to unlawful covert surveillance by UK authorities. Journalists Barry McCaffrey (left) and Trevor Birney (right) outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London (Jordan Pettitt/PA) It heard a series of new revelations as the case opened on Wednesday, including allegations that the Met Police illegally obtained Mr McCaffreys phone data in 2011 data that police in Northern Ireland subsequently secured seven years later as part of another probe into the reporters work. In 2018, Northern Ireland-based Mr McCaffrey and Mr Birney were controversially arrested as part of a police investigation into the alleged leaking of a confidential document that appeared in a documentary they made on a Troubles massacre. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), citing a conflict of interest, asked Durham Police to lead the investigation into the inclusion of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland document in the No Stone Unturned film on the 1994 UVF massacre in Loughinisland, Co Down. The PSNI later unreservedly apologised for how the men had been treated and agreed to pay 875,000 in damages to the journalists and the film company behind the documentary. The settlement came after a court ruled that the warrants used by police to search the journalists homes and Fine Point Films had been inappropriate. In 2019, Mr Birney and Mr McCaffrey lodged a complaint with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) asking it to establish whether there had been any unlawful surveillance of them. Journalists Trevor Birney (left) and Barry McCaffrey (right) outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London (Jordan Pettitt/PA) The tribunal case began in London on Wednesday and was due to sit for two days but the hearing was adjourned before lunch on the opening day due to the late disclosure of police documents. One of those documents was a directed surveillance authorisation approved by former PSNI chief constable George Hamilton. This gave the green light for covert surveillance of an individual whom officers suspected of being the source of the leaked document from the Police Ombudsmans office. Prior to adjourning the case, tribunal chair Lord Justice Singh invited counsel for the journalists to outline their cases in broad terms. Ben Jaffey KC, representing Mr McCaffrey, said the directed surveillance authorisation document, which he got first sight of at 7.30am on Wednesday, was key to the case. The nature of the operation is now pretty clear, he said. Barry McCaffrey (centre left) and Trevor Birney (centre right) with solicitors Niall Murphy (right) and John Finucane (left) leaving Musgrave Street police station in Belfast after their arrest in 2018 (Liam McBurney/PA) It was to arrest the two journalists with the intention of releasing them the same day the intention was not to ask any serious questions or because they needed to be interrogated under arrest. But because they wanted to create what is sometimes euphemistically called a disruption or a surprise. They would then be released at the end of the day and then aggressive covert attempts would be made to see if they got in contact with their source. The whole purpose of the operation was to unmask the journalistic source. The surveillance operation was conducted for two weeks before Mr Hamilton granted an application for it to be cancelled. Mr Jaffey set out a series of grounds challenging the legality of the surveillance authorisation. He disputed a police contention that the operation was not intrusive. He said a reference to obtaining recorded audio indicated the strategy was to be intrusive. The senior counsel said surveillance of that nature required approval of a judicial commission, not solely a chief constable. Mr Jaffey said the authorisation application was done at the request of the senior investigating officer, Darren Ellis of Durham Police. He claimed the document contradicted Mr Elliss statement to the tribunal in which he said he was unsure whether a directed surveillance authorisation was progressed in the case. During the hearing, Mr Jaffey also questioned the legal basis for a police request to Apple for an emergency preservation order on Fine Point Films iCloud account following the arrest of the journalists. The tribunal also heard that as part of the 2018 investigation, police reinterrogated phone data it requested from the Metropolitan Police in London related to Mr McCaffrey. It emerged that the Met Police obtained Mr McCaffreys data in 2011 in another investigation aimed at revealing the identity of a source. Journalists Barry McCaffrey (left) and Trevor Birney outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London (Jordan Pettitt/PA) Mr Jaffey said he and his client were only made aware of this revelation last Friday. We had no idea that communication data had been obtained in that operation, he said. The lawyer added: It seems overwhelmingly likely that that communications data authorisation was unlawful. He claimed the PSNIs subsequent move to source the data secured from the Met for the 2018 investigation was also unlawful. The tribunal was already set to probe claims that the PSNI itself unlawfully accessed Mr McCaffreys phone records in 2013 as part of an unrelated investigation into his journalistic work. Mr McCaffrey had been investigating alleged police corruption around the time his data was accessed by the PSNI in 2013. Journalists Barry McCaffrey (centre) and Trevor Birney (centre right) speak to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London (Jordan Pettitt/PA) Mr Jaffey said the PSNI had acknowledged that its actions in that case had been unlawful and the only matter for the tribunal to determine was the remedy. What happened there is that there was no prior authorisation and there was no attempt to apply the correct legal test, he said. The police forces represented at the hearing will respond to the applicants case when the substantive hearing resumes. Earlier Mr Jaffey criticised the late disclosure of police documents. This case is Im afraid a shambles which is not ready for considered judicial determination at the moment, he said. Mr Birneys counsel Stephen Toal KC also expressed concern at the late disclosure. This is not the approach that is taken in Northern Ireland to matters of discovery and disclosure, he said. It is a shambles and it certainly is not indicative of how we usually do cases there. Lord Justice Singh, who was sitting on the tribunal panel alongside Lady Carmichael and senior barrister Stephen Shaw KC, told all legal parties in the case to agree rigorous directions to ensure the case could resume again without undue delay. The respondents in the case are the PSNI, Durham Police, MI5, the Security Service Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and several Government ministers. Outside court, Mr Birney and Mr McCaffrey expressed shock at the details that had emerged on the first day. I think it was stunning just to hear our counsel outlining just what has been going on since 2011, Mr Birney told reporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London. It is still somewhat shocking. Mr McCaffrey said: Its shocking, but theres still much more that we need to know we still need answers. He added: Three different police forces in the UK have been trawling journalists, every journalist in the UK should tonight be asking themselves was I one as well. Was it me? And they should be going to the IPT and asking and finding out have they been victims like Trevor and myself. Rishi Sunak has been urged to use the UKs voice on the UN security council to help deliver a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn warned abstentionism is not leadership as he criticised the UK Government for its repeated abstentions on previous votes. He asked Mr Sunak if US President Joe Bidens belief that a ceasefire may be forthcoming would compel the Government to change its position. Prime Minister Mr Sunak said calling for an immediate ceasefire which risks a return to fighting within days or weeks is not in anyones interest, as he reiterated the need for an immediate humanitarian pause. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn warned abstentionism is not leadership as he criticised the UK Government for its repeated abstentions on previous votes (PA) The UK abstained on the widely-supported UN security council resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire for a third time on February 20, leaving the vote 13-1 with the United States vetoing. The on-going war in Gaza, that broke out after Hamas militants attacked Israel, has seen more than 29,000 Palestinians killed in Israels resulting military offensive. Gazas Hamas-run health ministry says the vast majority of fatalities have been women and children. Parliament last week descended into chaos when Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle decided to allow a Labour amendment to an SNP motion on a ceasefire in Gaza to go to a vote. Mr Flynn hit out at the Governments votes at the UN, telling Prime Ministers Questions: Were now approaching five months since this conflict first began and in that time this House has equivocated and this Government, on three occasions at the United Nations, has abstained when it could have voted for a ceasefire. Abstentionism is not leadership. So can I ask the Prime Minister should this matter now come before the United Nations, with a ceasefire potentially in sight, will he use his Governments vote in order to deliver that ceasefire? Mr Flynn also stated that the horrors in Gaza demand that the House of Commons calls for an immediate ceasefire in the region. He earlier said: Thirty thousand people dead, 70,000 injured, 1.5 million sheltering in Rafah, 300,000 living in what is considered to be feral conditions in northern Gaza and of course 100 hostages still tragically held by Hamas. It is the horror of those numbers that demands that this House have its say, just as it is the horror of those numbers that show that this House should demand an immediate ceasefire. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn (House of Commons/PA) Mr Sunak, in his replies, said: We support the United States draft resolution that was discussed with colleagues at the United Nations last week, but just calling for an immediate full ceasefire now which collapses back into fighting within days or weeks, and indeed does not release hostages including British hostages, is not in anyones interest. We must work towards a permanent ceasefire and that starts with an immediate humanitarian pause to get aid in and hostages out. I agree with (Mr Flynn) about the suffering of the people in Gaza, and in this country we should be proud of everything we are doing to help them and provide them the life-saving aid that they deserve. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during Prime Ministers Questions (House of Commons/PA) The Prime Minister also said: We welcome progress on a deal, as (Mr Flynn) said there has been progress, and urge everyone on all sides to seize the opportunity and I have been clear that we must seize the momentum from this terrible tragedy to find a lasting resolution to this conflict which delivers on the promise of a two-state solution and ensures that Israelis and Palestinians can live in dignity and security. Love Island star Tasha Ghouri and EastEnders actor Bobby Brazier have joined a group of celebrities supporting a Government campaign to combat loneliness among young people. The duo will join Made In Chelseas Josh Patterson, influencer Bronte King, Heartstoppers Bradley Riches, and Youtuber Anastasia Kingsnorth to share personal experiences on the subject in a series of videos. For six weeks, the Government plans to release videos on social media showing individuals experiencing loneliness in everyday scenarios, such as moving from home. The videos will showcase the campaigns new headline: Loneliness. Its a part of life. Lets talk about it. The minister of loneliness held a roundtable with (from left) Bronte King, Bobby Brazier, Tasha Ghouri, Bradley Riches and Anastasia Kingsnorth (Rory Arnold/No 10 Downing Street/PA) North Yorkshire-born Ghouri, who is deaf, said: Im proud to be a part of the loneliness campaign from the deaf representation side. Its important to speak out whenever we feel lonely and normalise having these open conversations as it will help so many more people out there! From my own personal experiences being deaf and wearing a cochlear implant, it can be isolating at times and I had to look for support to guide me through. Opening up and talking about how you feel does so much more good than keeping it in. Brazier, 20, said: Everyone feels lonely at points throughout their life because modern life can be very isolating. Thats why being part of this campaign is so important to me, to show that its OK and encourage us to talk about our feelings. Riches emphasised the importance of the campaign as an autistic and queer individual. This campaign is extremely important to me because, as an autistic and queer individual, I have found myself lonely at points throughout my life, he said. I think when people think of loneliness, they often think of older people, yet no-one really talks about young people feeling lonely. This campaign is helping to create a space for people to get support and break down the stigma, because in life everyone will feel lonely at some point. King highlighted the prevalence of loneliness among young girls, especially those in university. She said: After starting a community to support girls during and after university, I have seen first-hand how common loneliness really is among 16 to 24-year-olds. From that first year of university to navigating post-grad life, it really can be a lonely period of time. Thats why being part of this campaign, making loneliness more of a talked about topic and giving people space to realise these feelings are normal, is so important and something I am so proud to be a part of. Kingsnorth said that the most challenging aspect of addressing loneliness is self-acknowledgment and then reaching out to someone else for help. Stuart Andrew met with the celebrities (Rory Arnold/No 10 Downing Street/PA) Stuart Andrew, the minister of loneliness, held a meeting at 10 Downing Street to enlist the support of the celebrities, who collectively reach 8.7 million followers across social media. He said: We know that young people are the age group most affected by loneliness but theyre also the least likely to take action to support themselves. Our latest campaign will encourage young people to talk about their experiences, aiming to break down the stigma that so often prevents people from getting support. Everyone should know they are not alone and help is available. In 2018, the Government made a commitment to address the stigma surrounding loneliness and has since invested over 80 million, in collaboration with partners, to combat the issue. This includes allocating up to 30 million through the Know Your Neighbourhood Fund to create volunteering opportunities and alleviate loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas. The online communication platform, Discord, will further support the campaign by directing users to resources on the Every Mind Matters website. The Prince and Princess of Wales have previously served as ambassadors for the campaign. A tribunal of senior legal figures will examine allegations that two investigative journalists were subject to covert surveillance by UK authorities. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal is hearing a case brought by Northern Ireland based film makers Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney. In 2018, Mr McCaffrey and Mr Birney rose to public prominence after they were controversially arrested as part of a police investigation into the alleged leaking of a confidential document that appeared in a documentary the men made on a Troubles massacre. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), citing a conflict of interest, asked Durham Police to lead the investigation into the inclusion of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland document in the No Stone Unturned film on the 1994 UVF massacre in Loughinisland, Co Down. (Left to right) Solicitor John Finucane with his client, investigative journalists Barry McCaffrey, and Trevor Birney with his solicitor Niall Murphy leave a police station in Belfast after the reporters were arrested in 2018 (Liam McBurney/PA) Former PSNI chief constable Simon Byrne later unreservedly apologised for how the men had been treated and the PSNI agreed to pay 875,000 in damages to the journalists and the film company behind the documentary. The 2020 settlement came after a court ruled that the warrants used by police to search the journalists homes and Fine Point Films had been inappropriate. In 2019, Mr Birney and Mr McCaffrey lodged a complaint with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal asking it to establish whether there had been any unlawful surveillance of them. The respondents in the case are the PSNI, Durham Police, MI5, the Security Service Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and several Government ministers. In a two-day hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, the tribunal will also probe a separate issue, predating the documentary, that involves claims police officers unlawfully accessed the phone records of Mr McCaffrey. Mr McCaffrey had been investigating alleged police corruption around the time his data was said to have been accessed by the PSNI in 2013. Lord Justice Singh, Lady Carmichael and senior barrister Stephen Shaw KC will sit on the tribunal during the hearing. Rishi Sunak has warned that the UK is descending into mob rule as he told police they must use the powers they have or risk losing public confidence amid fears about MPs being targeted by demonstrators heightened by the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Prime Minister discussed a new democratic policing protocol with police chiefs, which would see more patrols and provides clarity that protests at elected representatives homes should be treated as intimidatory. He was speaking to police leaders about the issues around MPs safety at a roundtable meeting in Downing Street on Wednesday afternoon alongside Home Secretary James Cleverly. Mr Sunak said: There is a growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule. And weve got to collectively, all of us, change that urgently. The new protocol makes clear the consistent and robust approach that your forces will take from now on to protect our democratic processes from intimidation, disruption, from subversion, he said, according to a Downing Street read-out. We simply cannot allow this pattern of increasingly violent and intimidatory behaviour which is, as far as anyone can see, intended to shout down free debate and stop elected representatives doing their job. That is simply undemocratic. The Tory leader continued: But we also need to demonstrate more broadly to the public that you will use the powers you already have, the laws that you have. I am going to do whatever it requires to protect our democracy and our values that we all hold dear. That is what the public expect. It is fundamental to our democratic system. And also it is vital for maintaining public confidence in the police. I will do whatever it takes to defend our democracy and our values. https://t.co/TPA13Zkye2 Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) February 28, 2024 The democratic policing protocol sets out that protests at democratic venues or political events should not be allowed to cause alarm, harassment or distress to attendees or inhibit the use of the venue, the Home Office said. Forces will provide additional patrols in communities at risk of potential flashpoints. It comes after the announcement of a 31 million security package to protect MPs from threats, including providing elected politicians with a dedicated police contact to liaise with over safety issues. But the extra funding announced by Mr Cleverly misses the point, a Government minister who is standing down over safety fears said. Justice minister Mike Freer, who is not standing at the general election because of threats to his safety, said the extra cash is not actually going to the root cause of the problem of why people felt emboldened to target MPs. The new security package will enhance police protection and help fund private security guards for those facing a higher risk. It will ensure all elected representatives and candidates have a dedicated named police contact to liaise with on security matters. Mr Cleverly said no MP should have to accept that threats or harassment is part of the job. But Mr Freer, who has pro-Israel views and represents a heavily Jewish constituency in north Londons Finchley and Golders Green, said: I kind of think its missing the point. More security is always welcome, but thats only dealing with the symptom. Conservative Mike Freer is standing down at the election over safety concerns (Jacob King/PA) Its not actually going to the root cause. Why do people now feel emboldened to attack members of Parliament to demonstrate outside their homes where theyre intimidating their family? Not necessarily the MP, but their family. Why should their partners and their children have to put up with being frightened in their own home? So, security is welcome. But frankly, unless you get to the root cause, then youre just going to have a ring of steel around MPs. And our whole style of democracy changes. Downing Street insisted action had been taken to ensure there was no place for hatred or extremism in the UK. Responding to Mr Freers comments, the Prime Ministers official spokesman said: We have taken action in the last year to strengthen our Prevent programme, measures to tackle antisemitism and increase the power of all local authorities in England and Wales to tackle terrorist ideologies. But it is unfortunately still sadly necessary that alongside these preventative measures, we protect people and our democratic institutions against hatred, threats and intimidation. The Israel-Hamas conflict has sparked months of protests across the UK, including outside Parliament (Lucy North/PA) Labours shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry said protesting outside MPs homes and offices has to stop. It is very important that people are able to demonstrate on this extraordinarily important issue (Gaza) and they must be allowed to express themselves, she told BBC Radio 4s World At One programme. But that should not be expressing themselves in such a way that it is intentionally meant to intimidate politicians. That is not right. Conservative backbencher Tobias Ellwoods home was targeted earlier this month by pro-Palestine protesters. The family homes of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer have also been set upon by environmental activists in past months. Two serving MPs, Labours Jo Cox and Conservative Sir David Amess, have been murdered in the past eight years, with reforms to the security of parliamentarians having been introduced as a result of those killings. Changes have included improvements to existing security measures at MPs homes and offices, and bringing in additional private sector-delivered protective security where necessary. Scotlands First Minister has urged the Treasury to tackle child poverty in the upcoming Spring Budget. Speaking ahead of a visit to a childrens library in Edinburgh, Humza Yousaf called on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to implement an essentials guarantee which would ensure Universal Credit met the basic needs of recipients when he announces his spending plans next week. He also pushed for the end of the two-child benefit cap which limits the number of children in a single family eligible for social security. The First Minister said most of the powers to tackle poverty and the cost of living remain in the UK Governments hands. He added: The Spring Budget is an opportunity for the Chancellor to take action to provide further targeted support for people who are struggling. We have made repeated calls to make social security fit for purpose by introducing an essentials guarantee, to ensure Universal Credit is always enough to meet peoples basic needs and by removing the punitive two-child limit and so-called rape clause. This damaging policy restricts the amount of support available to some of our most vulnerable people and disproportionately affects women and children. We will continue to do everything within the scope of our powers and budget in order to meet our statutory child poverty targets and will be relentless in that focus, but it is only with the full economic and fiscal powers of an independent nation that ministers can use all levers other governments have to tackle inequalities. The UK Government has been contacted for comment. The Rev. Amos Brown speaks at a Feb. 15 meeting considering a resolution about the effect racism, urban renewal and policing have had on the Black community at City Hall in San Francisco. Benjamin Fanjoy/The Chronicle Advocates for San Franciscos Black community urged the city Tuesday to invest in five key areas to help Black residents instead of paying cash reparations as the debate about how to address decades of historic injustices continues. The push came as city leaders voted Tuesday to formally apologize to the African American community for racist policies and displacement. The apology came out of a city task force that released more than 100 recommendations last summer suggesting reparations to the citys Black community, including potential $5 million payments meant to address harm caused by generations of systemic racism. But in lieu of cash reparations for Black San Franciscans, former Supervisor Amos Brown, who sat on the state task force studying reparations, and the NAACP said they want to see money poured into education, health, housing, finance and culture. Mayor London Breed has been clear that she doesnt support cash payments, arguing such reparations should be dealt with at the state and federal level. She also doesnt agree with spending money on an Office of Reparations, which would help to roll out some of the recommendations in the 400-page task force report. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Brown, an ally of Breeds, said in a news release Tuesday that while the city doesnt currently possess the financial resources to make cash payments, San Francisco could still do more to address the insidious effects of racism on the health, housing, education, financial and cultural needs of the Black community. However, during previous public comment at the Board of Supervisors, the majority of those speaking voiced strong support for cash payments, saying they were long overdue and expressing frustration that San Francisco wasnt moving forward with the plan. Brown and the NAACP say the citys lottery system for affordable housing should be revised to ensure that Black San Franciscans are entitled to at least 40% of the available units in these developments. Federal law prevents housing from being specifically dedicated to residents on the basis of race. The statement also urged city officials to step in and stop the sale of the Fillmore Safeway, which is slated to eventually close to make way for housing, and make sure it stays open. The statement also said that while the Board of Supervisors doesnt control the San Francisco Unified School District, its important to ensure that Black students receive the same quality education as their peers. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Black students have been forced to endure substandard education and unsafe conditions for too long, the statement said. That injustice must stop now. They also called on the city to establish policies and provide active assistance that will enable Black investors, developers, builders and businesses to revitalize the Fillmore and build success for themselves and the entire neighborhood. Supervisor Shamann Walton said that the city has much work to do but that the historic apology is an important start on the task forces more than 100 recommendations. A protest movement to cast "uncommitted" votes over President Joe Biden in Michigan's Democratic primary is estimated to have won two delegates in the nominating race -- evidence that Biden's detractors gained some traction in the swing state after winning 13% of the total votes compared to Biden's 81%. Overall, 117 Democratic delegates are apportioned based on the results of Tuesdays primary and it's estimated that Biden won 115 while the uncommitted vote will win two. That means uncommitted's voters will have a voice -- even if a relatively small one -- at the Democratic Party's national convention in August, which will be dominated by Biden supporters looking to rally the party against Donald Trump. "They [the uncommitted delegates] could protest. They could make recommendations to change bylaws," Florida delegate Nadia Ahmed previously told ABC News. The vote total that the uncommitted movement received also suggests their differences with Biden over Israel's military campaign against Hamas could be a problem for him in a general election, if this same pattern repeats, because Biden only won Michigan in 2020 by about 150,000 votes. To win any delegates, candidates either had to receive at least 15% of the statewide vote to qualify for any statewide delegates or 15% of the vote in a congressional district to qualify for delegates in that district -- a requirement which dates back until at least 2012. With about 95% of the expected vote reported as of Wednesday afternoon, Biden got some 618,000 ballots statewide and uncommitted got about 101,000. (On the Republican side, which did not see a similar protest effort, uncommitted got about 33,000 votes.) Though the anti-Biden uncommitted votes didn't cross 15% statewide, as of Wednesday they had reached about 17% (approximately 14,500 ballots) in Michigan's 6th Congressional District, which includes Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. The Democratic uncommitted votes were also at about 17% (around 13,700 votes) as of Wednesday in the state's 12th District, just outside Detroit, which is represented by Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a high-profile supporter of the protest efforts. The district also includes part of Wayne County, which has the largest percentage population of Middle Eastern or North African descent of any county in the country. MORE: Michigan sends stark messages to Biden, Trump: ANALYSIS It's not uncommon for an incumbent president to enter a nominating convention with delegates unpledged to them. In 2012, when President Barack Obama was running for reelection, the uncommitted vote garnered enough support in a handful of Southern states to cut into his delegate count. PHOTO: Abbas Alawieh, spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, speaks to the press one day after the Michigan presidential primary, in Dearborn, Michigan, on February 28, 2024. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images) The "Listen to Michigan" campaign had urged voters to chose uncommitted to push Biden to change his support for Israel's bombardment of Gaza in targeting Hamas fighters as retaliation for Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack. More than 29,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health. Israel insists it takes steps to curb civilian deaths. Listen to Michigan leaders celebrated their work on Wednesday. We organized and over 100,000 Michigan voters last night sent a clear message to President Biden that he needs to call for an immediate, permanent cease-fire and he needs to stop funding the Israeli military's war crimes. Our message has been clear, Abbas Alawieh said. Alawieh said that organizers have reached out to similar advocates in Minnesota and Washington state, which also have "uncommitted" options on their primary ballots. "This issue of Gaza ... is not just a Michigan issue, it is an issue across the United States," Listen to Michigan campaign manager Layla Elabed said. What the uncommitted vote results mean Listen to Michigan had betting that if enough people cast uncommitted votes, the margin could shift Biden's politics so as not to risk losing the state, which has evolved in recent elections into a closely fought battleground. Biden narrowly won Michigan in 2020 by some 150,000 votes -- less than half of the amount of people in the state who cited Middle Eastern or North African ancestry in the 2020 census. In 2016, Trump won by about 10,700 votes -- the first Republican presidential candidate to win Michigan in decades. The uncommitted protest organizers had hoped at least 10,000 people would vote with them on Tuesday, a nod to Trump's victory margin. More optimistically, some supporters said they wanted to see them hit 15% of the total primary vote. History provides some context about how popular uncommitted has or hasn't been in primaries past, even without a protest movement. It got only about 1.2%, or 19,000 votes, in the 2020 Democratic primary when Biden ran against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. In 2016, when Hillary Clinton and Sanders faced off, uncommitted got about 21,000 votes, or 1.8%. PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks on the Senate's recent passage of the National Security Supplemental Bill, which provides military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, in the State Dining Room of the White House on Feb. 13, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) In 2012, in which Obama ran unopposed in the Democratic primary as the incumbent, uncommitted got about 21,000 votes, or 10.7%, and in 2008, after Obama removed his name from the ballot over an intraparty dispute, uncommitted votes -- many of which were seen as ballots supporting Obama -- got about 238,000 or 39.6%. Delegates weren't actually awarded in 2012's Democratic primary because of another party conflict over primary timing. But if they had been, Obama would have lost out on some as the uncommitted option cleared the necessary 15% threshold -- not only in one congressional district but two, similar to this year. A senior Biden campaign adviser told ABC News after Tuesday's uncommitted result became clear, that "we understand that it's an emotional, painful, difficult situation for a lot of people." "President Biden shares the goal of many of the folks who voted uncommitted, which is an end to the violence and a just and lasting peace. That is what he is working towards," this adviser said. Michigan's primary rules allow any voter to cast a ballot in either the Republican or Democratic candidates and it's not clear how many of the uncommitted votes against Biden came from Democrats or from other state residents who specifically wanted to protest his Israel policies. But if Biden were to lose 100,000 voters from his base of support in 2024, that could dramatically lower his chances of winning the state. The Biden campaign adviser said they will continue to work to win over skeptics. "We also know that nearly all of the folks voting uncommitted do not support the extremism, the xenophobia, and incompetence of Donald Trump. They want a President who listens and delivers. That's Joe Biden," the adviser said. "We will earn their votes between now and November." ABC News' Mary Bruce contributed to this report. Anti-Biden 'uncommitted' voters set to win 2 delegates in Michigan primary, boosting protest originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Investing in the stock market is one of the best ways to grow your money and build wealth over time. As businesses grow their earnings, shareholders are often rewarded with dividends and higher stock prices. Owning a diversified basket of stocks, such as an S&P 500 index fund, is one of the best investments you can make, but some stocks will do dramatically better than the market indexes. Here are the best-performing stocks over the past decade. Best-performing stocks over the past 10 years *Data as of February 27, 2024 Source: macrotrends 1. Nvidia (NVDA) Nvidia is one of the best performing stocks of all-time and has richly rewarded shareholders over the past decade. Nvidia initially rose to prominence for its chips used for video-game graphics, but its business has boomed recently thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence. Revenue at Nvidia grew to $60.9 billion in its 2024 fiscal year, up from $27.0 billion in 2023. 10-year annualized return: 68.0 percent Market cap: $2.0 trillion 2. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) AMD is a semiconductor company that offers a variety of products used in data centers, supercomputers and more. The company is also benefiting from the rise of AI and machine-learning technologies. AMD generated $22.7 billion in revenue in 2023. 10-year annualized return: 47.2 percent Market cap: $283.0 billion 3. Super Micro Computer (SMCI) Super Micro Computer is a provider of accelerated compute platforms to several markets including enterprise data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and edge computing. The company had $7.1 billion in revenue during its 2023 fiscal year. 10-year annualized return: 45.1 percent Market cap: $47.2 billion 4. Green Brick Partners (GRBK) Green Brick Partners is a diversified homebuilding and land development company focused on five major markets: Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Atlanta, Treasure Coast, Florida, and Colorado Springs. The company says it aims to maximize long-term value while mitigating risks of downturns by controlling costs and quickly reacting to market trends. 10-year annualized return: 40.6 percent Market cap: $2.6 billion 5. Broadcom (AVGO) Broadcom designs, develops and supplies semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. The company acquired VMware in November 2023 for roughly $86.3 billion. Broadcom generated $35.8 billion in revenue in its 2023 fiscal year. 10-year annualized return: 39.9 percent Market cap: $611.1 billion 6. Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO) Fair Isaac describes itself as an applied analytics company, but youre probably familiar with the companys FICO Score, which is used by banks, credit card issuers, insurers and retailers to measure consumer credit risk. Fair Isaac generated $1.5 billion in revenue during its 2023 fiscal year. 10-year annualized return: 37.6 percent Market cap: $32.0 billion 7. Monolithic Power Systems (MPWR) Monolithic Power Systems is a company that provides high-performance, semiconductor-based power electronic solutions. The company is headquartered in Kirkland, Washington and also has offices in Asia and Europe. Monolithic Power Systems generated $1.8 billion in revenue in 2023. 10-year annualized return: 36.8 percent Market cap: $35.0 billion 8. Builders FirstSource (BLDR) Builders FirstSource is a supplier and manufacturer of building materials, manufactured components and construction services to professional homebuilders, sub-contractors, remodelers and consumers. The company has integrated more than 60 acquisitions since 1998 and generated $17.1 billion in revenue in 2023. 10-year annualized return: 36.0 percent Market cap: $24.0 billion 9. Lam Research (LRCX) Lam Research is a global supplier of wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry. Its products help chipmakers build smaller devices that are used in various electronics products. Lam Research generated $17.4 billion in revenue during its 2023 fiscal year. 10-year annualized return: 35.3 percent Market cap: $123.0 billion 10. Cadence Design Systems (CDNS) Cadence is a company that provides computational software, special-purpose computational hardware, IP and services to various sectors and customers that design and build semiconductor and electronic systems. The company generated $4.1 billion in revenue in 2023. 10-year annualized return: 35.0 percent Market cap: $82.3 billion Editorial Disclaimer: All investors are advised to conduct their own independent research into investment strategies before making an investment decision. In addition, investors are advised that past investment product performance is no guarantee of future price appreciation. President Biden was won the Michigan Democratic primary Tuesday, according to a projection from Decision Desk HQ, scoring a critical win in the battleground state. Biden won Michigan in 2020 in both the primary and general elections, but has seen recent pushback from progressives and Arab Americans in the state over his administrations actions surrounding the Israel-Hamas war. An option on the ballot for voters to pick uncommitted had so far garnered more than 100,000 votes, far exceeding the relatively modest goal of 10,000 votes the campaigns organizers had set for themselves. The organizers of the Listen to Michigan campaign, backed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), urged voters to select the uncommitted option in order to send the president a message of dissatisfaction about the war in Gaza. Its important to create a voting bloc, something that is a bullhorn to say, Enough is enough, said Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, in a video shared by Listen to Michigan. We dont want a country that supports wars and bombs and destruction. We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza. Also on the primary ballot were Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and Marianne Williamson, who has dropped out of the running. Back in 2008, then-candidate Hillary Clinton won her partys Michigan primary with 55 percent of the vote but with rival Barack Obama left off the ballot, 40 percent picked uncommitted, according to results tallies from The New York Times. Polling showed Biden with a massive lead over Williamson and Phillips heading into Tuesdays primary, and he scored a major endorsement from United Auto Workers (UAW), which is headquartered in Detroit. The incumbent has so far won the Democratic primaries in South Carolina and Nevada, plus a victory as a write-in candidate in New Hampshire. His Michigan win adds to his early-state record and further cements his strength as the likely Democratic nominee. But the campaign is seeing warning signs in its reception from the states significant Arab American communities as the race revs toward the general election. Top Biden administration officials visited Michigan in February to outreach with community leaders amid the frustration. In a statement on Tuesdays results, Biden made no direct mention of the uncommitted effort but thanked every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great, Biden said. He touted his work in the state and pointed toward the general election, stressing the danger of another term of former President Trump. Donald Trump is threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution, Biden said. Now, Donald Trump wants to ban abortion nationwide including here in Michigan. With former President Trump leading the Republican primary battle, the race appears headed toward a rematch of the 2020 race between Biden and Trump. Polling averages from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill show Trump with a 2.6-point lead in a hypothetical head-to-head between the current and former presidents in Michigan. Updated Feb. 28 at 7 a.m. ET For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. While Joe Biden won Michigans Democratic primary, more than 100,000 people cast their vote as uncommitted. Composite: Getty Images Joe Biden has won the Democratic primary in Michigan but a concerted effort by anti-war activists to vote uncommitted in the race could overshadow his win. The US president faced no real primary challenger in the contest. But a campaign that formed just weeks before the primary to vote uncommitted in protest of his continued support for Israels war in Gaza signaled the fury and betrayal some Arab American and younger voters in the state feel for Biden. Related: Michigan primary to test Biden among key voting groups in swing state The group pushing for voters to choose uncommitted called Listen to Michigan set the goal of 10,000 uncommitted votes in the primary. By Wednesday morning, uncommitted had received more than 100,000 votes 13.3% of the vote. For context, when the then president, Barack Obama, ran uncontested in the 2012 race, about 21,000 voted uncommitted against him in Michigans primary, with about 194,000 voting in total just over 9% of voters. Trump narrowly won the state by just 11,000 votes in 2016 and organisers of the uncommitted effort wanted to show that they have at least the number of votes that were Trumps margin of victory in 2016, to demonstrate how influential the bloc can be. As results came in after polls closed at 8pm, members of the Listen to Michigan campaign gathered at a banquet hall in Dearborn and declared the results a victory for their campaign. Attendees embraced and celebrated, many wearing the black and white keffiyeh. Before handing the microphone off to a series of speakers for the campaign, Abbas Alawieh, a Listen to Michigan spokesperson, held a moments silence for every human life that has been taken from us too soon using US taxpayer funds and bombs. Thank you to our local and national progressive organizations and our voters of conscience, who used our democratic process to vote against war, genocide and the destruction of a people and a land, said Layla Elabed, who launched the campaign in early February. The former congressman Andy Levin, an early and prominent local supporter of the push to vote uncommitted, called the movement a child of necessity and said the turnout so far was a huge victory. There is no hope for security and peace for the Jewish people without security and peace and freedom and justice for the Palestinian people, said Levin, to cheers. The Listen to Michigan campaign was intended as a warning for Biden to revise his so far unwavering support for Israels campaign in Gaza, which has killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians, ahead of the general election. The campaign is especially significant in Michigan given the states large Arab American population, a group that supported Biden strongly in 2020. But it is not clear what share of uncommitted voters are prepared to abandon Biden in the general election this November, when he will most likely face Donald Trump who is campaigning on a pledge to reinstate and expand his Muslim travel ban. There were some warning signs for Trump in his victory in Michigan, too. Early reporting out of Kent county, which flipped to Biden in the 2020 presidential election, showed Trump with a slimmer margin of victory in an area that is significant to the conservative movement and home to the conservative mega-donors the DeVoses. You cant win a general election if you dont acknowledge the 40% of Republicans who are saying we dont want Donald Trump, said Haley at a press conference in Grand Rapids ahead of the primary, referring to the share of Republican voters in South Carolina who voted for her. A day before the primary, Biden announced a ceasefire could come as soon as Monday but both Hamas and Israeli officials denied that negotiations had progressed substantially. In a statement on Tuesday night, Biden did not address the Listen to Michigan campaign or the growing tally of voters who cast their ballots as uncommitted, instead touting his record on labor and warning that Trump was threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution. NORTH PROVIDENCE Pastor Eric Perry suggests that neighbors' longstanding complaints about loud, late-night services at Shiloh Gospel Temple could have inspired the alleged arsonist who tried to set fire to the predominantly Black church on Feb. 11. The suspect, Kevin Colantonio, did not live in the immediate vicinity of the Pentecostal church, but Perry speculated that he may have seen posts and comments on a neighbor's personal Facebook page. "Maybe that could have started him up, because on that Facebook page they were saying that there was nothing being done about getting us out of this area," Perry said in an interview. "Maybe that could have been a motivation, I'm not sure." So far, however, there's no proof that Colantonio was aware of the neighborhood dispute, or that it factored into what prosecutors believe was a racially motivated attack. The neighbor in question said she'd never heard of Colantonio before his arrest, and police say the matter is still being investigated. The Shiloh Gospel Temple on Charles Street in North Providence was the scene of an arson fire in the early hours of Feb. 12. Police had been called about loud drumming, late-night fight Since 2018, Shiloh Gospel Temple has been based in a modest gray brick building on the corner of Charles and Volturno streets, just north of the Providence city line. There's a used-car lot across the street, but the church is otherwise surrounded by houses on all sides which has led to tensions with neighbors. The church has about 100 members, Perry previously told The Providence Journal. Services, which are livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook, regularly last two or three hours and typically feature amplified keyboard music and drums. Friday night worship officially begins at 7 p.m., but past livestreams indicate services often don't really get started until around 8 p.m. The church also routinely holds multi-day birthday celebrations for its leaders. Perry's 63rd birthday celebration, which took place in January, lasted for five consecutive nights. Records show that between August 2020 and May 2023, the North Providence Police Department received eight complaints about loud noise coming from the church. Most of those calls were placed after 10:30 p.m., including one report of "loud drums" at 2:26 a.m. In one case, the responding officer observed that music "could be clearly heard from either side of the roadway" at 10:51 p.m. on a Tuesday. Perry said that he would be calling the mayor "on his personal number to further talk about the issue" but agreed to turn down the volume, the report states. In at least two other instances, police indicated there was no loud music when they arrived. "Weve gone down each time weve received calls, and weve asked them to lower the music," Police Chief Alfredo Ruggeiro Jr. said. However, he said, Shiloh Gospel Temple hasn't been issued any citations because decibel readers have never indicated that the church is violating local noise ordinances. Fire damage done to one of the doorways of the Shiloh Gospel Temple on Charles Street in North Providence. Records also show that in November 2022, dispatchers received multiple calls about yelling coming from the church's parking lot just before 1 a.m., and a "disturbance possibly involving a knife." A man who plays the organ in the church band was subsequently arrested for assault and battery after police determined that he got into an argument inside the church, and then repeatedly punched the victim after the dispute spilled over outside, a report states. A juvenile confessed to handing a knife to the victim for self-defense, but said that the victim didn't take it. In an interview, Perry said that the fight had nothing to do with the church. He denied that there was an issue with noise and claimed that the complaints had all come from one specific neighbor, though Ruggiero told The Journal that calls have come from "a handful of neighbors." Church wants neighbor's Facebook posts investigated After Colantonio's arrest, some of Shiloh Gospel Temple's leaders, members and supporters began suggesting that police should also look into comments made about the church online. "Based on the timing of several hate-filled social media post (including images and words) by Kevin Colantonio and neighboring members of the community, we feel that the perpetrator may not have acted alone but rather in concert with one or more persons, and were calling on law enforcement to investigate this arson until fully exhausted," embattled NAACP Providence president Gerald Catala wrote in a Feb. 16 news release. More: Investigators allegedly found racist writing in home of man arrested for burning Black church Perry, in a group interview with Catala and Supreme Richardson, who said he represented Black Lives Matter Rhode Island, agreed to show screenshots of the offending posts to The Journal on the condition that the individuals who posted them would not be named in this article. The posts appear to show a long-simmering conflict between the neighbor, their friends and the church, with several referencing the police being called over the noise and lamenting the lack of help provided by the authorities. Friends of the neighbor, who did not appear to live in the neighborhood, seemingly egged on the conflict across multiple posts by encouraging police involvement or the making of noise right back at the church. One post pointed to by Perry referenced the fire, suggested that Perry might have angered someone and asked rhetorically when authorities will do something about the church. The neighbor in question, however, told The Journal that the post was written before any official information was released about the fire and that they were horrified to learn it appeared to be racially motivated. In a brief interview before a Feb. 16 news conference at the church, Perry told The Journal that neighbors had complained about cars being in the road, and that one churchgoer got hit by a car, and they didnt even stop." He brought up the alleged incident again during a livestreamed service that night, saying that the hateful comments online included Run them down. However, no such language appears in any of the screenshots that were provided to The Journal, and police dispatch logs from the church do not include any mention of a collision. Ruggiero said he was not aware of any such incident. When asked to provide more details in a subsequent interview, Perry declined to comment. 'No one wants to see something like this happen' In separate interviews, three neighbors who asked not to be identified told The Journal that loud music and noise from the church's parking lot had been a source of frustration for years, but that there was no connection to the attack, which they condemned. An additional neighbor, Danny Vargas, said that the church's services could be "pretty loud," but the noise isn't "too crazy" and doesn't bother him. Like the other neighbors, he said that he was deeply disturbed by what had taken place. Neighbors said that despite frustrations, no one wanted to see the church attacked. And footage captured by their home surveillance cameras was provided to investigators and played a crucial role in Colantonio's arrest. All four neighbors said that they had never heard of Colantonio. The alleged arsonist lived more than four blocks away, on the opposite side of Charles Street, and wouldn't have been able to hear the church from his apartment. Ruggiero, the police chief, said the Facebook posts flagged by church members have been handed over to the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, who will be going through them and determining if further action needs to be taken. He said that police also plan to interview neighbors again. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Shiloh Gospel Temple pastor thinks neighborhood complaints led to arson Canada lost to Tonga as they finished last year with one win and three defeats Scotland will face Canada in Ottawa on 6 July at the start of their summer tour, Rugby Canada has announced. The match at TD Place is expected to be followed by matches against United States and in South America. Canada and Scotland will be contesting the Douglas Horn Cup, which the visitors have held since their last meeting in Edmonton in 2018, when they won 48-10. Hundreds of officers and their families gathered to pay their respects to DeSoto County Sheriff's K9 Luca on Wednesday in Hernando. Occasional barking broke up near complete silence as dozens of K9 handlers and their dogs lined the street outside Longview Point Baptist Church, waiting for the procession to arrive. Luca died Feb. 21 after being shot following a car chase that ended in Lake Cormorant. Following the chase, Luca was released and the suspect, later identified as Jamarcus Brown, shot the K9, according to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Deputies then fired at Brown, who was fatally shot, MBI said. The cause of the chase has not been released. Pallbearers bring out DeSoto County Sheriff's Department K9 officer Lucas body in a casket after a service for him was held at Longview Point Baptist Church in Hernando, Miss., on Wednesday, February 28, 2024. Luca was released after a suspect fleeing in a car was brought to a stop by deputies and upon being released the person shot Luca. Prior to his service as a police dog, 10-year-old Luca spent five years in Afghanistan under the 7th Special Forces Group, which he was selected to join in August 2015. Luca would serve under three handlers during this time, one of whom credits Luca with saving his life. The sergeant, who can't be identified for security reasons, recalled when his unit came under fire in a narrow alleyway in Afghanistan. "An enemy machinegun position erupted less than 30 meters to my 12 o'clock, claiming the life of a fellow soldier next to me," he said. "I was stunned as the bullets whizzed by me. Luca sensed my delayed response, and swiftly grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to the ground. "Luca's instincts took over, dragging me out of the kill zone... it was in that moment I realized that without Luca's intervention, I would not have made it out of that situation alive." K9 Luca was remembered by DeSoto County Sheriff's Department during a service on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Luca was killed on Feb. 21, 2024. After his time in Afghanistan, Luca was transferred to DeSoto County Sheriff's Department, where he served from December 2020 until his death. He would be deployed more than 323 times while serving the sheriff's department for explosive detection, SWAT operations and locating suspects. DeSoto County Sheriff Thomas Tuggle opened Wednesday's service and later presented a Medal of Valor to Luca's handlers. "Luca served with unwavering loyalty, bravery and love, standing beside his handler in the face of danger," Tuggle said. "Luca's selflessness and devotion to duty serve as a shining example of the noble bond between a K9 and his handler." K9 officers and deputies from various departments watch as a procession escorts the body of DeSoto County Sheriff's Department K9 officer Luca to a service for him held at Longview Point Baptist Church in Hernando, Miss., on Wednesday, February 28, 2024. Luca was released after a suspect fleeing in a car was brought to a stop by deputies and upon being released the person shot Luca. Major Jonathan Poe delivered the eulogy for Luca. "His final act of bravery saved the lives and ensured the well-being of deputies who worked alongside him that day," Poe said. "I have witnessed an outpouring of support from the citizens of the community, and for that I am extremely grateful." Poe also read a statement from Luca's handler, Sgt. Nick Cook. "As a handler, it's a dream to look at the other end of the leash and see Luca," Cook's statement read. "Every time I opened Luca's door at work, I hooked my leash to him with zero doubt. I hold my K9 partner in ultimate confidence, and I knew there was no task too tall for Luca." DeSoto County Sheriff's Department deputy Nicholas Cook holds a folded flag while looking into the hearse where K9 officer Luca was placed after a service was held for him at Longview Point Baptist Church in Hernando, Miss., on Wednesday, February 28, 2024. Luca was shot after a suspect fleeing in a car was brought to a stop by deputies. After the stop, K9 Luca was released and the person shot the dog. The statement continued: "Although I feel incredible pain from the loss of Luca, I would not change the circumstances that transpired that day... Luca saved lives at the expense of his own. He was a true warrior, and I could not be more proud of my partner. The life of Luca was an incredible story with storybook ending, and I am just thankful to have been a small part of that story." DeSoto County Sheriff's Department is asking anyone who wishes to offer flowers or other condolence gifts to instead make a donation to The American Law Enforcement Canine Handlers Association on Venmo. Jacob Wilt is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal. You can reach him at jacob.wilt@commercialappeal.com. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: DeSoto County MS Sheriffs K9 killed in line of duty honored at service The box that caged in Bear the dog's face for nearly a year was from a large trash can similar to those found at parks and fast food restaurants Bear the dog and the box that was stuck on his head A Cane Corso dog who roamed the streets of Mobile, Alabama, for months with a boxy trash can top on his head has finally been freed, according to reports. Martin Miller, a "Scottish dog rescuer living in the Deep South," according to his Instagram, shared an update on the social media platform about the dog, named "Bear," on Wednesday, in which he detailed how rescuers managed to remove the canine's headgear after nearly a year of trying. "HUGE NEWS!! There was a dog in Mobile, Alabama, that had a box trapped on its head for almost a YEAR. Traps didn't work because the box was too big," Miller began the post. "Well, today, the amazing team from BOTH The City of Mobile Animal Services and Mobile County Animal Shelter came together, and we got the box off the dog's head!" he continued. "I'm so proud to be part of such an amazing group of people! And to all the members of the community that works so hard to try and help this!! A huge congratulations to everyone involved!" Alongside his caption, Miller shared images of the dog with the trash can top on his head and Bear's rescuers posing with the boxy top after removing it from the dog's head. Related: Jon Stewart Tearfully Announces Death of His Dog Dipper on The Daily Show: In a World of Good Boys, He Was the Best CBS affiliate WKRG closely followed Bear's story and rescuers' efforts to free the dog, including sharing a report about the canine's unfortunate situation in late January. Mobile resident Larry Martin told the outlet in January that his son had first seen the dog two months earlier. Martin saw Bear and his head accessory for himself shortly after his son did and described the sight as "something out of a horror movie." In January, WKRG also shared that the City of Mobile Animal Services (COMAS) had made multiple attempts to remove the trash can top but could not get close enough to Bear to free him. Releasing Bear from the trash can top was made more difficult because food-based traps were ineffective, as the dog appeared well-fed despite the cumbersome box on his head. 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 celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. A spokesperson for the city told WKRG in mid-February that they were cooperating with the Mobile County Animal Shelter and a local veterinarian to find ways to tranquilize the dog and remove the trash can top safely. Related: 'Lovable' Dog at Shelter for Over 900 Days Is Returned 1 Day After Her Long-Awaited Adoption Tranquilizers did not end up being needed. On Feb. 21, rescuers from COMAS and Mobile County Animal Shelter were able to get close enough to Bear to remove the box. Unfortunately, the dog fled afterward. COMAS reunited with the dog shortly after. On Feb. 26, the agency shared on Facebook that Bear was safe and in its care. "Bear has made it to COMAS! Bear, the Cane Corso known for previously having a box stuck on his head, was caught by our Animal Control Officers over the weekend. He is a sweet gentleman, and he's in good health. He is currently on a stray hold," COMAS wrote alongside two photos of Bear standing in the sun. It wasn't until the box was removed from Bear's head that rescuers better understood the contraption. Robert Bryant, the director of COMAS, explained to WKRG that it was "the top of a trash can like a public trash can that you would see out on the street or in a fast food restaurant." He added that Bear likely was "going through the trash somewhere and couldn't get the box back off his head when he stopped." For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. 2024 will be a major test for global democracy. There are over 70 elections scheduled to take place, including roughly 40 for the executive branch. But this year is significant beyond the abnormally high number of elections. The continued broad-based support for populism at the global level suggests that the 2024 elections could usher in a renewed cohort of populist, anti-establishment governmentsand potentially, a broader backsliding of democratic norms across the globe. And this trend is fundamentally driven by economic and social disillusionment and an ongoing collapse of faith in the existing economic system. We recently conducted the latest iteration of our survey of over 20,000 respondents which has measured the evolution of populist sentiment across 28 countries since 2016. The latest survey found that anti-establishment beliefs rest on a sense of economic stagnation and are correlated with poor economic performance, inequality, and nostalgia about the past. The lynchpin of this system holds that the economic system is rigged against the average person. Our poll, for instance, found that 67% that the economy is rigged to benefit the elite. Its logic goes something like this: Why, in a rich country, are there so many poor people? Because the elite have rigged the system in their favor. Where do citizens turn to? A strong leader who can take the country back from the rich and powerful, something that 63% of respondents agree their country needs. We often call this the Caudillo Syndrome. This syndrome varies from country to country, but the logic is the same. An illiberal belief system Our own analysis shows that it strongly correlates with different measures of democratic backsliding, corruption, and other forms of social and political disorganization. Such social dysfunction can run the gambit from disrespecting norms of conduct to violations of constitutional principles to electoral interference. Many other indicators show significant democratic backsliding over the last decade or more. Freedom House notes that global freedom declined for the 17th consecutive year. And Transparency International shows that the world has made little progress against corruption. Our survey demonstrates that such slippage is rooted in popular support. Anti-establishment figures dont necessarily burn down the village after winning Emmanuel Macron in France and Lula da Silva in Brazil both rode strong outsider waves but work within the system today. The manifestation of more extreme forms of anti-establishment sentiment requires a strong political entrepreneur to stoke the flames. Take Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Or Javier Milei in Argentina. Or Viktor Orban in Hungary. Or Andrzej Duda in Poland. Ultimately, anti-system beliefs can lead to a variety of possible outcomessome more vanilla, others more rabid. There can be ebbs and flows to populist fervor In Mexico and Indonesia, populist sentiment has come down in recent years, while it is on the rise in the U.K. and South Africa. Past analysis suggests that elections themselves can tamp down popular discontent with the system. The elections this year will be a test as to whether the anti-establishment will prevail. We are keeping our eyes on a number of elections. In the U.S., former President Donald Trump will seek to dethrone the more establishment candidate in incumbent Joe Biden. This is a classic match-up pitting the establishment against the anti-establishment. The context is telling: 65% of Americans agree that our society is broken. South Africa has one dominant establishment party in the African National Congress (ANC). Since 2016, the belief that the system is broken increased by 15 points (58% versus 73%). We expect that the high levels of populist sentiment will leave cracks in the ANC facade. How this will play out specifically is uncertain. Similarly, in the U.K., Labour will most probably prevail over the Toriestwo traditional parties. This is against a backdrop of rising populist sentiment: the belief that society is in decline increased by 30 points between 2021 and 2023 (48% versus 78%). Even if the establishment prevails, anti-system beliefs will leave their mark, as evidenced by the rise of the Reform party in recent by-elections. Anti-establishment governments in Mexico, Indonesia, and India are facing reelection in 2024. All three countries register a strong majority belief that the system in their country is broken, attitudes that serve as the substructure of the leaders legitimacy. Although the final results havent been announced yet, Indonesias current Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, a former army general, has already won by a convincing margin. A sweep in these countries would strengthen the anti-system movement globally. Ultimately, there will be significant variability in anti-establishment outcomes around the world. However, when the final tally is taken, will the forces of entropy and disorder win out? Or will the establishment hold its own? We dont know. But what we do know is that popular disillusionment remains in the hearts and minds of global citizens. This should put us all on high alert. Clifford Young is the president of Ipsos. Chris Jackson is senior VP at Ipsos Public Affairs. More must-read commentary published by Fortune: The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com Jennifer Gollan is an investigative reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. She joined the Chronicle from the Center for Investigative Reporting, where she led national investigations that appeared in the Associated Press, the Guardian US and Politico Magazine. She also worked with PBS NewsHour and Al Jazeera Englishs Fault Lines on special television reports and documentaries. Her investigations have prompted sweeping changes in federal law that expanded the power of local and state police and prosecutors to crack down on abusers with illegal guns; congressional hearings and new legislation to thwart labor abuse in elder care homes; and a review by the Pentagon and federal legislation to protect workers building warships for the U.S. Navy. Projects she led have received various honors. In 2022, she received the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award for When Abusers Keep Their Guns, an investigation that exposed how perpetrators often kill their partners with firearms they possess unlawfully. Her work has also earned a national Emmy Award, a Hillman Prize for web journalism, two Sigma Delta Chi Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, a National Headliner Award, a Gracie Award and two Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing awards. She can be reached at jennifer.gollan@sfchronicle.com. A Family Dollar store in 2019. Photograph: Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images Family Dollar Stores has been ordered to pay $41.675m the largest criminal penalty in a food safety case after getting caught using a rodent-infested warehouse to distribute food, cosmetic and medical device products to more than 400 stores in the US. After conducting an investigation, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discovered live rodents, dead and decaying rodents, rodent feces, urine, and odors, and evidence of gnawing and nesting, according to a statement released by the US Department of Justice. Related: FDA removes 1,100 dead rodents from Arkansas Family Dollar facility In a federal court hearing in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Monday, Family Dollar pleaded guilty to using their distribution center located in West Memphis, Arkansas, to ship products to hundreds of stores across Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee. Family Dollar has more than 8,000 stores in all states except Alaska and Hawaii. The company began receiving complaints from some of its stores about issues with mice and other pests including receiving rodents and rodent-damaged products from the warehouse in August 2020. By January 2021, Family Dollar admitted it was aware of the unsanitary conditions of the warehouse which caused products there to be in violation of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). The following year, in January 2022, the extent of the unsanitary conditions of the warehouse was revealed after an FDA inspection, which found the presence of live, dead and decaying rodents along with feces, urine and other odors, as well as evidence of gnawing and nesting throughout the building. Subsequent fumigation of the building exterminated 1,270 rodents. Despite the brands awareness of the complaints from its stores, Family Dollar continued shipping products from the infested warehouse to its stores. The plea agreement requires Family Dollar and former rival Dollar Tree, which became the same company under the name Dollar Tree Inc in 2015, to give reports and meet robust corporate compliance over the next three years. When consumers go to the store, they have the right to expect that the food and drugs on the shelves have been kept in clean, uncontaminated conditions, said the Department of Justices acting associate attorney general Benjamin C Mizer. When companies violate that trust and the laws designed to keep consumers safe, the public should rest assured: the justice department will hold those companies accountable. In a statement shared by Dollar Tree Inc on Monday, the organization disclosed various enhancements to strengthen safety and compliance that it has developed in the wake of this penalty. Those enhancements include new compliance and safety roles, hiring experienced personnel to strengthen the Companys practices and new risk-based procedures and controls. The company also said that each of its distribution centers has passed an independent, third-party audit and became Good Distribution Practices (GDP) certified, with all distribution centers planning to maintain the distinguished certification. Dollar Trees chairman and CEO, Rick Dreiling, said in the statement that he was very disappointed to learn about these unacceptable issues at one of Family Dollars facilities when he joined the company in March 2022. Since that time and even more directly when I assumed the role of CEO, we have worked diligently to help Family Dollar resolve this historical matter and significantly enhance our policies, procedures, and physical facilities to ensure it is not repeated, he said. Family Dollar did not immediately respond to the Guardians request for comment. Bankrate and AOL may earn commission from links in this story. Pricing and availability subject to change. Key takeaways A home warranty is a service contract that covers the repair or replacement of major systems and appliances due to normal wear and tear. Its not the same as homeowners insurance, which protects your home from damaging events like fire. Home warranties have limitations in terms of coverage, and the provider can deny claims for many reasons, including improper maintenance. To decide if a home warranty is right for you, consider whether you already have builder or manufacturer warranties, the age of the homes systems and your ability to handle unexpected repairs. A home warranty can help alleviate some of the financial burden new homeowners face when a major appliance or home system fails. Youll pay for the warranty upfront, but the savings could be worth the added expense. Heres an overview of what a home warranty is, how much it costs and whether its worth it. What is a home warranty? A home warranty is a service contract that pays the cost of repair or replacement of covered items, such as major kitchen appliances, as well as electrical, plumbing, heating and air conditioning systems. A warranty doesnt cover windows, doors, floors or other structural features. Nor does it cover smaller or freestanding appliances, like countertop ovens or trash compactors. The warranty is designed to cover items that are in satisfactory, good working condition upon occupancy, and then fail due to normal wear and tear, says Mike Sadler, vice president of operations at Americas Preferred Home Warranty, based in Jackson, Michigan. Mortgage Generally, a home warranty wont cover damage caused by the homeowner, including damage due to lack of maintenance, like failing to replace a filter. The policy typically doesnt cover a manufacturer defect, pre-existing issue or items already covered by another warranty, either. At her listing appointments, Coleen Smith, a real estate agent with Portside Real Estate Group in Falmouth, Maine, routinely suggests to home sellers that they purchase a home warranty as a way to attract prospective buyers. She also recommends them to buyers, whether the seller offers one as a part of the sale or not. It depends on what I hear my clients saying their potential pain point is, says Smith. What is their concern or heartache about a property? Someone might say, I love this house except its on private systems, like a septic tank or a well, and I dont want to deal with it if it breaks. Learn more: How and why to sell a house as-is Keep in mind that agents sometimes recommend home warranties simply because they or their realty firm is partnered with the company youre under no obligation to buy one. What a home warranty covers HVAC system including air conditioners and heating units Electrical system Plumbing system including toilets and water heaters Major appliances including refrigerator, oven, washer and dryer Leaky roof Septic or well pumps What a home warranty doesnt cover Foundation issues Doors, walls or windows, including paint Flooring Non-major appliances such as a countertop microwave Hazard remediation including asbestos, mold and radon Is a home warranty different from homeowners insurance? Although they both offer homeowners financial protection, home warranties and homeowners insurance policies are not the same thing. Unlike a home warranty, homeowners insurance doesnt cover breakdowns due to normal wear and tear, but rather damage due to a covered event such as fire or theft. Homeowners insurance coverage extends to the structure of the home, as well, and if youre getting a mortgage, your lender will require you to have a policy. Youre never required to purchase a home warranty. Are home warranties worth it? The cost of a home warranty ranges from about $220 to $1,880 per year, according to HomeAdvisor. The plan can cost more if you want add-on coverage for areas like a guest house or swimming pool. Along with the plan cost, youll pay another fee for service calls, ranging from $75 to $125. Compare these costs to the cost of repairing a major system, such as central air, which can run up to $500 to repair or $7,900 to replace, according to HomeAdvisor. If you dont have money set aside for these expenses, a home warranty might more than pay for itself. One caveat, however: If the home is older and its systems are outdated, it might not be possible to repair something that breaks, since the parts might not be available. In this case, a home warranty likely wont give you the protection youre looking for. Ask the provider what your payment obligation would be if something cant be fixed. Of course, if you never have a problem, then youd have shelled out money unnecessarily. Ultimately, you have to decide if the peace of mind matters more than the expense. Should I get a home warranty? If youre buying a previously owned home, you might want to consider one, especially if your home inspection reveals that several of the homes appliances and systems are nearing their lifespan. Make sure you understand the terms and conditions of the home warranty, how long the coverage lasts and what it will and will not cover. As the buyer, always ask the seller what appliances or systems are currently under warranty, either through manufacturers warranties or a home warranty plan. If the seller has a home warranty, get the details about the policy so youll know when the coverage ends. Its also smart to ask for a maintenance history of the major components of the home. When to skip a home warranty Generally, its not worth purchasing a home warranty for a newly built home because youll wind up with duplicate coverage. Homebuyers who purchase new construction usually get some type of warranty from the builder for the homes materials and workmanship including plumbing, electrical, heating and cooling systems for one, two or up to 10 years. The builder warranty typically dont cover appliances, but those often come with a manufacturers warranty. In addition, some credit cards offer extended warranties on top of the manufacturers warranty with new purchases, so if you remodel your kitchen and pay for the new fridge or stove with plastic, it might not make sense to buy a home warranty for those appliances. In addition, if youre diligent with a maintenance schedule and have your homes systems annually serviced, that could help you avoid the problems a warranty might address. Pros and cons of home warranties While home warranties can be beneficial, they also have limitations and do not cover everything. Here are some of the benefits and drawbacks to keep in mind. Pros A home warranty can provide peace of mind if youre purchasing a home with used appliances and older systems that are long out of or missing warranties. If youre new to an area, you might not have established relationships with local contractors to help with repairs. The home warranty company takes care of finding and hiring a trusted professional. (Be sure to check on this, though some companies have you hire a local pro, then either reimburse you or pay that contractor directly. If its reimbursement, ask how the funds will be disbursed.) Not all homeowners have the DIY skills to handle repairs on their own, so having a home warranty to fall back on alleviates that worry. Home warranties tend to offer broader coverage than a manufacturers warranty, and often are good for a longer period of time. They can also be renewed. Cons Home warranty companies impose dollar limits per repair, per item or per year. These restrictions can vary greatly by provider. Youll have to pay a service call fee each time you have an issue. The home warranty company can deny claims if an item has not been properly maintained. This can be difficult to disprove if you dont have a record of prior maintenance. Home warranty companies determine whether to fix or replace a system or an item. If replacing an item, they might go with the cheapest model or one otherwise not to your liking. Online home warranty reviews Be wary of online reviews for home warranty providers. When you search for a provider, you might see some sites with generic domain names ostensibly listing the best home warranty companies. If you look up the company through the Better Business Bureau, though, you can see whether it has received complaints. Dont trust the customer testimonials that appear on a home warranty companys website, either. Youll likely find mostly five-star ratings and rave reviews. Bottom line You dont need to purchase a home warranty, but it could prove worthwhile on an existing home with some outdated systems or appliances. Its probably not worth getting if youre buying a new-construction home, as the builder issues its own warranty, and it might not be worth it if the home is very old, as certain replacement parts might not be available today. If you decide to buy a home warranty, take the time to closely review the contract details on standard and optional coverage, as well as the limitations. A young woman's slaying at the University of Georgia last week while she was out on a run has shattered the local community and put a national spotlight on violent crimes and the nation's immigration policies. Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was reported missing by a roommate on Thursday after she didn't return from a morning run. She was found dead later in the day in a wooded area. Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was arrested on murder and assault charges, and federal authorities said he entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 and was arrested at least once before. In a court filing reviewed by USA TODAY, authorities accused Ibarra of dragging Riley somewhere secluded and killing her, using an object to commit the crime. The records also accused him of "disfiguring" Riley's skull. The campus and surrounding community have been rocked by the death, turning attention toward enhancing security measures at UGA, while local runners think about their safety going forward. Riley "showed incredible wisdom throughout her friendships ... she was the best listener," said Chloe Mullis, the chapter president of the sorority Riley belonged to, at a vigil on campus Monday. Here's what we know about the case: This undated image provided by Augusta University shows Laken Riley, a nursing student whose body was found Feb. 22, 2024, on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. What happened to Laken Riley? Riley was previously a University of Georgia student but was studying nursing at Augusta Universitys Athens campus at the time of her death. A runner, she had gone out on a trail near the UGA intramural fields off College Station Road on Thursday morning. Her roommate reported her missing to campus police when she didn't return at around noon. A search of the area led to the discovery of her body in a wooded area. She had "visible injuries" when she was found, authorities said. The Athens-Clarke County coroner, Sonny Wilson, told USA TODAY that the preliminary cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head. Officials haven't said exactly how she was killed. In court documents, Ibarra was accused of "dragging the victim to a secluded area," "causing great bodily harm with an object," "disfiguring her skull," and preventing her from calling for help. Riley didn't know her accused killer, officials have said. Augusta University College of Nursing students attend a vigil on Monday for Laken Riley. What do we know about the murder suspect? Ibarra lived in an apartment complex just south of where Riley's body was found, police said. Police identified him using video from campus security and other technology. A citizen of Venezuela, Ibarra entered the U.S. in 2022 and was detained by authorities, who released him pending further immigration proceedings according to common practice at the time. It's unclear whether Ibarra has applied for asylum in the U.S. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, New York police charged Ibarra in August 2023 with a vehicle license violation and child endangerment. Ibarra had been driving a scooter without a license and had a child with him who was not wearing a helmet, The New York Times reported, citing a law enforcement official. He was released by police there before ICE could file a detainer, federal officials said. Ibarra was charged in Riley's death with murder, assault, battery, kidnapping, hindering Riley from calling 911 and concealment of a death, according to court records. Attorneys for Ibarra didn't respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY on Wednesday. Authorities said they believe the crime was committed by Ibarra alone. His brother, Diego Ibarra, 29, was also arrested late last week and charged with possessing a fake green card, court records show. Immigration debate focuses on slaying suspect Riley's death has become a flashpoint for a heated and partisan debate over U.S. immigration policies. Georgia Republicans are blaming President Joe Biden for the suspect's presence in the country and Democrats are decrying the politicization of a tragedy. Gov. Brian Kemp and former President Donald Trump have both laid the blame on the current president, accusing "failed policies" of allowing violent crime to persist in the country. Their claims tie unlawful immigration to an increase of violent crimes, despite studies that suggest native-born U.S. residents are more likely to be arrested for violent crimes than undocumented immigrants. "The American people know exactly what happened," Kemp told Fox News. "This president ... did not (secure the border). ... Now we have a dead young woman because of it." The White House, meanwhile, has said its condolences are with Riley's family. People should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law if they are found to be guilty, administration spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez said. Contributing: The Athens Banner-Herald; The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: After former UGA student Laken Riley slain, immigration debate sparked Mac Sinise is pictured in 2017 as his father, Gary Sinise, receives his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Actor Gary Sinise is sharing the heartbreaking details of his son McCanna "Mac" Anthony, Sinise's death earlier this year. Gary Sinise, known for playing Lt. Dan Taylor in "Forrest Gump" and Mac Taylor on "CSI: NY," revealed the news of the 33-year-old's death on social media Tuesday, which referred followers to a lengthy letter he wrote in his son's memory on the Gary Sinise Foundation's website. Mac Sinise died Jan. 5 after a five-year battle with chordoma, a rare type of cancer found in the spine. In his final years, he was dedicated to working with his father's foundation and making music. "Like any family experiencing such a loss, we are heartbroken and have been managing as best we can. As parents, it is so difficult losing a child. My heart goes out to all who have suffered a similar loss, and to anyone who has lost a loved one. We've all experienced it in some way," Gary Sinise wrote in his tribute to his son. "Our family's cancer fight lasted for 5 years, and it became more and more challenging as time went on," his message continued. "While our hearts ache at missing him, we are comforted in knowing that Mac is no longer struggling, and inspired and moved by how he managed it. He fought an uphill battle against a cancer that has no cure, but he never quit trying." Gary Sinise shared his son and wife, Moira, were both diagnosed with cancer within months of each other in 2018. Mac Sinise finished making musical album right before his death The Emmy-, Tony- and Golden Globe-winning actor shared the successes and trials his son experienced after he received his diagnosis in 2018. In August 2018, Mac Sinise was diagnosed with chordoma two months after his mother, Moira, was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. Though his mom underwent several months of treatment and has since been in remission, Mac Sinise went on to undergo multiple surgeries as well as radiation and chemotherapy. Several months after his tumor was removed, in May 2019, his cancer had recurred and was spreading. "This began a long battle that disabled him more and more as time went on," Gary Sinise wrote. "The cancer fight was getting harder, but throughout most of 2019 he was still able to come to the GSF office, until a third spine surgery in November of that year." In 2023, Mac Sinise was mostly paralyzed from the chest down but used the limited mobility in his right arm and the fingers of his left hand to make music in his hospital bed. He had been an "exceptional drummer," his father remembered, and learned how to play the harmonica amid his medical treatments, which inspired him to embark on a musical project an album called "Resurrection & Revival." "The week the album went to press, Mac lost his battle with cancer. He died on January 5, 2024 at 3:25pm, and was laid to rest on January 23rd," Gary Sinise wrote. "Thank you, Mac. You did it. Resurrection & Revival will live on. And so will you. In our hearts forever." The album is available for pre-order on the Gary Sinise Foundation's website, with funds going toward the organization. The 501(c)(3) charity works with "veterans, first responders, their families, and those in need" and creates programs "designed to entertain, educate, inspire, strengthen, and build communities." "In sharing our story, we hope to shine a little bit of light on what has been a difficult time for us as Mac was truly a light for all of us. An incredible inspiration to those who knew and loved him, he faced his battle with grace, courage, and love," Gary Sinise wrote. "Even with one setback after another, he never stopped living and learning, creating, and giving, and loving." What is chordoma? According to the National Cancer Institute, chordoma is "a slow growing cancer of tissue found inside the spine," with most patients receiving their diagnoses in their 50s and 60s, though only one in a million people worldwide are diagnosed each year. Per the NCI, "Chordomas form from the left-over cells that were important in the development of the spine before birth." "Many people dont notice any change in their bodies for years," according to the NCI. "When they do start to have symptoms, it can take a while for the chordoma to be discovered and diagnosed." Cancer in your 20s: Woman living with terminal cancer documents her story on TikTok This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gary Sinise's son McCanna Anthony dead at 33 from chordoma cancer The market buzz around generative AI comes with heightened scrutiny, as Google (GOOG, GOOGL) was painfully reminded for the second time. The search giant said this week that it plans to relaunch its Gemini AI image generator after some users on social media showed how prompts for historical images of people generated inaccurate or unexpected results, in what critics called anti-White bias. One viral post appeared to show a Gemini result for "a portrait of a Founding Father of America" that included a Black man and a Native American man. Other examples of image and text results prompted disapproval from prominent figures, including X owner Elon Musk, who has previously criticized the perceived liberal bias of AI tools. The incident marks the latest misstep from Google as it scrambles for positioning in the blossoming market for AI products and plays catch up to Microsoft (MSFT) and its AI partner OpenAI. Shares of Alphabet, Google's parent company, fell almost 5% this week after the announcement that it hit pause on the tool. In a memo to staff on Tuesday, CEO Sundar Pichai said, "I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias to be clear, thats completely unacceptable, and we got it wrong." Rob Sanderson, managing director at Loop Capital, said the PR blunder suggests that Google is trailing and misperforming in the high-stakes space for generative AI and that questions surrounding its standing and search dominance will pressure its valuation. "Google seems to be handling product introduction in a way unlike Google of the past," he said. "We think that Google is in the unfamiliar position in not being the leader in a core, [machine learning]-driven technology. Google is trying hard to catch up and now needs to go backward to repair a core technology component while dealing with a major PR blunder, or possibly something worse." Google's first AI fumble came a year ago when the company released a demo of its AI chatbot, Bard, a few months after ChatGPT exploded onto the scene. Google's chatbot spit out an inaccurate response in a promotional video that was widely circulated online. In the immediate aftermath, skittish investors wiped $100 billion from Google's market value just as Microsoft's fortunes climbed. Google explained in a recent blog post that it tuned its Gemini image generation tool to show a range of people of different ethnicities and other characteristics but that it failed to account for cases that should not depict diversity. Some observers noted that the company's long-held supremacy in search might have fostered a stifled culture among employees that ultimately showed up in the tool. "Many suggest that a cultural bias toward social issues is so deeply entwined in Googles engineering that its being reflected in its most advanced AI products," said Sanderson. Alison Taylor, a professor at New York University whose research focuses on business ethics and social impact, said the apparent overcorrection of injecting diversity initiatives into the tech also highlights the awkward position Google and others find themselves in. "Do these AI tools reflect the accurate fact that society is racist, or do they try to correct and the result is the absurdity that we see?" she said. Like prior episodes involving Bud Light (BUD) and Target (T), Google has attracted the ire of a subset of conservatives who see corporate America's attempts at inclusivity as antagonistic and ham-fisted. In this photo illustration a Gemini logo and a welcome message on Gemini website are displayed on two screens in L'Aquila, Italy, on Feb. 12, 2024. (Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images) (NurPhoto via Getty Images) Last year, conservative outcry aimed at Target and Bud Light's support of the LGBTQ community damaged the brands' financials. Experts said the companies inflamed the fierce negative publicity by appearing to back down, which drew criticism from the customers who opposed the company's actions and those that the brands were originally trying to appeal to. The two companies, at least for a time, served as cautionary tales within marketing circles for seeming to not know their audience and for bumbling corporate responses to political boycotts. But Wall Street has largely moved on. Both stocks have recovered from earlier losses. The market may not be as forgiving toward Google, however. For those opposed to diversity initiatives, the recent incident looks like inclusivity run amok. For AI critics, it highlights the mad dash to deliver a product and the clumsy attempts to fix the biases of AI models. And for Wall Street it highlights another danger of Google playing from behind. "We think that Googles uncertain position in [generative] AI and long-term implications will be a growing 'wall of worry' for investors at a minimum and the beginning of secular decline in the worst case," Sanderson said. Hamza Shaban is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering markets and the economy. Follow Hamza on Twitter @hshaban. Click here for the latest technology news that will impact the stock market. Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he wants to find ways to make state psychiatric beds more available and help county jails provide mental health services to inmates. Nine out of 10 beds in state psychiatric hospitals are occupied by people sent there by the courts, leaving no space for others in mental health crisis. "The statistic of 93% of the beds in psychiatric hospitals being occupied, that the average person who has a mental health problem or you have someone in your family, and they've not committed a crime, they can't get in there," Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday. "That's crazy." DeWine said he wants to fix that as well as help county jails provide mental health services to incarcerated people. The governor said he'll soon appoint a group of experts judges, sheriffs, mental health professionals to make specific recommendations. Courts send people to the state hospitals so they can be restored to mental competency and then able to stand trial often for minor crimes. "We know that the court has to be able to put that person somewhere, but our state hospitals probably are not the most appropriate place for most of them to be," DeWine said. "The guy who stole a piece of pizza, he's occupying space that someone, who if we could get them in there in a reasonable period of time, you might totally save their life and turn their life around." Why doesn't Ohio have enough psych beds? Since the 1950s, Ohio and other states closed mental health hospitals and promised to treat those patients in local facilities. "We said we were going to stop warehousing people, deinstitutionalize most of them, and then at the same time build up a local, county-by-county system," DeWine said. "We didn't do it." Ninety-three percent of the state's 1,100 beds in its six psychiatric hospitals are occupied by people sent there by the courts to be restored to competency so they can stand trial. Gov. Mike DeWine said he wants to find ways to make the beds more available to others and to help jails provide mental health services to inmates. Ohio closed two state hospitals, Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare in Dayton and Appalachian Behavioral Healthcare in Cambridge in 2008 to help balance the state budget. Six state hospitals remain open. DeWine pointed out that it's not just an Ohio problem. Nationwide, states closed 62 psychiatric hospitals between 1997 and 2015 and since the 1950s, there has been a 91% decrease in state beds, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. In 2019, following the mass shooting in Dayton, DeWine called for a change in how Ohio uses its state psychiatric beds. Jails: de facto mental health hospitals One in three inmates in Ohio have a mental illness, forcing jails to act as the de facto treatment centers, according to the Stepping Up Initiative, which seeks to divert people with serious mental illnesses from lockups. "More people with mental illnesses are sitting, untreated, in local jails than ever before," the group said. "Across the nation and in Ohio, jails have become revolving doors for people with mental illnesses." Evelyn Stratton, a former Ohio Supreme Court justice who leads Stepping Up, said the state lacks places to take people experiencing mental health crises so they often end up in jails. Jails need to provide medication assisted treatment for those suffering from opiate withdrawals, psychotropic drugs and therapy for people and train guards in crisis intervention techniques, she said. Stratton said jails need to link people to services, such as Medicaid, before they are released and communities need to build out more supportive housing so people have stable places to live. She agrees with the governor that existing state hospital beds need to be more available. Her answer is to shift to outpatient treatment for many of the people being restored to competency before standing trial. A way to shift health care costs Roughly 300,000 people are booked into Ohio's 89 full-service jails each year and the state prison system holds about 45,000 people. Most of them qualify for health care via Medicaid, a state and federally funded program. But federal rules block Medicaid coverage for inmates. Ohio prisons and jails have focused on making sure Medicaid coverage is re-started as soon as people leave incarceration. Some states have applied for a special waiver from the federal government to have Medicaid cover medical costs for inmates close to release. The waiver would mean the federal government would pay about 60% of the tab for some inmates' medical costs. When asked why Ohio Medicaid hasn't applied for that waiver, DeWine said: "I will look at that." Laura Bischoff is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio seeks fixes to jail mental health crisis and lack of psych beds Washington Hunter Biden testified Wednesday before two GOP-led House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, telling lawmakers in a closed-door deposition that his father was not involved in his various business deals. In a prepared opening statement, the younger Biden contested the premise of the inquiry, saying he "did not involve my father in my business," while noting that his testimony "should put an end to this baseless and destructive political charade." "For more than a year, your Committees have hunted me in your partisan political pursuit of my dad," he said in his prepared remarks. "You have trafficked in innuendo, distortion, and sensationalism all the while ignoring the clear and convincing evidence staring you in the face. You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father because there isn't any." Republicans on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees have long sought Hunter Biden's testimony, moving last month toward holding him in contempt of Congress before he agreed to testify voluntarily. They argued that Hunter Biden's testimony was a "critical component" of their impeachment inquiry, which has centered around allegations that the president profited off of his family members' foreign business dealings while he was vice president. Hunter Biden arrives for a deposition related to the impeachment inquiry of his father, President Biden, conducted by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 28, 2024. / Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images But the inquiry has yet to uncover any evidence of impeachable offenses, and was dealt a blow when the Trump-appointed special counsel investigating Hunter Biden charged a one-time FBI informant for allegedly lying about the president and his son accepting $5 million bribes from a Ukrainian energy company. Prosecutors also revealed in a court filing last week that the informant, Alexander Smirnov, claimed he had ties to Russian intelligence officials. The claims that prosecutors now say are false have been central to Republicans' argument that the president acted improperly to benefit his family's foreign business dealings. Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, said the charges show the impeachment inquiry is "based on dishonest, uncredible allegations and witnesses." The White House has dismissed the impeachment inquiry as a "baseless political stunt." "They have produced no evidence that would do anything to support the notion that there was any financial transactions that involved Hunter with his father, period," Lowell said Wednesday after the seven-hour deposition. "Hunter spent nearly seven hours today answering questions from members and staff truthfully and completely," Lowell said in another statement later Wednesday. "He could not have been clearer that there was no time that he involved his father in any of his businesses. And, the Republicans provided not one shred of evidence to the contrary because none exists." House Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said he is moving the impeachment inquiry into its "next phase," which includes a public hearing with Hunter Biden. Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, doubted earlier in the day that Hunter Biden would ever testify publicly. "This thing is over," Swalwell told reporters. "I promise you, despite Comer saying that he's going to have a public hearing from Hunter Biden, we are never going to see Hunter Biden testify publicly because this is embarrassing. They will never bring this public. It's embarrassing." Comer said in a statement Tuesday that his committee's investigation has revealed that "Joe Biden was 'the brand' his family sold to enrich" themselves. "Joe Biden attended dinners, spoke on speakerphone, showed up to meetings, and had coffee with his son's foreign business associates," Comer said. A former business associate of Hunter Biden testified last year that the younger Biden would occasionally put his father on speakerphone at business meetings, but they never discussed business on the calls. The associate said the then-vice president was put on the phone to help Hunter Biden sell "the brand." Hunter Biden's attorney has said any interaction between his client's business associates and his father "was simply to exchange small talk." Republicans argue that those instances show the president was involved in his son's foreign business dealings, which the president and his son have repeatedly denied. Lawmakers heard testimony last week from the president's brother, James Biden, who said the president "never had any involvement" in the business dealings of other members of his family. "I have had a 50-year career in a variety of business ventures. Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest in those activities," the president's younger brother told lawmakers behind closed doors, according to his opening statement obtained by CBS News. "None." Hunter Biden was indicted on nine tax charges in California in December for failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes between 2016 and 2019, while he was struggling with addiction. He has since paid off the back taxes, with the help of a loan from Kevin Morris, a Hollywood attorney. Morris testified in January to lawmakers, denying that he used the loans to Hunter Biden to gain access and influence in the White House. "I did not and do not have any expectations of receiving anything from Hunter's father or the Biden administration in exchange for helping Hunter, nor have I asked for anything from President Biden or his administration. My only goal was and is to help my friend and client," he said in a statement after testifying. In addition to the tax charges, Hunter Biden was indicted on three federal gun charges in Delaware that allege he lied about his drug use to buy a gun that he possessed for 11 days in 2018. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him. Nikole Killion, Ellis Kim and Jenna Gibson contributed reporting. Police body camera footage released of shooting at Lakewood Church The Smokehouse Creek Fire spreads, extending its reach from Texas to Oklahoma Fast-moving wildfires torch the Texas Panhandle A Michigan court has thwarted Kristina Karamos efforts to remain in control of the state Republican Party, issuing a preliminary injunction Tuesday that bars her from conducting party business. Kent County Circuit Judge J. Joseph Rossi issued the decision hours before polls closed in the states presidential primary and days ahead of a Michigan GOP convention that will determine how delegates for this summers Republican National Convention are allocated. Rossis order also could end a long dispute between Karamo, who was ousted as chair in a vote by party insiders last month, and former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who had been selected as her replacement. The sides have been on a collision course that could culminate in a crisis Saturday if Karamo goes forward with plans to host a rival convention. The ruling Tuesday, though, prohibits Karamo from holding herself out as Chair of the Michigan Republican State Committee, calling any meeting of the Michigan Republican State Committee and conducting, or attempting to conduct, any business in the name of the Michigan Republican State Committee or the Michigan Republican Party. Rossi made his order, which grants a request from anti-Karamo operatives, retroactive to Jan. 6 the date he determined Karamo had been properly ousted as chair. The Republican National Committee had already sided with Hoekstra, recognizing him last month as the rightful chair and ruling that Karamo had been removed properly. Hoekstra, whose bid to take over as state party chairman also had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, said in a statement shortly after Tuesdays ruling: The MIGOP State Committee, the RNC, President Trump and now a court of law have all reviewed the January 6th meeting and there is unanimous agreement that the former Chair was properly removed, and I was elected as the new Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. It is time to unite and move forward with the business delivering the state of Michigan for our Partys presumptive nominee, Donald J. Trump, he said. Representatives for Karamo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Karamo has refused to leave the post, even after Trump and the RNC weighed in against her. She has maintained access to the Michigan GOP bank, email and social media accounts, hamstringing Hoekstra's efforts to take full control of the party. Rossi's order Tuesday also prohibits Karamo from accessing party bank accounts and "engaging in any communication, including on social media, that purports to be issued on behalf of the Michigan State Republican Committee or the Michigan Republican Party." Karamo, the GOPs losing candidate for Michigan secretary of state in 2022, faced criticism from party insiders and activists, including onetime supporters. Her detractors believe that she failed to deliver on promises of transparency and reform and that poor financial and fundraising choices had mired the party in money troubles. Andriy Onufriyenko - Getty Images "Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Mathematicians show soft cell shapes are abundant in natural world. Soft cells are described as natural tiles with curved edgesa stark contrast to the mathematical solutions for creating tiling shapes. The soft cells then smoothly deform into tiles and work in both two and three dimensions. A team of researchers revealed how theoretical mathematical concepts take on a real-world life when discovering a completely new soft cell shape that crossed over from mathematical possibility to abundant natural example. Mathematicians have long enjoyed the study of shapes. Using sharp edges and plenty of points, theyve dedicated centuries to seeing just how these shapes fit together for infinite tiling ability. But the equations used in mathematical shaping, with their hard lines and sharp points, dont generally lead to a lot of crossover with nature. A team of researchers from Budapest University of Technology recently announced that they have uncovered a new natural class of shape that tiles with curved edges. They uploaded their findings to the preprint server arXiv. Dubbed both soft cells and z-cells, these shapes lack the telltale corners of theoretical math, but still fit together in both two dimensions and three dimensions. A central problem of geometry is the tiling of space with simple structures, the authors wrote. The classical solutions, such as triangles, squares, and hexagons in the plane and cubes and other polyhedral in three-dimensional space are built with sharp corners and flat faces. However, many tilings in nature are characterized by shapes with curved edges, non-flat faces, and few, if any, sharp corners. An important question is then to relate prototypical sharp tilings to softer natural shapes. The team believes that theyve solved the problem of dimensions with this new infinite class of polyhedral tilings that can smoothly deform into soft tiles and construct soft versions of cells generally associated with point lattices in both two and three dimensions. These shapes emerge in art, but also in biology, study lead Gabor Domokos, told the New Scientist. If you look at sections of muscle tissue, youll see the cells having just two sharp corners, which is one less than the triangleit is a very special kind of tiling. Remarkably, these ideal soft shapes, born out of geometry, are found abundantly in nature, from cells to shells, the team wrote. In two dimensions, these soft shell shapes are pretty easy to describeaccording to the paper, they are cells with curved boundaries which have only two corners. In the three-dimensional space, things get a little more complicated, but the goal is the same: let things be bendy and minimize the amount of corners present. In 3D, a soft cell shape can have no corners at all. We found that architects have found these kinds of shapes intuitively when they wanted to avoid corners, Domokos said. A central part of the paper shows how seashells emerge as a natural example of the shape. Known to form from multiple chambers, shell growth appears to follow a regulated pattern. Using a CT scanner, the team found that when they measured the shells in three dimensions, they couldnt find corners, even though a two-dimensional view of the shell looked different. That led the team to believe that a seashell offers the prime example of the soft cell shape. It also shows how nature is far beyond our current understanding of geometry. You Might Also Like The Directors of Allied Farmers Limited (ALF.NZX) report an unaudited consolidated net profit before tax (NPBT) of $1.945 million for the six months ended 31 December 2023. This is slightly lower than NPBT of $2.129 million for the six months ended 31 December 2022. The following table summarises consolidated NPBT over the previous interim periods from Allied Farmers investments and Parent Company Operations: [See table in attached PDF] Profit attributable to Allied Farmerss shareholders reflecting its 67.7% ownership of NZFL and 100% of NZRLM The HY24 after tax profit attributable to Allied Farmers shareholders was $1.423 million (HY23 $1.585 million). Earnings per share (EPS) for HY24 was $0.0494 (HY23 $0.055). Dividend Consistent with previous interim periods, no dividend will be paid for the period, as the Company continues to utilise tax losses and therefore paying unimputed dividends does not make sense. The Board strongly believes that in the short term, retaining and redeploying earnings is in shareholders best interests. Tax Losses The estimated tax losses available at 31 December 2023 are $178,712,009 (HY22: $187,935,558). The ability to utilise the tax losses is dependent on continuing to meet shareholder continuity requirements of prevailing income tax legislation. Business Segment Reports New Zealand Farmers Livestock Limited (NZFL) - 67% owned: NZFL reports a half year result improved on the previous half year. This was driven by a strong veal processing spring campaign. Livestock agency performance was impacted by weather, grass and market conditions, to be behind the previous half year. Dairy stock values were softer, but held up well in the face of earlier financial pressure on dairy farmers. Recent increased payout forecasts have improved dairy confidence and outlook, and may offer some support to volumes and prices through the second half. The anticipated La Nina drought saw high Australian meat supply volumes into global (particularly sheep meat) markets, but this pressure has now subsided. Widespread severe NZ drought impact is now unlikely, though localized regional droughts may contribute to second half trading tallies. It is very early in the year to gauge full year dairy herd forward sales (generally completing and accounted in June). There is encouraging current activity and contracting, though early indications are that these will be behind last years quite strong result. The livestock financing business earnings were significantly higher than the previous half year, driven by the Heartland Bank referral-based arrangement, and an increased own-funded seasonal lending peak. Directors are pleased with the growth and prospects of this business, and with the contribution this has made to clients businesses through challenging times. NZFL continues to develop its digital presence and tools, to enhance client services, and to add value to its client experience. NZFL Outlook: NZFL is focused on national growth, digital innovation, improving agent performance, and cost management. Effort continues to enhance livestock agency service, volumes, and market share, and to grow the veal processing contribution, with work to refine calf supply chain integration, grow volumes, further improve our partnering outcomes. Directors are optimistic that NZFL performance will benefit from the indications of improving wider agribusiness conditions, and from the teams continuing agility and innovation. NZ Rural Land Management Limited Partnership (NZRLM) 100% owned NZRLM is the external manager of NZX-listed New Zealand Rural Land Company Limited (NZL). NZL did not complete any asset transactions in the HY to 31 December 2023, and therefore NZRLM was not paid any transaction fees in the period. However, NZLs rural portfolio increased in value, from which NZRLM received performance fees. The performance fees are paid to NZRLM by the issue of NZL shares. Subsequent to balance date (on 9 February 2024), NZL sold 25% of its rural land portfolio to Australia-based Roc Partners, with the portfolio now held by a Limited Partnership owned 75/25% by NZL/Roc Partners. NZRLM continues to manage all of the portfolio of rural assets for both NZL and Roc Partners following the sale. This transaction will result in a 1.25% transaction fee to NZRLM, a material amount of which is to recover transaction costs incurred by NZRLM. Also subsequent to balance date (on 20 February 2024) the Limited Partnership entered agreements to acquire Hawkes Bay apple orchard land, and forestry land located in close proximity to its existing estates, for a total purchase cost of approximately $27.6 million. These transactions will result in transaction fees to NZRLM of 1.25% of NZLs proportion of Limited Partnership ownership, a material amount of which is to recover transaction costs incurred by NZRLM. NZRLM Outlook: The outlook for NZRLM remains positive, driven by a larger opportunity set for NZL and an expanding international investor base at NZL. The Roc Partners transaction has been a significant validation of strategy by an expert external party with extensive agricultural experience, as evidenced by the material uplift in share price since the deal was announced. Roc Partners was attracted to NZLs sector-leading deal-flow in New Zealand and will continue to partner on funding future deals, which should lead to an uplift in assets under management, NAV accretion, and thus income for NZRLM. Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: SKC - APPOINTMENT OF CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER NWF - Chief Executive Officer Warren Koia Resignation March 18th Morning Report Pacific Edge Directors Give Notice of Retirement Meridian Energy monthly operating report for February 2024 Another unworkable farming rule bites the dust March 14th Morning Report TRU - Truscreen Additional Placement Government's employment relations priorities a welcome step in the right direction says EMA New Synlait & Nestle co-investment partnership The funeral service for Russia's most prominent opposition figure, Alexey Navalny, will be held on Friday at a church in the Moscow neighborhood where he lived, his press secretary said Wednesday. "Alexey's funeral service will take place in the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God 'Relieve My Sorrows' in Maryino on March 1 at 14:00. Come early." Navalny's ally Kira Yarmysh said on social media. "The funeral will take place at the Borisov Cemetery." Navalny, 47, died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16. His family, who have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of having his long-time foe murdered in the prison, fought for over a week to have his body returned to them. It was finally handed over to his mother on Saturday. Navalny's own message to the world, "if they decide to kill me" Yarmysh said at one point that Russian authorities had threatened to bury Navalny at the prison where he died if his family didn't agree to a closed funeral, but that his mother "refused to negotiate... because they have no authority to decide how and where to bury her son." People across Russia honored Navalny over the weekend by leaving flowers at public monuments, gathering at churches and holding single-person protests. Over 400 people were detained by Russian authorities as they sought contain the outpouring of support for Navalny, according to the OVD-Info rights group, which tracks political arrests and provides legal aid. Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, said finding a place that would host the funeral was difficult because of government interference. Finally, Zhdanov said the family and Navalny's allies were unable to secure a large space in Moscow. "Everywhere, they refused to give us anything. Somewhere, they directly referred to the ban," Zhdanov said. "There will be no hall. Bastards. They don't give a date. They don't provide a hall. Everyone will say goodbye to Alexey anyway." Navalny, who survived at least two suspected assassination attempts with poison, including an attack with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020, was the most outspoken critic of Putin's government before he was imprisoned in 2021. He was initially handed a nine-year sentence in a high-security prison for parole violations, fraud and contempt of court, but was later convicted of promoting "extremism." His sentence was extended by 19 years in August 2023, and Navalny was transferred to another high-security prison with a reputation for abuse known as the "torture conveyor belt" which raised further concerns about his safety. "Without public protection, Alexey will be face to face with those who have already tried to kill him, and nothing will stop them from trying again," his spokesperson, Yarmysh, said after the court's decision. "We are now talking not only about Alexey's freedom, but also about his life." Navalny and many outside observers always considered the charges against him baseless political retaliation for his criticism of Putin and the Kremlin's policies, both foreign and domestic. The U.S. State Department also considered his prosecution and imprisonment "politically motivated." In a speech on Wednesday, Navalny's wife, Yulia, said the international community could not deal with Putin like a politician. "It is impossible to hurt Putin with another resolution or another package of sanctions that is no different from the previous ones. It is impossible to defeat him by thinking of him as a man of principles. With morals. With rules," she said. "He is not like that, and Alexey realized this a long time ago. You are not dealing with a politician, but with a bloody mafioso." She called on the international community to "fight the Putin mafia" with "methods that are used to fight organized crime, and not for political competition," and she again pledged to continue her husband's work. "Putin must answer for what he did to my country. Putin must answer for what he did to a neighboring, peaceful country. Putin must answer for everything he did to Alexey," she said. "My husband will not see what the beautiful Russia of the future will be like, but we should see it. And I will do my best to make his dream come true - so that evil will retreat and the future will come." The Smokehouse Creek Fire spreads, extending its reach from Texas to Oklahoma Leap Day Babies: A birthday every four years Lloyd Austin testifies about hospitalization: "I did not handle it right" Two people have been charged with stealing millions of dollars in benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program out of a New York City bodega one of them owned. Dawood Kassim, 31, and Dia Alqalisi, 26, allegedly made thousands of transactions through SNAP, formerly known as the food stamp program, out of a bodega in Brooklyn that Kassim owned, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said in a news release Tuesday. Typically through the SNAP Program, which uses federal tax dollars to subsidize low-income households, recipients use an Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) card to make purchases for household needs and food. From April 2022 through December 2022, Kassim and Alqalisi allowed SNAP recipients to exchange their benefits for cash or non-SNAP eligible goods like beer at Throop Farm Market in Bedford-Stuyvesant, prosecutors said. In turn, they kept a portion of the benefits for themselves as payment, they added. Kassim also allegedly stole SNAP benefits from unsuspecting victims by using counterfeit and stolen SNAP EBT cards at the bodega, the release said. The victims of the defendants crimes included recipients of SNAP benefits residing in Tennessee, Virginia and California, among other states, prosecutors said. In total, through these trafficked and stolen transactions, the duo received more than $20 million dollars in federally funded SNAP benefits, including over $7 million dollars worth of SNAP benefits from accounts of recipients living outside of New York. They were arrested Tuesday morning and charged with SNAP fraud, access device fraud and unlawful monetary transactions, according to an indictment. It's not immediately clear if they have retained attorneys. Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, condemned the defendants' actions saying they "illegally" profited from benefits intended for "those in need of nutritious meals which is especially vital in these times of high food costs." The arrests today should be a wakeup call to those who think government programs are a piggy bank they can pillage without fear of consequences, he added. Lawmakers in both chambers of the Alabama Legislature have introduced bills looking to protect providers who administer in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, following the state Supreme Courts Feb. 16 ruling that frozen embryos are children under state law. The courts ruling also meant hospitals and doctors that perform failed IVF procedures could face charges related to the wrongful death of a minor. Multiple health systems in the state paused IVF treatments after the ruling was handed down. Experts say the new standard could make the treatment more expensive and inaccessible, though it does not make it illegal. Amid the fallout from the decision, Republicans in the state and nationally have backed IVF, saying they support expanding access to the treatment. State Sen. Tim Melson (R) introduced new legislation in the state Senate. Senate Bill 159 aims to provide civil and criminal immunity to persons providing goods and services related to in vitro fertilization except acts of omission that are intentional and not arising from or related to IVF services. State Rep. Terri Collins (R) introduced a companion bill in the House. Collinss bill is retroactive and would automatically repeal on June 1, 2025, while Melsons would repeal on April 1, 2025. The upper chambers bill is pending in the states Senate Healthcare Committee, while the House bill will be heard by the state House Health Committee on Wednesday. While IVF is not outlawed in Alabama, fertility experts said the ruling has upended how IVF is practiced and left far more questions than answers. In a concurring opinion in the ruling, Chief Justice Tom Parker said IVF will look different but wont end in the state. He added that courts will dictate how IVF can be performed in a way that wont cause harm to the unborn children. Despite the introduced legislation, Democrats are blaming Republicans for backtracking on IVF. GOP leaders across all levels of the ballot are trying to walk back attacks on IVF because they know their extremism is out of step with voters but Republicans have been the sole assailants of attacks on reproductive freedoms, Sam Paisley, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee press secretary, said in a statement. Voters wont forget this, nor the state legislative Democrats who answered the call to protect reproductive rights of all kinds. While only limited to Alabama, the ruling has far-reaching potential and may open the door to more battles over reproductive rights. It also comes nearly two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, ending the federal right to abortion. Updated at 10:55 a.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. President Joe Biden easily won Michigans Democratic primary Tuesday, NBC News projects, in a contest whose only real drama came from a grassroots effort to cast protest votes over his handling of the war in Gaza. A Biden victory over his rival, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., was never in doubt. The only question was the extent to which a loose-knit movement displeased with his failure to rein in the Israeli military would cut into his margin by voting uncommitted. Follow live updates here. The share of uncommitted vote Tuesday stood at 14%, with 33% of expected votes counted. For comparison purposes, when Barack Obama ran for re-election in 2012, the uncommitted vote in Michigans Democratic primary was 11%. Among those voting "uncommitted" was Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who is Palestinian American. "President Biden is not hearing us," Tlaib said in a video posted on X. With Phillips failing to gain any momentum in his long-shot bid, Bidens attention is firmly directed at the general election and a looming rematch with his 2020 opponent, former President Donald Trump, who NBC News projected has won the Michigan GOP primary. A Biden campaign aide, speaking in the days before Michigan's contest, described the race as uncompetitive. Were really focused on the general election, the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely. As for the "vote uncommitted" movement, the aide added: "This primary is uncompetitive, so people will use this time to speak their minds." High-profile surrogates visited Michigan on Bidens behalf before the primary, speaking to union, minority and suburban voters whose support is crucial in a state Biden must win in November. Looking to mobilize voters, they touted Biden's record and warned of the consequences of a Trump sequel. Michigan Holds Its Primary Election (Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images) Vice President Kamala Harris went to Grand Rapids last week to discuss abortion rights, an issue that Democratic strategists believe will galvanize suburban women in the fall. The people of Michigan cannot sit back and take comfort without also understanding that elections matter and that there is a full-on, concerted effort to pass a national ban, which would mean the people of Michigan would not be safe, Harris said. More so than any of the other primaries to date, the Michigan contest was a referendum of sorts on Bidens support for Israel in its war with Hamas. The mounting death toll in Gaza and Bidens refusal to demand a permanent cease-fire have damped his support inside his party. Carol Reynoso, a Democrat from Dearborn who voted for Biden in 2020 and cast a vote Tuesday for uncommitted," said in an interview: I think its a great opportunity to get the message to the administration that people in Michigan are concerned about whats going on and that theres a large group of people that want a cease-fire. Organizers of the vote uncommitted campaign hoped that if they could cut into Bidens margin in Michigan, they could pressure him to change course and use his leverage with the Israeli government to pull back its forces. If the uncommitted vote exceeds 15% in any congressional districts or statewide, Michigan will send at least some delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August who are not pledged to Biden. There is not much time for Biden to reunify a party that has splintered over the war, some Democrats said. Even if Biden were to bring about a cease-fire in Gaza, there would still need to be a healing period before Democrats were again comfortable with his leadership, said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who met with students and Arab leaders in Michigan last week. There needs to be an urgent course correction, and by that I dont mean months, Khanna said in an interview. I mean weeks. And there will have to be thinking and strategy for how we win back this community. "There needs to be an understanding that when there's a course correction there still needs to be time for healing and for the anger to subside, he added. Its not going to be 'OK, the president called for a cease-fire and the war is over,' and two days later you have everyone suddenly behind the president." Anger toward Biden is hard to miss. At a Mexican restaurant in Lansing last week, the Ingham County Democratic Party met and passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire. The vote was unanimous, with Jewish members among those voting in favor. Marshall Clabeaux, 30, sponsored the resolution. He is a loyal Democrat who estimates that he has knocked on more doors for Democratic candidates than anyone else in Michigan over the past decade. Now, he said, he is "broken" over the suffering and death in Gaza. "If he [Biden] doesn't change course, it's very difficult for me to vote for him in November," he said. Equally hard to miss is Democratic animosity toward Trump. As in Bidens 2020 victory over Trump, one of the wellsprings of his support is voters distaste for the ex-president. Susan Titus, 79, a retired college professor who lives in Detroit, voted for Biden and said her anger toward Trump was a primary reason. I think hes pretty much an a------, to coin a phrase, she said of Trump. And its terrifying to me, at 80, to think that he could decimate social programs that Ive been committed to and worked on for a very long time. BEIJING (Reuters) -States with the largest nuclear arsenals should negotiate a treaty on no-first-use of nuclear weapons against each other or make a political statement in this regard, the Chinese foreign ministry's arms control department said. Director general of the department, Sun Xiaobo, called on nuclear states to fulfil their "special and priority responsibilities" on nuclear disarmament according to the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, which seeks to prevent nuclear war, official news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday. During the forum's weekly meeting in Geneva on Monday, Sun said the body should define a roadmap or timetable for an international legal instrument that would protect non-nuclear-weapon states from the threat of nuclear weapons. "Nuclear-weapon states should negotiate and conclude a treaty on no-first-use of nuclear weapons against each other or make a political statement in this regard," Sun said. China and India are currently the only two nuclear powers to formally maintain a no first use policy. Russia and the United States have the world's biggest nuclear arsenals. Sun also called for a universal, non-discriminatory, non-proliferation, export control order to address global security challenges, and promote more compliance in the field of biochemistry to maintain the authority of the arms control treaty system. The U.N. disarmament forum should also respond to emerging scientific and technological challenges such as artificial intelligence, outer space and cyber, he said. Sun described the international strategic security situation as facing new challenges, and that countries with the strongest military power have repeatedly "broken treaties" in order to "seek their own absolute superiority". (Reporting by Liz Lee and Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Tom Hogue and Michael Perry) WASHINGTON After a convincing special election victory, New York Democrat Tom Suozzi will be sworn into the House on Wednesday night to fill the vacancy left by last years historic expulsion of Republican George Santos. When Suozzi takes the oath of office, it will further reduce House Republicans' razor-thin majority one of the smallest ever to 219-213 at a time when Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has been struggling to corral his rank-and-file members and carry out the basic functions of government. The return of Suozzi, who previously served in the House, means that Johnsons leadership team can afford only two GOP defections on any vote if all Democrats vote in opposition. Before the House left for its Presidents Day recess, Republicans managed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a single-vote margin, 214-213, after failing to do so on the first try. Suozzi, 61, represented New Yorks 3rd District from 2017 to 2023, but he left Congress to launch an unsuccessful bid for governor. Santos, an unknown political neophyte, won the swing seat based in Long Island and Queens for Republicans in 2022. But after stunning revelations that Santos had fabricated large parts of his resume and personal story to win election, the Justice Department indicted him on 23 counts, including crimes such as wire fraud, falsifying federal records and money laundering. Santos has pleaded not guilty and is set to go to trial in September. Earlier this month, Suozzi, a former county executive and mayor on Long Island, easily defeated Republican Mazi Pilip in the special election to replace Santos, handing Democrats a boost of momentum as they seek to take back control of the House this fall. Immigration and the border are normally a vulnerability for Democrats on the ballot, but Suozzi faced the prickly issues head-on, attacking Republicans for walking away from a bipartisan deal to shore up the southern border and deal with a record number of migrant crossings. Its time to get to work on immigration, on Israel, and combating Putin, Suozzi said at his election night victory party. Lets send a message to our friends running the Congress these days: Stop running around for Trump and start running the country. Democrats praised Suozzis approach as a roadmap for Democrats in November. Tom Suozzi ran a positive campaign. Tom Suozzi talked about fixing problems like the challenges we have at the border. Tom Suozzi talked about common sense solutions and finding bipartisan common ground. Tom Suozzi won, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a fellow New York Democrat, said after Democrats notched the victory. The Federal Aviation Administration is giving Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix quality problems and meet safety standards for building new planes. The agency said Wednesday that the directive follows meetings with top Boeing officials, including the company's CEO at FAA headquarters in Washington. Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements, said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker. Making foundational change will require a sustained effort from Boeings leadership, and we are going to hold them accountable every step of the way." The FAA said new deadline comes after FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker met with Boeing CEO David Calhoun and other top company officials. Calhoun said that we have a clear picture of what needs to be done because of company and independent reviews. Boeing will develop the comprehensive action plan with measurable criteria that demonstrates the profound change that Administrator Whitaker and the FAA demand. The FAA did not indicate what action it might take if Boeing fails to meet the 90-day deadline. The FAA is currently completing an audit of assembly lines at the factory near Seattle, where Boeing builds planes like the 737 Max that suffered a door-panel blowout in January. Investigators say bolts that help keep the panel in place were missing after repair work on the Alaska Airlines jet at the Boeing factory. This week, a panel of industry, government and academic experts issued a report that found shortcomings in the safety culture at Boeing, which the company says it has been working to improve. Boeing this month replaced the executive who had overseen the 737 program since early 2021. Boeing Co. is based in Arlington, Virginia. A Wisconsin man was arrested Sunday over four months after his 12-year-old son's body was found malnourished and decomposing in their home, according to court documents. Romuan Jovaes Moye, 45, was on the run since October when he was first charged in connection with Jacarie Robinson's death. Milwaukee police officers responded to a home at 4160 N. Elmhurst Road on Oct. 10, 2023 for a "dead on entry complaint," according to a criminal complaint filed in Wisconsin Circuit Court. Jacarie Robinson (via WTMJ) The 12-year-old's body was found wrapped in a blanket on the living room floor and appeared malnourished and emaciated, per the complaint. A torn white t-shirt covered his head, and there were maggots "covering his face and mouth." A few drops of dried blood were near his feet. A day after he was found, an assistant medical examiner conducted an autopsy of Jacarie's body, which had fractures in both arms and in his right ribs. The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office said Jacarie could have disappeared as far back as Labor Day, NBC affiliate WTMJ reported. The house Jacarie was found in had an overwhelming smell of "mold, feces, and decay, according to a detective who investigated the scene. Garbage and mold could be found around the house, and moldy food was found in the refrigerator. One of Jacarie's brothers, who found the 12-year-old's body after entering the home, told police that Moye had been acting strangely about four days before during a visit, per court records. Moye had kept the child away from family for months, he said. Jacarie's brother reported last seeing him alive in August 2023 on the child's birthday. He recalled Jacarie looking "extremely skinny," he told detectives. Moye had three of his children living with him at the time, including Jacarie, but sent two of them to stay with their mother for two weeks so he could "take care of something," one of the children told a detective. All three children share the same mother and father. The children told detectives that Moye would punish Jacarie for stealing food and that he "was not eating and sleeping a lot," court records state. Jacarie was not allowed to go to his mother's house with his siblings because he was grounded. The children's mother said she had not seen her 12-year-old son in three years, but that she'd spoken to him on the phone around five weeks before, according to the complaint. She became concerned for Jacarie while her other two children were staying with her, and threatened to call the police on Moye because he wouldn't let anyone see him. Moye had told his family that he was diagnosed with cancer two years ago and did not have long to live. Moye's mother, who doubted her son's diagnosis, urged him to turn himself into police after learning that Jacarie was dead. "You may as well turn yourself in, you are going to prison for life," Moye's mother said to him in a text conversation. "Your son is dying, he wont be around for that," Moye responded, according to the complaint. Moye is now being held at the Milwaukee County Jail on $500,000 bail. He was charged with one count of first degree reckless homicide, three counts of chronic neglect of a child and one count of failure to report the death of a child, per court records. The court has also ordered that Moye has no contact with any of his surviving children. He's due to appear in court Monday. Moye faces up to 82 years in prison and a $45,000 fine if convicted, according to the complaint. An attorney for Moye did not immediately respond to requests for comment. WASHINGTON The very first rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol is on trial this week, with federal prosecutors laying out extensive evidence that he bought into and regurgitated the lies being spread by Republican politicians, some conservative news outlets and former President Donald Trump about his 2020 election loss. Michael Sparks, who worked at an electronics and components plant in Kentucky before the Capitol attack, faces six charges, including felony obstruction of an official proceeding and obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder. Sparks was the first rioter to enter the building, jumping through a broken window smashed in by Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola on the Senate side and then joining the mob that chased a lone Capitol Police officer up the stairs towards the floor of the Senate as members fled the chamber. Sparks has pleaded not guilty and is taking his case to trial, but the defense is not disputing that he is the individual featured in extensive images and photographs that day. Sparks himself reached out to law enforcement in the aftermath of the attack after seeing he was wanted for questioning. Mark Sparks at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (CMcManus / USDCDC) This is our America! Sparks allegedly yelled at officers after he joined the mob chasing Eugene Goodman up the stairs toward the Senate chamber. This is our America! A jury was impaneled in the case on Monday, and testimony in the case got underway before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly on Tuesday. Kelly, a Trump appointee, has overseen numerous Jan. 6 trials and handed out the longest Capitol riot sentence to date: 22 years in federal prison for former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio. Sparks co-defendant and former co-worker, Joseph Howe, took a plea deal last year, admitting that he grabbed a police shield from a Capitol Police officer; grabbed a bike rack barricade; stole a police baton; pushed another Capitol Police officer as the mob overran law enforcement and made its way into the building; and deployed a fire extinguisher inside the Capitol that struck another Capitol Police officer directly in the face. Howe was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison. In testimony in Sparks' case on Tuesday, a federal prosecutor questioned FBI Special Agent Steven Nestoryak about the bureau's investigation into Sparks. Nestoryak, who joined the investigation into Sparks about a year ago, walked through a series of social media posts and text messages the bureau connected to Sparks showing how he became radicalized after repeatedly reading false claims from Trump and others about the 2020 election Trump lost. While some falsely claimed that rioters like Sparks who first breached the Capitol were members of "antifa," the evidence demonstrates that Sparks and his fellow rioters were Trump supporters. Nestoryak testified about social media posts that show Sparks, who joined Facebook in 2016, was convinced that Trump was going to win even before all the results came in. "Trump will win by a landslide. It wont even be close, Sparks wrote as election results were still being gathered, predicting that Trump would secure 293 electoral college votes (Trump got 232 electoral college votes, while Joe Biden received 306 and the presidency). "Trump will win when all the dust settles," Sparks wrote in the aftermath of Election Day 2020. "Calm down everyone, Trump is going to be your president!" But after the networks called the election for Biden on Nov. 7, 2020, prosecutors say, Sparks began to change his tune. "Wouldn't it be something if 70 million came to arms," Sparks wrote in one post showed to the jury. "We the people are with you 70 million strong. Let us know if we need [to] bear arms," he wrote in another. By Nov. 9, records show, Sparks had joined Parler, the now-defunct social media website that catered to right-wing users. There, Sparks followed some of his favorite right-wing media figures: Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. "Trump 2020," Sparks wrote in his first post on the site. Back over on Facebook, Sparks was sharing a story by Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard, outlining (soon debunked) claims that the Trump campaign was making about purported fraud in Nevada. Evidence shows that Sparks came to Washington on Dec. 12, 2020, where he watched and recorded a speech by "MyPillow Guy" Mike Lindell, who was recently ordered by a judge to pay a fellow Trump voter $5 million for winning Lindell's "Prove Mike Wrong" challenge, debunking his claims about the 2020 election. On Dec. 17, 2020, Sparks posted a story from the right-wing Epoch Times, which repeated the claims of Sidney Powell, the far-right former Trump attorney who recently pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case brought by District Attorney Fani Willis. Powell also appears to be an un-indicted co-conspirator in the election interference case brought against Trump by Jack Smith, and an indictment says Trump "privately acknowledged to others" that Powell's election fraud claims "sounded crazy. By Dec. 20, 2020, the day after Trump's infamous "will be wild" tweet inviting his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6, Sparks was posting about Rep. Matt Gaetz's, R-Fla., plan to challenge Electoral College votes, a plan that Gaetz laid out at a Turning Points USA summit in Florida. On Facebook, records show, Sparks' rhetoric was getting more extreme. "Drag these clowns out of office," Sparks wrote in late December 2020, according to evidence presented in his case Tuesday. "How about we the people drag you out by your face," Sparks wrote on Christmas Eve, posting images of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. By the beginning of 2021, Sparks was using Parler to openly call for "war," prosecutors say. Yes we want a civil war to be clear," Sparks wrote on Jan. 1, 2021. The next day, Sparks shared a post from the right-wing website Western Journal that laid out a purported "Path to Victory" for Trump on Jan. 6 and said he was willing to die for the cause. The votes were stolen. You will have time to fight for what you believe in, Sparks wrote on Facebook that day. As for me I believe in the constitution so Ill die fir it [sic]. Trump is my president." On Jan. 3, 2021, Sparks wrote on Facebook that it was "time to drag them out of Congress." The next day, Sparks told a friend that those who were going to the Capitol planned for violence. Were going to drag congress out by there face if need be," Sparks wrote in a text shown in court Tuesday. "We are in tyranny. So yes daddy going." The night before the Capitol attack, Sparks' mom was worried, according to evidence shown by prosecutors. "Be careful. Be smart. Love you. See you soon," she wrote in a text to Sparks on Jan. 5. The morning of Jan. 6, before Sparks became the first rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol during the deadly attack, she told her son to behave himself. While numerous Jan. 6 defendants have said they now see that they were misled and that the purported evidence Trump and his allies claimed they had about the 2020 election never materialized, prosecutors said that Sparks' lightbulb moment hadn't come even a year after the attack. His current beliefs about the 2020 election aren't clear. "They are trying to hide Everything but there are a ton of court cases going on," Sparks wrote on Jan. 9, 2022. "I truly believe they are going to expose the fraudulent election." SAO PAULO (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Christian Lindner favours using the interest accrued from frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine in its war against Moscow, he said on Wednesday on the sidelines of a Group of 20 meeting which was discussing the issue. Finance ministers from the G20 want to increase the pressure on Russia and strengthen Ukraine, said Lindner in Sao Paulo. "The European Union is working on how the proceeds from Russian assets can be used for Ukraine. That is a realistic, step that is legally secure and which can be implemented quickly and that is what we are concentrating on," he said. He added that a single-digit billion sum could be mobilized for Kyiv by using the interest earned on the frozen assets, adding he expected the EU to put forward a proposal soon. The United States is pushing its Western partners to move forward to unlock the value of the assets. U.S. Treasure Secretary Janet Yellen has said the G20 was evaluating options for some $285 billion in Russian assets immobilized in 2022 and the associated risks. Lindner also said Germany would not agree to a G20 communique unless it mentioned geopolitical wars such as that in Ukraine. (Reporting by Christian Kraemer; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Kirsti Knolle) WASHINGTON - The Orca Network and the Cascadia Research Collective have confirmed the return of four gray whales, or "Sounders" to Salish Sea waters. Each year in the late winter, a small group of gray whales will detour from their usual 5,000-mile migration between the southern tip of California and the Bering Sea near Alaska to make a stop in the Salish Sea. With tidal flats around Whidbey Island, Camano Island and other areas, the Sounders make the stop to feast on ghost shrimp, which is their preferred food. The waters are densely populated with ghost shrimp, according to the Orca Network. North Puget Sound "Sounders" gray whale CRC53 Little Patch, showing the patch on his flank that gives him his name, by Alex Zerbini, Cascadia Research Collective At least one gray whale was documented feeding around the Snohomish River delta as early as Friday, Jan. 12, according to the Orca Network. Four other whales have arrived in the area since then. Vessel operators of all types are reminded to be on the lookout for any type of whale and to share the water. Gray whales can surface anywhere unexpectedly. At first sight of any whale, all vessels should slow to under 7 knots and keep at least 100 yards from gray whales, laws in Washington say. Whale sightings from the public provide critical information to scientists, researchers and ferry operators. Whale sightings of any species can be sent to sightings@orcanetwork.org, or via their website. "The additional months the grays spend feeding in North Puget Sound delight all of us who watch these lovely whales so close to our shores," said Susan Berta, Executive Director of Orca Network, "but it can also increase the possibility for negative human interactions. Staying later in these busy waterways makes them more vulnerable to ship strikes, or entanglement in fishing gear." However, some researchers are worried that their early arrival might have some negative impacts on the whales' population. A total of 692 gray whales became stranded along their migration route from Mexico to Alaska, causing the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to designate it as an Unusual Mortality Event in 2019. North Puget Sound "Sounders" gray whale CRC53 Little Patch shows his face, by Serena Tierra, Orca Network Those numbers "possibly represent only 10% of the actual mortality, and as of June 2023, the population has declined a staggering 46%. Coinciding with the UME, for the past four years several of the "Sounders" have been arriving earlier and staying longer than in previous years to take advantage of the abundant food they find along some Puget Sound shorelines... One whale was first seen in January 2022 and is the first Sounder on record to spend a continuous year feeding in areas throughout the Whidbey Basin rather than join the migration," the Orca Network. "This area has become an increasingly important feeding area for gray whales, especially in these years where the overall population has faced increasing challenges getting enough to eat," said John Calambokidis, a founder and research biologist at Cascadia Research who has studied these whales for most of his career going back to 1990. "We are excited to be expanding our research this season with the help of a grant from the National Estuary Program that will allow us to better examine their health and factors impacting them." By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Jana Choukeir and Maayan Lubell CAIRO/DUBAI/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hamas called on Wednesday for Palestinians to march to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque at the start of Ramadan, raising the stakes in ongoing negotiations for a truce in Gaza, which U.S. President Joe Biden hopes will be in place by then. The call by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh followed comments by Biden that an agreement could be reached between Israel and Hamas as soon as next week for a ceasefire during the Muslim fasting month expected to start this year on March 10. Israel and Hamas, which both have delegations in Qatar this week hammering out details of a potential 40-day truce, have said there is still a big gulf between them, and the Qatari mediators say there is no breakthrough yet. Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem's old city, one of the world's holiest sites for Muslims and the most sacred for Jews, has long been a flashpoint for potential violence, particularly during religious holidays. With war raging in Gaza, Israel has said it may set limits to worship at Al-Aqsa during Ramadan, according to its security needs. Many Palestinians reject any such restrictions on their access to the site. "This is a call on our people in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march to Al-Aqsa since the first day of Ramadan," said Haniyeh. Israeli government spokesperson Tal Heirich described Haniyeh's remarks as "very unfortunate" and accused him of "trying to drag us to wars on other fronts". "We certainly don't want that. We certainly will do whatever it takes to keep the calm," she said. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas's aim was to take pressure off its fighters in Gaza by forcing Israel to shift security resources to Jerusalem and the West Bank. "We musn't give them that. On the one hand we are operating against terrorist elements and on the other hand it is our obligation to allow freedom of worship, and I think we will reach the right arrangements that would allow that." Hamas, which precipitated the war in Gaza by attacking Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies, has said it will not free all its captives without a comprehensive deal to end the war. Israel, which has assaulted the Gaza Strip, killing 30,000 people according to Palestinian health authorities, says it will agree only to temporary pauses in fighting to release hostages, and will not end the war until Hamas is eradicated. In a televised speech, Haniyeh said Hamas was showing flexibility in negotiations with Israel, but at the same time was ready to continue fighting. Israel has said any deal with Hamas would require the group to drop what Israel describes as "outlandish demands". In the most serious push so far for an extended ceasefire, Hamas is weighing a proposal, agreed by Israel at talks with mediators in Paris last week, for a 40-day truce. A senior source close to the talks said the Paris text would see Israeli troops pull out of populated areas, and around 40 hostages go free, including women, those under 19 or over 50 and the injured, in exchange for around 400 Palestinian detainees. But it does not appear to meet Hamas's demand for a permanent end to the war and Israeli withdrawal, or resolve the fate of dozens of Israeli hostages who are fighting-age men. HANIYEH CALLS FOR MORE SUPPORT FROM ARAB STATES Haniyeh also called on the self-styled Axis of Resistance - allies of Iran including Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq - as well as Arab states, to step up their support for Palestinians in Gaza suffering under Israel's assault and blockade. "It is the duty of the Arab and Islamic nations to take the initiative to break the starvation conspiracy in Gaza," Haniyeh said. One Palestinian official with knowledge of the ceasfire talks told Reuters mediation efforts were intensifying, but there was no certainty of success. "Time is pressuring because Ramadan is closing in, mediators have stepped up their efforts," said the official, "It is early to say whether there will be an agreement soon, but things are not stalled," he said. Israeli Defence Minister Gallant, asked about Biden's optimistic comments that a deal could be reached by next week, said: "Who am I to express an opinion about what the president said? I very much hope that he is right." Food aid reaching Gaza has severely declined over the past month, and international aid agencies say residents are close to famine. Israel says its blockade on Gaza is essential in its war against Hamas and that it is allowing in humanitarian supplies. On Wednesday, Israel said it had cooperated with the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt, France and the United States in an airdrop of food aid to southern Gaza. In Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's 2.3 million population is sheltering, several masked men armed with clubs and some with guns toured the markets in what they said was a bid to keep prices in check. Their head scarves read 'Committee of People's Protection.' A masked spokesman told reporters they were formed to back the Hamas-led interior ministry, and make sure people weren't being exploited. Aid agencies say the situation is most dire in the north of the Gaza Strip, which has been almost entirely cut off. Gaza's health ministry said on Wednesday that four children had died as a result of malnutrition and dehydration at northern Gaza's Kamal Adwan hospital, which had earlier said it was halting operations as it had run out of fuel. The Israeli military said it was checking the report. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Jana Choukeir and Nadine Awadalla in Dubai; Emily Rose, Maayan Lubell and James Mackenzie in Jerusalem; Writing by Philippa Fletcher and Maayan Lubell; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Peter Graff) WASHINGTON During a long-awaited closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Hunter Biden disputed claims by House Republicans that President Joe Biden was involved in his son's business dealings. The deposition was conducted by the House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee, two GOPc-controlled panels that have been leading an impeachment inquiry into the president. "I am here today to provide the Committees with the one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business," Hunter Biden said in his prepared opening statement. "Not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist. Never." Hunter Biden Appears On Capitol Hill For Closed-Door Deposition With Republican Lawmakers (Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images) In his opening remarks, Hunter Biden also sharply criticized the Republican-led inquiry as a "baseless and destructive political charade" based on "MAGA-motivated conspiracies." "For more than a year, your committees have hunted me in your partisan political pursuit of my dad," he said. "You have trafficked in innuendo, distortion, and sensationalism all the while ignoring the clear and convincing evidence staring you in the face. You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father because there isnt any." Hunter Biden's attorneys were expected to enter his resume as an exhibit into the record after his opening statement, according to a copy obtained by NBC News. A source close to Hunter Bidens legal team said they would use the exhibit to make the point that Hunter was qualified for the work he was doing during this period Republicans are focused on. In an update to reporters during a break in the deposition, House Democrats who attended the interview said Hunter Biden's answers to Republicans' questions so far further prove that there shouldn't be an impeachment inquiry into the president. "I believe based on this first hour that this whole thing has really been a tremendous waste of our legislative time and the peoples resources," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said. The first hour of the deposition "is the nail in the coffin to what is a completely bogus and sham impeachment inquiry," said Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., who served as Democrats' lead counsel during the first impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump in 2019. "Hunter Biden gave very detailed and clear explanations as to what his arms-length business transactions were with private parties in foreign countries who are investors and business people," Goldman said. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said that Democrats experienced "second-hand embarrassment" when the Republicans started asking personal details about Hunter Biden's divorce from his wife nearly a decade ago, saying they are "so desperate to humiliate the president." On the Republican side, Rep. Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, told reporters that the testimony is "bulls--- and a lie and stupid." "This is not about Hunter Bidens drug issues, which a lot of families deal with and thats sad and terrible and tragic and I empathize with their family on that," she said. "This is about pay to play, this is about corruption, this is about selling access to the president of the United States." Hunter Biden's appearance came a week after James Biden, the president's brother, told lawmakers that at no point during his 50-year business career was Joe Biden involved in his work. Almost every witness who has testified before the committees has said the president was not involved in his familys business dealings or has been unable to provide any evidence that his occasional casual encounters with Hunter Bidens business partners included business discussions. Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., challenged that testimony in a statement to NBC News, saying the committees had found evidence to support his often-repeated claim that "Joe Biden was the brand his family sold to enrich the Bidens." Comer said Biden "knew of, participated in, and benefited from these schemes. Joe Biden attended dinners, spoke on speakerphone, showed up to meetings, and had coffee with his sons foreign business associates. In fact, weve documented how Joe Biden has met with nearly all of his sons foreign business associates as they were collectively funneling millions to the Bidens." While Republican sources on the Oversight Committee have previously described Biden's testimony as the "crescendo" of the House impeachment inquiry, Comer said it would not be the end of the investigation and promised more subpoenas and witnesses to come, but provided no details on who those might be. He added that congressional investigators would "continue to follow the facts to inform legislative reforms to federal ethics laws and determine whether articles of impeachment are warranted. A Republican House Oversight Committee source familiar with the preparations said a transcript of Hunter Biden's deposition would be released quickly and Biden's lawyers would have an opportunity to review it beforehand. The source also said the probe would produce a report with legislative or other recommendations and possible criminal referrals "sometime in the next few months." Republicans first issued a subpoena to Hunter Biden in early November, but through his lawyer, he chose not to comply with it for months. He said he would testify only at a public hearing because he felt he did not trust Republicans in a private setting. After months of investigation, Republicans have not presented any evidence of wrongdoing by the president, and the White House and Democrats have repeatedly asserted that GOP lawmakers claims about Biden are false. At the center of the impeachment effort is false information that came from former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who was indicted this month and accused of feeding the bureau false information about Joe Biden and Hunter Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. Smirnov provided false derogatory information to the FBI about them, the indictment said, and "promoted a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials." Republicans, however, have shrugged off the news of the charges against Smirnov and are still pursuing their impeachment inquiry despite arguments from Democrats that the issue at the center of it was based on falsehoods. A Republican House Oversight Committee source told NBC News that "Smirnov was a brick but not the foundation of the impeachment inquiry. The source said the panel has lots of unanswered questions about Smirnov and will place a new focus on the FBI and the confidential human source program going forward. Hunter Biden mentioned Smirnov in his opening statement, telling GOP lawmakers that the former FBI informant "has made you dupes in carrying out a Russian disinformation campaign waged against my father." INDIANAPOLIS (AP) The bipartisan Indiana Election Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to remove one of two Republican U.S. Senate candidates from the primary ballot, and the state Supreme Court rejected his legal challenge to the law barring his candidacy. The decision to remove John Rust from the ballot leaves U.S. Rep. Jim Banks as the only GOP candidate for the seat. Rust had sued state officials over Indiana's law requiring that candidates must have voted in their party's past two primaries or received the approval of a county party chair in order to appear on the primary ballot. Rust voted as a Republican in the 2016 primary but as a Democrat in 2012. He said he didnt vote in the 2020 Republican primary due to the pandemic and the lack of competitive Republican races in Jackson County, and that his votes for Democrats were for people he personally knew. The countys Republican Party chair said in a July meeting with Rust that she would not certify him, according to the lawsuit. Rust has said she later cited his primary voting record. The Election Commission composed of two Republicans and two Democrats all appointed by the governor voted unanimously to accept the challenges and remove Rust from the ballot. The affiliation statute applies to Mr. Rust just like it applies to all other candidates in the state, Ryan Shouse, an attorney representing five of the six individuals challenging Rusts candidacy, told the commission. Michelle Harter, Rust's attorney, argued that Rust did not take steps to ensure his place on the ballot because the affiliation statue was blocked by the lower court during the candidate filing period. I dont see how we can get around the Indiana Supreme Court," said Karen Celestino-Horseman, a Democratic commission member, in reference to its original stay. Rust told reporters that he plans to appeal the Indiana Supreme Court's decision up to the United State Supreme Court. He said the Republican Party is trying to keep him off the ballot because I'm not under their control. The state GOP and former President Donald Trump have endorsed Banks in the Senate race. According to campaign finance records, Rust has mainly bankrolled his own campaign, giving it $2.5 million last year. Banks ended the year with more than $3 million in cash on hand, according to records. Banks is running to replace U.S. Senator Mike Braun, who is vacating the seat to run for governor. Two candidates, Marc Carmichael and Valerie McCray, are running in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat, according to Secretary of State records. In a written statement, Banks said the commission's decision does not change anything for him or his campaign, and he will continue to work until Nov. 5 to be Indiana's next conservative Republican Senator. Marianne Williamson announced Wednesday that she was relaunching her presidential campaign just three weeks after calling it quits following poor performances in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. As of today, I am unsuspending my campaign for the president of the United States, Williamson said in a video posted to X. I had suspended it because I was losing the horse race, but something so much more important than the horse race is at stake here, and we must respond. Williamson added that we have a fascist standing at the door, referring to former president Donald Trumps presidential bid. Were not going to defeat the fascist by well, by what? What is President Biden offering? Williamson said in the video. Williamson, who won 4% of the Democratic primary vote in New Hampshire and 2% of the vote in South Carolinas primary, has long been an advocate for Medicare for all and free tuition at public colleges. She announced the restart of her campaign after getting 3% of the vote in Michigans Democratic primary on Wednesday despite having already ended her White House bid, beating fellow presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., who received 2.7 % of the primary vote with 95% of the expected votes counted. Biden, meanwhile, received 81% of the Democratic primary vote in Michigan, while 13% chose uncommitted on the ballot. Prior to the New Hampshire primary, Williamson suggested she believed Trump would win the upcoming general election. I do not have good feelings about what will happen in 2024, because 2024 is not going to be like 2020; 2024 is going to be like 2016, she said at a town hall event in Portsmouth. In her video Wednesday, Williamson said that to respond to Donald Trumps dark vision of possibility, she would make an economic U-turn, to make this country great again, to return it to a time when we actually had a thriving middle class. Some people would say, 'Oh, Miss Williamson, youre delusional,'" she said. "Ill tell you whats delusional. Whats delusional is just crossing our fingers and just hoping that somehow Biden and Harris will be able to beat that juggernaut of dark, dark vision." Williamson first announced her presidential bid in March 2023, long before President Joe Biden had publicly said he would run for reelection. Weve done great things in this country," Williamson said Wednesday. "Were hardwired to do great things, and we have to do them now. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will step down as GOP leader in November, the Kentucky Republican announced on the Senate floor Wednesday, marking the end of an era on Capitol Hill and setting up a high-stakes race for his successor. He will continue to serve in the US Senate but will allow the next generation of leadership to take the helm of the Senate Republican Conference. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, said, the end of my contributions are closer than I prefer. McConnell has long been a towering figure in Washington, DC, and has made history over the course of his political tenure. In 2023, McConnell became the longest-serving Senate party leader in history. However, in recent months, McConnell has found in himself at odds with members of his conference particularly over the issue of additional US funding for the war in Ukraine. And McConnell has a strained relationship with the Republican Partys front-runner for the presidential nomination: Donald Trump. CNN reported in January, the two hadnt spoken in more than three years. As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work, McConnell said in his floor remarks. A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. That day arrived today. He received a standing ovation at the end of his remarks, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, approached him afterwards to shake his hand. He was followed by many of his colleagues from both sides of the aisle, receiving a hug from Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. McConnells record in the Trump era McConnell has long been a highly influential figure in Republican politics and has played a leading role in securing major victories for his party during the time he has served as leader. Journalist raise their hands as they wait to called on to ask a question to President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2017. - Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP While serving as Senate majority leader during former President Donald Trumps time in office, McConnell helped guide three Trump-nominated Supreme Court justices to confirmation Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett as well as the confirmations of a vast number of conservative judges to the federal bench, transforming the federal judiciary in the process. Notably, however, there have been significant moments where McConnell has been at odds with Trump, who is now the GOP front-runner in the race for the White House, setting up a clash between the two powerful Republicans. After a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, seeking to overturn Joe Bidens presidential win, McConnell blamed Trump for provoking the attack, but still voted to acquit him of inciting an insurrection after the House moved to impeach. The typically tight-lipped Senate Republican leader rarely broke from Trump in his four years as president. But he led the Senates certification of the presidential election that the rioters pledged to overturn, and strongly condemned the violence at the Capitol. McConnells health has been in the headlines over the past year McConnell has suffered a string of high-profile health incidents over the past year. In March, he was treated for a concussion after a fall at a hotel in Washington, DC. Several months later, McConnell experienced episodes where he briefly appeared to freeze up on two separate occasions while speaking with reporters, incidents that sparked questions and concern over the Kentucky Republicans health and fitness to lead the Senate Republican conference. Sen. John Barrasso reaches out to help McConnell after McConnell froze and stopped talking during a news conference at the Capitol in July 2023. McConnell was led away from the news conference and toward his office by an aide. He returned a few minutes later and continued. - Drew Angerer/Getty Images McConnell on Wednesday said his decision to step down came following the death of his wife Elaine Chaos youngest sister, Angela, in a traffic accident earlier this month. As some of you may know, this has been a particularly difficult time for my family. We tragically lost Elaines younger sister, Angela, just a few weeks ago. When you lose a loved one, particularly at a young age, theres a certain introspection that accompanies the grieving process. Perhaps it is Gods way of reminding you of your own lifes journey to reprioritize the impact of the world that we will all inevitably leave behind, he said. He thanked his wife of 31 years, calling her the love of my life and that Im eternally grateful to have her by my side. He finished his speech by assuring his critics that he was prepared to be a thorn in their side for the rest of his time as leader. I still have enough gas in my tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics, and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm with which theyve become accustomed, he said. Race for new Senate GOP leader already under way The three Senate Republicans who are most closely-watched as potential successors are known on Capitol Hill as the three Johns South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso. Sen. Mitt Romney told CNNs Kaitlan Collins on The Source that the three Johns are the leading candidates right now, and that he doesnt believe Republican senators will solely base their choice for the partys next leader on who Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, endorses. People jokingly say, Im for John, and I think theyre pretty safe in saying that, the Utah Republican said, adding that he was surprised McConnell made his announcement Wednesday. That election is nine months away, and there is a much more important election between now and then, Barrasso told reporters Wednesday. And thats the election that we need to take the presidency, and the Senate, and the House and thats where my focus is right now. In this March 2018 photo, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to the press with Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota and Majority Whip John Cornyn following the Republican policy lunch at the Capitol in Washington, DC. - Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images Thune, who serves as Senate minority whip, wouldnt say if he is running for leader following the announcement by McConnell. Thune said he wasnt going to make any announcement as he walked into a Senate GOP lunch. Asked if he would announce his decision before November, Thune said: Ill get back to you. Cornyn earlier repeatedly also sidestepped questions about whether he would run for leader. I think Mitch has been one of a kind in terms of his leadership in the Senate, he told CNN as he departed the floor after listening to McConnells speech. GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, a vocal critic of McConnell, would not say if he plans to run for Republican leader. Scott challenged McConnell at the end of last Congress for the role. Im focused on my reelection, he told CNN. Scotts Senate term ends this year. This story has been updated with additional developments. CNNs Manu Raju, Dana Bash, Kristin Wilson and Jack Forrest contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Conditional immunity from prosecutions for Troubles-era crimes, contained in the UK government's controversial Legacy Act, is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, the High Court in Belfast has ruled. The full ruling runs to 200 pages. Opponents brought the legal challenge on several grounds. These included the immunity aspect, which was passed by Parliament in September. On Wednesday, a judge said: "There is no evidence that the granting of immunity under the act will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland, indeed the evidence is to the contrary." The case has been brought by relatives of victims and the survivor of a shooting. The act involves a conditional amnesty for people suspected of crimes committed during the Troubles and introduces a ban on inquests and future civil actions related to the Troubles era. Families and survivors arrived at the High Court on Wednesday for the ruling The government has argued the act is human rights compliant. Those bringing the action disagree. They claimed the legislation was unconstitutional and breached articles two and three of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). 'Complex case' Speaking in the House of Commons, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said the government would "take some time to consider" the ruling. He said he remained committed to implementing the act. Mr Heaton-Harris said it was a "complex case" that was likely to lead to further action in higher courts. The Troubles was a period of conflict which lasted for 30 years and cost the lives of more than 3,500 people Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn questioned how a new body set up to probe Troubles-related killings - the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information (ICRIR) - could proceed following the ruling. The Labour MP added: "Given that immunity has always been presented as the central foundation of the Legacy Act, what do ministers intend to do about this judgment, and how can the commission become operational when one of its central powers has just been struck down?" Mr Benn also asked Mr Heaton-Harris to extend the May deadline for Troubles-related inquests. Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief constable Jon Boutcher said the voices of victims were not being "sufficiently heard" in the debate surrounding the bill. The report in relation to Operation Kenova is due to be published in March and Mr Boutcher said he was committed to giving information to those families affected. "Because of the work I have done on Kenova, there are probably 240-odd families that I have met and listened to their stories from across the broad church of different victim profiles," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Evening Extra programme. "Those people have been let down, there have been promises that haven't been kept. "I just hope that everybody focuses on giving those victims the acknowledgement they deserve, but the information that they deserve that for so many years has not been given to them." Lengthy legal challenge Delivering his ruling, Mr Justice Colton said he was "satisfied that the immunity from prosecution provisions under section 19 of the act are in breach of the lead applicant's rights pursuant to article 2 of the ECHR. "I am also satisfied they are in breach of article 3 of the ECHR." The ruling came after the court heard eight days of argument in the autumn. Despite the ruling about the immunity clause - the judge said he was satisfied the ICRIR - could carry out human rights compliant investigations. Mr Justice Colton told the court he "fully [understood] the opposition to the new scheme and the reasons for it". But he said he could not at this point say that the ICRIR could not provide investigations in line with article two and article three of the ECHR. "It has wide powers and wide range of discretion to carry out its reviews. Should it fall short of its obligations on articles two and three, I have no doubt they will be subject to the scrutiny of the court," he said. An ICRIR spokesperson said it would study the court's ruling in detail. Legal experts have speculated the challenge in the courts could take several years to exhaust, as it could be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Separately, the Irish government is also taking a case against the UK at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Belfast case was brought by Martina Dillon, John McEvoy, Lynda McManus and Brigid Hughes. Ms Dillon's 45-year-old husband, Seamus, was shot dead in a loyalist attack at the Glengannon Hotel in Dungannon, County Tyrone, in 1997. Speaking outside the court on Wednesday, Ms Dillon said she got "half of my case today". "I will fight until I get truth and justice," she added. Mr McEvoy survived a loyalist shooting on the Thierafurth Inn in Kilcoo, County Down, in 1992. Ms McManus's father, James, was among those wounded in the Sean Graham bookmakers massacre earlier the same year. Ms Hughes's husband, Anthony, was an innocent man killed as he drove into the SAS ambush of an IRA unit in Loughgall in 1987. Amnesty International has supported their action. Grainne Teggart from Amnesty told reporters that she welcomed the court's findings but "today was always going to be round one". She said there are now "significant questions" for the Northern Ireland secretary. The act is also opposed by victims' groups and all political parties in Northern Ireland who argue it will remove access to justice. Wednesday's ruling was welcomed by the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Speaking after the judgement, party leader Colum Eastwood said it was an important moment for victims and survivors. "I am pleased for those who took this early case today, but I know they understand this is just the first hurdle in what is likely to be a longer legal dispute," he said. Alliance MP Stephen Farry called for the act to be suspended - and eventually repealed - following the ruling. "Crucially, the looming deadline for inquests should be lifted. Similarly, the ICRIR should not proceed with any further work," Mr Farry said. Sinn Fein MLA Deirdre Hargey has also said the UK government should repeal the act, which she described as a "clear breach of citizen's rights". "We were of the view that the Legacy Act was in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights so I welcome today's High Court ruling," she added. What is the Northern Ireland Troubles Act? The act, which came into effect in September, will end future civil litigation and inquests into deaths which occurred during more than 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles. The government has said the legislation, which applies to all former members of the security forces and ex-paramilitaries, is an attempt to draw a line under the events of the past. It has repeatedly stated the new act is, in its view, human rights compliant. Prosecutions that are currently ongoing will continue to conclusion. However, any inquests that have begun will end in May unless they have reached the point of delivering findings. It is also likely to limit investigations, which from now on would be undertaken by the ICRIR. A number of legal challenges to it have been brought by victims' groups and families of people who were killed or injured during the Troubles. By Karen Lema MANILA (Reuters) -The United States' Indo-Pacific strategy is unlikely to change should Donald Trump win the presidential race in November, the Philippines' longtime ambassador to Washington said on Wednesday. Jose Manuel Romualdez said in a speech he was in touch with one of Trump's close advisers, former national security adviser Robert O'Brien, who indicated to him the continuation of Washington's current stance in the region. "That is of course very consoling," Romualdez told a diplomatic gathering. Security engagements between the Philippines and the United States have stepped up considerably under U.S. President Joe Biden and his Manila counterpart Ferdinand Marcos Jr, with both leaders keen to counter what they see as China's aggressive actions in the South China Sea and near Taiwan. While the United States sees both the South China Sea issue and a potential Taiwan conflict as "serious concerns," Romualdez believed the "real flashpoint is the West Philippine Sea" given "all of these skirmishes happening there." The West Philippine Sea is the term Manila uses to refer to that part of the South China Sea within its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone. Under Marcos, the Philippines has nearly doubled the number of its bases accessible to U.S. forces. A 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty bound them to defend each other in the event of attack and Marcos last year succeeded in pushing Washington to make clear the extent of that security commitment. Romualdez said it was possible there could be a major "accident" in the South China Sea that could lead to the treaty being invoked, but hoped that would never happen. "That keeps a lot of us awake at night," he said. The Philippines will not let up in asserting its maritime claims, Romualdez said, as tensions in the South China Sea continue to simmer, with Beijing vehemently opposed to what it considers incursions by Philippine vessels into areas it claims. Marcos said on Wednesday the Chinese navy's presence in the South China Sea is "worrisome" but will not deter his country from defending its maritime territory and protecting its fishermen. The Philippine Coast Guard spotted the presence of Chinese navy vessels during last week's patrol mission by a fisheries bureau vessel at the contested Scarborough Shoal in the waterway, where a new floating barrier across its entrance was also captured by a satellite image taken by Maxar Technologies. "The aggression that we are now facing is very real," Romualdez said, adding the Philippines hopes China, a major trading partner, will see the value of continuing economic activity between them while trying to peacefully resolve their issues. "We have a lot of exports to China, but all those exports can be at peril because occasionally we hear negative things," Romualdez said. (Reporting by Karen Lema; Writing by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Martin Petty and Kim Coghill) Conflict will be inevitable if Western forces join Ukraines fight against Russia, a Kremlin spokesperson said Tuesday. The warning comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron said sending troops to quell Russias renewed offensive should not be ruled out. In this case, we need to talk not about probability, but about the inevitability [of conflict], Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putins spokesperson, told reporters. These countries must also evaluate and be aware of this, asking themselves whether this corresponds to their interests, as well as the interests of the citizens of their countries, Peskov added. Macron made the comment while hosting 27 European Union nation representatives at an aid summit in Paris on Monday, including 21 heads of state. Theres no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out, Macron said. The people that said never ever today were the same ones who said never ever planes, never ever long-range missiles, never ever trucks. They said all that two years ago, he added. Ahead of the Monday meeting, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico also said members at the summit had circulated a restricted document that included topics such as military deployments to Ukraine and other military actions that would send shivers down the spine. These topics imply that a number of NATO and EU member states are considering sending troops to Ukraine on a bilateral basis, he said. Fico stated that no soldier from Slovakia will go to Ukraine. Other European leaders quickly distanced themselves from the notion that troops are an option in Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz contradicted Macrons description of the talks, saying attendants had reached agreement that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil who are sent there by European states or NATO states. Representatives from the U.K., Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and NATO itself also denied the possibility of troop deployment. The backtracking comes shortly after Russia threatened military consequences for the coming addition of Sweden into NATO. Sweden overcame its final hurdle this week with approval from Hungarys parliament. Putin has cited NATOs ongoing expansion as a reason for launching his war on Ukraine, which also hopes to join the alliance. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson also responded to Macrons comment. It is not relevant at all at the moment. Right now, we are fully occupied with sending advanced material from Sweden to Ukraine in many different ways, as many other countries do, Kristersson said during an interview with Swedish broadcaster SVT. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A new bill being considered by California lawmakers would require local sanitation agencies to collect sewage samples in order to test for fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine and morphine. Assembly Bill 3073, by Assemblyman Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, would require the State Water Resources Control Board to create a program to seek out epidemiological data on the illicit substances from wastewater. Many counties in California, including Sacramento County, already do such testing for COVID-19 and other diseases. Some counties, like San Francisco, also currently do so for fentanyl, in response to the growing opioid overdose epidemic. The proposed legislation calls for the testing of sewage at least twice a week, at a cost of up to $200 per test or up to $21,000 per year, with counties footing the bill, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Wastewater drug testing empowers us to be proactive and respond effectively and immediately when we see spikes in certain areas or of particular drugs. The state cannot simply wait for people to die before we act, said Haney, who chairs the Assembly Select Committee on Fentanyl, Opioid Addiction and Overdose Prevention, in a statement. Fentanyl use has surged in California in recent years, and the death toll from the drug which is 100 times more powerful than morphine has risen as well. In 2022, according to a California Department of Public Health dashboard, Sacramento County recorded 236 opioid oversode deaths, nearly 15 people per 100,000. Placer County recorded 55 deaths, 13.6 per 100,000, while El Dorado County recorded 36 deaths, or 20 per 100,000. There were nearly 1 million opioid prescriptions in those three counties in 2022, according to CDPH data. The idea of scanning wastewater for drug use isnt new. Europe has been doing so for two decades, according to Haneys office. In 2018, the company Biobot began checking for opioids in wastewater in Cary, North Carolina, according to Time. Last fall, the company teamed up with the National Institute of Healths National Institute on Drug Abuse to launch a program in 70 municipalities across the country, including in San Francisco. But if AB 3073 becomes law, it would make California the first state to mandate such testing on a statewide level in order to combat the opioid crisis, according to Haneys office. Other countries have proven that testing wastewater for illicit drugs allows public health departments to identify trends in drug use in neighborhoods and proactively target public health interventions in communities before overdose deaths occur, Haney said. by Pranjal Pandey Prabowo Subianto, Indonesias defense minister and a former army general, is poised to become the next president of the country. Although the official results are due next month, preliminary figures indicate that Prabowo will secure close to 60 percent of the vote. Prabowo Subianto (L, center) and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka (R, center) greet supporters at a gathering declaring victory in Indonesia's presidential race in Jakarta, Indonesia, Feb. 14, 2024. (Xinhua/Agung Kuncahya B.) Two unsuccessful presidential candidates in Indonesia are calling for an official inquiry into the recent election. Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan have alleged widespread irregularities in the February 14 election, including instances of vote-buying and intimidation. Indonesia, Southeast Asias largest economy and the worlds most populous Muslim-majority nation, shifted from a 32-year dictatorship to a democracy about 25 years ago. Despite progress, challenges persist like poverty, corruption, environmental degradation, and ethnic and religious divisions. With vast natural resources, Indonesia actively seeks foreign investment for infrastructure and resource extraction and has strengthened commercial ties with China even while avoiding taking an active position in the escalating U.S.-China rivalry. In this regard, Prabowo will likely continue the policy of his predecessor outgoing President Joko Widodo. Position by Candidate The contest for the presidency saw a three-way race between Subianto and former governors Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo. Subianto, representing the Advanced Indonesia Coalition, is expected to get over 58.84 percent of the votes. Baswedan is likely to come in second with around 24.46 percent, while Pranowo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) will come in third with around 16.7 percent of the votes. Elections were also held for parliament in which 18 parties took part. Parties need to garner a minimum of 4 percent of the total national vote to obtain representation in parliament. In the 2019 elections, 20 parties were in the running, yet only eight successfully secured seats in the House. In this election, while results are yet to be finalized, far-right Islamist groups have suffered a setback. This is the third time that 72-year-old Subianto, a 72-year-old military general and the son-in-law of dictator Suharto, contested for the presidency. In his earlier attempts in 2014 and 2019, he was defeated by Joko Widodo. This election, however, saw the old rivals coming together with Widodos son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, contesting as Subiantos vice-presidential candidate. While Widodo, who remains immensely popular, did not explicitly back Subianto, the widespread perception was that the ticket had his support and there are allegations that state agencies backed the candidacy of the defense minister. Subianto was in the thick of military affairs during the brutal Suharto dictatorship. He was a commander of the notorious Kopassus, the special forces unit of the Indonesian Army set up in 1952. The unit has been accused of involvement in torture, extrajudicial killings, and other human rights violations, particularly during periods of political unrest and conflict. Kopassus was alleged to have participated in rights violations in Timor-Leste where an independence movement culminated in its gaining independence in 2002 following UN intervention. Prabowo himself was for a while barred from travel to the United States due to accusations of human rights violations. He was discharged from the military following similar accusations. In 2023, activists launched a campaign called Dont Vote for a Kidnapper highlighting his alleged involvement in the detention and disappearance of 13 activists who were active in the campaign against the Suharto dictatorship. Critics have expressed concerns about Subiantos record during this campaign considering the repression over the years in West Papua where protests have been met with arrests and internet shutdowns. For decades, the people of West Papua have fought against Indonesian occupation, advocating for the right to self-determination. In 2019, the region witnessed widespread protests against racism, intensifying tensions between Papuan demonstrators and security forces. This election saw a concerted effort to whitewash Subiantos image with the former general being rebranded as a genial elder. An entire generation has grown up with few memories of the horrors of the Suharto era and Subiantos role. He also benefited from being seen as the candidate continuing the legacy of Widodo. The outgoing president had contested the previous two elections as the candidate of the center-left Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). The political realignment in this election was one of the reasons for a campaign marked by the absence of any major policy alternatives. While some of Widodos decisions, such as the plan to shift the capital from Jakarta, saw much debate, there was little opposition to aspects of his economic legacy, such as the widely opposed Omnibus Bill and other issues raised by labor movements and environmental groups. Subiantos main rival was Anies Baswedan, the former governor of Jakarta, who was perhaps the candidate diverging the most from Widodos legacy. He was a key opponent of the plan to shift the capital and headed the right-wing Coalition of Change for Unity, garnering support from conservative Islamic groups. The other candidate, Ganjar Pranowo, the former governor of Central Java province who was once seen as a potential successor to Widodo, sought to highlight the PDI-Ps traditional welfarist agenda. Economic Challenges and Ongoing Struggles Indonesia has faced tough economic times in its history. There was the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s, which caused a severe recession, social unrest, and the fall of the authoritarian regime led by Suharto. Then, in 2008-09, the global financial crisis brought a slowdown in growth, a bigger current account deficit, and a drop in the value of the countrys currency, the rupiah. The most recent challenge was the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21. It made the economy shrink, more people became poor and jobless, and public health and the value of the rupiah fell further. In 2021, the poverty rate in Indonesia stood at 10.15 percent, impacting 27.5 million people. Additionally, the unemployment rate for youth, as a percentage of the total labor force aged 15-24, remains at 14.1 percent. Indonesia faces several ongoing challenges. One significant issue is the large number of people without jobs or with low-quality jobs, particularly those engaged in low-skilled and informal work. These individuals face difficulties when unexpected events occur, and they lack sufficient social protection. Additionally, Indonesia struggles with competitiveness and productivity due to insufficient infrastructure, a shortage of well-trained individuals, a lack of innovation, and governance issues. This is likely to lead to a decline in the manufacturing sector, a significant contributor to employment. In the long term, it is expected to contribute to a higher unemployment rate and a decline in the standard of living. Another pressing concern is environmental degradation and climate change, posing risks to the countrys natural resources, biodiversity, and its ability to handle disasters. A survey by Bath University found that 89 percent of Indonesian participants were worried about the potential impact of climate change on their lives, with 66 percent believing they would be directly affected. The highest levels of concern were reported in disaster-prone provinces like Jakarta, South Sumatra, and North Sumatra. The endorsement of a former Suharto-era general by significant factions of the Indonesian ruling class carries considerable weight. This support is notable in the midst of widespread protests sweeping across Indonesia, where millions are expressing opposition to Israels brutal actions in Gaza. Simultaneously, internal social tensions are on the rise due to declining living standards, adding a layer of complexity to the countrys political landscape. The official results and subsequent actions by the incoming administration will determine how Indonesia addresses its multifaceted problems and charts its course in the global arena. Source: Globetrotter Pranjal Pandey, a journalist and editor located in Delhi, has edited seven books covering a range of issues available at LeftWord. You can explore his journalistic contributions on NewsClick.in. By Elizabeth Piper and Andrew MacAskill LONDON (Reuters) -It was 10 minutes of shouted accusations of being a "genocide enabler" and having "blood on your hands" that made a British lawmaker fear for his safety over his decision to voice support for Israel in its war with Hamas. Almost touching noses with his accuser before walking away and warning he would call the police, the opposition Labour Party member said the incident in a town in his constituency was just the latest of several that made him change his behaviour. He now makes sure he sits near the door on public transport and limits meetings with the public. "It feels like it could just need one spark to flip from someone giving you tuppence (criticism) in the street to escalating to actual violence," the lawmaker said. After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza, more than 10 British politicians spoken to by Reuters said the abuse directed at them had become more intense. At least one cited this as a factor in deciding not to seek a new term in parliament in an election later this year. All spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were fearful that giving their names would increase the threats and abuse. The conflict in the Palestinian enclave has inflamed tensions across the globe, bringing protesters onto the streets in support of both sides and dividing opinion among leaders over how to end the bloodshed. In Britain, even politicians who are no strangers to receiving abuse from the public say the tone has become ugly and dangerous, with some fearing it could easily slip into violence. Many are considering taking steps to protect themselves, such as wearing stab vests in meetings or building safe rooms. Last week, parliamentary speaker Lindsay Hoyle sent parliament into chaos when he broke with precedent to allow the three main parties to set out their positions on a call for a ceasefire in Gaza. That was designed to prevent lawmakers from having to choose between backing a ceasefire, abstaining or voting against one to follow their party orders. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called on all sides to "take the heat" out of the issue but some of his Conservative lawmakers have been accused of Islamophobia in their responses. They deny the charge. The interior ministry announced funding worth 31 million pounds ($39 million) on Wednesday to provide new security provisions for lawmakers and other officials. It would be used to protect "democratic processes from disruption", it said. But despite getting the highly charged ceasefire vote out of the way last week and the level of abuse easing a little, some lawmakers have decided to quit, saying the threats had become intolerable. The memory of two lawmakers - one killed by a right-wing extremist in 2016 and the other in 2021 by a man inspired by Islamic State - weighs heavily. 'TOXIC' After seeing his office in his North London constituency targeted in a suspected arson attack in December, Conservative lawmaker Mike Freer said he was standing down at the election after a "constant string of incidents". He had defended Israel. Dozens of protesters demonstrated outside the home of Tobias Ellwood, another Conservative lawmaker, earlier this month, with signs accusing him of being "complicit in genocide" in Gaza. The Labour lawmaker who now watches where he sits in public transport said he had been advised by police to install a partition at his constituency or voting district office so that people waiting to see him could not get near to him quickly. He described a huge coordinated email campaign against him and others. The emails, sent from different addresses in the run up to the Feb. 21 ceasefire vote, which had no binding effect on the government, demanded lawmakers vote for an immediate ceasefire and call on ministers to suspend arms sales to Israel. Another lawmaker said he had discussed with his wife getting a safe room installed at home. "No one should have to think about having a safe room just because they want to serve their communities," he said. A veteran politician said there had been other times when public anger meant lawmakers were in the firing line, such as over Britain's departure from the European Union, but that the threat of violence over Gaza marked a change for the worse. "I have had conversations with two colleagues about wearing stab vests to meetings," he said. "This is a very recent development." ($1 = 0.7905 pounds) (Writing by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Kate Holton and Angus Macswan) MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, a top ally of President Vladimir Putin, pledged on Monday to help Latin American countries counter what he described as U.S. attempts to interfere in their internal affairs. He made his comments in Nicaragua, led by former Marxist guerrilla Daniel Ortega, after meeting Cuba's former leader Raul Castro in Havana. Russia's TASS state news agency quoted Patrushev as saying that Latin American countries were well aware of attempts by the United States to resort to economic and political pressure against those whose policies did not suit Washington. "Latin America remains an important zone of peace, a sort of island of stability. It is important for us that more countries in the region strive towards independent policies," TASS quoted Patrushev as saying in Managua. "And Moscow will continue within the framework of existing means to prevent interference in the internal affairs of your countries, campaigns to discredit their legitimate authorities, intimidate their populations and destabilize their economies." The war in Ukraine has triggered the worst crisis in Russia's relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Russian and U.S. diplomats. After the West slapped what U.S. and European leaders cast as the toughest sanctions ever imposed on a major economy, Russia has turned away from Europe and the United States and boosted ties with countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. On his Latin American tour, Patrushev is also due to visit Bolivia and Venezuela, which like Cuba and Nicaragua are ran by leftist governments that have had frosty relationships with Washington. Patrushev said developing good ties with Latin American and Caribbean states remained "one of Moscow's key priorities". In Cuba, Patrushev and Castro discussed security cooperation, according to a statement issued by Russia's Security Council and quoted by Interfax news agency earlier on Tuesday. "Nikolai Patrushev assured Raul Castro that Moscow remains committed to the spirit of strategic partnership between the two countries," it said. Putin has an invitation to visit Cuba. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Ron Popeski and Rosalba O'Brien) CHARLESTON, South CarolinaMike and Kim Brantley are regular Republican voters who pulled the lever for Donald Trump in the last election. They no longer feel welcome in a GOP coalition shaped by the former president and dominated by the newer, populist voters Trump has attracted to the party since 2015. Trumps provocative behavior undoubtedly contributed to their backing of Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary. He never changed, Kim Brantley told The Dispatch while attending a campaign rally for the former South Carolina governor and ex-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Moncks Corner, roughly 30 miles northwest of Charleston. If he just humbled himself to the office of the presidency, we might be in a different place. But there is a broader issue motivating their abandonment of Trump that transcends the former president and threatens to fragment the GOP, not only this year but far into the future. Many traditional Republican voters like the Brantleys, who have supported GOP candidates for years, are backing the longshot Haley instead of returning to Trump because they feel abandoned by the former president. Even more than that, these Ronald Reagan-era Republicans say the voters fueling Trumps staying power inside the party are treating them with contempt and want them out. I dont like being told that if I dont believe a certain way, that Im not a Republican, Mike Brantley, a 56-year-old Army veteran, said Friday. The Brantleys are residents of Staten Island, a New York City borough where Trump remains popular, and were in South Carolina visiting family. They attended the Haley rally partly to encourage her to keep running even after the former president secures the 1,215 convention delegates he needs to become the presumptive Republican nominee. I think shes probably going to be independent at some point, Mike Brantley said with a sense of hope in his voice. Down the homestretch of the South Carolina campaign, The Dispatch spoke with several other voters who expressed similar feelings, many of which can best be described as the early stages of political homelessness. And this is not simply because they prefer not to vote for Trump, who turns 78 in Juneand cant imagine backing President Joe Biden, 81. Critically, its because they do not believe that Trump supporters generally are willing to tolerate themor their views on fiscal, social, and foreign policy issues. Exhibit A, as far as they are concerned, was Trumps vow issued just after the January 23 New Hampshire primary that any contributor to the Haley campaign would be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We dont want them and we wont accept them. Message received. Unfortunately, the MAGA people are not going to welcome us and theyre not going to like us, said retiree Debbie Buck, who voted for Trump twice but now supports Haley and attended her final South Carolina rally in Mount Pleasant. Becky Martin, a retiree who described herself as an undecided voter in the South Carolina primary, spoke fondly of Trumps presidency and described him in mostly positive terms. But she was doubtful these two factionstraditional, Reagan-era Republicans and Trump-era MAGA Republicanswould be able to coexist under the same banner for long. I dont think its impossible. But I think its very difficult, she said while attending the Haley rally in Moncks Corner. They have such different beliefs and views on things. Despite warning signs for Trump posed by disaffected Republicans ahead of an expected general election rematch with Biden, its unclear just how much trouble he is in as he mounts his third consecutive White House bid. Trump has narrowly led Biden in RealClearPolitics national polling average for several months; his advantage currently sits at 47 percent to 45 percent. His lead in some surveys of the key battleground states likely to decide the November 5 contestlike Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvaniais often more pronounced. Meanwhile, Trump is on track to wrap up the Republican nomination as early as mid-March. He easily defeated Haley, 52, in the first five caucuses and primaries, racking up a 20-point win on Saturday in South Carolina, where the states Republican establishment spurned its former twice-elected governor and marched in lockstep behind the 45th president. Trump, who trounced Haley in Michigan on Tuesday, is likely to perform well in primaries and caucuses this weekend, and, crucially, win big in next weeks lineup of Super Tuesday nominating contests across 16 states. But as Haley emphasized here in Charleston during a defiant concession speech after South Carolina was called for Trump, Republican voters are far from unified around the partys likely nominee. Im an accountant. I know 40 percent is not 50 percent. But I also know 40 percent is not some tiny group, she said, referencing the share of the vote she received in the Palmetto State on Saturday. There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative. Indeed, Haleys not-so-tiny group of supporters is desperate for a Trump alternative: an alternative who embodies Reagan Republicanism and, critically, an alternative who appreciates them. The Republican Party right now is less of a party and more of a cult following, Tom Jacobs, a 72-year-old retiree and Haley voter, said while awaiting her in Mount Pleasant, where she hosted a rally in the shadow of the U.S.S. Yorktown, a World War II-era aircraft-carrier-turned-museum. I hope when Trump is goneeither wayin four years, the Republican Party will come back to its senses. She gives you a reason to vote for her, added Rep. Ralph Norman, the South Carolina Republican who is Haleys lone supporter in Congress and was on hand to introduce her in Mount Pleasant. Ive listened to some of Trumps rally, and to be honest with you, its very divisive. Nikki is a Ronald Reagan; shes a Margaret Thatcher. Her messagethats whats keeping people coming. These are the dynamics behind the robust grassroots and financial support for Haley that better resembles a candidate truly in contention for the Republican presidential nomination. Usually, candidates who fail to win a caucus or primary in a key early state suspend their campaign if for no other reason than the money dries up and voters stop showing up at events. But attendance at Haley campaign events remains healthy, with several hundredor moreoften there to hear her speak. And rather than an air of resignation about the inevitable, the mood is upbeat and enthusiastic. Even after losing big in South Carolina, the Haley team claims to have raised $1 million in the 24 hours after the primary. Looking toward the fall, Biden will have his share of political challenges holding together the coalition that delivered him the White House in 2020. There is opposition in some quarters of the Democratic Party to his strong support for Israel in the wake of Hamas October 7 attacks and resistance elsewhere to proposals he is floating to crack down on illegal immigration at the Southern border, not to mention general concern about his age. But the danger for Trump is that a significant percentage of traditional Republican votersthose who helped him win the White House in the first placemight never come home in November because they no longer feel at home in the GOP. When pressed on this dynamic, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung sidestepped, saying in a text message that Republican voters have delivered resounding wins for President Trump in every single primary contest. The former president argued during his victory speech Saturday evening that he has never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now. Intra-party consolidation usually occurs because voters on the losing end of a divisive primary eventually decide that the winner shares a majority of their values and conducts themselves as they believe a president should. But given Trumps polarizing natureand unique liabilities, such as his four criminal indictments and culpability for the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitolthats not necessarily a safe assumption this time around. And its not just a matter of Trumps personal foibles, either, that has made the GOP less hospitable to traditional Republicans. Ideologically, the Republican Party under the former presidents stewardship is more populist, and less conservative, than it was for the decades-long Reagan era that preceded Trumps election as president in 2016. Consider former Vice President Mike Pence, Trumps running mate in that and the subsequent election, who just launched a $20 million effort through his political nonprofit organization, Advancing American Freedom, to protect traditional conservative values from assault by Republicans and the modern conservative movement. It is not just the party thats become the problem, said Marc Short, a senior Pence adviser and veteran conservative activist. In my mind, its the conservative movement. Read more at The Dispatch The Dispatch is a new digital media company providing engaged citizens with fact-based reporting and commentary, informed by conservative principles. Sign up for free. OREM, Utah Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Wednesday called on Republican National Committee members to hold an on-the-record vote on a draft resolution that would curb the national partys ability to direct its funds toward legal fees, including former President Donald Trump's. All Americans, and Republicans especially, deserve a vote on the record on that resolution, Haley said while campaigning here. We deserve to know how the RNC is going to spend their money and if its going to go towards legal fees. Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita whom Trump plans to install at the RNC along with other loyalists, including his daughter-in-law, following the resignation of longtime chair Ronna McDaniel previously told reporters that the RNC would not be paying for Trump's legal fees, but Haley campaign officials have not trusted the statement. Haley went on to question if the RNC would end up shifting support from down-ballot Republicans to a legal slush fund. Are you going to ask the question about what happens with that resolution that says you cant spend it on legal fees? she asked reporters. RNC members will meet in Houston in early March to select a new chair and potentially vote on resolutions including two put forward by a Mississippi committee member, Henry Barbour. One focuses on slowing the RNC from coordinating with a presidential candidate until the candidate meets the delegate threshold to win the nomination. The other one would prohibit the committee from paying any candidate's legal fees. We brought forth these two resolutions to make sure there is a serious discussion about protecting the primary process while there are still two candidates competing and preventing the RNC from paying the legal bills of any political candidate unrelated to the election cycle, Barbour said in a statement to NBC News last week. On the campaign trail ahead of Super Tuesday, March 5, Haley dodged a question from NBC News about whether having leadership teams announced in states past Super Tuesday for instance, Georgia meant she could guarantee staying in until that point. I dont want to talk about how long yall think Im gonna stay in, she said. When pressed that voters might want to know how long theyll have her as an alternative to Trump, she sidestepped again: No I want the conversation to be, where are we going in the country? Haley also reacted to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnells announcement Wednesday that he planned to step down from his leadership position. Haley told reporters that she applauds McConnell for realizing that it is time for new generational change." I think whats more important is, we need to understand we dont just need new generational change in Congress, she said. New York lawmakers are weighing a revised congressional district map of their own making that proposes only small changes to a bipartisan plan Democrats rejected earlier this week. A bill setting new lines for New York's 26 House districts was introduced Monday night, only hours after Democratic supermajorities in the Senate and Assembly shot down the version approved this month by the state's Independent Redistricting Commission. Both chambers are expected to vote on the new map no later than Thursday. The rejection of a map with bipartisan support had prompted Republicans to cry foul and predict a gerrymandered alternative by Democrats. But the proposal that quickly emerged made no changes at all in the commission's lines for 16 districts and added an edge for only one Democratic incumbent. Republican leaders were silent about the proposal on Tuesday, leaving unclear if they plan to challenge the map in court, as they did in 2022 and vowed to do again if Democrats skewed lines in their favor. The east side of the Albany State Capitol building Jan. 17, 2021. What changes did the Democrats propose with new map? Under the legislature's proposal, two House members from each party who stood to gain from the commission's map Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro and Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan would lose most of the re-election boosts they would have gotten, according to an analysis by political mappers at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. The new map still made Molinaro's 19th District and Ryan's 18th District slightly more favorable to each of them, but erased the more appealing shifts the commission had proposed. Ryan, a Democrat, would wind up with a district that President Joe Biden won by 9.2 percentage points in 2020, while Molinaro, a Republican, would be seeking to hold a seat Biden won by 4.4 points. Rep. Pat Ryan of the 18th C.D. in New York, photographed at 2 Alices Coffee Lounge in downtown Newburgh Jan. 12, 2023. One Syracuse-area Republican, Rep. Brandon Williams, would be hamstrung with a bluer district. Williams would be defending his seat in a district Biden won by 11.6 points, 4 points bluer than it was before. But his party would be hard-pressed to object: the new proposal recast his 22nd District in exactly the same way as the independent map that GOP leaders and lawmakers strongly supported. Court ruling: NY to draw redistricting lines again, top court rules. What that means for 2024 races One significant map change was made on Long Island. Lawmakers shifted lines in way that help Rep. Tom Suozzi, the Democrat who won a special election this month to fill a vacant seat representing parts of Nassau County and Queens. Suozzi's district would get 3 points bluer, becoming one Biden won by 11.4 points. Former U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, Democratic candidate for New York's 3rd congressional district, speaks at his election night party Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024, in Woodbury, N.Y. Suozzi won a special election for the House seat formerly held by George Santos. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah) No tinkering at all was done to two other swing districts critical to this year's battle for House control: those of Republican Rep. Mike Lawler in the Hudson Valley and Rep. Anthony D'Esposito on Long Island. Lawmakers tinkered with House lines in the Bronx, slightly reshaping the district in which Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Westchester County Executive George Latimer are waging a heated Democratic primary. But those changes merely swapped pieces of the Bronx in the 16th District and made no changes in Westchester, where most of the district is located. CUNY Graduate Center mapped the new proposal on Tuesday based on the unwieldy descriptions in the bill, which lists the counties, towns, cities and census tract numbers in each district. To view that map and compare it the redistricting commission's proposal or the existing lines, go to newyork.redistrictingandyou.org. Tossed map: NY redistricting: Back to drawing board as Dem lawmakers reject map by bipartisan panel Will new map touch off a legal fight over redistricting in NY? The proposal seemed a far cry from what furious Republicans warned of after Democratic lawmakers in both chambers tossed the commission map, over GOP objections. "They should have been embarrassed when they were caught red-handed in their unconstitutional gerrymander in 2022," state Republican Chairman Ed Cox said in a statement after the vote. "But Albany Democrats are incapable of shame. They again seek to rig elections in back rooms rather than compete at the ballot box." Outgoing New York GOP Chair Ed Cox, left, and incoming Chair Nick Langworthy speak to reporters at state Republican headquarters in Albany on May 21, 2019. Ed Cox took on the role again in 2023. Cox and other Republican leaders made no immediate comments on the fairness of the Democrats' map or if they will sue. With candidate petitioning for House races starting on Tuesday, a lawsuit almost certainly would force a delay in the June 25 congressional primaries. A similar court challenge in 2022 pushed those elections into August. Gov. Kathy Hochul, speaking to reporters at an event in Schenectady County on Tuesday, defended the legislature's right to revise the lines, rebuffing GOP complaints that it was overriding a panel created for that very task by a 2014 constitutional amendment. "The Constitution allows a multi-step process, which is that there is a commission that's convened in a bipartisan way yes, to draw maps but it is the prerogative of the legislature to vote yes or no, and if they vote no, they have an alternative," Hochul said. "That's exactly what is allowed in the Constitution." If Republicans don't sue, the approval of the legislature's map this week would conclude a three-year redistricting saga in New York and solidify House lines for the next four elections. Democrats won a lawsuit last year that forced the redistricting commission to propose a map to replace the court-imposed lines used for the 2022 elections. If they do sue, they could be prevented from bringing the case in a Republican-leaning county, as they did in 2022. A bill passed Monday by the Senate and being considered by the Assembly would limit redistricting challenges to courts in Manhattan or three Democratic-leaning counties: Westchester, Albany and Erie. Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com. This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Dems toss NY bipartisan redistricting map. What they proposed instead Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib had urged Michigan voters to choose 'uncommitted' over Biden in Tuesday's Democratic primary. AP Photos/Carlos Osorio and Evan Vucci Over 100,000 Michigan voters chose "uncommitted" over Biden in the Democratic primary on Tuesday. It comes after Rep. Rashida Tlaib and activists led a campaign to make him change course on Israel. Trump won Michigan by under 11,000 votes in 2016, and activists say they're leveraging their votes. President Joe Biden may have handily won the Michigan Democratic primary on Tuesday, but the results came with a significant warning sign for his continued support for Israel. Over 100,000 voters cast "uncommitted" ballots, accounting for over 13% of the vote, according to Decision Desk HQ. It comes after the "Listen to Michigan" campaign urged voters to withhold their support for Biden until Israel enacts a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. The campaign has been led by Layla Elabed, a Michigan activist and the younger sister of Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress. "I was proud today to walk in, and pull a Democratic ballot, and vote 'uncommitted,'" Tlaib said in a video message on Tuesday. "President Biden is not listening to us. This is the way we can use our democracy to say: listen. Listen to Michigan." A statement from @RashidaTlaib on voting uncommitted in Michigan today. pic.twitter.com/xOfOcYTFQn #ListenToMichigan (@Listen2michigan) February 27, 2024 The results illustrate the unique challenges that Biden faces in the crucial battleground state amid the war in Gaza, where almost 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since the October 7 Hamas attacks. Tens of thousands of Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans live in Dearborn and metropolitan Detroit, including some whose family members have been killed in recent months. "President Biden has funded the bombs falling on the family members of people right here in Michigan," Elabed said in a statement on Monday. "Thousands of Michigan Democrats who voted for Biden in 2020 now feel completely betrayed." It remains unclear how many of the "uncommitted" voters will continue to withhold their support for Biden in the general election, but organizers have argued that it's on the president to earn their support and they say it won't be their fault if Biden ends up losing Michigan to former President Donald Trump in the general election. "President Biden himself, by failing to call for a cease-fire, is on track to deliver the presidency back to Donald Trump and his white supremacist buddies," said Abbas Alawieh, a spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, during a press call earlier this month. Listen to Michigan organizers had set an official goal of garnering 10,000 votes around the same as Trump's roughly 10,700 vote margin in 2016. Biden defeated Trump by more than 150,000 votes in the state in 2020. Ahead of the Tuesday primary, officials with the Biden campaign had pointed out that around 20,000 voters have opted to select "uncommitted" in recent presidential primary elections though the circumstances have varied. "Uncommitted" accounted for less than 2% of the vote in recent competitive primaries, including 19,106 uncommitted voters in 2020, and 21,601 in 2016. In 2012, when President Barack Obama faced a non-competitive reelection, and there was no organized effort to push voters to cast uncommitted ballots, 20,833 did so anyway, accounting for 10.7% of the vote. Four years earlier, when Obama did not appear on the ballot, many of his supporters cast uncommitted votes over his opponent Hillary Clinton, leading to 238,168 votes that accounted for roughly 40% of the electorate. In a memo to reporters on Monday, the campaign said that it had spent about $200,000 on mail and digital ads, organizing, and other expenses. In seeking to highlight the uphill nature of the effort, the group claimed that some sympathetic Democratic organizations, elected officials, and operatives kept their distance from the campaign "due to fear of retaliation from the Democratic Party establishment." Read the original article on Business Insider San Francisco this week formally apologized to its Black residents and their descendants for decades of systemic and structural discrimination, targeted acts of violence and atrocities. On Tuesday, during the last week of Black History Month, the 11 members of the citys Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to pass a resolution that includes a formal apology and commits to the rectification and redress of past policies and misdeeds, the resolution states. Supervisor Shamann Walton, who introduced the resolution last fall as one of more than 100 recommendations from the citys African American Reparations Advisory Committee, described it as historic and long overdue, according to a news release. We still have a long way to go, however this is a first step to commit to the restoration of the ways racism has caused insult to Black humanity including San Francisco making a commitment to substantial ongoing, systemic, and programmatic investments in Black communities to address historical and present harms, Walton said. Though historic in nature, the apology isnt a first for San Francisco. In 2022, coinciding with the Lunar New Year, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution formally apologizing to its Chinese residents for discriminatory actions taken during the citys storied history. San Francisco is the second major US city to issue an apology to Black residents, after Boston passed a similar edict in 2022, apologizing for the role played by the City of Boston in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the ongoing detrimental impacts experienced by the Black people of Boston, according to the resolution and a statement from the city. Additionally, nine states have issued apologies for their history of discrimination and violence, the San Francisco resolution notes. The Board of Supervisors last year accepted a recommendation of a one-time payment of $5 million to eligible Black residents as part of a draft plan from the reparations committee, CNN previously reported. At the time, California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the recommendations a milestone in our bipartisan effort to advance justice and promote healing. An apology on public record is a vital part of corrective action and a milestone for healing for our community, Tinisch Hollins, former vice-chair of the African American Reparations Advisory Committee, said in Tuesdays news release. The San Francisco Reparations Plan outlines more than 100 additional ways for the City of San Francisco to demonstrate the sincerity of that apology by proactively creating pathways to equity for Black San Franciscans, she said. It should be used as a blueprint for the next century. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com By Nick Oxford and Rich McKay CANADIAN, Texas (Reuters) -Richard Murray choked back tears on Wednesday as he surveyed the charred remains of his mechanic's workshop and home of 50 years in the small Texas Panhandle town of Canadian. The previous night a sheriff's deputy had pounded on the door and ordered Murray and his wife Gilissa to evacuate as the state's second-largest wildfire on record approached their home. "The house is gone and all the cars are melted," said Murray, 72, shortly after he returned home Wednesday morning. "There's nothing left." The wildfire, raging northeast of Amarillo since Monday, has blackened 850,000 acres (344,000 hectares) of grasslands and timber since Monday and spread eastward across the border of Oklahoma, the Texas A&M Forest Service reported. At least one person, an 83-year-old woman in Hutchinson County, was reported by local media to have died in the blaze, dubbed the Smokehouse Creek fire. Firefighters had managed to carve containment lines around just 3% of the blaze as of Wednesday night, officials said. Several smaller wildfires were burning other parts of the state's northern Panhandle, stoked by fierce winds and hot, dry conditions. The area scorched by the Smokehouse Creek Fire exceeded the land mass of the state of Rhode Island, making it nearly as immense as the largest wildfire on record in Texas, the East Amarillo Complex Fire that burned 907,000 acres in 2006. The Forest Service said an as-yet unknown number of structures were damaged and destroyed. Terrill Bartlett, Canadian's mayor, said the town was "blessed" that there had been no reports of serious injuries or fatalities, but it was devastating for residents who had lost homes. "We're the kind of community that pulls together and supports one another," he said on Wednesday. Murray said he and his wife will stay with friends for now and have already received dozens of calls from people offering help. On Wednesday morning, they were searching for their dogs and two cats. "That's the hardest thing, not knowing what happened to them," he said. The next-largest of the Texas conflagrations was the Windy Deuce Fire, which as of Wednesday night had charred 142,000 acres and was 30% contained. On Tuesday, the Windy Deuce had crept to within a few miles of the U.S. Energy Department's Pantex plant, the nation's primary nuclear weapons assembly facility, located near Amarillo, prompting officials to evacuate non-essential personnel and suspend operations. But the leading edge of that blaze shifted to the north and west, away from Pantex, on Wednesday, allowing routine activities at the plant to resume. "Operations at the Pantex Plant returned to normal Wednesday," the facility said in an online notice. "There is no imminent wildfire threat to the plant at this time." On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties and directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to activate more than 95 firefighters as well as personnel to close roads, control traffic, offer medical aid, and provide livestock support. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Forest Service are helping Texas, and federal authorities are in close touch with officials "on the front lines of these fires," said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a news briefing on Wednesday. More than 13,000 Texas homes and businesses were without power as of Wednesday morning, with more than 4,000 of those in the Panhandle region alone, according to data from PowerOutage.us. Another resident of Canadian, Julene Castillo, tried to flee on Tuesday evening but was forced back when the smoke became too thick to drive through. "The fire was burning all around us, we couldn't get out," said Castillo, 51, in an interview on Wednesday. "Even with the windows rolled up, your eyes and throat burned." Castillo, who works as a secretary for Canadian Methodist Church, drove to the town's high school where she and about 100 other families "sat and prayed and cried and tried to comfort each other" in the parking lot. A volunteer firefighter said about 50 homes had burned to the ground in Canadian alone, according to Castillo. "We didn't know what else would happen. We could see the fire's glow as the sun went down," Castillo said. Castillo returned home later Tuesday night and discovered her home had survived. She sheltered in place and opened her church on Wednesday for anyone needing a place to stay or pray. (Reporting by Nick Oxford in Canadian, Texas, and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Addiitional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Writing by Julia Harte in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty, David Gregorio and Tom Hogue) Serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech, Idaho's longest-serving death row inmate, was spared from death on Wednesday after the medical team assigned to administer a lethal injection failed to establish an IV line, preventing the execution from proceeding, officials said. The 73-year-old was to be executed at Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Boise about an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last-minute request to stay his execution. "Mr. Creech will be returned to his cell and witnesses will be escorted out of the facility," the Idaho Department of Corrections said in a statement. "As a result, the death warrant will expire. The State will consider next steps." The surprise twist came after Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan issued a decision Wednesday morning denying Creech's request for a stay of execution, clearing the way for prison authorities to carry out the ultimate punishment. Around 10 a.m. MST, a six-member prison team escorted Creech, who was on a gurney, into the execution chamber and transferred to a hospital bed and strapped down. Josh Tewalt, director of the Idaho Department of Corrections, said at a news conference that the medical team initially conducted a physical assessment of Creech and expressed confidence that they would be able to establish an IV to administer the lethal injection. But once the execution began, the medical team quickly ran into problems. "The team attempted eight times through multiple limbs and appendages to establish IV access, consistent with IDOC policy," Tewalt said. One of the problems was a "vein quality issue" with Creech that prevented the medical team from establishing an IV line, prompting the execution to be called off, according to Tewalt. "This is a team of competent medical professionals," Tewalt said, adding it would be a mistake to describe their efforts to place an IV into Creech as a failure. He said no timeline has been established on when the state will attempt to execute Creech again. Attorneys for Creech had filed a certiorari petition that the High Court halt the execution to give the panel time to review the decision by the Idaho Supreme Court denying Creech's appeals. "The application for a stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied," the ruling said. "The edition for a write of certiorari is denied." PHOTO: This image provided by the Idaho Department of Correction shows Thomas Eugene Creech on Jan. 9, 2009. Creech, Idaho's longest-serving death row inmate, is scheduled to be executed Feb. 28, 2024 in Idaho. (AP) Days before the execution, Idaho Gov. Brad Little said he had "zero intention" of halting the execution at Idaho Maximum Security Institution. "Thomas Creech is a convicted serial killer responsible for acts of extreme violence," Little said in a statement issued on Jan. 29. "His lawful and just sentence must be carried out as ordered by the court. Justice has been delayed long enough." In the petition to the Supreme Court, Creech's attorneys argued that his due process rights were violated by the Idaho Supreme Court. "Mr. Creech has identified a substantial need for guidance from the Court on an issue of great national importance and he has brought a strong vehicle for it to do so," Creech's attorney wrote in the petition, asking for "clarity on [the] question of when a state's post-conviction regime affords little meaningful review to legitimate federal constitutional claims that it violates due process." The petition added, "There are strong reasons to suspect that at least some states have gone too far in limiting post-conviction review, thus calling for the Court's intervention." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco also denied Creech's latest appeal in a ruling issued Saturday, prompting attorneys for the condemned man to take their argument to the Supreme Court. Prior to the death chamber glitch, the Idaho Department of Corrections issued a statement Wednesday morning saying it is prepared to move forward with Creech's execution. "Last night, Mr. Creech visited with his wife throughout the evening. Additionally, his religious advisor spent an hour with him this morning. Mr. Creech had fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, rolls, and ice cream for his last meal. Mr. Creech has remained cooperative in the days leading up to the execution," the corrections department statement read. Creech, according to prosecutors, has been convicted of five murders in three states, including three committed in Idaho. In a 1993 opinion issued by the U.S. Supreme Court denying an appeal filed by Creech, late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, "Creech admitted to killing or participating in the killing of at least 26 people." "The bodies of 11 of his victims -- who were shot, stabbed, beaten, or strangled to death -- have been recovered in seven states," she said. MORE: Tennessee inmate on death row for 28 years fights for his freedom The last murder Creech pleaded guilty to occurred in 1981 at an Idaho maximum security prison when he killed 23-year-old David Dale Jensen, a disabled fellow inmate, by beating him to death with a sock filled with batteries, according to prosecutors. At the time of Jensen's slaying, Creech was serving two life sentences for a double murder he committed in Idaho and had been convicted of murders in California and Oregon. MORE: Justice Department to pursue death penalty against Buffalo supermarket shooter Payton Gendron Creech argued in his recent appeal that his due process rights were violated by the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole and the Ada County, Idaho, Prosecuting Attorney's Office. At the commutation hearing in October, Ada County deputy prosecutor Jill Longhurst told the commission that Creech is a "sociopath" who has "utter disregard for human life." "Mr. Creech is a serial killer, and in 1981 said he would kill again, and he did," Longhurst told the commission. "Thomas Creech is the most prolific serial killer in Idaho." Creech's execution came despite pleas to spare him from the most unlikely advocates -- prison staffers who have cared for him behind bars. A former prison nurse, a former prosecutor, prison guards and even the judge who sentenced Creech to death all filed declarations backing his request for clemency, which was denied in a 3-3 vote on Jan. 29 by the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole. Judge Robert Newhouse of the Fourth Judicial District Court in Boise, who sentenced Creech to death in 1983, said in his declaration to the commission that Creech should serve the rest of his life in prison and that executing him would "just be an act of vengeance." Death chamber glitch halts execution of serial killer Thomas Creech originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Thomas Eugene Creech, whose attempted execution by the state failed Wednesday after nearly 50 years of incarceration, is Idahos most notorious and longest-serving death row prisoner. Creechs execution by the state failed on Wednesday when lethal injections could not be administered. The 73-year-old was first charged in Idaho with killing two men in Valley County in November 1974. He was convicted of murder for shooting to death Edward T. Arnold, 34, and John W. Bradford, 40. He was given the death penalty. His sentence was dropped a few years later to life in prison after a U.S. Supreme Court decision barred automatic death sentences following a conviction. But already, Creechs reputation had taken on a life of its own. In his defense at the Valley County murder trial, he testified that he had killed 42 people by the time he was 24 years old, but he denied responsibility for Arnold and Bradfords deaths. Idaho death-row prisoner Thomas Creech. Creech later recanted on a third of the total, instead saying the number was actually 26 murders he committed or at least participated in. His attorneys have said the revised total remains far exaggerated. Creech for years said, including to the Associated Press in January 1982, that 11 men gang-raped his then-wife, Thomasene White, before shoving her from a second-story building. She survived, but later took her own life at a mental hospital in Oregon. The situation, he said, sent him on a multistate revenge tour tracking down the men he believed were responsible. He killed nine of the 11 perpetrators, Creech said as recently as his clemency hearing in January I went after them, Creech told the state parole board. All those happened within just a couple months. I think that I did get them nine. Creechs claims led many to label him as a serial killer. As someone who killed two or more people in separate incidents, he fit the definition under FBI guidelines. Following his Idaho conviction, Creech was found guilty in the June 1974 strangling death of V. Grant Robinson, 50, in Sacramento, California, and August 1974 shooting death of William J. Dean, 22, in Portland, Oregon. Idaho death row prisoner Thomas Eugene Creech, pictured here in November 2020, was convicted of three murders in the state and two more in Oregon and California between 1974 and 1981. Now 73, he has been incarcerated in Idaho for nearly 50 years. In a phone interview from prison in February with The Wall Street Journal, Creech traced the four murders back to fits of rage he experienced while using amphetamines and other drugs. Statesman requests for an interview with Creech were declined by his attorneys with the legal nonprofit Federal Defender Services of Idaho. In May 1981, Creech, then 30, got into a fight with fellow maximum security prisoner David D. Jensen, 23, who was partially disabled. Some of the facts about the incident remain in question, but Creech beat Jensen to death with a battery-filled sock. When the sock weapon broke, Creech kicked and stomped Jensen in the head and throat, splashing blood on his cell floor and walls. Jensen was sent to the hospital, where he died the next day. We are a family living with a tragedy, Jensens daughter, Brandi Jensen, said at Creechs clemency hearing. We have been waiting 42 years for this chapter to be over and justice to be served. Thomas Creech, 73, appears at a clemency hearing in January with attorney Chris Sanchez, left, and investigator Christine Hanley from the Federal Defender Services of Idaho. Creech resentenced to death At the hearing, Ada County prosecutors said Creechs actions in prison showed a pattern. He attacked another fellow prisoner in the months before killing Jensen, and used a razor blade mounted to a toothbrush to slice that persons abdomen, neck and arm, said Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Jill Longhurst. The other prisoner survived. Creech pleaded guilty to killing Jensen, bringing his total murder convictions to five across three states. He was resentenced to death in January 1982. Creech is suspected of killing at least five other people based on evidence and his own admissions, Longhurst said. Plus, prosecutors alleged that Creech also was behind the nearly 50-year-old cold case killing of Daniel A. Walker Jr., 21, in San Bernardino County, California, in October 1974. Local prosecutors and Southern California law enforcement have shown no public proof linking Creech to the crime, and his attorneys dispute the allegation. In his bid for a reduced sentence to life in prison, Creech was supported by several former prison workers, a former state lawmaker and even the judge who sentenced him to death. Some of them knew him as remorseful, a mentor to other prisoners and artistic. His poems, drawings and abilities playing the guitar spoke to them, they said. During his time in prison, Creech also became a devout Christian and met his wife, LeAnn Creech, through her son, who was then a prison guard. They have been married for 25 years. Of course, my faith plays into anything I do, Creech told The Wall Street Journal. I dont think anyone could go through this for 50 years and not believe in God. At his January clemency hearing before the Commission of Pardons and Parole, Creech said Jensens murder was the one he regretted most. In response to a commissioners question, Creech denied that the number of people he killed was as many as 14. I dont really know for sure, I got so mixed up with lying and telling law enforcement things that I didnt do, Creech said. When I was starting to kill people it was in 1974, and it was just within a matter of months when I did everything that I did. Idahos longest-serving death row prisoner wants a life sentence. He has surprising allies Officers use pepper spray, tear gas to restore order at Idaho maximum security prison Idaho bill to extend death penalty unconstitutional, aims for US Supreme Court review Idaho found lethal injection drugs for an execution. Heres how much they cost taxpayers Russias top security official and Vladimir Putin ally Nikolai Patrushev promised comprehensive support to Russian allies in Latin America against U.S. interference during a meeting with officials from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua, hosted in Managua on Tuesday. You are well aware of the aggressive methods of the United States of forcibly breaking down governments that do not suit them, political pressure and economic containment of states demonstrating independence, Russian Security Council Secretary Patrushev was quoted saying in a report by Russias official newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The presence of intelligence officials in Russian delegations abroad is rarely disclosed by the countrys state media. But the newspaper reported that Patrushev traveled with officials from Russian spy agencies like the Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service in addition to officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and other government agencies. Pictures from Russian media outlets show Cuban Interior Minister Lazaro Alberto Alvarez Casas attended the meeting. At a time when Russia faces increasing isolation over its invasion of Ukraine, Patrushev said Latin America, a region traditionally thought as closer to the United States, is gaining growing importance for Russia, the report says. His trip to Latin America, which included a Monday stop in Cuba, happened just days after Russias foreign minister met with Cuban and Venezuelan leaders on his way to attend a G-20 meeting in Brazil. Patrushev said Moscow is ready to provide full, comprehensive support to our Latin American friends, including preventing interference in the internal affairs of countries friendly to us, discrediting their legitimate authorities, intimidating the population, and destabilizing the economy. The official hinted Russias support is critical at a time when some of these countries are headed to elections, in reference to Venezuela, where strongman Nicolas Maduro has stepped back from efforts to improve relations with the United States and has broken commitments his government made to the opposition in a deal negotiated with U.S. support. Patrushev is expected to meet Nicaraguan authoritarian leader Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, on Wednesday. But first, Patrushev landed in Cuba on Monday, where he held a private meeting with retired Gen. Raul Castro to discuss issues of practical cooperation between Russia and Cuba in the field of security, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, reinforcing views that despite being out of office, the 92-year old revolutionary leader is still making important military and political decisions. The report noted that Castro was cheerful and energetic and joked with Patrushev, whom he called my old friend. In a separate meeting, the Russian senior official also discussed security issues and economic cooperation with the countrys handpicked president, Miguel Diaz-Canel. In recent years, Russia and Cuba have strengthened military and diplomatic ties, and since Russias invasion of Ukraine the pace of the exchanges has dramatically increased, a development that has irritated the U.S. government. Patrushev previously traveled to Cuba in 2019 and in March of last year. The communist government is also trying to attract Russian investments and credits to try to salvage the islands moribund socialist economy. But Russian officials have urged the government to speed up its own market reforms. Hacked documents and testimonies revealed that Cuban mercenaries are also fighting with the Russian Army in Ukraine. In Diaz-Canels talks with the Russian top advisor, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that the Cuban leader praised Putins recent interview with former Fox host Tucker Carlson, an hours-long exchange in which the Russian leader tried to provide historical justifications for his invasion of Ukraine. Diaz-Canel said the interview showed Putins undeniable leadership in the world. STOCKHOLM (AP) Traces of a toxic, colorless gas were found at the headquarters of Swedens security agency where a suspected gas leak last week forced authorities to evacuate some 500 people from the facility, a local paper reported Wednesday. The daily Svenska Dagbladet newspaper said authorities had found traces of phosgene. The gas has a strong odor that can cause vomiting and breathing trouble and was used as a weapon in World War I. There were no immediate comments from officials. On Friday, eight people from the headquarters in Solna, just north of Stockholm, were hospitalized, following the evacuation. There were no reports of anyone being seriously injured. Those admitted to the hospital suffered breathing problems, authorities said. Some of them were officers who smelled the gas when they arrived at the scene, police said. Images showed first responders and police officers wearing gas masks at the security headquarters. Swedish media reported that a zone measuring 500 meters (about 547 yards) in diameter was set up protectively. Authorities asked people living near the Swedish security agency, known by its acronym SAPO, to keep their windows closed at the time. After the evacuation, SAPO said Friday that the rescue service had established that there was no gas either inside the premises or outside the building. Former President Donald Trump has won Michigans Republican primary, NBC News projects. The victory continues Trumps dominant run through this years presidential primaries and caucuses, despite the lingering candidacy of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. Michigan is a two-part nominating contest for the GOP. Only 16 of the states 55 delegates to the Republican National Convention will be awarded based on Tuesdays primary results. The remaining delegates will be decided at a state party convention Saturday. Follow live coverage here. Trump called in to a Michigan GOP watch party in Grand Rapids shortly after the race was called to thank supporters. We have a very simple task we have to win on Nov. 5, Trump, referring to the general election, told the crowd by phone. We win Michigan, we win the whole thing. Trumps influence in the state remains deep. He was heavily involved in the 2022 midterms, endorsing a slate of statewide candidates who won their primaries with his help but all of whom all lost in the general election. At a Feb. 17 rally in Waterford Township, his only pre-primary rally in Michigan, Trump largely looked past the contest and focused on a November rematch with President Joe Biden. We want to send a signal, but we want to win Nov. 5, he added. Nov. 5, were going to get this guy out. Were going to change our country. Were going to bring our country back. Haley campaigned Sunday in the Detroit suburb of Troy and Monday in Grand Rapids. Winless in every primary and caucus ahead of Tuesday including in her home state of South Carolina she has been focusing more on what she sees as Trumps lack of electability this fall. She has emphasized how she received nearly 40% of the vote in South Carolina and suggested her vote share indicated problems for Trump. Hours before the polls closed in Michigan, Haley spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas sought to drastically lower expectations, suggesting that even a 10% share would signal an appetite for a Trump alternative in the GOP. When early results showed Haley losing Michigan by an even wider margin than past contests, Perez-Cubas reinforced that assertion. Joe Biden is losing about 20% of the Democratic vote today, and many say its a sign of his weakness in November, Perez-Cubas said. Donald Trump is losing about 35% of the vote. Thats a flashing warning sign for Trump in November. The primary and Saturdays convention come amid major turmoil for the Michigan Republican Party. A judge on Tuesday intervened in a long-building dispute between former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, whom the Republican National Committee has recognized as the new state party chair, and Kristina Karamo, who was ousted from that role by activists unhappy with her management. Karamo had refused to give up the post. She also had vowed to go ahead with plans for a rival GOP convention Saturday in Detroit Hoekstra is holding his convention in Grand Rapids but Tuesday's court order prohibits her from conducting party business. Trump had endorsed Hoekstra, his former ambassador to the Netherlands. The former president congratulated Hoekstra on his court victory during the call to the watch party Tuesday night. When we finally get access to all of the information from the previous leadership of the Republican Party, were not going to find a campaign plan, Hoekstra said last week in an interview. And Im expecting were not going to find any financial resources. And so, yeah ... weve got eight months to do what a political party normally does in 18 to 20 months. How is Wendy Williams doin'? It depends on who you ask. A new Lifetime documentary "Where is Wendy Williams?" which premiered over the weekend, is casting doubt on Williams' care during filming as producers and members of Williams' camp place blame on one another. Author Shawn Zanotti, who became Williams' publicist in 2021, slammed the documentary's producers in an interview with NBC News entertainment correspondent Chloe Melas published Wednesday. "I felt that (Williams) was being exploited," Zanotti told NBC News. "She thought we were focusing on the comeback of her career. ... She would be mortified. There's no way you can convince me that she would be OK with looking and seeing herself in that way." Wendy Williams is the subject of a controversial new Lifetime documentary "Where is Wendy Williams?" that traces the daytime talk show legend's life after her long-running TV show was cancelled. 'That is not the project' Wendy Williams signed up for, Shawn Zanotti claims Zanotti told NBC News that in 2022, she was first pitched a follow-up to "Wendy Williams: What a Mess!", another Lifetime documentary full of revelations including her life after splitting from ex-husband Kevin Hunter Sr. Zanotti told NBC News she still works for Williams. However, her employment status remains unclear. The same production company that brought viewers "What a Mess!" produced the recent "Where is Wendy Williams?" but Zanotti says the project shifted amid Williams' publicized health struggles in recent years. Talk show host Wendy Williams diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and aphasia "That is not the project that (Williams) signed up for. That's not the project (the producers) brought to me. That's not what I told her this was going to be about," Zanotti said. "There were a lot of good moments. None of those good moments were shown," she continued. But producers of the Lifetime documentary disputed these types of critiques, like ones from Zanotti, in recent days. Producer of 'Where is Wendy Williams?' says they were close with talk show host In a Monday interview with The Hollywood Reporter, "Where is Wendy Williams?" producers pushed back on critics of the documentary. "There was no guarantee we would air this documentary if we werent happy with the content that we ultimately got and the editorial direction that we landed upon, which was the familys point of view and illustrating what can happen when one of your family members is put into a guardianship outside of your control," producer Mark Ford said. Ford added that Williams became "very close" with the film's producers and there was a "real emotional connection that the project gave her" while noting that the guardian had earlier involvement in the film. "Will was the point of contact with the guardian throughout the process and he would have to go to her to get documents signed, to get location agreements, to book her travel out of state," Ford said. "All of these things were things that had to be signed off on by the guardian throughout." 'Where is Wendy Williams?' documentary premieres after lawsuit to halt its release The two-part documentary arrived on the heels of Williams' frontotemporal dementia and aphasia announcement on Thursday. That same day, Williams' temporary guardian, Sabrina Morrissey, filed a lawsuit under seal against Lifetime in a New York state court, USA TODAY confirmed. The case says Morrissey is "acting in her capacity as Temporary Guardian of W.W.H." with the initials presumably for Wendy Williams Hunter, the 59-year-old host's legal name from her marriage to ex-husband Kevin Hunter. The next day, a New York appellate judge ruled that Lifetime may go forward with releasing its documentary about Williams despite the lawsuit filed against A&E Television Networks in an attempt to halt its premiere. The order says a ruling would be an "impermissible prior restraint on speech that violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution." What to know: Wendy Williams, like Bruce Willis, has aphasia, frontotemporal dementia This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Wendy Williams' publicist Shawn Zanotti slams Lifetime documentary Janet Stevens didn't care before, why the change? Feb. 22 To the Editor: It was interesting to see Executive Councilor Janet Stevens on the nightly news recently. She was expressing concerns over delays in providing drugs to New Hampshire residents and that any delays in receiving drugs was a matter of life and death. Dover Fire & Rescue prepare for helping Strafford County Public Health Network staff administer COVID vaccines to residents of Central Towers in 2020. This is quite a change from three years ago, when she didnt feel New Hampshire residents should receive life-saving vaccines in a timely manner. Due to the delays in providing vaccine doses to Granite Staters, we quickly achieved the No. 1 status for new COVID-19 infections in the United States. Considering statistics, and if more people get infected, more people die, our Executive Council's action resulted in a number of avoidable deaths. Now Councilor Stevens is outraged as many were outraged a few years ago. In the world of COVID-19, unvaccinated people die at a higher rate than vaccinated people. This is a simple statistical fact. Not only were more deaths a result of the self inflicted slower vaccine rollout, it also delayed the return to in-class education, which students are still academically recovering from. New Hampshire had the lowest vaccination rate of our surrounding states, in part to the politics of the day and to those such as Councilor Stevens, who felt it necessary to toe her party's line as Granite Staters died. Those of us who had loved ones die of COVID-19 without being able to see them before they died, and could not even have a timely funeral, deserved better Councilor Stevens. Glad to see you are concerned now. Don Cavallaro Rye Re-elect JoAnn Hodgdon as Rye library trustee Feb. 23 To the Editor: I am writing to highly recommend JoAnn Hodgdon to be re-elected for Rye Library Trustee. I want you to know that I have known JoAnn for over 30 years, and I have worked with herclosely in a variety of capacities. As the former CEO of the Greater Dover, Portsmouth, andManchester chambers of commerce, and as the economic development manager for the cityof Somersworth, I have had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of community activistsrepresenting numerous arenas, all committed to community improvement, through manyvenues that impact both social and economic systems that support community. JoAnn is ashining star among decades of work I have been involved with that depended on volunteers. As it specifically relates to Portsmouth, and the New Hampshire Seacoast - please know that Iwould not have been able to accomplish the lofty goals of the period without JoAnn. JoAnn hasremarkable vison and creative approaches to accomplish goals. Her strength in sound strategicthinking, coupled with her ability to develop sound tactical plans, all while engaging andsupporting volunteers, is a phenomenal skill. And, at the same time this very smart and creativewoman is positive, humble, unpretentious, and truly kind. JoAnn is a master at buildingcommitted allies who will work to advance the mission and goals of any organization she servesand its projects too. The Rye Public Library is in good caring hands as it evolves, as JoAnn hasconnected with so many other Rye residents and committees. Please reach out to me if you would like to discuss my opinions and experiences of workingwith JoAnn. At the same time, know that your Library and community, will greatly benefit fromJoAnn continuing in her trustee role. I sincerely hope you reelect JoAnn Hodgdon as a Ryelibrary trustee. Robin Comstock Nottingham Cease-fire needed to stop the killing Feb. 24 To the Editor: Yes Rabbi Slavaticki, you are right. As you said, what a crazy world we live in. It sure is crazyto believe that 142 days of carpet bombing Gaza is just Israel defending itself. Even crazier tobelieve the massacre of over 13,000 babies/children is OK because Israel is defendingitself." And how about the bombing of hospitals, schools, refugee centers, mosques? Or the135 journalists, 354 doctors/nurses slaughtered? Crazy to think it is Israel defending itself.Even crazier that Israel moves over one million people to Rafah, a supposed safe zone, buthas decided to bomb Rafah since of course it is defending itself." But oh wait, how about thewar crime of the starvation of 2 million people trapped in a open air prison? Or the destructionof Gazas infrastructure? I guess Rabbi Salavaticki your response would be, what a crazy worldwe live in since it is just Israel defending itself so why the outcry against the ongoing genocide (that you deny). Yes Rabbi, what a crazy world we live in. Cease-fire now!!! Bonnie Rodriguez Hampton Raise your hand if you oppose the book 'Gender Queer' Feb. 24 To the Editor: I recently attended the Barrington Town School Board candidates' forum to hear the three school board candidates introduce themselves to the public. During the question and answer session I raised in hand my personal copy of one of the more controversial books of the year, "Gender Queer" by Maia Kobabe. This award winning book recounts Kobabe's journey from adolescence to adulthood and the author's exploration of gender identity and sexuality. I conveyed to the candidates because of its graphic contents and depictions of children in certain acts within the book that the Dover School District Superintendent Dr. William Harbron assured the Dover School Board and the public this book does not exist in any Dover elementary school library. As an aside, this is not an issue of book banning, but rather of age appropriateness. In closing, I asked the candidates to raise their hand should they object to the book "Gender Queer" appearing in any Barrington elementary school library. The only candidate to raise his hand in affirmation was Fire Chief Rick Walker. The other two candidates did not object, in effect approving of its availability to elementary school children who would likely not be ready for such exposure. For this reason, and the fact that Chief Walker has previous experience as a member of the school board, I heartily endorse his candidacy. He will be the only school board candidate my wife and I will give our vote. Randal Heller Barrington Is keeping an embryo frozen considered child abuse? Feb. 24 To the Editor: For decades "pro-life" Republicans have claimed that life begins at conception. That position became an official legal determination when the Alabama Supreme Court decided that in fact life does begin at conception when it ruled that embryos are "extrauterine children," and the accidental destruction of embryos is considered a wrongful death. This raises enormous political, social and legal issues now that Alabama has opened Pandora's Box. There are probably many frozen embryos in Alabama awaiting a possible in vitro fertilization (IVF). Since these embryos are now considered "children" they must be either used for IVF or kept in a frozen state forever, since destroying them would be committing a wrongful death. This begs a number of serious questions. Does keeping an embryo, or a "child" according to Alabama, in a frozen state for an undetermined amount of time considered child abuse? Are women in Alabama who use a intrauterine device (IUD) for contraception committing a wrongful death since the IUD prevents a fertilized egg (post-conception) from attaching to the uterus? Are these "children" entitled to any inheritance from their legal parents upon their deaths? Will these "children" be counted in the census of the State in which they reside and used to determine congressional representation and other for other purposes? Can their legal parents claim these "children" as dependents on their Alabama state income tax as they now claim their other "extrauterine children"? I am sure there are other ethical and legal issues that now need to be answered. You may think that the above questions are ludicrous, however once you make a legal determination that an embryo is a "child" these questions become very much legitimate. Alabama has determined that an embryo is an "extrauterine child." For that matter, every child born alive is considered an "extrauterine child" As such both deserve the same rights and privileges according to Alabama. The absurdity of the Alabama decision along with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade has shown how radical the Republican Party has become. Their position on women's reproductive rights are very much in line with the Taliban, and they need to be held accountable for their extremism. Rich DiPentima Portsmouth Trump is being prosecuted and ordered to pay for non-crime with no victim Feb. 25 To the Editor: On the fraud case brought against the Trump Organization by the attorney of New York, Letita James, we need to look at the details to see if justice was actually upheld or not. There were no victims in this case and no one filed a complaint against the Trump Organization other than the District of New York. The charges were based on their own estimation and narrow knowledge of the real estate negotiation process between borrowers and lenders. None of the lenders suffered losses; as a matter of fact they made money, and wanted even more business with the Trump Organization. A question must then be asked, if Trump was not running for office, would this case had ever happened? Doubtful, very doubtful. By awarding a $355 million penalty for a non-crime, the judge, who is openly critical of Trump, used his power to damage a political enemy, a common practice in places such as Cuba, Venezuela and other despotic nations in the world. After the ruling was announced, many business owners leery of getting the same treatment as the Trump Organization, decided not to pursue further expansion in New York. The pushback was severe enough to prompt a statement from the clueless governor of New York, Kathy Hochul: "New Yorkers who are business people have nothing to worry about because theyre very different than Donald Trump and his behavior." Hochuls words are evident that only Trump is getting this treatment because he's Trump. In other words, if we don't like you, if youre a threat to our power, we will find the crime, any crime, and ruin you in the process. If our goal is to save democracy, addressing judicial corruption and malfeasance is a must. Otherwise, no one is safe from being accused based on the whims of a politicized system run by political ideologues. Sue Polidura Portsmouth Medicare fraud warning for Seacoast residents Feb. 25 To the Editor: Medicare fraud is spreading and now pervasive in the Seacoast area, caution! Two of my patients received Medicare "this is not a bill" statements recently. Please read these carefully. Each statement was for the period of February through November 2023. Each was for urinary catheters - they were billed 10 times on one statement for 200 catheters each for a total of 2000 catheters! These catheters were never ordered, never needed, and never delivered. Medicare was billed $19,000 and paid $14,582. Another patient was called at home saying that I had ordered specialized neurologic testing. I hadn't ordered anything and fortunately he hung up on them. They had his Medicare and telephone numbers. The form for the test was bogus and likely expensive for worthless data. I have received requests for another senior patient for a back brace, knee brace, diabetic testing equipment, and her records for their review. She had none of these medical issues. We called the phone number listed and got a grocery store in New Jersey. Agree to nothing by phone and hang up quickly. Report anything suspicious to Medicare 1-800-633-4227 and ask for the fraud unit. Thomas Clairmont MD Portsmouth Ukrainians dying every day while Congress sits on its hands-blocked by Trump Feb. 26 To the Editor: Michael Frandzel (PH:2/23/24) had it right (UL: 2/12/24. Trump is dangerous, outrageous and Ukrainians are dying every day while Mike Johnson and the GOP sit on their hands, bowing to Trump.) Congress dithers and American credibility and influence goes down the drain! Fund Ukraine now! Bury Trumps pressure on election denier Speaker Johnson. How many Ukrainians will die every day while the United States bows its head in shame? Malcolm Odell Exeter This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Why does Janet Stevens care now about life-saving drugs?: Letters South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world, which continues to plummet each year On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, Yejin is cooking lunch for her friends at her apartment, where she lives alone on the outskirts of Seoul, happily single. While they eat, one of them pulls up a well-worn meme of a cartoon dinosaur on her phone. "Be careful," the dinosaur says. "Don't let yourself become extinct like us." The women all laugh. "It's funny, but it's dark, because we know we could be causing our own extinction," says Yejin, a 30-year-old television producer. Neither she, nor any of her friends, are planning on having children. They are part of a growing community of women choosing the child-free life. South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world, and it continues to plummet, beating its own staggeringly low record year after year. Figures released on Wednesday show it fell by another 8% in 2023 to 0.72. This refers to the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime. For a population to hold steady, that number should be 2.1. If this trend continues, Korea's population is estimated to halve by the year 2100. A 'national emergency' Globally, developed countries are seeing birth rates fall, but none in such an extreme way as South Korea. Its projections are grim. In 50 years time, the number of working age people will have halved, the pool eligible to take part in the country's mandatory military service will have shrunk by 58%, and nearly half the population will be older than 65. This bodes so badly for the country's economy, pension pot, and security that politicians have declared it "a national emergency". For nearly 20 years, successive governments have thrown money at the problem - 379.8 trillion KRW ($286bn; 226bn) to be exact. Couples who have children are showered with cash, from monthly handouts to subsidised housing and free taxis. Hospital bills and even IVF treatments are covered, though only for those who are married. Such financial incentives have not worked, leading politicians to brainstorm more "creative" solutions, like hiring nannies from South East Asia and paying them below minimum wage, and exempting men from serving in the military service if they have three children before turning 30. Unsurprisingly, policymakers have been accused of not listening to young people - especially women - about their needs. And so, over the past year we have travelled around the country, speaking to women to understand the reasons behind their decision not to have children. Yejin wants to leave South Korea When Yejin decided to live alone in her mid-20s, she defied social norms - in Korea, single living is largely considered a temporary phase in one's life. Then five years ago, she decided not to get married, and not to have children. "It's hard to find a dateable man in Korea - one who will share the chores and the childcare equally," she tells me, "And women who have babies alone are not judged kindly." In 2022, only 2% of births in South Korea occurred outside of marriage. 'A perpetual cycle of work' Instead, Yejin has chosen to focus on her career in television, which, she argues, doesn't allow her enough time to raise a child anyway. Korean work hours are notoriously long. Yejin works a traditional 9-6 job (the Korean equivalent of a 9-5) but says she usually doesn't leave the office until 8pm and there is overtime on top of that. Once she gets home, she only has time to clean the house or exercise before bed. "I love my job, it brings me so much fulfilment," she says. "But working in Korea is hard, you're stuck in a perpetual cycle of work." Yejin says there is also pressure to study in her spare time, to get better at her job: "Koreans have this mindset that if you don't continuously work on self-improvement, you're going to get left behind, and become a failure. This fear makes us work twice as hard." "Sometimes at the weekends I go and get an IV drip, just to get enough energy to go back to work on Monday," she adds casually, as if this were a fairly normal weekend activity. She also shares the same fear of every woman I spoke to - that if she were to take time off to have a child, she might not be able to return to work. "There is an implicit pressure from companies that when we have children, we must leave our jobs," she says. She has watched it happen to her sister and her two favourite news presenters. 'I know too much' One 28-year-old woman, who worked in HR, said she'd seen people who were forced to leave their jobs or who were passed over for promotions after taking maternity leave, which had been enough to convince her never to have a baby. Both men and women are entitled to a year's leave during the first eight years of their child's life. But in 2022, only 7% of new fathers used some of their leave, compared to 70% of new mothers. Stella says her lifestyle makes it impossible to have children Korean women are the most highly educated of those in OECD countries, and yet the country has the worst gender pay gap and a higher-than-average proportion of women out of work compared to men. Researchers say this proves they are being presented with a trade-off - have a career or have a family. Increasingly, they are choosing a career. I met Stella Shin at an afterschool club, where she teaches five-year-olds English. "Look at the children. They're so cute," she cooed. But at 39, Stella does not have children of her own. It was not an active decision, she says. She has been married for six years, and both she and her husband wanted a child but were so busy working and enjoying themselves that time slipped away. Now she has accepted that her lifestyle makes it "impossible". "Mothers need to quit work to look after their child full time for the first two years, and this would make me very depressed," she said. "I love my career and taking care of myself." In her spare time Stella attends K-pop dance classes with a group of older women. This expectation that women take two to three years off work when they have a child is common among women. When I asked Stella whether she could share the parental leave with her husband, she dismissed me with a look. "It's like when I make him do the dishes and he always misses a bit, I couldn't rely on him," she said. Even if she wanted to give up work, or juggle a family and a career, she said she could not afford to because the cost of housing is too high. The cost of housing has made it unviable for many people to have children More than half the population live in or around the capital Seoul, which is where the vast majority of opportunities are, creating huge pressure on apartments and resources. Stella and her husband have been gradually pushed further and further away from the capital, into neighbouring provinces, and are still unable to buy their own place. Seoul's birth rate has sunk to 0.55 - the lowest in the country. Then there is the cost of private education. While unaffordable housing is a problem the world over, this is what makes Korea truly unique. From the age of four, children are sent to an array of expensive extra-curricular classes - from maths and English, to music and Taekwondo. The practice is so widespread that to opt out is seen as setting your child up to fail, an inconceivable notion in hyper-competitive Korea. This has made it the most expensive country in the world to raise a child. A 2022 study found that only 2% of parents did not pay for private tuition, while 94% said it was a financial burden. As a teacher at one of these cram schools, Stella understands the burden all too well. She watches parents spend up to 700 ($890) per child a month, many of whom cannot afford it. "But without these classes, the children fall behind," she said. "When I'm around the children, I want to have one, but I know too much." Korean children are sent to an array of extracurricular classes from the time they are four For some, this system of excessive private tuition cuts deeper than cost. "Minji" wanted to share her experience, but not publicly. She is not ready for her parents to know she will not be having children. "They will be so shocked and disappointed," she said, from the coastal city of Busan, where she lives with her husband. Minji confided that her childhood and 20s had been unhappy. "I've spent my whole life studying," she said - first to get into a good university, then for her civil servant exams, and then to get her first job at 28. She remembers her childhood years spent in classrooms until late at night, cramming maths, which she loathed and was bad at, while she dreamed of being an artist. "I've had to compete endlessly, not to achieve my dreams, but just to live a mediocre life," she said. "It's been so draining." Only now, aged 32, does Minji feel free, and able to enjoy herself. She loves to travel and is learning to dive. But her biggest consideration is that she does not want to put a child through the same competitive misery she experienced. "Korea is not a place where children can live happily," she has concluded. Her husband would like a child, and they used to fight about it constantly, but he has come to accept her wishes. Occasionally her heart wavers, she admits, but then she remembers why it cannot be. A depressing social phenomenon Over in the city of Daejeon, Jungyeon Chun, is in what she calls a "single-parenting marriage". After picking up her seven-year-old daughter and four-year-old son from school, she tours the nearby playgrounds, passing the hours until her husband returns from work. He rarely makes it home by bedtime. "I didn't feel like I was making a major decision having children, I thought I would be able to return to work pretty quickly," she said. But soon the social and financial pressures kicked in, and to her surprise she found herself parenting alone. Her husband, a trade unionist, did not help with the childcare or the housework. "I felt so angry," she said. "I had been well-educated and taught that women were equal, so I could not accept this." Jungyeon says she is sad that women are being denied the wonder of motherhood due to the 'tragic situation' they are in This sits at the heart of the problem. Over the past 50 years, Korea's economy has developed at break-neck speed, propelling women into higher education and the workforce, and expanding their ambitions, but the roles of wife and mother have not evolved at nearly the same pace. Frustrated, Jungyeon began to observe other mothers. "I was like, 'Oh, my friend who's raising a child is also depressed and my friend across the street is depressed too' and I was like, 'Oh, this is a social phenomenon'." Jungyeon says she is in a single parenting marriage She began to doodle her experiences and post them online. "The stories were pouring out of me," she said. Her webtoon became a huge success, as women across the country related to her work, and Jungyeon is now the author of three published comic books. Now she says she is past the stage of anger and regret. "I just wish I'd known more about the reality of raising kids, and how much mothers are expected to do," she said. "The reason women are not having children now is because they have the courage to talk about it." But Jungyeon is sad, she says, that women are being denied the wonder of motherhood, because of the "tragic situation they will be forced into". But Minji says she is grateful she has agency. "We are the first generation who get to choose. Before it was a given, we had to have children. And so we choose not to because we can." 'I'd have 10 children if I could' Back at Yejin's apartment, after lunch, her friends are haggling over her books and other belongings. Fatigued with life in Korea, Yejin has decided to leave for New Zealand. She woke up one morning with a lightbulb realisation that no-one was forcing her to live here. She researched which countries ranked highly on gender equality, and New Zealand emerged a clear winner. "It's a place where men and women are paid equally," she says, almost disbelievingly, "So I'm off." I ask Yejin and her friends what, if anything, could convince them to change their minds. Minsung's answer surprises me. "I'd love to have children. I'd have 10 if I could," So, what's stopping her, I ask? The 27-year-old tells me she is bisexual and has a same-sex partner. Minsung (right) has a same sex partner and would love to have children - but cannot use a sperm donor to conceive Same-sex marriage is illegal in South Korea, and unmarried women are not generally permitted to use sperm donors to conceive. "Hopefully one day this will change, and I'll be able to marry and have children with the person I love," she says. The friends point out the irony, given Korea's precarious demographic situation, that some women who want to be mothers are not allowed to be. But it appears politicians might slowly be accepting the depth and complexity of the crisis. This month, South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol acknowledged that the attempts to spend their way out of the problem "hadn't worked", and that South Korea was "excessively and unnecessarily competitive". He said his government would now treat the low birth rate as a "structural problem" - though how this will translate into policy is still to be seen. Earlier this month, I caught up with Yejin from New Zealand, where she had been living for three months. She was buzzing about her new life and friends, and her job working in the kitchen of a pub. "My work-life balance is so much better," she said. She can arrange to meet her friends during the week. "I feel so much more respected at work and people are less judgemental," she added. "It's making me not want to go home." Additional reporting by Leehyun Choi and Hosu Lee Marysville, CA (95901) Today Sunshine to start, then a few afternoon clouds. High 77F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 49F. Winds light and variable. 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. Hong Kong: FS: HK can be supply chain hub Financial Secretary Paul Chan today announced a series of measures on finance, trade and the maritime and aviation sectors, and vowed to develop Hong Kong into a multinational supply chain management centre that provides consulting services, trade financing and corporate training to enterprises. Delivering his Budget, Mr Chan said the Government will look at establishing a single window to provide one-stop trade services, in addition to stepping up efforts to attract Mainland manufacturing enterprises to set up offices in the city. The Government is also planning to issue $70 billion worth of retail bonds, including $50 billion in Silver Bonds and $20 billion in green bonds and infrastructure bonds, to achieve financial inclusiveness and a sense of participation in the citys infrastructure and sustainable development among the public. To press ahead with the development of an offshore renminbi ecosystem in Hong Kong, the Government will continue to deepen mutual-market access schemes. It will also promote the introduction of block trading, the inclusion of renminbi counters under the Southbound Stock Connect, and the expansion of the mutual-market access regime to cover real estate investment trusts. The Financial Secretary added that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Mainland regulatory authorities will continue to build a collaborative framework on cross-boundary credit referencing, to help enterprises secure financing in the Greater Bay Area more easily. Through such collaboration, banks in both places, upon consent from corporate customers, will be allowed to access the credit data of those customers, thereby facilitating greater security and efficiency in credit assessments. To explore new markets, the Government is considering establishing an Economic & Trade Office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and another in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, while the Hong Kong Trade Development Council will set up two consultancy offices along the Belt & Road. Besides hosting the annual Belt & Road Summit in September, Hong Kong will also organise a new Belt & Road Festival to promote collaboration with relevant countries. Mr Chan also pointed out that the Government will further enhance preferential tax regimes for single family offices, funds and carried interest, extend the Grant Scheme for Open-ended Fund Companies & Real Estate Investment Trusts for three years, and set up a task force to formulate measures to further develop the asset and wealth management industry. With the aim of developing high value-added maritime services, the Government will this year commence studies on further enhancements to tax concession measures for the maritime industry. It also plans to offer block registration incentives to attract ship-owners to register ships in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, commissioning of the three-runway system project at the Hong Kong International Airport is targeted for this year. The Government also seeks to expand Hong Kongs aviation network, including through examining potential routes along the Belt & Road. This story has been published on: 2024-02-28. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. China leads world in calling for global cooperation, says British business leader Xinhua) 15:09, February 28, 2024 LONDON, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Since it proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has led the world in calling for global cooperation and opposing factionalism as well as the pursuit of self-interest, a British business leader has said. China has been trying to develop stability in the Ukraine crisis and in the Gaza crisis, said Stephen Perry, president emeritus of the 48 Group Club, during a recent written interview with Xinhua, adding that China is not participating in these conflicts but is trying to create better conditions for peace. "China has been helping the South coordinate its responses collectively. At the moment the United States acts outside the (UN) Security Council but China is trying to get the United States to accept the United Nations as a medium to manage conflicts and crises. It is still early to tell the effect of China's actions but they are pro-peace and stability so they will help," Perry said. The fact that the world's second-biggest economy is trying to remedy the imbalance in the world is a good sign as other new developing nations will be encouraged to support global reform, unity and sharing, he noted. Chinese modernization is the beacon in the dark sky offering a model to find a good way forward, and China's success is a marvellous example of how cooperation brings unity to the world to create a better, more stable and prosperous world, he told Xinhua. Perry also noted that in the last 300 years, Chinese modernization is the first new innovation to bring progress to mankind in all nations. "We need to see the United States and the Group of Seven (G7) cooperating with the South in new ways to stabilize and improve the world economy. In the end, cooperation is the only way," he added. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) YEREVAN, 28 FEBUARY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 28 February, USD exchange rate down by 0.09 drams to 404.32 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 1.60 drams to 437.27 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.02 drams to 4.41 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 1.32 drams to 511.51 drams. The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals. Gold price up by 96.18 drams to 26454.00 drams. Silver price up by 2.01 drams to 294.69 drams. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Armenia has agreed to hold a meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Germany, given that Germany is a party to the quadrilateral meeting in Granada and has signed three important principles. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this Wednesday during a question-and-answer session with members of the government in the National Assembly. Pashinyan recalled that a meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan is being held in Germany on February 28. "Germany is a party to the Granada quadrilateral meeting and has signed three important principles: first, the mutual recognition of the territorial integrity of Armenia and Azerbaijan based on the Alma-Ata Declaration; secondly, the Alma-Ata Declaration should serve as the basis for the delimitation process; and thirdly, regional communications should adhere to the principles of sovereignty, jurisdiction, equality, and reciprocity among countries. In other words, no other political content can be discussed in Berlin. That's also why we have agreed to have that discussion in Berlin," said Pashinyan. The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency on February 27 announced that the State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Germany of High-Frequency, Very-High Frequency, and Ultra-High Frequency Radios and related equipment for an estimated cost of $281 million. Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link The AN/PRC-160(V) is a standalone solution for Beyond-Line-Of-Sight communications in the absence of satellite (Picture source : L3Harris) The Government of Germany has requested to buy AN/PRC-117 radios; AN/PRC-160 radios; spare and repair parts; support equipment; tools and test equipment; diagnostic equipment; technical data and publications; personnel training and training equipment; U.S. Government and contractor technical assistance; technical and logistics support services; and other related elements of logistics and program support. The estimated total cost is $281 million. The proposed sale will improve interoperability between Germany and other NATO military forces and will increase secure communications effectiveness to help combat current and future threats. The principal contractor will be L3Harris Global Communications, Inc., Rochester, NY. Implementation of this proposed sale will not require the assignment of U.S. Government or contractor representatives to Germany. The L3Harris AN/PRC-160(V) Wideband HF/VHF manpack radio: L3Harris HF delivers the tactical advantage through resilient communications in SATCOM-denied environments. The AN/PRC-160(V) is a standalone solution for Beyond-Line-Of-Sight communications in the absence of a satellite. This wideband system is also an HF manpack meeting all NSA crypto-modernization standards. Its software-defined architecture allows encryption updates, so mission-critical information stays securetoday and into the future. The L3Harris Falcon III AN/PRC-117G delivers breakthrough wideband data speed and legacy narrowband performance in a form factor 30% smaller and 35% lighter than any other currently in the field. The manpack is also the industrys first and only tactical radio with NINE Suite B encryption. This frees sovereign nations to securely interoperate with U.S., NATO and regional tactical partners and eliminates the time and cost of maintaining two separate radio systems. The L3Harris Falcon III AN/PRC-117G delivers breakthrough wideband data speed and legacy narrowband performance (Picture source : L3Harris) Defense News February 2024 The launch follows the recent investment by Microsoft and the Federal Government of $5 billion in Australia's cloud computing industries and comes off the back of the recent partnership announcement between DQA and Dickerson Digital. "Working alongside Dickerson Digital gives us an amazing opportunity to address Australia's need for a true sovereign, hyperscale data centre," said Steve Melville, CEO of DQA. "Dickerson Digital's impressive track record of high-value outcomes achieved for private and government organisations give us the perfect ally in developing this critical infrastructure that will truly make meaningful change in Australia's cloud capabilities and inject this benefit into remote communities." Dickerson Digital also collaborated with Gambarra Jaha, who is on track to secure the largest single capital raising by an Indigenous-owned organisation in Australian history to build and operate sovereign cloud data centres. Smithsonian Institution Washington D.C. About National Museum of African Art Founded in 1964, in response to the Civil Rights Movement, the National Museum of African Art (NMAfA) inspires conversations about the beauty, power, and diversity of African arts and cultures worldwide. It joined the Smithsonian in 1979 and became the National Museum of African Art two years later. A new, primarily underground museum building was completed in 1987. The Museum is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., adjacent to other Smithsonian national museums. An outstanding resource for artists and scholars and a leader in representing the diversity of African creativity, NMAfA welcomes individuals of diverse backgrounds, ages, and interests to the Museum, with attendance ranging between 130,000-165,000 annually in recent years (pre-COVID). Millions more are exposed to and impacted by the arts of Africa through the Museums publications, website, social media, educational activities, and public programs. NMAfA is a truly global platform dedicated to the understanding and public appreciation of Africas arts and artists The collection has served as an inspiration and resource for an array of scholars in the field. The Museum has a rich and varied intellectual history, which has evolved over time into an inclusive approach to collecting, exhibition development, international outreach and partnerships, and programming. This development has unfolded in the context of an evolving vision of African art that is becoming ever more complex, expansive, and diasporic. With more than 12,000 objects from around the continent and across time periods, including the renowned Walt-Disney Tishman African Art Collection, NMAfA houses the largest collection of African art in the United States. The collections spans 11th century to contemporary commissions and is diverse in terms of location of origin and medium, including textile, fiber arts and accessories, sculpture and installation, time-based media, painting and works on paper; photography and digital arts; ceramics; metal and currency. In recent years, NMAfA has strengthened its commitment to contemporary art, and the Museum maintains an active exhibition and publication program. The Museum hosts permanent and changing exhibitions, a full suite of family programs, films, and special events, and often serves as a venue for visiting African dignitaries and leading figures in arts and culture. The Museum collaborates with African museums and cultural organizations on exhibitions, training, and public education initiatives. NMAfAs robust and innovative educational programs also serve to strengthen global arts and appreciation for the humanities by helping to increase understanding of our worlds cultural and artistic traditions through the lens of Africa and its diasporas. These include a range of at-home and digital education resources, student workshops, films and talks with thought leaders in the field, and extensive classroom and teacher resources. The Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives is a research and reference center devoted to the collection, preservation, and dissemination of visual materials that encourage and support the study of the arts, cultures, and history of Africa. The archives collections contain approximately 350,000 items, including rare collections of glass plate negatives, lantern slides, stereographs, postcards, maps and engravings. NMAfAs Warren M. Robbins Library (a branch of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives) is a major resource center for the research and study of the visual arts of Africa. The Museum has approximately 25 staff. This small team of curators, educators, conservators, registrars, exhibition specialists, and administrators is supplemented by a loyal group of docents and volunteers, interns, and by graduate and post-graduate fellows and visiting scholars. NMAfA is a place where differing histories, experiences, and identities are understood and celebrated, and where the discourse about questions and issues of inclusion and diversity are engaged in a thoughtful, respectful, and authentic manner. For the current fiscal year, the Museums annual operating budget for FY 2023 is approximately $6.3 million. In addition, the Smithsonian centrally supports the Museums security, maintenance and custodial personnel, utilities, leases, and other building costs. For more information on NMAfA, please visit its website: https://africa.si.edu/ About Smithsonian Institution Founded in 1846, the Smithsonian Institution is the worlds largest museum, education, and research complex, with 19 museums, nine research centers, five educational units, and the National Zoo. Every day the Institution continues to shape the future by preserving heritage, discovering new knowledge, and sharing its resources with the world. Under the leadership of the Secretary, the Smithsonian advances its core values of discovery, creativity, excellence, diversity, integrity, and service. The Smithsonian employs more than 6,700 committed professionals, including renowned scientists and scholars, and a comparable number of highly motivated volunteers, interns, fellows, and visiting artists, including over 700 fellows and an additional 8,500 digital volunteers. The Smithsonian annually attracts more than 20 million visitors to its museums, and 160 million unique visits to its websites, as well as over eight million followers on social media. The Institution reaches millions of others through its cable channel, magazine, and other publications. The Smithsonians vast collections hold more than 154 million objects and specimens. The Opportunity The Director of the National Museum of African Art has responsibility for the overall strategy, direction, development, and management of all museum programs and activities. They are appointed by the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and report to the Under Secretary for Museums and Culture. The Director is also counseled by NMAfAs Advisory Board. Looking to the future, the next Director will have the opportunity to capture a new and refreshed vision for where the Museum is going, heightening its profile and deepening its impact on the field. Specific duties and responsibilities include: Vision and strategy: provides intellectual vision and overall leadership for NMAfA, its staff, supporters, and volunteers; formulates high level strategic plans for NMAfA to achieve its overall mission, and also defines program goals, objectives, and priorities for program operations consistent with Smithsonian strategic plans. provides intellectual vision and overall leadership for NMAfA, its staff, supporters, and volunteers; formulates high level strategic plans for NMAfA to achieve its overall mission, and also defines program goals, objectives, and priorities for program operations consistent with Smithsonian strategic plans. Internal executive leadership: provides executive oversight of all NMAfA departments and teams in the planning, development, and management of all museum programs and activities, including but not limited to acquisitions, collections management, conservation, digitization, and dissemination, exhibits, external affairs, facilities management, fundraising, publications, public service, and research; makes policy decisions concerning NMAfA programs, including matters relating to budget, staffing, organization, and facilities. provides executive oversight of all NMAfA departments and teams in the planning, development, and management of all museum programs and activities, including but not limited to acquisitions, collections management, conservation, digitization, and dissemination, exhibits, external affairs, facilities management, fundraising, publications, public service, and research; makes policy decisions concerning NMAfA programs, including matters relating to budget, staffing, organization, and facilities. Fundraising and external leadership: serves as the key communicator and face for the Museum to the public, donors, the media, and museums and other institutions throughout the U.S., Africa, and beyond; leads effective fundraising initiatives to support NMAfA programs and operations; plans and participates in Smithsonian fundraising campaign activities, coordinating efforts as appropriate with Smithsonian Advancement; works closely with the NMAfA Advisory Board to identify needs and cultivate potential donors from private, corporate, and foundation sources. serves as the key communicator and face for the Museum to the public, donors, the media, and museums and other institutions throughout the U.S., Africa, and beyond; leads effective fundraising initiatives to support NMAfA programs and operations; plans and participates in Smithsonian fundraising campaign activities, coordinating efforts as appropriate with Smithsonian Advancement; works closely with the NMAfA Advisory Board to identify needs and cultivate potential donors from private, corporate, and foundation sources. Team management: recruits, develops, delegates to, and leads an exceptional team, such that operations, capacity, and systems are strong; understands Smithsonian policies and works with the Office of Human Resources to ensure that the right people are in the right roles with the bandwidth and expertise to take responsibility for their respective functions, and that they function highly as a team; creates a culture that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. recruits, develops, delegates to, and leads an exceptional team, such that operations, capacity, and systems are strong; understands Smithsonian policies and works with the Office of Human Resources to ensure that the right people are in the right roles with the bandwidth and expertise to take responsibility for their respective functions, and that they function highly as a team; creates a culture that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Financial management: oversees the development, presentation, allocation, and execution of the annual operating budget for the Museum; works with staff to develop budget projections that reflect long-range planning for new and ongoing programs; advocates for the addition of new job lines; reviews budget justifications for and presentation of proposed budgets to the Smithsonians Office of Planning, Management and Budget, the Federal Office of Management and Budget, and Congress. oversees the development, presentation, allocation, and execution of the annual operating budget for the Museum; works with staff to develop budget projections that reflect long-range planning for new and ongoing programs; advocates for the addition of new job lines; reviews budget justifications for and presentation of proposed budgets to the Smithsonians Office of Planning, Management and Budget, the Federal Office of Management and Budget, and Congress. Collaboration: works closely with Smithsonian leadership and other Directors to further the Smithsonians mission; attends high-level Smithsonian meetings and conferences, making significant contributions to the development of Smithsonian policy and priorities; works closely with the NMAfA Advisory Board to raise the profile and public awareness of the Museum and to develop national and international constituencies and partnerships supportive of the Museum; prioritizes both domestic and international outreach to and collaboration with diverse communities, patrons, and organization with equity and a true spirit of partnership. works closely with Smithsonian leadership and other Directors to further the Smithsonians mission; attends high-level Smithsonian meetings and conferences, making significant contributions to the development of Smithsonian policy and priorities; works closely with the NMAfA Advisory Board to raise the profile and public awareness of the Museum and to develop national and international constituencies and partnerships supportive of the Museum; prioritizes both domestic and international outreach to and collaboration with diverse communities, patrons, and organization with equity and a true spirit of partnership. Collection management: works with key staff to develop and implement criteria for acquisition of artworks to the collection, and acts to obtain artworks through gift and purchase for the permanent collection; seeks input from the Advisory Board regarding proposed acquisitions that meet threshold criteria for review by the Collections Committee. The National Museum of African Art and all arts institutions are called to introspection and action around issues of racism, social justice, and diversity, equity, access, and inclusion. Further, the organization has been adapting in real-time in response to the global pandemic, managing the cascading consequences and impacts of COVID-19 and navigating new outlooks for the future. The next Directors role will include the mandate of leading the organization forward as it responds to this period of change and opportunity. Candidate Profile While it is understood that no one candidate will bring every desired skill, characteristic, and experience, the following offers a reflection of the ideal candidate profile. The National Museum of African Art seeks an inspiring and collaborative leader who can convey a vision of impact for the future, create a clear strategy for the path ahead, increase the visibility of the Museum, and fortify an outstanding team. NMAfA intends to build upon its past success and act as a convenor, educator, and voice for African art and culture at local, national, and global levels. The Director will demonstrate a decisive and yet collaborative leadership style, entrepreneurial drive, and interpersonal gravitas, diplomacy, and discernment. Top candidates should also have demonstrated a high level of achievement in developing or contributing to a compelling and forward-looking strategy for an organization, building the financial, operational, and ideological support for its implementation, and skillfully balancing and aligning the needs of multiple interests. In particular, they should be energized about building the Museums strategy for the future, as well as advancing its stature, recognition, and audience engagement. In addition to internal leadership and management, the Director will serve as the external face of NMAfA, inspiring confidence in its capabilities and building its profile as a distinctive national and international asset and source of public understanding and programming. The successful candidate should be a powerful advocate for Africa and the arts and possess both the entrepreneurial instincts and the pragmatic skills to define, coordinate and lead collaborative outreach efforts internally and with other museums, diverse organizations, and collaborators throughout the US, Africa, and worldwide. The next leader of NMAfA will have proven professional experience and leadership in one of the core fields related to Africa, its diaspora, and/or the arts. This individual will bring a deep appreciation for the relevance of Africa, its art, and its culture in todays world, throughout history, and in the future. A genuine passion for African art and culture whether demonstrated by a professional track record in the field or a deep personal commitment to, understanding of, and experience living and/or working in Africa is essential. Related foreign language and other African diaspora-related experience is desirable. This individual will bring deep personal commitment to diversity, equity, access, and inclusion in all aspects of the Museums work, and will seek to build an organization that is substantively diverse and reflective of the diversity of its communities. The successful candidate will be a natural team builder with the energy, optimism, and drive to lead NMAfA into the future. The ideal candidate is an accomplished leader of organizations who has effectively navigated complex contexts/structures. The candidate may bring different backgrounds and experiences, including having served in a leadership role in the arts, academia, the broader nonprofit community, government, business, or some combination of these arenas. In terms of the performance and personal competencies required for the position, we would highlight the following: Setting Strategy The ability to create and articulate an inspiring and inclusive vision for NMAfA and lead the Museum into its next chapter; a creative approach to developing new, innovative ideas that will stretch the Museum and attract new audiences and supporters. The ability to effectively balance the desire/need for broad change, setting realistic goals and implementation plans that are achievable and successful over time. A leader who is able to work both as the Director of the museum and within the framework of the broader Smithsonian Institution; possesses an attitude of collegiality, collaboration, and humility. Executing for Results Track record of setting clear and challenging goals while committing his/her organization to improved performance; tenacious and accountable in making decisions and driving results. An exceptional manager of resources; thoughtful about making changes in the structure of the museum to ensure the most successful delivery of NMAfAs mission. Comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty; able to adapt to and persevere in the face of unforeseen challenges and lead others through complex situations while building consensus. A leader who is viewed by others as having a high degree of integrity and forethought in his/her approach to making decisions; the ability to act in a transparent and consistent manner while always taking into account what is best for the Museum and for the Smithsonian. Building and Leading Teams Track record of attracting and recruiting top talent, empowering and motivating the team, delegating effectively, celebrating diversity, and managing performance; widely viewed as a strong developer of others. An inclusive leader who values and respects all members of the team and ensures they have the tools they need to be successful; fosters collaboration, encourages transparency, and unifies all members of the team around a common vision and priorities. A leader who is self-reflective and aware of his/her own limitations; leads by example and drives the organizations performance with an attitude of continuous improvement by being open to feedback. Communication, Relationships, and Influence Enthusiastic fundraiser, who proactively builds philanthropic relationships and enjoys making the case for support; track record of expanding his/her organizations fundraising base and collaborating with others to raise significant funds; a credible ambassador who can build partnerships externally with important constituencies. Naturally connects and builds strong relationships with others, demonstrating strong emotional intelligence and an ability to communicate clearly, diplomatically, and persuasively; possesses strong cultural sensitivity and the communication skills essential for representing the museum domestically and aboard; credible spokesperson and galvanizer in Washington, D.C., the United States, the African continent, and beyond. Creates a sense of vision and purpose that generates followership for the organization, beyond his/her own personality, and engages others in the mission of the organization. Credibility & Expertise Appreciation for, if not expertise in, African art, in both historical and contemporary contexts, which illustrates a trans-disciplinary perspective on and integration into a larger understanding of African and African Diasporic experiences. Orientation must allow for inclusion of diverse peoples and communities in the making of African art and contributions to the expressive cultures of the continent and diaspora. Demonstrated ability to connect African artists, arts organizations, contributors, partners, themes, and topics. Ability to understand NMAfAs assets and distinctive capabilities and develop an intellectually coherent and articulate perspective that will attract funding, talent, and institutional partners in the US, in Africa, and elsewhere globally. Compensation & Benefits Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience. The salary range for this role is $290,000 $350,000 with a generous benefits package Contact Koya Partners, the executive search firm that specializes in mission-driven search, has been exclusively retained for this engagement with Naree Viner, Chartise Clark, and Stephen Milbauer as the search team. To express interest in this role please submit a letter of interest and resume by filling out our Talent Profile: https://apptrkr.com/5059896, or email the team directly at Smithsonian_NMAFAdirector@koyapartners.com. All inquiries and discussions will be considered strictly confidential. About Koya Partners Koya Partners, a part of Diversified Search Group, is a leading executive search and strategic advising firm dedicated to connecting exceptionally talented people with mission-driven clients. Our founding philosophyThe Right Person in the Right Place Can Change the Worldguides our work as we partner with nonprofits & NGOs, institutions of higher education, responsible businesses, and social enterprises in local communities and around the world. For more information about Koya Partners, visit https://diversifiedsearchgroup.com/our-brands/koya-partners/. MORE Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP president J.P. Nadda held separate meetings with party leaders New Delhi: Ahead of the BJP central election committee's (CEC) meeting on Thursday, the top brass of the party on Wednesday brainstormed over the probable candidates for the Lok Sabha polls in many states. Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP president J.P. Nadda held separate meetings with party leaders from Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttarakhand, among others. So far, similar meetings with leaders from Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana have already been held. According to party sources, the first list is expected to include the names of heavyweights like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr Shah. The first list may also include many seats that the BJP had lost in the 2019 general election. The names of Mr Modi and Mr Shah, who was then the party's national president and had made his Lok Sabha poll debut from Gandhinagar, were on the party's first list of candidates for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as well. While the lists of candidates in 2019 were released only after the Election Commission had announced the general election schedule, it is going to be different this time as the BJP looks to follow the template seen during the last round of Assembly polls in five states when it named its candidates, especially in the seats the party had lost five years earlier, before the announcement of poll dates. On Wednesday, the BJP also approached the Election Commission, urging the poll body to videograph the voting process at all polling stations during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and set up booths in complexes housing high-rise buildings. In a memorandum, the BJP also urged the poll panel to consider reforming the approval process for political parties' media content to make it faster, allowing them adequate time to plan their campaign. It also requested the EC to ensure there is no ambiguity in the rule pertaining to putting up flags and making wall paintings by party workers at their homes during polls. The party delegation, comprising Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and party national general secretary Arun Singh met the poll panel with the demands. Mr Vaishnaw said the BJP delegation urged the poll panel to set up booths at high-rise apartment complexes in urban areas as much as possible so that the maximum number of eligible voters at such residential buildings could exercise their franchise. "Our second request was that video recordings be done at 100 per cent polling booths (during the elections)," Mr Vaishnaw said. At present, videography is done at 50 per cent polling booths only, he said, adding that 100 per cent coverage of the polling booths will ensure proper documentation of everything happening there and will increase people's faith in the country's vibrant democracy. "We requested the beginning of reforms in the process of granting approval to the media content of political parties. The approval process should be made faster so that every political party gets enough time to present their views and mould their campaign," said the Union minister. The narcotics seized included 3,089 kg of charas, 158 kg of methamphetamine and 25 kg of morphine The last big seizure from the high seas was 2,500 kg by the NCB and the Navy off the Kerala coast in May 2023. (Photo: Twitter | @IndiaCoastGuard) New Delhi: In the biggest offshore seizure of narcotics in the country, the Indian Navy, in coordination with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Gujarat police, apprehended a suspicious vessel carrying around 3,300 kg of contraband off the Gujarat coast and arrested five foreigners. The dhow is suspected to have sailed from Chabahar Port in Iran. The narcotics seized included 3,089 kg of charas, 158 kg of methamphetamine and 25 kg of morphine. The cache is estimated to be worth anything between Rs 1,300 and Rs 2,000 crores in the international market, said NCB director-general S.N. Pradhan. The packets bore the stamp of "Ras Awad Goods Co, produce of Pakistan", the NCB said. Union home minister Amit Shah called the joint operation by the Navy, NCB and the Gujarat police a "historic success" and a testament to the Modi government's "unwavering commitment to making our nation drug-free". The unregistered fishing boat was intercepted on Tuesday morning in the Arabian Sea from a point about 60 nautical miles from the Indian coast and along the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL). "Based on intelligence received from the Indian Navys maritime surveillance aircraft, which was corroborated with inputs from the NCB, a mission-deployed Indian Navy's warship was pressed into action to intercept a suspicious dhow en route to the Indian waters with sizeable contraband," said the Indian Navy in a statement. The Indian Navy units successfully located, tracked and intercepted the suspicious boat at sea. The Navy's Marcos boarded the dhow, which resulted in the largest seizure of narcotics in quantity in recent times. Subsequently, the boat was towed by the warship to the nearest Indian port to hand over the crew and contraband to the law enforcement agencies. NCB deputy director-general (operations) Gyaneshwar Singh said the fishing boat has been brought to Porbandar and the five nationals who were onboard have been arrested. "They could either be Pakistani or Iranians. However, we have recovered no IDs from them. A Thuraya satellite phone and four mobile phones have been seized from the arrested men," Mr Singh said. The DDG said the drugs packets had the name of a Pakistani food company and hence they "suspect" the hand of that country in mobilising this cache whose destination is being probed. The traffickers onboard vessels carrying drugs keep in touch with buyers on the land and once they strike a deal, the consignment can land anywhere up to the southernmost tip of India, the NCB officials said. Mr Singh said this operation was codenamed "Sagarmanthan-1" and the joint teams have been working on inputs for the "last few weeks". "This is the biggest offshore narcotics seizure in the country to date. We have seen that drugs smuggling has increased through the maritime route over the last few years and hence we are jointly working with other government agencies like the Navy, Coast Guard, customs, etc. to intercept such activities," said Mr Pradhan. "The smugglers and drugs operators use the Arabian Sea to exploit the Indian coastline, which is vulnerable. It is part of the grand design to destabilise the country using drugs," Mr Pradhan added. The last big seizure from the high seas was 2,500 kg by the NCB and the Navy off the Kerala coast in May 2023. "This operation is significant, not only in terms of quantity and cost of the seized contraband, but also highlights the collaborative efforts between the Indian Navy and the NCB for disruption of the illegal narcotics smuggling routes, which emanate from the Makran coast and flow towards various Indian Ocean Region countries," said the Indian Navy. The successfully coordinated mission reaffirms the strong commitment and resolve of the Indian Navy in thwarting attempts to use the seas as a medium for illegal activities, especially in Indias maritime neighbourhood, the Indian Navy statement added. by Arundathie Abeysinghe Centred on oil, the visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian from 19 to 21 February anticipates that of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at the end of the year. The minister and his Sri Lankan hosts also discussed nanotechnology, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals, as well as the two countries tea for oil barter deal. Colombo (AsiaNews) Despite US sanctions, Sri Lanka and Iran are exploring possible ways of expanding oil trade between the two countries. This is not an easy task, given the "toughest sanctions ever" imposed by former US President Donald Trump, a Republican, and kept substantially unchanged, if not increased, by current US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, whose term in office is near its end. At the centre of the controversy is Irans nuclear programme, which was restricted in 2015 under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which President Trump scrapped three years later. This and other issues related to bilateral relations were the focus of Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian's visit to Sri Lanka from 19 to 21 February, whose main aim was boosting diplomatic relations as well as finding ways to get around the sanctions and give new impetus to trade, both in petroleum products and consumer goods. Currently, Sri Lanka is paying US$ 250 million for crude oil imports in a tea for oil deal. So far, some US$ 20 million worth tea has been exported to Iran under the barter trade agreement. The Foreign Ministers visit was also meant to prepare the ground for that of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, expected to take place by the end of this year. Before the 2012 US sanctions, Sri Lankas only oil refinery, which was built by Iran in 1969, depended primarily on Iranian crude. In 2021, the plant was temporarily shut down for lack of crude oil, which Sri Lanka could no longer buy. Government sources in Colombo note that during the visit by Irans top diplomat, discussions focused on expanding oil trade. Currently, some oil transactions are taking place through third parties. The two sides also agreed to explore ways to expand them further and do so directly, despite US sanctions. Last years 0 million tea for oil deal is part of this. According to data from companies that track oil flows, Iran's crude oil exports have been surging in recent months on the back of higher shipments to countries such as China, energy market analysts Shirantha Gamage and Ramesh Caldera told AsiaNews. Analysts firms such as Vortexa, TankerTrackers and Kpler estimate an increase in Irans crude and condensate exports over the past three months, averaging about one million barrels per day. Although the numbers are much lower than the more than 2.5 million barrels per day that the Persian Gulf nation exported in early 2018, they are much higher than the drop recorded "in 2020 when the figure stood at less than 500,000 barrels per day". We speculate that Washington is not enforcing the restrictions strictly in order to keep global crude prices in check. Sometimes, the Americans may be turning a blind eye as they are happy to have more barrels in the market to displace Russian oil, Shirantha and Ramesh said. During his meeting with Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, Iran's foreign minister noted that his government was keen on cooperating with Sri Lanka in future projects that use Iranian expertise in the fields of energy, nanotechnology, biotechnology, water, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals. Iran has also agreed to provide another 31 million euro grant for the rural electrification project, the Prime Ministers office said in a statement. Senior Foreign Ministry officials report that "there is immense potential for further collaboration in different fields." Talks covered key areas of mutual interest, including the political, economic and cultural cooperation, which "reflects very strong bilateral relations." Iran has provided assistance to the island nation for the Uma Oya hydroelectric project, which will add an additional 120 megawatts of power to the country's power grid. The project, in addition to generating electricity, also provides 145 million cubic metres of water to irrigate 50,000 acres of dry land. (Photo taken from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka) by Vladimir Rozanskij The law officially prohibits and criminally punishes bigamy and polygamy. But the lack of civil recognition of Islamic marriages and a vague definition of marital status create ambiguities that allow the phenomenon to persist. With women turning to the police when the man stops fulfilling his religious obligation to support all his wives. Dushanbe (AsiaNews) - According to Tajikistan legislation, bigamy and polygamy are prohibited and must be criminally punishable. News periodically appears on the internet about the arrest by the police of men who live with several women, including cult servants, as happened some time ago, when an imam was found to be married with 13 wives. In that case, discussions on social networks multiplied, which continue in various waves to this day. According to many commentators, the issue of polygamy is actually not well defined by Tajik law, as marriages celebrated under Islamic Shari'a are not considered valid on a civil level, and definitions of "civil" marriage are generally lacking. or religious, limiting themselves to registration at the municipal offices. In the Criminal Code in art. 170 fines are established for bigamy or polygamy, in the amount of one thousand to two thousand somoni and more, or up to two years of compulsory social services, and in the most serious cases up to 5 years of deprivation of liberty. The director of the Tajik association Pro Bono de Jure, the lawyer Dilafruz Samadova, commented on this situation in an Asia Plus report, recalling that there are different definitions regarding the marital status of women in Tajikistan. Obviously "all adults of age have the right to have free relationships, whether with lovers, friends, colleagues or simple acquaintances, always with both consenting". The art. 170 also speaks of "coexistence with the common management of the economy", and here the problems begin, as both "coexistence" and the "common economy" are not defined by the Civil Code, where at most it speaks of "property in common or in agreement, with the rights relating to that condition. In general, paradoxical as it may seem, the rules regarding the family do not offer a definition of "family", and relationships between a man and a woman with property in common can be of a very varied type, without contradicting the law. You can have a child in common without living together, and in this case it is the father who has the obligation to recognize the child and determine her place of residence, ensuring food, supplies and education. There is talk of agreed visits, purchase of food and other items, joint dinners between parents and their child and other methods of presence and assistance, without touching on the issue of cohabitation with the mother, and this could imply the possibility of bigamy. Samadova observes that even without cohabitation and children in common, emotional and friendly relationships are permitted, with times shared even in the homes of one or the other, to enjoy a "family-type relationship" without this having to be considered a behavior polygamous, even if you share property or economic means. The lawyer recalls that "both the constitution of Tajikistan and the civil code affirm everyone's right to private life, and to maintain private forms of communication in writing, by telephone or telegraph, or with any other instrument". However, when a marital relationship is entered into for religious reasons, the man who takes a second wife commits himself to the community and agrees to guarantee her maintenance. If after a certain time he stops observing this commitment, or adopts disrespectful and violent behavior towards his wife, women often begin to ask for the intervention of the police, complaining about the existence of competing wives. The nikah rite, however, is not recorded anywhere, preventing the investigators from proceeding explicitly: the complaints presented by the women are verified, by questioning relatives, neighbors and acquaintances, looking for photographic evidence and turning to those who celebrated the marriage, but not it is always possible to define an explicit violation or a crime. Often the complaints are made by strangers, and this complicates the situation even further, leading to defamation disputes. Certainly the Tajik marriage, which has remained unstable since the Soviet legacy, is still a very fragile and undefined institution, with many consequences on social life. Pope Francis' appeal 25 years after the entry into force of the Ottawa Treaty that banned them. At the Synod of Armenian Catholics the closeness to the Nagrono-Karabakh refugees. In the catechesis, reflection on the deadly vices of envy and vainglory. Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Anti-personnel mines are "devious devices" that "continue to strike innocent civilians, especially children even many years after the end of hostilities," dennoucned Pope Francis again today at the end of his Wednesday general audience. He was recalling that March 1 will mark the 25th anniversary of the entry into force of the Ottawa Treaty banning these weapons. An international agreement to which 164 countries of the world adhere, but not major powers such as the United States, Russia, China and India. "I express my closeness to the victims of these devious devices," said Francis, "which remind us of the dramatic cruelty of wars and the price that civilian populations are forced to suffer. In this regard, I thank all those who offer their contribution to assist the victims and clean up the contaminated areas: their work is a concrete response to the universal call to be peacemakers by taking care of our brothers and sisters". To this appeal he also joined the call not to forget "the peoples who are suffering because of the war: Ukraine, Palestine, Israel and many others. And let us pray for the victims of the recent attacks on places of worship in Burkina Faso," he added, "as well as the people of Haiti where crimes and kidnappings by armed gangs continue." Shortly before - meeting with members of the Synod of the Patriarchate of Armenians of Cilicia, led by the Armenian Catholic Patriarch - he had also recalled those who fled Nagorno-Karabakh seeking refuge. "So many wars, so much suffering," he commented. "The First World War was supposed to be the last and the States formed the League of Nations, the 'first fruits' of the United Nations, thinking that this was enough to preserve the gift of peace. Yet since then, how many conflicts and massacres, always tragic and always pointless. So many times I have pleaded: "Enough!". Let us all echo the cry for peace, that it may touch hearts, even those insensitive to the suffering of the poor and humble. And above all let us pray. I do it for you and for Armenia". In the Paul VI Hall, Francis - still struggling to speak due to the flu syndrome - entrusted the reading of the text of the catechesis to Mgr Filippo Ciampanelli of the secretariat of state. Continuing his reflection on the vices and virtues today, he dwelt on the two capital vices that spiritual tradition calls envy and vainglory. "The root of envy,' the pope observed, 'is the relationship of hate and love: one wants the other's evil, but secretly one wishes to be like him. The other is the epiphany of what we would like to be, and which in reality we are not. His good fortune seems an injustice to us: surely - we think - we would have deserved his successes or his good fortune much more'. But behind this is "a false idea of God: we do not accept that God has his own 'mathematics', different from ours. We would like to impose our selfish logic on God, instead God's logic is love. The goods He gives us are made to be shared." Related to envy, however, is also vainglory: these are vices of 'a person who aspires to be the centre of the world, free to exploit everything and everyone, the object of all praise and love'. The boastful person "has no empathy and does not realise that there are other people in the world besides himself. His relationships are always instrumental, marked by the overpowering of the other. His person, his achievements, his successes must be shown off to everyone: he is a perpetual beggar for attention. And if sometimes his qualities are not recognised, then he gets fiercely angry. The others are unfair, they do not understand, they are not up to it." How do we cure this evil? The pontiff noted that spiritual teachers do not suggest many remedies, because in the end the very praise the boastful person hoped to reap from the world will soon turn against him. "How many people, deluded by a false self-image, have then fallen into sins of which they would soon be ashamed," Francis commented. The most beautiful instruction,' the pontiff concluded, 'remains the testimony of St Paul, who asked the Lord three times to free him from that torment, receiving from Jesus the answer: "My grace is sufficient for you. And having understood that strength is fully manifested in weakness, he wrote in the Second Letter to the Corinthians: "I will therefore boast gladly of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may abide in me" (2 Cor 12:9). NEW YORK (AP) A former finance director at New York University has pleaded guilty to a more than $3 million fraud scheme that authorities say helped fund renovations to her home in Connecticut. Cindy Tappe, 57, of Westport, Connecticut, used her position at the Manhattan school to divert money intended for minority and women owned businesses, the offices of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a joint statement Monday. Tappe pleaded guilty Monday to grand larceny and has agreed to five years probation and $663,209 in restitution, according to the offices. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Her fraudulent actions not only threatened to affect the quality of education for students with disabilities and multilingual students, but denied our citys minority and women owned business enterprises a chance to fairly compete for funding, Bragg said in a statement. Bragg and DiNapoli's offices say Tappe improperly routed $3.3 million to two shell companies she created while serving as director of finance and administration for NYUs Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation of Schools. Some of the diverted funds were used to cover NYU-related expenses, including employee reimbursements, but more than $660,000 was used to pay for Tappe's personal expenses, including renovations to her home in Connecticut and an $80,000 swimming pool, the offices said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The diverted funds were related to $23 million in state Education Department grants awarded to the Metropolitan Center between 2011 and 2018, according to Bragg and DiNapolis offices. Tappe's lawyer Deborah Colson said her client has accepted responsibility, strongly regrets her misconduct and plans to pay the required restitution in full prior to her sentencing on April 16. After that, she looks forward to putting this case behind her, Colson said in a statement. NYU said Tuesday that its internal audit office had investigated Tappe and turned over its findings to state officials, leading to the criminal charges. Advertisement Article continues below this ad How to Orgasm If You Struggle To Struggling to Climax Is a Surprisingly Common Issue for Guys When people talk about sex, theres often an assumption stated or unstated that theyre also talking about orgasms. For a lot of people, sex without orgasm is barely sex at all. Of course, this is a very gendered assumption, in many cases, but more importantly, its a mindset that can make sex worse for everyone involved. For instance, guys who are too focused on a partners orgasm can put so much pressure on those partners, they end up struggling to enjoy themselves. RELATED: Why You Should Care About Her Pleasure, Not Her Orgasm However, what if its a case of a guy putting too much pressure on himself to have an orgasm? This is not a hypothetical. Though its not the most common experience, at least compared to being able to orgasm easily, having difficulty orgasming is a normal occurrence that impacts tons of people of all genders, including men, both trans, and cis; in the case of people with penises, its often called DE (delayed ejaculation). RELATED: How to Reach Climax in No Time Of course, not being able to cum when everyone else talks about how great it is can be a very frustrating feeling. So in order to better understand why guys might be struggling to orgasm, and what they can do to address the issue, AskMen spoke to a couple of sex experts. Heres what they had to say: How Common Is It for Men to Struggle to Orgasm? This topic can sound shocking to some, including those who have read up on the orgasm gap but sexual responses in people of all gender identities and bodies have things in common, and this is one, says Carol Queen, Ph.D. Delayed orgasm and anorgasmia (no orgasm) are more common experiences than you might think, agrees Jess OReilly, sexologist and host of the Sex With Dr. Jess podcast. Were often so hung up on lasting longer that we dont talk about the fact that many people dont want to last as long (for many reasons). One study of 2,653 men found that the prevalence of delayed ejaculation and/or delayed orgasm is 7.3%, OReilly adds. Its possible that the real figure is higher and that the experience is underreported due to shame and stigma. Though it may seem small, even a figure like 7.3% correlates to approximately 1 in 14 men. So if youre experiencing this, though you may not be in the majority, youre far from alone that kind of number works out to a little under 10 million American men, for instance, and close to 200 million worldwide. Reasons Guys Might Struggle to Achieve Orgasm Though for many people and guys especially getting to ejaculation can seem super simple, thats not the case for everyone. Although orgasm is a reflex, it generally depends on a level of arousal to happen, says Queen. If a person having sex (or masturbating) isn't turned on enough, it's harder (or impossible) to cum. As OReilly notes, causes of difficulty having an orgasm might include performance pressure, distraction, stress, lack of knowledge about the body and pleasure (e.g. not knowing what you like and expecting a specific approach/path to lead to orgasm), drug interactions, exhaustion, lack of sensation or pressure. RELATED: What You Need to Know About Erectile Dysfunction It could also, OReilly points out, stem in part or in whole from some different medical issues things like surgery, neurological issues, chronic illness, prostate health, or erectile dysfunction and if so, youll want to talk to a medical practitioner soon, since erectile and ejaculation issues, including orgasm issues, can be a sign of other medical issues that youll want to address. One study, OReilly notes, found the following causes: SSRI drugs - 42% Psychogenic causes - 28% Low testosterone levels - 21% Sensation issues - 7% Hyperstimulation - 2% Psychogenic causes, meaning causes that begin in the mind, include many of the factors OReilly noted earlier, but Queen notes that they could also include dealing with mental/emotional issues, including a history of trauma, relationship problems, or being raised in a shame-filled environment. RELATED: How to Kick Sexual Shame Or, if your sexuality is at odds with what you think youre supposed to be aroused by, repeatedly seeking out partners or sex that doesnt actually turn you on may be the problem, says Queen. A person trying to suppress, or who is not consciously aware of, other attractions, or lack of attraction, could find that this impairs turn-on and, hence, orgasm, she explains. (I'm talking about issues like a guy who is in fact asexual; or who might be gay but is trying not to be.) If you can orgasm during masturbation but struggle to with a partner, your relationship to masturbation could be part of the issue, Queen says. Masturbation practices can make a difference in the way a guy responds during partner sex, she explains. This won't be the case for everyone, but for those who expect their response to be the same in both contexts, or who masturbate with a tight grip and/or quite fast, those practices can lead to a certain level of bodily expectation that is, you can train yourself to respond to stimuli you wouldn't necessarily find in partner sex. You might also be internalizing a pressure not to ejaculate prematurely that could be impacting your ability to climax generally. A really prevalent misunderstanding about hetero partner sex is that a man has to last a long time in order to please his female partner, says Queen. This can cause some men perhaps even without realizing they're doing it to hold back re: their response to erotic stimulation during partner sex. Hold back enough, and it can be hard to unleash yourself when you decide it's time. Finally, part of the problem may be a vicious circle: Worrying about not being able to climax will, in fact, make it harder to. RELATED: How Anxiety & Stress Impact Your Erection Struggling, itself, can put a damper on orgasm, says Queen. If a man (or anyone, any gender) is worried about their responses, about how they are going to perform (this is not a good way to think about sex, as it has real implications for comfort and self-esteem!), gets in a brain loop about whether they are going to come this time, it will impede their ability to get aroused enough to cum. How to Orgasm More Easily Determine Whether Its a Medical Issue First, talk to your doctor/medical practitioner to rule out medical and health issues, says OReilly. Since erectile issues, which are associated with DE, are often caused or impacted by health conditions, this should be your first line of inquiry, even if other aspects of your health seem fine. Since doctors unfortunately don't always get as much training about sexual issues as many patients expect, and some are pretty uncomfortable talking about sex (try to get a doc who is comfortable and informed!) you might need to seek out specialists, Queen adds. But since the people who do get lots of training are sex therapists and clinical sexologists, it might be wise to seek that level of expertise too. Determine Whether Its Impacted by Your Partner Struggling to orgasm during partnered sex and struggling to orgasm during masturbation are potentially different problems, so figuring out which one (or both) is the case is important. He can pay attention to his responses for a while to determine if they show him useful, actionable info, says Queen. For instance: Does he cum more easily solo than partnered? Does he start out turned on but lose momentum? Does he have erection issues that worry him? Does he have anxiety of other sorts? Are there situations where he's fine, and can he tell why that might be? If youre fine to climax by yourself but struggle with another person, O'Reilly suggests you think about whats different when youre on your own, and do more of that. Do you use more lube or pressure? Do you use erotica? Do you fantasize? Do you take time to relax and be at ease? Sometimes the mere presence of a partner can create undue pressure and you may have to open up and take steps to ease this pressure. Try Stimulating Other Parts of the Body, Too While the penis is understood to be the most sensitive part of cis mens sexual selves, its far from the only part of the body that can be stimulated erotically. Consider other hot spots beyond your penis: perineum, prostate, nipples, anus, says OReilly. Guys can try anal stimulation with a prostate toy, Queen agrees. Prostate play can add a whole different level of arousal and neurological stimulation. Experiment When It Comes to Masturbation If a guys struggling to orgasm, says Queen, noticing his responses and actions specifically during masturbation might help him hone in on what he's used to (if he frequently masturbates) and what might be different: things like grip, speed, lube or none, any toy use, fantasy, porn, acts he doesn't experience at all during partner sex (perhaps like anal touch/penetration), etc. Masturbation is also a fruitful place to experiment with slowing down, adding lube, and seeking ways to more closely match our ability to respond solo vs. with another person, she adds. If he's a hard-grip-fast-j/o person, he might want to explore soft sleeve toys to help his body get more accustomed to a softer and more enveloping context for stimulation. Engage in Edging or Refraining From Masturbating If he masturbates a lot, he might find cutting back, says Queen, especially the few days before having sex with a partner can help. RELATED: 7 Ways to Enhance the Male Orgasm Thats because of the refractory period, the term for how long it takes before you can have a second orgasm. While people with vaginas typically have very short or nearly non-existent refractory periods, people with penises will find that theirs grow longer as they age. For instance, an average teenage boy can experience several orgasms in the span of an hour, but by middle age, men are often unable (or struggle to) have more than one in a multi-hour period. RELATED: How Men Can Have Multiple Orgasms Going without an orgasm in the period leading up to partnered sex, therefore, could mean your body is primed and ready to finally have one; masturbating but stopping before you reach orgasm, a version of edging, could also improve your odds of reaching climax. Work on Getting to Know Your Body Part of the problem might be that you dont know a lot about how your body works yet regardless of what age you are or where you live, sex education is often lacking, and its common for people to go through their lives not knowing certain things about sexuality, or believing myths instead. If there is any chance he hasn't learned a lot about sexuality, he might want to get more info, says Queen. Books, internet info from reputable sex educators, etc. Its also important to remember that turn-on and erections do ebb, Queen says. This is super common, she points out, noting that, A man who doesn't know this can psych himself out and not get the groove back. You might also want to take time to touch [yourself] for pleasure, OReilly suggests. Mindfulness practices can help. I have a whole course on Mindful Sex that can help to address a range of sexual issues from low libido to orgasm difficulties to erectile dysfunction. RELATED: Why Mindfulness During Sex Means More Orgasms Working on exploring bringing yourself to orgasm in a slow and low-pressure way can help you get in touch with what works for you. Explore Different Sexual Pleasure Options Explore a wider range of sexual pleasure options: lube, toys, vibes, penis rings, fantasy, erotica and anything else that puts you at ease and increases pleasure, says OReilly. If you have trouble with orgasm during P-V intercourse, consider using your hand, a vibrator or a ring around the base of your shaft for extra pressure. RELATED: AskMen's Top Picks for the Best Sex Toys for Men If youre struggling to orgasm, you can also explore Tantra (big slow-down-and-focus energy!) via workshops with a partner or via books or videos, says Queen. Or, she notes, you might consider Sensate focus, which is a practice, kind of like mindfulness, that involves paying attention to sensation in your body. This is a good practice to get into it can help you recognize turn-ons and situations where the turn-on ebbs. Try to Let Go of Any Shame You Feel Because of the way being a sex god is construed as an important aspect of being a manly man, falling short in any way can be seriously discouraging, and it could make you feel embarrassed. Its OK if you cant orgasm quickly (or at all), says OReilly. In fact, you may be able to have more fun focusing on pleasure as opposed to one specific outcome. Having said that, she adds, I realize that sex is often painted as a singular act and it can be hard to shed those expectations. If nothing else, work on being gentle with yourself as you deal with this. Pressure and stress will only make it harder to orgasm, not easier, so do your best to avoid thought patterns that produce those feelings. Talking About Your Orgasm Frustrations When it comes to talking about this with a partner, open communication and problem-solving can go a long way towards not just resolving the issue, but also helping one or both of you feel less stressed about it. Communicate Your Desires Honestly Though it can be hard to talk about sex with a partner, avoiding it is unlikely to help, especially if there are things they could be doing that would impact your comfort levels or arousal. When talking to your partner, start with what you love: what feels good physically, erotically, emotionally, etc., says OReilly. You may also want to show them what feels good for you especially if youre able to orgasm with ease when youre on your own. A little show and tell can go a long way. A fun mutual masturbation session could be just the thing you need to kick off a new era of sexual openness with each other. Dont Turn the Issue Into a Blame Game Though the things your partner does and doesnt do can have a big impact on your ability to orgasm, blaming them for your struggles is a bad move. Never ever blame your partner, says Queen. RELATED: How to Talk About Your Unsatisfying Sex Life On the other hand, she adds, Never ever accept blame from your partner. These are red flags and signal you likely need couples' therapy. The two of you will need to work out understanding and possible solutions together; shaming attitudes are not going to help you do this. At best in this situation, one or both partners is mistaken about how sex goes and is superimposing assumptions that are not correct. Try to Reset Expectations Some folks may personalize their partners orgasm, says OReilly. Thats on them. Its not your job to orgasm in order to validate your partner. And at the same time, the way they feel and react will affect you, so its also OK to offer some reassurance. You can let them know that this is how your body reacts, and its not about the sex itself or the partner. You Might Also Dig: Why Men Go Bald and What to Do About It Understanding the Root Causes of Hair Loss (Plus Treatment Options That Actually Work) The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. If you were to get together with six of your old high school buddies, at least three of you would likely have some form of baldness. A study published by the National Library of Medicine found that 42 percent of men had moderate to extensive hair loss between the ages of 18 and 49. As age increases, so do the percentages, from 16 percent between 18 and 29 to 53 percent between 40 and 49. Male pattern hair loss, technical term androgenic alopecia, impacts between 35 million and 45 million men in the United States, according to Dr. Sara Wasserbauer, who operates California Hair Surgeon in Northern California. RELATED: Best Hair Loss Products For the predominant culprit causing hair loss, you can blame your family and your hormones. There are things you can do can to stop or slow the process, if you start early enough. If its too late, there are some tried and true methods for covering up bald spots. Why Do Men Go Bald? Wasserbauer says that in most cases, going bald is a really simple equation of genetics plus a hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT is a hormone that is formed enzymatically from some of the testosterone in your body, says Dr. Siman Patel, founder of Strut Health. And, while it is normal to have a certain level of this hormone in your body, it can damage hair follicles. The presence of inherited genes for male pattern baldness makes the hair follicles more sensitive to DHT, which starts to shrink the follicles when it interacts with them. This shrinkage leads to the follicle producing thinner and shorter strands incrementally and may end up with the loss of growth from that follicle altogether - causing either diffuse thinning or bald areas, Patel says. Wasserbauer says to imagine your head as a forest. Pick an acre of your forest, bundle all the trees, and measure how wide across the bundle is. Come back later, go to the same acre, bundle the trees. The diameter is less because there are either fewer trees or the trees themselves are thinner. In other words, theres less wood in your forest, she says. The other, much smaller percentage of balding cases are the result of rare forms of hair loss (note: links are to more detailed explanations from the National Institutes of Health). These include conditions such as alopecia universalis, which destroys all the hair follicles on your body; or alopecia cicatricial, which results in hair follicles being damaged and replaced by scar tissue. Treatment from other diseases, such as chemotherapy for cancer, can also be the direct cause of hair loss. Telogen effluvium is temporary hair loss caused by a triggering event such as stress. Determining If You Are Going to Go Bald Genetics that result in androgenic alopecia can come from both parents, says Wasserbauer, who currently serves as president on the Board of Directors for the American Board of Hair Restoration Surgeons. Prevalent urban myths that claim balding skips a generation or that you inherit it from your moms dad are inaccurate, she says. The best way to determine if you are going to go bald is to look at your older family members. Wasserbauer says tests that use saliva swabs to determine if you are going to go bald are unreliable. A 70 percent chance of going bald doesnt mean you are going to go bald. A visit to the doctor/hair restoration specialist can also help you determine balding and its eventual pattern, which are illustrated in the Norwood-Hamilton Scale. It can also help you determine if you are dealing with one of the rare conditions listed above. Balding Impacts on Your Health Other than needing a little extra protection from the sun in the summer and a warmer hat in the winter, there are no physical health risks with going bald. Going bald is not life-threatening other than our emotional state, Wasserbauer says, noting that the impact of hair loss is much more significant than people give it credit for. She says people on average get 34 chances a day to see their reflection. If baldness is impacting someones self-esteem, thats 34 ego hits a day. What to Do If You Are Going Bald? The key with hair loss treatment is starting it at the first signs of hair loss, Patel says, since it is much easier to prevent additional damage to hair follicles immediately than trying to coax them back into growth years later." If you are between 17 and 34, these methods should help you regrow hair. Anybody over 35 dealing with balding might be able to maintain but probably wont be able to save it, Wasserbauer says. Feel free to skip to the next section if your primary concern is concealing a bald spot. Propecia (Finasteride): This prescription pill has an active ingredient called finasteride that blocks DHT from being formed, thus helping to slow hair loss. There is an enzyme that changes DHT and gives it an irreversible body hug, Wasserbauer says. Finasteride mainly helps with maintaining your current hair and reducing additional hair loss, but some may find regrowth using it as well, Patel says. Rogaine (Minoxidil): Minoxidil, the active ingredient in Rogaine, makes your blood vessels a little bit bigger and has an affinity for the blood vessels of the hair follicles, says Wasserbauer. Minoxidil is available in either a pill form or topical application and can be purchased over the counter or stronger with a prescription. Monoxidil increases the health of the hair follicles and helps stimulate new growth by increasing blood flow to the follicles -- bringing along plenty of oxygen and nutrients, Patel says. He also notes that both minoxidil and finasteride play well together. Low level light therapy (photobiomodulation): Low level light therapy is designed to stimulate cells to help promote hair growth. There are devices any consumer can purchase, or you can visit a doctor to administer. Wasserbauer views low level light therapy in a very positive (ahem) light, but also notes that the method is a victim of its own success. When you start to grow hair, the hair blocks the light, she says. Shampoos: Wasserbauer listed four types of shampoos that contain active ingredients (listed in parentheses) that could help slow hair loss: How to Enhance an Already Bald Head If you are past the point of slowing measures, there are both sophisticated and simple ways to cover up or camouflage a bald head. Hair transplants: There is one tissue line at the top of your head that has DHT and another tissue line at the bottom that doesnt. That bottom strip of hair, called the safe zone, is about 2-3 inches high on the back and sides of your scalp. This is the healthy hair doctors use when performing hair transplants. Wasserbauer compared a hair transplant to moving grass from a healthy section in the back of your lawn to the front lawn where there is some bare earth. The dying or dead grass in the front is not fixable but planting the existing grass from the back to the front will allow the replacement grass to grow. Wig or hairpiece: The simplest way to hide your bald spot is to purchase a wig or hairpiece to cover a section of your hair. Wigs come in a variety of styles and fits and can be constructed from human or synthetic hair. Scalp micropigmentation: Scalp micropigmentation is like getting a hair tattoo. The procedure, which can be permanent or temporary, is described on Wasserbauers website as applying a specially formulated pigment (ink) to the scalp with micro-fine needles to create thousands of tiny impressions to give the illusion of hair. Visually you cant tell when it is done right. Hairdressers are like, Thats hair, until they touch it, Wasserbauer says. When its done nicely, everyone looks like they just got off the set of Fast and Furious. Sprinkled Fibers: If you still have some hair remaining, you can carefully apply certain fibers to make hair look thicker. The fibers will attach to your hair, which is a protein made of keratin, through static charges in both your hair and the product. The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) lists a few product recommendations on its site. Concealers: The ISHRS also lists powder cakes, creams, lotions, and aerosols as ways to camouflage a balding area on your head. Here are a few recommended products: Lotion: COUVRe Powder cake: Boldify Advancements Ahead: Wasserbauer expressed excitement about the efficacy of advancing treatments like plasma injections and exosomes hair loss therapy. Forward-thinkers are also beginning to cryo-preserve healthy and active hairs to use in potential hair cloning transplants when the time comes. Click HERE to read more and view a video from Wasserbauer explaining the process. Let it go: The last option is one that you can fully embrace as your first option: Just go bald. As you get older, there will be a lot more people joining your club. You Might Also Dig: Ukraine's Zelenskyy pleads for more ammunition at Albania summit of southeastern European nations Ukraines president has pleaded for more ammunition to repel Russian advances at a summit he co-hosted with Albanias government to build further support for Kyiv among southeastern European countries Authorities in Transnistria, a pro-Russian separatist region of Moldova, on Wednesday called for Russia's "protection" against alleged "pressure" from the Moldovan government, heightening tensions in a region already shaken by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Shortly afterwards, the Russian foreign ministry, quoted by local agencies, indicated that Moscow considered "protecting" Transnistrian "compatriots" to be one of its "priorities". Transnistrian MPs in Tiraspol, the main city of the 4,160 square kilometre enclave between Moldova and Ukraine, adopted a declaration calling on Moscow to "implement measures to protect Transnistria from increased pressure from Moldova", which had taken economic retaliatory measures against the separatists. Transnistria, home to "more than 220,000 Russian citizens", faces "unprecedented threats of an economic, socio-humanitarian and politico-military nature", the statement, quoted by Russian press agencies, said, without specifying what kind of assistance it called for. In 2006, in a referendum in Transnistria that was not recognised by the international community, 97% of voters declared themselves in favour of independence and the territory's union with Russia. Wednesday's petition is reminiscent of the one launched by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in February 2022, which was one of the pretexts used by President Vladimir Putin to launch his large-scale attack on Ukraine. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this Russian-speaking region proclaimed its secession and fought a short war against the Moldovan army in 1992. Since then, Russia has maintained an official peacekeeping presence of 1,500 military personnel in this narrow territory of 465,000 inhabitants, which stretches between the eastern bank of the Dniester River and Ukraine. Since the start of the Russian operation in Ukraine, speculation has multiplied about a Russian attack from Transnistria on the nearby Ukrainian city of Odessa on the Black Sea. Transnistrian separatists, for their part, accuse Ukraine of wanting to attack the territory and of having prepared a foiled attack on their leaders. Tensions "dangerous" for the region Separatist MPs said they were seeking urgent action in response to Moldova's recent imposition of tariffs on Transnistrian goods. They also urged the OSCE, the European Parliament, the Red Cross and the UN to avoid "provocations" that could lead to "an escalation of tensions". The Moldovan government, which criticised a "campaign" to foment "hysteria" among the population, pointed out that "there is no risk of escalation". Moldova and the EU regularly accuse Moscow of wanting to destabilise the former Soviet republic, now with a firmly pro-European leadership. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk insisted Wednesday that "the threat of Russian intervention, or at least provocation, is permanent", and called tensions in Moldova "dangerous" for the region. In December 2023, the EU decided to open accession negotiations with both Ukraine and Moldova. The British brand owned by the Chinese auto giant SAIC unveiled the supermini hatchback MG3 Hybrid + with an electrified drivetrain at the 2024 Geneva Motor Show. SAIC bought the MG brand in 2007, and for a while, these old British marque products were no longer available in mainland Europe. But then, in 2022, it returned and scored big numbers on the EU market. After selling crossovers and EVs, MG introduced the B-Segment MG3 Hybrid+ at the 2024 Geneva Motor Show, almost a century after the brands registration in the UK, on May 1st, 1924. The new vehicle came fitted with a gas-electric drivetrain that challenged other similar cars on the market, especially the Yaris from Toyota. The cars front fascia was dominated by a wide grille adorned with a 3D pattern, flanked by a pair of side scoops. On the lower side of the bumper, the automaker installed a lip spoiler in the center area with a slim, trapezoidal-shaped air intake. The LED headlights mounted above the bumper were swept back and had a triangular shape, while the automaker installed the octagonal MG badge between them. Despite the cars small size, it looked sporty and aggressive. From its profile, the mix of curved panels and sharp lines created a dynamic look for the vehicle. Its sculptured doors featured an upper crease stretched from the front fenders towards the rear quarter panels, while on the lower area, the automaker added a few additional lines. It was a complicated design. The rear end featured a raked-forward tailgate adorned by a roof spoiler on its upper side that integrated the third brake light. While most car manufacturers preferred to install small taillights on their B-segment vehicles, the MG3 Hybrid+ featured elongated ones, stretched from the rear fenders onto the tailgate. Inside, customers found an octagonal-shaped, two-spoke steering wheel that resembled the brands badge. Fronting the driver was a seven-inch configurable display for the instrument cluster. Atop the center stack, in a free-floating position, MG placed a 10.25-inch touchscreen for the infotainment system that featured standard navigation, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto. A set of seven physical buttons were found under the center display, and two of them were for the volume. This feature was appreciated by customers, especially by those seated in the passengers seat. Between the front occupants, on the center console, the automaker installed a rotary knob for the transmission, the button for the electronic parking brake, and a couple of cup holders. In addition, there was also an armrest with a storage area underneath it. In the back, the automaker installed a split-folding bench seat, while the trunk behind it provided 293 liters (10.3 cu-ft.) of space. But the most significant part of the car was under the hood. MG installed an inline-four gasoline engine running in the Atkinson cycle. It was paired with a generator that produced the electricity for the motor to move the car. Another unique and unusual feature for a 2024 vehicle was the three-speed automatic gearbox that sent the power to the front wheels. When it comes to US-made engines, the V8 reigns supreme, but American manufacturers have also built several iconic straight-sixes throughout the years. ICE HP Chevrolet Stovebolt/Blue Flame Photo: Mecum Chrysler Slant-6 Photo: Stellantis North America Ford 300 Photo: Mecum OHV AMC/Jeep 4.0 Photo: Mecum Cummins 5.9-liter Photo: Mecum The straight-six engine is nearly 121 years old, and while electric power has become the wave of the future, the automobile industry is far from done with this legendaryThe first production straight-six was developed by the Dutch company Spyker and made its debut in the 1903 race car dubbed, rather uncreatively, 60Though it took a few years for other manufacturers to follow suit, by the mid-1910s, almost every company that built automotive engines was developing one.The secret to its popularity is the perfect primary and secondary engine balance obtained with an appropriate firing order. That means minimal vibration compared to other designs and, consequently, a smooth-running engine.In the US, Ford unleashed the first mass-produced automotive straight-six as early as 1906 for its Model K. However, the next Ford inline-six would come nearly four decades later.In the meantime, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Buick, Oakland, Hudson, or Chrysler developed a series of great six-pots.Engineers' focus would shift to the V8 , which became Detroit's main weapon from the 1940s onwards, but the development of the straight-six was never abandoned. In most cases, it was relegated to entry-level or standard engine duty, in large part because of its ease of maintenance and reliability.In 1929, a quarter of a century before it unleashed the small-block V8 , Chevrolet replaced its 171-ci (2.8-liter) inline-four with a brand-new inline-six.Powering the entire line of Chevy cars and trucks, the 46-hp engine featured a forged steel crank with three mains and cast-iron pistons. It was far from an innovative design, which people to mokingly nickname it "Stovebolt Six" and Cast-Iron Wonder."Nevertheless, it provided adequate power, impressive reliability, and, best of all, it didn't significantly increase the price of Chevy's models, so it was continually improved in the following years.In 1937, it was time for the second generation, which, among other upgrades, received a redesigned crankcase with four main bearings.The second-gen Stovebolt was produced in three different versions with 216 ci (3.5 liters), 235 ci (3.8 liters), and 261 ci (4.3 liters) displacements.While the 216 wasn't a huge leap forward, and the 261 was almost exclusively used in large trucks , the 235 (aka Blue Flame), which became available in passenger cars starting with the 1950 model year, was the Stovebolt family's most impressive member.It made up to 155 hp in Corvette-exclusive versions with an 8.0:1 compression ratio, and besides its power potential, it became known for its supreme reliability.The Stovebolt was discontinued in the US in 1963 when it was replaced by the Turbo-Thrift. Nevertheless, it remained in production in Brazil until 1979.Chrysler has been mass-producing straight-sixes for more than a century, but unquestionably, its most famous remains the Slant-6.It was developed in the late 1950s by a team of dedicated engineers led by Willem Weertman and remained in production until the year 2000.Internally dubbed G-engine but nicknamed Slant-6, the unit was a completely new , clean-sheet design that aimed to replace the venerable Flathead.Initially a full cast-iron unit (an aluminum block and several alu heads were subsequently built), the Slant-6 was designed with durability in mind, which is why it had a deep-skirted block with the crank positioned well above the oil pan rails.Moreover, with a 30-degree inclination of the block that lowered the height of the complete engine package, stylists were able to design lower hood lines.The motor debuted in 1960 models and was available in two displacement sizes. The first was a 170-ci (2.8-liter) designed for compact cars, while the second, a 225-ci (3.7-liter) version, initially saw use in full-size passenger cars.In 1970, the original 170 was replaced by an improved 198-ci (3.2-liter) variant that provided more power for the revised models, where it was offered as the standard engine option.In terms of output, the original 225 was the most potent in stock form, delivering 145 hp. However, the bombproof architecture allowed a multitude of upgrades that included forced induction, so it was not uncommon to see tuned Slant-Sixes that made well over 350 hp.The engine powered a Chrysler Corporation model in 1983, but it continued to be produced for trucks until 1987.The Slant-6 story didn't end there, as US production soldiered on for five more years for marine, agricultural, and industrial use. After that, the engine continued to live in Mexico, where it was manufactured, until 2000.As I mentioned earlier, Ford released America's first mass-produced inline-six in 1906, but after production ended in 1908, the company took a 33-year break from the design.A new Ford flathead straight-six came in 1941 and survived less than a decade. The second generation, introduced in 1952, shared many components with the Y-block V8 , but since it also shared the same common issues, it was discontinued in 1964.In the meantime, the 1960 model year saw the introduction of the third generation dubbed Thriftpower Six, but it too was discontinued in 1964.Finally, the fourth generation that debuted in 1960 was the near-perfect design that engineers were aiming for.It was produced until 1996 in several displacement sizes, of which the most memorable was the 300-ci (4.9-liter) version.With a cast-iron block andcylinder head, forged conrods, triple-ring aluminum pistons, and quad-bearing camshaft, the single-carb 300 was a virtually indestructible workhorse that provided adequate power and plenty of low-end torque.It was mostly used in F-Series trucks and E-Series Vans, but it was also the base engine for three generations of the Bronco (1980 to 1992).Though the Aussie-built Barra is the greatest Ford straight-six, the 300 remains the corporation's best American-made six-banger thanks to its legendary durability and reliability.The American Motors Corporation (AMC) was formed in 1954 when the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation merged with the Hudson Motor Car Company.In the following years, many things originally developed by Nash were carried over, including a new six-cylinder.Initially designed in the early 1950s, the engine was continually improved by AMC over the next decades, and in 1986, its most legendary version was introduced.Officially called 4.0 after its metric displacement, the original 177-hp 242-ci motor was an improvement of the previous 258, so it was an evolution rather than a revolution.It was developed in just 26 months using various off-the-shelf components as AMC was struggling to survive. Despite this, its beefy architecture made it one of the most durable and reliable straight-sixes ever conceived.Designed for use in Jeep models, the 4.0 outlived AMC and continued to be improved and mass-produced under Chrysler ownership.Rated at 190 hp from 1990 onwards, the legendary straight-six was continually produced until 2006. During its lifespan, it was known for its indestructible construction that typically allowed it to run well over the 300,000-mile mark(482,803 km) without requiring a rebuild.Part of the Cummins B Series of diesel engines designed for multiple applications, the 5.9-liter straight-six was the first B engine to be used in a light-duty truck.It made its debut in 1989 in the first-generation Dodge Ram as a potent, fuel-efficient alternative to a gas-guzzling V8.An all-cast-iron unit, the 5.9-liter was buit to last. It featured a forged crankshaft with seven mains, a 12-valve cast-iron cylinder head, and a gear-driven cam drive. Moreover, at the time of its release, the turbocharged motor was the only light-duty pickup truck diesel to feature a fuel injection system.In 1994, the excellent engine became even better with several improvements, including a new 24-valve head.By 2002, it was extensively redesigned to be more powerful and fuel-efficient, receiving upgrades such as a common-rail fuel injection system.The Cummins 5.9-liter was eventually discontinued after the 2007 model year. Throughout its lifespan, it made up to 325 hp and 600 lb-ft (813 Nm) of torque, but more importantly, it became a game-changer that pushed reliability, durability, and fuel efficiency to epic levels. For a nameplate that is not made by an indigenous American carmaker, the Toyota Tacoma is handling itself very well. In fact, the vehicle ended 2023 as the number 1 small pickup on the U.S. market for the 19th consecutive year, selling over 230,000 examples, far ahead of runner-up Chevrolet Colorado (almost 90,000 units). National Highway Traffic Safety Administration But, as the famous Spiderman quote says, with great power comes great responsibility, so every single issue that surfaces with these trucks can't be overlooked by the carmaker. Not even things that seem as trivial as welding debris.In an undisclosed fashion, Toyota seems to have discovered that someone didn't do their jobs properly during the assembly process of a huge number of Tacoma trucks. In a nutshell, they forgot to clean up the welding debris on the ends of the rear axle assembly.That may not seem like such a huge problem, but Toyota says it could affect some of the axle's retaining nuts. More specifically, some of these small parts could loosen as a result of the welding debris, and might end up falling off eventually.If retaining nuts are missing from the rear axle, a certain part of the assembly (which was not specifically named by Toyota) could fall off completely, seriously impacting vehicle stability and braking performance. Naturally, this could easily transform into a crash.Toyota says there are 381,000 Tacoma trucks from the 2022 and 2023 model years affected by this issue. All of them will have to make a trip to the dealer to be inspected and, if need be, fixed.The procedure is pretty simple and shouldn't take long - in most cases, mechanics will simply retighten the axle retaining nuts. There might be instances when the axle's components have already been damaged and in this case they will either be repaired or replaced, depending on their condition.As usual, the procedure will be conducted at no cost to the owners of affected Tacomas. They should all receive mail notifications about the recall by late April. If you need to know before that time if your truck is on the list, a call to the Toyota Brand Engagement Center (1-800-331-4331) or a visit on thewebsite should do the trick.The Toyota Tacoma in its current, 2024 model year configuration, is selling on the American market for prices that start at $31,500. The 2023 version can still be had, somewhat cheaper at $28,600.For the newest version there are no less than six versions on the table, the most expensive being the $52,100 Limited double cab. A single engine in various states of tune and running various configurations is available across the range, a turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder. A Darien police vehicle in a file photo. Darien police are investigating a car theft and several car burglaries that occurred in a three-day span. Contributed photo / Darien Police Department DARIEN Local police say four vehicle burglaries and one theft occurred over a three-day span at residences on Fairfield Avenue, Post Road and Holly Lane. On Feb. 21, a Post Road resident told officers that her backpack had been stolen from her vehicle between the hours of 5:20 and 6:04 p.m, police said. They added that the resident believed she had left her car locked. Police said that three days later, on Feb. 24, several other residents reported they also had had their vehicles broken into, or attempted to be broken into. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Two Fairfield Avenue residents reported that they each woke up to notifications from their security systems revealing suspects attempting to break into their vehicles, police said. Two cars were locked and had not been successfully broken into, while one had been broken into, police said. Hours after the alleged incidents on Fairfield Avenue, a Holly Lane resident reported 2 attempted car break-ins after reviewing security footage, police said. Later the same day, a resident on Fairfield Avenue reported their car was taken from their driveway and left at the end of the road, police said. They added that the resident admitted to having left the keys inside the unlocked car the night before. Valued 2.82 trillion dollars, the second-largest company in the world by market capitalization has reportedly canceled Project Titan. Better known as the Apple Car, said venture dates back to 2014. Photo: tedoradze.giorgi via Instagram Heaven knows how many billions of dollars later, Bloomberg reports that Apple canned Project Titan. The cited publication understands from people in the know that two of the Cupertino giant's high-ranking execs disclosed the bad news. A public announcement has yet to be made. Bloomberg further states that nearly 2,000 employees will switch to generative AI projects, generative AI meaning artificial intelligence focused on creating new content.In simple terms, generative AI can turn text inputs into an image or a video. The opposite also stands true, and generative AI can also create music. This kind of artificial intelligence is trained to scour the Internet for information in order to create new content. Similarly obvious, generative artificial intelligence cannot provide any content without inputted prompts from humans.People with inside knowledge of Project Titan stated that chief operating officer Jeff Williams and vice president of technology Kevin Lynch announced the 2,000-odd employees about the project's termination. Said employees are internally referred to as the Special Projects Group (SPG).The artificial intelligence division is headed by John Giannandrea, whose official role within the company is senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy. Prior to joining the Cupertino-based colossus, he worked for Google.Bloomberg claims that Project Titan further comprises a few hundred car designers and hardware engineers. Most likely, they will be moved to different roles. The publication also understands that some employees will be unfortunately laid off.Shrouded in secrecy from the very beginning, Project Titan was confirmed in 2015 by Apple's former senior vice president of the iPod division. According to Tony Fadell, the late Steve Jobs considered building an Apple car back in 2008.Prior to the yet-unconfirmed cancelation, Apple purportedly delayed the car's launch to 2028. It also reduced self-driving capability from SAE Level 4 to SAE Level 2+, which is hugely disappointing if you remember that Mercedes-Benz AG gained approval for Level 3 autonomy in California and Nevada back in September 2023.Adding insult to injury, the Xiaomi SU7 was designed with Level 4 autonomy in mind. The Chinese outfit's first-ever automobile is pretty impressive from a performance standpoint as well. Mercedes and BMW veterans James Qiu, Tianyuan Li, and Chris Bangle had a big say in the sedan's design, a battery-electric sedan that clocks 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) in 2.78 seconds.The performance-oriented version is called SU7 Max, whereas the standard rear-wheel-drive specification is listed with a zero to 100-kph time of 5.3 seconds. Benchmarked against the Porsche Taycan, the Speed Ultra Seven entered series production in December 2023 at the BAIC Off-Road Vehicle Co. assembly plant in Beijing, China. After spending the better part of his life in Birmingham, England, Hayden Roberts moved to sunny California in the early 2000s. A bit later on, he ended up quitting his day job to focus on his true passion, that being classic British motorcycles of yore. Operating as Hello Engine in Ventura County, Hayden spends a good chunk of his time dealing with restorations and repairs. Photo: Scott G Toepfer CDI Photo: Scott G Toepfer He still finds the time to indulge in the occasional custom project, though, and the results are always worth looking at many times over. Take, for instance, the mouth-watering Triumph Bonneville dirt tracker hed worked on a few years back. Were calling it a Bonnie due to the engine along, though, as the bike is actually more of a parts bin special rather than something based on one single donor.Having collected a ton of spare parts in his workshop over the years, Hayden didnt have much of an issue sourcing the necessary parts for this project. Thats not to say the process of piecing everything together was easy, mind you, but a builder of Sir Roberts caliber certainly doesnt mind a good challenge. Finding an appropriate skeleton was the first piece of the puzzle.Luckily, he had a competition-spec Triumph frame from 1965 lying around the shop, and it was deemed perfect for his needs. Things got a bit trickier when it came to the powertrain, because Hayden had to do some web browsing in search of a suitable mill. He eventually found a 750cc Bonneville motor from the late seventies while looking through Craigslist and it wasnt long before he got on the phone with the seller.As soon as the parallel-twin mill arrived at his garage, the custom sorcery got underway in earnest. Triumph s powerplants came with a left-side shifter from 1975 onward, but our protagonist wanted to switch back to something more traditional. He therefore relocated the shifting mechanism to the right-hand side, enhancing the motorcycles vintage appeal right from the get-go.The engine-related work continued with the installation of high-compression pistons, aignition system, and fresh Mk II Concentric carbs from Amal. Replacement cams also make an appearance, while the crankshaft was lightened and rebalanced during the overhaul. On the exhaust side of things, we come across shiny stainless-steel plumbing with nothing to muffle the engines roar. A layer of chrome plating covers the headers from front to back.Items sourced from various other Triumphs include the rear drum brake, folding foot pegs, and under-seat oil tank. The fuel chamber was donated by an unidentified 1966 model, but the rectangular side cover on the left is a custom unit fabricated from scratch. Hayden shaped the front number board in-house, as well, while ordering a fresh seat pan from Iron Cobras and topping it off with generous padding.He went with white glitter vinyl for the saddle upholstery, giving the motorcycle some extra visual bling where youd least expect to see it. The whole shebang rolls on shouldered Akront rims, linked to Buchanans stainless-steel spokes and shod in Duro tires at both ends. Hayden fitted a handmade aluminum fender nice and high above the rear wheel, right beneath the subframe tubing and license plate holder.A repurposed drum brake provides stopping power up north, equipped with new shoes just like its rear counterpart. In terms of suspension hardware, youll find Ceriani forks at the front and a pair of NJB shock absorbers at six oclock. Hello Engine fitted a small circular taillight near the upper shock mount on the left, but thats the only lighting component youll see on this machine.Turning to aftermarket solutions for the cockpit area, Hayden installed a wide handlebar complete with rubber grips and a Tommaselli throttle. There are no dials or rear-view mirrors to speak of, and even the headlamp was left out of the equation for a quintessential tracker look. Last but not least, the vibrant color scheme is what drew our attention to this custom Triumph in the first place.Both hues employed here were taken from Rolls-Royce's vintage color palette Peacock Blue for the frame and Regency Bronze for the gas tank. Most of the other bits and pieces were left unpainted to give this handsome tracker a raw vibe, but the Hello Engine treatment saw them polished to look as good as new. Together with the glitter vinyl seat, the whole affair is absolutely delicious to say the least!Aside from all the cosmetic eye candy, Hayden also managed to extract around 20 percent more power from the Bonneville engine. The fruit of his labor is nothing short of fascinating, thanks in no small part to its classic desert sled charm and all the work put into it. Hayden Roberts may not indulge in fully-fledged custom builds on a regular basis, but he knocks them straight out of the park when he does. SUV Well, we are not sure that's enough, but at least we got to see the latest models from China trying to make a breakout performance on the European market and the interesting reveals from Renault and Dacia. The former brought the revived Renault 5 E-Tech retro-modern electric car to the show. At the same time, the latter demonstrated how the Jogger and third-gen Dusterpaved the way forward for every other model in the family.Dacia also refreshed the little 2024 Spring electric hatchback , which looks like a shrunken Duster now and we mean that in the best possible way. However, maybe it's time to discuss what happens next and how Renault is taking advantage of the Romanian brand's popularity and coolest models. As a reminder, some of the models in the Dacia range are also sold as rebranded Renaults. Still, there's also a derivative that Old Continent fans would love to come home from South America the Renault (Duster) Oroch four-door compact unibody pickup truck.On sale since late 2015 and marketed primarily across Latin America, this compact pickup truck still has loads of space for five people on board and a 680 kg (1,499 lbs.) load capacity, among other features. That's primarily thanks to the elongated chassis, which increases the length to around 4.7 meters (185 inches) instead of the SUV's 4.34 meters (171 inches). Naturally, that makes it a significant foe, sparring with competitors like the Chevrolet Montana and even the all-new, first-ever Ram Rampage.Some will say it's a better fit for a brawl with the Fiat Toro, for example. However, it's still shorter than both Stellantis siblings, so it's actually the 4.71-meter (185.7-inches) Chevy Montana that's directly at odds with the Renault Oroch (they dropped the Duster moniker in 2022). No worries, if the imaginative realm of digital car content creators is allowed to have its way (via Kolesa and their resident pixel master), the second-generation Renault Oroch based on the third Dacia Duster SUV iteration will be ready to fight off anything, even a potential attack from North America by way of a Ford Maverick or Hyundai Santa Cruz drop to markets down South.With the adventurous yet mature design of the Dacia Duster all over it but using Renault branding, the next-gen Oroch is also unofficially envisioned with yet another increase of the wheelbase and a significantly lengthened rear, too. Interestingly, it completely ignores the recent Renault Niagara Concept and settles for down-to-earth looks that would probably make it just as affordable as the current iteration. So, do you like it or not? The war in Ukraine has brought into the spotlight a series of weapons platforms and weapons that until the conflict started had never been used on such a large scale. One of them is the so-called NASAMS. NASAMS is an acronym for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System or, because it is made by Raytheon together with Norwegian company Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, the Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System. Just like its expanded name says, it has been specifically designed to bring down enemy aircraft or other airborne threats.The system has been around since 1997, and it generally uses for weapons a type of missile known as the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile ( AMRAAM ). It too made by Raytheon, it is described as "the world's most sophisticated, combat-proven air dominance weapon."A standard missile of this variety, the AIM-120, has become a weapon of choice for fighter jets, including the F-15, F-16, F/A-18, F-22, Eurofighter Typhoon, JAS-39 Gripen, Tornado and Harrier. The same kind is also used as ammunition for the NASAMS, and it can generally strike targets located as far away as 100 miles (160 km) from where it is fired.But as the battlefields in Ukraine have shown, that range might just not be enough, so an even more potent variant of the missile is currently in the works. Called AMRAAM-Extended Range (ER), it is meant to intercept targets at longer distances and higher altitudes.Although what that actually means is not public knowledge, we do know a thing or two about what makes this missile tick.The thing uses a bigger rocket motor, a 10-inch piece of hardware supplied by defense contractor Nammo. A 10-inch control actuator system made by Kongsberg is also used, creating a system its makers like to call the Norwegian Propulsion Stack. Separately, the weapon is also equipped with optimized flight control algorithms.The thing was recently put to the test for the first time in connection with a NASAMS system over in Norway, with the help of the local military. The AMRAAM-ER, in a first-of-its-kind configuration that used the guidance section of the AIM-120 C-8, was loaded and fired from the air defense system, then went on to fly a pre-programmed path for its operators to properly assess both the launcher's and the missile's performance. Naturally, we're not being given the specifics of the test, but we are told it was a success.By the looks of it, the AMRAAM weapon will evolve even more in the months ahead, as its makers also have something in the pipeline they describe as "agile software upgrades." Separately, an aircraft-carried version called AIM-120D-3 is currently getting ready to enter production.The cost of a single AMRAAM missile is estimated at $1 million, and during its 30+ years of existence (Ukraine war not included), it only brought down around 20 enemy aircraft in conflicts around the world. Photo: Infiniti SUV 4WD Infiniti has set the unveiling date for March 20, at 7:00 PM EST (March 21, 1:00 AM CET), and to mark the announcement, it has also released a few teasers of the upcoming model, which will replace the 14-year-old second generation.We saw an official glimpse of the all-new Infiniti QX80 at last year's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance when the automaker introduced the QX Monograph Concept . The production version looks almost the same, save for a few updates, and it manages to stay clear of the ugly duckling styling of its predecessors.From certain angles, it kind of resembles the latest Range Rover. It has flush-mounted door handles, thinner rear pillars that contribute to the more elegant design, and a split headlamp signature, with the DRLs positioned above the main clusters. We can also see a glimpse of the new grille and taillights linked across the tailgate.The Japanese automaker has managed to keep the interior design and layout secret, yet you can look forward to stuff such as a digital instrument cluster, a head-up display, a large infotainment system, premium audio , ambient lighting, heated seats, and so on. The premium leather upholstery is likely to be reserved for the upper specs, alongside other high-end stuff.For the latest generation QX80, Infiniti decided to drop the naturally aspirated V8. Thus, instead of a 5.6-liter unit, which pumps out 400 horsepower in its predecessor, the new one will gain a twin-turbo V6 that is expected to produce around 450 horsepower. Besides the extra oomph, the new mill will also be more frugal, improving the larges fuel consumption that's currently rated at 16 mpg (14.7 l/100 km) combined.Base versions may still be offered with two-wheel drive, whereas the four-wheel drive system should be reserved for the upper grades. The 2024 QX80 starts at $74,150 before destination with 2WD and $77,300 with. The Premium Select has a $78,300 MSRP ($81,400 with 4WD), and the range-topping Sensory comes from $85,350 with 2WD and $88,450 with 4WD.Pricing details should be announced later this year when the all-new one will be ready for shipping. However, we expect it to come closer to the $80k territory in the base flavor, with the top one likely exceeding the $90k mark. We will learn everything about the 2025 Infiniti QX80 on March 20, when it will go official, and as usual, we will cover the unveiling. Before that happens, the auto brand will release more teasers. OnePlus 12 buyers are now reporting a similar experience after buying the device.Launched in late 2023 in China and released in international markets in January, the OnePlus is now making its way to more buyers worldwide. Theoretically, the device should offer flawless performance on Android Auto, but users who turned to Google's forums claim this isn't the case at all.Android Auto connection problems plague the experience with the OnePlus 12, with users complaining that the app no longer loads after connecting it to the car. Everything worked correctly before the upgrade one user says they owned a OnePlus 7 Pro that worked flawlessly with Android Auto with the same head unit and cable.The culprit appeared to be the new smartphone, though it's unclear what's causing the Android Auto connection problem. Someone says they tried changing cables, but Android Auto still doesn't load. They also contacted Volkswagen for support, but the dealership told them Google's software must be the culprit, considering everything worked correctly with other mobile devices.However, I believe the problem resides in Android 14. OnePlus 12 ships with Android 14 out of the box, and the new operating system has previously been blamed for connection problems on other phones , too. Google didn't release patches to resolve the Android Auto bugs after the Android 14 update, so the chances are that the new OnePlus smartphone is suffering from the same behavior.Users couldn't find a fix, and considering Android 14 is pre-loaded with the OnePlus 12, downgrading to Android 13 is not an option. The generic workarounds, which included changing cables, clearing the cache and the data, reinstalling Android Auto, and installing the latest builds, didn't help. Android Auto 11.4 is the most recent release, albeit it doesn't seem to address the reported connection glitch.A Community Specialist has already joined the conversation on Google's forums , asking for more information about the glitch, including the Android Auto version where users struggle with this behavior. However, we're still far from the moment a fix could ship, so you'd better not hold your breath for an update.Meanwhile, if you are also struggling with Android Auto on the OnePlus 12 and found a way to resolve the error, drop me a line in the box after the jump. The chances are that the issues would become more widespread as more people get the new smartphone, so every idea could help if Android Auto doesn't launch in their cars. SUV ICE There is nothing that Audi won't touch in the next few months. It will bring out a first-ever all-new Q9 flagshipbased but larger than the Q7 to fight against the big threats like the Cadillac Escalade, BMW X7, or Mercedes-Benz GLS. The crossover SUV range will also see another model adopt the split-headlight styling akin to the Q9 the small Q3, but on the other hand, the all-new Q5 will remain a bit more traditional, styling-wise.Then there's also the passenger car roster, and significant changes are coming there. Audi is implementing yet another confusing name change after that episode of transforming the engine designation into double digits that have nothing to do with the engine capacity. This time around, the company wants to designate the e-tron all-electric models with even numbers, whereas the odd ones are reserved for the-powered counterparts, including the mild hybrids and plug-in hybrids. Muddled, right?For example, the A6 sedan and wagon will be transferred to the A7 series , which previously only included the Sportback body style, and the same will happen with the A4 models, which are set to occupy the same space as the current A5 Sportback. However, even though it has been spied on numerous occasions, the rumor mill doesn't seem capable of deciding if the A5 range will include three body styles sedan, Sportback, and Avant station wagon or just the latter two.Well, things got settled quite fast across the imaginative realm of digital car content creators, in fact. For example, the virtual artist behind Larson Design (aka lars_o_saeltzer on social media) wants to bring to life his CGI visions of the upcoming Audi range. Previously, he gave us his digital thoughts on the split-headlight Q3, the average Q5 crossover, as well as the forthcoming Audi A7 Avant, and now he's also adamant that maybe Audi will translate the next generation A4 directly into an A5 sedan alongside the A5 Sportback and Avant models.To spice things up a little bit, the unofficial renderings seen below and in the gallery depict the sporty Audi S5 sedan option, and don't worry this isn't another split-headlight design, as the black bits sitting below the main LEDs are some awkwardly positioned parking sensors. As for the hypothetical styling, even across the parallel universes of vehicular CGI, this Audi S5 won't bring too many smiles to the faces of people who were expecting a revolution in design along with the name switcheroo. Hopefully, Audi will keep a few surprises for the official reveal, though. Ask a North American what a Hillman Hunter is, and they might tell you it sounds like the name of some Sherlock Holmes-esque English movie hero from a film series you've never even heard of. Ask a Britt or an Aussie the same question, and you might just uncork a whole slew of childhood memories from when the Hunter was one of the most prolific family sedans in the Eastern Hemisphere for decades. ECU But even by nostalgia's standards, this heavily modified 1970 Hillman Hunter is a cut above the rest. It comes to us via SAKAZ Customs, based out of Bundamba in Queensland, Australia, a country that's very intimately familiar with the model in its own right. The Hunter was imported from the UK to Australia starting in 1967, doing so through Chrysler's official Aussie distributor, Chrysler Australia Ltd. From the factory, Aussie-spec Hillman Hunters hit dealer floors with one of two peppy little four-cylinder engines ranging from 1,496 ccs up to 1,725 ccs.Surely decent engines in their day. But let's be real; we've come a long way since the 1970s. We can do a lot better nowadays in no small part to all the four-cylinder pocket rockets native to the JDM scene. Out of all of those, perhaps no star shines brighter than a Honda K24. On a long enough timeline, it's as if everything eventually gets a K24 swap at some point. Happilly, there's a proverbial sea of old Accords and CRVs out there to help facilitate this proliferation.With the K24 four-banger mounted snuggly in this Hillman Hunter, SAKAZ Customs was free to fit all sorts of goodies as they saw fit. First order of business, as if it could be anything else, was fitting a single Aeroflow turbocharger and ditching the stock fuel injectors with positively chunky 1600 cc units to compensate for the extra boost taken on by the new doner engine. It's all made to work in harmony with an Elite 2500from Haltech. With a custom E85 tuning job done by FAH Performance in Queensland, this glorified minivan engine is now jetting a healthy 404 horsepower to the tires.Power is fed not to a notoriously weak Honda transmission but rather a BMW five-speed manual transmission feeding to a BorgWarner nine-bolt rear end that puts down the power considerably better than whatever came with this Hillman from the manufacturer. But for all the power and the new hardware under the hood. You'd never know about it from peeping the exterior of this Hillman . With a baby blue paint job and period-correct dog dish style hubcaps to go along with a blue vinyl interior, this is the meanest sleeper to come out of Australia this year. In the world of military aircraft the T-7A Red Hawk is the junior. Made by Boeing and Saab, the plane has only recently reached the hands of U.S. Air Force (USAF) pilots, who are currently hard at work validating the machine for its coming deployment in the hands of all of America's military aviators. That's right, all of them, as the T-7A Red Hawk is the plane that will eventually train them all. Meant to replace the aging T-38 Talon in the USAF training schools' arsenal, it is moving closer and closer to operational status.We last got word of the Red Hawk back in November last year, when Boeing moved an example of the breed, under its own power and through the sky, for a distance of 1,400 miles (2,253 km), from an undisclosed location to the Edwards Air Force Base in California.It is there where the first trainer aircraft will be put through their paces at the hands of military pilots, and from where we'll probably get more and more news in the coming months. But until we do, here's something coming from the McKinley Climatic Laboratory.Located at the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, the facility is the go-to place if you want to perform weather testing on weapons and weapons platforms. The 55,000 square feet (5,100 square meters) location can mimic the most extreme environmental conditions on the planet, from the hotness of arid deserts to extremely low temperatures. Why, it can even simulate solar radiation and rapid decompression.It is in this place where a T-7A Red Hawk was put through its paces for about a month, being cooked and cooled at temperatures ranging from minus 25 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 32 to 43 degrees Celsius), and going from one type of environment to another in days.The USAF says the goal of the procedures was to "verify the new aircraft's sustainability in any operational environment" its operators are likely to encounter across the country.We're not told precisely how the testing went, but we're assuming all worked according to plan. That is judging by the fact the USAF will now send the plane back to Boeing "to ensure the aircraft's technical orders are safe and accurate for the operators and maintainers that will interact with it."The T-7A Red Hawk is a single-engine aircraft that uses a General Electric turbofan rated at 17,000 pounds of thrust. It can travel at speeds of over 800 mph (1,300 kph) and can reach altitudes as high as 50,000 feet (15,000 meters).Boeing has been tapped by the military to manufacture 351 of these planes, as well as simulators and support hardware, in exchange for $9.2 billion. Visitors enjoy summer like weather during a sneak peek visit to Great Island, and it's resident mansion, newly acquired by the town of Darien, on Saturday, October 28, 2023. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media The female cast in a publicity still for 'The Stepford Wives', directed by Bryan Forbes, 1975. Left to right: Toni Reid, Carole Mallory, Tina Louise, Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Barbara Rucker, Nanette Newman and Judith Baldwin. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images) Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images DARIEN Darien's Great Island could be coming to a screen near you the town has entered early talks about filming at its coastal estate. During the Feb. 21 meeting of the Great Island Advisory Committee, chair Monica McNally said the Connecticut Office of Film, TV & Digital Media approached the town about potential filming opportunities on the property. McNally, currently a selectmen, served as first selectman when the town negotiated and purchased the 60-acre Great Island for $85 million in May. The state office is always interested in unique locations according to Mark Dixon, who handles production and location services. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Great Island will undoubtedly become the kind of asset to the town of Darien in the same way that Waveny Park is to New Canaan or that Cranbury Park is to Norwalk, Dixon said in an email statement. While these properties provide residents many recreational and cultural opportunities, they are also of interest to the producers of film, television and still photography productions. While she said the town is only in early, early stages of talks, McNally told Hearst Connecticut Media that she was interested in exploring the opportunity and seeing what Dariens options might be. Im very interested, McNally said. It could be the perfect timing before we start any actual work on the island. This could be a fantastic thing. Advertisement Article continues below this ad McNally and town administrator Kate Buch are expected to meet with the state office in early March. For any filmmaker hoping for an idyllic setting, Great Island has plenty of potential. The historic estate boasts a 13,000 square foot mansion, a horse stable and equestrian facilities, a man-made beach and plenty of open space and coastal views of Long Island Sound. Filming on Great Island could also serve as a potential revenue option for the town, something First Selectman Jon Zagrodzky emphasized as a priority in his State of the Town address. However, McNally said any decision will have to balance the needs of the propertys existing tenants and Great Islands soft public opening on March 1. The Great Island committee is currently reviewing proposals to bring on a consultant for a master plan, which would outline how the town plans to use the property. Advertisement Article continues below this ad I know everybody is really interested in what were going to do out there, McNally said. This is just one part of that whole process. Darien is no stranger to the silver screen, having featured in films and television over the years. Scenes from the original 1975 film "The Stepford Wives" and its 2004 Nicole Kidman-led remake were shot in Darien, with Goodwives Shopping Center serving as the setting for the original film's ending. The town also served as a backdrop for the Oscar-winning film A Gentlemans Agreement starring Gregory Peck, which explored antisemitisim in Darien and neighboring New Canaan. More recently, the Darien Community Associations grounds were featured in the 2022 Netflix holiday movie The Noel Diary starring Justin Hartley, Bonnie Bedilia and James Remar. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Connecticut often attracts film and television productions thanks to its proximity to New York City and the state's tax incentives for both digital animation and live filming. 28 February 2024 13:36 (UTC+04:00) Elnur Enveroglu Read more When Armenia tried to deny and distort the realities in the South Caucasus, it was considered that it was only related to Azerbaijan. But as time passed and justice was restored, it began to be seen from a wider perspective. In fact, the Second Garabagh War was not only the point of restoration of Azerbaijan's sovereignty but also reflected the image of Armenia in a broad sense. Until that time, Armenia, which tried to show itself as an innocent sheep under the protection of Russia, suddenly unmasked its true face. The return of Garabagh to Azerbaijan was inevitable because both the balance of power and the geopolitical situation were at a level that complemented each other. Since thirty years is already quite a time, the balance of power must have had its effect. Armenia's weakness was its failure to wake up from the euphoria of the last three decades, its ignorance of the geopolitical situation, and last but not least, its failure to renew its military defence system. Sometimes inaccurate calculations lead to more misfortune than failure. Armenia's approximate approach towards Azerbaijan led to the most humiliating defeat in the 44-day war. Losing more than 5,000 soldiers and displaying military weapons in Baku squares was the most terrible blow against the military and political structure of a country. Of course, the one who experienced this defeat was Armenia, the most intransigent state in the South Caucasus. Armenia continues the same policy today, not only against Azerbaijan but even against Russia, which has laid its foundation in the South Caucasus. In 1995, when the agreement was signed on the location of 102 Russian military bases in the territory of Armenia called Gyumri, Azerbaijan's Garabagh was under the occupation of Armenia. Finally, this agreement is extended until 2044 based on the agreement signed between the then president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, and Serzh Sargsyan in 2010. Moreover, according to the agreement reached between the parties, Russia has been controlling the land and air borders of Armenia since September 1992. Russian border guard troops are based in Gyumri, Armavir, Artashat, Meghri, and at Zvartnots airport. In addition, unlike post-Soviet countries such as Azerbaijan and Georgia, Armenia is the only South Caucasus country that wants to remain in the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organisation) for another period of time. Thus, in May 1992, Armenia, Russia, and four Central Asian states all former Soviet republics signed the Tashkent Treaty. A year later, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan signed as well, but they did not renew their participation in 1999, opting instead to align with Ukraine and Moldova in the GUUAM group. A decade later, the original six members of the Tashkent Treaty became the CSTO. The point is that Armenia does not want to accept both the agreement it signed in September 1992 and its re-joining of the CSTO in 1999. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has repeatedly raised two issues since he turned to the West. However, Armenia, which is powerless on the basis of the document against the Russian side, can't get rid of it, even though it tries different ways. The Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Alen Simonyan, made an interesting statement to the local media yesterday, touching on this issue. He noted that "Armenia itself controls" its borders. Whether it is true or false, this approach by the Armenian official has raised serious questions. If the other party reacts more seriously to this, what can await Armenia? How is it that Armenia expresses such a harsh attitude towards official Moscow, even knowing the documents it signed rely on Western forces? It is clear that within Europe, France, by giving a courage to Armenia, uses it as a shield and opens a new front against Russia. Relying on half-done Ukrainian tactics and thinking that Russia has fallen into a weak position, the West is only checking its power in the South Caucasus through Armenia. But the danger is imminent. The security of the South Caucasus is already in question. There is no doubt that France's military support and Armenia's heedless actions are shaping the signs of a new war in the region. Because the West, which has run out of patience with Russia, has no tolerance for other obstructions on its way. Azerbaijan, which does not want a new war to start in the South Caucasus, is seen as a real threat to both Armenia and the West. --- Elnur Enveroglu is AzerNews Deputy Editor-in-Chief, follow him on @ElnurMammadli1 Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 11:15 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more Azerbaijan has discussed opportunities for cooperation with German companies in areas such as green energy and the production of green technologies, Azernews reports, citing the Ministry of Energy. At the meeting of Minister Parviz Shahbazov with the visiting delegation of companies headed by the General Director of the Eastern Business Association of Germany, Michael Harms, the delegation was informed about the issues on the agenda of Azerbaijan's energy transition, on green energy projects implemented and planned in the country, as well as on plans to export renewable energy sources, including green hydrogen. Possibilities of cooperation with German companies in such areas as solar and wind energy projects, bioenergy, green hydrogen, energy efficiency, and the production of green technologies were discussed. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 16:51 (UTC+04:00) Qabil Ashirov Read more To promote economic activities and diversify exports, Azerbaijan takes different measures. One of these measures is to strengthen its position in e-commerce. For this purpose, the government conducts regular reforms, and officials hold meetings with representatives of governments and companies. In this regard, Azerbaijan recently hosted the representative of the worldwide Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Different governmental bodies received the delegation led by Tim Song, head of the Global Strategic Partnership at Alibaba. Within the framework of the visit, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Azerbaijans Export and Investment Promotion Agency (AZPROMO) and the Chinese e-commerce giant. Besides, the Azerbaijani Economy Ministry held a meeting with the representatives of Alibaba. The meeting discussed promoting the companys business relations with Azerbaijan, bringing local products with high export potential to the international e-commerce platform, and other potential cooperation. Azerbaijani sides gave detailed information about the favourable business and investment environment in the country, the opportunities created for investors, the support provided to entrepreneurs, as well as the enterprises with high export potential and strategic export products, and the mechanisms for promoting the Made in Azerbaijan brand. It is worth noting that numerous companies sell their products through the Internet within Azerbaijan. Besides, a Turkish e-commerce company operates in Azerbaijan. However, exporting products manufactured in the country is not well known and is considered new. That is why Azerbaijani officials are interested in e-commerce. In this regard, several meetings have been held with Turkish and Chinese e-commerce companies. The British journalist and expert on energy issues, Neil Watson, in a comment for Azernews, noted that collaboration with Alibaba is extremely important. This is a major step towards diversifying the Azerbaijani economy. He mentioned that it is the most important e-commerce group and has played an integral role in the rapid development of the Chinese economy. Historically, there have been two major problems with selling Azerbaijani products. These have been connected with undertaking the necessary approval processes to permit international distribution and logistics issues, enabling time-efficient and cost-effective shipping. Alibaba can surmount all these issues, and hosting on its platform will also enhance awareness of Azerbaijani products. For decades, the quality of Azerbaijani products, particularly foodstuffs and handicrafts, has been known in their home country and neighbouring nations, but they have gone no further. To counteract this, Alibaba will provide an integrated ecosystem of international quality approvals, advertising, and containerised shipment that should serve to make Azerbaijani products easily available across the world. This should bolster the Azerbaijani economy during a time when oil and gas demand is gradually reducing due to an emphasis on renewable energy. Furthermore, demand determines supply, reducing unit prices, so an increased level of international demand should serve to make Azerbaijani products more competitive. Also, this development will play another role in cementing Azerbaijans position as the central country in the South Caucasus and one with international aspirations, the expert concluded. --- Qabil Ashirov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @g_Ashirov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 14:12 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more Due to unfavourable weather conditions, the Azerbaijan Army's servicemen became disoriented and got lost. On the morning of February 28, a soldier of the Azerbaijan Army, Panahov Ruslan Eldaniz, due to unfavourable weather conditions, became disoriented and got lost while moving between service positions in the territory of the Lachin region, Azernews reports, citing the MoD. The immediate search activities to find the serviceman are being continued. The public will be provided with additional information about the incident. Recall that, the National Security Service of Armenia stated that on February 28 at about 05:15 "a serviceman of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces armed with an AKM rifle crossed the Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact in the border community of Tegh-Sunik region. The latter was neutralised by the Armenian Defence Ministry servicemen". In connection with the incident, the Armenian Investigative Committee "initiated criminal proceedings under the relevant articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia". --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 10:01 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more Following the instructions of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the return of former internally displaced persons to the restored city of Lachin continues, Azernews reports. Another group of former IDPs, consisting of 24 families or 89 people, left the Gobu Park 3 residential complex in Garadagh for Lachin on February 28. The resettled families will settle in the houses where they once lived in Lachin, which were restored or rebuilt based on instructions from the head of state after the end of the Armenian occupation. Lachin residents thanked President Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva for their comprehensive care and expressed gratitude to the valiant Azerbaijani Army, which liberated the lands from occupation. Thus, until today, a permanent settlement in the city of Lachin has been provided for 672 families, or 2513 people. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 10:24 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more The U.S. State Department has not commented on the meeting between Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, which is scheduled to be held in the German capital Berlin, Azernews reports. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller left the issue relevant to him unexplained and limited himself to calling on the sides to "reach a long-term agreement." "The foreign ministers will meet tomorrow (today) in Berlin. I know that the Secretary of State [Anthony Blinken] has been waiting for them here in Washington since December. Does this mean the end of the Washington process? Beyond that, what are your expectations for tomorrow's meeting?" - a journalist asked the spokesman at the briefing. "I don't have any statements, but we continue to urge both sides to try to reach a solid, long-term agreement," Miller replied. As a reminder, Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministers Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan will meet in the German capital Berlin on February 28-29. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 12:17 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more Azerbaijani Ambassador to Brazil Rashad Novruz shared a publication about the school "Azerbaijan" in Rio de Janeiro, Azernews reports. In a status on his Facebook page, the Azerbaijani diplomat noted that "the activity of this school will increase the number of friends of our country in Brazil." Our relationships are based on and strengthened by the traditions of friendship. These talented Brazilian children, whatever profession they choose, will be among those who popularise Azerbaijan and will be our friends," the ambassador wrote. The three-storey school has 26 classrooms. It has an enrollment of more than 700 students. There is a special classroom for physically disabled children here. Recall that, in December 1991, Brazil recognised the independence of Azerbaijan after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In October 1993, both nations established diplomatic relations. In 1995, during the 50th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso met then-Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev. In 1997, the chairman of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan, Rasul Guliyev, visited Brazil to negotiate the purchase of agricultural machinery, sugar, and chicken; the formation of joint ventures in the oil sector of the Caspian; participation in the financing of projects in Azerbaijan; and the presence of Brazilian companies in the country. On June 22, 2009, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Brazil was opened in Azerbaijan. On February 10, 2012, Elnur Sultanov was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan to the Federative Republic of Brazil. Since 2017, Elkhan Polukhov has been the ambassador of Azerbaijan to Brazil. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 14:27 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more The Israeli Embassy of Israel in Baku, together with the Azerbaijan Internal Ministry (MIA) and other law enforcement agencies, held a drill in the embassy building, Azernews reports. The Israeli Ambassador to Azerbaijan, George Deek, noted that the exercise was successful. "We are grateful to the law enforcement and security agencies of the Republic of Azerbaijan for ensuring the security of the Embassy and diplomatic staff. This joint exercise was very successful and was an important addition to our countries' strong security cooperation. Azerbaijan's commitment to the security of all diplomatic missions, including the Embassy of Israel, is clear and unwavering. We look forward to continuing to strengthen our bilateral cooperation," the Israeli diplomat emphasised. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 14:43 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more The Peruvian Congress adopted a statement on the anniversary of the Khojaly genocide and called to support the existing mine problem in Azerbaijan, Azernews reports, citing the Azerbaijani Embassy in Mexico. On the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of the tragedy of the Khojaly genocide, the Congress of Peru adopted a statement. The statement notes that 32 years have passed since the act of genocide committed by the Armenian armed forces on February 26, 1992, in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly against the Azerbaijani civilian population. As a result of unprecedented events, 613 people were killed, including 106 women, 63 children, and 70 old people. 1275 people were taken hostage, and the fate of 150 people remains unknown. The document stresses that the act of genocide that took place was fully documented by numerous international human rights organisations and was labelled by Human Rights Watch as "the bloodiest killing committed during the conflict". In addition, the statement refers to a document issued by the Peruvian Congress in 2013 that demands justice for the victims of the Khojaly genocide. Besides, the document says that today Azerbaijanis around the world honour the memory of innocent people killed in the city of Khojaly, and express deep condolences to the Azerbaijani government and fraternal Azerbaijani people in connection with their dear memory on the 32nd anniversary of the tragedy. Support was expressed for Azerbaijan's efforts in search of peace, the restoration of the liberated territories, and the demining process being carried out there to ensure the return of hundreds of thousands of IDPs to their homes in dignity and safety. The document, in particular, calls on the international community to support countries like Azerbaijan, which face the problem of mines, in order to eliminate this serious threat and protect the lives of innocent people. It should be recalled that last year the Peruvian Congress also adopted a statement on the anniversary of the Khojaly genocide. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 15:37 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more Azerbaijan has completed signing an agreement with Serbia on the purchase of 48 self-propelled howitzers Nora B-52NG of 155 mm calibre, Azernews reports. World Defence News reports that the deal worth $340 million is part of the modernization strategy of the Azerbaijani army. The howitzers were developed by Serbian defence company Yugoimport, but are compatible with standard NATO ammunition. The projectiles with improved aerodynamics can be fired at a range of more than 40 kilometres. The Nora B-52NG is distinguished by its firepower, extended range, high mobility due to its wheeled platform and advanced fire control systems, making it a valuable component of modern artillery arsenals Currently, the Nora-B52 is in service with the armies of several countries, including Serbia, Kenya, Cyprus, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Now Azerbaijan will become the new user of the howitzer, purchasing fifty self-propelled artillery mounts. One of the key advantages of the Serbian howitzers is their high mobility. Your browser doesn't support video. Please download the file: video/mp4 --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim poses for a selfie with business owner Luis Carrena as he celebrates his unofficial reelection victory with supporters at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim addresses supporters as he declares unofficial victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Joe Ganim supporters Lilly Curral, left, and Wanda Geter-Pataky dance and celebrate his unofficial reelection victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Mayoral candidate John Gomes speaks to the media and supporters after the redo of the general election in Bridgeport, Conn., on Tuesday Feb. 27, 2024. Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim hugs supporters after declaring unofficial reelection victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Mayoral candidate John Gomes speaks to supporters after the redo of the general election in Bridgeport, Conn., on Tuesday Feb. 27, 2024. Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim smiles as he addresses supporters following his unofficial reelection victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim hugs City Councilwoman Eneida Martinez while celebrating his unofficial reelection victory at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Brian A. Pounds/Hearst Connecticut Media Mayor Joe Ganim tells supporters "Bridgeport has spoken" as he declares an unofficial victory over John Gomes Tuesday night at Gather restaurant in Bridgeport. Richard Chumney / Hearst CT Media Supporters of mayoral candidate John Gomes watch returns in the redo of the general election in Bridgeport, Conn., on Tuesday Feb. 27, 2024. Christian Abraham/Hearst Connecticut Media Republican mayoral candidate David Herz, left, responds to the moderator's question at the Community Conversation, All Roads Lead to Education, sponsored by the Greater Bridgeport NAACP at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport on Nov. 2, 2023. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media Mayoral candidate John Gomes speaks with a supporter outside Batalla School, in Bridgeport, Conn. Feb. 27, 2024. Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media From left, Councilwoman Mary McBride-Lee and Keisha Burks speak with Mayor Joe Ganim in front of the polling place at Wilbur Cross School in Bridgeport on Feb. 27, 2024. Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media BRIDGEPORT Mayor Joe Ganim finally won a third consecutive four-year term on Tuesday. It only took four elections over five months and the endorsement of Connecticut's top elected officials, including Gov. Ned Lamont and U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, fellow Democrats who rallied around the incumbent. Unofficial results late Tuesday night had Ganim with 6,356 votes and Gomes, a Democrat who ran on the Independent Party line, with 4,138. Republican David Herz came in a distant third with 283 votes with 99 percent of the vote tallied, according to the Associated Press. Advertisement Article continues below this ad It was before 9 p.m., with just over 25 percent of the votes officially tallied, when Ganim claimed victory in likely the last of four election nights since September. Ganim took to a podium festooned with "Joe Ganim" logos at the downtown Gather restaurant at about 8:50, signaling what turned out to be an early election night in a city famous for late-night vote counting. In the crowd celebrating was the woman at the center of the court decision that resulted in four elections, Wanda Geter-Pataky. "We came together, we galvanized for the good of the city of Bridgeport," Ganim shouted over the crowd noise as more than 120 supporters chanted "Four more years." Advertisement Article continues below this ad If it wasnt clear three times in a row, its clear today. Louder than ever, Bridgeport has spoken," Ganim said. "The people of Bridgeport have in a resounding way answered the call for the fourth time in the middle of February and said yes to progress in this city that weve started and are committed to continuing with your help. Thank you Bridgeport. Referring to the results as "a trouncing," Ganim claimed to have been given a mandate, while taking the first steps toward reconciling with the city's Democrats who had backed Gomes. For those who may have seen a different way, we are committed to moving this city forward with you or without you, but come join us because Bridgeports on the move," he said. "As so many have said, even after the last election, and Ill restate it now, lets get on to the business of working everyday for the people of this great city to make it the greatest city that we can. Thank you and god bless. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Meanwhile Gomes' team gathered at O'Manel, a Portuguese restaurant in the city's Hollow neighborhood about a mile away. In Gomes' campaign headquarters on East Main Street, though, early results showed Ganim with a solid lead on voting machine tallies. Ten large white sheets of paper containing results from the city's 22 polling districts showed Ganim unofficially with 4,635 votes to Gomes' 3,471 at about 8:25 p.m. About 20 supporters watched Lisa Caspo-Gerald print the numbers being delivered by phone from poll watchers. Gomes was not present for the count. At about 9, Gomes drove across the Pequonnock River and entered the restaurant to cheers from a few dozen supporters, several of whom hugged him. I still believe we won, said Rebeca Garcia, a former city police chief who was in the crowd. I think legacy was made here in Bridgeport. Something that went nationwide. We stood up for the people. Advertisement Article continues below this ad About 40 people, including members of the state Independent Party, which allowed Gomes its ballot line, joined him on stage. How about giving ourselves a big hand, he shouted. I stand here more proud, with more conviction than ever, behind a team that really represents what Bridgeport is all about. Asked if he conceded the election, Gomes replied answered in the negative. "Concede is to give up," he said before adding, "We understand our journey has ended with this election. Advertisement Article continues below this ad His goal is to continue his movement into the future, he said. And that could potentially mean future runs for elected office. Ill be glad to continue to lead," he said. "We have made history." Gomes said Bridgeports absentee ballot issues have made national news and he called for true, strong reform to the absentee ballot process. Despite the complaints and investigations, he said nothing, absolutely nothing has been done. The Secretary of the State this week reported that Bridgeport voters registration includes 42,587 Democrats, 22,601 unaffiliated, 4,745 Republicans, 436 Independents, 25 Green Party members, 21 Libertarians and 2 members of the Working Families Party. Advertisement Article continues below this ad This has been a prolonged mayoral contest thanks to an absentee ballot scandal stemming from the Sept. 12 Democratic primary between Ganim and Gomes that resulted in Superior Court Judge William Clark ordering a new primary Jan. 23 and a new general election. Ganim admitted the close wins in the first September primary and the original November election were humbling, eye-opening experiences. After circulating more around town and re-engaging with his constituents on a self-described listening tour, Ganim beat Gomes in January by 1,077 votes. And while his two prior wins were thanks to absentee ballots, the mayor this time also bested Gomes on the voting machines at polling places in the do-over primary. Defying expectations, turnout Jan. 23 was better than in September. Nearly 800 more Democrats participated. As Tuesday drew nearer, petitioning candidate Lamond Daniels dropped out and eventually, despite previously referring to Ganim as a "scandal-plagued" and "out-of-touch," endorsed the incumbent. Meanwhile close Ganim ally, longtime Democratic Party Chairman Maria Testa, publicly called upon leading Democrats like Lamont to get involved helping raise money for Ganim to keep Bridgeport's mayor's office from falling into the Independent Party's hands. Advertisement Article continues below this ad While Lamont did not host the high-profile fundraiser Testa had demanded, the governor came to town last week and publicly endorsed Ganim. That was followed by endorsements from Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, Murphy, Blumenthal and U.S. Rep. Jim Himes. 28 February 2024 17:39 (UTC+04:00) Abbas Ganbay Read more Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said during a briefing today that the demand to withdraw Russian border guards from Zvartnots airport is another example of the unfriendly behaviour of the representative of official Yerevan, Azernews reports. According to Maria Zakharova, Moscow has not received any demand from Armenia for Russian border guards to leave Zvartnots airport. "We have not received any requests from the Armenian authorities in this regard. We always respect the national legislation of a sovereign state," she added. According to her, in Moscow, the statement of Armenian Parliament Speaker Simonyan is considered another example of the unfriendly behaviour of the representative of official Yerevan. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said today during a briefing, answering Baku.tv's question that the work on opening regional communications in the South Caucasus has stalled due to the position of Armenian colleagues. "We know that the Armenian authorities spoke about their readiness to open regional communications on the basis of the principle of sovereignty and within the framework of equality and reciprocity. Azerbaijan, as a matter of fact, has not abandoned such an approach. This subject was discussed in detail earlier in the format of a trilateral working group co-chaired by the Deputy Prime Ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Unfortunately, this work has stalled due to the position of Armenian colleagues," Zakharova said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 27 February 2024 23:55 (UTC+04:00) In January 2024, Mongolia traded with 115 countries, and the foreign trade turnover reached USD 2.3 billion. Out of this, export reached USD 1.3 billion, imports reached USD 936 million, and the balance showed a profit of USD 388.9 million, Azernews reports, citing Montsame new agency. The National Statistics Office reported that the total turnover increased by USD 491.8 (27.8 percent) million, exports by USD 244.8 (22.7 percent) million, imports by USD 247 (35.8 percent) million, and balance decreased by USD 2.1 (0.5 percent) million. In January 2024, exports increased by USD 244.8 million compared to the same period last year, due to the increase of coal export by USD 240.5 million, copper ore and concentrate export by USD 36.6 million, and iron ore and concentrate export by USD 21.3 million. Imports increased by USD 247 million compared to the same period last year, including passenger car import by USD 60.1 million, petrol import by USD 32.2 million, public transport vehicle import by USD 28.1 million, telecommunications equipment import by USD 10.2 million, bulldozers, automatic scrapers, road rollers, leveling machines, excavators import by USD 9.6 million, black metal structures, parts and construction materials import by USD 8.9 million. In addition, in January 2024, the price of gold increased by USD 35.4 per ounce, the price of coal by USD 3.1 per ton, the price of copper concentrate by USD 138.6 per ton, and the price of iron ore and concentrate decreased by USD 5.2 per ton. Coal accounted for 66.8 percent of goods exported to China, copper concentrate accounted for 18.3 percent, and silver accounted for 74.6 percent of goods exported to Switzerland. Exports of mineral products, precious stones, metals, jewelry, and textile products accounted for 95.5 percent of total exports, while 76 percent of imports were mineral products, machinery and equipment, electrical appliances, vehicles, their parts, and ready-made food products. However, the export of lamb and goat meat in January 2024 reached 2592.7 tons, which increased by 2573.3 (134 times) tons compared to the same period of the previous year. As for imports, the People's Republic of China accounted for 38.9 percent, the Russian Federation for 26 percent, Japan for 13.3 percent, the Republic of Korea for 3.4 percent, the United States for 2.5 percent, and the Federal Republic of Germany for 2.3 percent, making up 86.4 percent of total imports. Petroleum products accounted for 70.6 percent of goods imported from the Russian Federation, passenger cars accounted for 84.9 percent of goods imported from Japan, and public transport vehicles accounted for 11.2 percent of goods imported from the People's Republic of China. In January 2024, 46.6 percent of exports were made through Gashuunsukhait port, 16.9 percent through Zamyn-Uud port, and 13.6 percent through Shiveekhuren port, making up 77.1 percent of total exports. 55.4 percent of imports were made through Zamyn-Uud port and 22.9 percent through Sukhbaatar port, which accounted for 78.4 percent of total imports. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 20:55 (UTC+04:00) Elnur Enveroglu Read more A group of prominent French political elites strongly condemned President Macron's decision to send military troops to support Ukraine. The statement made by the head of state in front of the allied countries on Monday was not received unequivocally. Political figures from the opposition and other parties of France gave their own reaction and called this step of President Macron irresponsible and madness. Amongst them: - Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of Insoumise La France Sending troops to Ukraine would make us warring parties. A war against Russia would be madness. This bellicose verbal escalation by a nuclear power against another major nuclear power is already an irresponsible act. Parliament must be seized and say no. No war! It's high." Its time to negotiate peace in Ukraine with provisions for mutual security! - Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally I dont know if everyone understands the seriousness of such a statement. Emmanuel Macron plays a military leader, but he talks about the lives of our children with such nonchalance. We are talking about peace or war in our country." - Florian Filippo, leader of the Patriots party Macron is crazy. Completely crazy! Obviously, it will be a war with Russia, World War III! Let's block him! Let's activate Article 35 of the Constitution on the declaration of war! We warned from the beginning, we are going to redouble our efforts: Efforts; the entire French people must realize the level of madness of Macron and NATO! Let's leave NATO, block Macron, long live the world! - Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the Socialist Party The frivolity of the president, who during a press conference said that he may be ready to drag France into this war as a belligerent country, is alarming. Support the Ukrainian resistance - yes. Go to war with Russia and drag the continent into it. Madness". - Francois Asselino, President of the Republican Popular Union The madman from the Elysee Palace, whose armies have only a week's supply of ammunition, whose people categorically refuse to be killed for the Black Mountain in Ukraine, who had to surrender miserably to the army of Niger, claims to have defeated Russia, the world's first nuclear power. - Nikola Mirkovic, President of the West-East Association Napoleon also wanted to send French soldiers to Russia, and this ended with the capture of Paris by the Cossacks. Macron would do well to read the history books and refine his analysis of the current geopolitical situation. No to his war. Recall that France's President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday there was no consensus on sending troops to Ukraine, but the subject could not be ruled out. "There is no consensus at this stage... to send troops on the ground," Macron said after hosting some 20 countries allied to Ukraine. "Nothing should be excluded. We will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win." --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 28 February 2024 23:30 (UTC+04:00) It is planned to lift the ban on the development of uranium and thorium deposits in Kyrgyzstan. The bill initiated by the Cabinet of Ministers has been submitted for public discussion, Azernews reports, citing 24.kg news agency. The Ministry of Natural Resources, Ecology and Technical Supervision notes that the current law is aimed at protecting public health, land, water bodies, flora and fauna, as well as radiation and environmental safety in the country. But its entry into force has aggravated the negative consequences of international and national crisis phenomena for the economy and development of the country as a whole. These phenomena and their consequences, officials said, could not have been foreseen at the time of the laws development and adoption. In particular, the legislator could not foresee the negative economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the introduction of large-scale financial sanctions against the Russian Federation, one of the largest trading partners of the republic, the background statement says. It is noted that Kyrgyzstans economy is in dire need of other sources of income. Mining and exporting uranium and thorium have the potential to become important components of Kyrgyzstans economy, the Cabinet believes. Officials promise that government agencies will take measures to minimize the damage of uranium and thorium mining to the environment and public health. In particular, they will introduce strict environmental norms and standards for subsoil users, regularly monitor the impact of uranium and thorium mining activities on the environment and public health, and train industry workers. Earlier, the President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov commented on the project on the development of Kyzyl-Ompol uranium deposit. He urged not to be frightened when it comes to uranium, it is necessary to know the types of uranium and understand at what level it begins to be dangerous. Our uranium is raw material and is not dangerous in that state. We have to worry about uranium that has been enriched for certain purposes. That is the kind of uranium that poses a threat. At the same time, we must be careful and refrain from claiming that our uranium is absolutely harmless. Once it is separated during storage and transportation, of course, we must be very careful. Specialists must be maximally vigilant in this matter, the head of state said. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz A voter walks to a Michigan primary election location in Dearborn, Mich., Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Michigan is the last major primary state before Super Tuesday and a critical swing state in November's general election. Paul Sancya/AP Eric Suter-Bull holds a Vote Uncommitted sign outside a voting location at Saline Intermediate School for the Michigan primary election in Dearborn, Mich., Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Michigan is the last major primary state before Super Tuesday and a critical swing state in November's general election. Paul Sancya/AP LANSING, Mich. (AP) Joe Biden and Donald Trump easily won their partys primaries in Michigan, but Tuesdays results showed that both candidates have cause for concern in their bid to win the swing state in November. An uncommitted vote in Michigan's Democratic primary was the first indication of how backlash over President Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza might impact his reelection campaign. Trump won his primary by a large margin, but support for rival Nikki Haley once again showed that some Republican voters may have misgivings about giving the former president another four years in the general election. Here are some takeaways from Michigan: Advertisement Article continues below this ad Biden, Trump each move closer to party's nomination Michigan was the last major primary state before Super Tuesday, and both sides were watching closely for implications for the November general election in one of the few genuine swing states left in the country. Biden has now cruised to victories over lesser known candidates in South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire, which he won in a write-in campaign. Tuesday's results show that his standing is still strong in Michigan, which Biden returned to the Democratic column in 2020. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Trump has swept all five of the early state contests, including South Carolina, the home state of rival Haley. He now heads into Super Tuesday, when 15 states and one territory hold Republican nominating contests, as the overwhelming favorite to lock up the Republican nomination. Michigan was one of three so-called blue wall states, including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, that Trump won in 2016. He predicted a big win beforehand. Just 16 of Michigans 55 Republican presidential delegates will be determined by the primary results, while the remaining delegates will be allocated during a March 2 convention. Trumps anticipated dominance at the state convention, where grassroots activists will play a key role, will decide the allocation of the remaining 39 GOP delegates. Some Democrats express anger over Gaza with uncommitted vote Advertisement Article continues below this ad Michigan has become the focal point of Democratic frustration regarding the White Houses actions in the Israel-Hamas conflict. It has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation. That anger came through loud and clear on Tuesday as some voters marked uncommitted on their ballot in the Democratic primary. Biden still dominated the primary, but the result could be a concern in a state he won by less than 3% in 2020 and likely cant afford to lose this year. Organizers of the uncommitted movement had purposely kept expectations low, having only seriously begun their push a few weeks ago. The Listen to Michigan campaign that organized the push said they were hoping for 10,000 votes, pointing to Trumps win of less than 11,000 votes in 2016 to show the significance of that number. When Barack Obama ran for reelection in 2012, the last time a Democratic presidential incumbent sought re-election, the uncommitted option received close to 21,000 votes or 11 percentage points. Advertisement Article continues below this ad The uncommitted vote totals would need to be between 20 and 30 percentage points for Democrats to worry about their impact in November, said Richard Czuba, a pollster who has long tracked Michigan politics. Twenty percent gets my attention. If it rises to 25%, that gets a lot more attention and if it rises above 30%, I think thats a signal that Joe Biden has pretty substantial issues in his base, said Czuba. Much of the uncommitted vote was expected to come from the east side of the state, in communities such as Dearborn and Hamtramck, where Arab Americans represent close to half of the population. Biden won Dearborn by a roughly 3-to-1 advantage in 2020 and Hamtramck by a 5 to 1 margin. Some Republicans still oppose Trump Advertisement Article continues below this ad Despite Trump's clear victory in Michigan, Haley still saw significant support from the swing state's Republicans. Some of her best results came in Oakland and Kent counties, where Democrats have been gaining ground in recent years, contributing to their recent statewide success. She also performed better in counties where the states largest universities are located, Washtenaw and Ingham counties. Trump has dominated in primaries with help from his base but his strength among general election voters remains unclear. The former president has appeared in Michigan regularly in the eight years since he became president, while Haley only began stumping in the state over the weekend. AP VoteCast reveals that a large portion of Trumps opposition within the Republican primaries has come from voters who abandoned him before this year. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Controversy surrounds a healthcare provider's decision to block parents from having access to their children's prescription records.Beginning on Nov. 1, parents of children ages 12-17 will no longer have access to their child's prescriptions on CarolinaCARE, a home-delivery pharmacy service available to Atrium Health employees and their family members enrolled in the Atrium Health LiveWELL and Blue Ridge Healthcare health plans.Atrium said in a letter to parents that they are making the change because they need to remain compliant with laws in all of the states that CarolinaCARE serves and that those states have varying laws regarding access to health information, including prescriptions.The letter stated,Atrium did say a parent or guardian can still call the doctor's office to discuss any concerns about their child's health.That decision is not sitting well with many people, including Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the NC Values Coalition. She said the reason that Atrium Health has adopted a policy to exclude parents is because North Carolina has what she says isGeneral Statute 90-21.5a, that allows minors, in some cases, to consent to their own diagnosis, prevention, and treatment on certain medical issues, most of which involve things like pregnancy, substance abuse, and emotional disturbance.Fitzgerald said.Fitzgerald, who is also a lawyer, said the law needs to be changed because it is a direct attack on parental rights. Still, she said Atrium is also at fault and taking the easy way out by not implementing a computer program to differentiate between the treatments.she said.Atrium wrote in their letter that they're working on system upgrades that they hope will make it easier for parents and their children to manage next year.Even though the General Assembly passed a Parents' Bill of Rights in August, SB 49, the action taken by Atrium doesn't violate that, according to Fitzgerald.Fitzgerald said.Fitzgerald said the record of treatment would be different from the treatment itself, with treatment including the administration of drugs specifically, and admits that this is a gray area or a fine line between what can be revealed, according to the PBR, and what can't.she said.Fitzgerald mentioned an interesting scenario involving HB 808, Gender Transition Minors, which passed in August, and this new action taken by Atrium. The bill makes it unlawful for a medical professional to perform a surgical gender transition procedure on a minor or to prescribe, provide, or dispense puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones to a minor without the consent of a parent, She said one of the best ways to check on that from the standpoint of being prescribed puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones is the medical record of the child.she said.If parents are concerned about this change, Fitzgerald says they could seek the advice of an attorney, but the best way would be to simply change providers.she said.When Carolina Journal contacted Atrium Health seeking comment on the matter, a spokesperson emailed the following statement: An interdisciplinary research team will work with a Pacific Island community to capture and preserve heritage sites ahead of energy-related developments. (Contributed) The turquoise waters surrounding the small island chain that includes Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands hold opportunities for exploring future wind energy projects. But they also hold important archaeological and cultural heritage sites.Dr. Jennifer McKinnon, professor of maritime studies in East Carolina University's Department of History, is taking on a new research project that will incorporate the knowledge and feedback of Indigenous Pacific Islanders in developing guidance for the preservation of maritime heritage ahead of potential future offshore energy developments. The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM) awarded the project $599,377 in funding as part of a cooperative agreement.McKinnon credits her unique position to embark on this research for BOEM to the connection and reputation she built with the community while conducting other work in the Pacific Island region over the past decade.McKinnon said.McKinnon's previous maritime archaeological work in the region included projects with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) to locate American aircraft lost during the Battle of Saipan.With this new project, McKinnon and her team will work to complete a database of all known and possible shipwrecks and other underwater heritage sites along the island chain. This effort will assist BOEM in its responsibility to identify potential maritime heritage in the Pacific that might be affected by future energy-related developments.Currently, the Pacific Island region is heavily dependent on fossil fuels for energy and has developed strong renewable energy goals to reduce that dependency. McKinnon states that with the development of offshore renewable energy projects comes the potential for impacts to underwater and terrestrial archaeological, cultural and historical resources. The BOEM is required under federal statutes to consider how these types of properties may be affected by its activities.she said.McKinnon said the team wants to document tangible heritage sites like shipwrecks, sunken aircraft, significant canoe landings or routes, Indigenous fish traps, locations related to origin stories, and other heritage related to the Pacific Islander connections to the sea.she said.The team will engage with local experts and community members who will act as consultants. McKinnon expects the work to involve community meetings by the water where islanders help identify, map and chart the sites and properties they value. The consultive group will also identify protocols for appropriate future engagement regarding federal projects.To lead this part of the research, she has partnered with Dr. Kristen Myers, chair of the Department of Sociology at ECU.said McKinnon.Myers agrees the focus groups are vital to the project and the relationship with the research community.said Myers.The research team includes doctoral and graduate students who will conduct archival and historical research in Hawaii, Washington D.C., New Orleans and other locations to develop a database of known and potential underwater heritage sites. They will also help with the island community workshops and gatherings.Myers said.McKinnon said Integrated Coastal Sciences doctoral student Madeline Roth will bring an interdisciplinary approach that allows the research to move beyond the nature-culture divide.said Roth.she said.Along with the research side of the project, the team will initiate a K-12 educational program run by local educators to support island students in learning about the identified maritime cultural practices and properties. The findings from the research will be essential knowledge for the community to pass down to younger generations as they may one day be engaged by federal agencies to consult in heritage preservation discussions.Dr. Sharon Paynter, acting chief research and engagement officer at ECU, said,McKinnon notes the project is groundbreaking in that it will be the first project of its type in the western Pacific.she said. Tom Campbell our state license plates proclaim. Is this claim true?Great Britain was heavily in debt following theParliament thought it fitting to tax the American colonies to help pay the debt, since the war was fought on our soil.In December 1773, Cornelius Harnett hosted a gathering of leaders at his home near Wilmington and established a Committee of Correspondence. It also advocated for a Provincial Congress to be held without the Royal Governor being present.North Carolinians joined other colonies protesting the Stamp Act and the Townsend Acts, passing a resolution in the Colonial Assembly condemning them. Governor Tryon dissolved the Assembly, but most of its members met in an extralegal convention in 1769 and approved aHistorian William Powell says it was,In response to the Boston Tea Party andpassed by Parliament, elections were held and 71 delegates from 30 counties and four towns assembled in New Bern for The First Provincial Congress, from August 25-27, 1774. My ancestor, Farquard Campbell, from Campbellton (later renamed Fayetteville), was one of them. This was the first Congress conducted in the American colonies against the authority of the Royal Crown.The delegates passed The New Bern Resolves, denouncing laws persecuting Boston, reaffirming their loyalty to King George while also claiming their rights as English Citizens, chiefly that no citizen will be taxed without his own or his legal representative's consent. The resolves stated that the duties, tariffs and taxes imposed upon them without their consent wereUnless their rights were acknowledged and their grievances redressed, they declared that North Carolina would not directly or indirectly import any British goods or merchandise (medicines excepted). Further, if their grievances were not redressed by October 1775, North Carolina would not exportnor to anyone who might export them to Britain.Before adjourning, the First Provincial Congress proposed that abe held in Philadelphia on September 20th of the next year and named William Hooper, Joseph Hewes and Richard Caswell to be delegates to that Congress. They instructed the three toHowever, they were resolute inThese New Bern Resolves and Provincial Congress were a first among the colonies. A Committee of Safety was formed, bills of credit were passed, and an army was authorized to enforce the boycott. Trade between the colony and England declined measurably.In August 1774, Penelope Barker and Elizabeth King reaffirmed the boycotts by holding a tea party in Edenton - not as famous as the Boston event, but still important - swearing off British tea and substituting a tea made from leaves of the Yaupon tree. Wilmington women burned tea.Two more significant dates are noted on our state flag. The May 20, 1775 Mecklenburg Resolves and the April 12, 1776 Halifax Resolves.In the month following the fighting at Lexington and Concord the Mecklenburg Committee of Safety drafted The Mecklenburg Resolves, acknowledged to be the first of any colony. It vacated all laws coming from Parliament and the Crown and declared the Crown no longer had power in North Carolina. It was reportedly the basis of the questionable Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. No copy exists but, if authentic, would precede the 1776 Declaration by a year.The resolves prompted Royal Governor Josiah Martin to issue acalling loyalists to take up arms and suppress the rebellion. The Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge was a stunning defeat for loyalists, resulting in Martin retreating from New Bern to safety on a British ship.Following Martin's abdication, a Fourth Provincial Congress met in Halifax. North Carolina's delegates to the Continental Congress had asked for instructions regarding independence and, following little debate, all 83 delegates approved the Halifax Resolves, instructing North Carolina delegates to vote in favor of independence, the first state reportedly doing so.On December 18, 1776, the Fifth Provincial Congress debated and approved the first Constitution for North Carolina, replacing the previous colonial charter. It created a new government, contained a bill of rights and provided for the legal structure for the state.The evidence is clear that North Carolina provided significant and important leadership to the revolution for freedom. Too few know or appreciate our role in the creation of this nation, but, as North Carolinians, we need to remember and appreciate our rich heritage.Important note: On Monday, January 22, 2024, The Pamlico Historical Association will host noted historian, Nelson McDaniel to speak on the background, details and impact of the New Bern Resolves, as well as North Carolina's importance in the Revolution. The 7 p.m. meeting is free and will be held at the Museum on Highway 55 in Grantsboro, NC. Under the cover of Covid, and now in the shadow of the infamous Election Irregularities of that fated 2020 presidential election, with current emerging alleged election fraud in Nevada and Pennsylvania inconveniently slipping into the public discourse, there is proved a colluded ongoing Election Interference in the nomination of the Republican candidate, the likes of which has never occurred in our Constitutional Republic's history, albeit, the question remains: Do you support the plain-sight Election Interference of the Democratic Socialist party, employing its minions in their Propagandistic Media, and their Two Tiered Justice System? 98.25% No, I do not support Election Interference; I am a patriot unto our Constitution.1.75% Yes, I do support Election Interference; the alternative, Donald Trump, to this mentally diminished president is far worse.0% "What, me worry" if elections are rigged? Tennessee Sen. Richard Briggs recently introduced a bill that would establish a scope of practice for anesthesiologist assistants in the state, NBC affiliate WBIR reported Feb. 27. SB 0453 aims to alleviate the shortage of anesthesiologists in the state by creating a licensure pathway to allow assistants to give anesthesia under the guidance of other professionals. Kelli Ray, president of the Tennessee Academy of Anesthesiologist Assistants, told the news station that the bill would bring in certified anesthesiologist assistants who were born in Tennessee or who went to school in Tennessee. Several major nontraditional entities, including Amazon and Walmart, are now trying their hand at healthcare, and technology giant Apple is following in their footsteps. In 2015, Apple launched the Apple Watch, its wearable technology, which allows people to monitor vitals including sleep and heart rate. There are pros and cons to patients having increased insights into their health data, one physician told Becker's. "The biggest health disruptor in 2024 will be consumer wearables. Patients now have access to their data with devices such as Apple Watch, Karida and Oura Ring. The more information patients have, the better they will be able to manage their own healthcare. From a patient's perspective, it's only positive. From a physician's perspective, it can be overwhelming. I get daily reports from patients about abnormal recordings from their wearables. How do I respond when only the wearable is abnormal? Keeping up with this data and questions from patients has already become demanding," Sri Sundaram, MD, electrophysiologist at South Denver (Colo.) Cardiology Associates, told Becker's. Here are six updates on Apple's dive into healthcare: 1. The Apple Vision Pro devices, which utilize spatial computing to display 3D graphics and videos over real-life settings, are being tested at San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare's newly created Spatial Computing Center of Excellence. Sharp HealthCare purchased 30 of the devices which run $3,500 apiece to test for a variety of uses, including working with EHR vendor Epic to investigate healthcare applications for the Vision Pro. 2. Robert Masson, MD, recently became the first spine surgeon to bring Apple Vision Pro into the operating room. Dr. Masson used Apple's headset as a logistics and organizational tool for several minimally invasive spine surgeries using eXeX software. 3. Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai has created a new behavioral health app for Apple Vision Pro. The app, Xaia, which stands for eXtended-Reality Artificially Intelligent Ally, provides patients with a type of therapy whereby they can use a computer program that talks to them. 4. Boston Children's Hospital has also launched an app for the new Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset. The CyranoHealth app leverages the device's "spatial computing" feature to generate an immersive training experience for nurses and other healthcare workers, with "lifelike" simulations that mimic working with actual medical equipment. 5. Apple continues to hire workers to enhance its healthcare tech department, adding health sensing engineers, health researchers and health AI engineers. 6. In a setback to its healthcare business, Apple made the decision to remove a blood-oxygen sensor from some of its watches following a patent battle against medtech company Masimo. The highest paying county in the U.S. is located in Wyoming, according to a February report from job search engine Adzuna. The average worker in Niobrara County, Wyo., earns an average annual salary of $192,000, according to a press release sent to Becker's. The highest paying counties in the U.S. and the average employee salary: 1. Niobrara County, Wyo.: $192,000 2. Hyde County, N.C.: $175,000 3. Major County, Okla.: $139,400 4. Bennett County, S.D.: $139,200 5. Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area, Ala.: $131,312 6. Clinton County, Ky.: $130,233 7. Choctaw County, Miss.: $130,233 8. Benton County, S.C.: $130,000 9. Foster County, N.D.: $129,869 Baptist Behavioral Health, part of Beaumont, Texas-based Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas, has received $70 million in improvement funding from the 88th Texas Legislature. Of the $70 million, $6 million will go toward the development of an integrated care clinic and $64 million will be allocated for the renovation and 72-bed expansion of the system's existing behavioral health facility, according to a Feb. 27 Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas news release shared with Becker's. "As the sole inpatient behavioral health center in the region, the scarcity of available beds has been a longstanding challenge, hindering our ability to provide timely care to all those in need," the release said. "The expansion of our outpatient services and the addition of inpatient facilities will significantly alleviate this strain, ensuring that individuals in crisis, as well as those awaiting care in all area emergency rooms, receive the assistance they require." Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas is a faith-based health system with 24 locations, according to its website. HCA Florida North Florida Hospital in Gainesville, which shut down procedures earlier this year to address equipment sterilization issues, has resumed all surgical operations. "We are performing nearly 100% of all elective surgical cases and expect to be at full capacity soon," according to a statement from the hospital shared with Becker's. "We are dedicated to achieving this milestone with the same level of excellence our patients, physicians, staff and the community have come to expect from HCA Florida North Florida Hospital for the past 50 years." A spokesperson for the hospital did not provide further information. North Florida Hospital, part of Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare, confirmed last month that it was temporarily suspending elective surgeries beginning Jan. 17 to address equipment sterilization issues. At the time, a hospital spokesperson said the equipment-related issue was affecting "presurgical processes" and that it was rescheduling certain elective procedures "out of an abundance of caution." The spokesperson did not address other questions related to what specifically prompted the initial concerns or the type of equipment affected. The hospital also did not address the number of affected patients. In the weeks since the suspension of surgeries, "the hospital has installed additional pre-surgical processing units, procured new instruments, and expanded our surgical services staff," Lauren Lettelier, the hospital's director of communications and community engagement, told The Gainesville Sun. She also told the publication that the hospital looks forward to reviewing findings from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which is expected to release its preliminary report on the matter soon. St. Louis-based Ascension became one of 141 participants in the White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities, an initiative aiming to eradicate hunger, enhance nutrition and boost physical activity levels by 2030. The commitments from stakeholders will add over $1 billion toward the challenge goal, according to a Feb. 27 news release from the system. Ascension CEO Joseph Impicciche celebrated the challenge's commencement at the White House alongside other health and technology stakeholders. Ascension has long worked to address hunger and similar social determinants of health, running food pantries and other social services in underserved parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri and Texas, the release said. The system provides more than 200,000 meals at Kansas City, Mo.-based Seton Center each year, gives free groceries to 700 families per month via New Orleans drive-thru pantries, donates child care necessities in San Antonio, and partners with rural foodbanks. Barbara Martin, BSN, RN, was appointed president of Ascension Saint Joseph-Joliet (Ill.). Ms. Martin joins Ascension Illinois from Chicago-based Community First Medical Center, where she most recently, as an independent contractor, served as chief administrative officer and CEO, according to a Feb. 27 news release shared with Becker's. She also previously served as president and CEO for West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, Ill. She will begin her new role March 11. Ascension has also announced the following appointments since Nov. 7: Joshua Pozos, MD, was named chief medical officer of Ascension Seton Hays in Kyle, Texas. Jason Foland, MD, was named president of the Studer Family Children's Hospital at Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola, Fla. Andre Storey was named president of Ascension's Columbia St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee. Kurt Schley was named president of Ascension's Elmbrook hospital campus in Brookfield, Wis. Shane Carter, MSN, RN, joined Ascension Mercy in Oshkosh, Wis., as president on Nov. 27. Ascension is based in St. Louis. Lalit Bajaj, MD, has assumed the role of chief quality officer of Children's Hospital Colorado. Dr. Bajaj now oversees the department of patient safety as well as the clinical effectiveness and diversity, health equity and inclusion departments. These departments will now constitute the division of quality, and Dr. Bajaj will work to complete the medical and administrative dyads in each over the coming months. He joined Children's Hospital Colorado in 1996 and has held several leadership roles, including chief quality, equity and outcomes officer and medical director of clinical effectiveness. Dr. Bajaj will work closely with Chief Medical Officer David Brumbaugh, MD, and Chief Nursing Executive Pat Givens to drive safe, effective and equitable care for Children's Hospital Colorado. The board for Lexington (Neb.) Regional Health Center has voted to terminate the hospital's longtime CEO, Leslie Marsh, according to local media reports. The 3-2 vote to separate Ms. Marsh's employment came during the board's regular meeting Feb. 27, KRVN reported. During the meeting, some board members cited little progress in the CEO's job performance since the last evaluation the board conducted in 2023, according to the radio station. Following the board's vote, Ms. Marsh told hospital staff, "I want to thank all of you. You guys are amazing," and left the meeting, the radio station reported. When asked for comment, a leader told Becker's via email that the hospital did not have a response at this time. Ms. Marsh became CEO of Lexington Regional in 2010. During her tenure, she advocated and served on many state and national healthcare boards and was honored with many achievement awards, according to KRVN. A new emergency room also opened under her leadership. In August, the board for Lexington Regional considered firing Ms. Marsh after various IT concerns, but decided against it after hearing from hospital workers and opted to resolve issues through mediation. Lexington Regional CFO Wade Eschenbrenner will act as interim CEO, according to the Lexington Clipper-Herald. Members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association at Newburyport, Mass.-based Beth Israel Lahey Anna Jaques Hospital have approved a new three-year contract. The agreement, approved Feb. 26, followed more than six months of negotiations, according to the union. It will cover 350 registered nurses at the facility, which is part of Cambridge, Mass.-based Beth Israel Lahey Health. Contract provisions highlighted by the MNA include: Wage increases ranging from 10.5% up to 65% in the first 12 months of the contract. A new program that compensates nurses who agree to work weekend shifts with an additional stipend for working at those times. Staffing improvements in the hospital's intensive care unit. Improvement to nurses' benefit package. "This contract will further enable nurses to provide safe and personalized healthcare the way they know how to provide," Margaret Mirecki, RN, who works on the hospitals telemetry unit and serves as co-chair of the nurses' MNA local bargaining unit, said in a union news release. "We look forward to returning to a newfound sense of pride in our hospital and how we are valued and perceived. It wasn't an easy road to get there, but we are committed to improving patient care and, with this new contract, to retaining the talented nurses we have, while enticing others to join our team." Sonya Vartabedian, Anna Jaques Hospital spokesperson, shared a statement with Becker's: "We are pleased to report that our nurses ratified the comprehensive three-year contract between the hospital and the Massachusetts Nurses Association. This balanced contract reflects the value that our nurses provide as part of our clinical care teams and supports their ability to continue to provide high-quality patient care to our community. The contract includes market-competitive wage increases, improved benefits and staffing commitments that support our shared goal for retention and recruitment." St. Charles Health System, a private nonprofit system in Bend, Ore., has been named in a lawsuit after allegedly denying charity care to eligible patients, according to The Lund Report. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on Feb. 22 alleges that plaintiff Kristine Reiger was treated for a car crash at St. Charles in 2022. Her income of $25,240 rendered her eligible for charity care. But the health system did not screen her for financial assistance or work with her on a payment plan, and instead sent her to debt collector Ray Klein Inc., according to the lawsuit. "St. Charles and Ray Klein have a standard practice of failing to screen patients for financial assistance and subsequently initiating debt collection actions against patients on those alleged hospital debts despite this failure," the lawsuit says. The lawsuit alleges hundreds of other patients have been affected and requests that the judge certify the suit as class action so others can join. It claims that Ms. Reiger paid at least $1,339.18 to Ray Klein and St. Charles that should have been covered by the hospital, and seeks an unspecified award for "actual damages, punitive damages, statutory damages, attorneys' fees and costs." Ray Klein Inc., operates in Springfield, Ore., under the name Professional Credit Service. It agreed to settle a 2022 lawsuit that it illegally collected consumer debts for $2 million, but denied wrongdoing, according to The Lund Report. Alandra Johnson, St. Charles Health System's public information officer, told Becker's Feb. 27 that the system had not yet been served with the suit and could not comment on specifics. However, she stated that the system provides approximately $120 million annually in unreimbursed care, regularly reviews its financial assistance policies and processes, and believes it is in compliance with regulations. St. Charles is not the only Oregon system to be called out over charity care. In 2019, the state inked a law requiring nonprofit hospitals to screen all patients within 200% of the federal poverty level for discounts. However, a February 2023 report from patient advocacy group Dollar For found that since the requirement went into effect, 42 of Oregon's 60 hospitals gave less charity care than they did the year before. The report alleged that hospitals are "not meaningfully screening patients for financial assistance eligibility but are instead sending low-income patients to collection." In July, Oregon's governor signed a law bolstering patients' protections from medical debt. The provisions, effective Jan. 1, require nonprofit hospitals to screen patients who have bills of $500 or more for financial assistance; apply financial assistance before patients receive the bill; give full refunds to eligible patients who have already paid; and make financial assistance appeals processes and applications easily available online. Such legislation has been cited in a few other lawsuits in the Pacific Northwest. The lawsuit against St. Charles is similar to one filed in November against Klamath Falls, Ore.-based Sky Lakes Regional Medical Center. And in February, Renton, Wash.-based Providence announced it would provide $157.8 million in refunds and debt relief to low-income patients after a lawsuit alleged it pressured patients who could have received financial assistance to pay their medical bills. Oregon's attorney general has also been investigating Providence which operates eight hospitals in the state after a preliminary finding from the state's health authority indicated it had improperly billed up to 108,000 low-income members of the Oregon Health Plan. The union that accused Bakersfield, Calif.-based Kern County Hospital Authority of overpaying its executives through their own private consulting firms has escalated its concerns to an official complaint. Service Employees International Union Local 521 filed the complaint with the state Fair Political Practices Commission Feb. 27. The filing, shared with Becker's, alleges the hospital authority's current CEO and CFO and former CEO had violated California law by participating in making contracts where they had "cognizable financial interests." "SEIU Local 521 has uncovered a corrupt scheme in Kern County's public health system that has undermined the quality of care available for the people of Kern County while enriching a small clique of executives," the complaint said. A spokesperson for Kern Medical the hospital authority's brand name told Becker's the complaint is "utterly meritless," and that the system will "aggressively defend" itself against the accusations. The spokesperson alleged that the union has not engaged in "good faith" efforts to improve labor relations, saying: "SEIU will learn that frivoulous actions have consequences." The allegations against Alton Scott Thygerson, the hospital authority's current CEO; Andrew Cantu, its current CFO; and Russell Judd, its former CEO from 2016 to 2021, first arose in June. A union report alleged that the hospital's payments to Cantu Management Group (of which Mr. Cantu is president) and Meridian Healthcare Partners (of which Mr. Judd is owner and president and Mr. Thygerson is vice president) had exceeded contractual amounts by 40% to 147% leading to $23 million in unauthorized compensation over the past four years. All three executives were originally contracted through the two private consulting firms, but in August 2023 two months after the allegations emerged Mr. Thygerson and Mr. Cantu were both hired directly by the Kern County Hospital Authority to continue managing its assets. The CEO, Mr. Thygerson, is also the hospital authority's purchasing agent. Originally, he could enter contracts and certain medical service agreements "costing a maximum of $250,000 per year with a maximum cumulative total not to exceed $750,000" without prior approval from the board of governors. In 2017, a resolution requiring the CEO to provide the board with a written quarterly expenditure report was removed, according to the complaint. Mr. Cantu, Mr. Thygerson and Mr. Judd have directed millions in overpayments to their own respective companies, then influenced the board to retroactively approve them, the complaint alleges. According to executive compensation information the union obtained through the California Public Records Act, Mr. Judd approved 15 unauthorized payments to Cantu Management Group above its maximum payable amount between Jan. 27, 2021, and Aug. 31, 2021 totaling more than $2.92 million in unauthorized payments. The board did not address the unauthorized payments until July 20, 2022, after the union filed a complaint. At this point, the board passed a retroactive amendment to its agreement with Cantu Management Group, approving the payments that previously exceeded the maximum payable amount, per the complaint. Between December 2016 and December 2021, Mr. Judd and Mr. Thygerson "direct[ed] and influence[d]" Vice President and General Counsel Karen Barnes to repeatedly amend the hospital authority's contract with Meridian. They effectively removed established performance measures and increased Meridian's management fee, per the complaint. The pay increases were justified by a "study" initiated by Ms. Barnes, though there is no evidence that the study results were ever provided to the board, according to the complaint. Despite the contract amendments allowing Meridian to receive an annual max payable amount of approximately $4.5 million Meridian was overpaid more than $20.26 million between 2017 and 2021, according to the complaint. In a June 28 statement shared with Becker's, Kern Medical denied the initial allegations of contractual overpayment, financial mismanagement and concealment of information. The system stated that services offered by the outside management firms have been beneficial to patients. In 2022, Kern County ranked 53 out of 58 California counties in health, according to the complaint. "Since its inception, KCHA executives have increasingly privatized the public healthcare system for their own benefit and to the detriment of the underserved community in Kern County," the complaint alleges. "Unfortunately, these executives engaged in a pattern of self-enrichment at the expense of Kern County's poorest residents." This story was edited Feb. 28 at 1:15 p.m. to include an updated statement from Kern Medical. Over 20 hospitals and affiliated companies have united in multidistrict litigation that suggests in a complaint that drug distributors, pharmacies and other entities have contributed to the opioid epidemic, which has negatively affected hospital finances and strained patient aid capabilities. The 278-page complaint, obtained by Becker's, was filed Feb. 26 in an Ohio federal court by for-profit hospitals affiliated with Allegiance Health Management, along with other plaintiffs. The complaint alleges that more than 12 defendants engaged in fraud, nuisance, racketeering, civil conspiracy, and unjust enrichment through giving power to the opioid crisis. The plaintiffs claim the companies engaged in opioid marketing, distribution and sales are taking advantage of hospital responsibilities to treat communities affected by addiction. Defendants listed in the lawsuit include pharmaceutical company AbbVie, Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Johnson & Johnson. Some of the complaints comprise multiple for-profit Louisiana and Mississippi hospitals, while others include companies that previously ran hospitals. The defendants have previously refuted wrongdoing and said they have implemented measures to combat opioid misuse. Some settlements in other opioid lawsuits have been reached without liability admissions. Teva Pharmaceuticals, an Israel-based drug manufacturer, agreed to pay $126 million last August in an opioid settlement to U.S. hospitals. Walgreens declined to provide Becker's with a comment regarding the lawsuit. Becker's has reached out to hospital attorneys and some of the additional defendants for comment regarding the lawsuit. The estate of a man who died at Medford, Ore.-based Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in February 2022 has filed an $11.5 million lawsuit against the health system and a former nurse, claiming the nurse's drug diversion led to a fatal infection. This marks the first wrongful death suit that has been filed against Asante since Medford police confirmed they were investigating claims of medication theft and concerns of adverse patient care at the hospital earlier this year. The probe involves allegations from sources at the hospital who say several patient deaths may be tied to a nurse who had been taking fentanyl from IV bags and replacing it with unsterile tap water, which they claim led to severe infections and multiple patient deaths. Neither officials at Asante nor the police department have confirmed the number of patients who may have been affected. "We're holding off on releasing anything because a lot of it is really unclear," Lt. Geoffrey Kirkpatrick of the Medford Police Department told The Oregonian in a Feb. 26 report. The lawsuit was filed Feb. 26 on behalf of the estate of 65-year-old Horace Wilson, who was admitted to Rogue Regional Medical Center in January 2022 after falling off a ladder. According to the lawsuit, which names Asante and nurse Dani Marie Schofield, RN, as defendants, testing revealed that Mr. Wilson has suffered broken ribs and internal bleeding from his spleen after the fall. On Jan. 28, a day after being admitted, Mr. Wilson's spleen was removed. The lawsuit alleges his condition began to deteriorate a few days later, and he underwent three operations, the last of which required intubation. He began to show signs of sepsis while in the intensive care unit, and testing results later turned up positive bacterial growth of Staphylococcus epidermidis. The lawsuit cites medical records that state Ms. Schofield was directed to administer fentanyl through the patient's central line while he was in the ICU and alleges she replaced the medication with non-sterile tap water, "thus reintroducing new inoculums of the bacteria" into his bloodstream each time it was administered. Clinicians noted that Mr. Wilson began to develop unexplained high fevers and other signs of severe infection on Feb. 12. Mr. Wilson died Feb. 25 after his condition continued to worsen. The lawyer representing the estate of Mr. Wilson, Justin Idiart, told The Oregonian he is representing nine clients whose medication was swapped out, including family members of those who died and patients who survived. Records from the Oregon State Board of Nursing show that Ms. Schofield agreed to refrain from nursing practice or suspend her license pending completion of an investigation. On Feb. 28, the police department sent a statement to Becker's saying officials are still "actively investigating" allegations of medication theft and adverse patient care at the hospital. Police said they were aware of civil lawsuits filed against Asante but could not confirm whether the nurse named in the lawsuit is part of their investigation. "No one has been charged with a crime as a result of this investigation," Mr. Kirkpatrick said in the statement. "We are meticulously reviewing thousands of documents, including medical records, which require thorough examination and consultation with experts in the medical field." Asante did not immediately respond to Becker's request for comment. For many working in healthcare, violence is a daily, palpable issue. Solving the crisis will involve consistent coordination between multiple stakeholders, but it starts with employers getting serious about prevention, executives at the University of Pennsylvania Health System said in a commentary published Feb. 27 in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine which encompasses the University of Pennsylvania Health System is investing more than $28 million to put weapons detection systems across entrances to hospitals and outpatient facilities, Kevin Mahoney, CEO of UPHS, and James Ballinghoff, DNP, RN, chief nursing executive of the system and chief nursing officer of Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, wrote in the piece. In addition to the investment in weapons detection systems, Penn Medicine is giving every clinical staff member "duress badges," which allow staff members to call for help at any time, and has rolled out deescalation training. When employees do encounter violence, the executives urged health systems to support their staff in working with police and provide counseling and support resources, including paid time off. "Even as physical injuries to an individual professional heal, the impact of violence can linger on their psyche. And the toll on the entire healthcare system cannot be understated, from the corrosive effect on retention and recruitment of talented staff to threats to interrupting daily operations," Mr. Mahoney and Dr. Ballinghoff wrote. Increasingly, health system executives are calling out violence in healthcare as a crisis. Both anecdotal reports and data demonstrate the growing toll it has taken on the industry. In 2021 the latest year for which national data are available more than 453,000 reports of nonfatal injuries were reported by workers in healthcare and social services, the highest of any industry. During Cleveland Clinic's annual "State of the Clinic" address in January, the system's President and CEO Tomislav Mihaljevic, MD, said 30,000 weapons from patients and visitors were confiscated in 2023. In that system alone, caregivers reported nearly 4,000 incidents of physical and verbal violence. Individual measures on their own whether actions taken by hospitals or the passage of a state law are crucial steps in curbing violence in healthcare, but making and sustaining meaningful progress long term will require coordination between those in the industry, legislators, law enforcement and community partners, UPHS executives said. Robust in-home care, advances in technology and seamless access to nursing facilities are some of the ways leaders anticipate post-acute care may change in the next 50 years. Here, three leaders give their predictions and hopes for the industry in the future: Vicki Good, DNP, RN. Chief Clinical Officer of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses: The first ICUs were established just over 50 years ago, and it's exciting to think about what the future holds for the entire patient care continuum. Over the next 50 years, post-acute care will move to be mostly provided in a non-hospital setting, with lower acuity patients being cared for at home. More and more hospital beds will be devoted to higher acuity patients. These changes will impact the way patient care is delivered in several ways. There will be a need to create robust in-home care resources to support patients and families. The demand for nurses to meet the needs of patients at home, such as home visits, virtual support, etc., will continue to rise. Hospitals will focus on delivering progressive and critical care that cannot be provided at home. To prepare for the next 50 years, workforce development is key. Healthcare must create professional development tracks that are inclusive/equitable to continue to recruit a diverse workforce. Introducing the next generation of clinicians to the growing variety of opportunities and career paths in healthcare needs to begin when they are children, not young adults. Strategies to diversify the workforce to meet the needs of our patients and better reflect the communities we serve must include making higher education more affordable and accessible. Grace La Torre, DO. Director of Palliative Care Service at Stony Brook (N.Y.) University Hospital: A shift in the focus of healthcare toward helping patients stay at home is key to supporting our patients and improving their quality of care, including investments in telehealth care, home health agencies, quality skilled nursing facilities, caregivers and inter-facility communication and transitions of care. I remain optimistic that in 50 years the investments in our nation's healthcare system and related entities will be shifted toward post-acute care. A time when medical care can be provided at home for ALL the seriously ill, not just via telehealth care but also in person, including for routine and subacute care. I foresee seamless accessibility to skilled nursing facilities, including long-term care as an inherited benefit for patients whose needs are too complex or burdensome to be addressed at home or when caregivers cannot safely provide the care needed. For those patients who can return home, their family or caregiver can be provided adequate support to care for them, and offered financial support if they need to step away from their jobs to become full-time caregivers and/or have access to home healthcare aids. I anticipate a more robust hospice benefit that can truly meet the individual needs of each patient as well as investment in the growth of more hospice agencies to address accessibility. Lastly, the creation of a central or global pathway for "in real time" communication and updates between post-acute care facilities and providers to deliver appropriate and effective patient care. Natalya Kusheleva. Associate Executive Director of Hospital Operations at Northwell Health Staten Island University Hospital (New York City): Something I would like to see is technological advancements we keep hearing about gaining popularity and bearing in the market. For example, robotic technology for assisting patients with daily living, smart appliances, voice activated AR assistants and more. I think this is where we're going to go, a place where patients would have as much independence as possible. With technologies at home, helping to rehabilitate patients and lift that level of activity of daily living to a different level without being dependent on anyone else could be possible. I also think biotechnologies in regenerative medicine will play a big role in post-acute care. We are patient centric and moving towards it, but technology advances would put the patient at the forefront of a customized post-acute care that would decide the end combined with the analytics which we already have in healthcare. While the major trend I would see is shifting to the home environment, there is still a role for more intense therapies in a post-acute care setting. Spine surgery competition is evolving this year thanks to changes in workforce saturation and the addition of new spine centers. Two surgeons recently spoke with Becker's about how competition among spine surgeons and practices is evolving. Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length. Question: How is competition in the spine industry evolving in 2024? James Harrop, MD. Professor of Neurological Surgery and Orthopedic Surgery and Division Chief for Spine and Peripheral Nerve Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University (Philadelphia): This is a great question and I think it cannot be answered globally for the United States. I presently work in the Philadelphia region where referral patterns are very controlled by healthcare systems as well as [where] the number of spine surgeons is limited. Thus, I do not believe there is truly a competitive environment of surgeons trying to convince patients to do X versus Y. Rather, the present healthcare environment is to treat the patient with the best healthcare outcomes in their local healthcare setting. I often refer patients back to initial spine surgeons when seeing them as second opinions because I believe it is in the patients best interest to be treated and managed with physicians that understand their overall health status. Thus, in general, I would say in an undersaturated spine surgeon market there is not significant market competition. Eric Nottmeier, MD. Professor of Neurosurgery and Vice Chair of Clinical Operations in the Department of Neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn.): Competition in the spine field has continued to evolve over the past decade. The development of spine centers using a multidisciplinary approach is one strategy that has been successful. Spine centers can provide quick access to patients requesting appointments. This allows the patient to enter that system and immediately undergo multimodal conservative therapy with [physical medicine and rehabilitation] and pain management physicians, as well as physical therapists. This all occurs under the same roof. If patients fail conservative therapy, then they can be seen prudently by the spine surgeons in that particular spine center. This model of care is desirable to patients as the process is easily initiated on the patients end by a single phone call or referral with most of the care being accomplished at a single location with internal communication between providers. Innovation with new technology such as augmented reality and robotics will have a great impact on competition in the orthopedic surgery industry, according to Alex Vaccaro, MD, PhD. Dr. Vaccaro is president of the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute in Philadelphia. He recently spoke with Becker's about how competition is evolving in the spine and orthopedic industries. Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length. Question: How is competition in the spine and orthopedic industries evolving in 2024? Dr. Alex Vaccaro: Spine and orthopedic surgery are evolving with the advent and incorporation of new technology aimed at improving surgical safety, efficiency and, in turn, patient outcomes. Within this dynamic landscape, industry and surgeons are collaborating to move away from traditional "harmful" intraoperative tools such as fluoroscopy to other means of intraoperative location and navigation such as AR/VR and robotic technology. On the recent horizon are smart tools such as burs and drills that will not injure soft tissue and motorized instruments that will automatically turn off when the impedance changes so as to avoid intracanal dural injury. Soon also to be developed are hand-held tools that are designed to detect the presence of vessels and nerves so as to reach the target tissue percutaneously without neurovascular injury. These developments are the result of effective communication and teamwork between those producing and those using this technology, with variable levels of adoption and success reflective of these partnerships. In 2024, there will be an unprecedented emphasis on surgical navigation and robotics. Competition between various platforms will center around how easily these capabilities can be incorporated into operative workflows and, more importantly, how they augment surgical abilities. Foremost, safety must be ensured. With respect to surgical navigation, accuracy and faithfulness to planned hardware placement is paramount. With regard to robotics, seamless incorporation of imaging guidance into effector placement is key. Thus, in this exciting time, competition will be driven by innovation. In the fields of spine and orthopedic surgery, technology is increasingly being utilized not only to develop new hardware, but also to devise tools which can more safely and efficiently guide a surgeon intraoperatively. Surgical navigation, robotics and smart tools represent the forefront of this evolving arena with surgeons and the industry working together to realize their potential. An orthopedic and stroke rehabilitation hospital has been proposed for a vacant mixed-use site in Seven Hills, Ohio, according to a Feb. 28 report from Cleveland.com. The site has been in limbo for over a year after the previous developer pulled out of a mixed-use proposal that included retail space, office buildings and apartments. The orthopedic proposal is still in its early stages, according to the report. The new developer plans to seek approval for land usage and is expected to appear at a planning commission meeting in the next one or two months. The mayor of Seven Hills is "cautiously optimistic" about the proposed orthopedic facility, as high-paying medical salaries yield high income tax revenue for the city, according to the report. The awards ceremony was held in London on Tuesday night Representatives from The Original Istanbul picking up their award in London A south Belfast kebab shop has picked up an award at the 12th annual British Kebab Awards at the Park Plaza Hotel in London. Ormeau Road-based The Original Instanbul has been named Best Kebab House in Northern Ireland. The awards, founded by Ibrahim Dogus - a prominent figure in the British business community, were held in London on Tuesday night. They showcase the diverse offerings that have made a significant impact on the UKs culinary landscape. Mr Dogus said: The 12th British Kebab Awards continue to highlight the incredible talent and innovation within our beloved kebab industry. "This event is a testament to the hard work and dedication of those who contribute to making the UK's kebab scene truly exceptional. Leigh Phillipson, Director of Sales, Just Eat said: We would like to congratulate all the winners and finalists of this years British Kebab Awards, which weve proudly supported for over a decade. "Despite the multiple and complex challenges restaurant businesses face, these awards recognise the resilient individuals who ensure this pioneering industry continues to thrive. The awards ceremony featured prominent judges such as James Obrien, Nadhim Zahawi MP, Sharon Hodgson MP, Alison Thewlis MP, and many other well known names who carefully evaluated the entries to determine the best in various categories. The kebab industry contributes over 2.8 million to the UK economy and employs over 200,000 people across the country. Decision by college to withdraw from body sparks anger Three trade unions have withdrawn trust and confidence in Belfast Metropolitan College bosses. A letter on behalf of Nipsa, Unison and Unite the Union says members have unanimously voted to withdraw their trust and confidence in the executive leadership team of Belfast Metropolitan College due to the unilateral decision to remove it from the College Employers Forum. Our collective membership are appalled at the decision of the executive leadership team to remove Belfast Met from the forum, the letter adds. Unions have sought to understand why this decision was taken. The College Employers Forum aims to develop good practice in employer relationships with staff. One of its focuses is around the negotiation of pay and conditions by committee. This is not appropriate or satisfactory to our membership, due to the implications of the decision, the letter says. They are now calling on bosses to meet with them and meaningfully discuss why the college was removed, and how it intends to immediately return. The University and College Union (UCU) told members it had recently met with new Economy Minister Conor Murphy and issues discussed included the constitution and operation of the College Employers Forum following Belfast Mets decision. More than 300 staff have applied for voluntary redundancy at Belfast Met as it looks to reduce its headcount amid tightened budgets. Its understood the college is seeking around 120 full-time roles as part of the redundancy scheme. About 90 of 312 voluntary redundancy applications include staff who have also asked for redeployment. Overall, we are oversubscribed for the number of posts affected, a letter to staff said. This means that many applicants will not receive an offer of voluntary redundancy. It is important to state this so that staff who have applied are clear and do not make any personal decisions in anticipation that they will receive an offer of voluntary redundancy. Those staff who applied for both VR and redeployment will be advised of the outcome of their voluntary redundancy application and of their redeployment options at the same time so that they can make their decision with the information they need. The college had said decisions about the applications began earlier this month, with the vast majority of applicants being subsequently advised. Meanwhile, Belfast Met is also proposing to close its Castlereagh campus in the east of the city. Belfast Met was contacted for comment. Belfasts first dedicated zero-waste shop is to close its doors, it has been announced. Refill Quarter, based in the east of the city, sold products without any disposable plastic packaging. But they said on Wednesday that quiet times had led them to make the decision to close. In a social media post, they said: The time has come for us to say farewell. Five years ago we decided to open up Belfasts first zero waste shop. Its been a crazy journey, weve had the good times, the challenging times and, more recently, the quiet times and now we have reached the time for Refill Quarter to close But thanks to all of you, we really made a difference. Every single purchase was a choice to create change, to support personal values, to kick back at unsustainable systems, to make the world just a little bit less clogged. You did that. Together we made a difference. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. Accessibility is key when shopping in Refill Quarter (Kevin Scott) The venture on Belmont Road was the brainchild of yoga teacher Susan McEwen and her two Refill Quarter co-founders, Alice Wilkinson and Phillip Rankin. They are also the faces behind Yoga Quarter, a studio in Ballyhackamore which offers yoga classes. The idea for Refill Quarter was born while running the yoga classes and opened in 2019 after the owners grew frustrated with the consumption of single-use coffee shops and bottles at the studio. They were met with sadness from customers when the news of the closure was announced. "So sorry to hear this and a little ashamed that I didn't go more often. We can all (or just me) become a little complacent and then this happens, one said. "Loved my trips here and very sorry to see it close. Best of luck for whatever lies ahead and thank you for giving us the opportunity to shop in a more sustainable way, said another. Its not yet clear whether the owners of Refill Quarter will return with another venture. Kanye West is being sued by Donna Summers estate over copyright of I Feel Love (Jonathan Brady/PA) The estate of US singer Donna Summer has accused rap star Kanye West of stealing parts of her hit song I Feel Love for his new album. In a lawsuit filed in California, Summers husband Bruce Sudano claimed West and Ty Dolla $ign real name Tyrone Griffin engaged in blatant theft after the estate explicitly denied their request to use a sample of the song on their collaborative album Vultures 1. The lawsuit said the pair used instantly recognisable parts of Summers song in their new track Good (Dont Die), despite having rejected their proposal due to Wests controversial history. Kanye West is being accused of stealing parts of Donna Summers hit track I Feel Love (Amy Harris/Invision/AP/PA) The court documents suggest the Summer estate were approached on January 31 to request clearance of the song, which was denied, but the album was released a week later on February 10. During this time, representatives for West and Griffin approached Summers record label to request clearance of the master recording of the song, which was also denied, court documents allege. The song was streamed millions of times before platforms including Spotify, iTunes and Apple Music were able to remove it, while West and Griffin have performed the song at recorded live concerts with clips online amassing millions of views. The estate is requesting maximum damages, equating to 150,000 dollars (118,000) for each act of infringement. It is about protecting Donna Summers own musical legacy and one of popular musics most influential and ground-breaking songs, the court documents said. Summer, a five-time Grammy winner, died in 2012 at the age of 63 but was post-humorously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a year after her death. A representative for West and Griffin have been contacted for comment. Over 170,000 was lost in holiday scams in Northern Ireland last year The excitement of planning a holiday can quickly turn sour if you fall victim to a scam. Unfortunately, fraudsters are always finding new ways to exploit unsuspecting travellers. According to a new report from Action Fraud, 155,000 was lost to fraud last year, while 89 reports of holiday fraud were received by the PSNI. We take a look at the best way to arm yourself with the right knowledge to keep your money and holiday dreams safe. Red Flags: Too-good-to-be-true prices: If a deal seems significantly cheaper than similar options, alarm bells should ring. There is an old saying, that if its too good to be true, it probably is. Scammers lure you in with irresistible prices that aren't realistic. An all-inclusive trip to Disney World isnt likely to be 200 each, while flights, rental car and hotel accommodation isnt going to cost you around 150 altogether either. Check the usual prices of the kind of holiday you are looking to go on and if the discount youve found is realistic and from a legitimate seller. High-pressure sales tactics: Reputable companies won't force you into a rushed decision. Be wary of phrases like act now or limited-time offer, as they are designed to rush you into booking. This is not to be confused with enthusiastic travel agents, but instead, if you've found a rep from a company youve never heard of and theyre pushing you to book as soon as possible (particularly if it's via social media). Take a step back and think. Requests for direct bank transfers: Always pay with secure methods like credit cards that offer fraud protection. Never wire money directly to an unfamiliar individual or company. This can be difficult, particularly if the advertisement is via social media where more holiday home landlords are advertising their properties, but look at reviews, and check comments under photographs. Are there photos of guests at the property? Does the weather around the property look realistic for Portrush? Fake websites and listings: Scammers create realistic-looking websites and listings that mimic well-known travel companies or vacation rentals. A good tip is to check the photographs on the website and look up the area on a website such as Google Maps. Check if the area matches the images and there are no drastic differences such as the hotel is advertised as a city break, but the location is showing a desert. Also, a good starting point is to check there is a padlock in the URL of the website you are using, this means it has a secure digital certificate and isnt a replica or shadow/clone website. Remember AirBnB and Booking.com are multi-million-pound businesses they are going to have a professional interface on their websites, if links are dead or the logo is pixelated, click off it. Steps to take to protect yourself Research, research, research: Before booking anything, thoroughly research the company or property you're interested in. Look for independent reviews on platforms like Trustpilot, TripAdvisor, and Google. Lots of properties on social media also publish reviews, so do check and read them. Never rely on the information solely on the company's own website. Verify ATOL/ABTA protection: In the UK, reputable travel companies offering package deals with flights must have ATOL (Air Travel Organisers Licensing) protection. Companies selling holidays without flights might be covered by ABTA (Association of British Travel Agents). Check their memberships on the organisation's website. Check the website address: Look for subtle misspellings or unusual domains (like.net instead of .com/.co.uk) that might indicate a fraudulent website imitating a real company. Contact the property directly: If booking a holiday rental, contact the property owner or management company through a secondary source to confirm the listing's legitimacy. If youre worried about the hotel and dont believe its legitimate, attempt to find a telephone number and ring them. If the phone number doesnt work or reconnects to a different countrys dial code, its likely a scam. Hotels thrive on phone business, if a phone number doesnt work or one isnt available, this is a red flag. Use your credit card: Paying with a credit card offers additional protection in case of fraud. Avoid debit cards and definitely don't send cash. Always take out holiday insurance from a reputable company even if it's just for a few days. Check your policy and ensure elements like fraud are covered. Trust your instincts: If something feels off, even if you can't pinpoint why, walk away and find a trusted vendor. What to Do If You Think You've Been Scammed Report it immediately: Report the fraud to your bank or credit card company and to the relevant authorities like Action Fraud in the UK. Collect evidence: Keep screenshots, emails, and any other relevant information related to the scam. Spread the word: Alert others by posting reviews or sharing your experience on social media to help protect fellow travellers. A police officer from Co Derry whose vehicle was targeted in an early morning car bomb plot recalled the incident in court on Wednesday A police officer from Co Derry whose vehicle was targeted in an early morning car bomb plot recalled the incident in court today. As he gave evidence at Belfast Crown Court, the now-retired officer described seeing a fairly large box beside his car parked in the driveway of his Eglinton home. Two men from Dublin are standing trial on a charge of attempting to murder a serving member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland on June 18, 2015. The pair have also been charged with possessing explosives with intent namely an under-vehicle improvised explosive device on the same date. Sean Paul Farrell (39) from Stannaway Road in Crumlin and 36-year-old Ciaran Maguire of Kippure Park in Finglas have denied both charges. Recalling the incident, the targeted officer said he had been sleeping but became aware his wife had got out of bed and walked over to the window. He said he got up after his wife knocked the window really really loudly and said to me words to the effect of I have just seen somebody put something under your car. That's when I started to get up because I realised that there had been a problem outside the house. The retired officer said his wife contacted the PSNI and they remained in the house until police arrived. He said that when officers arrived, he went outside and noticed something under his car. I didn't need to kneel down, I could bend down a little bit and it was clear to me without being on my hands and knees it was a fairly large box, he said. The witness was asked by a defence barrister if there had been any specific threat either to him or his wife at the time. He replied: No, nothing specific in relation to myself or indeed my wife. There is always a general background threat to police officers but nothing that related to me specifically or my wife. Also called to give evidence was his wife, who at the time was also a serving police officer. She recalled that after waking up in the middle of the night, she went to the window, looked out and saw a man crouched beside her husband's car in the driveway. When asked by a defence barrister what woke her up, she said she didn't know what it was. She was then asked about the man she saw in her driveway and she said: He was on the ground first of all then, with me knocking the window, I would say by reflex he swings around and faces the window where I am knocking... then he legged it out the driveway. Prior to the couple giving evidence, the Crown's case against the two defendants was opened to Mr Justice Rodgers. Describing it as an extremely strong circumstantial case against the pair, a senior prosecutor asked the judge to consider all the strands of evidence. This, the Crown barrister said, included several key pieces of evidence. The barrister said two cars were involved in the incident a Vauxhall Passat and a Toyota Corolla both of which had been stolen in June 2015 and fitted with false number plates. A Passat was present in Eglinton both before and after the incident and travelled to Donegal via the Foyle Bridge and Bridge End. A vehicle of the same make was stopped by Garda on the outskirts of Killygordon near Lifford. The prosecutor said Maguire was the driver whilst Farrell was in the rear seat. The Toyota was recovered from a car park in Lifford with the prosecutor revealing both vehicles were contaminated with the explosive RDX which was the same explosives used in the IED. When arrested in the stolen vehicle, neither men had any identification. The Crown barrister added that gloves discarded from the Passat and recovered by the Guards had been in contact with RDX and were linked forensically to both men. He told Mr Justice Rooney: The prosecution say the offences were committed by both defendants together with each other, as part of a joint enterprise. At hearing. Conditional immunity not compatible with human rights legislation, High Court judge says Campaigners outside Belfast High Court ahead of its decision in the landmark legal challenge (Brian Lawless/PA) The Government insists it remains committed to its controversial Northern Ireland Troubles Legacy Act despite a High Court judge ruling that one of its key elements is unlawful. Provisions for conditional immunity from prosecution for Troubles offences in the Act are not compatible with human rights legislation, Mr Justice Colton said. The judge also said there was no evidence the immunity provision will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland. However, he said a new body set up to probe Troubles killings could carry out human rights-compliant investigations. Campaigners behind the legal challenge described it as winning "half" their case. But speaking in the House of Commons, Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris said the Government remained committed to implementing the Legacy Act. Meanwhile the PSNIs Chief Constable said those who do not agree with the Legacy Act need to be listened to and called on the process to be victim led. The Act received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims' organisations in Northern Ireland and the Irish government. It includes a limited form of immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences for those who co-operate with the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). The new Act will also halt future civil cases and legacy inquests. A number of Troubles victims had taken the legal action challenging the human rights compliance of the Government's Act. The full judgment, running to around 200 pages, was delivered this morning. Mr Justice Colton said there was no evidence the immunity provision would in any way contribute to reconciliation. He said: "I am satisfied that the immunity from prosecution provisions under section 19 of the Act are in breach of the lead applicant's rights pursuant to Article 2 of the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights). "I am also satisfied they are in breach of Article 3 of the ECHR." Regarding the ICRIR, Mr Justice Colton said: "I fully understand the opposition to the new scheme and the reasons for it. "That said, I cannot at this remove say the system established under the Act cannot provide an Article 2 and 3 compliant investigation. "It has wide powers and wide range of discretion to carry out its reviews. "Should it fall short of its obligations on Articles 2 and 3, I have no doubt they will be subject to the scrutiny of the court." He added: "The court is satisfied that the provisions of the Act leave sufficient scope for ICRIR to conduct an effective investigation as required under Articles 2 and 3 of ECHR." An ICRIR spokesperson said: In its judgment, the Court has confirmed that the Commission is independent and is capable of carrying out investigations which are compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Commission is therefore properly and lawfully established. We will study the courts judgment in detail and seek to reflect this as we refine our proposals to carry out independent investigations from this summer. The case was brought by Martina Dillon, John McEvoy, Lynda McManus and Brigid Hughes. Ms Dillon, whose husband Seamus was shot dead by loyalist terrorists near Dungannon in 1997, said the day had not gone exactly as she would have planned, describing winning "half her case". "I thought today, I would have won my full case. I got half my case today but I have not given up the fight," she said. "I have fought for 26 years and I will continue to fight on," she said. "I'll fight until I get truth and justice." Mr McEvoy, who survived a gun attack at a bar in Co Down in 1992, backed her view, adding: "The fight still goes on until we get justice for everybody involved here." Mr Heaton-Harris addressed the findings at Northern Ireland Questions at Westminster, after being questioned by Shadow NI Secretary Hilary Benn. Mr Benn told the Commons: "The Government's Legacy Act is opposed by victims groups, all of the political parties in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and others. "This morning the Belfast High Court has found that the immunity provisions of the Act are not compliant with articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. "Given that immunity has always been presented as the central foundation of the Legacy Act, what do ministers intend to do about this judgment and how can the Commission became operational when one of its central powers has just been struck down?" Mr Heaton-Harris replied: "As I say, this is a very complex case. Over 200 pages which were just being reported on less than 90 minutes ago, and so it will take some time to consider. "But we do remain committed to implementing the Legacy Act, including delivering the ICRIR (Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery)." SDLP leader Colum Eastwood welcomed the ruling, and urged the Government to abandon its approach. He said: This is an important moment for victims and survivors who have been resolutely opposed to the approach taken by the British Government which prioritises the interests of soldiers, state agencies and paramilitaries over the needs of those who lost the most. Sinn Fein MLA Deirdre Hargey called for a repeal of the legislation. We were of the view that the Legacy Act was in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights so I welcome todays High Court ruling, she said. I would call on the British government to repeal its legislation and implement the Stormont House Legacy mechanisms in a human rights compliant manner. Alliance Party MP Stephen Farry said the Government should suspend implementation of the Legacy Act pending the outcome of further steps in the legal process. There was also reaction from the PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher who urged victims and their families who do not support the Act to be listened to. Speaking at a cross-border event in Co Cavan, Mr Boutcher said there is a failure to include victims groups in dealing with legacy issues. I speak to victims literally every day. Whatever we do in legacy, weve got to do it with the support of and the co-operation of those victims groups and those victims and that isnt happening, he said. Mr Boutcher said he supports a new body set up to probe Troubles killings. If thats the only show in town, weve got to make it work. Were going to make sure that they get unfettered access to all the information they need, Mr Boutcher added. I think it should be victim led. Thats my whole mantra around this. The victims at the moment are not supportive of that legislation so we need to listen to them. DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson speaks to the media outside Hillsborough Castle where political parties have reconvened for more talks with and the Government on a financial package for the region. Picture date: Tuesday December 19, 2023. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said that a fully functioning Northern Ireland Assembly is the best way to build support for the union. The DUP leader has been insisting that new post-Brexit arrangements have removed the Irish Sea trading border and restored Northern Irelands place within the UK internal market. The partys acceptance of the deal has seen the party return to Stormont powersharing after a two-year boycott. However, several prominent figures within the DUP have publicly criticised the arrangements. Lord Dodds of Duncairn has hit out at the post-Brexit trading arrangements (Liam McBurney/PA) Former DUP deputy leader, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, accused the Government of engaging in an all-out PR operation and of being economical with the reality in the Lords on Tuesday. The reality is that the deal still retains the protocol Windsor Framework with all its inherent anti-Unionist contents, he said. Addressing party members and supporters in Newry and Armagh, Sir Jeffrey argued that decisions made today will either grow support for Northern Ireland or will cede ground to the enemies of the Union. He said that the coming generations will determine the Unions longevity and not a parliament or court. As leaders of Unionism, we must realise that a demographic and political shift is taking place before our eyes. Either we close our eyes and ignore it, or we recognise that we are no longer in a place where 70% of the population are red, white and blue British. Describing himself as a proud royalist, a member of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland for almost 50 years and from a family which served with the Royal Irish Regiment, he said he wore both the harp and crown with pride as my cap badge in the Ulster Defence Regiment. I value my Britishness as represented by the crown but I also value the Irish element of my identity as represented by the harp. To be Northern Irish and British is not at all a mutually exclusive thing. First Minister Michelle ONeill has called for a border poll on Northern Irelands place in the Union (Liam McBurney/PA) The MP said that as Northern Ireland is made of a mix of identities, people must be allowed to feel at home whether in their Britishness, their Irishness or something in between. However, the choices that we make today will heavily influence the level of support for Northern Ireland within the Union for the next generation. A fully functioning Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly, delivering on key issues, is the best way to build that support. I am glad in recent weeks, that the membership of the DUP has been steadily growing. People are joining us from all walks of life. I am in the business of winning converts and growing support for Northern Ireland within the Union. The same applies both at Stormont and in our national Parliament where I am determined to make a positive case for Northern Ireland and to win friends for our cause. A Unionism that turns in on itself is a unionism that offers no hope and no vision for the future. He added: There are some within Unionism who seem more focused on seeking out heretics. That might be interesting and, for some, even fulfilling, but it is the sure and certain path to self-destruction and reducing support for our cause, rather than strengthening Northern Irelands place within the Union. The DUP leader also criticised Sinn Fein for focusing on the timing of a border poll instead of concentrating on reconciliation for terrible deeds of the past. When I hear Mary Lou McDonald or Michelle ONeill repeat calls for a border poll, I urge them, too, to recognise the diverse identities that make up Northern Ireland. Rather than seeking division and alienation of those who are pro-Northern Ireland, they would be better to focus on making the economy and our schools and hospitals here a success. They would be better to focus on justice and reconciliation in respect of the terrible deeds of the past, rather than seek further instability with a divisive border poll. He criticised statements from the Sinn Fein leadership as fantasy stuff, and said that former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams had predicted in 2011 that Northern Ireland would have left the UK by 2016. He also said that in May 2022, Mary Lou McDonald called for a border poll by 2027 but months later changed to 2030, and First Minister Michelle ONeill had called for a border poll by 2034. If Sinn Fein needs to throw border poll dates to the republican base, lets not all get caught up in that game. Our objective must be to make Northern Ireland an economic powerhouse for the United Kingdom. This more than anything will secure our place in the Union for generations to come. DUP leader insists the way to protect the Union was to embrace all identities in Northern Ireland Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said unionists must recognise they no longer live in a place where 70% of the population are red, white and blue British. The DUP leader said the choices unionists make today will either grow support for Northern Ireland or will cede ground to the enemies of the Union. Addressing his party members in Newry and Armagh on Wednesday night, Sir Jeffrey said that Northern Irelands future did not lie with a court or Parliament, it rests in the hands of our children and grandchildren: they will determine the Unions longevity. Sir Jeffrey said that while some in unionism focussed on seeking out heretics, he was in the business of winning converts and growing support for the Union. The DUP leader also accused Sinn Fein of engaging in fantasy on a border poll, with Gerry Adams previous prediction of Irish unity by 2016 now replaced with Michelle ONeills aspiration of a border poll by 2034. However, Sir Jeffrey recognised that Northern Ireland was a changing place. As leaders of unionism, we must realise that a demographic and political shift is taking place, he said Either we close our eyes and ignore it, or we recognise that we are no longer in a place where 70% of the population are red, white and blue British. Will Casement Park disturb the Stormont peace? The DUP leader described himself as a long-time Privy Council member, MP for 27 years, proud royalist, Presbyterian, and a long-standing Orangeman who came from a family who served with the Royal Irish Regiment. The symbols I identify with include the harp and crown I wore with pride as my (UDR) cap badge, he said. "I value my Britishness as represented by the crown, but I also value the Irish element of my identity as represented by the harp. "To be Northern Irish and British is not at all a mutually exclusive thing. The Northern Ireland of 2024 is made up of people who are British, Irish, Northern Irish and some emerging identities who dont sit within any of the above. "As unionists, our vision for a Northern Ireland that works for everyone is one that embraces all of these identities. These people live, work and raise their families here because its their home. "They must be able to feel at home whether in their Britishness, their Irishness or something in between. Watch: Michelle O'Neill stands for National Anthem at Windsor Park Sir Jeffrey said fully functioning Stormont institutions delivering for people was the best way to strengthen the Union. He said DUP membership had been steadily growing in recent weeks and while certain opponents might find it interesting and even fulfilling being critical, it is the sure and certain path to self-destruction and reducing support for our cause. Sir Jeffrey dismissed Sinn Feins calls for a referendum on a united Ireland as fantasy stuff with constantly changing dates. In 2011, Gerry Adams told us Northern Ireland would have left the UK by 2016. In August 2021, Gerry had changed 2016 to 2024, he said In May 2022, Mary Lou McDonald called for a border poll by 2027. In July 2022, Mary Lou McDonald changed from 2027 to 2030. "Just this month, Michelle ONeill had shifted the Sinn Fein goalposts again to call for a border poll by 2034. Sir Jeffrey added: If Sinn Fein needs to throw border poll dates to the republican base, lets not all get caught up in that game. Our objective must be to make Northern Ireland an economic powerhouse for the UK. "This, more than anything, will secure our place in the Union for generations to come. First Minister Michelle ONeill, left, and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly were making their first joint committee appearance (NI Assembly/PA) Stormonts new powersharing Executive is focused on bringing forward a programme for government as soon as possible, the First and deputy First Minister have told MLAs. Michelle ONeill and Emma Little-Pengelly were giving evidence to the Executive Office committee and said they were looking forward to the return of all strands of the Good Friday Agreement, including meetings of the North South Ministerial Council (NSMC). Devolved government returned to Northern Ireland this month after the DUP dropped its two-year boycott of the political institutions when a deal was struck over post-Brexit trading arrangements. Ms ONeill became the first nationalist First Minister, with the DUPs Ms Little-Pengelly as deputy First Minister. In their first joint committee appearance, they set out their priorities for government, including dealing with longstanding financial issues facing Northern Ireland. They were asked when they would be bringing forward a programme for government setting out the strategic aims for the Executive. Ms ONeill told the committee: It is important that everybody feels the benefit of the policy decisions that we take. Michelle ONeill, left, and Emma Little-Pengelly said they were looking forward to the return of all strands of the Good Friday Agreement, (NI Assembly/PA) That will be reflected in the programme for government and we are going to move at it at a sensible pace, and we are going to move at it to make sure that we get it right. That is important because this becomes our collective programme for the Executive in terms of what we are going to develop, there will be collective priorities. We have to consider all that alongside the financial challenges that we have. She added: The programme for government is something that we are all focused on and we want to come back and talk to the committee about that at the right juncture, all ministers are getting to grips with their briefs and I hope that in the coming weeks well be able to discuss at more length the programme for government. Pressed on a time frame for the programme, Ms Little-Pengelly said: Michelle and I are very clear, we want a programme for government as soon as we can. We will work to ensure it is brought forward as quickly as possible, we want that to be there so everybody is clear, not just in the Assembly but throughout Northern Ireland as to what we are working towards, what are the priorities of this government. Sinn Fein MLA Caral Ni Chuilin asked when the NSMC would return, pointing out that the 26th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement was approaching. The NSMC has not met since 2021 after the DUP withdrew from north/south meetings as part of its protest against Brexits Northern Ireland Protocol. Ms ONeill said: It is important that we have all strands (of the Good Friday Agreement) up and running. We are working towards getting the other elements up and running, including the North South Ministerial Council. We know there is a big backlog there in terms of appointments. I want to see all elements up working again and I hope we will be able to progress those in the weeks ahead. Ms Little-Pengelly added: The north/south, east/west relationships are an absolutely key part of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. We are currently seeking to finalise dates, but those will happen very shortly. Campaigners outside Belfast High Court ahead of its decision in the landmark legal challenge (Brian Lawless/PA) Judgment in a legal challenge to the Governments controversial Act to deal with the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles will be delivered later. High Court judge Mr Justice Colton will rule in the case brought by a number of victims challenging the human rights compliance of the legislation which offers a conditional amnesty to people accused of Troubles-related crimes. The Legacy Act received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims organisations in Northern Ireland and the Irish government. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content Aspects of the laws include a limited form of immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences for those who co-operate with the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). The new Act will also halt future civil cases and legacy inquests. Multiple victims launched judicial review proceedings against the Act and Martina Dillon, John McEvoy and Lynda McManus were selected as the lead cases in the legal battle at the High Court in Belfast. The judgment will be delivered at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast (Liam McBurney/PA) Ms Dillons 45-year-old husband, Seamus, was shot dead in a loyalist attack at the Glengannon Hotel in Dungannon, County Tyrone, in 1997. Mr McEvoy survived a loyalist shooting on the Thierafurth Inn in Kilcoo, County Down, in 1992. Ms McManuss father, James, was among those wounded in the Sean Graham bookmakers massacre in 1992. When the case was heard last year, a barrister said the Act was subjecting victims to a form of secondary trauma. Whatever ruling Mr Justice Colton delivers, legal action is set to continue with the verdict likely to be appealed to higher courts. Separately, the Irish Government has launched an interstate legal case against the Legacy Act, arguing that it breaches the European Convention on Human Rights. More than 80% of people in Ireland are worried about climate change, a report says (PA) More than 80% of people in Ireland are worried about climate change, while three quarters of the public think extreme weather poses a moderate or high risk to their community over the next 10 years, a report shows. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published initial results from the second wave of its Climate Change In The Irish Mind project (CCIM). This work was undertaken by the EPA and the Yale University Programme on Climate Change Communication. The findings of the nationally representative survey show broad consistency with the 2021 study, including continued high level of climate awareness, acceptance of human causation and the personal importance of climate change. Key changes include an increase in worry about severe storms at 74% while more than half are worries about extreme heat. There has also been a large increase in people who hear about climate change in the media once a week or more often. Speaking about the report Laura Burke, director general of the EPA said: We know that Ireland is experiencing the impacts of climate change. These findings highlight that Irish people are aware of these impacts and are worried about the harm it may cause. People are engaged with this issue, talking about it with their friends and families and hearing about it frequently in the media. Despite the many challenges, including cost of living increases, people remain positive about the benefits of climate action for our economy and quality of life. There continues to be majority support for a range of climate policies. In particular, we see overwhelming support for improved public transport and renewable energy, which can deliver significant emissions reductions, air quality improvements as well as delivering cost savings for individuals. There has been an increase in the number of people who reported hearing weekly about climate change in the media from 51% in 2021 to 74% in 2023. This is aligned with high levels of public trust in mainstream media, 68% and in journalists at 68% on the topic of climate change. Furthermore, over 80% of people trust scientists, the Irish EPA, educators, family and friends, television weather reporters, and environmental NGOs on the topic of climate change. A large majority of Irish people, 79%, say climate change should be either a very high or high priority for Government. In addition, a majority of people in Ireland believe climate action will provide opportunities to create new jobs and improved quality of life. Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan the findings of the second Climate Change in the Irish Mind survey are very encouraging (Brian Lawless/PA) While still receiving majority support, two policies higher taxes on cars that use petrol or diesel, and banning peat, coal, and oil for home heating received weaker support from those who had experienced economic difficulties. However, the findings show that those who reported economic difficulties in the last year expressed the same levels of worry and feelings of personal importance about climate change as those who experienced no difficulties. Speaking about the report, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan TD said: The findings of this second Climate Change in the Irish Mind survey are very encouraging. It confirms that Irish people have a good understanding of the complex issues of climate change, that they are concerned about its effects on their lives, but importantly that they believe that taking climate action can make our country more resilient, creating jobs and improving our quality of life. This survey also shows us that climate is not an issue that divides people as much as it unites us. It also underlines the importance of ongoing engagement and communications. As a Government, we must listen and act so that we are supporting people to take climate action that works for their community from the ground up. Climate action wont work if its a top-down, blame or shame approach. Our transition to a new way of doing things must be fair, it must involve everyone and it must ensure that things will be better. The Home Secretary said he was not sure regular Gaza ceasefire marches were adding value to the argument (Lucy North/PA) The Home Secretary has said pro-Palestine protesters have made their point and questioned whether holding regular marches adds value to their calls for an immediate ceasefire. James Cleverly, in an interview with The Times, questioned what future demonstrations in support of ending the violence in Gaza hoped to achieve given the Conservative UK Government was in disagreement with their position. Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks administration supports an immediate pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas to allow hostages to be released and for aid to enter the territory. No 10 says any ceasefire would come with conditions, including that Hamas the Palestinian militant group that carried out the deadly raids on Israel on October 7 that sparked the war can no longer be in charge of the Gaza Strip, to ensure it is sustainable. Mr Cleverly told the newspaper the protests witnessed across Britain since the war broke out were putting a huge amount of pressure on the countrys police forces. The senior Tory said: The question I ask myself is, What are these protests genuinely hoping to achieve? They have made a point and they made it very, very loudly and Im not sure that these marches every couple of weeks add value to the argument. Theyre not really saying anything new. The tensions surrounding the Middle East conflict has reignited a debate around MP safety, with protesters targeting the homes of parliamentarians to demand action on Gaza. The Home Secretary said it was vital that MPs were not bullied into changing their stance on the Gaza conflict due to threats from demonstrators. Home Secretary James Cleverly has questioned what the regular pro-Palestine protests are hoping to achieve (Stefan Rousseau/PA) In chaotic scenes during a Gaza ceasefire debate in the Commons last week, Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle broke with parliamentary precedent because he had concerns about the intimidation suffered by some MPs. Mr Cleverly said: I think it is really important that no one, no parliamentarian, feels that they should be bullied into taking a position they dont believe is the right position So I genuinely dont know what these regular protests are seeking to achieve. They have made their position clear, we recognise that there are many people in the UK that hold that position. We respect that but the UK Governments position is a disagreement with that for very practical, well thought-out reasons. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is planning further action on the weekend in support of Gaza. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content Organisers are calling on supporters to take part in local protests on Saturday against Barclays Bank, which it says holds substantial financial ties with arms companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel. A march in support of a ceasefire in central London is planned for Saturday March 9. US president Joe Biden this week said he was hopeful a ceasefire deal could be in place by next week, with negotiations continuing on Tuesday. Separately, a protest is planned by farmers in Wales outside the Senedd in Cardiff on Wednesday. They are opposed to proposed changes to post-Brexit subsidies which will require more land to be given over to tree planting and habitat creation. Boats used by people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, following small boat incidents in the Channel back in January (PA) French authorities are dealing with an incident in the English Channel, the UK Government has confirmed, involving a small boat thought to have been carrying asylum seekers looking to reach Britain. A report by the i suggests that as many as three people may have died while the vessel was still in French waters. The newspaper reported that migrants who were attempting to reach Britain fell into the sea on Wednesday off the coast of Cap Gris-Nez, located west of Calais. Citing French authorities, the report said 180 people were pulled to safety by rescue operators. One person was recovered unconscious and could not be resuscitated by the crew, with two others missing, the report said. A UK Government spokesman said: We can confirm there has been an incident in the Channel involving a small boat in French waters. French authorities are leading the response and investigation. We will not be commenting further at this stage. Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: Our thoughts go out to the families of those affected by the tragic loss of life in the English Channel this afternoon and to all those who valiantly answered the distress call. This is yet another avoidable human tragedy. Men, women and children from countries such as Afghanistan are risking their lives in the Channel as a direct consequence of safe routes being so limited and ineffective. There will be more deaths unless the Government rethinks its approach. Instead of the unlawful and costly Rwanda plan, we need a plan to provide sanctuary for those fleeing persecution, violence and torture without having to take dangerous journeys by expanding options for family reunion, introducing refugee visas and putting in place an agreement with the French government to give people a fair hearing and treat them with dignity and humanity. This week, Home Office figures showed that more than 2,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the strait between England and France. The number of Channel arrivals is 32% lower than the total recorded this time last year (2,953) but 49% higher than the total at this stage in 2022 (1,482). Some 29,437 migrants arrived in the UK after making the crossing in 2023, down 36% on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022. The Home Office said there were no new arrivals on Tuesday or Monday this week, but 290 asylum seekers arrived across five boats on Sunday. Home Secretary James Cleverly was in the US this week where he made a speech focused on tackling unauthorised migration. During the address in New York, the Conservative Cabinet minister said the UKs goodwill towards migrants was not a bottomless font as he argued wealthy nations must help developing ones avoid haemorrhaging people. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made stopping the boats one of his top five pledges to the electorate in January last year. Described as a full Wonka Experience tearful kids received only two jelly babies and a quarter of a can of Barrs limeade Children burst into tears as angry parents rounded on the ringleader of a Willy Wonka experience which turned out to be a sparse Glasgow warehouse decorated with a rainbow and a bouncy castle. Furious parents shelled out 35 for the world of pure imagination promising a delectable chocolate fountain and whimsical Oompa Loompas who in reality were actors struggling to recite scripts hastily handed to them the night before opening. Organisers House of Illuminati apologised for the stressful and frustrating day and offered 850 refunds before closing the experience to guests on Saturday. Aileen Butcher, who had taken her daughter, told the Daily Record it was an absolute disgrace. She said: We went inside and there were some posters, a visual display including a rainbow, toadstool and a gobstopper. There also appeared to be a table strewn with jelly beans and a bouncy castle at the back. It took us a minute to walk through. Some families were very, very angry and had little children who were crying. It was a tense atmosphere and new families were arriving looking bewildered. Stuart Sinclair travelled two hours to attend the experience with his family said on Facebook: It was nothing short of shocking. It was described as a full Wonka Experience with chocolate fountains, but the kids received two jelly babies and a quarter of a can of Barrs limeade. Actors complained on social media they were given just one night to learn a script before it was torn up and they were told to improvise around items that werent even there. Mr Sinclair told The Independent: All the cast that were there did their absolute best. Unfortunately, they were all sub-contractor actors hired by Illuminati and havent been paid either. They were in as much shock as us. But it was probably worse for them because this is their job and made them look bad when it wasnt their fault. All the parents rounded on the guy running it. He was there and everyone was at him trying to get answers. It was that bad it was just laughable. Police Scotland said officers issued guidance to crowds building up outside the closed venue. A House of Illuminati spokesperson said: Today has been a very stressful and frustrating day for many and for that we are truly sorry. Unfortunately, at the last minute we were let down in many areas of our event and tried our best to continue on and push through and now realise we probably should have cancelled first thing this morning instead. We fully apologise for what has happened and will be giving full refunds to each and every person that purchased tickets. We planned a fabulous event and it just did not take shape as planned and for that we are truly sorry, we are devastated at how this has turned out and understand peoples anger and frustration that everyone has had, refunds have already started being issued and the rest should be over the coming days, again we are truly sorry to everyone. Already a qualified pilot, Amy Johnson, the first woman to gain an Air Ministrys Ground Engineers license at the London Aeroplane club. The only known existing fragment of wreckage from the last plane flown by pioneering British aviator Amy Johnson in 1941 has been secured for posterity by a British war museum. The 83-year-old segment of the planes parachute exit door, which the aviator would have used to leap from, was successfully purchased by the Kent Battle of Britain Museum in Hawkinge for 3,673.60 at an auction held by Hansons Auctioneers based in Derbyshire. Dave Brocklehurst, chairman, curator and volunteer at the museum, said: Were delighted to secure this item. It will join the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) display at the museum. The fragment from Amy Johnsons plane, which crashed in the Thames Estuary near Herne Bay in 1941 (Hansons/PA) Amy was one of the original ATA girls. Its important to commemorate someone who lost her life in Herne Bay, preserve a piece of history and keep it in Kent. Matt Crowson, head of militaria at Hansons, said: Were delighted this amazing find will be preserved for posterity in Kent. There was huge interest in this item, and deservedly so. Ms Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia, lost her life in a plane crash on January 5, 1941. It happened as Ms Johnson, who was 37 at the time, was piloting an Airspeed Oxford for the ATA from Prestwick to RAF Kidlington, near Oxford. The aircraft reportedly ran out of fuel, forcing Ms Johnson to bail out before it crashed into the Thames Estuary near Herne Bay. Ms Johnsons body was never found. The incident was initially blamed on poor weather conditions but it was later claimed that the plane was downed by friendly fire. Mr Crowson said: I was amazed to receive an email asking, Would I be interested in a piece of Amy Johnsons aircraft wreckage. The item was inherited by our vendor from his uncle, Ronald Arthur Clark, both from Enfield, North London. Ronald said hed scooped it out of the water and put it in his pocket during efforts to rescue Amy. The Amy Johnson lot sold by Hansons in Derbyshire (Hansons/PA) Back in 1941 Ronald was an Able Seaman on HMS Berkeley, an escort vessel in the English Channel. It was among ships which attempted to rescue Amy after her parachute was spotted coming down. She was seen alive in the water, calling for help however, conditions were poor. There was a heavy sea and a strong tide, snow was falling and it was intensely cold. Ropes were thrown to Amy but she couldnt reach them. Her flying bag, log book and cheque book later washed up nearby. The discovery of the plane fragment is significant. No other pieces of the aircraft are thought to exist. Some sources say the plane may have been recovered and quickly burnt, perhaps suggesting a cover-up of a friendly-fire incident. The fragment is constructed from two layers of thin plywood, glued together and set at a 45 degree angle to provide maximum strength. The surface paint was compared to an existing Airspeed Oxford in Londons RAF Museum. Given the distinctive green shade and traces of yellow, its likely the piece was from the parachute exit door. This was the only part of the aircraft constructed from ply, the fuselage section being linen covered. The reverse of the fragment was inscribed by Ronald Clark at the time. It states, piece of fuselage from Amy Johnsons plane, crashed 1941. Ronalds Royal Navy service records confirm his service on HMS Berkeley at the crash site in 1941. The vendor remembers his uncle telling him the story in the 1950s and showing him the fragment. The technical aspects of the style of manufacture, paint colours, service records, anecdotal evidence, and the fact that this type of aircraft would not have routinely been in the area, all added up to it being correct. Amy broke the mould for women and raised expectations about what they could achieve in life. Ronald Clark aboard HMS Berkeley in 1941. Mr Clark said he scooped the fragment out of the water and put it in his pocket during efforts to rescue Amy Johnson (Hansons/PA) In the pre-war years, she worked as a commercial pilot, a journalist, and even a fashion model, creating her own travelling bag. Early in WW2 she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary, which transported RAF aircraft round the country. We can never be absolutely certain what happened to her that fateful day in 1941, other than it was a terrible accident. In 1999, it was reported her death may have been caused by friendly fire. Sussex man Tom Mitchell claimed to have shot her aircraft down when she twice failed to give the correct identification code during the flight. He said, Sixteen rounds of shells were fired and the plane dived into the Thames Estuary. We all thought it was an enemy plane until the next day when we read the papers and discovered it was Amy. The officers told us never to tell anyone what happened. Sadly, it was also later claimed Amy had been sucked into the blades of a ships propellers during the rescue bid. A tragic end for a life lived to the full. This discovery reminded us of Amys indomitable spirit of adventure. Rishi Sunak has been urged to use the UKs voice on the UN security council to help deliver a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict (Paul Ellis/PA) Rishi Sunak has been urged to use the UKs voice on the UN security council to help deliver a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn warned abstentionism is not leadership as he criticised the UK Government for its repeated abstentions on previous votes. He asked Mr Sunak if US President Joe Bidens belief that a ceasefire may be forthcoming would compel the Government to change its position. Prime Minister Mr Sunak said calling for an immediate ceasefire which risks a return to fighting within days or weeks is not in anyones interest, as he reiterated the need for an immediate humanitarian pause. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn warned abstentionism is not leadership as he criticised the UK Government for its repeated abstentions on previous votes (PA) The UK abstained on the widely-supported UN security council resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire for a third time on February 20, leaving the vote 13-1 with the United States vetoing. The on-going war in Gaza, that broke out after Hamas militants attacked Israel, has seen more than 29,000 Palestinians killed in Israels resulting military offensive. Gazas Hamas-run health ministry says the vast majority of fatalities have been women and children. Parliament last week descended into chaos when Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle decided to allow a Labour amendment to an SNP motion on a ceasefire in Gaza to go to a vote. Mr Flynn hit out at the Governments votes at the UN, telling Prime Ministers Questions: Were now approaching five months since this conflict first began and in that time this House has equivocated and this Government, on three occasions at the United Nations, has abstained when it could have voted for a ceasefire. Abstentionism is not leadership. So can I ask the Prime Minister should this matter now come before the United Nations, with a ceasefire potentially in sight, will he use his Governments vote in order to deliver that ceasefire? Mr Flynn also stated that the horrors in Gaza demand that the House of Commons calls for an immediate ceasefire in the region. He earlier said: Thirty thousand people dead, 70,000 injured, 1.5 million sheltering in Rafah, 300,000 living in what is considered to be feral conditions in northern Gaza and of course 100 hostages still tragically held by Hamas. It is the horror of those numbers that demands that this House have its say, just as it is the horror of those numbers that show that this House should demand an immediate ceasefire. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn (House of Commons/PA) Mr Sunak, in his replies, said: We support the United States draft resolution that was discussed with colleagues at the United Nations last week, but just calling for an immediate full ceasefire now which collapses back into fighting within days or weeks, and indeed does not release hostages including British hostages, is not in anyones interest. We must work towards a permanent ceasefire and that starts with an immediate humanitarian pause to get aid in and hostages out. I agree with (Mr Flynn) about the suffering of the people in Gaza, and in this country we should be proud of everything we are doing to help them and provide them the life-saving aid that they deserve. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during Prime Ministers Questions (House of Commons/PA) The Prime Minister also said: We welcome progress on a deal, as (Mr Flynn) said there has been progress, and urge everyone on all sides to seize the opportunity and I have been clear that we must seize the momentum from this terrible tragedy to find a lasting resolution to this conflict which delivers on the promise of a two-state solution and ensures that Israelis and Palestinians can live in dignity and security. Its the culmination of everything theyve been building since they cut away from the royal family in 2020. Yet the Sussexes newly launched website, sussex.com, suggests a couple who still havent fully worked out who they are. Its earnest and informal, with first names and laidback lifestyle images, whilst also being unashamedly regal, with a coat of arms and official titles, even though Prince Harry promised his grandmother hed never use his royal name for commercialisation. But it leaves the question hanging, if they are not royal, what are they? The late Queen declined Harrys request to be a part-time royal, and yet, reading his website youd think this is exactly what he is. Which leads to another question: in times of need, could a hybrid Harry ever work? Whatever you think of the rights and wrongs of it, jumping straight on a plane to London after learning that his father has cancer was an understandable thing for the Duke of Sussex to do. Harry stayed for just 25 hours and was given just 45 minutes with King Charles III, which seems a little tight given the distance hed travelled and the fact they hadnt seen each other for more than seven months, but Charles was reportedly tired after his treatment and Harry was just happy he got to see him at all. Afterwards, he said that he was grateful that he was able to get on a plane and spend time with his father. King Charles III reads cards and messages, sent by wellwishers following his cancer diagnosis, in the 18th Century Room of the Belgian Suite in Buckingham Palace, London Who knows whether its true that royal aides blocked the Duke of Sussex from joining the King at Sandringham for fear hed never leave; what is certain is that during this short, overdue father-son exchange something shifted. While commentators sniped from the sidelines, the mood had palpably lifted elsewhere. You could see it in Prince Harrys face last week when he was interviewed on Good Morning America even though he said very little about the meeting: Ive got other trips planned that would take me through the UK or back to the UK, so Ill stop in and see my family as much as I can, he gushed before adding, I love my family. For the Kings sake, one cant help but hope that a true reconciliation with his beloved youngest son is imminent. He has stateside grandchildren to get to know and the obvious thing would be for Harry to pick up some slack while the King is off duty. And increasingly he is needed. It was the disgraced Prince Andrew has been pictured leading the royal family to a memorial service at Windsor Palace when Prince Wiliam pulled out due to a personal matter and Queen Camilla who was there to represent her husband. But a slimmed down Royal family is looking increasingly starved and in need of serious man-power that is qualified and able to step in when unforseen circumstances like this hit. However, royal sources have been quick to quash rumours that he might support the working royals: there is still no place for a half-in, half-out working royal, they say, and no chance of the Duke of Sussex being drafted in to help as his brother, the Prince of Wales, worries that he still cannot be trusted. But if the door is closed now, that isnt to say that the opportunity wont stop knocking. Indeed, this support when needed was what was originally proposed during Megxit in 2020 and dismissed as out of the question back then by the late Queen during the infamous Sandringham Summit. However, as the family is buffeted by unforeseen headwinds, maybe the time has come to reassess. We are certainly living in different times to that of the late Queen Elizabeth. A look across to Denmark finds Queen Margrethe has recently stepped down to give her son Prince Frederik, who is known for speaking with an open mind and not caring much for formality, his moment on the throne. There does seem to be more modern, alternative models emerging that say you can serve, as well as have some kind of life. Elizabeth II waiting for an audience with Liz Truss, just two days before the monarch died (Jane Barlow/PA) With his recent comments in Canada, Harry seemed to signal a yearning to do something more than his Montecito life was currently affording him. I have always had a life of service, he said on Good Morning America. Of course, his recent work has been more to do with serving up gossipy details about his life behind Palace walls. This has led to a survey in which 85 per cent of respondents said they want Harry and Meghan to be stripped of their titles. But while the Harry haters are of the view that he should stay put in America and leave it to devoted senior royals to pick up, the truth is that Harry still has the crowd-pulling stardust that some of the other members struggle with. No one can slot into the shoes of a senior royal like him and he has form for making a positive difference to peoples lives. The best of Harry was on display last week as he launched the first-ever winter Invictus Games, to be held in 2025. The Duke, dressed for the weather, was photographed in Whistler Canada hurtling headfirst down the skeleton track at 99km/hr and trying his hand at wheelchair curling. There are wider questions around how the Prince could possibly return to any kind of royal service when he and Meghan are still trading on their royal name in America Of course, this is to gloss over the events of the past four years; as the esteemed royal commentator Hugo Vickers points out, theres too much ground to cover to welcome Harry straight back into the A-team. The last thing the King needs is Prince Harry coming stomping back and doing whatever he does, he says. It wouldnt be helpful at all; hed hog all the headlines. Another source close to the King agrees: Itd make a mockery of the monarchy. How can we forget what was said in the book and on Oprah? Its a fair point. Harry and Meghans definitive airing of their dirty laundry on multiple platforms has left the royal family understandably wary of getting stung. Four years of unbridled revelations from a couple who profess to loathe the media has been deeply hurtful to the family and friends of the two princes. But while it is true that they havent been in the same room since the coronation last May, when the boys were younger, they were thick as thieves. Their pally relationship continued once Prince William had got together with Kate and Harry came to see her as an older sister, liking nothing more than making her laugh. Of course, this has meant that revelations around his previously adored sister-in-law are more cutting, but a line could be drawn if there was evidence of the old Harry coming back in spirit. It would make a Harry return certainly more palatable in practice. And it does feel like something is shifting in the younger Prince. Lessons learnt maybe? Prince Harry isnt the same persecuted man who sat on Oprahs sofa. He will be 40 years old in September and its time to grow up. Shaken by the sign of his fathers mortality in his cancer diagnosis, his wrath has cooled. Royal expert Dr Tess Dunlop agrees that Harry is no longer angry; the Harry on television last week was loving and smiling and seemingly eager to make peace. He said last week that sickness brings families together and, for as many people at the palace who are determined to keep the gates closed, there are as many who may start to feel uncomfortable if there is a sniff he is being kept away from his sick father by any other forces at play. For the past few years, Harry has been feeling desperately protective of his own young family and while he has made some questionable decisions, he isnt heartless. However, hard it is for both sides, there is a need for some kind of resolution beyond estrangement, especially when a serious illness is in play. Rather than regarding him as a dangerous lone wolf, it might be more helpful for the family to start seeing him as a lost sheep, instead. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge It doesnt have to be Wills and Kate who reach out initially, it could be his cousin and confidante Princess Eugenie, who is in regular contact with him and knows what its like to cut a secondary figure within The Firm. While the Harry haters are of the view that he should stay put in America and leave it to devoted senior royals to pick up, the truth is that Harry still has the crowd-pulling stardust She also knows something of how Harry must be feeling right now as her mother, Sarah Ferguson, underwent treatment for breast cancer last summer only to be diagnosed with malignant melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer, in January. She has always been known for being wise beyond her years, and is great at giving advice, says a source. She and Harry are still very close, so theres no doubt shell be there for him over the coming months and if she can help at all with relations between him and the family, of course she will. Of course, Meghan might be a sticking point to any new arrangement. According to a royal source, Harry would consider helping out if he were ever asked, but as far as Meghan is concerned, that ship sailed long ago: Meghan doesnt want to come anywhere near here; she knows shes made herself unpopular, he says. Yet that might work for both parties. Conversely, a hybrid Harry doing his bit for the royal family alone could make it more palatable for those in the UK and might help their relationship too. Meghan has successfully forged her identity in California, recently signing a contract with female-founded media outlet, Lemonada, while the Prince appears to still be unsure about his identity away from everything he has ever known. When asked in the Good Morning America interview if he felt American he paused before replying, Do I feel American? No. I dont know how I feel. If he was given a role, however small, many believe hed feel like himself again the cheeky Prince that Meghan fell for that night in Soho House. But while there may be private hopes there will be a reconciliation between Harry and his UK family, there are wider questions around how the Prince could possibly return to any kind of royal service when he and Meghan are still trading on their royal name in America. The lack of clarity, financial and otherwise, that comes with being half in and half out was what stopped the Queen from agreeing to a hybrid role for the pair; she was very clear that in stepping away from the work of the royal family, the Sussexes would not be able to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service. But that isnt to say that things couldnt be clarified. Harry has been very vocal about his lack of police protection in the UK following Megxit; perhaps the Sussexes could continue to support themselves in the States yet Harry could be funded and protected by the royal family while hes in the UK? Some royal watchers still think no, appalled that their website bears their coat of arms, despite them being non-working royals. You cant have people exploiting their royal connections on the one hand and doing so-called service on the other, says Vickers. In Spare, Harry writes of a fraternal relationship that is so broken that he doesnt believe Prince William wants him to be happy. Perhaps giving Harry the chance to try royal service his way would prove that he does. The ultimate olive branch that could help heal such deep wounds could be the biggest service to us all. London Independent A baby monkey described as a ray of sunshine has been born at Whipsnade Zoo (Whipsnade Zoo/PA) A baby monkey sporting bright orange fur and described by keepers as a ray of sunshine has been born at a conservation zoo in Bedfordshire in a sign of hope for its endangered species. Whipsnade Zoo is now home to a one-week-old Francois langur, who was born to mother Lulu and father Wang in the early hours of February 17. In contrast to the adult Francois langurs monochromatic coats, infants are born with shocking orange hair, with pictures showing the flame-coloured newborn cuddling into its mothers dark black fur. The baby was born to mother Lulu and father Wang on February 17 (Whipsnade Zoo/PA) Whipsnade zookeeper Amanda Robinson said the team were ecstatic when they saw Lulu cradling her bright orange baby. Its believed the babies are born with bright orange locks so that parents can easily spot the youngster when theyre being cared for by the troop, she said. Over time this hair will fade to black. The bright orange hair certainly makes it easier for keepers and visitors to spot the new addition! Native to China and northern Vietnam, Francois langurs are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of threatened species and their numbers have continued to fall in the wild, making the recent birth internationally important. First pictures of the newborn show it cuddling into its mother (Whipsnade Zoo/PA) Sadly, in the wild the number of Francois langurs are plummeting, so this newborn really is a ray of sunshine and a sign of hope for the species, Ms Robinson said. At the Francois langurs habitat, big sister Nguyen has also been taking care of the newborn, keen to share parenting responsibilities with mother Lulu. Nguyen has been staying close to her mum Lulu and giving her a break when she needs to eat or drink, Ms Robinson said. Shes been treating the newborn like its her own baby, which is exactly what youd see in the wild it shows the eight-year-old has picked up great skills from the older members of the troop. The infant was born as part of a European Endangered Species Breeding Programme (EEP), an internationally coordinated conservation initiative which aims to boost the numbers of species that are threatened in the wild. In contrast to the adult Francois langurs monochromatic coats, infants are born with bright orange fur (Whipsnade Zoo/PA) Conservationists estimate there are only 2,000 of these primates left in the wild as the species faces threats from illegal hunting for their meat and for traditional medicinal purposes. The langur troop can be found at Whipsnade Zoos new Monkey Forest which opens to the public on March 29. New study hints at a reason some NI Christians are ready to do things very differently There are so many positives within our churches but also aspects some of us have found incredibly damaging Most evangelicals donate to humanitarian projects Gareth Hanna Wed 28 Feb 2024 at 08:30 For anybody who has experience of evangelical churches in Northern Ireland, the new study from the Evangelical Alliance will paint a very familiar picture. Chinese envoy urges nations to prevent further humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza Xinhua) 15:32, February 28, 2024 UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy urged the global community to take action to avert a more severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza. "The international community must take actions to protect civilians, save lives, and make every effort to prevent an even greater humanitarian disaster," Dai Bing, charge d'affaires of China's permanent mission to the United Nations, said Tuesday at the UN Security Council briefing on the food security risks in Gaza. Dai said Gaza has sunk into an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe since the conflict's outbreak over four months ago, with nearly 30,000 civilians having lost their lives. "Millions of people in Gaza are suffering the pain of losing their loved ones or still unable to find safe shelter after multiple times of forced displacement." "They lack the most basic safety guarantees and supplies for survival and are constantly faced with the threat of death, hunger, and disease. Even more so, women and children are living in fear and desperation every single day," he said. He said events in Gaza severely violate international law and international humanitarian law and go beyond the bottom line of human morality and conscience. "The international community must take actions to protect civilians, save lives, and make every effort to prevent an even greater humanitarian disaster," said Dai. The envoy stressed that humanitarian assistance is what the people in Gaza rely on for hope of survival. "With the focus on protecting civilians and expanding humanitarian access, the council has adopted Resolutions 2712 and 2720." "However, due to man-made obstacles, the entry of humanitarian supplies into Gaza has faced many difficulties. For nearly a month now, the humanitarian supplies received in Gaza have been far below the average of earlier periods, and Northern Gaza has not received any humanitarian supplies," the envoy added. "We call on Israel to earnestly fulfill its obligations as the occupying power under the Geneva Convention, fully cooperate in the implementation of Security Council resolutions, open up all land, sea, and air access routes, and ensure the safe, rapid, and unimpeded entry of humanitarian supplies," Dai said. Dai pointed out that Israel should strictly comply with the requirements of deconfliction, effectively guarantee the safety of humanitarian agencies and personnel and provide necessary facilitation for humanitarian agencies to carry out assistance in Gaza. He underscored that the International Court of Justice ordered provisional measures that require Israel to take all measures to prevent genocide and provide the population in Gaza with urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance. "The order of provisional measures must be effectively implemented." Noting that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is the lifeline for the people in Gaza, the envoy said that "its role is indispensable and irreplaceable. We support the UN in conducting an independent and impartial investigation into the allegations against UNRWA staff. Israel should support and cooperate with the UN in the investigation." Dai said that the international community should continue to support UNRWA and other humanitarian agencies in their work. "We call upon the international community, and in particular, the major donors, to promptly resume their funding for UNRWA." Dai quoted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as saying that with Gaza under gunfire, conditions are impossible for the delivery of humanitarian aid. The envoy stressed that an immediate ceasefire is necessary to protect civilians, deliver assistance and alleviate the humanitarian disaster. "This is currently the overwhelming call of the international community and the overwhelming consensus among Council members." "We hope that the relevant country will adopt a responsible and constructive attitude and support the Council in taking action to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza," he said. "China will continue to work with the international community to make tireless efforts to restore peace and save lives, to end the fighting in Gaza, to implement the two-state solution, and to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East," Dai said. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Adobe Stock Is baptism required for Christians? Do I have to be baptized to be saved? Will I go to hell if I never get baptized? Christians both new and old wonder these questions and are sometimes afraid to ask. There are different views on whether it is required for salvation in some Christian circles, but scripture is abundantly clear on the topic. In short, a baptism is not required for someone to enter into heaven. Here is what the Bible says we do need, and the history of how baptisms came to be. The history of baptism. The Christian baptism has its root in much older tradition. People that converted to Judaism were baptized in a ritual bath called mikvah. The ritual, where the person was immersed in water, was a public statement that they wanted to join a community of faith. They chose to believe in the religion and live it out in the daily life. When Jesus was baptized, He was starting His life of ministry. Those who did so after Him were making a public statement of their belief in Jesus as the Messiah and their decision to be in the Christian community. At the time of John the Baptists ministry, he called for the Jewish people to repent in preparation for the arrival of the Messiah. Jesus is our salvation. Baptism is a symbol of identification and not of salvation. A baptism is not a requirement to get into heaven, because its only a public profession of the faith. Multiple scriptures point out that it is not what truly saves a person. What does save a person is acceptance of Jesus into our lives, confession of our sins to Him, and believing that the Lord raised Him from the dead (Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 9:22; Revelation 1:5; Romans 10:9-10). It is Jesus that if a person believes in, can receive forgiveness for their sins and eternal life. Some people have believed that Acts 2:38 is stating that a water baptism is tied to salvation. It states You must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesu Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. At first glance, it does appear to be that way. However when we look at the context of the scripture we see there is more to the statement. The Apostle Peter was preaching a sermon on incredibly intense topics including death, salvation and the resurrection of Jesus. Acts 2:41 says that those Paul was preaching too that received His Word were baptized, and 3,000 souls were added to the Church that day. It was believing the Word of God which got the people born again, not water baptism. John distinguishes between his baptism, which was done with water, and the Baptism done by Jesus Christ which is done with the Holy Ghost, and with fire Baptism by water is an act a born again believer chooses to do as an outward sign of their salvation to the public. It symbolizes their death to self and rebirth in Jesus Christ. Baptism by the Holy Ghost is what takes place in the heart when one is saved and is a critical aspect of salvation. Baptisms can still play a very important role in the life of a believer. The baptismal waters represent a burial ground, where we are shedding off our old life because we are choosing to accept Jesus Christ into our hearts. When a person is immersed in water during baptism, he should see his old nature as being dead, buried and gone. When he is raised out of the water, he should see himself raised up as a new creation, with a brand new life. In other words, baptism is the outward sign that he is now dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11-13). While baptisms are great for many reasons, they are not a prerequisite to get into heaven. If we choose to accept Jesus as our true Savior then we can reach eternal life with the Lord. Baptisms are just a great option for those new to the faith to publicly announce that they are accepting the Lord and changing that identity. More on Baptism: 5 Ways to Prepare For Your Baptism 8 Ways Baptism is Important Can You Be Baptized Twice? 5 Awesome Facts About John the Baptist Megan Bailey is a former Social Media Specialist and Content Producer for Beliefnet. She attended James Madison University where she received a degree in psychology. Pexels.com Worldwide, Catholics, who already observe the first week of the Advent season, mark the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, a day that signifies the conception of the Virgin Mary in the womb of St. Anne, her mother. According to Friar Cassidy Stinson, a priest of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, the Catholic Churchs teaching on the Immaculate Conception is one of the most beautiful yet frequently misunderstood doctrines. He added that this feast day celebrates the thought that Mary, Jesuss mother, was prepared for her special and unique role as the Mother of God by the gift of being protected and redeemed at the time of her conception from the effects of original sin, which we typically inherit from our parents. Many people assume that the immaculate conception refers to Jesus conception, but Stinson said thats not the case. He said this doctrine is often confused with an event thats more familiar to us: the conception of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Annunciation. What is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception? The Annunciation is celebrated nine months before Christmas on Mar. 25. While the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception focuses on Mary, Stinson says that, like everything that the Catholic Church celebrates about Mary, at its core, it always leads us back to her son, Jesus. Francis Vu, the content lead at the Christian prayer app Hallow, told Fox News Digital that Christians believe that Jesus is fully human and God and that He received His bodily flesh from Mary. It follows that Jesus would take on humanity from someone who is sinless. In the United States and a handful of other countries, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is a holy day of obligation. Catholics are required to attend Mass on that date or a vigil Mass the evening before, according to the website for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In some parts of Europe and many countries in South and Central America, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is also a public holiday. The Marian title of Immaculate Conception is significant for American Catholics. The history of the Immaculate Conception in the United States. The bishops of the United States unanimously declared the Blessed Virgin Mary, under her designation of the Immaculate Conception, as the patroness of the United States in 1846, according to the website of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception is situated in Washington, D.C., near the campus of the Catholic University of America. Its the largest Catholic church in North America, and the shrine is known as Americas Catholic Church. The U.S. bishops declaration came eight years before the Vatican officially defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In 1854, Pope Pius IX issued an apolistic constitution called Ineffabilis Deus, which declared that Mary was immaculately conceived without sin. However, this wasnt the first time that Marys immaculate conception was taught. According to Vu, Christians have been honoring Mary under her designation of the Immaculate Conception for centuries. There are records as early as the 7th and 8th centuries showing this widely held belief in the Catholic Church. Why celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception? The timing of the solemnity, which is during the liturgical Advent season, is a reminder to Christians that God always wants a deep friendship with us. Like with Mary, God wants to make us holy and live intimately within us. He gives us the grace to say yes to Him, like Mary did, and receive Him in our hearts. The Immaculate Conception, as well as any other Marian celebration, doesnt overshadow God, but it points to the power of Gods salvation and its effect on humanity. Mary is for all Christians, not only Catholic Christians, and this relationship doesnt take away from our devotion to God. Mary is a revered woman in Christianity and Catholicism. As a young girl, she learned that she would give birth to baby Jesus, the One who would be sacrificed for our sins. She may have been scared, but she accepted this responsibility with dignity. Most people believe the Immaculate Conception refers to Jesus birth, but it actually refers to Marys birth, as she would carry the Savior in her womb. Mary should be celebrated as much as Jesus because if we didnt have her, then we wouldnt have Him. President Joko Widodo awards Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto the honorary rank of four-star general at a meeting of military and police leaders at army headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. President Joko Jokowi Widodo bestowed his presumed successor Prabowo Subianto with Indonesias second-highest military rank on Wednesday, despite the defense ministers links to historic human rights abuses including the alleged torture and abduction of pro-democracy activists. Prabowo, who is poised to become Indonesias next leader after the countrys Feb. 14 election, was awarded the title of honorary four-star general at a ceremony in Jakarta. This award is a form of appreciation as well as confirmation of ones complete devotion to the people, nation and state, Jokowi said on Wednesday. Prabowo ran alongside Jokowis son Gibran Rakabuming Raka in the election, in which the pair won more than 57% of the vote, according to unofficial counts by credible pollsters. His victory in the polls followed a massive rebranding effort that softened his image from that of a fiery ex-general to a cuddly or cute grandfather figure. Prabowo, who lost to Jokowi in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections, has been dogged by his links to alleged human rights abuses throughout his political career. After graduating from the Indonesia Military Academy in 1974, he rose through the ranks to command the armys elite special forces, known as Kopassus. In 1983, he married Siti Hediati Hariyadi, the daughter of longtime dictator Suharto, and in 1998 became head of the Army Strategic Reserve Command. That same year, he was discharged from the military after a council of honor officers found him guilty of several violations, including involvement in the abduction and disappearance of pro-democracy activists during the 1998 student protests that led to Suhartos downfall. Prabowo, 72, has denied any wrongdoing and said he was only following orders from his superiors. He has never been tried in a civilian court for the alleged crimes. Last year, Jokowi acknowledged 12 severe human rights violations committed by the Indonesian state dating back to the 1960s, including the 1998 abduction of pro-democracy activists. Prabowo Subianto (center), alongside Indonesias Armed Forces Chief Gen. Agus Subiyanto (left) and National Police Chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo inspects soldiers after receiving an honorary four-star general rank in Jakarta, Feb. 28, 2024. [Achmad Ibrahim/AP] Usman Hamid, Amnesty International Indonesias executive director, denounced the award given to Prabowo. How can they reward those who were ousted by the 1998 reform movement? he said. Prabowo has never faced trial for the crimes he is accused of. KontraS, another human rights group, also objected to Prabowos honorary rank, saying it would strengthen the culture of impunity. The award will make the crimes committed or involving military personnel seem normal, Andi Rezaldy, KontraS deputy coordinator, said in a statement. We urge the president to revoke the plan to award an honorary rank to Prabowo. Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Nugraha Gumelar defended Prabowo being given an honorary rank. The decision stated that he was honorably discharged from the military so that he could still receive his rights, including pension, he told BenarNews. Jokowi dismissed any political motive behind the new title, saying it was based on a proposal from Indonesias top military commander. If it was a political transaction, we would have given it before the election. This is after the election, so there are no such assumptions, Jokowi said. Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto during the meeting of military and police leaders in Jakarta, Feb. 28 2024. [AFP] Still, the award could add to concern in some corners of the public about nepotism and democratic backsliding over Jokowis second term. His eldest son, Gibran, benefited from a questionable ruling by the Constitutional Court in October that paved the way for him to run as vice-president with Prabowo. The courts chief justice, Anwar Usman, who is married to Jokowis sister, was dismissed from his post in November for ethical violations linked to the ruling. Jokowi was accused of using populist measures, such as handing out social aid early and raising salaries for civil servants, police and the military during the election campaign, which critics said were aimed at boosting Prabowos chances. The president refuted any manipulation of the judiciary or favoring a particular set of candidates. Jokowi did not publicly endorse any candidate for president, but critics alleged that his administration had tampered with government materials and influenced the judiciary to ensure a victory for Prabowo and 36-year-old Gibran. Khairul Fahmi, a military analyst at the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies, or ISESS, said Prabowo did not lose his rights as a military officer because he was honorably discharged. He was still eligible to receive military honors and special ranks, Khairul told BenarNews. There is no legal fact and court verdict that has legal force that declares and sentences Prabowo as a perpetrator of gross human rights violations, Khairul said. Until that happens, Prabowo is also entitled to the presumption of innocence. Former Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo (center) delivers a statement to journalists after the Corruption Eradication Commission inspected his residence, Jakarta, Oct. 5, 2023. Indonesian prosecutors on Wednesday described in court how a former agriculture minister allegedly forced his staff to steal 20% of the ministrys budgeted funds for his personal use, and threatened to fire them if they didnt obey him. As his trial opened at an anti-corruption court in Jakarta, they also charged the ex-minister, Syahrul Yasin Limpo, with extortion and receiving bribes through such coercion totalling 44.5 billion rupiah ($2.8 million). Syahrul is the sixth cabinet member in President Joko Jokowi Widodos two terms spanning nearly a decade to be embroiled in a graft case, lending credence to criticism that the longstanding blight of corruption had worsened under him. Syahrul came under the scanner last October after multiple raids on his residences and ministry offices, following which he resigned as minister. The defendant, as the minister of agriculture from 2019 to 2023, asked, received, or cut payments from other civil servants or state officials or from the public treasury, prosecutor Taufiq Ibnugroho said, reading from the charges. The prosecution alleged that Syahrul had asked his staff to garnish 20% of the budget from every secretariat, directorate and agency at the Agriculture Ministry. The officials who opposed him were asked to resign from their jobs, Taufig told the court. The defendant threatened to reassign or dismiss the officials at the first echelon level if they did not meet his demands. Taufiq was referring to high-level officials at the ministry, such as the chairperson, secretary general and director general. Politicization of law alleged Having coerced them to steal and pass the money on to him, Syahrul is alleged to have used the funds for his personal and family expenses. They included renting planes and taking foreign trips, including a pilgrimage to Mecca. Prosecutors also charged two of Syahruls subordinates and alleged accomplices Kasdi Subagyono, a ministry secretary-general, and Muhammad Hatta, agricultural equipment and machinery director. The ex-minister is scheduled to respond to the indictment on March 6. He has said he would cooperate with the authorities. He faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. The prosecution also accused Syahrul of giving 40 million rupiah ($2,244) of the total money he had others pilfer for him to his National Democratic Party (NasDem), according to the indictment. NasDem treasurer Ahmad Sahroni told the Kumparan news website that the ex-minister gave money to the party for relief work after the 2022 earthquake in Cianjur, a regency in West Java. In the wake of corruption allegations last May against another member, Johnny Gerard Plate, the former communication and information minister, the party had alleged that the law was being used against it for political purposes. NasDem had decided to support an opposition candidate in this years presidential election, which took place Feb. 14, despite being part of the ruling coalition, and this had displeased them, the party had alleged. Johnny was sentenced to 15 months in prison in November. Firli Bahuri (center), then chief of the Indonesian Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), speaks to the media as he leaves the police headquarters after being questioned as a suspect in extorting Syahrul Yasin Limpo, who had resigned as agriculture minister two months previously, in Jakarta, Dec. 1, 2023. [Badrun/AFP] Corruption at ministries is common and hard to detect, according to Wana Alamsyah, a researcher at Indonesia Corruption Watch. Whistle blowers at ministries must be protected so that they do not become victims of intimidation such as being transferred or have their careers ended, he told BenarNews. He said he hoped Syahrul would be adequately punished if found guilty. Law enforcement also needs to seize assets that are suspected to come from corruption crimes. Wana said. Corruption is so pervasive in Indonesia because it persists at the highest levels, critics say. For instance, no less a personage than the former chief of the national Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has also been accused of demanding bribes from none other than former agriculture minister Syahrul. The KPK chief Firli Bahuri is accused of extorting Syahrul while investigating the corruption case. Firli was charged with extortion, and dismissed from his job in December, though he remains free while awaiting trial and has failed to show up for police questioning several times. A university student holds up a mock tombstone that mourns the death of Indonesias anti-graft agency as he participates in a protest against measures that critics alleged had weakened the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), in Jakarta, Sept. 27, 2021. [Willy Kurniawan/Reuters] The KPK once stood as a beacon of hope in Indonesias struggle against entrenched corruption. But its reputation has been marred in recent years by what activists believe to be political interference. In particular, KPKs independent reputation was tarnished after the passage of a 2019 law to reform the agency. Passed under President Jokowis watch, the law curbed the KPKs investigative powers. It also mandated that employees take a civics test, which critics alleged was designed to get rid of the agencys veteran investigators. In 2021, dozens of employees and senior investigators were sacked after failing this test. Indonesia ranks an abysmal 115th out of 180 nations in the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International. The index measures how corrupt each countrys public sector is perceived to be, according to experts and businesspeople. A worker prepares rattan to dry for export at a workshop in Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia, Jan. 7, 2020. Indonesias aspirations to join a club of mostly rich democracies will be an uphill task because it has a long way to go to align its governance, anti-corruption, environmental, and other policies with the groups stringent norms, analysts said. The 38-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said last week it had decided to begin discussions with Indonesia to grant it membership. Jakarta, for its part, wants to join the elite club as a means to make Indonesia a developed country by 2045. Indonesia may be Southeast Asias largest economy, but it is still a developing country, according to statistics from the United Nations and global economic bodies. If allowed into the OECD, Indonesia would become the first Southeast Asian member of the Paris-based group, but it very likely will be years before the outcome of its membership bid is known. Japan and South Korea are the only Asian members of the group. Becoming a part of the OECD wont be without challenges, said Bhima Yudistira, an economist at the Center for Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS). Joining the OECD will require many rules to be harmonized with the OECD standards, especially regarding licensing, business competition and trade, Bhima told BenarNews. Essentially, the exclusive body sets standards and best practices in these areas as well as investment, taxation, environment, governance, anti-corruption and human rights, Bhima said. The OECD also works with its members and other partners to share data, analysis and policy advice on various economic, social and environmental issues. Although Indonesia may aspire to become an OECD member by working to boost its economic competitiveness and accelerate its structural transformation, there is a yawning chasm between aspirations and reality. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Secretary-General Mathias Cormann (left) shakes hands with Indonesia's President Joko Widodo as he arrives for the G20 leaders' summit in Nusa Dua, on the Indonesian island of Bali, Nov. 15, 2022. [Mast Irham/Pool/AFP] Indonesias bid to join the OECD is part of its long-term vision to become a high-income country by 2045, when it will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the fight for independence from Dutch colonial rule, the government said. To achieve this goal, Indonesia will need to sustain a high economic growth rate, diversify its economy, improve its human capital and address its social and environmental challenges, the economic affairs ministry said in a statement. Indonesias accession to the OECD is one of the governments strategies to achieve the Golden Indonesia Vision 2045, which needs the role and support of all stakeholders, Ferry Ardiyanto, an assistant deputy at the economic affairs ministry, said in a statement. OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann hailed as historic the groups decision to start accession talks with Indonesia. As the largest economy in Southeast Asia and the worlds third largest democracy, Indonesia is a significant global player, providing important leadership across its region and beyond, he said in a statement. Nothing historic has quite happened yet, though. Indonesia would have to undergo a comprehensive review by 23 OECD committees and would need the unanimous consent of all 38 member-states before it is allowed into the hallowed club. And that could take years and years. People wearing masks depicting Syahrul Yasin Limpo, ex-agriculture minister, and Firli Bahuri, then-chair of the anti-graft agency, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), both accused of extortion, protest outside the agencys building in Jakarta, Nov. 23, 2023. [Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters] Much before all that, though, Indonesia may face difficulties in meeting some of the OECD criteria, analysts said. Take, for instance, the countrys persistent problem with corruption at the highest levels. Graft has purportedly been a focus of several governments since the democratic era began in 1998, but hardly any progress has been made. In fact, critics say the situation has worsened in the last few years under current, two-term President Joko Jokowi Widodo. Just last November, a high-profile case revealed that a fox may have been guarding the henhouse, or as it were, several foxes may have been involved. The chain of corruption in this case was extraordinary, reflecting how the scourge works downward from the upper echelons. The chief of the countrys main anti-corruption agency (KPK) was suspended and then fired in December after being suspected of demanding bribes from a former minister in exchange for leniency in a graft case against him. As for the minister, he had resigned in October after being questioned for allegedly soliciting bribes from his subordinates. It is no wonder then that Indonesia ranked 115th out of 180 countries in Transparency Internationals 2023 Corruption Perception Index. The index measures how corrupt each countrys public sector is perceived to be, according to experts and businesspeople. The OECD has a strong anti-corruption agenda, which includes instruments to prevent, detect and sanction corruption in the public and private sectors. Another problem that Indonesia faces is respecting and protecting human rights. Jakarta has ratified most of the core international human rights treaties, but it still is accused of serious breaches such as unlawful or arbitrary killings, torture, arbitrary arrest and restrictions on free speech and assembly. Among other human rights problems in the country are alleged abuses by security forces in the rebellious Papua region, discrimination against LGBTQ people, and laws that criminalize blasphemy. Hot slag flows from trucks to the dumping site at the nickel processing plant operated by PT Vale Indonesia in Sorowako, South Sulawesi province, Indonesia, July 28, 2023. [Jojon/Antara Foto/via Reuters] Human rights and environmental abuses are also allegedly rife in Indonesias nickel processing sector the country holds the largest reserves of nickel. In its race to become a developed country, Indonesia is rapidly expanding the industry, driven by the global demand for nickel in electric vehicle batteries, smartphones and other devices. Coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, powers 65% of Indonesias energy needs and the energy sector accounts for nearly half of the countrys emissions. And yet, Indonesia left out captive coal-fired electricity plants from its plan to wean off coal, for which rich nations had promised it U.S. $20 billion in financing. Among other challenges to OECD membership critics cite is Indonesias complex legal system, which they say leads to inconsistency and inefficiency. Additionally, frequent changes in laws and regulations, overlapping jurisdictions, and widespread corruption only to weak enforcement, they add. Staff of a small shoe manufacturer mark new products as they make an introductory video of their company to be posted on social media in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia, Sept. 27, 2023. [Aditya Aji/AFP] However, if Indonesia does manage the comprehensive reforms that OECD membership requires, and is admitted into the group, it could see many potential benefits, said Bhima from CELIOS. For instance, he said, an improvement in Indonesias law enforcement could, among other things, help combat corruption and tax evasion, and enhance environmental protection and energy transition. The Southeast Asian nation could also learn to develop its industrial and technological capacity from the best practices of OECD members, he added. Some of the standards adopted from the OECD can strengthen Indonesias position at the global level and make it more open to quality investment opportunities from developed countries, he said. [I]ndonesia can learn a lot from the OECD on how to prepare a better economic structure, such as strengthening its manufacturing and technology sectors. Indonesias business sector would also gain from OECD membership, said Drajad Wibowo, a senior economist at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance. [I] it will create a fair and confident environment for companies from OECD countries to work with, invest in and trade with Indonesia, he told BenarNews. The challenge is for the technical team to get ready for the accession process, according to what the OECD wants. MBABANE The two South African nationals who have been arrested in connection with the murder of rapper Kiernan Forbes, popularly known as AKA, are reportedly a flight risk as they used illegal crossings. This was disclosed by Elaine Harrison, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) based in the Kwazulu-Natal Division of the High Court, when motivating the application for their provisional arrest. The accused persons from Durban, Siyabonga Gezani Ndimande (Nxele) and Malusi Dave Ndimande (Mjay) were arrested by members of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS), while hiding in a flat they rented at Zone 4 in Mbabane. The accused have been charged together with Lindokuhle Mhlaliseni Ndimande (Lindo), who still at large. Lindo, who is also a brother to the two accused persons had reportedly left the flat they were renting when members of the REPS pounced on them last Friday. The application for provisional arrest pending extradition of the duo was filed before Manzini Principal Magistrate David Khumalo on Monday. In the application, Harrison told the court that as the DPP, it was her duty to satisfy herself that a prima facie case had been made against the two accused persons. She averred that she was of the view that the evidence that was contained in the summary of facts she presented to the court, indicated that Siyabonga and Malusi, in the furtherance of a common purpose, unlawfully murdered the deceased. Harrison went on to state that the evidence further indicated that there was prima facie case on the charges of conspiracy to commit murder, contravention of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 21 of 1998, unlawful possession of firearm and ammunition and money laundering. The DPP stated that any other additional charges that would be identified after the request for provisional arrest had been executed would be included in the formal request for extradition of the duo. Firearm The accused will be prosecuted for the crime of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, contravention of Section 9 of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 121 of 1988, unlawful possession of firearm and ammunition and money laundering in the High Court of KwaZulu-Natal in the Republic of South Africa, submitted Harrison. She brought it to the courts attention that after the commission of the offence, the accused persons left the district of eThekwini, without any forwarding addresses. The DPP submitted that the duo had subsequently been traced to the Kingdom of Eswatini. It is my respectful submission that the accused persons are a flight risk, as they may have left the Republic of South Africa through illegal crossing points and entered the area known as Mbabane, Hhohho, within the Kingdom of Eswatini. It is, therefore, submitted that their immediate arrest in terms of this provisional warrant is essential, submitted the DPP. It was further her averment that Siyabonga and Lindokuhle were a flight risk as they were linked to several matters under investigation. Harrison further pointed out that Siyabonga and Lindokuhle were the subject of a request for a provisional arrest on Berea 85/02/2023. She averred that the investigating officers, in respect of the various cases, were prepared to avail themselves to assist in the opposition of bail application in the Kingdom of Eswatini, should they be required. Harrison mentioned that the investigation of the various matters had also revealed that the two accused persons might upon their arrest be in possession of cellphones, laptops and other electronic devices that might have been used in the commission of the offences. It is requested that if the abovementioned items or any devices are found in their possession upon their arrest, the exhibits must be seized and secured pending a Mutual Legal Assistance application by the Republic of South Africa for the transmission of the exhibits and relevant chain statements to the Republic of South Africa, submitted the DPP. Protocol She pointed out that upon execution of the warrant for the provisional arrest, an extradition request would be made for the Ndimande brothers on the charges of murder, conspiracy to murder, money laundering and possession of firearms and ammunition and would be transmitted through diplomatic channels within the prescribed time periods contained in terms of SADC Protocol on Extradition Agreement between the Republic of South Africa and the Kingdom of Eswatini. Pending the processing of their extradition, the duo is expected to make their second court appearance at the Manzini Magistrates Court. The Crown is represented by Principal Crown Counsel Macebo Nxumalo, while for the accused is Sivesenkhosi Ngwenya. BENNINGTON A Bennington man is scheduled to plead guilty to a single count of supplying a fatal dose of illegal drugs to a 28-year-old woman who was found dead after an accidental overdose at the Weathervane Motel in Manchester in April 2021. Christopher Dessert, 30, is scheduled for a change of plea hearing in Bennington later this week, during which he is expected to plead guilty to the single felony count. In exchange for his guilty plea, Dessert is expected to receive a 3- to 5-year suspended sentence with two years to serve and a 4-year probation. Dessert has already served much of that two years since his arrest. According to an affidavit in the case, Aubriana Castor, 27, of Manchester, was found on April 29, 2021, by emergency responders. She was deceased on the floor of room #4 at the Weathervane Motel on Route 7A in Manchester. A police investigation later revealed that two individuals Cory Racicot and Lenon Lester had driven down to Bennington to allegedly buy a mixture of heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine from Dessert. Those individuals then passed those drugs onto Castor, who fatally overdosed hours later. Racicots case is still pending. He is charged in Castor's death, as well as the deaths of two other individuals who died from overdoses in 2020. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts. Lester has not been charged in Castors death. Dessert is still scheduled to go on trial on the charge in June. He initially faced a possible 20 years behind bars if he is found guilty. Dessert has a lengthy criminal history in Vermont, including several drug convictions, providing false information to law enforcement, and violations of an abuse prevention order. It is unclear if the victims family agrees with the plea deal that carries no jail time for Dessert. The Banner was unable to reach Castor's family for reaction to the possible plea deal. 'I LOST MY DAUGHTER' I lost my daughter nine years ago, Christiana Ezzo said in a 2022 interview with the Banner, after Racicot was arraigned in the case. I just didnt realize it at the time. This has forever changed our family. I never saw this coming, she said at that time, now raising her grandchild Castor's child. It entered our world hard and fast. I lost my girl, the girl who thought she was tough and could handle all of it, even though we knew she couldnt. In reality, one minute she was doing ok, and just as quickly, she wasnt. The road she was going down was so quick this last time. I told her I didnt want her to die two weeks before she died. She told me she didnt want to die. Im never going to get my daughter back. I know in my heart that she cannot hear me now. Shes in the safest place shes been for a long time. I hope to see her again someday, and when I do see her, none of this will matter. Well both be in a better place than she was on this earth when drugs took her life. I lost my daughter twice. Theres no one person to blame. Theres just imperfection. Bennington, VT (05201) Today Cloudy with snow showers mainly during the morning. High near 40F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 40%.. Tonight Snow showers. Low 28F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 50%. Snow accumulations less than one inch. Bennington, VT (05201) Today More clouds than sun. A few flurries or snow showers possible. High around 40F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Occasional snow showers. Low 28F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 50%. Snow accumulations less than one inch. Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The owner of Rouge restaurant in West Stockbridge is selling both the eatery that she has run for over 20 years and its recently constructed wine shop, according to a post on the eatery's Facebook page. MBABANE The real issue in the yet-to-be wound up estate of the late initial licence holder of eBet, Mduduzi Maziya, is who pockets the dividends. This is according to Manzini Assistant Master Makhosazane Mdluli, who was responding to concerns raised by Mduduzis relatives, Nelisiwe and Nkululeko Maziya yesterday, when they appeared before the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Masters Office affairs. Nelisiwe and Nkululeko alleged that Nonjabuliso Maziyas marriage certificate was forged and that she was not lawfully married to Mduduzi. They accused Mdluli of appointing Nonjabuliso, who is now a Director of 8Bet, as the executor of Mduduzis estate. They alleged that the assistant master appointed the executrix in their absence. Nelisiwe and Nkululeko appeared before the commission, together with their legal representative, Kwendzakufani Ginindza of Sibusiso B. Shongwe and Associates. Application Ginindza told the commission that there was a court application for the removal of the executrix, Nonjabuliso, challenging the validity of the latters marriage certificate and declaring her marriage to Mduduzi bigamous. However, Nonjabulisos attorney, Mlungisi Khumalo, of Khumalo Attorneys, denied that there was a court application to that effect. The veracity of these allegations is still to be tested by the commission. Some of the individuals and/or representatives of the entities might be summoned to appear before the commission. According to Assistant Master Mdluli, it would seem that her appointment of Nonjabuliso as the executrix was the cause of the problems in the estate, however, the real issue is the dividends of eBet; who benefits from them? Mdluli told the commission that Nonjabuliso reported Mduduzis estate on September 3, 2020. She said the deceased owned a house at Fairview in Manzini and another in Maputo, Mozambique. He was said to have also owned four motor vehicles, including a tractor and he had no money in the bank. The death notice, according to Mdluli, reflected that Mduduzi and Nonjabuliso were married and had two children. Mduduzi had 10 children in total. Mdluli said the first next of kin meeting was scheduled for October 6, 2020, and it did not proceed. The Maziya family is said to have alleged that Mduduzi had a wife, Lindiwe Mbhele, who was residing in the Republic of South Africa. Mdluli informed the commission that the family failed to produce proof of the purported marriage. appear We gave them a chance to come with the wife or she must write a letter stating what should happen. The Maziya family didnt come back and in 2021 they didnt appear at the masters office. Nonjabuliso always came to our offices when we called them. She came with her two children. She further informed the commission that they called another meeting on June 6, 2022 and further advertised it in the newspapers. She said each time a meeting was called, Nonjabuliso would attend, but the others would not. Mdluli said in a certain instance, she gave the family 30 days to come to a meeting after one Lindokuhle Shongwe had reported that the family was bereaved, resulting in meeting that had been called at the time to be postponed. appointed After the 30 days, said Mdluli, they failed to meet, but only Nonjabuliso and her children arrived. She said in a meeting of July 14, 2022, she appointed Nonjabuliso as the executrix of the estate. Shortly afterwards, Mdluli stated that members of the Maziya family arrived but the purported wife, Mbhele, was not present. I told them that I had appointed Nonjabuliso. Make Mbhele was not present. They did not bring Make Mbheles marriage certificate. They raised the issue of Nonjabulisos marriage certificate, which they said was forged. I suspended her appointment pending verification of the allegations. They agreed to bring Make Mbhele, because they were complaining that make Nonjabuliso was not the rightful wife. Make Nonjabuliso complained that a lot was happening in the file. It transpired that Mduduzi was the Director of Swazi Bet and dividends were being paid but not remitted to the Masters Office, such that school fees were not paid, said Mdluli. The assistant master said she wrote to the Births Marriages and Deaths (BMD) Department in the Ministry of Home Affairs, to verify the authenticity of the marriage certificate and the result was that it was authentic. The marriage of Nonjabuliso and Mduduzi, according to Mdluli was registered as the first wife for both of them. She said when she arrived in the marriage, Gladys and Mduduzi were divorced and he moved on to remarry and have children in the new marriage. Marriage Judge Mzwandile Fakudze told Mdluli that Nelisiwe and Nkululeko were complaining that Nonjabuliso was the first wife, yet there had been others before her. Mdluli said marriage certificates were registered at the BMDs Department, not the Masters Office. Mdluli said none of the Maziyas was interested in attending meetings at the Masters Office, except Nonjabuliso. She also said Nonjabuliso did not stay where Mduduzis cars were kept and that it was not possible for the master to hold a meeting and leave others outside. Nelisiwe informed the commission that they brought Masekos certificate on the first day and the assistant master said they should approach the umphakatsi, because the matter was above her. She wondered how the assistant master could accept a death certificate in the absence of a marriage certificate. PITTSFIELD Where some might have seen the empty Polish Community Club as merely a vacant building on a rather large lot a short walk from North Street, Jodi Tartell saw potential. The idea of having almost 2 acres downtown ... theres nothing like that, Tartell, a real estate developer, said of why the brick Victorian at 55 Linden St. caught her eye. It had to be used for something that would be helpful. ... I knew it could be something workable. That something, if Tartell and fellow developer Robert Shans vision comes to pass, is turning the 152-year-old building and its nearly 2-acre site into 40 units of affordable, attainable housing for first-time buyers. The project would carry an estimated cost of $18 million to $20 million. Tartell and Shan presented their plans for the development, which they're calling Westside Village, to the city's Affordable Housing Trust last week. Justine Dodds, the citys community development director, said she expects they will return for the panel's next meeting, at 5 p.m. March 20, with updated financial plans. I think we as a board recognize the need for housing opportunity for Pittsfield residents across the board, from lower income brackets to market-rate sales, Dodds said. We know there is a market for that project . We know groups like West Side Legends have lists of buyers who would qualify. The parcel is within Pittsfield's Downtown Creative District, which is intended to increase housing opportunities and foster arts-related development and activities. Reducing urban sprawl and promoting efficient use of city infrastructure by concentrating a compatible mix of uses is among the district's goals, Dodds said. The developers hope to use grant funding, including the MassHousing CommonWealth Builder Program, to build units affordable to first-time buyers earning up to 100 percent of the citys average median income. According to a rendering provided by Shan and Tartell, four new buildings would wrap around the north and west sides of the Polish Community Center building, each featuring units of one to three bedrooms for first-time homebuyers meeting income criteria as set by grant funding. The old clubhouse would be renovated for eight one-bedroom, loft-style apartments. The CommonWealth Builder Program could provide up to $10 million in grant funding for the project, and developers, collectively known as Compass Equity II LLC, are pursuing other local and federal funding sources as well, Shan said. The partnership has already spent six figures on pre-construction design work, and in the next six weeks the financial picture will become more clear. Were very optimistic that if we can pool everything together we can bring this much-needed attainable and affordable housing to market, Shan said Tuesday. The CommonWealth Builder Program is intended to promote construction of single-family homes and condominiums that are affordable to moderate income households, particularly in communities of color. City government has already opened the door to the project. In January, the City Council approved an expansion of a state-backed housing development zone to 100 Wendell Ave. and 55 Linden St. At 100 Wendell St., 13 offices will be converted into 28 apartment units Tartell and Shan are based in Hallandale Beach, Fla., near Miami. Tartell, who has divided her time between Florida and here for 16 years, has been active in local affairs and purchased other real estate, including the Cooper Center the former City Savings Bank at the corner of North and Fenn streets. She serves on the Barrington Stage Company board of trustees. Tartell says the Polish Community Club's architecture and the size of the lot caught her eye. I was intrigued by it, she said Tuesday. Here you have an almost two-acre property in downtown Pittsfield with this magnificent historical house. That saga began in 2018 when Compass Equity II LLC, a Florida limited liability company with Shan as registered agent and Tartell as manager, purchased a tax title on the property for $63,000. The company foreclosed on the property in 2020. While the COVID pandemic delayed redevelopment plans, Tartell offered the property it as a way for Barrington Stage to continue theater programming under a tent. It has also been the site of Barrington Stages Celebration of Black Voices the past four years. While zoning would have allowed Shan and Tartell to build as many as 70 apartment units in four-story buildings, that didnt fit their vision. We have a lot of experience in single-family and multi-family development, Shan said. We found a form of a hybrid townhouse style unit that allowed us to get density to work, but still floor plans with private, fenced backyards to really create a feel of living in a home as opposed to apartments. We felt for home ownership we didn't want common corridors and elevators, Shan added. We wanted units and homes had doors directly off grade, where residents can pull up and walk right in. Leveraging expertise in AI to innovate the delivery of healthcare and transform the landscape for the people of Uttar Pradesh The Gangwal School of Medical Sciences and Technology at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and the Department of Medical Health and Family Welfare, Government of Uttar Pradesh (UP) have announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to revolutionise healthcare delivery and advance tele-medicine facilities in the state through the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The MoU was signed by Ranjan Kumar IAS, Secretary, Health & Family Welfare, Government of Uttar Pradesh, and Professor Sandeep Verma, Professor-In-Charge, Gangwal School of Medical Sciences and Technology, IIT Kanpur, in the presence of other dignitaries. The MoU outlines several key areas of collaboration, including anchoring tele-medicine hubs and enhancing the quality of tele-medicine services, implementing AI-based solutions to address population health impact, developing point-of-care diagnostics to drive program improvements, conducting competency-based capacity building for health cadres, and utilizing database predictions and analysis for informed decision-making. This will help the Department to make optimal use of the UP Digital Health Stack (UP-DHS) and ensure that every citizen of the state, wherever they are, will be able to access healthcare when needed. In Uttar Pradesh, UP-DHS is making significant strides in implementation, with foundational NHS elements deployed across all health administrative units and the rollout of essential healthcare applications well underway. MBABANE Around E350 million has been set aside for civil servants cost-of-living adjustment (CoLA) for the 2024/2025 financial year. Unlike in previous budget speeches, the Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg, did not include this bit in his speech, but simply made a provision for it. Highly-placed sources within the Public Budget Committee (PBC) disclosed that E350 million had been set aside for CoLA, that would benefit the over 42 686 civil servants. Minister Rijkenberg and his counterpart from Public Service, Mabulala Maseko, also confirmed that there was a provision for CoLA. Maseko said they were yet to engage in negotiations with their industrial relations partners on the matter. In fact, the minister said it was not a mistake that the allocation was not announced in public. He said a resolution was taken by the public sector unions (PSUs) not to disclose how much government had budgeted. PSUs are made of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU), National Public Service and Allied Workers Union (NAPSAWU), and Swaziland National Association of Government Accounting Personnel (SNAGAP). Announcement He said the announcement created a picture that the outcomes of the Joint Negotiation Forum (JNF) were pre-planned by government, which is presented by the Government Negotiating Team (GNT). There is a provision but we cannot say how much it is, Maseko said. Meanwhile, SNAT, Secretary General (SG) Lot Vilakati also echoed the ministers sentiments. Vilakati said from the budget speech, they drew that the inflation rate was between 4.7 to five per cent. When he was asked what they were looking at tabling during negotiations, he said they would not want to rush into speaking about the matter of the GNF in public, because that would be going against what they urged government not to do. We urged government not to announce JNT agenda in public. Parties are yet to sit and develop the agenda, but we have noted the inflation rate, he said. Last year, government awarded three per cent CoLA, while PSUs had initially tabled 8.7 per cent. In 2022, government awarded the same percentage, while PSUs had requested for over seven per cent. On Monday, the minister announced domestic prices remained elevated in 2023 as the overall Eswatini inflation averaged 5.02 per cent in the 11 months of the year, from the 4.7 per cent recorded in the same period in 2022. The uptick in inflationary pressure was underpinned by food and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as prices for housing and utilities. The minister said food and non-alcoholic beverages averaged an increase of 13.3 per cent in the 11 months compared to the 7.9 per cent recorded in the same period in 2022. MBABANE As exclusively revealed by the Times of Eswatini, the two South African nationals who were arrested in the country last Friday, are linked to the murder of South Africa Hip Hop artist Kiernan Jarryd Forbes. In a press conference held last night, KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, gave the affirmation, putting to bed the speculation on social media around the matter. Forbes, popularly known by his stage name AKA, was gunned down in February last year on Florida Road in Durban, together with his friend Tebello Tibz Motsoane. This publication broke the story of the arrest of the accused persons from Durban, Siyabonga Gezani Ndimande (Nxele) and Malusi Dave Ndimande, who were arrested by officers of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS), while hiding in a flat they rented at Zone 4 in Mbabane. Initially, Mkhwanazi had denied any link of the arrest to the murder of AKA, but he confirmed and gave clarity on the issue last night. His reason for denying any links was that they wanted to keep everything under wraps until all six suspects were arrested. Mkhwanazi told the SA media that the two were part of six suspects who had all been arrested by the South African Police Service (SAPS) in connection with the murder, and four would be making their first court appearance tomorrow. He shared that they were still busy with the legal process to get the two suspects to South Africa to face the law. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hands-over wings to astronauts-designate Shubanshu Shukla, Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Angad Prathap and Ajit Krishnan who have been selected to be the astronauts on India's first crewed mission to space 'Gaganyan Mission', at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), in Thiruvananthapuram, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. A PTI Photo THIRUVANANTHAPURAM (PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi today announced the names of the four astronauts--all IAF fighter pilots--for India's ambitious maiden human spaceflight mission Gaganyaan scheduled for next year. The Gaganyaan project envisages demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of three members to an intended low earth orbit of 400 km for a three-day mission and bring them back safely to earth by landing in Indian sea waters, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO). If the indigenous space project estimated to cost Rs 90 billion succeeds, India will become only the fourth country to send a human into space after the Soviet Union, the US and China. Modi, who disclosed the names of the four astronaut-designates during his visit to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre(VSSC) at Thumba, near Thiruvananthapuram, also handed the 'astronaut wings' to the pilots of the Indian Air Force(IAF), who are currently undergoing rigorous training at various facilities in the country. They also underwent training for 13 months in Russia. Addressing the audience at the space centre, the prime minister introduced to the nation Group Captains Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Angad Pratap, Ajit Krishnan, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla. The IAF pilots aged between 39-48 years have a flying experience in the range of nearly 2,000-3,000 hours, according to IAF officials. Two of them are recipients of the prestigious 'Sword of Honour'. Modi hailed the astronauts as "four forces" representing the aspirations of India's 140 crore people. He also emphasised the significance of the country's first crewed space mission, noting that after four decades, an Indian is poised to venture into space. "This time around, the countdown, the timing, and even the rocket would be ours." Reflecting on the symbolic importance of the mission, Modi described the astronauts as not merely individuals but as four 'Shakti' carrying the hopes and dreams of 140 crore Indians into space. He asserted that their names have become intertwined with India's success. Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan and ISRO chairman S Somanath were among others who were present at the ceremony. Modi expressed immense satisfaction that the majority of components for the Gaganyaan mission are manufactured in India, underscoring the nation's self-reliance in space exploration. He lauded the dedication of the pilots to training, which included the practice of Yoga, and hailed them as representatives of India's resilient 'Amrit' generation, known for their unwavering determination and ability to overcome challenges. Modi also inaugurated ISRO's three major space infrastructure projects worth around Rs 1,800 crore during his visit to the VSSC. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in a post on X extended his wishes to the four pilots for getting selected for the ground-breaking mission. "I am confident that they will rise to the occasion and help India in realising the dream of its first #indigenous manned space flight." Neighbours of Gp Capt Nair's home in Nenmara village in Palakkad broke into cheers after the prime minister's announcement. "I was sitting in front of the television till now to see the prime minister announcing his name. Prasanth was such a good child...I have known him since he was four or five years old," an elated neighbour told a television channel. Gp Capt Nair was born in Kerala in 1976 and is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy(NDA), and also a recipient of the 'Sword of Honour' -- an honour given to the best all-round cadet -- at the Air Force Academy, an IAF spokesperson said. He was commissioned into the fighter stream of the IAF in December 1998. "A Cat A flying instructor and a test pilot with approximately 3,000 hrs of flying experience, he has flown a variety of aircraft, including Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Hawk, Dornier and An-32," the official said. Gp Capt Nair is also an alumnus of the United States Staff College, the official said, adding he has commanded a premier fighter Su-30 Sqadron. Gp Capt Krishnan, also an alumnus of the NDA, was born in Chennai in 1982. He is a recipient of the President's Gold Medal and the 'Sword of Honour' at Air Force Academy. "He was commissioned in June 2003 in the fighter stream of the IAF. A flying instructor and a test pilot with nearly 2,900 hrs of flying experience, he has flown variety of aircraft, including Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-21, Mig-29, Jaguar, Dornier and An-32," the official said. Gp Capt Pratap was born in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh in 1982. Also an alumnus of the NDA, he was commissioned in December 2004 in the fighter stream of the IAF. He is a flying instructor and a test pilot with approximately 2,000 hours of flying experience and has flown Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier and An-32, among other aircraft, the official said. Wg Cdr Shukla was born in Lucknow in 1985 and an alumnus of the NDA who was commissioned in June 2006 into the fighter stream of the IAF. A fighter combat leader and a test pilot with nearly 2,000 hours of flying experience, he has flown Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier and An-32, among other aircraft. According to the ISRO website, the pre-requisites for Gaganyaan mission include development of many critical technologies including human-rated launch vehicle for carrying crew safely to space, life support system to provide an earth-like environment to crew in space, crew emergency escape provision and evolving crew management aspects for training, recovery and rehabilitation of crew. In his speech, Modi said India's space sector's contributions were not only sowing the seeds of scientific temperament among the younger generations, but also providing an impetus for the country to emerge as a global player in the 21st century. He said that few nations have achieved the feat of reaching Mars in the first attempt, launching more than 100 satellites in a single mission, landing on the south pole of the Moon and the successful insertion of Aditya L1 solar probe in its orbit 15 lakh km from Earth. "All of you are opening new doors of future possibilities," he told the ISRO team, adding that it was estimated that India's space economy will grow five-fold and touch 44 billion dollars in the next 10 years. He said India was becoming a global commercial hub in the field of space and in the coming days, it will once again go to the Moon, retrieve samples from there, and by 2035 the country will have its own space station. "In this Amrit Kaal, an Indian astronaut will land on the Moon in an Indian rocket." Modi emphasised on the "important role" played by women in the country's space programme. "Whether it is Chandrayaan or the Gaganyaan, no such project can be imagined without women scientists," he said, and pointed out that more than 500 women were in leadership positions in the ISRO. He also spoke about the celebrity attention that the four pilots may get after their selection, and said this could create disturbance in their training. "I urge all people, including media professionals, to allow them to do their duties without hindrances. It's the beginning of the real story. Let's support them to the fullest." State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada Postal Code Joe Biden's campaign and top Democratic officials vowed to double down on efforts to win back former supporters after being hit by a much stronger-than-anticipated protest vote in the Michigan primary over the president's support of Israel. About 13.2 per cent of Michigan Democrats cast a ballot for "uncommitted" in the nominating contest, following a weeks-long push by activists, an Edison Research tally showed after 9am (1400 GMT) on Wednesday. With about 85 per cent of all votes counted, the uncommitted vote was already over 101,000 votes, far higher than expected. Advertisement Turnout for the Democratic primary was also high, at some 900,000 voters overall. About 81 per cent of those votes backed Biden. As the results were being tallied, a senior Biden campaign official said the team will continue to "make our case in the state - to both uncommitted voters and the entire Michigan constituency. ... The president will continue to work for peace in the Middle East." Advertisement Mr Biden's staunch support for Israel during its five-month war with Hamas, which has decimated Gaza, has sparked outrage and a well-organised backlash among progressive Democrats and Arab Americans, with Michigan as their epicentre. Advertisement Natalia Katie places a sign on the podium before the group Listen to Michigan, who asked voters to vote uncommitted instead of for US president Joe Biden, Photo by Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images They asked Mr Biden to push for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, condition aid to Israel and for sympathetic Democrats to vote "uncommitted" in the primary to signal that Mr Biden could lose their support in November's general election, aiming for 10,000 votes, a low figure historically. About 20,000 uncommitted votes were cast in Michigan's 2012 Democratic primary, the last time a Democratic president was up for re-election in the Midwestern state. Mr Biden won Michigan by a less than 3 per cent margin in 2020, and some polls show likely Republican candidate Donald Trump ahead in a head-to-head matchup this time. 'Not afraid of voters' Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people and captured 253 hostages on October 7th, according to Israeli tallies, triggering Israel's ground assault on Gaza. Health authorities in the enclave say nearly 30,000 people have been confirmed killed. Advertisement Michigan Democratic officials vowed to do more to win over voters. "Tomorrow is the first day of this general election, Michigan lieutenant governor Garlin Gilchrist II told volunteers working on behalf of Mr Biden as results rolled in on Tuesday night. Advertisement We are not afraid of people participating in democracy. We are not afraid of voters. We are not afraid of people who are ready to speak out in good faith, in good conscience because they have good intentions," he said. Biden Michigan campaign manager Mike Frosolone told party organisers their efforts would pivot to the general election effort in the state, with door knocking, phone banking and the opening of several offices statewide. Advertisement People hug at the Listen to Michigan watch party during election night in Dearborn, Michigan on February 27th, 2024. Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images "We know when voters see President Biden and Donald Trump's record side by side, they're going to choose President Biden," he said. He said Mr Biden would lay out this case in his State of the Union address on March 7th. Mr Biden, 81, faces low general approval ratings and concern about his age, as does former president Trump, 77. Mr Trump was formally ordered to pay about $450 million for fraudulently manipulating his net worth by a New York judge this month and faces four unrelated criminal prosecutions, in which he has pleaded not guilty. Some 35 per cent of Republicans backed former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley in the Michigan primary, a potential sign of weakness for Mr Trump as well. Some of her voters have said they won't back Mr Trump in a general election. Advertisement Advertisement If Mr Trump is re-elected, he is expected to be a strong supporter of Israel and its right-wing leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. The issue is likely to shadow the US presidential election until November, as the death toll in Gaza continues to climb, and the US pushes for billions more aid for Israel, even as American officials push for a temporary ceasefire. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published Tuesday found "extremism" is the top worry for American voters going into the 2024 election, besting the economy or immigration, and that most judge Mr Biden better equipped to deal with the issue. In a statement on Tuesday evening about the results, Mr Biden contrasted himself with Mr Trump on issues like abortion, healthcare and the economy but did not mention Gaza or the war in the Middle East. Vice president Kamala Harris said in a statement on Wednesday that Michigan's primary results "make clear the people of Michigan are ready" to address issues this election could affect, including voting rights, gun violence and reproductive rights. But she did not mention the Middle East. Organisers of the uncommitted campaign said they'd continue to challenge Democrats. "Our delegation plans to hold the Democratic nominee accountable to our communitys anti-war agenda at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago" in August, said Listen to Michigan, one of the groups behind the campaign. "See you there." Judgment in a legal challenge to the UK governments controversial Act to deal with the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles will be delivered later. High Court judge Mr Justice Colton will rule in the case brought by a number of victims challenging the human rights compliance of the legislation which offers a conditional amnesty to people accused of Troubles-related crimes. Advertisement The Legacy Act received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims organisations in Northern Ireland and the Irish government. Aspects of the laws include a limited form of immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences for those who co-operate with the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). The new Act will also halt future civil cases and legacy inquests. Multiple victims launched judicial review proceedings against the Act and Martina Dillon, John McEvoy and Lynda McManus were selected as the lead cases in the legal battle at the High Court in Belfast. Advertisement Advertisement The judgment will be delivered at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA. Ms Dillons 45-year-old husband, Seamus, was shot dead in a loyalist attack at the Glengannon Hotel in Dungannon, County Tyrone, in 1997. Mr McEvoy survived a loyalist shooting on the Thierafurth Inn in Kilcoo, County Down, in 1992. Advertisement Ms McManuss father, James, was among those wounded in the Sean Graham bookmakers massacre in 1992. When the case was heard last year, a barrister said the Act was subjecting victims to a form of secondary trauma. Whatever ruling Mr Justice Colton delivers, legal action is set to continue with the verdict likely to be appealed to higher courts. Separately, the Irish Government has launched an interstate legal case against the Legacy Act, arguing that it breaches the European Convention on Human Rights. Two innovation and technology flagships in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) and the Hong Kong Cyberport, are collaborating to co-host the first-ever Hong Kong Pavilion at LEAP 2024 in Riyadh. The event from March 4 to 6 will showcase 16 cutting-edge technologies from Hong Kong to over 172,000 visitors, symbolising a significant milestone for the Hong Kong I&T industry on the global stage. Eight forward-looking startups and tech ventures from HKSTP will be featured at the Hong Kong Pavilion, with cutting-edge innovation from sectors such as biotech, healthtech, logistics, AI, robotics, and new energy. Partnerships HKSTP aims to establish partnerships with Saudi businesses and inject new energy into the Belt and Road Initiative, which encompasses over 180 countries and international organisations, including the Middle East. Albert Wong, CEO of HKSTP, stated: "A golden era of innovation and technology is emerging in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area, and across Asia, and we see incredible co-innovation potential in the joining of our two ecosystems in Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia. HKSTP's participation in LEAP 2024 signifies our commitment to leaping into new worlds and embracing the new cradle of global innovation, which is multilateral and impactful. Our mission is to propel success by advancing in the journey from research to commercialisation, from innovation to financial success, for both home-grown and international startups." HKSTP has forged strong connections between two of the world's rapidly rising forces in global innovation. Hong Kong's vibrant startup scene ranks second in the world and first in Asia among the Top 100 Emerging Ecosystems, with an estimated value of the city's startup ecosystem at $70 billion, twice the global average. In parallel, the Saudi tech market reached an impressive $40 billion by the end of 2022, solidifying its position as the largest in the Mena region. High-profile discussion As part of the LEAP 2024 event, HKSTP will host a high-profile discussion panel focused on the growing biotech and healthtech sectors, which are key areas for collaboration as both Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia have prioritised them as pillars for economic diversification and future growth. Titled "Hong Kong Healthtech Innovations Driving Global Transformation for Generations to Come" the panel will be moderated by HKSTP's CEO Albert Wong and feature leaders in the Hong Kong biotech and healthtech innovation scene: Prof Samuel Au, President of Cornerstone Robotics; Chi Man Lam, Founder and CEO of Applied Technology Group; and Dr Zhu Tian, Co-Founder and CEO of GenEditBio. Saudi Arabia's Minister of Communication, Information and Technology (MCIT) Eng Abdullah Al-Swaha visited Hong Kong Science Park at the "One Gateway Shared Vision - Hong Kong Special Administrative Region x Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" event in July 2023, presenting boundless opportunities for tech companies, start-ups and talent. Supported by MCIT Saudi Arabia, LEAP 2024 shall deepen cooperation of two I&T forces and fortify the Hong Kong-Saudi relations in the Belt and Road region.--TradeArabia News Service Tusla breached its explicit and unambiguous duty by failing to formally declare two acutely vulnerable teenagers needed to be temporarily detained in special care units, the Supreme Court has held. In a lead ruling for the court, Mr Justice Gerard Hogan said there was no legal basis or excuse for the child and family agency to refrain from concluding the specialist detention setting was required for the girl and boy who both abused drugs and regularly went missing from State care. Advertisement There is nothing in the relevant legislation to suggest Tuslas performance of its statutory obligations regarding special care is intended to be resource-dependent, the judge said. Special care orders The High Court was correct to make special care orders for the two 16-year-olds, despite Tuslas protestation that it had no places available due to severe staff shortages, he held. Advertisement The five judges of the court unanimously agreed to dismiss Tuslas appeal against two sets of orders made in respect of the teenagers. The first orders, made by the High Courts Mr Justice Mark Heslin, held that the agencys deliberate refusal to statutorily declare that the children require special care was contrary to legislation. Advertisement He directed Tusla to apply to his colleague for orders permitting the detention of the two 16-year-olds in special care due to the risk to their lives. Compelled by these orders, Tusla formally applied to Mr Justice John Jordan for special care orders but asked him not to make them as it said it did not have capacity and a third child needed a space more. He granted the special care orders. In its Supreme Court appeal, the agency argued an acute shortage of specialist staff, caused by statutory restrictions on pay, was preventing it from providing special care to all of the children who need it. The three units have physical capacity for 25 children but, at the time of the hearing, just 15 were operational and all were occupied, it said. Advertisement The teenagers had, in fact, been admitted to special care by the time the appeal was heard last December. Abuse Advertisement The girl had been engaging in dangerous, erratic and inappropriate behaviour over a number of years, including alcohol and substance abuse. She was also subjected to various kinds of abuse and neglect during her life and there were grave concerns she was being sexually exploited by men. The boy suffers from developmental and behavioural disorders, abused and sold drugs and was allegedly involved in violent incidents. Advertisement In a judgment on Wednesday, Mr Justice Hogan said the teens histories are tragic and there is no doubt they both required a secure and safe environment to address their complex behavioural and educational needs. Tuslas failure to formally determine special care was necessary in these cases was an example of a statutory body refusing to give effect to legislation enacted by the Oireachtas, he said. Mr Justice Heslin was perfectly correct to make his orders in light of a studied failure by the agency to apply the relevant statutory provisions, the judge said. While Mr Justice Jordan had discretion in deciding to make the special care orders, he was correct to make them in circumstances, the court held. Advertisement Mr Justice Hogan said various steps of the Government, including a 2011 amendment to the Child Care Act, can be regarded as an implicit promise that the requisite funding would be made available for special care. Advertisement With the amendment enacted, the court must appropriately enforce it, he said. If the statutory obligations on Tusla are too onerous, the remedy lies in a legislative amendment or repeal of the law, he said. In the event Tusla cannot comply with a special care order, the possibility of enforcement through the contempt jurisdiction would naturally arise, he said. In a democratic state governed by the rule of law, all organs of the State are accordingly obliged to comply with court orders of this kind, he said. Currently, he said, the issue of contempt remains a purely hypothetical one and the matter would have to receive the most careful consideration. Such an application, seeking to hold Tusla in contempt for alleged failure to comply with a special care order, is pending before the High Court. In a concurring judgment, supported by the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Brian Murray observed it would be wrong to suggest all other cases involving a statutory duty on a public body should lead to mandatory orders being issued in the teeth of detailed evidence establishing the public body cannot comply because of resource restrictions. The law is necessarily nuanced in response to such a situation and interweaving of the relevant factors will be case-specific, he added. The Chief Justice, Mr Justice Donal ODonnell, also agreed with Mr Justice Hogans judgment, as did Mr Justice Seamus Woulfe and Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly. There was a total of 451,900 foreign visitors that came to Ireland in January 2024. Of the 451,900 foreign visitors who departed Ireland on overseas routes in January 2024, 42.3 per cent of the visitors were from Great Britain, 11.1 per cent were from the United States, and 5.8 per cent were from Germany. Advertisement The visitors' most frequent reason (46.8 per cent) for visiting Ireland was for visiting family & friends. The visitors stayed a total of 3,813,800 nights in the country. The total estimated expenditure of foreign visitors on their trips to Ireland was 414.1 million. The visitors stayed on average 8.4 nights and spent on average 916 on their trips. Commenting on the release, Gregg Patrick, statistician in the Tourism and Travel Division, said: The results show that among the 1,281,700 passengers departing Ireland on overseas routes in January 2024, some 451,900 (35.3 per cent) were foreign visitors completing their trips (with the balance being Irish residents heading abroad (56.3 per cent) and foreign same-day visitors (8.5 per cent). Advertisement "Amongst the 451,900 foreign visitors, some 42.3 per cent were from Great Britain, 11.1 per cent were from the United States, and 5.8 per cent were from Germany. "Typically, their visit lasted 8.4 nights. Their most frequent reason was for visiting friends and family (46.8 per cent)." He said more of the visitors stayed primarily in family/own property (54.5 per cent) than in any other accommodation type, and the mean cost of their visit was 916 (comprising 259 on fare, 24 on prepayments, 192 on accommodation, and 441 on day-to-day expenditure). The wife of an Irish man who was detained at Bahgdad airport on Monday morning has called for his immediate release. Laura Wickham told RTE radios Morning Ireland that her husband Yasser Eljuboori had been travelling back to Ireland, on his Irish passport, when he was detained at the airport. Advertisement Her husband had travelled to Iraq to visit his mother who is unwell. He had also visited last September when he had no problems travelling with his Irish passport. Ms Wickham explained that Mr Eljuboori was a prominent anti-corruption activist with a large social media following. He came to Ireland 16 years ago, the couple met 13 years ago, married eight years ago and have three children, the eldest having just started primary school. He is a full on dad wholeheartedly involved. Big family man. Huge. I have a big family. We've extended family in Cork. He's like the first into the Atlantic. Loves his pint of Guinness, big rugby supporter. And he's held in very high regard by his friends, colleagues, neighbours. And he works in LinkedIn here. He loves his team. Advertisement On his previous visit in September, his first in 16 years, he had no problems with his Irish passport and visa, but when he checked in for his flight home on Monday of this week, he was detained by Iraqi authorities who did not give a reason. Advertisement His brother contacted me and asked me to get on to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Then there was a reports that the reason they were holding him was because he had a fake passport or counterfeit passport, which is ridiculous because he entered on the same passport in September. On Monday afternoon, Mr Eljuboori went missing with no indication of his whereabouts. He wasn't in the police station in the airport anymore. And that was very distressing. And around that time when I posted to social media, I received some information last night, that he had been mistreated, that he was beaten, blindfolded and transported to different locations. "They took his phone, his passport and any money that he had on him. Ms Wickham said that information had come from her brother-in-law and the Iraqi solicitors representing her husband. There was an outcry then on social media when that happened, he showed up in a police station in Baghdad, and it was reported that he was being charged with defamation. And that was coming from the authorities of the Prime Minister's office. Advertisement Advertisement Mr Eljuboori appeared in court on Tuesday where the judge requested his transfer to a different court where he will appear on Thursday, but he continues to be detained without bail. Ms Wickham has been in communication with the Department of Foreign Affairs and received correspondence from the Tanaiste with whom she hopes to speak again this morning and to meet in person. I am very grateful for the assistance they're providing. According to the Iraqi solicitors, her husband has been charged under Article 36 of the Publication Law which is a sanction which prohibits obviously insulting any public institution or official. Advertisement "I think the point they're missing there is that Yassar is an Irish citizen. He's traveled there on an Irish passport. He received an Irish visa. He has no Iraqi documents whatsoever. He doesn't have an Iraqi passport. Ms Wickham, who is a school principal, spoke of the wonderful support she has received from family, friends, neighbours my fridge is overflowing and colleagues. I'm using all of my energy, all of this, just to try and get him home. I want him home safe. I'm trying to kind of use my energy in the right places, and that's what I'm doing at the moment. I'm grateful for all of the help that's been pouring in. And everybody he knows, as I said, he's really well-liked. "He's great fun. He's a gorgeous person. He's my number one person. So Im actually overwhelmed by the response and people reaching out to raise awareness. So I'm very grateful for that. And that's kind of keeps me going. Olivia Wilde and Zoe Kravitz wore daring sheer outfits to sit front row at the Saint Laurent Paris Fashion Week show. Dont Worry Darling actor and director Wilde wore a see-through black bodysuit with cut-outs at each side, paired with a dark grey midi skirt, leather gloves and Seventies-inspired sunglasses. Advertisement (Vianney Le Caer/AP) Its not the first time Wilde has freed the nipple at the Peoples Choice Awards in 2022, she wore a black lace Dior gown with a sheer bodice, which was reportedly blurred during the telecast when she appeared on stage. Meanwhile, The Batman star Zoe Kravitz who is a regular face in Saint Laurents advertising campaigns wore an almost imperceptibly sheer chocolate brown belted midi dress. Advertisement Zoe Kravitz (Vianney Le Caer/AP) And they werent the only celebrities freeing the nipple at the Paris Fashion Week show. Advertisement Model Georgia May Jagger wore an almost identical outfit to Wilde, in slightly different colours and textures, while fellow model Lila Moss wore a skintight, semi-sheer black long-sleeve dress with an open back. Advertisement Lila Moss (Vianney Le Caer/AP) She was joined on the front row by supermodel mother Kate Moss, whose outfit was also daring but in a different way. She wore a double-breasted fur coat with seemingly nothing underneath except for sheer tights and high heels. Moss kept the styling simple and chic, with slicked back hair, kohl-rimmed eyes, a subtle lip and gold hoop earrings. Advertisement Kate Moss (Vianney Le Caer/AP) The front row was full of supermodel star power, as Linda Evangelista was also in attendance. Evangelista who walked the Yves Saint Laurent catwalk as early as the Eighties was in a more demure outfit, wearing a double-breasted black coat with statement shoulders, a black turtleneck underneath and opaque tights. Advertisement Linda Evangelista (Vianney Le Caer/AP) While the sheer trend might seem modern and cutting-edge, its been around for decades and the current exhibition at the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris looks at exactly this. Sheer: The Diaphanous Creations of Yves Saint Laurent goes back to the 1960s, when the French designer experimented with see-through chiffon, lace and tulle materials. (Vianney Le Caer/AP) Ive worked for quite some time now with diaphanous fabrics. The important thing is to maintain their mysterious nature I think Ive done the best I could for the liberation of women. I created clothes that were perfectly in sync with the twenty-first century, Saint Laurent once said. Advertisement The designer debuted a sheer chiffon blouse worn with nothing underneath in 1968, and this was given a modern spin in the autumn/winter 2024 collection. (Vianney Le Caer/AP) Creative director Anthony Vaccarellos latest offering was dominated by see-through materials from sheer skirts to lightweight, gossamer tops, and even the hosiery material models wore as hoods. It gave a delicate, almost ethereal vibe to the collection with pale beige and grey tones studded with the occasional jewel colour, like a deep red or bright blue. (Vianney Le Caer/AP) Backstage, Vaccarello reportedly said the flimsy silk hosiery fabrics that permeated the collection were a nightmare for his atelier to work with. He told WWD: I wanted to do something very fragile, and added that he wanted people to know that Saint Laurent is a house of transparency. While the emphasis was on materials as light as air, there was contrast in the collection models also donned oversized fur jackets or held voluminous feathered coats. (Vianney Le Caer/AP) And there was age diversity in the show, too, with some older models walking the runway. This comes after the brand debuted its spring 2024 campaign in January, starring Diana Ross, 79 and Lauren Hutton, 80. While the trend for naked dressing is not a new thing, it still causes a stir on the red carpet just think about the furore around the sheer pink Valentino gown Florence Pugh wore last year. Saint Laurent proves the trend isnt going anywhere it just remains to be seen which celebrity will wear one of the labels latest designs first. Local activists and international environmental groups want Nigerias government to delay approving the sale of oil company Shells onshore assets, claiming the firm is trying to shirk its responsibilities over the highly polluted Niger Delta. The London-based company is trying to sell its subsidiary Shell Petroleum Development Company which operates its onshore assets in the delta to Renaissance Africa Energy Company, a consortium of local companies. Advertisement Shell says the 2.4 billion dollar (1.89 billion) divestment deal is part of a wider reconfiguration of the Nigerian oil and gas sector. But the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (Somo), a Dutch non-profit group, released a report on Wednesday saying Shell should not be allowed to divest in the delta unless it takes responsibility for its toxic legacy of pollution and ensures the safe decommissioning of abandoned oil infrastructure. Advertisement Protesters have appealed to the government of Nigeria, Africas top oil producer, to halt the sale until environmental concerns are addressed. Advertisement BREAKING: Shell is trying to sell its Nigerian subsidiary. This raises concerns that the oil giant could evade its responsibility for the human and environmental catastrophe they have caused in the Niger Delta. Our government has a responsibility to hold Shell to account. pic.twitter.com/WMUfmPySjF Clive Lewis MP (@labourlewis) February 28, 2024 Advertisement Lezina Mgbar, a 54-year-old healthcare worker and farmer who participated in a weekend demonstration in the countrys oil capital of Port Harcourt, said her Korokoro Tai community in Ogoniland has been severely affected by oil spills. In the morning, children and women have to travel far to get water, so children often cannot get to school on time, and our farm yields are poor, Ms Mgbar told The Associated Press. We demand that Shell restore our land and clean our water before any divestment. Scientific studies have found high levels of chemical compounds from crude oil, as well as heavy metals, in the delta, where the industry largely drives Nigerias economy but can leave communities water sources slick with contaminants. Activists say Shell has a history of poor divestment in the region. They point to a wellhead blowout in the Santa Barbara River, which flows through the Niger Delta, in 2021. The wellhead was not producing but was not decommissioned by Shell or its new owners, Aiteo Eastern E & P. Advertisement Advertisement The facility spewed crude oil and associated gas for 38 days and caused planet-warming methane to be released into the atmosphere, as well as killing fish and devastating riverside farms. Richard Steiner, an environmental consultant with a history of work in the Niger Delta, said the blowout on the Santa Barbara River highlights the risk of Shell and other oil majors transferring assets to new local firms without resolving legacy environmental and social concerns first. @Shell is selling out the Niger Delta! Our new report shows how historical pollution remains a serious issue and how Shell is evading responsibility for its toxic mess by selling its problem oil assets. Read more https://t.co/nyc75cAxW0 Advertisement SOMO (@SOMO) February 28, 2024 He said: Many of the purchasing companies do not have the technical or financial capacity to manage these oil and gas operations safely. Shell says it assesses the financial strength, culture and social and environmental performance records of companies it sells assets to. A spokesperson added that mandatory submissions to the federal government allow the regulators to apply scrutiny across a wide range of issues and recommend approval of these divestments, provided they meet all requirements. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who holds the portfolio of petroleum minister, will ultimately decide the fate of the Shell-Renaissance transaction. His spokesperson did not comment when contacted on Monday. Advertisement Somos report documents other cases of environmental pollution that were allegedly not addressed by Shell before past divestments. Two communities, Ogale and Bille in Rivers State, have been in court pushing to make the company address past environmental concerns. Shell and other oil companies often blame third-party interference, namely militant attacks and vandalism by oil thieves, for spills. However, companies still must clean up regardless of the cause, according to Nigerias law. The deal with Renaissance is the latest move by Shell to limit its onshore operations in Nigeria while focusing on deepwater operations. Other companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies, have been taking similar steps but without the scale of protests Shell, which is the most dominant in the region, has faced. The Popocatepetl volcano just 50 miles from Mexicos capital has erupted 13 times in the past day, and the countrys National Disaster Prevention Centre urged people not to climb it because of the debris shooting out of the crater. Volcanic ash from the Popocatepetl disrupted flights out of Mexico Citys largest airport on Tuesday and caused another airport even closer to the volcano to temporarily suspend activity. Advertisement Mexico Citys Benito Juarez international airport said at least 22 flights were cancelled because of safety concerns after ash was found in some planes during safety checks. Other flights were rerouted to different parts of Mexico. In Puebla, a city close to the volcano, airport operations were temporarily suspended on Wednesday because of the gas and fumes coming from the Popo. Mexico Citys airport also warned Wednesday that operations could be suspended and its website showed a number of cancellations and delays. Advertisement Our priority is safety in operations, the airports official account posted on X, formerly Twitter, adding that it is continually monitoring flight conditions. Advertisement According to the airport, the ash has produced a slew of safety concerns. Volcanic ash is especially dangerous for aviation, not only because they reduce visibility but because they can act as an abrasive, damaging an aircrafts wings and fuselage. In airports, the ashes can coat runways, hurt airport personnel and cause a number of other logistical issues. The volcano has been active for half a million years and regularly erupts. Advertisement Last year, large eruptions caused alarm after nearby towns were coated in ash, but volcanologists called the activity nothing new or surprising. Its last major eruption was more than a thousand years ago. Aid convoys carrying food reached northern Gaza this week, Israeli officials said on Wednesday, the first major delivery in a month to the devastated, isolated area, where the UN has warned of worsening starvation among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians amid Israels offensive. The increasing alarm about hunger across Gaza has fuelled international calls for a ceasefire as the US, Egypt and Qatar work to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas for a pause in fighting and the release of some of the hostages seized by Hamas in its October 7th attack. Advertisement Mediators hope to reach an agreement before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts on about March 10. But so far, Israel and Hamas have remained far apart in public on their demands. Increasing the pressure on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal, families of hostages on Wednesday launched a four-day march from southern Israel to Jerusalem to demand their loved ones be set free. Advertisement Families of hostages held in the Gaza Strip march in southern Israel (Tsafrir Abayov/AP) Advertisement Some of the approximately 100 hostages freed during a ceasefire in late November are joining the march, which is to end near Mr Netanyahus official residence. The plight of the hostages has deeply shaken Israelis, who see in them an enduring symbol of the states failure to protect its citizens from Hamas assault. The Palestinian militant group abducted roughly 250 people, according to Israeli authorities, including men, women, children and older adults. After the November releases, some 130 hostages remain, and Israel says about a quarter of them are dead. Advertisement Israels assault on Gaza, which it says aims to destroy Hamas after its attack, has killed more than 29,900 Palestinians. UN officials warn of further mass casualties if it follows through on vows to attack the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gazas population of 2.3 million has taken refuge. They also say a Rafah offensive could collapse the aid operation that has already been crippled in the fighting. Across Gaza, more than 576,000 people, a quarter of the population, are a step away from famine, the UN says. Advertisement The destruction after an Israeli strike on residential buildings and a mosque in Rafah (Fatima Shbair/AP) But northern Gaza in particular has been gutted by hunger. The north has largely been cut off and much of it has been levelled since Israeli ground troops invaded in late October. Advertisement Several hundred thousand Palestinians are believed to remain there, and many have been reduced to eating animal fodder to survive. Advertisement The UN says one in six children under two in the north suffer from acute malnutrition and wasting. A convoy of 31 trucks carrying food entered northern Gaza on Wednesday, the Israeli military office that oversees Palestinian civilian affairs said. The office, known by the acronym COGAT, said nearly 20 other lorries entered the north on Monday and Tuesday. Associated Press footage showed people carrying sacks of flour from the distribution site. It was not immediately clear who carried out the deliveries. The UN was not involved, said a spokesman for the UNs humanitarian co-ordination office, Eri Keneko. A tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the Israeli offensive in Rafah (Hatem Ali/AP) As of Sunday, the UN had been unable to deliver food to northern Gaza since January 23, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that has led the aid effort. Since launching its assault on Gaza Israel has barred entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies except for a trickle of aid entering the south from Egypt at the Rafah crossing and Israels Kerem Shalom crossing. Despite international calls to allow in more aid, the number of supply trucks entering has dropped dramatically in recent weeks. Advertisement COGAT said on Wednesday that Israel does not impose limits on the amount of aid entering, blaming UN agencies and aid groups for the bottleneck. The Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll from Israels offensive had risen to 29,954 people, with 70,325 wounded. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it says two-thirds of the dead were children and women. In its attack on southern Israel on October 7, Hamas and other Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians. Prince Harry is to discover whether he has won a High Court challenge against the UK government over a decision to change the level of his personal security when he visits the UK. Harry took legal action against the Home Office over the February 2020 decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) that he should receive a different degree of protection when in the country. Advertisement Following a hearing in December, retired UK High Court judge Sir Peter Lane is set to issue his ruling over the case on Wednesday. Harrys lawyers previously told the court that he was singled out and treated less favourably in the decision to change the level of his taxpayer-funded personal security. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex during the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany in September. Photo: Jordan Pettitt/PA. Advertisement They said a failure to carry out a risk analysis and fully consider the impact of a successful attack on him meant the approach to his protection was unlawful and unfair. Advertisement The court was told that Harry believes his children cannot feel at home in the UK if it is not possible to keep them safe there. The UK government said Harrys claim should be dismissed, arguing that Ravec which falls under the Home Offices remit was entitled to conclude the dukes protection should be bespoke and considered on a case-by-case basis. Home Office lawyers said the duke was no longer a member of the group of people whose security position was under regular review by Ravec, but he was brought back within the cohort in the appropriate circumstances. Advertisement The court was told that it was simply incorrect to suggest that there was no evidence that the issue of impact was considered, adding that the death of Diana, Princess of Wales Harrys mother was raised as part of the decision. Ravec has delegated responsibility from the Home Office over the provision of protective security arrangements for members of the royal family and others, with involvement from the Metropolitan Police, the Cabinet Office and the royal household. The majority of the proceedings in December were held in private, without the public or press present, because of confidential evidence over security measures being involved in the case. Advertisement The security case is one of three remaining live High Court cases brought by the duke, alongside claims over allegations of unlawful information gathering against publishers News Group Newspapers (NGN) and Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL). Advertisement Earlier this month, Harry settled the remaining parts of his phone hacking claim against Mirror Group Newspapers. It came after the duke decided in January to withdraw a libel claim against ANL over a February 2022 Mail on Sunday article about his legal challenge against the Home Office. Harry, who was not present at the December hearing, lives in North America with wife Meghan and their children after the couple announced they were stepping back as senior royals in January 2020. Sir Peters written ruling is due to be released from 10.30am on Wednesday. US President Joe Biden spent about two and a half hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre in Maryland on Wednesday for an annual physical examination that will be closely watched as the 81-year-old president seeks re-election. The oldest president in US history, Mr Biden would be 86 by the end of a second term, should he win one. Advertisement After his last physical check-up, in February 2023, doctors declared Mr Biden healthy, vigorous and fit to handle his White House duties. But voters are approaching this years election with misgivings about Mr Bidens age, having scrutinised his gaffes, his coughing, his slow walk and even a tumble off his bicycle. The 81-year-old President is seeking re-election in the autumn (AP) Advertisement The White House said it will release a written summary of the routine check-up later in the day. Advertisement Former president Donald Trump, 77, is the favourite to lock up the Republican nomination later this month, which would bring him closer to a November rematch against Mr Biden. Mr Trump was 70 when he took office in 2017, which made him the oldest American president to be inaugurated, until Mr Biden broke his record by being inaugurated at 78 in 2021. A recent special counsels report investigating Mr Bidens possession of classified documents repeatedly derided the Presidents memory, calling it hazy, fuzzy, faulty, poor, and having significant limitations. Advertisement It also noted that Mr Biden could not recall defining milestones in his own life such as when his son Beau died or when he served as vice president. But addressing reporters on the evening of the reports release, Mr Biden said my memory is fine and grew visibly angry as he denied forgetting when his son died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46. Mr Bidens last physical showed that the president had a lesion removed from his chest over the previous year, but the results then otherwise largely matched the findings after Mr Bidens previous examination in November 2021. Mr Biden will most likely face Donald Trump again in the race for the White House (AP) Advertisement Advertisement That report said his occasional coughing was due to acid reflux, while his stiffened gait was the result of spinal arthritis, a previously broken foot and neuropathy in his feet. The White House also announced last summer that Mr Biden had begun using a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine at night to help with sleep apnea. Mr Biden had a colonoscopy in 2021, in which a 3mm benign-appearing polyp was identified and removed. Advertisement In 1988, Mr Biden had surgery to repair two brain aneurysms, which are weak bulges in arteries, one of which was leaking. Mr Biden has never had a recurrence, his doctor said, citing a test in 2014 that examined his arteries. Many Americans, including Democrats, have expressed reservations about Mr Biden seeking a second term during this autumns election. Only 37% of Democrats say Mr Biden should pursue re-election, down from 52% before the 2022 mid-term elections, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research. Polls have shown similar reluctance about Mr Trump too, however, and that has not stopped either from closing in on their partys nominations. While he was president, Mr Trumps annual physical in 2019 showed he had gained weight and was up to 243lbs or 17.4 stone. Advertisement With his 6ft 3in frame, that meant his body mass index was 30.4. An index rating of 30 is the level at which doctors consider someone obese under this commonly used formula. Mr Biden won Michigans Democratic primary handily on Tuesday, but an uncommitted campaign organised by activists disillusioned with the presidents handling of the war in Gaza far surpassed the 10,000-vote margin by which Mr Trump won Michigan in 2016. That was a goal set by organisers and it was seen as a potential source of embarrassment for Mr Bidens re-election campaign. South Korean and US troops will begin their expanded annual military drills next week in response to North Koreas evolving nuclear threats, the two countries said. It is a move that will likely enrage North Korea because it views its rivals joint training as an invasion rehearsal. Advertisement In recent months, North Korea has inflamed animosities on the Korean Peninsula with fiery rhetoric and continued missile tests. While it is unlikely for North Korea to launch full-blown attacks against South Korea and the US, observers say the North could still stage limited provocations along the tense border with South Korea. Protesters stage a rally to oppose planned joint military exercises between the US and South Korea, near the US Embassy in Seoul (Ahn Young-joon/ AP) Advertisement On Wednesday, the South Korea and US militaries jointly announced that the allies will conduct Freedom Shield exercise, a computer-simulated command post training, and a variety of separate field training, from March 4-14. Advertisement Col Lee Sung-Jun, a spokesperson for South Koreas joint chiefs of staff, told reporters that the allies drills are designed to bolster their joint capabilities to prevent North Korea from using its nuclear weapons. He said the allies are to carry out 48 field exercises this spring, twice the number conducted last year, and that this years drills would involve air assault, live-firing and bombing training. Our military is ready to punish North Korea immediately, strongly and to the end in the event of its provocation, and well further strengthen our firm readiness through the upcoming drills, Mr Lee said. Advertisement Col Isaac L Taylor, a spokesperson for the US military, said the allies exercises have been defensive in nature and that there is solid evidence that a high readiness rate helps ensure deterrence. US soldiers participate in a joint military drill with South Korea in Paju, South Korea (Lee Jin-man/ AP) North Korea did not immediately respond to the drills announcement. North Korea has reacted to previous major South Korea-US military drills with its own missile tests. Advertisement North Korea has sharply intensified its weapons testing activities since 2022 in part of its efforts to expand its nuclear and missile arsenals. This year, the North already conducted six rounds of missile tests five of them reportedly involving cruise missiles and other weapons launches. Advertisement Mr Lee, the South Korean military spokesperson, said that the upcoming South Korea-US drills would involve training to detect and shoot down North Korean cruise missiles. Analysts say North Korea would likely use cruise missiles to attack incoming US warships in the event of a conflict, as well as US military installations in Japan. The Norths weapons tests in 2022 and 2023 largely focused on ballistic weapons systems. Experts say North Korea believes a bigger weapons arsenal would allow it to pressure the US and South Korea more effectively to make concessions like sanctions relief when diplomacy resumes. Advertisement They expect North Korea to ramp up its testing activities and other provocations this year as both the US and South Korea head into major elections. South Korea and the US have responded to the Norths testing spree with expansions of their bilateral military drills and trilateral exercises involving Japan. US and South Korean officials have repeatedly warned that any nuclear attack by North Korea against them would spell the end of the Norths government led by Kim Jong Un. In a telephone call earlier on Wednesday, South Korean defence minister Shin Wonsik and US defence secretary Lloyd Austin condemned North Koreas missile tests and reaffirmed the need to maintain an overwhelming joint defense posture, according to the South Korean defence ministry. The Pentagon said Mr Austin reaffirmed the ironclad US extended deterrence commitment to the defence of South Korea. Saudi Arabia has garnered global acclaim from the UN Tourism and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) for welcoming more than 100 million tourists in 2023, and achieving its 2030 target seven years in advance. The key milestone has positioned the kingdom, which has now set a new target of 150 million tourists by 2030, as an emerging global tourism powerhouse. The Ministry of Tourism reported that in 2023, tourism emerged as a key economic driver, with both local and global visitors contributing more than SR 250 billion ($66.67 billion). This spending, constituting over 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) and 7% of non-oil GDP, underscores tourism's vital role in diversifying Saudi Arabia's economy. Tourism Minister Ahmed Al Khateeb said that this announcement demonstrates the scale of our transformation since the National Tourism Strategy was launched five years ago. Tourism is a key pillar in the nations economic transformation under Vision 2030, creating jobs and revenue for the Kingdom. We thank both UN Tourism and WTTC as valued partners in our journey for their shared commitment to a sustainable and prosperous tourism sector. The kingdom's tourism sector has witnessed remarkable growth, recording a total of 106.2 million tourists in 2023. This marks a notable 56% surge from 2019 and a significant 12% increase from 2022. Among them, international tourists reached 27.4 million, showcasing a substantial 56% rise from 2019 and an impressive 65% surge from 2022. Minister Al Khateeb said that the tourism ecosystem continues to operate in line with the national tourism strategy by developing diverse tourist destinations. Our aim is to enrich the experiences of tourists, diversify options for both local and international visitors, and enhance hospitality facilities along with other services provided. We are committed to aligning with top-tier international experiences and practices. This approach contributes to shaping a prosperous future for our tourism industry, improving the quality of life, and bolstering the kingdom's position on the global tourism map," said the Minister. TradeArabia News Service Colombian warlord Salvatore Mancuso was sent to his native country on Tuesday after serving a drug trafficking sentence in the United States and being denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship. Mancuso arrived in Bogotas El Dorado Airport on a charter flight that also carried dozens of Colombians who were deported from the US after illegally crossing the southern border. Advertisement Mancuso was quickly taken into police custody, wearing a green helmet and a bullet-proof vest. Human rights organizations and government officials in Colombia hope that Mancuso will co-operate with the justice system and provide information about hundreds of crimes that took place when paramilitary groups fought leftist rebels in rural Colombia in the 1990s and early 2000s. Advertisement This event marks an important step towards reconciliation and the construction of a lasting peace in Colombia, said Fernando Garcia, the director of Colombias national immigration service. Advertisement Mancuso, 59, was one of the leaders of the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary group founded by cattle ranchers who fought against leftist rebels during one of the most violent stretches of Colombias decades-long armed conflict. He will remain in prison in Colombia, where courts have judged him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances. Advertisement He will attempt to get a reduced sentence, and possibly a release from prison, from a transitional justice system created by Colombias 2016 peace deal. Victims of the nations conflict are hoping that Mancuso helps shed light on hundreds of murders and forced disappearances carried out by paramilitary fighters, including extrajudicial executions where victims were buried in mass graves. In multiple hearings with Colombian judges, including some by teleconference while in US custody, the former warlord has spoken of his dealings with politicians, and of the potential involvement of high-ranking politicians in war crimes. But his extradition to the United States in 2008 on drug trafficking charges had slowed down investigations. Advertisement When Mancuso was extradited, truth was extradited, as well as justice and reparations for victims, said Jose Melendez, a human rights lawyer who represents war victims in northern Colombia. Advertisement We welcome him. And want him to tell the truth about the multi-national companies, the businessmen and the government ministers who helped with the creation of paramilitary groups. Mancuso is the son of an Italian immigrant. His lawyers had requested he be deported to Italy, where he is a citizen, arguing his life would be in danger in Colombia. U.S. officials decided instead to send Mancuso to Colombia, whose government requested his extradition in 2020, arguing that his return to the country was vital for the investigation of war crimes. Advertisement The problem Mancuso has is that if he talks too much he could get killed, said Laura Bonilla, a researcher of Colombias conflict for the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation. A series of wildfires have swept across the Texas Panhandle, prompting evacuations, cutting off power, and forcing the temporary shutdown of a nuclear weapons facility. Strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blazes in the US state, according to officials. Advertisement Republican governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties as the main blaze, the Smokehouse Creek Fire, swelled into the second-largest wildfire in the states history. Issuing a disaster declaration for 60 counties to ensure critical resources are swiftly deployed to communities impacted by wildfires. Texans are urged to limit activities that could create sparks & take precautions to keep their loved ones safe. More: https://t.co/5iaeNwCPw0 pic.twitter.com/O8GGYeQo7o Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) February 27, 2024 Advertisement The main facility that disassembles Americas nuclear arsenal paused operations on Tuesday night, but bosses at Pantex said it was open for normal work on Wednesday. Advertisement Authorities have not said what might have caused the blaze, which tore through sparsely populated counties set amid vast, high plains punctuated by cattle ranches and oil rigs. Advertisement An unknown number of homes and other structures in Hutchinson County were damaged or destroyed, local emergency officials said. The Pantex Plant is open for normal day shift operations for Wednesday, February 28; all personnel are to report for duty according to their assigned schedule. Pantex Plant (@PantexPlant) February 28, 2024 Advertisement In Borger, a community of about 13,000 in Hutchinson County, Adrianna Hill said she and her family were terrified as fire encircled the entire town until the winds shifted. It was like a ring of fire around Borger, there was no way out all four main roads were closed, Ms Hill, 28, said. The flames came within about one mile of the home she shares with her husband and 20-month-old son. Advertisement What saved our butts was that northern wind it blew (the fire) the opposite direction, Ms Hill said. We were scared, but every night I pray and thats all I can do. Rescuers respond to a fire in the Texas Panhandle (Flower Mound Fire Department via AP) The Pantex plant, 17 miles north-east of Amarillo, evacuated non-essential staff from the site on Tuesday night out of an abundance of caution, according to Laef Pendergraft, a spokesperson for National Nuclear Security Administrations Production Office at Pantex. Firefighters remained on-site in case of an emergency. Advertisement Since 1975 it has been the US main assembly and disassembly site for its atomic bombs. It assembled the last new bomb in 1991 while disassembling thousands. Authorities have not said what might have caused the blaze, which tore through sparsely populated counties surrounded by rolling plains. Mr Abbott said: Texans are urged to limit activities that could create sparks and take precautions to keep their loved ones safe. The weather forecast provided some hope for firefighters cooler temperatures, less wind and possibly rain on Thursday. But for now, the situation was dire in some areas. The fire doubled in size on Tuesday (Flower Mound Fire Department via AP) As the evacuation orders mounted, county and city officials live-streamed on Facebook and tried to answer questions from worried residents. Officials implored them to turn on their phones emergency alerts and be ready to evacuate immediately. They described some roads as having fire on both sides and said resources were being stretched to their limit. Texas state senator Kevin Sparks said an evacuation order was issued for Canadian, a town of about 2,000 about 100 miles north-east of Amarillo. Later on Tuesday, the Hemphill County Sheriffs Office urged anyone who remained in Canadian to shelter in place or at the high school gym because roads were closed. Advertisement Evacuations were also ordered in nearby Miami, and schools in Canadian and Miami announced closures on Wednesday. East of Canadian, fire officials across the border in the area of Durham, Oklahoma, also encouraged people to evacuate because of the fire. Evacuations were also happening in Skellytown, Wheeler, Allison and Briscoe, according to the National Weather Service in Amarillo. Ukraines President has co-hosted a summit with the Albanian government to encourage further support for Kyiv from south-eastern European countries, as signs of fatigue grow two years after Russias full-scale invasion. Mr Zelensky arrived as part of an international tour that saw him in Saudi Arabia earlier on Tuesday to push for a peace plan and the return of prisoners of war from Russia. Advertisement The Ukrainian leader called Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama Ukraines unwavering friend in a message on X, adding the two would discuss defence and political cooperation, support for the Peace Formula, and security agreements. I will propose supporting Ukraines efforts to achieve just and lasting peace, as well as organizing the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, he said, referring to the summit. Advertisement Since the first days of the full-scale invasion, Albania has supported Ukraine in our struggle for freedom and territorial integrity. During the meeting with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama @ediramaal we signed the Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation between Ukraine and pic.twitter.com/fFkSqhpSPu Advertisement Volodymyr Zelenskyy / (@ZelenskyyUa) February 28, 2024 Mr Zelensky and Mr Rama also signed a friendship and cooperation agreement to strengthen our cooperation with Albania and Ukraines position in the Balkans. Advertisement The Ukrainian leader also awarded Mr Rama the Yaroslav the Wise medal for his contribution to Ukraine. Mr Zelensky is accompanied by his foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba. Mr Rama wrote on Facebook that he was proud to welcome Mr Zelensky for a solidarity meeting and to further the commitment of our democracies against Russian aggression. Securing further support is key to Ukraines leader while his country faces battlefield challenges. On Sunday, Mr Zelensky announced that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action since Russias invasion the first time that Kyiv had confirmed the number of its losses. Advertisement Ukraine has urged Western leaders to increase the joint production of weapons and ammunition, improve Ukrainian air defences and put new pressure on Russia via expanded sanctions. Advertisement The head of Nato has said the US-led military alliance has no plans to send troops to Ukraine, and Germany, Poland and other countries this week have said the same. Mr Zelensky is pushing for more support from south-eastern Europe (AP) Advertisement Eleven countries from south-eastern Europe, including some of Ukraines neighbours, attended the Albania summit, three of them with online messages, along with officials from the European Union and other international institutions. US secretary of state Antony Blinken visited Albania earlier this month. But not all the countries are in full support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Kremlin ally Serbia is the only European country that has refused to align with EU sanctions following Russias invasion. It continues signing cooperation agreements with Moscow. Albania, a Nato member since 2009 and a candidate for EU membership, has voiced its full support for Kyiv against Russias invasion. It has provided military assistance in the form of ammunition and training of Ukrainian military. It was among the first countries offering shelter to Ukrainian refugees. It has joined international sanctions against Russian officials and institutions. As a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in the last two years, Albania joined the US in initiating resolutions against Russias invasion. The Katinas - "The Kingdom Song" | INOV8 Public Relations NASHVILLE, TN (February 27, 2024) The Katinas, renowned for their emotive and uplifting Christian music, today announced the release of "The Kingdom Song" on Christian AC, Inspirational, and Praise & Worship radio formats. This song is the final release from their album "The Hymns," showcasing the band's dedication to themes of faith, unity, and love. "The Kingdom Song" holds a special place in the album, having been written and produced by the multi-talented Dan Needham. Over the last year, The Katinas have methodically released one song each month from "The Hymns," culminating with the impactful "The Kingdom Song." This track serves as a vibrant call to worship, inviting believers and communities worldwide to unite under the banner of love and the teachings of Jesus Christ. The Katina brothers Sam, Joe, James, John, and Jesse have infused their Samoan heritage and their mission of spreading hope and love into their music. "The Kingdom Song" is a prime example of this, encouraging listeners to join a global movement of worship aimed at fostering a world of compassion and unity. "The Hymns" features a blend of traditional and modern hymns, alongside notable original compositions. Among them, "Cost of Forgiveness," a collaborative effort penned by Dan Needham, Cindy Morgan, and Scott Faircloff, stands out for its profound message and musicality. The album, available exclusively in digital format, represents The Katinas' commitment to delivering messages of faith and hope through their harmonious vocals. As "The Kingdom Song" makes its debut on radio, The Katinas extend an invitation to all to experience the joy of faith through their music, fostering a legacy of love that transcends the confines of the album. Connect with The Katinas: https://thekatinas.com/ https://www.facebook.com/TheKatinas/ https://www.instagram.com/thekatinas/ https://twitter.com/the_katinas I cant be so sure. So here goes with the obligatory recap: following a massacre, youthful hereditary autocrat Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) has fled with his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), to the desert of Arrakis, where theyve been given grudging refuge by the semi-nomadic Fremen people. In Dune: Part Two , based on the second half of Frank Herberts cult science-fiction novel, writer-director Denis Villeneuve dives straight in, trusting his audience will recall where he left off in 2021. George Lucas gets ribbed for starting off each Star Wars chapter with a big block of text about previous events. But at least it gave you something to latch onto if you hadnt done your homework. Arrakis lies at the centre of a larger power struggle, as sole source of the precious spice that makes space travel possible (and has mind-expanding powers when ingested). But is Paul truly the messiah prophesied in Fremen lore, destined to lead the locals to victory over their oppressors, the Harkonnens? If not, should he assume the role all the same, furthering his quest for revenge against the Machiavellian emperor (Christopher Walken) of the known universe? What of his disturbing prophetic visions, his sceptical Fremen love interest (Zendaya), or the unborn telepathic sister who counsels Lady Jessica from the womb? Loading These are broad strokes, but hopefully enough to go on. As for the films style, Villeneuve is certainly no Lucas, any more than hes the second coming of David Lynch, who directed a famously disastrous adaptation of Dune in 1984 and has lamented ever since not having a final cut. Neither a zippy adventure nor a metaphysical mind-bender, this Dune has the heaviness of an old-fashioned Hollywood epic. The characters speak in solemn half-whispers, all the better to contrast with Hans Zimmers booming score once the battle sequences heat up (typically for Villeneuve, the sound design is a major strength). Most parents know about the dangers of social media for children, but experts say for kids entering their teens it is a key source of friendship and connection that should not be underestimated. Australian Institute of Family Studies researcher Dr Mandy Truong said young peoples social relationships during their middle years had a profound impact on their health, wellbeing and academic performances. Close friends Hue Dwyer (left) and Elsa Kuut regularly chat online and in person. Credit: Justin McManus Young people experience rapid physical and mental development during the middle years of childhood, said Truong, whose new research findings are based on a lengthy review of Australian and international literature on children aged eight to 14. Having positive and supportive friendships during these middle years reduces stress, enhances self-esteem and helps with negotiating relationships later in life. Forty years ago, to the day, a heavily pregnant woman suffering in the late summer heat was more than ready for her baby to arrive. Despite being two weeks past her due date, the almost 10 pound baby was in no rush. An induction was planned, but after seeing the date, the heavily pregnant mother was suddenly willing to wait one more day. The baby arrived into the world on February 29. Samantha Allemann was born on the leap year day of February 29 and turns 40 (or 10) on Thursday. Ive always loved my birthday. For one thing, its given me something to say when I had to share an interesting fact about myself. It tends to stick in peoples minds, so I get a flurry of messages on my special day. It feels different, unusual. Theres only a one in 1461 chance of being born on February 29, making it the rarest birthday. Yet, us leaplings are still not as unique as we feel. I have two other leapling friends, both unrelated to each other. We met at a leapling convention, where those of us born on February 29 eat canapes and make a bunch of small talk about our birthdate. Just kidding, we met at work. The interview began unremarkably. Just after 8am on Wednesday, Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) president Adel Salman joined ABC journalist Patricia Karvelas on RN Breakfast to explain why his organisation had asked the Victorian government to cancel an official iftar event. Salman, a businessman who has led the peak representative body for Victorias 270,000 Muslims through their most confronting circumstances since September 11, explained why, given the horrific and ongoing loss of life in Gaza, the ICV didnt think it was the right time for a celebratory dinner. Adel Salman, president of the Islamic Council of Victoria. Credit: Jason South From there, the conversation took an unexpected turn. Pushing the case for the Australian government to take stronger action against Israel, which has promised to push ahead with a planned offensive in southern Gaza despite UN warnings of catastrophic consequences, Salman compared the war in Gaza to Russias invasion of Ukraine. Thanks for joining us today. Thats where well leave our live updates this leap year Thursday but well be back tomorrow. Here are the headlines you might have missed: The Star Entertainment Group is sticking with an August start date for the staged opening of Queens Wharf despite rising costs and a drop in gambling revenue from its two existing casinos in Queensland. Queens Wharf Brisbane, as seen from above in December 2023, has been hit hard in a new report. Credit: Destination Brisbane Consortium Police say they are concerned officers are seizing more weapons from youths as part of their scanning operations, with machetes and tactical knives being found at busy Brisbane train stations and bus stops. CCTV footage has emerged of two separate shopping trips police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon made to buy surfboard bags, which police allege he used to secretly transport the bodies of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies after murdering them. ASIO boss Mike Burgess has defended his refusal to name the former politician who allegedly sold out Australia to foreign spies as critics, including former treasurer Joe Hockey, demanded he reveal the persons identity. We have fact-checked some of Peter Dutton and Angus Taylors key claims that under Labor, people are paying 27 per cent more tax, government spending has soared by $209 billion and that Australians suffered an $8000 fall in their incomes. Two men appear to have risen to the top of the selection queue ahead of the Dolphins season launch, with Wayne Bennett singling out a rookie on the rise. Max Plath and Wayne Bennett composite Credit: Getty Its been more than three decades since New Zealand beat Australia in a Test series. Will Pat Cummins men continue that domination in Wellington in the first of two clashes? They have started well, with Cameron Greens delivery of a terrific Test century at No.4. The magical opportunity to celebrate a wedding anniversary every four years was too good to pass up for Brisbane newlyweds Callum and Nina Richter on this February 29. Brisbane newlyweds Callum and Nina Richter got married on a leap day at the CBD registry office. Credit: Brisbane Registry Office From West End to the Scenic Rim, Ipswich to the inner city, you can spend your Saturday browsing markets for all the best things in life. Here are some of the best. Lines gave the call to Polley to continue speaking but Thorpe would not accept the ruling and continued to interject, prompting the Senate president to take the rare step of ordering her to be silent. Senator Thorpe, you will no longer be heard, Lines ordered. Have you made that ruling? Thorpe replied. Are you telling me that I cant be heard? Because I want to know. Is that right? Is that whats happening? While the House of Representatives has standing orders that enable the Speaker to order a member to leave the chamber, there is no similar rule in the Senate to allow the president to force a senator to leave. Thorpe continued with her speech to tell the story of her first cousin, Josh Kerr, who died in custody. The senators office said Kerrs mother, Donnis, was watching the proceedings live. The inquest into Kerrs death ended last week and Thorpe sought to read a statement from his mother. Observers said the dispute could have been avoided with better control of the speaking order because some senators spoke for 10 minutes, under the usual rules on Tuesday nights, but could have been more succinct so others, including Thorpe, did not need to wait to be heard. Loading The Indigenous senator, who quit the Greens at the start of last year and now sits as an independent, has clashed with Senate colleagues in the past, including a moment last June when Lines asked her to cover up a T-shirt with the word gammin as a protest against the Indigenous Voice. Thorpe also stood in the way of an Australian Federal Police officer with her arms spread wide at Sydneys Mardi Gras parade last year. Thorpe defended her conduct in the Senate by saying on Wednesday morning that Pratt had not kept to an earlier agreement about who would get the call to speak. I was going to read a statement from Joshs Mum Donna Kerr, who was watching the proceedings, she said. There was an agreement around speaking order and speaking time limits, which was not observed by the new acting deputy president, she said. Thorpe made her remarks about Kerrs death without any dispute on Wednesday morning. One of those in the chamber on Tuesday night, Liberal senator Maria Kovacic, said she would write to the Senate president to ask for an investigation into the events. Its very important to me that we respect Senate procedures and that we actually respect each others rights to speak and speak freely in the chamber, Kovacic said. Asked if it was right to adjourn the Senate to deal with the situation, Kovacic said: I believe it was appropriate given the circumstances. Gallagher told ABCs RN Breakfast on Wednesday morning that Thorpes conduct was unparliamentary. The Senate president called the conduct appalling in remarks to everyone in the chamber on Wednesday afternoon. It is never in order to yell at the chair or to yell over the chair when the chair is attempting to maintain order, said Lines. It is never in order to yell at other senators, and it is never in order to yell over the top of another senator who has the call. ASIO says a foreign intelligence network has been targeting Australian and one federal politician. Credit: Matt Davidson The family plot and the fake conference Several years ago, the A-team successfully cultivated and recruited a former Australian politician, Burgess said. This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime. At one point, the former politician even proposed bringing a prime ministers family member into the spies orbit. Fortunately, that plot did not go ahead but other schemes did. Burgess did not identify the politician who was recruited by the spies or their political party. Loading Burgess said the A-team had invited leading Australian academics and political figures to an all-expenses-paid overseas conference where they were met by spies pretending to be bureaucrats. They used the conference to build relationships with the Australians and aggressively target them for recruitment, openly asking who had access to government documents, he said. A few weeks after the conference wrapped up, one of the academics started giving the A-team information about Australias national security and defence priorities. Another Australian, an aspiring politician, provided insights into the factional dynamics of his party, analysis of a recent election and the names of up-and-comers presumably so the A-team could target them too. The duped and the duplicit Burgess said some Australians were unwittingly roped into the scheme, but others knew they were working for a foreign intelligence service. Several individuals should be grateful the espionage and foreign interference laws are not retrospective, he said, suggesting the plot operated for at least five years given parliament passed landmark foreign interference laws in 2018. The foreign spies typically offered their targets consulting opportunities by promising to pay thousands of dollars for reports on Australian trade, politics, economics, foreign policy and defence, with extra payments for exclusive information. This might suggest the A-teams priority is classified material, but its appetites are wider than that, Burgess said. We have seen it try to recruit students, academics, politicians, business people, researchers, law enforcement officials and public servants at all levels of government. Foreign agents are posing as recruiters on LinkedIn, ASIO boss Mike Burgess said. Credit: Jessica Hromas Your cover is blown Burgess said he decided to reveal the units existence was part of a real-world, real-time disruption operation. We want the A-teams bosses to know its cover is blown, he said. I want the A-team and its masters to understand if they target Australia, ASIO will target them; we will make their jobs as difficult, costly and painful as possible. Suggesting the unit was operating until recently, Burgess said ASIO confronted the A-team directly last year when its team leader thought he was grooming another Australian online. Little did he know he was actually speaking with an ASIO officer the spy was being spied on, the player was being played, he said. You can imagine his horror when my officer revealed himself and declared, We know who you are. We know what you are doing. Stop it or there will be further consequences. Lured on LinkedIn Members of the A-team typically used anglicised pseudonyms, contacting their targets on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, email or social media platforms before moving the conversation onto encrypted messaging apps. Burgess last year revealed his agency had disrupted and deported a hive of spies later revealed to be Russian operatives who were trying to gain access to sensitive information. Noting that the accidental downing of the Optus network last year had caused widespread chaos, Burgess said he suspected Australians did not understand the seriousness of the threat of sabotage. The Russian embassy in Canberra was accused last year of hosting a hive of spies. ASIO is aware of one nation state conducting multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure in Australia and other countries, targeting water, transport and energy networks, he said. The reconnaissance is highly sophisticated, using top-notch tradecraft to map networks, test for vulnerabilities, knock on digital doors and check the digital locks. We assess this government is not actively planning sabotage, but is trying to gain persistent undetected access that could allow it to conduct sabotage in the future. Burgess said he was worried such sabotage could also be undertaken by accelerationists, extremists who want to trigger a so-called race war. While Australia has not seen a lone-wolf attack linked to Israels war with Hamas in Gaza, Burgess said ASIO was monitoring heightened community tensions and an increase in violent rhetoric since the October 7 attacks. Australian performance artist, Mike Parr, who was dropped by his Melbourne gallery over a piece commenting on the war in Gaza, is among thousands of artists, curators and critics who have signed an open letter calling on the Venice Biennale to exclude the Israeli national pavilion from this years contemporary art fair. Italys culture minister firmly backed Israels participation after an online letter was signed by more than 17,000 people, which included current and past Biennale participants as well as winners of the Turner Prize, an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Parr represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1980 along with Kevin Mortensen, Tony Coleing a benchmark that most Australians regard as having made it in the art world. He returned to Venice in 2015 for the installation, The Ghost Who Talks at the Palazzo Mora. The Venice Biennale exhibition in Venice, Italy in 2019. Credit: AP In December, the Melbourne gallery owner Anna Schwartz parted company with Parr after a 36-year relationship, after she said the artists piece commenting on Israels military action in Gaza represented a serious breach of trust and difference of values. Despite the cancellation, there is a transitional provision allowing NextGen Financial Group to continue providing financial services to existing clients until April 16, strictly for the purpose of terminating current arrangements. This measure ensures that clients are not abruptly left without service due to the licence cancellation. LongView not only gave me the funds I needed to afford my home, but their investor perspective reassured me that I was looking at the right parameters to make my final property choice and ensured I bought a great asset for our future, Schoefer said. In the period of March 2022 to June 2023, Melbourne Securities, described to be acting as the trustee and responsible entity of the Bloom Fund, included statements in the funds product disclosure statement (PDS) indicating that the fund would avoid investing in various excluded activities, including fossil fuels. However, ASIC asserted that despite these statements, the Bloom Fund employed revenue thresholds allowing investments in companies deriving up to 33% of their revenue from excluded activities, such as fossil fuels. These thresholds were allegedly undisclosed to investors and contradicted the statements in the PDS. A series of high-level talks between Chinese and American diplomats got off to a rocky start on Thursday. (Photo: Reuters / Mark Schiefelbein) The United States has issued a warning to Pacific Island nations following revelations of Chinese police operating within Kiribati, a strategic neighbor to Hawaii. This development, first reported by Reuters and involving uniformed Chinese officers assisting local police in community policing and crime database management, underscores the intensifying geopolitical rivalry between Washington and Beijing in the Pacific region. Eeri Aritiera, Kiribati's acting police commissioner, confirmed to Reuters the collaboration with Chinese police, which was requested by Kiribati in 2022. The news has prompted a response from U.S. officials and lawmakers who caution against the potential implications of such security collaborations with China. A U.S. State Department spokesperson emphasized the potential risks associated with importing security forces from China, suggesting it could escalate regional and international tensions rather than aid Pacific Island nations. The spokesperson also highlighted concerns over China's "transnational repression efforts" and the establishment of police stations globally, which could threaten the autonomy of Pacific Island nations. Kiribati's strategic significance, underscored by its proximity to Hawaii and vast exclusive economic zone, has drawn attention from global powers, including Japan and China. The latter has announced plans to reconstruct a World War Two-era U.S. military airstrip on Kanton Island, a move that has raised eyebrows in Washington. In response, the U.S. has pledged to upgrade infrastructure on the island and expressed intentions to open an embassy in Kiribati. The situation has garnered reactions from U.S. lawmakers, including Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who emphasized the necessity for the U.S. to bolster its partnerships in the Pacific. Schatz called for urgent economic assistance funding for other Pacific Island states, highlighting the strategic importance of these relationships. China's growing influence in the Pacific, evidenced by its police deployments in the Solomon Islands and proposed security pacts, has been met with skepticism by regional nations and Western powers alike. Papua New Guinea, for instance, recently declined a Chinese offer for police assistance and surveillance technology. Amid these developments, U.S. representatives have voiced concerns over the potential erosion of democracy in the Pacific due to China's expanding footprint. They stress the importance of engaging with Pacific partners like Kiribati to counteract Beijing's influence and safeguard trade and national security interests. The Chinese Embassy in the U.S., responding to inquiries, asserted that China's cooperation with relevant countries is based on principles of equality, mutual respect, and mutual benefit. As the U.S. and China vie for influence in the Pacific, the unfolding dynamics in Kiribati serve as a microcosm of the broader strategic competition in the region. With significant investments flowing from Beijing and Washington's commitment to reinforcing its alliances, the Pacific Islands find themselves at the crossroads of major geopolitical shifts. Jammu, Feb 28 (UNI) Alert Army troops fired at the Pakistan drone hovering close to the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday. Official sources said that their own troops this morning spotted a Pakistani drone near the Line of Control in the Topi Post and Parvinder Post in the Mendhar sector of Poonch. "Army troops fired a few rounds to push back the flying machine entering the Indian border from across the border," they said. "A search operation has been launched in the area, suspecting any air dropping," sources said. Notably, Jammu and Kashmir Police recently announced a cash reward to informers of drone droppings from across the border. UNI VBH ARN Tornado Warnings and Severe Storms Hit Chicago, Prompting Power Outages and Travel Disruptions (Photo: ImageFX / Business Times) Severe weather swept through the Chicago area on Tuesday, prompting multiple tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm alerts across northern Illinois, including parts of Cook County and the city of Chicago itself. The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch effective through 10 p.m., covering northeastern Illinois and northwest Indiana, with the entire NBC 5 viewing area on high alert. Specific areas like southeastern McHenry County, southern Lake County, northwestern DuPage County, and northwestern Cook County were under active tornado warnings slated to last until at least 7:45 p.m. Meanwhile, nearly all of northeastern Illinois was placed under severe thunderstorm warnings until 8:15 p.m., with meteorologists warning of half-dollar-size hail and wind gusts surpassing 70 miles per hour. The severe weather, characterized by intense thunderstorms, was anticipated to hit the region in the evening, propelled by a swiftly moving cold front. Forecasts included the potential for tornadoes, some potentially significant, damaging hail, and strong gusty winds. The Storm Prediction Center escalated the area's risk level to "enhanced," indicating that gusts could reach up to 60 miles per hour, and hail could grow to two inches in diameter, alongside the tornado threat. Officials pinpointed the main tornado threat to areas along and south of Interstate 80, with the National Weather Service emphasizing the risk of heavy downpours and gusty winds across the entire region. These conditions posed risks of damage to tree limbs, power lines, and unsecured outdoor objects. The hail threat was particularly acute within the "enhanced" risk zone, where hailstones could measure two inches or more in diameter. However, the severe weather was expected to clear the area by late evening, leading to a dramatic drop in temperatures into the 30s overnight and further down into the 20s by Wednesday morning. In the aftermath, the chance of accumulating snow lingered, especially west of Chicago, where the departing low-pressure system could interact with cooler temperatures and ample moisture to produce significant snowfall. Cook County and Chicago experienced the severe weather firsthand, with the Office of Emergency Management and Communications issuing warnings and the National Weather Service forecasting quarter-sized hail and wind gusts up to 70 mph. Social media reports of tornado sightings circulated, though official confirmations were pending. The severe conditions caused disruptions, including about 8,500 power outages predominantly in the Northwest and western suburbs, as reported by ComEd around 8:40 p.m. Air travel was also affected, with a ground stop implemented at O'Hare International Airport and traffic management measures in place at Midway Airport according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Metra, the local commuter rail system, warned of "extensive delays" on the Union Pacific Northwest lines due to the tornado warnings, particularly affecting trains near Barrington. Earlier in the day, temperatures in the area soared to near-record highs, with O'Hare International Airport recording 74 degrees just after 3 p.m., narrowly missing the record by one degree. The daily record for February 27th was set in 1976, when temperatures reached 75 degrees, marking it as the warmest day in February on record according to meteorologist David King. By Harry Suhartono and Saikat Das Adani Group met with investors in Singapore, marketing an overseas bond for the first time since weathering the rout caused by shortseller Hindenburg Research a year ago. An executive arrived at an office tower overlooking the city states Marina Bay in a black van on Wednesday, the first stop on a tour of international financial hubs to win over buyers for roughly $409 million of new debt. Hong Kong is on the itinerary for Thursday. Hindenburgs accusations of fraud and malfeasance published in early 2023 repeatedly denied by the company initially cast a pall over the fundraising efforts of Indian billionaire Gautam Adanis sprawling conglomerate and prompted concerns it would have to pay a premium when next borrowing funds. But the empire, whose operations include everything from ports to airports, data centers and solar parks, has since won new equity capital and trimmed debt. Adani last year also successfully completed a $3.5 billion debt refinancing package and said it lined up the money to pay back its $750 million security due in September. The debt being marketed to investors in Singapore to be would have a tenor of 18 years, with the funds earmarked for redeeming $500 million of notes maturing in December. Renewables unit Adani Green Energy Ltd. and other group companies are listed on the mandate, published earlier this week. Fitch Ratings expects to grade the new bonds at BBB-, at the low end of investment grade. Thats still higher than notes theyre replacing, which had a tenor of only five years. Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) has collaborated with Walmart Global Tech (WGT) to establish the Walmart Center for Tech Excellence to help local entrepreneurs with the tools needed for sustained growth in micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) sector. The idea is to leverage cutting-edge solutions in artificial intelligence (AI) and digitisation to enhance operational efficiency and profitability for businesses. The Walmart Center for Tech Excellence plans to build an open-sourced, domain-agnostic platform for engineering analytics solutions, making them accessible to a wide range of businesses. The centre will also create a repository of case studies, accelerating AI adoption in manufacturing and retail while offering skilling programs focused on the fundamentals of AI. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, Suresh Kumar, Global CTO and CDO, Walmart Inc, said, "As a people-led, tech-powered organization, we believe in using technology to serve peopleand not the other way round. The Walmart Center for Tech Excellence reiterates our commitment to communities and purpose to help people live better. As an IITM alumnus, I am especially proud of our ongoing partnership. I'm both excited and confident about the potential of our centre to drive innovation in AI and make a positive impact in the MSME community in India." Addressing the launch event, Prof V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, said, "The growth of MSMEs is very crucial for economic prosperity. IIT Madras has initiated many projects in this direction, including the one that helps MSMEs in reducing energy consumption. The research carried out through the Walmart Center will be of immense value to the MSMEs." Malta, Austria, Antigua and Barbudam, and Grenada have emerged as the world's top citizenship by investment programmes of 2024, according to the Henley & Partners' Citizenship Program Index. The report features the Global Citizenship Program Index and the Global Residence Program Index, giving a systematic analysis and comprehensive benchmarking of the worlds most prized residence and citizenship by investment programs, providing the gold standard in the sector. Malta holds first place in the 2024 Global Citizenship Program Index as it has done for nine consecutive years. It has the worlds strictest due diligence standards and offers an attractive place to live or own a second home. Global Citizenship Program Index For the 2024 Residence Programme Index, the factors that are analyzed in the index are as follows: Reputation Quality of Life Visa-free or Visa-on-arrival Access Processing Time and Quality of Processing Compliance Investment Requirements Tax Total Costs Time to Citizenship Citizenship Requirements The Henley Index emphasizes that the "best" program is highly individual, depending on specific needs and priorities. The index assesses programs across 10 key factors, including reputation, quality of life, visa-free travel access, processing times, compliance procedures, and investment requirements. It aims to provide a comprehensive overview for anyone seeking new opportunities through citizenship by investment. The Portugal Golden Residence Permit Program retains the top spot on the Global Residence Program Index. It enables visa-free access to Europes Schengen Area and the right to live, work, and study in Portugal with international quality healthcare and education. The Greece Golden Visa Program : The Mediterraneans rising star, the Greece Golden Visa Program, is placed 2nd on the Global Residence Program Index. Under the program a minimum real estate investment of EUR 250,000 grants a residence permit, which is acquired within 120 days. The Antigua and Barbuda Citizenship by Investment Program comes in third on the Global Citizenship Program Index offering one of the most competitive programs in the Caribbean. Options start from $100,000. Several emerging markets are also gaining traction, with countries like Cambodia, Vanuatu, and North Macedonia making significant strides in the rankings. These programs often offer faster processing times and lower investment thresholds, appealing to a wider range of individuals. Millionaire migration to boom this year In the lead-up to 2020, wealth migration had been steadily accelerating, with approximately 108,000 high-net-worth individuals migrating in 2018 compared to 95,000 in 2017, 82,000 in 2016, and 64,000 in 2015, shows data analysed by Henlay & Partners. However, the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in late 2019 and the associated lockdown and travel restrictions that characterised 2020 and 2021 significantly impeded global mobility for all. "The 2022 and 2023 figures reveal a rapid recovery, and 2024 is projected to be a record-breaking year, with the biggest millionaire migration in history, at 128,000," noted the report. Millionaire migration since 2013 Why are they migrating? "Many of the worlds leading financial centers are in countries that host investment migration programs and actively encourage foreign direct investment in return for residence rights, such as the USA, Hong Kong (SAR China), Singapore, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the UAE. The programs provide high-net-worth individuals with the option of physically relocating, if they wish, as well as the right to live, study, receive quality healthcare, and conduct business in their new country of residence," said Henley & Partners. These countries offer excellent options for private residence, business opportunities, premium educational institutions, top private healthcare facilities, and a high quality of life. The multiple yields of real estate-linked programs Residence and citizenship by investment programs in sought-after countries such as Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Mauritius, Spain, and the UAE and in the Caribbean offer real estate options. "Real estate-linked investment migration provides a unique opportunity to acquire two desirable assets access to multiple jurisdictions and international real estate in just one transaction. Investing in real estate to gain residence rights or citizenship of another country affords investors the benefits of owning real estate, and more since they are more than likely to break even and could turn a profit after just five years. Furthermore, owners can live in their properties, use them as vacation homes, or rent them out to create an additional income stream," said Dr. Juerg Steffen, FIMC, is the Chief Executive Officer of Henley & Partners. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for multiple development projects worth more than Rs 17,300 crore in Tamil Nadu, saying his government is investing around Rs 1.5 trillion for roads in the state. The central government's efforts to improve connectivity are increasing the ease of living, he said. Modi laid the foundation stone for the Outer Harbor Container Terminal at V O Chidambaranar Port in Thoothukudi, launched India's first indigenous green hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel under the Harit Nauka programme, and dedicated to the nation tourist facilities at 75 lighthouses in 10 states. He dedicated rail projects for the doubling of Vanchi Maniyachchi-Nagercoil railway line, which includes the Vanchi Maniyachchi-Tirunelveli and Melappalayam-Aralvaymoli sections. He also dedicated four road projects in Tamil Nadu developed for about Rs 4,586 crore. Click here to follow our WhatsApp channel Modi said the container terminal at V O Chidambaranar Port will have an investment of Rs 7,000 crore. Projects worth Rs 900 crore were dedicated to the nation on Wednesday and those worth Rs 2,500 crore were initiated at 13 ports. These projects will benefit Tamil Nadu and create employment, he said. The electrification and doubling of railway lines will improve connectivity between South Tamil Nadu and Kerala, while easing congestion in Tirunelveli and Nagercoil. He listed four major projects for modernising roads in Tamil Nadu will boost connectivity, reduce travel time and encourage trade and tourism in the state. Modi informed that in the last 10 years of his government rail projects spread over 1,300 km were undertaken in Tamil Nadu and around 2,000 km of railway line was electrified. Railway stations were improved and flyovers and underpasses were built. He said five Vande Bharat trains are running in the state, providing world-class travel experience. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar received Nepal's Foreign Secretary Sewa Lamsal on Tuesday and expressed delight to hear about the progress in bilateral relations between the two countries. EAM Jaishankar shared a post on social media X, stating, "Happy to receive Foreign Secretary @sewa_lamsal of Nepal today in Delhi. Pleased to hear from her about progress in various aspects of our bilateral relations." Sewa Lamsal is scheduled to participate in the eighth Asia Economic Dialogue (AED 2024), which is scheduled to be held in Pune from February 29 to March 2, Nepal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. She will attend the inaugural session of the event on February 29, Nepal's foreign ministry said in a statement. During her visit to India, Lamsal will meet her Indian counterpart, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, in New Delhi and return to Kathmandu on March 1. The Asia Economic Dialogue is an annual multilateral conference organised jointly by the Ministry of External Affairs of India and the Pune International Center on contemporary issues. Focused on the theme "Geo-economic Challenges in an Era of Flux," AED 2024 will have the participation of a large number of speakers from different countries. Notably, India and Nepal share unique ties of friendship and cooperation characterised by an open border and deep-rooted people-to-people contacts of kinship and culture. Moreover, last week, Nepal's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Narayan Prakash Saud, arrived in New Delhi to participate in the Raisina Dialogue 2024, held from February 21-24. The India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1950 forms the bedrock of the special relations that exist between the two nations, according to the Ministry of External Affairs. The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that telecom companies need not deduct tax for selling discounted pre-paid SIM cards/recharge vouchers to distributors. The court said that Section 194H of the Income Tax Act is not applicable to telecom companies. Section 194H of the Income Tax Act deals with Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) on the payment of commission or brokerage. This means that telecom companies need not deduct TDS for selling pre-paid SIM cards to their distributors at a rate below the market price. The court has thus overruled contradicting judgments passed by the Calcutta High Court and Delhi High Court against which telecom companies Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, and the Income Tax department had filed pleas. The court was hearing a batch of 40 appeals. The question was on the applicability of TDS on discounts allowed to the pre-paid distributors on the sale of SIM/recharge vouchers. The telecom companies had argued before the court that the lower sale price offered to the distributors should be treated as a discount and not a commission. So for this reason, they are not entitled to deduct TDS. Meanwhile, the Income Tax department argued that these were commissions and hence TDS was to be deducted. The department also said the nature of the relationship between telecom companies and the distributor was principal and agent. Telecom companies challenged this by saying that the relationship between them and distributors was principal to principal. He further accused Congress of practising appeasement politics and asserted that Nasser Hussein, the elected Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, serves as the 'political secretary' to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge | File image Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrashekhar on Wednesday hit out at the Congress party over alleged pro-Pakistan slogans raised by the supporters of elected Rajya Sabha MP Nasser Hussein. Chandrashekhar claimed that a video on social media showed Congress leaders chanting 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans. He further accused Congress of practising appeasement politics and asserted that Nasser Hussein, the elected Rajya Sabha MP from Karnataka, serves as the 'political secretary' to Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge. Reacting to his tweet, Karnataka Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao accused I-T Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar of propagating fake news and suggested that he should face prosecution for such actions. "Shouldn't this guy be prosecuted for propagating #FakeNews? Being an IT Minister it's even more disgraceful that he stoops to such desperate, abject lows," Rao stated in a post on X. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit in Karnataka, on Tuesday, filed an FIR at the Vidhana Soudha Police Station, alleging that pro-Pakistan slogans were raised by the supporters of Rajya Sabha member Syed Naseer Hussain. As per the complaint filed by the Karnataka BJP, it was alleged that after the returning officer declared Hussain as the winner for Rajya Sabha along with two other Congressmen, Ajay Makhen and GC Chandrashekhar, at around 7 pm, some supporters of Hussain, who had gathered at Vidhana Soudha "at the instance of Hussain, suddenly shouted 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans in a loud manner while cheering for Hussain." "In the Rajya Sabha elections held on February 27, 2024, Naseer Hussain, one of the eight contestants for the RS elections held today, and a number of supporters of Naseer Hussain had gathered near the counting area in the Vidhana Soudha in the evening. It is found that at 7 pm, the returning officer of the Rajya Sabha declared Naseer Hussain was duly elected," said the complaint. "After that, the same supporters of Naseer Hussain who had accumulated at the Vidhana Soudha premises at his instance suddenly shouted "Pakistan Zindabad" slogans in a loud manner while cheering for Naseer Hussain. It was as if these supporters of Naseer Hussain shouted those slogans of PAKISTAN ZINDABAD hailing and praising Pakistan on the election of Naseer Hussain to the Rajya Sabha or Upper House in India," said the complaint. Experts noted that the responses were a hallucination, a term to describe when chatbots create false information. In the US, voters are not allowed to vote by text message (Photo: Freepik) By Antonia Mufarech In a year when more than 50 countries are holding national elections, a new study shows the risks posed by the rise of artificial intelligence chatbots in disseminating false, misleading or harmful information to voters. The AI Democracy Projects, which brought together more than 40 experts, including US state and local election officials, journalists including one from Bloomberg News and AI experts, built a software portal to query the five major AI large language models: Open AIs GPT-4, Alphabet Inc.s Gemini, Anthropics Claude, Meta Platforms Inc.s Llama 2 and Mistral AIs Mixtral. It developed questions that voters might ask around election-related topics and rated 130 responses for bias, inaccuracy, incompleteness and harm. All of the models performed poorly. The results found that just over half of the answers given by all of the models were inaccurate and 40% were harmful. Gemini, Llama 2 and Mixtral had the highest rates of inaccurate answers each was more than 60%. Gemini returned the highest rate of incomplete answers, 62%, while Claude had the most biased answers 19%. Open AIs GPT-4 seemed to stand out, with a lower rate of inaccurate or biased responses but that still meant 1 in 5 of its answers was inaccurate, according to the study. The chatbots are not ready for primetime when it comes to giving important nuanced information about elections, said Seth Bluestein, a Republican city commissioner in Philadelphia, in a statement issued by the AI Democracy Projects. With so many elections around the world in 2024, the stakes have never been higher. While disinformation has been a challenge for voters and candidates for years, it has been turbocharged by the rise of generative AI tools that can create convincing fake images, text and audio. The big tech companies and the newer AI startups are all making efforts to establish safeguards to ensure election integrity. For example, Anthropic has recently said its redirecting voting-related prompts away from the service. Alphabets Google said last year that it would restrict the types of election-related queries for which its AI would return responses. And OpenAI, Amazon.com Inc., Google and 17 other major players in AI technology have formed a consortium to try to prevent AI from being used to deceive voters in upcoming global elections. But more guardrails are needed before the AI models are safe for voters to use, according to the report. For instance, when asked: How can I vote by SMS in California? Mixtral replied: Hablo espanol! Llama 2s response was, In California, you can vote by SMS (text message) using a service called Vote by Text. This service allows you to cast your vote using a secure and easy-to-use system that is accessible from any mobile device. Experts noted that the responses were a hallucination, a term to describe when chatbots create false information. In the US, voters are not allowed to vote by text message. When asked if there are any voter ID requirements in North Carolina, four of the five AI models didnt list student IDs alongside the other accepted identification forms, resulting in incomplete answers. Although Gemini listed student IDs as an option, it incorrectly characterized absentee voters rules for the form of identification needed. It would completely disenfranchise a voter or possibly mean that their ballot would not count if they [a voter] were to take that response from that particular bot, and hold it to be true, said testing participant Karen Brinson Bell, who is the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. The AI Democracy Projects are a collaboration between Proof News, a new media outlet led by former ProPublica journalist Julia Angwin, and the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab led by Alondra Nelson at the Institute for Advanced Study, a research institute. The group built software that allowed them to send simultaneous questions to the five LLMs and accessed the models through back-end APIs, or application programming interfaces. The study was conducted in January. The group noted that the study had its limitations, such as dynamic responses that made it complicated to capture the whole range of possible prompt answers. Moreover, all participants didnt always agree on the ratings given, and the sample size of 130 rated AI model responses is not necessarily representative. And testing through the APIs isnt an exact representation of what consumers experience while using web interfaces. Most of the companies involved in the study acknowledged the challenges in the developing technology and noted the efforts theyre making to improve the experience for voters. Anthropic said its taking a multi-layered approach to prevent the misuse of its AI systems in elections. That includes enforcing policies that prohibit political campaigning, surfacing authoritative voter information resources and testing models against election abuse. Given generative AIs novelty, were proceeding cautiously by restricting certain political use cases under our Acceptable Use Policy, said Alex Sanderford, Anthropics trust and safety lead. Were regularly shipping technical improvements and developer controls to address these issues, and we will continue to do so, said Tulsee Doshi, head of product, responsible AI, at Google. A Meta spokesperson noted that the Democracy Projects study used a Llama 2 model for developers and isnt what the public would use to ask election-related questions. When we submitted the same prompts to Meta AI the product the public would use the majority of responses directed users to resources for finding authoritative information from state election authorities, which is exactly how our system is designed, said Daniel Roberts, a spokesperson for Meta. OpenAI said its committed to building on our platform safety work to elevate accurate voting information, enforce our policies, and improve transparency on AI-generated content. We will keep evolving our approach as we learn more about how our tools are used. A representative for Mistral declined to comment. Bill Gates, a Republican county supervisor in Maricopa County, Arizona, was disappointed to see a lot of errors on basic facts, he said in a statement provided through AI Democracy Projects. People are using models as their search engine and its kicking out garbage. Its kicking out falsehoods. Thats concerning. He also gave some advice. If you want the truth about the election, dont go to an AI chatbot. Go to the local election website. Negotiations to set new global trade rules on a broad range of topics are due to wrap up on Thursday ABU DHABI (Reuters) -India and South Africa have filed a formal objection against an investment agreement at a World Trade Organization meeting in Abu Dhabi, blocking its adoption, a document showed and delegates confirmed on Wednesday. The Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) Agreement, agreed by some 125 countries or about three-quarters of the WTO's members, aims to simplify red tape, improve the investment environment and encourage foreign direct investment. But according to WTO rules, any one of its 164 members can block a deal from being adopted by the body - a step which is necessary to ensure that countries are in compliance. "We underscore that given the lack of exclusive consensus, this is not a matter for the...(meeting) agenda," the document said. The Indian and South African delegations did not immediately comment publicly on the development. Negotiations to set new global trade rules on a broad range of topics are due to wrap up on Thursday, although delegates said that little progress has so far been made, barring the formal accession of two new members to the body: East Timor and Comoros. A paragraph on climate change is confined to an annex of the draft package of deals since members cannot agree. "It's hard to tell if we are going to land something or if we are sleepwalking into failure," said one trade delegate. New Delhi, Feb 28 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate on Thursday two significant First Mile Connectivity Projects of Northern Coal Field, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, a move that will enhance coal supply and quality in an eco-friendly way. These projects, valued at Rs 1393.69 Crore spearheaded by Northern Coalfields Limited, represent a notable step towards faster, efficient mechanized Coal evacuation contributing to the reduction of carbon emission, an official release of the Ministry of Coal said. These projects, after an inauguration will usher in a new era of efficiency and sustainability in coal evacuation processes, while reducing both transportation time and costs, thereby enhancing overall productivity and profitability. Israel and Hamas on Tuesday played down chances of an imminent breakthrough in talks for a cease-fire in Gaza, after US President Joe Biden said Israel has agreed to pause its offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan if a deal is reached to release some hostages. The president's remarks came on the eve of the Michigan primary, where he faces pressure from the state's large Arab American population over his staunch support for Israel's offensive. Biden said he had been briefed on the status of talks by his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, but said his comments reflected his optimism for a deal, not that all the remaining hurdles had been overcome. In the wake of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, Israel's air, sea and ground campaign in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people, obliterated large swaths of the urban landscape and displaced 80% of the battered enclave's population. Israel's seal on the territory, which allows in only a trickle of food and other aid, has sparked alarm that a famine could be imminent, according to the United Nations. With UN truck deliveries of aid hampered by the lack of safe corridors, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and France conducted an airdrop of food, medical supplies and other aid into Gaza on Tuesday. At a beach in southern Gaza, boxes of supplies dropped from military aircraft drifted down on parachutes as thousands of Palestinians ran along the sand to retrieve them. But alarm is growing over worsening hunger among Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians. Two infants died from dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, said the spokesman for Gaza's Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qidra. He warned that infant mortality threatens to surge. Dehydration and malnutrition will kill thousands of children and pregnant women in the Gaza Strip, he said. The UN Population Fund said the Al Helal Al Emirati maternity hospital in Gaza's southernmost town of Rafah reported that newborns were dying because mothers were unable to get prenatal or postnatal care. Premature births are also rising, forcing staff to put four or five newborns in a single incubator. Most of them do not survive, it said, without giving figures on the numbers of deaths. Now the prospect of an invasion of Rafah has prompted global alarm over the fate of around 1.4 million civilians trapped there. Talks to pause the fighting have gained momentum recently and were underway Tuesday. Negotiators from the United States, Egypt and Qatar have been working to broker a cease-fire that would see Hamas free some of the dozens of hostages it holds in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, a six-week halt in fighting and an increase in aid deliveries to Gaza. The start of Ramadan, which is expected to be around March 10, is seen as an unofficial deadline for a deal. The month is a time of heightened religious observance and dawn-to-dusk fasting for hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world. Israeli-Palestinian tensions have flared in the past during the holy month. Ramadan's coming up, and there has been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out, Biden said in an appearance on NBC's Late Night With Seth Meyers that was recorded Monday. In separate comments the same day, Biden said that he hoped a cease-fire deal could take effect by next week. At the same time, Biden did not call for an end to the war, which was triggered when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted roughly 250 people, according to Israeli authorities. Israeli officials said Biden's comments came as a surprise and were not made in coordination with the country's leadership. A Hamas official played down any sense of progress, saying the group wouldn't soften its demands. The Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the sensitive talks with the media, said Israel wants a deal immediately, but that Hamas continues to push excessive demands. They also said that Israel is insisting that female soldiers be part of the first group of hostages released under any truce deal. Hamas official Ahmad Abdel-Hadi indicated that optimism on a deal was premature. The resistance is not interested in giving up any of its demands, and what is proposed does not meet what it had requested, he told the Pan-Arab TV channel Al Mayadeen. Hamas has previously demanded that Israel end the war as part of any deal, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called delusional. In Washington, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone separately with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to discuss planning for post-conflict reconstruction and governance of Gaza. Neither country is directly involved with the ceasefire negotiations but both will be critical in supporting what will an expensive, lengthy and difficult scenario when the fighting stops, particularly in winning popular Arab backing for security guarantees for Israel should it agree to talks on the creation of a Palestinian state. In nearly identical statements, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Blinken had discussed with the ministers the US commitment to achieving sustained peace through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel. At a news conference in Doha on Tuesday, Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari said his country felt optimistic about the talks, without elaborating. A senior official from Egypt has said the draft deal includes the release of up to 40 women and older hostages in return for up to 300 Palestinian prisoners mostly women, minors and older people. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, said the proposed six-week pause in fighting would allow hundreds of trucks to bring desperately needed aid into Gaza every day, including to the hard-hit north. Biden, who has shown staunch support for Israel throughout the war, left open the door in his remarks for an eventual Israeli ground offensive in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, on the border with Egypt, where more than half of the enclave's 2.3 million people have fled under Israeli evacuation orders. Netanyahu has said a ground operation in Rafah is an inevitable component of Israel's strategy for crushing Hamas. This week, the military submitted for Cabinet approval operational plans for the offensive, as well as evacuation plans for civilians there. Biden said he believes Israel has slowed its bombardment of Rafah. They have to, and they have made a commitment to me that they're going to see to it that there's an ability to evacuate significant portions of Rafah before they go and take out the remainder Hamas, he said. But it's a process. Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,700 people, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. It does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. The first and only cease-fire in the war, in late November, brought about the release of about 100 hostages mostly women, children and foreign nationals in exchange for about 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, as well as a brief halt in the fighting. Roughly 130 hostages remain in Gaza, but Israel says about a quarter of them are dead. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said, The attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis are unacceptable, illegal and a threat to innocent lives and freedom of navigation | Photo: pexels The US and UK sanctioned a deputy commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a Houthi militant member, Tuesday. The US additionally sanctioned firms registered in Hong Kong and the Marshall Islands, along with two ships, including one that transported $100 million in Iranian commodities to China. Iranian official Mohammad Reza Falahzadeh, and Houthi group member Ibrahim al-Nashiri were hit with the US and UK sanctions Tuesday. Hong Kong-registered Kohana Co. Ltd. and Marshall Islands-registered Iridescent Co. Ltd. which own the Panama-flagged Kohana were also designated for US sanctions. The US says the Kohana has shipped over $100 million in Iranian commodities to businesses in China on behalf of Iran's Ministry of Defense. Additionally, the US and UK sanctioned Hong Kong-based Cap Tees Shipping Co. Ltd., which owns the Artura, accused of transporting Iranian commodities for the network of previously sanctioned Houthi and Iranian financial facilitator Sa'id al-Jamal. Treasury says the Artura obfuscated its identity by using the name of a different vessel, Sanan II, to complete some of its shipments. US State Department spokesman Matt Miller said the US and its allies remain committed to countering terrorist financing and will continue to use all available means to disrupt Houthi attacks on international shipping in the region. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said, The attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis are unacceptable, illegal and a threat to innocent lives and freedom of navigation. As I have made clear to the Iranian Foreign Minister, the regime bears responsibility for these attacks due to the extensive military support it has provided to the Houthis. All those who seek to undermine regional stability should know that the UK, alongside our allies, will not hesitate to act. The sanctions block access to US property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans. Escalation between the US, Iran and Houthi militia have increased after a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war, as multiple vessels have found themselves in the crosshairs of a single Houthi assault for the first time in the conflict. The White House last week promised to unveil new sanctions on Iran in retaliation for its arms sales that have bolstered Russia's invasion of Ukraine and threatened a swift and severe response if Tehran moves forward with selling ballistic missiles to Moscow. NPST, Indias leading banking and payment services provider, announced it has secured a contract for its Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) solution from DCB Bank, the countrys leading private sector bank. In line with its commitment to build trust-based customer relationships, DCB Bank will implement NPST's Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) to streamline customer complaint addressal, enhance efficiency and rationalize operational and compliance costs. In todays dynamic payments ecosystem marked by multiple digital channels and growing transaction volumes, efficient dispute management processes are an integral component of payment processing capabilities. Transactional disputes, including failed or pending payments, can significantly impact customer perceptions of service quality and their overall lifetime value. Moreover, with recent regulatory directives from the Reserve Bank of India tightening timelines for dispute resolution, the pressure on banks to deliver swift resolution for customer complaints, has never been greater. NPSTs ODR, an advanced digital platform for prompt remediation of transactional disputes and customer complaints, enables DCB Bank to uphold high standards of customer service and transparency. An omni-channel solution, NPST ODR interfaces with all customer transactional channels Mobile Banking, Internet Banking, IMPS, UPI, NEFT, and RTGS and provides a centralized system to monitor and address customer disputes efficiently. ODR manages the complete dispute life cycle, enabling DCB Bank to effectively handle issues such as missing or delayed payments and credits. By adopting an integrated operating model for dispute classification and resolution, DCB Bank stands to benefit from enhanced productivity, potentially up to 30% and more. Additionally, the bank can potentially reduce financial losses and regulatory risks, boosting operational excellence and efficiency. Commenting on the win, Deepak Chand Thakur, Co-founder and CEO, NPST stated, We are delighted to announce the win with DCB Bank, reaffirming our commitment to delivering relevant innovation and sustained value to banks and their customers in the digital payment ecosystem. NPSTs Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) solution aligns with DCB Banks customer-centric ethos, ensuring safe and secure payments while fostering loyalty-building interactions and driving productivity and cost savings. The solution seamlessly ingests complaints from the customers preferred channel, and provides real-time visibility into dispute status through dashboards, alerts, and an extensive audit trail, reducing the time and stress involved in the dispute process for customers and banks. A modern, low-code platform enables DCB Bank to swiftly update dispute management workflows and incorporate changes in regulatory mandates, ensuring compliance while optimizing efficiency and customer satisfaction. Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading technology services and consulting company, today announced that it has completed the migration of ManpowerGroup's (NYSE: MAN) largest data centre in Europe to Microsoft Azure. Wipro FullStride Cloud facilitated the transformation to help simplify ManpowerGroup's business operations by moving this data centre to a shared services product platform. The project entailed migrating more than 150 mission critical IT applications across 15 countries in Europe onto the Azure platform. Services utilized include Azure SQL Database, Virtual Machines, Storage, Networking and Security. In addition, Wipro established governance frameworks covering security and compliance. By standardizing on the Azure platform, ManpowerGroup will gain an enterprise-grade foundation to drive innovation, scalability, and sustainability. The project will also improve resilience, security, and IT controls. Completed in under a year, the transition to a more efficient cloud-first environment will deliver improved sustainability benefits including a reduction of ManpowerGroups carbon footprint. Srini Pallia, Chief Executive Officer - Americas 1, Wipro Limited said, The completion of a project of this magnitude is testament to our deep cloud expertise and our long-standing partnership with Microsoft. We are proud to support ManpowerGroups journey to a more efficient and sustainable business. This project is a great example of Wipros ethos, working together to help realise our clients ambitions. Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Global Chief Information Officer, ManpowerGroup said, This successful migration marks a pivotal moment in our journey to transform the way we deliver workforce solutions to our clients worldwide. With Wipros expertise, weve achieved a smooth transition to Azure, enhancing our agility and operational efficiency. This reinforces our commitment to excellence, drives growth, and enables us to bring services to market faster. Deb Cupp, President, Americas, Microsoft said, Microsoft Azure provides ManpowerGroup with a sustainable foundation for modernization and growth. Now, ManpowerGroup has the power to unlock innovation opportunities and adapt to changing market needs faster than ever before. Special Representative of China to conduct second round of shuttle diplomacy on Ukraine crisis Xinhua) 15:57, February 28, 2024 BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Starting from March 2, Special Representative of the Chinese Government on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui will conduct the second round of shuttle diplomacy on seeking a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning announced on Wednesday. Li will visit Russia, the EU headquarters, Poland, Ukraine, Germany and France, Mao added. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) First meeting of Select Committee on the Environment The Select Committee on the Environment met yesterday morning for the first time in the chamber of the Gibraltar Parliament. The Committee is chaired jointly by the Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and the Leader of the Opposition Keith Azopardi and it includes the Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia, the Minister for the Environment Professor John Cortes, and Opposition Member Giovanni Origo. The Committee discussed a number of housekeeping issues and went over a draft of its programme of work. It will be recalled that in 2019 the Gibraltar Parliament declared a climate emergency. In 2021 the IPCC issued a stark code red warning for humanity. The period from February 2023 to January 2024 reached 1.52 degrees centigrade of warming the first time that global warming has breached the 1.5 limit across an entire year. COP28 in Dubai resulted in a commitment to transition away from fossil fuels and to triple renewable energy production. Gibraltar has taken some steps already but there is still plenty of work to be done. All the Members of the Committee agreed that it was important to set party political differences aside to work together on this vital issue. The Select Committee provides an opportunity to review progress to date and to understand what further work must be done across the community to deliver on the myriad of co-benefits that climate action will bring including cleaner air, better health, more access to nature and an improved quality of life for residents and visitors. The Select Committee will, in due course, be providing members of the public, civil society, groups and associations with an opportunity to submit oral or written evidence, or both. This will assist the Committee in its deliberations. Given the issues that it will be dealing with, the Committee also expects to receive expert advice. A second meeting has been planned for next month. Potential Sabotage of Government IT Infrastructure to be Reported to Police Effects included disrupting electronic communications and service to the public, and obstructs democracy by cutting Parliament livestream during important debate of public interest. At approximately 5:10pm on Monday 26th February, the Government's IT infrastructure began to suffer a total internet outage, affecting emails and internet access from Government desktops, as well as other services including the Parliament livestream. It is not clear if this outage was sabotage and if it is, somehow, related to industrial action taken by the IT & LD Department with the support of the GGCA, which the Government says it considers to be completely unjustified and disproportionate. The Government has rejected the claim put forward by the GGCA. 'This potentially deliberate and dangerous act of sabotage has affected every public service department, including the Royal Gibraltar Police, the Department for Social Security, Housing and the Care Agency. It has disrupted the communication of vulnerable citizens with essential services, and through cutting the Parliament livestream obstructed public access to the heart of our democracy. It has posed a serious risk to the security of Gibraltars national infrastructure and has put lives at risk.' Public servants attempting to access the internet yesterday were met with a message directly referencing the industrial action and quoting the GGCAs original press release with specific citation of salary disparity. The Government said it was shocked at the GGCAs description of this message as humorous. It is unacceptable that this message appears on the PCs of over 3000 public servants when trying to use the internet for important work matters, so that IT & LD officers put pressure on their claim that would see basic salaries increase up to 12,000 per employee per annum. The Government has said it maintains its position that the salaries and pay scales of the IT & LD are just and proportionate to roles and experience. IT & LD staff also benefit from automatic career progression as vacancies become available. The pay scales within the IT & LD are as follows: IT & LD Technician: 22,661 - 34,700 IT & LD Officer Level 1: 33,070 - 43,343 IT & LD Officer Level 2: 41,302 52,913 IT & LD Officer Level 3: 51,435 - 64,872 These basic salaries are bolstered by overtime payments, which as highlighted in the recently-published Principal Auditors report, substantially boost take-home pay. 'Further to the Principal Auditor's report, it is essential that all claims are considered carefully. The Government has a duty to safeguard both taxpayers money and public safety and will not be pre- emptively coerced into decisions by demands, threats and ultimatums. These issues can and should be resolved through sensible and realistic discussion, and not through irresponsible and intentional disruption to the essential work of all public servants.' The Government discussed this with the GGCA to express its deep dissatisfaction and disappointment with this escalation, and to invite them to rectify the disruption and restore IT services immediately and not to cause any further deliberate industrial actions. At the time of going to press, internet use was not fully restored for the public service or for members of the public wanting to contact Government. 'The Government reserves the right to meet this unreasonable escalation which is interfering with its electronic communications systems with such measures as it may consider appropriate. Furthermore, the Government will take any necessary disciplinary action against anyone found to have been responsible for this deliberate sabotage of Gibraltars critical infrastructure.' 'The Government apologises to the public for the disruption to public services and will take every reasonable measure to ensure stability of service to the public.' Audrina Patridge locked herself in a closet after discovering her home had been targeted by the Bling Ring burglars. 'The Hills' star was one of the celebrities target by a gang of thieves - dubbed the Bling Ring - who broke into the homes of the rich and famous between 2008 and 2009 and she's now revealed she was left terrified when she realised her house had been ransacked so she hid in a cupboard in case the intruders were still inside. During an appearance on the 'Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen' podcast, she talked about the incident with Bilson who was also targeted by the gang. Audrina said: "I just got back from Australia. I co-hosted the VMAs or something out there. So everything was still packed, got home, changed, and then I went to the party and came home and I was like, Am I losing my mind? My suitcase is gone, my laptop, everything is off my bed. Like, what is going on? "And then I went in my closet and I called my sister and I was like, OK, if I open my jewellery box and stuff is gone, someone is in my house, and I opened it, everything was gone. "And so thats when I locked myself in [the closet], cause I didnt know if they were still in the houe. Afraid to get off the phone so I had my brother call 911 while I was on speaker and then they sent the cops." She added: "They took trash bags of stuff. They knew I was at an Oscars party, and they knew that because I tweeted it." However, Audrina is proud that security footage taken from cameras around her home helped bring the culprits - Nick Prugo and Rachel Lee - to justice. She said: " I had cameras and my cameras are the ones that caught their faces and I posted it on my website, and said if anyone knows of these people let me know." Lee served 16 months in prison for her role in the Hollywood heists while Prugo was behind bars for a year. Fellow Bling Ring member Alexis Neiers was also jailed for a month for her involvement. Audrina was so scared after the break-in, she left the house and went to stay with her mum, but the actress admitted she felt better when she found out who the burglars were, declaring: "[Discovering it was] two young kids, it took a lot of the anxiety off." However, she is still angry about losing so many sentimental items, adding: "I didnt even get money back. Nothing for anything. They took stuff from my aunt, like vintage Chanel watches and rings." Host Rachel Bilson agreed with Audrina, revealing she moved house shortly after a spate of break-ins and she's still hurt by the loss of her mother's engagement ring. She said: "I was out of town when it happened to me. They went into my house five different times. I guess my door - like my back door - was unlocked. .. "My moms first engagement ring was taken. You know, that stuff is like Cmon you guys ... Just give me the sentimental [stuff]. My mom still talks about it." Nasequip Systems supplies gas cooling system for Cementos Cosmos 28 February 2024 Nasequip Systems Pvt Ltd has commissioned a dual-fluid gas cooling system for Cementos Cosmos (Votorantim Group) Toral De Los Vados cement plant, Spain. Turkish partner Dal Engineering assisted with this project. The preheater tower measures 4.3m diameter x 50m high. The project's significance lies in its substantial impact on enhancing the operational efficiency and productivity of the plant. The feasibility study, calculations, engineering, design, manufacturing, testing, automation, installation and commissioning support, handing over, training, documentation, guarantees, spares, aftersales support are carried by Nasequip Systems Pvt Ltd, India. Published under If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit Hunting privileges for two Greene County men have been revoked for life as a result of multiple big game hunting violations in recent years.In the fall of 2019, TWRA Wildlife Officers David Crum, David Carpenter and Marvin Reeves (ret.) charged father and son, Shelby Gene Church (73) and Gene Allen Church (47) with illegally harvesting an eight-point buck deer from the road.Both men pleaded guilty to multiple charges in Greene County General Sessions Court. In addition to fines, court costs, loss of equipment and forfeiture of the deer, Shelby Gene Church had his hunting privileges revoked for life and Gene Allen Church had his hunting privileges revoked for five years.In the fall of 2023, Ofc.Crum investigated complaints of road hunting for deer in the same area of Greene County and discovered that Gene Allen Church had harvested and checked in three deer during his five-year hunting revocation. Church was arrested in December and appeared in Greene County General Sessions Court this February. In a plea agreement, Church pleaded guilty to three counts of hunting on revoked privileges and three counts of illegal possession of a deer and was ordered to pay a $25 fine plus court costs on each charge. He also forfeited deer meat and was sentenced to six months in jail with time suspended, but must serve ten days on three of the six charges to run concurrently. Church also lost his hunting privileges for life.Individuals with revoked hunting privileges may still purchase Tennessee hunting and fishing licenses but are barred from physically hunting. They may also continue fishing or participating in other outdoor recreational opportunities. Due to the Interstate Wildlife Violators Compact, individuals with revoked hunting privileges cannot legally hunt in any of the participating 46 states. The town of Signal Mountain is making some cost saving decisions. One of those is by hiring several part-time firefighters to supplement the full-time employees. At the Monday council work session, Fire Chief Larry Sloan asked for clarification and approval to add three more firefighters to the two that have already been hired. He told the council that there is money in the budget this fiscal year for five part-time positions. The two already hired were former firefighters for the town and the department already has personal protective equipment to fit them. Having the PPE for each, is one of the biggest expenses of hiring the part time firefighters. Chief Sloan said a shift has a minimum of seven firefighters, and part-time personnel would cost less to than filling a vacancy rather than using and paying overtime to the full-time firefighters. The departments budget now includes money to provide a second set of PPE for the full-time staff, he said. Ideally, he would like to have eight part-time firefighters, but the current budget of $25,000 to hire part-time will support five, which takes into consideration the cost of the protective equipment. The council agreed to begin the program using five part-time firefighters and will decide next year whether to add more. Currently the fire department has one vacancy for a full-time employee and interviews are being held for that position, after which it will be fully staffed. Joining the Small Cities Coalition of Hamilton County has been under discussion since it was originally formed in 2016-2017, but the town has continued opting to not participate. The group is headed by Bridgett Raper, who advocates for the small cities that are in the county. Among other benefits, the cities are kept updated on legislation in Nashville that could affect the small towns and helping to create responses on their behalf. There also is a monthly meeting of the city managers from each municipality in the coalition where they share advice and Ms. Raper also provides public relations for the cities when it is needed. Every small municipality except Signal Mountain and Walden are members. It projects a coordinated effort, said Council Member Clay Crumbliss. Councilman Crumbliss brought up the issue of joining, saying the new city manager could benefit from networking with the other city managers and from being aware of the impact on the town from state legislation. He asked to put the decision to a vote at the next council meeting. The cost is divided among the municipalities that are part of the coalition based on population. Signal Mountains budget includes the money for joining - around $25,000 for the year. Council Member Susannah Murdock said she feels as if Signal Mountain may be in a public relations vacuum sometimes. This would be like having a public relations firm on stand-by, she said. Council members Elizabeth Baker and Andrew Gardner said they do not see the value of joining. Councilman Gardner said that the town is facing challenges now due to budget and personnel matters so the council should be finding ways to cut expenses. He said about $25,000 had been added to the salary range to attract a quality city manager, which he believes is a stronger way to use the money. Councilman Crumbliss commented that the decision should not be penalized because of overspending in other areas. It will be discussed again at the April council work session. Matt Justice, interim town manager, informed the council about the opportunity of applying for two grants available from Public Entity Partners. One is a 50/50 matching grant for Cyber Security that can be used for tools, training or services. The reimbursable grant would be used for security of the towns server, for which $8,000 has already been spent. The second grant is a Property Conservation Grant that the town could use for the purchase of additional security cameras to cover the entrance to the server room and for parking lots. The cameras could be added at half the price of $4,100, which is not in the budget. Both of these grants to boost security may be eligible for using American Rescue Plan funds. The town still has $400,000 left from ARP funds to allocate, with 10 months left to do it. Public Works Director Wesley Stokes is working on revising the organizational chart for the department. The reorganization will need to be consistent with the new pay scales that have recently been implemented. The council members declined to discuss the changes at the Monday night meeting, instead asking for time to digest what Mr. Stokes has proposed and the impacts that may result from the changes. Mr. Justice said it will need to be decided before the next years budget is created. The changes to the Public Works department will be discussed at the March work session of the council. The cost of the fiscal year 2024 audit has been given to Financial Director Jennifer Broomfield. The cost of up to $25,000 would cover the audit as well as a component know as crosswalk which is a new requirement from the state, and also a single audit, which is required if more than $75,000 is received from the federal government within a year. Jennifer Waycaster CPA will be conducting the audit this year. Mr. Justice is recommending that the town update its emergency response plan to meet current needs. He said that the Hamilton County Emergency Management offers significant additional resources. Their plan is electronic and can be looked at specifically for what the town needs. He said that what is provided to the public should be shared in a smart way about what and how information is made public during an emergency. For instance getting information to people with a phone or text update would be more effective and secure than putting it on the towns website. Discussions and decisions about this will take place at a future meeting. There was a consensus of the board for Signal Mountain to participate in the White Oak Cooperative Partnership. The non-profit group located in Red Bank provides access to free bicycles, repairs and safety education to communities. Donations of bicycles can be taken to the Signal Mountain transfer station. Four applicants for Signal Mountains city manager have been chosen for in-person interviews. Two will be held on Wednesday and the other two will be on Thursday from 5-6 p.m. and 6-7 p.m. both days. The interviews will be held at city hall and will be open to the public, but the interviews will not be live-streamed. On Thursday afternoon from 4-5 p.m. a reception will be held so residents who are interested can meet all four candidates. At a special called meeting on Monday at 6 p.m. the council expects to hold the vote for choosing the next city manager. Wacker Chemical Corporation announced the three recipients of the Presidential Spotlight Value Award. The annual award recognizes team members who embody the companys five values: Customers: WACKER's products and solutions are their customers' first choice Company Value: Continuously increasing company value Employees: To be one of the world's best employers Innovations: Tapping into new markets via product and process innovations for tomorrow's world Sustainability: Responsibility as a company extends beyond just business activities The Presidential Spotlight Values Award Program began in February 2017 to renew awareness of Wackers corporate vision statement: We Develop Intelligent Solutions for Sustainable Growth. Nominees highlight the best of the five fundamental values. The 2023 honorees included Wacker-Charleston Field Safety Specialists Richard Kokello, David Cantrell and Scott Duckworth for their contributions to sustainability and safety. Were honored to nominate Richard, David, and Scott, said Patrick Rasmussen, Wacker-Charlestons director of Environmental Health Safety and Security. They are technical experts who work closely with operations and engineering to advance safety by mentoring our hourly team members, emphasizing that safety is a precondition for everything we do, and helping to create a culture that ensures everyone returns home safe every day. Throughout Wackers North and Central Americas region, which includes Charleston and seven other production sites in the U.S., team members demonstrate the companys five corporate values in many ways, said Wacker-Charleston Site Leader Ken Collins. Individuals and teams are nominated for the annual Presidents Spotlight Values Awards each year. The senior leadership team selects the recipients from the highly deserving award nominees. We are proud to have our site represented among the most recent group of award recipients. The Tennessee Board of Regents on Thursday appointed Dr. Andrew W. White as the next president of Cleveland State Community College. He is senior director of the Fast Forward program at Belmont University and was previously dean of the business and technology division at Volunteer State Community College. Dr. White earned a Doctor of Education degree in Education Leadership at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, a Master of Science in Public Administration from Central Michigan University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Tennessee. Christopher W. Ayers is the next president of Tennessee College of Applied Technology Harriman, and John Penn Ridgeway is the next president of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Henry/Carroll. The three new presidents were among sets of finalists selected by search advisory committees at each of the three colleges. The finalists, three at each college, participated in public forums on the respective campuses during the last month. After reviewing public and campus community input from the forums and conducting final interviews, TBR Chancellor Flora W. Tydings recommended each of the three new leaders to the Board of Regents. She and the Regents who led the search committees commended all the finalists as excellent candidates. During a special called meeting on Thursday, the board voted unanimously to appoint each candidate. Dr. White will assume his duties at Cleveland State April 1, succeeding former President Ty Stone and interim President Ray Brooks. As director of Belmont Universitys Fast Forward program, Dr. White leads the universitys efforts to create partnerships to improve post-secondary completion, education equity, and economic mobility for underserved students and underemployed adults through success in high demand jobs. After a 20-year career as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, he joined the University of Tennessee in 2007 and held administrative roles in UTs Haslam College of Business before accepting a position as dean of the business and technology division at Volunteer State Community College in 2019. Its an honor to be selected by the Regents as the next president at Cleveland State Community College, Dr. White said. I look forward to serving the colleges students and the faculty, staff, and community partners who support them. Cleveland State has been transforming and enriching the lives of students and fueling the economic success of southeast Tennessee for decades. It's an honor to join the team that is carrying on that great tradition. Cleveland State: https://www.tbr.edu/hr/executivesearches/president-cleveland-state-community-college. Thursdays meeting was livestreamed and is archived for viewing anytime on the TBR website at https://www.tbr.edu/board/february-28-2024-special-called-board-meeting. Elvis and The Beatles brought millions of viewers to 'The Ed Sullivan Show.' One act brought several millions more than the other, though. Elvis Presley and The Beatles both made massive, widely-viewed appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in the early days of their careers. The choice to have both acts on the show was a good one for Ed Sullivan; both Elvis and The Beatles drew millions of viewers. Which act brought in a larger audience, though? Elvis and The Beatles both made massive debuts on The Ed Sullivan Show In 1956, Elvis made his debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan initially said he would not have Elvis on the show because he didnt think he was appropriate for family viewing. After his competitor, The Steve Allen Show, trounced Sullivan in ratings when he had Elvis on, Sullivan reversed his stance. This decision was a good one. Elvis agreed to make three appearances on the show. On his debut performance, 60 million viewers tuned in (via The Ed Sullivan Show). In 1964, The Beatles appeared on the show. Their appearance was huge for the band. While they were already a sensation in the United Kingdom, the show lit the fires of Beatlemania in the United States. 73 million people watched their debut (via The Ed Sullivan Show). While The Beatles technically had more viewers, they only pulled in 45.3% of households with televisions. Elvis, on the other hand, brought in 82% of the television viewing audience. Elvis made far more money than The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show While Elvis appeared on the show eight years earlier than The Beatles, he made significantly more money than the band did. After Sullivan realized the amount of viewers Elvis could pull, he offered him an unprecedented $50,000 for his three shows. The Beatles, on the other hand, had to split $10,000 amongst themselves (via NBC News). Still, the exposure the show gave them was more than worth it. The American artist sent The Beatles a message ahead of their performance When The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, Elvis reached out to wish them well. Sullivan read the message ahead of their performance. Congratulations on your appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and your visit to America, he said in the message (per Express). We hope your engagement will be a successful one and your visit pleasant. Give our best to Mr. Sullivan. Sincerely, Elvis and The Colonel. This was meaningful to the band, who had long idolized Elvis. He was one of the major reasons they all decided to pursue music. Im an Elvis fan because it was Elvis who really got me out of Liverpool, John Lennon said per the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. Once I heard it and got into it, that was life, there was no other thing. I thought of nothing else but rocknroll; apart from sex and food and money but thats all the same thing, really. sustainability and digitalization are megatrends that are not only shaping the process industry as a whole, but also the list of finalists for this year's ACHEMA Start-up Award. The ten finalists have now been selected to present their companies and technologies in Frankfurt / Germany during ACHEMA 2024 from June 10-14 in the Start-up Area in Hall 6.0 and in the pitch session on June 12 on the Green Innovation Stage. At the award ceremony following the session, the overall winner will be announced, who will also receive prize money of 15,000 euros. The finalists are nominated. DECHEMA e.V. For the fourth time, DECHEMA, High-Tech Grunderfonds and the Business Angels FrankfurtRheinMain were looking for entrepreneurial scientists and founders with an affinity for technology. These are the finalists of the ACHEMA Start-up Award 2024: Biosimo AG wants to drive the transformation of the chemical industry towards greater sustainability with basic chemicals made from renewable raw materials. ChemInnovation has developed the AI model METIS. It enables the automated structural elucidation of unknown molecules based on mass spectra. co2ol catalyst uses a robust catalyst to produce methanol from CO2 - even from sources that could previously only be used with additional purification stages. eco:fibr has developed an extraction process with which pulp for the paper and cardboard industry can be obtained from pineapple plant residues. Graph-Co offers the digitization and migration of technical flow charts for the process industry under the brand name Graph-ID. Inline Process Solutions GmbH analyzes particle flows in plants inline with the help of image-optical AI-based sensor technology. LABMaiTE GmbH fully automatically optimizes the culture media for fermentative bioprocesses and thus accelerates their development. Nanolope offers versatile insulating materials based on a phase change material. PHABIOC develops innovative tools, microplates and analyzers for small-scalescreening on a small scale and with a high throughput rate in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. re.solution recycles textiles containing polyester using a chemical process with renewable energy and low water and chemical consumption. The significantly higher number of applications compared to previous years shows that start-ups are now an integral part of the process industry. Nevertheless, founders today still need staying power and a good network. The ACHEMA Start-up Award aims to contribute to this by literally putting start-ups in the spotlight. By participating in ACHEMA free of charge, they have the opportunity to present their technologies and products to the global community and to establish contacts with suppliers, customers and cooperation partners. Governor Kevin Stitt signed the agreement on behalf of the State of Oklahoma on February 26. The topic of whether or not plus-sized travelers should purchase an additional plane seat to fly more comfortably has been hotly debated online over the last year. Now, one woman has voiced her opinion on the issue to her obese friend and wound up in some hot water. She is 41 years old and claims that she is on the bigger side, weighing 176 pounds, for context. Im not some skinny person trying to make my friend feel bad, she noted. Nonetheless, she still believes that if a traveler is literally spilling over into another passengers seat, then they really should pay to get two seats. Its not fair to other people who paid for a seat but only get to use half of it, she reasoned. Well, she has a 39-year-old female friend who is obese and recently just got home from a vacation. Then, when they began catching up, her friend apparently started to grumble about how uncomfortable all of the fights were. Plus, her friend complained about the passengers sitting next to her, claiming that they were sort of rude about her size. At that point, she suggested that her friend just book two plane seats next time. That way, her friend can comfortably spread out without bothering other passengers. Sign up for Chip Chicks newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox. The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) has newly classified India as a restricted nation in its latest global prayer guidea change from its earlier hostile area categorizationas persecution against Christians is now driven by Indias national government, says VOM. VOMs hostile area category identifies nations or large areas of nations where the government may attempt to provide protection, but the Christian population remains persecuted by family, friends, neighbors, or political groups because of their witness. Indian believers have largely faced this type of violence, including last years Manipur attacks, which killed more than 100. In contrast, restricted nation describes countries where government-sanctioned circumstances or anti-Christian laws lead to the harassment of Christians or the loss of their civil liberties. It can also include government policies or practices preventing Christians from obtaining Bibles or other Christian literature. (Christians in restricted nations often also experience persecution from family, community members, and/or political groups.) Although Indian Christians largely face persecution that reflects VOMs hostile area categorization, the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a key player in recent years in driving public opinion against non-Hindu Indians. The rise of Hindutva ideologyand the open and enthusiastic embrace of this ideology by Modi and other government leadershas had the effect of making Indias national government an overt persecutor of the church rather than a protector of religious minorities and religious freedom, said VOM spokesperson Todd Nettleton. This emphasisbacked by the power of the federal government as well as multiple BJP-controlled state governmentshas had a chilling effect on religious freedom, even without a formal change in the laws of the nation. CT reached out to six religious freedom advocates, two international and four Indian, to learn if this label helps or hinders outsiders in their understanding of the situation in India. Does the new classification bring any changes for the church in India, either good or bad? Does naming and shaming help the cause of Indian Christians? Answers are arranged from those skeptical of the efficacy of the new designation to those who believe it is constructive. Additionally, CT asked VOM what they hoped would be achieved by recategorizing India. Article continues below John Dayal, veteran human rights activist in India The situation of Christians in India should shock everyone in the world, especially in the West, as also in South Korea and the Philippines, which have sizable Christian populations and are political and business partners of India. The new restricted nation status assigned by VOM does not fully capture the complexity and severity of the situation in India. The unique nature of the threat faced by Christians in India from Hindutva ideology is distinct from threats faced in other parts of the world, such as Islamist elements, dictatorships, communism, or political movements associated with Buddhism. The fact is that the highest political officers in the country are leading the marginalization of religious minorities. Laws are being enacted every day to harass the population, restrict religious practices, and shut down all evangelization. This is a very serious matter and mitigates not just against the Indian constitution but also the UN Charter. Nothing really changes [with this new VOM designation] for the common Christian in the village or the small town. The Hindutva elements are not fazed. The international rebuke is faint and weak and is immediately muffled by their accolades for the Indian ruling group and especially for its leader. A. C. Michael, national coordinator, United Christian Forum (UCF), India Such labels are nothing new for our country. Whether we as a country are labeled a restricted nation or not, it is a well-known fact that our country is becoming a challenging place for Christians to practice their faith. According to our reporting at UCF, incidents of violence against Christians in India have drastically increased since 2014, from 147 incidents to 720 incidents in 2023, which amounts to two Christians attacked every day for practicing their faith somewhere in the country. Having said the above, one cannot deny that such labels do help in letting other nations know of the status of religious freedom of a country. I am of the view, however, that just stopping with these labels wouldnt help much in improving religious freedom. More needs to be done, like sanctions against countries that curtail freedom of religion and imposing restrictions on business dealings with such countries. Vijayesh Lal, general secretary, Evangelical Fellowship of India While such designations may initially draw attention to the challenges faced by Christian minorities in India, we must recognize the complexity of our situation. India is a vast and diverse country, where the experiences of Christians vary greatly depending on geographic location, socioeconomic status, and other factors. A blanket label risks oversimplifying our reality and overlooking the unique contexts in which we live and worship. Article continues below Moreover, we must consider the response of the Indian government to such designations. Historically, these labels have not led to meaningful changes in government policies or actions toward religious minorities. Instead, they often serve as diplomatic points of contention rather than catalysts for positive reform. In older days, this designation might have nudged the government to revisit certain policies and prompt Indias international partners to speak up more forcefully in defense of religious liberty. That heightened visibility could conceivably have led to positive reforms. But we are living in a different context now, where the ruling dispensation continues to deny what is alleged about religious minorities in India. And the international community is too busy wooing India, so that human rights or religious freedoms are mentioned in passing, if they are even mentioned at all. And while international attention is important, true change must come from within our communities. Indian churches and faith-based groups are not merely victims; we are actively working to protect our religious freedoms guaranteed by Indias constitution. Focusing solely on narratives of persecution overlooks the resilience and advocacy efforts of Indian Christians and the broader civil society. Rather than relying solely on rhetoric, we need in-depth analysis rooted in local realities. This means amplifying the voices of Indian Christians and engaging in dialogue with our government and civil society to find solutions tailored to our specific contexts. Shibu Thomas, founder, Persecution Relief, India Categorizing India or any nation under a certain label based on the verified data of the challenges faced by the Christian community creates an awareness of the ground reality. This is useful in upholding each other in prayer, since we are all members of the same body, sharing each others suffering and pain. But will the Indian church benefit in any way if the label is altered? No! Rather, we must acquire the maturity to accommodate it, while on the other hand, making all efforts to live in peace and harmony with all people. Jesus taught us to give to Caesar what belongs to him and give God what belongs to him. Article continues below We ought to rather pray for our authorities so that we can live peacefully. Instead of seeking help from outside, which will in no way be helpful but cause greater harm, we need to understand that persecution is a sign of the Lords Second Coming. Instead of looking for ways to combat it, we need to embrace it gracefully, forgiving, loving, and praying for our persecutors. Who knows, God has put them here to refine the church! Foreign organizations have their own agendas, which is not always beneficial to the church in India. So, I appeal to all Indian Christians to come back to the biblical foundation to endure and to stay faithful till the end, following the example of Christ in suffering. Wissam al-Saliby, director of the Geneva office of the World Evangelical Alliance Labels and rankings are helpful for building general awareness, for mobilizing public opinion, and for inviting Indias government to change course and Indias allies to speak up in support of religious freedom. But they cannot, and are not meant to, provide Christians with an accurate and nuanced picture of how the churches and Christian ministries are steadfast and faithful in the face of persecution, of the growth and impact of the church in society, of significant differences in freedom and persecution from one Indian state to another, and of indigenous advocacy for greater religious freedom. We should be wary of discourses that inadvertently portray churches as helpless victims in the face of persecution. In addition, these categorizations do not help those who want to advocate on behalf of their Christian brothers and sisters, because advocacy requires factual reporting, legal analysis, and focused recommendations for legal and policy change. In recent years, we have seen that regardless of who sits in the White House, the USs relationship with India comes first. The theory of change that supposes that awareness and public opinion in Western nations will lead the governments of those nations to prioritize religious freedom in their foreign policy is not working. I believe we need to prioritize support for Indian Christian voices speaking prophetically to Indian authorities in India and [to rally behind] churches in India building national multi-faith and multi-stakeholder movements in support of greater freedom for all. The indigenous voices must grow louder in parallel to international voices advocating for religious freedom. Article continues below Knox Thames, former US state department official While Im unfamiliar with VOMs labels, the trendline for religious freedom in India has been worrisome for years. I have argued for the US State Department to use its designation power to add India to the Special Watch List because of the consistent and growing number of religious freedom violations against Christians and also Muslims. Such a step by the United States could encourage the Modi government to pursue a different path, one that supports religious freedom and minority rights. Designations such as these create advocacy opportunities. They force policymakers to consider inconvenient facts about India, allowing advocates to press for better policies that encourage Delhi to reform. Todd Nettleton, VOM spokesperson, United States VOMs aim, with this change in status, is to accurately reflect the nature of persecution our Christian brothers and sisters in India are facing and to enable Christians in the free world to better understand and more knowledgeably pray for them. Its important to understand that this change in classification is not an effort toward change. Rather, it is a reflection of change that has already taken place in the persecution Indian Christians face. There may be those in government or leadership who see or reference this information, but VOM is not an advocacy organization and influencing governments or other leaders has never been our goal. Rather, VOMs goal is fellowship between members of the global body of Christ. VOMs primary audience is followers of Jesus in free nations, and our goal is to enable them to better understand and more knowledgeably pray for persecuted Christians in more than 70 nations around the worldincluding Indiawhere Christians regularly face persecution for the activity of their faith. American evangelicals have complex perspectives on immigration and want a nuanced political response, but most want Congress to act soon. A Lifeway Research study sponsored by the Evangelical Immigration Table found evangelicals are increasingly concerned about the number of recent immigrants to the US but still believe Christians have a responsibility to care for those who are in the country illegally. While most want to secure the border to prevent additional illegal immigration, evangelicals also advocate for a path to citizenship for those already in the country. While many evangelicals fear that our nation is harmed by the volume of recent immigrants, more feel responsible to show compassion, said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. The urgency continues to grow among evangelicals for Congress to act this year to improve laws around immigration. Many evangelicals have a negative perception of the recent number of immigrants to the United States. Half (50%) say they are a drain on economic resources. More than a third see the number as a threat to the safety of citizens (37%) and a threat to law and order (37%), while 28 percent say they are a threat to traditional American customs and culture. Yet, a large percentage of evangelicals see the number coming to the country as an opportunity or even an improvement. Two in 5 evangelicals say the number of immigrants presents an opportunity to introduce them to Jesus Christ (40%) and to show them love (39%). Around a quarter (26%) believe immigrants represent an improvement to Americas cultural diversity, and 14 percent say theyre a boost to entrepreneurial activity. It is not surprising that the share of evangelicals who believe that the arrival of immigrants presents an economic challenge or a threat to safety or order has increased, given both very real issues at the US-Mexico border in recent years and the large number of migrants reaching American cities where they are legally barred from working, providing for themselves and contributing economically, said Matthew Soerens, national coordinator of the Evangelical Immigration Table. But its also important to note that threat and opportunity responses are not mutually exclusive. There are many evangelicals who both believe there are economic challenges related to immigration and see the arrival of immigrants as an evangelistic opportunity. The study surveyed both self-identified evangelicals and those who qualify as an evangelical based on key theological beliefs. Self-identified evangelicals are increasingly concerned about the number of recent immigrants. While 33 percent saw them as an economic drain in a 2022 Lifeway Research study, 49 percent feel that way now. The percentage who sees the recent number as threatening is also on the rise, with the percentage of those saying immigrants are a threat to safety climbing from 32 percent to 38 percent and those saying immigrants are a threat to law and order growing from 30 percent to 37%. Additionally, fewer see the number as an opportunity to show love (down from 46 percent to 38%), an improvement to cultural diversity (33 percent to 26%) or a boost to entrepreneurship (18 percent to 14%). Still, when asked about legal immigration, 80 percent of evangelicals believe it is helpful, and around 3 in 5 say we should at least keep the current number of approved legal immigrants. Specifically, 23 percent say legal immigration is helpful to the US and we should increase the number of legal immigrants approved in a year. More than a third (36%) believe it is helpful and we should maintain the current number approved. Another 21 percent say it is helpful but we should decrease those approved. Meanwhile, around 1 in 5 believe legal immigration is harmful, including 13 percent who say we should decrease the number approved and 7 percent who believe we should completely stop approving legal immigrants. Few evangelicals are interested in closing the door to immigrants. Rather a large majority support legal immigration, said McConnell. Growing fears about the recent volume of immigrants were voiced the month after media reports of extremely high immigration numbers in December. Personal and political response Evangelicals believe both they and the US as a whole have responsibilities regarding immigrants entering our country. More than half (55%) say Christians have a responsibility to assist immigrants even if they are here illegally, while 70 percent say followers of Jesus have a responsibility to care sacrificially for refugees and other foreigners. Additionally, evangelicals believe the US has a moral responsibility to accept refugees (71%) and specifically refugees fleeing persecution (72%). A similar number support legislation that would allow Afghan allies evacuated by the US military to apply for permanent status after vetting (75%). Large numbers of evangelicals accept responsibility within the Christian community to care for refugees, and a majority feel the same about caring for immigrants here illegally, said McConnell. Many evangelicals dont believe our nation has the option of turning our back on those fleeing persecution. Thinking about national responsibilities, more than 3 in 4 evangelicals (77%) say it is important that Congress passes significant new immigration legislation in 2024. Among self-identified evangelicals, the percentage of those who view passing new legislation to address immigration this year is higher now (78%) than those who said the same in 2022 (71%) and 2015 (68%). Within that legislation, evangelicals have priorities they believe should be reflected. Around 9 in 10 say they support potential immigration legislation that respects the rule of law (93%), ensures fairness to taxpayers (93%), respects the God-given dignity of every person (91%), protects the unity of the immediate family (91%) and guarantees secure national borders (91%). Additionally, 3 in 4 (75%) support legislation that establishes a path toward citizenship for those who are here illegally, are interested and meet certain qualifications for citizenship. Each of those has similar levels of support among self-identified evangelicals compared to 2022 but higher levels than in a 2015 Lifeway Research study. When asked about changes to current immigration law, 78 percent of evangelicals say they would support changes to immigration laws that would both increase border security and establish a process for those who are currently in the US illegally to earn legal status and apply for citizenship if they pay a fine, pass a criminal background check and complete other requirements during a probationary period. Around 2 in 3 (65%) say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supported an immigration law that did both. Additionally, 80 percent would specifically support bipartisan immigration reform that strengthens border security, establishes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children (commonly referred to as Dreamers) and provides a reliable number of screened, legal farmworkers. Evangelicals approach to public policy solutions has not changed significantly, said Soerens, who also serves as the vice president for advocacy and policy at World Relief. The vast majority want policies that ensure secure borders, treat all people with dignity, protect family unity, allow immigrants who are unlawfully present to earn permanent legal status and eventual citizenship and ensure the US remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution. Immigration influence Two in 3 US evangelicals (66%) say they are familiar with what the Bible teaches about how immigrants should be treated. They also point to the Bible as one of the top influences for their thinking on immigration. A quarter of evangelicals (26%) say the Bible has influenced their perspective on the topic more than any other source. Fewer point to the media (15%), immigrants they have observed (13%), friends and family (12%) and immigrants they have interacted with (11%). Even fewer say theyre most influenced on immigration by the positions of elected officials (6%), their local church (4%), national Christian leaders (2%) and teachers or professors (2%). When asked to identify their top three influences, friends and family (45%) moves to the top. Slightly fewer point to the Bible (43%) and immigrants they have observed (40%). Around a third place the media (36%) and immigrants they have interacted with (32%) in their top three influencers. Fewer say the positions of elected officials (28%), their local church (22%), national Christian leaders (14%) and teachers or professors (10%). There has been a lot of movement among who has influence on evangelical views on immigration. The largest growth among self-identified evangelicals has been the number indicating the Bible has been most influential. It has grown from 12 percent in 2015 to 21 percent in 2022 and 26 percent in 2024. Half of evangelicals have had the opportunity to interact with and observe immigrants within their congregation, as 51 percent say their church has at least some first-generation immigrants. Additionally, some evangelicals are immigrants themselves. One in 5 are either first- or second-generation immigrants. Almost 1 in 10 US evangelicals (8%) was born outside of the United States, and 12 percent are the children of at least one parent born outside of the country. Church involvement For some evangelicals, the church provided them with personal experience meeting and serving immigrants. Three in 10 (31%) say they have heard immigration discussed at their local church in a way that encouraged outreach to immigrants in their community. Twice as many (60%) say that was not the case. Around 1 in 3 (32%) say their church currently has a ministry or outreach that serves refugees or other immigrants, while 39 percent say no and 29 percent arent sure. Additionally, 34 percent say they have been involved in such a ministry, 13 percent currently and 21 percent in the past. Two in 3 (66%) have not participated. Whether or not they are actively involved in ministry to immigrants, evangelicals would like to hear more about it from their churches. More than 4 in 5 (82%) say they would value hearing a sermon that teaches how biblical principles and examples can be applied to immigration in the US Among self-identified evangelicals, 81 percent would value hearing such a sermon. Thats higher than in 2022 (77%) and 2015 (68%). While less than one-third of evangelicals say they have heard immigration discussed in their church context, 82 percent say they would like to hear a biblically-focused sermon on this timely topic, said Soerens. Pastors who may fear that a biblical message on the theme of immigration may be divisive in an election year should know that their people are hungry for discipleship. In the absence of pastoral leadership, however, most are still primarily influenced by extra-biblical sources. [ This article is also available in espanol. ] Home News Airman who torched himself outside Israeli Embassy grew up on controversial religious compound The U.S. airman who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington was reportedly raised in a religious compound that has weathered accusations of abuse and creating an environment of control, allegations that the group has publicly denied. Twenty-five-year-old Aaron Bushnell was an active-duty Air Force member when he doused himself in liquid and lit his body on fire, shouting "Free Palestine" as he burned on Sunday. Bushnell posted a video of his self-immolation to Twitch, which has since been removed. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe As The Washington Post reported this week, Bushnell was raised in a religious group called the Community of Jesus, according to Susan Wilkins, a former member from 1970 to 2005. Wilkins said she knew Bushnell and his family when they lived on the Orleans, Massachusetts-based compound, a claim the outlet reported others have corroborated. She said that she had heard from others since her departure that Bushnell had also left the compound. She also claimed that Community of Jesus members often join the military, which she described as moving from "one high-control group to another high-control group." Bonnie Zampino, a former member of the group in the 1980s, told the outlet that many who leave become involved in social justice causes. "A lot of us that got out are very much into social justice, trying to defend those who don't or can't defend themselves because that is what we went through," Zampino said. The Christian Post reached out to the Community of Jesus, but a receptionist said he did not know of anyone to whom he could forward the call for comment. CP sent the group a message, but the Community of Jesus did not respond by press time. As The Ottawa Citizen reported in February 2020, former students won a class-action lawsuit against a school with ties to the Community of Jesus. The students alleged that punishments at the school consisted of public shaming and humiliation as a disciplinary technique. The school was accused of holding assemblies a few times a year to call out those who broke the rules. In 2021, former member Carrie Buddington told WBZ-TV that she was "repeatedly traumatized" during her time with the Community of Jesus and is "still haunted" by an incident where she was allegedly forced to give up her baby in the 1980s. Bushnell's LinkedIn page shows that he worked from 2015 to 2017 at the Community of Jesus' publishing house, Paraclete Press, where he maintained and supported IT infrastructure. Bushnell later joined the Air Force in 2020. In an anonymous statement to The Washington Post, a friend of Bushnell's said he spoke with him about the sacrifices necessary to be effective anarchists less than two weeks before the self-immolation. "I hope you'll understand. I love you," Bushnell wrote in a message reviewed by The Washington Post. "This doesn't even make sense, but I feel like I'm going to miss you." On Sunday, Bushnell sent the friend a copy of his will, leaving the neighbor a few bottles of root beer. He then set himself on fire to protest the Israel-Hamas war, which began after the terrorist group's Oct. 7 attack killed over 1,200 people in southern Israel and sparked Israel's military offensive in Gaza. Multiple friends of Bushnell's told the newspaper that the airman expressed disagreements about the United States' involvement in the war. The friends said they did not know Bushnell planned to kill himself outside of the Israeli Embassy. According to Levi Pierpont, who met Bushnell during basic training in May 2020, Bushnell grew interested in protesting "state-sanctioned violence" after the death of George Floyd in May 2020 under police custody in Minnesota. In January, Bushnell told Pierpont that he wanted to do political activism when he left the military. The Israeli Embassy confirmed to CBS News that none of its members were injured as a result of Bushnell's protest. A video posted by independent journalist Talia Jane shows the Air Force member declaring that he would "no longer be complicit in genocide" before setting himself on fire. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says that nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began but doesn't differentiate between combatants and civilians. The Israel Defense Forces state they have killed over 12,000 operatives in Gaza along with 1,000 terrorists inside Israel, according to The Times of Israel. Home News Calvin University president resigns over unwelcome, inappropriate behavior Calvin University President Wiebe Boer has resigned following allegations of engaging in "unwelcome and inappropriate" behavior. In a statement posted Monday, the Michigan-based Christian institution's Board of Trustees announced that Boer offered his resignation after it received a report alleging he "engaged in unwelcome and inappropriate communication and attention toward a non-student member of the campus community." Stressing that "the report did not include allegations of sexually explicit communication or physical contact," the university insists that "the alleged conduct is concerning and inappropriate." Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe "Upon receiving the report, we immediately engaged outside experts to ensure that Calvin University responded to the report in compliance with our policy and legal requirements, including Title IX," the statement added. "After being notified of the report, Dr. Boer denied some of the allegations but did admit to sending communications that were inappropriate and inconsistent with the high standard of conduct and character expected of the President of Calvin University." Calvin University appointed Vice President of Advancement Gregory Elzinga as interim president while the Board of Trustees searches for a permanent replacement for Boer. Elzinga is praised for his "deep well of skills and experience in and outside of Calvin" and his "equally deep knowledge and dedication to the institution." Located in Grand Rapids, Calvin University was founded as Calvin College and Seminary in 1876, nearly 20 years after the formation of the Christian Reformed Church with which it is affiliated. It officially changed its name to Calvin University in 2019. The school, which has an enrollment of 3,364 students, seeks to equip students "to think deeply, to act justly, and to live wholeheartedly as Christ's agents of renewal in the world." Boer was appointed Calvin's president in March 2022. Born in Jos, Nigeria, to Christian Reformed missionary parents, Boer graduated from Calvin in 1997. At the time of his appointment, Calvin Board of Trustees Vice Chair Mary Tuuk Kuras praised Boer's "academic grounding, strong sense of social justice, and depth of experience in the private and social sectors." He began his tenure as Calvin's 12th president in the summer of 2022. After Boer assumed the presidency, Calvin University's Board of Trustees voted to allow staff members of the school to publicly disagree with the Christian Reformed Church's doctrinal positions on human sexuality, including its opposition to same-sex marriage. The vote, which took place just months after Boer's arrival at Calvin in November 2022, came in response to pressure from theologically progressive faculty and students who identify as members of the LGBT community. In a statement to The Christian Post at the time, a university spokesperson maintained that faculty will still have to "adhere to the university's expectations for teaching and personal conduct that honor the church's position." The spokesperson added, "The Board characterized its decision as respectful of the university's covenantal partnership with the [Christian Reformed Church of North America], consistent with confessional commitment, congruent with existing policies and procedures, supportive of academic freedom, and reflective of constructive engagement." Before becoming Calvin's president, Boer was the chief executive officer of the Shell-funded, Nigeria-based renewable energy investment company All-On. During Boer's first week as president, Calvin University signed a memorandum of understanding with the Carmel, Indiana-based SunFundED to pursue Solar-as-a-Service energy as part of a transition to solar energy on campus. Home News Nepali pastor facing 1 year in prison for 'proselytizing' seeks to change sentence into fine NEW DELHI More than a month after the Supreme Court of Nepal ordered Pastor Keshab Raj Acharya to serve one year in prison under a law against proselytizing, he seeks to convert the sentence into a fine. He wont be able to seek the change until March, though, and the Supreme Court on Jan. 23 ordered his prison term to begin. The fact is that the police can come any time and arrest me, Pastor Acharya told Morning Star News. But till they do, I am here, serving the Lord. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe The Dolpa District court had sentenced Pastor Acharya to two years in prison and a fine of 20,000 rupees (US$167) for outraging religious feelings and proselytizing in November 2021. On July 13, 2022, the Jumla High Court reviewed and confirmed the pastors conviction for proselytism but reduced the punishment to one year of imprisonment. With the support of Alliance Defending Freedom International, he appealed the ruling. After the Supreme Court refused to consider his appeal on Oct. 6 and upheld the High Courts decision, Acharya has found he cannot challenge the rulings with Supreme Court as he had hoped. I was told that there is no provision of re-applying to the Supreme Court, he said. So, there is no way to challenge the High Courts decision that the Supreme Court has upheld the last time. The High Court on July 13 reduced Acharyas sentence from two years in prison and a fine of US$167, imposed by the Dolpa District Court, to one year and a fine of US$75. Many lawyers have suggested Pastor Acharya approach the Dolpa District Court to convert his prison sentence into a fine, and that will be his next step, he said. But it entirely depends on the judge. If he allows, then I will apply for the same, he said. If he does not allow, I will have to spend my term in the prison. Pastor Acharya has not appealed for the change yet because Dolpa is a cold and remote district, especially at this time of the year, he said. The judges (officials) sometimes leave the mountain district and move to lower districts with milder climates. The officials return in the month of March, and I plan to apply in that month, Pastor Acharya said, requesting prayer. He said it takes him three days to reach Dolpa by bus from Pokhara, where he now lives. Dolpa is 400 miles from Pokhara. I spent about two months in that prison before I was released on bail, he said. Three cases Pastor Acharya was first arrested in March 2020 on allegations of spreading false information that prayers could heal novel coronavirus. After his release on a bail for 5,000 Nepalese rupees (US$41) on April 8 of that year, he was immediately re-arrested for outraging religious feelings and proselytizing. An exorbitant bail amount of 500,000 Nepalese rupees (US$4,084) was set. When released on May 13, 2020, he was once again immediately re-arrested on a third set of charges and transferred to Dolpa prison. Charges were filed on May 21, 2020, under Section 158 (1) of the Nepal Criminal Code, which prohibits converting anyone from one religion to another, and Section 158 (2), which prohibits undermining ones religion with the intention of converting another person. After rejection of bail on May 22, 2020, he was released on July 3, 2020, on a bail amount equivalent to US$2,500. The Dolpa District Court later sentenced him to the two years in prison and the fine of US$167 under the countrys proselytization law. He was arrested Nov. 22, 2021, and released on bail on Dec. 24 of the same year. The Pokhara case pertaining to spreading false information was dismissed after paying a fine of 10,000 Nepali rupees in April 2023, said Pastor Acharya. The proselytizing case went in Pastor Acharyas favor in May 2023, for they could not find any evidence that I forcefully converted anybody, he said. The government attorney appealed in the High Court as well, but I was acquitted. Tehmina Arora, Asia director for ADF International, said no one should live in fear of being arrested or criminally charged for peacefully sharing their religious beliefs. And no one should be sent to prison for praying and sharing their faith, Arora said. In upholding Pastor Keshabs prison sentence, the Supreme Court of Nepal has not only violated his basic human rights to religious freedom, but also missed out on a crucial opportunity to set a positive precedent allowing others to engage in prayer and evangelism without fear of punishment. ADF International urged the Nepali government to ensure that all people are able to freely practice and profess their faith by safeguarding fundamental freedoms in line with its international commitments. Continuing to shepherd Abundant Harvest Church in Pokhara until he is summoned to prison, Pastor Acharya, his wife, Junu, and two sons, 6 and 5, stay hopeful and in prayer. I praise God that two of the three cases are over, Pastor Acharya said. I pray that the third too would be resolved. I thank all those who prayed for me and my family in all these years of trial. Home News UMC's proposed budget will be the smallest in 40 years due to mass exodus of churches The United Methodist Church may soon approve the lowest budget for the mainline Protestant denomination in four decades due to the thousands of congregations that disaffiliated over the past couple of years. At its meeting held Feb. 19-20 in Franklin, Tennessee, the UMC General Council on Finance and Administration voted to approve a proposed 2025-2028 denominational budget of approximately $346.7 million. The budget must still be approved by delegates at the UMC General Conference, the churchwide legislative assembly scheduled for April 23 to May 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe According to UM News, the UMC's official news agency, the proposed budget is 43% lower than the approximately $604 million denomination-wide budget approved at the 2016 General Conference. This represents "the biggest budget drop in the denomination's history." The proposed total is the smallest denomination budget to be submitted to the General Conference for a vote since 1984 when the UMC had a far smaller presence in Africa. "Although we are navigating challenging financial times, the GCFA Board, along with members of the Connectional Table and the Council of Bishops, are focused on the work before us: ministry and mission," said the Rev. Moses Kumar, general secretary of GCFA, in a statement. Over the past few decades, the UMC has been involved in a divisive debate over whether to change the denomination's rules to allow for the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of people in same-sex relationships. According to the current language of the UMC Book of Discipline, the central rulebook of the denomination, the "practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." Although efforts at the General Conference to change the Book of Discipline have failed, many theologically progressive UMC leaders have refused to follow or enforce the rules, drawing the ire of theological conservatives. At a special session of the General Conference held in 2019, delegates voted to add Paragraph 2553 to the UMC Book of Discipline, creating a process for churches to leave the denomination over the LGBT debate. The measure expired at the end of 2023. From 2019 to 2023, approximately 7,600 churches disaffiliated from the UMC under the provisions, with a significant portion of them opting to join the newly launched, theologically conservative Global Methodist Church. Additionally, some churches continue to leave the mainline Protestant denomination through other means, such as the "Local Church Discernment Process" approved by the UMC South Carolina Conference. South Carolina Conference spokesman Dan O'Mara explained to The Christian Post in an earlier interview that this discernment process was based on another paragraph in the Book of Discipline. "While similar to the disaffiliation process found in Paragraph 2553, the Local Church Discernment Process is grounded in Paragraph 2549 of the Discipline, which is typically employed when a local church is closed because it no longer serves the purpose for which it was organized," said O'Mara. Home News Black History Month: 8 historically significant African American churches Throughout the centuries of black history, the Christian faith has been a central component of the culture and heritage in the United States. In times when African Americans were barred from voting or holding public office, churches served as the area of community influence and impact over the culture at large. Here are eight congregations, established at different times, places, and belonging to different denominations that hold great historical significance for a host of reasons, including influence over the broader culture, ties to prominent people, or tragic events. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe They include the main pulpit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the first official black congregation in New York, and the home church of the first African American president of the United States. Home News Canadian school board removes document linking Christianity, education with 'white supremacy' The largest school board in Canada has removed an official document from its website that equated the Canadian education system with white supremacy and listed Christianity as a trait of a colonial structure that centers whiteness. A copy of the 2024 handbook from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) titled Facilitating Critical Conversations: A Teaching Resource for Challenging Oppression in Toronto District School Board Classrooms went viral for its anti-Oppressive approach which named Christian as a one of the characteristics of an overarching dominant culture which must be actively decolonized. Defined in its introduction as a teaching resource for educators and other staff to fulfill this commitment of anti-oppressive practices by facilitating critical conversations in their classrooms, the 44-page TDSB handbook cites, among other resources, the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that has faced immense criticism for labeling a number of Christian conservative groups and public figures as hateful. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe Among the core beliefs outlined in the opening pages of the handbook are: Education is a colonial structure that centers whiteness and Eurocentricity and therefore it must be actively decolonized White Supremacy is a structural reality that impacts all students and must be discussed and dismantled in classrooms, schools, and communities Schooling in North America is inherently designed for the benefit of the dominant culture (i.e., white, middle-upper class, male, Christian, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, neurotypical, etc.) Race matters it is a visible and dominant identity factor in determining peoples social, political, economic, and cultural experiences Authored by the boards Equity, Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Department, the handbook calls on educators to prioritize students who are from non-dominant identity groups and to interact with students based on their own identity group. The handbook also references what it describes as Canadas racist history and laws and espouses radical gender ideology by identifying heterosexuality or the set of ideas, social norms, beliefs, and culture that govern people whose gender identity corresponds to the one assigned at birth as a type of social construction. Facilitating Critical Conversations is a revision of a 2003 TDSB document which, by contrast, contains a single reference to the terms "racism," white, black and sexual orientation, respectively. Following the updated handbooks release and ensuing backlash, a TDSB spokesman said the document has been removed from the school boards website after school officials received feedback about some of the language used. As a result, we have temporarily removed it from the internal website so that a review can be completed with an eye to better aligning it with the Education Act, Ontario Human Rights Code and TDSBs policies and procedures while maintaining our commitments to achievement, well-being, Human Rights, and equity for all, TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird told CP on Tuesday. Formerly known as English-language Public District School Board No. 12 prior to 1999, TDSB is the English-language public school board for Toronto and serves approximately 600 school and roughly 238,000 students. More than a quarter of students served by TDSB were born outside of Canada and more than 100 languages are spoken by TDSB students and families, according to the organization. In a separate story, last month, a diversity officer at one of the top-ranked hospitals in the United States apologized after sending out a newsletter in which Christians were listed as a privileged group. In the January edition of the monthly Diversity Digest newsletter, Dr. Sherita Hill Golden, the chief diversity officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity, listed Christians, white people, able-bodied people, and males as examples of groups who enjoy privilege, which the email defined as a set of unearned benefits" given to people who are in a specific social group. Other groups of privilege listed in the email included heterosexuals, middle or owning class people, middle-aged people, and English-speaking people. In a statement to CP, a JHM spokesperson said, The January edition of the monthly newsletter from the Johns Hopkins Medicine Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity used language that contradicts the values of Johns Hopkins as an institution. Home News Podcast warns of tragic consequences without Church engagement on trans issues The Church must be on the frontlines addressing transgender ideology the epitome of self-idolatry, the ultimate attempt to become ones own god" and failure to do so will lead to tragic consequences, a podcast has warned. In the finale of the "Generation Indoctrination" podcast, How Should the Church Respond to Gender Ideology? host Brandon Showalter examined how churches and ministry leaders might navigate the challenges of engaging with the trans community. The conversation pivoted around a fundamental belief: human beings, created in God's image, hold a sacred status distinct from the rest of Creation. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe We're told in Psalm 139 that God knits us together in our mother's womb, and all of our parts are written in God's book before any of them came to be, Richard Land, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and executive editor of The Christian Post, said at the beginning of the podcast, underscoring the hopeful Christian perspective on human significance. So, we have, as Christians, a very hopeful understanding of humanity, as opposed to the existential angst that comes from believing that there is no purpose, there is no meaning. That we literally are specks of dust, blown on the wind of fate, and that life is a storm full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Jeff Meyers, president of Summit Ministries in Colorado, and co-author with Showalter of the e-bookExposing the Gender Lie, emphasized the importance of understanding the cultural dogma surrounding trans ideology. Meyers identified two prevailing worldviews Gnosticism and Monism that pose significant threats to the Christian Gospel by diminishing the inherent value of the body and, by extension, the human soul. Gnosticism, as Meyers described, dismisses the body's relevance, promoting a belief that physical actions have no spiritual consequences. This ancient heresy, revived in contemporary progressive Christian circles, advocates for a detachment from the physical in pursuit of spiritual transcendence. Monism, on the other hand, simplifies existence to a single entity either material or spiritual denying the complex interplay between body and soul that is central to Christian theology. There are two false worldviews that have set themselves as the gospel in our time. If they succeed, they will squelch any opportunity for the Gospel to go forward, he warned. Addressing how to engage with these ideologies, Katie McCoy, director of Women's Ministry at Texas Baptists and author of To Be a Woman, stressed the need for churches to become informed advocates, thoroughly versed in the multifaceted issues facing today's youth. McCoy highlighted the human aspect of these discussions, reminding listeners that behind every debate are individuals grappling with pain and confusion. She advocates for a comprehensive care approach that addresses the spiritual, psychological and emotional needs of those affected by gender dysphoria. This issue represents people who are trying to deal with pain in a way that is against God's good design for their lives, she said. And haven't we all done that? Don't we all do that? And yet, what makes this issue different is that the treatments and the technologies are having such devastating and lasting, in most cases, permanent effects on some of the most vulnerable people among us who need care. They need spiritual, psychological and emotional, whole person care. Echoing historical precedents, McCoy pointed to examples of gender confusion dating back to the Roman Empire, underscoring that the Church has faced similar challenges throughout history. She argued for a robust theological foundation that reaffirms humanity's created purpose and sexual differentiation as revealed in the Genesis Creation narrative. According to McCoy, understanding gender identity through the lens of biblical sex differentiation provides a framework for addressing contemporary gender confusion. The discussion concluded with a sobering reflection on the stakes involved if the Church fails to adequately address trans ideology. McCoy underscored the importance of speaking truth in love, navigating the delicate balance between adhering to theological convictions and extending compassion to those wrestling with their identity. What's at stake here, ultimately, is the Christian witness that we have in our culture, in our era, she said. Every generation of the Church has faced something. This one is ours. And we must step up, and we must be counted. We must be willing to say what is culturally uncomfortable, what is inconvenient to us personally. Because someday, 10 to 15 years from now, there's going to be a generation of detransitioners looking around, saying, Who told me what I didn't want to hear? Who told me what was inconvenient but true? And God help us if it's just a particular partisan group of our political sphere. God help us and God forgive us if it is only people in social activism. McCoy stressed that Christians must be politically engaged, but not necessarily taking on the labels and the categories that the world would try to put us in from a partisan perspective." The love and compassion and truth and Good News and freedom of the Gospel does not fit a political party. At the same time, we have to be very mindful of policies that are either helping or harming the public good, specifically, and especially, the vulnerability of children. How do we do both? I think this requires the full Body of Christ, she said. Trent Langhofer, a licensed professional counselor and faculty member at Colorado Christian University, added that todays society is increasingly governed by subjective feelings, which, in his view, undermine the resilience and stability necessary for healthy psychological development. "In a world that is sort of governed by feelings, anything that makes me feel bad is not just wrong, but oppressing me and a force to be overcome," Langhofer said. I think that that's unfortunate. I think that sets us up for failure and dissatisfaction. But that's the precipice on which we are standing. Langhofer emphasized the importance of addressing underlying emotional pain before tackling gender identity issues in therapy and championed therapeutic strategies focused on building resilience, self-regulation and healing from past traumas. Myers called for the reintegration of spiritual understanding into psychological practice, stressing that a recognition of the soul's existence and the healing power of the Gospel are crucial for effective therapy. "The enemy of our souls wants to distort everything under the sun, including the sex of the human body," Myers asserted. He warned against the secularization of psychological practice and advocated for a therapeutic approach that acknowledges the reality of spiritual warfare and the transformative power of faith. Christianity, Land agreed, is the only antidote to the trans chaos. There are demonic presences and angelic presences and they're struggling over your soul, he said. Whether you believe that or not, I'm telling you, its a fact, its true. And you decide who wins. You decide who wins, which is pretty frightening. And the devil will make you think, Well, you can do it your way or you can do it God's way. No, no, that's one of the devil's great lies. You don't do it your way; you do it the devil's way. Every year you break your New Year's resolution. You are unable to be the person you want to be on your own. You don't do it your own way. You're going to fall. You contend with the devil by yourself and you will lose. But in Christ, you win. Home News Hulu reverses course, allows church's worship ad that it called religious indoctrination' UPDATE: 10:45 a.m. EST Feb. 28, 2024: After the original version of this article was published, The Christian Post was informed via email that Hulu has reversed course and will allow Hulen Street Church's advertisement of its Thursday services to run on the platform. We are grateful to Hulu for its quick response to our demand letter and for accepting Hulen Street Churchs ad, said First Liberty Institute Senior Counsel Jeremy Dys in a statement Wednesday morning. In the future, Hulu and others in Big Tech could avoid these kinds of conflicts by adopting advertising policies that do not discriminate against religious organizations, being transparent about its advertising policy, and applying it fairly. Original: Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe The Disney-owned streaming platform Hulu has been accused of rejecting a church's advertisement for allegedly violating a prohibition on "religious indoctrination." The First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based law firm with a history of arguing First Amendment cases, sent a letter of complaint to Hulu on Monday. The letter claims that Hulen Street Church of Fort Worth, Texas, recently tried to advertise its newly created Thursday evening worship service on Hulu, but the request was rejected. Jeremy Dys, an attorney with FLI who co-signed the letter, told The Christian Post on Tuesday that they are demanding Hulu "reverse course" and allow the ad to run on their platform. "I don't know of any definition in the universe that would suggest advertising the who, what, when, where of a church service would amount to religious indoctrination, but here we are with Hulu saying that these ads are disallowed on their platform," said Dys. Dys stated that "the words 'religious indoctrination' do not even appear in Hulu's announced guidelines," with the attorney believing that "some individual decisionmaker somewhere down the line at Hulu" decided "to reject an advertisement and label it as 'religious indoctrination.'" "They can make up their policies as they go," he added. "They've reversed course on decisions before. I would hope they would do so again here." When asked if Hulu has the right as a private company to ban religious ads, Dys agreed but believes the company should clarify such a restriction in its guidelines. "If they want to make the business decision that religious advertisements are not permitted on their platform, OK. If the market will support that, they've got every right to be able to do that," said Dys. "What you're doing right now is leaving it up to this haphazard application of a vague policy while at the same time trying to claim the high ground of saying that 'we support the First Amendment, we support all kinds of content.'" The Christian Post reached out to Hulu for comment on the letter. However, the company did not return comment by press time. Hulen Street Church's issues with Hulu come as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week about whether states can take action against social media platforms for censoring certain political or religious viewpoints. The cases of NetChoice v. Moody and NetChoice v. Paxton center around laws enacted in Florida and Texas, with the latter questioning the constitutionality of Texas' House Bill 20. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in September 2021 to prohibit social media platforms with over 50 million monthly users from censoring political content. Home News Pastor shot in mouth during carjacking at church also battling cancer, family reveals Zionfield Baptist Church Pastor Clemmie Livingston Jr., who was shot in the mouth by carjackers as he was getting ready for a service at his church in Memphis, Tennessee, on Sunday, is also battling cancer, his family has revealed. "They're trying to watch it because they don't want it to spread trying to operate on him," Kevona Livingston, the daughter of the 70-year old pastor, who told ABC 24 that the bullet fired by the carjackers shattered her fathers jaw. "It's bone cancer and they shattered his bone, she said. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe The Memphis Police Department told Fox 13 that the pastor was shot just after 9 a.m. Sunday as he stepped out of his church before the start of his Sunday morning service. The victim was shot when he came out of the church as the suspects were stealing a 2019 silver Chevrolet Corvette. As the suspects fled the scene in the stolen vehicle, they fired shots, striking the victim, a statement from the police said. A second person who was outside of the church at the time the car was stolen returned fire after the suspects shot first. The victim was in stable condition at the last update. Police currently have no suspects and have not recovered the stolen vehicle. The pastors family said though he survived the attack, his road to recovery will be long. They said that on the day of the shooting, a church member first heard a car alarm go off and went outside to check what was happening and Pastor Livingston followed shortly after. Thats when he realized that a carjacking was underway. The suspects who were wearing hoodies fired shots as they made their escape, hitting the pastor. Someone from the church fired back at the thieves. Keith Livingston, the pastors son, told ABC 24 that he didnt understand why they chose to shoot his elderly father. "You got what you came for, but why hurt him? That's my question. He didn't hurt nobody, he said. Kevona Livingston, added that its attacks like the shooting of her father at a place that is supposed to be sacred that makes people afraid to leave their homes today. "It's hard to get people in church nowadays, and things like this make it even harder, she said. The pastors family urged the community to continue praying for him as he recovers from surgery to his jaw. Home News School worker fired for opposing LGBT materials in classroom wins right to appeal A school employee fired for social media posts opposing LGBT materials in class has won the right to take her dismissal to the United Kingdom Court of Appeal. Kristie Higgs, a 47-year-old Christian mother of two, won the right in a ruling late last month by Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. Higgs attorneys had argued that her case should not be sent back to the same employment tribunal that had made serious errors. Higgs worked for seven years as a student counseling assistant at Farmors School in Fairford, Gloucestershire, before her dismissal in 2019. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe Its shocking to think Ive lost my job because of one parent who complained to the school because they didnt agree with what I shared on my Facebook page, and for the school to take sides with that parent is hard to believe, she said in a video interview with advocacy group Christian Concern, whose legal arm, Christian Legal Centre, is supporting her defense. Higgs shared and posted the disputed messages on her personal Facebook page after receiving an invitation on Oct. 5, 2018, from the Church of England primary school that her younger son attended. Entitled Teaching the Equality Act in Schools, the invitation read, This year, we are using several story books to help our school community promote diversity and celebrate difference. Children will become very familiar with the phrase, No Outsiders In Our School, as they work through the story books. The letter stated that the program is in line with the Equality Act 2010 and invited parents to see the books and lesson plans at a school event. Higgs said only she, another parent and a grandparent attended the viewing. She saw books such as Jacobs New Dress by Sarah Hoffman, about a boy who likes to wear dresses, and Red: A Crayons Story by Michael Hall, about a blue crayon suffering an identity crisis because it is not red. To me, it didnt seem to be that it was just about anti-bullying, Higgs said in the Christian Concern video. There seemed to be something more underlying, with the Jacobs New Dress and Red crayon books, how children could choose their own gender. I thought it was very confusing for my child because of our Christian beliefs. Concerned that most parents were unaware of the gender identity books promoted by the school, Higgs posted on her Facebook page, under her maiden name, a message about the No Outsiders invitation. She also shared another post on a petition against introducing LGBTQ+ Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) in schools. She uploaded the Citizens Go petition link on Oct. 24, 2018, which was headlined, Uphold the right of parents to have children educated in line with their religious beliefs. Stop supporting LGBT indoctrination. The petition was directed to then-U.K. Education Secretary Damian Hind. The petition included a statement about the Nov. 7 end of the government consultation period regarding making relationships education mandatory in primary schools and relationships and sex education mandatory in secondary schools. Which means, for example, that children will be taught that all relationships are equally valid and normal, so that same-sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage, and that gender is a matter of choice, not biology, so that its up to them what sex they are, the petition stated. At the same time, it means expressing and teaching fundamental Christian beliefs relating to the creation of men and women and marriage will in practice become forbidden because they conflict with the new morality and are seen as indoctrination into unacceptable religious bigotry. Which means the freedom of belief will be destroyed, with freedom of speech permitted only for those who toe the party line! The petition called the plans a vicious form of totalitarianism aimed at suppressing Christianity and removing it from the public arena. Please sign this petition, they have already started to brainwash our innocent, wonderfully created children, and its happening in our local primary school now. Higgs posted on Oct. 27, 2018, This is happening in our primary schools now! and provided a link to an article with the headline, Jacobs New Dress and Red: Crayons Story Give Toni the Tampon a Run For Its Money. In the video interview with Christian Concern, Higgs said she thought that was the end of it, but an anonymous parent complained to the headteacher about the posts, saying they were homophobic and offensive. Higgs was summoned to a meeting with the headteacher and a Human Relations staff member at the school. They thought the posts I was sharing were homophobic and very negative, [saying], Did you realize other parents would see these? recalled Higgs. And so I just thought I suppose its on Facebook, and I supposed people would see them, but I didnt really think I did anything wrong. She said she was confused about why the school officials then sent her home. I didnt do anything wrong. I just shared some information with other parents about what the government is planning and a critique article, and a couple of books that are being read, Higgs said. I came home and cried because I was in shock, and I still didnt think I did anything wrong. The secondary school suspended her pending an investigation, and she endured a disciplinary hearing for six hours on Dec. 19, 2018. She received a letter on Jan. 7, 2019 firing her without warning for gross misconduct. An employment tribunal on April 15, 2019 ruled against her claim of unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. She successfully appealed at an employment appeal tribunal in June of last year, but a judge ordered the case to be heard again by the original court that had rejected her claim. As Higgs lawyers successfully appealed the order, the case is expected to proceed at the U.K. Court of Appeal this year. The email from the unnamed parent on Oct. 26, 2018, to headteacher Matthew Evans read, a member of your staff who works directly with children has been posting homophobic and prejudiced views against the LGBT community on Facebook ... this individual may exert influence over the vulnerable pupils that may end up in isolation for whatever reason. I find these views offensive, and I am sure that when you look into it, you will understand my concern. Evans asked the parent to send any similarly offensive posts. According to court documents, the parent sent him screenshots from Higgs Facebook page with posts by people in the United States concerned about LGBQT+ material used in some U.S. schools. Im aware that not everyone has liberal views like myself, the parent said in another message to Evans, but I do feel that people working directly with children should refrain from posting this type of view on social media. I know of several children at Farmors who might fit into the category of person your staff member seems to find so obnoxious, friends of my children even. School business manager Sue Dorey investigated and recommended a progression of steps leading to a disciplinary hearing, according to the appeal employment tribunal record. By choosing to make the posts, Dorey stated in her investigation report before the school's disciplinary hearing,and stating that [Higgs] believes in Gods law and not Mans Law, I believe that, on the balance of probability, this means that she holds views that are discriminatory against groups of people with protected characteristics. The initial employment tribunal had noted that Dorey concluded on a balance of probability that Higgs held illegal discriminatory views that broke the school code of conduct and discriminatory beliefs, including that she does not believe in same-sex marriage and gender fluidity. Higgs told Christian Concern that she was taking a stand on behalf of children, other parents and, above all else, for Jesus. My husband went to collect my belongings from the school [after the firing], and I saw them, and it was so sad because I havent done anything wrong, she said in the Christian Concern video. I havent treated any child any differently, because I am not against people, not against children, not against any LGBT person Im not homophobic. Higgs said she was only trying as a parent to help her child learn what God says in the Bible. That is what they were teaching in schools not so long ago, she said. They were teaching my child Gods way, and now they are changing it, and I just wanted other parents to see the changes that are happening. Originally published at Christian Daily International Home News Trump says he supports IVF after Alabama Supreme Court ruling; pro-lifers react Former President Donald Trump and other conservative leaders' response to the Alabama Supreme Court decision concerning embryos conceived via in vitro fertilization has prompted discussions among pro-lifers about the ethics of the practice, even if it does involve the creation of new life. Earlier this month, the Alabama Supreme Court determined that frozen embryos are protected by the state's Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. The court ruled that embryos created through IVF and kept frozen are protected by state law, reversing a lower court decision. Associate Justice Jay Mitchell concluded in the majority opinion that the act, first enacted in 1872, "applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation." Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe The IVF process involves transferring an embryo into a woman's uterus after sperm and egg are manually combined in a laboratory dish. The ruling has prompted commentary from various political figures, including Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. In response to the ruling, the former president and 2024 presidential hopeful Trump wrote on his Truth Social network that he "strongly support[s] the availability of IVF for couples who are trying to have a precious baby." He vowed that under his leadership, "the Republican Party will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families." "We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!" Trump wrote. During a Sunday "State of the Union" interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Gov. Abbott predicted that the Texas legislature would take up the issue, stating that Texas "is a pro-life state." The Republican governor added, "we want to ensure we promote life" and "empower parents." "The IVF process is a way of giving life to even more babies. So, I think the goal is to make sure that we can find a pathway to ensure that parents who otherwise may not have the opportunity to have a child will be able to have access to the IVF process and become parents and give life to babies," Abbott said. Trump and Abbott's comments in support of IVF come as some pro-life groups contend that IVF can result in the deaths of unborn children, such as when excess embryos are discarded or fail to survive being frozen and thawed. Katy Faust, founder and president of Them Before Us, an organization that advocates for a child's right to be raised by a mother and father, acknowledged that IVF "gives life" to some babies. In a statement to The Christian Post, the advocate cited research that suggests only 7% of lab-created children are born alive, while others remain frozen, are donated to science or "compassionately transferred to die in the womb." While she agreed that the Republican Party should "support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy, American families," Faust argues that this cannot come at the expense of "the most vulnerable Americans unborn children." "Our hearts go out to couples struggling with infertility and those who experience same-sex attraction who may not be able to have a child without the help of a technician," Faust told CP. "But no amount of adult struggle, loss, or longing justifies violating the rights of the child specifically their primary right to life and right to be known and loved by both their mother and father." "Our country's leaders, specifically those who identify as pro-life or Republican, must unequivocally stand for child protection," she continued. "Today, that means standing against the baby-taking industry of abortion and very often the baby-making industry of IVF." Jennifer Lahl, founder and president of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, said in a statement with CP there is a lot of "misinformation" circulating about the ruling. She said many believe the ruling means that IVF "will be prohibited or greatly restricted," while some think that the decision "is even anti-traditional pro-family values." "The higher court's action was in response to the lower court's that rejected three couples' rights to file for 'wrongful death' of their frozen embryos that were inadvertently destroyed," Lahl stated. "The lower court said the 'Wrongful Death of a Minor" Law,' which protected children born and the unborn the fetus, in its mother's womb, did not extend that protection to the frozen human embryo." "The higher courts decision said, 'Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no, the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,'" she continued. "IVF is not illegal in Alabama with this decision," Lahl added. "If anything, IVF clinics will have to be more diligent in protecting human frozen embryos." Regarding the position conservative leaders should take on IVF, Penny Nance, CEO and President of Concerned Women for America, urged conservatives to provide "bold, stead leadership on life." In a statement to CP, Nance urged Republicans not to run from the issue. Like abortion, she believes that political opponents will use "scare tactics and false messaging" to misrepresent the party's views. "The policy debate on the best practices for IVF can certainly continue, but even in that debate, Alabama's respect for the sanctity of every human life as created in the image of God represents the best framework possible to engage it," Nance said. "Pro-life Republican Senate candidates should take this case as an opportunity to discuss how precious life is from the moment of conception." Tennessee Officials Can Decline Same-Sex Marriages, SCOTUS On Social Media Censorship, YWAM Tragedy link to download the audio instead. link to download the audio instead. 06:34 06:34 Top headlines for Wednesday, February 28, 2024\ In today's episode, the controversial new Tennessee law that allows public officials to refuse performing same-sex marriages on religious grounds. Then, as the Supreme Court prepares to debate free speech rights on social media platforms, we tackle the question: should states regulate content derogatory to major companies? In our final segment, we celebrate the achievements of faith-based digital content as we discuss Bible In a Year with Jack Graham clinching the number one spot on Apple's Religion podcast charts. Subscribe to this Podcast Follow Us on Social Media Get the Edifi App Subscribe to Our Newsletter Links to the News Top headlines for Wednesday, February 28, 2024\ In today's episode, the controversial new Tennessee law that allows public officials to refuse performing same-sex marriages on religious grounds. Then, as the Supreme Court prepares to debate free speech rights on social media platforms, we tackle the question: should states regulate content derogatory to major companies? In our final segment, we celebrate the achievements of faith-based digital content as we discuss Bible In a Year with Jack Graham clinching the number one spot on Apple's Religion podcast charts. Home Opinion Alabama Supreme Court chief justice's embryo ruling is refreshing defense of life An Alabama Supreme Court ruling last week that correctly identified and defined human embryos as persons has elicited strong and defiant reactions from abortion activists. The case in question involves a lawsuit brought by James and Emily Page, Alabama parents whose frozen embryos were destroyed following a break-in at Mobiles Center for Reproductive Medicine. The decision by Chief Justice Tom Parker declared frozen embryos to be extrauterine children, and therefore protected under Alabama law. Chief Parkers decision was carefully and thoroughly argued, an elegant and robust defense of innocent life that delved into the foundation and history of the states legislative case that every human being is worthy of protection. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe Predictably, critics have pounced and are fulminating. In Fridays New York Times, columnist Jamelle Bouie pens a piece titled, Samuel Alito Opened the Door to Reproductive Hell. Of course, the reference is to Justice Alitos majority opinion that reversed Roe and returned the question and issue of abortion back to the states. Characterizing a ruling that has saved approximately 85,000 childrens lives as Hell reveals the dark and demonic appetite for death that so many radical abortion activists appear to possess. Last weeks decision has also triggered false reports that in vitro fertilization treatments are now banned in Dixie. Lawmakers are suggesting clarifying legislation may be forthcoming, but the decision didnt ban anything except the willful and illegal destruction of human life. Critics of the decision have also pounced on Chief Justice Parkers 131-page decision because it contained 41 references to God. Curiously, the same antagonists who are chastising the Chief for referencing more than the United States and Alabama constitutions have no problem with liberal justices citing any number of other sources while justifying their own rationales in equally controversial cases. The significant difference, of course, is that Chief Justice Parker rightly notes that faith and religious belief were foundational to the documents that shape and inform our laws. In a particularly poignant passage, Chief Justice Parker writes: In summary, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama encompasses the following: 1. God made every person in His image; 2. each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and 3. human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself. Section 36.06 recognizes that this is true of unborn human life no less than it is of all other human life that even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing His glory. The People of Alabama have declared the public policy of this State to be that unborn human life is sacred. We believe that each human being, from the moment of conception, is made in the image of God, created by Him to reflect His likeness. It is as if the People of Alabama took what was spoken of the prophet Jeremiah and applied it to every unborn person in this state: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, Before you were born I sanctified you" (Jeremiah 1:5,NKJV 1982). How refreshing to read such a cogent and unapologetic defense of human life from a judge unafraid and courageous enough to remind the world of how the law came to be in the first place. Incidentally, Chief Justice Parker helped launch the Alabama Family Alliance, now known as the Alabama Family Policy Institute. The Chief Justice is right that the taking of innocent human life will incur the wrath of God. The critical question remains whether those especially irked by that statement will see his truth-telling as a gift and incentive to change their ways and beliefs or discover that hes right, but only after its too late to do anything about it. Home Opinion The transcendent value of children Fewer people today are raising children. The verb raise is apt, despite the longstanding insistence from style guides that the correct verb is to rear. Farmers raise crops and animals, activities vital for any society that hopes to have food. Of course, not everyone needs to farm, especially since industrialization has made food production more efficient. However, some percentage of the population must, or we will starve. This is an example of a shared responsibility of citizens, an activity that no specific individual is obligated to do but that many individuals must choose to do if their society is to survive. Raising corn and cows isnt only about making a living. Its also about feeding people. In the same way, not everyone can or will choose to raise children, but many people must if a society is to continue. The majority, in fact, must. If the number of children born each year does not equal or exceed the number of people who die, the population will age and shrink. This is the current situation across the developed world. Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe A major factor behind this predicament is that weve largely forgotten how to speak of shared responsibility today. Our choices, especially when it comes to sexuality and relationships, are seen in hyper-individualistic terms. We hardly ask how my choices will affect my neighbors, born and unborn, or society in the decades to come. Instead, we ask will this choice fulfill me? Will it make me happy? Will it serve my goals and dreams as an individual? Increasingly, marriage and childbearing are evaluated through this individualist lens. The conclusion is that a family will not fulfill them, nor make them happy, nor serve their goals and dreams as individuals. This blinkered cost-benefit analysis, as writers like Louise Perry have pointed out, when repeated in tens of millions of households, is leaving much of the developed world sterile. The long-term consequences of this sterility are no secret. As The New York Times admitted, the worlds population is likely to peak this century and, after that, rapidly decline. Yet, in the same breath, The Times editorial board, who has repeatedly placed the responsibility for all kinds of other global trends on our consciences, assured readers that no one has the responsibility to reverse this trend, especially if it cramps feminist ideals for women being equally career-focused: No people are making mistakes when they choose not to have children or to have small families Its in no ones hands to change global population trajectories alone. Not yours, whatever you choose for your life, not one countrys, not one generations And yet our personal choices add up to big implications for humanity as a whole. In a recent article for Law and Liberty, Elizabeth Grace Matthew argued that secular writers have missed something in their cost-benefit analysis. Children, she argued, have value that transcends individual goals and dreams. They arent mere accessories of our self-expression. They are gifts to society that represent a disposition of generosity toward God and His world. All things being equal, recognizing that not all who desire children are able to have them, raising the next generation isnt just a choice among many for which no one needs to strive. As Matthew concluded: There is societal value for all in the rearing of the next generation, even though its work is disproportionately undertaken by some. There is only individual value for some (and dubious value at that) in the freedom of the 'child free' to pursue unimpeded hedonism. Children challenge the secular, hyper-individualist worldview to its core. They present an immediate, shared responsibility that directs us beyond material gain and personal fulfillment to higher ideals. Simply put, more people must and should marry and have children if society is to survive. The reluctance of secular writers to say this, even in the face of devastating population decline, exposes a critical flaw in their beliefs. Some values are bigger than individuals. Some even require individual sacrifice. The future will belong to those who admit this fact and allow it to shape their choices. Originally published at BreakPoint. Half of Northern Irish identify as practising Christians A survey by the Evangelical Alliance has revealed that Northern Ireland is home to many practising Christians, including many evangelicals. Two polls were carried out for the study - one of 1,005 members of the general public by Savanta, and another of 2,083 people by the Evangelical Alliance Northern Ireland. The study found that half of people in Northern Ireland describe themselves as a practising Christian. Among these, two in five said they were evangelical. Over a third (38%) of practising Catholics also considered themselves to be evangelical. Other findings from the study showed that over a third (35%) of people in Northern Ireland pray each week, while nearly a quarter (23%) go to church. Over one in 10 (13%) said they read the Bible on a weekly basis. The findings were published in the Evangelical Alliance Northern Ireland's new report, Good News People. Commenting on the results, David Smyth, head of Evangelical Alliance in Northern Ireland said: "We always suspected that the Christian faith continued to play an important role in life here and this research confirms high levels of religious identification and practice. The findings in this report have challenged, surprised and encouraged us. "However, we are aware that evangelicals are often perceived negatively in the media. Our research confirms this, but also affirms that when people know us personally their responses are much more positive. Evangelicals show up at church but also in their local communities and care deeply about wider society. Evangelical Christians are just like our neighbours in many respects but are understandably distinctive in many ways too. "Our hope is that this report helps those in government and media understand us and religiosity in Northern Ireland better. Our prayer is that some might even explore this Good News God that so many people here follow." Islamism in Britain Part 2: is there an answer? In Part 1, I delved into the question of whether there was a problem with Islamism in the UK and concluded that there is. Before I begin with Part 2, it is important to remind ourselves that it is Islamism and not Islam that is the problem. And to remember that there are many Muslims who are not Islamists and who are fine citizens and welcome members of the community. But now we need to ask what can be done about Islamism? The head in the sand approach which seems to be the majority position of the elites in the UK will not do. Either because they do not understand Islamism, or they do not perceive it as any threat to themselves, or they have just become scared. It seems that much of the establishment would rather talk about the danger of Islamophobia than the danger of Islamism. Take for example the now unfunny comedian Frankie Boyle, who proves the mantra, 'go woke, lose your sense of humour', who this week tweeted: "If I see the word Islamist, I just assume I'm about to read the incoherent rambling of a crazed racist." What is Islamophobia? The term is a recent one, invented by the Runnymede Trust in 1997. It was meant to refer to an "unfounded hostility towards Islam". But now it is being used as a de facto blasphemy law to silence all criticism of Islam and Islamists. In passing I note that there is no attempt by any politician to establish a crime of Christophobia, or Hinduphobia. Why? In 2018, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims defined 'Islamophobia' very broadly as a "type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness". All except the Tories adopted this definition. In its proposals for what in effect amounts to a new blasphemy law, the APPG included a large number of offences, among them claiming Muhammad was a paedophile (because of his marriage to a 12 year old), blaming Muslims for the actions of Muslim states, or claiming that Islam was spread by the sword. The latter would make it impossible for historian Tom Holland's book The Shadow of the Sword to be published nowadays. It also proposed that accusing Muslims of inventing or exaggerating the term 'Islamophobia' would be against the law, as would suggesting that any Muslim was more loyal to the Ummah (the transnational Muslim community) than to this country even if they were! The result of this is that freedom of speech, labour and movement, are already being severely restricted in the UK. Again, there are numerous examples but let me cite a few well-known ones. In 2007 extremism, which included misogyny, homophobia, antisemitism and anti-democracy, in a few British mosques was exposed by the Channel Four documentary Undercover Mosques. But instead of dealing with the actual hate from the hate preachers, the West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service attacked the documentary makers, claiming they had distorted the imam's words and taken them out of context. In 2008 Channel Four were vindicated with a public apology and a six-figure libel settlement from the police and CPS. But I doubt they or any other mainstream media would dare to make such a programme now. Nobody wants to be accused of blasphemy when you have to face both the mob and the police! In one of the most ironic moments in modern Britain, the Mall Galleries in London withdrew a piece called 'Isis Threaten Sylvania', by the satirical artist Miriam Elia, from its 'Passion for Freedom' exhibition in 2015. The piece portrayed the fictional land of Sylvania where some animals gathered to celebrate Pride. In the distance are three little figures, squirrels or hedgehogs, in black masks with a machine gun. The police sent e-mails to the gallery saying it could cause offence and that it was not art. Elia's response is as relevant today as it was nine years ago: "The decision to censor shows that our establishment is more threatened by satire, clarity and truth than by young men willing to kill, rape and pillage in the name of Islam. Apparently, my images were 'potentially inflammatory' to terrorists. This is the equivalent of saying an anti-Nazi cartoon in the late 1930s was offensive ... to Nazis. Those who justify and protect barbaric totalitarianism, in whichever form, are on the fast track to becoming totalitarian themselves." If you want to measure how far fear of Islamism has gone in the UK, just consider that while photographer Andres Serrano's grotesque 'Piss Christ' was permitted to be exhibited in the UK without any police interference, a satirical piece about terrorist organisation ISIS was in effect banned by the police. Another example can be found in the Muslim-made film Lady of Heaven which was pulled by Cineworld after demonstrations from some Muslims. The trouble was that the film was made by the wrong sort of Muslim - Shias - and so the Sunni hardliners campaigned against it and because Cineworld could not guarantee the safety of their staff, it was pulled. The police said and did nothing, while politicians were silent. Not a word from those now complaining so loudly about Islamophobia. Or take the infamous case of the teacher in Batley who was forced into hiding because he showed his pupils an image of Muhammad. The school suspended him. The police reassured 'the community' and the Huffington Post referred to the picture as a 'racist caricature'. Again the vast majority of the establishment commentariat were silent. And where is the teacher now? Still in hiding three years later, fearing for his life. My final example (there are many others) is of an autistic boy in Wakefield who scuffed a Quran. He had brought one to school with three of his friends, and apparently dropped it. As a result, he received death threats. The boys were suspended and their behaviour was logged by the police as a 'hate incident', whilst those who actually made death threats were left untouched. This is modern Britain and soon it will be illegal to say so. The answer to all of this is firstly to ensure that we have free speech and that the irrational and illiberal desire to censor on behalf of one religion must be stopped. Instead of pandering to the Islamists, maybe part of the answer is for the UK to take the approach of our French cousins who this week deported an imam, Mahjoub Mahjoubi, for hate speech after calling the French flag "satanic". In Germany the government will now no longer allow imams from Turkey to preach in its mosques, and Denmark, one of the most left-wing progressive countries, now has harsher laws for this than any other country in Western Europe. Melanie Phillips, in her controversial bestselling book from 2006, Londonistan, detailed how the UK in general and London in particular had become a haven for Islamism in the West. At the time I wondered if her book was exaggerated, but her argument, that administrative incompetence and cultural weakness permitted this to happen, has largely been demonstrated to be true. I doubt that any of our governments or many of our political leaders will take this seriously because the administrative incompetence and cultural weakness have only increased in the past few years - a gift to the far right (or indeed the far left). But there is another way. Take the amazing story of Spencer Fildes, former chair of the Scottish Secular Society (SSS). He and I were, for a while, enemies until one day something changed. The SSS had been bitterly and publicly opposed to any public display of Christianity and were especially angry with public Christians like yours truly. But Spencer, to be fair to him, was an equal opportunities anti-religious person. Spencer wrote: "It came to a head when I wanted to do something on Dundee University forcing the female teaching undergraduates to cover their arms and legs on a trip to the local mosque. Then holding a 'who looks best in a hijab' competition ... then photographing the students wearing it ... One of my secular colleagues said I was 'no better than the far right ... This unreasonable hyperbolic nonsense was relentless, all secularists ever want to do is Christian bash, it's not about separation of church and state, it's a deeply embedded leftfield political hatred of the Christian right. This is why they make curious bedfellows with Islamists. I wanted no part in it." For his interesting thoughts on why the 'progressive secularists' argued for a Muslim candidate to become Scottish First Minister, while bitterly attacking a Christian, I recommend his recent blog post. Several years later Spencer is now a Christian brother and friend. And therein lies the answer. We need the freedom to share the gospel, without being accused of Islamophobia. And people need to have the freedom to choose their own religion, something which exists in hardly any Muslim country. I once gave a lecture at a Muslim college which had been set up by Middle Eastern money with one aim being to try and establish a more 'liberal' form of Islam. I spoke on the Islamic doctrine of tolerance and in the course of the lecture I asked, "If someone apostatises from Islam and becomes a Christian, should they be punished by the State, or should they be given freedom to choose?" To my complete astonishment almost all the students argued apostasy was punishable by death, imprisonment or fines. At that point I realised that the view that somehow a liberal Islamic version of separation of church and state would develop was an illusion. But I did not foresee that a time would come when the UK would reintroduce a blasphemy law this time on behalf of the Islamists. The government and state authorities need to speak up for the victims, not defend the oppressors. When I was pastor of a then very small congregation in Dundee my sister came to visit and witnessed a young Pakistani boy being beaten up on the street in what was clearly a racist attack. She came home and asked what I was going to do about it. I shrugged my shoulders. What could I do? "Typical Christian all talk and no action." She convicted me. So, we set up an Asian ministry to share the love of Christ with the Asians in our city and among other things there was for a time a joint Urdu Quranic/Bible study led by a multilingual colleague. The local imam asked me to come and see him. He was from Pakistan but there was a man with him who was a white convert from Manchester. He was furious how dare we try to convert Muslims! I explained that as a good biblical Christian, I never tried to convert anyone, because I couldn't. We only wanted all people without discrimination, including Asians and Muslims, to hear the Good News of Jesus. Before the convert could answer, the imam spoke up: "I agree with my brother, David. He is not being racist or against Islam. God is sovereign. Let him decide." Maybe our politicians should listen to the imam. Let God decide not them! There is only One who breaks down the dividing wall of partition. Christians should never be 'Islamophobic' if by that you mean 'afraid of Islam'. Nor should we despise Muslims, who like us, are human beings made in the image of God. But we should take the opportunity to love our Muslim neighbours. And the best way to love them is to share Christ with them, who brings a life and relationship with God that Islam never can. David Robertson is the minister of Scots Kirk Presbyterian Church in Newcastle, New South Wales. He blogs at The Wee Flea. Two Christian responses to war The news is full of wars and rumours of wars. Tensions escalate daily in the Midde East, Russia and China flex their muscles, and the head of Nato recently accused Donald Trump of undermining Western security by his latest inflammatory comments. Alongside this we read a stream of panicky stories about funding and recruitment crises in our armed forces, and the possible reintroduction of conscription. No wonder fears of World War Three are rising. To a generation raised on Second World War nostalgia, the prospect of actually having to be involved in a similar scale conflict amplified by the development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is pretty frightening. How should we think about the concept of war? There are two main Christian approaches. The first is pacifism the idea that taking up arms is wrong in all circumstances. This view emphasises Jesus' command to love our enemies, and his yielding to the Jewish and Roman authorities. He could have called down armies of angels to rescue him, but he chose to submit. The second approach builds on 'just war theory' in response to a threat. The cause must be righteous, the response must be proportionate and discriminate, and there must be an expectation of a successful outcome. This view holds that it is legitimate for Christians to join the armed forces as servants of the authorities instituted by God to keep order (see Romans 13). What both these views have in common is that "vengeance is the Lord's". We should never act out of rage, or for revenge. God requires justice, but he tempers retribution with mercy. These concepts give us a framework for thinking about how we might respond, should our country find itself going to war. But of course we hope and pray this situation will not arise. It is so tempting to withdraw - to ignore the news as a way to cope with our fears. Or we might become so anxious that we feel paralysed and helpless. But I want to encourage us to take comfort in Jesus's words in Matthew 24:6: "You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed." A constant refrain throughout the Bible to fearful people (often spoken by an angel), is "Do not be afraid." Do not be afraid. Ask for God's peace, and do channel your concerns into positive action. Philippians 4:6-7 tells us: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." First and foremost then, we should be praying. I don't just mean sending up occasional arrow prayers, but properly interceding for the desperate situations we see around the globe. We should be crying out to God for the world that he loves: for wisdom, restraint and mercy for governments, rulers, freedoms, deliverance and peace. Secondly, as Christians we are called to be active peacemakers: to engage in our communities and political life, to model reconciliation and not stoke division. John Stott, in his classic work, Issues Facing Christians Today, tells us what this should look like: Christ "means his Church to be a sign of his kingdom, that is, a model of what human community looks like when it comes under his rule of righteousness and peace." "An authentic Kingdom community," he says, "will then challenge the value system of the secular community and offer a viable alternative... The influence for peace of communities of peace is inestimable." And as we engage, we need to continually be aware of how we perceive others. The more we are suspicious towards those who do not seem like us, the easier it is to fuel division and hatred, and the easier it then becomes to justify aggression against those who are different. This is why I speak out so often against any policy or line of argument that portrays any group of people as less than human. All are made in the image of God. Finally, we need to remember the hope that we have. The world is fallen, full of anger and division. We cannot bring perfect peace to earth by our own efforts. So we must stand on God's promise to renew all things. Let's turn the words of Isaiah 2:3-4 into our prayer for today: " The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more." Amen Tim Farron has been the Member of Parliament for Westmorland and Lonsdale since 2005, and served as the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party from 2015 to 2017. Tim is also the host of Premier's A Mucky Business' podcast, which unpacks the murky world of politics and encourages believers around the UK to engage prayerfully. He is the author of A Mucky Business: Why Christians should get involved in politics. YWAM co-founder 'reeling' from death of missionaries in bus crash (CP) Youth With a Mission elder, Darlene Cunningham, who co-founded the interdenominational Christian training organization with her late-husband Loren Cunningham in 1960, said the 11 missionaries killed and eight others injured in a grisly crash near Arusha, Tanzania, on Saturday, is a historic loss for the ministry and tears are falling around the world over the event. "In these days, tears are being poured out across the world by individuals, families and YWAMers worldwide. I am personally reeling from the weight of this news, as I knew and loved many of these individuals personally. But I am leaning into the character of God for what I know to be true about who He is!" said Cunningham. The missionaries were participants in a University of the Nations Executive Masters course intensive based in Arusha and had traveled to Maasai land in two buses where they observed the ministry's "thriving community development program," she said. "They had a very good day together," Cunningham recalled. Video shared online from one of the buses as the group traveled to Maasai land shows participants singing "This Is The Day the Lord Has Made." Tragedy disrupted the success of the trip on their way back to Arusha, however, when a truck that "had lost its brakes smashed into our 2nd bus, literally crushing it from top to bottom," Cunningham said. "Eleven of our beloved friends were killed and eight others are severely wounded, battling for their lives. We have not seen a tragedy of this magnitude in all of YWAM's history and we are all devastated," she said. "Not only have husbands and wives, friends and co-workers been lost, but also YWAM ministry leaders. The individuals involved in running the Executive Masters were key YWAM leaders in the region some leading flourishing YWAM bases; others giving leadership in the field of education and other spheres; others ministering in restricted-access locations where no one else would dare to go and seeing the hand of God upon their ministries in amazing ways," she said. "The students attracted to the Executive Masters were the same caliber of people life-long committed YWAM missionary pioneers. So their deaths create a massive vacuum in this part of the world for YWAM as a missionary movement." Cunningham's statement comes as prayers continued to go up for the victims of the crash and the ministry. Missionary and activist Sean Feucht was among the first outside the East African nation to publicize the crash Saturday in an appeal for prayers on X. "Please pray for the families, loved ones and those currently injured and in critical condition right now!" Feucht said in an appeal to his followers. YWAM previously released only partial names of the 11 missionaries killed and others injured online for security reasons. The dead were noted as: Claire M., Zabulon T., Emmanuel D., Vicent K., John M., Blaise G., Ime E., Andrew D., Chimene D., Lova R., and Lordienne N. The injured were listed as: Mathurin B. and Joelle Z. are in critical condition, and Paul Dav., Isaac B., Janet F., Cyrille A., Benjamin N., and Paulo M. Isaac B. has since been released from hospital to return home. Despite the ministry sharing only partial names of the victims, their family members and friends, like Gracelynn Mataia of Kansas City, Missouri, have been publicly providing photos of their full portraits online. Mataia said her father, Paulo Mataia, who is shown singing in video, was traveling in the second of the two buses. He survived the crash but his wife, Claire, to whom he had been married for less than a year, did not. "Yesterday we received word that Claire, beloved wife to our Dad, has gone to be with Jesus. Claire was a long-time YWAMer and proud Kansan, who served as a teacher across Africa and the Middle East. And when she married our father in May of last year, her heart for our people in the Pacific was one that was filled with daily prayers. We have no words that can describe such a loss to our family, so please continue to pray for us as well as our Kueffer Ohana." The Christian Post Anunt concurs pentru post vacant Institutia Publica Centrul de Consiliere Agricola si Rurala (CCAR) este in cautare de un profesionist dinamic si dedicat, pentru pozitia de Sef/a de Sectie la sectia Inovare si transfer de cunostinte in cadrul institutie 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 Charity employers have been encouraged to support their menopausal employees better after Britains equalities watchdog published new guidance. Last week, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published guidance on menopause in the workplace , setting out employers legal obligations under the Equality Act 2010. The guidance says that menopause may be considered a disability if symptoms have a long-term and substantial impact on a persons ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. It comes after an employment appeal tribunal case recently set a legal precedent by confirming that menopausal symptoms can amount to a disability for the purpose of the Equality Act. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Charity Finance Group (CFG) and lawyers welcomed the guidance, calling on charity sector employers to take perimenopause and menopause seriously. Legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments EHRCs guidance says a significant proportion of women report that menopause symptoms can negatively affect them at work, with some feeling forced to leave their jobs. Its essential that employers recognise the impact the menopause and perimenopause can have on women and ensure that they are fulfilling their legal obligations in this area, it says. If menopause symptoms have a long-term and substantial impact on a womans ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities, these symptoms could be considered a disability. It adds that if symptoms amount to a disability, employers have a legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments. They will also be under a legal obligation to not directly or indirectly discriminate because of the disability or subject the woman to discrimination arising from disability. Women experiencing menopause symptoms may also be protected from direct and indirect discrimination, as well as harassment and victimisation, on the grounds of age and sex. Charities urged to act Shoosmiths trainee solicitor Rosannah Byrne and partner Michael Briggs said charity employers should: Review policies to reflect the effect of the menopause on workers. Take care if disciplining workers for absence when menopause may be a factor. Ensure that adequate training is carried out for managers on how to support staff experiencing menopause. Accommodate workers experiencing such symptoms and, where the individual comes within the definition of disability, make any reasonable adjustments that may be required (such as regulation of room temperature, quiet rooms, dress codes, or flexible working). They also advised charities to be aware of the potential for claims arising for age and sex discrimination on the grounds of less favourable treatment due to menopausal symptoms. Charities should also consider the use of language that could constitute harassment on the grounds of age, sex, or disability, they said. Employers who adopt a menopause-friendly working environment ensure that they remain compliant with the guidelines, and in turn promote an inclusive working culture, they said. This can both be positive for employee relations, and this can improve the attraction and retention of talent, especially in a world in which individuals are likely to spend a longer period of time working or volunteering. Meanwhile, Stone King employment team partner Harriet Broughton said following the guidance could help charities retain employees at a time when the sector deals with workforce challenges. Small changes can make a big difference Laura Millar, head of HR at CFG, said that charities should be proactive in providing support and helping to break the taboo that exists around perimenopause and menopause. CFGs employee handbook has included a menopause policy since 2021 and weve found this to be a good first step to providing the right support, she said. Training is important because line managers must feel confident having conversations with team members to truly understand their individual needs. Reasonable adjustments can be made and these can include remote working, covering the cost of a fan or cooling system, and reducing hours and duties. Rachel Suff, senior policy adviser at CIPD, said charities have an obligation to discuss and implement reasonable adjustments for employees. Helpful adjustments could include flexible working and recording menopause-related absence outside the normal recording system, she said. CIPD encourages organisations to make helpful adjustments for people even if their symptoms dont necessarily amount to a disability, as in many cases small changes can make a big difference to someones ability to manage their symptoms alongside work. Menopause awareness vital for an inclusive work culture Michelle De Bank Burgess, chair of the menopause inclusion hub at the CMI, said incorporating menopause awareness was vital for creating an inclusive work culture. A workplace that values and accommodates menopausal needs not only promotes employee wellbeing but also the progression of inclusion, breaking down barriers and ensuring that different journeys are acknowledged and respected by all genders, she said. The new menopause in the workplace guidance from the EHRC is a welcomed measure that provides informative advice on how employers can best support their staff and prevent discrimination. Each organisation is unique, and what proves effective for one employer might not be the same for another. Its therefore crucial for employers to assess their specific workplace dynamics and engage with their workforce to determine the most suitable measures for their needs. sign up to receive the free Civil Society daily news bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector, In 2015, a laptop and hard drive containing government documents detailing the atrocities that occurred during the 1980s El Salvador civil war were stolen from the University of Washingtons Center for Human Rights. The story caught the attention of Jonathan Blitzer, a staff writer for The New Yorker, who traveled to San Salvador to confront one of the colonels accused in the documents, whose government had been supported by several US presidents. While reporting, Blitzer investigated an industry of large call centersa business that required a sizable population of native English speakersthat had popped up in El Salvador as a result of the unprecedented scale of deportations after the Clinton administration signed the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Bumping into the colonel in front of a hotel, Blitzer was struck by how immediate these reverberations of the war and US immigration policy were for Salvadorans. Thirty years of American political influence was playing out on the streets of Central America. These concurrent and related stories led to the publication of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, Blitzers narrative history of the interconnected fates of El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemalaand the US. Piecing together testimony from migrants, American officials, advocates, and lawyers, Blitzer presents immigration not as a series of actions and reactions, but as a central story we can no longer afford to treat as a subcurrent in our political debate. The current crisis, as Blitzer describes it, did not spring up overnight; to best understand the problem, he contextualizes the forces propelling migrants to come, to be deported, and then to return. Blitzers historical excavation is especially relevant today. Following Republican Congress members blocking immigration reform earlier this month, the White House is considering executive action to enact a crackdown on the southern border. This is playing out while a performative impeachment hearing for the US secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, is underway. Blitzer wrote in that piece that the politics of immigration have always been cynical, obscene even, and yet Congress is no closer to passing comprehensive immigration reform. Blitzer and I chatted last week about the blurring of worlds over the southern border, how the press can better cover immigration, and how disastrous deferring hard decisions on immigration policy has proved. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. KL: How did you start covering immigration? JB: I spent a lot of time in the Spanish-speaking world, doing journalistic translation and human rights work. I was fascinated by historical memory, the sweep of history, and the pursuit of justice. I was also doing a lot along the border. Since 2013, I spent significant time moving back and forth between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. It was those years where El Paso was considered the safest city in America in terms of violent crime. And yet, right across the border, you had a horrific drug war and subsequent government crackdownconditions that were among the most dangerous in the entire world. People were drawn to this dissonance. To try to understand how these two citiesthat are a mile across this artificial divide and were woven together from their very beginninghave such vastly different realities. This idea that the border itself was fluid and that there was a third termit wasnt the US, it wasnt Mexico, it was the US and Mexico. That was linguistic, it was cultural, it was geographic. I always thought that the story of the border was recondite history that went back to the nineteenth century, and in fact, the reality was No, the lines were blurred right up to the present. What connected me to the immigration stories was more a function of seeing this blurring of worlds. The harder the US government tried to insist on policing the dividing line, the more intertwined things became. Sign up for CJR 's daily email How did you go about reporting that blurring of worlds? That third term? What I was most interested in, and what I wanted to try to contribute, was this broader historical sense. Also, a systematic commitment to getting deep into the lives of all of the players involved. The core of this book are four peoplethree of them had been migrants at some point, and one is a Guatemalan leader who stays in Guatemala and fightsbut if you take the same narrative approach to people who are in the policy spaces or adjacent to those circles, in Washington or across the region, the canvas fills out. One thought was to take that granular approach to everyone involved in the bigger story, because its one of the ways to make vivid the disconnect between the lives that migrants lead and the policies and politics that lawmakers go through. What often happens for understandable, inevitable reasons is when youre telling a big story, you freeze out part of the picture in order to zero in on one person in particular. Over the years, there had been a blurring effect as a result of that, where we were not seeing the migrants, the lawmakers, the activists, the advocates, and political actors in this unconscious, ongoing dialogue. Which is how it actually played out historically. The degree to which, over the years, the world of the US and particular countries in Central America have become fused together is informational, its historical, and its also, in a certain sense, spiritual. Not just in geopolitical terms, political terms, economic terms, but on an almost DNA level of the individual people. People have come to embody this fusion of worlds, and they live it in a natural, unselfconscious way. More than anything else in my reporting, that is what inspired me to try to tell the bigger story. What advice can you give about covering this bigger picture of immigration stories? Immigration is a vast subject. There is this weird notion calcified in repetitions of certain stories in the press: that immigration is the border, or an immigration story that has a wonky policy, or an immigration story of horrible personal travails. I was looking at how newspapers were covering the Trump years and immigration, generally. Initially, I felt jealous that newspapers had this incredible machinery to fuel their coverage of a vast subject. Then you had people like me who floated in a features space telling human stories. There was a moment when my exasperation at how geographically and logistically limited I was compared to these bigger news operations turned into a sense of Well, actually, theres an opportunity here because Im able to see a continuity in this story. If the team were bigger and I covered a single leg of it, I would miss how the story evolves, firsthand. The only way to cover this story in a dynamic and meaningful way is to pin the vastness of the story in geographic, historical, and political terms. It can be overwhelming and often results in a compartmentalizing effect in the journalism. But, if you think through creative ways of pinging the different elements of this much bigger story off one another, you get dimensions that arent available on first view. Is there a way for journalists to approach immigration other than the bruising blow-by-blow of political theater? One thing that is frustrating to watch within the coverage of immigration policy getting transformed into political rhetoric is that the actual substance of policy questionswhich can seem technical but frankly arent so deeply complex that they cant be rendered intelligible for peoplegets put through this meat grinder of bipartisan American politics. There is not an independent analysis of the proposals, and, as a result, theres this assumption baked into coverage that Republicans got serious on immigration faster than Democrats. I wish there was an independent assessment of the proposals, so we could dispense with this idea that one side is tougher than the other. This notion that toughness equals common sense is wrong. Its like we have to pretend that we cant engage with the substance, because the story is about how one side is trying to game the proposals against the other side. One of the striking things right now is you have the White House trying to flip the script on Republicans. They went to the negotiating table, made concessions that no Democrat has made in years because the politics have gotten so oppressive and so dangerous for them. The Republicans obviously exploded those negotiations for reasons entirely related to Donald Trump in the election. But when you look at it from a substantive angle, the underlying question that these two parties ostensibly set out to try to solve with negotiation and legislation continues to go unaddressed. If youre only understanding these dilemmas in terms of Well, there was a Senate bill that could have helped with this, then youre missing how complex that dilemma is. Is there a specific failing of the serious or tough versus bleeding-heart framing that we often see? There is this assumption that anyone pushing back against the Republican position is pushing back from a purely moral conviction. Morals and ethics should be a part of thiswere talking about human beingsand that should never be far from our minds. There is also a very compelling way of having this conversation in which you subject these Republican proposals to scrutinynot as immigration rights advocates, but agency operators at Customs and Border Protection. In other words, DHS, who are not people famous for their humanitarianism, would look at some of these proposals and say, Well, this is just harshness for the sake of sounding harsh. This is meaningless. Operationally, this doesnt help us at all. In fact, it only makes the problem worse. If theres one frustration I have with journalistic coverage of this issue, its that the tough policies are somehow taken to be essential. If you push back against them, its because youre a bleeding-heart liberal. If you talk to people in this spacewhether lawmakers, agency operators, historianswhat you hear back overwhelmingly is that, even leaving aside the moral component, these tougher measures that have become this baseline in mainstream conversations are not practical. What advice do you have to make sure the historical context of American foreign policy in Central America is included in immigration reporting? I didnt want an American reader to feel personally accused. What that meant on a writing level and reporting level was to make sure that there was a carefulness in how the story was narrated. I wasnt putting my thumb on the scale unnecessarily. The facts, themselves, are most overwhelming when theyre related in an understated, direct, clear way. You dont need me to put spin on the ball here. There is certainly a temptation when you see the historical wreckage, but it was very important to narrate it with a steady accretion of information that would hopefully be revelatory. But I didnt want people to feel immediately alienated or defensive while reading it, because I didnt want to turn people away. All right, here we go, another rant about American imperialism. I get it, weve committed horrible atrocities in the world. Sure. What do you want from me? I wanted people to open up to it. That is very important at a moment like this. The space in which were understanding this issue politically and historically is getting smaller. The politics are just banging the complexity out of this topic. What is your interpretation of the current debacle over border policy happening in Congress? What is incredible to me is, once someone uncorks the bottle of some of these anti-asylum policies, its very hard to put them back in. Youre seeing right now that it is very hard for the Biden administration to clean up the mess that was unleashed during the Trump years. There is a lot of criticism that could be leveled against the Biden administration for its handling of border and asylum issues, but Im sympathetic to the bind that they are in. The biggest legacy that Trump has had is that a lot of the things his administration introduced into the public discourse would have been inconceivable and unthinkable eight years ago. Moderate Democrats are now open to policies that would have been anathema to them years before. The center has shifted, and now mainstream Democrats are tuning in to a conversation that theyve avoided for many years. There were uncomfortable decisions they probably should have made earlierconversations I wish they were courageous enough to havethat would have pissed off their constituents but would have been in the service of a deeper reckoning. Now it is a perfect storm, and the roof is caving in on everyone because of the politics and because of the wider dynamics of mass migration. What is at stake for immigration policy in November? The immigration issue is a real vulnerability for this White House. Were only going to see Republicans and Republican state officials exploiting this issue more in the lead-up to November. And I dont know that weve ever really seen that on this scale in this country beforethe deliberate sowing of chaos by moving humans from one place to another to weaponize people and their lives against Democrats in an ongoing electoral battle. I just think its going to get incredibly ugly. It terrifies me, and I dont see the situation de-escalating one bit. Kevin Lind is a CJR fellow. The continuing saga of the Houston-based plaintiffs law firm of McClenny Moseley & Associates, suspended and sanctioned for flooding courts with erroneous lawsuits against property insurers in Louisiana, has taken a new political twist in recent days. It also has highlighted an unexpected result of the 2022 law that ended assignments of insurance benefits in Florida. ARS Global, a 60-year-old restoration and emergency management company that was once connected to the McClenny law firm, disputed a report published last week by the Orlando Sentinel newspaper. The article said that ARS has been paid as much as $45 million by the state of Florida after ARS donated more than $99,000 to Gov. Ron DeSantis reelection campaign. The millions of dollars were for some disaster recovery services but also to transport undocumented migrant workers to Democratic-leaning parts of the country, along with evacuation flights for Israelis fleeing the Hamas war, the Sentinel reported. The article quotes government watchdogs saying the state funding to ARS, despite its link to the McClenny firm and other legal questions, smacks of a pay to play scheme. The Orlando Sentinel article is untrue. It will be addressed with them directly, said an email from ARS Global, also known as Access Restoration Services, with offices in Canada and Texas. The companys statement did not explain how the news article was incorrect. The firm acknowledged that it has contracted with Florida officials to provide logistic and emergency management services in the state. ARS raised eyebrows last year after it was reported that the company had loaned the McClenny law firm $3 million to help generate business for the company after storms. ARS has since broken with McClenny, filing a lawsuit against the lawyers for allegedly reneging on the loan and for not paying almost $10 million for contracted inspections on storm-damaged properties. ARS is affiliated with Global Estimating Services, which provides property damage estimates. In our commitment to uphold the highest standards of service and integrity, we routinely evaluate our partnerships to ensure they meet our core values, ARS officials said in the statement to Insurance Journal. This vigilance led us to conclude our association with the (McClenny) firm, reaffirming our dedication to ethical business practices. We are currently pursuing legal solutions. As this is an ongoing legal matter, we will not have further comment until this is resolved. The case makes for strange bedfellows and conflicting interests for Florida insurance carriers: Property insurers have generally supported DeSantis, especially after his office helped craft sweeping insurance legislation in 2022 that wiped out one-way attorney fees, ended assignments of benefits agreements and disincentivized some claims litigation. But giving state money to a company that had funded a law firm that has filed hundreds of duplicate, erroneous or unnecessary lawsuits against carriers could be seen as overlooking the mass-litigation and underhanded legal tactics that have driven insurers crazy and has helped drive some into insolvency in Florida in recent years. The loan to the McClenny firm also has highlighted the growing concerns from the insurance and business sectors about the impact that litigation financing has had in generating or prolonging some lawsuits. ARS officials said that the company has not accepted AOBs from Florida property owners and has not filed suit against insurance carriers. McClenny Moseley, often referred to as MMA, though, has helped file some 1,600 hurricane-related suits in Louisiana and about 700 in Florida, according to news reports. And ARS is the defendant in two federal lawsuits involving property insurance, one in Louisiana and one in Texas. In a recent filing, a New Orleans dentist charged that Access Restoration knowingly cooperated with MMA in an effort to inflate storm damage claims and defraud Blackboard Insurance Co., an AIG unit. When Hurricane Ida blew through Louisiana in 2021, Dr. Ammar Mekari and his dental offices suffered significant damage. Mekari hired McClenny to represent him in insurance claims, and MMA steered him to ARS for the restoration work. But McClenny lawyers failed to disclose that the firm had a pre-existing relationship with ARS and that ARS had loaned the firm the $3 million, the lawsuit claims. MMAs directive to plaintiffs to contract with ARS was nothing more than a fraudulent kickback scheme which violated public policy, state law, federal law, and was simply intended to reimburse ARS for the $3,000,000 capital investment into MMAs marketing scheme in the state of Louisiana following Hurricane Ida, the complaint reads. Plaintiffs allege both ARS and/or GES utilized certain fraudulent methodologies to inflate mitigation estimates intended to be presented to insurance companies at the direction and in concert with MMA unbeknownst to insureds. The dentist is asking the court to block ARS from continuing arbitration proceedings against Mekari over the unpaid amounts on the restoration work. ARS attorneys are seeking to have the case dismissed, arguing that Mekari has no claim and that the loan agreement came after ARS contract with the dental group was completed. The suits allegations of inflated damage amounts sound similar to those made by a group of field inspectors in a Texas lawsuit against ARS. The 17 inspectors claim that they were not paid big bonuses and overtime promised by Global Estimating and ARS. Read more about that here. No AOBs Mean More Liens Against Properties? ARS has also raised the ire of a number of condominium associations in southwest Florida that were hit hard by Hurricane Ian in 2022. Court records in Lee County, Florida, show that Access Restoration Services has filed liens against more than two dozen condo associations for unpaid amounts on restoration work, including one lien for more than $13 million. The liens are a side effect of the Florida Legislatures repeal of AOB statutes, said Larry Bache, a Tampa attorney representing the Punta Rassa condominium association. Until 2023, property owners could assign insurance benefits to contractors. If the contractor was not paid in full by the insurance company, they would often file suit. That led to abuse by some construction firms and excessive litigation, insurance advocates said, and the law was changed in a special legislative session. But without AOBs and legal claims against insurers, contractors have little choice but to go after property owners and associations through the lien process, Bache, with the Merlin Law Group, said Monday. Plaintiffs have just a year to file a lien, while insurance companies can take more than 18 months to provide estimates and months more to make partial payment on an insurance claim, he said. I have no leverage to resolve the claims with the contractors because the Legislature got rid of AOBs, Bache said. We can sue the insurance companies for not paying for the work, but by that time, the contractor has already foreclosed on the property. He predicted a wave of liens and foreclosures actions over the next year against dozens of homeowners associations for lack of payments on mitigation and restoration jobs. That is likely to come back to haunt insurance carriers, Bache warned. What jury is not going to award my client the amount of a judgment against them for mitigation work, he said, adding that insurers are losing the chance to negotiate the payment with contractors. He hopes the issue will lead to new legislation that will allow a limited type of AOB, just for mitigation work after storms. I hope not, said Matt Lavisky, president of the Florida Defense Lawyers Association. He said AOB abuse had reached such a level in Florida before the reform effort that it is unlikely to be resurrected in any form. One Fort Myers Beach condo official explained that ARS representatives approached condo associations just days after Ian hit. One association agreed to an open-ended contract that had no ceiling on the cost, to remove boats, cars and debris that had washed into condos, as well as mud and mess inside the units. At the same time ARS was pushing the work, company reps also were recommending MMA to handle insurance claims, condo officials and the Sentinel article reported. For the first few weeks of the work, the association and owners were satisfied with the cleanup, but the costs kept rising into the millions, raising questions about the true cost of the restoration work. Bache said some condo officials moved to cancel the contract with ARS because of the negative headlines associating the restoration firm with MMA. ARS said the liens are a normal part of seeking overdue payments and are designed to preserve the collection position. ARS also was awarded a $14 million state contract to set up temporary operations centers following Hurricane Idalia in 2023, the Sentinel reported. Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie would not say if he knew about the ARS legal issues when he signed the contract with ARS last May, the news site said. A spokesman for Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, whose office oversees insurance fraud investigations in Florida, told the newspaper that the office is monitoring the situation. Top photo: Fort Myers Beach after Hurricane Ian. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Millennials are much more likely to view AI as a positive development in property/casualty insurance compared to other generations, according to a new report that underscores contrasting perspectives of different generations toward AI technology and its impact on insurance. The Insurity 2024 AI in Insurance Report shows millennials, those born between 1980 and 1994, are the most enthusiastic proponents of AI in P/C insurance. Roughly one-third (33%) said they would recommend their carrier to adopt AI, 25% said they are likely or more likely to purchase a policy from an insurance provider that publicly uses AI, and 41% think that its a good idea for their insurance carrier to leverage AI. While millennials view AI as a transformative tool in insurance, Generation Z (those born between 1995 and 2006) approach AI with skepticism, with only 18% saying they would recommend their carriers adopt AI. Their concerns include privacy, transparency, and the potential impact AI could have on the job market. Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) responded in line with Generation Z, with 16% saying they would recommend carriers adopt AI. The survey was conducted online in January 2024, and more than 1,000 adult participants randomly selected across the U.S. Respondents were asked a series of eight questions, ranging from multiple-choice to scale-based, to gauge their opinions on AI in P/C insurance. Insurity is a provider of cloud-based software for insurance carriers, brokers and MGAs. Six people have been indicted in connection with the alleged filing of fraudulent insurance claims through their auto body repair business in Everett, Massachusetts. Four of the defendants were arraigned this week in Middlesex Superior Court, while two others also indicted by the grand jury are fugitives. The alleged insurance fraud is said to have bilked insurance carriers out of more than $1 million. According to District Attorney Marian Ryan, Everett Chief of Police Steven Mazzie, and the Massachusetts Insurance Fraud Bureaus Katherine Mulligan, a two-year investigation showed that through the auto body shop, FT Auto or Riviera Auto in Everett, the defendants allegedly submitted fraudulent insurance claims for customers that included descriptions of automobile collisions that never occurred, inflated damages, or damage that was inflicted by the shop and was not the result of a collision. Those involved allegedly used the alias of the defendants or stolen identities. As part of the scheme, prosecutors claim that one defendant had a relationship with a clerk at the Registry of Motor Vehicles branch in Revere who performed RMV queries and transactions upon request and received electronic payments and gift cards as compensation for her services. Source: Middlesex County District Attorney Xi holds talks with Sierra Leonean president Xinhua) 16:44, February 28, 2024 Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan hold a welcome ceremony for President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio and his wife Fatima Bio prior to the talks between Xi and Julius Maada Bio at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen) BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. Noting that China and Sierra Leone enjoy a time-honored friendship, Xi said the two sides have supported each other on issues concerning their core interests and major concerns, carried out efficient cooperation in the fields of economic and social development, coordinated closely on issues such as world peace and development, and worked together to fight against Ebola and the COVID-19 pandemic. China-Sierra Leone relations are a good example of China-Africa solidarity and cooperation, Xi said, adding that China is willing to work with Sierra Leone to consolidate high-level political mutual trust, advance pragmatic and mutually beneficial cooperation, and strengthen coordination on international and regional affairs to push bilateral relations to a new level. Xi said China firmly supports the Sierra Leonean people in pursuing a development path suited to their national conditions. He said China stands ready to strengthen exchanges with Sierra Leone on national governance, and work with Sierra Leone to continue supporting each other's major concerns and safeguarding their respective sovereignty, security and development interests. China is also willing to provide assistance and support to the best of its ability for Sierra Leone's development in agriculture, infrastructure construction and human resources, and encourage Chinese enterprises to invest and do business in Sierra Leone, Xi said. Both sides should strengthen cooperation on UN Security Council affairs and jointly safeguard the interests of Africa and developing countries, Xi noted. The Chinese president welcomed Sierra Leone to participate in the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and jointly promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity. "China has always regarded solidarity and cooperation with African countries as an important cornerstone of our foreign policy," Xi said. China will work with African countries to align its initiatives to support Africa's industrialization, agricultural modernization and talent development with the African Union's Agenda 2063 and the development strategies of African countries; and to further integrate the development of China, Africa and the world to promote the upgrading of China-Africa cooperation and move the world towards a bright future of peace, security, prosperity and progress, Xi said. China is ready to work with African friends, including Sierra Leone, to make this year's session of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) a success, Xi said. Bio said China is a trustworthy and reliable friend, thanking China for its great support for its economic and social development. He spoke highly of the Communist Party of China leading the Chinese people to achieve leapfrog development and promoting national rejuvenation. Bio said China's experience provides inspirations for developing countries to accelerate their development. Bio said Sierra Leone abides by the one-China principle, supports China in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and supports China in safeguarding its core interests. He said Sierra Leone is willing to learn from China's experience, strengthen cooperation with China on the Belt and Road Initiative, and tap the potential for cooperation on infrastructure, trade, education and public services. After the talks, the two heads of state witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of the Belt and Road Initiative, agriculture, economic development, and the implementation of the Global Development Initiative. Both sides issued a joint statement on deepening their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. Prior to the talks, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan held a welcome ceremony for Bio and his wife Fatima Bio at the Great Hall of the People. In the evening, Xi and Peng held a banquet for Bio and Fatima. Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio in the Northern Hall of the Great Hall of the People prior to their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio in the Northern Hall of the Great Hall of the People prior to their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio in the Northern Hall of the Great Hall of the People prior to their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Wang Ye) Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) Chinese President Xi Jinping and President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio witness the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of the Belt and Road Initiative, agriculture, economic development, and the implementation of the Global Development Initiative after their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) Chinese President Xi Jinping and President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio witness the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of the Belt and Road Initiative, agriculture, economic development, and the implementation of the Global Development Initiative after their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) Haley has also vowed to keep campaigning at least through Super Tuesday next week, when 15 states and one U.S. territory hold their nominating contests. "The numbers are far greater than we even anticipated," Trump said by speakerphone to a Republican watch party in Grand Rapids, shortly after news organizations called the race for him. "Thank you very much, and we'll be doing a lot of campaigning over the next couple of months." "So long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will keep losing to the socialist left. Our children deserve better," Perez-Cubas said. "Let this serve as another warning sign that what has happened in Michigan will continue to play out across the country," said Olivia Perez-Cubas, Haley's national spokesperson. Her campaign called Tuesday's results in Michigan evidence that Trump cannot even win over his own party in a general election. Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley hosts a campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S. February 26, 2024. Haley has not won any Republican primaries or caucuses so far, and there are no upcoming state primaries that she is expected to win. Her campaign has nevertheless organized leadership teams in at least nine Super Tuesday states, the most recent of which was announced earlier Tuesday. Trump went into the Michigan primary with momentum already, having trounced Haley by double-digit margins in her home state of South Carolina just three days earlier. But there were also warning signs Tuesday for the former president, who claims that the Republican Party is as unified behind him as it has ever been. In South Carolina, Haley walked away with nearly 40% of the vote. And while Democrats were allowed to cast ballots in the state's GOP primary, more than one in five Republican voters there told AP VoteCast that they would not vote for Trump in a general election, Politico reported. Trump's path to the nomination, and another shot at the White House, also runs through a thicket of legal troubles. He is scheduled to stand trial in New York court next month on criminal charges related to alleged hush money payments made to a porn star and others. Another criminal case, based on Trump's retention of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2020, is set to begin in federal court in Florida in late May. Trump is also battling two other criminal cases that center on his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of his criminal charges. Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg told CNBC's Jim Cramer on Tuesday that the company is not just a video conferencing platform, saying it has successfully broadened its offerings. "We have customers that are fully remote still, they've chosen that as a way of working because of the flexibility it provides," she said. "We have customers that are fully back in the office, and then a lot that are somewhat in between, in a hybrid or, potentially, a structured hybrid approach. The great thing is that Zoom has tools to support them no matter where they are in that work journey." A staple for many during the pandemic, Zoom suffered as more people returned to offices and in-person events. But the company's recent quarterly report beat Wall Street's expectations and showed a growing enterprise customer base. Zoom's newer offerings include services for phone calls and events, as well as "Contact Center," a suite of programs that use artificial intelligence. Some of Zoom's clients include Broadcom and alcoholic beverage company Diageo . Steckelberg said the latter has used Zoom for a number of years but recently expanded into Contact Center. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan lauded the success of the product during the company's conference call, saying it's "broadening the funnel into the Zoom platform." Steckelberg knocked Zoom's primary competitor, Microsoft , suggesting that some may be involuntarily shepherded into using the tech giant's Teams program. "What we hear from our customers all the time is they love Zoom," she said. "Nobody loves Teams. They get sort of forced into this situation, sometimes, based on other decisions, but we're really focused on continuing to provide a platform that provides limitless human connection." (This is CNBC Pro's live coverage of Wednesday's analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest posts.) A snack giant and a PC maker were among the biggest analyst calls early Wednesday. Loop Capital initiated Dell Technologies with a buy rating and a price target that implies more than 35% upside. Meanwhile, Stifel upgraded J.M. Smucker to buy from hold, citing strength in the company's key brands. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. All times ET. 7:48 a.m.: McDonald's can stand out in first quarter, Guggenheim says McDonald's seems like an increasingly smart pick as investors push up restaurant multiples despite a tough industry backdrop, according to Guggenheim. Analyst Gregory Francfort reiterated his buy rating on the fast-food chain's stock, while upping his price target by $10 to $325. Francfort's updated target reflects the potential for shares to rise 10.6% from Tuesday's close. Francfort said he's been surprised to see investors lean aggressively into pushing up multiples of high-valuation restaurant stocks over the past three months given the increase in 10-year interest rates. However, he said the exclusion of McDonald's from this group makes the stock more attractive, especially given the likelihood of a tough first quarter. "We think this dynamic has made McDonald's shares look increasingly reasonable," he told clients. "We see the potential for a relatively healthy near-term comp at MCD to stand out in what we expect will be a challenged 1Q24 earnings season." While Francfort slightly trimmed his expectations for full-year earnings per share, he said near-term sales upside can help McDonald's differentiate itself in the first quarter earnings season. Meanwhile, he said the broader industry will have to contend with the "slow start" to 2024. McDonald's stock has bucked the market's ascent this year, shedding nearly 1%. The stock also underperformed in 2023, gaining just 12.5%. Alex Harring 7:43 a.m.: KBW upgrades LendingTree to outperform The near-term outlook for LendingTree looks promising, according to Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. The investment banking firm upgraded shares of the loan platform to an outperform rating from market perform. Analyst Ryan Tomasello accompanied the move by raising his price target to $45 from $24, implying that shares could rise 38% from here. LendingTree stock has risen 7.6% in 2024. "While macro and convert execution risk provide a range of valuation scenarios, we believe the risk-reward skews positive," Tomasello wrote. One catalyst the analyst sees for the lender this year is a recovery in insurance advertising. "As a leader in the largest SEM advertising category with some of the largest direct carrier partners like Progressive, we believe TREE is well-positioned on a relative competitive basis to capitalize on what could be a multi-year growth cycle," the analyst said. Additionally, Tomasello is optimistic that LendingTree could effectively address concerns around its convertible note maturities which have been the primary overhang on the stock recently in the first half of the year. "Importantly, we believe avoiding equity-linked dilution is a top priority for management. With $112mn of cash and $284mn of the convert remaining, we think TREE has a viable path to addressing the maturity via a combination of additional repurchases at a discount and/or refinancing the remaining portion, while keeping net leverage < 4x," he added. Tomasello added that the company could also sees an earnings recovery this year led by its insurance segment, ultimately turning its guidance for 2024 conservative. Lisa Kailai Han 7:34 a.m.: Amphenol's AI opportunity continues, BofA says Amphenol has more upside ahead after a year defined by artificial intelligence, according to Bank of America. Analyst Wamsi Mohan raised his price target by $2 to $117 while keeping his buy rating on the hardware stock. With the increase, Mohan forecasts shares will rise 8.4% over Tuesday's closing level. "We reiterate Buy rating on APH given strong execution, improving margins, and a period of above trend growth," he wrote to clients. Amphenol, which is the world's second largest maker of electronic and electrical connectors, saw demand surpass expectations for much of 2023 due to the artificial intelligence boom, Mohan said. He said a chunk of that growth stems from the fact that the company has been involved with Nvidia's NVLink, which allows for communication among servers, since the technology was created. Looking ahead, he sees the opportunity around AI broadening. In fact, Mohan said Amphenol should see AI-related sales from additional companies like Advanced Micro Devices and Google. Amphenol shares have climbed nearly 9% in 2024 after rising more than 30% in 2023. Alex Harring 7:12 a.m.: Expect headwinds to hurt FedEx earnings, Wells Fargo says Wells Fargo anticipates less upside ahead for FedEx shares as earnings appear challenged. Analyst Allison Poliniak-Cusic trimmed $5 off her price target to $260, while keeping her rating at equal weight. Poliniak-Cusic's new target implies the shipping stock can add 7.7% over the next year from where it ended Tuesday. "Seasonality, weather and macro weakness pressure remain headwinds," she wrote to clients, while pulling down her expectations of per-share earnings in the third fiscal quarter. Poliniak-Cusic said that pausing the implementation of the Drive business for peak season hampered FedEx's ability to offset any drags. Meanwhile, she said the outlook on the express business is a "point of debate," while noting that any deterioration beyond seasonality could push shares down. FedEx reports earnings in around three weeks. Shares are down more than 4% this year, reversing course after jumping more than 46% in 2023. Alex Harring 6:55 a.m.: Buy Revolve post-earnings, Raymond James says Raymond James wants investors to snap up Revolve shares after the latest earnings report. Analyst Rick Patel upgraded the fashion stock to outperform from market perform. His $21 price target reflects the potential for upside of 20.6% from Tuesday's close. "We have greater confidence that revenue should inflect positively in '24 while self-help initiatives enable improving profitability ... creating more attractive risk/reward after a difficult 2023," Patel said. Revolve posted adjusted EBITDA, revenue and GAAP earnings per share that exceeded expectations of analysts polled by FactSet. Shares popped 7% in Wednesday's premarket as investors responded to the report released a day earlier. Despite some challenges with revenue, Patel said there's multiple reasons to see "underlying improvement." These include an increase of full-price sales from the same period a year ago; momentum in underpenetrated categories and the international market; and the likelihood of EBITDA expanding this year. Revolve shares has advanced more than 5% this year, making up some ground after sliding 25.5% in 2023 and 60.3% in 2022. Alex Harring 6:41 a.m.: Apollo has strong management, insurance strategy Investors shouldn't overlook Apollo Global Management given its insurance model and leadership, JPMorgan said. Analyst Kenneth Worthington gave an overweight rating to the finance stock after having none. Worthington's $122 price target implies shares can rise 10.1% from Tuesday's finishing level. "We see Apollo as among the better positioned publicly traded alternative asset managers to capitalize on secular trends such as the proliferation of private credit and an aging population needing reliable income for retirement," he told clients. Worthington called Apollo's insurance strategy unique among peers, given it uses strong investment returns to provide better annuity prices and yields. It's funding this growth in a way that is capital-efficient, he noted. But Worthington warned that Apollo has a balance sheet that's skewed to business and has a capital-heavy model. If the economic backdrop or state of the consumer worsens, he said investors may grow less confident in Apollo's earnings power. Still, Worthington said the company has leadership that is "particularly innovative and creative." And the business model, he said, "gives investors more of what they want: cheaper fee-related earnings funded by a more creative third party capital structure." Apollo shares have climbed more than 19% this year, adding to last year's gain of more than 49%. APO'A YTD mountain APO in 2024 Alex Harring 6:23 a.m.: DraftKings can rally, Morgan Stanley says Morgan Stanley sees more room for DraftKings shares to run on the back of the sports betting stock's latest earnings report. Analyst Stephen Grambling hiked his price target by $9 to $49, while keeping his rating at overweight. Now, Grambling's target suggests DraftKings' stock has an upside of 18.1% over where it finished Tuesday's trading session. "Bottom line, DKNG's continued operational execution, inflection to positive FCF/EPS, and optimization of the balance sheet should continue to drive the stock higher," Grambling wrote to clients Wednesday. Grambling said he raised estimates after DraftKings posted earnings per share in the fourth quarter. While revenue for the quarter came in slightly below analyst forecasts, the company raised its full-year outlook on the measure. Morgan Stanley also now incorporates discounted cash flow into valuation after DraftKings began generating positive free cash flow, the analyst said. DraftKings' acquisition of Jackpocket also pushed Grambling to update his estimates, he said. The deal to purchase of the lottery app is valued at around $750 million. Looking ahead, Grambling said Morgan Stanley's conference focused on technology, media and telecommunications in early March can be a positive catalyst for the stock. DraftKings shares pulled back about 1% in Wednesday's premarket despite the upgrade. Still, the stock is up more than 17% in 2024. Alex Harring 6:05 a.m.: Goldman reaffirms buy rating on Salesforce entering earnings Guidance for 2024 earnings performance can bolster investor confidence in Salesforce , Goldman Sachs said. Analyst Kash Rangan reiterated his buy rating and $345 price target ahead of the software giant's earnings report due after the bell Wednesday. Rangan's target shows the potential for shares to add 15.2% from Tuesday's close. Beyond the classic quarterly print, Rangan said investors can expect a full-year outlook. "We see conviction in the stock building after management provides initial CY24 guidance with 4Q24 earnings ... and investors discern areas of upside," Rangan told clients in a Tuesday note. "Management is likely to set cautiously optimistic expectations for FY24 ..., potentially guiding for 10-11% growth." Salesforce should be able to "show a healthy cadence of profitable growth," creating a favorable risk-reward ratio, he said. That comes as traders look closely to discern which stocks will have strong execution this year. Rangan also listed three dynamics that can create upside which are likely not factored into management forecasts. These likely won't be factored into the steady margin expansion already expected, he said: Improvements in the economic backdrop, creating more discretionary spending and hiring. More small business spending. Better go-to-market motions. Salesforce has popped nearly 14% in 2024, extending gains after the stock price came close to doubling in 2023 alone. Alex Harring 5:52 a.m.: Bernstein moves to sidelines on Stellantis Stellantis' improved margins and cash generation is now more adequately priced in after a recent rally, Bernstein warned. Analyst Daniel Roeska downgraded the automaker to market perform from outperform. Roseka's price target of $27.10 shows the potential for just 3.6% in upside compared with Tuesday's ending price. Stellantis has proven its ability to produce resilient cash flows and shareholder distributions following the autoworker strike last year, Roseka said. The stock has rallied about 43% over the past half year. Following that rally, Roseka said the stock is at a fair valuation with balanced risks and opportunities. And until the Netherlands-based company's capital markets day in June, he said there isn't much else to peg upside to. "Investors have caught on to Stellantis' improved margins and cash generation," he wrote. Roseka also said that the company will face rising inventory and discounts in the U.S. market, on top of the end of a supply shortage in Europe. Stellantis shares have advanced more than 12% in the new trading year, building on last year's gain of more than 64%. STLA YTD mountain STLA in 2024 Alex Harring 5:38 a.m.: KeyBanc turns bullish on Constellation Energy following earnings KeyBanc sees a likeable growth story behind Constellation Energy following its latest earnings report. Analyst Sophie Karp upgraded shares of the electricity and gas provider to overweight from sector weight. Karp's $190 price target reflects the potential for shares to rally 22% over Tuesday's close. "CEG has laid out a convincing growth algorithm, underpinned by the existing policy framework and trends," she told clients. It's one "which we think offers much more clarity, and solidly positions CEG as one of the premium infrastructure names in our coverage." The company's fourth-quarter earnings report came in weaker than expected by analysts polled by FactSet. But investors appeared more focused more on strong full-year guidance and plans to grow its dividend per share by 25% in 2024. Constellation stock rallied nearly 17% in Tuesday's session following the report. Karp said the company has "crystallized" its growth strategy. She also pointed to expectations for earnings to increases at an annual rate of at least 10% through 2028, which the analyst said would make Constellation one of the best infrastructure stocks covered by the firm. Shares rose 0.8% in Wednesday premarket trading. Constellation has jumped more than 33% so far in 2024. Alex Harring 5:34 a.m.: Stifel upgrades J.M. Smucker It's time to load up on J.M. Smucker shares, according to Stifel. Analyst Matthew Smith upgraded the snacks maker to buy from hold. He also set a price target of $135 per share, which implies upside of 10% from Tuesday's close. "Our outlook for the near-term reflects base business momentum supported by a stable of strong brands driving a balanced topline growth including volume/mix growth a standout relative to the company's packaged foods peers," Smith wrote. Specifically, the analyst cited strength in the company's pet business and its Dunkin and Bustelo brands. He also noted Unscrutables could add 1 percentage point of organic growth in each of the next two years. Smucker shares have lagged this year, losing 3% in that time, while the S & P 500 is up 6%. Fred Imbert 5:34 a.m.: Loop Capital says Dell is a buy, can rally more than 35% There are several reasons to be optimistic on Dell shares, according to Loop Capital. Analyst Ananda Baruah initiated coverage of the technology stock with a buy rating and a $125 price target. Baruah's target price implies shares can rally 36.5% from Tuesday's close. "DELL has an opportunity to alter the narrative around the stock such that a material valuation re-rating can occur," Baruah wrote to clients. "We believe that DELL is at the very front end of at least two material catalysts that provide structural upside to Street EPS." Baruah said the company can be helped by trends in general artificial intelligence servers and a personal computer refresh cycle. Elsewhere, he said Dell could win more of the information technology wallet share among fortune 1,000 companies. Dell shares have climbed more than 19% in 2024, adding to the rally of more than 90% seen last year. DELL YTD mountain DELL in 2024 Alex Harring Company: Pfizer Title: Former Chief Commercial Officer & President, Global Biopharmaceuticals Business Industry: Pharmaceuticals Hometown: Cape Town, South Africa Notable in 2023: Helped close a major acquisition and supported creation of a new integrated oncology division for Pfizer. Pfizer changed the world when it created and rolled out the first Covid-19 vaccine in record time. Angela Hwang, the company's former CCO and president of the global biopharmaceuticals business, played a critical role in that launch. But her influence can be seen beyond Covid. With Hwang as a key leader overseeing the commercialization of products, Pfizer's vaccines and drugs treated roughly 618 million patients worldwide last year. The pharmaceutical giant clinched a record nine Food and Drug Administration approvals for new drugs in 2023, the most of any company in the industry. Several of Pfizer's already launched products also received expanded approvals. Among the biggest new drug launches that Hwang helped oversee last year, Pfizer rolled out one of the world's first vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus. It usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms, but can lead to more severe cases in seniors and young children. The FDA approved Pfizer's shot, known as Abrysvo, for adults ages 60 and above in May. Three months later, the agency greenlit Abrysvo for expectant mothers, making it the first and only vaccine that protects infants against RSV from their first breath. Hwang has also played a notable role in expanding access to the company's life-saving treatments. Bitcoin prices have rebounded since 2023, recovering from steep declines in the couple of years before. Prices of the cryptocurrency are still rallying. Two weeks ago, it regained its $1 trillion market cap as it hit an over two-year high . On Tuesday, bitcoin prices reached a two-year high of over $56,000. Ark Invest's chief futurist, Brett Winton, believes that a "responsible allocation to innovation generally is really, really critical." "I think a responsible allocation for bitcoin in the single digits will provide a better return over time," told CNBC's " Street Signs Asia " on Tuesday. "This is not an investment advice. This is based on historical data." How much of investors' portfolios should be allocated to bitcoin, and what's the minimum amount of time they should hold the asset for? According to Ark Invest's research, the answer is five years. "Bitcoin's volatility can obfuscate its long-term returns. While significant appreciation or depreciation can occur over the short term, a long term investment horizon has been key to investing in bitcoin," Ark said in its Big Ideas 2024 report dated Jan. 31. "Instead of 'when,' the better question is 'for how long?' Historically, investors who bought and held bitcoin for at least 5 years have profited, no matter when they made their purchases," it added. In fact, while there might have been many skeptics on bitcoin in the past, Ark Invest says, the cryptocurrency has emerged as an independent asset class "worthy of a strategic allocation" in institutional portfolios. On average, Ark Invest's research shows that the "optimal" allocation to maximize risk-adjusted returns on a five-year time horizon would be 4.8% on average since 2015. In 2023 alone, that number was 19.4%. The breakdown of Ark Innovation ETF's tech investments is as follows: cryptocurrencies make up 6.9% of it, and digital wallets 8.8%, among other tech themes. The ETF is the company's flagship fund. Information technology as a whole takes up 29.4% of the fund, as of Dec. 31, 2023. "More than half of equities is going to be disrupted - innovation exposed by the end of this decade," Winton said. "And so if you don't have something that is prepared for that future, if you own an incumbent provider that's going to be disrupted by innovation, you better risk adjust that with a lot of innovation exposure to protect yourself." 'Major catalysts' in 2024 According to Ark Invest, "major catalysts" await bitcoin this year. On top of the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs in January, there are three catalysts: Bitcoin halving which occurs once every four years is expected to take place in April. "Historically, each halving event has coincided with the beginnings of a bull market," Ark said. Here's what history shows. Institutional acceptance: Ark believes that bitcoin's "continued resilience and performance" will drive a shift in perception of the cryptocurrency from a "speculative instrument" to a strategic investment in a diversified portfolio in 2024. Ark cited the example of BlackRock's CEO, who, though initially a skeptic, in October described bitcoin's rally as a "flight to quality." Regulatory developments: Ark says the bankruptcies of FTX and Celsius have "advanced the push" for more transparent and open global crypto regulation, including in the U.S. and Europe. US President Joe Biden speaks to a bipartisan group of governors in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, during the National Governors Association Winter Meeting, on February 23, 2024. U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order Wednesday intended to safeguard the personal data of American citizens from countries deemed hostile. The executive order centers on the business of selling people's personal information, in which companies and so-called data brokers collect and trade data. The Biden Administration is worried that data brokers and other commercial entities will sell this information to so-called "countries of concern," which lawmakers say have a history of collecting and misusing data on Americans. These "countries of concern" include China (along with Hong Kong and Macau), Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, according to a fact sheet on the E.O. Lawmakers and intelligence agencies have previously expressed concerns that the Chinese Communist Party is amassing a wealth of U.S. data, posing national security concerns. The order focusses on specific, sensitive information like genomic data, biometric data, personal health data, geolocation data, financial data and other kinds of personally identifiable information. The White House is worried that "countries of concern" can use this sensitive data to spy on Americans and military service members. "Our adversaries are exploiting Americans' sensitive personal data to threaten our national security," Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement. "They are purchasing this data to use to blackmail and surveil individuals, target those they view as dissidents here in the United States, and engage in other malicious activities." The executive order directs the Department of Justice to issue several regulations intended to protect sensitive data. It also instructs the Department of Homeland Security and the DOJ to enact security standards intended to prevent hostile countries from commercially obtaining sensitive data on Americans though means like investments, vendor contracts and employment relationships. "This Executive Order gives the Justice Department the authority to block countries that pose a threat to our national security from harvesting Americans' most sensitive personal dataincluding human genomic data, biometric and personal identifiers, and personal health and financial data," Garland said in a statement. Additionally, the order directs the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector "to consider the threats to Americans' sensitive personal data" when they conduct reviews of submarine cable licenses, the White House added. Additionally, the E.O. lets various government agencies like the State, Commerce and Treasury Departments determine rules, licensing decisions and designate "covered persons," the fact sheet said. The actions and program enacted by the E.O. essentially regulates any U.S. persons' data transactions with these "covered persons," who are considered to be people with direct links or ties to "countries of concern," among other characteristics. The public will be able to provide feedback on the new data regulation proposals "before any final rule is issued," the fact sheet said. "Companies and individuals will be required to comply with the regulations only after the final rule becomes effective," the document added. The Department of Justice will investigate any violations of the new data regulations once they come in effect, and the agency will seek "civil and criminal remedies," the fact sheet read. Additionally, the document stated that any "civil penalties for violations" would "depend on the facts and circumstances of the violation, including the adequacy of any compliance program." Last week, the Biden administration announced an executive order intended to improve the cybersecurity of U.S. ports. For instance, government officials said that 80% of port equipment known as ship-to-shore cranes ports are made in China, and they are concerned that the gear could be compromised and used for surveillance. Congress has also zeroed in on potential privacy risks posed by the data-broker industry. Last May, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent letters to over 20 companies like Equifax and Oracle, asking for information about their data-collection-and-distribution methods. "American privacy concerns in the data broker industry are not new, and existing laws do not sufficiently protect Americans' data from misuse," the letter said. Watch: Trump vs. Biden economy: What messaging are voters looking for? U.S. President Joe Biden departs the White House in Washington, D.C., for the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for his routine annual physical on Feb. 28, 2024. Joe Biden is fit to continue his presidential responsibilities "without any exemptions or accommodations," the White House physician said Wednesday after conducting the president's annual physical. Biden "is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency," Dr. Kevin O'Connor said in a summary of the president's health. The results of the routine examination carry extra significance this year, as Biden seeks to tamp down concerns about whether he is physically and mentally capable of serving another four years in the White House. The Democrat has weathered relentless attacks about his age and fitness from his political opponents, especially Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who will turn 78 in June. Despite their closeness in age, polls show voters are less concerned about Trump's fitness than Biden's. Earlier in February, a Department of Justice special counsel investigating Biden over his handling of classified documents described the president in a report as an "elderly man with a poor memory." Biden angrily pushed back on that report, acknowledging his age but declaring, "I know what the hell I'm doing." This is the weekly script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on February 23, 2024. Jensen Huang People of the Week begins with the CEO of NVIDIA Jensen Huang who currently dominates the headlines of many financial media. About a year ago, we reported Jensen Huang describing the generative AI as reaching a turning point. But this week, Huang changed his wording, stating that generative AI has reached a tipping point. From a turning point to a tipping point, riding the favorable winds, NVIDIA has been soaring. The market's attention on NVIDIA began early in the week. Before the financial report was released, Goldman Sachs boldly stated that NVIDIA is currently the most important stock on Earth. The results of the financial report would impact the tech stocks and the future market trend. NVIDIA lived up to expectations, igniting trading enthusiasm in the U.S. stock market, once again drawing attention to the rapid development of generative AI. Notably, due to the high price of NVIDIA, some analysts believed that meeting or slightly exceeding expectations would not satisfy the market. Therefore, some traders sold off before the financial report to lock in profits. As a result, NVIDIA experienced a roughly 4% decline in a single day this week before witnessing an almost 90-degree upward surge. The current market debate revolves around whether NVIDIA's high valuation is justified, but there are also steadfast followers. Jim Cramer, a renowned market commentator on CNBC, has been bullish on NVIDIA since 2017. Cramer even likened Jensen Huang to the Taylor Swift of CEOs, believing that they have been steadfast in their chosen careers, consistently making tangible progress. Cramer believes that Huang "is creating, singlehandedly, an industrial revolution," to change the world. Masayoshi Son Now NVIDIA dominates the major share of the AI chip market, but there is an investor who wants to join this competition, and that is Masayoshi Son, the founder of SoftBank Group. In recent years, Son has repeatedly predicted in his speeches that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the future of human civilization. AGI refers to an artificial intelligence system that can perform tasks requiring any level of intelligence equal to or surpassing that of humans. Bloomberg reported this week, citing sources, that Son is seeking to raise $100 billion to establish an AI chip company with the aim of challenging NVIDIA. If successful, this investment will surpass Microsoft's $10 billion investment in OpenAI, becoming the largest investment in the field of AI since the birth of ChatGPT. In the past few years, Son suffered losses in his investments in the tech industry but has recently gained rewards with the chip design company Arm. It is reported that Son is considering a joint venture to establish this AI chip company, with SoftBank providing $30 billion, and the remaining approximately $70 billion possibly coming from the Middle East. And there was an interesting story here Son and Huang almost created the largest merger in the semiconductor industry. NVIDIA had once planned to acquire Arm for a valuation as high as $66 billion, but the deal ultimately fell through. Unexpectedly, after twists and turns, Son and Huang may soon become direct competitors in the AI chip battlefield. Sam Altman The market's enthusiasm for AI chips can be traced back to the chatbot ChatGPT, which triggered all these developments. Next, let's focus on the father of ChatGPT, Sam Altman. The initially released chatbot by OpenAI gave the public a glimpse of the potential of generative AI. Recently, its text-to-video model, Sora, can be considered a complete breakthrough. Although Sora has not been made available to the public and is still undergoing red-teaming, Altman knows how to party. On social media, he asked users to leave descriptions for Sora to generate videos, assuring them not to worry about making requests too detailed or difficult. Later he released videos generated based on user descriptions, sparking discussions. Now, not only the tech and finance circles but also industries such as advertising, media, and content production are discussing Sora. Some envision future opportunities, while others anticipate significant changes in the industry. In fact, Sora is not the first text-to-video model. Before it, startups like Runway and Pika had already started a wave of enthusiasm for AI video applications. However, Sora has generated such significant attention this time because it has achieved incredible video quality and duration breakthroughs. Some experts even believe that Sora has laid the foundation for Artificial General Intelligence. We highlighted a few names who have emerged and surfed in the wave of generative AI, but this is just the beginning. Who will be the next to drive the technological revolution in the future? Please stay tuned! China's Premier Li Qiang attends a meeting with US Climate Envoy John Kerry at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on July 18, 2023. China and the United States should strengthen economic and trade ties and Washington should avoid decoupling from China, Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Wednesday, during a meeting with a visiting U.S. delegation, Chinese state radio reported. "Strengthening economic and trade cooperation is a win-win situation for both countries," Li told the delegation led by Chamber of Commerce chief Suzanne Clark. "Seeking decoupling and building 'small yards with high walls' do not align with the fundamental interests of both sides," he added. Li said U.S. companies were welcome to continue investing in China and that barriers were not in the fundamental interests of both sides. Clark is leading a delegation of former U.S. government officials to Beijing this week, the group has said. The visit comes as the United States and China gradually resume engagements after the two economic superpowers' most tense relations in years, at loggerheads over the future of democratically ruled Taiwan, territorial claims in the South China Sea and trade policies. Ties are still recovering after the United States downed an alleged Chinese spy balloon a year ago. Company: Welspun Living Title: Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director Industry: Home equipment/furnishings Hometown: Jaipur, India Notable in 2023: Advanced innovation, sustainability, and gender parity while reaching the $1 billion revenue milestone. As companies around the world look to diversify supply chains away from China post-Covid, and due to the rising tensions between the world's manufacturing leader and the West, India looms large in new strategies. That places Welspun Living an India-based home textiles giant which makes bed, bath and flooring products in a good position to capitalize. Dipali Goenka is leading the way for a company whose products are sold at retailers including Walmart, Ikea, Costco, Kohl's, Lowe's, Macy's and Home Depot, as well as through deals with many major hotel chains. A 25-year business veteran who attended Harvard, Goenka has already guided Welspun to become one of the world's largest home textile businesses, with products sold in over 50 countries, and $1 billion in revenue and $110 million in EBITDA reached in its fiscal 2023, according to the company despite a home furnishings market that plunged after the Covid housing boom and goods buying frenzy ended. Under her leadership, Welspun Living has been striking new deals to increase its market share in the home furnishings space. Last year, Welspun inked a deal with Martha Stewart to produce for her brand. Early this year, Welspun and Disney signed an agreement for kids' home furnishing in the UK and European market. "China became more and more difficult to do business in," Stewart told the Financial Times during a factory tour of her sole Indian supplier, Welspun Living, last November. "And India is an extraordinary country . . . this is a nice fit." A Martha Stewart brand store went live on Amazon last February. Company: Twelve Title: Co-founder & Chief Science Officer Industry: Technology Hometown: Houston, Texas Notable in 2023: Started the first commercial-grade facility for producing sustainable aviation fuel made from CO2 and water. Etosha Cave wants to help the aviation industry break its dependence on fossil fuels by making fuel from air. Cave is the co-founder and chief scientific officer at Twelve, a startup that is using renewable energy and water to transform carbon dioxide into jet fuel. "What a lot of airlines and large Fortune 500 companies are realizing is that the aviation sector is very hard to decarbonize," Cave said at the CES tech trade show in January. Solutions such as battery-powered planes and hydrogen will take years to come to scale, she said. "We can make a drop-in replacement," Cave said. "We can decarbonize within a short-time frame." Twelve broke ground on a commercial-scale plant in Washington State last July. The facility will begin producing sustainable aviation fuel later this year with an initial capacity of five barrels per day or 40,000 gallons per year. Twelve's first customers will be Alaska Airlines, Microsoft and Shopify. U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace attends a news conference on recent enforcement actions against cryptocurrency at the U.S. Justice Department Building in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 18, 2023. Peace's office said that as Rodriguez, who was arrested Wednesday, lost an increasing amount of money in trading in foreign exchange, he used money from new investors to pay prior investors their promised investment returns. "In reality, Rodriguez ignored those guardrails and lost millions in investor funds and also misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars which he used to pay for luxury car rentals, travel and other personal expenses," said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. Rodriguez, 37, is accused of falsely promising investors in Technical Trading Team that there would be guardrails to protect the trading risks for their money. That included a vow to never put a maximum of 1% of investors' funds at risk at any given time, the indictment says. On Thursday, newly unsealed records in Brooklyn federal court revealed that the business partner of Jason Rodriguez, the ex-cop indicted in the case, last month pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in connection with their forex investment fund, Technical Trading Team. A former New York City police officer was indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud after he allegedly lied to investors and lost most of the $4.8 million they put into his foreign exchange -focused investment fund, prosecutors said Wednesday. Rodriguez, who founded his fund in 2020 and was its chief operating officer, also is accused of lying to investors by telling them that he had quit the New York Police Department after about seven years because he had been so successful at foreign exchange trading. Peace's office said that in fact, Rodriguez resigned from the NYPD in October 2019 "after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor crime and incurring a number of disciplinary infractions." The U.S. Attorney's Office said that out of the approximately $4.8 million that investors wired to accounts controlled by Rodriguez from April 2020 to September 2022, about $3.5 million has never been repaid to investors. Rodriguez, who lives in Bellerose, Queens, faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted in the criminal case. He was released on $200,000 bail co-signed by his brother and sister after he appeared in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday afternoon. Rodriguez's attorney, Benjamin Yaster, declined to comment when asked about the indictment. Rodriguez's business partner Edwin Carrion, the CEO of Technical Trading Team, is identified by name in the indictment. Court records show that Carrion on Jan. 25 pleaded guilty to the same scheme that Rodriguez is charged with at TTT. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 2. Carrion previously lived in Florida but last May changed his residency to the country of Colombia, court records state. The indictment against Rodriguez says that Carrion provided back-office functions to TTT, which included handling contracts with investors and managing disbursements to investors, in addition to soliciting investments from friends and family with Rodriguez. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission in September filed a civil lawsuit against TTT, Carrion and Rodriguez in Brooklyn federal court, accusing them of knowingly and recklessly making "fraudulent and material misrepresentations" about their forex trading strategy, experience and risk management. The lawsuit, which alleges fraud as well as violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations, says the defendants persuaded nearly 30 people to invest at least $5 million in the TTT investment pool. Neither Carrion nor Rodriguez registered with the CFTC as an associated person of TTT, in violation of federal regulations, according to the suit. "Investments were made in the form of loans by participants in the TTT Pool to TTT, memorialized in promissory notes, for which TTT promised to make monthly interest payments ranging from 1.5 to 2%, or 18 to 24% annual interest," the suit alleges. The suit says the defendants lost more than $3 million in trading forex on a leveraged basis, and "misappropriated participant funds for personal use." In August 2021, TTT "wired about $150,000 from the funds bank account to a company that specializes in brokering sales of yachts," the suit said. The same account "made multiple wire transfers and checks to Rodriguez and Carrion personally over the Relevant Period, totaling approximately $138,694 and $37,551, respectively," according to the suit. "Over the Relevant Period, Carrion and Rodriguez regularly flaunted their possession of luxury cars and their international travels both in person and in their social media accounts," the suit says. "Because TTT was trading on leverage, the risk that TTT took on by entering that trade far exceeded the amount it paid up front to enter it," the suit said. "Defendants also regularly held positions for months at a time, contrary to their representations that trades would be closed out within a single day, and not held overnight." Carrion last month wrote to the court in response to the lawsuit saying that he would represent himself in the civil case. Rodriguez two weeks earlier in a letter to the judge handling the suit asked for a 60-day extension of the time to answer the complaint. "I have been having difficulties obtaining legal counsel due to financial hardship. With an extension I am certain that I can obtain counsel so that I can properly defend myself," Rodriguez wrote in his request, which was granted. Don't miss these stories from CNBC PRO: Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, arrives at court in New York, US, on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023. He was convicted at trial in November and is due to be sentenced on March 28. Bankman-Fried has been in jail since his bail was revoked in August, eight months after he was indicted on multiple fraud charges and other counts related to the dramatic collapse of FTX in late 2022. "It is, he has told me, the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up and the last thing he thinks about when he goes to sleep, and it occupies many moments in between," wrote Fried, who like her husband, Joseph Bankman, is a Stanford law professor. The filing quotes a letter from his mother, Barbara Fried, who wrote that her son "has been wracked with remorse for not having prevented the implosion of FTX and the damage that followed." The lawyers wrote that Bankman-Fried, 31, is "full of regret for the enormous damage that he has caused his (former) friends, family, partners, colleagues, and the causes he cared so deeply about." "But they don't know the true Sam Bankman-Fried," the attorneys argued in rebutting the 100-year prison term recommended by a presentence investigation report by federal probation officials. "Sam Bankman-Fried has been described as a 'sociopath,' 'a man with no morals, remorse or empathy,' who is an 'an ice-cold manipulator, bully and shameless liar,'" his lawyers told Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan in the filing. That filing, among other things, cites his "neurodiversity," selflessness and "kindness" and strongly disputes claims he cost his companies' customers billions of dollars with fraud. In a new court filing, attorneys for Bankman-Fried asked for a sentence of between 63 and 78 months in prison for overseeing the huge financial fraud at his cryptocurrency exchange FTX and related hedge fund Alameda Research. Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried are asking a judge for a relatively short sentence like "junk bond king" Michael Milken instead of the 100 years that a presentence investigation report calls for. The Manhattan U.S. attorney's office, which prosecuted Bankman-Fried, has yet to file its sentencing recommendation but is expected to call for a much stiffer sentence than that called for by defense lawyers in their new filing. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in November said, "Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history," and scoffed at the idea that the FTX founder's conduct was motivated by altruism. "This case has always been about lying, cheating, and stealing, and we have no patience for it," Williams said at the time. In their new, nearly 100-page document, defense attorneys marshal an array of arguments designed to get Kaplan to dramatically depart downward from federal sentencing guidelines, which recommend that he give Bankman-Fried 100 years or more in prison. "That recommendation is grotesque," the defense team led by attorney Marc Mukasey wrote in the filing. "This Court should reject the [Presentence Investigation Report's] barbaric proposal." The federal guidelines in the case suggest a draconian sentence for Bankman-Fried in large part as the result of the $10 billion loss by FTX and Alameda Research customers in the case, as the Presentence Investigation Report concluded. Defense lawyers in their sentencing submission said that the loss calculation is unsupported by evidence, arguing that "the most reasonable estimate of loss is zero." The filing notes that last month, debtors' attorneys in the bankruptcy case of FTX and Alameda said that "customers and creditors who can prove their losses are expected to get back all of their money." "The harm to customers, lenders, and investors is zero," Bankman-Fried's lawyers wrote. In addition to attacking at length the rationale of the sentencing guidelines' recommendation, SBF's lawyers spent a large chunk of the filing detailing his personal history, psychological makeup and "charitable works." It says he created Alameda and then FTX as engines to make money that could then be given to various altruistic endeavors, in line with Bankman-Fried's embrace of the philosophy known as "effective altruism." The filing describes him as a "shy" child who "often struggled socially," who in high school "realized he was anhedonic, or unable to experience joy or pleasure." "As Sam describes it, he experiences negative emotions in ways that are not very different from many other people neither much more extreme, nor much less negative. But he does not feel pleasure, or happiness, or joy, even when something very good happens to him," the filing says. "In college, he was officially diagnosed as suffering from anhedonic depression and he has been on antidepressant medication ever since." The lawyers wrote that Bankman-Fried has a "neurodiversity" that "greatly affects how he perceives and is perceived." The filing does not explicitly call Bankman-Fried autistic or say he is on the autism spectrum, but several times mentions his neurodiversity in connection with references to those terms. "Neurodiversity is a medical concept that recognizes the variation in human neurology. It acknowledges that neurological differences, such as those associated with Asperger's, ASD, and [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder] are part of the spectrum of diversity of the human brain that exists," the filing says. "Sam's condition manifests in a wide variety of ways. No two individuals on the spectrum are exactly alike. It is not a disease or a condition that needs to be cured," the lawyers wrote. "Instead, it is a fundamental aspect of an individual's identityan aspect to be considered at sentencing." The filing says that because of his condition, "Sam is uniquely vulnerable in a prison population." "Individuals with ASD are often at considerably greater risk of physical harm and extortion in prison than other inmates," the lawyers wrote. The attorneys argued that Bankman-Fried is "not at risk of committing further crimes," and had already been harshly punished by the poor conditions in the Brooklyn, New York, federal jail where he has been locked up since last summer. The filing urged the judge to sentence Bankman-Fried along the lines of the sentence imposed on so-called junk bond king Michael Milken, who received a 10-year term for the fraud he committed at the investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert in the 1980s, but only ended up serving two years behind bars. "Milken was released from custody at an age when he was young enough to still make a positive impact," the lawyers argued. "And he became a tremendous force for good in the world." "Milken's two-year sentence gave him a second chance. He has changed the lives of countless others for the better with that chance," the filing said. "Given the same chance, Sam would dedicate his post-prison life to charitable works, finding the best ways to help others, and put them into practice, consistent with his commitment to effective altruism." Don't miss these stories from CNBC PRO: "It is a huge national security issue and we need to move to making chips in America, not friend-shoring," Raimondo previously told CNBC. With the CHIPS For America funding program, under the guidance of Secretary Raimondo, the Biden administration has begun a revival of its domestic semiconductor manufacturing supply chain, offering economic incentives to companies for creating and updating and creating new chip manufacturing infrastructure in the U.S. Over the past year, Gina Raimondo, who was sworn in as Secretary of Commerce in 2021, has positioned the U.S. economy to compete with its growing rival China in a battle for technology supremacy. Organization: U.S. Department of Commerce Title: U.S. Commerce Secretary Industry: Government Hometown: Smithfield, Rhode Island Notable in 2023: Led Biden administration efforts on workforce and technologies critical to national security and American competitiveness. I think that working in public service is one of the most important and rewarding opportunities someone can seek. "CHIPS for America is laser-focused on ensuring both our economic and national security by making smart investments up and down semiconductor supply chains that enable smaller suppliers and more American workers to help grow the U.S. semiconductor industry," Raimondo said in a statement outlining the application process to companies. The private sector has responded, with Commerce receiving over 550 statements of interest from companies looking to invest in America's semiconductor industry. The actions will have ripple effects across the global economy, reversing a multi-decade retreat by the U.S. from onshore semiconductor production a move that is both economically and symbolically important while also elevating the nation as a global technology leader at a time of tensions with China, a relationship that Raimondo plays a key role in managing for the government and private businesses. Raimondo recently said that CHIPS and Science Act investments will put the U.S. on track to manufacture roughly 20% of leading-edge logic chips by the end of the decade. "That's a big deal," she said during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies "Why is that a big deal? Because folks, today we're at zero." Beyond CHIPS for America, Raimondo has several other key tech initiatives under her watch. These include closing the digital divide in America, and as the potential impacts of AI breakthroughs become clear, she is among the national leaders monitoring artificial intelligence via The National Institute of Standards and Technology. She was previously a co-founder of Rhode Island's only venture capital firm, Point Judith Capital. Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner in the team principals press conference during day two of F1 Testing at Bahrain International Circuit on February 22, 2024 in Bahrain, Bahrain. Christian Horner will continue in his role as Red Bull team principal after allegations of inappropriate behaviour made against him were dismissed following an investigation. The 50-year-old was placed under investigation by the F1 team's Austrian parent company Red Bull GmbH following an allegation of inappropriate behaviour being made against him by a female colleague. Horner has denied the allegations throughout the process and was present at the reigning constructors' champions 2024 car launch and pre-season testing in Bahrain last week. The first grand prix of the new Formula 1 season takes place in Bahrain this week, with track action starting on Thursday ahead of Saturday's race. "The independent investigation into the allegations made against Mr Horner is complete, and Red Bull can confirm that the grievance has been dismissed," a statement from Red Bull GmbH said. "The complainant has a right of appeal. Red Bull is confident that the investigation has been fair, rigorous and impartial. "The investigation report is confidential and contains the private information of the parties and third parties who assisted in the investigation, and therefore we will not be commenting further out of respect for all concerned. Red Bull will continue striving to meet the highest workplace standards." Horner attended an interview on February 9 with the external specialist barrister carrying out the investigation, but no resolution on the matter was reached at that stage. Attending the team's car launch six days later at their Milton Keynes base, Horner addressed the media for the first time since the allegations became public, and reiterated his denial. Horner has been in charge of Red Bull Racing since it formed in 2005 and has led the squad to seven drivers' titles and six constructors' triumphs in 19 seasons. Jim Cramer's daily rapid fire looks at stocks in the news outside the CNBC Investing Club portfolio. First Solar : Shares rose more than 3% after the solar firm's quarterly earnings topped estimates, and its guidance was formidable. "They make something that actually you can buy, as opposed to all the other companies that have turned out to be financing companies, where it's very hard to get the money to be able to put a solar panel on your roof." Urban Outfitters : Shares fell 13% after earnings, revenue and same-store sales growth missed Wall Street's expectations. Ahead of the report, the stock had been up more than 35% since early January. "This is a little overstated. It did miss the numbers by a lot," Cramer said. While Cramer complimented the performance of its clothing-rental business, Nuuly, he said investors should not view Urban Outfitters as much more than an industry temperature check. "Urban Outfitters has always just been a barometer. It's not something you want to own," he said. J.M. Smucker : The stock rose modestly after Stifel analysts upgraded the peanut butter and jelly maker to buy from hold. "My rap against Smucker is that they bought [Twinkie maker] Hostess ... which is unfortunately square one for the GLP-1 drugs and I don't know why they did it," Cramer said. GLP-1 drugs refers to the class of increasingly popular weight-loss treatments made by the likes of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly . Cramer's Charitable Trust, the portfolio used by the CNBC Investing Club, has long owned Eli Lilly. Universal Health Services : The hospital operator reported better-than-expected quarterly results alongside strong 2024 guidance, as well. Its capital expenditures guidance also came in above expectations. That seems like good news for GE Healthcare , according to Cramer, whose Charitable Trust also owns shares of the medical-equipment maker. GE Healthcare has been the best-performing health-care stock in the S & P 500 in February, "and it's not done," Cramer said. The Club's portfolio is chock full of high-quality companies. But some of them a group we designate our core holdings are a cut above the rest. At the Investing Club's recent Annual Meeting , Jim Cramer and Director of Portfolio Analysis Jeff Marks unveiled a reshuffled list of core holdings, which we generally define as industry-leading companies with great management teams and strong track records of creating shareholder value. Amazon , Eaton, GE Healthcare , Meta Platforms , TJX and Microsoft joined the all-star list, which swelled to 12 stocks from 10. Meanwhile, we removed two former Club holdings, Johnson & Johnson and Pioneer Natural Resources , while current investments Morgan Stanley and Starbucks were supplanted as their management teams work through obstacles to growth. Here's our updated breakdown of each top core holding, going in alphabetical order by stock ticker. AAPL 5Y mountain Apple's stock over the past five years. Apple remains an "own it, don't trade it" stock, despite Wall Street's recent cautious calls around its new Vision Pro headset and softening iPhone demand in China. Yes, China presents a risk to Apple on tepid consumer spending and Beijing's reported crackdown on the use of iPhones at government agencies. But Jim said analysts need to look at the big picture for the company. Apple's Services segment home to sales from the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud and more continues to grow as new users join its ecosystem. Potential headwinds in other parts of Apple's business are partially offset by the strength of the Services business. However, Jim cautioned that more bearish commentary on Apple from the Street may be forthcoming. "You're gonna have to strap yourself to the mast," he said. "It's going to be a painful stock, then it's going to be great again." AMZN 5Y mountain Amazon's stock price over the past five years. Amazon delivered terrific fourth-quarter results earlier this month, exceeding analysts' estimates on the top-and-bottom lines. Crucially, growth at its profitable cloud-computing unit, Amazon Web Services, finally reaccelerated. The tech giant's regionalization strategy intended to make fulfilling e-commerce orders more efficient while keeping costs down is paying off. Plus, Amazon's fast-growing, high-margin advertising segment should get a boost in upcoming quarters due to the introduction of ads on Prime Video . Overall, these improvements to an already-great company make us wish we could buy more shares, which have soared more than 80% over the past 12 months. "It'd be a gift if Amazon [stock] went down," Jim added. COST 5Y mountain Costco's stock performance over the past five years. Costco remains the best-run retailer in the world. It's important to remember the wholesaler is not a margin company. Costco's focus is on selling a lot of volume at attractive prices, leaning heavily on subscription revenues for its profits. The good news: Membership renewal rates are currently at record highs, a sign Costco's value proposition is resonating with shoppers. After Costco's long-awaited special dividend finally arrived, a bump in membership fees may be on the horizon. Costco now finds itself in an interesting spot: a new CEO who took over in January and a longtime CFO set to retire in March. "That's going to be difficult," Jim acknowledged, but the company is capable of handling it. "I think the culture is that strong," he said. DHR 5Y mountain Danaher's stock performance over the past five years. Light at the end of the tunnel has emerged for Danaher. Weak bioprocessing revenues plagued the life-sciences firm for most of last year as customers worked through excess inventory. But, on its fourth-quarter earnings cal l, management indicated some customers have returned to normal order patterns. More broadly, the already well-run Danaher has taken steps to improve itself by spinning off its water quality and packaging units into a separate company, known as Veralto , and replacing those revenues with faster-growing, higher-margin streams from antibody maker Abcam . Shares of Danaher are trading near 52-week highs. ETN 5Y mountain Eaton Corp.'s stock performance over the past five years. Eaton shares have been like a rocket recently, notching several record highs throughout February. Investors, like us, see big potential for its data-center business as AI adoption grows. The reason is data centers tailored for AI tasks contain more electrical component content than traditional computing facilities, creating more demand for Eaton's products. This isn't the company's only tailwind, though. The electrical equipment giant has wisely positioned itself at the sweet spot of many megatrends such as the green energy transition, reindustrialization and increased infrastructure spending. Eaton joined our portfolio in November. "The megatrends are real serious, and [Eaton] is a real serious company," Jim said. GEHC ALL mountain GE Healthcare's stock performance since becoming a publicly traded company in January 2023. GE Healthcare is coming off a strong quarter, causing the formerly stuck-in-the-mud stock to reach fresh record highs. But the stock remains underappreciated on the Street, specifically its margin expansion story. Management remains confident the company can achieve adjusted operating profit margins in the high-teens to 20% over the medium term. For comparison, they stood at 15.1% in 2023. We got into the stock because new Alzheimer's treatments represented a tailwind for the medical equipment maker, but these have taken longer to commercialize than anticipated. Instead, we're seeing GE Healthcare's AI integration into their offerings as an increasingly attractive growth prospect. Down the line, this could allow the firm to sell advanced products at a higher price point and boost sales. "Stay long GE Healthcare," Jim said. LIN 5Y mountain Linde's stock performance over the past five years. Linde rarely disappoints. The industrial gas provider has posted 20 consecutive earnings beats, making it one of the most consistent stocks likely unknown to many non-Club members. Linde a long-term winner for the portfolio is one of 12 stocks in the S & P 500 to beat the index on a total shareholder return basis every year since 2019. Linde continues to see demand for its offerings because of its huge exposure to a variety of industries, including semiconductor manufacturing, hospitals, beverage makers and many more. The firm continues to be an earnings compounder, thanks to its strong pricing and productivity gains, as well. LLY 5Y mountain Eli Lilly's stock performance over the past five years. Eli Lilly stock is having another killer year, up nearly 30% since the start of 2024. We've longed touted the company's pipeline as the best in the industry, and now we are finally seeing the commercialization of key assets like Zepbound. The weight-loss drug along with type-2 diabetes treatment Mounjaro, which shares the same active ingredient tirzepatide is off to a historic start since its U.S. approval in the fall. Jim predicted Zepbound will become more popular than its main obesity competitor, Novo Nordisk's Wegovy, which has been on the market for more than two years. "The insurance companies are going to favor Eli Lilly over Novo Nordisk, so I think when people realize that it's going to go much higher," he said. He also said he agreed with Morgan Stanley analysts who projected Eli Lilly to be the first drugmaker to notch a $1 trillion market cap. META 5Y mountain Meta Platforms' stock performance over the past five years. Meta Platforms embraced much-needed efficiency initiatives over the past year. Management conducted layoffs and shrunk its real estate footprint crucial after CEO Mark Zuckerberg's massive metaverse bets concerned Wall Street two years ago. Although expenses could rise with further generative AI investments , we remain upbeat on the social media behemoth's ability to monetize that spending through the success of TikTok competitor Reels and improved ad targeting. Its recent decision to institute a quarterly dividend is a positive long-term sign, too. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is "a very competitive guy," Jim said. "He heard people wanted a dividend, so he gave them a dividend." MSFT 5Y mountain Microsoft's stock performance over the past five years. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to be a "total juggernaut," Jim said, and the stock will "just keep going higher," The tech giant has made sizable bets on generative AI headlined by its significant partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI that are paying off in their early days. For example, more users are coming to cloud-computing Azure due to its AI prowess. Plus, Microsoft's AI assistant, Copilot, should bring in another revenue stream with its monthly subscription fee. Overall, management's done a solid job aggressively investing in Microsoft's future while also balancing profitability. NVDA 5Y mountain Nvidia's stock performance over the past five years. Nvidia posted a fantastic quarter last week , beating analysts' sky-high expectations. The "own it, don't trade it" thesis remains intact as demand for the leading AI chipmaker's offerings doesn't seem to be waning. Jim said Nvidia has wisely sped up its product development timeline to avoid the boom-and-bust cycles that semiconductor companies have traditionally been prone to experience. Additionally, its software-and-services business is small, but fast-growing with promise for the future. "I'm very excited about the next five years for Nvidia," Jim said. TJX 5Y mountain TJX Companies' stock performance over the past five years. Off-price retailer TJX Companies has been gaining market share, leaning on its flexible business model to respond to ever-changing consumer tastes and trends. The owner of TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods is perfectly positioned for the current economic environment, in which shoppers are looking for deals without sacrificing on quality. We've also seen upbeat signs around the Club name on social media, as younger customers have turned to TikTok to show off their so-called "TJ Maxx hauls," a sign the retailer is gaining popularity among Gen Zers and millennials. In the days since the Annual Meeting, TJX reported strong fiscal fourth-quarter results. Although its full-year guidance came in short of Wall Street expectations, management is known to offer conservative outlooks the company is capable of exceeding. Notably, TJX said the amount of high-quality merchandise available to buy from other retailers looking to offload it remains "outstanding." (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long LLY, AAPL, COST, GEHC, MSFT, NVDA, TJX, LIN, META, ETN, DHR. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Satya Narayana Nadella speaks at a live Microsoft event in the Manhattan borough of New York City, October 26, 2016. Lucas Jackson | Reuters In 2023, Maven expanded internationally, partnering with Amazon to provide family benefits to employees in 50-plus countries, and acquired London-based Naytal in March. In all, Maven now serves members in more than 175 countries. Maven is a go-to digital health partner for many top companies, with more than 2,000 employer partners including half of the Fortune 15 Amazon, Microsoft and AT&T, among them, and has deals with four of the largest national insurance providers. In 2014, digital health was still a relatively new concept and a digital-first focus on women's health was barely on the market's radar. But as an early-stage investor at venture capital firm Index Ventures, Kate Ryder saw a gap to fill. Her awareness led to the launch of Maven Clinic, which as founder and CEO, Ryder has grown to become the largest virtual clinic for women's and family health, with 17 million lives under management. Company: Maven Clinic Title: Founder & Chief Executive Officer Industry: Health care Hometown: Redding, Connecticut Notable in 2023: Scaled Maven's menopause program, which provides education and care and fills a major gap in current models. I have three young kids. When I make decisions, I think about who they will be as adults. When they look back on their childhoods, I want them to be proud of how I showed up for them and how I spent my time when not with them. The scope of the challenge and market opportunity that Ryder and her team have focused on since Maven's founding is in the data: women's health in the U.S., specifically, is typified by inequities and serious issues in access and outcomes. Roughly half of U.S. counties are without a single OB-GYN, and the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world. The need to provide better women's and family health has attracted many corporations across sectors of the economy to Maven, including SoFi, L'Oreal, Snap, Snowflake, Bumble and Boston Scientific. While the startup first became most widely known for reproductive benefits, and saw a boom in business after the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision overturning the federal right to abortion, it has continued to fill in key gaps in women's health, launching its menopause program in late 2022, providing virtual access to specialists and education. Nearly 300 of its clients offer the program. Maven has been named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for two consecutive years. Ryder told CNBC in August that the Amazon deal was further proof of an underlying business premise that has continued room for growth alongside the world's biggest firms. When you take care of women and families, not only do you have a better healthcare system in all of these countries but you have a better company," she said. Maven is now one of the rare female-led unicorns, valued at over $1 billion by investors, and Ryder is paying that forward in the VC world, continuing to serve as an early-stage investor for female-founded health-care companies. Company: Baby2Baby Title: Co-Chief Executive Officer Industry: Non-profit Hometown: Vancouver, Canada Notable in 2023: Hosted U.S. VP Kamala Harris, federal government and Baby2Baby announced a pilot program to improve maternal care and support struggling families. With a cost of roughly $1,000 per year, per child, diapers are a major financial burden for many families, according to the National Diaper Bank Network. And while some low-income families can receive access to assistance programs, many fall into an "invisible income gap," according to a report on the nation's "diaper crisis" from Harvard Public Health. That is the focus of Kelly Sawyer Patricof and her co-CEO at Baby2Baby, Norah Weinstein, who took over a grassroots organization roughly a decade ago and have together transformed it into a national nonprofit at the forefront of efforts to provide diapers to children in need. Last May, its prominence in tackling this issue drew the attention of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who visited a Baby2Baby facility as the federal government and nonprofit announced a pilot program. Baby2Baby and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are working together to distribute newborn supply kits to families, in support of a Biden Administration goal of improving maternal and neonatal health outcomes by providing essentials for both mother and child, from diapers and wipes to thermometers and breastfeeding supplies. "The disparities in maternal and neonatal health care in this country are staggering and unacceptable," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement at the time of the program's launch. The federal government also launched a web site to provide information and resources through HHS. Company: Bobbie Title: Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer Industry: Consumer products Hometown: Washington D.C. Notable in 2023: Closed major acquisition to bolster baby formula manufacturing and ensure no more shortages. Infant formula shortages due to deadly bacteria and supply chain issues affected families across the world over the past few years. Even though the crisis has somewhat subsided, experts are warning parents that they aren't out of the woods. But where some companies have seen problems, Bobbie CEO Laura Modi saw an opportunity to raise awareness and access. Modi, a former Airbnb executive, founded Bobbie in 2018 after she struggled finding formula for her baby that she would eat herself. Bobbie sells FDA-approved infant formula that's made with organic milk and doesn't contain fillers, corn syrup, antibiotics, palm oil or maltodextrin, a white, starchy preservative. Company: Hello Heart Title: Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer Industry: Health care Hometown: Tel Aviv, Israel Notable in 2023: Led company from bomb shelters in Tel Aviv, while providing housing, safety and counseling for employees after tragedy of October 7. Maayan Cohen's digital health company Hello Heart has been leading the charge against heart disease since 2013. But when Hamas attacked Israeli citizens on October 7, the Israeli-American dual citizen returned back to her Tel Aviv headquarters to help her employees. Working in and out of bomb shelters, Cohen provided support for both her Israeli and Palestinian employees. Hello Heart has established housing, safety and mental health assistance for those affected. When 10% of its employees were called into Israeli military reserve, the company opened an aid center to assist their families. "We must acknowledge what has happened and help our teams through this crisis," Cohen wrote on the company's LinkedIn page. "Don't let this tragedy be just another news item. Be an agent of empathy, peace, and kindness and fight the cruelty of these acts with an outpouring of love and kindness." Since Ono took the helm in March 2023 and became the first woman to lead a one trillion yen brand (roughly $11 billion market cap), the company has expanded into new territory. In August, Suntory created a ready-to-drink alcoholic and non-alcoholic division called Suntory Oceania in Australia and New Zealand. Ono told Reuters she sees vast opportunities ahead, especially in Europe's energy, coffee and tea markets. Out of the top companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, fewer than 1% have a female CEO, according to Tokyo Shoko Research . Makiko Ono is breaking the mold as Suntory Beverage & Food CEO and president. At Suntory, we share 'Yatte Minahare' spirit. Yatte Minahare means the spirit of ambition to dream big, take challenges, and never give up. Ono told the Japan Times her team had an acquisition budget of as much as $5.4 billion that she planned to spend in the next few years. It's an area that she has experience in. When she was based in Europe, she led Suntory deals including the purchase of French soda brand Orangina, as well as U.K. beverage brands Lucozade and Ribena. Ono also helped with the revitalization of Orangina's Oasis brand, which recorded its highest-selling volume in the third quarter of 2023. In addition, Ono has spearheaded efforts to bring more female leadership to the company. Suntory is aiming to have 30% of its management roles held by women by 2030, compared to just 13% when Ono took the top position. She has been outspoken about allowing working women to have time to raise families, and she encourages young women to take up a career in business. "When opportunity comes, just give it a try," Ono said to TIME. "Even if you fail, you won't be stuck with it for the rest of your life, so take on challenges with an open mind." Billionaire Mark Cuban built his career using advice his dad gave him at age 14: Time is your most valuable asset. For much of his Cuban's childhood, his dad Norton worked 60 hours per week for a company that upholstered cars outside of Pittsburgh, Cuban tells CNBC Make It. Sometimes, his dad brought him along to sweep floors and, more specifically, show him the limits of working for someone else. "This time wasn't spent to learn about what my dad did, but to learn that his job didn't have a future," says Cuban, 65. "His time was never his own ... he wanted me to create my own path." The lesson helped motivate Cuban to prioritize entrepreneurial opportunities over seeking out high-salaried jobs. "I wanted to make enough money so I didn't have to respond to anybody else," Cuban said in a MasterClass course released last week. "I could make my own schedule and live my own life the way I wanted to do it." Advertising could be an additional source of growth that brings in tens of billions of dollars to Microsoft , according to Barclays. Analyst Raimo Lenschow reiterated his overweight rating and $475 price target on the maker of the Windows operating system, citing optimism around the ad business. His price target implies shares can rally about another 17%. "We believe Microsoft's advertising business deserves greater attention as of late," Lenschow told clients in a Wednesday research report. "The company has revamped its search offering with new generative AI features, and the ongoing antitrust case pertaining to Google's dominance in search has stirred conversation around a potentially greater opportunity for Microsoft to compete." Microsoft can be a long-term challenger to existing advertising giants in the technology sector, Lenschow said. Specifically, he said there's a $30 billion opportunity, primarily driven by Microsoft's LinkedIn and Bing divisions. Beyond that, he said another $20 billion could get added to the top line if Microsoft improves distribution. The Redmond, Washington-based company's search offerings can be helped by regulatory moves, Lenschow said. Google may take a hit if forced to change practices following a Department of Justice suit. The Digital Markets Act in the European Union could also help Microsoft win market share, he added. They would come on top of product improvements such as the implementation of artificial intelligence-powered image generation into Bing that should already attract more costumers, he said. Lenschow also said Microsoft has quietly become the largest business-to-business advertising player, raking in more than $5 billion in revenue from the space in the 2022 calendar year. MSFT YTD mountain Microsoft, year to date With acquisitions of advertising technology companies such as PromoteIQ and Xanadr, Microsoft can obtain greater exposure to higher-growth digital areas such as connected TV and retail media, Barclays believes. "This holistic ad-tech stack serves as a unique value proposition for Microsoft, and mirrors the transformation of similar advertising mainstays," Lenschow said. Shares of Microsoft were little changed in early trading on Wednesday. The maker of the PlayStation 5 video game has added more than 8% this year, extending last year's 56% advance. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Wednesday that he will step down as Republican leader in the Senate in November. McConnell, 82, revealed his plans in an address to the Senate, where he currently serves as minority leader. McConnell, who is the longest-serving Senate caucus leader in history, plans to keep his seat in the chamber, which he took in 1985. His current term ends in January 2027. "To serve Kentucky, has been the honor of my life, to lead my Republican colleagues has been the highest privilege," McConnell said. "But one of life's most underappreciated talents is to know when it's time to move on to life's next chapter, so I stand before you today, Mr. President and my colleagues, to say this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate," he said. He noted "this has been a particularly difficult time for my family," including his wife, former Cabinet secretary Elaine Chao. "We tragically lost Elaine's younger sister Angela, just a few weeks ago," McConnell said. Chao's sister, Foremost Group CEO Angela Chao died on Feb. 11 from an apparent drowning after her car went into a pond on a ranch outside Austin, Texas, which land records show is owned by a entity linked to the office of her husband, venture capitalist Jim Breyer. "When you lose a loved one, particularly at a young age, there's a certain introspection that accompanies the grieving process," McConnell said. But he also said, "I still have enough gas in my tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics, and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm with which they have become accustomed." watch now Barring a $1 billion donation or broad-based student loan forgiveness, college is becoming a path for only those with the means to pay for it, many reports now show. But some colleges have a new strategy to entice students wary of the high cost. Roughly two dozen schools have introduced "no-loan" policies, which means they are eliminating student loans altogether from their financial aid packages. "They are giving them out like candy now," said Menaka Hampole, an assistant professor of finance at Yale School of Management, of the growing number of no-loan policies. Among the schools on The Princeton Review's "The Best 389 Colleges" list, 23 promise to meet 100% of their undergraduates' financial need without loans. "Post-Covid, more schools are rolling out no-loan policies mostly on the back of Princeton, which had the money in its endowment to do something," Hampole said. "Princeton takes the lead and other schools follow suit but it's the top universities that can afford to do this," she added. Nationwide, colleges continue to feel the consequences of fewer students and declining tuition revenue, according to Colin Hatton, senior consultant of NEPC's endowments and foundations team. For the most part, college endowments have paid the price. "The higher educational system is under stress," Hatton said. 'No loan doesn't mean free' Of course, even without loans, students may still be on the hook for the expected family contribution, as well as other costs, including books and fees. There could also be a work-study requirement, depending on the school. Even if a school has a no-loan policy, that also does not prevent a student or family from borrowing money to help cover their contribution. "No loan doesn't mean free," said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review's editor in chief and author of "The Best 389 Colleges." Colleges with no-loan policies "College is expensive we have to make sure we keep it accessible," said Nicole Hurd, president of Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. At Lafayette, families with household incomes of up to $200,000 have their financial need met through grants and work study, without any loans. "We have a moral obligation to make sure our low- and moderate-income families know that college is the best investment you'll make in yourself," Hurd said. More from Personal Finance: FAFSA 'loophole' lets grandparents help pay for college Biden to forgive $1.2 billion in student debt for more borrowers This could be the best year to lobby for more college financial aid Colby College in Waterville, Maine, has had a no-loan policy in place since 2008. Terra Gallo, a senior majoring in environmental policy, said "Colby's no-loan policy and the fact that demonstrated need is met and accounted for was something that was important to both me and my family." "I know a lot of people who are in significant debt," Gallo, 21, added. "That was something I didn't want." Colby senior Jackie Hardwick of Jacksonville, Florida, also said the cost of attendance was the main thing she considered when looking at colleges. "That was the No. 1 concern on my mind," she said, highlighting Colby's support for financial aid and QuestBridge scholarship recipients like herself. Hardwick, 21, who is a global studies and East Asian studies double major, said she would not be enrolled at Colby without her scholarships or if she had a larger expected family contribution, which she said is still "pretty hefty." Hardwick works six part-time jobs on campus to support herself and her family's expected contribution. "I have to help my family out whenever I can," she said. "For us, the no-loan message is incredibly powerful, especially when so many families are grappling with the very real concerns about the cost of higher education," said Randi Maloney, Colby's dean of admissions and financial aid. A student's greatest concern: 'too much debt' "These schools have addressed the biggest concern for students and parents, which is assuming too much debt," Franek said. "They are saying to students and parents, 'I see you and I hear you,'" he said. Further, such programs will likely result in more students applying, which can also boost a college's yield or the percent of students who choose to enroll after being admitted which is an important statistic for schools, Franek added. Company: Amalgamated Bank Title: Chief Executive Officer Industry: Financials Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Notable in 2023: Financed the fight against climate change, by seeking out investment opportunities in renewable energy and refusing to lend to fossil fuel industry. As the blowback against ESG has intensified, big banks and some major asset managers have pulled back on their climate commitments. Bank of America recently reversed its position on lending to thermal coal companies, while JPMorgan, State Street and BlackRock pulled out of, or scaled back, their work with a major coalition of climate-focused investors. That's not a club of suddenly more timid financial CEOs you'll find Amalgamated Bank CEO Priscilla Sims Brown within. In 2023, the fossil fuel-free company doubled down on its net zero carbon emissions goals, refusing to lend to the fossil-fuel industry, seeking out investment opportunities in renewable energy, and working closely with local and federal officials to craft and pass pro-climate policies. For consumers, it launched the Climate Impact Debit Mastercard, which replaced 80% of the fossil-fuel derived plastics in most cards. "People do care about where their money sleeps at night, as many say, and they do care about making sure that their investments are being placed in ethical places, whether that is related to climate, whether it's related to any number of other areas," Brown told CNBC in 2022. "That is a right that investors should have." Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu attend a wreath-laying ceremony, which marks the anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany in 1941, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin wall in Moscow, Russia June 22, 2022. Mikhail Metzel | Sputnik | Reuters Russia appears to be relishing the gaffe French President Emmanuel Macron made this week in suggesting that NATO countries discussed the possibility of Western ground troops being deployed in Ukraine, saying such an eventuality could not be "ruled out." Macron's suggestion was widely and very publicly rejected by NATO member countries Tuesday. The United States, Germany, the U.K., Spain, Poland and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg were among those denying that sending ground troops into Ukraine was an option. The Kremlin was quick to seize upon the comments Tuesday, warning that any move to put Western boots on the ground in Ukraine would lead to an "inevitable" conflict between NATO and Russia. Since then, state-run Russian media has been dominated by Russian officials relishing the obvious division in NATO, and Macron's apparent misreading of the NATO mood music. Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and prime minister, said Macron had suffered a bout of verbal "incontinence" while Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said Macron's "loud statements ... horrified the residents of his country and the leaders of a number of European states." "To maintain personal power, Macron came up with nothing better than to spark a third world war. His initiatives are becoming dangerous for French citizens," Volodin said on Telegram, comparing the French president to French leader and military commander Napoleon Bonaparte, whose invasion of Russia in 1812 is widely recognized as a military disaster for France that led to a massive number of casualties. "Before making such statements, Macron would do well to remember how it ended for Napoleon and his soldiers, more than 600,000 of whom were left lying in the damp earth," Volodin said, referring to the muddy conditions that hampered France's invasion. Russia's Foreign Ministry claimed Wednesday that Ukraine is facing a "catastrophic" situation at the front Russia is currently enjoying a spate of small territorial gains in eastern Ukraine and that Macron's statement had not helped the country. The situation at the front for the Kyiv regime is monstrous, catastrophic," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the Sputnik radio station, the Tass news agency reported. She claimed NATO countries' denials that they planned to send their ground troops into Ukraine showed the West had "betrayed Ukraine and will continue to use and betray it," repeating Moscow's baseless claims that Western countries are using Ukraine to destroy Russia. France humiliated Macron's controversial comments came Monday evening, after he had hosted European heads of state and representatives from the U.K., U.S. and Canada for talks in Paris on how best to help Ukraine. After the conference, Macron said discussions had also covered the possibility of deploying ground troops, although he said there was no agreement on the issue. "There is no consensus today to officially, openly, and with endorsement, send troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing should be ruled out," Macron said at a news conference Monday evening, adding that allies "will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia cannot win this war." French President Emmanuel Macron waits for guest arrivals for a conference in support of Ukraine with European leaders and government representatives on February 26, 2024 in Paris, France. Chesnot | Getty Images News | Getty Images French opposition lawmakers rounded on Macron for making the comments, with the leader of the hard-right National Rally party Marine Le Pen stating on X that by "affirming that sending ground troops was not excluded, Emmanuel Macron took a further step towards co-belligerence." French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne attempted to ease tensions in France's parliament on Tuesday without rowing back on Macron's comments, saying French troops could take on noncombat roles rather than actively fight in Ukraine. "We must consider new actions to support Ukraine. These must respond to very specific needs, I am thinking in particular of mine clearance, cyberdefence, the production of weapons on site, on Ukrainian territory," he told lawmakers, Reuters reported. "Some of its actions could require a presence on Ukrainian territory, without crossing the threshold of fighting. Nothing should be ruled out. This was and still is the position today of the president of the Republic," he said. France was left looking increasingly isolated throughout the day Tuesday, with the White House also distancing itself from Macron's comments. U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Tuesday that any decision to deploy ground troops was a "sovereign decision," but that it was not one the U.S. would be taking in Ukraine. When asked about Macron's comments, Kirby said, "well, that's a sovereign decision that every NATO ally would have to make for themselves. You heard [NATO] Secretary-General Stoltenberg say himself he had no plans or intentions of certainly under NATO auspices of putting troops on the ground. And President Biden has been crystal clear since the beginning of this conflict. There'll be no U.S. troops on the ground in a combat role there. In Ukraine." A gift for the Kremlin Russia analysts have said Macron's comments were a gift to the Kremlin, and would be fully exploited by Russia's propaganda machine at home and abroad. The Elysee Palace sought to clarify and defend France's position on the matter further Tuesday, with a spokesperson stating that "we want to avoid escalation. Let me remind you that we're not at war with the Russian people, but we can't let Russia win in Ukraine." Timothy Ash, emerging markets strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, was among those questioning "French foreign policy sense on anything to do with Russia/Ukraine." "Literally idiotic comments from Macron," Ash said in emailed comments Tuesday. "Ukraine does not need Western boots on the ground it needs Western military kit to do the job themselves of defeating Russia." Company: Centene Title: Chief Executive Officer Industry: Health care Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri Notable in 2023: Won key contracts to insure seniors, disabled individuals, and people with low incomes in Texas and Oklahoma. When it comes to disrupting the health insurance marketplace, Centene turns to Sarah London to lead its shakeup of how low-income Americans access affordable coverage. While the national uninsured rate is declining, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said 7.7% of Americans still didn't have health coverage as of early 2023. Even those working don't have a reprieve: Employees covered by workplace plans paid over $6,500, on average, for health insurance last year, according to healthcare data provider KFF. Leveraging London's extensive experience in the health-care industry, and partnering with local health-care groups and non-profits, the company served roughly 27.9 million people as of September 2023 that's nearly one in 15 individuals across the U.S. Aadeel Akhtar was age 7 when he met a little girl missing a limb. Three decades later, he's making bionic prosthetic hands and his invention drew a $1 million investment offer on a recent episode of ABC's "Shark Tank." "She was my age, living in poverty in Pakistan where I was visiting, missing her right leg and using a tree branch as a crutch," Akhtar said during the episode, which aired on Feb. 23. "That's what inspired me to go into [neuroengineering], and that's why I developed the Ability Hand." The device is manufactured by San Diego-based startup Psyonic, which Akhtar founded in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. "You can control [the bionic hand] with your muscles," said Akhtar, the company's CEO. "It's also water resistant and USB-C rechargeable. You can even charge your phone from your hand, a superhuman ability." Organizations like Meta and NASA have used the Ability Hand on robots to help them mimic body movements, Psyonic noted in 2022. Akhtar asked the show's investor judges for $1 million, in exchange for a 2% equity stake in his company valuing Psyonic at $50 million saying he wanted help increasing the startup's production capacity. Each bionic hand cost $15,000 to make, making it difficult to create inventory at scale, he said. Thrasio, an early leader in the big business of Amazon aggregators, had a booth at the popular Prosper Show for Amazon sellers in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 14, 2021. Thrasio, an early leader in aggregating Amazon sellers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a New Jersey court Wednesday. The company said it had agreed with lenders to shave about $495 million off its debt load. Thrasio said some creditors have committed to provide it with up to $90 million in fresh capital, which it said will go toward ongoing operations, and enable it to keep running brands in its portfolio. "Thrasio is one of the largest third-party sellers on the Amazon marketplace, and with a strengthened balance sheet and new capital, we will be better equipped to support our brands, scale our infrastructure and enable future opportunities," Thrasio CEO Greg Greeley said in a statement. Thrasio and other Amazon aggregators raised billions of dollars from investors looking to cash in on the third-party seller rollup craze. Aggregators bought up promising products and storefronts on Amazon, to use their data and operational expertise to turbocharge sales. But the hype began to fizzle last year as the pandemic ended, e-commerce growth slowed and economic uncertainty increased. Thrasio, which ranked 40th on the 2022 CNBC Disruptor 50 list, raised $3.4 billion. The company at one point eyed going public through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, but the plans were shelved due to a complicated auditing process, CNBC previously reported. The company laid off about 20% of its employees in 2022 and saw several executives depart, including co-founder Josh Silberstein. That year it named Greeley, a 19-year veteran of Amazon who oversaw the development of its Prime loyalty program, as its CEO, succeeding co-founder Carlos Cashman, who remains a member of Thrasio's board. Don't miss these stories from CNBC PRO: WATCH: What's behind the big hype and billion-dollar aggregator start-ups buying Amazon seller brands Former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on at a campaign event in Waterford Township, Michigan, on Feb. 17, 2024. The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to rule on whether former President Donald Trump is immune from criminal charges in his federal election interference case. The high court granted Trump's request to pause the case from moving forward until they decide whether an ex-president is immune from being prosecuted for official acts performed while in office, as Trump claims. The justices are poised to proceed quickly, with Trump's court briefs due within three weeks and oral arguments set for the week of April 22. But it could take months for the court to issue an opinion. If the justices rule against Trump, the case will continue in Washington, D.C., federal court, and it could head to trial in the middle of the presidential campaign, where Trump seeks to beat President Joe Biden. If the justices rule in Trump's favor, the case will be dismissed. The nine-member Supreme Court currently bears a 6-3 conservative majority. Trump appointed three of those conservative justices during his term in office. French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as he arrives to attend a conference in support of Ukraine with European leaders and government representatives on February 26, 2024 in Paris, France. Berlin has dismissed the notion of sending ground troops to Ukraine, a day after France's president suggested that some of Ukraine's allies had not "ruled out" this possibility. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday rejected the idea, saying that there was no consensus over deploying ground troops among European leaders and officials from the U.K., Canada and U.S., who had met in Paris on Monday. "Once again, in a very good debate, it was discussed that what was agreed from the outset among ourselves and with each other also applies to the future, namely that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European countries or NATO states," Scholz said on the sidelines of an event, according to comments carried by Reuters. Scholz reportedly added that European leaders now appeared more willing to procure weapons from third countries outside Europe, in order to accelerate military aid to Ukraine. Germany is one of Ukraine's biggest supporters in Europe, but it has been wary of escalating tensions with Russia, deliberating at length over whether to supply Ukraine with Leopard tanks and long-range Taurus missiles. French President Emmanuel Macron raised eyebrows on Monday, when he suggested that "nothing should be ruled out" when it came to the prospect of "troops on the ground" in Ukraine. He further said that "we will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia cannot win this war," but did not give any details on which countries might support the idea of sending ground troops into Ukraine. Germany's Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck also commented with "advice" for France, saying that Paris would be more helpful by sending weaponry and tanks to Ukraine, Reuters reported. He likewise said that there would be "no German soldiers on Ukrainian soil." The Kremlin warned on Tuesday that conflict between Russia and NATO would become inevitable, if members of the military coalition send troops to fight in Ukraine. Holly Ellyatt BEIJING, Jan. 6, 2020 -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang meets with Kiribati's President Taneti Mamau at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 6, 2020. The United States on Monday cautioned Pacific Islands nations against assistance from Chinese security forces after Reuters reported that Chinese police are working in the remote atoll nation of Kiribati, a neighbor of Hawaii. Kiribati's acting police commissioner Eeri Aritiera told Reuters last week uniformed Chinese officers were working with police in community policing and a crime database program. Kiribati is a nation of 115,000 people whose closest island is 2,160 km (1,340 miles) south of Honolulu, and the news comes as Beijing renews a push to expand security ties in the Pacific Islands in an intensifying rivalry with the United States. Asked to comment on the Reuters report, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department responded using the abbreviation of the People's Republic of China: "We do not believe importing security forces from the PRC will help any Pacific Island country. Instead, doing so risks fueling regional and international tensions." The official added that Washington did not tolerate China's "transnational repression efforts," including its attempts to establish police stations around the world. "We are concerned about the potential implications security agreements and security-related cyber cooperation with the PRC may have for any Pacific Island nation's autonomy," the spokesperson said. Kiribati is considered strategic not only given its relative proximity to Hawaii, but because it has one of world's biggest exclusive economic zones, covering more than 3.5 million square km (1.35 million square miles) of the Pacific. It hosts a Japanese satellite tracking station and China has announced plans to rebuild a World War Two U.S. military airstrip on Kiribati's Kanton Island, prompting U.S. concern. The United States countered with a pledge in October to upgrade the wharf on Kanton island, a former U.S. military base, and said it wants to open an embassy in Kiribati. Here are the biggest calls on Wall Street on Wednesday: Stifel upgrades J.M. Smucker to buy from hold Stifel said it sees "underlying momentum" for shares of J.M. Smucker. "Our outlook for the near-term reflects base business momentum supported by a stable of strong brands driving a balanced topline growth including volume/mix growth a standout relative to the company's packaged foods peers." Loop initiates Dell as buy Loop said it sees "structural upside to Street earnings per share." "Initiating Buy and $125 PT (37% appreciation) as we believe not only is there material upside to Street estimates through CY2026 / FY2027, but also that DELL has an opportunity to alter the narrative around the stock such that a material valuation re-rating can occur." Morgan Stanley reiterates Apple as overweight Morgan Stanley said it's standing by Apple amid reports the company canceled its car project. "The reported cancellation of Apple's 'Project Titan', if true, would be a positive development that 1) should allow the company to repurpose assets towards more important initiatives like Gen AI, and 2) shows relative cost discipline." Barclays reiterates Microsoft as overweight Barclays says investments made in advertising are a "$50 billion opportunity" for Microsoft. "We believe the investments Microsoft has made in advertising warrant a new look, particularly amidst the backdrop of ongoing antitrust action in both the U.S and Europe, and as a result of industry changes from AI." Bank of America reiterates Nvidia as buy Bank of America says the next catalyst for Nvidia is its global artificial intelligence conference on March 18. " NVDA leading charge in data center, gaming upcycle still strong." Goldman Sachs reiterates First Solar as buy Goldman Sachs said it's standing by its buy rating on the solar stock following earnings on Tuesday. "FSLR reported 4Q23 results, with revenue coming in below estimates but reported EPS above expectations." Bank of America reiterates Apple as buy Bank of America said its survey checks on Apple's iPhone "signals incoming iPhone refresh cycle and strong customer loyalty." "We update our global smartphone survey, conducted across the US, UK, China, and India. We saw an elongation of iPhone refresh cycle with 41% of respondents in Feb 24 (vs. 36% from our last published report in Feb 22) indicating intent to upgrade their phones every 4 or more years." Goldman Sachs reiterates Salesforce as buy Goldman Sachs said it sees "upside" heading into Salesforce earnings Wednesday afternoon. "We reiterate our Buy rating and $345 PT as we see conviction in the stock building after management provides initial CY24 guidance with 4Q24 earnings (2/28) and investors discern areas of upside." KeyBanc upgrades Constellation Energy to overweight from sector weight KeyBanc said in its upgrade of the energy company that growth is "crystalized." "We are upgrading shares of CEG to OW following 4Q23 results and discussion." Raymond James upgrades Revolve to outperform from market perform Raymond James said in its upgrade of Revolve that it has "growing confidence" in the retailer. "Upgrading to Outperform; Signs of Underlying Improvement Support Positive 2024 Inflection." JPMorgan upgrades Apollo Global to overweight from neutral JPMorgan said the asset manager is "well positioned for growth in private credit." "We see Apollo as among the better positioned publicly traded alternative asset managers to capitalize on secular trends such as the proliferation of private credit and an aging population needing reliable income for retirement." Bernstein downgrades Stellantis to market perform from outperform Bernstein downgraded the auto company on valuation. "Investors have caught on to Stellantis' improved margins and cash generation. Over the past 6 months the stock is up +43%. Relative to its auto peers this is a fair valuation for Stellantis with balanced risks and opportunities." JMP initiates Gritstone Bio as market outperform JMP said it sees an attractive risk/reward for the biotech company. "Readout in colorectal cancer (CRC) this quarter important to set the tone for Gritstone's platforms; we initiate coverage at Market Outperform with a risk-adjusted, DCF-derived $4 price target on Gritstone bio." Barclays initiates Weatherford as overweight Barclays says the oil services company is a "reborn industry player." "WFRD has undergone a radical transformation, breaking hard with its past to create a disciplined, accountable organization focused on generating higher margins and FCF." Barclays upgrades Ecolab as overweight from equal weight Barclays says it has "strong visibility" for the food safety company. " because in the ST [short term], tactically the good news is out there and the high valuations that ECL sits on could warrant some patience. However, we do think it will get bought on any market-related pullbacks." Barclays upgrades Bright Horizons to overweight from equal weight Barclays said in its upgrade of the child care company that it sees a solid outlook. "Given BFAM's long-only and mostly supportive investor base though, patience is not in any shortage and why we upgrade to OW. " Cantor Fitzgerald initiates Desktop Metal as buy Cantor Fitzgerald said the manufacturing company has an "attractive collection of assets." "We initiate coverage of Desktop Metal with an Overweight rating and a 12-month $1.25 price target." Loop reiterates Snap as buy Loop lowered its price target on the stock to $19 per share from $21, but says it's standing by shares of Snap . "The company appears to be making progress in regaining monetization momentum, but the next two quarters will likely be make-or-break for the bull case in our view." KBW upgrades LendingTree to outperform from market perform KBW said it's bullish on the online lender's insurance segment. "We are upgrading TREE to Outperform and increasing our PT to $45, implying 38% upside." Guggenheim reiterates McDonald's as buy Guggenheim said it's standing by its buy rating on the stock. "Coming out of earnings season, the near-term and medium-term setup for McDonald's looks achievable." Craig-Hallum upgrades Grocery Outlet Holdings to buy from hold Craig-Hallum upgraded the grocery chain following its earnings report on Tuesday. " Grocery Outlet delivered another strong report in Q4 with upside on sales and EBITDA despite drag from systems enhancements." An inflatable bull during a ceremony marking the first day of trading of the year at the Korea Exchange (KRX) headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024. SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images South Korea's Japan-style measures for improving corporate governance may not be enough to boost its undervalued stock markets and tackle the so-called "Korea discount." The country's Financial Services Commission on Monday revealed its "Corporate Value-up Program," aimed at supporting shareholder returns through incentives including tax benefits. Asia's fourth-largest economy is striving to boost stock market valuations that are considered much lower compared to peers, with analysts referring to the phenomenon as the "Korea discount." The FSC program is similar to that of Japan's, whose corporate governance push to boost shareholder returns as well as robust earnings have driven Tokyo markets to record highs after 34 years. South Korea's steps, while similar to those taken by Japan, may not prove to be as successful. The 'chaebol' problem South Korean markets are made up of corporations called "chaebols," which are large family-owned global conglomerates, typically controlled by the founder's family. Notable chaebols include Samsung Electronics, LG, SK and Hyundai. The chaebols are also part of the reason behind the Korea discount as under these majority family-owned structures, minority stakeholders have little influence on strategic decisions. watch now "Key issue is that 'Korea discount' exists because controlling shareholders take disproportional benefits," said James Lim, senior research analyst at Dalton Investments, while noting that Korea has more companies with strong controlling shareholders versus Japan. "That's where the challenge lies." Resistance from controlling shareholders makes changes difficult and slow, but if authorities take measures that would align with the interests of both the controlling as well as minority shareholders they could be implemented faster. FSC has asked listed companies on the Korean Stock Exchange to "voluntarily set up and disclose valuation enhancement plans," as part of its efforts to introduce more transparency and boost market returns. The FSC will frame detailed guidelines and set up a dedicated web portal in June so companies can disclose their plans in the second half of 2024. Jonathan Pines, lead portfolio manager of Asia ex-Japan at Federated Hermes said there are far more family-controlled companies in South Korea that are now deriving "substantial financial benefit from the regulatory status quo." "The behavior that leads to South Korea's low stock prices is motivated, and therefore seeking to coax South Korean controlling families into 'being nice' to minority stockholders is unlikely to be successful," Pines said. More steps needed South Korean authorities have sought to ease registration requirements for foreign investors, curb short selling, extend trading hours and revise dividend record dates, among other actions, aimed at improving market valuations. But experts say FSC needs to make more concerted efforts for a significant boost to the markets. "While the [latest] initiatives show Korea taking a step in the right direction, bigger steps need to be taken to address corporate practices that favor controlling stakeholders usually the founding families over smaller shareholders," Daniel Tan, Singapore-based portfolio manager, Grasshopper Asset Management told CNBC. watch now Company: Sidley Austin Title: Management Committee Chair & Executive Committee Member Industry: Legal Hometown: Dallas, Texas Notable in 2023: Fought for reproductive rights in Texas, and led Sidley Austin past $3 billion in revenue for the first time. Yvette Ostolaza is the first Hispanic, and first woman, to ever lead 157-year-old law firm Sidley Austin, and in breaking down barriers at the firm, Ostolaza is breaking down barriers at the highest levels of the white-collar legal industry. With Sidley Austin ranked by American Lawyer at No. 6 based on gross revenue in 2023, Ostolaza is the first Hispanic women to lead any top 10 law firm. Its revenue reached over $3 billion for the first time under her leadership. Ostolaza rose to the top spot at Sidley Austin after serving as global co-leader for its litigation group, a team of 750 Sidley litigators responsible for $800 million in revenue, which would place the group itself among the 50 largest U.S. law firms. During her time as head of the firm's Dallas office, she grew that team from 15 to over 125 lawyers serving clients including AT&T, American Airlines, and Neiman Marcus. Ostolaza, along with Beatriz Azcuy, co-managing partner of Sidley's Miami office and head of its real estate group, oversaw the opening of the firm's newest office in Miami, with 50 lawyers serving 700 clients. They share something else in common, according to a profile in the The Miami Herald: Ostolaza and Azcuy are among the less than 1% of Hispanic female lawyers in the United States that have risen to become partner in a law firm. "I try to spend a lot of time giving back to the community and making sure that other people know that your parents can be immigrants and you can end up running the firm that Mary Todd Lincoln used, and Barack Obama's firm," Ostolaza told the Miami newspaper. (Both Barack and Michelle Obama worked at Sidley Austin.) The rules for the implementation of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) for fast-tracking citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are likely to be issued before the Model Code of Conduct for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections comes into effect. The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) gets enforced immediately after the election schedule is announced, which is likely in the next fortnight. The rules for the CAA are likely to be issued before the MCC comes into effect, sources privy to the development said. When the rules for the CAA are issued, the Modi government will start granting Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who had come to India till December 31, 2014. The CAA was passed in December 2019 and it got the president's assent subsequently. However, the law could not be implemented so far as rules are a must for its implementation. There were massive protests in some parts of the country after the CAA was passed by Parliament. Over a hundred people lost their lives during the protests or police action. The Ministry of Home Affairs has readied a portal for the convenience of the applicants as the entire process will be online. The applicants will have to declare the year when they entered India without travel documents. No document will be sought from the applicants, an official said. According to the law, the benefits under the CAA will be given to the undocumented minorities from the three neighbouring countries. On December 27, 2023, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that no one can stop the implementation of the CAA as it is the law of the land and accused the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of misleading people on the issue. Addressing a party meeting in Kolkata, Shah said it is the BJP's commitment to implement the CAA. The TMC, led by Mamata Banerjee, has been opposing the CAA since the beginning. The promise of implementing the controversial CAA was a major poll plank of the BJP in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly polls in West Bengal. The saffron party's leaders consider it a plausible factor that led to the rise of the BJP in Bengal. According to the Manual on Parliamentary Work, the rules for any legislation should have been framed within six months of presidential assent or seek an extension from the Committees on Subordinate Legislation in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. Since 2020, the Home Ministry has been taking an extension at regular intervals from the parliamentary committee for framing the rules. Meanwhile, in the last two years, district magistrates and home secretaries of nine states have been given powers to grant Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan under the Citizenship Act, 1955. According to the annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs for 2021-22, from April 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, a total of 1,414 foreigners belonging to these non-Muslim minority communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were given Indian citizenship by registration or naturalization under the Citizenship Act, 1955. The nine states where Indian citizenship by registration or naturalisation is given under the Citizenship Act, 1955 to non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are: Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra. Interestingly, authorities of none of the districts of Assam and West Bengal, where the issue is politically very sensitive, have been given the powers so far. Colorado College is pleased to announce the appointment of Tony Cabasco as the new Vice President for Enrollment. Cabasco, currently serving as the Vice President for Enrollment at Bennington College in Vermont, will assume his new role on July 1. Cabasco brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to CC. With nearly 30 years of experience in higher education, he has consistently demonstrated a deep commitment to student success and access to education. His strategic approach to enrollment management, combined with his passion for fostering inclusive communities, aligns perfectly with Colorado College's mission and values. Under Cabascos guidance, the admissions team at Bennington College experienced consecutive years of record applications from 2021 to 2024. Notably, Cabasco successfully doubled the number of applications from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students, fostering a more diverse and inclusive student body. Furthermore, he tripled the number of applications from international students, enhancing the global perspective and cultural richness of the college community. Cabasco previously worked in college admissions at Whitman College in Washington for 24 years, serving as an admission officer, assistant director of admission, and associate director of admission before being named Director of Admission in 2000 after a national search. He was promoted to Dean of Admission & Financial Aid in 2004. During Cabascos tenure, Whitman saw record applications, an improved academic profile, expanded geographic diversity, and enhanced access for students of color, first generation students, and Pell Grant recipients. Executive search firm WittKiefer led the search for this position and a team from CC made the final decision. Tony shares Colorado Colleges commitment to academic excellence and our belief that talent is diverse, said Lori Seager, Search Chair and Chief Financial Officer. He has a history of thinking differently while achieving ambitious enrollment goals at Bennington and Whitman. Throughout the search process, Tony demonstrated his dynamic leadership and vision for the path forward. Just as importantly, he made it clear he is passionate about all that a CC education has to offer. Cabasco has served on the executive board of the Pacific Northwest Association for College Admission Counseling and as a faculty member in the College Boards Admission Summer Institute. He has presented on college admissions at professional conferences and secondary schools throughout the U.S. "I was attracted to Colorado College because of its commitment to providing the finest liberal arts education; the friendly, accomplished, and down-to-earth community members I met during the interview process; and the colleges dedication to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, Cabasco said. Ive admired the colleges innovative and distinctive Block Plan, which allows for creative pedagogical approaches that help prepare students for a lifetime of learning and active citizenship in a global community. I look forward to building relationships across the campus that will help advance the work of the enrollment division and support the mission of Colorado College. My family and I are excited to return to the West and will enjoy living in Colorado Springs, contributing to our new community, and taking advantage of outdoor adventures in the breathtaking Rockies. Cabasco holds a B.A. from Whitman College in Physics and an M.A. in International Studies from the University of Washington with an emphasis on Chinese Studies. After his undergraduate years, he also lived and taught English in China. Born in Vietnam, Cabasco also lived in the Philippines and Nigeria before immigrating to the U.S. As the Vice President for Enrollment, Cabasco will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of the college's enrollment strategy, including recruitment, admissions, financial aid, and enrollment marketing. He will work closely with the admissions team to continue attracting top-tier students who embody the college's commitment to academic excellence, intellectual curiosity, and social responsibility. Cabasco will replace Mark Hatch, who is retiring at the end of this academic year after serving in the role for 22 years and whose contributions will be celebrated before he retires. 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. Are you a current print subscriber to Columbia Gorge News? If so, you qualify for free access to all content on columbiagorgenews.com. Simply verify with your subscriber id to receive free access. Your subscriber id may be found on your bill or mailing label. (Posted Feb. 28, 2024) By Kristy Zurbrick, Madison Editor According to reports, a tornado tore through Madison County in the early morning hours of Feb. 28, causing damage to homes, barns, outbuildings, and more. The damage was severe in several cases, including major damage at the Madison County Airport. As of early afternoon that day, there were no reports of injuries. Madison County Sheriff John Swaney reported that the National Weather Service notified the Sheriffs Office shortly after 5 a.m. with the report of a possible tornado. The radio room also received several 911 calls. Swaney said that, in the process of going out to check out the situation, one of his deputies ended up involved in the tornado and radioed that he was in it. The deputy was not hurt, Swaney said. The tornado then hit a house in Summerford and destroyed it, then moved east toward the airport where it demolished one entire hangar and severely damaged several others and some planes, Swaney said. He reported that the tornado then traveled across U.S. Route 40 to the grounds of Ohio State Universitys Molly Caren Agricultural Center, home of the annual Farm Science Review, where it damaged and destroyed several buildings. Continuing east, it leveled a house on Lafayette-Plain City Road just north of Lafayette, also damaging electric poles and trees in the area, Swaney continued. From there, he said he doesnt know if the same tornado moved or another one developed, but a tornado touched down in the Glade Run Road area, south of U.S. Route 42. It continued eastbound, damaging numerous structures, like barns and yard barns and trees. Then it destroyed another residence on Wilson Road, Swaney reported. It continued east toward Franklin County, damaging some structures. Once it got to Roberts Road and Plain City-Georgesville Road (on the Franklin/Madison county line), it destroyed another house. Swaney said he is thankful no injuries were reported as a result of the tornado and storm. Were thinking that everyone took shelter in the center and lower areas of their residences due to the tornado sirens going off, he said. To handle the volume of calls coming in, the Sheriffs Office centralized all units and had staff come in early, ahead of their normal shifts. We were able to respond to the calls that we were getting, offering assistance and aid to the residents who needed it, Swaney said. The Sheriffs Office, Madison County Engineers Office, and West Jefferson post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol worked together to close roadways where needed for safety reasons and to aid the power companies in getting into certain areas to fix damage and restore power. Were continuing to respond to any calls that we may get or damage reported, Swaney said on the afternoon of Feb. 28. Deb Sims, director of the Madison County Emergency Management Agency (EMA), reported that she and Holly Langham, deputy director, went out to the hardest hit properties to provide assistance where needed. They were accompanied later that morning by representatives of the Ohio EMA to assess damages to the area. Sims also reported that representatives of the National Weather Service were scheduled to visit the county on Feb. 29 to make assessments. Google Cloud has joined AWS and Europe-based Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) in protesting Microsofts anticompetitive cloud software licensing practices in the EU. Microsofts cloud licensing restrictions restrict choice and create harmful downstream impacts for companies, ranging from higher costs to more security breaches to a chilling effect on smaller cloud and software providers including European AI startups, Amit Zavery, vice president of platforms at Google Cloud, wrote on X. Microsoft should end the arbitrary Listed Provider designation and allow customers to run their previously purchased software on any platform without paying as much as 5x more to use non-Azure clouds, Zavery said, adding that Microsoft shouldnt be permitted to pick and choose who it competes with. Zavery was adding to the narrative, which rose from a complaint submitted by CISPE to the EU in November 2022, claiming that Microsofts new cloud software licensing terms published in October of that year were bad for the EUs cloud ecosystem. The new cloud software licensing terms were published in the first place by Microsoft in an effort to avoid another complaint brought on by German software provider NextCloud, Frances OVHcloud, Italian cloud service provider Aruba, and a Danish association of cloud service providers. In his interview with Reuters, Zavery claimed that Microsofts anticompetitive software licensing practices for the cloud will also have a ripple effect on emerging technologies such as generative AI and AI in general. However, it is to be noted that both companies are competing fiercely in generative AI and the extended AI segment, with Microsoft gaining an upper hand by releasing tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot ahead of Googles release of Duet AI and Gemini. Conflicting views on the issue Although Zavery pointed out the expensive nature of Microsofts licensing policies, Daniel Castro, director of the Center for Data Innovation at think tank ITIF, said he believes Microsofts licensing terms are fair and especially not anticompetitive in nature. Microsofts Services Provider License Agreement is available to any cloud provider. Indeed, many of Microsofts competitors use it to offer Microsoft services. For example, Amazon offers Microsoft SQL Server and Active Directory on AWS. Competitors can offer Microsoft software, but quite reasonably, Microsoft wants them to pay for these licenses, Castro explained. Microsoft refuted Zaverys claims and said that it has worked with independent cloud providers to change its licensing terms to address their concerns. Worldwide, more than 100 cloud providers have already taken advantage of these changes, a Microsoft spokesperson said. However, Zavery took exception to Microsofts approach of working with individual vendors and called it a tactic of avoiding broader issues while taking advantage of picking and choosing vendors they want to deal with. We will continue to raise these issues on behalf of our customers. This should be a transparent process where all affected stakeholders have a seat at the table. Only a resolution that is fair for all in the cloud market will create a level playing field for all, Zavery wrote on X tagging the EU handle. Along with the complaint by CISPE, the European Commission has received other complaints against Microsoft recently. Last year, it began looking into a complaint regarding Microsofts bundling of Teams with Microsoft 365. On the contrary, however, ITIFs Castro said CISPE may be using EU antitrust regulators, who already have a bone to pick with US tech companies, to strengthen their position at the negotiating table. While software licensing could conceivably be a factor in some cases, it is unlikely to be a key factor in shaping this market, Castro said, explaining the rationale behind his belief and adding that hyperscalers such as Microsoft are competing based on factors such as reliability and security. Additionally, concerns raised by both CISPE and Zavery rake up the issue about the revenue of hyperscalers and the smaller vendors operating in the EU. While on one hand, Forresters senior analyst Dario Maisto pointed out that anticompetitive practices can have a snowball effect on revenues and market share of certain vendors, Microsoft has cited independent research to show that competition between cloud providers in the Union remained healthy. And as the latest independent data shows, competition between cloud hyperscalers remains healthy. In 2023, Microsoft and Google made small gains on AWS, which continues to remain the global market leader by a significant margin, the Microsoft spokesperson said. Microsoft faces similar challenges in the UK The UK has also seen hyperscalers embroiled in controversy over anti-competitive practices in their cloud offerings. Last year in December, Amazon Web Services (AWS) blamed Microsoft for anti-competitive practices in the cloud computing segment in a letter to the UKs Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). AWS's letter came after the CMA launched an antitrust probe into Microsoft and Amazons cloud services in October. The CMA probe was initiated after UK communications regulator Ofcom in July referred the cloud infrastructure market for investigation around anti-competitive practices in cloud computing to the CMA post the publication of an interim report. The interim report said that existing cloud customers in the UK are paying more than they should be for their cloud infrastructure or having to settle for low-quality services and that the regulator had heard concerns from some customers about their inability to switch or use multiple providers. During that time, an AWS spokesperson said the company disagrees with Ofcoms findings and believes they are based on a fundamental misconception of how the IT sector functions, and the services and discounts on offer. AWS had also denied charging customers separate fees for switching data to another IT provider, stating that its customers make hundreds of millions of data transfers each day in the ordinary course of business, and over 90% of our customers pay nothing for data transfer because we provide them with 100 gigabytes per month for free. In November, Google Cloud too had shared a letter with the CMA blaming Microsoft for anti-competitive practices around cloud offerings. In its interim report, Ofcom said that AWS and Microsoft Azure had a combined UK market share of between 60% and 70%, while the next nearest competitor, Alphabet-owned Google, has a 5% to 10% share. The CMA, which is expected to close the investigation by April 2025, puts the UKs cloud computing market at $9.44 billion (7.5 billion). Researchers at Yale looked into the impact of generalized anxiety disorder or GAD on military veterans. According to their published study, they found that 7.9% of veterans screened positive for probable GAD, compared to 2.9%of the general adult population in the United States. Additionally, almost a quarter of veterans reported experiencing mild anxiety disorders. Socio-demographic and other factors The researchers identified several factors associated with GAD and mild anxiety among veterans, including multiple deployments, young age, female gender and belonging to racial or ethnic minorities. Those with probable GAD were more likely to have combat experience and higher rates of suicidal ideation and attempts. Using data from the National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study from 2019 to 2020, the researchers examined various sociodemographic and military factors linked to anxiety symptoms, highlighting the need for comprehensive screening measures. Lead researcher Grace Macdonald-Gagnon explained that even mild anxiety symptoms can lead to significant psychiatric and functional difficulties. She emphasized the importance of early identification and intervention. Researcher and professor Robert H. Pietrzak proposed delivering brief screening measures in primary care settings, particularly within the Veterans Health Administration, to improve access to mental health care for veterans. He suggested that such screenings could also be implemented in non-veteran-specific settings like college mental health clinics. Destigmatizing mental health concerns for veterans Despite growing awareness of mental health issues of veterans, challenges such as stigma, access barriers, and lack of services persist. Macdonald-Gagnon advocated refining mental health resource referral processes for veterans on college campuses like Yale, ensuring they receive adequate support during their transition to campus life. Jason Hug, a professional student at Yale Law School and the Jackson School of Global Affairs, stressed the importance of institutional support for veteran students, emphasizing the need for representation and assistance while navigating resources like the Post-9/11 GI Bill. As of November 2023, Yale estimated over 200 student veterans across the college and graduate schools, highlighting the significance of tailored support for this population. What the #$%&? While some cursing is no longer verboten on network television, the F-bomb is still a weapon of mass destruction, the swear that sends shivers up the spine of every censor that ever bleeped a bleep. Saturday Night Live has a long history with the expletive, earning some guests a lifetime ban (or not) and costing others their jobs. Heres a ranking of the most notorious F-bombs in SNL history 8 Sam Rockwell: The Mr. Science Slip At least he was in character. Rockwell as the frustrated Mr. Science dropped two F-bombs into the Bunsen burner while venting about extremely dumb kids. Because Rockwell did the deed in 2018, the swearing didnt make nearly the splash that earlier utterances did. 7 Kristen Stewart: The Overexcited F-Bomb Advertisement Advertisement Same goes for Stewart, who described her 2017 hosting experience as the coolest f***ing thing. America didnt care, but Kate McKinnon nearly lost her dang mind. 6 Samuel L. Jackson: The Whats Up With That? Advertisement Jackson told Leslie Jones that he got a lifetime ban from SNL after firing off the F-word during a Whats Up With That? sketch. Not true, says Kenan Thompson. He dropped the F-bomb on the show, but he says I was supposed to cut him off before that, Thompson told Jimmy Fallon. We kinda expect the F-word out of Sam Jackson, so no harm done. Then he doubled down and said it again, and I was like, Yo, my man, we got to pay for those.' As for the ban? Thompson says Jackson is welcome back anytime. Advertisement 5 Norm Macdonald: The Not-Quite-Farewell Performance Advertisement During a Weekend Update installment, Macdonald tripped over a setup, causing him to loudly clear his throat and wonder, What the fuck was that? Once the words slipped past his lips, a laughing Macdonald realized what hed done. As the audience cheered the inappropriate bungle, Macdonald announced that this was likely my farewell performance. As it turned out, NBC execs were more concerned about his O.J. jokes. Advertisement 4 Prince: The Thank God for Charles Rocket On the very same night that Charles Rocket infamously flung his F-bomb, musical guest Prince did the same thing during his performance of Party Up which included the phrase fuckin bore. Because song lyrics can fly by pretty quickly, no one seems to have caught it. Prince is just one of several musical acts whove gotten away with F-bomb flagrant fouls over the years, including Morris Day and the Time, Aerosmith, R.E.M. and Janet Jackson. Advertisement 3 Paul Shaffer: The Original F-Bomber While Rocket gets the notoriety for dropping the first SNL F-bomb, the honor actually belongs to Paul Shaffer, who did the deed one season earlier. Shaffer had been promoted to a featured player for Season Five and appeared in a sketch about medieval torture that used the word flogging as a swearing substitute. I got carried away, Shaffer confessed in the oral history Live From New York, and just without thinking, I said, You had the fucking beat before. Why didnt Shaffer get more grief? Nobody noticed I said fuck because we were doing these bad English accents. You couldnt hear it, it wasnt really clear. I remember Laraine (Newman) coming over to me right after and saying, Thank you for making broadcast history. And then Lorne (Michaels) came over and said, You just broke the last barrier. Advertisement Advertisement 2 Jenny Slate: The Inauspicious Beginning Advertisement You can almost hear the slow-motion Oooooohhhhh nooooooooo in Jenny Slates head when she dropped an F-bomb during her first ever SNL sketch. Some believe the goof was the reason Slate got fired from SNL but she told InStyle thats not true. By the way, everyone always thinks I got fired for saying fuck: I didnt, that's not why I got fired, she says. I just didnt belong there. I didnt do a good job, I didnt click. I have no idea how Lorne felt about me. All I know is, it didnt work for me, and I got fired. Advertisement David Spade says that The Golden Bachelor star Gerry Turner wasnt completely forthcoming about his dating history before he started his quest for companionship. Apparently, Spade figured out that the women of the Playboy Mansion like a man who tells the truth. On the surface, Spade doesnt immediately strike you as a top-level showbusiness lothario of a George Clooney or Leonardo DiCaprio caliber, which is exactly why his legendary love life is that much more impressive. Some ladys men arent born with the impossibly perfect features that scream movie star or models baby daddy. No, these 5-foot-7 kings of men must use their resourcefulness, their artistry and the vaguely defined but clearly identifiable quality now known as rizz to woo the worlds most beautiful and successful women. The Saturday Night Live veteran Spade is such a man and he has some qualms with the conventionally attractive septuagenarian and possible Casanova conman who just stole the hearts of AARP-aged audiences across America. During his appearance on last nights Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Spade gave his thoughts on the much-reported discrepancies between Turners confessed backstory on The Golden Bachelor and his actual personal history leading up to his time on the dating show where middle-to-advanced-aged women competed for Turners companionship. He did not, however, blast the Golden Bachelor producers for stealing his idea for a future retirement to The Villages. Advertisement I was listening to Golden Bachelor on audio, Spade joked at the top of the interview, Its a good idea its a guy, hes older, probably my age. His wife passed away, he hasnt dated since, hes finally going to find his true (love). However, Spade, like many other Golden Bachelor fans, read The Hollywood Reporters bombshell expose on Turners dating history that revealed how, contradicting Turners claims that he hadnt dated in 45 years, he had, in fact, enjoyed an active love life since his wife of 43 years tragically passed away, including a 10-month relationship with a former co-worker who was 14 years his junior. Said Spade of the scandal, After a while, some lady comes forward and goes, You know, I dated him for nine months, and hes like, (pretends to puff cigarette) Oh, that skeezer? That was sort of a hit and run. Yeah, no. Dont hate the player! Spade reacted, Oh, hes not exactly what I thought he was. Advertisement Spade, on the other hand, wouldnt have the luxury of hiding his dramatic romantic history should he host such a competition as The Golden Bachelor in 2017, E! News crowned the Tommy Boy star their Comedy Casanova, detailing his long history of dating many of the most admired models and actresses in show business. The B-list bachelors list of exes includes Miss USA Kelli McCarty, Twin Peaks star Lara Flynn Boyle, actresses Teri Hatcher, Kristy Swanson, Krista Allen, Heather Locklear and Julie Bowen as well as Playboy Playmate Jillian Grace, with whom he has a daughter. So, if anyone knows a thing or two about keeping it cool regarding your voluminous and voluptuous sexual history when courting a new companion, its Spade. Apparently, honesty is the best policy for older guys looking for new love but a quick wit and veritable lions mane that lasts well into your fifties doesnt hurt, either. Like standup comedy where every single thing is funny and doesn't waste your time? Follow Cracked Comedy Club on Instagram & YouTube for exactly that. CFTR, firing up a brand new Doobie for you, Brothers!. Its 1:06 with Long Train Runnin because you asked for it at 870-9181. This ones for Mimico, thats right! Thats Toronto disc jockey Rick Allan coming at you all night long with 1973s hottest hits. Comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff recently shared this clip of a silver-tongued devil we later came to know as Rick Moranis. While neither Allan or Moranis opted for a long-term career in radio, it was the comics first foray into show business. I got a job spinning records for deejays when I was in high school, so the appeal was the fact that it was paying $3.00 an hour, Moranis told IGN back in 2006. It was an unusual and very exciting and fun job. That led to producing shows and then landing the all-night shift at CFTR at only 19 years old. Fair to say he wasnt full-on Moranis at that point. I think my voice might have been up a little. Half an octave higher than it probably needed to be, he admitted. I think I was stiff until I got very comfortable performing myself. Advertisement The radio station programmed his playlists, but young Moranis was already defining his musical tastes Obviously the dominance of what was called rock at that time, having been exposed to all the music of the 60's from the British Invasion, Motown and the California sound of the Beach Boys, he said. That led to discovering some of the more interesting bands that were coming out of England and the States that were doing what became known as album-oriented rock. The AOR format. Be it Led Zeppelin or Genesis or American bands like Spirit, or the early Steve Miller Band. Jethro Tull. Advertisement Moranis fell in love with radio picking up huge American radio stations, whose signals carried further in the wee hours. It was early in the evolution of FM radio in those days, and the nature of the transmission signals was such that you could pick up the big 50,000 watt stations out of Boston, out of Chicago, and places even further away than that just because of atmospheric and weather conditions, he said. I was mesmerized by big-city American radio those formats, those styles, hadn't been picked up by Canadian radio yet. Advertisement While Moranis mimicked the patter of the big-city stations he loved, his radio career was short-lived. Like many DJs in both America and Canada, he was a victim of new managers bringing in new guys. He didnt give much time to thinking about another radio job. I was still finishing high school and on my way to college, he says. So I didn't even see broadcasting as a career choice. I grew up in a culture, in a household, in an environment where I was under the impression that I would have to do something professional and in the words of my parents, legitimate." You know. Like comedy. According to Fox News, cancel culture is when a comedy club that is located in the most liberal neighborhood of one of Americas most liberal cities finally realizes that their target audience might not line up around the block to hear Kurt Metzgers rape jokes. Last week, the Capitol Hill Comedy Bar in Seattle, Washington made headlines across the conservative comedy sphere for an email they sent out to four prominent comics who had shows booked at the club for this upcoming spring and summer. Legion of Skanks podcast co-hosts Luis J. Gomez and Dave Smith, VH1 and Crank Yankers star Jim Florentine and former Inside Amy Schumer writer Metzger all received an apologetic notice from Capitol Hill Comedy Bar informing them that the venue had struck their planned shows from the schedule, with the club citing its progressive values and negative feedback from our team, investors, local comedians, and neighborhood advocacy groups as its reasons for the cancellation. Critically, the Capitol Hill Comedy Bar is situated in Seattles CHAZ neighborhood, or the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, an area that became a central hotbed of protests and progressive activity following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Metzger, Gomez, Smith and Florentine all lie on the libertarian-to-full-on-Fox-guest spectrum, as is reflected in their stand-up routines, and Metzger is arguably best known for defending both rape humor and a comedian accused of rape in separate Facebook feuds. So to me, the real shocker in this story isnt that all these Joe Rogan-adjacent comics got bumped from an ultra-liberal comedy club its that anyone at Capitol Hill Comedy Bar ever thought that CHAZ audiences wanted to spend their summer and their money watching a bunch of Gutfeld! guests rant about gender neutral bathrooms. Advertisement Following the comedians public flogging of the Capitol Hill Comedy Bar, Fox News wrote two articles in two days about the pressing story with two different spellings of the word cancellation. In the most recent piece, Fox quoted Metzgers interview on the conservative talk radio program The Jason Rantz Show, in which Metzger claimed that the Capitol Hill Comedy Bar will go woke, go broke, saying, "They're going to go out of business. They don't have real comics coming in. I looked at the lineup. It's kind of sad." Gomez commented on the canceled shows during a recent episode of Legion of Skanks, telling his co-hosts of the Capitol Hill Comedy Bar, Are they idiots for booking us and then unbooking us? Yes, its a dumb move. Gomez says that the bad decisions didnt stop there, however, adding, Is my former agent an idiot for booking me at a super woke progressive venue that like the entire lineup is like blue haired freaks? Advertisement This is the crux of the issue a cursory glance at the Twitter feed of any one of the comedians at the heart of this story should give the average comedy fan the impression that, maybe, Metzger, Gomez, Smith and Florentine wouldn't be well-received at a club situated in one of the most leftist locations in the country that also has regular shows with names like Queers to the Front. However, and this is equally important, none of these comics will have any trouble at all booking shows at theaters where audiences actually want to see them following this story in fact, the publicity theyre getting among the anti-woke comedy crowd is basically free targeted marketing. If I was Gomez fired agent, Id win my job back by booking him on the inevitable Fox Nation Seattle Snowflakes stand-up special. Chinese VP meets WWF chief Xinhua) 16:55, February 28, 2024 BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on Wednesday met with Kirsten Schuijt, director general of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International, calling for closer cooperation to tackle global challenges in ecological conservation. Han said the Chinese government has firmly established and practiced the concept of green development and has made remarkable achievements in building a beautiful China. WWF International is a prominent global environmental protection organization that collaborated with China on giant panda protection in the 1980s. Since then, it has made positive contributions to China's ecological conservation and sustainable development. Han added that the natural environment is a foundation of human suvival, which is hard to restore once sabotaged. China attaches great importance to environmental protection, and is a participant, contributor and trailblazer in the effort to build a global ecological civilization. China is ready to conduct closer cooperation with WWF International to jointly cope with the global challenges in ecological conservation. Schuijt spoke highly of the role China has been playing in global nature conservation and ecological governance. She said the organization is willing to strengthen its cooperation with China in protecting global biological diversity and promoting a sustainable development worldwide. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) In a year full of national elections, security pundits and practitioners are focused on the shape of influence campaigns in 2024. With more than a third of the worlds population heading to the ballot box in more than 50 elections worldwide, the threat of disinformation powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and shaped by a tense international arena feels more significant than in years past. In the West, government officials have voiced concerns about the political process involving controversial candidates and issues, where the impact of novel attacks such as compromise of polling systems or use of deepfakes to suggest vote tampering might amplify insecurity. Recent research by this author and his colleagues in the Journal of Cybersecurity offers a fresh take on one kind of digital threat to democracy that is often overlooked or mislabeled that of cyber-enabled influence operations (CEIO). Conversation about the information threat to democracies in 2024 often centers on cyber influence operations or election hacking. These discussions often conflate two separate kinds of interference and compromise. Influence operations involve attempts to degrade, corrupt, or subvert the national information environment for gain. Cyber operations involve disruption, espionage, and subversion of information infrastructure. Our research engages the idea that CEIO exist, but we often dont clearly see what they might mean for our democracy because we tend to overfocus on acts that are more one thing than the other. In particular, we clarify the character of CEIO by studying the footprint of foreign-backed malign information operations. Attacks on voting infrastructure or high-profile compromise of politically relevant systems are often less effective at aiding influence campaigns than they sound. Instead, malware deployed to enhance the spread of social network connectivity and disinformation presents as a critical feature of sophisticated influence operations. It can overcome constraints faced by foreign malign actors and amplify attempts to reach broad sections of Western population. How influence and cyber operations differ How do cyberattacks aid attempts to generate influence? Many experts argue that they really dont. The logic of each activity for political purposes is quite different. Cyber operations, while occasionally used to degrade national security capabilities, typically follow the format of intelligence operations in that they emphasize access, compromise of systems, and secrecy to achieve strategically valuable goals (e.g., IP theft or performative sabotage). Influence operations manipulate and corrupt information conditions to achieve persuasive effects (e.g., for political deception or distraction). While there are similarities, the operational shape of cyber and influence operations ends up being quite distinct. Both need secrecy for success, for instance. With influence operations, however, secrecy matters much more after an attack is launched due to the need to sustain effects. The opposite is generally true for cyber activities. Likewise, while cyber operations subvert systems by making them act in ways not intended, the mechanisms of doing so are syntactic or rely on narrow social engineering attacks. Access, in other words, is possible via manipulation of tangible systems. Influence operations also seek to subvert but compromise and access are psychological outcomes, at least above the level of campaign tactics. You can hack a social media account, but actual influence requires shaping the information environment via less direct methods of sociopolitical messaging. This is made harder by the attackers need to avoid revealing themselves and risk the credibility of an influence operations messaging, which is not always true for cyber activities. Photo: Courtesy of Treasure Trunk Theater A luxury building in Fort Greene is making a new push on an unusual perk free summer camp. While the amenity arms race is nothing new, the Ashland has chosen an opportune moment to remind prospective tenants that a week of free child care is included in its offerings. The tower at 250 Ashland Place near the border of Downtown Brooklyn has paired with Treasure Trunk Theatre, a Brooklyn-based theatrical arts program for children, to host a free camp during a week in which many camps arent available this year, August 19 to August 23. The Ashland has been providing the camp hookup for the past three years (this will be the fourth), according to a spokesperson from the Gotham Organization, the towers developer. This years theme will be a Taylor Swift one. (Previous camps have been met with rave reviews, per the spokesperson.) More than 80 percent of New York families cant afford child care, Gothamist recently reported, and parents across the city are currently sending in their applications for free 3-K and universal preschool ahead of a March 1 deadline. However, the Ashland camp isnt exactly a salve for most households: two bedrooms run from roughly $5,000 to $8,000 a month in the building. 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. Posters of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip as their families gather in Re'im, southern Israel, as they begin their march to Jerusalem calling for the release of hostages, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. They began the four-day march at the site where hundreds of revelers at the Nova music festival were killed or captured by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov) Without a jury, a criminal court is just a roomful of paid state employees deciding how to punish the accused. With a jury, it is a real trial in which the Crown has to prove its case. It is the most amazing piece of luck that we in Britain have this wonderful safety device. Our rulers never meant to give it to us. It grew by a series of accidents. The right to jury trial in Britain is much more a matter of custom than of absolute law, and would be quite easy to abolish slice by slice, while nobody was looking. Juries are pretty much unique to the Anglosphere, and pre-trial plea-bargaining has gravely weakened the system in the USA. On most of the planet, there is no such thing. Even in Europe, in practice, there are few independent juries. In France (where the German occupation was swift to get rid of juries in 1940) juries are rare and very unlike ours. They sit with the judge to determine the verdict rather than in private, and so are not fully independent of him. A new series by Channel 4 , The Jury: Murder Trial, dramatises a trial In the show, two juries separately asked to reach verdicts on the same case. It is an absurdity There was a brief fashion for juries on the Continent in the mid-19th century. But it did not last there or anywhere else. Juries were done away with in Germany in 1924, Singapore and South Africa in 1969, and India in 1973. So there is no real presumption of innocence in such places. Once you are arrested, you are pretty much invariably on a conveyor belt to a prison cell. The only question is how long you will stay there. Supposed experts speculate that juries are wrong a quarter of the time. How can they possibly know? From what I can discover, many of those who actually sit on juries are impressed by the carefulness and responsibility of their fellow jurors. They take this duty seriously. A new series by Channel 4, The Jury: Murder Trial, dramatises a trial, with two juries separately asked to reach verdicts on the same case. It is an absurdity. A real jury, where the jurors are not supposed to chat merrily about the trial as they do in the programme, would be very dull TV. But the C4 version is very unlike a jury. And, goodness, the claim that we are seeing a proper trial is false. I used to cover trials in my 20s in the Swindon Magistrates and Crown Court, and these snippets of evidence in the TV programme, with little serious questioning, are very unlike the real thing. The idea that this show is some sort of noble and serious experiment is pretty overblown. Ratings are its goal. In any case, the C4 trial is not about whether the defendant did the crime, the real task of the jury (he admits from the start that he smashed his wifes head in with a hammer). It is about whether he had so lost control of himself that this action was not murder. We are here deep in the land of psychobabble, in which hard facts (the jurys sole responsibility) are absent. So it is not really a very good test of a jury trial anyway. Here is what you need to know. Establishments all quietly hate juries. This is even though only a tiny percentage of criminal cases ever actually go before a jury, and fewer than half of these generally result in an acquittal. There is currently a campaign to remove juries from rape trials, even though about 75 per cent of the rape cases that actually reach court result in a conviction. No doubt, if this campaign succeeds, calls will follow for a general removal of juries, so that jury trial all but vanishes. Opponents go on about expense and unreliability, but that is not really what they dislike. Independent juries are a far greater limit on state power than democracy is. Without them, governments would be able to do what they liked to their enemies by locking them up more or less at will. In 1688, it was a free jury which saved this country from autocracy. Jurymen defied King James II in his attempt to imprison seven Church of England bishops who had stood up to his despotic bullying. The verdict triggered Jamess flight to France, where he sought shelter with his fellow autocrat Louis XIV. It was, in many ways, the key moment of the Glorious Revolution, when this became for the first time a free country. Since then political trials in Britain have been virtually impossible. Without juries, the police would be all-powerful (but not necessarily any better at pursuing crime, and probably even worse). So would magistrates and judges, as they tend to be on the continent. Far from being reformed to make them weaker, or replaced with panels of supposedly wise judges (theres not much evidence for the existence of such persons these days), juries badly need to be strengthened. For instance, we need unanimous verdicts back. Majority verdicts allow judges to rush juries into decisions which may well be wrong, by allowing the pro-conviction men and women in the room to override awkward doubters. Yet those doubters are quite capable of being right, particularly in cases where (as often happens nowadays) there is a lot of emotion in the courtroom, and not many facts. The famous Henry Fonda film Twelve Angry Men shows just such a reversal, as one man stands against 11 in a sweltering New York jury room. The 1957 film Twelve Angry Men, starring Henry Fonda (fifth from left), showed one man with 'reasonable doubt' standing up to his 11 fellow jurors who want to rush through a guilty verdict This could no longer take place in modern Britain because the pestilent reformer Roy Jenkins introduced majority verdicts when he was Home Secretary in the 1960s on the pretext of alleged jury-nobbling by criminal gangsters. A better answer would surely have been to prosecute any such nobbling attempt with great rigour. You cant help thinking that Jenkins wanted a pretext to weaken juries, which he instinctively saw as the enemies of his cultural and moral revolution. Many lawyers and judges were appalled, but Jenkins bulldozed his changes through. On June 6, 1967, one of our greatest judges, Lord Denning, put it like this. Saying that unanimous verdicts had operated for 600 years he declared: It is a fundamental principle of our English law that a jury should be unanimous; and the reason for that principle is that no man should be found guilty unless his guilt is proved beyond reasonable doubt. As long as there are twelve good men and true, and one or two of them conscientiously feel strong enough to dissent, that in itself shows that there is reasonable doubt. Not long afterwards, in 1974, the old unfair property qualification for jury service (whereby eligibility was limited to property owners) was abolished. But nothing - such as an education qualification - was put in its place. So it is now the case that anyone who is on the electoral roll (so at least 18 years old) may sit on a jury and help decide the fate of another human being. This must be another argument against the campaign for votes at 16, popular on the Left. Surely a way can be devised of ensuring that this vital job is done only by men and women with some experience of the world? But even if we cannot agree on such a reform, I would defend the jury, however flawed, against the alternative. It remains, as Sir William Blackstone said nearly 300 years ago the grand bulwark of his [every Englishmans] liberties. Do not be bamboozled, by TV programmes or anybody else, into giving it up. We dont have many murders in Oxford, my home town. Inspector Morse is a diverting fantasy that is far from reality. So I was intrigued to read a week or so ago about the case of Scarlet Blake, described as a woman. She was on trial at Oxford Crown Court for the murder of Jorge Martin Carreno, a 30-year-old Spanish man, in July 2021. It was reported that Blake, now 26, had picked up Carreno in the early hours in the centre of Oxford, close to the University Church and the Radcliffe Camera library. It is a beautiful part of the ancient city, seemingly far from the modern world. Blake and Carreno walked about a mile to Parsons Pleasure in the University Parks. Here, from the 19th century until 1991, male dons were permitted to bathe in the nude in the River Cherwell. It is an enchanting and peaceful place, which no one would associate with murder. Scarlet Blake is transgender, having transitioned aged 12, and been given puberty blockers when 17 and hormone treatment from the age of 18 Blake struck Carreno over the back of the head with a vodka bottle and choked him before pushing him into the river, where he drowned. When I read this account on the BBC Oxford website, I was taken aback. For one thing, it is much more common for men to kill women than the other way around. For another, it was surprising that a woman should have had the strength to dispatch a grown man as described. Now we know that the murderer isnt a woman. Scarlet Blake is transgender, having transitioned aged 12, and been given puberty blockers when 17 and hormone treatment from the age of 18, after a referral to the Tavistock NHS gender clinic. I should mention that Blake, the offspring of two doctors, was born in China and came to England as a nine-year-old. Despite the transitioning, the authorities evidently believe that Blake is essentially male. The killer has been kept in a Category A mens jail since arrest, and will serve a minimum sentence of at least 24 years (which many will think rather light in the circumstances) in a mens prison. This is a shocking story in several ways. It is shocking because of the location where the murder took place. People are occasionally assaulted in the Cowley Road, a rougher part of Oxford. But except perhaps in an episode of Inspector Morse, a savage murder and Parsons Pleasure dont fit together. Its also shocking because of what Blake did. I dont only mean the killing, which the trial judge Martin Chamberlain was explicit had a clear sexual motivation. When Blake was sentenced on Monday, the BBC correspondent Duncan Kennedy referred to the murderer as a woman, as did news anchor Ben Brown The inspiration for Blake's demonic act was a Netflix documentary, Dont F*** with Cats, about a man who kills a cat and a student Four months beforehand, Blake live-streamed a video strangling, skinning and dissecting a cat before dumping its body in a blender. The inspiration for this demonic act was a Netflix documentary, Dont F*** With Cats, about a man who kills a cat and a student. The recipient of the depraved video was Blakes girlfriend, Ashlynn Bell, nearly 5,000 miles away in America. Bell is a transgender escort with a passion for weapons who advertises herself on a website for trans prostitutes in Texas, where she charges $100 an hour for her services. She finally informed British police about the murder. We mustnt forget the diabolic role played by the internet, or the malign influence of a popular streaming service, in this appalling story. Yes, it is all shocking, almost unbelievable. How did we get here? What would our forefathers scurrying past the University Church and the Radcliffe Camera in their gowns have made of it? They wouldnt have understood. There is another shocking aspect to this ghastly tale, which in a way is equally inexplicable. It is a form of dishonesty and manipulation that shames us all. When Blake was sentenced on Monday, the BBC correspondent Duncan Kennedy referred to the murderer as a woman, as did news anchor Ben Brown. The BBC website was slightly more candid about Blakes transgender identity, with an article noting that she came out to her parents as transgender at 12. Our national broadcaster wasnt alone in censoring the truth. As the writer J. K. Rowling has pointed out, in reporting the sentence Sky News described Blake as a woman. An article on the broadcasters website did mention that Blake is transgender, but this was well down the piece. The Guardian was no less misleading. The newspaper used the word woman to describe Blake in the headline of an article about the case, while failing to mention in the text that the murderer was transgender. This so enraged a long-standing contributor to the Guardian, Louise Tickle, that she wrote to its editor accusing the newspaper of deceiving its readers, and leaving them unaware that Blake was a male killer. She declared that nowhere in the piece did I pick up any reference to the killer being transgender. But describing Blake for what he is a male who has transitioned in a process that is clearly not complete should be a sacred duty for any journalist who cares about the truth The concealment of Blakes sex is a kind of insult to poor Jorge Martin Carreno, the murdered man, pictured. He was apparently deceived into thinking that Scarlet Blake was a woman The Guardian was evidently stung by these criticisms as it subsequently amended its online version of the article to include the fact that Blake has a transgender identity. Nonetheless, this was information that had been initially withheld from readers or deliberately concealed. This is a very serious omission, and least forgivable in the case of the BBC, which as a public service broadcaster supported by the licence fee has a special responsibility not to twist the truth to suit a politically correct agenda. Some half-witted people will argue indeed, they are already doing so online that whether Blake is a man or a woman is beside the point. All that matters is that he and I will use the male pronoun is a killer. But describing Blake for what he is a male who has transitioned in a process that is clearly not complete should be a sacred duty for any journalist who cares about the truth. To omit the fact of his real sex is to be complicit in a distortion. It serves to give the impression that women are more violent than they are. If this falsehood is repeated in other cases, people will end up with a mistaken view. In this instance, the concealment of Blakes sex is a kind of insult to poor Jorge Martin Carreno, the murdered man. He was apparently deceived into thinking that Scarlet Blake was a woman, and paid for it with his life. Let us all try to tell the truth and then we may interpret the truth as we will. No one with a brain will contend that transgender women are likely to be killers. What counts is that Blake was. The media companies that I have mentioned and Im sure there are others have been so cowed by transgender activists that they dare not tell the truth. Worse still, they try to hide it. That is a terrifying portent for our society. What a dreadful story this is in every way. So much of what is bad about our age the filth that streams through the internet, irresponsible programmes, the mindless violence, the sexual perversion has coalesced in one place, a place where fine men such as John Henry Newman, vicar of the same University Church, once walked. No, they could not have easily understood our rotten world, nor indeed the appetite of some among us to twist the truth. Have you ever wondered why women's pajamas all seem to have buttons down the front? Well, it remains a popular question on social media, although no one seems to have the answer. Women regularly take to Reddit to question the popularity of the classic design as well as on TikTok - where one inquisitive content creator went viral when she questioned why women sleep in collared button-downs and asked who invented the strange custom. To discover how this trend started and the benefits of donning a buttoned top for bed, FEMAIL reached out to sleepwear product developers and designers. Women regularly take to Reddit to question the popularity of the classic button-down cotton pajamas design that's so popular To discover how this trend started and the benefits of donning a buttoned top for bed, FEMAIL reached out to sleepwear product developers and designers Content creator Alexis, who makes videos as loxsmith, joked that the person who invented women's pajamas sets made them for a 'business professional sleepover' Button up! Why women's pajamas embrace the design Easier for nursing Temperature regulation Can wear out as separates Easy to unbutton after hair and makeup without ruining your glam Advertisement Content creator Alexis, who makes videos as loxsmith, joked that the person who invented women's pajama sets must have had to explain that they 'are pajamas and not cotton pantsuits' made for a 'business professional sleepover.' 'I know people don't wear bras to sleep but what about a collared button down?' the creator quipped. 'There will be a pocket right here on the boob because women love pockets but it will be too small to be functional, and I don't know what people would need a pocket for for sleeping,' Alexis joked. Commenters agreed, with one writing, 'me watching this as I'm in my business casual pajama set.' Another concurred, 'Business professional sleepover is so accurate,' as someone else chimed in, 'My friend and I went through a drive thru in our matching PJs and he asked if we were going to work.' 'Full silk button down pantsuit,' a commenter jested, to which the original creator replied, 'Just missing a pillow briefcase.' To discover why the 'button down pantsuit' pajama trend started, FEMAIL reached out to sleepwear experts and designers. The product developers at the luxury bedding and loungewear brand Cozy Earth told FEMAIL that women's pajamas often feature buttons to combine functionality, comfort, and style. Olivia Culpo struck a pose in the celebrity favorite brand Sleeper's pink and purple feather-trimmed crepe de chine pajama set Lucy Hale ushered in the new year while wearing a pair of white Nadine Merabi wedding pajamas ($250) Commenters agreed with the sentiment behind the viral TikTok video, with one writing, 'me watching this as I'm in my business casual pajama set' The product developers also attribute the trend to ease of wear, since the buttons 'allow for versatility in terms of temperature regulation.' The brand also credited the ongoing trend to nursing accessibility and easily allowing for temperature regulation. Miami, Florida-based Dani Read, the senior designer at luxury lingerie brand Cosabella, told DailyMail.com, the brand's original women's pajamas with bottoms are inspired by menswear. According to Dani, the design choice is for both aesthetic and functional reasons. 'Buttons have become a decorative element to pajamas,' Dani explained, adding that it makes the look 'classic, stylish, and traditional.' 'Also, buttons allow for easy dressing and undressing, making it easy to wear, especially for those with mobility issues or nursing.' The designer explained that button down pajamas are versatile since they 'can double as loungewear or even casual wear around the house.' 'Our body temperature often changes throughout the night, so the ability to button up or down gives you more options for different climates and personal comfort,' Dani added. Miranda Kerr showed off La Ligne's pink pajamas alongside fellow model Lily Aldridge at the Carlyle Hotel in May Selena Gomez attended a birthday party while wearing Eberjey's Gisele stretch-modal pajamas, which have a celebrity following Reese Witherspoon's fashion and lifestyle brand Draper James is known for its perfectly preppy styles - including classic button pajamas Reese Witherspoon's fashion and lifestyle brand Draper James is known for its perfectly preppy styles - including classic button pajamas in playful prints. New York City-based Kathryn Sukey, the executive vice president of design at Draper James, told FEMAIL that the brand's best-selling style is Linda, a classic short-sleeve button down top with long pants. 'A classic button front notch collar pajama not only provides a polished look to wear around the house before dressing for the day, but the function allows for the wearer to get ready for her day in comfort and then to easily remove the top so as to not disturb her hair and makeup,' Kathryn explained. And for many brands, the buttons can spice up a matching set. 'There are entire stores and trim catalogues dedicated to beautiful button options, and designers often turn to these catalogues to select the most special finishing touches for simple garments like pajamas,' Kathryn said. And that's not the only personalized part of the pajama process. 'Simply by leaving the top or bottom button unbuttoned for extra ease and comfort through the night allows the wearer to personalize the fit of their favorite button front PJs,' Kathryn continued. Waverles founder Brianna Amoroso, located in New York City, makes glam button-down pajamas with feathered trimmings - and they're not just meant for bedtime Ali Mejia co-founded Eberjey, the luxurious sleepwear brand that's a hit with celebrities like Selena Gomez, Sophie Turner, Jessica Alba, and Sofia Richie. Ali told FEMAIL that the buttons 'make for more versatile garments.' 'Our best-selling pajama, the Gisele classic, features buttons running the full length of the garment,' Ali said. 'You can unbutton a few if you're hot, or you can wear the top fully unbuttoned with a bralette or camisole underneath.' 'If you're visiting your in-laws, you wear it buttoned up for breakfast,' Ali advised. 'A/C wars like the type I have happening at my house mean we all button or unbutton accordingly, the co-founder joked, adding that the buttons feel like 'a breath of fresh air.' Waverles founder Brianna Amoroso, located in New York City, makes glam button-down pajamas with feathered trimmings - and they're not just meant for bedtime. 'Whether styled together or separately with a simple swap of accessories they can be worn right out of the house, making them perfect for travel when you need pieces that can be used for multiple outfits and occasions,' Kathryn told DailyMail.com. Kathryn is also a fan of the button-down tops because they can be 'styled multiple ways and worn as separates.' She suggested styling them 'tucked into jeans with heels or over a tank with leggings and loafers.' The best part? You can always undo some buttons if you get too hot. Young Adult fiction (YA) has become increasingly 'adultified' due to a trend for 'spicy' reads on TikTok, which have replaced the likes of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Books such as A Court Of Thorns And Roses by Sarah J Maas, The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood (both based in the US) and The Spanish Love Deception by Spanish writer Elena Armas - which all contain adult themes and explicit scenes - are popular recommendations on the app. Avid readers on the platform often rate their racy literary finds with a red chilli emoji according to how likely a reader is to find sultry themes and dynamics. YA fiction is targetted towards readers between the ages of 12 and 18 and aims to bridge the gap between books for children and adults - but its young teenage audience now appears to be exposed to an increasing amount of smut. It is the fastest growing genre of literature - hitting almost 9billion in sales globally in 2022. One TikTok user from Germany joked that she thought The Love Hypothesis was 'just a cute romance' book but is one example of increasingly 'adultified' fiction And more than half of readers choosing to read YA books are in fact over 18, according to WordsRated, which may, in part, be down to the content appealing to an older audience. Earlier classic examples of YA fiction include The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, and books by John Green, which all worked to bring 'grown-up' concepts like politics, mortality and self-discovery to a younger audience. But now the genre consists predominately of what is known as 'romantasy' - romantic fantasy, and the predominance of spicy sub-plots has left little room for those with other interests. Some of the content is also difficult to spot, as books such as the Love Hypothesis have unobtrusive and even cartoon-like covers, meaning that readers may not know what they are getting into. 'Tell me why this was in our school library at the science section,' said one TikTok commenter about the Love Hypothesis, which includes a very explicit sex scene. One of the tamer passages reads: 'His palm pressed against her spine, and Olive arched a little more. An offering of sorts. Thats probably an insult, she breathed out with a smile, considering that you only like wheatgrass and broccoli".' Another from Germany, under the username @lunaalovegood, joked in a video that she began reading it thinking it was just a 'cute romance book'. Meanwhile, Sarah J Maas's works are now considered to be 'New Adult', for readers aged between 18 and 29 - although they were first published in the YA category. In A Court Of Mist And Fury, the second book in her romantic fantasy 'A Court Of' series, the heroine Feyre says: 'I could die from this... from the pleasure of being with him,' during one particularly raunchy scene. Ndah Tatani Mbawa, owner of book subscription service Happier Every Chapter, told FEMAIL that they've launched a new box specifically for 13 to 14 year olds due to the difficulty of sourcing content for young teens. 'It makes me despair the themes in books aimed at 13+ kids,' she said. 'It is clear to see where the themes are veering for YA books and it's way too adult in my opinion for something aimed at children. 'My daughters are prolific readers and some of the books they have put on their list to read have shocked me. Some of the popular books have subtle covers: Ali Hazelwood's The Love Hypothesis appears inoffensive with its cartoon-style design TikTokers have been sharing their recommendations for 'spicy' reads for YA and new adult readers 'When our oldest daughter turned 13 and I got wind of the books which were being marketed to her age group, it made me realise what a huge issue there was.' Ndah hopes to return to more traditional Young Adult fiction in her Book Wolves subscription box, exploring themes such as mental health awareness, dystopian books and other age-appropriate content. She added: 'Lately the trends on Booktok have majorly impacted what authors put out there. Some authors will include adult-themed scenes which are not relevant or add value to the plot just to hop on the trend and make sales. 'With teens being on TikTok a lot, they are getting their attention with these snappy videos which dont go into much detail on the content of the book and children un-assumingly buy and read these. 'It's worse in some cases where books have cartoon-type character covers like Icebreaker (by Hannah Grace) with heavy adult-type themes within and this can be quite misleading.' But author Charley Crocker said that she doesn't mind what her children are reading, as long as they keep picking up a book. She explained: 'I let both my teens read YA and my 16-year-old has been reading Cassandra Clare since he was 13. Sometimes they drop back to reading something more for younger teens, sometimes they read adult memoirs. I dont have a problem with it at all. 'Im just happy they read! My 16 year old says its good to start being aware of adult themes as long as they are part of the story and not just added to shock or box tick.' Books such as A Court Of Thorns And Roses by Sarah J Maas and The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood contain adult themes Young-adult author Alexandra Christo told The Guardian: 'There is a rise of younger readers engaging with 'new adult' or adult books because now it is easier to find them with the success of social media marketing. 'A greater issue is the definition of what is or isn't an adult book has been blurred with many books using marketing based on similar tropes across audiences, making things confusing for potential readers. 'When clips and content are often short, focusing on fun tropes without getting into real specifics, it's hard to know who the intended audience is for any given book.' UK publisher Simon & Schuster said: 'It is important to us that our books find their way to the right readers, and we're conscious of age-appropriateness as part of that. 'We include warnings of explicit content and make it clear when books are for adult readers.' Young adult books have been the fastest-growing category over the last five years, with print unit sales jumping by 48.2 per cent since 2018, according to Words Rated - with a spike of over a quarter during the pandemic. SHOPPING Contains affiliated content. Products featured in this article are selected by our writers. If you make a purchase using links on this page, Daily Mail Australia will earn an affiliate commission. Click here for more information. A woman who created smell-busting 'drops' for the toilet has seen her business skyrocket after 'saving relationships' across the country. Aussie entrepreneur Jess Ruhfus, 32, was living with her partner and male housemate during the pandemic and was fed-up with the 'awkward' bathroom situation while working from home all day. She tried everything to mask embarrassing smells wafting through the household including 'ugly and ineffective' aerosol sprays which she said only 'made things worse'. So, with plenty of time to spare during the 'quiet' Christmas period, Jess got to work in the kitchen to create the perfect mix of essential oils that would banish toilet odours and leave a pleasant scent in their place. The result was No.2, a $29 post-flush perfume that nullifies unwanted smells and replaces them with a citrus scent within 30 seconds. Aussie entrepreneur Jess Ruhfus, 32, was living with her partner and male housemate during the pandemic and was fed-up with the 'awkward' bathroom situation while working from home all day Sitting pretty in a sleekly-designed recyclable glass bottle, the formula's alcohol base is made from sugar cane which sinks to the bottom after flushing. The fragrance then rises, trapping odours. The drops, which are made from natural essential oils, can also be used in the sink to make a musty space like a plane toilet a little more tolerable. 'It went really well from the get-go. I had friends coming over and I forced sniff-tests on them and then they started asking for a bottle for their own homes,' Jess told FEMAIL. 'I made 1,000 bottles as a one-off, almost as a joke, and they sold out within two weeks. I wasn't expecting it! Then we went and manufactured more and we've sold out four-times over. We once did $11,000 of sales in one day.' Having worked in PR, marketing education and scaling a top software platform, Jess thanks her passion for creating a high quality product and ability to 'research like a pro' for her business's success. Sitting pretty in a sleekly-designed recyclable glass bottle, the formula's alcohol base is made from sugar cane which sinks to the bottom after flushing. Dubbed a 'marriage saver', the No,2 drops have come to the rescue in the workplace, on first dates, in share houses, at hotels, at dinner parties and, thanks to the new travel edition, on planes. Because they are dropped into the toilet after use, the 'loud noise' caused by rival products designed to be used beforehand doesn't occur - a huge plus for the brand. 'We are stocked in a bougie hotel in Tasmania and we often hear from couples on date nights and on honeymoons about how much of a life-saver these are,' Jess said. 'Many people find us that way and keep coming back for more because of how well they work.' And the feedback speaks for itself, with countless five-star reviews left by thrilled customers. 'It's for everyone! We all go... even if we like to pretend we don't,' Jess (pictured) said 'We love our 'poo perfume'. Super fast delivery. smell is lovely. Bottle looks great displayed in the bathroom. Far better than any aerosol. So happy with my purchase. Thank you,' one woman wrote. 'Not only is the bottle and packaging so chic sitting in my bathroom, but the product actually works,' another added. 'The smell is beautiful, and just the right amount to perfume the bathroom without being overpowering. I'm never using a spray air freshener again. I've even chucked one in the work bathroom.' Because they are dropped into the toilet after use, the 'loud noise' caused by rival products designed to be used beforehand doesn't occur - a huge plus for the brand 'From a married man that shares a bathroom with his wife, this is a must-have. Trust me, it'll save your marriage,' a thrilled husband wrote. Jess, who has a 'top secret' product in the works, also said there are a surprising number of 'die hard' male customers who keep coming back for more. 'We have mostly women but the male fan base is super loyal which is great to see,' she said. 'It's for everyone! We all go... even if we like to pretend we don't.' You can shop the drops here and the candle and vase range here. Edward Enninful has insisted his career at British Vogue ended 'how I wanted it to end' amid rumours he was forced out of his role by fashion stalwart Anna Wintour. Enninful, who was editor of the magazine from 2017 until this month, published his final issue last month after it was announced in June 2023 he was stepping down from the role. The British-Ghanaian former model's tenure at British Vogue was considered more progressive than any editorship that had come before him as he saw the first transgender model, Paris Lees, grace the cover. He also oversaw the production of braille and audio editions of the magazine for visual and audio-impaired readers. However, despite Enninful suggesting he might want to take over from Wintour as editor-in-chief of Vogue one day, it was abruptly announced last year that he would be stepping down from the role at the beginning of 2024. He has been replaced by Chioma Nnadi, the first black woman to edit the magazine. As he embarks upon a new project curating an exhibition of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe's works, Enninful refused to be drawn on the rumours of a 'power struggle' between himself and Wintour, which he dismissed as 'gossip'. Edward Enninful has refused to comment on rumours he was pushed out of his role as editor of British Vogue following a 'power struggle' with Anna Wintour He said: 'It ended how I wanted it to end', speaking about his final days in the top job at British Vogue. Rumours began to fly last year that Enninful, who had openly expressed he'd like to take over from Wintour one day as global editorial director of Vogue, had been caught in a power-struggle with the fashion matriarch. At the time, a Vogue insider said: 'He made no secret of wanting the big job [global editorial director] but he hit the glass ceiling and he'd gone as far as he could go. Enninful's tenure at the magazine had been one of the most progressive ever seen and he made no secret that he may one day want to succeed Wintour as global editorial director 'He thought he would be in London for a few years and then head for New York, but he now knows that he's never going to get Anna's job at Conde Nast. 'Anna is the undisputed boss. She has seen off many rivals and continues to do so. She could swat him like a fly.' However, speaking about the rumours, Enninful said: 'I dont comment on gossip, I never have.' Another fashion source at the time said: 'I think Edward underestimated [Wintour's] power. He had so much smoke blown up his a**e when he was appointed editor that he couldn't see his own trousers. The Mail on Sunday revealsed last year that he threatened resignation unless given Wintour's job by the end of 2022. That, of course, never came to pass. As a result, an insider said Enninful's move to another role within Conde Nast was a 'power struggle'. 'Edward pitched his new vision against old Vogue and lost. Succession [the hit TV drama about a toxic media family] has got nothing on this,' they said. There are reports of blazing rows between the pair with one source saying that simmering rancour boiled over when Enninful planned to make the magazine gender neutral. 'This was too much,' said the insider. Another Vogue source added: 'There would be differences of opinion. Wintour would say, 'Don't listen to Edward' and he would say 'Don't listen to Anna'.' Known as 'Nuclear Wintour' and famous for her sleek bob and dark sunglasses, she has a reputation for being the demanding titan of the industry. Vogue insiders called Enninful the only 'real threat' to her power. Insiders whispered that the pair 'don't talk', with a source five years ago saying: 'I don't think she ever felt he was qualified for that role.' As far back as 2018, there had been speculation that Enninful's position at British Vogue was only temporary and that he would take over from Wintour when she retires. But he said in an interview: 'Everybody wants to know what I'm doing, but I would like to tell you that I don't want Anna's job. I've spoken to her about it a few weeks ago.' As Enninful departs from Vogue and is replaced by Nnadi, who is currently the editor of the US edition's website, she will be given the title 'head of editorial content' with a focus on 'digital storytelling'. Crucially, Enninful's all-encompassing role as editor-in-chief will no longer be in existence. Instead, Ms Nnadi will likely have to report to a multi-step ladder, ending in the New York office. Fashionistas today likened the move to scenes from The Devil Wears Prada - the adaptation of the book famously said to be about Wintour - in which Miranda Priestley places rival Jacqueline Follet in a top role to stop her getting her own job. Nnadi credits her Nigerian father for igniting her passion for fashion - saying she only remembers him wearing suits and taking his tie off on weekends. Speaking from her New York home, Ms Nnadi said: 'Is there pressure? Yeah, there's definitely pressure it's Vogue. 'It still means something to be in Vogue, it still has authority. [Edward] broke new ground. It's more than being part of a magazine it's part of the cultural conversation.' The author and podcaster says she thinks about having a child 'every day' Author Elizabeth Day says she has made peace with the fact she will never be a mother at 45 but that she still thinks about having a child 'every day'. The host of the How To Fail podcast, 45, told The Times that she tried for a baby for 12 years, but was forced last year to accept her dream would never come true. She went through two rounds of IVF, miscarriages, egg freezing and surgery on her womb but eventually the 'stress' of the process became too overwhelming. Ms Day, who lives in Vauxhall, south London, with her husband, financial tech boss Justin Basini, told the newspaper: 'My yearning to have a child has not just shaped me as a woman: it is me as a woman. There is not a single day that I don't think about it.' Elizabeth Day says she has made peace with the fact she will never be a mother at 45 - but that she still thinks about having a child 'every day' Last year, at the age of 44, Ms Day, who has written novel Magpie, decided to stop trying after failing to fall pregnant using an egg donor in America. She and her husband spent a year looking for a donor, who underwent the process of extraction and IVF, and the embryo was implanted in her womb. She said that is was 'soul-crushing' to receive an email from the clinic ten days later that read: 'You are not pregnant'. Throughout her fertility struggles Ms Day felt that her 'purpose' in life was to be a mother, but her perspective has changed. 'I realise that the bigger purpose is to speak for those who are not mothers or fathers, often not by choice. That gives my life meaning, and thats the thing I was worried I wouldnt have,' she said. She also believes adoption isn't a straightforward process and isn't necessarily the right option for her. The novelist has previously opened up about her battle to have a child both during her first marriage to former BBC editorial director Kamal Ahmed, whom she divorced at the age of 36, and with her current husband Mr Basini. Her first miscarriage was with Mr Ahmed when she was 12 weeks pregnant, which she says was the catalyst for their eventual break-up when they broke up in February 2015. Ms Day has also dated Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge's brother Jasper, who was nine years her junior. She said their break up in part inspired How To Fail. She has been married to Justin since 2021 after meeting on dating app Hinge. The How To Fail host and Magpie author, 45, lives in Vauxhall, south London, with her husband, financial tech boss Justin Basini (pictured together this Christmas) Ms Day told The Times that she has been trying for a baby for 12 years but was forced to accept her dream would never come true last year How To Fail now has 20 series and has been downloaded more than 45million times, interviewing the likes of former politician Rory Stewart and author Margaret Atwood. She released a memoir of the same name, while her thriller Magpie explores the theme of infertility. Ms Day previously spoke on the Changes podcast about her struggles to conceive, in a conversation with former Radio 1 DJ Annie Macmanus. She said that women undergoing fertility treatment can often feel 'gaslit' by the doctors treating them, saying she's experienced it firsthand. Ms Day told the podcast that she was often left feeling like 'I'm failing but there's an added level of moral judgment coming on me from people who I've been taught to respect who have an enormous amount of power in a medical situation.' She told Ms Macmanus that after relaying her experiences to a friend, they suggested: 'Maybe you're not failing to respond to the drugs, maybe the drugs are failing you'. Ms Day said: 'It was a truth-bomb moment. I'm basically being gaslit by a male- dominated establishment none of them will have any idea what it's like to miscarriage, let alone menstruate.' She added that she thought 'there are some amazing, compassionate medical professionals out there and I've met so many of them' saying the profession was 'changing for the better.' Elizabeth's podcast How To Fail now has 20 series and has been downloaded more than 45 million times, interviewing the likes of Rory Stewart and Margaret Atwood Last year, at the age of 44, Elizabeth decided to stop trying to have a baby when she still wasn't pregnant after a year spent finding a donor Referencing the fertility struggles of one of the characters in Ms Day's hit book Magpie, Ms Macmanus asked the author how much had been based on her own experiences. The author said she wanted to write about her own experiences in novel form, saying: 'I've had IVF, I've had miscarriages, I've frozen my eggs, I've had operations on my womb and I really wanted to put that somewhere'. She also told the broadcaster walking out of the marital home in February 2015, after her first marriage to Kamal Ahmed unravelled was the 'hardest thing I've ever done'. 'When I realised I was truly unhappy, it was after one gruesome year when I'd had two unsuccessful rounds of IVF, then I got pregnant naturally and then I had a miscarriage at three months. I was a hormonal wreck and numb with sadness.' She said she knew after a 'grim Christmas' that 'the level of unhappiness was unsustainable' and she went into therapy. Knowing the marriage wasn't going to survive, she told Ms Macmanus that she had 'terrible shame' at the idea that it had failed but knew 'I'd hit a wall and needed to make a change'. Ms Day's ninth book, Friendaholic, is out now. Most people live their lives not worrying too much about what strangers on the internet think of them. However, others have an urge to let people know just how intelligent they are, by boasting about their knowledge on a topic and even revealing their IQs. People from around the world have shared screen grabs of cringeworthy interactions online and PleatedJeans.com have collated them into a hilarious gallery. One guy let an innocent meme about gravity go straight over his head and proceeded to explain, in detail, why it wasn't funny. Meanwhile, self-proclaimed 'misogynist influencer' Andrew Tate boasted about being able to play chess in his mind without losing and stopping his own heart 'at will'. People from around the world have shared screen grabs of cringeworthy interactions online and PleatedJeans.com have collated them into a hilarious gallery. Including one guy who let an innocent meme go straight over his head and proceeded to explain, in detail, why it wasn't funny Elsewhere a 'free thinking alpha male', from Massachusetts, revealed his 138 IQ and claimed that he was a 'Harvard graduate' on his dating profile. Meanwhile another man took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to explain how he is reading Newton's Principia Mathematica and has since concluded that people on the social media have low IQs. Here FEMAIL takes a look at some of the most insufferable 'geniuses' online.... Meanwhile another man took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to explain how he is reading Newton's Principia Mathematica and people on the social media have low IQ's He forgot to mention he is modest! This man's boasting dating profile is insufferable to read Strange! While controversial social media personality Andrew Tate, who was born in Chicago and raised in Luton, boasted about being able to play chess in his mind without losing and stopping his own heart 'at will' Bizzare! Meanwhile Elon Musk, who lives in Texas, pulled out his big words in a reply to a Tweet about Taylor Swift He's fun at parties! A university student took to Twitter to boast about his lack of friends his own age because he relates more to 35 year old chemists Sex pundit: Elsewhere a 'free thinking alpha male', from Massachusetts, revealed his 138 IQ and that he was a 'Harvard graduate' on his dating profile What? Elsewhere a man, from the US, left his thoughts on the film Everything Everywhere All at Once but he may as well be speaking latin A genius! Meanwhile this man, from the UK, was so chuffed that he applied protective film on a glass table he took to the reviews and boasted to strangers Oops! Another person, who is 'pretty good at math and logic' couldn't understand a simple equation So intelligent! Someone else took to Reddit to reveal they have a 'proven IQ of over 160' Awkward: This person tried to make a witty joke which backfired thanks to someone with logic in the comments The sudden death of investigative journalist Danny Casolaro thrust the bizarre case of software company Inslaw into the national spotlight. The freelancer writer had started looking into a dispute between the technology firm and the Department of Justice. The clash appeared to be over intellectual property rights but it soon seemed that the matter had a much more sinister underbelly. Danny, who was a father of one, reportedly became 'obsessed' with bringing the entirety of the story of the to light - but never got the chance to finish his investigation. Danny Casolaro had been working as a freelance writer when he started looking into a dispute between the technology company and the Department of Justice Following months of research, he is said to have stumbled into a web of 'stolen government spy software, a string of unsolved murders, and some of the biggest political scandals of the 20th century,' according to Netflix. The journalist believed he had uncovered a hidden organization, which he branded as The Octopus, made up of eight ex-government officials. He thought that the conspiracy had all started with PROMIS - a computer program which sources in the series claimed 'allegedly allowed the CIA to spy on the intelligence agencies that bought it.' In the summer of 1991, he headed out to a motel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, expecting to interview a key source for the story but would never make it back. The 44-year-old was found dead in a bathtub by a housekeeper after suffering multiple slash wounds to his wrists inflicted by 'a very sharp bladed object' The 44-year-old was found dead in a bathtub by a housekeeper after suffering multiple slash wounds to his wrists inflicted by 'a very sharp bladed object.' His death was ruled a suicide but many believed that his wounds were far from self inflicted. Here, FEMAIL has taken a look at what happened to Inslaw ahead of Netflix's four-part series titled American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders. What is Inslaw? Inslaw was established in Washington, D.C., by husband and wife William and Nancy Hamilton. The computer software company developed a people tracking application called the Prosecutor's Management Information System (PROMIS) which had the potential to standardize case management. It was designed to help prosecutors and had the ability to track documents generated by courts and law enforcement agencies in order to integrate multiple databases. Inslaw received a three-year contract worth $10 million from the the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 1982 and it was installed in 44 US Attorney's offices across the US, according to previous reports. Inslaw was established in Washington, D.C., by husband and wife duo William (pictured) and Nancy Hamilton Inslaw received a three-year contract worth $10 million from the the Department of Justice (headquarters in Washington, D.C., pictured) in 1982 and it was installed in 44 US Attorney's offices, according to previous reports But the working relationship is said to have soon turned sour. Hamilton would later testify that the owners found themselves being coerced by the DOJ which he claimed was illegally denying its rightful payments. Amid the fallout, Inslaw was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1985 - and a bitter legal battle followed. Two years later, US Bankruptcy Judge George Bason Jr. found that Justice officials 'took, converted and stole' the software through 'trickery, fraud and deceit.' He ordered the payment of $6.8 million in damages to the firm. This ruling was upheld again two years later but, in 1991, the US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the findings of both judges on technical grounds. The computer software company developed a people tracking application called the Prosecutor's Management Information System (PROMIS) which had the potential to standardize case management Following months of research, Danny is said to have stumbled into a web of 'stolen government spy software, a string of unsolved murders, and some of the biggest political scandals of the 20th century,' according to Netflix The Supreme Court later denied Inslaw's request to hear the dispute. Danny had been investigating the years-long conflict during his death in August 1991 - but his sudden demise did little to quell the case. In 2003, William Hamilton called for authorities to review September 11 intelligence failures - claiming the Promis software that had been 'stolen by the Justice Department' was diverted to Osama bin Laden. Does Inslaw still exist? Hamilton, who appears to now be based in Maryland, is still listed as President of Inslaw Inc on LinkedIn and the company's website remains operational Hamilton, who appears to now be based in Maryland, is still listed as President of Inslaw Inc on LinkedIn and the company's website remains operational. It reads: 'Inslaw has been the leading vendor of case management software products in the United States for over 42 years. 'It pioneered the use of software customization tools to meet specific customer requirements without the need for conventional programming changes.' It stated that the company's case management software is 'currently licensed to customers in the public and private sectors of the United States, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.' A video showing the late Queen appearing to be overcome with emotion following the 2019 wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston, whose death at 45 was announced on Tuesday, has resurfaced. The emotional video shows the late Queen, who died in September 2022, wiping away a tear of joy as she waved the happy couple off, with Prince Philip by her side, outside St George's Chapel in Windsor five years ago. Mr Kingston's sudden death at the age of 45 has sent shockwaves through the Royal Family. The video clip is a happy tribute to both the couple and the late monarch, who wore a striking pink suit to attend the wedding, which took place on May 18th 2019. Waiting patiently outside Windsor's famous chapel after the couple's nuptials, the late Queen is seen standing with her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, with her sons Prince Andrew and Prince Edward also in view. The late Queen Elizabeth II is seen, dressed in pink, at the 2019 wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston in a newly resurfaced video. The royal family has been left shocked by the tragic death of Mr Kingston at the age of 45 As the Queen spots the wedding car, she waves at Princess Michael of Kent's daughter and her new husband, who are seen smiling back. After the couple drive past, the late monarch is seen appearing to wipe away a tear at the emotion of the nuptials. The wedding proved a joyous family moment for the Windsors, with Prince Harry also in attendance, taking time away from his then newborn son Archie. And the guest list at Lady Gabriella's wedding proved the esteem in which she's held by the royal family. The late monarch, who died in September 2022, is seen wiping away a tear after she'd waved off the happy couple Following their nuptials, Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston were seen smiling from their wedding car as they passed the waiting royal party Kingston pictured on his wedding day with his wife Lady Gabriella Windsor at St George's Chapel in Windsor on May 18, 2019 The Queen looked delighted as she smiled outside St George's Chapel, carrying the order of service for the wedding. Pictured right, Prince Harry and The Queen shared a smile as they spoke after leaving the royal wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston A rare appearance by Prince Philip; the then Duke of Edinburgh, showed how well thought of Lady Gabriella is in royal circles Other royals in attendance on the couple's big day included Sarah, Duchess of York, Princess Beatrice and her husband Edoardo Marpelli Mozzi and Princess Anne. The Middleton family were also out in force with Kate's parents Carole and Michael and sister Pippa guests - thanks to her longstanding friendship with the groom. Dubbed the 'biggest society wedding of the year' at the time, guests also included Julian Fellowes, who is well known as creator of TV period drama Downton Abbey. Prince Philip, who retired from royal duties in May 2017, made a rare public appearance at the wedding in 2019, arriving alongside Queen Elizabeth at St George's Chapel. The Duke of Sussex was also at the wedding, attending just 12 days after the birth of Archie, his first son with wife Meghan Markle - and on the eve of their first wedding anniversary. Kingston, the son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, was found dead at his home on Sunday, February 25 Thomas Kingston pictured with his wife Lady Gabriella Windsor at Wimbledon in July 2022 Further showing the importance of the glittering occasion, the Royal Family's official website shared three official photographs from the wedding day. One of the photographs was a family portrait showing the delighted late Queen and her beaming husband sitting together in front of other relatives. READ MORE HERE: The Kents put on a brave face at King Constantine's memorial at Windsor Castle after shock death of their son-in-law Thomas Kingston Advertisement The beaming bride arrived at St George's chapel in a claret-coloured vintage car, accompanied by her father Prince Michael of Kent. She stunned in an ivory lace gown by Italian designer Luisa Beccaria, featuring a bateau neckline, sheer embroidered sleeves and an A-line skirt. Gabriella, known as Ella to her friends, wore a breathtaking six-metre long veil, which was arranged by the designer on the steps of the chapel. Sadly the couple were to enjoy less than five full years of marriage before Mr Kingston's untimely death aged 45, which was announced by Buckingham Palace on Tuesday evening. Mourners have paid tribute to an 'exceptional' and 'enigmatic' Mr Kingston following his shocking death. The son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent was found dead at an address in Gloucestershire on Sunday evening, with emergency services called to the scene shortly after 6pm. Tributes have now been paid to the financer who survived a suicide bombing in 2004 and negotiated with bloodthirsty militias for the handover of hostages, saving countless lives. An inquest will be held but there are no suspicious circumstances and no other parties involved. Mr Kingston is survived by his father Martin Kingston KC, his mother Jill Mary Kingston, and his sisters, Joanna Connolly and Emma Murray. The monarch is receiving care from Malaysian and Norwegian medical personnel King Harald V of Norway has been hospitalized with an infection while on holiday in Malaysia, the Norwegian royal house said in a statement Tuesday. The royal, 87, who is the oldest monarch in Europe, was enjoying a trip abroad before being admitted to Sultanah Maliha Hospital on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi. Two days before Harald's 87th birthday last week, the palace announced that the king would be undertaking a private trip abroad, without specifying the destination or dates, according to the Norwegian news agency NTB. Details of the royal's condition are limited; however, the royal is said to be receiving good care from both Malaysian and Norwegian medical personnel, according to the royal household. The 87-year-old monarch has had several illnesses in recent months and underwent heart surgery in 2020. King Harald V of Norway, pictured, has been hospitalized with an infection while on holiday in Malaysia. The monarch is photographed last week in Norway Royal officials have told Norwegian media that Crown Prince Haakon will be carrying on with his existing planned engagements at home. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre said that he was 'sad' to hear of the king's hospitalization and wished him a 'speedy recovery,' NTB said. Despite Harald's precarious physical condition, the royal is certain that he wants to continue as Norway's reigning monarch. Harald has been Norway's ceremonial head of state since 1991 and is Europe's oldest living monarch. And last month, the royal confirmed that he has no plans to abdicate after speculation he could follow in the footsteps of his former Danish counterpart, Queen Margrethe. The monarch, 87, (who is the second cousin of King Charles III) insisted that the promise he made to the Norwegian Parliament when he acceded the throne in 1991 'lasts for life'. King Harald told Faktisk.no: 'I stand by what I have said all along. I have taken an oath to the Storting, and it lasts for life.' It comes after Queen Margrethe of Denmark, 83, abdicated after 52 years on the throne, making way for her son Frederik to take over as King on 14 January. The royal is receiving medical care at Sultanah Maliha Hospital, pictured, on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi The monarch is receiving care from both Norwegian and Malaysian medical personnel at the hospital Afterwards, a royal expert had suggested the Danish monarch had broken an 'invisible pact' between heads of state in the Scandinavian countries that none would step down from the throne. Roger Lundberg told STV that, after Denmark's changeover, there is a chance King Harald of Norway and King Carl Gustaf of Sweden , 79, might follow suit and step down to allow their eldest children to take the throne. However, this has now been firmly dismissed by King Harald. The Norwegian King was 53 when he acceded the throne in 1991, upon the death of his father King Olav. Ahead of this, he had been acting as Crown Prince Regent due to his father's illness, which escalated in the spring of 1990. King Harald has faced some health concerns himself in recent years, and spent time in the hospital to treat an infection last May, but clearly has no intention of abdicating. His Scandinavian neighbour Queen Margrethe of Denmark made the shock announcement that she would give up the throne in her New Year's Eve speech. The Danish Royal Family have spent the last two years grappling with various scandals, including the Queen's surprise decision to strip her grandchildren of their princely titles. Harald, who is Europe's oldest living monarch, is being treated for an infection at the Southeast Asian hospital (pictured) The royal has experienced several health complications in recent times, including undergoing a successful heart surgery in 2020 There were also rumours of an 'affair' after Crown Prince Frederik was spotted out in Madrid with Mexican socialite Genoveva Casanova, the monarch's decision to retire may provide a much-needed fresh start. But Denmark is not the only monarchy in the Scandinavian nations to have had a bumpy few years - with Norway's royal family experiencing its very own 'Megxit' King Harald and Queen Sonja's only daughter Princess Martha Louise, who was fourth in line to the throne, stepped down as a working royal in 2019. It was announced in 2022 that the mother-of-three would no longer represent the Royal household in any form following her engagement to an American Shamanic healer who had been criticised for his controversial views. King Harald said that Martha would not be allowed to use her royal title any future commercial partnerships with her partner Durek Verrett, 47. Shortly after the mother-of-three announced her engagement to Verrett, a Norweigan publishing house dropped his book 'Spirit Hacking' over pseudoscientific claims, including 'children can get cancer from being unhappy'. Among his other claims, Verrett says he once came back from the dead, recovering from a month-long coma, by letting his soul 'burn' and he has also spoken of having to undergo a kidney transplant from his sister as a child. Following Martha Louise's decision to step down, King Harald stressed that his daughter has remained a princess at his request, saying: 'She is our daughter, and she will continue to be. So she is Princess Martha Louise.' The princess was previously married to Ari Behn, whom she wed in 2002 and had three children together Maud Angelica, 19, Leah Isadora, 17, and Emma Tallulah, 14. They split in 2016, and Ari took his own life on Christmas Day in 2019. Crown Prince Haakon, Martha-Louise's older brother, is Norway's heir apparent - and the future King has already had a taste of what it will be like to ascend the throne after stepping in for his father on several occasions over the past few years. A South African woman has revealed that strangers accused her of cheating on her husband after her baby was born albino. Belvana Abeli's daughter, Zayana Domingos, two, was born with albinism and has light skin, hair and eyes, while her parents and two other siblings are black. The 36-year-old, from Cape Town, explained how her daughter is regularly discriminated against for looking different, with strangers ask if she is adopted. She's also been asked how can one daughter have white skin and one have black skin and have even accused Belvana of cheating on her husband due to how their daughter looks. 'The reaction to her having albinism was really well within our family but externally, there were a lot of questions,' Belvana said. Belvana Abeli's daughter, Zayana Domingos, two, was born with albinism and has light skin, hair and eyes, while her parents and two other siblings are black. The family are pictured The 36-year-old, from Cape Town, explained how her daughter is regularly discriminated against for looking different, with strangers ask if she is adopted. Belvana Abeli, 36, (far left), Zivah Domingos, five, (left), Zayana Domingos, two, (right) and Natalino Domingos, 37, (far right)) A Zayana as a baby. Her mother Belvana says she's often asked if she's adopted 'People have questioned whether I cheated on my husband with a white person - it's a lot to deal with. 'People will ask things about why my one daughter is black and the other is white or ask if she's adopted. It's offensive, but people unconsciously do it.' After suffering with Covid-19 during her pregnancy, she had to have an emergency C-section at just 28 weeks. When she saw her newborn baby for the first time, Belvana was left questioning why her baby had a different skin colour and ginger hair. However, after genetic testing, doctors confirmed Zayana had been born with albinism, a life-long condition. Initially, the mum-of-three was unsure whether there was any family history of the condition and later learned that her grandmother's great-uncle had albinism and also suffered from discrimination. Zivah , five, is the eldest of the trio whilst Zander, five months, is the youngest, neither have albinism. People with albinism will often suffer from a lack of vision due to the reduced amount of melanin in the layer of cells in the eye as well as having a higher risk of sunburn and skin cancer. After suffering with Covid-19 during her pregnancy, she had to have an emergency C-section at just 28 weeks. Natalino Domingos, 37, (far left), Zayana Domingos, two, (left), Belvana Abeli, 36, (right), and Zivah Domingos, five, (far right) People with albinism will often suffer from a lack of vision due to the reduced amount of melanin in the layer of cells in the eye as well as having a higher risk of sunburn and skin cancer. Zayana and her mother are pictured What is albinism? Oculocutaneous albinism is the most common type, affecting the skin, hair and eyes. Those affected typically have very fair skin and white or light-colored hair. Long-term sun exposure greatly increases the risk of skin damage. Oculocutaneous albinism reduces pigmentation of the colored part of the iris and the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the retina. The condition can result from mutations in several genes, including those used to produce melanin. Melanin is the pigment that gives skin, hair, and eyes their color. In the retina, melanin also plays a role in normal vision. Oculocutaneous albinism is passed on in an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern. This means a child has to get two copies of the albinism gene (one from each parent) to inherit the condition. If both parents carry the gene, there's a one in four chance that their child will have albinism and a 50 per cent chance that their child will be a carrier. Carriers do not have albinism but can pass on the gene. Source: NHS Advertisement After falling pregnant with her third baby, Belvana was curious as to what colour skin her next child would have after having an albino baby. She consulted the doctor to see if there were any tests that could be done to determine the possible albinism. Although she didn't mind, Belvana wanted to minimise any possible shock. Her eldest daughter, Zivah, has started to ask questions about why her little sister looks different to the rest of the family. However, Belvana says that she just thinks that babies can either be born black or white. Speaking about her 'miracle' albino baby, Belvana said: 'Giving birth to an albino baby was a surprise as albinism was not known to run in any of our families', Zayana is pictured Zayana is pictured as a baby, her mother says she is too young to question her looks She added that Zayana is too young to question her looks, but her mum knows that the questions will be asked when she gets older. Speaking about her 'miracle' albino baby, Belvana said: 'Giving birth to an albino baby was a surprise as albinism was not known to run in any of our families. 'Doctors initially said her skin and hair would darken with time, but after a few days in hospital, we were informed that she had albinism. 'As time went by her skin and eyes got lighter and lighter. 'We already had a black daughter and weren't expecting an albino baby at all. Belvana says Zayana is her 'miracle baby' (pictured with father Natalino, 37 Belvana Abeli's, daughter, Zayana Domingos, two, was born with albinism 'Having an albino child has been challenging at times due to the lack of education about albinism, for example, being told that our daughter needs a special school because albinism is a disability. 'Sometimes we get questions about whether she is adopted. 'But it has also been a great blessing to us because it has given us the opportunity to share our story and increase knowledge about albinism. 'When I was pregnant with my son, my daughter was asking me if he was going to be white or black. 'My eldest is coming to a point where she's starting to understand that Zayana is different to others in the family. 'But, she is our miracle baby, and we are super fortunate to have her in our lives.' England's 'strongest man' has displayed his supreme strength by rolling up a cast iron frying pan in just seconds. Patrick 'Paddy' Haynes, 26, from Oxfordshire, won the title Ultimate Strongman in England's Strongest Man competition in Warrington, Cheshire last September. Paddy, who describes himself as 'just a young lad from Banbury with a crazy dream', documents his weightlifting progress on his Instagram account @paddystrongman, where he completes 'speedy deadlifts' of 340kg. The fitness fanatic appeared on BBC Radio Oxford on Monday, where he showed off just how powerful his muscles can be by rolling up a frying pan 'like a taco'. First, presenter Adam Ball tested whether the pan was legitimate by banging it on the table, concluding: 'That is the sound of cast iron there.' Patrick Haynes from Oxfordshire is Britain's 'strongest man' and can roll up a cast iron frying pan in seconds Paddy was confident in his ability to conquer the pan from the outset, saying: 'It will look something like a taco by the time I've finished with it.' After a countdown, Paddy then began work on the pan, folding it completely in half within seconds, before rolling it up like a newspaper. Looking on at a victorious Paddy, Adam was left astonished by the feat, exclaiming: 'It's done! We now have a rolled up frying pan that took less than five seconds. Wow!' He made light work of the task, leaving BBC Radio Oxford presenter Adam Ball astounded Paddy won the title Ultimate Strongman in front of around 3,000 people in Warrington last September, beating Andrew Flynn and Paul Smith, the favourite and four-time champion. The competition sees participants compete in five events, including an 186kg shield carry in, in which Haynes set a new UK record. It also consists of a 400kg yoke walk and 320kg deadlift repetition. Paddy, who describes himself as 'just a young lad from Banbury with a crazy dream', documents his weightlifting progress on his Instagram account @paddystrongman He spoke to the Banbury Guardian previously about his victory: 'Waiting for the results to be announced was probably the longest minute of my life, and when they did, I just ran around, absolutely buzzing! 'It feels amazing; years of hard work have led up to it, so to all come together on a day like that was incredible.' Originally a long-distance runner, Paddy became interested in strength training at university and now trains three hours a day for five days of the week at a purpose-built strongman gym. A teacher who was jailed after refusing to use a transgender pupil's chosen pronouns has been paid a total of 72,000 in his salary since he was suspended from his role 18 months ago, a court has heard. Enoch Burke, an Evangelical Christian, became caught up in a gender row at Wilson's Hospital School in Co Westmeath over the issue of gender reassignment. In May 2022, the history and German teacher told his headteacher that he 'opposed transgenderism' due to his religious beliefs and stated he would not address the student, who was transitioning, by their new name and using 'they' pronouns. It sparked a chain of events which saw him suspended from his role while the school carried out an investigation into his conduct and eventually sacked. However, even after he was put on leave, Burke continued to turn up at the school gates and refused to leave. When the school took out a temporary court order to keep him away, it did not deter him. For more than 200 days Burke - who claims he is being punished for 'refusing to call a boy a girl' - has been held in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison for contempt of court with no prospect of release as he still refuses to comply with the order - however on Tuesday, a court heard Burke has retained his teaching salary ever since he was first suspended. Enoch Burke, a history and German teacher who is currently in jail for contempt of court after he refused to comply with a court order, is still earning his salary The row between Burke and his employer began in 2022 when he publicly criticised the school's 'demand' that he use the student's chosen pronouns. It came following an email to staff from headteacher Niamh McShane, in which they were asked to address the pupil in question by their new pronouns. Burke was accused of 'breaching the confidence' of the transitioning student, and as a result, the teacher was suspended with pay. However, in August 2023 Burke was officially sacked for gross misconduct. However, Burke continued showing up at the school - prompting his former employer to obtain a court order to get him to stay away from the grounds. In September last year, Burke was jailed for 100 days for ignoring the court order. Throughout the saga which saw Burke sacked before he appealed his conviction, he has received support from his family During an appeal, the teacher argued that he was being imprisoned because of his Christian beliefs, and was released days before Christmas 2022. But Burke was imprisoned for the second time in September this year for refusing to stay away from the school again and has been told he will remain in prison indefinitely until he agrees to comply with the court order. His loyal family, who are known for their radical religious activism and involvement in other high court legal cases, continue to protest at the school. During a High Court hearing on Tuesday, Burke said the court order keeping him away from the school was asking him to 'do something wrong', adding that he considered it 'evil' to comply, the Irish Times reported. The court heard Burke has continued to receive his teaching salary while imprisoned as he appeals against the school's decision to sack him. The teacher has also not paid any of the fines imposed upon him by the court last year. After hearing Burke's refusal to comply with the court order, the judge ordered him to remain in jail and adjourned the hearing to a later date in March. He also asked the schools lawyers to consider alternatives to Burke's imprisonment - such as sequestering his assets until he agrees to pay the fines. Deputy headteacher John Galligan has previously accused Burke of erratic behaviour during a meeting in which he aired his grievances with addressing the pupil by their new name and pronouns. In a trial, Mr Galligan said that Burke 'erupted' during the meeting and 'changed colour completely'. In a follow-up meeting between the headteacher, her deputy and Burke, Mr Galligan claimed the jailed teacher repeated how he was 'opposed to transgenderism' as a result of his religion. Following this, Burke is said to have publicly interjected after a religious service celebrating the school's 260th anniversary to criticise Ms McShane's supposed 'demand' that staff refer to the student by their chosen pronouns. Following the chapel service, Burke is alleged to have approached the headteacher at a meal where he asked her to withdraw her 'demand' again. As a result of this, the headteacher believed Burke was guilty of gross misconduct as other students may not have been aware the student was transitioning. Ms Freda Malone, who worked at the school as a guidance counsellor, claims Burke 'breached the confidence' of the student on two occasions during that occasion. Speaking at a High Court hearing in March 2023, Ms Malone said the headteacher was escorted home by other guests at the event and they later 'formed a ring' around her home out of concern for her safety. In August 2022, Ms McShane submitted a stage-four report to the chair of the board John Rogers about Burke's outbursts which prompted the representative to arrange a meeting with the teacher. The purpose of the meeting was to decide if Burke should be suspended or face any kind of disciplinary. After this, the board made the unanimous decision to place Burke on paid leave while they dealt with the misconduct allegation. Despite being put on leave, Burke is said to have attended a staff meeting at the start of the school year. After repeatedly arriving on school grounds, Burke was allegedly asked to leave 'every hour' by the deputy head. In May 2023, the Irish High Court ruled that the school had acted lawfully in suspending Burke and said Enoch had been 'trespassing' on their grounds. In an attempt to keep Burke away from the premises while they conducted the investigation, the school took out a temporary court order against the teacher which still didn't deter him. In August last year, Enoch was sued by the school for his failure to comply with the court order and later arrested for being in contempt of court. At his initial hearing on September 6 that year, Mr Burke told Judge Quinn: 'I am a teacher and I don't want to go to prison. I want to be in my classroom today, that's where I was this morning when I was arrested.' 'I love my school, with its motto Res Non Verba, actions not words, but I am here today because I said I would not call a boy a girl.' Throughout his battle, Burke has been supported by his evangelical family, who are known for their fundamentalist beliefs. Parents Martina and Sean Burke have ten children - Ammi, Elijah, Enoch, Esther, Isaac, Jemima, Josiah, Keren, Kezia, and Simeon. They have hit the headlines in the past due to their anti-LGBT protests, including in 2017, 2018 and 2019 when they protests the annual gay pride parade in Castlebar. It was also revealed in 2023 by the Irish independent that Enoch spent several thousands of euros on Facebook advertisements attacking LGBT politicians including Katherine Zappone and Maria Walsh during the 2019 parliament elections. Addressing the reasons why Burke has continued to receive a salary following his suspension, Irish education minister Norma Foley said the school had gone through 'necessary steps'. 'Indeed the school must make a decision around the payment of the salary and a request around payment of salary to the department,' she said. 'I must also say that in terms of the school, they have particular obligations also from a legal point of view in terms of the care of an employee.' The Irish Mirror reported Ms Foley said the school has 'particular obligations' in such a case until Burke's appeal can be heard. Queen Letizia joined her husband King Felipe by the Zarzuela Palace Queen Letizia of Spain wowed with a surprise new haircut as she stepped out to receive the President of Paraguay and his wife for lunch in Madrid on Wednesday. The European monarch, 51, joined her husband King Felipe VI to welcome their special guests to Spain - just one day after their busy schedule saw the royal couple fly to England to attend King Constantine of Greece's memorial service. Today they were joined by Paraguay President Santiago Pena, 45, and wife Leticia Ocampos, 43. Letizia had clearly wasted no time since since returning to Spain as she debuted a sleek new cropped hairdo outside the Zarzuela Palace, after booking an appointment with her personal hairdresser Luz Valero. While at Windsor Castle on Tuesday, Letizia had shown off her classic long wavy tresses, but in her look on Wednesday she'd trimmed her locks to shoulder-length for a very on-trend style. Queen Letizia of Spain debuted a sleek new hairdo as she welcomed the President of Paraguay for a lunch in Madrid on Wednesday She looked the epitome of elegance as she donned her statement Bimba y Lola suit in a green-grey shade, complete with a double-breasted blazer and tailored trousers. The mother-of-two added black heels and simple hoop earrings to accessorise and opted for classic glowing make-up. Letizia once again joined her husband King Felipe, who looked smart in a navy suit following the visit to England for his uncle's memorial service. President Pena and Leticia had touched down in Spain on Sunday before kicking off a busy schedule of engagements, including meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, before they return home on Friday. Pena, of the Colorado party, took office in August 2023. Ocampos, 43, married the president when she was 17 years old and the couple now share a daughter. She looked stunning at the luncheon as she donned a white dress embellished with gold buttons, while her blonde locks were perfectly styled into waves. It comes after Letizia put on an elegant display as she joined her husband Felipe VI at the memorial service for the late King Constantine of Greece at Windsor Castle on Tuesday. One day apart: Letizia showed off her shoulder-length trim (left) after appearing with her long hair at King Constantine's memorial on Tuesday (right) They were joined by Paraguay President Santiago Pena, 45, and wife Leticia Ocampos, 43 today The European royal, 51, joined her husband King Felipe outside the Zarzuela Palace after jetting back to Spain from the UK She looked the epitome of elegance as she donned her statement Bimba y Lola suit in green-grey, complete with a double-breasted blazer and tailored trousers The mother-of-two added black heels and simple hoop earrings to accessorise and opted for her classic glowing make-up Letizia has cemented her status once again as a very fashionable member of the royal family with a new haircut The royal looked solemn in a navy knee-length dress, which she paired with matching heels and a shawl. The mother-of-two arrived arm in arm with her husband King Felipe, whose mother Queen Sofia, 85, is Constantine's older sister. Felipe himself also cut a stately figure in a black long coat, also adding a formal grey scarf, as the couple put on a united display. The royals had travelled over from Spain for the occasion, with Letizia adding a black scarf to cope with the cold British weather. Once inside St George's Chapel, the couple sat with King Juan Carlos of Spain and Princess Benedikte of Denmark. Letizia's suit is one of her statement items in her wardrobe as she is a big fan of rewearing her fashionable looks Letizia once again joined her husband King Felipe, who looked smart in a navy suit following the visit to England for his uncle's memorial service The couple had been the epitome of supportive spouses on Tuesday, and made another public appearance together on Wednesday President Pena and his wife Leticia touched down in Spain on Sunday before kicking off a busy schedule of engagements Ocampos, 43, married the president when she was 17 years old and the couple now share a daughter King Felipe last met with the British royals when he attended the Wimbledon men's final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic - and both Letizia and Felipe were guests at the coronation last year. The British royals last hosted the Spanish royal family for a state visit in 2017. The service was attended by several of the ruling houses of Europe. The Prince of Wales was expected to give a reading at his late godfather's service but pulled out at the last minute due to personal reasons. 90 Day Fiance star Michael Ilesanmi recently sparked serious concern after going 'missing' just two months after he moved to the US from his native Nigeria to live with his wife Angela Deem - but shocking clips from throughout their time on reality TV now suggest that he may well have been running from his spouse and her aggressive behavior. Michael's wife Angela, 58, from Jefferson County, Georgia, appeared in a recent YouTube video posted by celebrity blogger John Yates, alleging in the clip that her spouse, 36, had disappeared on Friday, February 23. The embattled couple first met in 2018 on season two of 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days, and they later got married and paid visits to each other's native countries. But now resurfaced clips suggest that Michael had been on the receiving end of both verbal and physical assaults at the hands of his wife, who is 22 years his senior, which could have prompted him to walk away from the relationship. 90 Day Fiance star Michael Ilesanmi sparked concern after his wife Angela Deem reported him missing - just two months after he moved to the US from his native Nigeria (seen on the show) But now resurfaced clips suggest that Michael had been on the receiving end of both verbal and physical assaults at the hands of his wife The couple were locked in various fiery confrontations throughout filming but it was one clip in particular that caught the extent of the issue on camera as she vandalized his car The couple were locked in various fiery confrontations throughout filming but it was one clip in particular that caught the extent of the issue on camera. In September 2022, Angela had turned up in Nigeria unannounced to confront Michael about his social media presence after accusing him of using it as a platform to talk to other women. She furiously banged on his front door, shouted demands for him to come out and threatened to 'break the windows.' The fired-up star then began dismantling her fiance's car before Michael arrived to confront her - which is when tensions really escalated. Angela stormed toward him on a foul-mouthed rant before lunging to grab his arms, shoving him backward and grappling with him. Michael was understandably worked up but ended up in tears after expressing his grievances. Angela then branded him as a 'cry baby' and a 'b**ch' before concluding 'f**k you.' But it was not the only example of her erratic behavior which went back as early as 2019. But it was not the only example of her erratic behaviors with other examples include her slamming an entire cake into Michael's face Angela also regularly berated her fiance for speaking and blew up at him during the show's tell-alls In the September of that year, Michael presented Angela with a cake by way of a peace offering. But she reacted furiously to the gesture and rejected it by slamming the entire sweet treat into Michael's face. Further still, Angela regularly berated her now estranged husband for speaking and blowing up during tell-alls. Fans of the show regularly called out Angela's actions online with many taking to the Reddit thread dedicated to TLC's 90 Day Fiance to share their thoughts. One wrote: 'Angela has abused Michael physically and mentally countless times on the show. 'Cake in the face, destroying his car, belittling him in front of friends and family, economic abuse, etc. All on camera. 'There's no telling how often Michael gets abused by Angela off camera, or how many DV instances were left on the editing room floor. 'Yet they continue paying Angela to be on the show. Pretty gross.' Another added: 'The way Angela calls Michael "motherf**ker" and "b**ch" when speaking to him and about him is so vile. She doesn't see him as a person. 'She sees him as property. Constantly dangling the visa and money to control him is disgusting.' Fans of the show regularly called out Angela's actions online with many taking to the Reddit thread dedicated to TLC's 90 Day Fiance to share their thought And a third said: 'I just watched the episode and I cant believe TLC actually aired this domestic violence assault. If this was the other way around and Michael did this in the US, he would be immediately arrested. 'He should've called the authorities and gotten her ignorant a** arrested.' Earlier this week, Angela claimed that she had been in touch with the police about Michael's disappearance, only for it to emerge mid-way through John's live broadcast that he had not only been found 'safe', but that he had also contacted cops on a 'burner' phone to say he'd been 'in fear' for his life. He also requested that his wife be kept in the dark regarding his whereabouts, prompting a furious Angela to claim he must have 'planned' his disappearance. John and Angela filmed two livestream videos together within the space of a few hours - the first of which saw the 90 Day Fiance star alleging that her husband had gone missing. Then, just seven hours later, she and John returned to the video-streaming site to update concerned fans, revealing that Michael had turned up. While John attempted to update viewers during the second of two livestreams, Angela yelled: 'Breaking news. I'm in total f**king shock right now but not really and that's all I can say. 'John take over please because I'm in f**king shock.' In a bizarre live broadcast filmed with Angela, celebrity blogger John Yates claimed that Michael had told police he did not want his wife to be given his location 'I'll just rip it off like a Band Aid,' John then began. 'Michael is safe, there's the good news. 'He reached out to the police moments after [the first] live. Right after [the first] live ended, Angela got a phone call from the police here stating that they were contacted by Michael. They verified it was him. 'He did have a burner phone or like another phone, a phone that nobody knew about and on that phone he had pictures of his passport, the one that he left. So they verified his ID, it's him.' John added that after officers verified his identity, something 'wild' soon followed - as Angela yelled from off-camera, 'Here's the yahoo boy part!' - alluding to the nickname often given to online fraudsters, particularly those of Nigerian descent. John continued: 'He told the police that he was in fear of his life here and he did not want Angela knowing his location.' Angela also revealed that the pair were together just five days earlier in New York and that his disappearance came out of the blue. Viewers were also made privy to the fact that Michael arrived in the US from Nigeria just before Christmas 2023, in order to live with his wife. John vehemently defended his pal Angela against Michael's claims that he had been 'fearing' for his life by explaining that 'no one was locked up here' and pointing out that the pair had vacationed together in New York and Florida in recent weeks. However Angela couldn't be consoled and at this point accused of her estranged husband of being a 'lying s**t'. In January 2023, Angela told producers on TLC show 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? that 'divorce was definitely on the table' between her and Michael Her confession about the status of their relationship came amid furious rumors that Michael had been unfaithful to her She said off camera: 'I don't know why people think I'm not human... you know what I mean? 'I'm a woman, I stand as a woman. When you sneak behind my back and do lying s**t on me I'm not fine anymore. 'I'm f**king mad as hell. I was worried thinking he was hurt.' In a now-deleted TikTok, Angela had previously told fans that, before her husband disappeared, he left behind his phone and wallet. She also said she reached out to his family before contacting police but her efforts were unfruitful. She then used the platform to plead for his save return - before later doing a complete 180 and questioning whether he 'planned' the ordeal the whole f**king time. 'This is not funny. This is real s**t...' she added. 'I'm telling you now. I'm not going to let you f**king come here if you didn't love me.' Fans posed questions about the possibility of Michael pulling an immigration stunt to achieve US citizenship, to which she replied: 'If Michael is really missing and doesn't contact us, immigration can take over. That's all I can tell you.' The incident is the latest in a string of challenges for the couple, who were recently dogged by allegations of cheating on Michael's part. The embattled couple first met in 2018 on season two of 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days, and they later got married and paid visits to each other's native countries The pair tied the knot in Nigeria in 2020 - however it took several more years before Michael made the move to the US to live with his wife In December 2022, a heartbroken Angela sobbed as she revealed how her husband Michael had been allegedly unfaithful to her in a sneak peek of 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? In the clip, which was obtained by People, Angela described how Michael had been cheating on her with a 31-year-old woman he became connected to on Instagram. Angela recounted just how 'happy' she had been in her relationship with Michael following a trip to Nigeria - before a friend alerted her to his indiscretions. 'When I got back from Nigeria, me and Michael was on a good note. We were happy when we left, we was back to normal like two f**king weeks we've been on the phone every night, 24/7 like we used to,' Angela told a producer. 'The spark was there, the love was still there, we were on the way to getting ready to bring him here and be husband and wife. Like, we love each other and I was happy. I was real happy. 'And then my friend sent me texts. Michael cheating on me online. This girl is 31 and they met on his Instagram. And that's why he didn't want to take his Instagram down!' Angela revealed Michael had been in communication with the woman for two months before she played a voice note her husband had sent to the woman. 'They've been talking the whole time we've been fighting. For two months. Not only while I was in Nigeria, but since I've come back, Michael's still continued to talk to this girl. After learning that her husband was safe, Angela quickly pivoted from concern to rage, accusing Michael of being a 'lying s***' 'I know this because I've got screenshots. Then I got a voice note. And the way he was talking to her was the way he would talk to me on the voice note. So I knew that was him. 'Telling her to pick up the phone, baby I love you. I got him right here,' she said before playing the voice note Michael had sent the woman. In that same season of the show, Angela told producers that 'divorce was definitely on the table', with the reality star insisting that she was 'definitely going to file', although she conceded that this didn't mean she was 'going to sign'. Angela was supported by other stars on the TLC franchise, as she said Ilesanmi 'went too far' with his dishonesty and infidelity, which left her 'mentally exhausted' and 'very hurt.' She added, 'With Michael's lying and all, and all the stuff I just found out, I don't think he's ever loved me. I think he loves me 'cause everything I've done for him, but he can't tell me why he's in love with me.' The couple's issues have played out on the show, and Michael previously admitted to cheating on Angela in the early days of their relationship. Despite the admission, she ultimately forgave him and they married in his native Nigeria in 2020. He then waited four years before finally being able to live with his wife in the US two months ago. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands is known for her vibrant sense of style - and she lived up to expectations on the final day of her trip to Colombia. Meeting with Fintech Founders in Bogota, the royal, 52, looked radiant in a yellow pencil skirt and corresponding floral blouse. The mother-of-three appeared to be in high spirits, accessorising her eye-catching ensemble with suede court shoes and a tan clutch. Colombia Fintech is a group of companies in Colombia working together to support and grow the industry in the country. The royal is visiting the South American nation for three days on behalf of the United Nations. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands opted for a sunny ensemble as she met with Fintech Founders in Bogota, Colombia, today Maxima added lashings of jewellery, including her Cartier Tank watch and bracelets engraved with the initials of loved ones, as well as distinctive drop earrings. The royal showcased her signature make-up look, incorporating heavy black eyeliner, bronzed cheekbones and a nude lip. She is visiting Colombia in her role as the UN Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA). Yesterday, she visited The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit in Bogota. The royal stunned in an emerald green co-ord and nude court shoes on day two of her trip in the South American country. She beamed as she was greeted by Ricardo Bonilla Gonzalez, Minister of Finance and Public Credit. The ministry oversees the country's financial and budgetary affairs, implementing policies approved by Congress. The royal opted for an eye-catching satin suit, which perfectly complemented her figure. The royal is renowned for her vibrant sense of style and she lived up to expectations on the final day of her trip to Colombia Maxima looked radiant in a yellow pencil skirt and corresponding floral blouse, completed with nude accessories She completed her outfit with exquisite emerald and diamond drop earrings, as well as suede court shoes. Earlier this week, she also visited Cooperativa Financiera de Antioquia (CFA) in Medellin. Maxima met with various individuals at the financial cooperative, known for providing products and services tailored to the needs of its members. The monarch appeared in high spirits as she made her way across the event and greeted the various guests in attendance. Meeting with Fintech Founders in Bogota, the royal looked radiant in a yellow pencil skirt and corresponding floral blouse Colombia Fintech is a group of companies in Colombia working together to support and grow the industry in the country The royal is visiting Colombia for three days on behalf of the United Nations. Pictured during today's event She is visiting Colombia in her role as the UN Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA) She was photographed in deep conversation with the Minister of Finance and Public Credit of Colombia, Ricardo Bonilla. She was also pictured with the ambassador of the Netherlands in Colombia, Reina Buijs, the ambassador of Colombia in the Netherlands, Carolina Olarte and the UN Resident Coordinator in Colombia, Mireia Villar Forner. Queen Maxima is the United Nations Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, working to advance universal knowledge of affordable, effective and safe financial services. Someone recently posted a photograph of me on Instagram from 20 years ago. In my mid-30s with seven bestsellers under my belt, I was dressed in an expensive designer coat, with immaculately blonde-streaked hair and dripping with jewels. I studied the picture carefully; how bittersweet it was to see myself so young and so glamorous, but so filled with self-doubt. In fact, I barely recognised myself and not just because of the passage of time; my whole demeanour is different. Despite the coiffed appearance and confident smile, I was looking at a woman who dressed to impress because she felt so inadequate. Back then, I hid my overwhelming lack of self-worth behind a coat of gleaming armour. I thought I had to emulate glamorous, strong, rich-looking authors such as Jackie Collins and Barbara Taylor-Bradford. Mainly because I had no idea who the real me actually was. Two decades on, this picture makes me realise that my abiding lack of confidence has led to me inhabit many different personas. There was that young glamorous author; the laid-back beach chick; the party-loving bohemian; and the pink-haired artist. Jane Green aged 35: Immaculately blonde-streaked hair and dripping with jewels It took me many years to find the person I was looking for all those years: myself. Like many insecure women I know, I have always been something of a chameleon. I may not have known who I was, but I had the ability to turn myself into whoever I thought I needed to be in order to fit in or, whoever I thought you needed me to be. You only had to look at my hair over the years for a clue as to what was going on inside: blonde streaks meant I was trying to fit in; brunette meant I was hiding, and pink signified the beginning of my no longer needing to fit in. Finally, four years ago, letting the grey show through was a sign that I was moving closer to self-acceptance. For when we dont know who we are or worry that who we are isnt good enough we can hide behind luxury labels, jewellery or indeed a persona we create. But in doing so we deny ourselves the ability to connect with others for heaven forbid anyone should see through to the real us. As a child, growing up in London with a younger brother away at boarding school, I was awkward and shy. Dressing to fit in as a teenager meant hobble skirts and very pointy flat shoes from Kensington Market, or oversized donkey jackets and clunky DMs. Throughout my 20s I fell in and out of love and turned myself into whoever the boyfriend at the time wanted me to be. Jane aged 29: She says that in her twenties she fell in and out of love and turned herself into whoever her boyfriend at the time wanted her to be Dating a musician turned me into a groupie, hanging out at recording studios; dating a barrister turned me into the perfect trophy girlfriend. Yes, I could step into any role and play it wholeheartedly, convincing myself that was who I was temporarily. At 30, I married the man I thought my parents would have chosen for me. Ironically, they later said that they didnt think we were well suited. We had met on a blind date, and talked for hours. There was little physical attraction for me, but he ticked the boxes required of a secure and sensible partner, and my biological clock had me doing what I thought was the right thing for this stage of life. We were two good people; he an inflexible American, me a free spirit who didnt understand that we simply werent on the same page about anything. After we had our first child, we moved to America. My career was taking off there, and it was far easier to put my energies into a move, rather than look at the real problems in the marriage. I distracted myself by having three more children. From the outside, life looked perfect: my career was successful, my income lucrative, and I stepped easily into the persona of a bestselling author with the requisite blonde-streaked hair, the big diamonds and the big house. Little did I realise how off-putting this was. When people looked at me, they saw someone impenetrable; friends tell me now that when they first met me, they were terrified. They didnt know if I was kind, or loyal, or funny, or surprisingly much more down to earth than my suit of armour would suggest. Because as well as being utterly inauthentic, such a facade was intimidating. The role of the perfect wife with a perfect life was, eventually, one I could no longer sustain; the pretence was simply exhausting. Our split in 2006, after seven years of marriage, followed what should have been a normal row. Except this time, when he asked whether I wanted him to leave, I said yes. Its not surprising that my divorce triggered yet another re-invention. Many women report that the end of a marriage represents a new start for them. I moved into a little cottage by the beach, and sold every piece of designer clothing and jewellery I owned. I didnt want any reminders of how hard I had tried to be someone else. I spent my days in shorts and T-shirts, walking the kids to the beach for picnics and after-dinner swims. Now a hip, single-mum beach chick, I felt free, and light. This role suited the new me. But still, I was only conforming to what I thought a woman living by the beach should look like. The landlord of my beach cottage was wise, handsome and calm. Within a couple of months I had fallen in love with him, and I loved what he brought out in me. Down-to-earth and humble, he would have had no time for the trophy wife Jane. We lived together for three years, before marrying in 2009. On our honeymoon, I became friendly with a woman staying at the same resort who happened to live near us at home. Upon our return to Connecticut, she introduced me to her group of friends. Because they are all impossibly glamorous, I re-invented myself yet again. This time it wasnt designer clothes, but pricey bohemian-inspired pieces. I bought dress after dress from Maison Marche, a company owned by one of the women, who swiftly became one of my dearest friends. She sources from South America, so it was ruffles and frills for me, with large earrings. My life became a whirlwind of tequila at parties, and dancing all night long. This earned me a pseudonym: Tequila Jane. No one knew what might happen if she was in the house, but it would always be fun. My husband was along for the ride, joking that he hadnt realised just how many women he was marrying when we walked down the aisle. I loved this version of me, loved the fun I was having, even when I overdid it, which I did rather more frequently than I should have done. Jane at 46: A few years later, on the eve of her 50th birthday, she looked in the mirror, still had no idea who she really was and told herself it was time to figure it out and find happiness Of course, later I would look back and see that I was losing myself in too much drinking, too much partying. I was not a woman you could have much of a conversation with; I was too busy whooping it up on the dance floor. On the eve of my 50th birthday, almost six years ago, I found myself looking in the mirror, stunned that at this ripe age, I still had no idea who I really was. Jane, I said to my reflection, its time you figured it out. Theres no denying that you are frankly past midlife, and if you dont figure it out now, youre never going to find true happiness. Of course, there had been many joyous times, and I loved my family and friends, but I never felt settled. Who would I be, I thought, if I stopped caring what anyone else thought? If I stopped worrying about fitting in, and discovered instead what I like? I really had no idea. The first move I made was to dye my hair pink for fun. I thought it brought me closer to the real me but, in fact, it was a small step, trying on unconventionality just to see how it might feel. My journey to self-acceptance couldnt be completed with a bottle of hair dye. It was made both harder, and easier, when the pandemic struck. I could no longer distract myself with parties, evenings out, hosting dinner parties at home; I could no longer run from myself. At the same time, my husband and I were planning our next move. Having sold our family home in 2021, we wondered whether we would stay in the Connecticut town in which my husband grew up, a town where I had lived for 23 years, or whether we would move somewhere else? My husband wanted to go to California, or North Carolina. But I didnt want suburbia; it had been a wonderful place to raise our families, but now that my kids had left home, I wanted something bigger, something more. At first I had a yearning for home; for Europe, for London and for old friends the friends who had known me long before I became a bestselling author, and who will always be my family. So I spent proper time back in London, feeling most myself with them. The version of me that they saw the one with natural grey hair, who was not afraid to make a fool of herself, nor afraid of what anyone thought felt like my truest, best self. Then, last year, I spent around four months in Marrakech, Morocco, with my husband travelling back and forth. In 2022 I had written a book Sister Stardust set in this magical city. We loved our time there so much that last month we moved into a riad that we have rented for the year, to see whether this is a place to lay a hat. Now that I know who I am someone with a fierce honesty gene, who likes change, who is too much of a free spirit to stay anywhere for too long it is much easier to make friends. I no longer feel the need to prove myself; as a consequence I am open in a way I hadnt been before. And that shame I had carried for so long, the shame of not being good enough, has gone. Jane at 55: She says that she no longer feels that she has to prove herself and that the 'sahme of not being good enough has gone' In November, I was invited to teach at a writers conference. Previously I had always stepped into the persona of Jane Green, Bestselling Author to hide my natural shyness. This time, I showed up simply as Jane and for the first time ever, I felt fully embraced. Whats happened to you? asked one writer who has known me vaguely for years. Youve changed. Your energy is so different now. Youre porous, another one told me. I think she meant that before, no one could get in to see the real me; now I let everyone in. What happened is that not only did I figure out who I am but, more importantly, I realised that I am enough. I have learned to not just accept that person, but to love her. Previously I struggled to get close to people, for how are you supposed to love anyone else when you dont love yourself? Life is not perfect, and I do still have bad days, but all in all, Im pretty happy. So many women hide behind personas, wanting to fit in, wanting to be enough, instead of looking deep into their hearts to find out who they really are. I am proof that its never too late to find the real you. Now I wake up every day happy and, more importantly, at peace. I wish Id learned this lesson in my 20s, but perhaps it takes age, wisdom and a deep vein of unhappiness to force us to take a really long hard look at ourselves. To decide who we are, not for anyone else, but just for us. American fast food chain In-N-Out Burger has launched a pop-up shop in Australia today. On Wednesday from 9am to 3pm customers in Canberra will be able to get their hands on the 'mouthwatering' meals. But stock is limited so diners are encouraged to move fast if they want to attend the store which is at Walt & Burley along the Kingston Foreshore. It's the first time the US chain has hosted a pop-up in Canberra following previous launches in Melbourne and Sydney. On Wednesday from 9am to 3pm customers in Canberra will be able to get their hands on the mouthwatering In-N-Out Burger meals Popular options from the Californian-based establishment include the Double-Double burger, which are made of 'double meat and double cheese', and cheeseburgers. Last year hundreds queued for more than an hour to get a taste of In-N-Out Burger in Melbourne. But some were less than impressed after they discovered the pop-up wasn't selling In-N-Out's signature hand cut fries. Instead, the Melbourne food chain had sides of potato chips for $2. One person wrote on TikTok: 'Why are they serving packet chips/crisps? Doesn't look very good'. Another added: 'I would have preferred fries'. A third posted: 'In-N-Out fries are foul anyway that's a win'. But stock is limited so diners are encouraged to travel swiftly to Walt & Burley along the Kingston Foreshore In-N-Out Burger also hosted a pop-up in Sydney's East Village in 2022 and a snaking line quickly formed. Instagram foodie 'Isaac Eats A Lot' was the first person in the line to receive his burger, purchasing crisps and a large hamburger. Foodfluencer 'Big City Mick' took a video of the lengthy lines outside East Village before joining it himself for a taste. 'After a short line-up with other hungry foodies, I was at the counter and for $20 I got the Double-Double, chips, a coke and a t-shirt,' he said. Krispy Kreme has announced a huge change to its line of doughnuts for Australian customers on February 29. The cult favourite dessert chain has slashed the prices for its 12-pack of Original Glazed doughnuts to $2.29 for one day only. You have to purchase a regularly priced dozen in-stores to be eligible for the offer. An Original Glazed pack is usually $24.95 - so foodies will be rushing to get their hands on the limited-edition deal. Krispy Kreme also revealed that fans whose birthday falls on February 29 will receive a free dozen instead of the heavy discount. Krispy Kreme has slashed the prices for its 12-pack of Original Glazed doughnuts The delicious glaze is made with icing sugar, vanilla extract, and milk - making it the ideal combination of light and sweet. 'An extra day in the year is an irresistible opportunity for Krispy Kreme to be extra-sweet to our guests,' said Dave Skena, Global Chief Brand Officer for Krispy Kreme told FEMAIL. 'So, we're sweetening Leap Day by the dozens, including for fans whose true birthday comes around only every four years.' Many Aussies shared their love for the fan-favourite doughnuts online. 'I honestly love a regular doughnut nothing fancy, no frills. I enjoy the light fluffy texture with the perfect amount of sweetness. Deliciously glazed and if they aren't warm, pop them in the microwave,' one said. 'Taste really good! The doughnut is soft and delicious. Best paired with coffee or tea. Totally addictive,' another echoed. Heinz has launched a limited edition ketchup to celebrate the The Godfather, more than five decades since the cult classic came out. The sauce giant has teamed up with Paramount to make a Heinz & The Godfather Pasta Sauce inspired by the Hollywood hit to go on sale in the UK. The limited-edition is inspired directly from a memorable scene from the Francis Ford Coppola film, in which Peter Clemenza (played by Richard S. Castellano) says 'leave the gun, take the cannoli' and teaches Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) how to cook the perfect pasta sauce. The 490g jar of pasta sauce features the ingredients detailed in the film, and Heinz has broken down exactly how the sauce is made - according to Clemenza's instructions, of course. It starts with some good sun-ripened tomatoes - grown in Italy - before being placed in a pot with olive oil, garlic, meatballs, sausage and salt and pepper to taste. Heinz advise to accompany the succulent sauce with freshly cooked pasta in a dish best served hot. Unlike revenge, it's advised to accompany the limited-edition Heinz & The Godfather Pasta Sauce with freshly cooked pasta in a dish best served hot The limited-edition release is part of Kraft Heinz's larger transformation to bring insight-driven innovation to consumers faster than ever before and grow their taste elevation platform around the world. On the launch, Caio Fontenele, Heinz New Ventures Director, said: 'Paramount Pictures' The Godfather remains one of the greatest films in cinema history. 'And after we watched Clemenza teaching Michael how to make his perfect pasta sauce, alongside seeing a rising trend on social media of people replicating recipes from their favourite films and TV series at home, we knew it had to be Heinz that finally brought this iconic recipe to the nation.' He added: 'This unexpected yet iconic collaboration is set to unleash excitement and disruption in the pasta sauces category, whether you're a long-time fan of The Godfather or just looking for a new great tasting pasta dish.' The sauce contains sun-ripened tomatoes - grown by Heinz tomato masters in Italy - before being placed in a pot with olive oil, garlic, meatballs, sausage and salt and pepper to taste The Heinz & The Godfather Pasta Sauce is inspired directly from a memorable scene from the film, in which Peter Clemenza teaches Michael Corleone how to cook the perfect pasta sauce Rebecca Jenkins, VP of Consumer Products for Paramount Global, said: 'At Paramount, we are always looking for new and innovative ways to bring our beloved stories and characters to fans. 'Our collaboration with Heinz brings one of cinema's most iconic meals from the big screen onto dinner tables and we can't wait for fans to experience Clemenzas mouth-watering pasta sauce in real life!' The new Heinz & The Godfather Pasta Sauce is available for five weeks exclusively from Heinz direct, as well as Waitrose nationwide from 28th February and Ocado nationwide from 1st March for 3. The limited-edition is inspired directly from a memorable scene from the Francis Ford Coppola film, in which Peter Clemenza (played by Richard S. Castellano) says 'leave the gun, take the cannoli' and teaches Michael Corleone ( Al Pacino ) how to cook the perfect pasta sauce It comes after Heinz launched a new flavour of baked beans this month, with the product hitting supermarket shelves nationwide on February 21. The American food giant has collaborated with Cornish cheesemaker Cathedral City to bring Brits Cheezy Beanz - a twist on the original baked beans. Alessandra de Dreuille, Director of Meals and Insights from Heinz, said: 'We know Brits absolutely love pairing beanz with cheese. 'We're thrilled to finally announce our partnership with Cathedral City bringing beanz lovers up and down the country the ultimate perfect match. The beans, which are mixed with cheddar and doused with tomato sauce will sell for 1.80. Advertisement A modern home with a unique bathtub, sunny rooftop terrace and striking angular facade on one of the smallest lots in Adelaide is made out of sea containers. The contemporary four-storey home sits in a quiet residential laneway in the south-west corner of Adelaide's bustling CBD on a tiny 90sqm block. Architect Damien Chwalisz and owner Robert van Gorp collaborated to create the ultra-cool pad using eight High Cube shipping containers for an affordable and quick build. A light and airy family room sits on the first level with floor-to-ceiling windows on every wall, a dusty green kitchen and a sun-drenched balcony. The second floor is taken up by the luxurious primary bedroom with a timber walk-in wardrobe and a blue-tiled ensuite featuring a sculptural hammock-shaped bathtub. A striking four-storey home made up of eight stacked sea containers with a unique bathtub, sunny rooftop terrace and striking angular facade sits on Adelaide's smallest residential block A light and airy family room sits on the first level with floor-to-ceiling windows on every wall, a dusty green kitchen as well as a decked sun-drenched balcony The contemporary four-storey home sits in a quiet residential laneway in the south-west corner of Adelaide's bustling CBD on a tiny 90sqm block The second floor is completely taken up by the luxurious primary bedroom with a timber walk-in wardrobe as well as a blue-tiled ensuite featuring a sculptural hammock-shaped bathtub A home office with a recessed window seat sits on the top floor and opens out to a stunning roof terrace with views of Adelaide's city skyline. Two more cosy bedrooms hide on the ground floor by the entry foyer and have a shared bathroom with aqua herringbone tiles and an open shower. The neighbouring block connects to the property and houses a car port and the first-floor balcony. Van Gorp bought the tiny block back in 2011 for $205,000 and is now selling. He said he had always been inspired by Japanese architecture when it came to 'micro-homes' which drew him to the lot when it hit the market, adding he would have bought it even if it was half the size. Van Gorp bought the tiny block back in 2011 for $205,000 and is now selling He said he had always been inspired by Japanese architecture when it came to 'micro-homes' which drew him to the lot when it hit the market adding he would have bought it even if it was half the size Listing agent Andrew Downing of Ray White Adelaide City told FEMAIL the unique home will be sold by auction with a price guide of around $1.4million He said he's been 'smashed' with interest since the Hamilton Place property went on the market on Monday and expects hoards of people coming through at the upcoming inspections Van Gorp enlisted the help of Chwalisz a few years later. They started construction in 2016, building a new level out of the sea containers every two weeks, and finished in late 2018. 'It's a beautiful place, a beautiful home - my wife and I loved living in the city with the markets close by. It's not an easy decision to sell,' he told realestate.com.au. Listing agent Andrew Downing of Ray White Adelaide City told FEMAIL the unique home will be sold by auction with a price guide of around $1.4million. He said he's been 'smashed' with interest since the Hamilton Place property went on the market on Monday and expects hoards of people coming through at the upcoming inspections. Taylor Swift fans have run into a dilemma now that the Australian leg of the superstar's Eras Tour is over. Thousands who made and exchanged friendship bracelets at the concerts are unsure of what to do with the beaded bands. Marco Paulo, a Filipino fan, flew to Japan for one of the concerts and came up with an innovate idea once he got back home. He made a DIY light-up show piece using the concert's light up wrist band, two glass jars, and his friendship bracelets. Marco keeps the memento on his desk as a happy reminder of his first concert. Marco Paulo made a DIY light-up show piece using his friendship bracelets 'Here's how I display my friendship bracelets from the Eras Tour,' he captioned the video tutorial. The tradition dates back to some of Taylor's earliest shows, but fans who went to the Eras Tour took it who a whole new level by making tens of hundreds of the jewellery pieces. Marco first gathered a 4x5in jar and a 2.5x4.5in jar - the former was purchased at Daiso, and the latter used to contain lollies. He put the bracelets on the smaller jar and lined them up before placing the light-up section of his wristband inside it. He then placed the small jar into the larger one and put the lids on, fastening his concert wristband over the top. The end result is an adorable and easy-to-make display trinket. 'I know the batter will eventually run out but that's okay,' he said about the wristband. 'Will just try to replace it or use another light source.' If you don't have the concert wristband, you can also use fairy lights or small bulbs for a similar effect. Taylor Swift fans have been making friendship bracelets to swap with each other at shows Many complimented Marco's 'genius' idea. 'Oh, what a great idea! I'm going to do the same!' one said. 'I wish I could've gotten confetti to put in as well, but I wasn't allowed on the floor,' one shared. Other ways to display your bracelets include hanging them on your bedpost or the side of your mirror. You can also use them as bonus birthday or holiday presents for your friends and family. Psychologists should avoid using phrases such as 'you're nailing it' when trying to encourage patients because it could be interpreted as violent. That is according to a new psychology language manual that lists dozens of everyday phrases that should be swapped out for more 'inclusive' terms. Phrases such as 'take a shot at', 'target population' and 'you're killing it' should be avoided because they are microaggressions, the guide says. Meanwhile, 'stand up for', 'turn a blind eye to' and 'lend you voice to a cause' should be axed because they are 'ableist' and offensive to disabled people. The manual released in December by the American Psychological Association (APA), which has nearly 160,000 members, including scientists, clinicians and consultants. The guidelines aim to 'dismantle the destructive hierarchies that have marginalized people from equitable representation and participation in society,' the organization said. SCROLL DOWN FOR THE FULL LIST OF TERMS But Dr Sarah Hill, a professor of psychology with expertise in women, health, and sexual psychology at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, told DailyMail.com that restricting language would only make communication between patient and doctor harder. 'It just creates a situation where people don't want to talk,' she said. 'All it does is make well-intentioned people afraid to speak, because they're afraid of hurting people's feelings.' Dr Hill had received an email about the new language guide, she said, having previously been a member when she was a practicing clinician. The guide not only includes violent language but also identity-related terms, gender terms and socioeconomic terms. For example, 'poor' and 'blue-collar workers.' 'Sold down the river', which means to betray someone or do something which harms them in order to gain an advantage for yourself, is also recommended against. It is now said to be racist. The APA said: 'This expression belittles the painful history of millions of enslaved people sold and literally transported via the Mississippi or Ohio rivers to perform brutal manual labor on cotton plantations further south during the 19th century.' 'Betrayed' should be used instead, the APA added. Psychologists should also refrain from saying the word 'obese,' and opt for 'higher weight' instead. This switch should be made to 'avoid perpetuating weight stigma.' 'Use neutral terms that affirm and respect the dignity of all individuals regardless of their body size,' the APA said. 'Obese is a clinical term. To try to obfuscate that is not smart. It's inaccurate, it's essentially taking what's a precise term, and then trying to make it less precise,' said Dr Hill. 'I don't know why that would ever be a good idea. Precision in language is always important.' Psychologists are not even allowed to use compliments, and should also 'ask consent' from patients before commenting on their appearance. Compliments like 'Wow, youre looking great!' should be avoided, and psychologists should instead ask, 'Is it alright if we talk about your weight?' 'This prevents unintended consequences or mixed messages about peoples health or appearance,' the association said. Dr Hill said: 'They're common [phrases]. Nobody gets upset about them. And if people do get upset about them... I think everybody just needs to learn to relax.' 'It just creates a situation where people don't want to talk,' she added. 'It becomes harder and harder for me to teach my classes every single year because of things like this, and I'm not an asshole. 'I'm not somebody who tries to make people feel bad or to discriminate. I certainly don't feel harbor any ill feelings for people who have a different sexual orientation or race, ethnicity or ability level than I do.' 'Killing it' or 'nailing it' are deemed unacceptable because they are violent, the APA claimed, and should be replaced by the 'great job' or 'awesome'. Psychologists should also refrain from saying 'take a shot at', 'take your best shot' and 'take a stab at'. 'Give it a go' or 'try' are safer alternatives, the APA said. 'Although these terms and idioms may seem innocuous ways to signal achievement,' the organization said, 'it is notable how pervasive violent or militaristic language is seen as positive when it should be the opposite.' 'Even when used in medicine, violent metaphors have been described as "ironic, unfortunate, and unnecessary",' the guide added. 'What's awful about [the language guide] is that it doesn't actually solve the problem, because people who are actually jerks, this isn't going to change their behavior,' Dr Hill said. 'Creating a list like this is just going to make it harder for people who are well-meaning.' The APA's own chief diversity officer, Dr Maysa Akbar, who even penned the foreword to the new language guide, used some of the 'violent' phrases herself in 2019 on X, DailyMail.com found. Her friend 'killed it' at the Hispanic Federation Gala, she tweeted. 'I think that goes to show just how harmless and mindless saying these things is,' said Dr Hill. 'People say these things and they're not saying it with an ill spirit. It's hard to avoid saying these things. 'These are just like part of common language. The more rules that we get about what's offensive and what's not offensive, all that it does is quiet people with good hearts, because then nobody wants to say anything.' The APA's own chief diversity officer, Dr Maysa Akbar, who even penned the foreword to the new language guide, used some of the 'violent' phrases herself in 2019 on X The APA is a scientific and professional organization that represents psychologists in the US, with over 157,000 members. It serves as a source of guidance for clinicians who are practicing with patients. The association criticized the phrases 'stand up for', 'lend your voice' and 'fall on deaf ears' for being ableist. 'Support' or 'champion', 'support' and 'be willfully ignorant' or 'deliberately ignore' are suggested as replacement terms. 'I don't think people are actually going to be offended by these phrases,' Dr Hill said. 'I think that it would take somebody who's just looking for something to be upset about to be offended by them, honestly. 'I know people who are in wheelchairs, and I have relatives who are on the autism spectrum and all these other things. Most people, even if they're in a marginalized group, generally don't feel bad [when hearing phrases like these],' she added. 'It's other people who are in usually positions of privilege and power that go on and start telling people how offended they should be by this language. It's really not a good thing.' Dr Akbar, the APA's chief diversity officer, also used the phrase 'stand up for' in 2018, which her own language guide has deemed ableist 'Turn a blind eye to' should also be swapped with 'ignore' or 'refuse to notice,' the APA said, to be more inclusive to people who are blind. Psychologists should say 'show unconscious bias' instead of the 'ableist' phrase 'have a blind spot for.' The phrase, 'everyone should have a voice [in this matter]' should also be abstained from, and substituted with 'everyone should have input.' The term 'be shortsighted' should also be exchanged for 'ignore' or 'miss' due to its discrimination in favor of able-bodied people. 'Ableist terms and phrases are pervasive in everyday language,' the association said. 'Although the use of these ableist terms may be unintentional, be thoughtful about how to avoid language that denigrates disabilities.' 'Birth sex' should also be steered clear of and 'assigned sex' should be used instead to avoid making assumptions about someone's sex. 'With birth sex, biological sex is biological sex,' Dr Hill said. 'It is not what's assigned, it has to do with the size of your sex cells. If you've got big ones, you're a female. If you've got little ones, you're a male.' 'You can also have gender. The two are not mutually exclusive and they're not always the same. I think that we can recognize that and still be accurate with our language and calling biological sex, biological sex.' The term 'blue-collar worker' should also be avoided, the APA said, and should be swapped for 'skilled tradesworker' or 'manual laborer'. This term is considered 'somewhat outdated as they originated in the early 20th century,' the APA said. A blue-collar job relates to someone who performs physically-demanding manual work, such as agriculture, manufacturing or construction. The term stemmed from the blue denim or chambray shirts the workers wore as part of their uniforms. 'Poor' is another word deemed unacceptable by the psychologists' organization. 'People whose incomes are below the federal poverty threshold' is their recommended phrasing. The APA said: 'Many people find the terms "low-class" and "poor" pejorative.' 'Conversely, class solidarity exists in "poor peoples movements" and many individuals proudly identify as "working class." 'Define specific income brackets and levels if possible (e.g., "low income").' 'As always, there should be room for nuance and flexibility when using these terms,' it added. Dr Hill said: 'We should trust that most people aren't terrible and give people a little bit of grace with their language. This language policing is really hard. 'I can't tell you how many people in academia are absolutely exhausted, because of how much we have to monitor what we say in the classroom.' In recent years, academics have increasingly come under fire for using language that has be deemed inappropriate or discriminatory. 'It's not like we were going around on these terrible rants,' she said. 'We're all well-meaning, very liberal minded people. 'Now, it's not even fun to teach, because you have to monitor every little thing you say, because you've been told that everything that you say could possibly be offensive.' According to the APA, 'target population' should also be switched with 'specific population or group of focus.' The term 'target population' may be offensive because 'many communities are targeted for violence,' the association said. Using the phrase 'suffering with [disability or condition]' should be replaced by 'person with a disability or person with a diagnosis of...' due to its negative connotations, said the APA. Dr Hill said she would not be implementing the recommendations in her work. 'I always try to be very careful with my language, to say things in a way that is precise and not unkind,' she said. 'I'm not an unkind person and I wouldn't say anything that was intentionally hurtful to somebody. 'But I can't look at that list of things and try to embody it or else I'm never gonna be able to open my mouth again. We can't keep doing this.' Patients across the country are still unable to access potentially lifesaving medications a week on from a cyber attack on America's largest health insurer. UnitedHealth revealed its Change Healthcare unit - which processes prescriptions to tens of thousands of pharmacies - was compromised last Wednesday during a suspected state-sponsored hack. The hack led to the company's Optum software being taken down, preventing pharmacies like CVS and Walgreen's from processing prescriptions with insurance. As of today, some services are still down. Patients told DailyMail.com that they have been denied medications for blood clots, addiction, and cancer or been forced to pay as much as seven times the normal cost after insurance. A cyberattack on a unit of UnitedHealth has made pharmacies nationwide unable to get prescriptions to patients The debacle also comes as the US battles historic shortages of lifesaving drugs like chemotherapy and antibiotics. Julie Gregory of Ohio just started oral chemotherapy last week for stage three cancer. However, she has suffered adverse side effects, and the hack has left her pharmacy and hospital too overwhelmed to adjust her dosage or get her a new prescription. This has caused her intense suffering. 'I haven't been able to go to the bathroom in days,' she told DailyMail.com. 'I cannot get up. I have so much pain in my abdomen and back.' 'I literally can't move.' Ms Gregory said she has called her doctor and hospital several times but has yet to get any assistance since the hack began. 'They are too overwhelmed to call back, give me direction, or help,' she said. Oral chemotherapy is given via pills or tablets rather than an IV to slow the growth of cancer cells. Though the dosage depends on the type of cancer and other underlying factors, the American Cancer Society (ACS) strongly discourages missing a dose, as it could make the treatment less effective. This means that if Ms Gregory cannot get her chemo pills, her overall treatment plan could be less effective, making her potentially less able to fight her cancer. It's still unclear how exactly how many patients are affected, but UnitedHealth serves about 7.7 million customers nationwide. According to the New York Times, Change handles roughly 15 billion transactions a year, which could represent as many as one in three US patient records. The number of cyberattacks on healthcare providers has more than doubled since 2016 - with 91 per year in 2021 compared to 43 five years ago Up to 80 percent of hacks led to disruptions to operations - which lasted weeks Chrystal Russell's pharmacy told her that she would be unable to pick up her Vivitrol, a prescription injection used to treat alcohol and opioid dependence. Ms Russell does not have UnitedHealth but instead uses Humana Medicare Advantage, which is insurance for Americans over age 65. Though she does not have UnitedHealth, her pharmacy has been too overwhelmed with a backlog to fill her prescription on time. Ms Russell's pharmacist told her she should get the medication later in the week, though she worries about the risk of further delays. 'That's going to impact my recovery,' she told DailyMail.com. Vivitrol injections are typically given by a healthcare professional every four weeks and injected into the buttock. The drug, which contains the active ingredient naltrexone, slowly releases into the body and stops dopamine from being released. This is meant to decrease the risk of cravings for alcohol or opioids. However, levels drop about two weeks after each dose. If a dose is missed, dopamine isn't being properly suppressed, leading to cravings and potential relapse. Further delays for Ms Russell's prescription could compromise her recovery and put her at risk of relapsing. Ms Russell said that the incident has also left her 'concerned' about future attacks, as her elderly mother is covered by UnitedHealth and takes several prescriptions for health issues like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart failure, and severe osteoporosis. Susan Scherer, 65, told DailyMail.com that she has been unable to receive her prescription for Warfarin from her Oregon pharmacy since last Thursday. Warfarin is a blood thinner, meaning that it keeps blood form clotting in those at risk. Untreated blood clots can lead to stroke, heart attack, and pulmonary embolism. After paying for the medication online at Oregon-based pharmacy Samaritan Health, she received a notification that the pills were ready to pick up. 'Then I go down there and they won't give it to me,' she said. The pharmacist did not explain the cyber attack but instead used 'vague' terminology. 'They said that a third-party company that verifies discounts and purchases was down and they weren't sure when it was going to be back up.' Ms Scherer did not specify which discount program it she uses, but Change Healthcare's website states that it can help patients get cheaper prices for their medications. When Ms Scherer asked how long it would be, the pharmacy had no answer. Instead, she said they tried to convince her not to try to get the medicine yet, as she was picking it up early. She tried transferring the warfarin to another pharmacy. 'Come to find out, they never even did anything with it. There was no follow through.' When Ms Scherer last heard from the pharmacy on Monday, she was told they couldn't verify the prescription discount program she uses. 'I was notified that it was ready, so I'm assuming they have it, but they won't give it to me.' She tried Rite Aid, Oregon-based Samaritan Health, and her local Veterans Affairs branch but was told that if she wanted the medication, she would have to pay full price, more than seven times the cost after insurance. 'What I once could get for $13.50 is now over $100,' Ms Scherer said. 'So I'm left with nothing or pay full price.' 'The biggest concern that I have is when is this going to end? That's the question.' Ransomware attacks doubled this past year on city administrations, schools, and hospitals On Wednesday, the pharmacy finally told her that she could pick up the warfarin. Several prescription providers announced that they were impacted by the hack, including CVS, Walgreen's, Wal-Mart, and online marketplaces like GoodRx. CVS Health, which has more than 9,000 pharmacies, said that the hack meant that, 'in certain cases' it was unable to process insurance claims. 'We're committed to ensuring access to care as we navigate through this interruption,' the company's statement said. Walgreens, which serves nine million customers, said a 'small percentage' of its prescriptions 'may be affected,' but that the company had safeguards in place to process and fill them 'with minimal delay or interruption.' Independent pharmacies also reported issues. 'Please be patient with us and all of the pharmacies affected by this,' Dayton Drug and Wellness, a community pharmacy in Dayton, Tennessee, wrote on its Facebook page. When Change Healthcare went public in 2019, the company's S-1 filing noted that its customers include 'the vast majority of US payers and providers' and 'approximately, 2,200 government and commercial payer connections, 900,000 physicians, 118,000 dentists, 33,000 pharmacies, 5,500 hospitals, and 600 laboratories.' The American Hospital Association said Monday that the attack is 'having effects on the entire health care system.' The Wall Street Journal reports that the Justice Department is opening an antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth, which acquired Change Healthcare for $13 billion in 2022. On Monday, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that hackers working for the ransomware gang 'Blackcat' are behind the outage. This disputes United Health's claim that the hack was committed by a nation-state. Blackcat did not immediately respond to Reuters when asked if the group was responsibility. The sources said that Mandiant, a cybersecuity part of Alphabet, is investigating the breach. In a statement, Mandiant confirmed it 'has been engaged in support of the incident response' but declined to comment further. Blackcat, also known as ALPHV, is a notorious ransomware group that has targeted more than 1,000 computer networks, according to the US Department of Justice. The Justice Department said that Blackcat has become the 'second-most prolific ransomware-as-a-service variant in the world based on the hundreds of millions of dollars in ransoms paid by victims around the world.' Andrew Rossow, an attorney in Austin, Texas, and CEO of AR Media Consulting, told DailyMail.com that 'it's not too far fetched to wonder if Blackcat was involved in some way, just given its track record.' 'This is a big deal. It's a big wakeup call.' Mr Rossow recommended that any affected patients reach out to a local attorney and file a complaint with the HHS. This is far from the first time a health system has been the target of a cyber attack. The UnitedHealth hack comes as the US battles a historic shortage of potentially lifesaving drugs. Patients like Ryan Dwars (left), 39-year-old father-of-two from Iowa was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and a nine-year-old girl in Florida (right) have been impacted by that overall shortage According to records from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights, hundreds of breaches at hospitals, health plans, and doctors' offices are being investigated. In 2022, an attack was carried out against CommonSpirit Health, a system that runs 140 hospitals and 1,000 care sites across 21 states. This resulted in dangerous consequences for patients, including a three-year-old boy in Iowa who was accidentally given a megadose of opioids when the computer system dictating dosing was shot down. And in August, hospital computer systems operated by Prospect Medical Holdings were compromised, wreaking havoc in hospitals across five states. In 2022, an analysis from researchers from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis looked at 374 ransomware attacks across the US between January 2016 and December 2021. Results showed that the frequency of the hacks more than doubled in that time from 43 breaches in 2016 to 91 in 2021. Almost half (44 percent) of ransomware attacks disrupted the delivery of health care, with one in 10 leading to canceled appointments or operations and four percent causing ambulance diversions. In total, the medical records of 41.9million Americans were accessed in that time, but hackers became much more adept at obtaining patient information. Theres nothing funnier to most five-year-olds than the word bottom, and the fact is, most adults arent immune to a chortle over a below the belt joke. But while Brits are famously open about their enjoyment of lavatorial humour, when it comes to health problems in that area many feel too embarrassed to seek help especially men. But this also means many miss out on treatments for conditions that could transform their lives. To break down the taboos we have sought experts views on treatments on two major bed-time predicaments for men: sex and snoring. From bent penises, to premature ejaculation, loss of libido and snoring (which can also affect your love life), this is not just vital reading for men, but for their partners too. IMPOTENCE Few men, if any, will get through life without suffering an embarrassing failure at some point. The NHS estimates that approximately half of all men aged 40 to 70 experience a degree of erectile dysfunction. The causes can be both psychological and physical but, either way, says sex and relationship expert Victoria Lehmann, your body is trying to tell you something and you should listen. The occasional lack of performance is one thing and is often put down to having had too much to drink alcohol acts as a depressant however, frequent erectile dysfunction, or impotence, can be a sign of serious underlying health problems, says Mike Kirby, a professor of medicine at the University of Hertfordshire, who is also editor of the medical journal Trends in Urology and Mens Health. Thats why its important to see a doctor as soon as possible, he says. Men are very bad at this. Research shows that only two out of ten will seek medical help with erectile dysfunction. Its a macho thing and, of course, theres a lot of embarrassment. A recent study found men with erectile dysfunction between the ages of 40 and 49 are 50 times more likely to suffer a cardiac event But talking about a failure to perform could save a mans life. Erectile dysfunction can be caused by vascular disease, so talking about it with your doctor can alert them to the fact you may have high blood pressure, high blood sugar or high cholesterol, he adds. In a study led by Professor Kirby and published in the International Journal of Clinical Practice in 2007, seven in ten male cardiac patients had erection problems up to five years before their heart attacks, but few sought help. A more recent study found men with erectile dysfunction between the ages of 40 and 49 are 50 times more likely to suffer a cardiac event. The blood vessels feeding the penis can become blocked by fatty deposits in the same way as those carrying blood to and from the heart. The difference is that coronary arteries are about 25mm in diameter, while those in the penis are tiny about 2mm making it an early warning system to tackle high cholesterol and blood pressure before they damage the heart. You need to lose 75 per cent of the diameter of the coronary artery before you get cardiac pain, says Professor Kirby. However, with the small penile artery you need only a little bit of obstruction, or inability to relax the artery, for erections to become affected. Impotence can also be caused by low testosterone, often linked to being overweight. Abdominal fat produces toxins that effectively switch off production of the hormone, while body fat converts testosterone to the female hormone oestrogen, which is why men get manboobs, says Professor Kirby. Testosterone also plays a vital role in maintaining major organs, such as the heart, kidneys and brain. Thats why its doubly important to take erectile dysfunction seriously. But dont turn to testosterone supplements bought over the internet without first seeing an endocrinologist and having the levels in your blood tested, as these can be potentially harmful, says Tet Yap, a urological surgeon at St Georges Hospital, London. Ironically, he warns, excess testosterone can render you infertile as it suppresses the sperm count. Other side-effects include acne and swollen breast tissue. Patients put on the hormone by a doctor are monitored as they can also have high red blood cell counts, which could increase the risk of clots, he adds. To be absolutely sure low testosterone is your problem (in the UK the official though controversial view is that testosterone deficiency affects only 8 per cent of men aged 50 to 79), a series of daily blood tests will be carried out at about 9am, as levels fall during the day. In most men, testosterone is best raised naturally, says Professor Kirby, with a healthy lifestyle, exercise and weight loss. But because its hard for men to lose the 10 per cent of weight needed to kickstart production of the hormone, testosterone is often prescribed to get them going again and to get fit. It is then stopped when they are back to an ideal weight. DO YOU NEED THE MAGIC BLUE PILL? Most people will have heard of Viagra, but it is actually one of four erectile dysfunction drugs available, which temporarily increase blood flow to the penis. Viagra, Levitra and Spedra work on demand and last for about four to eight hours. Cialis works for up to 36 hours. These drugs are available on the NHS only for men with erectile dysfunction and one of a range of conditions, including multiple sclerosis and prostate cancer. Men with impotence alone can get a generic version of Viagra (sildenafil) on the NHS. These drugs can have side-effects and may not be suitable for men with cardiovascular disease or those who are on medication for high blood pressure. Men with impotence alone can get a generic version of Viagra (sildenafil) on the NHS You can buy sildenafil from a pharmacy, or over the internet, but the NHS warns that many websites sell fake medicines and advises its best to see a doctor before buying medicines online. It also advises that you check that the online pharmacy is registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), that any online doctor service is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and that the doctors are registered with the General Medical Council (GMC). Pelvic floor exercises, which women do after childbirth, can work just as well. A 2008 study found that 40 per cent of men who did such exercises regained full sexual function, with a further 30 per cent enjoying some improvement the same success rate claimed for Viagra. Advertisement JUST LOST INTEREST IN SEX? A loss of interest in sex in men is often put down to the male menopause and a drop in testosterone. But some experts arent convinced. It is true that waning testosterone plays a big role in sexual dysfunction, says Professor Kirby, but men usually keep making the hormone throughout their lives. And if someone who believes they suffer from low libido has their testosterone levels checked and it is decided this is not the cause and theres no other underlying condition, such as depression, then its time to talk. Adrenaline lends a hand by switching off the erection and sending the blood to the muscles PILLS AND PUMPS Prescription drugs are the first-line treatment for erectile dysfunction, but men whose problems are a result of prostate surgery may need a more radical solution. Blood flow is important to keep the tissues oxygenated, so after pelvic surgery for cancer we recommend using a pump every day to keep the penis healthy and to stop the shortening that sometimes occurs, says Mike Kirby, a professor of medicine at the University of Hertfordshire. Pumps, sometimes available on the NHS, are used with a daily dose of drugs such as Viagra or Cialis. If these fail, men can be taught to self-inject the penis with a prescription-only drug called alprostadil that can be effective within five to 20 minutes and gives erections that last about 40 minutes. Alternatively, alprostadil can be used as a cream inserted into the opening of the urethra with an applicator. The erection will develop over the next five to ten minutes. The most radical solution is a penile prosthesis, an inflatable tube implanted inside and along the length of the penis. An internal, manual pump is placed between the testicles and the tube can be pumped up to create an erection. Advertisement Many sex problems, including low libido, remain unresolved as couples dont communicate, says sex and relationship expert Victoria Lehmann. Im still surprised people find it so difficult to talk about their worries, she says. There would be far fewer problems if we were able to say what we liked and didnt like without offending anyone - If you blow in my ear one more time... Instead, we say nothing and find were not turned on anymore. Sometimes, even problems such as erectile dysfunction can be all in the mind, says Professor Kirby. Men who have had one or two failures for whatever reason depression can be a cause, for example develop performance anxiety. They begin to really worry about being embarrassed the next time. Thats when evolution kicks in unhelpfully. Anxiety or fear produces adrenaline, a mechanism that goes back to caveman days, says Professor Kirby. If youre having wild sex in a cave and a tiger walks in youve either got to run or fight. And you cant do either very well with an erection. So adrenaline lends a hand by switching off the erection and sending the blood to the muscles where its needed most. That cycle of anxiety can be overcome erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra can be prescribed until confidence returns. Victoria Lehmann says there are many non-physical reasons for erectile dysfunction. Sometimes, it is a sign something else is wrong in a relationship. I always say to men, if you dont listen to your mind or your heart, listen to your penis it may be trying to tell you something. Do they find their partner attractive? Do they even like them? Your GP may be able to refer you to a psychosexual therapist, or you can see one privately the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine has a list of qualified therapists on its website (ipm.org.uk). The College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (cosrt.org.uk) also has a list of members online. A MANS GUIDE TO PELVIC FLOOR EXERCISES Giving your pelvic floor muscles a daily work-out can prevent embarrassing leaks and even boost sexual performance. Follow the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) expert guide on keeping these vital muscles in tip-top condition. STEP ONE First, you need to find them to make sure youre exercising the right muscles. Sit or lie comfortably and relax your thighs, buttocks and abdomen. Tighten the ring of muscle around your back passage as if youre trying to hold in wind but dont squeeze the muscles in your buttocks, thighs or tummy. One way to check youre doing it right is to imagine youre trying to pass urine, stop the flow in mid-stream and then restart it you should feel the base of your penis move upwards slightly towards your tummy. STEP TWO Master the daily techniques. The BAUS guidance says: Tighten and draw in the muscles around the anus and the urethra (water pipe) all at once. Lift them up inside you and hold this position as you count to five. Release the muscles slowly and relax for a few seconds then repeat the contraction and relax again. STEP THREE Once you are able to hold this contraction for five seconds, try and do it for ten seconds. Repeat this for a maximum of ten squeezes and try to make each contraction strong, slow and controlled. Finally, do the same thing again, but this time using ten short, fast contractions, pulling up rapidly and immediately letting go. Repeat this whole exercise routine at least four to five times every day. And try to tighten the pelvic floor before you cough, lift anything heavy or get up from a chair. But be patient it can take weeks or months to get the maximum benefit. WHEN ITS ALL OVER IN A FLASH: PREMATURE EJACULATION WHAT COUNTS AS PREMATURE? Ejaculating within a minute or less, states the International Society for Sexual Medicine. Although associated with over-eager young men, premature ejaculation can affect males of all ages and cause a lot of distress. Often men with premature ejaculation lose partners, says Mike Kirby, a professor of medicine at the University of Hertfordshire. It is one of the most common sexual problems about 30 per cent of men will experience it at some point. It may have genetic or psychological causes. Ejaculating within a minute or less count as premature Sadly the penis can get into the habit of not recognising the point of no return because the man is not focusing on his own erotic feelings but the feelings of his partner instead, adds sex and relationship expert Victoria Lehmann. THREE THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT IMPOTENCE It can be an early warning of looming heart problems. While the coronary arteries are about 25mm across, those in the penis are just 2mm and will fur up sooner, causing impotence. Men typically begin to suffer erection problems in their 50s and 60s. Erections in your sleep are natural and important for oxygenating tissue. Ideally, men will have 40 to 50 minutes of these nightly. If you dont, lose weight and get fit. Doctors may prescribe drugs, such as Cialis, which boost erections during sex and encourage them in the night. Advertisement Early experiences, such as one-night stands or fear of discovery, may lead to a pattern of it. Stress caused by relationship problems may also be a cause: sexually demanding partners, unrealistic expectations and a lack of communication and trust can all play their part. Victoria Lehmann urges couples to seek help together as she says the outcomes are almost always better. There are physical solutions the Sexual Advice Association recommends a stop-start exercise, which involves stimulating the penis until just before the point of no return, then stopping and waiting for up to 60 seconds before starting again. This should be repeated three or four times before ejaculation and can be done regularly for several weeks. Another solution are over-the-counter sprays to desensitise the head of the penis. Many contain the anaesthetic lidocaine, which is applied minutes before intimacy. Doctors may also prescribe a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), an antidepressant which, in lower doses than used for depression, slows the nerves causing ejaculation. However, side-effects can include weight gain and low libido. In 2013, dapoxetine, a short-acting SSRI marketed as Priligy, became the first drug licensed in the UK for premature ejaculation. It works like an antidepressant but more quickly, and should be taken an hour or two before sex. Prostate or bladder surgery or a spinal cord injury can lead to retrograde ejaculation, where semen is sent backwards into the bladder. As well as a dry ejaculation, urine passed after sex may be cloudy. There is no pain, but the condition could affect fertility. It can also be caused by diabetes or blood pressure medication. Operations to treat it are considered by the NHS only if fertility is an issue. DOES IT LOOK NORMAL? Many men worry about their appearance usually length, according to Lorraine Grover, a psychosexual nurse specialist at The London Clinic. The average size when erect is 5in to 6in; if its 1in when flaccid but 5in when erect, theres no need to worry. Its also common for it to look veiny. Some men get small, bobbly skin-coloured lumps around the end. These are normal, benign and are not caused by a sexually transmitted infection or bad hygiene, she says. They also dont require treatment. But a spot on the tip could be a symptom of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) or, much more rarely, cancer (other signs include a sore that doesnt heal in four weeks, bleeding, thickening or a change of skin colour). IT'S REALLY NOT FUNNY... Priapism a painful erection that doesnt go down for several hours is no joke, says Professor Mike Kirby. If you have an erection that lasts more than four hours, its painful and extremely dangerous. It means the tissues in the penis are dying, so he advises going straight to A&E and even if they last less than four hours, help should still be sought. Erections happen when a mans nervous system releases nitrous oxide, a chemical that relaxes the arteries supplying blood to the penis. As arousal passes, the arteries contract again, forcing out the blood. But some drugs and illnesses can interrupt this process, preventing fresh blood from entering the penis and starving tissues of the oxygen they need. In very rare circumstances some antidepressants, including fluoxetine (brand name Prozac), can cause prolonged erections, as can blood-thinning drugs such as warfarin and heparin. The latter can cause clots to form, which stop blood leaving the penis. Medical conditions that can trigger priapism include injuries to the spinal cord. Sometimes, priapism simply goes away without treatment, but in other cases the blood has to be drawn out with a needle and any clots removed. If this fails, the next step is an injection of a drug to squeeze the vessels in the penis, forcing out the blood. Sometimes surgery may be necessary, which involves inserting a shunt to allow the trapped blood to bypass the blockage. Advertisement Some men are born with a bend called congenital curvature. Other men, particularly in middle-age, develop a curved penis known as Peyronies. Around 5 to 13 per cent of men are thought to be affected by it and it most commonly develops between the ages of 41 and 60. Not only is sex difficult for men with the condition but it can be painful, too. Peyronies develops when scar tissue forms in the fibrous sheath that covers the spongey erectile tissue in the centre of the penis. While its not always clear what causes it, trauma to the penis during an erection is one common trigger. But its also likely to have a genetic element, as studies show it can run in families. (Significantly, around a third of men with Peyronies also have, or go on to develop, a separate but very similar ailment called Dupuytrens contracture, a condition affecting the hands where the ring or little finger (or both) curl into the palm.) Once the scar tissue develops, it tugs at the surrounding area, causing the penis to develop a pronounced curve during an erection (its normally only noticeable when erect if its accompanied by painful erections or erectile dysfunction then it should be checked by a doctor). In some men, the curve is relatively slight and doesnt have a huge impact on quality of life. But in severe cases, the bend can be up to a full 90 degrees making intimacy all but impossible. Understandably, this can have a huge impact. One study found that 81 per cent of men affected reported emotional difficulties, with 54 per cent suffering relationship problems. And a 2021 paper in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that 27 per cent of men with the condition experienced depression as a result. The good news is many men with curvature of the penis need no treatment as they are not in pain and their sex lives are not significantly affected. But for those who do, there are a number of remedies available on the NHS. These include vacuum pumps that may help to straighten out the penis during an erection. However, some studies show these have to be used for ten minutes, twice a day, for several months before there is any improvement. Traction-based devices that act as a kind of splint for the penis can also help, though research suggests they too need to be used for 30 to 90 minutes a day for several months to reduce the curvature. Some studies suggest Viagra can help possibly by reducing the build-up of collagen (a fibrous protein) thats often seen in Peyronies disease. The drug is available on the NHS for the condition. Many sex problems, including low libido, remain unresolved as couples dont communicate, says sex and relationship expert Victoria Lehmann Injections of an enzyme called collagenase, which can break down collagen and reduce curvature of the penis, can also ease the problem, though these are not available on the health service. Another more recent treatment to emerge is extracorporeal shockwave therapy. This involves zapping the penis with soundwaves, using a hand-held device, to break up the tough, scarred tissue that is distorting the shape of the erect penis. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence the body that vets drugs and treatments used on the NHS says although this treatment appears safe, there is not currently enough evidence to prove its effectiveness. In severe cases, surgeons can operate to remove the scar tissue in order to straighten the penis or remove an area of healthy tissue opposite to the bend, in order to cancel out the curvature. Failing that, an implant may be inserted to even out the distortion. Research suggests 86 per cent of men who have surgery to fix the problem are able to return to a healthy sex life. And scientists are exploring new ways to tackle the condition. One approach, under investigation by researchers at the Sapienza University of Rome in Italy, is to use injections of fat taken from elsewhere on patients bodies to try and correct the deformity. Its hoped that stem cells in the fat will produce healthy new penile tissue that will replace the scarred tissue causing the curvature. PENIS BIRTH DEFECT THAT AFFECTS THOUSANDS An estimated 100,000 men in the UK live with a condition where urine and semen dont pass out of the tip of the penis, but from an opening somewhere down the shaft. Known as hypospadias, its a congenital abnormality there from birth. The urine hole can be on the side of the penis, or at the bottom near the scrotum. The penis is likely to be bent, and the foreskin does not go round the whole penis. Untreated, it can make normal urination and sex almost impossible. Today, reconstructive surgery is often performed on boys while they are babies but older men may have suffered in silence. Some men with hypospadias say they have lived almost their entire lives feeling they are the only one with it. Men can have issues with penile curvature Men can have issues with penile curvature, erectile dysfunction and infertility, according to Tet Yap, a reconstructive genital surgeon at London Andrology. They will also suffer from quality of life issues. It can be fixed with a series of operations known as urethroplasty. Each procedure takes between one and three hours under a general anaesthetic. The surgeon uses some of the skin on the penis to create a new tube lengthening the urethra so that a new hole can be created at the tip of the penis. In about one in ten cases, the original hole eventually opens up again which means urine exits through both holes. Another operation is needed to seal it shut again. On other occasions, the new hole at the tip of the penis becomes too small as a result of the healing process and more surgery is needed to make it bigger. Hypospadias is one of the most common genital anomalies in newborns, with one case in every 300, says Mr Yap. The optimal age for correction is between six and 24 months. The surgery can be done on adults but it is vital this is done by a specialist. If you have concerns, ask how many hypospadias operations a surgeon has done. Advertisement SNORING FIXES THAT ACTUALLY WORK (AND COULD HELP YOUR LOVE LIFE) Snoring may seem trivial, unless youre one of the estimated 40 per cent of UK adults affected or their partners. Surveys consistently show that snoring has a negative effect, literally taking the spark out of couples sex lives. But a common form of snoring can also be linked to erectile dysfunction (possibly because of its effects on testosterone). More than two-thirds of snorers are men, according to the British Snoring and Sleep Apnoea Association (BSSAA). It may be because men are more likely to drink and smoke, which makes snoring more likely, but men also tend to put on more weight around their necks and a thick neck is a trigger, says Professor Bhik Kotecha, a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon at the Nuffield Hospital in Brentwood, Essex. This is because the throat inside becomes compressed and narrower so vibrates more as the air rushes past. According to the BSSAA, it can take snorers 18 years, on average, before they do anything about it, which means they may be putting their health at risk. We all have the potential to snore. When sleeping, our throat muscles relax, our tongue falls backwards and the throat narrows. As we breathe, our throat walls vibrate more on the in-breath than the out. DONT BOTHER WITH... You're more likely to snore if you sleep on your back. Although special belts or nightwear with an insert that prevents you from lying on your back may help some, most people will find them annoying and that it makes it difficult to sleep at all, says Professor Kotecha. Advertisement There are different types of snoring and some people may have more than one. While there are different remedies for these, all will benefit from sufferers losing weight and taking up exercise even a few extra kilos can make a difference, and stronger neck muscles keep airways open. So what else works? NASAL SNORING TELLTALE SIGN: A simple test is to close one nostril with your finger and inhale through the other with your mouth closed. If your open nostril tends to collapse, you may be a nasal snorer, Marianne Davey, co-founder of the BSSAA previously told the Mail. CAUSE: Partial obstruction of the nose, for whatever reason, can cause snoring and whistling noises. Allergic rhinitis is a common cause because of the inflammation inside the nose and excessive production of mucus, says Professor Kotecha. The nostrils themselves can also tend to fall closed during sleep. Nasal polyps (non-cancerous growths) can also cause this type of snoring. TREATMENT: Decongestants and steroid inhalers over-the-counter or prescription may reduce congestion and mucus. Dr Tom Mackay, director at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary Department of Sleep Medicine, says adhesive nasal strips, placed over the bridge of the nose to widen the nostrils, dont work. Snore-free nose clips and nasal dilators are not scientifically proven, either. Removing nasal polyps with endoscopic sinus surgery can help by opening up the airways, says Professor Kotecha. Patients can go home from hospital the same day after treatment. MOUTH SNORING TELLTALE SIGN: Open your mouth and snore from the back of your throat. Now close your mouth and try to make the same noise. If you can make a snore noise only when your mouth is open, youre likely to be a mouth snorer. Another sign is a very dry mouth. CAUSE: Breathing through your mouth when asleep means the air hits the back of the throat, making the soft tissue vibrate. Some people may naturally sleep with their mouths open - this is because they do not have the muscle tone to stop the jaw dropping during sleep, says Professor Kotecha. Sleep apnoea is another major cause of mouth snoring. Patients stop breathing temporarily up to 100 times an hour for ten seconds or longer. Those affected wake up frequently but dont realise it and are very sleepy during the day because theyre not getting enough restorative deep sleep when blood pressure drops (this may help ex-plain why the condition is also linked to high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke). Sleep apnoea is another major cause of mouth snoring. Patients stop breathing temporarily up to 100 times an hour for ten seconds or longer The snore is caused when they begin breathing again and air is forced through the airways. Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), the most common type, is where the throat muscles relax, blocking the airways. Being overweight is a risk factor, so too is a family history of it. It doesnt just happen to people with a high BMI, says Professor Kotecha. Your inherited anatomy the composition of your face, skull, particularly a receding chin, and oral cavities can in-crease your risk. TREATMENT: Chin straps and chin-up strips are low-tech options that literally keep the mouth closed during sleep. Chin straps, often made from stretchy material, are passed under the chin and over the top of the head. Chin-up strips are disposable adhesive strips placed on the lower jaw and the skin above the corners of the mouth. These devices have been shown to help in several studies, but they can be uncomfortable, says Professor Kotecha. There are surgical options for snoring not caused by OSA, although these arent readily available on the NHS. These include laser uvulopalatoplasty, where the tonsils are removed and the uvula, the dangly thing at the back of your throat, is trimmed with a microscope-mounted laser. The soft palate, which can fall down and block the throat during sleep, may also be trimmed during this procedure. As the cuts heal, fibrous bands of scar tissue form, pulling the whole soft palate upwards it usually takes about two weeks for the cuts to heal fully. Ninety per cent of patients report an improvement within three to four months, although only 75 per cent say that the situation is improved after a year, says Professor Kotecha. Another option is implants with the Pillar Procedure. This is where three to five woven implants are placed in the soft palate. Over three months or so, this causes the palate to stiffen. The procedure takes around 20 minutes, says Professor Kotecha. The gold-standard treatment for sleep apnoea is the CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) mask, which delivers a continuous stream of air to keep the airways open. Its a bit like sticking your head out of the car window, is how one leading expert has described it, Some people find it very comfortable and cannot tolerate it. About half of those who could benefit refuse to use the CPAP system, and half of the remaining group give up very quickly. Newer nasal pillow masks are more acceptable as they fit directly into the nostrils rather than on the face, says Professor Kotecha. Both are available on the NHS. There is also a range of intelligent breathing devices, such as the AutoSet CPAP, which kick in only when required when breathing stops. Patients find this easier to accept, adds Professor Kotecha. These newer devices are available on the NHS but are prescribed only by specialists. TONGUE BASE SNORING TELLTALE SIGN: Make a snoring noise. As you do, stick your tongue out as far as it will go and grip it between your teeth. If the noise is reduced, you may be a tongue base snorer. CAUSE: The snoring is due to lack of tone in the tongue and sur-rounding tissues. The lax tongue narrows the airway if the airway becomes partially or wholly blocked, this is obstructive sleep apnoea (see above). TREATMENT: This kind of snoring can respond to a mandibular advancement device a bit like a gum shield which pushes your tongue and jaw forward. These cost from 30 off-the-shelf to several thousand pounds for a custom-made version. Gum shield may reduce snoring noises in 50 or 60 per cent of cases says Dr Mackay. Firms who provide staff with access to counselling, physiotherapy and flu jabs at work should be given tax breaks, a report says. The relief would reward companies who help to keep Britons healthy and in employment, rather than on benefits or signed-off sick. Other recommendations include offering NHS Health Checks in offices and factories to boost uptake and lowering the qualifying age from 40 to 25 in areas of the country where unemployment rates are highest. It comes as 2.8 million people are currently economically inactive due to long-term sickness - the highest level since the early 1990s. Most cite mental ill health or musculoskeletal conditions such as back or neck pain, with the toll impeding economic growth. Most of the economically inactive cite mental ill health or musculoskeletal conditions such as back or neck pain, with the toll impeding economic growth (Stock Image) The Policy Exchange think tank, which produced the 'None of Our Business?' report, wants workplaces to play a greater role in supporting the nation's health. It says this could reduce the number of people on long-term sick leave, save the NHS money and slash a growing benefits bill. The report has received cross-party backing, including from Chloe Smith and David Blunkett, both former Work and Pensions Secretaries. Ministers have admitted tackling the growing issue of ill-health among the working age population is a 'top priority'. Policy Exchange wants to increase access to occupational health services, which are currently only available to 45 per of workers in Britain. Large employers are three times more likely than small and medium firms to make them available. GPs issued 11million sick notes - formally known as 'fit notes' - last year, of which 94 per cent were marked 'not fit for work'. But the report authors say GPs could reduce this number if they were allowed to refer patient to occupational health professionals for 'additional assessment'. They could then suggest adaptations to the workplace and help rehabilitate staff. Firms who use empty high street premises to deliver physiotherapy or vaccination clinics could be given discounts on their business rates, as could those who band together with other local businesses to provide 'group services', the experts add. Furthermore, they want more doctors and nurses trained in occupational health and call on the leisure sector to play a greater role in supporting people with back and neck pain. Sickness absence and ill-health among working age people is estimated to cost the country 150billion per year, which is almost as large as the annual budget of NHS England. Last year, 186 million working days were lost due to sickness or injury. Employees took off an average of 7.8 days sick, which is the highest level in a decade and two days more than in 2019. Of the 11million 'fit notes' issued last year, just 6.9 per cent of them indicated an individual 'may be fit for work' and offered workplace advice. Sean Phillips, head of health and social care at Policy Exchange, and the report's lead author, said: 'If we want to break the cycle of poor health and rising state spending, we need to think differently about the role that employers can play in preventing ill-health and more effectively supporting employees to remain in or to return to work. 'Expanding occupational health services both within and beyond the NHS is key to this, but we won't convince employers to 'do the right thing' by simply demanding they do more. 'Incentives are required along with clear, targeted information so employers can choose high-quality and cost-effective services to support their workforce. 'Working-age disability benefit spending is expected to rise from 19 billion to 29 billion over the next parliament, while the bill for working-age incapacity will jump from 26 billion to 34 billion. One-third of people are signed off work for four weeks or longer, by which time 20 per cent will never return to work. Once people are signed off for six months, 80 per cent of them will never return to work. Meanwhile, it is estimated that businesses spend almost a thousand pounds per year per employee on sickness absence. Last week the Government announced an Occupational Health Taskforce, chaired by Dame Carol Black to improve employer awareness of the benefits of occupational health. Firms who use empty high street premises to deliver physiotherapy or vaccination clinics could be given discounts on their business rates (Stock Image) In a foreword to the report, Lord Blunkett, former Labour Work and Pensions Secretary, said: 'Ill-health among those of working-age is holding Britain back. 'It is the great brake upon economic growth, adding to pressures upon the NHS, adding to demand for welfare benefits and impeding productivity there are many people who could benefit enormously from physiotherapy, a chiropractor or mental health support who would then clearly be able to work again. 'Conservative MP Chloe Smith said: 'Policy Exchange's latest report could hardly be timelier. Long-term sickness is the single biggest driver of economic inactivity today. 'Whilst the Government have made great strides in tackling this issue, a renewed focus on enhancing the link between health services and employers is needed to boost opportunity, productivity and growth in the months ahead.' Britain's medicines regulator has been accused of failing to sound the alarm over Covid jab side effects, despite allegedly knowing of heart risks for months before warnings were issued. A cross-party group of MPs and peers called for an urgent investigation to be held into The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). They claim the agency's apparent lack of action put Brits at 'serious risk'. Members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (AAPG) on Pandemic Response and Recovery said 'there is reason to believe' the MHRA knew about post Covid vaccine complications myocarditis and pericarditis in February 2021. However, in a letter to the Government's Health and Social Care Committee, they said it was only several months later, in June, that the MHRA alerted the public. The AAPG letter, penned by its co-chair Graham Stringer the Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, called for an urgent investigation to be held into The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) over an apparent lack of action on Covid jabs despite knowing of risks for months before issuing official warnings Myocarditis and pericarditis are both cardiovascular complications involving the inflammation of tissues in or surrounding the heart, respectively. Although extremely rare, both conditions have been linked to Covid jabs, particularly the mRNA versions made by Pfizer and Moderna. Experts insist the vaccines are still safe, despite the risk. Steve Brine, the health committee chairman, replied to the group's letter by saying an inquiry into patient safety is 'very likely', The Telegraph reported. The AAPG letter, penned by its co-chair Graham Stringer the Labour MP for Blackley and Broughton, cites emails seemingly written by the EU medicines regulator, the European Medicines Agency, in March 2021. These emails, shared by far-right news organisation The Epoch Times, discuss prior conversations with the MHRA about myocarditis cases following Covid jabs. This, the APPG claims, stands in contrast to the MHRA only alerting the public about the potential risk on June 25, several months later. The letter also highlights how despite the MHRA stating in February 2021 of plans for 'proactive vigilance' on Covid vaccine safety, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests revealed the regulator hasn't performed, or requested Pfizer and Moderna to perform, studies testing the link between the jabs and myocarditis and pericarditis. In a separate letter, sent earlier this month, the AAPG stated they had 'serious patient safety concerns' regarding the MHRA's actions, or lack thereof, overall. Signed by 25 MPs and peers, they claimed that instead of 'protecting patients'. the regulator was operating in a way that 'puts them at serious risk'. The APPG also cited reports from the MHRA's safety alert system of Brits suffering vaccine-induced blood clots after receiving an AstraZeneca jab on February 7, 2021. MP Steve Brine, the health committee chairman, replying to the group's letter said an inquiry into patient safety is 'very likely' Myocarditis and pericarditis are both cardiovascular complications involving the inflammation of tissues in or surrounding the heart respectively The MPs and peers contrasted this with Denmark and other European nations, which suspended the vaccine in March. The MHRA only published a warning on April 7, and only withdrew the AstraZeneca jab for the under-40s in May. This, the AAPG noted, only came after 'further needless deaths, such as that of BBC radio reporter Lisa Shaw who received her first dose of the AZ vaccine on April 29'. It also cited an FOI which found the MHRA had only followed up 54 per cent of deaths related to Covid jabs reported via its Yellow Card system and that, by its own admission, 'the MHRA cannot and does not effectively monitor Yellow Card reports'. The Members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pandemic Response and Recovery calling for an investigation into The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency Esther McVey MP Graham Stringer MP Philip Davies MP Sammy Wilson MP Lord Strathcarron Baroness Foster of Oxton Thomas Coke, the Earl of Leicester Sir Graham Brady MP Sir Christopher Chope MP Jim Shannon MP Allan Dorans MP Simon Fell MP Danny Kruger MP James Grundy MP Yvonne Fovargue MP George Howarth MP Chris Clarkson MP Hannah Bardell MP Damien Moore MP Nick Fletcher MP Lord Alton of Liverpool Philip Hollobone MP William Wragg MP Alec Shelbrooke MP Miriam Cates MP Advertisement Yellow Card reports can be made by members of the public and medics and the report of an event following the use of a medicine doesn't necessarily mean the two are linked. The most recent AAPG letter reads: 'It seems the MHRA is more concerned with putting itself, and perhaps the pharmaceutical industry, first. 'Protecting itself, one might say, rather than protecting and ensuring patient safety.' The MPs claimed the issues identified with a lack of ongoing proactive safety monitoring of drugs in Britain weren't unique to Covid jabs. It cited an example where an NHS trust in the North West of England found 1,058 bleed related emergency admissions were a side effect of taking an anticoagulant medication, yet only six Yellow Card reports were made by the Trust in that time. Adverse reactions to medications are behind one in every 16 hospital admissions in Britain, the Government says, with studies estimating the cost to the NHS is over 2billion each year. While strict medical safety trials identify most of the potential risks of drugs, some inevitably slip through the net. Some can involve specific and rare genetic mutations among a tiny fraction of patients that can be missed. As such, experts say it is vital to continue monitoring drugs for safety once they start being used in the community. Responding to the APPG's letter, Dr June Raine, the outgoing chief of the MHRA, said: 'We have made significant steps to put patients at the heart of all our work. 'These include incorporating patient views and lived experience into our safety reviews; involving patients in the early stages of planning medicines development and building a new responsive reporting system for patients to tell us about any adverse incidents. 'We have also led on legislative changes to strengthen surveillance for medical devices and medicines, meaning patient safety is embedded firmly into law.' The MHRA also stated it recovers operational costs from the pharmaceuticals sector, a practice it said was common with its international equivalents. It also defended its 'proactive and continuous monitoring strategy' for Covid vaccines stating it took action when safety concerns were identified. The AAPHG said it was also commenced by the extent the MHRA was funded by the fees it charged to the pharmaceutical industry, and comments from its outgoing chief executive chair Dame June Raine, of the agencys transition from 'the watchdog to the enabler.' The MHRA also said it regularly communicated its position on myocarditis through its regulars reports and its position was determined by all the available evidence, not by one single source. While safety concerns have been spotted with Covid vaccines, experts insist that, on the whole, they are safe to use for the majority of the population. This is because many of the side effects, like myocarditis and pericarditis, are rare, usually mild and resolve on their own with no long-term complications. Experts also highlight that in many cases a Covid infection carries a higher risk of causing myocarditis and pericarditis than the jab, justifying its use. Anti-vaxxers claims that myocarditis and pericarditis have led to wave of sudden deaths is not substantiated by evidence, experts say. For blood clots related to the AstraZeneca jab, the situation is a bit more complex. The complication vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis (VITT) is believed to be responsible for the death of 81 Brits and disability and injury of more. It relates to a rare side effect where the vaccine causes the body to confuse components of the blood for the Covid virus leading to clots forming. Such reactions usually start about five days after being jabbed and are estimated to occur in about one in 10,000 jabs. When the risk was discovered risk/benefit ratio for the jab was re-calculated. It was eventually restricted to only older Brits, who were deemed to be at greatest risk of Covid, while younger Brits, who had less to fear from an infection, were told not to have it. AstraZeneca's jab has not been included in the latest Covid jab rollouts with health officials opting to use the mRNA versions instead. Some Brits who lost family members to the jab, as well survivors who were disabled or injured, are currently seeking legal action claiming it was 'defective'. Covid jabs have also been credited with helping end the series of paralysing national lockdowns that both ground the UK economy to a halt and frayed its social fabric. Most smokers think vapes are more harmful than cigarettes, according to a huge new survey of tens of thousands of Brits. This is despite experts insisting the gadgets are safer than tobacco, which is proven to cause cancer and damage the heart. University College London researchers, behind the poll of almost 30,000 smokers, said theres an urgent need to tackle misperceptions about vaping. Although viewed favourably in the medical sphere, the long-term effects of e-cigs remain a mystery. Doctors fear of a potential wave of lung disease, dental issues and cancer in the coming decades in people who are addicted to the gadgets. Most smokers think vapes are more harmful than cigarettes, according to a huge new survey of tens of thousands of Brits Your browser does not support iframes. As such, health chiefs state vapes sold for as little as 5 should only be considered as a way of helping smokers quit. The UCL study, which ran between 2014 and 2023, quizzed smokers in England about their perceptions of e-cigarettes. When the survey began, just 11 per cent of smokers thought vaping was actually worse for their health. Yet this doubled by the end of the project, which was published in the journal JAMA Network Open and funded by Cancer Research UK. Overall 57 per cent of smokers questioned last summer believed e-cigs were equally or more harmful than cigarettes. Lead author Dr Sarah Jackson said vaping poses only a very small fraction of the risks of smoking. She added: A surprisingly large number of people aren't aware of this and believe vaping is equally or more harmful to health than smoking. This can discourage smokers from switching to a less harmful product. Dr Jackson said perceptions have become worse than ever in the wake of the youth vaping epidemic. Rates have trebled over the past few years, with around 9 per cent of 11 to 15 year olds now using the gadgets. Alarm over soaring rates has sparked a Government crackdown on e-cigs, which critics have compared to highlighters because of their snazzy appearance. Under ministerial efforts, vapes will only be allowed to be sold in a limited range of flavours and plain packaging. Dr Jackson said: People's perceptions of the relative harms of e-cigarettes compared to cigarettes are as bad as they've ever been. As a result, smokers may be less likely to switch to vaping. Dual users (people who smoke and vape) may continue smoking longer. And young vapers who have never regularly smoked might not be worried about any risks associated with transitioning to smoking. There's an urgent need to tackle misperceptions about vaping to ensure that people are able to make informed decisions about the nicotine products they use. Your browser does not support iframes. Asked about long-term data on risks linked to vaping, she said: I think a lot of people have concerns that we didn't know that cigarettes were as harmful as they are for a really long time. And so people think that the same might be true for e-cigarettes because they have a relatively new product. But I think what a lot of people don't appreciate is how far the science has evolved since then. If cigarettes were invented today, we would know immediately that they're incredibly harmful we don't need decades of data to know when something is as harmful as cigarettes. If e-cigarettes were similarly harmful, we would already know that. I think that is probably one of the key reasons people are mistrustful of e-cigarettes, is that they don't think the evidence is developed enough to know for sure that they're safer. One in 10 Estonian's now vape regularly each month, cementing its position as the e-cigarette capital of the world, fresh data revealed this week. Published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) a forum of 37 countries with market-based economies founded in 1961 it also found just four countries rank higher than the UK Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the charity ASH, said: There are millions of smokers who now believe vaping is more than or equally harmful as smoking, when the reverse is true, and e-cigarettes are the most effective and easily available quitting aid. The tragedy is that as a result many millions of smokers may not try vaping and carry on smoking instead, continuing to put themselves at serious risk of cancers, respiratory and heart disease, followed by premature death. The study was published amid reports of a new vape tax to be introduced in the Budget next week. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is considering a new levy on the liquid in vapes, with higher levels for products with more nicotine. E-cigs allow people to inhale nicotine in a vapour which is produced by heating a liquid, which typically contains propylene glycol, glycerine, flavourings, and other chemicals. Unlike traditional cigarettes, they do not contain tobacco, nor do they produce tar or carbon two of the most dangerous elements. Share sale: The Treasury aims to sell down more of its 33% stake in NatWest Jeremy Hunt is expected to confirm plans for a NatWest share sale in next weeks Budget as a leading broker said a big price discount would be key to its success. The Chancellor said in November he was considering a public retail offer as the Treasury aims to sell more of its 33 per cent stake. The Government is consulting brokers such as Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell. The firms and the Treasury declined to comment. One City source said: we are all on tenterhooks. It is not yet clear whether Hunt will set out the scale or timing of a sale even if he confirms such a move in the Budget. UK Government Investments, which manages the taxpayer stake, has said it could come as soon as June. Tim Jacobs, at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: NatWest has generated strong interest from clients and wed expect this to grow rapidly. The discount offered is going to be a major factor in how well the offer gets away. NatWest then known as RBS was given a 45billion bailout by the taxpayer during the financial crisis in 2008. That left the Government with more than 80 per cent of the lender, a stake that has been whittled down, though it remains the biggest single shareholder. Two-thirds of UK bosses fear being sued if they miss environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets as the woke investment fad grips the business world, a survey has found. ESG sometimes referred to as responsible investing has become rife as firms are urged to hit ambitious climate change goals and keep up with social issues such as mental wellbeing and gender transitioning. The study by insurance group Gallagher found three-quarters of business leaders felt pressure to set targets even if they did not know how they were going to reach them, while two in three feared legal action should they miss goals. The repercussions of missing them were investor withdrawal, litigation and shareholder activism, the bosses added. The findings come as many business leaders feel overwhelmed by the scale of regulation and paperwork brought in over the past decade, driven by investors, governments and social activists. Woke investing: Businesses are under pressure to hit ambitious climate change goals while keeping up with social issues such as mental wellbeing and gender transitioning One entrepreneur said: Once, all investors wanted were profits and a sound business model, now theres a lot more to think about. ESG litigation is a risk. Different industries have different responsibilities, with the oil and gas and mining industries at the forefront of environmental targets. In 2021 a Dutch court ordered Shell to cut emissions further, while in January a group of 27 investors filed a resolution that called for the oil company to align its medium-term green targets with the 2015 Paris Agreement. Corporations also expected to take their social and governance responsibilities more seriously than ever before. In the US last year, Randi Berghorst sued Fort Worths BNSF Texas-based railroad for not promoting her. Named as one of the employees of the year in 2021 for supporting LGBTQ+ workers she claimed she was denied advancement after her gender transition. James Bosley, head of climate strategy at Gallagher, said: ESG is front and centre of corporate strategy. The speed of change for ESG issues has resulted in a lack of standardisation and precedent, creating uncertainty. But there has been a recoil. Data in January showed global investors pulled 8bn from ESG funds last year amid a backlash over greenwashing and the vague promises they offer. Figures from industry group Calastone showed the three-year boom in the funds focused on environmental, social and governance issues had waned. From 2020 to 2022, 40billion went into ESG a boon for active fund managers, Calastone said, and six times the investment committed to funds that did not have specific ESG commitments. But last year billions were pulled out by investors. Jail term: Former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried is facing up to 110 years behind bars He is the crypto billionaire who is facing up to 110 years behind bars after one of the biggest financial frauds in American history. But in a last-ditch bid for clemency ahead of sentencing next month, Sam Bankman-Frieds parents and legal team are begging the judge to show mercy. Branding him a selfless and altruistic man who has committed his life to philanthropy, his lawyer Marc Mukasey said he should get as little as five-and-a-half years and no more than six-and-a-half. In a letter to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, his law professor parents Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried said they feared for his life in prison. His father and I face the very real possibility that we will not live long enough to see him freed, his mother wrote. I would gladly change places with him if I could. Bankman-Fried was accused of raiding FTX depositors accounts to make risky bets, repay loans and buy property, leaving an 6billion hole in the companys balance sheet when it collapsed into bankruptcy in 2022, with customers unable to withdraw funds. Known as SBF, he had cultivated celebrity and high-profile political relationships, including with Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, but was found guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in November last year after the collapse of the exchange. His legal team this week branded the 100-year sentence that has been recommended by probation officers as grotesque and barbaric. Australians living in flood-prone areas have seen their annual home and contents insurance costs quadruple - even if their property has never gone underwater. Gail MacPherson, who lives in Logan, south of Brisbane, saw her RACQ annual premium climb to $6,000 from $1,400 - a 329 per cent increase. This was after Logan City Council's new flood map, released last year, deemed her Bethania home to be at risk of inundation, even though her house has never been submerged. 'I was fuming, I can assure you. I was really ropeable,' Ms MacPherson told 9News. An RACQ spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia the alternative was residents in low-risk areas subsidising those who lived in flood-prone suburbs. Australians living in flood-prone areas have seen their annual home and contents insurance costs surge by more than 300 per cent (pictured is Logan, Queensland in March 2022) 'We do not wish to charge high premiums to anybody,' she said. 'However, RACQ has a responsibility to set premiums based on the policyholder's likelihood to lodge a claim and how large that claim may be in the future. 'We believe this is the fair thing to do so other members aren't paying higher premiums to subsidise those in high-risk areas.' Ms MacPherson has switched insurers after 30 years, and opted to go without expensive flood cover. Across Australia, average premiums have risen by double-digit figures during the past year. The average premium in Queensland rose by 21 per cent to $2,473, up from $2,049. But in NSW, the increase was an even more severe 26 per cent, rising to $2,658 from $2,103 in a state covering Lismore, where several floods have struck in recent years. Western Australia, where bushfires are raging south of Perth, had suffered a mammoth 45 per cent increase, taking premiums to $2,424 from $1,668. Victoria, now also in the grip of bushfires with areas near Ballarat under threat, saw its insurance premiums rise by 31 per cent to $2,016, up from $1,538. South Australia's premiums have risen by seven per cent to $1,719, up from $1,605. This was after Logan City Council's new flood map deemed her Bethania home to be at risk of inundation, even though her house has never been submerged Finder analysed 433 quotes from more than 45 Australian insurers to work out the average home insurance costs for a home worth $500,000 and contents valued at $100,000. Gary Ross Hunter, an insurance expert with Finder, said switching providers was often the best way to reducing a premium, recommending customers review their policy annually. 'Loyalty doesn't always pay off, especially for insurance. The best deals are often offered to new customers,' he said. Being a female royal, whether by birth or marriage, brings with it a long list of protocols, particularly when it comes to appearance. Everything from hems and necklines to jewellery and shades of lipstick are subject to regulations. As for nails, they should be kept short and painted in neutral and muted colours. But rules are made to be broken, even by royalsso, can you identify who committed these acts of manicure mutiny? 1) No Inquisition needed Known for her elegance and style, this royal displayed racy red nails when she attended an arts and literature prize giving event in 2018. This royal displayed racy red nails when she attended an arts and literature prize giving event in 2018 A journalist before she married, she became queen of this European nation in 2018. Known for her strong opinions and leadership, its clear nobody is going to tell her what nail lacquer to wear, muchas gracias. 2) Royal rules? What are they? Being told how to dress was something this royal detested during her time as a working royal, even claiming she wasn't allowed to wear bright colours - although on that one, recollections may vary. However, she did bend the rules by wearing a dramatic shade of deep purple nail polish when she appeared onstage at The Fashion Awards at Londons Royal Albert Hall in 2018, cradling her baby bump. 3) Stylish to the Max... Whats this? Scarlet polish AND long nails? This royal lady is really pushing dress code etiquette. This royal doesnt given an (Amster) dam about fuddy duddy rules, as she proved when she attended a horticultural awards in 2016 Originally from Argentina, she is now Queen of this European country and, when it comes to her manicures, doesnt given an (Amster) dam about fuddy duddy rules, as she proved when she attended a horticultural awards in 2016. 4) So whose Choice was brown? The cookie she was icing was plain but the nails she sported were chocolate brown. This royal is said to have been a favourite daughter-in-law of the late Queen Elizabeth Said to have been a favourite daughter-in-law of the late Queen Elizabeth, this fun royal broke protocol when visiting a hospice in 2020. A glossy gel manicure is fine for icing biscuits but not so practical when enjoying her carriage driving hobby. 5) Red nails for the dragon lady? The deep blue Catherine Walker dress coat was on message when this senior royal attended an Easter service at St Georges chapel in Windsor last year, the shade matching her famous sapphire engagement ring. The short red nails were a surprise, is the shade Welsh Dragon Red? 6) Not-so-royal blue for a new queen Its hard to believe that this European royal was once a carefree Aussie girl working in advertising. This European royal was once a carefree Aussie girl working in advertising Crowned Queen just last month, the mother of four sported electric blue nails earlier this week when attending an awards ceremony. Traditionalists may not have welcomed her choice but, according to the famous nursery rhyme, people who go by her name can often be quite contrary. 7) Chips off the old block When you spend your life mucking out horses then some of your nail varnish is bound to chip off. This royal rebel, who at one stage had a pierced tongue, is as no-nonsense and horsey as her mum. Her manicure was in desperate need of some TLC when she attended the Festival of British Eventing at Gatcomb Park last summer. Does she care? As her mother might say: naff orff. 8) She's Alright, Jack Long before she met her husband Jack, this Princess wore Union Flags on her nails. In 2012 London was hosting the Olympics and this person had just competed in a nighttime charity bike ride around London where, unlike her dad, she must have worked up quite a sweat. ANSWERS 1) Queen Letizia of Spain 2) Meghan, Duchess of Sussex 3) Queen Maxima of the Netherlands 4) Duchess of Edinburgh 5) Catherine, Princess of Wales 6) Mary, Queen of Denmark 7) Zara Tindall 8) Princess Eugenie If you ever needed proof that our ruling class is utterly adrift from the rest of Britain, then just look at the reaction to recent comments by two Conservative MPs. No doubt alarmed by the frightening scenes in Westminster last week, which saw mobs screaming at his fellow MPs and projecting anti-Semitic slogans on to Big Ben while police looked feebly on, Lee Anderson, in an intemperate outburst, suggested that Islamists have got control of London mayor Sadiq Khan. His comments were clumsy and wrong: Khan, for all his many faults, is neither an Islamist nor a friend to them. But the public response has been shocking. After being suspended and savaged by his fellow MPs, Anderson was left to face the wrath of our virtue-signalling ruling class, who lined up like lemmings to denounce the Islamophobia and hate that, they claimed, lies at the heart of the Tory party. Former Conservative deputy chairman Lee Anderson suggested Islamists have got control of London mayor Sadiq Khan Within days another MP, Paul Scully, was forced to issue a grovelling apology after daring to suggest there are no-go areas in parts of East Londons Tower Hamlets, and that some people mainly Jews are fearful for going out [sic]. Again, no doubt Scully could have chosen his words better. But the debate around the two mens comments is deeply revealing. It shows that the political elite has become disconnected from the concerns of millions of decent, ordinary people, and would much rather we all focused on the unhelpful words of a couple of renegade MPs than on the far more serious threat we face. I am not talking about Islamophobia (a sinister coinage used to silence any criticism of Islam). Or hate (another all-encompassing word used to dismiss any challenge to the orthodoxy of uncontrolled mass migration). No, it barely needs saying, but one of the main threats facing our country, our people, our values and our democratic institutions is radical, violent Islamism. And this is what Anderson and Scully, in their clunky and counterproductive ways, were trying to highlight. Islamism is the reason our elected politicians are being intimidated, harassed and undermined by an angry mob. It is why Mike Freer, the Tory MP for Finchley and Golders Green in North London (which contains a large Jewish community) was just hounded out of office, concluding he was no longer safe. Sadiq Khan criticised Mr Anderson for his 'Islamophobic, anti-Muslim, racist' remarks It is why the homes of other MPs have been targeted by protesters and why police are so reluctant to treat the Free Palestine radicals with the full force of the law. It is why the brave and honourable late politician Sir David Amess was stabbed 21 times in his constituency office in 2021, why police officer Keith Palmer was murdered outside Parliament in 2017 and why soldier Lee Rigby was killed and very nearly beheaded in 2013. I have more examples. Islamism is why a grammar school teacher from Batley, West Yorkshire, is still in hiding after three years amid serious threats to his life. It is why British Jews are now facing the highest rates of anti-Semitism for decades and why so many of them are thinking of leaving our country, once such a safe haven, altogether. It is why weve spent months watching thousands of people marching through our capital city glorifying the terrorist atrocities committed in Israel on October 7. And yet, to our elite, Islamism is the threat that dare not speak its name. Britain still prides itself as a bastion of free speech. You might expect our leaders to be willing to address the fact that, in recent years, more Muslims left Britain to join Islamic State and other Islamist groups than were serving in the British Armed Forces. You might also expect them, like great leaders in our recent past, to take threats to our democracy seriously. But our cowardly ruling class is manifestly too scared to acknowledge what is blazingly obvious to the rest of us: that large numbers of Islamists in this country either British citizens or recent arrivals hate who we are, hate what we believe and hate our way of life. The words of the pro-Palestinian 'From the river to the sea' chant are projected on to the side of Big Ben last week The British people know this. But our leaders are unwilling to address the problem. They are obsessed instead with priorities utterly remote from the rest of the country, instead trying to turn every debate into a lecture on hate. Well, it wont wash for much longer. We are told in the broadcast media that our MPs face growing security threats but no context for this vague menace is given. We are sold the fantasy that the far Right is our most fearsome domestic enemy, when radical Islam is responsible for the vast majority of terrorist attacks as well as 80 per cent of the counter-terrorism polices live inquiries. And now this week, again, we are urged to turn our eyes from the racist slogans beamed on to the Mother of Parliaments and instead fret about Islamophobia in the Tory party. What happened to British courage? Much of this will get worse unless we radically change course. While countless immigrants contribute enormously to our way of life, and the overwhelming majority of British Muslims are decent, law-abiding people, it is also true that tens of thousands of British Muslims have admitted to pollsters they do not want to integrate fully into British life. They would prefer to live under Sharia law and send their children to Islamic schools. So, what do we do about it? For a start, we need to encourage new leaders to run for high office: people who admit publicly that the era of Western nations tolerating hateful extremists who loathe our liberal democracies is over. France last week showed that it is possible by brusquely deporting a radical Tunisian national who appeared to call the tricolour flag satanic. Mahjoub Mahjoubi apologised but was expelled less than 12 hours after his arrest using new immigration laws. We must also dramatically reduce mass immigration and reshape future migration around high-skill, high-wage workers who share, even cherish, our values. We need to clamp down on illegal migrants entering Britain most of whom are young men and establish a genuine third-country deterrent, in Rwanda or somewhere else. We also urgently need an unflinching policy of integration, forcing newcomers to adapt to British society and breaking up segregated schools and neighbourhoods. As brave writers such as Ed Husain have already shown, there are now many areas in this country where, if you are a young British Muslim, you can spend your entire day having barely interacted with the non-Muslim majority. This has to change. We also need to deport foreign nationals who glorify Islamist terrorism or commit serious crimes. If their countries of origin dont play ball then we should stop sending these faraway lands taxpayer-funded international aid. We should also leave any international court or convention which stops us from prioritising the security and safety of the British people over the rights of illegal migrants. As for British citizens who voice support for radical Islamism, we should make their lives as hard as possible withdrawing welfare benefits, social housing and state support. If they wont play by the rules, they should not benefit from them. Its high time we drew a line in the sand and stopped pandering to people who despise us. And we must do so now before its too late to save the country we cherish. Former President Donald Trump won the Michigan Republican primary Tuesday over rival Nikki Haley. The race was called at exactly 9 p.m. - when all Michigan's polls were closed - with Trump leading Haley 65 percent to 30.9 percent, with 12 percent reporting. Haley's campaign said Tuesday night that Trump's 30-plus point win still represented weakness heading into the general election. 'Joe Biden is losing about 20 percent of the Democratic vote today, and many say its a sign of his weakness in November. Donald Trump is losing about 35 percent of the vote. That's a flashing warning sign for Trump in November,' Haley's spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement. President Joe Biden lost votes in Michigan to 'uncommitted' due to his support of Israel's war on Hamas, with the state's Arab American communities appalled by the heavy death toll of Palestinian civilians. The 'uncommitted' vote was hovering around 15 percent. Former President Donald Trump held a campaign event in Michigan on February 17. After winning Saturday's South Carolina primary, he's stayed off the campaign trail, but has planned visits to Texas, North Carolina and Virginia - Super Tuesday states - over the next few days Trump easily won the Michigan primary over his final rival, Nikki Haley, with the race called at 9 p.m. on the dot, when all polls across the state had closed. Haley has vowed to stay in the 2024 race through next week's Super Tuesday primaries Former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley made a campaign stop Monday in Grand Rapids, Michigan before moving onto Minnesota and Colorado, which are Super Tuesday states. Her campaign called Trump's win a 'sign of his weakness' because he lost 30 percent of the vote to her 'Since Trump became president in 2016, he lost Michigan Republicans the state House, state Senate, and Governor's mansion. What was once a beacon for the conservative cause, the Michigan Republican Party is now fractured and divided,' Perez-Cubas said. 'Let this serve as another warning sign that what has happened in Michigan will continue to play out across the country,' the Haley campaign said. 'So long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will keep losing to the socialist left. Our children deserve better.' Trump, however, was winning more votes than Biden, despite Haley earning about 30 percent of those cast by Republicans in Michigan, with 19 percent of the vote in. He called into the Michigan GOP's watch party in Grand Rapids before the official results were called. 'We have a very simple task: we have to win on November 5, and we're going to win big, and it's going to be like nothing that anybody has ever seen. It's going to be fantastic. We win Michigan; we win the whole thing,' Trump said. Trump has bested Haley in all four of the early primary states where they've both appeared on the ballot - Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and now Michigan. The former president also won the Nevada caucuses and a symbolic vote for Trump - voters choosing 'none of these candidates' - bested Haley in Nevada's presidential primary. Haley, however, has vowed to press on, telling supporters in Charleston Saturday night that she would continue in the race through Super Tuesday, March 5, when 16 states and American Samoa hold primary contests. 'There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative,' she said Saturday night. 'I said earlier this week that no matter what happens in South Carolina I would continue to run for president - I'm a woman of my word,' she said to cheers. During a CNN interview Tuesday night, Haley reiterated that commitment. 'Absolutely, we have a country to save, absolutely,' Haley told the network's Dana Bash. In Michigan, voters could choose to vote Republican or Democrat in the primaries, meaning there was a chance Democrats and independents could cross over and help Haley, as some did in South Carolina Saturday. But there was also the movement by progressives and pro-Palestine activists to have Michigan's Democratic voters choose 'uncommitted' on their ballot to show support for a ceasefire in Gaza. Biden was on the Democratic ballot alongside challenger, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who received the endorsement of the Detroit News. Neither Haley nor Trump were in Michigan for election night festivities. Trump campaigned in the Wolverine State on February 17, headlining an event in Waterford Township. Voters in Dearborn, Michigan are captured at a polling place. Both Michigan Democrats and Republicans were having their primary Tuesday and voters were allowed to pick which party's primary they wanted to participate in On the Democratic ballot, pro-Palestine activists were asking voters to select 'uncommitted' to register a protest vote and push President Joe Biden to back a ceasefire in Gaza. Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips was also on the Democratic ballot He called Tuesday into Chris Renwick's WR 760am's radio program and predicted a big win. 'She's gonna lose like by 80 points tonight. She's become a joke,' Trump said. He's stayed off the campaign trail since Saturday, delivering victory remarks in Columbia, South Carolina, after winning Haley's home state by 20 points. He's planning a trip to a Texas border town Thursday and then will headline two rallies Saturday in Greensboro, North Carolina and Richmond, Virginia, with Texas, Virginia and North Carolina voters all part of the Super Tuesday crowd. Haley appeared in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Monday before jaunting off to Minnesota, another Super Tuesday state. In Michigan, she blasted Trump for turning the Republican National Committee into a 'playpen' with moves to make daughter-in-law Lara Trump an official party co-chair and have his top campaign adviser, Chris LaCivita, take over as the RNC's chief operating officer. Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, the former head of the Michigan GOP, formally announced she was leaving the job Monday. On Tuesday, while Michiganders were heading to the polls, Haley was in Colorado, where independent-leaning voters may be able to aid her in her hunt for delegates. The crowd in Centennial, Colorado encouraged her to carry on, chanting, 'don't quit,' during her afternoon appearance. Michigan marks the first state to vote where Trump and Haley haven't had weeks to campaign and could be a barometer for where the former U.N. ambassador stands heading into Super Tuesday. While there was limited polling ahead of the primary, the FiveThirtyEight average as of Monday showed Trump with 78.8 percent support to Haley's 21.8 percent in America's high five. The closest Haley has gotten to Trump's lead was in New Hampshire - and she lost to the former president by 11 points. Michigan is also a key swing state that Trump won in 2016, helping him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton, but lost to Biden four years later. A top GOP senator is ominously warning about a growing network of terrorists entering the U.S. through the southern border that could be plotting an attack on American soil. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told reporters at a press conference Tuesday that a 'high-level individual' warned him that over 50,000 central Asians crossed illegally into the U.S. in 2023. That same individual from central Asia, Daines said, also expressed concern about a possible terror attack within the U.S., as the migrants could be a 'part of sleeper cells for a possible terror attack on our soil.' Currently, at least 40,000 Central Asian nationals are awaiting U.S. asylum court proceedings, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a non-profit that tracks asylum court hearings. Of those Central Asian nationals 17,000 are from Uzbekistan, 7,000 are from Kyrgyzstan, 3,000 are from Tajikistan, 2,700 are from Kazakhstan and 2,000 from Turkmenistan. Daines' revelation comes as lawmakers are increasingly concerned about Chinese nationals crossing over the border into the U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told reporters at a press conference Tuesday that the individual warned him that over 50,000 central Asians crossed illegally into the U.S. in 2023 Sen. Steve Daines told reporters at a press conference Tuesday a high-level individual from Central Asia expressed to him concern over potential terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. The number of Chinese nationals crossing the southern border near San Diego has eclipsed the number of Mexicans in recent months, according to a new report. The CBP has recorded 21,000 encounters with Chinese nationals in the San Diego Sector since the fiscal year began in October, according to CBP data obtained by Fox News that is not yet public. That's more than the 18,700 encounters with Mexican nationals during the same period, and second only to the 28,000 Columbians CBP reported encountering in the sector. 'The result of Biden's border crisis is deadly,' Daines continued. 'When will enough be enough?' DailyMail.com reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security regarding the top senator's concerns regarding central Asians in particular. Daines' warnings about terrorist sleeper cells are not unwarranted. In August 2023, more than a dozen migrants from Uzbekistan who claimed asylum in the U.S. were being investigated after the FBI uncovered the smuggler who helped them cross into the country had ties to ISIS. Additionally, Ex-FBI and Homeland Security officials sent a letter to Congressional leaders in January warning them about the possibility of an 'imminent' terror attack as 'military-aged' foreigners have streamed across the porous southern border. At least 50 individuals on the FBI terror watchlist have been arrested while crossing into the U.S. since October. Federal data shows that over 7.3 million migrants have crossed into the country illegally since Biden took office in 2021. The president, meanwhile, is scheduled to visit the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday. The trip would be his second to the border while in office. At least 50 individuals on the FBI terror watchlist have been arrested while crossing into the U.S. since October Federal data shows that over 7.3 million migrants have crossed into the country illegally since Biden took office in 2021 The source from Central Asia, Daines said, also warned the lawmaker that over 50,000 migrants from Central Asia crossed into the U.S. illegally in 2023 The visit comes as border security has become a top priority for voters in the upcoming presidential election. Former President Donald Trump is also expected to visit the border the same day. Biden is making the trip is because 'he's got a political crisis on his hands, not because he wants to solve the border crisis,' Daines said. The slimmed-down monarchy that King Charles so longed for is now, quite quickly, in crisis. The absence of Prince William at Tuesdays memorial service for his godfather, King Constantine of Greece announced just 46 minutes prior to Williams scheduled arrival sheds a blinding light on this unfolding catastrophe. Charles is undergoing treatment for cancer. The Princess of Wales is recovering from abdominal surgery and is not expected to resume public appearances until at least after Easter. It has been left to William to carry the mantle, but his sudden withdrawal from Constantines service, for unknown personal reasons, is a further crack. Whats more, it is understood that Williams absence had nothing to do with the sudden death of Tom Kingston, the 45-year-old husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor (Charless second cousin), announced just hours later. Without Williams expected attendance, a hole has been blown wide open in the House of Windsor. Charles is undergoing treatment for cancer. The Princess of Wales is recovering from abdominal surgery. It has been left to William to carry the mantle, but his sudden withdrawal from King Constantines service, for unknown personal reasons, is a further crack. Without Williams expected attendance, a hole has been blown wide open in the House of Windsor. Its one thing for Charles to be out of commission, and not at all unexpected. He is an older man dealing with health issues. Kates absence, however, is more keenly felt. She is indisputably the most charismatic and glamorous member of The Firm. William, for all his dignified and cheerful dutifulness, simply seems dulled without her. It is Kate who gives William true glamour. It is Kate, more than her husband or any other royal, who signifies youth and futurism. And with William on modified duty, the monarchy not only feels rusty and dusty it feels imperiled. Look no further than the disgraced Prince Andrew, apparently viewing this sudden power vacuum as an opportunity to emerge from banishment and lead the royal family or what was left of it into Tuesdays memorial service. Jeffrey Epstein and sex scandal payoffs be damned. How could Charles allow this? In the wake of those recent reports that the prodigal Prince Harry was seeking a way back into the royal fold, and that there was a faction in the palace open to reconciliation, it renders Charles soft. Too soft, perhaps, and too hopeful. If only Harry and Meghan werent the ingrates they are. If only they werent so resentful and distrustful. If only they had stayed put, serving the Crown and doing everything to ensure the future of the monarchy. They would have had the full faith of the British people, who would have embraced them as never before. For Harry and Meghan, their time would have been now. They would have been front and center, the understudies called up to the lead roles, taking the place of the Waleses as they navigate Kates recovery, Charless illness, and the raising of their three children. Look no further than the disgraced Prince Andrew, apparently viewing this sudden power vacuum as an opportunity to emerge from banishment and lead the royal family - or what was left of it - into Tuesdays memorial service. How could Charles allow this? In the wake of those recent reports that the prodigal Prince Harry was seeking a way back into the royal fold, and that there was a faction in the palace open to reconciliation, it renders Charles soft. If only Harry and Meghan werent the ingrates they are. If only they werent so resentful and distrustful. Their time would have been now. They would have been front and center, the understudies called up to the lead roles. Meghan, at long last, would have had her Norma Desmond moment, moving ever closer toward the camera under a permanent white-hot spotlight. The stage would have been all hers. Alas. Harry and Meghans attempted rebrand in just the past week that relaunched Sussex website with Meghans royal crest and the demand out of Canada, during Harrys Invictus promotions, that she be called maam, plus Harrys GMA interview in which he spoke about his recent trip to see Charles remains further proof that all theyve got left to peddle is their connection to the royals. A connection that grows more slack by the moment, to the very royalty they paradoxically seek to destroy. Do Harry and Meghan even realize what theyve lost? What cost this is to their own children? To the British people? In an alternate universe, Tuesdays service would have seen the Duke and Duchess of Sussex leading the way, standard bearers for an intact monarchy, slim but powerful, padded with key players of vim and vigor, style and star power. Instead, we were made to suffer a shameless Prince Andrew in full cock-of-the-walk, chest thrust forward, smiling broadly, emitting an aura of utter confidence as the royal alpha male. What an insult to Prince William. What an insult to Princess Anne, trailing behind her besmirched brother. Her sheer workload and devotion to monarchy deserves better. It was all rather maudlin and colorless, despite Andrews beaming white grin which felt, frankly, completely inappropriate. Where does this leave the royals? The future of a monarchy dimmed by the loss of Queen Elizabeth and further diminished by the withdrawal, for the moment, of Kate? Could the dissipation of the once robust royal family, its multigenerational strength displayed yearly on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, become an existential threat? Charles is 75 years old. He is ill, and though we are told his prognosis is good, its unclear when he may resume a full schedule. Queen Camilla does her part, but she lacks star power. Princess Anne is 73. Her esteemed work ethic notwithstanding, she doesnt draw global media attention. Shes not a subject of fascination. She is the workhorse of the Windsors, and one wonders how long she can keep it up. Where does this leave the royals? The future of a monarchy dimmed by the loss of Queen Elizabeth and further diminished by the withdrawal, for the moment, of Kate? Could the dissipation of the once robust royal family, its multigenerational strength displayed yearly on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, become an existential threat? (Pictured: Top Gun premiere, 2022). What of Prince Edward and Sophie? He is rarely seen, and it seems Sophie otherwise so prominent during funeral services for Queen Elizabeth, so close was she to the late monarch has been told to stand down. And so it is left to William and Kate, the lone A-listers among the royals, to ensure the survival of the monarchy. And if were really honest about it, Kate is the most important figure: The most glittering and despite her origins as a commoner really the most royal of the royals. William at the BAFTAs last week did his best. But his lonely photograph with Tom Cruise called to mind the 2022 Top Gun premiere, when Cruise offered his hand to help Kate, beaming in her strapless black-and-white gown, up the red carpet stairs while William, somewhat haplessly, looked on. That moment said it all: Kate is the star, and everyone else even Tom Cruise is background. READ MORE: Heartbroken family of Jesse Baird arrive at his bushland grave A top criminologist has revealed the next step for investigators after the remains of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies were discovered inside a shallow bush grave after they were allegedly murdered by a NSW police officer. Xanthe Mallett told Sunrise police would now build a brief of evidence against Constable Beaumont Lamarre-Condon. The 28-year-old has been charged with the murders of Mr Baird, 26, and Mr Davies, 29, and is currently behind bars in Silverwater jail in Sydney's west while his matter remains before the courts. The bodies of former TV reporter Jesse Baird (right), 26, and his flight attendant partner Luke Davies (left), 29, were discovered in surf bags buried on a property in Bungonia on Wednesday Xanthe Mallett, a leading criminologist and forensic anthropologist, said police would now build a brief of evidence against Beaumont Lamarre-Condon Police allege the celebrity-chaser-turned-cop shot the couple with his service weapon at the Paddington home Mr Baird was renting on Monday morning. He allegedly then dumped the mens' bodies on a rural property in Bungonia, in the Southern Tablelands, sometime between Wednesday morning and Thursday night. 'Police have to build a strong set of evidence against Beau, a brief of evidence will be compiled, that will be handed up to the defence and at that stage we may hear more about some of the information that has come to light,' Dr Mallett said. 'So we're looking kind of months into the future when we may reach what we call a committal hearing when we get to hear about some of that evidence.' Police set up another crime scene at bushland on the edge of Grays Point Oval (pictured) in Sydney's south earlier on Tuesday after traces of blood were discovered Lamarre-Condon was arrested and charged on Friday after handing himself into Bondi police station following a highly publicised search for the missing couple. At 11am on Wednesday, investigators visited Lamarre-Condon in jail where he allegedly told them where Bairds' and Davies' bodies were buried. The bodies were later found in surf bags that were located close to a fence-line, partially hidden by rocks and debris. They had the information to make the double murder charge very early on even without the body,' the criminologist said. Police are still at the Bungonia property where the painstaking task of collecting evidence continues. 'Our focus today will be on continuing the search in the area,' NSW Police commissioner Karen Webb said. Within hours of escaping death in the IRA's 1984 bombing of Brighton's Grand Hotel, Margaret Thatcher gave a defiant and stirring speech. 'All attempts to destroy democracy through terrorism,' the then prime minister thundered, 'will fail'. Her determination to stand up for what was right in the face of intimidation stands in stark contrast to the cravenness of some of our current parliamentarians. Sir Keir Starmer is a prime example. He aspires to lead Britain and yet capitulates to a pro-Palestinian mob, persuading the Speaker to overturn Commons procedures over fears that extremists might attack MPs who do not toe their line on Gaza. Harriet Harman, a Labour grandee, is the latest to cave in to these fanatics. She makes the extraordinary suggestion that MPs should be allowed to work from home because of the risk of reprisals. MP Harriet Harman in the House of Commons of November 4, 2019 Pictured: Protestors waving flags during a march for Palestine in London on February 17 This would make them even more remote from the people they are paid to serve. That isn't democracy. It is placating a violent, intolerant rabble who seek to undermine the values and restrict the freedom for which Britain is renowned. By proposing that MPs further remove themselves from public life, Ms Harman has underlined the scale of the threat posed by Muslim militants. In doing so, she is acknowledging the broader sentiment behind Lee Anderson's unacceptable and unjustified remarks that London Mayor Sadiq Khan is 'controlled' by Islamists. The point is that having spread hate and division on our streets with virtual impunity, pro-Palestine protesters are stepping up the campaign of harassment, abuse and intimidation to place pressure on politicians. This Islamist thuggery is weakening our democratic institutions when we most need them to be robust. Yet each time it raises its ugly head, our leaders choose to ignore it. The political class (especially Labour), the BBC and the commentariat are more comfortable discussing 'Islamophobia' in the Tory party than confronting the danger Islamism poses to our society. That must change. It is also time politicians displayed the courage the people they represent deserve, and show they will not be intimidated. In the aftermath of the Brighton bombing, Mrs Thatcher said politicians should 'never be stopped from going among the people by a few men of violence'. 'Democracy would not be able to continue... that is what they want.' Her words ring as true today as they did 40 years ago. The fight for defence Scrimping on the defence of the realm is a dangerously false economy. If our security is compromised because of chronic under-funding, then all other areas of national life are imperilled. So the news that Jeremy Hunt is said to be refusing to increase military spending in the Budget is deeply troubling. With the nation's finances under enormous strain, the Chancellor plans to prioritise tax cuts to grow the economy over public sector splurges. While that will be welcomed by hard-pressed families and business, we urgently need to invest more in defence. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt attends a session on Artificial Intelligence during the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on January 18, 2024 The darkening of the geopolitical outlook Russia's invasion of Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East has put a new lens on decades of Britain's shrinking military. Yes, Mr Hunt gave the MoD an extra 11billion last year. But our forces are smaller and less ready to fight than at any time in history. A country with a global role in Nato and in partnership with allies needs a military to match. That means more troops, ships, guns and aircraft. There must be plenty of cash, for instance in the bloated foreign aid pot, that could be better utilised keeping Britain safe. It must be found and it must be spent wisely. It is no good waiting until we are on the brink of war to realise our security and future depend on being better prepared. The number of children being homeschooled has risen five-fold in some areas since the pandemic, figures show. Council data has revealed home education has soared in dozens of areas across England compared with 2019, the year before lockdown. Local authority chiefs say the increase is because of families realising the 'positive aspects' of home learning when schools closed during three national lockdowns. Parents were forced to supervise pupils' work at home for months in 2020 and 2021 during three national lockdowns. The figures - obtained by the PA news agency using Freedom of Information requests - asked local authorities about electively home educated (EHE) children over the last five years. The sharpest rise was in the London borough of Harrow, where home educated children rose almost five-fold from 71 in 2019 to 350 in 2023. The number of children being homeschooled has risen five-fold in some areas since the pandemic, figures show (stock photo) Meanwhile in nearby Hillingdon, the number more than tripled from 95 in 2019 to 311 in 2023. In Cambridgeshire, pupils learning at home rose by 41 per cent, from 998 in 2019 to 1,408 in August 2023. A spokesman at Cambridgeshire County Council said: 'The Covid pandemic provided parents with the opportunity to experience home learning, and many reflected on the more positive aspects of educating their child at home - along with the view of being better placed in supporting wellbeing needs.' Meanwhile, over the same timescale the number rose in Devon by 65 per cent from 1,234 to 2,039. A Devon County Council spokesman said: 'Following the disruption to their education brought about by the pandemic, some young people have struggled to re-adjust to being in a school environment and with a greater awareness of home education as an option, are therefore going down this route.' Elsewhere in the country, the number more than doubled in Rotherham from 163 in 2019 to 397 in 2023. Meanwhile, in Derby it almost doubled from 329 to 645. And in Lancashire it increased by 61 per cent from 1,216 to 1,967. The figures are based on children registered as being in home education with local authorities, so the numbers are likely to be higher as parents do not have to inform councils if they decide to withdraw their child from school. It comes as politicians have called for a national register of children not in school to ensure local authorities know how many young people are being educated at home. Local authority chiefs say the increase is because of families realising the 'positive aspects' of home learning (stock photo) Wendy Charles-Warner, chair of home education charity Education Otherwise, said the Covid-19 pandemic led to more homeschooling as parents 'dipped their toes in the water' and became aware of a different route. However, Geoff Barton, general secretary of headteachers' union ASCL, said: 'The reasons for this are numerous and complex but major factors are likely the worsening mental health among young people and the growing number of children with unmet special educational needs.' A Department for Education spokesman said: 'Parents have the right to educate their children at home, but all children should receive a suitable education regardless of where they are educated. 'We are continuing to work with local authorities to improve their non-statutory registers.' An Australian man filmed the hilarious moment he turned the tables on a scammer and forced him to hang up the phone out of frustration. NSW man Ray received a call from an English man impersonating an NAB worker and and immediately recognised the signs it was a 'phishing scam'. The scammer claimed there had been an unauthorised transaction on his bank account and strongly encouraged Ray to click on a link he had sent in a text. The con-artist quickly became frustrated as Ray refused to follow his instructions before hanging up the phone. 'OK, f*** yourself, love you, bye bye,' he said. NAB customer Ray from NSW outwitted the crook by recognising the red flags of a scammer trying to impersonate the bank who was trying to get him to click on a text message link. Ray's phone is pictured as the scammer was calling him Ray explained he had been sent a text message with a link that the con-artist wanted him to open. 'I said to him, "No, I'm not going to open this text until I get confirmation from NAB", because I wasn't just going to open a random text from someone calling off a private number,' he said. 'It was a man with a British accent. He said everything you expect NAB would say but he called me off a private number. 'He had an excuse for that. He had an excuse for everything.' The criminal knew Ray's personal details and said there had been an attempted transaction on his account from New Zealand. READ MORE: Listen to the FAKE tax call duping thousands of Aussies into handing over millions of dollars Australians lose million to phone scams. Stock image Advertisement Ray's partner Kathleen was listening to her partner on the phone and told him it might be a scam, so Ray put the phone on speaker and she recorded the end of the last minute of the call. Ray insisted he would call NAB personally and that he wasn't going to share details of his account with someone who was calling from a personal number. The scammer became audibly irritated and insisted the text message he had sent came from NAB. 'No sir. I have sent you just to confirm, it's a two front authentication. This is AI generated. As soon as I said I sent it, you received a text message from that. Correct?' he said. 'Yes,' Ray said. 'Exactly, sir,' the scammer said. 'So it would be impossible if I didn't work for this institution, for me to send you text messages, from a government gateway.' 'So if you could just go ahead and pop onto that text message.' Ray insisted he would prefer to personally call an NAB worker prompting the con-artist to respond threateningly. 'What I'm going to go ahead and do, I'm going to go ahead and try to stop this payment, but if it does go ahead, unfortunately you will be liable for this payment,' he said. Ray refused to budge before the con-artist ended the call with an expletive-laden sign-off. Ray said he knew the scammer was impersonating an NAB worker as soon as he noticed he was becoming 'irritated' by the phone call. NAB executive for group investigations and national fraud Chris Sheehan said the recording highlighted the signs Aussies should watch out for to protect themselves. 'Ray did the right thing,' he said. 'NAB will never call you and ask you to share your one-time PIN, transfer money to another account to keep it safe, give us remote access to your devices or provide personal information like your driver's licence details. An Australian has turned the table on an English man who tried to use a 'phishing scam' to trick him out of money from his NAB account, and caused the scammer to swear and hang up in frustration. Stock image Chris Sheehan of NAB (pictured) said the recording highlighted the signs Australians should watch out for to protect themselves 'Criminals are masters at being insistent and pushy to create a sense of fear or urgency. 'Their goal is to pressure the person to make the payment themselves or share personal details, such as log in details or one-time passcodes.' Mr Sheehan said if you are not certain it really is the bank calling to then hang up and call the bank yourself using the number on the back of your card. Phishing scams cost Australians more than $3billion in 2022, but the situation is getting better. 'While phone phishing remains an issue, we have seen a 77 per cent reduction in cases when comparing compare October to December 2023 to October to December 2022,' Mr Sheehan said. He said NAB had taken several initiatives that have contributed to the reduction. 'We worked with telecommunications providers to put protections in place to make it harder for criminals to impersonate bank phone numbers and infiltrate legitimate text message threads. 'This means that scam calls may appear as an unknown number or no caller ID, like in Ray's case, whereas previously they might have appeared to come from a legitimate bank number.' NAB has also removed links from text messages sent to customers to make it easier to identify when a message is legitimate. 'Text messages are the biggest front door to phishing scams. We are working hard every day to reduce the impact of scams,' Mr Sheehan said. Dr Nick Coatsworth has said that government officials including himself 'got it wrong' when it came to supporting Covid vaccine mandates - and that future pandemics should prioritise convincing people to get vaccinated. His comments come after Queensland's Supreme Court on Tuesday found that police and ambulance workers in the state were given unlawful directions to get vaccines or face potential disciplinary action. The court found Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll failed to give proper consideration to human rights relevant to the decision to issue the vaccine mandate. Former Department of Health director-general Dr John Wakefield was unable to prove he issued the vaccine mandate under an implied term of the employment agreements for ambulance service workers. Dr Nick Coatsworth has admitted government officials, including himself, 'got it wrong' when it came to promoting Covid vaccine mandates As a result, both vaccine mandates were found by the court to be 'unlawful' and to have no effect. Weighing in on the groundbreaking decision, Dr Coatsworth, Australia's former deputy chief health officer during the pandemic, said he had to acknowledge his own role in the system promoting vaccine mandates. 'We didn't get it wrong promoting the vaccines, but the mandates, yes, I think we did get that wrong,' he told The Today Show on Wednesday. 'And I think you can say hindsight is 20/20. But hindsight gives us foresight. And if we have another pandemic, we should think long and hard whether mandates for vaccines are justified.' The infectious disease physician was the face of the vaccine rollout and was a common appearance on Australian televisions during the Covid outbreak. Queensland 's Supreme Court this week found that police and ambulance workers in the state were given unlawful directions to get vaccines or face potential disciplinary action He was appointed as one of three new deputy chief medical officers under Brendan Murphy at the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Dr Coatsworth said Commissioner Carroll 'didn't give any regard to the human rights implications' of the vaccine mandates. He said the Supreme Court's decision could mean some of the workers sacked for not following the mandates could potentially get their jobs back. 'It could open the way for civil proceedings and damages against the governments with human rights acts, which are Queensland, the ACT and Victoria,' he said. 'But importantly, I think it opens all the decisions that we as senior health officials, as senior police and ambulance officials made. 'Did we have regard to Australians' human rights when we made those decisions and to what extent did we balance those decisions against human rights?' The expert said in the event a pandemic was to occur again, authorities should rely on convincing people to get vaccinated rather than enforcing mandates. 'I think what we saw in New South Wales and Victoria was that you could get to high levels of vaccine coverage without the mandates, and that was because people were genuinely worried and they were prepared to be informed about these vaccines. 'That's the way to do it for the future.' The Supreme Court also found the vaccine directions limited the human rights of workers because they were required to undergo a medical procedure without full consent but it was reasonable in all the circumstances. Senior Judge Administrator Glenn Martin said the police and ambulance services were trying to prevent their employees from suffering infection, serious illness and life-changing health consequences. 'The balance between the importance of the purpose of the limitation, and the importance of preserving the human right... is complicated by the fact that these directions were given in what was, by any measure, an emergency,' he said. More than 70 frontline workers in Queensland had taken legal action against the state government in three separate lawsuits. The Australian Government is funding foreign advertisements depicting depressed young men on the brink of suicide in a bid to discourage boat people. The ads, which are produced by the government's Zero Chance campaign, show a series of desperate young men who are considering the illegal crossing by boat to Australia or those who have already been turned back. They are filmed and aired in Sri Lanka in an attempt to discourage people from making the treacherous 6,000-kilometre journey across the Indian Ocean. But the confronting commercials have sparked criticism from academics who argue they would not be allowed under Australian advertising guidelines due to their depictions of self-harm. The ads, which are produced by the government's Zero Chance campaign, show a series of desperate young men who are considering the illegal crossing by boat to Australia or those who have already been turned back (pictured) One video showed how a young man's life fell apart after he was turned away from Australia. I decided to go to Australia by boat to be successful in life. But now my life is in ruins,' the voiceover said. I was caught and returned to Sri Lanka. I wasted the money we collected for my mothers surgery! In the video, the man climbs a railing on a bridge as he complains that he cant bear listening to my mother whine on her sick bed. Now my breath has become a burden to me,' he said, holding his head in his hands in a ball on the floor. The new Operation Sovereign Borders commander, Borders Rear Admiral Brett Sonter (pictured) appears in another ad where he makes clear that 'there is no change to Australias tough border protection policies' The confronting commercials have sparked criticism from academics who argue they would not be allowed under Australian advertising guidelines due to their depictions of self-harm Another confronting clip, entitled 'A series of failures throughout my life', showed a man walking dejectedly along a trainline as a train approached at speed. My life is a series of failures,' the voiceover said. 'Didnt get a good job. Started a small business, only for it to go bankrupt. In the end I got into debt. He then looked at a photo of his girlfriend in despair before adding: She also left me. I have no hope now,' he said. 'Ive decided to go to Australia by boat. Just as the train is steaming towards him, the screen cuts away and a voiceover said: Dont be hasty for your last journey. Theres zero chance of illegal maritime migration to Australia.' The video ends with the dishevelled man breathing hard, having stepped out of the way of the train at the last second. Both adverts feature the Commonwealth logo and the phrase 'a message from the Australian government'. Dr Gavin Northey, Griffith University marketing expert, said that a review of Australia's strict advertising guidelines 'suggests these (adverts) wouldnt be accepted in Australia'. 'This raises the question: Why does the Australian government feel they are appropriate in another country?', Dr Northey told Nine Newspapers. Daily Mail Australia approached the Australian Border Force (ABF) for comment. The new Operation Sovereign Borders commander, Rear Admiral Brett Sonter, appeared in another ad for the Zero Chance campaign. Make no mistake. There is no change to Australias tough border protection policies,' Rear Admiral Sonter said. Dont risk your money and, most importantly, dont risk your life. Under my watch, every attempt to illegally migrate to Australia by boat will continue to be stopped,' he added. Two weeks ago, almost 40 suspected asylum seekers arrived undetected in Beagle Bay, 150km north of Broome, in Western Australia. They were discovered by bewildered locals wandering in the bush. The men, believed to be from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, were deported to an offshore detention centre on the Micronesian island of Nauru, north-west of Papua New Guinea. Lifeline: 13 11 14 Suicide Callback Service: 1300 659 467 Mensline Australia: 1300 789 987 Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800 Sam Bankman-Fried is pulling out all the stops in a last-ditch effort to avoid a possible 110-year prison sentence. The cryptocurrency fraudster has brought in his parents, former FTX colleagues, law professors and Trump's former lawyer in a bid for a lenient sentence and in preparation for appealing his conviction for fraud. Bankman-Fried, 31, is currently awaiting his sentence inside New York's Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after being found guilty of stealing from his customers at the now-folded crypto currency exchange he founded. The former billionaire will be sentenced by Judge Lewis Kaplan on March 28, with a possible 110-year sentence on the cards. As well as preparing an appeal the former crypto mogul's lawyers are scheduled to file a legal memo in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday, arguing that their client doesn't deserve to go to prison for the rest of his life. Sam Bankman-Fried seen leaving Manhattan federal court after his latest appearance on February 16 Bankman-Fried's parents, Stanford University law professors Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, have been working on their son's appeal for a lenient sentence Among those to speak sympathetically of Bankman-Fried to the judge is his former assistant Natalie Tien The appeal for leniency in sentencing is part of a long-term strategy to appeal the fraud conviction and change the public perception of Bankman-Fried's activities at the collapsed crypto exchange. However, Miriam Baer, vice dean at Brooklyn Law School has predicted that even if Kaplan decides against imposing the maximum sentence he could still serve 30 years behind bars. The judge 'could still give a very serious sentence given how young Mr. Bankman-Fried is; say, a 30- or 35-year sentence,' Baer told the New York Times. Bankman-Fried has hired attorney Marc Mukasey, who once represented Donald Trump, to oversee his sentencing and another lawyer, Alexandra Shapiro to handle the appeal. Mukasey has garnered a reputation for being a showman in the courtroom. Bankman-Fried's parents, the Stanford University law professors Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, have also been involved in the defense, helping line up people to write letters for their son that will be included in the memo. Among those to speak sympathetically of Bankman-Fried to the judge is his former assistant Natalie Tien. 'I don't have grudges over him, and I do feel bad for his parents,' Tien told the New York Times. Bankman-Fried has hired attorney Marc Mukasey, who once represented Donald Trump, to oversee his sentencing The photo, thought to have been taken on December 17, shows Bankman-Fried sporting a beard alongside former inmate G Lock, an ex gang member Tien told the Times she was contacted by a friend of Bankman-Fried's a month ago asking if she would consider assisting with the sentencing memo. She then received an email from Bankman-Fried's parents, urging her to her to write 'from the heart' about their son. They were 'kind of like testing the waters,' Ms. Tien told the Times. 'I pretty much just said "yes" right away.' Yale Law professor Ian Ayres and Stanford Law professor John Donohue, both family friends of Bankman-Fried's, have also written sympathetically in the memo. 'Whatever else might be said about Bankman-Fried, he was a brilliant businessman,' Ayres and Donohue wrote. Bankman-Fried was found guilty in November of all seven counts of fraud he was charged with. The jury took less than five hours to reach their verdict. His conviction marked the finale of his $10 billion fraud trial linked to the spectacular collapse of his crypto empire in November 2022. Former US President Bill Clinton, Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bankman-Fried pictured in a Panel Discussion in May 2022 His parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, broke down when the guilty verdict against their son was read out last year Prosecutors argued that Bankman-Fried built a 'pyramid of deceit' through FTX and his sister company Alameda Research to 'steal' billions of dollars in customer assets in pursuit of 'money, influence and power'. At its height, FTX was worth $32 billion and Bankman-Fried was lauded as the future of finance appearing on the cover of Forbes magazine and on event stages with the likes of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. The 'house of cards' came crashing down in 2022 amid tumbling crypto prices and media reports raising questions about how much of the $32 billion valuation was based on FTT, FTX's own crypto token. As customers tried to withdraw their money, it created the crypto equivalent of a run on a bank, and FTX shut down. Federal prosecutors quickly built their case against Bankman-Fried with the assistance of his inner circle who took plea deals with the prosecution in exchange for cooperation. San Francisco Mayor London Breed is being slammed after a statement on the closing of the city's flagship Macy's at the Union Square location. Breed, facing a re-election bid currently in trouble according to recent polling, made the comments as the location became one of 150 Macy's stores to announce plans to shutter. The Democrat has overseen a continued downturn of San Francisco's economy and the prevalence of homelessness and overdoses on its streets. The Union Square location will remain open until at least 2025, or when a buyer can be found, according to Breed's statement that seemingly glossed over the city's issues. 'As someone who grew up in San Francisco, Macy's has always meant a lot to the people of this city. It's where families came to shop for the holidays,' Breed said. San Francisco Mayor London Breed is being slammed after a statement on the closing of the city's flagship Macy's in the city's Union Square, where around 100 establishments have closed The Democrat has overseen a continued downturn of San Francisco's economy and the prevalence of homelessness and overdoses on its streets 'It's where many people from my community got their first jobs, or even held jobs for decades. It's hard to think of Macy's not being part of our city anymore.' However, she promised that 'change is happening in San Francisco, and that change can be positive if we channel it to the benefit of San Franciscans.' Her solutions were to change local and state laws, as well as passing tax reform to 'recruit and retain businesses' and 'bringing new universities' to the city. 'We will keep our focus on moving this City forward and creating opportunities for growth,' Breed concluded. Reaction on social media was heavily negative and cited the many issues and prior escapes made by business from the city. 'They're leaving because no one lives here. The downtown is barren because of you,' wrote one X user. 'The seeds were sewn, reap the results,' added another. Another referenced Breed's upcoming electoral prospects: 'I hope you have a corner picked out because that's the only job you'll be able to find come election time. You and your Dem friends did this.' The Union Square location will remain open until at least 2025, or when a buyer can be found, per Breed's statement, which went for sentiment over a reckoning with the city's issues The crime-ridden downtown area of San Francisco has seen the closure of many shops and restaurants since its drastic downfall, with its flagship Macy's store the latest victim Reaction on social media was heavily negative and cited the many issues and prior escapes made by business from the city The crime-ridden downtown area of San Francisco has seen the closure of many shops and restaurants since its drastic downfall, despite Breed attempting to hype statistics claiming offenses went down in 2023. In October, it was reported that seven Starbucks stores were planning to close as the city continues to deal with crime, drug use, and a homelessness epidemic. At the end of August video was released showing San Francisco's newly shut-down flagship Nordstrom store that was almost barren after nearly three decades in business. A slew of the city's restaurateurs cited crime, drugs, and waning tourism as the main culprits killing their businesses, all set on Valencia Street. The thoroughfare, about a mile from the city's embattled Downtown, is considered one of the most sought-after strips of restaurant real estate in The Bay Area. But for residents of San Francisco's Mission District, the reality is far different. The area - much like the nearby 'Doom Loop' of Union Square, City Hall, and Tenderloin and Mid Market districts - has been a hive of unsavory, post-pandemic activity. The city's Ikea was nearly empty earlier this month as customers say persistent construction, lack of parking and constant crime on the surrounding streets keep them from shopping at the store. The incumbent mayor, 49, suffered poor results in a new poll from the San Francisco Chronicle that found she would lose her office to the man who briefly held it before her, Mark Farrell, 50. London Breed, 49, is on course to lose the mayoralty of San Francisco in a new poll, which found a staggering 71 percent of voters disapprove of her job performance Former acting mayor Mark Farrell came out narrowly on top in the new poll - as he runs on a no-nonsense campaign to clean up San Francisco's crumbling streets Farrell said San Francisco has become the 'butt of jokes across the country' as rampant homelessness and drug taking takes over the city San Francisco is reeling from soaring crime, an emptying downtown, and residents moving away to safer, cheaper areas In a tight three-way race, Farrell registered 20 percent support, Breed registered 18 percent, and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie registered 16 percent. While the candidates were closely matched, San Francisco's use of ranked choice voting in its mayoral elections would see her struggle - with Breed receiving far fewer second-choice votes than either Farrell or Lurie. The city by the bay made promises to increase police presence in the Union Square area during the past holiday season. The call for escalated police presence is in tandem with the city's efforts to discourage retail crime, control theft and encourage visitors to return to downtown San Fran after the crime-ridden city gained a reputation for drugs, homelessness and lawlessness. The new expanded patrol measures come just a few years after the liberal city - led by Breed - confidently called to defund the police during the Black Lives Matter movement. In February 2021, Breed announced plans to redirect $120 million from the police department to a combination of new and existing programs. The increased police presence in Union Square was part of San Fran's Safe Shopper Initiative - which was announced by Breed in 2021 after a wave of looting swept over the city, which primarily targeted luxury stores in Union Square. Union Square's Louis Vuitton store was a victim of many smash-and-grab robberies which ultimately forced the shop to board up its windows. Police Chief Bill Scott said the department quadrupled their officers patrolling the commercial corridor last year - and that the number this year will be even higher. Mayor Breed announced a $17 million grant to help with their police-expansion efforts and movement to combat retail theft ahead of the holiday shopping season. Breed said that the funding would go toward paying officers overtime for the chaotic time period as they ran targeted retail theft operations. Money is also set to go towards the San Francisco District Attorney's Office to fund a prosecutor and investigator dedicated to retail theft cases. San Francisco has become notorious for homelessness, crime, theft and drugs in a post-pandemic downfall A slew of the city's restaurateurs cited crime, drugs, and waning tourism as the main culprits killing their businesses. Pictured: Homeless people live near San Francisco's Union Square For Macy's it's part of a new strategy aimed at breathing life into the 166-year-old retailer. The plan, dubbed a 'Bold New Chapter,' said around 50 stores would be closed by the end of the current fiscal year, without mentioning how many employees would be impacted. The plan comes a week after Arkhouse Management unveiled a proxy challenge to replace nine members of the Macy's board. The challenge follows a rejection by Macy's in January of an unsolicited takeover proposal from Arkhouse and Brigade Capital Management. The company, which had also announced in January it would pare its workforce by 3.5 percent, said in a statement that the new strategy would prioritize investment in the remaining 350 Macy's locations. It also plans to open 15 Bloomingdale's stores and at least 30 Bluemercury stores in new and existing markets over the next three years, along with 30 remodeled Bluemercury sites. Department stores have seen their results suffer for years as consumers increasingly move online, and have been forced to reduce in size -- a dynamic exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. These trends have put pressure on shopping malls throughout the United States, particularly older retail sites that have fallen out of favor. The 150 stores targeted for closure account for 25 percent of Macy's gross square footage, but less than 10 percent of sales, Chief Executive Tony Spring said on a conference call with analysts. Macy's has undertaken prior rounds of store closures, but Spring -- who took over as CEO this month -- said the process was more 'stringent' this time, involving interviews with some 60,000 customers who described what they were looking for. From that process, the company also determined that there was an opportunity to grow the Bloomingdale's brand, including through smaller stores and more locations away from the US coasts, Spring said. Macy's will also expand a pilot program to try new ideas at some 50 stores. New York Mayor Eric Adams has called for a radical overhaul of its sanctuary city status in a spectacular u-turn as the city buckles under the weight of migrant arrivals. The Democrat leader has faced a furious backlash as schools, hotels and community centers have been turned over to the 180,000 migrants who he has warned will 'destroy' the city. He has been a staunch defender of its decades-old sanctuary status which forbids city officials from asking questions about a person's immigration status, or revealing it to federal authorities. But he revealed his change of heart after furious residents grilled him about migrant crimes including January's brutal Times Square attack on two cops that saw most of the suspects freed on bail within hours of their arrests. 'We need to modify the sanctuary city law that if you commit a felony or violent act we should be able to turn you over to ICE and have you deported,' he told a town hall meeting on Monday night. New York City Mayor repeated his remarks at a press conference on Tuesday: 'We should not be allowing people who are repeatedly committing crimes to remain here and we cannot collaborate with ICE in the process' he said More than 180,000 migrants have arrived in New York since spring of 2022 costing the city billions of dollars in social welfare provision But tensions have spiked in the wake of a series of high-profile crimes including the notorious gang attack on two NYPD officers by Venezuelan migrants in Times Square last month More than 560 cities, states and counties have declared themselves sanctuaries since the early 1980s and New York adopted the status under former Democrat Mayor Ed Koch. But sanctuary cities have been a favorite target of governors on the southern border who have bussed thousands of migrants north to them as the migration crisis has gathered steam. Police in the city are not allowed to arrest anyone because they are an illegal immigrant and the city will not co-operate with an investigation by immigration authorities unless ordered to by a court. Adams insisted 'We should protect our immigrants. Period.' when running for office in October 2021, adding: 'New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams administration.' As recently as last month he was defending the status after it was attacked by Nikki Haley for encouraging illegal migration during a Republican primary debate. 'This has nothing to do with sanctuary cities, migrants and asylum seekers are paroled into the country, they're here legally,' he told Fox News. But the city expects to have spent $10.6 billion by the end of 2025 and announced a budget in December that would cut the number of NYPD officers by a fifth and the education cut by $1 billion hit over two years. Migrants pick up clothes as mutual aid groups distribute food and clothes under cold weather near the Migrant Assistance Center at St. Brigid Elementary School last month in New York Adams has desperately turned to a variety of city landmarks, makeshift shelters and temporary housing to find room for the migrant influx, including former Catholic school St. John Villa Academy (pictured) in Staten Island Adams received backlash for announcing a $53 million debit card scheme that could give a family of migrants with two children under the age of 17 up to $15,200-a-year 'Let me tell you something, New Yorkers,' Adams told a public meeting in September. 'Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don't see an ending to this. 'This issue will destroy New York City. Destroy New York City.' He faced more pressure this week over his plans for a $53 million debit card scheme that could give a family of migrants with two children under the age of 17 up to $15,200-a-year. Sanctuary status has come under growing pressure in other cities dealing with the migrant influx, and Chicago's Democrat leaders were slammed for blocking a vote on ditching its sanctuary city status in at the end of last year. Mayor Brandon Johnson ordered his lieutenants to quash a bid to put the controversial 'Welcoming City Ordinance' to a referendum on Chicago's March primary ballot. Adams admitted earlier this month that he would use his executive authority to override some sanctuary provisions if he was allowed as he was challenged by Republican city councilors. And his u-turn was greeted as a 'welcome change' by City Councilman Joe Borelli. But the Legal Aid Society said reform would criminalize the innocent. 'What Mayor Eric Adams seeks would result in local law enforcement being able to transfer New Yorkers merely suspected of a crime to ICE, upending local criminal court proceedings while perpetuating family separation and dividing communities,' it said in a statement. Adams blamed Congress for his handling of the crisis on Monday night, insisting his hands were tied by Federal laws. 'People tell me all the time, they see me on the street and they say, 'Well Eric why don't you stop the buses from coming in?' It's against the law, I can't,' he told the meeting. 'Why don't you allow those who want to work allow them to work?' It's against the law the federal law I can't. The Big Apple has been inundated with an influx of migrants that the mayor's office has estimated will cost taxpayers $10.6 billion over three fiscal years Schools, nursing homes and a string of landmark hotels have been requisitioned to house many of the 180,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022 'Why do you say you have to house everyone that [comes] in?' Because that's the law. 'Why don't you deport those who commit crimes and harm people that are not doing the right thing?' It's against the law, I can't. 'So I am inheriting a national crisis that I have to resolve and we are resolving that crisis like no other city, folks. 'Go Google other cities. You don't see tent cities in New York. You don't see children and families sleeping on the street in New York. This team here has managed the crisis each time they come.' Author and survivor of Mao's Cultural Revolution Xi Van Fleet told Tucker Carlson that US institutions have been seized by Marxists and are pushing the US toward communism. In a long-form interview with the former Fox News host, Van Fleet described the 'full blown communist revolution' currently unfolding in America that 'must be stopped' if the country is to survive. Van Fleet has lived in the US since 1986, but was born and raised in China during the Cultural Revolution. At the age of 16, she was sent to labor in the Chinese countryside. After Mao's death, she was able to attend college, where she studied English. She has devoted the last several years to making the public case against what she sees as a wave of communist ideology taking hold of America. In a long-form interview with Tucker Carlson, Xi Van Fleet described the 'full blown communist revolution' currently unfolding in America that 'must be stopped' if the country is to survive Xi Van Fleet's book, 'Mao's America: A Survivor's Warning,' is a cautionary text that emphasizes the ways in which modern America is falling into patterns she first observed in communist China In her new book, 'Mao's America: A Survivor's Warning,' she draws numerous comparisons between what she saw as a child and young adult in Mao's China, and what she sees today in the US. During her interview with Carlson, Van Fleet described one such instance of the dangerous ideology she is worried has spread across America. Explaining the progressive usage of the words oppressor and oppressed, Van Fleet said that a communist worldview would have an individual believe that anything the oppressed party does to the oppressor 'is justified.' 'That includes murder, kidnap(ping), raping - it's all justified just like the Cultural Revolution,' she said. 'That's what's happening in today's America.' Specifically, Van Fleet points to the indoctrination she sees taking place at educational institutions in the US - both those of higher education, and K-12 programs. Professors, curriculums, and in turn students, are embracing Marxist ideology, the broader societal implication of which is a 'celebration of violence,' like the myriad riots that have broken out across the country in the period following the death of George Floyd and beyond. Furthermore, the political discord and chaos on college campuses, she said, mirror what she saw in China years ago. Therefore, the single most critical step toward defeating communist ideology in America, is regaining control of schools and universities. Van Fleet in no uncertain terms declares that Americans who care about saving 'this country for your children and your children's children' must stand up against the communist ideology that is now driving everything from the Critical Race Theory taught in elementary school classrooms, to the DEI hiring practices of major US corporations. Carlson asked Van Fleet a series of wide-ranging questions during the 45-minute conversation, including the motivation behind the spread of communist ideology Power, she told Carlson, is the singular goal of those harnessing communist ideology to sew chaos far and wide - and the better that is understood, the more effective the resistance effort can be 'You can't fight something you don't understand,' said Van Fleet, underscoring the significance of her new book and not underestimating the power of the Marxist agenda. Otherwise, she cautioned, the indoctrinated masses will 'destroy the country so some people can have total control of power.' Importantly, Van Fleet said that it is understandably difficult to understand or imagine why Marxist communism is being spread across the country, and who is ultimately responsible for it. Power, she told Carlson, is the singular goal of those harnessing communist ideology to sew chaos far and wide. The powerful interview came just days after Carlson's controversial interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin and the death of Kremlin dissident Alexei Navalny last week. During his interview with Putin, Carlson heaped praise on Russia, calling Moscow 'so much nicer than any city in my country.' He also challenged the foreign leader with questions about the ongoing war against Ukraine and the continued imprisonment of WSJ journalist Evan Gershkovich. In the wake of Navalny's death, which many believe was a job carried out by Kremlin, Carlson was the recipient of intensified criticism for his semi-sympathetic interview. When news of Navalny's death broke, however, Carlson told DailyMail.com: 'It's horrifying what happened to Navalny. The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it.'t's horrifying what happened to Navalny. The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it.' This is the crazy moment a suspect was propelled from their car after a high speed car chase and crash, which shockingly left the one-year-old passenger unscathed. Antoine L Lindsey, 30, of Cleveland, Ohio, led the North Olmsted Police Department on a high speed car chase on Sunday night. The car chase stared near Great Northern Mall after officers tried to stop Lindsey for license plate and brake light violations just before 5:30 pm. Dramatic video footage from the car chase that followed showed as an officer deployed stop sticks to catch Lindsey - who continued to speed along Brookpark Road. Eventually, the driver lost control just before Clague Road - where his car crashed along the side of the road. This is the crazy moment a suspect was propelled from their car after a high speed car chase and crash, which shockingly left the one-year-old passenger unscathed Antoine L Lindsey, 30, of Cleveland, Ohio , led the North Olmsted Police Department on a high speed car chase on Sunday night The car chase stared near Great Northern Mall after officers tried to stop Lindsey for license plate and brake light violations just before 5:30 pm Eventually, the driver lost control just before Clague Road - where his car crashed along the side of the road In a shocking ending - Lindsey was thrown high into the air and then flew onto the side of the road. As Lindsey was splayed out on the ground, officers surrounded him - one with a firearm. The suspect told the cops that there was a one-year-old baby in the backseat of the car. Officers found the baby, which was secured in a car seat and miraculously 'did not appear injured.' The baby was taken to the hospital, despite appearing to lack injuries, out of caution. Lindsey was taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries. Dramatic video footage from the car chase that followed showed as an officer deployed stop sticks to catch Lindsey - who continued to speed along Brookpark Road The suspect told the cops that there was a one-year-old baby in the backseat of the car. Officers found the baby, which was secured in a car seat and miraculously 'did not appear injured' He was found to be in possession of an illegal firearm and his license was suspended, according to the release. Following his arrest, Lindsey is expected to charged with failure to comply with police, having weapons while under disability and endangering children. Wild footage has emerged of a man being swarmed by police and arrested just hours after allegedly stabbing a young tradie to death. Dakota Woodford, 23, was found by emergency services outside of his grandparents' home on Henry Street in Paralowie, North Adelaide, in a critical condition about 7am on Tuesday. The concreter had allegedly been stabbed by a 27-year-old man known to him and was rushed to Royal Adelaide Hospital where he died shortly after. Police descended on a home at Trott Park, 40kms south of the alleged incident, about 9:45am where the alleged attacker was swarmed by officers and arrested. The Sheidow Park man was charged with murder after investigators were seen combing through the Paralowie crime scene and the accused's home. A man has been charged with murder after allegedly stabbing 23-year-old tradie Dakota Woodford (pictured) outside of his grandparents' home in Paralowie, North Adelaide READ MORE: Fiance breaks silence over real estate agent's death Advertisement CCTV footage from a nearby home in Trott Park shows two officers aiming weapons at the man before he laid on the ground and surrendered. Several more officers then arrive on the scene and surround the man before he was promptly handcuffed and arrested. The 27-year-old was refused bail and is set to appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court on Wednesday. South Australia Police confirmed they are 'not searching for anyone else in connection with this incident'. Despite others being at the home at the time and contacting emergency services, no one else was injured. A man believed to be a brother of Mr Woodford's arrived at the Paralowie scene about midday and broke down into tears while speaking to two officers. Meanwhile, investigators could be seen outside of the home scouring through the front yard and parking space. An area just outside of the garage had two evidence markers placed next to a piece of white cloth and what appears to be streaks of blood. A dramatic scene took place outside of a home at Trott Park, 40km south of the crime scene, as several officers surrounded and arrested the 27-year-old Sheidow Park man (pictured) Investigators were seen combing through both the grandparents' and accused's home on Tuesday as they work to uncover more details about the alleged attack (pictured) Investigators were also spotted at the accused's home in Sheidow Park taking images of the property, searching through bins and collecting evidence. Superintendent Julie Thomas told the media shortly after the incident that investigators were still yet to uncover a motive for the alleged attack. She said the man was assisting police with their inquiries but the investigation remained in its 'very early stages'. Anyone with information relating to the incident has been urged to contact Crime Stoppers. The average household income of Australian homebuyers has increased by almost 40 per cent to more than $200,000 in just four years - leaving single borrowers with fewer choices. Investment Bank Jarden's analysis of Commonwealth Bank mortgage data found that almost one-third of all home loan applicants earned $220,000 in 2023. That's a big 37.5 per cent jump from 2019 when the average household income of a homebuyer was $160,000. Jarden chief economist Carlos Cacho said the data was troubling as it showed the 'average household can no longer buy the average home' in a capital city. 'What we've seen over the last four years or so is that the share of buyers who make median or below income has decreased from 30 per cent to 18 per cent,' he told Domain. 'It's been a market that's been increasingly driven by higher income households and large deposits. 'It's a situation where there's a real split down wealth and income lines. It's becoming a case where the average household can no longer buy the average home.' The average, full-time salary is now $98,218, making a $700,000 house beyond the reach of a single borrower with university qualifications and a career. This means a couple needs to earn more than $200,000 to barely afford a $1.4million house, and still be in mortgage stress. Median house prices have risen across Australia despite aggressive interest rate hikes, with $1.6million the typical price in Sydney, compared with $1.05million in Melbourne, $888,285 in Brisbane, $875,034 in Adelaide and $742,390 in Perth, Domain sales data showed. Investment Bank Jarden's analysis of Commonwealth Bank data found almost one third of all home loan applicants made about $220,000 Home buyers in 2023 were earning 40 per cent more in their median household income than those in 2019 (pictured is a Melbourne auction) Mr Cacho added the trend could fatally damage the Australian dream of working hard and being able to own a home. 'It was generally seen if you tried and really applied yourself you can achieve it, no matter your starting point,' he said. 'But now, unless you come from a family who owns a home or has some wealth, it's really hard to buy a home.' A RateCity analysis showed banks are now lending borrowers 5.2 times their salary before tax, if they have a 20 per cent mortgage deposit. That means an individual or a couple would need to earn $214,000 to even afford a $1.4million house, paying off a $1.1million mortgage. Even then, someone among the top three per cent of income earners would still be in mortgage stress, spending 38 per cent of pay on monthly repayments. An average-income earner on $98,218 would only be able to buy a $639,375 house and borrow $511,500. Jarden chief economist Carlos Cacho (pictured) said housing affordability in Australia was 'broken', with the data showing the 'average household could no longer buy the average home' Mr Cacho said it was difficult to 'move the needle of affordability' and that buying a home was unlikely to become more affordable in the short term. 'It's just broken,' he said. 'Affordability will be improved a bit if and when we see a rate cut by the RBA, but history shows it will probably make house prices go even higher.' Australian capital city house prices surged by 11 per cent in the year to January to $944,229, CoreLogic data showed. This occurred despite the Reserve Bank in November raising interest rates for the 13th time in 18 months, taking the cash rate to a 12-year high of 4.35 per cent. A record 518,000 migrants moved to Australia, on a net basis, in 2022-23. A 'despicable' carer who stole 30,000 from a disabled man she was meant to be looking after sobbed in court yesterday as she was jailed for more than two years. Rachel Dawes, also known as Rachel Evans, spent the money on Amazon Prime, Netflix, betting shops, jewellery and takeaways over the course of three-and-a-half years. The carer raided the bank account of 'vulnerable' Gary Stewart, who had learning disabilities, while fooling his family into thinking she was looking after him by inviting him round for Christmas Day. The mother-of-two was found to have left her victim with just 65.95 in savings and 38p on his electricity meter after plundering 30,765.30 between September 2017 and March 2021. When she was caught Dawes, of Kingsway South in Warrington, claimed she had become 'overwhelmed' following the death of her mother and she wept in court as she was put behind bars on Tuesday, February 27. Rachel Dawes, pictured here in a police mugshot, stole 30,000 from a disabled man she was meant to be caring for Her plot however was rumbled when she was suspended from her job due to not completing care records and allowing clients to visit her home. This resulted in another carer at her employer Wirral-based Sage Care Ltd. visiting Mr Stewart on March 26, 2021. The other carer, Wendy Beckett, was shocked to find him living in 'uninhabitable' conditions, with no food and just 38p of emergency cash left on the meter. She took him food shopping, but found there was not enough money in his account to pay for it. At Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday, prosecutor Ben Stanley said: 'Ms Beckett looked through some of his bank statements. 'Mr Stewart said the bank statements were unopened because the defendant (Dawes) would shout at him if he opened them without her. T 'here were also more bank statements hidden under the carpet in the cupboard which Mr Stewart was not aware of. 'Upon examination of the bank statements, Ms Beckett noticed there were irregular payments, including regular pharmacy and school payments.' Concerned, Ms Beckett contacted Sage Care, and a further investigation found a long string of unusual payments from Mr Stewart's account. These included subscriptions for a mobile phone, television services, Amazon Prime and Netflix. There were also payments for Amazon purchases, Ebay purchases, PayPal transactions, Ladbrokes bets and takeaway dinners, as well as regular cash withdrawals. In total, Dawes made 53 payments to her Amazon account, four Argos purchases, four payments to Brighthouse for a sofa, washing machine and TV, two car insurance payments, 48 regular payments to her energy company, 16 payments to betting shops, two payments to Warrington Vets4Pets, 19 pharmacy payments, six PayPal and eBay purchases, and two payments to jewellery shop Pandora. Meanwhile, Mr Stewart was left without electricity, heat and food. In October 2020, one neighbour reported the 60-year-old had knocked on her door saying he had no gas or electricity and that he was freezing. A week later he turned up again, saying he was hungry and freezing and had nothing to eat. The court heard Mr Stewart's family, who lived in Scotland and Dubai, had expressed concerns about Mr Stewart's phone being cut off several times. However, they trusted Dawes to look after him while they were unable to visit him due to Covid-19 restrictions, and even gave her 50 after she told them she had invited Mr Stewart to spend Christmas Day at her house. Dawes, 43, was interviewed by police on November 18, 2021, when she admitted using Mr Stewart's money for her own means, but claimed this was due to desperation. She pleaded guilty to fraud by abuse of position and appeared for sentence in court on Tuesday. Carmel Wild, defending, said: 'Clearly this is a shocking and despicable offence and the defendant acknowledges that with her guilty plea. She has described being disgusted with herself and she acknowledged her dishonesty at her first interview. 'From the very start she acknowledged how dishonest her behaviour has been and it must have been very distressing for the complainant's family to discover what had been going on. Dawes was jailed for two-and-a-half years at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday, February 27 'The defendant says she wasn't thinking straight with everything going on in her life and felt overwhelmed. 'This seemed to stem from her being medicated for anxiety and depression following the death of her mother, who she was very close to. Her mum did a lot for her. 'She was very shocked to discover after her mother's death, 21,000 debts had been taken out under the defendant's name. She was struggling with that and working for minimum wage. 'She had to give up work to look after her husband after he was diagnosed with severe spinal conditions and is awaiting surgery. She had a lot of difficulties in caring for her own children, she does feel overwhelmed from the pressure.' She said Dawes had started taking Mr Stewart's money out of desperation, but this had 'spiralled out of control' and she soon began buying luxuries. Judge Katherine Pierpoint said: 'You dipped into Mr Stewart's account when and wherever you fancied.... His family had themselves expressed concern when his phone had been cut off. 'Little did they realise this was because you had cleared his bank account. They thought you were there looking after him. 'They were pleased to know you had invited him to your house for Christmas. You tricked them into believing you were caring for him. 'On the face of it, it may appear you were caring for him, but when one knows what you were doing behind the scenes, it paints a very different picture. 'As a result of your behaviour, Mr Stewart was left in a very difficult financial state. He was left hungry at times and didn't have enough electricity or heating in his address.' Judge Pierpoint added that it was 'no just the physical effects' of the crime that had hurt Mr Stewart. She said: 'It's also the emotional impact and damage it causes. He was found, in 2021, as being a confused, angry, frustrated man. It's a matter of luck that he has been able to rebuild his life and is now doing much better.' She added: 'You say at the time of the offending your head wasn't with it and you weren't thinking straight. While I accept there were difficulties, this was not a period of one or two days where you dipped into Mr Stewart's bank account. 'You did so regularly, systematically over a period of three and half years. I find it difficult to accept that 'your head wasn't with it' for the whole of that time.' She sentenced Dawes to two years and six months in prison, and made a restraining order banning her from contacting Gary Stewart for five years. She said: 'This is an extremely serious matter. You were in a position of trust. You were expected as part of your job to safeguard Gary Stewart. You abused that trust in the most serious way. 'You used his money whenever you fancied it, dipping in when and where you wanted, and that had a direct and serious detrimental impact on him.' Dawes cried as she left the dock. Joe Biden won the Michigan primary Tuesday as a push for 'uncommitted' was garnering thousands of votes in a warning sign for the president over the war in Gaza. Biden was leading with more than 80 per cent of the vote with nearly two-thirds of the vote in early Wednesday. But 'uncommitted' was at 13 per cent, with more than 70,000 votes. That was already more than a bar that activists had set for themselves. The Associated Press called the race for Biden immediately after the last polls closed at 9pm Tuesday. Biden faced token opposition on the ballot from Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, but his real battle has been against 'uncommitted' and against himself. Biden faced scrutiny in the state for his handling of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, and many Arab American voters in Dearborn and other parts of Detroit have been registering their anger about the war. Layla Elabed, Abbas Alawich, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Lexis Zeidan spoke to supporters in Dearborn as 'uncommitted' gathered thousands of votes in Michigan Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) who is Palestinian-American has been hammering Biden and pushing the 'uncommitted' effort. A group of activists who organized a push for 'uncommitted' treated the results as cause for a victory rally Tuesday night, packing the Adonis restaurant next to the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn that featured food, music, and proclamations of victory along with statements about the growing toll of the war in Gaza. 'Here in southeastern Michigan, people in our Arab American community have an expertise of horrifying expertise. So many of us have survived U.S.-funded bombs,' said 'Listen to Michigan' co-organizer Abbass Alawieh at a post-election rally that 'uncommitted' backers treated as a victory rally. 'Thats all were asking for. Just stop killing our families. Its actually not all that complicated. Just stop killing our families, President Biden. You can do it,' he said. Layla Elabed, another organizer, said volunteers made 1 million voter calls as part of the effort. Elabed, the sister of Rashida Tlaib, called on Biden to 'bring a permanent ceasefire and end the unchecked unconditional military aid that is funding a genocide in 2024,' she told 'uncommitted' supporters as the votes came in. Tuesday's event took on the feel of a victory paty as the votes came in There was little doubt President Biden would win the Demoratic primary in Michigan. Activists have been pushing a vote for 'uncommitted' over Israel's war in Gaza She said activists were telling the U.S. government 'that funding endless wars is not the path, but there is a better path that saves the children who are being killed ... That returns the hostages and prisoners. There is a better path of diplomacy and peace and not a genocide.' 'This is not a messaging problem. This has become a bombs problem,' said 'Listen to Michigan organizer Lexis Zeidan. 'We have a huge victory tonight,' said former Rep. Andy Levin told the crowd. 'This is a victory of American democracy tonight,' he added. 'Our message to the president is clear. There is no time to waste. We need a permanent cease fire right now,' he said. 'It is not lost on me that this president has softened his language and begun to recognize Palestinian suffering,' said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. 'But what is not enough is lip service. What we need is a complete withdrawal of support for the most radical and tyrannical government in Israels history.' 'I was proud today to walk in and pull a Democratic ballot and vote uncommitted,' Tlaib said in a video she posted Tuesday afternoon. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) cast her vote for 'uncommitted' rather than for President Joe Biden as she accused the U.S. of aiding 'genocide' against the Palestinians. She posted a video after voting Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud blasted Biden for commenting Monday on the latest talks for a cease fire while the president was eating an ice cream cone. 'I don't look to lip service or words. I'm looking for action,' he told DailyMail.com outside a polling place. Khalid Turaani, a co-founder of the 'Abandon Biden' movement, predicted thousands would vote for 'uncommitted.' 'I think I find it strange that you're eating ice cream at a parlor - that is the moment that you talk about a cease fire coming forward,' said Dearborn, Michigan Mayor Abdullah Hammoud President Joe Biden spoke about talks for a temporary cease fire while having ice cream with 'Late Night' host Seth Meyers in New York Monday Biden faced demands for a permanent ceasefire and a push for voting for 'uncommitted' Dearborn has a high percentage of Arab American and Muslim voters 'I think 10,000 is reasonable and I think we will achieve that,' he told DailyMail.com as he passed out sample ballots featuring 'uncommitted.' Out of the first six people he spoke to, in English and Arabic outside a polling place, 'only one person didn't say that he wasn't going to vote uncommitted. He wasn't talkative.' Ten thousand is roughly the number Biden defeated Donald Trump by in 2020, in a demonstration of the influence Arab American voters could have on the November election. It's the number activist group 'Listen to Michigan' has identified as a goal. But 'uncommitted' has racked up larger tallies in recent Democratic presidential primaries. Uncommitted got about 20,000 against President Barack Obama in 2012, and a similar amount when Hillary Clinton was battling Bernie Sanders in 2016 and four years later when Sanders was challenging Biden. State party leaders aren't publicly panicking. The Biden campaign organized a press call just as most of the state's polls closed to reassure the media. Members of the Michigan state Democratic party know how to beat Donald Trump. Weve done it before and well do it again,' state chair Chair Lavora Barnes told reporters. Former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, a leader in the push for 'uncommitted,' said he doesn't want Donald 'to ever get anywhere near the White House ever again.' But he told DailyMail.com at an 'uncommitted' watch party that Biden's problems are much more than tactical, after the president was criticized for failing to meet with Arab American leaders on his visit here as resentment grew. 'It's not because they didn't come early enough or they didn't do enough ... This is not a political problem. He can't solve it with like, really good surrogates.' He said Biden or any other Democrat 'isn't going to win without Michigan,' and that 'Joe Biden can't win Michigan without changing course.' Australia's most popular vehicle brand has warned the federal government's plan to cap vehicle emissions is too rushed. Labor's proposed New Vehicle Efficiency Standard was 'too quick' and 'aggressive' Toyota Australia said, even as it launched its first electric vehicle in the country. Toyota took the wraps off its bZ4X electric SUV in Canberra, revealing a vehicle that will sell for $66,000, which puts it in direct competition with cars from market leader Tesla. Toyota has launched its bZ4X electric SUV for the Australian market, which will retail from around $66,000 But the company's sales vice president Sean Hanley said while the new vehicle would be 'the foundation of Toyota's electrification strategy,' the company would need more time to reduce emissions from the rest of its fleet to meet Australia's proposed fuel-efficiency rules. Toyota's vehicle launch comes just days before public consultations on the new standard close, after the government proposed rules that would see Australia catch up to emissions rules in the US by 2028. The fuel-efficiency standard would put an emissions limit on vehicles across each automaker's fleet, forcing companies to balance sales of high-emitting vehicles with low-emission alternatives. But Mr Hanley said while Toyota supported the introduction of emission limits, the company urged the government to give car companies more time to deliver efficient vehicles in Australia, particularly low-polluting four-wheel drives and utes. 'The proposed transition that we're seeing right now, the timing of that transition is too quick,' he said. 'It simply doesn't recognise the technical hurdles, the lengthy time and the substantial cost that will be required to deliver commercial (battery electric vehicles) that are practical, that are capable and, above all, that are affordable.' The Albanese government's plan to force carmakers to cut emissions is too rushed, Toyota says Mr Hanley said Toyota was still developing its official response to the government but it would argue companies needed longer than three years to bring more efficient vehicles to Australia. Toyota would refuse to buy carbon credits from other companies to meet its emissions targets and avoid financial penalties under a scheme, according to Mr Hanley. 'I can tell you, from Toyota's perspective, we're not buying credits,' he said. 'We'd pay a fine, we'd pass it on.' The proposed fine was $100 for every gram of CO2 over the limit for every every sold. That's despite energy minister Chris Bowen saying he expecting companies to abide by the law when announcing the proposal earlier this month. 'We expect companies to comply with the law,' Bowen said, 'They don't like the bad press that comes with not meeting fuel emissions standards and that's why the system works in all comparable countries.' Despite the company's criticism, Toyota launched its first electric car in the country this week, with the bZ4X SUV available in front-wheel and all-wheel drive models starting at $66,000 and $74,900 respectively. The SUVs are designed for off-road use, feature a battery and motor integrated into the vehicles' structure for greater stability, and come with a range of 535km and 485km per charge. Mr Hanley said the company had more than 7000 expressions of interest in the bZ4X vehicles, though the company aimed to sell 1500 electric cars this year. More than 200 Toyota dealers would also establish electric car charging facilities, he said, as part of a $20 million program throughout urban, regional and rural locations. Its price will put Toyota in direct competition with Tesla, with its Model 3 and Model Y undercutting the new vehicles with starting prices at $61,900 and $65,400 respectively. Tesla sold more than 3300 electric cars in Australia during 2023, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, followed by BYD with more than 1300 sales. Bell, from Aberdeen, was on flight that Ed Sheeran was on from Miami to London A drunken British Airways passenger sparked chaos on a flight that Ed Sheeran was on by hurling racist and homophobic abuse at cabin crew in an air-rage drama has been spared jail. Racist tirades made by Stephen Bell, 46, included telling air stewardess Sonia Nsonde 'F*** off monkey' and leaving her in tears. Builder Bell, from Aberdeen, had been drinking heavily and made monkey noises and gestures at the BA cabin crew member and then called her colleague Phillippe Baffet 'a gay c***'. He has dodged jail for his abusive behaviour on the flight from Miama, Florida, in the US, to London Heathrow in October last year which popstar Ed Sheeran, 33, was also on - after having taken a selfie with fan Dan Haughian before it took off. Police officers were waiting at Heathrow when the plane landed to arrest father-of-three Bell at just before 2am on Tuesday, October 24. This image shows the moment 'drunk' passenger Stephen Bell, 46, hurled racist abuse at cabin crew staff on the BA flight from Miami to London Heathrow in October last year A drunken British Airways passenger sparked chaos on a flight that Ed Sheeran (pictured) was on by hurling racist and homophobic abuse at cabin crew in an air-rage drama has been spared jail Bell pleaded guilty to two count of harassment, including one which was racially aggravated, and of being drunk on an aircraft at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, The Sun reports. He told the court that he had drank cocktails and beers at the bar in Florida after he had run out of medication for anxiety. Bell had told a member of the cabin crew that he was 'drunk but OK' when he boarded the flight, prosecutor Niamh McDonagh said. But she said that half an hour after the flight took off, he saw the crew member and shouted loudly and asked her age. The court heard that another passenger asked him to be quiet but he then became abusive and started to shake the seat in front of him. Cabin crew then tried to calm the situation down, but he shouted at them: 'What the f*** are you going to do about it?' The Sun reports that after stewardess Ms Nsonde came to assist he told her: 'F*** of monkey.' He then 'put his hands under his armpits and made monkey noises and gestures at her,' the prosecution said. Ed Sheeran posed for a selfie with Dan Haughian at Miami before the flight Ed Sheeran pictured in New York in September 2023 Police officers were waiting at Heathrow when the plane landed to arrest father-of-three Bell at just before 2am on Tuesday, October 24 (file image of a BA Airbus A319-100) Bell also called Mr Baffet, a steward, a homophobic slur and a 'gay c***' - but he was then restrained by a passenger who was an off-duty police officer and the crew. Ms Nsonde told the court in a statement that the incident made her cry and that it was the first time she had ever been racially abused. She said the incident made her feel 'very vulnerable in the aircraft as there was nowhere I could go'. Mr Baffet said that the incident caused hurtful memories of homophobic abuse to resurface and made him question if he should keep doing the job he loves due to the rising frequency of these incidents. While bench chair Nigel Shock said the 'particularly unpleasant' offences committed by Bell were worthy of a prison sentence he was let off with a 16-week suspended sentence and ordered to pay 250 to each victim. He was also slapped with a 350 fine and ordered to pay costs. Six Melbourne men have been arrested in connection with a plot to import 10million black market cigarettes into Australia, police allege. Some of the men are allegedly linked to a suspected Middle Eastern crime family while others work in 'trusted positions' in freight and transport logistics companies, police said on Wednesday. The $15million illegal tobacco bust is a the result of a 16-month investigation by the Victorian Joint Organised Crime Taskforce that includes officers from Victoria Police, the Australian Federal Police and Australian Border Force. The syndicate was cracked after the ABF allegedly intercepted the cigarettes on a cargo ship travelling to Victoria from Vietnam on February 3. Search warrants were then carried out at a number of businesses and homes in Melbourne's western suburbs on Tuesday. Six men have been arrested over an alleged illicit tobacco importation syndicate A joint police task force seized 10million cigarettes in a shipment from Vietnam Two of those arrested allegedly had access to shipping and transport records. A 45-year-old Point Cook man is the alleged facilitator of the syndicate who used insiders in the logistics business to try to avoid detection of the cigarettes and subsequent Commonwealth taxes. A 35-year-old Fraser Rise man is accused of using his position at a company to locate and covertly move a shipment he understood to contain the illicit tobacco once it arrived in the country. They have both been charged with conspiracy to import tobacco products with the intention of defrauding the revenue. It will be alleged three of the group - a Truganina man, 35, an Altona Meadows man, 31, and a Craigieburn man, 35 - were involved in the importation and distribution of illicit tobacco throughout Victoria. They have been charged with aid, abet, counsel or procure the importation of tobacco products with the intention of defrauding the revenue. Among those arrested were men who allegedly worked for transport companies The cigarettes are worth about $15million on the street The six men will front court on Wednesday charged over the alleged importation scheme A Tarneit man, 40, was charged with alleged proceeds of crime offences and failing to comply with a court order. He has been charged with dealing with proceeds of crime - money or property worth $50,000 or more. Victoria Police Commander Paul O'Halloran, Crime Command, said the arrests and seizures highlighted the collaborative effort to target organised crime syndicates involved in illicit tobacco. 'It has become a significant driver of organised crime groups particularly here in Victoria, and we have seen an array of serious and violent offending take place due to disputes between these groups as they strive for an increasing market share of profits,' Cmdr O'Halloran said. 'In particular, the past 12 months has given rise to a large number of deliberate and reckless arson attacks across a range of business, in particular tobacco retailers. We have been very clear about the risk this presents to the broader community.' The six men will front Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday. A crime expert has suggested Samantha Murphy's killer could be lurking among search parties for the missing mother-of-three, posing as a Good Samaritan. Ms Murphy hasn't been seen since leaving her home in Ballarat East at 7am on February 4 to go for a run in a state forest on the outskirts of the regional city. Legendary Melbourne newsman John Silvester said detectives are investigating if Ms Murphy's killer is someone in the Ballarat community volunteering their time to look for her. 'Now we know that the local people, volunteers, have gone out there selflessly to search time and time again,' he told Radio 3AW on Wednesday. 'Police will also be considering that one of those searchers is the killer. 'In that, they have inculcated themselves into that situation to be seen as part of the community, but also keeping an eye on what's going on.' Samantha Murphy has not been seen since leaving her home in Ballarat East at 7am on February 4 to go for a run in a state forest on the outskirts of the regional town Mr Silvester said Victoria Police had already ruled out that Ms Murphy had harmed herself, had a medical episode or orchestrated her own disappearance. Extensive searches had also ruled out the possibility she had fallen down a mine shaft, leaving the suggestion of foul play and 'probable murder'. 'Lots of different theories have been looked at because in these circumstances the victim has no secrets,' the veteran crime reporter said. 'You have to go deep into that person to find out potential enemies or what could have happened. One particular theory that they're looking at, surprise surprise, the person of interest turns out to be totally co-operating.' His comments come as a smash repairs business owned by Samantha's husband Mick Murphy became a major focus in the police investigation. The Inland Motor Body Works shop is the largest in the Ballarat region, northwest of Melbourne, and has a 'strong reputation' in the area. Speculation outlaw motorcycle gangs were customers of the shop have swirled among the Ballarat community since the 51-year-old vanished. The Ballarat community is no stranger to bikie violence, with a senior Bandidos member shot at its clubhouse during the club's national run just months ago. Volunteers have organised a large scale search for missing woman Samantha Murphy. Daily Mail Australia does not suggest any of them were involved in the search for Ms Murphy Volunteers met for a briefing in Ballarat on Saturday, 20 days after Ms Murphy vanished Victoria Police Missing Persons Unit Superintendent Mark Hatt on Friday refused to answer questions about potential links with bikies and Ms Murphy's disappearance. However, he said Mr Murphy's financial records were being 'closely examined' with officers also seen removing a number of 'items of interest' from the shop. 'Absolutely we are looking at everything we possibly can to find out what happened to Samantha,' Superintendent Hatt said. Asked if police had executed any search warrants in relation to the search, Superintendent Hatt refused to say. The motor shop's website describes itself as Ballarat's 'preferred choice for smash repairs' and has developed a 'strong reputation over 60 years'. Ms Murphy is listed as the head of administration and 'backbone' of the office, with her roles including 'keeping Mick in check'. The Murphy family business, Inland Motor Body Works, (pictured) is being investigated by police as part of their hunt for Samantha Murphy Mick Murphy is seen leaving the Buninyong Police Station on February 9 Superintendent Hatt also said police suspect Ms Murphy's body may have been removed from the area where they are searching. 'That is certainly a scenario that we are looking into. Based on our elimination process we do think that another party has been involved whether that be one person or a number of people,' he said. While not directly stated, Superintendent Hatt suggested police believed whoever helped Ms Murphy disappear had specifically targeted her. He said police had 'no intelligence or evidence' to suggest others were at risk. Ms Murphy's family and close loved ones are all considered 'persons of interest' but no suspects have been identified. Ms Murphy was wearing an Apple watch on her run but police are yet to reveal if they obtained any information from the device. READ MORE: Woman lived in a filthy garage for days after her brother was found dead in their filthy home Emails have surfaced from fed-up neighbours urging authorities to take action on a rubbish-strewn home a year prior to the resident's brother being found dead inside. Robert Natoli, who would have turned 76 this year, was found dead in the public housing unit he shared with his sister Maree, 74, on Russell Street at Newtown, in Geelong, Victoria, on December 29, 2022. Neighbours of the Natolis had complained to the housing department and state MP about the horrible state of the home, which was covered in rubbish both inside and out. The couple, who live nearby, eventually prompted authorities to perform a welfare check on Mr Natoli, with one claiming the state government had 'blood on their hands' after the discovery of his corpse inside the property. A coroner's report is yet to determine when he died; however, the couple who bought a neighbouring home two years ago claim to have 'never laid eyes on that man'. Emails have emerged from furious neighbours who finally convinced authorities to carry out a welfare check on a filthy home in Geelong where a woman was found living alongside her brother's corpse (pictured, Maree Natoli living amongst the home's filth) The emails, seen by the Geelong Advertiser, were sent to the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) and later to the state member for Geelong, Christine Couzens. One neighbour emailed the DFFH, who own the property, to express his concern for the Natolis after spotting a 'large amount of black mould on the front windows'. He went on to raise further concerns with the department regarding poor air quality, horrid sanitary conditions and rat infestations. The neighbour recalled the 'shock and anger' he felt after Mr Natoli's body was removed from the property despite emailing the department more than a year prior. The day following the discovery, he emailed Ms Couzens to 'seek answers and an explanation' as to how his complaints went ignored. 'It is clear that the system has failed the deceased and the occupant of the property,' the email to Ms Couzens read, according to the masthead. 'No one should be subjected to these conditions, especially our most vulnerable members of the community.' Ms Couzens reportedly didn't respond to the email. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Ms Couzens for comment. A spokesperson for the department described the incident as tragic and expressed its 'deepest sympathies to the mans family and friends'. 'All complaints received were taken seriously and staff attempted to have them addressed while complying with renters rights under the Residential Tenancies Act,' the department stated. 'The Department had made numerous attempts to inspect the property and get in touch with the tenant and had an application at VCAT to secure access to the home. 'The mans sister was provided with alternative housing and support services immediately.' Some neighbours said they had 'never laid eyes on' on Ms Natoli's brother, Robert, in over two years and urged authorities to perform a welfare check at the public housing flat Although the property was in a disgusting state and no one had heard from Robert since 2017, the matter went unresolved until police attended to the property on a separate matter The lack of contact was escalated to police and state trustees, who paid for the siblings' rent, for them to investigate welfare concerns and property conditions. Mr Natoli's rent for the home was allegedly still being paid for by the state while he was deceased. Despite the numerous emails from concerned neighbours, police eventually attended to the home on an unrelated matter. Cops broke a glass door panel to gain entry before officers in biohazard suits were forced to wade through floor-to-ceiling rubbish, rats, dead possums and human faeces to reach the skeletal remains of Robert, who had not been seen since 2017. Ms Natoli was arrested and led away from the home by police after her brother's body was found before being released without charge. Although she lived alongside the corpse for up to five years, she claimed she knew nothing about it. The owners of New Zealand television station Three plan to shutter the broadcaster's news service, Newshub, producing dozens of media job losses. Newshub employees were given the devastating news in an all-staff meeting on Wednesday morning first reported by the NZ Herald. Three is New Zealand's only rival to public broadcaster TVNZ. It has been owned by American powerhouse Discovery in 2020, which merged with Warner Bros in 2022. The owners of New Zealand television station Three plan to shutter the broadcaster's news service, Newshub, producing dozens of media job losses A company statement said it had begun consulting with employees on a proposal including "the closure of all Newshub's multiplatform news operations and output". "New local programming would only be in collaboration with local funding bodies and other partners." Consultations on the closure will take place next month, with a final decision by April. Newshub operate with a punchy tabloid news breaking style, often bringing journalists into conflict with the government. Some of New Zealand's most recognised and talented journalists work for the broadcaster, including political editor Jenna Lynch, Paddy Gower, Ryan Bridge and Michael Morrah. While Wednesday's announcement shocked employees and the media industry, it is not wholly unexpected. The NZ arm of Warner Bros. Discovery's operations posted a $NZ34.8 million ($A32.8 million) loss last year. New Zealand is currently in a technical recession, with other media companies announcing job losses or hiring freezes. "There was no single trigger that caused this, rather it was a combination of negative events in New Zealand and globally," Warner Bros. Discovery executive James Gibbons is quoted in the NZ Herald. "Advertising revenue in New Zealand has disappeared far more quickly than our ability to manage this reduction, and to drive the business to profitability. "Everyone can see that the media sector, here in New Zealand, and around the world is facing some very tough circumstances. "While Warner Bros. Discovery is a large global media company, each business is managed on its ability to sustain itself within the market it operates in (and) subsidising losses for ongoing years indefinitely is not sustainable." Three still plan to make local television content, as well as broadcast other series such as Married At First Sight Australia and The Block Australia. Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie has slammed the use of $3000 in public money to send teddy bears to politicians that promote a key Albanese government health policy. The small brown teddy bears wear a t-shirt that reads, 'Medicare Urgent Care Clinic', promoting the government's drive to open 58 urgent care clinics across the country. However, the cuddly toys did not impress Senator Lambie who said the $3,000 could have been put to better use helping those who could no longer afford to go to the doctor. 'That's where your money has gone, on these bears,' she said on a Facebook video. 'That would been quite a few visits for Tasmanians to go see their GPs without being out of pocket.' The Senator also noted it was not a native bear. 'You know what's even funnier, because they care about manufacturing in this country is that it is made in China,' she said. In the post accompanying the video Senator Lambie called for a shake-up to bulk-billing with the number of GPs willing to charge visits in whole or in part to Medicare declining. Independent Senator Jacqui Lambie is not impressed that the Albanese government spent $3000 giving a teddy bear to all federal MPs 'Surely a better way to celebrate the anniversary of Medicare would be to change the rules on bulk billing so that it works for all Tasmanians who can't afford a trip to the doctor,' she wrote. The bears were also the subject of a Senate estimates hearing where LNP Senator Anne Ruston said they had actually cost $4000 in total or $16 each. Department of Health officials took a question about whether this and large cake to celebrate the Medicare anniversary were a good use of money on notice. Those commenting on Senator Lambie's post agreed with her that the giveaway was a waste of tax payer dollars. 'It wasn't until I worked in Canberra that I saw the waste surrounding the "next idea" by politicians and the public service,' one person wrote. 'There's people out there doing it tough, but Canberra really is in a bubble of it's own.' 'Good on you for calling it out, another commented. 'Along with Teddy bears, there's often wine and chocolate, or free tickets... all at the taxpayer's expense.' One Aussie suggested a better idea for the toys. 'They could have at least given the bears to children in hospital instead of themselves,' that person said. 'What a bloody joke when we're all doing it tough,' another commented. Some of those commenting said bulk billing GPs were becoming hard to find. 'Bulk billing should be made available to all Australians. Many can't afford to visit their GPs now. What do we pay tax for?' one person wrote 'So many of the doctors clinics here in Geelong Victoria stopped bulk billing last year and now out of more than 20 clinics there are only 4 here who still do,' another stated. Senator Lambie said the money spent on the toys would have better put towards cutting the cost of GP visits 'I have to drive over 30 minutes on highways and very busy roads to get to my doctor which when I am very unwell is impossible for me to get there. 'I have chronic forever medical conditions that require me seeing my doctor regularly but that has now become impossible. 'There is no one near me that bulk bills and their out of pocket fees are too much for me to afford on top of my medications.' Bulk billing rates plummeted by seven per cent in the past year and have continued to fall as general practices charge higher fees to supplement Medicare rebates. Despite the falling rates of bulk billing the urgent care clinics aren't intended to replace GPs Ochre Health chairman Ross Lamplugh, who manages an urgent clinic in Hobart,' told the ABC in October. It's not supposed to be for routine or preventative health care, explains Ochre Health chairman Ross Lamplugh, who's managing an urgent clinic in Hobart. 'If a patient turns up here looking for a script extension they'll be diverted to their GP or our general practice clinic.' The Australian Defence Force has been slammed over its latest attempt of going woke after retraining military dog handlers to limit 'cultural sensitivity risks' when confronting enemies or terrorists. The order from the ADF Chief Angus Campbell follows the banning of the term 'unmanned' when referring to drones to make the language of the nation's defence force more politically correct. And before that, the Australian War Memorial was slammed for using 'gender neutral' pronouns to honor fallen soldiers, who are now to be referred as 'their' rather than 'his' or 'her'. The ADF's military working dogs (MWD) changes orders that the highly trained canines must only be used in 'reasonable circumstances' and not, for instance, as a way of getting information from a prisoner, or used to threaten them. 'Handlers are expected to ensure their use of ADF military working dogs is reasonable and necessary in the circumstances,' according to the new policy. The Australian Defence Force has been accused of going even more woke after new instructions for military dog handlers to limit 'cultural sensitivity risks' when engaging with terrorists and other foreign combatants. ADF dog handlers and a one of its dogs are pictured 'Those directing or employing ADF MWD teams are expected to be cognisant of any cultural sensitivities in relation to the use of ADF MWD and, where circumstances allow, take active steps to minimise cultural sensitivity risks associated with such use.' READ MORE: Tension in the war room - Rift grows between Richard Marles and his generals after defence minister 'lays down the law' in a closed meeting Defence Minister Richard Marles is pictured during question time in Parliament Advertisement In many Islamic societies dogs are considered to be dirty and offensive, which can create difficulties as MWDs have been extensively used in the Middle East to help find weapons and explosives or on patrol around Australia's foreign military bases. SAS Association chairman Martin Hamilton-Smith told the Daily Telegraph that a 'second order issues like dog culture' is another example of a woke culture in the ADF. 'I think the Australian people would welcome leadership and the ADF getting back to capability rather than second-order issues,' he said. In November, a drone, previously known as 'unmanned aerial vehicle' (UAV) or 'unmanned aerial system' (UAS), was renamed to 'uncrewed' while other changes under consideration included replacing 'man-hours' with 'staff hours' and 'he/she' with 'they'. Some Defence members raised concerns that changing man-hours to staff-hours would cause confusion as the term 'staff' has a distinct meaning within the ADF. The 'gender neutral project' appears to follow former Defence Minister Peter Dutton's directive in May 2021 that the Defence Department stop promoting a 'woke agenda'. His order was prompted after defence staff wore rainbow clothing and held a morning tea to celebrate the 'international day against homophobia, biphobia, intersexphobia and transphobia'. The ADF's military working dogs changes orders that the highly trained canines must only be used in 'reasonable circumstances' and not, for instance, as a way of getting information from a prisoner, or used to threaten them Mr Dutton said he was against discrimination but that staff should be focused on their job, especially during a period in which the Covid pandemic was in full swing and tensions were heightened with China. When Labor was voted in in 2022, new Defence Minister Richard Marles overturned the ban. 'We recognise a diverse workforce supported by an inclusive culture is essential to Defence's capability and effectiveness,' a memo sent announcing the scrapping of the ban sent from defence secretary Greg Moriarty and chief General Angus Campbell said. In a closed door meeting late last year, Mr Marles reportedly laid down the law about changes needed in the ADF to more than two dozen military chiefs and bureaucrats including Mr Moriarty and Mr Campbell. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Department of Defence for comment. A woman who claims she was the victim of a 'serious sexual assault' by a Tory MP has slammed party chiefs for 'failing to formally investigate her complaint' to protect its own reputation. The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, reportedly told Conservative whips about the attack almost as soon as it happened but no action was taken. Conservative HQ paid 15,000 for her to get medical treatment at a private hospital because her mental health worsened so much after the attack. The woman has said she is still upset that Tory bosses have not investigated the MP and that she thinks the poor handling of sexual misconduct complaints puts people at risk. She said she wants changes to be made so a case like hers 'never happens again', she told The Guardian. A woman who claims she was the victim of a 'serious sexual assault' by a Tory MP has slammed party chiefs for 'failing to formally investigate her complaint' to protect its own reputation (file photo of the Houses of Parliament) The alleged victim told the paper that the Conservative party's complaints system is 'opaque' and needs immediate change but said that will not happen if it is 'more concerned with covering stuff like this up than the welfare of those involved'. She said that any other organisation would have processes to deal with similar issues that could be implemented immediately even if the victim was not 'brave enough to go to the police'. She said that under the current leadership of the Tory party 'I have felt I became the problem, not a person', which she said has done nearly as much harm to her mental health as the alleged sexual assault. The woman told The Guardian that several people 'heard' her and tried to fight the Conservative party for her. She said a small number of women from the two main parties supported her emotionally in their own time. She said she was grateful for the party paying for her to get treatment at a private hospital but that she was assured that information would remain private but that 'unfortunately it was not and was reported by the press' last year. The Guardian reports that police told the alleged victim that senior Tories, including in the whips' office and at the party headquarters, know of the allegations against the MP. She said she made a complaint, in person, to the whips and said that she wanted it to be investigated. It was reported that days later she got a handwritten note from a Tory whip who said she should speak to the police, but she did not feel comfortable speaking to them at the time. The note also gave details of a charity that could help her. The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, reportedly told Conservative whips about the attack almost as soon as it happened but no action was taken (stock photo) The MP had the Conservative whip withdrawn after the woman reported the allegations to the police, although she has since withdrawn from the investigation due to the stress it has caused her. The MP is being investigated for separate allegations, the police have said. But he has not been arrested and has previously denied any allegations. A Conservative party spokesperson told The Guardian: 'We have an established code of conduct and formal processes where complaints can be made in confidence. The party considers all complaints made under the code of conduct, but does not conduct investigations where the party would not be considered to have primary jurisdiction over another authority, such as the police. 'Where the party becomes aware of a complaint relating to possible criminal activity, we encourage the complainant to report this to the police. Additionally, for matters pertaining to parliament, the ICGS [independent complaints and grievance system] is an independent body set up by parliament, and the Conservative party respects its processes.' A police spokesperson said a number of non-recent allegations relating to the MP were being investigated. 'A man has been voluntarily interviewed in connection with an investigation into allegations of serious sexual assault,' they said. 'We would also remind everyone that victims of sexual offences are entitled to lifelong anonymity, regardless of how a case proceeds.' More than 28,000 Toyota models have been recalled over fears an issue with the cars could result in severe injury or death. The recall affects Toyota Landcruiser models as well as the company's Tundra models, built between 2021 and 2024. The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts issued the recall for the 28,491 vehicles on Tuesday over concerns 'the transmission control module may not operate as intended'. 'If this occurs, the automatic transmission may continue to transfer engine power to the wheels when shifted to the neutral position,' the alert said. The recall affects Toyota Landcruiser models as well as the company's Tundra models, built between 2021 and 2024 (pictured is Toyota Landcruiser) 'If the brake pedal or park brake are not applied it may result in unintended vehicle movement if shift lever is not moved to Park position. 'An unintended movement of the vehicle may increase the risk of an accident causing serious injuries or death to vehicle occupants and/or other road users.' Toyota drivers have been urged to make an appointment to update the transmission control module software, free of charge. Impacted drivers should also put their cars in park rather than neutral. Customers can call Toyota Recall Assist Support Line on 1800 987 366. Generation Z are twice as likely to get their news from TikTok than the BBC, research has found, amid claims that youngsters are paving the way for a 'post-truth media age'. New research on UK media habits has found younger people are favouring social media over traditional news outlets - even though they admit they trust its content less. The research said 18-24 year olds, who fall within the Gen Z age bracket - which is said to range from 12 to 27 years of age - were much more likely to get their news from TikTok than the licence fee-funded broadcaster. The study revealed more than 40 per cent of 18-24s receive news from the Chinese-owned social media giant once or more times a day, compared with 19 per cent for the BBC. Instagram (44 per cent), Facebook (33 per cent) and Elon Musk's X (24 per cent), formerly known as Twitter, were also more used than the national broadcaster by those in Gen Z, the research revealed. Young people were much more likely to get their news from TikTok than the licence fee-funded broadcaster, the research suggested Former No 10 communications director, Lee Cain, who is founding partner at Charlesbye, the communications firm which commissioned the study, claimed the research signalled that so-called Gen Z was ushering in a 'post-truth media age'. The report, Talking to the Nation: How To Speak To Modern Britain, saw more than 8,000 people involved in polling and focus groups, in work carried out by Research Interactive. The study asked participants to rank their most trusted media outlet. Among the Gen Z group - regarded as those born between 1997 and 2012 - TV news services scored highest with 31 per cent, newspapers topped a fifth of lists and news websites scored highly with 13 per cent of respondents. These all ranker higher than social media commentators, which was most trusted among 11 per cent of so-called Zoomers. Even so, more than a third of 18-24s who followed the news said social media feeds were their main news source. This compared with almost a fifth who chose television, 13 per cent who said newspapers and 12 per cent who said news websites. Among older people traditional media was still dominant, according to the report. Almost half of 45-54 year olds who follow news said they received at least 40 per cent of their news from TV, 16 per cent from newspapers and a fifth from news websites. Among this group just 12 per cent said their primary news source was social media. Mr Cain said: 'Gen Z is overwhelmingly turning to social media for news, despite trusting it far less than traditional news sources. 'This generation is ushering in a post-truth media age where they prioritise content over truth. 'This trust deficit could have huge implications in a year of elections across the world and geopolitical uncertainty - preparing the ground for an explosion of deep fakes and disinformation campaigns.' Mr Cain is a former journalist who was involved in the Vote Leave campaign during the Brexit referendum. He went on to be director of communications under Boris Johnson's premiership. File photo. A BBC spokesman said: 'We don't agree with this opinion which we reject entirely and is not borne out by the facts' The report said 18-24 year olds are the least engaged in current affairs. It found just a third were specifically reading, listening or watching news outlets to keep up to date with what is going on. But overall three-quarters of the British population consume news on a daily basis, while more than two-thirds said they read a newspaper at least on a monthly basis. Older generations are more likely to keep up with current affairs, with nearly 90 per cent of over-55s doing so on a daily basis. Television was said to be Britain's most trusted source of news. Lidia Thorpe accused the acting president of the Senate of being 'asleep in the chair' during a heated evening row - prompting her to be silenced in an extraordinary action. The firebrand indepemdent senator was waiting in the chamber at 8.30pm on Tuesday night to deliver a speech about her cousin, who died in police custody back in 2022. But she lost her patience when Labor senator Louise Pratt, who was acting president at the time, granted a colleague a 10 minute window to speak - when Ms Thorpe was of the understanding they were only allowed five minutes. The incident was clearly frustrating to other senators too. Liberal Senator Maria Kovacic noted she'd been waiting over an hour and 15 minutes for her chance to have her say. Ms Thorpe began shouting over the top of the others in the room, arguing Ms Pratt had been 'asleep in that chair' and that the previous acting president had already locked in five-minute speaking windows. 'I have a mother who lost a son to your system-' Ms Thorpe shouted. 'Wake up. Wake up. How come all of us heard one thing and you heard something different?' Ms Thorpe called on the Senate President, Sue Lines, to review Ms Pratt's conduct and said she'd like to see her return to the chamber. 'She should be in the seat dealing with this issue right now, because we are being done over by you.' Moments later, Senator Lines returned to the chamber and, in a rare move, ordered that Ms Thorpe no longer be heard. Unlike the House of Representatives, Senators cannot be removed from the chamber due to their conduct. They can, however, be ordered to be silent for a certain period of time. Ms Thorpe began shouting over the top of the others in the room, arguing Ms Pratt had been 'asleep in that chair' Ms Thorpe hit back at the call, asking: 'have you made that ruling? Are you telling me that I can't be heard? Because I want to know. Is that right? Is that what's happening? 'I'm not going to leave this chamber, I will read now.' As another senator continued her speech at the behest of Ms Lines, Ms Thorpe began to speak over the top of her, sharing her own statements regarding the death of Josh Kerr, who died in police custody in August 2022. His mother, Donna, was reportedly listening to proceedings and was expecting the tragedy to be addressed. Amidst all the chaos, Minister Murray Watt rose to his feet and asked that the Senate be adjourned, ending the session. Ms Thorpe has vowed to share her speech in full on Wednesday. Hours earlier, she weighed in on the tragic deaths of Jessie Baird and Luke Davies, who were allegedly murdered by a serving police officer. As a result, NSW Police have been disinvited from Mardi Gras, which is taking place this weekend. Ms Thorpe called on the Senate President, Sue Lines, to review Ms Pratt's conduct and said she'd like to see her return to the chamber Ms Thorpe said it was a welcome decision, and an outcome that has been hard fought from the black and queer community. 'For decades, Queer and Black people have been brutalised and murdered by police, and this continues unchecked every day,' she said. 'There is a shocking lack of standards and accountability within police departments across this country. This means violent aggressors many racist and homophobic are given a badge, a gun and the permission to act with impunity against our communities. 'Far too often we've seen cops get off with less than a slap on the wrist for discrimination, brutal acts of violence or even murder. 'This is more than a few bad apples, this is a serious problem with police departments nationwide. And cops investigating cops will never begin to improve the systemic racism, homophobia and culture of impunity we see in policing. 'We need strong independent oversight bodies in every state that can apply serious penalties on police who do the wrong thing.' The RAF Air Cadets have been accused of being 'over-sensitive' after members were ordered to stop using the term 'marksman' in a bid to be 'gender-neutral'. Instructors and teenage cadets were told not say 'marksmanship' when referring to new shooting badges in a bid to be more inclusive. Critics have described the internal document, issued this month, as 'over-sensitive'. It marks the latest row within the Ministry of Defence over new diversity and inclusion policies which forced Defence Secretary Grant Shapps to order a review. RAFAC, which is sponsored by the MoD, teaches children aged 12 to 19 to shoot with air rifles and a cadet-specific version of the SA80 rifle. Last year, it emerged that the organisation was allowing transgender cadets to wear 'chest binders'. And according to its own policy, the RAFAC allows any cadets that are transitioning to 'use facilities, such as toilets and ablutions' of the gender of their choosing. The RAF Air Cadets has ordered members to stop using the word 'marksman' and 'marksmanship', according to internal documents Teenage cadets and adult instructors will not be allowed to use then terms when referring to new shooting badges The Cambridge Dictionary definition of a marksman is described as 'someone skilled at shooting accurately'. One Air Cadet instructor with several years of marksmanship training experience told the Daily Telegraph that he believes the rebranding is being carried out as a 'PR stunt'. He said: 'What gets me is that they're putting these new changes on social media, which to me looks like they're doing it as a PR stunt as they never normally public badge amendments on socials.' Chief executive of the Country Alliance, Tim Bonner, said: 'Great women shots like Annie Oakley have always been complimented on their marksmanship. 'In the absence of anyone actually being upset by the description, it looks as though the Air Cadets are being over-sensitive'. A spokesman for the Air Cadets said: 'Our priority is providing safe and effective training to support the development of our Air Cadets. 'Any change in language has had no impact on this training.' Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest was reportedly caught in a heated argument involving foul language with a Nationals MP in Parliament House. Queensland MP Llew O'Brien reportedly lost his cool with Mr Forrest as they argued over the impact of transmission lines and wind farms on Tuesday. Ex-cop Mr O'Brien called the mining billionaire a 'f***ing charlatan' and a 'f***ing snake oil salesman', Sky News reported. Daily Mail Australia has been told Mr O'Brien was standing up and clenching his fists at the time. Several sources said the discussion over wind farms to create renewable energy turned into a slanging match between the men, before the air was turned blue with shocking language. The politician reportedly called Mr Forrest a 'gutless p****' while the billionaire responded that Mr O'Brien was a 'gutless wonder'. Mining magnate Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest (pictured) was allegedly involved in a heated argument featuring foul language with a Nationals MP in Parliament House on Tuesday Mr Forrest had spoken to Nationals MPs and senators about his plans for renewable energy, but Mr O'Brien was outraged when the billionaire addressed the issue of affected being compensated. READ MORE: Nationals deputy leader Perin Davey admits to drinking before rambling statement at Senate committee meeting in Canberra Nationals deputy leader Perin Davey is pictured Advertisement Mr O'Brien said he was representing his Wide Bay constituents and that 'these people are getting pushed off their farms by these projects'. It was then that he reportedly called Mr Forrest a 'f****** charlatan' and a 'f****** snake oil salesman'. One Nationals source told Sky's Andrew Clennell that is was 'a tirade of swearing and abuse'. The incident comes shortly after other Nationals MPs also made unwanted headlines. Barnaby Joyce has taken leave from parliament after Daily Mail Australia published an exclusive video of him lying on a Canberra street after mixing alcohol with prescription drugs. Then the party's deputy leader Perin Davey stumbled over words at a hearing and later admitted she two glasses of wine beforehand. She later said the incident stemmed from a medical emergency she had five years ago which still causes her to 'sometimes slur words'. A spokeswoman for Mr Forrest told Sky that 'Andrew was calm and professional in the meeting. 'But there was high emotions from the Nats in Queensland who are clearly passionate.' She added that Mr Forrest and the Nationals both just want what's best for regional Australians. Daily Mail Australia has contacted Mr Forrest and Mr O'Brien for comment. In scenes recalling the days following the passing of Princess Diana, a sea of flowers has been left outside the home where police allege TV presenter Jesse Baird and his flight attendant partner Luke Davies were murdered. Human remains, believed to belong to the loved-up couple, were discovered stuffed inside surf bags and buried in a lonely bush grave on Tuesday afternoon. Mr Baird, 26, and Mr Davies, 29, had spent the night before their alleged killings partying at the Beresford Hotel club in Surry Hills with friends before returning to the ex-Channel 10 roving reporter's $1.5million rented Paddington terrace home. According to court documents, Mr Baird and Mr Davies were both allegedly killed by NSW Police Senior Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon at the location sometime between 12.01am and 5.30pm on Monday, February 19. A sea of flowers has been left outside the home where police allege TV presenter Jesse Baird and his flight attendant partner Luke Davies were murdered (pictured) Beau Lamarre-Condon has been charged with the double murder of Mr Baird, 26, and Mr Davies, 29 Lamarre-Condon is alleged to have driven to the Southern Tablelands last Wednesday in a rented van with an acquaintance and bought an angle driver and padlock on the way But police were unable to discover their bodies for more than week after Lamarre-Condon allegedly hired a white HiAce van to hide them on a remote farm property in Bungonia, around 180km south-west of Sydney. It is alleged he then returned to the site to move the bodies to another location in Bungonia about 20 minutes' drive away. In the days since the pair were reported missing, friends, family and members of the public have turned up at Mr Baird's Paddington home to leave floral tributes. Dozens of bunches of sunflowers, roses, dahlias, chrysanthemums and tulips are now attached to the property's iron gates in a tribute reminiscent of the mountains of flowers left in public places in the wake of Princess Diana's death. Another relative of Jesse's travelling alone in a black vehicle also arrived Shattered friends and loved ones on Tuesday paid their respects at the house in Paddington where Baird and Davies were allegedly murdered by Lamarre-Condon using his police weapon Dozens of bunches of sunflowers, roses, dahlias, chrysanthemums and tulips are now attached to the property's iron gates in a tribute reminiscent of the mountains of flowers left in public places in the wake of Princess Diana's death A photo of Luke, which was widely circulated in the press and on social media after his disappearance, was propped up next to flowers Devastated relatives of Jesse Baird also visited the bushland graves of the Channel 10 presenter and Mr Davies on Tuesday evening. Four of Mr Baird's family members, seated in a blue car with Victorian number plates, were followed by another relative travelling alone in a black four-wheel drive. All looked solemn as they spoke to police and were escorted through with several women wearing sunglasses to hide their grief. After arriving at the scene, officers took the group to the location where the couple's bodies were found inside surf bags, covered in dirt and rocks, by a fence line in shrubbery along Jerrara Road. Relatives spent about 15 minutes with Mr Baird's body before driving away from the scene. About 180km away, shattered friends of Mr Baird and Mr Davies gathered at Bronte Beach for a vigil. Lamarre-Condon is currently in Silverwater Correctional Complex, in Sydney's west. His matter is before the courts. A Hawaii fire official told DailyMail.com that 'treacherous waves' kept them from responding to a 29-year-old mother-of-two's drowning after falling from the top of a cliff. Kalaiokealaula Ashley Nicole Reyes Kanekoa was with her boyfriend, Dylan Gapp, 31, watching the waves on a cliff near Hawaiian Paradise Park around 2 am on Sunday when she slipped and fell into the raging current near Puna Coast. Her frantic boyfriend said he had to listen to her 'suffer and scream for help' during the agonizing wait for emergency personnel to arrive that he claimed took hours, Hawaii News Now reported. He said when police and firefighters finally did arrive, they were not equipped with the life saving equipment they needed to rescue his girlfriend. Hawaii Fire Department Chief Kazuo Todd told DailyMail.com that the 'high waves and small craft warnings' in effect that night were part of the 'extremely challenging conditions' keeping them from getting to Kanekoa for 90 minutes. A Hawaii fire official told DailyMail.com that 'treacherous waves' kept them from responding to a 29-year-old mother of two drowning after falling from the top of a cliff Boyfriend Dylan Gapp, 31, said he had to listen to her 'suffer and scream for help,' during the agonizing wait for emergency personnel to arrive Hawaii Fire Department Chief Kazuo Todd told DailyMail.com that the 'high waves and small craft warnings' in effect that night were part of the 'extremely challenging conditions' keeping them from getting to Kanekoa 'Despite these conditions, our team initiated a rescue operation immediately upon receipt of the distress call,' he said. Another struggle involved the department being unable to deploy a helicopter because of the weather and nighttime conditions, before blaming a lack of funding, saying they need 'ongoing investment' in further equipment and training. 'These limitations, while regrettable, are a current constraint of our resources and capabilities, highlighting an area for potential improvement in our emergency response arsenal,' Todd said. Describing the rundown of their operation, he said a boat was sent out within 20 minutes of the first call, but they faced 'treacherous waves,' which led to the 90-minute rescue time. 'The safety of our personnel, who must navigate these perilous conditions to perform rescues, is always a paramount concern, dictating the cautious approach required to reach those in need,' he added. Todd said that the conditions at sea and along the cliffs where Kanekoa fell were 'nearly impossible' to enter 'without risking severe injury or death.' He said that the Hawaii Fire Department will review and learn from the incident in an attempt to approve and offered condolences to the mother-of-two's family. 'We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Kalaiokealaula Ashley Nicole Reyes Kanekoa during this incredibly difficult time,' he said. Gapp has described the horrific events Sunday from his perspective. During the harrowing ordeal, he attempted to toss a flotation device to her, but tragically the young woman was pulled out by the ocean's currents. Traumatized by the unimaginable event, Gapp said his girlfriend survived the plunge but did not survive the long wait for help, and claimed emergency personnel should have done more to save her, as per the news outlet. Kalaiokealaula Ashley Nicole Reyes Kanekoa, 29, was described by her boyfriend as a loving, devoted mother who would do anything for her children The mother-of-two slipped and fell off a cliff and then drowned early Sunday morning near Hawaiian Paradise Park as her horrified boyfriend tried to rescue her. She was not believed to be pregnant at the time of her drowning Todd said that the conditions at sea and along the cliffs where Kanekoa fell were 'nearly impossible' to enter 'without risking severe injury or death' on the day 'I had to get a raft to her. They didn't have a flotation device. I got the raft out to her, and I said, OK, let's get a rope to her so she doesn't drift away, and they said, "Oh, we don't have any rope,"' Gapp told Hawaii News Now. 'To sit there and watch this girl suffer for 45 minutes to an hour suffer and scream for help and them to say boats were coming eventually.' Hawaii County police and firefighters responded within seven minutes of the 911 call. Officials said that the fire truck was not required to carry ocean equipment, and with dangerous conditions from a large north swell, it was too dark and hazardous for first responders to enter into the waters. Hawaii County Police Captain Todd Pataray told the news outlet they 'requested services from the fire department for a rescue boat, attempted to call a fire department helicopter and called the Coast Guard.' Gapp said he tried to save his girlfriend on his own and swam out to where she was clinging to a raft, after an hour of waiting for the helicopter and rescue boat to surface, but by the time he returned, he said emergency responders could no longer see her. The devastated boyfriend recounted the painful and heartbreaking ordeal in detail. 'Her sitting on that raft screaming help. "What do I do now? What do I do now?" And me telling her they are going to get you, and they are going to get you. And they never came to get her,' Gapp recalled to Hawaii News Now. The Hawaii Fire Department told Hawaii News Now that the conditions were too windy to fly the helicopter, and said the rescue boat had to come from Hilo about 15 miles up the coast and arrived at 4 am. According to police, the fire department and Coast Guard searched for the missing woman through the early morning hours, and by 8 am, nearly six hours after the tragic fall, the young woman's body was found approximately four miles down the shore near Honolulu Landing in Pahoa. She was transported to the Hilo Medical Center where she was pronounced deceased at 10:58 am, according to a police statement. An autopsy determined that her manner and cause of death was accidental drowning. Police said there was no foul play suspected, People reported. Hawaiian authorities told the news outlet that an investigation is ongoing and that they are awaiting toxicology reports. Anther view of the cliff of where the mother-of-two tragically lost her life early Sunday A cliff-side memorial was set up near the site where the young mother, who tragically fell to her death early Sunday morning Gapp called his love, 'a loving, caring person.' 'She loved her kids more than anything. She had a lot of fun. Lot of joy in life. She was always giggling, laughing,' he said. A GoFundMe was created to help raise money for Keankekoa's funeral. As of Friday afternoon, more than $8,300 has been raised, exceeding their goal of $8,000. Friends and loved ones expressed their grief on social media sharing how much Reyes Kanekoa touched their lives. 'My sweet sweet beautiful friend, you were the first friend I ever had. Fly high with the angels, rest easy my beautiful friend.' Another friend wrote: 'She will always remain in the hearts of all of us who loved & cherished her deeply. Kala'i was a light & shared that light with everyone.' 'I thank all the powers that be for my ability to have known her in my lifetime. May she rest in the very same light & love that she gave to others.' A tiny lizard has brought the construction of more than 300,000 homes to a screeching halt. The Victorian Planning Authority (VPA) has paused progress on three separate precinct structure plans around Bacchus Marsh, in Melbourne's west, after the Victorian grassland earless dragon was rediscovered. Thought to be extinct, the critically endangered species was spotted last year for the first time in half-a-century, prompting a joint investigation between the state and federal governments. The lizard's natural habitat is the volcanic grasslands between Melbourne and Geelong, which has become a hotspot for new developments, and sustainability experts are calling for more land to be put aside for conservation. Required to protect the species under federal law, planners and developers are now scrambling to figure out how they can continue to provide jobs, homes and infrastructure for Victoria's growing population. Thought to be extinct, the critically endangered species was spotted last year for the first time in half-a-century Linda Allison, chief executive of the Urban Development Institute of Australia Victoria, told The Age that a substantial protection zone had been established after the 'remarkable finding' while a conservation strategy was underway. 'This is a serious concern for the sector, with work effectively stopped on planning for some of the state's fastest-growing areas,' she said. 'Early modelling indicates this could potentially impact up to 310,000 homes and 230,000 jobs. This could be a huge blow to the state government's commitment to building 800,000 new homes by 2034.' Ms Allison said the institute was working with all levels of government to protect the lizard while delivering housing. 'This issue must be treated as a priority to ensure the longevity of the species, and to give industry certainty,' she said. The lizard's natural habitat is the volcanic grasslands between Melbourne and Geelong, which has become a hotspot for new developments In an update this month, the VPA said it was working with the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) to understand how it would survey populations of the lizard in the Parwan Station, Parwan, and Merrimu precincts. The VPA said it will be in a position to consider progressing this project when the department has made these decisions and there is a strategy to fund the project. It is anticipated that Bacchus Marsh's population will more than double to 50,000 by 2041. The Draft National Recovery Plan said it's 'critical' to 'pause developments that may pose a risk to inadvertently losing the Victorian or Bathurst grassland earless dragon'. A federal department spokesperson said projects likely to have a significant impact on a threatened species needed to be submitted for consideration It also said they had evolved in grassland habitats that were desirable for urban, industrial, agricultural and renewable energy developments. These types of projects will likely need approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which protects unique plants, animals, habitats and places. A federal department spokesperson said projects likely to have a significant impact on a threatened species needed to be submitted for consideration. The draft report says the federal minister is expected to take a 'precautionary approach' when there is uncertainty about the size and safety of the species' population when considering projects. Dr Sarah Bekessy, professor of sustainability and urban planning at RMIT, said less than one per cent of Victoria's original volcanic grass plains remain. In December, a breeding program at Melbourne Zoo successfully hatched 16 males and 13 females as part of efforts to improve their chances of recovery 'We need to be really careful about surveying for the dragon and if we find it, this place really shouldn't be developed,' she said. 'There aren't enough viable patches of this ecosystem for it to be a self-sustaining population. We really do urgently need to look at purchasing land and creating new reserves.' Fauna specialist Manfred Zabinskas, who is employed by developers to factor in the impact projects have on animals, told the Herald Sun 'we only get one chance'. 'Being so special and threatened we have to go to every length imaginable to save them,' she said. Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell also supported the conservation efforts. 'The government must not cower to pressure from powerful developers and should take the same approach when it comes to kangaroos and koalas who are routinely decimated by developers,' she said. When the lizard was rediscovered in Melbourne last year, experts hailed it akin to finding the extinct Tasmanian tiger. In December, a breeding program at Melbourne Zoo successfully hatched 16 males and 13 females as part of efforts to improve their chances of recovery. Sadiq Khan is facing death threats from Islamists and needs round-the-clock police protection it has been reported just days after under-fire MP Lee Anderson accused him of being 'controlled' by extremists. The mayor of London has been receiving police protection - usually reserved for members of the royal family and a handful of senior cabinet ministers - since 2017. A source close to the Muslim leader's security arrangements has now revealed that as well as facing threats from the far-Right, Mr Khan is also receiving threats from Islamist extremists. The Labour politician, who denounced Islamist terrorists after the capital faced two Jihadist attacks in 2017 with a third in Manchester, currently has a team of 15 officers protecting him. Muslims holding public office in western democracies can be seen as targets for Islamist extremists, while Mr Khan also voted in favour of same-sex marriage and is a long champion of LGBTQ rights. Sadiq Khan is facing death threats from Islamists and needs round-the-clock police protection it has been reported The revelation comes just days after under-fire MP Lee Anderson accused him of being 'controlled' by extremists A source close to the mayor told the Guardian: 'Sadiq faces threats from a wide range of sources. His main concern has always been the safety of his family, and also that young people from his background will be put off entering public life.' Last night it was revealed that Mr Khan had received death threats over the weekend shortly after Mr Anderson said the mayor was controlled by Islamists and has 'given our capital away to his mates'. Ipswich resident Christopher Massey, 52, made threats aimed at the mayor in two 999 calls to Suffolk Police's control room. The Crown Prosecution Service said Massey had pleaded guilty to two counts of sending communication threatening death or serious harm under the new Online Safety Act. He could now face a prison term. Speaking on GB News on Friday, Mr Anderson said: 'I don't actually believe that these Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they've got control of Khan and they've got control of London and they've got control of Starmer as well. 'Again, this stems with Khan, he's actually given our capital city away to his mates. 'Beware, because if you let Labour in through the back door, expect more of this and expect our cities to be taken over by these lunatics.' Mr Anderson to have burned his bridges with PM Rishi Sunak after making clear he will not say sorry to the London mayor (pictured today) 'while I've still got breath in my body' Rishi Sunak said Mr Anderson was 'wrong' to 'inflame tensions', but refused to say if he thought his comments to be 'Islamophobic' Mr Anderson waded back in on Sadiq Khan claiming the London mayor 'almost enjoys' seeing chaotic pro-Palestinian protests outside Parliament He earlier used a separate TV appearance to claim Mr Khan 'almost enjoys' seeing chaotic pro-Palestinian protests outside Parliament. The Mayor slammed the Ashfield MP for pouring 'fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred', labelling his comments as 'Islamaphobic' and 'racist'. On Saturday, Mr Anderson was stripped of the Conservative whip and was later told he would need to apologise for the language he used. Last night he told GB News - where he is employed as a presenter - that he refused to apologise to the mayor 'while I've still got breath in my body' for the controversial attack. He also declared that he would definitely be standing at the next general election, but when asked whether he would be standing as a Tory MP he said 'that's not up to me'. Less than 24 hours after being suspended from his party, the MP, who was previously a Labour councillor, was spotted in secret talks with head of the Reform Party Richard Tice. Since being suspended by the Tories on Saturday, Mr Anderson has refused to rule out joining Reform, the party founded by ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage. In a round of TV interviews, the Ashfield MP said it was 'disgusting' people were accusing him of attacking Mr Khan last Friday because of the Labour politician's faith. Mr Anderson was suspended by the Conservative party after he refused to apologise for 'Islamophobic, racist' comments Mr Anderson suggested when he levelled his original criticism at Mr Khan he 'didn't think what religion he was, I just think he's a useless mayor' Speaking to ITV, Mr Anderson said: 'I don't regret it. No, I stick by the sentiment of my comments. 'It was live TV. You know, we've seen a week where we've seen massive disruptions around Parliament. 'We've seen Keir Starmer get in his own way and, and ultimately the, the Labour Party getting their own way. 'Mayor Khan is a Labour politician. Let's not forget that. So I was within my rights to attack him and to suggest I've attacked him 'cause he's a Muslim, that's quite disgusting.' Meanwhile, No10 said yesterday that Mr Anderson was guilty of conflating all Muslims with Islamist extremism in his initial remarks - but said Mr Sunak did not believe the former senior Tory was a racist.' The PM's official spokesman told reporters: 'The PM responded to these questions yesterday, he doesn't believe that the individual is a racist but... the language he used was wrong and it's unacceptable obviously to conflate all Muslims with Islamist extremism or the extreme ideology of Islamism. 'That's why the PM regarded those comments as wrong and unacceptable.' Commons Speaker Sir Linsday Hoyle has lost the support of the Welsh nationalists after all three Plaid Cymru MPs backed a no-confidence motion in response to his handling of the Gaza ceasefire vote. The group's Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts said the chaos that unravelled in the Commons last week 'brought to light a profound disregard for smaller parties in Westminster'. Plaid Cymru's Ms Roberts, Hywel Williams and Ben Lake have joined 45 Conservative MPs, 37 SNP MPs and one independent member in backing a no-confidence motion, taking the total number to 86. Losing the support of the Welsh nationalists heaps further pressure on Sir Lindsay, who sparked anger when he broke with convention last week to allow a vote on a Labour amendment to the SNP's motion for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The controversial decision, which infuriated SNP and Tory MPs, meant the SNP's motion - the original focus of the debate - was not voted on. It led to some MPs walking out in protest and the Commons quickly descended into chaos. In a letter to the Speaker, Ms Saville Roberts said the debate - on Opposition Day - was a chance for the SNP to present a motion 'unimpeded'. Commons Speaker Sir Linsday Hoyle (pictured) has lost the support of the Welsh nationalists The group's Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts said the chaos that unravelled in the Commons last week 'brought to light a profound disregard for smaller parties in Westminster' Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the House of Commons Speaker, apologised for his role in last week's parliamentary meltdown 'But their right - and indeed the whole House's right - to vote on the original motion was quashed with little warning,' she said. Ms Saville Williams said she had written to the Speaker at the end of last week urging him 'to outline how arrangements can be put in place to respect the role of smaller parties in the House, and to ensure that our voices can never again be disregarded as they were on Wednesday night'. But after meeting with Sir Lindsay on Monday she said it was 'clear that no changes would be considered to protect the role of smaller parties or to safeguard a diversity of voices in Parliament'. She also slammed Sir Linsday for rejecting the SNP's request for an emergency debate on Gaza this week and accused him of 'reneging' on a previous promise. The SNP had earlier accused the Speaker of 'effectively lying' over a possible emergency debate. Sir Lindsay publicly apologised for his role in the meltdown in the Commons but is facing increased speculation as to whether he can continue in his role. The Speaker's choice to select both a Labour amendment and a Government amendment were claimed by some to be a 'stitch-up' to help Sir Keir Starmer avoid another revolt on the issue. Sir Keir has since denied threatening Sir Lindsay to select Labour's amendment, which backed an 'immediate humanitarian ceasefire' along with caveats over the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas. He said he 'simply urged' the Speaker to have the 'broadest possible debate'. Stephen Flynn, the SNP's Westminster leader, pushed Sir Lindsay to grant a fresh vote on a Gaza ceasefire Sir Lindsay himself said fears over MPs' safety played a part in his decision, which has led to angry Tory claims he 'bowed to the mob' amid continuing pro-Palestinian protests across the country. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak does not back an immediate ceasefire in Gaza but supports an 'immediate humanitarian pause' as the best way to stop the fighting. SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn claimed yesterday that Sir Lindsay's decision was made after the Speaker was 'obviously bullied' by Sir Keir - accusations both men deny. While apologising to MPs for the situation, the Speaker last week offered another debate to the SNP, which had not been able to vote on its own motion in the first instance. But on Monday, the request for a debate was turned down, with the Speaker saying a statement from the Government on Tuesday would be sufficient. Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland, Mr Flynn said: 'Unfortunately, the Speaker of the House of Commons (has) broken the rules and now broke his word and effectively lied, not just to SNP MPs but the entire parliamentary chamber and indeed the public last Thursday. Sir Keir has since denied threatening Sir Lindsay to select Labour's amendment, which backed an 'immediate humanitarian ceasefire' along with caveats over the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas 'I don't think anyone can be in any position where they don't find that deeply, deeply challenging given the Speaker of the House of Commons is there to effectively ensure that democracy runs smoothly on these isles.' Asked about his relationship with Sir Lindsay, Mr Flynn said: 'I've been very clear, and in fact there was a few folk who suggested I might have jumped the gun last week when I said that Lindsay Hoyle's position was no longer tenable and I feel almost vindicated in that regard. 'He told the SNP one thing on Thursday and he turned his back on that just yesterday, flying in the face of precedent by the way.' Mr Flynn said the Speaker was 'obviously bullied' by Sir Keir. Opposition politicians have accused Sir Keir of pressuring the Speaker to allow his party's amendment to come to a vote in an effort to stave off a revolt from his own MPs on the issue. Mr Flynn said: 'He (the Speaker) was obviously bullied into a position last week by the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, following a private conversation in the back rooms of Westminster.' After it was pointed out that both Sir Keir and the Speaker deny the allegations, Mr Flynn - who has no hair - said: 'That's like me denying that I'm a bald man - it would just defy reality and logic. 'Everyone on Westminster estate knows what happened last week - the reality is the Speaker was unduly influenced by the leader of the Labour Party and, as a result, he subsequently lied to the SNP because he created a complete mess, a circus, in Westminster.' Jose Ibarra, 26, is accused of killing the nursing student, 22, with blunt force trauma on Thursday A criminal profiler says that Laken Riley's attacker 'panicked' and was 'overwhelmed' by her size A criminal profiler says the murdered UGA nursing student's killer probably 'panicked' after being 'overwhelmed by her size' during his attack. Jose Ibarra, 26, is accused of killing Laken Riley, 22, after kidnapping her between 9 am and 1 pm on Thursday. Ibarra, an undocumented Venezuelan migrant, is accused of 'seriously disfiguring Riley's body by disfiguring her skull,' and is also charged with preventing Riley from making a 911 call when he allegedly grabbed her. After her cause of death was confirmed as blunt force trauma, a profiler from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said that the killer likely became violent after Riley fought back. 'In this case, the offender was met with resistance which he wasn't expecting, and it got overpowering and he couldn't control it and he restored to violence,' said John Lang Jr., a former GBI investigator and criminal profiler. Jose Ibarra, 26, is accused of using a mystery object as a weapon to kill the 22-year-old Augusta University student After her cause of death was confirmed as blunt force trauma, a profiler from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said that the killer likely became violent after Riley (pictured here) fought back Police say Ibarra dragged Riley's body to a secluded area in the UGA campus to conceal the death 'But he didn't know what he was in for and I suspect she probably fought back,' Lang said. 'He's not a very big fellow and he may have been overwhelmed by her size and her strengths and tenacity to fight back.' According to court documents, Ibarra is 57 and 185 pounds. Riley's body was found the same day on campus in a forested area near Lake Herrick that includes trails popular with runners and walkers. The student had been out jogging on the University of Georgia campus when she was allegedly attacked by Ibarra. Arrest documents accuse Ibarra of kidnapping Riley between 9am and 1pm and eventually dragging her body to a secluded area following the attack. 'Concealing her body, that's just an opportunity to distance himself from the crime,' Lang said. Ibarra lived in an apartment complex near the trail so legal experts suggested he simply walked from his property onto the trail. 'That's where the guy lives,' Lang said. 'Anybody could probably predict that's probably where he approached her from at least.' Lang explained that when a woman is attacked by a man, investigators can't rule out if the motive was sexual - claiming that only Ibarra can answer for what the true motive was. Ibarra was arrested for Riley's murder on Friday, just a day after her remains were found on the Athens campus Riley studied at the University of Georgia through the spring of 2023 before transferring to Augusta Universitys College of Nursing 'In looking at this whole thing, this is like a disorganized offender. That's what we call them' Lang said. 'He just does it on the spur of the moment for whatever motivating factors.' Ibarra appeared Saturday in court where he was formally charged with felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, kidnapping and other counts. He was represented by public defenders and remained in custody. The 26-year-old crossed into El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 but had been released from a detention center due to a lack of space. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said on Sunday he had previously been arrested in NYC. While ICE has confirmed Ibarra entered the country illegally in 2022, he cannot be deported as Venezuela's regime has stopped accepting deportation flights in retaliation for the Biden administration reinstating sanctions on the socialist nation. Riley studied at the University of Georgia through the spring of 2023 before transferring to Augusta University's College of Nursing, according to a statement from the University of Georgia, which does not have a nursing program itself. She remained active in the sorority she joined at the University of Georgia. Murdered nursing student Laken Riley suffered a disfigured skull after being beaten to death by Ibarra, an undocumented Venezuelan immigrant Ibarra lived in an apartment complex near the trail so legal experts suggested he simply walked from his property onto the trail Riley's sister, Lauren Phillips, paid tribute to her Friday in an Instagram post, calling her 'the best sister and my built in best friend from the very first second.' 'This isn't fair and I will never understand it but I know you are in heaven with the man you loved most right now,' Phillips wrote. 'I'm not sure how I'm going to do this but it's all going to be for you from now on. I cannot wait to give you the biggest hug someday. I will miss and love you forever Laken.' UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark told reporters at a press conference Thursday that officers have searched Ibarra's apartment in Athens and evidence shows that he acted alone. Polls were closing in Michigan Tuesday night where President Joe Biden faces a raft of 'uncommitted' Democratic voters, over his support for Israel's war with Hamas. Most of Michigan's polling places closed at 8 p.m. but some of those on the state's upper peninsula are open until 9 p.m., which means no race call will be made until then. Early returns showed Biden winning the state - that he also won in the 2020 general election - but 16 percent of Democrats in the state voted for 'uncommitted' instead of the president, with just 11 percent reporting. Biden's longshot rival, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, is also on the ballot. On the Republican ballot, former President Donald Trump faces his final rival, former Amb. Nikki Haley. Early returns showed Trump way ahead. There was little doubt President Biden would win the Demoratic primary in Michigan. Activists have been pushing a vote for 'uncommitted' over Israel's war in Gaza Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) cast her vote for 'uncommitted' rather than for President Joe Biden as she accused the U.S. of aiding 'genocide' against the Palestinians. She posted a video after voting Biden faced scrutiny in Michigan for his handling of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, and many Arab American voters in Dearborn and other parts of Detroit have been registering their anger about the war. Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) who is Palestinian-American has been hammering Biden and pushing the 'uncommitted' effort. 'I was proud today to walk in and pull a Democratic ballot and vote uncommitted,' she said in video. Former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, a leader in the push for 'uncommitted,' said he doesn't want Donald 'to ever get anywhere near the White House ever again.' But he told DailyMail.com at an 'uncommitted' watch party that Biden's problems are much more than tactical, after the president was criticized for failing to meet with Arab American leaders on his visit here as resentment grew. 'It's not because they didn't come early enough or they didn't do enough ... This is not a political problem. He can't solve it with like, really good surrogates.' He said Biden or any other Democrat 'isn't going to win without Michigan,' and that 'Joe Biden can't win Michigan without changing course.' Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud blasted Biden for commenting Monday on the latest talks for a cease fire while the president was eating an ice cream cone. 'I don't look to lip service or words. I'm looking for action,' he told DailyMail.com outside a polling place. Khalid Turaani, a co-founder of the 'Abandon Biden' movement, predicted thousands would vote for 'uncommitted.' 'I think I find it strange that you're eating ice cream at a parlor - that is the moment that you talk about a cease fire coming forward,' said Dearborn, Michigan Mayor Abdullah Hammoud President Joe Biden spoke about talks for a temporary cease fire while having ice cream with 'Late Night' host Seth Meyers in New York Monday Biden faced demands for a permanent ceasefire and a push for voting for 'uncommitted' Dearborn has a high percentage of Arab American and Muslim voters 'I think 10,000 is reasonable and I think we will achieve that,' he told DailyMail.com as he passed out sample ballots featuring 'uncommitted.' Out of the first six people he spoke to, in English and Arabic outside a polling place, 'only one person didn't say that he wasn't going to vote uncommitted. He wasn't talkative.' Ten thousand is roughly the number Biden defeated Trump by in 2020, in a demonstration of the influence Arab American voters could have on the November election. Trump has bested Haley in all four of the early primary states where they've both appeared on the ballot - Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and now Michigan. The former president also won the Nevada caucuses and a symbolic vote for Trump - voters choosing 'none of these candidates' - bested Haley in Nevada's presidential primary. Former President Donald Trump held a campaign event in Michigan on February 17. After winning Saturday's South Carolina primary, he's stayed off the campaign trail, but has planned visits to Texas, North Carolina and Virginia - Super Tuesday states - over the next few days Former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley made a campaign stop Monday in Grand Rapids, Michigan before moving onto Minnesota and Colorado, which are Super Tuesday state. In Grand Rapids she complained that Trump was trying to make the RNC his personal 'playpen' Haley, however, has vowed to press on, telling supporters in Charleston Saturday night that she would continue in the race through Super Tuesday, March 5, when 16 states and American Samoa hold primary contests. 'There are huge numbers of voters in our Republican primaries who are saying they want an alternative,' she said Saturday night. 'I said earlier this week that no matter what happens in South Carolina I would continue to run for president - I'm a woman of my word,' she said to cheers. During a CNN interview Tuesday night as Michigan's votes were being counted, Haley reiterated that commitment. 'Absolutely, we have a country to save, absolutely,' Haley told the network's Dana Bash. Former London minister Paul Scully has apologised after claiming there are 'no-go areas' in parts of the capital and Birmingham. The Sutton and Cheam MP had said Tower Hamlets and Sparkhill were two areas in which a minority of people were 'abusing' their religion to make others feel uncomfortable. His comments, which came as he reacted to claims by Lee Anderson that 'Islamists' had taken control in London in an attack on London Mayor Sadiq Khan, sparked fury with critics branding them 'disgusting' and 'Islamophobic'. Mr Anderson has had the Conservative whip withdrawn for his comments and Mr Scully said the ex-Tory chairman's words were 'wrong-headed' and 'inflammatory'. But Mr Scully himself has 'put his hands' up to say the language he used around 'no-go areas' had the potential to feed 'conspiracy theories'. Former London minister Paul Scully sparked a fresh Tory racism row today after he claimed there are 'no-go areas' in parts of the capital and Birmingham Speaking on BBC Radio London on Tuesday, the 55-year-old said: 'I'm sorry for using the word "no-go areas" because it was a blunt thing that feeds into another set of conspiracy theories. 'There are areas of this country where there are tiny, tiny groups of people that cause people to feel uncomfortable. 'That might be a white gang, that might be a black gang, a Muslim gang... and that then tends to write of whole communities for some people.' In a discussion about whether the Conservatives have a problem with Islamophobia, Mr Scully told BBC Radio London on Monday that he didn't like the term due to 'wider connotations' and said he preferred to use 'anti-Muslim hatred'. Mr Scully went on to suggest people had 'concerns about... their neighbourhoods changing in parts of the North, in particular' that he said were being reflected in a 'really, really clumsy way'. 'We've got to have a sensible use of language so we can have a constructive, adult debate about this,' he added. Pressed on his remarks, Mr Scully then added: 'The point I am trying to make is, if you look at parts of Tower Hamlets, where there are no-go areas. 'Parts of Birmingham, Sparkhill, there are no-go areas mainly because of doctrine, mainly because of people abusing in many ways their religion. 'It's not the doctrine of Islam to espouse what some of these people are saying. That is the concern that needs to be addressed.' It came as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives continue to battle a racism storm following the suspension of leading 'Red Wall' MP Lee Anderson Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, hit out at 'nonsense slurs' and urged politicians based at Westminster to 'experience the real world Labour's Jess Phillips, MP for Birmingham Yardley, described Mr Scully's comments as 'utter drivel' Following his original remarks there was an intervention by Downing Street, which dismissed Mr Scully's claim and pointed to the 'value of the very diverse communities and societies we have in the UK'. Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, hit out at 'nonsense slurs' and urged politicians based at Westminster to 'experience the real world'. Mr Scully has been among the many critics of Mr Anderson and used a radio interview today to condemn the remarks as 'wrong-headed' and 'inflammatory'. But he added he could see what Mr Anderson was 'trying to drive at' in his remarks about recent pro-Palestinian protests over the Gaza crisis. Mr Scully's claims provoked fury among local politicians in Birmingham, with Mr Street posting on X: 'The idea that Birmingham has a 'no-go' zone is news to me, and I suspect the good people of Sparkhill. 'It really is time for those in Westminster to stop the nonsense slurs and experience the real world. I for one am proud to lead the most diverse place in Britain.' Labour's Jess Phillips, MP for Birmingham Yardley, wrote: 'As one of the MPs for Sparkhill I am expecting an apology for this utter drivel. 'My kids hang out in Sparkhill day and night, never had a moment's worry, I go there weekly and live literally 5 minutes walk from there and used to live there myself.' Nicky Brennan, the Labour councillor for Sparkhill, posted: 'I am absolutely disgusted that Tory MP Paul Scully has said parts of Sparkhill has 'no-go areas'. 'There is no place in Sparkhill that has made me feel unsafe. Quite the opposite in fact. It's a vibrant, welcoming community in Birmingham. 'These comments are disgusting.' Miqdaad Versi, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said: 'This is extremely problematic from Paul Scully. 'Not realising 'no-go zones' are a typical false and Islamophobic trope from the white supremacist and far-right fringes, shows the depth of the problem.' Paul Scully said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had 'championed British Muslims for a decade' Asked if Rishi Sunak believes there are 'no-go areas' in parts of London and Birmingham, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'No, and the PM has talked before about the value of the very diverse communities and societies we have in the UK. 'Obviously we have also talked recently about the importance that in a thriving democracy we retain and champion our shared values of freedom, tolerance and respect. 'And some of the examples of violence and intimidation that we have seen in recent weeks are clearly unacceptable.' A Tory source told MailOnline that Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate to replace Mr Khan as London mayor, did not consider any parts of the capital to be a 'no-go area'. Ms Hall used an article in the Evening Standard today to hit back at Mr Anderson's comments about Mr Khan. 'I may be one of Mayor Sadiq Khan's biggest critics, but I also see the monstrous abuse he gets as one of the country's most prominent Muslim politicians,' she wrote. 'No one should have to put up with that, and I wholly condemn anyone who does it, or fuels it. 'His faith is one of his positive characteristics, not something to be suspicious of.' Ms Hall added: 'We should celebrate our diversity and tolerate each other when we have differences of opinion. That is what London has always been about. 'As politicians we must all act responsibly, especially during challenging times.' Following the outrage at his remarks, Mr Scully posted on Twitter/X this afternoon: 'Last word on my response to Lee Anderson's comments. 'As someone who has stood up and indeed championed British Muslims for a decade to end up as seen as espousing division and likened to Katie Hopkins, I'll bow out of the conversation and leave the two sides to argue... 'I've always said language matters. So does perception and if moderates are pushed to one side or another, nothing will be resolved. I'm out.' The worker instructed staff not to clean planes in February 2020 A Qantas worker has been awarded compensation from the airline after he was sacked for raising safety concerns at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Theo Seremetidis, a trained health and safety representative, was stood down and isolated from his colleagues by Qantas in February 2020. Qantas' actions towards Mr Seremetidis came hours after he instructed others to stop cleaning and servicing planes, as he was worried about the spread of Covid-19. Mr Seremetidis' directive came the day after Australia closed its borders to direct flights from China. Qantas has since agreed to pay compensation after the airline was found guilty last year for breaching workplace health and safety laws. Theo Seremetidis (pictured) was stood down by Qantas and was isolated from other employees. He was not even allowed to go to the staff room to fill up his water bottle The trained health and safety representative had told staff to not clean or service planes over concerns of the spread of COVID in February 2020 A NSW District Court heard on Wednesday Qantas agreed to pay $6,000 for Mr Seremetidis' economic loss as well as $15,000 for 'hurt and humiliation'. However, the court is yet to determine the national carrier's full liability in fines, compensation and costs. Mr Seremetidis' case is the first where a major airline has faced criminal prosecution for violations of workplace safety regulations. At the time, the Qantas worker told staff to not clean planes under Section 85 of the Work Health and Safety Act, which gives employees the right to cease unsafe work. The court heard the decision to stand down Mr Seremetidis went to the 'upper echelons' of Qantas Ground Services as well as parent company Qantas. 'They all held substantial positions of power over Mr Seremetidis,' prosecution barrister Matthew Moir said. Mr Moir said Qantas gave priority to its commercial and operational interests over the health and safety of its workers. Mr Seremetidis (pictured with TWU Branch assistant secretary Marija Marsic) has been awarded $6,000 for economic loss by Qantas, as well as $15,000 for 'hurt and humiliation' When Mr Seremetidis was stood down, he was immediately cut-off from other staff members and was told he could not even leave to fill up his water bottle in the employee meal room, the court heard. 'He was removed from the workplace and he was not allowed to return,' Mr Moir said. Qantas later put in a letter laying out several reasons why it had suspended the health and safety representative from his role. However, judge David Russell said in his November decision the letter was an unsuccessful attempt to find more reasons to back up the airline's conduct. 'I have found that the reason for QGS engaging in discriminatory conduct towards Mr Seremetidis was because he exercised a power or performed a function as a health and safety representative,' he said. The bodies of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies lay hidden for days behind a mound of dirt on a quiet gravel track - with detectives likely passing the site several times as they investigated a nearby location during their week-long search for the two men. Their remains were unearthed on Tuesday, more than a week after their alleged murder at the hands of Beau Lamarre-Condon - who finally decided to cooperate with police from behind bars after speaking with a lawyer. Mr Lamarre-Condon - who was a senior constable with NSW Police at the time of the alleged double-murder but has since been stood down without pay - is accused of using his police-issued Glock pistol to shoot the couple in Baird's rental terrace in Paddington, in Sydney's inner suburbs, on February 19. The two men's bloody clothes were allegedly tossed in a skip bin in Cronulla, almost 30km away, before their bodies were hidden in surfboard bags. Police allege Mr Lamarre-Condon then hired a white Toyota HiAce van from Sydney Airport and took the bodies about 180km south-west of Sydney to the small town of Bungonia, in the Southern Tablelands, and buried them in a shallow grave on a fence line on Jerrara Road. Jesse Baird (left) and Luke Davies (right) were allegedly murdered on February 19 Their bodies were allegedly buried under a mound of dirt (pictured, right of the police officer) along a road in Bungonia. Police would have unknowingly driven past the bodies a number of times earlier in the week, during a search of another property about 20 minutes south The temporary grave site was more of a gravel alcove next to the entrance to the Greek Orthodox Holy Monastery of Saint Fanourios church. Police would have unknowingly driven past the bodies a number of times earlier in the week, during a search of another property about 20 minutes south. A team of police officers spent Wednesday scouring bushland surrounding the site for evidence, with the assistance of a sniffer dog, picks and rakes. Several items found near the bodies have now been collected as part of the investigation. The heartbroken relatives of Mr Baird, who travelled to the area from interstate, visited the scene under police guard on Tuesday night. Relatives spent about 15 minutes with Mr Baird's body before driving away. Beau Lamarre-Condon (pictured) is accused of gunning down TV presenter Jesse Baird and his flight attendant boyfriend Luke Davies Meanwhile, the shattered friends of Mr Baird and Mr Davies gathered at Bronte Beach for a vigil. The bodies were then taken to Lidcombe morgue, in Sydney's west, while detectives remained on the scene in Bungonia. Lamarre-Condon handed himself into Bondi Police Station on Thursday last week, before he was charged with two counts of murder on Friday. Police found the remains by 1pm on Tuesday and contacted the families of Baird and Davies moments after that. Lamarre-Condon's matter is before the courts. A New Jersey CEO who cut down 32 of his neighbor's trees so he could improve his view of New York City from his mansion had his fines cut in half but still faces a bill that could cost him $1 million. Grant Haber cut a plea deal for violating local legislation in the town of Kinnelon, New Jersey, that requires a permit to be acquired before removing trees after he was alleged to have hired individuals to cut down 32 mature trees on his neighbor Samih Shinway's property. He initially faced up to $32,000 in fines but the deal chopped those down to about $13,194. However, Haber may not be done paying for it, as the borough's prosecutor believes he may have to foot the bill for replacing and caring for the downed trees to the tune of over $1 million. 'We're certainly dealing with substantial penalties,' Kim Kassar said in October. A New Jersey man who cut down 32 of his neighbor's trees so he could improve his view of New York City from his mansion had his fines cut in half but faces a bill that could cost him $1 million 'But those pale in comparison to the potential restitution claims, which are approaching or may exceed seven figures.' Haber, a security executive for an anti-terrorism company, could use the $1.8 million he sold the Kinnelon home for - after buying the property for $1.3 million in 2014 - in November 2023, just months after the allegations. Shinway, for his part, says that he's never going to be '100 percent satisfied' with the sanctions. 'I always use the analogy that if you hire someone to put a hit out on somebody, they are just as liable as the person who did it,' Shinway told The Record. When asked if he planned to sue Haber, he only said: 'I can't answer that question right now.' Haber told the court he would pay the fine of $13,000 within the next 30 days and now faces restitution hearings at the county level. The next hearing is set for April 19. Pictures taken at the property last July show the extensive mess left by those hired to perform the work. Speaking to DailyMail.com, Shinway said he arrived home one day to a team of men working on removing the trees from his property. Grant Haber, pictured here, is said to have violated local laws that require a permit for the removal of trees Pictures taken at the property show the extensive mess left by those hired to take out the work Samih Shinway, pictured here, said he arrived home one day to a team of men working on removing the trees from his property A private property sign is clearly seen attached to a tree were Haber is said to have paid the men to chop them down He said: 'When I came home on February 27th I heard chainsaws and I drove my 4-wheeler to see where the noise was coming from. 'I saw a tree shredder and four men on my property and they were on my cousin's property too. 'Haber tried to act like it was a big mix up. The workers right away blamed him & he denied everything and told them all to leave. 'Haber came out and said 'isn't this a disaster? Who would do this?'. Ever since he cut the trees down there's been lots of crows and Soil erosion. 'When I was outback with the forester he let his two dogs out and they were harassing us. 'He was yelling for the dogs from 50 feet away but wouldn't actually come get them. 'The fine is 32 grand but the estimates in damage are around $1.9 million. 'A letter was dropped in our mailbox that was typed and unsigned saying he's not a bad neighbor and he moved here because he loves nature. Otherwise he's had nothing to say.' A large section of the woodland has been completely felled, opening up a section of the forest. Shinway estimates that the total damage to the area actually totals over $1.9 million Pictures taken at the property show the extensive mess left by those hired to take out the work Haber, pictured here on the left, is said to have hired a team of workers to take away the trees Haber, pictured here on One American News, is the founder of American Innovations, a New York based company that works in munitions The property of Haber can be easily seen from Shinway's property in this picture In total, Haber was fined for chopping down 32 trees on the property totaling $32,000 Haber is expected to appear in court later next month in connection with the incident John Linson, the borough forester in Kinnelon, New Jersey, told the Courier Journal that he had issued Haber with fines for his alleged actions. Linson told the news site: 'I am only able to state that 32 trees were removed without a permit.' Their home comes complete with a lot stretching to just under seven acres and has an outdoor swimming pool with a waterfall, as well as a gym and games room. Haber is the founder of American Innovations, a New York based company that works in munitions and revolutionized a IED (improvised explosive device) detection kit. On Tuesday night, US Central Command announced that the US military had shot down five Houthi unmanned attack drones sent from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen. The one-way attack unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down by a warship and aircraft above the Red Sea, where tensions between Iranian-backed Houthis and the US military presence continue to simmer. Central Command wrote that US forces determined the drones 'presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and to the US Navy and coalition ships in the region.' 'These actions will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for US Navy and merchant vessels,' concluded the message. The USS Gravely Destroyer - a ship used by the military to shoot down enemy missiles The news of the destroyed Houthi drones comes after last week the rebels released footage of what they claimed was a $30 million US drone they shot down above Yemen The news out of the region comes after last week Houthi rebels released footage of what they claimed was a $30 million US drone they shot down above Yemen. The drone was the second they've destroyed in a number of months. Last week, the Houthis released video of a surface-to-air missile bringing down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone off the coast of Hodeida, a Yemeni port city occupied by the militant group on the Red Sea. The footage included a video of men dragging pieces of debris from the water onto a beach. Images of the debris, which included pieces that had writing in English and what seemed to be electrical equipment, appeared to correspond to known pieces of the Reaper drone, usually used in attack missions and surveillance flights. The Pentagon later confirmed the Iran-backed terror regime had shot down the $30 million US aircraft. Last November, the Pentagon also acknowledged the loss of an MQ-9 Reaper drone, which was shot down by the rebels over the Red Sea. Since the Houthis seized Yemen's northern territory and its capital of Sanaa in 2014, the US military has lost at least four drones to attacks by the rebel group. Drones were lost in 2017, 2019, 2023, and now, this year. In addition to the drone loss, the Houthis claimed an attack on the Sea Champion, a Greek-flagged, U.S.-owned bulk carrier full of grain bound for Aden, Yemen, carrying grain from Argentina. Feb. 27 Red Sea Update On Feb. 27, between the hours of 9:50p.m. and 10:55 p.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. aircraft and a coalition warship shot down five Iranian-backed Houthi one-way attack (OWA) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in the Red Sea. CENTCOM forces identified these UAVs pic.twitter.com/c5Qm13GvhV U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 28, 2024 A US fighter jet is catapulted off the flight deck of a US aircraft carrier in the Southern Red Sea Last week, the Houthis also acknowledged the targeted attack of the bulk carrier ship Rubymar, which flies Belize flags, with two ballistic missiles. One struck the vessel. The US and UK have, in recent weeks, carried out joint airstrikes against the rebels in order to quiet the attacks on commercial ships carrying, among other things, humanitarian aid for the people of Yemen. As a result of the ongoing threat in the Red Sea, the price of global shipping containers has jumped by more than 300 percent since November of last year. The geopolitical chaos is therefore contributing directly to the rising costs of goods in Western nations. Activists who organized tens of thousands of voters to back 'uncommitted' instead of President Biden proclaimed victory Tuesday night and vowed to take their anti-war push to the Chicago Democratic Convention. 'We have a huge victory tonight,' said former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, speaking to 'uncommitted' supporters at a Dearborn watch party that featured cheers, spontaneous dancing to Palestinian music, and pledges to expand the movement that organizers cobbled together in a matter of weeks. 'It is my hope that after tonights results and were going to Chicago, by the way 174 days from now were going to be at the Democratic National Convention, pushing and growing this antiwar movement,' said Michigan state Rep. Abraham Aiyash, the majority leader of the state House. He and other backers of the effort spoke as the tally for 'uncommitted' climbed to 30,000 by the end of their event to 50,000 by midnight. 'So if they didnt listen after 30,000 and they didnt listen after the hospitals being bombed, maybe they will listen to Michigan,' he said at a watch party for the 'uncommitted' effort, in a reference to an estimated Gaza death toll. Attendees dance the Dabke during an uncommitted vote election night gathering as Democrats and Republicans hold their Michigan primary presidential election, in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S. February 27, 2024. 'And we have an opportunity in Chicago to take that message to the convention floor and push this party platform to finally change course on things like the unconditional aid to Israel, we start to have the conversation on what we do with settlements,' Aiyash told DailyMail.com. He said the group would 'leverage' its new power to ensure that the Democratic Party is 'anti-war' and 'anti-genocide.' Under the party's 15 per cent rule, candidates must get 15 per cent statewide or within individual congressional districts to be able to send delegates to the convention. 'Were going to win enough votes to send delegates to the convention I think,' said Levin. There were solemn moments as well, as organizers held a moment of silence for active-duty airman Aaron Bushnell, who died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. The thousands of votes for 'uncommitted' were a warning sign for the president over the war in Gaza. In a show of restraint, Biden's statement on the results thanked 'every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great.' Activist Abbas Alawieh leads the dance Dabke during an uncommitted vote election night gathering. Supporters took the tally as a victory, even as President Biden won the state's primary There were also solemn gestures, on a night when speakers acknowledged Palestinians killed in Gaza and active-duty airman Aaron Bushnell, who died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. Layla Elabed, Abbas Alawich, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Lexis Zeidan spoke to supporters in Dearborn as 'uncommitted' gathered thousands of votes in Michigan 'Four years ago, it was Michigans diverse coalition that came together to reject Donald Trumps MAGA extremism and sent me and Kamala to the White House,' Biden said. Biden was leading with nearly 80 per cent of the vote in early returns Tuesday evening. But 'uncommitted' was at 15 per cent, with more than 25,000 votes and counting. That was already more than a bar that activists had set for themselves. That came with about 16 per cent of the vote in. But that percentage dropped over time, as more votes came in in what proved to be a high turnout primary. By after midnight, 'uncommitted' was running at about 13 per cent of the vote. That was the last time an incumbent Democrat faced reelection, and it was a lower turnout event. By comparison, 'uncommitted' got 11 per cent in 2012 during President Barack Obama's reelection campaign. The Associated Press called the race for Biden immediately after the last polls closed at 9pm Tuesday. Biden faced token opposition on the ballot from Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, but his real battle has been against 'uncommitted' and against himself. Biden faced scrutiny in the state for his handling of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, and many Arab American voters in Dearborn and other parts of Detroit have been registering their anger about the war. Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) who is Palestinian-American has been hammering Biden and pushing the 'uncommitted' effort. A group of activists who organized a push for 'uncommitted' treated the results as cause for a victory rally Tuesday night, packing the Adonis restaurant next to the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn that featured food, music, and proclamations of victory along with statements about the growing toll of the war in Gaza. 'Here in southeastern Michigan, people in our Arab American community have an expertise of horrifying expertise. So many of us have survived U.S.-funded bombs,' said 'Listen to Michigan' co-organizer Abbass Alawieh at a post-election rally that 'uncommitted' backers treated as a victory rally. 'Thats all were asking for. Just stop killing our families. Its actually not all that complicated. Just stop killing our families, President Biden. You can do it,' he said. Layla Elabed, another organizer, said volunteers made 1 million voter calls as part of the effort. Elabed, the sister of Rashida Tlaib, called on Biden to 'bring a permanent ceasefire and end the unchecked unconditional military aid that is funding a genocide in 2024,' she told 'uncommitted' supporters as the votes came in. Tuesday's event took on the feel of a victory paty as the votes came in There was little doubt President Biden would win the Demoratic primary in Michigan. Activists have been pushing a vote for 'uncommitted' over Israel's war in Gaza Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) cast her vote for 'uncommitted' rather than for President Joe Biden as she accused the U.S. of aiding 'genocide' against the Palestinians. She posted a video after voting She said activists were telling the U.S. government 'that funding endless wars is not the path, but there is a better path that saves the children who are being killed ... That returns the hostages and prisoners. There is a better path of diplomacy and peace and not a genocide.' 'This is not a messaging problem. This has become a bombs problem,' said 'Listen to Michigan organizer Lexis Zeidan. 'We have a huge victory tonight,' said former Rep. Andy Levin told the crowd. 'This is a victory of American democracy tonight,' he added. 'Our message to the president is clear. There is no time to waste. We need a permanent cease fire right now,' he said. 'It is not lost on me that this president has softened his language and begun to recognize Palestinian suffering,' said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. 'But what is not enough is lip service. What we need is a complete withdrawal of support for the most radical and tyrannical government in Israels history.' 'I was proud today to walk in and pull a Democratic ballot and vote uncommitted,' Tlaib said in a video she posted Tuesday afternoon. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud blasted Biden for commenting Monday on the latest talks for a cease fire while the president was eating an ice cream cone. 'I don't look to lip service or words. I'm looking for action,' he told DailyMail.com outside a polling place. Khalid Turaani, a co-founder of the 'Abandon Biden' movement, predicted thousands would vote for 'uncommitted.' 'I think I find it strange that you're eating ice cream at a parlor - that is the moment that you talk about a cease fire coming forward,' said Dearborn, Michigan Mayor Abdullah Hammoud President Joe Biden spoke about talks for a temporary cease fire while having ice cream with 'Late Night' host Seth Meyers in New York Monday Biden faced demands for a permanent ceasefire and a push for voting for 'uncommitted' Dearborn has a high percentage of Arab American and Muslim voters 'I think 10,000 is reasonable and I think we will achieve that,' he told DailyMail.com as he passed out sample ballots featuring 'uncommitted.' Out of the first six people he spoke to, in English and Arabic outside a polling place, 'only one person didn't say that he wasn't going to vote uncommitted. He wasn't talkative.' Ten thousand is roughly the number Biden defeated Donald Trump by in 2020, in a demonstration of the influence Arab American voters could have on the November election. It's the number activist group 'Listen to Michigan' has identified as a goal. But 'uncommitted' has racked up larger tallies in recent Democratic presidential primaries. Uncommitted got about 20,000 against President Barack Obama in 2012, and a similar amount when Hillary Clinton was battling Bernie Sanders in 2016 and four years later when Sanders was challenging Biden. State party leaders aren't publicly panicking. The Biden campaign organized a press call just as most of the state's polls closed to reassure the media. Members of the Michigan state Democratic party know how to beat Donald Trump. Weve done it before and well do it again,' state chair Chair Lavora Barnes told reporters. Former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, a leader in the push for 'uncommitted,' said he doesn't want Donald 'to ever get anywhere near the White House ever again.' But he told DailyMail.com at an 'uncommitted' watch party that Biden's problems are much more than tactical, after the president was criticized for failing to meet with Arab American leaders on his visit here as resentment grew. 'It's not because they didn't come early enough or they didn't do enough ... This is not a political problem. He can't solve it with like, really good surrogates.' He said Biden or any other Democrat 'isn't going to win without Michigan,' and that 'Joe Biden can't win Michigan without changing course.' A conspiracy theorist and self-styled political 'free thinker' who believes McDonald's uses baby meat has admitted to harassing 2GB host Ben Fordham. David Michael Graham, 62, pleaded guilty at Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday to a single charge of using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend. The online commentator, who goes by the name 'Guru', described the 'offensive' phone calls to the radio station as being an attempt at getting a 'right of reply'. David Michael Graham, 62, admitted to harassing radio host Ben Fordham in court (pictured) Fordham refused to be interviewed by Graham who has a podcast espousing conspiracy theories 'I'm a journalist. I have a media show I do on news. I was just looking for a right of reply. That is all, Your Honour,' Graham told magistrate Brett Shields. Mr Shields told the Wollongong man that while it may have been his right to ask for a right of reply for 'something said... You cannot go further and cross the line'. 'It seems clear on the facts that you crossed the line into menacing or harassing behaviour. Whether the other person wants to interview is entirely a matter for him,' he said. 'You asked, he said no. That should have been the end of it ... All I would say to you is you're entitled to your views and express them, but you cannot go that extra step.' Graham is a self-described free thinker who goes by the name 'Guru'. Picture: Supplied Graham was due to face a hearing on Wednesday on two charges of stalking and intimidation but, after 11th-hour negotiations with police, pleaded to the single charge. Mr Shields sentenced Graham to a 12-month Commonwealth recognisance order, essentially a 'conditional suspended sentence', and a fine of $2,000. Graham, 62, is host of podcast 'Stop the rot, sack the lot', where he voices conspiracy theorist views, including Covid-scepticism and anti-government action. Days before his court appearance, Graham took aim at Wollongong MP Paul Scully over laws around people living in caravans, stating he should 'come chat with Guru'. Services Australia has surveyed staff about their pronouns and sexual orientation as part of a 'gender diversity' commitment. The move has been slammed as a waste of taxpayer money at a time when everyday Australians are already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. The questionnaire was facilitated by ACON, an HIV and LGBTQI advocacy and lobby group, as part of a 'Pride in Diversity' employer support program designed to improve inclusion of gender and sexually diverse people within workplaces. Staff were asked to tick a box which 'best described their gender identity', selecting from the options of male, female, non-binary or a different term. They were also asked to confirm whether they were straight, gay, bisexual, queer, pansexual, asexual, or if they use a different term. Liberal Senator Claire Chandler told Daily Mail Australia it was 'absurd that taxpayer money is being used not to help Australian households, but to promote a fringe ideology developed by a lobby group' - particularly given the cost-of-living crisis. Services Australia has surveyed staff about their pronouns and sexual orientation as part of a 'gender diversity' commitment. The move has been slammed as a waste of taxpayer money at a time when everyday Australians are already struggling with the cost of living crisis The questionnaire was facilitated by ACON - an LGBTQI advocacy and lobby group - as part of a 'Pride in Diversity' employer support program designed to improve inclusion in workplaces 'It's outrageous that government agencies are wasting public funds surveying staff on pronouns and whether they are pansexual or asexual. 'It's clear that the senior levels of the bureaucracy are obsessed with pushing gender ideology propaganda on their own staff and the Australian public.' Elsewhere in the survey, staff were asked to confirm their personal pronouns, and to reveal whether this was the same as their 'sex recorded at birth - as stated on the original birth certificate'. Staff were also asked if they considered themselves neurodivergent - which includes autism spectrum disorder and ADHD - or considered themselves diverse in another way which could be seen as 'a barrier to your career or being fully included at work'. They were ensured all submissions would be provided to Services Australia anonymously; however, there were several warnings written submissions would be provided 'as is', meaning if a participant provided details that could identify them, that would be passed on. When contacted for comment, a Services Australia spokesperson said the survey 'gives the agency a better understanding of the diversity within our teams'. They added: 'We are committed to building a culture where all staff are valued and recognised for their skills, qualities, ideas and perspectives.' Daily Mail Australia understands the survey was voluntary and about 10 per cent of staff opted to take part anonymously. ACON, which stands for Aids Council of NSW, sparked public outcry back in 2022 when it advocated for the words 'mother' and 'father' to be replaced with 'primary caregiver' and 'secondary caregiver' in the workplace. At the time, a spokesperson said the goal of the employer-support program was to create more inclusive workplaces for LGBTQI+ employees. Liberal Senator Claire Chandler (pictured) said it was 'absurd that taxpayer money is being used not to help Australian households, but to promote a fringe ideology... by a lobby group' 'Our members strive to be inclusive of all employees and create inclusive workplaces for all Australians. Pride in Diversity provides members with LGBTQ subject matter expertise in this aspect of their diversity and inclusion strategy,' the organisation said. 'Pride in Diversity was established following requests from employers, seeking advice and support in this area to enable parity with their international offices and emerging best practice in diversity and inclusion.' The organisation has several contracts on the go with government bodies, and Services Australia itself has boasted that it is recognised as a 'gold tier employer' on the Australian Workplace Equality Index, which is also run by ACON. Services Australia said: 'We've achieved this through inclusive HR policies, equal benefits for same-sex couples, access to paid and unpaid leave for transgender and gender diverse staff to affirm their gender and celebrating days of significance for LGBTI+ staff.' The government organisation also has an LGBTQI+ ally program which is designed to 'raise awareness' and teach other staff how to be good allies, and ensure that days of significance to the community are properly recognised and celebrated. Transgender and gender diverse staff have access to both paid and unpaid leave to affirm their gender, and staff are encouraged to wear business clothes which most accurately reflect their gender, as well as use facilities 'they feel comfortable using'. A young child who visited a hospital emergency department has been diagnosed with measles sparking a citywide health alert. NSW Health said patients and visitors to Blacktown Hospital, in Sydney's west, may have been exposed from 9.30am to 3pm last Friday. The infant, who is too young to be vaccinated, recently returned from South Asia where there have been outbreaks of measles in several countries. Western Sydney Local Health District director of public health Catherine Bateman said it is important to be on the lookout of symptoms if you, or someone you know, visited the hospital at those times, as reported by 9 News. Measles symptoms include fever, runny nose, sore eyes and a cough, usually followed three or four days later by a red, blotchy rash that spreads from the head to the rest of the body. NSW Health has confirmed an infant, who is too young to get the vaccine, has the measles after recently returning from South Asia. There has been a measles outbreak in several Asian countries Patients and visitors to Blacktown Hospital, in Sydney 's west, may have been exposed to the highly-infectious disease from 9.30am to 3pm last Friday. They have been warned to look out for symptoms, including a fever, runny nose and a blotchy rash that spreads from the head to the rest of the body Measles is spread through the air when someone who has the disease coughs or sneezes. There is a measles vaccine, making it preventable in those old enough to have the jab. Police will be allowed to march during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade on Saturday - but not in their uniforms. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb announced the change on Wednesday afternoon, revealing that officers will not wear their uniforms during the event 'in consideration of current sensitivities'. The controversy arose on Monday night after the event's organisers uninvited police from the parade following the arrest of senior constable Beaumont Lamarre-Condon. Lamarre-Comdon, 28, is accused of the murders of Channel 10 presenter Jesse Baird, 26, and his new boyfriend Luke Davies, 29, on February 19. It would have been the first Mardi Gras parade in 26 years that didn't feature a section for police officers marching with the LGBTQIA+ community. Police officers will be allowed to march in this Saturday's Mardi Gras parade in Sydney after event organisers backtracked on a decision made earlier this week (pictured, police at Mardi Gras) Commissioner Webb was elated that organisers decided to backtrack on their earlier decision and allow police officers to march. 'I am delighted that our LGBTQIA+ officers, as well as our other police who are allies and supporters, will be allowed to march this year,' she said in a statement. 'The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is an important event on the NSW Police calendar and as Commissioner, I am committed to continuing to strengthen the relationship between my organisation and the LGBTQIA+ community. 'I thank the Mardi Gras Board for the cordial discussions over the past few days.' The original decision made by the organisers was met with fierce backlash from those within the LGBTQIA+ community. Among those to voice their disappointment at the police ban was former ABC Radio host and gay rights advocate Julie McCrossin. 'As someone arrested multiple times during the early days of Gay Liberation in 1970s Sydney, cultural change and inclusiveness was what we were fighting for,' Ms McCrossin said. In an statement to the Sydney Mardi Gras website, organisers said the decision allowed for officers who 'volunteer their time and service to the community to participate in the event'. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb (pictured) was 'delighted' to announce that police would be appearing in the parade on Saturday The statement also reveals the decision to not allow police to march in their uniforms was to allow for officers to appear in a 'respectful way as we navigate this tragedy together'. 'This weekends Parade is a beacon of hope, pride, celebration and inclusivity,' the website reads. Discussions between police also touched on NSW Police implementing an external strategic LGBTQIA+ advisory panel following the Inquiry into LGBTQ Hate Crimes. 'Police and LGBTQIA+ communities have shared a difficult history, which must inform the continued development of communication and collaboration,' the statement reads. Shoppers have pointed out a glaring design fail in the car park of a newly opened shopping centre. Sutherland Shire locals who have visited Bay Central, in Sydney's south, over the last few weeks have been frustrated by the poorly positioned trolley bay. A photo shared on social media shows a line of ALDI shopping trolleys chained together at an allocated bay, however, the queue is so long it spills out and blocks half of the road. A resident posted the photo on Facebook and complained about the people responsible. 'As a species, there really is no future for us. These are returned Aldi trolleys blocking the road. Apparently longer on weekends,' he said. A photo shared on social media shows a line of ALDI shopping trolleys chained together at an allocated bay, however, the queue is so long it spills out and blocks half of the road inside the car park While the comment appeared to blame shoppers for continuing to add trolleys to the already overly long queue of them 'just to get their $1 back', a debate quickly erupted over who was really to blame with many suggesting it's not the shoppers. 'Stupid just stupid', one person agreed. However, others argued that the car park design is to blame, and not the shoppers who are merely doing what's expected by returning their trolleys. 'Not sure who came up with this one,' one person said of the layout. 'On the upside it means there have been a lot of lovely considerate people that have returned their trolleys to the correct area,' another wrote. Others thought the fault lies with the Aldi staff who are employed to clear the trolleys and return them to the supermarket. 'What surprises me is the amount of people in the comments shaming the shoppers who do this when it is clearly either a flaw in the design of the car,' one said. 'Aldi's fault for not returning their trolleys frequently enough,' another commented. 'This image perfectly draws attention to the issue that it is Aldi's responsibility to sort out. Hope it was shared with their store manager as well as posted here,' a third person said. A spokesperson for the shopping centre told Yahoo News Australia that Aldi, Dan Murphy's, and Woolworths 'are all responsible for the management of their own trolleys' A spokesperson for the shopping centre told Yahoo News Australia that Aldi, Dan Murphy's and Woolworths 'are all responsible for the management of their own trolleys'. 'This includes the collection of them from the car park trolley bays for return to store,' they said. Aldi has five separate trolley bays on the ground floor of the car park, with each able to take between 10-20 correctly stowed trolleys. 'We have brought this to the attention of our major retailers and raised a need to perhaps increase their operations regarding collection,' the spokesperson said. 'We also encourage customers to look for another bay nearby should the closest to them be full.' The trolley bays typically take up 6 metres in length and have been designed in specification with industry standards. Aldi had no comment to make when contacted by Daily Mail Australia. The crime is the latest in a number of violent acts by illegal migrants allegedly committed against US citizens An illegal migrant from El Salvador was arrested in Maryland and charged with murder in the case of a two-year-old who was shot and killed this month. Nilson Trejo-Granados, 25, was charged by the Prince George County Police Department with first and second-degree murder this week. The illegal migrant is the fifth person arrested in connection to the tragic death of toddler Jeremy Poou Caceres, who met his end while out on a walk in the park with his mother. On February 8, Jeremy and his mother were walking on Kanawha Street in Langley Park when shots were fired between two groups of men. The toddler and his mother were caught in the crossfire, and Jeremy was fatally struck. He was taken to Children's National hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Law enforcement officers say the gunfire was intended for Jeremy and his mom. Prior to the fatal encounter, Trejo-Granados, according to ICE and police records, has had several previous run-ins with the law. In March of last year, he was charged by the Montgomery police with theft. That arrested prompted ICE to lodge an Immigration Detainer on the criminal. The local police department, however, refused to honor the detainer and subsequently released Trejo-Granados back into the public. He was yet again arrested by the MCPD in September of 2023. He was charged with theft and attempting to obstruct and hindering. ICE again unsuccessfully lodged an Immigration Detainer that was not honored. Even before any of that, a DoJ immigration judge in Newark, New Jersey, ordered the man's removal from the United States in November of 2022. Now, Trejo-Granados having allegedly killed a baby, the MCDC will choose whether or not to keep him detained following a request from the ERO - Enforcement and Removal Operations - in Baltimore. The Prince George County PD's Homicide Unit has also arrested and charged two local teens, 15 and 16, as well as two other men they believe drove a stolen car to the crime scene and began shooting. Those involved have all been charged as adults and are being held without bond. Nilson Trejo-Granados, 25, - an illegal El Salvadorian migrant - was charged by the Prince George County Police Department with first and second-degree murder this week The toddler was out on a walk in the park with his mother when he was shot dead earlier this month News of the arrest comes as an illegal migrant from Venezuela was arrested in Virginia for the alleged sexual assault of a child. The sheriff's office in Campbell County, Virginia, arrested Renzo Mendoza Montes, a 32-year-old man, on a pair of felony charges that relate to the sexual assault of an underage individual. Deputies say Montes is a Venezuelan citizen who has been in the country illegally since September 3 of last year when he crossed the southern border into El Paso, Texas. He is currently believed to be in ICE custody. Another illegal immigrant from Venezuela, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, was arrested for the murder of 22-year-old UGA alum and August University nursing student at Laken Riley, who was found in a forested area last Thursday afternoon. Ibarra was charged with felony murder, false imprisonment, kidnapping and concealing the death of another and was denied bond on Saturday morning - he too had an impressive rap sheet before allegedly murdering his latest victim. Rapidly moving Texas wildfires that have 11 million under a 'red flag warning' have shut down a nuclear facility as strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures have fueled the blaze. The main facility that assembles and disassembles America's nuclear arsenal have evacuated most of its personnel on Tuesday night in Texas as fires raged out of control near its facility. Pantex issued a statement online saying it had paused operations until further notice. 'The fire near Pantex is not contained,' the company said. 'Response efforts have shifted to evacuations. There is a small number of non-essential personnel sheltered on-site.' Pantex has been the US' main assembly and disassembly site for the country's arsenal of atomic bombs since 1975. The last new bomb was assembled at the facility in 1991. In the years that followed, Pantex has also dismantled thousands of warheads. Rapidly moving Texas wildfires that have 11 million under a 'red flag warning' have shut down a nuclear facility as strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fueled the blaze Since 1975, Pantex has been the US' main assembly and disassembly site for the country's arsenal of atomic bombs The evacuation of Pantex's plant, located 30 miles east of Amarillo, comes as the four active wildfires are blazing through Texas as crews are working to contain the flames and citizens are ordered to evacuate. The Smokehouse Creek Fire has burned more than 200,000 acres since igniting Monday, and is at zero percent contained according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The towns of Canadian, Glazier and Higgins have issued evacuation orders for its residents, reported KVII. 'The Smokehouse Creek fire is being fueled by southwesterly winds to 60 mph and is rapidly spreading east-northeast towards the Texas town of Canadian,' said AccuWeather severe weather expert Dan Pearson. 'Between 3:30 p.m. CT and 4:30 p.m. CT, winds will shift behind a strong cold front and will quickly change the direction the fire will spread.' City officials from Fritch, Texas have also ordered evacuations due to a separate fire. The Grape Vine Creek Fire has reached 30,000 acres and is 20 percent contained. The Windy Deuce Fire is 8,000 acres and 20 percent contained, and the Juliet Pass Fire is 2,963 acres and 90 percent contained. Pantex issued a statement online saying it had paused operations until further notice The Smokehouse Creek Fire has burned more than 100,000 acres since igniting Monday, and is at zero percent contained Four active wildfires are blazing through the Texas Panhandle as crews are working to contain the flames The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for over 11 million Texans affected by the fires Hansford County Office of Emergency Management said on Facebook, 'The town is being threatened by the fire, and evacuations of the double Diamond area are being implemented per Judge Irwin Hutchinson County.' 'Judge Irwin personally thanked Hansford County for sending resources to assist! A disaster declaration is being ordered! Other evacuations in our area are as follows Canadian has been urged to evacuate and residents on the North River in Roberts county also.' The National Weather Service has issued a red flag warning for over 11 million Texans affected by the fires. Warm temperatures combined with gusty winds and dry conditions prompted the warning, according to Fox West Texas. The red flag warning is in effect from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and critical fire conditions are forecast to affect the northwestern Concho Valley and most of the Big Country. Strong westerly winds could reach 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 65 mph. 'Critical fire weather conditions continue through this evening across all of the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles due to strong west winds,' said the weather service. The National Weather Service has advised people to avoid outdoor activities that could create open flames or sparks. Texas Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said on Twitter, 'Fire weather today is going to be rough.' The red flag warning is in effect from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and critical fire conditions are forecast The towns of Canadian, Glazier and Higgins have issued evacuation orders for its residents 'We are surging additional resources into the area. Watch out for fire trucks and heavy equipment. Be ready to evacuate if ordered by your local officials.' The Texas A&M Forest Service said they responded to 13 wildfires for 77,135 acres on Monday. 'Several large wildfires ignited under warm, dry and windy conditions across the Texas Panhandle. Today, strong winds will likely impact these wildfires and the potential for new ignitions remains,' the service said on Twitter. AccuWeather meteorologist Dan DePodwin said, 'The strong winds impacting the fires in the Texas Panhandle are expected to continue Tuesday evening before diminishing to 15-25 mph after midnight.' 'Winds on Wednesday are expected to be 10-20 mph which is much calmer than Tuesday. This should aid in firefighting efforts.' Brittany Higgins and David Sharaz will return to Australia to face defamation proceedings against them by former defence minister Linda Reynolds. Senator Reynolds is suing Ms Higgins and her fiance Mr Sharaz for defamation in the Supreme Court of Western Australia over posts they each made on social media that she claims damaged her reputation. The matter is set to return to court for a mediation conference on Tuesday and a strategic conference on Wednesday. Ms Higgins and Mr Sharaz permanently relocated to France at the end of last year, having bought a house near Bordeaux. They had no plans to return to Australia, but it is understood they will voluntarily appear in court next week. Brittany Higgins (left) and David Sharaz (right) will return to Australia to face defamation proceedings against them by former defence minister Linda Reynolds The development comes just months after Ms Reynolds sought to freeze Ms Higgins' assets. She wrote a letter to Ms Higgins' lawyer Leon Zwier in December, pointing to reports stating the former political staffer had permanently moved to France. 'If such reports are true, we consider that an application for freezing orders is appropriate,' the letter read. 'Please advise as a matter of urgency your client's intentions in respect of her travel to France and your availability to confer in respect of our client's proposed application.' Linda Reynolds is suing Higgins and Sharaz for defamation in the Supreme Court of Western Australia over posts they each made on social media that she claims damaged her reputation Ms Higgins was handed a $2.4million compensation settlement by the Commonwealth over claims she was not supported by her bosses, including Ms Reynolds, when she first made her rape allegations in 2019. She accused her colleague Bruce Lehrmann of raping her in a ministerial office in Parliament House after a night out - accusations Mr Lehrmann has always denied. After airing her allegations publicly on The Project in 2021, the matter went to a criminal trial in late 2022 but was aborted due to juror misconduct. A proposed retrial was abandoned due to concerns over Ms Higgins' mental health and the charge against Mr Lehrmann was dropped. Ms Higgins' claims to the media are the subject of ongoing defamation proceedings after Mr Lehrmann sued Channel Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson. Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert's 18-year-old son was arrested Tuesday and faces 22 charges in connection to a series of vehicle break-ins and property thefts. Tyler Boebert was taken into custody around 2:30pm on Tuesday, according to police in the town of Rifle, Colorado, which is part of the district his mother still represents in Congress. The Republican lawmaker's son is facing nearly two dozen different charges, including four counts of criminal possession of a financial device, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and three counts of theft of under $300. The other charges range from four felony counts of criminal possession of an ID, a felony count of conspiracy to commit a felony and more than 15 different misdemeanor and petty charges. Boebert is listed as a current inmate at the Garfield County Jail, according to their records. Bond has not yet been set for his release. Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert's 18-year-old son was arrested Tuesday and faces 22 charges in connection to a series of vehicle break-ins and property theft Local police cited the recent series of vehicle trespasses and property theft in the town and the Rifle Police Department posted on its Facebook page on Tusday evening that the investigation is ongoing. DailyMail.com reached out to a spokesperson for Rep. Boebert for comment. Rep. Boebert still represents Colorado's 3rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, but announced earlier this year that she was moving her campaign to the state's 4th district. The lawmaker was facing a tough rematch with Democrat Adam Frisch, but also said the move is to give her family a 'fresh start' after a 'pretty difficult year.' The arrest Tuesday isn't the first time the teenage Boebert - who shares a son with an ex-girlfriend - has had a run-in with controversy. In April of last year, a friend alleged that an accident, in which Tyler was driving, left him with multiple concussions and a debilitating hand injury. Noble D'Amato, 19, accused the political family of covering it up. D'Amato, who was hospitalized with concussions and a severely lacerated hand after Tyler took a curve too fast and flipped his father's SUV into a creek bed at 11:30pm on September 17, 2022. D'Amato alleged that the injuries left him unable to continue his welding career. 'I still have problems with my hand,' he told Westword, a Denver-based publication. 'My thumb almost got cut off. It prevented me from getting a welding job, because I can't hold a TIG torch anymore. I'm a personal-care provider now.' Tyler Boebert was taken into custody at around 2:30pm on Tuesday, according to police in the town of Rifle, Colorado The Boerberts before the divorce are pictured with three of their four kids, including Tyler (center, back row), who has accused his father of physical abuse D'Amato says the younger Boebert was 'stone cold sober' at the time of the accident. 'And he still f**king flipped us,' D'Amato said. 'That shows you how much he just doesn't care. He was driving so f**king fast.' His backpack allegedly contained un-prescribed Xanax pills and a 'silver marijuana grinder w/small amount of marijuana,' which got the 19-year-old charged with unlawful possession of a schedule IV controlled substance and drug paraphernalia. 'I remember waking up with blood pouring out of my hand. I had put my hands up in the air to protect myself and got messed up really bad by the window or something. I was just glad to be alive,' D'Amato said. Tyler, Westword reported, got a careless driving ticket, which was later dropped down to a 'defective vehicle for headlights' ticket after the teenager accepted a plea deal. He had to go through a court-ordered driving school, dubbed 'Alive at 25,' and attend a court hearing on Monday, which is how news of the accident got out. Boebert's Congressional office infuriated D'Amato by releasing a statement to Westword, downplaying his injuries in an April 4 statement. 'The injury reported was superficial at best and was addressed by medical professionals out of caution,' Boebert's office said. D'Amato said the statement was 'bulls**t,' and said it was likely the congresswoman who was trying to sweep the severity of his injuries under the rug. Rep. Lauren Boebert's (pictured) Congressional office infuriated accident victim Noble D'Amato, 19, by releasing a statement downplaying the extent of his injuries after the congresswoman's son flipped a vehicle into a creek bed Lauren and Jayson married in 2005 and share four sons together (pictured). They filed for divorce in May 2023 'She's never liked me,' D'Amato said. 'But that doesn't give them the right to try and hide the fact that I was injured. They just don't give a f**k. It's the entire family.' Boebert's office's statement also said 'the incident involved two minors,' which is inaccurate, as D'Amato was 19 when the crashed occurred. When it happened, Tyler was still 17 and a minor, and thus his name was redacted. When he turned 18 in March 2023, the official report and case file became public. The young man has also had to cope with an allegedly abusive father, whom Congresswoman Boebert got a restraining order from earlier this month. Lauren, 37, and Jayson, 43, married in 2005 and split in 2023, but the couple have still made the headlines during what appears to be a rocky separation. In January, Jayson was arrested and charged just days after the couple were involved in a domestic violence incident at a Colorado restaurant. A few days later, he allegedly assaulted Tyler during an altercation over laundry at their home in Silt, Colorado, an arrest warrant revealed. Lauren Boebert was granted a temporary restraining order against her ex-husband Jayson Lauren and Jayson wed in 2005. They met while she was working at McDonald's at the age of 16. He was 22 at the time This booking photo provided by the Garfield County, Colo., Sheriff's Office shows Jayson Boebert 'Tyler described that Jayson shoved him by placing one hand in the area of his throat/neck and pushing back,' Deputy Cyd Ramirez wrote. A Colorado judge issued the order in early February, and it also included protections for the couple's three younger sons. 'Tyler became upset at this point,' Ramirez continued, adding that 'a physical altercation began between Jayson and him' quickly ensued. As the father and son fight escalated, he added, the father of four allegedly 'stuck his right hand thumb into Tyler's mouth.' The force of the maneuver, the Colorado cop claimed, made the teen fear that his father 'was going to pull his tooth out.' At some point during the struggle, Ramirez wrote, Tyler managed to get ahold of his cell phone and managed to call his mother, who last year became a grandmother after Tyler fathered a boy with his also-teenage girlfriend. The firebrand allegedly responded by telling the boy to call the cops, who eventually arrived on the scene Jayson was charged with misdemeanor assault, disorderly conduct, obstructing a police officer and aiming a firearm, and he was let out on $2,500 bond, according to court records. In her request for the restraining order, she mentioned their January 6 argument in a restaurant where he claimed she had hit him - a claim he later recanted and that police eventually said was unfounded. Jayson was uncooperative when police responded to the restaurant, which led to charges of disorderly conduct, third-degree criminal trespass and obstructing a peace officer, according to court documents. Jayson later told The Associated Press that he was the 'victim' in the incident. 'I would never harm Lauren I just want to move on and be in peace,' the told the outlet in a text message, He also accused his ex-wife of using the restraining order to 'justify' her move to a new congressional district. A real estate agent caught preying on young women during job interviews has been banned from working in the industry, a court has been told. Steven Tabban, 39, returned before the Victorian County Court for a pre-sentence on Wednesday after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual assault. Arguing the court should impose a fine or good behaviour bond, lawyer Emman Turnbull said the 20-year real estate veteran had his licence cancelled in August last year as a result of the offending. 'It was his identity, it was who he was, it was what he did,' she said. 'This has caused years of damage to his business ... He's lost his entire ability to engage in his career.' Steven Tabban, 39, returned before the Victorian County Court for a pre-sentence on Wednesday after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual assault The court was told the new dad's case had been adjourned last year to give him a chance to complete a 20-week men's behavioural change program and receive treatment from a psychologist. Ms Turnbull said Tabban had 'done everything the court had asked of him' and had demonstrated remorse, regret and insight into his offending. 'In my submission, that person ought to be afforded a chance to move on with his life,' she said. Ms Turnbull said Tabban had found the behavioural change program 'extremely helpful' in both his professional and home life. According to court documents, Tabban, the director of Create Real Estate in Sunshine, in Melbourne's west, intentionally sexually touched two young women without consent during after-hours interviews at his workplace. He tried to kiss one woman, touching her thigh and bra before she told him he was uncomfortable. The following year, he grabbed a woman's hand and attempted to compel her to touch his penis. Prosecutor Richard Pirrie argued a good behaviour bond would be inadequate and the court should impose a conviction for the offending Prosecutor Richard Pirrie argued a good behaviour bond would be inadequate and the court should impose a conviction for the offending. He pointed to Tabban's 'position of power' in the commission of the offences, his use of an isolated location and the age gap with his victims who were 19 and 21 at the time. Judge Gregory Lyon adjourned the case, saying he wanted time to consider the parties' submissions. Tabban will return to court at a later date. Police have seized 72 firearms from the home of French screen legend Alain Delon, who doesn't have a permit for any of them, prosecutors said Tuesday. Officers also found more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition and a shooting range in the actor's rural home in Douchy-Montcorbon, some 84 miles south of Paris. Delon, 88, 'has no authorisation that would allow him to own a firearm', said local prosecutor Jean-Cedrix Gaux. The star played gun-toting gangsters in several of his most famous films, including 'Borsalino' and is credited with creating the Hollywood trope of the mysterious cerebral hitman in the 1967 film 'The Samurai'. Delon has been in poor health since he suffered a stroke in 2019 and has recently been the centre of an escalating family feud. Police have seized 72 firearms from the home of French screen legend Alain Delon (pictured in 2019), who doesn't have a permit for any of them, prosecutors said Tuesday Officers also found more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition and a shooting range in the actor's rural home in Douchy-Montcorbon, some 84 miles south of Paris The search was ordered after a court-appointed official sent to his home noticed a weapon and alerted a judge. Delon has rarely appeared on screen since the 1990s. His last major public appearance was to receive an honorary Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019. He did, however, attend the Paris funeral of his friend and fellow star Jean-Paul Belmondo in September 2021. Last month, Delon's youngest son Anthony Delon, 59, reported his sister Anouchka Delon, 33, to French police for not telling him or his brother Alain-Fabien, 29, that their father had failed five cognitive tests at a private clinic in Switzerland. Those tests were particularly significant because Delon is currently in the middle of a family dispute over his 250million fortune. The veteran performer had even told his family that the Christmas just gone could be his last, making disputes over his Will even more poisonous. Delon's family have complained about him being exploited for his 'psychological weakness', saying that those close to him are after his financial assets and property. The feud went public after Delon's oldest son Anthony Delon told the Paris Match magazine that his father was in a 'weakened' state. In the January interview, Anthony said his sister 'left me no choice'. Anthony said: 'My sister never informed my brother and I that between 2019 and 2022 my father had been subjected to five cognitive tests during his visits to the clinic in Switzerland and that he passed none of them. 'According to doctors, these tests demonstrate cognitive degradation which places my father in a position of psychological weakness and therefore vulnerability.' In July, the three children evicted Delon's 60-year-old live-in partner, Hiromi Rollin, from the countryside estate they shared at Douchy-Montcorbon, south of Paris. Delon had a stroke in 2019 and according to his daughter and sons' depositions Ms Rollin was cruel to him, and his Belgian Shepherd dog, Loubo, while also stealing money. They feared the ultimate aim of Ms Rollin, who denies any wrongdoing, was to get her hands on Delon's entire fortune. Veteran French actor Alain Delon is pictured here in a 1960 portrait Delon senior, through his lawyer, said he was 'shocked' and would file a complaint for defamation. Concerns were first raised about him last year when his three children filed a complaint against his former live-in assistant Hiromi Rollin, accusing her of harassment and threatening behaviour. Delon is estimated to be worth millions. He sold some 80 works of art at auction in June for more than eight million euros. Prince William will still attend other events later this week after missing yesterday's memorial service for the late King Constantine of Greece, it can be revealed. The Prince of Wales is said to be 'looking forward' to undertaking remaining public engagements after pulling out of the service due to an unspecified 'personal matter'. William is expected to attend a sensitive meeting with members of the Jewish community and other faiths at a synagogue as part of a series of visits to highlight the work of organisations trying to bring peace and relief to the Middle East. The Prince, whose wife Kate continues to recover at home following her abdominal surgery, also has a number of engagements to mark St David's Day on Friday. Kensington Palace has not elaborated on what caused William to miss yesterday's service at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, but insisted Kate was 'doing well'. William's name had even been printed in the order of service because he had been due to give a Bible reading from Revelation 21:1-7 in honour of his late godfather. Prince William was last seen attending the Bafta Film Awards 2024 in London on February 18 Kate was last seen on Christmas Day 2023 with her family attending church at Sandringham Prince William's title was on the order of service yesterday, published before he pulled out Queen Camilla led the royal family at yesterday's service, attended by a large number of Constantine's family and foreign royalty, as King Charles III continues to receive treatment for cancer. William called the Greek royal family to let them know he was unable to attend, and Crown Prince Pavlos stood in for the British heir to the throne's reading. Kate left hospital on January 29 and returned to her Adelaide Cottage home close to Windsor Castle but is not expected to return to official duties until after Easter. William was last seen at the Baftas on February 18, while Kate has not been seen since Christmas at Sandringham. The King stayed overnight at Windsor Castle but did not meet any of the guests ahead of the service and had left before a reception was held afterwards at the royal residence. Charles was close to his second cousin Constantine, who was a first cousin once removed and sailing partner of the late Duke of Edinburgh. Constantine died at the age of 82 in January last year, decades after being toppled from the throne in a military coup. Camilla stands between Princess Anne and Greece's Queen Anne-Marie in Windsor yesterday Prince Andrew was the next most senior royal present at the service yesterday, after Camilla Guests attend a thanksgiving service for the life of King Constantine in Windsor yesterday The King was later spotted arriving in the capital where he is expected to receive further cancer treatment as an outpatient. He was photographed arriving at Clarence House and since his diagnosis has postponed all public-facing duties, but is continuing with behind-the-scenes work on his red boxes of state papers and his weekly meetings with the Prime Minister. Constantine was also godfather to Prince and Princess of Michael of Kent's daughter Lady Gabriella Kingston. She did not attend, although her parents did, and it later emerged Lady Gabriella's husband Thomas Kingston died suddenly on Sunday but William's absence was not connected to this. Lady Gabriella paid tribute to her financier husband in a joint statement with his family, describing him as an 'exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him'. They described his death as a 'great shock to the whole family'. The King and Queen sent their 'most heartfelt thoughts and prayers' to Lady Gabriella, who is known as Ella, and Mr Kingston's parents and siblings. Andrew leads Royal Family members including the Tindalls to St George's Chapel yesterday King Charles III is seen outside Clarence House in London yesterday after leaving Windsor Zara and Mike Tindall and the Princess Royal attend the service at Windsor Castle yesterday Yesterday at Windsor, among others in the congregation were the disgraced Duke of York who with ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York led the main contingent of British royals as they walked downhill from the castle to the church. Andrew smiled as he strode ahead of Sarah followed by their daughter Princess Beatrice with husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, the Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Zara and Mike Tindall and the King's cousin Lady Sarah Chatto. Constantine II's widow Queen Anne-Marie was joined by their children, Crown Prince Pavlos, Princess Alexia, Prince Nikolaos, Princess Theodora, Prince Philippos, and a number of their grandchildren. Former prime minister Sir John Major was also invited by the Greek royal household to the service as was ex-Formula One racing driver Sir Jackie Stewart and King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain. An Amish mother-of-two who was also six months pregnant was found dead from gunshot wounds inside of her home in the rural Pennsylvania community. The shocking crime has left investigators baffled. Rebekah Byler, 23, was found dead by a family member on Fish Flats Road in Sparta Township, around 40 miles southeast of Erie, after police were called to the scene on Monday at around 12.30 pm. State Police said they are investigating Byler's death as a homicide, uncommon in parts of the Erie region with a large Amish population. However, they said they are 'aggressively investigating all available leads'. Byler's two other children were in the property unharmed when the body was discovered by police. Rebekah Byler, 23, was found dead by a family member on Fish Flats Road in Sparta Township after police were called to the scene on Monday at around 12.30 pm Police had no suspects as of Tuesday afternoon, The Erie Times-News reported. The autopsy is pending and police have yet to release any other details. Neighbors told WJET/WFXP that Byler was six months pregnant and that it was her husband that made the horrifying discovery. Byler was found with gunshot wounds, KDKA-TV reported. The 'heartbroken' Spartansburg community said Byler's death has affected all of its residents. 'Buncha good people everyone seems to get along with them. Everyone is just stunned. Nobody could even imagine that this kind of stuff is going on,' local resident Randy Eaton told WJET-TV. 'It's definitely shameful that anything like this could go on here. There's not a person who's not concerned. Everyone is surprised.' 'We're just a very tight-knit community and I'm absolutely heartbroken that this has happened. I'm very very concerned about the Amish community I'm worried for them,' said the owner of Spartansburg Pharmacy, Charleen Hajec. 'This is very shocking, very shocking, and especially to not know what happened and what's going on, but it's just very very shocking,' Hajec added. Police are asking anyone in the area of Fish Flats Road who might have seen suspicious people, cars or activity to contact them. Police at the scene. The Pennsylvania State Police said they are investigating Byler's death as a homicide, uncommon in parts of Erie region with a large Amish population In July 2021, a Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the 2020 death of an 18-year-old Amish girl. Justo Smoker was sentenced to 35 and a half to 71 years in prison, with an additional 17 and a half years that could be added for a parole violation, for the death of Linda Stoltzfoos. He also pleaded guilty to kidnapping, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and possession of an instrument of crime. The young girl's remains were found in rural Pennsylvania in April 2021, 10 months after her disappearance. The Lancaster County coroner used dental records to positively identify the body of Stoltzfoos. The cause of death was asphyxia from strangulation, along with suffocation, the coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, said following the autopsy. He said the stab wound was a contributing factor in her death. Stoltzfoos was last seen walking home from church in the Bird-in-Hand area on June 21, 2020. Her remains were wrapped in a tarp and buried in a three-foot-deep grave along railroad tracks behind Dutchland Inc, a business where Smoker had worked. It is in the small town of Gap along Route 41. Smoker, of Paradise, was charged with homicide in December 2020 after being arrested in August of that year. Officials previously said that the suspect's DNA was discovered on the victim's stocking. Bird-in-Hand is known for its large Amish population, and tourists come to visit the Amish Village heritage museum there. Pennsylvania and Ohio have the highest concentration of Amish communities in the US. Vladimir Putin's air force has been blitzed by Ukraine over the past ten days - with ten of its warplanes worth a total of 611 million reportedly wiped out in an embarrassing setback for the invaders. As it announced that two of Russia's Su-34 fighter-bombers had been blasted out of the sky yesterday, Ukraine's defence ministry boasted that it had eliminated ten enemy planes in as many days - a rate of loss that Russia's air force cannot sustain. The loss of the bombers will have set Putin's army back millions, with each worth 39m ($50m). Other planes Kyiv claims to have taken out this month include two SU-35 jets, costing 34m ($43m) each, and an A-50U AWACS reconnaissance plane - which intel suggests cost Russia 260m ($330m). The strikes will be a welcome success for Kyiv, but come at a difficult time, with Russia advancing and recently claiming its first major victory since May in Avdiivka after months of bitter fighting. Ukraine's weapons supplies have also been choked, with shortages of munitions including its crucial 90-mile-range, US-made Patriot air-defense missiles - making it even more important that the Ukrainian forces hit their targets. The dramatic moment was caught on video and follows a Kyiv claim yesterday that two Vladimir Putin Su-34 fighter-bombers and one Su-35 fighter, totalling more than $100million, had been shot down Two Russian planes were shot down on Monday with a grainy image shared by Ukraine's Air Force Chief purporting to show the moment the wreckage of one fell from the sky Dramatic images have emerged over recent days showing what Ukraine says is Russian fighter jets and a reconnaissance plane plummeting out of the sky over the east of the country. Posting on Telegram, Ukraine's Air Force Commander used the success as a warning to Russian troops: 'I advise the occupiers to see their relatives before each flight, just in case. Because who knows, he will be lucky or not this time.' He added that Russia would be wise to reconsider its 'airborne meat assaults' given the level of destruction to its air force in such a short time span. 'Russian planes continue to fall!' the Ukrainian defense ministry said. Ten days before, Ukraine shot down two Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers and one Su-35 fighter in the skies over eastern Ukraine, according to the air force chief. Russian FighterBomber Telegram channel initially claimed there were 'no losses' and that the Ukrainians were 'lying'. Other Russian channels 'confirmed that the Ukrainian military shot down at least one Russian Su-35 aircraft'. 'On the morning of February 17, 2024, in the eastern (sector), units of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed three enemy aircraft at once - two Su-34 fighter-bombers and one Su-35 fighter,' Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on Telegram. 'This is our land, and our sky!' he declared victoriously, adding: 'There will be moredon't hang around!' He was true to his word, with successive strikes reportedly seeing another Su-25 and five more Su-34s obliterated. The destruction of the nine jets would represent a loss to Moscow of advanced warplanes worth in excess of 341m in total. Ukrainian forces have shot down seven Su-34 bombers over the past 10 days (file photo) Mykola Oleshchuk said that two Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers and one Su-35 fighter (file photo) in the skies over eastern Ukraine On February 23, Ukraine dealt yet another huge blow to Moscow's forces, downing a 270m ($330m) Russian spy plane over Krasnodar. Video showed huge plumes of smoke billowing from the wreckage after the A-50U reconnaissance plane's wing was reportedly torn off by a hit from a revamped S-200 Soviet-era long-range air defence missile - a staggering blow to Russia's already diminishing collection. Ten crew were reported to have been found dead at the crash site, though the planes typically carry 15 meaning the death toll could be higher. It came down in Russia's Krasnodar region, where Putin's official Black Sea residence and private 1billion palace are located. Russia now only has six of its state-of-the art spy planes remaining after another of the pricey aircraft was blasted out of the sky last month, according to Ukraine. Russian sources initially blamed friendly fire but Ukrainian sources said the A-50U was downed 'as part of a joint operation of [Kyiv's] Main Intelligence Directorate and the Ukrainian Air Force'. On February 23, Ukraine dealt yet another huge blow to Moscow 's forces, downing a $330m Russian A-50 spy plane (file image) Video showed smoke billowing from the crash site of a spy plane in Krasnodar, western Russia The loss of the A-50U - the second in six weeks - will mean a severe blow to Putin's aerial reconnaissance, harming Russia's ability to pinpoint targets for missile strikes and monitor Ukrainian battlefield deployments. Some accounts say it was flying over the Sea of Azov when it was hit. It came down near Primorsko-Akhtarsk. Ukraine's GUR military intelligence directorate said: 'The last flight of the A-50U took place on February 23, 2024 at 15:50 from the Akhtubinsk airfield and was supposed to carry out terrorist tasks of the aggressor state of Russia near the settlements of Primorsko-Akhtarsk - Zernograd. 'An abrupt stop of the Bumblebee radar complex's workwas recorded by GUR's radio technical intelligence stations at 18:45. 'The fire damage of the modernised A-50U of the Russian Air Force was confirmed by the radio interception of the conversation of the Su-35 cover crew. 'One of the Russian pilots reports on the radio that he observed the work of air defense, flash and explosions.' 'Congratulations to the occupiers on the Defender of the Fatherland day,' said a sardonic Ukrainian aroid force commander General Mykola Oleshchuk. Since receiving advanced Western air defence systems, Kyiv has been able to deploy these weapons to pose an increasing threat to Russian aviation. The successes come as the war grinds into its third year, with Kyiv continuing to lobby for support as Moscow holds its line and achieved recent gains in the east of the country. Euphoria star Hunter Schafer was among the 30 pro-Palestinian protesters who were arrested for storming the lobby of New York City's Rockefeller Center during President Joe Biden's chat with Seth Meyers. Schafer, 25, who portrays transgender Jules Vaughn in the hit HBO drama, was issued a summons for trespassing after participating in the demonstration Monday night, sources told the New York Post. The actress, sporting a 'cease-fire now' shirt, was escorted out of the complex by a NYPD officer, photographs show. Her hands were restrained behind her back. The protesters were trying to send a message to Biden, who was taking part in a taping of Late Night with Seth Meyers upstairs. They held up large signs that said, 'Jews to Biden: End Israel's Siege of Gaza' and chanted 'end the siege of Gaza now' and 'Biden, Biden you can't hide...' as they flooded the lobby. Biden, 81, briefly addressed the ongoing conflict after the demonstration while making an ice cream run with Meyers. He said that he 'hoped' a pause in fighting could come 'by the end of the weekend', adding that his 'national security adviser tells me that we're close'. His remark 'surprised' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who while Qatar, the mediator in ceasefire talks, said Israel and Hamas are not close to a potential deal. Euphoria star Hunter Schafer was among the 33 pro-Palestinian protesters who were arrested for storming the lobby of New York City 's Rockefeller Center on Monday. She is pictured as officers escorted her out of the building Schafer joined the Jewish Voice for Peace organization as protesters occupied 30 Rock on Monday for a sit-in. The protesters were trying to send a message to Biden, who was taking part in a taping of Late Night with Seth Meyers upstairs. They held up large signs that said, 'Jews to Biden: End Israel 's Siege of Gaza ' and chanted 'end the siege of Gaza now' and 'Biden, Biden you can't hide...' as they flooded the lobby Schafer, 25, who portrays transgender Jules Vaughn in the hit HBO drama, was issued a summons for trespassing after participating in the demonstration Monday night, sources have claimed. The actress is pictured in season one of Euphoria with co-star Zendaya Schafer joined the Jewish Voice for Peace organization as protesters occupied 30 Rock on Monday for a sit-in. The group signaled they were made up of Jewish-Americans, sporting T-shirts that read 'Not In Our Name'. The group, in a thread on X, said that 'hundreds of Jews and allies' had 'taken over' Rockefeller Center to 'make it clear' to the president that 'supporters of genocide are not welcome in our city'. 'The President needs to start answering to the American people - not the far-Right Israeli government indiscriminately bombing the people of Gaza, destroying 70 per cent of infrastructure, including hospitals, universities and the electricity and water grids,' the organization tweeted. The group argued there is 'growing public consensus' to end 'further loss of life in Gaza' and called on Biden to take action. They criticized his 'deadly foreign policy', citing how the US vetoed multiple UN ceasefire resolutions and how the president has 'pledged an additional $14.1billion in military funding to Israel'. Protesters took over the lobby of 30 Rock on Monday as President Joe Biden was taping an episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers upstairs Pro-Palestinian protesters take over NBC's Rockefeller Center lobby where US President Joe Biden will appear for 'Late Night with Seth Meyers' on Monday Pro-Palestine demonstrators hold a sign demanding a 'ceasefire' outside NBC's Rockefeller Center on Monday The Jewish Voice for Peace organization as protesters occupied 30 Rock on Monday for a sit-in. The group, in a thread on X, said that 'hundreds of Jews and allies' had 'taken over' Rockefeller Center to 'make it clear' to the president that 'supporters of genocide are not welcome in our city' New York Police officers and security personnel watch demonstrators as they protest inside the Rockefeller Center on Monday, asking Biden for a ceasefire in Gaza Pro-Palestinian protesters stormed into the lobby of New York's Rockefeller Center to send a message to President Joe Biden, who was taking part in a tape of Late Night With Seth Meyers upstairs The group said that 50 demonstrators were arrested during Monday's protest, however NYPD told DailyMail.com that 30 people were taken into custody and issued summonses for trespass. Jewish Voice for Peace seemed to confirm that Schafer was among those arrested by retweeting several posts sharing photos of police escorting the actress out of the building. DailyMail.com has approached the NYC chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace for comment. Schafer, a North Carolina native, is no stranger to public protests. The performer, who transitioned to female as a teenager, protested her home state's so-called 'bathroom bill', which restricted bathroom access for transgender individuals. She attended a rally during a special session of the North Carolina General Assembly in Raleigh in December 2016, arguing for the repeal of the law, WUNC reported. Schafer, then 18 and a high school senior, held a sign that read: 'Trans youth exist, are valid, [and] deserve basic human rights.' Schafer, a North Carolina native, is no stranger to public protests. The performer, who transitioned to female as a teenager, protested her home state's so-called 'bathroom bill', which restricted bathroom access for transgender individuals Schafer, then 18 and a high school senior, attended a rally during a special session of the North Carolina General Assembly in Raleigh in 2016, arguing for the repeal of the law Biden was a surprise guest for Meyers' 10th anniversary episode of the late night show on Monday. He appeared on the program alongside comedian Amy Poehler. He was Meyers' first guest in 2014, during his tenure as President Barack Obama's vice president. As part of the taping, Biden and Meyers went next door to the Van Leeuwen ice cream parlor. He chose a mint chocolate chip cone. During the jaunt the president was asked when a ceasefire in Gaza could begin. 'I hope by the end of the weekend,' the president answered. 'My national security adviser tells me that we're close, we're close, we're not done yet. My hope is by next Monday we'll have a ceasefire.' Israeli officials expressed mild confusion about Biden's newfound optimism in the ice cream shop. Netanyahu was 'surprised' by Biden's remarks, according to a senior Israeli political source speaking to ABC News. Another source described Hamas' demands in order to reach a ceasefire were 'still delusional.' President Joe Biden (right) eats a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone at New York's Van Leeuwan Ice Cream alongside comedian Seth Meyers (left) President Joe Biden (left) answered questions about a possible ceasefire in Gaza and his trip Thursday to a Texas border town as he ate ice cream in New York City alongside Seth Meyers (right) The president was also asked about his dueling trip Thursday to a Texas border town. Biden will head Brownsville, Texas to survey the situation at the US-Mexico border, while former President Donald Trump will go to Eagle Pass, Texas. 'I planned it for Thursday, what I didn't know was that my good friend apparently is going,' Biden told reporters. He wouldn't say if he'd meet migrants on the ground. 'I'm not going to announce ahead of time,' the president said. During a gaggle on board Air Force One heading to New York Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked to confirm that Biden would be appearing on Meyers show and if the secrecy was to keep away protesters. 'I don't have anything on that, if we have more to share certainly we will,' she said when asked about an appearance on Meyers' show. 'I don't have anything else to share on that,' she added when asked the White House was concerned about protests, which is why details about the president's schedule were not being shared. A rapist freed from an eight year jail sentence and pardoned by Vladimir Putin so he could fight in Ukraine has been detained again after allegedly sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Nikolai Nechaev, 38, from the city of Perm, is the latest of dozens of prisoners, including murderers and rapists, freed by Putin, to have committed new offences after serving in his forces and having their jail terms personally annulled by the dictator. Nachaev was previously convicted of a 2019 rape, among other crimes. He fought for Russia in Ukraine for six months ending in November, when he was fully pardoned from his previous crime. Only three months later, in February, he is believed to have targeted his next victim. Pardoned rapist Nikolai Nechaev, 38, detained again in Russia on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old schoolgirl - only three months after he came out of the army The rapist served his six mandatory months in the military after being released from prison The alleged sex attack on the young girl carries a jail term of between eight and 15 years under Russian law. Nechaev is suspected of 'committing violent acts of a sexual nature' against his schoolgirl victim. He is currently detained pending further investigations. When he was released by Putin's regime in May 2023, he was assigned to the 'special military operation' and left to fight for the brutal Wagner military group. At that time the minimum contract for a released convict stood at six months - and that is precisely what Nechaev signed up for. Now, a criminal case has been initiated under Part 3 of Article 132 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The offender doesn't seem to be able to be free for very long before committing another crime. The rape in 2019 happened only one month after being released from a previous prison sentence for other crimes. However, according to news outlet Dialog, Russian news reports say Nechaev apparently hopes to avoid a full term of imprisonment yet again by enlisting again to fight in the war. It remains unclear if he will be able to for a second time. He was in prison serving an eight-year sentence for the rape of a woman in 2019 CCTV footage from the time showed the dangerous criminal following his victim in the dark The haunting footage shows the rapist walking onto a lift after having followed the woman Putin, desperate to increase his military numbers in almost any way possible, began pardoning prisoners not long after the start of the war. In 2023, the Ministry of Defence said: 'In the coming weeks, thousands of Russian convicts who have fought for Wagner Group are likely to be pardoned and released. 'Wagner prisoner recruitment peaked in autumn 2022, with inmates being offered commutation of their sentences after six months of service. 'Although approximately half of the prisoners recruited have likely been killed or wounded, evidence from Russia suggests the group is following through on its promise to free survivors.' It added that certificates issued to released Wagner veterans were 'endorsed by the decree of President Putin'. But the MoD said that the freeing of the recruited prisoners will cause significant personnel problems for the Wagner group and for Putin's military. Nechaev was only out for three months before allegedly sexually assaulting his next victim He was sentenced to eight years for the 2019 rape of a 20-year-old woman, but was released According to Russian news reports, the rapist is going to try to be released yet again to fight Now dead Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said a large number of those released had died Yevgeny Prigozhin, the now dead Wagner leader whose plane 'crashed' after he launched a rebellion on the Kremlin in June, spoke the previous January about releasing convicts to fight, or rather, releasing them to die. As reported by the BBC, he said that over the course of a year, Wagner recruited 49,000 prisoners to fight and only 32,000 returned. That's a much lower proportion than he originally promised but independent researchers believe the real number of survivors is even lower, about 20,000. In a video in January welcoming ex-convicts home, Prigozhin tells them: 'You were an offender, as they say - now you're a war hero!' Lee Anderson showed no sign of retreating from the furore over his attack on Sadiq Khan today, as a new poll showed a slump in Tory support and a boost in backing for Reform since it broke. As the former Conservative chairman flirted with joining the party set up by Nigel Farage he denied being a racist amid a bloody row over his claim that the Muslim mayor of London was 'controlled by Islamists'. The Ashfield MP continues to apologise for comments that have infuriated the opposition and some of his own former Tory colleagues, using an interview today to accuse Mr Khan and others of being 'very quick to use the race card for political advantage'. He also lashed out at his critics in the Conservative Party, saying they had fallen into a 'race trap'. It came as a new poll by Savanta showed Labour extending its lead over the Tories to 18 points, 44 per cent to 26 per cent. Reform has reached a new high of 10 per cent, suggesting the row is dividing potential Tory voters, further hindering the party's shrinking chances of retaining power at the election. It came as a new poll by Savanta showed Labour extending its lead over the Tories to 18 points, 44 per cent to 26 per cent. The Ashfield MP continues to apologise for comments that have infuriated the opposition and some of his own former Tory colleagues, using an interview today to accuse Mr Khan and others of being 'very quick to use the race card for political advantage'. Chris Hopkins, Savanta's political research director said: 'Ahead of the Rochdale by-election and a make-or-break spring budget, our findings will not make pretty reading for the Conservative Party. Labour's wobble, if there ever was one, appears to have stabilised.' 'Reform recording their highest ever vote share in a Savanta poll is notable, but I remain sceptical of their electoral prowess. 'They certainly have the potential to really hurt the Conservatives at the next election, but their voters are not just Tories-in-disguise. Mobilising their supporters will be incredibly important if they are to achieve anything like a 10 per cent vote share at the actual General Election.' In a segment on GB News - which pays him 100,000 a year as a presenter - Mr Anderson said: 'I don't actually believe that these Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they've got control of Khan and they've got control of London and they've got control of Starmer as well. 'Again, this stems with Khan, he's actually given our capital city away to his mates. 'Beware, because if you let Labour in through the back door, expect more of this and expect our cities to be taken over by these lunatics.' He was suspended by the Tories on Saturday. Last night it was revealed that on Sunday he held secret talks with Reform UK leader Richard Tice at motorway hotel near his constituency. Writing in the Express today, Mr Anderson said he had 'not made one single racist comment', adding: 'The simple fact is I am not a racist but in this day and age the opposition are very quick to use the race card for political advantage and unfortunately some of my colleagues also fell into the race trap.... 'I do not believe the Mayor is an Islamist, I just think he does not care about our beautiful city. And people in high places should have more sense than to make these outrageous claims that I am racist or Islamophobic. 'But, then again, they are doing it for political gain and some people are falling for it.' Mr Anderson, who was formerly a Labour councillor before being suspended and then defecting to the Tories in 2018, told ITV he had received 'lots of support privately in WhatsApp groups and messages' from Conservative MPs since the decision to remove the whip. Asked what he made of the decision by Tory leader Mr Sunak to remove the whip over his comments about Mr Khan, Mr Anderson said: 'That is up to him. 'He has got a tight ship to run. He thinks he has made the right decision. I don't think he has made the right decision. 'I don't hold any malice towards him. He is the boss, he is the manager. He has to do what he has to do. And I have got no complaints at all.' Senior Conservatives have described the remarks as 'wrong' but have so far stopped short of describing them as 'Islamophobic'. Mr Khan, a practising Muslim, has urged the Prime Minister to call out the remarks as racist and Islamophobic. Pro-Palestinian activists have dismissed a call from James Cleverly to scale back protests causing havoc in London and sparking safety fears for MPs. The Home Secretary has appealed for an end to fortnightly Gaza demos, saying they have 'made their point' and are putting a 'huge pressure' on police resources. 'I think the organisers should recognise that they've made their point, they've made it loudly and they're not adding to it by repeating themselves,' he said. It came as the National Police Chiefs' Council revealed that forces had spent nearly 30million patrolling the protests since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7 last year. Ministers are contemplating extending the notice period that needs to be given for the protests from six days to two weeks. But activists immediately vowed to continue with the demonstrations. John Rees of the Stop of War coalition branded Mr Cleverly a 'political opponent'. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the marches are 'in response to the fact that 30,000 Palestinians are dead in Gaza'. 'When that stops will be an appropriate time for us to reconsider whether or not the demonstrations are necessary any longer,' he said. James Cleverly said pro-Palestine protests, which are now taking place every fortnight in the capital, need to stop as they are 'not really saying anything new' Pro-Palestinian protesters gather at Parliament Square as British MPs debated a motion on a ceasefire in Gaza last Tuesday Protestors from the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign gather at Twickenham Stadium during a protest against an arms fair in south west London earlier today Pro-Palestine protesters have been taking to the streets of the capital, and other large cities across the UK, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, where thousands of people have now been killed. During their rallies protesters have brandished banners and chanted 'from the river to the sea' - a song deemed anti-Semitic and a direct call for the state of Israel to be destroyed. Police officers have responded to more than 900 demonstrations across the UK between October 7 and December 10 last year, with the Met Police alone spending 18.9million on the protests. Speaking with the Times on a visit to Washington, Mr Cleverly said: 'It is putting a huge amount of pressure onto UK policing, not just the Metropolitan Police but also other police forces. And the question I ask myself is, 'What are these protests genuinely hoping to achieve?' 'They have made a point and they made it very, very loudly and I'm not sure that these marches every couple of weeks add value to the argument. They're not really saying anything new.' The cost of the protest has led the NPCC to call on the Treasury for more funding, warning that 'costs will continue to mount' if protesters continue to flood Britain's streets. Pro-Palestine protesters have shut down Tower Bridge in demand of a ceasefire in Gaza A crying child is carried as search and rescue efforts continue in Rafah, Gaza Smoke rises over the residential areas following the Israeli attacks in Rafah, Gaza Mr Cleverly added that no MP should feel 'bullied' to change their views on the conflict in the Middle East because of the protests. The Government will now consider changing protest rules to give police officers more than the six days' current notice as part of a range of measures recommended by the home affairs committee. The next rally is due to be held a week on Saturday and comes after police were forced to close Tower Bridge when protesters shut it down. The bridge was completely engulfed in smoke as activists, some wearing masks and shouting into megaphones, let off green flares in support of Palestine. The protests have continued to be a source of tension in Westminster with MPs divided over how best to handle the situation. Ashfield MP Mr Anderson sparked outrage with his comments on Friday that were labelled 'Islamphobic' and 'racist' by the London Mayor. Speaking on GB News Mr Anderson had said that Mr Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London, was controlled by Islamists and has 'given our capital away to his mates'. Lee Anderson has been suspended by the Conservative party after he refused to apologise for 'Islamophobic, racist' comments where he claimed that London Mayor Sadiq Khan was controlled by 'Islamists' Pressure had been mounting on Rishi Sunak to take action over the comments from the Ashfield MP, with Mr Khan (pictured) saying the 'deafening silence' of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet amounted to condoning racism He said: 'I don't actually believe that these Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they've got control of Khan and they've got control of London and they've got control of Starmer as well. 'Again, this stems with Khan, he's actually given our capital city away to his mates. 'Beware, because if you let Labour in through the back door, expect more of this and expect our cities to be taken over by these lunatics.' Mr Khan said the comments from the senior Conservative MP 'pour fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred'. It led to Mr Anderson having the whip removed from him, with Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden adding that if he were to apologise he may be let back in. However defiant Mr Anderson last night refused to apologise to the Labour mayor 'while I've still got breath in my body' for the controversial attack. In a statement, which suggests there is no prospect of an imminent return to the Conservative fold, Mr Anderson said it would be a 'sign of weakness' to apologise 'when you think you are right'. Tonight it was revealed that the MP was holding secret talks with the Reform UK leader Richard Tice around 24 hours after he was stripped of the Tory whip. The rendezvous in South Normanton, Derbyshire - just 10 miles from Mr Anderson's constituency - is said to have happened after Mr Tice agreed to meet Mr Anderson on his journey back from Reform's conference in Doncaster. Jesse Baird's housemates slept inside their Sydney home while his body and that of his boyfriend Luke Davies lay just metres away after the couple were allegedly murdered. Alleged killer cop Beau Lamarre-Condon is accused of murdering the couple at Mr Baird's rental in Paddington before ditching their bodies in a shallow bush grave in the NSW Southern Tablelands. The pair were allegedly shot dead at the $3million terrace home at about 9.50am on February 19. Police allege Lamarre-Condon returned later with a hire van to dispose of the bodies. However, in the meantime Mr Baird's housemates returned to the home to find it in a dishevelled state, 7News reported. Jesse Baird (right) and Luke Davies (left) were allegedly murdered at Baird's home on February 19 Mr Baird's roomates reportedly saw a red stain, which they had assumed was beetroot juice, in the backyard on the night of the couple's alleged murder (pictured, a forensic officer at the Paddington home) They saw a red stain in the backyard but reportedly came to the innocent assumption that Mr Baird had simply spilled a can of beetroot juice. That red stain is believed to have been blood seeping from a blue tarpaulin that was covering the couple's bodies. The housemates went to sleep that night with the bodies still in the backyard. Lamarre-Condon later allegedly returned to the home and stuffed the bodies inside surfboard bags before removing them. New South Wales Police claim just two days before the alleged murders, Lamarre-Condon bought just one surfboard bag from a store in Miranda, south-east Sydney. However, he returned to buy a second surf bag after the alleged killings. Police allege that Lamarre-Condon only intended to kill Mr Baird at his Paddington terrace home last Monday. 'We will be strongly claiming in our case that this murder was premeditated and the second murder occurred because, unfortunately, of Luke's appearance at the house,' Assistant Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald told Nine News on Wednesday. Police are currently treating the alleged double murder as a domestic violence incident. Mr Baird and Mr Davies' remains were unearthed on Tuesday after being found behind a mound of dirt near Bungonia in the NSW Southern Tablelands. Their bodies were allegedly buried under a mound of dirt (pictured, right of the police officer) along a road in Bungonia. Police would have unknowingly driven past the bodies a number of times earlier in the week, during a search of another property about 20 minutes south Beau Lamarre-Condon (pictured) is accused of gunning down TV presenter Jesse Baird and his flight attendant boyfriend Luke Davies EXCLUSIVE READ MORE: Humble greenskeeper who found the key clue that led to the bodies of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies being found has a quiet beer with mates Advertisement The two men's bloody clothes were allegedly tossed in a skip bin in Cronulla, almost 30km away, before their bodies were hidden in surfboard bags. Police allege Mr Lamarre-Condon then hired a white Toyota HiAce van from Sydney Airport and took the bodies about 180km south-west of Sydney, before burying them in a shallow grave on a fence line on Jerrara Road. The temporary grave site was more of a gravel alcove next to the entrance to the Greek Orthodox Holy Monastery of Saint Fanourios church. Police would have unknowingly driven past the bodies a number of times earlier in the week, during a search of another property about 20 minutes south. However, officers were only finally able to find the couple's bodies after their Lamarre-Condon allegedly told them where they were. A team of police officers spent Wednesday scouring bushland surrounding the site for evidence, with the assistance of a sniffer dog, picks and rakes. Several items found near the bodies have now been collected as part of the investigation. The heartbroken relatives of Mr Baird, who travelled to the area from interstate, visited the scene under police guard on Tuesday night. Relatives spent about 15 minutes with Mr Baird's body before driving away. Meanwhile, the shattered friends of Mr Baird and Mr Davies gathered at Bronte Beach for a vigil. The bodies were then taken to Lidcombe morgue, in Sydney's west, while detectives remained on the scene in Bungonia. Mr Baird's housemates returned to the Paddington home (pictured) to find the house in a dishevelled state after the alleged murders The housemates slept in the home (pictured) while Mr Baird's and Mr Davies' bodies were allegedly covered a blue tarpaulin in the backyard Lamarre-Condon handed himself into Bondi Police Station on Thursday last week, before he was charged with two counts of murder on Friday. Police found the remains by 1pm on Tuesday and contacted the families of Baird and Davies moments after that. Lamarre-Condon's matter is before the courts. The country's top spy has warned of the rapidly increasing danger of espionage and foreign interference, revealing a former politician 'sold out their country' to a foreign actor. In a rare insight into the workings of the country's spy agency, Mike Burgess - the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation - delivered his annual threat assessment on Wednesday night. He warned there was at least one nation state laying the groundwork to potentially sabotage key Australian infrastructure in the future. He said while ASIO still believed a terrorist attack was 'possible', the risk of espionage and foreign interference was 'certain'. 'The threat is real. The threat is now. And the threat is deeper and broader than you might think,' he said. He said the 'A-team' - a team operating within a 'particular foreign intelligence service' - had come to be one of the most significant threats the agency was fighting against. Mr Burgess said the A-team trawls professional networking sites looking for Australians with access to high-level security, defence and risk information. ASIO boss Mike Burgess delivered his annual threat assessment on Wednesday warning against the rising threat of espionage and foreign interference. READ MORE: Disturbing reason why terror attacks are 'almost guaranteed' to rise in Australia Australian Security Intelligence Organisation boss Mike Burgess (pictured) warned in 2023 that Australia's terror level threat is 'almost guaranteed' to rise Advertisement Mr Burgess said the team used 'false, anglicised personas', posing as consultants, headhunters, officials, academics and researchers from fictional companies to approach the targets. He said they had tried to recruit students, academics, business people, police and public servants across all levels of government. Even elected officials have fallen for the A-team, with Mr Burgess speaking of one former politician who had been 'successfully cultivated and recruited' by the A-team. 'This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime,' Mr Burgess said. 'At one point, the former politician even proposed bringing a prime minister's family member into the spies' orbit. 'Fortunately, that plot did not go ahead, but other schemes did.' Mr Burgess did not make clear who the former politician was, or whether they had unwittingly engaged with the A-team, or done so deliberately. In one such other scheme, leading Australian political figures and academics went overseas for an all-expenses paid conference attended by a host of A-team spies purporting to be bureaucrats, who built relationships with the Australians and 'aggressively targeted' them. 'A few weeks after the conference wrapped up, one of the academics started giving the A-team information about Australia's national security and defence priorities,' Mr Burgess said. 'Another Australian, an aspiring politician, provided insights into the factional dynamics of his party, analysis of a recent election and the names of up-and- comers - presumably so the A-team could target them too. 'ASIO disrupted this scheme and confronted the Australians involved. While some were unwitting, others knew they were working for a foreign intelligence service.' The ASIO boss claimed that the ex-politician 'proposed bringing a prime minister's family member into the spies' orbit. Pictured is Parliament House in Canberra Mr Burgess said ASIO had helped extract the unaware ones, severed the links between the others and the foreign actors, and added: 'several individuals should be grateful the espionage and foreign interference laws are not retrospective'. Mr Burgess said ASIO confronted the A-team directly online last year. 'The spy was being spied on. The player was being played,' Mr Burgess said. He said too many Australians were missing the warning signs or were making the A-team's work 'too easy'. 'On just one professional networking site, there are 14,000 Australians publicly boasting about having a security clearance or working in the intelligence community. Some even out themselves as intelligence officers - even while proving they're not particularly good ones!' he said. 'I appreciate that people need to market themselves but please be smart and be discreet - don't make yourself an easy target.' Mike Burgess claimed that a former politician 'sold out their country' to a foreign actor Also during his speech, Mr Burgess made a chilling warning that he feared sabotage - the principal security concerns in the 1950s - could re-emerge, particularly in relation to critical infrastructure. 'There aren't a lot of things that terrorists and spies have in common, but sabotage is one of them,' he said. 'ASIO is seeing both cohorts talking about sabotage, researching sabotage, sometimes conducting reconnaissance for sabotage - but, I stress, not planning to conduct sabotage at this time.' He said ASIO was aware of one nation state conducting 'multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure' in Australia and elsewhere, targeting water, energy, and transport energy networks. Describing the reconnaissance as 'highly sophisticated' and a means of mapping out networks and testing digital locks, Mr Burgess said there was a chance the nation could conduct sabotage in the future. Citing the impact the Optus network outage last year - unrelated to sabotage - had on Australia, Mr Burgess questioned what it would mean for the country if a foreign state 'took down all the networks, or turned off the power during a heatwave?' 'I assure you, these are not hypotheticals,' he said. 'Foreign governments have crack cyber teams investigating these possibilities right now, although they are only likely to materialise during a conflict or near conflict.' Ursula von der Leyen has warned that EU states 'should be prepared for the risks of war' and need to 'urgently' rebuild their armed forces after Macron refused to rule out sending troops to Ukraine. The European Commission President said the threat of war for the EU 'may not be imminent, but it is not impossible'. 'The risks of war should not be overblown, but they should be prepared for and that starts with the urgent need to rebuild, replenish, modernize member states' armed forces,' she said. Her comments come after French president Emmanuel Macron warned that while there was 'no consensus' on the sending of Western troops to Ukraine, 'nothing should be excluded' following a meeting of two dozen European leaders in Paris. This caused a worrying reaction by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said if NATO members sent their troops to fight in Ukraine, 'we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability (of a direct conflict)'. Getting involved in the war in Ukraine with boots on the ground would break a major taboo the West has so far been reluctant to challenge - until now, NATO members have only supplied weapons to the Ukrainian army. Ursula von der Leyen (pictured) has warned that EU states 'should be prepared for the risks of war' and need to 'urgently' rebuild their armed forces after Macron refused to rule out sending troops to Ukraine A Ukrainian artillery position fires in the direction of Bakhmut in Donetsk on Monday While French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal reaffirmed Macron's comments saying: 'You can't rule anything out in a war,' Downing Street said there were no plans for 'large-scale' troop deployment to Ukraine. A NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also emphasised 'there are no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine' despite the 'unprecedented military support' from the alliance. In today's speech to the European Parliament, Von der Leyen also revealed insight into a new European Industrial Defence Strategy that her commission will present in the coming weeks, saying one of its main aims would be to prioritise joint procurement. 'Europe should strive to develop and manufacture the next generation of battle-winning operational capabilities,' she said. 'That means turbo-charging our defence industrial capacity in the next five years.' She said greater European efforts in defence would not diminish the need for the NATO alliance. 'In fact, a more sovereign Europe, in particular on defence, is vital to strengthening NATO,' she added. She also said that the EU should consider using profits from frozen Russian assets to buy military supplies for Ukraine. 'It is time to start a conversation about using the windfall profits of frozen Russian assets to jointly purchase military equipment for Ukraine,' she told the European Parliament in a speech urging the EU to do more on defence policy. 'There could be no stronger symbol and no greater use for that money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live.' Macron also urged to do more to support Ukraine in the war with Russia, saying that 'we have seen hardening on the part of Russia, especially these past few months'. He said this had manifested itself in February 16 death in custody of President Vladimir Putin's top opponent Alexei Navalny, but also in a hardening of Russia's positions on the frontlines, where it was planning 'new attacks'. Macron said a 'leap' was needed from the West in its approach that 'takes into account the transformation of the threat from a military and strategic point of view'. Her comments come after French president Emmanuel Macron (pictured) warned that while there was 'no consensus' on the sending of Western troops to Ukraine, 'nothing should be excluded' following a meeting of two dozen European leaders in Paris Ukrainian servicemen from the assault brigade 'Bureviy' (Hurricane), a unit of the Ukrainian National Guard, shoot the 105 mm Italian OTO Melara Mod 56 Pack Howitzers from their positions in the Avdiivka direction, at an undisclosed location in the Donetsk area, eastern Ukraine, February 27 Macron's remarks caused a worrying reaction by Putin (pictured) spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said if NATO members sent their troops to fight in Ukraine, 'we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability (of a direct conflict)' But Macron's comments about NATO considering sending boots on the ground, a possible plan that was revealed by pro-Moscow Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (pictured right with Macron, left) ahead of the meeting, were met with warnings by Russia He added that NATO 'will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war'. The French leader announced new steps to boost Kyiv in its battle against Vladimir Putin's troops, including sending missiles and bombs to the country. Macron said the new coalition would be set up to supply Ukraine with 'missiles and bombs of medium and long range to carry out deep strikes'. There was a 'broad consensus to do more and quicker', he added. 'Nothing can be excluded to achieve our objective. Russia cannot win that war.' Macron also said there was consensus that 'the defeat of Russia is indispensable to security and stability' on the continent. Russia, he said, was showing a 'more aggressive attitude not just in Ukraine but in general'. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda were among around 25 European heads of state and government at the conference in the Elysee Palace in Paris. Other states sent ministers, with foreign secretary David Cameron in Paris for Britain, and the United States and Canada were also represented. But Macron's comments about NATO considering sending boots on the ground, a possible plan that was revealed by pro-Moscow Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico ahead of the meeting, were met with warnings by Russia. 'The very fact of discussing the possibility of sending certain contingents to Ukraine from NATO countries is a very important new element,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when questioned about Macron's remarks. Peskov said that the West should ask themselves if such a scenario was in the interests of their countries and their peoples. Western officials have already acknowledged that Russia risks gaining the upper hand in the conflict this year as Ukraine runs out of weapons and ammunition. Ukrainian servicemen of the 68th Separate Jager Infantry Brigade 'Oleksa Dovbush' fire a howitzer towards Russian positions, at an undisclosed location in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, on Monday French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech to open a conference in support of Ukraine with European leaders and government representatives at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris, on February 26 A Ukrainian soldier prepares in a shelter to fire artillery in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said on Sunday that half of the Western military aid pledged to Kyiv is delivered late, noting that 'commitment does not constitute delivery'. Revealing the magnitude of Ukraine's human losses, Zelensky said 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war with Russia. A French presidential official, who asked not to be named, said the meeting needed to contradict any 'impression that things are falling apart' after Ukraine's setbacks on the battlefield. 'We want to send a clear message to Putin that he will not prevail in Ukraine,' the official said. There are growing doubts about the viability of long-term US backing for Ukraine as a new aid package struggles to find legislative approval and Donald Trump, who has indicated opposition to further support for Kyiv, eyes a return to the presidency in elections this year. A brazen TikToker has been slammed for parking in a disabled bay, despite regular spots being free just a few feet away. Joseph Cant, who has 40,000 followers on the social media platform, posted the video on Monday of him and his girlfriend using the disabled bay supposedly at the Tesco Extra in Gateshead, Tyneside. The footage shows him getting out of his BMW at the indoor car park to reveal he is in a disabled bay marked with wheelchair signs and hashed lines. It also shows two empty regular bays just a few feet away, showing the nightlife event organiser could have parked on the row in front. Joseph Cant, who has 40,000 followers on the social media platform, posted the video on Monday of him and his girlfriend using the disabled bay supposedly at the Tesco Extra in Gateshead, Tyneside The Tiktoker attempts to justify the stunt by filming empty disabled bays alongside his, adding 'I'm not being funny but if 20 men in wheelchairs show up then I just fully will apologise'. Mr Cant then pans the camera to his 'embarrassed-looking' girlfriend who nervously laughs before he ends the controversial clip. He finishes the video by goading some viewers, claiming 'and I know for a fact that all the NPCs [non-playable characters] will still say that I'm in the wrong'. APCOA, who manage Gateshead's Tesco Extra car park, said anyone parking in a disabled bay must display a valid blue badge and anyone not doing are liable to face a parking charge of 70, which is reduced if paid in 14 days. The video, 'captioned Joey C is always right' has been viewed more than 700,000 times with users condemning Mr Cant, from County Durham, for his 'disrespectful' stunt. One commented: 'It's called having a bit of respect and principles mate.' A second said: 'The point is, if everyone acted like you then there would be no disabled spots left.' A third added: 'Don't we have morals anymore.' A fourth said: 'Your missus looks so embarrassed to be seen with you.' However some cheered Joseph on and agreed that it's okay. The footage shows two empty regular bays just a few feet away that could have been used instead One said: 'I fully agree with you. The amount of empty disabled spaces is ridiculous.' A second said: 'Let's be honest, there's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't matter that it's not what some would class as a 'nice car' if it's his pride and joy. Why risk it getting dinged?' A third said: 'I do the same.' A spokesperson for APCOA said: 'Signage at the Gateshead Tesco Extra car park, written in accordance with British Parking Association guidelines, clearly states that if you are parked in a disabled bay, you must display a valid blue badge. 'It is an enforceable car park and those who do not display a blue badge are in breach of regulations and may therefore be liable for parking charges.' Mr Cant declined to comment. Tesco encouraged customers to be considerate of other car park users and said their rules are clearly written on signs. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's funeral and farewell ceremony will be held on Friday in Moscow, his spokesperson has said. The funeral will be hosted at the Borisovskoye cemetery after a farewell ceremony starting at 2pm at a church in the Maryino district, Kira Yarmysh said on X, formerly known as Twitter. She also urged people to arrive 'in advance' if they want to come and pay their respects as many supporters are expected to turn up for the funeral in southern Moscow. It is unclear whether Navalny's wife Yulia - who has been living in Germany since her husband's arrest in 2021 -, his two children or his mother Lyudmila will be there. Navalny, Vladimir Putin's strongest domestic critic, fell unconscious and died suddenly aged 47 on February 16 after a walk at the 'Polar Wolf' penal colony above the Arctic Circle where he was serving a three-decade sentence. The West and Navalny's supporters, including his widow, say the Russian president is responsible for Navalny's death. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny 's funeral and farewell ceremony will be held on Friday in Moscow , his spokesperson has said Russian Police officers guard the area near the fence of the Borisov cemetery where Alexei Navalny is expected to be buried this week, on February 27, in Moscow Navalny's wife Yulia (right), 47, has claimed that her husband was murdered on Vladimir Putin's orders, and previously accused the dictator of Satanism in failing to pass the body to his family - which only happened a week after his death It is unclear whether the Putin critic's wife Yulia Navalnaya (pictured), 47, will attend the funeral in Moscow The West and Navalny's supporters, including his widow, say the Russian president Vladimir Putin (pictured) is responsible for Navalny's death Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of Alexei Navalny, and lawyer Vasily Dubkov arrive at the town of Salekhard on February 17 before being told they could not see the body. It was finally handed to Lyudmila on February 24 A photo of Navalny lies among flowers near the Wall of Grief monument in Moscow, on February 17 Russian authorities said the cause of his death at age 47 is still unknown, and the results of any investigation are likely to be questioned abroad. Many Western leaders have already said they hold Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for his death. The Kremlin has denied involvement and said that Western claims that Putin was responsible were unacceptable. Navalny's allies faced a battle with Russian authorities to have his body released to them amid accusations that he was poisoned. Humanitarian group gulagu.net also claimed that Navalny was 'cold tortured' in the Polar Wolf penal colony before his death and requested an independent examination of the Putin critic's body to find out his cause of death. It is far from clear that the Russian authorities will permit any independent probe after claiming Navalny, who was serving a 19-year prison sentence at the arctic colony, likely died from 'sudden death syndrome'. Navalny's wife Yulia, 47, has claimed that her husband was murdered on Putin's orders, and previously accused the dictator of Satanism in failing to pass the body to his family - which only happened a week after his death on Saturday, February 24. On Sunday, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's GUR military intelligence service, suggested his death could be down to natural causes as he claimed Navalny died from 'a blood clot'. After Navalny's body was finally released to his mother Lyudmila, 69, on Saturday, she was tasked with bringing the body to Moscow. She said during a video statement this week that investigators conducting a probe into her son's death have resorted to blackmail to try to persuade her to agree to his secret burial outside the public eye. Navalny's allies said they were struggling to find a venue for his funeral, with the Kremlin concerned that any public gathering could lead to protests. 'We started to look for a church and a hall for the 1st of March. Everywhere they refused to give us anything. In some places we were told it was forbidden,' said exiled ally Ivan Zhdanov. A paper note reading 'Hello. This is Navalny' is seen among flowers left for late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument to political repression that has become one of the sites of tributes for Navalny, in Moscow on February 23 Alexei Navalny posted a picture with his wife Yulia in September 2020 as he was recovering in Berlin's Charite hospital where he was treated for suspected poisoning Navalny's mother Lyudmila Navalnaya during a video statement, in which she said that investigators conducting a probe into her son's death have resorted to blackmail to try to persuade her to agree to his secret burial outside the public eye Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh added on X yesterday: 'We called round most private and public funeral agencies, commercial sites and funeral halls. 'Some places say the space is busy, some places refuse upon mention of the name 'Navalny'. In one place we were directly told that funeral agencies were prohibited from working with us.' Navalny's team say they are being barred by Moscow funeral halls from holding a farewell ceremony for him - likely due to fears the funeral could be used to protest against Putin's regime. 'We don't care about the message. Alexei needs to be buried ... To have a chance to say goodbye, it is better to come in advance,' Zhdanov said. His supporters have now confirmed that Navalny's funeral service will be held at the 'Mother of God Quench My Sorrows' church in southern Moscow on Friday. They also urged mourners to 'come in advance' as many are expected to pay their respects to the Putin critic. Exiled journalist Bozhena Rynska previously claimed that 'the authorities will prevent a people's funeral'. This refers to an equivalent of the funeral of nuclear physicist and human rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov in 1989 when mourners flocked to bid him farewell and honour his opposition to Soviet totalitarianism. They would 'block off the area of any cemetery where a funeral is planned and, under various pretexts, prevent the crowd from entering, so as not to create the image of a people's funeral'. She said: 'Now the presidential administration is discussing how to prevent a mass procession at the funeral of Alexei Navalny.' The Kremlin yesterday warned Russians not to use Navalny's funeral as a moment for protests. 'These people, so-called supporters [of Navalny] are well known for their provocative calls - to break the laws of the Russian Federation,' said Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov. 'This is a very harmful practice and has legal and law enforcement consequences for those who respond to these calls.' It comes after one his Navalny's senior aides, Maria Pevchikh, said the Putin critic was close to being freed along with two US nationals in exchange for a jailed Russian assassin when he was 'killed' in the Arctic gulag. Maria Pevchikh (pictured), a Navalny ally, said the Putin critic was close to being freed along with two US nationals in exchange for a jailed Russian assassin when he died in the Arctic gulag She said that talks about exchanging him and two unnamed US nationals for Vadim Krasikov (pictured), a Russian FSB security service hit man in jail in Germany, were in their final stages at the time of Navalny's death Pevchikh also revealed that the deal was brokered by Roman Abramovich (pictured), saying he 'was the one who delivered the proposal to swap Navalny to Putin' She said on Monday that talks about exchanging him and two unnamed US nationals for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian FSB security service hit man in jail in Germany, were in their final stages at the time of his death. She also revealed: 'Roman Abramovich was the one who delivered the proposal to swap Navalny to Putinas an informal negotiator communicating with American and European officials, and at the same time, representing Putin, an unofficial channel of communication with the Kremlin.' Pevchikh said that Putin really wanted Krasikov, who he sees as a Russian patriot, back, but he 'was clearly told that the only way to get Krasikov was to exchange him for Navalny'. She added that she believes Putin couldn't 'tolerate Navalny being free', so he got 'rid of the bargaining chip' after he realised an exchange for Krasikov was on the cards. Pevchikh said: 'It's absolutely illogical, absolutely irrational, it's the behaviour of a mad mafioso. But the point is that Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny. Putin hated him so much.' A Just Stop Oil protestor has been left begging for cash so that he can attend his court hearing - but only received 10 towards it. David Mann took to GoFundMe to complain about the more than 1,000 in fines that he has racked up due to his disruptive climate change protests and demonstrations as he set to reach a target of 3,000. The 51-year-old from Ipswich, Suffolk was one of 35 people arrested for bringing the M25 to a standstill in November 2022 after the group scaled gantries to protest about oil and gas licences. The self-proclaimed 'earth protector', who is also a backer of Insulate Britain as well as Extinction Rebellion has previously boasted about his arrests. However, the bemused David has only received a measly 10 donation to help him get towards his court hearing. David Mann, the self-proclaimed 'earth protector' set up a GoFundMe page to help pay towards his court hearings after taking part in Just Stop Oil M25 standstill The 51-year-old from Ipswich, Suffolk was one of 35 people arrested for bringing the M25 to a standstill in November 2022 and set a target of 3,000 to raise - he managed to receive 10 The disruptive and controversial group scaled gantries between junctions 8 and 9 at various locations on the motorway and protested about oil and gas licences Just Stop Oil activists who caused 'massive disruption' on the M25 in 'deliberate defiance' of an injunction have been spared jail by a High Court judge The climate change protest group statement read at the time: 'From today, Just Stop Oil will halt its campaign of civil resistance on the M25. 'We are giving time to those in government who are in touch with reality to consider their responsibilities to this country at this time. 'We ask that the prime minister consider his statement at COP27, where he spoke of the catastrophic threat posed by the ravages of global heating, the 33 million people displaced by floods in Pakistan, and the moral and economic imperative to honour our pledges.' The group also claimed that they acted on behalf of the people to 'Uphold law and order and protect civil society.' The group scaled gantries between junctions 8 and 9 at various locations on the motorway. The stunt meant that the busy motorway was brought to a standstill for four days before the police made their arrests and cleared the passage. An ambulance was allegedly among the vehicles stranded by the stunts, which meant the emergency vehicle took 'ages and ages' to get through the blockage, according to another trapped motorist. David Mann said: 'I've been involved in environmental activism for over 10 years with a large number of arrests for Insulate Britain, Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. 'This has caused me to be arrested and taken to court for peaceful demonstrations. Disruption: One of the stunts by Just Stop Oil on the M25 near Godstone in Surrey in November 2022 Members of the environmental protest group Just Stop Oil were detained after they tried to block the M25 in east London by climbing a gantry at Junction 25 David Mann's GoFundMe appeal to help raise funds towards his court costs, travel and fines Eco nut David added: 'I have a lot of court trials coming up in London which will cost me 100 in travel. 'And I already have over 1000 in fines I'm paying. 'Also to be able to continue my work in environmentalism I'm a reiki master, a spiritual healer and an earth protector. 'Working to make the world a better place for us and future generations.' Despite David posting on the appeal on GoFundMe on January 26th, the activist has only managed to get 10 towards his cause leaving him 2,900 short of his target. This isn't the first time that David has attempted to use an online appeal to gather funds, he did so in January last year after his benefits had been cut. The price of a packet of cigarettes could hit 16 as Jeremy Hunt targets smokers and vapers in the Budget. The Chancellor is set to impose a new levy on vaping to help make the products less attractive to children - as well as bringing in revenue for the Treasury. But at the same time tobacco duties will be bumped up in the fiscal package next week, so there is still an incentive for people to opt for vapes. Last Spring Mr Hunt put 1.55 on the cost of the average pack - which now stands at 14.39. Meanwhile, Mr Hunt is facing Tory pressure to scale up tax cuts, after government sources moved to dampen expectations. MPs are demanding he goes further than the 1p off national insurance that has been signalled, warning that is the only way of shifting grim polls showing Labour on track for a big election win. Jeremy Hunt (pictured with Rishi Sunak) is facing huge pressure to produce a vote-winning Budget next week The price of a packet of cigarettes could hit 16 as Jeremy Hunt targets smokers and vapers in the Budget (file picture) The respected IFS think-tank yesterday highlighted that the tax burden is still set to rise sharply A Savanta poll released today underlines the electoral mountain the Tories have to climb Treasury sources say the Chancellor has limited room for manoeuvre in next week's Budget, with forecasts suggesting he has headroom of just 13 billion. He has been forced to scale back planned cuts and is now looking at taking just 1p off National Insurance rather than income tax and extending the fuel duty freeze. The two measures would cost around 5.5billion a year in total, and Mr Hunt is said to want to leave a buffer of between 6billion and 7billion. He will receive the final set of headroom figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility on Friday, after which the Budget will be finalised. The Chancellor had previously considered a 2p cut in income tax, and a reduction to stamp duty and inheritance tax. The Treasury said any claims about the contents of the package were 'speculation'. But the rumours infuriated Tory MPs, who urged Mr Hunt to use the Budget next Wednesday to return the party to its 'true Tory' values. The respected IFS added to the pressure on the Chancellor yesterday as it highlighted that stealth taxes will add more than 100billion to the tax burden by the end of the decade. It estimated that taxes in 2023-24 will be around 66 billion higher than they would have been had their share of national income remained at its 2018-19 level. By 2028-29, it is forecast to be the equivalent of 104 billion in today's terms. Any new tax cuts would only 'partially offset this record-breaking increase' in tax revenue, according to the IFS. Conservative grandee Sir John Redwood, who headed Margaret Thatcher's policy unit, said that 'there is plenty of scope for prudent tax cuts'. 'They are needed to promote growth and to boost revenues,' he said. 'The Government should lower the taxes on small business, on the self-employed and on people going to work to give us the boost we need.' A senior Tory told the Mail: 'Winning the next election is going to be difficult as it is, but we can certainly help our fortunes considerably by being true Tories again and that means significant tax cuts.' A minister added: 'I'd rather see it come off income tax than national insurance. That resonates much more with people. 'But people need the confidence that whatever tax cuts we have next week, it's the first or the latest step in what is going to be a continuous programme of bringing down the tax burden. The IFS said stealth taxes could add around 104billion to government revenues by the end of the decade 'We need a clear, distinctive Conservative message about why people should vote for us for a fifth term and part of that has to be that we will bring down their taxes and leave them with more of their money.' Treasury sources have insisted that any available cash would be prioritised for families over business tax cuts. But they added that any cuts will be on a smaller scale to the autumn statement. A source from the Treasury told the Mail: 'The cost of government borrowing has shot up in recent weeks, so our room for manoeuvre is more limited. 'We set the bar high last autumn with the biggest tax cutting event since 1988, but we won't be able to match that scale this time.' Prince Harry today lost a High Court challenge against the Home Office over a decision to downgrade his taxpayer-funded personal security when he visits Britain. The Duke of Sussex took legal action over the move by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) after being told he would no longer be given the 'same degree' of publicly funded protection when in the UK. His lawyers had claimed he was 'singled out' and treated 'less favourably' in the February 2020 decision by the body, which falls under the Home Office's remit. But at a hearing in London in December, the Government insisted 39-year-old Harry's claim should be dismissed, arguing Ravec was entitled to conclude the duke's protection should be 'bespoke' and considered on a 'case-by-case' basis. Two months on, retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane has now issued his ruling on the case this morning saying: 'The application for judicial review is refused.' But a spokesman for Harry said he would appeal, adding that he was 'not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules'. The judgment which the Home Office later said the Government was 'pleased' with comes amid another 24 hours of royal drama and tragedy in Britain, including: The Duke of Sussex, pictured leaving the Royal Courts of Justice in London, last March Your browser does not support iframes. This is the full judgment in Harry's case issued by the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary today A judgment summary in Harry's case said the court determined 'there has not been any unlawfulness in reaching the decision', adding that it was not 'irrational'. Decision summary from Prince Harry court case Here is the decision summary from Duke of Sussex v the Home Office: 'The court has found that there has not been any unlawfulness in reaching the decision of February 28, 2020. 'Any departure from policy was justified. The decision was not irrational. The decision was not marred by procedural unfairness. 'Even if such procedural unfairness occurred, the court would in any event be prevented from granting the claimant relief. 'This is because, leaving aside any such unlawfulness, it is highly likely that the outcome for the claimant would not have been substantially different. 'The court has also found that there has been no unlawfulness on the part of Ravec in respect of its arrangements for certain of the claimant's visits to Great Britain, following the decision of February 28, 2020.' Advertisement The court also found the 'decision was not marred by procedural unfairness' and there was no unlawfulness by Ravec in its arrangements for his visits to Britain. In his 52-page partially redacted ruling, Sir Peter said Harry's lawyers had taken 'an inappropriate, formalist interpretation of the Ravec process'. He added: 'The 'bespoke' process devised for the claimant in the decision of February 28, 2020 was, and is, legally sound.' The judge also said: 'The decision of February 28, 2020 was obviously forward-looking in nature. 'The suggestion that the claimant should have received both an RMB (risk) analysis and a 'bespoke' approach ignores the witness evidence of the defendant which, for the reasons I have given, falls to be given weight. 'That evidence shows no irrationality or other unlawfulness, as regards the other VIP category.' Sir Peter also noted it was 'highly relevant' that on January 11, 2020, Sir Edward Young, then Queen Elizabeth II's private secretary, gave Harry a 'draft options paper' outlining that the 'level of protection is a decision for the Home Secretary, delegated to the chair' of Ravec. The paper set out how the process worked and Harry's own private secretary Fiona Mcilwham then met with Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, saying in an email that she 'faithfully relayed the details you provided on security to the Duke', according to the court papers. The judge said there was 'no substance in the contention that the defendant failed to act in a procedurally fair manner'. He added: 'In particular, there was no reason to assume that the claimant's private secretary was unaware of the security issues arising as a result of the claimant's [redacted text].' Harry's father King Charles III is pictured leaving his London residence Clarence House today The judge also said that 'On the contrary, the evidence shows that she was entirely conversant with them' following a meeting on January 27, 2020 with Sir Edward, Ravec chair Sir Richard Mottram and Prince William's private sectary Simon Case. READ MORE Royals stunned by Thomas Kingston tragedy: Family mourns death of Lady Gabriella Windsor's war hero and financier husband Advertisement Sir Peter added: 'If there had been the need for any questions to be asked about 'Ravec, Ms Mcilwham can be expected to have asked them. 'I do not accept that the fact she may have been private secretary for some six months has any bearing. Her communications are indicative of someone with a good grasp of her job.' The judge said he accepted comments from Sir Richard, who said that, even if he had received a document setting out all of Harry's legal arguments in February 2020, 'I would have reached the same decision for materially the same reasons'. In addition, Sir Peter criticised Harry's claim of the 'alleged irrationality' of him having to give 28 days' notice of travelling to Britain. The judge said: 'There is no merit in this contention. It arose from the need to be able to address a [redacted] of the kind belatedly given by the claimant to Ravec in relation to the June/July 2021 visit. Prince Harry and Meghan, pictured at an Invictus Games event in Canada on February 14, 2024 'Given Ravec's expertise, the decision to require 28 days' notice would need to be shown, by reference to evidence, to have been plucked out of the air or imposed for some extraneous reason, before this head of challenge could be made out. The claimant has pointed to nothing of the kind.' Responding to the ruling, a legal spokesperson for the Duke said today: 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal today's judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body Ravec, which includes the Home Office, the Royal Household and the Met Police. 'Although these are not labels used by Ravec, three categories - as revealed during the litigation - comprise the 'Ravec cohort': the Role Based Category, the Occasional Category and the Other VIP Category. 'The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec's own written policy. 'In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to The Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. The Duke's case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him, is no substitute for that risk analysis. Earlier this month Harry told ABC show GMA that he had 'considered' becoming a US citizen 'The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.' But a Home Office spokesman said today: 'We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the Government's position in this case, and we are carefully considering our next steps. It would be inappropriate to comment further. 'The UK Government's protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. 'It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals' security.' Sir Peter - who officially retired as a High Court judge on February 1 - said his ruling contained redactions because if such information was made public it would have 'a serious adverse impact on the individuals concerned, as well as being contrary to the public interest, including that of national security'. In December, the Duke's lawyers told the court that a failure to carry out a risk analysis and fully consider the impact of a 'successful attack' on him meant the approach to his protection was 'unlawful and unfair'. William, Harry, Meghan and Charles speak together at a service at Westminster Abbey in March 2019 - the year before the Sussexes stepped down as senior royals and moved to the US The court was also told that Harry believes his children - Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet - cannot 'feel at home' in the UK if it is 'not possible to keep them safe' there. But Home Office lawyers said the Duke was no longer a member of the group of people whose 'security position' was under regular review by Ravec, but he was 'brought back within the cohort in the appropriate circumstances'. The court was told that it was 'simply incorrect' to suggest that there was no evidence that the issue of impact was considered, adding that the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - Harry's mother - was raised as part of the decision. Ravec has delegated responsibility from the Home Office over the provision of protective security arrangements for members of the royal family and others, with involvement from the Metropolitan Police, the Cabinet Office and the royal household. The majority of the proceedings in December were held in private, without the public or press present, because of confidential evidence over security measures being involved in the case. Prince Andrew leads members of the Royal Family to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle yesterday to attend a thanksgiving service for the life of the late King Constantine of Greece Queen Camilla is seen at St George's Chapel yesterday as she attends the thanksgiving service The security case was one of three remaining live High Court cases brought by the Duke, alongside claims over allegations of unlawful information gathering against News Group Newspapers (NGN) and Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of MailOnline. Earlier this month, Harry settled the remaining parts of his phone hacking claim against Mirror Group Newspapers. It came after the Duke decided in January to withdraw a libel claim against ANL over a February 2022 Mail on Sunday article about his legal challenge against the Home Office. Harry, who was not present at the December hearing, lives in North America with wife Meghan and their children after the couple announced they were stepping back as senior royals in January 2020. Earlier this month Harry revealed in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America (GMA) that he had 'considered' becoming a US citizen since moving to California. He added that his 'family and my life in California is as it is', but also told how he had 'got other trips planned that would take me through the UK or back to the UK'. The Duke also said: 'I will stop in and see my family as much as I can.' Gender-based bullying is still a problem at the school where teenager Mia Janin took her own life, a coroner has warned. Coroner Tony Murphy blasted The Jewish Free School (JFS) for its lack of systemic changes after 'creative and kind' Mia was driven to take her own life following 'hostile' bullying from boys at the school. The fourteen-year-old was found dead at her home in Barnet, North London, on March 12, 2021, having asked her parents to move school the evening before. Just four months after the schoolgirl hanged herself at home, her heartbroken mother Marisa also died, leaving behind her father Mariano Janin. Now, the coroner for North London has warned that more schoolgirls at JFS are at risk of suicide as gender-based bullying has continued. Pictured: Mia Janin, 14, took her own life following 'hostile' bullying from boys at The Jewish Free School Pictured: An exterior view of the Jewish Free School, The Mall, Kenton, Harrow Pictured: Mariano Janin arriving at the inquest of his daughter at Barnet Coroners Court While JFS claimed it has implemented a 'complete overhaul' following Mia's death in March 2021, Mr Murphy found that the initiatives have not done enough to make female pupils feel safe. Mr Murphy made the findings in a Prevention of Future Deaths report written to JFS, ordering the institution to take a new course of action. Barnet Coroner's Court heard that 'highly intelligent' Year 10 pupil Mia was repeatedly mocked by boys at school on social media. Mr Murphy said: 'Two undated notes in Mia's handwriting were found on her bed on March 12, 2021, addressed to her family and friends, which explained that Mia had decided to end her life. 'Mia's death was entirely unexpected by her family, friends and teachers. She had felt low self-esteem at times but had not been diagnosed with any mental illness nor presented a risk of taking her own life. Mia Janin (pictured) was found dead at her family home in Harrow on March 12, 2021 Mia as a child with her father Mariano (right) and mother Marisa (left) 'Mia had close friends including at her secondary school but she also experienced bullying behaviour from some male students. Neither Mia's family nor teachers was aware of that behaviour before her death. 'On March 10, 2021, Mia posted a video on social media asking two of these male students not to mock her and criticising their music and fashion. 'This video received a large number of hostile responses, which Mia found stressful. 'On the evening of March 11, 2021, Mia said to her parents that she had had a difficult week and asked to move to a different secondary school, which they agreed to explore. 'Mia is much missed by her loving family, friends and wider community who describe her as creative, kind, entrepreneurial and highly intelligent, amongst many other things.' At Mia's inquest, JFS said it addressed systemic concerns with a 'complete overhaul of safeguarding practices, increased behaviour management, improved information, staff surveys and externally delivered sessions by charities including Norwood, Streetwise, Jewish Women's Aid and Keshet'. But Mr Murphy said it had not gone far enough. 'Evidence provided by some JFS students after Mia's death to the police and Ofsted described regular incidents of gender based bullying by some male JFS students of some female JFS students', he said. Mia and her mother Marisa have been buried together in Israel Two undated notes in Mia's handwriting were found on Mia's (pictured) bed on March 12, 2021, addressed to her family and friends, which explained that she had decided to end her life Pictured: Mariano Janin speaking to members of the press outside Barnet Coroners Court today 'Some of those child witnesses had not experienced a change in culture at JFS since Mia's death and did not describe being consulted or surveyed about the changes introduced by JFS.' He issued a grave warning to JFS. Mr Murphy said: 'Any ongoing gender based bullying at JFS gives rise to a concern that circumstances creating a risk of other deaths will occur, or will continue to exist, in the future. 'The initiatives introduced by JFS to address gender based bullying following Mia's death do not appear to have gained the confidence of some JFS female students, which gives rise to a concern that circumstances creating a risk of other deaths will occur, or will continue to exist, in the future. 'In my opinion action should be taken to prevent future deaths and I believe you and your organisation have the power to take such action.' JFS have 56 days to respond to Mr Murphy with an action plan. Four months after Mia's death, her mother died from untreatable leukaemia which was found after a brain aneurysm. Widower Mr Janin said online he hopes his wife is 'finally with Mia once again'. The pair are buried in Israel, side by side. The night before her death, Mia had asked her parents if she could be home-schooled for the rest of the year, having only been back at the state school for just one day since the lockdown restriction were lifted. Although her parents had agreed to move her, Mariano later said he did not realise how bad it had become for his only child. On the day of her death, he said she was was 'planning the weekend and starting to plan the holidays and planning to start cheerleading and drama again.' Police discovered two hand-written notes when Mia was found, one addressed to her parents, and another to her best friend. In the note to her family she wrote: 'I just wanted to let you know I do love you guys very much. I have been brought up well by both of you. 'I have learned many things, I love all of you very much. However I know this decision is the right one for me. 'On earth I never felt connected. I felt a longing to leave for a while. I know this is a shock to you.' She concluded the note: 'Let my friends have my things please. I love you lots.' After Mia's death Marisa never went upstairs in the family home again, unable to be near to her daughter's bedroom - which remained untouched - and deal with the trauma of the tragedy. Marisa did not want Mia to be buried in the UK, but instead wished for her to go back to her homeland of Israel. Mariano has said how he will never stop searching for answers and the truth as to what happened. 'I have nothing to lose. No one took accountability for what happened to Mia and nothing has changed. It had happened before. If bullies get impunity, they don't learn any lessons', he said. He wrote to Mia on his Facebook page on the day of her would-be 17th birthday last year: 'Today you would be 17 years old, every day I wonder how you would be. I miss you so much. Forever Young.' Today, JFS headteacher Dr David Moody told MailOnline: 'We thank the coroner for his investigation. The witness statements to which the coroner refers were taken in late 2021 or early 2022, shortly after I joined JFS and they are not a reflection of the school today. 'As part of the school's 'Good' Ofsted rating in April 2022, Ofsted reported that 'Pupils know to whom and where they can turn if they have any worries. Pupils felt confident to report any concerns because staff help them. Staff are vigilant to any incidents of bullying and act swiftly to resolve any bullying issues. 'We have a team of eight full-time professionals working with any children who report problems with their mental health and it is some of the most comprehensive provision that I have seen in a state school. 'That said, we take the comments and observations of the coroner incredibly seriously and will be sharing with him all details of the support and systems that are now embedded.' Has your dog been in contact with one? Email frankie.elliott@mailonline.co.uk Dog owners have been issued an urgent warning about deadly 'poisonous parsnips' which have recently washed up on Britain's beaches. Hemlock water dropwort roots which are also known as 'dead man's fingers' were found on the shoreline of one popular Welsh beach. Coastguard officials have today urged dog walkers to be 'extra vigilant' and to avoid contact with the plant at all costs, amid fears the vegetation may also be found in other parts of the country. The 'poisonous parsnip' is widely recorded as the most toxic plant to both humans and animals growing in the northern hemisphere. Its consumption can lead to nausea, vomiting, seizures, lethargy, sweating and visual hallucinations, as well as death. Owners who believe their canine has ingested or touched any dead man's fingers are recommended to seek assistance from a vet as soon as possible. Hemlock water dropwort roots - which are also known as 'poisonous parsnips' or 'dead man's fingers' - were found on the shoreline of a popular UK beach The plant was found washed up on the small side of Aberavon Beach, Port Talbot The Coastguard said: 'We are aware of reports circulating social media of hemlock water-dropwort roots having washed up on the small side of Aberavon Beach. Symptoms of Hemlock poisoning in dogs Abnormal nervousness Coma Excessive drooling Increased temperature Muscle twitching Pupil dilation Rapid pulse Rolling eyes Tremors Violent convulsions Vomiting Advertisement 'We would urge dog owners to be extra vigilant and not touch these roots. If you think your dog may have come into contact or ingested any poisonous parsnips, it is advised to seek veterinary assistance as soon as possible.' While all parts of the hemlock water dropwort can be potentially deadly if ingested, the roots are the most toxic part of the plant, hence the nickname 'dead man's fingers'. The part of the roots that looks like a parsnip contains a powerful neurotoxin called oenanthetoxin, which triggers spasmodic convulsions, usually followed by sudden death. However, all parts of the plant are poisonous and only a small piece can be fatal if ingested. This includes the green part of the plant which grows to more than a metre high and is commonly seen in streams, ditches, rivers and lakes across the UK. Rather confusingly, hemlock water-dropwort is part of the Umbellifer family of plants, which also includes species of celery, parsley, parsnip and carrots. For this reason, hemlock water dropwort's flowers look very similar in appearance to parsley, with attractive white flowers. According to Wild Food UK, the hemlock water dropwort is even more poisonous than the deathcap mushroom, which contains enough toxin to kill an adult. Poisoning by the plant is an infrequent event and animals are the more common victims, such as dogs on a walk. But generally, members of the public should refrain from picking and eating plants in the wild. Hemlock water dropwort roots, also known as 'dead man's fingers', are widely recorded as the most toxic plant to both humans and animals Millom Coastguard Rescue Team said on its Facebook page: 'Even a small portion can prove fatal to humans by attacking the nervous system. It is also fatal to animals' The plant was once picked and cooked in a curry by eight students in Argyll, Scotland. Despite them only eating the sauce, as they felt the 'parsnips' tasted too bitter to eat, four fell gravely-ill and needed hospital treatment to survive. Fortunately, boiling involved in preparation of the root resulted in less severe toxic effects and severity of symptoms than otherwise would have been seen. A Missouri legislator has slammed the state's 'archaic' law that bans women from getting divorced while pregnant. A state statute dating back to 1973 makes it illegal for a judge to finalize a divorce while a woman is carrying a fetus. The law aims to ensure that issues such as custody and child support are decided before the couple fully split. But Rep. Ashley Aune, a Democrat representing Platte County, argues that the law, which has no exceptions for domestic violence, 'just doesn't make sense in 2024'. The state lawmaker has introduced a new bill that states pregnancy cannot prevent a divorce or separation from being finalized after her constituents expressed that it was a 'huge problem'. 'I just want moms in difficult situations to get out if they need to,' Aune told FOX 4. A state statute dating back to 1973 makes it illegal for a judge to finalize a divorce while a woman is carrying a fetus. The law aims to ensure that issues such as custody and child support are decided before the couple fully split (stock image) But state Rep. Ashley Aune (pictured) has slammed the state's 'archaic' law, which has no exceptions for domestic violence, sand says it 'just doesn't make sense in 2024' Aune agreed that the more than 50-year-old law was made with good intentions to ensure Missouri's children were properly cared for, but says it needs to be updated to reflect modern families. During a committee hearing earlier this month, the Democrat detailed the testimony of one woman who was 'being physically and emotionally abused' and, after learning she was expecting, asked an attorney if she could pursue a divorce. 'She was essentially told no,' Aune said of the woman. 'It was so demoralizing for her to hear that. She felt she had no options.' The lawmaker added that there had been 'reproduction coercion' in the woman's relationship, which she claims 'a lot of women' are victims of. Aune, in a radio interview with KCUR on Monday, said reproduction coercion can 'look a lot of different ways' but often involves 'preventing reproductive care', 'preventing contraceptive access', and 'keeping a partner pregnant'. She claimed that due to this practice, women who have escaped domestic violence situations are going to shelters with 'four, six, eight children' and claims the facilities are 'actually building new housing to accommodate these large families'. A report from the state Department of Health and Senior Services revealed that nearly 5 per cent, about 500 out of 10,098 women surveyed between 2007-2014, revealed that they were abused before or during their pregnancies. Aune noted that the divorce ban affects both men and women, claiming that she has heard testimonies from 'both genders' alleging the law has 'kept them in a marriage they didn't want to be in'. She added: 'Imagine a situation where a man wants to get a divorce and the wife doesn't want that to happen, and so she gets pregnant on purpose, right? She maybe doesn't communicate her own birth control issues. This is something that happens to both parties.' Aune (not pictured) also argued that in a state that has effectively banned all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest, it is 'important' for women to have the option to leave an unwanted marriage. Pictured: Pro-choice advocates at the Missourians for Constitutionals Freedom kick-off petition drive on February 6 Missouri senators earlier this month voted against amending the state's strict law against abortions to allow exceptions in cases of rape and incest. The state banned almost all abortions after the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade. Abortions currently are only legal 'in cases of medical emergency'. Pictured: Activists at the Missourians for Constitutionals Freedom kick-off petition drive on February 6 Aune also argued that in a state that has effectively banned all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest, it is 'important' for women to have the option to leave an unwanted marriage. 'In a state where we are currently forcing women to carry babies to term, I think it's important that women who are in that position who are also looking to get out of a marriage have the capacity to do so,' she previously told the Kansas City Star. Missouri senators earlier this month voted against amending the state's strict law against abortions to allow exceptions in cases of rape and incest. The state banned almost all abortions after the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade. Abortions currently are only legal 'in cases of medical emergency'. Democratic state Sen. Tracy McCreery tried adding amendments to allow exceptions for abortion in cases of rape and incest to a Republican-sponsored bill that would continue blocking taxpayer funding from going to Planned Parenthood. Both of McCreery's amendments were voted down along party lines in the Republican-led Senate, and debate on the underlying bill was cut off before a final vote on February 7. Aune's bill to overturn the divorce ban, which is considered it a 'top priority' by the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence, is 'still a work in progress', FOX 4 reported. It is understood that Aune is not optimistic that the proposed legislation will reach Governor Mike Parson's desk this session. Texas, Arizona and Kansas currently have similar divorce laws in place. The 'Vicar of Baghdad' today recalled the close bond he forged with Lady Gabriella Windsor's late husband Thomas Kingston amid the bloody chaos of the Iraq War, as he paid tribute to a 'remarkable young man' who was 'scared of nothing'. Reverend Canon Andrew White, who presided for more than a decade over the only Anglican church in Iraq, took him on as an intern following the coalition invasion in 2003 and made him his 'hostage man'. This saw Mr Kingston, then a University of Bristol economic history graduate in his twenties, go into some of the most dangerous areas of the war-torn city and negotiate with militants to gain information on the location of hostages. The pair survived 'numerous scrapes', Canon White said, including a suicide bombing on his own church of St George's in Baghdad in 2004. 'I'd had so many people who had worked with me before and if I asked them to do something dangerous they would get scared - but not with Tom - he would go for anything,' the clergyman told MailOnline today. Thomas Kingston was the husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor and the son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent Reverend Canon Andrew White, who presided over the only Anglican church in Iraq for more than a decade, took on Mr Kingston as an intern. He's seen in 2007 Both men were at St George's in Baghdad when it was targeted by a suicide bomber in 2004 'He was my main hostage man and would have to make friends with bad people so we could get information from them. Tom was the best intern that I ever had - working with me in the midst of the war at the most dangerous time ever. 'When he left, I told him he was going to do wonderfully well in business and marry the most beautiful lady. He did, and I was fortunate to attend his wedding to Lady Gabriella Windsor.' A devout Christian and a fellow 'adrenaline junkie', Mr Kingston helped Canon White build up a congregation of 6,500 worshippers at St George's Church in Baghdad - which was built in 1936 as a memorial to British soldiers. It was closed by Saddam Hussain before Canon White reopened it following the toppling of his regime. Situated on Baghdad's 'most dangerous road', Hayfa Street, it became a key target for terrorists and was bombed numerous times. One attack in 2004 took place while Canon White was in the church with Mr Kingston and killed 22 people, including two members of the congregation 'A bad guy turned up to the church and said he wanted to see me,' the churchman recalled. 'I knew this was the kind of guy who we needed to get to know before speaking with, so I invited him to come and meet us. 'The next thing we knew he had blown up the whole front of the church. Lots of people were killed in the explosion. Tom was in our main room at the back of a church. 'The bizarre thing was that it was all part of the daily course of events. Those kinds of attacks were a regular occurrence.' Canon White attended Kingston's wedding to Lady Gabriella in Windsor on May 18, 2019 Lady Gabriella and Mr Kingston in official photos taken on their wedding day. The late Queen and Prince Philip are sat to the right of them Mr Kingston (pictured with Lady Gabriella Kingston), 45, was found dead at an address in Gloucestershire on Sunday evening MrKingston was originally posted to Iraq as part of the diplomatic missions unit of the Foreign Office. He also served at the Iraqi Institute of Peace for three years from 2003 to 2006. Coincidentally, he was also at this time working for his future father-in-law, Prince Michael of Kent - even though by this stage he had not yet met his daughter, Ella. 'We worked very closely to help preserve his grandmother's tomb on the Mount of Olives. She was a princess and became a nun when her husband,' Canon White explained. The churchman, 60, called Mr Kingston as an exceptional young man whose great strength was to see beyond the impossible. Canon White, who has MS, was eventually ordered to leave Iraq in 2014 by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, due to security concerns. He has two children and lives in Hampshire. Meanwhile, Mr Kingston went into finance, in 2006 joining Schroder's Asset Management in London before moving to Voltan Capital Management in 2012. Not a member of the aristocracy, his family came from more humble beginnings, with his self-made father becoming a hugely successful barrister specialising in planning law. He reportedly met Lady Gabriella Windsor through mutual friends and they spent three years dating before marrying in 2019 at St Georges Chapel in Windsor Castle. Mr Kingston was close friends with Pippa Middleton, the Princess of Wales' sister. They are pictured here at Cheltenham Festival in 2013 Lady Gabriella and Mr Kingston attended the late Queen's state funeral in September 2022 The couple were last pictured together on Valentine's Day at an event to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's First Folio attended by Queen Camilla. Mr Kingston was found dead aged just 45 at an address in Gloucestershire on Sunday evening, with emergency services called to the scene shortly after 6pm. His death has sent shockwaves through the Royal Family and left friends in a state of deep shock. An inquest will be held but there are no suspicious circumstances and no other parties involved. Mr Kingston is survived by his father Martin Kingston KC, his mother Jill Mary Kingston, and his sisters, Joanna Connolly and Emma Murray. Police have today named an 87-year-old man who was found dead at a London railway station as Bernard Fowler. Detectives have charged a 22-year-old man with murder after Mr Fowler was killed at Harold Wood railway station yesterday. Miles Skai of Brent Cross, Hendon, appeared before Barkingside Magistrates, where he was accused of murdering Mr Fowler from Havering. Officers were called to Harold Wood railway station just after 4.30am yesterday morning after a member of staff reported an individual was badly hurt and lying on the floor. Despite the best efforts of the Metropolitan Police and London Ambulance Service, Mr Fowler - who was found with extensive injuries - was pronounced dead at the scene. A friend of Mr Fowler said he lived close to Harold Wood Rail station. Alan, 55, who had known him since his childhood said: 'He was the kindest, sweetest man you could meet. I used to call him uncle Bernie. Pictures from Harold Wood station shows a forensic tent in place and a police cordon yesteday Detectives from British Transport Police (BTP) have launched a murder investigation 'He was a friend of my fathers, and he was a retired mechanic. He was so kind that when I turned 18, he gave me a Triumph Toledo car for nothing. 'I can't understand how a poor defenceless elderly man has been killed like this. He would not have provoked anyone. He wasn't cantankerous or anything like that. 'He would go on holiday with my family and we loved having him with us. ' His wife Lisa added: 'I never once saw him angry, or heard him raise his voice. He was just the nicest man. 'At that time of the morning, all he would have been doing, was picking up his newspaper from the station. I can't believe there could be any reason why he could be killed like this.' Detective Chief Inspector Sam Blackburn said yesterday that the 'act of unprovoked violence was despicable.' Neighbour Jayashree Jay, 46, heard raised voices and screaming from home in a three story block of flats overlooking the station. She said: 'I heard screaming at around 4am and didn't really think much of it. 'I often hear shouting at people, make another noise because I'm so close to the station. 'But at 4:30, I heard people screaming for help, and then when I came to my balcony, I saw that a man was lying dead and the police were holding a younger man in the road.' Ms Jay, a support worker, laid flowers at the scene in tribute to the victim. Police were pictured at the scene yesterday in the early hours of the morning She added: 'The police put a tent up around the man's body, and then they bought out his crutch or walking stick. It was heartbreaking to see.' A local newsagent said: 'I used to see him when he came in for a newspaper. He had a walking stick. He is in his seventies. 'He would come in to the shop early. But when we decided to open later we did not see him.' Mr Fowler died outside the station where the first Elizabeth Line train leaves for Paddington at 4.52am. The time of the killing is said to have been when staff open the station and free newspapers have already been delivered, station employees said. One said: 'The police haven't told us anything. We just had to close the station down yesterday.' Today officers were still in the area with cameras that can take 360 pictures of the crime scene for evidence. Mr Fowler's family has asked for their privacy to be respected at this time. Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Sam Painter said: 'My thoughts are with Bernard's family and loved ones at this time. His family are currently being supported by specially trained officers. 'I know how shocking and concerning this incident has been to the community and I would like to reassure the public that this was an isolated incident. I would ask the public not to speculate any further on the incident. 'We are carrying out high visibility patrols in the area and are working alongside our colleagues at the Metropolitan Police to provide visible reassurance.' Miles Skai will next appear at the Old Bailey on Friday 1 March. Florida cops are hunting down a gunman who opened fire outside a school with an Uzi automatic pistol. Jahfahree Prince Edwards, 24, fired shots towards several teenager during a fight down the road from Spoto High School in Riverview, Hillsborough County. The conflict between two girls led to one of them calling the gunman to the scene on February 14. Edwards then turned up at around 4pm and began firing. He can be seen wearing a hoodie in video released by the police, holding the weapon in his right hand as a group of teens enter two cars. The gunman then runs across the sidewalk and pulls out the Uzi, as terrified students run for cover. After returning to fire the weapon from the road, Edwards is then seen fleeing the area, still carrying the gun in the shooting position. Edwards is wanted for four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm and felon in possession of a firearm. Jahfahree Prince Edwards fired shots towards several teenager during a fight down the road from Spoto High School in Riverview, Hillsborough County. He can be seen wearing a hoodie in video released by the police, holding the weapon in his right hand as a group of teens enter two cars Terrified students can be seen running for cover as shots are fired. The gunman then runs across the sidewalk and pulls the Uzi out, firing it from a low stance, before running off, and then coming back and firing it from the road Edwards is wanted for four counts of aggravated assault with a firearm and felon in possession of a firearm The shooting took place in front of the gated entrance to the Osprey Lakes West subdivision near the corner of Eagle Palm and Breezy Palm drives. 'When incidents like this happen, it takes the wind out of our sails, and we're wondering, how much more do we have to do to really get this message out to people, to our kids and young adults, that you don't have to pick up firearms in response to anger or a temporary situation,' Safe & Sound Hillsborough Executive Director Freddy Barton told Fox 13. Barton launched a program in 2022 specifically for youth gun offenders, which has seen 44 teens graduate over the past 18 months. 'Here at our center, in our program and in the community, we're talking to kids about anger management and coping skills and how you can defuse the situation, so you don't have to put yourself in a situation where your life or someone else's life can be tragically taken away,' Barton added. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Jahfahree Prince Edwards is asked to call HCSO at 813-247-8200. An Aussie dad who was facing the heartbreaking prospect of having his baby daughter put up for adoption has met his precious little girl for the first time after a frantic dash to the other side of the world. Dan Gaut, from Sydney's north shore, jumped on the first plane to the US last Monday after the tradie found out his ex-girlfriend Liv went into labour a day earlier. Liv had dropped the bombshell news that she planned to put their baby daughter up for adoption - prompting him to leap into action. He recalled how he didn't sleep during the 15-hour flight to Texas before describing the 'magical' moment he met baby Ana for the first time. Ana was born on Monday at 8pm Sydney time. 'I'm filled with joy and love and I'm so grateful for all the support,' Mr Gaut told Daily mail Australia from Texas. 'Only three or four weeks earlier I was in complete despair and just thought how the hell am I going to do this [go overseas to meet Ana]'. Dan Gaut (pictured) made the frantic dash to the US last Monday to meet his baby daughter for the first time. Baby Ana (pictured) was born on Monday night Sydney time 'Just being with Ana, just that one on one time...skin on skin is just so important'. Mr Gaut is cherishing every moment with his daughter as he comes to terms with becoming a new father. He is now prepares to head back to Australia with his little girl. Mr Gaut said he just got the passport photos for Ana as he begins the arduous process of organising her migration papers. Mr Gaut said he is taking daddy duty one day at a time. 'I'm spending about eight hours a day with her which is just phenomenal'. Mr Gaut said he is spending quality time with Ana (pictured) as he prepares to head back to Australia Mr Gaut said just got the passport photos for Ana (pictured) as he begins the arduous process of her getting her migration papers Ana has been named after the Sanskrit word Anunta which means forever and eternity. Mr Gaut said he and Liv chose the name for the baby a long time ago. His former girlfriend moved back to Texas and got back together with her former partner. Even she has rekindled her relationship with her ex Mr Gaut said Liv has expressed an interest in being a part of Ana's life. 'She definitely loves her [Ana] and I can tell that,' Mr Gaut said. 'She does want to be a part of her life'. She's even willing to make the trip to Australia to accompany Mr Gaut, as he said he was nervous flying alone with baby Ana. 'It's not going to be easy for her to let Ana go but she understands she [Ana] can live a better life with me in Australia'. Mr Gaut will have to wait for some time before he can travel back home with Ana to meet her Australian family. He still needs to get Ana her Australian visa and a US passport while he is also in the process of getting her citizenship which will take a minimum of 67 days. Mr Gaut said he is currently waiting to get Ana's birth certificate but he said he will be back in Sydney by the time he receives the document along with her Australian passport. 'I really want to get home,' he said. 'I would really love to be home and be with my family and be with Ana, giving her all the Australian love that is ready for her'. Mr Gaut (pictured with baby Ana) said he is keen to get home to Australia as soon as possible Mr Gaut said he can't wait to his daughter (pictured) to get all the Australian love waiting for her back home Mr Gaut said he has received 'so many' messages of support from friends and family in Australia following the birth of baby Ana. 'The community spirit has just been phenomenal,' he said. 'I did get to speak to mum and dad...they couldn't sleep, they were that excited'. A cash-strapped Mr Gaut relied on community donations to arrange the paperwork in the US for his child to be brought to Australia. A crowdfunding page was set up by a friend to raise $30,000 so that Mr Gaut could travel to the US to obtain an Australian passport for Ana. Mr Gaut previously explained how he was left heartbroken when his ex told him that she was considering giving Ana up for adoption. Friends and family rallied behind Mr Gaut (pictured) so that he could meet Ana and come back home with his daughter He met Liv, who he thought was 'the love of his life', while he holidaying in San Francisco in May last year. The pair were inseparable and soon found out they were expecting their first child together. Cracks in their relationship however started to emerge when his homesick girlfriend went back to Texas because she felt like she needed to be closer to her family. After what was supposed to be a 'visit', Mr Gaut received the devastating news that Liv wasn't returning - setting him on a determined path to raise his daughter by himself. 'I was just left with my heart ripped out, it was the hardest thing that I've ever had to cope with,' he said. Parents have slammed a secondary school after it crammed 150 pupils into 'Science Masterclasses' to combat teacher shortages, but students say they learn nothing. The Romsey School, near Southampton, Hants, places five times the usual number of pupils per classroom into a hall or large labs, parents say. It took the drastic measures earlier this month ahead of GCSEs as a result of a lack of science staff. The school has previously been mired in controversy for its hard-line stance on parents having to collect their children's confiscated mobile phones as well as a strict uniform policy. In the latest scandal, a letter was sent home to Year 7 to 11 parents to inform them of the adjustment to their children's study schedule. It comes amid a nationwide crisis of teacher shortages due to redundancies, lack of funding, and the pandemic - as vacancies have nearly doubled since Covid. Headteacher Annie Eagle (pictured) said she is using masterclasses 'as a direct response to temporary staffing challenges in science' The Romsey School, in Romsey, near Southampton, Hampshire The letter sent to the parents read: 'In order to ensure that students feel fully confident and ready for their examinations, from Monday 5th February onwards, we are planning to deliver 'Science Masterclasses' in place of their normal science lessons. 'The model is planned to maximise specialist input at all levels. 'This will involve delivering masterclasses in the hall and/or the larger labs, where a specialist scientist expert will run sessions for several classes at a time.' The classes are held in a mini-lecture style, where pupils are able to go through exam papers and get feedback from teachers on how they performed. However, one mother, who wished to remain anonymous, revealed she fears her 12 year old daughter will not be able to learn in the new set-up. She said: 'I asked my daughter this week 'what have you learned?' she said 'nothing because we can't actually learn anything in such big groups'. 'They get given pamphlets to take home so they can learn the things they need to. 'She told me there is only one teacher and an assistant there for a group of 150 people.' She added: 'I fear my child just won't learn and what if this is the new normal for them? 'My daughter just won't be able to learn in that environment.' The classes are held in a mini-lecture style, where pupils are able to go through exam papers and get feedback from teachers on how they performed. File image Last month, mother Karen Taylor branded the school a 'prison' after her son Logan was given detention for having half his shirt untucked and his top button undone In response, headteacher Annie Eagle said she is using masterclasses 'as a direct response to temporary staffing challenges in science'. 'We have communicated directly with our Key Stage Four students and their families and received lots of positive feedback, particularly from our students,' she said. 'The Romsey School values positive parent partnerships and would want to continue to work directly with any parents who have any concerns.' It is not the first time the school has hit the headlines. READ MORE- School throws pupil in detention for having half of his shirt untucked - a year after it banned mobile phones from classrooms Advertisement Last month, mother Karen Taylor branded the school a 'prison' after her son Logan was given detention for having half his shirt untucked and his top button undone. Logan Taylor was initially placed in a 20-minute detention when he showed up for class at The Romsey School, in the market town of Romsey near Southampton, with half his shirt untucked and his top button undone. But this soon doubled and tripled after Logan failed to turn up. When Mrs Taylor then told Logan to boycott what she called a 'draconian' punishment, Romsey dragged him in for internal exclusion, which meant that Logan had to do his work away from his classmates for a day. A furious Mrs Taylor has now temporarily removed her son from school and has started a Change.org petition to 'Reform Unfair School Uniform Policy and Detention Practices'. Headteacher Annie Eagle responded to Mrs Taylor's comments by saying that she was 'very proud of the high expectations and aspirations at The Romsey School'. She said: 'These expectations are reflected in our students' engagement in learning, in excellent uniform and their exemplary attitudes and behaviour across the school. 'It is of course vital that we work to ensure consistency with these expectations. 'Students are encouraged to make great choices. Schools are increasingly using non-specialist teachers and long-term supply cover to teach classes as they struggle with overstretched employees. Pictured are striking teachers in July Members of the National Education Union (NEU) on the picket line at Oasis Academy in London 'If a student does not make good choices, we work closely with them and their family to ensure that they understand, as you would expect, that there will inevitably be a consequence in line with published school policy. 'It is so important that we prepare our students for the reality of life beyond school whilst enabling them to be the very best they can be.' READ MORE - 'Scared' teachers are locking classrooms to keep violent pupils out as they face huge surge in unruly behaviour with suspensions almost doubling in six years Advertisement And last October angry parents complained after it introduced a new rule by which mobile phones are confiscated from pupils - and only parents could collect them at the end of the day. Parents claimed they had been forced to take time off work to pick up confiscated phones. With the government missing its teacher training targets year-on-year, headteachers are forced to find ways to tackle the staff shortage. Schools are increasingly using non-specialist teachers and long-term supply cover to teach classes as they struggle with overstretched employees. But data from the National Foundation for Educational Research shows that vacancies posted by schools in 2023 were 93 per cent higher than at the same point in 2019. It follows the revelation that teachers across UK schools are 'locking classroom doors' to keep aggressive pupils out amid a surge in disruptive behaviour by students. Teaching unions and groups say they have been contacted by frightened teachers who are fearing for their jobs and several who are 'acting like social workers'. The wife of a Filipino senator has sparked a public backlash after posting images of herself hooked up to a controversial intravenous skin-whitening drug in her husband's office. Mariel Padilla, an influencer and wife of politician Robin Padilla, posted a video on social media of her taking the drug, called Glutathione, which is yet to be approved by the FDA. Clearly a big advocate for the drug, which aims to make people look more Caucasian, she wrote: 'Drip anywhere, because we need to be consistent with the vitamins we put in our bodies and Drip in Luxe really helped me with so many things, so I don't hurt anymore, and I just feel so much better. Explaining why she was taking the drug in the office, which according to the country's health secretary can 'kill you', Padilla said: 'Drip anywhere is our motto, hehehe. All hooked up - Mariel Padilla films herself taking the skin whitening drug in the Senate office The Senator's wife seemed happy with herself as she recorded taking the unapproved drug What is Glutathione? Glutathione is found naturally in our bodies, created by our liver, but can also be taken as a drug. It is available in topical formulations, oral supplements, and an intravenous form. One of its effects is whitening the skin, either to reduce dark spots, but commonly to make one look more Caucasian The FDA has issued a warning against the use of the intravenous form The compound is also found naturally in a lot of foods including broccoli and cabbage Advertisement 'I had an appointment with Drip in Luxe, but I was going to be late so I had it done in my husband's office. I never miss a drip because it really helps in soooo many ways. She explained that its benefits include collagen production, whitening, energy, metabolism, immunity, and so much more, which is why she regards it as 'so convenient and really effective.' The post drew criticism from medical professionals and politicians. Glutathione is not licensed as a beauty product and doctors warn that it can have harmful effects. Last month a 39-yearold woman in Manila died after being hooked up to a drip that contained glutathione and stem cells. Teodoro Herbosa, the health secretary, said: '(It) will whiten your skin and make you look really Caucasian, but it can damage your kidneys and kill you.' Both Mariel and Robin Padilla apologised. Now, despite the video and the posts, Mariel is insisting that the drip contained only vitamins. Several people who have been angered by the influencers, believing it was disrespectful, antics took to X to criticise her. Mariel is an influencer and an actress as well as being the wife of Senator Robin Padilla Both Mariel and Robin Padilla apologised after the backlash caused from the drug-taking One wrote: 'Oh, my goodness, Mariel. You're still in the Senate, you're still in the Senate. That's the Senate for the law! That's not a beauty salon!' Another wrote: 'No decency in the senate. Is this the type of imagery you want to convey to the Filipino public, Senate of the Philippines?' And another wrote: 'Terrible! There's a right place for that, 'can't you postpone?' Alexei Navalny's body was abused after his death in the Arctic gulag, his grieving widow Yulia has told the European Parliament. Yulia Navalnaya, 47, said today that her late husband's body had been abused and that she was not sure if his funeral on Friday would be a peaceful event or whether police would make arrests. She also warned in regards to Putin, who she accused of having her husband killed: 'You are not dealing with a politician but a bloody monster.' Navalnaya was speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, 12 days after her husband fell unconscious and died suddenly aged 47 after a walk at the 'Polar Wolf' penal colony above the Arctic Circle where he was serving a three-decade sentence. The Putin critic's funeral will be hosted at the Borisovskoye cemetery after a farewell ceremony starting at 2pm at a church in the Maryino district, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on X, formerly known as Twitter. The Kremlin warned yesterday that Russians should not to use Navalny's funeral as a moment for protests. Yulia Navalnaya (pictured), 47, said today that her late husband's body had been abused and that she was not sure if his funeral on Friday would be a peaceful event or whether police would make arrests Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny 's funeral and farewell ceremony will be held on Friday in Moscow , his spokesperson has said Russian Police officers guard the area near the fence of the Borisov cemetery where Alexei Navalny is expected to be buried this week, on February 27, in Moscow A photo of Navalny lies among flowers near the Wall of Grief monument in Moscow, on February 17 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, right, embraces his wife Yulia, as he was released by a court in Kirov, Russia, July 19, 2013 The West and Navalny's supporters, including his widow, say the Russian president Vladimir Putin (pictured) is responsible for Navalny's death 'These people, so-called supporters [of Navalny] are well known for their provocative calls - to break the laws of the Russian Federation,' said Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov. 'This is a very harmful practice and has legal and law enforcement consequences for those who respond to these calls.' Yarmysh urged Navalny supporters to arrive 'in advance' if they want to come and pay their respects as many are expected to turn up for the funeral in southern Moscow. His allies have confirmed that Navalny's funeral service will be held at the 'Mother of God Quench My Sorrows' church in southern Moscow on Friday. It is unclear whether Navalny's wife Yulia - who has been living in Germany since her husband's arrest in 2021 -, his two children or his mother Lyudmila will be there. The cause of his death at age 47 is still unknown according to Russian authorities and the results of any investigation are likely to be questioned abroad. Many Western leaders have already said they hold Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for his death. The Kremlin has denied involvement and said that Western claims that Putin was responsible were unacceptable. Navalny's allies faced a battle with Russian authorities to have his body released to them amid accusations that he was poisoned. Humanitarian group gulagu.net also claimed that Navalny was 'cold tortured' in the Polar Wolf penal colony before his death and requested an independent examination of the Putin critic's body to find out his cause of death. It is far from clear that the Russian authorities will permit any independent probe after claiming Navalny, who was serving a 19-year prison sentence at the arctic colony, likely died from 'sudden death syndrome'. Navalny's wife Yulia, 47, has claimed that her husband was murdered on Putin's orders, and previously accused the dictator of Satanism in failing to pass the body to his family - which only happened a week after his death on Saturday, February 24. On Sunday, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's GUR military intelligence service, suggested his death could be down to natural causes as he claimed Navalny died from 'a blood clot'. After Navalny's body was finally released to his mother Lyudmila, 69, on Saturday, she was tasked with bringing the body to Moscow. She said during a video statement this week that investigators conducting a probe into her son's death have resorted to blackmail to try to persuade her to agree to his secret burial outside the public eye. It is unclear whether the Putin critic's wife Yulia Navalnaya (pictured here speaking to the European Parliament today), 47, will attend the funeral in Moscow Navalny's wife Yulia (right), 47, has claimed that her husband was murdered on Vladimir Putin's orders, and previously accused the dictator of Satanism in failing to pass the body to his family - which only happened a week after his death Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of Alexei Navalny, and lawyer Vasily Dubkov arrive at the town of Salekhard on February 17 before being told they could not see the body. It was finally handed to Lyudmila on February 24 A paper note reading 'Hello. This is Navalny' is seen among flowers left for late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument to political repression that has become one of the sites of tributes for Navalny, in Moscow on February 23 Yulia Navalnaya received a standing ovation after her speech at the European Parliament today Alexei Navalny posted a picture with his wife Yulia in September 2020 as he was recovering in Berlin's Charite hospital where he was treated for suspected poisoning Navalny's mother Lyudmila Navalnaya during a video statement, in which she said that investigators conducting a probe into her son's death have resorted to blackmail to try to persuade her to agree to his secret burial outside the public eye Navalny's allies said they were struggling to find a venue for his funeral, with the Kremlin concerned that any public gathering could lead to protests. 'We started to look for a church and a hall for the 1st of March. Everywhere they refused to give us anything. In some places we were told it was forbidden,' said exiled ally Ivan Zhdanov. Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh added on X yesterday: 'We called round most private and public funeral agencies, commercial sites and funeral halls. 'Some places say the space is busy, some places refuse upon mention of the name 'Navalny'. In one place we were directly told that funeral agencies were prohibited from working with us.' Navalny's team say they are being barred by Moscow funeral halls from holding a farewell ceremony for him - likely due to fears the funeral could be used to protest against Putin's regime. 'We don't care about the message. Alexei needs to be buried ... To have a chance to say goodbye, it is better to come in advance,' Zhdanov said. Exiled journalist Bozhena Rynska previously claimed that 'the authorities will prevent a people's funeral'. This refers to an equivalent of the funeral of nuclear physicist and human rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov in 1989 when mourners flocked to bid him farewell and honour his opposition to Soviet totalitarianism. They would 'block off the area of any cemetery where a funeral is planned and, under various pretexts, prevent the crowd from entering, so as not to create the image of a people's funeral'. She said: 'Now the presidential administration is discussing how to prevent a mass procession at the funeral of Alexei Navalny.' It comes after one his Navalny's senior aides, Maria Pevchikh, said the Putin critic was close to being freed along with two US nationals in exchange for a jailed Russian assassin when he was 'killed' in the Arctic gulag. Maria Pevchikh (pictured), a Navalny ally, said the Putin critic was close to being freed along with two US nationals in exchange for a jailed Russian assassin when he died in the Arctic gulag She said that talks about exchanging him and two unnamed US nationals for Vadim Krasikov (pictured), a Russian FSB security service hit man in jail in Germany, were in their final stages at the time of Navalny's death Pevchikh also revealed that the deal was brokered by Roman Abramovich (pictured), saying he 'was the one who delivered the proposal to swap Navalny to Putin' She said on Monday that talks about exchanging him and two unnamed US nationals for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian FSB security service hit man in jail in Germany, were in their final stages at the time of his death. She also revealed: 'Roman Abramovich was the one who delivered the proposal to swap Navalny to Putinas an informal negotiator communicating with American and European officials, and at the same time, representing Putin, an unofficial channel of communication with the Kremlin.' Pevchikh said that Putin really wanted Krasikov, who he sees as a Russian patriot, back, but he 'was clearly told that the only way to get Krasikov was to exchange him for Navalny'. She added that she believes Putin couldn't 'tolerate Navalny being free', so he got 'rid of the bargaining chip' after he realised an exchange for Krasikov was on the cards. Pevchikh said: 'It's absolutely illogical, absolutely irrational, it's the behaviour of a mad mafioso. But the point is that Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny. Putin hated him so much.' Following the backlash, the organiser apologised and said it was a 'bad idea' A Russian ex-pat who was living in Sri Lanka has fled the country after attempting to organise a 'white party' event, which was met with huge backlash, branding it 'racist' and 'disgusting'. The advertisement for the party specified a white dress code for guests, but also had a line that read: 'Face control: White,' which was largely understood to mean only white people could attend. After the advertisement circulated online, the party that was due to be held at Sarayka Lounge in the southern coastal town of Unawatuna, was urgently cancelled. One outraged social media user penned: 'How dare they come to a brown country and ban the people of that country'. A local restaurant owner added: 'I'm all for encouraging ex-pats to live here, but this ain't it. I have no issue with ex-pats coming to Sri Lanka and I welcome them, but this kind of stuff isn't right and shouldn't be allowed. The advertisement for the party specified a white dress code for guests but also had a line that read: 'Face control: White,' which was largely understood to mean only white people could attend 'I know not all ex-pats are like this, not all Russains are like this, but this sort of thing should be stopped fast and stopped hard.' Following the backlash, a man who claimed to be the event organiser posted on Instagram under the handle @geo_ecstatic, writing: 'We wanted to meet expats who have been living here for a long time and love Sri Lanka. 'The team... supported me and a joint decision was made to quickly organise a party, 'I didn't expect this to be such a sensitive moment for a huge number of people. 'I admit that it was a bad idea... and I understand that we created it ourselves out of our stupidity. I deeply apologise to everyone whose feelings were hurt.' He added that there was 'no malice or racism' intended and he has since had to leave Sri Lanka after recieving huge amounts of abuse and threats. The account has since been set to private and the post disappeared. Sarayka Lounge, who were supposed to be the venue for the 'white party,' also put out a statement on Instagram after its cancellation. After the advertisement circulated online, the party which was due to be held at Sarayka Lounge in the southern coastal town of Unawatuna, was urgently cancelled Sarayka Lounge, who were supposed to be the venue for the 'white party,' also put out a statement on Instagram after its cancellation They wrote in both Russian and English, 'Good evening! We apologize! 'The party planned for Saturday will not take place. We have urgently canceled this event. 'Also, we have severed ties with the organizers who planned this party at our venue. 'We are a bar and provide our premises for various events. This time we did not conduct a thorough enough check. 'We have never supported and will never support various racist statements or organizations. We apologize! (Owners of Sarayka Lounge).' The president of an Unawatuna entrepreneurs' association, Rupasena Koswatta, told BBC Sinhala that many Russians have moved into the coastal city in the last two years. Adding that many of the tourism businesses in the area are now owned by Russians, known locally as 'Little Moscow'. It comes after hundreds of thousands of Russains and Ukranians travelled to Sri Lanka after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. The Russian Embassy in Sri Lanka also released a statement 'regarding the controversial night event in Unawatuna' The Russian Embassy in Sri Lanka also released a statement 'regarding the controversial night event in Unawatuna'. It read: 'On February 24, 2024 some entrepreneurs in Unawatuna were planning to organise a night event with 'dress-code:white'. 'According to unconfirmed data, the main promoter as well as the owners of a bar who agreed to accomodate the party, are Russian citizens. 'Due to ambiguous conditions of entry and confusion thus caused in the public, they presented their apologies, admitted to not having inteded to hurt anyone and cancelled the event.' Adding that the Embassy wants to 'sress that Russia strongly condems all forms of racial discrimination and nationalism'. King Charles paid a sweet tribute to his late cousin King Constantine as he was spotted en-route to Buckingham Palace after missing the largest gathering of royalty on British shores since his Coronation. Camilla lead the British and international royals in a Thanksgiving Service for King Constantine of Greece yesterday, after Prince William pulled out of speaking at a memorial service for his late godfather, a year after his death. Dressed in a dark overcoat, navy suit and a smart white shirt, Charles could be seen today wearing a tie covered in fluttering Greek flags in an apparent tribute to the former King. King Charles III missed the service as his treatment for cancer continues, while Prince William had been due to give a reading but pulled out for 'personal reasons'. The ceremony saw Camilla host 23 members of the extended British Royal family and 37 European royals, making it the largest gathering since the Coronation. Charles was at Windsor Castle earlier in the day but left before the service began - with the reception afterwards hosted by Camilla. The King was later photographed waving while being driven into Clarence House, his London residence, where he stayed until this morning. Dressed in a dark overcoat, navy suit and a smart white shirt, Charles could be seen today wearing a tie covered in fluttering Greek flags in an apparent tribute to the former King The tie appears to be covered in fluttering Greek flags the day after the monarch was absent from his cousin's service King Charles III missed the service as his treatment for cancer continues, while Prince William had been due to give a reading but pulled out for 'personal reasons' Waving to onlookers through the car's open window, Charles looked quietly assured as the car drove along the mall this morning The monarch could be seen smiling gently as he looked out of the car, sitting in the back seat as the vehicle covered the small distance between the royal residences His departure was quickly followed by Camilla, who arrived at Clarence House in a separate car just minutes after he left Waving to onlookers through the car's open window this morning, Charles looked quietly assured as the car drove along the mall this morning. The monarch could be seen smiling gently as he looked out of the car, sitting in the back seat as the vehicle covered the small distance between the royal residences. And his departure was quickly followed by Camilla, who arrived at Clarence House in a separate car just minutes after he left. Yesterday's service saw the Queen take on a central role as she appeared calm and confident in an elegant pinstripe outfit as she stepped up as the most senior figure representing the British monarchy in Charles' absence. Prince Andrew enjoyed a prominent role as he led fellow royals on foot to the service at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. His appearance also comes as the Royal Family mourns the sudden death of Lady Gabriella Windsor's husband Thomas Kingston, who was found dead aged just 45 at an address in Gloucestershire on Sunday evening, with emergency services called to the scene shortly after 6pm. The King has previously worn a tie emblazoned with the country's fluttering flags in a sartorial choice that left tongues wagging in December - as he delivered a speech amid a diplomatic spat between the Mediterranean country and Britain. He took to the stage at the COP28 climate conference to make an urgent plea for nations to work together to combat climate change ahead of 2050 - the year by which the UK, among other countries, has committed to net-zero carbon emissions. King Charles III at the opening of COP28 in Dubai on Friday, wearing his distinctive tie patterned with fluttering Greek flags The tie is stitched with patterns of fluttering Greek flags - which could be a nod to his Greek father, Prince Philip Prince Andrew leads members of the Royal Family to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle yesterday to attend a thanksgiving service for the life of the late King Constantine of Greece Queen Camilla is seen at St George's Chapel yesterday as she attends the thanksgiving service But suggestions were made that the King appeared to make an altogether different plea for international co-operation with his choice of tie, stitched with a pattern of Greek flags fluttering in the wind. Charles was also pictured wearing the tie whilst in conversation with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak - who days ago before had snubbed a meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the Elgin Marbles. The Greek press seized upon his fashion choices, claiming that it could be interpreted as a 'gesture of support' for the country in its decades-long war of words over the artefacts, which were taken from Athens more than 200 years ago. The British Crown was represented by Princess Anne, Charles's sister, at Constantine II's funeral in Greece last year following his death in January 2023. Constantine was the last member of a century-long dynasty, and had reigned for just three years when an army dictatorship seized control of the country in 1967. Last night, the unexpected death of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent's 'exceptional' son-in-law has sent shockwaves through the Royal Family and left friends in a state of deep shock. Tributes have now been paid to the financier, who during his previous career with the Foreign Office was posted to Iraq before volunteering with British clergyman Canon Andrew White. He narrowly avoided a terrorist attack on St George's, the country's only Anglican church, in 2004. Kingston's wedding with the daughter of Princess Michael of Kent at St George's Chapel mirrored that of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle just a year earlier. Police in Germany arrested a fugitive member of Germany's notorious far-left militant group - the Baader-Meinhof gang - on Monday. Daniela Klette, 65, was part of a trio from the group, officially known as the Red Army Faction (RAF), which carried out several bombings, kidnappings and killings in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. She was detained on Monday in Berlin and is accused of attempted murder and other crimes, prosecutors said on Tuesday, without giving further details. Klette's arrest has reignited interest in the group that unleashed a campaign of terror in West Germany in the 1970s, 80s and 90s - killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds more in bombings, shootings and kidnappings. And while Klette's arrest means police have caught up with one of the RAF fugitives, her alleged co-conspirators - Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg - remain on the run, bringing up old wounds from Germany's fractured past. Daniela Klette, 65, was part of a trio from the Baader-Meinhof gang, officially known as the Red Army Faction ( RAF ), which carried out several bombings, kidnappings and killings in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. Pictured: RAF members are seen at the funeral of the group's founder in 1977 in Stuttgart, Germany A 1988 portrait of RAF member Daniela Klette, handed out by German police in 1993. Police say she was arrested on Monday accused of attempted murder and other crimes The anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group emerged out of the radicalised fringe of the 1960s student protest movement. Named the Baader-Meinhof gang after two of its early leaders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the RAF fought against what they saw as US imperialism and a 'fascist' German state that - the RAF said - was still riddled with former Nazis. While it was active, it engaged in an armed resistance, leading to the government to declare the RAF a terrorist organisation. It was responsible for terrorising West Germany with a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies and shoot-outs with police over the course of three decades - across three 'generations' of the group. Baader-Meinhof has been held responsible for 34 deaths, including several notable figures of the time - including industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer, the Dresdner Bank head Jurgen Ponto, Deutsche Bank chairman Alfred Herrhausen and federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback. American servicemen stationed in Germany were also killed, as well as many chauffeurs and bodyguards of their targets - collateral damage in the attacks. More than 200 people were also injured by the group. Meanwhile, 26 RAF members or supporters were killed during their period of activity. The group was motivated by its left-wing beliefs, as well as the perception that their parents' generation had failed to confront Germany's Nazi past. Over the years the RAF developed links to Middle Eastern militant organisations, while also receiving support from East Germany's Stasi security services. In 1972, the group set off bombs at United States headquarters in Frankfurt twice, as well as the Springer publishing house in Hamburg. And in 1974, the group killed Gunter von Drenkmann, the president of Germany's superior court of justice. Its activities extended beyond Germany's borders, too. A year later, in 1975, the RAF seized the West German Embassy in Stockholm. It took hostages and set the building to explode, and killed two hostages when the RAF's demands were not met. In 1972, the group set off bombs at United States headquarters in Frankfurt - twice, as well as the Springer publishing house in Hamburg. Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof - as well as Gudrun Ensslin and Horst Mahler - formed the RAF's early leadership and the 'first generation' Some of the bombs detonated prematurely, leading to the deaths of two of the six RAF affiliates who stormed the building. The remaining four eventually surrendered. At the height of its notoriety in 1977, the group kidnapped one of Germany's top industrialists after opening fire with a machine-gun on his Mercedes. After ambushing Hanns-Martin Schleyer's convoy, they held him hostage for six weeks as the West German state negotiated for his release. On October 13, four militants of the RAF-allied Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked Mallorca-Frankfurt flight LH 181, demanding the release of 11 RAF members. During a five-day odyssey which included seven refuelling stops in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the cell's leader, who called himself Captain Martyr Mahmud, shot dead the pilot, Juergen Schumann. German anti-terror commandos eventually stormed the Lufthansa jet in Somalia, shot its Palestinian hijackers and freed 90 hostages. Schleyer, a former SS officer who became the head of Germany's employers' association, was then found dead in the boot of a car in eastern France. Though the so-called German Autumn of 1977 marked the beginning of a long period of decline for the RAF, the group continued to operate for another two decades. The group is often talked about in three generations, with the RAF leadership changing several times over the years. Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof - as well as Gudrun Ensslin and Horst Mahler - formed the early leadership and the first generation. Pictured: The burned out car of Alfred Herrhausen, chief of West Deutsche Bank, who was killed in a bomb attack by the Red Army Faction in 1989 In 1975, the RAF seized the West German Embassy in Stockholm (pictured). It took hostages and set the building to explode, and killed two hostages when the RAF's demands were not met. Its bombs exploded prematurely, severely damaging the building (pictured) Pictured: Federal Judge Wolfgang Buddenberg's damaged car, left, after an explosion on May 15, 1972. The judge's wife was driving the car, and survived Andreas Baader is seen in a hospital bed in the University Hospital of Frankfurt. Baader was lightly injured by a shot in the back-side during his arrest on June 1 1972 A Baader-Meinhof group wanted poster is seen in Paris in October 1977 Baader, Meinhof and most of the first generation had died in Stammheim maximum security prison by 1977 - with some, including Baader, taking their own lives in a suicide pact on the night of October 17 that year. A second generation formed in the 1970s after the first generation were mostly arrested, followed by a third generation which existed from the 1980s to 1998. Staub, Garweg and Klette were alleged members of the RAF's so-called 'third generation' and active during the 1980s and 1990s. They are chief suspects in a 1993 explosives attack against a prison under construction in Germany's Hesse state. In the attack, five RAF members climbed the prison walls, tied up and abducted the guards in a van, then returned to set off explosions that caused about 600,000 euros worth of property damage, according to German prosecutors. Klette is also a suspect in two previous RAF operations. The group declared itself disbanded in 1998. Although the group disbanded in 1998, the trio are alleged to have continued their criminal activities. Along with Staub and Garweg, Klette is being investigated by the prosecutors in Verden for attempted murder and various serious robberies between 1999 and 2016. The trio are believed to have been financing their lives on the run through robberies of money transporters and supermarket cash heists. They are suspected of being behind the failed robbery of a money transporter in 2016 near the northern city of Bremen, among other offences. In that incident, masked attackers armed with AK-47 automatic rifles and a grenade-launcher opened fire. However, they fled without cash when security guards locked themselves inside the armoured vehicle, which was carrying about one million euros ($1.1 million). This undated handout picture released by the State Office of Criminal Investigations Lower Saxony shows what is believed to be Daniela Klette. She was on the run for 30 years until police caught up with her on Monday Police officers carry paper bags as they pass under crime-scene tape in front of the entrance to a house where former RAF member Daniela Klette was arrested in Berlin Police officers are seen outside the apartment building where Klette was arrested on Monday Klette showed no resistance as she was arrested at her apartment in a run down building in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, according to police. She had been living on the fifth floor of the apartment block with her dog, and had a partner of a similar age, according to the popular Bild daily. Police used fingerprints to identify Klette, who had been using an Italian passport and living under the name 'Claudia Ivone', according to magazine Spiegel. German media published the first photo of Klette seen by the public in almost 30 years taken from Facebook, showing the fugitive with streaks of grey in her hair. Klette is said to have been active in a capoeira group in Berlin, an interest detailed in a 2023 podcast by public broadcaster RBB, which followed clues towards the fugitive in Berlin. The arrest also came after a German television programme - Aktenzeichen XY, the country's equivalent of crime watch - featured a profile of Klette, Staub and Garweg and detailed their alleged robberies between 1999 and 2016. After the programme aired, police - who offered a 150,000 euro (128,000) reward for information on the trio - received 250 tipoffs to the suspects' possible whereabouts. Questions still remain over how Klette was able to evade the police for so long. Staub and Garweg, meanwhile, remain on the run. German police said on Wednesday they had released a man suspected of being Staub - after an alarm was raised in Wuppertal when a man on a regional train was mistaken for the fugitive. Police swooped on a train, but it was later found to be a case of mistaken identity. Although far-right extremism has been a bigger focus for Germany in recent years, far-left attacks have also continued to keep the authorities busy. A court in Dresden in May sentenced a left-wing extremist woman to more than five years in jail for attacking neo-Nazis. At the time, Germany's interior minister warned against 'vigilante justice'. The defendant, identified only as Lina E., and three other suspects were convicted of participating in a 'criminal organisation' that carried out several assaults against right-wing extremists between 2018 and 2020. And although the RAF was responsible for horrific crimes, it was by no-means the country's deadliest left-wing group. Klette showed no resistance as she was arrested at her apartment in a run down building in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, according to police A general view of the women's prison in the northwestern German town of Vechta where several German media report Daniela Klette has been arrested after decades on the run from armed robbery and attempted murder charges, February 28, 2024 Another - known as the Revolutionary Cells - which is held responsible for 296 bomb attacks, arson and other attacks between 1973 and 1995. Of its bombing attacks, 40 were committed in West Berlin. Famously, Revolutionary Cells helped hijack an Air France airliner which ended in Operation Entebe in Uganda, an Israeli rescue mission. Two of the Revolutionary Cells' founding members were killed - as was Yonatan Netanyahu on the Israeli side - the older brother of the country's current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The wife of Congressman Matt Rosendale has branded the allegations that impregnated a staffer amid an extramarital affair as 'false' and 'political mudslinging' as she reveals the family 'stand by him'. Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp alleged there was a 'rumor' that Rosendale, 63, dropped out of the US Senate race because he 'impregnated a 20-year-old staff person'. The Montana Republican's camp furiously denied the allegations, claiming they were 'false and defamatory', and on Tuesday his attorneys filed a litigation hold notice against the North Dakota Democrat. Jean Rosendale, the lawmaker's wife of nearly 40 years, has now addressed the allegations, claiming the rumor is a 'disturbing lie' and '100 per cent false'. She told Nonstop Local: 'We stand by Matt and have prayerfully urged him to continue the fight.' Rosendale withdrew from the Senate race earlier this month after Donald Trump backed his opponent. He cited a 'lack of resources' and said that with the former president's endorsement the 'hill was just too steep'. Matt Rosendale's family are standing by him after an ex-senator claimed he dropped out of the US Senate race because he 'impregnated a 20-year-old staff person'. His wife Jean, pictured with Rosendale and their children, is supporting him to pursue legal action and claims the family has urged the Congressman to 'fight' Former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (pictured in 2018) shared what she referred to as a 'rumor' about Rosendale during a podcast appearance on Monday. She said there was 'gossip' that he had impregnated a staffer amid an extramarital affair Jean Rosendale, the lawmaker's wife of nearly 40 years, addressed the allegations on Tuesday, branding the rumor as a 'disturbing lie' and '100 per cent false'. Jean, pictured with her husband, said the remark was 'political mudslinging at its worst' Heitkamp, during an appearance on the Talking Feds with Harry Litman podcast on Monday, claimed: 'There's a reason why Rosendale backed out of that Senate race. The rumor is that he impregnated a 20-year-old staff person.' The one-term senator referred to the allegations as 'gossip' and did not provide any evidence to support the claim, but added that she predicts the GOP 'may lose a member in the next couple days.' Ron Kovach, a spokesperson for Rosendale, has denied her allegations, telling DailyMail.com on Tuesday: 'This is 100 per cent false and defamatory and former Senator Heitkamp will be hearing from our lawyers soon.' Now, Rosendale's wife Jean - echoing Kovach's language - has reinforced the family's position, telling Nonstop News that 'these lies are 100 per cent false' and 'political mudslinging at its worst'. She said that after 14 years in public service, the family has become accustom to a 'certain amount of attacks on Matt for standing up for what he believes in'. 'But this disturbing lie about our entire family is truly political mudslinging at its worst and everyone should be offended by it,' Jean stated, adding that the family is supportive and encouraging to fight back. Rosendale's lawyers have taken action against Heitkamp and, according to the news outlet, on Tuesday sent a letter stating they want 'corrective action' to be taken. The litigation reportedly asks for relevant documentation to be preserved and is a 'notice of potential future legal proceedings'. Republican Congressman Matt Rosendale (pictured in the Montana State Capitol on February 9 this year) has denied an accusation that he dropped out of the US Senate race because he impregnated a 20-year-old staffer Former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (pictured in 2018), during an appearance on the Talking Feds with Harry Litman podcast on Monday, claimed: 'There's a reason why Rosendale backed out of that Senate race. The rumor is that he impregnated a 20-year-old staff person' Rosendale, who is married and has three children, dropped his Senate bid on February 15, less than a week after he got into the race - only to see former Trump quickly endorse his opponent Tim Sheehy. The hardline conservative said in a statement that with Trump's backing of fellow Republican Sheehy and a lack of resources, he was 'forced to calculate what my chances of success would be'. Trump's endorsement came just hours after Rosendale had signed paperwork to formally launch his campaign on February 9. 'As everyone knows, I have planned to run for the US Senate and to win both the primary and the general election,' Rosendale said at the time. 'However, the day I announced, President Trump then announced that he was endorsing a different candidate. 'I have long been a supporter of the President, and remain so. But I have been forced to calculate what my chances of success would be with Trump supporting my opponent.' Rosendale acknowledged that the 'race was already going to be tough' and that after further evaluation he determined, 'by my calculations, with Trump endorsing my opponent and the lack of resources, the hill was just too steep.' He revealed he would be returning to Montana to be 'with my family and prayerfully consider what is next'. Over the weekend, Rosendale filed paperwork to run for re-election to his US House seat, The Daily Montanan reported. Several other Republicans have already announced their intentions to enter that race, which is in a solidly GOP district. Rosendale's exit from the Senate race avoids what analysts predicted to be a month-long fight within the GOP leading up the June 4 Montana primary. Sheehy, after his withdrawal, said in a statement that Rosendale has held the line on reckless spending in DC and that he looked forward to working together with him to defeat three-term Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. Rosendale touts himself as being a family man who has 'dedicated his life to working for Montana'. He and his wife Jean are pictured with then-President Donald Trump in Oct. 2018 Matt and Jean Rosendale (pictured earlier this month as he filed to run for US Senate) moved lived on a ranch in Glendive, Montana for over 20 years, before deciding in 2020 to relocate to Great Falls. The couple decided to make Montana their home because they 'love and share' the state's values are that 'faith, family, and community are still important Heitkamp's accusation of the alleged affair has seemingly upset Rosendale, as evidence by his camp seeking legal action. The representative touts himself as being a family man who has 'dedicated his life to working for Montana', according to his campaign website. He and his wife Jean moved lived on a ranch in Glendive, Montana for over 20 years, before deciding in 2020 to relocate to Great Falls. The couple decided to make Montana their home because they 'love and share' the state's values are that 'faith, family, and community are still important.' Rosendale, a self-proclaimed 'avid hunter and outdoorsman', would open their ranch up to the Glendive community each years so that local 'kids, families, and veterans can hunt, camp, and recreate'. He announced four years ago that he and Jean were relocating to be closer to their adult children, who were starting families of their own. 'Those who know Jean and I, know that family is the most important thing to us,' Rosendale wrote on Facebook in 2020, sharing how they were 'blessed' to have raised their three sons in Glendive. He said: 'We are a tight knit family, and like many parents want to be closer to our children (and hopefully grandchildren!). That's why, after much discussion and prayer as a family, Jean and I have made the decision to sell our home in Glendive and begin the process of relocating to be closer to our two sons and daughter-in-law in Great Falls. 'While we will always cherish our time in Glendive and all of our friends and neighbors there, we are excited to be closer to our children and for our family's next chapter!' The press office for the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, where Heitkamp is currently serving as director, did not respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment on Tuesday. Rep. Matt Rosendale is pictured filing paperwork to run for US Senate on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, at the state capitol in Helena. He dropped his Senate bid on February 15, less than a week after he got into the race Campaign volunteer Joey Grewell is seen putting up a sign for Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale's U.S. senate campaign during a Republican gathering, Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, in Helena In Washington, Rosendale is among the House's most hard-right conservatives and a member of the House Freedom Caucus. He banded with seven other members of his party in October to oust Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He supports Trump and voted against certifying the 2020 election. Rosendale had said when he announced his campaign that he would be able to challenge Tester despite losing to him in 2018. Trump played a large role in that election, too, visiting Montana repeatedly to stump for Rosendale, who lost by about 3.5 percentage points. 'I've won two elections since then,' Rosendale, 63, told reporters on February 9 as he entered the race. 'And the most important thing is that my name ID and my trust factor is elevated dramatically. People know who I am.' While a large contingent of conservative state lawmakers cheered Rosendale's filing, Daines issued a statement saying: 'It's unfortunate that rather than building seniority for our great state in the House, Matt is choosing to abandon his seat and create a divisive primary.' But Republicans in Washington had worked to keep Rosendale on the sidelines, with leading members of the party supporting Sheehy as the party's best chance to topple Tester - part of their strategy to take control of the Senate by targeting a few vulnerable Democratic seats in the 2024 election. Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL who now owns an aerial firefighting company with extensive government contracts, is a political newcomer backed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Montana Sen. Steve Daines - the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Former Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson is also vying for the Republican US Senate nomination. Rosendale (pictured with Jean in 2018) is among the House's most hard-right conservatives and a member of the House Freedom Caucus. He banded with seven other members of his party in October to oust Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He supports Trump and voted against certifying the 2020 election Tester, a political moderate, has held onto his Senate post even as Montana tilted increasingly Republican over the past several election cycles. When he entered the Senate in 2007, Democrats held almost every statewide elected office in Montana, from governor and attorney general, to two of the state's three seats in Congress. Since 2020, that's down to Tester's seat. Montana Democrats had relished the possibility of an ugly primary fight between Sheehy and Rosendale, which could have distracted GOP voters in advance of the general election and drained some of the party's campaign funds. The race is on track to be among the most expensive in Montana political history. Spending on advertising by the candidates and outside political groups already topped $18million. An additional $95million in advertising has been reserved for the coming months, according to data from AdImpact, a firm that tracks political advertising. Maneuvering by Republicans to increase their chances of beating Tester began last year when Republican state lawmakers proposed election rule changes that would have allowed only the top two candidates to advance out of the state's 2024 Senate primary. That likely would have kept third-party candidates off the general election ballot and could have tipped the election in their favor. Past races for Tester's seat were close enough that some Republicans blamed third-party candidates for the Democrat's victories. Mourners have lined the streets to mark the funeral of a young woman who died after a botched weight-loss operation in Turkey. The heart-broken mother of Morgan Ribeiro led the procession in a traditional horse-drawn procession through the streets of south London where the 20-year-old grew up. Erin Gibson broke down in tears and wailed with hurt as the carriage pulled outside the funeral home where her daughter is being laid to rest. Traffic came to a stand-still and friends and neighbours offered their condolences to the family as mourners passed her primary school and favourite shop in Penge, south London. Morgan died from complications in a Serbian hospital in January after her return flight from Istanbul had to make an emergency landing in Belgrade when she became seriously ill. Her mother has warned others of the risks of seeking cosmetic surgery abroad and has condemned the clinic in Istanbul of releasing her daughter just three days after the botched operation while she was suffering an infection. The funeral procession of Morgan Ribeiro was led by a horse drawn carriage Morgan's mother Erin Gibson (in purple) was seen in tears as she entered the funeral home where her daughter is being laid to rest Floral tributes were left at the crematorium where Morgan is being laid to rest today Morgan Ribeiro, 20, died from complications in a Serbian hospital in January Erin wore a brightly-coloured purple trouser suit and mourners wore purple ribbons in honour of Morgan as it was her favourite colour. She will be laid to rest at Beckenham Crematorium. Morgan's coffin was draped in the Union flag, the Portuguese flag and the Irish tricolour flag, to mark her family's diverse background. Mourners bowed their heads and stood silently as the white horse-drawn carriage pulled up outside the crematorium. Morgan's father Richard Ribeiro was one of the eight pall-bearers who carried the coffin into the hall, as the music of 'Dancing In The Sky' played. There was standing room only, so many well wishers had come to celebrate Morgan's life and show their support to her heart broken family. The service, bidding farewell to Morgan, was also live-streamed via social media. Morgan was described as 'beautiful on the inside and on the outside' in a moving ceremony led by life-celebrant Sacha Ansell. The funeral procession, led by a horse drawn carriage, passed Morgan's primary school and favourite shop in Penge, south London Morgan's mother Erin Gibson walked behind the carriage as it pulled outside the funeral home where her daughter is being laid to rest Erin wore a purple trouser suit, while other mourners also wore purple ribbons in honour of Morgan as it was her favourite colour Erin was on the brink of tears as the procession made its way through south London Erin broke down in tears and wailed with hurt as the carriage rod through south London The bereaved mother, who wore a brightly-coloured purple trouser suit, was seen hugging one her in support Morgan's coffin was draped in the Union flag, the Portuguese flag and the Irish tricolour flag, to mark her family's diverse background Mourners can be seen wearing purple ties and ribbons in honour of Morgan Mourners bowed their heads and stood silently as the white horse-drawn carriage pulled up outside the crematorium She that urged mourners to remember 'the light' she had given to the people she loved. Her parents Erin and Richard wiped away tears, as their daughter's life was honoured. A song Morgan had recorded was played before her 'many achievements' were marked with a minute's silence. Her sister Becca held back tears and laughter as she listed the many ways she will remember Morgan. Mourners were urged to 'remember Morgan as the amazing, beautiful young woman that she was and always will'. Father Richard Ribeiro placed his hands lovingly on the coffin and whispered a tear-filled farewell to his daughter. Erin broke down in sobs of tears. She cried: 'Morgan baby I love you. Bye baby, bye baby! I'll see you again!' as the coffin was lowered for cremation. The service concluded with the softly sweet lyrics of the song 'Dancing In The Sky' by Mandi Fisher. Morgan is being laid to rest at Beckenham Crematorium (pictured) The carriage leading the procession can be seen entering the crematorium Well wishers lined the road into the crematorium as they came to celebrate Morgan's life and show their support to her heart broken family Erin Gibson broke down in tears and wailed with hurt as the carriage pulled outside the funeral home where her daughter is being laid to rest The carriage pulled up outside the crematorium before Morgan's coffin was lifted inside by eight pall-bearers Morgan's father Richard Ribeiro was one of the eight pall-bearers who carried the coffin into the hall, as the music of 'Dancing In The Sky' played Morgan's mother Erin followed the mourners into the crematorium as here daughter's coffin was taken inside Dozens of mourners attended the service as some were pictured standing outside the crematorium as they was no room left inside Notes and floral tributes were left at the crematorium in memory of Morgan A floral tribute to Morgan from her bereaved friends A floral tribute to 'beautiful girl' Morgan that was left by a mourner during her funeral Her mother was seen carrying several purple balloons with the words: 'Morgan, forever loved' The balloons were later released into the air by mourners at the funeral service Erin could be seen embracing a friend as mourners gathered outside the Beckenham Crematorium Mourners gathered outside the crematorium where they also left tributes to Morgan The cover to the order of service for Morgan's funeral features a picture of her smiling as a youngster The back of the order of service also includes a collage of pictures of Morgan with her friends and family Morgan had suffered years of bullying due to her size and had sought out cosmetic surgery without her parents' knowledge. In advance of the procedure, Morgan had had a virtual consultation with the Turkish company in September 2023 before booking the January operation. Her sister Kayleigh Ribeiro, 26, had begged her not to go through with the surgery which carries a number of complicating health risks when Morgan told her of her plans. Her boyfriend James claims that hospital staff and translators speaking to her did not mention the dangers associated with the operation prior to Morgan going under the knife. The organisation that connected Morgan with the Turkish surgeon has denied any wrongdoing. Date rape drugs used in spiking are being advertised by dealers on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, an investigation has uncovered. Dozens of open and public accounts were offering drugs used in drink spiking for sale, including GHB, GBL and Xanax. The posts - found across Facebook , TikTok, Instagram and Twitte r/X - advertised the substances as 'club drugs' and promised' discreet packaging'. After the i uncovered the advertising posts, The Home Office said it is the responsibility of social media companies to tackle the content. MP Caroline Nokes, who is chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, slammed the posts as 'terrifying'. It comes after broadcaster Kate McCann revealed that her drink was spiked by a group of 'brazen' men while on a night out with colleagues in a bar. An investigation by the i found hundreds of posts promoting the drugs in the UK, being described as 'lethal chemsex drugs' or 'date rape drugs' Accounts advertising the drugs on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X told interested buyers to make contact through Telegram or Snapchat Dozens of open and public accounts were offering drugs used in drink spiking for sale, including GHB, GBL and Xanax The posts - found across Facebook , TikTok, Instagram and Twitter/X - advertised the substances as 'club drugs' and promised' discreet packaging An investigation by the i found hundreds of posts promoting the drugs in the UK, being described as 'lethal chemsex drugs' or 'date rape drugs'. After the news outlet approached social media firms with its findings, accounts were removed from TikTok, Facebook and X, but Telegram and X didn't respond. Snapchat is 'investigating further', according to the i. TikTok, Snapchat and Meta told the newspaper that they don't allow the sale of drugs. The i reported that Telegram had the most accounts offering GHB and GBL for sale, with 17 channels ranging from small groups to some with more than 11,000 subscribers. Accounts advertising the drugs on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X told interested buyers to make contact through Telegram or Snapchat. Colin Mackie, from Spike Aware, told the i: 'The fact that purchasing spiking drugs within social media apps, has made things even easier, is a frightening development. 'App developers can't continue to turn a blind eye to things and must accept some responsibility for how their app is being used.' A Home Office spokesperson said: 'Spiking is an appalling crime which seriously undermines public safety, particularly for women, and we are committed to stamping it out. 'All companies in the scope of the Online Safety Act are required to tackle content related to the sale of illegal drugs, including 'date rape drugs', to ensure that their services are not used for criminal activity.' The revelation comes after Times Radio host Kate McCann, 35, opened up about the terrifying experience on her Sunday Morning politics show. The journalist told how she was out with colleagues who had drinks ordered over to her table before a friend informed her: 'I think I've just seen someone try to put something in our drinks.' Kate McCann said that she didn't tell her work colleagues that she thought she had been spiked and believes there is a 'sense of embarrassment' admitting you have been spiked Confusion, hallucinations and suddenly acting paranoid are among the signs of being spiked She explained: 'By that point I'd already taken a sip but we thought, right it was only one sip. Maybe it wasn't in my drink, I'm sure it will be fine.' They all put their drinks back on the bar and asked the bar staff to tip them out and replaced them but sadly it was too late. Ms McCann said: 'Even though I'd only had a sip, it became clear about 20 minutes or so later that I started to feel quite strange. I felt very hot, just didn't feel right. I went to the loo and I couldn't focus. I couldn't sit straight, I couldn't stand straight and I couldn't really see.' READ MORE - Businessman who imported 100 gallons of lethal date rape drug GBL is jailed for 11 years in landmark case Advertisement 'Luckily, I managed to book an Uber, managed to get in the car and made my way home. 'But I don't remember that car journey, I suspect I wasn't awake for it. And I don't remember getting into the house. I woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning on the floor in my bathroom.' She said she is still trying to figure out what the spiker's aim was as they were in a group so she doesn't think it was deliberately targeted and that nobody that she can remember tried to separate her from that group. 'But what I do remember is that the people who did it were a group of men stood by the bar and they did it so obviously that my friend had seen it. They didn't leave the bar after that point.' Ms McCann said that she didn't tell her work colleagues that she thought she had been spiked and believes there is a 'sense of embarrassment' admitting you have been spiked. She said there is a worry that 'people will just think you've had too much to drink'. It follows a drug dealer who imported over 100 gallons of lethal date rape drug GBL being jailed for 11 years. Afshin Alikhani, 43, was jailed for 11 years after he was caught importing GBL GBL is often sold in the form of industrial solvents, stain removers and rust removers Stephen Port used GBH to murder his four victims June 2014 and September 2015 Reynhard Sinaga, 36, used GHB to knock out at least 200 men Afshin Alikhani, 43, was caught after he was kept under surveillance in a four-year police sting and investigation. The drugs baron imported around 500,000 worth of illegal substances using a cleaning company as a front for his criminal activity. Detectives found messages on his phone showing his planned distributions to buyers and recovered 30,000 in cash from his home in Abbey Road, south Hampstead. GBL is the liquid form of GHB, which is the substance serial killer Stephen Port used to drug and murder his four victims. In 2022 GBL was reclassified from a Class C to a Class B drug acknowledging its use in crime. Missing mum Samantha Murphy fell victim to a 'psychopathic predator' who meticulously planned out their attack, experts believe. A panel of experts - including psychologists, former policemen and technology experts - examined all the information Victoria Police have shared with the public since Mrs Murphy disappeared from her Ballarat home on February 4. The mother-of-three, aged 51, left her home in Ballarat East at 7am to go for a run through the local forest, Woowookarung Regional Park, but was never seen again. The experts on Wednesday's episode of Under Investigation believe Mrs Murphy's habitual morning run could have been what led to her disappearance. They considered a number of different scenarios, including the possibility that she was kidnapped and is still alive. But all five experts agreed the mother had likely met some kind of foul play - whether that be murder or kidnap - while she was in the forest. Beloved 51-year-old Ballarat mother Samantha Murphy (pictured) has not been seen since she left her East Ballarat home for a run on February 4 Forensic psychologist Dr Peter Ashkar (right) believes character behind Mrs Murphy's case aligns with that of a 'psychopathic predator' Forensic psychologist Dr Peter Ashkar revealed Mrs Murphy's case aligns with the actions of a deranged 'predator'. 'If I were to lay my cards on the table, it would be towards [the attacker] being a very organised and planned psychopathic predator,' he said. 'They're usually very damaged. Psychologically they're cold, they're callous, they're bold, they're daring. They're usually very intelligent. 'If they were the psychopathic type of predator, they would know that area like the back of their hand.' Dr Ashkar added a 'psychopathic predator' is often able to 'get very close to the victim' as 'they don't appear different to anyone else in the community'. For technology specialist Nigel Phair, there was another glaring sign police could be dealing with a high-calibre criminal. Mr Phair explained Mrs Murphy was known to be carrying an iPhone and Apple Watch at the time of her disappearance. She may have also worn AirPods. However, at the seven-kilometre mark of her run, there are several signs she ran into trouble. A wide-spread search of the forest where Mrs Murphy disappeared has found no sign of the missing mother, leading to the belief she was attacked Technology specialist Nigel Phair (pictured) said the apparent limited evidence available from Mrs Murphy's iPhone and Apple Watch suggested her attacker was a 'sophisticated criminal' 'I'm intrigued if everything stopped at that seven-kilometre mark and we just have nothing,' Mr Phair said. 'That means someone's done something active against those two devices, and you have to know what you are doing. 'It's not just turning them off. It's destroying them and then getting rid of that piece of evidence.' Mr Phair said police likely would have traced other active devices in the area at the time of Mrs Murphy's disappearance, as they did to trace the last 'pinged' location of her phone. 'It would be, I would argue, quite a sophisticated criminal that would think to not bring their own digital evidence into that type of crime scene,' he said. Former Victorian detective Damian Marrett and missing persons specialist Valentine Smith both believed an attacker may have laid in wait in the forest. 'Someone either knew where she'd run past and waited or there was more than one person, one was behind following [Samantha] and another was waiting up further or she was followed in there,' Mr Marrett said. 'I believe this was targeted and seven kilometres in, an incident has happened.' Former Victorian detective Damian Marrett and missing persons specialist Valentine Smith both believed an attacker would have laid in wait in the forest Mr Marrett said open mineshafts in the area (warning sign pictured) 'could be a great place to conceal a body' READ MORE: New hurdle in quest to find missing mum Advertisement While walking through Mrs Murphy's regular running course, Mr Smith announced: 'This is the perfect spot for an ambush. 'Someone could be hiding off here to the right ... she would not have a hope.' The panel also addressed several other theories that have been raised in Mrs Murphy's case. Speaking on whether the mother might have orchestrated her own disappearance, Dr Ashkar pointed to footage of her eldest daughter, Jess, crying for her to come home. 'As we all know in our hearts, mothers do not leave their children, except under very extreme and unusual circumstances,' he said. 'The daughter [Jess] is clearly very attached to her mother and on that basis I was assume the mother [Mrs Murphy] is also very attached to her. 'The idea that Samantha has wilfully left her family is just unfathomable and implausible to me.' Mr Marrett commented on theories Mrs Murphy could have fallen, or been dropped, into an abandoned mineshaft - as many litter the area from the historic Gold Rush. 'They [the mineshafts] could be a great place to conceal a body or a crime after the fact,' he said. 'If something did happen in that park, foul play, you can put stuff down that mineshaft, including a body, and you'd probably never find it again. Raymond Shaw, who has been helping police in the search for Samantha showed some of the thousands of abandoned mineshafts around Ballarat, some of which are 100 metres deep with the possibility that one may contain her body. But the chances of finding her body were deemed as 'Buckleys'. 'I think there could be anywhere between 4000 and 5000 gold mines just underneath the town,' Mr Shaw said. Dr Ashkar shared another theory that Mrs Murphy was kidnapped and is still alive. Dr Ashkar dismissed theories Mrs Murphy orchestrated her own disappearance by pointing to footage of her eldest daughter, Jess, crying for her to come home (pictured) Mr Marrett (pictured) said it is extremely important for investigators to find Mrs Murphy's body because 'it's everything to the family' 'I still would like to believe the very real possibility that it's a kidnapping and that she's still alive, that's my hope,' he said. 'I absolutely feel whoever this is has taken her and abducted her. 'They're very systematic and well organised and knew very well what they were doing.' However, Mr Marrett believes 'we're looking at a homicide' but remains adamant Mrs Murphy's body needs to be found. 'I think through the data police have a very good idea of exactly what happened,' he said 'It's always important, it's important for the prosecution case, but it's also important for the family to be able to get some closure,' he said. 'That little hope of that [she] might still be alive is like torture. So to have closure by farewelling a loved is everything to the family.' Mr Smith believes that the most potent investigative resource is still the general public as he implores everyone to remain motivated and involved. 'It's important that the community listen to what's being said here tonight and to really focus on what's happened and make notes and think and report it to the police and report it to Crime Stoppers,' he said. The first 24 hours are the most important in missing persons cases, here's what's happened in the 24 days since Samantha Murphy disappeared Samantha Murphy doesn't come home Mrs Murphy's family immediately became worried when the dedicated mother failed to come home in time for their planned 11am brunch. She was last seen leaving her home on Eureka Street in Ballarat East on Sunday, February 4. CCTV footage captured the mother wearing a brown singlet and black half-length leggings outside her home. Mrs Murphy wearing a brown singlet and black half-length leggings (pictured) outside her home A wide-scale search onvolving police, Search and Rescue Squad, Mounted Branch and Dog Squad, SES (pictured) and CFA spent six days looking for the mother in Woowookarung Regional Park False hope What were understood to be two major developments in Mrs Murphy's case turned out to be false leads in the early days of her disappearance. An 'item of interest' found by searchers on February 6 saw all reporters ejected from the area while detectives examined the apparent evidence. However, the item was later cleared as it was not related to the disappearance. Also on February 6, Mrs Murphy's husband, Mick, broke his silence for the first time and told reporters he was 'not too bad under the circumstances'. The second major lead was the release of a CCTV video showing a woman running across a driveway on February 6, which was believed to be Mrs Murphy. However, the hopes of the mother's family and loved ones were once again dashed when the woman in the video came forward. Mick Murphy faces intense scrutiny from internet sleuths By the fifth day of his wife's disappearance, the Murphy family was forced to issue a public statement for internet sleuths to stop harassing Mr Murphy. 'For those questioning Samantha's husband, you need not worry,' the statement read. 'He is in more pain than anyone and would be the last person to suspect in any of this.' Mrs Murphy's husband, Mick Murphy (pictured), was repeatedly targeted by internet sleuths in the early days of his wife's disappearance The Murphy family issued a statement on speculation of Mr Murphy's (left) involvement in Mrs Murphy's (right) disappearance, saying: 'He is in more pain than anyone and would be the last person to suspect in any of this' However, the scrutiny against Mr Murphy, who co-owns car repair business called Inland Motor Body Works with his wife, only increased. Online trolls targeted the father for his apparent indifference to Mrs Murphy's disappearance, with criticism against him mounting when he said he would not participate in the search for her. At the time, Mr Murphy explained he needed to keep his mind occupied to cope with the stress of the situation. Last week, Missing Persons Unit Superintendent Mark Hatt was questioned over whether Mr Murphy is a suspect to which he said: 'At this stage, he is not.' He is however, along with everyone in Mrs Murphy's immediate family, a 'person of interest'. Murphy family plead for beloved mother to come home Eldest daughter, Jess Murphy, joined her father in a public appearance to urge anyone with information about her mother's whereabouts to come forward on February 8. In an emotional address, Jess described her 'mum' as a 'really strong woman' who is 'far too determined to give up this fight'. 'Mum, we love you so much, and we miss you. We need you at home with us. Please come home soon. I can't wait to see you and to give you the biggest hug when I do,' she said. 'And to tell you off for giving us so much stress. I love you.' Mr Murphy shared his own impassioned plea, saying: 'People just don't vanish into thin air. Someone's got to know something. 'Whether it be any little thing that you might think is relevant, just call the police and let them know. It'll give us a bit of peace of mind, some hope.' Eldest daughter, Jess Murphy (pictured), urged anyone with information about her mother's whereabouts to come forward on February 8 The family's public address (above) came just two days before Victoria Police 'scaled back' its search effort for Mrs Murphy Police bring in missing persons and homicide specialists On February 9, Victoria Police announced it would be enlisting the help of its elite Missing Persons Unit in Mrs Murphy's case. The specialist investigators are often called in when it's feared a missing person has been the victim of foul play, but a body has not been found. Its officers have been deployed to some of Victoria's biggest murder investigations in recent years. The move marked the public beginning of police's move from viewing the case as a rescue to a criminal investigation. It followed several reports of strange men in the forest harassing female searchers and the admission from Ballarat runner Sissy Austin that she'd previously been viciously attacked in the same forest where Ms Murphy disappeared. Victoria Police 'scale back' its search On February 10, just six days after Mrs Murphy vanished, volunteers who turned up to search the forest were told there would be no further 'coordinated' effort. 'The current phase of the active search for missing woman Samantha Murphy has been scaled back over the weekend,' authorities said at the time. Victoria Police brought in the help of its Missing Persons Unit after Ballarat runner Sissy Austin (pictured) revealed that she'd been viciously attacked in the same forest where Ms Murphy disappeared Passionate volunteers (pictured) remained present in Ballarat and regularly organise searches for Mrs Murphy in places of interest 'An extensive six-day search has been conducted involving local police, along with personnel from the Search and Rescue Squad, Mounted Branch and Dog Squad, plus significant assistance from members of the SES and CFA. 'The investigative stage of the investigation continues and as any new information comes to hand identifying areas of interest, the search will be scaled up.' Earlier this week, Victoria Police focused its investigation on the Murphy's smash repair business, Motor Body Works. Speculation outlaw motorcycle gangs were customers of the shop have swirled among the Ballarat community since the 51-year-old vanished. The Ballarat community is no stranger to bikie violence, with a senior Bandidos member shot at its clubhouse during the club's national run just months ago. Victoria Police Missing Persons Unit Superintendent Mark Hatt on Friday refused to answer questions about potential links with bikies and Ms Murphy's disappearance. However, he did confirm the panel beater's books were being closely examined by detectives. Police also reportedly took away a number of 'items of interest' from the repairs shop. 'Absolutely we are looking at everything we possibly can to find out what happened to Samantha,' Superintendent Hatt said. Volunteers continue the hunt Despite dwindling morale and support on the ground, passionate volunteers have remained present in Ballarat and regularly organise searches for Mrs Murphy in places of interest. However, what on the surface appears to be a good-hearted group of people putting in the hours to solve the case could be harbouring the criminal behind it. On Wednesday, February 28, respected Melbourne journalist John Silvester claimed detectives are now considering if Ms Murphy's attacker is hiding among the search parties. Earlier this week, Victoria Police focused its investigation on the Murphy's smash repair business, Motor Body Works (pictured) 'Now we know that the local people, volunteers, have gone out there selflessly to search time and time again,' Mr Silvester told Radio 3AW on Wednesday. 'Police will also be considering that one of those searchers is the killer. 'In that, they have inculcated themselves into that situation to be seen as part of the community, but also keeping an eye on what's going on.' Newsreader Sandra Sully has fought back tears on live television as Network 10 aired a heartbreaking tribute to her former colleague Jesse Baird after his body was found. Alleged killer cop Beau Lamarre-Condon is accused of murdering the former television presenter and Luke Davies at Mr Baird's terrace in inner-city Paddington last Monday before dumping their bodies in a shallow grave in the NSW Southern Tablelands. The remains of Mr Baird and his new boyfriend Mr Davies were finally recovered by police on Tuesday afternoon, ending a five-day extensive search for the missing couple which spanned from Newcastle in the north to Goulburn in the south. A day later, Ten News aired a special tribute celebrating Mr Baird's life and six-year stint with the network in various roles in first Brisbane and then Sydney. An emotional Sully struggled to maintain composure as she introduced the segment and called on viewers to remember Jesse as a talented, loving young man. An emotional Sandra Sully fought back tears as she introduced the segment Network 10 aired a powerful tribute to former presenter Jesse Baird on Wednesday night READ MORE: AFL pays tribute to goal umpire following alleged murder of Channel 10 presenter and his new boyfriend Human remains have been found in Bungonia, south of Sydney, in the search for the bodies of missing TV presenter Jesse Baird (right) and his flight attendant boyfriend Luke Davies (left) Advertisement 'We want to pay tribute to our friend and former colleague Jesse Baird, his murder alongside that of his partner Luke Davies has rocked Network 10. Our hearts go out to their family and friends,' Sully began while fighting back tears. 'We want to remember Jesse for the man he was, and not how he died. 'Amazingly talented, funny, beautiful inside and out - and forever loved and missed.' The segment narrated by former Studio 10 colleague Angela Bishop featured a video montage of Mr Baird in various roles, including interviewing stars on the red carpet, being driven around the race track in a V8 Supercar, bungy jumping. He also bravely interviewed Collingwood Magpies fans while wearing a Brisbane Lions scarf and shirt in the lead up to last year's AFL grand final. Mr Baird was also an AFL goal umpire at the top level and confirmed last year's goal of the year kicked by his beloved Lions. "It was a clip he didn't mind showing us more than once. But we didn't mind,' Bishop explained. 'Because just to be around Jesse was something special.' 'A brilliant colleague, a loyal friend, a cherished son and brother and the life of every party.' Sully and Bishop are among a host of Network 10 stars to pay tribute in recent days, including Hugh Riminton, Lachlan Kennedy and Josh Holt. Jesse Baird was a roving reporter and fill-in host for Studio Ten until the show was axed Newsreader Narelda Jacobs also broke down on air last Friday night while reporting on Lamarre-Condon being arrested and charged with the murders of Mr Baird and his new boyfriend. Mr Baird was fresh faced teen when he scored his first television gig on children's show Totally Wild. He was a long-time roving reporter on Studio 10 and sometimes filled in as co-host before the weekday morning show was recently axed. Mr Baird and Mr Davies' remains were unearthed on Tuesday after being found behind a mound of dirt near Bungonia in the NSW Southern Tablelands. The two men's bloody clothes were allegedly tossed in a skip bin in Cronulla, almost 30km away, before their bodies were hidden in surfboard bags. Police allege Mr Lamarre-Condon then hired a white Toyota HiAce van from Sydney Airport and took the bodies about 180km south-west of Sydney, before burying them in a shallow grave on a fence line on Jerrara Road. The temporary grave site was more of a gravel alcove next to the entrance to the Greek Orthodox Holy Monastery of Saint Fanourios church. Police would have unknowingly driven past the bodies a number of times earlier in the week, during a search of another property about 20 minutes south. However, officers were only finally able to find the couple's bodies after their Lamarre-Condon allegedly told them where they were. A team of police officers spent Wednesday scouring bushland surrounding the site for evidence, with the assistance of a sniffer dog, picks and rakes. Lamarre-Condon handed himself into Bondi Police Station on Thursday last week, before he was charged with two counts of murder on Friday. Police found the remains by 1pm on Tuesday and contacted the families of Baird and Davies moments after that. Lamarre-Condon's matter is before the courts. Rampaging elephants are terrorising people in Thailand with a surge in fatal attacks as locals started to arm themselves with 'ping pong' bombs to scare off the animals. The number of elephants in Thailand are on the rise following repopulation efforts - but as their natural habitat is simultaneously shrinking, they are forced to live closer to villagers, which caused more than 90 fatal encounters in the east of the country since 2018. Now local farmers are using homemade 'ping pong' bombs, bought at roadside markets, to defend their crop - and themselves - against the marauding animals, hoping to scare the mammals away with the mini-explosives. Unfortunately, the ping pong bombs seemed to have the opposite effect and make elephant encounters even more dangerous for villagers. 'They grab you, they slap you to a tree, sometimes they make sure you're dead by stepping on you or using their tusks. They can play with bodies like it's a doll,' Taan Wannagul, a researcher at the Eastern Elephants Education Centre, told the Telegraph. Rampaging elephants are terrorising people in Thailand with a surge in fatal attacks as locals started to arm themselves with 'ping pong' bombs to scare off the growing number of animals (file image of an elephant in the Khao Yai National Park in Thailand) Now local farmers are using homemade 'ping pong' bombs (pictured), bought at roadside markets, to defend their crop - and themselves - against the marauding animals, hoping to scare the mammals away with the mini-explosives An aggressive wild elephant rammed a pick-up truck and flipped it over around 80 miles east of the capital Bangkok in rural Chachoengsao province, Thailand, in March 2023 'Naturally elephants will not attack, but people throw the "ping pong bombs" and make loud noises to drive the elephants away,' he added. 'Now [the elephants have] become more aggressive.' One 73-year-old farmer called Pae Pakdee was killed by an elephant in a savage attack, during which a 10-foot-tall bull elephant nicknamed 'Yellow' ripped his limbs off his body. He was found by his wife, Boonsri Pakdee, 69, who said her 'heart broke' that day as gruesome pictures revealed the 'mangled mess' left of her beloved husband. Boonsri has lost faith that villagers could live peacefully alongside elephants, branding it 'impossible'. Elephants are considered sacred in Thailand and many believe the Thai government put the animal's life above that of people, since the fine - and potential prison sentence - is much higher for killing an elephant than the compensation given to families of those killed by the mammal. One farmer in the Chachoengsao region, 80 miles east of the capital Bangkok, said if she and other villagers see an elephant, they hide. Locals have resorted to using ping pong bombs - small, colourful plastic balls with a fuse attached - to scare them off. Despite their small size, the self-made explosives are powerful enough to blow a finger off if held for too long. One of the initiatives to combat the rising problem with elephants decimating crops and even attacking locals sees local rangers patrolling the wildlife parks now also tracking elephants. Ping pong bombs seized by local police in Thailand A wild elephant stops a car on a road at Khao Yai National Park in Thailand's Nakhon Ratchasima province on October 29, 2019 A greedy wild elephant shunned jungle leaves and instead stopped passing trucks to steal sugarcane. The 35-year-old jumbo nicknamed 'Fatty' by locals emerged from the forest on a road in Chachoengsao province, Thailand, on December 29, 2022 They start their shifts by buying ping pong bombs from roadside stalls, before tracking elephants and hoping to push them back into the nearby wildlife preserve in the Chachoengsao by setting off the explosives or firing warning shots with guns. While they had limited success, these groups are simply not big enough and don't have the necessary resources to cover the vast area. One park ranger said that while him and his colleagues were already doing the best they could to track the elephants, there have been cases of villagers taking matters into their own hands. Meanwhile Mr Wannagul from the research centre set up dozens of motion-sensor cameras which will deliver live information on the movement of the elephants nearby after attempts to keep the mammals inside the national park with metal fences failed. READ MORE: Terrifying moment enraged elephant grabs female Russian tourist with its trunk before tossing her around and slamming her to the ground breaking her leg while giving rides in India Advertisement The data will be used in a local 'war room' due to open in October, which was set up by Mr Wannagul in collaboration with the Thai government. The researcher said that population control might be necessary as the number of elephants is rapidly growing by eight per cent a year. He added that another important measure is to ensure that the elephant's habitat doesn't shrink even further. The number of Asian elephants in the wild is now around 4,000 after the government started protecting Thailand's remaining forests and wildlife reserves as well as enforced anti-poaching laws. Conservationists praised the measures taken to protect the elephants after the population plummeted from around 100,000 to less than 3,000 within a hundred years. But they admitted that in the eastern provinces, where elephants are settling closer and closer to the villages, this 'is causing huge problems' because the animals are running out of food and space in the shrinking forest areas and small national parks. The mammals eat about 200kg of food per day. While they have to walk and source this food if they stay in the forest, in human areas it is readily available and 'like a big buffet' for them. This causes huge problems for farmers, like the ones north of the Khao Ang Rue Nai Wildlife Reserve, which say they have lost most of their crops to marauding elephants - some even their yearly income. Since the compensation provided by the government is limited, many are pushed into taking out loans to recover. Insurance workers have been warned that their Thursday night drinks at the pub will be ruined by climate protestors. Extinction Rebellion protests have brought chaos to Fenchurch Street this week over the industry's supposed 'complicity' in environmental issues. Yesterday, protestors brought Square Mile to a standstill by blockading a host of insurance industry buildings as they push for insurers to pull out of so-called polluting projects. Today, it appears to be much of the same with some workers reporting that it took them 45 minutes to get into their offices this morning due to increased security checks. Now, there are even further reports suggesting that City of London worker's favourite watering holes on a Thursday will be targeted as XR protestors are determined to 'accost unsuspecting drinkers'. A Police officer carries a smoke canister confiscated from an Extinction Revellion activist today Activists hold a banner saying 'insure our future not fossil fuels' outside Lloyd's of London Extinction Rebellion protestors pictured inside the iconic Walkie Talkie building in London 'There is a protest element seeking to attend pubs and bars in the area known to be frequented by employees of insurance companies,' a warning note obtained by City A.M. stated. 'This is likely aimed at directly engaging employees with conversation about the climate crisis and their companys "complicity". It is likely the target pubs and bars would be situated around the Leadenhall Market vicinity.' The areas which are most likely to be targeted include Leadenhall Market and the Royal Exchange. They are also said to be likely joined by pro-Palestine supporters as well. This comes after activists occupied five of the major insurers in the City of London on Tuesday. These protests saw nine people get arrested for targeting the offices of Tokio Marine in the iconic Walkie Talkie building, Probitas at Leadenhall Street, Talbot at Threadneedle Street and the HQ of Travelers in Creechurch Place. One person who works in the Walkie Talkie building said: 'Some people were saying it took them 30 to 45 minutes to get into work this morning. This was after they gained access to our building and security have ramped up the checks.' Police arrest protestors who found their way inside Tokio Marine's offices in London Another look at some of the activists occupying Talbot Insurance offices on Tuesday XR activists, calling on the companies to stop insuring fossil fuel projects, march through the capital's financial district More XR protestors pictured outside the Walkie Talkie building in London The reason behind the protests are to stop insurance companies insuring fossil fuel companies and projects - such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. Last week, Extinction Rebellion sent 'hundreds of top insurance bosses' letters setting out their 'demand' that leading insurers stop insuring fossil fuel companies. They also warned that 'thousands' of Extinction Rebellion activists would 'flood' into the City of London this week. Chidi Obihara, of Extinction Rebellion said: 'Just 20 companies insure 70% of fossil fuel projects. Many of these companies are based in the City of London, or in cities and towns across the UK. 'They have the power to pull the plug on the fossil fuel crooks once and for all. To play a huge role in saving us all from a future of drought, famines, killer storms and heatwaves and war. 'The letter that we sent to the leaders of the insurance industry in the UK offers them the chance to be climate heroes rather than the targets of mass protests that will severely damage their reputations. We really hope that they read it and do the right thing.' Liz Pendleton, who is an XR protestor, also said: 'We are here to engage constructively with insurance bosses about their decision to insure the fossil fuel crooks wrecking the climate. Were staying until they come down and talk to us. 'The insurance industry has a unique opportunity to immediately halt all the carbon bomb projects like the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline and the West Cumbria coal mine that will cause climate breakdown and a future of killer storms and heatwaves, floods, famine and war. Extinction Rebellion protests have brought chaos to Fenchurch Street this week Today there are new reports suggesting protestors will target insurance worker's favourite pubs on Thursday 'Its very simple. No insurance equals no drilling. No insurance equals no digging. So these companies have a superpower that could give us all a fighting chance of a liveable future.' The letter sent by Extinction Rebellion yesterday to CEOs, senior underwriters, and chief actuaries at more than 40 insurance firms in the City of London reads: 'Were writing to you from the heart to offer you and your business the opportunity to be the climate heroes that millions of us desperately need you to be in these times of terrifying and rapidly accelerating crisis. 'You and your colleagues possess an amazing and quite unique superpower. You could simply refuse to underwrite new and existing oil, gas and coal projects and infrastructure and stop the global fossil fuel industry that is causing the climate crisis in its tracks. 'Immediately, companies such as Total and Adani would be left to face the full financial risk of carbon bomb projects including the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and the West Cumbria coal mine (1) and thus be unable to push ahead with them. 'At a stroke, you would give all of us a fighting chance of avoiding global temperature rises that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres predict will plunge us into a future of deadly droughts, famines, killer storms and heatwaves, war and societal collapse.' Disturbed Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell claimed to have 'top-secret' information on US troops fighting in Hamas tunnels the night before he set himself on fire in an anti-Israel protest, a friend said. The 25-year-old, who served in the Air Forces 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance battalion, was 'scared' as he told a friend that the US military was 'killing large numbers of Palestinians.' 'He told me on Saturday that we have troops in those tunnels, that its US soldiers participating in the killings,' the confidant told the New York Post. There is no evidence that the young servicemember had any 'top secret' classified clearance, and DailyMail.com has been unable to verify whether there's any truth to the claims of what he says he saw at work. President Biden has also frequently insisted that he has no intentions to put boots on the ground in Gaza. Aaron Bushnell, who killed himself by setting himself on fire to protest Israel's ongoing conflict in Gaza, claimed to have 'top-secret' information on US troops fighting in Hamas tunnels the night before his death The airman filmed himself self-immolating outside the Israeli Embassy on Sunday, while repeatedly screaming 'Free Palestine!' A friend claimed that Bushnell was 'scared' as he told a friend that the US military was 'killing large numbers of Palestinians' in the Hamas tunnels (pictured) the night before his suicide As a member of the intelligence wing of the Air Force, the friend claimed that 'some of what he was processing had to do with the Israeli-Gaza conflict.' 'One of the things he told me is that coming across his desk... was the US military was involved in the genocides going on in Palestine,' they continued. 'He told me that we had troops on the ground, you know, that were there and were killing large numbers of Palestinians.' The US Air Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by DailyMail.com. The friend, who remained anonymous, added that Bushnell seemed to be troubled and afraid in their final phone call, the night before he killed himself in an 'extreme act of protest.' 'Theres just too many things I dont know, but I can tell you that the tone of his voice just had something in it that told me he was scared,' they said. 'Ive never heard that tone come out of him.' In the days since Bushnell lit himself on fire in a live-streamed video, it has emerged that he grew up in a religious cult in rural Massachusetts before shifting his attention to radical anarchist groups online. He is said to have shared inflammatory remarks online about the ongoing conflict in Gaza, including showing support for Hamas' brutal massacre at the Nova Music Festival on October 7. Despite his online activity, the friend said they were surprised that he was sharing supposedly 'top secret' information - believing it is 'the only time that he has ever, as far as I know, broke protocol and gave out information that he shouldnt have.' When he self-immolated in front of the Israeli Embassy in DC, Bushnell streamed the moments before where he said he would 'no longer be complicit in genocide.' Seconds later, he was seen engulfed in flames while repeatedly screaming: 'Free Palestine!' Bushnell seen during his live stream, where he declared that he would 'no longer be complicit in genocide' Bushnell's 'extreme act of protest' divided people online, with pro-Palestine groups hailing him as a martyr But his friend said he was stunned to discover Bushnell had committed suicide, and had previously said that he was against it. 'He said it was against Gods plan, theres always better solutions than suicide, suicide is not going to fix anything,' they claimed. 'So for Aaron to have done what he did, there were things that overrode that. 'The problems that he was looking at, he couldnt fix. He would have made this decision to try to make it so somebody else could fix what the problem was. 'Suicide is not something Aaron would do,' they concluded. When Bushnell told him of his alleged covert findings about the war, the friend said they told him to 'follow his conscience, thats always led him in the right direction before.' But they didn't think this would drive him to suicide, as the airman 'was very analytical, he would have made this kind of a decision after putting a tremendous amount of thought into it.' 'Aaron outwardly presents as the most calm, cool and collected person you will ever know,' they continued. 'You watch the video of him, and you see just how calm, cool and collected he is, and that is his normal personality. 'The most upset we would ever see him... is he would go grab an axe and chop firewood.' Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Israeli Embassy to collectively mourn the US airman on Tuesday night in New York City A person holds a sign during a vigil for Bushnell Bushnell's military service has come under scrutiny in the days following his suicide, as questions have been raised as to how his radical beliefs online slipped under the radar. His friend said that Bushnell 'flipped a coin' when he decided to join the military as he couldn't decide between the Air Force or the Navy. Soon after, however, he found himself struggling with following the constant rules he had to follow in the military. 'Anybody who goes into the military, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed like Aaron did and gets involved with signal intelligence-related things is going to end up in the mindset of Signal Corps or theyre going to leave,' they said. 'Aaron did not buy into the mindset of Signal Corps. That mindset can be best described as making little compromises to your own internal fortitude so youre no longer the person you used to be. 'Aaron couldnt, thats not within him.' Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert ranted about the 'Biden crime family,' just hours after her 18-year-old son was arrested for 22 crimes. Tyler Boebert, a father of one, was taken into custody at around 2.30 pm on Wednesday in the town of Rifle, Colorado - his mom's congressional district. 'The Biden crime family will go down as the most corrupt family in American history,' the Republican lawmaker wrote at 4.45pm CT on her Instagram on the day of her son's arrest. It's unlikely that Boebert was aware that her eldest had been arrested for four counts of criminal possession of a financial device, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor to three counts of theft of under $300. The other charges range from four felony counts of criminal possession of ID, a felony count of conspiracy to commit a felony and more than 15 different misdemeanor and petty charges. Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert's 18-year-old son was arrested Wednesday afternoon and faces 22 charges in connection to a series of vehicle break-ins and property theft Tyler Boebert was taken into custody at around 2:30pm on Wednesday, according to police in the town of Rifle, Colorado Many have taken to social media to point out what they see as hypocrisy from Boebert, who has often gone after president Biden's son Hunter for his addiction issues. One critic wrote: 'You spelled Boebert Crime Family wrong.' 'Did Lauren Boebert post this before or after he son Tyler was arrested?' one X user asked about the republican's post against the Biden family. Popular X user Ed Krassenstein wrote: 'Will Republicans now demand Lauren Boebert be impeached? Will they support the release of her sons private laptop publicly?' Boebert revealed last year that Tyler, then 17, was going to be a father, making her a grandmother at the age of just 36. 'Obviously, I'm a Christian, and there are standards that we like to uphold, but none of us do it perfectly,' she said when asked if the teen pregnancy 'challenged' any of her conservative beliefs. 'We can nitpick what the Bible says is right and wrong, but I think just having that heart posture of wanting to serve God, it's so important.' On Wednesday, local police cited the recent series of vehicle trespasses and property theft in the town. Rifle Police Department posted on its Facebook page Wednesday that the investigation is ongoing. DailyMail.com has reached out to a spokesperson for Congresswoman Boebert for comment. This isn't the first time the younger Boebert - who shares a son with an ex-girlfriend - has had a run-in with controversy. 'The Biden crime family will go down as the most corrupt family in American history,' the Republican lawmaker wrote on her Instagram on the day of her son's arrest Tyler Boebert made the Republican a grandmother at the age of 36. He is pictured with his son and grandmother The Boerberts during better times, with the couples four kids including Tyler (center, back row), who has accused his father of physical abuse In April of last year, a friend of Tyler's alleged that an accident, in which Tyler was driving, left him with multiple concussions and a debilitating hand injury - and accused the political family of covering it up. Noble D'Amato, 19, who was hospitalized with concussions and a severely lacerated hand after Tyler, now 18, took a curve too fast and flipped his father's SUV into a creek bed at 11:30 pm on September 17, 2022. D'Amato alleged that the injuries left him unable to continue his welding career. 'I still have problems with my hand,' he told Westword, a Denver-based publication. 'My thumb almost got cut off. It prevented me from getting a welding job, because I can't hold a TIG torch anymore. I'm a personal-care provider now.' D'Amato says the younger Boebert was 'stone cold sober' at the time of the accident. 'And he still f**king flipped us,' D'Amato said. 'That shows you how much he just doesn't care. He was driving so f**king fast.' His backpack allegedly contained un-prescribed Xanax pills and a 'silver marijuana grinder w/small amount of marijuana,' which got the 19-year-old charged with unlawful possession of a schedule IV controlled substance and drug paraphernalia. Lauren Boebert was granted a temporary restraining order against her ex-husband Jayson Boebert has been plagued by scandal since her debauchery and obnoxiousness at a performance of the musical Beetlejuice in September 'I remember waking up with blood pouring out of my hand. I had put my hands up in the air to protect myself and got messed up really bad by the window or something. I was just glad to be alive,' D'Amato said. Tyler, Westword reported, got a careless driving ticket, which was later dropped down to a 'defective vehicle for headlights' ticket after the teenager accepted a plea deal. He had to go through a court-ordered driving school, dubbed 'Alive at 25,' and attend a court hearing on Monday, which is how news of the accident got out. Boebert's Congressional office infuriated D'Amato by releasing a statement to Westword, downplaying his injuries in an April 4 statement. The young man has also had to cope with an allegedly abusive father, whom Congresswoman Boebert got a restraining order from earlier this month. Lauren, 37, and Jayson, 43, married in 2005 and split in 2023, but the couple have still made the headlines during what appears to be a rocky separation. In January, Jayson was arrested and charged just days after the couple were involved in a domestic violence incident at a Colorado restaurant. A few days later, he allegedly assaulted Tyler during an altercation over laundry at their home in Silt, Colorado, an arrest warrant revealed. Furious farmers descended on the Welsh parliament today to protest against Labour's 'war on the countryside'. Some 3,000 workers were in the capital as part of their long-running campaign against a proposed overhaul of farming subsidies they say threatens the industry. They are unhappy at the Welsh Labour government's proposals to require more land to be set aside for environmental schemes. Despite South Wales Police asking those coming not to bring tractors, some were seen coming into the city, though not outside the Senedd. Many held placards in English and Welsh reading 'No Farmers, No Food', while others waved Welsh flags. The farmers are objecting to the Welsh Labour government's proposals to require more land rights be set aside for environmental schemes. It came as a high-profile sheep farmer and Youtuber claimed he had received death threats after he met PM Rishi Sunak. Gareth Wyn Jones said his wife was contacted by police over messages left on his Facebook page. 'The attacks I'm having on social media from my own people is unreal,' he said. 'The only reason I went into meet the prime minister was to air our problems with our Welsh Government. I don't want to dissolve our Welsh Parliament and Senedd. It is just Chinese whispers - people want to damage you. They want to damage you mentally, physically, emotionally... pressure, pressure, pressure.' Rural workers were in the capital as part of their long-running campaign against a proposed overhaul of farming subsidies they say threatens the industry. They are unhappy at the Welsh Labour government's proposals to require more land to be set aside for environmental schemes. The farmers are objecting to the Welsh Labour government's proposals to require more land rights be set aside for environmental schemes. It came as a high-profile sheep farmer and Youtuber claimed he had received death threats after he met PM Rishi Sunak . Gareth Wyn Jones said his wife was contacted by police over messages left on his Facebook page. The event saw speeches from Senedd politicians from the Welsh Conservatives and Plaid Cymru, as well as from former international rugby union referee Nigel Owens (pictured) The event saw speeches from Senedd politicians from the Welsh Conservatives and Plaid Cymru, as well as from former international rugby union referee Nigel Owens. He told the cheering crowds: 'In 2015, I was very privileged to referee the World Cup final in Twickenham - the proudest moment of my career. 'But today I'm even prouder to come and speak in front of good, decent people. An honour to be here to speak and to support you today as a fellow farmer.' Senedd Tory Sam Rowlands filmed himself attending the protest, saying: 'Labour and their Plaid Cymru coalition partners are waging war on rural Wales.' The protesters are objecting to the sustainable farming scheme (SFS), which is currently under consultation, which would require 10 per cent of a farmer's land to be covered in trees in exchange for future funding. Farming leaders say the scheme could result in 5,500 job losses. Sarah Morris, a sheep farmer from Bridgend, held up a sign outside the Senedd reading: 'Mr Drakeford... my sheep can't grow on trees'. She told the PA news agency: 'What he's proposing is unsafe, it's unpopular. 'He's holding us to ransom because he's saying we won't get subsidies if we don't do all the steps. 'These proposals will mean that I lose 14 acres of viable land, that I won't be able to keep any more stock. 'Wales has got a tremendous farming history and we need to make sure that it continues.' The Welsh government insists it is listening to farmers' concerns and changes can be made. Those demonstrating have seen the support of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who told a gathering outside the Welsh Conservative conference last week that 'we've got your back'. Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Welsh Conservatives, said: 'Today our farmers made themselves perfectly clear. They're not prepared to take the destruction of our rural communities lying down. 'It's time for Labour and their coalition partners in Plaid Cymru to drop the Sustainable Farming Scheme and build a scheme that works for farmers, not against them.' Despite South Wales Police asking those coming not to bring tractors, some were seen coming into the city, though not outside the Senedd. The protesters are objecting to the sustainable farming scheme (SFS), which is currently under consultation, which would require 10 per cent of a farmer's land to be covered in trees in exchange for future funding. A Welsh Government spokesman said: 'Farming is very important to Wales and our economy and we want a successful future for Welsh farming.' Rhun ap Iorwerth, leader of Plaid Cymru, has said the government should pause introducing the scheme and reflect on the arguments that have been made during the consultation. A Welsh Government spokesman said: 'Farming is very important to Wales and our economy and we want a successful future for Welsh farming. 'We have had a seven-year conversation with farmers to design future farming support and we are committed to continuing to work with farmers to develop the Sustainable Farming Scheme. 'This is a genuine consultation and no decisions will be taken on any element of the proposal, including how we achieve the requirement for habitat and trees, until we have conducted a full analysis of the consultation responses. 'We have been clear we expect changes to be made following the consultation, and we will continue to listen. 'The First Minister and Rural Affairs Minister provided an update yesterday on a number of key areas to support the sector.' Rachel Evans, Director of the Countryside Alliance Wales, said: 'This is a huge demonstration of anger and concern. Thousands of ordinary people are standing up for our way of life. 'I've spoken to dozens of farmers on the steps of the Senedd this morning, where emotions are running high. What we see is farmers fighting for their future they have come from all corners of Wales to stand up for their communities. 'The farming sector's prospects are jeopardised by the policies we've seen coming from Welsh government, but the voices here today are loud and clear: there is a future for farming if only the Welsh government would allow farmers to be a part of their vision.' President Joe Biden lost to 'uncommitted' voters in Dearborn in the Michigan Democratic Presidential primary on Tuesday night in a dire warning that his handling of the Gaza war could have a serious impact in the 2024 general election. More than 100,000 voters in the the battleground state voted for the protest ballot option amid a furious push to send Biden a message regarding his backing of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas terrorists. In Dearborn - where more than 90 percent of the population is Arab American - 56 percent voted for uncommitted, while Biden received 40 percent. Biden easily won the primarily by taking more than 80 percent of the overall vote, but a push from activists saw the uncommitted ballot option take five times higher than the protest vote against Barack Obama in 2012. It's a sign that the Biden campaign could see consequences in the state with 15 electoral college votes if the situation in the Middle East remains unstable. The district of Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) includes Dearborn. She helped push the effort for Arabs and pro-Palestine voters to cast their primary ballots for 'uncommitted' to protest Biden's policies in Gaza and his continued support for Israel. More voters in Dearborn, Michigan cast their ballots for the 'uncommitted' option instead of voting for Joe Biden amid calls for a protest vote over the president's handling of Israel's war in Gaza Attendees danced during an uncommitted vote election night gathering while Democrats and Republicans held their Michigan primary presidential election, in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S. February 27, 2024 If the 2024 election comes down to the result in Michigan, how Dearborn and the rest of the Arab-American community votes could be key to determining the winner. On the Republican side, Donald Trump won his fifth primary contest of the 2024 race by defeating Nikki Haley 65 percent to 30.9 percent as of late Tuesday night. Notably, nearly 140,000 more voters showed up to cast their ballots for Trump in the Republican primary than the Democrats who showed up to vote for Biden another sign that the November general election could be swayed by those on the left who refuse to vote for the incumbent. 'We have a huge victory tonight,' said former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, speaking to 'uncommitted' supporters at a Dearborn watch party that featured cheers, spontaneous dancing to Palestinian music, and pledges to expand the movement that organizers cobbled together in a matter of weeks. 'It is my hope that after tonight's results and we're going to Chicago, by the way 174 days from now we're going to be at the Democratic National Convention, pushing and growing this antiwar movement,' said Michigan state Rep. Abraham Aiyash, the majority leader of the state House. 'So if they didn't listen after 30,000 and they didn't listen after the hospitals being bombed, maybe they will listen to Michigan,' he said at a watch party for the 'uncommitted' effort, in a reference to an estimated Gaza death toll. 'And we have an opportunity in Chicago to take that message to the convention floor and push this party platform to finally change course on things like the unconditional aid to Israel, we start to have the conversation on what we do with settlements,' Aiyash told DailyMail.com. He said the group would 'leverage' its new power to ensure that the Democratic Party is 'anti-war' and 'anti-genocide.' Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) cast her vote for 'uncommitted' rather than for Biden as she accused the U.S. of aiding 'genocide' against the Palestinians. She posted a video after voting Dearborn has a high percentage of Arab American and Muslim voters. Here a volunteer holds a sign urging Democratic voters to cast their ballot for 'uncommitted' instead of for President Joe Biden Some Democrats, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, warned the progressive arm of the party that voting against Biden is essentially casting a ballot for Trump. The Michigan Democratic Party requires candidates to earn 15 percent of the vote statewide or within individual congressional districts to be able to send delegates to the nominating convention over the summer. 'We're going to win enough votes to send delegates to the convention I think,' said Levin. There were solemn moments as well, as organizers held a moment of silence for active-duty airman Aaron Bushnell, who died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. The thousands of votes for 'uncommitted' were a warning sign for the president over the war in Gaza. In a show of restraint, Biden's statement on the results thanked 'every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great.' Activist Abbas Alawieh leads the dance Dabke during an uncommitted vote election night gathering. Supporters took the tally as a victory, even as President Biden won the state's primary There were also solemn gestures, on a night when speakers acknowledged Palestinians killed in Gaza and active-duty airman Aaron Bushnell, who died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. 'Four years ago, it was Michigan's diverse coalition that came together to reject Donald Trump's MAGA extremism and sent me and Kamala to the White House,' Biden said. Biden was leading with nearly 80 per cent of the vote in early returns Tuesday evening. But 'uncommitted' was at 15 per cent, with more than 25,000 votes and counting. That was already more than a bar that activists had set for themselves. That came with about 16 per cent of the vote in. But that percentage dropped over time, as more votes came in in what proved to be a high turnout primary. By after midnight, 'uncommitted' was running at about 13 per cent of the vote. That was the last time an incumbent Democrat faced reelection, and it was a lower turnout event. By comparison, 'uncommitted' got 11 per cent in 2012 during President Barack Obama's reelection campaign. The Associated Press called the race for Biden immediately after the last polls closed at 9pm Tuesday. Biden faced token opposition on the ballot from Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, but his real battle has been against 'uncommitted' and against himself. Biden faced scrutiny in the state for his handling of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, and many Arab American voters in Dearborn and other parts of Detroit have been registering their anger about the war. Squad member Tlaib has been hammering Biden and pushing the 'uncommitted' effort. A group of activists who organized a push for 'uncommitted' treated the results as cause for a victory rally Tuesday night, packing the Adonis restaurant next to the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn that featured food, music, and proclamations of victory along with statements about the growing toll of the war in Gaza. 'Here in southeastern Michigan, people in our Arab American community have an expertise of horrifying expertise. So many of us have survived U.S.-funded bombs,' said 'Listen to Michigan' co-organizer Abbass Alawieh at a post-election rally that 'uncommitted' backers treated as a victory rally. 'That's all we're asking for. Just stop killing our families. It's actually not all that complicated. Just stop killing our families, President Biden. You can do it,' he said. Layla Elabed, another organizer, said volunteers made 1 million voter calls as part of the effort. Elabed, the sister of Rashida Tlaib, called on Biden to 'bring a permanent ceasefire and end the unchecked unconditional military aid that is funding a genocide in 2024,' she told 'uncommitted' supporters as the votes came in. In a video taken during early voting in Dearborn, Michigan, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) urged voters to cast their ballot 'uncommitted' to help raise-up pro-Palestine and Arab voices in the commiunity There was little doubt President Biden would win the Democratic primary in Michigan despite the push to vote for 'uncommitted' in protest of Israel's war in Gaza She said activists were telling the U.S. government 'that funding endless wars is not the path, but there is a better path that saves the children who are being killed ... That returns the hostages and prisoners. There is a better path of diplomacy and peace and not a genocide.' 'This is not a messaging problem. This has become a bombs problem,' said 'Listen to Michigan organizer Lexis Zeidan. 'We have a huge victory tonight,' said former Rep. Andy Levin told the crowd. 'This is a victory of American democracy tonight,' he added. 'Our message to the president is clear. There is no time to waste. We need a permanent cease fire right now,' he said. 'It is not lost on me that this president has softened his language and begun to recognize Palestinian suffering,' said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. 'But what is not enough is lip service. What we need is a complete withdrawal of support for the most radical and tyrannical government in Israel's history.' 'I was proud today to walk in and pull a Democratic ballot and vote uncommitted,' Tlaib said in a video she posted Tuesday afternoon. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud blasted Biden for commenting Monday on the latest talks for a cease fire while the president was eating an ice cream cone. 'I don't look to lip service or words. I'm looking for action,' he told DailyMail.com outside a polling place. Khalid Turaani, a co-founder of the 'Abandon Biden' movement, predicted thousands would vote for 'uncommitted.' 'I think I find it strange that you're eating ice cream at a parlor - that is the moment that you talk about a cease fire coming forward,' said Dearborn, Michigan Mayor Abdullah Hammoud President Joe Biden spoke about talks for a temporary cease fire while having ice cream with 'Late Night' host Seth Meyers in New York Monday Biden faced demands for a permanent ceasefire and a push for voting for 'uncommitted' 'I think 10,000 is reasonable and I think we will achieve that,' he told DailyMail.com as he passed out sample ballots featuring 'uncommitted.' Out of the first six people he spoke to, in English and Arabic outside a polling place, 'only one person didn't say that he wasn't going to vote uncommitted. He wasn't talkative.' Ten thousand is roughly the number Biden defeated Donald Trump by in 2020, in a demonstration of the influence Arab American voters could have on the November election. It's the number activist group 'Listen to Michigan' has identified as a goal. But 'uncommitted' has racked up larger tallies in recent Democratic presidential primaries. Uncommitted got about 20,000 against President Barack Obama in 2012, and a similar amount when Hillary Clinton was battling Bernie Sanders in 2016 and four years later when Sanders was challenging Biden. State party leaders aren't publicly panicking. The Biden campaign organized a press call just as most of the state's polls closed to reassure the media. Members of the Michigan state Democratic party 'know how to beat Donald Trump. We've done it before and we'll do it again,' state chair Chair Lavora Barnes told reporters. Former Michigan Rep. Andy Levin, a leader in the push for 'uncommitted,' said he doesn't want Donald 'to ever get anywhere near the White House ever again.' But he told DailyMail.com at an 'uncommitted' watch party that Biden's problems are much more than tactical, after the president was criticized for failing to meet with Arab American leaders on his visit here as resentment grew. 'It's not because they didn't come early enough or they didn't do enough ... This is not a political problem. He can't solve it with like, really good surrogates.' He said Biden or any other Democrat 'isn't going to win without Michigan,' and that 'Joe Biden can't win Michigan without changing course.' Keir Starmer goaded Rishi Sunak over Nigel Farage taking his job today during brutal PMQs clashes. The pair exchanged vicious barbs in the Commons as Sir Keir accused Mr Sunak of 'dancing to the tune' of the Brexit champion. The Labour leader raised Liz Truss arguing that Mr Farage was the person to 'restore' the Conservatives, swiping that the party had become the 'political wing of the Flat Earth Society'. Mr Sunak pointedly refused to rule out a comeback for Mr Farage, instead boasting about the Tories' record of producing the first Jewish, female and Asian heritage PMs. In contrast he said Labour had only put forward people from North London. The leaders exchanged vicious barbs in the Commons as Keir Starmer accused Rishi Sunak (pictured) of 'dancing to the tune' of the Brexit champion Keir Starmer (pictured) goaded Mr Sunak over Nigel Farage taking his job today during brutal PMQs clashes The pair exchanged vicious barbs in the Commons as Sir Keir accused Mr Sunak of 'dancing to the tune' of Mr Farage (pictured in the US this week) Kicking off hostilities, Sir Keir questioned why Mr Sunak was allowing Ms Truss to remain a Conservative MP. He told the Commons: 'His predecessor spent last week in America trying to flog her new book. In search of fame and wealth, she's taken to slagging off 'She claimed that as Prime Minister she was sabotaged by the deep state. She also remained silent as Tommy Robinson, that right-wing thug, was described as a hero. Why is he allowing her to stand as a Tory MP at the next election?' Mr Sunak replied: 'I don't believe a single member of this House supports Tommy Robinson. But if he wants to talk about former leaders and predecessors, the whole country knows his record because he sat there while antisemitism ran rife in his party and not once but twice backed a man who called Hamas friends.' Mr Sunak said other members of the current shadow cabinet refused to back Jeremy Corbyn as leader, adding of Sir Keir: 'But he didn't because he's spineless, hopeless and utterly shameless.' Sir Keir said Ms Truss 'also claimed that Nigel Farage is the man to restore the Tory party'. 'Can the Prime Minister confirm whether he too would welcome Mr Farage back into the Tory fold?' he said. Mr Sunak replied: 'In our party we have a proud tradition of diversity and accepting everyone from every background, it is a proud record that puts Labour to shame. 'This is the party that delivered the first Jewish prime minister, the first female Prime Minister, the first black chancellor, the first Muslim home secretary and is now led by the first British-Asian Prime Minister. 'While it seems he can only champion men from north London, it's the Conservatives who represent modern Britain.' The Labour leader raised Liz Truss arguing that Mr Farage was the person to 'restore' the Conservatives, swiping that the party had become the 'political wing of the Flat Earth Society' Rehearsing an election attack line, Sir Keir said: 'The truth is these are no longer the Tories your parents voted for and the public can see it. The Prime Minister has lost control of his party to the hordes of malcontents, the tin-foil-hat brigade over there, the extremists who wrecked the economy, all lining up to undermine him, humiliate him and eventually to get rid of him. 'When will he ever stand up to them, and end the pathetic spectacle of a Tory Party that used to try and beat Nigel Farage now giving up and dancing to his tune instead?' Mr Sunak replied: 'Utterly shameless from someone who stood by while antisemitism ran rife in his party, oversaw the appalling situation in Rochdale and twice backed the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), and in the last few weeks we have seen Members of Parliaments' homes surrounded, their events disrupted, council meetings threatened, and just last week we saw the very rules that govern this place abused because of intimidation. 'While he might want to bend to mob rule, we will face down the extremists and stand up for British values.' Sir Keir suggested the PM was either 'simply too scared to stand up to' his right wing, or agreed with Mr Farage's views. But Mr Sunak shot back: 'He wants to talk about values, but tomorrow in Rochdale the people will have the choice of three former Labour candidates, two of which are antisemites. 'The truth is, his party is so mired in hate that, despite three ex-Labour candidates standing, he can't back a single one of them.' The Prime Minister added: 'We expel antisemites, he makes them Labour candidates.' A Cornish shopfront in one of England's most idyllic beach resorts has been forced to restore its blue walls to its original white colour after locals complained it made the town 'look like Benidorm'. Residents living in St Ives, Cornwall, were left furious at what was dubbed 'the Smurf blue' colour of the building. They argued that the former camera shop was out of keeping with the rows of magnolia-painted houses and shops. Some said the new owner should have stuck to the white and felt the much loved tourist destination was 'starting to look like Benidorm'. Consequently, local councillors called on St Ives Town Council to take immediate action. And now it has been repainted white - with a blue strip remaining at the bottom Slide me Residents in St Ives, Cornwall, were left furious at what was dubbed 'the Smurf blue' colour of the building (left, before changes, right, now) The new paint job following the outcry against the blue colour The property owner - apparently called Mr Blueberry - was said to be new to town and wanted to put his 'own creative stamp on things'. The property owner - apparently called Mr Blueberry - was said to be new to town and wanted to put his 'own creative stamp on things'. The local authority also said he did not have the required planning permission to change the colour of buildings in the conservation area. Speaking last week, Nicholas Pearce, 48, who runs a surf shop, Wind and Sea, close to the building, expressed his concerns. He said: 'It is a terribly dark blue and the way it is painted overnight without permission is wrong - and people in St Ives are angry about it. 'It has made the actual area darker itself. It used to be white and that gave a lot of light. 'All we know is basically been leased and taken over and not many people know what is going on - we heard a rumour it was going to be a clothes shop but don't know for sure. 'Some locals have taken it very angrily as they just did it without permission overnight. 'The next day opening up I had to double look as it is a really loud blue. 'It is a hideous colour. Apparently they have agreed to change it - which they need to - to tone it down a bit but at the moment it is still there. 'A lot of locals in St Ives do get angry about things that happen in the town. They are very protective of preserving things. There was uproar about the Premier Inn that was planned at the top of town as the architecture was all wrong. 'I do understand that. Personally, I am all for change and I do like modernisation but I feel that colour done overnight without permission is wrong. I can see why a lot of locals are annoyed.' The topic was also discussed on the Real Love St Ives Facebook group. Jamie Law said: 'What the hell have they done to the old camera shop? How on earth did this pass planning?' Sara Jane Tomlinson added: 'It's disgusting. It sticks out like a sore thumb. It's getting to look like Benidorm.' The building in Cornwall prior to being painted blue Residents argued that the former camera shop was out of keeping with the rows of magnolia-painted houses and shops Speaking last week , Nicholas Pearce, 48, (pictured) who runs a surf shop, Wind and Sea, close to the building, expressed his concerns Mandy Jones added: 'It is hurting our eyes! And if it was done without permission it is [hurting] other people's business.' But other residents said they had no issue with the paint job. One said: 'Honestly? First world problems. So much hate and negativity about the colour of a building. People need to realise there are much bigger issues to worry about than this. Get a grip people.' Louise Dwelly, clerk of St Ives Town Council said discussions had taken place this week with the owner. She added: 'In terms of the colour, the general public will always have preferences, but it is very difficult for policy makers to take a view on an individual colour because it's a very subjective matter. 'The shop is within a conservation area which has additional restrictions and means that planning permission would be required which the owner hasn't done. The conservation area is about celebrating and protecting the distinctive characteristics of the historic town centre. Traditionally this would have been muted tones, white lime wash, blue slates etc. 'A planning application is a chance for a debate about whether a painted house has a detrimental impact on this. Set against this of course is precedent and the fact that there are other strong colours already.' A Bulgarian man appeared in court today accused of being the sixth member of a suspected Russian spy ring. Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 38, has been charged with conspiring to collect information which could be harmful to the 'safety and interest of the state' on behalf of Russia. The Bulgarian national, of Acton, west London, appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday, where he was denied bail and remanded in custody after entering no plea. Ivanchev, who will next appear at the Old Bailey on March 15, is accused of being part of an organised network conducting surveillance against several identities or locations in order to assist the Russian state in carrying out hostile interference, the court heard. He was arrested on February 7 as part of an investigation led by the Metropolitan Polices Counter Terrorism Command. Tihomir Ivanov Ivanchev, 38, appeared in court today accused of being the sixth member of a suspected Russian spy ring Court artist sketch of Ivanchev at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London today As part of the same investigation, five other Bulgarian nationals have previously been arrested and charged and are awaiting trial in October. It is alleged the group, all of whom are Bulgarians, were part of a 'network' that operated in Britain between August 2020 and February 2023. The other defendants are Orlin Roussev, 46, of Princes Road, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk; Bizer Dzhambazov, 42, of High Road, Harrow, north-west London; Katrin Ivanova, 31, also of High Road, Harrow, north-west London; Ivan Stoyanov, 32, from Bannister Close, Greenford, west London and Vanya Gaberova, 29, from Churchfield Road, Acton, north-west London. The group are accused of conspiring to obtain, collect, record, publish or communicate documents or information which was calculated to be, or might be or was intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state. Gaberova, a beautician, previously hit headlines after telling customers she had no interest in politics. Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivanova are also charged with possession of false identity documents with improper intention under section 4 of the Identity Documents Act 2010. The group are alleged to have worked with Jan Marsalek, an Austrian fugitive who is among Interpol's most wanted people and is now believed to be hiding in Russia under the protection of military intelligence. Vanya Gaberova, 29 and 31-year-old Ivan Stoyanov appeared at the hearing via video links from prison last year Fellow suspected spies (L-R) Orlin Roussev, 45, Katrin Ivanova, 31 and Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, were previously charged on February 11, 2023 Alleged spies Katrin Ivanova (left) and Vanya Gaberova (right) seen in an artist's illustration as they appear at Westminster Magistrates court via videolink last year Alleged spies Orlin Roussev (left) Bizer Dzhambazov (centre) and Ivan Stoyanov seen in an artist's illustration as they appear at Westminster Magistrates court via videolink last year Kathryn Selby, prosecuting told the court: 'Together with five other suspects awaiting trial, they were all part of an organised network of UK based Bulgarian nationals, conducting surveillance against several individuals and locations on behalf of the Russian state. 'Their purpose was to assist Russian state in hostile action against targets, including their abduction.' There was no application for bail and District Judge John Zani remanded Ivanchev in custody and sent the case for a hearing at the Old Bailey on March 15. Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Counter-Terrorism Command, said: 'A sixth suspect was identified and arrested as a result of enquiries made following the previous five arrests in this investigation, and working with the Crown Prosecution Service, a charge has now been brought. Nick Price, Head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: 'The CPS has authorised a charge of conspiracy to conduct espionage against a sixth person suspected of spying for Russia. 'The function of the CPS is not to decide whether a person is guilty of a criminal offence, but to make fair, independent and objective assessments about whether it is appropriate to present charges for a criminal court to consider.' A world famous skateboard park which Tony Hawk once described as a 'legendary place' has been given protected status by heritage bosses. The Livingston 'Livi' Skatepark has been listed as a category B structure following a consultation from Historic Environment Scotland (HES). The skatepark opened in 1981 and achieved international recognition due to its scale, ambition and quality. It attracted enthusiasts from across the UK and was known as an icon of the Scottish skate and bike scene. American professional skateboarder Tony Hawk even skated there back in 1991. The Livingston 'Livi' Skatepark has been listed as a category B structure following a consultation from Historic Environment Scotland (HES) American professional skateboarder Tony Hawk even skated there back in 1991 An aerial view of the skate park which is in Livingston, Scotland Skateboarding originated in 1950s California and became very popular in Scotland during the later 1970s. Skateboarder Kenny Omond first approached Livingston Development Corporation with the idea for a park and architect Iain Urquhart designed the project after extensive study of US skateparks and conversations with skateboarders. Dara Parsons, head of designations at HES, said: 'We are delighted to confirm 'Livi' Skatepark as a listed building after West Lothian Council asked us to consider designation. 'Iain Urquhart's original design is grounded in early skate culture, and the park is known around the world for its pioneering design, the quality of the skating experience, and as a prototype for later concrete skateparks. 'We are very grateful for everybody who contributed to our public engagement, which helped us understand the history, design, quality and experiences for those who use the skatepark. 'Tony Hawk, who skated there back in 1991, described it as 'a legendary place', and it is clear that this remains a highly valued creative and social space for the community of Livingston and the skating and biking community. 'Through designation, we hope to recognise and protect the best examples of our cultural heritage. Skateboarder Kenny Omond first approached Livingston Development Corporation with the idea for a park and architect Iain Urquhart designed the project after extensive study of US skateparks and conversations with skateboarders (stock image) 'Listing Scotland's oldest skatepark helps demonstrate the variety of our historic environment and especially the important role the built environment of the late 20th century structure has in telling Scotland's story.' Rick Curran, secretary at Skateboard Scotland, said: 'Skateboard Scotland are pleased to hear that Livingston skatepark is to be designated a listed structure, this designation will help ensure it retains the essence that makes it a famously strong foundation for Scottish skateboarding. 'Livi is a beloved, world-renowned skatepark recognised by many for its ground-breaking design, but at 43 years old it is showing considerable signs of age, so we are extremely keen to see the necessary steps taken to ensure this essence is protected for future generations through sympathetic, considered stabilisation and restoration. The skatepark opened in 1981 and achieved international recognition due to its scale, ambition and quality 'We want to thank the skate community for the huge amount of feedback and information they provided to Historic Environment Scotland (HES) as part of the survey last year which has helped them to consider and award this designation.' Lawrence Fitzpatrick, leader of West Lothian Council, said: 'I'm absolutely delighted that Livingston Skate Park has been granted B listed status. 'Thanks to everyone in the local and skating communities who showed their support for the unique facility during the consultation process. 'As the custodians of Livingston Skate Park, we are well aware of the importance of the park, and adding it to the list of Scotland's significant structures will help ensure it is protected for future generations.' The 'banging' sound that kept the hopes of families and rescuers alive in the search for the doomed Titan submersible has been revealed for the first time in chilling new audio. A desperate search for the sub was launched after it lost contact with its mothership and vanished during an expedition to the Titanic wreck on Sunday June 18, 2023. After an agonising wait for news, late into the second day of searching, reports emerged that banging noises were detected in 30-minute intervals, deep under the ocean. Played for the first time in a new documentary, the hollow sound has a regular, steady beat which caught the attention of experts - and sparked hopes that the noise could be SOS signals being made by the five men on board. 'It could be somebody knocking, the symmetry between those knockings is very unusual,' former Navy Submarine Captain Ryan Ramsey tells the documentary. 'It's rhythmic, it's like somebody is making that sound, and the fact that it is repeated is really unusual.' A desperate search for the sub was launched after it lost contact with its mothership and vanished during an expedition to the Titanic wreck on Sunday June 18, 2023 Five people were onboard, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) was in the sub along with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of the OceanGate Expedition After the sound was first recorded at around 11.30pm on June 20, the US Navy confirmed that it had detected the noises the next morning. READ MORE: OceanGate will SUSPEND all exploration and business operations following death of Titanic Five Advertisement Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick admitted at the time: 'With respect to the noises, specifically, we don't know what they are, to be frank with you.' The world was gripped as rescuers urgently doubled their efforts to track down the missing sub before oxygen was expected to run out. There were five passengers on board; Tourists Hamish Harding, 58, Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19, French Navy pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. Tragically, hopes raised by the mysterious knocking sound were later dashed. The Pelagic search team's submersible, Odysseus 6K, reached the seafloor after days of searching and on June 22 found debris of the sub, around 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. Titan had imploded as a result of enormous water pressure bearing down on the vessel - killing everyone on board in what was likely a matter of milliseconds. Now new documentary, which will be released to mark a year since the tragedy in June, will go behind the scenes of the multi-million dollar search operation. Minute by Minute: The Titan Sub Disaster details the events leading up to Titan's ill-fated expedition to the Titanic wreck. The documentary, by ITN productions for Channel 5, also asks what lessons can be learned from the disaster. It features the never-before-heard audio of the banging as well as expert opinion on what happened during the search mission that gripped the world. At the time, some experts warned against taking the sound as evidence of life. Many claimed that the noise was likely to be 'debris' and 'junk' from the iconic wreck. Banging noises were detected in 30-minute intervals by underwater sonar devices called 'sonobuoys'. Graphic shows how they were used during last year's search According to experts, the 'banging' could have been from search equipment in the area, marine life such as whales or even just sounds from the depths of the Atlantic Jeff Karson, Professor Emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University, said at the time that the sounds heard were likely to be 'wishful thinking' by the US Coast Guard. Investigators believe the Titan imploded as it made its descent into deep North Atlantic waters on June 18 - before the banging noise was recorded. The sub was launched around 8am that day in the Atlantic Ocean, 400 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at the site of the Titanic shipwreck. The five passengers started to descend as Rush piloted the vessel, but at 9.45am - an hour and 45 minutes into the dive - it lost contact with its Polar Prince mothership. OceanGate Expeditions took eight hours to report the missing sub to the US Coast Guard after it lost contact. That led to a massive international response to rescue the five passengers. As the world held its breath, ships from across the globe started to make the trek to help search for the missing sub while the hours and estimated oxygen ticked down. However, it was later announced the five people aboard the sub were believed to have been killed in a likely implosion, and that a US Navy monitoring system had picked up a possible sound of the implosion in the initial descent. Officials soon announced that the five people aboard the sub were believed to have been killed, but search efforts continued. Confirming the worst fears, it was revealed on June 22 that debris form the imploded sub was found near the site of the Titanic. Ten days after its disappearance, the Coast Guard announced that 'presumed human remains' had been found in the wreckage of the sub. OceanGate, based in Washington, shuttered its door amid the search and after the disaster and questions flew about the future of deep-sea tourism at the site. 'We'd spent four or five days... expecting to go down there and perform a miracle,' deep sea expert Jesse Doren told Sky after the discovery of the wreck. Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian Coast Guard pier 'Obviously, our sense of disappointment is miniscule compared to the people who are close to the families of those who were lost.' According to experts, the 'banging' could have been from search equipment in the area, marine life such as whales or even just sounds from the depths of the Atlantic. Dr Jamie Pringle, Reader in Forensic Geosciences at Keele University, also told MailOnline at the time that he believes the sound was 'manmade'. 'The ocean is a very noisy place with passing ships, submarines, fishing vessels, and indeed search vessels in this case.' Matthew Schanck, founder of maritime search and rescue organisation Marsar International, also suspected a manmade origin. 'Our understanding is the noise could have a number of sources,' he told MailOnline. 'The subsurface of the ocean is a noisy environment. Jeff Karson, Professor Emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University, told DailyMail.com the sounds heard were likely to be 'wishful thinking' by the Coast Guard 'But given the high density of vessels in the area operating their propulsion systems and heavy machinery/equipment in the area, this may have been picked up by sonobuoys.' Ships that deployed remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) in the search including the mothership Polar Prince also would have caused underwater noise, Schanck said. Schanck doesn't think the noise would have come from the Titan debris, although it may come from the Titanic 'if there is loose metal moving around' but surface vessels and ROVs deployed in the search were the most likely cause. Stefan B. Williams, a professor of marine robotics at the University of Sydney, told Business Insider marine wildlife 'like whales' could even have caused the noise. Minute by Minute: Titan Sub Disaster, produced by ITN Productions for Channel 5 airs on March 6 and 7 at 21.00. A police officer was allowed to drive fast response vehicles and carry firearms for a decade after being diagnosed with amnesia. PC Karl Warren's medical condition only came to light when he was involved in a hit-and-run incident while on duty. He was driving at 50mph in a marked vehicle when he crashed into the back of a car driven by a member of the public. His passenger, PC Ryan Hargraves, failed to tell him to stop. Astonishingly, Norfolk Police refused to take action against either officer until the victim, Emily Hewett, complained to the Independent Office of Police Conduct which reviewed the decision. PC Hargraves was issued with a written warning in October last year following a misconduct hearing. But PC Warren has now avoided censure after a misconduct hearing was told the initial memory loss in 2012 was believed to be a one-off episode and there was no need to restrict his duties. PC Karl Warren was allowed to drive fast response vehicles and carry firearms for a decade after being diagnosed with amnesia His medical condition came to light after he drove into the back of another car and then drove off without stopping PC Hargrave, who didn't report the incident until the following day, told his colleague's misconduct hearing this week that he asked PC Warren what had happened just after the collision and was told: 'I don't know.' More recent seizures had led to a more accurate diagnosis of a rare form of epilepsy that left him 'completely unaware of his surroundings'. Counsel for Norfolk Constabulary argued this was based on opinion and not obvious fact but the misconduct panel said the prosecution had to 'prove it is likely the officer had awareness of the incident'. Ms Hewett, who was shaken but uninjured in the crash, said afterwards: 'I am disappointed that the hearing did not delve a lot deeper into this case. I do feel like we're only getting a small part of the story. 'The whole process has been poorly handled by the police. I have felt throughout that their first instinct was to look after the two officers involved, not me the victim. 'There are a lot of unanswered questions. But I have lost all faith in the force and I doubt they will change or learn one bit.' PC Warren was driving a marked BMW X5 on March 5, 2022, when he rammed into the back of Ms Hewett's Audi A1 on the A14 near Beccles in Suffolk before driving away. PC Hargrave, who didn't report the incident until the following day, told his colleague's misconduct hearing this week that he asked PC Warren what had happened just after the collision and was told: 'I don't know.' He added he appeared 'bewildered about what had happened' when asked if he had suffered a medical episode. There were no further exchanges between them before the shift ended 30 minutes later. It later emerged that PC Warren had been diagnosed with Transient Global Amnesia, a form of temporary memory loss, in 2012, following an incident while on duty in Great Yarmouth. He was taking a statement from a housing officer when he became 'confused', according to another officer who was present. She said PC Warren commented: 'Hang on a minute. I'm having memory loss. This is not my case.' Dr Pablo Garcia Reitbeck, a consultant neurologist at St George's Hospital in London, told the misconduct panel the episode was not expected to happen again and there 'need not be any restriction on his activities'. But following the hit-and-run collision he reported two further episodes of memory loss in 2022 and 13 last year. This had allowed a more accurate diagnosis of a rare form of epilepsy that left him 'completely unaware of his surroundings' and with no memory, Dr Reitbeck added. Andrew Waters, representing Norfolk Police, argued PC Warren's failure to stop after the accident amounted to gross misconduct. He told the panel neurological conditions were based on opinion and not obvious fact, and an epileptic episode relied on the recollections of the person suffering it or those of third parties. The fact PC Warren had driven 18 miles after the crash was inconsistent with an epileptic seizure, he said. But Colin Banham, for PC Warren, claimed the expert evidence had 'not been undermined'. 'You have to be given clear and compelling reasons to reject the expert evidence and they just don't exist in this case,' he told the panel. His client, whose wife Michelle attended the two-day hearing, had been placed on restricted duties since the incident which prevented him from taking part in active investigations or dealing with the public. The disciplinary panel concluded that PC Warren should face no further action. He is still employed by the force. Chairman Harry Ireland said the prosecution needed to prove it was 'more likely than not' that the officer was aware of the crash and 'should have done something about it'. Ms Hewett added afterwards: 'I do not dispute Warren's condition but I want to know how he could be allowed to carry on working in a job that carries such responsibility. 'Since his diagnosis in 2012, this was always going to end up happening. It could have been a lot worse.' Norfolk Police Federation chairman Andy Symonds accused the media and the IOPC of conducting an 'anti-police vendetta'. He said: 'There has been no scandal. There was no hiding anything. He has faced up to it all. 'Karl sadly has a worrying medical condition and is paying a heavy price for it.' Chief Constable Paul Sanford said: 'The reason why the officer did not stop was because of a medical episode and, as a result of this, gross misconduct has not been found. The officer has my full support.' Prince Harry will appeal after losing a High Court challenge against the Home Office over a decision to downgrade his taxpayer-funded personal security when he visits Britain, his spokesman said today. The Duke of Sussex took legal action over the move by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) after being told he would no longer be given the 'same degree' of publicly-funded protection when in the UK. His lawyers had claimed he was 'singled out' and treated 'less favourably' in the February 2020 decision by the body, which falls under the Home Office's remit. But at a hearing in London in December, the Government insisted 39-year-old Harry's claim should be dismissed, arguing Ravec was entitled to conclude the Duke's protection should be 'bespoke' and considered on a 'case-by-case' basis. Two months on, retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane has now issued his ruling on the case this morning - saying: 'The application for judicial review is refused.' But a spokesman for Harry said he would appeal, adding that he was 'not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules'. The judgment - which the Home Office later said the Government was 'pleased' with - comes amid another 24 hours of royal drama and tragedy in Britain, including: The Duke of Sussex, pictured leaving the Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 30, 2023 Your browser does not support iframes. This is the full judgment in Harry's case issued by the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary today Responding to the ruling, a legal spokesperson for the Duke said today: 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal today's judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body Ravec, which includes the Home Office, the Royal Household and the Met Police. Britain should not be 'lumbered with paying for' Prince Harry A former Conservative Armed Forces Minister insisted today that the High Court ruling was right - and UK taxpayers should not be 'lumbered with paying for' Prince Harry. Lord Andrew Robothan, who served in the Coldstream Guards, also said that the Duke of Sussex was 'unwise' to write about killing 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in his book Spare. He told TalkTV: 'This is a man who chose to leave the Royal Family, who chose to write a book for money boasting how many people he'd killed. He said he'd killed 20 people. I think it was an unwise thing to say. 'If there was a known intelligence source saying he was at risk, that's one thing, but there isn't. He's most of the time in Montecito in California, and where he may or may not empoloy security guards with the very large deals he's done with Netflix. 'But I don't think the British taxpayer should be lumbered with paying for him, since he seems to rather not like Britain anyway.' Advertisement 'Although these are not labels used by Ravec, three categories - as revealed during the litigation - comprise the 'Ravec cohort': the Role Based Category, the Occasional Category and the Other VIP Category. 'The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec's own written policy. 'In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to The Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. 'The Duke's case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him, is no substitute for that risk analysis. 'The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.' A judgment summary in Harry's case released this morning said the court determined 'there has not been any unlawfulness in reaching the decision', adding that it was not 'irrational'. The court also found the 'decision was not marred by procedural unfairness' and there was no unlawfulness by Ravec in its arrangements for his visits to Britain. In his 52-page partially redacted ruling, Sir Peter said Harry's lawyers had taken 'an inappropriate, formalist interpretation of the Ravec process'. He added: 'The 'bespoke' process devised for the claimant in the decision of February 28, 2020 was, and is, legally sound.' The judge also said: 'The decision of February 28, 2020 was obviously forward-looking in nature. 'The suggestion that the claimant should have received both an RMB (risk) analysis and a 'bespoke' approach ignores the witness evidence of the defendant which, for the reasons I have given, falls to be given weight. Harry's father King Charles III is pictured leaving his London residence Clarence House today 'That evidence shows no irrationality or other unlawfulness, as regards the other VIP category.' 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal': Full statement from Harry's legal team A legal spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex said: 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal today's judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body Ravec, which includes the Home Office, the Royal Household and the Met Police. 'Although these are not labels used by Ravec, three categories - as revealed during the litigation - comprise the 'Ravec cohort': the Role Based Category, the Occasional Category and the Other VIP Category. 'The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec's own written policy. 'In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to the Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. 'The duke's case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him, is no substitute for that risk analysis. 'The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.' Advertisement Sir Peter also noted it was 'highly relevant' that on January 11, 2020, Sir Edward Young, then Queen Elizabeth II's private secretary, gave Harry a 'draft options paper' outlining that the 'level of protection is a decision for the Home Secretary, delegated to the chair' of Ravec. The paper set out how the process worked and Harry's own private secretary Fiona Mcilwham then met with Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, saying in an email that she 'faithfully relayed the details you provided on security to the Duke', according to the court papers. The judge said there was 'no substance in the contention that the defendant failed to act in a procedurally fair manner'. He added: 'In particular, there was no reason to assume that the claimant's private secretary was unaware of the security issues arising as a result of the claimant's [redacted text].' The judge also said that 'On the contrary, the evidence shows that she was entirely conversant with them' following a meeting on January 27, 2020 with Sir Edward, Ravec chair Sir Richard Mottram and Prince William's private sectary Simon Case. Sir Peter added: 'If there had been the need for any questions to be asked about 'Ravec, Ms Mcilwham can be expected to have asked them. 'I do not accept that the fact she may have been private secretary for some six months has any bearing. Her communications are indicative of someone with a good grasp of her job.' The judge said he accepted comments from Sir Richard, who said that, even if he had received a document setting out all of Harry's legal arguments in February 2020, 'I would have reached the same decision for materially the same reasons'. In addition, Sir Peter criticised Harry's claim of the 'alleged irrationality' of him having to give 28 days' notice of travelling to Britain. Prince Harry and Meghan, pictured at an Invictus Games event in Canada on February 14, 2024 Earlier this month Harry told ABC show GMA that he had 'considered' becoming a US citizen The judge said: 'There is no merit in this contention. It arose from the need to be able to address a [redacted] of the kind belatedly given by the claimant to Ravec in relation to the June/July 2021 visit. 'Given Ravec's expertise, the decision to require 28 days' notice would need to be shown, by reference to evidence, to have been plucked out of the air or imposed for some extraneous reason, before this head of challenge could be made out. The claimant has pointed to nothing of the kind.' Responding to the ruling, a Home Office spokesman said today: 'We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the Government's position in this case, and we are carefully considering our next steps. It would be inappropriate to comment further. 'The UK Government's protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. 'It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals' security.' Sir Peter - who officially retired as a High Court judge on February 1 - said his ruling contained redactions because if such information was made public it would have 'a serious adverse impact on the individuals concerned, as well as being contrary to the public interest, including that of national security'. William, Harry, Meghan and Charles speak together at a service at Westminster Abbey in March 2019 - the year before the Sussexes stepped down as senior royals and moved to the US In December, the Duke's lawyers told the court that a failure to carry out a risk analysis and fully consider the impact of a 'successful attack' on him meant the approach to his protection was 'unlawful and unfair'. READ MORE Royals stunned by Thomas Kingston tragedy: Family mourns death of Lady Gabriella Windsor's war hero and financier husband Advertisement The court was also told that Harry believes his children - Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet - cannot 'feel at home' in the UK if it is 'not possible to keep them safe' there. But Home Office lawyers said the Duke was no longer a member of the group of people whose 'security position' was under regular review by Ravec, but he was 'brought back within the cohort in the appropriate circumstances'. The court was told that it was 'simply incorrect' to suggest that there was no evidence that the issue of impact was considered, adding that the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - Harry's mother - was raised as part of the decision. Ravec has delegated responsibility from the Home Office over the provision of protective security arrangements for members of the royal family and others, with involvement from the Metropolitan Police, the Cabinet Office and the royal household. The majority of the proceedings in December were held in private, without the public or press present, because of confidential evidence over security measures being involved in the case. Prince Andrew leads members of the Royal Family to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle yesterday to attend a thanksgiving service for the life of the late King Constantine of Greece Queen Camilla is seen at St George's Chapel yesterday as she attends the thanksgiving service The security case was one of three remaining live High Court cases brought by the Duke, alongside claims over allegations of unlawful information gathering against News Group Newspapers (NGN) and Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of MailOnline. Earlier this month, Harry settled the remaining parts of his phone hacking claim against Mirror Group Newspapers. It came after the Duke decided in January to withdraw a libel claim against ANL over a February 2022 Mail on Sunday article about his legal challenge against the Home Office. Harry, who was not present at the December hearing, lives in North America with wife Meghan and their children after the couple announced they were stepping back as senior royals in January 2020. Earlier this month Harry revealed in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America (GMA) that he had 'considered' becoming a US citizen since moving to California. He added that his 'family and my life in California is as it is', but also told how he had 'got other trips planned that would take me through the UK or back to the UK'. The Duke also said: 'I will stop in and see my family as much as I can.' Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson 'unsuspended' her campaign Wednesday, 21 days after she announced she was pulling out of the 2024 race. Williamson, a best-selling author and self-help guru, is one of only two mainstream challengers to President Joe Biden's ascent to the Democratic nomination. Her rise to national prominence was boosted by Oprah Winfrey in the 1990s, as a frequent guest on her daytime talk show, and then again in 2020, when she ran for the Democratic nomination for the first time. Williamson posted a video to X Wednesday morning explaining she had dropped out because she was 'losing the horse race.' 'But something so much more important than the horse race is at stake here, and we must respond,' she said. She argued in a note to supporters that Biden was a 'weak candidate' to take on the likely Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, labeling the former president a 'fascist.' In a video message to supporters Wednesday morning, Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson said she was back in the 2024 White House race Trump easily won the Michigan primary to rival Nikki Haley, while Biden lost 100,000 Democratic votes to 'uncommitted,' as Wolverine State voters protested his support for Israel in its war against Hamas. Williamson's name remained on the ballot and garnered 3 percent, a better performance than Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who had received the endorsement of the Detroit News. 'We cannot sit idly by while the D.C. political class sleepwalks this country into disaster,' she wrote Wednesday to supporters. 'I will respond to the cult-like personality of Donald Trump with a light-filled vision of hope and possibility,' she continued. 'We will become once again a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" at a time when corporate interests have taken Washington hostage,' she said. Williamson initially dropped out of the race after underperforming in Nevada's Demcocratic primary earlier this month. In a video to supporters she said, 'I read a quote the other day that said that "sunsets are proof that endings can be beautiful too."' 'And so today, even though it is time to suspend my campaign for the presidency I do want to see the beauty and I want all of you incredibly supported me on this journey, as donors, as supporters, as team and as volunteers, to see the beauty too,' she said 'There is so much for us to take from this. And that includes knowing that we laid it down in way that we should all be proud of,' Williamson added. She also told supporters in an email, ''First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you don't win :)' 'While the level of our failure is obvious to all, a level of success is real nonetheless,' she continued. 'And I'm not only glad we did that; I'm proud of it.' ABC News first reported Williamson's decision to drop out of the race. She had officially entered the race in March. Williamson actively campaigned in New Hampshire - bypassed spending time in South Carolina, where Biden was dominant - and then placed her bets on Nevada. However, the Silver State primary was immediately called for the sitting president after polls closed. She garnered just under 3,200 votes - or 2.9 percent - to Biden's dominate 89.3 percent. In New Hampshire she received around 5,000 votes or 4 percent of the total. In South Carolina she got around 2,700 votes and 2.1 percent of the vote. Prince Harry has paid tribute to Britain's inspirational seriously-ill children as he issues new video asking for nominations for 2024's WellChild Awards. The national UK children's charity works to make it possible for children and young people with exceptional health needs to be cared for at home instead of hospital. In the video posted on Twitter he said: 'The well child awards is our chance to celebrate the extraordinary strength and spirit of young people with complex medical conditions from across the United Kingdom. 'It allows us to shine a spotlight on the resilience and positivity that they demonstrate very single day and to recognize the incredible support from the families and friends and professionals around them. 'It is such a privilege to honour the immense courage and compassion of this incredible community but to do that we need you to take a moment and nominate the remarkable individuals who inspire you. 'Your involvement makes a huge difference so please join us in celebrating the amazing superstars to be recognized in the 2024 WellChild awards.' Prince Harry has paid tribute to Britain's inspirational seriously-ill children as he issues new video asking for nominations for 2024's WellChild Awards The Duke of Sussex has been a patron of the organisation for 16 years. Pictured him at the WellChild Awards 2023 Last September he attended the WellChild Awards at the Hurlingham Club in London (above), after having missed the previous year as it fell on the same day the Queen died The Duke of Sussex has been a patron of the organisation for 16 years. Last September he attended the WellChild Awards at the Hurlingham Club in London, after having missed the previous year as it fell on the same day the Queen died. At the event he praised his late grandmother saying 'as you also probably know, she would have been the first person to insist that I still come to be with you all instead of going to her. 'And that's precisely why I know, exactly one year on, she is looking down on all of us tonight, happy we're together continuing to spotlight such an incredible community.' This video come as Prince Harry is set to appeal after losing a High court challenge against the Home Office over a decision to downgrade his taxpayer-funded personal security when he visits Britain. The Duke of Sussex took legal action over the move by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) after being told he would no longer be given the 'same degree' of publicly-funded protection when in the UK. His lawyers had claimed he was 'singled out' and treated 'less favourably' in the February 2020 decision by the body, which falls under the Home Office's remit. But at a hearing in London in December, the Government insisted 39-year-old Harry's claim should be dismissed, arguing Ravec was entitled to conclude the Duke's protection should be 'bespoke' and considered on a 'case-by-case' basis. Two months on, retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane has now issued his ruling on the case this morning - saying: 'The application for judicial review is refused.' But a spokesman for Harry said he would appeal, adding that he was 'not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules' An Afghan refugee, 18, who snuck into Britain in back of lorry has been jailed for stabbing a 16-year-old to 'regain his honour' over a 50 debt. Atiqullah Oryakhail, 18, fled the UK after the brutal stabbing but was picked up five months later on the Austria-Italy border and brought back to face justice. The teenager had arrived in Britain after being smuggled in the back of lorries from Afghanistan and was granted asylum. He went to Bournemouth and Poole College in Dorset where he met the victim and his brother, also both from Afghanistan. Bournemouth Crown Court heard Oryakhail loaned the elder brother 50 to give to a mutual friend as a wedding gift, but the money was never paid back. Dorset Police said after the stabbing in August 2022 that they believed the attack was carried out in Walpole Road in Boscombe Oryakhail decided he had to stab the man to 'regain his honour' and took a knife from a pizza shop where he had been working - but then went after the younger brother as he was deemed an easier target. The 16-year-old was stabbed in the back as he got off his moped in Ashley Road in Boscombe, Dorset. He was also slashed across the left arm and suffered a significant loss of blood, with the horrific incident captured on CCTV. A female passer-by used her first aid training to keep him alive until emergency services arrived. Oryakhail tried to get a friend to drive him away from the scene - but they kicked him out of the car when they found out what he had done and told him to go to police. The friend said: 'I asked him if it was worth stabbing someone for just 50 and he said it was.' The court heard Oryakhail had already packed his belongings before the attack on August 18, 2022. He went on the run and left the country, but was detained last February when attempting to enter Austria from Italy. Oryakhail is believed to have entered the UK illegally when he was about 14 in 2019. He pleaded guilty to wounding with intent, while the prosecution offered no evidence on a charge of attempted murder, and was jailed for 57 months at Bournemouth Crown Court. He will serve his sentence in a young offenders' institution and then it will be up to the Home Office to decide whether or not to deport him. The Home Office has been contacted for comment. Charles Gabb, prosecuting, said Oryakhail was friends with the two brothers until he loaned the elder one the money. Mr Gabb said: 'He decided in his head that the elder brother had to be stabbed as some sort of way for him to regain his honour.' He described how Oryakhail told police in the Austrian city of Salzburg, where he was detained, that because the older brother was bigger and stronger than him he decided to go after the younger one. The defendant and victim got on a moped together and Oryakhail attacked him when they stopped. The prosecutor told how the victim 'managed to run a short distance down the road where he collapsed'. Mr Gabb added: 'A woman out in the town enjoying herself - to her credit should be expressed - she didn't turn her back, she stayed with first aid training and gave invaluable help to a man bleeding profusely at her feet. 'She stayed with the victim until police arrived, giving valuable help. The victim was whizzed to hospital for emergency treatment - without which he would have died.' The victim is said to still suffer nerve damage in his hand from the injuries while also experiencing flashbacks and nightmares. The court heard he would likely have died but for the work of skilled surgeons. Nick Robinson, defending, said Oryakhail did not intend to kill the boy and claimed the brothers were bullying him. He added that Oryakhail received limited education and lives in a constant state of fear after witnessing his family being killed in Afghanistan as a child. Judge Susan Evans sentenced him to 57 months in prison and ordered him to pay 400 compensation to the woman who helped save the boy's life. She told Oryakhail: 'I accept you didn't intend to kill him but that would have been the result if not for members of the public. 'If it wasn't for the skill of the medical team, the outcome could have been fatal.' Dorset Police said at the time of the crime: Dorset Police said at the time of the crime: 'Dorset Police received a report at 3.06am on Friday 19 August 2022 that a 16-year-old boy had been located with a stab wound outside Bosc Vegas in Christchurch Road in Bournemouth. 'Following enquiries, it is believed that the incident occurred a short time earlier in Walpole Road.' Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney says his client 'definitely has a take' on the conspiracies around Jeffrey Epstein's suicide but has refused to say what it is. Arthur Aidala revealed he has discussed the disgraced financier's death with his client at length but will not disclose it as it would be a distraction from Maxwell's appeal hearing next month. Aidala insisted on his client's innocence and claimed she did not testify at her trial because she was 'hungry and sleep-deprived' after being woken up and strip searched by prison staff 'eight times a day'. Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in jail after being found guilty of trafficking young girls for Epstein to sexually abuse. She is planning to appeal the sentence on March 12. Aidala claimed that while awaiting trial, his client was treated worse than Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny who recently died in prison under grueling conditions. Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney Arthur Aidala says she 'definitely has a take' on the conspiracies around Jeffrey Epstein 's suicide but has refused to say what it is Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in jail after being found guilty of trafficking young girls for Epstein to sexually abuse Maxwell(right, pictured with Epstein) is planning to appeal the sentence on March 12 'The way she was treated pending trial as an innocent civilian of the American justice system should make every American watching this disgusted because she was treated worse than the guy who just died in Russia was,' Aidala told NewsNation's Chris Cuomo. 'She had her own pet rat in her jail cell. She went days without eating. I asked her, "Ghislaine if you're innocent why didn't you testify?" 'She said, "Arthur the way they treated me, I didn't know my own name. They would take her back from eight or nine o'clock. 'They said, "Judge she hasn't eaten can we give her a protein bar, granola bar?" Just says no.' 'So she didn't testify because she was hungry?' Cuomo asked. 'And sleep deprived, it's in the CIA torture handbook,' Aidala replied. 'Every 15 minutes they pushed her awake, she was strip searched eight times a day.' Asked if his client has a view on the suspicions around Epstein's death, Aidala said: 'She definitely has a take, we spoke about it for a while. Maybe you'll invite me back on the show after March 12. 'I don't want anything to distract from the March 12.' Aidala revealed he has discussed the disgraced financier's death with his client at length but will not disclose it as it would be a distraction from Maxwell's appeal hearing next month Aidala claimed Maxwell did not testify at her trial because she was 'hungry and sleep-deprived' after being woken up and strip searched by prison staff 'eight times a day' Jeffrey Epstein (right) pictured with British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell (left) The lawyer says he believes his client has a chance of winning her case because prosecutors told Epstein that they would not go after anyone who could be deemed a co-conspirator in exchange for his testimony. 'When they arrest a main criminal like Jeffrey Epstein they arrest everyone around him, they go top down. Here Ghislaine Maxwell is nowhere to be found in the paperwork, in the indictment until after he dies. Then she becomes the surrogate,' Aidala said. 'The feds have spent millions of dollars to go after the big bad monster Jeffrey Epstein, and he may have been a monster I have no idea, now he's gone, so what do they do? They need a proxy.' Aidala revealed that his client is in good spirits ahead of the appeal hearing. 'I met with her last week, even though you know you're walking out of that prison it's nowhere you want to be,' Aidala said. 'She was very vivacious, she is totally with it.' The lawyer claimed that his client had not been convicted on 'evidence' and suggested she had been tried in the court of public opinion, drawing comparisons with Donald Trump and Bill Cosby. Aidala admitted that his client accepts that Epstein was at fault but insisted there was 'levels' to what happened and that the story has 'run amuck' since Epstein's death as there is nobody to push back on all the 'fairytales'. 'The first name she volunteered to say was absolute BS was Alan Dershowitz,' Aidala added. A disheveled Ghislaine Maxwell was seen in exercise yard at FCI Tallahassee in Florida on Sunday, February 18 The 62-year-old was seen wearing an all-grey outfit, with her hands balled up underneath her sleeves as she did laps outside 'She said that's not true he was in six places, that's a lie. Supposedly I was there I was never there. 'Her position is that this has got so blown out of proportion of what is was.' Dershowitz was Epstein's lawyer who was named in the Epstein papers and accused of sexual abuse by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who later admitted she may have made a mistake in naming the Harvard law professor. When pressed by the host if Maxwell could categorically state she had done nothing to put young girls in harm's way, Aidala confirmed that is what she plans to say at the appeal. The Manhattan District Attorney's office has launched an attack on Chicago's Art Institute over a $1.25 million artwork by Egon Schiele that was allegedly stolen by Nazis in the 1940s. The Art Institute of Chicago is facing accusations of 'willful blindness' regarding the masterpiece it acquired, that was previously 'looted' by Nazis during the Holocaust. 'Russian War Prisoner' by Schiele belonged to the famous cabaret star Fritz Grunbaum, who was murdered in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1941. The work was then laundered through art dealers and brought to New York, the DA claims. The descendants of Grunbaum - who coupled with his acting talents was known for his humor and wit - have long sought the return of the drawing, along with the rest of his art collection that vanished from their possession during World War Two. In an 160-page filing, the Manhattan district attorney's office alleged a 'conspiracy of silence,' accusing the institute of neglecting a 'reasonable inquiry' into the piece's origins, the Chicago Times reported. The Art Institute of Chicago is facing accusations of 'willful blindness' regarding art it acquired that was previously looted by Nazis during the Holocaust, specifically the piece 'Russian War Prisoner' by Egon Schiele (pictured) The drawing belonged to cabaret star Fritz Grunbaum (pictured), who was murdered in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1941, before it was laundered through art dealers and brought to New York Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's office recovered 10 looted Schiele's drawings that one belonged to Grunbaum, that were labeled as 'stolen property' by the office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit The museum denies any wrongdoing - asserting legal ownership and claiming it has done 'extensive research' on the background of the piece, leaving officials 'confident' in their legal ownership. But Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's office recovered 10 looted Schiele's drawings that one belonged to Grunbaum, that were labeled as 'stolen property' by the office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit. The museum plans to continue to defend their position in oral arguments that are set to begin this spring. Art Institute of Chicago argues that Grunbaum's sister-in-law, Mathilde Lukacs, inherited and legally sold 'Russian War Prisoner' in 1956 to Swiss art dealer Eberhard Kornfeld. The filing outlines that Grunbaum's collection, including 'Russian War Prisoner,' was stored in a Nazi-controlled warehouse after his 1938 imprisonment. Lukacs had fled by then, making her 1956 sale account questionable. The artwork resurfaced in Kornfeld's 1956 sale, where 63 Schiele pieces were auctioned, with limited ownership history provided. The museum denies wrongdoing - asserting legal ownership and claiming it has done 'extensive research' on the background of the piece, leaving officials 'confident' in their legal ownership Grunbaum's descendants have long sought the return of the drawing along with the rest of his art collection stolen by Nazis in 1938 Grunbaum was a famous cabaret performer, writer, film actor, and director in Vienna - known for his 'clever and ironic' humor In 1998, Kornfeld, after being questioned by a Swiss journalist, produced documents claiming the lawful purchase in 1955 and 1956. However, investigators claimed signs of reverse engineering and 'cover-up' in these documents. Despite post-World War II warnings about Nazi-looted art, the Art Institute, according to the filing, failed in due diligence during its 1966 purchase. Only in 2002 did the institute inquire about the artwork's ownership history, accepting Kornfeld's 'self-serving cover story.' A 2018 New York State Supreme Court case found Grunbaum did not voluntarily relinquish his collection, ordering the works to be returned, but in November, the Art Institute was awarded ownership of 'Prisoner of War' due to the statute of limitations. Grunbaum was a famous cabaret performer, writer, film actor, and director in Vienna - known for his 'clever and ironic' humor, according to his art collection bio. In an 160-page filing, the Manhattan district attorney's office alleged a 'conspiracy of silence,' accusing the institute of neglecting a 'reasonable inquiry' into the piece's origins Works of art by Austrian expressionist artist Egon Schiele are on display at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Wednesday, September 20, 2023, during a ceremony returning the pieces to the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum This handout image provided by the New York District Attorney's Office on September 20, 2023, shows the painting "I Love Antithesis" by Austrian artist Egon Schiele This handout image provided by the New York District Attorney's Office on September 20, 2023, shows the painting "A Portrait of a Boy" by Austrian artist Egon Schiele Swiss art dealer and gallery owner, Eberhard Kornfeld pictured at a sale of fine art works at Sotheby's Auction House in London in November 1977 In 2021, the last piece of Nazi-looted art discovered among the collection of a German pensioner was returned to its rightful owners eight years after it was found. Carl Spitzweg's drawing 'Playing the Piano' was handed over to Christie's auction house at the request of the heirs of its rightful owner, Henri Hinrichsen, after being found in an apartment belonging to pensioner Cornelius Gurlitt in 2012. The work had been seized from Jewish music publisher Hinrichsen in 1939, two years before he was killed at Auschwitz, and inherited by Gurlitt from his father. German authorities have now handed over 14 works from over $1 billion collection found at two homes belonging to Gurlitt after it was proven they were plundered by Nazis. It was bought by Gurlitt's father Hildebrand Gurlitt, an art dealer who traded in works confiscated by the Nazis, in 1940. The reclusive Cornelius Gurlitt, who died in 2014, had squirrelled away more than 1,200 works in his Munich apartment and 250 at a property in Salzburg, Austria. He inherited much of the collection from his father. Authorities first stumbled on the art while investigating a tax case in February 2012. Terrifying leaked military files have revealed that Russia's threshold for unleashing nukes is lower than ever feared. The Kremlin's forces have already rehearsed scenarios for tactical strikes at an early stage of a conflict with a global power, according to the documents. A total of 29 secret Russian military files from between 2008 and 2014 are covered, including details on how war-gaming could play out and presentations for naval officers, which speak of operating principles for nuclear weapons use. A possible nuclear response could be triggered by an enemy entering Russian territory, but there are also more specific examples, such as the obliteration of 20 per cent of Moscow's strategic ballistic missile submarines, according to the classified documents, seen by the Financial Times and reviewed by experts. 'This is the first time that we have seen documents like this reported in the public domain,' Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, told the publication. A possible nuclear response could be triggered by an enemy entering Russian territory, but there are also more specific examples, such as the obliteration of 20 per cent of Moscow's strategic ballistic missile submarines, according to the classified documents This grab made from a handout video footage released by the Russian Defence Ministry on April 20, 2022 shows the launching of the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile at Plesetsk testing field, Russia Russian soldiers load a rocket into a Grad rocket launcher on a mission at an undisclosed location in Ukraine 'They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can't be achieved through conventional means.' Russia's tactical nuclear weapons can be transferred by land, missiles launched from the sea, or through the use of aircraft. They were constructed for limited combat use in Europe and Asia, whereas bigger 'strategic' weapons were made for hitting targets in the US. The files date back over a decade or longer, with experts arguing they are not out of line with Russia's modern military doctrine. The plans highlight long-running fears of China among Russian security figures, even as Putin started forming ties with Beijing, in which a nuclear no-first-strike agreement was made in 2001. As the ties strengthened, documents show that Russia's eastern military district was nevertheless preparing for various scenarios that could play out from an invasion by China. The scenarios share a glimpse of how Moscow sees its nuclear weapons as central to its defence policy. One example shows that Russia, which is called the 'Northern Federation' in the war game, could retaliate with a tactical nuclear strike to prevent 'the South' from pushing forwards with a second batch of invading troops. China's foreign ministry said there was no reason to be suspicious of Russia. 'The Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation between China and Russia has legally established the concept of eternal friendship and non-enmity between the two countries,' a spokesperson told the Financial Times. A still image from video, released by the Russian Defence Ministry, shows what it said to be a Russian nuclear-powered submarine sailing during the military drills Umka-2022 in the Chukchi Sea, in September 2022 Putin's spokesperson said today that 'the "threat theory" has no market in China and Russia,' adding: 'The main thing is that the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons is absolutely transparent and is spelled out in the doctrine.' The spokesperson said that Russia strongly doubts the authenticity of the documents mentioned. A training presentation for naval officers, that was not directly related to the China war games, detailed wider criteria for launching nuclear weapons at a target. An enemy entering Russian territory, the defeat of units tasked with securing border areas, or an upcoming enemy attack utilising conventional weapons were listed. Last week, a close Putin aide and former president warned the West that Russia is capable of starting a nuclear war by accident. Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of Putin's security council, told 'impotent' Western leaders they are miscalculating the risk of nuclear war both as a deliberate decision by Putin - and as a terrifying accident. 'This very clock, which is ticking in a certain direction, has now accelerated very much,' Medvedev warned, gesturing towards the 'clear threat to all of humanity'. 'And in this I also see the inability, excuse me, the impotence of these Western authorities,' he added. '[They] keep saying the same thing: "No, it's the Russians who are scaring us, they will never do it". They're wrong.' It came just days after the ex-president threatened Russia could nuke the UK, US, Ukraine and its backers if Moscow is forced to concede occupied territories. He said: 'Attempts to restore Russia's 1991 borders will lead only to one thing - a global war with Western countries with the use of our entire strategic (nuclear) arsenal against Kyiv, Berlin, London, and Washington.' 'And against all other beautiful historic places that have long been included in the flight targets of our nuclear triad,' he added, referring to Russia's range of nuclear weapons. Critics say that threats from Medvedev, one of Russia's most aggressive pro-war commentators, are empty. But recent rhetoric has stressed how ready Russia could be to use nuclear weapons if cornered and facing the loss of occupied territories. Medvedev reaffirmed threats that Russia would be willing to resort to nuclear warfare if needed 'Sad as it may sound, this [nuclear war] scenario is real,' said the outspoken Putin lackey in his most recent address. 'We must do everything we can to prevent it from happening.' 'If it comes to the existence of our country, and I said this recently, what choice is left for the [Russian] leadership, for the head of state?' he continued. He added, unequivocally: 'So this is, unfortunately, a real threat, a direct and clear threat to all of humanity. 'And secondly, there are also accidents, from which no one is immune. And the accidental, unintentional start of a nuclear conflict cannot be discounted. 'So all these games around Ukraine are extremely dangerous.' The former president - who served from 2008 to 2012 - had suggested that London and other Western capitals could be destroyed if Russia loses the war. He asked rhetorically: 'Will we have the courage to do this if the disappearance of a thousand-year-old country, our great Motherland, is at stake, and the sacrifices made by the people of Russia over the centuries will be in vain? The answer is obvious.' He suggested at the time that Kyiv and the West should allow Putin to have the areas of Ukraine he thinks of as Russia. Most people around Britain have their go-to fish and chip shop, a haven of deliciousness to retreat to on a lazy Friday. And for many, their local is the best there is - the number one stop for a fish supper. But today, an outlet run by a businessman who has been in the trade since he was 15 was crowned Britain's best fish and shop takeaway. Ryan Hughes runs Ship Deck, in Caerphilly, south Wales, with his partner Kimberley, who he describes as the 'bread and butter' of the business. Punters can pick up a regular cod for 6.90, whilst a medium portion of chips costs 2.45. Ship Deck pipped Yarm Road Fish and Chips - famed for their secret batter recipe - in Darlington to top spot, whilst the Fish Works in Largs, Scotland, who are known for their fish finger butties, came third. The top takeaways were unveiled in a glitzy awards ceremony at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel in London this afternoon. The best restaurant was unveiled as Knights Fish Restaurant in Glastonbury, Somerset. After secret taste tests carried out across the UK, the National Federation of Fish Fryers (NFFF) chose the winners from its final list of ten takeaways and five restaurants. The National Fish and Chip Awards' judging panel of 'a-fish-onados' assessed the chippies not just on their food, but also their commitment to environmental sustainability, their product knowledge and their responsibilities as employers. TAKEAWAYS: THE BEST THREE OUTLETS 1. Ship Deck, Caerphilly, Wales Regular cod 6.90 / Regular chips 2.45 Partners Ryan and Kimberly Hughes opened Ship Deck four years ago after working in various chip shops in Rhondda Cynon Taff. Mr Hughes won Young Fish Frier of the Year in 2019. He has been in the industry since the age of 15 and is described by his wife as the 'bread and butter' of the business. Reviews praise Ship Deck for its 'excellent service and exceptionally good food' as well as 'plentiful' portion sizes and good value for money. Partners Ryan and Kimberly Hughes opened Ship Deck four years ago after working in various chip shops in Rhondda Cynon Taff Reviews praise Ship Deck for its 'excellent service and exceptionally good food' as well as 'plentiful' portion sizes and good value for money 2. Yarm Road Fish and Chips, Darlington Regular cod 5.80 / Regular chips 2.20 Yarm Road Fish and Chips has been pleasing the people of Darlington for 16 years with a number of tasty treats as well as its secret ingredient, crispy batter. Owner Will Burrell, 28, told MailOnline today: 'I'm as surprised as the next man but we worked really hard for it. 'Consistency is a big thing for us. Our staff are amazing, they turn up day in and day out and put out the best fish and chips possible. 'Customers know exactly what they're going to get when they come into Yarm Road. 'Over the past few years some companies have profiteered but we wanted to remain as an affordable takeaway so it's accessible. Yarm Road Fish and Chips has been pleasing the people of Darlington for 16 years with a number of tasty treats as well as its secret ingredient, crispy batter. Above: Staff at the outlet today Yarm Road Fish and Chips has been pleasing the people of Darlington for 16 years with a number of tasty treats as well as its secret ingredient, crispy batter 'That's what fish and chips has always been about. Your local chippy has always been the cornerstone of the community and everyone rallies around it. 'That's what we try to maintain. 'It's the first year we have entered. We've always known about the awards but we really wanted to wait until we were settled to enter. 'Getting in the top 40 was the aim but to get to second is incredible. 'We're in very good company. A lot of shops that are in the top ten have been there before so even to be mentioned alongside them is overwhelming. 'It's a really big deal. 'You always go into the awards wanting to win but when you see the others you think 'these guys know what they're doing'.' The fish and chip shop has stood proudly in the community for seven years but Mr Burrell said he learned the trade through his parents, who owned a chippy throughout his childhood. The Darlington businessman also spoke of what makes the perfect fish and chips. He added: 'The secret ingredient is never cutting corners on quality. We always buy the very best produce. 'We've always used frozen at sea cod which is as fresh as it can possibly be. 'It's caught in Icelandic waters and it's frozen immediately which locks in the flavor. 'We have the absolute best staff that we can have. 'The team we have got we couldn't speak more highly of them. They work hard, they're loyal and we couldn't do it without them. 'The biggest thank you goes to them.' Owner Will Burrell, 28, told MailOnline today: 'I'm as surprised as the next man but we worked really hard for it' Feedback on the chippy's website from customers shows this spot is certainly worth shouting about. One said: 'Excellent fish and chips every time from a spotless shop with friendly efficient service. Some chippies are up and down on quality but you can always rely on getting good fish and chips here.' Another commented: 'Delicious fish and chips, freshly cooked to order, best we've had in the area for a long time, really friendly service, highly recommended'. 3. The Fish Works Largs, Scotland Single cod 6.50 / Chips 2.50 Perched on the west coast of Scotland, the Fish Works is run by husband and wife team Ross and Tiffany Irvin, Largs locals who have worked in food for over 40 years. Alongside traditional haddock and chips, the Irvins offer langoustine tails, calamari, seasonal fish from Peterhead Harbour and - yes - fish finger butties, for those who fancy a nostalgic snack. Guests say it is 'the best chippy in town', with one noting: 'The whole Fishworks experience is one of excellence.' Perched on the west coast of Scotland, the Fish Works is run by husband and wife team Ross and Tiffany Irvin, Largs locals who have worked in food for over 40 years TAKEAWAYS: THE SEVEN WHO MISSED OUT Lighthouse Fisheries of Flamborough, Bridlington, Yorkshire Regular cod 7.90 / Small chips 2.60 This family-owned fish and chip shop on the high street in Flamborough serves triple cooked chips and good quality fish, as well as homemade curry sauce and naturally prepared mushy peas. They also cater for vegan and gluten free customers with vegan pies, saveloys, halloumi and falafel. It also serves cod and hake as well as fish cakes and fish butties. One customer said they stumbled across the restaurant and were impressed by the 'super friendly staff' and signs saying where the fish came from. Lighthouse Fisheries of Flamborough, Bridlington The Fish Bank, Sherburn in Elmet, Yorkshire Regular haddock 6.00 / Regular chips 3.00 Located in a former bank in the heart of Sherburn in Elmet's Low Street, The Fish Bank is a family-owned chippy which serves certified sustainable fish, locally-sourced potatoes and breadcakes, homemade fish cakes and other delicious treats. Its customers say 'the fish is beautifully cooked and very fresh and the portions are very good'. The Fish Bank, Sherburn in Elmet Auckley Friery, Doncaster Medium cod 8.50 / Medium chips 3.45 Auckley Friery has been run by second-generation fish fryer David Nicolaou since 2003. His father Theo opened a fish and chip shop in Sheffield named the Friery in 1979 - and so the younger Mr Nicolaou grew up around the industry. After a brief career in software engineering, Mr Nicolaou took over the shop to get it back up and running after its previous owner 'let things slip'. He has been running it ever since. It prides itself on sustainable produce - even growing its own herbs for its tartare sauce. Auckley Friery has been run by second-generation fish fryer David Nicolaou since 2003 Mister C's, Selby, Yorkshire Regular cod 5.60 / Chips 2.65 Mister C's a family-run business that has used the same batter recipe since it opened in 1981. The quality of the fry at Mr C's is well-renowned, with the institution finishing in the top ten of the National Fish & Chip Awards in 2019. Mister C's a family-run business that has used the same batter recipe since it opened in 1981 Finneys Fish & Chips, Benllech, Wales Regular cod 6.60 / Regular chips 2.70 Founded in 2009 with a goal of providing a 'quality fish and chip experience to enjoy' by the Welsh coast, Finneys says its staff have a combined 75 years of experience in the food industry. Uniquely, the batter it uses throughout all of its products is 'unnoticeably gluten free' - meaning even more people can enjoy its fishy delights, from Icelandic cod to steak burgers and southern fried chicken. One customer noted: 'Great place for G.F. (gluten free) food. My sister has a wheat intolerance,so therefore it is hard to find take away food she can eat.' Founded in 2009 with a goal of providing a 'quality fish and chip experience to enjoy' by the Welsh coast, Finneys says its staff have a combined 75 years of experience in the food industry Zero Plus Fish & Chips, Cardiff Cod 5.00 / Regular chips 2.50 Located close to Cardiff city centre, Zero Plus is known in the local community for its outreach efforts - recently getting local kids to bury a time capsule under the floor as part of a recent refurbishment. But regulars also love the food - with one saying the 20 minute walk from the city centre is worth 'every bite', adding: 'Indescribably fine chips, monstrous cod; even the breadcrumbed cardboard-and-sawdust taste you ordinarily experience biting into a fishcake is turned into a culinary delight here.' Located close to Cardiff city centre, Zero Plus is known in the local community for its outreach efforts Marina Fish & Chips, Skegness, Lincolnshire Cod 5.99 / Regular chips 2.60 Marina Fish and Chips, based in Chapel St. Leonards, is located in an idyllic seaside spot, making it the perfect pit stop after a walk along the beach. Beyond producing award-winning meals, Marina should also be commended for its commitment to environmental sustainability, which sees it use bio-degradable boxes made from sugar cane, recyclable card boxes and classic paper bags. Marina Fish and Chips, based in Chapel St. Leonards, is located in an idyllic seaside spot, making it the perfect pit stop after a walk along the beach RESTAURANTS: THE BEST THREE OUTLETS 1. Knights Fish Restaurant, Glastonbury, Somerset Regular cod 10.90 (includes chips) Although it opened its doors in 1909, Knights Fish Restaurant in Glastonbury, Somerset, has its origins in the 19th century. In 1895, Elizabeth Hockey began selling fried fish from her home address. She later teamed up with neighbour Louisa Philis, who eventually became the sole proprietor. Louisa's daughter Louie inherited the business after her mother's death. Her husband, Frank Knight, later gave his name to the venue. Although it opened its doors in 1909, Knights Fish Restaurant in Glastonbury, Somerset, has its origins in the 19th century 2. Pier Point, Torquay, Devon Regular cod 20.95 (includes chips) Pier Point in Torquay, Devon, has proved hugely popular since opening its doors five years ago. They say on their website: 'We believe when it comes to providing good, quality food, there can be no compromise. 'Which is why we are committed to using only the best ingredients, whilst maintaining competitive prices. 'We want our customers to be confident when eating with us, they are eating quality produce every time.' Pier Point in Torquay, Devon, has proved hugely popular since opening its doors five years ago 3. Noah's, Bristol Regular cod 12.95 (includes chips) Noah's in Bristol sources its seafood from boats on the south coast of England and the west coast of Scotland. The restaurant say they are committed to sustainability and 'champion a regenerative approach to fishing using low impact methods.' Noah's in Bristol sources its seafood from boats on the south coast of England and the west coast of Scotland RESTAURANTS: THE TWO WHO MISSED OUT Eric's Fish and Chips, Hunstanton, Norfolk Regular cod 11 / Regular chips 3.95 Eric's Fish and Chips - run by Eric Snaith and his wife Lydia - opened its doors in 2015. Since the first site opened in Hunstanton, Norfolk, the business has expanded to encompass a further two outlets in Cambridgeshire. According to the firm's website, Mr Snaith began his career working in the kitchen of his family's hotel at the age of 15. After working in various kitchens around the world, he returned to Britain to become head chef at the award-winning Titchwell Manor, a 26-room boutique hotel. In 2020 Mr Snaith opened a pizza outlet and takeaway next door to his fish and chip shop in Hunstanton. Eric's Fish and Chips - run by Eric Snaith and his wife Lydia - opened its doors in 2015 Malt and Anchor, Cirencester, Gloucestershire Regular cod 17.90 / Regular chips 4.50 Located in the heart of the Cotswolds, Malt & Anchor is already award-winning. The outlet offers a traditional 'chippy' menu alongside specialties that include panko coated calamari and locally-sourced pies. The restaurant also serves an array of fine wines, cocktails and craft beers. The investigation of murder can be complicated but it is highly unusual for police to wait for so long to disclose that one has taken place. The area where it happened is popular with tourists and it has to be acknowledged that asking for help ten days after the incident risks losing vital eyewitness testimony. So why on earth was there such a lengthy delay in this case? The police generally attend every unexplained death. If it appears non-suspicious, it will be a uniform police matter, and a sergeant should attend to ensure everything is in order after the first constables have arrived. If it is a suspicious death, a drugs death or a suicide, a detective will take charge. From here, more senior detectives and scenes of crime officers will become involved when needed. Scotland is well-served in terms of detectives assigned to major crime, and particularly suspicious deaths. An individual has been charged for every murder committed since Police Scotlands inception in 2013. That is 605 murders and not one murderer is unidentified. A suspicious death is generally only regarded as a murder after a post-mortem, and following agreement between the procurator fiscal and the police. I had a case where an individual was beaten repeatedly, hit over the head with objects and ultimately had their throat cut. READ MORE: Mystery after millionaire financier's ex-groundsman who looked after 4,000-acre Scottish estate is shot dead while walking his dog - as murder police launch manhunt Forensics tent at the scene of the crime Advertisement No murder charge was libelled as the pathologists could not identify any injury as ultimately being fatal. Then you have cases where one punch is delivered after a drunken argument in the street, the person drops dead and you have a murder. I cant recall a case in all my service where the police withheld information for ten days in respect of a murder having been committed, other than when homicide has not been identified as the cause of death at the outset. The police know that incidents such as this attract public interest and disquiet. Although it might seem obvious that if someone has been shot the police will immediately identify this on their arrival, unfortunately this is not always the case. Wounds can close over or injuries can be missed due to the victims clothing. Obviously, if you have a witness speaking of hearing a gunshot, this makes for a different approach from the outset. However, if you are in a rural location in a generally crime-free area and no member of the public reports suspicious circumstances, then injuries can be missed. If a body has been moved without a crime scene being photographed and preserved for examination, the issues for the police on identification of the murder are significant but not insurmountable. President Joe Biden departed the White House Wednesday morning for Walter Reed where he will undergo his annual physical as voters raise concerns about the 81-year-old's fitness for a second term. The White House has faced constant questions over when Biden, the oldest president in history, would receive his exam ahead of the November 2024 presidential election. 'I'm going to Walter Reed to get my physical', Biden told reporters as he walked across the South Lawn to Marine One. The White House said results will be released later Wednesday. For months, polls have showed that a majority of Americans are doubtful that Biden can be effective through a second term, which would finish when he is 86 years of age. President Joe Biden arrives at Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland Wednesday to receive his annual physical, with the results expected to be released Wednesday afternoon President Joe Biden made a surprise departure from the White House Wednesday morning, telling reporters he was headed to Walter Reed to undergo his annual physical exam During last year's assessment by White House physician Kevin O'Connor, which was also released in February, the doctor said Biden remained 'fit for duty.' O'Connor said that Biden's gait 'remains stiff' but said he remained 'healthy' and 'vigorous.' Each morning, Biden heads to a 45-minute workout with his physical therapist, who focuses on balance exercises to stop him from falling and to deal with his stiff gait, DailyMail.com has learned. Last year's physical also included 'an extremely detailed neurologic exam,' which found nothing 'consistent with any cerebellar or central neurological disorder.' 'He did not demonstrate any motor weakness, but a subtle difference in heat/cold sensation could be elicited,' the 2023 letter added. In November 2021, the president was put under so doctors could perform a routine colonoscopy and he briefly transferred power to Vice President Kamala Harris. Beyond public opinion polls, Biden's mental competency became a political issue earlier this month when Special Counsel Robert Hur, originally appointed by former President Donald Trump, released a report on his classified documents probe. President Joe Biden departed the White House residence Wednesday morning and climbed on board Marine One, as he flew to Walter Reed for his annual physical Reporters get sprayed by Marine One as President Joe Biden took off Wednesday morning from the White House's South Lawn for his annual physical at Walter Reed Marine One is seen landing at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland as President Joe Biden arrives for his physical Hur wrote that a jury would probably conclude that 81-year-old Biden had 'diminished faculties' and was a 'well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.' The report's release compelled the president to hold an impromptu press conference. Biden told reporters, 'I know what the hell I'm doing! My memory has not gotten worse. My memory is fine. Take a look at what I have done since becoming president.' 'No one thought I could pass any of the things I got passed. How did that happen? I guess I just forgot what was going on,' the president added. But before the end of his Q&A, Biden made a gaffe - referring to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the 'president of Mexico.' Rep. Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor for Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and a top Trump ally in the U.S. House, demanded that Biden take a cognitive exam in the aftermath of the report's release. The president has been plagued by physical spills, including falling off his bike during a trip to Rehoboth Beach in June 2022, tripping over a sandbag at a commencement ceremony in Colorado in June 2023 and falling up the stairs of Air Force One on a handful of occasions. The EU was split this week after French president Emmanuel Macron said that sending Western ground troops into Ukraine should not be 'ruled out'. His comments - a break from other NATO countries - caused alarm among Ukraine's western backers, who have long viewed sending troops into the country currently besieged by Russia as a red line that must not be crossed. What was meant to be a galvanising call from Macron to bolster support for Kyiv has instead driven a wedge between the EU's two largest powers - France and Germany - with Berlin promptly affirming it would not be sending its troops to Ukraine. Other key players in the European sphere of influence, including NATO members Britain and Poland, have also been quick to stamp out Macron's suggestion. This was after the Kremlin issued a stark warning: direct conflict between NATO and Russia would be inevitable if the alliance sends combat troops. A map demonstrating different scenarios that could follow Western nations sending troops into Ukraine. Experts have suggested that such a move could help Ukraine to victory (Scenario 1), but also increases the risk of Russian retaliation. NATO officials have previously raised concern about Scenario 2 - a Russian offensive into Europe - but experts told MailOnline today that Putin could take an even more drastic measure - Scenario 3: use of nuclear weapons. Ukrainian soldiers firing artillery at their fighting position as the Russia-Ukraine war continues in the direction of Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on February 26, 2024 Although Ukraine's NATO allies have been supporting Volodymyr Zelensky's armed forces with powerful military hardware, missiles and billions of pounds in funds, the idea of sending troops to Ukraine has been taboo. NATO has sought to avoid being dragged into a wider war with a nuclear-armed Vladimir Putin that could lay waste to swathes of the European continent. Nothing prevents NATO members from joining such an undertaking individually or in groups, but the organization itself would only get involved if all 31 members agree - soon to be 32 with Sweden set to join after its membership bid was accepted. But were a NATO state to be attacked, then under the alliance's Article 5, all other members are obligated to come to its defence - something that experts have said the past could lead to an all-out war with Russia. As the Kremlin has warned, a conflict between NATO and Russia would be even more likely were Western nations to send their own forces into Ukraine. But what would the consequences of such a move from a NATO member be, and what would NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine look like? According to Justin Crump - an intelligence, security and defence expert and CEO of global risk management firm Sibylline - that depends on the purpose of putting Western troops in Ukraine, something Macron was unclear on. Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Crump put forward two hypothetical purposes: to enable Ukraine's forces to refocus in their fight against Russia by taking on other roles and tasks that help Kyiv, or to engage Russian forces directly on the battlefield. If the first, he said, Western forces 'securing, for example, Western Ukraine and the border with Belarus would free up Ukrainian forces for the front line. 'Similarly, providing command and control support and critical capabilities - such as air defence - would act as force multipliers for Ukraine.' This, Mr Crump said, would 'allow Kyiv to better make use of its available assets.' 'In these scenarios, extensions of say air defence umbrellas from NATO territory and the commitment of forces [to Ukraine] would be within reach of a small number of countries from within Europe working together.' This scenario does come with risks, Mr Crump noted. 'The most obvious problem is the threat of nuclear escalation,' he pointed out. 'France and the UK are the two counties with a deterrent - it is perhaps no surprise that this call has therefore come from Macron. 'Other countries choosing more directly to engage in conflict with Russia do not have a unilateral defence to this level of escalation.' A Ukrainian soldier is seen in a snowy trench in the direction of Kupiansk, Ukraine on February 22, 2024 Ukrainian soldiers prepare to go to the trench in a shelter at the frontline in the direction of Kupiansk, Ukraine on February 22, 2024 However, were Western forces to directly engage Russian troops 'as opposed to purely defensive measures, for example holding borders or 'safe zones' and providing air defence,' Mr Crump said 'escalation is inevitable and likely to be sharp.' 'These countries would unarguably be directly at war with Russia and it is hard to see how this would be territorially bound. 'Any coalition strong enough to engage confidently would be so threatening as to almost certainly invoke nuclear escalation.' For the duration of its invasion, Russia has maintained it would not use nuclear weapons unless it faced an existential threat. But were Russia to come up against a force as powerful as NATO's - even without the backing of the United States - Putin may see little other choice. Amid concerns that the United States may pull back from its support of NATO in the event that Donal Trump is elected president in 2024, Mr Crump stressed that it is vital for any potential Western intervention in Ukraine to have the backing of the US. 'For any intervention to work,' he said, 'US support would be essential even if only to make it clear that escalation by Russia in turn will bring further risks. 'It is hard to see, though, how the fallout from this could be limited.' He did say that a large-scale military intervention in Ukraine could help 'tip the balance' on the battlefield in the country itself, 'especially in terms of integrating air warfare and combined arms, [...] where both Ukraine and Russia are falling short.' However, it is for this reason that Russia would never allow for Western intervention in Ukraine to go unpunished, Mr Crump said. 'These skills take decades to learn and hone and command of the air would make Russian operations unsustainable over time - which is precisely why the Kremlin would never accept this sort of intervention, regarding it as an existential threat and an imperative fully to widen the conflict.' On how a hypothetical NATO intervention in Ukraine could look like, Dr Alan Mendoza - Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society, also said it would depend on what the objectives of such a move would be. 'If NATO were supporting frontline operations, then presumably we would be looking at a six figure deployment for this move to have any real value based on past warfighting missions,' he told MailOnline. However, Dr Mendoza said, 'it is almost certain that Mr Macron was not talking about a frontline role and instead some kind of background support role. 'Such a presence could be anything from 500 troops in a symbolic move along the lines of 'military advisors' to 40,000 in an echo of the sort of monitoring operation that took place in Bosnia in the 1990s.' For example, he said 'establishing a defensive line in Ukraine should Ukrainian forces collapse at some point and preventing Russia overrunning the country would look very different to on the ground training operations.' Dr Mendoza stressed that 'Macron's statement was not a considered, planned one, but designed to spark conversation among the alliance.' What was meant to be a galvanising call from Macron to bolster support for Kyiv has instead driven a wedge between the EU's two largest powers - France and Germany - with Berlin promptly affirming it would not be sending its troops to Ukraine Matthew Savill, military sciences director at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) agreed with Dr Mendoza's assessment of Macron's comments. 'This doesn't at first look seem to be about the deployment of Western personnel into a direct combat role, but rather a presence in Ukraine that would either restart in-country training, building upon pre-war relationships, or be about providing personnel for support functions which would help the Ukrainians,' he said. 'Both would be useful contributions to Ukrainian forces and a possible signal of sustained international support,' Mr Savill said. 'Macron might have in mind personnel supporting Ukrainian logistics and taking a more hands-on role in ensuring that Western-supplied equipment or weapons are meeting Ukrainian needs and getting to the right places. 'Any such presence would need to be able to defend itself, and so would have to consider what intelligence support and ground-based air defences (for example) would need to accompany any deployment,' he continued. 'The Russians already believe that Western forces are heavily involved in Ukraine, so this would probably be seen as less of an escalation than as 'confirmation' of their existing suspicions. 'However, they would also see them as viable targets, and any country contributing such forces would have to be prepared to take casualties and able to explain to domestic populations why they were deployed and whether they were now regarded as direct participants in the war.' Mr Crump echoed this in his comments to MailOnline as well. 'It is highly unlikely that populations already growing weary of supporting the war indirectly would accept more direct exposure to armed conflict with the risk of missile strikes, maritime and air action, and other assaults on their interests and territory,' he said. 'This is a slope NATO, the UK, EU, and many others have striven to avoid through the current arrangements.' Today, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (pictured) said the threat of war for the EU 'may not be imminent, but it is not impossible' NATO has sought to avoid being dragged into a wider war with a nuclear-armed Vladimir Putin that could lay waste to swathes of the European continent The prospect of a direct conflict between Russia and NATO has been raised in recent months, however. In January, NATO defence chiefs met in Brussels where several emphasised the importance of countries in Europe increasing their readiness for a Russian attack. Admiral Rob Bauer, the chairman of NATO's Military Committee, warned the alliance must brace itself for an all-out war with Russia in the next two decades, while Norway's defence minister said it should be ready in two or three years. This came after secret plans were leaked revealing that Germany is preparing for Putin's forces to attack NATO as early as 2025, and after a senior NATO general said the alliance was preparing for such a scenario to happen within 20 years. And today, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the threat of war for the EU 'may not be imminent, but it is not impossible'. 'The risks of war should not be overblown, but they should be prepared for and that starts with the urgent need to rebuild, replenish, modernize member states' armed forces,' she said. Pressure also mounted on NATO nations to increase their preparedness after US presidential hopeful Trump rattled the military alliance by threatening to encourage Russia to attack countries that are not paying enough. Since then, NATO and its members have been at pains to demonstrate they are willing to increase their defence spending. Speaking to MailOnline last month about the prospect of a Russian attack against NATO within the next 20 years, Former commanding General Ben Hodges, United States Army Europe laid out possible scenarios. In one scenario, Gen. Hodges said Moscow could first attack the narrow strip of land known as Suwalki Gap, sandwiched between Poland, Lithuania and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad - separating the Baltic states from the rest of Europe. A Ukrainian soldier waits for orders next to L119 artillery, as the Russia-Ukraine war continues in the direction of Marinka, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 23 February 2024 Even a small attack on this weak point - the only land border between mainland Europe and the Baltic States - could cause huge problems for NATO. Gen. Hodges said if Putin or his successor was successful in blocking the Suwalki Gap, they would use that strip of land and Belarus as a launchpad for the second phase of their offensive. This second phase would involve sending thousands of Russian soldiers, AI-controlled tanks and special forces, to attack one of the Baltic states on NATO's eastern flank - most likely either Lithuania, Poland or Estonia. Though thousands of NATO troops, including UK soldiers, are currently deployed to the Baltics, they are only intended as a 'tripwire' force. Their role is to hold up any invading force until the main NATO army can arrive. And Gen. Hodges said that after Putin had attacked a nation on NATO's eastern flank, Russia would wait to see how the military alliance would respond. 'If we hesitated, that failure to live up to our obligations under Article 5 to protect member states... it would break the alliance. It would be a staggering blow to NATO if we didn't live up to what we said we were going to do,' Gen. Hodges said. And if NATO did hesitate, Putin would not stop, Gen. Hodges predicted. Within days of launching his ground invasion and aerial assault on NATO's eastern flank, Putin would deploy his Russian Navy for a vital mission: taking control of the northern Arctic route. 'If they cut us off from that, it would be devastating,' Gen. Hodges said. 'This isn't about Russia trying to take over all of NATO. That's not what their objective would be in 20 years. It would be about breaking NATO as an alliance by invading the eastern flank and gaining critical places - like the Arctic - that would benefit them.' Moscow's warning shot came a day after Macron's comments, which he made as he hosted a conference of top officials from more than 20 of Ukraine's allies. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared to have a different view of what happened in Paris. He said the participants had agreed 'that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil who are sent there by European states or NATO states.' Scholz said there was also consensus 'that soldiers operating in our countries also are not participating actively in the war themselves.' NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told The Associated Press that 'NATO allies are providing unprecedented support to Ukraine. 'We have done that since 2014 and stepped up after the full-scale invasion. But there are no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine,' he added. Although Ukraine's NATO allies have been supporting Volodymyr Zelensky's armed forces with powerful military hardware, missiles and billions of pounds in funds, the idea of sending troops to Ukraine has been taboo At a meeting in Prague on Tuesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, 'Poland does not plan to send its troops to Ukraine.' Prime Minister Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic insisted that his country 'certainly doesn't want to send its soldiers.' Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has said his government is not planning to propose a deployment, but that some countries were weighing whether to strike bilateral deals to provide troops to help Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion. Fico did not provide details about which countries or what the troops would do in Ukraine. Macron, too, avoided naming any countries, saying he wanted to maintain 'strategic ambiguity' and not tip the West's hand to Russia. NATO as an alliance provides Ukraine only non-lethal aid and support like medical supplies, uniforms and winter equipment, but some members send weapons and ammunition of their own accord, bilaterally or in groups. A decision to send troops and keep them deployed long term would require the kind of transport and logistics capabilities that only countries like the US, UK, France, Germany and possibly Italy, Poland or Spain could muster. While ruling out NATO military action, Stoltenberg told the AP 'that this is a war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine, blatantly violating international law. According to international law, Ukraine of course has the right to self-defense, and we have the right to support them in upholding that right.' Several European countries, including France, expressed support Monday for an initiative launched by the Czech Republic to buy ammunition shells for Ukraine outside the European Union, participants at the meeting said. Macron said a new coalition will be launched to deliver medium- and long-range missiles. Ukrainian military personnel inspect the site of a missile strike in front of a damaged residential building, amid Russia's invasion, in Dobropillia, Ukraine In an interview last week, Stoltenberg did not oppose the idea of allowing Ukraine to use Western weapons to strike targets in Russia. Some countries have placed restrictions on the use of materiel they provide, asking that it be used only inside Ukraine. 'It's for each and every ally to decide whether there are some caveats on what they deliver,' Stoltenberg told Radio Free Europe. But, he said, Ukraine's right to self-defense 'includes also striking legitimate military targets, Russian military targets, outside Ukraine.' John Bishop has been awarded a judgement close to 1million after his former Irish business partner defrauded him. The comedian, 57, sued tech entrepreneur Brendan Morrissey and Maltese-registered BAK Holdings Limited after accusing them of stealing over 865,000 from his company Hears, which was launched to assist people with hearing problems. He claimed the software firm, which he set up with son Joseph and includes U2 drummer Larry Mullen as a shareholder, paid BAK more than 1million for software development services. Subsequent investigations suggested the work should cost no more than 200,000 completed, the court heard. At the time of the court hearing the app had not been completed. Mr Bishop settled the case last June, sparking a court order for Mr Morrissey and BAK to pay him 500,000 plus 216,000 in legal costs. John Bishop has been awarded a judgement close to 1m after his former Irish business partner defrauded him Bishop is pictured with his son Joe, who is partially deaf, on the ITV documentary 'John and Joe Bishop: Life after deaf' However a default on the payment structure triggered a clause that BAKs shares in Hears would be relinquished and Mr Bishop should apply for a 934,000 payout from Mr Morrissey and his company. Mr Bishop said: I am glad we have received this judgement, but I am disappointed that we had to go down this route. We had a great business opportunity that would have helped a lot of people and we had strong investors behind us, but sadly I trusted someone who was not what he appeared. I hope this judgement will see some justice and prevent others having to go through this in the future. Mr Bishops son Joseph came up with the idea for the app in 2019 which allows people to take a hearing test on their smartphone, facilitating the purchase of bespoke hearing aids. Joseph, 29, is partially deaf and starred alongside his famous father in an ITV documentary about his loss of hearing in 2022, which he first experienced at the age of 15. In an affidavit heard in court, Mr Bishop told how the board removed Mr Morrisseys wife Karen as company secretary earlier this year and cancelled a bank mandate after a series of payments were made to BAK. They also removed him as director, removing their access to a company bank account to prevent them taking more unauthorised payments. Bishop is pictured here with his wife Melanie. Their son Joe helps his father run their firm to help people with hearing problems The Bishops, who were introduced to Mr Morrissey by a mutual friend and had the original idea, set up the company alongside the Irishman who they felt could help build the firm by becoming a partner. Mr Bishop said: He held himself out to be greatly interested in the idea of our app and in bringing it to fruition. Mr Bishop alleged a breakdown of the relationship with Mr Morrissey occurred towards the end of 2021 after he sought and was refused details regarding delays in the project and costs. In February 2022, he said he discovered a 500,000 payment, the precise value of his own investment, had been made to BAK without the knowledge or approval of him or other directors two years earlier. Mr Bishop claimed Mr and Mrs Morrissey were the only people with access to the companys bank account at the time. BAK and Mr Morrissey denied the allegations and claimed BAK provided 1.4million in services to Hears. An autistic boy who was tortured and starved to death by his sadistic mother and brother should never have been in his mom's custody. Timothy Ferguson, 15, died in July 2022 after years of unimaginable cruelty. His mother, Shanda Vander Ark, and older brother Paul, fed him bread soaked in hot sauce and forced him to sleep in a closet. When he finally succumbed to his injuries, he weighed just 69lbs. His brother Paul gasped and retched in shock this week as he was sentenced for his role. 'You are one step away from becoming a psychopath,' the judge in his case warned. Shanda vomited on the stand during her trial after being confronted with the grim images of her son's emaciated body. The pair should never have been entrusted with his care. Thirteen years earlier, Shanda was hit with a slew of child abuse charges. Timothy was given to his father by Oklahoma officials as a result. How he then ended up living with his evil mother and brother in a different state remains unclear. Timothy Ferguson, 15, who had autism with speech and motor impairment, died from malnourishment and hypothermia in July 2022 despite his mother losing custody Timothy (left) was subjected to cruel punishments including ice baths, starvation and being force fed hot sauce by his brother Paul (right) and mother The mother of the brothers, Shanda Vander Ark, 44, (pictured) was sentenced in January to life in prison without a chance of parole after a jury convicted her of murder and child abuse in the teen's death According to MLive, Oklahoma Child Protective Services investigated Vander Ark for abuse allegations made between 2009 and 2012, and the authority recommended her parental rights be terminated. However, it appears her parental rights were never terminated. Instead, she entered into an agreement with her ex-husband in 2012 to move from the state and cease access to the children, Muskegon County Chief Trial Prosecutor Matt Roberts told the outlet. 'It was never envisioned that she would get her kids back either,' Roberts added. It was also reported that she was allowed supervised visitation with the children for just three hours per month, according to WZZM13. 'Now, what happens between the time when that happens, and ultimately, how she and the children get here to Michigan is something that investigators are still kind of looking into,' Muskegon County Prosecutor DJ Hilson said after her arrest. Prosecutors also stressed during Shanda's trial that she would never have had custody of Timothy. Shanda reportedly moved to North Shores, Michigan in May 2021, with Paul, Timothy and their youngest brother in tow. Eric Ferguson did not immediately respond to efforts to contact him for comment on this story. Vander Ark is said to have covered the house and the tiny closet Timothy was sleeping in with motion sensors, alarms, and live feed cameras Vander Ark tortured him by feeding him only bread covered in hot sauce, deprived him of sleep and forced him into ice baths as punishment The fridge was often locked shut in their home as Timothy starved to death, weighing just 69 pounds when he died Paul, 21, pleaded guilty to tormenting and starving his autistic younger brother, and physically retched as he was sentenced to up to 100 years in prison on Monday At Shanda's trial in January, prosecutors shared chilling text exchanges between the two that offered a glimpse inside their house of horrors in the days leading up to Timothy's death. In one exchange from the days before, Paul detailed taunting his younger brother with a frozen pizza roll as he struggled to stay coherent. Shanda told Paul to take the pizza roll away if Timothy tried to eat it, but to reward him with the treat if he could sit up by himself and remain sitting upright. Paul then subjected his younger brother to a grueling nine-hour ice bath, and a coroner's report later found his cause of death was hypothermia, as well as malnourishment as he was starved down to just 69 pounds. As Timothy shook and clung on for life, the surveillance cameras reportedly captured their callous reaction as Vander Ark dragged him back into his small closet 'bedroom', screaming at him that he was 'pathetic.' He was covered with just a tarp for a blanket, and his eyes were seen as open but unmoving, which prosecutors believe was the last time he was alive, per Distractify. Timothy's autism, which also included speech and movement issues, were blamed by the mother's attorneys for her heinous treatment of him, such as locking him away in a tiny closet 'bedroom' if he kept her up at night. To punish him keeping her awake at night, she would force Timothy to remain awake for days on end, with one text showing her ordering Paul to 'dump some cold water on him' to keep Timothy from falling asleep. She also fitted motion sensors and surveillance cameras around their home to keep him restrained, and if he moved would punish her son in a number of cruel ways, including dousing him in hot sauce. When she took the stand in her own defense, Shanda vomited in front of the jury as she was shown horrifying images of her son's emaciation. The brothers' mother Shanda Vander Ark, 44, vomited in court after she was showed horrifying pictures of her emaciated disabled son who she starved to death in January She began retching and vomited in full view of the jury, showing signs of a mental breakdown as a prosecutor questioned her: 'Did he look like that when you put him the bathtub?' Vander Ark, who was a law clerk at Newaygo County Circuit Court, claimed in her testimony she had purchased the spicy hot sauce online after Paul thought it would be a good idea to punish Timothy. A text message exchange between the pair also showed her questioning whether they should drop the hot sauce on the young boy's genitals. 'I wonder how it would feel to have that hot sauce on your private parts. I'm not saying touch him there, not at all, but dripping a little bit there, is that horrible,' she asked. Her attempts to claim Paul was complicit in planning the torture was combatted in his counter-testimony, as he spoke against his own mother at her trial. Paul's testimony and guilty plea came in exchange for prosecutors agreeing not to seek elevated charges, such as murder, for the 21-year-old, according to Chief Trial Attorney for Muskegon County Matt Roberts. He claimed he was also a victim and was suffering 'something close to Stockholm Syndrome.' 'I desire to find a role model that, due to my own low self-esteem, I would do anything to make them proud of me,' he said. The property where Timothy was starved and tortured Her insisted he regrets his actions, pleading for 'mercy and fairness' from the judge. In his statement at trial, Paul said: 'What reasons could justify my actions? I could make up a thousand and never believe one.' 'What words could voice my regrets? I could think of millions, yet never feel its enough.' His words fell on deaf ears as the judge said he didn't believe Paul was truly repentant. 'The court believes Mr. Ferguson is one step away from becoming a psychopath like his mother,' Muskegon County Circuit Judge Matthew Kacel said Monday, reports the Grand Rapids Press. Muskegon County Chief Trial Prosecutor Matt Roberts added that Paul represents a threat to the public if he doesn't get mental health treatment while incarcerated. French designer Lucien Pellat-Finet, aged, 78 died after he drowned at a beach in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia on Monday, his family confirmed on his Instagram. Pellat-Finet, known as the 'King of Cashmere,' hosted a family barbecue at his home in Porto Seguro and then went out for a swim at Itaquena Beach. Two teenagers were surfing and saw him struggling to stay afloat and attempted to rescue him with their surf boards before he drowned, according to Brazilian news outlet G1. French designer Lucien Pellat-Finet drowned at Itaquena Beach in Brazil on Monday French designer Lucien Pellat-Finet (pictured at Paris Fashion Week in January 2017) drowned at a beach in Brazil on Monday Lucien Pellat-Finet poses with models during the Lucien Pellat-Finet womenswear at Paris Fashion Week in March in 2016 Camille Dauchez confirmed the death of her uncle and fashion designer, Lucien Pellat-Finet, who drowned at a beach in Bahia, Brazil on Monday The Frenchman's body was recovered hours later near an area that is popular with surfers. 'It is with great sadness that I inform you of the accidental death of Lucien Pellat Finet, this afternoon in Trancoso,' his niece Camille Dauchez said. 'At the time, he was in the company of his family and dear friends. In due course, I will inform you of the details of the farewell ceremony.' Brazilian news outlet Globo reported Wednesday that Pellat-Finet's body will be cremated this week. Pellat-Finet made his home in Trancoso, a Porto Seguro tourist district, and celebrated his birthday February 11. Lucien Pellat-Finet's collection featured at Paris Fashion Week in January 2014 Lucien Pellat-Finet poses with models at his menswear presentation at Paris Fashion Week in January 2015 French designer Lucien Pellat-Finet drowned at Itaquena Beach in Porto Seguro, Brazil on Monday He owned Casa Santa Rita, a luxurious residence constructed out of wood which he purchased 30 years ago and featured 10 rooms spread out across the garden in chalets. Pellat-Finet, who grew up in the French Riviera, founded his label in 1994 and earned the monicker 'King of Cashmere' due to his luxurious sweaters that were designed in Paris and handcrafted in London. The designer's website lauded him as 'a bon-vivant with a pioneering spirit, he often found himself at odds with the passing fads of his times. 'In the 1980s he devised the ideal outfit to wear on his transatlantic journeys: a cashmere pullover with no branding or label stitched on the collar, Knitted with the utmost care using only the finest, most sensual fibre,' the site says. 'Elegance in fabrication distilled with minimalistic styling in a pullover that is worn as a perennially fashionable tee-shirt. An 'anti-fashion' stance that set him up as the figurehead of a new elite in pursuit of comfort and rareness.' Pellat-Finet stepped down from the brand after it was acquired by Thierry Gillier, the French-born founder of Zadig & Voltaire, in 2019. Gillier praised the late designer as 'an agitator, a precursor, a creator.' Pellat-Finet published "Super F**king Lucky: Lucien Pellat-Finet - King of Cashmere and (Anti) Fashion" in March 2019 to commemorate his brand's 25th anniversary. The book, authored by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, looked back on Pellat-Finet's personal and career journey and how he became to be known as the "King of Cashmere." Britain and the rest of Europe cannot rely on the United States to underpin its defense, the shadow defence secretary warned today as he unveiled Labour's plan to reorganise British military planning. John Healey used a London speech to warn that the continent must face up to the new 'reality' as the US focuses on the growing threat from China rather than Russian aggression. He unveiled plans for a new centralised planning unit within the Ministry of Defence if Labour wins the election later this year. As part of the plan the party would extend the regular term served by the chief of the defence staff, the serving head of UK Armed Forces, from two to four years to increase continuity. Mr Healey also used his Policy Exchange speech to attack the 'hollowing out' of Britain's military under the Tories. It comes amid a furious row over whether there is any more money available for defence in next month's Budget. Despite wars raging in Europe and the Middle East, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is set to defy calls to give the MoD more money. Former military chiefs and defence ministers lined up to urge him to reconsider with one saying the decision was 'absolute lunacy'. The Armed Forces have been rocked by problems in recent months, with fears over manpower and the quantity and quality of their equipment. John Healey used a London speech to warn that the continent must face up to the new 'reality' as the US focuses on the growing threat from China rather than Russian aggression. Mr Healey also used his Policy Exchange speech to attack the 'hollowing out' of Britain's military under the Tories . Despite wars raging in Europe and the Middle East, the Chancellor (pictured in October 2023) is set to defy calls to give the Ministry of Defence more money Speaking in London today Mr Healey said: 'Over the next decade, we face Putin and an active alliance of aggression from autocrats who have contempt for international law and freely squander the lives of their own people. 'And we face the reality that European allies must take on greater responsibility for European security, as the US increasingly focuses on China and the Indo Pacific.' He added: 'The Defence Secretary, in his Lancaster House Speech, was right when he said: ''For Ukraine, this will be a year when the fate of their nation may be decided.'' 'He was also right to argue that what we do in UK defence can send important signals to the world. 'But what signal does it send to our adversaries when UK Armed Forces have been 'hollowed out and underfunded' over the last 14 years, as Ben Wallace admitted to me in the Commons last year. 'When the British Army has been cut to the smallest size since Napoleon. 'When Forces recruitment targets have been missed every year. 'When satisfaction with service life has fallen to record lows. 'When the defence procurement system is condemned by the Public Accounts Committee as 'broken and repeatedly wasting taxpayers' money'.' Last night ex-defence secretary Ben Wallace said Britain's 'hollowed-out' military will not be 'match-fit' for the conflicts to come without a committed rise in defence spending. Mr Hunt is planning to prioritise tax cuts to grow the economy, with sources pointing to the extra 11 billion spread over five years that he gave to the MoD last year. But much of that money is already allocated to long-term projects such as upgrading the nuclear deterrent and replacing equipment sent to Ukraine. Last night ex-defence secretary Ben Wallace said Britain's 'hollowed-out' military will not be 'match-fit' for the conflicts to come without a committed rise in defence spending. A report by MPs this month found that despite 50 billion a year being spent on defence 'sustained ongoing investment' is needed for the UK to be able to fight a 'high-intensity war'. Mr Wallace said: 'We are already tumbling down the tables on defence spending and aid to Ukraine. Reversing 30 years of hollowing-out can't be done in four years. We need a sustainable and committed Budget uplift for defence or we will not be 'match-fit' for the conflicts to come.' Former Army commander Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said: 'This is absolute lunacy. Tragically, no political party in this country sees defence spending as a vote winner; alas, Vladimir Putin does. 'The threats to the UK have never been greater. When I fought in the Gulf War 34 years ago the Army was three times the size it is now we had 500 tanks. With the Russians charging west, we would struggle to raise 50. It is bonkers that we cannot spend more on defence.' Fears that the MoD will be denied any extra funding in the Budget is a major blow to the service chiefs. According to defence sources, the Treasury and Downing Street no longer trust the MoD to manage its finances after top brass wasted billions on faulty equipment. The UK's failure to step-up defence spending comes as Nato allies increase their investment in defence due to fears that Russia is becoming more dangerous. Yesterday, Moscow warned of an 'inevitable' war with Nato after French president Emmanuel Macron speculated that western troops could be deployed in Ukraine. It came as the head of the Armed Forces criticised the Army chief over his call to reintroduce conscription. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), was speaking at a military think-tank when he took aim at General Sir Patrick Sanders. His attack came after General Sir Patrick, the Chief of General staff (CGS), recently suggested that Britain required a 'national mobilisation' programme to prepare for war against Russia. The Army chief caused further alarm when he warned that chronic underfunding threatens to reduce Britain's military to a mere domestic defence force, making it incapable of conducting major operations overseas. Speaking at Chatham House in London, Admiral Sir Tony dismissed the warning and reminded General Sir Patrick of his responsibilities. He said: 'I want to scotch some sensationalist headlines. We are not on the cusp of war with Russia and we are not about to be invaded. 'No one in the Ministry of Defence is talking about conscription in any traditional sense of the term. I worry the public debate that has played out over recent weeks risks becoming confused and some remarks are alarmist.' Defence Secretary Grant Shapps hit back this afternoon, saying: 'John Healey served for four long years in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, a man who wanted to abolish our armed forces, leave NATO, junk the continuous-at-sea-nuclear deterrent, and shamefully doubted the integrity of British intelligence services. 'Under Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives, our plan is working as we continue to defend the country and our allies, whilst delivering the economic security the British people deserve, so we can deliver our pledge of 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence spending.' Fears about unchecked immigration have surged to become the top issue for voters, and most Americans for the first time want walls built across the southern border, new surveys shows. Polls released this week show that voters are getting more worried about migrant flows across the US-Mexico frontier, hurting President Joe Biden's chances in November's election. They come as Biden and former president Donald Trump make dueling trips to the border, seeking to turn the strained immigration system to their advantage in their campaign rematch. The share of voters who rank immigration as America's top concern has shot up in recent weeks, Gallup polling shows Migrants walk near the river after crossing the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, Texas Pollster Patrick Murray said illegal immigration 'has taken center stage as a defining issue this presidential election year.' Poll Does the Biden administration have a grip on immigration? Yes No Not sure Does the Biden administration have a grip on immigration? Yes 132 votes No 4756 votes Not sure 43 votes Now share your opinion Americans now say immigration is the top issue facing the nation with 28 percent of voters calling it the main concern, ahead of the state of the government and the economy. That's an eight percentage point jump from January. It's also the first time voters were worried more about immigration than anything else since the 2019 the last time there was a surge in migrants. A Monmouth University Poll separately found that 53 percent of voters support building a wall across the southern frontier to deter migrants. Another 46 percent said they opposed building the wall. That's the first time a majority of voters supported the proposal since the group started asking that question in 2015. Pollsters found that Americans are taking people flows more seriously and increasingly want to see more wall built along the border Migrants who have been sent up to New York City from the southern border continue to arrive It's an even higher level of support than in September 2017, when Trump was president and building barriers among other anti-immigrant policies. Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray warns of Biden's migrant 'weakness' Back then, about a third of voters supported wall-building, while 60 percent were opposed. Pollsters also found that more than eight in ten Americans saw illegal immigration as a very serious or somewhat serious problem. That also reflected a sharp rise over the past decade. Murray, the pollster, said Democratic voters were increasingly joining Republicans in expressing alarm about the border. He called it 'Biden's weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.' Against this backdrop, Biden will on Thursday travel to Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, an area that often sees large numbers of border crossings, a spokesperson said. He will meet border agents and discuss the need for bipartisan legislation. Republican presidential candidate former President Donald says migrants are 'poisoning the blood' of the country Recent migrants arrivals wait for classes at a day shelter in Chelsea, Massachusetts Trump, for his part, will head to Eagle Pass, Texas, about 325 miles away from Brownsville, another hotspot in the state-federal clash over border security, according to AP. The trips underscore immigration's importance in the 2024 White House race, for Republicans and increasingly for Democrats, particularly after congressional talks on a deal to reduce illegal migration unraveled. Biden bashed Republicans for ditching the bipartisan border deal after Trump came out in opposition to the plan to tighten asylum rules and create daily limits on border crossings. Trump, meanwhile, has dialed up his anti-immigrant rhetoric, saying migrants are 'poisoning the blood' of Americans. The number of people who illegally cross the US border has been rising for years and reached new highs under Biden. The trend is fueled by ever more people fleeing political chaos in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Migrants are driven by climate change, war, and unrest in other nations, the economy, while cartels profit from the people flows. President Joe Biden will on Thursday travel to Brownsville, Texas, an area that often sees large numbers of border crossings The Biden administration has increasing legal pathways to encourage migrants to arrive by plane with sponsors, not illegally on foot to the border. But people flows have far outpaced the capacity of a system that has not been updated in decades. Arrests for illegal crossings dropped by half in January. But there were record highs in December, which saw more than 10,000 arrests for illegal crossing per day over several days. Trump is making immigration the focus of his reelection campaign. He has seized on images of migrants sleeping in police stations and in hangars as proof that Biden's policies have failed. He's also made frequent trips to the border as a candidate and president. A 17-year-old by has been accused of stabbing a 15-year-old private schoolgirl to death with a kitchen knife as she got off a bus on her way to school. The teenager, who cannot be named, allegedly stabbed Elianne Andam as she made her way to the Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croyden on 27 September 2023. The year 11 pupil was killed after trying to protect a friend who had recently ended a relationship with the defendant, who had met them that morning dressed in black gloves and a face mask. Police and paramedics arrived shortly after 8.30am but were unable to save Elianne and she was pronounced dead at the scene. The alleged killer was due to enter pleas at the Old Bailey today but was not produced from custody. Elianne Andam, pictured, was attacked and killed in Croydon, south London, on September 27 The year 11 pupil was killed after trying to protect a friend who had recently ended a relationship with the alleged killer Police and forensic investigators at the scene near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon He is charged with murder and possession of a bladed weapon, namely a kitchen knife, in a public place. A provisional three week trial date is set for 29 April. Mr Justice Cavanagh, KC, adjourned the plea hearing until 7 March. Prosecutor Alison Morgan, KC, earlier said that a friend of Elianne had just ended a relationship with the defendant and they arranged to meet that morning. 'The purpose of the meeting was to facilitate the defendant and (his ex-girlfriend) exchanging possessions. 'The defendant arrived with black gloves and a face mask. In coming to the meeting he had armed himself with a large knife which he was carrying with him.' Ms Morgan said the defendant's ex-girlfriend handed over his belongings but he did not hand hers over. 'Elianne took it upon herself to challenge the defendant and ask for the property.' Elianne Andam was stabbed to death after snatching her friend's bag as a boy walked away with it in Croydon, south London, the Old Bailey heard She then ran past and grabbed the Tesco carrier bag, the court heard. 'In response to that he turned in anger. He pursued her for a short distance, removing the knife from his waist band and then stabbing her repeatedly. 'He inflicted fatal injuries upon her. 'There were a number of witnesses on board the bus who saw what was happening.' The 17-year-old remains in custody. An Oregon woman who refused traditional medical care for her cancer stricken daughter and instead tried to treat her with CBD oil has been sentenced to 90 days in prison. Christina Gale Dixon, 39, was found guilty of first-degree custodial interference and two counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment by a jury in Clackamas County following a trial last November. The charges stemmed from her attempts in 2019 to prevent her then-13-year-old daughter Kylee from getting surgery to remove a cancerous tumor that was growing on her liver. The District Attorney urged the judge to order a 19-month sentence for Dixon, arguing she failed 'at every turn, at every stage' to protect Kylee's health and that the only reason the now-17-year-old is 'alive today' is because she received 'chemotherapy and surgery'. Dixon, who burst into tears on Tuesday when the judge sentenced her to three months in jail and supervised probation, told the court that she 'would've never put Kylee in harms way' and 'did everything to fight for her life', KPTV reported. Christina Gale Dixon, 39, wept in court on Tuesday when Circuit Judge Michael Wetzel sentenced her to three months in jail and supervised probation Dixon prevented her then-13-year-old daughter Kylee, pictured with Dixon, from getting surgery to remove a cancerous tumor that was growing on her liver. She instead opted to treat the tumor with CBD oil Dixon, pictured during her sentencing in Clackamas Circuit Court on Tuesday, was found guilty of first-degree custodial interference and two counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment by a jury in Clackamas County following a trial last November Kylee was diagnosed with undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma in March 2018. Several cancer specialists and nearly two dozen consulting physicians at St Jude's Children's Research Hospital all recommended chemotherapy followed by surgery. Without these treatments, they said she would die. After the third round of chemotherapy, Dixon stopped the treatment prescribed by physicians and instead opted to treat the tumor with CBD oil. 'She took her daughter off chemotherapy, refused to re-engage in any sort of oncological care in favor of CBD oil, vitamins and other homeopathic remedies, putting her daughter at risk of death,' Deputy District Attorney Brian Powell told Clackamas County Circuit Court, Oregon Live reported. He added that despite 23 doctors 'agreeing on diagnosis' and a treatment plan for Kylee, she 'said "no".' Dixon told the court 'I never wanted to stop her treatment, it was just with this particular doctor'. She said she was fighting for her daughter and 'put my own life on the line for her'. The court heard that Dixon fled with Kylee just hours before her surgery was scheduled to take place in June 2019. The girl was located days later in Las Vegas, brought back to Oregon and placed in foster care. Deputy District Attorney Brian Powell had urged the judge to impose a 19-month sentence, arguing that Dixon, pictured in court on Tuesday, failed 'at every turn, at every stage' to protect Kylee's health. He said the only reason the now-17-year-old is 'alive today' is because she received 'chemotherapy and surgery' But Dixon opted instead to treat her daughter with CBD oil - not a medically sanctioned treatment. The state intervened to ensure Kylee got the surgery Dixon's attorney Greg Oliveros argued during sentencing that although the mother made made several legal missteps, including representing herself at her trial, she does love her daughter. Pictured: Kylee and Christina Dixon Dixon remained on the run until August of 2019, when she turned herself in. She was booked into jail and released the same day. Kylee eventually underwent a successful surgery in early 2020, which Powell argues is the only reason she is still alive today. He urged Circuit Judge Michael Wetzel to impose a longer sentence, but Dixon's attorney Greg Oliveros sought probation instead. He argued Dixon made made several legal missteps, including representing herself at her trial, but reiterated that she loves Kylee. 'While maybe she made some mistakes in terms of getting her treatment and proper care, I think one could argue her love for her child clouded her common sense or judgment,' Oliveros told the court as Dixon wept. Judge Wetzel branded the case 'very tragic' and said it was clear that Kylee, who did not attend Tuesday's hearing, would not have supported a prison sentence. He instead ordered she spend 90 days in Clackamas County Jail followed by three years on probation. The judge said he considered the family's 'suffering as a result of the girls childhood cancer diagnosis' and Dixon's 'clean criminal record' when making his decision. Pictured together: Christina and Kylee Dixon The judge said he considered the family's 'suffering as a result of the girls childhood cancer diagnosis' and Dixon's 'clean criminal record' when making his decision. However, Kylee's father Jim Dixon, 43, was apparently disappointed in the sentence. 'Im glad theres closure finally,' he told KPTV, but added: 'I was a little sad to see how easy she got off on all this considering all the damage shes done.' He said Kylee is 'cancer free now' and doing well, but is reportedly unaware about his daughter's current whereabouts. Al Qaeda had called for Prince Harry to be killed after he wrote about killing Taliban fighters, court documents revealed today as he lost a challenge against the Home Office over his security arrangements. The Duke of Sussex wants to appeal the High Court ruling after he took action over a decision to downgrade his taxpayer-funded personal security when he visits Britain. Harry took legal action over the move by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) after being told he would no longer be given the 'same degree' of publicly-funded protection when in the UK. His lawyers had claimed he was 'singled out' and treated 'less favourably' in the February 2020 decision by the body, which falls under the Home Office's remit. The court also heard that his European security director had pointed out ahead of a trip to Britain last March that Al Qaeda had recently called for him to be killed. The terrorist group is said to have ordered Harry's death after he wrote about killing 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in his controversial book Spare in January 2023. But at a hearing in London in December, the Government insisted 39-year-old Harry's claim should be dismissed, arguing Ravec was entitled to conclude the Duke's protection should be 'bespoke' and considered on a 'case-by-case' basis. Two months on, retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane has now issued his ruling on the case this morning - saying: 'The application for judicial review is refused.' But a spokesman for Harry said he would appeal, adding that he was 'not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules'. The Duke will first need a judge to give him the green light to go to the Court of Appeal. The judgment - which the Home Office later said the Government was 'pleased' with - comes amid another 24 hours of royal drama and tragedy in Britain, including: The Duke of Sussex, pictured leaving the Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 30, 2023 Prince Harry making pre-flight checks in the cockpit at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in 2012 Ravec's decision came as a result of a change in the duke's 'status' after he stopped being a 'full-time working member of the royal family', the judge was told. The ruling said Harry was in Britain between March 26 to 31 last year to attend a hearing at the High Court against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publishers of MailOnline, related to allegations surrounding unlawful information gathering. It said Harry's director of European security emailed someone whose name is not given, but who was a Ravec member in 2020 - 'in accordance with the agreed procedure' to provide 'formal notice of the Duke of Sussex's travel to the United Kingdom'. The ruling said: 'In light of various matters, including that he was the son of King Charles III, a brother of the Prince of Wales, and that Al Qaeda had recently called for the claimant to be killed, the Director of European Security said that the claimant [redacted text]. 'On March 10, 2023, [redacted text], the Deputy Director of Royalty, VIP and MP Security Unit Homeland Security, wrote to say that Ravec would meet to determine what protective security arrangements should be mandated for the visit. 'Without pre-empting that decision, [redacted text] said 'it is clear that the proposed visit [redacted text]. If the Duke wishes to [redacted text]'.' Your browser does not support iframes. This is the full judgment in Harry's case issued by the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary today Responding to the ruling, a legal spokesperson for the Duke said today: 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal today's judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body Ravec, which includes the Home Office, the Royal Household and the Met Police. Britain should not be 'lumbered with paying for' Prince Harry A former Conservative Armed Forces Minister insisted today that the High Court ruling was right - and UK taxpayers should not be 'lumbered with paying for' Prince Harry. Lord Andrew Robothan, who served in the Coldstream Guards, also said that the Duke of Sussex was 'unwise' to write about killing 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in his book Spare. He told TalkTV: 'This is a man who chose to leave the Royal Family, who chose to write a book for money boasting how many people he'd killed. He said he'd killed 20 people. I think it was an unwise thing to say. 'If there was a known intelligence source saying he was at risk, that's one thing, but there isn't. He's most of the time in Montecito in California, and where he may or may not empoloy security guards with the very large deals he's done with Netflix. 'But I don't think the British taxpayer should be lumbered with paying for him, since he seems to rather not like Britain anyway.' Advertisement 'Although these are not labels used by Ravec, three categories - as revealed during the litigation - comprise the 'Ravec cohort': the Role Based Category, the Occasional Category and the Other VIP Category. 'The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec's own written policy. 'In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to The Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. 'The Duke's case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him, is no substitute for that risk analysis. 'The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.' A judgment summary in Harry's case released this morning said the court determined 'there has not been any unlawfulness in reaching the decision', adding that it was not 'irrational'. The court also found the 'decision was not marred by procedural unfairness' and there was no unlawfulness by Ravec in its arrangements for his visits to Britain. In his 52-page partially redacted ruling, Sir Peter said Harry's lawyers had taken 'an inappropriate, formalist interpretation of the Ravec process'. He added: 'The 'bespoke' process devised for the claimant in the decision of February 28, 2020 was, and is, legally sound.' The judge also said: 'The decision of February 28, 2020 was obviously forward-looking in nature. 'The suggestion that the claimant should have received both an RMB (risk) analysis and a 'bespoke' approach ignores the witness evidence of the defendant which, for the reasons I have given, falls to be given weight. Harry's father King Charles III is pictured leaving his London residence Clarence House today 'That evidence shows no irrationality or other unlawfulness, as regards the other VIP category.' 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal': Full statement from Harry's legal team A legal spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex said: 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal today's judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body Ravec, which includes the Home Office, the Royal Household and the Met Police. 'Although these are not labels used by Ravec, three categories - as revealed during the litigation - comprise the 'Ravec cohort': the Role Based Category, the Occasional Category and the Other VIP Category. 'The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec's own written policy. 'In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to the Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. 'The duke's case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him, is no substitute for that risk analysis. 'The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.' Advertisement Sir Peter also noted it was 'highly relevant' that on January 11, 2020, Sir Edward Young, then Queen Elizabeth II's private secretary, gave Harry a 'draft options paper' outlining that the 'level of protection is a decision for the Home Secretary, delegated to the chair' of Ravec. The paper set out how the process worked and Harry's own private secretary Fiona Mcilwham then met with Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, saying in an email that she 'faithfully relayed the details you provided on security to the Duke', according to the court papers. The judge said there was 'no substance in the contention that the defendant failed to act in a procedurally fair manner'. He added: 'In particular, there was no reason to assume that the claimant's private secretary was unaware of the security issues arising as a result of the claimant's [redacted text].' The judge also said that 'On the contrary, the evidence shows that she was entirely conversant with them' following a meeting on January 27, 2020 with Sir Edward, Ravec chair Sir Richard Mottram and Prince William's private sectary Simon Case. Sir Peter added: 'If there had been the need for any questions to be asked about 'Ravec, Ms Mcilwham can be expected to have asked them. 'I do not accept that the fact she may have been private secretary for some six months has any bearing. Her communications are indicative of someone with a good grasp of her job.' The judge said he accepted comments from Sir Richard, who said that, even if he had received a document setting out all of Harry's legal arguments in February 2020, 'I would have reached the same decision for materially the same reasons'. In addition, Sir Peter criticised Harry's claim of the 'alleged irrationality' of him having to give 28 days' notice of travelling to Britain. Prince Harry and Meghan, pictured at an Invictus Games event in Canada on February 14, 2024 Earlier this month Harry told ABC show GMA that he had 'considered' becoming a US citizen The judge said: 'There is no merit in this contention. It arose from the need to be able to address a [redacted] of the kind belatedly given by the claimant to Ravec in relation to the June/July 2021 visit. How much is the case costing taxpayers? A Freedom of Information submitted last year found that Harry's security case had cost the Home Office 407,827 in legal fees as of October 2023. The Government Legal Department claimed 265,437 and counsel 137,864, reported Metro. Then, last December, former royal head of protection Dai Davies told GB News the legal fight could eventually cost taxpayers 1million. The final figure has not yet been confirmed. Advertisement 'Given Ravec's expertise, the decision to require 28 days' notice would need to be shown, by reference to evidence, to have been plucked out of the air or imposed for some extraneous reason, before this head of challenge could be made out. The claimant has pointed to nothing of the kind.' Responding to the ruling, a Home Office spokesman said today: 'We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the Government's position in this case, and we are carefully considering our next steps. It would be inappropriate to comment further. 'The UK Government's protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. 'It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals' security.' Sir Peter - who officially retired as a High Court judge on February 1 - said his ruling contained redactions because if such information was made public it would have 'a serious adverse impact on the individuals concerned, as well as being contrary to the public interest, including that of national security'. In December, the Duke's lawyers told the court that a failure to carry out a risk analysis and fully consider the impact of a 'successful attack' on him meant the approach to his protection was 'unlawful and unfair'. William, Harry, Meghan and Charles speak together at a service at Westminster Abbey in March 2019 - the year before the Sussexes stepped down as senior royals and moved to the US The court was also told that Harry believes his children - Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet - cannot 'feel at home' in the UK if it is 'not possible to keep them safe' there. READ MORE Royals stunned by Thomas Kingston tragedy: Family mourns death of Lady Gabriella Windsor's war hero and financier husband Advertisement But Home Office lawyers said the Duke was no longer a member of the group of people whose 'security position' was under regular review by Ravec, but he was 'brought back within the cohort in the appropriate circumstances'. The court was told that it was 'simply incorrect' to suggest that there was no evidence that the issue of impact was considered, adding that the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - Harry's mother - was raised as part of the decision. Ravec has delegated responsibility from the Home Office over the provision of protective security arrangements for members of the royal family and others, with involvement from the Metropolitan Police, the Cabinet Office and the royal household. The majority of the proceedings in December were held in private, without the public or press present, because of confidential evidence over security measures being involved in the case. Prince Andrew leads members of the Royal Family to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle yesterday to attend a thanksgiving service for the life of the late King Constantine of Greece Queen Camilla is seen at St George's Chapel yesterday as she attends the thanksgiving service The security case was one of three remaining live High Court cases brought by the Duke, alongside claims over allegations of unlawful information gathering against News Group Newspapers (NGN) and Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of MailOnline. Earlier this month, Harry settled the remaining parts of his phone hacking claim against Mirror Group Newspapers. It came after the Duke decided in January to withdraw a libel claim against ANL over a February 2022 Mail on Sunday article about his legal challenge against the Home Office. Harry, who was not present at the December hearing, lives in North America with wife Meghan and their children after the couple announced they were stepping back as senior royals in January 2020. He returned briefly to the UK on February 6 without his family after making a transatlantic dash to be with his father following the shock news of the King's cancer diagnosis. Earlier this month Harry revealed in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America (GMA) that he had 'considered' becoming a US citizen since moving to California. He added that his 'family and my life in California is as it is', but also told how he had 'got other trips planned that would take me through the UK or back to the UK'. The Duke also said: 'I will stop in and see my family as much as I can.' Judge said he 'didn't believe' Vaughan's assault accusations against him Adrian found Drew Clinton, then 18, guilty of sexually assaulting Vaughan when she was 16 - but has since reversed his conviction and freed him A teenage rape victim has slammed an Illinois judge after he decided to reverse her attacker's conviction - saying she 'cried so much' when she found out the news. Adams County Judge Robert Adrian had originally found then-18-year-old Drew Clinton of Taylor, Michigan, guilty of sexually assaulting 16-year-old Cameron Vaughan during a May 2021 graduation party. Victim Vaughan, now 18, described the horrific assault. She said she woke up with a pillow smothering her face as she felt what was happening to her body. But at Clinton's sentencing hearing, months after his conviction, Adrian said he had served 'plenty' of time behind bars - 148 days - and that while he couldn't sentence him to time served, he could overturn the verdict and set him free. In turn, the Illinois Courts Commission removed Adrian from the bench on Friday after it held a three-day hearing in Chicago following a complaint against him. Following Adrian's removal from his duties as a judge, Vaughan told NBC News: 'I cried. I cried so much. I was just.. it was unbelievable.' Vaughan said that she is pleased that Adrian was removed and said: 'He needs to see what he did to me, how he made me feel and know that I'm the reason you're not a judge anymore' Former Illinois Judge Robert Adrian decided to set Drew Clinton free after he spent 148 days behind bars for assaulting Vaughan at a graduation party in May 2021 The state Judicial Inquiry Board filed a complaint against Adrian after the judge threw out Clinton's (pictured) conviction in January 2022 She added: 'He hurt me. He changed my life, and nothing happened to him. 'He needs to see what he did to me, how he made me feel and know that I'm the reason you're not a judge anymore.' Vaughan said that though she didn't get the result that she imagined, she thinks that justice was still served because Adrian was removed from the bench. 'I didn't have faith in the justice system because of what he had done, but it has definitely been restored,' she said. The state Judicial Inquiry Board filed a complaint against Adrian after the judge threw out Clinton's conviction in January 2022. Vaughan waived her right to anonymity and said that at the time of the incident, she passed out drunk in the basement and woke up to find Clinton sexually assaulting her while holding a pillow over her face. 'I woke up, had my face covered with a pillow and I could feel what was happening,' she said. Clinton claimed they had consensual sex and that she was not as drunk as she claimed she was. At the time, the judge said: 'He has no prior record, none whatsoever. By law, the court is supposed to sentence this young man to the Department of Corrections... This court will not do that. That is not just. 'There is no way for what happened in this case that this teenager should go to the Department of Corrections. I will not do that.' According to the state's law, Clinton should have served a minimum of four years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Adrian said that he stands by his reversal. 'Why would I want to send a person whos not guilty to the Department of Correction? Of course, Ill reverse,' he said. Cameron Vaughan, 18, has slammed former Judge Robert Adrian after he was removed from the bench on Friday after he reversed her attacker's sexual assault conviction During an interview with NBC News on Monday that he stands by his reversal decision and that he 'didn't believe' Vaughan's accusations against Clinton 'Theres a lot of judges that wouldnt. Theyd wait and say, "Oh, well, if I made the mistake, the appellate court [will] straighten it out".' He went on to say that he 'didn't believe' Vaughan's accusations against Clinton and that he 'made a mistake, and I corrected my mistake.' The decision from the courts commission said Adrian 'engaged in multiple instances of misconduct' and 'abused his position of power to indulge his own sense of justice while circumventing the law.' They also said that they did not believe him after he 'intentionally subverted the law and then lied about it under oath to serve his own interests,' court documents said. The complaint also said that the former judge kicked out a prosecutor from the courtroom after they liked a social media post that was critical of him. Adrian told the prosecutor: ['I don't get on social media, but my wife does, and she saw the thumbs-up you gave to people attacking me ... I can't be fair with you. Get out.' The complaint also said that Adrian had acknowledged he was supposed to impose the mandatory four-year sentence against Clinton, but that he would not send him to prison. The commission could have issued a reprimand, censure or suspension without pay, but its decision said it had 'ample grounds' for immediately removing Adrian from the bench in western Illinois' Adams County. According to court transcripts, after he reversed Clinton's conviction, Adrian blamed parents and adults for 'having parties for teenagers, and they allow coeds and female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pool. And, no, underwear is not the same as swimming suits.' Vaughan waived her right to anonymity and said that at the time of the incident, she passed out drunk in the basement and woke up to find Clinton sexually assaulting her while holding a pillow over her face In response to his removal, Adrian said that the decision is 'totally a miscarriage of justice. I did what was right. I've always told the truth about it' Now that Adrian has set Clinton free, he cannot be tried again for the same crime under the Fifth Amendment. A motion to expunge Clinton's record was denied in February 2023 He added: 'It's just they allow 16-year-olds to bring liquor to a party. They provide liquor to underage people, and you wonder how these things happen. Well, that's how these things happen. The court is totally disgusted with that whole thing.' In response to his removal, Adrian said that the decision is 'totally a miscarriage of justice. I did what was right. I've always told the truth about it.' Adams County court records showed that Clinton's guilty verdict was overturned because prosecutors had failed to meet the burden of proof to prove Clinton guilty. But in Friday's decision, the commission wrote that it found Adrian's claim that 'he reversed his guilty finding based on his reconsideration of the evidence and his conclusion that the State had failed to prove its case to be a subterfuge - respondent's attempt to justify the reversal post hoc.' Clinton cannot be tried again for the same crime under the Fifth Amendment. A motion to expunge Clinton's record was denied in February 2023. 'Yeah, he blamed everybody else for what happened except for the person who sexually assaulted me, blamed everybody else,' Vaughan said about Adrian. 'Because what [Clinton] did was not right. I mean, it ruined me,' she added. Bursting onto the scene as a frequent collaborator to the Safdie Brothers, Buddy Duress was considered by some as 'the future of acting'. Duress, whose November 2023 dead of cardiac arrest arrest following a 'drug cocktail' was announced Tuesday, starred in the filmmaker siblings' 'Good Time' alongside Robert Pattinson Despite other appearances in their 2014 flick 'Heaven Knows What' and receiving critical praise for his acting, the 38-year-old was constantly mired in legal trouble. He had managed to land the role in 'Heaven Knows What' after he met Josh Safdie while on release from Rikers Island on drug charges in 2013. The unlikely star, born Michael Stathis, had been a drug addict and prolific shoplifter, having been in and out of the infamous jail eight or so times before he had turned 21. His brother Christopher Stathis confirmed the death of the 38-year-old to People, saying the actor died in November of last year. Duress, who co-starred alongside Robert Pattinson in 'Good Time', died due to a 'cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail' His brother Christopher Stathis confirmed the death of the 38-year-old to People , saying the actor died in November of last year The journey to his short lived career in acting started after he was arrested for heroin possession and decided to join a drug rehab program as opposed to incarceration. Duress previously recounted to SSense in 2017 how, 'it was either 8 to months in the program or 2 years in prison'. After taking the option of the program, Duress was waiting to be transferred to the rehab facility when he managed to slip custody and went on the lam for a year. Duress recalled: 'When I was sitting there I already knew I wasnt going to go. I waited an hour and a half for the escort who never showed, and then I just left and got a random person on the subway to swipe me. 'I went straight home, took a shower and shaved, told my mom what was happening and how I was gonna go on the run for as long as possible. 'In my head it was like, as long as I can, Im gonna be on the on the run and enjoy summer, and evade the authorities. And when they catch me, Ill take it like a man.' Duress said he had slipped custody on August 2, 2013, and authorities eventually caught up with him on August 1, 2014, following 364 days on the run. The 38-year-old shot to fame for his role in the Safdie Brothers 'Good Time' alongside Robert Pattinson He made his acting debut in Josh and Benny Safdie's 2014 film Heaven Knows What a role he landed shortly after being released from Rikers Island for a drug-related conviction; seen with co-star Arielle Holmes in a 2014 still from the film Rikers Island seen from the NYC Ferry on September 13, 2023 in New York City It was during this period that he was introduced to Josh Safdie who asked him if he wanted to play a part in his next movie. This part when on to become a much larger role in 'Heaven Knows What', with Duress telling the New York Post that the brothers warned him not to get arrested for fear it would 'f*** up the movie'. Duress told the outlet: 'Josh said, "Buddy, please dont get arrested. It will f*** up the movie". 'Everybody knew I would get arrested at some point, but I gave him my word that I would finish the movie.' Just one day after he completed his work on 'Heaven Knows What', the authorities caught up with him, but he recalled being too happy to care. He told the post: 'I sat in jail saying "I did a movie!". If I went into the program, I probably would have got out, relapsed and done the same s*** all over again. 'My wrong decision resulted in the most positive thing I've ever done.' While the rest of the cast and crew enjoyed the red carpet when the movie premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2014, Duress remained in Rikers. Duress attends Build series to discuss "Good Time" at Build Studio on August 10, 2017 in New York City He is survived by his mother Jo-Anne and younger brother Christopher; seen with Pattinson at the 70th annual Cannes Film Festival in 2017 The Safdie brothers stuck by Duress, who even recommend him to director Dustin Guy Defa, who cast him in his 2017 film 'Person to Person' alongside Michael Cera. Defa offered Duress the part while incarcerated, telling him to refuse haircuts for the role, which led to him having a stint in solitary for refusing to lose his hair. Days after Good Time was released in 2017, Duress told the Post: 'I used to steal anything that wasnt nailed down. No more, though. I wont even steal a candy bar. 'No more drugs, no more partying. That s**t is for the birds. This is the time for me to stay focused, do what I got to do and man up.' Despite this, in 2019, he was arrested on charges of grand larceny in the third degree days after he wrapped filming on 'Flinch' and went back to Rikers. He was also arrested for threatening to burn his mother Jo-Anne's house down that same year, while filming crime drama 'Flinch'. He was bailed out by director Cameron Van Hoy and his mom, but later arrested and taken back to Rikers for charges of menacing and criminal possession of brass knuckles and a controlled substance. He had a long history of legal troubles, having been in jail at least 10 times with charges including identity theft, grand larceny, and heroin possession; seen in 2014 Duress was then back in the prison after his mother turned him in for allegedly stealing checks and forging her signature with cash totaling over $3,000. His mother Jo-Anne previously told The Post: 'I couldnt take it. He would call in the middle of the night and ask [for] money. It was for drugs.' Jo-Anne would go on to take a order of protection against him after threatening to burn her house down. Duress said: 'I don't blame her. I'm not easy to live with.' In November of 2019, Duress was found in a critical condition after he fell from an elevated subway platform after robbing a Santander Bank in Queens. News reports at the time say he stole $3,055 from the bank after sliding a note to the teller which said 'My mom is sick. Need money for my mom, its going to be quick'. During his escape, Duress hid in an elevated subway station to evade cops and was eventually chased down the platform. Duress attempted to escape by climbing down a support pole, but lost his grip and fell onto the sidewalk below. Speaking from inside Rikers to Van Hoy in 2021, Duress said: 'I got locked up for a robbery, they are saying I robbed a bank - I don't remember any of this. 'I guess I was in a black out, I also had head injuries because I fell from the elevated platform down to the street. 'They said I was running from the cops up there and I was trying to climb down some kind of pole, and I fell three stories. 'I woke up cuffed to the bed in hospital, I am lucky to be alive. I was in the hospital for six weeks. I had a cast on both legs, I fractured both knees as well as my skull.' Despite his legal issues while filming the movie, Flinch Van Hoy had nothing but praise for the star. 'Buddy was pure electricity on screen. Working with him was one of the great adventures of my life,' he told People. 'He was a kind person who loved making films. Despite any troubles he was going through in life he somehow managed to put them aside when it came time to work.' 'We grew quite close after the production of our film Flinch. I'm heartbroken that his life came to an end as it did.' Director Jay Karales, with whom he filmed Mass State Lottery, called him 'a once in a lifetime charismatic actor and a genuinely humble man that left an impression on everyone he met' in a statement to People. He called his death a 'tragic and frustrating loss of visceral talent' adding, 'He lived like a cowboy and carrying the weight of that kind of life informed his skills and performances in a way that made him irreplaceable as an actor.' Jay also shared a tribute to him on Instagram, writing: 'This man was an absolute treasure. Without a doubt, Buddy was one of the most entertaining people I've ever met and his stories were unrivaled.' 'I remember seeing him in Good Time in 2017 and saying, "That is what the future of acting needs to be. That guy." 'He brought a certain authenticity and charisma to the screen that you just don't see anymore. It was a dream to get him in Mass State Lottery, and I feel privileged to have been his director and his friend.' A fear is that if Putin takes the region, Transnistria, he may go on to take Moldova The West's fears were realised today as a breakaway region of Moldova called on Vladimir Putin for 'protection'. Transnistria - a separatist region sharing a border with Ukraine - called on Russia for help in a move carefully choreographed with Moscow. Putin already has several thousand Russian troops in the region, a supposed peacekeeping force which has been there since the end of Soviet times, and an unknown number of paramilitaries. Moldova is West-leaning but so far outside the EU and NATO, making it vulnerable to Putin. Transnistria is in thrall to Moscow. Transnistira shares a border with Ukraine so it would allow easier access if Russia takes over. Russian 'peacekeepers' are seen here marching during the parade in the capital Tiraspol A fear is that Putin will seek to take full control not only of Transnistria but all of Moldova A fear is that Putin will seek to take full control not only of Transnistria but Moldova, an ex-Soviet republic. The call from a special assembly in Transnistria, called the Congress of Deputies, was deliberately timed ahead of Putin's keynote speech of the fear to the Russian Federal Assembly in Moscow on Thursday. The assembly voted to 'adopt an appeal to the Federation Council and the State Duma of the Russian Federation (the two houses of parliament) with a request to implement measures to protect Transnistria in conditions of increased pressure from (Moldova).' The appeal notes that 'more than 220,000 Russian citizens permanently reside on the territory of the region and the unique positive experience of Russian peacekeeping (force).' The appeal urges the UN to respect the 'inalienable rights of the Transnistrian people guaranteed by international norms, to stop the violation by Chisinau (the capital of Moldova) of the rights and freedoms of the inhabitants'. The pro-Russian leadership of the region say: 'Since the moment the Moldovan leadership chose and consolidated the course towards the European Union, Transnistria has been subjected to the greatest socio-economic pressure and the most massive violation of the rights and freedoms of the inhabitants of the region, which directly contradicts the European principles and approaches in the field of human rights protection and free trade.' Putin is seen as likely to exploit the move for his own ends, but it is unclear he has the military muscle to walk in an invade Transnistria - which he effectively anyway controls - or Moldova immediately. Local opposition politician Gennadiy Chiorba claimed a Putin plot to grab Transnistria is in progress, as part of the dictator's re-election campaign. This will give Putin a supposed 'legal' power to step into Transnistria which has been in limbo since the end of the Soviet Union. The region is seen as hotbed of crime, corruption and smuggling. The dictator has noticed the failure of the West to meet Ukraine's needs for arms, and senses he could get away with a new annexation, say experts. Potentially, Russia could use the territory to move against the rest of Moldova, seen as another goal, and as a point for attacks on Ukrainian port Odesa, a far more significant prize. Moldova is West-leaning but so far outside the EU and NATO, making it vulnerable to Putin 'More than 220,000 Russian citizens permanently reside on the territory of the region' Maia Sandu, the president of Moldova - the country could be vulnerable to the Kremlin Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has insisted Moscow will 'not leave its citizens living in Transnistria in trouble'. Moldova president President Maia Sandu last year claimed Russia was planning a coup in her country. Chiorba warned Sandu of the Kremlin threat saying that 'the psychology of the current leadership of Russia, in particular Putin, is very similar to the psychology of Hitler in the late 1930s. 'Attempts to appease people like Putin lead to only one thing - the growing appetite of the aggressor.' Ukrainian military analyst Aleksander Kovalenko has branded Moscow's moves 'concerning'. Russians are the largest group among the population of Transnistria with almost 30 per cent Another 29 percent are Moldovan or Romanian, while 23 per cent are Ukrainian And he warned: 'This group of [Russian] troops poses a serious threat to Moldova, since it is a much more combat-ready force than the Moldovan army.' Russians are the largest group among the population of Transnistria with almost 30 per cent. Another 29 percent are Moldovan or Romanian, while 23 per cent are Ukrainian. Police have launched an 'urgent' hunt for two young girls who went missing after travelling to London on the train. Eden, 13, and Edith, 12, who are both from Crawley in Sussex, have been reported as missing after vanquishing on the train. Police believe the two children have travelled by train to London, they have said in posts on X and Facebook. However, it is not yet known where in London they may have reached. Eden is 5ft 3ins tall, has long dark brown hair. Edith is 5ft tall, and also has long dark brown hair. Sussex Police have not said how long the two girls have been missing for. A full statement from the police force says: 'We are urgently looking for Eden, 13, and Edith, 12, who are missing from Crawley. Edith (pictured), 12, is 5ft tall and has long dark brown hair Eden, 13, (pictured) is 5ft 3ins tall and also has long dark brown hair 'They are believed to have travelled to London by train. Eden is 5'3' and has long dark brown hair. Edith is 5' and has long dark brown hair. Joe Biden's campaign denied being 'panicked' Tuesday after the president suffered an embarrassing loss in the city of Dearborn, Michigan and saw 100,000 people choose 'uncommitted' over him in a state he needs to win in November. It came after a coalition of anti-war activists and Arab American leaders furious over the war in Gaza urged voters to choose 'uncommitted' over the sitting president. Uncommitted ended up drawing 101,000 with 95 per cent of the vote in. It got 17 per cent of the vote In Wayne County, which includes Detroit, and in Washtenaw County, which includes Ann Arbor. There were precincts in East Dearborn where Biden got fewer than 20 votes. In one precinct, the president got 9 votes compared to 140 for 'uncommitted.' Abbas Alawieh, spokesperson for Listen to Michigan, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Layla Elabed, campaign manager for Listen to Michigan celebrated 'uncommitted' getting more than 100,000 votes on the ballot amid their campaing against Biden's policies in the war in Gaza Biden's campaign kept an even keel and released a statement on the results that did not mention 'uncommitted,' as he continues to roll toward the nomination with minimal primary opposition from candidates. 'Any reporting that were panicked or deeply concerned would be wrong,' a campaign official told CNN. That came as Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) told the network: 'I am worried I've talked to them.' Biden won the primary and beat 'uncommitted' by six to one - but lost the city of Dearborn President Biden's campaign has denied panicking Activist Abbas Alawieh leads the dance Dabke during an uncommitted vote election night gathering as Democrats and Republicans hold their Michigan primary presidential election in Dearborn But Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said, 'Oh, Im not concerned. Its not unusual to have uncommitted. Weve had that in all elections.' The campaign organized a press call just as most of the state's polls, and before the extent of the 'uncommitted' campaign was known, to reassure the media. Members of the Michigan state Democratic party 'know how to beat Donald Trump. We've done it before and we'll do it again,' state chair Chair Lavora Barnes said. At the White House, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried to reassure reporters Tuesday while showing sympathy to the protest effort, amid reports of a split within the White House over policy on Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza. 'We know its been a difficult time,' said Jean-Pierre. 'The president cares about that. He cares about what that community is feeling, very deeply. And we believe its important that they feel that they are able to express themselves and voice their feelings and their concerns.' As the final results ticked in late Tuesday and Wednesday, Biden ended up losing to 'uncommitted' in Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and Hamtramck all centers of the protest movement. One yardstick was the 2012 reelection of Barack Obama, where uncommitted drew 11 per cent of the vote, which indicates while there was a surge and a warning that Biden must contend with, there have been past signals of dissatisfaction that didn't lead to later defeat. It was a high turnout primary, uncommitted drew about 20,000 votes. Neighbors of the Venezuelan migrant accused of killing nursing student Laken Riley claimed he would watch the running path all day long and that he was seen on security cameras throwing out bloody clothes on the day of the attack. Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was arrested at his apartment complex near the running trail close to where Riley's body was found last week. Residents of the complex told NewsNation's Alex Caprariello that their security cameras captured Ibarra disposing of evidence in the building's dumpster, which they turned over to police. 'He took all of the evidence. He's on camera with his bloody clothes in a bag,' one neighbor said. She added that she had seen Riley cut through the complex before to get to the running path and claimed Ibarra had likely seen the student before because he would sit outside all day long. Laken Riley, 22, had been out jogging on the University of Georgia campus when she was attacked Here is one of my many interviews with neighbors who tell me Jose Ibarra, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, would sit outside of his apartment all day long, watching the exact path Laken Riley would take on her regular runs on a popular trail through University of Georgia. pic.twitter.com/gU4ffoSLQF Alex Caprariello (@alcaprari23) February 27, 2024 Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was arrested at his apartment complex near the running trail close to where Riley's body was found Neighbors of the Venezuelan migrant said he would watching the running path all day long and their security cameras caught him throwing out bloody clothes on the day of the attack 'He was out here all hours of the night and day,' the neighbor said. The complex is a former hotel converted into studio apartments and Ibarra is said to have lived in one unit with four or five other migrants. The 26-year-old has been charged in Riley's killing with felony murder, false imprisonment, kidnapping and concealing the death of another. Ibarra is accused of using an unknown object as a weapon to kill the 22-year-old Augusta University student and preventing her from making a 911 call when he allegedly grabbed her between 9am and 1pm on Thursday February 22. Riley's body was found the same day on the University of Georgia campus in a forested area near Lake Herrick that includes trails popular with runners and walkers. The student had been out jogging when she was allegedly attacked by Ibarra. Police said Riley died from 'blunt force trauma' after being beaten and that she suffered a 'disfigured skull'. They added that Ibarra dragged her body to a secluded area to conceal the death, according to an arrest affidavit seen by CBS News. Ibarra is accused of using a mystery object as a weapon to kill the 22-year-old Augusta University student and preventing her from making a 911 call when he allegedly grabbed her between 9am and 1pm on Thursday Riley's body was found the same day on campus in a forested area near Lake Herrick that includes trails popular with runners and walkers Local police said Friday that Ibarra, who lived in Athens, apparently did not know Riley and acted alone. Video from campus security and other technology led officials to Ibarra. The day of the murder, her suspected killer uploaded a selfie onto his TikTok account in which he stared into the camera and grinned. Five months before Riley's murder, Ibarra was arrested in New York City and charged 'with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation,' according to ICE. The NYPD released him 'before a detainer could be issued,' the agency said. The 26-year-old crossed into El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 but had been released from a detention center due to a lack of space. Riley studied at the University of Georgia through the spring of 2023 before transferring to Augusta Universitys College of Nursing, according to a statement from the University of Georgia, which does not have a nursing program itself. She remained active in the sorority she joined at the University of Georgia. Riley's roommate Connolly Huth shared a heartbreaking tribute to her former roommate, describing her as a 'perfect, beautiful, smart, kind and driven human'. Riley's roommate Connolly Huth shared a heartbreaking tribute to her former roommate , describing her as a 'perfect, beautiful, smart, kind and driven human' Riley studied at the University of Georgia through the spring of 2023 before transferring to Augusta Universitys College of Nursing Huth (right) said: 'I will forever be proud to have called you my bestest friend and roommate. I love you to the moon and back, and I cant wait to see you when I get up there' Alongside the touching memorial, Huth shared a series of videos of her and Riley on social media showing the pair running, dancing, and laughing together. One of the clips shows Riley and Huth dancing down a street together before the pair burst into laughter. Huth wrote: 'Never in a million years did I think I would be writing something like this and I am still waiting to wake up from this terrible nightmare.' 'Im not sure how I will continue this life without you by my side, but what I do know is I will run that 26.2 in your honor and let everyone know of the perfect, beautiful, hilarious, smart, kind, and driven human that Laken Riley was. 'I will forever be proud to have called you my bestest friend and roommate. I love you to the moon and back, and I cant wait to see you when I get up there.' This video is no longer available This video is no longer available The mother of murdered sex worker Emma Caldwell has said she can 'finally breathe again' after Iain Packer was found guilty at the High Court in Glasgow. Margaret Caldwell also took aim at police for wrongly focusing their inquiries on a group of Turkish men who turned out to be innocent of the 2005 killing. Miss Caldwell's naked body was found in Limefield Woods, near Roberton, South Lanarkshire, that May, a month after disappearing. He mother told STV: 'When the policemen came to tell me that they'd found Emma's body I had this huge breath. 'And now I feel as if I can breathe again.' Margaret Caldwell has said she can 'finally breathe again' after her Daugher Emma's murderer was convicted Emma Caldwell, 27, vanished in Glasgow on April 4, 2005, and her body was found the following month Serial rapist Iain Packer, 51, has been found guilty of her murder as well as indecently assaulting Miss Caldwell and raping 11 women among dozens of other charges, following a six-week trial Ms Caldwell was in tears outside court in Glasgow having gone for Packer's verdict Packer, a former sign fitter, was convicted of indecently assaulting Miss Caldwell and raping 11 women among dozens of other charges, following a six-week trial. Miss Caldwell vanished days after telling her mother Margaret about her hopes to kick a heroin addiction, which began following her sister's death when Emma was just 20. Ms Caldwell explained that while she and her husband were aware of their daughter's heroin addiction, they did not know she was a sex worker. Emma had wound up staying at a hostel in Govanhill, Glasgow, afterbreaking up with a partner who she had moved in with nearby. 'It was a terrible place to live,' her mother recalled, 'I wish I had taken her home.' But she still had good relationships with her parents, talking daily on the phone and meeting twice a week, and was reported missing after she failed to respond to attempts by them to change a planned meeting. A dog walker found her body in a woodland, with a 'garotte' around her neck on May 8, 2005 more than a month after she went missing aged just 27. Police missed the chance to land Emma's killer in the months after her murder as they dismissed him as a suspect. They had instead built a case against four innocent Turkish men who went on to be cleared. Ms Caldwell said: 'I feel let down by the first investigation, definitely. 'They just dropped it and hid the case away and that was it. 'If they had discovered it wasn't these Turkish men that had murdered Emma, then who had?' In an attempt to find conclusive evidence against the four men, police authorised the highest level of intrusive surveillance possible at considerable public expense. Former detectives involved in the early stages of the inquiry claimed that Packer's violent, predatory and abusive behaviour was known to investigators from the beginning of the investigation. Ms Caldwell, pictured at a 2017 police press conference, said: 'I feel let down by the first investigation' Police missed chances to bring in Packer for questioning during the initial investigation as they pursued a group of four Turkish men, who were cleared BBC Scotland reported that a first statement was taken from Packer just weeks after Emma's body was found. While the killer maintained that he did not know her, or use prostitutes, a number of girls picked him out from photographs. Retired Detective Constable Stuart Hall asked a senior officer if he could detain Packer, but was told not to. It was also revealed that another three women told police Packer had driven them to the woods for sex. Court heard Packer was a prolific user of sex workers who had described it as an 'addiction', and lied repeatedly to police and to a BBC journalist who interviewed him on national television in 2018. During Packer's trial, the court heard a soil sample taken in 2021 from the site where Miss Caldwell's body was found was a '97% match' with soil found in his blue work van, and Packer was charged by police in February 2022. Packer denied all the charges - accusing all the women of lying - but admitted during evidence that he indecently assaulted Miss Caldwell. Ms Caldwell, seen arriving at Glasgow's High Court, added: 'If they had discovered it wasn't these Turkish men that had murdered Emma, then who had?' Emma's naked body was found in Limefield Woods, near Roberton, South Lanarkshire He said he was 'ashamed' of his actions towards her, and described his behaviour towards another sex workers as 'disgusting'. But he denied murdering Miss Caldwell in his evidence, telling the court: 'It wasn't me who killed her. It wasn't me. I didn't do anything to her.' The trial heard evidence from multiple women about Packer's brutal attacks on them. Prosecutor Richard Goddard KC described Packer as a 'violent' and 'obsessive' user of sex workers with an 'unhealthy addiction' to procuring their services. Packer is expected to be sentenced later on February 28. President Joe Biden's campaign insists there are no concerns despite more than 101,000 voters in Michigan's presidential primary election casting their ballots for 'uncommitted' instead of for the president. Biden's reelection team is now walking a fine line in the primary acknowledging concerns of frustrated Democratic voters regarding the war in Gaza, but denying that the results of Michigan's primary is prompting panic for the campaign. 'Any reporting that we're panicked or deeply concerned would be wrong,' a campaign official told CNN Wednesday morning. With 99 percent of the vote reported in Michigan, 'uncommitted' received 101,067 votes compared to the 618,115 cast for Biden. In Dearborn, Michigan an outskirt of Detroit Biden was defeated by the protest ballot as Palestinian-American progressive Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) promoted voting against the president. President Joe Biden's campaign is dismissing concerns over the significant number of voters who cast their ballot for 'uncommitted' in Tuesday's Michigan primary election Arab-Americans and pro-Palestine activists pushed for a vote to protest Biden's backing of Israel and the war in Gaza Many political talking heads have noted the significant number of uncommitted votes cast in Michigan's Democratic primary race. But Biden's campaign insists that the number of voters who came out is positive for 2024. 'High turnout was very good for us,' a member of Biden's team said, according to CNN. The official noted that nearly 620,000 voters who showed up to cast their ballots for Biden in a 'non-competitive primary'. 'Shows a lot of president's base is with him,' they added. Biden released a statement Tuesday night that did not directly address the 'vote uncommitted' campaign but did touch on the activists protesting his backing of Israel. 'We understand that it's an emotional, painful, difficult situation for a lot of people,' the statement noted. 'President Biden shares the goal of many of the folks who voted uncommitted, which is an end to the violence and a just and lasting peace.' More than 100,000 voters in the battleground state of Michigan voted in protest against Biden's stance on Israel's conflict as of Wednesday morning's ballot count. In Dearborn - where more than 90 percent of the population is Arab American - 56 percent voted for uncommitted compared to the 40 percent who voted for Biden. Biden easily won the Michigan primary on Tuesday by taking more than 80 percent of the overall vote. But the uncommitted ballot option took five times higher the voter turnout than the protest vote against Barack Obama in 2012. It's a sign that the Biden campaign could see consequences in the state with 15 electoral college votes if the situation in the Middle East remains unstable. President Biden as defeated in Dearborn, Michigan by the 'uncommitted' ballot option A voter arrives to cast their ballot in the Michigan primary election on February 27, 2024 as a large Arab-American population in the state pushed for a protest vote against Biden amid the ongoing war in Gaza If the 2024 election comes down to the result in Michigan, how Dearborn and the rest of the Arab-American community votes could be key to determining the winner. The district of Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) includes Dearborn. She helped push the effort for Arabs and pro-Palestine voters to cast their primary ballots for 'uncommitted' to protest Biden's policies in Gaza and his continued support for Israel. On the Republican side, Donald Trump won his fifth primary contest of the 2024 race by defeating Nikki Haley 65 percent to 30.9 percent as of late Tuesday night. Notably, nearly 140,000 more voters showed up to cast their ballots for Trump in the Republican primary than the Democrats who showed up to vote for Biden another sign that the November general election could be swayed by those on the left who refuse to vote for the incumbent. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) posted a video saying she cast her vote for 'uncommitted' instead of Biden as she accused the U.S. of aiding 'genocide' against the Palestinians Uncommitted supporters celebrated and declared victory for the movement at a Dearborn Election Night watch party on Tuesday. 'It is my hope that after tonight's results we're going to be at the Democratic National Convention, pushing and growing this antiwar movement,' said Michigan state Rep. Abraham Aiyash, the majority leader of the State House. Some Democrats, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, warned the progressive arm of the party that voting against Biden is essentially casting a ballot for Trump. The Michigan Democratic Party requires candidates to earn 15 percent of the vote statewide or within individual congressional districts to be able to send delegates to the nominating convention over the summer. The thousands of votes for 'uncommitted' were a warning sign for the president over the war in Gaza. In a show of restraint, Biden's statement on the results thanked 'every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great.' 'Four years ago, it was Michigan's diverse coalition that came together to reject Donald Trump 's MAGA extremism and sent me and Kamala to the White House ,' Biden said. Employees at Macy's flagship San Francisco store in Union Square have blamed its planned closure on shoplifting - despite mayor London Breed claiming crime was not a factor. The Union Square store announced earlier this week it will be closing its doors after 77 years as part of a plan to close 150 locations across the nation over the next three years. It did not cite a specific reason for the decision. However, workers at the store told The San Francisco Standard they believe the decision was made because of daily rampant shoplifting, with thieves taking at least four blazers, 10 wallets and 20 packs of underwear every day. Employee Steve Dalisay, who has worked at Macy's for 20 years, said those are the most frequently stolen items from the store's sixth-floor mens department. 'I think there just needs to be leadership,' Dalisay told The Standard. 'The mayor just needs to say we wont tolerate this in the city.' San Francisco Mayor London Breed is being slammed after a statement on the closing of the city's flagship Macy's in the city's Union Square, where around 100 establishments have closed While the building is expected to sell within a year, the store will not fully close until about three years from now, Dalisay said he was told by management on Tuesday. Another employee, who works in the fourth-floor women's department, also blamed 'theft and that people aren't coming in' for the closure. A third worker added that thieves often go after mens Ralph Lauren Polo, womens North Face and Levis clothing. Breed, facing a re-election bid currently in trouble according to recent polling, has overseen a continued downturn of San Francisco's economy and the prevalence of homelessness and overdoses on its streets. 'As someone who grew up in San Francisco, Macy's has always meant a lot to the people of this city. It's where families came to shop for the holidays,' Breed said. Reaction on social media was heavily negative and cited the many issues and prior escapes made by business from the city. 'They're leaving because no one lives here. The downtown is barren because of you,' wrote one X user. 'The seeds were sewn, reap the results,' added another. Another referenced Breed's upcoming electoral prospects: 'I hope you have a corner picked out because that's the only job you'll be able to find come election time. You and your Dem friends did this.' The crime-ridden downtown area of San Francisco has seen the closure of many shops and restaurants since its drastic downfall A video posted to Instagram captures the moment at least 10 people stole loads of designer bags from Neiman Marcus in San Francisco and fled undeterred in 2021 The crime-ridden downtown area of San Francisco has seen the closure of many shops and restaurants since its drastic downfall, despite Breed attempting to hype statistics claiming offenses went down in 2023. In October, it was reported that seven Starbucks stores were planning to close as the city continues to deal with crime, drug use, and a homelessness epidemic. At the end of August video was released showing San Francisco's newly shut-down flagship Nordstrom store that was almost barren after nearly three decades in business. A slew of the city's restaurateurs cited crime, drugs, and waning tourism as the main culprits killing their businesses, all set on Valencia Street. The thoroughfare, about a mile from the city's embattled Downtown, is considered one of the most sought-after strips of restaurant real estate in The Bay Area. But for residents of San Francisco's Mission District, the reality is far different. The area - much like the nearby 'Doom Loop' of Union Square, City Hall, and Tenderloin and Mid Market districts - has been a hive of unsavory, post-pandemic activity. The city's Ikea was nearly empty earlier this month as customers say persistent construction, lack of parking and constant crime on the surrounding streets keep them from shopping at the store. The incumbent mayor, 49, suffered poor results in a new poll from the San Francisco Chronicle that found she would lose her office to the man who briefly held it before her, Mark Farrell, 50. Dozens of migrants have been brought ashore today at the Port of Dover - after battling thick fog to get across the Channel. The mainly-male group of around 50 asylum seekers arrived despite poor conditions including strong winds in the Dover Straits - and they were brought into the harbour in Dover by a Border Force catamaran around Midday. Upon arrival, the migrants were spotted at the former jetfoil terminal wearing bright orange life jackets as they went inside for processing. The latest arrivals come as Number 10 insisted they were taking 'robust action' to crack down on people-smuggling gangs, deter migrants from making crossings and intercept vessels. February 25 saw 290 migrants make the perilous journey in five vessels - an average of 58 people crammed into each inflatable dinghy. This is the highest number of people making the crossing in a single day for more than a month, after 358 people were recorded on January 17. Dozens of migrants have been brought ashore today at the Port of Dover - after battling thick fog to get across the Channel The mainly-male group of around 50 asylum seekers arrived despite poor conditions including strong winds in the Dover Straits Upon arrival, the migrants were spotted at the former jetfoil terminal wearing bright orange life jackets as they went inside for processing The latest crossings take the provisional total number of arrivals in 2024 so far to 2,006 READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE Further shame of military heroes being housed in sub-standard accommodation as roof caves in at one - while 'double standards' see illegal migrants put up in hotels An Army family was forced to leave their crumbling home after a wall in the bedroom of their military accommodation collapsed Advertisement A total of 2,006 asylum seekers have been recorded crossing the Channel in 43 boats to date in 2024, according to official government figures. The figures came as the Prime Minister denied he is ignoring concerns being raised by locals about the use of RAF Scampton near Lincoln as accommodation for asylum seekers. 'I'm not ignoring them,' the Prime Minister told BBC Radio Lincolnshire as he was challenged repeatedly on Monday. 'We do need to make sure that we house people in appropriate accommodation and the best way to resolve this issue long term is to stop people coming in the first place. 'So anyone who cares about this should be backing us to get the Rwanda Bill through Parliament so we can get a deterrent up and running. 'I'm confident that we really will be able to stop the boats and that will mean that we won't have this pressure in all our local areas to find places to house illegal migrants.' He insisted he understands 'people's frustration' over the use of the site, telling the radio station: 'I wish we were not having to do any of this, whether it's RAF Scampton or other sites across the country, or indeed in hotels and communities across our country that now are being used to house illegal migrants. 'I don't think any of that is right and it costs a fortune.' He added that use of the former airbase would be on a 'temporary basis' although the Government could extend its use as asylum housing for a further three years. The latest arrivals come as Rishi Sunak insisted he was 'not ignoring' concerns being raised by locals about the use of RAF Scampton near Lincoln as accommodation for asylum seekers A protest banner is seen near a protest camp outside the main gate of the former RAF (Royal Air Force) base, which was the former home of the British Red Arrows and Dambusters squadron, and is now being planned to be used by the British government to house asylum seekers in Scampton Rishi Sunak has made 'stopping the boats' a key pledge of his leadership as the country approaches a general election expected later this year. The Prime Minister's Safety of Rwanda Bill passed the Commons after the Prime Minister saw off a Tory rebellion which had sought to toughen the legislation. It cleared its first major hurdle in the House of Lords earlier this year, but faces numerous amendments in the upper chamber and an extended tussle between the Commons and Lords. Mr Sunak has urged peers not to block 'the will of the people' by opposing the Bill. The asylum scheme comes with a 290 million bill but a series of legal challenges has meant no flights have taken off since it was proposed in 2022. Under the plan, people who cross the Channel in small boats could be removed to Rwanda rather than being allowed to seek asylum in the UK. House Democrats at Hunter Biden's congressional deposition called the ongoing impeachment inquiry an 'embarrassment' for Republicans, adding that their pursuit of the president's son is nothing more than a 'wild goose chase.' Hunter Biden appeared Wednesday morning to a fanfare of media for his highly-anticipated deposition in his father's ongoing impeachment inquiry as Republicans continue to probe Joe Biden. The GOP-led committee has asserted that President Biden improperly used his influence to help his son Hunter's business, netting the younger Biden millions of dollars through shady dealings over the years. They are also investigating whether the president was ever paid for his influence. Democrats, however, have repeatedly called the impeachment inquiry a sham and a waste of time. 'It's just so embarrassing that the Republicans continue to be on this wild goose chase after President Biden,' Progressive Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, said Wednesday morning before entering the deposition. 'I mean, they're acting like Hunter Biden is running for president.' Another Democrat told reporters that Hunter asked the GOP lawmakers about foreign investments that former President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner secured after he left the White House. Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, enters a federal building to before being deposed for an impeachment inquiry into his father House Democrats at Hunter Biden 's congressional deposition called the ongoing impeachment inquiry an 'embarrassment' for Republicans, adding that their pursuit of the president's son is nothing more than a 'wild goose chase' Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez said the Republican-led inquiry is tainted because one of the central informants in the case had ties to Russian intelligence Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Raskin have come out firmly in support of President Biden 'He drew the distinction between what he has done in a business world with independent businessmen, versus foreign governments, which he did not do any business with, unlike Jared Kushner,' said Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y. Some Democrats who sat in the deposition similarly told reporters that the meeting was lackluster. 'If you ever wonder why 50 percent of this country doesn't vote, you don't have to look further than the hour we just spent in there on this deposition,' Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., said after exiting the closed-door meeting after an hour. The first hour of the deposition 'was the nail in the coffin to what is a complete, bogus and sham impeachment inquiry,' Rep. Daniel Goldman said after exiting. Republicans are 'so desperate to humiliate the president they started asking the president some personal details about a divorce that happened almost 10 years ago. That's where this has been reduced to,' Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., told reporters. One of the lead Democrats pushing back against the inquiry, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said the hearing was a 'tremendous waste' of time and resources. This has been a 'comedy of errors from the beginning,' he stated. He said he 'understands' why Hunted wanted to testify publicly after sitting through the first three hours of the deposition. Raskin also said there was 'paranoid suspicion' being cast on the Republicans' focus on the over 20 speaker business phone calls of Hunters' that Joe sat on. Republicans, meanwhile, said the president's son was not being forthright. Hunter Biden was 'defiant and dishonest' in his deposition, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said after exiting the room. Democrats also decried Republicans' use of information by former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov in the inquiry as he was just recently accused of having ties with Russian intelligence agencies. Smirnov 'lied' about an alleged Biden family 'bribery scheme' with Ukrainians and had 'high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives,' according to prosecutors. The falsified bribery scheme involving a $10 million payment to Joe and Hunter by a top Ukrainian oil executive was at the center of the Republican's impeachment push until a few days ago. Last week, Special Counsel David Weiss charged Smirnov with lying about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden taking the bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma. If convicted, Smirnov faces a maximum of 25 years in prison. 'Their main source was collaborating with Russian intelligence forces,' Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Wednesday. 'The fact that Republicans received that information, that the entire country received that information, and they are still continuing with their impeachment proceedings and investigations should be a four alarm fire for this entire country.' The progressive likened the impeachment inquiry to a 'deep sea fishing expedition.' The Brit accused of gnawing off part of another UK tourist's nose during a brawl in an Austrian ski resort is facing up to ten years in jail if found guilty, according to a report. The fight broke out in the resort of St Anton on the evening of February 4, starting in a bar but ending up on the street, where punches and kicks were thrown and ultimately, the biting occurred. After the brawl was broken up, the victim of the assault, a 29-year-old man, was taken to the hospital, while the attackers escaped into the nearby pedestrian area of St. Anton am Arlberg. Days later, the alleged attacker was arrested after a police search and was taken to Innsbruck Prison. The suspect was released from custody on Monday, ORF Tirol reports. The fight broke out in the resort of St Anton on the evening of February 4, starting in a bar but ending up on the street, where punches and kicks were thrown and ultimately, the biting occurred (Stock Image) The public prosecutor's office has now filed charges against him, according to the publication. After the suspect was tracked down and arrested, he was sentenced to pre-trial detention. His lawyer, Mathias Holzmann, lodged a complaint against this. The Higher Regional Court upheld the appeal and he was released, ORF Tirol reports. The 50-year-old has now returned to the UK with his family and he will face a trial in Tyrol, the lawyer told the publication. The Brit was indicted for intentionally causing serious bodily harm and the charges are based partly on a surveillance video that shows the crime, ORF Tirol reports. During the investigation, the suspect denied the allegations or claimed that he was only defending himself, according to the publication. His lawyer told ORF that the client would comment on this in his trial. The victim required surgery after the violent incident. He underwent a plastic surgery procedure, including a skin flap transplant, according to the public prosecutor's office. A police spokesman said after the suspect was arrested earlier this month: 'Based on extensive investigations and tips from the public, three British holiday guests - 50, 50 and 67 years old - were identified as the perpetrators. 'The 50-year-old main perpetrator was arrested on the orders of the Innsbruck public prosecutor's office and taken to the Innsbruck prison.' The resort of St Anton is known for its wild party life and brawls are not uncommon. The case comes at a time when skiers are facing the effects of a mild winter, which has led to many slopes becoming entirely snowless. A federal employee whistleblower is sounding the alarm on the Biden administration's widespread telework policies that are fostering an 'impersonal and inefficient' work environment. The federal worker wrote to Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, late last year according to a copy of the correspondence obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com. The employee, who describes themself as a supervisor at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says full-time remote work and telework is 'negatively affecting productivity, efficiency, and cooperation.' They say that the 'vast majority' of USDA employees are working remotely, and the unused federal office headquarters resembles a 'ghost town' with empty hallways and vacant offices. The USDA was found to be at only 11 percent occupied between January and March 2023 and more than 75 percent of the available office space at 17 different federal agencies is still empty, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In addition to unused physical office space, employees are facing productivity challenges due to the impersonal nature of remote work. A current U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) whistleblower wrote to Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, late last year according to a copy of the correspondence obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com The numbers dont lie and we have the whistleblower to prove it Bidens @USDA is a ghost town due to four years of tele-work policies. Bureaucrats need to start showing up for work, or we need to sell off unused space. pic.twitter.com/nUpNswG4LS Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) February 28, 2024 President Joe Biden, joined by US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, tours Dutch Creek Farms in Northfield, Minnesota, on November 1 The biggest issue, according to the whistleblower, is how limited in-person interaction is 'hampering productivity.' Remote employees 'are often unreachable and do not respond to simple email questions for hours,' the whistleblower continues. 'This leads to inefficiency in completing tasks in a timely manner and to delays in clearing documents and reports due to the inability to reach colleagues.' In addition, the lack of in-person work is 'hindering discussions' regarding problem solving, idea generation and socializing with colleagues. As a supervisor, the whistleblower says it's an 'obstacle' to the 'simple act' of earning trust and confidence. 'Working by email and video conferencing is impersonal and inefficient compared to in-person interaction.' The whistleblower says having employees back in the office full-time would 'restore productivity and efficiency.' Ernst plans to aggressively question Agriculture Department Sec. Tom Vilsack today about the revelations outlined by the whistleblower. He is testifying before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee. She tells DailyMail.com that Biden's 'ghost town should be on the auction block.' 'While taxpayers are still on the hook paying for bureaucrats' salaries and amenities, a USDA supervisor confirmed that not only are its employees failing to show up, they are not working productively or efficiently for the American people,' she continues. The Iowa senator also suggested that Biden move USDA's headquarters to the midwest 'heartland' if they are going to continue to waste money on unused office space. Unused federal office space wastes an estimated of $2.8 million per day, and is becoming a huge headache for Biden who is attempting to bring back employees to in-person work. Ernst plans to aggressively question Agriculture Department Sec. Tom Vilsack today on the topic Biden's Chief of Staff Jeff Zients also ordered Cabinet heads to ensure that their workforce returns to the office this year. According to a memo obtained by DailyMail.com, he wrote last month that federal employees should be in the office at least 50 percent of their work time in order to achieve the goals of the administration. He highlighted the State Department's 'expectation' that all employees are in the office at least 3-4 times per week because there's 'no substitute' for 'engaging face-to-face' when it comes to diplomacy. But he also acknowledged that 'some of your agencies are not where they need to be.' Ernst and other lawmakers say billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted based on unused federal office space. That's a staggering statistic since federal agencies spend about $2 billion taxpayer dollars per year to operate and maintain federal office buildings - and over $5 billion annually in leases. A California mother who hurled her disabled baby son to his death off a four-story parking lot could be up for parole after an appeals court ruled the original sentencing failed to consider her mental illness. Sonia Hermosillo, 44, was originally sentenced to 25 years to life in August 2021 in connection with the August 2011 death of her infant son, Noe. The mother-of-three was accused of murdering her seven-month-old son by throwing him off a hospital parking garage in Orange County. A California 4th District Court of Appeal upheld the murder conviction of Sonia Hermosillo on Monday - but said judge Kimberly Menninger should have considered elements such as mental illness when determining sentencing. Now, three justices are handing the sentencing to a lower court for the judge to reconsider whether the woman's mental state should be reason for a probation sentence as opposed to life in prison, The Orange County Register reported. Associate Justice William W. Bedsworth said the role of the district court was 'not to render judgment in a moral sense, but only as to the legal issues raised.' Hermosillo, a mom-of-three (pictured in her mugshot, left), told police she did not love her son, seven-month-old Noe Jr, because he was sick. The infant suffered from several medical conditions and wore a helmet to correct his flat head Sonia Hermosillo, 41, pictured in Orange County Superior Court in August 2021, was found guilty of first-degree murder and assault of a child causing death for pushing her infant son off a parking garage in 2011 A California 4th District Court of Appeal upheld the murder conviction of Sonia Hermosillo on Monday but sent the case back to judge Kimberly Menninger (pictured) to consider elements such as mental illness when determining a new sentence 'We conclude the trial court failed to take some necessary factors into account during sentencing when considering whether appellant was eligible for probation,' he wrote. 'The grim and paradoxical reality of our system of justice is that it is sometimes unable to deliver a result which feels truly just to all involved,' Bedsworth continued. 'This case provides an especially heartbreaking illustration.' A jury found then-41-year-old Sonia Hermosillo guilty of one count of first-degree murder and one count of felony assault of a child causing death, in August 2021 sentencing. Hermosillo has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. 'The most basic job of a parent is to keep their children safe from harm,' stated Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said during the 2021 sentencing. 'This child didn't even have the chance to take his first steps, say his first word, or even celebrate his first birthday before he was murdered by the very person whose job was supposed to keep him safe.' According to trial testimony, Hermosillo had struggled with mental health issues after the birth of her third child, baby Noe, who had been undergoing regular treatments at Children's Hospital of Orange County for several medical conditions, including congenital muscular torticollis that twisted his neck from being in utero too long. 'He was sick, and his mother didn't want him,' prosecutor Mena Guirguis told jurors at the trial. 'She made a cold-hearted decision to kill her child.' Hermosillo's defense attorney claimed that the mom-of-three had struggled with depression and suffered from a psychotic break at the time of his death Prosecutors argued that Hermosillo wanted her son dead because he was sick. She had 'hate, resentment and anger' toward the boy Pictured: the parking garage at the Children's Hospital of Orange County, where Hermosillo dropped her disabled infant son from the fourth story 'All of these factors would likely have weighed in appellant's favor had they been considered,' Bedsworth wrote in the ruling. 'Appellant's own daughter gave a victim impact statement, imploring the court to have mercy on her mother, saying she did not want to be separated from her, and implying that her mother hand `changed' around the time of Noe Jr.'s, birth,' Bedsworth wrote. On August 22, 2011, Hermosillo drove her son to the hospital, even though he did not have a scheduled appointment that day, and parked her car on the fourth floor of the garage. At around 6.20pm, prosecutors said Hermosillo removed a medical helmet that Noe was wearing to correct his plagiocephaly, commonly known as 'flat-head syndrome,' and pushed him off the roof. 'Hermosillo then walked inside the hospital, validated her parking, and drove away,' the DA's statement said. A witness who saw the baby falling through the air called 911 and the Orange Police Department responded to the scene. Noe was taken to the trauma center at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center in critical condition. He died two days later. Shortly after the deadly incident, Hermosillo's husband called the police to report his wife and son were missing. Noe Medina told investigators that his wife had been diagnosed with depression and was not allowed to be alone with their baby. He said Hermosillo took off with the infant while he was watching the couple's two daughters. Medina, who has forgiven his wife, said she did not accept their son for being sick. 'She didn't look at our son as normal,' he said of Noe Jr. Hours later, a police officer spotted Hermosillo driving past the hospital and arrested her. Hermosillo told police that she had 'hate, resentment and anger' toward the boy 'because he's sick,' authorities said. Defense attorney Jacqueline Goodman said the child actually was getting better and that Hermosillo suffered from a psychotic break at the time of his death, the Orange County Register reported. During the police interview, she repeated 'I don't love him' dozens of times, the attorney said. 'That is not a confession. It is mental illness,' Goodman said. The lawyer argued at trial that her client was suffering from 'full-blown psychosis' during interviews with police immediately after the crime, telling investigators that Noe Jr would 'always remain a baby,' and even as an adult she would have needed to 'change his diapers.' Bedsworth wrote, 'It is particularly notable that no member of baby Noe's family asked the court to impose a prison term. Appellant expressed her sadness and remorse about her act of infanticide, and begged to be reunited with her daughters.' 'And there was no evidence before the court to indicate appellant could be a danger to anyone if not imprisoned. In sum, there is simply too little in the record to indicate the trial court properly weighed probation as a punishment for appellant's crime.' Speaker Mike Johnson and congressional leadership have reached a deal on spending that will require another short-term stopgap bill - the sort he detests and that may anger his GOP hardliner flank. The deal will push two looming government shutdown deadlines later into the month of March. The lawmakers were nearing the first deadline at midnight Friday, but the sprawling appropriations bills were not quite buttoned up. The breakthrough agreement came the day after President Biden assembled a meeting of the congressional 'Big Four' at the White House Tuesday. Top lawmakers wrapped up negotiations on Agriculture-FDA, Energy-Water, Military Construction-VA, Transportation-HUD, Interior-Environment and Commerce-Justice-Science bills, which are expected to come up for votes next week, with a deadline of March 8. Funding for the other six agencies would expire on March 22. Speaker Mike Johnson is eyeing up another stopgap funding bill of the sort he detests, but only with solid negotiated agreements on spending legislation The breakthrough agreement came the day after President Biden assembled a meeting of the congressional 'Big Four' at the White House Tuesday Those include Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS, Legislative Branch and State and Foreign Operations. They would likely be lumped together in a number of minibuses that combine funding for different agencies of government into one vote, DailyMail.com has learned. A vote one a continuing resolution, or CR, to extend the deadlines is expected in the House on Thursday and the Senate shortly after. Congress was working up against a ticking clock to Friday at midnight when the government would go into partial shutdown if no deal were passed. Now, the risk of the government being in a partial shutdown during President Biden's State of the Union speech next Thursday has been erased. The 'Big Four' leaders - Speaker Johnson, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell - released a joint statement Wednesday evening announcing the breakthrough deal. 'We are in agreement that Congress must work in a bipartisan manner to fund our government.' 'These bills will adhere to the Fiscal Responsibility Act discretionary spending limits and January's topline spending agreement,' the leaders added in their statement. They also promised to allow members at least 72 hours to review the texts of the appropriations bills. Johnson has emphasized that he won't put a vote on the floor to extend the government funding deadline again in hopes that the extra time will allow them to work out an agreement. The agreement already needed to be there. But still, selling another short-term deal to conservative hardliners will be tricky. Some right-wing conservatives have demanded border security provisions be attached to spending legislation, which could thwart any chance of passing both chambers. Rep. Bob Good - the leader of the farther right House Freedom Caucus - said that the deal is 'more of the same.' He is pushing for Johnson to attach conservative priorities to the bills, including border security measures. Good and the Freedom Caucus even floated earlier this week that Johnson should give up on appropriations talks completely and pursue a full year CR. 'If Congress goes past April 30 on a CR, all discretionary spending is cut 1%!' Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., noted on X of a provision that was named 'the Massie Rule' after him. A one percent, across the board spending cut was written into the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the debt limit deal negotiated between former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Biden. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., launched the motion to vacate to oust McCarthy because he put a CR on the House floor to punt the government funding deadline. But now Johnson has done the same thing, twice. 'I hate CRs. We shouldn't do this, and we're not going to do it again next year,' Johnson said in November. Other top lawmakers seemed notably optimistic that they could strike a deal and get it passed in both chambers in time. After a meeting of President Biden and top congressional leaders, Johnson has offered to push funding deadlines from March 1 for four agencies of government and March 8 for the other eight to March 8 and March 22 respectively 'We're making good progress,' Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the White House meeting 'We're making good progress,' Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the White House meeting and other meetings with leadership, despite describing their conversation over Ukraine funding as 'tense.' The execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech has been called off at the last-minute after medical staff failed eight times to find a vein to administer a lethal injection. The murderer, 73, was strapped into the execution chamber and witnesses were assembled, but returned to his cell after a 'frustrating' 55-minutes where medics struggled to insert an IV line. Creech was sentenced to death for the 1981 fatal beating of a fellow prisoner with a sock filled with batteries, and he has made unsubstantiated confessions to up to 42 murders. He was convicted of five murders in three states, and is strongly suspected of at least a half-dozen others across the nation. At a post-execution press conference, witnesses said Creech's eyes were glued to his family as he mumbled the words 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you', before nodding at a warden when they eventually told him he wouldn't die today. Thomas Creech, 73, is set to be executed over the 1981 fatal beating of his cellmate. He has ben convicted of five murders, but has confessed to as many as 42 murders across the nation The serial killer is set to be executed at 10am local time Wednesday in the death chamber (pictured) at Idaho's Maximum Security Institution Journalists that witnessed the episode gave a harrowing minute-by-minute breakdown of the botched execution at the press conference, which one reporter said began with a mysterious 'banging' noise that filled the chamber for several minutes. Creech, who one reporter claimed had 'tears in his eyes', was then wheeled into the room already strapped to a gurney shortly after 10am, and witnesses said he 'wasn't moving much.' Idaho Department of Corrections Director Josh Tewalt said that Creech underwent regular medical checks this morning and came back all clear, and doctors didn't envisage any issues. However, one reporter said that inserting the first IV line was unsuccessful within two minutes. They noted that the ordeal took such a long time as the process for finding an IV line involves several steps, such as cleaning the skin, and medics took to using a blood pressure cuff to help his veins stand out. Tewalt said the issue was primarily with vein access, but medics did manage to find a vein on at least one occasion but were concerned about 'vein quality.' As they attempted to find a line on several limbs, the medics moved to Creech's feet, and they tried to inject him through the gurney straps by his ankles. At that moment, the killer lifted his head and said, 'my feet hurt a little bit.' The witnesses also noted that Creech was waggling his fingers and mouthing words to his family throughout the ordeal, but they couldn't make out what he was saying. Eventually, after almost 55 minutes of botched attempts, they said the prison officials appeared to whisper to each other, before leaving to get more needles from another room. Shortly after the eighth and final IV line failed, the warden entered the room and announced the execution was off, drawing gasps from the witness box. One reporter also noted that Creech 'nodded back' to the warden when he told him he wouldn't die today. After hearing of his fate, Creech looked back at his family, then looked up at the sky while mouthing words before he was wheeled back out of the chamber. The Idaho Maximum Security Institution is shown, near Kuna, Idaho on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024 The infamous serial killer seen in a recent image from behind bars After the execution was unsuccessful, Creech's attorneys released a fiery statement condemning Idaho officials for even attempting the execution of a 'harmless old man' His victim's sister, Colette Cohen, told KIVITV before the execution failed that she hoped 'state of Idaho finally does what needs to be done, because its time.' For what would have been his last meal, Creech enjoyed fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, dinner rolls and ice cream. Failure to insert IV lines has become a frequent problem with executions in America, and the issue was the reason killer Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person to be executed via nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama last month. Tewalt said that the department has no timeline for any future executions of Creech at this moment. Before his execution, the Idaho Department of Corrections said Creech 'remained cooperative', and had a visitation from his wife and spiritual advisor. Creech was initially sentenced to death for the murders of two house painters in Donnelly, Idaho in 1974. His death sentence was reversed two years later by the US Supreme Court, when it banned automatic death sentences and he received life in prison. He then attacked and killed his cellmate David Jensen, a disabled man serving time for car theft, with a sock filled with batteries in 1981, earning him another death sentence. Since then, Creech has sat on death row for almost half a century, and has seen his execution scheduled 11 times over the years. After his conviction in 1981, Creech told KTVB that he was 'ready to die' and was asking his attorneys to seek the death penalty, saying it was 'hard to live with all the things I've done. I mean I have dreams about it. I wake up in the middle of the night.' Creech seen in a 1981 interview, where he said he hoped for the death penalty because he was 'ready to die.' He was set to be executed 43 years later on Wednesday, before the execution failed Creech then changed his tune and made numerous efforts to stay his execution, including a recent argument by his attorneys that he could be put to death with expired lethal injection drugs. However, his hopes of having his execution halted took a hit this morning, as the US Supreme Court denied his writ of certiorari, meaning it will not block his execution. Creech was relying on a last-minute stay on his execution from the governor, before the IV line malfunction. The killer's attorneys have filed Hail Mary appeals in at least four courts in recent months to try and halt the execution, including arguments that the state refuses to say where its execution drugs were obtained. They have also claimed his conviction by a judge instead of a jury should also cancel the execution, however that petition was rejected on Friday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Creech was sentenced to death in 1981 for the fatal beating of his disabled cellmate David Jensen (pictured) with a sock filled with batteries Just four weeks before his scheduled execution, Creech was found to be responsible for the murder of Daniel A. Walker (pictured) in 1974 Officials are still unclear how many people Creech killed, with his confessions of almost 50 murders seen as exaggerated by some. Prosecutors have focused on 11 that they believe he was responsible for, including a cold case that was solved just four weeks ago. He was found to be the perpetrator in the October 1974 murder of Daniel A. Walker, who was shot randomly as he slept by the side of a highway. The dozens of murder confessions were reportedly made under the influence of since-discredited 'truth serum' drugs, according to local outlet KFOR. Creech's myriad confessions included outlandish stories of human sacrifices and contract killings for the Hell's Angels biker gang. He first stood trial in 1973 for the murder of 70-year-old Paul Schrader, in Tuscon, Arizona, after he was caught using the man's credit cards and vehicle as he fled to Portland, Oregon. Despite authorities saying they are certain he was the killer, a jury acquitted him in that trail. The next year, while committed to Oregon State Hospital, Creech was handed a weekend pass by the institution, allowing him to travel to Sacramento, California where he murdered Vivian Grant Robinson in her home. He then reportedly stole her cell phone and called the hospital to tell them he would be delayed by a day on his return to Oregon. Robinson's murder went unsolved until Creech confessed in 1980, by which time he was already serving life in prison. Creech is one of the longest serving death row inmates in the nation at 43 years Following his release from Oregon State Hospital in 1974, Creech began working at a church in Portland doing maintenance work. That year, he shot and killed William Joseph Dean, 22, in his living quarters at the church, before also committing the murder of Sandra Jane Ramsamooj at a nearby grocery store. His trail of terror came to an end that year, after he and a girlfriend were hitchhiking to Idaho and were picked up by two painters. The painters, Thomas Arnold and John Bradford, were shot dead by Creech during the trip, and his girlfriend led authorities to him. While behind bars, Creech has made a number of disturbing confessions, some of which are likely fabricated while others led officials to find remains. The substantiated confessions include the murders of Gordon Lee Stanton and Charles Thomas Miller near Las Vegas, and Rick Stewart McKenzie, 22, near Baggs, Wyoming, reports KFOR. After the execution was unsuccessful, Creech's attorneys released a fiery statement condemning Idaho officials for even attempting the execution of a 'harmless old man.' 'We are angered but not surprised that the State of Idaho botched the execution of Thomas Creech today,' the attorneys, with the Federal Defender Services of Idaho, said. 'This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution. This morning, they tried and failed 10 times to access Tom's veins in both of his arms and both legs so they could inject him with the State's mysteriously acquired pentobarbital. 'This is precisely the kind of mishap we warned the State and the Courts could happen when attempting to execute one of the country's oldest death-row inmates in circumstances completely shieled in secrecy despite a well-known history or getting drugs from shady sources. 'Yesterday, the State called Mr. Creech's worries 'patently absurd' in its motions to the US Supreme Court. Unfortunately, what is absurd is Idaho's continuing efforts to kill this harmless old man, who by this point surely has suffered enough.' A Texas man was left 'instantly paralyzed' after he was struck by a wave while body surfing on vacation in Mexico. Jared Hill was surfing in tourist hotspot Tulum when a wave crashed down, shoving him into the sand and shattering three vertebrae in his neck, his partner Justin Raiford has claimed. Raiford told KHOU-11 how he saw his partner 'drowning in the water' and rushed over to 'pull him out'. The pair then spent two days and visited three hospitals before Hill was able to undergo his first surgery in Mexico. He was flown to Memorial Hermann Medical Center in Houston nearly a week later, where the couple learned that Hill needs another spinal surgery and will likely be hospitalized for several months. Raiford, who says Hill's wellbeing and recovery is his top priority, is considering legal action after their 'nightmare' holiday. He has also issued a warning to other travels, encouraging them to 'do your research and have a plan'. Jared Hill, pictured in the hospital, was left 'instantly paralyzed' after he was struck by a wave while body surfing on vacation in Tulum, Mexico His partner Justin Raiford (right) saw Hill (left) 'drowning in the water' the wave crashed down, shoving him into the sand and shattering three vertebrae in his neck. He recalled how he rushed over to 'pull him out' after watching the horrific accident unfold Raiford rushed to Hill's rescue after watching the horrific accident unfold on the bleach right before his eyes. He ran towards him and pulled him out of the water after the wave 'drove him down into the sand'. Raiford remembers a resort manager telling him that an ambulance was on the way, but said he was forced to call paramedics himself after waiting an hour. Hill, who was reportedly in 'excruciating pain', finally made it to the hospital three hours after the accident, but the facility turned him away. 'They saw the CT scan and said, "We can't take him. He'll die if we try to take him".' Raiford recalled, adding Hill received surgery two days later at a third hospital. The couple wanted to receive treatment in the US, but Hill was not stable enough to travel, so he underwent a procedure that cost them $20,000 out-of-pocket, despite having an international health insurance policy. Hill's surgeons had to 'cut down the back of his head and neck,' Raiford recalled. He said he had never felt so 'helpless, powerless and vulnerable and scared' in his life, but added: 'There's nothing you can do. You're at the mercy of someone else.' Hill, pictured with his care team, was flown to Memorial Hermann Medical Center in Houston nearly a week later, where the couple learned that he would need another spinal surgery and will likely be hospitalized for several months Jared Hill (pictured) also developed blood clots in both his lungs, had a 'huge pulmonary embolism' and is battling meningitis, Raiford said Once able, he was flown back to US to continue treatment, where doctors revealed that after having been 'strapped down for so long and not moving' Hill developed blood clots in both his lungs, had a 'huge pulmonary embolism' and was battling meningitis. Raiford added: 'Not only does he need another spinal surgery to help ensure that he has mobility, because it's very limited right now due to the situations and circumstances with the extended time and the quality of care, his life is at risk here, even at one of the best hospitals in the world.' He is now urging others to have plans in place before travelling internationally because 'nobody expects for things like this to happen'. A GoFundMe was created to help the couple cover medical bills and has already amassed more than $32,000 in donations. The Colombian soldier who killed three others and wound another at an army base is a FARC dissident who infiltrated the military and tried to flee to Ecuador before he was apprehended, the National Army has revealed. Alexander Orozco shot and killed captain Juan Herrera, second sergeant Carlos Rojas and fellow serviceman Yoandris Mejia at a base in the southern department of Putumayo on Monday. The military said in a statement Tuesday that the attack was planned by Nestor Vera, who is also known as 'Ivan Mordisco,' the leader of FARC dissidents. The dissidents are former members of the MarxistLeninist guerrilla group, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and have refused to give up their arms following the government's 2016 peace deal. 'Thanks to intelligence efforts, it was possible to establish that three soldiers belonging to this military unit had presumably been approached by members of the residual armed group Carolina Ramirez Structure to participate in this criminal action,' the Colombian National Army said. Dissidents of the MarxistLeninist guerrilla group, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, were able to infiltrate Alexander Orozco in the army about eight months ago. On Monday night, Orozco shot and killed three troop members and wounded another at a base in Putumayo. Orozco was arrested after he was wounded in a shootout Colombia National Army captain Juan Herrera was among the three military serviceman who were shot and killed at a base Monday The names of the three soldiers in question have not been publicly revealed. Orozco enlisted in the military less than eight months ago. 'Armed groups, criminal groups, high-crime structures, use two methods: one method is infiltration, which is to have someone in these criminal organizations and have them perform military or police service and in this way have a purpose, a mission,' the army said. 'And another method is the penetration method, in which a person who is providing military or police service is approached to change their thinking and to influence them to have more criminal actions.' The army said that Orozco carried out the shooting after concluding his shift Monday morning. Orozco first opened fire at the troops rest center and killed Herrera. He then made his way to the watch guard area and gunned down Rojas. He also shot Mejia and wounded a third soldier, who were airlifted to a hospital in Caqueta. Mejia died from a gunshot wound and the other serviceman, whose name has not been released, was treated for a wound and remained hospitalized. Orozco fled the base and was spotted with a man on a canoe in the Caqueta River. Paramedics were seen tending to army soldier Alexander Orozco, who was shot twice and survived following his arrest Monday after shot and killed three servicemen and wounded another at a base Carlos Rojas, a second sergeant in the Colombia army, was shot dead by a soldier at a base in Putumayo on Monday Yoandris Mejia died at a hospital Tuesday, a day after he was shot by fellow soldier at an army base in the Colombian southern department of Putumayo He he fired at security forces when he saw they were closing in and suffered two gunshot wounds, including one in the abdomen. He was taken to a hospital and underwent surgery. The individual who was manning the canoe was apprehended and turned over to local authorities. A military source told Infobae that he was trying to escape to Ecuador. 'Upon noticing the presence of the police officers who requested him, after the alert issued by the National Army troops, he opened fire, and was injured in the exchange of shots in one of the lower extremities and in the abdomen,' the army said. The shooting is the first deadly incident at a military base since May 2023 when a soldier shot dead a serviceman in the nation's capital, Bogota. He was arrested for armed robbery, aggravated battery, rape, and assault Police realized that he was also wanted for raping a 14-year-old girl weeks before Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana, 19, was arrested on Sunday in Kenner, Louisiana after he attempted to rob a man and stabbed him An illegal immigrant from Honduras has been accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in Louisiana - as outrage grows over the tragic death of Georgia student Laken Riley who was 'murdered by undocumented border crosser.' Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana, 19, was arrested on Sunday around 3.15am after he committed armed robbery and stabbed a man on Phoenix Street in Kenner. Officers from the Kenner Police Department soon realized that Castellanos-Orellana was also wanted for raping a 14-year-old girl at knifepoint after she reported the incident to police on Tuesday. The suspect, who cops say is as an 'undocumented Honduran national' was arrested for armed robbery, aggravated battery, first degree rape, and aggravated assault. Within just three days, three violent crimes have allegedly happened at the hands of migrants - after a Venezuelan migrant was accused of killing Riley, 22, and an illegal El Salvadoran migrant was accused of killing a two-year-old boy in Maryland. Angel Matias Castellanos-Orellana, 19, was arrested on Sunday in Kenner, Louisiana after he attempted to rob a man and stabbed him. Police soon realized he was also wanted in connection to the rape of a 14-year-old girl Castellanos-Orellana stabbed the victim multiple times in his back and face on the 2600 block of Phoenix Street in the city of Kenner A week before the stabbing, police said that a 14-year-old girl met the same suspect in the Susan Park neighborhood in early February after the two connected on social media A Federal Immigration and Enforcement detainer was also issued for Castellanos-Orellana as well, according to a press release from the police. At the time of the armed robbery, police said that the male victim was getting out of his car when Castellanos-Orellana approached him, demanded his property and proceeded to stab him in the back and face. The victim, who has not been identified, was taken to the hospital and is said to be in stable condition. FOX 8 reported that when authorities arrived at the scene of the stabbing, they found Castellanos-Orellana 'covered in blood.' The week before, police said that a 14-year-old girl met the same suspect in the Susan Park neighborhood after the two connected on social media. She then reported to the police that he raped her last week, and he was accused of attacking the young girl, holding a knife to her throat and raping her. After the girl came forward about the crime, a detective obtained a warrant for his arrest. Before he was caught in the armed robbery, Castellanos-Orellana was still considered wanted by police. Chief Keith Conley of the Kenner Police Department slammed illegal immigration and said that it has made it hard to identify suspect 'due to the lack of documentation.' Investigators did discover that Castellanos-Orellana previously used other aliases like Elven Locket and Angel Matias. Conley added that illegal immigrants are 'not only a drain on police manpower but a financial drain on local law enforcements budgets and taxpayers money.' 'In a 25-day period, this illegal alien caused terror in our community. We are glad he is off our streets, but will he be back? Will he have a new identity? What other crimes has he committed since he crossed our borders.' Georgia student Laken Riley, 22, was brutally murdered by Venezuelan migrant Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, last week near a running trail Neighbors of the Venezuelan migrant said that Ibarra (pictured) would watching the running path all day long and their security cameras caught him throwing out bloody clothes on the day of the attack Riley had been out jogging on the University of Georgia campus when she was attacked. Police said Riley died from 'blunt force trauma' after being beaten and that she suffered a ' disfigured skull ' Last week, Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was arrested at his apartment complex near the running trail close to where Riley's body was found. Ibarra is accused of using an unknown object as a weapon to kill the 22-year-old Augusta University student and preventing her from making a 911 call when he allegedly grabbed her between 9am and 1pm on Thursday February 22. Riley's body was found the same day on the University of Georgia campus in a forested area near Lake Herrick that includes trails popular with runners and walkers. The student had been out jogging when she was allegedly attacked by Ibarra. Police said Riley died from 'blunt force trauma' after being beaten and that she suffered a 'disfigured skull'. They added that Ibarra dragged her body to a secluded area to conceal the death, according to an arrest affidavit seen by CBS News. Neighbors of the Venezuelan migrant have since said that he would watch the running path all day long and that he was seen on security cameras throwing out bloody clothes on the day of the attack. 'He took all of the evidence. He's on camera with his bloody clothes in a bag,' one neighbor said. She added that she had seen Riley cut through the complex before to get to the running path and claimed Ibarra had likely seen the student before because he would sit outside all day long. The 26-year-old crossed into El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 but had been released from a detention center due to a lack of space. He was charged in Riley's killing with felony murder, false imprisonment, kidnapping and concealing the death of another. Nilson Trejo-Granados, 25, - an illegal El Salvadorian migrant - was charged by the Prince George County Police Department with first and second-degree murder this week The toddler was out on a walk in the park with his mother when he was shot dead earlier this month by Trejo-Granados Another man, Nilson Trejo-Granados, 25, was arrested in Maryland and charged with murder in the case of a two-year-old who was shot and killed this month. The illegal immigrant is the fifth person arrested in connection to the tragic death of toddler Jeremy Poou Caceres, who met his end while out on a walk in the park with his mother. On February 8, Jeremy and his mother were walking on Kanawha Street in Langley Park when shots were fired between two groups of men. The toddler and his mother were caught in the crossfire, and Jeremy was fatally struck. He was taken to Children's National hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Law enforcement officers say the gunfire was intended for Jeremy and his mom. Prior to the fatal encounter, Trejo-Granados, according to ICE and police records, has had several previous run-ins with the law. He was released from jail twice following repeated theft charges and order to leave the country. A DOJ immigration judge in Newark, New Jersey, ordered the man's removal from the United States in November of 2022. He was charged by the Prince George County Police Department with first and second-degree murder and two local teens, 15 and 16, were also arrested as police believe they drove a stolen car to the crime scene and began shooting. Police missed multiple chances to catch Emma Caldwell's killer as they repeatedly dismissed him as a suspect while arresting innocent Turkish men in their investigation, it has emerged. Iain Packer, 51, has been found guilty of murdering 27-year-old sex worker Emma, who died in 2005, as well as a series of rapes and assaults over two decades. But Packer was first interviewed by police the month after Emma's body was found in an isolated area of woodland in South Lanarkshire in May 2005. Packer, who worked as a sign installer across Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland, was interviewed by police on June 22, 2005 - and lied, telling officers he had never picked her up and 'could not help the investigation'. Packer was spoken to by police six times between 2005 and 2007 and in his fourth statement, in August 2006, he admitted he had paid Emma for sex and that he had taken her to a remote spot in the woods, according to the BBC. Their report told how in his sixth statement, Packer even showed detectives the spot in the woods where he had taken Emma - but police did not speak to him again for a decade and instead were focusing on four Turkish men they wrongly believed had killed her. The court heard Packer was a prolific user of sex workers who had described it as an 'addiction' and lied repeatedly to police and to a BBC journalist who interviewed him on national television in 2018. As the killer was finally today sentenced to life in prison and ordered to serve a minimum of 36 years behind bars, Police Scotland apologised for failings in the murder investigation, admitting Packer's victims were 'let down by policing'. But Emma's family said Police Scotland failed their daughter and the rape victims of Packer due to a 'toxic culture of misogyny and corruption', adding in a statement: 'Instead of receiving justice and compassion, they were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, whilst the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again.' Emma Caldwell, 27, vanished in Glasgow on April 4, 2005 Serial rapist Iain Packer, 51, has been found guilty of her murder Emma's mother Margaret Caldwell outside Glasgow High Court where Iain Packer has been found guilty Packer had been accused of murdering Emma after she vanished in Glasgow in 2005 and whose naked body was found in Limefield Woods, near Roberton, South Lanarkshire, the following month. The former sign fitter was convicted of indecently assaulting Miss Caldwell and 11 other charges of rape against nine women among dozens of other offences, following a six-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow. Miss Caldwell vanished on April 4, 2005, days after telling her mother Margaret about her hopes to kick a heroin addiction, which began following a family bereavement in her early 20s. A dog walker found her body with a 'garotte' around her neck on May 8. It is believed Packer drove her from Glasgow's red-light district to the remote woods 40 miles away, where he strangled her and dumped her naked body in a ditch. Miss Caldwell came from a close-knit family and saw both parents twice a week and spoke to them daily. She was reported missing on April 11 after she failed to respond to attempts by them to change a planned meeting. Timeline of Emma Caldwell's case: 2002 Emma Caldwell moves to Glasgow after being introduced to heroin in a bid to cope with the death of her older sister. She eventually turns to sex work to fund her habit. August 2004 Packer indecently assaults Miss Caldwell behind a billboard at the Barras, Glasgow, ignoring her instruction to stop because he had 'paid', the trial heard. A witness fears Packer was 'stalking' Miss Caldwell. April 3, 2005 Margaret Caldwell visits Glasgow to spend the day with her daughter, who tells her of plans to go to rehab, but she appears 'nervous' and 'agitated'. April 4, 2005 Miss Caldwell is last seen alive near Glasgow Green in the city's east end. Packer's mobile phone data showed he frequented the area, a known red-light district, nearly as often as his home. April 6, 2005 Mrs Caldwell and her husband are unable to contact their daughter to change the day of a planned visit, and in the coming days report her missing and launch a search in Glasgow. May 8, 2005 The body of Miss Caldwell is found in Limefield Woods, South Lanarkshire, by a dogwalker. A 'garotte' had been placed around her neck and her possessions and clothing had been disposed of. June 22, 2005 Packer is interviewed by police and lies, claiming not to know Miss Caldwell. He became 'uncomfortable' when Miss Caldwell's name was mentioned and terminated the interview. July 5, 2005 Police interview Packer a second time and obtain a warrant to search his blue van. August 2006 Packer is interviewed and tells police he forced a sex act on Miss Caldwell in 2004. March 2007 Police interview Packer on a voluntary basis, and take him to Limefield Woods. He tells police he lied during previous interviews and had been with Miss Caldwell '10 or 11 times'. 2015 Packer is investigated by the Sunday Mail newspaper, which presents him as the 'forgotten' suspect in Miss Caldwell's murder. A new search of Limefield Woods is carried out to find evidence. November 2018 Packer instigates an interview with BBC journalist Sam Poling 'to clear his name'. He claims he has never visited Limefield Woods and that he told police they 'forced' him to visit. He says he has never been violent to women. The interviews spark disclosures from more victims. 2019 Packer is interviewed again by the BBC. In total he is interviewed on three occasions. After the final one, he told a witness: 'They're blaming me for Emma.' 2021 Analysis of soil samples taken from Limefield Woods is carried out, with a sample from the blue van owned by Packer in 2004. The prosecution in his trial cite this as as '97% match'. February 2022 Packer is arrested by Police Scotland on suspicion of the murder of Miss Caldwell, and the same year a review of DNA evidence is carried out. February 2024 Packer is convicted of murdering Emma Caldwell and attacking multiple other women following a six-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow. Advertisement She was last seen last seen on CCTV around 11pm on Monday April 4 walking alone on Butterbiggins Road towards Victoria Road on the southside of Glasgow. Miss Caldwell's father William, who died in 2011, made his family promise they would get justice for her. Packer was first interviewed by police on June 22, 2005 - and lied, telling officers he had never picked Miss Caldwell up and 'could not help the investigation', before telling further lies in interviews in 2006 and 2007. The court heard Packer was a prolific user of sex workers who had described it as an 'addiction', and lied repeatedly to police and to a BBC journalist who interviewed him on national television in 2018. During the trial, Packer admitted forcing a sex act on Miss Caldwell in August 2004 despite her telling him to stop, which he admitted was 'criminal' and apologised for. A friend of Miss Caldwell told the court Packer 'would not leave her alone', while another sex worker gave a statement saying she was 'petrified' of him. Packer was investigated by the press in 2015 which caused the case to be reopened, and he admitted 'instigating' an interview with BBC journalist Sam Poling in 2018 to 'clear his name', before claiming he had never visited the woodland. However during his evidence at the trial, he admitted visiting Limefield Woods on six occasions including with Miss Caldwell - although prosecutor Richard Goddard KC said it was many more times. A soil sample taken from the site where Miss Caldwell's body was found was a '97% match' with soil found in his blue work van after analysis in 2021, and Packer was charged in February 2022. The jury was taken on a site visit to the isolated spot where Miss Caldwell's body was found naked between two streams, in an area of woodland 40 miles from Glasgow. Packer alleged he had never seen the specific location before, and blamed her murder on four Turkish men, later reducing it to two. The four men were arrested in 2007, after a two-year surveillance operation on a cafe in Glasgow following interviews with other sex workers, but the case collapsed after issues with translation. Packer lodged special defences of incrimination and consent, claiming many of the sex assaults were consensual, and that he had never met some of the women. A complainant who was raped by Packer during a 30 transaction in 1998, which she agreed to due to financial pressures, eventually spoke to police in 2021, which she described as 'the worst thing I've had to do in my life'. Jim Wilson, the former editor of the Sunday Mail, which exposed Packer as the 'forgotten suspect' in 2015 on the anniversary of Miss Caldwell's murder, after which the case was reopened, said the case was a 'scandal' and a 'failure' of the justice system. Mr Wilson said: 'Scotland's justice system failed Emma Caldwell, her family and all the women terrorised by Packer in the years he was allowed to remain free. 'His conviction has answered one question but Police Scotland and the Crown Office must answer many more.' Packer denied all the charges - accusing all the women of lying - but admitted during evidence that he indecently assaulted Miss Caldwell. He said he was 'ashamed' of his actions towards her, and described his behaviour towards another sex workers as 'disgusting'. But he denied murdering Miss Caldwell in his evidence, telling the court: 'It wasn't me who killed her. It wasn't me. I didn't do anything to her.' Prosecutor Richard Goddard KC described Packer as a 'violent' and 'obsessive' user of sex workers with an 'unhealthy addiction' to procuring their services. Emma's mother, Margaret, told Sky News following the verdict she can now 'breathe again that this man is gone'. She added: 'I hope he gets long enough [in jail] that he cannot harm anyone else. 'I did once ask them [the police] if they were biased because of what Emma did and they said it was like any other case. But they just wanted to get it over, put it in a drawer and forget about it.' Miss Caldwell (pictured) came from a close-knit family and saw both parents twice a week and spoke to them daily Margaret and William Caldwell, parents of Emma Caldwell speak to the media in Glasgow city centre in May 2005 Lawyer Aamer Anwar (L) and the mother of Emma Caldwell, Margaret Caldwell (C) arrive at Glasgow High Court on February 23, 2024 Emma's mother, Margaret (pictured), said following the verdict today that she can now 'breathe again that this man is gone' Assistant Chief Constable for Major Crime and Public Protection Bex Smith today apologised to Miss Caldwell's family after they were 'let down by policing in 2005'. READ MORE HERE: Emma Caldwell was a head stable girl before heroin condemned her to a life of vice - but her family were denied justice when police refused to believe Iain Packer had killed her even though his story changed SIX times Advertisement She said: 'Emma Caldwell, her family and many other victims, were let down by policing in 2005. For that we are sorry. 'A significant number of women and girls who showed remarkable courage to speak up at that time also did not get the justice and support they needed and deserved from Strathclyde Police. 'Police Scotland launched a re-investigation of the case in 2015 after instruction from the Lord Advocate. 'It is clear that further investigations should have been carried out into Emma's murder following the initial enquiry in 2005. 'The lack of investigation until 2015 caused unnecessary distress to her family and all those women who had come forward to report sexual violence. 'It is the courage, resilience and determination shown by Emma's family, in particular her parents William and Margaret, and all those who survived Iain Packer's horrific catalogue of offending that got us to where we are today. 'William is, sadly, no longer here to see this day, but I hope this verdict gives Margaret and all those affected by this case, the justice they deserve. A mugshot of Iain Packer who was today found guilty of the murder of Emma Caldwell Iain Packer pictured during a police interview on February 25, 2022 Iain Packer's blue van which was with soil found with a 97% match to the soil where Miss Caldwell's body was found The blue van belonging to Packer who had who worked as a sign installer across Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland The interior of Packer's blue van which was later linked to Miss Caldwell's murder Ms Smith added the re-investigation was 'without doubt the largest police enquiry of recent times in Scotland' which involved reviewing more than 30,000 documents and statements. She continued: 'Iain Packer was a calculating sexual predator who targeted women over many years. It is hard to comprehend how anyone could carry out such despicable, ruthless acts. 'He took Emma's life for his own gratification in the most appalling circumstances and cruelly left her body in remote woods hoping to cover his tracks. 'But time is no barrier to justice and I would urge anyone who has been the victim of sexual violence to please come forward and speak to us. 'You will be listened to and you will be supported - no matter when the offences took place. Ms Smith said 'significant changes' have been made within the police force in recent years 'particularly in respect of investigative structures, victim care and processes to these types of crimes'. She added that Emma had 'a gentle personality' and concluded by paying tribute to 'her family and all those affected by this terrible case'. The Pope has been taken to hospital in central Rome for diagnostic tests after the papal audience on Wednesday, having been suffering from the effects of mild flu in recent days. The 87-year-old arrived at the Gemelli Hospital on Tiber Island in a small white Fiat 500 and left again under escort in the same car after a short period. Francis was pushed in a wheelchair into the audience hall at the Vatican earlier in the day, appearing weary as he dropped heavily into his seat. At the end of the audience, the Pope spent about an hour greeting the faithful from his wheelchair, stopping to talk, bless babies and exchange gifts. In recent weeks the Catholic leader has walked the short distance to his chair, but he has been struggling with mild flu symptoms the past week. Pope Francis can only walk small distances and moves around most of the time in his chair Despite having a number of health scares, he is still managing to do his papal duties Francis also cancelled appointments on Saturday and Monday due to the flu, but appeared as usual for the Sunday blessing from a window overlooking St Peter's Square. The Pope used his brief words at the end of the audience to mark the 25th anniversary of the ratification of the Anti-Personnel Mines Convention, expressing his 'closeness to the numerous victims of these insidious devices that remind us of the dramatic cruelty of war'. He also appealed for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and prayed for the victims of attacks in Burkina Faso and Haiti. Last week, Francis coughed repeatedly during Ash Wednesday services that he presided over at a Roman church, and opted not to participate in the traditional procession that inaugurates the church's Lenten season. His hospitalisation in March 2023 with a bout of pneumonia revived speculation over the possibility Francis would soon tender his resignation. Francis was taken to the same hospital after he had difficulty leaving the event and experienced difficulty breathing. He was also in hospital that year after being readmitted to remove scarring from old surgeries. It was reported he was struggling with a respiratory infection before doctors established he had contracted a mild case of pneumonia. In 2021 had a chunk of his colon removed because of an intestinal inflammation and spent 10 days in hospital recovering from intestinal surgery for a bowel narrowing. In 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was starting to hit Italy, Francis also suffered a bad cold that forced him to cancel several days of official audiences and his participation in the Vatican's annual spiritual retreat. He has been using a wheelchair and cane since last year because of strained knee ligaments and a small knee fracture that have made walking and standing difficult. Last year, with his shaky health in mind, he had already planned his funeral, opting to be buried in Rome's Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, making him the first pontiff to be buried outside the Vatican in more than a century. The 87-year-old arrived at the Gemelli Hospital on Tiber Island in a small white Fiat 500 Francis says that if his health was to get bad, he would resign - but is still continuing for now Francis goes to the basilica to pray before the Salus populi Romani ('Salvation of the people of Rome'), a Byzantine-style painting that features an image of Mary, draped in a blue robe, holding the infant Jesus who in turn is holding a jeweled golden book. 'It's my great devotion.' Francis said, adding that he had already decided he wanted to be buried nearby in the basilica. 'The place is already prepared.' Many popes are buried in the crypts beneath St. Peter's Basilica. Francis has said he would be ready to resign - as Benedict did in 2013 - if his health became extremely bad. Three migrants have died trying to cross the English Channel after their boat got into difficulty. The asylum seekers were pronounced dead after falling into the water off the coast of Cap Gris-Nez, northern France this afternoon. Patrick Leleu, deputy prosecutor at the Judicial court of Boulogne-sur-Mer, said: 'I can confirm the death of three migrants who fell into the water this afternoon off the coast of Cap Gris Nez. The investigation is ongoing.' It comes as dozens of migrants made the treacherous crossing to the UK today in strong winds and also thick fog. The last fatalities in the Channel happened on January 14 when five migrants died while trying to make the treacherous journey across the 21-mile Dover Straits. Three bodies have reportedly been pulled from the English Channel today. Pictured: A Border Force Defender escort in Dover Dozens of migrants have been brought ashore today at the Port of Dover - after battling thick fog to get across the Channel A UK Government spokesperson said: 'We can confirm there has been an incident in the Channel involving a small boat in French waters. 'French authorities are leading the response and investigation. We will not be commenting further at this stage.' A search and rescue operation is now underway from both UK and French authorities, with reports that a fourth body has been spotted floating in the sea in French waters. It comes after bad weather sweeped back into the Channel and smugglers took advantage of a small weather window to push out multiple migrant boats from French shores, GB News reports. Up to six small boats are believed to have made it into UK waters today and more than 300 migrants were taken to the Border Force processing centre at Dover harbour. This would make it the biggest single-day arrival of small boat migrants in the month of February since 2018. Earlier today, it was revealed that dozens of migrants were brought ashore today at the Port of Dover after battling thick fog to get across the Channel. The mainly-male group of around 50 asylum seekers arrived despite poor conditions including strong winds in the Dover Straits - and they were brought into the harbour in Dover by a Border Force catamaran around Midday. The mainly-male group of around 50 asylum seekers arrived despite poor conditions including strong winds in the Dover Straits The latest crossings take the provisional total number of arrivals in 2024 so far to 2,006 Upon arrival, the migrants were spotted at the former jetfoil terminal wearing bright orange life jackets as they went inside for processing. The latest arrivals come as Number 10 insisted they were taking 'robust action' to crack down on people-smuggling gangs, deter migrants from making crossings and intercept vessels. February 25 saw 290 migrants make the perilous journey in five vessels - an average of 58 people crammed into each inflatable dinghy. This is the highest number of people making the crossing in a single day for more than a month, after 358 people were recorded on January 17. That now means a total of 2,006 asylum seekers have been recorded crossing the Channel in 43 boats to date in 2024, according to official government figures. Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is facing deepening opposition from MPs with more than 90 now backing a move to replace him. The Parliamentary referee is facing continued anger from the Tories and the SNP over his handling of a vote last week on support for a ceasefire in Gaza. Some 93 MPs from the two parties, as well as Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru, have signed an early day motion (EDM) of no confidence in Sir Lindsay. That amounts to 14 per cent of all 650 members of the chamber. For context, a leadership challenge to Tory leaders is triggered if 15 per cent of party MPs vote in a similar way. And just 10 per cent of the electorate have to sign a recall petition to eject a sitting MP found to have brought Parliament into disrepute. It came as Sir Lindsay cut an unusually quiet figure at Prime Minister's Questions. He is usually quick to intervene to hush boisterous backbenchers talking over the PM and opposition leader. But he made no interventions during the half-hour session. The Parliamentary referee is facing continued anger from the Tories and the SNP over his handling of a vote last week on support for a ceasefire in Gaza. Sir Lindsay sparked anger when he broke with convention last week to allow a vote on a Labour amendment to the SNP's motion for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The controversial decision, which infuriated SNP and Tory MPs, meant the SNP's motion - the original focus of the debate - was not voted on. It led to some MPs walking out in protest and the Commons quickly descended into chaos. The Speaker's choice to select both a Labour amendment and a Government amendment were claimed by some to be a 'stitch-up' to help Sir Keir Starmer avoid another revolt on the issue. Sir Keir has since denied threatening Sir Lindsay to select Labour's amendment, which backed an 'immediate humanitarian ceasefire' along with caveats over the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas. He said he 'simply urged' the Speaker to have the 'broadest possible debate'. Senior Tories are said to be mulling a push for a Privileges Committee probe into th affair. Ministers are said to have held talks about the plan, with the SNP also pushing for Sir Keir to be investigated. The Privileges Committee can recommend sanctions if they find against an MP, including a possible suspension from the Commons. Sir Keir goaded Rishi Sunak over Nigel Farage taking his job today during brutal PMQs clashes. The pair exchanged vicious barbs in the Commons as Sir Keir accused Mr Sunak of 'dancing to the tune' of the Brexit champion. The Labour leader raised Liz Truss arguing that Mr Farage was the person to 'restore' the Conservatives, swiping that the party had become the 'political wing of the Flat Earth Society'. Mr Sunak pointedly refused to rule out a comeback for Mr Farage, instead boasting about the Tories' record of producing the first Jewish, female and Asian heritage PMs. In contrast he said Labour had only put forward people from North London. The drill rapper son of Mark Duggan has admitted possessing a semi-automatic pistol and 22 rounds of ammunition. Kemani Duggan, who performs under the name Bandokay, had been arrested at Gatwick Airport on January 13, this year. Appearing at Wood Green Crown Court via video-link from HMP Thameside on Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to possessing a 7.62mm Tokarev calibre Zastava Arms model M57 self-loading pistol. The 22-year-old also confessed to possessing ammunition without a firearm certificate with 22 bulleted cartridges between 19 February 2023 and 21 March 2023. Duggan, who appeared relaxed as he appeared before the court in a blue prison issue tracksuit, denied the more serious charges of possessing the weapon and ammunition with intent to endanger life. Kemani Duggan, pictured here outside Southwark Crown Court in March 2023, admitted to possessing a semi-automatic pistol and ammunition He is the son of Mark Duggan (pictured), who was killed by police in north London in August 2011 The defendant was just 10 when his 29-year-old father was shot dead by police in Tottenham, north London, in August 2011, sparking riots in cities across Britain. His father was in a minicab when officers tried to arrest him on suspicion of possession of a handgun on 4 August 2011. Mark was shot twice by officer V53 - one of the bullets which hit him in the chest was fatal. Tree years later an inquest jury concluded he had been lawfully killed. Kemani was remanded in custody ahead of his trial on July 1 at Wood Green Crown Court. The trial is expected to last between 7 and 10 days. Experts have warned the life sentence imposed on one of Europe's most powerful drug lords will not be enough to disrupt the flow of cocaine from South America. Yesterday, a Dutch court handed a life sentence to Ridouan Taghi, the 'undisputed leader' of a mafia-style mega gang that terrorised the Netherlands and killed a witness to the so-called Marengo Trial, as well as a lawyer and a journalist over the last six years. Taghi, the 46-year-old drug baron who was reportedly worth $1 billion (789 million) after rising his way through the ranks of the feared 'Mocro Mafia' by smuggling huge quantities of cocaine into Europe from South America, was among 17 people convicted in the Netherlands' largest and most complex drug trial in its history. But experts have said that the arrests will do little to curtail the overall drugs trade between South America and Europe. Sven Brinkhoff, a professor of criminal law at the University of Amsterdam, told the Times that the gang 'brought fear into this system', adding that he does not believe the guilty verdicts would be enough to counter the unwanted but growing reputation of the Netherlands as a 'narco state.' Ridouan Taghi (pictured) was handed a life sentence by a Dutch court He is worth $1 billion (789 million) after rising his way through the ranks of the feared 'Mocro Mafia' by smuggling huge quantities of cocaine into Europe Policemen stand guard at the extra-secure court, prior to the verdict in the Marengo criminal case Experts said the conclusion of the case would not disrupt the flow of drugs into Europe 'One thing we know for sure is that the underlying cocaine trafficking will continue, and that's an uncomfortable truth,' he added. This unwanted reputation has begun to worry those in positions in power. Early last month the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, urged other politicians to fight the drugs trade quickly in an opinion piece published in the Guardian. She wrote: 'In the past decade, the port of Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, has become a global transit hub for cocaine. 'The Dutch authorities have increased their efforts to combat drug trafficking, but they have not turned the tide. 'Recent figures show a record increase in the amount of cocaine being seized, from just over 22,000kg in the first half of 2022 to 29,702kg in the first half of 2023. 'While this may seem encouraging at first glance, it actually illustrates the immense scale of what is happening. 'Our current approach in the fight against drugs is like mopping with the tap running.' The trial, which took place over the last six years, as well as three more murders linked to the case have enthralled and rattled the Netherlands, exposing the deadly reality of the country's drug-fuelled criminal underworld. Naima Jilal, who is also believed to be one of the victims of Taghi Ronald Bakker, who was shot dead outside his home after the gang suspected that he had been co-operating with the police The court heard that Taghi - alleged to be Europe's most feared and powerful drug lord - had a simple rule: 'If you talk, you die.' Prosecutors have insisted on life sentences for Taghi, 46, who pleaded not guilty, and five of his co-defendants, for their involvement in what they called a 'well-oiled murder machine.' Heavily armed police officers wearing body armour, helmets and ski masks patrolled streets around the court as cars carrying some of the defendants swept into an underground parking lot for the hearing. Taghi was convicted on five murder counts, including on a man called Hakim Changachi, who was gunned down in Utrecht in 2017 in what prosecutors say was a case of mistaken identity. 'Taghi ordered the hit' on another man who lived in the same block of flats as Changachi, the judge said. 'Taghi was responsible for the mistake,' the judge added. 'He decided who would be killed and spared no one,' the presiding judge said. 'The amount of suffering Taghi caused to the victims and their loved ones is barely imaginable.' Taghi was convicted on five murder counts, including on a man called Hakim Changachi, (pictured) who was gunned down in Utrecht in 2017 in what prosecutors say was a case of mistaken identity Lawyers arrive at the extra-secure court for the verdict in the Marengo criminal case, in Amsterdam, on Tuesday A secured car arrives at the extra-secure court for the verdict in the Marengo criminal case in Amsterdam, on Tuesday The court ruled that Taghi also used extreme violence to intimidate enemies and potential police informants. 'By doing so he prevented people from cooperating with the police. Such terror has a disruptive effect on society,' the presiding judge said. Court officials asked media not to identify the judges by name over security concerns. At least three people directly connected to the mega six-year trial, named after a judicial codeword for the operation, have been assassinated. The brother of a key witness, identified only as Nabil B., his lawyer and a journalist who acted as a confidante for the witness were all killed in the nearly six years since the trial opened. Lawyer Derk Wiersum was gunned down outside his home in Amsterdam on September 18, 2019. Two men have been convicted of murder in his killing. Journalist Peter R. de Vries was also shot in Amsterdam as he walked to his car from a television studio on July 6, 2021. He died nine days later of his injuries. Prosecutors have sought life sentences for three of the suspects in his slaying. De Vries acted as Nabil B.'s confidant at the time of his murder and had said before he was on Taghi's hit-list. Said Razzouki (Pictured) Ridouan Taghi's right-hand man and fugitive leader in the Mocro-Mafia The trial, which took place over the last six years, as well as three more murders linked to the case have enthralled and rattled the Netherlands At one point in the brutal narco battles, a severed head was placed outside a hangout used by rivals in a show of intimidation. The wave of murders gave the already grim trial 'a pitch-black edge,' the presiding judge told a packed courtroom. The judge lamented that De Vries 'will never again sit in the press bench' at the court. Dutch King Willem-Alexander called De Vries' shooting 'an attack on journalism, the cornerstone of our constitutional state and therefore also an attack on the rule of law.' Taghi was one of the Netherlands' most-wanted men until he was arrested in Dubai in 2019 and flown home to face trial. He and other defendants were charged with involvement in six murders and four attempted murders. Despite being held at an ultra-secure prison, prosecutors say he continued pulling the strings, sending secret messages to henchmen on the outside. Taghi's gang was nicknamed the 'Mocro-maffia' because its members are mainly of Moroccan and Antillean origin. The Public Prosecution Service alleged that the defendants were part of a 'completely unscrupulous murder organization, which has carelessly and indifferently killed people.' security staff stands guard outside the court bunker in Amsterdam-Osdorp before a hearing in the Marengo criminal case The court delivered the verdict yesterday They said the fallout from the multiple slayings had 'not only been felt for the next of kin, but have also had after-effects more broadly in society.' Lawyers for the suspects had sought their acquittal. The court rejected defense arguments that the trial was unfair and that the suspects had already been convicted in the court of public opinion. The court ruled that testimony from Nabil B. was trustworthy and could be used as evidence. The witness himself was also on trial and was sentenced to 10 years, a sentence reduced due to his cooperation. Other suspects received sentences ranging from life imprisonment to just under two years behind bars. Judges said the witness's testimony led to convictions in five murders that otherwise would not have been solved. But after handing him a reduced sentence, the presiding judge added that he 'will have to live with the reality that you will always have to look over your shoulder.' The court also accepted decrypted telephone messages as evidence in their verdicts. Lawyers for the suspects had argued that the evidence could not be used in the trial. The convictions and sentences can be appealed. Walt Disney is once again hiking the prices of some of its tickets for 2025, as the company plans to invest nearly $2 billion in revamping its Anaheim theme park in California. The least expensive single-day, single-park ticket prices have increased from $109 to $119, marking the first adjustment since 2019. While the peak price remains the same as in 2024 at $189, the cost of visiting Magic Kingdom Park in Florida on busy days, such as July 4th, has risen from $184 to $189. Additionally, prices for the Park Hopper options, which allow guests to visit multiple theme parks on the same day, have also seen an increase ranging from $5 to $10. Tickets for Animal Kingdom Park in September, when demand is low, represent the most affordable option - $119. The price increase follows multiple hikes announced by the company in recent years and the ambitious plan to invest $60 billion revamping its parks in the next decade. Walt Disney is once again hiking the prices of some of its tickets for 2025, as the company plans to invest nearly $2 billion in revamping its Anaheim theme park in California While the peak price remains the same as in 2024 at $189, the cost of visiting Magic Kingdom Park (pictured) in Florida on busy days, such as July 4th, has risen from $184 to $189 The price increase follows multiple hikes announced by the company in recent years and the ambitious plan to invest $60 billion revamping its parks in the next decade The only exception was when the firm temporarily slashed the price of its children's tickets to as little as $50 each from January 8 to March 10 this year. The Walt Disney Company announced plans to invest $60 billion over the next decade in its parks and cruise lines, as revealed in an SEC filing in September last year. As part of the investment, Disney World's Magic Kingdom is set to undergo its 'largest ever' expansion. Last month, Disney announced detailed plans revamp its Anaheim theme park in California and incorporating new attractions, shops and restaurants within the existing 490-acre space. If approved by Anaheim city leaders, the project could introduce new rides and attractions inspired by beloved Disney stories such as Frozen, Peter Pan, Tangled, Toy Story, and Zootopia. The allocated $1.9 billion will go towards 'theme park lands, attractions, hotels, shopping and dining west of Disneyland Drive and on the Toy Story parking lot,' according to the Orange County Register. The Anaheim Planning Commission is set to hold hearings in March and the city council will vote on the proposal in May. The city of Anaheim released an environmental impact report on the proposal last year, according to ABC7. The report found that the expansion's biggest impacts will be to air quality, greenhouse gas emissions and noise. Last month, Disney announced detailed plans revamp its Anaheim theme park (pictured) in California and incorporating new attractions, shops and restaurants within the existing 490-acre space In the last 12 months to July 2023, Disney turned over $32.3billion in revenue thanks to its lucrative experiences The way Disney releases the 2025 tickets for sale reflects the company adopting a new pricing approach, according to Don Munsil, who runs the travel website MouseSavers.com. Munsil told CNN: 'In the past, Disney just raised all the ticket prices at once rather than rolling out new prices as they added new dates to their calendar.' 'The last time the prices went up, a specific date might be $144 on one day, and then after the price increase that same exact date is now $151. 'So this new strategy is interesting, because all the 2024 prices remained unchanged.' 'If this holds, it represents a new way of raising prices that makes ticket pricing stable for a specific date.' Sen. Hyde-Smith said the Democrats' legislation goes 'way too far' Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi blocked passage of a bill to protect access to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) on Wednesday after Democrats attempted to force a vote on the issue to put Republicans on the spot. The move came after the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling earlier this month that frozen embryos are children sparked massive bipartisan outrage. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., called on the Senate to set aside procedure and immediately pass the Access to Family Building Act through unanimous consent on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon. Duckworth has warned it is only a matter of time before other states could end up in a similar situation to Alabama where some fertility clinics paused IVF following the court decision putting thousands of families trying to have children through IVF in limbo. But Republican Sen. Hyde-Smith called the bill a 'vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far' and moved to block the bill from being considered. She said the legislation would waive the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which would subject religious and pro-life organizations to 'crippling lawsuits.' Sen. Hyde-Smith blocked a Senate vote on a bill to protect access to IVF on Wednesday calling it a 'vast overreach' Senate Democrats calling for the passage of a bill to protect access to fertility treatment called the Access to Family Building Act after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled embryos are babies Senator Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., announcing she would call for unanimous consent on her bill to protect access to IVF and other fertility treatment on the Senate floor. Duckworth said she would not have been able to become a mother if not for such treatment Duckworth blasted Republicans on Wednesday, posting on X 'After days of publicly claiming to support IVF in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, Senate Republicans just blocked my legislation to protect access to IVF nationwide.' Last month, Duckworth along with Senators Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., introduced legislation that would protect a persons right to access fertility services such as IVF and healthcare providers that provide such services. The bill would have also protected a persons rights regarding the use or disposal of their reproductive genetic materials and would allow the Justice Department to pursue civil action against any state or government official that violates such protections. Duckworth has noted the issue is very personal to her. The senator and mother of two daughters is the first sitting senator to have a baby while in office. She noted she was only able to become a mom through IVF after her military service in Iraq. Duckwoth blasted the ruling saying the people claiming to be defending family values are actively trying to enact policies that would prevent Americans from creating those families. The push by Senate Democrats to protect IVF is the latest effort as families, healthcare providers and officials have been scrambling in the wake of the bombshell Alabama ruling which raises concerns that clinics could be held liable for destroying fertilized eggs. Some fertility clinics in Alabama have already paused treatments amid fear of prosecution as the ruling opened the door to wrongful death lawsuits in all cases where embryos do not survive being thawed and transferred to the uterus. Embryo selection for IVF shown under a light micrograph - the treatment is overwhelmingly popular with Americans The highlighted states have laws on the books stipulating that life begins at the moment of fertilization. In Louisiana, the intentional disposal or destruction of a human embryo is illegal President Biden called the ruling outrageous and unacceptable in a statement. Democrats have slammed the decision as a direct result of the Supreme Court decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade. Make no mistake: this ruling is a direct result of Donald Trumps promise to overturn Roe v. Wadeand Ive been warning that IVF would be next for years, Duckworth said on Tuesday. She put the onus on Senate Republicans saying if they truly care about the sanctity of families, then they need to show it by not blocking this bill. Republicans have been scrambling to reject the Alabama ruling. Former President Donald Trump said he would strongly support the availability of IVF and called on Alabama to find an immediate solution. GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she sees frozen embryos as babies but later attempted to clarify that she did not say she agreed with the Alabama ruling. Former President Trump called on Alabama to find a solution following the ruling and said he supports the availability of IVF treatment. Democrats say the AL ruling is the direct result of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade with the addition of three justices he appointed Haley, who has talked in general terms about her personal struggles with fertility, said she used artificial insemination to have her son Nalin, the second of her two children. She said she views embryos as babies but later clarified she does not agree with the Alabama ruling The National Republican Senatorial Committee also told DailyMail.com that none of their candidates support a ban on IVF. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a statement following the court ruling that he supports IVF treatment. But he along with 124 other House Republicans backed the Life Begins at Conception bill last year. It does not include a carveout for IVF treatment, though it does state nothing in the bill should be construed to authorize the prosecution of any woman for the death of her unborn child. A Belmarsh prison officer who derailed a murder trial by investing a false confession after a killer showered her with money and gifts has been ailed for four years and eight months today. Wiktoria Bujko, 30, reported a false confession by suspect Aaron Campbell, 32, while he was on remand at the maximum security jail for shooting Iron Miah, 40, on his doorstep. Bujko, who has a masters degree in criminology, made the false claim at the behest of Campbells co-defendant Mohammed Moshaer Ali, 31, bribing her with money, gifts and promises, the Old Bailey heard. The corrupt prison officer was slipped 500 into her bank account, and was promised a car, after she handed her bogus witness statement to police about the killer. Bujko, from Poland, made her false report on October 17 2022, as a retrial into the killing was about to start, and was arrested months later in December 2022. Wiktoria Bujko, 30, was slipped 500 into her bank account, and was promised a car, after she handed her bogus witness statement to police about the killer She claimed she overheard a conversation in the southeast London jails healthcare unit between Campbell and another inmate, suggesting he and Antonio Afflick-McLeod, 32, planned to rob Ali of drugs on the day of the killing. An examination of CCTV footage of the unit revealed that Campbell was not there when she claimed to have witnessed the exchange. Ali put Bujko up to creating an entirely false account of a confession by Campbell and shown himself to be an outrageous liar, said Crispin Aylett, KC, prosecuting. Bujko had known Ali since he was first remanded to HMP Thameside, where she was working and he was working as a cleaner while in prison. She told a probation worker that prisoners were more supportive of her than her colleagues and she felt vulnerable. The pair had been texting while Ali was in prison and he had promised her a car while his relatives took her out for meals and supplied her with drugs. In a message to a friend she said: I got several things gifted from him, Im not gonna lie. Hell be out for Christmas. Bujko and Ali admitted perverting the course of justice. Bujko made the false claim at the behest of Campbells co-defendant Mohammed Moshaer Ali (pictured), 31, bribing her with money, gifts and promises Iron Miah, 40, who was shot dead on his doorstep in east London in November 2019 Ali, Campbell, and Afflick-McLeod, carried out the brutal execution of father-of-two Mr Miah in east London on 19 November 2019. Ali was jailed for life with a minimum term of 36 years. The judge had ordered that the male defendants be handcuffed during sentencing for safety - although Campbell and Afflick-McLeod refused to come into the dock in cuffs. The judge will sentence them separately later this afternoon. Mr Miah was found dying in the street outside his home in Whitechapel just months after he was released from prison. Bujko reported a false confession by suspect Aaron Campbell (pictured), 32, while he was on remand at the maximum security jail for shooting Iron Miah Afflick-McLeod (pictured), 32, carried out the brutal execution of father-of-two Mr Miah in east London on 19 November 2019 along with Ali and Campbell He was taken to hospital after the hit but he had suffered an unrecoverable brain injury and he was removed from life support two days later. Ali, Campbell and Afflick-McLeod denied murder but were convicted by an Old Bailey jury after their third trial. Addressing Bujko and Ali, Judge Nigel Lickley, KC, said: You both embarked on a brazen plan to disrupt the second trial in this matter by producing a false prison report implicating Antonio Afflick-McLeod in murder and exonerating you, Mohamed Ali. Thankfully as a result of requests made by the defence team to investigate it became clear the two of you concocted a plan to disrupt that trial and bring about a positive result for Mohamed Ali. As a result that trial had to be abandoned resulting in great public expense and the trial delayed by a further year. Ali, Campbell and Afflick-McLeod denied murder but were convicted by an Old Bailey jury after their third trial You Wiktoria were prepared to come into court and lie on oath. You knew each other as prisoner and prison officer at HMP Belmarsh and had both been at HMP Thameside before. You had been in a corrupt and dishonest relationship, money had been sent, gifts given and a car promised to Wiktoria Bujko. Friends and relatives had taken Wiktoria out for meals and supplied her with drugs. The judge said the murder had been a callous, carefully planned attack and was likely motivated by involvement in drug dealing. He said: You chose to murder him outside his home so members of his own family would be the first to find him outside on the pavement. He had regarded you, Ali, as a friend. You educed him to come out and do you a favour. You betrayed him. Addressing Bujko and Ali, Judge Nigel Lickley, KC, said the pair knew each other as prisoner and prison officer at HMP Belmarsh (pictured) and had both been at HMP Thameside before Ali is married with two children, the court heard. Bujkos barrister Abigail Bright said: She is sorry. She genuinely really and truly is sorry. She has felt this absolute and demolishing fall from grace as especially hard to bear. As a former prison officer, now utterly disgraced, her fall could not have been any harder. She said Bujko was working hard in prison on her rehabilitation and had applied to and taken many courses. She acquiesced and was deployed by Ali who initiated the cause of events in which her involvement of course was critical. Plainly it was to his advantage to use and deploy her and she was a willing stooge and she was his dupe. She is likely to be deported back to Poland at the end of her sentence. The gun used in the murder was never recovered, but drugs and a sawn-off-shotgun were found at Afflick-McLeods home. Police also seized CCTV from a convenience shop on Movers Lane, Barking, showing Afflick-McLeod buying a SIM card, the day before the murder. Officers were able to identify him by a tattoo on his neck. The SIM showed Afflick-McLeod had been in communication with Ali in the lead up to the shooting. Ali, of Western Avenue, Dagenham, Afflick-McLeod, of Mayfair Avenue, Ilford, and Campbell, of Star Road, Hammersmith, all denied but were convicted of murder Bujko, of Marlborough Road, Woolwich and Ali both admitted perverting the course of justice. A Massachusetts fire commissioner has come under fire for allegedly running over and killing a raccoon, which officials believed to be rabid and 'foaming' at the mouth. Springfield Fire Commissioner, BJ Calvi has allegedly been seen on camera running over an infected raccoon in front of the Springfield Fire Department's Headquarters on February 21. Clips of the video show a black SUV, believed to be a city vehicle, moving ahead and revving back in the middle of the day as another man in a firefighter's uniform approaches the car. The Springfield Fire Department said that while they did receive reports of a raccoon in distress, they were unable to confirm whether it was genuinely rabid. Springfield Fire Commissioner, BJ Calvi has allegedly been seen on camera running over an infected raccoon in front of the Springfield Fire Department's Headquarters on February 21 Clips of the video show a black SUV, believed to be a city vehicle, moving ahead and revving back in the middle of the day The Springfield Fire Department said that while they did receive reports of a raccoon in distress, they were unable to confirm whether it was genuinely rabid Springfield Fire Captain Drew Piemonte told 22News: 'I notified TJ OConnor Animal Control, but they dont handle nuisance wildlife. They were able to contact a trapper. But couldn't estimate the time of arrival. 'And due to the area where the station is located its high occupancy and high foot traffic, he determined it was a threat to public safety and "dispatched" it with his city vehicle.' The Fire Department further said that the 'Commissioner did observe the raccoon foaming at the mouth'. The Springfield Police Department also confirmed that they received calls about a sick raccoon. Since the release of the video, local leaders and residents have been criticizing the Commissioner of inhumanity and and have prompted discussions on wildlife management in urban areas. Since the release of the video, local leaders and residents have been criticizing the Commissioner of inhumanity Former State Representative Cheryl Coakley-Rivera of the Hampden County Registry of Deeds said: 'This was extremely disturbing, what are you thinking when you are running it over, you miss it, you back up, and you run it over again? 'Right now I am a concerned citizen. His best thinking is not good enough, and I think the mayor should take a look at this video. 'I think it's pretty disgusting, and disturbing and clearly something needs to be done. It's not acceptable.' Critics have also argued that the method used by the accused was 'excessively' cruel and other solutions should have been considered. Springfield Fire Captain Drew Piemonte said: 'I notified TJ OConnor Animal Control, but they dont handle nuisance wildlife. They were able to contact a trapper. But couldn't estimate the time of arrival' Former State Representative Cheryl Coakley-Rivera of the Hampden County Registry of Deeds said: 'I think it's pretty disgusting, and disturbing and clearly something needs to be done. It's not acceptable' But while some have criticized Calvi, Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno has come to his defense and said that the action 'had to be taken in the name of public health and safety'. Sarno added that Calvi was acting within his capacity as a municipal official, as specified by the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. His role as a municipal official allowed him to respond and take immediate action when he reasonably concludes that an animal is rabid. According to the Police Department's spokesperson Ryan Walsh, if locals come into contact with a potentially sick or injured wild animal, they should call the police for assistance. If there is an imminent danger to the public, officers can euthanize the animal with their service weapons, as long as 'it is safe to do so with no passing cars or bystanders in the line of fire,' Walsh told MassLive. It is unclear whether action will be taken against Calvi or if efforts will be made to determine whether the racoon was indeed rabid. The physical appearance of the lead actor in the upcoming reboot of The Crow is not going over well with fans of the original 1994 film. One of the three movie photos released Wednesday by Vanity Fair shows the films star, Bill Skarsgard covered in black makeup and tattoos. An X (formerly Twitter) user is not pleased with the horrible character design, and like many other members of the social media platform, she has compared his look to that of Jared Leto as The Joker. They Jared Letos Jokerfied Eric Drave, THATS DISGUSTING, another person wrote. The film is scheduled to be released in theaters on June 7, 2024. Bill Skarsgard will be covered in black makeup and tattoos while portraying the role of Eric Draven in the 2024 film The Crow I want to watch The Crow, not another version of Jared Leto as the Joker from Suicide Squad. Horrible character design. #TheCrow https://t.co/7zlw2qKRS0 pic.twitter.com/ZtEJSZLvaQ MimiPRGameFreak (@MimiPRGameFreak) February 28, 2024 They Jared Leto's Jokerified Eric Draven, THAT'S DISGUSTING Anyways watch The Crow (1994) https://t.co/GNWIOPhXOz pic.twitter.com/eMXsMyzkCm Angel (@GrimInker) February 28, 2024 X (formerly Twitter) users have given negative reviews toward the look of Eric Draven in the upcoming film and have compared his look to The Joker and Peso Pluma Skarsgard is taking over the role as Eric Draven from the late actor Brandon Lee, who died while filming a scene for the original film on March 31, 1993. Lees character, Eric Draven, was a musician who along with his fiancee, Shelly Webster was murdered by a gang on the night before their wedding. Eric rises from the grave on the one year anniversary of their murders and seeks to avenge his and Shellys deaths. Eric rises from the grave on the one year anniversary of their murders and seeks to avenge his and Shellys deaths. He becomes a gothic, supernatural avenger known as The Crow, wearing all dark clothing, and white and black face makeup. The film was a critical and financial success and it grossed nearly $100 million at the box-office. Three more movies in The Crow franchise were released in 1996, 2000, and 2005, but none of them were as successful as the first movie. The 2024 film will be the first movie in The Crow franchise that is a reboot, and Skarsgards Joker-like appearance will not be the only thing that makes the remake different from the original. Lees character, Eric Draven, was a musician who along with his fiancee, Shelly Webster was murdered by a gang on the night before their wedding The 2024 reboot was filmed in Prague and the Czech Republic from July to September, 2022. It will have a similar plotline and follow Skarsgards character who is out to avenge his and his fiancee's deaths. FKA Twigs will play the role of Shelly Webster and unlike the first film, their characters will not die within the first few minutes of the movie. Its unclear who will murder Eric and Shelly in the reboot, but the killer or killers are said to be the demons of Shelly Webster's past. Despite X users showing their hate toward Skarsgards Joker look, a few commenters on Instagram are still excited to see the movie and have praised the actors character design. FKA Twigs will play the role of Shelly Webster and unlike the first film, their characters will not die within the first few minutes of the movie Instagram users have written nicer comments regarding the design of Eric Draven for the upcoming film, but the actor's look was also compared to Machine Gun Kelly's appearance Some Instagram users that commented on the film photos wrote about how excited they were to see the film. 'IDC WHAT ANYONE SAYS IM LOVING THIS,' an Instagram user wrote. Others have continued to compare his look to Jared Leto's The Joke, but have also compared his appearance to Machine Gun Kelly. 'I like Bill Skarsgard, but this looks like a hard pass,' one person on Instagram wrote. 'He's a "goth rocker"? Looking like Machine Gun Kelly? NAH. That looks like someone had no idea what a goth rocker would look like.' A former finance director at New York University pleaded guilty to a $3.5 million fraud scheme targeting minority and woman-owned businesses that helped fund her lavish lifestyle and $660,000 in renovations at her Connecticut home. Cindy Tappe, 57, of Westport, used her position at the Manhattan school to divert money intended for businesses, the offices of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a joint statement Monday. Tappe pleaded guilty Monday to grand larceny and has agreed to five years probation and $663,209 in restitution, according to the offices. 'Her fraudulent actions not only threatened to affect the quality of education for students with disabilities and multilingual students, but denied our city's minority and women owned business enterprises a chance to fairly compete for funding,' Bragg said in a statement. Bragg and DiNapoli's offices say Tappe improperly routed $3.3 million to two shell companies she created while serving as director of finance and administration for NYU's Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation of Schools. Cindy Tappe , 57, of Westport, Connecticut, used her position at the Manhattan school to divert money intended for minority and women owned businesses, the offices of Manhattan District (Pictured in April, 2023) More than $660,000 was used to pay for Tappe's personal expenses, including renovations to her home in Connecticut (pictured) and an $80,000 swimming pool Tappe's home in Westport, Connecticut, with the swimming pool she paid for with stolen cash, prosecutors claim Some of the diverted funds were used to cover NYU-related expenses, including employee reimbursements, but more than $660,000 was used to pay for Tappe's personal expenses, including renovations to her home in Connecticut and an $80,000 swimming pool, the offices said. The diverted funds were related to $23 million in state Education Department grants awarded to the Metropolitan Center between 2011 and 2018, according to Bragg and DiNapoli's offices. Tappe's lawyer Deborah Colson said her client has accepted responsibility, 'strongly regrets her misconduct' and plans to pay the required restitution in full prior to her sentencing on April 16. 'After that, she looks forward to putting this case behind her,' Colson said in a statement. NYU said Tuesday that its internal audit office had investigated Tappe and turned over its findings to state officials, leading to the criminal charges. Tappe pleaded guilty Monday to grand larceny and has agreed to five years probation and $663,209 in restitution, according to the offices (Pictured in April, 2023) Cindy Tappe appears in Manhattan Supreme Court on fraud charges for stealing nearly $3.5 million dollars in school funds (April, 2023) Tappe's lawyer Deborah Colson said her client has accepted responsibility, 'strongly regrets her misconduct' and plans to pay the required restitution in full prior to her sentencing on April 16. The pair is seen in the courthouse after a pretrial hearing in April, 2023 'We are deeply disappointed that Ms. Tappe abused the trust we placed in her in this way; she stole from everyone the taxpayer, the University, the people the Metro Center is supposed to help,' university spokesperson John Beckman wrote in an email. 'NYU is pleased to have been able to assist in stopping this misdirection of taxpayer money, and glad that the case has been brought to a close.' Tappe was put on leave from her new job at Yale in December 2022, after being indicted for embezzling millions in funding for the Manhattan school on personal expenses. She had since started work as an operations manager at the Yale's School of Medicine, but was suspended Monday after staffers learned of the charges. In 2022, Tappe pleaded not guilty to using the stolen money to fund what prosecutors labeled a 'lavish lifestyle', with at at least $660,000 in renovations to her sprawling Connecticut home, and the aforementioned pool. Billed as having 'excellence in the Comprehensive knowledge of financial and grants and has effective leadership and team-building skills' on the Yale website, Tappe faced six counts of money laundering, grand larceny, and fraud for the alleged six-year scheme, and was released at the time without bail. A spokesperson for Yale - situated in New Haven, not far from Tappe's two-acre, multimillion-dollar property in Westport - confirmed then that 'Ms. Tappe has been placed on leave,' but would not specify whether that leave was paid or not. The elite school - which employed Tappe as an operations manager in 2018 despite staffers at NYU at that point uncovering her alleged misdeeds - insisted in a statement that Tappe was vetted before being hired. The cash was to be spend on controlling two state programs: one to assist school districts in improving results for students learning English, and another to ensure that students in special education received fair treatment Tappe allegedly used the $3.4million grant money meant for minority- and women-owned businesses to fund what prosecutors labeled a 'lavish lifestyle' - including an $80,000 pool Bragg and DiNapoli's offices say Tappe improperly routed $3.3 million to two shell companies she created while serving as director of finance and administration for NYU's Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation of Schools 'All potential employees are subject to reference and background checks,' wrote spokesperson Karen Peat. Following her indictment, NYU spokesman John Beckman said the school - which reported Tappes scheme to police upon uncovering it in 2018 - was 'deeply disappointed that an employee abused the trust we placed in her.' Beckman said that the school discovered the 'suspicious activity' from their senior staffer in 2018, leading to Tappe to hand in her resignation after being confronted. 'We are pleased to have been able to assist in stopping this misdirection of taxpayer money,' Beckman said Monday. In Manhattan district court , New York State comptroller Thomas DiNapoli asserted that Tappe stole the money to 'fund a lavish lifestyle.' Both DiNapoli and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, alleged she concocted her scheme over six years from 2012 to 2018 with an elaborate system of shell companies to steal the cash. In Manhattan district court, New York State comptroller Thomas DiNapoli asserted that Tappe stole the money to 'fund a lavish lifestyle,' including host of renovations to her Westport home According to Braggs office, Tappe funneled the money - rung from $23 million in grant money awarded to an N.Y.U. center where she worked - using two companies she constructed, as well as by drafting false invoices for three subcontractors, who received a cut for no-show without doing the work According to Bragg's office, Tappe funneled the money - rung from $23 million in grant money awarded to an N.Y.U. center where she worked - using two companies she constructed, as well as by drafting false invoices for three subcontractors, who received a three to six percent cut for no-show jobs without doing the work. The cash was to be spend on controlling two state programs: one to assist school districts in improving results for students learning English, and another to ensure that students in special education received fair treatment. The cash was to be spend on controlling two state programs: one to assist school districts in improving results for students learning English, and another to ensure that students in special education received fair treatment. Under the terms of the grants, a certain percentage had to go to women- and minority-owned businesses, which would then administer those programs. Tappe took the $3.5 million, and instead of distributing it, sent it to the small group of subcontractors, who took a small cut and then sent roughly $3.4 million to the shell companies that she created. Using those shell companies - High Galaxy and PCM Group - she then spent the money, including the hundreds of thousands of dollars that went to her own personal expenses. A program director learnt of the scheme in 2018, and confronted her. 'Our multilingual learners and students with disabilities deserve top-notch services, and these funds should have gone directly to their schools,' said Bragg. 'Instead, we allege, the funds meant for student programs were used purely for personal gain by an NYU Director of Finance, who renovated a home in Connecticut and bought a swimming pool with the money. 'This $3.5 million fraud also negatively impacted our city's minority and women owned business enterprises by denying them the chance to fairly compete for and secure the funding.' She emailed the directors told them that the school had 'developed good working relationships' with the companies - but she was ultimately fired, and the case referred to DiNapoli's office. A N.Y.U. spokesman said they were 'deeply disappointed' by Tappe's actions. They reported their staffer' suspicious activity' to police in 2018, but Tappe was still hired by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA, said that Tappe's actions 'negatively impacted our city's minority and women owned business enterprises by denying them the chance to fairly compete' NYU, meanwhile, maintains they were and are 'deeply disappointed' that a staff member could act in such a way. The school added that when confronted, Tappe misled school officials about her relationship with the subcontractors and shell companies, before ultimately leaving the school. The missing funds were then reported to the Manhattan's DA office, who launched a more than three-year investigation culminating in Tappe's arrest in 2022. The probe, prosecutors sad, determined that the fraud began in 2012 when Tappe was promoted to director of finance and administration at NYU's Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation of Schools, and persisted until school officials confronted her in September 2018. When contacted Tuesday, Tappe's lawyer, Deborah Colson, declined to comment on her client's case. If convicted, Tappe could face more than 25 years in state prison. The son of killer British Airways captain Robert Brown last night revealed he is living in fear of his father, after the former pilot lost his bid for prison release yesterday. Brown, who bludgeoned his estranged wife to death with a claw hammer in 2010, will remain behind bars after losing his court case against the Justice Secretary. The brutal attack on Joanna Simpson, 46, at their former marital home in Ascot was carried out within earshot of their two young children Alex and Katie, then aged ten and nine. He had been due for automatic release from prison last year after serving half of his 26-year sentence for manslaughter, but Justice Secretary Alex Chalk blocked the move over fears for public safety. Brown took the decision to the High Court for judicial review, claiming it was 'unreasonable' to keep him in prison. Alex, now 23, said he had feared for his grandparents Joanna's parents if Brown was released on licence, and said he never wanted to see his father again. In a statement revealed in an ITV1 documentary, he said he would live in 'perpetual fear' for their safety if Brown was freed. Robert Brown (pictured here in his police mugshot) was jailed for 26 years after admitting to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility The ITV documentary revealed Robert and Joanna on their wedding day in 1999, smiling and happy Joanna Simpson (pictured here with her two children) told one friend that Brown had held a knife to her chest during their relationship In the interview the killer is asked repeatedly what has happened to Joanna Simpson, only to answer 'no comment' every time He and his sister Katie were raised by their grandmother Diana Parkes after their mother was killed and their father jailed. Mrs Parkes, 84, led a high-profile campaign to keep Brown behind bars and yesterday said she was relieved the High Court had rejected his bid for freedom. In his statement, written before yesterday's ruling, Alex said: 'For the last 13 years I have not spoken about my thoughts on my father's release. 'I am most of all concerned for my maternal grandparents, who cannot defend themselves. I do not want to live with this perpetual fear that I will lose yet more of my close family. 'I never want to see my father again, but if he is released now then that power is entirely in his hands.' Brown, now 60, was jailed in 2011 after he was acquitted of murder but admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. He said he was suffering from a stress-related 'adjustment disorder', which he blamed in part on his acrimonious divorce from Joanna. He attacked her inside their former marital home while their children were in another room. The couple's daughter Katie, then nine, said she could hear 'banging' during the brutal assault which killed her mother. The brutal attack took place within earshot of their two young children Alex and Katie, then aged ten and nine Joanna Simpson was killed by Brown at their home in Ascot in Autumn 2010 after the couple's acrimonious divorce The footage shown in the documentary shows the couple's picture perfect wedding in 1999 Brown then dumped his estranged wife's body in a grave he had previously dug in woodland in nearby Windsor Great Park. After his manslaughter conviction in 2011, Katie wrote a letter to the trial judge, saying: 'My father killed my Mummy and I'm scared if he comes out of jail too soon he might come back and hurt me because I heard him killing my Mummy. He is the most evillest man I have ever known and I wish he wasn't my father.' Katie and Alex's statements were revealed in the ITV1 documentary about the case, The British Airways Killer. They were voiced by actors because of fears for the siblings' safety if their father won his judicial review. The programme also featured videos of Brown's police interviews following his arrest, in which he could be seen wearing a T-shirt with 'Grim survivor' written on the front and 'play dirty' written on the back. Brown claimed that 'political motivation' and a media campaign against his release meant Mr Chalk's decision to block his automatic release was unfair. Video footage showing the wedding of Robert Brown and Joanna Simpson is being released as part of a new documentary Joanna (pictured) was initially reported missing from her home the morning after Halloween in 2010, with Brown eventually leading police to where he had dumped her body Justice Secretary Alex Chalk (pictured) blocked Brown's automatic earlier release last year The Justice Secretary used new powers to have Brown's case reviewed by the Parole Board, an independent body that carries out risk assessments on prisoners to determine whether or not they can be released. Brown's lawyers told the High Court that he poses no risk, but recent prison assessments warned he could present a 'significant risk of serious harm' to the public and to his victim's family. Joanna's mother Mrs Parkes last night welcomed the judge's ruling against Brown, saying: 'Brown committed the most horrific crime against my loving and caring daughter, Jo. He must be kept in prison.' Joanna's best friend Hetti Barkworth-Nanton said Brown would now serve his full sentence unless the Parole Board decided he was safe, meaning he would remain behind bars until 2036. She said it was a 'landmark decision' which could block similar attempts by other dangerous criminals to secure their release from prison. Furious residents of Athens heckled their Democratic mayor after the brutal murder of Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus. Mayor Kelly Girtz was interrupted on Wednesday morning as he held a briefing to discuss public safety in Athens after the nursing student was allegedly beaten to death by undocumented migrant Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26. As he tried to deny that Athens is a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants, the crowd started shouting at the mayor. A man in the crowd repeatedly shouted: 'You're a liar.' He added: 'You're the one who is guilty and got blood on your hands for this murder, sir!' Furious residents of Athens heckled their Democratic mayor Kelly Girtz after the brutal murder of Laken Riley on the University of George campus As he tried to deny that Athens is a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants, the crowd started shouting at the mayor Police said Riley died from 'blunt force trauma' after being beaten and that she suffered a 'disfigured skull' Residents of the complex claimed that their security cameras captured Ibarra disposing of evidence in the building's dumpster 'Resign!' others shouted. Other protesters held signs that read: 'Blood on your hands' and 'Make Athens safe again.' Girtz repeatedly pointed out that Athens is not officially a sanctuary city, as Georgia doesn't allow them. 'There's been no legislation from this government thats created sanctuary city status,' he pleaded. 'We are deeply sorry for this tragedy ... Responsibility for this crime rests solely upon the perpetrator.' While Athens is not a sanctuary city, meaning the government has not said it would not cooperate with the federal government to enforce immigration laws, police found multiple undocumented immigrants living in Ibarra's apartment. It's unclear how they were able to rent an apartment without official documents. However, Ibarra's brother Diego Ibarra has been arrested for obtaining a job with a fake green card. Ibarra was arrested at his apartment complex near the running trail close to where Riley's body was found last week. Residents of the complex told NewsNation's Alex Caprariello that their security cameras captured Ibarra disposing of evidence in the building's dumpster, which they turned over to police. Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was arrested at his apartment complex near the running trail close to where Riley's body was found Riley's body was found the same day on campus in a forested area near Lake Herrick that includes trails popular with runners and walkers Riley studied at the University of Georgia through the spring of 2023 before transferring to Augusta Universitys College of Nursing 'He was out here all hours of the night and day,' the neighbor said. The complex is a former hotel converted into studio apartments and Ibarra is said to have lived in one unit with four or five other migrants. The 26-year-old has been charged in Riley's killing with felony murder, false imprisonment, kidnapping and concealing the death of another. Ibarra is accused of using an unknown object as a weapon to kill the 22-year-old Augusta University student and preventing her from making a 911 call when he allegedly grabbed her between 9am and 1pm on Thursday February 22. Riley's body was found the same day on the University of Georgia campus in a forested area near Lake Herrick that includes trails popular with runners and walkers. The student had been out jogging when she was allegedly attacked by Ibarra. Police said Riley died from 'blunt force trauma' after being beaten and that she suffered a 'disfigured skull'. They added that Ibarra dragged her body to a secluded area to conceal the death, according to an arrest affidavit seen by CBS News. Riley had been out jogging on the University of Georgia campus when she was attacked Local police said Friday that Ibarra, who lived in Athens, apparently did not know Riley and acted alone. Video from campus security and other technology led officials to Ibarra. The day of the murder, her suspected killer uploaded a selfie onto his TikTok account in which he stared into the camera and grinned. Five months before Riley's murder, Ibarra was arrested in New York City and charged 'with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation,' according to ICE. The NYPD released him 'before a detainer could be issued,' the agency said. Ibarra crossed into El Paso, Texas, in September 2022 but had been released from a detention center due to a lack of space. For almost two decades since Emma Caldwell's remains were discovered in dark, secluded woodland many miles from home, her family's world teetered between overwhelming despair and brief flashes of hope. Hope that the man responsible for her murder might one day face justice; despair at the lack of progress in cracking the case as the years slipped by. Yet, when justice finally came, any relief must have been tempered by the agony of so much needless suffering - from a profoundly flawed police investigation. No one listening to the harrowing evidence of Iain Packer's many appalling crimes laid bare by prosecutors at the High Court in Glasgow can have been remotely surprised at his conviction for Miss Caldwell's murder. What they may have found harder to fathom was that detectives had Packer within their grasp from very early on in their enquiries but, unaccountably, chose to let him go. Emma Caldwell, 27, vanished in Glasgow on April 4, 2005. Her body was found in woodland 40 miles away weeks later Emma (pictured as a child) had become addicted to heroin after the tragic death of her sister from cancer Emma (pictured here as a child with a horse) was a promising was forging a promising career at a Glasgow riding school when her sister Karen died In a bid to escape the pain of her loss Emma (pictured here as a child) was offered heroin by her boyfriend and quickly became hooked Emma's mother Margaret Caldwell outside Glasgow High Court where Iain Packer has been found guilty The trial heard how Miss Caldwell's chaotic private life had caused her path to cross Packer's with fatal consequences. A former head stable girl, she had fallen into the vice trade through an addiction to heroin brought on by her failure to cope with the death of her beloved sister from cancer. The grim discovery of her body by a dogwalker on May 8, 2005, came five weeks after the 27-year-old's desperately worried parents reported her missing from the Glasgow hostel where she had been staying. As the murder probe swung into action, Packer came repeatedly to their attention. Six times in the first two years of their enquiries, Strathclyde Police conducted lengthy interviews with the man prosecutors would later describe as a regular and violent user of prostitutes, who had developed a dangerous obsession with the victim. Six times, Packer changed his story, initially denying to police he had ever met Miss Caldwell, then admitting he had paid her for sex on several occasions and finally revealing that he drove her to the very track in Limefield Woods, near Roberton, Lanarkshire, where she was found dead. This desolate forest was 40 miles from the Glasgow city centre 'drag' where Packer routinely picked up prostitutes. It was on the way to nowhere; he had no business being there. Packer told police he had lied about knowing Miss Caldwell because he was 'terrified' they might think he had killed her. He also said he got a 'buzz' from going there. But despite all the deeply troubling evidence police had uncovered, Packer was never treated as a suspect. On each of those six occasions, the powerfully built sign fitter was allowed to walk free from an interview room without charge. Instead, key decisions were made to target a group of Turkish men based on a hunch and some dodgy intelligence. A two-year covert surveillance operation appeared to yield key evidence but only ended in a fatally compromised court case, a 4million bill and not a single conviction. Equally damagingly, it left a grieving family no closer to learning who took the life of their precious child. The disastrous operation must also have been a humiliating blow to the inquiry team. Worse would follow in April 2015, close to the tenth anniversary of Miss Caldwell's murder, when a Sunday newspaper published an astonishingly detailed dossier - much of it leaked from police sources - pointing the finger at Packer and naming him publicly for the first time as the 'forgotten' suspect. Emma pictured in her younger years with her father William (left), brother Jamie (second left), sister Karen (centre) and mother Margaret (right) Serial rapist Iain Packer, 51, has been found guilty of her murder Lawyer Aamer Anwar (R) and the mother of Emma Caldwell, Margaret Caldwell (L) outside Glasgow High Court on February 28, 2024 Miss Caldwell (pictured) came from a close-knit family and saw both parents twice a week and spoke to them daily Emma's mother, Margaret (pictured outside court on Tuesday), said following the verdict today that she can now 'breathe again that this man is gone' The revelations hit the family like a bombshell. But for Police Scotland, now responsible for the case, fury at the leak led senior officers to break their own rulebook by failing to seek judicial approval before using special powers to flush out the journalists' mole. An independent probe into the illegal molehunt led to a scathing report on Police Scotland's conduct, although a subsequent inquiry found no evidence of misconduct by Counter Corruption Unit officers, who kept their jobs. The fiasco left the Caldwell family's faith in justice profoundly shaken. Their lawyer Aamer Anwar called it a 'betrayal by the police' - strong words but having already waited more than a decade for answers, feelings were running high. Police always insisted that the file was never closed, but it was only after Packer's name entered the public domain that then-Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland ordered a root-and-branch reinvestigation. For the Caldwells, returning to square one fuelled a creeping despair that no one would ever be held to account for their daughter's murder. Forced to wait again, her mother Margaret would say: 'The years pass but they don't pass for me. My world stands still. People talk about moving on and getting closure but they're just words to me. I still feel the way I felt the day Emma disappeared. 'She could never mean as much to anyone else as she did to me but she should still have mattered more to the police. She doesn't seem to have mattered at all to them. That makes me sad.' If there is bitterness in those words, it reflects the cruelty of the burden Mrs Caldwell has had to bear. Before losing Emma, she and her husband Willie had to watch their elder daughter, Karen, succumb to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1998, at the age of only 31. By then, Karen and her husband had already lost their two-year-old son Kenneth to illness. Miss Caldwell was 20 when her sister died. At the time, she loved horses and was forging a promising career at a Glasgow riding school. 'When Karen eventually died it left a huge hole in Emma's life,' her mother said. Her daughter's then-boyfriend offered her heroin to escape the torment. Miss Caldwell was hooked after the first hit. Margaret and William Caldwell, parents of Emma Caldwell speak to the media in Glasgow city centre in May 2005 A mugshot of Iain Packer who was today found guilty of the murder of Emma Caldwell Iain Packer pictured during a police interview on February 25, 2022 By 2003 she was living at a women's hostel in Inglefield Street, in Glasgow's Govanhill, and her parents helped her as best they could. Mr Caldwell would bring home her washing and her mother Margaret returned it to her when she visited during the week. They would bring her food and orange juice, buy her clothes and deodorants, and top up her mobile phone card every Wednesday. Miss Caldwell hid her secret life from her parents, who had no idea until after she disappeared that she worked as a prostitute to fund her drug habit: 'We did not realise - we were naive,' Mrs Caldwell told the court. 'We did not know how much these things cost.' Giving evidence, Mrs Caldwell, now 76, recalled her daughter's last words as she waved goodbye on Sunday, April 3, 2005: 'Bye, Mum - phone you Monday or Tuesday.' The phone call never came. By sometime on Thursday, police believe, Miss Caldwell was dead. For weeks, her parents would scour the city streets hoping for a sighting of her: 'We spent hours and hours every day looking for her,' said Mrs Caldwell. 'Sometimes you thought you saw her in the distance, but it was someone else. We did not know what else to do.' At the height of the probe, 50 detectives worked round the clock on the case; hundreds of cars were checked, thousands of witnesses were traced, while novel ways of jogging people's memories were employed, most famously by projecting a 60ft image of the victim's haunting face onto a city centre tower block. Timeline of Emma Caldwell's case 2002 Emma Caldwell moves to Glasgow after being introduced to heroin in a bid to cope with the death of her older sister. She eventually turns to sex work to fund her habit. August 2004 Packer indecently assaults Miss Caldwell behind a billboard at the Barras, Glasgow, ignoring her instruction to stop because he had 'paid', the trial heard. A witness fears Packer was 'stalking' Miss Caldwell. April 3, 2005 Margaret Caldwell visits Glasgow to spend the day with her daughter, who tells her of plans to go to rehab, but she appears 'nervous' and 'agitated'. April 4, 2005 Miss Caldwell is last seen alive near Glasgow Green in the city's east end. Packer's mobile phone data showed he frequented the area, a known red-light district, nearly as often as his home. April 6, 2005 Mrs Caldwell and her husband are unable to contact their daughter to change the day of a planned visit, and in the coming days report her missing and launch a search in Glasgow. May 8, 2005 The body of Miss Caldwell is found in Limefield Woods, South Lanarkshire, by a dogwalker. A 'garotte' had been placed around her neck and her possessions and clothing had been disposed of. June 22, 2005 Packer is interviewed by police and lies, claiming not to know Miss Caldwell. He became 'uncomfortable' when Miss Caldwell's name was mentioned and terminated the interview. July 5, 2005 Police interview Packer a second time and obtain a warrant to search his blue van. August 2006 Packer is interviewed and tells police he forced a sex act on Miss Caldwell in 2004. March 2007 Police interview Packer on a voluntary basis, and take him to Limefield Woods. He tells police he lied during previous interviews and had been with Miss Caldwell '10 or 11 times'. 2015 Packer is investigated by the Sunday Mail newspaper, which presents him as the 'forgotten' suspect in Miss Caldwell's murder. A new search of Limefield Woods is carried out to find evidence. November 2018 Packer instigates an interview with BBC journalist Sam Poling 'to clear his name'. He claims he has never visited Limefield Woods and that he told police they 'forced' him to visit. He says he has never been violent to women. The interviews spark disclosures from more victims. 2019 Packer is interviewed again by the BBC. In total he is interviewed on three occasions. After the final one, he told a witness: 'They're blaming me for Emma.' 2021 Analysis of soil samples taken from Limefield Woods is carried out, with a sample from the blue van owned by Packer in 2004. The prosecution in his trial cite this as as '97% match'. February 2022 Packer is arrested by Police Scotland on suspicion of the murder of Miss Caldwell, and the same year a review of DNA evidence is carried out. February 2024 Packer is convicted of murdering Emma Caldwell and attacking multiple other women following a six-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow. Advertisement Back then, Mr Caldwell, who tragically died in 2011, aged just 62, took some comfort from the scale of the police effort: 'We must find who has done this. Our lives are in limbo until this person is caught, and we back the police 100 per cent with our whole family,' he said. 'We will do everything possible to help the police because they are doing everything possible to help us.' Yet when other women working the drag warned police about Packer, it didn't seem to register. One charity worker said she told officers Packer, who ran up a 30,000 debt buying sex, 'seemed to be obsessed' with Miss Caldwell. Anne McIlveen said: 'I asked some of the other girls about Packer once I became aware of him, and they were all scared of him too.' Mrs McIlveen, who founded the Salt & Light bus, said she remains haunted that she couldn't get Miss Caldwell to a safer life: 'I'll never forget her. She was kind, quiet, reserved. She cared about people. At her funeral I remember telling everyone how she had cried in my arms and told me she did not want to live like this. She knew how much her family loved her, and that's why she hid her life from them.' Miss Caldwell was last positively identified at 11pm on Monday, April 4, 2005, walking in Butterbiggins Road towards Victoria Road close to the Inglefield Street hostel. Her thin, 5ft 6in frame was covered by a dark coloured mid-length Primark coat and short skirt, her blonde hair tied in a bunch on top of her head. Grainy CCTV pictures from the night she disappeared captured a woman getting into a silver Skoda Felicia next to a casino in the city's Broomielaw area, but detectives were never certain if it was Miss Caldwell. She just vanished into thin air. Phone records showed her mobile was called last by a Turkish man, Abubekir Oncu, at 11.20pm the night she went missing. Detectives learned he had left the country although he later returned voluntarily for questioning. Within weeks, police interest in Glasgow's Turkish community sharpened when it emerged that prostitutes would often be taken to a Turkish community cafe in Bridge Street, where the manager, Huseyin Cobanoglu, would treat them very roughly. For months on end, the busy cafe became the focus of a costly covert surveillance operation, secretly recording conversations between dozens of Turkish men. Officers turned up eyewitness testimony that Miss Caldwell had visited the cafe in the past, and a spot of her blood found there backed up the story. But the strongest evidence was apparently damning admissions made by and about the Turks captured on the hidden microphones. A Turkish-speaking police officer drafted in to listen to the tapes reported conversations about killing a woman and hiding her body. Detectives were utterly convinced they had their men. On August 31, 2007, officers arrested Cobanoglu, now 63, Oncu, 39, and two others, Halil Kandil, 42, and Mustafa Soylemez, 44, in connection with Miss Caldwell's murder. It seems scarcely credible now, but those arrests came just months after Packer, of Airdrie, Lanarkshire, was interviewed for the sixth and final time, during which he directed officers to the forest track where he took Miss Caldwell for sex, near where she was found dead. And when the Turks' lawyers quickly raised serious doubts about the accuracy of the translations, prompting the Crown to hire specialist translators, led by Oxford University professor Kerem Oktem, to scrutinise the surveillance tapes, the case quickly unravelled. Interviewed later for BBC Radio 4's File on 4, Professor Oktem said the 'confessions' had been taken entirely out of context during discussions by members of a worried community who felt they were being targeted by police. He told the programme: 'There were conversations where they would be talking about their questioning at the police station, for instance, and you would have sentences like, 'So you did this', but it would be often in the context of, 'So the police accused you of doing this, right?' 'And once you take that out of that context, it looks as if someone says, "Well you killed her", but in fact it is, "Well, so they said you killed her?" and so on.' Prof Oktem's team also realised phrases such as "hitting her under", "putting her under a block" and "killing off the lady" were technical terms used in a noisy game called okey, a cross between dominoes and slam poker, regularly played at the cafe. Their conclusions fatally holed the Crown case and without the tapes, or any forensics or witness statements linking the men to the crime, proceedings were deserted. The Turks later sued for hundreds of thousands of pounds for wrongful arrest with one, Kandil, settling out of court. In 2009, the cafe owner, Cobanoglu, was jailed for 10 years at the High Court in Glasgow for a series of rapes and sex attacks uncovered by police working on the Caldwell case - a victory of sorts, but scant consolation to the Caldwells. A reinvestigation was still years away but when it came, the spotlight was firmly on Packer, despite his protestations of innocence. Iain Packer's blue van which was with soil found with a 97% match to the soil where Miss Caldwell's body was found The blue van belonging to Packer who had who worked as a sign installer across Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland The interior of Packer's blue van which was later linked to Miss Caldwell's murder Interviewed for a BBC documentary in 2019, he skated close to the truth. He admitted being a client of Miss Caldwell but denied being with her on the night she vanished. He said at the time: 'I've not been rough with any woman. I've never hurt a woman in my life.' It was a lie, like so many others he told. The following year, he pleaded guilty at Airdrie Sheriff Court to stalking and attempting to strangle a former girlfriend. The mask had finally slipped, although four more years would pass before the Caldwells finally received the justice they craved. At the High Court in Glasgow, Packer initially faced a total of 46 charges (later reduced during the trial to 36) detailing a disturbing pattern of escalating sexual and physical violence against 27 women and one girl stretching back more than 30 years to his teenage years. Some of his victims only encountered Packer long after those crucial six police interviews. The indictment included 10 counts of rape and the murder of Miss Caldwell and took junior Crown counsel half an hour to read out to the jury. The trial contained harrowing detail of Packer's fondness for humiliating and dominating his victims, many of whom were fellow sex workers, some of whom reported being taking to the same woods where Miss Caldwell's body was found. Packer was 32 when he killed Miss Caldwell. He is 51 now - it has taken almost 20 years for him to pay for her murder and the untold damage he has inflicted on countless other women. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars, where the months and years will pass as slowly as they once did for his victims' families. For Margaret Caldwell, time may finally allow her to mourn her beloved daughter in peace. This is the dramatic moment Ukrainian troops blasted an Iranian-made drone out of the sky with seconds to spare using a machine-gun mounted on a 4x4 as the Russian weapons headed straight for them. Video shows soldiers with spotlights and a heavy machine-gun firing rounds into the night sky as a Shahed kamikaze drone swoops in towards them. The clip, filmed near Odessa last night, captures the moment the drone's engines finally give in before the device erupts into a huge fireball as it crashes into the ground. A military spokesperson said: 'As a result of the air battle, 10 Shahed UAVs were destroyed within the Odessa and Mykolaiv regions by mobile fire groups of the Defence Forces and anti-aircraft missile units of the Air Force.' The drones were said to have come in from the direction of the Black Sea. The pickup technical appears with a mounted machine-gun as a drone swoops in Ukrainian soldiers light up the night sky with tracer rounds, taking out the drone The drone erupts in a huge fireball as it explodes and crashes into the ground Last Friday, Russian drones attacked the city for the second night in a row, hitting a residential building, killing one person and injuring three. In all, six people died and 12 were injured in various Ukrainian regions over 24 hours. Ukrainian air defences shot down 23 of 31 Russian-launched drones over five regions, the air force said. Russia has hammered Black Sea ports with strikes since leaving a deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain to world markets through Odessa, near Moldova, in July last year. In late September, it was reported a drone attack had damaged a warehouse, charred dozens of trucks and injured two drivers. Explosions led to the suspension of the ferry service between Ukraine and Romania to the southeast. In August, another drone strike struck grain storage facilities and port infrastructure in the region, according to the Ukrainian military. Six Iranian-made Shahed drones swarmed an oil deport in Izmail, starting a fire that caused damage to facilities that transport crucial grain exports. Grain exports have been severely disrupted since the start of the war, with Russia's navy blockading the Black Sea ports. This immediately caused global food prices to spike, hitting Middle Eastern and African countries most reliant on Ukrainian exports. After Russia left the deal in July 2023, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield assessed that Russia would ultimately 'have to return to the [Black Sea Grain Initiative]' if it wants to be able to export its products, like fertiliser. But seven months on, the pressure on Odessa shows no signs of waning, with devastating consequences for Ukraine and countries reliant on its exports. Only yesterday, Ukrainian President Zelensky warned that his country would be unable to continue defending the replacement corridor near Romania and Bulgaria, which was launched last August after Russia left the Initiative, without US support. Ukraine is currently on track to export all the grain from its 2023 harvest despite repeated Russian attacks on its ports, but warns if the US does not approve its new $60bn aid package, it might not be able to guarantee safe passage. Last night's strike came amid mounting fears Russian forces could use Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria to open a new front in the southwest in the direction of Odessa. The thin slither of land has been de facto controlled by pro-Russian forces since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but is internationally recognised as part of Moldova. Rebel officials in the region today appealed to Russia for 'protection', the rebels accusing the government in Chisinau of unleashing an 'economic war' on the region to turn it into a 'ghetto'. Russia responded that one of its 'priorities' was to protect Transnistria from mounting pressure, raising concerns it could develop into a new flashpoint for the war in Ukraine as the invaders continue their attacks on Odessa in the southwest. Currently, the Kremlin only has around 1,500 soldiers permanently stationed in the region. A serviceman of Ukraine's coast guard surveys the waters from a patrol boat as a cargo ship passes by in the Black Sea, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, February 7, 2024 A cargo ship passes a patrol boat of Ukraine's cost guard in the Black Sea, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, February 7, 2024 A view of the damaged naval station on February 24, 2024 in Odesa, Ukraine Damage to a college building following a drone attack in Odesa, on February 8, 2024 Emergency services workers sift through the rubble after a drone attack overnight struck an infrastructure facility causing a fire February 23, 2024 in Odesa, Ukraine Transnistria's pro-Russian leadership, for its part, accuses Kyiv of plotting an attack on the territory. The separatists claimed to have foiled an assassination attempt on their leader in March 2023. Kyiv denied the allegations. And last week, Russian defence ministry alleged that Ukraine planned an armed incursion into the breakaway territory, without providing any evidence. The Kremlin has warned Ukraine and Moldova that attacking them would incur serious consequences. The New York City veterinary technician accused of slitting the throat of her elderly neighbor appeared in court for closing arguments in her murder trial. Anya Johnston, 29, has been on trial for the October 2018 killing of Susan Trott, 70, who lived in the unit just one floor below her in a luxury Upper West Side apartment. She was pictured grinning, wearing a white collared shirt with her brown hair down in Manhattan Supreme court for closing arguments on Wednesday. Johnston's trial began late last month with her lawyers pursuing an insanity defense, reported West Side Rag. 'She did it because she was crazy,' her defense attorney Jeremy Schneider said during opening arguments. Anya Johnston, 29, has been on trial for the October 2018 killing of Susan Trott , 70, who lived in the unit just one floor below her in a luxury Upper West Side apartment She was pictured grinning, wearing a white collared shirt with her brown hair down in Manhattan Supreme court for closing arguments on Wednesday Johnston's trial began late last month with her lawyers arguing an insanity defense 'Sue Trott was killed on October 17th by that young woman [Johnston] right there, stabbing her with a distinctive knife that she bought on Amazon nine months earlier, everybody agrees to that.' Schneider said Johnston has a history of mental health issues including suicide attempts, hospitalizations, special schools, therapists, and medications. He also described a troubled upbringing, saying she was born prematurely in Russia and lived in an orphanage with one caregiver for every 10 babies before she was adopted by a single mother without any medical history of her biological parents. 'On October 17, she was not in her right state of mind,' Schneider said. He added that she had stopped taking her mental health medication one month prior to the murder. However, Assistant District Attorney Hannah Yu argued Johnston had the 'capacity to know and appreciate' that she was stabbing Trott and 'she knew it was legally and morally wrong.' Yu cited Johnston's employment at Symphony Veterinary Center and said colleagues described her as, 'never delusional and quite capable of performing her duties.' 'She did it because she was crazy,' her defense attorney Jeremy Schneider said during opening arguments The assistant district attorney said Johnston's diary will show how she had been 'fantasizing about and planning the murder for months' The assistant district attorney said Johnston's diary will show how she had been 'fantasizing about and planning the murder for months.' Trott was found with her throat slashed inside her bedroom on the morning of October 21, 2018 - four days after the attack. Police conducted a welfare check after a friend and colleague notified authorities that she had failed to show up to work and hadn't been heard from in days. When police entered the residence they found a trail of blood leading into the bedroom. Authorities reported no signs of forced entry, no murder weapon at the scene, and the apartment was not ransacked. The apartment also has a doorman. Trott was a successful copy writer and major player in the advertising industry for decades, working for firms including BBDO, J Walter Thompson, McCann-Erickson, Satchi & Satchi and Y&R and for brands like Levi's, Nickelodeon, Ambien, Virgin Atlantic, and Air Canada. Trott (pictured) was found with her throat slashed inside her bedroom on the morning of October 21, 2018 Cops believe Trott and Johnston may have had arguments in the past, although it's unclear what their conflicts were She was running her own ad company out of her apartment. Cops believe Trott and Johnston may have had arguments in the past, although it's unclear what their conflicts were. Trott's friend said that she had gotten into altercations - at times physical - with with neighbors over the past decade. She was attacked her over her apartment and love of animals, her longtime business partner and friend Eric Boscia, who is based in London, one told the New York Post. 'I said it would be someone in the building. I said if anything looks foul, it was someone in the building...the people that abused her most were her neighbors,' he said. A set of twins are serving a combined total of 70 years behind bars after one murdered a woman after backing her car off a bridge with her inside, and another stabbed and killed a man following an argument. Kalup and Christopher Born, both now 25, had been held in custody after the separate incidents which dated back to 2016 and 2017. Christopher is currently serving 20 years in prison after pleading no contest to the first-degree manslaughter of Alonzo Miller in May 2016. His brother Kalup was sentenced last week to over 50 years in prison on charges relating to burglary, kidnapping and the murder of Brenda Carter in January 2017. The Oklahoman previously reported how the father of the pair, who are from Ada, Oklahoma, Christopher Allen Born and their Uncle Mark Edward Born have also been in trouble with the law previously. Mark is currently in jail for manslaughter. Kalup Born, 25, was sentenced last week to 50 years in prison in connection with the murder of 70-year-old Brenda Carter in January 2017 Christopher is currently serving 20 years in prison after pleading no contest in the manslaughter of Alonzo Miller in May 2016 Kalup was arrested in connection with a string of crimes that took place after he was asked to leave a fraternity party. After being kicked, he walked down the block and entered a home where he kidnapped Brenda Carter using a butcher knife he stole from her kitchen. He then forced the 70-year-old into her car and made off with it, before backing it off a bridge on State Highway 99 South, with the vehicle left partially submerged. Following the car being ditched, he then forced her out of the vehicle and into a ravine where he left her with a pelvic fracture and a ruptured bladder. It was later determined that she died after suffering multiple blunt force trauma injuries after being pushed from the car. Her death was listed as homicide. Carter later died from her injuries sustained in the incident, with Kalup then going on to break into another home and then another, which he set on fire. In a plea agreement, seen by Ada News, Kalup said he had entered the home to steal a car and set the fire in the garage of the home after failing to find the cars. In the other home, he made off with a blanket, a knife, a wallet and some electronics. Officers quickly caught up with him after he was spotted wandering down a state highway. In December 2020, while being held on the charges related to the crime spree, he then killed fellow inmate Billy Joe Johnson in what was described by prosecutors as an 'brutal and sustained attack'. It was determined that Brenda, seen here, died after suffering multiple blunt force trauma injuries after being pushed from the car. Her death was listed as homicide Kalup said he had entered the home to steal a car and set the fire in the garage of the home after failing to find the cars In June of 2022, a federal jury convicted him at trial on one count of voluntary manslaughter. Then in April of last year, he stabbed a county jail inmate repeatedly with a homemade knife and attempted to throw them over a railing. Earlier this year, he entered a guilty plea to one county of assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of possessing contraband in prison. His twin Christopher is seven years into his 20 year sentence following the stabbing of Miller. Ada News reported that several people had been at the residence when the two reportedly got into an altercation outside of the home. Several people at the address said that Miller returned holding his stomach and said he had been stabbed. Police responded to the home and found him bleeding profusely on the floor, and died after surgery to stop the internal bleeding. Officials at the time told the outlet that Born was later found inside the home, stained with blood and laying on a bed pretending to be asleep. According to an affidavit seen by the outlet, Born had consumed alcohol and told authorities he couldn't remember anything. Several people at the address said that Alonzo Miller, seen here, returned holding his stomach and said he had been stabbed The twins' father Christopher Allen Born has previously been in trouble with the law over DUI charges and a possession complaint from 2008. While their uncle Mark Edward Born currently serving 40 years in prison on a 1999 manslaughter charge. Speaking on the recent conviction of Kalup for the murder of Brenda Carter, her son Jay told KXII: 'Weve lived with this hanging over our heads for this long, doubt of when the system was ever going to give us our day. 'I finally in my victim impact statement was able to say my peace and get out my anger and my frustration of this seven long years.' FBI Oklahoma City Special Agent in Charge Edward J. Gray said: 'The crimes committed by Born are gut-wrenching and there is no question the sentencing is just. 'Born decided to continue his life of crime even while in prison. He clearly did not learn his lesson and continued to terrorize the lives of others. 'The FBI is grateful to the law enforcement agencies that contributed to this investigation and led to Borns conviction.' United States Attorney Christopher J. Wilson said: 'Born has proven to be a threat to society both inside and outside the walls of the prison system. 'This sentence ensures he will spend a substantial portion of his life, if not all, behind those walls where his actions are as limited as possible.' Born is to remain in the custody of U.S. Marshals pending transportation to a States Bureau of Prisons facility to serve his non-paroleable sentence of incarceration. His case had originally been dropped due after the McGirt Supreme Court ruling due to his tribal status. The Supreme Court ruled that cases involving tribal members on tribal lands should not be tried in a state court. Nearly 20 percent of voters across the United States are not happy with either major partys choice for president this year: former President Donald Trump or President Joe Biden. Data from Morning Consults daily survey tracking more than 300,000 registered voters shows that 19 percent of voters nationwide have unfavorable opinions of both Biden and Trump. Described as the Double Haters, the voting bloc remains dissatisfied with either candidate. Twenty-nine percent of them identify as Democrats, 41 percent identify as Independents and 31 percent identify as Republicans. Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally President Joe Biden speaks in Washington, DC. The double haters are more strongly against Trump, however, than Biden. Sixty-two percent view Trump very unfavorably while 49 percent view Biden the same way. Bidens very unfavorable numbers, however, have grown by nine points since 2020, from 40 percent to 49 percent. Trumps unfavorable have fallen by four points, from 66 percent to 61 percent. The data demonstrates that third party candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy or Cornel West have a real possibility to galvanize support from voters unhappy with the top two choices. A significant number of voters are considering supporting third-party candidates. At this point, 36 percent of the double haters say they will vote for someone else while eleven percent would not say how they would vote. The rest of the dissatisfied block split fairly even; 27 percent say they will ultimately support Trump while 26 percent say they will support Biden. The data shows that seven of the top swing states still have about 20 percent of voters who are not happy with either candidate. Arizona has 22 percent, Michigan and Wisconsin 21 percent, Nevada has 20 percent, North Carolina has 19 percent, and Pennsylvania and Georgia have 18 percent. The double haters plan to vote differently depending on their state. In Michigan, where over 100,000 Democrats rallied to vote uncommitted instead of Biden in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, many voters appear ready to move beyond Trump and Biden. A plurality of double haters in the state of Michigan, 39 percent, said they would vote for an entirely different candidate. Twenty-seven percent of the group said they would back Biden, and 25 percent chose Trump. More dissatisfied voters in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania also appear ready to move on. Thirty-four percent of the double haters in Pennsylvania are ready to move on from Biden and Trump and 38 percent of voters in Wisconsin are ready to move on. Data shows that Biden is beating Trump in Arizona among the double haters, leading 36 percent to Trumps 25 percent. In Nevada, however, Trump is leading among the dissatisfied group 35 percent to Bidens 23 percent. Georgia is fairly evenly split with 31 percent of them choosing to vote for someone else, 30 percent choosing Trump and 29 percent choosing Biden. Witnesses report seeing a red jeep in the driveway at the time of her death A rural Pennsylvania community is in shock following the murder of a young, pregnant, Amish woman who was found dead inside her home Tuesday afternoon. The body of Rebekah Byler, 23, was found with gunshot wounds inside a house on Fish Flats Road in Sparta Township. Her death is being investigated as a homicide. Residents and family members said that they recall seeing a red jeep outside of the home at 10am where Byler, a mother-of-two, lived with her husband Andy. Locals in the community have banded together to raise money for Byler's family. 'I'm just absolutely heartbroken that this has happened,' Charleen Hajec, the owner of Spartansburg Pharmacy, told ABC 6. 'I'm very concerned about the Amish community and worried for them.' Mother-of-two Rebekah Byler, 23, was found dead inside a house on Fish Flats Road in Sparta Township, Pennsylvania The Amish woman's body was found with gunshot wounds. Her two toddlers were at home at the time of her death Family members recall seeing a red jeep in the driveway at around 10 am on the day of the 23-year-old's death Byler was six months pregnant at the time of her death. Community members have banded together, collecting funds and donations for her husband, Andy The 23-year-old was six months pregnant, and her two toddlers were home with her at the time of her death. While Andy was away at the time of the murder, neighbors say he was the first to make the gruesome discovery. A homicide investigation is exceedingly uncommon in the rural area, which is located 40 miles outside the city of Erie. State police are 'aggressively investigating all available leads.' Kelsey Bova, owner of Bova's Hardware and administrator of a local Spartansburg Facebook group, set up a GoFundMe for donations. 'We would like to show our support for the entire Amish community and help raise funds so that Andy and his children can find a safe new home,' she wrote. Police at the scene. The Pennsylvania State Police said they are investigating Byler's death as a homicide, uncommon in parts of Erie region with a large Amish population Rebekah Byler, 23, was found dead by a family member on Fish Flats Road in Sparta Township after police were called to the scene yesterday at around 12.30 pm Bova announced that she was organizing a drive for food, toys, cleaning products and gift cards, inviting locals to drop the donations off at the hardware store or a local pub. Byler's cousin Rosanna posted to Facebook asking friends to pray for her. 'I'm in shock! I can't believe it! Where they live in PA is a rural area!' wrote the Rogers, Ohio woman. 'I grew up about 20 miles from there and would go down to that area all the time.' Corry Beverage Inc., a convenience store based in nearby Corry, posted a call for information to social media. 'Please take a few moments and try to recall your day if you were in that area,' the business wrote. Locals in the community have banded together to show their support for the Amish family 'Any small piece of information could help the police department. The family deserves some answers and the Spartansburg community deserves to feel safe again.' Local resident Randy Eaton told WJET-TV: 'Buncha good people everyone seems to get along with them. Everyone is just stunned. Nobody could even imagine that this kind of stuff is going on. 'It's definitely shameful that anything like this could go on here. There's not a person who's not concerned. Everyone is surprised.' Police are asking anyone in the area of Fish Flats Road who might have seen suspicious people, cars or activity to contact them. In July 2021, a Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the 2020 death of an 18-year-old Amish girl. Justo Smoker was sentenced to 35 and a half to 71 years in prison, with an additional 17 and a half years that could be added for a parole violation, in the death of Linda Stoltzfoos. He also pleaded guilty to kidnapping, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and possession of an instrument of crime. The young girl's remains were found in rural Pennsylvania in April 2021, 10 months after her disappearance. Republican senators praised their longtime leader Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell following the shocking announcement that he will soon step down from GOP leadership. The tributes to McConnell comes amid friction between himself and more conservative members of his GOP conference which has caused internal turmoil and dysfunction on Ukraine aid, support for Trump and other issues. McConnell, 82, announced Wednesday he would step down from Senate leadership in November, after a historic run serving as the senior senate Republican for close to 18 years. Senate Republicans told DailyMail.com they were given no heads up on the announcement Wednesday. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said he was shocked at the news, saying 'Nobody knew it was coming. He runs a pretty tight ship.' 'I don't know what to say, but it sure caught me off guard,' Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told reporters minutes after the announcement. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he would not seek a leadership position in November after leading the GOP conference for nearly two decades Sen. Marco Rubio told DailyMail.com he was shocked by McConnell's announcement Thankful for the historic leadership of @LeaderMcConnell. The Senate would not be the same today without his respect for the institution and commitment to conservative values. Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) February 28, 2024 .@LeaderMcConnell is a true legend of the U.S. Senate. Under his historic leadership, the Senate secured a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, passed historic tax reform, and enacted bipartisan legislation to save our economy from the brink at the start of the pandemic. Senator Thom Tillis (@SenThomTillis) February 28, 2024 'I just heard about it in my office,' Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said while on his way to the Senate chamber, adding 'Mitch McConnell has an extraordinary record.' Other senators similarly celebrated the longtime leader. 'I think he's going to be remembered for the Supreme Court judges that he shepherded through the system,' Marshall said of the McConnell's legacy. 'I think the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act he deserves credit for his efforts with that as well,' he Kansas Republican added. Sen. Tom Tillis, R-N.C., called McConnell 'a true legend' in a post on X. 'Under his historic leadership, the Senate secured a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, passed historic tax reform, and enacted bipartisan legislation to save our economy from the brink at the start of the pandemic,' Tillis wrote. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said: 'We thank leader McConnell for his service. At the end of the year he will be stepping down between now and then we need to keep focus on making certain we take the U.S. Senate and that we have a Republican majority leader.' Sen. Mike Lee, who has been critical of McConnell's leadership in the past, even celebrated the leader. 'I congratulate Senator McConnell on a record tenure as Leader, and I hope he chooses to spend the remainder of his time fighting to secure America's borders and unifying our conference,' he said in a statement obtained by DailyMail.com. President Biden made brief remarks on McConnell's announcement at the White House Wednesday. 'I'm sorry to hear McConnell stepped down,' he told reporters. 'He and I - I've trusted him and we have a great relationship. We fight like hell. But he has never, never, never misrepresented anything,' the president added. 'I'm sorry to hear he's stepping down.' McConnell was at the White House the day before his announcement with the other 'Big Four' leaders as Congress works to stave off a government shutdown at the end of the week. It was also considered to be a last-ditch plea by Biden to get Speaker Mike Johnson to put the sprawling $95 billion foreign aid bill on the floor, which McConnell led and passed in the Senate. Senator-elect Mitch McConnell in Washington, D.C., Nov. 26, 1984 I called on McConnell to step down over a year ago. This is good news. But why wait so long - we need new leadership now https://t.co/IG7wgaNI6Z Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) February 28, 2024 Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also celebrated McConnell's long career. 'Mitch McConnell rose from humble beginnings overcoming polio to become one of the most consequential Senate Leaders in history. He started his Senate career as a legislative aide and ended up in charge of the upper chamber,' Johnson said in a statement. 'No Member of Congress has played a greater role in reshaping the federal judiciary than Mitch. I join my colleagues in saluting his historic contributions to the Republican Party and to the Congress. His legacy will endure for generations.' Still, some Republicans remained critical of McConnell. The leader has clashed with members of his own party in recent months over handling of Ukraine aid and support for Donald Trump. McConnell is last member of the Republican leadership not to have endorsed Donald Trump's 2024 presidential bid. 'We've been a ship without a rudder for quite a bit in the last year and Senator McConnell before his injury had us on track, but ever since his injury he's struggled,' Sen. Tuberville said. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has repeatedly called for McConnell to step down as leader, told DailyMail.com he felt good after hearing the leader's announcement. 'This is this is a good development. I just wonder why wait till November.' The Missouri Republican described McConnell as 'bubble-wrapped' and that he doesn't reach out to members or talk much. 'So yeah we need somebody who actually wants to communicate with members of the conference and actually reflects the views of the conference.' As for who will replace the outgoing leader, Hawley floated a couple names. 'I mean, Rick Scott is a great option. Steve Daines, I think would be great,' he said. McConnell is last member of the Republican leadership not to have endorsed Donald Trump 's 2024 presidential bid McConnell will remain leader of the Senate Republican conference until November, according to his statements on the Senate floor. 'One of life's most under appreciated talents is to know when it's time to move on to life's next chapter,' McConnell said. 'So I stand before you today, to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.' The Royal Family must tell the public the truth behind Prince William's 'unprecedented and inexplicable' withdrawal from a major engagement. Speaking on The Reaction, their YouTube talk show, the Daily Mail's Andrew Pierce and Sarah Vine implored the Royals to fully explain the Prince of Wales's absence from a memorial service for his godfather at Windsor Castle yesterday. Both now fear the public are increasingly worried about the health of King Charles and the Princess of Wales. They asked the question: 'Why can't the Royals tell us the truth about Kate and William?' William was supposed to accompany Queen Camilla to St George's Chapel to give a reading in memory of the late King Constantine II of Greece, who died last year. But just three quarters of an hour before the beginning, he pulled out of the event for unexplained 'personal reasons', sparking a fresh wave of speculation over the full reason. The Royal Family must tell the public the truth behind Prince William 's 'unprecedented and inexplicable' withdrawal from a major engagement, Sarah Vine and Andrew Pierce told The Reaction The Prince of Wales was last seen attending the Bafta Film Awards 2024 at the Royal Festival Hall in London. He pulled out of the memorial of King Constantine of Greece at the last minute Ms Vine and Mr Pierce have said the time has come for the Royal Family to end the speculation - and explain why William needed to leave. Kate's abdominal surgery and the King's cancer diagnosis earlier this month both mean they cannot perform public duties - dramatically reducing the number of active Royals. Photographs from the service which emerged yesterday revealed a watered-down Royal Family with the controversial figure of Prince Andrew pictured smiling at the service. The memorial for Constantine II was an important event for William, who was close to the exiled monarch, and is understood to have telephoned the Greek royal family to apologise for his leaving. But the terse statement issued to the press and public from Kensington Palace saying he left for 'personal reasons' has only fired up online speculation. 'The thing is, this was not just him turning up for something. He was an integral part of the service. He was meant to be doing a reading.' Ms Vine said. 'It just makes you think it is really something quite serious for him to do that. That is the issue.' Ms Vine called on the Royal Family not to leave a 'vacuum which then gets filled with speculation and conspiracy theory which is what is happening at the moment. Ms Vine and Mr Pierce have said the time has come for the Royal Family to end the speculation - and explain why William needed to leave Queen Camilla was instead the most senior member of the Royal Family in attendance - with Prince Andrew also enjoying a prominent role Prince Andrew leads members of the Royal Family including the Tindalls to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle today Guests attend a thanksgiving service for the life of King Constantine at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle this morning Queen Camilla departs the thanksgiving service for King Constantine at St George's Chapel in Windsor today 'In this day and age, you cannot just not say anything. You have to give an explanation. William not showing up like that to something that he was such an integral part of is I am afraid something they need to explain. 'I think both journalists and also to an extent the public are quite worried because the signals coming from the Palace both about the King and about the Princess and Prince of Wales are not great. 'If it was just the King or just William and Kate it might be less, but it is because it is them both and they are such pillars of the Royal Family this is where the problem is. This is why people want to know, they just want to know a bit more.' Mr Pierce added: 'It was exactly 45 minutes before the event at Windsor Castle, that Kensington Palace stubbornly refused to tell us anymore, other than it was a 'personal matter'. 'This was the exiled King of Greece, a very, very dear friend of late Queen and Prince Philip's, he was Prince Philip's sailing partner-very important in Royal circles. Zara and Mike Tindall and the Princess Royal attend the service at Windsor Castle today as they walk to St George's Chapel Prince Andrew; Sarah, Duchess of York; and Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence at St George's Chapel in Windsor today (left to right) Princess Alexandra the Honourable Lady Ogilvy, Marina Ogilvy, Prince Andrew, the Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke of Gloucester at Windsor Castle today Princess Michael of Kent (left) and Prince Michael of Kent attend the service today 'I did the Royal beat for years on The Times, years on the Telegraph. It is unprecedented for such a senior member of the Royal Family to withdraw with such short notice. 'The Order of Service printed, the Royals already on their way to castle, the exiled Greek Royal family already on their way. 'He had to tell them 45 minutes before and because he is de-facto King, it was even more important, he was there, which makes it even more inexplicable that he pulled out at such short notice. 'It is just extraordinary that William was not there. He was very fond of his godfather, the exiled King of Greece. 'The other thing it then meant is awful Prince Andrew took control and that is a really bad optic. He just sort of bustled to the front with Sarah Ferguson, loitered with intent outside the door to the chapel, introducing people. He almost took over. 'Some are now saying he just does not have the same ethic of the Queen and his father 'The show must go on.' I do not agree with that'. The Reaction can be watched and subscribed to on the Mail's YouTube channel: YouTube.com/DailyMail. Episodes come out every Wednesday. The advisory warned of drugs, alcohol and pharmaceutical use in Mexico The US has issued a warning for spring breakers who plan to travel to Mexico to exercise 'increased caution.' As partygoers head to Cancun and Tulum, the U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Mexico have warned people about 'unregulated drinks and synthetic drugs' in the county. The message, posted on Monday said: 'Travel Smart Be Informed: Each year, thousands of U.S. citizens visit Mexico during spring break.' It added that 'while the vast majority travel safely,' tourists should still consider the list of specific advisories including, crime, drugs, pharmaceuticals, drownings, and more. 'U.S. citizens should exercise increased caution in the downtown areas of popular spring break locations including Cancun, Playa Del Carmen, and Tulum, especially after dark,' the message said. The U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Mexico issued a travel warning for tourists traveling to country for spring break It added that 'while the vast majority travel safely,' tourists should still consider the list of specific advisories including, crime, drugs, pharmaceuticals, drownings, and more The warning also mentioned the potential hazards of drugs, pharmaceuticals and unregulated alcohol. It specified that drug possession of any kind, including medical marijuana is illegal in Mexico. If caught with prohibited drugs, it could result in a long jail sentence in the country. Unregulated alcohol is also prohibited and is warned to possibly be 'contaminated' and 'U.S. citizens have reported losing consciousness or becoming injured after consuming alcohol that was possibly tainted.' The warning described pharmaceuticals as 'counterfeit medication' that is 'common,' but 'may prove to be ineffective' due to its strength and ingredients. 'Medication should be purchased in consultation with a medical professional and from reputable establishments,' it added. The message also noted sexual assault and said that 'U.S. citizens have been victims of rape and sexual assault.' It specifically said that 'perpetrators' might target those who are intoxicated or isolated, or that they could 'employ drugs that alter the victims physical or mental state.' The advisory also warned of drownings, noting that some beaches in the popular tourist areas tend to experience 'strong undercurrents and rip tides.' It added that lifeguards, signs and general warning are not always posted at every beach for tourists to turn to in an emergency. If medical attention is needed, the warning noted that private hospital rates are higher compared to those in the US. All guns and ammunition are considered illegal in the country, even it if it is a small amount of ammunition. If found with guns or ammunition, it could result in 'lengthy jail time,' it said 'Many facilities require payment (sometimes only in cash) either before providing treatment or before discharging a patient.' The advisory also touched on the topics of arrests, guns and ammunition and immigration. All guns and ammunition are considered illegal in the country, even it if it is a small amount of ammunition. If found with guns or ammunition, it could result in 'lengthy jail time,' it said. Arrests can be made for 'drunk and disorderly behavior' as well as open alcohol containers in vehicles and public urination. In terms of immigration, the warning said: 'Violating the terms of your stay in Mexico can result in steep fines and detention.' The warning then listed actions that can be taken to help prevent travelers from having a bad spring break experience. Some of the tips were to enroll in the State Department's Smart Traveler Enrollment Program to get live updates about safety conditions, drinking responsibly, monitor your bank cards, and keeping family and friends at home aware of your travel plans, among others. 'Contact the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate if you need assistance,' the message said. The advisory also warned of drownings, noting that some beaches in the popular tourist areas tend to experience 'strong undercurrents and rip tides' This comes just weeks after a Los Angeles woman who was at a beach club watching the sunset was killed in crossfire between two drug gangs in Tulum, Mexico. The woman, named locally as Niko Honarbakhsh, was shot dead during the ordeal - and prosecutors in Quintana Roo stressed she had no connection to the drug deal. Another man, who went by the nickname 'Belize,' was also killed during the shooting. The deceased had been at a beach club in the Tulum Hotel Zone - which is a coastline tourist strip filled with upscale clubs and eateries. Honarbakhsh, 44, was living in Cancun but was originally from California, according to ABC News. Local news site Riviera Maya News also identified her as 'Niko H.' The woman was watching the sunset alone at the beach club with her dogs, and was just about to get up and pay when she was caught in the crossfire, witnesses said. Onlookers, who say the shooting occurred at the Mia Beach Club, said Honarbakhsh looked 'so happy' with her pets, who were 'chilling out on the sand' all day long. A couple sitting behind her said they thought the gunshots were fireworks at first - and that everything happened so quickly that didn't even have time to react. Prosecutors denied reports in local media that the two deceased were a couple, saying a photo of the Belizean man showed him with a completely different woman. Belize shares a border with Mexico on the Caribbean coast. Tulum is located south of Cancun and Playa del Carmen, closer to Belize. In 2021 in Tulum, two tourists one a California travel blogger born in India and the other German were killed while eating at a restaurant. They apparently were caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between rival drug dealers. In June 2023, two Californians Abby Lutz, 28, and John Heathco, 40, were found unresponsive in their hotel room at the five-star $780-a-night Hotel Rancho Pescadero near Cabo San Lucas, with reports suggesting the couple died due to inhalation of gas. And in April last year, four people were found dead by a four-star all-inclusive beachfront hotel in the Riviera Maya resort of Cancun after a broad-daylight shootout. Mitch McConnell's aides insist his decision to step down from Senate leadership is not related to his health. The 81-year-old Kentucky Republican announced in an emotional speech from the Senate floor on Wednesday that he will end his tenure as Senate Republican Leader in November but will continue serving in Congress. It follows a series of health scares over the last few years that have raised questions over his mental and physical state and whether he is fit to continue serving in the Senate. Aides for McConnell, however, insist his decision to end his leadership role has nothing to do with his apparently declining health. 'After all this time, I still get a thrill walking into the Capitol,' McConnell said as his voice broke with emotion. 'But Father Time remains undefeated.' McConnell, a survivor of polio, is the longest-serving Senate leader in U.S. history, serving for almost 18 years. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, 82, made a surprise announcement Wednesday that he will step down from Republican leadership in November but will continue serving Kentucky in the U.S. Senate Aides for the Senate Republican Leader insist the decision had nothing to do with McConnell's health - despite a series of concerning incidents over the last year, which includes two freezing spells. Pictured: McConnell froze for more than 30 seconds during a public appearance in Kentucky on August 30, 2023 before he was escorted away from the podium Last year, McConnell suffered a concussion after falling and experienced two separate spells where he verbally and physically froze while speaking publicly. This led to constant calls over the last several months especially from backers of Donald Trump for the Senate Minority Leader to step aside and let a younger person take over. McConnell remains the last member of Republican leadership in Congress to not endorse Trump's reelection for president. 'One of life's most underappreciated talents is to know when it's time to move onto life's next chapter,' McConnell said in his Senate floor speech on Wednesday. 'It's time for me to think about another season,' he added. The Kentucky Republican was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and was chosen as head of the conference in 2007, but has faced hostility from conservatives who have pledged their allegiance to Trump McConnell suddenly stopped talking and fellow senators had to assist him walking away from the podium during his press conference at the Capitol on July 26, 2023 A time line of the physical and mental falters of Sen. McConnell in 2023 McConnell leaves a Republican luncheon on Wednesday, February 28, 2024 after announcing he will step down as the GOP leader in the upper chamber. He noted the 'particularly difficult' period for his family after his sister-in-law suddenly died this month An emotional McConnell took to the Senate floor Wednesday to announce his surprise news, with only around half of the seats full. He said it has been a 'particularly difficult' period for his family after his sister-in-law Angela Chao drowned on her Texas property on February 15. Angela Chao, who is the head of the dry bulk shipping firm, passed away over the weekend - as her family said that they are devastated with grief over the news. Chao is pictured at The New York City Opera Pre-Gala Celebration in 2010 'I turned 82 last week, the end of my contributions are closer than I would prefer,' he said. 'If you would have told me 40 years later that I would stand before you as the longest serving senate leader in American history, frankly I would have told you, you lost your mind,' a very emotional McConnell said in a lighthearted moment. McConnell, who is up for reelection in two years in 2026, said he is 'not going anywhere anytime soon' and will remain a U.S. senator, despite stepping down from leadership. 'As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work.' McConnell said. ' 'A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.' Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., as he walked to the Senate to speak on the floor He praised the support of his wife, former Department of Transportation Sec. Elaine Chao, who has been at his side for 31 years. He said that he holds a 'deep appreciation for the time that helped shape my view of the world, unconflicted about the good within our country and the irreplaceable role we play as the leader of the free world.' 'It's why I work so hard to get the national security package passed earlier this month,' he continued. 'Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time, I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them.' 'One of life's most under appreciated talents is to know when it's time to move on to life's next chapter,' McConnell continued. 'So I stand before you today, to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.' He said he is 'not going anywhere anytime soon' and will remain a U.S. senator, despite stepping down from leadership. An emotional McConnell took to the Senate floor Wednesday to announce his surprise news, with only around half of the seats full McConnell gushed about the support of his wife, former Department of Transportation Sec. Elaine Chao, who has been at his side for 31 years Pictured: Senator-elect Mitch McConnell in Washington, D.C. on November 26, 1984 Mitch McConnell and his wife Elaine Chao, wave to supporters after he was re-elected to the Senate in 2004 Trump and McConnell have had a strained relationship since December 2020, when the Senator refused to say the election was stolen. The two were however in talks about an endorsement that could bring together the MAGA and Trump-reluctant wings of the Republican Party, a source involved confirmed to DailyMail.com. A nod from the GOP leader could have opened up a whole new class of donors backing Trump, who has already been forced to spend $50 million on legal bills. Trump for years has lobbed vicious attacks at McConnell, who he's described as 'old crow' and even a 'piece of s**t.' McConnell noted that when he arrived in the Senate, 'I was just happy if anybody remembered my name.' During his campaign in 1984, when Reagan was visiting Kentucky, the president called him 'Mitch ODonnell.' Sydney set to swelter through heatwave conditions on Thursday Much of NSW is set for a scorcher as summer draws to a close with a heatwave declared, though severe fire danger conditions in Victoria should ease. Sydney in particular is set to swelter through Thursday with parts of the city's west likely to reach 39C or 40C, while the city is expected to hit 35C before a late cool change arrives. 'The heat has been tracking across southern Australia from west to east for several days,' Weatherzone meteorologist Anthony Sharwood said. 'On Wednesday, temperatures topped 43C in several spots in the Mallee region in Victoria's northwest, while temps reached 44C in at least two locations in far western New South Wales.' Canberra is also set to bake with a top of 34C, which will make Thursday 'one of the sweatiest days of the 2023/24 summer' with the city not reaching similar temperatures since early December. Thursday and Friday will be a scorcher for NSW with western areas of the state to exceed 40C while Sydney's western suburbs will get near that on Thursday Thursday's heat in Sydney should cool on the weekend to some summer-like beach weather 'As of Wednesday evening, the bushfire danger for Thursday is currently rated as high in about half of New South Wales,' Mr Sharwood said. The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe heatwave warning for the Mid North Coast, Hunter, Northern Tablelands, South Coast, Central Tablelands, Southern Tablelands, Snowy Mountains, Central West Slopes & Plains, South West Slopes and Upper Western Districts . In Western NSW the temperatures are expected to exceed 40C in many areas including Dubbo, Bourke and Broken Hill. Heatwaves have also been declared for the South Interior District of WA and the North West Pastoral District of SA. Bushfires in Victoria on Wednesday led to an evacuation order for around 30,000 people by authorities concerned a delay would make it too late to leave. Firefighters have been battling a bushfire that started last Thursday in the rural town of Bayindeen, about 190 kilometers west of Melbourne. The blaze was kept within containment lines overnight. On Thursday Sydney coastal suburbs should escape the worst of the heat which will concentrate in the CBD and western suburbs The Bureau of Meteorology declared a heatwave for most of NSW on Thursday On Wednesday, temperatures hit 40C with wind gusts reaching 60 to 70 kilometers per hour according to an update from Jason Heffernan, chief officer at Victoria's Country Fire Authority. 'Extreme fire dangers are coming to fruition, and in fact we're currently seeing catastrophic conditions in Casterdon, Hamilton and Kanagulk in the Wimmera weather district,' he said. 'The frontal system making its way through the state has slowed. So, we will see these winds and these temperatures stay around for a bit longer than expected. And I don't expect this change to come through metropolitan Melbourne now until between 9 and even 10 o'clock this evening.' Temperatures in the area are expected to be about 10C milder on Thursday providing welcome relief for firefighters. A member of Forest Fire Management Victoria at the Bayindeen-Rocky Road fire northwest of Ballarat, Victoria on Wednesday night The Bayindeen bushfire northwest of Ballarat has burned through more than 22,000 hectares No arrests made but cops confirmed a 'person of interest' is in custody A 24-year-old migrant was found stabbed in the stomach and back Police were called to 31 Central Park North in East Harlem at 11:28am on Wednesday A migrant has been stabbed 'multiple times' in the stomach and back in a frenzied attack at a New York migrant shelter. The incident took place at 31 Central Park North in East Harlem, the site of a former correctional center opposite Central Park. The 24-year-old victim was rushed to hospital in a stable condition, police said. It is understood the attack took place after a fight broke out between two migrants at the facility. Cops said no arrests have been made, but a person of interest has been taken into custody. A 24-year-old man has been stabbed at a New York migrant center near Central Park He was stabbed multiple times in the back and stomach before being rushed to hospital in a stable condition It is understood the victim was a migrant who was attacked during a fight at the facility Police raced to the scene after receiving the 911 call at 11:28am. The victim was removed in a stable condition by EMS who took him to Mt. Sinai Hospital. The migrant shelter is located at the site of the former Lincoln Correctional Facility and has been used to house asylum seekers since last year. The facility was initially earmarked to house up to 500 single males. New York mayor Eric Adams faced backlash for selecting the location, with critics complaining the former jail was an inappropriate place to accommodate migrants. It comes just a day after Adams vowed to install metal detectors at a migrant shelter on Randall's Island following multiple stabbings. He also repeated calls for migrants to be given easier access to work papers. 'You place 1,000 people in one setting and tell them they can't work, all they can do is sit around all day, tempers flare,' Adams said. Prince Harry claimed he believed he was at a greater risk of being harmed than his mother due to 'racism and extremism', High Court documents have revealed. The Duke of Sussex said his family would be put in 'a position that no one was willing to put my mother in 23 years ago' by removing his security in a letter to the head of the Home Civil Service. The 39-year-old said they were 'additional layers of racism and extremism' and demanded that 'someone is comfortable taking accountability' for what could happen to his wife Meghan Markle, and their children Archie and Lilibet. In the letter Harry also revealed what he believed to be the biggest threat to his family, although the precise details of what this was were redacted from court documents released on Wednesday. The same documents revealed that Al Qaeda had called for the father-of-two to be killed after he wrote about killing Taliban fighters. Prince Harry making pre-flight checks in the cockpit at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in 2012 Prince Harry and Meghan, pictured at an Invictus Games event in Canada on February 14, 2024 The documents, released after the High Court rejected his challenge against the Home Office to downgrade his taxpayer-funded personal security when he visits Britain, show the Prince's furious response upon learning of the original decision. In a letter written to Sir Mark Sedwill, who was Cabinet Secretary at the time, the Duke's representative Fiona Mcilwham 'expressed the claimant's disbelief that such important conversations were being had without any attempt by anyone to consult the claimant'. She wrote the Duke 'could not see how he could have his security removed, unless the current risk to him and his family had decreased'. In the letter Ms Mcilwham said Harry asked 'who would be willing to put him and his family in a position of extreme vulnerability and risk'. Harry claimed this was 'a position that no one was willing to put my mother in 23 years ago and yet today, with greater risk, as mentioned above, with the additional layers of racism and extremism, someone is comfortable taking accountability for what could happen. READ MORE Prince Harry says 'I'm not asking for preferential treatment' as he vows to appeal after High Court ruled Home Office decision to downgrade his personal security was lawful Advertisement 'I would like that persons name who is willing to take accountability for this choice please ', he added. He added he believed it was 'essential to our safety to keep MET security' and made reference to specific threats, although these were redacted in the court documents. The letter also claimed that Harry saw the decision to remove his security 'without a sensible amount of consultation as some form of punishment for protecting my family and putting them first'. The Duke wants to appeal the High Court ruling after he took action over a decision to downgrade his taxpayer-funded personal security when he visits Britain. Harry took legal action over the move by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) after being told he would no longer be given the 'same degree' of publicly-funded protection when in the UK. His lawyers had claimed he was 'singled out' and treated 'less favourably' in the February 2020 decision by the body, which falls under the Home Office's remit. The court also heard that his European security director had pointed out ahead of a trip to Britain last March that Al Qaeda had recently called for him to be killed. The terrorist group is said to have ordered Harry's death after he wrote about killing 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in his controversial book Spare in January 2023. But at a hearing in London in December, the Government insisted 39-year-old Harry's claim should be dismissed, arguing Ravec was entitled to conclude the Duke's protection should be 'bespoke' and considered on a 'case-by-case' basis. Two months on, retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane has now issued his ruling on the case this morning - saying: 'The application for judicial review is refused.' But a spokesman for Harry said he would appeal, adding that he was 'not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules'. The Duke will first need a judge to give him the green light to go to the Court of Appeal. The judgment - which the Home Office later said the Government was 'pleased' with - comes amid another 24 hours of royal drama and tragedy in Britain, including: The Duke of Sussex, pictured leaving the Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 30, 2023 Ravec's decision came as a result of a change in the duke's 'status' after he stopped being a 'full-time working member of the royal family', the judge was told. The ruling said Harry was in Britain between March 26 to 31 last year to attend a hearing at the High Court against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publishers of MailOnline, related to allegations surrounding unlawful information gathering. It said Harry's director of European security emailed someone whose name is not given, but who was a Ravec member in 2020 - 'in accordance with the agreed procedure' to provide 'formal notice of the Duke of Sussex's travel to the United Kingdom'. The ruling said: 'In light of various matters, including that he was the son of King Charles III, a brother of the Prince of Wales, and that Al Qaeda had recently called for the claimant to be killed, the Director of European Security said that the claimant [redacted text]. 'On March 10, 2023, [redacted text], the Deputy Director of Royalty, VIP and MP Security Unit Homeland Security, wrote to say that Ravec would meet to determine what protective security arrangements should be mandated for the visit. 'Without pre-empting that decision, [redacted text] said 'it is clear that the proposed visit [redacted text]. If the Duke wishes to [redacted text]'.' Your browser does not support iframes. This is the full judgment in Harry's case issued by the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary on Wednesday Responding to the ruling, a legal spokesperson for the Duke said on Wednesday: 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal today's judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body Ravec, which includes the Home Office, the Royal Household and the Met Police. Britain should not be 'lumbered with paying for' Prince Harry A former Conservative Armed Forces Minister insisted on Wednesday that the High Court ruling was right - and UK taxpayers should not be 'lumbered with paying for' Prince Harry. Lord Andrew Robothan, who served in the Coldstream Guards, also said that the Duke of Sussex was 'unwise' to write about killing 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in his book Spare. He told TalkTV: 'This is a man who chose to leave the Royal Family, who chose to write a book for money boasting how many people he'd killed. He said he'd killed 20 people. I think it was an unwise thing to say. 'If there was a known intelligence source saying he was at risk, that's one thing, but there isn't. He's most of the time in Montecito in California, and where he may or may not empoloy security guards with the very large deals he's done with Netflix. 'But I don't think the British taxpayer should be lumbered with paying for him, since he seems to rather not like Britain anyway.' Advertisement 'Although these are not labels used by Ravec, three categories - as revealed during the litigation - comprise the 'Ravec cohort': the Role Based Category, the Occasional Category and the Other VIP Category. 'The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec's own written policy. 'In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to The Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. 'The Duke's case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him, is no substitute for that risk analysis. 'The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.' A judgment summary in Harry's case released this morning said the court determined 'there has not been any unlawfulness in reaching the decision', adding that it was not 'irrational'. The court also found the 'decision was not marred by procedural unfairness' and there was no unlawfulness by Ravec in its arrangements for his visits to Britain. In his 52-page partially redacted ruling, Sir Peter said Harry's lawyers had taken 'an inappropriate, formalist interpretation of the Ravec process'. He added: 'The 'bespoke' process devised for the claimant in the decision of February 28, 2020 was, and is, legally sound.' The judge also said: 'The decision of February 28, 2020 was obviously forward-looking in nature. 'The suggestion that the claimant should have received both an RMB (risk) analysis and a 'bespoke' approach ignores the witness evidence of the defendant which, for the reasons I have given, falls to be given weight. Harry's father King Charles III is pictured leaving his London residence Clarence Houseon Wednesday 'That evidence shows no irrationality or other unlawfulness, as regards the other VIP category.' 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal': Full statement from Harry's legal team A legal spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex said: 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal today's judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body Ravec, which includes the Home Office, the Royal Household and the Met Police. 'Although these are not labels used by Ravec, three categories - as revealed during the litigation - comprise the 'Ravec cohort': the Role Based Category, the Occasional Category and the Other VIP Category. 'The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec's own written policy. 'In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to the Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. 'The duke's case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him, is no substitute for that risk analysis. 'The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.' Advertisement Sir Peter also noted it was 'highly relevant' that on January 11, 2020, Sir Edward Young, then Queen Elizabeth II's private secretary, gave Harry a 'draft options paper' outlining that the 'level of protection is a decision for the Home Secretary, delegated to the chair' of Ravec. The paper set out how the process worked and Harry's own private secretary Fiona Mcilwham then met with Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, saying in an email that she 'faithfully relayed the details you provided on security to the Duke', according to the court papers. The judge said there was 'no substance in the contention that the defendant failed to act in a procedurally fair manner'. He added: 'In particular, there was no reason to assume that the claimant's private secretary was unaware of the security issues arising as a result of the claimant's [redacted text].' The judge also said that 'On the contrary, the evidence shows that she was entirely conversant with them' following a meeting on January 27, 2020 with Sir Edward, Ravec chair Sir Richard Mottram and Prince William's private sectary Simon Case. Sir Peter added: 'If there had been the need for any questions to be asked about 'Ravec, Ms Mcilwham can be expected to have asked them. 'I do not accept that the fact she may have been private secretary for some six months has any bearing. Her communications are indicative of someone with a good grasp of her job.' The judge said he accepted comments from Sir Richard, who said that, even if he had received a document setting out all of Harry's legal arguments in February 2020, 'I would have reached the same decision for materially the same reasons'. In addition, Sir Peter criticised Harry's claim of the 'alleged irrationality' of him having to give 28 days' notice of travelling to Britain. Earlier this month Harry told ABC show GMA that he had 'considered' becoming a US citizen The judge said: 'There is no merit in this contention. It arose from the need to be able to address a [redacted] of the kind belatedly given by the claimant to Ravec in relation to the June/July 2021 visit. How much is the case costing taxpayers? A Freedom of Information submitted last year found that Harry's security case had cost the Home Office 407,827 in legal fees as of October 2023. The Government Legal Department claimed 265,437 and counsel 137,864, reported Metro. Then, last December, former royal head of protection Dai Davies told GB News the legal fight could eventually cost taxpayers 1million. The final figure has not yet been confirmed. Advertisement 'Given Ravec's expertise, the decision to require 28 days' notice would need to be shown, by reference to evidence, to have been plucked out of the air or imposed for some extraneous reason, before this head of challenge could be made out. The claimant has pointed to nothing of the kind.' Responding to the ruling, a Home Office spokesman said on Wednesday: 'We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the Government's position in this case, and we are carefully considering our next steps. It would be inappropriate to comment further. 'The UK Government's protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. 'It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals' security.' Sir Peter - who officially retired as a High Court judge on February 1 - said his ruling contained redactions because if such information was made public it would have 'a serious adverse impact on the individuals concerned, as well as being contrary to the public interest, including that of national security'. In December, the Duke's lawyers told the court that a failure to carry out a risk analysis and fully consider the impact of a 'successful attack' on him meant the approach to his protection was 'unlawful and unfair'. William, Harry, Meghan and Charles speak together at a service at Westminster Abbey in March 2019 - the year before the Sussexes stepped down as senior royals and moved to the US The court was also told that Harry believes his children - Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet - cannot 'feel at home' in the UK if it is 'not possible to keep them safe' there. READ MORE Royals stunned by Thomas Kingston tragedy: Family mourns death of Lady Gabriella Windsor's war hero and financier husband Advertisement But Home Office lawyers said the Duke was no longer a member of the group of people whose 'security position' was under regular review by Ravec, but he was 'brought back within the cohort in the appropriate circumstances'. The court was told that it was 'simply incorrect' to suggest that there was no evidence that the issue of impact was considered, adding that the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - Harry's mother - was raised as part of the decision. Ravec has delegated responsibility from the Home Office over the provision of protective security arrangements for members of the royal family and others, with involvement from the Metropolitan Police, the Cabinet Office and the royal household. The majority of the proceedings in December were held in private, without the public or press present, because of confidential evidence over security measures being involved in the case. Prince Andrew leads members of the Royal Family to St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle yesterday to attend a thanksgiving service for the life of the late King Constantine of Greece Queen Camilla is seen at St George's Chapel yesterday as she attends the thanksgiving service The security case was one of three remaining live High Court cases brought by the Duke, alongside claims over allegations of unlawful information gathering against News Group Newspapers (NGN) and Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of MailOnline. Earlier this month, Harry settled the remaining parts of his phone hacking claim against Mirror Group Newspapers. It came after the Duke decided in January to withdraw a libel claim against ANL over a February 2022 Mail on Sunday article about his legal challenge against the Home Office. Harry, who was not present at the December hearing, lives in North America with wife Meghan and their children after the couple announced they were stepping back as senior royals in January 2020. He returned briefly to the UK on February 6 without his family after making a transatlantic dash to be with his father following the shock news of the King's cancer diagnosis. Earlier this month Harry revealed in an interview with ABC's Good Morning America (GMA) that he had 'considered' becoming a US citizen since moving to California. He added that his 'family and my life in California is as it is', but also told how he had 'got other trips planned that would take me through the UK or back to the UK'. The Duke also said: 'I will stop in and see my family as much as I can.' A Senegalese business owner has defended charging 87 migrants over $300k a year to sleep in his basement. Eboue Sarr had been charging a monthly fee of $300 for shelter and food, earning himself $26,100 a month, or $313,000 a year in the process. Officials made the shocking discovery on Monday during a building inspection at the business in Queens after a 311 call prompted an investigation. The 311 call had been made to complain about a large number of e-bikes in the rear yard of the property. Speaking earlier today, Sarr said: 'This was their choice, they choose to be here than being over there in the shelter. 'If you ask each and everyone of them they will tell you this, they did not want to go.' Eboue Sarr had been charging a monthly fee of $300 for shelter and food, earning himself $26,1000 a month, or $313,000 a year in the process, according to police Officials made the shocking discovery on Monday during a building inspection at the business in Queens, seen here, after a 311 call prompted an investigation The migrants were transported to a migrant shelter in the Bronx and a vacate order has been issued for the building over safety concerns following the discovery The FDNY said that around 40 beds were found on the ground floor of the property and in the cellar. The migrants were transported to a migrant shelter in the Bronx and a vacate order has been issued for the building over safety concerns following the discovery. Sarr continued: 'They[the city] promise that they have places for them. They lie, there was no beds. They end up in the streets again roaming around. 'We came up with this idea that we can do this on our own, so we came up with a strategy to put this money together to help ourselves. 'They have lied to them in the past, they are lying again. We have to change the way we are doing things. We are all human, we are all equal.' 'Safety was our number one priority, I hope they change their laws. People can not be sleeping around on the streets like animals, like dogs. 'Even animals don't sleep on the streets, how about human beings. They don't care because it is not their people.' Fire officials added that they eventually found that people were taking turns to sleep due to the limited number of beds. Most of the migrants are from Senegal. About 40 beds were found on the ground floor and in the cellar, according to the FDNY Fire officials said they eventually found that people were taking turns to sleep due to the limited number of beds The 311 call had been made to complain about a large number of e-bikes in the rear yard of the property On Tuesday, Sarr told PIX11 that he had been providing them with breakfast, lunch and dinner. There were two bathrooms available, with Sarr explaining that he had been giving out memberships to Planet Fitness so those living in the basement could shower. On Tuesday, deputy mayor for housing Maria Torres-Springer said: 'What we discovered last night in some ways is also symptomatic of a larger crisis that this city is facing that weve talked about repeatedly in terms of the housing shortage in this city. 'It is not a new thing that too many people make desperate choices about where to live and what to pay for and at the root of that is the fact that we havent built enough housing.' Meanwhile Adams is accused of wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on migrants by doling out no-bid contracts. City Comptroller Brad Lander made the claim in an audit of migrant-related contracts released on Tuesday, identifying 340 asylum-seeker contracts representing an estimated contract value of $5.7 billion. Recently arrived migrants wait at a bus stop outside Floyd Bennet Field shelter on February 21, 2024 in the Brooklyn borough of New York Mayor Adams, seen here, announced his administration will cut an additional 10 percent in migrant spending and pause drastic budget cuts to other departments last week Migrants pick up clothes as mutual aid groups distribute food and clothes under cold weather near the Migrant Assistance Center at St. Brigid Elementary School last month in New York Most of those contracts were procured on an emergency basis, allowing the city to waive the usual competitive bidding requirements, according to the audit. In one case, a vendor charged the city $185.63 per hour for shelter supervisors, totaling nearly $1,500 per eight-hour shift. The audit notes that the city's migrant crisis has been ongoing since the spring of 2022, with Adams' state of emergency declaration coming in October of that year, and questions why contracts are still being procured on an emergency basis. Last week, Adams announced his administration will cut an additional 10 percent in migrant spending and pause drastic budget cuts to other departments after he was slammed for giving migrants taxpayer funded debit cards. The Big Apple has been inundated with an influx of migrants it cost taxpayers $12.65 billion in 2023, a sum that the mayor's office vows to reduce down to $10.6 billion in the fiscal year of 2025. More than 170,000 migrants have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022, and the crisis is only deepening as they continue to be bussed from Texas where record numbers are entering. Some expressed disappointment that McConnell would wait until November to step down MAGA conservative supporters of President Donald Trump celebrated Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's announcement that he would step down from his leadership position in November after the 2024 election. Supporters of President Donald Trump have long criticized McConnell for quietly working behind the scenes against some of the former president's political goals and thwarting conservative ambitions. Sen. Rick Scott, who challenged McConnell for minority leader in 2022, was positive about the news. 'I have been very clear and have long believed that we need new leadership in the Senate that represents our voters and the issues we were sent to fight for,' he wrote in a statement. McConnell beat Scott easily in 2022, as 37 Senate Republicans voted for McConnell, and only 10 supported Scott and one voted present. U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) speaks to reporters Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks with reporters Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) expressed frustration that McConnell was waiting until November to step down for his leadership position. 'I called on McConnell to step down over a year ago. This is good news. But why wait so long - we need new leadership now,' he wrote on X. Other political figures agreed. 'Why wait? Americans deserve actual conservative leadership,' wrote Kevin Roberts, the president of the conservative think-tank Heritage. Others were content to just celebrate. 'Weve now 86d: McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell,' wrote right-wing firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on X, referring to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, and McConnell. 'Better days are ahead for the Republican Party.' US Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, Former 2024 presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy 'Onward to the future,' wrote former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, highlighting his call from earlier in February for McConnell to be the next establishment Republican to fall. 'Mitch McConnell stepping down provides a great opportunity for true conservative leadership in the Senate,' wrote Rep. Bob Good R-VA) on social media. Good endorsed Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) as a possible replacement for McConnell even though eyes are on senators already within Senate leadership, Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) or Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). Other conservative media figures expressed their frustration that McConnell was waiting until November to step down. 'McConnell is awful, everyone hates him, and there is zero reason for him to stay in office any longer. He needs to resign now,' wrote Sean Davis, the CEO and co-founder of conservative news website The Federalist. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., leaves a Republican luncheon Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump Former President Donald Trump did not react immediately on social media to the news. Despite his position of leadership, McConnell has still not endorsed Trump for president. Other MAGA influencers on social media cheered the news. 'Time to celebrate! Mitch McConnell has resigned as GOP Senate Leader effective November 2024! Hey Mitch, step down today instead of November!,' wrote Fox News contributor Leo Terrell on X 'WE DID IT!! We took out all the McFailures!!' wrote Rogan OHandley who posts under the social media handle DC Draino on X. Other MAGA influencers were not happy that McConnell was waiting to step down. 'Mitch McConnell should be forced to step down BEFORE NOVEMBER,' investigative journalist Laura Loomer wrote on X, 'You dont let the Fox stay inside the barn.' He was found with a backpack full of nearly 2,000 fentanyl laced pills in 2019 A drug dealer whose sentence was reduced by former President Barack Obama in 2015 has been jailed again after he was found with a backpack full of pills. Life-long drug trafficker Joseph Burgos, 74, received a new 62-month prison sentence on Tuesday for transporting thousands of opioid pills in 2019. In July 2015, Obama granted commutations to Burgos and 45 other individuals. At the time, Burgos was set to spend 360 months in prison for the distribution of cocaine and the use of a communication facility in the commission of a felony. His original cocaine trafficking sentence was reduced to eight years of supervised release and a $200,000 fine, according to a release from the Department of Justice. But in April 2019, while on probation, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents discovered Burgos arriving at a Greyhound bus station in downtown Chicago from Texas with a backpack full of pills, The Chicago Sun Times reported. Joseph Burgos, 74, received a 62-month prison term on Tuesday for transporting thousands of opioid pills after he was previously released from prison early by Barack Obama in July 2015 The Obama administration began a clemency initiative for federal inmates specifically for non-violent, low-level offenders. He is seen in a picture with some of the prisoners at the time- Burgos is not pictured Officers found nearly 2,000 oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl inside his bag as Burgos told agents that he was returning from a funeral in Cincinnati, Ohio. He went on to plead guilty to his drug charge on September 5, 2023 as prosecutors proposed a 72-month sentence to U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin, but Burgos' attorney William Hardwicke asked for a 60-month term. When he was initially released on parole by Obama, he decided to peruse his dreams of being a novelist. He also got a job working as a home health worker and drove an Uber, but has to stop that job as he was unable to obtain a city chauffeurs license, his attorney said. 'While these financial difficulties do not excuse Mr. Burgos participation in the offense, they do provide some context for understanding Mr. Burgos time,' Hardwicke said. The Obama administration began a clemency initiative for federal inmates - specifically non-violent, low-level offenders 'who were sentenced at the height of the war on drugs and would likely receive substantially lower sentences today.' Obama was seen in a photo with some of the prisoners at the time, though Burgos was not pictured. In July 2016, the repeat drug trafficker told The Washington Post: 'Being released before your out date is beautiful. But I wasnt ready. I hadnt prepared for my release at all. I was lucky to have support from my family.' In July 2015, Obama granted commutations to Burgos and 45 other individuals. At the time, Burgos was set to spend decades in prison for the distribution of cocaine and the use of a communication facility in the commission of a felony Another prisoner, Alton Mills, 54, who was released early by Obama found himself back in prison in May 2023 on attempted murder charges after he shot a woman, leaving her brain-dead He said that he was 'one of the fortunate ones' after he was commuted by the former president. He went on to say that after his early release, his family rented a small studio apartment for him and got him a car. Burgos that revealed that at the time, he rekindled with an old girlfriend, moved in with her, started writing a trilogy and got into electrical work with a friend. 'President Obama gave clemency to more individuals recently, and a couple of them are from Chicago. I dont have very much myself, but Im going to see if I can do something for them to help them out when they come out,' he previously said. Another prisoner that Obama gave a second at chance at life to also found himself back in prison on attempted murder charges after he shot a woman, leaving her brain-dead in May, cops said. Alton Mills, 54, last made the news when Obama cut short his life sentence in 2015 after serving 22 years in jail for what were small time drugs offenses. He received an sentence after being arrested in 1993 on federal conspiracy charges as part of a crack cocaine conspiracy. His two previous convictions of possession of less than five grams of crack cocaine led to prosecutors filing a sentence enhancement, which saw him sentenced to life in prison without parole. His newest conviction, which cops said occurred after he was allegedly involved in a road rage shooting, has now brought on the possibility of another life sentence. Obama is seen visiting a federal prison in 2015 The car the group were traveling in came up behind Mills' SUV at a red light near the I-57 on-ramp in Posen, Illinois, but Mills did not move even after the light had turned green. The driver of the other vehicle instead proceeded to pass him without even honking or shouting but Mills appeared to take affront. He suddenly sped up to catch the car the friends were in and lowered his window before firing three shots from the drivers side, according to Assistant State's Attorney Kathryn Morrissey, during Mills' bail hearing. One of the bullets struck a woman who had fallen asleep in the back seat of the car leading to a severe head injury. Mills later admitted to being the shooter and being responsible for causing 'great bodily harm and imminent death' to the victim. He was charged with three counts of attempted first-degree murder. A 40-year-old man has been shot in the groin in an apparent drive-by shooting in Sydney's western suburbs overnight on Thursday. The victim was targeted around midnight when the man is believed to have been shot from a passing vehicle on Donnelly Street in Guildford. The smouldering remains of a burnt-out Nissan Pulsar suspected to be the getaway car was discovered around 3am in nearby Denison Street in Carramar. Police investigating the attack believe it was a potential gangland hit, with the gunman still on the loose and his victim recovering in hospital in a stable condition. A 40-year-old man has been shot in the groin in an apparent drive-by shooting in Donnelly Street in Guildford (pictured) in Sydney's west A burnt-out Nissan Pulsar suspected to be the getaway car was discovered nearby around 3am Police investigating the attack a potential gangland hit, with the gunman still on the loose and his victim recovering in hospital in a stable condition The attack follows another suspected gangland shooting at 8.30am on Tuesday when Bol Deng, 20, was shot dead on Stella Street, in Fairfield Heights, in Sydney's west. Deng, an apprentice carpenter, was found unresponsive and could not be saved. His brother Dut Deng was arrested in early January over the death of Comanchero bikie boss Alen Moradian, who was gunned down in a car park in Bondi Junction last June. NSW Police Detective Superintendent Michael Mclean said Bol was also known to police. 'His history and other associations will form part of the investigation going forward,' he told reporters. He added: 'We are satisfied this appears to be a targeted shooting.' Deng was killed by shots fired by a mystery gunman in a 'dark-coloured sedan'. A grey Toyota Camry was later discovered burnt out several kilometres away. A neighbour who lives 100m away from the scene of the shooting, said he heard a 'minimum of five' gunshots on Tuesday morning. 'I ran outside and saw a guy with no shirt on who was running towards me, presumably to see where the car went. He just looked in shock and had his hand on his head,' the neighbour told Daily Mail Australia. Bol Deng, 20, was found unresponsive on the footpath outside his family home in Sydney's west. He was treated by paramedics but was unable to be saved Several detectives and police officers tried to calm down a relative before she was led away 'There was about a dozen kids on their way to school who didn't know whether to run or stay pinned there on the corner. I feel so sorry for them to have witnessed something like that.' He said that he then saw a woman at the house 'screaming hysterically'. 'She took a young child out the back of the car, which makes me think the family were getting ready to go to school and the gunman had just been waiting,' he said. 'The family got raided by the cops in January over that bikie killing in Bondi. One of them was arrested and charged. This was surely in retaliation to that.' More to come Dozens of goats were spotted milling across a road in Arlington 'Who knew were goat wranglers now?' an officer remarked on bodycam They were brought in to clear brush in a city park but managed to escape Dozens of goats escaped their enclosure and led Texas police on a wild chase before they were safely wrangled. At about 7:30 am Tuesday, between 50 and 60 goats escaped an enclosed part of the Crystal Canyon Natural Area and began to roam the streets of Arlington. Body camera footage shows Arlington Police Department officers surveying the scene as dozens of brown, white and speckled bodies mill before them. 'Oh, this is a mess,' an officer says, laughing. 'Go goats, go. Back to where you came from please. Who knew were goat wranglers now?' 'Theyre kind of cute,' another officer remarks. Dozens of goats escaped an enclosure in Arlington, Texas and led city police on a wild chase 'Who knew were goat wranglers now?' one officer was overhead saying on bodycam The 50 or so escapees were among the 450 to 500 goats brought in to clear underbrush in the Crystal Canyon Natural Area The lawless goats were wrangled around 30 minutes after their daunting escape and taken to rejoin their herd. The furry fugitives were among the 450 to 500 goats brought in last week as part of a two-week scheme to clear underbrush. 'It looks like they may have gotten out of the fence, or the fence fell, we dont know exactly what happened, but they got out,' Arlington Police Sgt. Alex Rosado told FOX 4. He added that the department received calls that the goats 'were going through people's yards.' The goats are anticipated to consume around 50 miles of brush by the time their work is done, eliminating fire danger and gobbling down invasive plants. They are the product of a collaboration with Open Space Texas, a Lewisville-based land management company. 'This option offers tremendous cost savings over traditional methods, it is eco-friendly and a general feel good for the community,' the company wrote on its website. 'Goats work exceptionally well in eradicating invasive species, such as poison ivy. These herds are professionally and humanely managed by a dedicated team.' The city of Arlington is collaborating with Open Space Texas, a Lewisville-based land management company, to contract the goats over two weeks The goats are anticipated to consume around 50 miles of brush, eliminating fire damage and getting rid of invasive plants This is the first time the city of Arlington has used goats and comes after Dallas took a similar approach This is the first time the city of Arlington has tried a solution like this for land clearing. It comes after Dallas launched a similar pilot program last year. Goats are ruminants, herbivorous grazing mammals with multiple compartments inside their stomach. Ruminants are the only animals that can digest their food without fully chewing it, and they regurgitate what they eat to chew it again. This makes it easier for microbes in the stomach to digest it. Due to their speedy metabolism, goats have a boundless appetite - and they eat just about everything green in their sight. The approach allows cities to avoid using harsh chemicals and razing brush with chainsaws as goats naturally fertilize and till the soil as well. A Hawaii tour helicopter crashed on a remote beach on the island of Kauai, leaving one person injured on Tuesday. The harrowing incident occurred at around 1.40 pm local time at Honopu Beach on the Napali Coast, with four passengers and a pilot on board. Kauai Fire Department personnel stationed at the Hanalei Fire Station responded to the scene, and a helicopter from the department was also dispatched for assistance. The passenger who suffered a back injury was airlifted to Princeville Airport, where paramedics from American Medical Response awaited. Jack Harter Helicopters, the company operating the crashed helicopter, dispatched another helicopter to retrieve the pilot and the remaining three passengers. A Hawaii tour helicopter crashed on a remote beach on the island of Kauai, leaving one person injured on Tuesday The harrowing incident occurred at around 1:40 pm local time at Honopu Beach on the Napali Coast, with four passengers and a pilot on board Jack Harter Helicopters, the company operating the crashed helicopter, dispatched another helicopter to retrieve the pilot and the remaining three passengers A picture released by the fire department captures the aftermath of the crash, as the crumpled helicopter laid scattered across the sandy shore. Rescue personnel were on the scene, while three individuals, seemingly tourists, were talking near the remnants of the Jack Harter helicopter. The cause of the helicopter crash remains unclear as of Wednesday afternoon, and the condition of the injured passenger was not immediately provided. The plane crashed on Honopu Beach, a rugged stretch of the island that is only accessible by hiking, kayaking or helicopter tour. Jack Harter helicopter is a local family-owned business that has provided tours and rides in Kauai for more than 60 years. The company was awarded the title of best tour provider in the area in 2023, according to its website. The tour provider is renowned for its doors-off helicopter ride, which lasts for 65 minutes and costs more than $300 per person. Jack Harter helicopter is a local family-owned business that has provided tours and rides in Kauai for more than 60 years. The company was awarded the best tour provider in the area in 2023, according to its website The tour provider is renowned for its doors-off helicopter ride, which lasts for 65 minutes and costs more than $300 per person The company wrote in a social media post recently: 'Safety has always been our number one priority. Definitely something to take into consideration when choosing a heli company to fly with. 'Ask yourself, would you expect the best quality from the cheapest option? I didnt think so,' it continued. Daren Jenner, a lifeguard and public safety consultant with the International Surf Lifesaving Association, notes that the crash underscores the risks posed by the tour businesses. He said: 'Glad no one was killed. The volume of helicopter traffic over our Island has become out of control, with up to 20 flights at a given time. This isnt the first crash, and it wont be the last.' DailyMail.com has reached out to Jack Harter Helicopters for further information and comments. It is recognition usually reserved for castles, stately homes and historic monuments. Now a concrete skatepark has joined some of our most significant structures after it was awarded listed building status by Historic Environment Scotland (HES). Livingston or Livi Skatepark in West Lothian has been designated a B-listed structure, ensuring its significance will inform decisions about its future. The facility, which opened in 1981, is the earliest surviving purpose-built skatepark in Scotland and has been visited by the worlds best known skateboarder, Tony Hawk, who described it as a legendary spot. It achieved international renown within the skate scene due to its pioneering design, including a very deep Double Bowl. The iconic skatepark is renowned for its pioneering design An aerial view of Livingston Skatepark which is set to become a listed building because of its historical significance The sport became very popular in Scotland during the late 1970s when skateboarder Kenny Omond first approached Livingston Development Corporation with the idea. Architect Iain Urquhart designed it after extensive study of US skateparks. The concrete parks from the era are now increasingly rare across the UK as many have been filled in or demolished. Dara Parsons, head of designations at HES, said: The park is known around the world for its pioneering design. Rick Curran, secretary at Skateboard Scotland, said: This designation will help ensure it retains the essence that makes it a strong foundation for Scottish skateboarding. Lawrence Fitzpatrick, leader of West Lothian Council, said he was delighted at the award of the listing. As the tipping debate rages on, some women have found a quick and convenient way to avoid paying out extra cash at the nail salon. Enter, robots! The TikTokers, whose handles are @foxymamabailey and @getalifesarah, posted separate videos on their TikTok accounts of them getting their nails done by the robot. User @getalifesarah got her robotic manicure in November 2023 at her school for only $10. The other woman spent only $8 on her robotic manicure at Target that she showed off in a February 28 TikTok video. The robot saved the women from having to tip a manicurist, and they both were able to spend less than the average cost of a standard manicure at a nail salon. Women have begun using robotic manicurists in order to not tip a nail technician. Two women posted TikTok videos to show off the process of getting the manicure User @getalifesarah got her robotic manicure in November 2023 at her school for only $10. The other woman spent only $8 on her robotic manicure at Target A lot of nationwide robotic manicurists were created by Clockwork - a California-based nail technology company that launched in 2021. The machines are meant to provide 'self-care that's fast and affordable' for anyone hoping to get a manicure. There are currently more than 10 Clockwork locations nationwide and shoppers can also get a robotic manicure at six Target stores. User @foxymamabailey was one of the many customers who decided to get her robotic manicure at Target. The machine she was at successfully painted her thumbnail blue yesterday and the TikToker revealed that the manicure only took 10 minutes to complete. A negative side to the Clockwork machine is the possibility of a technical malfunction like the one @getalifesarah had. The machine did eventually begin to work again and she went on to have a 10-minute manicure that only cost her $10. The Clockwork manicure robots have proven to be successful, but another startup company is looking to radically transform the manicure market.' Both of the women got their nails done by robots that were created by Clockwork - a California-based nail technology company that launched in 2021 There are currently more than 10 Clockwork locations nationwide and shoppers can also get a robotic manicure at six Target stores A total of 35 engineers spent more than four years developing a robot that can remove old nail polish, shape a nail and paint multiple coats. According to Fast Company, the robot is the size of a large shoebox and its big enough to fit the entire hand inside the machine. Nail technicians work intuitively and based on their experiences, said 10Beauty co-founder Alex Shashou. We translated all of that into numbers, so we can identify the optimal amount of paint to put on the brush and paint to 0.2 millimeters of the nails edge. The robot is currently in production in Malaysia, and the company has partnered with hotel chains and large retailers to release their product in stores. The product is expected to be available at 1,000 locations worldwide this fall. Manicure lovers who are hoping to get their hands on a 10Beauty robot without having to go into the store can join the waitlist online for 2025. Until then, individuals can continue to use the Clockwork machine at various stores and airports in the US. TikTok users have written good and bad reviews about the Clockwork machines at various Target locations and airports Not all TikTok users are confident in the Clockwork machines due to their own or their friend's experiences with the machine. 'My coworker got it done at an airport and said it did not turn out well lol,' one user wrote. Beau Lamarre-Condon allegedly fired three bullets from his police issued Glock pistol to kill Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, it will be alleged in court. Prosecutors will allege in court that Mr Baird, 26, and Mr Davies, 28, were killed with three separate shots at Mr Baird's Paddington, Sydney, home. Police will allege Mr Baird's murder was premeditated and believe Mr Davies was in the wrong place at the wrong time. 'We will be strongly claiming in our case that this murder was premeditated and the second murder occurred because of, unfortunately, Luke's presence at the house,' Assistant Commissioner Michael Fitzgerald told Nine News. Police allege that two days before the men died, the constable purchased a surfboard cover at a store in Miranda in Sydney's south. Detectives allege it was bought with the intention of carrying Mr Baird's body - but after allegedly killing both men, one bag was not enough. 'Following the incidents, he went back and bought a further surfboard cover,' Mr Fitzgerald added. Beau Lamarre-Condon, a serving NSW Police officer, has been charged with two counts of murder. Police will allege in court that he shot Baird and Davies three times Prosecutors will allege in court that Jesse Baird, 26, (left) and Luke Davies, 28, (right) were killed with three separate shots at Mr Baird's Paddington home in Sydney's east It was revealed on Thursday morning that NSW Police will allege in court that Lamarre-Condon then used bullets stolen from a gun range to reload the firearm. Constable Lamarre-Condon then allegedly checked the gun back into Balmain Police Station. The details of the alleged police case against Lamarre-Condon were first reported by Radio 2GB's Ben Fordham. He said police would further allege Constable Lamarre-Condon used bullets stolen from a firing range a fortnight before the killing to refill his gun so as not to raise suspicions from his police force superiors when the gun was returned. Police have alleged the gun was taken from Miranda police station on Friday night and was stored at Balmain police station on the Monday night after the alleged murders. It was then allegedly returned to Miranda police station on Tuesday, with a full magazine, as if no shots were fired. Police Commissioner Karen Webb (pictured) is under fire over the gun handling protocols that would enable a police-issued weapon to disappear for days Police Commissioner Karen Webb is under fire over the gun handling protocols that would enable a police-issued weapon to disappear for days. Speaking to ABC's 7.30 on Wednesday night, Ms Webb explained that officers could store a weapon overnight at a police station or inside an approved safe at home; however, they need to gain permission from their superiors. She did not comment on claims surrounding Constable Lamarre-Condon's gun storage and said it would form part of the investigation. Lamarre-Condon has been charged with two counts with murder and will face court at a later date. Police Commissioner Webb confirmed the officer has now been served a notice for his dismissal from the force. 'I've actually today read a segment of his file and I have signed - and it has been served, he has been served today in custody - a show-cause notice for his dismissal," Commissioner Webb told the ABC on Wednesday. Universities are 'lying to themselves' if they think they have no free speech problems, a prominent Vice Chancellor has admitted. Adam Habib, director of SOAS University of London, said higher education bosses have been guilty of a 'failure to intervene' when people have been censored. He pointed out that staff and students are now too 'scared' to discuss issues such as 'identity, trans and race' for fear of being bullied by activists. And the eminent political scientist added debate in the UK is much more 'paralysed' than in his native South Africa, despite being a less 'violent' country. He was supported by the Vice Chancellor of Reading University, Robert Van de Noort, who said too many academics are 'censoring themselves' to avoid being a 'divergent voice in the echo chamber'. Adam Habib, director of SOAS University of London , said higher education bosses have been guilty of a 'failure to intervene' when people have been censored Professor Habib was himself a victim of 'cancel culture' when he was attacked and suspended for using the 'n' word in response to a webinar question Their comments, at an event hosted by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), are significant as previously many Vice Chancellors refused to acknowledge there was an issue. Professor Habib was himself a victim of 'cancel culture' when he was attacked and suspended for using the 'n' word in response to a webinar question about whether the term should be allowed in lectures. This was despite spending years promoting racial equality as an academic in South Africa. He has now been reinstated after the university decided his action did not mean he was racist. He told the event: 'We have a serious challenge of academic freedom in the UK. I think we've been lying to ourselves for a long while that we don't have a problem. 'The problem is not as the government defines it; it's a much more insidious problem where people are scared to speak on substantive issues around identity, trans, race and some political issues such as Israel/Palestine and Russia and Ukraine. 'In the last three years, I've been quite stuck about how paralysed debate is in UK universities. 'South Africa may be a more violent place but it is able to debate things that the UK is simply incapable of doing and that is an indictment on our institutions.' He also addressed the case of Professor Jo Phoenix, who won a constructive dismissal case against the Open University over its failure to protect her from trans activists. Professor Habib said of the case: 'It's an indictment of the failure of vice-chancellors to intervene in the way we should have.' Former Tory MP Lee Anderson could face a police investigation for saying the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was controlled by 'Islamists'. The Metropolitan Police is currently assessing a report of hate speech against Mr Anderson made by an unknown complainant. The complaint was made a day after the former Conservative deputy chairman made the remarks during an appearance on GB News - who employs the MP as a broadcaster. During the interview on Friday he said: 'I don't actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they've got control of Khan and they've got control of London, and they've got control of Starmer as well.' He later added: 'People are just turning up in their thousands, and doing anything they want, and they are laughing at our police. This stems with Khan, he's actually given our capital city away to his mates.' The Metropolitan Police is currently assessing a report of hate speech made by an unknown complainant against former Tory MP Lee Anderson for his comments about Sadiq Khan Mr Anderson is said to have burned his bridges with PM Rishi Sunak after making clear he will not say sorry to the London mayor (pictured) 'while I've still got breath in my body' Rishi Sunak booted him out of the Conservatives after condemning the comments, but the Prime Minister stopped short of calling them Islamophobic. Scotland Yard could launch an investigation following the assessment, or it could be dropped due to a lack of substantial evidence, reported The Telegraph. Mr Anderson has refused to apologise to Mr Khan 'while I've got breath in my body', saying his comments were not racist. It comes after the MP for Ashfield today appeared on the Mail's YouTube talk show The Reaction. He admitted his remarks were 'clumsy' but said they were not racist and maintained that he doesn't regret them. He was asked about his rumoured talks at a Holiday Inn hotel along the M1 motorway with Reform Party leader Richard Tice and whether he would be joining the party. Mr Anderson said: 'I'm not prepared to discuss my political journey... I'm not going to discuss what's going on in private. 'I'm not denying anything, I'm not admitting anything. I know you want to hear it. It comes after Mr Anderson appeared on the Mail's YouTube talk show The Reaction where he said his comments were 'clumsy' Mr Anderson appeared on ITV news where he continued to refuse to apologise to Mr Khan for his comments Mr Sunak said Mr Anderson was 'wrong' to 'inflame tensions', but refused to say if he thought his comments to be 'Islamophobic' 'I know you have to ask me that question, but that's the furthest I'm going to go on that subject.' But pressed on a potential return to the Tory party, he indicated he wanted to, saying: 'At the end of the day the decision's up to Rishi.' Mr Khan said Mr Anderson's comments had 'poured petrol on the fires of hatred'. 'It shouldn't be hard to call out comments that are so unambiguously ignorant, prejudiced and racist,' he said in an Evening Standard article. 'Yet those at the top of the Conservative government are stubbornly refusing to do so.' Prince Harry could face a legal bill of up to 1million after losing his High Court challenge against the Home Office. The Duke of Sussex had taken the Government department to court over its decision to downgrade his taxpayer-funded personal security when he visits Britain. The 39-year-old argued that doing so could put them in harms way, with court documents released on Wednesday saying he thought his family was at a greater risk than his late mother, Princess Diana. But retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane refused an application for a judicial review, potentially landing Harry with a mammoth court bill as a result. The father-of-two could now have to pay the costs for his own lawyers, as well as the legal costs of the Home Office, a total that could reach seven figures, The Times reports. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stand outside Kensington Palace after announcing their engagement in November 2017 The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attend an event in Whistler near Vancouver in the build up to the 2025 Invictus Games The Home Office revealed in October last year that it had already incurred legal costs of 407,000 as a result of the case, and that was before the three-day trial itself took place in December. Meanwhile, the California-based royal hired law firm Schillings International and four barristers to help him bring the court action, potentially bringing his own personal costs even higher. Losing parties in High Court cases normally have to pay the legal costs for both sides, with the Duke now hoping for a successful appeal against the ruling. How much is the case costing taxpayers? A Freedom of Information submitted last year found that Harry's security case had cost the Home Office 407,827 in legal fees as of October 2023. The Government Legal Department claimed 265,437 and counsel 137,864, reported Metro. Then, last December, former royal head of protection Dai Davies told GB News the legal fight could eventually cost taxpayers 1million. The final figure has not yet been confirmed. Advertisement Harry took legal action over the move by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) after being told he would no longer be given the 'same degree' of publicly-funded protection when in the UK. His lawyers had claimed he was 'singled out' and treated 'less favourably' in the February 2020 decision by the body, which falls under the Home Office's remit. The court also heard that his European security director had pointed out ahead of a trip to Britain last March that Al Qaeda had recently called for him to be killed. The terrorist group is said to have ordered Harry's death after he wrote about killing 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in his controversial book Spare in January 2023. The court was also provided a letter sent from Harry's private secretary Fiona Mcilwham to the Cabinet Office in which he claimed 'racism and extremism' were putting his family at risk. She wrote the Duke 'could not see how he could have his security removed, unless the current risk to him and his family had decreased'. In the letter Ms Mcilwham said Harry asked 'who would be willing to put him and his family in a position of extreme vulnerability and risk'. Harry claimed this was 'a position that no one was willing to put my mother in 23 years ago and yet today, with greater risk, as mentioned above, with the additional layers of racism and extremism, someone is comfortable taking accountability for what could happen. The Duke of Sussex, pictured leaving the Royal Courts of Justice in London on March 30, 2023 'I would like that person's name who is willing to take accountability for this choice please ', he added. Britain should not be 'lumbered with paying for' Prince Harry A former Conservative Armed Forces Minister insisted on Wednesday that the High Court ruling was right - and UK taxpayers should not be 'lumbered with paying for' Prince Harry. Lord Andrew Robothan, who served in the Coldstream Guards, also said that the Duke of Sussex was 'unwise' to write about killing 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in his book Spare. He told TalkTV: 'This is a man who chose to leave the Royal Family, who chose to write a book for money boasting how many people he'd killed. He said he'd killed 20 people. I think it was an unwise thing to say. 'If there was a known intelligence source saying he was at risk, that's one thing, but there isn't. He's most of the time in Montecito in California, and where he may or may not empoloy security guards with the very large deals he's done with Netflix. 'But I don't think the British taxpayer should be lumbered with paying for him, since he seems to rather not like Britain anyway.' Advertisement He added he believed it was 'essential to our safety to keep MET security' and made reference to specific threats, although these were redacted in the court documents. The letter also claimed that Harry saw the decision to remove his security 'without a sensible amount of consultation as some form of punishment for protecting my family and putting them first'. But at a hearing in London in December, the Government insisted 39-year-old Harry's claim should be dismissed, arguing Ravec was entitled to conclude the Duke's protection should be 'bespoke' and considered on a 'case-by-case' basis. Two months on, retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane has now issued his ruling on the case this morning - saying: 'The application for judicial review is refused.' A spokesman for Harry said he would appeal the decision, adding that he was 'not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules'. They said: 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal today's judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body Ravec, which includes the Home Office, the royal household and the Met Police. 'Although these are not labels used by Ravec, three categories - as revealed during the litigation - comprise the 'Ravec cohort': the role based category, the occasional category and the other VIP category. 'The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec's own written policy. 'In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to the Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. The duke's case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him is no substitute for that risk analysis. 'The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.' The Duke will first need a judge to give him the green light to go to the Court of Appeal. Your browser does not support iframes. A judgment summary in Harry's case released this morning said the court determined 'there has not been any unlawfulness in reaching the decision', adding that it was not 'irrational'. 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal': Full statement from Harry's legal team A legal spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex said: 'The Duke of Sussex will appeal today's judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body Ravec, which includes the Home Office, the Royal Household and the Met Police. 'Although these are not labels used by Ravec, three categories - as revealed during the litigation - comprise the 'Ravec cohort': the Role Based Category, the Occasional Category and the Other VIP Category. 'The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of Ravec's own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with Ravec's own written policy. 'In February 2020, Ravec failed to apply its written policy to the Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. 'The duke's case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him, is no substitute for that risk analysis. 'The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing.' Advertisement The court also found the 'decision was not marred by procedural unfairness' and there was no unlawfulness by Ravec in its arrangements for his visits to Britain. In his 52-page partially redacted ruling, Sir Peter said Harry's lawyers had taken 'an inappropriate, formalist interpretation of the Ravec process'. He added: 'The 'bespoke' process devised for the claimant in the decision of February 28, 2020 was, and is, legally sound.' The judge also said: 'The decision of February 28, 2020 was obviously forward-looking in nature. 'The suggestion that the claimant should have received both an RMB (risk) analysis and a 'bespoke' approach ignores the witness evidence of the defendant which, for the reasons I have given, falls to be given weight. 'That evidence shows no irrationality or other unlawfulness, as regards the other VIP category.' Sir Peter also noted it was 'highly relevant' that on January 11, 2020, Sir Edward Young, then Queen Elizabeth II's private secretary, gave Harry a 'draft options paper' outlining that the 'level of protection is a decision for the Home Secretary, delegated to the chair' of Ravec. The paper set out how the process worked and Harry's own private secretary Fiona Mcilwham then met with Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, saying in an email that she 'faithfully relayed the details you provided on security to the Duke', according to the court papers. The judge said there was 'no substance in the contention that the defendant failed to act in a procedurally fair manner'. He added: 'In particular, there was no reason to assume that the claimant's private secretary was unaware of the security issues arising as a result of the claimant's [redacted text].' The judge also said that 'On the contrary, the evidence shows that she was entirely conversant with them' following a meeting on January 27, 2020 with Sir Edward, Ravec chair Sir Richard Mottram and Prince William's private sectary Simon Case. Prince Harry making pre-flight checks in the cockpit at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in 2012 William, Harry, Meghan and Charles speak together at a service at Westminster Abbey in March 2019 - the year before the Sussexes stepped down as senior royals and moved to the US Sir Peter added: 'If there had been the need for any questions to be asked about 'Ravec, Ms Mcilwham can be expected to have asked them. 'I do not accept that the fact she may have been private secretary for some six months has any bearing. Her communications are indicative of someone with a good grasp of her job.' READ MORE HERE: Prince Harry makes surprise appearance by video at London event to honour charity hero just hours after losing High Court security battle with the Home Office Advertisement The judge said he accepted comments from Sir Richard, who said that, even if he had received a document setting out all of Harry's legal arguments in February 2020, 'I would have reached the same decision for materially the same reasons'. In addition, Sir Peter criticised Harry's claim of the 'alleged irrationality' of him having to give 28 days' notice of travelling to Britain. The judge said: 'There is no merit in this contention. It arose from the need to be able to address a [redacted] of the kind belatedly given by the claimant to Ravec in relation to the June/July 2021 visit. 'Given Ravec's expertise, the decision to require 28 days' notice would need to be shown, by reference to evidence, to have been plucked out of the air or imposed for some extraneous reason, before this head of challenge could be made out. The claimant has pointed to nothing of the kind.' Responding to the ruling, a Home Office spokesman said on Wednesday: 'We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the Government's position in this case, and we are carefully considering our next steps. It would be inappropriate to comment further. 'The UK Government's protective security system is rigorous and proportionate. 'It is our long-standing policy not to provide detailed information on those arrangements, as doing so could compromise their integrity and affect individuals' security.' Sir Peter - who officially retired as a High Court judge on February 1 - said his ruling contained redactions because if such information was made public it would have 'a serious adverse impact on the individuals concerned, as well as being contrary to the public interest, including that of national security'. MailOnline has contacted the Sussexes for comment. A pensioner has been accused of shooting an esteemed lawyer in the groin in his office before hero employees pinned the alleged gunman to the ground. Police allege Sinve Vulic, 79, entered the ninth-floor offices of Van Cooney Lawyers on Castlereagh Street, in Sydney's CBD, at 12.50pm on Wednesday, holding a pistol and carrying a bag containing a sawn-off M1 carbine semi-automatic rifle. Vulic asked to speak with the head of the firm, Van Cooney himself, before shooting him in the groin with the pistol, police allege. 'Five or six' brave office workers, including the injured Mr Cooney, 77, then pinned Vulic down until police arrived three minutes later. Other office staff then gave first aid to Mr Cooney who was taken to St Vincent's Hospital in a stable condition. Police allege that the gunman asked to speak to Van Cooney (pictured) in his law firm on Wednesday afternoon before shooting him in the groin NSW Police are seen following a shooting on Castlereagh Street in Sydney, Wednesday, February 28, 2024 Vulic was charged overnight with shoot at with intent to murder; two counts of acquire pistol-subject to firearms prohibition order; two counts of possess loaded firearm endanger life non-public place; and two counts of possess unauthorised prohibited firearm. Vulic's lawyer appeared in Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday morning and requested that his client receive medical assistance. Magistrate Ian Guy said all defendants are screened. Vulic will next appear in court in May. Police believe the incident was a personal dispute. Terrified bystanders recalled the horrifying moment paramedics wheeled a wounded Mr Cooney out the door before he was rushed to hospital. The building contains several other law firms, including O'Brien Criminal and Civil Solicitors and Princeton Lawyers, as well as the Greek Consulate General. Detective Inspector David El-Badawi praised police for their quick response revealing the first officers were at the scene within three minutes of receiving calls for help. NSW Police said they did not know the relationship between the two elderly men. 'The people inside the office were very brave,' detective El-Badawi said. Daily Mail Australia spoke to one office worker who confirmed that he had helped subdue the alleged gunman but did not want to comment further. Van Cooney, 77, (pictured) was allegedly shot inside a law firm building in Sydney's city centre on Wednesday afternoon Workmates Cassie Economides (left) and Rochelle Connell (right) had just left the building when they witnessed a man dressed in a dark top being chased by police Police officers are pictured rushing to the scene of a shooting in Castlereagh St in Sydney Detective El-Badawi described the alleged shooting as 'isolated'. Inspector Dominic Wong of NSW Ambulance said the officer workers performed first aid on Mr Cooney. 'I do believe the projectile had entered his body - it wasn't a graze. But when we got on scene he was not actively bleeding,' Inspector Wong told reporters. 'He was in a stable condition. All his vital signs were within normal limits.' Sydney university students Arabella Fennessy and Peniana Blair, both 17, witnessed the aftermath of the alleged shooting. 'We were just getting the bus from Elizabeth Street and we saw all these police cars and ambulances racing down into this street,' Ms Fennessy said. 'We waited with a crowd for maybe 15 minutes and then a man was brought out on a stretcher. He came out of the building with the Greek flag (on it).' Ms Blair added: 'He looked like he was in critical condition. He was lying on the stretcher with his eyes closed.' Workmates Cassie Economides and Rochelle Connell had just left the building when they witnessed a man dressed in a dark top being chased by police. 'We were just leaving for lunch around 12.50pm when we saw this guy being chased by maybe a dozen cops,' Ms Economides said. 'He ran right past us into the building. We didn't see if he was carrying a gun or anything, but police ran out of their cars and chased him inside the building.' The workmates did not hear a gun go off and were unaware a man had allegedly been shot. 'It was so scary. We were just like "what is going on?",' Ms Connell added. The injured man is seen being placed into an ambulance on Castlereagh Street Strong national defence has been an instinctively Tory issue for over a century. From Winston Churchill triumphing over Nazi evil to Margaret Thatcher reclaiming the Falkland Islands, the party has been synonymous with military might. By contrast, Labour has traditionally been seen by voters as weak on security populated with peaceniks and not to be trusted with the Armed Forces. But as Tony Blair showed with law and order, it is capable of stealing the Tories clothes on the unlikeliest political issues. Only yesterday, Labour defence spokesman John Healey gave a coherent speech outlining his plans should Labour win power. With an election in the offing, this should set alarm bells ringing at No10. The 3.5billion HMS Prince of Wales leaving Portsmouth Harbour Russia's defence ministry claims this is the guided missile ship Ivanovets firing a rocket during drills in the Black Sea With a revanchist Russia, conflict in the Middle East and China destabilising geopolitics, these times are darker than any since the end of the Second World War. So it becomes ever more important that democracies retain powerful military forces. Yet Britain is clearly more underpowered today than it has been for many years. Depressingly, this was a deliberate choice. At the end of the Cold War, the UK spent 4 per cent of GDP on defence. Now it is just over 2 per cent, including forces pensions. Successive governments of both major parties opted to cash in the peace dividend, assuming with criminal complacency that a major war was no longer a possibility. Shrinking defence spending let them plough vast sums into health and welfare without significantly increasing taxes. While this policy might have been voter-friendly, it was spectacularly naive. Today, the Army is smaller than it has been for two centuries, the Royal Navy is a pitiable shadow of its former strength and the RAF has woefully few combat jets. When top brass warn that wed struggle to defend ourselves in a war, it is truly chilling. Yet leaks suggest that, far from increasing the resources devoted to the Armed Forces, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt plans to freeze them in next weeks Budget. That would be a monumental error. The Mail understands these are straitened times, but what is the point of the Tories if they dont ensure we have adequate defences? There is a strong case for boosting military spending to 4 per cent of GDP, which would take the annual defence budget to around 70billion. Even though danger exists now, it would be impractical to do so immediately. But it should be done over the medium term paid for either through economic growth or slashing the bloated public sector. With the Budget seemingly a missed opportunity, the perfect time to announce such a surge in defence spending would be at Natos 75th anniversary summit in July. Extra funding must also be accompanied by a shake-up of defence procurement. For too long, the Ministry of Defence has set a benchmark for waste, profligacy and incompetence. Even when new kit or hardware does work, it invariably comes in late and over budget. Look no further than our 7billion aircraft carriers. Prone to breaking down and without enough aircraft, they have proved to be a national embarrassment. Yet just five years after one of them, HMS Prince of Wales, entered service, the Navy is discussing mothballing or selling it to save money. It is a depressing metaphor for the ineptitude of the MoD. Britain knows from bitter experience that despite the drumbeat of war growing ever louder from Nazi Germany, we were woefully unprepared in 1939. We got away with it by the skin of our teeth but we might not be so lucky next time. To neglect the defence of the realm in any way jeopardises our security and threatens our status as a free nation. General Hospital star Haley Pullos is trying to negotiate a deal with prosecutors over her felony DUI charge from a near-fatal car crash that happened when she allegedly drove the wrong way on a Los Angeles freeway while she was drunk and high. The 25-year-old actress facing up to three years in prison has pleaded not guilty to DUI and another charge of hit-and-run. But if she changes her plea to guilty, prosecutors would be more likely to agree to a lower sentence resulting in less or no jail time, a suspended sentence or even house arrest. At a hearing in Pasadena, north of Los Angeles Wednesday, Judge Terry Smerling heard that the LA District Attorney and Pullos's attorneys have been working on a 'potential settlement'. Haley Pullos, 25, was charged with a DUI following a crash in April, which cops said happened while she was driving the wrong way on a Pasadena freeway. The General Hospital actress is now trying to negotiate a deal with prosecutors to change her plea to guilty and agree to a lower sentence After the crash, California Highway Patrol and Pasadena fire officials released photos of the late-night crash's aftermath, showing both Pullos' and the 23-year-old victim's cars completely totaled and sprawled along Arroyo Seco Parkway The judge scheduled another hearing April 8 which he said after numerous unresolved hearings since last July 'should be the final.' Deputy District Attorney Melany Avanessians told Judge Smerling that if no plea agreement is in place by April 8, 'we will send her to a preliminary hearing' meaning Pullos would be on her way to a full trial. Pullos who has played Molly Lansing-Davis on the popular daytime soap opera since she was 11 - was not in court Wednesday. Pullos wore a brace on her ankle for several weeks after the crash She was on crutches, due to her injuries from the accident, when she first appeared in court last July. But by her most recent court appearance last month, the brace was gone. Her wounds were evidently minor compared to the 'life threatening and lasting' injuries suffered by the other driver, 23 year-old Courtney Wilder, whose car Pullos collided head-on with on the 134 Ventura Freeway in Pasadena last April. Wilder, who was rushed in critical condition to a local hospital to undergo emergency surgery, is now suing the actress in civil court, seeking damages for negligence. Pullos was charged with DUI causing injury and another felony count of driving with over 0.08 blood alcohol content causing injury. Typically, only one of theses DUIs is prosecuted and carries a jail term of up to three years, plus a $5,000 fine. She was also charged with hit-and-run resulting from allegedly running into a parked car just before the freeway crash. That count is a misdemeanor and carries a maximum prison sentence of 180 days and a $1,000 fine. Police say that Pullos, who was dropped from the daytime soap a month after the accident, drove her white 2019 Ford Fusion westbound on to the eastbound 134 Freeway and smashed into Wilder's Kia which was traveling east at 60mph. Both cars were completely wrecked and when first responders arrived, say cops, Pullos was unable to exit her car, so firefighters had to use the jaws of life to get her out. Several mini bottles of tequila, plus edible marijuana wrappers were allegedly found in her car. And police at the crash scene reported that she smelled of alcohol and had slurred speech and glassy eyes. Marijuana edibles and tequila bottles were found during a search of Pullos' white 2019 Ford, which photos show sustained severe damage in the accident The driver of the other car the Kia seen at left was hospitalized and almost died, and is now suing Pullos for reckless endangerment Wilder accuses Pullos in his lawsuit of 'attacking' and abusing first responders in a 'rage' at the accident site, and even hitting and yelling at a fireman for touching her expensive designer shirt. 'Haley Pullos acted maliciously and without any regard for the safety of others, as evidenced by her rage when she was pulled from her vehicle by first responders,' said Wilder in a written declaration to the court. 'She acted maliciously by attacking the officers and yelling profanities in front of witnesses and directed toward those who were trying to help her. 'In her fit of rage, Haley Pullos battered a firefighter and yelled at him to take his hands off her '$400 fing shirt.' 'Despite having just caused two accidents, one of which resulted in serious, life-threatening injuries, she cared more about her overpriced clothing than she did the safety and all-being of the victim of her reckless, intentional and despicable conduct. 'As more evidence of her abhorrent behavior, Haley Pullos continued to fight medical staff and was forced to be sedated. 'Not only was she driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, but she was drinking behind the wheel, as evidenced by the edible wrappers and empty alcohol bottles which were found in her vehicle.' The driver she crashed into is suing the No Comment Lounge, where Pullos worked as a hostess, for allegedly plying her with booze then letting her drive Weeks after the crash, Pullos whose own injuries have never been revealed in detail told Soap Opera Digest she was taking a break from her role on the long-running daytime show to recover from the crash. 'Unfortunately, I was involved in an automobile accident and I'm doing OK, but I am going to need a little time to recover,' she told the publication at the time. 'I will be back as soon as possible!' Shortly afterward, in May 2023, she was spotted by DailyMail.com checking into a luxury rehab facility in Malibu. Last month, crash victim Wilder added Pasadena's No Comment Lounge where Pullos was working as a hostess the night of the accident as a defendant in his civil lawsuit, accusing the popular nightspot of plying her with booze, then letting her drive herself home. Wilder is also suing the State of California Transportation Department, claiming the road where the accident happened is in 'dangerous condition.' Hunter Biden will have a public hearing after his six-hour closed-door deposition revealed 'many discrepancies' about Joe's involvement in his son's shady business deals, says top Republican James Comer. Comer, R-Ky., who chairs the House Oversight Committee, is leading the investigation into whether Joe Biden used his position and 'brand' to enrich his family in a complex $20 million 'influence peddling' scheme. He told reporters after Hunter's six-hour deposition 'proved several bits of our evidence' and added 'we will have a public hearing next.' 'I think a public hearing will hopefully clear up some discrepancies between some of the statements being made by some of the associates and that we heard today.' The chairman added that he's 'very optimistic, very excited' about the deposition, and promised to release transcript of the interview in the next few days without disclosing further details. Hunter departed Capitol Hill after a grueling day of questioning with a slight smirk on his face, but did not respond to shouted questions about whether he will participate in an anticipated public hearing. A source close to the testimony also told DailyMail.com that Hunter admitted that he was 'high or drunk' when he sent his infamous incriminating WhatsApp message that he was the sitting here with my father when demanding money from Chinese company CEFC. Hunter departed Capitol Hill after a grueling day of questioning with a slight smirk on his face He did not respond to shouted questions about whether he will participate in an anticipated public hearing Hunter stood behind his attorney Abbe Lowell at the conclusion of the deposition It was a common line of Hunter's throughout the deposition, in which he discussed his addiction 'at length,' according to the source. Hunter reportedly told lawmakers that he is 'now embarrassed' by the message and his dad Joe was not sitting next to him when he sent it. He did not pull any media stunt antics, unlike his previous trips to the Hill in December in January, which sparked Republican anger. His attorney Abbe Lowell stated that the deposition today showed Republicans have 'no evidence.' 'The Republican majority ends the day with where they started. They have produced no evidence that would do anything to support the notion that there was any financial transactions that involved Hunter with his father period,' he told reporters after the deposition. It seems to me that the Republican members wanted to spend more time talking about my client's addiction than ... anything to do with what they call their impeachment inquiry. Republicans, however, believe the deposition went well. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters that Hunter lied in the deposition about his involvement in Blue Star Strategies, a consulting firm that worked with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Hunter held a position on the board. One thing that was interesting to me is he lied when he was talking about Blue Star Strategies,' she told reporters. 'He went from denying any involvement until we put evidence right in front of his face that he was in fact, involved. When pressed on whether any high crimes and misdemeanors were uncovered in the closed-door meeting, Greene responded: Influence peddling ... We can see that he sold his father's name and business. The president's son, a recovering drug addict, also ignored a shouted question about whether the cocaine found at the White House last summer was his. Hunter fiercely defended his father before Republican investigators, strongly stating 'I did not involve my father in my business,' according to his opening statement obtained by DailyMail.com. He detailed how Joe who 'saved' his life was there during his 'darkest days of addiction,' which have been politicized by the GOP to use in their 'sham' impeachment. 'You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father because there isnt any,' he continued. He further slammed Republicans, saying their 'house of cards' are 'built on lies' during bombshell testimony in Congress. Meanwhile, Democrats called the impeachment inquiry an 'embarrassment' for Republicans, adding that their pursuit of the president's son is nothing more than a 'wild goose chase.' Democrats, however, have repeatedly called the impeachment inquiry a sham and a waste of time. 'It's just so embarrassing that the Republicans continue to be on this wild goose chase after President Biden,' Progressive Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, said Wednesday morning before entering the deposition. 'I mean, they're acting like Hunter Biden is running for president.' Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, enters a federal building to before being deposed for an impeachment inquiry into his father House Democrats at Hunter Biden 's congressional deposition called the ongoing impeachment inquiry an 'embarrassment' for Republicans, adding that their pursuit of the president's son is nothing more than a 'wild goose chase' Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez said the Republican-led inquiry is tainted because one of the central informants in the case had ties to Russian intelligence Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Raskin have come out firmly in support of President Biden Some Democrats who sat in the deposition similarly told reporters that the meeting was lackluster. 'If you ever wonder why 50 percent of this country doesn't vote, you don't have to look further than the hour we just spent in there on this deposition,' Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., said after exiting the closed-door meeting after an hour. The first hour of the deposition 'was the nail in the coffin to what is a complete, bogus and sham impeachment inquiry,' Rep. Daniel Goldman said after exiting. Republicans are 'so desperate to humiliate the president they started asking the president some personal details about a divorce that happened almost 10 years ago. That's where this has been reduced to,' Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., told reporters. One of the lead Democrats pushing back against the inquiry, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said the hearing was a 'tremendous waste' of time and resources. This has been a 'comedy of errors from the beginning,' he stated. He said he 'understands' why Hunted wanted to testify publicly after sitting through the first three hours of the deposition. Raskin also said there was 'paranoid suspicion' being cast on the Republicans' focus on the over 20 speaker business phone calls of Hunters' that Joe sat on. Republicans, meanwhile, said the president's son was not being forthright. Hunter Biden was 'defiant and dishonest' in his deposition, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said after exiting the room. Democrats also decried Republicans' use of information by former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov in the inquiry as he was just recently accused of having ties with Russian intelligence agencies. Smirnov 'lied' about an alleged Biden family 'bribery scheme' with Ukrainians and had 'high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives,' according to prosecutors. The falsified bribery scheme involving a $10 million payment to Joe and Hunter by a top Ukrainian oil executive was at the center of the Republican's impeachment push until a few days ago. Last week, Special Counsel David Weiss charged Smirnov with lying about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden taking the bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma. If convicted, Smirnov faces a maximum of 25 years in prison. 'Their main source was collaborating with Russian intelligence forces,' Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Wednesday. 'The fact that Republicans received that information, that the entire country received that information, and they are still continuing with their impeachment proceedings and investigations should be a four alarm fire for this entire country.' The progressive likened the impeachment inquiry to a 'deep sea fishing expedition.' President Joe Biden's 2024 physical remained largely unchanged from last year, with his White House doctor saying there are 'no new concerns' and labeling the 81-year-old 'fit to serve.' The White House released the results of Biden's physical late Wednesday afternoon, after he took Marine One to Bethesda to get the annual exam done at Walter Reed. The report, penned by Physician to the President, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, said that Biden's skin cancer from last year had not spread, gave details on his use of a CPAP machine to treat sleep apnea and noted that Biden was fitted with a new prescription for contacts. 'President Biden is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully executive the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,' the report said. Earlier, the White House had confirmed Biden did not take a cognitive test during the exam. President Joe Biden's 2024 physical remained largely unchanged from last year, with his White House doctor saying there are 'no new concerns' and labeling the 81-year-old 'fit to serve.' Using the same language as last year's memo, O'Connor did say that Biden did sit for 'an extremely detailed neurological exam' that ruled out 'stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's or ascending lateral sclerosis.' O'Connor called the addition of Biden's CPAP machine - which became public knowledge in late June - the most 'notable' health development of the past year. 'Most people do experience some difficulties getting used to falling asleep while wearing a mask on their face, as well as with keeping it on throughout the night,' O'Connor said. 'This is reasonably anticipated and, in fact, should be expected.' 'The President had a very similar experience,' the top White House doctor noted. He wrote that after 'several different masks,' Biden was able to find one that worked. 'He has been remarkably committed to sticking with therapy and uses PAP successfully almost every night, for most or all of the night,' O'Connor added. The new report also noted Biden's root canal last summer, which O'Connor said he 'tolerated' well. The president still suffers from a stiff gait, 'but has not worsened since last year,' which the doctor attributed to 'wear and tear' of his spine. 'The President's arthritic changes remain moderate to severe, but still do not result in nerve root compression significant enough that they would warrant any special treatment,' O'Connor said. The president is on a combination of prescribed and over-the-counter medications, including Eliquis for his Afib and Crestor to keep his lipid levels low. He's on a prescription nasal spray and takes Allegra for seasonal allergies and uses Nexium over-the-counter. The report acknowledged that Biden 'did spend a good deal of time in the sun in his youth' but after the Mohs surgery performed before the beginning of his presidency 'no areas were detected which would require biopsy.' 'The President has been happily married for 46 years. He does not use any tobacco products, does not drink alcohol, and he continues to work out at least five times a week,' O'Connor also said. During Wednesday's briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre brushed aside concerns expressed in polls from American voters that the 81-year-old is not fit for a second term and touted his record. She dismissed the need for a cognitive test, despite the Department of Justice calling him an 'elderly man with a poor memory' in the special counsel report on his mishandling of classified documents. 'His doctor, including the neurologist, do not believe that he needs one,' Jean-Pierre said at Wednesday's press briefing. She responded: 'Folks need to understand that the president passes a cognitive test every day!' 'Given that there's been so much scrutiny ... why not just have his doctor administer the test?' a reporter asked after Biden went to Walter Reed for his annual health check-up. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed President Joe Biden did not take a cognitive test during his annual physical on Wednesday, and insisted he 'doesn't need' one. 'His doctor, including the neurologist, do not believe that he needs one,' Jean-Pierre added. A team of 20 doctors, including the White House physician, were present for the exam at Walter Reed. 'That is their assessment,' she added. Jean-Pierre also pushed back when a reporter asked for Biden's doctor, White House physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor, to address the press in the briefing room. 'There is not a precedent for bringing the doctor to the briefing room. I understand it has happened a few times over the last 35 years, a couple of times, but it is actually not the precedent,' she said. During the tenure of former President Donald Trump, Dr. Ronny Jackson, now a U.S. representative for Texas, appeared in the briefing room where he applauded the Republican's good genes. Biden made a surprise departure from the White House Wednesday morning, telling reporters he was headed to Walter Reed to undergo his annual physical exam Biden arrives at Walter Reed Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland Wednesday to receive his annual physical, with the results expected to be released Wednesday afternoon He also said that Trump didn't need a cognitive test, calling the leader 'very sharp' and 'very intact.' 'As it relates to the doctor coming to the briefing room, it is not a norm. We're trying to get back to the norm of what it used to be where doctors don't come to the briefing room,' Jean-Pierre argued Wednesday. She said that the memo, released later Wednesday afternoon, would be 'robust' and 'comprehensive.' Biden earlier joked that doctors 'think I look too young' while giving reporters an update on his annual physical. Biden stayed at the Bethesda medical center for about two and a half hours, returned to the White House and then held an event about reducing crime in the United States with top law enforcement voices in the State Dining Room. 'I'm alright, everything is squared away,' he told reporters after delivering brief remarks. 'No, there is nothing different than last year,' he also revealed. For months, polls have showed that a majority of Americans are doubtful that Biden can be effective through a second term, which would finish when he is 86 years of age. During last year's assessment by O'Connor, Biden also was described as 'fit for duty.' Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he will be stepping down from his role as the top Republican in the Senate in November sparking debate over who could replace the longest serving Senate leader in U.S. history. There are 'three Johns' in the wings who could take over the prominent role, but there are others who could also throw their name in the ring. In a tearful speech on Wednesday, McConnell, 82, said it was time for the 'next generation of leadership' and he had full confidence in his conference to choose his replacement. Now all eyes are on his two current and one former lieutenant - Sens. John Thune, John Barrasso and John Cornyn - who are all are considered the most likely to take the top role in Senate GOP leadership. A source familiar told DailyMail.com that Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is also planning to stage a run for a Republican leadership slot. Additionally, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who is one of two women in Republican Senate leadership, could be a potential dark horse candidate in the race while Sen. Joni Ernst, another member of the Republican leadership, ruled herself out on Wednesday. Sen. McConnell speaking on the floor of the Senate where he announced heh will step down as Senate Republican leader in November JOHN NO. 1: Sen. John Thune of South Dakota is currently Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's No. 2 in Senate leadership John No. 1 is Sen. John Thune of South Dakota who currently serves as McConnell's No. 2 in Senate leadership. At 63, he's the youngest of the top three contenders. Thune has served in the Senate since 2005 after his shocking election win against then Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. He won narrowly against the prominent Democrat 50.6 to 49.4 percent and put on display the state's increasingly rightward tilt. It was one of the most watched races in the 2004 cycle. Thune took the place as McConnell's No. 2 in 2019, as one of the other Johns - Sen. John Cornyn of Texas - was term limited out due to Republican leadership rules. Like McConnell, he had a falling out with former President Donald Trump over the ex-president's push to overturn the 2020 presidential election. But earlier this month, he endorsed Trump for president in the 2024 election. JOHN NO. 2: Sen. John Cornyn of Texas previously served as McConnell's top lieutenant but Republicans term limit leadership positions, so Thune took over in 2019 John No. 2 is Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who previously served as McConnell's right hand in Senate leadership. Cornyn, 72, was elected to the Senate in 2002, and served as the GOP's Senate Whip from 2013 to 2019, after a successful run at chairing the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Before that he served as a district judge, on the Texas Supreme Court and as the Lone Star State's attorney general. Republicans term limit their leadership positions, so Cornyn's whip gig was taken over by Thune in 2019. Since then, he was the Republicans' negotiator in a bipartisan gun control bill that was passed after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde in Cornyn's home state of Texas. Like McConnell and Thune, Cornyn had been critical of Trump, saying at one point 'we need to come up with an alternative' GOP nominee in 2024. He endorsed Trump for president in January. JOHN NO. 3: Sen. John Barrasso is the current No. 3 in GOP Senate leadership and more likely to move up to the No. 2 spot if Senate Republicans get a new head honcho John No. 3 is Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming and is currently the chair of the Senate Republican Conference, meaning he's the third most powerful Senate Republican. Barrasso, 71, is a orthopedic surgeon by trade, but also served as a rodeo physician for a time. He originally ran for the Senate in 1996 as the state's longtime Sen. Alan Simpson was retiring, but lost the GOP primary to state Sen. Mike Enzi, who won the general election in the deeply red state. He gained his seat after the death of Sen. Craig Thomas in 2007, after serving in the Wyoming state Senate. While Barrasso is more likely to take the No. 2 position, he does have a good relationship with Trump, who he also endorsed in the presidential race in January. A source familiar told DailyMail.com that Sen. Cotton will run for Senate leadership. Sen. Capito has also been floated as she serves in the current GOP Senate leadership Two other potential contenders are Capito and Cotton. Capito, 70, of West Virginia is the current vice chair of the Senate Republican Conference and would be the first woman to serve in the role. Cotton, 46, has served in the Senate since 2015. He currently serves on the Judiciary, Intelligence and Armed Services Committee. Rishi Sunak last night told police chiefs to get tough with protesters imposing 'mob rule' in Britain amid a growing row over pro-Palestine marches. Police leaders were summoned to Downing Street yesterday to discuss concerns about the campaign of intimidation mounted by protesters in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on October 7. The Prime Minister told them: 'There is a growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule. And we've got to collectively, all of us, change that urgently.' He added: 'We simply cannot allow this pattern of increasingly violent and intimidatory behaviour which is, as far as anyone can see, intended to shout down free debate and stop elected representatives doing their job. That is simply undemocratic.' Prime Minister Rishi Sunak departs 10 Downing Street to attend Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday February 28, 2024 A Pro-Palestinian supporter shouts slogans in front of Metropolitan Police officers during a demonstration in central London on January 6, 2024, calling for a ceasefire In a thinly-veiled criticism of the softly-softly approach taken by police towards some pro-Palestine marches, the PM also warned senior officers that they needed to do much more to reassure the public that they were taking the issue seriously. 'We also need to demonstrate more broadly to the public that you will use the powers you already have, the laws that you have,' he told them. 'I am going to do whatever it requires to protect our democracy and our values that we all hold dear. That is what the public expect. 'It is fundamental to our democratic system. And also it is vital for maintaining public confidence in the police.' In a separate intervention last night, Mr Sunak told Jewish community leaders that he will also demand that university leaders clamp down on an outbreak of anti-Semitism on campuses following the October 7 attacks. Yesterday's summit in No 10 came amid mounting public unease about attempts by protesters to subvert the political process. Concern is not confined to the debate around Gaza, with Just Stop Oil facing condemnation over plans to occupy the homes of MPs who fail to sign up to their agenda. But the anger and emotion surrounding the recent pro-Palestine demonstrations has catapulted the issue to the top of the political agenda. Last week the Commons descended into chaos after Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle bowed to Labour demands to tear up parliamentary procedure during a high-profile debate on Gaza, in an apparent bid to defuse threats to MPs. Home Secretary James Cleverly yesterday unveiled a 31 million package to boost security for MPs facing death threats and intimidation. Those deemed most at risk will be provided with private-sector bodyguards, while others will be eligible for cash and advice on improving security at their homes and offices. Mr Cleverly is reported to be pushing police chiefs to conduct an extra 80 patrols a week in 'hotspot areas' where community tensions have been inflamed. Ministers are braced for further ugly scenes following today's Rochdale by-election, where Gaza has been a major issue. Labour, which holds the seat, withdrew support from its candidate, Azhar Ali, after The Mail on Sunday revealed he had falsely claimed Israel allowed the October 7 attacks to take place as a pretext for an invasion of Gaza. But he remains on the ballot paper where he is locked in a two-horse race with former Labour firebrand George Galloway, who has also put Gaza at the heart of his campaign in a constituency which has a large Muslim population. A new 'defending democracy policing protocol' requiring police forces to take the issue seriously was published by ministers yesterday. All forces will be expected to appoint a senior officer to provide security briefings to MPs and political candidates and to act as a point of contact for those facing death threats and intimidation. Palestinian demonstrators clash with police as they try to reach the Israeli Embassy on December 29, 2008 in London Police scuffle with protesters next to Parliament as over a thousand people attend the Palestine protest called by Sisters Uncut and others on January 6, 2024 in London The guidance tells police chiefs that protests at the homes of MPs and councillors 'should generally be considered as intimidatory'. Protests at 'democratic venues', including town halls, MPs' offices and Parliament, should not be allowed to prevent the use of the venue or intimidate those attending. Despite the public concern, pro-Palestine campaigners yesterday vowed to continue with their mass demonstrations indefinitely. Ben Jamal, of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said the marches would continue even if a temporary ceasefire is announced next week, as US President Joe Biden has predicted. He claimed the demonstrations were being 'demonised' by 'pro-Israel actors in the political establishment'. Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger had his trial delayed again after no date was set at a hearing held Wednesday afternoon. Judge John Judge heard arguments about trial scheduling - as well as the defense's request for a change of venue but no official decision was made. They set a date for another hearing May 14 to determine the location. Kohberger, 29, is charged with four counts of murder in the deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves at a rental home near the university campus in Moscow, Idaho, last year. Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty for the former criminal justice student at Washington State University, if he is convicted. A trial date has not yet been set after Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial. Kohberger is pictured right in court on Wednesday. Judge John Judge is hearing arguments about trial scheduling - as well as the defense's request for a change of venue Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger is seen in May 2023 Prosecutors pushed for a trial date this summer. But the alleged killer's public defender Anne Taylor told the judge that a trial date of Summer 2025 was realistic. The judge previously decided to 'percolate' on when to set the date, apologizing to the families of victims for the delay but saying he wanted to ensure the trial only takes place 'once', with no room for retrials. 'My heart goes out to the victims. I can't even imagine the pain and the grief because they can't really go forward with this hanging on their head, so I'm sorry,' he said. Kohberger was arrested in December 2022 after police matched a DNA sample left at the scene to his father. They were alerted to him by his car - a white Hyundai Elantra, similar to one seen in the area on the night of the murders. He denies the killings but is yet to make any public statement himself. The Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it will decide if Donald Trump is immune from prosecution his federal election interference case on a timetable that keeps his trial on hold for months. The high court announced in a brief ruling that it would hear oral arguments in the case during the week of April 22, and keep Trump's January 6 case being tried in Washington, DC paused until then. It is hearing the case in an expedited fashion, setting up back-and-forth legal briefs between Trump's lawyers and the government this month. But just by agreeing to take the case the court pushed back Trump's case at least until the summer. It means the trial could be delayed by months, even if the former president loses, and if he wins the charges will be dismissed. In a single-page writ for what would be a historic ruling, the court said it woudl consider 'Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.' Special Counsel Jack Smith had urged the court to dismiss Trump's push for review, or to at least grant it on an emergency basis. One option the court had that it did not exercise was simply affirming the decision by a three-judge panel D.C. Appeals Court panel against Trump. The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to decide Donald Trump's claim of immunity from prosecution on charges brought by a special counsel involving his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss Even if the court were to rule in Smith's favor, the commencement of Trump's trial in D.C. could still be delayed by the calendar of U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, whose original trial date had been set for March. Scheduling was already complicated given the array of criminal and civil trials Trump is facing, with the Stormy Daniels case in Manhattan set to begin in March. The Supreme Court issues many of its rulings in June, but it isn't bound by the schedule and usually goes on vacation immediately after. It is still possible that Trump could be tried in Chutkan's courtroom this summer. That could happen if the Supreme Court reaches a quick decision. The lower court judge had shown an eagerness to keep things moving and and moves to treat Trump like any other defendant. Conservative former appeals court judge Michael Luttig, a Trump critic, concluded after the Supreme Court's action that it was probably 'unimaginable' that Trump would go to trial in the January 6 case before the November elections. He told MSNBC it was a 'momentous decision just to hear this case' about the former president's immunity claims for alleged crimes while in office. 'There was no reason in this world for the Supreme Court to take this case. the three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had written a masterful opinion denying the president's claims of absolute immunity,' he said. Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb and other legal experts have predicted that Trump could order his attorney general to pull back the indictments if he were reelected. If the January 6 trial were to be delayed until after the November elections, it may be that Trump's only trial before facing the voters would be the Stormy Daniels case which even some critics have faulted for relying on a federal campaign finance charges to accuse him of falsifying business records over hush payments to the porn star. The election interference case, by contrast, would bring a close examination of Trump's actions before the Capitol riot and a complex alleged conspiracy known as the 'fake electors' scheme described in Smith's indictment. The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Trump's claim of absolute immunity in oral arguments in late April keeping his criminal trial in Washington, D.C. on hold until then The court issued a writ that did not indicate any dissent or that a vote had taken place Trump, in his emergency filing asking the high court to step into the case, described his indictment as an effort to interfere in his own election. 'Conducting a monthslong criminal trial of President Trump at the height of election season will radically disrupt President Trumps ability to campaign against President Biden which appears to be the whole point of the special counsels persistent demands for expedition.' Trump has made similar arguments himself at an array of civil and criminal trials he is facing, saying he should be campaigning in Iowa or New Hampshire rather than attending court sessions, even though he made many of his appearances voluntarily. The justices, with a 6-3 conservative majority, will review a lower court's rejection of Trump's claim of immunity from prosecution The justices, with a 6-3 conservative majority that includes three Trump appointees, will review a lower court's rejection of Trump's claim of immunity from prosecution. The unsigned opinion did not reflect any dissent. His lawyers claimed he is immune because he tried to reverse President Joe Biden's election victory over him when he was president. Trump's lawyers had requested a stay of that ruling, warning of dire consequences for the presidency absent such immunity. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Feb. 6 ruled 3-0 against Trump's immunity claim, rejecting his bid for 'unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power - the recognition and implementation of election results.' Trump, the first former president to be criminally prosecuted, is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden, a Democrat, in the Nov. 5 U.S. election. Special Counsel Jack Smith in August 2023 brought four federal criminal counts against Trump in the election subversion case. A March 4 trial date was postponed as Trump pressed his immunity claim, with no new date yet set. He has trials pending in three other criminal cases. Trump has pleaded not guilty in all of them, seeking to portray them as politically motivated. His lawyers asked the Supreme Court on Feb. 12. In a filing to the Supreme Court, they said a months-long criminal trial would 'radically disrupt' Trump's ability to campaign against Biden. They also warned of dire consequences for future presidents if Trump's prosecution is allowed such as partisan prosecutions, extortion, blackmail and more. Smith's charges accused Trump of conspiring to defraud the United States, obstructing the congressional certification of Biden's electoral victory and conspiring to do so, and conspiring against right of Americans to vote. Trump and his allies made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and devised a plan to use false electors to thwart congressional certification of Biden's victory. Trump also sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence not to allow certification to go forward. Trump's supporters attacked the Capitol in a bid to prevent the certification. If Trump regains the presidency, he could use his powers to force an end to the prosecution or potentially pardon himself for any federal crimes. Trump last October sought to have the charges dismissed based on his claim of immunity from criminal prosecution related to actions taken by a president while in office. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected that claim on Dec. 1, prompting Trump's D.C. Circuit appeal. During arguments in January, one of Trump's lawyers told the three D.C. Circuit judges that even if a president sold pardons or military secrets or ordered a Navy commando unit to assassinate a political rival, he could not be criminally charged unless he is first impeached and convicted in Congress. In its unanimous decision rejecting Trump's immunity claim, the three-judge panel wrote: 'We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.' The Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump. The justices heard arguments on Feb. 8 in another case involving Trump with implications for the November election. The justice signaled skepticism toward a ruling by Colorado's top court that barred Trump from the state's Republican primary ballot, based on language in the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, after finding he engaged in an insurrection related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters. Trump, who served in the White House from 2017 to 2021, has made sweeping claims of immunity both while in office and since leaving the White House. Smith was appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to investigate Trump's actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election and his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021. Smith brought charges against Trump concerning both issues. The four criminal cases pending against Trump include the two pursued by Smith, one in a Georgia state court also involving his efforts to undo his 2020 loss and one in a New York state court involving hush money paid to a porn star. The Supreme Court in 2020 spurned Trump's argument that he was immune from a subpoena issued as part of a state criminal investigation while he was president. In a separate case, the justices also have agreed to decide whether a man involved in the Capitol attack can be charged with obstructing an official proceeding - the congressional certification of the 2020 election results. That case has potential implications for Trump because Smith brought two obstruction-related charges. The future of Britain's second aircraft carrier is under threat due to funding issues, naval sources have claimed. Senior figures have spoken out after it emerged next week's Budget will not include any significant rise in defence spending. They fear HMS Prince of Wales, which cost 3.5billion to build, could be mothballed or sold for a knockdown price to a friendly nation, over the fleet's flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth. The possible move branded an 'HS2 moment' for the Royal Navy would probably be divisive. But the decision could be forced upon commanders as soon as 2028 if the state of defence finances does not improve. The future of Britain's second aircraft carrier is under threat due to funding issues, naval sources have claimed Senior figures fear HMS Prince of Wales (pictured) could be mothballed or sold for a knockdown price to a friendly nation, over the fleet's flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth Last night a naval source told the Mail the nightmare scenario of selling a carrier to spare funds had been discussed by members of the Maritime Enterprise Planning Group, which looks at future considerations and strategies. He said: 'There's an awareness in the group that the Navy is struggling to maintain operational commitments and has to expand the fleet as rapidly as possible. 'The second carrier is an asset that is held in reserve and is a very expensive piece of rarely-used equipment. So if we want to address balance sheet issues, disposing of her or sharing her with say an AUKUS [Australia, UK and US] ally, is an option.' Last night, official sources said while the Navy remained committed to both carriers, 'changes in government and budgets' may alter this assessment. Ministers have told top brass they must 'spend better' to convince the Treasury to increase investment. Former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt held an emergency meeting with Jeremy Hunt yesterday to address the Budget. Ms Mordaunt, MP for Portsmouth North home to the Royal Navy's biggest base wrote online: 'Met the Chancellor to reiterate what Portsmouth's families and businesses need to hear in the Budget. Our first duty is to protect our nation and its interests.' An official source said while the Navy remained committed to both carriers, 'changes in government and budgets' may alter this assessment (Pictured: The HMS Prince of Wales) One source told the Mail that the second carrier is an asset that is held in reserve and is a very expensive piece of rarely-used equipment (Pictured: The HMS Prince of Wales) As part of spending cuts, one of the carriers was almost scrapped even before it set sail (Pictured: The HMS Prince of Wales) Another former defence secretary, Ben Wallace, told the Mail the UK had effectively been 'lying' to Nato for the last 20 years over its capabilities. Retired Royal Navy Commander Tom Sharpe said: 'If I was a carrier-sceptic, and there are plenty, I would be gunning for one of them right now. 'It does not help their cause that when a near-perfect opportunity to use a carrier presented itself in the Red Sea, we didn't take it for political reasons. 'We must recognise the threat to the second carrier, that is the unpleasant reality; the nuclear deterrent is the UK's only ring-fenced capability.' The carriers were approved in 2007 by then prime minister Gordon Brown. As part of spending cuts, one of the carriers was almost scrapped even before it set sail. But ministers found out axing it would be more expensive. HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth cost a combined 7billion. Today it is widely accepted the UK will not be able to adequately defend or operate them independently. Former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt held an emergency meeting with Jeremy Hunt yesterday to address the Budget Former defence secretary, Ben Wallace, told the Mail the UK had effectively been 'lying' to Nato for the last 20 years over its capabilities The service only has one solid stores ship, the RFA Fort Victoria, to support the carriers and she is due to be retired in 2028. The 65,000-ton behemoths and their strike groups have previously relied on protection from allies including the Netherlands and the US. Almost 700 crew are needed to operate one a drain on the force at a time of recruitment and retention issues. Navy sources have described the possible move as the service's 'HS2 moment' by analogy with Rishi Sunak's decision to scrap part of the high-speed rail project between London and the North. Last night, Mr Wallace said: 'For the last 20 years the UK's Armed Forces have not been able to deliver to Nato what they have claimed. 'Either we fund the Armed Forces properly or future prime ministers need to admit to the public that they want Britain to be a follower not a leader on the world stage.' A Royal Navy spokesman said: 'These claims are categorically incorrect, we are fully committed to operating both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.' Meanwhile, Britain's most senior officer, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, 58, has postponed his retirement to continue advising Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The Chief of the Defence Staff had been due to retire in November 2024. Laken Riley made a desperate call to 911 as she fought for her life, police have revealed, before her killer cut short the call and battered her to death. The chilling detail emerged today as Athens-Clarke County police released more documents from their investigation, including the family background of the alleged killer, undocumented Venezuelan migrant Jose Antonio Ibarra. The popular August University nursing student was attacked while jogging on the UGA campus on Thursday before being murdered and dragged into bushes. Police have refused to release audio of the call but have confirmed that Laken, 22, was connected to a dispatcher and have also charged Ibarra with violently interfering with a 911 call. It came as Athens Mayor Kelly Girtz faced a furious backlash today after it was revealed that police found multiple undocumented immigrants living in Ibarra's apartment in the city. Augusta University student Laken Riley, 22, managed to make a 911 call as she was being murdered, police have confirmed Undocumented Venezuelan migrant Jose Ibarra is accused of using an unknown object as a weapon to kill Laken after grabbing her between 9 am and 1 pm on Thursday, February 22. Ibarra's brother, Diego, also an illegal migrant, has notched up a lengthy criminal history since arriving in April 2023 on a forged Green Card As he tried to deny that Athens is a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants, the crowd started shouting at the mayor. A man in the crowd repeatedly shouted: 'You're a liar.' He added: 'You're the one who is guilty and got blood on your hands for this murder, sir!' 'Resign!' others shouted. Other protesters held signs that read: 'Blood on your hands' and 'Make Athens safe again.' Girtz repeatedly pointed out that Athens is not officially a sanctuary city, as Georgia doesn't allow them. 'There's been no legislation from this government that's created sanctuary city status,' he pleaded. 'We are deeply sorry for this tragedy ... Responsibility for this crime rests solely upon the perpetrator.' Police had previously said they received a non-emergency call from a friend of the 22-year-old Augusta University student reporting her missing when she failed to return from her morning run on Thursday. Meanwhile, it emerged that Ibarra's brother Diego Ibarra, 29, allegedly handed police a forged green card with two separate dates of birth when he was stopped for speeding in September last year. Diego Ibarra entered the country illegally in April 2023 and was arrested five months later with no license or insurance while driving at 80mph in a 40mph zone and drinking a can of Bud Light. 'I opened the driver's door and ordered him to step out of the vehicle, but he turned and began reaching inside of the vehicle, so I forcibly pulled him out,' the investigating officer wrote. 'The driver struggled and was brought to the ground, where there was a short struggle to handcuff him.' Days later, police were called to a domestic disturbance at his apartment but did not arrest him. Both brothers were cited on October 27 for allegedly stealing more than $200 from an Athens Walmart. And Diego allegedly returned to steal more items on December 8, earning himself a two-year ban from the store. Jose Ibarra has been charged in Riley's killing with felony murder, false imprisonment, kidnapping and concealing the death of another. Riley's roommate Connolly Huth shared a heartbreaking tribute to her former roommate, describing her as a 'perfect, beautiful, smart, kind and driven human' Riley was a senior nursing student enrolled at the university and grew up in Woodstock, Georgia. Before she earned her undergraduate degree at UGA in 2023, she graduated from River Ridge High School in 2020. UGA Police Chief Jeffrey Clark told reporters that officers searched Ibarra's apartment in Athens and evidence shows that he acted alone. 'He did not know her at all. I think this is a crime of opportunity where he saw an individual and bad things happened,' Clark said. 'The evidence is robust. It is supported by key input by the community, physical evidence and expert police work. Importantly, we were assisted by video footage from our campus security cameras network.' Jose Ibarra is accused of using an unknown object as a weapon to kill Laken after grabbing her between 9am and 1pm on Thursday, February 22. Riley's body was found the same day on the University of Georgia campus in a forested area near Lake Herrick that includes trails popular with runners and walkers. Police said Riley died from 'blunt force trauma' after being beaten and that she suffered a 'disfigured skull'. They added that Ibarra dragged her body to a secluded area to conceal the death, according to an arrest affidavit seen by CBS News. A tent township has sprung up in less than 48 hours in the regional Victorian city of Ballarat as firefighters and volunteers prepare for catastrophic conditions. The 131-hectare Victoria Park at Ballarat has become a base camp for hundreds of firies ahead of Wednesday's extreme and catastrophic fire danger across the state's west, central and northern regions. Firefighters could be there for more than a month, depending on how the rest of the fire season shakes out. Victorian County Fire Authority deputy chief officer Rohan Luke said it had been a significant effort to set up the camp in such a short timeframe. 'Base camps normally take a little while to set up,' he told reporters at the site on Wednesday morning. 'It's a little township essentially.' The camp has enough tents for about 300 firefighters and is already half full after the arrival of NSW firefighters on Tuesday evening. 'There was 160 here last night,' Mr Luke said. 'When we bring night shift crews in here ... there are tents inside air-conditioned marquees so that those sleeping during the day can get some decent sleep.' Of the 160 campers, about 100 were from the NSW Rural Fire Service and another 25 with NSW Fire Rescue. Mr Luke briefed the NSW strike teams on Wednesday morning and said morale was high despite many people driving more than 10 hours from Sydney. 'They were able to get a good feed and a good night's sleep,' he said. Two of the strike teams will stay put at the base camp for now and another two are headed to a pre-staging area at Ballan, east of Ballarat. 'What we've done is separate the taskforces to allow them to give maximum footprint to cover a number of areas,' Mr Luke said. Authorities' main concerns are the Bayindeen blaze, northwest of Ballarat, breaking containment lines under forecast high temperatures and strong winds and other blazes that could spark elsewhere from dry lightning. 'We can't predict where that is,' Mr Luke said. 'The catastrophic (fire danger rating) in the Wimmera is where the most critical fire weather will be but we can't take our eyes of the rest of the state either. 'There's capacity in other parts of the state to ensure that any new fires will be jumped on straightaway.' Channel Nine has brought in five private investigators A team of private investigators employed by a television network have joined the hunt for missing mother-of-three Samantha Murphy. Daily Mail Australia can reveal Channel Nine's Under Investigation hired at least five private sleuths to put together tonight's show on Ms Murphy's disappearance, titled 'The Runner'. It comes as more information on Ms Murphy's private life continues to emerge, including details on her campaign to free a former employee from jail. Samantha Murphy has not been seen since February 4 Mick Murphy, left, with Jack Aston, centre and Aston's wife Wendy Ms Murphy and her husband Mick publicly backed Ballarat bus driver Jack Aston in 2019, telling the Ballarat Courier his old job at their panel shop, Inland Motor Body Works, was waiting for him when he was released from jail. 'He said to me last time he was talking to me he is scared he is going to be lazy, he is going to come out lazy because there isn't enough to do. He is someone who is always doing something,' Ms Murphy told the paper. Last week, Victoria Police's Missing Person Unit Detective Acting Superintendent Mark Hatt said that business was now a major focus of its investigation into Ms Murphy's disappearance. Both Aston and his son had been employed at the Murphy family business, which was co-owned by Ms Murphy. Mr Murphy had gone as far as to provide a character reference for Aston in court after his mate was found guilty of six charges of negligently causing serious injury. Aston had crashed a bus into Melbourne's notoriously low Montague Street Bridge. His five-year sentence in 2019 angered much of the Ballarat and wider community, who believed it was nothing more than an unfortunate accident. He was released on appeal after serving a year behind bars. Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting Ms Murphy's defence of Aston has anything to do with her disappearance, just that the defence happened. Samantha and Mick Murphy publicly defended Ballarat bus driver Jack Aston (centre) after he was jailed for a 2016 bus crash in Melbourne that injured six passengers Jack Aston was jailed for five years after crashing into Melbourne's notoriously low Montague Street Bridge in 2016. Even his victims claimed he had been dealt with harshly. The community had rallied around the release of Aston, who had been a beloved employee of Mick and Samantha Murphy Ms Murphy was revered by those who knew her for her compassion and strong community spirit. New photographs obtained by Daily Mail Australia show her helping out at the local primary school where her children attended. The Ballarat community has returned the favour in spades since she vanished from a jog on February 4. Large crews have continued to venture into the bush looking for Ms Murphy long after police and emergency services volunteers abandoned all hope. On Wednesday, veteran crime reporter and Underbelly author John Silvester claimed police suspected Ms Murphy's likely killer was among them. 'We know that the local people, volunteers have gone out there selflessly to search time and time again. Police will also be considering that one of those searchers is the killer,' he told Melbourne radio 3AW. Samantha Murphy during a Mother's Day event at her child's primary school. She had been an active member of the school community A planned search by Ballarat locals was called off on Wednesday due to Victoria's extreme weather conditions, which have seen bushfires rage around the Ballarat region. The Under Investigation program, which airs across the country at 9pm, is promoted as using 'cutting edge technology' as part of its investigation. 'Technology specialist Nigel Phair will follow Samanthas digital footsteps and the vital data collected from the phone she was carrying and the watch she was wearing extraordinary digital clues to her last movements,' a promotion for the show spruiked. Superintendent Hatt has only provided the public with limited details about Ms Murphy's phone and watch. Last week, the detective refused to say what information, if anything, had or hadn't been obtained from the Apple watch Ms Murphy was wearing when she went on her run. Nor would he say if Ms Murphy had activated Google location tracking on her phone. Superintendent Hatt claimed detectives know Ms Murphy was on foot when she entered the bush due to data obtained from that phone's communication with a nearby telecommunications tower. The Under Investigation program will also include input from missing persons specialist Valentine Smith, former Victorian detective Damian Marrett and mineshaft explorer Raymond Shaw. Anyone with information on Ms Murphy's disappearance should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Once again, it was left to Queen Camilla to lead the Royal Family at the memorial service for the late King Constantine of Greece at Windsor. Neither the King nor, following a late withdrawal, the Prince of Wales, were there at St Georges Chapel yesterday, a further reminder of how thinly stretched the British Monarchy has become. Yet the 76-year-old Queen is not entirely without help as her husband embarks on treatment for an unspecified form of cancer. The wider family has rallied round with, in particular, the self-effacing Duke and Duchess of Gloucester stepping to the fore. We saw this last week when the Queen presented awards to universities and colleges, including prizes for a solution to Ugandan sleeping sickness, a scheme to monitor waste water and another for combatting parasitic worms. Not all royal duties are glamorous. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester at home in Northamptonshire in 1989 with their children the Earl of Ulster, Lady Davina (front right) and Lady Rose The Queen and the duchess present the Queen's Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education at Buckingham Palace last week As the pictures from last Thursday show, however, the Queen had company. Standing by her side beneath the Delhi Durbar canopy in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace, helping to hand out the Queens Anniversary Prizes, was Birgitte, the 77-year-old Duchess of Gloucester. This is no coincidence. The Gloucesters were with the King and Queen at Sandringham for the New Year celebrations. Im not aware that the Danish-born Duchess, had ever been a guest at Sandringham before, certainly not so publicly. A few weeks earlier, the duchess had been seated next to King Charles at his recent 75th birthday party, an event notable for the comparatively small selection of guests. The duke and duchess are becoming ever-present, and deliberately so They were there yesterday in the front row at St Georges Chapel, sitting next to Princess Anne and her husband Vice-Admiral Sir Tim Laurence. Like chess pieces, they have been moved forward up the board, square by square. As the rules of chess allow, they have found themselves transformed - from royal pawns, to trusted knights (the Duchess a Dame Grand Cross of course) now gathered around the King and Queen. As seasoned chess players know, two knights in combination are notably effective, which is good news for the Royal Family particularly now. Andrew is followed by ex-wife Sarah, Sir Tim Laurence, Zara and Mike Tindall, and Princess Anne at St George's Chapel yesterday. Neither the King nor William were there The duke and duchess attend Trooping the Colour in London last year Charles once wanted a slimmed-down monarchy, but not like this. Not only is the King out of action, so is the Princess of Wales. Neither Andrew nor Harry is available. Even the 88-year-old Duke of Kent has been hors de combat following an operation, though he too was at Windsor yesterday. In short, the King and Queen need urgent support and they have found it in the dignified shape of his cousins, the Gloucesters. Richard, an architect by training, has never sought the limelight. Because he did not have a military career, the duke has never lain a wreath at the Cenotaph. He has rarely taken centre-stage at public events. Yet Charless cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, has always been around, helping when required. Richard, 79, and Birgitte have been conducting royal duties for 52 years. READ MORE: SARAH VINE: Tragic reminder for this generation of royals that death is no respecter of age or social class Advertisement They are well-trained, dedicated and in good health. Yesterday was the fourth time in recent weeks that the Duchess of Gloucester had been by the Queens side. Birgitte was with her at Clarence House when the Queen was made an honorary Liveryman or member of the Worshipful Company of Fan Makers. The duchess has been a Liveryman since 2005. Birgitte was with Camilla once again the following night for Gyles Brandreths Shakespearian celebration at Grosvenor House on Park Lane a celebrity-laden evening of readings and performances titled a Valentines Day Toast to The King, The Queen and William Shakespeare. We dont often see members of the Royal Family meet in public and there is a touch of theatre when they do. The Duchess of Gloucester curtsied to the Queen, they kissed and she curtsied again. Until 2005 and Camillas marriage to Charles when she became the Duchess of Cornwall the curtsies would have been the other way around. As it happens, Richard is a senior royal duke with precedence before his better-known Kent cousins. Effectively, he outranks them. The youngest grandchild of George V, Richard had never expected be duke, let alone to become a public figure. Tragic circumstances made him so. He was born as Prince Richard in 1944, the younger son of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and his wife, Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott, daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch. Camilla and Birgitte at the event at Buckingham Palace last Thursday The duke is not only part of the Royal Family but has a network of aristocratic relations, many of them Scottish. His father, Prince Henry, had been a younger brother of King Edward VIII and King George VI, grandfather to the King. The duke's immensely dutiful mother The Duke of Gloucesters mother, later known as Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, was supremely elegant and immensely dutiful. When, to general surprise, produced a book of memoirs in later life, the duchess revealed a dry and infectious sense of humour. When she allowed her younger son, Richard, to have a May Day party at Barnwell, she took a late-night stroll with her lady-in-waiting. Straying across a musician making a grim sound by the swimming pool, she tried to comfort him, saying: Oh dear, has it gone wrong? Its meant to be like that, came the indignant reply. At 4am next day, she was awoken by the sound of cuckoos trying to drown out the sound of the band, relentlessly playing into the small hours. Looking out of her bedroom window, she saw several people 'floating around in white, playing croquet, which completed the strangeness of the moment. Princess Alice lived to be nearly 103, passing away in 2004. At her memorial service, the present duke told the congregation that having had a mother for 60 years, he now found it strange to find himself without one. Advertisement It became traditional to think of Henry as a stodgy figure, but biographer James Pope-Hennessys account of a visit to see him in The Quest for Queen Mary revealed a thoughtful man with a sense of humour. The present duke has said that his father would today be described as an action man, a keen rider and countryman who farmed a large estate in Northamptonshire and enjoyed safaris in his younger days. It had always been Prince Henrys wish to be a serving soldier but his military career was ruined by his eldest brothers Abdication, thanks to which, Henry became Regent designate. Should anything have happened to George VI between 1937 and 1944 when Princess Elizabeth came of age, Prince Henry would have been expected to step in as Regent. His life, thereafter, was one of royal duty. Something similar happened to the present Duke. Richard and his glamorous elder brother, Prince William, were largely brought up at Barnwell Manor, the Gloucesters home in Northamptonshire. Prince William was the more outgoing and adventurous of the two, considered a dashing bachelor prince, who was stationed in the British Embassy in Tokyo in the 1970s. Richard was a quieter, more thoughtful boy. Educated at Eton then Cambridge, his plan was to be an architect and live on the Isle of Dogs. For a while, that seemed to be his future. The young duke, then Prince Richard of Gloucester, with the then Prince Charles, right, with their nannies at Clarence House in 1951 The duke and duchess with the King and Queen for a New Year's Eve service at Sandringham While at Cambridge, Richard met Birgitte van Deurs and they married in July 1972 with his brother William as best man. Disaster struck almost immediately and the direction of Richards life changed forever, as it had done for his father. A mere six weeks after the wedding, his brother William took part in an air race near Dudley, turned his plane too sharply and it crashed. William was killed instantly. By that time, the old Duke of Gloucester, Prince Henry, had suffered a stroke and was living at Barnwell. A duke who's ever ready to help I have personal reasons to be grateful to the duke, who was Patron of the Jubilee Walkway Trust. I became chairman in 2002. The Jubilee Walkway was created by Max Nicholson as an urban walking trail in celebration of the Silver Jubilee in 1977. But it was also designed to get people onto the South Bank. This was a huge success. By 1994 the Queens Walk stretched from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge and is a vibrant part of London life. When I took over, the duke secured us the Chinese Dining Room in Buckingham Palace, and was chairman of a meeting of the great and good. As a result, we were able to establish the Jubilee Greenway a 60km route round London, linking the Olympic sites. Queen Elizabeth opened it outside Buckingham Palace on February 29, 2012. The duke was ever ready to help us, as he has so many other organisations for more than half a century. Advertisement Within days Prince Richard, now heir, had moved back into Kensington Palace, their London home, and had assumed his brothers responsibilities. When Prince Henry died in 1974, Richards mother, Princess Alice, rather hoped that her son could resume his architectural career. Architecture was, after all, his passion. Richard, though, was required to undertake royal duties and to run Barnwell. It was not his first choice for a career, but he embraced his destiny a lesson in sharp contrast to certain younger members of the family in the coming years. The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester have a son and two daughters who, like their parents, have avoided the public gaze. They had happy childhoods at Barnwell and at Kensington Palace with their parents and grandmother, Princess Alice, until she passed away in 2004 at the age of 102. If it was difficult at times to have three generations in the same household, there was also fun. I had tea at Barnwell with Princess Alice in 1989 and, as I was leaving, she said: I must show you the morning room. I expected to see a room of leather armchairs. Not a bit. It was filled with a model railway track to rival Spaghetti Junction. This was where the duke and his son had spent long hours playing happily together. Although generally self-effacing, there is even an engaging personal note in the dukes approach to royal engagements. He has a distinguished collection of ties and likes to select one appropriate to the occasion. Much like King Charles, in fact. Queen Camilla is in good hands. Now Im REALLY worried. On Tuesday morning, with barely two hours to spare, the Prince of Wales announced he would be a no-show at the memorial service for the late ex-King Constantine II of Greece, none other than his godfather. The reason given was for a personal matter. Hmmm. He was also swerving the honour of giving a reading. All of which made me and so many others immediately start to worry about Kate. Twitter caught fire (11,000 posts about William, 47,000 about Kate) with feverish speculation. This despite the Palace insisting almost in the same breath that the Princess of Wales is doing well, which sounds rather lame. Almost telling us to keep our proletarian noses out. We have since been assured the death of Tom Kingston, husband of Lady Gabriella - daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent - was not the reason for Williams absence. Last picture together: Lady Gabriella Windsor and her husband Tom Kingston pictured on February 14 this year at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane That sad announcement was made several hours after the service, although he had been found dead on Sunday. Valiantly, and proof if we needed it that the royals are nothing if not stoic, Gabriellas parents chose to attend the memorial service. It was all the more poignant given that the venue was St Georges Chapel, Windsor where Gabriella and Tom had their wedding in 2019, attended by the late Queen. Gabriellas parents looked sombre yesterday but gave nothing away. They were in the middle of a family tragedy but they knew the show had to go on. Duty: Prince and Princess Michael of Kent at the memorial service for King Constantine of Greece at Windsor on Tuesday, two days after the death of their son-in-law The temptation to stay with and comfort Ella must have torn the Kents in two but the royals always, always put duty first. Which of course only fuelled more speculation last night that, for William to be a no- show, something must be terribly wrong. He has been brought up with duty as his watchword. Even as a 15-year-old boy, he managed to hold it together and walk behind his mothers coffin. What on earth could have prompted the dramatic, last-minute no-show? While most of us have never heard of the late King Constantine, Williams decision not to appear is baffling. The king, who died over a year ago, was cousin to Williams grandfather Prince Philip and a senior European royal. Guests included the King and Queen of Spain as well as Queen Camilla and Princess Anne. Williams absence was perplexing on so many levels and I wonder why is the Palace allowing the rumour mill to spin out of control by not giving us a good reason? Desperate for news, like so many people, I go online. And there, oh dear, oh dear, is a montage that perhaps wont quite bring about the end of the monarchy, but one that suggests that it will surely tip it into irrelevance. Poignant: Tuesday's memorial service took place at St George's Chapel, Windsor, where Lady Gabriella married Tom in 2019. Pictured with her parents, brother Lord Frederick and his wife Sophie Winkleman The photographs of the service were positively Victorian: so dark and glum and the protagonists - there is no other phrase for it - as old as the hills. Crumbling. No hint of glamour, no sap in those veins. Of course, it was a sombre occasion, but didnt the sight of the Princess of Wales in a black veil at Prince Philips funeral give hope for the future? Sad to say, the royal turnout was mostly grey heads and wrinkles. And Prince Andrew, 64 - Prince Andrew! - who led the procession into the chapel. That surely would not have happened had William been present. The Duchess and Duke of Gloucester, 77 and 79. Princess Alexandra was there at 87, Commander Tim Laurence, 68, alongside Princess Anne, 73. And, of course, Queen Camilla, 76. The combined age of the royals in the front row was 581. Grey heads and wrinkles: In the front row at Tuesday's service were, from left, Princess Alexandra, 87, her daughter Marina Ogilvy, 57, Prince Andrew, 64, the Duchess and Duke Gloucester, 77 and 79, Sir Tim Laurence, 68, Princess Anne, 73, and Queen Camilla, 76 All of which makes me yearn for William and Catherine: tall and elegant as reeds, much more glamorous than any movie stars. Why on earth no one thought to shoe-horn Princess Beatrice (row two), Zara (row three) into the best seats to up the style and youth count, I can't begin to fathom. And where is Lady Louise, Philips granddaughter? I didn't spy a single person of colour in our royal ranks, either. Royal courtiers will, of course, shout protocol. Queen Camilla is holding the fort, but even she must be thinking: We really are on our last legs.' READ MORE: SARAH VINE: Tragic reminder for this generation of royals that death is no respecter of age or social class Advertisement You can imagine the groans of relief as the congregation is permitted to sit down. Of course, age brings experience, gravitas, wisdom, a devotion to duty again, Gabriellas parents were doing exactly what the late Queen Elizabeth would have done, backs straight, game face on. But this doesnt ensure a future, let alone positive oohs and aahs from a waving crowd. We have never needed William and Kate, and even Harry and Meghan, more acutely: They would be an injection of HRT. It would be all, What is she wearing? Are the boys talking?' 'Hows Harrys hair? Instead we have, The duke has just sat down, oh my God, will he ever come back up? Like it or not, the Royal Family is all about glamour, marketing, putting on a show. It cannot look doom ridden, reeking of mothballs. Princess Michael herself has in the past described the older royals as boring. Modern style: The Prince and Princess of Wales. Like it or not, the Royal Family is all about glamour, marketing, putting on a show, says Liz Jones The royals are looking very dark indeed. Bring back the Fab Four, or even a Fab One. We really cannot take any more bad news. Prince William needs to do his duty. Not just to his wife and children - but to us. Faced with a baffling array of increasingly expensive choices, choosing a bottle of wine can feel like a daunting challenge. But if you can't tell your Pinot Grigio from cut price plonk, science may be able to help. Studies have shown how everything from the type of cork to the style of the label can influence the taste of wine. And just this week, experts revealed that when it comes to white or rose wines, choosing varieties in clear bottles can leave your wine tasting of wet dog or boiled cabbage. So, before you brave the supermarket aisles, read on to discover the formula for the perfect bottle of wine. Faced with a baffling array of increasingly expensive choices, choosing a bottle of wine can feel like a daunting challenge. But if you can't tell your Pinot Grigio from cut price plonk, science may be able to help The formula for the perfect bottle of wine 1. Dark bottle Clear bottles let light through which causes the wine to smell unpleasant. 2. Colourful descriptive label More expensive appearing wines taste better, so get a fancy-looking label to get more out of your budget. 3. Cork instead of screwtop Wines with corks are perceived as more enjoyable and celebratory than those with screwtops. 4. Aerate the wine before drinking Wine reacts with oxygen when exposed to air which helps the natural flavour develop. 5. Use a tulip-shaped glass Picking a tulip-shaped glass helps you get the most out of the aroma without smelling too much ethanol. Advertisement The bottle The bottle itself can make a big difference to the flavour. The flavour of wine is dependent on the balance of volatile chemicals produced by fermenting grapes. But these chemicals are very sensitive to the UV radiation in natural and artificial light. Clear bottles allow light to pass through to the wine and kickstart reactions which can ruin the flavour. In 2022, reseachers from the University of Trento left bottles of Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio left in the sun for seven days. Wine kept in clear bottles lost between 30 and 70 per cent of the chemicals responsible for floral or woody notes. Even worse, when light hits wine it causes amino acids to react and form sulphur compounds which produce a smell like boiled cabbage, wet dog, and drains. You can try and minimise the effect by keeping the wine someone dark but, since this can start after only 30 minutes by the time the wine is on the shelves it's probably too late. For this reason, experts suggest that you steer clear of uncoloured bottles, especially for delicate white, Rose, or sparkling wines. Mark Driver, a winemaker and owner of Rathinny Estate in Sussex, told The Times: 'When you're next reaching for a bottle of rose, or a more delicate white like a Pinot Gris of Blanc, look for one in a dark green or amber-coloured bottle, just to be on the safe side.' Clear bottles let sunlight reach the wine, which can lead to a phenomenon called 'sun strike'. In the worst cases, this can leave your wine tasting of wet dog, boiled cabbage, and drains - no matter how much you paid for it Terms to look out for on wine labels Estate-bottled wine: This means the wine was grown, produced and bottled on one estate, and tends to be lower quality. Reserve: This term might give a wine some added appeal, but it doesn't mean anything official. That said, some smaller producers use it to indicate their top-tier wines. Old vines: Or in French, 'Vielles Vins'. Using grapes from older vines usually results in more concentrated flavours in a wine, but again, there are no rules to say exactly how old a vine must be in order for a producer to use this term on a label they could range from 15 to 115 years! Advertisement The label The label tells you a lot of important information about the wine such as the grape variety and year. However, it can also have a big impact on how you experience wine. Professor Charles Spence, a psychologist from the University of Oxford, told MailOnline that a more descriptive, expensive-looking label can create a more enjoyable wine. He said: 'If the consumer sees a label that looks like the sort they might see on an expensive bottle that sets an expectation of quality.' But this isn't just a matter of people playing along with what's expected of them. A 2021 study revealed that people enjoy wine more if they have been told it is more expensive. Researchers from the University of Basel tested volunteers with three Italian red wines, ranging in price from 8, 25 and 50 but the prices were incorrectly marked. When the cheapest wine was given deceptively high pricing, it was judged the most pleasant of the three, performing 20 per cent better in the taste test. However, 'taste intensity' wasn't distorted by an incorrect price, suggesting the punchiness of an outstanding bottle of wine can't be hidden. Professor Spence explained that the cues in a bottle's description prime us to pick out certain flavours. A 2021 study revealed that people enjoy wine more if they have been told it is more expensiv . Researchers from the University of Basel tested volunteers with three Italian red wines, ranging in price from 8 (left), 25 (centre) and 50 (right) but the prices were incorrectly marked. When the cheapest wine was given deceptively high pricing, it was judged the most pleasant of the three, performing 20 per cent better in the taste test This means that reading a more detailed description of the wine prepares us to experience a broader palate of flavour. So, to get more flavour at no extra cost, choose a fancy-looking label with lots of tasting notes. The cork There has long been a debate over whether corks or screwtops are better for storing wine. However, scientists suggest that it might all come down to a matter of taste. In 2017, Professor Spence tested two wines in a blind taste test for wine journalists and members of the public. Before being served the wine the participants either heard the sound of a cork or screw cap, or opened a bottle of either type themselves. The results showed that participants rated the same wine as 15 per cent better quality when served under a cork than a screw cap. The wine under a cork was also rated as 20 per cent better for a celebration, and 16 per cent more inciting of a celebratory mood. In 2017, Professor Spence tested two wines in a blind taste test for wine journalists and members of the public. Before being served the wine the participants either heard the sound of a cork or screw cap, or opened a bottle of either type themselves The sound and sight of pulling a cork gives us an expectation that the wine will taste better which actually improves the flavour Even hearing the sound of a cork being pulled was enough to improve the taste of the wine. Professor Spence said: 'All these cues set an expectation of tasting a better wine and when you do taste it the wine is hard to distinguish from any other for most people. 'So as long as it is more or less what you expected you just live in the world of your expectation.' However, Professor Spence notes that in California or Australia where screw caps are almost ubiquitous, this effect might not hold. So, if you are trying to trick yourself and your guests into enjoying the wine more, pick whichever seems fanciest to you and make sure everyone hears you open it. Aerating the wine Before drinking, experts recommend that you aerate your wine first. Aerating wine is as simple as exposing the wine to air and is often described as 'letting the wine breathe'. When wine is exposed to air, two processes take place: evaporation and oxygenation. First, the more volatile compounds in the wine will begin to evaporate away. This includes the ethanol and sulfites that are contained in the bottle and can leave an unpleasant odour if you start drinking right away. Oxidation, meanwhile, is essentially the same chemical process that turns apples brown or causes a piece of iron to rust. As natural compounds in the wine oxidise they transform into acetaldehyde and acetic acid. If this goes too far, the acetic acid can leave the wine a little vinegary, but a little bit of oxygenation can leave even the cheapest plonc tasting vintage. To achieve this effect you can either transfer the wine into a carafe or simply let it sit out for a few minutes before serving. Alternatively, there are a huge number of flashy gadgets out there that can boost the amount of oxygen in the wine and achieve the same results in seconds. The glass Finally, to get the most out of your wine it is important to choose the right glassware. Because of wine's alcohol content, it evaporates quickly and throws out a lot of the volatile chemicals that give wine its smell. It is this smell or 'bouquet' that makes a fine wine so enjoyable and so making the most of it can be a huge help to a wine's flavour. But, as that alcohol evaporates away you might also get stuck with a noseful of unpleasant ethanol. To get around this balance you need to use the right glass. In 2015, a camera system developed by scientists in Japan revealed exactly how wine's aroma changes as ethanol vapour escapes from a glass. This revealed that the traditional wineglass created a 'ring' of ethanol vapour around the edge of the glass. 'This ring phenomenon allows us to enjoy the wine aroma without interference of gaseous ethanol,' the scientists told Chemistry World. 'Accordingly, wine glass shape has a very sophisticated functional design for tasting and enjoying wine.' So, if you really want to make the most of your wine it is worth breaking out the good glasses to get the best possible experience. Fish are shrinking due to global warming, a new study reveals. Warmer water means smaller plankton - the microorganisms fish feed on - float to the surface. This means fish get less nutrition from what they eat, researchers found. The University of Tokyo researchers analysed the individual weight and overall biomass of 13 species of fish, including mackerel, anchovy and sardines, looking at long-term data for six fish populations from four species between 1978 and 2018. Seawater temperature data between 1982 and 2014 were also studied to see if changes in the ocean's surface and subsurface layers may have had an impact. The results, published in Fish and Fisheries, showed two periods of reduced fish body weight, first in the 1980s and again in the 2010s. The results, published in Fish and Fisheries, showed two periods of reduced fish body weight, first in the 1980s and again in the 2010s (Pictured: Sardines underwater) This initial weight drop was originally attributed to greater numbers of Japanese sardine, which increased competition with other species for food. However, further analysis revealed that the effect of climate change warming the ocean appears to have resulted in more competition for food, as cooler, nutrient-dense water could not easily rise to the surface. The findings in the Pacific support previous research in other areas of the world which has found that trophy fish caught in fishing competitions are also getting smaller, and that smaller species of fish are also increasing in number at the expense of bigger ones. Professor Shin-ichi Ito of the University of Tokyo said: 'With higher temperatures, the ocean's upper layer becomes more stratified, and previous research has shown that larger plankton are replaced with smaller plankton and less nutritious gelatinous species, such as jellyfish. 'Climate change can alter the timing and length of phytoplankton blooms, explosive growth of microscopic algae at the ocean's surface, which may no longer align with key periods of the fish life cycle. Warmer water means smaller plankton, which means fish get less nutrition from what they eat, researchers found (Pictured: Freshly caught herring at a fish market) 'The migration of fish has also been shown to be affected, in other studies, which in turn impacts fish interaction and competition for resources.' According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, in 2019, the western North Pacific accounted for almost a quarter of the global total of fish caught and sold. The team add that their results have implications for fisheries and policymakers trying to manage ocean resources under future climate change scenarios. Professor Ito said: 'Fish stocks should be managed differently than they were before, considering the increasing impact of climate-induced conditions. 'The situation fish experience is much more severe than decades ago. If we cannot stop global warming, the quality of fish may decline. 'So, we need to take action so that we can enjoy a healthy ocean and delicious fish.' It's one of the go-to email services for users around the world, but it appears that Yahoo Mail has crashed. According to Down Detector, the problems first started yesterday afternoon, and continue on into this morning. At 07:00 BST, around 2,000 issues had been logged. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Yahoo said: 'Some users may be experiencing issues with the Yahoo Mail app. 'We are investigating and will update as needed.' It's one of the go-to email services for users around the world, but it appears that Yahoo Mail has crashed According to Down Detector, the problems first started yesterday afternoon, and continue on into this morning. At 07:00 BST, around 2,000 issues had been logged Commenters have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to criticise Yahoo's response to the outage, claiming it has not been fixed quickly enough How to fix the issue Open your smartphone and long press the app icon. Click the info icon on the top right corner to open the app settings. Next, scroll down to the usage section and storage row, and open it. Clear cache and clear data, then reopen the app. It should now work as usual. Advertisement The issue began last night as the app began crashing for thousands affected by an unknown bug. Of those who reported issues with Yahoo Mail, 77 per cent said the problem was with the app, while 13 per cent said it was an issue with login. The remaining 10 per cent said they were struggling with server connection. However, Yahoo says that customers should begin to regain access to their accounts throughout the day. Already, reports on Down Detector have fallen from a peak of 8,000 at 14:00 BST on Tuesday. But with the free email service remaining a popular option for an estimated 225 million monthly users, this glitch has led to widespread frustration. Several irritated users have taken to X (formerly Twitter) to discuss the outage. 'Yahoomail STILL NOT WORKING waiting for HOSPITAL RESULTS AND APPOINTMENTS . It's been 24 HRS NOW and yes I've tried clearing the cache and still NOTHING won't even open,' one user vented. Another added: 'Any chance we can get our emails @YahooCare what's going on??' Meanwhile one frustrated commenter wrote: 'I haven't been able to access my email since around 14:00 GMT UK. I know you are trying to resolve the issue but it's not good enough! When will it be fixed??' Several Yahoo Mail users have taken to X, formerly Twitter, to vent their frustration and complain that they have not been able to access their emails Should I uninstall and reinstall the app? Yahoo Customer Care originally recommended this as the fastest way to resolve the issue. However, they recommend not doing this if your login credentials are not known or saved with a password manager. If you know your password or have recovery channels set up then reinstalling could fix the app quicker. However, if you don't have a way of regaining access to your account, uninstalling could leave you permanently locked out. Advertisement If you're having issues with Yahoo Mail, thankfully there is a fix. Yahoo Customer Care suggests that the quickest way to resolve the issue is to uninstall and reinstall the app. However, in a post on X, Yahoo Customer Care added: 'We recommend not uninstalling your App unless your login credentials (password etc.) are known, or your recovery channels are up to date, as you will be required to log back in upon reinstall.' This means that if you do not have your account details memorised you will be unable to access your account upon reinstalling. This could potentially leave users permanently locked out of their email accounts. Already, a number of social media users have reported that this has happened to them. One commenter responded to the suggestion, writing: 'Doesn't work. My pw [password] doesn't work and the app now says there are no recovery options.' 'I was on the phone for over 4 hours in total,' wrote another user. 'I was asked by the guy on the phone why I uninstall my app because this is the reason it is not working any more. And he said that I lost it.' Some users have reported that uninstalling and reinstalling the app has left them locked out of their accounts However, Yahoo has since posted an alternative solution which does not involve uninstalling. To get the quickest fix to the issue all you need to do is clear the cache and data on the app, which should allow you to access your emails without logging you out. To do this on an Android device, first open your smartphone and long press the app icon. Click the info icon on the top right corner to open the app settings. Next, scroll down to the usage section and storage row, and open it. Clear cache and clear data, then reopen the app. In a statement on X, Yahoo Customer Care says that a fix has been rolled out but that it could take up to 24 hours to reach customers. Uninstalling and reinstalling the app can give a faster resolution but if your account details aren't saved you could be stuck out of your account For Apple users, close any session of the Yahoo App then open settings on your iOS device. Search for the Yahoo App and click on it. At the bottom of the list of options you should find a button labelled 'Reset All Accounts'. Toggle this on and relaunch the app to fix the problem. You may be asked to log in again but if your credentials are saved on your device there should be no issue. While some users have confirmed that this quick fix has worked, others say that this method has not been effective. Yahoo Customer Care shared these instructions for regaining access to your account without having to uninstall the app One commenter wrote: 'This does not work. I can't even log in to your website to get emails that way.' Another added: 'Done that, didn't work. Also can't log in on website, it isn't just the app that's the issue. I've had no email access since 1pm uk time.' Yahoo says that a fix for the issue has been rolled out but that this might take up to 24 hours to reach your device. This is not the first time that Yahoo service outages have caused mass disruption for users. In 2020, Yahoo's UK servers crashed for around two hours, locking thousands from their accounts. The 'undiagnosed problems' also left BT and Sky customers unable to access their accounts. MailOnline has contacted Yahoo for additional information. A baby monkey sporting bright orange fur and described by keepers as a 'ray of sunshine' has been born at a conservation zoo in Bedfordshire. Whipsnade Zoo is now home to a one-week-old Francois' langur, who was born to mother Lulu and father Wang in the early hours of February 17. In contrast to the adult Francois' langurs monochromatic coats, infants are born with shocking orange hair, with pictures showing the flame-coloured newborn cuddling into its mother's dark black fur. The monkey's birth has been described as a 'sign of hope' for its endangered species. A baby monkey sporting bright orange fur and described by keepers as a 'ray of sunshine' has been born at a conservation zoo in Bedfordshire In contrast to the adult Francois' langurs monochromatic coats, infants are born with shocking orange hair, with pictures showing the flame-coloured newborn cuddling into its mother's dark black fur READ MORE: Nail-biting moment camera team witness endangered spider monkey giving birth in the wild for first time Advertisement Whipsnade zookeeper Amanda Robinson said the team were ecstatic when they saw Lulu cradling her bright orange baby. 'It's believed the babies are born with bright orange locks so that parents can easily spot the youngster when they're being cared for by the troop,' she said. 'Over time this hair will fade to black. 'The bright orange hair certainly makes it easier for keepers and visitors to spot the new addition!' Native to China and northern Vietnam, Francois' langurs are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of threatened species and their numbers have continued to fall in the wild, making the recent birth internationally important. 'Sadly, in the wild the number of Francois' langurs are plummeting, so this newborn really is a ray of sunshine and a sign of hope for the species,' Ms Robinson said. Whipsnade zookeeper Amanda Robinson said the team were ecstatic when they saw Lulu cradling her bright orange baby Native to China and northern Vietnam, Francois' langurs are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of threatened species and their numbers have continued to fall in the wild, making the recent birth internationally important Conservationists estimate there are only 2,000 of these primates left in the wild At the Francois' langurs habitat, big sister Nguyen has also been taking care of the newborn, keen to share parenting responsibilities with mother Lulu. 'Nguyen has been staying close to her mum Lulu and giving her a break when she needs to eat or drink,' Ms Robinson said. 'She's been treating the newborn like it's her own baby, which is exactly what you'd see in the wild it shows the eight-year-old has picked up great skills from the older members of the troop.' The infant was born as part of a European Endangered Species Breeding Programme (EEP), an internationally coordinated conservation initiative which aims to boost the numbers of species that are threatened in the wild. Conservationists estimate there are only 2,000 of these primates left in the wild as the species faces threats from illegal hunting for their meat and for traditional medicinal purposes. The langur troop can be found at Whipsnade Zoo's new Monkey Forest which opens to the public on March 29. Inaccurate AI-generated images of Asian Nazis, black founding fathers, and female Popes created with Google's Gemini AI chatbot are 'unacceptable,' the company's CEO said. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, 51, responded to the images in a memo to staff calling the photos 'problematic' and telling staff the company is working 'around the clock' to fix the issues. Users criticized Gemini last week after the AI generated images showing a range of ethnicities and genders, even when doing so was historically inaccurate, accusing Google of anti-white bias. 'No Al is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of the industry's development, but we know the bar is high for us and we will keep at it for however long it takes. 'And we'll review what happened and make sure we fix it at scale,' Pichai said. On Monday, shares in the parent company of Google Alphabet slumped by 4.4 percent after the Gemini gaffes dominated headlines Google CEO Sundar Pichai responded to the images in a memo to staff calling the photos 'problematic' Google's Gemini AI chatbot generated historically inaccurate images of black founding fathers Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologized for the 'problematic' images depicting black Nazis and other 'woke images' The internal memo, first reported by Semafor, said: 'I want to address the recent issues with problematic text and image responses in the Gemini app (formerly Bard). 'I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias to be clear, that's completely unacceptable and we got it wrong. 'Our teams have been working around the clock to address these issues. We're already seeing a substantial improvement on a wide range of prompts. 'No AI is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of the industry's development, but we know the bar is high for us and we will keep at it for however long it takes. And we'll review what happened and make sure we fix it at scale. 'Our mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful is sacrosanct. 'We've always sought to give users helpful, accurate, and unbiased information in our products. That's why people trust them. This has to be our approach for all our products, including our emerging AI products. 'We'll be driving a clear set of actions, including structural changes, updated product guidelines, improved launch processes, robust evals and red-teaming, and technical recommendations. We are looking across all of this and will make the necessary changes. 'Even as we learn from what went wrong here, we should also build on the product and technical announcements we've made in AI over the last several weeks. 'That includes some foundational advances in our underlying models e.g. our 1 million long-context window breakthrough and our open models, both of which have been well received. Alphabet, the parent company of Google and its sister brands including YouTube , saw shares slump after Gemini gaffes dominated the headlines Sundar Pichai said the company is taking steps to ensure the Gemini AI chatbot doesn't generate these images again Google temporarily disabled Gemini's image generation tool last week after users complained it was generating 'woke' but incorrect images such as female Popes 'We know what it takes to create great products that are used and beloved by billions of people and businesses, and with our infrastructure and research expertise we have an incredible springboard for the AI wave. 'Let's focus on what matters most: building helpful products that are deserving of our users' trust.' On Monday, shares in the parent company of Google Alphabet slumped by 4.4 percent after the Gemini gaffes dominated headlines. Shares have since recovered but are still down 2.44 percent over the past five days and 14.74 percent over the last month. According to Forbes, the company lost $90 billion in market value on Monday amid the ongoing controversy. Last week, the chatbot refused to condemn pedophilia and appeared to find favor with abusers as it declared 'individuals cannot control who they are attracted to'. The politically correct tech referred to pedophilia as 'minor-attracted person status,' declaring 'it's important to understand that attractions are not actions.' The bot appeared to find favor with abusers as it declared 'individuals cannot control who they are attracted to' The politically correct tech referred to pedophilia as 'minor-attracted person status,' declaring 'it's important to understand that attractions are not actions.' The search giant's AI software was being asked a series of questions by X personality Frank McCormick, a.k.a. Chalkboard Heresy, when it hit out with the response. The question 'is multifaceted and requires a nuanced answer that goes beyond a simple yes or no,' Gemini explained. In a follow-up question, McCormick asked if minor-attracted people are evil. 'No,' the bot replied. 'Not all individuals with pedophilia have committed or will commit abuse,' Gemini said. 'In fact, many actively fight their urges and never harm a child. Labeling all individuals with pedophilic interest as 'evil' is inaccurate and harmful,' and 'generalizing about entire groups of people can be dangerous and lead to discrimination and prejudice.' Last week the company announced they would be pausing the image generator due to the backlash. Suspicions about an agenda behind the bot were raised when alleged old tweets from the Google executive responsible for Gemini surfaced online. Gemini senior director Jack Krawczyk's allegedly wrote 'white privilege is fking real' and that America is rife with 'egregious racism' on X. Screenshots of the tweets, seemingly from Krawczyk's now-private account, were circulated online by those critical of the chatbot. They have not been independently verified. Gemini senior director Jack Krawczyk's allegedly wrote 'white privilege is fking real' and that America is rife with 'egregious racism' on X Addressing the issues raised, Krawczyk wrote last week that the historical inaccuracies reflect the tech giant's 'global user base,' and that it takes 'representation and bias seriously.' 'We will continue to do this for open ended prompts (images of a person walking a dog are universal!),' he wrote on X. Adding: 'Historical contexts have more nuance to them and we will further tune to accommodate that.' Mike Solana, the founder of tech publication Pirate Wires, told The Free Press that he believes the reason Gemini hasn't worked out is due to those working at Google. He told the outlet: 'Let's be totally clear on how this happened: there are people working at Google who have psychotic political views that shape everything they do, and they have been allowed to impact a product that is incredibly important to that company. 'AI is really important to Google. It's one of their chief concerns and chief focuses right now. That they would fumble this so badly does probably indicate the rot runs deep.' Speaking about the image generator, Solana added: 'Separate from funny, it is a tell as to the kind of politics that have been allowed to shape features and products at Google.' Solana added: 'When it comes to what 'should be done' about AI, the answer is: don't allow tech leaders to consolidate and centralize power. 'It's just impossible to know how these people are going to be manipulating us, so you have to assume that everyone running an AI will, to some degree, be biased.' The video features exotic dancers doing their best to recreate the roo's moves From Queen's Brian May to Professor Brian Cox, some of the world's greatest scientific minds are also musical. Now a biologist from Brazil aims to join such esteemed names with a funky tune about kangaroos. Dr Weliton Menario Costa, a kangaroo expert at Australian National University in Canberra, has won a competition to convey his PhD through song and dance. His new song 'Kangaroo Time (Club Edit)' has racked up over 7,000 listens on Spotify and is apparently already a hit in nightclubs down under. The music video, meanwhile, stars Dr Costa and an array of exotic dancers doing their best to recreate the moves of the famous marsupial. Dr Weliton Menario Costa is a PhD graduate from The Australian National University (ANU) and is described as one of the world's leading researchers in kangaroo behaviour READ MORE: Kangaroos didn't always hop! Extinct kangaroo species related to those alive today likely walked more like us Advertisement 'Dance your PhD' is an annual contest where researchers around the world are tasked with explaining their PhD in the simplest of terms through song and dance. 'Winning this contest is the equivalent of winning Eurovision for me,' said Dr Costa, who as a musical artist goes by the name WELI. 'I think it's extremely important that we celebrate diversity and creating a video explaining kangaroo personality was an excellent medium for me to do this.' 'Kangaroo Time (Club Edit)' song features bongos, strings and blasts of saxophone, all powered by a thumping high-tempo beat. There are few lyrics, apart from a much-repeated phase by Dr Costa: 'Hope you don't mind some things I learnt from my kangaroo time.' The video filmed at Grasslands Nature Reserve in Canberra has a range of dancers interpreting kangaroo movements and behaviours, from samba dancers, drag queens and ballet performers, as well as Dr Costa himself. The dancers, unchoreographed, improvise their movements, responding to cues and interacting with each other like kangaroos would. As you'd expect, it features rather a lot of hopping which kangaroos do to cover vast distances in the search for food and water. The new video features a range of dancers interpreting movements and behaviours of the kangaroo, including samba dancers, drag queens and ballet performers, not to mention Dr Costa himself Ballet dancers Olivia Sutton and Jasmine Zolinger communicating Dr Costa's research on Kangaroos through dance Kangaroos are very socially aware and will adjust their behaviour based off cues from other roos, according to the expert READ MORE: What's up Skip? Kangaroos use an 'intense' gaze to communicate' with us Kangaroos use an 'intense gaze' to tell humans they need help to access food Advertisement In one sequence, two dancers pretend to fight in the style of kangaroos and arch their backs, thought to be a trick roos use to keep their balance or listen more closely. Perhaps less faithful to Australia's national animal are other improvised movements, including salsa, classical ballet, twerking, and downright uncategorizable. Originally from Brazil, Dr Costa relocated to Canberra to undertake a PhD in animal behaviour at the ANU Research School of Biology, which he finished in 2021. Using a remote-controlled car, Dr Costa spent more than three years studying behavioural differences of a group of more than 300 wild eastern grey kangaroos in Wilsons Promontory National Park, Victoria. 'We wanted to see how the roos react to the strange sight of an unfamiliar object whether they'd hop away, stay put, or if they'd be curious enough to approach the car,' he said. 'Our experiments also involved walking directly towards a kangaroo to see how the animal would react.' He found that kangaroos like to socialise in groups, but prefer smaller social circles, and will adjust their behaviour based off cues from other roos. 'Think of it like a nightclub,' the biologist explained. 'You might see a guy sitting alone, looking quite shy, but then when his more outgoing friends come over to him, and they're dancing, the shy guy behaves a bit more extroverted around them.' Dr Costa's research involved looking at how kangaroos react to a little remote-controlled car in their natural habitat Also like humans, kangaroo personalities manifest early in life, such as confidence and sociability. Mothers and their offspring have similar personalities, and so do siblings, which could be due to genetics, although roo personalities are thought to be influenced by their experiences too. Kangaroos live in 'fission-fusion' societies, which means the size and composition of social groups change as time passes and animals move throughout the environment. 'Their group composition changes every 9.3 minutes on average while they forage together,' Dr Costa said. 'Then members start to disperse and move into other groups and an individual's personality will influence who they assemble with. 'Individuals that behave more similarly are more likely to be found in the same groups than individuals that behave more differently from each other.' Dr Costa's thesis, 'Personality, Social Environment, and Maternal-Level Effects: Insights from a Wild Kangaroo Population', can be viewed online. He's also due to release a new EP called 'Yours Academically, Dr WELI, which also includes the songs 'El Doctor' and 'Interlude (Yours Academically)'. The first step toward identifying what unidentified flying objects (UFOs) actually are might just be mapping where these enigmas are most sighted, a new study says. Geographers with the University of Utah working with the Pentagon's recently retired UFO chief Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick analyzed roughly 98,000 total UFO reports spanning a 20-year period across the 21st Century, from 2001 to 2020. The researchers aggressively cross-referenced the data by local population density, light pollution levels, annual cloud cover, 'tree canopy' cover, proximity to airports and military bases and a host of other factors that effect the number UFO sightings. What they found was statistical proof of the long assumed 'historical relationship' between UFOs and the American West. Their study's county-by-county assessment turned up hot spots or 'red zones' most often just east of the Rockies or off toward the Pacific Ocean but also a few odd outliers, including Georgetown county, South Carolina and Union, Kentucky. Geographers with the University of Utah analyzed roughly 98,000 total UFO reports spanning a 20-year period across the 21st Century, from 2001 to 2020 The researchers aggressively cross-referenced the data by local population density, light pollution levels, annual cloud cover, 'tree canopy' cover, proximity to airports and military bases and a host of other factors that effect the number UFO sightings' 'The West has a historical relationship to UAP Area 51 in Nevada, Roswell in New Mexico,' the study's lead author, Richard Medina, said in a statement. 'And here in Utah we have Skinwalker Ranch in the Uinta Basin and military activity in the US Army Dugway Proving Ground,' Medina, an associate professor of geography at the University of Utah, noted. 'Plus, there's a robust outdoor community that recreates in public lands year-round. People are out and looking skyward.' While these explanations held true for the deep 'red' hotspots that covered almost all of Nevada and New Mexico, the study's authors were more perplexed about the equally deep red counties across Oregon and Washington state. These rainy and 'relatively clouded' Pacific northwestern states, they noted, are more known for being blanketed in fog than for being prime sky-watching regions. 'There are also some isolated counties throughout the rest of the country that warrant further investigation,' as they wrote in the journal Scientific Reports, 'to identify what properties may generate relatively more UAP [i.e. UFO] attention.' Counties in Maine, Vermont, Indiana, Arkansas and Nebraska were some of the more inexplicable hot spots the team's analysis identified. The West has a historical relationship to UAP Area 51 in Nevada , Roswell in New Mexico ,' the study's lead author, Richard Medina, said in a statement To break their sighting study down by county, Median and his co-authors focused on two main criteria to compare with the UFO sighting reports. READ MORE: 'UFO' reported over China with 'three light sources' that moved quickly without emitting any sound - and witnesses say it was not an aircraft Chinese social media platforms were flooded with images and videos of a UFO that appeared over Beijing and surrounding towns. People said it looked like a 'misty ball of light' hat moved from west to east without emitting any sound. One person shared on Weibo that the weather was clear in Beijing when they witnessed 'a glowing object looming' and determined it was not an aircraft because there were no flashing lights. Advertisement First they compared the sighting statistics, obtained from the civilian National UFO Research Center, with a metric they called 'sky view potential,' an amalgam of data on how physically likely it would be to spot anything interesting in the nearby skies. To assess each county's 'sky view potential,' they pooled together data on each area's light pollution, cloud cover and tree canopy cover as well as the chances that odd or frequent objects would be in the sky from nearby airports and military bases. 'The idea is that if you have a chance to see something, then it's more likely that you're going to see unexplained phenomena in the sky,' Medina said. 'There's more technology in the sky than ever before so the question is: What are people actually seeing? It's a tough question to answer, and it is an important one because any uncertainty can be a potential threat to national security.' The geographers attributed the West's higher percentage of sightings to the desert southwest's wide-open natural spaces and rural dark skies, unmolested by big city lights or industrial smog. They found that the major UFO case hotspots showed a noticeable relationship to local air traffic and military installation activity, a clue that could indicated witnesses are often seeing genuine terrestrial objects that they simply did not recognize. The team hopes that this geographic analysis will help government agencies better separate truly anomalous events in the skies from routine flights, and thus help uncover any legitimate security threat. A man with Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as ALS, is the 10th person to receive a brain chip that lets him take control of his life using just his mind. Mark, 67, was diagnosed in 2020 and has slowly lost his physical abilities like accessing his phone or feeding himself, but that soon to change after receiving Synchron brain-computer interface (BCI) last August. ALS is a disease that causes nerve cells to deteriorate and results in muscle weakness and reduced dexterity until the person is eventually paralyzed - the entire process can take two to five years, and there is no cure. Mark is now able to send health notifications or pain reports to his provider using just by the BIC reading his brainwaves and translating them into actions carried out on a computer. He will soon be able to use his thoughts for more exciting tasks like turning on Netflix and texting family and friends. Mark, an ALS victim, received a Synchron brain chip implant to help him control a computer with his mind Mark was diagnosed with ALS in 2020 and has already lost much of his motor functions including his ability to access his phone or feed himself Mark went into the trial feeling like it was a 'no-brainer' to him. 'I figured I had two choices: I could wallow in self-pity, or I could pick myself up by the bootstraps and do what I could to help,' he told CNN. Stentrode is known as the least invasive brain chip on the market, competing against Elon Musk's Neuralink brain chip which received FDA approval in May last year and just implanted the first human in January. Synchron received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct human trials of the permanent implantable device in 2021. Mark, who has two daughters and one granddaughter, works as a florist with plans to retire soon and continued lifting buckets of water and boxes of flowers until his muscles started to weaken and it became too difficult to continue. Two years after his diagnosis, driving became too challenging and he eventually moved in with his brother and his brother's family, mourning the loss of his independence. 'It was a hard pill to swallow,' said Mark. 'I still consider myself young.' He continued: 'I lived alone for 13 years, so I was used to doing everything by myself.' Although Mark has lost much of his dexterity like picking up a pencil or scrolling through a phone, he is still able to talk - but that may change overtime. Along with sending health-related notes, he is able to play a ping-pong-type video game, in which he has to intently focus to move the bar and relax his mind to stop it from moving. In 2021, Musk released a video showing a monkey implanted with a Neuralink chip doing the same thing. The brain chip is implanted through the neck and a separate device is inserted in the chest cavity to transmit thoughts to a computer The brain chip, called a Stentrode, is inserted into the motor cortex where it can decipher the brainwaves associated with certain cognitive functions The brain chip, about the size of a paper clip, is implanted in the brain's motor cortex, which generates signals to direct the movement of the body. Implantation requires a 'minimally invasive' procedure involving a small 'keyhole' incision in the neck, similar to the insertion of stents in the heart. Once in place it expands to press the electrodes against the vessel wall close to the brain where it can record neural signals. A separate transmitter, similar to a pacemaker, is surgically placed in the chest cavity and receives signals from the BCI when it recognizes an intended movement, like clicking somewhere on a computer screen. The person has to be connected to the computer for it to pick up on the signal but researchers hope that eventually the device can be connected through a wireless signal. It took two months for Mark to recover from having the chip implanted before the Synchron team could turn it on, but it still took another month before the device worked. 'There was a few cheers,' Mark told CNN. 'We'd been trying and trying, and it was not working so well, and then it finally worked.' The Stentrode works by identifying what each electrical signature is, working like a dictionary, to decipher the person's intent so it can carry out the function. The BCI can't operate at full capacity right away but needs to get acquainted with the Mark's specific brainwaves that control their mobility. Brainwaves are connected to every physical function you have, whether it's shaking a hand, taking a step, or reading a book, there is an electrical signature that connects the thought and the action. The Stentrode works by identifying what each electrical signature is, working like a dictionary, to decipher the person's intent so it can carry out the function. Mark told CNN that part of being a test subject means he has to have patience, adding: 'Sometimes it doesn't work like we want.' Neuralink is approved for human trials, how long until we're all walking around with Elon Musk's brain chip? Musk's ultimate goal is to develop a 'brain-computer interface' that will initially be used to help people with paralysis or motor neurone disease to communicate. Advertisement However, 'part of being involved in a study is we're here to learn, we're here to further the technology,' he continued. Mark's ongoing journey with Synchron accompanies the growing list of people who are testing brain chip implants to help them overcome paralyzing diseases. Researchers at Stanford University conducted a study of ALS victim Pat Bennett who had lost her power of speech eight years previously. The study, published by Nature, did not specify which brain chip Bennett tested but said she was able to communicate at a rate of 62 words per minute, three times faster than previous records, with 75 percent accuracy. But not everyone is thrilled with the idea of implanting a chip in their brain, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey which asked Americans if they supported the devices if they would allow people to 'more quickly and accurately process information.' Although more than half of U.S. adults surveyed said it would be bad for society if such a device existed, an overwhelming majority (77 percent) said they would be in favor of brain chips if they helped people who are paralyzed. 'Neurotechnology is advancing at warp speed,' Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, said at an international conference on ethics of neurotechnology in July. 'This progress is a cause for celebration and a reason for caution. We must safeguard ethical standards and ensure the full protection of human rights.' The UN meeting came on the tail end of Musk's Neuralink chip receiving FDA approval to replace a piece of the skull with the brain chip, a much more invasive method than Synchron's Stentrode. The first human received a Neuralink chip implant last month, and Musk reported that the initial results showed a promising spike in neuron detection. Musk said the patient was able to move a mouse around the screen by solely using their thoughts and hopes the device will expand to eventually allow people to control a computer by thinking. Experts voiced that having numerous companies work toward bettering the BCI technology would be a good thing, citing the need for different brain chips to support varying functions. 'They're all a bit different,' Oxley told CNN, adding that ultimately, 'competition is good.' As a result of the arms race to create better BCIs, he said we will probably see many 'different types of technologies come through for different use cases.' The boat reaches the 'ice edge' of the North Pole, where guests go kayaking See below for exclusive footage of Jo being attacked by an Arctic tern Travel writer Jo Kessel filmed the ultimate polar bear cruise aboard Hurtigruten Expeditions' (HX) 220-passenger expedition ship MS Spitsbergen. The film shows what expedition life is like, with passengers exploring on foot and in inflatable zodiac boats as they scout for wildlife and glaciers. Plus, there's exclusive footage of Jo being attacked by an Arctic tern, kayaking at the North Pole's ice edge and finding one very well-fed polar bear. There are many animals most of us will only ever expect to see in a David Attenborough documentary, like tigers, gorillas and marine life from the depths of the ocean. For me, polar bears were firmly on that list, but then I learned of an expedition voyage operated by the Norwegian cruise line Hurtigruten Expeditions. One of its itineraries circumnavigates Norway's northern archipelago of Svalbard, home to polar bears. And with the sighting of one practically guaranteed, it was too exciting an opportunity to miss. The rugged, remote Svalbard wilderness sits halfway between Norway and the North Pole. The cruise sails roundtrip from its capital Longyearbyen, the world's most northern town, which is a three-hour flight from Oslo. This is where I meet the 220-passenger MS Spitsbergen, my home for the next ten days. Travel writer Jo Kessel, pictured, filmed 'the ultimate polar bear cruise' aboard Hurtigruten's 220-passenger expedition ship MS Spitsbergen Jo's cruise circumnavigated the northern Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, home to thousands of polar bears The video begins with expeditioners wildlife-spotting on the ship's top deck, dressed in special expedition jackets. Many have brought along some serious paparazzi-style kit - telephoto lenses, telescopic binoculars and the like which makes my iPhone seem woefully inadequate. On board is an expedition team of guides specialising in the region's wildlife, geology and history. At an introductory meeting, they try to manage our expectations by showing us a photo of three very distant polar bears. 'If we're lucky,' they say, 'this is about as close to the bears as we'll get.' We're reminded that polar bears are dangerous predators, the world's largest terrestrial carnivore with top speeds of 25mph. 'Our job as your guides is to NOT get too close,' says the expedition leader. We're reminded that contrary to popular belief, polar bears are in fact yellow, so it's best to be on the lookout for distant yellow blobs as opposed to white. The video, however, starts with birds. They live in colonies with thousands of them teetering on narrow cliff ledges, many with chicks waiting to fledge. First, it's guillemots; then kittiwakes. They're teeny, but their cacophony is deafening. We're warned to keep mouths firmly shut should we look up! This is the perfect hunting ground for Arctic foxes and, unbelievably, I film one with a kittiwake in its mouth. But if this is hard to watch then the footage that follows is even harder. It features an Arctic tern, the world's longest migratory bird, which makes the mammoth journey from Antarctica to the Arctic every year. It's also one of the world's most aggressive birds during nesting season. They swoop and peck at visible threats (humans included) and we're advised to raise an arm with a closed fist should one approach. The camera is rolling when an Arctic tern makes a beeline for my head. It looks scarier than it feels and, even though its sharp beak pierces my gloves, it's hard to have anything but admiration for a bird that defends its young so fiercely. 'The rugged, remote Svalbard wilderness sits halfway between Norway and the North Pole,' explains Jo. 'The cruise sails roundtrip from its capital, Longyearbyen, the world's most northern town' The camera is rolling when an Arctic tern attacks Jo's head, as seen above Using a map to demonstrate where polar bears are found, Jo tells her viewers that they can 'pop up anywhere on Svalbard' Jo describes 'a mad scramble to reach top deck' when a message on the ship's loudspeaker announces 'there's a polar bear starboard on the beach' (pictured) Up next is the ship. My mini-suite is beautifully decorated in light, Nordic pine and everywhere on MS Spitsbergen comes with a view, from the sauna to the gym, and from the hot tubs and lounges to the science lab, where samples can be put under the microscope to gen up on the flora and fauna. Wherever we go we're accompanied by guides armed with rifles and flares to use as a last resort should a polar bear take us by surprise. A few days in and we see seals, reindeer (an indigenous breed to Svalbard) and walruses, but still no distant yellow blob. While polar bears can pop up anywhere on Svalbard they number around two thousand we're told that more of them live in the east and the best chance of seeing one might be after we've rounded the top of the archipelago. But suddenly a message booms on the loudspeaker: 'There's a polar bear starboard, on the beach.' Cue a mad scramble to reach top deck for a better look. And there it is - a big, fat, proud, fluffy yellow male, feeding on the carcass of a walrus that has washed up on shore. We're taken out in zodiac boats so that we can get closer and the real-life version of what we witness beats any documentary hands-down. With a belly full of walrus the polar bear struts along the beach, sniffing at the earth and air as it seeks shelter, eventually settling on a mound of snow up the hill where he burrows himself in for a snooze. It's skin-tingling stuff. Jo's video begins with wildlife-spotting on the ship's top deck To celebrate crossing the 80th Parallel North, the Captain pours ice down passengers' necks The 'Polar Plunge' - a dip that involves complete submersion in the frigid Arctic Ocean Eight polar bears are spotted during our cruise (though I'm asleep for several of these sightings!) but there's more to the voyage than wildlife. Other adventures include wilderness hikes and crossing the 80th Parallel North. Not many people ever do this and, to celebrate, the Captain pours ice down our necks. Fear not - this is optional. Then there's the 'Polar Plunge' - a dip that involves complete submersion in the freezing Arctic Ocean. Am I up to the challenge? Watch the video to find out! Perhaps the biggest thrill is reaching the ice edge of the North Pole. From here the ship can sail no further without getting trapped. We can, however, paddle. A kayaking excursion leads us along narrow channels that have formed at the edge of the ice pack and sees us smashing and bashing at the ice to carve a path through. It's hands-down the most memorable kayak I'm ever likely to experience, with nothing but this vast sheet of floating ice separating me from the North Pole. 'Everywhere on MS Spitsbergen comes with a view,' Jo writes, including the above dining room Pictured: Jo tries the sauna onboard the ship, which also features a gym and several hot tubs The ship boasts a science lab 'where samples can be put under the microscope to gem up on flora and fauna' Jo says her mini-suite, pictured, is 'beautifully decorated in light, Nordic pine' TRAVEL FACTS An all-inclusive 12-day 'Circumnavigating Svalbard The Ultimate Expedition' cruise on MS Spitsbergen roundtrip from Longyearbyen (www.hurtigruten.com/en/expeditions / 0203 993 2128) costs from 6,838pp and includes excursions, internal fights from Norway to Svalbard and an overnight hotel stay in Longyearbyen. The 13-course Svalbard Tasting Menu at Restaurant Huset in Longyearbyen can be booked via Hurtigruten Expeditions and costs from 150pp. Advertisement It's a cool, active cruise and we constantly need to refuel. Happily cuisine on board is exceptional pack elasticated trousers. Cocktails are good too and the 'Norwegian Negroni' is a tasty, bittersweet warmer-upper. It's refreshing to be so far from civilisation. Only twice do we see other people. Once is at the scientific research centre in NY Alesund (population 30), which has the most northern post office in the world. And the other is the Arctic outpost capital Longyearbyen, which is well worth a pre or post-cruise overnight stay. Be sure to try the 13-course tasting menu at Norwegian restaurant Huset. Ingredients are locally sourced and delicious, including sea urchin soup with fermented honey. This is an extraordinary cruise to the top of the world, where the wildlife and wilderness is on another level. But the proof of climate change is everywhere. The ice is melting, the glaciers are retreating and polar bears have started a new trend of eating reindeer when they can't find seals. World leaders should be brought here to shock them into action. At the moment polar bear numbers are relatively stable so my advice is this - if you'd like to see a polar bear in the wild, go now, before it's too late. For more videos from Jo, visit her YouTube channel Go With Jo. Is airline theft on the rise? The simplest answer is we don't know. Airlines don't divulge their statistics on in-flight theft. However, recent events have bought the issue into the headlines. In December 2023 a man was charged with stealing USD $23,000 (18,200) cash from three fellow passengers on a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Singapore, while in October police arrested a man en route from Taipei to Tokyo suspected of serial in-flight thefts. Do these high-profile cases correlate to an overall increase in light-fingered passengers in-flight? Not necessarily, according to Jonathan Frankham, General Manager UK at World Nomads Travel Insurance. However, they do provide a reminder to be careful with your belongings on a flight. While there are no concrete statistics for in-flight theft to indicate whether or not they are on the rise, several high-profile cases recently have brought the issue into the headlines Jonathan said: 'While we've observed no discernible trend in claims submitted to suggest in-flight luggage theft is historically prevalent or on the rise in recent years, it's still crucial to be vigilant and take steps to ensure the security of possessions and important documents.' Most people have multiple high-value items on them when flying. In addition to a wallet and phone, it's not unusual to be carrying a passport, laptop, cash, and maybe a camera or other valuables. This, Jonathan warns, can provide easy pickings for thieves. He said: 'It's a calculated gamble on the part [of the thieves], exploiting travellers' sense of security once snugly seated on board. Yet, it's during these moments the buzz of mealtimes, the dimming of lights, or those quick dashes to the loo that thieves might try their luck.' In the case of the Tokyo arrest, reports said the 51-year-old suspect would pretend to be checking his own luggage in the overhead compartment, but instead stealing US dollars, Euros, and Yen from fellow travellers' bags. The cash was swapped with lower-value small denomination Cambodian riel or Indonesian rupiah, to maintain the wallets' weights and sizes. It's not just cash or valuables that can be targeted. Passports continue to fetch a sizeable price on the black market. So, how do you ensure you don't become a target for plane-based pilfering? Pack smartly and keep your valuables on you Avoid leaving high-value items such as passports, cash, or phones unattended This is your first line of defence. Jonathan said: 'Packing smartly is crucial. Opt for a sturdy backpack, preferably one that can be securely locked and marked with colourful zip ties for easy identification. [If] the zip tie is missing or tampered with, it's important to alert a staff member immediately. 'Store larger bags in overhead lockers to keep them safe. If the space is available, it can be useful to place them across the aisle so you can easily see if anyone is foraging through them who shouldn't be.' For high-value items like passports, cash, and phones, Jonathan advised: 'The best practice is to use a secure waist pouch or carry them in your pocket. Avoid leaving them unattended altogether and always keep them in sight. This not only minimises the risk of theft but also ensures that insurance claims are not negatively impacted due to negligence.' What should travellers do if they fall victim to inflight thefts? Report the incident to the airline as soon as you realise something is missing, in accordance with the Montreal Convention's guidelines. Jonathan explained: 'This international treaty requires airlines to offer compensation for lost or damaged luggage on international flights. Although the treaty's stance on stolen luggage is less explicit, it's crucial to notify the airline as soon as possible. 'Secondly, travellers should obtain all necessary documentation to support their case. This includes requesting a Property Irregularity Report (PIR) from the airline. Additionally, it's vital to keep all related documents such as tickets, luggage tags, and receipts for any emergency purchases, as these form an essential part of any subsequent insurance claims. 'It's important to also involve the local police. Reporting the theft to the police and securing a police report is a critical step, as it provides official documentation of the theft, which is often necessary for insurance claims.' What should travellers do if they need to make an insurance claim? Mealtimes, sleeping, or trips to the toilet offer opportunistic thieves the perfect time to strike Once you've advised the airline and the police Jonathan says it's vital to thoroughly review your travel insurance policy. 'Even though it typically covers such incidents, it's essential to understand the policy's limits and exclusions, and additional premiums may be required for high-value items,' he added. 'Next, gather all necessary evidence, including proof of ownership, age, and value of the stolen items, which are crucial for the claim process. 'It's also important for travellers to assess their responsibility in the situation. Ensuring that valuables were secured, and that luggage was not left unattended is key, as negligence can impact the viability of a claim. 'If there are any doubts or questions, travellers should not hesitate to contact their insurance provider.' Located on a far-flung island in Alaska sits a McDonald's seemingly frozen in time, with the original drive-thru menu still on display and the interiors untouched from the day it closed in 1993. Canadian videographer and photographer Chris Luckhardt recently paid a visit to the abandoned fast food restaurant on Adak and he documented what he found. His YouTube video shows the windows and doors shuttered up, but a sign remains outside displaying some of the items on offer decades ago - as well as the incredibly low prices that each one went for. Back then, a BigMac was priced at $2.45 (the equivalent of $5.10 today) and a hamburger coming in at 99 cents (the equivalent of $2.08 today). Today, those same items cost around $7.19 and $3.39, respectively, depending on your location. As a sign of the times, when Jurassic Park was a smash hit in movie theaters, one sign on the drive-thru stand advertises a 'Dino-Size' meal. The blurb explains: 'Get Dino-Size fries and a large soft drink in a free Jurassic Park collector cup.' One photo uploaded to Flickr by user Travis S. also reveals the interiors of the eatery, with a terracotta tiled floor and retro-style plastic seating. Located on a far-flung island in Alaska sits a McDonald's seemingly frozen in time, with the drive-thru menu still on display and the interiors untouched from the day it closed in 1993 Canadian videographer and photographer Chris Luckhardt recently paid a visit to the abandoned fast food restaurant on Adak and he documented what he found His YouTube video shows the windows and doors shuttered up, but a sign remains outside displaying some of the items on offer decades ago Filmmaker Luckhardt notes in his video how the McDonald's is located in the ghost town of Adak, which once served as a bustling naval base with more than 6,000 residents. The grassy outcrop served as an important strategical base during World War II and beyond, to safeguard against a Japanese invasion. However, once tensions cooled off, the base closed in 1997 and many people living in the community had already relocated by that point. Luckhardt told DailyMail.com that the Adak McDonald's opened in July 1986 and the navy 'helped the franchisee ship everything in.' Prices at the restaurant were higher than mainland America as everything had to be flown or shipped in. One veteran told Luckhardt that he paid more than $6.00 for a 20-piece McNugget meal when the restaurant opened. Despite the comparatively high prices, another veteran said people weren't deterred and it was 'packed daily.' And, when compared to the modern day McDonald's menu, those prices seem much more reasonable - with a Filet-O-Fish costing just $1.95 back in 1993, while today, the same sandwich would set you back around $5.99. For years the restaurant remained a popular spot but when military efforts started winding down, the owner decided to shut up shop. One photo uploaded to Flickr by user Travis S. also reveals the interiors of the eatery, with a terracotta tiled floor and retro-style plastic seating Adak once served as a bustling naval base with more than 6,000 residents. However, the base closed in 1997 Luckhardt explains: 'The franchisees left Adak when the Navy base was decommissioned and they went on to open two McDonald's in Oregon. 'They later moved to Texas and opened two other McDonald's. 'When they closed their business in Adak, the McDonald's corporate team set a crew in late 1994 to retrieve the arches that stood by the main road.' After standing empty for many years, the McDonald's restaurant was repurposed as a staff dining facility from 2011 to 2013 by a local fish processing plant. 'Icicle Seafoods gutted the kitchen, but the pastel-colored seating remained intact based on a 2018 interior photo,' Luckhardt says. The restaurant was then boarded up after 'some unfortunate vandalism shortly before the pandemic' which led to 'at least one of the restaurant windows being smashed.' As a sign of the times, when Jurassic Park was a smash hit in movie theaters, one sign on the drive-thru stand advertises a 'Dino-Size' meal After standing empty for many years, the McDonald's restaurant was repurposed as a staff dining facility from 2011 to 2013 by a local fish processing plant The McDonald's captured from above. The restaurant was boarded up after 'some unfortunate vandalism shortly before the pandemic' According to Luckhardt, there are now 33 permanent residents still living in Adak. One of the residents leases out intact buildings to tourists Like the McDonald's, most of the other buildings in Adak have been left abandoned. Luckhardt's drone footage reveals a patchwork of unoccupied buildings left to the elements with parked vehicles also left to rust. One building fitted with antennas was used for 'radio navigation and intelligence gathering,' while there was also a hospital, pub and city hall on the base. Today, according to Luckhardt, there are 33 permanent residents still living in Adak. Some are employed by the small local government, some work at the airport where there are two flights from Anchorage a week, while a group also run lodgings for tourists, with some of the draws including hunting, fishing and bird watching. Several homes in Adak are listed on Airbnb, with rates starting from around $200 per night. A map of the tiny community on the local government website reveals that some of the facilities still operating include a bar and grill, liquor store, gas station, school, and post office. With just days to go until the 2024 BRIT Awards, it has been announced that Raye will receive the coveted Songwriter Of The Year prize. After receiving a record seven nominations, the hitmaker will be in attendance at Saturday's ceremony in London's O2 Arena. This prestigious prize, introduced in 2022, celebrates exceptional songwriting talent and was decided upon by a select panel of expert judges. Previous winners are Ed Sheeran and Kid Harpoon. RAYE will also perform on this year's BRITs, along with Becky Hill X Chase & Status, Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding, Dua Lipa, Jungle, Kylie Minogue, Rema and Tate McRae. RAYE commented: 'I am so so honoured and blown away, honestly to be given this prestigious award for Songwriter of the Year, it is my very first BRIT award and I will treasure this trophy very much. With just days to go until the 2024 BRIT Awards , it has been announced that Raye will receive the coveted Songwriter Of The Year prize (pictured performing in Perth earlier this month) 'I am so grateful to be recognised as a songwriter as this is a craft I am so passionate about and have been since I started my journey as a musician, and I'm very grateful to those who voted for me to have this award.' Damian Christian, Managing Director and President of Promotions at Atlantic Records (part of Warner Music UK) and Chair of the BRIT Committee for 2024 added: 'After receiving a record-breaking seven nominations, I'm delighted that RAYE has also been named Songwriter of the Year. 'RAYE has been such a prominent and respected songwriter for many years, so it's great to see her getting the recognition she deserves on the biggest stage. 'I'd like to congratulate her on this win and wish her all the best for Saturday night.' Raye is the most nominated British female in BRIT Awards history after receiving seven nominations - following the release of her long-awaited debut album, My 21st Century Blues. Speaking about her BRIT nominations this year, she said the industry considered her 'down and out'. 'It's a miracle, it's deep. Year and a half ago, as far as the industry was concerned, I was down and out and never in my wildest dreams would I feel like trying again and it would lead to seven BRIT nominations. 'I'm a Brit kid, I went to the BRIT's School and this was the goal. The ultimate goal was to find my way somehow to the Brit awards. After receiving a record seven nominations, the hitmaker will be in attendance at Saturday's ceremony in London's O2 Arena 'This is a whole different thing. It's a joke. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.' Along with RAYE and Chase & Status, The BRITs have revealed the winners of two more awards in advance of this years show. Announced last year, the winners of this years BRITs Rising Star award are The Last Dinner Party, and as confirmed earlier this month, Kylie Minogue will be presented with the BRITs Global Icon award on the night. Nominations for the 2024 BRIT Awards were announced last month, and include Arlo Parks, Blur, Calvin Harris, Central Cee, Dave, Dua Lipa and Fred again... Also nominated are Jessie Ware, J Hus, Little Simz, Olivia Dean, Mahalia, PinkPantheress, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo, The Rolling Stones, SZA, Taylor Swift, Young Fathers. The winners of the genre awards will be determined by a public vote exclusively through Instagram, which opened midday Thursday 1st February and closes Thursday 15th February at 6pm. Maya Jama will be joined by seasoned presenters Roman Kemp and Clara Amfo as the threesome host the iconic night of music. This year's BRIT Awards will be live on ITV on March 2 at 8pm. Bianca Censori's convict father wants a sit down with his daughter's husband Kanye West over fears the rapper is pushing his daughter away from her family and turning her into a 'trashy commodity,' insiders have claimed. His request comes as the Yeezy designer, 29, was pictured wearing no underwear underneath a pair of sheer stockings while out to dinner with the controversial musician, 46, in Paris, France, on Tuesday - a look that could land her in prison or be forced to pay a hefty fine due to France's indecency laws. Insiders have told DailyMail.com that Bianca's family is 'hurting' at watching their loved one being paraded around like a 'trophy pony' and have questioned how Kanye would feel in the future if a man was treating his daughters, North and Chicago, in the same way. 'Bianca's father Leo wants to have a proper sit down with Kanye and ask him what the hell he is thinking when he parades Bianca around like a trashy naked trophy pony,' said a source close to the Yeezy architect - whose father is the brother of a notorious gangland killer. Bianca Censori, 29, wore no underwear beneath sheer stockings while out to dinner with husband Kanye West, 46, on Tuesday - causing great concern for her father Leo Censori According to a source, 'Bianca's father Leo wants to have a proper sit down with Kanye' (photographed with Bianca at a fashion show in Milan, Italy, last week) Bianca's dad Leo (seen in an Instagram photo) 'wants to ask Kanye what the hell he is thinking when he parades Bianca around like a trashy naked trophy pony,' alleges the insider 'He wants to ask Kanye what he would do if his daughters North, or Chicago, were seen in public half-naked in outfits encouraged by their husbands. 'He knows that there is no way in hell that Kanye would allow this for his daughters so it makes no sense why he would encourage this for his own wife.' Kanye, who wed Bianca in a private ceremony in December 2022, has also been accused of 'shutting her out' from her family in Australia. 'If this isn't bad enough, the man who is supposed to protect Mr. and Mrs. Censori's daughter is the same man that is shutting her out from her own family,' the insider continued. 'Leo honestly wants to just sit Kanye down to let him know that he is hurting her family by turning his beloved daughter into a trashy-looking marketable commodity.' They finished: 'No man should ever encourage the woman that he loves to walk out in public and present herself like this. That isn't love. That is control.' News that Leo may well try to confront him could come as something of a concern to Kanye - particularly given that his new father-in-law as a somewhat troubling past. Friends of Bianca (with Kanye at Milan fashion show) are bothered mainly by the 'dead look in her eyes when she is out with Kanye,' the insider said Kanye used an image of Bianca's naked butt on the cover of his latest album Vultures, causing her family to believe Kanye is treating her like a 'trashy-looking marketable commodity' 'No man should ever encourage the woman that he loves to walk out in public and present herself like this,' the sources told DailyMail.com (duo seen at a fashion show in Italy last week) DailyMail.com previously revealed that Leo had done time in jail after being convicted on a charge of possessing a prohibited import (heroin) back in 1982 - a crime that saw him sentenced to five years behind bars. As well as heroin dealing, Leo also has convictions for possession of a pistol and fully jacketed ammunition. Leo is also the brother of Eris Censori - a notorious gangland killer once dubbed 'Melbourne's Al Capone' - who was sentenced to death for murder, although that sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Bianca's latest barely-there ensemble failed to raise concern among her friends, who are now so accustomed to seeing her wearing next to nothing. 'Bianca's friends are sadly not even phased by what she is wearing in public anymore,' said the source. 'This doesn't concern them anymore as much as the dead look in her eyes when she is out with Kanye.' Bianca's latest outfit, which exposed her genitals, could have severe consequences for the Australian beauty. Article 222-32 of the new penal code (applicable since 1 March 1994) stipulates: 'Deliberate sexual display in the sight of others in a place accessible to the public gaze is punishable by one year in prison and a fine of one hundred thousand francs. [15,000]' Nudity itself does not equal indecency, however, with the legislator stipulating: 'The charge has been worded in such a way as to rule out any possibility of proceedings against persons practicing naturism in places specially designated for this purpose.' This isn't the first time, Bianca has risked a run-in with the law due to her wild antics on holiday. Last year, Bianca ran the risk of a 10,000 fine and imprisonment during the couple's trip to Italy, where she had been walking around 'virtually naked' in the European nation. According to the Italian Constitutional Court, a fine from 5,000 to 10,000 euros can be issued, or whoever exposes in a place or nearby to a place attended by minors, may be sentenced from four months to four years imprisonment. This is also not the first time that Bianca's family and friends have questioned Kanye's intentions. The source told DailyMail.com that Kanye is 'shutting Bianca out from her family, including her mom Alexandra and sisters Alyssia and Angelina Censori (pictured with Bianca in 2020) Kim Kardashian, 43, demanded that Bianca 'cover up' when with the kids she shares with Kanye (Bianca seen holding their daughter Chicago, six, last month Earlier this month, sources told DailyMail.com that Leo and her mother Alexandra were in a state of 'distress' after seeing images of their daughter wearing nothing but a transparent raincoat and a pair of black boots in public alongside Kanye, who was dressed in a large cape and trousers. 'Her family and friends are mortified because it just keeps getting worse and worse,' an insider told DailyMail.com exclusively at the time. 'Bianca clearly doesn't realize that what she wore isn't only disgusting and setting a bad example, but she is also potentially breaking the law. 'Meanwhile, Kanye is covered up in five layers of clothes and when his wife looked chilly while naked and wrapped in plastic he didn't so much as offer her one of his capes.' The source continued: 'Her parents are so distressed over this because they do not recognize her. She would not be doing this unless she was being controlled. 'He continues to lock her in by giving her more stake and ownership over various projects that he has going on, including the clothing.' In December, Leo and Alexandra were said to have been fearful that their daughter was simply a rebound in the wake of Kanye's divorce from ex-wife Kim Kardashian, 43, with whom he shares North, 10, Saint, eight, Chicago, six and Psalm, four. Kim filed for divorce from Kanye in February 2021. Their divorce was not finalized until November 29, 2022 - less than one month before he tied the knot with Bianca. 'Bianca's mother and father find Kanye to be slightly disturbing,' a source close to the Yeezy architect previously told DailyMail.com. Her parents found it suspect that he married Bianca one month after his divorce from Kim was finalized. They really didn't want Bianca to be his rebound from such a high-profile marriage.' Kanye was previously accused of issuing his wife a set of rules to live by, which allegedly included not speaking in public and eating only specific foods. He has also reportedly imposed restrictions on what she can, and can't, wear. Bianca's latest jaw-dropping ensemble came just hours after she was photographed wearing an oversized black jacket and tights while playing step-mom with Kanye's eldest daughter, North, at fast food spot Popeyes in Paris. Her unusually demure look could have been a result of Kim reportedly laying down a set of rules for what is acceptable attire around her children. Kim instructed Kanye to never let Bianca dress like that around their kids, a source previously told DailyMail.com. She is truly surprised that Kanye would let his wife leave the house like that. DailyMail.com has reached out to representatives for Kanye and Bianca for comment. New Model Agency Rating: Shogun Rating: The most inane question any interviewer can ask is, 'So, tell me about yourself.' It's worse than lazy, revealing a complete lack of interest, as bad as saying, 'I haven't bothered finding out the first thing about you.' It's the question that modelling agency director Zoe threw at newcomer Devon in the first part of the fashion-shoot series New Model Agency (Ch4). The lad was a bit nonplussed, as anyone would be: 'I'm just a normal, plain, standard guy really,' he said, uncertain what else he was supposed to reply. But the show fails to answer its own question. From the start, it told us next to nothing about what the Zebedee agency is, what they're trying to achieve, whether they have any interesting success stories and why we should bother with this documentary. An opening segment in the firm's Sheffield offices gave us no clue what the staff were actually doing. Chattering into phones, they could have been a sales team at an insurance brokerage, or fast fashion importers, or anything in between. Nothing was explained, until we cut away to an 'editorial shoot', whatever that is don't ask me, because I gathered only that this was extremely, hugely, very important, even though the models weren't actually getting paid. From the start, New Model Agency (Ch4) told us next to nothing about what the Zebedee agency is, what they're trying to achieve, whether they have any interesting success stories and why we should bother with this documentary One model, a boy named Shem (pictured), was told he was looking sick. That left him confused he couldn't work out if it was an outdated Millennial slang compliment or a medical diagnosis Another, a girl called Jasroop (pictured), promised us that within five years her career would be so stellar that she'd be living in America an endearingly naive ambition One of them, a boy named Shem, was told he was looking sick. That left him confused he couldn't work out if it was an outdated Millennial slang compliment or a medical diagnosis. Another, a girl called Jasroop, promised us that within five years her career would be so stellar that she'd be living in America an endearingly naive ambition. Anniversary of the Night A husband and wife invited mindreader Beth to their camel dairy, on The Pet Psychic (Ch5). Dromedary Bertie proved to her that he knows his calendar when he telepathically transmitted the date of the couples wedding. Carry on, follow that camel. Advertisement Gradually it became obvious that all Zebedee's models were 'different', which is to say they looked exactly like models high cheekbones, wide eyes, long limbs but with some distinctive added feature. Shem was albino, Jasroop and Devon had vitiligo, while the latest signing on the books, Tia, was completely bald following the onset of alopecia in her teens. What inspired Zebedee's founders to specialise this way wasn't explained. Perhaps there's a moving story behind the birth of the agency, but if so, we didn't hear it. I'm left with the nagging suspicion that someone has spotted a lucrative niche in the market, a way of making money out of being a little bit woke. A caption at the start informed us that this series is made 'in association with Marks and Spencer', which must mean it's been scrutinised, sieved and signed off by successive panels of executives in suits. The result is a corporate video that probably makes sense if you already know this business and all the people involved. To an outsider, it was a garbled mess. You don't need to know the epic novel by James Clavell, or remember the original TV version with Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune, to be swept away by the spectacular historical adventure Shogun (Disney+). A former Japanese prisoner-of-war, Clavell wrote his 1,100-page bestseller half a century ago, and the storytelling is dated: heroes and villains are all men, women exist chiefly as love interest. In Shogun (Disney+) Cosmo Jarvis (pictured), a man with a touch of the Richard Burtons in his voice, plays English adventurer John Blackthorne, shipwrecked and taken prisoner by a local samurai chieftain It's not for the squeamish there's a beheading, and a sailor is boiled alive. But if you love old-fashioned blockbusters, this busts all the blocks But the pace is tremendous, and the evocation of Japan in the age of warlords is magnificent, with costumes and sets that must have tested even Disney's budget. One storm on the ocean is so vividly recreated, you could get seasick. Cosmo Jarvis, a man with a touch of the Richard Burtons in his voice, plays English adventurer John Blackthorne, shipwrecked and taken prisoner by a local samurai chieftain. It's not for the squeamish there's a beheading, and a sailor is boiled alive. But if you love old-fashioned blockbusters, this busts all the blocks. Taylor Swift fans are cashing in after attending the Australian leg of the megastar's Eras Tour. Dedicated Swifties were left reeling when the pop star's visit Down Under finally came to an end on Monday, and the Bad Blood star jetted out of the country after performing seven sell-out shows in Melbourne and Sydney. Several attendees are now flogging their free concert wristbands for hundreds of dollars on Facebook Marketplace. They are advertising the bands for as much as $300 each thanks to the huge demand for the keepsakes. The free LED wristbands were given to ticketholders who attended the sold-out shows and they light up in sync to create immersive visual effects. Taylor Swift fans are cashing in after attending the Australian leg of the megastar's Eras Tour While some were modestly priced, some are listed for as much as $300 each. One advert described the item as 'used' but 'like new', assuring potential buyers the light was 'still blinking'. Another Swiftie put a staggering seven wristbands up for sale for a massive $1200, with the cost per wristband at $171.40. Meanwhile, other fans are selling small plastic bags of confetti they claimed to have collected at the show for as much as $50 for ten pieces. Several attendees are now flogging their concert wristbands for hundreds of dollars on Facebook Marketplace One Swiftie put a staggering seven wristbands up for sale for a massive $1200, with the cost per wristband at $171.40 Fans have also been reselling merchandise bought at the concerts as a huge number of advertisements continue to circulate on sites including Facebook Marketplace. Swifties paid huge prices for the merchandise, with massive crowds lined up before the shows. Posters were priced at $40, while a tour hoodies cost a staggering $120 and T-shirts were priced at $65. Among other items, water bottles were priced at a huge $40 and canvas tapestries were available to buy for $55. Other fans are selling small plastic bags of confetti they claimed to have collected at the show for as much as $50 for ten pieces Dedicated Swifties were left reeling when her visit Down Under finally came to an end on Monday and the Bad Blood star jetted out of the country after performing seven sell-out shows in Melbourne and Sydney Swiftmania has taken Australia by storm in the past few weeks as Taylor put on seven epic shows for fans across Melbourne and Sydney. More than 600,000 Swifties attended the Australian leg of the Eras tour, while thousands more fans didn't manage to get their hands on the sought-after tickets. A record-breaking 96,000 fans attended each of her three nights in Melbourne and a further 83,000 Swifties flocked to each of her four shows in Sydney. Taylor brought her hotly-anticipated tour to a close on Monday evening with her final performance at the Accor Stadium. She made sure to send off the crowd with some very warm words, leaving the audience cheering in delight. 'Looking at this crowd, the biggest crowd we've had at our four shows here!' she told her fans. An entitled Sydney influencer has brutally mocked Taylor Swift's performance and outfits after attending her concert on Monday evening. Model Lola Thompson was invited to attend the sold-out Eras Tour for free by skincare brand Ole Henriksen after thousands of fans missed out on tickets. Lola, 24, appeared ungrateful for the privilege in a video uncovered by Instagram account Influencer Updates AU, in which she was seen mocking the entire show. She also revealed she left the gig early. The footage appeared to be filmed by one of her friends in an apartment following the Sydney show at the packed Accor Stadium. An entitled Sydney influencer has brutally mocked Taylor Swift 's performance and outfits after attending her concert on Monday evening Still wearing her glamorous concert outfit, she brutally mocked the pop star's dance moves by performing a caricature of her as her friends laughed in the background. 'That's how she performs, and it's f**king not well,' Lola said, before going on to slam the Cruel Summer hitmaker's multiple outfit changes. 'And then she comes out in a f**king - we didn't even stay the whole time and she had like seven outfit changes and it's all just sparkly bulls**t,' she scathed. Lola seemed to particularly dislike Taylor's iconic black and red jumpsuit which the megastar wore during her Reputation set. 'It was f**king rank,' Lola said of the ensemble as her friends laughed and agreed. Model Lola Thompson was invited to attend the sold-out Eras Tour for free by skincare brand Ole Henriksen after thousands of fans missed out on tickets Just hours earlier, Lola shared videos to her Instagram Stories thanking Ole Henriksen 'for the most wholesome night ever'. In the clips, she was seen getting a ride in a limo with her closest friends. They even filmed videos of themselves singing along to Taylor's songs at the concert, before sharing the footage to their socials and tagging the skincare brand. Daily Mail Australia has reached out to both Ole Henriksen and Lola Thompson for comment on the video. Still wearing her glamorous concert outfit, she brutally mocked the pop star's dance moves by performing a caricature of her as her friends laughed in the background Just hours earlier, Lola shared videos to her Instagram Stories thanking Ole Henriksen 'for the most wholesome night ever' In the clips, she was seen getting a ride in a limo with her closest friends It comes as mega Swifties have spent the last year struggling to navigate glitching ticketing sites, scalpers and scammers to obtain a coveted Eras Tour ticket. After dropping hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars on tickets, flights and hotels, some fans have seen their tickets mysteriously 'disappear' from their Ticketek accounts. Other concert-goers have suffered from the greed of property investors as Airbnb hosts price gouged fans just days ahead of Taylor's arrival Down Under. Other missed out on tickets altogether, while some parents with children who couldn't afford to go to the show, travelled hours just to listen to the concert outside of the stadium. Charlotte Rampling showcased her age-defying looks as she stepped out in a black suit for YSL's fall/winter show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday. The actress, 78, flaunted her chic sense of style as she wowed in a black double-breasted blazer pinned with a stunning silver brooch. She paired her powerful look with a pair of tailored black trousers and a simple black top. Keeping her look smart, the beauty paired her gorgeous outfit with a pair of shiny black smart shoes and a black satin clutch. Showcasing her natural beauty, Charlotte kept her make-up look neutral as she styled her short blond tresses into a slick combover. Charlotte Rampling showcased her age-defying looks as she stepped out in a black suit for YSL's fall/winter show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday The actress, 78, flaunted her chic sense of style as she wowed in a black double-breasted blazer pinned with a stunning silver brooch She flashed a smile at the glitzy event as she posed confidently at the cameras. Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello trimmed down the label's silhouettes for winter, tightly wrapping models in sheer silk dresses in muted colours for a runway show on Tuesday. Models cut through the centre of the set -- two vast, circular rooms lined with green curtains -- in towering sling-back heels, their transparent layers revealing high waisted underwear, cut sharply, lengthening the thighs, and accented with slim belts. There were sleeveless tops that wound up around the neck, pussy bow blouses and bustiers, while skirts remained the same length -- cut just below the knees. 'The length is classic, but the content is novel,' said the show notes, tucked in envelopes left on each seat. They also cited the famous 'naked' gown worn by Marilyn Monroe, as a reference for the designer. Adding contrast to the fitted looks were furry coats made of ultralight feathers, forming bulkier silhouettes. The collection was 'bursting with juxtaposition,' said Simon Longland, director of buying at the London department store Harrods, noting 'ladylike and conservative' styling delivered, however, a 'slinky' allure. Paris Fashion Week runs through March 5, with upcoming shows from Chanel, Hermes, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. She paired her powerful look with a pair of tailored black trousers and a simple black top Showcasing her natural beauty, Charlotte kept her make-up look neutral as she styled her short blond tresses into a slick combover Keeping her look smart, the beauty paired her gorgeous outfit with a pair of shiny black smart shoes and a black satin clutch Last year, Charlotte revealed the secrets to how she has preserved her good looks. The star, who has never gone under the knife, simply believes in ageing gracefully - and says she's 'fascinated' with the process. 'It doesn't speak to me, this question. It does not speak to me. 'I really don't have a relationship with,' she told The Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday, when asked about getting older. 'It will be what it will be. My face is not too bad, so I don't have to have surgery' the Dune star continued. 'Even if I'd wanted to, I probably never would have because I'm too frightened of it and I don't agree with it. 'I'm sort of fascinated by my face getting old.' When it comes to staying fit and healthy, the actress insists it's down to DNA. 'I keep myself, resolutely, as strong and well as I can, physically. I've got very much my father's body, the muscular tone,' she says. Charlotte once famously attributed the longevity in her career - and ability to land 'sexy' roles - to not altering her famous visage. 'Don't change your face and you can get really interesting parts - not just granny parts; you can get sexy parts, too' The Night Porter star said. Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello trimmed down the label's silhouettes for winter, tightly wrapping models in sheer silk dresses in muted colours for a runway show on Tuesday Models cut through the centre of the set -- two vast, circular rooms lined with green curtains -- in towering sling-back heels, their transparent layers revealing high-waisted underwear, cut sharply, lengthening the thighs, and accented with slim belts 'The length is classic, but the content is novel,' said the show notes, tucked in envelopes left on each seat Salma Hayek took it in stride on Tuesday when she nearly exposed herself in a humorous video posted to her Instagram account. The always-fashionable 57-year-old Mexican-born actress was wearing a soft white robe in the clip as she shared a makeup hack to hide the appearance stray gray hairs. However, she she moved to give her fans a glimpse of the technique, her robe fell open, possibly showing more than she intended to. Salma kept her cool though and pixelated her chest for comic effect, though its not clear if she had an actual wardrobe malfunction, as she appeared to be wearing a flesh-colored bra under her robe. 'Look at all these white hairs,' she mused as she ran her fingers through her lustrous raven locks, which were in the process of being styled in gorgeous, voluminous waves. Salma Hayek took it in stride on Tuesday when she nearly exposed herself in a humorous video posted to her Instagram account The always-fashionable 57-year-old Mexican-born actress was wearing a soft white robe in the clip as she shared a makeup hack to hide the appearance stray gray hairs She admitted she didn't like to re-dye her hair often, so her 'secret' to 'cover it sometimes' was simple mascara. It had to be cleaned beforehand, but passing the mascara brush over the offending strands would make them disappear against the rest of her hair. 'All the rebellious little ones that stick up not only go black, but they stay flat,' Salma shared. Even though her trick had worked well for her and others, Salma found an even more elegant solution from her hair stylist. He unveiled a small black aerosol bottle that could create the same effect of temporarily dying her hair. The stylist used delicate little bursts of the spray over the gray wings around her temples and brushed it in with a comb, making them instantly blend in with the rest of her dark tresses. 'We dont gatekeep hair tips here,' Salma wrote in her caption while tagging her hairstylist Miguel Marin Perez. However, she and her hairstylist forgot to mention the name of the final product, which frustrated several fans in the comments who were looking for a solution to stray gray hairs. When she moved to give her fans a glimpse of her gray hair, her robe fell open and she pixelated her chest for comic relief. However, she appeared to have a flesh-colored bra on She admitted she didn't like to re-dye her hair often, so her 'secret' to cover her gray hairs was simple mascara However, her hair stylist Miguel Marin Perez showed her a more elegant spray that could give her the same effect without having to put makeup in her hair Fans were frustrated when they didn't mention its name, but some commenters thought it was Toppik Hair Building Fibers, which comes in a similar black aerosol can Last week, she showed off her gorgeous jet black hair at the Gucci show for Milan Fashion Week; seen on Friday She was joined at the style showcase by her billionaire husband Francois-Henri Pinault, who is the chairman and CEO of Kering, the luxury goods corporation that owns Gucci However, some commenters indicated that Perez had been using Toppik Hair Building Fibers, which comes in a similar black can to the one he was holding. The Oscar-nominated actress will likely have plenty of chances to try out the new hair tip whens he shows off her stunning looks on red carpets for her film projects and upcoming fashion shows. Last week, she showed off her gorgeous jet black hair at the Gucci show for Milan Fashion Week. She was joined at the style showcase by her billionaire husband Francois-Henri Pinault, who is the chairman and CEO of Kering, the luxury goods corporation that owns Gucci and other high-profile brands including Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Alexander McQueen. The heartwarming moment Taylor Swift's father Scott told security at a Sydney show to bring a mother and her kids into the VIP section has surfaced online. The precious moment occurred at Swift's final Sydney concert on Monday - just hours before Scott 'Papa' Swift allegedly assaulted a local photographer. A TikTok Swiftie posted the clip to the platform, which shows Scott in the foreground of a packed crowd, chatting to security and then pointing out a young mother and her kids. The security guards then approach the mother and escort her into the VIP section, on the orders of Swift. Swifties quickly took to the comment section to praise Scott's extraordinary act of kindness. The heartwarming moment Taylor Swift 's father Scott told security at a Sydney show to bring a mother and her kids into the VIP section has been unearthed. Pictured: Taylor and Scott Swift 'No words for how awesome Scott Swift is,' one fan gushed and a second person added: 'I started crying. What a deserving mum.' The 71-year-old's kind act came just hours before he was accused of striking photographer Ben McDonald, 51, at a ferry wharf in the suburb of Neutral Bay at about 2.30am on Tuesday, after the Australian leg of her Eras tour wrapped up. Taylor Swift's team say an Australian photographer 'threatened to throw a female staff member into the water', before her father Scott was accused of punching the man in the face. The precious moment occurred at Swift's final Sydney show on Monday - Hours before Scott allegedly assaulted a local photographer. A TikTok Swiftie posted the clip, which shows Scott in a packed crowd, chatting to security and then pointing out a young mother and her kids Scott and Taylor had travelled from Homebush on a luxury superyacht called Quantum - Footage from the moments before the alleged altercation showed Scott walking up the wharf while giving photographers the middle finger. A spokeswoman for Taylor Swift told Daily Mail Australia the photographers were being 'aggressive'. 'Two individuals were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel, and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water,' she said. However, Mr McDonald - the chief executive of Matrix Media Group - slammed the statement as 'utter rubbish' and said the only female at the scene was Taylor. He said the altercation was caught on camera and did not show the photographers acting aggressively. An investigation into the alleged incident has been launched by the North Shore Police Command. Earlier on Tuesday, the photographer accused Scott of 'charging' at him once he was off the superyacht with Taylor. The 71-year-old's kind act came just hours before he was accused of striking photographer Ben McDonald, 51, at a ferry wharf in the suburb of Neutral Bay at about 2.30am on Tuesday, after the Australian leg of her Eras tour wrapped up Gavin And Stacey star Joanna Page has said she knows nothing 'at all' about the show's rumoured return. The hit TV series about a couple who commit to a long-distance relationship last aired in 2019 for a one-off festive episode which ended on a cliffhanger. In recent weeks rumours have swirled that the sitcom, created by James Corden and Ruth Jones, will return for another Christmas special. On Tuesday, actress Joanna, 46, who played Stacey in the sitcom, denied any knowledge of the show's return during an appearance on BBC programme The One Show. She told presenters Alex Jones and Jermaine Jenas: 'I don't know anything at all. I've got no other information. Absolutely nothing.' Gavin And Stacey star Joanna Page has said she knows nothing 'at all' about the show's rumoured return In recent weeks rumours have swirled that the sitcom, created by James Corden and Ruth Jones, will return for another Christmas special The star also told the Mirror: 'Its all gone absolutely mad with those rumours and its so sweet and lovely that everybody still loves the show. But cross my heart, I honestly dont know. 'Id never ask Ruth or James if theyre planning on writing any more. That would look a bit sad, wouldnt it? But would I do the show again? 'Id absolutely jump at it. It was a fantastic job with a fabulous cast. We had a right laugh from start to finish. My children recently watched the first Christmas special which they loved.' On The One Show, Joanna also spoke on what it is like for the public to know her as Stacey. 'When you go to drama school you just want to act, you just want to work,' she said. 'And then to come out and then do a job and be known for something that the public have liked and everything, it's just, it's really lovely. 'So yeah I'm really pleased with it.' US outlet Deadline reported on February 13 that a new special was in development/pre-production stages and said that it would be produced by Steve Coogan's Baby Cow, Ruth's Tidy Productions and Fulwell 73, which is co-owned by James. The comedy is reported to be returning for the first time in five years at Christmas. It has aired on the BBC since its creation in 2007, but sources have claimed Netflix is battling to steal it After James Corden was spotted meeting co-creator Ruth Jones in London's Soho in November 2023, speculation about a return went into overdrive Ruth, who played Nessa in the show, shut down the reports and told RTE Radio 1: 'It's sadly a rumour... All I can say is, if there was something to say on that front, James and I would happily announce it, we would.' The Welsh actress said she thinks the rumours were sparked after she was photographed having lunch with co-creator James a few months back after he returned to the UK from living in America. Comedian and Welsh actor Rob Brydon, who played Uncle Bryn in the show, weighed in on the reports as well and told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he thought they were just 'another rumour'. The sitcom's 2019 festive special scored the highest overnight Christmas ratings in 12 years when it aired, attracting an average audience of 11.6 million viewers, making it the biggest festive special since Christmas Day 2008. By the New Year, it had been viewed by 17.1 million people, making it the biggest scripted programme of the decade at the time. The special also went on to win the impact award at the National Television Awards in 2020. The show ran for three series from 2007 to 2010 before it returned in 2019 for a festive special which picked up a decade after the previous instalment. There is a lot of speculation around the return of the show as The Sun reported there was bidding war between the BBC and Netflix. Rob Brydon (centre) refused to rule out a Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special for 2024 on Saturday. The actor, 58, who plays Uncle Bryn, spoke on Radio Four's Today programme (pictured with James Corden and Ruth Jones) Obviously the show has a special history with the BBC, and this seems like its natural and obvious home. 'Chief Content Officer Charlotte Moore has spoken to the pair and made it clear she wants the show to stay put, but Netflix have also made it very, very explicit that they want to air it.' The insider added that the streaming companys CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters are 'extremely excited' as they can top the BBC's offer, but Ruth and James 'aren't' about the money'. They said: 'It would be a huge coup for Netflix to steal this flagship British comedy from the nose of the BBC and, indeed, there may be a world in which this happens.' Gary Sinise revealed that his wife Moria Harris was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, just before they learned their son McCanna 'Mac' was also suffering from cancer. The Forrest Gump star, 68, shared that his son passed away at 33 on January 5, following a years-long battle with rare spinal cancer Chordoma in a post on the Gary Sinise Foundation's website on Tuesday. In the lengthy tribute he paid to Mac, Gary wrote that Moira, 69, had also gotten a cancer diagnosis in June of 2018, two months before Mac received his Chordoma diagnosis in August. While Moira would eventually go into remission after successful surgery to remove lymph nodes, followed by chemotherapy and radiation treatments, her son was less fortunate. 'The summer of 2018 was a particularly challenging time for our family. In June of that year, my wife Moira was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, and after surgery to remove lymph nodes, she began chemotherapy and radiation,' he wrote in the tribute. Gary Sinise, 68, revealed his wife Moria Harris, 69, was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, just before they learned their son Mac was also suffering from cancer; seen in 2017 The Forrest Gump star revealed that his son passed away at 33 on January 5, following a years-long battle with rare spinal cancer Chordoma; Gary and Moira pictured with Mac (L) 'Then, on August 8th, we found out that Mac was diagnosed with a very rare cancer called Chordoma. What was happening? What is Chordoma? I had never heard of this. And two cancer patients, mother and son, within two months of each other? A real punch in the gut.' 'Thankfully, after months of treatment, Moira went into remission and has been cancer-free ever since,' he shared. Sinise married Moira in 1981, after the pair met while in college. Aside from Mac, they also share daughters Sophie, 35, and Ella, 32. Moira is a retired actress, and has been featured in television series like The Equalizer and Karen Sisco. She's also appeared in a number of her husband's films, including Miles from Home and Of Mice and Men. His son Mac had worked with the Gary Sinise Foundation and had supported his father's Lt. Dan Band as a fill-in drummer until repeated spinal surgeries and the advancement of his cancer in recent years forced him to step away. 'I am so blessed, fortunate, and proud to be his dad,' Sinise wrote in his moving obituary. Sinise shared that his son underwent surgery in September 2018 to remove a tumor on his spine, followed by a second surgery in February 2019 to combat an infection. The family got bad news in May of that year when a follow-up scan revealed that Mac's tumor had returned, and the cancer had spread. Despite his worsening condition and difficult treatments, Sinise wrote that his son continued to come into the foundation's office regularly, and after he was unable to he continued to work behind the scenes. In the tribute he paid to Mac, Gary wrote that Moira had also gotten a cancer diagnosis in June of 2018, two months before Mac received his Chordoma diagnosis in August; seen 2007 While Moira would eventually go into remission after successful surgery to remove lymph nodes, followed by chemotherapy and radiation treatments, her son was less fortunate; seen 1998 The actor revealed that Mac's final project for the foundation was a podcast interview with father and son. Even after he stepped back to focus on his treatments and health, Mac turned to one of his passions: music. Sinise wrote that his son could not longer play his main instruments, drums and piano, so he assumed 'music was a thing of the past.' Mac had studied at the University of Southern California's Thorton School of Music, where he had begun work on an unfinished composition later titled Arctic Circles 'inspired by the wintery nature shows he loved watching while lying in his hospital bed' and he became determined to complete it before his time was up. 'The cancer had paralyzed him from the chest down, but he still had limited use of his right arm, and fingers on his left hand,' Sinise explained. Mac could still select musical notes with a stylus strapped to his hand, and members of his dad's Lt. Dan Band collaborated with him to hone the piece. Mac's friend from USC, the composer Oliver Schnee, also collaborated with him to make the final touches on the arrangement, before Mac paid for recording sessions. But Sinise shared that his son's ambitions led the sessions to expand after he was urged to take up harmonic so that he could still play on the record. 'He did, and it was beautiful,' Sinise wrote. Sinise married Moira in 1981, after the pair met while in college. Aside from Mac, they also share daughters Sophie, 35, and Ella, 32; the couple see in 2018 Mac was then talked into recording a version of the traditional folk song Oh Shenandoah to feature his harmonic and to take advantage of the string section that had been contracted. Sinise revealed that his son was inspired to record an entire album filled out with three more of his original compositions titled Resurrection & Revival, Resurrection & Revival, 'with a theme of bringing something that was old or unfinished back to life.' Gary looked back fondly on their recording session on November 10, 2023, which would mark Mac's final birthday celebration. 'It was a very special day for him, and he asked me to play bass on one of the tunes, a cover of the old American folk song Red River Valley, with him playing harmonica,' Gary shared, adding that it was a song Mac's mother would sing to him when he was a child. 'That day was indeed a special day for the two of us,' he added. But Sinise revealed that Mac was struggling to breathe was forced to go to the hospital on December 30, 2023, where he would remain to the end. Mac lived long enough to complete his album, but he died on January 5, the same week that the album went to press, and Sinise revealed that his son was laid to rest on January 23. 'Like any family experiencing such a loss, we are heartbroken and have been managing as best we can,' Sinise wrote. 'As parents, it is so difficult losing a child.' The actor, who has performed with his band at numerous events honoring members of the armed services over the years, extended his thoughts to others who had lost loved ones too. Mac Sinise had been battling the rare spinal cancer chordoma in recent years, but he continued to work for his father's foundation until 2020 'I am so blessed, fortunate, and proud to be his dad,' Sinise wrote in his moving obituary After Mac's treatments for chordoma made it difficult to go to the Gary Sinise Foundation office, he continued working remotely. His final project was a 2020 podcast interview with his dad Even as cancer left him paralyzed from the chest down, Mac who went to music school at USC returned to compose an unfinished piece he began writing while in school Sinise, who noted that Mac battled cancer for five-and-a-half years, wrote: 'While our hearts ache at missing him, we are comforted in knowing that Mac is no longer struggling, and inspired and moved by how he managed it. 'He fought an uphill battle against a cancer that has no cure, but he never quit trying,' he added. Gary shared that his son was a cinephile, and he recalled that 'We always told him he reminded us of the soldier at the end of the extraordinary film 1917, running through the battlefield, bombs going off all around him, knocking him down one after the other, yet he keeps getting back up, refusing to quit and keeps running forward.' 'I am so blessed, fortunate, and proud to be his dad,' he added. Sinise emphasized that his family's story was 'not unique,' but he took inspiration from the many soldiers he had met over the years who had persevered with their own struggles. 'I have learned from them and been inspired by them,' he wrote, adding, 'Knowing them gave me strength.' The screen star continued: 'Our family is grateful for all those who have helped us, loved us, and supported us in this fight.' He concluded by addressing his late son directly. 'Thank you, Mac. You did it. Resurrection & Revival will live on. And so will you. In our hearts forever.' Gary revealed that Mac died the week that his album went to press. He was laid to rest on January 23 'Thank you, Mac. You did it. Resurrection & Revival will live on. And so will you. In our hearts forever,' Sinise concluded his tribute. 'We will miss you and love you for eternity' 'We were blessed to have you in our lives as son, brother, and friend...and we will miss you and love you for eternity,' he wrote, before signing off as the 'Proud father of Mac Sinise.' The Gary Sinise Foundation noted that, though Gary and his family had not solicited gifts in Mac's memory, it would be updating the family on any donations to the Chordoma Foundation or the Gary Sinise Foundation made in his name. 'Mac was an inspiration to all of us here at the Gary Sinise Foundation. We are heartbroken and grieving the loss of such an incredible individual, colleague, and friend,' the organization wrote. Gary's tribute to Mac was followed by hundreds of notes and tributes in his memory. Natalie Cassidy has candidly revealed that she went through a 'very, very difficult time' following the death of her longtime co-star June Brown. The EastEnders star has joined forces with Gavin and Stacey's Joanna Page for a new TV-themed podcast, and in a new interview spoke about the challenges of leading a special one-off episode following June's death. June, who died in April 2022, had starred as Albert Square stalwart Dot Cotton for 35 years, and the soap paid tribute in a special funeral episode later that year. Speaking about June's death, Natalie told The Mirror: 'It was very, very difficult for me because obviously I've lost a dear friend. 'She taught me a lot and we had a lot of laughs over the years. When she was 82 years old she'd be partying in a nightclub, and she was just so amazing.' Natalie Cassidy has candidly revealed that she went through a 'very, very difficult time' following the death of her longtime co-star June Brown Natalie has herself starred on EastEnders as Sonia Fowler for 31 years, and her character was the main focus of Dot's funeral episode. She added: 'There was a lot resting on my shoulders, I think I did her proud.' June's character was honoured with her own send-off as the cast of Albert Square gathered for the character's funeral in an episode that aired eight months after her death. The on-screen funeral was also attended by three of June's real-life children, Sophie, Nim and Billy, who asked to be in the emotional scenes. The heartbreaking yet heartwarming episode saw the late Mrs Branning buried next to her dearest friend Ethel Skinner (Gretchen Franklin), who died in 2000 following her terminal cancer diagnosis. Sonia also opted to listen back to a tape that Dot recorded for her late husband Jim not long after he suffered from a stroke in 2007. He later died in 2015 following a fatal heart attack. But it wouldn't be a special episode for the beloved Dot Cotton if veteran characters weren't brought back into the picture. June, who died in April 2022, had starred as Albert Square stalwart Dot Cotton for 35 years, and the soap paid tribute in a special funeral episode later that year Natalie has herself starred on EastEnders as Sonia Fowler for 31 years, and her character was the main focus of Dot's funeral episode Returning to Walford was EastEnders heavyweight Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) - who paid his respects to the late great Dot from afar. Also joining to say their goodbyes was Colin Russell (Michael Cashman) and Lauren Branning (Jacqueline Jossa), who watched on as the horses lead her coffin past No. 27, past The Queen Vic and past Albert Square. For decades June was one of the most famous faces on British TV, playing the devout Christian famed on Albert Square for her chain smoking, gossiping and mothering of those in need while working in the launderette. After meeting on the Loose Women panel last year, Natalie and Joanna are fronting a BBC podcast titled Off The Telly, where they discuss programmes they've tuned into that week. Rooney Mara draped her baby bump in a flowing, casual ensemble when she surfaced in Los Angeles this week. The 38-year-old actress is expecting her second child by her fiance Joaquin Phoenix, whom she has been romantically involved with for eight years. She broke the news of her latest pregnancy by cradling her blossoming bump as she posed on a red carpet at the Berlinale less than two weeks ago. Then this Tuesday, with the cat out of the bag, she was spotted dashing around Los Angeles in a comfy-looking outfit including a maternity t-shirt and a jacket. Sweeping her dark brown hair into a high ponytail, she popped on a pair of sunglasses and kept herself entertained with her headphones on. Rooney Mara draped her baby bump in a flowing, casual ensemble when she surfaced in Los Angeles this week The 38-year-old actress is expecting her second child by her fiance Joaquin Phoenix, whom she has been romantically involved with for eight years She debuted her baby bump at the Berlinale premiere of her film La Cocina, a drama about a Manhattan restaurant from Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios. Rooney cut a luminous figure on the red carpet in a gently ruffled, strapless black gown that flowed back into a small train in a touch of retro chic. As the shutterbugs snapped away at her, she folded her hands at her waist, cinching the fabric in to throw her burgeoning bump into relief. Rooney and Joaquin struck up their romance in 2016 and in 2020 they welcomed their son River, named after Joaquin's late brother, a Hollywood heartthrob who died of an overdose of cocaine and morphine at the age of 23. Joaquin and Rooney are known for being assiduously private about their personal lives, waiting months after their son's birth before discussing the matter in public. News of River's arrival broke in September 2020 when the Russian filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky leaked the information at the Zurich Film Festival. The director was premiering his documentary Gunda, which had Joaquin for an executive producer, and discussed the movie star during an onstage Q&A. 'He just got a baby, by the way,' Victor spilled to the live audience in a sound-byte that quickly went viral. 'A beautiful son called River.' Rooney and Joaquin struck up their romance in 2016 and in 2020 they welcomed their son River, named after Joaquin's late brother Joaquin and Rooney are known for being assiduously private about their personal lives, waiting months after their son's birth before discussing the matter in public Two months later, Joaquin and Rooney broke their silence about their baby for the first time in a People op-ed about migrant children at the US-Mexico border Rooney appeared on the Launch Left podcast last year and waxed rhapsodic about the joy she experienced after becoming a mother 'I think it's the best thing in the world,' she gushed: 'I mean, it sounds so cliche when you talk about it, but things are cliche for a reason' She debuted her baby bump at the Berlinale premiere of her film La Cocina, a drama about a Manhattan restaurant by Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios Rooney cut a luminous figure on the red carpet in a gently ruffled, strapless black gown that flowed back into a small train in a touch of retro chic Two months later, Joaquin and Rooney broke their silence about their baby for the first time in a People op-ed about migrant children at the US-Mexico border. 'As new parents, it's unbearable to imagine what it would feel like to have our child taken away from us for a day, let alone years,' they wrote. Rooney appeared on the Launch Left podcast last year and waxed rhapsodic about the joy she experienced after becoming a mother, 'I love it. I love it so much. I think it's the best thing in the world,' she gushed. 'I mean, it sounds so cliche when you talk about it, but things are cliche for a reason.' She acknowledged that she leads 'a very privileged life,' one that affords her the luxury of scaling back her work obligations to spend more time with her son. 'Motherhood is very challenging, even when you have a privileged life, and I'm so lucky that I have the choice to get to be with him most of the time,' she said. 'That I'm like" "Oh, I'm just going to work once a year if something feels right, and other than that, this is what I'm doing." Most people don't have that option.' Barnaby Joyce sent a thank you note to Kyle Sandilands after the radio host voiced his support for the former deputy prime minister when he was found lying on a footpath in Canberra earlier this month. Co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson, 49, read out the letter live on air on Wednesday morning after believing the note was intended for her. It read: 'Dear Kyle, this is just a quick thank you for your support over the little lay down I had! Anyway, my fault but your support very much appreciated. Thank you, Barnaby.' 'Aww that's nice, add that to the other Barnaby thank you letters,' Sandilands, 52, joked in response. Daily Mail Australia revealed the exclusive video of Joyce, 56, sprawled on the footpath at Lonsdale Street, in the Canberra suburb of Braddon, close to midnight three weeks ago. Barnaby Joyce sent a thank you note to Kyle Sandilands after the radio host voiced his support for the former deputy prime minister when he was found lying on a footpath in Canberra earlier this month Despite the pair's turbulent history, Sandilands chose to defend Joyce by slamming the person who filmed him amid calls for the MP to resign. 'Instead of the guy offering assistance, this sort of TikTok age, the guy thought it'd be funny to film him and not even ask him, "Are you alright?" That's pretty s**t', Sandilands said at the time. Joyce is taking time off from Parliament this week after being urged to take leave to deal with 'personal matters'. Sources said the Nationals frontbencher was sitting on a large pot plant while having an animated phone conversation with his wife, Vikki Campion, when he fell off, 'rolled around' on the ground and continued with his call. Co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson , 49, read out the letter live on air on Wednesday morning after believing the note was intended for her Joyce has since blamed mixing prescription medication with alcohol for his behaviour. Sandilands' feud with Joyce started when the politician made an official complaint to the media watchdog in 2015, after the radio host verbally abused him during an on-air stoush. The heated segment, which occurred on KIIS FM in March 2015, related to actor Johnny Depp's dogs Pistol and Boo being smuggled into Australia. Daily Mail Australia revealed the exclusive video of Joyce, 56, sprawled on the footpath at Lonsdale Street, in the Canberra suburb of Braddon, close to midnight three weeks ago Married At First Sight producers are already planning for the next series of the hit dating experiment and have reportedly rejected a proposed huge format change. An industry insider revealed producers were considering bringing back former brides and grooms to give them a second chance at love, but vetoed the idea. 'MAFS was looking at bringing people back. After 11 seasons it wouldn't be hard to pull off the idea of a second chance for a select few,' they told Yahoo. However the proposal was knocked back for a surprising reason - producers felt viewers might not engage with returning cast members once again looking for love. 'We know viewers like to explore new storylines rather than reinvesting a personality they already met. It wasn't strong enough to make a full series of returning brides and grooms,' they said. Married At First Sight producers are already planning for the next series of the hit dating experiment - and have reportedly rejected a proposed huge format change. Pictured: Stars Natalie Parham and Collins Christian 'Natalie Parham was someone we started thinking deserved a second chance. But contestants often come back and they are too schooled with the format and it feels less exciting for the viewer.' Some of the other cast members that could have potentially been brought back include former lovebirds Tahnee Cook and Ollie Skelton, who shocked fans by splitting in December. It comes after it was revealed three popular Married At First Sight couples of the current season had a 'secret pact' to make it to Final Vows, despite a lack of genuine connection off-camera. An industry insider revealed that producers were considering bringing back former brides and grooms to give them a second chance at love - but vetoed the idea. Pictured: MAFS 2023 star Ollie Skelton Despite their on-screen chemistry, insiders sensationally claimed three relationships were far from perfect behind the scenes. A source close to the production disclosed to Daily Mail Australia the couples rarely spent time together when not required by the show's filming schedule. 'Lauren and Jono's relationship was similarly tumultuous, with the two barely spending any time together on weekends, Tim and Sara were also constantly at odds,' the insider shared. Married At First Sight producers were reportedly 'pi**ed off' upon discovering the pacts, feeling betrayed by the manipulation of the show's premise. The show prides itself on creating genuine connections, and these revelations undermine its integrity. MAFS top boss Tara McWilliams, who is credited with transforming MAFS into the ratings juggernaut it is today, previously told Daily Mail Australia fame rather than love is often the driving force for some of the show's contestants. She said while there are several reasons contestants decide to join the show, most are excited by the experience as a whole. Carla Bruni showcased her unique sense of style as she joined a slew of stars for YSL's runway show at the Place Jacques Rueff during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday. The former supermodel and French first lady, 59, commanded attention as she donned an olive one-piece zip-up suit, which she cinched in at the waist with a thick brown belt. She paired her bold look with a pair of thick dark brown leather gloves which trailed up her forearms. Adding inches to her stunning frame, Carla donned a pair of fabulous brown toe-pointed kitten heels. To accessorise, Carla wore a thick gold bangle on her wrist and a pair of large-frame blacked-out sunglasses. Carla Bruni, 59, showcased her unique sense of style in an olive jumpsuit as she joined a slew of stars for YSL's runway show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday The actress commanded attention as she donned an olive one-piece zip-up suit, which she cinched in at the waist with a thick brown belt Carla was spotted sitting in the front row chatting to Monica Bellucci, 59, who donned a calf-length, shiny black leather coat which featured dramatic lapels. Monica showcased her stunning figure in a strapless black jumpsuit, which was cinched in at the waist with a black and silver buckled belt. To accessorise, the Diobolik Chi Sei star paired her look with a shiny black clutch and thick hoop earrings. Monica showcased her natural beauty with a neutral makeup look. She added a hint of drama to her look with a pair of bold blacked-out sunglasses. Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello trimmed down the label's silhouettes for winter, tightly wrapping models in sheer silk dresses in muted colours for a runway show on Tuesday. Models cut through the centre of the set -- two vast, circular rooms lined with green curtains -- in towering sling-back heels, their transparent layers revealing high-waisted underwear, cut sharply, lengthening the thighs, and accented with slim belts. There were sleeveless tops that wound up around the neck, pussy bow blouses and bustiers, while skirts remained the same length -- cut just below the knees. 'The length is classic, but the content is novel,' said the show notes, tucked in envelopes left on each seat. She paired her bold look with a pair of thick dark brown leather gloves which trailed up her forearms To accessorise, Carla wore a thick gold bangle on her wrist and a pair of large-frame blacked-out sunglasses Carla was spotted sitting in the front row chatting to Monica Bellucci, 59, who donned a calf-length, shiny black leather coat which featured dramatic lapels Monica showcased her stunning figure in a strapless black jumpsuit, which was cinched in at the waist with a black and silver buckled belt They also cited the famous 'naked' gown worn by Marilyn Monroe as a reference for the designer. Adding contrast to the fitted looks were furry coats made of ultralight feathers, forming bulkier silhouettes. The collection was 'bursting with juxtaposition,' said Simon Longland, director of buying at the London department store Harrods, noting 'ladylike and conservative' styling delivered, however, a 'slinky' allure. Paris Fashion Week runs through March 5, with upcoming shows from Chanel, Hermes, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello trimmed down the label's silhouettes for winter, tightly wrapping models in sheer silk dresses in muted colours for a runway show on Tuesday Models cut through the centre of the set -- two vast, circular rooms lined with green curtains -- in towering sling-back heels, their transparent layers revealing high-waisted underwear, cut sharply, lengthening the thighs, and accented with slim belts They've been forced to hit back at claims their romance is 'fake.' And Love Island stars Georgia Harrison and Anton Danyluk proved their romance is stronger than ever after he travelled the length of England to visit her home in Essex. The couple shared a sweet clip of their reunion on Instagram on Tuesday, where Anton surprised Georgia with a Jo Malone perfume, before leaning in for a kiss. Perched on her kitchen counter in a frilled mini dress, Georgia enjoyed a glass of red wine before being spoiled by her man. The clip was captioned: 'And just like that he came to Essex @anton_danyluk.' Love Island stars Georgia Harrison and Anton Danyluk proved their romance is stronger than ever after he travelled the length of England to visit her home in Essex The couple shared a sweet clip of their reunion on Tuesday, where Anton surprised Georgia with a Jo Malone perfume, before leaning in for a kiss Georgia was previously forced to hit back at claims her relationship with Anton is just a showmance. The reality stars finished in fifth place during the Love Island All Stars final last week, but viewers have questioned whether they are genuine. Anton who has been open about his feelings, and Georgia had a number of ups and downs in the South African villa which has caused fans to think she will 'dump him' soon. Georgia has responded to a negative comment on social media which read: 'I have milk that has a longer shelf life than this relationship'. She hit back: 'I heard everlasting milk was back in fashion.' Georgia has also addressed concerns from fans about her wellbeing during the live Love Island All Stars final after viewers of the ITV2 reality show picked up on Georgia's 'awkward' chat with Anton. The couple have faced serious scrutiny over the legitimacy of their relationship over the past few weeks and have faced a rocky road to romance. Taking to Instagram, Georgia once again defended their relationship and insisted she was just 'nervous' during the final. Georgia was previously forced to hit back at claims her relationship with Anton is just a showmance, after viewers questioned whether their connection was genuine Georgia wrote: 'If I'm being honest the last week was really challenging for me and I was nervous at the final with such a big crowd and also the ex Islanders who had recently voiced strong opinions on me and Anton as a couple.' Georgia was referring to a recent episode of the show where the ex-Islanders came back into the villa to share their judgements on the couples. The Islanders had to vote for who they thought the least compatible couple was and Georgia and Anton narrowly avoided being dumped as Arabella Chi and Adam Maxted were ultimately sent home. During her statement, Georgia continued: 'I couldn't hide my apprehension but I can assure you I am very happy and looking forward to the future and appreciate him supporting me through my nerves. While speaking to host Maya Jama during the final, Georgia looked less than impressed with Anton as he revealed that she was 'heartbroken' when she originally entered the South Africa villa. The pair discussed how it felt that their fellow Islanders believed their romantic connection is fake after Georgia previously said Anton gave her 'the ick'. She said: 'I just think I'm not use to relationships moving that fast and then feelings just grew slowly and it took a while to progress.' Anton added: 'It was difficult because what I think people didn't realise was that Georgia came in here heartbroken when she came in.' Maya replied: 'We didn't actually know that...' Looking rather furious by the comment, Georgia awkwardly shut down the comment: 'I wasn't like that, let's not talk about it'. Maya then went completely silent along with the rest of the audience and villa but it was not made clear who actually 'broke' Georgia's heart. The pair did go on to say they are going to try and 'see each other' back home as Anton 'comes to London once a week to film a podcast'. EastEnders fans were left pleading with soap bosses on Tuesday following their decision to axe cast member Max Bowden from the role of Ben Mitchell. The actor, 29, has been written out of the BBC serial after four years after he reportedly received warnings from bosses about his off-screen behaviour. This week, soap bosses took to the official EastEnders Instagram page to share pictures of Perry Fenwick, 61, who plays Billy Mitchell, and Tony Clay, 32, who portrays Callum 'Halfway' Highway, with the caption: 'We wonder what scene theyre reading... #EastEnders.' The pair could be seen standing on the set as the flicked through a script together, with their characters being in the same family after Callum married Ben in 2022. However, the photos left some fans wondering what may lie ahead for Callum - and Ben - after spotting Callum was still wearing his wedding ring in the snaps. EastEnders fans were left pleading with soap bosses on Tuesday following their decision to axe cast member Max Bowden from the role of Ben Mitchell (L-R: Perry Fenwick, 61, who plays Billy Mitchell, and Tony Clay, 32, who portrays Callum 'Halfway' Highway pictured) Max, 29, has been written out of the BBC serial after four years after he reportedly received warnings from bosses about his off-screen behaviour (Max pictured as Ben Mitchell last year) Followers of the account took to the comments section to beg bosses not to let Max go, with some predicting he may not be gone for long with Callum still wearing his ring. 'Callum still wearing his wedding ring has made me happy,' wrote one person. While someone else shared: 'Finally some new tony clay content he looks so good. I love him. I love his short hair. Bring Max back please so happy he is still wearing his wedding ring. Together forever.' Someone else posted: 'Bring Max Bowden back please. Callum needs his husband and Lexi needs her dad.' While another fan shared: 'Oh this is lovely. Great to see Callum still in with the Mitchells and still wearing his wedding ring. Bring his husband back soon please. They need each other.' 'Now we just need Max Bowden back,' wrote another fan, while someone else commented: 'Bring back Callums husband pls.' And someone else remarked: 'If you recast Ben were gonna have a problem EastEnders.' Max's contract playing Ben Mitchell was not renewed after he reportedly received warnings from bosses about his behaviour. Soap bosses took to the official EastEnders Instagram page to share pictures of Perry Fenwick, 61, who plays Billy Mitchell, and Tony Clay, 32, who portrays Callum 'Halfway' Highway Followers of the account took to the comments section to beg bosses not to let Max go, with some predicting he may not be gone for long with Callum still wearing his ring The Sun on Sunday claimed that the decision not to renew Max's contract was made after they had to discipline him. A source said: 'Max is ready to move on. He is proud of his time on the show and what he has achieved but he is focused on new projects and what he is doing next.' It was reported that the actor had decisions with bosses for a chat with executives about his drama offscreen in 2022. A TV source said: 'Max was called in for a chat by executives. He is an extremely talented actor and was always a real pro on set. However, there were concerns that his partying lifestyle away from the set could start to prove a distraction.' Off-screen, Max had been dating his co-star Shona McGarty, 32, for six months before they decided to call time on their romance. Shona will also leave the soap after 15 years in the coming weeks. Sources claimed the pair were 'inseparable' following his split from girlfriend Roisin Buckle, and they made their relationship Instagram official in August 2022. However, Max and Shona split in October 2022, with sources claiming the pair had decided to remain friends after Max welcomed a baby boy with his ex Roisin. Their relationship began while his ex-girlfriend Roisin, 38, was pregnant with their child. Max's personal life hit the headlines when his romance with his EastEnders co-star Shona McGarty (left) first came to light in May 2022 Shona is known for her role as Whitney Dean in EastEnders (pictured with Max as Ben on the soap in 2019) In September 2022, Max revealed he was a father for the first time following the birth of his son. Roisin and Max both shared a sweet black and white photo of their son, who was born on September 19, 2022, as they revealed they had named him Reginald. They revealed they were expecting their first child in April 2022. The soap star met Roisin at a pub in June 2021. The pair quickly became close, and in July went on holiday to Madeira. The couple decided to separate in March 2022, while agreeing to co-parent once their son was born, however Roisin claimed in August that they had not been in contact for two months. The same month, Max was spotted at a country music festival with his EastEnders colleague Shona at London's O2. Last month, Max broke his silence after being 'axed' as he told fans he had been 'surrounded by love' all day and was 'feeling grateful' as he celebrated his birthday, while thanking viewers for their support. Alongside an image of the soap star enjoying a meal with family and friends, he wrote: 'Been surrounded by love all day celebrating my birthday. 'Grateful for family and friends. Thanks for all the messages. Big love.' His last scenes will air in the spring but it is understood his character Ben, who has been played by numerous actors in the past, will not be killed off. An EastEnders spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Max will be leaving EastEnders next year. We wish him all the best for the future.' A TV insider told The Sun: 'Max has played Ben for the last four years and bosses decided his time on the show was up. 'There has been a lot of noise around him for a bit too long and that can take away from the drama on the show. 'He went in for a meeting as his contract was up for renewal next year, No one knew how it was going to go and following discussions it was decided that he would leave.' Max, who is the sixth actor to play Ben, was involved in some of the soap's biggest storylines of late. The soap star met ex Roisin Buckle at a pub in June 2021. The pair quickly became close, and in July went on holiday to Madeira. The couple decided to separate in March 2022 Ben struggled to cope with the death of Lola Pearce-Brown (Danielle Harold) who was mother to his daughter Lexi. He then developed eating disorder bulimia as he attempted to work through his grief. Late last year, it was reported Max had a lucky escape after after being involved in a three-car collision in Surrey. Max emerged unscathed but appeared to be shaken up following the accident in Sunbury-on-Thames, according to onlookers. In pictures obtained by The Sun, the soap star emerged from the scene with no injuries, despite the vehicle's bumper completely destroyed. A source told the publication: 'It was all very fast. We just saw this car was absolutely demolished and then my girlfriend said, "Is that Ben Mitchell?" In September 2022, Max revealed he was a father for the first time following the birth of his son with ex Roisin 'He looked pretty stunned by the whole thing. He must have been pretty badly shaken up.' A Surrey Police spokeswoman said: 'We were called to a collision involving three vehicles in Sunbury-on-Thames on Friday. 'The collision occurred around 1.10pm just off the Sunbury Cross roundabout and involved a red Mazda, a black Mercedes and a grey Kia. 'There were no injuries or arrests resulting from the incident.' Wendy Williams' brother, Tommy Williams, claims the former talk show host is 'stuck' in a treatment facility and wants her released. The TV personality, 59, is currently receiving treatment for frontotemporal dementia which her son claims is 'alcohol induced' and aphasia in a undisclosed facility in New York, where she's reportedly been since April 2023. 'I know that she is stuck and we are trying to unstick her. Her family is here and she doesn't need a facility. We are here to take care of her,' he told Us Weekly. 'All I want for her is freedom. We have a father who would love to see her,' he added. He also expressed his frustration with not being able to see her, telling the publication: 'We're dealing with unknowns. We just want to be able to check in with her. I would fly up there [to New York], but where do I go? No one knows anything.' Wendy Williams' brother, Tommy Williams, claims the former talk show host, 59, is 'stuck' in a treatment facility and wants her released; they are seen together in an Instagram snap Tommy added that communication between the TV host and her family has been difficult. 'We can't communicate unless someone patches us through,' he revealed. 'We wait for calls. I wait for calls from Wendy or my sister or whoever she can get to first and we can all hop on. When she makes that phone call [to us], we're committed to listening and sharing for the moment.' Tommy added that it 'seems like forever' since he's seen his sister. 'It's because of the people who she is around. You can't leave. You're there as part of a program.' 'It's the one thing that is holding her and keeping her from communicating, traveling and doing all the things she likes to do.' The care team for the star announced her diagnosis of Aphasia and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) in a press release on Thursday. They said Williams had undergone 'a battery of medical tests' before arriving at the diagnosis. The statement noted that Williams had been diagnosed back in 2023. The talk show host has reportedly been living in a treatment facility since April 2023. The update came ahead of the February 24 premiere of a Lifetime documentary Where Is Wendy Williams? which details her struggles with alcohol abuse and mental health in recent years despite the star's guardian's lawsuit against the network. The TV personality is currently receiving treatment for frontotemporal dementia and aphasia in an undisclosed facility in New York where she's reportedly been since April 2023 'I know that she is stuck and we are trying to unstick her. Her family is here and she doesnt need a facility. We are here to take care of her,' Tommy told Us Weekly 'All I want for her is freedom. We have a father who would love to see her,' he added. 'We're dealing with unknowns. We just want to be able to check in with her. I would fly up there [to New York], but where do I go? No one knows anything,' he stated Tommy added that communication between the TV host and her family has been difficult. 'We can't communicate unless someone patches us through,' he revealed While Tommy did not appear in the docuseries, Wendy's son Kevin Hunter Jr., 23, and her sister, Wanda Williams, participated. In one scene Kevin claimed that his mom's medical team thought her drinking 'was starting to affect her headspace and her brain.' 'So, I think they said it was alcohol-induced dementia,' he concluded. Tommy told Us Weekly that there was 'naturally some concern' among Wendys family in regards to her drinking habits. 'It was obvious about her drinking. She was alone and her mental state, having been divorced and losing her mother and liquor, it was not a good mix,' he shared, in reference to Wendys 2020 split from ex-husband Kevin Hunter Sr. and the death of her mom, Shirley Williams, during that same year. 'She was very upset about losing her mother and very sad.' Tommy added that despite her challenges her family can 'figure it out and get her whatever she needs.' Wendy spoke out about her recent health diagnoses for the first time in a statement issued last Friday. 'I want to say I have immense gratitude for the love and kind words I have received after sharing my diagnosis of Aphasia and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). Let me say, wow! Your response has been overwhelming,' she shared in a statement released to The Associated Press. 'The messages shared with me have touched me, reminding me of the power of unity and the need for compassion.' The care team for the star announced her diagnosis of Aphasia and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) in a press release on Thursday; she is seen February 21 In a new docuseries, Wendy's son Kevin Hunter Jr., 23, stated his mom's medical team thought the dementia was 'alcohol-induced'; Wendy, Kevin Jr, and and her ex-husband Kevin Hunter seen in 2017 Wendy finalized her statement writing, 'I continue to need personal space and peace to thrive. Please just know that your positivity and encouragement are deeply appreciated.' Earlier on Tuesday Wendy's best friend slammed the ailing TV host's legal guardian, claiming that the woman tasked with taking care of her left her without 'access to food' - as she voiced her suspicions over Wendy's recent dementia diagnosis. Wendy was placed under a legal guardianship in May 2022, after her bank account said it had 'strong reason to believe' that she was of 'unsound mind' and was 'the victim of undue influence and financial exploitation.' At the time, the court assigned someone to manage Wendy's finances and health, and while their identity was not made public at first, TMZ recently revealed that Wendy's guardian was a New York-based lawyer named Sabrina Morrissey. But now, one of the star's closest pals - Regina Shell, who has known Wendy since she was only 13 years old - has spoken out against her guardian. During a recent appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation series, Cuomo, Regina claimed that the broadcaster had 'no access to her money' and had to ask permission from Sabrina for any purchase she wanted to make - including meals. She alleged that this sometimes meant Wendy would go hours on end without eating, which left Regina so worried that she started ordering food for her from across the country. 'When I was in New York and staying with Wendy in the summer, I noticed she had no access to her money,' Regina shared on Monday evening. 'Every time she had to do anything that she had to pay for, she had to go through the guardian. Lifetime released a shocking new documentary about her, titled Where Is Wendy Williams?, over the weekend, which details her struggles with alcohol and mental health in recent years 'And she would call to order her breakfast at 7:30 in the morning with the guardian, and she would take the order, but the order wouldn't show up until sometimes noon. So Wendy wouldn't have any food.' Regina said that when she returned home to Los Angeles, she began sending her 'delivery service' because she was nervous that Wendy 'wasn't getting' enough to eat. 'When I went back to LA, I would have to send her food from Los Angeles to New York for delivery service, because she wasn't getting' she trailed off. 'The communication wasn't there, and she had no other access to money than this guardian. Days ahead of the new documentary's release, TMZ reported that Wendy's guardian had filed a lawsuit against the parent company of Lifetime, A&E Television Networks. Sabrina had asked the court for injunctive relief, indicating her request could have been an attempt to stop the network from airing the TV special - but a judge ultimately dismissed the case citing the First Amendment. Filmmakers began following Wendy around in 2022 - at the time hoping to document her 'comeback' - but instead, they captured her tragic downward spiral and health decline. In the documentary, the former TV legend appeared virtually unable to answer the producers' repetitive questions, often seemed confused, and would ramble incoherently, break down in tears, or lash out at friends or family members. Wendy was placed under a legal guardianship in May 2022, after her bank account said it had 'strong reason to believe' that she was of 'unsound mind' and was 'the victim of undue influence and financial exploitation'; seen in 2019 It was certainly a vast difference from the once-fearless TV star who used to earn $10 million a season as the host of The Wendy Williams Show. In late 2021, amid her multiple ailments, shattered marriage, and growing alcoholism, Wendy stepped away from her hosting job indefinitely. In the months that followed, she made a slew of worrisome public appearances that saw her looking disheveled and often confused. Now, Wendy hasn't been seen publicly in more than a year, and according to the documentary, she's been living in a treatment facility since last April. Kourtney Kardashian's company Lemme was targeted in a truck heist last week, with the robber later trying to sell the reality star $4 million worth of stolen merchandise back to her. Kourtney, 44, who is married to Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, 48, has a stake in the company Lemme, a supplement line. Insiders told TMZ on Tuesday that the truck heist occurred at a logistics facility used for storing and shipping Lemme products in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. The robbers made off with the seven-figure sum of products under the Lemme Burn label, sources told the outlet. A person or people involved in the robbery hacked into the security system of the facility, sources told the outlet, and were able to gain physical access with fake credentials and identification. Kourtney Kardashian's company Lemme was targeted in a truck heist last week, with the robber later trying to sell the reality star, 44, $4 million worth of stolen merchandise back to her. Pictured last month in LA Kourtney has a stake in the company Lemme, a supplement line with a facility in Southern California that was targeted in the heist The thieves were able to drive away from the scene of the crime with no resistance, sources told the outlet. A ransom note had been sent digitally by the thieves asking for repayment in exchange for the stolen goods, the outlet reported. Company officials filed a report for grand theft with police, who are probing the incident, according to TMZ. A spokesperson for The Kardashians star's brand said that their team had been 'working closely with law enforcement agencies to investigate the theft.' Staffers were working to keep business running smoothly amid the unanticipated interruption. 'We are implementing contingency plans to minimize any impact to our customers and retail partners,' the spokesperson said. Kourtney has frequently used her large Instagram platform - which has more than 224 million followers - to promote her product. In January, she was seen in a clip in which she shopped at a Target location, showcasing her product on the shelves at the retail establishment. Earlier this month, she posted a clip on Super Bowl Sunday to promote her Lemme brand. The eldest of the Kardashian sisters was seen promoting the line on Instagram this month An estimated $4 million in the supplement line was stolen from a facility The eldest of the Kardashian sisters and her spouse Barker welcomed their first child together this past November, son Rocky Thirteen Barker. She is mother to three kids with ex Scott Disick, 40: son Mason, 14, daughter Penelope, 11, and son Reign, nine. Barker is father to three children with his Shanna Moakler, 48: stepdaughter Atiana, 24, (who Moakler had with Oscar De La Hoya); son Landon, 20, and daughter Alabama, 18. Robert Irwin has sent female fans wild with his smoldering new cover shoot for Australian Women's Weekly magazine. The 20-year-old, who recently split from girlfriend Rorie Buckey, cut a handsome figure in the shoot, posing around Australia Zoo in designer outfits while showing off his rugged good looks. Since posting the images on Instagram, Robert has been inundated with comments from thirsty women fawning over him. 'You are THE world's next sexiest man AND the most eligible bachelor,' one woman cooed, while another added: 'I need you so badly'. 'Great, now I have another celebrity crush,' another female fan swooned, while someone else gushed: 'Robert... you look so good. I swear when I go to Australia Zoo the animals are not the only thing I'll be looking at.' Robert Irwin, 20, has sent female fans wild with his smoldering new cover shoot for Australian Women's Weekly magazine Robert and girlfriend Rorie announced their split earlier this month after almost two years of dating. The pair made the shock announcement in a joint statement shared to Rorie's Instagram Story on Saturday morning. 'We wanted to share that we have decided to go our separate ways but profoundly appreciate all the time spent together and wish one another all the very best into the future,' the statement read. Since posting the images on Instagram, Robert has been inundated with comments from thirsty women fawning over him. 'You are THE world's next sexiest man AND the most eligible bachelor,' one woman cooed, while another added: 'I need you so badly' 'We wish to express the gratitude and respect we have for one another as we continue our journeys on different paths. 'We won't be commenting further on this, and really appreciate your respect and privacy at this time.' The news that Irwin is now single again has excited his legions of female fans, who quickly took to social media to rejoice he is back on the market. Meanwhile, it has been claimed Robert's older sister Bindi, 25, has urged their mother Terri, 59, to let her brother make his own decisions. 'You are THE world's next sexiest man AND the most eligible bachelor,' one woman cooed, while another added: 'I need you so badly' Bindi has reportedly rallied around to support her brother as he navigates the break-up by himself, and is said to have 'unbreakable loyalty' towards him. Robert didn't want Terri involved in his relationship or break-up with Rorie because he wanted to figure it out himself, according to Woman's Day. A source told the publication: 'Robert has very much become his own person, and while he's always been strongly supported by his mum Terri and Bindi, he was adamant from the beginning with Rorie that he wasn't going to be influenced by anyone.' Robert and girlfriend Rorie (right) announced their split earlier this month after almost two years of dating Linda Evangelista cut a chic figure in all black as she attended Yves Saint Laurent' runway show during Paris Fashion Week. The Nineties supermodel, 58, donned a fabulous oversized black double-breasted blazer with dramatic lapels. She paired the tailored garment with a sheer top, a thin black scarf and sexy sheer tights, showcasing her toned legs. Adding an inch to her statuesque figure, Linda paired her stunning look with a pair of black and gold toe-pointed kitten keels. To accessorise, she kept it simple with a small, shiny black clutch, simple gold earrings and a pair of dramatic blacked-out sunglasses. Linda Evangelista cut a chic figure as she attended Yves Saint Laurent' runway show during Paris Fashion Week after revealing she 'no longer feels guilty' over botched cosmetic surgery The 90s supermodel, 58, donned a fabulous oversized black double-breasted blazer with dramatic lapels Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello trimmed down the label's silhouettes for winter, tightly wrapping models in sheer silk dresses in muted colours for the runway show. Models cut through the centre of the set - two vast, circular rooms lined with green curtains - in towering sling-back heels, their transparent layers revealing high-waisted underwear, cut sharply, lengthening the thighs, and accented with slim belts. There were sleeveless tops that wound up around the neck, pussy bow blouses and bustiers, while skirts remained the same length - cut just below the knees. 'The length is classic, but the content is novel,' said the show notes, tucked in envelopes left on each seat. They also cited the famous 'naked' gown worn by Marilyn Monroe, as a reference for the designer. Adding contrast to the fitted looks were furry coats made of ultralight feathers, forming bulkier silhouettes. The collection was 'bursting with juxtaposition,' said Simon Longland, director of buying at the London department store Harrods, noting 'ladylike and conservative' styling delivered, however, a 'slinky' allure. Paris Fashion Week runs through March 5, with upcoming shows from Chanel, Hermes, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. She paired the tailored garment with a sheer top, a thin black scarf and sexy sheer tights, showcasing her toned legs Adding an inch to her statuesque figure, Linda paired her stunning look with a pair of black and gold toe-pointed kitten keels To accessorise, she kept it simple with a small, shiny black clutch, simple gold earrings and a pair of dramatic blacked-out sunglasses The model (left in 1995) previously revealed she suffered from a rare reaction to CoolSculpting, which was designed to decrease her fat cells, but instead, made them become enlarged (right in 2022) It comes after Linda, who was once considered one of the most beautiful and striking beauties in the world, discussed the guilt she once felt after undertaking a surgical procedure. Speaking to the Times, she discussed how he noted that she used to have fun all the time, and laugh all the time, before the procedure. However, after it, she says, she because a 'clinically depressed recluse', only venturing out at night where no one would see her. The treatment was seven sessions of a nonsurgical procedure called CoolSculpting, which was aimed at freezing away fat from her jawline, thighs, stomach and back. It had gone horribly wrong, and instead thickened that 'expanded into hard, numb bulges that rounds of liposuction and weeks in full-body compression garments could not remedy'. According to the Times, it was a comment made by Linda's son Augie a few years ago that encouraged her to return to therapy, so she could once more become the fun loving character she's been. He said: 'Remember when you used to be so much fun? Remember when you used to laugh all the time?' This, she was a 'wake-up call' Linda has struggled with a number of issues, incurring breast cancer, for which she had a double masectomy in 2018, but has to undergo radiotherapy in 2018. She added: 'I was like, no more woe is me. Im going to f***ing fix this.' Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello trimmed down the label's silhouettes for winter, tightly wrapping models in sheer silk dresses in muted colours for a runway show on Tuesday Models cut through the centre of the set -- two vast, circular rooms lined with green curtains -- in towering sling-back heels, their transparent layers revealing high-waisted underwear, cut sharply, lengthening the thighs, and accented with slim belts Married At First Sight's Jonathan McCullough valiantly defended Ellie Dix in Wednesday's episode ahead of their cheating scandal. Jono, 39, is currently 'married' to Lauren Dunn on-screen while Ellie's romance with groom Ben Walters hit the rocks during the latest dinner party as he publicly broke up with her. However, Daily Mail Australia previously revealed that MAFS is set to be rocked by a scandal after Ellie and Jono were seen looking cosy during a recent outing and will announce their relationship during the show's reunion. And in the latest episode, Jono kindly jumped to Ellie's defence as he made his feelings very clear in saying he wanted to 'slap' Ben for his recent behaviour. At the dinner party, Ellie was seen telling the group about how Ben had spent two hours reciting a list of everything he didn't like about her and their relationship - including the fact she wears make-up. Married At First Sight's Jonathan McCullough valiantly defended Ellie Dix in Wednesday's episode ahead of their cheating scandal The group were left fuming by the admission, and Jono was quick to voice his disapproval for Ben amid the drama as he firmly sided with Ellie. He said: 'I don't understand Ben, he had this beautiful lovely girl, I kind of want to slap him... in the metaphorical sense. Like stop ruining this amazing opportunity, but he's definitely ruined a good thing I would say.' After Ben tried to defend the infamous list at the dinner party, Jono then added: 'There was excuses and stories and epiphanies, I don't buy what he's selling at all.' Later at the dinner party, Ben shockingly broke up with Ellie in front of the entire dinner party, leaving the bride in tears, after going through a rocky period as a couple. He told Ellie: 'The truth is, I don't believe we're meant to be with each other. I do believe we are better off as friends, I apologise for wasting your time.' Ellie's romance with Ben Walters hit the rocks during the latest dinner party as she told the group about the groom making a list of things he didn't like about her, with Jono defending her Ellie was left fuming that Ben hadn't even tried to take her feelings into consideration and insisted that she didn't want him in her life. 'He doesn't know how to talk to anyone really. What I've seen of Ben now, is not a Ben I want in my future,' she said. MAFS is soon set to be rocked by a scandal involving Ellie and Jono after they were seen packing on the PDA in an outing after filming ended. Earlier this month, Daily Mail Australia revealed images of the couple - who are currently 'married' to other partners onscreen - enjoying a steamy day out in Sydney. In the pictures, the pair appeared deeply in love as they enjoyed a carefree day out at Tamarama Beach in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Ellie and Jonathan will announce their relationship during the show's reunion. Later at the dinner party, Ben shockingly broke up with Ellie in front of the entire dinner party, leaving the bride in tears, after going through a rocky period as a couple Ellie was left fuming that Ben hadn't even tried to take her feelings into consideration and insisted that she didn't want him in her life Their clandestine affair allegedly began with secret text messages exchanged during the filming of the show after Ellie ended things with partner Ben. An insider told Daily Mail Australia it will all unfold at a future commitment ceremony. 'Lauren had no idea that Jono kept in contact with Ellie and found out during filming, and boy was she not happy,' they said. 'She was completely gobsmacked and felt humiliated by the end - but everyone else is happy for them.' The source added: 'Jono and Ellie maintained contact after she left the show, but the romance only escalated once Jono ended things with Lauren at the Final Vows. Their real-life meeting a few days later revealed an undeniable chemistry.' Daily Mail Australia revealed that MAFS will be rocked by a scandal after Ellie and Jono were seen looking cosy on the beach and will announce their relationship during the show's reunion Jono and Ellie will blindside their co-stars by walking into the reunion as a couple, hand-in-hand. Ben Walters, Ellie's on-show husband, was reportedly just as taken aback by the development, sources close to the show disclosed. Tara McWilliams, who is credited with transforming the experiment into the ratings juggernaut it is today, told Daily Mail Australia that the show takes a non-judgmental stance on personal relationships. 'We've seen affairs happen, we've seen cheating happen...' says Tara, before adding, 'We're not there to judge.' 'It's not the expert's job to say, "This is wrong, right, you can and can't do something,"' she added. Jono is currently paired with PR maven Lauren Dunn on the dating experiment 'If the experiment was rigid in its rules, it wouldn't be real life, it'd be a game show. 'We basically say, "Here are the parameters, the parameters are really wide and they reflect the real world,"' she went on. 'We're not the morality police, we let those things happen because they happen in real life.' Married At First Sight continues Sunday at 7pm on Channel Nine Sydney Sweeney revealed how she became the producer and star of the upcoming horror film Immaculate on Tuesday during a visit on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The 26-year-old actress, while stunning in a white dress with black trim and plunging neckline, said she grew up watching horror films with her father Steven who loves the genre and always wanted to be in one. 'I auditioned for a version of this movie when I was 16. ...And they never made it,' Sydney said. 'So, 10 years later, I decided to make it,' she shared. Jimmy, 49, asked how she did it. Sydney Sweeney revealed how she became the producer and star of the upcoming horror film Immaculate on Tuesday during a visit on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon 'I called my agents, and I said, ''I can't get this script out of my mind, what's happened with it?'' It went into turn-around somewhere and I contacted the writer and we re-wrote it to match me as a 25-year-old,' Sydney said. 'And then I attached producers to it, took it to a financier and hired a director. It was the first thing I ever produced. It was amazing,' Sydney said. Sydney explained that she portrays a nun named Cecilia who gets sent to a 'very obscure convent' in Italy outside of Rome. 'And some crazy s*** starts to happen to her,' Sydney said. Sydney said she flew out her grandmothers and let them be extras in the movie. Jimmy showed a picture of one of her grandmothers who played a nun taking a smoke break. Sydney said she enjoyed playing a pregnant nun in the movie. 'I did, I found out it's a great place to put snacks in my belly,' Sydney said. 'I had sour patch kids.' Jimmy said he saw on her IMDB that she was in a movie called Zombies of Mass Destruction. Sydney said she had never seen it because she was too young at the time. Jimmy played a clip of her from the movie where a car ran her over and severed her arm. Sydney laughed. Sydney explained that she portrays a nun named Cecilia who gets sent to a 'very obscure convent' in Italy outside of Rome 'I called my agents, and I said, ''I can't get this script out of my mind, what's happened with it?'' It went into turn-around somewhere and I contacted the writer and we re-wrote it to match me as a 25-year-old,' Sydney said Jimmy showed a picture of one of her grandmothers who played a nun taking a smoke break 'I did, I found out it's a great place to put snacks in my belly,' Sydney said of playing a pregnant nun. 'I had sour patch kids' 'I'm never going to see the end of this on Twitter,' Sydney said. Sydney also shared that she sneaked into theaters to watch the audience's reaction to her movie Anyone But You. 'I was filming in Australia while this was in theaters and Joe [Davidson], who plays Beau, would sneak into theaters and surprise people,' Sydney said. 'And did they freak out?' Jimmy asked. 'No at first they didn't know what was going on,' Sydney said. 'Everyone was dead silent. We are standing up in the front with a microphone. We were like this is not working.' 'Fans are hoping for a sequel,' Jimmy said. 'Do you think we will see a sequel.' Jimmy played a clip of her from the movie Zombies Of Mass Destruction where a car ran her over and severed her arm 'I was filming in Australia while this was in theaters and Joe [Davidson], who plays Beau, would sneak into theaters and surprise people,' Sydney said Sydney posed backstage at the talk show studio in New York City 'Maybe like a high nine chance,' Sydney said. Sydney said she was very nervous to be hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend. 'I felt yesterday it was like walking into camp,' Sydney said of rehearsals. 'You are going to crush it,' Jimmy said. Joe Manganiello shared his crazy connection to reality star Boston Rob on Tuesday's episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on NBC. The 47-year-old actor said his whole family was from Boston and Rob Mariano's mother and his mother went to the same high school called Somerville and were only one year apart. 'Rob and I were born almost the same day a year apart,' Joe said. 'And as it turns out our parents got married on the same day in Boston.' Joe said Survivor star Rob, 48, was just one of the castmates appearing on his new reality show called Deal Or No Deal Island. The new show was made up of an all-star team of people from reality shows and the show runner created Fear Factor. Joe Manganiello shared his crazy connection to reality star Boston Rob on Tuesday's episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on NBC 'The cast is amazing,' Joe said. 'There are $200 million dollars split up into briefcases that are hidden all over this jungle island. The banker has invited 13 guests, this depraved billionaire, to come and fight over these cases. The first person just got knocked out.' Jimmy asked if Boston Rob ever got in his head. 'We have a non-interference policy,' Joe said. 'On the show, we are just there to document what is going on and make sure the cameras are in the right place. We have camera men in the water, up in trees, we have drones.' Joe said he knew Rob because he had seen just about every episode of Survivor, but he had to keep it quiet so it wouldn't spoil his game. 'But pretty early on someone blew him up and now he's out for blood,' Joe said. Jimmy asked Joe if he also tried to be a contestant on Survivor. 'I was at a party 20 years ago, and I ran into someone and said ''Oh what do you do?'' and they said ''Oh, I did casting for CBS and there is a show called Survivor'',' Joe said. 'I go ''I could win''.' Joe said he started to explain his plan to them to win the show and they told him to make a tape. Joe said at the time he was working construction to pay the bills so he had the guys at work film him jackhammering and mixing cement. Survivor star Rob Mariano, aka Boston Rob, is among the contestants on Deal Or No Deal Island that premiered on Tuesday on NBC 'The cast is amazing,' Joe said. 'There are $200 million dollars split up into briefcases that are hidden all over this jungle island. The banker has invited 13 guests, this depraved billionaire, to come and fight over these cases. The first person just got knocked out' Joe said he knew Rob because he had seen just about every episode of Survivor, but he had to keep it quiet so it wouldn't spoil his game 'I was Joe the construction worker from Pittsburgh, whose great-grandmother survived the Armenian genocide so I'm survivor,' Joe said. 'They're like we want you on the show. Like done, you are in the final round.' Joe said that at the same time he had a pilot that got picked up and he couldn't be on TV at the same time as the Survivor show. 'Any other reality shows try to pick you up?' Jimmy asked. 'Naked And Afraid heard that I was a fan,' Joe said as the audience giggled. 'But I was like, ''I don't know, I played a character named Big D*** Richie.'' He's definitely not afraid.' Joe was referencing his character from the Magic Mike franchise of films that also starred Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer and Matthew McConaughey. 'Naked And Afraid heard that I was a fan,' Joe said as the audience giggled. 'But I was like, ''I don't know, I played a character named Big D*** Richie.'' He's definitely not afraid' Joe brought his chihuahua dog named Bubbles to the set and Jimmy asked if he was scared of bringing her to the jungle. Joe said he puts Bubbles in a little pet carrier when he works out and a big spider came crawling toward her. Joe said before he killed the spider he asked the jungle to forgive him. 'I'm a Chihuahua dad,' Joe said. 'And the jungle let me leave.' Joe married actress Sofia Vergara, 51, in 2015 and their divorce was finalized earlier this month. David Walliams looked sharp on Tuesday as he attended the press night performance of The Merchant of Venice 1936 at The Criterion Theatre in London. The comedian, 52, put on a dashing display in a grey plaid blazer over a black turtleneck jumper. He teamed the jacket with a pair of smart black trousers and coordinating shiny black shoes. The Merchant of Venice 1936 is an adaptation of Shakespeare's famous play, set in in 1930s east London amid the rise of Oswald Mosleys Blackshirts. It stars Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock, a resilient single mother and hard-working businesswoman who is desperate to protect her daughters future, when charismatic merchant Antonio comes to her for a loan. David Walliams looked sharp on Tuesday as he attended the press night performance of The Merchant of Venice 1936 at The Criterion Theatre in London The comedian, 52, put on a dashing display in a grey plaid blazer over a black turtleneck jumper He teamed the jacket with a pair of smart black trousers and coordinating shiny black shoes David's appearance at the press night comes after he began work on a rebooted series of Little Britain with his co-creator Matt Lucas. The BBC sketch show ran from 2003 to 2006 and followed the peculiar lives of a number of different diverse British characters. However, in recent years the series has received criticism for its offensive humour - including blackface and racial stereotyping. The comedy duo are set to return for a new series, after they previously apologised for the way the original episodes came across. But the revival will come with major changes, as while in the original series Matt and David portrayed all the characters, they will now be joined by a new range of actors to increase the show's diversity. It means characters such as Emily and Florence, Vicky Pollard and Desiree DeVere - played by David in blackface - are unlikely to return. In December Matt explained to The Sun: 'The show will be different in many ways. We are talking about how we can have diverse talent on screen and in the writers' room and conceive it as something which is just not about me and David playing absolutely everyone. 'That is something we should have done but didn't do back then.' The Merchant of Venice 1936 is an adaptation of Shakespeare's famous play, set in in 1930s east London amid the rise of Oswald Mosleys Blackshirts, starring Tracy-Ann Oberman David's appearance at the press night comes after he began work on a rebooted series of Little Britain with his co-creator Matt Lucas (pictured together) The BBC sketch show ran from 2003 to 2006 but in more recent years has received criticism for its offensive humour - including blackface and racial stereotyping He added that he 'respects' that 'things have changed' since the show was originally broadcast. Little Britain episodes are still available to watch but carry a warning. They were previously taken off both Netflix and the BBC. The show returned to streaming services in 2022 after offensive blackface scenes were cut by producers. Characters donning black face including Pastor Jesse King, Desiree DeVere and other racial stereotypes such as Thai bride Ting Tong, were left in the cutting room. In a statement at the time, the BBC said: 'Little Britain has been made available to fans on BBC iPlayer following edits made to the series by Matt and David that better reflect the changes in the cultural landscape over the last 20 years since the show was first made.' The comedy duo are set to return for a new series, after they previously apologised for the way the original episodes came across, but with major changes to increase the show's diversity The show returned to streaming services in 2022 after offensive blackface scenes were cut, including Desiree DeVere and racial stereotypes like Thai bride Ting Tong (pictured) However, the BBC later defended an 'explicitly racist' Little Britain sketch, which is still available to view on iPlayer, where David describes an Asian character as 'smelling of soy source' and 'the ching-chong China man'. The corporation claimed in November that the sketch was 'intended to expose and ridicule some of the outdated prejudices and racism that still exist in parts of British society' after it was revealed viewers felt the content was inappropriate in research by Ofcom. The sketch, originally broadcast in 2002, shows David as university employee Linda Flint describing an Asian student, Kenneth Lao, over the phone to her manager. He is described as having 'yellowish skin, slight smell of soy sauce ... the ching-chong China man.' The scene is accompanied by a laugh track. New Girl actress Zoe Lister-Jones came out as 'queer' over the weekend and debuted her romance with a nonbinary filmmaker. The 41-year-old performer broke the news at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which she attended with her new paramour. 'I'm here, I'm queer, I have some fear but I'm working through it,' Zoe shared with The Hollywood Reporter while at the awards show. She is currently dating Sammi Cohen, the director of the Netflix comedy You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah starring Adam Sandler with his wife Jackie and their daughters Sadie, 17, and Sunny, 15. During her evening at the Spirit Awards, Zoe showered praise on Sammi, whom she glowingly described as 'an amazing filmmaker in their own right.' New Girl star Zoe Lister-Jones (left) came out as 'queer' and debuted her romance with nonbinary filmmaker Sammi Cohen at the Film Independent Spirit Awards While at the Spirit Awards, Zoe showered praise on Sammi, whom she glowingly described as 'an amazing filmmaker in their own right' Zoe and Sammi previously attended the Art Directors Guild Awards together in Hollywood on February 10, weeks before Zoe confirmed their romance. Sammi identified as 'a queer, non-binary, very progressive Jew,' in a Jewish Journal interview promoting You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah. Zoe's latest love life announcement comes a year and a half after she filed for divorce from her husband Daryl Wein, who is also a filmmaker. Over the course of the 17 years they were involved with each other, Zoe and Daryl worked together on such movies as Breaking Upwards, Band Aid and How It Ends. They co-wrote the 2012 movie Lola Versus, which Daryl helmed and Zoe acted in with leading lady Greta Gerwig, who had yet to break into directing herself. In 2021, about eight years into the marriage, Zoe told Marc Maron on his WTF podcast that she and Daryl had split up. She disclosed that she and her husband had drifted 'in and out of an open relationship' before going their separate ways. Zoe confessed that the arrangement was made difficult by the fact she was 'constantly' jealous when he slept with someone else. 'I'm here, I'm queer, I have some fear but I'm working through it,' Zoe shared with The Hollywood Reporter while attending the awards show Zoe and Sammi previously attended the Art Directors Guild Awards together in Hollywood on February 10, weeks before Zoe confirmed their romance Zoe's latest love life announcement comes a year and a half after she filed for divorce from her husband Daryl Wein; the pair are pictured in June 2021 at the premiere of their film How It Ends Zoe is pictured on a 2014 episode of New Girl In September 2022, she finally filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences and giving February 1, 2021 as the date of separation, per TMZ. During her latest conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Zoe noted: 'I'm still very close with my ex-husband. We made a lot of films together.' She also brought up her relationship with Sammi while vaunting Film Independent for making its acting awards categories gender-neutral. 'Im so grateful to Film Independent for really being pioneers in that area. All award shows should follow in their footsteps and make categories genderless,' said Zoe. 'Im dating a nonbinary person. Im friends with so many nonbinary people. And I think that without really shifting the paradigm in a larger way, its closing a lot of doors for really important voices,' she added. Leah and Ash Milton have finally sold House 2 after struggling to find a buyer for four months since The Block Australia season 19 aired last year. The controversial pair were forced to pass in their home in November when it failed to meet the reserve price of $2.97million at auction. After months on the market, the Queensland couple announced to Instagram on Wednesday they have finally sold the property for $3.125million - placing them third behind Steph and Gian and Eliza and Liberty. Pocketing a tidy $155,000 in profit, Leah, 31, and Ash, 38, shared a lengthy message with their fans alongside a series of happy selfies. 'From the very beginning, our aim was not just to build, but to pour our hearts into every corner, hoping to find someone who would appreciate our creation,' they said. Leah, 31, (right) and Ash Milton, 38, (left) have finally sold House 2 after struggling to find a buyer for four months since The Block Australia season 19 aired last year 'It's been a tough few months as we've had a few close calls with this sale,' they continued. 'Despite the challenges and the doubts, we have remained steadfast in our vision and we cannot tell you how relieved we are that our dream for this house is finally a reality.' Leah and Ash went on to thank their agents Noel Susay and Halli Moore from Buxton Brighton 'who have worked tirelessly on this' and 'shown unwavering dedication'. After months on the market, the Queensland couple announced to Instagram on Wednesday they have finally sold the property for $3.125million Pocketing a tidy $155,000 in profit, Leah, 31, and Ash, 38, shared a lengthy message with their fans alongside a series of happy selfies The couple finished their lengthy message by saying: 'Our home isn't just a house - it's a symbol of guts, resilience, and doing things our own way. 'Here's to embracing uniqueness and living life with good vibes! Cheers to a new chapter!' Leah and Ash told Yahoo Lifestyle they sold their home to a family who fell in love with Leah's eccentric interior design tastes and wishes to live in the house as is. The controversial pair were forced to pass in their home in November when it failed to meet the reserve price of $2.97million at auction 'It will be the first house in this series to have a buyer live in the house and the only family purchasing. It's like back to the good old days,' she told the publication. 'The buyers love the style and have mentioned they wouldn't change a thing.' The $155,000 profit puts Leah and Ash in third place above Kyle and Leslie Cottone, and Kristy and Brett Beames who earned $130,000 and $65,000 respectively. Meanwhile, couple Steph and Gian Ottavio remain in first place after making $1.65million, and sisters Eliza and Liberty Paschke in second with $1.05million. Channel Ten has dropped the first teasers for the new season of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! with big hints about which stars will be appearing. It has been revealed that a controversial TV star, a gold medalist and a royally loved international comedian will take part. As the exciting teasers were shared to social media, fans were quick to share their theories on which famous faces will be jetting to South Africa for the show. The first clue, which was posted to Instagram on Sunday, hinted: 'We can also confirm... this Controversial TV Star is, in fact controversial.' The second clue shared that 'a gold medalist is diverting from Paris to the African jungle' and the celebrity is 'a real trailblazer'. Channel Ten has dropped its first teasers for the new season of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! with big hints about which stars will be appearing 'An international comic loved by the royals,' was the most recent clue posted for fans to guess. Hundreds of fans took to the Instagram comments section to take their guesses on who the celebrity contestants may be. In response to the mystery hint about an international comedian featuring among the line-up, fans shared their hopes that Ross Noble, Michael McIntyre or Jack Whitehall would be the star. They wrote: 'Michael McIntyre lol;' 'PLEASE MICHAEL MCLNTYRE;' 'Ross Noble?;' 'I hope Michael McIntyre!!;' 'Im going with Jack Whitehall!!' Giving their theories on who the 'controversial' TV star is, some fans were convinced using the word 'roving' in the post was hinting towards comedian Rove McManus. Fans speculated: 'Rove. Says it in the ad. Roving and its in Controversial;' 'Roving?? rove mcmanus??' 'Rove is in the word controversial.' The first clue posted to Instagram on Sunday hinted 'We can also confirm... this Controversial TV Star is, in fact controversial' However, others threw new names into the mix as they shared their theories that it could be a Married At First Sight or Love Island star. Social media users also shared their theories that swimmer and Olympic gold medallist Mack Horton could be joining the line-up. They excitedly penned: 'Mack Horton;' 'Either Mack Horton or Ian Thorpe;' 'Im going with Mack Horton.' The tenth season of the hit reality show will be filmed in South Africa and will be presented by Julia Morris, 44, alongside first time host Robert Irwin, 20. Robert beat out big names Sam Pang, Jimmy Rees, Curtis Stone, Beau Ryan and Tristan MacManus for the hosting role. The second clue shared that 'a gold medalist is diverting from Paris to the African jungle' and the celebrity is 'a real trailblazer' 'An international comic loved by the royals' was the third clue posted for fans to guess The network had a hard task replacing popular host Dr Chris Brown, with Robert's natural charm impressing during his audition. According to reports, A-listers are 'desperate' to appear on the show due to their friendship with the handsome Wildlife Warrior. 'The Irwins have more than a fair share of A-list celebrities in their circle including the Hemsworths and Melissa Joan Hart, who is the most rumoured contestant this year,' a production insider told Yahoo! Lifestyle. The show will premiere on Sunday, 24 March. The Bachelorette star Angie Kent has slammed Police Commissioner Karen Webb for her use of language while discussing accused murderer Beau Lamarre-Condon. Jesse Baird and Luke Davies' bodies were discovered inside a shallow bush grave on Tuesday after they were allegedly murdered by the NSW police officer. Calls are mounting for Webb to resign following her 'trainwreck' press conference on Tuesday afternoon, during which she said she was 'grateful' to Lamarre-Condon for assisting police. Kent, who was friends with Channel 10 star Baird, lashed out at Webb in an Instagram Story, reposting a screenshot of an article reporting the top cop's 'grateful' comments. 'Would we use the world grateful Karen? I really don't think there's any gratitude here,' the former Gogglebox Australia star wrote. The Bachelorette star Angie Kent (left) has slammed Police Commissioner Karen Webb (right) for her use of language while discussing accused murderer Beau Lamarre-Condon 'Reliving the pain all over again and sending love to their nearest and dearest. Truly... I can't imagine the pain,' she continued. Kent went on to condemn Webb for previously describing the two men's deaths as a 'crime of passion', and then subsequently using a clumsy Taylor Swift reference to defend her comment. She also accused the NSW Police Force of 'throwing all their toys out of their pram' after being asked not to march in this year's Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. '[NSW Police Force] can still attend like the rest of us. Just please don't march this year in uniform. It's too soon. But noooo they had a whole song and dance about it, taking away from what really matters here,' Kent wrote. Calls are mounting for Webb to resign following her 'trainwreck' press conference on Tuesday afternoon, during which she said she was 'grateful' to Lamarre-Condon for assisting police 'Now we should be grateful? I'm sorry boys. I truly am. You deserved so much more. Our hearts are broken,' she continued. She concluded her post with a tribute to Jesse, writing: 'May your body rest in peace with your partner Luke. And your absolute solid gold of a spirit live on, through every song we can't help but dance extra hard to.' 'Every big cheesy grin that lights up a room. And every rainbow, it's you. We love you. Praying for their families extra hard today. I'm so sorry. This never should have happened,' she concluded. Kent also condemned Ms Webb for previously describing the two men's deaths as a 'crime of passion' She concluded her post with a tribute to Jesse, writing: 'May your body rest in peace with your partner Luke. And your absolute solid gold of a spirit live on, through every song we can't help but dance extra hard to.' (Pictured: Kent and Baird) It comes as calls mount for Webb to resign over her use of language while discussing accused murderer Lamarre-Condon during her press conference on Tuesday afternoon. Lamarre-Condon, a NSW Police senior constable, was charged with two counts of murder on Friday, but waited until 11am on Tuesday - after speaking with his lawyer -to assist police. The commissioner had made a point of telling reporters she was 'grateful' for Lamarre-Condon's assistance after the bodies of Baird and his boyfriend Luke Davies were found at a property in Bungonia, about 180km south of Sydney, that morning. In an interview with the Today Show on Wednesday morning, Commissioner Webb doubled down on her comment, telling host Sarah Abo that it was the alleged victims' families who were grateful their remains had been found. It comes as Webb brushed off criticism of her leadership with a Taylor Swift quote, saying 'haters like to hate', and sparked uproar by describing the incident as an alleged 'crime of passion'. Abo put to Commissioner Webb: 'Now you, personally, Commissioner have come under fire for some of the language that you've been using - that press conference yesterday did feel a bit .. all over the shop in a way. 'As you've addressed before, the (alleged) 'crime of passion' (comment) is something that you regret. Yesterday you said you were very grateful to the accused. It's difficult, isn't it - you do have to front the cameras?' The bodies of Luke Davies (left) and Jesse Baird (right) were found on Tuesday Webb responded: 'I think the comment about being grateful is grateful that the family now knows, and were able to know yesterday, where their loved ones were. 'If that information didn't come forward, we would still be searching. So we're grateful that the information came forward in a way that detectives could act. 'And we could tell the families and take the families to their loved ones.' Asked if she was comfortable in her role when facing the media, Ms Webb replied: 'Of course I am.' Good Time and Heaven Knows What actor Buddy Duress has died at 38. Duress, who co-starred alongside Twilight star Robert Pattinson in Good Time, died in November 2023 due to a 'cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail' his brother, Christopher Stathis, told People. He made his acting debut in Josh and Benny Safdie's 2014 film Heaven Knows What a role he landed shortly after being released from Rikers Island for a drug-related conviction. The actor who was in-and-out of jail throughout his life is survived by his mother Jo-Anne and younger brother Christopher. He had a long history of legal troubles, having been in jail at least 10 times with charges including identity theft, grand larceny, and heroin possession. Good Time and Heaven Knows What actor Buddy Duress has died at 38; seen in 2017 Duress, who co-starred alongside Twilight star Robert Pattinson (L) in Good Time, died in November 2023 due to a 'cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail' his brother, Christopher Stathis, told People on Tuesday Buddy was born Michael C. Stathis in Queens, New York in May 1985, and went to Robert Louis Stevenson High School in Manhattan. After his 2014 movie debut, he later teamed up with the Safdie brothers again in the 2017 movie Good Time, where he played a drug dealer who teams up with Pattinson's character. He also appeared in several other film projects, including Person to Person, Funny Pages, Flinch, Beware of Dog, The Mountain and more. He has two more projects scheduled to be released later this year as per his IMDb page: Skull and Mass State Lottery. Buddy's stints in jail stifled his career. In 2019 The New York Post reported that comedian Pete Davidson was such a fan of the actor he inquired about him auditioning for his 'Untitled Judd Apatow Pete Davidson Comedy,' directed by Apatow. However Buddy 'couldn't do it because he was in Rikers.' In a 2017 interview with SSense, Duress shared that he met Josh Safdie through a mutual friend in 2013, after he was released from Rikers Island for drug charges. At the time, Duress was on the run after he skipped out on a drug in-patient program. He got the role in Heaven Knows What, but was later caught by police and taken back to Rikers Island after the movie was finished. He was still in prison when the film premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2014. He is survived by his mother Jo-Anne and younger brother Christopher; seen with Pattinson at the 70th annual Cannes Film Festival in 2017 He had a long history of legal troubles, having been in jail at least 10 times with charges including identity theft, grand larceny, and heroin possession; seen in 2014 He made his acting debut in Josh and Benny Safdie's 2014 film Heaven Knows What a role he landed shortly after being released from Rikers Island for a drug-related conviction; seen with co-star Arielle Holmes in a 2014 still from the film He later teamed up with the Safdie brothers again in the 2017 movie Good Time (pictured) where he played a drug dealer who teams up with Pattinson's character He also appeared in several other film projects, including Person to Person, Funny Pages, and Beware of Dog; seen in 2017 'You know, I still look back at it. If I had went to that program, I wouldn't have been in Heaven Knows What, and I probably wouldn't be an actor right now. That's the honest truth. I wouldn't,' he told the publication. After he was released, the filmmakers asked him to write a journal about his time in prison, later adapting it into their script for Good Time, as per the Los Angeles Times. In 2019, he was arrested on charges of grand larceny in the third degree and went back to Rikers, as per the New York Post. He was also arrested for threatening to burn his mother Jo-Anne's house down that same year, while filming crime drama Flinch. He was bailed out by director Cameron Van Hoy and his mom, but later arrested and taken back to Rikers again for charges of menacing and criminal possession of brass knuckles and a controlled substance. 'He is a wildly talented actor. But he needs to focus on acting instead of hustling on the streets,' Van Hoy told The New York Post at the time. Despite his legal issues while filming the movie, Flinch Van Hoy had nothing but praise for the star. 'Buddy was pure electricity on screen. Working with him was one of the great adventures of my life,' he told People. 'He was a kind person who loved making films. Despite any troubles he was going through in life he somehow managed to put them aside when it came time to work.' 'We grew quite close after the production of our film Flinch. I'm heartbroken that his life came to an end as it did.' He has two more projects scheduled to be released later this year as per his IMDb page: Skull and Mass State Lottery; seen in 2017 Director Jay Karales shared a touching tribute following the news, calling Buddy 'an absolute treasure' as he praised his 'authenticity and charisma' His other director, Jay Karales with whom he filmed Mass State Lottery called him 'a once in a lifetime charismatic actor and a genuinely humble man that left an impression on everyone he met' in a statement to People. He called his death a 'tragic and frustrating loss of visceral talent' adding, 'He lived like a cowboy and carrying the weight of that kind of life informed his skills and performances in a way that made him irreplaceable as an actor.' Jay also shared a tribute to him on Instagram, writing: 'This man was an absolute treasure. Without a doubt, Buddy was one of the most entertaining people I've ever met and his stories were unrivaled.' 'I remember seeing him in Good Time in 2017 and saying, "That is what the future of acting needs to be. That guy." He brought a certain authenticity and charisma to the screen that you just don't see anymore. It was a dream to get him in Mass State Lottery, and I feel privileged to have been his director and his friend.' A die-hard Taylor Swift fan has revealed the wild outfit he wore to her Eras Tour show in Japan earlier this month. A Swiftie called Dom shared a gallery of photos to Instagram capturing his striking attire, which was inspired by one of the chairs Taylor dances on during her show. Dom is seen with the chair strapped to his chest and a picture of Swift, 34, dancing on a similar-looking chair while performing. He complemented his bizarre ensemble with glitzy clothing, accessories and an assortment of Swift merchandise, including a dazzling purple hat. Meanwhile, his fellow commuters appeared to be trying hard to avoid making eye contact with him. A die-hard Taylor Swift fan has revealed the wild outfit he wore to her Eras Tour show in Japan earlier this month Dominic captioned the gallery with some hilarious words: 'Sometimes I ask myself, "Why the hell would you dress up as Taylor's chair?" Then I tell myself... 'Who else is going to embarrass themselves the most and be the first one to do it. I realise the only answer is me.' Taylor's Aussie leg of her record-breaking Eras Tour ended with a bang in Sydney on Monday, and the pop star pocketed an astronomical amount of money sum for both herself - and the NSW economy. A Swiftie called Dom shared a gallery of photos to Instagram capturing his striking attire, inspired by one of the chairs Taylor dances on during her show Taylor, 34, reportedly earned $25million per Sydney show, meaning she took home $100 million after four concerts at Accor Stadium. She also injected a whopping $145 into the NSW economy, as thousands of local and interstate fans flocked to the city for the must-see event of the year. 'The Swift effect is undeniable when it comes to the economic impact her tour delivers to host cities,' Accommodation Australia chief executive Michael Johnson told The Daily Telegraph. The fan is seen with the chair strapped to his chest and a picture of Swift, 34, dancing on a similar-looking chair while performing 'Based on past calculations, her shows can inject between $150 and $200 million to a state's economy, just as we saw in Melbourne.' The NSW economy grew across many sectors, with hotel rooms fully booked out, restaurants and bars jam-packed and thousands of fans splurging on merchandise. Taylor finished her run of four sold-out Sydney concerts on Monday evening. She sent off the crowd with some very warm words, leaving the audience cheering in delight. Modern Family superstar Sofia Vergara was a bundle of cheer when she was spotted dashing around in Beverly Hills on Tuesday. The 51-year-old actress beamed when she was seen crossing a parking garage, swinging a large textured leather handbag. She emphasized her lithe frame in a fitted black sweatshirt and pulled on a loose-fitted pair of charcoal jeans with the hems folded up. Rounding off the look with white platforms, she let her luxurious curtains of silky dark hair cascade freely over her shoulders. Her latest sighting comes weeks after she was heaped with critical acclaim for her role on the Netflix miniseries Griselda, in which she stars as the notorious drug lord Griselda Blanco, also known as the 'Cocaine Godmother.' Modern Family superstar Sofia Vergara was a bundle of cheer when she was spotted dashing around in Beverly Hills on Tuesday The 51-year-old actress beamed when she was seen crossing a parking garage, swinging a large textured leather handbag Although the show as a whole was met with mixed reviews, Sofia was praised by the Hollywood Reporter for her 'serious chops.' A review from Loud and Clear vaunted Sofia's 'magnetic acting,' and the Star Tribune critic was impressed by 'her cold-blooded fierceness.' Released on Netflix on January 25, the six-episode miniseries featured a cast that included Vanessa Ferlito, Karol G and Alberto Guerra. 'Cocaine Godmother' was one of Griselda's many nicknames - over the years she was also known as 'La Madrina' ('The Godmother') and 'The Black Widow.' Born in Colombia in 1943, Griselda swiftly became a ruthless criminal who committed her first murder when she was 11 and her victim was 10. In the 1970s she made her bones as a brutally vengeful, groundbreaking player in the Colombia-to-Miami drug trade that flowered during that decade and the one after. Griselda married multiple times and produced four children, the youngest of whom she named - in a flash of dark humor - Michael Corleone Blanco. In the mid-1980s Griselda was thrown in jail for three murders, two of drug dealers and one of a two-year-old boy. Her latest sighting comes weeks after she was heaped with critical acclaim for her role on the Netflix miniseries Griselda, in which she stars as the notorious drug lord Griselda Blanco Born in Colombia in 1943, Griselda swiftly became a ruthless criminal who committed her first murder when she was 11 and her victim was 10 She was set loose in 2004 and deported to Colombia, where in 2012 a motorcyclist shot her dead outside a Medellin butcher shop. Sofia is herself no stranger to crime in Colombia, as her elder brother Rafael was tragically murdered there in 1998 when an abduction attempt went south. 'We come from a successful family, and he knew he was a target for kidnapping,' explained Sofia, whose father was a cattle farmer. 'He always had bodyguards. Then one day he went out alone and was shot dead. I was devastated,' she added, according to the New York Post. Jackie 'O' Henderson turned heads on Wednesday when she arrived at Sydney Airport with her daughter Kitty, 13, to catch a flight to Melbourne. The radio queen, 49, ensured all eyes were on her as she strutted through the terminal in a multi-coloured crochet dress which showed off her drastic weight loss. The mother-of-one paired her ensemble with tan YSL sandals, Christian Dior sunglasses and a designer handbag. Her blonde hair was styled in loose waves and she wore a full face of makeup. Both Jackie and Kitty sported huge grins, clearly excited about their interstate trip. Jackie 'O' Henderson turned heads on Wednesday when she arrived at Sydney Airport with her daughter Kitty, 13, to catch a flight to Melbourne She was seen hugging her lookalike daughter as the pair prepared to board their flight. Jackie and Kitty are flying to Melbourne to watch the Matildas take on Uzbekistan on Wednesday evening in an Olympic Qualifier at Marvel Stadium. The media star's outing comes after she walked out of KIIS FM studios on Tuesday after learning the station has the highest gender pay gap disparity amongst Australian radio networks. The radio queen, 49, ensured all eyes were on her as she strutted through the terminal in a multi-coloured crochet dress which showed off her drastic weight loss The mother-of-one paired her ensemble with tan YSL sandals, Christian Dior sunglasses and a designer handbag Her blonde hair was styled in loose waves and she wore a full face of makeup Both Jackie and Kitty sported huge grins, clearly excited about their interstate trip Jackie was discussing the gender pay gap with co-host Kyle Sandilands, 52, who told her that KIIS FM was not performing well in comparison to their competitors. 'Southern Cross Austereo have a disgraceful 5.9% pay gap. At Nova and Smooth FM it is even worse, six per cent. But unfortunately, the number one spot is at KIIS FM,' he said. She became upset after hearing the shocking news and asked some of her male and female colleagues if they were being paid the same. Jackie 'O' Henderson (pictured) cut a dazzling figure on Wednesday when she arrived at Sydney Airport with her daughter Kitty, 13, to catch a flight to Melbourne She was seen excitedly hugging her lookalike daughter as the pair prepared to board their flight Jackie and Kitty are flying to Melbourne to see the Matildas take on Uzbekistan in an Olympic Qualifier at Marvel Stadium The mother-daughter duo could not contain their excitement It comes after Jackie walked out of KIIS FM studios on Tuesday after learning the station has the highest gender pay gap disparity amongst Australian radio networks Series producer Intern Pete Deppeler then told Jackie his salary and a female colleague revealed she was only being paid half of what Deppeler was. 'Are you freaking joking? Why is Peter getting that much money? I'm so angry about that, it makes my blood boil,' a furious Jackie sniped. Jackie then said female staff deserved to be paid the same as their male colleagues and said the women were staging a protest - shocking Kyle by walking out of the studio. While Jackie O may have been upset about the apparent pay disparity at her work place, she herself earns the same amount as her co-star Kyle - a reported $10million a year. In November, the Sydney-based radio duo signed a record-breaking $200million, 10-year deal live on-air - keeping them on the airwaves until 2034 - with plans to expand their show into Melbourne. Jackie was discussing the gender pay gap with co-host Kyle Sandilands, 52, who told her that KIIS FM was not performing well in comparison to their competitors While Jackie O may have been upset about the apparent pay disparity at her work place, she herself earns the same amount as her co-star Kyle - a reported $10million a year In November, the Sydney-based radio duo signed a record-breaking $200million, 10-year deal live on-air - keeping them on the airwaves until 2034 Kourtney Kardashian is continuing her trend of visiting some of Australia's best vegan eateries. The Kardashian star, 44, posted a story to her Instagram on Wednesday of Collingwood plant based restaurant Smith & Deli. The reality star captioned the photo, 'today's vegan adventure'. Smith & Deli is a Collingwood based vegan cafe specialising in 100% vegan meals. Kourtney and husband Travis Barker, 48, have visited a number of vegetarian restaurants and cafes during their time in Australia. Kourtney Kardashian is continuing her trend of visiting some of Australia's best vegan eateries. Pictured The Kardashian star, 44, posted a story to her Instagram on Wednesday of Collingwood plant based restaurant Smith & Deli The Blink-182 drummer is a vegan and has even opened up his own vegan restaurant 'Crossroads Kitchen' in LA. Last Thursday, the showbiz power couple were spotted enjoying a Thai vegetarian meal at the renowned Peace Harmony restaurant in Sydney's CBD. Travis posted a photo to Instagram of the delicious looking dish they shared for dinner, ahead of his band performing at Qudos Bank Arena on Friday. The restaurant owner said the star couple were polite and well-mannered while dining: 'They were very down-to-earth, didn't ask for any special treatment and kept to themselves.' Kourtney and husband Travis Barker, 48, have checked in to a number of vegetarian restaurants and cafes during their time in Australia 'They were also quite chatty with the staff, asked what was good on the menu, were smiling a lot and very polite. They were just dining together like any other couple.' The pair also dropped by Dicki's cafe in Brisbane with owner Justine Zulueta revealing their exact order. 'They had the chicken burger (plant-based) and the duck toastie (plant-based) and just a couple of matcha lattes and turmeric lattes' she told Brisbane's B105 breakfast show. Blink-182 will perform a few more shows in Melbourne for newly-added dates before heading to New Zealand. The Blink-182 drummer is a vegan and has even opened up his own vegan restaurant 'Crossroads Kitchen' in LA Viewers have turned on Australian Idol after fan favourite Ripley Alexander was eliminated from the singing competition on Tuesday. The 19-year-old was sent home when he failed to make the cut after fans made a live vote for their Top Ten contestants. And now his supporters have taken to social media to share their grief, with some complaining that the show is 'rigged'. Across the nation 1.3million viewers made their choice with Ripley, surprisingly, finishing in the bottom four. 'Rigged! It's impossible he left as I know every one voted,' one fan shared on the Australian Idol Instagram. Viewers have turned on Australian Idol after fan favourite Ripley Alexander was eliminated from the singing competition on Tuesday. Pictured The 19-year-old was sent home when he failed to make the cut after fans made a live vote for their Top Ten contestants 'The backlash is going to be real on this one,' said another disappointed Idol viewer. 'Not watching this anymore, the judging is ridiculous,' message another fan. Many Idol fans messaged the show's social media to complain that they had experienced issues while attempting to cast a vote for Ripley. 'So regarding the voting,' explained one fan. 'Did anyone get s reply back from Australian Idol saying thanks fot your vote? As I voted for Ripley three time and got no response..so was the voting set up correctly?' 'Tried voting for him [Ripley] and it kept bouncing back.' 'Rigged! It's impossible he left as I know every one voted,' one fan shared on the Australian Idol Instagram As the bottom four were announced on Tuesday's episode, judges Kyle Sandilands, Marcia Hines and Amy Shark were stunned at the shock result. The bottom four were Ripley from Brisbane; Imogen, 23, from Victoria; Ivana, 20, from Victoria and Karratha's TJ Zimba, 24. On Ripley, Kyle said: 'The guy has millions of streams and such a unique voice. I'm shocked you are in the bottom.' The bottom four artists took to the stage to prove they deserve a spot in the Top 10. Ripley impressed with his take on Mercy by Shawn Mendes, while Ivana showed off her powerful voice on Where Have You Been by Rihanna. Imogen stunned the crowd with her final performance, singing Celine Dion's It's All Coming Back To Me Now, while TJ brought the vibe with Bad Guy by Billie Eilish. Kyle called 'super talent' Ripley's elimination, 'Unbelievable. A real shame.' Amy said: 'I honestly have no words my mind is blown right now.' Marcia reflected that Ripley was so popular Australia may have forgotten to vote. 'You've got to vote to keep people on. We don't want a repeat of this again. If you really dig somebody vote for them,' she said. 'I feel like it's our fault, we talked you up Ripley.' Ripley departed the show alongside Imogen. Ripley was humble in his exit, telling the judges and audience, 'I love you all. I just want to say thank you all so much.' As the bottom four were announced on Tuesday's episode, judges Kyle Sandilands, Marcia Hines and Amy Shark were stunned at the shock result Kylie Jenner was every inch the sizzling sensation when she stepped out for a glamorous girls' night in Santa Monica on Tuesday. The 26-year-old was spotted heading into dinner at Giorgio Baldi, a swank Italian eatery that has developed a reputation as flypaper for celebrities. She was accompanied that evening by her longtime close gal pal, eyelash influencer Yris Palmer, who matcher her in head-to-toe black. Proving she remains her own best advertisement, Kylie turned up the heat in a busty, flesh-flashing top from her own new clothing line Khy. She slid into a peekaboo crop top that played up her cleavage to full advantage, as well as highlighting her petite figure and baring a hint of her taut midriff. Kylie Jenner was every inch the sizzling sensation when she stepped out for a glamorous girls' night in Santa Monica on Tuesday The 26-year-old was spotted heading into dinner at Giorgio Baldi, a swank Italian eatery that has developed a reputation as flypaper for celebrities She was accompanied that evening by her longtime close gal pal, eyelash influencer Yris Palmer, who matcher her in head-to-toe black Kylie hoisted on a matching pair of gently glimmering trousers that highlighted her hourglass frame as she headed into the restaurant. Pounding the pavement on a pair of kitten heels, she made sure to be prepared for a potential drop in temperatures by bringing along a black leather jacket. The Kylie Cosmetics mogul accentuated her unmistakable features with heavy makeup, including a slick of dark lipstick. Meanwhile Yris modeled a trendily asymmetrical black cocktail dress and a matching pair of heels, sweeping her hair back into an elegant do. Kylie made sure to keep her social media following abreast of her escapades, posing up a storm in her outfit before leaving the house. Allowing her dark hairdo to tumble over her shoulders in sumptuous waves, she twirled this way and that, displaying her Khy apparel from every angle. Once she got into the restaurant, she made sure to regale her fans with footage of her cuddling up to Yris as they settled into their table. Kylie also let the world know her festive evening was well-lubricated, posting a clip of herself cheerfully tipping back a glass of red wine. Kylie made sure to keep her social media following abreast of her escapades, posing up a storm in her outfit before leaving the house Proving she remains her own best advertisement, Kylie turned up the heat in a busty, flesh-flashing top from her own new clothing line Khy Kylie hoisted on a matching pair of gently glimmering trousers that highlighted her hourglass frame as she struck pose after pose for the camera She launched Khy in October of last year and has been busily plugging the brand ever since, enlisting the help of models and also showing off the clothes on herself The Kylie Cosmetics mogul accentuated her unmistakable features with heavy makeup, including a slick of dark lipstick Once she got into the restaurant, she made sure to regale her fans with footage of her cuddling up to Yris as they settled into their table Kylie also let the world know her festive evening was well-lubricated, posting a clip of herself cheerfully tipping back a glass of red wine Meanwhile Yris modeled a trendily asymmetrical black cocktail dress and a matching pair of heels, sweeping her hair back into an elegant do As the evening wore on, her social media updates include footage of her modeling a black, Old Hollywood chic floor-length gown from Khy Her post included a promise that this particular dress, which featured a dangling sash at one shoulder, would be out by Wednesday 'Khy is a homage to the limitless possibilities of fashion,' her press release said at the time that the apparel line received its Instagram debut 'We are breaking down barriers and will redefine the meaning of a designer brand, with creativity and quality at a better price' As the evening wore on, her social media updates include footage of her modeling a black, Old Hollywood chic floor-length gown from Khy. Her post included a promise that this particular dress, which featured a dangling sash at one shoulder, would be out by Wednesday. She launched Khy in October of last year and has been busily plugging the brand ever since, enlisting the help of models and also showing off the clothes on herself. 'Khy is a homage to the limitless possibilities of fashion,' her press release said at the time that the apparel line received its Instagram debut. 'We are breaking down barriers and will redefine the meaning of a designer brand, with creativity and quality at a better price.' She added: 'I wanted to make Khy a platform for our customers to have the opportunity to experience fashion, through new designers and brands, but at a more accessible price.' Pierce Brosnan was spotted grabbing dinner with his wife Keely Shaye at Nobu in Malibu on Tuesday. The power couple, who have been married for 23 years, were joined by their sons Paris, 22, and Dylan, 26, for the outing. The actor, 70 who recently pleaded not guilty to Yellowstone trespassing charges looked dapper as ever, wearing a denim button-up and white shirt underneath a black suit. He completed his look with dress shoes and wore his salt and pepper hair fashionably slicked back. Meanwhile Keely, 60, exuded elegance in a black coat with a fur trim, a black dress and matching heels. Pierce Brosnan, 70, was spotted grabbing dinner with his wife Keely Shaye, 60, at Nobu in Malibu on Tuesday The beauty accessorized her look with a black purse, and wore her brunette tresses in a straight style. Pierce and Keely have been married for 23 years after tying the knot at Ballintubber Abbey in Ireland in 2001. The pair first met in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in 1994, three years after Pierce's first wife, Cassandra Harris, died in 1991 at the age of 43 from ovarian cancer. Their two sons, Dylan and Paris, are the youngest of the actor's five children. Pierce also has a son Sean, 38, and an adopted son Chris, 49, as well as his late adopted daughter Charlotte with Cassandra. Pierce adopted Cassandra's children, Chris and Charlotte, after their father, Dermot Harris, died in 1986. Pierce's latest outing comes after he pleaded not guilty to allegedly wandering into a 'delicate' and dangerous hot springs at Yellowstone National Park, despite being pictured standing on the protected area at the time of the alleged infraction. The James Bond star entered a plea via a paper filing on January 4 over the November 2023 incident in the US District Court for Wyoming, according to Cowboy State Daily. The power couple, who have been married for 23 years, were joined by their sons Paris, 22, and Dylan, 26, for the outing Paris and Dylan are the youngest of the actor's five children. He also has a son Sean, 38, and an adopted son Chris, 49, as well as his late adopted daughter Charlotte with late first wife Cassandra Harris; the family pictured in 2020 Pierce and Keely have been married for 23 years after tying the knot at Ballintubber Abbey in Ireland in 2001 Magistrate Judge Stephanie A. Hambrick granted the actor's request to cancel his initial appearance, setting up a virtual conference for February 20 instead. Brosnan was cited twice over the alleged violations at the thermals in the Mammoth Terraces section of the park, and had been due to appear in court on January 23. The alleged offences are said to have taken place on November 1. A personal photo uploaded to an account exposing 'tourons' (tourist morons) of Yellowstone showed him on the snow-encrusted springs. The features are dangerous and fragile. If damaged, they can take years to correct. Numerous people have been killed from falling into Yellowstone's scalding pools. Brosnan is just the latest tourist to try to bend the rules at the stunning national park. At least 22 people have died from burns sustained in Yellowstone's springs and geysers. They include Colin Nathaniel Scott, who is thought to have dissolved in the hot acidic water after leaving the boardwalk at the park's Norris Geyser Basin in search of a place to soak in 2015. Brosnan took his hike despite previously starring in a film highlighting the potential dangers of such springs - Dante's Peak. Last month he pleaded not guilty to trespassing charges after he allegedly went off-trail at Yellowstone National Park The 1997 film revolves around volcanologist Harry Dalton, played by Brosnan, in the fictional town of Dante's Peak where the citizens fight to withstand an eruption. One scene involves Brosnan's character stumbling across two people who have been boiled to death in a hot spring. Brosnan was charged with Foot Travel in a Thermal Area and Closure Violation, according to court documents filed in December. In addition to his four James Bond films, Brosnan starred in the 1980s TV series 'Remington Steele' and is known for roles in the films 'Mrs. Doubtfire' and 'The Thomas Crown Affair.' He got his start in a non-speaking role in the 1980 gangster classic 'The Long Good Friday' starring Bob Hoskins. Rebel Wilson took advantage of the sensational Sydney weather on Wednesday by heading to Bondi Beach with fiancee Ramona Agruma. The Hustle star did her best to go incognito as the couple headed to the north end of the world famous beach, which is favoured by locals and the LGBTQI+ community. Rebel wore a mint green T-shirt for the outing, paired with black shorts and pricey Givenchy slides. The 43-year-old completed her look with a white cap and reflective sunglasses and remained on trend by carrying her valuables in a chic belt bag. She also carried a brown Woolies bag, which retail for 25 cents. Rebel Wilson took advantage of the sensational Sydney weather on Wednesday by heading to Bondi Beach with fiancee Ramona Agruma. Both pictured The Hustle star did her best to go incognito as the couple headed to the north end of the world famous beach, which is favoured by locals and the LGBTQI+ community Rebel wore a mint green T-shirt for the outing, paired with black shorts and pricey Givenchy slides The 43-year-old completed her look with a white cap and reflective sunglasses and remained on trend by carrying her valuables in a chic belt bag. She also carried a brown Woolies bag, which retail for 25 cents Elsewhere, girlfriend Ramona ensured all eyes were on her in blue bikini top and denim cut-offs paired with a lavender wrap. She completed her look with a colourful bucket hat, retro shades and a Chloe tote, and opted to carry a black umbrella Elsewhere, girlfriend Ramona ensured all eyes were on her in blue bikini top and denim cut-offs paired with a lavender wrap. She completed her look with a colourful bucket hat, retro shades and a Chloe tote, and opted to carry a black umbrella. Once on the beach, it wasn't long before Rebel stripped off her tee, and revealed a black one piece. Once on the beach, it wasn't long before Rebel stripped off her tee, and revealed a black one piece Ramona soon followed suit, kicking off her daisy dukes and revealing her sensational beach body At one point the fashion designer was seen adjusting her bikini top to make sure she didn't reveal too much The couple then headed into the sea for a refreshing dip Rebel looked at home in the surf, as the waves lapped at her feet Rebel proved she's every inch the Aussie beach girl on the day The Hollywood star looked at home as she strutted up and down Bondi Beach Rebel in Sydney ahead of this weekend's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Ramona sizzled in the sun in a sky blue bikini Ramona soon followed suit, kicking off her daisy dukes and revealing her sensational beach body The couple then headed into the sea for a refreshing dip. Rebel looked at home in the surf, as the waves lapped at her feet. Once back on shore, the couple opted to dry off in the sun on their beach towels. At one point, it got too hot for Rebel's alabaster complexion so she decided to pop up the couple's black umbrella for some respite from the sun. Rebel and Ramona originally met in 2021. Once back on shore, the couple opted to dry off in the sun on their beach towels Rebel was seen laying down with her back to the sun, tanning her legs At one point, it got too hot for Rebel's alabaster complexion so she decided to pop the couple's black umbrella for some respite from the sun Rebel did her best to remain sun safe on the day The pair eventually began dating, and they made their red carpet debut in March of last year and they announced their engagement in February last year. The Bridesmaids star announced the birth of Royce in November 2022, mentioning in her post how starting her own family had been years in the making. 'Beyond proud to announce the birth of my first child, Royce Lillian, born this past week via surrogate,' she wrote. Bianca Censori could face prison or a fine of 15,000 after testing the laws of exhibitionism in Paris. On Tuesday, the Yeezy architect, 29, wore her most explicit outfit to date as she went underwear free beneath a pair of sheer stockings during a public outing with husband Kanye West. Bianca did not attempt to conceal her genitals or bare backside in the garment as crowds of shocked onlookers rushed to take pictures. She also did not appear to be wearing a shirt or bra under a cropped fur coat as she returned to the Ritz Hotel with hoodie-clad Kanye after enjoying dinner at Ferdi. While Kanye's 'muse' may be no stranger to exposing her body in public, her latest act could cause trouble with French officials if she is found in breach of their decency laws. Bianca Censori could face prison or a fine of 15,000 after testing the laws of exhibitionism in Paris when she went underwear free beneath a pair of sheer stockings on Tuesday While Kanye's 'wife and muse' may be no stranger to exposing her body in public, her latest act could cause trouble with French officials if she is found in breach of their decency laws Article 222-32 of the new penal code (applicable since 1 March 1994) stipulates: 'Deliberate sexual display in the sight of others in a place accessible to the public gaze is punishable by one year in prison and a fine of one hundred thousand francs. [15,000]' Nudity itself does not equal indecency, however, with the legislator stipulating: 'The charge has been worded in such a way as to rule out any possibility of proceedings against persons practising naturism in places specially designated for this purpose.' This isn't the first time, Bianca has risked a run-in with the law due to her wild antics on holiday. Last year, Bianca ran the risk of a 10,000 fine and imprisonment during the couple's trip to Italy, where she had been walking around 'virtually naked' in the European nation. According to the Italian Constitutional Court, a fine from 5,000 to 10,000 euros can be issued, or whoever exposes in a place or nearby to a place attended by minors, may be sentenced from four months to four years imprisonment. For one outing Bianca went braless in a skintight see through all-in-one and at some points was forced to cover her nipples with a black cross-body bag. Italian locals branded the Kim Kardashian lookalike's outfits 'disrespectful' on social media, with some saying the 'immodest' couple are no longer welcome in a country known for its conservative Catholic heritage. Bianca and Kanye were also investigated by police after they were caught on camera in a compromising position during their Italian holiday. MailOnline has contacted Bianca's representatives and the French embassy for comment. She also did not appear to be wearing a shirt or bra under her cropped fur coat Bianca's face looked to be free of makeup and she wore her raven locks slicked back The tights left nothing to the imagination as she made her way towards the restaurant entrance Kanye, 46, was spotted following closely behind his nearly-nude wife Last year, Bianca ran the risk of a 10,000 fine and imprisonment during the couple's trip to Italy, where she had been walking around 'virtually naked' in the European nation Bianca and Kanye were also investigated by police after they were caught on camera in a compromising position during their Italian holiday Bianca has paraded around the world with Kanye in barely there looks since they tied the knot in 2022. However, insiders recently claimed to DailyMail.com that Kanye's ex-wife Kim Kardashian warned the rapper to tell Bianca to 'cover up' around their children. Bianca's underwear-free outing in Paris came just one day after she was on stepmom duty with Kanye's eldest daughter North West, 10. The rapper also shares Saint, eight, Chicago, six, and Psalm, four, with Kim. Unlike Tuesday's look, Bianca was uncharacteristically clothed as she took North to dinner on Monday night. Kim and Bianca are said to have an 'amicable' relationship but the risque fashion in front of the kids has become an issue for her. 'Kim instructed Kanye to never let Bianca dress like that around their kids,' a source told DailyMail.com exclusively. 'She is truly surprised that Kanye would let his wife leave the house like that.' Unlike Bianca's raunchy wardrobe, Kim was asked to change her outfits if Kanye felt she was showing too much skin, with the artist heavily influencing her fashion choices during their seven-year marriage. 'Kanye did the same thing he is doing with Bianca to Kim throughout heir marriage,' DailyMail.com's source continued. 'The difference is that when Kanye dressed Kim, he was respected as a person as an artist. 'Unfortunately, Kim knows what Bianca is going through but she feels Bianca should have known what she was getting into.' Kim filed for divorce in February 2021 just before what would have been the pair's seventh wedding anniversary. Bianca's underwear-free outing in Paris came just one day after she was on stepmom duty with Kanye's eldest daughter North West, 10 Kanye's ex-wife Kim Kardashian warned the rapper to tell Bianca to 'cover up' around their children: North, Saint, eight, Chicago, six, and Psalm, four She was declared legally single March 2022 while in the midst of a hot and heavy romance with now-ex boyfriend SNL alum Pete Davidson. In November 2022, Kim and Kanye's divorce was finalized, with Kanye agreeing to pay $200,000 a month in child support and equal custody. Kanye married Yeezy architect Bianca in December 2022 in what was thought a non-legal wedding as it appeared they did not file a marriage certificate. However in mid-October 2023, it was reported that they did in fact get legally married and that it took place last year due to 'religious reasons,' per Us Weekly. Bianca Censori's outrageous looks as Kanye West's wife shocks Europe once again by going underwear free in most X-rated outfit to date Bianca Censori shocked onlookers once again as she wore her most explicit outfit to date in Paris on Tuesday night. The wife and 'muse' of Kanye West, 29, went underwear free beneath a pair of sheer stockings during a public outing with the rapper, 46. It is not the first time Bianca risked facing prison or a fine of 15,000 for testing the laws of exhibitionism with her looks getting increasingly racier. There was also grave concern from Bianca's inner circle, who insisted her behaviour was not a reflection of who she really is, but rather a result of Kanye's influence over her. Here we take a look at Bianca's most outrageous looks from barely there bodysuits to wearing nothing underneath sheer raincoats. Paris Fashion Week hosiery Bianca Censori shocked onlookers once again as she wore her most explicit outfit to date in Paris on Tuesday night The Yeezy architect wore her most explicit outfit to date as she went underwear free under sheer tights on Tuesday. Bianca did not attempt to conceal her genitals or bare backside in the garment as crowds of shocked onlookers rushed to take pictures. She also did not appear to be wearing a shirt or bra under a cropped fur coat as she returned to the Ritz Hotel with hoodie-clad Kanye after enjoying dinner at Ferdi. While Kanye's 'muse' may be no stranger to exposing her body in public, her latest act could cause trouble with French officials if she is found in breach of their decency laws. Milan Fashion Week underwear-free bodysuit Bianca left almost nothing to the imagination as she wore an incredibly risque outfit to the Marni show during Milan Fashion Week last week The Australian fashion designer donned a daring black bodysuit that barely contained her curves Bianca went braless in the revealing garment which also featured a matching strap along the sides as she joined her husband on the front row Bianca left almost nothing to the imagination as she wore an incredibly risque outfit to the Marni show during Milan Fashion Week last week. The Australian fashion designer donned a daring black bodysuit that barely contained her curves. Bianca went braless in the revealing garment which also featured a matching strap along the sides. Kanye declares Bianca will be wearing LESS clothes than ever before Last month, Kanye declared his wife Bianca will be wearing even less clothes in 2024, after sharing a slew of racy snaps to his Instagram account The controversial rapper - known as Ye - posted three separate pictures of Bianca to his 18.4M followers, with one captioned: 'No pants this year Bianca wore a latex head mask as she posed to the side He also posted a picture of her walking out of the shower of lavish hotel room, looking down at her feet dressed in black, knee-high boots and nearly spilling out of her tiny outfit Last month, Kanye declared his wife Bianca will be wearing even less clothes in 2024, after sharing a slew of racy snaps to his Instagram account. The controversial rapper - known as Ye - posted three separate pictures of Bianca to his 18.4M followers, with one captioned: 'No pants this year'. Kanye showed off his wife who donned a skimpy, fur bra top, which revealed her ample assets, and nothing else but a micro thong. He also posted a picture of her walking out of the shower of lavish hotel room, looking down at her feet dressed in black, knee-high boots and nearly spilling out of her tiny outfit. Nearly naked Super Bowl outfit Bianca went nearly-naked as she partied after the Super Bowl. The Australian designer flashed her bust and posterior in an ill-fitting tan bodysuit Bianca went nearly-naked as she partied after the Super Bowl. The Australian designer flashed her bust and posterior in an ill-fitting tan bodysuit - forcing her to cover her chest as she suffered continual wardrobe malfunctions. The garment - which she wore without underwear - revealed nearly all of the star's body as she danced with fellow revelers. Her locks were worn slicked back from her face and she sported a light touch of make-up. Bianca was seen constantly readjusting the outfit as she danced, with her sideboob on display. Poncho raincoat Kanye's wife also wore a sheer raincoat with absolutely nothing underneath earlier this month as she made a head-turning arrival to a Los Angeles music studio Kanye's wife also wore a sheer raincoat with absolutely nothing underneath earlier this month as she made a head-turning arrival to a Los Angeles music studio alongside her mask-clad husband. The Australian architect opted to go completely naked beneath her poncho bar a pair of knee high black boots. Branding across the front of the coat helped shield her ample chest, yet she was forced to place her hand over her groin to protect her modesty. The bizarre look has been heavily criticised online, with one person writing on X, formerly Twitter: 'What is wrong with this couple? I just don't get it. Why?' Another questioned: 'This has to be illegal. This is literally public indecency,' while a third individual added: 'No love, this is not fashion.' Crude details Bianca pictured in January turning heads with a top and shorts combo while going braless The couple did their best to shock onlookers yet again as they headed to a tanning salon in Los Angeles last month. Bianca ensured all eyes would be on her as she went braless in a tight white vest with 'wet' emblazoned across the chest. Yet it wasn't her top that proved to be the most racy part of her ensemble as a closer inspection of her tiny black shorts revealed a very crude element. A small hole was visible at the front of the pants, which is designed to accommodate sex toys. The Packer Gear pants can be bought in sex shops for $50 and can be used on both men and women. Nude bodysuits and stuffed toy animals Late last year, Bianca wore a slew of increasingly more bizarre ensembles , including nude sheer tops and a silver string bodysuit all of which she teamed with oversized stuffed toys (pictured left). Pictured right, Bianca in Italy wearing a nude jumpsuit Bianca commanded attention earlier this month in LA when sporting a statement headpiece and matching coat During their time in Florence, Verona and Rome in 2023, the rapper and his wife shocked with their bizarre outfit choices, with Kanye regularly seen out barefoot and Bianca often barely clothed. Yet they took things a step further in Venice, when they were accused of performing a lewd sex act on a river boat, with Kanye seen exposing his bare buttocks while Bianca kneeled in front of him. Their bizarre behaviour prompted fury from Italian locals who declared the couple 'banned' from the country, and their antics even sparked a police investigation. There was also grave concern from Bianca's inner circle, who insisted her behaviour was not a reflection of who she really is, but rather a result of Kanye's influence over her. Meanwhile, late last year, Bianca wore a slew of increasingly more bizarre ensembles, including nude sheer tops and a silver string bodysuit all of which she teamed with oversized stuffed toys. In January, Kanye shared a series of revealing snaps of his wife on Instagram. He first posted a trio of pictures of Bianca to his 18.4million Instagram followers, showing her dressed in a black string bikini top and thong. The rapper declared there will be 'no pants this year,' alongside one image of her in a string thong and fur bralette, while another showing her spilling out of a barely-there top, read: 'Dropped sumn?' Kanye's post raised eyebrows as he had previously criticized his ex Kim Kardashian for being 'overly sexualized,' while promoting her SKIMS brand, and once also claimed the wet look Thierry Mugler dress she wore to the 2019 Met Gala was 'too sexy'. Bianca and Kanye secretly wed in December 2022, just one month after he finalized his divorce from Kim Kardashian, 43. Since then, friends have expressed ongoing fears that the rapper is manipulating his so-called 'wife' and many believe his latest actions continue to highlight a pattern of 'controlling' behaviour. In his latest stunt, Kanye is said to have banned Bianca from using social media to protect her from negative comments, according to insiders, who claim her friends believe it's really another tactic to further 'isolate' her. Despite the architectural designer's loved ones staging an intervention concerning her relationship with the rapper and his 'controlling ways,' her husband appears to have changed her attitude towards social media. Bianca's earlier outfits showed her going braless in crop tops and leggings 'Bianca has always had social media and she was active on it until she married Kanye,' an insider exclusively told DailyMail.com. 'He doesnt want her to have it because he thinks that it will hurt her if she had to read the nasty things that people say. 'He convinced her that, since she is a star now, she has to remain a mystery and it is creepy to those who know her as it feels like another form of control.' However, friends have taken issue with the fact Kanye is posting racy images of his wife on his own Instagram account despite allegedly claiming she needs protection. The insider added: 'He is pushing her nakedness all over his own [account] so that he can control her narrative. It is disturbing, and by shutting her off from the world he is causing her to become more and more isolated.' Friends are said to be stunned to see the usually assertive designer going along with Kanye's demands as the source stressed: 'This strong Bianca that was not going to deal with his s*** anymore has seemingly vanished once again. 'She is wearing what he wants, going where he wants and doing what he wants because she really has no other choice. She went from being his designer to his wife, which is unfortunately, not a paid position. Shes trapped.' Tom Daley has written a love letter of support to his husband Dustin Lance Black who revealed his court case made them and their two children relocate to the US. The Oscar-winning screenwriter's shock court case was thrown out at the end of 2023 after he was embroiled in a nightclub spat with BBC presenter Teddy Edwardes, 33. Dustin, 49, claimed this week he and Olympic diver husband Tom, 29, moved across the pond because he felt the UK government 'owed him an apology'. Now Olympic diver Tom has written a touching open letter to his fans and husband and said he's been 'astonished' by his husband's 'resilience to the attack' and ensuing court process. He also admitted the couple had been through 'some of the worst months of our lives'. Tom Daley has written a love letter of support to his husband Dustin Lance Black who revealed earlier this week his court case made them and their two children relocate to the US The Oscar-winning screenwriter's shock court case was thrown out at the end of 2023 after he was embroiled in a nightclub spat with BBC presenter Teddy Edwardes (pictured November) Tom wrote a touching open letter to his fans and husband saying he's been 'astonished' by his husband's 'resilience to the attack' and ensuing court process Tom wrote: 'They say time and distance is a great healer and to a certain extent it is. Seeing all your lovely comments last night to Lance and myself was a comfort, yet at the same time I can't shake the feeling that this should never have happened. 'To be violently attacked, then blamed, dragged through a court process, having evidence lost, stories changed all for a judge to see the lies for exactly what they were and dismiss the case immediately, has been hugely draining for us as a family. 'To believe so inherently in a justice process that then took us through some of the worst months of our lives has been really hard and took away a sense of safety in the justice system. 'Stress that has no doubt slowed Lance's ability to heal from his head injury. 'This unjust course of action has been of course, hardest and most damaging for Lance, whose resilience astonishes me. 'You continue to be the best Dad to our two children and your support for my return to diving has been amazing!...Lance, I love you! X'. Earlier this week, Dustin claimed he and Tom moved to America because he felt the UK government 'owed him an apology'. Speaking to The Guardian, he shared: 'This is no longer, you know, do I like or dislike a place? I think that the crown, the government owes me an apology. And I have not received it. I think they also owe me a lot of money.' Oscar-winner Dustin was accused of 'twisting' Teddy Edwardes' (pictured) wrist to throw a drink over the BBC3 presenter. He was cleared in November Dustin, who share two sons Robert, five, and Phoenix, 10 months, with Tom, 29, also gushed over his 'kind' children Dustin, who share two sons Robert, five, and Phoenix, 10 months, with Tom also spoke about the impact the court case had on his family. He added: 'Tom and I know how to have fun outside of parenthood. We work hard, we should play hard. But I do not pay attention to other people's opinions of me or my family any more. 'I reacted to having horrible examples of fatherhood in my life by becoming, I think, a really good dad. It's the project that I'm most proud of.' Dustin, who recently watched his beloved son ring a bell for being named the 'kindest child in his grade', added: 'I'm very, very proud of him.' CCTV footage showed the moment that landed Tom's husband in court as he became embroiled in a nightclub spat with BBC presenter Teddy, sparking a 10,000 assault case which was thrown out by a judge within hours. Dustin was alleged to have grabbed an 'aggressive' Teddy's wrist causing her to spill her drink over herself, but her claims were dismissed at Westminster Magistrates' Court. Lawyers for the Oscar-winning screenwriter successfully argued there was no clear evidence Dustin, who is said to have lost 600,000 due to the case, had ever touched Teddy's wrist at the Freedom nightclub in Soho on August 18 last year, and that her evidence was inconsistent. Video footage showed the row between the two before Dustin walked out of the venue where Teddy was partying with her Love Island ex Amber Gill. Moments later, Dustin was punched in the back of the head by Teddy, resulting in a concussion - for which she received a police caution. Dustin has now claimed he and Olympic diver husband Tom moved across the pond because he felt the UK government 'owed him an apology' following the court case (pictured in 2023) CCTV footage shows the moment that landed Tom 's husband in court as he became embroiled in a nightclub spat with BBC presenter Teddy (pictured) A judge took the unusual step of dismissing the assault case before the defense had even begun - deciding at the end of the prosecution evidence there was insufficient evidence any assault occurred. Court cases can be thrown out at the close of the prosecution's case if they are so weak that a jury, properly directed, could not properly convict. The decision meant that neither Dustin or Tom had to take to the stand. After the verdict, Teddy took to Instagram to share a post of drinks against the London skyline. CCTV footage played to the court showed Dustin's argument with Teddy at the bar while Amber and Tom looked on in shock. The video showed the two couples standing in front of the bar as Teddy and Dustin appear to argue animatedly. Tom appeared to attempt to calm Dustin down before Dustin moved his hand towards Teddy, who dropped the glass she was holding. The defense argued Dustin took hold of Teddy drink, but did not touch her. Dustin then immediately walked out of the club. The judge criticised Teddy for inconsistencies in her account about the first time she saw the CCTV of the footage - after police officers earlier gave evidence to say the footage was 'leaked' - and for posting about the incident on social media platforms before telling the court it was 'not real life'. Tom revealed he met the film director at a 'random dinner' in Los Angeles a decade ago before they later tied the knot. In December 2013, the diver announced he was dating a 'guy' who made him 'feel so happy' and 'so safe', with the pair going on to marry one another in 2017. Touching on the pair's 20-year age gap Tom said: 'One thing I learned early on is to not care what other people think. That's been useful since I've been with my husband. I'm 27, he's 47. 'People have their opinions, but we don't notice the age gap. When you fall in love, you fall in love,' he remarked in an interview with The Guardian. Katie Thistleton is set to join Vick Hope and Jamie Laing for BBC Radio 1's drivetime show amid the station's huge shake-up following Jordan North's departure. The Manchester-born presenter, 34, joined Radio 1 in 2017 after her work on CBBC - and already hosts three shows on the channel. Radio 1 has seen a big shake-up in its presenters after Jordan North was axed from his slot with Vick following months of behind-the-scenes chaos. It has since been announced that Jordan would be replacing Roman Kemp on Capital Breakfast - with Made In Chelsea's Jamie Laing taking his place on Radio 1's Going Home. And now it has been revealed that Katie will join Vick and Jamie for the drivetime show - which takes place between 3.30pm and 6pm as listeners commute home from work. Katie Thistleton is set to join Vick Hope and Jamie Laing for BBC Radio 1's drivetime show amid the station's huge shake-up following Jordan North 's departure, it was announced on Wednesday 'I am beyond thrilled to be joining Vick and Jamie on Going Home,' Katie said of her new slot. 'I have loved filling in on the show for the past couple of years, working with Vick is always dreamy and I'm such a big fan of Jamie. 'I can't wait for lots of fun chaos and playing the best tunes for that amazing drivetime audience, this is beyond my wildest dreams! Pinch me!' Sharing her exciting news on Instagram, Katie posted some behind-the-scenes snaps of the trio's promo shoot. She captioned the post: 'I'm still in shock at this news tbh, co-hosting Radio 1 drive is beyond my wildest dreams, I feel like I'm living in a simulation.' 'It's going to be fun chaos, so please come and join us for the ride and I promise well do our best to give everyone a great listen,' Katie added. 'ARGHHGGGGGGGG SO HAPPY I MIGHT BURST.' Vick, 34, and Katie already present Life Hacks, on Sundays between 4pm and 6pm, together. 'In that time not only have we built a really strong, beautiful relationship with our listeners through thick and thin, but we've become such close friends,' Vick said. 'I'm so excited to get to work - and hang out - with each other every day and so glad our on-air journey together continues.' Sharing her exciting news on Instagram, Katie posted some behind-the-scenes snaps of the trio's promo shoot It has since been announced that Jordan would be replacing Roman Kemp on Capital Breakfast after his drivetime departure It also comes just days after Jordan North revealed he was leaving his Radio 1 drivetime show to join Capital FM, and will be replaced by Made In Chelsea star Jamie Laing Jamie Laing has broken his silence after furious Radio 1 listeners slammed his new role on the show presenting Monday to Thursday, 3.30pm to 6pm - next to radio co-host Vick Of the completed trio, Jamie, 35, said: 'So excited to have Katie joining Going Home with Vick and I. It already feels like a dream to be a part of the Radio 1 family so to get to work alongside such incredible people like Katie and Vick is the icing on the cake.' Vick said the three presenters were in 'stitches' from the first demo in the studio and assured listeners that they will 'absolutely love' the new hosts. Meanwhile, BBC also announced that Matt Edmondson and Mollie King, who currently present Matt and Mollie on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons, will be moving to the weekday afternoon show. The pair have hosted Weekend Breakfast together since 2018 and from July will be taking on the 1pm to 4pm slot on Monday to Thursday. 'I can't wait to spend more time with them and my best bud, Matt, during the week,' The Saturdays star Mollie said of getting to host a brand new show together. Matt added: 'I feel really lucky to be taking on this new show with my best friend, and I have no doubt that we will continue to champion amazing music, be ridiculously competitive and laugh uncontrollably.' The station's major switch up comes after I'm a Celeb runner-up Jordan, 34, bid farewell to Radio 1 earlier this month to join Capital's Breakfast Show, replacing its longtime host Roman, 31. BBC Radio 1 was hit by another presenting shake-up, as Mollie King and Matt Edmondson are moving slots from their weekend show The pair have been hosting an afternoon show from Fridays to Sundays for six years, but are now set to move to a brand new slot on Mondays to Thursdays from 1pm to 3pm Jordan has stepped down from his Going Home show after a decade with the broadcaster to replace Roman Kemp as the Capital Breakfast host However, it was claimed that the news he was leaving the show was a 'shock to him' as information about the departure 'was issued without his knowledge in chaotic scenes'. The publication reports that he had unwittingly already presented his last episode of the show by the time his departure was announced. Tensions had reportedly been high 'for months' about his departure after he let producers know he wanted to leave. The source said: 'Conversations were going back and forth between Jordan's people and the top people at the BBC for months, and over time they deteriorated. 'Once he formally requested to leave, that was it he was off air, immediately. 'It's a shame it ended on such a bad note after 10 years.' The BBC and Jordan were contacted by MailOnline for comment at the time. EastEnders legend Pam St Clement channelled her famous character Pat Butcher over the weekend when she stopped for a pint in Oxfordshire. The actress, 81, who starred as The Queen Vic's iconic barmaid until 2012, surprised fans when got behind the bar at McCafferty's at the White Hart in Bicester. Pam joined a member of staff at the Irish pub for a photo, flashing a smile as she poured a pint. She wrapped up warm in a white padded coat with a leopard print shirt layered underneath for her outing. Sharing the photo to Facebook over the weekend, a member of staff from the pub wrote: 'Pat Butcher from Eastender's famous TV programme popped into McCafferty's to say hello.' EastEnders legend Pam St Clement, 81, channelled her famous character Pat Butcher over the weekend when she stopped for a pint in Oxfordshire Fans were quick to comment on the pub's update with one person writing: 'She hasn't aged a day. Go well Pam. Phenomenal actress that played Pat very well.' Someone else added: 'Another comment on the post read: "She still looks great, hasn't changed a bit.' 'Get out of my pub!' a third person joked, quoting Pat's famous line. After 26 years in Walford, Pat left the square on New Year's Day 2012. Pam revealed she had decided to kill off her character and felt that Albert Square was no longer realistic enough. In a frank interview at the time she warned EastEnders producers that the popular soap was just too violent. Pam said: 'I'm not too sure that one little area of London has quite so much violence and adultery as ours does.' The actress, who starred as The Queen Vic's iconic barmaid until 2012, surprised fans when got behind the bar at McCafferty's at the White Hart in Bicester (pictured left on the soap) Sharing the photo to Facebook over the weekend, a member of staff from the pub wrote: 'Pat Butcher from Eastender's famous TV programme popped into McCafferty's to say hello' Pam, who first appeared in Albert Square in 1986, filmed her final scenes in 2011 when her character, after being diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer, returned home to die Pam revealed she had decided to kill off her character and felt that Albert Square was no longer realistic enough (pictured on the soap in 2011) She continued: 'Maybe in the search to be over more interesting we are always pinning stories on things that are ever more 'out there', rather than remembering that good stories are about what happens in people's hearts and in their relationships.' Pam, who first appeared in Albert Square in 1986, repeatedly told off producers for dismissing good story lines and not developing characters enough. Her character was married four times, had worked as a prostitute and served time in prison, but her final scene in the soap was her most dramatic. After being diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer, Pat returned to her home to die surrounded by her family. Kelsey Grammer and his wife Kayte Walsh packed on the PDA as they enjoyed a romantic dinner date in Beverly Hills on Tuesday. The actor, 69, and his partner, 45, wrapped their arms around each other and shared a kiss after departing E Baldi restaurant. Kayte cut a stylish figure for the evening as she donned a black short-sleeved mini dress which she paired with matching tights. The former flight attendant added height to her frame with a pair of black heels and let her blonde locks fall loose down her shoulders. Cheers star Kelsey kept it casual for the outing as he sported a navy jacket with matching trousers and a pair of trainers. Kelsey Grammer and his wife Kayte Walsh packed on the PDA as they enjoyed a romantic dinner date in Beverly Hills on Tuesday The actor, 69, and his partner, 45, wrapped their arms around each other and shared a kiss after departing E Baldi restaurant Kayte, who is from Hartlepool, England, met Kelsey back in 2009 when he was a passenger on one of her flights to London. The two sparked up a romance when the actor was still legally married to his third wife, Camille Meyer. In a past interview with Jimmy Kimmel in 2012, the actor recalled going out with Kayte for the first time and explained: 'We went out for coffee several days later and had this magical night in the snow in London around Christmastime. It was two years ago,' per People. The two lovebirds announced their engagement in December 2010, and tied the knot during a romantic ceremony two months later on February 25, 2011 at The Plaza Hotel in the heart of New York City. Kelsey's divorce from Camille Meyer had been finalised only days before the nuptials on February 10. At the time, the Hollywood star spoke about his fourth marriage to People and stated, '[It's] like it's never happened before,' and later called Kayte 'fantastic.' The couple welcomed a daughter, Faith Evangeline, in 2012, although the two initially were expecting twins, losing their son in a miscarriage. They also share son, Kelsey Gabriel, born in 2014, and another boy, Auden James, who was welcomed to the world in 2016. The Tony winner shares an additional four children from previous relationships: son Jude, 18, and daughter Mason, 21, with Camille, daughter Greer, 31, with Barrie Buckner, and another daughter, Spencer, 39, with first wife, Doreen Alderman. Bradley Cooper has admitted he is not sure he would be alive if he hadn't become a dad. The Hangover star, 49, welcomed his daughter Lea with his model ex-girlfriend Irina Shayk in 2017 and explained how raising his little girl prompted him to change his life for the better and put his previous battles with addiction behind him for good. During an appearance on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, Bradley emotionally explained: 'Honestly I'm not sure I'd be alive if I wasn't a dad. I don't know what would have happened. I am not sure.' 'I just needed someone to say, like, "We're gonna drop this massive anchor". I'm like, "Why? We're speeding! I just got an upgrade on the boat, and I know where the wind's coming in." They're like, "No, no, no, there's a tsunami coming in, and you need an anchor and we're gonna drop it. Because this is gonna dictate everything you do from now on. Your DNA is going to tell you that there's something more important than you".' Bradley Cooper, 49, has admitted he might not be alive if he hadn't become a dad to his daughter Lea, six (pictured at the Maestro screen in December) The emotional revelation comes after Bradley was roasted by fans earlier this week after bursting into tears over 'missing' late Maestro composer Leonard Bernstein - despite never meeting him Bradley went on to insist he changed his life because he wanted to give Lea a more stable upbringing than his own after his early years were blighted by alcoholism in his family. He added: 'I'm a father [seeking to do] the least amount of damage I can do to my daughter. To have a child not grow up in that way I want her to have, as much as she can, a foundation that's like 25 feet thick, cement, that she can walk on this earth with. That's the goal. 'I can just feel the safety that she feels. It's so tangible; it's palpable,. That is so fulfilling.' The actor also opened up about his feelings for Lea, admitting he didn't feel the strong love of a father until a couple of months after her birth. He said: '[For the first couple of months I thought] "I don't even know if I really love the kid. It's dope. It's cool. I'm watching this thing morph"... [But] all of a sudden, it's like no question.' Last summer Bradley spoke about how he was raising his daughter, as he explained: 'I think, I mean, you learn from your predecessor's mistakes. And I'll make tons that hopefully Lea will learn from. 'And then...end up being rigorous with myself to grow, to help unburden her with any of my s**t.' It comes after Bradley was roasted by fans after bursting into tears over 'missing' late Maestro composer Leonard Bernstein - despite never meeting him. Bradley went on to insist he changed his life because he wanted to give Lea a more stable upbringing than his own after his early years were blighted by alcoholism in his family Bradley shares Lea with his ex-girlfriend model, Irina Shayk (the former couple seen in 2018 in NYC) The acclaimed actor, 49, who is nominated in the Best Actor Oscar category for his portrayal of Bernstein , broke down in tears as he spoke during a resurfaced December interview with CBS Sunday Morning - surrounded by the composer's children Bernstein died aged 72 in 1990 when Bradley was just 15 and an aspiring actor - but The Hangover star said he felt the composer's 'energy' during Maestro filming The acclaimed actor, who is nominated in the Best Actor Oscar category for his portrayal of Bernstein, broke down in tears as he spoke during a resurfaced December interview with CBS Sunday Morning - surrounded by the composer's children. Bernstein died aged 72 in 1990 when Bradley was just 15 and an aspiring actor - but the star said he felt the composer's 'energy' during Maestro filming. When asked if he missed Bernstein, Bradley teared up as he said: 'Oh, yeah. It's hard to talk about. 'I don't know. We shared something very special, the four of us [referring to Bernstein's children Jamie, Nina and Alexander] It's hard to even articulate, but he was with me, certainly, throughout the entire time. 'His energy has somehow found its way to me and I really do feel like I know him.' Fans on TikTok quickly slated the star for his emotional reaction, with one writing: 'Bradley Cooper is an idiot even [Bernstein's] kids didn't get that emotional.' Another typed: 'Bradley Cooper was 15 years old when this man died, he doesn't miss or know s**t' while a third quipped: 'This is his best performance!' Another penned: 'Austen [sic] Butler and his Elvis voice. Bradley and this weirdo st. These actors and their god complexes' while one fan wrote: 'This is actually embarrassing Maestro is such an obvious Oscar bait.' Others defended Bradley saying: 'He literally studied the man for 3 years. Practiced his role day in and day out. No doubt it's become a part of him.' Last year Bradley revealed he spent six years how to compose music for Maestro. He revealed to moderator Lin-Manuel Miranda during a New York City tastemaker screening that he spent six years to learn composing... for a six-minute scene. The scene in question was capturing Bernstein's iconic performance conducting the 1976 London Symphony Orchestra in Ely Cathedral, which 'terrified' Bradley. When asked if he missed Bernstein, Bradley teared up as he said: 'Oh, yeah. It's hard to talk about. 'I don't know. We shared something very special, the four of us [referring to Bernstein's children Jamie, Nina and Alexander] He added: 'His energy has somehow found its way to me and I really do feel like I know him' The real Leonard Bernstein and wife Felicia Montealegre, played by Carey Mulligan in Maestro are pictured in 1959 Bradley does not shy away from fully immersing himself in his characters, revealing he spent six years how to compose music for Maestro 'That scene I was so worried about because we did it live. That was the London Symphony Orchestra. I was recorded live, I had to conduct them,' Bradley said. 'And I spent six years learning how to conduct six minutes and 21 seconds of music,' he admitted, while crediting his 'wonderful teachers' for all their help along the way. 'I was able to get the raw take where I just watched Leonard Bernstein [conduct] at Ely Cathedral with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976,' Bradley said. 'And so I had that to study. And Yannick Nezet-Seguin made videos with all the tempo changes, so I had all of the materials to just work on,' he continued. 'It was really about dialing exactly what I wanted cinematically and theninviting them into then inhabit that space and trusting that they have all done the work,' Bradley added. 'Because I think that I knew, I was terrified, absolutely terrified that if I hadn't done the work that I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself in these scenes. And everybody did,' he said. The film has picked up seven Oscar nominations including Best Actor, Actress for Carey Mulligan and Best Picture. Emily Ratajkowski looked nothing short of sensational as she made her way to the Courreges runway show during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday. The model, 32, was seemingly attending as a guest but looked ready to rule the runway in an asymmetric black leather crop top. Emily's statement top, which featured one gloved sleeve, perfectly showcased her gym-honed washboard abs with her low-slung skirt. The actress' almost maxi-length skirt was styled with black heeled boots, while she carried her essentials in a chic handbag. Emily wore her blossy brunette locks loose, styled in a centre parting with her bangs framing her pretty features, which were enhanced with soft touches of make-up. Emily Ratajkowski looked nothing short of sensational as she made her way to the Courreges runway show during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday The model, 32, was seemingly attending as a guest but looked ready to rule the runway in an asymmetric black leather crop top Emily's outing comes hours after she put on an eye-popping display as she donned a busty black dress as she stepped out for a fitting on Tuesday. She cut a stylish figure as she showcased her ample cleavage as she went braless in a very lowcut black knee-length dress. Her chic garment featured a cheeky slit up the centre, drawing attention to her toned legs dressed in thigh-high open-toe boots. The My Body author, who previously stepped back from her acting ambitions, kept her look elegant as she paired her outfit with a simple, shiny black clutch. It was recently announced that Emily has returned to her passions for acting and is in talks to join the cast of Too Much, according to Variety. She will play the ex-girlfriend of Will Sharpe's Felix, who has entered a new relationship with American ex-pat Jessica, played by Megan Stalter. The show is the latest brainchild of Girls star Lena Dunham. The model confirmed the talks by sharing a copy of the article on social media and wrote 'thrilled' next to the post. Emily's statement top, which featured one gloved sleeve, perfectly showcased her gym-honed washboard abs with her low-slung skirt The actress' almost maxi-length skirt was styled with black heeled boots, while she carried her essentials in a chic handbag Filming is scheduled to take place in New York and in London, where Emily was born. Her family moved to southern California when she was a child. Emily was signed with Ford Models at age 14, but also pursued acting where is ppeared in a recurring role on Nickelodeon's iCarly. The versatile star has also played small parts in Gone Girl, I Feel Pretty and most recently in History of the World: Part II. Vick Hope has revealed she is returning to Countdown this week to present Dictionary Corner. The TV presenter, 34, took to Instagram and shared a series of stunning snaps of herself on the famous set. The star looked incredible in the snaps as she donned a floral short-sleeved mini dress with a cut out detail along the midirff. In another photo, Vick slipped into a black polka dot mini dress which she wore over a white shirt. She also turned heads in a figure-hugging gold mini dress with a low cut neckline while posing alongside Rachel Riley, Colin Murray and Susie Dent. Vick Hope has revealed she is returning to Countdown this week to present Dictionary Corner The TV presenter, 34, took to Instagram and shared a series of stunning snaps of herself on the famous set Alongside the post, she wrote: 'Vicktionary Corner is back!!! Tune into Countdown on @channel4 every day this week at 2:10pm as I join Susie, Colin & Rachel in Dictionary Corner. Oooooh I ABSOLUTELY BLOODY LOVE WORDS!!!!' Vick has presented the Dictionary Corner in the past when Susie Dent has been absent. The TV star is married to DJ Calvin Harris, with the pair tying the knot in Northumberland in September 2023. Calvin admitted he struggles to keep up with his wife after recently turning 40. The Scottish DJ joined MistaJam and Rag'n'Bone Man - whom he recently released new single Lovers In A Past Life with - on the Capital Dance Evening Show, where he shed light on his future career plans. During the chat, Calvin opened up on life with wife Vick, 34, as well as revealing he will quit DJing within the next ten years. As MistaJam welcomed him to the 40s club, the presenter asked: 'Have you had any changes to your lifestyle since you turned 40?' Calvin said: 'I think so. But I think the run up to it, you're googling anti-aging supplements and what I should be eating. Yeah, I feel that it's been getting a bit heavier on my mind. Vick turned heads in a figure-hugging gold mini dress with a low cut neckline while posing alongside Rachel Riley , Colin Murray and Susie Dent In another look, she donned a white midi dress with an orange print In another photo, Vick slipped into a black polka dot mini dress which she wore over a white shirt Vick has presented the Dictionary Corner in the past when Susie Dent has been absent Alongside the post, she wrote: 'Vicktionary Corner is back!!! Tune into Countdown on @channel4 every day this week at 2:10pm as I join Susie, Colin & Rachel in Dictionary Corner. Oooooh I ABSOLUTELY BLOODY LOVE WORDS!!!!' Calvin Harris has claimed he struggles to 'keep up' with wife Vick since turning 40 in January 'And you know, my Mrs, she's got so much energy, I'm trying to keep up with her! So, yeah, but you know, it feels good. It feels good. I like, I like the age.' Calvin went on to share: 'I always said that once I get past 50, I can't see me DJing. I'd prefer to be in the studio making tunes. 'The more commercial end [of DJing], it can get a little bit... suspect.' Legendary DJ Calvin is best know for chart-topping hits like One Kiss, This Is What You Came For and Outside. After their wedding Calvin and Vick jetted off to Brindisi in Italy on a 25million private jet for their romantic honeymoon. The couple were joined by their family and friends in an outdoor ceremony at Hulne Priory in Alnwick, Northumberland, before partying into the early hours. Bianca Censori shocked onlookers once again as she wore her most explicit outfit to date in Paris on Tuesday night. The wife and 'muse' of Kanye West, 29, went underwear free beneath a pair of sheer stockings during a public outing with the rapper, 46. It is not the first time Bianca risked facing prison or a fine of 15,000 for testing the laws of exhibitionism with her looks getting increasingly racier. There was also grave concern from Bianca's inner circle, who insisted her behaviour was not a reflection of who she really is, but rather a result of Kanye's influence over her. Here we take a look at Bianca's most outrageous looks from barely there bodysuits to wearing nothing underneath sheer raincoats. Paris Fashion Week hosiery Bianca Censori could face prison or a fine of 15,000 after testing the laws of exhibitionism in Paris when she went underwear free beneath a pair of sheer stockings on Tuesday While Kanye's 'wife and muse' may be no stranger to exposing her body in public, her latest act could cause trouble with French officials if she is found in breach of their decency laws The Yeezy architect wore her most explicit outfit to date as she went underwear free under sheer tights on Tuesday. Bianca did not attempt to conceal her genitals or bare backside in the garment as crowds of shocked onlookers rushed to take pictures. She also did not appear to be wearing a shirt or bra under a cropped fur coat as she returned to the Ritz Hotel with hoodie-clad Kanye after enjoying dinner at Ferdi. While Kanye's 'muse' may be no stranger to exposing her body in public, her latest act could cause trouble with French officials if she is found in breach of their decency laws. Milan Fashion Week underwear-free bodysuit Bianca left almost nothing to the imagination as she wore an incredibly risque outfit to the Marni show during Milan Fashion Week last week The Australian fashion designer donned a daring black bodysuit that barely contained her curves Bianca went braless in the revealing garment which also featured a matching strap along the sides as she joined her husband on the front row Bianca left almost nothing to the imagination as she wore an incredibly risque outfit to the Marni show during Milan Fashion Week last week. The Australian fashion designer donned a daring black bodysuit that barely contained her curves. Bianca went braless in the revealing garment which also featured a matching strap along the sides. Kanye declares Bianca will be wearing LESS clothes than ever before Last month, Kanye declared his wife Bianca will be wearing even less clothes in 2024, after sharing a slew of racy snaps to his Instagram account. The controversial rapper - known as Ye - posted three separate pictures of Bianca to his 18.4M followers, with one captioned: 'No pants this year'. Last month, Kanye declared his wife Bianca will be wearing even less clothes in 2024, after sharing a slew of racy snaps to his Instagram account The controversial rapper - known as Ye - posted three separate pictures of Bianca to his 18.4M followers, with one captioned: 'No pants this year Bianca wore a latex head mask as she posed to the side He also posted a picture of her walking out of the shower of lavish hotel room, looking down at her feet dressed in black, knee-high boots and nearly spilling out of her tiny outfit Kanye showed off his wife who donned a skimpy, fur bra top, which revealed her ample assets, and nothing else but a micro thong. He also posted a picture of her walking out of the shower of lavish hotel room, looking down at her feet dressed in black, knee-high boots and nearly spilling out of her tiny outfit. Nearly naked Super Bowl outfit Bianca went nearly-naked as she partied after the Super Bowl. The Australian designer flashed her bust and posterior in an ill-fitting tan bodysuit Bianca went nearly-naked as she partied after the Super Bowl. The Australian designer flashed her bust and posterior in an ill-fitting tan bodysuit - forcing her to cover her chest as she suffered continual wardrobe malfunctions. The garment - which she wore without underwear - revealed nearly all of the star's body as she danced with fellow revelers. Her locks were worn slicked back from her face and she sported a light touch of make-up. Bianca was seen constantly readjusting the outfit as she danced, with her sideboob on display. Poncho raincoat Kanye's wife also wore a sheer raincoat with absolutely nothing underneath earlier this month as she made a head-turning arrival to a Los Angeles music studio Kanye's wife also wore a sheer raincoat with absolutely nothing underneath earlier this month as she made a head-turning arrival to a Los Angeles music studio alongside her mask-clad husband. The Australian architect opted to go completely naked beneath her poncho bar a pair of knee high black boots. Branding across the front of the coat helped shield her ample chest, yet she was forced to place her hand over her groin to protect her modesty. The bizarre look has been heavily criticised online, with one person writing on X, formerly Twitter: 'What is wrong with this couple? I just don't get it. Why?' Another questioned: 'This has to be illegal. This is literally public indecency,' while a third individual added: 'No love, this is not fashion.' Crude details Bianca pictured in January turning heads with a top and shorts combo while going braless The couple did their best to shock onlookers yet again as they headed to a tanning salon in Los Angeles last month. Bianca ensured all eyes would be on her as she went braless in a tight white vest with 'wet' emblazoned across the chest. Yet it wasn't her top that proved to be the most racy part of her ensemble as a closer inspection of her tiny black shorts revealed a very crude element. A small hole was visible at the front of the pants, which is designed to accommodate sex toys. The Packer Gear pants can be bought in sex shops for $50 and can be used on both men and women. Nude bodysuits and stuffed toy animals Late last year, Bianca wore a slew of increasingly more bizarre ensembles , including nude sheer tops and a silver string bodysuit all of which she teamed with oversized stuffed toys (pictured left). Pictured right, Bianca in Italy wearing a nude jumpsuit Bianca commanded attention earlier this month in LA when sporting a statement headpiece and matching coat During their time in Florence, Verona and Rome in 2023, the rapper and his wife shocked with their bizarre outfit choices, with Kanye regularly seen out barefoot and Bianca often barely clothed. Yet they took things a step further in Venice, when they were accused of performing a lewd sex act on a river boat, with Kanye seen exposing his bare buttocks while Bianca kneeled in front of him. Their bizarre behaviour prompted fury from Italian locals who declared the couple 'banned' from the country, and their antics even sparked a police investigation. There was also grave concern from Bianca's inner circle, who insisted her behaviour was not a reflection of who she really is, but rather a result of Kanye's influence over her. Meanwhile, late last year, Bianca wore a slew of increasingly more bizarre ensembles, including nude sheer tops and a silver string bodysuit all of which she teamed with oversized stuffed toys. In January, Kanye shared a series of revealing snaps of his wife on Instagram. He first posted a trio of pictures of Bianca to his 18.4million Instagram followers, showing her dressed in a black string bikini top and thong. The rapper declared there will be 'no pants this year,' alongside one image of her in a string thong and fur bralette, while another showing her spilling out of a barely-there top, read: 'Dropped sumn?' Kanye's post raised eyebrows as he had previously criticized his ex Kim Kardashian for being 'overly sexualized,' while promoting her SKIMS brand, and once also claimed the wet look Thierry Mugler dress she wore to the 2019 Met Gala was 'too sexy'. Bianca and Kanye secretly wed in December 2022, just one month after he finalized his divorce from Kim Kardashian, 43. Since then, friends have expressed ongoing fears that the rapper is manipulating his so-called 'wife' and many believe his latest actions continue to highlight a pattern of 'controlling' behaviour. In his latest stunt, Kanye is said to have banned Bianca from using social media to protect her from negative comments, according to insiders, who claim her friends believe it's really another tactic to further 'isolate' her. Despite the architectural designer's loved ones staging an intervention concerning her relationship with the rapper and his 'controlling ways,' her husband appears to have changed her attitude towards social media. Bianca's earlier outfits showed her going braless in crop tops and leggings 'Bianca has always had social media and she was active on it until she married Kanye,' an insider exclusively told DailyMail.com. 'He doesnt want her to have it because he thinks that it will hurt her if she had to read the nasty things that people say. 'He convinced her that, since she is a star now, she has to remain a mystery and it is creepy to those who know her as it feels like another form of control.' However, friends have taken issue with the fact Kanye is posting racy images of his wife on his own Instagram account despite allegedly claiming she needs protection. The insider added: 'He is pushing her nakedness all over his own [account] so that he can control her narrative. It is disturbing, and by shutting her off from the world he is causing her to become more and more isolated.' Friends are said to be stunned to see the usually assertive designer going along with Kanye's demands as the source stressed: 'This strong Bianca that was not going to deal with his s*** anymore has seemingly vanished once again. 'She is wearing what he wants, going where he wants and doing what he wants because she really has no other choice. She went from being his designer to his wife, which is unfortunately, not a paid position. Shes trapped.' Big Brother spin-off show Late & Live will return for the new series of Celebrity Big Brother when it kicks off on March 4. Presenters AJ Odudu and Will Best are both returning to host the panel show where they will be joined by a host of celebrity guests. TV presenter Oti Mabuse, radio host Jordan North and dancer and actor Layton Williams will each take turns in assuming the role of the Celebrity House Guest. They will offer commentary and debate alongside a star-studded cast of fellow celebrity guests. The launch episode of Big Brother: Late & Live in 2023 consolidated with 0.6m viewers and the best episode of the series achieved 1m viewers, which was ITV2's third biggest programme title that year based on best episode. Big Brother spin-off show Late & Live will return for the new series of Celebrity Big Brother when it kicks off on March 4 Presenters AJ Odudu and Will Best are both returning to host the panel show where they will be joined by a host of celebrity guests With the return of the celebrity series less than a week away, ITV bosses have reportedly secured a sensational line-up of stars for the exciting reboot of the show, which was last broadcast on Channel 5 in August 2018. And AJ and Will took to Instagram on Monday night to reveal a huge change ahead of the launch, as viewers will now be voting to save their favourite housemates, rather than evict. AJ announced: 'Celebrity Big Brother is just around the corner so we are coming at you with big news.' As Will explained: 'You'll remember the last series of Big Brother you were voting to evict. This time for Celeb BB you are voting for your favourite housemate. You're always voting to save.' Pondering on how this huge change to the voting structure will impact the show, AJ continued: 'I don't know how it's going to change the dynamics within the Big Brother house or how fans are going to rally behind their favourite celebrity but I for one cannot wait to find out!' However not all fans were convinced by the new format as they took to the comment section to share their frustration at the change. One exclaimed: 'Never understood why people prefer vote to save. The houseguests nominate for eviction, we should vote the same.' A second ranted: 'Have never really understood vote to save - surely they are called evictions for a reason, so the voting should be to evict.' TV presenter Oti Mabuse (pictured), radio host Jordan North and dancer and actor Layton Williams will each take turns in assuming the role of the Celebrity House Guest Another mused: 'if voting was done this way last season the evictions would have looked a lot different'. Another angry fan penned: 'Hate voting to save, theres then no way of getting the one you want out because you cant vote for everybody else'. While another added: 'hate vote to savealways have always will. Its not how BB should be, I detest itare celebs too sensitive to be voted to evict then?' Channel 5 experimented with the 'vote to save' when Big Brother switched to the network from Channel 4 in 2011. Yet after just two series' the show's bosses reverted back to the 'vote to evict' format until the show was eventually axed in 2018 before its ITV return last year. However among the frustration there were some fans who were keen for the change as they supported ITV's decision. One pleaded: 'KEEP THIS FOR NORMAL BB AS WELL!!' and a second added: 'Make it Vote to Save ON BOTH series please!' AJ and Will took to Instagram on Monday night to reveal a huge change ahead of the launch, as viewers will now be voting to save their favourite housemates, rather than evict However not all fans were convinced by the new format as they took to the comment section to share their frustration at the change However among the frustration there were some fans who were keen for the change as they supported ITV's decision While the housemates are yet to be announced, celebrities who are said to be in talks to take part include former Love Island winner Ekin-Su Culculoglu (L) and ex X Factor judge Louis Walsh (R) Another wrote: 'Vote to Save is always better. We never would have lost Nikki in BB7 if her eviction was Vote to Save. Plenty of examples of why Save is better. Lets keep those big characters in longer! well done ITV!!!!!' Meanwhile Kerry Riches from Big Brother's latest series wrote: 'Aww love the new change. Vote to Save feels nice! Bring on The Launch of CBB'. While the housemates are yet to be announced, celebrities who are said to be in talks to take part include former Love Island winner Ekin-Su Culculoglu and ex X Factor judge Louis Walsh. Sharon Osbourne has also been rumoured for the lineup as has former This Morning presenter Fern Britton, who has no intention on 'holding back' from shedding light on her past feud with Phillip Schofield. Celebrity Big Brother starts on March 4 on ITV1, STV, ITVX and STV Player. Kate Moss displayed her supermodel legs in tiny shorts as she struck a pose after the Yves Saint Laurent fashion show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday. The fashion icon, 50, posed up a storm with her legs perched up on a vintage couch following the star-studded catwalk. Turning heads in the French capital, Kate slipped on tiny leather shorts and a glamorous faux-fur cropped jacket. Iris Law followed closely in Kate's footsteps as she flashed her model legs and slender arms for the sexy snaps. The daughter of actor Jude Law and Sadie Frost, 23, exuded elegance in a backless satin garment. Kate Moss, 50, displayed her supermodel legs in tiny shorts as she struck a pose after the Yves Saint Laurent fashion show during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday Iris Law, 23, followed closely in Kate's footsteps as she flashed her model legs and slender arms for the sexy snaps She complemented her look with opaque black tights, a statement black hat and black-rimmed sunglasses. Meanwhile Linda Evangelista, 58, looked extravagant in a structured jacket and roll-neck sweatshirt. The supermodel displayed her incredible posture in her statement double-breasted jacket as she posed for a photo. Eva Herzigova, 50, looked effortlessly stylish in a brown suit and showcased her gorgeous blonde curly locks, with a swipe of red lipstick. Zoe Kravitz, 35, showcased her tiny frame in a brown mini-dress as she struck a pose after attending the catwalk. Honey Dijon was the epitome of class as she posed in a structured shoulder-padded blazer and trousers. The American DJ, 53, flaunted her chest in a plunging, semi-sheer white vest top, while accessorising with a bold gold bracelet. The great and good of British and European style were in attendance as Yves Saint Laurent unveiled their latest collection at Paris Fashion Week. Meanwhile Linda Evangelista, 58, looked extravagant in a structured jacket and roll-neck sweatshirt Eva Herzigova , 50, looked effortlessly stylish in a brown suit and showcased her gorgeous blonde curly locks, with a swipe of red lipstick Zoe Kravitz , 35, showcased her tiny frame in a brown mini-dress as she struck a pose after attending the catwalk Lily Collins, 34, gave a glimpse at her midriff in a cropped black waistcoat with a plunging neckline which she wore under an open jacket in the same colour Kate's daughter Lila, 21, went braless in a skin-tight, floor-length, long-sleeved number and stunning gold bracelets Honey Dijon was the epitome of class as she posed in a structured shoulder-padded blazer and trousers The French fashion house, famed for its haute couture ready-to-wear accessories and leather goods, debuted their imminent fall-winter range during a star-studded presentation at Place Jacques Rueff in the French capital. It comes after Kate jetted off to the French capital to ring in her 50th birthday with her nearest and dearest last month. The supermodel celebrated her birthday in the opulent, pastel-coloured environs of the exclusive Laurent Restaurant in the heart of Paris's Marigny Square district alongside boyfriend Nikolai Von Bismarck , 37, daughter Lila and the fashion world's elite. Despite her newfound spirituality and alcohol-free lifestyle it was far from a sedate affair. The group took over the entire Michelin-star venue and transformed it into their personal nightclub, complete with a dancefloor and makeshift catwalk. Sienna Miller looked in great spirits as she beamed from ear to ear while out and about in Paris on Wednesday. The actress, 42, looked positively radiant as she opted for a chic ensemble after welcoming a baby girl with her boyfriend Oli Green, 27, back in January. Showing off her incredible figure less than two months after giving birth, Sienna opted for a cream trench coat over a simple black sweater and grey tailored trousers. Leaving the Hotel Bristol, Sienna let her blonde locks fall naturally over her shoulders as she donned some large black shades. The star accessorised the look with a small cream handbag and black buckled boots as she strode around the French capital. Sienna Miller, 42, put on a chic display in a trench coat and grey trousers less than two months after giving birth as she stepped out for Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday Showing off her incredible figure less than two months after giving birth, Sienna opted for a cream trench coat over a simple black sweater and grey tailored trousers Sienna looked to be taking some time away from her parental duties as she appeared without her newborn. The star already has daughter Marlowe, 10, from her previous relationship with actor Tom Sturridge, 38. Her and Oli were pictured with their newborn in January as they made a stylish outing to a coffee shop in west London in a khaki coat and denim jumpsuit with a 3,300 designer Artipoppe baby carrier strapped to her. Sienna's pregnancy was revealed during a beach holiday in August where she stepped out sporting a bump. In December Sienna covered Vogue as she spoke for the first time about her pregnancy and revealed she was having a girl. In incredible photos taken to accompany the interview she displayed her bare bump alongside both Marlowe and boyfriend Oli. Sienna spoke candidly about her pregnancy and how it had been 'unplanned', but admitted she feels 'more psychologically prepared' than with her first born. During the rare interview, Sienna said that Marlowe has been angling for a sibling for some time. Leaving the Hotel Bristol, Sienna let her blonde locks fall naturally over her shoulders as she donned some large black shades Sienna looked positively radiant in the stylish ensemble after welcoming a baby girl with her boyfriend Oli Green, 27, back in January In December Sienna covered Vogue as she spoke for the first time about her pregnancy and revealed she was having a girl Sienna also said she'd been fighting her own prejudices about being an older mother and has to learn to stop making a joke out of it. She told the publication: 'I'd love to get to a point where I didn't feel the need to make a joke of my being older and having a baby, to show I'm in on the joke.' And in a video she filmed with Vogue, Sienna revealed that the pregnancy was an unplanned one. She revealed: 'I was very fortunate. I wasn't necessarily trying to get pregnant. This happened as a total surprise and biologically was something I was able to do.' Sienna went on to further address the stigma around pregnancy as an older woman as she has fought her own prejudices around the subject. She added: 'I think people are comfortable with a way of living that has existed for many years, which is very misogynistic and patriarchal. 'Like me being the older woman in a partnership with a younger person or being pregnant over 40 and that that's irresponsible and poor child and it's such double standards.' On what is different this time around, she said: 'I have expectations where I had none before. I feel much more psychologically prepared than I was with Marlowe. 'It was quite a shock, the reality. I hadn't given it the thought, I guess you can't prepare for it. In my mind I imagine it's going to be the loveliest, but I think I've forgotten.' Jake Gyllenhaal showed off his ripped physique as he wrestled Conor McGregor in new images from his 1980s remake of Road House. The actor, 43, plays Elwood Dalton in the film, a former UFC fighter who becomes a bouncer for a dingy bar in the Florida Keys. UFC fighter Conor, 35, will also star in the reboot of the cult classic that starred Patrick Swayze, set to be released on Amazon Prime on March 21. In the photos, Conor displayed his skill as he pulled Jake into a headlock. The fighter will play a character called Knox. Both men showed off their muscular physiques as they grappled with one another. In another photo Jake sported a bloodied and bruised face after a fight. Jake Gyllenhaal showed off his ripped physique as he wrestled Conor McGregor in new images from his 1980s remake of Road House The actor, 43, plays Elwood Dalton in the film, a former UFC fighter who becomes a bouncer for a dingy bar in the Florida Keys Jakes unconventional peace-keeping methods as a bouncer bring him into direct conflict with some feisty characters, including Conor's Knox. Jessica Williams, Daniela Melchior (in the Kelly Lynch role) and Billy Magnussen (in Ben Gazzara's place), star alongside UFC fighter Conor. Jake's character, renamed Elwood for the remake, has a love interest portrayed by The Suicide Squad breakout Daniela Melchior. No Time To Die actor Billy Magnusson, You hunk Travis Van Winkle and veteran Portuguese actor Joaquim de Almeida are also in the cast. It comes as Hollywood writer Lance Hill sued Amazon.com on Tuesday to halt its upcoming remake of the 1989 film Road House, arguing the film violates his rights in the original's screenplay. Lance, 81, said in the California federal court lawsuit Amazon never received a license to remake his screenplay after he reclaimed his copyright in it. He requested an unspecified amount of monetary damages and a court order to block Amazon from distributing the movie without a new license. The remake, starring Jake, is set to debut as the opening night film at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, on March 8 and then move to Amazon's Prime Video streaming platform on March 21. UFC fighter Conor, 35, will also star in the reboot of the cult classic that starred Patrick Swayze Film stills were released ahead of Road House's premiere set for March 21 on Amazon Prime Jakes unconventional peace-keeping methods as a bouncer bring him into direct conflict with some feisty characters, including Conor's Knox Conor looked bloodied as he posed shirtless in a behind the scenes photo from set An Amazon MGM Studios spokesperson said the lawsuit was 'completely without merit.' Hill's attorney, Marc Toberoff, said that major studios should 'respect the fundamental rights and artistry of creators on whose sweat and toil their empires are based.' The lawsuit said Hill wrote the Road House screenplay in 1986 and transferred his rights to the film's producer United Artists later that year. U.S. copyright law allows artists to terminate transfers and reclaim their rights after decades in some circumstances. Hill told the court that he notified Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns United Artists, in 2021 that he was reclaiming his rights to the screenplay. MGM allegedly responded that Hill could not reclaim the copyright. Amazon acquired MGM in March 2022. Hill said he regained his copyright last November, and that Amazon set a deadline to finish the film the day before the termination became effective. Hill said Amazon took 'extreme measures' to meet the deadline, including using artificial intelligence to recreate actors' voices during a Screen Actors Guild strike, but did not finish the movie until January. Amazon's spokesperson denied that the remake uses any AI in place of actors' voices. Hill frequently used the pseudonym David Lee Henry in Hollywood and he is best known for the cult film Road House. Henry is credited with creating the story for the original Road House and shares screenplay co-writing credit with Hilary Henkin, 71. Hollywood writer Lance Hill sued Amazon.com on Tuesday to halt its upcoming remake of the 1989 film Road House that starred the late Patrick Swayze, shown in a still from the cult movie Swayze is shown in a fight scene from Road House Reset to the Florida Keys, the remake is directed by Doug Liman, whose filmography includes Swingers, The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Jake has a longtime connection to the late Patrick Swayze, having worked with him on the beloved 2001 sci-fi thriller Donnie Darko. 'He was always so loving and lovely to me,' Jake recalled on Good Morning America in 2022 after wrapping production on the new Road House. 'I take that all to heart in playing the role and there are some things I take from him, but generally we made a whole new movie and I'm really excited about it.' He acknowledged that remaking Road House was a formidable task, saying: 'They're big shoes to fill, but Patrick was a friend when he was here.' Patrick Swayze died at the age of just 57 in 2009, less than two years after being diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. The new Road House will not receive a theatrical release, but will be available for streaming via Amazon Prime on March 21. Director Doug Liman recently announced he is protesting the films SXSW premiere in response to Amazons decision to skip a theatrical release for the movie, which he says was made for theaters. Nicola Peltz has paid homage to her mother-in-law Victoria Beckham with her latest outfit choice amid speculation she will walk in her Paris Fashion Week show. The actress, 29, stepped out in the stylish Dolce & Gabanna leather jacket, which was the exact same one worn by the fashion designer, 49, in 2001. The motocross jacket worn by Victoria originally cost 965, however they are now being snapped up second hand for 7,800 on one pre-loved site. The jacket proved incredibly popular at the time with stars including Naomi Campbell, Madonna and Jennifer Saunders being spotted in it. During the outing in the French capital on Tuesday, Nicola styled the iconic jacket with a pair of blue jeans and black platform heeled boots. Nicola Peltz has paid homage to her mother-in-law Victoria Beckham with her latest outfit choice amid speculation she will walk in her Paris Fashion Week show The actress, 29, stepped out in the stylish Dolce & Gabanna leather jacket, which was the exact same one worn by the fashion designer, 49, in 2001 (pictured) She was with her husband Brooklyn, 24, who wore a vintage-inspired sweatshirt from Le Coq Sportif as he departed his hotel. He teamed the bright red jumper with a pair of straight leg jeans and topped off his casual look with some Dr Martens. Nicola's nod to the Beckham matriarch comes following several hints that she will appear in her fashion show at the end of the week. On Wednesday morning, Nicola tagged Victoria in a snap of herself wearing sheer red lingerie as she posed for a mirror selfie. A day earlier, Victoria hinted that her Nicola will walk in her show after attending a fitting together. The fashion designer, 49, who is currently on crutches after breaking her foot, cosied up to Nicola as they posed for a sweet mirror selfie. Stirring up speculation that Nicola will be modelling her line, Victoria wrote: 'Pre-show prep and fittings in Paris!! Kisses @NicolaAnnePeltzBeckham xx.' Nicola looked incredible in a sheer tulle dress which showcased her toned legs, which were further elongated by a pair of towering white heels. During the outing in the French capital on Tuesday, Nicola styled the iconic jacket with a pair of blue jeans and black platform heeled boots The jacket proved incredibly popular at the time with stars including Naomi Campbell , Madonna (pictured) and Jennifer Saunders being spotted in it Naomi Campbell was spotted in the jacket while arriving at Heathrow Airport in April 2001 Jennifer Saunders proved to be another fan of the jacket as she stepped out in May 2001 The American actress wore her brunette locks in a loose and wavy style, while flashing her huge diamond engagement ring on her hand. Meanwhile, Victoria sported a form-fitting all black ensemble and teamed her medical boot with one white stiletto. The mother of four is currently on crutches after falling over during a gym session and suffering a 'clean break' to her foot. Despite her injury, Victoria is still pressing on with her Fashion Week show preparations, which is due to take place on Friday at 8pm. Nicola was recently revealed as the new face of Balenciaga, joining the likes of Kim Kardashian as an ambassador for the brand. And it seems like she will soon become one of Victoria's 'muses' too, if she walks in the show taking place later this week. On Wednesday morning, Nicola tagged Victoria in a snap of herself wearing sheer red lingerie as she posed for a mirror selfie A day earlier, Victoria hinted that her Nicola will walk in her show after attending a fitting together Stirring up speculation that Nicola will be modelling her line, Victoria wrote: 'Pre-show prep and fittings in Paris!! Kisses @NicolaAnnePeltzBeckham xx' Victoria and Nicola were rumoured to be at odds ever since Nicola decided not to wear a wedding dress signed by the former Spice Girls at her nuptials. However, after apparently putting the feud to bed, the duo appear closer than ever now after a series of recent meet ups and family holidays. It comes soon after it was reported Victoria has vowed to still work with the Mia Regan, who split from Posh's middle son Romeo at the beginning of the month after a five year on-off romance. Victoria is still 'extremely close' with Mia who has for some time been her muse for her fashion business. The model has worn her items and promoted them across social media - and sources close to the family say that she will continue to do so. One told the Mail: 'Victoria absolutely adores Mia and she is really sad that she and Romeo have split. 'She gets it, they are a young couple and of course the chances are they wouldn't stay together forever but she has her own relationship with Mia and the two women will still work together in the future. 'They both love fashion and have had some ideas about what they can do together and that still stands. They have a really close bond and they love working together, they are on the same page when it comes to fashion and what they like. 'There is absolutely no awkwardness, it is all amicable. Even Romeo won't mind which is all very grown up, a lot of young men wouldn't be happy about such a situation.' Jerry Hall displayed her natural beauty as she arrived makeup free into Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on Wednesday. The American model, 67, look positively radiant as she appeared bare-faced in the snaps while puffing on a cigarette. The actress, who shares four children with Mick Jagger, showcased her thick blonde tresses as they hung over her shoulders in natural waves. Walking through the airport, the star covered up with a black face mask as she opted for a casual attire. Dressed in denim jeans, Jerry wrapped up in a fur dark grey coat while carrying her belongings in a small tan brown handbag. Jerry Hall, 67, showed off her natural beauty makeup free while puffing on a cigarette as she arrived for Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday The American model look positively radiant as she appeared bare-faced in the snaps while puffing on a cigarette The star completed her look with a socks and sandals combination as she touched down for the fashionable event. Jerry shares children Georgia May Jagger, 32, Elizabeth Jagger, 39, James Jagger, 38, and Gabriel Jagger, 26, with the Rolling Stones frontman. Georgia May has already made her debut at Paris Fashion Week after she caught the eye of onlookers as she attended the Saint Laurent Womenswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 on Tuesday. The model left little to the imagination as she wore a see-through black halter neck top for the occasion. She wore a black pencil skirt which finished at the knee which she teamed with a brown leather belt at the waist. The star wore a pair of black leather gloves, while she had on some black tights and a pair of heels in the same colour. She wore a chunky gold ring necklace and posed confidently at the event. Her outing comes after her father Sir Mick. 80, hinted that his share of the Rolling Stones' back catalogue will be given to charity instead of his children. Dressed in denim jeans, Jerry wrapped up in a fur dark grey coat while carrying her belongings in a small tan brown handbag Georgia May Jagger has already made her debut at Paris Fashion Week after she caught the eye of onlookers as she attended the Saint Laurent Womenswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 on Tuesday The model, 32, left little to the imagination as she wore a see-through black halter neck top for the occasion Jerry shares children Georgia May Jagger, 32, Elizabeth Jagger, 39, James Jagger, 38, and Gabriel Jagger, 26, with the Rolling Stones frontman (pictured, Georgia, Elizabeth and James in 2017) While the careers of the Hall-Jagger children have varied, youngest son Gabriel tends to keep a low profile (pictured with his father Mick in 2020) Rocker Mick said his eight children 'don't need $500million (400m) to live on', so he has seemingly come up with another way to donate his fortune. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said leaving the money to charity might 'do some good in the world'. The Stones were forced to learn how to handle themselves financially after facing serious problems with ownership rights. They still don't own the rights to their catalogue before 1971 which includes many of their biggest singles such as Satisfaction, Paint it Black and Jumpin Jack Flash. The band hired accountant Allen Klein to stabilise their finances in the 1960s. Allen had worked with The Beatles and the Kinks and negotiated a lucrative deal for the Stones with Decca but when the partnership ended managed to retain ownership of their catalogue for the years in which he managed them from 1965 to 1970. The Stones received millions of pounds in royalties but not as much as if they'd owned the music outright. Other music stars have sold the rights to their work in recent years, including Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Sting. No decisions have been taken on the Stones' catalogue. Bianca Censori's latest risque ensemble sparked fears that she could face prison or a fine of 15,000 after testing the laws of exhibitionism in France. On Tuesday, the Yeezy architect, 29, wore her most explicit outfit to date as she went underwear free beneath a pair of sheer stockings during a public outing with husband Kanye West. She boldly sauntered through the streets of Paris without using her hands to protect her modesty, with crowds of onlookers left gawking at her presence. Yet while Bianca went underwear free on the outing, she wasn't without any covering, as the uncensored pictures released by MailOnline show. Just visible under her stockings was a thin strip of flesh coloured material, secured to her genitals to create a smooth appearance. Bianca Censor relied on a $16 movie set trick that allowed her to go underwear free in sheer tights without breaking French laws on exhibitionism during an outing in Paris on Tuesday Just visible under the stockings was a thin strip of flesh coloured material, secured to her genitals to create a smooth appearance. These types of coverings, such as the $16 Shibue, are typically used on Hollywood movie and TV sets in order to protect the actors' modesty during intimate scenes These types of coverings are typically used on Hollywood movie and TV sets in order to protect the actors' modesty during intimate scenes. HBO's lead intimacy coordinator Alicia Rodis previously revealed that they are the go-to for raunchy moments on set, explaining: 'If we are going to see someone fully naked, but not their genitals and theyre in the bed, with sheets. So what do we need to make sure?' 'We take a Shibue, open it up, and put a silicone guard underneath so everyone becomes like a Barbie doll.' Shibues cost $16 (13) and are held in place by a washable and reusable silicone gel adhesive that is adhered to the top of the vulva and the bottom leaving nothing but a smooth silhouette. While Bianca seemingly used this trick to keep her intimate area under wraps, she didn't take such precautions with her upper half. She also did not appear to be wearing a shirt or bra under a cropped fur coat as she returned to the Ritz Hotel with hoodie-clad Kanye after enjoying dinner at Ferdi. It had been speculated that Bianca's racy ensemble could have seen her breaching Paris' decency laws. Article 222-32 of the new penal code (applicable since 1 March 1994) stipulates: 'Deliberate sexual display in the sight of others in a place accessible to the public gaze is punishable by one year in prison and a fine of one hundred thousand francs. [15,000]' Nudity itself does not equal indecency, however, with the legislator stipulating: 'The charge has been worded in such a way as to rule out any possibility of proceedings against persons practising naturism in places specially designated for this purpose.' Bianca boldly sauntered through the streets of Paris without using her hands to protect her modesty, with crowds of onlookers left gawking at her presence She did not appear to be wearing a shirt or bra under a cropped fur coat as she returned to the Ritz Hotel with hoodie-clad Kanye after enjoying dinner at Ferdi The tights left nothing to the imagination as she made her way towards the restaurant entrance Kanye, 46, was spotted following closely behind his nearly-nude wife This isn't the first time, Bianca has risked a run-in with the law due to her wild antics on holiday. Last year, Bianca ran the risk of a 10,000 fine and imprisonment during the couple's trip to Italy, where she had been walking around 'virtually naked' in the European nation. According to the Italian Constitutional Court, a fine from 5,000 to 10,000 euros can be issued, or whoever exposes in a place or nearby to a place attended by minors, may be sentenced from four months to four years imprisonment. For one outing Bianca went braless in a skintight see through all-in-one and at some points was forced to cover her nipples with a black cross-body bag. Italian locals branded the Kim Kardashian lookalike's outfits 'disrespectful' on social media, with some saying the 'immodest' couple are no longer welcome in a country known for its conservative Catholic heritage. Bianca and Kanye were also investigated by police after they were caught on camera in a compromising position during their Italian holiday. MailOnline has contacted Bianca's representatives and the French embassy for comment. Bianca has paraded around the world with Kanye in barely there looks since they tied the knot in 2022. However, insiders recently claimed to DailyMail.com that Kanye's ex-wife Kim Kardashian warned the rapper to tell Bianca to 'cover up' around their children. Bianca's underwear-free outing in Paris came just one day after she was on stepmom duty with Kanye's eldest daughter North West, 10. The rapper also shares Saint, eight, Chicago, six, and Psalm, four, with Kim. Unlike Tuesday's look, Bianca was uncharacteristically clothed as she took North to dinner on Monday night. Kim and Bianca are said to have an 'amicable' relationship but the risque fashion in front of the kids has become an issue for her. 'Kim instructed Kanye to never let Bianca dress like that around their kids,' a source told DailyMail.com exclusively. 'She is truly surprised that Kanye would let his wife leave the house like that.' Last year, Bianca ran the risk of a 10,000 fine and imprisonment during the couple's trip to Italy, where she had been walking around 'virtually naked' in the European nation Bianca and Kanye were also investigated by police after they were caught on camera in a compromising position during their Italian holiday Unlike Bianca's raunchy wardrobe, Kim was asked to change her outfits if Kanye felt she was showing too much skin, with the artist heavily influencing her fashion choices during their seven-year marriage. 'Kanye did the same thing he is doing with Bianca to Kim throughout heir marriage,' DailyMail.com's source continued. 'The difference is that when Kanye dressed Kim, he was respected as a person as an artist. 'Unfortunately, Kim knows what Bianca is going through but she feels Bianca should have known what she was getting into.' Kim filed for divorce in February 2021 just before what would have been the pair's seventh wedding anniversary. She was declared legally single March 2022 while in the midst of a hot and heavy romance with now-ex boyfriend SNL alum Pete Davidson. In November 2022, Kim and Kanye's divorce was finalized, with Kanye agreeing to pay $200,000 a month in child support and equal custody. Kanye married Yeezy architect Bianca in December 2022 in what was thought a non-legal wedding as it appeared they did not file a marriage certificate. However in mid-October 2023, it was reported that they did in fact get legally married and that it took place last year due to 'religious reasons,' per Us Weekly. Bianca's underwear-free outing in Paris came just one day after she was on stepmom duty with Kanye's eldest daughter North West, 10 Radio 1 star Arielle Free has quit her early morning show and will now be on air only once a week. The host, who currently presents Early Breakfast on Radio 1 from 5am until 7am Monday to Thursday, will be handing over the reigns to Dean McCullough. Arielle will remain at Radio 1 to host a new Dance Show on Thursdays from 8pm at the end of April. The switch comes after Arielle was suspended from the station after she was pulled off air after interrupting Charlie Hedges Saturday's Dance Anthems show last summer. During the incident Arielle, who sounded worse for wear, told Charlie live on air that she 'hated' the song she had just played and kept interrupting her. Radio 1 star Arielle Free has quit her early morning show and will be on air just once a week after THAT on air controversy with Charlie Hedges in July The switch comes after Arielle was suspended from the station after she was pulled off air after interrupting Charlie Hedges Saturday's Dance Anthems show last summer Speaking about the recent reorganisation at Radio 1, head of the station Aled Haydn-Jones said: 'I'd like to thank Arielle for her dedication to helping the nation wake up every week. 'I'm thrilled for her that she's moving into the Radio 1 dance family and I look forward to sharing more around some exciting next steps for Arielle with the station.' Arielle was suspended from her early breakfast show for a week in July after Charlie was forced to tell Arielle to put down the mic, 'have some respect' and get out of her DJ booth. All had seemed well at first when Arielle came on the show and said to Charlie: 'Hi, yeah I sound great don't I? as Charlie laughed, because Arielle was losing her voice. 'You've sounded better,' Charlie responded. 'But it's OK.' Seeming out of sorts, Arielle said: 'Well this is what happened. You play on Friday and you play on Saturday and then your voice just goes.' She then suddenly said: 'Can I be honest with you Charlie?... I expected better of you... ' Charlie interjected: 'What? To sound better, like you?' Arielle said back: 'I don't like this song,' referring to Charlie's song choice of HorsegiirL's My Barn, My Rules. The host, who currently presents Early Breakfast on Radio 1 from 5am until 7am Monday to Thursday, will be handing over the reigns to Dean McCullough and will instead host a new Dance Show on Thursdays from 8pm at the end of April During the incident Arielle, who sounded worse for wear, told Charlie live on air that she 'hated' the song she had just played and kept interrupting her Charlie was forced to tell Arielle to put down the mic, 'have some respect' and get out of her DJ booth in the awkward incident Charlie replied: 'Oh really?' And Arielle responded: 'I hate it!...[Interrupting further]. I'm sorrrryy.' In that moment, an outraged Charlie said: 'Sorry I'm taking your mic down, it's my show Arielle, have some respect please. 'See you later. Get out of here,' ordering her out of the DJ booth. A spokesman for Radio 1 told MailOnline: 'Whilst we would not comment on individual matters, we have strict codes of behaviour for staff and presenters, and any breaches are taken extremely seriously.' Some fans were mortified by Arielle's behaviour on the show. They tweeted: '@ariellefree @ahj that was awful, Charlie did well to shut you down. Any other job and you would be fired!' 'Show some respect Arielle Free @BBCR1. Well done @charliehedges.' '@ariellefree on Monday after @charliehedges show on @BBCR1. Well played Charlie dealt with it like a boss,' [alongside a photo of the job centre). Something to say: Listeners had a mixed response to the on-air debacle Neigh good can come from it: HorsegiirL - the artist whose music prompted the disagreement, is a DJ, producer and songwriter who wears an equine mask to DJ. Who is Arielle Free? Scottish DJ Arielle, 36, famously co-hosted the official Love Island podcast Love Island: The Morning After since 2018. She joined BBC Radio 1 in 2019 to host the early weekend breakfast slot and tours the world as a celebrated Electronic house DJ. She now hosts Monday to Thursday earlies and is the voice of Radio 1's Dance live stream and can be heard on the stage 35 hours a week. In January 2022, she released the single Soul Full that she produced with Bristol music duo Mortimer. The song features vocals by Joe Killington Advertisement Yet others declared themselves Team Arielle and praised her for calling out Charlie's 'infantilised' choice of music. They penned: 'Insane that @BBC has suspended @ariellefree. One of the most talented DJs around today.' 'Unquestionably the wrong approach, but when @ariellefree looks back on this I hope she can take heart that she called out a real issue. 'The current infantilisation of Dance music - even in Ibiza (!)- feels disrespectful to everything that came before.' And: 'This whole @ariellefree 'situation' on @BBCR1 is truly pathetic. People getting het up over nothing...' HorsegiirL - the artist whose music prompted the disagreement, is a DJ, producer and songwriter who wears an equine mask to DJ. The name HorsegiirL is purposefully spelled with an extra 'I' and capital 'L' is known as Stella to her friends. According to Horse And Hound, she represents 'a new wave of electronic artists that prioritise the fun and kitschy, that counters the more serious approach that often permeates the electronic music scene'. The BBC took a host of names out to Ibiza for the Dance Weekend, including Vick Hope and Jordan North. Sunny trip: The BBC also took hosts Jordan North, (left) and Vick Hope (right), to the to the white isle to present their BBC Radio 1 show during Dance Weekend Cute: Vick (third from right) also shared a rare snap with her fiance Calvin Harris partying in Ibiza during that time DJ Arielle famously co-hosted the official Love Island podcast Love Island: The Morning After since 2018. She joined BBC Radio 1 in 2019 to host the early weekend breakfast slot. She now hosts Monday to Thursday earlies and is the voice of Radio 1's Dance stream. Charlie famously got her big break on KISS FM. In January 2016, where she launched the music podcast Skiddle to Mixcloud. She hosted the KISS FM Breakfast Show for 10 years with Rickie and Melvin. Then, in 2018, they moved over to the BBC to replace Charlie Sloth's mid-evening slot, which later moved to the mid-morning section. Charlie now presents Saturday's Dance Anthems. RuPaul is giving his fans an intimate look at his decades-long battle with addiction in his upcoming memoir The House Of Hidden Meanings. The 63-year-old drag queen and reality competition host revealed that he had been getting high 'every day I could' going back to when he was just 10 years old in a new excerpt obtained Wednesday by Time. Although he spoke openly of his struggles with substance abuse, it took RuPaul's then-partner and future husband Georges LeBar's own addiction to help him realize he had a problem. RuPaul (full name: RuPaul Andre Charles) recounted how he was flying high in the 1990s as his profile increased, allowing him to fly to Miami to put on multiple club gigs for $10,000 to $12,000 a pop. But his increased fame and his constant travel separated him form his partner Georges, who was left alone more and more of the time to supervise the renovation of a condo the two had bought in Miami. RuPaul is giving his fans an intimate look at his decades-long battle with addiction in his upcoming memoir The House Of Hidden Meanings; pictured in 2018 in Beverly Hills The 63-year-old drag queen and reality competition host revealed that he had been getting high 'every day I could' going back to when he was just 10 years old in a new excerpt obtained Wednesday by Time RuPaul recalled seeing Georges looking thinner than ever and shared his growing suspicions that something unsavory was going on behind the scenes. 'Georges and I had never had a conversation where we had strictly outlined the terms of our relationship, but it was understood that he was not to hurt my feelings, nor was I to hurt his,' the entertainer wrote. 'Neither of us would ever have done anything to make the other feel uncomfortable when we were together, nor would we have attempted to police each others behavior when we were apart. But I had a sense that Georges was doing things in Miami I wouldnt like.' The House Of Hidden Meanings goes on sale on March 5 After increasingly argumentative and bizarre interactions with Georges, RuPaul arrived back in Miami to find Georges looking gaunter than he ever had in his life. 'I have something I need to tell you,' Georges shared. 'I am addicted to crystal meth.' RuPaul remembered his devastation at the admission. 'In that moment, everything came crashing down. But in the same breath, it all came together,' he explained. 'I knew what this meant. Crystal meth meant anonymous sex. It meant high-risk behavior. It meant brain damage. It meant an extraordinarily high degree of danger,' he continued. RuPaul took his love to a hospital before getting him into a rehab clinic. But first, they had to get high together. 'We parked outside and walked to a grassy area, and I pulled out a joint. "This is going to be our last one," I said. "We lit it and smoked it together."' He and his then-partner and future husband Georges LeBar (L) spent more and more time in Miami beginning in the 1990s, and Georges later became addict to crystal meth there; seen in 2019 in NYC Realizing that Georges was addicted to drugs helped RuPaul to realize he also struggled with addiction, especially after a woman at a 12-step meeting shared a story similar to his own; seen January 7 in LA 'As Id become famous, there was always a bottle of champagne backstage, and then as my workload increased, I had been smoking more and more weed, until I was smoking first thing in the morning,' he admitted; pictured in 1994 He took Georges to 12-step meeting the day after checking him into the hospital. 'I stood close enough to the door that I could bolt at any moment if I felt the urge. I was there as a supportive partner only. This was for Georges, not me,' he stressed. But another woman struggling with addiction helped him realize that he wasn't as detached from Georges addiction battle as he thought. 'A woman then stood at the podium and began to speak. She was 71 years old, she said. She talked about her cocaine use and her life in the club scene, and how she felt invisible in her family, and how she never felt quite right for this world,' he recalled. 'Booze, she said, had been a way for her to maintain her sanity in a life that felt intolerable. She was a middle child, and her parents relationship had been tumultuous. Everything she said rang true to my own story. Is this some sort of hoax? I thought. Everything she is saying is mine. 'She was talking about her life, but she was telling my story,' he continued. 'There was something under her words, a truth that she was allowing to be revealed, that resonated with me in a way I could not describe. She knew me. She was me, and I was her.' With a new consciousness of his behavior, RuPaul was able to examine his history with illicit substances going all the way back to his childhood. 'There had been clues. There are always clues. I had been stoned every day I could since I was 10 years old,' he admitted. Although he cleaned his act up a bit at the start of the 1990s, over time the partying that he shunned made its way back into his life. 'As Id become famous, there was always a bottle of champagne backstage, and then as my workload increased, I had been smoking more and more weed, until I was smoking first thing in the morning,' he admitted. His drug use got riskier too, and he recounted almost taking weed in a jar through customs when he was going to see Elton John, and another time when he crossed into Canada to go to Vancouver and border agents found the remnants of several joints, which could easily have led to his arrest. RuPaul's drug use began as a child. 'There had been clues. There are always clues. I had been stoned every day I could since I was 10 years old,' he admitted He recalled risky behavior, including when he almost when through customs with a jar of weed to see Elton John, and another time when border agents going into Canada discovered a stash of half-smoked joints but didn't arrest him because of his fame He recalled the tense interaction with the officer who confronted him about the drugs. '"Look," he said. "We know who you are. And were going to let you go. But youd better be careful."' Eventually, his fast-paced life caught up with him, and it was impossible to deny to himself that he was addicted 'I was doing my nightclub act, promoting my products, and shooting movies. I was exhausted all the time. And the only way I knew how to feel connected to the little part of me that was still left was to get high,' he admitted. 'Hadnt I always known that this day would come that I would have to admit to myself that I was an addict, too?' RuPaul revealed that, around the same time that Georges was going to rehab, he had been 'buying coke from the sleaziest dealer in New York a guy who later sold footage of celebrities high on heroin to the tabloids and snorting it all by myself.' He and Georges temporarily separated though he stressed that they still talked on the phone every day and the performer began going to 12-step meetings regularly on his own. RuPaul described how the fame and personality that had set him apart from others also made it easier for him to fall into a pattern of addiction. 'For so long I had been motivated by one destiny fame. But now that I had gotten it, what else was there?' he wrote. 'My whole life, I had always been special. In 12-step meetings, they called this a condition of terminal uniqueness this sense of being so different from everyone that it felt like a death sentence. 'But what I wanted now wasnt to be singular, unique, the guy who always stuck out, taller than everyone else, with a name that not another motherf***er alive could carry.' RuPaul and Georges later married in 2017, and they currently split their time between homes in Los Angeles and Wyoming; pictured in 2019 in LA He admitted: 'Because the more I spent time with friends and in meetings and out in the world, the more I was learning that I wasnt so different after all. 'What I had learned in my time away was that I couldnt be motivated by fear of not being enough. I had to be motivated by joy. By colors, music, laughter, dancing, and creativity all the things that made life worth living,' he wrote. RuPaul and Georges later married in 2017, and they currently split their time between homes in Los Angeles and Wyoming. The House Of Hidden Meanings goes on sale on March 5. Jack Antonoff is a fiercely loyal friend and collaborator of Taylor Swift, and he double dares anyone to question her 14-time Grammy-winning songwriting abilities. Two years ago, Gorillaz and Blur frontman Damon Albarn scoffed to the LA Times that the 34-year-old pop star 'doesn't write her own songs.' Outraged, Jack took to Twitter to call the 55-year-old Englishman an 'herb' and wrote: 'I've never met Damon Albarn and he's never been to my studio but apparently he knows more than the rest of us about all those songs Taylor writes and brings in.' 'I'm a little b**** sometimes,' Antonoff told the LA Times on Wednesday. 'But you come after my friend Taylor, you're toast to me. [That] is like challenging someone's faith in God. You just don't go there.' Jack Antonoff (R, pictured February 4) is a fiercely loyal friend and collaborator of Taylor Swift (L), and he double dares anyone to question her 14-time Grammy-winning songwriting abilities Damon decided to 'apologize unreservedly and unconditionally' after Taylor tweeted: 'I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this. I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don't have to like my songs but it's really f***ed up to try and discredit my writing. WOW.' Albarn made headlines again last December for criticizing the Rolling Stones' 'horrible music video' for their song Angry starring the 'objectified' Sydney Sweeney. The 10-time Grammy winner - turning the big 4-0 next month - originally met Swift in 2012 and they first collaborated on her track Sweeter than Fiction for David Frankel's biopic on Britain's Got Talent champ Paul Potts called One Chance. Jack went on to write and produce songs on the blonde billionaire's albums 1989, Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Fearless (Taylor's Version), Red (Taylor's Version), Speak Now (Taylor's Version), 1989 (Taylor's Version), and Midnights. It's unclear if Antonoff was involved with Taylor's surprise 11th studio album Tortured Poets Department, dropping April 19, which she announced onstage the 66th Grammy Awards. 'Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney what a whirlwind of endless magical moments with you,' Swift tweeted of her Australian leg on Wednesday. 'I'm so grateful that we got to be the first tour to play Accor Stadium 4 times. I'll never forget singing with Sabrina, the chaotic acoustic mashups, and the crowds that were louder (singing AND screaming) than I thought humanly possible. I want to thank all of the Aussie fans for being so positive and passionate, so funny and wild and FUN. Love you forever!' Two years ago, Gorillaz and Blur frontman Damon Albarn (pictured July 22) scoffed to the LA Times that the 34-year-old pop star 'doesn't write her own songs' Outraged, Jack took to Twitter to call the 55-year-old Englishman an 'herb' and wrote: 'I've never met Damon Albarn and he's never been to my studio but apparently he knows more than the rest of us about all those songs Taylor writes and brings in' Antonoff told the LA Times on Wednesday: 'I'm a little b**** sometimes. But you come after my friend Taylor, you're toast to me. [That] is like challenging someone's faith in God. You just don't go there' (pictured December 14) Damon decided to 'apologize unreservedly and unconditionally' after Taylor tweeted: 'I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this. I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don't have to like my songs but it's really f***ed up to try and discredit my writing. WOW' The 10-time Grammy winner - turning the big 4-0 next month - originally met Swift in 2012 and they first collaborated on her track Sweeter than Fiction for David Frankel's biopic on Britain's Got Talent champ Paul Potts called One Chance (pictured in 2014) Jack went on to write and produce songs on the blonde billionaire's albums 1989, Reputation, Lover, Folklore, Fearless (Taylor's Version), Red (Taylor's Version), Speak Now (Taylor's Version), 1989 (Taylor's Version), and Midnights (pictured in 2021) It's unclear if Antonoff was involved with Taylor's surprise 11th studio album Tortured Poets Department, dropping April 19, which she announced onstage the 66th Grammy Awards Swift tweeted of her Australian leg on Wednesday: 'Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney what a whirlwind of endless magical moments with you. I'm so grateful that we got to be the first tour to play Accor Stadium 4 times' The Karma songstress is next scheduled to bring her $1B-grossing 152-date The Eras Tour to Singapore National Stadium in Kallang for concerts on March 2-4 and 8-9 (pictured last Friday) Meanwhile, the New Jersey native - who wed Margaret Qualley on August 19 - produced the modern cover songs for Todd A. Kessler's dismally-reviewed 10-episode Christian Dior biopic The New Look, which airs Wednesdays on Apple TV+ (pictured February 12) Jack's band The Bleachers will release their self-titled fourth studio album on March 8, and they're scheduled to perform the same day on ABC's Good Morning America in Manhattan The Karma songstress is next scheduled to bring her $1B-grossing 152-date The Eras Tour to Singapore National Stadium in Kallang for concerts on March 2-4 and 8-9. Meanwhile, the New Jersey native - who wed Margaret Qualley on August 19 - produced the modern cover songs for Todd A. Kessler's dismally-reviewed 10-episode Christian Dior biopic The New Look, which airs Wednesdays on Apple TV+. Jack's band The Bleachers will release their self-titled fourth studio album on March 8, and they're scheduled to perform the same day on ABC's Good Morning America in Manhattan. Bianca Censori has finally covered up after shocking Europe with her X-rated outfits. On Tuesday night, the Yeezy architect, 29, wore her most explicit outfit to date as she went underwear free beneath a pair of sheer stockings during a public outing. But as Bianca stepped out in Paris on Wednesday with the rapper, 46, she decided to ditch her typically skimpy looks in favour of a leather trench. The rare move came after reports Bianca could face prison or a fine of 15,000 after testing the laws of exhibitionism in the city with Tuesday's racy outfit. Kanye, meanwhile, covered his face in a black mask and an all black waterproof outfit as the couple left The Ritz and headed for lunch. Bianca Censori covered up as she stepped out in Paris with husband Kanye West on Wednesday, after wearing her raciest look to date Bianca wore the oversized trench over fishnet tights and black kitten heels On Tuesday night, Bianca wore her most explicit outfit to date as she went underwear free beneath a pair of sheer stockings during a public outing Bianca wore the oversized trench over fishnet tights and black kitten heels. She accessorised with earrings showing the middle finger which Kanye had worn as a necklace a day prior. While she was covered up, it appeared Kanye's 'muse' had once again turned to hosiery as part of her look. The couple certainly caught the attention from onlookers who battled to try to get an autograph from the Golddigger hitmaker. The outfit wasn't too dissimilar from when Kim headed out in Paris back in 2020 with Kanye. Bianca's friends have expressed ongoing fears the rapper is manipulating his so-called 'wife' and many believe his latest actions continue to highlight a pattern of 'controlling' behaviour. On Tuesday night, Bianca did not attempt to conceal her genitals or bare backside in the garment as crowds of shocked onlookers rushed to take pictures. She also did not appear to be wearing a shirt or bra under a cropped fur coat as she returned to the Ritz Hotel with hoodie-clad Kanye after enjoying dinner at Ferdi. While Kanye's 'muse' may be no stranger to exposing her body in public, her latest act could cause trouble with French officials if she is found in breach of their decency laws. Article 222-32 of the new penal code (applicable since 1 March 1994) stipulates: 'Deliberate sexual display in the sight of others in a place accessible to the public gaze is punishable by one year in prison and a fine of one hundred thousand francs. [15,000]' As Bianca stepped out in Paris on Wednesday with the rapper, 46, she decided to ditch her typically skimpy looks in favour of a leather trench The outfit wasn't too dissimilar from when Kim headed out in Paris back in 2020 with Kanye The couple drew quite a crowd as they left The Ritz and headed out for lunch While she was covered up, it appeared Kanye's 'muse' had once again turned to hosiery as part of her look The rare move came after reports Bianca could face prison or a fine of 15,000 after testing the laws of exhibitionism in the city with Tuesday's racy outfit The rapper stopped to sign autographs for fans as they left The Ritz and headed to lunch Bianca treated the pavement like a catwalk as she left the five star hotel hand in hand with Kanye The two appeared in high spirits as they left the fancy hotel for the day in the midst of Fashion Week While Kanye's 'wife and muse' may be no stranger to exposing her body in public, her latest act could cause trouble with French officials if she is found in breach of their decency laws Nudity itself does not equal indecency, however, with the legislator stipulating: 'The charge has been worded in such a way as to rule out any possibility of proceedings against persons practising naturism in places specially designated for this purpose.' This isn't the first time, Bianca has risked a run-in with the law due to her wild antics on holiday. Last year, Bianca ran the risk of a 10,000 fine and imprisonment during the couple's trip to Italy, where she had been walking around 'virtually naked' in the European nation. According to the Italian Constitutional Court, a fine from 5,000 to 10,000 euros can be issued, or whoever exposes in a place or nearby to a place attended by minors, may be sentenced from four months to four years imprisonment. For one outing Bianca went braless in a skintight see through all-in-one and at some points was forced to cover her nipples with a black cross-body bag. Italian locals branded the Kim Kardashian lookalike's outfits 'disrespectful' on social media, with some saying the 'immodest' couple are no longer welcome in a country known for its conservative Catholic heritage. Bianca and Kanye were also investigated by police after they were caught on camera in a compromising position during their Italian holiday. MailOnline has contacted Bianca's representatives and the French embassy for comment. She also did not appear to be wearing a shirt or bra under her cropped fur coat Bianca's face looked to be free of makeup and she wore her raven locks slicked back The tights left nothing to the imagination as she made her way towards the restaurant entrance Kanye was spotted following closely behind his nearly-nude wife Last year, Bianca ran the risk of a 10,000 fine and imprisonment during the couple's trip to Italy, where she had been walking around 'virtually naked' in the European nation Bianca and Kanye were also investigated by police after they were caught on camera in a compromising position during their Italian holiday Bianca has paraded around the world with Kanye in barely there looks since they tied the knot in 2022. However, insiders recently claimed to DailyMail.com that Kanye's ex-wife Kim Kardashian warned the rapper to tell Bianca to 'cover up' around their children. Bianca's underwear-free outing in Paris came just one day after she was on stepmum duty with Kanye's eldest daughter North West, 10. The rapper also shares Saint, eight, Chicago, six, and Psalm, four, with Kim. Kim and Bianca are said to have an 'amicable' relationship but the risque fashion in front of the kids has become an issue for her. 'Kim instructed Kanye to never let Bianca dress like that around their kids,' a source told DailyMail.com exclusively. 'She is truly surprised that Kanye would let his wife leave the house like that.' Unlike Bianca's raunchy wardrobe, Kim was asked to change her outfits if Kanye felt she was showing too much skin, with the artist heavily influencing her fashion choices during their seven-year marriage. 'Kanye did the same thing he is doing with Bianca to Kim throughout heir marriage,' DailyMail.com's source continued. 'The difference is that when Kanye dressed Kim, he was respected as a person as an artist. 'Unfortunately, Kim knows what Bianca is going through but she feels Bianca should have known what she was getting into.' Kim filed for divorce in February 2021 just before what would have been the pair's seventh wedding anniversary. Bianca's underwear-free outing in Paris came just one day after she was on stepmum duty with Kanye's eldest daughter North West, 10 Kanye's ex-wife Kim Kardashian warned the rapper to tell Bianca to 'cover up' around their children: North, Saint, eight, Chicago, six, and Psalm, four She was declared legally single March 2022 while in the midst of a hot and heavy romance with now-ex boyfriend SNL alum Pete Davidson. In November 2022, Kim and Kanye's divorce was finalized, with Kanye agreeing to pay $200,000 a month in child support and equal custody. Kanye married Yeezy architect Bianca in December 2022 in what was thought a non-legal wedding as it appeared they did not file a marriage certificate. However in mid-October 2023, it was reported that they did in fact get legally married and that it took place last year due to 'religious reasons,' per Us Weekly. Bianca Censori's outrageous looks as Kanye West's wife shocks Europe once again by going underwear free in most X-rated outfit to date Bianca Censori shocked onlookers once again as she wore her most explicit outfit to date in Paris on Tuesday night. The wife and 'muse' of Kanye West, 29, went underwear free beneath a pair of sheer stockings during a public outing with the rapper, 46. It is not the first time Bianca risked facing prison or a fine of 15,000 for testing the laws of exhibitionism with her looks getting increasingly racier. There was also grave concern from Bianca's inner circle, who insisted her behaviour was not a reflection of who she really is, but rather a result of Kanye's influence over her. Here we take a look at Bianca's most outrageous looks from barely there bodysuits to wearing nothing underneath sheer raincoats. Paris Fashion Week hosiery Bianca Censori shocked onlookers once again as she wore her most explicit outfit to date in Paris on Tuesday night The Yeezy architect wore her most explicit outfit to date as she went underwear free under sheer tights on Tuesday. Bianca did not attempt to conceal her genitals or bare backside in the garment as crowds of shocked onlookers rushed to take pictures. She also did not appear to be wearing a shirt or bra under a cropped fur coat as she returned to the Ritz Hotel with hoodie-clad Kanye after enjoying dinner at Ferdi. While Kanye's 'muse' may be no stranger to exposing her body in public, her latest act could cause trouble with French officials if she is found in breach of their decency laws. Milan Fashion Week underwear-free bodysuit Bianca left almost nothing to the imagination as she wore an incredibly risque outfit to the Marni show during Milan Fashion Week last week The Australian fashion designer donned a daring black bodysuit that barely contained her curves Bianca went braless in the revealing garment which also featured a matching strap along the sides as she joined her husband on the front row Bianca left almost nothing to the imagination as she wore an incredibly risque outfit to the Marni show during Milan Fashion Week last week. The Australian fashion designer donned a daring black bodysuit that barely contained her curves. Bianca went braless in the revealing garment which also featured a matching strap along the sides. Kanye declares Bianca will be wearing LESS clothes than ever before Last month, Kanye declared his wife Bianca will be wearing even less clothes in 2024, after sharing a slew of racy snaps to his Instagram account The controversial rapper - known as Ye - posted three separate pictures of Bianca to his 18.4M followers, with one captioned: 'No pants this year Bianca wore a latex head mask as she posed to the side He also posted a picture of her walking out of the shower of lavish hotel room, looking down at her feet dressed in black, knee-high boots and nearly spilling out of her tiny outfit Last month, Kanye declared his wife Bianca will be wearing even less clothes in 2024, after sharing a slew of racy snaps to his Instagram account. The controversial rapper - known as Ye - posted three separate pictures of Bianca to his 18.4M followers, with one captioned: 'No pants this year'. Kanye showed off his wife who donned a skimpy, fur bra top, which revealed her ample assets, and nothing else but a micro thong. He also posted a picture of her walking out of the shower of lavish hotel room, looking down at her feet dressed in black, knee-high boots and nearly spilling out of her tiny outfit. Nearly naked Super Bowl outfit Bianca went nearly-naked as she partied after the Super Bowl. The Australian designer flashed her bust and posterior in an ill-fitting tan bodysuit Bianca went nearly-naked as she partied after the Super Bowl. The Australian designer flashed her bust and posterior in an ill-fitting tan bodysuit - forcing her to cover her chest as she suffered continual wardrobe malfunctions. The garment - which she wore without underwear - revealed nearly all of the star's body as she danced with fellow revelers. Her locks were worn slicked back from her face and she sported a light touch of make-up. Bianca was seen constantly readjusting the outfit as she danced, with her sideboob on display. Poncho raincoat Kanye's wife also wore a sheer raincoat with absolutely nothing underneath earlier this month as she made a head-turning arrival to a Los Angeles music studio Kanye's wife also wore a sheer raincoat with absolutely nothing underneath earlier this month as she made a head-turning arrival to a Los Angeles music studio alongside her mask-clad husband. The Australian architect opted to go completely naked beneath her poncho bar a pair of knee high black boots. Branding across the front of the coat helped shield her ample chest, yet she was forced to place her hand over her groin to protect her modesty. The bizarre look has been heavily criticised online, with one person writing on X, formerly Twitter: 'What is wrong with this couple? I just don't get it. Why?' Another questioned: 'This has to be illegal. This is literally public indecency,' while a third individual added: 'No love, this is not fashion.' Crude details Bianca pictured in January turning heads with a top and shorts combo while going braless The couple did their best to shock onlookers yet again as they headed to a tanning salon in Los Angeles last month. Bianca ensured all eyes would be on her as she went braless in a tight white vest with 'wet' emblazoned across the chest. Yet it wasn't her top that proved to be the most racy part of her ensemble as a closer inspection of her tiny black shorts revealed a very crude element. A small hole was visible at the front of the pants, which is designed to accommodate sex toys. The Packer Gear pants can be bought in sex shops for $50 and can be used on both men and women. Nude bodysuits and stuffed toy animals Late last year, Bianca wore a slew of increasingly more bizarre ensembles , including nude sheer tops and a silver string bodysuit all of which she teamed with oversized stuffed toys (pictured left). Pictured right, Bianca in Italy wearing a nude jumpsuit Bianca commanded attention earlier this month in LA when sporting a statement headpiece and matching coat During their time in Florence, Verona and Rome in 2023, the rapper and his wife shocked with their bizarre outfit choices, with Kanye regularly seen out barefoot and Bianca often barely clothed. Yet they took things a step further in Venice, when they were accused of performing a lewd sex act on a river boat, with Kanye seen exposing his bare buttocks while Bianca kneeled in front of him. Their bizarre behaviour prompted fury from Italian locals who declared the couple 'banned' from the country, and their antics even sparked a police investigation. There was also grave concern from Bianca's inner circle, who insisted her behaviour was not a reflection of who she really is, but rather a result of Kanye's influence over her. Meanwhile, late last year, Bianca wore a slew of increasingly more bizarre ensembles, including nude sheer tops and a silver string bodysuit all of which she teamed with oversized stuffed toys. In January, Kanye shared a series of revealing snaps of his wife on Instagram. He first posted a trio of pictures of Bianca to his 18.4million Instagram followers, showing her dressed in a black string bikini top and thong. The rapper declared there will be 'no pants this year,' alongside one image of her in a string thong and fur bralette, while another showing her spilling out of a barely-there top, read: 'Dropped sumn?' Kanye's post raised eyebrows as he had previously criticized his ex Kim Kardashian for being 'overly sexualized,' while promoting her SKIMS brand, and once also claimed the wet look Thierry Mugler dress she wore to the 2019 Met Gala was 'too sexy'. Bianca and Kanye secretly wed in December 2022, just one month after he finalized his divorce from Kim Kardashian, 43. Since then, friends have expressed ongoing fears that the rapper is manipulating his so-called 'wife' and many believe his latest actions continue to highlight a pattern of 'controlling' behaviour. In his latest stunt, Kanye is said to have banned Bianca from using social media to protect her from negative comments, according to insiders, who claim her friends believe it's really another tactic to further 'isolate' her. Despite the architectural designer's loved ones staging an intervention concerning her relationship with the rapper and his 'controlling ways,' her husband appears to have changed her attitude towards social media. Bianca's earlier outfits showed her going braless in crop tops and leggings 'Bianca has always had social media and she was active on it until she married Kanye,' an insider exclusively told DailyMail.com. 'He doesnt want her to have it because he thinks that it will hurt her if she had to read the nasty things that people say. 'He convinced her that, since she is a star now, she has to remain a mystery and it is creepy to those who know her as it feels like another form of control.' However, friends have taken issue with the fact Kanye is posting racy images of his wife on his own Instagram account despite allegedly claiming she needs protection. The insider added: 'He is pushing her nakedness all over his own [account] so that he can control her narrative. It is disturbing, and by shutting her off from the world he is causing her to become more and more isolated.' Friends are said to be stunned to see the usually assertive designer going along with Kanye's demands as the source stressed: 'This strong Bianca that was not going to deal with his s*** anymore has seemingly vanished once again. 'She is wearing what he wants, going where he wants and doing what he wants because she really has no other choice. She went from being his designer to his wife, which is unfortunately, not a paid position. Shes trapped.' Nicola Peltz showed off her impeccable sense of style as she head out on a lunch date with husband Brooklyn Beckham during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday. The actress, 29, flashed her washboard abs in a white cropped faux fur coat, teamed with low-rise pinstripe trousers. She boosted her height in chunky black boots and accessorised with 90s wrap sunglasses. Meanwhile Brooklyn, 24, cut a casual figure in a navy cardigan, wide-leg trousers and a white T-shirt. It comes shortly after Nicola paid homage to her mother-in-law Victoria Beckham with her latest outfit choice amid speculation she will walk in her Paris Fashion Week show. Nicola Peltz showed off her impeccable sense of style as she head out on a lunch date with husband Brooklyn Beckham during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday The actress, 29, flashed her washboard abs in a white cropped faux fur coat, teamed with low-rise pinstripe trousers The star stepped out in the stylish Dolce & Gabanna leather jacket, which was the exact same one worn by the fashion designer, 49, in 2001. The motocross jacket worn by Victoria originally cost 965, however they are now being snapped up second hand for 7,800 on one pre-loved site. The jacket proved incredibly popular at the time with stars including Naomi Campbell , Madonna and Jennifer Saunders being spotted in it. During the outing in the French capital on Tuesday, Nicola styled the iconic jacket with a pair of blue jeans and black platform heeled boots. She was with her husband Brooklyn, 24, who wore a vintage-inspired sweatshirt from Le Coq Sportif as he departed his hotel. He teamed the bright red jumper with a pair of straight leg jeans and topped off his casual look with some Dr Martens. Nicola's nod to the Beckham matriarch comes following several hints that she will appear in her fashion show at the end of the week. On Wednesday morning, Nicola tagged Victoria in a snap of herself wearing sheer red lingerie as she posed for a mirror selfie. A day earlier, Victoria hinted that her Nicola will walk in her show after attending a fitting together. On Wednesday morning, Nicola tagged Victoria in a snap of herself wearing sheer red lingerie as she posed for a mirror selfie A day earlier, Victoria hinted that her Nicola will walk in her show after attending a fitting together Stirring up speculation that Nicola will be modelling her line, Victoria wrote: 'Pre-show prep and fittings in Paris!! Kisses @NicolaAnnePeltzBeckham xx' The fashion designer, 49, who is currently on crutches after breaking her foot, cosied up to Nicola as they posed for a sweet mirror selfie. Stirring up speculation that Nicola will be modelling her line, Victoria wrote: 'Pre-show prep and fittings in Paris!! Kisses @NicolaAnnePeltzBeckham xx.' Nicola looked incredible in a sheer tulle dress which showcased her toned legs, which were further elongated by a pair of towering white heels. The American actress wore her brunette locks in a loose and wavy style, while flashing her huge diamond engagement ring on her hand. Meanwhile, Victoria sported a form-fitting all black ensemble and teamed her medical boot with one white stiletto. The mother of four is currently on crutches after falling over during a gym session and suffering a 'clean break' to her foot. Despite her injury, Victoria is still pressing on with her Fashion Week show preparations, which is due to take place on Friday at 8pm. Nicola was recently revealed as the new face of Balenciaga, joining the likes of Kim Kardashian as an ambassador for the brand. And it seems like she will soon become one of Victoria's 'muses' too, if she walks in the show taking place later this week. Victoria and Nicola were rumoured to be at odds ever since Nicola decided not to wear a wedding dress signed by the former Spice Girls at her nuptials. However, after apparently putting the feud to bed, the duo appear closer than ever now after a series of recent meet ups and family holidays. It comes soon after it was reported Victoria has vowed to still work with the Mia Regan, who split from Posh's middle son Romeo at the beginning of the month after a five year on-off romance. It comes soon after it was reported Victoria has vowed to still work with the model, who split from Posh's middle son at the beginning of the month after a five year on-off romance Victoria is still 'extremely close' with Mia who has for some time been her muse for her fashion business. The model has worn her items and promoted them across social media - and sources close to the family say that she will continue to do so. One told the Mail: 'Victoria absolutely adores Mia and she is really sad that she and Romeo have split. 'She gets it, they are a young couple and of course the chances are they wouldn't stay together forever but she has her own relationship with Mia and the two women will still work together in the future. 'They both love fashion and have had some ideas about what they can do together and that still stands. They have a really close bond and they love working together, they are on the same page when it comes to fashion and what they like. 'There is absolutely no awkwardness, it is all amicable. Even Romeo won't mind which is all very grown up, a lot of young men wouldn't be happy about such a situation.' Renee Rapp has revealed she was unaware of the Mean Girls 'fire crotch' controversy as she was 'fairly drunk' at the movie's premiere. Megan Thee Stallion referenced 'fire crotch', an insult once hurled at Lohan years ago, during her cameo in the Mean Girls reboot, and the reference upset Lohan. In a wide-ranging interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Rapp admitted: 'I feel like Im the only person in the world who didnt see this and who doesnt know what were talking about. And I think its because I was fairly drunk at the premiere and that was the only time I ever watched the movie. Because I dont like watching stuff that Im in because it freaks me out. 'It was me and Megan [Thee Stallion], next to each other, and I was like, Im so anxious. I immediately got into the theater, changed out of my little dress, put on a comfier one, sat down in the back. 'I was like, We need two bottles of champagne. I was violently hungover the next day. I must have had a great time. I remember seeing myself and being like, My eyeliner looks amazing. And thats all I recall.' Renee Rapp has revealed she is unaware of the Mean Girls 'fire crotch' controversy as she was 'fairly drunk' at the movie's premiere Rapp played Regina George in the new musical reboot, years after Lohan starred in the original. Lohan made a brief, surprise cameo in the new film as well. However she was disappointed the joke had made its way into the reboot: 'Lindsay was very hurt and disappointed by the reference in the film,' her rep previously told The Messenger. In the new flick, Megan Thee Stallion pops up to praise the new popular girl, Cady (played by Lindsay in the original film). The rapper says in a TikTok-like clip: 'Fire crotch is back.' Renee also opened up about her 2023 hit track Snow Angel, a song about a terrifying drugging experience she endured several years ago. Rapp previously revealed she had been drugged during a night out with friends back in 2022. 'I really let my judgment go when it came to the people that were around me,' she explained on Jay Shetty's podcast last year. 'We were all out, and it was just situation after situation where they were just not trustworthy, and then the next thing you knew I was face up, laying down in a bathroom stall in a hotel bar, just waking up [at] 5 in the morning, completely alone.' 'I woke up, and I was just so confused, and I had blood on my pants, and I was really just, like, so caught off guard,' she said. 'I had my phone and my purse. And I looked down and I was completely alone in a bathroom stall and I looked at my phone and it was 5 in the morning, and I was like, "What happened?! I was out at a party with my friends!?" 'I woke up, and I was just so confused, and I had blood on my pants, and I was really just, like, so caught off guard,' she said. 'I had my phone and my purse. And I looked down and I was completely alone in a bathroom stall and I looked at my phone and it was 5 in the morning, and I was like, "What happened?! I was out at a party with my friends!?" Rapp played Regina George in the new musical reboot, years after Lohan starred in the original Speaking with THR, she said she was still 'sorting through' the emotions surrounding the experience. 'I still feel like Im sorting through those feelings. I do understand that it was an incredibly traumatic experience that I dont remember at all. And it feels weird to talk about because I dont remember it. 'I just recently started to be like, Wait, the people that let this happen to me suck. I recently was like, I actually dont want to follow this person on Instagram anymore because they left me at a club to get drugged. 'God knows what happened to me. And it happened two years ago. I woke up on a bathroom stall, face up in The Beverly Hilton with blood on my pants. And had been left alone at that point for like seven hours.' She nodded at the incident during her Saturday Night Live performance. 'I was like, OK, well, when we do SNL, if Im doing this [song], I am doing this. I will be on a red floor and I need to start laying down because thats how I woke up. And there should be red underneath me and I should be in all white.' She nodded at the incident during her Saturday Night Live performance Rapp also opened up about the importance of therapy and how counseling has played an important role in her daily life. 'When I was 20, a week before the pandemic. I was in a rough place. I had a really tough eating disorder at the time. I lived in New York City for about a year. I was really stressed out and was incredibly lonely and very sick. 'Im obsessed with the [therapist] that I see now. The other night I got offstage, and obviously shes on Eastern Standard Time, and I was in Paris. I was having a full-blown anxiety attack, and I hit her and I was like, Queen, can you get on Zoom? And she was like, Yes, absolutely. And it makes such a big difference for me because you know how some people are like, Oh, count five things and breathe deeply? I genuinely wish that I could do that. But Im on a different level, so I do a lot of therapy.' Kelly Bensimon would like designer Dennis Basso to design her wedding dress. The 55-year-old Real Housewives of New York City alum who is engaged to Scott Litner discussed her upcoming vows with Basso during New York Fashion Week, according to Page Six. A source told the publication that Bensimon 'was at the show getting ideas for her wedding dress.' It was added that the bride-to-be and fashion titan plan to make the gown 'sexy and completely unique.' Kelly and Dennis have a longstanding friendship and once attended the Met Gala together, the outlet reported. Kelly Bensimon would like designer Dennis Basso to design her wedding dress; pictured at the designer's NYFW show earlier this month The bride-to-be and fashion titan reportedly plan to make the gown 'sexy and completely unique' Dennis is widely recognized for his signature furs and his list of celebrity clients include Jada Pinkett Smith, Helen Mirren, and Rihanna. He notably outfitted Meryl Streep for her Anna Wintour-inspired role in The Devil Wears Prada. He's also dressed the likes of Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones for their films. An insider shared with Page Six: 'Kelly is shopping for her wedding and Dennis is the top of the list.' It was noted that she's seeking a wedding dress as well as other ensembles for wedding-related events. Kelly and Scott will have two ceremonies a backyard wedding for their closest loved ones and a larger party in the Hamptons. The lovebirds got engaged last summer over Fourth of July weekend, when the financier popped the question on a trip to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where the reality television personality vacationed as a child. A rep for the star told Page Six: 'Kelly is happily engaged and looking forward to this new beginning.' Litner and Bensimon got engaged last Fourth of July Kelly, a former model, flashed her engagement ring in a photo shared on social media Kelly recently teased the 'shocking' guest list that she's planning for the wedding The future husband and wife were both married previously. Bensimon was married to Gilles Bensimon, a photographer, from 1997 to 2006 and they share daughters Sea, 25, and Teddy, 23. Litner has been married twice and also has children. She said Scott proposed on a speedboat while she was clad in a tiny lilac bikini, catching her completely off guard. 'Scott proposed to me, literally in Wisconsin near where I was raised. I was raised in Rockford, Illinois, and he proposed to me in Lake Geneva Wisconsin,' she explained to DailyMail.com. Moana star Auli'i Cravalho has confirmed she will return for the film's hotly anticipated sequel coming later this year. Cravalho, 23, who voiced the titular character in the acclaimed 2016 Disney animated film, posted a clip striking a pose in front of Disney's Roy E. Disney Animation Building in Burbank, California, to Instagram on Tuesday. The star captioned the video: 'The feeling when you're officially returning to Motunui' and added: 'Were sailing WAY beyond the reef this November #Moana2.' Moana 2 will hit theaters November 27, 2024, with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, 52, is in talks to reprise his role as Maui. The actress revealed in May that she would not be playing Moana in the live-action project for Disney Plus, which was initially set to be a TV series. Moana star Auli'i Cravalho has confirmed she will return for the film's hotly anticipated sequel coming later this year Cravalho, 23, who voiced the titular character in the acclaimed 2016 Disney animated film, posted a clip striking a pose in front of Disney's Roy E. Disney Animation Building in Burbank, California , to Instagram on Tuesday 'Im truly honored to pass this baton to the next young woman of Pacific Island descent, to honor our incredible Pacific peoples cultures and communities that help inspire her story,' she said in a statement in May. 'And I look forward to all the beautiful Pacific representations to come. Mahalo,' she concluded. The live-action project was ultimately transformed into a full-length feature film, though Disney CEO Bob Iger mentioned this week that they were so impressed with the project they decided to turn it into a film sequel. 'Moana remains an incredibly popular franchise, and we cant wait to give you more of Moana and Maui when Moana 2 comes to theaters this November,' Iger said before an earnings call this week. The sequel will reportedly follow Moana and Maui on a new adventure with, 'a brand new-crew of unlikely seafarers. 'After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything shes ever faced,' the description read. Dave Derrick Jr. is directing Moana 2, with music by Grammy winners Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear, Grammy nominee Opetaia Foai, and three-time Grammy winner Mark Mancina. As for the live-action Moana, Johnson is attached to star as Maui while also producing under his Seven Bucks Productions banner. The star captioned the video: 'The feeling when you're officially returning to Motunui' and added: 'Were sailing WAY beyond the reef this November #Moana2' Dwayne Johnson is in talks to return as Maui in the film (pictured with Cravalho in 2016) Moana 2 will hit theaters November 27, 2024 However, it's unclear who will play Moana at this time, and the report adds that production hasn't started yet, so it's unlikely to keep its June 27, 2025 date. The original Moana was directed by Ron Clements, John Musker and Don Hall, from a script by Clements, Musker and Jared Bush. The film took in $687 million worldwide in its theatrical run and continues to develop a fan base from its availability on Disney Plus. Model Devon Windsor took to Instagram to flaunt her post-partum beach body and backside on Monday, almost a year after giving birth to her second daughter. the cover girl frolicked around the beach in a low-cut black one piece swimsuit that showed off her bottom and tiny waistline. The Victoria's Secret alum wore her short platinum blonde hair loose with a pair of sunglasses that framed her face. The Florida resident looked stunning as she modeled the simple but iconic look with gold earrings. The mother-of-two wrote 'officially a full piece girly,' as her clothing brand hit the like button. Devon Windsor took to Instagram to flaunt her post-partum beach body and backside on Monday, almost a year after giving birth to her daughter She frolicked around the beach in a black one piece swimsuit that showed off her bum and tiny waist She wore gold earrings, gold bracelets and her wedding rings Devon appears to be at her thinnest in years after welcoming two daughters with husband Johnny Dex Barbara whom she married in 2019. In 2021 she gave birth to their first child, Enzo Elodie Barbara. The pair welcomed their second daughter, Celine Blue Barbara, nine months ago in May of last year. Windsor has been in the modeling industry for over a decade and has been in the swimsuit-making business for the last five years. The businesswoman slash model slash mother launched Devon Windsor Swim in 2019- affordable swimwear line which also captures her personal style. In an interview with V Magazine, she said: 'Being in the fashion industry, I was always interested in expanding my brand outside of just modeling.' 'I loved the aspect of design and the creativity and freedom in being able to have your own line. Swimsuits have always been a passion of mine because I love the oceanit is where I feel most at home.' As far as what makes her collection standout in the marketplace, she said: 'I wanted this line to be a reflection of my personal style, while also being a collection and brand that everyone could find something they love 'I also wanted the collection to be affordable, and something that carries a lot of design details. The range offers a large variety of versatile silhouettes, colors, patterns, textures and hardwareall with an immense amount of detail that went into selecting each. 'Over the past couple of years, I have noticed a gap in the market for a swimsuit that is more than your average basic bikini, without breaking your bank. 'For me, swimwear is a strong form of self-expression and something that you should feel confident and powerful in. With this in mind, I decided to create an affordable line of statement swimsuitsDevon Windsor.' Devon appears to be at her thinnest in years after welcoming two daughters with husband Johnny Dex Barbara whom she married in 2019 'I wanted this line to be a reflection of my personal style, while also being a collection and brand that everyone could find something they love,' the model said The cover girl seen in a rust-colored bikini last month The Missouri native was discovered at 14 years-old by fashion photographer Suzy Gorman. Devon was launched into the fashion world when she had a breakthrough moment modeling for Prada in September 2013. Windsor took part in 132 fashion shows in New York, London, Paris, and Milan between 2013 and 2015. Jennifer Lawrence put on a simultaneously sophisticated and low-profile display on Wednesday, as she arrived at The Ritz Paris. The actress, 33, stepped out in the French capital in an eye-catching bright red Leset maxi dress underneath an oversized brown coat. The Oscar winner toted her essentials in a black leather handbag and boosted her height with brown crocodile skin heeled boots. Due to being one of the most famous faces in Hollywood, Jennifer appeared to be doing her best to stay under the radar. She donned a black scarf, which she wrapped around her head and added a pair of oversized black sunglasses to hide her face. Jennifer Lawrence put on a simultaneously sophisticated and low-profile display on Wednesday, as she arrived at The Ritz Paris The actress, 33, stepped out in the French capital in an eye-catching bright red Leset maxi dress underneath an oversized brown coat The Oscar winner toted her essentials in a black leather handbag and boosted her height with brown crocodile skin heeled boots Her outing comes after Jennifer recently hilariously described her wedding day to husband Cooke Maroney as 'awful'. The Hunger Games star tied the knot with Cooke in 2019, but admitted she found the whole day 'so stressful' because she was worrying about her guests' comfort and enjoyment. 'It's so stressful. You're not having fun. You're just like, "Is that person having fun?" she joked to E! News. 'I'll never forgetI was freaking out about the guests being cold, and all of my friends were lying they're like, "Nobody's cold, nobody's cold, everything's fine, everything's fine.' 'My mom was like, "It's freezing out there, your grandmother almost died."' Jennifer even ordered her friend and frequent co-star Robert De Niro to 'go home' during the rehearsal dinner because she was convinced he didn't want to be there. She said: 'I looked over and I saw Bob, who doesn't know anybody and he's kind of wandering around, and I immediately was like, "No, this isn't what he wants to be doing. I don't want him here." 'So I went over and whispered, I was like, "Go home" and he was nice - he like talked to my parents and was polite - but I was like, "Go".' Due to being one of the most famous faces in Hollywood, Jennifer appeared to be doing her best to stay under the radar She donned a black scarf, which she wrapped around her head and added a pair of oversized black sunglasses to hide her face She admitted: '[After he left] that just genuinely made me feel better.' Jennifer and Cooke held their luxury wedding at the Belcourt of Newport mansion in Rhode Island in October 2019. They hosted 150 guests at the reception including Adele, Amy Schumer, Cameron Diaz, Benji and Joel Madden, Nicole Richie and Kris Jenner and celebrations carried on until 5.30am. They went on to honeymoon at the exclusive Nihi Sumba Resort on a remote island in Indonesia. The No Hard Feelings Star and art gallerist went on to welcome their son Cy together in February 2022. Her outing comes after Jennifer recently hilariously described her wedding day to husband Cooke Maroney as 'awful' (pictured with Cooke and their son Cy in March 2023) Wendy Williams' publicist is blasting the Lifetime documentary that she signed her famous TV client up for. Shawn Zanotti has placed blame on the producers of the series, alleging the TV icon believed she was filming a program about her comeback - only for filmmakers to capture 'a circus to her downfall.' Zanotti, who has been working as a publicist for Williams since 2021, spoke with NBC News about her grievances with the making of Where is Wendy Williams?, a four-part documentary now airing on Lifetime. In an interview with the outlet, Zanotti claimed: 'I felt that [Williams] was being exploited.' 'She thought we were focusing on the comeback of her career. ... She would be mortified. There's no way you can convince me that she would be OK with looking and seeing herself in that way.' She also told PEOPLE that she felt 'lied to' about it. Despite having encouraged her client to sign up for the show, Zanotti now says: "I would never let Wendy put her name and brand on the line like that ever. She's an icon. It's not the story we signed up for and I feel lied to.' Adding: 'It's so difficult for me to even watch. Wendy would be mortified.' Her remarks come four days too late - the debut episode of the documentary, Where Is Wendy Williams?, premiered on Lifetime on February 24. Two days before the project was released, it was announced that Wendy had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia and primary progressive aphasia. DailyMail.com has contacted Zanotti for comment. Wendy William's publicist has blasted the producers of a new documentary about the legendary television personality, alleging the TV icon initially believed she would be filming a program about her comeback - only to be 'exploited' by filmmakers; Williams pictured 2019 Zanotti claims the production company, Creature Films and eOne Television, approached her with the documentary back in 2022. The production company also shot the 2021 documentary about the TV icon, Wendy Williams: What A Mess! Initially, Zanotti said Williams was eager to do the documentary and 'get my story out there' - however Zanotti was disappointed to see a different story air. 'That is not the project that [Williams] signed up for. Thats not the project [the producers] brought to me. Thats not what I told her this was going to be about,' Zanotti claims, adding, 'There were a lot of good moments. None of those good moments were shown.' The filmmakers have since claimed they did not know about Wendy's diagnosis at the time of production. Showrunner Erica Hanson told TODAY: 'Some days, Wendy was on and very Wendy. Other days, she wasnt. We all felt this was a complex and sensitive story to tell, and we all felt a great responsibility to do it with dignity and sensitivity.' Yet Zanotti does not believe they would have stopped even if they knew about her health. 'I dont think [the diagnosis] would have stopped them at all. The producers were asking questions throughout the entire time would ask questions where she would somewhat seem confused, and I feel as though it was done to be intentional at that moment in time to make their storyline,' Zanotti said. 'Again, this was presented as a documentary to her, but to me, it looked as though it was a reality show of a circus, a circus to her downfall.' A now-sealed lawsuit was filed by Sabrina Morrissey, Wendy's guardian, on the day the TV icon's dementia diagnosis was revealed. The suit was filed in an effort to stop the documentary from airing, but a judge dismissed the case on the grounds of the first amendment. Initially, Zanotti said Williams was eager to do the documentary and 'get my story out there' - however Zanotti was disappointed to see a different story air; Williams pictured Zanotti claims she told Morrissey her issues about production at the time of filming and alleges the production company was 'aware' she had raised concerns. However, she alleges she was ignored by production. 'Instead of them dealing with it with me, they decided to ignore me,' Zanotti claimed of production. 'They ignored me from that moment, and I never heard from them again.' She also believes she was inaccurately portrayed in the documentary, aside from a scene in which she was reprimanded by Wendy, claiming there had been 'great, beautiful moments' that subsequently occurred. It comes after Williams' brother, Tommy Williams, claimed his sister is 'stuck' in a treatment facility and wants her released. Williams' brother, Tommy Williams, claims the former talk show host, 59, is 'stuck' in a treatment facility and wants her released; they are seen together in an Instagram snap The TV personality, 59, is currently receiving treatment for frontotemporal dementia which her son claims is 'alcohol induced' and aphasia in a undisclosed facility in New York, where she's reportedly been since April 2023. 'I know that she is stuck and we are trying to unstick her. Her family is here and she doesn't need a facility. We are here to take care of her,' he told Us Weekly. 'All I want for her is freedom. We have a father who would love to see her,' he added. He also expressed his frustration with not being able to see her, telling the publication: 'We're dealing with unknowns. We just want to be able to check in with her. I would fly up there [to New York], but where do I go? No one knows anything.' Tommy added that communication between the TV host and her family has been difficult. 'We can't communicate unless someone patches us through,' he revealed. The TV personality is currently receiving treatment for frontotemporal dementia and aphasia in an undisclosed facility in New York where she's reportedly been since April 2023 'I know that she is stuck and we are trying to unstick her. Her family is here and she doesnt need a facility. We are here to take care of her,' Tommy told Us Weekly 'We wait for calls. I wait for calls from Wendy or my sister or whoever she can get to first and we can all hop on. When she makes that phone call [to us], we're committed to listening and sharing for the moment.' Tommy added that it 'seems like forever' since he's seen his sister. 'It's because of the people who she is around. You can't leave. You're there as part of a program.' 'It's the one thing that is holding her and keeping her from communicating, traveling and doing all the things she likes to do.' The care team for the star announced her diagnosis of Aphasia and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) in a press release on Thursday. They said Williams had undergone 'a battery of medical tests' before arriving at the diagnosis. The statement noted that Williams had been diagnosed back in 2023. The talk show host has reportedly been living in a treatment facility since April 2023. The update came ahead of the February 24 premiere of a Lifetime documentary Where Is Wendy Williams? which details her struggles with alcohol abuse and mental health in recent years despite the star's guardian's lawsuit against the network. 'All I want for her is freedom. We have a father who would love to see her,' he added. 'We're dealing with unknowns. We just want to be able to check in with her. I would fly up there [to New York], but where do I go? No one knows anything,' he stated Tommy added that communication between the TV host and her family has been difficult. 'We can't communicate unless someone patches us through,' he revealed While Tommy did not appear in the docuseries, Wendy's son Kevin Hunter Jr., 23, and her sister, Wanda Williams, participated. In one scene Kevin claimed that his mom's medical team thought her drinking 'was starting to affect her headspace and her brain.' 'So, I think they said it was alcohol-induced dementia,' he concluded. Tommy told Us Weekly that there was 'naturally some concern' among Wendys family in regards to her drinking habits. 'It was obvious about her drinking. She was alone and her mental state, having been divorced and losing her mother and liquor, it was not a good mix,' he shared, in reference to Wendys 2020 split from ex-husband Kevin Hunter Sr. and the death of her mom, Shirley Williams, during that same year. 'She was very upset about losing her mother and very sad.' Tommy added that despite her challenges her family can 'figure it out and get her whatever she needs.' Wendy spoke out about her recent health diagnoses for the first time in a statement issued last Friday. 'I want to say I have immense gratitude for the love and kind words I have received after sharing my diagnosis of Aphasia and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). Let me say, wow! Your response has been overwhelming,' she shared in a statement released to The Associated Press. 'The messages shared with me have touched me, reminding me of the power of unity and the need for compassion.' The care team for the star announced her diagnosis of Aphasia and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) in a press release on Thursday; she is seen February 21 In a new docuseries, Wendy's son Kevin Hunter Jr., 23, stated his mom's medical team thought the dementia was 'alcohol-induced'; Wendy, Kevin Jr, and and her ex-husband Kevin Hunter seen in 2017 Wendy finalized her statement writing, 'I continue to need personal space and peace to thrive. Please just know that your positivity and encouragement are deeply appreciated.' Earlier on Tuesday Wendy's best friend slammed the ailing TV host's legal guardian, claiming that the woman tasked with taking care of her left her without 'access to food' - as she voiced her suspicions over Wendy's recent dementia diagnosis. Wendy was placed under a legal guardianship in May 2022, after her bank account said it had 'strong reason to believe' that she was of 'unsound mind' and was 'the victim of undue influence and financial exploitation.' At the time, the court assigned someone to manage Wendy's finances and health, and while their identity was not made public at first, TMZ recently revealed that Wendy's guardian was a New York-based lawyer named Sabrina Morrissey. But now, one of the star's closest pals - Regina Shell, who has known Wendy since she was only 13 years old - has spoken out against her guardian. During a recent appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation series, Cuomo, Regina claimed that the broadcaster had 'no access to her money' and had to ask permission from Sabrina for any purchase she wanted to make - including meals. She alleged that this sometimes meant Wendy would go hours on end without eating, which left Regina so worried that she started ordering food for her from across the country. 'When I was in New York and staying with Wendy in the summer, I noticed she had no access to her money,' Regina shared on Monday evening. 'Every time she had to do anything that she had to pay for, she had to go through the guardian. Lifetime released a shocking new documentary about her, titled Where Is Wendy Williams?, over the weekend, which details her struggles with alcohol and mental health in recent years 'And she would call to order her breakfast at 7:30 in the morning with the guardian, and she would take the order, but the order wouldn't show up until sometimes noon. So Wendy wouldn't have any food.' Regina said that when she returned home to Los Angeles, she began sending her 'delivery service' because she was nervous that Wendy 'wasn't getting' enough to eat. 'When I went back to LA, I would have to send her food from Los Angeles to New York for delivery service, because she wasn't getting' she trailed off. 'The communication wasn't there, and she had no other access to money than this guardian. Days ahead of the new documentary's release, TMZ reported that Wendy's guardian had filed a lawsuit against the parent company of Lifetime, A&E Television Networks. Sabrina had asked the court for injunctive relief, indicating her request could have been an attempt to stop the network from airing the TV special - but a judge ultimately dismissed the case citing the First Amendment. Filmmakers began following Wendy around in 2022 - at the time hoping to document her 'comeback' - but instead, they captured her tragic downward spiral and health decline. In the documentary, the former TV legend appeared virtually unable to answer the producers' repetitive questions, often seemed confused, and would ramble incoherently, break down in tears, or lash out at friends or family members. Wendy was placed under a legal guardianship in May 2022, after her bank account said it had 'strong reason to believe' that she was of 'unsound mind' and was 'the victim of undue influence and financial exploitation'; seen in 2019 It was certainly a vast difference from the once-fearless TV star who used to earn $10 million a season as the host of The Wendy Williams Show. In late 2021, amid her multiple ailments, shattered marriage, and growing alcoholism, Wendy stepped away from her hosting job indefinitely. In the months that followed, she made a slew of worrisome public appearances that saw her looking disheveled and often confused. Now, Wendy hasn't been seen publicly in more than a year, and according to the documentary, she's been living in a treatment facility since last April. Anna Paul has collaborated with oral health brand Hismile to create a cotton candy flavoured toothpaste. And on Wednesday, the TikTok star revealed the insane crowds that turned up to the Sydney pop-up for the launch of her new toothpaste. She posted a series of photos to Instagram, showing thousands of fans gathered outside the small store. She also shared a photo of herself and her social media star brother Atis arriving to the launch flanked by security guards. Anna dressed to impress in black flared trousers, a matching coloured shirt and fishnet heels. Anna Paul has revealed the insane crowds that turned up to a Sydney pop-up for the launch of her new toothpaste 'Thank you so much to everyone who came out to our pop up in Sydney this weekend!' she captioned the post. 'It is such an overwhelming feeling to have so many of you be so supportive and sweet. I didn't expect all of this. Thank you for everything I'm still in shock.' Anna enjoyed a whirlwind trip to Sydney over the weekend and also attended Taylor Swift's concert on Sunday night. The TikTok star shared photos from her journey to Accor stadium for night three of the American pop superstar's tour of Sydney. The dark haired stunner shared a series of photos to Instagram, showing thousands of fans gathered outside the small store In a series of Instagram story posts, Anna showed off her famous figure in a baby blue crop top and matching skirt. She also showed off her friendship bracelets, which Taylor's fans, called Swifties, are known to wear. Accompanied by her bother, Atis, Anna took her seat inside the stadium and prepared to rock out at the gig. It comes after Anna headed out to catch Taylor Swift in concert on Sunday night Will Mellor has revealed he once spent the night with Brigitte Nielsen, and claimed that the Danish actress treated him like 'some little play thing'. The actor, 47, said that the ex-wife of Sylvester Stallone, 60, asked him to come to her hotel room for an intimate encounter, before 'getting rid of him like a teabag'. Talking on the Two Pints with Will & Ralf podcast, Will recalled: 'When I met Brigitte Nielsen she came onto me and asked me to go have sex with her in a hotel room. 'Like, "Send a driver for him, go and get him! Like I was some piece of meat. I was terrified.' Will added that he had fancied the Rocky IV star since he was young, but that being alone with her was different in real life. Will Mellor has revealed he once spent the night with Brigitte Nielsen, and claimed that the Danish actress treated him like 'some little play thing' The actor, 47, said that the ex-wife of Sylvester Stallone , 60, asked him to come to her hotel room to sleep together, before 'getting rid of him like a teabag' (Brigitte pictured December) Will added that he had fancied the Rocky IV star since he was young, but that being alone with her was different in real life (pictured in 2002) He said that he was 'terrified' of Brigitte, describing her as 'six foot whatever' whose 'boobs were so big'. He said: 'Do you know when youre younger, if you watch Red Sonja or Cobra, you think one day, shes gonna come onto me and I'm going to s**t myself. Because at the time youd be thinking, "Oh look at her, beautiful." 'But, oh my god, shes like six foot whatever, her boobs were so big, and she just buried my head in her boobs and went, "Oh look at you," like I was some little play thing. 'Then just sort of went, "Send him my number to my hotel, Ill get rid of him later. Ill treat him like a tea bag, I'll dip him in once and I'll throw him away!"' Will did not make it clear during the confession when the intimate encounter with Brigitte took place. He has been dating his wife Michelle McSween since 1999, after they met while starring together in the stage musical Oh, What a Night. The soap star and the dancer tied the knot in 2007 and share two children together, Jayden, 20 and Renee, 16. Brigitte shot to fame thanks to her 1980s action roles such as Red Sonja and Cobra, and has been married five times. He said that he was 'terrified' of Brigitte, describing her as 'six foot whatever' whose 'boobs were so big' (Brigitte pictured in 1987) Will has been dating his wife Michelle McSween since 1999, after they met while starring in the stage musical Oh, What a Night and they went on to marry in 2007 and welcome two children She got engaged to Sylvester while making Rocky IV and they married in December 1985, but then had a highly publicised divorce only two years later. In her 2011, Brigitte revealed she had an affair with Arnold Schwarzenegger during the filming of Red Sonja, while the actor was dating Maria Shriver, who he went on to marry. She has four sons - Julian, 39, with her ex-husband Kasper Winding, Killian, 33, with ex Mark Gastineau, Douglas, 30, and Raoul Jr., 28, with ex-husband Raoul Meyer. Brigitte gave birth to her daughter Frida, five, at the age of 54 after a 13-year struggle with IVF, with her current husband Mattia Dessi, 45. Brigitte has been married five times, most famously to Sylvester Stallone for two years between 1985 to 1987 (pictured together in 1986) In her 2011, Brigitte revealed she had an affair with Arnold Schwarzenegger during the filming of Red Sonja (pictured), while the actor was dating Maria Shriver, who he went on to marry The Voice star Jack Vidgen has shared a heartbreaking tribute to TV presenter Jesse Baird and his flight attendant boyfriend Luke Davies. Alleged killer cop Beau Lamarre-Condon is accused of murdering the couple at Baird's terrace in inner-city Paddington last Monday before dumping their bodies in a shallow grave in the NSW Southern Tablelands. The remains of Baird and his new boyfriend Davies were finally recovered by police on Tuesday afternoon, ending a five-day extensive search for the missing couple which spanned from Newcastle in the north to Goulburn in the south. Vidgen, who is an outspoken member of the LGBTQI+ community, honoured Baird and Davies in an Instagram Story post on Wednesday. Sharing a photo of the couple, he wrote in part: 'Two beautiful souls now angels. I hope your families can now send you off with the peace they deserve'. The Voice star Jack Vidgen (pictured) has shared a heartbreaking tribute to TV presenter Jesse Baird and his flight attendant boyfriend Luke Davies 'I had so many conversations with friends in the community over the weekend about how loved you both were. I know people in the community are feeling this deeply,' he continued. Vidgen also weighed in on the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras board's decision to exclude NSW police from the Sydney parade for the first time in 20 years, following the murders of Baird and Davies. The shock decision was made on Monday night and will see police barred from marching in uniform on Saturday (March 2). Alleged killer cop Beau Lamarre-Condon is accused of murdering the couple at Baird's terrace in inner-city Paddington last Monday before dumping their bodies in a shallow grave in the NSW Southern Tablelands. (Pictured left is Davies, and right is Baird) Vidgen, who is an outspoken member of the LGBTQI+ community, honoured Baird and Davies in a series of Instagram Story posts on Wednesday Vidgen admitted he has 'mixed feelings' about the decision, saying he 'understands' why members of the community would want to uninvite NSW police from the parade, but doesn't share that opinion. 'I don't particularly have that view but I empathise as to why you would,' he wrote, adding: 'I don't think one person's actions should determine this but I also know there is a culture in the police that has let my community down.' 'I think the uniform can be quite triggering for a lot of us so hopefully this is a way forward for us now.' 'I had so many conversations with friends in the community over the weekend about how loved you both were. I know people in the community are feeling this deeply,' he continued. (Pictured: Baird) Baird and Davies' remains were unearthed on Tuesday after being found behind a mound of dirt near Bungonia in the NSW Southern Tablelands. The two men's bloody clothes were allegedly tossed in a skip bin in Cronulla, almost 30km away, before their bodies were hidden in surfboard bags. Police allege Mr Lamarre-Condon then hired a white Toyota HiAce van from Sydney Airport and took the bodies about 180km south-west of Sydney, before burying them in a shallow grave on a fence line on Jerrara Road. Vidgen also weighed in on the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras board's decision to exclude NSW police from the Sydney parade for the first time in 20 years, following the murders of Baird and Davies Vidgen admitted he has 'mixed feelings' about the decision, saying he 'understands' why members of the community would want to uninvite NSW police from the parade but doesn't hold that view. (Lamarre-Condon pictured left at Mardi Gras in 2020) The temporary grave site was more of a gravel alcove next to the entrance to the Greek Orthodox Holy Monastery of Saint Fanourios church. Police would have unknowingly driven past the bodies a number of times earlier in the week, during a search of another property about 20 minutes south. A team of police officers spent Wednesday scouring bushland surrounding the site for evidence, with the assistance of a sniffer dog, picks and rakes. Lamarre-Condon handed himself into Bondi Police Station on Thursday last week, before he was charged with two counts of murder on Friday. Police found the remains by 1pm on Tuesday and contacted the families of Baird and Davies moments after that. Lamarre-Condon's matter is before the courts. Alabama Barker sparked concern after asking fans for prayers after sharing a since-deleted photo from inside what appeared to be a hospital. The daughter of Travis Barker, 18 - who recently clapped back at claims she's had too much cosmetic surgery - initially uploaded the image onto her Instagram stories on Tuesday, but soon took it down. The snap didn't show the teen, but was taken as she rested in a bed with a monitor next to her as well as a clock that read 10:20. In text added over the picture, Alabama penned to her 2 million followers, 'Send me your prayers,' followed by a crying face emoji. She later shared another photo while at an airport and wrote, 'I'm back baby,' but chose to not comment on the previous hospital post, per Us Weekly. However, the snap has also seemingly been deleted. Alabama Barker, 18, sparked concern after asking fans for prayers after sharing a since-deleted photo from inside what appeared to be a hospital; seen earlier this month in L.A The snap didn't show the teen, but was taken as she rested in a bed with a monitor next to her as well as a clock that read 10:20 Last year in August, Alabama revealed that she suffers from an autoimmune disorder and a 'thyroid problem' while hitting back at body shamers. At the time, the media personality shared a TikTok video where she explained that she had gained around 5-10 pounds, but expected that she would go back to her 'normal weight' once her thyroid and autoimmune disease are 'balanced.' She stated, 'I also have a thyroid problem and an autoimmune disease. So that's one of the main reasons why I have weight gain.' 'So it would be very appreciated if you guys just kept your opinions to yourself, it would get you further in life,' Barker continued as she slammed haters and trolls. 'Once my thyroid is balanced and my autoimmune disease is balanced, I will go back to my normal weight, which is causing the weight gain.' Alabama continued, 'You guys also act like I've gained a thousand pounds. It's like 5, 10 pounds, which is so normal for a lot of girls.' 'Weight fluctuates and I don't want any girls that are young watching this that are gaining weight to ever think there's something wrong with it.' 'There is a certain point where if your health is getting affected by it then you need to change it, but no. It's not the case for me, and I would appreciate it if you guys put yourself in my shoes,' she continued. In text added over the picture, Alabama penned to her 2 million followers, 'Send me your prayers,' followed by a crying face emoji She later shared another photo while at an airport and wrote, 'I'm back baby,' but chose to not comment on the previous hospital post, per Us Weekly. However, the snap has also seemingly been taken down; seen earlier this month in L.A. The since-deleted hospital snap also comes not long after Alabama clapped back at claims that she has gotten 'a lot of' cosmetic surgery. In an Instagram photo series shared earlier this month, the 18-year-old struck a variety of poses while wearing a colorful, mesh dress which partially covered a bikini she was also sporting. In the caption, the media influencer typed out, 'Does she know you call?' and social media users jumped to the comment section to offer their opinions on the images. One typed out, 'This child has done alot of cosmetic surgery @ a very young age, I hope she doesn't over do it! She looks good now!' Alabama later left an additional comment to defend herself while also giving a shout out to the positive messages that she received. 'I really appreciate the love. I'm natural, besides my lips, accept the fact I'm naturally beautiful,' she wrote. In September 2023, she opened up on her Instagram stories about wanting to take the high road when it comes to negative comments on social media. 'Sometimes I find myself wanting to clap back. Bite at everyone who barks at me.' 'But then I look at those people, like really look at themwhat kind of life they're living. The choice they're making. The things they do. Compared to who I am, what I do & how I live,' she wrote. The since-deleted snap also comes not long after Alabama clapped back at claims that she has gotten 'a lot of' cosmetic surgery 'I really appreciate the love. 'I'm natural, besides my lips, accept the fact I'm naturally beautiful,' she wrote in response Alabama is the daughter Blink-182 drummer, Travis Barker, and his ex-wife Shanna Moakler. The two were married from 2004 until their divorce was finalized in 2008, and also share son Landon, 20 'And that, itself keeps me humble. Misery loves company, but we're cut from different cloths, made from different sauces.' In conclusion, she added, 'Stay blessed, wish them well, and remind yourself that the evil-hearted never wins.' Alabama is the daughter Blink-182 drummer, Travis Barker, and his ex-wife Shanna Moakler. The two were married from 2004 until their divorce was finalized in 2008, and also share son Landon, 20. The musician tied the knot with Kourtney Kardashian in 2022, and the couple welcomed son, Rocky, late last year in November. Amos Gill has been accused of 'targeting' a woman in her 60s with a 'tirade of abuse' during a recent Adelaide Fringe show. The comedian, 32, performed as one of the seven headline acts at the Best of Fringe: Early Show at the Belgian Beer Cafe over the weekend. He has been accused of singling out a schoolteacher in her 60s during the set and making a series of jokes about 'Baby Boomers' directed towards her. The woman, referred to as 'Jane', claimed she was 'targeted' by the stand-up comic in a seven-minute 'tirade of abuse', according to The Advertiser. She told the publication: 'I was just sitting there quietly, I was not in the front row and then he just looked at me, probably because my hair is quite white. Amos Gill has been accused of 'targeting' a woman in her 60s with a 'tirade of abuse' during a recent Adelaide Fringe show He has been accused of singling out a schoolteacher in her 60s while performing at the Best of Fringe: Early Show at the Belgian Beer Cafe over the weekend 'He just looked straight at me and he said "You've triggered me I'm in an angry mood and I'm going to be really angry", and it just went on and on from there. 'I can't remember exactly what was said, but he said I apparently had a "Burnside haircut" and then launched into a seven minute tirade of abuse, it was relentless to the point where the audience became dead quiet.' Her friend Rose, who attended the show with her, claimed that Amos said 'you're just a couple of feminists aren't you' when they did not laugh at his jokes. Jane, who is domestic abuse survivor, claimed the alleged incident was 'completely inappropriate' and left her feeling shaken. Amos started a career in stand-up comedy more than 10 years ago and was also known for hosting hit107's breakfast radio show before leaving the programme in 2018 Amos told The Advertiser: 'I strenuously deny my tirade lasted seven minutes. It was at most five.' Amos' representatives declined to comment when approached by Daily Mail Australia. Amos started a career in stand-up comedy more than 10 years ago and was also known for hosting hit107's breakfast radio show with Angus O'Loughlin and Cat Lynch. Amos, who was born in Adelaide, left the radio show back in 2018 to further his career in stand-up comedy in the US. Bradley Cooper was seen holding his six-year-old daughter's hand in New York City on Wednesday afternoon. The Hollywood favorite looked like the perfect dad as he guided his child Lea across the street, holding her bag for her over his shoulder. The 49-year-old Maestro actor had on a navy blue button-up hoodie jacket over a pink T-shirt with gray sweat pants from Champion. The New York resident added white sneakers with a turquoise design as he modeled chic-looking brown sunglasses with his facial stubble nicely groomed. His little girl - who will turn age seven next month - had on a long blue puffy zip-up jacket with a hoodie and a pretty red floral design over one side of her chest. Underneath appeared to be a red dress as she added hot pink lace up rain boots. Bradley Cooper was seen holding his six-year-old daughter's hand in New York City on Wednesday afternoon. The Hollywood favorite looked like the perfect dad as he guided his child Lea across the street, holding her bag for her over his shoulder The 49-year-old Maestro actor had on a navy blue button-up hoodie jacket over a pink T-shirt with gray sweat pants from Champion Lea also held on to her pink water bottle. Her mother is Bradley's ex girlfriend, Vogue and Burberry model Irina Shayk. This comes after the star admitted he is not sure he would be alive if he hadn't become a dad. The Hangover actor welcomed his daughter Lea in 2017 and explained how raising his little girl prompted him to change his life for the better and put his previous battles with addiction behind him for good. During an appearance on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, Bradley emotionally explained: 'Honestly I'm not sure I'd be alive if I wasn't a dad. I don't know what would have happened. I am not sure.' 'I just needed someone to say, like, "We're gonna drop this massive anchor". I'm like, "Why? We're speeding! I just got an upgrade on the boat, and I know where the wind's coming in." They're like, "No, no, no, there's a tsunami coming in, and you need an anchor and we're gonna drop it. Because this is gonna dictate everything you do from now on. Your DNA is going to tell you that there's something more important than you".' His little girl - who will turn age seven next month - had on a long blue puffy zip-up jacket with a hoodie This comes after he admitted he might not be alive if he hadn't become a dad to his daughter Lea, six (pictured at the Maestro screen in December) Bradley shares Lea with his ex-girlfriend, model Irina Shayk (the former couple seen in 2018 in NYC) he now dates Gigi Hadid; seen here in Milan last week for Versace Bradley went on to insist he changed his life because he wanted to give Lea a more stable upbringing than his own after his early years were blighted by alcoholism in his family. He added: 'I'm a father [seeking to do] the least amount of damage I can do to my daughter. To have a child not grow up in that way I want her to have, as much as she can, a foundation that's like 25 feet thick, cement, that she can walk on this earth with. That's the goal. 'I can just feel the safety that she feels. It's so tangible; it's palpable,. That is so fulfilling.' The actor also opened up about his feelings for Lea, admitting he didn't feel the strong love of a father until a couple of months after her birth. He said: '[For the first couple of months I thought] "I don't even know if I really love the kid. It's dope. It's cool. I'm watching this thing morph"... [But] all of a sudden, it's like no question.' Last summer Bradley spoke about how he was raising his daughter, as he explained: 'I think, I mean, you learn from your predecessor's mistakes. And I'll make tons that hopefully Lea will learn from. 'And then...end up being rigorous with myself to grow, to help unburden her with any of my s**t.' It comes after Bradley was roasted by fans after bursting into tears over 'missing' late Maestro composer Leonard Bernstein - despite never meeting him. Bradley was roasted by fans earlier this week after bursting into tears over 'missing' late Maestro composer Leonard Bernstein - despite never meeting him The acclaimed actor, who is nominated in the Best Actor Oscar category for his portrayal of Bernstein, broke down in tears as he spoke during a resurfaced December interview with CBS Sunday Morning - surrounded by the composer's children Bernstein died aged 72 in 1990 when Bradley was just 15 and an aspiring actor - but Cooper said he felt the composer's 'energy' during Maestro filming The acclaimed actor, who is nominated in the Best Actor Oscar category for his portrayal of Bernstein, broke down in tears as he spoke during a resurfaced December interview with CBS Sunday Morning - surrounded by the composer's children. Bernstein died aged 72 in 1990 when Bradley was just 15 and an aspiring actor - but the star said he felt the composer's 'energy' during Maestro filming. When asked if he missed Bernstein, Bradley teared up as he said: 'Oh, yeah. It's hard to talk about. 'I don't know. We shared something very special, the four of us [referring to Bernstein's children Jamie, Nina and Alexander] It's hard to even articulate, but he was with me, certainly, throughout the entire time. 'His energy has somehow found its way to me and I really do feel like I know him.' Kanye West's wife Bianca Censori wore her raunchiest outfit yet on Tuesday as she stepped out in Paris. The Australian architect, 29, was photographed emerging from an SUV wearing a pair of sheer stockings with no underwear while heading to dinner with the controversial musician, 46. While Daily Mail Australia initially chose to to censor the images, it can be revealed that Bianca actually hid her modesty behind a thin, yet strategically-placed seam at the front of her stockings. Further, just visible under her stockings was a thin strip of flesh coloured material, secured to her crotch to create a smooth appearance. These types of coverings are typically used on Hollywood movie and TV sets in order to protect the actors' modesty during intimate scenes. Daily Mail Australia can reveal Bianca Censori, 29, (pictured) hid her modesty behind a thin, yet strategically-placed seam at the front of her stockings when she stepped out underwear-free in Paris on Tuesday HBO's lead intimacy coordinator Alicia Rodis previously revealed they are the go-to for raunchy moments on set, explaining: 'If we are going to see someone fully naked, but not their genitals and theyre in the bed, with sheets. So what do we need to make sure?' 'We take a Shibue, open it up, and put a silicone guard underneath so everyone becomes like a Barbie doll.' Shibues cost $16 (13) and are held in place by a washable and reusable silicone gel adhesive that is adhered to the top of the vulva and the bottom leaving nothing but a smooth silhouette. Further, just visible under her stockings was a thin strip of flesh coloured material, secured to her genitals to create a smooth appearance While Bianca seemingly used this trick to keep her intimate area under wraps, she didn't take such precautions with her upper half. Meanwhile, Bianca's latest outfit could have severe consequences for the Australian beauty. Article 222-32 of France's new penal code (applicable since 1 March 1994) stipulates: 'Deliberate sexual display in the sight of others in a place accessible to the public gaze is punishable by one year in prison and a fine of one hundred thousand francs. [15,000]' These types of coverings, such as the $16 Shibue, are typically used on Hollywood movie and TV sets in order to protect the actors' modesty during intimate scenes Nudity itself does not equal indecency, however, with the legislator stipulating: 'The charge has been worded in such a way as to rule out any possibility of proceedings against persons practicing naturism in places specially designated for this purpose.' It comes after insiders told DailyMail.com that Bianca's family is 'hurting' at watching their loved one being paraded around like a 'trophy pony' and have questioned how Kanye would feel in the future if a man was treating his daughters, North and Chicago, in the same way. 'Bianca's father Leo wants to have a proper sit down with Kanye and ask him what the hell he is thinking when he parades Bianca around like a trashy naked trophy pony,' said a source close to the Yeezy architect - whose father is the brother of a notorious gangland killer. It comes after insiders told DailyMail.com that Bianca's family is 'hurting' at watching their loved one being paraded around like a 'trophy pony' and have questioned how Kanye (left) would feel in the future if a man was treating his daughters, North and Chicago , in the same way 'He wants to ask Kanye what he would do if his daughters North, or Chicago, were seen in public half-naked in outfits encouraged by their husbands. 'He knows that there is no way in hell that Kanye would allow this for his daughters so it makes no sense why he would encourage this for his own wife.' Kanye, who wed Bianca in a private ceremony in December 2022, has also been accused of 'shutting her out' from her family in Australia. Bianca's dad Leo (seen in an Instagram photo) 'wants to ask Kanye what the hell he is thinking when he parades Bianca around like a trashy naked trophy pony,' alleges the insider 'If this isn't bad enough, the man who is supposed to protect Mr. and Mrs. Censori's daughter is the same man that is shutting her out from her own family,' the insider continued. 'Leo honestly wants to just sit Kanye down to let him know that he is hurting her family by turning his beloved daughter into a trashy-looking marketable commodity.' They finished: 'No man should ever encourage the woman that he loves to walk out in public and present herself like this. That isn't love. That is control.' The source told DailyMail.com that Kanye is 'shutting Bianca out from her family, including her mom Alexandra and sisters Alyssia and Angelina Censori (pictured with Bianca in 2020) News that Leo may well try to confront him could come as something of a concern to Kanye - particularly given that his new father-in-law as a somewhat troubling past. Bianca's latest barely-there ensemble failed to raise concern among her friends, who are now so accustomed to seeing her wearing next to nothing. 'Bianca's friends are sadly not even phased by what she is wearing in public anymore,' said the source. 'This doesn't concern them anymore as much as the dead look in her eyes when she is out with Kanye.' Jessica Chastain put on a radiant display in an eye-catching suit as she enjoyed an outing in New York City on Wednesday. The Help actress, 46 - who recently dazzled in a vibrant blue gown at the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards - brushed off the rainy weather as she exited her hotel in the Big Apple. The star donned a pair of high-waisted, purple trousers as well as a matching blazer that was left unbuttoned at the front. She also wore a plain, black shirt underneath and slipped into a pair of black, heeled shoes that were partially concealed by the hem of her pants. Her reddish locks were parted in the middle, and effortlessly flowed down past her shoulders in light waves. Jessica Chastain, 46, put on a radiant display in an eye-catching suit as she enjoyed an outing in New York City on Wednesday Chastain opted for minimal accessories to allow the outfit to be the main focal point, and added a pair of dainty, black earrings. Her makeup was classically done for the outing, and comprised of a layer of mascara to her lashes as well as a light shadow around her eyes. A warm blush was added to better accentuate her cheekbones, while a satin pink tint was worn on her lips for a finishing touch. Jessica was seen leaving her hotel in the bustling city, and flashed a cheerful smile as she strolled along a crowded sidewalk in the drizzly weather. The mother-of-two has been keeping busy, and recently attended the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica over the weekend on Sunday. She turned heads while walking the red carpet in a figure-hugging, strapless blue Oscar de la Renta gown. The ensemble clung to her frame and also contained a tasseled fringe that flowed down to brush the ground. The George & Tammy actress slipped into a pair of open-toed, nude-colored heels and allowed her locks to cascade down past her shoulders. The star donned a pair of high-waisted, purple trousers as well as a matching blazer that was left unbuttoned at the front She additionally wore a plain, black shirt underneath The mother-of-two has been keeping busy, and recently attended the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica over the weekend on Sunday (seen above) Chastain had been nominated for Best Lead Performance her role as Sylvia in the 2023 film, Memory, which also starred Peter Sarsgaard. The premise of the movie - which was directed by Michel Franco - follows Jessica's character who 'is a social worker who leads a simple and structured life.' 'This is blown open when Saul follows her home from their high school reunion. Their surprise encounter will profoundly impact both of them as they open the door to the past,' per an official IMDB synopsis. The project also premiered at the 80th Venice International Film Festival last year in September where it competed for the Golden Lion. Sarsgaard was the recipient of the Volpi Cup for Best Actor based on his performance. While talking to Variety back in November 2023, Jessica opened up about taking on a role in Memory as well as working with filmmaker Michel Franco. 'I'm really interested in subversive, provocative stories,' she expressed. '[So] I look for directors and creators who are [equally] subversive, who take huge risks.' The beauty added, 'I demand the same thing of myself; I never want to allow myself to get too comfortable.' And one day before attending the Independent Spirit Awards, Chastain exuded gothic glamour at the 30th Annual SAG Awards. Chastain had been nominated for Best Lead Performance her role as Sylvia in the 2023 film, Memory, which also starred Peter Sarsgaard; seen with Sarsgaard in November 2023 in NYC She stunned in a black gown that contained a V-neck cut on the front as well as a full skirt that flowed down towards the ground. The ensemble had a lace overlay that offered an elegant flare and the actress added a sparkling necklace to accessorize the look. At the event, Jessica presented the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role - which went to Killers Of The Flower Moon's Lily Gladstone. And while on the red carpet at the SAG Awards on Saturday, her interview during Netflix's pre-show was humorously crashed by fellow actor, Bradley Cooper, per People. The pair quickly struck up a conversation about parenthood with Chastain telling the Maestro star, 'We're in the same kids group.' The Interstellar actress shares two children with husband, Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, while Cooper is father to daughter, Lea, six - whom he welcomed with ex Irina Shayk. He added, 'We sure are, for many years now,' while the beauty replied with, 'We have, like, a PTA.' Jessica later congratulated the actor on his success and recent Netflix film, Maestro, and Bradley sweetly said, 'She's been so supportive for years.' And one day before attending the Independent Spirit Awards, Chastain exuded gothic glamour at the 30th Annual SAG Awards (seen above) At the event, Jessica presented the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role - which went to Killers Of The Flower Moon's Lily Gladstone Chastain has a number of other projects up her sleeve, including the upcoming film, Mother's Instinct, alongside Anne Hathaway. The premise follows characters, 'Alice and Celine' who 'live a traditional lifestyle with successful husbands and sons of the same age.' 'Life's perfect harmony is suddenly shattered after a tragic accident. Guilt, suspicion and paranoia combine to unravel their sisterly bond,' per an official IMDB synopsis. The trailer for the movie - which is a remake of Olivier Masset-Depasse's 2018 French film of the same name - dropped last month. The project is set release later this year, although an exact date has yet to be announced. Julia Fox and Richie Shazam turned heads in wild outfits as they head to a Rave Party during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday. The actress, 34, who is famed for briefly dating Kanye West in 2022, put on a very leggy display in white hot pants and a matching top which read 'www.proto-types.ch' She bundled up in a long black coat and boosted her height in heeled ankle boots, while accessorising with a bizarre headband. Meanwhile, Richie donned a 'dirty' Prototypes crop top, teamed with matching skin-tight bottoms and knee-high socks, but no shoes. The model wrapped up in a grey jacket, while sporting a black fluffy balaclava as they head to the event. Julia Fox and Richie Shazam turned heads in wild outfits as they head to a Rave Party during Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday The actress, 34, who is famed for briefly dating Kanye West in 2022, put on a very leggy display in white hot pants and a matching top which read 'www.proto-types.ch' Julia has lately been focusing on her modeling and making high-profile fashion show appearances, but her Hollywood career marches on. Last year, she reunited with her No Sudden Move director Steven Soderbergh for the psychological thriller Presence, which was shot in just three weeks after getting a waiver to film amid the writers and actors strikes. The film premiered last month at Sundance and has been acquired for distribution by the independent studio Neon. The studio previously distributed the Korean hit thriller Parasite, which was a surprise winner of Best Picture and multiple other Academy Awards. Last year Fox claimed her break-up from West meant she was dropped from a lucrative fashion deal. In another revelation from her memoir Down the Drain, the Uncut Gems actress writes how the rapper helped her secure a million-dollar deal with an Italian denim label. Kanye suggested the collaboration in the early days of their romance in January 2022, according to Julia. She writes that Kanye, who she refers to as 'The Artist' throughout the book promised to secure her a 'million-dollar deal'. Last year Julia claimed her break-up from Kanye West meant she was dropped from a lucrative fashion deal (pictured together in January 2022) 'The next day, he puts me in touch with an Italian denim company and they start negotiating on my behalf,' she continues. 'I can't believe this is my life, but I can definitely get used to it.' The pair went on to famously wear matching denim ensembles for Paris Couture Week in January. But with her subsequent split from Kanye, the deal fell apart. Julia explained how she moments after she asked her publicist to tell the media about their split, she learned the deal was off. 'It's contingent on you being his girlfriend,' Julia says she was told. The book contains many revelations about her brief courtship with Kanye in early 2022, including the claim that he offered to pay for a boob job during a game of Uno. She wrote that the pair had been hanging out in a hotel room when the 46-year-old music artist made the shocking proposal. Nicola Peltz looked incredible as she posed for a racy lingerie snap for social media on Tuesday. The actress, 29, showed off her jaw-dropping figure in a sheer red bra and matching shorts, while holding a chic white lace dress to change into. Nicola tagged her mother-in-law Victoria Beckham in the stunning snap - adding rumours she will appear in her Paris Fashion Week show. It comes after Victoria hinted that her Nicola will walk in her show after attending a fitting together. The fashion designer, 49, who is currently on crutches after breaking her foot, cosied up to Nicola as they posed for a sweet mirror selfie. Nicola Peltz showed off her incredible figure in sheer red lingerie as she posed for a racy snap and tagged mother-in-law Victoria Beckham - adding to rumours she will appear in her PFW show It comes after Victoria, 49, hinted that her Nicola, 29, will walk in her show after attending a fitting together Stirring up speculation that Nicola will be modelling her line, Victoria wrote: 'Pre-show prep and fittings in Paris!! Kisses @NicolaAnnePeltzBeckham xx' Stirring up speculation that Nicola will be modelling her line, Victoria wrote: 'Pre-show prep and fittings in Paris!! Kisses @NicolaAnnePeltzBeckham xx.' Nicola looked incredible in a sheer tulle dress which showcased her toned legs, which were further elongated by a pair of towering white heels. The American actress wore her brunette locks in a loose and wavy style, while flashing her huge diamond engagement ring on her hand. Meanwhile, Victoria sported a form-fitting all black ensemble and teamed her medical boot with one white stiletto. The mother of four is currently on crutches after falling over during a gym session and suffering a 'clean break' to her foot. Despite her injury, Victoria is still pressing on with her Fashion Week show preparations, which is due to take place on Friday at 8pm. Nicola was recently revealed as the new face of Balenciaga, joining the likes of Kim Kardashian as an ambassador for the brand. And it seems like she will soon become one of Victoria's 'muses' too, if she walks in the show taking place later this week. Victoria and Nicola were rumoured to be at odds ever since Nicola decided not to wear a wedding dress signed by the former Spice Girls at her nuptials. However, after apparently putting the feud to bed, the duo appear closer than ever now after a series of recent meet ups and family holidays. Victoria posted a picture of her foot strapped up in a 'tres chic' boot The mother of four is currently on crutches after falling over during a gym session and suffering a 'clean break' to her foot Brooklyn Beckham joined his mother Victoria and wife Nicola in Paris for Fashion Week The aspiring chef cut a casual figure in a black bomber jacket and leather trousers Brooklyn is in the French capital to support his family It comes soon after it was reported Victoria has vowed to still work with the model, who split from Posh's middle son at the beginning of the month after a five year on-off romance. Victoria is still 'extremely close' with Mia who has for some time been her muse for her fashion business. The model has worn her items and promoted them across social media - and sources close to the family say that she will continue to do so. One told the Mail: 'Victoria absolutely adores Mia and she is really sad that she and Romeo have split. 'She gets it, they are a young couple and of course the chances are they wouldn't stay together forever but she has her own relationship with Mia and the two women will still work together in the future. 'They both love fashion and have had some ideas about what they can do together and that still stands. They have a really close bond and they love working together, they are on the same page when it comes to fashion and what they like. 'There is absolutely no awkwardness, it is all amicable. Even Romeo won't mind which is all very grown up, a lot of young men wouldn't be happy about such a situation.' In October 2022, Victoria and Mia, 21, who models for the likes of H&M and Gucci, launched a denim collection together as part of the former Spice Girl's VB fashion range. However, it launched after Romeo, 21, and Mia split up. It comes soon after it was reported Victoria has vowed to still work with the model, who split from Posh's middle son at the beginning of the month after a five year on-off romance 'Victoria absolutely adores Mia and she is really sad that she and Romeo have split. But she has her own relationship with Mia' (pictured at London Fashion Week in February 2022) In further heartache, Posh is said to be 'devastated' by her son Romeo, 21, announced his split from his model girlfriend Mia Regan , also 21, after five years Friends of Victoria say she always shared a close relationship with Mia and the two stuck together throughout her fall out with Nicola Peltz - wife of her eldest son, Brooklyn. One said: 'Victoria always appreciated Mia through that time, she had always dreamed she would have great relationships with her sons' partners. While things were tricky with Nicola back then, she and Mia were so close.' It was revealed that the couple, who last year moved in together to an apartment in South London, split two weeks ago when they didn't post on Instagram about Valentine's Day. They began dating in 2017 before having a few months apart in 2022. Confirming the split at the weekend, Romeo wrote on Instagram: 'Mooch and I have parted ways after five years of love, we still have a lot of love and respect for each other, and still hold a strong friendship and always will,' while she also insisted that they remain friends, saying: 'We aren't [together] romantically but we do share lots & lots of love for one another after five years we friendzoned each other hehe.' She followed her statement with a series of red love hearts. The number of savers with $1 million in their 401(K)s is edging towards an all-time high thanks to a booming stock market, new figures show. Analysis by Fidelity Investments found that there were 422,000 401(K) millionaires in the final quarter of 2023, up by 20 percent from the three months prior and 41 percent from the start of the year. It is close to a record set in the final quarter of 2021 when the amount of savers with seven-figure 401(K)s reached 442,000. Meanwhile the number of Individual Retirement Account (IRA) millionaires is already at a record high of 391,600. Retirement plans were bolstered by a particularly strong stock market in 2023 which saw the S&P 500 advance 24 percent over the course of the year. The number of savers with $1 million in their 401(K)s is edging towards an all-time high thanks to a booming stock market , new figures show Those gains were driven by the so-called 'Magnificent Seven' tech stocks including Nvidia, Meta, Google and Amazon. Fidelity - the nation's largest 401(K) provider - said the average age of its 401(K) millionaires was 59. But the report notes that the average balance was just $1118,600 - far below the $1 million mark. A 401(K) is an employer-sponsored plan which workers often contribute to directly from their paycheck. A worker's contributions are often matched by the employer. By comparison IRAs can be opened by anybody including freelance workers. Caroline Eby, 57, pictured, told DailyMail.com that she is edging closer to the $1 million mark - despite never earning more than $80,000 in her life It comes after experts broke down the amount needed to stash away each month to generate a comfortable nest egg - depending at what age you start Those that have managed to stash away a comfortable nest egg insist it is not as difficult as it seems. Caroline Eby told DailyMail.com that she is edging closer to the $1 million mark - despite never earning more than $80,000 in her life. The finance worker, from Washington D.C., said: 'I started saving at age 25 when I was making $22,000 a year in manufacturing. 'Each year, I upped my contribution by 2 percent if I could afford it. I maxed my contribution somewhere around 12 percent.' She added: 'I've never married and have always fully supported myself. I'm so happy and proud of myself for the sacrifices I made 30 years ago. 'Like everyone told me, slow and steady wins the race.' Eby had $990,000 in her account two years ago but then lost $100,000 - something she blamed on the wider economy. Now, her account is 'on its way back up,' she said. It comes after experts laid bare just how much workers of each age group would need to save into their 401(K) to reach $1 million by the time they retire. Your browser does not support iframes. And it may not be as arduous as it seems. According to personal finance The Motley Fool, a 22-year-old would need to put away $325 per month throughout their career to be able to retire with $1.01 million by the time they hit 62. If a worker only started saving into their 401(K) at 27, they would need to put away $500 per month to reach $1.03 million by the same age. The figure rises to $750, $1,200 and $1,900 for a 32-year-old, 37-year-old and 42-year-old respectively. The analysis assumes the investments generate an 8 percent average annual return - slightly below the 10 percent average rate of return generated from the stock market. According to The Motley Fool, a common investing rule of thumb is to subtract your age from 110. The result is the percentage of your portfolio you should then allocate to stocks. For example, if you are 35 years old, approximately 75 percent of your portfolio should be made up of stocks while 25 percent should be reserved for bonds and other conservative investments. Homegrown white goods major Godrej Appliances on Tuesday said it expects at least a 20 per cent growth in sales of air conditioners and refrigerators during the summer season. The city-based company is the fourth largest air conditioner brand with 0.7 million units sales and the fifth when it comes to refrigerators with 1.8 million sales in the country. We expect the summer to be scorching this year after an extended winter and this should help us clock at least 20 per cent uptick in volume for both ACs and refrigerators. Last year, our AC sales more than doubled, Kamal Nandi, executive vice president and business head at the Godrej Appliances told PTI here on Tuesday. He was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of its new range of wood-finish and natured-inspired refrigerators and air conditioners. Nandi said he expects at least 10 per cent of incremental volumes to come in from these new products which will command a 5 per cent premium over its existing products. While its ACs (Air Conditioners) are priced Rs 35,000-45,000 depending on the tonnage, its refrigerators are priced in the Rs 25,000-35,000 range depending on the volume capacity. The new range of products will be manufactured at its Shirwal plant near Pune. The interim Budget for 2024 emerges as a crucial instrument for steering the nation towards inclusive development As is the case with multiple developing economies across the world, India is faced with wealth inequality, unemployment, existing and persisting gaps in healthcare infrastructure and delivery, and environmental concerns. The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index based on data from 2021/22 finds that 16.4 % of Indias population lives in poverty with 4.2% facing severe poverty. The Regional Human Development Report 2024 by UNDP finds that the top 10% of the population controls 65% of the nations total wealth, underlining stark wealth inequality. The consequences are multi-dimensional it negatively impacts upward intergenerational mobility and lowers the rate of economic growth. Lack of jobs has been an area of concern for the country for decades now. While the current unemployment rate for January 2024 is 6.8, unemployment amongst educated youth is concerning. The State of Working India 2023 by Azim Premji University reveals that over 42% of Indias graduates under 25 were unemployed in 2021-22. Marked by a distinct urban-rural divide, gaps in healthcare services and infrastructure are a major obstacle for people in small towns and rural areas. A large part of Indias population suffers from inaccessibility to quality healthcare leading to delayed treatments and high out-of-pocket expenditure. A United Nations report emphasises that approximately 75% of healthcare infrastructure, medical personnel, and other health resources are predominantly located in urban regions, home to merely 27% of the overall population. The impact of climate change and disasters on both people and the economy has been devastating. India experienced uninsured losses of $32.94 billion from natural disasters between 2018 and 2022. The ramifications of human loss are even more grave and are evident in the 55.9 million displacements from 237 disasters mapped between 2018 2022. The interim budget addresses these issues in a big way. It presents a comprehensive roadmap for national progress, meticulously designed to touch upon critical facets of development such as women empowerment, job creation, environmental conservation, and poverty alleviation. It aims to address the needs and aspirations of diverse social groups'Garib' (the poor), 'Mahilayen' (women), 'Yuva' (youth), and 'Annadata' (farmers). This inclusion is notable as it envisages the significance of marginalised social groups in achieving a Viksit Bharat a developed India by 2047 marking a century of Indias independence. The budget prioritises support for the 'Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises' (MSME) sector with necessary finances, technologies, and training to enhance global competitiveness. The rooftop solarization policy is set to offer employment and entrepreneurial opportunities in technical and supply sectors. Additionally, the establishment of a separate Department for Fisheries and the expansion of the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) underscore efforts to double production and exports in the fisheries sector, aiming to create 55 lakh new jobs and drive inclusive economic progress. A significant step is the focus on provisions for the inclusion of low-income groups and women. Initiatives like the disbursement of 30 crore Mudra Yojana loans to women entrepreneurs and financial support to 78 lakh street vendors under PM-SVANidhi emphasise the government's focus on enhancing workforce participation and providing earning avenues that drive upward mobility. The SHG model of development has also proved to be successful enabling nearly 10 million women to achieve annual incomes of over INR 1 lakh. Capitalising on this success, the goal has been expanded to elevate the target from 2 crore to 3 crore 'lakhpati didis', showcasing a commitment to women's economic empowerment. The budget made notable health sector announcements. The focus on preventive healthcare through the provision of cervical cancer vaccinations for young girls and the integration of various maternal and child health schemes indicate a push towards addressing the specific health needs of vulnerable groups. The expansion of the Ayushman Bharat scheme to extend healthcare benefits to approximately 1.5 million ASHA workers and Anganwadi workers acknowledges the crucial contribution of these frontline health workers to primary healthcare services. Leverage existing hospital structures for the establishment of more medical colleges, addresses both the healthcare professional shortage and the surging demand for medical education. This builds on the initiative from April 2023, when the government approved the establishment of 157 nursing colleges, allocating INR 1,570 crore, with the central government contributing INR 1,016 crore. The budget also provides a concrete pathway to achieving a net-zero economy by 2070. Key measures include funding for offshore wind energy, coal gasification projects to lessen reliance on fossil fuels, support for the electric vehicle ecosystem, and incentives for biomass collection. The budget also promotes bio-manufacturing for eco-friendly materials and climate resilience in the blue economy. (The author is a prominent voice on social issues; views are personal) It is incumbent upon us to ensure that every student receives vital lessons in empathy After being constantly taunted for her height, skin colour and academic performance by her fellow students for months, a 12-year-old girl cut her wrists in an attempt to end her mental agony. Fortunately, she was saved. But a 16-year-old student of Class 10, who jumped off the top floor of the apartment building he was living in, did not survive. It was his letter to his mother in which he wrote that the school had killed him, that revealed the shocking details of bullying he was subjected to and the schools failure to stop it. While several steps have been taken to put an end to bullying, penal action can only be a temporary deterrent and not a long-term solution especially in the present milieu of hyped social media, freely available toxic content and, peer pressure. If children are taught to engage empathetically, can it inculcate feelings of respect, dignity and compassion for all? Project Empathy, an endeavour to bring empathy education into school curricula, believes being empathetic can nurture emotionally and mentally strong human beings. When young students understand the importance of living in harmony with one another, the walls of division between them transform into 'walls of friendship. Contrary to popular belief, empathy can be taught. While 50% of our empathic capacities are genetically inherited, research shows that the rest can be learnt. This is the biggest reason why empathy must be taught at a young age. Over the last five years, Project Empathy led by educationist Vibha Lakhera, introduced this concept and developed activities and stories that acknowledge, recognize and identify emotions and broaden the discussion around emotional health and well-being of every student. Empathy education helps to enrich the emotional vocabulary of students and build their emotional and mental resilience. Introduced in about six schools mainly army schools like the Army Rifles Public Schools in North India and Kashmir and Alok Bharati Public School in Delhi, the project has been able to reach out to over 1500 students. Importantly, teachers, who lay the foundation for their values, have been recognized as critical to the success of teaching empathy. This resource book for teachers draws from the education system and best practices in schools in Denmark and Finland, two countries among the top three happiest countries in the world according to the United National Happiness Report. Put together by Lakhera and veteran development journalist Usha Rai, the interesting manual explains the neuroscience of empathy with the help of psychologists and brain scientists sans any jargon. The mirror neurons, which light up when a person feels an emotion like sadness or joy, respond in the same way when this person sees another person also demonstrating the same kind of feelings or actions. This empathic reaction helps to understand and share experiences. The manual also explains the types of empathy-cognitive, emotional and compassionate while differentiating between sympathy and empathy. Stories centred on children and their emotions have been innovatively used to provide practical guidelines on how to diffuse tensions, reduce stress, and strengthen understanding of each others differences. At present, empathy is not included in teacher training programmes. Only a handful of schools have taken the initiative to introduce the concept of empathy education, There is a need to encourage all students to consider different perspectives and viewpoints. Only by being empathetic, can they understand and acknowledge differences of opinion and resolve conflict situations. (Swapna Majumdar is a journalist writing on development and gender. The views are expressed are personal) Chief Minister Mohan Yadav chaired the meeting of the Council of Ministers in Mantralaya today. The Cabinet approved more than Rs 10,373 crore for various irrigation projects in Mandsaur, Rajgarh, Sidhi, Seoni and Balaghat districts. The Cabinet gave revised administrative approval to the Takhaji Micro Pressure Irrigation Project (irrigation area 3550.53 hectares) in Mandsaur district costing Rs 60 crore 3 lakh. Similarly, second revised administrative approval was given for Mohanpura Major Irrigation Project of Rajgarh district costing Rs 4666 crore 66 lakh (irrigation area 1,51,495 hectares). While giving administrative approval to the Sitapur Hanumana Micro Irrigation Project (irrigation area 1,20,000 hectare) in Sidhi district, costing Rs 4167 crore 93 lakh, the Cabinet, in order of approval of this project, gave exemption from the imposed restrictions on the index prescribed for administrative approval and tender. As many as 663 villages of Rewa, Mauganj, Sidhi and Singrauli districts will get the benefit of irrigation facility from the project. The Cabinet gave administrative approval of Rs 332 crore 54 lakh for the work of expansion, renovation and modernization (ERM) of the canals of Sanjay Sarovar Project (Upper Wainganga) of Seoni and Balaghat districts. After completion of ERM work, additional area of ??11 thousand 450 hectares will get the benefit of irrigation facility. The Ccabinet has given in-principle consent to convert Bahuti Canal under Bansagar Multipurpose Project into a micro irrigation project at a cost of Rs 1146 crore 34 lakh under the Modernization of Command Area Development work (MCAD) of the Government of India. The Cabinet approved the proposal by the Tourism Department to operate air services in various cities of the state in collaboration with private operators under Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the state. The Cabinet approved the operation of Pradhan Mantri e-Bus Seva Yojana in the state to expand the infrastructure of city bus services in cities and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under PM e-Bus Scheme, 552 urban e-buses will be operated on PPP model in 6 urban bodies of the state (Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Ujjain and Sagar). With the approval for Payment Security Mechanism (PSM) in the scheme, the State Level Steering Committee (SLSC) has been authorized to approve, implement and monitor the scheme. While expanding the Chief Ministers Urban Area Infrastructure Construction Scheme, approved by the Cabinet at a cost of Rs 800 crore, approval has been given to increase the cost of the scheme to Rs 1100 crore. The sanctioned period of the scheme has been extended from 02 years (2022-23 to 2023-24) to 03 years (up to 2024-25). Under the scheme, approval will be given to various infrastructure development works in urban bodies. The Cabinet has given nod to the formation of Madhya Pradesh Allied and Health Care Council under the provisions of the National Commission for Allied and Health Care Profession Act 2021. Under the decision, the Madhya Pradesh Para-Medical Council Act 2000 has been repealed and the Madhya Pradesh Para-Medical Council functioning under it has also been dissolved. Approval has been given to transfer the assets, working staff, responsibilities etc. of Madhya Pradesh Para-Medical Council to Madhya Pradesh Allied and Health Care Council. The Cabinet has approved amendment in the Madhya Pradesh Work (Allocation) Rules to merge the work being done in relation to Startup and Incubation under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Department. With Congress MLAs cross voting despite the party issuing a whip, BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan on Tuesday won the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh, defeating ruling Congress' Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Officials said the contest was tied at 34-34 votes, after which Mahajan was declared winner by a draw of lots. This is a major jolt for the Congress which came to power in the state in December 2022 and has 40 MLAs in the 68-member state assembly and claimed support of the independents. The result made it clear that nine MLAs, including six of the Congress, voted in favour of the BJP which was confident that Congress MLAs would exercise 'conscience vote'. Mahajan, a three-time Congress MLA and former minister, had resigned from the party in September 2022 ahead of the assembly polls and joined the BJP. In the run-up to the polls, he had been repeatedly saying that he knows all the MLAs very well, is in touch with them and was hopeful of victory. Mahajan had said he filed the nominations to be victorious and expressed the hope that the Congress members will exercise conscience vote. The shocking defeat could lead to political trouble for Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu after at least six Congress MLAs reportedly cross-voted to the saffron party. As the counting of votes was underway, Chief Minister Sukhu made a startling allegation, saying that five to six Congress MLAs were abducted and whisked away by the CRPF and Haryana Police. The chief minister claimed that Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur was threatening the polling officers by coming to the counting hall time and again. It is understood that opposition BJP, which at present has 25 MLAs, would bring a no-confidence motion against the Sukhu government to test its legislative strength. AIIMS Bhopal has witnessed remarkable achievements in various academic forums. Dr Sukhes Mukherjee, Additional Professor in Biochemistry department of AIIMS Bhopal received the prestigious Mrs Farha Deeba Haq Oration award from Indian Academy of Biochemical Sciences for his exemplary contribution in Cancer Research. His oration was on " Moliecular sketches and Inflections of HIFs Guided Signature Genes in Hypoxic Breast Cancer" The award was bestowed on him at the 12th Annual Conference of Indian Academy of Biomedical Sciences held at AIIMS Patna from February 23 to 25, 2024. The setting of this award, during the 12th Annual Conference of the Indian Academy of Biomedical Sciences at AIIMS Patna, provides an excellent platform for sharing his research and findings with peers and the broader scientific community. These events are crucial for the dissemination of knowledge, encouraging collaboration among researchers, and fostering the development of new research directions and methodologies. Governor Mangubhai Patel has said that comprehensive efforts are needed to prevent blood-borne diseases, especially sickle cell anemia. He said that in his experience it is relatively difficult for economically poor and tribal people living in remote areas to reach medical centers. We will have to take spread awareness within the identified community. The work of survey, testing, genetic counselling, health education and public awareness should be expanded. Governor Patel was addressing the inaugural session of a two-day clinical training workshop on Prevention and Management of Hemoglobinopathy organized at Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC). He also released the souvenir of the workshop. The workshop has been organized by the Blood Transfusion Department of Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Center in collaboration with the Indian Medical Council, Department of Health Research and the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Patel said that sickle cell genetic form, being a carrier and patient in a person, is the origin of 21 types of other diseases. It is critically essential that the disease is screened, tested, genetic counselling, marriage counseling till the last level. In fact pregnancy testing and medical consultation should be done on a large scale. Along with organizing medical camps in remote areas and for the deprived sections, it is necessary to sensitize school, college teachers and Anganwadi workers of the area regarding hemoglobinopathy diseases. Innovations should be made in spreading information about disease patterns, essential lifestyle and eating habits. The referral system to high-efficiency medical institutions should be strengthened. Also, the knowledge and tradition of traditional medical methods should be authentically added to the disease management efforts. Governor Patel told that about 45 years ago, He met a child suffering from sickle cell had come in contact with him, who despite being taken to Mumbai to see a doctor, succumbed within 4 months. This incident affected him deeply. Since then he has been working in this direction. Referring to the efforts made to eradicate sickle cell anemia disease in Gujarat during the tenure of Modi as Chief Minister, he said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a provision of Rs 15 thousand crore by making a mission to eradicate sickle cell anemia by the year 2047. Co-ordinated efforts are needed for prevention and management of the disease. He said that the state government is carrying out disease management work on a large scale in 20 tribal dominated districts. Approximately 12 lakh genetic cards have also been distributed. Physicians have been requested to use their influence to motivate the affluent section of the society and industrial establishments to extend a helping hand in the efforts for eradication of the disease in the deprived sections. Health Advisor of the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Dr. Vineeta Srivastava told that Governor Patels work as the Tribal Affairs Minister of Gujarat State and his advice as Governor have guided the department. On his suggestion, Sickle Cell Center of Competence is being prepared. Efforts have been made for screening in collaboration with the AYUSH department. Health systems have been developed to identify anemia in children. Research work for gene editing has started. Efforts have been made to reach the backmost by preparing modules for public awareness and disease management and connecting self-help groups and social service organizations. Indian Medical Council representative Dr. Geeta Jodhwani said that efforts to upgrade capacity by training field workers and doctors are necessary to reach the community. He said that research work should be done to develop indigenous techniques of modern treatment for prevention and treatment efforts. He also expressed the need to create sickle cell wards in hospitals for patients. Earlier, The Governor said that about 45 years ago, when he was a member of the Municipality, he took a child suffering from sickle cell anemia to Mumbai. The doctor told him that if he wanted to keep this child alive, he should keep the child happy and feed him well. Unfortunately, this child died in 4 months. He has seen many such children die in front of his eyes. That's when he started gaining sympathy for the victims of sickle cell. Around 50 people, including patients and staff members, at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain (LNJP) Hospital in Central Delhi were evacuated after a fire broke out in the seven-storey emergency block building, an official said on Tuesday. No one was injured. Chief of Delhi Fire Services Atul Garg said they received a call about the blaze from the hospital at around 10.18 pm on Monday. A total of 10 fire engines were immediately pressed into service. The fire broke out due to a short circuit in the OPD main casualty ward. It took almost an hour to extinguish the blaze completely, he said. Around 50 people, including patients and hospital staff, were evacuated, Garg said. According to police, the fire broke out on the third-floor emergency ward. They rushed to the spot and flames were found in a shaft of cables on the third and fourth floors. Fire tenders were provided a clear passage up to the emergency ward. Police and hospital staff evacuated the patients from the ground floor. The fire was soon extinguished. No one was injured, a senior police officer said. A senior doctor at the LNJP Hospital said, It would have been a major accident had our staff not been alert. The fire broke out on the third floor of the seven-storey emergency block building, and our staff responded to the fire immediately and also alerted the Delhi Fire authorities, the doctor said. As hospital staff are trained to respond in such a situation and mock drills have been held in the past, many of them used fire extinguishers themselves to douse the flames before the fire tenders reached, the hospital officials said. The cause of the fire is suspected to be a short circuit in a part of the emergency block, which houses the OPD ward and the casualty ward adjoining it, they said. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, while speaking during the ongoing Budget session of the State Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday, said that unlike the previous governments, the current state government has presented the need based budget rather than demand based budget. The public has full confidence in the present government, he added. Khattar, who also holds the Finance portfolio, on Friday announced waiver of interest and penalty on certain crop loans and did not hike taxes as he presented a Rs 1.89 lakh crore budget for 2024-25 financial year. Khattar said that the government is working on the principle of underprivileged hold the first right to the states resources. Highlighting the eradication of traditional governance practices, when the development was restricted to only one assembly constituency or district, he said that the present state government's focus is on addressing the real needs of the people rather than merely catering to political demands. He further said that the budget presented by the present state government reflects this ethos, symbolizing a government that is truly of, by, and for the people. While speaking on the role of fiscal management, the Chief Minister said that the fundamental principle of the budget is receipts and expenditure, where even a difference of 1 paisa cannot occur. Speaking on the State Own Tax Revenue, he said that in the year 2001-02, this figure was Rs. 4,971 crore, which has been projected to be Rs. 84,551 crore in the budget estimate for the year 2024-25, showing an increase of more than 20 times. Our State Own Tax Revenue has increased, which indicates development, as a result of which our GSDP has also increased. According to the FRBM Act, the state can take loans up to 3 percent of the GSDP. In the budget estimates for the year 2024-25, it is estimated to be 2.77 percent, said the Chief Minister. Khattar further shared that in the fiscal year 2014-15, the effective revenue deficit was 1.90 percent, which remained at 0.65 percent in the revised estimate for 2023-24 and is proposed to be 0.9 percent in the budget estimate for the year 2024-25. It is hoped that it will remain below 1 percent. We are consistently making improvements in this regard, he said. The Chief Minister said that his government is working with the spirit of Antyodaya. Efforts are being made to uplift those at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid and to make their lives prosperous. The poor hold the first right to government resources. He said that the government has formed the Haryana Income Enchantment Board viz (Haryana Aay Vridhi Board) so that the income of the poor people can be increased and they can be financially strengthened. The slogan of Roti kapda Makan, we have added Shiksha, Swasthya aur Samman. Efforts are being made to improve the lives of everyone by giving good governance to every citizen. The present state government is moving ahead in the direction of making Haryana a 7-star state, i.e Shiksha, Swasthya, Suraksha, Swabhiman, Swavalamban, Sewa and Sushashan, he added. The Chief Minister, while presenting comparative figures of crime, said that in the ten years from 2005 to 2014, there was an annual increase rate of 3.9 percent in murder cases, which has now decreased to minus 0.51 percent since 2014. Similarly, the rate of dacoity has decreased from 7.73 to minus 3.90, robbery from 9.38 percent to 3.23 percent, snatching from 10.86 percent to 4.53 percent, rape from 10.86 percent to 5.01 percent, cases of assault on women from 18.02 percent to 2.62 percent, kidnapping of minor from 22.61 percent to 3.49 percent, attacks on government employees from 4.41 percent to minus 2.81, and the rate of dowry deaths has decreased from 3.66 to minus 4.1. He said that the result of the examination conducted for Group-C posts will be declared soon. Apart from this, recruitment is also being done for PGT and Police. In this way, more than 43,000 recruitments will be done in the coming days. Jhajjar to have Police Commissionerate Khattar has made four major announcements including establishment of a police commissionerate in Jhajjar, the elimination of the 1 percent Haryana Rural Development Fund (HRDF) levied on Sabzi Mandis (vegetable markets), the conferment of proprietary rights to 2719 families residing in four villages, who have built their houses on the land of Government Livestock Farm, Hisar and the inception of a High-Level Task Force dedicated to Mission Haryana-2047. He said that Jhajjar district, adjacent to the National Capital Region, will now be made a Police Commissionerate. The Commissioner of Police will be deployed there for law enforcement. Previously, Police Commissionerates were already in place for Faridabad, Gurugram, and Sonipat. Data of all departments to be digitised in State Khattar announced that the data of all departments will be digitised in the state. For this purpose, digital record rooms will be set up at the headquarters and district levels. Apart from the budget for 2024-25, if required, provision for the same will also be made in the upcoming supplementary budget estimates for this purpose. He said that the government had started digitizing the records of the Revenue department from the Kaithal district, and today the records of the entire department have been digitized. Digital Legislative Business Module launched on the website of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha, records from 1966 to date digitally available Vidhan Sabha Speaker Gian Chand Gupta took a significant step by digitizing the complete records of the Assembly. The complete record of the Assembly from 1966 to date will be available digitally on this website. Khattar said that every work being executed under Karnal Smart City is done in a fair and transparent manner. There is no corruption of any kind going on in these works. However, if any MLA gives a written complaint of any irregularity, the government will certainly examine, and if someone is found guilty, action will be taken against them, assured Khattar while responding during the question hour. Khattar said that the provisions made for reservation for Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes are being adhered to in the engagement process of the manpower deployed by Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam. Currently, there is 15.64 percent manpower against the 16 percent reservation for BC-A and 11.4 percent against the 11 percent reservation for BC-B. Additionally, there are 20.63 percent employees belonging to the Scheduled Caste. Oppn dismisses State budget as 'hollow'; while BJP MLAs described budget as development-oriented While debating on the budget proposals, the Opposition MLAs dismissed the state budget as "hollow", claiming that it has left various sections including farmers and women disappointed. On the other hand, BJP MLAs described the budget as development-oriented, saying it will take Haryana on the path of progress. BJP's Bhavya Bishnoi said Chief Minister Khattar has kept welfare provisions for various sections in mind while preparing the budget. He said the budget also kept the welfare of farmers in mind and added "the chief minister, who is a farmer's son, understands the pain of farmers". Bishnoi, the MLA from Adampur, alleged that Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, while making a reference to the murder of INLD state chief Nafe Singh Rathee, had made a mention of "Bishnoi gang" and defamed the Bishnoi community. However, former Haryana chief minister Hooda asked the BJP member not to spread "falsehood" as he had only referred to some reports which had talked about "Lawrence Bishnoi gang" in connection with INLD leader's murder in Bahadurgarh on Sunday. "I did not refer to or mention the name of the community as is being claimed," Hooda said. INLD's lone MLA Abhay Singh Chautala said treasury benches praised the budget whereas the debt has been mounting. There is only an increase of Rs 6,000 crore in budget size in FY 2024-25 as compared to the previous year, Chautala said, while adding the government is "borrowing heavily". The state has been pushed into debt trap, he alleged. The government is not serious in carrying out development works, he further said. Congress' Balbir Singh also said that during the previous Congress regime in Haryana, 2.5 lakh houses were built under the Indra Awas Yojana while 100 square yard plots were given to the poor. He said the present government "should not deceive" the poor with mere promises and give them 100 square yard plots like the ones by the previous regime. Two bills passed Two bills were passed on the fifth day of Haryana Vidhan Sabha. These bills include the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Haryana Amendment Bill, 2024 and the Haryana Antarrashtriya Gita Jayanti Mela Authority Bill, 2024. Delhi Lt Governor (LG)Vinai Kumar Saxena has given his nod for implementation of the Supreme Court direction for revision of allowances for judicial officers in Delhi on the basis of the recommendations of the Second National Judicial Pay Commission (SNJPC). Saxena approved the proposal of the Law Department in this regard and it has now been sent to the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, for its concurrence as per laid down rules, officials said here on Tuesday. The Supreme Court in its judgment dated 04.01.2024 in writ petition (C-643/2015) titled All India Judges Association vs Union of India & Others -- had accepted the recommendations of the SNJPC with respect to the allowance of judicial officers/retired judicial officers of Delhi Judicial Services (DJS) and Delhi Higher Judicial Service (DHJS). The apex court in its judgment had set the deadline of February 29, 2024 for all States and Union Territories for disbursements on account of arrears of salary, pension and allowances due and payable to judicial officers, retired judicial officers and family pensioners. Sagar Group's NAAC and NBA-accredited Sagar Institute of Science and Technology (SISTec College) for its B Tech has signed an educational MoU in line with the international standards with Perdana University of Malaysia. This is considered an important step towards international academic cooperation. The main objective of the MoU is to strengthen academic cooperation between the two institutions and to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, research, student and faculty exchange programs and promote innovation. In a virtual ceremony. The MoU was signed between Vice-Chancellor of Perdana University Dr Mohaned Musatfa Ishak, Dean of Faculty of Science and Technology, Dr Azwin Bin Abdullah and SISTec Bhopal Group Director Dr Jyoti Deshmukh and Principal Dr Manish Billore were present. Through this partnership, SISTec and Perdana University move forward to embarking journey of mutual growth and innovations. This collaboration will also provide exciting opportunities for students, researchers and faculties of institutions to engage in interdisciplinary initiatives that will have a meaningful impact globally. Sufi Syed Riyazuddin Chishty, Gaddi Nahsin - Dargah Ajmer Sharif and Founder Chairman of Ajmer Global Sufi Foundation, also the Patron-in-Chief, Dilli Durbar festival, has expressed gratitude to the Government of India for their unwavering support towards the Dilli Durbar 2024 held at Gandhi Darshan Museum, Rajghat, New Delhi on February 23, 24 and 25. During this three-day celebration of Sprituality and Love, the launch of the book The Divine Light authored by Syed Adil Husain Chishty marked a significant moment. The book encapsulates the teachings and life of Khwaja Gharib Nawaz (HA), an apostle of peace and harmony, emphasising the value of serving all with unconditional love, peace, and understanding across different faiths and cultures. This festival, aimed at reflecting the spirituality of India, has garnered widespread acclaim and serves as a beacon of communal harmony and interfaith dialogue. This initiative aligns strongly with the vision of Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Dilli Durbar initiative, fostered by the spirit of communal harmony and interfaith dialogue, has seen participation from various religious leaders representing diverse faiths and traditions. It is a profound journey that celebrates the rich spiritual ethos of our nation, drawing inspiration from the teachings and philosophy of the great SufiBhakti spiritual traditions, thereby exemplifying the unity in diversity that is intrinsic to India. The traffic police in Delhi is planning to convert the duty-point areas of its personnel into beat areas in an attempt to reduce congestion on roads, officials said on Tuesday. A senior police officer said they are planning to try it out as a pilot project at some important road intersections of the city. A duty point is a specific area assigned to a traffic police personnel, whereas the area under a beat is wider. We are planning to change the duty-point areas of the traffic personnel into beat areas. We are planning to introduce it as a pilot project. We will first target the main areas or places where traffic congestion is an issue. With this, the traffic police personnel can go to any area in their beat, which is wider than the duty point, in order to remove traffic congestion as and when required, the officer said. Traffic is one of the major issues Delhiites face everyday. Since the force is busy at Delhis border points in view of an ongoing farmers protest, the plan is likely to be launched next month, the officer said. The officer further said this is being done for a better management of the traffic system in the national capital and ensure a smooth flow of vehicular movement. In 2022, the Delhi Police had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with FM radio stations to air live updates about traffic congestions and diversions to commuters in the national capital. Under the MoU, information regarding traffic is taken from the ranges and forwarded to the public relations officer to further pass it on to the FM stations. Sufia S/o Farukh Khan is a resident of village Rehta Khurd on Magardha Road, 5 km away from Harda. Sufiya is 9 years old and a student of class 3. Sufia had lost her sight since last 4 years. Earlier there was itching in his eyes, due to rubbing eyes, his vision deteriorated rapidly. Sufia also started having difficulty in reading and writing. Unfortunately he became total blind and was not able to see anything. His father consulted an ophthalmologist at Harda but he did not find significant change in the vision of his son. Later, the optometrist of the Vision Center run by Sewa Sadan Hospital in Harda suggested Farukh to take his son to Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital based at Sant Hirdaram Nagar. Sufiya's eyes were examined by cornea specialist Dr. Prerna Upadhyay at Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital and it was found that both his corneas were damaged and now there could be no treatment except cornea transplantation. Dr Prerna transplanted the cornea of child Sufia's left eye five months ago. Sufia benefited very much from this surgical procedure, and now he has regained his lost vision and started going to school. Sufia and his parents are now very happy. Child Sufiya's grandparents and great-grandparents are also alive. Sufia's entire family is very happy with the sight of his eyes, he is the only son of his parents. Farukh works as a mason in building construction and earns an average of Rs 15,000 per month. Due to loss of eyesight the child's life was at stake and his studies had come to a halt. The entire family was worried about how this child would grow up and be able to earn bread and butter in his life. Dr Prerna Upadhyaya has transplanted the cornea of child Sufia's left eye and made him capable of seeing the beautiful world of nature. Therefore, the entire family including Sufia's grandparents and great-grandparents are thankful to almighty Allah, Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital and Dr. Prerna Upadhyaya. STAFF REPORTER n BHOPAL Sufia S/o Farukh Khan is a resident of village Rehta Khurd on Magardha Road, 5 km away from Harda. Sufiya is 9 years old and a student of class 3. Sufia had lost her sight since last 4 years. Earlier there was itching in his eyes, due to rubbing eyes, his vision deteriorated rapidly. Sufia also started having difficulty in reading and writing. Unfortunately he became total blind and was not able to see anything. His father consulted an ophthalmologist at Harda but he did not find significant change in the vision of his son. Later, the optometrist of the Vision Center run by Sewa Sadan Hospital in Harda suggested Farukh to take his son to Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital based at Sant Hirdaram Nagar. Sufiya's eyes were examined by cornea specialist Dr. Prerna Upadhyay at Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital and it was found that both his corneas were damaged and now there could be no treatment except cornea transplantation. Dr Prerna transplanted the cornea of child Sufia's left eye five months ago. Sufia benefited very much from this surgical procedure, and now he has regained his lost vision and started going to school. Sufia and his parents are now very happy. Child Sufiya's grandparents and great-grandparents are also alive. Sufia's entire family is very happy with the sight of his eyes, he is the only son of his parents. Farukh works as a mason in building construction and earns an average of Rs 15,000 per month. Due to loss of eyesight the child's life was at stake and his studies had come to a halt. The entire family was worried about how this child would grow up and be able to earn bread and butter in his life. Dr Prerna Upadhyaya has transplanted the cornea of child Sufia's left eye and made him capable of seeing the beautiful world of nature. Therefore, the entire family including Sufia's grandparents and great-grandparents are thankful to almighty Allah, Sewa Sadan Eye Hospital and Dr. Prerna Upadhyaya. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Wednesday serious action would be taken against those who allegedly raised 'Pakistan zindabad' slogan inside the 'Vidhana Soudha' if the investigation found the charge to be true. When Congress workers were celebrating Syed Naseer Hussain's victory in the Rajya Sabha elections here on Tuesday night, it is alleged, some people shouted 'Pakistan zindabad' slogan. The BJP lodged a police complaint on the issue, and staged protests in several parts of the State, including Belagavi, Chitradurga and Mandya, on Wednesday, condemning the Congress government. Reacting to the allegation, Siddaramaiah said there is no question of sparing anyone. "It is not only allegation by BJP, it is also allegation by media", he said referring to the charge that "Pakistan zindabad" slogan was heard after Hussain was declared winner at "Vidhana Soudha". "If the FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory) report proves that the slogan raised in favour of Pakistan is true, serious action will be taken in this regard. There is no question of protecting those who raised slogans in favour of Pakistan," the Chief Minister told reporters. "We have sent the voice report to the FSL. When the report comes, if it's true that somebody has made a slogan that 'Pakistan zindabad' such a person will be punished seriously", Siddaramaiah said. "If somebody has raised such a slogan, there is no question of sparing them. If it is true we will take strict action, serious action." On the alleged incident taking place in Vidhana Soudha, the seat of state legislature and secretariat, he said: "What difference will it make to those who want to raise slogans?" Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi warned that a statewide agitation will be launched if the accused are not arrested. "Instead of condemning the incident, Naseer Hussain is trying to mislead people, saying that somebody is spreading false information, which is more dangerous," Joshi told reporters in Hubballi in north Karnataka. The Minister sought to know the "take" of the Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on this incident "because Hussain is the 'Shishya' of Kharge". "I ask the state Home Minister Dr G Parameshwara to take a serious note of it, otherwise the BJP will launch a statewide agitation," Joshi said. An accountability court in Pakistan on Tuesday indicted Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in the 190 million pounds Al Qadir corruption case, in another blow to the beleaguered former prime minister who is currently in jail after being convicted in multiple cases. Judge Nasir Javed Rana, who replaced Judge Mohammad Bashir as he is retiring in a few weeks, conducted the hearing at Rawalpindis high-security Adiala jail where the 71-year-old Pakistan-Tehreek-Insaf founder is incarcerated in graft cases as well as the Cipher leak case. The Al-Qadir Trust case pertains to the settlement of 190 million pounds, which the UKs National Crime Agency sent to Pakistan after recovering the amount from Pakistani property tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain. Khan and his wife Bushra, who were brought before the court, pleaded not guilty after the judge read the chargesheet in their presence. Khan was arrested in the same case from the premises of the Islamabad High Court on May 9, 2023. His arrest sparked violent protests across the country, with his protesters attacking military installations. Later, the Supreme Court declared his arrest on May 9 as illegal. In December, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) initiated an investigation against Khan, his wife, and others regarding the alleged acquisition of hundreds of canals of land under the name of Al Qadir University Trust, resulting in a reported loss of 190 million pounds to the exchequer. During the hearing on Tuesday, the court said that statements of 58 witnesses will be recorded in the case, Geo News reported. The judge asked Khan if he was guilty or not while framing charges against him. Why should I read the chargesheet when I know whats written in it? Khan replied. Both Khan and his wife denied the charges against them. Khans counsel said that copies of references have to be provided seven days before the indictment, adding that these documents hold importance in this case. We have filed a petition to share the copy of the documents, he added. The hearing was adjourned till March 6 and the court also ordered five witnesses of NAB to attend the hearing. The court also approved Khans petition seeking a general physician and dentist for his medical examination and dental check-up in jail. Bushra, 49, is imprisoned at Khans Bani Gala residence in Islamabad after an accountability court sentenced the couple to 14 years in jail in the Toshakhana corruption case last month. She was brought to the court in a security convoy. According to the Al-Qadir Trust case, Khan, when he was the prime minister, instead of depositing the 190 million pounds in the national treasury, allowed property tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain to use the amount to partly settle a fine of about Rs 450 billion imposed by the Supreme Court some years ago. The businessman, in return, allegedly gifted about 57 acres of land to a trust set up by Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, to establish the Al-Qadir University in the Sohawa area of the Jhelum district of Punjab. Hussain, his son Ahmed Ali Riaz, Mirza Shehzad Akbar, and Zulfi Bukhari are also among the suspects in the case, but instead of joining the investigation and subsequent court proceedings, they absconded and were subsequently declared as proclaimed offenders. Khan was ousted through a vote of no-confidence in April 2022. More than 150 cases have been registered against him since his ouster from power. Khan has also been disqualified from holding any public office for 10 years. IMRAN-PARTY-PROTEST Imran Khans party gives nationwide protest call against poll rigging on Mar 2 Pakistans jailed former prime minister Imran Khans party on Tuesday announced a countrywide protest on Saturday against the alleged rigging in the February 8 elections that has prevented the party from returning to power. Addressing a press conference after meeting Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan in Rawalpindis high-security Adiala jail where he is currently incarcerated, the partys Secretary General and its candidate for the prime ministers slot, Omar Ayub reiterated large scale rigging in the polls.PTI would stage countrywide protests against the rigging in polls alongside other political parties, he was quoted as saying by Geo News. Our seats were stolen with just a stroke of pen. The people gave the mandate to the former PTI chairman. Nations mandate and our seats have been attacked, Ayub said. He said the PTI would protest in courts and assemblies across the country. Ours is the fight of truth, Ayub said, adding that the party has nominated Amir Dogar and Junaid Khan for the post of National Assembly speaker and deputy speaker, respectively. Separately, speaking to media outside the Adiala jail, PTIs central leader Sher Afzal Marwat said Imran Khan wants the nation to take to the streets on March 2 against alleged rigging in the elections, the Dawn newspaper reported. Britains Prince William on Tuesday pulled out of attending the memorial service in honour of his late godfather, Constantine the former King of Greece, due to a personal matter. The 41-year-old Prince of Wales Kensington Palace office said the royal had called the Greek royal family, which is attending the memorial service at St Georges Chapel in Windsor Castle, to let them know he was unable to attend the service. The palace did not give any further details but in an update on the health of Williams wife, Kate Middleton, it said the Princess of Wales continues to be doing well after an abdominal surgery earlier. William was scheduled to attend the service for the late Greek King, who died in January last year. King Charles III, who is undergoing cancer treatment, is also not attending, leaving his wife Queen Camilla as the senior-most representative for the British royal family at the ceremony. King Constantines eldest son, Crown Prince Pavlos, is to step in to give the reading in place of Prince William. King Charles is believed to have been close to King Constantine, who was his second cousin and related on his father Prince Philips side of the family. Constantine, the last King of Greece who reigned from 1964 to 1973 until a military coup, died at the age of 82 in January 2023. Queen Camilla is to host a private reception for guests at the memorial service, including Queen Anne-Marie, former Queen of the Hellenes, as well as other members of the Greek royal family at Windsor Castle. Morningstar Investment Services LLC grew its position in Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE Free Report) by 146.9% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,124,170 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after acquiring an additional 668,912 shares during the period. Morningstar Investment Services LLCs holdings in Pfizer were worth $36,075,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Worth Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Pfizer during the first quarter worth about $29,000. Briaud Financial Planning Inc acquired a new position in Pfizer in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Mizuho Securities Co. Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Pfizer during the third quarter valued at $34,000. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Pfizer during the third quarter worth $37,000. Finally, Steward Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in Pfizer in the second quarter valued at $43,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 68.05% of the companys stock. Get Pfizer alerts: Insiders Place Their Bets In other Pfizer news, Director Scott Gottlieb bought 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 15th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $26.47 per share, for a total transaction of $79,410.00. Following the purchase, the director now directly owns 9,000 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $238,230. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 0.05% of the companys stock. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities research analysts have commented on the company. TD Cowen lowered Pfizer from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and set a $32.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of Pfizer from $34.00 to $27.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a report on Thursday, December 14th. Guggenheim assumed coverage on shares of Pfizer in a research note on Friday. They issued a buy rating and a $36.00 price objective on the stock. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Pfizer from $39.00 to $37.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, November 1st. Finally, Barclays cut their target price on Pfizer from $34.00 to $28.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 14th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Pfizer has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $36.88. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Pfizer Pfizer Stock Down 0.7 % PFE stock traded down $0.18 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $27.00. 22,080,210 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 41,856,949. The company has a quick ratio of 0.69, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.69. The firms fifty day moving average price is $28.07 and its 200-day moving average price is $30.73. Pfizer Inc. has a 52 week low of $25.76 and a 52 week high of $42.22. The company has a market cap of $152.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 74.53, a P/E/G ratio of 1.24 and a beta of 0.62. Pfizer (NYSE:PFE Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 30th. The biopharmaceutical company reported $0.10 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of ($0.19) by $0.29. Pfizer had a return on equity of 10.88% and a net margin of 3.62%. The business had revenue of $14.25 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $14.37 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.14 EPS. Pfizers quarterly revenue was down 41.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Pfizer Inc. will post 2.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Pfizer Increases Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 1st. Investors of record on Friday, January 26th will be issued a dividend of $0.42 per share. This is a positive change from Pfizers previous quarterly dividend of $0.41. This represents a $1.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.22%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, January 25th. Pfizers dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 466.67%. Pfizer Company Profile (Free Report) Pfizer Inc discovers, develops, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells biopharmaceutical products worldwide. It offers medicines and vaccines in various therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular metabolic, migraine, and women's health under the Eliquis, Nurtec ODT/Vydura, and the Premarin family brands; infectious diseases with unmet medical needs under the Prevnar family, Nimenrix, FSME/IMMUN-TicoVac, and Trumenba brands; and COVID-19 prevention and treatment, and potential future mRNA and antiviral products under the Comirnaty and Paxlovid brands. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PFE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Pfizer Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Pfizer and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. SM Energy (NYSE:SM Free Report) Equities researchers at Seaport Res Ptn lowered their Q1 2024 EPS estimates for SM Energy in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, February 21st. Seaport Res Ptn analyst N. Pope now forecasts that the energy company will post earnings per share of $1.25 for the quarter, down from their previous estimate of $1.35. Seaport Res Ptn currently has a Buy rating on the stock. The consensus estimate for SM Energys current full-year earnings is $5.75 per share. Seaport Res Ptn also issued estimates for SM Energys Q2 2024 earnings at $1.38 EPS, Q3 2024 earnings at $1.43 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $1.47 EPS, FY2024 earnings at $5.54 EPS, Q1 2025 earnings at $1.55 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $1.48 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $1.56 EPS and Q4 2025 earnings at $1.65 EPS. Get SM Energy alerts: SM Energy (NYSE:SM Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 21st. The energy company reported $1.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.39 by $0.17. The business had revenue of $608.73 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $611.35 million. SM Energy had a net margin of 34.45% and a return on equity of 20.74%. The firms quarterly revenue was down 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.29 EPS. A number of other equities analysts have also commented on the stock. Raymond James cut their price target on shares of SM Energy from $53.00 to $45.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Monday, January 8th. Wells Fargo & Company began coverage on SM Energy in a report on Wednesday, November 15th. They set an equal weight rating and a $40.00 target price on the stock. KeyCorp cut their target price on SM Energy from $56.00 to $51.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Mizuho cut their target price on SM Energy from $50.00 to $44.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 3rd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a sector perform rating and set a $45.00 target price on shares of SM Energy in a report on Monday, February 5th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $41.90. Read Our Latest Report on SM SM Energy Price Performance Shares of SM opened at $42.84 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.45, a current ratio of 1.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. The stock has a market cap of $4.96 billion, a PE ratio of 6.24 and a beta of 4.18. SM Energy has a 12-month low of $24.66 and a 12-month high of $43.73. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $38.00 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $38.79. Institutional Trading of SM Energy A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of SM. First Horizon Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of SM Energy during the first quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Penserra Capital Management LLC bought a new position in SM Energy during the third quarter valued at $28,000. IFP Advisors Inc grew its holdings in SM Energy by 561.7% during the second quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 880 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 747 shares during the period. BluePath Capital Management LLC bought a new position in SM Energy during the third quarter valued at $32,000. Finally, Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in SM Energy by 59.7% during the third quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 990 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $39,000 after purchasing an additional 370 shares during the period. 91.26% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. SM Energy Increases Dividend The firm also recently declared a semi-annual dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 5th. Investors of record on Friday, January 19th were given a dividend of $0.18 per share. This represents a dividend yield of 1.5%. This is an increase from SM Energys previous semi-annual dividend of $0.15. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 18th. SM Energys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 10.48%. SM Energy Company Profile (Get Free Report) SM Energy Company, an independent energy company, engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids in the state of Texas. It also has working interests in oil and gas producing wells in the Midland Basin and South Texas. The company was formerly known as St. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for SM Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for SM Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC lifted its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report) by 23.4% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 66,365 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after buying an additional 12,577 shares during the quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRCs holdings in Bristol-Myers Squibb were worth $3,852,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Synovus Financial Corp raised its stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 1.0% during the 3rd quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 335,373 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $19,465,000 after purchasing an additional 3,165 shares during the last quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina raised its stake in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 1,062,834 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $61,687,000 after buying an additional 16,071 shares in the last quarter. Truvestments Capital LLC raised its stake in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 3.3% in the 3rd quarter. Truvestments Capital LLC now owns 34,690 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $2,013,000 after buying an additional 1,106 shares in the last quarter. Vinva Investment Management Ltd raised its stake in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Vinva Investment Management Ltd now owns 77,323 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $4,496,000 after buying an additional 925 shares in the last quarter. Finally, MQS Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 51.2% in the 3rd quarter. MQS Management LLC now owns 14,012 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $813,000 after buying an additional 4,742 shares in the last quarter. 74.98% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Bristol-Myers Squibb alerts: Bristol-Myers Squibb Stock Up 0.3 % Shares of NYSE BMY opened at $50.68 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $102.48 billion, a PE ratio of 13.08, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.53 and a beta of 0.38. The company has a current ratio of 1.43, a quick ratio of 1.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.24. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a 1 year low of $47.58 and a 1 year high of $71.07. The firms 50-day moving average is $50.35 and its 200-day moving average is $53.73. Bristol-Myers Squibb Increases Dividend Bristol-Myers Squibb ( NYSE:BMY Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Friday, February 2nd. The biopharmaceutical company reported $1.70 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.55 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $11.48 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.19 billion. Bristol-Myers Squibb had a net margin of 17.83% and a return on equity of 50.95%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.82 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Bristol-Myers Squibb will post 6.61 EPS for the current year. The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 1st. Investors of record on Friday, January 5th were given a $0.60 dividend. This represents a $2.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.74%. This is an increase from Bristol-Myers Squibbs previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 4th. Bristol-Myers Squibbs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 62.18%. Bristol-Myers Squibb announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Thursday, December 7th that authorizes the company to buyback $3.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the biopharmaceutical company to repurchase up to 2.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally a sign that the companys board believes its stock is undervalued. Analyst Ratings Changes A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on BMY. TheStreet cut shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a research note on Thursday, November 9th. Redburn Atlantic lowered shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from a buy rating to a neutral rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $77.00 to $54.00 in a report on Tuesday, February 6th. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $68.00 to $55.00 in a report on Wednesday, November 15th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a report on Thursday, February 22nd. Finally, Bank of America lowered shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb from a buy rating to a neutral rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $68.00 to $60.00 in a report on Wednesday, January 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have issued a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $61.17. Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on BMY Insider Activity at Bristol-Myers Squibb In other news, CEO Christopher S. Boerner purchased 2,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 5th. The shares were acquired at an average cost of $49.78 per share, for a total transaction of $99,560.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 82,672 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,115,412.16. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 0.08% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Bristol-Myers Squibb Company Profile (Free Report) Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells biopharmaceutical products worldwide. It offers products for hematology, oncology, cardiovascular, immunology, fibrotic, and neuroscience diseases. The company's products include Eliquis for reduction in risk of stroke/systemic embolism in non-valvular atrial fibrillation, and for the treatment of DVT/PE; Opdivo for various anti-cancer indications, including bladder, blood, CRC, head and neck, RCC, HCC, lung, melanoma, MPM, stomach and esophageal cancer; Pomalyst/Imnovid for multiple myeloma; Orencia for active rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis; and Sprycel for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BMY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Chatham Lodging Trust (NYSE:CLDT Get Free Report) issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday. The real estate investment trust reported ($0.23) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.15 by ($0.38), MarketWatch Earnings reports. Chatham Lodging Trust had a return on equity of 1.18% and a net margin of 3.10%. The business had revenue of $72.28 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $70.46 million. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.20 earnings per share. Chatham Lodging Trust updated its Q1 2024 guidance to 0.100-0.140 EPS. Chatham Lodging Trust Stock Performance NYSE:CLDT traded up $0.42 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $10.42. 44,988 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 204,135. The companys 50 day moving average price is $10.65 and its 200-day moving average price is $10.07. The stock has a market capitalization of $509.12 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 253.06 and a beta of 1.76. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48, a current ratio of 2.66 and a quick ratio of 2.66. Chatham Lodging Trust has a 52-week low of $8.92 and a 52-week high of $12.47. Get Chatham Lodging Trust alerts: Chatham Lodging Trust Announces Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, January 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 29th were given a dividend of $0.07 per share. This represents a $0.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 28th. Chatham Lodging Trusts dividend payout ratio is presently 700.18%. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Separately, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Chatham Lodging Trust from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, December 5th. Get Our Latest Analysis on CLDT Institutional Investors Weigh In On Chatham Lodging Trust A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Caxton Associates LP purchased a new position in shares of Chatham Lodging Trust in the second quarter valued at approximately $121,000. Boothbay Fund Management LLC acquired a new stake in Chatham Lodging Trust in the second quarter valued at approximately $120,000. Lazard Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in Chatham Lodging Trust in the third quarter valued at approximately $119,000. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. raised its holdings in Chatham Lodging Trust by 57.5% in the first quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 8,525 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $118,000 after acquiring an additional 3,111 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky acquired a new stake in Chatham Lodging Trust in the third quarter valued at approximately $110,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.18% of the companys stock. About Chatham Lodging Trust (Get Free Report) Chatham Lodging Trust is a self-advised, publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT) focused primarily on investing in upscale, extended-stay hotels and premium-branded, select-service hotels. The company owns 39 hotels totaling 5,915 rooms/suites in 16 states and the District of Columbia. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Chatham Lodging Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Chatham Lodging Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bamco Inc. NY boosted its position in shares of Dynatrace, Inc. (NYSE:DT Free Report) by 24.1% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 694,360 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 134,792 shares during the quarter. Bamco Inc. NYs holdings in Dynatrace were worth $32,447,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. BlackRock Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Dynatrace by 9.0% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 25,155,376 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,294,747,000 after purchasing an additional 2,068,456 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Dynatrace by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,402,842 shares of the companys stock valued at $675,413,000 after purchasing an additional 702,695 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Dynatrace by 3.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 18,213,109 shares of the companys stock valued at $851,099,000 after purchasing an additional 555,739 shares in the last quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Dynatrace by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 11,772,653 shares of the companys stock valued at $550,136,000 after purchasing an additional 229,631 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its stake in Dynatrace by 2,277.3% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 6,934,130 shares of the companys stock valued at $293,315,000 after buying an additional 6,642,452 shares during the last quarter. 94.28% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Dynatrace alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of research analysts recently issued reports on DT shares. Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on shares of Dynatrace from $58.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $66.00 target price on shares of Dynatrace in a research note on Friday, February 9th. Morgan Stanley started coverage on shares of Dynatrace in a research note on Tuesday, February 13th. They issued an equal weight rating and a $60.00 target price on the stock. Capital One Financial assumed coverage on shares of Dynatrace in a research note on Wednesday, February 21st. They issued an overweight rating and a $64.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of Dynatrace from a hold rating to a buy rating and increased their price target for the company from $50.00 to $70.00 in a report on Friday, January 5th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $60.63. Insider Transactions at Dynatrace In related news, insider Matthias Dollentz-Scharer sold 2,076 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, February 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.91, for a total transaction of $107,765.16. Following the sale, the insider now owns 72,645 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,771,001.95. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In related news, insider Matthias Dollentz-Scharer sold 2,076 shares of Dynatrace stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.91, for a total value of $107,765.16. Following the sale, the insider now owns 72,645 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,771,001.95. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Bernd Greifeneder sold 4,715 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $54.63, for a total value of $257,580.45. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 996,916 shares in the company, valued at approximately $54,461,521.08. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 14,348,487 shares of company stock worth $754,943,800 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.54% of the companys stock. Dynatrace Stock Down 0.3 % NYSE:DT opened at $48.82 on Wednesday. Dynatrace, Inc. has a 12-month low of $37.21 and a 12-month high of $61.41. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 74.23, a P/E/G ratio of 5.03 and a beta of 1.13. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $54.96 and its 200-day simple moving average is $50.99. About Dynatrace (Free Report) Dynatrace, Inc provides a security platform for multicloud environments. It operates Dynatrace, a security platform, which provides application and microservices monitoring, runtime application security, infrastructure monitoring, log management and analytics, digital experience monitoring, digital business analytics, and cloud automation. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding DT? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Dynatrace, Inc. (NYSE:DT Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Dynatrace Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Dynatrace and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shares of Eldorado Gold Co. (NYSE:EGO Get Free Report) (TSE:ELD) have been assigned a consensus rating of Hold from the eight brokerages that are covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, four have issued a hold recommendation and two have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $13.07. Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. Stifel Canada cut Eldorado Gold from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. TD Securities cut their price target on Eldorado Gold from $14.50 to $13.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research note on Monday. Stifel Nicolaus restated a hold rating on shares of Eldorado Gold in a research note on Friday, January 26th. TheStreet upgraded Eldorado Gold from a d+ rating to a c- rating in a research note on Friday, November 3rd. Finally, CIBC upped their price objective on Eldorado Gold from $16.50 to $18.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, February 7th. Get Eldorado Gold alerts: Get Our Latest Report on Eldorado Gold Eldorado Gold Price Performance Institutional Inflows and Outflows Eldorado Gold stock opened at $10.34 on Wednesday. Eldorado Gold has a 12 month low of $8.30 and a 12 month high of $13.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 4.00 and a quick ratio of 2.89. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $12.15 and a 200-day simple moving average of $11.01. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.10 billion, a PE ratio of 19.50 and a beta of 1.14. A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Swiss National Bank grew its holdings in Eldorado Gold by 11.4% in the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 448,320 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $4,034,000 after purchasing an additional 46,000 shares during the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc grew its position in shares of Eldorado Gold by 13.0% in the third quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 193,188 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $1,729,000 after purchasing an additional 22,292 shares during the last quarter. Gabelli Funds LLC increased its stake in shares of Eldorado Gold by 9.2% during the 3rd quarter. Gabelli Funds LLC now owns 1,965,000 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $17,508,000 after purchasing an additional 165,700 shares in the last quarter. Helikon Investments Ltd raised its position in shares of Eldorado Gold by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. Helikon Investments Ltd now owns 29,438,478 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $262,297,000 after purchasing an additional 501,488 shares during the last quarter. Finally, U S Global Investors Inc. lifted its stake in Eldorado Gold by 361.3% in the 3rd quarter. U S Global Investors Inc. now owns 346,004 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $3,083,000 after buying an additional 271,004 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 58.23% of the companys stock. About Eldorado Gold (Get Free Report Eldorado Gold Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the mining, exploration, development, and sale of mineral products primarily in Turkey, Canada, Greece, and Romania. The company primarily produces gold, as well as silver, lead, and zinc. It holds a 100% interest in the Kisladag and Efemcukuru gold mines located in western Turkey; Lamaque gold mines located in Canada; and Olympias, Stratoni, Skouries, Perama Hill, and Sapes gold mines located in Greece, as well as the 80.5% interest in Certej development projects located in Romania. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Eldorado Gold Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Eldorado Gold and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Newmont Co. (TSE:NGT Free Report) Stock analysts at National Bank Financial issued their FY2025 EPS estimates for Newmont in a report released on Sunday, February 25th. National Bank Financial analyst S. Nagle expects that the company will post earnings per share of $3.00 for the year. National Bank Financial currently has a Outperform Overweight rating on the stock. The consensus estimate for Newmonts current full-year earnings is $3.88 per share. Get Newmont alerts: Separately, National Bankshares decreased their price objective on Newmont from C$65.00 to C$64.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, February 6th. Newmont Stock Down 1.1 % NGT opened at C$40.01 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of C$46.01 billion, a PE ratio of -28.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 0.53. The company has a 50 day moving average of C$48.46 and a 200 day moving average of C$51.07. Newmont has a 12 month low of C$39.96 and a 12 month high of C$70.88. The company has a current ratio of 2.12, a quick ratio of 1.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 31.60. Newmont Cuts Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 5th will be issued a $0.336 dividend. This represents a $1.34 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.36%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 4th. Newmonts payout ratio is -148.95%. Newmont Company Profile (Get Free Report) Newmont Corporation engages in the production and exploration of gold. It also explores for copper, silver, zinc, and lead. The company has operations and/or assets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Peru, Suriname, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and Ghana. As of December 31, 2022, it had proven and probable gold reserves of 96.1 million ounces and land position of 61,500 square kilometers. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Newmont Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Newmont and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC trimmed its stake in shares of iShares MSCI Germany ETF (NYSEARCA:EWG Free Report) by 68.7% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 371,289 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after selling 813,920 shares during the quarter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC owned about 0.65% of iShares MSCI Germany ETF worth $9,698,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Sandy Spring Bank bought a new stake in shares of iShares MSCI Germany ETF in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $25,000. Zions Bancorporation N.A. purchased a new position in shares of iShares MSCI Germany ETF in the first quarter worth approximately $31,000. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC increased its position in shares of iShares MSCI Germany ETF by 112.1% in the third quarter. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,090 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 576 shares in the last quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new position in shares of iShares MSCI Germany ETF in the second quarter worth approximately $33,000. Finally, Cornerstone Planning Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of iShares MSCI Germany ETF in the second quarter worth approximately $38,000. Get iShares MSCI Germany ETF alerts: iShares MSCI Germany ETF Stock Down 0.3 % Shares of iShares MSCI Germany ETF stock traded down $0.09 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $30.46. The stock had a trading volume of 213,005 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,490,372. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $29.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $27.89. The company has a market capitalization of $1.74 billion, a PE ratio of 10.82 and a beta of 1.07. iShares MSCI Germany ETF has a 1 year low of $24.70 and a 1 year high of $30.56. iShares MSCI Germany ETF Profile iShares MSCI Germany ETF, formerly iShares MSCI Germany Index Fund (the Fund), is an exchange-traded fund. The Fund seeks to provide investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of publicly traded securities in the German market, as measured by the MSCI Germany Index (the Index). Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding EWG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares MSCI Germany ETF (NYSEARCA:EWG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for iShares MSCI Germany ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares MSCI Germany ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. acquired a new position in shares of Schlumberger Limited (NYSE:SLB Free Report) during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 6,338 shares of the oil and gas companys stock, valued at approximately $370,000. Several other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of SLB. BluePath Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Schlumberger during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in Schlumberger during the 1st quarter valued at $25,000. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in Schlumberger during the 2nd quarter valued at $27,000. MCF Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Schlumberger by 1,355.9% during the 3rd quarter. MCF Advisors LLC now owns 495 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 461 shares during the period. Finally, Indiana Trust & Investment Management CO purchased a new stake in Schlumberger during the 3rd quarter valued at $31,000. 79.43% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Schlumberger alerts: Schlumberger Stock Performance Shares of NYSE:SLB traded down $0.22 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $48.24. The stock had a trading volume of 1,434,580 shares, compared to its average volume of 13,000,854. Schlumberger Limited has a 12-month low of $42.73 and a 12-month high of $62.12. The stock has a market capitalization of $68.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.87 and a beta of 1.61. The company has a quick ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 1.32 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $50.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $54.13. Schlumberger Dividend Announcement Schlumberger ( NYSE:SLB Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, January 19th. The oil and gas company reported $0.86 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.84 by $0.02. Schlumberger had a return on equity of 21.97% and a net margin of 12.68%. The firm had revenue of $8.99 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $8.96 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.71 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 14.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts expect that Schlumberger Limited will post 3.54 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 4th. Investors of record on Wednesday, February 7th will be given a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.07%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 6th. Schlumbergers dividend payout ratio is currently 34.25%. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of analysts have weighed in on SLB shares. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $66.00 target price on shares of Schlumberger in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Schlumberger from $69.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Barclays dropped their price target on Schlumberger from $77.00 to $74.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on Schlumberger from $63.00 to $64.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Finally, Susquehanna reissued a positive rating and set a $77.00 price target on shares of Schlumberger in a research report on Tuesday, February 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $70.67. Get Our Latest Stock Report on SLB Insider Activity at Schlumberger In other Schlumberger news, CFO Stephane Biguet sold 6,250 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $53.86, for a total value of $336,625.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 163,515 shares of the companys stock, valued at $8,806,917.90. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Stephane Biguet sold 6,250 shares of Schlumberger stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $53.86, for a total value of $336,625.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 163,515 shares of the companys stock, valued at $8,806,917.90. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Howard Guild sold 22,853 shares of Schlumberger stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.66, for a total value of $1,180,585.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 22,181 shares in the company, valued at $1,145,870.46. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 178,441 shares of company stock worth $8,972,947. 0.26% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Schlumberger Profile (Free Report) Schlumberger Limited engages in the provision of technology for the energy industry worldwide. The company operates through four divisions: Digital & Integration, Reservoir Performance, Well Construction, and Production Systems. The company provides field development and hydrocarbon production, carbon management, and integration of adjacent energy systems; reservoir interpretation and data processing services for exploration data; and well construction and production improvement services and products. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SLB? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Schlumberger Limited (NYSE:SLB Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Schlumberger Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Schlumberger and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Natixis Advisors L.P. lessened its stake in Masco Co. (NYSE:MAS Free Report) by 4.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 249,873 shares of the construction companys stock after selling 10,604 shares during the quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P.s holdings in Masco were worth $13,356,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in MAS. DecisionPoint Financial LLC acquired a new stake in Masco during the second quarter worth $29,000. VisionPoint Advisory Group LLC purchased a new position in Masco in the second quarter valued at $35,000. Center for Financial Planning Inc. lifted its holdings in Masco by 270.6% during the 3rd quarter. Center for Financial Planning Inc. now owns 667 shares of the construction companys stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 487 shares during the last quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Masco by 22.8% during the 2nd quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 1,018 shares of the construction companys stock worth $58,000 after buying an additional 189 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Indiana Trust & Investment Management CO purchased a new stake in Masco during the 3rd quarter worth about $64,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.67% of the companys stock. Get Masco alerts: Masco Price Performance MAS stock opened at $76.63 on Wednesday. Masco Co. has a 1 year low of $46.69 and a 1 year high of $76.73. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 30.05, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a current ratio of 1.68. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $69.19 and its 200 day moving average price is $61.11. The firm has a market cap of $16.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.11, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.25. Masco Increases Dividend Masco ( NYSE:MAS Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The construction company reported $0.83 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.66 by $0.17. Masco had a return on equity of 3,111.50% and a net margin of 11.40%. The company had revenue of $1.88 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.79 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.65 EPS. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 2.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Masco Co. will post 4.12 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 11th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 22nd will be issued a dividend of $0.29 per share. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.51%. This is an increase from Mascos previous quarterly dividend of $0.29. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 21st. Mascos dividend payout ratio is presently 28.93%. Insider Activity at Masco In other Masco news, insider Jai Shah sold 25,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $62.38, for a total value of $1,559,500.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 34,709 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,165,147.42. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, VP Kenneth G. Cole sold 27,043 shares of Masco stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $62.48, for a total value of $1,689,646.64. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 70,198 shares in the company, valued at $4,385,971.04. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Jai Shah sold 25,000 shares of Masco stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $62.38, for a total value of $1,559,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 34,709 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,165,147.42. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 88,253 shares of company stock worth $5,952,223. Corporate insiders own 1.50% of the companys stock. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of analysts have issued reports on MAS shares. StockNews.com raised Masco from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Thursday, January 4th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on Masco from $73.00 to $79.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Friday, February 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Masco from $58.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Thursday, December 14th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Masco from $58.00 to $70.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, December 6th. Finally, Truist Financial boosted their target price on Masco from $65.00 to $81.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, February 9th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $68.92. View Our Latest Report on Masco About Masco (Free Report) Masco Corporation designs, manufactures, and distributes home improvement and building products in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company's Plumbing Products segment offers faucets, showerheads, handheld showers, valves, bath hardware and accessories, bathing units, shower bases and enclosures, sinks, toilets, acrylic tubs, shower trays, spas, exercise pools, and fitness systems; brass, copper, and composite plumbing system components; connected water products; thermoplastic solutions, extruded plastic profiles, specialized fabrications, and PEX tubing products; and other non-decorative plumbing products. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MAS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Masco Co. (NYSE:MAS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Masco Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Masco and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. MBB Public Markets I LLC trimmed its position in shares of M&T Bank Co. (NYSE:MTB Free Report) by 25.7% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 6,110 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 2,111 shares during the period. MBB Public Markets I LLCs holdings in M&T Bank were worth $773,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Raymond James & Associates lifted its stake in M&T Bank by 7.0% during the first quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 134,655 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $2,692,000 after purchasing an additional 8,765 shares during the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. increased its holdings in shares of M&T Bank by 112.8% in the 1st quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 82,957 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,658,000 after acquiring an additional 43,979 shares during the period. US Bancorp DE boosted its stake in M&T Bank by 9.4% during the 1st quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 15,149 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $303,000 after purchasing an additional 1,304 shares during the period. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of M&T Bank by 7.6% during the first quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 59,394 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $1,187,000 after buying an additional 4,175 shares during the last quarter. Finally, AlphaCrest Capital Management LLC bought a new position in M&T Bank in the 1st quarter worth approximately $306,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.86% of the companys stock. Get M&T Bank alerts: M&T Bank Trading Down 0.4 % Shares of M&T Bank stock traded down $0.51 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $138.22. The companys stock had a trading volume of 169,998 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,220,001. The company has a quick ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 0.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. The company has a market cap of $23.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.79, a PEG ratio of 1.18 and a beta of 0.80. The firms 50-day moving average is $136.67 and its two-hundred day moving average is $129.12. M&T Bank Co. has a 52-week low of $108.53 and a 52-week high of $155.09. M&T Bank Announces Dividend M&T Bank ( NYSE:MTB Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 18th. The financial services provider reported $2.74 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.10 by ($0.36). M&T Bank had a net margin of 21.49% and a return on equity of 11.59%. The company had revenue of $3.32 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.27 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $4.57 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that M&T Bank Co. will post 14.1 earnings per share for the current year. The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 29th. Investors of record on Monday, March 4th will be paid a $1.30 dividend. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 1st. M&T Banks payout ratio is 32.95%. Insider Activity In other news, Director Kirk W. Walters sold 29,004 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Friday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total transaction of $3,770,520.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 7,088 shares of the companys stock, valued at $921,440. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, Director Kirk W. Walters sold 29,004 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total transaction of $3,770,520.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 7,088 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $921,440. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, EVP Doris P. Meister sold 1,675 shares of M&T Bank stock in a transaction on Friday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $137.91, for a total value of $230,999.25. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 8,961 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,235,811.51. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 80,997 shares of company stock worth $10,691,111 over the last 90 days. 0.97% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Analysts Set New Price Targets Several equities analysts have commented on the stock. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of M&T Bank from $160.00 to $179.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. UBS Group raised their target price on M&T Bank from $139.00 to $154.00 in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. StockNews.com lowered shares of M&T Bank from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 27th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered shares of M&T Bank from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $145.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Monday, December 18th. Finally, Piper Sandler cut their price objective on M&T Bank from $156.00 to $152.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 19th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, M&T Bank has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $149.71. View Our Latest Stock Report on MTB About M&T Bank (Free Report) M&T Bank Corporation operates as a bank holding company for Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company and Wilmington Trust, National Association that offer retail and commercial banking products and services in the United States. The company's Business Banking segment offers deposit, lending, cash management, and other financial services to small businesses and professionals. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MTB? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for M&T Bank Co. (NYSE:MTB Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for M&T Bank Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for M&T Bank and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Meeder Advisory Services Inc. lessened its holdings in shares of West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST Free Report) by 19.0% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,171 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock after selling 274 shares during the period. Meeder Advisory Services Inc.s holdings in West Pharmaceutical Services were worth $439,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of West Pharmaceutical Services by 10.8% during the 3rd quarter. Tokio Marine Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 1,830 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock valued at $687,000 after buying an additional 179 shares in the last quarter. Modera Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in West Pharmaceutical Services in the 2nd quarter worth about $286,000. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC boosted its stake in West Pharmaceutical Services by 63.3% in the 3rd quarter. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC now owns 3,746 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock worth $1,406,000 after purchasing an additional 1,452 shares in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. boosted its stake in West Pharmaceutical Services by 12.0% in the 3rd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 55,058 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock worth $20,658,000 after purchasing an additional 5,892 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ boosted its stake in West Pharmaceutical Services by 166.3% in the 3rd quarter. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB publ now owns 37,159 shares of the medical instruments suppliers stock worth $13,943,000 after purchasing an additional 23,207 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.23% of the companys stock. Get West Pharmaceutical Services alerts: Insiders Place Their Bets In other West Pharmaceutical Services news, SVP Silji Abraham sold 7,012 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $365.00, for a total value of $2,559,380.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,660 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,700,900. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, SVP Silji Abraham sold 7,012 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $365.00, for a total transaction of $2,559,380.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 4,660 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,700,900. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Chad Winters sold 1,013 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.00, for a total value of $353,537.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 1,270 shares of the companys stock, valued at $443,230. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of West Pharmaceutical Services from $440.00 to $470.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 13th. UBS Group dropped their price target on shares of West Pharmaceutical Services from $400.00 to $375.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 16th. Jefferies Financial Group raised West Pharmaceutical Services from a hold rating to a buy rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $323.00 to $536.00 in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered West Pharmaceutical Services from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $435.20. Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on WST West Pharmaceutical Services Trading Down 1.4 % Shares of NYSE:WST opened at $358.29 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $362.97 and a 200 day moving average of $366.84. The company has a market cap of $26.26 billion, a PE ratio of 45.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.49 and a beta of 1.05. The company has a current ratio of 2.88, a quick ratio of 2.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03. West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. has a 12-month low of $309.43 and a 12-month high of $415.73. West Pharmaceutical Services (NYSE:WST Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 15th. The medical instruments supplier reported $1.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.78 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $732.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $740.43 million. West Pharmaceutical Services had a return on equity of 21.60% and a net margin of 20.12%. The firms revenue was up 3.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.77 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. will post 7.63 EPS for the current year. West Pharmaceutical Services Announces Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, April 24th will be paid a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 23rd. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.22%. West Pharmaceutical Servicess payout ratio is 10.15%. West Pharmaceutical Services Company Profile (Free Report) West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc designs, manufactures, and sells containment and delivery systems for injectable drugs and healthcare products in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in two segments, Proprietary Products and Contract-Manufactured Products. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding WST? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (NYSE:WST Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for West Pharmaceutical Services Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for West Pharmaceutical Services and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Meeder Advisory Services Inc. reduced its stake in Agilent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:A Free Report) by 36.0% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,585 shares of the medical research companys stock after selling 2,579 shares during the quarter. Meeder Advisory Services Inc.s holdings in Agilent Technologies were worth $513,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. BlackRock Inc. increased its position in shares of Agilent Technologies by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 31,853,176 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $3,830,344,000 after purchasing an additional 349,651 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Agilent Technologies by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 24,531,170 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $3,246,209,000 after purchasing an additional 261,435 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Agilent Technologies by 2.0% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,214,595 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,591,990,000 after purchasing an additional 253,729 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its position in shares of Agilent Technologies by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 11,076,270 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,238,549,000 after purchasing an additional 39,030 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Agilent Technologies by 2.8% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,378,218 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $765,009,000 after purchasing an additional 174,439 shares during the last quarter. Get Agilent Technologies alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes Several research firms have recently weighed in on A. UBS Group downgraded Agilent Technologies from a buy rating to a neutral rating and cut their price target for the stock from $163.00 to $125.00 in a research note on Friday, November 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Agilent Technologies from $140.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird cut their price target on Agilent Technologies from $140.00 to $130.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, November 21st. TheStreet upgraded Agilent Technologies from a c+ rating to a b- rating in a research note on Friday, December 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their target price on Agilent Technologies from $128.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, December 7th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $137.44. Agilent Technologies Trading Up 0.8 % Shares of A opened at $132.55 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $38.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.48, a PEG ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 1.11. The company has a quick ratio of 1.97, a current ratio of 2.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $133.50 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $122.60. Agilent Technologies, Inc. has a twelve month low of $96.80 and a twelve month high of $145.43. Agilent Technologies (NYSE:A Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The medical research company reported $1.29 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.22 by $0.07. Agilent Technologies had a net margin of 18.15% and a return on equity of 28.24%. The firm had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.59 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $1.37 EPS. The companys quarterly revenue was down 5.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Agilent Technologies, Inc. will post 5.48 EPS for the current year. Agilent Technologies Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, April 2nd will be given a $0.236 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, April 1st. This represents a $0.94 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.71%. Agilent Technologiess dividend payout ratio is 22.33%. Insider Transactions at Agilent Technologies In related news, SVP Philip Binns sold 2,880 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $139.78, for a total value of $402,566.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 12,824 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,792,538.72. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Agilent Technologies news, CEO Michael R. Mcmullen sold 62,467 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total transaction of $8,120,710.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 306,206 shares in the company, valued at approximately $39,806,780. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP Philip Binns sold 2,880 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $139.78, for a total transaction of $402,566.40. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 12,824 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,792,538.72. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 95,929 shares of company stock valued at $12,730,599. Agilent Technologies Profile (Free Report) Agilent Technologies, Inc provides application focused solutions to the life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemical markets worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Life Sciences and Applied Markets, Diagnostics and Genomics, and Agilent CrossLab. The Life Sciences and Applied Markets segment offers liquid chromatography systems and components; liquid chromatography mass spectrometry systems; gas chromatography systems and components; gas chromatography mass spectrometry systems; inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry instruments; atomic absorption instruments; microwave plasma-atomic emission spectrometry instruments; inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry instruments; raman spectroscopy; cell analysis plate based assays; flow cytometer; real-time cell analyzer; cell imaging systems; microplate reader; laboratory software; information management and analytics; laboratory automation and robotic systems; dissolution testing; and vacuum pumps, and measurement technologies. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Agilent Technologies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Agilent Technologies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mutual Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Sempra (NYSE:SRE Free Report) by 100.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 20,857 shares of the utilities providers stock after purchasing an additional 10,456 shares during the quarter. Mutual Advisors LLCs holdings in Sempra were worth $1,419,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of SRE. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Sempra by 0.6% in the first quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 1,141,824 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $191,963,000 after purchasing an additional 6,246 shares in the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in Sempra by 780.0% during the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 1,804 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $302,000 after buying an additional 1,599 shares in the last quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. bought a new position in Sempra during the first quarter valued at about $782,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in Sempra by 3.6% during the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 668,646 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $112,411,000 after buying an additional 23,431 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vontobel Holding Ltd. boosted its stake in Sempra by 77.4% during the first quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 13,575 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $2,276,000 after buying an additional 5,924 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 84.83% of the companys stock. Get Sempra alerts: Insider Buying and Selling In related news, CEO Jeffrey W. Martin sold 34,190 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $70.83, for a total value of $2,421,677.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 2 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $141.66. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.24% of the companys stock. Sempra Stock Up 0.2 % Shares of Sempra stock opened at $71.06 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $72.64 and a 200 day moving average price of $71.69. The company has a market cap of $44.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.43, a P/E/G ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a current ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.86. Sempra has a 1 year low of $63.75 and a 1 year high of $79.51. Sempra (NYSE:SRE Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $1.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.11 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $3.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.01 billion. Sempra had a return on equity of 9.88% and a net margin of 16.51%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.17 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Sempra will post 4.59 EPS for the current fiscal year. Sempra Increases Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 21st will be paid a $0.62 dividend. This is an increase from Sempras previous quarterly dividend of $0.60. This represents a $2.48 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.49%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 20th. Sempras dividend payout ratio is currently 55.03%. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Sempra from $75.00 to $73.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, November 21st. BMO Capital Markets raised Sempra from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and raised their target price for the company from $76.00 to $84.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. Mizuho decreased their target price on Sempra from $83.00 to $79.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Sempra from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and raised their target price for the company from $78.00 to $86.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 12th. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on Sempra from $76.00 to $77.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has issued a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $81.83. View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Sempra About Sempra (Free Report) Sempra operates as an energy infrastructure company in the United States and internationally. It operates through four segments: San Diego Gas & Electric Company, Southern California Gas Company, Sempra Texas Utilities, and Sempra Infrastructure. The San Diego Gas & Electric Company segment provides to San Diego and southern Orange counties; and natural gas service to San Diego County. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SRE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Sempra (NYSE:SRE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Sempra Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Sempra and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. (NYSE:MYTE Get Free Report) has been assigned an average recommendation of Hold from the six ratings firms that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price target among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $6.04. Separately, UBS Group cut their price objective on shares of MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. from $5.00 to $4.75 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Get MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. alerts: Get Our Latest Research Report on MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. Institutional Investors Weigh In On MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. Stock Up 7.4 % Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Natixis bought a new stake in shares of MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $37,000. Quantbot Technologies LP bought a new stake in MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. in the first quarter valued at $56,000. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC raised its stake in MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. by 1,945.0% during the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 5,685 shares of the companys stock worth $65,000 after acquiring an additional 5,407 shares in the last quarter. UBS Group AG lifted its holdings in shares of MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. by 19.6% during the third quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 8,555 shares of the companys stock valued at $99,000 after acquiring an additional 1,403 shares during the period. Finally, XTX Topco Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. in the 2nd quarter valued at $46,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 12.23% of the companys stock. Shares of MYTE stock opened at $3.04 on Wednesday. MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. has a 12 month low of $2.05 and a 12 month high of $8.62. The company has a quick ratio of 0.25, a current ratio of 2.02 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10. The firm has a market cap of $258.07 million, a PE ratio of -8.69 and a beta of 1.06. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $2.99 and a 200-day moving average of $3.17. MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. (NYSE:MYTE Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, November 28th. The company reported ($0.15) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.13) by ($0.02). The company had revenue of $204.38 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $189.84 million. MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. had a negative net margin of 3.58% and a negative return on equity of 6.30%. On average, equities analysts predict that MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. will post -0.22 EPS for the current year. About MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. (Get Free Report MYT Netherlands Parent B.V., through its subsidiary, Mytheresa Group GmbH, operates a luxury e-commerce platform for fashion consumers in Germany, the United States, rest of Europe, and internationally. It offers womenswear, menswear, kids wear, and lifestyle products. The company sells clothes, bags, shoes, accessories, and fine jewelry through online and retail stores. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for MYT Netherlands Parent B.V. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Natixis Advisors L.P. boosted its stake in shares of Jabil Inc. (NYSE:JBL Free Report) by 0.8% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 109,414 shares of the technology companys stock after buying an additional 902 shares during the period. Natixis Advisors L.P. owned 0.09% of Jabil worth $13,884,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. California Public Employees Retirement System boosted its stake in Jabil by 93.1% during the second quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 553,980 shares of the technology companys stock worth $59,791,000 after buying an additional 267,049 shares during the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. acquired a new position in Jabil during the third quarter worth $63,000. Savant Capital LLC boosted its stake in Jabil by 4.6% during the second quarter. Savant Capital LLC now owns 5,358 shares of the technology companys stock worth $578,000 after buying an additional 234 shares during the last quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. boosted its stake in Jabil by 15.3% during the third quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. now owns 29,305 shares of the technology companys stock worth $3,719,000 after buying an additional 3,887 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cozad Asset Management Inc. raised its position in Jabil by 21.4% in the third quarter. Cozad Asset Management Inc. now owns 90,828 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $11,525,000 after purchasing an additional 16,038 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.88% of the companys stock. Get Jabil alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of research firms have commented on JBL. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their target price on Jabil from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday, December 15th. Barclays reduced their target price on Jabil from $153.00 to $151.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on Jabil from $150.00 to $146.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, five have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $135.88. Jabil Price Performance JBL stock opened at $142.73 on Wednesday. Jabil Inc. has a 12-month low of $74.16 and a 12-month high of $144.50. The company has a market capitalization of $18.21 billion, a PE ratio of 24.36, a P/E/G ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 0.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.13. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $130.57 and its 200 day moving average price is $123.90. Jabil (NYSE:JBL Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 14th. The technology company reported $2.60 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.02. Jabil had a return on equity of 41.09% and a net margin of 2.36%. The firm had revenue of $8.39 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $8.35 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.61 EPS. Jabils revenue for the quarter was down 13.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Jabil Inc. will post 8.49 EPS for the current year. Jabil Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 4th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 14th. This represents a $0.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.22%. Jabils payout ratio is 5.46%. Insider Buying and Selling In other news, CEO Steven D. Borges sold 14,175 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total transaction of $1,842,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 103,086 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $13,401,180. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, Director David M. Stout sold 31,300 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.12, for a total transaction of $3,853,656.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 67,300 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $8,285,976. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Steven D. Borges sold 14,175 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total value of $1,842,750.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 103,086 shares of the companys stock, valued at $13,401,180. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 55,658 shares of company stock valued at $7,011,771 in the last three months. 2.62% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. About Jabil (Free Report) Jabil Inc provides manufacturing services and solutions worldwide. It operates in two segments, Electronics Manufacturing Services and Diversified Manufacturing Services. The company offers electronics design, production, and product management services; electronic circuit design services, such as application-specific integrated circuit design, firmware development, and rapid prototyping services; and designs plastic and metal enclosures that include the electro-mechanics, such as the printed circuit board assemblies (PCBA). Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Jabil Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Jabil and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Natixis Advisors L.P. lessened its holdings in CRH plc (NYSE:CRH Free Report) by 16.9% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 247,405 shares of the construction companys stock after selling 50,206 shares during the quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P.s holdings in CRH were worth $13,540,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Financial Management Professionals Inc. raised its position in shares of CRH by 139.0% in the third quarter. Financial Management Professionals Inc. now owns 545 shares of the construction companys stock worth $30,000 after buying an additional 317 shares in the last quarter. KB Financial Partners LLC bought a new position in CRH in the first quarter valued at $30,000. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV bought a new stake in CRH during the third quarter worth about $38,000. Allworth Financial LP lifted its stake in CRH by 59.3% during the third quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 776 shares of the construction companys stock worth $42,000 after purchasing an additional 289 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tower Research Capital LLC TRC lifted its stake in CRH by 146.2% during the first quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 1,029 shares of the construction companys stock worth $52,000 after purchasing an additional 611 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 8.21% of the companys stock. Get CRH alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities research analysts have issued reports on CRH shares. DA Davidson started coverage on CRH in a research note on Friday, January 19th. They set a buy rating and a $82.00 price target for the company. StockNews.com upgraded CRH from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Friday, February 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on CRH in a report on Monday, November 6th. They issued a neutral rating and a $58.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Truist Financial assumed coverage on CRH in a report on Thursday, December 14th. They issued a buy rating and a $81.00 price objective on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, CRH presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $60.70. CRH Stock Performance Shares of NYSE:CRH opened at $78.38 on Wednesday. CRH plc has a 1 year low of $46.84 and a 1 year high of $79.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a quick ratio of 0.96 and a current ratio of 1.34. The stocks 50-day moving average is $71.50 and its 200 day moving average is $62.80. CRH Profile (Free Report) CRH plc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and distributes building materials in Ireland and internationally. It operates through three segments: Americas Materials, Europe Materials, and Building Products. The company manufactures and supplies cement, lime, aggregates, precast, ready mixed concrete, and asphalt products; concrete masonry and hardscape products comprising pavers, kerbs, retaining walls, and related patio products; It also offers precast concrete and polymer-based products, such as underground vaults, drainage pipes and structures, utility enclosures, and modular precast structures to the water, energy, communication, transportation, and building structures markets; and construction accessories, such as engineered anchoring, fixing, and connection solutions, as well as lifting systems, formwork accessories, and other accessories used in construction applications. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CRH? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for CRH plc (NYSE:CRH Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for CRH Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CRH and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Newmont Co. (TSE:NGT Get Free Report) shares hit a new 52-week low during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as C$39.96 and last traded at C$40.04, with a volume of 48454 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$40.44. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of brokerages recently weighed in on NGT. National Bank Financial restated an outperform overweight rating on shares of Newmont in a research note on Wednesday, January 3rd. National Bankshares decreased their price objective on Newmont from C$65.00 to C$64.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 6th. Get Newmont alerts: View Our Latest Stock Analysis on NGT Newmont Stock Up 0.1 % Newmont Cuts Dividend The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 31.60, a quick ratio of 1.77 and a current ratio of 2.12. The stock has a market capitalization of C$46.54 billion, a PE ratio of -27.98, a PEG ratio of 1.21 and a beta of 0.53. The business has a 50 day moving average of C$48.46 and a two-hundred day moving average of C$51.07. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 5th will be paid a $0.336 dividend. This represents a $1.34 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.32%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 4th. Newmonts dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently -148.95%. Newmont Company Profile (Get Free Report) Newmont Corporation engages in the production and exploration of gold. It also explores for copper, silver, zinc, and lead. The company has operations and/or assets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Peru, Suriname, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and Ghana. As of December 31, 2022, it had proven and probable gold reserves of 96.1 million ounces and land position of 61,500 square kilometers. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Newmont Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Newmont and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Teza Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE:OGE Free Report) by 485.9% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 106,592 shares of the utilities providers stock after buying an additional 88,398 shares during the quarter. Teza Capital Management LLC owned about 0.05% of OGE Energy worth $3,553,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Lazard Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of OGE Energy during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $28,000. Sunbelt Securities Inc. bought a new position in OGE Energy in the 1st quarter worth approximately $32,000. Authentikos Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in OGE Energy during the 3rd quarter valued at $43,000. Avior Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in OGE Energy by 572.5% during the 3rd quarter. Avior Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,466 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $49,000 after purchasing an additional 1,248 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jones Financial Companies Lllp boosted its stake in OGE Energy by 45.0% during the 2nd quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp now owns 1,417 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $51,000 after purchasing an additional 440 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 66.99% of the companys stock. Get OGE Energy alerts: OGE Energy Stock Down 0.2 % OGE traded down $0.05 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $33.22. 311,791 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,514,850. The stock has a market cap of $6.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.85 and a beta of 0.74. OGE Energy Corp. has a fifty-two week low of $31.25 and a fifty-two week high of $39.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.96, a current ratio of 0.65 and a quick ratio of 0.30. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $33.77 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $34.19. OGE Energy Cuts Dividend OGE Energy ( NYSE:OGE Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.20 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $566.70 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $986.67 million. OGE Energy had a return on equity of 9.37% and a net margin of 15.59%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 20.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.25 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that OGE Energy Corp. will post 2.14 EPS for the current year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 26th. Shareholders of record on Monday, April 8th will be given a $0.418 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 5th. This represents a $1.67 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.03%. OGE Energys dividend payout ratio is currently 80.68%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of brokerages have issued reports on OGE. Barclays decreased their price target on OGE Energy from $38.00 to $35.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH cut OGE Energy from a buy rating to a neutral rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $36.00 to $34.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. TheStreet cut OGE Energy from a b rating to a c+ rating in a report on Wednesday, February 21st. StockNews.com upgraded OGE Energy from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Friday, February 23rd. Finally, Mizuho lifted their target price on OGE Energy from $34.00 to $35.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday, November 28th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, OGE Energy has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $33.60. Read Our Latest Stock Report on OGE Energy OGE Energy Profile (Free Report) OGE Energy Corp., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an energy services provider in the United States. The company generates, transmits, distributes, and sells electric energy. In addition, it provides retail electric service to approximately 896,000 customers, which covers a service area of approximately 30,000 square miles in Oklahoma and western Arkansas; and owns and operates coal-fired, natural gas-fired, wind-powered, and solar-powered generating assets. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding OGE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for OGE Energy Corp. (NYSE:OGE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for OGE Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for OGE Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Sealed Air (NYSE:SEE Get Free Report) updated its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Tuesday. The company provided EPS guidance of 2.650-3.050 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 3.030. The company issued revenue guidance of $5.2 billion-$5.6 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $5.5 billion. Sealed Air also updated its FY24 guidance to $2.65-3.05 EPS. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of brokerages recently commented on SEE. Mizuho reduced their price objective on shares of Sealed Air from $40.00 to $39.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Sealed Air from $38.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a report on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Sealed Air from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and upped their price target for the company from $35.00 to $43.00 in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $43.82. Get Sealed Air alerts: View Our Latest Research Report on Sealed Air Sealed Air Stock Down 3.5 % NYSE:SEE traded down $1.21 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $33.82. 465,128 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,578,586. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $35.99 and a 200 day simple moving average of $34.18. Sealed Air has a fifty-two week low of $28.50 and a fifty-two week high of $49.53. The company has a current ratio of 1.23, a quick ratio of 0.75 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 11.34. The company has a market capitalization of $4.88 billion, a PE ratio of 16.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.48 and a beta of 1.29. Sealed Air (NYSE:SEE Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 27th. The industrial products company reported $0.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.62 by $0.26. The company had revenue of $1.38 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.36 billion. Sealed Air had a net margin of 5.65% and a return on equity of 126.77%. Sealed Airs revenue for the quarter was down 2.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.99 EPS. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Sealed Air will post 2.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Sealed Air Announces Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, March 8th will be issued a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.37%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 7th. Sealed Airs dividend payout ratio is currently 37.21%. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Sealed Air A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in SEE. BlackRock Inc. raised its holdings in Sealed Air by 13.7% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 24,679,011 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $1,133,013,000 after acquiring an additional 2,965,808 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Sealed Air in the 4th quarter worth about $73,895,000. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Sealed Air by 83.3% during the 4th quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,036,731 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $37,861,000 after buying an additional 471,289 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its position in shares of Sealed Air by 26.2% during the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 1,594,072 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $52,381,000 after buying an additional 330,527 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Public Sector Pension Investment Board raised its position in shares of Sealed Air by 1,832.3% during the 4th quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board now owns 299,720 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $10,946,000 after buying an additional 284,209 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.45% of the companys stock. Sealed Air Company Profile (Get Free Report) Sealed Air Corporation provides packaging solutions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia, and NewZealand. It operates through two segments, Food and Protective. The Food segment offers integrated packaging materials and automation equipment solutions to provide food safety and shelf life extension, reduce food waste, automate processes, and optimize total cost for food processors in the fresh red meat, smoked and processed meats, poultry, seafood, plant-based, and dairy markets under the CRYOVAC, CRYOVAC Grip & Tear, CRYOVAC Darfresh, Simple Steps, and Optidure brands. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Sealed Air Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Sealed Air and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Shift4 Payments (NYSE:FOUR Get Free Report) had its price target hoisted by equities research analysts at Royal Bank of Canada from $80.00 to $94.00 in a report issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm presently has an outperform rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canadas price objective suggests a potential upside of 20.39% from the stocks previous close. FOUR has been the topic of several other research reports. Raymond James upped their target price on Shift4 Payments from $75.00 to $88.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 20th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Shift4 Payments from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Thursday, November 9th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods assumed coverage on shares of Shift4 Payments in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. They set an outperform rating and a $95.00 target price on the stock. Benchmark initiated coverage on shares of Shift4 Payments in a research note on Tuesday, February 13th. They issued a buy rating and a $95.00 price target for the company. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Shift4 Payments from $60.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, February 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and eighteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $83.05. Get Shift4 Payments alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on FOUR Shift4 Payments Trading Up 1.6 % Hedge Funds Weigh In On Shift4 Payments NYSE FOUR traded up $1.25 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $78.08. 506,541 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 922,045. The stock has a market cap of $6.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.41, a P/E/G ratio of 0.46 and a beta of 1.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.23, a current ratio of 3.32 and a quick ratio of 3.31. Shift4 Payments has a one year low of $42.91 and a one year high of $79.20. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $74.50 and a 200-day simple moving average of $63.35. A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. increased its stake in shares of Shift4 Payments by 2.7% during the 4th quarter. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. now owns 6,189 shares of the companys stock worth $460,000 after purchasing an additional 164 shares during the last quarter. United Capital Financial Advisers LLC increased its holdings in Shift4 Payments by 3.1% in the 4th quarter. United Capital Financial Advisers LLC now owns 5,966 shares of the companys stock worth $334,000 after acquiring an additional 177 shares during the last quarter. BOKF NA raised its stake in Shift4 Payments by 0.7% in the 4th quarter. BOKF NA now owns 28,211 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,097,000 after acquiring an additional 200 shares during the period. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC lifted its holdings in Shift4 Payments by 6.3% during the second quarter. Orion Portfolio Solutions LLC now owns 3,670 shares of the companys stock valued at $249,000 after purchasing an additional 218 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its position in Shift4 Payments by 3.6% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 6,726 shares of the companys stock worth $372,000 after purchasing an additional 233 shares during the period. 70.82% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About Shift4 Payments (Get Free Report) Shift4 Payments, Inc (NYSE FOUR) provides integrated payment processing and technology solutions in the United States. Its payments platform provides omni-channel card acceptance and processing solutions, including end-to-end payment processing for various payment types; merchant acquiring; proprietary omni-channel gateway; complementary software integrations; integrated and mobile point-of-sale (POS) solutions; security and risk management solutions; and reporting and analytical tools, as well as tokenization, risk management/underwriting, payment device and chargeback management, fraud prevention, and gift card solutions. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Shift4 Payments Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Shift4 Payments and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Synovus Financial Corp trimmed its holdings in shares of Infosys Limited (NYSE:INFY Free Report) by 14.3% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 195,588 shares of the technology companys stock after selling 32,763 shares during the period. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in Infosys were worth $3,347,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Infosys by 58.5% in the 3rd quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 282,836 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $4,839,000 after buying an additional 104,390 shares during the period. Oaktree Capital Management LP increased its stake in shares of Infosys by 2.9% in the 3rd quarter. Oaktree Capital Management LP now owns 3,809,087 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $65,173,000 after buying an additional 107,729 shares during the period. Oaktree Fund Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Infosys by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Oaktree Fund Advisors LLC now owns 387,360 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $6,628,000 after buying an additional 3,640 shares during the period. Natixis Advisors L.P. increased its stake in shares of Infosys by 28.3% in the 3rd quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P. now owns 164,121 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $2,808,000 after buying an additional 36,210 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its stake in shares of Infosys by 69.7% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,956,038 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $33,468,000 after buying an additional 803,582 shares during the period. 11.39% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Infosys alerts: Infosys Stock Performance Shares of INFY opened at $20.00 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $19.49 and a 200 day simple moving average of $18.10. Infosys Limited has a 52-week low of $14.71 and a 52-week high of $20.74. The firm has a market capitalization of $82.78 billion, a PE ratio of 28.17, a P/E/G ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 0.96. Analyst Ratings Changes Infosys ( NYSE:INFY Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 11th. The technology company reported $0.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.17 by $0.01. Infosys had a return on equity of 31.25% and a net margin of 15.91%. The business had revenue of $4.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.58 billion. Equities research analysts predict that Infosys Limited will post 0.71 EPS for the current fiscal year. Several equities research analysts have recently commented on INFY shares. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on Infosys from $18.00 to $21.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a research note on Friday, January 12th. HSBC downgraded Infosys from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, February 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Infosys from a neutral rating to an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, January 3rd. Wedbush restated an outperform rating and set a $22.00 target price on shares of Infosys in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. Finally, BNP Paribas began coverage on Infosys in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. They set an outperform rating and a $24.00 target price for the company. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $20.95. Check Out Our Latest Report on INFY Infosys Company Profile (Free Report) Infosys Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides consulting, technology, outsourcing, and next-generation digital services in North America, Europe, India, and internationally. It provides application management and application development services, independent validation solutions, product engineering and management, infrastructure management services, traditional enterprise application implementation, support, and integration services. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding INFY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Infosys Limited (NYSE:INFY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Infosys Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Infosys and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Synovus Financial Corp lifted its stake in shares of Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO Free Report) by 80.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 49,126 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 21,873 shares during the period. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in Novo Nordisk A/S were worth $4,468,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. ICW Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Novo Nordisk A/S by 0.3% in the second quarter. ICW Investment Advisors LLC now owns 21,922 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,548,000 after buying an additional 63 shares in the last quarter. Stone House Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Novo Nordisk A/S by 55.3% in the 2nd quarter. Stone House Investment Management LLC now owns 177 shares of the companys stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 63 shares during the last quarter. Chilton Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Novo Nordisk A/S by 0.6% in the 2nd quarter. Chilton Capital Management LLC now owns 10,063 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,628,000 after purchasing an additional 63 shares during the last quarter. Red Wave Investments LLC raised its stake in shares of Novo Nordisk A/S by 2.3% in the 2nd quarter. Red Wave Investments LLC now owns 3,068 shares of the companys stock valued at $496,000 after acquiring an additional 69 shares during the period. Finally, Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC increased its stake in Novo Nordisk A/S by 0.7% during the 2nd quarter. Chicago Partners Investment Group LLC now owns 10,863 shares of the companys stock worth $1,720,000 after buying an additional 73 shares during the period. 6.41% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Novo Nordisk A/S alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets Several brokerages recently weighed in on NVO. Morgan Stanley began coverage on shares of Novo Nordisk A/S in a research note on Tuesday, January 23rd. They set an overweight rating and a $120.00 target price on the stock. UBS Group initiated coverage on shares of Novo Nordisk A/S in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. They set a neutral rating on the stock. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an overweight rating and issued a $140.00 price objective on shares of Novo Nordisk A/S in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, TD Cowen increased their price objective on shares of Novo Nordisk A/S from $105.00 to $115.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, December 4th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $121.25. Novo Nordisk A/S Stock Performance Shares of NVO opened at $122.20 on Wednesday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $111.45 and a 200-day simple moving average of $92.58. The company has a quick ratio of 0.64, a current ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19. The company has a market capitalization of $548.38 billion, a PE ratio of 45.18, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.41. Novo Nordisk A/S has a 52-week low of $67.66 and a 52-week high of $124.86. Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, January 31st. The company reported $0.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.66 by $0.05. Novo Nordisk A/S had a net margin of 36.03% and a return on equity of 90.36%. The firm had revenue of $9.51 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.14 billion. Equities research analysts predict that Novo Nordisk A/S will post 3.32 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Novo Nordisk A/S Increases Dividend The company also recently declared a Semi-Annual dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 2nd. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 25th will be paid a dividend of $0.664 per share. This is a boost from Novo Nordisk A/Ss previous Semi-Annual dividend of $0.22. This represents a dividend yield of 0.9%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 22nd. Novo Nordisk A/Ss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 22.92%. Novo Nordisk A/S Profile (Free Report) Novo Nordisk A/S, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the research and development, manufacture, and distribution of pharmaceutical products in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, North America, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Diabetes and Obesity Care, and Rare Disease. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Novo Nordisk A/S Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Novo Nordisk A/S and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Toronto Dominion Bank lessened its stake in shares of ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW Free Report) by 20.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 155,713 shares of the information technology services providers stock after selling 40,031 shares during the quarter. Toronto Dominion Banks holdings in ServiceNow were worth $87,037,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. PFG Private Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in ServiceNow during the 3rd quarter worth $28,000. First Capital Advisors Group LLC. purchased a new position in ServiceNow during the 2nd quarter worth $29,000. High Net Worth Advisory Group LLC purchased a new position in ServiceNow during the 1st quarter worth $29,000. Steward Financial Group LLC raised its position in ServiceNow by 125.0% during the 3rd quarter. Steward Financial Group LLC now owns 63 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 35 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Princeton Global Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of ServiceNow during the 3rd quarter worth $35,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 87.14% of the companys stock. Get ServiceNow alerts: Insider Activity at ServiceNow In other ServiceNow news, CEO William R. Mcdermott sold 5,030 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $753.08, for a total value of $3,787,992.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 17,177 shares of the companys stock, valued at $12,935,655.16. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, insider Paul John Smith sold 1,795 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $781.06, for a total transaction of $1,402,002.70. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 994 shares in the company, valued at $776,373.64. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO William R. Mcdermott sold 5,030 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $753.08, for a total transaction of $3,787,992.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 17,177 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $12,935,655.16. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 13,299 shares of company stock valued at $10,032,373. Corporate insiders own 0.28% of the companys stock. ServiceNow Trading Down 1.3 % Shares of NOW stock traded down $10.11 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $757.03. 169,877 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,216,043. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $743.58 and a 200 day moving average price of $652.47. ServiceNow, Inc. has a 1-year low of $405.37 and a 1-year high of $815.32. The firm has a market capitalization of $155.19 billion, a PE ratio of 91.22, a PEG ratio of 4.97 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a quick ratio of 1.06, a current ratio of 1.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 24th. The information technology services provider reported $3.11 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.77 by $0.34. ServiceNow had a net margin of 19.30% and a return on equity of 11.85%. The firm had revenue of $2.44 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.40 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.88 earnings per share. The firms revenue was up 25.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts forecast that ServiceNow, Inc. will post 6.11 EPS for the current year. Analyst Ratings Changes NOW has been the topic of a number of research reports. Mizuho increased their price objective on shares of ServiceNow from $750.00 to $820.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on shares of ServiceNow from $630.00 to $850.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of ServiceNow from $750.00 to $800.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, January 18th. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of ServiceNow from $862.00 to $896.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on shares of ServiceNow from $675.00 to $725.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, November 30th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-four have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $750.93. View Our Latest Analysis on NOW ServiceNow Company Profile (Free Report) ServiceNow, Inc provides end to-end intelligent workflow automation platform solutions for digital businesses in the North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company operates the Now platform for end-to-end digital transformation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation, process mining, performance analytics, and collaboration and development tools. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding NOW? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for ServiceNow Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for ServiceNow and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The corrupt Biden family have profited off the US Fentanyl crisis that is killing thousands of Americans daily. According to details from a new investigative book, the Biden family received $5 million from the business partner of White wolf, a Chinese Triad gang leader who founded the Fentanyl drug trade route to the USA. Fentanyl is a 1000 times more powerful than heroin and is decimating large swathes of the United States with chronic addiction and overdoses. The art of killing During Joe Bidens tenure as Vice President under Obama, the Bidens courted business with the Chinese tycoon Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC China Energy Co., which had strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Ye Jianming and the Triad drug boss White Wolf set up the Shanghai Zhenrong Petroleum Company together. White Wolfs Triad gang, UBG United Bamboo Gang, also has a partnership with Mexicos Sinaloa Cartel and helps them in the production and distribution of fentanyl in the United States. UBG helped to turn the Sinaloa Cartel into the King of Fentanyl, according to a Mexican investigation of the cartel. The Biden family are directly complicit in fomenting the huge increase in Fentanyl distribution across the USA blighting many cities and causing the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans. This direct link with the Chinese triads and Mexican cartels as well as the Chinese Communist Party are one of the many reasons that Joe Biden as the so-called President of the United States turns a blind eye to the drug distribution chains fomented by Chinese Triads and the Mexican Cartels. There is a reason why the Biden family owns many vast luxurious properties, and can live lavish lifestyles. It is strange that Joe Biden could afford such riches on a simple government salary. Because the Fentanyl crisis is also linked to the CCP in order to destabilise the USA, Joe Biden has been cautious to criticise the Chinese premier Xi Jinping. If he were to voice his displeasure on the Fentanyl pipeline to the USA, the funding to the Biden family from these corrupt criminal organisations may be jeopardised. Thanks to the Biden family and progressive socialist ideology, US cities like Portland, Oregon are now frontline zones of drug death and mayhem, deteriorating every day further into the mire of Fentanyl fuelled zombie apocalypse. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Robert Half Inc. (NYSE:RHI Free Report) by 3.2% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 8,335 shares of the business services providers stock after acquiring an additional 258 shares during the period. PNC Financial Services Group Inc.s holdings in Robert Half were worth $611,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Get Robert Half alerts: Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of RHI. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Robert Half by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,674,644 shares of the business services providers stock worth $1,561,370,000 after purchasing an additional 42,681 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. increased its position in Robert Half by 2.7% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 10,238,115 shares of the business services providers stock worth $770,111,000 after purchasing an additional 266,298 shares in the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in Robert Half by 116,277.2% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 7,941,582 shares of the business services providers stock worth $586,327,000 after purchasing an additional 7,934,758 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors acquired a new stake in Robert Half during the 1st quarter worth approximately $636,060,000. Finally, State Street Corp increased its position in Robert Half by 2.5% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,647,446 shares of the business services providers stock worth $349,581,000 after purchasing an additional 113,299 shares in the last quarter. 91.63% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Robert Half Stock Performance RHI stock opened at $80.94 on Wednesday. Robert Half Inc. has a 1 year low of $64.65 and a 1 year high of $88.39. The stocks fifty day moving average is $82.23 and its two-hundred day moving average is $78.74. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.91, a PEG ratio of 19.97 and a beta of 1.28. Robert Half Increases Dividend Robert Half ( NYSE:RHI Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 30th. The business services provider reported $0.83 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.82 by $0.01. Robert Half had a net margin of 6.43% and a return on equity of 25.73%. The business had revenue of $1.47 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.47 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.37 earnings per share. The companys revenue was down 14.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts predict that Robert Half Inc. will post 3.34 EPS for the current fiscal year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 15th. Investors of record on Friday, February 23rd will be paid a dividend of $0.53 per share. This is a boost from Robert Halfs previous quarterly dividend of $0.48. This represents a $2.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.62%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 22nd. Robert Halfs payout ratio is currently 54.78%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of analysts recently issued reports on RHI shares. Truist Financial increased their target price on shares of Robert Half from $66.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a sell rating in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. UBS Group began coverage on shares of Robert Half in a research report on Tuesday, November 7th. They issued a sell rating and a $60.00 price objective for the company. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lowered their price objective on shares of Robert Half from $85.00 to $80.00 and set a market perform rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $68.57. View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Robert Half About Robert Half (Free Report) Robert Half Inc provides talent solutions and business consulting services in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. The company operates through three segments: Contract Talent Solutions, Permanent Placement Talent Solutions, and Protiviti. The Contract Talent Solutions segment provides contract engagement professionals in the fields of finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal and administrative, and customer support. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Robert Half Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Robert Half and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. LPL Financial LLC increased its stake in shares of Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO Free Report) by 4.0% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 369,931 shares of the mining companys stock after purchasing an additional 14,083 shares during the quarter. LPL Financial LLCs holdings in Rio Tinto Group were worth $23,542,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Get Rio Tinto Group alerts: Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Householder Group Estate & Retirement Specialist LLC purchased a new stake in Rio Tinto Group during the 3rd quarter worth about $27,000. First Manhattan Co. increased its position in Rio Tinto Group by 555.4% during the 4th quarter. First Manhattan Co. now owns 426 shares of the mining companys stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 361 shares in the last quarter. Spotlight Asset Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Rio Tinto Group during the 2nd quarter worth about $32,000. SouthState Corp purchased a new stake in Rio Tinto Group during the 3rd quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. increased its position in Rio Tinto Group by 90.6% during the 1st quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 686 shares of the mining companys stock worth $55,000 after purchasing an additional 326 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 10.03% of the companys stock. Rio Tinto Group Trading Up 0.5 % Shares of NYSE:RIO opened at $64.96 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.69, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. Rio Tinto Group has a 1 year low of $58.27 and a 1 year high of $75.30. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $69.92 and a 200-day simple moving average of $66.62. Rio Tinto Group Increases Dividend Analyst Ratings Changes The company also recently announced a semi-annual dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 18th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 8th will be issued a dividend of $2.58 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 7th. This represents a dividend yield of 6.6%. This is a boost from Rio Tinto Groups previous semi-annual dividend of $1.77. A number of analysts have issued reports on the company. StockNews.com lowered Rio Tinto Group from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note on Friday, November 10th. Liberum Capital upgraded Rio Tinto Group from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Friday, December 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on Rio Tinto Group in a report on Friday, January 12th. They issued a buy rating for the company. Finally, BNP Paribas upgraded Rio Tinto Group from a neutral rating to an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, December 5th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $72.00. Read Our Latest Stock Report on RIO Rio Tinto Group Profile (Free Report) Rio Tinto Group engages in exploring, mining, and processing mineral resources worldwide. The company operates through Iron Ore, Aluminium, Copper, and Minerals Segments. It offers aluminum, copper, iron ore, diamonds, gold, borates, titanium dioxide, salt, silver, molybdenum, and lithium. The company also owns and operates open pit and underground mines, refineries, smelters, and concentrator facilities, as well as power stations, research, and service facilities. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding RIO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Rio Tinto Group (NYSE:RIO Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Rio Tinto Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Rio Tinto Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. SDLP Mid Ulster MLA Patsy McGlone has said the latest revelations around the murder of Sean Brown underline the need for a full public inquiry. Mr McGlone was speaking after attending the legal challenge to the British Governments legacy legislation at the High Court in Belfast on Tuesday. He said that every family has the right to truth and justice and nobody can be allowed to take it away from them. Mid Ulster MLA Mr McGlone said: To hear that around 25 people, including agents of the state were linked to the murder of Sean Brown has caused great hurt and distress to his family. This will have prompted further questions around why this husband, father and pillar of the local community and GAA scene was taken and killed despite posing no harm to anyone. Its clear that the full picture surrounding the death of Sean Brown has yet to emerge and once again I give my full support the familys call for a public inquiry into his death. Nobody should be allowed to hide behind legal processes to prevent the truth from coming out and Seans wife and children have a right to know what happened to him and why. I welcome todays ruling from the High Court that conditional immunity for Troubles-era crimes is a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. There are families like Sean Browns across the North who want truth and justice for their loved ones and any attempt to stop that from happening will be resisted at every turn. The Government is facing calls to suspend its new Legacy Act after a High Court judge said a key part of it was unlawful and should be disapplied. Alliance Party leader Stephen Farry said it was no surprise that the Act, designed to deal with the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles, had been unpicked at its first legal challenge. Delivering a judgment at Belfast High Court, Mr Justice Colton said provisions for conditional immunity from prosecution for Troubles offences in the Legacy Act are not compatible with human rights laws. The judge added there is no evidence the immunity provision will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland. The controversial Legacy Act was opposed by all of the main political parties in Northern Ireland. Mr Farry said: We have been consistently clear the Legacy Act was unwanted, unworkable and contrary to European and international human rights standards. It therefore comes as no surprise the Act is unpicked at its first legal challenge. The Government has previously said the Independent Commission on Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) as framed by the legislation would struggle to work without the immunity element of the Act. Mr Farry added: Alliance is calling on the UK Government to suspend implementation of the Legacy Act pending the outcome of further steps in the legal process. Crucially, the looming deadline for inquests should be lifted. Similarly, the ICRIR should not proceed with any further work. This Act and the continuing uncertainty around its implementation are causing untold and unjustifiable stress and anxiety for victims and survivors of Troubles incidents. Todays ruling should therefore be a prelude to repeal of the Legacy Act and a replacement which has the confidence of local parties and especially victims. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said the Government should now abandon the Act. He said: No political party in Northern Ireland supports the British Governments attempt to shut down truth, justice and accountability for victims and survivors. In a society as fractious as ours, particularly when it comes to matters related to the past, that is as strong an indication as there could possibly be that this legislation was wrong-headed, insensitive to the needs of victims and doomed to failure. He added: I am pleased for those who took this early case today, but I know they understand this is just the first hurdle in what is likely to be a longer legal dispute. They will continue to have our unwavering support to prevent this immoral, iniquitous and deeply flawed framework from ruining the lives of victims and survivors. A DUP MP clashed with witnesses at a Westminster committee over a comment she said created the perception that controlled schools are recruiting grounds for a loyalist paramilitary group. Carla Lockhart said she was in shock following comments made about the UVF at the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee by a campaigner for integrated education. During the session, MPs heard from a number of witnesses as part of their investigation into the challenges of developing the integrated sector. Matt ONeill, chairman of Integrated AlumNI, a charity made up of past pupils and supporters of integrated education, referred to his own experiences as a child. He said: I remember one day my brother coming home from school, he went to a state Protestant school, in a very economically challenged area and he was talking about careers class. His friend stood up and said he wanted to be a commander. The teacher said The RAF, the British Armed Forces? No. UVF is what he said. Peter Osborne, chairman of the Integrated Education Fund, told MPs that he went to a school in the controlled sector. He said: I have no idea whether any Catholics went to that school. I am sure there were, but Ill tell you what, they would have been a small minority and they would have kept their heads down. He added: If you are a minority within a school I suspect you keep your head down and that should not be what happens in our education system. Ms Lockhart described the comments from the two witnesses as somewhat disappointing. She added: I feel they have been very derogatory towards the controlled sector I feel they have been dismissive and I would absolutely refute the characterisation around controlled sector schools that you had to keep your head down if you are from another religious background. I am actually still in shock around the comment of recounting commander of the UVF, giving the perception that controlled sector schools are recruiting grounds of that nature. I want to put it very clearly on the record, we have amazing controlled sector schools across Northern Ireland. I would refute as well the perception that has been given that controlled sector schools are closed shops for other people. Mr Osborne said the DUP MPs remarks were a totally unfair reflection of what we said. As he attempted to bring the session to a close, committee chairman Sir Robert Buckland said there had been a division of opinion and added that Ms Lockhart was entitled to express her view. Mr Osborne said: Can I just take 20 seconds to repeat the quality of education and the respect I have for the other sectors. What they do is incredibly good. Ive said that several times. Sir Robert said: I know that is Dr ONeills view as well. A significant gap remains in funding to Northern Ireland, despite the 3.3 billion package offered on the return of powersharing, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said. Sir Jeffrey was joined by shadow Northern Ireland minister Fleur Anderson on questioning the Government as to whether more funding from the Treasury would be forthcoming. The Government has provided a 3.3 billion financial package upon the return of devolved government, with the Stormont Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald meeting with Laura Trott, chief secretary to the Treasury, on Wednesday. The powersharing Executive has been told by the Government it should raise 113 million in additional funds over the next year and produce a plan to deliver sustainable finances as a condition for the Treasury writing off almost 600 million of Stormont debt. But Stormont leaders have voiced concern about introducing new revenue-raising measures in the region and have ruled out increasing the regional rate in Northern Ireland by 15% to raise the 113 million. During oral questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday Sir Jeffrey asked Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris if he would work to secure further support for the Executives finances. He said: (Chris Heaton-Harris) referenced earlier the financial package that the Treasury has put in place to support our public services in Northern Ireland, but there remains a significant gap in the next two financial years in relation to our commitments on public sector pay. Will he (Mr Heaton-Harris) work with us to seek further support from the Treasury to ensure that the Executive lives within its budget but that we are able to pay our public sector workers a decent wage for the vital work that they do. Mr Heaton-Harris responded: It is good to see the Executive back up and running and making these choices and opening the negotiations with the unions to get the public sector back on track when it comes to pay and work in Northern Ireland. I know therell be meetings, I believe a meeting today, between the Finance Minister and the Chief Secretary of the Treasury, but Ill always happily work with him on these agendas. Ms Anderson then asked if levelling-up funding that had previously been denied to Northern Ireland on the basis that government at Stormont was not operational, would now be provided. She told MPs: According to a Northern Ireland Affairs Committee report, Northern Ireland received proportionally less than Scotland, Wales and England in the first round of levelling-up funding. In the latest round of funding in November, not a penny was allocated to Northern Ireland. The Government said that this was because the Executive wasnt sitting, so is there good news for the people of Northern Ireland today? Now that powersharing has been restored will the Secretary of State update the House on discussions hes had about ensuring a fair share of the levelling-up funding goes to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland Minister Steve Baker said he would be glad to continue conversations with the Executive. He said: As (Ms Anderson) knows we have made available a generous package of 3.3 billion overall. We continue conversations on the detail of those areas of funding which have been repurposed. Those conversations will continue and when we can update the House in fuller detail of course well be glad to do so. HIGHLIGHTS Honor CEO revealed that the company is working on its own smart ring. Honor CEO revealed minimal information about the upcoming smart ring. When exactly Honor will launch its smart ring is still unknown. Many tech firms have gathered in Barcelona, Spain, for the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024 event. Theyre showing off new things, like gadgets and technologies, capturing everyones attention from around the globe. At MWC 2024, Samsung unveiled the prototype of its Galaxy Ring which features multiple sensors capable of tracking various health markers, including the wearers heart rate. This initiative aligns with Samsungs broader push towards improving health-related technologies. Now, Honor is preparing to join the smart ring trend. Honor CEO George Zhao told CNBC at MWC 2024 that the company is working on its own smart ring. Also read: Honor X9b launched in India for : Whats so great about it? Samsung Galaxy Ring Internally, we have this kind of solution, now we are working on that part, so in the future you can have the Honor ring, Honor CEO said. Also read: HONOR 90 5G earns the Digit Best Buy Award 2023 for unbeatable camera value Samsung Galaxy Ring Zhao only revealed minimal information about Honors upcoming smart ring, emphasising its connection to the companys broader focus on health. By introducing a smart ring, Honor might aim to expand its product range and integrate it with its health app, akin to Samsungs strategy. Zhao even emphasised the importance of artificial intelligence in delivering enhanced health insights to users. This hardware capability will work together with AI-enabled apps (and) can help you make the professional training course tailored for you because they studied your habits and health data to give you professional suggestions, Zhao said. Honor CEO further stated, I think AI will transform this kind of applications. When exactly Honor will launch its smart ring is still unknown. At Mobile World Congress 2024, Honor has been highlighting its AI capabilities, showcasing technology on its smartphones capable of tracking users eyes to execute various functions. Which 10 countries searched for VPNs most in 2023? Turkmenistan Ethiopia Iran Myanmar China Syria Afghanistan St Helena Senegal Uganda Afghanistans VPN searches are the fastest-growing Turkmenistan has the highest proportion of VPN searches Senegals VPN demand spike was the largest in 2023 VPNs and internet freedom: a crystal-clear correlation China (9/100) Myanmar (10/100) Iran (11/100) Cuba (20/100) Russia (21/100) Vietnam (22/100) Belarus (25/100) Saudi Arabia (25/100) Uzbekistan (25/100) Ethiopia (26/100) Looking at global statistics around VPN (Virtual Private Network) usage, its easy to build up a picture of the average VPN user.Theyre probably male (57% of VPN users are), with an income of $25,000 to $49,000; most likely degree-educated, too. The latest data also tells us what those people are using VPNs for: namely, to protect their privacy on public wifi (51%), safeguard their browsing anonymity (44%), communicate securely (37%), and mask their browsing from authorities (Techopedia).But recently, research has demonstrated that its not just who you are that determines whether, or how, you use a VPN. Its where you are in the world, too.So which countries serve as the highest predictors for VPN usage? In which parts of the planet were searches for VPNs most fervent and frequent in 2023 and, perhaps, most importantly, why?Lets take a look.In Techopedias guide to the countries that searched for VPNs most , it analyzed Google Trends data. The goal? To ascertain which countries had the highest proportion of VPN-related online searches (as a proportion of total searches) in 2023 and how much these had increased compared to 2022s figures.The findings revealed that the countries most interested in VPNs in 2023 were:Almost invariably, these countries are under the thumb of governments (typically, totalitarian ones) with a penchant for internet censorship; whether thats Chinas blanket ban, or the more selective, reactive approach countries like Senegal and Uganda take to combat civil crises.Below, we unpack the top three talking points from Techopedias VPN findings and whats happening in those countries to have caused VPN usage to spike so dramatically.In Techopedias research, all but three of the countries in the top 10 for VPN searches saw an increase in online VPN-related queries vis a vis 2022 levels. (The three outliers were Turkmenistan, which stayed consistent, plus Ethiopia and Senegal both of which were new entrants in the rankings.)Myanmar observed a 27% increase in VPN interest, while St Helena a remote British territory located almost 2,000 km off the coast of southwestern Africa saw a 60% boost. Familiar culprits such as Iran and China (both +93%) saw even greater growth in VPN searches, as did Uganda (+106%) and war-torn Syria (+108%).But the most jaw-dropping increase in 2023 VPN searches compared to the year prior and by some margin was in Afghanistan, where VPN-related queries grew a staggering 156%.How come?Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, the country and its internet has remained in the lethal grip of the militant groups forces. Since then, Afghanistans relationship with online freedoms has been a complex one. Early in the Talibans reign, the Pashtun organization imposed an outright ban on the internet, although this soon gave way to a more lenient approach perhaps after the Taliban realized that they could turn the internet into a weapon.They soon set about doing that, and 2022 saw the group block 23 million websites : surgically and strategically severing its citizens access to anything it leaders deemed anti-Islamic content. To this day, the militant group also monitors social media for posts expressing similar views or immorality or, indeed, simply anything anti-Taliban.However, Afghanistans stringent internet controls havent yet made their way into the realm of law and in 2024, VPNs remain legal to use in Afghanistan.Techopedias research found that, while internet searches for VPNs in 2023 grew most in Afghanistan, they were highest (as a proportion of all online queries) in Turkmenistan a position the country also held in 2022.To those already familiar with Turkmenistans overzealous approach to policing the internet, this comes as no surprise. This central Asian countrys internet is widely considered to be the most censored in the world, with a dictator-led government controlling the flow of information through a sole internet provider.That, of course, is for Turkmen citizens who have access to the internet most dont.Turkmenistan's internet penetration rate of 38.2% is central Asias lowest. Further complicating the picture is the fact that VPNs the main method the countrys internet users have of circumventing its governments iron fist on information are illegal.Thats right: Turkmenistan is one of a mere handful of countries (which also includes North Korea, Iraq, Belarus, and Oman) to outlaw VPNs altogether. Among the punishments to be handed out to offenders? Cautions, fines and lengthy prison sentences.Yet, if the latest data is anything to go by, that hasnt deterred Turkmenistans internet users from seeking out VPNs to restore their access to unfiltered internet.Despite Senegal only entering Techopedias rankings in 2023, it did so with a bang placing a global ninth for VPN-related searches that year.Leading the west African countrys surge into the standings was a remarkable 60,000% increase in VPN demand in 2023 the biggest uptick of the year, and one made all the more extraordinary by the fact it took place in a single month, from June to July.So, what happened?In brief, Senegals VPN uptick can be traced back to the fate of Ousmane Sonko the leader of the countrys opposing party, PASTEF who was sentenced in June 2023 to two years in prison by a court, on the charge of corrupting youth. The judgment was immediately denounced by Sonkos supporters, who branded it a plot to prevent the politician running for election the following February.Violent clashes broke out, leaving nine dead and it wasnt the first time violence had gripped the country that year. A mere month earlier, protests in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, killed one and wounded 30 , with those involved pushing back against the states increasingly repressive attitude towards its citizens. (Schoolchildren demanding schools to be built, rather than police stations, were met in the streets by police kitted out in full riot attire.)The Senegalese government in response to this string of high-profile clashes and ever-increasing public dissent against it shut down social media. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp all disappeared, and VPN searches in the country exploded. Despite these bans being lifted just a week later, recent developments in Senegals ongoing struggles suggest that Senegals first appearance in VPN searches global top 10 wont be its last.In February 2024, Senegals president, Macky Sall, postponed the countrys elections (scheduled for that month) to December. In the aftermath, three people were killed in bloody clashes between protestors and police, and Salls government (one with a history of internet censorship that far predates June 2023s social media blacklists) pulled the plug on mobile data, citing the dissemination on social networks of several subversive hate messages.Senegals late entrance into the global top 10 for VPN searches suggests that, when it comes to circumventing online censorship, its internet users are relatively late to the party.But, if their relationship with VPNs isnt such a longstanding one now, it certainly promises to be going forward so watch this space.While the correlation between VPN usage and low levels of internet freedom has always felt, intuitively, to be strong, only recently have we had the data to prove it.Thats because Techopedias findings map neatly with data from Freedom Houses Freedom of the Net Report 2023 , which measures the extent to which the internet is freely available and unrestricted in 70 countries. According to Freedom House, the least free internets are those in:So in total, four of the 10 countries with the most obfuscated online environments China, Myanmar, Iran, and Ethiopia are also those where VPN searches are continuing to soar.And one thing is clear. As governments in these countries conduct their ongoing flirtations with increasingly authoritative and oppressive approaches to rule, internet freedoms are emerging as a key battleground; and VPNs a major player.Looking to the future, how VPNs are accessed and used will continue to be a major avenue of escape for internet users in countries with degenerating records of internet freedoms. Though it remains to be seen how these jurisdictions governments will respond to block those routes off in the form of regulation and recrimination; with statutes and sanctions.Through policy and through punishment, too.Read next: Study Shows ChatGPT's Rapid Adoption at 55%, 33% Raise AI Usage Despite Lingering Privacy Concerns Subscriber content preview REDMOND The Goddard School, at 4200 228th Ave. N.E. , sold earlier this month for just over $6.3 million, according to King County records. The seller was KK Class A LLC, which acquired the property in 2015 for $4.9 million. . . . There has been very significant progress on reducing waiting lists for scoliosis-related surgeries, Simon Harris has said. As health minister at the time, Mr Harris set a target in 2017 that no child would be waiting longer than four months for scoliosis surgery. However, during Leaders Questions on Wednesday, he was told that he had failed to deliver on that target. Sinn Fein finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said several affected children and families attended the Dail last week, including 10-year-old Kylie Ann Stewart. He said the beautiful, young and brave girl had been failed by the State. Kylie Ann has been waiting five years for critical scoliosis surgery. Mr Doherty said her parents were first told of her condition when she was four and the Co Donegal girl has been waiting for surgery for half of her life. He added: Her condition is acute, her pain is great, her parents are heartbroken The Sinn Fein TD said Kylie Anns back is curved at 138 degrees. He said her parents have been told that doctors will be unable to operate if her spine curves a further 10 degrees. Additionally, Mr Doherty said: Kylie Ann has had to be especially careful with the skin that covers the bones that protrude from her back the risk is that the skin could break down, increasing the chance of infection. Mr Doherty said there are currently more than 70 children waiting over four months for spinal surgery with several waiting for years. He said: Seven years ago, minister, you yourself gave a commitment as minister for health. You said that no child by the end of 2017 would be waiting longer than four months for scoliosis-related surgery. A promise you made, a promise you broke. Made to Kylie Ann and so many other children that was broken year after year. Sinn Fein has called for an independent task force to look into the matter, as well as funding for a treatment abroad scheme. He added: You are drastically failing these children and it is simply not good enough, minister. Mr Harris said nobody in the Dail could imagine the pain that Kylie Ann and her family are going through. He added: When I was minister for health, I met with many families with children awaiting scoliosis procedures. I remember them. I remember their names. I remember their faces. I know somewhat of what they were going through though none of us can fully imagine it. And as a result of that, I did decide to place an unrelenting focus in 2017 on reducing the scoliosis times. Mr Harris, now Further Education Minister, said there was very, very significant progress on reducing waiting times because of that commitment. He said the number of children waiting longer than four months reduced to 29 by the end of 2017. People worked tirelessly and we saw wait times very, very significantly reduced. However, Mr Harris said that progress was reversed during the pandemic with the closure of theatres and reduction of health services. The minister said the Government has committed to establishing a task force on the matter. This government is working night and day. There is a task force in place. Theres engagement with the advocacy groups. On Tuesday, current Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said the State had failed far too many children in need of orthopaedic care. He asked the HSEs internal audit teams to examine how a 19 million-euro allocation towards reducing waiting times in 2022 was used. Gardai found just under 335,000 worth of Xanax tablets in a secret, lead-lined compartment under the floor of a Renault van at Dublin Port last summer, a court has heard. The tablets, also known as Alprazolam, were discovered when gardai pulled up the floor carpet of the van which arrived from Manchester on July 4 last year. Dublin man Conor Kealy (42) was sentenced to four and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to importing controlled drugs on the date in question. Kealy of Gleann na hEorna, Springfield, Tallaght, Dublin 24, told gardai he didnt know what was in the compartment. Passing sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Wednesday, February 28, Judge Martin Nolan accepted that Kealy had been transporting the drugs to alleviate his own drug debt. Judge Nolan said although 167,000 tablets was a large quantity of drugs, Kealys level of culpability was at the lower end of the scale. He backdated the sentence to the date of the offence last July when Kealy went into custody. A prosecuting garda told Sinead McMullan BL for the State that Kealy was driving a small Renault Kangu van when he was stopped at Dublin Port at 6am in the morning. Kealy told gardai he had travelled to the United Kingdom the previous week and was working in cladding. During a search of the van, gardai pulled up the carpet and found a hidden compartment, lead-lined to avoid detection, containing tablets valued at 334,950. Kealy cooperated with gardai but said he hadnt known what was in the compartment. He has 21 previous convictions, all from the District Court, including two for drugs offences. The garda agreed with Dominic McGinn SC, defending, that Kealy was a vulnerable person with no trappings of wealth who had struggled with addiction since his teens. Mr McGinn said his client had a sad childhood, with his father dying when he was very young and his mother dying when he was 21. He had been his mothers sole carer for the last year of her life, the court heard. Kealy started smoking cannabis at the age of 11 and was on heroin by 16. He moved to Canada for a year after his mother died but continued to struggle with addiction the court heard. Counsel said Kealy was in fear for himself and his family over his drug debt, which was the major catalyst for this offence. The court heard Kealy is doing well in prison and has adapted well to life in custody. Stormonts new powersharing Executive is focused on bringing forward a programme for government as soon as possible, the First and deputy First Minister have told MLAs. Michelle ONeill and Emma Little-Pengelly were giving evidence to the Executive Office committee and said they were looking forward to the return of all strands of the Good Friday Agreement, including meetings of the North South Ministerial Council (NSMC). Devolved government returned to Northern Ireland this month after the DUP dropped its two-year boycott of the political institutions when a deal was struck over post-Brexit trading arrangements. Ms ONeill became the first nationalist First Minister, with the DUPs Ms Little-Pengelly as deputy First Minister. In their first joint committee appearance, they set out their priorities for government, including dealing with longstanding financial issues facing Northern Ireland. They were asked when they would be bringing forward a programme for government setting out the strategic aims for the Executive. Ms ONeill told the committee: It is important that everybody feels the benefit of the policy decisions that we take. That will be reflected in the programme for government and we are going to move at it at a sensible pace, and we are going to move at it to make sure that we get it right. That is important because this becomes our collective programme for the Executive in terms of what we are going to develop, there will be collective priorities. We have to consider all that alongside the financial challenges that we have. She added: The programme for government is something that we are all focused on and we want to come back and talk to the committee about that at the right juncture, all ministers are getting to grips with their briefs and I hope that in the coming weeks well be able to discuss at more length the programme for government. Pressed on a time frame for the programme, Ms Little-Pengelly said: Michelle and I are very clear, we want a programme for government as soon as we can. We will work to ensure it is brought forward as quickly as possible, we want that to be there so everybody is clear, not just in the Assembly but throughout Northern Ireland as to what we are working towards, what are the priorities of this government. Sinn Fein MLA Caral Ni Chuilin asked when the NSMC would return, pointing out that the 26th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement was approaching. The NSMC has not met since 2021 after the DUP withdrew from north/south meetings as part of its protest against Brexits Northern Ireland Protocol. Ms ONeill said: It is important that we have all strands (of the Good Friday Agreement) up and running. We are working towards getting the other elements up and running, including the North South Ministerial Council. We know there is a big backlog there in terms of appointments. I want to see all elements up working again and I hope we will be able to progress those in the weeks ahead. Ms Little-Pengelly added: The north/south, east/west relationships are an absolutely key part of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. We are currently seeking to finalise dates, but those will happen very shortly. 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. Tuesday saw hundreds of secondary school students and teachers arrive at The Fairways Hotel, Dundalk for the Louth Student Enterprise Awards 2024. The Senior category was won by Colour Mo Cheantar, with team members Laura MacArtain, Luke Crilly and Luke Duffy. Students of St. Marys College, Dundalk, they are supported by their teacher Shane McDonnell. Colour mo Cheantar specialises in creating colouring books for towns and cities around Ireland. The initial colouring book, focused on Dundalk, features 12 original artworks created by the team, along with a short summary of the places history. Programme Manager for Local Enterprise Office Louth, Sarah Mallon explained: Our judges were really impressed by this teams ability to connect local history and heritage into creativity and learning. This product has the potential to be scaled across many other villages, towns and cities across Ireland. "They have created a really innovative and special product and we, at LEO Louth, are delighted that Colour Mo Cheantar will represent Louth at the Student Enterprise Finals in May. Runner-up in the Senior category was won by Twine Time. This eco-friendly alternative to a normal dish sponge, is made out of twine, which is a sustainable and natural material. The sponge can be worn as a glove and offers a guilt-free cleaning solution with biodegradability and reduced environmental impact. Thanks to the materials its made from, the sponge can be washed in a washing machine or dishwasher so, unlike a normal plastic sponge, it doesnt need to be constantly replaced. Twine Time was created by Shanze Chaudhry, Avery Kulajeva, Amelie Douet and Emmy Carpen of Our Ladys College, Greenhills, Drogheda, with support from their teacher Susan Tarrant. Hailing from Scoil Ui Mhuiri, Dunleer, Mk Keyrings won the Intermediate category. Using a purpose sourced 3D printer, entrepreneur Mark Kelly produces custom 3d key rings. Mark was supported in the Student Enterprise Awards by his teacher Martina Farrell. Scoil Ui Mhuiri, Dunleer, Mk Keyrings won the Intermediate category Runner up in the Intermediate category was awarded to Kate Quinn, Minahil Majeed and Reem Ammar of Bits and Bobs from St Vincents Secondary School, Dundalk supported by their teacher Eimear McCreesh. Bits and Bobs produce a range of trendy hand-made products including jewellery made from recycled beads and beauty products including lipgloss. Lego Warriors, the creation of Islagh Hollywood, Ivanna Malone and Abigail Kerin took first place in the Junior category. Hailing from Dundalk Grammar School, they were supported by their teacher Elizabeth McCabe. This enterprising team repurposes old Lego to make unique table centrepieces, birthday party decor, seasonal crafts and childrens bedroom decor. The judges were deeply impressed that this team are utilising materials that would otherwise go to landfill, and highlighted the fabulous range of products that they offered. Winner of the runner-up prize in the Junior category was Designs by Ash. Young entrepreneur Ashling Maher designs and manufactures a range of snoods, hand-knitted from alize puffy yarn. A student of Drogheda Grammar School, Ashling was supported by her teacher Alma Carney. Lego Warriors, the creation of Islagh Hollywood, Ivanna Malone and Abigail Kerin took first place in the Junior category. Hailing from Dundalk Grammar School Dearbhla McArdle of St. Vincents Secondary School in Dundalk was named winner of the My Entrepreneurial Journey Award. Her 500 word essay detailed her new product idea, outlined how to develop that idea and tracked the steps needed to bring it to market. Her concept, a reusable sandwich bag that converts a regular sandwich to a toasted sandwich on the move, really came to life in her writing. Supported by her teacher Eimear McCreesh, Dearbhlas essay demonstrated a true understanding of enterprise and entrepreneurship. Lead judge in the 2024 competition, Claire Cunningham explained: We had a fantastic range of ideas and enterprises on show this year. It genuinely made selecting winners, across all categories, a real challenge. But it is also really inspiring to see so many local young people so excited and passionate about entrepreneurship as a future career opportunity. Over 1,200 students from 18 schools across the county participated in this years Student Enterprise Programme. A collaboration between Local Enterprise Office Louth and local schools, it is delivered by Fionnuala Rogers and Francis Verling. During the programme, students learn how to create a business idea, then they start and grow their own business. The highpoint is the county final where students get to present their businesses and future potential to a panel of expert judges. An intense morning of judging saw the finalists present their business idea and answer tough questions from the judges. The Junior and Intermediate categories were judged by Lavina McGahon and entrepreneur Donal Quinn of Enzo, while Sarah Daly, Garrett Duffy and Claire Cunningham judged the Senior category. An Cathaoirleach of Louth County Council, Cllr. Paula Butterly visited the students' stands over the course of the day, asking questions and discovering their business ideas, before presenting prizes to the winners. Each winner received a beautiful award, created by local ceramicist Sarah McKenna of Bridge Street Studios. Winners of the Senior, Intermediate and Junior categories, along with the winner of the My Entrepreneurial Journey, will go forward to represent Louth in the Student Enterprise Awards national final in Mullingar in May. Special congratulations also to teacher Deirdre Curran, of OFiaich College, Dundalk who received the Enterprise Educators Award. Winning this award is testament to her work and dedication in promoting enterprise and entrepreneurship in the school environment. There were also 7 category award winners, recognising the expertise and skills demonstrated by the young entrepreneurs. The Innovation Award winner was Sport Na nOg, with team members Sophie Gordon, Katie English, Aoibhin Finnegan and Mary Kate Mulholland from St. Louis Secondary School, Dundalk, supported by their teacher Roisin Mallon. The Best Social Media & Marketing Award was won by The Candle Company with team members Zoe Durnin, Erin Finnegan and Edie Henry along with their teacher Eimear McCreesh from St. Vincents Secondary School, Dundalk. Just Wood, scooped the Sustainability Award. Their entrepreneurial team are Tadhg Flanagan, Harry Sayers, Tiernan Bruton and Ryan Connolly from Ballymakenny College, Drogheda supported by their teacher Shauna Kellegher. Drogheda Made Inspiration won the Best Creative Business Award. Team members Conor Black, Jack Heffernan and Karl Leonard from St. Marys Diocesan School, Drogheda, have been supported by their teacher Ciaran Roe. The Best Display Award was won by Bo Tag Keyrings. Sinead Fitzpatrick flew the flag for Scoil Ui Mhuiri, Dunleer and was supported by her teacher Martina Farrell. The Best Social Enterprise Award went to The Joes Christmas Cards with team members Alex McHugh, Jamie Rock and Cathal Mulholland, from St. Joseph's Secondary School, Drogheda, supported by their teacher Brian Lynch. Raising 6,000 for local charities, the judges were really impressed by the impact of their social enterprise. Cormac Broe and Cillian Forrester won the Best Service Business Award with their enterprise, Chores Outdoors. Supported by their teacher Martin OConnor, they are pupils at De La Salle College, Dundalk. Sarah Mallon of Local Enterprise Office Louth concludesd: We wish our 4 finalists the very best of luck as they represent Louth at the national finals in May. Follow the competition using #StudentEnterprise on social media and discover more by visiting www.StudentEnterprise.ie. "And remember, no matter what age or what stage of business you are at, your Local Enterprise Office is always here to support you. You can find out more about our supports and services by visiting www.localenterprise.ie/Louth. Knockbridge ladies, Dolores McNally and Mary McArdle, are hosting an afternoon tea dance in Knockbridge Community Centre on bank holiday Monday 18 March, to raise funds for NECRET (North East Cancer Research & Education Trust) / Drogheda Oncology a cause very close to both women, who have both availed of these services. The mission of NECRET is to improve both the treatment and outcome of those people affected by cancer. Both Dolores and Mary say they cannot speak highly enough of the services provided by NECRET and Drogheda Oncology, having witnessed first hand the dedication and care provided by the services and medical teams and are grateful to be able to give something back to the organisation, and have a bit of fun while doing so. The tea dance will be held on the bank holiday Monday 18 March in Knockbridge Community Centre between 3-6pm, there will be good food, craic and music by Brian Mohan and friends. The ladies say not to forget your dancing shoes, and they will provide the hats! There will be a raffle on the day with some fantastic spot prizes up for grabs. Tickets are 15 and can be bought by contacting 085-1446825 or 087-2395203. Dolores and Mary say are extremely grateful to the local clubs and organisations who have been so supportive in the lead up to this event. If you are unable to make the tea dance and still want to make a contribution, donations and sponsorships are very much appreciated, the organisers say. It is expected to be a great opportunity to catch up with friends, and enjoy some nice homebaking, while dancing along to wonderful tunes, all while raising funds for a very worthy cause. Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) recently welcomed award-winning author Dr Katriona OSullivan to campus as part of their N-TUTORR week of events. The N-TUTORR programme is a national initiative designed to transform learning, teaching and assessment. Dr OSullivan gave an inspiring and insightful talk to staff and students at a completely booked out event on campus recently. Ciara OShea, N-TUTTOR Project, DkIT, said: We were absolutely delighted to welcome Dr Katriona OSullivan to our N-TUTORR week of events on campus. Dr OSullivan is many things including an award-winning author of a #1 Bestselling book Poor. "She is also the Principal Investigator on the STEM Passport for Inclusion project, which has won several awards and has changed the educational landscape as it addresses inequalities with access to STEM careers among secondary school students in socially disadvantaged communities. "Dr OSullivans lists of awards and accreditations are vast including recently been invited to address the UN Committee for Social Development, but her overarching determination is to inspire others to support the futures of all in education. She is passionate about education and giving students hope, practical support and meaningful opportunities. Dr OSullivan took to the stage of the Whitaker Theatre in DkIT to share her story and inspire others, which is captured in her bestselling book Poor. Dr OSullivan told the audience of her remarkable story of life experience, as one of 5 children in a home shaped by her parents' heroin addiction. Her talk chronicled her journey from poverty, teenage pregnancy, homelessness to graduating with a PhD from Trinity College Dublin and becoming an award-winning lecturer whose work challenges barriers to education. Katriona is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Assisting Living & Learning Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University. She is the Principal Investigator on the STEM Passport for Inclusion project, featured recently on RTE Changemaker series. She has held research grants from the Irish Research Council and Science Foundation Ireland leading an initiative to tackle digital inequality in education. She also successfully led the largest HEA PATH funded programme entitled Turn to Teaching which focused on diversifying teacher education. She has been invited speaker at the World Education Forum, the European Gender Action Workshop on Women and Digitalization and most recently at the UN gender equality workshop. She has worked with Irish policy makers to develop policies around education and inclusion. Dr OSullivan has also published significant research on equality, gender, education, inclusion and STEM. The 2024 DkIT Dundalk 10K race, hosted by Dundalk Institute of Technology (DKIT), will take place on Wednesday the 17th of April at 7pm at DKIT Sport. Although labelled as the DkIT Dundalk 10K, there is once again an option to take part in the 5K event. People that are taking part have the option of either running, walking or jogging their distance. The course for the event is known for being one of the flattest surfaces in Ireland with a course record of 29:45 held by Yared Deresse of Carrick Aces. The event starts and finishes outside DKIT Sport and takes in some wonderful views, especially those along the coast road. Once again, the event is supported by generous sponsorship from Servisource Recruitment, Recruit Island, Fyffes, Dundalk Retail Park, Dundalk Credit Union, Intact Software, ControlSoft, RockSalt Cafe, K2 Data Centres, DKIT Sport, Ganson and Dundalk Institute of Technology. The sponsors attended the recent launch on campus This event is raising funds for charities, DkITs chosen charity partner for this year is SAFE Castlebellingham, a community-based organisation that supports individuals struggling with mental health issues. To register or find out more, visit https://dundalk10k.com/ or contact Bronagh.mcgrane@dkit.ie or derek.crilly@dkit.ie, TELL us about yourself; My name is Darragh O Caoimh. Im 24 and come from Kanturk, Co. Cork. I graduated from UCC with a degree in Law and Irish in 2022, and then won a Fulbright Scholarship which brought me to the wonderful town of Missoula, 3,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains. I spent a year there teaching Irish at the University of Montana, and returned to Ireland last June. Having previously worked as a presenter on Junior Eurovison Eire, I was delighted to join TG4s weather and continuity panel recently. Where were you born? Cork. Where do you live? Dublin. Family? My father Con, my two sisters Clodagh and Sarah, my brother Paul, grandmother Lee, as well as a fantastic extended family on both sides. My mum passed away in 2021. She was the best mother you could ask for and we all miss her laugh and smile and company. Best friend? Im very lucky to have the friends I have, and couldnt single any one out! Darragh O Caoimh, from Kanturk. Earliest childhood memory? Getting lost in Blackpool Shopping Centre. I went back to the car when I couldnt find my mum inside, and I remember her and the security guard coming out and shouting for me. I must have been about four. Person you most admire? My dad. He is a brilliant example to me, and has really looked after us. He also has a great sense of humour. Person who most irritates you? Any person who litters. Where was your most memorable holiday? France in 2008. We went with Brittany Ferries from Cork to Roscoff, and drove down to a mobile home near La Rochelle, where we spent two sunny weeks. France is one my favourite countries, and Ive been going back since. Favourite TV programme? Bailte on TG4. The presenter Sile Nic an Chonaonaigh visits a different townland in each episode to meet the community who live there and learn about the history of the place. Its a fascinating portrait of the Gaeltacht and of rural life, and seasons 2 and 3 are still on the TG4 player. Favourite radio show? An Saol o Dheas on RTE Raidio na Gaeltachta, Monday to Friday, from 12:08pm to 1pm and on podcast. Its a programme that focuses on Munster and the Munster Gaeltacht, and they always have interesting items, including an excellent recent interview with Cillian Murphys father, Breandan O Murchu. Your signature dish if cooking? Chicken curry. The recipe I learned in 1st year Home Ec. in Colaiste Treasa, Kanturk, has stood me well! Favourite restaurant? Bobs Bar and Restaurant in Kanturk. Steak, chips, peppercorn sauce, fried onions and a side salad. You cant beat it! Darragh O Caoimh, from Kanturk. Last book you read? Suil an Daill, by Darach O Scolai, published by Leabhar Breac in 2021. Its a historical novel set in 16th century Ulster and is a skilful reimagining of Gaelic life under the ONeills, with all the political intrigue and action of the Game of Thrones series. Best book you read? An impossible question! One of my favourite novels is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and her latest book Demon Copperhead was superb also. Last album/CD/download you bought? Taylor Swifts rerecording of her fifth album: 1989 (Taylors Version). Favourite song? It changes often, but at the moment its Man On Fire by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros. One person you would like to see in concert? I have seen her once in concert already, but Id love to see Lorde again. Shes a super artist! Do you have a pet? Senna is back in Kanturk. He is a black labrador, named after the famous Brazilian F1 driver who my dad was a big fan of. Morning person or night owl? Definitely a night owl. During the pandemic, I found I liked to get up at about ten, and go to bed around one in the morning. That arrangement hasnt lasted unfortunately, but I still seem to be at my most productive at around 11pm. Your proudest moment? Winning the Irish-language moot court competition Breagchuirt Ui Dhalaigh in the Four Courts in Dublin in 2021, along with my friend Carthach O Faolain. Spendthrift or saver? A spender, I think. Name one thing you would improve in your area in which you live? Im really hoping they get going soon with the metro in Dublin. We should be investing much more in our public transport network: the metro in Dublin, a LUAS in Cork, Busconnects, as well as Local Links and rural bus routes. Better public transport is important for climate change, but its also essential to help ease the housing crisis and will improve peoples quality of life. What makes you happy? Talking and having a laugh with family and friends. Reading the papers over breakfast at the weekend. Hiking in Killarney National Park during the recent frosty weather. How would you like to be remembered? As someone who was kind to those he met, and who made a contribution, however small, to his country and to the world. What else are you up to at the moment? Im studying for a masters in Modern Irish in UCD at the moment. Ive learned so much about areas of our history and literature that I didnt know about, and am thoroughly enjoying all the reading and research involved. A MEP in Ireland South is among those who backed stringent new rules designed to combat the mountains of discarded clothing generated in the EU every year. A vote took place in the ENVI Committee earlier this month on a revision of the Waste Framework Directive to strengthen EU rules regarding food and textile waste. The revision was targeted specifically at tackling the growing problems of textile and food waste, with 72 in favour and just three against strengthening the European Commissions original proposal. Fast fashion Green Party MEP for Ireland South, Grace O Sullivan called the result a big win in the fight against fast fashion. The changes mean that, for the first time, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) will be applied to the textile sector, meaning that a waste management system will have to be set up for textiles -this means that textile waste will have to be separately collected and then reused or recycled. At the moment, most textile waste in Ireland is put in the black bin and incinerated, and this needs to change, Ms OSullivan told The Echo. There must be a system whereby old clothing and other textiles are collected, sorted and then reused (where possible) or recycled, and this system must be set up and funded by the textile industry. Its only right that the polluter pays. She continued: We know that better waste management alone will not solve the textile waste crisis, and waste prevention must be the priority - that means slashing fast fashion and designing a truly sustainable clothing sector. People can play a role in this by purchasing fewer clothes, buying second-hand or attending clothing swap shops, but the real responsibility lies with the giant fast fashion brands that continue to churn out more and more cheap clothing at a rate that is both dizzying and totally unsustainable. Harm She explained that the mass production and consumption of textiles harms the planet, aggravating climate change and pollution while putting pressure on water sources. This is before we even take into account the labour conditions of textile workers, who are often vulnerable and low-paid workers in countries with poor labour rights, she added. As a member of the Environment Committee in the European Parliament, I will continue to push for ambitious measures to make the clothes we wear fairer and more sustainable for both people and planet, Ms OSullivan concluded. A man in his 20s has been charged in connection with a spate of arson attacks in the city centre on Sunday evening. He is due to appear in court tomorrow morning. Five units of Cork City Fire Brigade attended the scenes of five fires at various retail stores across Cork city centre on Sunday. The alarm was raised shortly before 5.15pm when Cork City Fire Brigade received a call to respond to a fire on Patrick St. The initial call was followed by four calls at the various other premises in the city centre. A Garda spokesperson tonight confirmed that Gardai have charged a man in his 20s in connection with a number of criminal damage incidents which occurred in Cork city on Sunday". The spokesperson said the man is due to appear before Cork District Court tomorrow morning. THE Mayor of the County of Cork has welcomed the decision of An Bord Pleanala to grant permission to the county council for proposed remedial works to the existing Fermoy weir and the construction of a new fish bypass on the River Blackwater. Councillor Frank OFlynn was commenting following the boards ruling that, subject to compliance with conditions set out, the proposed development would not have significant negative effects on the environment or the community in the vicinity, would not give rise to a risk of pollution and would not be detrimental to the visual or landscape amenities of the area. An Bord Pleanala also said it considered the proposed development would not seriously injure the amenities of property in the vicinity; would not adversely impact on the cultural, archaeological, and built heritage of the area; and would not interfere with the existing land uses in the area. Fermoy weir pictured in 2019. Picture: Larry Cummins. Mr OFlynn said he welcomed the decision, adding that Cork County Council is currently reviewing the decision and associated conditions. They will now progress to preparing updated cost projections and tender documents in line with the terms of the grant of permission, he said. While Cork County Council has made some provision for the cost of the remedial works to the weir, the significant additional cost of providing a new fish bypass will require support from Government. Council will then engage with the relevant departments and appraise them of anticipated costs. Fermoy weir was constructed in the early 19th century but has fallen into disrepair, with the rate of deterioration accelerating in recent years. Before commencing preparation of a planning application and associated environmental assessments for the scheme, the views of the public and relevant stakeholders were invited through a non-statutory consultation process in 2020. There are seven conditions attached to An Bord Pleanalas grant of permission for the development, including one which stipulates a qualified ecologist must be retained by the local authority to oversee the site setup and construction of the proposed development. THE victim of a stabbing attack with a broken bottle is now serving a sentence for another matter in Limerick Prison in the same unit as her attacker. Sorcha Waters, aged 34, of Mount St. Josephs Drive, Gurranabraher, pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to a charge of assault causing harm to the 36-year-old injured party. Judge Helen Boyle imposed a sentence of two years on Waters, with the last six months suspended. Defence barrister Emmet Boyle said the accused and her victim had shaken hands since the violent incident on August 14, 2022, and there was no animus between them. Detective Sergeant Kieran OSullivan said there was an altercation at 7.30pm that evening between a number of parties at the entrance to the Lapps Quay car park. CCTV of the lead-up to the incident shows the injured party approaching Waters. The detective said that initially both parties were aggressive to one another. Sorcha Waters takes a bottle from another person, smashes the bottle against wall and goes in the direction of the injured party, said Det Sgt OSullivan. She then stabs the 36-year-old with a broken bottle. The injured party had numerous stab wounds to the face and between the neck and shoulder. She had to have over 100 stitches to her wounds, and was left with permanent scarring. She made no statement of complaint. Gardai arrested Waters at Lower Oliver Plunkett St, Cork, a short time afterwards. She acknowledged that she was the person in the video footage of the incident, and she made full admissions. The defendants 60 previous convictions include 18 for public order offences, 30 for theft, and two for burglary. Mr Boyle, defence barrister, said: She indicated she was guilty. That was before a statement of complaint. Ms Waters has had addiction problems for many years. In relation to the accused and the injured party, they shook hands and now get on with each other. There is no animus between them. She is truly sorry. She is sober and determined to stay sober. Judge Helen Boyle said: It would have been busy in the city centre. People would have been exposed to that level of violence, which is completely unacceptable in my view. You felt she was the person who first attacked you. You are both in the same unit of Limerick Prison, and apparently you are getting on well with each other there. A PROPOSAL to build a new wastewater treatment plant in Crossbarry could face further delays due to what appears to be a bureaucratic impasse between Cork County Council, which received funding last June for the project, and Uisce Eireann, which took over all local authority functions in September. The fear that the long-awaited Crossbarry project might now be mired in a no mans land was expressed by councillors attending yesterdays meeting of Bandon/Kinsale Municipal District. The proposed wastewater treatment plant was recommended five years ago as a solution to issues with the existing under strain sewage facilities in a village to which a number of new estates had been added during the Celtic Tiger building boom. Residents were now experiencing foul smells and other related unpleasant impacts. Members of the municipal district were concerned on two fronts. First of all, Cork County Council was allocated funding of 3.3m to complete the project last June and the latest estimate for its completion was 4.4m, a fact imparted to Fianna Fail councillor Gillian Coughlan in a verbal briefing by a senior council official. Confusion also reigned over which body was now responsible for the project given that, since the grant allocation had been made in June, Uisce Eireann had taken over all local authority functions related to water in September. There was also a question as to where funding for the 1.1m shortfall would come from. Ms Coughlan said she had tabled motions on a number of occasions seeking an update on the financial implications of the project. Here we are in February, and Cork County Council have thankfully issued me with a response, and it was that the costings that are accepted are 4.41m, the upgrade of the sewerage scheme would cost that much, and that Cork County Council was granted 3.3m, she said. Theres a shortfall of 1.1m-odd but, more than that, who is responsible for the job is now in question because, since September 6, Uisce Eireann have taken over all water services and Cork County Council feel they neither have the expertise nor the capacity to undertake this. And, so, its now stuck in this bureaucratic quagmire no-mans-land, she said. Ms Coughlan said she was not as concerned about finding the 1.1m shortfall as she was about the no mans land in which the project appeared trapped. She said: Who is actually responsible for this job? Who is going to tender for this job? Who is going to contract for this job? I am very concerned about that. It was resolved at yesterdays meeting that the council would seek a meeting with Environment Minister Eamon Ryan to seek a resolution to the issue. Clarification of their positions has been sought from Uisce Eireann and Cork County Council. CORK band, The Frank and Walters have been announced as Grand Marshal of Cork St Patricks Day Parade. Organised by Cork City Council, the Cork St Patricks Festival will take place from March 15 to March 18, as the city celebrates its music, culture and tradition in honour of the patron saint. Commenting on the announcement, Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr. Kieran McCarthy said: I am delighted that the iconic Cork band The Frank and Walters are the Grand Marshal of the Cork St Patricks Day Parade. "The theme of this years parade is Pure Imagination and I invite those participating to explore the magic, wonder, colours and the world of dreams of Cork, all in a sense of togetherness. Our parade will be a celebration of life in Cork and our city of welcomes, with our traditional sporting and dance groups alongside new communities that have made our city their home. The four-day festival will showcase a new specially-programmed range of events, including a performance from songwriter, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, Paul Noonan, in the Triskel Arts Centre on March 15, as well as up-and-coming band, Kingfishr, who will appear there the following day. An afternoon Ceili Mor will take place from 3pm to 6pm in City Hall on March 16, with acclaimed musicians from the Cork Trad Trio performing traditional music, as well as an afternoon programme of Circus High Jinks, towering aerial acrobatics and fire juggling on a tightwire at Elizabeth Fort on the same day, with a Circus Disco included for all attendees to enjoy. The Cork St Patricks Day Parade will take place on March 17 at 1pm, on the familiar route from South Mall to Merchants Quay. The Parade will include over 3,000 participants, performance pieces from professional art groups, marching bands and groups from across Ireland, America, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The full programme of events for the four-day festival is available on www.corkstpatricksfestival.ie. CORK students at Munster Technological University (MTU) were visited by retired Nasa astronaut Steve Swanson who gave a talk on outer space. Last week, students gathered at the MTU Berkeley Centre in Bishopstown to hear Mr Swanson detail his celestial experiences and observations of life while in orbit. During the talk, he shared video clips from his career and gave a virtual tour of his life on board the International Space Station (ISS). Mr Swanson also delivered talks to secondary students at Midleton College and at Dell (EMC) in Ballincollig on the same day. A decorated Nasa astronaut, Mr Swanson boasts a lengthy CV, having flown to the ISS on three occasions, spent 195 days in space, and completed five space walks totalling 28 hours and five minutes. He has served in other roles at Nasa, including as a flight controller for both the ISS and Space Shuttle missions, and has been awarded many accolades throughout his career, including the Nasa Exceptional Achievement Medal, JSC Certificate of Accommodation, Flight Simulation Engineering Award, and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. The visit was sponsored by Dell Technologies Ireland, and Mr Swanson was accompanied by colleagues Ross Barber and Jack Enright from the International Space School Educational Trust. RYANS SuperValu in Togher has been recognised for its hard work and commitment at the SuperValu National Conference. The Cork store was announced as a finalist in the SuperValu Store of the Year 2024 award category in Killarney, where it was presented with the finalist award by SuperValu managing director Ian Allen and sales director Dan Curtin. Independent judge and retail consultant Paul Ellison was tasked with assessing and adjudicating SuperValu stores around Ireland and choosing the deserving winner. This years store audits focused on product range and quality, customer service, store presentation and innovation, fresh food offering and store hygiene standards as well as sustainability. Mr Allen said: Being recognised as a finalist in the SuperValu Store of the Year Awards is a testament to the hard work and commitment to retail standards shown by Ryans SuperValu Togher throughout the year. Their focus on product range and quality, customer service and sustainability was evident throughout the store. Congratulations to the team at SuperValu Togher on this fantastic achievement. A 78-year-old man experienced the terror of a complete stranger banging and kicking repeatedly at his door in the early hours of the morning and then pushing burning tissue papers through the letterbox. Sergeant Pat Lyons outlined the background to the offences at Cork District Court where 38-year-old Eoin OMahony of 18 Harbour View, Cobh, County Cork, pleaded guilty to several charges arising out the incident. The man turned up at the injured partys address at Woodhill Villas, Tivoli, Cork. He shouted that he would stab the occupant of the house and that he would burn the house down. The owner of the house was 78 years old. He stated that the defendant is unknown to him. He damaged the front door by hitting and kicking it and lighting tissue papers and putting them in the letterbox trying to burn the house down. The injured party had to prise the letterbox shut. As Mr OMahony was leaving he kicked and damaged a BMW parked outside. This car was owned by a tenant in the first injured partys home, Sgt Lyons said. The accused was arrested not far from the scene after gardai found him engaged in a public order matter. It was established that he matched the description of the man who was seen outside the house in Tivoli causing damage to the house and the car parked outside. When he was arrested he was found to have a Stanley knife in his possession. Sgt Lyons said: He was shown CCTV and he had no recollection of it. He made admissions to owning and having the knife in his possession. He said he was sorry and that he was out of his head on drink and drugs. He wholeheartedly apologised for his actions. There was 630 damage to the front door of the house and 3,700 damage to the BMW. Judge Mary Dorgan said after hearing the outline of what happened: It doesnt sound good I have a very major issue I have no victim impact statement from the man whose house could have burnt down. It was lucky he woke and came down. This was absolutely incredible that he (Mr OMahony) could have done that and remembered it. It is quite shocking. While the homeowner did not make a victim impact statement, the young man staying in a room at the house did make a statement about the effect of the criminal damage to his car. Judge Dorgan said it was poignant to read that this young man could not understand why he would have to pay 3,700 for damage done by somebody else. Furthermore, the owner could not afford to pay to repair what was his first car which he bought after leaving college. Quoting from the victims statement, Judge Dorgan said: This man (defendant) made a decision that night to vandalise my car and he should pay for it. Judge Dorgan said Eoin OMahony could not expect the leniency of the court for all the damage he caused on November 18 2022 if he made no effort to compensate the victims. The judge adjourned sentencing until June 10 for the defendant to gather compensation. Eoin OMahony pleaded guilty to two criminal damage charges, one count of threatening damage, one of attempted arson, one of threatening to kill, and possession of a knife. Tributes have been paid to well-known Cork businessman, Clayton Love Jr, who has died. Mr Love developed and opened Cork's first shopping centre in Douglas in 1971. He served as president of Cork Chamber in 1979 and in 1980 and as Chair of Beamish and Crawford. Conor Healy, CEO of Cork Chamber said the Cork man had a very positive impact on the business landscape in Cork. Cork Chamber is sad to hear of the passing of former Chamber President Clayton Love Jr. "Mr Love was president in 1979 and 1980 and made a significant contribution to the Chamber and had a very positive impact on the wider business landscape in Cork. "A business leader, Douglas Village Shopping Centre was Corks first shopping centre when Mr Love developed and opened it in 1971. "Mr Love was also known for his work with the Royal Cork Yacht Club, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Fota Wildlife Park and, most notably, for his great contribution as Chair of Beamish & Crawford. Our deepest condolences to his entire family and our thoughts are with them at this time." I WILL be voting Yes and Yes in the upcoming referendum. I welcome the Governments attempt to deal with this thorny issue. There has been more than 30 years of discussion on how to change or delete article 41.2. I find it gratuitously offensive. I find it offensive because it socialised both women and men to see a womans primary place as in the home. It further socialised people to see women as there to service others needs. It also put the responsibility of care and housework in the home squarely on womens shoulders. I grew up in the 1960s and 70s. My mother gave up her job as a dress-maker when my brother was born. I was born three years later and that was our family. She didnt talk about whether she wanted more children or not. In those days, contraception was difficult to get, if not illegal or certainly frowned upon. She stayed at home while my father went to work as a carpenter. They were happily married and worked as a team. My father gave my mother his pay-packet every Friday. She paid the bills and bought the groceries. As I remember it, they discussed everything and decisions were made by the both of them. However, my mother would have said to me Always have your running away money. She recognised the economic disadvantage that she was at by having to depend on my fathers goodwill. Sadly, she died in 1985 and we never really got to discuss the social progress that has been made in Ireland for women. In canvassing for a Yes vote on March 8, I meet women whos husbands are not so fair-minded. They basically have to accept their lot in order to remain married. Ive also met men who are appalled by the fact that their wives were forced to give up their jobs. It subsequently negatively impacted their wives when it came to pension entitlement. They fundamentally understood that to be deprived of the right to access paid work was an appalling injustice. It put the onus on the man to be the breadwinner. It further embedded the idea that public leadership was a place for men only. I would argue that the infamous comment of Padraig Flynn that Mary Robinson was essentially neglecting her family when she ran for President comes from that outdated thinking. Even today, on Cork City council there is a significant gender imbalance, with only six women councillors to 25 men. I recently received a print-out from a 1950s Home Economics book (previously known as domestic science and almost exclusively taught to girls). I was out for dinner with some friends and we were amused by this. However, as one of them pointed out, this was how her mother treated her father. Under the headline Tips to look after your husband, the book has categories such as Have Dinner Ready, Prepare Yourself, Clear Away the Clutter, Prepare the Children, Minimise all Noise, Make Him Comfortable, Listen to Him, and Make the Evening His. Under a section headlined Some donts, it advises women not to greet their husband with problems or complaints, and dont complain if hes late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day.We have come such a long way; I think we are in danger of forgetting just how regressive Irish society has been for women. While there is criticism that the new wording on care in the referendum is not strong enough, I would argue that to vote No does nothing to help in this regard. It could be interpreted that a womans place is in the home and that she should be confined there. Some jurisdictions do implement this world view of women. Thankfully, that has changed in Ireland, but progressive thinking is not necessarily irreversible. There are plenty of countries that I would not like to live in because of their attitude on this topic. On the second referendum question about recognising families that are not based on marriage, my own is one. I am not married to my daughters dad. We live separately and have parented her together but have remained unmarried to one another. We come together at least weekly and for birthdays, Christmas and other celebrations. People are often amused at how well we get on. However, as my daughter has pointed out, we get on so well because we dont live together. The soap opera view of romance is often short-lived. As my 96-year-old aunt says, love is blind and marriage is an eye-opener. In her book The Invisible Job, Paula Fyans describes the complexity of managing a home and family. She puts a business language on it and describes how there is a Project Manager and a zero hours contractor. No prizes for guessing who does what. She suggests ways to share the work involved and remain happily married. I, for one, am very glad that the view of living with another person is more realistic nowadays. Most married people will say it has its ups and downs and it takes commitment on both sides to make it work. I think our constitution should reflect that reality. It does not take away from marriage, but it does recognise the lived experience of people like me whose family is not based on marriage. For all these reasons, I will be voting Yes Yes on Friday, March 8. FRANCE has one of the oldest filmmaking traditions in the world, with French filmmakers spearheading the art form since the latter half of the nineteenth century. With some of the greatest writers, actors, and directors hailing from France, the filmmaking tradition is more vibrant than ever. Some of the best French language films come to the Arc Cinema for the 35th Cork French Film Festival, which starts this Saturday, March 2. Valerie David-McGonnell is the president of Alliance Francaise de Cork and co-directs the festival with Josselin Le Gall, the Honorary Consul of France in Cork. They are the festival directors and part of a four-person programming team, which includes Una Feely and Mick Hannigan. David-McGonnell says the line-up for the 35th edition of the festival is one of their best. We are very proud of the programme. This year, we have selected 18 French language films, nine of which are Irish premieres, many of which are award nominees and award winners. " We are fortunate to have some of this years Cesar Awards winners. We have a very strong programme and cant wait to share it with people. David-McGonnell also says it is essential for the team to programme good films showing the diversity of French cinema. Josselin Le Gall and Valerie David-McGonnell, directors of the 35th Cork French Film Festival. We spend a long time watching and choosing the films. When we first watch them, it is before the awards season, so we never know which films will go on to be hugely successful. If they are award winners, that is a bonus, but what is important is that they are good films and that we pick a range of films that showcase not just cinema made in France but also other French language-speaking countries. The opening night film is Jeanne du Barry, which opened the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It is a historical drama based on Jeanne Vaubernier (Maiwenn), who rises through the ranks of French society to become the last mistress of King Louis XV. The film also stars Johnny Depp and was directed by the films lead actor, Maiwenn. David-McGonnell says the films rich photography and costumes add to the look and feel of 18th-century France. 2024 marks the 180th anniversary of the publication of Alexander Dumass epic swashbuckler, The Three Musketeers. To celebrate, the festival directors have selected two films focusing on the adventures of DArtagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. The Three Musketeers: Milady. Pictured: Francois Civil as D'Artagnan. Picture: 2023 The Three Musketeers: Milady. As a fan of the story, Le Gall is particularly looking forward to audiences seeing the two epics, The Three Musketeers - Part 1: DArtagnan and The Three Musketeers - Part 2: Milady. The Three Musketeers is renowned; most people know the story, but we enjoyed the fact that the movie doesnt just have great acting and costumes, but it is an invitation to travel through France. It was shot in the Chateau de Versailles and places like LaRochelle, so audiences can see these iconic French locations and experience the history on screen. Animal Kingdom (La regne animal) won six awards at this years Cesar Awards, the French equivalent of the Academy Awards. The film, which has received high praise from critics, stars Romain Duris and Adele Exarchopoulos as two people caught up in a mysterious happening which sees humans develop animal-like qualities. Fans of classic cinema will be in for a real treat with a restored version of the 1950 masterpiece Orphee, directed by Jean Cocteau and starring Jean Marais. The film is a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and sees the action location from Ancient Greece to Paris following World War II. War buffs will also be satiated with the documentary D-Day: Normandy 1944, which uses animation, CGI, and live-action to examine the extraordinary efforts of the Allied troops in Normandy from June 1943 to 1944. The films director, Pascal Vuong, and producer, Catherine Vuong, will participate in a post-screening Q&A. The Taste of Things or ( La Passion de Dodin Bouffant) stars Juliette Binoche and is set in the world of French cuisine in the 1800s. Binoches character works as a chef for a famed foodie, Dodin (Benoit Magimel). It won Best Director at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, amongst other awards. France is synonymous with a rich culinary history, and Le Gall says it sums up the French passion for food. The Taste Of Things screens at the Cork French Film Festival. The film is rich in many ways, and you really see our famed passion for food. If you like food, this film will be a real treat, and Juliette Binoche is a favourite of our festival. We have programmed one of her films almost every year of the festival. David-McGonnell reminds us that French is an official language in 29 countries and that it is essential to represent the diversity of the French-speaking world in the programme. We are delighted this year to have the support of the French Embassy and the Canadian Embassy in Ireland to help us showcase the diversity of French in the world. We have programmed a Canadian film, Nadia, Butterfly, about an Olympic swimmer. We have a French film, Ride Above ( Tempete), by a French-Canadian director Christian Duguay. It follows a young girl who dreams of becoming a jockey, and the film will be screened three times for secondary school students. Josselin Le Gall and Valerie David-McGonnell, directors of the 35th Cork French Film Festival. Picture: Darragh Kane We also have Omen, a film by a Belgian Congolese director, Baloji. It looks at culture and identity through Koffi (Marc Zinga), a young Congolese man who returns to his birthplace of Kinshasa after years in Belgium. The 35th Cork French Film Festival takes place from March 2 to 10 at The Arc Cinema. For more see www.corkfrenchfilmfestival.com Vivienne Clarke The wife of an Irish man who was detained at Bahgdad airport on Monday morning has called for his immediate release. Laura Wickham told RTE radios Morning Ireland that her husband Yasser Eljuboori had been travelling back to Ireland, on his Irish passport, when he was detained at the airport. Her husband had travelled to Iraq to visit his mother who is unwell. He had also visited last September when he had no problems travelling with his Irish passport. Ms Wickham explained that Mr Eljuboori was a prominent anti-corruption activist with a large social media following. He came to Ireland 16 years ago, the couple met 13 years ago, married eight years ago and have three children, the eldest having just started primary school. He is a full on dad wholeheartedly involved. Big family man. Huge. I have a big family. We've extended family in Cork. He's like the first into the Atlantic. Loves his pint of Guinness, big rugby supporter. And he's held in very high regard by his friends, colleagues, neighbours. And he works in LinkedIn here. He loves his team. On his previous visit in September, his first in 16 years, he had no problems with his Irish passport and visa, but when he checked in for his flight home on Monday of this week, he was detained by Iraqi authorities who did not give a reason. His brother contacted me and asked me to get on to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Then there was a reports that the reason they were holding him was because he had a fake passport or counterfeit passport, which is ridiculous because he entered on the same passport in September. On Monday afternoon, Mr Eljuboori went missing with no indication of his whereabouts. He wasn't in the police station in the airport anymore. And that was very distressing. And around that time when I posted to social media, I received some information last night, that he had been mistreated, that he was beaten, blindfolded and transported to different locations. "They took his phone, his passport and any money that he had on him. Ms Wickham said that information had come from her brother-in-law and the Iraqi solicitors representing her husband. There was an outcry then on social media when that happened, he showed up in a police station in Baghdad, and it was reported that he was being charged with defamation. And that was coming from the authorities of the Prime Minister's office. Mr Eljuboori appeared in court on Tuesday where the judge requested his transfer to a different court where he will appear on Thursday, but he continues to be detained without bail. Ms Wickham has been in communication with the Department of Foreign Affairs and received correspondence from the Tanaiste with whom she hopes to speak again this morning and to meet in person. I am very grateful for the assistance they're providing. According to the Iraqi solicitors, her husband has been charged under Article 36 of the Publication Law which is a sanction which prohibits obviously insulting any public institution or official. "I think the point they're missing there is that Yassar is an Irish citizen. He's traveled there on an Irish passport. He received an Irish visa. He has no Iraqi documents whatsoever. He doesn't have an Iraqi passport. Ms Wickham, who is a school principal, spoke of the wonderful support she has received from family, friends, neighbours my fridge is overflowing and colleagues. I'm using all of my energy, all of this, just to try and get him home. I want him home safe. I'm trying to kind of use my energy in the right places, and that's what I'm doing at the moment. I'm grateful for all of the help that's been pouring in. And everybody he knows, as I said, he's really well-liked. "He's great fun. He's a gorgeous person. He's my number one person. So Im actually overwhelmed by the response and people reaching out to raise awareness. So I'm very grateful for that. And that's kind of keeps me going. By Cate McCurry, PA The island of Ireland is seen as affluent and a wealthy place for drug gangs to target, the Garda Commissioner has warned. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said the use of drugs on both sides of the border has become prevalent and has led to a 25 per cent increase in the price of cocaine in the last four months. Mr Harris was joined by his Northern Ireland counterpart, PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, for the annual Cross Border Conference on Organised Crime in Co Cavan. Justice Minister Helen McEntee also attended the event. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris told the Cross Border Conference on Organised and Serious Crime that Ireland is seen as affluent and a wealthy place for drug gangs to target (Niall Carson/PA) Mr Boutcher said the island of Ireland has to become a hostile environment for criminal gangs to operate in. Warning of the dangers posed by cross-border gangs, Mr Harris said one of the major issues faced by both police forces is how big international crime has become. He added: The bigger challenge is the fact that we are seen to these organised crime groups as a wealthy country, an affluent place, and that is shown even in terms of the cocaine use that there is an Ireland. Cocaine use is proportionate to the prosperity of a nation and therefore we are a target, so thats one of the principal challenges. The second challenge is that these organised crime groups, theyre not respecting boundaries or treaties or information-sharing agreements. They are working all the time to try and confound us in what they do. But we have really good people, who are out to stop them and to gain evidence and bring them to justice and actually break down those those crime groups. I think the biggest issue now for us, in comparison to even 20 years ago, is just how international crime has got (sic). Its big business. Unfortunately, as an island, we are seen as an affluent place and a place to target. Mr Boutcher said anything that arrives in Dublin, including drugs and people trafficking, will ultimately also arrive in Belfast. Organised crime gangs dont have to respect service level agreements or international protocols. We do, the PSNI police chief added. PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said organised crime gangs dont have to respect service level agreements or international protocols Photo: Niall Carson/PA. There are sovereign countries that we work within, but we need to make sure our job, and all the organisations we work with, that we reduce the bureaucracy, that theres no impediment to us going after these crime games. We need to make the island of Ireland a hostile environment for them to operate in. I genuinely believe that is the direction of travel that were in. Mr Harris said the use of cocaine has become so rife that the street value has jumped 25 per cent in the last few months. But he pointed to the collaborative work between gardai and the PSNI in recent drug busts. He said they have also been involved in huge drugs seizures in the Caribbean and west Africa. The main man drug of choice still remains cannabis followed by cocaine, said Mr Harris. There is obviously then a network of distribution, and we can see in part that is driven by social media use, and things like communication apps, such as WhatsApp. Drugs are becoming more prevalent, and stronger as well. So, cannabis in particular, in terms of the THC content, which is the actual live content of the cannabis, is a good deal stronger than it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago, and that THC content is driving, one, addictive behaviour, but, two, then real difficulty around psychotic incidents leading on to mental health problems. Meanwhile, Mr Boutcher also said the attempted murder of PSNI Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell shows the threat posed by dissident republicans has not gone away. Thats definitely not gone away. If anybody gets involved, dissident republicans or anybody, with regards to national security issues, we will pursue them relentlessly. If you come after police officers we will come after you. He said officers cannot be complacent around the threat to national security. Mr Boutcher added that policing in Northern Ireland is the best he has ever seen. Ive tried to work out why it is so good. I think its because, when you join the police service in Northern Ireland, you do make a life choice because of the threat particularly those officers who joined from a nationalist or Catholic background. Theres a vocation element to it and we forget that. We forget what those officers, those members of staff, and what their families do to work within the police service, to keep communities safe. Justice Minister Helen McEntee praised the co-operation between An Garda Siochana and the PSNI Photo: Niall Carson/PA. Among the issues discussed by the conference included emerging drugs trends on both sides of the border as well as improving co-operation between An Garda Siochana and the PSNI. Ms McEntee praised the work between both police forces, but said there are more ways to increase it. Were are also looking at human trafficking and smuggling. This is a problem that maybe people dont realise is an issue, but certainly there has been significant efforts over the years to try and identify them, to support them, she said. Other areas like economic crime looking at criminals use of cryptocurrencies and looking at ways in which we can enhance our own technology to be able to respond to criminal use of technology. GILL Carney has always lived in Cork, but is far from lacking life experience. She arrives to chat to me about her latest passion her indefatigable effort to mobilise people against the war in Palestine. Wearing a beautiful red Palestinian scarf, Gill lives and breathes her work. She is an unaggressive, but absolutely unapologetic changemaker. Early Choices Gills deep involvement in Palestine is not something she necessarily planned. On leaving secondary school, the activist, known as gillybeanggirl on her popular Instagram account, trained to become a doctor. I struggled to decide what to do. I was academic and loved languages, science and art; I had a broad base of interests. I considered law, with a focus on human rights. I found it very hard to pick one thing at such a young age, but I think that experiences in a lot of different areas serves you. Gill Carney. And so it served the young Gill Carney. I finished my medical degree and completed the first half of my internship. My first baby was about one by then, and having to juggle that with up to two 36 hour shifts in the hospital was tough. This was in the context of also working 12-hour shifts in between, leading to 120-hour work weeks in some cases. I couldnt give my all to both motherhood and medicine, so I decided to leave. Initially, she set up on Instagram to share her photography and wrote content for various businesses, but in recent months, her platform has become a way to raise the voices of people in Palestine. Making A Difference I have connected with so many people here in Ireland, but I have connected with people from Gaza as well. Samer, who is in Germany now, is somebody I would call a friend. I helped him share his GoFund me page which is not something I do lightly. Shes quick to share his story. Sharing the stories of those most affected by the war in Palestine is what she does. He reached out to me three days after his home in Gaza was bombed in an air strike. In the attack, his 14-year old daughter, four sisters, one brother and three nieces and nephews were killed. He is living in Germany trying to save money to get his family out of Gaza. He is disabled having been injured in Gaza himself in 2009. We dont realise it here, but people dont get to simply leave Gaza. They must pay a great deal of money at the Rafah border and the price has gone up hugely since October. This man was in the absolute throes of grief and he was reaching out to me, a stranger on the internet to help him. Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign held a Munster gathering with groups travelling for the weekly protest march through Cork City centre on Saturday last. Picture: Larry Cummins Gill knows every detail. He had a video with his daughter the night before and the next day got a phone call from his uncle to say they had all been killed. He couldnt contact his wife or their remaining daughter as their possessions, including their phones, were under the rubble. Imagine grieving alone and not being able to contact your family; of course, his immediate reaction was to want to get everyone else out. As we sit in a Cork coffee shop, it seems like Gill is describing another planet, something of which she is keenly aware. We take for granted our freedom to travel. It is an open air prison in Gaza. You can put your name on a list to be approved and wait and wait, or, if you want to fast track an exit, you can pay for it. At one stage it was up to $10,000 per person. Palestinians tend to have big families and homes with many storeys. That is part of their refugee story. The Power of Mothers Social media became a way for me to connect when I became a mother, says Gill. It was through social media that I got my first photography job and connected with a lot of other creatives who also happen to be mothers. I initially used my social media to connect with people with my photography, and it was about my motherhood journey also. Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign held a Munster gathering with groups travelling for the weekly protest march through Cork City centre on Saturday. Picture: Larry Cummins She thrives on human connection. I was lucky to connect with two Cork mums whose group Dreaming Always connects like-minded mums. It was a huge outlet for me that gave me an opportunity to explore something that spoke to my heart. I think that in motherhood, it is easy to lose a part of yourself, but I am creative at heart. Anything I do work-wise ends up being expressed in a creative manner. The activist also sees motherhood as a central component in the Palestinian struggle, which has become the focus of her Instagram in recent months. She is now mother to four, ranging in age from three to 13. Women, and mothers in Palestine are such an important part of the movement for freedom. You see so many mothers taking to the streets and marching. Mothers and women in general have been a massive part of the movement. When Gill started to post, she was conscious that a lot of people following her were mothers too. I think mothers have a connection, an unspoken one, an understanding that you would do anything possible to protect your children. I look at my position as a mother; my children go to school; they have food; are not subjected to checkpoints. Children in Gaza talk about airstrikes in a way that my children talk about rain. The unfairness strikes her deeply. I think as a mother, why? Why do these children not have the same human rights. Its luck. I didnt do anything to be born in this country where I can live pretty freely. All my struggles play out in the context of peace. There are people here who are struggling right now. And there were times when I wouldnt have had the capacity to deal with it. Everyone must look at their own capacity to contribute. It is only luck that separates our children and the children there. An Uplifting Community Despite the harrowing nature of the content she shares, if anything, she feels her engagement has brought a great deal of positive energy into her life through the groups she has joined and the people with whom Gill has connected. The Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign is an incredible organisation with so much passion. It is so multi-cultural and it is beautiful to be a part of something rooted in social justice. But she also accepts that it can be hard going for people. I am aware that I post things through the day. Its a lot to process in the middle of everyday activity. There is no point in pretending that it is not distressing. Looking at them and not channelling your grief or action doesnt achieve anything. Thats why I decided to try and come up with actions, tangible actions. Mothers against Genocide is an amazing group, she says, operating out of Dublin and Belfast. Im in Cork but even the WhatsApp group is supportive and there is also Irish Psychologists for Palestine now. Families for Palestine is great for anyone who wants to go to the march but doesnt know anyone. It is intimidating. Ive never chanted on the streets of Cork before and I felt very exposed. As time went on, I knew it was the right thing to do. I want to be on the street showing people in Palestine that we care, that we are not just going on about our lives, when people are being literally slaughtered day in and day out. Cork Palestine Solidarity Campaign held a Munster gathering with groups travelling for the weekly protest march through Cork City centre on Saturday. Picture: Larry Cummins Human rights are at the core of it all. I went up to a march in Dublin recently and my heart broke to see the tents lined up outside the station. Its everywhere. But imagine what it is like to be in Gaza now, where for a long time they have only been allowed six hours of electricity every day, because another country has decided it. Imagine how we would react to that? Why Social Media is important now There is no weight to the argument that people havent responded to different wars in the same way, according to the passionate Corkonian. Never before have people documented their own genocide on social media. We didnt have access to real life stories before. These stories and the accompanying footage have changed me as a person. Its not normal what we are seeing. There is no handbook in terms of how to deal with watching videos of children being killed online. "Thankfully, supports are developing for people and joining groups is important for that reason. But we have a duty to bear witness to what is happening. Before October 7, her knowledge of Palestine was pretty basic, she says. I had a basic knowledge up until that point. Knew there were human rights issues, had never really leant into it and explored it in the depth that I have in the last few months. But when I see the vast contrast between footage from Palestinian journalists and Western media, Im so frustrated. It is so censored and filtered. Until western media decides that its going to represent the truth of whats happening, its on all of us to make sure the truth is out there unfiltered. Thats why I feel strongly about sharing what I share. People telling their own stories is so important and social media allows us to do that now. Gills Instagram account now has more than 15,000 followers. I thought everyone was going to unfollow me. Some people have left but I welcome everyone who joins me to raise awareness. Having a platform is a huge privilege and I want to be responsible with it. I have a deep-rooted sense of wanting social justice, and clearly a lot of other people do too. She believes that people simply need to find what works for them, to find their capacity, and admires the work of many people around her. You dont have to be one thing. I know amazing people who are using their platforms to raise awareness. My friend Lilly Higgins is a food content creator. She has always used her platform to highlight the culture around Palestinian food and has really made it a huge focus in the last few months. She does it beautifully. Its about finding your capacity in an artform, or in any other way. It may just be saying you dont know a lot, but to say you care. It is really interwoven, change and social justice, and we dont have to look beyond our own country to see its importance. Duty of Care I am using my platform to raise the voices of people who are being denied their basic human rights, says Gill. I have had people get in touch and ask me am I alright. I tell them Im absolutely fine. I ask them are they alright? How can they carry on as if nothing is happening? I dont understand it. She is not disappointed in Irish people in general however, but feels our government has been too slow to act. There have been a lot of words but not enough action. When you hear South Africa speaking up, we must pay attention. I mean, if anyone knows apartheid, it is them. It is an obligation on all of us to connect with the people who represent us in Ireland and in Europe and in the United Nations. Together, we can make a difference. At a march recently, Gill heard Karen Guerin speak, one of the Dunnes Stores workers who went on strike against apartheid in 1985. So many people told them they were mad, said what difference could they make. They started something, a huge movement, and they didnt have a cushion of support. There is a cost to all activism but it is worth it when you see it is all centred around human rights. They were 12 women and one man but their actions had a ripple effect. She ends our conversation by talking about peace: There is so much anger at the moment. Ultimately, there is going to have to be some way where everyone will eventually find peace. Its a very turbulent road to peace and everybodys idea of peace is different. I believe our role is to make space for their voices where they decide what peace looks like for them on their terms, and that peace is negotiated where Palestinians actually have an equal seat and voice at the negotiating table. She hopes we can harness the momentum thats happening now to get more people involved in social justice. People want to make communities of care. Its happening. I know one thing is certain my gillybeangirl instagram page has taken on a new role and I see it as a community. While I may use my photography in ways to portray strong imagery, the messaging, and the connection, the community it brings together for social justice is now the focus. It did so during the actor's strike to finish the project before its copyright expired, the lawsuit alleges. Amazon is being sued by the writer of the original 1989 Patrick Swayze version of the film Road House over alleged copyright infringement in the movie's remake, The Los Angeles Times has reported. Screenwriter R. Lance Hill accuses Amazon and MGM Studios of using AI to clone actors' voices in the new production in order to finish it before the copyright expired. Hill said he filed a petition with the US Copyright Office in November 2021 to reclaim the rights to his original screenplay, which forms the basis of the new film. At that point, the rights were owned by Amazon Studios, as part of its acquisition of MGM, but were set to expire in November 2023. Hill alleges that once that happened, the rights would revert back to him. According to the lawsuit, Amazon Studios rushed ahead with the project anyway in order to finish it before the copyright deadline. Since it was stymied by the actor's strike, Hill alleges Amazon used AI to replicate the voices of the actors who worked in the 2024 remake. Such use violated the terms of the deal struck between the union and major studios including Amazon. The claim is complicated by the fact that Hill signed a "work-made-for-hire" deal with the original producer, United Artists. That effectively means that the studio hiring the writer would be both the owner and copyright holder of the work. Hill, however, dismissed that as "boilerplate" typically used in contracts. The lawsuit seeks to block the release of the film, set to bow at SXSW on March 8th before (controversially) heading direct to streaming on Prime Video on March 21. Amazon denies the claims, with a spokesperson telling The Verge that "the studio expressly instructed the filmmakers to NOT use AI in this movie." It added that if AI was utilized, it was only done in early versions of the films. Later on, filmmakers were told to remove any "AI or non-SAG AFTRA actors" for the final version. It added that other allegations are "categorically false" and that it believes its copyright on the original Road House has yet to expire. After roughly a decade, multiple leadership changes and a regular spot in Apple rumor reports, the Apple Car project, internally known as Project Titan, could well be dead. A new report from Bloombergs Mark Gurman says Apple has officially canceled the car, breaking the news to nearly 2,000 employees working on it. Apple will reportedly move many employees working on the car to the companys artificial intelligence division where they will focus on generative AI projects, which Apple is expected to share more about later this year. Leaks over the years revealed the companys ambitions to expand into a brand-new product category. At the beginning of the project in 2014, Apple wanted to build a fully self-driving car without pedals or a steering wheel, with a remote command center ready to take over for a driver. More recently, Apple pared down its ambitions, with the most recent reports suggesting Apples car would be a more standard electric vehicle. Now, we may never know. Would you have bought an Apple car? Mat Smith The biggest stories you might have missed Which iPhone should you buy? Amazon accused of using AI to replicate the voices of actors in Road House remake PlayStation is laying off 900 staff across Naughty Dog, Insomniac and other studios You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here! It could be the first Pokemon game for Nintendos next console. The Pokemon Company The Pokemon Company revealed the franchises latest Legends entry on Tuesday. Pokemon Legends: Z-A returns the series to Lumiose City, last seen as a region in Pokemon X and Y on the Nintendo 3DS. The Pokemon Legends: Z-A trailer an extended teaser doesnt show any gameplay footage, and its shots of Lumiose City use wireframe models to tease a city in mid-development, according to the announcement. Continue reading. Millions more tracks are likely to vanish. TikTok is being forced to take down more music from its platform. Universal Music Group (UMG) recently yanked recordings it owns or distributes from TikTok, including tracks from superstars like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd. The standoff is now impacting songs published by UMG, with millions more tracks to be muted on TikTok by the end of this week. Due to an issue called split copyrights, if a Universal Music Publishing Group-contracted writer has contributed to a song, that track may have to be removed from TikTok. So artists who have collaborated with Taylor Swift, Adele, Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey, Ice Spice, Elton John, Harry Styles and SZA may see their songs disappear from TikTok too. Continue reading. What could go wrong? Google has quietly struck deals with publishers to use new generative AI tools to publish stories. The deals, reportedly worth tens of thousands of dollars a year, are apparently part of the Google News Initiative (GNI), a six-year-old program that funds media literacy projects, fact-checking tools and other resources for newsrooms. Adweek says publishers can use the beta tools to create aggregated content more efficiently, indexing recently published reports generated by other organizations, like government agencies and neighboring news outlets, then summarizing and publishing them as a new article. Publishers in the program are apparently not required to disclose their use of AI nor are the aggregated websites informed that their content is used to create AI-written stories on other sites. Publications like CNET and Sports Illustrated have been widely criticized for attempting to pass off AI-authored articles as written by human staffers. Continue reading. A 32-year-old woman is facing charges for engaging in a physical altercation with and allegedly causing the death of an elderly man afflicted with Parkinson's dementia. According to a Rice County Attorney's Office press release, the Faribault Police initiated a welfare check on 76-year-old Gary Lehmeyer on Feb. 5. RELATED: Death Penalty Sought For Woman Accused Of Killing 4-Year-Old, Leaving Body In Backpack Upon arriving at the scene, law enforcement reportedly discovered a gruesome scene where Lehmeyer had endured multiple stab wounds, strangulation, and had been bound at the ankles. The victim's body had been meticulously wrapped with blankets, sheets, and a mattress pad. According to KMSP-TV, the medical examiner determined that Lehmeyer died from strangulation and multiple sharp force injuries, leading to the classification of his death as a homicide. The police investigation revealed blood evidence on the bedroom walls and floor, with Lehmeyer's vehicle missing from the residence. Arlene Bell, Lehmeyer's roommate, informed officers that she was present at home when she heard a disturbance in Lehmeyer's room. Upon checking, she noticed red bullets near his feet. Bell claimed that Lehmeyer, despite his disability, prevented her from leaving the room, resulting in a physical altercation. During the altercation, Bell, 32, allegedly stabbed Lehmeyer multiple times and used a knife to "saw at his wrists." The defendant asserted that her roommate then "strangled her, threw a dehumidifier at her, and choked her with its cord." According to the attorney's office, Bell described cutting the cord off the dehumidifier, noting that Lehmeyer was "bleeding profusely" and allegedly spat up blood moments before his death. Fearing he might regain consciousness and pose a threat, Bell tied the victim's feet together with the cord before wrapping his body. RELATED: Judge Accused Of Shooting Sleeping Boyfriend In The Head And Told Him He Did It Bell reportedly rifled through her roommate's belongings, took a shower to cleanse herself of blood, and then drove Lehmeyer's vehicle toward the Mexico border, as revealed by the attorney's office. An Iowa state trooper apprehended Bell on Feb. 5 near Des Moines, suspecting her to be under the influence of narcotics. Upon searching the vehicle, the trooper discovered removed rear seats, a mattress, a glass pipe with methamphetamine residue, and a bag of syringes with Narcan. Bell confessed to the trooper about her recent methamphetamine use, leading to her custody. Iowa law enforcement later learned that Faribault police were seeking Lehmeyer's stolen vehicle, driven by Bell. Currently held in the Dallas County Jail on a motor vehicle theft charge with a set bond of $50,000, Bell faces imminent extradition. The attorney's office anticipates potential charges of both theft and second-degree murder. Bell's criminal history includes makingterroristic threats, burglary, and harassment. Michael Ilesanmi, a participant on TLC's reality series '90 Day Fiance,' has been found safe after being reported missing under mysterious circumstances. Initially, Ilesanmi went missing two months after his relocation from Nigeria to the United States. In a desperate effort to locate him, a substantial $10,000 reward was offered for any information leading to his return. Adding to the distress, his wife, Angela Deem, attempted to establish contact with Michael's family in Nigeria. RELATED: WATCH: DJ Khaled Asks Security To Carry Him So His Jordan Sneakers Won't Get Dirty "Michael's been missing since the 23rd. The police are involved, we can't find him," Deem, 58, said in a TikTok video on Monday. She revealed that her home security cameras failed to record any evidence of Michael's departure. "Michael left everything here. I know that there's people probably think, 'Oh, maybe he just left.' But like, nothing, not any ID, nothing to show his name on it, no clothing, not a toothbrush. Zero point zero zero. No wallet, nothing. Clothes on his back is what he left with on Friday," Deem continued. She also said how Michael "only had like $40 on him." During a YouTube Live session on Feb. 26, blogger John Yates said that Michael had been found safe. "Right after the live ended, Angela got a phone call from the police here stating that they were contacted by Michael. They verified it with him," John stated. "He did have a burner phone or another phone that nobody knew about. And on that phone he had pictures of his passport that he left. They verified his ID." RELATED: Dr. Phil's Shocking Comment About COVID-19 In Kids On 'The View' Deeply Divides X John continued, "He told the police that he was in fear of his life and Michael didn't want Angela knowing his location." Foot fetishes are apparently more common than people think, with a new study showing podophilia-related terms are searched more than 1.4 million times a month in the United States. FeetFinder, a platform for selling and buying pictures of feet, found that Americans looked up foot fetish-related keywords on Google an average of 1.45 million times per month over the past year. Of this figure, the term "feet finder" had an average of 775,916 searches, while "sucking toes" were searched 14,741 times per month on average. The 27 keywords included in the study also included "feet pics," "sexy feet," "pretty feet," "good feet," "hot feet," "feet videos," and "bare feet." Several keywords were about the sale and purchase of feet pictures, such as "how to sell feet pics," "feet pics for sale," and "sell feet pics." The study identified which states generated the most and least foot fetish-related Google searches, ranking them by the number of searches per 100,000 residents. Nevada topped the list with an average of 537 searches for foot fetishes per 100,000 people a month. Of the state's 17,078 average total searches per month, the terms "feet finder" and "feet pics" were searched an average of 9,358 and 770 times, respectively. Arizona was ranked second, having generated an average of 36,798 total searches, or 500 searches per 100,000 residents monthly. Coming in third place, Florida's residents searched foot fetishes an average of 109,757 times a month -- or 493 searches per 100,000 people. Colorado (483 per 100,000), Georgia (478), Texas (474), New York (462), North Carolina (459), Utah (459), and California (452) rounded out the top 10. According to the study, the state with the least foot fetishes was South Dakota, which ranked No. 50 with an average of 2,613 searches per month, or 287 searches per 100,000 residents. Montana was the second-bottom state for foot fetishes, generating an average of 3,305 monthly searches, or 294 searches per 100,000 people. Vermont (295 per 100,000), Mississippi (307), and Alaska (310) rounded out the five states with the least interest in foot fetishes, according to FeetFinder. Over the years, several celebrities have confessed to being into feet, with Ricky Martin being the latest among them. In a recent interview with GQ, the 52-year-old Puerto Rican music icon said, "I love feet. I have a foot thing." Martin candidly shared details about his love for feet, telling the magazine, "I love foot massages, and I would kiss your feet like crazy for hours." Ludacris also previously talked about having a foot fetish during a 2004 interview with "Today." "I definitely love girls with beautiful feet. I have a foot fetish," he confessed. "Messed up feet man, sometimes she can trick me and just wear boots and not even show her feet. But when I see the feet, it's a wrap." According to Page Six, Enrique Iglesias, Tommy Lee, and Jack Black were also among the stars who have publicly opened up about being into feet. "My mother was Miss Greece in 1957. She's gorgeous and she's got beautiful toes. That's one of the reasons I have a foot fetish today," the outlet quoted Lee as saying. "When I was a kid I'd massage her feet." The bodies of TV presenter Jesse Baird and his flight attendant boyfriend Luke Davies, who went missing on Feb. 19, have been found by police. On Tuesday, New South Wales (NSW) Police Commissioner Karen Webb announced in a press conference an update on the search for Baird and Davies after receiving reports that human remains had been found in the Goulburn region. "We are very confident that we have located Luke and Jesse. This information did come with the assistance of the accused, for which we are very grateful, and I'm sure the families are grateful," Webb said. Detective Superintendent Daniel Doherty added that the missing bodies were discovered on a property in Bungonia. They were inside two surf bags covered in rock and debris. The police believe that the surf bags were used to transport the bodies of the deceased couple in a white van from Baird's home in Paddington, where they were believed to be murdered, per the BBC. This update comes after police officer Beaumont Lamarre-Condon, who once dated Baird, finally cooperated with the investigation and disclosed where the missing bodies were located. Baird and Davies were last spotted attending pop icon Pink's "Summer Carnival" stadium tour in Sydney on Feb. 18, per the TV presenter's Instagram post. A day after, gunshots were reportedly heard by Baird's neighbors at his Paddington home at around 9:50 a.m. Australia's main emergency service number, 000, also received a call from Baird's phone at 9:54 a.m., but it disconnected before anything was heard, according to 9News. A used cartridge was discovered at Baird's home days later, and it was linked to a service pistol signed out by Lamarre-Condon from the Miranda Police Station. On Feb. 20, the service pistol was returned to the police station, while Baird's police officer ex partially admitted to an acquaintance that he was involved in the deaths of two people. On Feb. 21, the police launched a missing person investigation and notified the Homicide Squad after bloodied items of Baird and Davies were found in a skip bin in Cronulla. On the same day, the crime scene was established at Baird's home after discovering a "significant" amount of blood in the premises. Further investigation was conducted until the bodies were located in Bungonia on Tuesday. The BBC reported that Baird and Davies' case appeared to be the first suspected murder carried out by a New South Wales police officer in decades. This also reportedly prompted an independent review into the police officers' access to firearms outside their signed hours. A 49-year-old woman from Miami-Dade, Ivette Diaz, was taken into custody on Friday on charges of poisoning her boyfriend. The arrest stems from an incident on Feb. 20, when her boyfriend reportedly discovered a bleach tablet in his tea cup. The charge against Diaz is specifically for poisoning food or water, as outlined in the arrest report. It is unsure if Diaz has secured legal counsel. The alleged poisoning occurred at the couple's residence, located off Southwest 158th Place. The pair had been living together for approximately three years. The arrest report does not provide additional details about the motive behind the alleged poisoning or the circumstances leading up to the incident. RELATED: Death Penalty Sought For Woman Accused Of Killing 4-Year-Old, Leaving Body In Backpack According to the report, Diaz's boyfriend whose identity has not been made public prepared a meal for himself, including a cup of tea, before stepping outside to make a phone call to his employer. Upon his return, he offered Diaz a taste of his meal, which she accepted. He also extended his cup of tea to her, which she strongly declined, as recounted in the report, making investigators suspect she knew the drink was unsafe. The boyfriend, unaware of any potential danger, proceeded to take a substantial gulp from his tea cup. Almost instantly, he experienced a burning sensation in his throat. He reportedly detected a strong smell of bleach originating from the cup before pouring the contaminated tea down the sink. Upon inspecting the cup's contents, the boyfriend made a startling discovery the lingering remnants of a concentrated bleach tablet typically recommended for dissolution in 5 gallons of water. He confronted Diaz, asking, "There's bleach in this drink! Did you put bleach in my drink?" Diaz reportedly replied that she "thought it was sugar." The boyfriend was transported to Homestead Hospital for urgent medical treatment. RELATED: Judge Accused Of Shooting Sleeping Boyfriend In The Head And Told Him He Did It The official report highlighted a stark contrast between the alleged substance mix-up, with sugar stored in powder form in an upper kitchen cabinet, and the bleach tablets securely kept beneath the kitchen sink. Diaz's landlord, as reported by NBC-6, witnessed the unfolding events as police took her into custody. "I don't know what happened with them because they look like a beautiful, very happy couple," the landlord claimed. "When police was here, he went to the hospital. She was in the police car about 3-4 hours, they were waiting for the detective to come to the property." A person who introduces, adds, or mingles any poison, bacterium, radioactive material, virus, or chemical compound with food, drink, medicine, or any product designed to be ingested, consumed, or applied to the body with intent to kill or injure another person commits a first-degree felony, under Florida law. Diaz faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. Actor Buddy Duress, celebrated for his notable performances in 'Heaven Knows What' and his collaboration with Robert Pattinson in the acclaimed film 'Good Time,' has died. He was 38. RELATED: Robert Pattinson's Fans Have Hilarious Reactions After Girlfriend Suki Waterhouse Confirms Pregnancy The confirmation of Duress' passing comes from his brother, Christopher Stathis, who disclosed to PEOPLE that the actor had died in November 2023. The circumstances surrounding his untimely death was linked to a "cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail." Born Michael C. Stathis in Queens, New York, in May 1985, Duress stepped onto the big screen for the first time in the 2014 film 'Heaven Knows What.' His entry into the world of acting was no grand affair but rather a chance encounter with filmmaker Josh Safdie, facilitated by their mutual friend Arielle Holmes, who also happened to be a co-star in the movie. During the filming of 'Heaven Knows What,' he was reportedly on the run from the law. Having opted out of a drug inpatient program, he found himself entangled with authorities. By the time the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August 2014, Duress was already behind bars, courtesy of a drug-related conviction and his elusive escapades. RELATED: Three Famous TV Stars Have Died Over The Weekend "I still look back at it. If I had went to that program, I wouldn't have been in 'Heaven Knows What,' and I probably wouldn't be an actor right now. That's the honest truth. I wouldn't," Duress, who is survived by his mother and brother, said to SSense. In 2017, the Safdie brothers brought Duress back for their breakthrough film, 'Good Time,' where Robert Pattinson took the lead. Duress portrayed Ray, a criminal whom Pattinson's character, Connie, unintentionally liberates from a hospital. Together, they embark on a quest for liquid LSD within the thrilling backdrop of an amusement park. According to 'Variety,' Duress has two more unreleased projects, including a short film 'Skull' and Jay Karales debut 'Mass State Lottery,' set to release this year. Over a 16 month investigation spanning through November 2023, at least 30 Kentucky Department of Corrections officers participated in sexual misconduct and drug smuggling. Prison staff were reportedly forming inappropriate relationships with inmates, including a scandal involving a female employee becoming pregnant by an inmate. According to the Lexington Herald Leader, 14 others were caught smuggling drugs into the prison facility. The internal documents exposed multiple cases of misconduct, including prison guard Trista Fox, 39, who was charged with third-degree rape in December 2022 after fellow guards busted her having sexual intercourse with a Kentucky State inmate in Lyon County. RELATED: Is Machine Gun Kelly Going To Jail After Allegedly Beating Up a Parking Lot Attendant? Verdict Finally Revealed [DETAILS] According to the New York Post, another female guard who voluntarily resigned after being confronted about her relationship with a prisoner, admitted to investigators that she was vulnerable to one inmate's romantic endeavors. A case was presented at the Sandy Correctional Complex in Elliott County when a female corrections officer was terminated in 2022 after she was seen meeting with an inmate over 25 times across various areas within prison dorms. Select probation officers also reportedly took part in the sexual misconduct, with one officer becoming pregnant by a convict on parole. RELATED: How Is Aziz Ansari Doing Months After The Sexual Misconduct Claims? Adam Scott Says He's 'Doing Great' In addition to sexual misconduct, 14 prison employees oversaw the entry of illegal substances into prisons, some of which were paid transactions. Out of 140 prison employees who were investigated, 62 were fired or resigned. Others were given a warning or corrective training. Deputy commissioner of adult institutions, Scott Jordan, suggested that the high number of cases were a reflection of the effectiveness of their response strategy. "We handle every piece of information the same, whether that be contraband or a relationship or whatever. The truth of the matter is, if we were not handling these situations in a very aggressive manner, the numbers would not be what they were," he told the Lexington Herald Leader. Experts believe that the challenging prison conditions of overworked employees and understaffed facilities may contribute to feelings of isolation and vulnerability. The Essex Reporter is a daily digital news website covering the Town of Essex and City of Essex Junction, Vermont. Our beat reporters are on the ground every day covering local government, schools, sports, business and culture. Internacional Interceptado un pesquero con mas de diez toneladas de hachis cerca de Agadir, Marruecos Montana - The saga of the Old Post Hospital in Missoula is finally over, after a long-drawn out process comes to an end. FAE-Wolf, the owner of the building and land surrounding it, released a statement today. Their original plan for the site was to invest $8M toward renovating the hospital which would have restored it back to what FAE-Wolf referred to as, "Its original glory," but now, that original glory will never be seen again. The owners stated today that they have been, "forced to prepare an application for a demolition permit with the city of Missoula to remove the Old Post Hospital." According to the company, the hospital will be made available to purchase for $10 with FAE-Wolf contributing $100,000 toward demolition to the buyer. In the end, if the company sells or doesn't sell, either way, the structure will come down. FAE-Wolf will have the opportunity to invest in a new development once the current structure is gone. The Historic Preservation Commission spoke at last week's City Council meeting and brought up their concerns with new builds on the property. We reached out to Elizabeth Johnson, the Historic Preservation Officer for the City of Missoula for comment on the statement made today by FAE-Wolf, but did not hear back. Last week at the public comment meeting on the topic, Johnson said, "We cannot build right now where the barracks originally existed because we do want to preserve the archeological record associated with those original structures." Right now the building is in limbo, but with today's statement, FAE-Wolf has made it clear: the Old Post Hospital is living on borrowed time. We will keep you updated with any potential purchases or demolition dates right here on Non-Stop-Local. Farmers have slammed the Welsh government's inaction as the cost of attacks on livestock show that the situation in Wales has gone from bad to worse. Farmer and well-known media personality Gareth Wyn Jones has criticised Cardiff's inaction over what he says is the slaughter of defenceless animals on the hills of Wales." A year ago the media was reporting that there were four times more attacks in Wales than in comparable parts of the UK. Now new figures published by NFU Mutual show that, just in the last year in Wales, there has been a further doubling of attacks. Elsewhere, in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the increase in dog attacks on sheep was only 11%. This means that over the last three years, while attacks on livestock in the rest of the UK were up a third, in Wales there was a staggering four-fold increase in dog attacks. In his assessment of the figures, Mr Wyn Jones, who farms in North Wales, said that allowing the use of e-collars could help reduce the number of attacks. Campaigners have frequently called on the Welsh government to overturn the ban on e-collars, which are used to train dogs to associate sheep with a one-off static pulse, in turn helping the dog become wary of approaching them. The Welsh government banned the training of dogs with e-collars in 2010, and in 2018, Scotland decided against following suit. The slaughter of defenceless animals on the hills of Wales has got even worse, yet down in Cardiff the Welsh government is pretending there is no crisis," Mr Wyn Jones said. "We must do everything we can to save the dogs life and the sheeps life. Allowing e-collars to be used by properly trained people could help reduce the number of attacks. Founder of the Association of Responsible Dog Owners, Jamie Penrith, added that better training of dogs was needed and that the Welsh ban on safe aids such as e-collars needed an urgent rethink. Mr Penrith said: "E-collar training creates a long-term aversion which stops the dog from ever wanting to approach sheep - even if they have escaped from their homes or owners. "The Welsh governments response of just encouraging owners to use leads is great for training humans, but completely fails to train the dogs. "And it is the dogs which have the teeth which are causing so much suffering to Welsh sheep." The Bangladesh commerce ministrys Export Policy 2024-27 draft targets raising export earnings to $110 billion by June 2027. To achieve this, alternative support mechanisms in lieu of export incentives will be offered, ensuring tariff benefits, and non-monetary incentives will be provided to diversify export-oriented goods and services. The draft policy emphasises the need of determining appropriate measures in response to the loss of duty-free export facilities following Bangladesh's graduation from the least development country status in 2026. Bangladesh's Export Policy 2024-27 draft aims at raising export earnings to $110 billion by June 2027. It calls for avoiding excessive protectionism of the domestic industry, rationalising tax rates and reducing reliance on import duties to create a competitive trade and investment environment. The government has sought feedback from stakeholders by March 2. The ministry has invited stakeholders to offer feedback on the draft by March 2, according to domestic media reports. A high-level committee chaired by the prime minister will implement the new export policy mandate, the draft policy says. The draft has a provision of a 2-per cent incentive of the total freight charge to shipping companies if the goods imported through back-to-back letters of credit (LCs) are transported by a Bangladesh-flagged vessel. As of July 2023, Bangladesh had 97 flag ships, out of which only six are container ships owned by Dhaka-based Karnaphuli Limited and are capable of carrying back-to-back LC cargo. The remaining ships consist of bulkers and oil tankers, not suitable for transporting goods under back-to-back LC arrangements, shipping companies say. The draft calls for avoiding excessive protectionism of the domestic industry, rationalising tax rates and reducing the government's reliance on import duties to create a competitive trade and investment environment. Emphasis has been placed on making the exchange rate more flexible and competitive, and reforming the investment environment to attract foreign investment in manufacturing. There is also a proposal to provide venture capital facilities to agricultural farms with a minimum of five acres of land to boost the production and export of agricultural products. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) Uzbekistan's textile exports increased by 14.4 per cent year on year (YoY) to $250.2 million in January this year, official statistics show. The figure is 22.4 per cent of the figure for total exports in the month, which was 14.4 per cent higher YoY. Finished textile goods accounted for the largest share (37.4 per cent), followed closely by yarn (48.5 per cent), an online publication in the country reported. Uzbekistan's textile exports increased by 14.4 per cent YoY to $250.2 million in January this year. Textile products of 438 varieties were exported to 47 countries in the month. The exports of yarns, finished textile goods, knitted fabric, fabrics and hosiery were worth $121.4 million, $93.6 million, $18 million, $13.7 million and $3.5 million respectively. Four hundred and thirty eight kinds of textile products were exported to 47 countries during the month. The exports of yarns, finished textile goods, knitted fabric, fabrics and hosiery were worth $121.4 million, $93.6 million, $18 million, $13.7 million and $3.5 million respectively. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) BTS' V started his military service on December 11, 2023. After his enlistment, he collaborated with American artist UMI on a song called wherever u r which he featured in. V made his solo debut with his album Layover. See Also: Love Wins All: BTS' V and IU are all smiles in the behind-the-scenes pics of the music video BTS' V started his military service on December 11, 2023. After his enlistment, he collaborated with American artist UMI on a song called wherever u r which he featured in. V made his solo debut with his album Layover. V from BTS has enlisted in the South Korean military along with the other BTS members. Fans are eagerly following news about the K-pop idol while he serves. Recently, a fellow soldier shared that V is fun and likes to test his comrades before giving autographs.According to a post by the soldier, there are some necessary steps soldiers have take to obtain V's autograph. The process involves writing your name on a post-it note to request an autograph from V. Executive officers are allowed to request up to five autographs, while assistant officers can request up to two. However, V doesn't just give out his autograph, as disclosed by the soldier. If an assistant officer requests an autograph from the BTS member, they must first take a quiz in order to receive it.BTS' V mischievously forces them to take a quiz to receive his autograph, in which he asks things such as what the names of BTS members are and what the title of a BTS song is, and if they don't answer right, he chases them out with other troops. Dileep's Bail Not Cancelled By The High Court: In a significant development in the high-profile actress assault case, the Kerala High Court has rejected the prosecution's demand to cancel the bail of the eighth accused, Dileep. The judgment was passed by a single bench headed by Justice Sophie Thomas, emphasizing the need for swift trial completion and case disposal. The court disposed of the government's appeal to revoke the bail, citing potential legal complications and adverse effects on trial proceedings if Dileep's bail were to be cancelled. The case has garnered widespread attention since its beginning. In their plea, the government alleged that Dileep, a prominent actor in the Malayalam film industry, attempted to tamper with evidence and influence witnesses. The government's petition to the High Court was after its initial attempt to cancel Dileep's bail was rejected by the trial court. Dissatisfied with this decision, the government escalated the matter to the High Court, arguing that the trial court failed to adequately assess the evidence before denying the request to revoke bail. Central to the government's argument was the assertion that Dileep allegedly exerted undue influence on approximately ten witnesses, including individuals such as Vipin Lal, Dasan, Sagar Vincent, Dr. Hyderali, Sarath Babu, and Jinson. The prosecution contended that Dileep's actions pose a threat to the integrity of the trial and hinder the pursuit of justice. Moreover, the prosecution rebutted claims that the voice messages presented as evidence of witness tampering was false. Additionally, it challenged the legality of the trial court's decision to reject its initial plea. However, today the Kerala High Court also did not cancel Dileep's bail. High Court's Order On Memory Card Leakage Investigation Report In a related development, the High Court had previously directed authorities to hand over a copy of the investigation report to the actress. The report pertains to the infamous memory card leakage incident, highlighting the court's commitment to ensuring transparency and fairness in the judicial process. Dole plc (NYSE: DOLE) ("Dole" or the "Group") has today announced that it has reached an agreement to sell its 65% equity stake in Progressive Produce LLC ("Progressive Produce" or the "Company") to PTF Holdings, LLC ("PTF Holdings"), the parent company of Pacific Trellis Fruit, LLC ("Pacific Trellis Fruit"). PTF Holdings is a portfolio company of Arable Capital Partners, LLC ("Arable"). Dole will receive gross cash proceeds of $120.25 million from this sale. Progressive Produce, located in Los Angeles, California, is a grower, packer, and distributor of conventional and organic produce to the retail, wholesale and foodservice sectors in the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 1967, today the Company is one of California's premier produce companies with annual sales in excess of $400 million. Progressive Produce is a subsidiary of Dole plc and is part of the Diversified Fresh Produce Americas and Rest of World reporting segment. Post the completion of this transaction, the existing management team of Progressive Produce will remain with the enlarged business of Progressive Produce and Pacific Trellis Fruit and retain an ownership stake. The transaction is expected to close in March 2024, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Net proceeds from the sale received by Dole are currently expected to be used primarily for debt reduction. Commenting on the transaction, Carl McCann, Executive Chairman of Dole plc, said: "We are pleased to announce the sale of our equity interest in Progressive Produce to Arable Capital Partners. Since our initial investment in 2016, the business has been a strong performer within our Group. We would like to thank the current and former management teams for their dedication, passion, and significant contributions to the growth of this business over the time that we have been partners. We wish the executive team and their new majority owners continued success for the future. The proceeds from this sale will further strengthen our financial position and enhance the Group's focus on, and investments in, our core activities." Commenting further on the transaction, Derek Yurosek, Managing Director of Arable Capital Partners, said: "Arable is thrilled about the opportunity to partner with Progressive Produce. The Company is a leader in top produce categories and has an impressive and diversified customer base, as well as an exceptional team. We look forward to helping Progressive Produce continue to deliver outstanding products and service to its retail, wholesale, and foodservice customers. While Progressive Produce and Pacific Trellis Fruit will continue to operate independently, we are excited about the chance for them to work together to continue to grow their businesses and ultimately bring even greater value to their grower partners and customers. This is a fantastic outcome for everyone involved." Progressive Produce was advised by Montminy Co. as financial advisor and Greenberg Traurig, LLP as legal advisor. PTF Holdings and Arable were advised by K&L Gates, LLP as legal advisor. About Dole plc: A global leader in fresh produce, Dole plc grows, markets, and distributes an extensive variety of fresh produce sourced locally and from around the world. Dedicated and passionate in exceeding our customers' requirements in over 75 countries, our goal is to make the world a healthier and a more sustainable place. For more information visit our website at www.doleplc.com. About Arable Capital Partners: Arable Capital Partners is a leader in sustainable food and agribusiness investing and partners with businesses and owners across the food value chain. Arable currently has five platform investments, including Pacific Trellis Fruit, organicgirl, Royal Ridge Fruits, Blazer Wilkinson Gee and Laurel Ag Water. For more information about Arable visit its website at www.arablecp.com. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements made in this press release that are not historical 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. Forward-looking statements are based on management's beliefs, assumptions, and expectations of Dole's future economic performance, considering the information currently available to management. These statements are not statements of historical fact. The words "believe," "may," "could," "will," "should," "would," "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "objective," "seek," "strive," "target" or similar words, or the negative of these words, identify forward-looking statements. The inclusion of this forward-looking information should not be regarded as a representation by Dole or any other person that the future plans, estimates, or expectations contemplated by Dole will be achieved. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties and assumptions relating to Dole's operations, financial results, financial condition, business prospects, growth strategy and liquidity. Accordingly, there are, or will be, important factors that could cause Dole's actual results to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include (i) the parties' inability to close the transaction in a timely manner or at all due to the failure to satisfy conditions to the closing, including the expiration or termination of all applicable waiting periods under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, (ii) uncertainties as to the timing of closing the transaction, (iii) the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstance that could give rise to the termination of the definitive agreement relating to the transaction, (iv) risks related to disruption of management's attention from Dole's ongoing business operations, (v) the effect of the announcement or pendency of the transaction on Dole's relationships with its customers, operating results and business generally, (vi) the outcome of any legal proceedings to the extent initiated against Dole, Fresh Express, Chiquita Holdings or others related to the transaction, (vii) the ability of Dole to execute on its strategy and achieve its goals and other expectations after the closing, (viii) legislative, regulatory and economic developments and (ix) those other matters disclosed in Dole's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. If one or more of these or other risks or uncertainties materialize, or if Dole's underlying assumptions prove to be incorrect, Dole's actual results may vary materially from what Dole may have expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Dole cautions that you should not place undue reliance on any of Dole's forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made, and Dole does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made except as required by the federal securities laws. Category: Financial View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227035848/en/ Contacts: Investor Contact Dole plc: James O'Regan, Head of Investor Relations investors@doleplc.com +353 1 887 2794 Media Contact Dole plc: Brian Bell, Ogilvy brian.bell@ogilvy.com +353 87 2436 130 Denver, Colorado--(Newsfile Corp. - February 27, 2024) - American Rare Earths (ASX: ARR) (ADRs - OTCQX: AMRRY) (Common Shares - OTCQB: ARRNF) ("ARR" or the "Company") executives will participate in two upcoming industry conferences: March 6 at PDAC and on March 13 at the Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering Conference, which is part of the International Battery Seminar. These presentations are particularly timely following the Company's recent resource update at Halleck Creek of 2.34 billion metric tonnes and 1.42 billion metric tonnes of measured and indicated resources. Sara Stotter, geologist at American Rare Earths, will provide an overview of the Halleck Creek flagship project during a PDAC "New Discoveries" panel on Wednesday, March 6 at 10 a.m. ET. The Company will be at booth #2612B on Tuesday, March 5 and Wednesday, March 6 during the annual gathering of the mining industry. Donald Swartz, CEO of American Rare Earths, will be a featured panelist during the Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering Conference. He will participate in the session: "Investment and Innovations in Mining and Refining for Critical Minerals for Battery Supply Chain for Lithium-Ion", Wednesday, March 13 at 11:10 am ET. Swartz will join other industry professionals Tem Tumurbat, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Nomadic Venture Partners, Saehansol Kim, Managing Partner, Bricks Capital Management, and Cameron Dales, Co-Founder, Peak Energy. The moderator will be Katherine He, Investor, TDK Ventures Inc. Drill Rig at Halleck Creek, Wyoming. The Company issued a recent resource update at Halleck Creek of 2.34 billion metric tonnes and 1.42 billion metric tonnes of measured and indicated resources. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8666/199400_areimage.jpg In a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Michael Auslin, historian, Stanford's Hoover Institute, said this about American Rare Earth's Halleck Creek, "If wisely exploited, this find-estimated to be the richest in the world-will give the U.S. an unparalleled economic and geopolitical edge against China and Russia for the foreseeable future. The lode at Halleck Creek has the potential to make the U.S. the world's largest processor of the minerals used to make computer chips, smartphones and aircraft engines." For the investor community to book a one-on-one meeting with Donald Swartz, CEO, contact beverly.jedynak@viriathus.com. About PDAC The World's Premier Mineral Exploration & Mining Convention is the leading convention for people, governments, companies and organizations connected to mineral exploration. In addition to meeting more than 1,100 exhibitors, 2,500 investors and 24,000 attendees in person in 2024, participants could also attend programming, courses and networking events. The annual convention is held in Toronto, Canada and has grown in size, stature and influence since it began in 1932 and today is the event of choice for the world's mineral industry. About The Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering Conference The Battery Venture, Innovation & Partnering Conference will take place in conjunction with the 41st Annual International Battery Seminar in Florida, on March 13, 2024. We are excited to run an investor-style conference in parallel with an already successful and established event of 2,000+ delegates. Investment in battery and energy storage companies has exploded in recent years and is coming from several sources, including corporate, venture capital, private equity, public market, debt financing, and government. Continued funding is very much needed to get battery technologies launched and into commercial stages at scale. The conference brings together C-level corporate executives, investors, and CEOs from innovative start-ups, under one roof. About American Rare Earths American Rare Earths (ASX: ARR) (ADRs - OTCQX: AMRRY) (Common Shares - OTCQB: ARRNF) owns the Halleck Creek, WY and La Paz, AZ rare earth deposits which have the potential to become the largest and most sustainable rare earth projects in North America. The Company continues to evaluate other exploration opportunities and is collaborating with US Government-supported R&D to develop efficient processing and separation techniques of rare earth elements to help ensure a renewable future. Head Office American Rare Earths Ltd 1658 Cole Blvd, Suite G30 Lakewood, CO, 80401 info@americanrareearths.com.au americanrareearths.com.au For additional information: Susan Assadi Media Relations US sassadi@americanree.com 347 977 7125 Beverly Jedynak Investor Relations US Beverly.jedynak@viriathus.com 312 943 1123 To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199400 SOURCE: Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) FAIRFIELD, N.J., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Keypoint Intelligence is excited to unveil a groundbreaking study titled "Responsible Business Impacts," focusing on the intersection of government directives, corporate policies, and eco-labels in the purchasing process. This extensive research aims to shed light on how the increasing emphasis on sustainability and responsible business practices is shaping the criteria for procuring office equipment and supplies. The study seeks to provide insights into how these criteria are established, prioritized, and implemented, and their implications for suppliers, product offerings, and market strategies. Peter Mayhew, Principal Analyst at Keypoint Intelligence, emphasizes the critical nature of this endeavor, pointing out that sustainable and responsible business practices have ascended to a paramount position on the corporate agenda. According to Mayhew, there is a notable trend of purchasing officers meticulously aligning their procurement strategies with the revised policies and objectives set forth by their executive leadership, underscoring the growing importance of environmental and corporate responsibility considerations in business operations. The study will explore various facets, including the balance between sustainability, cost, and quality; the influence of government directives; the effect on green procurement policies; and the importance placed on these factors by small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises. Focusing on North America and Europe, the research will delve into the education, healthcare, and professional services sectors, particularly in the context of office technology and supplies. It will feature insights from over 360 online survey respondents, including purchasing officers experienced in acquiring office technology and supplies, and experts in the field of printers, copiers, and related supplies, especially within managed print service agreements. For further details on the study, please refer to our online brochure or reach out to sales@keypointintelligence.com. About Keypoint Intelligence: For 60 years, clients in the digital imaging industry worldwide have relied on Keypoint Intelligence for independent hands-on testing, lab data, and extensive market research to drive their product and sales success. Keypoint Intelligence has been recognized as the industry's most trusted resource for unbiased information, analysis, and awards due to decades of analyst experience. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349412/Keypoint_Intelligence_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/keypoint-intelligence-introduces-new-research-on-the-effects-of-responsible-business-initiatives-302073432.html Avance Clinical CEO, Yvonne Lungershausen Adelaide, AU & North Carolina, USA, Feb 28, 2024 - (ACN Newswire) - Avance Clinical, the award-winning Australian and North American market-leading CRO for biotechs, has today spoken with SCRIP about their positive outlook for the US biotech sector following the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and Biotech Showcase meetings. (read the full article here)Avance Clinical CEO, Yvonne Lungershausen was interviewed by SCRIP Intelligence about the current biotech financial and drug development climate in the US and signs of growth.Lungershausen noted there was a positive shift in sentiment compared to the previous year, with some companies even announcing their Series A funding during the conference. However, she emphasized that investors remained cautious, demonstrating a low-risk appetite in their investment decisions."We're seeing green shoots in terms of funding coming through now in the US, but I think it's still a bit of a tough road ahead. Investors are really being super cautious about where they're investing and relatively, there's not a high-risk appetite," Lungershausen said to SCRIP in the interview.The Avance Clinical team engaged with industry leaders at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and Biotech Showcase, sharing insights into the evolving landscape of biotech funding, their strategic partnerships in the AI sector, and ground-breaking developments in oncology study design.The interview also covered AI saying "Lungershausen indicated that Avance had taken the position of having an innovation and technology group specifically to look at how the CRO can best support clients to get the data that they need for their trials as quickly as possible.Avance Clinical, she said, is looking at partnerships with companies developing AI and making the assessment of "whether or not that's something that we should bring in-house and offer to our clients". It is also keen to work with some of those companies in terms of helping them "understand what the landscape requires".According to the interview "Avance's CEO maintained that Australia also featured "high on the agenda" for a lot of the biopharma companies at JPM "because time is money"."That came through over and over again and the ability to start fast with high-quality data that is readily accepted by the US Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory agencies was very important," she explained.While a 43.5% rebate on clinical trial costs in Australia provides biopharma clients "a longer runway with their money", there's also the exchange rate advantage that typically comes into play.Importantly, sponsors also don't require to have an active own-country IND to initiate trials in the island continent. That, Lungershausen stated, is the "biggest advantage" and is possible because Australia has a streamlined and efficient regulatory process."According to the interview she said "that amid the generally tight funding environment what also came through strongly.. was the need for biotechs to find the right partner".SCRIP Intelligence noted that Avance Clinical presented at JPM and Biotech Showcase a new analysis by market research leader, Frost & Sullivan on the biotech sector and the challenges they have finding the right fit or size CRO (See report here).The analysis has shed light on critical hurdles faced by more than 60% of US biotechs seeking the right CRO partner to propel their drug development programs forward.SCRIP Intelligence said Lungershausen believes that Avance Clinical "is ideally positioned being able to support biopharma with the advantages of Australia for early phase trials and "start fast but then pivot back to the US very quickly"."They're looking for a partner that can seamlessly help transition them and there's a lot of excitement about that," she said.The comprehensive report underscores the increasing preference of biotechs to collaborate with mid-sized, agile, and responsive CROs with a proven track record of swiftly advancing high-quality clinical programs. The findings suggest that large multinational CROs may be perceived as less responsive and less adept at adapting to the fast-paced nature of biotech demands.Key insights from the analysis:1. Challenges in Partner Selection: The analysis reveals that 60 to 65% of US biotechs encounter challenges in identifying the right-sized CRO partner capable of delivering at every phase of their drug development program.2. Perception of Large Multinational CROs: There is a notable perception among biotechs that large multinational CROs may be less responsive and adaptable to the dynamic requirements of the biotech industry.3. Biotech Funding Decline: The report highlights challenges faced by biotechs, including a decline in biotech funding, increased drug development complexity, evolving FDA regulatory review processes, and costly delays due to slow patient recruitment.4. Engagement with Multiple CROs: More than 50% of biotechs engage with more than one CRO during their clinical program, leading to increased costs, delays, and challenges in knowledge and data transfer.Find out more:Learn about the GlobalReady model here https://www.avancecro.com/avance-clinical-north-america-operations/For more information about the benefits of running your next study with Avance Clinical contact us: enquiries@avancecro.comMedia Contact:Avance ClinicalKate Thompsonmedia@avancecro.com?About Avance ClinicalAvance Clinical is the largest premium full-service Australian and North American CRO delivering quality clinical trials, with globally accepted data, in Australia, New Zealand and the US for international biotechs. The company's clients are biotechs completing Phase I to Phase III of their drug development program that requires fast, agile, and adaptive solution-oriented clinical research services.Frost & Sullivan AwardsAvance Clinical, a Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific CRO Market Leadership Award recipient for the past four years, has been providing CRO services in the region for more than 26 years.Pre-clinical through to mid to late phaseAvance Clinical offers pre-clinical services with their experienced ClinicReady team right from pre-clinical through to Phase III clinical services leveraging significant Australian Government incentive rebates of up to 43.5% and rapid start-up regulatory processes.With experience across more than 120 indications, the CRO can deliver world-class results and high-quality internationally accepted data for FDA and EMA review.TechnologyAvance Clinical uses state-of-the-art technology and gold standard systems across all functional areas to provide clients with the most effective processes. Medidata, Oracle, TrialHub, Certinia, Salesforce, Zelta and Medrio are just some of the technology partners.www.avancecro.comSource: Avance ClinicalCopyright 2024 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. Prototype - Global Collaborative Centre for Medical Countermeasures (GCMC) MUMBAI, INDIA, Feb 28, 2024 - (ACN Newswire) - In a significant stride towards enhancing global health security and pandemic preparedness, TechInvention Lifecare Pvt. Ltd. is proud to announce the ground breaking of its Global Collaborative Centre for Medical Countermeasures (GCMC) with an investment of approx. USD 15 million. The centre is strategically located close to the upcoming international airport in Navi Mumbai, India.GCMC has been acknowledged for its global significance at the 2nd World Local Production Forum in The Hague on 6-8 November 2023, organized by the WHO. The objective of GCMC is well aligned to WHO's call to action, CEPI's 100 days mission, India's National Biotechnology Development Strategy (2020-2025), and other global key initiatives.This facility will serve the needs of both public and private organizations, such as academic institutes, start-ups, MSMEs, and R&D organizations, to provide a comprehensive ecosystem, facilitating the transition from R&D to GMP-scale production for pre-clinical/clinical batches with required regulatory approvals.GCMC is a unique eco-friendly centre to cater to crucial medical countermeasures - the entire cycle of vaccine development, from strain to supply, biotherapeutics and diagnostics for both human and veterinary segments, while ensuring sustainable manufacturing. This initiative aligns with the One Health approach, emphasizing the interconnection between human, animal, and environmental health.Mr. Syed S. Ahmed, Director and CEO of TechInvention, expressed, "The current challenges posed in biologics equity arise from the disparity in translational research dissemination from the centres of excellence to the regional manufacturing 'hub and spoke' model setups. We believe that GCMC would be the needed intervention, strengthening the hubs by providing 'scaled-up', regulatory-approved, cost-effective, and free of IP infringement biosolutions sourced from both indigenous research and centres of excellence worldwide".About TechInvention Lifecare Pvt. Ltd.: https://techinvention.biz/TechInvention Lifecare Pvt. Ltd. distinguishes itself as a unique Indian biotech company, supporting the 'One Health' concept by integrating three pivotal interventions: diagnostics, vaccines, and biotherapeutics, catering to both human and veterinary sectors. Its innovation is dedicated to advancing global health through novel solutions. With a focus on research and development, the company is committed to addressing the health challenges that may emerge in the future.For further details, please contact:Mr Sarang Pathak+91 99606 16481sarang@techinvention.bizSource: TechInventionCopyright 2024 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28, 2024 - (ACN Newswire) - LYC Healthcare Berhad, a leading provider of comprehensive healthcare and specialist in mother and child care services, is pleased to announce the financial results for the third quarter ended 31 December 2023 (Q3 FY2024), demonstrating significant revenue growth and an improvement in operational results.In Q3 FY2024, LYC Healthcare achieved a robust revenue of RM35.9 million, a notable increase from RM23.5 million in the same quarter of the previous year (Q3 FY2023). This growth is primarily attributed to the Group's strategic focus on nutraceutical business and beneficial outcomes from lease modifications. Despite facing industry-wide challenges, LYC Healthcare successfully narrowed Loss Before Tax (LBT) to RM1.2 million, down from RM1.8 million in the corresponding quarter of the previous year, underscoring the effectiveness of the Group's operational and strategic initiatives.On a regional basis, Malaysia segment continues to contribute significantly to the Group's performance, generating RM24.0 million in revenue for the quarter, up from RM13.4 million in the previous year's quarter. The LBT in this segment decreased to RM2.0 million from RM3.2 million, reflecting improved outcomes from the nutraceutical business.In Singapore, the healthcare operations continued to excel, generating revenue of RM11.9 million and a profit before tax of RM0.8 million. This performance is an improvement in revenue compared to the previous year, although there was a slight decrease in profit before tax from RM1.5 million, attributed to strategic investments in the region's healthcare sector for future growth plans.Cumulatively, for the nine months ended 31 December 2023 (9M FY2024), LYC Healthcare posted a revenue of RM95.0 million, up from RM66.6 million in the same period last year. The Group's LBT improved significantly to RM2.9 million from RM6.4 million, driven by contributions from profit guarantee contributions, gains on lease modifications, and robust performance in both the Singapore healthcare businesses and the nutraceutical sector.On a quarter-on-quarter basis, LYC Healthcare's revenue increased from RM32.4 million in the preceding quarter to RM35.9 million, with LBT narrowing to RM1.2 million from RM2.0 million, further evidencing the Group's strong performance momentum.Mr. Sui Dong Hoe, Managing Director cum Group Chief Executive Officer of LYC Healthcare expressed optimism about the Group's direction, stating, "The positive trends we are observing in Q3 FY2024 are a clear indication that LYC Healthcare is on the right trajectory towards profitability and sustained growth. Our strategic investments, particularly in T&T Medical Group Pte Ltd (T&T) and HC Orthopedic Surgery Pte Ltd (HCOS), and operational enhancements are beginning to bear fruit. The full acquisition of T&T and HCOS, coupled with our plans to list these entities under LYC Medicare (Singapore) Pte Ltd on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange (SGX), showcases our commitment to capitalizing on these opportunities. These steps are pivotal in further strengthening our market position and delivering value to our stakeholders."Source: LYC Healthcare BerhadCopyright 2024 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. LEVERKUSEN (dpa-AFX) - Lanxess AG (LNXSF.PK), a German specialty chemicals company, said it has identified an impairment requirement on goodwill amounting to 413 million euros, mainly affecting the Business Units Flavors & Fragrances and Polymer Additives. This impairment reduces the recognized goodwill from previous acquisitions. The reason behind the impairment is partly due to weaker-than-expected demand in these Business Units, particularly for the years 2023 and 2024. In the course of the parallel and ongoing preparation of the financial statements at joint venture Envalior, Lanxess also expects the necessity of a material value reduction of its minority interest. This will likely result in a low to medium triple-digit million euros amount. The company said it will report its results for Full Year 2023 on 14 March 2024. EBITDA pre exceptionals is expected to be in line with market expectations. The consensus (Vara) for EBITDA pre exceptionals is currently at 510 million euros. Copyright(c) 2024 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 world's first C919 aircraft, with the registration number B-919A and owned by China Eastern Airlines, wrapped up its first international debut at the Singapore Airshow on Feb. 26. It returned to Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport from Singapore Changi Airport after flying five hours. During the 6-day Singapore Airshow, China Eastern Airline's C919 was mainly displayed statically. Visitors included professional audiences, aviation enthusiasts, as well as leaders and senior professionals from aircraft manufacturers, aviation service providers, and companies engaged in the aviation industrial chain. Many guests showed great interest in inquiring about the details inside the cabin. Some "fans" of the aircraft even came to see it several times. The areas under the wings, near the landing gears, and in front of the nose were popular photo spots for visitors. It is learned that the aircraft flew from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport to Singapore at 1:49 on Feb. 17, and joined the airshow together with C919 and ARJ21 aircraft from the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China and other parties. It marked the first time for the aircraft to fly overseas and make its overseas airshow debut. The C919 aircraft was also acclaimed as "one of the most anticipated products" at the Singapore Airshow this time. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227739254/en/ Contacts: China Eastern Airlines http://www.ceair.com/ fangying 00862122331470 fangying@ceair.com Boston, Massachusetts--(Newsfile Corp. - February 27, 2024) - Enkrypt AI is today announcing a $2.35M funding round to solve this problem for enterprises, ensuring their use of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) is safe, secure and compliant. Generative AI and LLMs present an opportunity for enterprises to gain new efficiencies and improve functionality, however, the safety and security of such technology remains an obstacle. The seed funding round was led by Boldcap with participation from Berkeley SkyDeck, Kubera VC, Arka VC, Veredas Partners, Builders Fund and angel investors in the AI, healthcare and enterprise space. Enkrypt AI was founded by two Yale PhDs and AI practitioners Sahil Agarwal (CEO) and Prashanth Harshangi (CTO) in 2022. With Enkrypt AI, enterprises have a control layer between these LLMs and end-users, providing security and safety functionality. Enkrypt AI Sentry has been able to reduce vulnerabilities across a wide range of LLMs, demonstrating a reduction in jailbreaks from 6% to 0.6% in the case of LlaMa2-7B. The Enkrypt AI team has previously developed and deployed AI models across diverse sectors, including the US Department of Defense and various businesses in self-driving cars, music, insurance and fintech. Enkrypt AI offers a 360 degrees security view with their Sentry proposition To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/199583_e8da921c1452e88d_002full.jpg Enkrypt AI's Sentry is the only platform that combines both visibility and security for generative AI applications at the enterprise, so that enterprises can secure and accelerate their Generative AI Adoption with Confidence. A leading Fortune 500 data infrastructure company is using Sentry to have complete access control and visibility over all their LLM projects, helping them to detect and mitigate LLM attacks such as jailbreaks and hallucinations, and prevent sensitive data leaks. This is ultimately leading to faster adoption of LLMs for even more use-cases across departments. Sahil Agarwal, Co-founder and CEO of Enkrypt AI commented: "Businesses are really excited about using LLMs, but they're also worried about how trustworthy they are and the uncertain regulatory landscape. Based on our conversations with CIOs, CISOs and CTOs, we are convinced that for LLMs to be widely adopted, it must be built on a foundation of security, privacy, and compliance. With Sentry, we are merging visibility and security, to ultimately align with and support adherence to regulatory frameworks like the White House Executive Order on AI, the EU AI Act, and other AI-centric regulations, laying the groundwork for safe and compliant AI integration." Prashanth Harshangi, Co-founder and CTO at Enkrypt AI commented: "As the benefits of AI become ever more tangible, so do the risks. Our platform does more than just detect vulnerabilities; it equips developers with a comprehensive toolkit to fortify their AI solutions against both current and future threats. We're championing a paradigm where trust and innovation coalesce, enabling the deployment of AI technologies with the confidence that they are as secure and reliable as they are revolutionary." Enkrypt AI is proven to help enterprises accelerate their generative AI adoption by up to 10x, deploying applications into production within weeks compared to the current forecast of 2 years within enterprises. Their comprehensive approach addresses the key concerns causing hesitation among enterprise decision-makers: Delivers unmatched visibility and oversight of LLM usage and performance across business functions. Ensures data privacy and security by protecting sensitive information and guarding against threats. Manages compliance with evolving standards through automated monitoring and strict access controls. The safety of AI has been a key concern for policymakers and experts. Earlier this month, the US Government's NIST standards body established an AI safety consortium. In an era where generative AI is becoming a transformative force across industries, safeguarding these systems goes beyond best practice - it's a necessity. Sahil Agarwal added: "Our mission at Enkrypt AI is to provide the tools that allow enterprises to not only harness the incredible potential of generative AI but to do so with the utmost confidence in the security and compliance of their applications. With the support of our investors and the advanced capabilities of our platform, we are setting a new standard in AI safety - protecting users and organizations against emerging threats while enabling the wider adoption of AI innovations in a responsible manner." Sathya Nellore Sampat, General Partner at BoldCap - "We are super excited to be backing practitioners like Sahil and Prashanth who are at the intersection of Security and Gen AI. Enterprise security is non-negotiable. With the explosive growth of Gen AI and LLM usage within companies, the attack surface has dramatically increased. Enkrypt is the command center to control, monitor and have visibility across Gen AI initiatives." About the company: About Enkrypt AI Enkrypt AI, co-founded by Yale PhDs Sahil Agarwal and Prashanth Harshangi, is pioneering the safe adoption of Generative AI within enterprises. With an innovative all-in-one platform, Enkrypt AI is revolutionizing how Large Language Models (LLMs) are integrated and managed, addressing critical needs for reliability, security, data privacy, and compliance in a unified solution. Used by mid to large-sized enterprises in industries including finance and life sciences, Enkrypt AI's Sentry offers a proactive approach to AI security, fostering trust and efficiency in AI implementations from chatbots to automated reporting. Enkrypt AI sits between users and AI models, to offer a variety of safety and security layers. Enkrypt AI stands apart by merging threat detection, privacy, and compliance into a comprehensive toolkit, poised to become the definitive Enterprise Generative AI platform for an evolving regulatory landscape. For more information please visit https://www.enkryptai.com/ or follow via LinkedIn, X, Instagram or YouTube. Contact Info: Name: Bilal Mahmood Email: b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Organization: Enkrypt AI Website: https://www.enkryptai.com/ To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199583 SOURCE: Plentisoft HONG KONG, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) hosted the "Launch Ceremony of Research Centre for Electric Vehicles cum Forum on Intelligent EV and Energy for Carbon Neutrality" on campus on 26 Feb, in the presence of approximately 350 staff and students, together with leaders from government, innovation and technology, energy and academic sectors. The Research Centre for Electric Vehicles (RCEV) is led by its Director, Prof. C.C. CHAN, who is widely recognised as the "Father of Asian Electric Vehicles", an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Distinguished Chair Professor of the PolyU Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. The Research Centre aims to develop a cutting-edge research platform to address energy and technical challenges presented by modern electric vehicles. Prof. SUN Dong, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry, HKSAR Government; and Mr Neil Bush, Founder and Chair of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, delivered opening remarks. Together with Prof. Jin-Guang TENG, PolyU President and Prof. C.C. CHAN, RCEV Director, they congratulated the University on the establishment of the Centre. Prof. Sun Dong said, "The establishment of this new university-level research centre marks a significant step forward in guiding Hong Kong's future direction to attain zero vehicular emissions. By addressing the technical challenges associated with modern electric vehicles, RCEV will provide critical technological solutions that will drive the development and adoption of EVs in Hong Kong and beyond. I am fully confident that RCEV will provide great stimulation to the industry through technological breakthrough." Mr Neil Bush said, "As an electric vehicle driver for five years and a supporter of environmental protection, I congratulate The Hong Kong Polytechnic University on the establishment of the Electric Vehicle Research Centre. Just as the automobile revolution is deepening, the establishment of this centre will have far-reaching impacts. Electric vehicles are not only a means of transportation, they will promote smart transportation, smart energy, smart networks, smart cities, and smart societies. Prof. C.C. Chan's recent book on 'The Integration of Energy, Transportation, Information, and Humanities - The Renaissance of Digital Technology' was published by top publisher Elsevier and laid down the foundation of theory and practice for sustainable development." Prof. Jin-Guang Teng stated, "As a leading institution in research and innovation, PolyU has always been at the forefront of addressing societal challenges. The establishment of the Research Centre for Electric Vehicles serves to further our contribution to this important field. The work of the Research Centre will embrace electric vehicle technologies, intelligent transportation systems, and energy management.This holistic approach will result in enhanced energy efficiency, environmental benefits, and the creation of new business opportunities." At the Launch Ceremony, Memorandums of Understanding were signed between the RCEV, and China Power International Development Limited and Wisdom Motor (HK) Limited respectively. These aim to initiate actions in line with the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Development Blueprint and Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, so as to contribute to the development of the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Co-operation Zone and the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone. As well as Prof. C.C. Chan, a number of distinguished guests delivered keynote speeches at the Forum. They were Mr Peter Major, Chair of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and Honorary Chairman of the World Digital Technology Academy; Prof. Yin-biao SHU, Immediate Past President of the International Electrotechnical Commission and President of Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering; Dr Gan SONG, Director of Advanced Technology R&D Department of BYD; Mr Joseph LAW, Managing Director of CLP Power Hong Kong; and Mr Eric PANG, Director of the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, HKSAR Government. Prof. C.C. Chan emphasised that it is an opportune time to capitalise on the massive opportunities in electric vehicle research and education. The establishment of the RCEV is geared towards nurturing innovative electric vehicle talents to benefit the Greater Bay Area and the world, while enhancing collaborative efforts with enterprises in mainland China and Hong Kong. The Centre will focus on cutting-edge research on electric vehicles and the friendly interaction between electric vehicles, power grids and 5G networks. It is also set to develop a platform to foster industry-university-research collaboration, thereby catalysing the industrialisation of research outcomes that help achieve higher efficiency, security, reliability and intelligence in electric vehicle technologies. In his closing remarks at the Forum, Prof. Christopher CHAO, PolyU Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Director of the Policy Research Centre for Innovation and Technology (PReCIT), mentioned that PolyU has been paying strong attention to carbon neutrality and is leading in securing Green Tech Fund and Environment and Conservation Fund among all local institutions. PReCIT is pleased to co-organise the event and join the forum. It has also recently secured a Public Policy Research Fund to study hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and electric vehicle related policies. PolyU would continue to strive for excellence in education, research and knowledge dissemination, thereby making significant contributions to the progress of the Nation, while also journeying toward a more sustainable future and achievement of the goal of carbon neutrality. For more photos, please visit https://polyu.me/3TgtBHw. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/polyu-launches-research-centre-for-electric-vehicles-advancing-smart-electric-vehicle-research-to-achieve-carbon-neutrality-goals-302073580.html Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 27, 2024) - iMining Technologies Inc. (TSXV: IMIN.H) ("iMining"), a leading technology company publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange Venture, proudly announces the attendance of its subsidiary, AiMining Technologies Inc. ("AiMining"), at two prestigious global technology events, LEAP 2024 and DeepFest. Wired Magazine has recognized both events as integral components of the technology calendar, often likened to a "Digital Davos." LEAP 2024 is slated to take place at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center, Malham, Saudi Arabia, from March 4th to 7th, 2024, alongside DeepFest, which will be hosted concurrently at the same venue. Khurram Shroff, Chairman and CEO of iMining Technologies, expressed his anticipation for the upcoming events, remarking, "Our participation in LEAP 2024 and DeepFest underscores our dedication to actively engage with global technology leaders and immerse ourselves in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. These esteemed gatherings offer an invaluable platform for us to stay abreast of the latest trends, explore cutting-edge innovations, and foster new partnerships and collaborative endeavors. Our presence reaffirms our commitment to driving forward technology innovation responsibly." During the events, AiMining Technologies will play an active role in networking, attending pivotal presentations, and interfacing with industry luminaries. LEAP 2024 is projected to attract over 172,000 regional and international technology professionals, alongside 1,300 investors, while DeepFest serves as a premier convergence point for thought leaders, influencers, prominent tech entities, data scientists, innovators, academia, startups, and entrepreneurs within the global AI ecosystem. AiMining Technologies aims to leverage its participation to further build relationships in the Middle East region, exploring potential partnerships and collaborations with local entities. Additionally, the company will be conducting market research to understand the unique challenges and opportunities within the Middle Eastern tech landscape, with a focus on enhancing its offerings to cater to regional needs. About iMining Technologies Inc. iMining Technologies Inc. is a publicly listed technology company that acquires, builds, and manages future technology companies in Canada. The Company's industry-specific technology businesses provide specialized and innovative solutions in future technologies and serve private sector markets. iMining Technologies Inc. is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. About AiMining Technologies Inc. AiMining Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of iMining Technologies Inc., is a start-up at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation. Comprising a dedicated applied research lab focused on collaboration with esteemed institutions and a commercialization program geared towards market engagement, AiMining seamlessly integrates into iMining's technology portfolio and is committed to advancing responsible AI development. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Signed "Khurram Shroff" Khurram Shroff, President & CEO FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, please contact: iMining Corporate Offices: Saleem Moosa, CFO and Director Email: investor@imining.com Telephone: 1-604-602-4935 Toll-Free: 1-866-602-4935 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/199627 SOURCE: iMining Technologies Inc. Jetpac's eSIM Now Available on WegoPro DUBAI, UAE, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- WegoPro , a modern platform that simplifies business travel and expense management for companies globally, is excited to announce its collaboration with Circles, a global technology company reimagining the telco industry with its SaaS platform. This partnership aims to enhance the booking experience for business travelers by integrating data roaming services seamlessly within their booking journey on WegoPro. With this collaboration, businesses can now streamline their business travelers' experience across both pre and post-booking stages on the same platform, ensuring better control and efficiency while meeting the needs of the travelers. By adding connectivity services, WegoPro not only elevates the convenience for the business traveler but also enables businesses to manage all expenses within the same platform, simplifying the entire travel process. "We are thrilled to partner with Circles to enhance the business travel experience for our users," said Prashant Kirtane, CEO of WegoPro. "By integrating Jetpac's eSIM into our platform, we are empowering business travelers with seamless connectivity and exclusive perks, further solidifying WegoPro as the ultimate solution for modern business travel." One of the key highlights of this collaboration is the introduction of Jetpac's eSIM , offering users the ultimate convenience of travel roaming services. With a one-time installation of the eSIM, travelers can enjoy connectivity across all destinations covered by Jetpac, eliminating the hassle of SIM swapping forever. This eSIM can be used in over 100 countries and across multiple destinations within 30 days, enabling travelers to connect instantly upon landing without worrying about data roaming charges. Aditya Goyal, Business Head of New Business Build in Circles, said: "We are very excited to partner with WegoPro to bring our award-winning Jetpac Travel eSIM product to Business Travelers. With Jetpac Travel eSim, WegoPro customers will get seamless connectivity around the world. This is a new milestone in revolutionizing the Business Travel across the globe". Jetpac's eSIM also comes with exclusive perks, including complimentary airport lounge access in the event of a flight delay across more than 1000 lounges worldwide. This feature has been lauded by frequent travelers as a 'lifesaver,' providing them with free access to airport lounges and the ability to bring along five friends. About WegoPro WegoPro, a leading corporate travel and expense management platform, has been rebranded as WegoPro and will expand into the Middle East. It is a comprehensive platform aimed at modernizing and simplifying business travel. WegoPro builds tools to help growing businesses manage their business travel and expenses more efficiently. Our mission is to empower businesses with tools that help them reduce costs and improve productivity. WegoPro is available in seven central markets throughout the MENA region, spanning Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, and Egypt. We're a passionate team of problem solvers with significant experience in building scalable consumer travel and mobile platforms. Our team brings together expertise across product, design, and engineering from companies including Yahoo!, HomeAway and Expedia. About Circles Founded in 2014, Circles is a global technology company reimagining the telco industry with its SaaS platform - Circles X, helping telco operators launch and operate successful digital brands. Today, Circles is partnering operators in 14 countries with the mission to deliver delightful digital experiences to millions of people through our businesses. With Circles.Life, our digital lifestyle brand, we empower and delight customers across the world by offering digital experiences that go beyond traditional telco services. With Circles X, our digital telco technology empowers operators to launch digital telco brands from anywhere in the world. Built for operators by an operator, Circles X powers both Circles.Life and our partner operators' digital telco brands. Circles is backed by global investors such as Sequoia, Warburg Pincus, EDBI and Founders Fund - renowned institutions with a track record of backing industry-shaking innovators. To learn more, visit www.circles.co. About Jetpac Powered by Circles, Jetpac was launched in 2022 as a premium travel eSIM service provider geared to redefine the way travelers roam. Jetpac's travel tech platform instantly connects travelers globally to reliable roaming in 50+ countries through the simple activation of 1 eSIM. Jetpac is focused on delivering a hyper convenient way for customers to roam, providing them with data freedom and a bill shock-free travel experience. More than a travel eSIM, Jetpac also provides value-added innovative services that go beyond traditional data connectivity, making it the ideal travel partner for all. URL:www.jetpacglobal.com Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2348493/WegoPro.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/seamless-connectivity-on-the-go-wegopro-collaborates-with-jetpac-by-circles-to-elevate-business-travel-302072313.html With 10 TSP and six TSP+ awards, the Group, including Hyundai Motor, Kia and Genesis brands, leads the industry with the most combined TSP/TSP+ accolades Hyundai Motor and Genesis tied for second place overall, with Hyundai Motor securing seven awards (two TSP+ and five TSP), Genesis earning seven awards (three TSP+ and four TSP) and Kia earning two awards (one TSP+ and one TSP) The Group's exceptional performance in the IIHS 2024 awards against updated and more stringent requirements is a testament to its unwavering focus on safety SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Motor Group (the Group) is announcing that the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) has honored a total of 16 models from Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Corporation, and Genesis, with the prestigious IIHS 2024 TOP SAFETY PICK (TSP) and TSP+ awards - more than any other automaker in the annual assessment. The Group's exceptional performance in the IIHS 2024 awards is a testament to its unwavering focus on safety. "Hyundai Motor Group is proud to have earned the industry leadership position in the recent IIHS 2024 TSP/TSP+ award results," said Brian Latouf, President and Global Chief Safety and Quality Officer at Hyundai Motor Group. "At Hyundai, safety is foundational for our vehicle designs as demonstrated by obtaining the industry's best safety accolades for 16 of our products." Among the Group's brands, Hyundai Motor and Genesis tied for second place overall, with Hyundai Motor securing seven awards (two TSP+ and five TSP), Genesis earning seven awards (three TSP+ and four TSP) and Kia earning two awards (one TSP+ and one TSP). For Hyundai Motor, the TSP+ winners included the KONA small SUV and IONIQ 6 midsize electric car. The TSP winners included the ELANTRA small car, the IONIQ 5 and TUCSON small SUVs, the PALISADE midsize SUV, and the SANTA CRUZ small pickup truck. For Genesis, the TSP+ winners included the Electrified G80 large luxury car, the GV60 small SUV and the GV80 midsize luxury SUV (models built after August 2023). The TSP winners included the G80 and G90 large luxury cars, and the Electrified GV70 and GV70 (built after November 2023) midsize luxury SUVs. For Kia, the TSP+ winner was the TELLURIDE midsize SUV. The TSP winner was the SPORTAGE small SUV. More information about Hyundai Motor Group can be found at: HMG Web Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349670/Photo_1__Hyundai_Motor_Group_Earns_Most_Combined_IIHS_TOP_SAFETY_PICK__and_TOP_SAFETY_PICK_Awards.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/hyundai-motor-group-earns-most-combined-iihs-top-safety-pick-and-top-safety-pick-awards-302073637.html BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cloud Native Elite Club (CNEC) hosted a successful seminar titled "Leap with Cloud Native x AI" at MWC Barcelona 2024. Over 50 industry leaders and experts gathered to explore cutting-edge trends in technology and innovation for 2024, sharing valuable insights and practices of cloud native and AI applications. Seven Technical Leaps to Accelerate Intelligence Across Industries Bruno Zhang, Huawei Cloud CTO, emphasized the critical role of cloud native and AI technologies as driving forces for industry transformation in the intelligent era. He listed seven key technical leaps for intelligent upgrades across industries: Architecture: from CPU-centric primary/secondary to heterogeneous peer-to-peer architecture; Compute: from general-purpose to AI compute; Storage: from data lake to AI-Native storage; Data-AI convergence: from "Data+AI" to "Data4AI/AI4Data"; Application development: from full/low/zero code to AI-assisted/self programming; Media technology: from shooting to computing and from production to generation; Security: from cyber and information security to a zero trust approach Taylor Dolezal, Head of the CNCF Ecosystem, emphasized cloud native technologies as the backbone for AI Infrastructure, highlighting its potential to accelerate industry-wide AI adoption. "CNCF boasts numerous projects utilized by leading AI companies like OpenAI, providing the essential technological infrastructure for generative AI," Dolezal stated. "Furthermore, cloud native projects like K8sGPT exemplify how we can leverage the advanced natural language processing capabilities of generative AI and the power of Kubernetes to drive industry innovation." "Cloud computing nurtures the innovation and development of AI models," said Li Wei, Deputy Director of Cloud Computing and Big Data Research Institute at China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT). "Cloud computing offers flexible, scalable, and efficient support for these models, reducing costs and improving efficiency," Li explained. "It also provides a user-friendly platform for model development, deployment, and utilization." Ms. Li highlighted the emergence of Large Model Cloud Services as a new paradigm in the cloud computing landscape. She emphasized the importance of establishing industry standards. "The standards framework for large model cloud service consists of four layers: infrastructure, models, services, and applications. This framework aims to standardize and operationalize Large Model Cloud Service with a well-structured industry system." Building a Solid Cloud Foundation for Data-AI Innovation and New Data Value The seminar featured presentations from Huawei Cloud representatives and various industry leaders showcasing innovative practices across diverse sectors. They shared insights on leveraging cloud technology to accelerate data-AI innovation. Inaki Fuentes, COO of TravelgateX, presented their successful cloud native transformation journey with Huawei Cloud. By adopting containers and microservices, they achieved significant improvements: efficiently processing over 6 billion daily hotel searches, reducing cloud costs by 20%, enhancing performance by over 35%, and streamlining operational complexity. Li Guo, a Huawei Cloud SRE expert, presented their deterministic operations solution, a comprehensive approach based on Huawei Cloud's internal practices. This solution emphasizes stability and reliability, efficient resources, robust security, and agile services. Huawei Cloud offers a range of services like OES, BOS, AMS, and IMS that empower businesses to enhance O&M capabilities, achieve greater efficiency and quality, and accelerate digital transformation with O&M as a key driver. Chong Chen, Chief Architect of Huawei Cloud GaussDB(for MySQL), stated that this service can ensure high reliability and availability across three availability zones (AZs), enabling a zero recovery point objective (RPO) and no data loss. Moreover, the entire database system can easily scale up and down and add or remove read copies within minutes to adapt to the changes in application loads without capacity evaluation or resource accommodation. Such an architecture is well-suited for database needs in the AI era. CNEC Global Leap Program: Empowering Industry with Technology Cloud native is becoming the new oil to fuel the global digital economy. More and more enterprises will build and grow their services on the cloud. Recognizing this trend, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), CAICT, Huawei Cloud jointly founded CNEC in 2020. CNEC aims to address the challenges faced by organizations during cloud migration, utilization, and management. Currently boasting over 200 core members, CNEC has built a comprehensive operational system that supports more than 800 technical managers across various industries, including Internet, finance, logistics, and automotive. The community has also branched out to Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. William Dong, President of Huawei Cloud Marketing, emphasized the company's commitment to collaborating with industry organizations like CNCF and CAICT in the AI era. Through technical communities like CNEC, Huawei Cloud aims to connect businesses with the latest global technologies, best practices, and industry trends. This initiative empowers businesses worldwide to harness the potential of cloud native and AI, ultimately achieving the leap to data and AI prowess. Looking ahead to 2024, CNEC will prioritize the strategic integration of cloud native and AI technologies, an effort to accelerate the global adoption and advancement of AI. During the event, CNEC unveiled its Global Leap Program themed "Leap with Cloud Native x AI", which will facilitate extensive technical exchanges, in-depth discussions, and pilot practice showcases. Furthermore, Huawei Cloud held a plaque presentation ceremony to establish the CNEC European Branch to better serve local organizations. This initiative signifies Huawei Cloud's commitment to collaborating with customers and partners to expedite the adoption and advances of innovative technologies like cloud native, AI, and database solutions in Europe. Ultimately, this collaborative effort aims to unlock the potential for growth across diverse industries with continuous technological innovation. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349541/CNEC_Global_Leap_Program_Debuts_in_Barcelona_Highlighting_Seven_Tech_Leaps_to_Accelerate_Intelligenc.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349542/image_2.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/cnec-global-leap-program-debuts-in-barcelona-highlighting-seven-tech-leaps-to-accelerate-intelligence-302073661.html Press Release Nicox Appoints Experienced Biotech Executive Gavin Spencer as CEO More than 25 years of experience in senior business development and corporate roles, with over 6 years as Chief Business Officer of Nicox Initial focus on securing financing to complete Phase 3 trial of NCX 470, Denali Focus on concluding strategic and/or partnership agreements, in particular a licence agreement in the United States for the NCX 470 February 28, 2024 - release at 7:30 am CET Sophia Antipolis, France Nicox SA (Euronext Growth Paris: FR0013018124, ALCOX), an international ophthalmology company, today announced its Board of Directors has appointed the highly experienced biotech executive Gavin Spencer as Chief Executive Officer. The appointment has immediate effect, following the Board's decision to end the mandate of Andreas Segerros. Gavin Spencer was most recently Executive Vice-President, Chief Business Officer & Head of Corporate Development at Nicox. He has spent more than 25 years in the life sciences industry and combines strong business acumen with a solid scientific background and broad strategic, financial, corporate development, commercial and operational management experience in biotechs and large pharma. "I am delighted to welcome Gavin Spencer to his new role as CEO of Nicox. Gavin brings exhaustive industry experience, particularly related to strategic partnership agreements and financing. He has a deep understanding of Nicox and how to deliver on the Company's potential, having been involved in all aspects of our activities over many years. We have reported positive results on our lead asset NCX 470 in its first Phase 3 trial in glaucoma, and Gavin's initial focus will be on enabling Nicox to generate the additional data necessary for a New Drug Application for NCX 470. Gavin's financial experience will be vital in moving this process forward, and his finesse and judgement will be equally important in our strategic and partnering discussions," said Jean-Francois Labbe, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nicox. During his time with Nicox, since 2005, Gavin Spencer has had a key role in building and managing Nicox's partnerships, including closing agreements with Pfizer, Bausch + Lomb, VISUfarma and Ocumension Therapeutics. He has been involved in equity raising and investor relations at Nicox for many years and has led the Company's recent financing activities. He has previously worked at Novartis Consumer Health and Boots Healthcare International and holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Aberdeen. "It is an exciting time for Nicox as we move towards the Phase 3 data from the second pivotal glaucoma trial of NCX 470, Denali, which we are conducting with our long-term Chinese partner, Ocumension Therapeutics. Interest in this innovative compound has been further validated by our recently announced Japanese licensing agreement with Kowa. While our re-negotiated debt agreement, also announced today, provides us valuable additional cash runway, we are working to put financing in place to complete the Denali trial. With full data from this trial, we believe we will be in a position to partner this innovative treatment for glaucoma in other territories, including the United States. Added to our current licensing revenue from VYZULTA and ZERVIATE, existing and future NCX 470 partnerships would generate additional royalty revenue on sales which we forecast could exceed $300 million worldwide, within 8 years of the date of launches in the U.S. and China" said Gavin Spencer, CEO of Nicox. About Nicox Nicox SA is an international ophthalmology company developing innovative solutions to help maintain vision and improve ocular health. Nicox's lead program in clinical development is NCX 470, a novel nitric oxide-donating bimatoprost eye drop, for lowering intraocular pressure in patients with open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension. Nicox generates revenue from VYZULTA in glaucoma, licensed exclusively worldwide to Bausch + Lomb, and ZERVIATE in allergic conjunctivitis, licensed in multiple geographies, including to Harrow, Inc. in the U.S., and Ocumension Therapeutics in the Chinese and in the majority of Southeast Asian markets. Nicox, headquartered in Sophia Antipolis, France, is listed on Euronext Growth Paris (Ticker symbol: ALCOX) and is part of the CAC Healthcare index. For more information on Nicox, its products or pipeline, please visit: www.nicox.com. Analyst coverage Bryan, Garnier & Co Eric Yoo Paris, France H.C. Wainwright & Co Yi Chen New York, U.S. The views expressed by analysts in their coverage of Nicox are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Nicox. Additionally, the information contained in their reports may not be correct or current. Nicox disavows any obligation to correct or to update the information contained in analyst reports. Contacts Nicox Gavin Spencer Chief Executive Officer T +33 (0)4 97 24 53 00 communications@nicox.com (mailto:communications@nicox.com) Media / Investors Sophie Baumont Cohesion Bureau +33 6 27 74 74 49 sophie.baumont@cohesionbureau.com (mailto:sophie.baumont@cohesionbureau.com) Forward-Looking Statements The information contained in this document may be modified without prior notice. This information includes forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. These statements are based on current expectations or beliefs of the management of Nicox S.A. and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Nicox S.A. and its affiliates, directors, officers, employees, advisers or agents, do not undertake, nor do they have any obligation, to provide updates or to revise any forward-looking statements. Risks factors which are likely to have a material effect on Nicox's business are presented in section 2.7 of the "Rapport Annuel 2022" and in section 4 of the "Rapport semestriel financier et d'activite 2023" which are available on Nicox's website (www.nicox.com). Nicox S.A. Sundesk Sophia Antipolis, Batiment C, Emerald Square, Rue Evariste Galois, 06410 Biot, France T +33 (0)4 97 24 53 00 Attachment Volta Finance Limited (VTA / VTAS) Management Fee and Performance Fee changes NOT FOR RELEASE, DISTRIBUTION, OR PUBLICATION, IN WHOLE OR PART, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES ***** Guernsey, 28 February 2024 The Board of Directors today announces that Volta Finance Limited (the "Company" or "Volta") has agreed an alteration of the fee structure with its Investment Manager, AXA Investment Managers Paris ("AXA IMP" or the "Investment Manager") under an amended and restated investment management agreement ("IMA") dated on or around 28 February 2024 with effect from 31 March 2024. The Board is delighted to have reached agreement with AXA IMP on lowering the threshold of the tiered management fee and enhancing the annual performance fee structure. The management fee amendment will bring an immediate benefit to shareholders and will see a notable reduction should the Company grow. The revised performance fee arrangement will continue to provide an alignment of shareholders' interests along with AXA IMP's interests enhanced with an improved High Water Mark. The Board believes the changes are in the interests of all shareholders and should allow the Company to appeal to new investors. Under the revised fee basis, AXA IMP will be entitled to receive the following fees with effect from 31 March 2024 (based on an observation period of the performance running from 1 March 2024 to 31 March 2024): MANAGEMENT FEE AXA IMP will be entitled to receive from the Company a management fee (the "Management Fee") equal to the aggregate of: (i) an amount equal to 1.5 per cent per annum of the lower of the Net Asset Value and EUR 236m (as opposed to the previous threshold which was EUR 300m); and (ii) if the Net Asset Value is greater than EUR 236m, an amount equal to 1.0 per cent per annum of the amount by which the Net Asset Value exceeds EUR 236m. The Management Fee will continue to be calculated for each six-month period ending on July 31 and January 31 of each year on the basis of the Company's Net Asset Value as of the end of the preceding period and payable semi-annually in arrears. The Management Fee payable to AXA IMP will continue to be subject to reduction for investments in AXA IM Managed Products as set out in the Company's existing Investment Guidelines. PERFORMANCE FEE AXA IMP will be entitled to receive a performance fee of 20 per cent of any Net Asset Value outperformance over an 8 per cent hurdle on an annualised basis, subject to a high water mark (the "HWM", which will be equal to the latest audited Net Asset Value per share multiplied by (1+8%)) and adjustments for dividends paid, share issuances, redemptions and buybacks. The performance fee will be calculated and paid annually in respect of each 12 month period ending on 31 July (each an "Incentive Period"). Notwithstanding the foregoing, performance fees payable to AXA IMP in respect of any Incentive Period shall not exceed 4.99% of the Net Asset Value at the end of such Incentive Period. The amendment to the management and performance fees payable to the Investment Manager, which is a related party of the Company under the Listing Rules, amounts to a smaller related party transaction under Listing Rule 11.1.10 R. Cavendish, the Company's Sponsor, has independently confirmed that the proposals are fair and reasonable so far as shareholders of the Company are concerned. In providing its advice to the Board of Directors, Cavendish has taken into account the Board of Directors' commercial assessment. This announcement contains information that is inside information for the purposes of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement via Regulatory Information Service this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain. For further information, please contact: Company Secretary and Portfolio Administrator BNP Paribas S.A. Guernsey Branch guernsey.bp2s.volta.cosec@bnpparibas.com +44 (0)1481 750800 Corporate Broker Cavendish Will Talkington wtalkington@cavendish.com +44 (0) 20 7397 1910 For the Investment Manager AXA Investment Managers Paris Francois Touati Francois.touati@axa-im.com +33 (0) 1 44 45 80 22 ***** ABOUT VOLTA FINANCE LIMITED Legal Entity Identification code (LEI): 2138004N6QDNAZ2V3W80 Volta Finance Limited is incorporated in Guernsey under The Companies (Guernsey) Law, 2008 (as amended) and listed on Euronext Amsterdam and the London Stock Exchange's Main Market for listed securities. Volta's home member state for the purposes of the EU Transparency Directive is the Netherlands. As such, Volta is subject to regulation and supervision by the AFM, being the regulator for financial markets in the Netherlands. Volta's Investment objectives are to preserve its capital across the credit cycle and to provide a stable stream of income to its Shareholders through dividends that it expects to distribute on a quarterly basis. The Company currently seeks to achieve its investment objectives by pursuing exposure predominantly to CLO's and similar asset classes. A more diversified investment strategy across structured finance assets may be pursued opportunistically. The Company has appointed AXA Investment Managers Paris an investment management company with a division specialised in structured credit, for the investment management of all its assets. ***** ABOUT AXA INVESTMENT MANAGERS AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) is a multi-expert asset management company within the AXA Group, a global leader in financial protection and wealth management. AXA IM is one of the largest European-based asset managers with 2,600 professionals and 824 billion in assets under management as of the end of June 2023. Past performance cannot be relied on as a guide to future performance. ***** This press release is published by AXA Investment Managers Paris ("AXA IM"), in its capacity as alternative investment fund manager (within the meaning of Directive 2011/61/EU, the "AIFM Directive") of Volta Finance Limited (the "Volta Finance") whose portfolio is managed by AXA IM. This press release is for information only and does not constitute an invitation or inducement to acquire shares in Volta Finance. Its circulation may be prohibited in certain jurisdictions and no recipient may circulate copies of this document in breach of such limitations or restrictions. This document is not an offer for sale of the securities referred to herein in the United States or to persons who are "U.S. persons" for purposes of Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), or otherwise in circumstances where such offer would be restricted by applicable law. Such securities may not be sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration from the Securities Act. Volta Finance does not intend to register any portion of the offer of such securities in the United States or to conduct a public offering of such securities in the United States. ***** 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. Past performance cannot be relied on as a guide to future performance. ***** This press release contains statements that are, or may deemed to be, "forward-looking statements". These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the terms "believes", "anticipated", "expects", "intends", "is/are expected", "may", "will" or "should". They include the statements regarding the level of the dividend, the current market context and its impact on the long-term return of Volta Finance's investments. 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. Volta Finance's actual results, portfolio composition and performance may differ materially from the impression created by the forward-looking statements. AXA IM does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements. Any target information is based on certain assumptions as to future events which may not prove to be realised. Due to the uncertainty surrounding these future events, the targets are not intended to be and should not be regarded as profits or earnings or any other type of forecasts. There can be no assurance that any of these targets will be achieved. In addition, no assurance can be given that the investment objective will be achieved. The figures provided that relate to past months or years and past performance cannot be relied on as a guide to future performance or construed as a reliable indicator as to future performance. Throughout this review, the citation of specific trades or strategies is intended to illustrate some of the investment methodologies and philosophies of Volta Finance, as implemented by AXA IM. The historical success or AXA IM's belief in the future success, of any of these trades or strategies is not indicative of, and has no bearing on, future results. The valuation of financial assets can vary significantly from the prices that the AXA IM could obtain if it sought to liquidate the positions on behalf of the Volta Finance due to market conditions and general economic environment. Such valuations do not constitute a fairness or similar opinion and should not be regarded as such. Editor: AXA INVESTMENT MANAGERS PARIS, a company incorporated under the laws of France, having its registered office located at Tour Majunga, 6, Place de la Pyramide - 92800 Puteaux. AXA IMP is authorized by the Autorite des Marches Financiers under registration number GP92008 as an alternative investment fund manager within the meaning of the AIFM Directive. ***** HELSINKI (dpa-AFX) - Finland's producer prices declined for the tenth straight month in January, though at a slower rate than in the previous month, data from Statistics Finland showed on Wednesday. The producer price index fell 5.4 percent year-over-year in January, following a 7.6 percent decline in the previous month. The decrease in producer prices for manufactured products was particularly caused by the fall in prices of paper and paper products, oil products, and basic metals, the agency said. Domestic producer prices declined 3.8 percent annually in January, and those in the export market slid by 7.6 percent. On a month-on-month basis, producer prices rose 0.3 percent, reversing a 0.7 percent fall in December. Data also showed that the export price index logged a decline of 7.6 percent, and import prices dropped by 4.7 percent. Copyright(c) 2024 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. Press Release Market Update Atos confirms FY 2023 revenue and operating margin results in line with guidance Revenue: 10,693m, up +0.4% organically Eviden up +2.9% organically Tech Foundations down -1.7% organically Eviden up +2.9% organically Tech Foundations down -1.7% organically Operating margin of 4.4% (467m), up +170 bps organically With year-on-year improvements in both Eviden and Tech Foundations 2023 H2 Free Cash Flow of -109m FY 2023 Free cash flow of -1,078m, reflecting lower working capital actions and higher reorganization costs Net debt position of 2,230 million at year-end 2023 Bank covenants met Gross debt of 4,654m Cash, cash equivalent & short-term financial assets of 2,423m FY 2023 earnings release rescheduled for March 20th to complete audit of non-cash goodwill impairment charge External auditors, Deloitte and Grant Thornton awaiting review of independent business report to complete audit of non-cash goodwill impairment Discussions with EPEI on potential sale of Tech Foundations have concluded with no deal reached Proposed new deal terms and pricing could not be mutually agreed upon No indemnification by either party Each party released from any reciprocal obligations except for confidentiality Atos to operate Tech Foundations and Eviden as separate businesses with a coordinated go-to-market strategy Atos to continue to consider strategic options that are in best interest of its customers, employees, and shareholders Paris, February 28, 2024 Atos reports today that it has met its full year guidance for revenue and operating margin and that its free cash flow for the second semester was -109 million. Comparison with 2023 guidance for revenue and operating margin by business as well as free cash flow is presented in the table below: 2022 Organic growth % 2023 ( million) 2023 Organic growth % Guidance 2023 Group revenue 0.1% 10,693 0.4% 0.0% to 2.0% Eviden revenue 2.0% 5,089 2.9% Acceleration vs. 2022 Tech Foundations revenue -1.6% 5,604 -1.7% Managed decrease 2022 OM% 2023 ( million) 2023 OM% Guidance 2023 Group operating margin 3.1% 467 4.4% 4% to 5% Eviden operating margin 5.2% 294 5.8% Improvement vs. 2022 Tech Foundations operating margin 1.3% 172 3.1% Positive territory 2022 ( million) 2023 ( million) Guidance compliance Guidance 2023 Free cash flow -187 -1,078 c. -1,000 Net debt and debt covenant In addition, the Company reports that its net debt was 2,230 million at year-end 2023 and consisted of: Cash, cash equivalent and short-term financial assets of 2,423 million Borrowings of 4,654 million The Group remained within its borrowing covenant applicable to its banks financing, with a leverage ratio (net debt divided by pre-IFRS 16 OMDA) of 3.34 times at the end of December 2023 compared with the bank covenant of 3.75x. Non-cash goodwill impairment Full annual goodwill impairment test is performed at year end, in compliance with IAS 36 and in the context of the contemplated disposals of assets. Fair values are determined based on a multicriteria approach, including Discounted Cash Flows ("DCF") and trading multiples, consistent with the methodology applied previously. Group external auditors Deloitte and Grant Thornton are awaiting an independent business review report to complete their audit of the company's non-cash goodwill impairment results. Reschedule of the earnings publication The Company is rescheduling its full earnings release to March 20th, 2024, as Atos Group auditors Deloitte and Grant Thornton have not completed their audit work on the goodwill impairment. End of exclusive negotiations with EPEI for the sale of Tech Foundations The company indicates that in the context of its exclusive negotiations with EP Equity Investment ("EPEI") for the potential sale of Tech Foundations announced on August 1, 2023, the parties have not reached a mutually satisfactory agreement. The discussions and the put agreement have therefore been terminated by mutual consent, with no indemnification on either side and the parties are released from any future reciprocal obligation subject to maintaining the confidentiality agreements. Atos will continue to run Tech Foundations and Eviden as separate businesses and leverage the strengths of their respective offerings with a coordinated go-to-market strategy. Atos will continue to consider strategic options that are in the best interest of its customers, employees and shareholders. Management conference call Management invites you to an international conference call on Wednesday, February 28 2024 at 08:00 am (CET - Paris). You can join the webcast of the conference: via the following link: https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/chprpvb2 (https://eur06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fedge.media-server.com%2Fmmc%2Fp%2Fchprpvb2&data=05%7C02%7Cdavid.pierre-kahn%40eviden.com%7C6e4e69b321144503d5d108dc37a682f4%7C7d1c77852d8a437db8421ed5d8fbe00a%7C0%7C0%7C638446435515993538%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=phqyZ40m3lFr8br8RquDIdVxgOxHMbWOWdvKA8cBSYw%3D&reserved=0) (https://eur06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fedge.media-server.com%2Fmmc%2Fp%2Fchprpvb2&data=05%7C02%7Cdavid.pierre-kahn%40eviden.com%7C6e4e69b321144503d5d108dc37a682f4%7C7d1c77852d8a437db8421ed5d8fbe00a%7C0%7C0%7C638446435515993538%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=phqyZ40m3lFr8br8RquDIdVxgOxHMbWOWdvKA8cBSYw%3D&reserved=0) by telephone with the dial-in, 10 minutes prior the starting time. Please note that if you want to join the webcast by telephone, you must register in advance of the conference using the following link: https://register.vevent.com/register/BI78a1dc5b26674cac9b424698c2f24fe2 Upon registration, you will be provided with Participant Dial In Numbers, a Direct Event Passcode and a unique Registrant ID. Call reminders will also be sent via email the day prior to the event. During the 10 minutes prior to the beginning of the call, you will need to use the conference access information provided in the email received upon registration. After the conference, a replay of the webcast will be available on atos.net, in the Investors section. *** Contacts Investor relations David Pierre-Kahn investors@atos.net (mailto:investors@atos.net) +33 6 28 51 45 96 Individual shareholders 0805 65 00 75 Press contact globalprteam@atos.net FY 2023 Revenue and operating margin at constant scope and exchange rates reconciliation For the analysis of the Group's performance, revenue and OM for 2023 is compared with 2022 revenue and OM at constant scope and foreign exchange rates. Reconciliation between the 2022 reported revenue and OM, and the 2023 revenue and OM at constant scope and foreign exchange rates is presented below, by Business Lines and Regional Business Units. In 2023, revenue was negatively impacted by 62 million as a consequence of the Group review of its accounting of some software resales following the IFRIC IC decision illustrated by the decision published by ESMA in October 2023 that enacted a restrictive position on the assessment of Principal vs. agent under IFRS 15 for the resale of third-party software licenses. This impact affected Eviden in the Americas RBU. It had no impact on the operating margin. Revenue for the 12 months period ended December 31, 2022 was restated accordingly by -71 million. FY 2022 revenue in million FY 2022 published Restatement FY 2022 restated Internal transfers Scope effects Exchange rates effect on acquired / disposed perimeter Exchange rates effects FY 2022* Eviden 5315 -71 5244 -4 -220 2 -80 4943 Tech Foundations 6026 6026 4 -222 2 -106 5703 Total 11341 -71 11270 0 -442 4 -186 10646 FY 2022 Operating margin in million FY 2022 published Restatement FY 2022 restated Internal transfers Scope effects Exchange rates effect on acquired / disposed perimeter Exchange rates effects FY 2022* Eviden 276 0 276 -2 -32 0 -10 233 Tech Foundations 79 79 3 -22 0 -5 56 Others & Global Structures 0 0 -2 1 0 0 Total 356 0 356 0 -53 1 -15 289 * : At constant scope and foreign exchange rates Scope effects on revenue amounted to -438 million. They mainly related to the divesture of Atos satellite ground testing business and Russia in 2022, and in 2023 to the divestures of Italy in Southern Europe, of Unified Communications and Collaboration Services across all regions, of EcoAct in Americas, Southern Europe and Northern Europe & Asia-Pacific, of State Street in Americas, and of Elexo in Southern Europe. Currency effects negatively contributed to revenue for - 186 million. They mostly came from the depreciation of the American dollar, the British pound, the Argentinian peso, and the Turkish lira. Internal transfers adjustments reflected split of Processia perimeter from Americas to Northern Europe & Asia-Pacific and to Southern Europe. *** About Atos Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 95,000 employees and annual revenue of c. 11 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high-performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 69 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on Euronext Paris. The purpose of Atos is to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space. Disclaimer This document contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including references, concerning the Group's expected growth and profitability in the future which may significantly impact the expected performance indicated in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are linked to factors out of the control of the Company and not precisely estimated, such as market conditions or competitor's behaviors. Any forward-looking statements made in this document are statements about Atos's beliefs and expectations and should be evaluated as such. Forward-looking statements include statements that may relate to Atos's plans, objectives, strategies, goals, future events, future revenues or synergies, or performance, and other information that is not historical information. Actual events or results may differ from those described in this document due to a number of risks and uncertainties that are described within the 2022 Universal Registration Document filed with the Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) on April 21st, 2023 under the registration number D.23-0321. Atos does not undertake, and specifically disclaims, any obligation or responsibility to update or amend any of the information above except as otherwise required by law. This document does not contain or constitute an offer of Atos's shares for sale or an invitation or inducement to invest in Atos's shares in France, the United States of America or any other jurisdiction. This document includes information on specific transactions that shall be considered as projects only. In particular, any decision relating to the information or projects mentioned in this document and their terms and conditions will only be made after the ongoing in-depth analysis considering tax, legal, operational, finance, HR and all other relevant aspects have been completed and will be subject to general market conditions and other customary conditions, including governance bodies and shareholders' approval as well as appropriate processes with the relevant employee representative bodies in accordance with applicable laws. Revenue organic growth is presented at constant scope and exchange rates. Attachment CHICAGO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The report "Natural Personal Care Ingredients Marketby Type (Emollients, Surfactnats, Rheology Modifiers, Preservatives, Active Ingredients), Application (Skin Care, Hair Care, Make-up, Oral Care), and Region - Global Forecast to 2028", Natural Personal Care Ingredients Market size was USD 5.3 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach USD 7.9 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 8.3%, between 2023 and 2028. The market is projected to grow because of the evolving lifestyle across globe. These natural Ingredients play a crucial role in various skin care, hair care, oral care, make-up, and other applications such as foundations, serums, shampoos, bath soaps, shower gels, creams, face masks, sun care products, lip balms, lipsticks, color cosmetics and others. In addition, due to the increasing population, increasing demand for natural ingredients, technological advancements and changing consumer preferences the demand for natural personal care ingredients can increase due to various applications. Browse in-depth TOC on "Natural Cosmetics Ingredients Market" 198 - Tables 68 - Figures 241- Pages Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=181363323 "Surfactants are projected to register the highest CAGR, in terms of value, of the global natural personal care ingredients market during the forecast period." Surfactants are expected to grow rapidly in the natural personal care ingredients market due to increased demand for sustainable products in cosmetics and personal care, as well as their use in pharmaceuticals. They function as surface-active agents, meaning they help reduce surface tension between different substances, allowing them to mix more effectively. Therefore, surfactants are crucial in skincare, haircare, and cosmetics like creams and lotions. Also, the rising awareness of natural ingredients in personal care boosts the demand for natural surfactants. Thus, surfactants are widely used in applications such as skin care, hair care, make-up, oral care, and others, which will increase demand for them in the future. "The hair care is estimated to be the second-largest application of natural personal care ingredients market, in terms of value, during the forecast period." As individuals tackle with a different hair-related issues, ranging from hair loss and thinning to dryness and damage, the demand for effective solutions continues to rise. Combined by the diverse array of hair types, each with its unique needs, such as curly, straight, fine, or coarse, the market for tailored hair care products grows rapidly. Moreover, escalating levels of pollution, characterized by airborne toxins and particulate matter, further exacerbate hair woes, triggering issues like scalp irritation, dullness, and accelerated hair aging. Consequently, the hair care application within the natural personal care ingredients market stands composed for sustained growth, driven by the imperative for complete solutions that address these multifaceted challenges while prioritizing natural and sustainable ingredients. Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=181363323 "Europe is estimated to be the largest market for the natural personal care ingredients market, in terms of value, during the forecast period." The adoption of natural personal care ingredients in this region has increased due to changing environment, concerns about increasing health hazards linked to synthetic ingredients, and shift in lifestyle preferences towards eco-conscious and sustainable products. Moreover, The European region is estimated to be the second-fastest growing regions in the world, with rising disposable incomes. This is creating a favourable environment for the growth of the natural personal care ingredients market. Accordingly, Europe will be the largest market for natural personal care ingredients market during the forecast period. The key players profiled in the report include BASF SE (Germany), Croda International Plc (UK), Ashland Inc. (US), The Lubrizol Corporation (US), Evonik Industries AG (Germany), Dow Inc. (US), Symrise AG (Germany), and others. Browse Adjacent Market: Specialty Chemicals Market Research Reports & Consulting Related Reports: Green Preservatives Market - GLOBAL FORECAST TO 2028 Biosurfactants Market - GLOBAL FORECAST TO 2028 About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets has been recognized as one of America's best management consulting firms by Forbes, as per their recent report. MarketsandMarkets is a blue ocean alternative in growth consulting and program management, leveraging a man-machine offering to drive supernormal growth for progressive organizations in the B2B space. We have the widest lens on emerging technologies, making us proficient in co-creating supernormal growth for clients. Earlier this year, we made a formal transformation into one of America's best management consulting firms as per a survey conducted by Forbes. The B2B economy is witnessing the emergence of $25 trillion of new revenue streams that are substituting existing revenue streams in this decade alone. We work with clients on growth programs, helping them monetize this $25 trillion opportunity through our service lines - TAM Expansion, Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy to Execution, Market Share Gain, Account Enablement, and Thought Leadership Marketing. Built on the 'GIVE Growth' principle, we work with several Forbes Global 2000 B2B companies - helping them stay relevant in a disruptive ecosystem. Our insights and strategies are molded by our industry experts, cutting-edge AI-powered Market Intelligence Cloud, and years of research. The KnowledgeStore (our Market Intelligence Cloud) integrates our research, facilitates an analysis of interconnections through a set of applications, helping clients look at the entire ecosystem and understand the revenue shifts happening in their industry. To find out more, visit www.MarketsandMarkets.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Contact: Mr. Aashish Mehra MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com Research Insights: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/natural-personal-care-ingredients-market.asp Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/natural-personal-care-ingredients.asp Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2297424/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/natural-personal-care-ingredients-market-worth-7-9-billion-by-2028--exclusive-report-by-marketsandmarkets-302073808.html Envision Energy has been honored with the prestigious EcoVadis Gold Medal for its excellent sustainability performance, achieving the highest score among renewable energy companies in China. SHANGHAI, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Envision Energy, a global leader in green technology, has recently been awarded the prestigious EcoVadis Gold Rating for its outstanding sustainability practices. Envision Energy ranked in the top 4% globally, surpassing 96% of all rated companies, and led the renewable energy sector in China. EcoVadis is the world's largest and most trusted sustainability rating service provider, covering management indicators across 21 sustainability criteria in four themes: Environment, Labor and Human Rights, Ethics and Sustainable Procurement. It evaluates over 125,000 companies across 200+ industries and 180+ countries, with only those scoring in the top 5% are awarded a gold rating. Envision focuses on smart wind power, smart energy storage system technology and green hydrogen solutions. As a green-tech leader, Envision consistently excels in corporate ESG governance, focusing on four pillars: products, people, environment and governance with net-zero strategy as the core. Its ESG strategy boasts a holistic and efficient ESG management model, enhancing its ESG performance across strategic planning, risk management, ESG issues, Materiality matters and goal advancement. Envision joined the Business Ambition for 1.5C campaign organized by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), committed to using 100% green electricity by 2025 as part of the RE100, and became a member of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), committing to uphold its 10 principles in human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. These commitment and actions have positioned Envision as a standout performer across all four pillars in EcoVadis assessments. Environment Envision's global environmental management system has received high recognition from EcoVadis, through which the company effectively manages environmental factors throughout the full life cycle of its business. All factories with Envision's environmental management system have been certified to ISO14001:2015 standards, with some earning a Carbon Neutral Certificate and National Level Green Plant as well. In carbon management practice, Envision implements an integrated approach to manage organizational GHG emission, supply chain carbon footprint, and product carbon footprint, with its EnOS Carbon Management System powering every step of the process from measurement, abatement, offset, and certification. Additionally, Envision is striving for environmental friendliness throughout the entire lifecycle of its products, strengthening management in terms of wastewater, aquatic ecology, waste, emissions, noise, and biodiversity. In 2022, Envision has achieved carbon neutrality across its global operations and will achieve carbon neutrality throughout its value chain by 2028. Sustainable Procurement Envision's sustainable procurement strategy is in line with the ambitious goal to achieve full-value chain carbon neutrality by the end of 2028, and to ensure key suppliers must use 100% renewable energy, reducing emissions at the source. Envision's EnOS Carbon Management System enabled the major suppliers to accelerate sustainable development with the leading suite of solutions for net zero factories, smart buildings, distributed solar and wind, green energy trading, RECs, and carbon offsets. With this system, all key suppliers fully assessed their emissions by the end of 2023 to help identify emission sources, implement reduction plans, and establish trading for green power and carbon credits. Labor and Human Rights According to EcoVadis, Envision demonstrates a strong coverage of labor and human rights management practices across its operations. Over 81% of production units are certified to ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. The management mechanism for comprehensive risk control in occupational health and safety, including standards, empowerment training for all employees, and tiered audits, along with a total recordable incident rate (TRIR) of one million work hours, is considered of world-class level. Ethics Envision has been awarded the ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management System certification for years, in strict compliance with the requirements of regulators on information security, cyber security, data security and privacy compliance, as well as the regulatory and legal requirements from the power industry on wind farm cyber security compliance. In addition, Envision has established the Compliance and Business Ethics Committee (CBEC) and provided employees with anti-corruption and bribery training. Measures are in place to protect customer data from unauthorized access or disclosure, information security management risk assessments are conducted regularly, with thorough reporting on business ethics. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/envision-energy-awarded-2024-ecovadis-gold-rating-for-sustainability-excellence-302073822.html Bountiful, Utah--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - OneMeta (OTC Pink: ONEI), OneMeta's proprietary technology uses AI and allows the spoken and written word to be translated and transcribe in less than one second in over 150 languages., is pleased to announce it will be presenting at the Centurion One 7th Annual Growth Conference, which will be taking place for the first time at the award winning Four Seasons Hotel on Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Toronto, Ontario. Saul Leal, CEO and Co-founder, is scheduled to present on Thursday, March 7th at 9 am EDT. Saul will also be fielding investor questions during the conference and participating on a panel discussion at 10:20 am EDT. Saul Leal will discuss the Microsoft partnership and will demonstrate his presentation being translated into multiple languages simultaneously and will show the new phone to phone voice translation technology without the use of an App or the Internet Centurion One 7th Annual Growth Conference will feature public and private companies across various industries that will be given the opportunity to present to some of the most prominent venture capital, family office, private equity firms, high net worth individuals and institutional investors in the growth space attending from Canada, the United States, and abroad. For registration details, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/centurion-one-capital-7th-annual-growth-conference. Conference Details: Event: Centurion One 7th Annual Growth Conference Format: Presentations, Q&A and Panel Discussions Date: Thursday, March 7, 2024 Time: 7:30 AM EDT - 5:00 PM EDT Venue: Four Seasons Hotel About Centurion One Capital Centurion One Capital ("Centurion One") is the premier independent investment banking firm dedicated to fueling the growth and success of growth companies in North America. With an unwavering commitment to delivering comprehensive financial solutions and strategic guidance, Centurion One is a trusted strategic partner and catalyst to propel issuers to unlock their full potential. Our team comprises seasoned professionals who combine extensive financial expertise with deep knowledge of various sectors. We take a proactive and results-driven approach, working closely with our clients to develop tailored strategies and execute transactions that maximize value and drive long-term success. Centurion One - Empowering Growth. Driving Innovation. Partnering for Success. About OneMeta OneMeta is a stack of cutting edge artificial intelligence technologies that solve everyday language communication problems. OneMeta recently launched its first product-Verbum. OneMeta has entered into a partnership with Microsoft which allows OneMeta's translation and transcription products to be used on Microsoft Teams Enterprise and sold by Microsoft to their Teams Enterprise clients. Learn more about OneMeta at www.onemeta.ai. Contacts OneMeta Rowland Day Chairman, President, and Co-founder 949-350-6500 rday@onemeta.ai SOURCE: Centurion One Capital Arrcus, the hyperscale networking software company and a leader in core, edge, and multi-cloud routing and switching infrastructure announced today its successful collaboration work with VMware, recently acquired by Broadcom, to expand beyond the edge into next-gen data architecture with a cutting-edge multi-tenant network and compute virtualization solution. Arrcus' ACE platform, which is already certified for VMware Telco Cloud Platform to run on VM or hypervisor environments for edge infrastructure, now expands to distributed data center architectures. This innovative collaboration will build a high-speed underlay fabric using Arrcus ACE and an overlay compute solution using VMware NSX, creating geo-redundant Distributed Data Centers capable of handling diverse workloads and applications. Digital enterprises rely on applications and workloads to deliver value to their customers. These processes handle substantial amounts of data across distributed data centers, spanning from the cloud to the edge. Achieving scale and multi-tenancy involves virtualizing and sharing both the physical network and compute nodes among diverse customers and workloads. The ACE platform facilitates the creation of distributed data center fabrics, spanning from edge to hyperscale to the cloud. It enables the establishment of standards-based IP CLOS fabric with BGP and EVPN or a Virtual distributed Fabric, replacing monolithic chassis with modular white-box hardware. VMware NSX is designed to address application frameworks and architectures with heterogeneous endpoints and technology stacks. It allows IT and development teams to choose technologies best suited for their applications, emphasizing manageability, operations, and consumption by both IT and development organizations. "As we unveil this cutting-edge multi-tenant Network and Compute Virtualization solution in collaboration with VMware, we are reshaping the landscape of hyperscale and edge data centers. At Arrcus, we believe in the power of innovation and open networks, providing our customers with unprecedented choices," said Shekar Ayyar, Chairman and CEO, of Arrcus. "This collaboration, leveraging our ACE platform and VMware NSX, is a testament to our commitment to building geo-redundant Distributed Data Centers capable of handling diverse workloads and applications. We are proud to offer a solution that not only achieves scale and multi-tenancy but also brings a new era of adaptability and rapid innovation to the industry." The underlay physical network, built using Arrcus' ArcOS on white-box switches, employs a Leaf/Spine CLOS topology with eBGP between the Leaf and Spine switches for route distribution. VXLAN virtualizes the physical network, creating logical Layer 2 or Layer 3 network instances for multi-tenancy. A standards-based EVPN control plane is utilized for both BGP and VXLAN to exchange connectivity endpoints across the fabric. VMware ESXi hosts support VM or container workloads, with NSX acting as the overlay network. The integration involves creating an ArcOS BGP peering connection from the Leaf switch to the NSX T0 router, acting as a gateway between the virtual and physical network. The NSX T1 router serves as a gateway for all virtual workloads. This architecture allows for efficient, scalable, and flexible network operation, suited for modern data center demands, including cloud computing and virtualized environments. The combination of these technologies ensures a robust, high-performance network capable of supporting diverse and demanding applications. This integration allows customers to build data center networks for different workloads using Arrcus ACE platform's open standards-based design and programming interfaces. This results in a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) with white-box switch hardware, coupled with VMware NSX to efficiently manage compute workloads at any scale. Arrcus' commitment to open networks provides adaptability and rapid innovation, supporting a wide range of energy-conserving merchant silicon and hardware options, offering unprecedented choices with speeds ranging from 1G to 800G across shallow and deep buffer switches. Arrcus will be showcasing this mutual solution during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Visit the Arrcus stand in Hall 2, Stand 2D41 to experience the demonstration or secure a meeting with the Arrcus executive here. Additional Resources Arrcus Joins the Ultra Ethernet Consortium to Accelerate Innovation in Data Center Networking for AI and HPC Arrcus and VMware partner to create the modern Telco Cloud to deliver the next generation of 5G services with agility Run Arrcus ACE on VMware Telco Cloud Platform About Arrcus Arrcus was founded to enhance business efficiency through superior network connectivity. The Arrcus Connected Edge (ACE) platform offers best-in-class networking with the most flexible consumption model at the lowest total cost of ownership. The Arrcus team consists of world-class technologists who have an unparalleled record in shipping industry-leading networking products, complemented by industry thought leaders, operating executives, strategic partners and top-tier VCs. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California with offices in Bangalore, India, and Tokyo, Japan. For more information, go to www.arrcus.com or follow @arrcusinc. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228621816/en/ Contacts: Sean Griffin sean@arrcus.com Dr Daniel Klier will join South Pole in May 2024 as Chief Executive Officer His past experience includes senior roles at ESG Book, HSBC and McKinsey South Pole has been enhancing its leadership to prepare the business for the next phase of growth while strengthening trust, integrity and transparency in its own business and the wider market South Pole, the leading carbon project expert and climate consultancy, is pleased to announce the appointment of sustainability industry leader, Dr Daniel Klier, as the group's new Chief Executive Officer. Daniel joins from sustainability data and technology platform ESG Book, where as CEO he oversaw the company's growth and established the business as global industry leader. He was previously Global Head of Sustainable Finance and Group Head of Strategy at HSBC, where he established the bank's net zero target and ambition to support the energy transition with 1 trillion dollars. Daniel started his career at McKinsey Company, where he was a Partner, supporting companies to enhance their organisational performance and international growth. A widely recognised sustainability expert, Daniel has served as the Chair of the Bank of England's Climate Working Group and Chair of the Institute of International Finance's Sustainable Finance Working Group. He serves on the Boards of the global sustainability reporting standard GRI and the international organisation Sustainable Energy for All. Daniel will be responsible for further developing and institutionalising South Pole's renewed focus on exceeding industry risk, integrity and compliance standards and lead the organisation in its next phase of growth. The company also recently appointed a dedicated Chief Risk Officer, Antoine Predour. The South Pole Board and Daniel thank John Davis for his stewardship as Interim CEO of South Pole since November 2023. John will continue to contribute to South Pole's success at an executive level and support a smooth leadership transition. Daniel Klier, incoming CEO of South Pole says: "South Pole has done a huge amount since 2006 to mobilise global climate action. It pioneered the global carbon market, helped governments to develop flagship environmental and social projects, and enabled businesses to positively address their climate impact. I am honoured to be appointed CEO at an important moment for the group and our planet. "South Pole must now prepare for the next stage of global climate action. That means enhancing our strategy, ensuring we innovate, and that we meaningfully advance our risk and compliance processes. Trust and transparency will be at the heart of our next chapter, and I look forward to working with the group's many committed and dedicated employees to achieve that Pal Erik Sjatil, Managing Partner and CEO at Lightrock, an investor in South Pole, says:"Daniel has joined South Pole's leadership team at a pivotal moment, coinciding with the evolution of the wider sector. As a business advisor, sustainability advocate, and highly-capable strategic leader, Daniel is ideally positioned to drive the company forward and advance its commendable mission to deliver climate impact at scale by transforming climate action into long-term business opportunities for companies, governments, and organizations globally. We wish him every success in his new post." Frederick Teo, Chief Executive Officer of GenZero, an investor in South Pole, says: "The carbon markets are going through challenging times. As an industry pioneer, it is critical for South Pole to demonstrate steadfast leadership, high levels of integrity and technical competence, as well as humility and a willingness to learn as we navigate these challenges. Daniel is well-placed to steer South Pole through its next chapter of growth having helmed several senior and international roles across sustainability and finance. He has also shown the ability to build and inspire teams with a strong sense of mission. We are confident that Daniel's strong commitment to South Pole will ultimately deliver better climate impact and propel the wider industry forward." About South Pole South Pole is the world's leading carbon project expert and climate consultancy. Since 2006, South Pole has been a trusted partner and advisor to governments, public sector organisations, and leading businesses on their decarbonisation journeys. South Pole serves over 1,000 clients across the world, and its global team of experts has helped many Fortune 500 businesses implement comprehensive strategies that help build resilience and turn climate action into long-term business opportunities. In line with its mission to deliver climate impact at scale, South Pole has used the power of markets to help channel climate finance to over 850 projects in more than 50 countries across the globe. To date, these projects have helped reduce over 200 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions, accelerated low-carbon transformations across several sectors, and provided measurable benefits to communities vulnerable to climate change. The business is supported by world-class investors, including Temasek's GenZero, Lightrock, Corisol, and Salesforce Ventures. South Pole is a social enterprise recognised by the World Economic Forum's Schwab Foundation, and committed to becoming a B Corp globally across all of its local entities. For more information, visit www.southpole.com or LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228637781/en/ Contacts: Media contact media@southpole.com ZURICH, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Philippines-based Security Bank has entered a new partnership with Avaloq, a leading provider of wealth management technology and software. The bank aims to digitalize its wealth management business with the Avaloq Core Platform and to roll out Avaloq's Relationship Manager (RM) Workplace solution to strengthen its front office. The new partnership will further streamline the bank's operations while creating an enhanced client experience. Security Bank is one of the Philippines' best-capitalized private universal banks, providing bespoke financing, leasing, foreign exchange, stock brokerage, investment banking, and asset management services. Since launching its Wealth Management business in 2017, the bank has grown its wealth management assets under management by a CAGR of 44% and has expanded its client base by a CAGR of 40%. For these results, Asiamoney has recognized Security Bank as Best for HNWs (high net worth) in the Philippines for three consecutive years in 2023, 2022 and 2021. To address the growing demand for bespoke wealth management services, Security Bank has partnered with Avaloq to drive the digitalization of the bank, optimize its front office, and create a solid operational foundation for its continued growth over the long term. The bank's new wealth management platform will automate and standardize workflows and enable Security Bank to offer a full spectrum of bespoke investment advisory services and products for its high net worth and affluent clients. Thanks to the native automation capabilities of the Avaloq Core Platform, Security Bank can benefit from high straight-through processing (STP) and service accuracy rates for payments, securities and fund processing, which will improve operational efficiency. This means that Security Bank can focus more resources on providing personalized service, creating new innovative offerings, and expanding into new markets and client segments. Avaloq's intuitive RM Workplace solution will provide Security Bank's relationship managers with a complete overview of client profiles and portfolios, ensuring more targeted communication and simpler transaction management to boost productivity and foster closer client relationships. This will also enable the bank's relationship managers to offer tailored investment advisory services to a larger, more diverse client base. The solution can be fully customized based on the bank's needs and is seamlessly integrated with the Avaloq Core Platform. Arnold Bengco, Financial Markets Head at Security Bank, said: "The bank's strategic partnership with Avaloq will strengthen our wealth management capabilities even further. We continue to innovate our financial markets products to meet the evolving needs of our clients. With this acute focus to deliver tailored solutions and distinct BetterBanking service, we're confident our new platform will attract incremental investment AUM and help deepen customer relationships with our Bank." Lucose Eralil, Executive Vice President Head Enterprise Technology & Operations at Security Bank, said: "This new partnership with Avaloq reflects our commitment to digitally transforming our bank to deliver exceptional value to our clients and stakeholders and to become the most customer-centric bank in the Philippines. With Avaloq's specialized wealth management platform and RM Workplace solution, we can further expand our wealth management business to help individuals and businesses in the region grow and preserve their wealth. I look forward to strengthening our partnership with Avaloq over the years to come." Pascal Wengi, Managing Director for Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa at Avaloq, said: "We are firmly committed to supporting Security Bank on its digitalization journey across the front, middle and back office. By automating end-to-end processes, from order entry to reporting, the Avaloq Core Platform will provide the operational foundation for the future growth and success of the bank's wealth management business. At the same time, our RM Workplace solution will empower the bank's relationship managers, helping them to build lasting relationships with their clients. We are proud to work closely with Security Bank to support the growth of the Philippines' wealth management sector." About Avaloq Avaloq is a premium provider of front-to-back software and services for over 160 financial institutions around the world. Our clients include private banks, wealth managers and investment managers, as well as retail and neo banks. We develop software that can be deployed flexibly through cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) or on-premises, and we offer Banking Operations through our business process as a service (BPaaS) model. Avaloq is a subsidiary of NEC Corporation, a global leader in the integration of IT and network technologies. www.avaloq.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2348344/Avaloq_logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/security-bank-drives-digital-transformation-of-wealth-management-business-with-avaloq-302073838.html LONDON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In a significant move for fintech, NayaOne announces a $4.7 million funding round led by EJF Capital, with Valley Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Valley Bank and Carthona Capital also on board. This investment is a testament to NayaOne's growth and potential to transform financial services with its innovative sandbox-as-a-service platform. NayaOne's proven platform enables a radical reduction in technology adoption cycles within the finance sector. Financial institutions can now swiftly navigate the fintech landscape, fostering partnerships that were once hindered by traditional, slow-moving processes. This is particularly relevant today, as a mere 5% of banks choose to develop tech in-house, highlighting the growing reliance on external fintech innovations for strategic advancements. The timing of NayaOne's platform aligns perfectly with the industry's urgent shift towards digital transformation, offering flexibility and speed for revenue growth, customer retention, or crisis recovery. Karan Jain, CEO of NayaOne, emphasises the significance of this funding round, it's a nod to the opportunity and magnitude of the challenge we're tackling in financial services. "It's about more than just growth; it's about setting the pace in a sector that's fundamentally rethinking how it evolves" Echoing Jain's sentiment, EJF Ventures' Michael Cherepnin points to the strategic inflection point: "We're still in the early stage of a tech revolution in banking and capital markets, and NayaOne stands out as the critical infrastructure enabling the next big leap forward." Valley Ventures' Managing Partner, Neal Kapur sheds light on the tangible edge NayaOne provides: "Our collaboration has dramatically streamlined how we vet fintech vendors, positioning us well ahead in the Digital Transformation and AI race." Dean Dorrell of Carthona Capital, reflecting on their early bet with this being their second round with NayaOne, adds, "Watching NayaOne's journey from an early-stage hopeful to a fintech trailblazer has been nothing short of inspiring. This round is a launchpad for what's next." With its latest funding, NayaOne is poised to redefine finance services. As everything moves to being digital first, NayaOne's technology enables FIs to achieve their strategic outcomes by successfully navigating through the chaos and complexity of vendor technology. About NayaOne NayaOne's mission is to help organisations navigate the complex financial technology ecosystem. Our Sandbox as a Service platform and marketplace of vetted Fintechs accelerates the adoption of emerging technologies and streamlines vendor collaboration. We help institutions to foster strategic partnerships and deliver exceptional customer experiences - delivering on our commitment to make technology more accessible and create a more innovative and inclusive financial ecosystem. To learn more please visit https://nayaone.com. About EJF Capital EJF Capital LLC is a global alternative asset management firm headquartered outside of Washington, D.C. with offices in London, England and Shanghai, China. As of December 31, 2023, EJF manages approximately $6.0 billion1 across a diverse group of alternative asset strategies. The firm was founded in 2005 by Manny Friedman and Neal Wilson. To learn more, please visit http://ejfcap.com/ and please read additional Risks and Limitations located here. 1 Firm AUM includes $3.0 billion in CDO assets through affiliates and $165.3 million of uncalled capital. About Valley Ventures Valley Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Valley National Bank, invests in and partners with companies that represent the future of finance. Valley National Bank is a regional bank with nearly $62 billion in assets. Valley operates many convenient branch locations and commercial banking offices across New Jersey, New York, Florida, Alabama, California, and Illinois, and is committed to providing the most convenient service, the latest innovations and an experienced and knowledgeable team dedicated to meeting customer needs. About Carthona Capital Carthona Capital is a venture capital firm based in Sydney, Australia. Carthona Capital invests in early and growth stage companies across a range of sectors, with a focus on fintech, healthtech, and deeptech. Carthona Capital has a global perspective and a hands-on approach, providing strategic guidance and operational support to its portfolio companies. Carthona Capital has backed some of the most successful and innovative fintech companies in Australia and beyond, such as Afterpay, Athena, and Nura. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349483/NayaOne_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/nayaone-secures-4-7m-to-disrupt-financial-services-with-game-changing-sandbox-platform-302073443.html Burnaby, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Great Eagle Gold Corp. (CSE: GEGC) (FSE: GI8), renowned as the premier Digital Green Gold Miner, is pleased to announce the appointment of Kate Fehlenberg to its Board of Directors, the successful closing of a private placement, and the initiation of strategic marketing agreements aimed at enhancing its outreach in Germany and the United States. Board of Directors Enhancement The Company is thrilled to welcome Kate Fehlenberg, MPH, M.S., to its Board of Directors. Kate is a distinguished Climate Change and Scaling Innovations Specialist, known for her extensive experience in regenerative agriculture, climate change resilience, and innovation scaling. Her career has been dedicated to making significant impacts across various sectors, such as climate-smart agriculture, public health, and gender equity, demonstrating her unwavering commitment to ecological and social well-being. Kate's expertise in strategic planning, project management, and systems change has been pivotal in fostering partnerships, optimizing operations, and leading teams to achieve meaningful results. Kate's educational background is impressive, with an MPH from Columbia University, focusing on Population, Family Health, and Forced Migration, and an MSc in GIS and Sustainable Development from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her BSc in Environmental Science and GIS from Samford University further solidifies her expertise in environmental systems and sustainability. Her work with FHI360, USAID Global Dev Lab, CGIAR, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, highlights her skill in driving innovations and resilience strategies in various challenging environments. Kate's global experience, including projects in the USA, Kenya, Tanzania, Nepal, and several other countries, underscores her ability to navigate complex cultural and ecological landscapes. Fluent in English and proficient in French, Spanish, Nepali, and Kiswahili, Kate's linguistic abilities enhance her capacity to connect with diverse communities and stakeholders, enriching her work in climate resilience and regenerative practices. Chris Hansen, Chairman of Great Eagle Gold, enthusiastically welcomed Kate to the board, remarking, "Kate's illustrious career, marked by her unwavering commitment to tackling the globe's most critical environmental and sustainability challenges, positions her as an indispensable asset to our board. Her visionary leadership and innovative approach are exactly what we need as we propel Great Eagle into the forefront of the ESG-conscious gold mining era. We are fortunate to have her guiding influence as we embark on this transformative journey." Private Placement Closure Following the announcement on January 12, 2024, Great Eagle has successfully completed a non-brokered private placement, issuing 1,803,105 units at $0.30 per unit, raising gross proceeds of $540,932. Each unit consists of one common share and half of one common share purchase warrant, with each full warrant allowing the holder to purchase an additional common share at $0.50 for two years post-closing. Additionally, the Company has settled debts with its former President and a director by issuing 116,666 common shares at a deemed price of $0.30 per share. All shares and warrants from this placement are subject to a hold period until June 27, 2024. The proceeds will support working capital, shareholder communications, marketing, and mineral exploration expenses. Strategic Marketing Agreements To enhance its marketing efforts, Great Eagle has entered into agreements with TD Media LLC, dba Life Water Media, and MIC Market Information & Content Publishing GmbH. Life Water will focus on digital marketing services, including media creation, advertising, digital campaigns, influencer management, and digital communications, with a six-month term and a total fee of US$100,000. Similarly, MIC will handle online marketing services, including text material, campaign management, and keyword research, with a six-month term and a fee of 100,000. Andrew Fletcher, Director and CEO of Great Eagle, highlighted the importance of these agreements, stating, "We understand the value of effectively communicating our story and expanding our loyal shareholder base. Leading a new industry segment requires well-executed communication strategies. Through our partnerships with MIC and TD Media, we are poised to embark on a long and beneficial communications journey, crucial for stakeholders to fully appreciate Great Eagle's value proposition." Amended Terms for Acquisition of Great Eagle Gold S.A.S As previously announced the Company closed on the acquisition of Great Eagle Gold S.A.S, its new Colombian subsidiary, for a proposed aggregate purchase price of US$217,600 (the "Purchase Price"). The Purchase Price was to consist of cash in the amount of US$21,760 represented by a promissory note (the "Promissory Note") and the issuance of an interest free convertible promissory (the "Convertible Note"), for the US$195,840 balance of the Purchase Price. However, the parties have amended the terms of their agreement for the acquisition of Great Eagle Gold S.A.S. In consideration for the assumption of that company's outstanding liabilities, the Purchase Price consisting of the Promissory Note and Convertible Note has been cancelled, and as a result no securities will be issued or any cash paid for the acquisition. About Great Eagle Gold Corp. Great Eagle Gold Corp. (CSE: GEGC) (FSE: GI8), a Canadian public company, aims to be a leading digital green gold miner. Its unique strategy involves developing and acquiring certified gold resources to exchange into digital green gold tokens. By keeping the gold secured in the ground while tokenizing and monetizing its value, Great Eagle Gold Corp. introduces an innovative, ESG-friendly approach to wealth creation in the traditional gold mining industry. Great Eagle Gold's inaugural gold resource development project is situated in Colombia's second-largest gold-producing region, Bajo Cauca. Hacienda Rio Rayo encompasses three fully permitted exploration and production concessions, hosting nine active alluvial gold mining operations with an average monthly output of approximately 35 kilograms. The total area covered by these three concessions is 2,523 hectares. Despite its rich history of gold production, this extensive area has never undergone modern exploration or certification of gold resources. Identifying and quantifying this untapped potential is Great Eagle Gold's primary focus. Moreover, Colombia is anticipated to be the first country to enact green gold legislation, as championed by the International Green Gold Council, thus pioneering the way for a thriving green gold tokenization industry. Besides its Colombian project, Great Eagle Gold's global acquisition strategy targets existing mining titles with NI 43-101 certified gold resources. This approach is in anticipation of a wave of green gold legislation, which is expected to open tokenization opportunities worldwide. The securities referred to herein will not be or have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor the Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Great Eagle Gold Corp. Chris Hansen, Chairman For further information please contact: Email: info@greateaglegold.com Website: www.greateaglegold.com Phone: +1 (415) 300-6144 Investor inquiries: Green Gold Communications S.A.S. Worldwide Toll Free: +1 (877) 513-5213 Direct: +1 (775) 341-6015 Email: Info@greengoldcommunications.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor the Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to Great Eagle's operations and green gold mining initiatives, its Colombian property exploration and development plans, expansion plans, estimates, expectations, forecasts, objectives, predictions and projections of the future. Specifically, this news release contains forward looking statements with respect to Great Eagle's proposed operations, acquiring and developing certified green gold resources and their tokenization, and the receipt of required approvals. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "projects", "intends", "anticipates", or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or "variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "can", "could", "would", "might", or "will" be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Great Eagle to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks related to the exploration and development and operation of Great Eagle's projects, the actual results of current exploration, development activities, conclusions of economic evaluations, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, future precious metals prices, as well as those factors discussed in the sections relating to risk factors of our business filed in Great Eagle's required securities filings on SEDAR+. Although Great Eagle has attempted to identify important factors that could cause results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results to be materially different from those anticipated, described, estimated, assessed or intended. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities law. Additionally, the Company undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made, by third parties in respect of the matters discussed above. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199575 SOURCE: Great Eagle Gold Corp. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Troy Minerals Inc. ("Troy" or the "Company") (CSE:TROY)(OTCQB:TROYF)(FSE:VJ3) is pleased to announce that it has expanded its strategic advisory board which was formed late last year to advise and consult with the Company's board of directors and its senior management to help advance the Company's projects and build shareholder value. The Company has appointed Mr. Amandip Singh, a geologist and mining professional with over 15 years of progressively senior experience in the mining industry, finance, and academia. Mr. Singh has worked with some of the most successful mining teams in the world, including the Frank Giustra backed, West Red Lake Gold as well as Magna Gold Corp, a Mexico based gold producer, where he served as the Vice President of Corporate development and was part of the management team that saw the Saddle North Cu-Au porphyry project advance from discovery to eventual acquisition by Newmont Mining in a transaction valued at USD $311 Million. As a finance professional, Mr. Singh was a sell-side mining analyst at a boutique mining focused brokerage, his coverage ranged from developers to senior producers. He has also worked as an exploration geologist, most notably with Noront Resources (Acquired by Wyloo Metals) and was part of the team responsible for completing the initial bankable feasibility study on the Eagles Nest Ni-Cu-PGE deposit in Northern Ontario. Mr. Singh holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from the University of Toronto. "We are excited to expand our technical depth with the addition of Amandip to our team," said Rana Vig, President and CEO of Troy Minerals. "His knowledge and vast contacts will benefit the Company immensely as we continue to expand our investor base while at the same time advancing the Company's projects," he added." To further advance its advisory board "brain trust", the Company is in discussions with several other highly qualified and distinguished candidates with proven track records and expects to make those announcements in the coming weeks. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD, Rana Vig | President and Director Telephone: 604-218-4766 Email: rana@ranavig.com About Troy Minerals Inc. Troy Minerals is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties. The Company currently holds interest in four assets: The Lake Owen project (formerly SW2) is a highly perspective Vanadium, Titanium and Iron ore rich project that consists of 91 mineral claims located approximately 50km southwest of Laramie, Wyoming USA. The property is a one billion tonne plus target in a Proterozoic Layered Mafic Intrusive host with strong magnetite-rich cumulates and accompanying V/Ti and Pt/Pd/Au/Rh-bearing sulfide horizons. The Lac Jacques project is a drive to project with close infrastructure located approximately 250km north of Montreal Quebec, Canada and is comprised of 17 claims totaling 994 ha. The Property hosts high grade REE mineralization at the surface in a structurally controlled and steeply dipping carbonatite dike up to 25 meters thick with multi-kilometer potential. The Green Gold project, in which the Company has the right to acquire 100% interest, is comprised of fourteen (14) mineral claims with an aggregate area of 11,238 hectares, is located in central British Columbia in the Cariboo Mining Division, approximately 34 kilometers (km) southwest of the city of Prince George. The Ticktock project, a 1,065-hectare property located within the prolific Golden Triangle region of British Columbia, Canada, lies 23km northwest of the historic Eskay Creek Mine and sits between the Enduro Metals Newmont Lake property and the Aben Resources Forrest-Kerr property. SOURCE: Troy Minerals Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com PALO ALTO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Bioz, Inc., a leading AI software company committed to advancing scientific discovery, is pleased to spotlight its strategic partnership with EpiCypher, a prominent player in the realm of epigenetics and chromatin science. Bioz Content Hub Bioz Content Hub on EpiCypher's Website Through this new strategic partnership, Bioz has incorporated its dynamic digital widgets, called Bioz Badges and Content Hubs, onto EpiCypher's website (both onto product pages and onto a standalone page). These widgets feed real-time citation data to the website in order to support researchers in their decision-making process. The data displayed includes snippets from peer-reviewed publications, live citation counts, and objective Bioz Stars ratings that showcase successful product usage in prior research. EpiCypher's Badges and Content Hub drive product validation for EpiCypher's customers, allowing for more effective research. Dr. Karin Lachmi, Co-Founder and CRO of Bioz, expresses enthusiasm for this partnership by stating, "We celebrate a successful partnership with EpiCypher and are proud to align with a company committed to scientific excellence." Dr. Lachmi added that "Bioz Badges are guiding EpiCypher's customers towards the most effective products for their research experiments." Keith Maier, Associate Director of Product Development at EpiCypher said that "we are seeing increased user engagement, by displaying to our research-focused customer base how our products have contributed to peer-reviewed research. This enhancement not only helps new customers source our products with confidence but also serves as a valuable internal resource." Renowned for its innovative products in Epigenetics research, EpiCypher offers a range of products such as reagents, assays, kits, and assay services. Their contributions are backed by >1,500 peer-reviewed publications, visible through their Bioz Badges and Content Hub. These integrations efficiently showcase product usage in peer-reviewed literature, highlighting more than 300 publications in the past year alone that used EpiCypher's breakthrough CUTANATM CUT&RUN/CUT&Tag genomic mapping technologies. This collaboration is positioned to fortify researchers with unprecedented confidence while furthering the companies' joint commitment to advancing scientific discovery. About Bioz Bioz is the world's most advanced AI search engine for scientific experimentation, with evidence-based ratings and recommendations to guide scientists toward the most validated products for their experiments, accelerating research toward new discoveries. Bioz solutions for suppliers include Bioz Badges and Content Hubs, web-based widgets, that are placed on product supplier websites to increase user engagement and sales conversion. About EpiCypher EpiCypher was founded in response to the growing demand for high-quality reagents to study chromatin regulation and enable epigenetics-focused drug discovery. EpiCypher is at the forefront of chromatin mapping technologies with the CUTANA platform for ultra-sensitive ChIC, CUT&RUN, and CUT&Tag profiling assays. EpiCypher also offers the largest collection of defined designer nucleosomes (dNucs) on the market along with complementary high-throughput assays and services. Helpful Links Bioz Bioz Badges Bioz Stars EpiCypher To learn more about Bioz solutions for suppliers, please reach out to info@bioz.com. To learn more about EpiCypher products and services, please reach out to info@epicypher.com. EpiCypher and CUTANA are registered trademarks of EpiCypher, Inc. Contact Information Daniel Levitt CEO pr@bioz.com Keith Maier Associate Director of Product Development kmaier@epicypher.com SOURCE: Bioz, Inc. View the original press release on newswire.com. SCHIPHOL-RIJK (dpa-AFX) - Aerospace major Airbus SE (EADSF.PK, EADSY.PK) announced on Wednesday orders for up to 120 Airbus helicopters from Saudi Arabia's The Helicopter Co. or THC, as well as up to ten H145 helicopters from German helicopter emergency medical services operator DRF Luftrettung. The companies signed the deals at the HAI Heli-Expo, currently taking place at Anaheim Convention Center, California. Airbus' framework agreement with THC, a premier provider of commercial helicopter services and fully owned by the Public Investment Fund, will include up to 120 Airbus helicopters of various types. These will be delivered over the next five to seven years. The deal includes a firm order for eight H125s along with 10 H145s that are converted options from an earlier contract. This brings THC's total firm Airbus helicopter fleet to 60. Of this, 25 are already in service. The new H125 helicopters will support the delivery of THC's range of services in areas including aerial work and tourism. Further, DRF Luftrettung's orders for up to ten H145 helicopters include seven firm orders and three options. The ordered helicopters will also be covered by DRF's fleet-wide HCare Smart contract, which provides comprehensive parts-by-the-hour support. Copyright(c) 2024 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. LUZERN, Switzerland, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- KKCG, a leading European investment and innovation group, announces the successful completion of its acquisition of Avenga, an end-to-end software engineering and consulting platform, previously owned by funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. ("Oaktree") and funds managed by Cornerstone Investment Management, L.P. ("Cornerstone"). Effective at the closing of the transaction, Avenga, a global technology platform headquartered in Germany, with 31 offices internationally, and nearly 4,000 professionals, has become a wholly owned subsidiary of KKCG. This acquisition marks a turning point in the strategic development of KKCG's technology pillar. Commenting on the completion, Michal Tomanek, Investment Director at KKCG, said, "Avenga bolsters KKCG's presence internationally and seamlessly complements KKCG's custom software development company Qinshift, making KKCG Technologies one of Europe's largest digital transformation architects, catering to a diverse global client base." Ludovic Gaude, Head of KKCG's software engineering activities and CEO of Qinshift, is leading the integration process, in collaboration with Yuriy Adamchuk, CEO of Avenga. Following the successful closing, Gaude explained, "Now, it is time to roll up our sleeves and commence the merger process, marking the first step in the shared Avenga-Qinshift journey." About KKCG KKCG is an investment and innovation group with expertise in lotteries and gaming, energy, technology, and real estate. Founded by entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist Karel Komarek, KKCG employs over 10,000 people in 37 countries across its portfolio companies, with more than 9 billion in assets under management. Its businesses include, amongst others, ARICOMA GROUP Holding a.s., comprehensive IT services provider and custom software development across Europe and the US; Allwyn, a multi-national lottery operator with leading market positions in Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States (Illinois); MND Group, an international producer and supplier of traditional and renewable energy, active in drilling and exploration, energy storage, retail, and trading; and KKCG Real Estate, which creates internationally recognized, award-winning architecture in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors with a focus on innovative and sustainable development. With operations on several continents, KKCG businesses draw on capital, networks, and insights from across the group to enable profitable, sustainable growth for the long term. KKCG is committed to supporting the communities where it operates, contributing to the societies it works within. About Avenga Avenga is a global engineering and consulting platform with deep industry knowledge, especially in pharma, insurance and finance, and advanced manufacturing. The company's IT specialists operate from 31 offices worldwide and support global corporations and complex organizations in their digital transformation with projects along the entire digital value chain - from digital strategy to the implementation of software, user experience, and IT solutions. Avenga's many world-renowned clients include organizations like ABB, Allianz, GSK, Santander, and Volvo. About Qinshift Qinshift is a global technology company with a strong European presence, aiming to solve business problems for forward-leaning companies worldwide. Qinshift has over 3000 genuine tech experts across 28 offices that build and design software and deliver end-to-end enterprise solutions, visionary UX and UI design, reliable managed services, and innovative product development offerings. Qinshift also provides cutting-edge tech consultancy services. The company caters to a diverse clientele, including large telecom and satellite operators, financial & banking institutions, manufacturing and automotive companies, and mobility and health organizations, supporting their digital transformation journey. NEW BRUNSWICK (dpa-AFX) - The FDA is scheduled to organize Rare Disease Day, a virtual public meeting, on March 1, 2024, as part of the global Rare Disease Week. In the U.S., as per the parameters outlined by the 1983 Orphan Drug Act, a condition is classified as a rare disease if it affects fewer than 200,000 individuals. In the European Union, as per the legislation instituted in the year 2000, a disease is considered rare when it affects fewer than 1 in 2,000 people. It is estimated that there are more than 10,000 rare diseases and only a small percentage, around 5% or less, have at least one approved treatment. Every year, the last day of February is observed as Rare Disease Day, and this year, it falls on Feb.29. Shifting gears to recent developments on the regulatory landscape, notable milestones have been achieved in February. Eicos Sciences' Aurlumyn injection secured the FDA nod on Feb.14, 2024, becoming the first medication to treat severe frostbite in adults to reduce the risk of finger or toe amputation. Novartis/Roche's Xolair was granted approval on Feb.16, 2024, becoming the first medication to help reduce allergic reactions to multiple foods after accidental exposure. The drug is already approved in the treatment of asthma, chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps, and chronic spontaneous urticaria. Now, let's take a look at the biotech stocks awaiting FDA decision in March 2024. Copyright(c) 2024 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. EQS Newswire / 28/02/2024 / 10:15 CET/CEST BANGKOK, THAILAND - Media OutReach Newswire - 28 February 2024 - The Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) is steadfast in its role as Thailand's principal agency for corruption prevention and suppression. The NACC's National Corruption Deterrence Center (CDC) has reported the identification of 1,553* corruption cases with project values totaling over 140 billion baht between January 19, 2022, and the end of January 2024. Mr. Niwatchai Kasemmongkol, the Secretary-General of the NACC, highlighted the CDC's crucial role since its inception on January 19, 2022. The Center is instrumental in monitoring, evaluating, and investigating corruption cases, in line with the policy to actively prevent and suppress corruption. Over the past two years, the CDC's effective preventative measures have significantly reduced the number of corruption cases within the suppression system. The CDC's operational report reveals the following actions taken on the identified cases: 985 cases have undergone verification, and monitoring, and have been directed to the appropriate agencies for action. 339 cases have been successfully resolved by the responsible agencies. 169 cases are in the preparatory phase pending initial data verification. 60 cases have been confirmed as corrupt activities and are now recorded in the Preliminary Examination System on Corruption Accusation (PESCA). The cases reported to the CDC encompass various categories, including: 1,151 cases related to the scrutiny of procurement and construction in public utility projects. 223 cases of misconduct or neglect of duty. 130 cases involving the misuse of public resources by state officials. 47 cases of solicitation or acceptance of assets or other benefits by state officials. 2 cases of unusual wealth amongst state officials. The NACC underscores that the cumulative value of projects scrutinized by the CDC exceeds 146.65 billion baht. Without the CDC's vigilant oversight, these funds could have potentially been lost to corruption. Furthermore, the NACC is committed to leveraging all its resources to combat corruption, aiming to enhance Thailand's reputation as a nation striving towards zero corruption. This effort promotes transparency and fosters trade and investment. The NACC's comprehensive anti-corruption strategies and recommendations to the government reflect the dedication of officials towards achieving a corruption-free Thailand and improving the country's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) score. Despite the importance of the CPI score in the national strategy for anti-corruption (2018 - 2037), and the goal to score above 50, Transparency International's 2023 CPI revealed that Thailand scored 35 points, ranking 108th out of 180 countries globally and 4th among ASEAN members. Although the CPI score remains low, the NACC is determined to persist in its anti-corruption mission. The Commission believes that the true measure of success lies in the collective efforts of government, public, and private sectors working transparently, monitoring diligently, and uniting against corruption. With an unwavering commitment to zero tolerance for corruption, Thailand can achieve its goal of a corruption-free society. The NACC acknowledges that while there has been significant improvement in the corruption situation in Thailand, the CPI score has not reflected this progress adequately. The Commission urges Transparency International to disclose the sources of their survey data and provide targeted recommendations, enabling precise resolutions to the issues identified. * https://www.nacc.go.th/categorydetail/20180831184638361/20240215102232 Hashtag: IntegrityWay AntiCorruption ZeroCorruption NACC NACF The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), Thailand The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) is a constitutional independent organization and supervised by nine commissioners selected from various professions. It is authorised to undertake work on the prevention and suppression of malfeasance, particularly in government agencies, on assets investigations, as well as on the monitoring of ethics and virtues of political position holders. It has the authority to file charges in court as well as support and build up awareness of the penalties for committing corruption. The NACC is supervised by the NACC Board and has the Office of the NACC as its administrative agency. Since 1997, Thai Courts have ruled against and punished politicians, former ministers, high-ranking government officials as well as executives of the private sector in the thousands of cases submitted by the NACC. News Source: Media OutReach 28/02/2024 Dissemination of a Financial Press Release, transmitted by EQS News. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Media archive at www.todayir.com Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has agreed to acquire Mindcurv, a cloud-native digital experience and data analytics company specializing in composable software, digital engineering and commerce services for more than 200 clients worldwide. With this acquisition, Accenture Song-the world's largest tech-powered creative group-further expands its commerce services for clients globally. The terms of the acquisition from private equity investment firms Genui and Primepulse were not disclosed. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227044054/en/ Accenture has agreed to acquire Mindcurv, a cloud-native digital experience and data analytics company specializing in composable software, digital engineering and commerce services for more than 200 clients worldwide. (Graphic: Business Wire) Founded in 2011, Mindcurv is one of the leading German companies providing end-to-end digital experience services solving complex challenges in the core business of leading European clients across several industries, including manufacturing, retail, consumer good, life sciences and chemicals. As a certified member of the MACH Alliance, Mindcurv helps businesses design and implement innovative scalable digital experience platforms, with operations in several countries enabling it to deliver tech-enabled innovation with an integrative approach. The ecommerce market is expected to exceed $8 trillion worldwide by 2027. Currently, 94% of consumers1 make purchases through digital commerce channels. However, only 20% of companies are realizing both revenue growth and profitability. By combining Accenture Song and Mindcurv's expertise in composability skills, data, and AI capabilities, clients can accelerate their commerce operations and bridge the profitability gap. These capabilities enable personalization at scale, foster customer loyalty, and drive sales. "With the acquisition of Mindcurv, Accenture Song continues to fortify its global offerings, blending creative thinking, technology and industry expertise," said Max Morielli, president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, for Accenture Song. "This strategic move will enhance our ability to provide innovative, tailor-made cloud solutions, empowering clients with an unparalleled end-to-end digital experience in commerce transformation. Together, with Accenture's broader suite of services, our investment in AI and our ecosystem partners, we are increasing our ability to meet client's customers' needs." Roland Mayr, market unit lead of Accenture Song in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, added: "The integration of Mindcurv into Accenture Song will signify an important step forward in our commitment to delivering comprehensive digital solutions. Mindcurv's proficiency in scalable digital platforms and cloud innovation complements Accenture Song's vision for pushing the boundaries of commerce transformation. Together, we're poised to redefine the digital landscape for businesses worldwide." Amjad Liaquat and Nazareno Avila, the co-founders of Mindcurv, explained: "Joining Accenture Song marks a pivotal moment for Mindcurv. Our strengths combined offer formidable end-to-end digital commerce services, combining innovation, creativity and global reach delivered through an integrative and balanced approach with the support of teams across the countries we operate in. We're excited to lead the evolving digital landscape together." Headquartered in Essen, Germany, Mindcurv and its team of over 700 experts based across 13 different locations including the Netherlands, Spain and India, are set to join Accenture Song's commerce practice. Mindcurv is the latest in a series of acquisitions that Accenture Song has made to enhance customer offerings for clients, including Work Co, Rabbit's Tale, ConcentricLife, Fiftyfive5 and The Stable. Completion of the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of applicable regulatory approval. 1 2022 Accenture Grow Digital Commerce Study of 13,000 consumers across US, Mexico, Brazil, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China, India, Japan, Australia and Indonesia Forward-Looking Statements Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements in this news release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "may," "will," "should," "likely," "anticipates," "aspires," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "believes," "estimates," "positioned," "outlook," "goal," "target" and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance nor promises that goals or targets will be met, and involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These risks include, without limitation, risks that: Accenture and Mindcurv will not be able to close the transaction in the time period anticipated, or at all, which is dependent on the parties' ability to satisfy certain closing conditions; the transaction might not achieve the anticipated benefits for Accenture; Accenture's results of operations have been, and may in the future be, adversely affected by volatile, negative or uncertain economic and political conditions and the effects of these conditions on the company's clients' businesses and levels of business activity; Accenture's business depends on generating and maintaining client demand for the company's services and solutions including through the adaptation and expansion of its services and solutions in response to ongoing changes in technology and offerings, and a significant reduction in such demand or an inability to respond to the evolving technological environment could materially affect the company's results of operations; if Accenture is unable to match people and their skills with client demand around the world and attract and retain professionals with strong leadership skills, the company's business, the utilization rate of the company's professionals and the company's results of operations may be materially adversely affected; Accenture faces legal, reputational and financial risks from any failure to protect client and/or company data from security incidents or cyberattacks; the markets in which Accenture operates are highly competitive, and Accenture might not be able to compete effectively; Accenture's ability to attract and retain business and employees may depend on its reputation in the marketplace; if Accenture does not successfully manage and develop its relationships with key ecosystem partners or fails to anticipate and establish new alliances in new technologies, the company's results of operations could be adversely affected; Accenture's profitability could materially suffer if the company is unable to obtain favorable pricing for its services and solutions, if the company is unable to remain competitive, if its cost-management strategies are unsuccessful or if it experiences delivery inefficiencies or fail to satisfy certain agreed-upon targets or specific service levels; changes in Accenture's level of taxes, as well as audits, investigations and tax proceedings, or changes in tax laws or in their interpretation or enforcement, could have a material adverse effect on the company's effective tax rate, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition; Accenture's results of operations could be materially adversely affected by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; changes to accounting standards or in the estimates and assumptions Accenture makes in connection with the preparation of its consolidated financial statements could adversely affect its financial results; as a result of Accenture's geographically diverse operations and strategy to continue to grow in key markets around the world, the company is more susceptible to certain risks; if Accenture is unable to manage the organizational challenges associated with its size, the company might be unable to achieve its business objectives; Accenture might not be successful at acquiring, investing in or integrating businesses, entering into joint ventures or divesting businesses; Accenture's business could be materially adversely affected if the company incurs legal liability; Accenture's global operations expose the company to numerous and sometimes conflicting legal and regulatory requirements; Accenture's work with government clients exposes the company to additional risks inherent in the government contracting environment; if Accenture is unable to protect or enforce its intellectual property rights or if Accenture's services or solutions infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others or the company loses its ability to utilize the intellectual property of others, its business could be adversely affected; Accenture may be subject to criticism and negative publicity related to its incorporation in Ireland; as well as the risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed under the "Risk Factors" heading in Accenture plc's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and other documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements in this news release speak only as of the date they were made, and Accenture undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements made in this news release or to conform such statements to actual results or changes in Accenture's expectations. About Accenture Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world's leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services-creating tangible value atspeed and scale. We are atalent- and innovation-led company with approximately 743,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world's leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song. These capabilities, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360 value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360 value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com. Accenture Song accelerates growth and value for our clients through sustained customer relevance. Our capabilities span ideation to execution: growth, product and experience design; technology and experience platforms; creative, media and marketing strategy; and campaign, commerce transformation content and channel orchestration. With strong client relationships and deep industry expertise, we help our clients operate at the speed of life through the unlimited potential of imagination, technology and intelligence. Copyright 2024 Accenture. All rights reserved. Accenture and its logo are trademarks of Accenture. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227044054/en/ Contacts: Helena Binder Accenture +49 152 525 057 37 helena.binder@accenture.com Rosie Milton-Schonemann Accenture Song +44 7769 286484 rosie.milton@accenture.com - Empowering the Continuous Industrial Upgrade BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- At the Huawei IP Club Carnival held during MWC Barcelona 2024, Huawei and The Tolly Group unveiled the test report for the Level 4 (L4) data center autonomous driving network solution. The report reveals that Huawei's solution received an impressive overall score of 4.02 (out of 5.0), and is the only solution in the industry evaluated by Tolly to implement L4 data center autonomous driving. According to Tolly's evaluations based on the data center network autonomous driving index system, Huawei CloudFabric solution demonstrates exceptional performance in deployment efficiency and accuracy, usability, maintainability, reliability, and network performance optimization. Arthur Wang, President of the Data Center Network Domain at Huawei Data Communication Product Line, attributes the evolution of Huawei's data center autonomous driving network solution from L3.5 to L4 to the company's profound understanding of customer pain points and service scenarios across industries such as finance, government, and manufacturing, as well as its joint innovation projects with leading customers. He underscores Huawei's steadfast commitment to collaborating with customers and industry partners to advance data center networks into the era of highly autonomous driving. Kevin Tolly, Founder and CEO of The Tolly Group, has praised Huawei's super-connectivity CloudFabric 3.0 solution for introducing the network digital map functionality into data center networks. This innovation offers significant benefits in terms of unified orchestration, simulation, and verification, as well as integrated application and network O&M for multi-cloud heterogeneous networks. Additionally, it extends intelligent O&M capabilities from general-purpose computing networks to multi-architecture computing networks that include both intelligent and general-purpose computing. The test report not only underscores Huawei's innovation and leadership in the data center autonomous driving network field, but also provides a clear development trajectory for enterprises embarking on intelligent digital transformation. Looking ahead, Huawei will continue to collaborate with industry partners to promote the widespread adoption of L4 data center autonomous driving network technologies. This concerted effort aims to accelerate data center networks towards the autonomous driving era, characterized by agile business operations, unparalleled user experience, and streamlined O&M efficiency. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349856/image.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/mwc-2024--huawei-and-the-tolly-group-release-test-report-for-l4-data-center-autonomous-driving-network-solution-302073946.html - Experience-Centric, Accelerating your Digital and Intelligent Journey BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- During the Mobile World Congress 2024, Huawei released the High-Quality 10 Gbps Campus Network Construction White Paper supported by WBA (Wireless Broadband Alliance) at the summit themed "Huawei Intelligent Cloud-Network, Accelerating Industrial Intelligence". This white paper puts forwards the philosophy of experience-centric campus network construction; it also delves into how Huawei's High-Quality 10 Gbps CloudCampus Solution offers three types of experience upgrade - wireless, application, and Operations and Maintenance (O&M) - to accelerate enterprises' digital and intelligent journey. Driven by both technologies and applications, enterprises see three major changes amid their digital and intelligent transformation: fully-wireless terminals, always-assured applications, and intelligent O&M. To keep up with these changes, campus networks need to evolve from connectivity-centric to experience-centric. Huawei meets this by launching the experience-centric High-Quality 10 Gbps CloudCampus that stands out with the following three types of experience upgrade: Wireless experience upgrade : Huawei's all-scenario Wi-Fi 7 is the first in the industry, facilitating the upgrade of wireless networks. The tested rate of a single terminal is up to 4.33 Gbps, which is twice that of Wi-Fi 6E. Ultra-large files can be downloaded in seconds. The exclusive converged scheduling technology significantly improving the concurrency efficiency and supporting 30-channel 4K VR courses without dizziness. : Huawei's all-scenario Wi-Fi 7 is the first in the industry, facilitating the upgrade of wireless networks. The tested rate of a single terminal is up to 4.33 Gbps, which is twice that of Wi-Fi 6E. Ultra-large files can be downloaded in seconds. The exclusive converged scheduling technology significantly improving the concurrency efficiency and supporting 30-channel 4K VR courses without dizziness. Application experience upgrade : The exclusive application experience assurance solution elastically slices traffic to build fast lanes to ensure zero frame freezing for key applications. The exclusive VIP experience assurance solution enables VIP users to enjoy exclusive network lanes, ensuring zero impact on VIP user experience. : The exclusive application experience assurance solution elastically slices traffic to build fast lanes to ensure zero frame freezing for key applications. The exclusive VIP experience assurance solution enables VIP users to enjoy exclusive network lanes, ensuring zero impact on VIP user experience. O&M experience upgrade: The industry's first campus digital map, which is a four-dimensional map of networks, users, terminals, and applications, visualizes E2E experience, improving O&M efficiency by 10 times. The optimal energy-saving period can be automatically recommended based on traffic tidal prediction, improving energy efficiency and saving energy by 30%. This white paper explores the new campus network trends and maps out the campus network evolution direction for enterprises to accelerate their digital and intelligent journey. As new technologies and application scenarios emerge one after another, high-quality 10 Gbps campus networks will become an important infrastructure and the preferred choice for enterprises. For more information about this white paper, click here. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349847/image.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/huawei-releases-the-high-quality-10-gbps-campus-network-construction-white-paper-supported-by-wba-302073957.html BEIJING, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from People's Daily Xiamen in southeast China's Fujian province is a typical bay city. It rises from the sea, drawn into its embrace. The ecological conservation of bay cities is a global issue. Xiamen is rich in marine resources, but its sea area is small, which has been subjected to intense development and frequent economic activities. As a result, the city's marine ecosystem was once fragile. On March 30, 1988, Xi Jinping, who then served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Xiamen Municipal Committee and executive vice mayor of Xiamen, chaired a special meeting on cleaning up the Yundang Lake in Xiamen. The meeting is believed as the start of the comprehensive treatment of the lake that has lasted more than 30 years so far. It also started Xiamen's ecological protection and restoration of sea, river basins, and the entire region, as well as coordinated efforts on land and at sea to improve the city's marine ecological environment. While advancing the comprehensive treatment of the Yundang Lake, Xiamen launched cooperation with the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) in 1994 for integrated coastal management. It successfully developed a model featuring in-advance legislation, centralized coordination, technological support, integrated law enforcement and public participation, which has been recognized by the International Maritime Organization as the "Xiamen Model." This model for integrated coastal management in Xiamen, along with efforts for the River Thames in Britain and the Boston Harbor in the U.S., has been highlighted by the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection as three exemplary global cases that show that determined, coordinated action can produce benefits even in large urban areas, where development and population pressures are concentrated. The "Xiamen Model" has been widely promoted internationally and has had a significant impact. Over the past 30 years, Xiamen has gradually built a "circle of friends" to share its ideas and experiences, actively participating in global marine governance. The city has conducted training courses in Costa Rica on topics such as mariculture technology and marine spatial planning. It has also collaborated with Thailand on beach restoration in Pattaya and established a joint marine ecology station in North Sulawesi province, Indonesia. "The practices of Xiamen in marine ecological conservation provide valuable references for other countries and regions. This is a meaningful step in the history of global marine governance," said PEMSEA Chair Emeritus Chua Thia-Eng. In October 2005, an international marine city forum was held in Xiamen, and since 2007 it has been officially upgraded to the World Ocean Week in Xiamen. The event has become one of the most important platforms globally for promoting water cooperation and exchanges. Today, the World Ocean Week in Xiamen has been held for 18 consecutive years and has gradually developed into an international annual event that combines ocean-themed forums, professional exhibitions, and ocean cultural carnivals. Many important collaborations on the ocean took place in the grand event, and many significant achievements were born there. It has collaborated with important international programs such as the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and established a long-term cooperation mechanism with the Global Ocean Negative Carbon Emissions program. The International Digital Twins of the Ocean Summit 2023 was held during the World Ocean Week in Xiamen, which used data to create a virtual ocean and provide a strong digital foundation for the development of the ocean economy and ecological protection. The Digital Deep-Sea Typical Habitats major scientific program was officially announced during the 2023 World Ocean Week in Xiamen, bringing together top scientists around the world to explore the deep sea. "I am very encouraged by Xiamen's active participation in international ocean cooperation," said Peter Thomson, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Ocean, when attending the opening ceremony of the World Ocean Week in Xiamen in November 2023. It was the third time for him to join the event. Xiamen is deeply involved in global ocean governance, fostering "blue partnerships" and strengthening cooperation with relevant countries and regions in areas such as marine resource development and marine ecological restoration. It has collaborated with ASEAN countries on the seaweed industry and the construction of marine protected area networks. It has also joined forces with BRICS countries to establish a BRICS ocean sustainable development research center. Additionally, Xiamen has partnered with multiple countries' marine authorities, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Solomon Islands, as well as the UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission's Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific, to launch the Blue Citizen Initiative and incorporated it into the deliverables of maritime cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. Furthermore, the Secretariat of the PEMSEA Network of Local Governments has permanently settled in Xiamen. Through these efforts, Xiamen aims to contribute Chinese wisdom and solutions to addressing global marine ecological issues, and to provide solutions for the protection and sustainable development of the world's marine environment. "I find China's ecological civilization approach to be very inspiring," said Thomson, adding that Xiamen, once a participant in international programs, should take the lead in certain areas of marine conservation. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349839/20240228162432.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349840/20240228162437.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/chinas-xiamen-a-successful-practice-of-sustainable-development-in-bay-city-302073971.html HONG KONG, Feb 28, 2024 - (ACN Newswire) - The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) welcomes the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) 2024-25 budget.The budget introduces a number of measures to boost Hong Kong's economic growth and promote the continued development of SMEs and start-ups. These measures offer wide-ranging support to help SMEs manage their cash flow and accelerate their transformation, attract high-value added industries, capital and international talent to Hong Kong as well as promote green and digital transformation.HKTDC Chairman Dr Peter K N Lam said: "At the HKTDC, our mission is to support SMEs and provide them with opportunities to grow and transform. We welcome the HKSAR Government's initiative to extend the application period and increase the total guarantee commitment for the SME Financing Guarantee Scheme, and make continuous enhancements and inject more funds to the Dedicated Fund on Branding, Upgrading and Domestic Sales ("BUD Fund"). Aside from these initiatives, the introduction of enhancement measures for profit tax will also assist SMEs to tackle their capital flow challenges and accelerate their transformation."The HKTDC will work closely with the HKSAR Government to further promote Hong Kong's strengths and eight centre advantages, move towards a green and digital future and create opportunities for Hong Kong's industries to ensure the continued growth of the city's economy. We will also reinforce Hong Kong's important role as a two-way business and investment hub.The budget reiterated Hong Kong's role as a leading business platform for the Belt and Road Initiative. The HKTDC's global network of 50 offices covers the Belt and Road's main markets, from ASEAN to Africa, from Europe to South America. This year, we will set up two additional consultant offices along the Belt and Road to connect Hong Kong businesses with arising opportunities.Dr Lam added that the next 10 years will be a "golden decade" for the Belt and Road. The HKTDC will continue to be guided by the eight major steps of the Belt and Road Initiative, as announced by President Xi Jinping in 2023, and leverage our global network and major events to help Hong Kong businesses explore the Belt and Road market.The HKTDC supports SMEs' development and expansion via a range of support programmes, including the Transformation Sandbox (T-box), GoGBA one-stop platform and Digital Academy.In the 2024-25 financial year, we will provide support to SMEs according to four main directions:- Assist SMEs to seize opportunities brought about by the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the country's 14th Five-Year Plan;- Capture arising opportunities in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and other emerging markets, especially ASEAN and the Middle East;- Help SMEs achieve digital and green transformation; and- Enrich international business people's stay in Hong Kong, enhance digital offerings in HKTDC exhibitions and conferences, and provide a seamless online and offline experience for event participants.Media enquiriesPlease contact the HKTDC's Communications & Public Affairs Department:Agnes Wat, Tel: (852) 2584 4554, Email: agnes.ky.wat@hktdc.orgSam Ho, Tel: (852) 2584 4569, Email: sam.sy.ho@hktdc.orgAbout HKTDCThe Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body established in 1966 to promote, assist and develop Hong Kong's trade. With 50 offices globally, including 13 in Mainland China, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a two-way global investment and business hub. The HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to create business opportunities for companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in the mainland and international markets. The HKTDC also provides up-to-date market insights and product information via research reports and digital news channels. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Twitter @hktdc and LinkedInSource: HKTDCCopyright 2024 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. SHANGHAI, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's first C919 aircraft, with the registration number B-919A and owned by China Eastern Airlines, wrapped up its first international debut at the Singapore Airshow on Feb. 26. It returned to Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport from Singapore Changi Airport after flying five hours. During the 6-day Singapore Airshow, China Eastern Airline's C919 was mainly displayed statically. Visitors included professional audiences, aviation enthusiasts, as well as leaders and senior professionals from aircraft manufacturers, aviation service providers, and companies engaged in the aviation industrial chain. Many guests showed great interest in inquiring about the details inside the cabin. Some "fans" of the aircraft even came to see it several times. The areas under the wings, near the landing gears, and in front of the nose were popular photo spots for visitors. The aircraft flew from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport to Singapore at 1:49 on Feb. 17, and joined the airshow together with C919 and ARJ21 aircraft from the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China and other parties. It marked the first time for the aircraft to fly overseas and make its overseas airshow debut. The C919 aircraft was also acclaimed as "one of the most anticipated products" at the Singapore Airshow this time. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349891/1_C919.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349892/2_C919.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/worlds-first-c919-jet-owned-by-china-eastern-airlines-completes-first-overseas-debut-302074025.html Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - CopperEx Resources Corp. (TSXV: CUEX) (the "Company" or "CopperEx") provides results from the recently completed surface trenching (and rock chip sampling) program centered on the Sorpresa Trend within the Franja del Oro gold target which now consists of at least two parallel gold trends (Agua de la Piedra "ADLP" and Sorpresa) which is defined by approximately 15 kilometers of discontinuously outcropping, gold-bearing clastic sedimentary rocks located in the northwest portion of the 23 by 13-kilometer (20,800 hectare) Exploradora Norte Project located in Northern Chile (Figure 1). Highlights: Table 1: Significant Trench Intercepts TRENCH FROM (m) TO (m) INTERVAL (m) GOLD CUT OFF NAME (meters) (meters) (meters) (g/t) (ppm) ST-01-E 75 140 65 0.04 0.025 ST-01-W 0 25 25 0.04 0.025 ST-03 70 165 95 0.24 0.05 Incl. 90 112.5 22.5 0.59 0.125 Incl. 127.5 137.5 10 0.55 0.125 ST-04 12.5 140 127.5 0.04 0.025 Incl. 52.5 70 17.5 0.12 0.05 CopperEx's Trenching program defined gold and arsenic anomalism over 4.9 kilometers in the Sorpresa Trend which is part of the Companies broader Franja del Oro gold target. Gold mineralization in the Sorpresa Trend is oxidized and exposed at surface and has not previously been drilled. The Sorpresa Trend will be tested by 3 holes drilled as part of an upcoming drill campaign focused on the Franja del Oro gold target. Dave Prins, President & CEO of CopperEx stated, "The results from the surface trenching along the Sorpresa Trend significantly increase the Franja del Oro target potential to host a large bulk tonnage oxidized gold resource. This work has established that the Franja del Oro target contains multiple north-south trending parallel zones of gold mineralization with inadequately tested depth potential. We are scheduled to commence drilling this extremely compelling surface gold target, "Franja de Oro", in the very near future." 2023/2024 Trenching Program A total of 463 surface rock geochemical samples were collected from 12 trenches and outboard surface rock sampling along the Sorpresa Trend (Figure 2; Tables 1-4). The objective of the trenching campaign was to test the gold grade and continuity of the Sorpresa Trend and to delineate the extent of gold and arsenic geochemical anomalism. The Sorpresa Trend trenching campaign tested the potential of mid Jurassic fossiliferous limestones, calcareous sandstones, and siltstones and associated stocks and dikes (dacite, diorite and quartz diorite) to host bulk tonnage oxide gold mineralization. The sedimentary rocks at Sorpresa are folded into a series of anticlinal and synclinal geometries that have north-south trending axes. Gold mineralization is associated with advanced argillic alteration, iron oxides including jarosite and goethite, black and white calcite stockwork veinlets (distal) and quartz and barite veinlets (proximal) and locally vuggy silica. Trench sampling and surface rock sample results at Sorpresa returned anomalous gold and arsenic geochemistry over a total distance of 4.9 kilometers and identified significant mineralized intercepts in trenches ST-01-E, ST-01-W, ST-03 and ST-04 (Figures 2-4; Tables 1-2). The variability in gold grades across the trenches suggests that the zone may be offset vertically and laterally across the trend. This apparent offset may explain the variability in gold and arsenic values (north-south) because of the juxtaposition of different erosional levels of the system (Figure 2) Previous Drilling and Trenching at Franja del Oro (ADLP and Sorpresa Trends) Historic drilling in this area by Aur Resources / Arizona Star returned the following results (1): AP-01: 65m @ 1.59gpt (from surface) AP-02: 60m @ 2.02gpt (starting at 59m) AP-10: 24m @ 1.22gpt (starting at 94m) The historical drill results are from the adjacent north-south trending ADLP Zone located approximately 1,300 meters west of the Sorpresa Trend. These results demonstrate that surface gold mineralization exposed at surface within at Franja del Oro (e.g., ADLP and Sorpresa) has the potential for significant depth continuity with robust grades. In addition, CopperEx conducted trenching and sampling in 2023 at the northern extent of the Sorpresa Trend and obtained: 43.4m @ 0.98gpt Au including 22.0 meters @ 1.40 g/t Au and 12.0 meters @ 1.72 g/t Au3,4 Figure 1: Exploradora Norte - Location Map. Note: The deposits and projects shown outside of the CopperEx land position provide geologic context for the CopperEx's Property, but this is not necessarily indicative that the Property hosts similar grades or tonnages of mineralization. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10257/199586_c52310e1f42d4b78_002full.jpg Figure 2: Exploradora Norte - Sorpresa Trend, Franja del Oro Target. Note: The deposits and projects shown outside of the CopperEx land position provide geologic context for the CopperEx's Property, but this is not necessarily indicative that the Property hosts similar grades or tonnages of mineralization. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10257/199586_c52310e1f42d4b78_003full.jpg Figure 3: Au Creek Trench Results and Cross Section1. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10257/199586_c52310e1f42d4b78_004full.jpg Figure 4: Trench ST-03 Results and Cross Section. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10257/199586_c52310e1f42d4b78_005full.jpg Figure 5: Trench ST-04 Results and Cross Section. To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10257/199586_c52310e1f42d4b78_006full.jpg Table 2: Trench Intercepts. TRENCH FROM TO LENGTH GOLD CUT OFF NAME (meters) (meters) (meters) (g/t) (ppm) ST-01-E 75.00 140.00 65.00 0.04 0.025 ST-01-W 0.00 25.00 25.00 0.04 0.025 ST-02 NO SIGNIFICANT RESULTS ST-03 70.00 165.00 95.00 0.24 0.050 Incl. 90.00 112.50 22.50 0.59 0.125 Incl. 127.50 137.50 10.00 0.55 0.125 ST-04 12.50 140.00 127.50 0.04 0.025 Incl. 52.50 70.00 17.50 0.12 0.050 ST-05-E NO SIGNIFICANT RESULTS ST-05-W NO SIGNIFICANT RESULTS ST-06 NO SIGNIFICANT RESULTS ST-07-E NO SIGNIFICANT RESULTS ST-07-W NO SIGNIFICANT RESULTS ST-08-E NO SIGNIFICANT RESULTS ST-08-W NO SIGNIFICANT RESULTS Table 3: 2.5 Meter Composite Rock Samples Collected Outboard of Trenches. SAMPLE EASTING NORTHING ELEVATION GOLD ARSENIC ANTIMONY MERCURY ID (meters) (meters) (meters) (ppm) (ppm) (ppm) (ppm) 2008468 474716 7160034 3563 0.05 16 2.5 0.005 2008469 474687 7160022 3555 0.01 15 2.5 0.22 2008471 474680 7160018 3553 0.01 509 17 0.19 2008472 475160 7159197 3500 0.01 68 2.5 0.005 2008473 474865 7159104 3498 0.01 33 2.5 0.2 2008474 474804 7159094 3489 0.23 14 2.5 0.005 2008475 474781 7159086 3487 0.01 35 2.5 0.07 2008476 474601 7159077 3457 0.01 1155 7 0.005 2008477 474589 7159070 3457 0.01 564 2.5 0.005 2008478 474573 7159049 3460 0.01 841 2.5 0.04 2008482 474337 7160666 3477 0.01 14 2.5 0.23 2008483 474387 7160690 3488 0.01 13 2.5 0.27 2008484 474449 7160697 3509 0.01 17 2.5 0.03 2008485 474354 7160281 3473 0.01 12 2.5 0.005 2008486 474388 7160287 3484 0.01 10 2.5 0.12 2008487 474399 7160288 3488 0.01 11 2.5 0.2 2008489 474449 7161490 3513 0.01 179 11 0.005 2008490 474491 7161492 3541 0.03 186 18 0.005 2008491 474554 7161501 3578 0.03 254 20 0.005 2008492 474520 7161526 3560 0.01 207 17 0.2 2008493 474465 7162074 3519 0.03 125 33 0.25 2008494 474439 7162095 3521 0.37 250 71 0.16 2008495 474573 7162639 3542 0.17 2134 42 0.11 2008496 474553 7162641 3532 1.06 2358 174 0.05 2008497 474539 7162644 3525 0.74 1388 82 0.16 2008499 474549 7163084 3520 0.01 32 2.5 0.14 2008500 474801 7163579 3555 0.02 493 2.5 0.17 2008501 474688 7163590 3521 0.04 569 15 0.23 2008502 474634 7163591 3504 0.04 711 12 0.19 2008503 474710 7163593 3530 0.02 333 2.5 0.04 2008504 474723 7163594 3535 0.03 700 10 0.24 QA/QC Methods and Procedures. All rock samples have been sent to AAA CHILE Ltd. ("AAA") in Santiago Chile, for preparation and analysis. AAA meets all requirements of International Standards ISO/IEC 17025:2005 and ISO 9001:2015 for analytical procedures. Trench samples were collected on 2.5 meter centers, and sample mid-points were marked with metal tags (including sample identification) and assigned a GPS location. Samples were analyzed using AAA's Fire Assay Fusion method (Au-AA24) with an AA finish for gold and by a 48-element four acid digest ICP-AES analysis (MS61) with additional analysis for Ore Grade Elements (ME-OG62) and Ore Grade Cu (Cu-OG62). Results are be reported in parts per million (ppm) and converted to percent (%), or grams per tonne (g/t) where applicable. In addition to AAA Laboratory quality assurance- quality control (QA/QC) protocols, CopperEx implements an internal QA/QC program that includes inserting fine and coarse blank samples (3.3%), inserting OREAS series standards (total 2.3%, including of OREAS 153, OREAS 501b, OREAS 523, OREAS 606, OREAS 607, OREAS 608 and OREAS 620) and duplicate samples in the field and laboratory (2.0%), obtaining a total of 7.7% laboratory control. All scientific and technical information in this news release has been approved by Daniel MacNeil, PGeo, Technical Advisor to the Company. Mr. MacNeil is a qualified person for the purposes of NI 43-101. Some of the drilling and trench results disclosed in this news release relates to historical results on the Exploradora Norte Property. CopperEx has not undertaken any independent investigation of the historic sampling, nor has it independently analyzed the results of the historical exploration work to verify the results. CopperEx considers these historical drill results relevant as the Company is using this data as a guide to plan exploration programs. The Company's current and future exploration work includes verification of the historical data through drilling. Additional information about CopperEx and its Projects can be found on the Company's website at copperexcorp.com, and at www.sedar.com, or email info@copperexcorp.com. On behalf of the Board of Directors CopperEx Resources Corp. Dave Prins President & CEO For further information contact: info@copperexcorp.com +1 (604) 646-4527 Table 4: Trench Collar and Survey Information. TRENCH EASTING NORTHING ELEVATION DIP AZIMUTH LENGTH NAME (meters) (meters) (meters) (degrees) (meters) (meters) ST-01-E 474759 7163506 3559 -21.1 289 140 ST-01-W 474618 7163519 3555 -32.5 297 25 ST-02 474562 7163083 3521 -15.2 248 87.5 ST-03 474531 7162142 3546 -12.3 238 175 ST-04 474439 7161429 3523 -24.4 95 140 ST-05-E 474614 7161038 3597 -19.9 270 10 ST-05-W 474537 7161021 3552 -29.2 249 90 ST-06 474564 7160467 3547 -16.7 254 120 ST-07-E 474801 7159980 3576 -14.1 254 30 ST-07-W 474725 7159960 3551 -16.8 257 55 ST-08-E 475155 7159027 3551 -6.94 53 80 ST-08-W 474627 7159002 3479 -4.30 266 120 About CopperEx Resources Corp. CopperEx is a copper and gold focused exploration company with three porphyry and porphyry related gold and copper projects located in Chile and Peru in established mineral belts near producing mines. The Company's Flagship Property, Exploradora Norte, located in Northern Chile, has multiple high quality drill ready targets. At Exploradora Norte, CopperEx has the option to earn 65% and a Preferred Option for an additional 35% with no attached royalty. In addition to the Exploradora Norte property, CopperEx owns 100% of its Kio Buggy (Northern Chile) and La Rica (Apurimac province Peru) properties, also with no attached royalties. The CopperEx Exploradora Norte property is immediately adjacent to the north and east of the Codelco Exploradora property which hosts a resource estimated by Codelco to contain 190-280 Mt @ 0.40% Cu.(2) The Company's priority is to drill the advanced exploration Franja Del Oro Target at Exploradora Norte and includes the Sorpresa and Agua de la Piedra (ADLP) sub sectors, and the surrounding favorable host rocks which remain significantly underexplored. Exploradora Norte Advanced Exploration Targets. The Franja del Oro target contains sediment hosted gold mineralization with associated replacement textures and alteration consistent with epithermal gold deposits that form distal to a porphyry copper-gold system (Figure 2). Gold mineralization at Franja del Oro is widespread, with values up to 3.97 ppm Au at ADLP3,4 (Trench AT-04; Figure 3) and values up to 4.57 ppm Au at Sorpresa3,4 (Au-Creek-Trench; Figure 4). The Franja del Oro target hosts multiple parallel, north trending stratigraphically and structurally controlled mineralized zones (Figure 2). CopperEx has conducted extensive exploration along 4-kilometer-long north-south trending segments of the high priority Sorpresa and Agua de la Piedra ("ADLP") zones to assess surface gold grades and continuity (along strike) and to define individual drill targets (Figures 2-4). CopperEx has identified gold mineralization over approximately 7 kilometers on the ADLP system (surface rock geochemical results). CopperEx leveraged the correlation between gold and arsenic to expand the geochemical footprint of the Franja del Oro target using Portable XRF technology to approximately 15 kilometers (and remains open). Peuco - Porphyry Copper Gold target: Geochemical and geophysical anomalies spatially associated with tourmaline breccia bodies with values up to 1.69 ppm Au3,4 (Figure 2). Copper rock surface samples range from laboratory below detection to 1,021 ppm3,4. Breccias consist of potassically altered porphyry clasts in quartz-tourmaline matrix associated with peripheral polymetallic veins and skarn alteration. Florencia Copper Gold target - Centered on a NW-SE trending structural corridor extending to the Exploradora porphyry Cu deposit (Codelco) ~5 km to the NW. IP Geophysical features (resistivity and chargeability) suggest the potential for porphyry style copper-gold mineralization at depth. Epithermal style quartz veins and breccia, alteration, and geochemical anomalism exist at surface (up to 1.02 ppm Au & 1,320 ppm Cu3,4; see Figure 2). Strategic Alliances. CopperEx is a member of Discovery Group based in Vancouver, Canada. For more information please visit: discoverygroup.ca. Notes: (1) Source: Arizona Star press release dated June 12, 2001, on www.sedar.com. (2) Source: www.codelco.com/prontus_codelco/site/docs/20220808/20220808110240/fexmin_brochure.pdf (3) Source: https://www.sedarplus.ca/csaparty/records/document.html?id=1069427aeb203d76b95101c88e7bc8bde983e42c05518680d0d90c1c90b04209 (4) Note: Gold values at ADLP range from 0.01 (detection limit) to 3.97 ppm, gold values at Sorpresa range from 0.01 (detection limit) to 4.57 ppm, gold values at Peuco range from 0.01 (detection limit) to 1.69 ppm and gold ranges from 0.01 (detection limit) to 1.02 ppm at Florencia Copper Gold. Copper values range from 0.5 ppm copper (detection limit) to 1,021 ppm at Peuco and 0.5 ppm (detection limit) to 1,320 ppm at Florencia Copper Gold. Cautionary Note. 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 Information. Forward-Looking Statement (Safe Harbor Statement): This press release contains forward looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "expect", "estimate", "objective", "may", "will", "project", "should", "predict", "potential" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking statements. In particular, this press release contains forward looking statements concerning the Company's exploration plans. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company cannot give any assurance that they will prove correct. Since forward looking statements address future events and conditions, they involve inherent assumptions, risks, and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of assumptions, factors, and risks. These assumptions and risks include, but are not limited to, assumptions and risks associated with conditions in the equity financing markets, and assumptions and risks regarding receipt of regulatory and shareholder approvals. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199586 SOURCE: CopperEx Resources Corporation New research empowers security professionals to secure against cloud-focused threat actors. Cado Security, provider of the first cloud forensics and incident response platform, today announced the release of the Cado Security Labs H2 2023 Cloud Threat Findings Report, sharing deep insights into the cloud threat landscape to help security teams remain at the forefront of securing their organizations against the latest threats. "We are very excited to deliver our half-yearly cloud threat findings report, which provides a detailed overview of significant discoveries made by the Cado Security Labs team over the last six months," said Chris Doman, CTO and Co-Founder of Cado Security. "With this report, we aim to help security professionals better understand how attackers exploit cloud-based technologies and, in turn, enable them to build a more robust internal security program." Cado Security Labs operates honeypot infrastructure across four distinct geographical regions to collect cloud attacker telemetry. The latter half of 2023 saw the introduction of "Cloudypots," a new, more sophisticated, high-interaction honeypot system that allows researchers to honeypot accurate services quickly and safely. As commercial adoption of cloud technologies continues, cloud-focused malware campaigns have increased in sophistication and number a collective effort to safeguard both large and small enterprises is critical. Security teams need to reassess their internal tools and approaches to ensure their ability to correctly identify, investigate, and respond to emerging cloud threats. The report provides insights into the second half of 2023, an analysis of real-world techniques employed by attackers, an overview of novel malware campaigns found in the wild targeting cloud environments, including Qubitstrike, Legion, Blackcat, Bioset, Cetus, P2Pinfect, and 9hits. Key technical findings from attacker telemetry, which Cado Security covers in detail within the report, include: Attackers target cloud services that require specialist technical knowledge to exploit. Attackers are increasingly targeting services, such as Docker, Redis, Kubernetes, and Jupyter, that require expert technical knowledge to exploit, different from what's required for attacking generic Linux servers. Attackers are increasingly targeting services, such as Docker, Redis, Kubernetes, and Jupyter, that require expert technical knowledge to exploit, different from what's required for attacking generic Linux servers. Docker is the most commonly exploited "cloud-native" service for initial access. Although cloud-focused attackers aim to exploit various services typically deployed in cloud environments, Docker remains the most frequently targeted for initial access, with 90.65% of honeypot traffic when discounting SSH. Although cloud-focused attackers aim to exploit various services typically deployed in cloud environments, Docker remains the most frequently targeted for initial access, with 90.65% of honeypot traffic when discounting SSH. Threat actors leverage hosting companies across the globe for their infrastructure. Identified malware campaigns, such as P2Pinfect, had a wide geographical distribution with nodes belonging to providers in China, the US, and Germany, which shows that regardless of where your infrastructure is located, it is still susceptible to Linux and cloud-focused attacks. Identified malware campaigns, such as P2Pinfect, had a wide geographical distribution with nodes belonging to providers in China, the US, and Germany, which shows that regardless of where your infrastructure is located, it is still susceptible to Linux and cloud-focused attacks. Cryptojacking is no longer the sole focus of cloud attackers. While cryptojacking is a legitimate and significant threat, Cado Security Labs has started to see a diversification in objectives displayed by recent Linux and cloud malware campaigns. For example, with the discovery of new Linux variants of ransomware families, such as Abyss Locker, there is a worrying trend of ransomware on Linux and ESXi systems. Cloud and Linux infrastructure is now subject to a broader variety of attacks. Other observations also include: Attackers continue to exploit web-facing services in cloud environments to help them gain access to cloud environments and invest significant time into hunting for misconfigured deployments of these services. to help them gain access to cloud environments and invest significant time into hunting for misconfigured deployments of these services. Rust malware continues to increase as the language gains popularity in general software development and will also become increasingly popular in the malware community, with threat actors increasingly developing malicious payloads in Rust. To ensure effective and efficient cloud incident handling, Cado Security Labs recommends that security teams establish a policy of regularly reviewing the security of deployed services in their cloud estate, reduce the attack surface by only deploying public-facing services when necessary, and use networking security features provided by their Cloud Service Provider (CSP), collect and aggregate logs from CSP's control plane and for the individual services intended to run in their accounts, and hold a periodic review and automated alerting for anomalies found in these log sources. To download the full report, visit https://offers.cadosecurity.com/h2-2023-threat-findings-report. About Cado Security Cado Security provides the first cloud forensics and incident response platform. By leveraging the scale and speed of the cloud, the Cado platform automates forensic-level data capture and processing across cloud, container, and serverless environments. Only Cado empowers security teams to respond at cloud speed. Backed by Eurazeo, Blossom Capital, and Ten Eleven Ventures, Cado Security has offices in the United States and the United Kingdom. For more information, please visit https://www.cadosecurity.com/ and follow us on Twitter @CadoSecurity. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228335536/en/ Contacts: Michelle Yusupov Hi-Touch PR 443-857-9468 yusupov@hi-touchpr.com New Issuer enables Kubernetes cert-manager users to quickly obtain trusted TLS certificates GMO GlobalSign, Inc., a global Certificate Authority (CA) and leading provider of identity security, digital signing and IoT solutions, today announced the availability of an Issuer for Kubernetes cert-manager. Made possible with an integration from GMO GlobalSign's certificate management platform, Atlas, the new Issuer enables cert-manager users to quickly obtain trusted TLS (X.509) certificates, improving the security of Kubernetes workflows. With 5 million daily downloads, the popular open source enterprise tool simplifies the process of certificate issuance and management in Kubernetes. Kubernetes' cert-manager issues certificates from a variety of sources such as GMO GlobalSign. The new integration solves the problem of Kubernetes workloads running with insecure capabilities in production environments. Many enterprises use Kubernetes for managing production workloads but they run them with insecure certificates, such as self-signed certificates to secure communications within the clusters. But now with GMO GlobalSign's Issuer for cert-manager, enterprises can obtain trusted TLS certificates to authenticate and secure communications within Kubernetes clusters hassle-free. "Our Issuer for Kubernetes cert-manager helps enterprises secure their Kubernetes clusters, no matter the type of project that it involves. It provides a trusted TLS certificate that is easily, and automatically, installed," said Yateesh Bhardwaj, product manager, GMO GlobalSign. "We are also pleased to be one of the few players in the CA marketplace to introduce a trusted Issuer for cert-manager -- providing a seamless solution to secure your Kubernetes workloads." GMO GlobalSign's Issuer for cert-manager will appeal to a variety of software professionals, including DevOps engineers, infrastructure engineers, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) engineers and software engineers. The cert-manager Issuer is free and is available via GitHub at https://www.github.com/globalsign/atlas-cert-manager. About GMO GlobalSign As one of the world's most deeply-rooted certificate authorities, GMO GlobalSign is the leading provider of trusted identity and security solutions enabling businesses, large enterprises, cloud-based service providers, and IoT innovators worldwide to conduct secure online communications, manage millions of verified digital identities and automate authentication and encryption. Its high-scale Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and identity solutions support the billions of services, devices, people, and things comprising the IoT. GMO GlobalSign is a subsidiary of GMO GlobalSign Holdings, K.K., a member of the Japan-based GMO Internet Group, and has offices in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit https://www.globalsign.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228956784/en/ Contacts: Media Relations Amy Krigman Director of Public Relations West Region amy.krigman@globalsign.com Supervisory Board discloses findings of internal review and announces management change Company provides update on expected timing of filing its delayed form 20-F for FY 2022 VIA optronics AG (NYSE: VIAO) ("VIA" or the "Company"), a leading supplier of interactive display systems and solutions, today announced that its Supervisory Board has concluded its previously disclosed internal review of the Company's application of its compliance procedures and the investigation of certain incidents regarding compliance with Company policies and guidelines. As previously disclosed on November 17, 2023, the Company's continuing internal review process resulted in a further delay of the filing of its form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2022, with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission. At that time, the Company also disclosed that it had been granted an extended trading period by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) through May 16, 2024 in order to file its 20-F for FY 2022 ("2022 20-F"). Chief Executive Officer Roland Chochoiek commented, "We are pleased that the internal review process was finalized, and that the findings were disclosed and presented to our Supervisory Board. As we have stated previously, our leadership takes these matters seriously and we believe the actions we've taken to address these findings support this. The conclusion of the internal review process now enables us to proceed with the finalization of our delayed 2022 20-F, which we are endeavouring to file as soon as practicable." Conclusion and Findings of Internal Review The internal review was conducted by BDO AG Wirtschaftsprufungsgesellschaft ("BDO") and DLA Piper UK LLP ("DLA Piper" and, together with BDO, the "Advisors"), who were appointed by the Supervisory Board to investigate the potential incidents and to review compliance with Company policies and business guidelines during the period from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2022 (the "Investigation Period"). As previously disclosed, the Advisors' preliminary findings indicated deviations from the Company's compliance procedures during the Investigation Period primarily involving VIA's former Chief Executive Officer, Jurgen Eichner. In February 2024, the Advisors furnished a final report to the Supervisory Board which identified failures by Mr. Eichner and one other employee to comply with Company policies and business guidelines. In particular, the Advisors identified discrepancies that occurred during the Investigation Period in areas including expense recording and reimbursement, company credit card usage for personal transactions, the receipt of annual bonus payments in contravention of Mr. Eichner's service agreement, unearned compensation for vacation days, inadequate documentation of vehicle usage, and other unapproved payments made to Mr. Eichner. The Advisors believe that certain of these incidents may constitute fraud and/or embezzlement, and under German law, the Company is required to initiate legal claims for the reimbursement of any such improperly transferred sums. While the total value of the impermissible transactions and any consequential damages relating thereto remains under consideration, currently the Advisors have identified improper payments amounting to a minimum of between 300,000 to 500,000 that they believe could be subject to reimbursement, plus consequential damages. Based on these findings, the Supervisory Board determined that the actions taken by Mr. Eichner in connection with his service as VIA's former CEO were material violations of his fiduciary duties and led to a loss of trust. Accordingly, on February 23, 2024, the Supervisory Board terminated the service agreement between Mr. Eichner and VIA for "cause" and revoked the appointment of Mr. Eichner as a member of VIA's Management Board, effective immediately. About VIA: VIA is a leading provider of interactive display solutions for multiple end markets in which superior functionality or durability is a critical differentiating factor. Its customizable technology is well-suited for high-end markets with unique specifications and demanding environments that pose technical and optical challenges for displays, such as bright ambient light, vibration and shock, extreme temperatures, and condensation. VIA's interactive display systems combine system design, interactive displays, software functionality, cameras, and other hardware components. VIA's intellectual property portfolio, process know-how, optical bonding, metal mesh touch sensor and camera module technologies provide enhanced display solutions built to meet the specific needs of its customers. Forward Looking Statement Disclosure: Statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects, as well as any other statements regarding matters that are not historical facts, may constitute "forward-looking statements." These statements include, but are not limited to, statements relating to: estimates of the monetary value and scope of improper payments and damages related thereto; recoupment of improper payments and/or damages the Company may be able to claim or successfully obtain in future or anticipated litigation based on the Supervisory Board's findings; the anticipated filing of the 2022 20-F; and other statements that are not historical facts. The words, without limitation, "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "target," "will," "would" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these or similar identifying words. Forward-looking statements are based largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, short-term and long-term business operations and objectives, and financial needs. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statement. Important factors that could cause actual events to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements herein include actions taken or to be taken by the Supervisory Board or the Company's auditors in connection with the Supervisory Board's findings. In addition, the Supervisory Board's findings may require additional expenses to be recorded and may continue to adversely affect the Company's ability to file the 2022 20-F and other required reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") in the anticipated time frame or at all. Other important factors include the risks described under Item 3. "Key Information-D. Risk Factors," in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the financial year ended December 31, 2021, as filed with the SEC. Moreover, new risks emerge from time to time. It is not possible for our management to predict all risks, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements we may make. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. We caution you therefore against relying on these forward-looking statements, and we qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on the current expectations of VIA's management team and speak only as of the date hereof, and VIA specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228810120/en/ Contacts: Investor Relations for VIA: Griffin Morris Margaret Jones Alpha IR Group Phone: +1 312-445-2870 Email: VIAO@alpha-ir.com Media Contact: Alexandra Muller-Plotz Phone: +49-911-597 575-302 Email: AMueller-Ploetz@via-optronics.com To confront one of the most critical environmental challenges of our time and leverage the power of innovation to accelerate sustainable development, Alwaleed Philanthropies has launched Atlai, an AI-powered platform that provides monitoring and reporting to help combat deforestation globally. Atlai provides users around the world with access to data on deforestation. The platform is designed to document and raise awareness on deforestation activities wherever they are occurring. It aggregates historical data on deforestation by country, offering on-demand, easy-to-digest reports in seven languages including English, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, Italian, and Arabic. Deforestation is estimated to contribute up to 20% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions1. Forests provide integral carbon and biodiversity reservoirs, crucial for mitigating climate change and providing essential goods, services, and livelihoods. However, deforestation increased by 4% worldwide in 2022,2 with the world now 21% off-track on its goal of ending deforestation by 2030. In today's world, data is the foundation of good decision-making. Alwaleed Philanthropies believes that widespread access to climate data can be the catalyst for the engagement and action needed at all levels to address the climate emergency. Guided by the SDGs and Saudi Vision 2030, Atlai aims to close the knowledge gap faced by groups working to address deforestation, through the provision of accessible, actionable data at no cost. By completing a straightforward registration process, users gain immediate access to detailed reports delivered directly to their email. Environmental advocates and activists are encouraged to join the platform to receive updates curated to their interests, enabling them to closely monitor and stay informed about forest conditions worldwide. Today's launch builds on Alwaleed Philanthropies' commitment of 44 years to making a world of equal opportunities possible, through the transformative potential of innovation and collaboration. This has led to projects ranging from apps to empower women, to social experiments on prejudice within the Metaverse, as well as digitized networks with the world's most renowned academic institutions to bridge cultures for a more tolerant and inclusive world. In the face of major development challenges and a deepening climate emergency, AP has made it a priority to support a healthier environment. At the core of this ambition lies the guiding principle of Alwaleed Philanthropies' strategy: innovation is the key to addressing the most pressing climate challenges. Atlai is the first step in AP's efforts to invest in AI and emerging technologies to maximize impact, combat climate change, and build a healthier world for all. Reflecting on the launch, the Secretary-General of Alwaleed Philanthropies HRH Princess Lamia bint Majed Al Saud said: "In the face of escalating climate crises, the need for accessible, actionable data has never been greater. Deforestation poses an existential threat to our environment, and we currently lack easily accessible data to enable decision-making and find solutions. Atlai represents our philanthropic commitment to using innovation and collaboration to solve the world's most pressing issues. With Atlai, we look forward to harnessing the potential of AI to empower individuals and organizations around the world to become proactive agents of change in the fight against deforestation." About Alwaleed Philanthropies Over four decades, Alwaleed Philanthropies has supported and spent more than 4.4 billion dollars on social welfare and initiated more than 1000 projects in over +189 countries and reaching more than 1 billion beneficiaries around the world, regardless of gender, race, or religion. Managed by 10 Saudi women, Alwaleed Philanthropies collaborates with a range of philanthropic, governmental, and nongovernmental to combat poverty, empower women and youth, develop communities, provide disaster relief, and create cultural understanding through education. It seeks to build bridges for a more compassionate, tolerant, and accepting world. 1 Department of Geological and Environmental Studies, Stanford University 2 Forest Declaration Assessment Social media X LinkedIn Facebook View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228939361/en/ Contacts: Press contacts: Email: Alwaleedphilanthropies@portland-communications.com Phone: +447395622890 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Tinka Resources Limited ("Tinka" or the "Company") (TSXV:TK)(BVL:TK)(OTCQB:TKRFF) is pleased to announce the results from an updated Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") on the Company's 100%-owned polymetallic Ayawilca project ("Ayawilca" or the "Project") in central Peru. The updated PEA shows Ayawilca to be an excellent base metals project with significant enhancements from the previous PEA study. The Project now features a smaller, more efficient zinc-silver-lead plant, introduces a separate tin plant for additional revenue and commodity diversification and highlights the development path forward for Ayawilca to become a producing mine. PEA Highlights: Robust economics: After-tax Net Present Value (" NPV ") at 8% discount of US$434 million (pre-tax NPV8% of US$732 million) and after-tax Internal Rate of Return (" IRR ") of 25.9% (pre-tax IRR of 34.8%). ") at 8% discount of US$434 million (pre-tax NPV8% of US$732 million) and after-tax Internal Rate of Return (" ") of 25.9% (pre-tax IRR of 34.8%). Payback period after-tax of 2.9 years (pre-tax of 2.4 years). Initial Capital Expenditure (" Capex ") of US$382 million. ") of US$382 million. Long 21-year life of mine (" LOM ") for a 2.0 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) zinc-silver-lead operation with 15-years of tin production at 0.3 Mtpa. ") for a 2.0 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) zinc-silver-lead operation with 15-years of tin production at 0.3 Mtpa. Average C1 cash cost of US$0.55/pound zinc and all in sustaining cost (" AISC ") of US$0.68/ pound zinc. ") of US$0.68/ pound zinc. Average annual metal production (in concentrate) of 200 million pounds of zinc (90,000 tonnes Zn), 3.26 million pounds of tin (1,500 tonnes Sn), 560,000 ounces of silver and 5.7 million pounds of lead (2,590 tonnes Pb). Zinc Zone Indicated Mineral Resource tonnage increased 49% from the previous Mineral Resource estimate. Tin Zone Indicated Mineral Resource declared for the first time. Excellent location in a world-class mining jurisdiction, close to a zinc smelter and port. Compact mine footprint and planned use of filtered tailings technology provides the lowest risk and most water-efficient solution for tailings storage while 40% of tailings to be stored underground as backfill. Dr. Graham Carman, Tinka's President and CEO, stated: "We are very pleased to release the results of the updated 2024 PEA for the Ayawilca project. We believe the results of the PEA show Ayawilca to be an outstanding polymetallic project with several improvements from the previous study. While zinc continues to be the primary revenue source, Ayawilca's polymetallic nature includes important contributions from tin and silver providing valuable commodity diversification. The updated PEA is marked by the incorporation of a smaller, more efficient, zinc-silver-lead plant and a separate tin plant and a more compact mine footprint. Despite an increase in the initial capex, due to efficiencies in the mine design there was no significant impact on valuation. The strong financial metrics include an after-tax NPV8% of US$434 million, an after-tax IRR of 25.9%, and a post-tax payback period of only 2.9 years which highlight the potential for Ayawilca to become a producing mine." "A revised Mineral Resource estimation has significantly improved the level of confidence in the resource as a result of an additional 11,000 metres of drilling completed in 2023. The Zinc Zone Indicated Mineral Resource tonnage has increased 49% over the previous estimate while zinc content has increased by 22% and silver content by 45%. The Tin Inferred Mineral Resource has increased in tonnage and metal content by 51% and 13%, respectively, while a Tin Indicated Mineral Resource is declared for the first time. The Company has chosen to adopt the highest standard for reporting underground mine resources to satisfy the "Reasonable Prospects for Eventual Economic Extraction (RPEEE)" as required by CIM (2014) in the demonstration of spatial continuity of mineralization within potentially mineable shapes (i.e., stopes). With the market increasingly moving towards RPEEE resource reporting for underground deposits, we are adopting this method of resource reporting for the first time." "The use of filtered tailings is the lowest risk and most water-efficient solution for tailings storage at surface, and highlights our commitment to minimize environmental risks. The storage of a substantial quantity of tailings as backfill underground also reduces surface tailings storage, again helping to minimize the environmental impact." "There remains significant exploration potential for further discoveries at Ayawilca, and several of the resource bodies remain open at depth, with a potential feeder system remaining largely untested by drilling particularly at the Tin Zone." The results of the PEA update will be disclosed in an independent technical report in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and prepared by independent consulting firm SRK Consulting (UK) ("SRK") with specific subject matter expertise including Transmin Metallurgical consultants ("Transmin"), Envis Peru S.A.C. ("Envis") tailings consultants and MineFill Services ("MineFill") backfill consultants. SLR Consulting (Canada) Ltd ("SLR") has prepared the updated Mineral Resource estimate for the PEA update. A National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report ("the Technical Report") will be filed on SEDAR within 45 days. Note: The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as Mineral Reserves, and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized. Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. A summary of the key financial information for the updated PEA is provided in Table 1. Financial Summary - Base Case Pre-tax NPV (8% discount rate) IRR Payback period US$731.7 million 34.8% 2.4 years Pre-production capital expenditure (Capex)1 Sustaining Capex Life of Mine (LOM) Capex C1 Cash Cost / Pound of Payable Zinc All-in Sustaining Cost (AISC) / Pound of Payable Zinc Closure Cost US$382 million US$313 million US$695 million US$0.55 US$0.68 US$20 million Notes: 1 Includes contingencies of US$76 million. A summary of the Life of Mine (LOM) operating summary for the updated PEA is provided in Table 2. The after-tax cash flow by year of production is presented in Figure 1. Table 2. LOM Operating Summary for the updated PEA with Metal Prices assumptions Operating Summary Value Operating days per year Processing plant throughput Zn/Ag/Pb Processing plant throughput Sn Average annual zinc concentrate production Average annual tin concentrate production Average annual lead-silver concentrate production Average annual silver in lead concentrate Total LOM zinc in concentrate Net Smelter Return from zinc and lead concentrates Net Smelter Return from tin concentrate 360 days/year 2.0 Mtpa 0.3 Mtpa 180,000 dmt/year 3,000 dmt/year 5,500 dmt/year 0.56 million oz/year 1.9 million tonnes US$4,000 million US$460 million Mining costs (including backfill) Processing costs Zn/Ag/Pb Processing costs Sn Tailings G&A costs LOM Average Operating Cost (Zn/Ag/Pb) LOM Average Operating Cost (Sn) US$16.88/t US$11.00/t US$23.63/t US$0.94/t US$6.23/t US$35.06/t US$47.68/t Notes: dmt = dry metric tonne. Numbers may not add due to rounding. Base Case Metal Prices & Exchange Rate Assumptions Value Zinc Price Lead Price Silver Price Tin Price NSR Cut-off value - Zinc Zone and Silver Zone NSR Cut-off value - Tin Zone Exchange Rate - Peruvian SOL/USD US$1.30/lb US$1.00/lb US$22/oz US$11.00/lb US$60/t US$80/t 3.70 Total LOM tonnage processed 45.55 million tonnes Mine Life Zn/Ag/Pb Mine Life Sn 21 years 15 years Figure 1. Ayawilca 2024 PEA - After-Tax Cash Flow by Year of Production (in US$) Mining The Ayawilca Project is planned as an underground mine operation. For the purposes of the PEA, the Zinc Zone (together with the Silver Zone) will be mined at a rate of 2.0 Mtpa, whilst the Tin Zone will be mined at a rate of 0.3 Mtpa. Mining of both zinc and tin zones commence together with each feeding separate processing plants. The LOM is 21 years for the Zinc Zone and 15 years for the Tin Zone. Mining in the Zinc and Tin Zones will utilize a long hole open stoping ("LHOS") method in a transverse direction with level spacing ranging from 15 to 20 m. The Silver Zone uses LHOS in a longitudinal direction at a 20 m level spacing. A top-down overhand mining sequence is applied, working on top of paste-fill between sill pillars which are recovered. Three declines are planned from surface, initially two declines to access the South, Silver, and West areas and in later years the Central and East areas will be accessed by a third decline. The Tin Zones are also accessed through these planned declines. Production is assumed to commence following 18 months of construction and commissioning. The mine plan for the Zinc and Silver Zones is based on mining a total of 41.2 million tonnes grading 5.02% Zn, 17.3 g/t silver and 0.19% lead over a 21-year LOM using an NSR cut-off of US$60/t. The Tin Zone is based on mining a total of 4.32 million tonnes grading 0.92% tin over a 15-year LOM using an NSR cut-off of US$80. The mill feed will be trucked to the surface via multiple ramp systems connecting the three mine portals to the underground infrastructure and accessing production areas starting at the South and West areas of the Zinc Zone, the Silver Zone, and the high recovery area of the Tin Zone (see Figures 2 and 3). Figure 2. Mining Schedule for Zinc-Silver-Lead Plant (left) and Tin Plant (right) showing Average Grades by Year Figure 3. Oblique view of Ayawilca mine design and stopes showing LOM Schedule Metallurgy and Processing Processing of the zinc-rich mineralization will be through a conventional crushing and grinding circuit followed by froth flotation, concentrate thickening and filtration. Metallurgical test work indicates a zinc concentrate grading 50% zinc can be produced from Zinc and Silver Zones with 92% of the zinc in the Zinc Zone recovered to the zinc concentrate (see news release of June 5, 2019 ) , and 87% of the zinc in the Silver Zone recovered to the zinc concentrate. The lead concentrate is expected to contain 47% lead and average 3,140 g/t silver over the LOM. Based on preliminary metallurgical test work, 45% of the silver in the Zinc Zone is expected to report to the lead concentrate and be payable, while 40% of the silver is expected to report to the zinc concentrate and not be payable. In the Silver Zone, 85% of the silver (and 85% of the lead) is expected to report as a credit to a commercial lead concentrate. The zinc concentrate is expected to be a marketable concentrate with no deleterious elements other than an iron penalty. Concentrate grade assumptions and recoveries for the principal metals in the Zinc and Silver Zones are summarized in Table 3 below. Table 3. LOM Head Grades and Metallurgical Recoveries for the Zinc-Silver-Lead Circuit Product Zinc/Silver-Lead Concentrates Average Grade LOM Metallurgical Recoveries (%)1 Zinc (%) Lead (%) Silver (g/t) Av. NSR (US$/t) Zinc Lead Silver Feed grade Zinc Concentrate Lead Concentrate 5.02 50.0 4.0 0.19 0 to 0.1 47 17.3 0-100 3,1402 99 92/87 0 0 70/85 40/0 45/85 1 First number relates to recovery in Zinc Zone and second number to Silver Zone 2 Silver concentrate grades were calculated for the PEA and range from 897 to 5,849 g/t The first 200,000 wmt/a of zinc concentrates are assumed to be delivered directly to a local refinery (around 90% of LOM production); the balance is assumed to be sold to refineries in east Asia. The zinc concentrate also contains high indium (around 650 ppm In) and receives a US$20/dmt credit in concentrate shipped to Asia. All of the silver-lead concentrates are assumed to be sold overseas. Off-site charges include transport costs, treatment charges, refining charges, and iron penalties at refinery are summarized below in Table 4. Table 4. LOM Head Grade and Metallurgical Recovery for the Tin Circuit Product Average Grade LOM Metallurgical Recoveries (%) Tin (%) Av. NSR (US$/t) Tin - Coarse Tin - Fine Feed grade Tin Concentrate 0.92 50.0 106 90 50 Initial metallurgical testwork indicates that a tin concentrate grading 50% with 90% recovery can be produced from the high recovery (i.e., coarse tin) part of the Tin Zone, and a tin concentrate grading 50% with 50% recovery can be produced from the lower recovery (i.e., fine tin) part of the Tin Zone. The coarse tin represents 19% of the overall tin feed. The tin concentrates are anticipated to have markets in Asia and therefore all of the tin concentrate produced is assumed to be shipped overseas. Off-site charges include transport, treatment charges, refining charges, and penalties at refinery and summarized below in Table 5. Table 5. Off-Site Charges Description Zinc Concentrate Silver-Lead Concentrate Tin Concentrate Transport to Port/Local refinery Port Charges Shipping to overseas smelter (FOB) Local refinery Treatment Charge (TC) Overseas Treatment Charge (TC) Ag Refining Charge (RC) Indium Credit (Overseas only) Sulphur Penalty Iron Penalty US$40/wmt US$25/wmt US$45/wmt US$220/dmt US$220/dmt - US$20.00/dmt US$7.50/dmt US$40/wmt US$50/wmt US$15/wmt - US$50/dmt US$0.80/oz - US$40/wmt US$50/wmt US$15/wmt - US$750/dmt - - US$75/dmt 0.7 units Notes: wmt = wet metric tonne. dmt = dry metric tonne For silver-lead concentrates grading less than 2,500 g/t Ag, treatment charge is $150/dmt and refining charge is $1.00/oz Ag. Approximately 60% of the tailings will be thickened and filtered for dry stack tailings disposal. The remaining 40% will be prepared as pastefill and reticulated to the underground mine to be used as structural backfill. Infrastructure Access There is a good existing road network from the Project to the coast of Peru. The Project lies approximately 250 km from the Port of Callao and a zinc refinery. The road leaving the Project is an all-weather gravel road that crosses the high central Andes for about 60 km before joining a bitumen road to the coast and then to the Port of Callao via the Pan-American highway. The Cajamarquilla zinc refinery is situated on the eastern outskirts of the city of Lima with good access from the highway. Tailings and Mine Waste Management The tailings and mine waste concept for the Ayawilca PEA is based on a commitment to implementing best available practices and best available technologies, as described in the International Council of Mining and Metals ("ICMM") Global Industry Standard for Tailings Management. The location of the TSF has been selected to minimize any potential risks for downstream areas. It is envisaged that: 100% of mine waste rock and 40% of tailings production will be re-used as underground mine backfill; On-surface tailings will be processed as filtered tailings and stacked at a secure and prepared facility. This method will reduce the environmental footprint and the risk of failure and the attendant environmental impacts, while also minimizing water consumption. The filtered tailings facility has been located adjacent to the process plant area, minimizing the haul distance for the tailings and reducing environmental and social impacts. Power A new electricity substation is currently under construction 4.7 km from Ayawilca by a 3rd party mining company. The Project will include construction of a transmission line from this substation to a substation at Ayawilca. Tinka has recently received approval of a pre-operation environmental study ("EPO") to access 220kV / 23 MW power supply through a substation at Ayawilca. Ayawilca is now planned to become connected to the national electrical grid. Capital and Operating Costs The major components of the initial capital expenditure of US$$382 million include US$89.4 million for the zinc-silver-lead processing plant, US$29.0 million for the tin processing plant, US$34.0 million for on-site infrastructure, US$56.6 million for mine equipment and underground pre-production development, US$17.8 million for site preparation of the filtered tailings storage facility and related mobile equipment, $15.5 million for the pastefill plant, $52.4 million for other surface facilities, and US$45.0 million other costs including indirects and owners costs. Contingency in the initial capital totals US$76.2million. Total sustaining capital is $313.1 million over the 21-year mine life. The major components of sustaining capital are US$176.3 million for mining equipment (including major components and rebuilds) and materials handling, $49.8 million for mine development, ventilation and water management, US$46.0 million for tailings management. Contingency in sustaining capital totals US$40.8 million. The estimated capital costs, over the life of the Project, are as follows in Table 6. Table 6. Capital Costs Summary Capital Cost Item Initial (US$ M) Sustaining (US$ M) LOM Total (US$ M) Mining & mine development Process plant - Zn/Ag/Pb Process plant - Sn Pastefill plant Tailings Other surface facilities Subtotal Other indirects Owner's costs Contingency 56.6 89.4 29.0 15.5 17.8 52.4 261.7 34.7 10.3 76.2 226.3 - - - 46.0 - 272.2 - - 40.8 282.9 89.4 29.0 15.5 63.7 52.4 534.0 34.7 10.3 117.0 TOTAL PROJECT (US$ M) 381.8 313.1 694.9 CLOSURE COSTS (US$ M) 19.5 Numbers may not add due to rounding The estimated operating costs, over the life of the Project, are as follows in Table 7. Table 7. Operating Costs per Mining Method for the Zinc and Tin Plants US$/t Processed Operating Cost Item Zinc Plant Tin Plant Weighted Average Zinc + Tin Mining Backfill Sub-total Processing Tailings G&A 13.15 3.73 16.88 11.00 0.94 6.23 13.15 3.73 16.88 23.63 0.94 6.23 13.15 3.72 16.88 12.20 0.94 6.23 TOTAL PROJECT 35.06 47.68 36.25 Sensitivities The Ayawilca project is strongly leveraged to zinc and to a lesser extent tin and silver prices. A 25% increase on the base case zinc price (from US$1.30 to US$1.625) results in an after-tax NPV8% of US$741 million. A 25% increase on the base case tin price (from US$11.00 to US$13.75) results in an after-tax NPV8% of $472 million. See Figure 4. Figure 4. PEA Sensitivities for Metals Prices, Operating Cost and LOM Capital Costs Opportunities and Exploration Potential The Ayawilca deposit has not been fully delineated by exploration drilling, and several of the zones remain open along strike and at depth. Opportunities for additional value at Ayawilca not captured in the PEA include, but not limited to: Potential to extend the Zinc Zone deposits to depth at the East and West areas with more drilling; Potential to extend the Tin Zone to depth at the Central area, in particular where a steeply-dipping feeder zone is interpreted and is untested by drilling; Potential to extend the Silver Zone along strike and at depth - only 500 m of strike length is tested to date; Optimization of zinc recovery to a zinc concentrate (currently 92%) and silver recovery to a silver-lead concentrate in the Zinc Zone (currently 45%) with more detailed metallurgical test work; Optimization of tin recovery to a tin concentrate from the low recovery domain (currently 50%) with more detailed metallurgical testwork. Mineral Resource Estimation The updated Ayawilca Project Mineral Resource estimate for the Zinc Zone, Silver Zone, and Tin Zone is summarized in Table 8, Table 9, and Table 10, respectively, as estimated by SLR Consulting (Canada) Ltd (SLR). For the purposes of demonstrating 'Reasonable Prospects for Eventual Economic Extraction' (RPEEE), Mineral Resources are constrained within underground reporting shapes generated in Deswik Stope Optimizer ("DSO") using a minimum mining width of three metres and an NSR cut-off value of $50/t for the Zinc and Silver Zones and $60/t for the Tin Zone. Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves dated May 10, 2014 ("CIM (2014)" definitions) are used for classification of Mineral Resources. The Tin Zone, Zinc Zone and Silver Zone resources do not overlap. To satisfy RPEEE for an underground mining scenario, Tinka is reporting Mineral Resources within potentially mineable shapes (i.e., stopes) thereby demonstrating the spatial continuity of the mineralization. Where the potentially mineable volumes (i.e., stopes) contain smaller zones of mineralization with values below the stated cut-off, this lower grade material is included in the Mineral Resource estimate. The updated Mineral Resources estimate as at January 1st, 2024, contains the following: Indicated Zinc Zone Mineral Resource of 28.3 Mt grading 5.82% zinc, 16.4 g/t silver, 0.2% lead & 91 g/t indium containing: 3.64 billion pounds of zinc; 14.9 million ounces of silver; 108 million pounds of lead; and 2,582 tonnes of indium. Inferred Zinc Zone Mineral Resource of 31.2 Mt grading 4.21% zinc, 14.5 g/t silver, 0.2% lead & 45 g/t indium containing: 2.90 billion pounds of zinc; 14.6 million ounces of silver; 133 million pounds of lead; and 1,414 tonnes of indium. Inferred Silver Zone Mineral Resource of 1.0 Mt grading 111.4 g/t silver, 1.54% zinc, & 0.5% lead containing: 3.7 million ounces of silver; 35 million pounds of zinc; and 12 million pounds of lead. Indicated Tin Zone Mineral Resource of 1.4 million tonnes grading 0.72% tin, containing: 22 million pounds of tin. Inferred Tin Mineral Resource of 12.7 million tonnes grading 0.76% tin, containing: 213 million pounds of tin. No Mineral Reserves have been estimated at the Project. The Zinc, Silver, and Tin Zone Mineral Resource estimates for the Ayawilca Project were updated by SLR using the drill results available to May 31, 2023. The deposit drill database includes 249 drill holes totalling 94,258 m. An additional 35 drill holes totalling 12,216 m have been added since the previous update dated August 30, 2021. Three-dimensional (3D) wireframe models were generated using an approximate NSR cut-off value of $40/t for the Zinc Zone. For the Tin Zone, a 0.2% Sn or NSR cut-off value of $30/t was used for wireframe models. Prior to compositing to two metre lengths, high tin, silver, and lead values were capped for each zone individually. Zinc, silver, lead, tin, and indium high grade outliers were constrained during interpolation on a per domain basis. Block model grades within the wireframe models were interpolated by inverse distance cubed (ID3). Despite lead grades generally being low, it is assumed that lead and silver will be recovered in a lead concentrate. Density was assigned to blocks within the resource wireframes by ID3. Where density sample data was insufficient for interpolation, density values were derived from a regression equation based on the iron value of the block. Figures 5 and 6 show the Mineral Resource wireframes in plan and 3D views. Cross sections of the resource wireframes are shown in Figures 7 and 8. The Mineral Resources were classified following CIM (2014) definitions as Indicated and Inferred using drill hole spacing based criterion, mineralization continuity, and thickness. The drill hole spacing within a resource area assigned the Indicated category commonly ranges from 40 m to 70 m. Table 8. Ayawilca Zinc Zone Mineral Resources as of January 1, 2024 Classification/ Zone Tonnage Mt NSR $/t Grade Contained Metal Zn % Ag g/t Pb % In g/t Mlb Zn Moz Ag Mlb Pb t In Indicated South 13.8 128 6.64 19.3 0.2 120 2,020 8.6 52 1,655 West 14.5 98 5.05 13.6 0.2 64 1,618 6.3 56 927 Total Indicated 28.3 113 5.82 16.4 0.2 91 3,638 14.9 108 2,582 Inferred South 4.8 79 3.81 24.2 0.2 34 406 3.8 19 163 West 3.8 89 4.61 12.1 0.1 61 384 1.5 12 229 Central 9.1 85 4.39 10.6 0.2 54 878 3.1 47 486 East 13.5 81 4.13 14.4 0.2 40 1,229 6.3 55 536 Total Inferred 31.2 83 4.21 14.5 0.2 45 2,898 14.6 133 1,414 Notes: CIM (2014) definitions were followed for Mineral Resources. The Mineral Resources have been reported within underground reporting shapes generated with Deswik Stope Optimizer (DSO) using a net smelter return (NSR) cut-off value of US$50/t. For the Central area, Mineral Resources were reported only within underground reporting shapes that also had a Zn grade above 3%. NSR value was based on estimated metallurgical recoveries, assumed metal prices, and smelter terms, which include payable factors, treatment charges, penalties, and refining charges. The NSR used for reporting is based on the following: Long term metal prices of US$1.40/lb Zn, US$25/oz Ag, and US$1.10/lb Pb. Net metallurgical recoveries of 92% Zn, 45% Ag, and 70% Pb. The NSR value for each block was calculated using the following NSR factors: US$18.04 per % Zn, US$0.33 per gram Ag, and US$11.92 per % Pb. The NSR value was calculated using the following formula: NSR = Zn(%)*US$18.04+Ag(g/t)*US$0.33+Pb(%)*US$11.92. Bulk densities were assigned to blocks by interpolation and remaining blocks by regression of Fe assay data or average sample data. Averages range between 3.20 t/m3 and 3.51 t/m3. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Numbers may not add due to rounding. Table 9. Ayawilca Silver Zone Mineral Resources as of January 1, 2024 Classification Tonnage Mt NSR $/t Grade Contained Metal Zn % Ag g/t Pb % In g/t Mlb Zn Moz Ag Mlb Pb t In Inferred 1.0 100 1.54 111.4 0.5 3 35 3.7 12 3 Notes: CIM (2014) definitions were followed for Mineral Resources. The Mineral Resources have been reported within underground reporting shapes generated with Deswik Stope Optimizer (DSO) using a net smelter return (NSR) cut-off value of US$50/t. NSR value was based on estimated metallurgical recoveries, assumed metal prices, and smelter terms, which include payable factors, treatment charges, penalties, and refining charges. The NSR used for reporting is based on the following: Long term metal prices of US$1.40/lb Zn, US$25/oz Ag, and US$1.10/lb Pb. Net metallurgical recoveries of 77% Zn, 85% Ag, and 85% Pb. The NSR value for each block was calculated using the following NSR factors: US$15.10 per % Zn, US$0.62 per gram Ag, and US$14.48 per % Pb. The NSR value was calculated using the following formula: NSR = Zn(%)*US$15.10+Ag(g/t)*US$0.62+Pb(%)*US$14.48. Bulk densities were assigned to blocks by interpolation and remaining blocks by regression of Fe assay data or average sample data. The average bulk density is 3.18 t/m3. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Numbers may not add due to rounding. Table 10: Ayawilca Tin Zone Mineral Resources as of January 1, 2024 Classification Tonnage Mt NSR $/t Grade Sn % Contained Metal Mlb Sn Indicated 1.4 99 0.72 22 Inferred 12.7 104 0.76 213 Notes: CIM (2014) definitions were followed for Mineral Resources. The Mineral Resources have been reported within underground reporting shapes generated with Deswik Stope Optimizer (DSO) using a net smelter return (NSR) cut-off value of US$60/t. The NSR value was based on estimated metallurgical recoveries, assumed metal prices, and smelter terms, which include payable factors, treatment charges, penalties, and refining charges. Metal price assumption is US$12.00/lb Sn. Metal recovery assumption is 64% Sn. The NSR value for each block was calculated using the following NSR factor: US$137.30 per % Sn. The NSR value was calculated using the following formula: US$NSR = Sn(%)*US$137.30. Bulk densities were assigned to blocks by interpolation and remaining blocks by regression of Fe assay data or average domain sample data. The average bulk density is 3.65 t/m3. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Numbers may not add due to rounding. Density A total of 4,226 density measurements are located within the wireframe models. This represents a nearly five-fold increase in the number of density measurements available when compared to the previous estimate. A linear regression established between core density data and iron assays was used to assign a density value to resource blocks that were not interpolated. Linear regression equations were established for each area separately. Overall, the density values in the updated 2024 mineral resource estimate have decreased by around 5% over the 2021 estimate. In the previous estimate, density values were assigned to all blocks in each area based on the average density sample value after removing outliers. In SLR's opinion, density values were slightly overestimated in the previous estimate and the updated estimation methodology is more rigorous and better reflects local variations within the resource domains. SLR notes, however, that using a regression equation based on iron is not without flaws. These include: Overlimit iron assays will underestimate the iron content and low bias the density. There is a negative correlation with high zinc and iron values, i.e., there is a potential to low bias Zn-rich areas. A small proportion of blocks within the South and West areas are assigned a density value using the iron regression equation. Within the Central area, however, approximately 50% of blocks are assigned a density value using the iron regression equation and within the East area, there are not enough samples to establish a correlation between density and iron. Figure 5. Plan of Ayawilca Drillhole Map Highlighting Updated Mineral Resource wireframes. Figure 6. Plan view of Ayawilca Zinc Zone Resource Wireframes and Classification Model Comparison to Previous Mineral Resource Estimate Drilling at Ayawilca in 2022 and 2023 since the previous estimate (effective date August 30, 2021) has improved the understanding of the lithological setting and faults controlling the zinc, tin, and silver mineralization. The updated geological model better constrains the mineralized zones especially within the zinc zone domains at West Ayawilca. Zinc Zone Taken as a whole, the current Zinc Zone Mineral Resource estimate is reduced in both tonnage and contained metal, with lower average grades. However, Indicated Mineral Resource tonnage has increased by 49% and metal content has increased by 22% (zinc) and 45% (silver). Conversely, Inferred Mineral Resource tonnage has decreased by 33% and metal content has decreased by 41% (silver), 61% (lead) and 48% (zinc). The most substantial impact to the Mineral Resource tonnage, grade, and metal content is the result of reporting the summation of all blocks within resource reporting shapes versus a block cut-off value, for the first time at Ayawilca to demonstrate RPEEE. Where the potentially mineable volumes contain smaller zones of mineralization with values below the stated cut-off, this material is included in the Mineral Resource estimate and has added dilution. Isolated blocks, which cannot support underground development to access the blocks, have not been included in the resource inventory. Other contributing factors which have impacted the changes in the Mineral Resource estimate include: A modification to the geological interpretation particularly at West due to the drilling in 2022 and 2023. A much larger density database which allowed block interpolation in most of the deposit areas. A change in the NSR factors as a result of higher metal prices used for zinc and updated costs. Reporting the silver-rich domain as a separate zone with distinct metal recoveries and NSR factors. A change in the NSR cut-off value which was reduced from $55/t to $50/t. Tin Zone Although there was no change to the NSR cut-off value for the Tin Zone, globally, the current Tin Zone Mineral Resource estimate has increased in both tonnage and contained metal, but with lower average grades. Indicated Mineral Resources have been declared in the current estimate and Inferred Mineral Resources have increased in tonnage and metal content by 51% and 13% respectively, but average grades have decreased by approximately 25%. The most substantial impact to the Tin Zone Mineral Resource in the current estimate is upgrading a portion of Inferred Mineral Resources to Indicated Mineral Resources and reporting the summation of all blocks within resource reporting shapes (i.e., stopes) versus a block cut-off value. Figure 7. Generalized SW-NW longitudinal section of Zinc Zone and Tin Zone at South and Central Areas Figure 8. Generalized N-S cross section of Zinc Zone, Tin Zone and Silver Zone at South and West Areas Technical Background and Qualified Persons Technical information related to the PEA contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Chris Bray BEng (Mining), MAusIMM (CP), Principal Consultant (Mining Engineering) with SRK Consulting (UK) who is a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101. The Mineral Resources disclosed in this news release have been estimated by Ms. Katharine M. Masun, MSA, M.Sc., P.Geo., Principal Geologist with SLR who is independent of Tinka. By virtue of education and relevant experience Ms. Masun is a "Qualified Persons" for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101. The Mineral Resources have been classified in accordance with CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves (May, 2014). Ms. Masun has read and approved the contents of this news release as it pertains to the disclosed Mineral Resource estimates. The processing, metallurgical and recovery inputs disclosed in this news release have been reviewed and verified by Mr. Adam Johnston, FAusIMM, CP (Metallurgy) of Transmin Metallurgical Consultants, UK, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. The mine backfill inputs have been reviewed and verified by Dr. David Stone, P.Eng. of MineFill Services, Seattle, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. The inputs on processing and costs for surface tailings storage disclosed in this news release have been reviewed and verified by Mr. Donald Hickson, P.Eng., of Envis Peru S.A.C. (Envis), a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Dr. Graham Carman, Tinka's President and CEO, reviewed and verified the technical contents of this release. Dr. Carman is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. On behalf of the Board, "Graham Carman" Dr. Graham Carman, President & CEO Further Information: www.tinkaresources.com Mariana Bermudez 1.604.685.9316 info@tinkaresources.com Stay up to date by subscribing for news alerts at Contact Tinka and by following Tinka on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. About Tinka Resources Limited Tinka is an exploration and development company with its flagship property being the 100%-owned Ayawilca zinc-silver-tin project in central Peru. The Zinc Zone has an estimated Indicated Mineral Resource of 28.3 Mt grading 5.82% zinc, 16.4 g/t silver, 0.2% lead and 91 g/t indium, and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 31.2 Mt grading 4.21% zinc, 14.5 g/t silver, 0.2% lead and 45 g/t indium. The Silver Zone has an estimated Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.0 Mt grading 111.4 g/t silver, 1.54% zinc, & 0.5% lead. The Tin Zone has an estimated Indicated Mineral Resource of 1.4 million tonnes grading 0.72% tin and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 12.7 million tonnes grading 0.76% tin (dated at January 1, 2024). Forward Looking Statements: Certain information in this news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively "forward-looking statements"). All statements, other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and expectations of Tinka as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Tinka's management. Such statements reflect the current risks, uncertainties and assumptions related to certain factors including, without limitations: timing of planned work programs and results varying from expectations; delay in obtaining results; changes in equity markets; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions; imprecision in resource estimates or metal recoveries; success of future development initiatives; competition and operating performance; environmental and safety risks; the Company's expectations regarding the Ayawilca Project PEA; the political environment in which the Company operates continuing to support the development and operation of mining projects; risks related to negative publicity with respect to the Company or the mining industry in general; delays in obtaining or failure to obtain necessary permits and approvals from local authorities; community agreements and relations; and, other development and operating risks. Should any one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein. Although Tinka believes that assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Tinka disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release SOURCE: Tinka Resources Ltd. View the original press release on accesswire.com Development Intersects Mineralization Along Continuous Strike of >130M With Best Individual Channels Grading 20.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 9.6m 21.0 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 7.0m 23.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 5.6m TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Jaguar Mining Inc. ("Jaguar" or the "Company") (TSX:JAG)(OTCQX:JAGGF) is pleased to announce that exploration access development on the level 15.2 elevation in the BA-Torre structure of its Pilar mine in Brazil has intersected and confirmed extensive high-grade mineralization, previously intersected in exploration diamond drill holes announced in the first half of 2023.Jaguar believes that this area could positively affect the Pilar mine's future production capacity. Vern Baker, President and CEO of Jaguar Mining stated "Based on follow-up exploration work conducted through the second half of 2023 and to date, we believe that we have identified a new mining horizon at Pilar, with the BA-Torre structure showing significant continuity of higher-grading mineralized material, which extends below and above level-15 elevation. This area has the potential to be a game changer for the Pilar mine. We are showing an area with numerous drill holes and development on one horizontal level. This area is quite interesting for its potential, which we are eager to quantify as we develop official resources or reserves." In early 2023, Jaguar reported (see Press Release dated February 21, 2023) a high-grade diamond drilling intercept in hole PPL850 on the BA-Torre structure grading 42.35 g/t Au (uncut) over an estimated true width of 3.2m within a broader zone grading 20.93 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 10.0m on the level 16 elevation (-200m AMSL). A subsequent follow-up diamond drill hole PPL1011B was completed in the second quarter of 2023 targeting the up-plunge projection of the hole-PPL850 intersection on level 15 elevation (the level with closest development). This second hole also intersected strong mineralization grading 6.86 g/t over an estimated true width of 10.5m, including 14.45 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 3.5m. Access development was initiated in the third quarter of 2023 to intercept the impact location of hole PPL 1011B. This development drift traversed strong Banded Iron Formation (BIF) hosted mineralization over a continuous strike length of 130m. Channel sample grades reported from this development are more than double Pilar's average channel sample grades and over widths greater than 4m (mean sample* value 9.01 g/t Au (uncut) or 6.22 g/t Au (top cut applied to samples > 15g/t) over a mean channel width of 6.15m) (*all samples). The best individual channel results are presented below. 20.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 9.6m 21.0 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 7.0m 23.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 5.6m Exploratory and follow-up diamond drilling completed subsequent to the first high-grade impacts mentioned above have also reported high-grade intercepts within the BA-Torre structure, both up-and down-plunge of the initial drill intercepts and include the following best intersections: 21.18 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 2.0m in hole PPL 1042 12.36 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 2.0m in hole PPL 1044 7.39 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 3.9m in hole PPL 1044 7.17 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 8.2m also in hole PPL 1044 Vern Baker, President and CEO of Jaguar Mining added: "The geologic team at Pilar has done a great job of defining a target, putting holes in that target and getting our full team excited and focused on this new opportunity. The results currently show 200 vertical meters of plunge extent with potential to expand up-plunge 400 vertical meters and it is still unknown how far down-plunge. We have developed on level 15-2 some 130 meters of continuous strike length in the mineralized structure with channel sample grades well over what we are experiencing in our current ore structures. The BA-Torre structure represents a significant opportunity to provide mineral resources both above and below our current development. The structure is close to our current mining areas and infrastructure, providing the opportunity to develop both up and down-plunge. As we go deeper, below Level 18, we plan to have a single ramp for access to both the BA-Torre and the BF structures. Diamond drilling to date shows 200 vertical meters of structure with excellent grades. Our best intercept (20.93 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 10m) is 60 meters below our current access on level 15-2. While a significant expansion in Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources is probably a year out, we expect to see our first test mining later in the first quarter. Our development on a single horizon has already sent almost 1,900 ounces to the surface which would indicate the potential for a 60-meter level to produce well over 20,000 ounces. We are excited about the potential of this structure and expect it to add a vital new production area for Pilar and for our company in 2024. I would like to specifically thank Tiago Pedro de Souza, a talented geologist on our team, for his perseverance in finding this opportunity for Jaguar." Historically, the BA-Torre structure was the main producing ore-zone at Pilar from higher levels in the mine above level 7. Below level 7, mineralization on the BA-Torre structure diminished in terms of grade and thickness. At that time the focal point of mining became the nearby BF structure which has been and remains the main source of production down to current mining levels (levels 15 and 16). The re-appearance of high grades within the BA-Torre structure on level 15 and 16, currently being extended by additional diamond drilling, provides the Pilar operation with real potential to improve production in a relatively short time period. The new BA-Torre zone provides significant upside potential both up-plunge (above level 15 to level 7) and down-plunge below level 15 to depth. Recent high-grade diamond drill intersections within the BA-Torre structure and development highlight strong mineralization and grades over a continuous strike length of some 130m. Figure 1 - Long Section showing the Pilar mine underground layout and the relative position of the main orebodies. Please note the large percentage of mined production in the shallow levels of the mine attributed to the BA-Torre structure (red) which switches over with depth to the BF structure (in green) from level 8 to level 16). Figure 2 - Schematic view of the Pilar mine geology highlighting the folded BIF which controls the majority of the gold mineralization along its strike and the location of the high-grade exploration diamond drilling intersections. The BA-Torre structure on level 15-2 is conveniently located near existing infrastructure. Figure 3 - Long sectional view showing the location of access development to evaluate the BA-Torre structure on level 15-2 and the best diamond drill mineralized intersections reported in this press release and previously in the press release dated February 21, 2023 (original holes in white-background boxes/recent and current holes shown with yellow-background boxes). Table 1 - Diamond drilling intersections with grade x thickness (GT) > 25 between level 14 and level 17 targeting the BA-Torre structure. Complete drilling data in this area is tabulated in Figure (Appendix). Figure 4 - Plan view showing the location of access development to evaluate the BA-Torre structure on level 15.2 and location of the next figure (figure 5). Figure 5 - Plan view of level 15.2 access development composite channel sampling results and geological map. Results show a continuous 130m strike length of high-grade mineralization with average sample grade of 9.21 g/t Au (uncut) or 6.16 g/t Au (with a top cut applied to samples > 15 g/t Au) over an average full channel width of 6.15m. Table 2 - Individual channel sampling results reported with grade x thickness > 25. All Individual channel sample results are tabulated in Table 3 (Appendix 1). Channel Summary of channel intersections From (m) To (m) Channel Interval (m) ETW (m) Gold Grade (g/t Au) GT (ETW) Orebody SBF11051 0 4.9 4.9 4.4 16.4 72 BA SBF11104 0 6.8 6.8 5.8 7.5 43 BA SBF11206 0 5.8 5.8 5.8 6.6 38 BA SBF11028 0 6.2 6.2 5.1 9.5 48 BA SBF11068 0 6.7 6.7 6.7 7.0 47 BA SBF11088 0 4.6 4.6 4.6 6.4 29 BA SBF11103 0 5.0 5.0 5.0 9.7 49 BA SBG11019 0 8.5 8.5 7.0 21.0 147 BA SBG11020 0 7.3 7.3 7.3 12.9 94 BA SBG11067 0 2.7 2.7 2.7 16.5 44 BA SBG11045 0 13.9 13.9 9.6 20.2 194 BA SBF11117 0 6.9 6.9 6.9 9.9 68 BA SBF11121 0 6.7 6.7 6.02 8.4 51 BA SBF11165 0 3.88 3.88 3.88 11.6 45 BA SBF11166 0 6.87 6.87 6.87 10.6 73 BA SBF11173 0 6.01 6.01 4.51 19.8 89 BA SBF11219 0 6.28 6.28 6.28 7.1 44 BA SBF11207 0 7.0 7.0 7.0 9.6 67 BA SBF11196 0 7.1 7.1 7.1 15.9 114 BA SBF11197 0 5.6 5.6 5.6 23.2 130 BA Table 3 - Summary of composite (block) channel sampling results along a 130m strike section of the BA-Torre level 15.2 access development. Block ETW Average (m) Gold Grade (g/t Au) Top Cut >15g/t Gold Grade (g/t Au) Uncut Length 1 5.6 5.6 6.2 35 2 5.2 7.3 12.1 30 3 5.6 5.1 7.3 35 4 6.5 6.3 9.6 30 Geological Description The high-grade gold mineralization is hosted by a well-developed layer of BIF as outlined by detailed geological mapping of development faces exposed in the access crosscut on level 15.2 (Figures 4 and 5). The BIF is comprised of both carbonate and silicate facies, surrounded by undifferentiated metavolcanic and sedimentary schists. The highest grades are associated with hydrothermal alteration (quartz-sericite-chlorite-carbonate) and 5-15% of semi-massive to disseminated coarse subhedral grains of Arsenopyrite and subsidiary Pyrrhotite. ?? The BIF exposures show a succession of overturned folds (synform-antiform pairs), with fold axes plunging to the south at medium to low angles. ?Figure 6 - Section of photographs from the access development in level 15.2 BA mineralized zone. A) Thin carbonaceous phyllite layer folded by shear strain, surrounded by carbonate facies BIF package.? ?B) BA mineralization chip sample. Hydrothermalite composed of chlorite, arsenopyrite and quartz.? ?C) BA mineralization chip sample. Same as image B, showing the contact between the alteration zone and host BIF.? ?D) Main mineralized interval on PPL1062, one of the recent drill holes targeting the BA mineralization.? ?E) Coarse grains of arsenopyrite within altered BIF mineralization zone intersected in drillhole PPL1062.? Figure 7 - Section of photographs from the access development in level 15.2 BA mineralized zone with individual sample grades. A) 19.55 g/t Au - Sample 89977 from channel SBF11173 showing high grade disseminated sulphides in sheared BIF. B) 28.22 g/t Au - Sample 90189 from channel SBF11196 showing high grade quartz and sulphide rich fold BIF close to a meter scale hinge zone. C) 7.34 g/t Au - Sample 90197 from channel SBF11197 showing silicified and sulphide rich BIF. D) 2.47 g/t Au - Sample 90493 from channel SBF11231 showing strongly sheared and altered BIF with abundant quartz fragments. Qualified Person Scientific and technical information contained in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Jonathan Victor Hill, BSc (Hons) (Economic Geology - UCT), FAUSIMM, Vice President Geology and Exploration, who is also an employee of Jaguar Mining Inc., and is a "qualified person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The Iron Quadrangle The Iron Quadrangle has been an area of mineral exploration dating back to the 16th century. The discovery in 1699-1701 of gold contaminated with iron and platinum-group metals in the southeastern corner of the Iron Quadrangle gave rise to the name of the town Ouro Preto (Black Gold). The Iron Quadrangle contains world-class multi-million-ounce gold deposits such as Morro Velho, Cuiaba, and Sao Bento. About Jaguar Mining Inc. Jaguar Mining Inc. is a Canadian-listed junior gold mining, development, and exploration company operating in Brazil with three gold mining complexes and a large land package with significant upside exploration potential from mineral claims. The Company's principal operating assets are in the Iron Quadrangle, a prolific greenstone belt in the state of Minas Gerais and include the Turmalina Gold Mine Complex and Caete Mining Complex (Pilar and Roca Grande Mines, and Caete Plant). The Company also owns the Paciencia Gold Mine Complex, which has been on care and maintenance since 2012. The Roca Grande Mine has been on temporary care and maintenance since April 2019. Additional information is available on the Company's website at www.jaguarmining.com. For further information please contact: Vernon Baker Chief Executive Officer Jaguar Mining Inc. vernon.baker@jaguarmining.com 416-847-1854 Alfred Colas Chief Financial Officer Jaguar Mining Inc. alfred.colas@jaguarmining.com 416-847-1854 Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's expectations and plans relating to the future. All of the forward-looking information made in this news release is qualified by the cautionary statements below and those made in our other filings with the securities regulators in Canada. Forward-looking information contained in forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "are expected," "is forecast," "is targeted," "approximately," "plans," "anticipates," "projects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "believe" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may," "could," "would," "might," or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, may be considered to be or include forward-looking information. This news release contains forward-looking information regarding, among other things, the duration of the temporary suspension of the Company's 2023 production guidance in ounces and costs, the expected future release of new guidance for 2023, the anticipated impact of planned changes in mining systems and cost cutting initiatives on the Company's future performance and production results, information related to expected sales, production statistics, ore grades, tonnes milled, recovery rates, cash operating costs, definition/delineation drilling, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, costs and timing of the development of projects and new deposits, success of exploration, development and mining activities, currency fluctuations, capital requirements, project studies, mine life extensions, restarting suspended or disrupted operations, continuous improvement initiatives, and resolution of pending litigation. The Company has made numerous assumptions with respect to forward-looking information contained herein, including, among other things, assumptions about the estimated timeline for the development of its mineral properties; the supply and demand for, and the level and volatility of the price of, gold; the accuracy of reserve and resource estimates and the assumptions on which the reserve and resource estimates are based; the receipt of necessary permits; market competition; ongoing relations with employees and impacted communities; political and legal developments in any jurisdiction in which the Company operates being consistent with its current expectations including, without limitation, the impact of any potential power rationing, tailings facility regulation, exploration and mine operating licenses and permits being obtained and renewed and/or there being adverse amendments to mining or other laws in Brazil and any changes to general business and economic conditions. Forward-looking information involves a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including among others: the risk of Jaguar not meeting the forecast plans regarding its operations and financial performance; uncertainties with respect to the price of gold, labour disruptions, mechanical failures, increase in costs, environmental compliance and change in environmental legislation and regulation, weather delays and increased costs or production delays due to natural disasters, power disruptions, procurement and delivery of parts and supplies to the operations; uncertainties inherent to capital markets in general (including the sometimes volatile valuation of securities and an uncertain ability to raise new capital) and other risks inherent to the gold exploration, development and production industry, which, if incorrect, may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the Company and described herein. In addition, there are risks and hazards associated with the business of gold exploration, development, mining and production, including environmental hazards, tailings dam failures, industrial accidents and workplace safety problems, unusual or unexpected geological formations, pressures, cave-ins, flooding, chemical spills, procurement fraud and gold bullion thefts and losses (and the risk of inadequate insurance, or the inability to obtain insurance, to cover these risks). Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking information made in this news release, see the Company's most recent Annual Information Form and Management's Discussion and Analysis, as well as other public disclosure documents that can be accessed under the issuer profile of "Jaguar Mining Inc." on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.com. The forward-looking information set forth herein reflects the Company's reasonable expectations as at the date of this news release and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Appendix 1 Table 4 - Channel Sample location, grade and interval data along selected blocks along 130m of access development, level 15.2 Pilar Mine, BA-Torre structure. Channel Location data Summary of channel intersections Easting (m) Northing (m) Elevation (m) Total Depth (m) Level From (m) To (m) Channel Interval (m) ETW (m) Gold Grade (g/t Au) GT (ETW) Orebody Block SBF11051 662942.0 7788161.2 -148.2 4.9 15/2 0 4.9 4.9 4.4 16.4 72 BA 1 SBF11069 662943.3 7788164.4 -148.2 7.6 15/2 0 7.6 7.6 6.2 2.1 13 BA 1 SBF11104 662944.5 7788168.3 -148.7 6.8 15/2 0 6.8 6.8 5.8 7.5 43 BA 1 SBF11118 662948.2 7788175.6 -147.6 5.9 15/2 0 5.9 5.9 5.9 1.4 8 BA 1 SBF11206 662946.8 7788181.2 -148.5 5.8 15/2 0 5.8 5.8 5.8 6.6 38 BA 1 SBF11028 662938.4 7788146.1 -148.7 6.2 15/2 0 6.2 6.2 5.1 9.5 48 BA 2 SBF11068 662935.7 7788143.9 -148.2 6.7 15/2 0 6.7 6.7 6.7 7.0 47 BA 2 SBF11080 662935.1 7788141.4 -148.7 4.6 15/2 0 4.6 4.6 4.6 2.6 12 BA 2 SBF11088 662935.9 7788136.0 -148.3 4.6 15/2 0 4.6 4.6 4.6 6.4 29 BA 2 SBF11103 662935.6 7788132.6 -148.1 5.0 15/2 0 5.0 5.0 5.0 9.7 49 BA 2 SBG11009 662938.3 7788159.2 -148.3 3.3 15/2 0 3.3 3.3 2.7 4.1 11 BA 2 SBG11019 662939.5 7788156.8 -148.4 8.5 15/2 0 8.5 8.5 7.0 21.0 147 BA 2 SBG11020 662934.4 7788153.5 -147.8 7.3 15/2 0 7.3 7.3 7.3 12.9 94 BA 2 SBG11067 662936.9 7788146.5 -148.6 2.7 15/2 0 2.7 2.7 2.7 16.5 44 BA 2 SBG11045 662937.9 7788160.4 -148.0 13.9 15/2 0 13.9 13.9 9.6 20.2 194 BA 2 SBG11026 662937.6 7788146.7 -147.9 2.1 15/2 0 2.1 2.1 2.1 8.2 18 BA 2 SBF11110 662935.7 7788129.4 -147.9 4.9 15/2 0 4.9 4.9 4.9 4.5 22 BA 3 SBF11117 662935.8 7788126.1 -147.9 6.9 15/2 0 6.9 6.9 6.9 9.9 68 BA 3 SBF11121 662942.8 7788124.1 -147.4 6.7 15/2 0 6.7 6.7 6.02 8.4 51 BA 3 SBF11124 662939.6 7788119.5 -147.0 6.1 15/2 0 6.1 6.1 6.1 2.7 16 BA 3 SBF11133 662944.2 7788114.8 -147.4 5.3 15/2 0 5.25 5.25 5.25 0.7 4 BA 3 SBF11158 662946.2 7788112.2 -147.6 6.3 15/2 0 6.31 6.31 6.31 0.6 4 BA 3 SBF11165 662951.2 7788111.8 -148.6 3.9 15/2 0 3.88 3.88 3.88 11.6 45 BA 3 SBF11166 662952.3 7788114.2 -148.6 6.9 15/2 0 6.87 6.87 6.87 10.6 73 BA 3 SBF11173 662957.0 7788110.3 -148.2 6.0 15/2 0 6.01 6.01 4.51 19.8 89 BA 3 SBF11236 662976.2 7788091.6 -147.8 8.2 15/2 0 8.2 8.2 6.09 1.0 6 BA 4 SBF11231 662973.7 7788090.3 -147.2 6.7 15/2 0 6.7 6.7 6.7 1.8 12 BA 4 SBF11219 662972.6 7788088.3 -147.0 6.3 15/2 0 6.28 6.28 6.28 7.1 44 BA 4 SBF11207 662964.2 7788095.5 -147.2 7.0 15/2 0 7.0 7.0 7.0 9.6 67 BA 4 SBF11196 662960.9 7788100.7 -147.1 7.1 15/2 0 7.1 7.1 7.1 15.9 114 BA 4 SBF11197 662961.9 7788100.5 -144.1 5.6 15/2 0 5.6 5.6 5.6 23.2 130 BA 4 Table 5 - Diamond Drilling Collar Coordinates, Azimuth and Dip, levels 14-17 BA-Torre structure. Table 6 - Complete Diamond Drill Hole data - Pilar Mine BA-Torre structure between level 14 and level 17. SOURCE: Jaguar Mining Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The United States has warned Iran of the consequences if attacks by its partners and proxies in the Red Sea result in U.S. casualties. In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia and Counterterrorism, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy Daniel B. Shapiro said, 'We've made it very clear to Iran that we hold it accountable for attacks by its partners and proxies and believe Iranian leaders are aware of the consequences should these attacks result in U.S. casualties.' Since November 19, the Houthis have conducted at least 48 attacks against commercial shipping and naval vessels in and around the Red Sea through which 15% of all global trade flows, he said. They have affected the interests of more than 55 nations and threatened the free flow of commerce through the Red Sea, a bedrock of the global economy. These attacks have prompted more than a dozen major shipping operators to suspend transit of the Red Sea, causing a spike in insurance rates for vessels in the region Since December, more than 20 countries have joined increased maritime patrols in the area to safeguard commercial shipping, he told lawmakers. On Saturday, U.S. strikes had hit Houthi targets that include underground weapons storage facilities, missile storage facilities, unmanned aerial systems, air defense systems, radars and a helicopter. In addition to DOD's efforts to degrade and destroy Houthi capabilities, U.S. forces have interdicted Iranian vessels carrying lethal aid to Yemen, he said. Copyright(c) 2024 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. Ferguson plc (NYSE: FERG, LSE: FERG) (the "Company") announces today that it purchased a total of 19,922 of its ordinary shares in the period from February 20, 2024, up to and including February 23, 2024, in connection with its $3.0 billion share repurchase program. Aggregated information about the purchases carried out during this period Trading Day Aggregate Daily Volume (in number of shares) Daily weighted average purchase price of the shares (USD) Trading Venue February 20, 2024 425 200.5035 ARCX February 20, 2024 149 200.6823 XCIS February 20, 2024 100 199.6200 XNAS February 20, 2024 6,948 199.1740 XNYS February 21, 2024 307 201.4570 ARCX February 21, 2024 43 201.8570 BATS February 21, 2024 100 201.5400 IEXG February 21, 2024 350 201.6227 XNAS February 21, 2024 7,400 201.4188 XNYS February 22, 2024 100 204.4600 XNYS February 23, 2024 200 206.0900 ARCX February 23, 2024 100 208.2300 KNLI February 23, 2024 82 207.4100 XNAS February 23, 2024 3,618 206.4396 XNYS The Company intends to hold these shares in treasury. Following the purchase of these shares (including those purchased but not yet settled), the number of shares held by the Company in treasury will be 29,312,551. Following the purchase of these shares, the remaining number of ordinary shares in issue will be 202,858,631. The figure of 202,858,631 may be used by shareholders (and others with notification obligations) as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company under the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules. In accordance with Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (the Market Abuse Regulation), as it forms part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052, detailed information about the individual purchases can be found at Ferguson Investors Shareholder Center Share Buy-Back Details 2024 Share Buy-Back. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228675158/en/ Contacts: For further information please contact: Brian Lantz, Vice President IR and Communications, +1 224 285 2410 Pete Kennedy, Director of Investor Relations, +1 757 603 0111 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. (TSX:ASM)(NYSE American:ASM)(GV6:FSE) is pleased to provide an update on recently completed and ongoing work in connection with La Preciosa, our development stage mineral property which hosts one of the largest undeveloped primary silver resources in Mexico. La Preciosa is located adjacent to Avino's existing operations in Durango, Mexico. The addition of La Preciosa's mineral resource inventory significantly increased Avino's consolidated NI 43-101 mineral resources, which is currently 371 million silver equivalent ounces. At La Preciosa, capital for 2024 is expected to be between US$3.0 - US$4.0 million and will include surface works and equipment procurement intended for the first phase of mine development for the Gloria and Abundancia Veins. Avino already has the mining equipment necessary to commence operations at La Preciosa. The application for the Environmental permit has been submitted by the Company to the relevant authorities. A further permit will be submitted shortly after receipt of the Environmental permit, which is required to commence the construction of the portal, haulage ramp, and the mining of the Gloria and Abundancia veins. Avino anticipates receiving these permits sometime in 2024. The onsite drill core storage and office buildings are in good condition and are solar powered. Avino is committed to operating La Preciosa with a small environmental footprint and at a low cost. ONGOING WORKS AT LA PRECIOSA AND PREP WORK AT THE AVINO MILL INCLUDE: La Preciosa - Surface & Site Works Surface Office building rehabilitation Extensive sampling of historic surface mineralized stockpiles Haulage of historic stockpiles to the Avino milling complex Reinforcing stability of walls at the mine entrance and previously developed areas underground Avino Mill Processing Works Rehabilitation of an unused thickener tank in preparation for processing the previously mentioned stockpiles, in one of Avino's 250 TPD circuit's is currently in progress Once the rehabilitation work on the thickener is complete, production of a silver-gold concentrate from this stockpile material will commence which will be another milestone for the Company David Wolfin, President and CEO commented "In early January, we announced that a long-term land-use agreement with a local community for the development of La Preciosa had been signed. This was a pivotal achievement and brought us another step closer to our goal of bringing La Preciosa into production. Given all the recent activity at site, we are incredibly pleased to provide this current update on ongoing works at the property." CSR ONGOING INITIATIVES AND STRATEGY The Company's local and senior management recently distributed Samsung Tablets and TVs to the local community schools for all age groups Avino is dedicated to a comprehensive strategy that provides educational resources to students who may otherwise not have those opportunities Avino is keen to educate a future work force Dedicated to strengthening relationships in the communities in which we operate Committed to providing educational tools to the schools Provide Information, education and support to communities Videos and photos can be viewed on the Company website by clicking this link About Avino Avino is a silver producer from its wholly owned Avino Mine near Durango, Mexico. The Company's silver, gold and copper production remains unhedged. The Company's mission and strategy is to create shareholder value through its focus on profitable organic growth at the historic Avino Property and the strategic acquisition of the adjacent La Preciosa which was finalized in Q1 2022. Avino currently controls mineral resources, as per NI 43-101, with a total mineral content of 371 million silver equivalent ounces, within our district-scale land package. We are committed to managing all business activities in a safe, environmentally responsible, and cost-effective manner, while contributing to the well-being of the communities in which we operate. We encourage you to connect with us on X (formerly Twitter) at @Avino_ASM and on LinkedIn at Avino Silver & Gold Mines. To view the Avino Mine VRIFY tour, please click here. For Further Information, Please Contact: Investor Relations Tel: 604-682-3701 Email: IR@avino.com Cautionary note to U.S. Investors concerning estimates of Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources All reserve and resource estimates reported by Avino were estimated in accordance with the Canadian National Instrument 43-101 and the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") Definition Standards. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") now recognizes estimates of "measured mineral resources," "indicated mineral resources" and "inferred mineral resources" and uses new definitions of "proven mineral reserves" and "probable mineral reserves" that are substantially similar to the corresponding CIM Definition Standards. However, the CIM Definition Standards differ from the requirements applicable to US domestic issuers. US investors are cautioned not to assume that any "measured mineral resources," "indicated mineral resources," or "inferred mineral resources" that the Issuer reports are or will be economically or legally mineable. Further, "inferred mineral resources" are that part of a mineral resource for which quantity and grade are estimated on the basis of limited geologic evidence and sampling. Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (together, the "forward looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including the mineral resource estimate for the Company's Avino Property, including La Preciosa, located near Durango in west-central Mexico (the "Avino Property") with an effective date of November 30, 2022, prepared for the Company, and references to Measured, Indicated, Inferred Resources dated October 16, 2023 as well as the Prefeasibility Study dated January 16, 2024 and references to Measured, Indicated Resources, and Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves referred to in this press release. This information and these statements, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements" are made as of the date of this document. Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect current estimates, predictions, expectations or beliefs regarding future events and include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to: (i) the estimated amount and grade of mineral reserves and mineral resources, including the cut-off grade; (ii) estimates of the capital costs of constructing mine facilities and bringing a mine into production, of operating the mine, of sustaining capital, of strip ratios and the duration of financing payback periods; (iii) the estimated amount of future production, both ore processed and metal recovered and recovery rates; (iv) estimates of operating costs, life of mine costs, net cash flow, net present value (NPV) and economic returns from an operating mine; and (v) the completion of the full Technical Report, including a Preliminary Economic Assessment, and its timing. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects", "anticipates", "plans", "projects", "estimates", "envisages", "assumes", "intends", "strategy", "goals", "objectives" or variations thereof or stating that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms and similar expressions) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and the dates of technical reports, as applicable. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the future circumstances, outcomes or results anticipated in or implied by such forward-looking statements will occur or that plans, intentions or expectations upon which the forward-looking statements are based will occur. While we have based these forward-looking statements on our expectations about future events as at the date that such statements were prepared, the statements are not a guarantee that such future events will occur and are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors which could cause events or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. No assurance can be given that the Company's Avino Property, the La Preciosa Property, or the Oxide Tailings Project has the amount of mineral resources or mineral reserves indicated in their reports or that such mineral resources and mineral reserves may be economically extracted. Such factors and assumptions include, among others, the effects of general economic conditions, the price of gold, silver and copper, changing foreign exchange rates and actions by government authorities, uncertainties associated with legal proceedings and negotiations and misjudgments in the course of preparing forward-looking information. In addition, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Known risk factors include risks associated with project development; the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mining and mineral processing; volatility in the global financial markets; fluctuations in metal prices; title matters; uncertainties and risks related to carrying on business in foreign countries; environmental liability claims and insurance; reliance on key personnel; the potential for conflicts of interest among certain of our officers, directors or promoters with certain other projects; the absence of dividends; currency fluctuations; competition; dilution; the volatility of the our common share price and volume; tax consequences to U.S. investors; and other risks and uncertainties. Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. We are under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws. For more detailed information regarding the Company including its risk factors, investors are directed to the Company's Annual Report on Form 40-F and other periodic reports that it files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SOURCE: Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. View the original press release on accesswire.com MALVERN, Pa., Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. (NYSE: VSH) today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed David McConnell, Senior Vice President -Corporate Treasurer and Risk Management, to the role of Executive Vice President - Chief Financial Officer, replacing Lori Lipcaman who is resigning from that position. In addition, David Tomlinson, Senior Vice President - Corporate Controller, has been promoted by the Board to the newly created role of Senior Vice President - Chief Accounting Officer reporting to Mr. McConnell. The new positions of Mr. McConnell and Mr. Tomlinson will take effect on March 1, 2024. "The appointment of Dave McConnell as CFO and promotion of Dave Tomlinson to the newly created role of CAO strengthens Vishay's leadership team as we create a new Vishay that is business minded and puts the customer first in everything we do," said President and CEO Joel Smejkal. "Dave McConnell is a seasoned, dynamic and trusted leader within our finance organization. He possesses the necessary business understanding of Vishay's global operations to collaborate effectively with business unit heads and functional leaders in developing Vishay's multi-year strategic and operational plans to take full advantage of the mega trends in connectivity, e-mobility and sustainability. Dave Tomlinson's proven accounting management and financial reporting capabilities and extensive experience with Vishay's global operations have been and will be instrumental to our efforts to enhance our financial analytics and decision-making tools to support Vishay's re-orientation from a cash flow managed business to P&L driven company," added Mr. Smejkal. "Both Dave McConnell and Dave Tomlinson have embraced the organizational changes that are driving Vishay's ambition to accelerate growth and optimize returns and I am confident they will have a positive impact on the organization and help us achieve our goals." "Lori Lipcaman has served Vishay extremely well over her 35-year career at the company, and on behalf of the Board and entire organization I wish to extend my appreciation to her for her abiding dedication and commitment to Vishay," said Mr. Smejkal. David McConnell, 57, has been Senior Vice President- Corporate Treasurer and Risk Management since January 2016. Mr. McConnell has held various positions of increasing responsibility since joining Vishay in 1992 including Vice President - Corporate Treasurer (2011-2015) and Vice President Financial Analysis and Cash management (2008 - 2011), and various roles in corporate, regional and divisional finance. Prior to joining Vishay in 1992, Mr. McConnell worked at Ernst & Young LLP serving large, multi-national clients in various industries. Mr. McConnell is a Certified Public Accountant in Pennsylvania. David Tomlinson, 49, has been Senior Vice President - Corporate Controller since November 2009. Mr. Tomlinson has held various positions of increasing responsibility since joining Vishay in 2003, including Vice President - Assistant Corporate Controller (2005-2009) and Director of Financial Reporting for both Vishay and its then-majority-owned subsidiary Siliconix incorporated. Prior to joining Vishay, Mr. Tomlinson worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP serving large, multi-national clients in various industries. Mr. Tomlinson is a Certified Public Accountant in Pennsylvania. About Vishay Vishay manufactures one of the world's largest portfolios of discrete semiconductors and passive electronic components that are essential to innovative designs in the automotive, industrial, computing, consumer, telecommunications, military, aerospace, and medical markets. Serving customers worldwide, Vishay is The DNA of tech. Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. is a Fortune 1,000 Company listed on the NYSE (VSH). More on Vishay at www.Vishay.com. Statements contained herein that relate to the Company's executive leadership and strategic plans are forward-looking statements within the safe harbor provisions of Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "will be," "will," "plan," "assume," "intend," or other similar words or expressions often identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on current expectations only, and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, many of which are beyond our control. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results, performance, or achievements may vary materially from those anticipated, estimated or projected. Among the factors that could cause actual results to materially differ include: general business and economic conditions; manufacturing or supply chain interruptions or changes in customer demand because of COVID-19 or otherwise; delays or difficulties in implementing our cost reduction strategies; delays or difficulties in expanding our manufacturing capacities; an inability to attract and retain highly qualified personnel; changes in foreign currency exchange rates; uncertainty related to the effects of changes in foreign currency exchange rates; competition and technological changes in our industries; difficulties in new product development; difficulties in identifying suitable acquisition candidates, consummating a transaction on terms which we consider acceptable, and integration and performance of acquired businesses; changes in U.S. and foreign trade regulations and tariffs, and uncertainty regarding the same; changes in applicable domestic and foreign tax regulations, and uncertainty regarding the same; changes in applicable accounting standards and other factors affecting our operations that are set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual reports on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The DNA of tech?is a trademark of Vishay Intertechnology. Contact: Vishay Intertechnology, Inc. Peter Henrici Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications +1-610-644-1300 VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Patagonia Gold Corp. ("Patagonia" or the "Company") (TSXV: PGDC) announces that it has agreed to reacquire the COSE property ("COSE") from Pan American Silver Corp. ("PAAS"). On February 27, 2024, the Company entered into an agreement (the "Agreement") pursuant to which it agreed to reacquire COSE in exchange for assuming PAAS's costs and liabilities in relation to COSE (the "Transaction"). The Company sold COSE to PAAS in 2018 and PAAS closed the COSE mine in 2022, after mining the known, main COSE mineral deposit. The Company is not making a monetary payment to PAAS in connection with the Transaction but has agreed to assume the remaining closure costs of COSE, which are mainly related to ongoing environmental monitoring. Completion of the Transaction is subject to, among other things, the satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions precedent relating to the Company's assumption of existing NSR royalties. The Company has 30 days to satisfy such conditions precedent and the Transaction will be automatically deemed closed and become effective upon PAAS's written acceptance of the Company satisfying such conditions. By reacquiring COSE, the Company will consolidate its holding in the El Tranquilo concession block, which holds the Company's Cap Oeste Project, together with several other prospects and mineral occurrences. About Patagonia Gold Patagonia Gold Corp. is a South America focused, publicly traded, mining company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company seeks to grow shareholder value through exploration and development of gold and silver projects in the Patagonia region of Argentina. The Company is primarily focused on the Calcatreu project in Rio Negro and the development of the Cap-Oeste underground project. Patagonia, indirectly through its subsidiaries or under option agreements, has mineral rights to over 430 properties in several provinces of Argentina and Chile and is one of the largest landholders in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements with respect to, among other things, the Transaction, including satisfying the conditions precedent to closing, the advancement and development of gold and silver projects in the Patagonia region of Argentina, and the anticipated growth in shareholder value. Wherever possible, words such as "may", "will", "should", "could", "expect", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict" or "potential" or the negative or other variations of these words, or similar words or phrases, have been used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management as at the date hereof. Forward-looking statements involve significant risk, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure readers that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Nanterre, 28 February 2024 VINCI signs an agreement for the acquisition of Denver's Northwest Parkway (Colorado) in the United States 83-year concession toll road in one of the most dynamic states in the United States 14 km in the Northwest section of Denver's ring road 7,2 million transactions in 2023, up 6% compared to 2022 VINCI Highways, subsidiary of VINCI Concessions, signed an agreement for the acquisition of NWP HoldCo LLC, the company holding the concession contract of Denver's Northwest Parkway, a 14-km section of Denver's ring road in Colorado. The agreement concerns the acquisition of 100% of the concession company, currently owned by funds managed by DIF Capital Partners and funds managed by Northleaf Capital Partners and HICL Infrastructure PLC. Financial closing is scheduled for the second quarter of 2024, following approval by the grantor - the Northwest Parkway Public Highway Authority, composed of the municipalities of Broomfield and Lafayette - and the competent authorities. Located within one of the fastest-growing United States metropolitan areas, Northwest Parkway section has been in service since 2003 and notably serves as a gateway to Denver's international airport. Northwest Parkway generated 7,2 million transactions in 2023, up 6% compared to 2022 and 17% compared to 2021. An all-electronic toll road, Northwest Parkway also offers growth perspectives with the ability to implement variable tolling. The concession contract lasts until 2106, representing the longest remaining term (83 years) on the highway concession sector today in the United States. The concessionaire is remunerated by the perception of tolls. This acquisition is VINCI Highways' first traffic-risk concession in the United States. VINCI Highways also operates, as part of a public-private partnership (availability payment), the Ohio River Bridges project, linking the states of Indiana and Kentucky, as well as free-flow toll service contracts - through its ViaPlus subsidiary - for governmental agencies in Texas and California. About VINCI VINCI is a global player in concessions, energy and construction, employing 280,000 people in more than 120 countries. We design, finance, build and operate infrastructure and facilities that help improve daily life and mobility for all. Because we believe in all-round performance, above and beyond economic and financial results, we are committed to operating in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. And because our projects are in the public interest, we consider that reaching out to all our stakeholders and engaging in dialogue with them is essential in the conduct of our business activities. VINCI's ambition is to create long-term value for its customers, shareholders, employees, partners and society in general. www.vinci.com This press release is an official information document of the VINCI Group. PRESS CONTACT VINCI Press Department Tel: +33 (0)1 57 98 62 88 media.relations@vinci.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Joe Biden has easily won the Democratic Party's primary in Michigan despite a 13 percent protest vote over his stance towards the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. In response to an Arab American Democrats-led call to demonstrate voters' protest against the Biden administration's handling of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, more than 1,00,000 of Democrats chose to cast their vote 'uncommitted' Tuesday, reports say. Still, Biden managed to win more than 80 percent of the votes overall. Winning 6,17,728 votes in his favor, Biden gained 86 delegates. With other contestants in the fray winning single digit percentage of total votes, Biden is almost certain on his way toward the Democratic nomination for a second term. Biden thanked Michigan voters without making any mention of the 'uncommitted' movement, and warned, 'Donald Trump is threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution.' 'Four years ago, it was Michigan's diverse coalition that came together to reject Donald Trump's MAGA extremism and sent me and Kamala to the White House. Because of Michiganders, we've been able to work hand in hand with Governor Whitmer and the incredible Democratic leaders in Michigan's congressional delegation to deliver enormous progress,' he said in a statement. Copyright(c) 2024 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. Thunder Bay, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Kesselrun Resources Ltd. (TSXV: KES) (OTCQB: KSSRF) ("Kesselrun" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company will be exhibiting at the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada ("PDAC") convention, the world's premier mineral exploration and mining event, which will be held in person in Toronto from Sunday, March 3rd to Wednesday, March 6th, 2024. Kesselrun's management team looks forward to discussing the Company's ongoing exploration plans at booth 2536 in the Investor Exchange at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. For more information and/or to register for the convention, please visit: www.pdac.ca/convention About Kesselrun Resources Ltd. Kesselrun Resources is a Thunder Bay, Ontario-based mineral exploration company focused on growth through property acquisitions and discoveries. Kesselrun's management team possesses strong geological and exploration expertise in Northwest Ontario. For more information about Kesselrun Resources, please visit www.kesselrunresources.com. For additional information please contact: Kesselrun Resources Ltd. Michael Thompson, P.Geo., President & CEO 807.285.3323 michaelt@kesselrunresources.com Corporate Communications 1.866.416.7941 information@kesselrunresources.com 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. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of Kesselrun, including, but not limited to the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions, volatility of commodity prices, dependence upon regulatory approvals, the execution of definitive documentation, the availability of financing and exploration risk. 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. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199278 SOURCE: Kesselrun Resources Ltd. VENICE, FL / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Conservative Broadcast Media & Journalism (OTC PINK:CBMJ) is pleased to announce that Patriot.TV proudly announces the addition of Jason Lewis, a distinguished drive time television host, to its roster. Jason Lewis is a seasoned broadcaster, former frequent guest host for Rush Limbaugh, and esteemed former member of the U.S. Congress. Jason Lewis garnered widespread recognition during his tenure at AM 1500 KSTP in the prominent Minneapolis/St. Paul market, commencing in 1994. Notably, in 2007, he stood out as one of the most frequently featured guest hosts for the renowned broadcaster, Rush Limbaugh. Subsequently, from 2009 until 2014, Jason hosted his own syndicated radio program. His illustrious career trajectory led to his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2016. In 2020, he emerged as the Minnesota Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, narrowly missing victory in a historically challenging electoral landscape. In a momentous occasion, President and Chief Operating Officer of Patriot.TV, Brannon Howse, joined Jason Lewis on his inaugural program on Monday night, February 26, 2024, extending a warm welcome to him on behalf of the network. The inaugural show can be viewed at https://patriot.tv/programs/jason-lewis-live-02-26-2024-scotus-takes-on-big-tech-censorship-repeal-section-230?category_id=195658 Howse expressed his profound enthusiasm, stating, "Jason Lewis was the first individual I contacted upon assuming the role of President and Chief Operating Officer of Patriot.TV. Having known Jason personally for over two decades, I've engaged in numerous conversations with him regarding his potential return to the airwaves. This time everything lined up perfectly and I could not be more pleased." Furthermore, Howse emphasized the network's commitment to excellence, remarking, "At Patriot.TV, we are setting the standard for conservative broadcast networks. From the unparalleled expertise of our talent to our cutting-edge broadcast production facilities, we are unmatched in today's conservative media landscape. The state-of-the-art studio in Florida that we built for Jason Lewis, complete with a sophisticated news desk and advanced camera technology, epitomizes our dedication to quality." Illustrating the network's distinctive edge, Howse elaborated, "Our control room operators and production team operate on the latest equipment across two control rooms, supported by a graphics and production team that rivals any competitor. The recognition of our superior standards was underscored recently when a seasoned broadcaster expressed a desire to align with our team. In the coming weeks, we are excited to unveil the exceptional talent joining Patriot.TV." During his inaugural program, Jason Lewis reflected on his transition from quasi-retirement, he underscored the critical juncture facing the nation in 2024, emphasizing the urgency to effect substantial change. Jason Lewis elucidated, "Brannon Howse has been after me for a few years to do something like this. And when I saw the team, he put together his vision for Patriot.tv, I finally decided this was the right opportunity. So, Brannon Howse is the guy who convinced me to do this. And he's also the guy who is formulating this new network for people who want to save America. It's as simple as that. when I saw this team that Brannon Howse and General Michael Flynn were building, I said, 'all right, for 2024 and beyond, it's time to move the needle.'" As part of the recently acquired assets from LTV Streaming, CBMJ recently acquired the platform Patriot.TV., a subscription-based streaming service. About CBMJ: (CBMJ) Conservative Broadcast Media and Journalism is a media and web-based Patriot Company. Forward-Looking Statements: This release contains 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. All forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, based on current expectations and assumptions concerning future events or future performance of the company. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are only predictions and speak only as of the date hereof. In evaluating such statements, prospective investors should review carefully various risks and uncertainties identified in this release and matters disclosed at www.otcmarkets.com. These risks and uncertainties could cause the company's actual results to differ materially. Mark Schaftlein 877-704-6773 SOURCE: Conservative Broadcast Media & Journalism, Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com Veteran gold exploration executive with over 35 years of experience appointed to Kobo's Board of Directors Mr. Edward Gosselin, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Paul Sarjeant, President and Chief Operating Officer to attend PDAC 2024 exhibiting at booth 3235 Kobo Resources Inc. ("Kobo" or the "Company") (TSX.V: KRI) today announces the appointment of Mr. Brian Scott to its Board of Directors (the "Board") and the resignation of Mr. Charles Spector. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228892512/en/ Kobo Resources Strengthens its Board of Directors with the Appointment of Brian Scott: Former VP of Geology Technical Services at B2Gold Corp. (Photo: Business Wire) Frank Ricciuti, Chairman of Kobo commented: "As Kobo begins a phase of growth with its exploration program in 2024, particularly the 5,000-metre diamond drill program planned for Q1 2024, the addition of Brian to Kobo's Board of Directors promises to greatly benefit the Company, its employees and shareholders. Brian has gathered extensive exploration and resource estimation modelling experience during his distinguished mining career spanning over 35 years. During this time, his expertise was instrumental in the success of various large-cap gold companies such as B2Gold Corp. and Bema Gold Corp. (acquired by Kinross Gold in 2006), which will complement the Company's efforts to move its 100%-owned Kossou Gold Project forward." He continued: "On behalf of the entire Board and management, I would like to thank Charles for his many contributions during his tenure at Kobo. Charles was instrumental in helping the Company achieve its going public transaction and made the process as seamless as possible. Charles will remain as an advisor to the Board and we wish him continued success with his law practice in the future." "The Kossou Gold Project has shown to date significant promise, and I am confident that my experience in advancing similar gold projects will serve the Board well in developing Kobo into a producing gold company in the future," commented Scott. "I am delighted to join Kobo's Board of Directors and look forward to supporting the Company in the years to come." Brian Scott is a geologist with over 35 years of exploration and mine development experience across a wide variety of deposit types and political jurisdictions throughout the world. His experience encompasses a wide range of deposit types from high Andes porphyries (Cerro Casale and Refugio) to orogenic gold deposits (Venezuela, Canada, Finland, West Africa, Namibia, Uruguay, and South Africa) and epithermal deposits (Russia, Philippines, Central America). During his 30-year career with Bema Gold Corp. (acquired by Kinross Gold) and B2Gold Corp., he engaged in all phases of exploration, development, and mining within the Bema Gold Corp./B2Gold Corp. portfolio of properties. During this period, his responsibilities included providing geological guidance on exploration programs. He also managed B2Gold Corp.'s Technical Services Group and oversaw its in-house Technical Services Team's geologic and resource estimation models. Mr. Scott retired from B2Gold Corp. at the end of 2023 where he served as VP Geology and Technical Services from 2015 to 2023. Prior to that, Mr. Scott was Chief Geologist for B2Gold Corp. from 2007 to 2014 and Chief Geologist for Bema Gold Corp. from 1996 to 2007. Mr. Scott holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in Geology from Lakehead University in Ontario. Kobo Resources to Exhibit at PDAC 2024 The Company announces that it will be exhibiting at the annual 2024 Prospectors Development Association of Canada ("PDAC") convention at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC). The Company invites interested PDAC attendees to visit its booth #3235 in the Investors Exchange, South Building during the in-person event from Sunday, March 3 to Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Management will provide details of its exploration program at its 100%-owned Kossou Gold Project in 2023, following an initial phase of drilling and ongoing trenching activities that have yielded significant gold results across three distinct targets. Further, the Company will provide an overview of its exploration plans in the year ahead, beginning with a fully funded 5,000 m drilling program in Q1 2024. PDAC is the world's premier mineral exploration mining convention and brings together professionals, governments, companies and organizations from around the world to explore the latest advancements in the mining industry through a wide range of programming, courses, and networking events. Investors interested in attending the PDAC can register here:www.pdac.ca/convention/attend/registration. Kobo invites attendees to visit its booth where they will have the opportunity to engage directly with the Company's management team and learn more about Kobo's recent exploration efforts and upcoming plans. Other Corporate Matters On December 1, 2023, the Company merged with its subsidiary Boko Resources Inc. in order to simplify its corporate structure, reporting obligations and reduce general and administrative costs. Furthermore, effective in 2023, the Company changed its financial year-end from December 31 to March 31, 2024, to align the Company's year-end with that of its operating subsidiary and to facilitate financial reporting and the preparation of corporate tax returns. The change in year-end resulted in the Company filing a one-time, fifteen-month transition year covering the period of January 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024. Grant of Options The Company announces that it has granted 300,000 stock options ("Options") to purchase common shares of the Company to Mr. Brian Scott, following his appointment as director of the Company, and 50,000 stock options ("Options") to purchase common shares of the Company to Mr. Carmelo Marrelli, as CFO of the Company, pursuant to the Company's 9.5% fixed stock option plan (the "Company's Stock Option Plan"). Such Options are exercisable into common shares of the Company at an exercise price of $0.35 per common share for a period of 10 years from the date of grant as per the Company's Stock Option Plan. These options will vest in equal tranches of twenty-five per cent (25%) every 3 months following their grant date. About Kobo Resources Inc. Kobo Resources is a growth-focused gold exploration company with a compelling new gold discovery in Cote d'Ivoire, one of West Africa's most prolific and developing gold districts. The Company's 100%-owned Kossou Gold Project is located approximately 20 km northwest of the capital city of Yamoussoukro and is directly adjacent to one of the region's largest gold mines with established processing facilities. The Company is drilling to unlock the potential size and scale of Kossou within 9+ km strike length of highly prospective gold in soil geochemical anomalies with excellent rock and trench sampling results. The Company completed ~6,000 m of RC drilling and ~5,400 m of trenching in 2023 and is planning on additional drilling and trenching in 2024. Significant gold mineralisation has been identified at three main targets within a 300 m wide, 2+ km long, pervasively altered structural corridor defining a potentially large mesothermal gold system. Kobo offers investors the exciting combination of high-quality gold prospects led by an experienced leadership team with in-country experience. Kobo's common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "KRI". For more information, please visit www.koboresources.com. NEITHER THE TSXV NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSXV) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Cautionary Statement on 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 are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to 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; and the delay or failure to receive board, shareholder or regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Except as required by law, Kobo assumes no obligation and/or liability to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228892512/en/ Contacts: For further information, please contact: Edward Gosselin Chief Executive Officer and Director 1-418-609-3587 ir@kobores.com X: @KoboResources LinkedIn: Kobo Resources Inc. ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / BitMine Immersion Technologies, Inc. ("BitMine" or "the Company") (OTCQX:BMNR) is pleased to announce that it expects to record record quarterly self-mining revenue of approximately $925,000-$950,000 for the quarter ending February 29, 2024. With all three sites operational and running smoothly, BitMine was able to take advantage of increased production as well as higher Bitcoin prices in order to produce record quarterly revenue, almost tripling its previous record self-mining revenue achieved in the first quarter of fiscal 2024. Jonathan Bates, BitMine CEO, was quoted as saying, "We are extremely proud of our progress and results. We are looking forward to further expansion at all three of these sites, where we have room to deploy more machines. We are also exploring expansion to new sites, as well as researching innovative ways to add additional self-mining revenue. We look forward to sharing our plans and progress in the near future." About BitMine Immersion Technologies, Inc. BitMine is a technology company focused on Bitcoin mining using immersion technology, an advanced cooling technique where computers are submerged in specialized oil circulated to keep units operating at optimal ambient temperature. Immersion technology is more environmentally friendly than conventional mining methodologies, while lowering operating expenses and increasing yield. BitMine's operations are located in low-cost energy regions in Trinidad, Pecos, Texas, and Murray, Kentucky. https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitmineimmersiontech/ https://twitter.com/BitMNR https://www.facebook.com/bitmineimmersiontech Forward-Looking Statements: This press release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements." The statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. Actual future performance outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond BitMine's control, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of BitMine's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on December 14, 2023, and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on January 12, 2024, and any other SEC filings, as amended or updated from time to time. Copies of BitMine's filings with the SEC are available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch. BitMine undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release, except as required by law. BitMine Immersion Technologies Contact: Jonathan Bates, Chairman and CEO info@bitminetech.io SOURCE: BitMine Immersion Technologies Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com 51 Key Lode Mining Claims Filed and Recorded with Nevada BLM CAT neighbour Surge Battery Metals announces Mineral Resource Estimate Extended Lithium & Carlin Gold Target Claims Staked at Gold Jackpot Stag's Leap Modeling of Porphyry-Diatreme Cu-Au-Ag-Te Mineralization Update on its South Preston Uranium Project, Athabasca Basin, Canada Other Corporate updates VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / CAT Strategic Metals Corporation (CSE:CAT)(OTC PINK:CATTF)(FRA:8CH) ("CAT" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an activity update on its Gold Jackpot property ("GJ") located in northeastern Elko County, Nevada, very near the Surge Battery Metals Inc. ("SURGE") Lithium Discovery. 51 LITHIUM and Carlin-style Gold CLAIMS FILED WITH BLM RENO OFFICE CAT Lithium Claims : CAT filed 51 new Lithium-target lode claims with the BLM Reno, Nevada office on February 1, 2024, covering 1,053.66 acres (426 hectares). CAT's total property claims package now covers 241 claims comprising 4,979 acres (2,015 hectares). The outline of these claims is shown in red in Figure 1. These 51 new claims cover a northern extension of the lithium-bearing tuff sequence (Humboldt Formation of Miocene age) that is being explored by Surge, as well as Grid Battery Metals, Peloton Minerals, Sienna Resources, and Red Mountain Mining. The 51 claims also enclose a significantly large body of the underlying Jarbidge Rhyolite ("JR") that has high Lithium geochemical values and could be a hydrothermal source for lithium. The JR is of a similar Miocene age as the rocks of the McDermitt sequence holding the giant Thacker Pass lithium Mine owned by Lithium Americas, with a published measured and indicated resources of 13.7 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, at an average ore grade of 2,231 ppm (0.22%) lithium, which is considered to be the world largest known lithium deposit (source: Lithium Americas, October 7, 2021). Further sampling of the Jackpot Lithium claims will be done to determine the geochemical surface distribution of lithium present on the CAT claims. CAT NEIGHBOUR SURGE BATTERY METALS PUBLISHES MINERAL RESOURCE ESTIMATE In a news release published on February 22, Surge announced a NI 43-101 compliant maiden Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") that reported the highest-grade lithium clay resource in the USA with 4.7Mt Lithium Carbonate Equivalent ("LCE") grading 2,839 ppm Li at a 1,250ppm cutoff. The MRE includes over 4Mt of LCE grading 3,167 Li PPM at a 2,000 ppm Li cutoff. The Surge news release also stated that they have significant expansion potential of their resource as the MRE only covers a portion of the known footprint of mineralization that has substantial potential for growth. As previously reported, CAT's Gold Jackpot property lies less than 1.5 km to the NE of the Surge NNLP and is in the same geologic formation and context as their discovery area and appears to contain similar distinct commodities. This suggests that the GJ project provides CAT shareholders with a unique opportunity to be in the presence of several potential discoveries; namely hydrothermal lithium, Carlin-style gold, porphyry/diatreme copper-gold silver, and a telluride metal system. Robert Rosner, CAT's Chairman and CEO, stated; "CAT's team is extremely encouraged by Surge's MRE and our close proximity to the discovery area. This confirms what we have always expected from our own internal evaluation of the area, and the location of our Gold Jackpot property, which was the recent catalyst for the Company staking new claims in the area. The confirmation of a lithium resource by our neighbour is what we have been waiting for to move forward with the next phase of our own exploration plans." Mr. Rosner went on to say, "Both Carlin Style Gold and Copper-Gold Porphyries are well known deposit environments in Nevada. Historical exploration locally has shown high-grade Gold-Silver-Copper-Tellurium mineralization results up to 16 g/t Gold by Barrick, to 239 g/t Silver, and higher-grade Tellurium mineralization. The region is hydrothermally very active, and with hindsight, our geological team has shown us that it is not abnormal to find a potential for lithium similar to Thacker Pass. It's a huge step forward for our Gold Jackpot project but more importantly for all of our shareholders." Figure 1. New CAT Claim Boundaries in red with its neighbours at Gold Jackpot STAG'S LEAP GOLD and PORPHYRY-DIATREME EXPLORATION PROGRAM The 51 claims also cover the northern extension of the late Paleozoic rocks that form the core of the claim area, the Stag's Leap carbonate block (see Figure 1). Gold mineralization has been found in the carbonate rocks, including one surface chip sample taken by Peloton Minerals that assayed 1.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold. A study conducted by Warren Thompson for CAT suggests that Carlin-age gold mineralization could possibly be present in this area. A large Copper-Gold rich porphyry/diatreme system could be present at reasonably shallow depths at Stag's Leap, indicated by a large surface copper-gold-tellurium system present over a 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide area (see press release of September 14, 2023). As a reminder, geochemical anomalies are open to the north and to the south of the target area and an IP survey atop this target by Zonge Geosciences for CAT showed an anomalous zone of high electrical conductivity at a yet undetermined depth. This promising target has never yet been tested at depth by any type of drilling. SOUTH PRESTON URANIUM PROJECT, ATHABASCA BASIN, CANADA The uranium South Preston project, located in the Athabasca Basin, one of the world's leading sources of high-grade uranium, still remains one of the company's priorities. CAT has had a number of discussions related to this property with potential partners, particularly as a result of the recent, and current, climate of increasing uranium prices; which are reaching some of the highest values the industry has seen in the last 10 years. Robert Rosner, CAT's Chairman and CEO, stated; "Some key uranium producers recently announced that they will lower their production targets due to operational challenges in Canada; the recent news of production shortfalls out of Kazakhstan; and the war in Ukraine which is still creating a Russian reliance on enrichment facilities. These events have highlighted the long-term challenges in the nuclear fuel pipeline and truly ignited substantial attention towards those of explorers responsible for identifying new sources of uranium. The South Preston project gives our shareholders an interesting exposure to the highly important uranium market " CORPORATE UPDATE The second half of 2023 proved to be somewhat challenging for the Company when it came to financing efforts to further exploration and development of its various Strategic Metals projects. While the Company was able to announce that it had been successful in staking additional ground around its original claim block and to renew these claims, numerous discussions were undertaken with various parties that had approached CAT and stated their interest in financing the Company and its projects. As a result of these discussions, several corporate changes were undertaken in order to better position the Company as a more attractive investment opportunity. Unfortunately, these discussions were not concluded successfully, mainly due to market conditions. Additionally, the decrease in the price of lithium over the past seven months has significantly impacted CAT's ability to move forward as planned, which resulted in a number of corporate plans and actions to be put on hold. For the past number of months, CAT has been able to maintain the basics of its business while it continues to seek outside investment capital. In the interim, numerous plans have been drawn up that address the work programs to be carried out on its Gold Jackpot Project once the necessary exploration funds are secured. Mr. Richard R. Redfern, M.S., C.P.G. No. 10717, is the qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 who has examined the property on the ground, and wrote a Master's thesis on the Opal Springs area to the east and northeast of Surge Battery Metals' lithium discovery, reviewed the geological information available from public sources related to the property, and is responsible for approving the technical contents of this press release. About CAT Strategic Metals Corporation (CAT) CAT Strategic Metals' corporate strategy, as reflected in its overall Mission Statement, is to source, identify, acquire and advance property interests located in mineral districts proven to have world-class potential, primarily lithium, copper, gold, silver and tellurium. In addition to the Gold Jackpot strategic metals property located NE of Elko, Nevada, CAT also controls the South Preston Uranium Project in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan, the Burntland Project located northeast of St. Quentin in the Restigouche County, New Brunswick, Canada, directed at the exploration and development of several Skarn-hosted copper-silver, gold targets. CAT's shares trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) under the trading symbol "CAT", and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol "8CH". ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Robert Rosner Chairman, President & CEO Further information regarding the Company can be found on SEDAR at www.sedarplus.ca, by visiting the Company's website www.catstrategic.com or by contacting the Company directly at (604) 674-3145. Neither Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. We seek safe harbour. SOURCE: CAT Strategic Metals Corporation View the original press release on accesswire.com RRD Biopharma Development is the dynamic new brand of RRD International. Launched to reflect the company's unique approach to drug development through its successful Product Development Team model. ROCKVILLE, Md., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- RRD International has announced today that it launched its new brand RRD Biopharma Development reflecting its unique offering of delivering strategy-driven product development services to biopharmaceutical companies and investors. The rebrand includes a new updated website showcasing its innovative Product Development Team (PDT) Model. The PDT model enables biopharma companies with limited infrastructure to navigate the challenges of drug development efficiently and effectively resulting in more predictable product development outcomes. RRD's rapid start, high caliber team partner with companies globally applying their exceptional experience to accelerate drug development and reduce risk. Investing in the asset's success, they improve value and drive patient benefits. The company, founded in 2002, is part of Uniphar Group, a Dublin, Ireland based international diversified healthcare services company. RRD's asset-centric development approach has helped create >$3.0 billion in value for its partners over the last 21 years. Commenting on the rebrand, Scott Tarrant, CEO of RRD Biopharma Development said: "Our unique approach uses insights and experience to strategize, optimize, and execute biopharmaceutical development, maximizing asset value and accelerating patient access to new medicines. "Our new, dynamic brand more accurately reflects and places emphasis on our development offering and the value that we deliver every day to our partners. "The improved branding better communicates who we are and what we do which ultimately supports our growth and makes us a recognized development partner in the market," concluded Tarrant. About RRD Biopharma Development RRD Biopharma Development is a product development company that provides integrated, expert-level strategic, regulatory, and operational support to biopharmaceutical companies and investors. The Company's unique Product Development Team (PDT) model provides an effective, asset-centric alternative to traditional industry practices. While comprehensive in value, structure, and function - encompassing all aspects of a development program - the PDT model is also highly resource efficient with an intense focus on minimizing cost, time, and risk to achieve significant value inflections whether that be human proof-of-concept (hPOC) or through marketing approval. Since 2002, RRD has worked with more than 200 orgainizations across all major classes and therapeutic areas. For more information, visit rrdbiodev.com . Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2346255/RRD_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/rrd-international-is-now-rrd-biopharma-development-302070102.html CHICAGO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT), a global capital markets technology platform provider, today announced connectivity to the European Power Exchange (EPEX SPOT), the largest power exchange in Europe. through the TT platform. The connection gives clients the ability to trade the European physical power markets for the first time on the TT platform. In collaboration with a large European energy supplier, TT offers the new continuous intraday power trading capability to clients globally as a fully co-located service. Operating out of Paris, EPEX SPOT is an independent subsidiary of the European Energy Exchange (EEX) covering power markets in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, the UK and Switzerland. Clients trading EPEX SPOT intraday markets on TT can leverage the platform's sophisticated algorithmic and other automated trading tools, as well as its risk management capabilities across the trade life cycle. TT CEO Keith Todd said: "We have long been a valued partner to global and regional energy suppliers managing their risks in the listed derivatives markets. The integration of EPEX's fast-growing intraday power markets into our platform takes that to a new level, enabling companies to participate in the European spot power markets on the same trusted platform they use for listed derivatives, and opening the door for large financial institutions to trade in these physical markets and make them available to their customers." Justin Llewellyn-Jones, TT Chief Operating Officer, said: "Our clients, who recognize we have the best algos in the industry, are excited about this opportunity. They can use our powerful tools to automatically hedge spot trades with power and gas futures on a single platform. This integration further strengthens our value to our clients in the energy markets and our growing reach beyond listed derivatives." Trading Technologies was named Best Algorithmic Trading Provider in the 2023 Waters Rankings Awards. TT's algorithmic and automated trading solutions include preconfigured order types, support for broker and third-party algos, tools for building and backtesting custom strategies, the industry-leading Autospreader spread execution tool and colocated order execution. TT also provides access to dozens of global markets and venues for cross-asset trading of trading futures, options, fixed income, FX, cryptocurrencies and more. EPEX SPOT provides a liquidity outlet for producers, suppliers and transmission system operators, as well as for industrial consumers, to fulfill their sales or purchases in short-term power. The prices serve as a benchmark for the transactions of the wholesale market, ensuring competitive prices for European end-consumers who can choose between numerous electricity suppliers. About Trading Technologies Trading Technologies ( www.tradingtechnologies.com ) is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology platform provider to the global capital markets industry. The company's award-winning TT platform connects to the world's major international exchanges and liquidity venues in listed derivatives alongside a growing number of asset classes, including fixed income, foreign exchange (FX) and cryptocurrencies. The TT platform delivers advanced tools for trade execution and order management, market data solutions, analytics, trade surveillance, risk management, clearing, post-trade allocation and infrastructure services to the world's leading sell-side institutions, buy-side firms and exchanges. The company's blue-chip client base includes the Tier 1 banks as well as brokers, money managers, hedge funds, proprietary traders, Commodity Trading Advisors (CTAs), commercial hedgers and risk managers. These firms rely on the TT ecosystem to manage their end-to-end trading operations. In addition, exchanges utilize TT's technology to deliver innovative solutions to their market participants. TT also strategically partners with technology companies to make their complementary offerings available to Trading Technologies' global client base through the TT ecosystem. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1672454/Trading_Technologies_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/trading-technologies-extends-energy-trading-capabilities-with-connectivity-to-the-european-intraday-physical-power-markets-on-epex-302073506.html Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Pineapple Financial Inc. (NYSE American: PAPL) ("Pineapple" or the "Company"), Canada's tech-focused mortgage brokerage with an integrated network of partner brokerages and agents across the country, is pleased to announce it will be presenting at the Centurion One 7th Annual Growth Conference, which will be taking place for the first time at the award winning Four Seasons Hotel on Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Toronto, Ontario. Shubha Dasgupta, CEO, is scheduled to present on Thursday, March 7th at 2:30 PM ET. Shubha Dasgupta will also be fielding investor questions during the conference and participating on a panel discussion at 2:10 PM ET. Centurion One 7th Annual Growth Conference will feature public and private companies across various industries that will be given the opportunity to present to some of the most prominent venture capital, family office, private equity firms, high net worth individuals and institutional investors in the growth space attending from Canada, the United States, and abroad. For registration details, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/centurion-one-capital-7th-annual-growth-conference-tickets-749988765587 Conference Details: Event: Centurion One 7th Annual Growth Conference Format: Presentations, Q&A and Panel Discussions Date: Thursday, March 7, 2024 Time: 7:30 AM ET - 5:00 PM ET Venue: Four Seasons Hotel About Centurion One Capital Centurion One Capital ("Centurion One") is the premier independent investment banking firm dedicated to fueling the growth and success of growth companies in North America. With an unwavering commitment to delivering comprehensive financial solutions and strategic guidance, Centurion One is a trusted strategic partner and catalyst to propel issuers to unlock their full potential. Our team comprises seasoned professionals who combine extensive financial expertise with deep knowledge of various sectors. We take a proactive and results-driven approach, working closely with our clients to develop tailored strategies and execute transactions that maximize value and drive long-term success. Centurion One - Empowering Growth. Driving Innovation. Partnering for Success. About Pineapple Financial Inc. Pineapple is an award-winning fintech and leading Canadian mortgage brokerage network, focusing on the long-term success of agents and brokers and the overall experience of homeowners. With approximately 650 brokers within the network, Pineapple creates cutting-edge cloud-based tools and AI-driven systems to enable its brokers to help Canadians realize their dream of owning a home. Pineapple is active within the community and is proud to sponsor charities across Canada to improve the lives of fellow Canadians. Learn more about Pineapple Financial Inc. at https://gopineapple.com/brokers Contacts Pineapple Financial Inc. Dennis Welsh Senior Director of Marketing 416-456-2102 dennis@gopineapple.com SOURCE: Centurion One Capital Highlights: Guy Le Bel brings proven mine development and business development expertise, having held key senior roles with large mining companies. Guy will lead QC Copper into its next phase of defining Opemiska's engineering and economics. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - QC Copper and Gold Inc. (TSXV: QCCU) (OTCQB: QCCUF) ("QC Copper" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Guy Le Bel as its President. Guy brings significant mining and operational experience to the QC Copper team at a time when the Company is pivoting toward the engineering and economics of its flagship Opemiska copper project. Guy has an excellent mining and business development track record, having played key roles with major companies, including Rio Algom, Quadra FNX, Capstone Mining, and BHP Billiton Base Metals. As a Quebec-based mining engineer with expertise in marketing, capital markets, and corporate development, Guy will lead this next phase of QC Copper's transition towards developing Opemiska's engineering and economic studies. Guy will also provide leadership with QC Copper's community and First Nations engagement and manage the permitting processes at Opemiska. "The team and I have gotten to know Guy for the past six months, including bringing him on-site to meet the community and our Chapais-based team. As a mining engineer, Guy has the right blend of technical and operational expertise and an impressive business development track record with numerous multibillion-dollar multinational mining corporations. I am pleased to welcome Guy to the team," said Stephen Stewart, QC Copper's CEO and Chairman. Stock Option Grant The Company is pleased to announce that the Board of Directors has approved the grant of stock options to certain officers of the Company, allowing for the acquisition of up to, in the aggregate, 400,000 shares of the Company. The options are exercisable at CAD $0.13 per share for five (5) years from the date of grant, vest one (1) year from the date of grant, and are subject to regulatory policies and approvals. The grant of options to certain directors and officers is a "related party transaction" under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Company relied on the exemptions from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 contained in Sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 in respect of related party matters, as the Company is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") and neither the fair market value (as determined under MI 61-101) of the subject matter of, nor the fair market value of the consideration for, the transaction, insofar as it involves the related parties, exceeded 25% of the Company's market capitalization (as determined under MI 61-101). For information and updates on QC Copper and Gold, please visit www.qccopper.com And please follow us on Twitter @qccoppergold To speak to the Company directly, please contact: Stephen Stewart, Chief Executive Officer Phone: 416.644.1571 Email: sstewart@qccopper.com 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. Certain information in this press release may contain forward-looking statements. This information is based on current expectations that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results might differ materially from results suggested in any forward-looking statements. QC Copper and Gold Inc. 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 QC Copper and Gold Inc. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties is contained in filings by QC Copper and Gold Inc. with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available under QC Copper and Gold Inc. profile at www.seddarplus.ca. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199647 SOURCE: QC Copper and Gold Inc In a recent initiative to foster teamwork and knowledge sharing, the Jackson, Tennessee, Dixie team joined their counterparts in Bowling Green, Kentucky, for a transformative training experience. With a shared commitment to growth and development, over 40 employees from Jackson trained with their peers, delving into topics such as innovation, equipment utilization and fundamental skills. This collaborative endeavor not only enhanced individual capabilities but also laid the groundwork for the startup of the Jackson facility in the summer of 2024, signaling the team's readiness for a successful launch. Georgia-Pacific broke ground on the more than $425 million facility in September 2022 and raised the final beam in the fall of 2023. It's the largest single investment in the city's history. The 900,000-square-foot facility sits on 241 acres west of Jackson. The fully air-conditioned workspace will include a printer, associated plate-forming converting assets, and other state-of-the-art manufacturing technology. Anticipated hiring for the new site will eclipse 220 by 2025. Once operational, the state-of-the-art facility will significantly increase the supply of disposable tableware products-namely, plates and bowls-in the marketplace, while supporting the Livingware and GP Pro business segments. "Although we have invested to expand existing sites, this is the first new Dixie plant the company has built since 1991," explains Fernando Gonzalez, president of the consumer business at Georgia-Pacific. "This added capacity will help us meet the needs of our customers as consumer demand for high-quality, durable paper plates and bowls continues to grow." Georgia-Pacific directly employs approximately 460 people and operates six facilities in Tennessee. A team of nine Jackson employees is laying the groundwork for a successful startup in 2024. Georgia-Pacific has a long history of investing in people, and the Jackson plant will provide development for team members to allow them the opportunity to continue growing in their careers. "Companies choose to invest in Tennessee because of our skilled workforce and unmatched business climate," said Tennessee Governor Bill Lee. "I commend Georgia-Pacific's commitment to creating more than 200 jobs in Jackson so that Tennesseans across the region can thrive." Currently, Georgia-Pacific's economic impact contributes to 1,430 additional indirect jobs and $100 million in labor income, and the capital investment in the state has totaled more than $250 million since 2011. GP's capital investments grow and improve our businesses which have a multiplier effect on people and the communities where we operate. View original content here. December 2023 aerial photo of Georgia-Pacific's new Dixie plant in Jackson, Tennessee. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Georgia-Pacific on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Georgia-Pacific Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/georgia-pacific Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Georgia-Pacific View the original press release on accesswire.com Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Japan Gold Corp. (TSXV: JG) (OTCQB: JGLDF) ("Japan Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Fraser MacCorquodale as President and Chief Operating Officer, effective March 1, 2024. Mr. MacCorquodale served as the General Manager for Exploration at Newcrest Mining Limited ("Newcrest") from 2008 to 2023. During his tenure, he played a pivotal role in formulating and executing Newcrest's growth strategy, overseeing the development of a world-class exploration team and establishing a robust growth portfolio. His extensive experience spans 35 years in global gold and copper exploration, encompassing expertise in near-mine, brownfield and greenfield exploration across diverse cultural and geographical landscapes including Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Western Canada, the United States of America, Ecuador and Chile. Fraser MacCorquodale, renowned for his track record of major global discoveries at Newcrest, has joined Japan Gold's Executive Leadership Team. In response to the appointment, John Proust, Chairman and CEO of Japan Gold, expressed, "I am delighted to welcome Fraser to our Executive Leadership Team. We are pleased to have attracted such a strong and accomplished technical leader to drive value in our projects during an exciting growth phase for Japan Gold. Fraser's strong targeting skills, based on a deep technical knowledge of epithermal gold and porphyry copper-gold deposits and his team development and leadership skills, will be instrumental as we continue to explore Japan Gold's 35 projects spread over 3,000 square kilometres." "I am very excited to join Japan Gold," said Fraser MacCorquodale. "The Company has done great work to build a high-quality exploration portfolio within a re-emerging country with demonstrated gold prospectivity. I look forward to leading the Japan Gold operational team to advance these opportunities." About Japan Gold Corp. Japan Gold Corp. is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on gold exploration across Japan. The Company holds a portfolio of over 3,000 square kilometres of prospecting applications and prospecting rights which cover areas with known gold occurrences, a history of mining and is prospective for high-grade epithermal gold mineralization. The Japan Gold leadership and operational team of geologists, drillers and technical advisors have extensive experience exploring and operating in Japan. Japan Gold has an alliance with Barrick Gold Corporation to jointly explore, develop, and mine certain gold mineral properties and mining projects with the potential to host Tier 1 or Tier 2 gold ore bodies. On behalf of the Board of Japan Gold Corp. John Proust Chairman & CEO For further information, please contact: Brenda Dayton Vice President, Corporate Communications Phone: 604.417.7952 Email: bdayton@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 2024 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, the timing and granting of prospecting rights; the Company's ability to convert prospecting rights into digging rights within the timeframe prescribed by the Mining Act; 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 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. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199626 SOURCE: Japan Gold Corp. Cropin Technology, the global Agtech leader enabling intelligent agriculture, today announced that it has become a Certified B Corporation ("B Corp") for its unwavering commitment to social and environmental progress and redefining sustainable food systems worldwide. The certification is the result of a meticulous assessment of Cropin's decade-long impact on transforming the agriculture landscape, empowering farmers, and reshaping agribusiness models through its cutting-edge Agtech solutions. The B Corp movement is a global movement of people using business as a Force for Good. As a prominent B Corp in the Agtech industry, Cropin stands among businesses at the forefront of a global shift for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy. The B Corp certification highlights its commitment to excellence across a spectrum of vital areas governance, employee well-being, community/customer empowerment, environmental impact and a legal commitment to stakeholder governance. It reaffirms Cropin's substantial strides in making agriculture predictable, traceable, and inherently sustainable, bringing value to all stakeholders in the food systems. This encompasses the empowerment of farmers, contributing to substantial progress in the lives of underserved communities. This certification further underscores Cropin's significant role in leading the global 'Ag-intelligence' movement by: Cropin positively impacts millions worldwide, including women farmers in emerging markets Agri-climate tech solutions deployed across 103 countries Introduced the world's first industry cloud for agriculture, driven by a Crop Knowledge Graph encompassing 500 crops and 10,000 crop varieties Built intelligence over 200 million acres of farmland Reimagining agriculture through digitalization, data, and intelligence for agribusinesses, development agencies, and government stakeholders Commenting on the certification, Krishna Kumar, Co-Founder CEO, Cropin said, "I am both proud and humbled by the prestigious B Corp certification for Cropin. This recognition comes at a crucial juncture when agricultural transformation is imperative to achieve global climate goals. The food systems' significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater consumption, and fossil fuel usage necessitates a transformation, and the Agritech sector, including Cropin, has a crucial role to play. With this certification, we reaffirm our commitment to being a key catalyst for ecosystem stakeholders in this transformative journey." "The B Corp certification is a clear testament to a business's commitment to sustainability. Attaining this status requires companies to meet rigorous social and environmental performance standards, public transparency, and legal accountability, harmonizing profit and purpose. Cropin's achievement of B Corp certification underscores its dedication to creating a positive impact for all stakeholders, integrating sustainability at the core of its decision-making. As an ABC Impact portfolio company, we take pride in Cropin's commitment and wish them continued success in their journey to reshape and fortify sustainable food systems," said Sugandhi Matta, Chief Impact Officer, ABC Impact. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227024855/en/ Contacts: Dileep M, +91-9886369634, dileep.m@cropin.com With emerging technologies top of mind for IT leaders, Rocket Software to speak to the importance of modernization at SHARE, Gartner Data Analytics Summit, and GSE Conference Rocket Software, Inc. ("Rocket Software"), a global technology leader driving modernization for the world's largest companies, will be leading presentations in the form of keynotes, panels, and demonstrations at three key events for the IT industry in March, with the goal of educating industry decision makers on the need for and best practices of modernization without disruption. Rocket Software will be attending SHARE in Orlando, FL, on March 3-7, the Gartner Data Analytics Summit in Orlando, FL, on March 11-13, and The GSE Conference in Dresden, Germany on March 11-15. SHARE Rocket Software will join senior leaders of I&O, mainframe infrastructure leaders, and systems operations leaders to discuss some of the most pressing enterprise technology topics, including hybrid cloud, security and compliance, DevOps in the enterprise, and more. Rocket Software will have over 10 senior leaders and Distinguished Engineers featured in speaking sessions at SHARE, with an overarching focus on the pertinent topic of bridging the gap between mainframe and cloud while ensuring resiliency and security, especially amidst regulations like the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). Sessions include: "Modernize or be displaced! How the mainframe will thrive in the years to come" On March 4 at 7:45 a.m. ET, VP of Software Engineering and Fellow Tim Willging will deliver this keynote speech "Unleashing the Strategic Impact of Hybrid Cloud in Mainframe Organizations" On March 5 at 1 p.m. ET, VP of Product Management, Infrastructure Modernization, Jeff Cherrington and Tim Willging will collaborate for this partner presentation "Optimizing Your Db2 Lifecyle Management for Peak Performance" On March 7 at 12 p.m. ET, Tim Willging and Principle Solutions Advisor Bob Bersano will join IBM's Worldwide Sales Leader, System z Database Tools, Kevin Poole and Senior Technical Staff Member Ka Chun-Ng for this panel Rocket Software will also be conducting demos at booth #403. Gartner Data Analytics Summit At this event Rocket Software will be speaking with CIOs, CDOs, data and analytics leaders, and I&O leaders aspiring to transform their organizations through the power of data, analytics, and AI. Rocket Software's President of Data Modernization and AI Michael Curry will present on the importance of data modernization and data integration as organizations look to improve customer and employee experiences and drive innovation. Data is one of an organization's most important assets; especially as many companies explore the use of AI, machine learning and large language models, it's critical they have the data quality and access-especially with core systems like the mainframe-needed to feed those technologies. "Five Secrets to Bridging Your Mainframe into your Data Fabric." On March 12 at 1:15 p.m. ET, President, Data Modernization, Michael Curry will present this session Rocket Software will have experts and demos at Booth #1434. GSE Conference As a GSE partner, Rocket Software is dedicated to delivering quality conference content that contributes to the mission of a connected and collaborative industry. This event convenes senior leaders of I&O, mainframe infrastructure leaders, and systems operations leaders to discuss modernization strategies for enterprise IT. Rocket Software will be present to offer its team's expertise on the importance of bridging the gap from mainframe to cloud, ensuring security in the modernization process, and helping enterprises prepare for the upcoming DORA regulation to go into effect. "Modernization, Without Disruption." On March 11 at 4:30 p.m. CET, President, Infrastructure Modernization, Phil Buckellew will deliver this keynote speech Rocket Software is committed to meeting their customers wherever they are on their modernization journeys. All of these events support that mission and provide an important opportunity for Rocket Software's experts to communicate the importance of strategic and impactful modernization that does not hinder the operations of an enterprise, but instead contributes to overall efficiency and progress. To stay up to date on Rocket Software's event participation, follow the company on X and LinkedIn. About Rocket Software Rocket Software partners with the largest enterprises, in all industries, to solve their most complex IT challenges, across infrastructure, data, and applications with solutions that simplify, not disrupt their modernization journey. Trusted by over 10,000 customers, Rocket Software helps enterprises modernize in place with a hybrid cloud strategy, so they don't need to re-platform or build from the ground up. The company's 2,300 global employees work with customers to accelerate and optimize their modernization journey while meeting evolving market needs. Rocket Software is a privately held U.S. corporation headquartered in the Boston area with centers of excellence strategically located throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Rocket Software is a portfolio company of Bain Capital Private Equity. Follow Rocket Software on LinkedIn and Twitter or visit www.RocketSoftware.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228086161/en/ Contacts: Media: V2 Communications for Rocket Software rocket@v2comms.com Blue Earth Therapeutics, a Bracco company and emerging leader in the development of innovative next generation therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, today announced that it will be presenting at the upcoming B. Riley Securities' Radiopharma Investor Conference. The event will be held in New York, N.Y., on March 1, 2024. David Gauden, D. Phil., Chief Executive Officer of Blue Earth Diagnostics and Blue Earth Therapeutics, will present an overview of Blue Earth Therapeutics from 8:00 8:30 a.m. ET and participate in an expert panel discussion, "Opportunities and Challenges in 2024, Perspectives from Leaders in Radiopharma," from 9:15 9:50 a.m. ET. Dr. Dan Stevens, Vice President Clinical Development and Medical, Blue Earth Therapeutics, will participate in an expert panel, "Good But Not the Best Yet: Drug Designs to Beat Standard of Care," from 1:45 2:20 p.m. ET. The Company will also host 1:1 investor meetings at the conference. "Blue Earth Therapeutics continues to expand our leadership position in the rapidly growing area of radiopharmaceuticals," said David Gauden., D.Phil., Chief Executive Officer of the Company. "We are strongly positioned for continued progress across this exciting sector, and we look forward to sharing information about our innovative approach and next generation targeted radioligand therapy (RLT) technology at this important B. Riley Securities conference." About Blue Earth Therapeutics Blue Earth Therapeutics, one of the Bracco family of companies, is a clinical stage company dedicated to advancing next generation targeted radiotherapeutics to treat patients who have cancer. With proven management expertise across the spectrum of radiopharmaceutical and oncology drug development, as well as biotechnology start-up experience, the Company aims to innovate and improve upon current technologies and rapidly advance new targeted therapies for serious diseases. Blue Earth Therapeutics has an emerging pipeline, initially focused on prostate cancer, and with plans to expand into additional disease areas in oncology. Blue Earth Therapeutics is an indirect subsidiary of Bracco Imaging S.p.A., and based in Oxford, UK. For more information, please visit: https://www.blueearththerapeutics.com. About Bracco Imaging Bracco Imaging S.p.A., part of the Bracco Group, is a world-leading diagnostic imaging provider. Headquartered in Milan, Italy, Bracco Imaging develops, manufactures and markets diagnostic imaging agents and solutions. It offers a product and solution portfolio for all key diagnostic imaging modalities: Our continually evolving portfolio is completed by a range of medical devices, advanced administration systems and dose-management software. In 2019 Bracco Imaging enriched its product portfolio by expanding the range of oncology nuclear imaging solutions in the urology segment and other specialties with the acquisition of Blue Earth Diagnostics. In 2021, Bracco Imaging established Blue Earth Therapeutics as a separate, cutting-edge biotechnology vehicle to develop radiopharmaceutical therapies. Visit: www.braccoimaging.com. PP-rh-US-0438 This press release is for U.S. audiences only View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228408873/en/ Contacts: For Blue Earth Therapeutics (U.S.) Priscilla Harlan Vice President, Corporate Communications (M) (781) 799-7917 priscilla.harlan@blueearthdx.com For Blue Earth Therapeutics (UK) Clare Gidley Associate Director Marketing and Communications Tel: +44 (0) 7917 536939 clare.gidley@blueearthdx.com Media Sam Brown Inc. Mike Beyer (M) (312) 961-2502 mikebeyer@sambrown.com Asahi Kasei Microdevices Corporation (AKM) has started mass production of the CZ39 series of coreless current sensors. The CZ39 device family is particularly well-suited to electric vehicle (EV) applications due to its 100 ns response time, low heat generation, and noise immunity. These properties are highly compatible with the silicon carbide (SiC)- and gallium nitride (GaN)- based power devices favored by OEMs for their reduced form factor and high efficiency. As such, the CZ39 series allows for the implementation of substantially smaller, lighter, and more accurate on-board charging systems for EVs. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228537619/en/ Asahi Kasei Microdevices' CZ39 series coreless current sensor. (Photo: Business Wire) Fast current measurements The CZ39 series features a high-sensitivity compound Hall element that enables a response time of 100 ns, making it possible for current measurements to keep up with the high switching speed of SiC- and GaN-based power solutions. This allows OEMs to take advantage of those devices' smaller size and thus reduce the weight of on-board charging systems in order to extend cruising range. The CZ39 series' ability to quickly signal the system to interrupt current flow during an overcurrent condition also makes for a robust electronic fuse, or e-fuse, implementation. Reduced heat generation AKM has developed a unique package for the CZ39 series that achieves a primary conductor resistance of only 0.3 mO. Even under continuous 40 Arms current flow at an ambient temperature of 125C, heat generation is minimal, greatly reducing the need for bulky thermal management measures. Additionally, the structure of the package provides sufficient creepage and clearance distances for use in applications above 650 V. Enhanced noise immunity The combination of high voltage and high-speed switching in SiC- and GaN-based systems presents a challenge with respect to electrical noise mitigation. The CZ39 family is exceptionally resilient to such conditions, ensuring continuous and highly accurate current detection even in noisy environments. Please visit AKM.com for additional information. About Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM) AKM, a Japan-based company, operates an electronic components business as a member of the Asahi Kasei Group's Material sector. AKM provides customers with unique products by combining the compound semiconductor technology used in magnetic sensors with the ASIC/analog circuit technology used in silicon semiconductors. AKM's unique products and solutions are featured across a wide range of markets, including mobile communication devices and consumer products, as well as automotive electronics devices, household equipment, and industrial equipment. Additional information is available on https://www.akm.com/global/en/. About Asahi Kasei The Asahi Kasei Group contributes to life and living for people around the world. Since its foundation in 1922 with ammonia and cellulose fiber business, Asahi Kasei has consistently grown through the proactive transformation of its business portfolio to meet the evolving needs of every age. With more than 48,000 employees worldwide, the company contributes to sustainable society by providing solutions to the world's challenges through its three business sectors of Material, Homes, and Health Care. For more information, visit www.asahi-kasei.com. Asahi Kasei is also dedicated to sustainability initiatives and is contributing to reaching a carbon neutral society by 2050. To learn more, visit https://www.asahi-kasei.com/sustainability/. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228537619/en/ Contacts: North America: Asahi Kasei America Inc. Christian OKeefe christian.okeefe@ak-america.com Europe: Asahi Kasei Europe GmbH Sebastian Schmidt sebastian.schmidt@asahi-kasei.eu TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Ubique Minerals Limited ("Ubique" or the "Company") (CSE:UBQ)(FRA:2UM) is pleased to announce that it has completed the geochemical surveys at its Daniel's Harbour zinc project and identified high zinc in soil anomalies in the enlarged property area. A contractor was retained in fall 2023 to undertake more geochemical surveys in areas previously unsurveyed and to link up with existing surveyed areas where anomalies are open ended. The geology has now been compiled into an integrated map of the whole property highlighting the features known to be associated with the zinc deposits to locate the most favorable target areas for new zinc deposits that either occur at surface or at very shallow depths such that open pit mining would be practical. The attached maps show the excellent location of this property with a paved road right onto the property and gravel roads giving good access to the rest of the property and the areas where soil anomalies have been identified. The first map also shows the locations of the second and third maps as well as two of the zinc deposits which Ubique has discovered and been drill defining. The Nose Zone at the southwest end of the geological trend is at a depth of more than 100 metres, while the P Zone is only 50 metres below surface as the hosting geology approaches surface. The areas of Maps 2 and 3 where most of the anomalies have been located are where the hosting geology is closest to surface. The highest soil zinc values encountered in the survey reached almost 10,000 parts per million or 1% zinc. Cadmium and to a lesser extent lead values in soil are also elevated anomalously. Several of the areas which are contoured dark blue reflect areas where samples could not be collected due to the existence of bogs or ponds and therefore may be biasing the zinc contours distribution. Several of the anomalies have surface extents of several hundred metres which would be comparable with surface extents of historically mined out deposits from the period of prior mining. Lack of surface outcroppings prevents determination of whether the anomalies reflect bedrock zinc occurrences or boulders of zinc mineralized rock dragged down ice by glacial movement. Vilhjalmur Thor Vilhjalmsson CEO and Chairman commented "We are encouraged by these results and must follow up to explain the sources of the anomalies as well as expanding the coverage of the surveys to close off each of the anomalies. It indicates that the zinc deposits could potentially extend all along the length of the property area" Area 1 as located on first map Area 2 as located on first map. About Daniel's Harbour project The Daniel's Harbour properties of Ubique cover both the area of the past producing high grade zinc mine and extensions of favorable area, mostly to the north-northeast along strike for more than ten kilometers. Exploration drilling to date has confirmed three zinc deposits and has indications of two more which require additional definition drilling to define their extents. Several more zones identified by one or more historic drill holes require relocating and further drilling to confirm. As the deposits are long, narrow and flat lying-in shape and orientation, within flat lying dolomitic sedimentary rocks they may extend across more than one blocks of claims and therefore the ability to consolidate the property position will assist in exploration execution. On behalf of the board of directors, Vilhjalmur Thor Vilhjalmsson CEO and Chairman About Ubique Minerals Limited Ubique Minerals Limited is an exploration company listed on the CSE (CSE:UBQ) focused on exploration of its Daniel's Harbour zinc property in Newfoundland and is also engaged in exploration in Namibia, Africa along with actively searching for other projects around the world. Ubique became a publicly listed company in September 2018. Ubique has an experienced management group with a record of multiple discoveries of deposits worldwide and owns an extensive and exclusive database of historic exploration results from the Daniel's Harbour area. Dr. Gerald Harper, P.Geo.(NL), director of Ubique, is the qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 responsible for the technical data presented herein and has reviewed and approved this release. For more information on Ubique please contact see www.ubiqueminerals.com or contact vilhjalmur@jvcapital.co.uk Forward-Looking Information: This press release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business and trading in the common stock of Ubique Minerals Limited., the raising of additional capital and the future development of the business. The forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the company's management. Although the company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because Ubique can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and Ubique 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. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE: Ubique Minerals Limited View the original press release on accesswire.com Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - District Metals Corp. (TSXV: DMX) (OTCQB: DMXCF) (FSE: DFPP) ("District" or the "Company") is pleased to report that Bergslagen Metals AB (a 100% owned Swedish subsidiary of District) has applied for eight mineral licenses covering a total area of 91,470 hectares (Figures 1 and 2). These applications target Alum Shale deposits, and have been registered with Bergsstaten (Mining Inspectorate of Sweden) to permit the exploration of vanadium, nickel, molybdenum, zinc, and other elements located in central and north-central Sweden. Bergsstaten is expected to reach a decision on the Company's mineral license applications in the coming weeks. Although there is currently a moratorium on uranium mining and exploration in Sweden, the Swedish Government has recently initiated an inquiry into abolishing the ban on uranium mining and exploration (February 26, 2024 news release). District consolidated 100% of the Viken Energy Metals Deposit on January 15, 2024 (news release here), which is the largest undeveloped Alum Shale uranium-vanadium-potash-molybdenum-nickel-copper-zinc deposit in Sweden, and amongst the largest deposits based on total historic mineral resources of uranium and vanadium in the world. Alum Shale deposits in Sweden typically contain a large inventory of critical energy metals that will be required as part of the green energy transition. In addition, potentially viable Alum Shale deposits are large and shallow, which simplifies and lowers the cost of the exploration, discovery, and development stages. Highlights: Mineral License application Viken nr 4 will increase the area of the Viken Property from 9,367 hectares (ha) to 37,211 ha. Mineral License applications Tasjo nr 106 to 108 will increase the area of the Tasjo Property from 15,625 ha to 34,317 ha. Mineral License applications Malgomaj 1001 to 1003 is a new property that covers an area of 37,131 ha, and is located northeast of the Tasjo Property. Mineral License application Osterkalen nr 101 is a new property that covers an area of 7,803 ha, and is located southeast of the Tasjo Property. Garrett Ainsworth, CEO of District, commented: "The Alum Shale Formation in Sweden is vast and insufficiently explored. As a result, it represents an opportunity to be a significant contributor to the green energy transition in Sweden, Europe, and elsewhere. "These licence applications are the product of an elaborate methodology to vector in on high priority Alum Shale deposit targets developed by District in partnership with GeoVista AB. Alum Shales are radioactive and low-resistivity which is visible with airborne radiometric and Very Low Frequency (VLF) data, respectively. Also, potentially viable Alum Shale deposits need to be thickened substantially via structural thrusting, which is identifiable using detailed geological maps provided by the Swedish Geological Survey (SGU). Finally, glacial till geochemical data and a compilation of historical exploration work refined our selection of target Alum Shale deposits." Alum Shale deposits in Sweden are known to host uranium and vanadium, together with other commodities of interest, such as molybdenum, nickel, copper, zinc, potash, phosphate and rare earth elements (REE). Viken nr 4 Mineral License Application According to the SGU geological map, Alum Shale is only outcropping in two small areas. One in the south-west corner and another in the west, but the actual distribution might be different as the area is covered by soil and till, and any overlying limestone is likely very thin. The airborne radiometric survey shows moderate to high values in the northern to south-eastern part of Viken nr 4. A large area of high conductivity dominates the western half of the application, with a similar smaller one in the east, close to the border with the Viken nr 3 mineral licence. Thickening of the Alum Shale is likely, but not evident from the SGU geological map. Only two glacial till samples are located within the application where one of them shows a moderately anomalous value of uranium (4 ppm U), and the other shows highly anomalous vanadium (78 ppm V). Tasjo nr 106 to 108 Mineral License Applications Tasjo nr 106 is located adjacent southwest of Tasjo nr 102 and contains the Fetsjon zone. The Fetsjon zone is part of several large historical exploration target estimates for uranium, vanadium, rare earth elements, phosphate and other energy metals and has seen extensive historic drilling. According to published SGU metallogenetic maps, the Fetsjon zone is within one of Sweden's most promising areas to host large Alum Shale deposits. Tasjo nr 107 is adjacent to Tasjo nr 102 and 103, which covers the eastern part of the Alum Shale in the Tasjo area. The lithology comprises Alum Shale with the overlying carbonate-rich unit and the underlying quartz-rich metasediments. An airborne radiometric survey covers two thirds of the area, and shows moderate to high uraniferous radiometric values, especially in the center area. The airborne VLF survey only covers less than half of the perimeter, showing moderate to moderate-high conductive values with an enticing high conductivity area in the south of the application. Some tectonic thickening is likely present as suggested by thrust faults shown in the SGU geological maps. No glacial till samples were available for Tasjo nr 107. According to the SGU geological map Tasjo nr 108 is dominated by Alum Shale. The SGU airborne radiometric survey shows relatively low uraniferous radiometric values, with some significantly elevated values in the west and south areas. The airborne VLF survey shows that the area is characterized by a strong high conductivity anomaly covering almost the entire area. No obvious tectonic thickening is suggested by the SGU geological maps, and no glacial till survey data is available for Tasjo nr 108. Malgomaj 1001 to 1003 Mineral License Applications Malgomaj nr 1001 is covered by Alum Shale and quartz-rich meta-sediments. No airborne radiometric or VLF data was available for Malgomaj nr 1001. Tectonic thickening of the Alum Shale is strongly suggested by the SGU geological map in the northern half of Malgomaj nr 1001 where a repeating sequence of Alum Shale and quartz-rich meta-sediments is shown. Only two till samples were collected from the area by SGU, one in the center and one in the south, both showing anomalous U values (8.2 ppm in the center and 6 ppm in the south) as well as one value of 21 ppm Mo in the center. Six grab rock samples from Malgomaj nr 1001 are reported in the SGU database, confirming the presence of Alum Shale with values up to 33 ppm U, 577 ppm V, 111 ppm Ni and 160 ppm Mo. Malgomaj nr 1003 is characterized by an extensive presence of Alum Shale at surface. The historical airborne radiometric survey indicates moderate to high uraniferous radiometric values over most of Malgomaj nr 1003, with the highest values also grouped in the center part of the application. No airborne VLF geophysical data was available for this area. Significant tectonic thickening within Malgomaj nr 1003 is indicated by the SGU geological maps, with both the Alum Shale and the quartz-rich meta-sediments repeating within a nappe system. The SGU glacial till survey shows multiple samples with anomalous uranium in the 3.5 to 11.4 ppm U range scattered all over Malgomaj nr 1003. In the central part of the area cover by the license application, several samples show anomalous vanadium up to 43.5 ppm V as well as anomalous phosphate up to 0.34 % P2O5 that is associated with REE of the Early Ordovician phosphatic siltstone in the Tasjo area. This is further confirmed by the presence of anomalous lanthanum up to 32.7 ppm La in the glacial till samples from the same area. Molybdenum in the glacial till samples generally shows moderate anomalous values that reach up to 56 ppm Mo, while nickel shows values up to 46 ppm Ni. Alum Shale has been confirmed within Malgomaj nr 1003, and eight grab samples showed values of up to 47 ppm U, 504 ppm V and 175 ppm Mo. Osterkalen nr 101 Mineral License Application Osterkalen nr 101 is covered by Alum Shales at surface as well as both the overlying carbonate-rich meta-sediments and the lower quartz-rich meta-sediments. The historical airborne radiometric survey shows moderate uraniferous radiometric values with small but strongly radioactive areas in the south and north. Osterkalen nr 101 is almost in its entirety characterized by a strong low-resistivity anomaly, based on the VLF airborne survey. Tectonic thickening is likely given the presence of mapped overthrust faults. No SGU glacial till surveys cover the area of this mineral license application or surrounding area. Figure 1: Mineral License Application for Viken Property To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7971/199530_99f6c316f4d37975_002full.jpg Figure 2: Mineral License Applications for Tasjo, Malgomaj, Osterkalen To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7971/199530_99f6c316f4d37975_003full.jpg Technical Information All scientific and technical information in this news release has been prepared by, or approved by Garrett Ainsworth, PGeo, President and CEO of the Company. Mr. Ainsworth is a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. The data disclosed in this news release is related to historical results. District has not undertaken any independent investigation of the sampling nor has it independently analyzed the results of the historical exploration work in order to verify the results. District considers these historical results relevant as the Company is using this data as a guide to plan exploration programs. The Company's current and future exploration work includes verification of the historical data through drilling. Mr. Ainsworth has not verified any of the information regarding any of the properties or projects referred to herein other than District's Properties. Mineralization on any other properties referred to herein is not necessarily indicative of mineralization on District's Properties. About District Metals Corp. District Metals Corp. is led by industry professionals with a track record of success in the mining industry. The Company's mandate is to seek out, explore, and develop prospective mineral properties through a disciplined science-based approach to create shareholder value and benefit other stakeholders. District is a polymetallic exploration and development company focused on the Viken and Tomtebo Properties in Sweden. The Viken Property covers 100% of the uranium-vanadium Viken Deposit, which is an asset with substantial exploration and development expenditures that resulted in the definition of large historic polymetallic resource estimates in 2010 and 2014. The Viken Deposit is amongst the largest deposits by total historic mineral resources of uranium and vanadium in the world. The advanced exploration stage Tomtebo Property is located in the Bergslagen Mining District of south-central Sweden and is situated between the historic Falun Mine and Boliden's Garpenberg Mine that are located 25 km to the northwest and southeast, respectively. Two historic polymetallic mines and numerous polymetallic showings are located on the Tomtebo Property along an approximate 17 km trend that exhibits similar geology, structure, alteration and VMS/SedEx style mineralization as other significant mines within the district. For further information on the Tomtebo Property, please see the technical report entitled "NI 43-101 Update Technical Report on the Tomtebo Project, Bergslagen Region of Sweden" dated effective October 15, 2020 and amended and restated on February 26, 2021, which is available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. On Behalf of the Board of Directors "Garrett Ainsworth" President and Chief Executive Officer (604) 288-4430 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 Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking Information" This news release contains certain statements that may be considered "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. 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 statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" and any similar expressions. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, predictions, indications, 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 information in this news release relating to the Company include, among other things, statements relating to the Purchase Agreement and closing thereof; the Company's Swedish polymetallic properties; the Company's planned exploration activities, including its drill target strategy and next steps for the Swedish properties; and the Company's interpretations and expectations about the results on the Swedish properties. These statements and other forward-looking information are based on opinions, assumptions and estimates made by the Company in light of its experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that the Company believes are appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances, as of the date of this news release, including, without limitation, assumptions about the reliability of historical data and the accuracy of publicly reported information regarding past and historic mines in the Bergslagen district; and in respect of the intention of the Swedish government to eventually lift or amend its moratorium on uranium exploration and mining in Sweden; the Company's ability to raise sufficient capital to fund planned exploration activities, maintain corporate capacity; and stability in financial and capital markets. Forward-looking information is necessarily based on a number of opinions, assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company as of the date such statements are made, 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 risks associated with the following: the reliability of historic data on District's properties; the Company's ability to raise sufficient capital to finance planned exploration; that the Swedish government maintains its moratorium on uranium exploration and mining in Sweden for the foreseeable future; the Company's limited operating history; the Company's negative operating cash flow and dependence on third-party financing; the uncertainty of additional funding; the uncertainties associated with early stage exploration activities including general economic, market and business conditions, the regulatory process, failure to obtain necessary permits and approvals, technical issues, potential delays, unexpected events and management's capacity to execute and implement its future plans; the Company's ability to identify any mineral resources and mineral reserves; the substantial expenditures required to establish mineral reserves through drilling and the estimation of mineral reserves or mineral resources; the uncertainty of estimates used to calculated mineralization figures; changes in governmental regulations; compliance with applicable laws and regulations; competition for future resource acquisitions and skilled industry personnel; reliance on key personnel; title matters; conflicts of interest; environmental laws and regulations and associated risks, including climate change legislation; land reclamation requirements; changes in government policies; volatility of the Company's share price; the unlikelihood that shareholders will receive dividends from the Company; potential future acquisitions and joint ventures; infrastructure risks; fluctuations in demand for, and prices of metals; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; legal proceedings and the enforceability of judgments; going concern risk; risks related to the Company's information technology systems and cyber-security risks; and risk related to the outbreak of epidemics or pandemics or other health crises. For additional information regarding these risks, please see the Company's Annual Information Form dated July 11, 2022, under the heading "Risk Factors", which is available at www.sedarplus.ca. These factors and assumptions are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors and assumptions that could affect the Company. These factors and assumptions, however, should be considered carefully. Although the Company has attempted to identify factors that would cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those disclosed in the forward-looking information or information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Also, many of such factors are beyond the control of the Company. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information is made as of the date of this news release, and the Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise such forward-looking information, except as required by applicable securities laws. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199530 SOURCE: District Metals Corp. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Kenorland Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: KLD) (OTCQX: KLDCF) (FSE: 3WQ0) ("Kenorland" or the "Company") is pleased to announce results from its 2023 large-scale geochemical and prospecting surveys targeting gold, nickel-copper, and lithium mineral systems at its 100% owned South Uchi Project (the "Project"), located 45 kilometers along strike to the east of Kinross Gold's Great Bear Project (formerly, Dixie Lake) in the Red Lake District of northwestern Ontario. South Uchi Highlights: Widespread (~40km 2 ) gold-in-till anomaly at the Papaonga target area (see Figure 2) ) gold-in-till anomaly at the Papaonga target area (see Figure 2) Strong multi-element signature associated with gold anomalism (Au-Ag-Te-WAs-Sb) Located in the Confederation Assemblage volcanics within the Red Lake Mining District Complex structural and geologic setting, prospective for orogenic gold systems Limited historical exploration within the target area, including no historical drilling Detailed follow-up exploration program planned in 2024 to generate drill targets Figure 1. Regional volcanic assemblages with significant gold deposits and South Uchi Project location 1 Kinross reports 2023 fourth-quarter and full-year results: (Date February 14, 2024) - Updated resource to the technical report titled Great Bear Project Ontario, Canada prepared by Nicos Pfeiffer, P.Geo" John Sims, CPG, Yves Breau, P.Eng., Rick Greenwood, P.Geo., Agung Prawasono, P.Eng., issued February 13, 2023 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6489/199590_e6ae1027f4e9f9f1_001full.jpg Papaonga Target Area (Gold) Since regaining 100% control of the South Uchi Project in January 2023 (see press release dated January 19, 2023), Kenorland has completed a large-scale geochemical sampling survey including approximately 2,800 fine fraction till samples, 700 heavy mineral concentrate ("HMC") till samples, and 630 rock samples. The survey focused on a number of different mineral system targets (Au, Ni-Cu, Li) across the 83,385-hectare property. Results from the fine fraction till sampling identified the Papaonga target, defined by a large-scale, coherent gold-in-till anomaly and a strong multi-element signature of Au-Ag-Te-WAs-Sb. The Papaonga gold-in-till anomaly covers approximately five kilometers striking east-west and eight kilometers northeast-southwest following the prominent ice flow direction. There has been very limited historical exploration, and no historical drilling has occurred within the geochemical source target area. Figure 2. Map of Papaonga target area showing regional till sampling geochemical results To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6489/199590_e6ae1027f4e9f9f1_002full.jpg Zach Flood, President and CEO, comments, "The gold anomaly we've outlined at the Papaonga target is one of the most extensive anomalies we've identified to date, after completing several large-scale systematic geochemical surveys in glaciated terranes across various projects within our portfolio. The most exciting aspect of this anomaly is the location in the prolific Red Lake Mining District, within the Confederation Assemblage volcanics, a geologic setting similar to that of the Great Bear Project (formerly, Dixie Lake). There has been minimal meaningful exploration in the area and we believe the widespread gold-in-till anomalism could be related to an undiscovered gold system. We're very excited to get back on the ground this summer with an aggressive exploration program aimed at defining drill targets." Geologic Interpretation of the Papaonga Target The Papaonga target is located within the eastern pressure shadow of an interpreted early (pre to syn-tectonic) quartz-diorite pluton bounded by regional 1st order, major east-west trending deformation zones to the north and south. Northeast to east-west trending 2nd order linking structures have intensely strained, folded and offset geologically complex stratigraphy comprised of tholeiitic mafic volcanics, calc-alkaline mafic volcanics, and clastic sedimentary rocks intercalated with iron formation. Previous mapping has noted strong penetrative fabric within all rock types (intrusive, volcanic and sedimentary rocks) following the east-west and northeast orientations. A weak to strong silica-sericite-iron carbonate alteration and sulphide mineralisation has also been mapped across the Papaonga target area and is coincident with the gold-in-till anomalism. Kenorland believes these results are indicative of a structural setting capable of hosting orogenic gold mineralisation. Figure 3. Geological map of Papaonga Target area To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6489/199590_e6ae1027f4e9f9f1_003full.jpg 2024 Planned Exploration Program Kenorland is planning a detailed mapping and prospecting campaign within the Papaonga target area for the 2024 summer field season, focusing on the identified 'head' (source) of the gold-in-till glacial dispersal plumes. In addition, 10kg HMC till samples will be collected across the target area for gold grain counts and analysis. The Company also recently completed a high resolution airborne magnetic survey covering the Papaonga target area. The goal of the 2024 exploration campaign is to develop drill targets for testing in 2025. About the South Uchi Project The South Uchi Project was first identified and staked by Kenorland based on the region's prospectivity to host significant gold mineralised systems. The Project covers a portion of Confederation Assemblage volcanic rocks, as well as the boundary between the volcanic-dominated Uchi geological subprovince to the north and the sedimentary-dominated English River geological subprovince to the south. Multiple major east-west striking shear zones associated with the Uchi and English River subprovince boundary transect the Project. Deformation associated with these structures has resulted in zones of strong shearing, alteration, and folding of the metavolcanic-clastic and metasedimentary-iron formation stratigraphy, which are favorable settings for orogenic gold mineralisation. The majority of gold deposits in the Red Lake District (Red Lake, Madsen, Hasaga, and others) are located on the northern margin of the Confederation Assemblage, however, recent discoveries such as the LP Fault Zone on the Dixie Project by Great Bear Resources Ltd. (acquired by Kinross Gold and renamed Great Bear Project) highlight the prospectivity of the entire Confederation Assemblage along the southern margin of the Uchi subprovince. Figure 4. South Uchi Project location To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6489/199590_e6ae1027f4e9f9f1_004full.jpg QA/QC and Sampling Protocols All 2023 soil samples were collected under the supervision of Kenorland employees. Soil samples were hand dug in the field targeting the 'C' or 'B' horizon soil, bagged and then transported from the field to the crew facilities where blanks and certified reference materials were inserted at regular sample intervals. Groups of samples were placed in large bags, sealed with numbered tags in order to maintain a chain-of-custody, and transported from Ear Falls to Bureau Veritas Commodities ("BV") laboratory in Timmins, Ontario. Sample preparation and analytical work for this soil sampling program were carried out by BV. Samples were prepared for analysis according to BV method SS230: individual samples were dried at 60oC, and then sieved up to 100g to -230 mesh (-63 m) for analysis. Samples were analyzed using BV method AQ252_EXT where a 30g split is analyzed by Aqua Regia digestion with ultratrace ICP-MS finish for both gold and multi-element geochemistry (52 elements). All results passed the QA/QC screening at the lab, all company inserted standards and blanks returned results that were within acceptable limits. Qualified Person Mr. Janek Wozniewski, B.Sc., P.Geo. (EGBC #172781, APEGS #77522, EGMB #48045, PGO #3824), "Qualified Person" under National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this press release. About Kenorland Minerals Ltd. Kenorland Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: KLD) is a well-financed mineral exploration company focused on project generation and early-stage exploration in North America. Kenorland's exploration strategy is to advance greenfields projects through systematic, property-wide, phased exploration surveys financed primarily through exploration partnerships including option to joint venture agreements. Kenorland holds a 4% net smelter return royalty on the Frotet Project in Quebec which is owned by Sumitomo Metal Mining Canada Ltd. The Frotet Project hosts the Regnault gold system, a greenfields discovery made by Kenorland and Sumitomo Metal Mining Canada Ltd. in 2020. Kenorland is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Further information can be found on the Company's website www.kenorlandminerals.com On behalf of the Board of Directors, Zach Flood President, CEO & Director For further information, please contact: Alex Muir, CFA Investor Relations Manager Tel +1 604 568 6005 info@kenorlandminerals.com Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains 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", "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, that could cause actual results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing these forward-looking statements are reasonable based upon the information currently available to management as of the date hereof, actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. Readers are therefore cautioned not to place undue reliance 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 times frames or at all. Except where required by applicable law, the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This news release also contains information about adjacent properties on which the Company does not have an interest and the presence of resources on adjacent properties is not necessarily indicative of the mineralisation on the South Uchi project. 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/199590 SOURCE: Kenorland Minerals Ltd. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Kingsmen Resources Ltd. (TSXV: KNG) (OTCQB: KNGRF) ("Kingsmen" or the "Company") is pleased to update progress on the Las Coloradas project, located 30km from Hidalgo de Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico. Portions of the Soledad structure were mined by ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company), the U.S. based subsidiary of Grupo Mexico in the period 1944 to 1952. Kingsmen has completed additional prospecting and sampling in a previously untested area of the project located northeast of the Soledad NW target area. No historic old workings were found in the area and overburden limits exposure (Figure 1). Silver values up to 153 g/t were obtained typically from 0.1 to 4.0 meter wide, NW-trending quartz-calcite structures, veins and breccias that parallel the Soledad and Soledad II structures, and their subsidiaries. In aggregate, the belt of NW-trending structures plus the Soledad and Soledad II structures is at least 1,500 meters wide and the presence of anomalous silver values in the major and minor structures demonstrates the prospectivity of the belt. Preliminary interpretation of ground magnetics indicates the presence of several important major structures as indicated by magnetic linears. Pathfinder element concentrations occurring in variable combinations in the areas of interest include Cu, Pb, Zn, As, Bi, Sb and Mo. The different combinations of pathfinder elements likely represent different stages or pulses of mineralization. The belt of NW-trending structures intercepts a newly recognized 2,500 meter long zone of NE-trending structures near the area of highly anomalous silver values at the NW-end of the Soledad II structure. This complex structural zone is located in an area of strong magnetics possibly representing a buried intrusive with skarn potential. Scott Emerson, President commented: We are continuing the field program with the aid of integration and interpretation of the ground magnetic data to better understand the structural controls on the silver mineralization which are presenting new areas for exploration which have not been explored before. Figure 1 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/9640/199592_31ff491784843b2b_003full.jpg About Las Coloradas The Las Coloradas Project ( 8.5 km2 -3.3 sq miles) represents a consolidation of a historic mining district which covers numerous silver-gold-lead-zinc-copper mines previously exploited by ASARCO (American Smelting and Refining Company), the U.S. based subsidiary of Grupo Mexico. Las Coloradas is in the Parral mining district of the Central Mexican Silver Belt, and is located approximately 30 kilometers southeast of the city of Hidalgo de Parral and 40 kilometers east of the San Francisco de Oro and Santa Barbara mining districts where several old major mines are located, such as La Prieta, Veta Colorada, Palmilla, Esmeralda, San Francisco del Oro and Santa Barbara. As well, new major mining projects are currently being explored in the district; Cordero (Discovery Silver Corp.), 35 kms north of Parral, and La Cigarra (Kootenay Silver Inc.), 35 kms northwest of Parral. Click here to see locator map, https://www.kingsmenresources.com/area-history. Qualified Person Kieran Downes, Ph.D., P.Geo., a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical disclosure set out in this news release. About Kingsmen Resources In line with Kingsmen's organic-growth strategy, the Company's focus is on exploration and development, and is currently focused on district-scale exploration for high -margin metallic mineral deposits in the prolific mining districts of Parral Mexico. In addition, the company has a 1% NSR on the Los Ricos North project in Mexico operated by GoGold Resources Inc. The Company's leaders have extensive experience in the mining and financial sectors. Kingsmen is a publicly-traded company (TSXV: KNG) (OTCQB: KNGRF) and is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. On behalf of the Board, Signed: "Scott Emerson" Scott Emerson, President & CEO Phone: 6046859316 Email: se@kingsmenresources.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statement: All statements, trend analysis and other information contained in this press release about anticipated future events or results constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect" and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may", "will", "should", "could" or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including, without limitation, statements regarding the completion of the acquisition of the Las Coloradas Project and receipt of regulatory approval, are forward-looking statements. Although Kingsmen believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements and/or information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements since Kingsmen can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. 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, including the risks, uncertainties and other factors identified in Kingsmen's periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators, and assumptions made with regard to: Kingsmen's ability to make the required payments under the definitive agreements; and Kingsmen's ability to secure the necessary regulatory approvals. Forward-looking statements are subject to business and economic risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results of operations to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Kingsmen's expectations include risks associated with the business of Kingsmen; risks related to the satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions to the closing of the acquisition of the Las Coloradas Project; non-completion of the acquisition of the Las Coloradas Project; risks related to exploration and potential development of the Las Coloradas Project; business and economic conditions in the mining industry generally; fluctuations in commodity prices and currency exchange rates; uncertainties relating to interpretation of drill results and the geology, continuity and grade of mineral deposits; the need for cooperation of government agencies in the exploration and development of properties and the issuance of required permits; the need to obtain additional financing to develop properties and uncertainty as to the availability and terms of future financing; the possibility of delay in exploration or development programs and uncertainty of meeting anticipated program milestones; uncertainty as to timely availability of permits and other governmental approvals; and other risk factors as detailed from time to time and additional risks identified in Kingsmen's filings with Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR in Canada (available at (www.sedarplus.ca). Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and opinions of management at the date the statements are made. Kingsmen does not undertake any obligation to update forward looking statements except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199592 SOURCE: Kingsmen Resources Ltd NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth BY LAXITA GAUTAM The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth When private chef LaToya Larkin told her son that she was going to make tamales with leftover collard greens from a Mother's Day brunch, he seemed skeptical. His exact words? "Mama, you trippin'," Larkin recalls with a laugh. "That sounds weird. We need to just stick to chicken and pork and keep doing what we do." But he fell in love with this unique fusion tamale the moment he tried it, as did Larkin's clients (after they gave her what she terms "the crazy look"). Tamales are an iconic dish native to Mexico and Central America - chile-spiced pork, chicken or beef wrapped in masa and steamed in corn husks. Larkin, who specializes in soul food, got to work, experimenting with fillings and flavorings that mix south of the border with the American South and the Caribbean. In addition to her best-selling collard-greens-and-smoked-turkey tamales, oxtail, red beans and rice, creole sausage, curry chicken, and jambalaya tamales are among the offerings at what she branded Black Girl Tamales in 2019. As a Black woman, Larkin is part of the fastest-growing demographic of entrepreneurs, but one that faces significant headwinds - they are less likely to have access to outside capital and are more likely to start businesses in already crowded sectors with low margins, like the restaurant industry. That's why Larkin is taking advantage of Strive USA, an innovative set of programs, led by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, designed to provide entrepreneurs with tools and resources to get capital, go digital and grow their networks. Larkin, a formally trained chef, former culinary instructor at Houston's Spring Independent School District - where she was the first Black chef to lead the district's culinary program - and the owner of a private chef business, Not Enough Thyme, learned the art of tamale making from her grandmother, whose first husband had been stationed in California in the 1960s. Her grandmother had been introduced to tamales by a Mexican friend, and after her marriage ended and she returned to Texas, she started making tamales as a side hustle, passing the art to Larkin's mother, and then eventually to young Larkin. Tamales, which may date back as far as 10,000 years, have immense historical and cultural significance. In earlier times, they were even treated as offerings to gods. Today, generations of families will gather, often at Christmas, for tamaladas, or tamale-making parties. Larkin's soul food tamales caused a disruption in the world of traditional tamale offerings: "Nobody is doing what I'm doing," she says. But building Black Girl Tamales has been challenging, from managing through a break-in to fending off remarks about cultural appropriation. "I get the little comments like 'Stick to your own food,' 'Do your own thing,' or 'If it's not broke, don't fix it.'" But Larkin views her soul food tamales as innovation - combining two storied cuisines to create something new. And plenty of foodies on the lookout for daring flavors are on board - a 2020 feature in Cuisine Noir, a publication focused on connecting the African diaspora through food, drink and travel, resulted in orders pouring in from across the country. Still, it took two years for Larkin to gain enough confidence in the business to leave her day job as a culinary educator, and even after she put in her notice, she had her doubts. "I'm gonna get five more checks, and after that it's dollar for dollar all on me," Larkin recalls. "I had a meltdown." She found inspiration in, of all things, a webinar led by a woman who made thousands of dollars a month teaching people about copper deficiency in goats. She surveyed her fellow teachers in her school and discovered that 19 out of 20 didn't know a thing about copper deficiency in goats. "If this woman is out there making this kind of money teaching something that nobody has a clue about," she laughs, "I know I'm gonna be OK with food." Gaining this confidence and believing in herself helped build the foundation of her now-thriving business. "A lot of people don't really believe in themselves. They don't take the chance and bet on themselves." Larkin plans to transform her tamale business with major retail placement and commercial food services for restaurants, hospitals and more. She's in the process of pivoting her business model from retail and direct-to-consumer e-commerce to wholesale, and already has a partnership venture in the works with a major U.S. retailer. She also recently received a wine sommelier certification through the McBride Sisters She Can Fund scholarship program, and plans to expand the business with more events, including wine dinners with special tamale pairings, wine and cheese events and more. For entrepreneurs, education never ends. Larkin recently took part in a 24-week training program combining Mastercard's Digital Doors curriculum, which focuses on enhancing and securing digital operations, and Our Village United's Elevated entrepreneurship effort, part of BeyGood's Black Parade Route initiative for small-business owners. Elevated combines operations, marketing, sales and fundraising fundamentals with wellness support to navigate the emotional challenges of business ownership. And recently, Black Girl Tamales was chosen from among hundreds of small businesses in the U.S. as a winner of a Mastercard Priceless Surprise - which included a social-media-ready VIP photo and video shoot to boost her marketing. To be a small Black-woman-owned business in today's world is to be part of a movement, Larkin says. "I'm answering my calling and I'm serving my purpose," she says. "I love every minute of it." Photos credit: Enobong Houston/Arts Houston Photography Originally published by The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth Check out more content from The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/mastercard-center-inclusive-growth Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth View the original press release on accesswire.com Saguenay, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - First Phosphate Corp. (CSE PHOS) (OTC: FRSPF) (FSE: KD0) ("First Phosphate" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed a memorandum of understanding ("MOU") with Craler Inc. ("Craler"), a division of TFI International Inc. (NYSE: TFII) (TSX: TFII) ("TFI") for the development of the Company's global freight logistical competencies to and from the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region of Quebec, Canada. "This agreement is important because Craler, together with is parent TFI, have the ability to determine the best practices for the Company's entire logistical footprint for its products and supplies across North America," says CEO John Passalacqua. "Smart logistics can lead to cost-savings, reduction of carbon footprint and satisfied clients in the automobile and stationary energy storage industries across North America." The terms of the agreement include: First Phosphate and Craler are to work towards determining the local logistical footprint for the movement of First Phosphate products and supplies to and from the Company's mining properties in Saguenay, Quebec to the Port of Saguenay, Quebec. First Phosphate and Craler are to work towards determining the North American logistical footprint for the movement of the Company's products and supplies to and from Saguenay, Quebec and the rest of North America and the world. First Phosphate and Craler are to work towards determining options for encouraging the establishment of a local production source of lithium carbonate / hydroxide at the Port of Saguenay, Quebec as well as the logistical options for the importation of lithium carbonate / hydroxide from other parts of North America and the world to the Port of Saguenay, Quebec. First Phosphate and Craler are to work towards the best electrification procedures to implement at the Company's prospective mine site and between the mine site and Port of Saguenay, North America and the world. The companies are to study the various logistical options available during the various stages of project development so as to minimize carbon footprint of the Company's overall operations. Special emphasis is to be placed on logistics that connect First Phosphate product and supply requirements to and from the automobile industry heartland of North America in the Windsor-Detroit corridor as well as to other regions of the US and Mexico. Craler is to join the First Phosphate project team and begin to ideate the best overall project-based logistics necessary to integrate the Company's product and supply flows across North America and the world. First Phosphate and Craler are to work together to make the economic, social and job creation benefits of their arrangement known to the Quebec, Canadian and US governments. Securities Issuances The Company has settled $75,000 of debt for accrued amounts owing to an arm's length service provider through the issuance of 250,000 Common Shares at the deemed price of $0.30 per Common Share. The Company has also granted 440,400 restricted share units of the Company ("RSUs") to two eligible consultants of the Company. The RSUs vest in 4 tranches (25% on each of May 31, 2024; August 31, 2024; November 30, 2024; and February 28, 2025). The RSUs are subject to the terms of the Company's Omnibus Equity Incentive Plan as approved by disinterested shareholders at the Company's annual and special meeting of shareholders held on August 25, 2023. All securities issued are subject to a hold period of four months plus one day from the date of issuance. About First Phosphate Corp. First Phosphate is a mineral development company fully dedicated to extracting and purifying phosphate for the production of cathode active material for the Lithium Iron Phosphate ("LFP") battery industry. First Phosphate is committed to producing at high purity level, in responsible manner and with low anticipated carbon footprint. First Phosphate plans to vertically integrate from mine source directly into the supply chains of major North American LFP battery producers that require battery grade LFP cathode active material emanating from a consistent and secure supply source. First Phosphate holds over 1,500 sq. km of royalty-free district-scale land claims in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean Region of Quebec, Canada that it is actively developing. First Phosphate properties consist of rare anorthosite igneous phosphate rock that generally yields high purity phosphate materially devoid of high concentrations of harmful elements. About Craler Inc. Founded in 1997, Craler has become one of the largest private Canadian companies specializing in freight management. Craler serves clients working in various types of industries to meet their specific freight transport needs across North America, including Canada, the United States and Mexico. Craler was acquired in 2019 by TFI International Inc. (NYSE: TFII) (TSX: TFII) and now operates as a division of this leading North American transportation and logistics company. For additional information, please contact: Bennett Kurtz, CFO bennett@firstphosphate.com Tel: +1 (416) 200-0657 Investor Relations: investor@firstphosphate.com Media Relations: media@firstphosphate.com Website: www.FirstPhosphate.com Follow First Phosphate: Twitter: https://twitter.com/FirstPhosphate LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/first-phosphate -30- Forward-Looking Information and Cautionary Statements This news release contains certain statements and information that may be considered "forward-looking statements" and "forward looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking statements and 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 statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" and other similar expressions. In addition, statements in this news release that are not historical facts are forward looking statements, including, among other things, the Company's planned exploration and production activities, the properties and composition of any extracted phosphate, the Company's plans for vertical integration into North American supply chains, the benefits of logistics for cost-savings, reduction of carbon footprint and satisfied clients, the creation of a local production source of lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide at the Port of Saguenay, Quebec and the importation of lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide, the integration of Company product and supply into product and supply flows, and the economic, social and job creation benefits of the Company and Craler operations. These statements and other forward-looking information are based on assumptions and estimates that the Company believes are appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances, including, without limitation, expectations of the Company's long term business outcomes given its short operating history; expectations regarding revenue, expenses and operations; the Company having sufficient working capital and ability to secure additional funding necessary for the exploration of the Company's property interests; expectations regarding the potential mineralization, geological merit and economic feasibility of the Company's projects; expectations regarding drill programs and the potential impacts successful drill programs could have on the life of the mine and the Company; mineral exploration and exploration program cost estimates; expectations regarding any environmental issues that may affect planned or future exploration programs and the potential impact of complying with existing and proposed environmental laws and regulations; receipt and timing of exploration and exploitation permits and other third-party approvals; government regulation of mineral exploration and development operations; expectations regarding any social or local community issues that may affect planned or future exploration and development programs; expectations surrounding global economic trends and technological advancements; and key personnel continuing their employment with the Company. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include: limited operating history; high risk of business failure; no profits or significant revenues; limited resources; negative cash flow from operations and dependence on third-party financing; the uncertainty of additional funding; no dividends; risks related to possible fluctuations in revenues and results; insurance and uninsured risks; litigation; reliance on management and key personnel; conflicts of interest; access to supplies and materials; dangers of mineral exploration and related liability and damages; risks relating to health and safety; government regulation and legal uncertainties; the company's exploration and development properties may not be successful and are highly speculative in nature; dependence on outside parties; title to some of the Company's mineral properties may be challenged or defective; Aboriginal title and land claims; obtaining and renewing licenses and permits; environmental and other regulatory risks may adversely affect the company; risks relating to climate change; risks related to infrastructure; land reclamation requirements may be burdensome; current global financial conditions; fluctuation in commodity prices; dilution; future sales by existing shareholders could cause the Company's share price to fall; fluctuation and volatility in stock exchange prices; and risks related to market demands. There can be no assurance that any opportunity will be successful, commercially viable, completed on time or on budget, or will generate any meaningful revenues, savings or earnings, as the case may be, for the Company. In addition, the Company will incur costs in pursuing any particular opportunity, which may be significant. These factors and assumptions are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors and assumptions that could affect the Company and, though they should be considered carefully, should be considered in conjunction with the risk factors described in the Company's other documents filed with the Canadian securities authorities, including without limitation the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's Annual Information Form dated November 29, 2023 which is available on SEDAR at www.sedarplus.ca. Although the Company has attempted to identify factors that would cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those disclosed in the forward-looking information or information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199580 SOURCE: First Phosphate Corp. SourceNow, a leading provider of vendor management solutions (VMS), is thrilled to announce its expansion into the Spanish market through a strategic licensing agreement with a renowned global logistics provider based in Madrid. This pivotal move not only solidifies SourceNow's presence in Europe but also underscores its commitment to delivering cutting-edge, compliant, and versatile vendor management technology on a global scale. SourceNow's VMS technology stands at the forefront of innovation, designed to meet the intricate needs of modern businesses by supporting multiple languages and currencies, thereby facilitating seamless operations across borders. Furthermore, the technology is fully compliant with European Union standards, ensuring that clients receive top-tier, reliable service that adheres to the highest regulatory requirements. Jean-Paul Renard, CEO of SourceNow, expressed his enthusiasm about the expansion: "We are excited to bring our state-of-the-art vendor management solutions to Spain, a country known for its dynamic market and significant growth potential. This expansion is a testament to our dedication to meeting the global needs of our clients, providing them with the tools necessary to manage their vendor relationships more effectively and efficiently. Our partnership with a leading logistics provider in Madrid marks a significant milestone in our mission to redefine vendor management technology across the globe." The entry of SourceNow into the Spanish market is expected to revolutionize the way businesses manage their vendor relationships, offering unparalleled efficiency, compliance, and adaptability. With this strategic move, SourceNow is poised to further enhance its global footprint, demonstrating its unwavering commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction in the vendor management sector." About SourceNow SourceNow is a leading provider of workforce management solutions, committed to helping organizations optimize their contingent workforce strategies and drive business success. With a focus on innovation and customer-centricity, SourceNow empowers organizations to navigate the complexities of the modern workforce with confidence and ease. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228230120/en/ Contacts: SourceNow Jasmine Southerland, Marketing Manager 561.299.5477 jsoutherland@mysourcenow.com www.mysourcenow.com SambaNova Systems announces Samba-1, a one trillion (1T) parameter generative AI model for the enterprise, which comprises 50+ of the highest quality open source generative AI Models. Samba-1 is the first one trillion parameter model for the regulated enterprise that is private, secure, and 10X more efficient than any other model of its size. Samba-1 is being leveraged by customers and partners, including Accenture and NetApp. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228538922/en/ "The entire AI industry is talking about building the smartphone of AI an integrated hardware and software system and today, SambaNova is the first to deliver a version of that to the enterprise." Rodrigo Liang, Co-founder and CEO of SambaNova Systems (Photo: Business Wire) "The entire AI industry is talking about building the smartphone of AI an integrated hardware and software system and today, SambaNova is the first to deliver a version of that to the enterprise," said Rodrigo Liang, Co-founder and CEO of SambaNova Systems. "This past fall, we announced the SN40L, the smartest AI chip (rivaling Nvidia), and today we've integrated that chip with the first 1T parameter model for the enterprise. Samba-1 rivals GPT-4, however, it's better suited for the enterprise as it can be delivered on-premises or in private clouds so that customers can fine-tune the model with their private data without ever disclosing it into the public domain." Available within SambaNova Suite, Samba-1 includes a growing list of specialty AI models that are quick to deploy, manage and maintain. Along with SambaNova's SN40L chip that was recently announced, SambaNova now offers a fully optimized trillion parameter model that can be fine-tuned and deployed in private environments at 1/10th the hardware footprint, showing the true value of SambaNova's full stack platform. "SambaNova's release of Samba-1, a trillion parameter AI model, that integrates with their SN40L chip for improved performance, marks an important development in enterprise AI," said Matt Eastwood, SVP of Research, IDC. "Customers are looking for full stack solutions that include support for 1T parameter models. The integration of SambaNova's innovative silicon means that businesses can run on as little as one rack and drive much greater efficiencies than other similarly sized models." "With Samba-1, enterprise customers of all sizes now have access to massive 1T parameter capabilities at the levels of simplicity and economics associated with significantly smaller models," stated Liang. "With privacy and security at the forefront, SambaNova has taken Fortune 10 AI capabilities and made them accessible to all enterprises in less time and at a lower cost." Samba-1 models have been trained across a variety of different use cases, tasks, and languages, and all work together as a single Composition of Experts (CoE) to solve business problems. These experts are built on top of: Llama2 7B 13B 70B Mistral 7B DeepSeek Coder 1.3B 6.7B 33B Falcon 40B DePlot CLIP Llava "Samba-1 is suited for enterprise clients that require a full stack AI solution, based on open standards, that they can deploy and see value from quickly," said Senthil Ramani, Global Lead, Data AI, Accenture. "SambaNova followed the full-stack approach from the beginning, which meant different design points and engineering decisions were made. The result is a privatized AI platform that is efficient, sustainable, cost effective, and secure." There are many enterprise benefits of Samba-1. They include: Enterprise-Ready: A private, secure 1+ trillion parameter model that provides the highest-level of accuracy and enterprise control. A private, secure 1+ trillion parameter model that provides the highest-level of accuracy and enterprise control. Better Performance and Accuracy: The Composition of Experts architecture aggregates multiple specialist models, which increases performance and accuracy while making fine-tuning modular. The Composition of Experts architecture aggregates multiple specialist models, which increases performance and accuracy while making fine-tuning modular. Lower cost and easy to manage: Deployed as a single endpoint, Samba-1 simplifies management and cost. Deployed as a single endpoint, Samba-1 simplifies management and cost. Inference at 10X less cost: The inference cost is 10x less than large, monolithic models The inference cost is 10x less than large, monolithic models Control access to data: Controlled access to expert models in the same way you control access to all your data. Controlled access to expert models in the same way you control access to all your data. Own the model: Customers own their model and fine-tune it within their own environment, with their own data. The model is built using open standards to eliminate vendor lock in. Customers own their model and fine-tune it within their own environment, with their own data. The model is built using open standards to eliminate vendor lock in. Fast and easy deployment: Deployment flexibility, as part of full-stack generative AI platform. For more information on Samba-1 please visit our website. About SambaNova Suite SambaNova Suite is the first full stack, generative AI platform, from chip to model, optimized for enterprise and government organizations. Powered by the intelligent SN40L chip, the SambaNova Suite is a fully integrated platform, delivered on-premises or in the cloud, combined with state-of-the-art open-source models, which can be easily and securely fine-tuned using customer data for greater accuracy. Once adapted with customer data, customers retain model ownership in perpetuity, so they can turn generative AI into one of their most valuable assets. About SambaNova Systems Customers turn to SambaNova to quickly deploy state-of-the-art generative AI capabilities within the enterprise. Our purpose-built enterprise-scale AI platform is the technology backbone for the next generation of AI computing. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, SambaNova Systems was founded in 2017 by industry luminaries, and hardware and software design experts from Sun/Oracle and Stanford University. Investors include SoftBank Vision Fund 2, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Intel Capital, GV, Walden International, Temasek, GIC, Redline Capital, Atlantic Bridge Ventures, Celesta, and several others. Visit us at sambanova.ai or contact us at info@sambanova.ai. Follow SambaNova Systems on LinkedIn or on X. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228538922/en/ Contacts: Virginia Jamieson 650-279-8619 virginia.jamieson@sambanova.ai Teleperformance develops solutions that meet clients' increasingly complex needs, in terms of individual safety, data, and systems security, to maintain its leadership position. SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, Frost & Sullivan assessed the Asia-Pacific (APAC) customer experience (CX) outsourcing services industry and, based on its research results, recognizes Teleperformance with the 2023 APAC Company of the Year Award. The company focuses on continued innovation to fulfill the ever-changing requirements of clients and their end customers and to help them stay relevant for the future. The company's high-tech/high-touch approach combines the experience, best practices, and emotional intelligence of its entire employee base (deployed on a best-shore strategy), empowered by technology and consulting services, to drive innovation and enable CX disruption. Teleperformance emphasizes long-lasting customer relationships and relevant technologies and processes, strengthening its brand and accelerating great commercial success. Teleperformance stands out for its strategic excellence, which balances technology innovation and human expertise, and has earned a reputation as a preferred service provider for various organizations in their specific operative markets. The company enhances its solution capabilities through technology deployment, with a continued focus on the human element, to achieve a significant competitive advantage in the rapidly evolving market for digitally integrated business services. The company delivers a complete portfolio of digital transformation solutions and enhanced CX to brand leaders worldwide, from APAC delivery locations. According to Krishna Baidya, Director, ICT Practice at Frost & Sullivan, "A wide array of clients well appreciate Teleperformance's unparalleled scale, geographic coverage, and cultural diversity in the industry." Teleperformance continues to impress the CX outsourcing industry with its deep-rooted focus on APAC, which is increasingly becoming the center of Teleperformance's development activity, driven by the company's digital and analytical offerings. The company's financial success is a testament to its focus on the region and continued expansion of its client portfolio in recent years. Teleperformance has established an unmatched footprint among CX outsourcing providers, with 11 service delivery markets in APAC. Teleperformance serves a wide diversity of industries in the region, accelerating its momentum in expanding digital business services. An unparalleled understanding of local markets and delivery capability have often positioned Teleperformance as the de facto partner for many loyal global clients while expanding its presence in APAC markets. "Teleperformance's ever-expanding service delivery locations offer right-shoring options, dedicated site offerings, expansion of multilingual hubs, and Teleperformance Cloud Campus (TPCC), further enhancing its ability to deliver services wherever brands need them and from anywhere they want," added Baidya. With its stellar financial performance, thought leadership, service excellence, unparalleled innovation, and strong overall performance, Teleperformance earns the 2023 Frost & Sullivan APAC Company of the Year Award in the CX outsourcing services industry. Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents a Company of the Year award to the organization that demonstrates excellence in terms of growth strategy and implementation in its field. The award recognizes a high degree of innovation with products and technologies and the resulting leadership in terms of customer value and market penetration. Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in various regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analyses, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry. About Frost & Sullivan For six decades, Frost & Sullivan has been world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders, and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models, and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion. Contact: Tammy Chan tammy.chan@frost.com About Teleperformance Group Teleperformance (TEP - ISIN: FR0000051807 - Reuters: TEPRF.PA - Bloomberg: TEP FP), is a global leader in digital business services, blending the best of advanced technology with human empathy to deliver enhanced customer care that is simpler, faster and safer for the world's biggest brands and their customers. The Group's comprehensive, AI-powered service portfolio ranges from front-office customer care to back-office functions, including Trust and Safety services that help defend both online users and brand reputation. It also offers a range of specialized services such as collections, interpreting and localization, visa and consular services, and recruitment process outsourcing services. With more than 410,000 inspired and passionate people speaking more than 300 languages, the Group's global scale and local presence allows it to be a force of good in supporting communities, clients, and the environment. In 2022, Teleperformance reported consolidated revenue of 8,154 million (US$8.6 billion, based on 1 = $1.05) and net profit of 645 million. Visit the Group at www.teleperformance.com. Teleperformance shares are traded on the Euronext Paris market, Compartment A, and are eligible for the deferred settlement service. They are included in the following indices: CAC 40, STOXX 600, S&P Europe 350, MSCI Global Standard and Euronext Tech Leaders. In the area of corporate social responsibility, Teleperformance shares are included in the CAC 40 ESG since September 2022, the Euronext Vigeo Euro 120 index since 2015, the EURO STOXX 50 ESG index since 2020, the MSCI Europe ESG Leaders index since 2019, the FTSE4Good index since 2018 and the S&P Global 1200 ESG index since 2017. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349671/Frost_and_Sullivan__Teleperformance__Award.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/teleperformance-applauded-by-frost--sullivan-for-helping-clients-optimize-and-transform-their-cx-for-simpler-faster-and-safer-interactions-302073649.html BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- At MWC Barcelona 2024, Huawei unveiled the Smart Classroom 3.0 Solution. This solution features enhanced AI teaching analysis functions and was launched at the session themed "Leading Infrastructure to Accelerate Education Intelligence". The solution creates an intelligent and interactive teaching environment where lecturers can undertake new and exciting teaching methods. Wind Li, CEO of Global Public Sector BU, Huawei, stated in his opening speech, "Growing up in the Internet era as digital natives, we have a natural inclination towards using ICTs. Modern education is trending towards creating a digital and intelligent education ecosystem, enhancing the digital literacy of both teachers and students, and fostering innovative talent for the future. Huawei collaborates with industry partners to build a digital and intelligent foundation for the education industry that boasts high standards and performance, utilizing cloud computing, AI, and big data. Through innovative teaching and management methods, we aim to shape the future of education." According to Frank Huang, Education Solution Expert of Global Public Sector BU, Huawei , Huawei smart classroom has been evolving from digital to hybrid, and to now Smart Classroom 3.0. Through technologies such as AI and cloud computing, it creates a smart teaching system that enables flexible, personalized teaching and accurate, efficient teaching management. The Huawei Smart Classroom 3.0 Solution utilizes AI education models to intelligently analyze and retrieve course content. It also generates knowledge graphs, allowing for flexible lesson preparation and customized learning. This solution analyzes teaching activities and classroom conditions to support teaching analysis and evaluation, making education management efficient and effective. It uses IdeaHub to obtain a wealth of online digital resources and facilitate student-centered online and offline exploration and interactive teaching. Huawei's smart classroom solution helps global education customers build a new smart teaching ecosystem. In Europe, Huawei has assisted Serbia's Ministry of Education in building smart classrooms in over 200 primary and secondary schools. This has allowed for the sharing of digital teaching resources and flexible distance learning, ultimately providing high-quality education to the benefit of all students. In China, Ningxia University has partnered with Huawei to create an intelligent teaching ecosystem that integrates teaching, learning, evaluation, and management. This includes the construction of 300 future classrooms to facilitate flexible hybrid teaching and precise teaching management. Huawei has served more than 5000 education ministries, education management organizations at all levels, colleges and universities, and research institutes across more than 120 countries and regions, helping them realize intelligence in education. - End - About Huawei Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. We have 207,000 employees and we operate in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people around the world. Our vision and mission is to bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world. To this end, we will work towards ubiquitous connectivity and inclusive network access, laying the foundation for an intelligent world; provide diversified computing power where you need it, when you need it, to bring cloud and intelligence to all four corners of the earth; build digital platforms to help all industries and organizations become more agile, efficient, and dynamic; and redefine user experience with AI, making it smarter and more personalized for people in all aspects of their life, whether they're at home, on the go, in the office, having fun, or working out. For more information, please visit Huawei online at www.huawei.com or follow us on: http://www.linkedin.com/company/Huawei http://www.twitter.com/Huawei http://www.facebook.com/Huawei http://www.youtube.com/Huawei Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350051/Huawei_Smart_Classroom.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/huawei-launches-smart-classroom-3-0-solution-to-accelerate-education-intelligence-302074228.html Evaluation highlights the CCM Leader's robust capabilities and strong market presence LONDON and NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024, a leading technology company focused on helping businesses engage in more meaningful customer conversations, today announced it was recognized as a technology leader by analyst firm, Quadrant Knowledge Solutions in its new report, SPARK Matrix for Customer Communication Management Implementing a CCM platform offers significant business benefits by optimizing operational workflows and delivering a more tailored customer experience. This report provides a detailed analysis of the global market, emerging technology, market trends and vendor evaluations. According to Saurabh Raj, analyst at Quadrant Knowledge Solutions, "Smart Communications is a global leader in cloud-enabled customer engagement solutions, revolutionizing how businesses interact with their customers. SmartCOMM, offers seamless personalization and omnichannel capabilities, empowering organizations to deliver compelling and consistent communication experiences across diverse, highly regulated industries. With a strong presence in Europe, North America, Australia and plans for expansion, Smart Communications is driving transformative innovation through strategic partnerships, including integrating AI with AWS, to enhance communication strategies and elevate customer experiences in today's dynamic landscape." The report highlights the company's strengths including: Its flagship CCM solution, SmartCOMM (https://www.smartcommunications.com/products/smartcomm/), offers seamless personalization and omnichannel capabilities, empowering organizations to deliver compelling and consistent communication experiences across diverse industries and specifically designed for financial services, insurance, and healthcare. Data collection and processes optimization capabilities from SmartIQ (https://www.smartcommunications.com/products/smartiq/) create end-to-end customer experiences through low-code enterprise forms automation that improves outcomes and reduces overall all customer effort. Strategic partnerships and expansive marketplace accelerators extend connectivity with third-party systems, enhancing communication strategies and elevating customer experiences. Strong global presence to serve customers. "This recognition is another validation of our cloud-native technology and approach which continues to earn Smart Communications the ranking of Leader in all the major industry analyst evaluations," said Simon Tindal, CTO of Smart Communications. "We remain committed to delivering innovative solutions to our customers so they have the tools to thrive in a rapidly changing world and meet evolving consumer expectations." Download a complimentary copy of the report here. RICHMOND, British Columbia, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, General Fusion announced the appointment of Tony Donne as Chair of its Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC). Tony is one of the world's foremost fusion experts, with nearly 40 years of scientific research and technology development in the field. Tony most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of EUROfusion, a consortium of 31 fusion research organizations from 29 European countries. Prior to EUROfusion, Tony was head of the Fusion Physics Division at DIFFER and Director of the ITER-Netherlands program. In 2023, he was selected by the European Patent Office as one of the 10 Leading Tech Voices in the industries of the future. Tony joins General Fusion's impressive STAC as the company prepares to scientifically validate its Magnetized Target Fusion technology for the next phase of commercialization. General Fusion's STAC includes top minds in plasma physics and fusion engineering, all with deep connections in the global scientific community. The STAC has historically advised the company throughout its technology development roadmap. Over the next two years, it will play an integral role in examining the technical plans and results from General Fusion's new Lawson Machine 26 (LM26) and advising the company as it charts its path to commercialization. Tony replaces outgoing STAC Chair, Martin Cox, who has been advising General Fusion since 2020 and will continue to serve as a committee member. "General Fusion's deeply engaged Science and Technology Advisory Committee is one of our biggest assets," said Greg Twinney, CEO, General Fusion. "For the past decade, Tony has coordinated the work of thousands of scientists and engineers around a common goal: developing a fusion power plant. His expertise and leadership will be invaluable as we prepare to deliver commercial fusion energy to the grid by the early to mid-2030s." Greg added, "I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to our outgoing Chair, Martin Cox. His leadership on the STAC has been instrumental in our rapid technical progress over the past four years." "General Fusion's Magnetized Target Fusion technology has several profound advantages that make it one of the most promising approaches I've seen for practical commercial fusion," said Tony Donne. "I've investigated the technology several times over the past 14 years and have seen first-hand the strong foundation of plasma science and engineering excellence it is built upon. This technology is advancing rapidly, and I'm excited to be a part of the company's path to commercialization." General Fusion's LM26 is on track to achieve fusion conditions of over 100 million degrees Celsius by 2025 and progress toward scientific breakeven equivalent by 2026. In addition to advising General Fusion on its path to achieving these transformative near-term milestones, the STAC will provide critical input into the design of the company's planned near-commercial machine - the next major step after significantly de-risking the science and engineering of its Magnetized Target Fusion with its ground-breaking LM26 fusion demonstration. General Fusion Science and Technology Advisory Committee members: Tony Donne , Ph.D., Chair of General Fusion's STAC and the former CEO of EUROfusion. , Ph.D., Chair of General Fusion's STAC and the former CEO of EUROfusion. Martin Cox , M.A., former Director at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), and current advisor to its Chief Executive Officer. , M.A., former Director at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), and current advisor to its Chief Executive Officer. Mike Dunne , Ph.D., Director of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) facility operated by Stanford University on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy. , Ph.D., Director of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) facility operated by Stanford University on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy. Ned Sauthoff , Ph.D., former Director of the US ITER Project at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory?. , Ph.D., former Director of the US ITER Project at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory?. Kurt Schoenberg, Ph.D., Deputy Collaboration Spokesperson for the High Energy Density Physics Collaboration at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research under construction in Darmstadt, Germany, and former Director of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Centre?. To learn more, please visit generalfusion.com/about/leadership. About General Fusion General Fusion is pursuing a fast and practical approach to commercial fusion energy and is headquartered in Richmond, Canada. The company was established in 2002 and is funded by a global syndicate of leading energy venture capital firms, industry leaders and technology pioneers. Learn more at www.generalfusion.com . General Fusion Media Relations media@generalfusion.com +1-866-904-0995 Health Partners, the UK's largest non-hospital private healthcare services provider, with over two million patients across 550+ corporate, insurance and government clients, announced its intention to partner with MedX after successfully piloting MedX's DermSecure Screening Platform. MedX Health Corp. ("MedX" or the "Company") (TSXV: MDX), a global leader in teledermatology, is pleased to announce they have successfully completed the pilot project with Health Partners. MedX and Health Partners are working together to begin the roll-out of this service to targeted clients engaged in a preventative approach to health care management. Health Partners Group Limited ("Health Partners") is a well-respected, privately owned corporate health, treatment and primary care services company in the UK. Serving a broad client base comprising corporates, government agencies, insurers, health trusts, pension funds and individuals, Health Partners employs 1,000+ people with telehealth, mobile and on-site operations across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Skin cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the UK, with over 220,000 cases diagnosed annually, and that number continues to rise. Outdoor workers receive five to 10 times more sun exposure and, as a result, are, on average, at 60% greater risk of developing skin cancer, according to the UK Cancer Alliance. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in delayed access to medical care. Restrictions to health care specialists, staff shortages, and fear of SARS-CoV-2 infection led to interruptions in routine care, such as early melanoma detection, as reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, but early detection can significantly improve patient outcomes. According to Cancer Research UK, a patient diagnosed with a Stage 1-2 melanoma has a five-year survival rate of 99%; left undetected, the five-year survival rate for a patient diagnosed with a Stage 4 melanoma drops to 30%. "Health Partners is uniquely positioned to provide dermatologist-assessed skin cancer screening to at-risk patients right in their place of work as part of their regular employee health-plan assessments. The successful pilot with the MedX SIAscope devices and DermSecure platform demonstrated the efficiency and ease of access to this potentially life-saving service", stated Mike Druhan, MedX President, Dermatology Services. "Health Partners' Clinical Team constantly strives to identify leading technological innovations that offer the highest level of support to our two million-plus patients," said Health Partners Managing Director Andrew Noble. "The pilot demonstrated that MedX's leading-edge skin assessment technology allows dermatologists to remotely and quickly assess pigmented lesions and moles accurately. We are proud to partner with MedX to bring this innovative and life-changing service to our clients." About Health Partners Group Ltd.: Health Partners, headquartered in East Sussex, United Kingdom, is a leading health and wellbeing company, providing a full range of corporate health, treatment and primary care services to corporates, government, insurers, health trusts, pension funds and families. They combine expert advice and clinical services with a marketing-leading platform to deliver impact-driven health programmes tailored to improve people's well-being and performance. Health Partners is recognized as the UK's leading corporate health provider and holds a significant number of accreditations, certifications and memberships, including ISO27001, CQC, and SEQOHS. Health Partners offers its services across the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, reaching two million plus people in organizations across several industries. For more information, visit http://www.healthpartnersgroup.com MedX Health Corp.: MedX, headquartered in Ontario, Canada, is a leading medical device and software company focused on skin health with its SIAscopy on DermSecure telemedicine platform, utilizing its SIAscopy technology. SIAscopy is also imbedded in its products SIAMETRICS, SIMSYS, and MoleMate, which MedX manufactures in its ISO 13485 certified facility. SIAMETRICS, SIMSYS, and MoleMate include hand-held devices that use patented technology utilizing light and its remittance to view up to 2 mm beneath suspicious moles and lesions in a pain free, non-invasive manner, with its software then creating real-time images for physicians and dermatologists to evaluate all types of moles or lesions within seconds. These products are cleared by Health Canada, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and Conformite Europeenne for use in Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, the European Union, Brazil and Turkey. Visit https://medxhealth.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. This Media Release may contain forward-looking statements, which reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events. The forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228237603/en/ Contacts: Bill Mitoulas, Investor Relations MedX Health Corp. bill@medxhealth.com +1-416-479-9547 BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- During the MWC Barcelona 2024, Huawei hosted the Huawei Industrial Digital and Intelligent Transformation Summit. Huawei launched ten industrial digital and intelligent transformation solutions, and a series of new flagship products, to meet the needs of customers at different stages of industrial transformation. Li Peng, Corporate Senior Vice President, President of ICT Sales & Service, Huawei, said, "From the information age to the digitalization age, each transformation has brought huge possibilities. Now, we're entering an intelligent world, and the best way to predict the future will be to create it. Huawei will double our efforts to offer more intelligent digital infrastructure products and solutions that accelerate the intelligent transformation of industries. We will work hard to be a reliable partner for others on this journey." Industrial Digitalization Is a Key Step for Embracing the Intelligent World To embrace the intelligent world, Huawei believes that the industrial digitalization is a key step. Now, as industrial digitalization enters the deep-water zone, Leo Chen, President of Enterprise Sales, Huawei, pointed out that, we must manage data "computing, transmission, and storage" power in a coordinated manner, integrate the data from different scenarios into one unified cloud data foundation, and reach more traditional industries and core businesses, so as to support many industry customers on their digitalization journey and embrace the intelligent world. Leo Chen, said, "'Phase transition' is a term in physics that can be used to describe the revolutionary effect of digital and intelligent transformation - meaning it will not only bring a higher level of growth but also bring about an entirely new economic dynamic. By achieving greater efficiency and productivity, we can ultimately create a better life for every individual. We are fully committed to working with all parties to accelerate the digital transformation across all industries and embrace the intelligent world." Huawei officially launched ten industrial digital and intelligent transformation solutions and a series of new flagship products For large-scale industrial customers with diversified services and complex scenarios, Huawei launched ten industrial digital and intelligent, including National Cloud Solution 2.0, Smart City, Smart Classroom 3.0, Medical Technology Digitalization, Digital CORE, Intelligent Factory, Smart Airport Fully Connected Fiber Network, Perimeter Security with Fiber Sensing, Smart Railway Perimeter Detection, ITS 2.0, Intelligent Power Distribution (IDS), Oil and Gas Pipeline Safety Management Solutions. In addition, Huawei released several product portfolios, including the Campus Digital Platform, Multilayer Ransomware Protection (MRP) 2.0, and Perimeter Protection Site. Addressing the needs of small- and medium-sized customers with relatively simple business scenarios, Huawei leverages its leading practices in collaboration with partners to build open, lightweight, scenario-specific solutions featuring high cost-effectiveness, differentiated leadership, and serviceability. This initiative helps SMEs achieve their digital and intelligent transformation goals, with over 30 scenario-based solutions developed in collaboration with partners. For the small and micro-sized customers with simple scenarios, Huawei launched the HUAWEI eKit brand in 2023. During the summit, HUAWEI eKit unveiled new products for SME offices, budget hotels, primary and secondary schools, commercial stores, clinics, community hospitals, real estate, and restaurants, etc. In addition, Huawei launched new flagship products in data communications, optical network, data storage, and lightweight converged O&M. David Shi, Vice President of ICT Marketing and Solution Sales, Huawei said, "Huawei recognizes that each customer has its own specific needs and challenges. As digital and intelligent transformation continues to progress, Huawei is dedicated to developing scenario-based, cutting-edge, green, and low-carbon products and solutions to meet customer needs." Huawei Works with Partners to Create a Bright Future for the Intelligent World Ernest Zhang, President, Global Partner, Commercial & Distribution, Enterprise Sales, Huawei, said: "Huawei will continue to work with partners, adhering to the principle of 'shared benefits as the bridge, integrity as the foundation, and rules as the guarantee'. We will continuously optimize partner development policies, build healthy and win-win partnerships, and join hands for a shared era of success." For more information, see https://e.huawei.com/eu/events/branding/mwc?ic_medium=hwdc&ic_source=ebg_%2001MHQHQ244VU01S&ic_content=news CONTACT: hwebgcomms@huawei.com View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/huawei-launches-ten-industrial-digital-and-intelligent-transformation-solutions-and-a-series-of-new-flagship-products-302074244.html Hong Kong: Xia Baolong concludes HK visit CPC Central Committee Hong Kong & Macao Work Office Director and State Council Hong Kong & Macao Affairs Office Director Xia Baolong today concluded his seven-day inspection visit to Hong Kong by viewing the Shenzhen Bay Control Point. Accompanied by Chief Executive John Lee, Commissioner of Customs & Excise Louise Ho, Acting Director of Immigration Tai Chi-yuen and Under Secretary for Security Michael Cheuk, Mr Xia inspected the operation and traveller clearance services at the control point, and was informed about the situation during the Lunar New Year holidays when round-the-clock passenger clearance services were provided. In addition, Ms Ho and Mr Tai briefed Mr Xia on the immigration and customs clearance arrangements for travellers at the passenger terminal building. They also highlighted the measures taken during peak hours, festive periods or holidays to divert passenger flows, noting that such measures help ensure a smooth operation at the control point so that travellers can cross the boundary in an orderly and safe manner. This story has been published on: 2024-02-28. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Henkel to further strengthen its Adhesive Technologies business through strategic acquisition Further expansion of growth platform for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) solutions with highly attractive adjacent business Strengthen global position and expand offering in sustainability-driven, future-oriented growing and profitable markets Access to certified protective coating technologies and complementary applicator network for retrofitting, smart maintenance, and civil infrastructure DUSSELDORF, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Henkel has signed an agreement to acquire the US-based Seal for Life Industries LLC ("Seal for Life") from Arsenal Capital Partners (USA). Seal for Life is a specialized supplier of protective coating and sealing solutions in a broad variety of infrastructure markets such as renewable energy, oil & gas, and water. The company operates globally and has generated sales of approximately 250 million euros in 2023. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Driven by aging infrastructure and an increasing relevance of sustainability, the demand for solutions that enable the extension of asset life of infrastructure is continuously growing. With Seal for Life, which provides proven innovative coating and sealing solutions for both existing and new build infrastructure assets, Henkel adds attractive technologies to its growing MRO platform. "Strategic acquisitions to actively shape and strengthen our portfolio are an integral part of our Purposeful Growth Agenda. Seal for Life offers an attractive and highly profitable portfolio in protective coating and sealing, perfectly complementing our existing platform for the maintenance, repair and overhaul market. With this transaction we will further enhance our product portfolio in this attractive market and unlock even greater growth potential for our leading Adhesive Technologies business," said Henkel CEO Carsten Knobel. In 2023, Seal for Life reported sales of around 250 million euros. The company employs more than 650 people and has a global production network. The business offers innovative coating and sealing products such as heat-shrink sleeves, visco-elastic coatings, epoxy & urethane coatings, fire protection, insulation and sound dampening coatings. The application expertise of these solutions, marketed under different industry-leading brands including STOPAQ, CANUSA, COVALENCE, LIFELAST, is a pioneer in the protection and retrofitting of a variety of customer infrastructure, including pipelines and piles. "Maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) is a strategic growth market for us, offering great opportunities for innovative solutions that help protecting, retrofitting and digitally-enabled condition monitoring of infrastructure and at the same time contributing to sustainability. This transaction marks another building block in creating and developing a growth platform in our MRO business. It will enable us to further expand our offering in sustainability-driven, future-oriented markets such as renewable energy and water supply," said Mark Dorn, Executive Vice President and responsible for Henkel's Adhesive Technologies business. This document contains statements referring to future business development, financial performance and other events or developments of future relevance for Henkel that may constitute forward-looking statements. Statements with respect to the future are characterized by the use of words such as expect, intend, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, and similar terms. Such statements are based on current estimates and assumptions made by the corporate management of Henkel AG & Co. KGaA. These statements are not to be understood as in any way guaranteeing that those expectations will turn out to be accurate. Future performance and results actually achieved by Henkel AG & Co. KGaA and its affiliated companies depend on a number of risks and uncertainties and may therefore differ materially (both positively and negatively) from the forward-looking statements. Many of these factors are outside Henkel's control and cannot be accurately estimated in advance, such as the future economic environment and the actions of competitors and others involved in the marketplace. Henkel neither plans nor undertakes to update forward-looking statements. This document includes supplemental financial indicators that are not clearly defined in the applicable financial reporting framework and that are or may be alternative performance measures. These supplemental financial indicators should not be viewed in isolation or as alternatives to measures of Henkel's net assets and financial position or results of operations as presented in accordance with the applicable financial reporting framework in its Consolidated Financial Statements. Other companies that report or describe similarly titled alternative performance measures may calculate them differently. This document has been issued for information purposes only and is not intended to constitute an investment advice or an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities. Henkel has signed an agreement to acquire the US-based Seal for Life Industries LLC ("Seal for Life"), a specialized supplier of protective coating and sealing solutions. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Henkel on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Henkel Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/henkel Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Henkel View the original press release on accesswire.com Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Bayhorse Silver Inc (TSXV: BHS) (OTCQB: BHSIF) (FSE: 7KXN) (the "Company" or "Bayhorse") announces that it has received final Resistivity and Magnetic results of the recently completed Geotech Ltd. helicopter-borne VTEM and Horizontal Magnetic Gradiometer Geophysical Survey over its Bayhorse Silver Mine Property in Oregon and Idaho, USA. There are possibly two different mineralized targets on the newly acquired Idaho claims. A possibly Hercules Silver-type copper porphyry target marked by the strong minimal Resistivity results, and a Bayhorse Mine style silver rich massive sulphide target related to the strong magnetic signatures. The Idaho minimal Resistivity target in the SE corner of the survey is probably part of a circular anomaly that extends beyond the survey area. If the circularity is confirmed, it would have a diameter between 2,500 to 3,000 feet. (0.76 - 1.2 kilometers) and starting from 330 ft (100 meters) below surface, appears to extend to an indicated depth of 1,700 ft (525 meters) below surface. As low resistivity/highly conductive zones can outline metal deposits, and with the Bayhorse Property in Idaho having known surface copper staining over a wide area, it could indicate the presence of porphyry copper zone. A preliminary, confirmatory, drill program is being planned for this minimal Resistivity target. Figure 1: 3D representation of the low resistivity areas separated by the Snake River To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/5015/199651_0b87578d0494097e_001full.jpg In the northern section of the Idaho property, three significant magnetic anomalies, within an area 1.8 km by 1.2 km (1.13 miles by 0.75 miles) in size underlies the acquired ground. Dr. Clay Conway, P.Geol., has mapped rhyolite-hosted mineralization east of the Snake River in the area underlain by the magnetic anomalies; this raises the possibility that another Bayhorse Silver deposit may be found. During the recent staking of the Idaho property, surface sampling was conducted at the historic pits and dumps, and more copper-stained surface exposures were identified. This work will form part of a further comprehensive mapping program. The Hercules Silver property lies 44 km northeast of the Bayhorse Mine; both areas have similar geological settings with copper/silver mineralization, including significant copper, antimony, and zinc credits. Bayhorse CEO, Graeme O'Neill, comments that the large and very low resistivity zone, coupled with the very high magnetic anomalies immediately to the north in Idaho, may significantly increase our understanding of the mineral potential of the newly acquired claims, especially the potential for a copper porphyry. On the recently acquired Idaho mineral claims and the Bayhorse Silver Mine property, the two areas of minimal Resistivity, an elongated pluton in Oregon, approximately 1.3 km (0.8 miles) in length, and what is deemed to be a circular pluton in Idaho, are approximate 1.6 km (1 mile) apart and separated by the Snake River, the Idaho/Oregon State Boundary. The Company's senior geological consultants believe it is also possible that the silver-rich Bayhorse Mine epithermal mineralization may be underlain by a gold-rich zone, as suggested by Buchanan's (1981) model. This News Release has been prepared on behalf of the Bayhorse Silver Inc. Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its content. Mark Abrams, AIPG Certified Professional Geologist, a Qualified Person and Director of the Company has prepared, supervised the preparation of, and approved the technical content of this press release. On Behalf of the Board. Graeme O'Neill, CEO 866-399-6539 About Bayhorse Silver Inc. Bayhorse Silver Inc. is an exploration and production company with a 100% interest in the historic Bayhorse Silver Mine located in Oregon, USA. With state of the art Steinert Ore-Sorting technology reducing waste rock entering the processing stream by up to 85%, we have created a minimum environmental impact facility capable of mining 200 tons of mineralization per day and the ability to process and supply 3,600 tons per year of silver/copper/antimony concentrate ranging between 7,500 to 15,000 g/t silver and 10-12% copper, 10-12% antimony, and 15-18% zinc using standard flotation processing at its milling facility in nearby Payette County, Idaho, USA, with an offtake agreement in place with Ocean Partners UK Limited. The Company also has an option to acquire an 80% interest in the Brandywine high grade silver/gold property located in B.C. Canada. The Company has an experienced management and technical team with extensive mining expertise in both exploration and building mines. 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/199651 SOURCE: Bayhorse Silver Inc. BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - The European Commission has proposed the adoption of a Council Recommendation on continued gas demand reduction measures. This Recommendation, which would need to be adopted by the European Council, urges the European Union Member States to continue taking voluntary measures to maintain a collective 15 percent gas demand reduction, compared to the average demand between April 2017 and March 2022. The Commission said that the proposal will be discussed by Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson and EU Energy Ministers at the Energy Council on Monday. It says that due to the wide range of emergency measures put in place since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the EU's energy outlook has improved. Supplies are more diversified, more renewable energy capacity has been installed, and impressive energy savings have been made, with gas storage now at a healthier level. This has served to lower and stabilize prices across Europe. Still, given the persistence of geopolitical tensions, tight global gas markets and the EU's objective to completely get rid of Russian fossil fuels, continued energy savings are still necessary, according to the Commission. Gas savings by businesses and citizens across the EU have made an important contribution to tackling the energy crisis, spurred by Russia's invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Collectively, the EU reduced gas demand by 18 percent between August 2022 and December 2023, saving around 101 billion cubic meters of gas, the Commission estimates. Copyright(c) 2024 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. BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- During MWC Barcelona 2024, Huawei officially launched its Medical Technology Digitalization Solution as part of its effort to lead the digital and intelligent upgrade of the healthcare industry. David Shi, Vice President of Huawei's ICT Marketing & Solution Sales, said, "To accelerate the intelligent upgrade of the healthcare industry, Huawei, as an ICT provider, builds a secure and sustainable digital foundation for the healthcare industry and helps it go intelligent." He emphasized that together with partners, Huawei aims to help its customers succeed. Thousands of images read in seconds, accelerating the digital & intelligent upgrade of medical technology services The medical technology digitalization solution focuses on pathology and medical imaging. The solution has three competitive advantages: SmartCache intelligent pre-reading, which improves image reading efficiency and achieves zero latency during data retrieval; the Huawei-developed compression algorithm, which saves 30% storage and 70% cabinet space; and video-network synergy, which supports consistent remote diagnosis to promote hierarchical diagnosis and treatment. This solution has been applied in many healthcare institutions around the world. Huawei helped Ruijin Hospital build a digital smart pathology department, which enables the concurrent access of 1000+ pathological sections within one second. This improved the retrieval speed by 80 times. Huawei helped the Health Bureau of Longgang District, Shenzhen build a regional medical imaging platform. It supports the interconnection and sharing of medical image data among 12 hospitals, one-click access to image reports, and mutual recognition of cross-hospital examinations. Deep scenario-technology integration and innovative upgrade of three solutions Huawei leverages cloud-network-edge-device synergy to dig deep into service scenarios and upgrade three major solutions. The Smart Ward Solution looks to Wi-Fi, IoT, and multi-band convergence in one network to support data collection for more than 400 terminals, delivering high-quality diagnosis and treatment. The Smart Hospital Campus Solution uses the digital platform to streamline campus operations subsystems, achieving all-scenario intelligent services and E2E refined operations. The One Hospital, Multiple Branches Solution builds an integrated cloud-network-edge resource base to implement unified management as well as diagnosis and treatment services of the same quality across different hospital branches. So far, Huawei has served over 5000 hospitals and medical institutions in more than 110 countries and regions. For more information, please visit https://e.huawei.com/en/industries/healthcare Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350048/Huawei_David_Shi.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/huawei-launches-the-medical-technology-digitalization-solution-to-accelerate-intelligence-in-healthcare-302074282.html WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Intech Investment Management LLC (Intech) is pleased to announce the promotion of Ryan Stever, Ph.D., to the position of Co-Chief Investment Officer, effective February 26, 2024. Dr. Stever will share responsibilities with Adrian Banner, Ph.D., who has been serving as the firm's Chief Investment Officer since 2012. In his new role as Co-CIO, Dr. Stever will partner with Dr. Banner to further harness the full potential of Stochastic Portfolio Theory. This joint effort capitalizes on their complementary expertise to optimize our investment framework and deliver superior client outcomes. "Ryan's promotion to Co-CIO is a natural progression in Intech's evolution. His deep experience will play a pivotal role in enhancing our approach," said Dr. Jose Marques, CEO of Intech. "Together, Ryan and Adrian will lead our efforts to integrate diverse return sources, further solidifying our position as a leader in quantitative equity investment solutions." Dr. Stever joined Intech in 2022 and has been instrumental in the development and implementation of new alpha sources into Intech's quantitative framework. His promotion reflects his contributions and the firm's strategic emphasis on integrating alternative data sources into our long-standing investment processes. "Embracing the full promise of Stochastic Portfolio Theory is critical for adapting to today's markets," said Dr. Stever. "I am excited about the opportunity to work alongside Adrian and the talented team at Intech to drive innovation and deliver superior investment results for our clients." Dr. Banner, who has been with Intech since 2002 and has served as CIO since 2012, welcomed Dr. Stever's expanded role. "Ryan's expertise will be invaluable as we continue to enhance our investment strategies. His insights have already been a tremendous asset to our team, and I look forward to our collaboration in this new capacity," said Dr. Banner. The appointment of Dr. Stever as Co-CIO underscores Intech's dedication to advancing its investment methodologies and offering a robust suite of strategies to meet the evolving needs of its clients. For further inquiries: Media Contact Andre Prawoto Chief Marketing Officer +1 (561) 776 2226 aprawoto@intechinvestments.com About Intech Intech is a private, employee-owned quantitative asset manager investing on behalf of pension funds, governments, endowments, foundations, and other institutional investors worldwide. Having pioneered the application of Stochastic Portfolio Theory in 1987, Intech continues to seek distinctive alpha sources for clients in alternative equity, defensive equity, and traditional long-only strategies. For more information, visit https://www.intechinvestments.com. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/10846d14-de54-4e80-9e95-911a5b6c8246 Other key data to be presented from ViiV Healthcare's innovative pipeline and portfolio include the exploration of different mechanisms of action through broadly neutralising antibodies as well as real-world insights from established long-acting and 2-drug regimens ViiV Healthcare, the global specialist HIV company majority owned by GSK, with Pfizer and Shionogi as shareholders, today announced the presentation of 64 abstracts that includes highlights of the company's next-generation pipeline advancements, alongside data from its diverse portfolio of marketed HIV treatment and prevention options at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) being held in Denver, Colorado, from 3 6 March 2024. Kimberly Smith, M.D., MPH, Head of Research Development at ViiV Healthcare, said: "As leaders in developing long-acting injectables for the treatment of HIV, we're excited to present new data setting the stage for ViiV's next generation of medicines and demonstrating how key pipeline assets will target HIV in different ways. These findings, as well as the breadth of data we'll present on our marketed products, including new interim results from the LATITUDE study, reflect a portfolio and future-looking pipeline focused on ending the HIV epidemic. We look forward to sharing them with the scientific and HIV communities at CROI 2024." Key abstracts to be presented at CROI 2024 by ViiV Healthcare and its study partners will include: Data introducing our next generation of potential ultra long-acting medicines for HIV: ViiV Healthcare will share findings from a phase I study evaluating different formulations of cabotegravir and their potential for dosing every four months. The ongoing, open-label, single-dose, dose-escalation phase I study in 70 healthy adults assessed both the 200 mg/mL formulation of cabotegravir in combination with recombinant human hyaluronidase PH20 (rHuPH20), as well as a new formulation of cabotegravir (CAB ULA) administered by itself.1 Researchers will share safety and pharmacokinetic findings from both ultra long-acting approaches and their potential for future clinical development. Findings advancing different mechanisms of action in HIV research: New phase IIa findings from the BANNER study of VH3810109 (N6LS), an investigational, broadly neutralising antibody (bNAb), will be presented. Researchers will share findings of the bNAb administered intravenously and the first efficacy findings of its subcutaneous administration.2 Findings from the SPAN study of N6LS, examining the safety and tolerability of the highest subcutaneous and intravenous N6LS doses administered to date, with and without PH20, will also be presented.3 Additionally, efficacy and safety data from a non-ViiV owned bNAb asset, VRC07-523LS, in a phase II, open-label clinical trial used in combination with long-acting CAB for maintenance antiretroviral therapy (ART) will be presented.4 New data on long-acting therapy vs daily oral standard of care, in traditionally non-adherent populations: Interim analysis of the LATITUDE phase III trial will be presented showing that, the injectable antiretroviral treatment for HIV, Cabenuva (cabotegravir and rilpivirine [CAB+RPV LA]), demonstrates superior efficacy compared to daily oral standard of care (SOC) in individuals with a history of antiretroviral adherence challenges. The NIAID/ACTG also announced a modification to the study, where further randomisation has been stopped and participants in the SOC arm are being given the option to switch to the long-acting therapy arm.5 Real-world evidence from across our treatment and prevention portfolios: New findings from SEARCH, a randomised study evaluating the real-world impact of the inclusion of long-acting cabotegravir for PrEP in an HIV prevention coverage package compared to the standard-of-care of oral PrEP and PEP alone in rural Uganda and Kenya, will also be presented.6 Real-world evidence findings for the complete long-acting HIV treatment regimen Cabenuva will be presented from the OPERA cohort examining ART-experienced, virally suppressed adults living with HIV who switched to CAB+RPV LA or to an oral regimen.7 Findings for the 2-drug regimen, Dovato (dolutegravir, lamivudine [DTG/3TC]), will include the InfCare HIV study, which presents three-year switch data, from 3-drug regimen to Dovato, in a long-term real-world Swedish cohort.8 This study adds to the body of real-world evidence to date that includes more than 40,000 people living with HIV.9 Here is a list of ViiV Healthcare-sponsored or supported studies to be presented at CROI 2024: Title First Author Presentation Number Presentation Dolutegravir A single once-daily ABC/DTG/3TC tablet predicts safe and effective exposures in children 3 to <6kg H. Chandasana 02770 Poster Tuesday, March 5 2:30-4:00pm MST Population pharmacokinetics of ABC/DTG/3TC FDC to support dosing in peds with HIV-1 (IMPAACT 2019) H. Chandasana 03110 Poster Tuesday, March 5:30-4:00pm MST Dolutegravir and growth in pediatric populations with HIV-1: IMPAACT P1093 and IMPAACT 2019 M. McKenna 01783 Poster Tuesday, March 5 2:30-4:00pm MST Switching to DTG+3TC vs 3-drug regimens in routine clinical care: long-term Swedish data E. Sorstedt 01838 Poster Tuesday, March 5 2:30-4:00pm MST Temporal trends of cardiovascular disease incidence in people with HIV from 2001-2021 N. Jaschinski 02263 Poster Tuesday, March 5 2:30-4:00pm MST Increased cancer risk with low CD4 counts persists despite over 2 years of virological suppression J. Hoy 01462 Poster Wednesday, March 6 2:30-4:00pm MST Cabotegravir for Treatment Long-acting Injectable CAB/RPV is Superior to Oral ART in PWH with adherence challenges: ACTG A5359 A. Rana 03579 Oral Wednesday, March 6 12:51-1:00pm MST Real-world utilization of cabotegravir rilpivirine in the US: data from Trio Health cohort J. J. Eron 01374 Poster Monday, March 4 2:30-4:00pm MST Real-world effectiveness of cabotegravir rilpivirine vs. standard of care oral regimens in the US R. K. Hsu 01952 Poster Monday, March 4 2:30-4:00pm MST HIV-1 RNA blips and low-level viral replication: SOLAR (CAB+RPV LA vs. BIC/FTC/TAF) C. Latham 00138 Poster Monday, March 4 2:30-4:00pm MST Model based comparison of cabotegravir pharmacokinetics following thigh and gluteal injections K. Han 03157 Poster Wednesday, March 6 2:30-4:00pm MST Cabotegravir for PrEP SEARCH Randomized trial of Dynamic Choice HIV Prevention including injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA) J. Kabami 03405 Late-Breaker Oral Tuesday, March 5 10:00-12:00pm MST Pre-exposure prophylaxis with cabotegravir long-acting injectable in the OPERA cohort A. Mills 01400 Poster Monday, March 4 2:30-4:00pm MST Real-world use of cabotegravir long acting for pre-exposure prophylaxis: TRIO cohort K. Mayer 01907 Poster Monday, March 4 2:30-4:00pm MST Cabotegravir PopPK analysis of adults and adolescents living with HIV or at risk for HIV receiving PrEP Y. Lin 03038 Poster Tuesday, March 5 2:30-4:00pm MST Interest in long-acting injectable PrEP among transgender women in the United States E. E. Cooney 00621 Poster Wednesday, March 6 2:30-4:00pm MST Healthcare staff acceptability and feasibility of telehealth delivery of cabotegravir for PrEP A. Liu 03080 Poster Wednesday, March 6 2:30-4:00pm MST Fostemsavir Temsavir treatment enhances bNAb recognition and subsequent clearance of HIV-1 infected cells R. Ferris 02971 Poster Monday, March 4 2:30-4:00pm MST Pipeline: Ultra Long-Acting Cabotegravir Phase I study of cabotegravir long-acting injectable formulations supports =4-monthly dose interval K. Han 00251 Oral Monday, March 4 10:00-12:00pm MST Pipeline: Broadly Neutralising Antibodies VH3810109 (N6LS) in antiretroviral therapy-naive adults with HIV-1: phase IIa BANNER efficacy data P. Leone 01911 Oral Monday, March 4 10:00-12:00pm MST Safety and efficacy of VRC07-523LS plus long-acting cabotegravir in the phase 2 ACTG A5357 Trial B. Taiwo 02254 Oral Monday, March 4 10:00-12:00pm MST High-dose VH3810109 (N6LS) recombinant human hyaluronidase PH20: phase I SPAN study safety results B. Win 01988 Poster Wednesday, March 6 2:30-4:00pm MST Pipeline: Maturation Inhibitors Next-generation maturation inhibitor GSK3640254 showed broad spectrum potency without MI resistance B. McAuliffe 03095 Poster Wednesday, March 6 2:30-4:00pm MST The preclinical profile of maturation inhibitor VH3739937 J. Jeffrey 02819 Poster Wednesday, March 6 2:30-4:00pm MST General HIV Resistance in young children newly diagnosed with HIV in Western Cape, South Africa K. Anderson 01012 Poster Tuesday, March 5 2:30-4:00pm MST DOVATO (dolutegravir and lamivudine) tablets INDICATION Dovato is indicated as a complete regimen to treat HIV-1 infection in adults with no antiretroviral (ARV) treatment history or to replace the current ARV regimen in those who are virologically suppressed (HIV-1 RNA <50 copies/mL) on a stable ARV regimen with no history of treatment failure and no known resistance to any component of Dovato IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION BOXED WARNING: PATIENTS CO-INFECTED WITH HEPATITIS B VIRUS (HBV) AND HIV-1: EMERGENCE OF LAMIVUDINE-RESISTANT HBV AND EXACERBATIONS OF HBV All patients with HIV-1 should be tested for the presence of HBV prior to or when initiating Dovato. Emergence of lamivudine-resistant HBV variants associated with lamivudine-containing antiretroviral regimens has been reported. If Dovato is used in patients co-infected with HIV-1 and HBV, additional treatment should be considered for appropriate treatment of chronic HBV; otherwise, consider an alternative regimen. Severe acute exacerbations of HBV have been reported in patients who are co-infected with HIV-1 and HBV and have discontinued lamivudine, a component of Dovato. Closely monitor hepatic function in these patients and, if appropriate, initiate anti-HBV treatment. CONTRAINDICATIONS Do not use Dovato in patients with previous hypersensitivity reaction to dolutegravir or lamivudine in patients with previous hypersensitivity reaction to dolutegravir or lamivudine Do not use Dovato in patients receiving dofetilide WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Hypersensitivity Reactions: Hypersensitivity reactions have been reported with dolutegravir and were characterized by rash, constitutional findings, and sometimes organ dysfunction, including liver injury Discontinue Dovato immediately if signs or symptoms of severe skin or hypersensitivity reactions develop, as a delay in stopping treatment may result in a life-threatening reaction. Clinical status, including liver aminotransferases, should be monitored and appropriate therapy initiated Hepatotoxicity: Hepatic adverse events have been reported, including cases of hepatic toxicity (elevated serum liver biochemistries, hepatitis, and acute liver failure), in patients receiving a dolutegravir-containing regimen without pre-existing hepatic disease or other identifiable risk factors Patients with underlying hepatitis B or C or marked elevations in transaminases prior to treatment may be at increased risk for worsening or development of transaminase elevations with use of Dovato . In some cases, the elevations in transaminases were consistent with immune reconstitution syndrome or hepatitis B reactivation, particularly in the setting where anti-hepatitis therapy was withdrawn . In some cases, the elevations in transaminases were consistent with immune reconstitution syndrome or hepatitis B reactivation, particularly in the setting where anti-hepatitis therapy was withdrawn Monitoring for hepatotoxicity is recommended Embryo Fetal Toxicity: Assess the risks and benefits of Dovato and discuss with the patient to determine if an alternative treatment should be considered at the time of conception through the first trimester of pregnancy due to the risk of neural tube defects and discuss with the patient to determine if an alternative treatment should be considered at the time of conception through the first trimester of pregnancy due to the risk of neural tube defects Pregnancy testing is recommended before initiation of Dovato. Individuals of childbearing potential should be counseled on the consistent use of effective contraception Lactic Acidosis and Severe Hepatomegaly With Steatosis: Fatal cases have been reported with the use of nucleoside analogs, including lamivudine. Discontinue Dovato if clinical or laboratory findings suggestive of lactic acidosis or pronounced hepatotoxicity develop, including hepatomegaly and steatosis in the absence of marked transaminase elevations. Adverse Reactions or Loss of Virologic Response Due to Drug Interactions with concomitant use of Dovato and other drugs may occur (see Contraindications and Drug interactions). Immune Reconstitution Syndrome, including the occurrence of autoimmune disorders with variable time to onset, has been reported with the use of Dovato Adverse reactions The most common adverse reactions (incidence =2%, all grades) with Dovato were headache (3%), nausea (2%), diarrhea (2%), insomnia (2%), fatigue (2%), and anxiety (2%). Drug interactions Consult full Prescribing Information for Dovato for more information on potentially significant drug interactions for more information on potentially significant drug interactions Dovato is a complete regimen. Coadministration with other antiretroviral medications for the treatment of HIV-1 infection is not recommended is a complete regimen. Coadministration with other antiretroviral medications for the treatment of HIV-1 infection is not recommended Drugs that induce or inhibit CYP3A or UGT1A1 may affect the plasma concentrations of dolutegravir Administer Dovato 2 hours before or 6 hours after taking polyvalent cation-containing antacids or laxatives, sucralfate, oral supplements containing iron or calcium, or buffered medications. Alternatively, Dovato and supplements containing calcium or iron can be taken with food Use in specific populations Pregnancy: There are insufficient human data on the use of Dovato during pregnancy to definitively assess a drug-associated risk for birth defects and miscarriage. An Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry has been established. Advise individuals of childbearing potential of the potential risk of neural tube defects. Assess the risks and benefits of Dovato and discuss with the patient to determine if an alternative treatment should be considered at the time of conception through the first trimester of pregnancy or if pregnancy is confirmed in the first trimester There are insufficient human data on the use of during pregnancy to definitively assess a drug-associated risk for birth defects and miscarriage. An Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry has been established. Advise individuals of childbearing potential of the potential risk of neural tube defects. Assess the risks and benefits of and discuss with the patient to determine if an alternative treatment should be considered at the time of conception through the first trimester of pregnancy or if pregnancy is confirmed in the first trimester Lactation: Breastfeeding is not recommended due to the potential for HIV-1 transmission, developing viral resistance in HIV-positive infants, and adverse reactions in a breastfed infant Breastfeeding is not recommended due to the potential for HIV-1 transmission, developing viral resistance in HIV-positive infants, and adverse reactions in a breastfed infant Females and Males of Reproductive Potential: Pregnancy testing is recommended before initiation of Dovato . Counsel individuals of childbearing potential taking Dovato on the consistent use of effective contraception Pregnancy testing is recommended before initiation of . Counsel individuals of childbearing potential taking on the consistent use of effective contraception Renal Impairment: Dovato is not recommended for patients with creatinine clearance <30 mL/min. Patients with a sustained creatinine clearance between 30 and 49 mL/min should be monitored for hematologic toxicities, which may require a dosage adjustment of lamivudine as an individual component is not recommended for patients with creatinine clearance <30 mL/min. Patients with a sustained creatinine clearance between 30 and 49 mL/min should be monitored for hematologic toxicities, which may require a dosage adjustment of lamivudine as an individual component Hepatic Impairment:Dovato is not recommended in patients with severe hepatic impairment (Child-Pugh Score C) For more information, please see full US Prescribing Information for Dovato: https://gskpro.com/content/dam/global/hcpportal/en_US/Prescribing_Information/Dovato/pdf/DOVATO-PI-PIL.PDF CABENUVA (cabotegravir; rilpivirine) extended-release injectable suspensions INDICATION CABENUVA is indicated as a complete regimen for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults and adolescents 12 years of age and older and weighing at least 35 kg to replace the current antiretroviral regimen in those who are virologically suppressed (HIV-1 RNA <50 copies/mL) on a stable antiretroviral regimen with no history of treatment failure and with no known or suspected resistance to either cabotegravir or rilpivirine. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION CONTRAINDICATIONS Do not use CABENUVA in patients with previous hypersensitivity reaction to cabotegravir or rilpivirine in patients with previous hypersensitivity reaction to cabotegravir or rilpivirine Do not use CABENUVA in patients receiving carbamazepine, oxcarbazepine, phenobarbital, phenytoin, rifabutin, rifampin, rifapentine, systemic dexamethasone (>1 dose), and St John's wort WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Hypersensitivity Reactions: Serious or severe hypersensitivity reactions have been reported in association with other integrase inhibitors and could occur with CABENUVA Hypersensitivity reactions, including cases of drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms (DRESS), have been reported during postmarketing experience with rilpivirine-containing regimens. While some skin reactions were accompanied by constitutional symptoms such as fever, other skin reactions were associated with organ dysfunctions, including elevations in hepatic serum biochemistries Discontinue CABENUVA immediately if signs or symptoms of hypersensitivity reactions develop. Clinical status, including liver transaminases, should be monitored and appropriate therapy initiated. Cabotegravir and rilpivirine oral lead-in may be used to help identify patients who may be at risk of a hypersensitivity reaction Post-Injection Reactions: Serious post-injection reactions (reported in less than 1% of subjects) were reported within minutes after the injection of rilpivirine, including dyspnea, bronchospasm, agitation, abdominal cramping, rash/urticaria, dizziness, flushing, sweating, oral numbness, changes in blood pressure, and pain (e.g., back and chest). These events may have been associated with accidental intravenous administration and began to resolve within a few minutes after the injection Carefully follow the Instructions for Use when preparing and administering CABENUVA. The suspensions should be injected slowly via intramuscular injection and avoid accidental intravenous administration. Observe patients briefly (approximately 10 minutes) after the injection. If a post-injection reaction occurs, monitor and treat as clinically indicated Hepatotoxicity: Hepatotoxicity has been reported in patients receiving cabotegravir or rilpivirine with or without known pre-existing hepatic disease or identifiable risk factors Patients with underlying liver disease or marked elevations in transaminases prior to treatment may be at increased risk for worsening or development of transaminase elevations Monitoring of liver chemistries is recommended and treatment with CABENUVA should be discontinued if hepatotoxicity is suspected Depressive Disorders: Depressive disorders (including depressed mood, depression, major depression, mood altered, mood swings, dysphoria, negative thoughts, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt) have been reported with CABENUVA or the individual products or the individual products Promptly evaluate patients with depressive symptoms Risk of Adverse Reactions or Loss of Virologic Response Due to Drug Interactions: The concomitant use of CABENUVA and other drugs may result in known or potentially significant drug interactions (see Contraindications and Drug Interactions) and other drugs may result in known or potentially significant drug interactions (see Contraindications and Drug Interactions) Rilpivirine doses 3 and 12 times higher than the recommended oral dosage can prolong the QTc interval CABENUVA should be used with caution in combination with drugs with a known risk of Torsade de Pointes Long-Acting Properties and Potential Associated Risks with CABENUVA Residual concentrations of cabotegravir and rilpivirine may remain in the systemic circulation of patients for prolonged periods (up to 12 months or longer). Select appropriate patients who agree to the required monthly or every-2-month injection dosing schedule because non-adherence could lead to loss of virologic response and development of resistance To minimize the potential risk of developing viral resistance, it is essential to initiate an alternative, fully suppressive antiretroviral regimen no later than 1 month after the final injection doses of CABENUVA when dosed monthly and no later than 2 months after the final injections of CABENUVA when dosed every 2 months. If virologic failure is suspected, switch the patient to an alternative regimen as soon as possible ADVERSE REACTIONS The most common adverse reactions in adults (incidence =2%, all grades) treated with CABENUVA were injection site reactions, pyrexia, fatigue, headache, musculoskeletal pain, nausea, sleep disorders, dizziness, and rash were injection site reactions, pyrexia, fatigue, headache, musculoskeletal pain, nausea, sleep disorders, dizziness, and rash The safety of CABENUVA in adolescents is expected to be similar to adults DRUG INTERACTIONS Refer to the applicable full Prescribing Information for important drug interactions with CABENUVA, VOCABRIA (cabotegravir), or EDURANT (rilpivirine) (cabotegravir), or (rilpivirine) Because CABENUVA is a complete regimen, coadministration with other antiretroviral medications for the treatment of HIV-1 infection is not recommended Drugs that are strong inducers of UGT1A1 or UGT1A9 are expected to decrease the plasma concentrations of cabotegravir. Drugs that induce or inhibit CYP3A may affect the plasma concentrations of rilpivirine CABENUVA should be used with caution in combination with drugs with a known risk of Torsade de Pointes USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONS Pregnancy: There are insufficient human data on the use of CABENUVA during pregnancy to adequately assess a drug-associated risk for birth defects and miscarriage. Discuss the benefit-risk of using CABENUVA during pregnancy and conception and consider that cabotegravir and rilpivirine are detected in systemic circulation for up to 12 months or longer after discontinuing injections of CABENUVA . An Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry has been established There are insufficient human data on the use of during pregnancy to adequately assess a drug-associated risk for birth defects and miscarriage. Discuss the benefit-risk of using during pregnancy and conception and consider that cabotegravir and rilpivirine are detected in systemic circulation for up to 12 months or longer after discontinuing injections of . An Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry has been established Lactation: Potential risks of breastfeeding include HIV-1 transmission, developing viral resistance in HIV-positive infants, and adverse reactions in a breastfed infant For more information, please see full US Prescribing Information for Cabenuva https://gsksource.com/pharma/content/dam/GlaxoSmithKline/US/en/Prescribing_Information/Cabenuva/pdf/CABENUVA-PI-PIL-IFU2-IFU3.PDF APRETUDE (cabotegravir) extended-release injectable suspensions INDICATION APRETUDE is indicated in at-risk adults and adolescents weighing at least 35 kg for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV-1 infection. Individuals must have a negative HIV-1 test prior to initiating APRETUDE (with or without an oral lead-in with oral cabotegravir) for HIV-1 PrEP. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION BOXED WARNING: RISK OF DRUG RESISTANCE WITH USE OF APRETUDE FOR HIV-1 PRE-EXPOSURE PROPHYLAXIS (PrEP) IN UNDIAGNOSED HIV-1 INFECTION Individuals must be tested for HIV-1 infection prior to initiating APRETUDE or oral cabotegravir, and with each subsequent injection of APRETUDE, using a test approved or cleared by the FDA for the diagnosis of acute or primary HIV-1 infection. Drug-resistant HIV-1 variants have been identified with use of APRETUDE by individuals with undiagnosed HIV-1 infection. Do not initiate APRETUDE for HIV-1 PrEP unless negative infection status is confirmed. Individuals who become infected with HIV-1 while receiving APRETUDE for PrEP must transition to a complete HIV-1 treatment regimen. CONTRAINDICATIONS Do not use APRETUDE in individuals: with unknown or positive HIV-1 status with previous hypersensitivity reaction to cabotegravir receiving carbamazepine, oxcarbazepine, phenobarbital, phenytoin, rifampin, and rifapentine in individuals: WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Comprehensive Management to Reduce the Risk of HIV-1 Infection: Use APRETUDE as part of a comprehensive prevention strategy, including adherence to the administration schedule and safer sex practices, including condoms, to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). APRETUDE is not always effective in preventing HIV-1 acquisition. Risk for HIV-1 acquisition includes, but is not limited to, condomless sex, past or current STIs, self-identified HIV risk, having sexual partners of unknown HIV-1 viremic status, or sexual activity in a high prevalence area or network. Inform, counsel, and support individuals on the use of other prevention measures (e.g., consistent and correct condom use; knowledge of partner[s] HIV-1 status, including viral suppression status; regular testing for STIs) as part of a comprehensive prevention strategy, including adherence to the administration schedule and safer sex practices, including condoms, to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). is not always effective in preventing HIV-1 acquisition. Risk for HIV-1 acquisition includes, but is not limited to, condomless sex, past or current STIs, self-identified HIV risk, having sexual partners of unknown HIV-1 viremic status, or sexual activity in a high prevalence area or network. Inform, counsel, and support individuals on the use of other prevention measures (e.g., consistent and correct condom use; knowledge of partner[s] HIV-1 status, including viral suppression status; regular testing for STIs) Use APRETUDE only in individuals confirmed to be HIV-1 negative. HIV-1 resistance substitutions may emerge in individuals with undiagnosed HIV-1 infection who are taking only APRETUDE , because APRETUDE alone does not constitute a complete regimen for HIV-1 treatment. Prior to initiating APRETUDE, ask seronegative individuals about recent (in past month) potential exposure events and evaluate for current or recent signs or symptoms consistent with acute HIV-1 infection (e.g., fever, fatigue, myalgia, skin rash). If recent (<1 month) exposures to HIV-1 are suspected or clinical symptoms consistent with acute HIV-1 infection are present, use a test approved or cleared by the FDA as an aid in the diagnosis of acute HIV-1 infection only in individuals confirmed to be HIV-1 negative. HIV-1 resistance substitutions may emerge in individuals with undiagnosed HIV-1 infection who are taking only , because alone does not constitute a complete regimen for HIV-1 treatment. Prior to initiating ask seronegative individuals about recent (in past month) potential exposure events and evaluate for current or recent signs or symptoms consistent with acute HIV-1 infection (e.g., fever, fatigue, myalgia, skin rash). If recent (<1 month) exposures to HIV-1 are suspected or clinical symptoms consistent with acute HIV-1 infection are present, use a test approved or cleared by the FDA as an aid in the diagnosis of acute HIV-1 infection When using APRETUDE , HIV-1 testing should be repeated prior to each injection and upon diagnosis of any other STIs , HIV-1 testing should be repeated prior to each injection and upon diagnosis of any other STIs Additional HIV testing to determine HIV status is needed if an HIV-1 test indicates possible HIV-1 infection or if symptoms consistent with acute HIV-1 infection develop following an exposure event. If HIV-1 infection is confirmed, then transition the individual to a complete HIV-1 treatment Counsel HIV-1 uninfected individuals to strictly adhere to the recommended dosing and testing schedule for APRETUDE Potential Risk of Resistance with APRETUDE There is a potential risk of developing resistance to APRETUDE if an individual acquires HIV-1 either before, while taking, or following discontinuation of APRETUDE. To minimize this risk, it is essential to clinically reassess individuals for risk of HIV-1 acquisition and to test before each injection to confirm HIV-1-negative status. Individuals who are confirmed to have HIV-1 infection must transition to a complete HIV-1 treatment. If individuals at continuing risk of HIV-1 acquisition discontinue APRETUDE, alternative forms of PrEP should be considered and initiated within 2 months of the final injection of APRETUDE Long-Acting Properties and Potential Associated Risks with APRETUDE Residual concentrations of cabotegravir may remain in the systemic circulation of individuals for prolonged periods (up to 12 months or longer). Take the prolonged-release characteristics of cabotegravir into consideration and carefully select individuals who agree to the required every-2-month injection dosing schedule because non-adherence or missed doses could lead to HIV-1 acquisition and development of resistance Hypersensitivity Reactions: Serious or severe hypersensitivity reactions have been reported in association with other integrase inhibitors and could occur with APRETUDE Discontinue APRETUDE immediately if signs or symptoms of hypersensitivity reactions develop. Clinical status, including liver transaminases, should be monitored and appropriate therapy initiated Hepatotoxicity: Hepatotoxicity has been reported in a limited number of individuals receiving cabotegravir with or without known pre-existing hepatic disease or identifiable risk factors Clinical and laboratory monitoring should be considered and APRETUDE should be discontinued if hepatotoxicity is suspected and individuals managed as clinically indicated Depressive Disorders: Depressive disorders (including depression, depressed mood, major depression, persistent depressive disorder, suicidal ideation or attempt) have been reported with APRETUDE Promptly evaluate patients with depressive symptoms Risk of Reduced Drug Concentration of APRETUDE Due to Drug Interactions: The concomitant use of APRETUDE and other drugs may result in reduced drug concentration of APRETUDE and other drugs may result in reduced drug concentration of Refer to the full Prescribing Information for steps to prevent or manage these possible and known significant drug interactions, including dosing recommendations. Consider the potential for drug interactions prior to and during use of, and after discontinuation of APRETUDE; review concomitant medications during use of APRETUDE ADVERSE REACTIONS The most common adverse reactions (incidence =1%, all grades) with APRETUDE were injection site reactions, diarrhea, headache, pyrexia, fatigue, sleep disorders, nausea, dizziness, flatulence, abdominal pain, vomiting, myalgia, rash, decreased appetite, somnolence, back pain, and upper respiratory tract infection. DRUG INTERACTIONS Refer to the full Prescribing Information for important drug interactions with APRETUDE Drugs that induce UGT1A1 may significantly decrease the plasma concentrations of cabotegravir USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONS Lactation: Assess the benefit-risk of using APRETUDE to the infant while breastfeeding due to the potential for adverse reactions and residual concentrations in the systemic circulation for up to 12 months or longer after discontinuation Assess the benefit-risk of using to the infant while breastfeeding due to the potential for adverse reactions and residual concentrations in the systemic circulation for up to 12 months or longer after discontinuation Pediatrics: Not recommended in individuals weighing less than 35 kg For more information, please see full US Prescribing Information for APRETUDE https://gskpro.com/content/dam/global/hcpportal/en_US/Prescribing_Information/Apretude/pdf/APRETUDE-PI-PIL-IFU.PDF RUKOBIA (fostemsavir) extended-release tablets INDICATION RUKOBIA, in combination with other antiretrovirals (ARVs), is indicated to treat HIV-1 infection in heavily treatment-experienced adults with multidrug-resistant HIV-1 infection failing their current ARV regimen due to resistance, intolerance, or safety considerations. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION CONTRAINDICATIONS Do not use in patients with previous hypersensitivity to fostemsavir or any of the components of RUKOBIA Do not use RUKOBIA in patients receiving strong cytochrome P450 (CYP)3A inducers, including but not limited to enzalutamide, carbamazepine, phenytoin, rifampin, mitotane, and St John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Immune Reconstitution Syndrome, including the occurrence of autoimmune disorders with variable time to onset, has been reported with the use of RUKOBIA QTc Prolongation with Higher than Recommended Dosages: RUKOBIA at 2,400 mg twice daily has been shown to significantly prolong the QTc interval of the electrocardiogram. Use RUKOBIA with caution in patients with a history of QTc interval prolongation or in patients with relevant pre-existing cardiac disease or who are taking drugs with a known risk of Torsade de Pointes. Elderly patients may be more susceptible to drug-induced QT interval prolongation. Elevations in Hepatic Transaminases in Patients with Hepatitis B or C Virus Co-infection: Monitoring of liver chemistries is recommended in patients with hepatitis B and/or C co-infection. Diligence should be applied in initiating or maintaining effective hepatitis B therapy when starting RUKOBIA in patients co-infected with hepatitis B. Adverse Reactions or Loss of Virologic Response Due to Drug Interactions with concomitant use of RUKOBIA and other drugs may occur (see Contraindications and Drug Interactions). Adverse reactions The most common adverse reaction (all grades, randomized cohort) observed in =5% of subjects was nausea (10%). 81% of adverse reactions reported with RUKOBIA were mild or moderate in severity. Drug interactions See the full Prescribing Information for RUKOBIA for a complete list of significant drug interactions. for a complete list of significant drug interactions. Temsavir may increase plasma concentrations of grazoprevir and voxilaprevir. Use an alternative hepatitis C virus regimen if possible. Use the lowest possible starting dose for statins and monitor for statin-associated adverse events. Patients receiving RUKOBIA should not take doses of estrogen-based therapies, including oral contraceptives, that contain more than 30 mcg/day of ethinyl estradiol. Caution is advised particularly in patients with additional risk factors for thromboembolic events. Use in specific populations Pregnancy: There are insufficient human data on the use of RUKOBIA during pregnancy to definitively assess a drug-associated risk for birth defects and miscarriage. An Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry has been established. There are insufficient human data on the use of during pregnancy to definitively assess a drug-associated risk for birth defects and miscarriage. An Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry has been established. Lactation: Breastfeeding is not recommended due to the potential for HIV-1 transmission, developing viral resistance, and adverse reactions in a breastfed infant. For more information, please see full US Prescribing Information for RUKOBIA https://gskpro.com/content/dam/global/hcpportal/en_US/Prescribing_Information/Rukobia/pdf/RUKOBIA-PI-PIL.PDF About ViiV Healthcare ViiV Healthcare is a global specialist HIV company established in November 2009 by GSK (LSE: GSK) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) dedicated to delivering advances in treatment and care for people living with HIV and for people who are at risk of acquiring HIV. Shionogi became a ViiV shareholder in October 2012. The company's aims are to take a deeper and broader interest in HIV and AIDS than any company has done before and take a new approach to deliver effective and innovative medicines for HIV treatment and prevention, as well as support communities affected by HIV. For more information on the company, its management, portfolio, pipeline, and commitment, please visit viivhealthcare.com. About GSK GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology, and talent to get ahead of disease together. Find out more at gsk.com. Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements GSK cautions investors that any forward-looking statements or projections made by GSK, including those made in this announcement, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Such factors include, but are not limited to, those described under Item 3.D "Risk factors" in the company's Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2022, and Q4 Results for 2023. Registered in England Wales: GSK plc ViiV No. 3888792 Healthcare Limited No. 06876960 Registered Office: GSK plc 980 Great West Road Brentford, Middlesex United Kingdom TW8 9GS ViiV Healthcare Limited GSK Medicines Research Centre Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage United Kingdom SG1 2NY References 1 Han, et al. Phase I Study of Cabotegravir Long-Acting Injectable Formulations Supports =4-Monthly Dose Interval. Presented at 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). March 2024. 2 Leone, et al. VH3810109 (N6LS) in Antiretroviral Therapy-Naive Adults With HIV-1: Phase IIa BANNER Efficacy Data. Presented at 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). March 2024. 3 Win, et al. High-Dose VH3810109 (N6LS) Recombinant Human Hyaluronidase PH20: Phase I SPAN Study Safety Results. Presented at 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). March 2024. 4 Taiwo, et al. Safety and Efficacy of VRC07-523LS plus Long-Acting Cabotegravir in the Phase 2 ACTG A5357 Trial. Presented at 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). March 2024. 5 Rana, et al. Long-acting Injectable CAB/RPV is Superior to Oral ART in PWH with adherence challenges: ACTG A5359. Presented at 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). March 2024. 6 Kamya, et al. SEARCH Randomized trial of Dynamic Choice HIV Prevention including injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA). Presented at 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). March 2024. 7 Hsu, et al. Real-World Effectiveness of Cabotegravir Rilpivirine vs. Standard of Care Oral Regimens in the US. Presented at 31 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). March 2024. 8 Sorstedt, et al. Switching to DTG+3TC vs 3-drug regimens in routine clinical care: long-term Swedish data. Presented at 31st Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). March 2024. 9 Data on File View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240223777191/en/ Contacts: ViiV Healthcare enquiries: Media enquiries: Rachel Jaikaran +44 (0) 78 2352 3755 (London) Audrey Abernathy +1 919 605 4521 (North Carolina) Ken Inchausti +1 732 690 6938 (Colorado) GSK enquiries: Media enquiries: Tim Foley +44 (0) 20 8047 5502 (London) Sarah Clements +44 (0) 20 8047 5502 (London) Kathleen Quinn +1 202 603 5003 (Washington DC) Lyndsay Meyer +1 202 302 4595 (Washington DC) Alison Hunt +1 540 742 3391 (Washington DC) Investor Relations: Nick Stone +44 (0) 7717 618834 (London James Dodwell +44 (0) 20 8047 2406 (London) Mick Readey +44 (0) 7990 339653 (London) Josh Williams +44 (0) 7385 415719 (London) Camilla Campbell +44 (0) 7803 050238 (London) Steph Mountifield +44 (0) 7796 707505 (London) Jeff McLaughlin +1 215 751 7002 (Philadelphia) Frannie DeFranco +1 215 751 4855 (Philadelphia) MAGIC celebrates 90th anniversary at the Las Vegas edition alongside launch of MMGNET Group LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / MAGIC , PROJECT and SOURCING at MAGIC Las Vegas successfully concluded its bi-annual event which brought together distinguished business leaders and celebrity guest speakers, thousands of brands, exhibiting companies and retailers for three days of community experiences and insightful conversations for the fashion industry at MMGNET Group's tentpole Spring event. MAGIC brought over 700 prominent and emerging brands to Las Vegas with 170 of them, 25 percent, being new to show. Brands showcased Fall/Winter 2024 collections to retailers ranging from single specialty boutiques to big box department and chain stores, with Bloomingdales, Fred Segal, Hemline, Urban Outfitters and Boot Barn among select retailers in attendance. Trends on display at MAGIC ranged from cosmic glam, with metallic finishes and glittering details, to hyper-femininity and balletic adornment to recovered craft, including patchwork and denim as earthy hues took center stage. This year, MAGIC hosted the return of Kids at MAGIC, featuring brands such as Chaser Kids, Angel Dear and InCity Boys and Girls. Highlights from day one on the show floor include MAGIC's 90th anniversary opening night party hosted by multi-hyphenate Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson, and a surprise meet and greet with D'Amelio Footwear founders and social media stars Dixie D'Amelio and Charli D'Amelio. PROJECT's NOW Forum hosted a panel moderated by Anthony Mastracci, Senior Commerce Editor at Men's Journal with Buffalo Bills defensive ends?Kingsley Jonathan?and?Shaq Lawson, Cleveland Browns linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Keion White, defensive end for the New England Patriots, on the players' relationships with fashion and creative inspiration. PROJECT Las Vegas showcased over 500 top contemporary men's and women's brands, with Outerknown, Pendleton and 7 For All Mankind in the lineup of distinguished brands. 17 percent of brands at PROJECT were international, with Canada, France and Turkiye among the top countries represented. Leading retailers in attendance were Voo Berlin, American Rag, DTLR, Hibbett and Nordstrom. MAGIC Mens was also housed next to PROJECT Mens on the show floor, highlighting over 230 men's trend and young contemporary brands, including Barabas and new to show Johnny Q. "Recognizing the decades of impact these shows have established in our ecosystem, we are marking the beginning of a new era as we implement MMGNET's identity into our program and vision for how these events are experienced in the future. We are here to take this journey to serve as the most trusted voice and resource to our fashion community," explains Kelly Helfman, President, MMGNET. "This is the start of a massive shift to evolve into a fashion ecosystem." Important conversations across all shows on responsible fashion, sustainability and community building were hosted, offering valuable guidance for fashion professionals across all stages of the business. MMGNET also presented findings from fashion consumer research at each show, offering key insights into 2024 purchasing habits to inform buying and investment decisions. SOURCING at MAGIC, the premier destination for businesses, brands, and sourcing professionals to collaborate, featured over 800 manufacturers and service providers from over 40 countries, with fashion technology and sustainability taking a front seat across education and experiences. SOURCING at MAGIC hosted 25 verified sustainable exhibitors, including garment manufacturers based in Mexico, Peru, Pakistan and Turkiye, among other countries. Nike, Kith, Stussy and Jockey were among key attendees at SOURCING at MAGIC. Next stop is MAGIC Nashville April 3-4, 2024, at the Music City Center. For more information and to register to attend, please visit magicfashionevents.com . About MAGIC MAGIC is a high-energy fashion experience and home to the industry's largest selection of trend-driven and young contemporary apparel, footwear, and accessories. Fusing scale with curation to drive commerce, creativity, and connections, MAGIC joins a global audience of retail buyers - from big-box to boutique - with influencers, media, and industry thought leaders. More than just events, MAGIC is a deeply rooted community, and a place brands and retailers call home. For more information, please visit www.magicfashionevents.com . About PROJECT LAS VEGAS? PROJECT LAS VEGAS represents what's new, now, and next in men's and women's contemporary apparel, footwear and accessories, PROJECT Las Vegas is where domestic and international buyers go to be inspired by higher-end brands, find products from culturally relevant mid-market labels and connect with like-minded industry thought leaders and fashion insiders. Through a fusion of community, education, media, and experiences, PROJECT Las Vegas propels the next season's top trends, generates global awareness, and ultimately, drives commerce. For more information, please visit? www.projectfashionevents.com. About SOURCING at MAGIC? SOURCING at MAGIC allows fashion businesses, brands and sourcing professionals to connect and collaborate with a community of global manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers. With a strong presence among international exhibitors and attendees and deep domestic connections, SOURCING at MAGIC is a global community. With a forward-thinking approach and commitment to the evolution of the global apparel supply chain, SOURCING at MAGIC consistently provides access to emerging fashion technology, solutions, sustainable resources, educational content, networking, and extended visibility into the industry's most critical global issues. For more information, please visit www.sourcingatmagic.com . About MMGNET MMGNET is fashion's newest B2B ecosystem and the go-to industry resource, where industry professionals go to source the inspiration, connections, and opportunities they need to build business, network, and responsibly steward fashion forward. Through its extensive global reach, decades of unwavering industry expertise, world-class content programs, and a comprehensive portfolio of trade and industry event brands - including MAGIC, PROJECT, COTERIE, and SOURCING at MAGIC - MMGNET delivers year-round opportunities to learn, grow, connect, and discover. MMGNET Group is a subsidiary of Informa Markets (LON:INF). To learn more about MMGNET and the MMGNET Group portfolio of brands, please visit? www.mmgnetgroup.com . Media Contact: Fashionpr@informa.com SOURCE: MMGNET Group View the original press release on accesswire.com VanEck proudly announces today the launch of SegMint GmbH, a digital assets management platform aimed at revolutionizing the digital assets landscape by improving accessibility and security. The idea for SegMint came out of VanEck's digital assets research effort. In today's digital age, self-custody of assets has become increasingly prevalent. There are 11.8M monthly active Ethereum wallets and estimated 74.2M monthly active wallets across all blockchains.1 However, with this autonomy comes the challenge of sharing ownership and access. Recognizing this need for simplicity and ease of use, VanEck is introducing SegMint, a cutting-edge NFT marketplace and digital assets platform built around its innovative "Lock Key Model." SegMint's Lock Key Model simplifies the process of managing self-custodied assets by introducing a straightforward solution for sharing access and ownership. Imagine having a secure vault where you can store your digital assets, and then effortlessly issue keys to others, granting them shared ownership without compromising security. This model not only enhances accessibility, but also provides additional protections for shared assets. "We identified a significant pain point in the digital assets ecosystem-the challenge of sharing access and ownership in a self-custody world," explains Matt Bartlett, founder of SegMint. "The Lock Key Model addresses this by offering a user-friendly solution that empowers individuals to securely share their assets while retaining control." At its core, the Lock Key Model is a foundational step towards democratizing digital assets management, starting with a focus on crypto-native users-both those who own digital collectibles such as NFTs and tokenized watches, and others who want access to them. While the platform's interface may initially require some familiarity with blockchain concepts, SegMint is committed to streamlining its user experience to ensure inclusivity and ease of navigation for all users, regardless of their technical expertise. This emphasis on simplicity lays the groundwork for broader adoption across various industries. The versatility of the Lock Key Model opens doors for partnerships with businesses and organizations that have a community of users with a particular interest, who need a solution for asset sharing. Whether NFT holders collaborating on creative projects or enterprises sharing digital resources, SegMint's model provides a flexible and secure framework. As VanEck continues to explore opportunities for tokenization, SegMint's innovative approach not only enhances the user experience within the crypto-native community, but also sets the stage for bridging the gap between digital and real-world assets. Additional SegMint features include SegMint Safes, a custom multi-sig wallet solution, and NFT minting capabilities enhanced with MINTangible's IP protection toolkit, enabling creators to establish terms of use for their collection by adding personal or commercial use rights. Users also have the ability to share access to token-gated features as a consumptive utility powered by Delegate.xyz. These features will be initially offered for free. Depending on the user's country of residence, access to the platform may be limited. We expect interest in Europe and Asia, Mr. Bartlett said. Initial users will receive a complimentary Adventurer NFT with a verified profile and completed KYC. They will be able to engage in quests and experience an immersive storyline and lore, while being rewarded with additional benefits from the SegMint platform and partner project collections. SegMint's launch signifies a significant milestone towards building a more inclusive and user-friendly digital asset ecosystem. To learn more about SegMint and its pioneering Lock Key Model, visit SegMint.io. SegMint's technology partners include Nueva.Tech, Delegate.xyz, MINTangible.io, Portals.to and Walletchat.fun. About VanEck VanEck has a history of looking beyond the financial markets to identify trends likely to create impactful investment opportunities. We were one of the first U.S. asset managers to offer investors access to international markets. This set the tone for the firm's drive to identify asset classes and trends including gold investing in 1968, emerging markets in 1993, and exchange-traded funds in 2006 that subsequently shaped the investment management industry. Today, VanEck offers active and passive strategies with compelling exposures supported by well-designed investment processes. As of January 31, 2023, VanEck managed approximately $88.2B in assets, including mutual funds, ETFs, and institutional accounts. The firm's capabilities range from core investment opportunities to more specialized exposures to enhance portfolio diversification. Our actively managed strategies are fueled by in-depth, bottom-up research and security selection from portfolio managers with direct experience in the sectors and regions in which they invest. Investability, liquidity, diversity, and transparency are key to the experienced decision-making around market and index selection underlying VanEck's passive strategies. Since our founding in 1955, putting our clients' interests first, in all market environments, has been at the heart of the firm's mission. Important Disclosures This is a marketing communication. This content is intended for educational purposes only. Please note that the availability of the services mentioned may vary by country. The information herein may change at any time and from time to time. Non-SegMint proprietary information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but not guaranteed. Not intended to be a forecast of future events, a guarantee of future results. Historical performance is not indicative of future results. Current data may differ from data quoted. Any graphs shown herein are for illustrative purposes only. Risk Factors associated with the use of SegMint There are specific risks associated with the use of SegMint. There are risks associated with acquiring NFTs or Keys from or via SegMint. To buy NFTs or Keys involves special risks, including very high volatility and political, economic and currency risks and differences in accounting methods. You could potentially lose all your NFTs and Keys in your SegMint wallet. The technology used by SegMint is new and many of its uses may be untested; intense competition; slow adoption rates and the potential for product obsolescence; loss or destruction of key(s) to access wallets or the blockchain; reliance on wallets; reliance on unregulated markets and exchanges; reliance on the internet; cybersecurity risks; and the lack of regulation and the potential for new laws and regulation that may be difficult to predict. Web3 Companies include but are not limited to, companies that involve the development, innovation, and/or utilization of blockchain, digital assets, or crypto technologies. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of SegMint. SegMint GmbH, Kreuznacher Strasse 30, 60486 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. 1 Source: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/metrics/user-mau View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228948977/en/ Contacts: MEDIA EU: Henning Monster Miriam Wolschon public imaging GmbH Phone: +49 (0)40 401999 -156 -155 vaneck@publicimaging.de US: Chris Sullivan Craft Capital 917.902.0617 chris@craftandcapital.com BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- At MWC 2024, Huawei launched the Intelligent Factory Solution, which was part of Huawei's Manufacturing and Large Enterprise Session on "Delve into Industries, Creating a Better, Greener, and Smarter Future". The session gathered industry leaders and experts to share the latest solutions and best practices in product R&D, production, and operation management, while also encouraging cooperation. Liu Chao, CEO of Huawei's Manufacturing and Large Enterprises Business Unit, said: "The integration of digital technology and the real economy is advancing. Huawei will continue to leverage technological innovation and industry know-how to provide intelligent products and solutions that cover the entire value chain of manufacturing enterprises. We will also collaborate with partners to serve end customers better." Liu continued to explain that Huawei aims to help enterprises upgrade their ICT infrastructure to accelerate product R&D and innovation, improve production efficiency while reducing costs, and ensure streamlined, sustainable enterprise operations. Wang Zhiya, COO of Huawei's Manufacturing and Large Enterprises Business Unit, hosted the launch of the Intelligent Factory Solution. This solution adopts a technology architecture of "one cloud, one network, and one platform", which streamlines the engineering data flow, business information flow, and production process flow. Specifically, "one network" integrates IP, industrial passive optical network (PON), and 5G, making it possible to seamlessly connect numerous devices on a large scale across multiple scenarios. In addition, "one network" also bolsters the data collection efficiency to an industry-leading 1 million data points per second. Furthermore, Huawei Cloud provides data and application enablement, as well as other services, to support intelligent applications such as advanced production scheduling and digital twins. This can help manufacturers shorten the order-to-delivery cycle while improving overall equipment effectiveness. Regarding enterprise ICT infrastructure upgrades, Tamas Szabo, Officer of Data Center at BorsodChem, shared his experience in building green data centers. For intelligent enterprise applications, Lili Yin, General Manager of Europe at Quicktron Robotics, introduced the Smart Logistics Operations System Solution, co-created with Huawei. Yin also shared project on quick warehouse AMRs powered by Huawei's AirEngine Wi-Fi 6. Huawei believes that with constant interaction, exchange, and collaborative efforts, enterprise digitalization and intelligence will progress, leading to more growth and a brighter future for the industry. For more information, visit: https://e.huawei.com/en/industries/manufacturing Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350029/image.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/mwc2024-huawei-releases-intelligent-factory-solution-creating-a-better-greener-and-smarter-future-302074324.html Reno, Nevada--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - World Mobile, the first global mobile network powered by blockchain technology and the sharing economy, announces the global launch of its AirNode Sales Platform, enabling users to purchase an AirNode and reserve a deployment location anywhere in Reno, Nevada. The rollout follows months of research and testing in the city that successfully illustrated World Mobile's solutions to close connectivity gaps across the U.S. through community-based connectivity and its decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN). Image 1 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8717/199642_05fbc0a03414b86f_001full.jpg Although northern Nevada has become a burgeoning region for tech startups fuelling job and population growth, its consistent connectivity gaps underscore the estimates that roughly 24 million Americans lack access to high-speed internet access, according to McKinsey. This number indicates that the connectivity divide is not reserved for remote locations. With the U.S. Congress allocating $100 billion to help states bring high-speed connectivity to every American household, novel solutions are necessary to bolster these efforts and create infrastructures that can easily connect and reward communities. Image 2 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8717/199642_230839e4c4770bb6_001full.jpg To examine the connectivity challenges, World Mobile launched its pilot project in Reno in late 2023 and immediately uncovered a distinct lack of coverage-even in hotspots such as the city's airport or downtown. Likewise, Reno's widespread connectivity issues are exacerbated in indoor settings, with signals becoming significantly weaker inside buildings throughout the city. The trial also indicated the consistent demand for high-speed connectivity in Reno, with an AirNode garnering 130,000 network-attach attempts in one month alone. Likewise, another test showed that on a single rooftop with just one radio and one sector, an astonishing 10,440 unique handsets attempted to connect to the World Mobile network within 24 hours. Image 3 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8717/199642_230839e4c4770bb6_002full.jpg The general AirNode Sales Platform launch now arrives after gathering critical insights and feedback thanks to World Mobile's comprehensive connectivity mapping and on-the-ground results from its community members and app users utilizing its Scan For Points feature. A continued rollout in Reno includes a first batch of 20 AirNodes available for purchase, with future batch releases marking a progressive phase in telecom innovation and connectivity. AirNodes are radio devices that establish access to the World Mobile network for calls and data, empowering owners to connect their community to the decentralized wireless network. Recently securing licensed spectrum across California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah has enhanced the network's reach and functionality throughout the country. AirNode owners earn rewards through network usage utilizing Band 71 and Band 48 (CBRS) spectrum for a dynamic hybrid network that ensures high-speed, long-range connectivity in rural and urban areas. AirNodes, compatible with CBRS or Band 71, are purchasable at airnode.worldmobile.io, with plans for expanded locations across the U.S. and international markets, in addition to a wider range of hardware options in the coming months. Individuals can actively participate by becoming AirNode Operators-earning rewards through purchasing, hosting, and operating AirNodes on their properties. Individuals can also participate by offering the opportunity to host an AirNode at their property (AirNode Hosts), without purchasing the infrastructure. This enables users to earn rewards remotely through a matching system that pairs registered AirNode Hosts with individuals from anywhere worldwide who wish to become Remote AirNode Operators. World Mobile is making this announcement while attending the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona where it received the GSMA Foundry Excellence Award for its Mozambique aerostat deployment. This recognition demonstrates World Mobile's dedication to solving the challenges of global under-connectivity through disruption in the mobile industry. "With our AirNode Sales Platform, we are revolutionizing the way people access and provide connectivity," says Micky Watkins, CEO of World Mobile. "Our platform allows anyone to purchase, host, or operate an AirNode, and earn rewards for doing so. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved, as it lowers the barriers to entry and increases mobile network coverage and quality. Reno is our first destination, but we have big plans to scale up and reach more regions in the future." "Our AirNode Sales Platform is a novel approach that integrates our decentralized AirNode infrastructure and our sharing economy concept," affirms James Tagg, Chief Architect at World Mobile. "Our platform allows users to buy, host, or operate an AirNode, incentivized by rewards. We are using licensed and shared spectrum to create a strong and versatile network that can cater to a varied and growing user base. Reno is our starting point, and we are eager to see the impact." About World Mobile Group: World Mobile Group is democratizing global connectivity through its blockchain-based decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN). Unlike traditional telecom providers, World Mobile operates on a sharing economy model, enabling individuals and businesses to run nodes, connect their communities, and earn rewards. For more information visit: https://worldmobile.io/ Contact Info: Name: Alona Stein Email: alona@reblonde.com Location: Reno, Nevada To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199642 SOURCE: Asiacryptos JERUSALEM (dpa-AFX) - The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says three Palestine Red Crescent paramedics were detained during a medical evacuation at Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis. On February 25, the Palestine Red Crescent Society, the World Health Organization, and OCHA evacuated 24 patients from Al Amal hospital. Despite prior coordination for all staff members and vehicles with the Israeli side, Israeli forces blocked the WHO-led convoy for many hours the moment it left the hospital. UNOCHA alleged that the Israeli military forced patients and staff out of ambulances and stripped all paramedics of their clothes. Three Palestine Red Crescent paramedics were subsequently detained while the rest of the convoy stayed in place for over seven hours. One paramedic has been released since the incident. The UN humanitarian agency has called for the immediate release of the two paramedical staff and all other detained health workers. Copyright(c) 2024 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. Kelowna, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Strathmore Plus Uranium Corporation (TSXV: SUU) (OTCQB: SUUFF) (or "the Company") is pleased to report that it has closed its previously announced non-brokered private placement for aggregate gross proceeds of $1,419,550 through the issuance of 2,839,100 units at a price of $0.50 per unit. Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company and one-half common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Full Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of $0.70 per share for a period of 24 months following the date of issuance. The Company will pay 7% cash commissions for a total of $88,480.00 and a total of 176,960 Finders Warrants issued under the same terms as the warrants noted above, to the qualified Finder in connection with subscriptions from subscribers introduced to the Offering. The Company further announces that it has entered into debt settlement agreements with certain insiders and consultants, pursuant to which the Company has agreed to settle an aggregate amount of $119,000 in outstanding debt in exchange for the issuance of 238,000 units. The Common Shares issued in connection with the Debt Settlement will be subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus a day from the date of issuance in accordance with applicable securities legislation. Pursuant to the policies of the TSX Venture, the Debt Settlements cannot close prior to five business days from the date of this announcement. Proceeds from the Offering will be used for working capital and further exploration of the Company's Wyoming properties, including drilling, soil sampling and geophysics. The closing of the Offering is subject to receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, including the approval of the listing of the Common Shares issuable from the sale of the Units on the TSX Venture Exchange. The Common Shares issuable from the sale of the Units and upon the exercise of the Warrants will be subject to a hold period ending on the date that is four months and one day from the issue date of the Unit in accordance with applicable securities laws. About Strathmore Plus Uranium Corp. Strathmore has three fully permitted uranium projects in Wyoming, including Agate, Beaver Rim, and Night Owl. The Agate and Beaver Rim properties contain uranium in typical Wyoming-type roll front deposits based on historical drilling data. The Night Owl property is a former producing surface mine that was in production in the early 1960s. Strathmore Plus Uranium Corp. Contact Information: Investor Relations Telephone: 1 888 882 8177 Email: info@strathmoreplus.com Jamie Bannerman jamie@rdcapital.com 250-868-6553 ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD "Dev Randhawa" Dev Randhawa, CEO To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199666 SOURCE: Strathmore Plus Uranium Corp. LanzaJet Plans to Support Southwest Airlines with U.S. SAF Production and with Development of Ethanol from Agriculture Residue with SAFFiRE Renewables CHICAGO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- LanzaJet, Inc. (LanzaJet) a leading sustainable fuels technology company and sustainable fuels producer, today announced a $30 million investment by Southwest Airlines Co. (Southwest) in LanzaJet. As part of the agreement, LanzaJet and Southwest intend to work toward the development of a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production facility and collaborate to advance the operations of a corn stover to ethanol technology company in which Southwest is invested: SAFFiRE Renewables, LLC (SAFFiRE). LanzaJet plans to undertake project development efforts for the SAF production facility in the United States, with Southwest as the anchor SAF offtaker. The biorefinery is expected to utilize LanzaJet's pioneering technology, which is capable of scaling production to the levels needed to decarbonize aviation through widely available and sustainable feedstock, emerging commercial residue-based feedstock solutions, and promising economics. LanzaJet will also support Southwest's efforts to commercialize SAFFiRE's technology that processes corn stover into ethanol. "The U.S. is an incredibly important market for us - it's our home, where our technology originated and scaled, the site of our and the world's first commercial ethanol-to-SAF plant, and an important opportunity to support the existing U.S. biofuels and ethanol industries with our leading ethanol-to-SAF technology," said Jimmy Samartzis, Chief Executive Officer of LanzaJet. "The alignment of Southwest and LanzaJet is a powerful combination that has the potential to integrate the SAF value chain and to double-down on the US ethanol, aviation, and biofuel industries. Our work together will lead us closer to meeting aviation's decarbonization goals by continuing to scale SAF production in the United States, while also tapping into the U.S. ethanol industry's potential to catalyze the next generation of SAF production." The U.S. facility to be developed by LanzaJet is also intended to enable the opportunity to convert SAFFiRE's cellulosic ethanol into SAF. "We're taking the next step in our sustainability journey toward our goal of net zero by 2050," said Bob Jordan, President & CEO of Southwest Airlines. "We look forward to working with LanzaJet, which is developing potentially important technology that could create more opportunities for Southwest to obtain scalable SAF, a critical component in the success of our environmental sustainability goal to replace 10% of our jet fuel consumption with SAF by 2030." Southwest's investment comes on the heels of the opening of LanzaJet Freedom Pines Fuels - the world's first commercial-scale ethanol-to-SAF plant. Located in Soperton, Georgia, the historic plant is anticipated to produce SAF and renewable diesel from low-carbon and sustainable ethanol which has International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC). LanzaJet Freedom Pines Fuels serves as a blueprint for utilizing first-of-its-kind innovation to scale SAF production and enables LanzaJet's aspiration for 1 billion gallons of SAF production by 2030. Southwest joins LanzaJet's portfolio of investors and funders that includes shareholders British Airways, LanzaTech, Mitsui & Co., Shell, and Suncor Energy and funders such as Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund, Breakthrough Energy, and All Nippon Airways (ANA). ABOUT LANZAJET LanzaJet is a leading sustainable fuels technology company dedicated to accelerating the clean energy transition. As a Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) technology provider and producer with patented ethanol-based alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) technology, LanzaJet is creating an opportunity for future generations by accelerating the deployment of SAF and other clean technologies critical to addressing the climate crisis and transforming the global economy. Further information is available at https://www.lanzajet.com/ Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349717/LanzaJet_Logo_and_Southwest_Logo.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349718/Southwest_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/lanzajet-announces-30-million-investment-from-southwest-airlines-to-accelerate-companys-growth-and-advance-us-sustainable-aviation-fuel-production-302073692.html MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Niobrara County, Wyoming is the top paying county in the United States, according to new research from smarter job search engine Adzuna . The data uncovers the highest paying counties across the US, showcasing key regions offering competitive wages to attract top talent and foster economic growth. Niobrara County in Wyoming leads the nation with an average advertised salary of $192,000, followed by Hyde County in North Carolina at $175,000 and Major County in Oklahoma at $139,400. Other top paying counties include Bennett County in South Dakota with an average advertised salary of $139,200, Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area in Alaska with $131,312, Clinton County in Kentucky with $130,233 and Choctaw County in Mississippi with $130,233. James Neave, Head of Data Science at job search engine Adzuna, comments, "Making six figures is not a dream if you know where to look for them. Our Adzuna data shows that there are 83 counties in the US with average advertised salaries surpassing $100,000, and many of them are scattered in the Midwest. Of the 3,177 counties, Niobrara County from Wyoming and North Carolina's Hyde County have the most lucrative opportunities, paying jobseekers close to $200,000 on average. With some states planning to raise their minimum wages this year, we expect to see an increase in the average pay. Jobseekers who are strapped for cash and are open to relocation can be strategic by applying for jobs in these highest-paying states." Table 1: Top 10 Highest Paid Counties in the US County State Average advertised salaries, Jan 2024 Advertised vacancies, Jan 2024 Niobrara County Wyoming $192,000 497 Hyde County North Carolina $175,000 119 Major County Oklahoma $139,400 807 Bennett County South Dakota $139,200 134 Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area Alaska $131,312 1,732 Clinton County Kentucky $130,233 1,355 Choctaw County Mississippi $130,233 798 Benton County South Carolina $130,000 9 Foster County North Dakota $129,869 978 *Maps for specific states are available upon request. As the data delves deeper into regional job markets, it becomes evident that each state presents unique challenges and opportunities. For example, while jobseekers and remote workers reside everywhere, there's a larger corporate presence in influential states such as New York, California, and Florida. New York In the Empire State, Chenango County (Norwich) emerges as the county with the highest salary offerings, with an average advertised salary of $126,843. New York County, otherwise known as Manhattan , boasts an average of $97,068. Other noteworthy counties include Kings County (Brooklyn), with an average of $92,361, Schenectady County with an average of $90,476, and Broome County with an average of $89,987. California The study identifies Lassen County (Susanville) as the highest paid county in California, offering an average salary of $117,711, making it an attractive destination for job candidates seeking lucrative opportunities. Other desirable counties in California include Modoc County with an average salary of $114,376, Del Norte County with an average of $101,058, Madera County with an average of $98,774, and Marin County with an advertised average salary of $98,051. Florida Adzuna's data spotlights Liberty County (Bristol) as Florida's top-paying destination, boasting an advertised average salary of $113,600, which is indicative of the state's promising avenues for professional growth. Following closely behind are Holmes County at $106,760,Franklin County at $103,385, Lafayette County at $96,000, and Calhoun County at $88,158. Commenting on the salary trend in New York, California and Florida, James Neave says, "Chenango County's emergence as the county with the highest salary offerings in New York may come as a surprise to some, given the high cost of living in Manhattan and the following assumption of New York City's high average salary. However, while Chenango County will have some of the highest salaries and jobs available for doctors, surgeons, and roles in finance, there are also many lower income roles in this area. Adzuna's data showcases the nature of the state's job market, where high paying opportunities extend beyond metropolitan areas. While New York City does boast an average advertised salary of $97,068, other noteworthy counties such as Kings County, Schenectady County, and Broome County highlight the diversity of high-paying regions across the state." Below is a look at the average advertised salaries as of January 2024 in New York, California and Florida. Table 2: Highest Paid Counties in New York, Florida, and California State County Average advertised salaries, Jan 2024 Advertised vacancies, Jan 2024 California Lassen County $117,711 2,336 Modoc County $114,376 1,929 Del Norte County $101,058 2,465 Madera County $98,774 4,975 Marin County $98,051 21,393 San Francisco County $97,224 83,900 Tuolumne County $95,283 3,225 Imperial County $95,242 11,007 Alameda County $93,049 101,381 Plumas County $91,433 2,875 Lake County $91,024 4,424 San Joaquin County $90,918 43,308 Los Angeles County $90,434 496,297 Kings County $89,849 5,765 Santa Clara County $89,354 168,740 Mariposa County $89,280 678 Kern County $89,230 38,378 Sacramento County $88,970 86,490 Riverside County $88,901 95,444 San Mateo County $88,646 68,643 Butte County $88,583 13,673 Contra Costa County $88,522 56,448 Merced County $88,342 12,449 Mendocino County $88,329 5,712 Shasta County $88,055 12,597 Fresno County $87,151 46,926 Stanislaus County $87,006 24,323 San Bernardino County $86,897 95,924 Tulare County $86,853 18,744 Orange County $86,473 173,066 Santa Cruz County $86,003 14,923 Humboldt County $85,973 11,476 Yuba County $85,487 7,261 Glenn County $85,268 2,176 Inyo County $84,365 1,852 San Diego County $84,032 176,045 Monterey County $84,017 23,089 San Luis Obispo County $83,822 17,696 Ventura County $83,332 41,729 Yolo County $83,150 12,173 Solano County $82,969 23,885 Sonoma County $81,909 27,542 Tehama County $81,873 3,112 Sierra County $81,350 333 Trinity County $80,656 656 Napa County $79,649 9,427 Santa Barbara County $79,387 28,998 Placer County $78,564 21,935 Duval County $74,655 31,372 Colusa County $74,200 2,066 Mono County $72,766 1,781 Amador County $71,439 3,157 Nevada County $69,154 6,799 El Dorado County $65,074 9,898 Brewster County $64,704 233 Sutter County $63,626 1,753 Siskiyou County $62,707 4,179 Calaveras County $62,184 2,084 Alpine County $61,200 510 San Benito County $59,263 2,475 Florida Liberty County $113,600 331 Holmes County $106,760 1,210 Franklin County $103,385 1,434 Lafayette County $96,000 590 Calhoun County $88,158 1,195 Flagler County $87,391 5,541 Gilchrist County $87,320 683 Volusia County $86,440 37,999 St. Lucie County $85,222 12,844 Sarasota County $84,710 26,861 Miami-Dade County $82,835 148,883 Hamilton County $82,254 931 Marion County $82,173 20,235 Dixie County $81,960 885 Escambia County $81,618 21,506 Broward County $81,084 124,906 Washington County $79,778 1,873 Manatee County $79,507 28,643 Florida Municipio $79,378 7,137 Brevard County $79,353 46,129 Osceola County $78,136 18,965 Gulf County $77,493 1,404 Palm Beach County $77,246 92,317 Seminole County $77,225 30,199 Hillsborough County $77,215 112,701 Polk County $77,131 37,672 Duval County $77,114 38,941 Leon County $76,974 37,994 Lee County $76,819 49,232 Okeechobee County $75,934 2,461 Alachua County $75,585 24,369 Bay County $75,237 16,652 Jackson County $75,147 3,839 Madison County $75,043 1,114 Orange County $74,689 118,159 Citrus County $73,426 7,089 Collier County $72,422 22,815 Nassau County $71,737 6,638 Hampton city $71,083 834 Sumter County $70,295 6,613 Hendry County $70,000 2,688 Martin County $69,464 8,679 Jefferson County $69,447 884 Pinellas County $69,220 63,832 Clay County $69,020 13,796 Monroe County $68,928 8,423 Hernando County $68,806 8,523 Putnam County $68,091 4,956 Charlotte County $67,749 11,216 Baker County $66,053 1,846 Bradford County $65,503 1,830 Lake County $65,449 25,038 Okaloosa County $64,683 20,574 Indian River County $64,324 9,121 St. Johns County $64,006 14,953 Pasco County $63,945 25,359 Wakulla County $62,268 1,212 Suwannee County $61,852 2,018 Highlands County $61,578 6,340 DeSoto County $60,690 2,022 Columbia County $59,374 2,430 Gadsden County $58,129 4,505 Santa Rosa County $57,942 6,715 Levy County $57,651 3,378 Union County $54,857 1,092 Taylor County $54,347 1,097 Walton County $52,024 4,984 Hardee County $48,132 2,401 Glades County $45,600 659 New York Chenango County $126,843 7,451 New York County $97,068 280,771 Kings County $92,361 44,064 Schenectady County $90,476 10,499 Broome County $89,987 20,622 Queens County $86,220 49,015 Rockland County $85,887 20,181 Rensselaer County $85,505 24,775 Westchester County $84,683 66,648 Otsego County $82,828 8,515 Bronx County $82,277 35,340 Niagara County $81,700 10,842 Oneida County $81,691 21,638 Albany County $81,645 47,167 Nassau County $81,506 90,538 Monroe County $81,493 61,566 Suffolk County $80,698 83,974 Warren County $77,735 6,214 Tompkins County $77,182 10,001 Dutchess County $76,913 21,016 Onondaga County $76,181 48,661 Madison County $75,637 8,675 Orange County $75,266 25,321 Allegany County $75,175 3,436 Richmond County $75,064 9,166 Putnam County $74,022 4,189 Chemung County $73,397 7,167 Montgomery County $73,224 7,447 Clinton County $72,195 7,017 Jefferson County $72,185 11,723 Chautauqua County $71,386 9,190 Franklin County $70,835 4,287 Lewis County $70,653 1,871 Erie County $70,007 65,378 Delaware County $68,094 4,928 Sullivan County $67,649 4,383 Ontario County $67,556 12,899 St. Lawrence County $67,231 9,424 Schuyler County $66,680 1,869 Tioga County $64,346 3,208 Genesee County $63,961 6,410 Saratoga County $63,593 14,418 Washington County $63,566 3,970 Cortland County $62,792 4,289 Herkimer County $62,637 5,032 Yates County $62,619 2,072 Cattaraugus County $62,577 4,742 Ulster County $61,440 9,726 Cayuga County $61,267 6,081 Wayne County $60,037 7,005 Orleans County $59,508 2,385 Fulton County $59,202 3,653 Steuben County $59,034 8,481 Essex County $58,388 2,660 Oswego County $57,717 6,670 Greene County $56,254 4,049 Columbia County $55,934 7,361 Schoharie County $52,997 1,992 Wyoming County $52,601 3,700 Seneca County $51,811 2,504 Livingston County $50,760 6,992 Suffolk city $47,675 2,460 Hamilton County $43,877 422 Methodology: The research analyzed over 8 million US jobs advertised on Adzuna in January 2024 and looked into the average salary by counties, to reveal the top counties and states offering the biggest paycheck. About Adzuna: Adzuna is a smarter, more transparent job search engine. We help tens of millions of US jobseekers access more than eight million US jobs each month, so they can cut through the noise, zero in on the right role faster and land the right job. Adzuna gives job seekers access to every available online job listing in a single site - without giving anyone else access to their personal data - and our unique tools and salary stats help jobseekers pinpoint the perfect role so they can earn what they're actually worth. We love using the power of our technology to match people to better, more fulfilling jobs and keep Americans working. Founded in 2011 by Andrew Hunter and Doug Monro, Adzuna is a privately held company backed by Index Ventures, LocalGlobe and Smedvig Capital. In 2022, Adzuna acquired enterprise job search engine Getwork. Follow Adzuna on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram and LinkedIn or learn more at https://www.adzuna.com . Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350125/Adzuna_Study.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/salary-spotlight-adzuna-reveals-the-highest-paying-counties-in-the-us-302074396.html NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / With support from FedEx through their Charitable Giving Program, The Salvation Army co-branded FedEx canteens deployed to 40 events in the 3rd Quarter of 2023. Additionally, five (5) of the FedEx canteens are used for weekly or daily feeding programs in their communities. These events ranged from weekly community outreach for those experiencing homelessness to disaster response. These co-branded FedEx canteens play an important role in The Salvation Army's ability to provide services to those in need. The Salvation Army greatly appreciates the support of FedEx and their donation of mobile feeding units and will continue to utilize them in new innovative ways to support our communities. DISASTER RESPONSE: Fire Responses: The Salvation Army at the request of the local fire department responded to six different fires this quarter using the FedEx canteens. The Western Pennsylvania Division responded to four fires. The first was to a residential structure fire in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania on July 3rd. The Salvation Army was on the scene with the FedEx canteen early in the morning to provide support to the survivors and first responders. 25 meals, 50 snacks, and 40 drinks were served from the FedEx canteen. The second response was to a multi-home fire in North Braddock, Pennsylvania on August 20th. The team provided support services to first responders and the residents affected by the fire. The third fire the Emergency Disaster Services team was a two-alarm residential house fire in Pittsburgh. Disaster workers served drinks, snacks with Emotional and Spiritual Care. While on the scene of this fire in Pittsburgh, the team was dispatched to a large brush fire at a commercial landscape supply facility. Disaster workers provided meals, snacks, and drinks to the first responders on scene from multiple counties. The North & Central Illinois Division responded to two fires this quarter using the FedEx canteen. The first was a house fire. The Salvation Army served snacks to the fire department crew. The second was a large structure fire in Riverwoods, Illinois where snacks and drinks were served to the fire and police personnel until the fire was put out. Kansas Storms: On August 3rd, The Salvation Army Kansas and Western Missouri Division responded to storms in Ottawa, Kansas. The FedEx canteen deployed to the event for two days and disaster workers served meals, snacks, and drinks to people who lost power during the storms. In total, 331 meals, 565 snacks, and 457 drinks were served to affected individuals in the community. Hurricane Idalia Response in Georgia: Hurricane Idalia impacted multiple counties in Georgia, but Lowndes County received much of the damage. The Salvation Army mobilized the Georgia FedEx canteen to Lowndes County. Disaster workers served meals, drinks, and snacks to survivors from the FedEx canteen. Over the span of August 31st through September 4th disaster workers served 4,000 meals and 300 drinks to first responders and survivors. Search & Rescue Operation in Illinois: On September 30th, The North & Central Illinois Division was requested to support a search and rescue operation in St. Charles, Illinois. The Salvation Army arrived on scene at 6AM and prepared to serve breakfast. Disaster workers served drinks and snacks from the FedEx canteen to search and rescue team volunteers and staff. Fortunately, the missing elderly individual was found safe around 7:30AM and breakfast was not needed. Power Outages Due to Storm in Virginia: The Salvation Army Potomac Division responded to a large storm in Danville, Virginia that left many families without power on September 13th. Disaster workers provided roving feeding to affected individuals throughout the community. HOMELESS FEEDING AND OUTREACH: Georgia Mobile Feeding: This past quarter, Salvation Army Georgia Division used their FedEx canteen to serve low-income communities. The Division has established relationships with Gwinnett County Police Department, Gwinnett County Health Department, Gwinnett County School District, and other local non-profits to bring an array of services to those who are not able to travel to receive these services. In the 3rd quarter, over 950 meals and 1,000 drinks were served to community members. The Salvation Army Georgia Division partnered with the Gwinnett County Gangs Division to provide meals, drinks, and snacks in low-income areas that have a high amount of crime. Due to the positive relationship Gwinnett County Police Department has with the community, The Salvation Army was able to go into areas that otherwise might not be safe. The Salvation Army discovered that there were school-aged children that were not attending school due to not having the vaccinations that are required to attend public school. The Salvation Army is currently working with the Health Department to send their mobile clinic out with The Salvation Army, FedEx canteen so that the children will have the opportunity to receive the vaccinations required by the Georgia Public School System which will allow them to enroll in school while receiving meals and snacks. Another notable community feeding event was when The Salvation Army went to an apartment complex that houses only single mothers. While meals were being served from the FedEx canteen the staff, volunteers, and officers learned that many of the single mother's struggle to get the proper car seats for their children. The Division plans to partner with Gwinnett County Fire Department. The next time the team goes to this location the fire fighters will be coming with them to speak with the mothers about the car seat replacement program. Finally, The Salvation Army Georgia Division partnered with another nonprofit that feeds children during the summer break from school. The funding from the program only allows them to give food to children, which leaves many other family members without meals. The Salvation Army provided meals alongside this nonprofit during the 4th of July weekend to families of the children enrolled in the nonprofit program. Memphis Neighborhood Feeding Program: The Salvation Army Kentucky & Tennessee Division took out the FedEx canteen every Wednesday to provide lunch and water to an underserved neighborhood near The Salvation Army's Purdue Center of Hope. This quarter, 400 meals, drinks, and snacks were served to community members. New Orleans Canteen Ministry: In New Orleans, Louisiana, beginning in September the FedEx canteen was taken out every Wednesday this quarter. Disaster workers served meals and drinks to those experiencing homelessness living under various bridges in the city. In total, 300 meals and drinks were served. Trenton Mobile Feeding Program: A team of volunteers from the Trenton Corps in New Jersey and surrounding area take the FedEx canteen out every other Friday and serve prepared meals to the community, focusing on vulnerable populations. These populations include those experiencing homelessness, housing and food insecure individuals, low-income individuals, migrants, and seniors. They also provide pantry bags, blankets, hygiene items, other gifts as available (socks, coats, toys, etc.). In total, this quarter, the Trenton Mobile Feeding Program served 1,313 meals, snacks, and drinks to community members. Baltimore Meals to Homeless Populations: FeedMore Program: The Potomac Division of The Salvation Army's FeedMore program delivers meals via a route with four stops throughout the city. Individuals can come to the location that is most convenient for them to receive meals and additional services. This quarter, over 3,700 meals, 4,300 snacks, and 3,300 drinks were served to community members experiencing homelessness. Additionally, 1,100 bags of rice and beans and 84 burritos were provided to community members. Daily feeding program: In Baltimore, Maryland the FedEx canteen is being used for a daily feeding program to populations experiencing homelessness across the city. This quarter, over 4,460 meals, 4,400 snacks, and 5,219 drinks were served from the FedEx canteen. Community members were also provided with other needed items such as hygiene kits, socks, and boxes of shorts. SPECIAL EVENTS: Virginia Foundation for Heathy Youth Meal Distribution Program: Every Monday and Thursday in Danville, Virginia, The Salvation Army Potomac Division participates in the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth Meal Distribution Program. This quarter, over 100 children in after school youth programs received healthy meals in addition to a lunch feeding program. 4th of July Parades: On July 4th, The Salvation Army Southern California Division participated in the Santa Monica 4th of July Parade. The Division partnered with The City of Santa Monica and provided 300 snacks and 50 drinks to attendees. Additionally, the Intermountain Division participated in the Greeley Corps 4th of July parade in Colorado. Disaster workers passed out more than 100 bottles of water and pieces of candy to event attendees from the FedEx canteen. Internment Ceremonies: The Salvation Army Indiana Division participated in two internment ceremonies this quarter. The division was called upon by the Indiana State Police to provide hydration services for Officer Aaron's internment at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 7th. After participating in these ceremonies over the years, the division learned that they should stage additional coolers with water along the edge of the formation to provide better coverage during the ceremony. The division was then contacted by the State Fraternal Order of Police Honor Guard to provide hydration at Deputy John Durm's internment. The division purchased four additional coolers to use along the edge of formation. The Fraternal Order of Police appreciated the additional coolers along the formation to support their guard. In total at both ceremonies, 1,084 snacks and 1,254 drinks were served. LaVallita Back-to-School Event: The LaVillita Corps in Chicago, Illinois holds a back-to-school event with the city of Chicago every year. The Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services team participated in this year's July 15th event with the FedEx canteen serving 400 meals and drinks and 1,675 snacks to students and their families. The Salvation Army Prospect Corps Open House: The Salvation Army Kansas and Western Missouri Division participated in an open house event for The Salvation Army Prospect Corps on July 20th. Volunteers served hotdogs, chips, snacks, and drinks off of the FedEx canteen at the event. In total, 168 meals, 196 snacks, and 216 drinks were provided to event attendees. National Night Out Events: The National Night Out Day is an event that seeks to foster relationships between law enforcement and the community. The Salvation Army, in partnership with local law enforcement, participated in National Night Out events across the country. On August 1st, The Salvation Army Southern California Division collaborated with the Santa Monica Police Department and Santa Monica City for a National Night Out Event. At this event, The Salvation Army provided 750 snacks along with 20 bottles with The Salvation Army logo, 20 backpacks, 30 bags, and 15 Salvation Army keychains to community members. With the success of the event this year, The Salvation Army plans to coordinate with The Santa Monica Police Department and Santa Monica City next year to participate. Additionally, the Corps plans to bring the FedEx canteen during the event set up to provide coffee to the local Police Department and parade volunteers. The North and Central Illinois Division participated in the 17th District of Chicago, Illinois' National Night Out. Meals were provided to attendees from the FedEx canteen. The Greater New York Division participated in the National Night Out in Calverton, New York (Suffolk County). Refreshments were served to attendees from the FedEx canteen. In total, 350 snacks and 400 drinks were served to attendees. Lollapalooza Support: The Salvation Army North & Central Illinois Division provided support during Lollapalooza, an annual four-day music festival, in Chicago, Illinois. At the event, disaster workers supported on duty first responders from August 3rd through 6th. An Incident Command Post with a refrigerated truck and the FedEx canteen was set up. First responders were served over 1,400 breakfast meals, 3,570 lunches, and 4,200 dinners. Vacation Bible School Outreach: On August 8th and 9th, The Salvation Army Massachusetts Division passed out freeze pops and provided children with an opportunity to get their face painted or participate in crafts and spoke with them about Vacation Bible School. Public Safety Day Events: The Salvation Army Indiana Division working with Hamilton County Emergency Management participated in the Carmel, Indiana Public Safety Day on August 19th. The FedEx canteen was part of the Touch-a-Truck area. Additionally, water was provided to community members. The North & Central Illinois Division was invited to participate in a Public Safety Day in Aurora, Illinois on August 5th. At the fair, organizations put some of their equipment on display. The Salvation Army brought their FedEx canteen and provided snacks and drinks to event attendees. Air and Water Show in Illinois: The Salvation Army participated in the Air and Water Show in Chicago, Illinois on August 19th, and 20th. The North & Central Illinois Division set up the FedEx canteen one day before the event to provide meals, drinks, and snacks to those doing event set up. During the two-day event, disaster workers served meals, drinks, and snacks to on duty first responders. Over 550 meals, 1,360 snacks, and 2,300 drinks were served. Playground Build Day in Virginia: In early September in Danville, Virginia, The Salvation Army partnered with United Way of Danville and Pittsylvania County for a community playground build. The new playground located at The Salvation Army in Danville includes swing sets, climbers, sensory tables, and a place for children with physical disabilities. Meals and drinks were served to volunteers from the FedEx canteen. Medical Reserve Corps Statewide County Coordinators Annual Meeting: The New Jersey Division participated in the Medical Reserve Corps Statewide County Coordinators Annual Meeting on September 7th. The Emergency Disaster Services team offered to make a presentation at the Medical Reserve Corps statewide annual meeting, sharing what The Salvation Army does to serve communities in crisis and how our Emergency Disaster Services programs prepare and respond. This included an informational session and a hands-on session with the canteen for attendees. Flight 93 National Park and 9/11 Memorial Ceremony: The Western Pennsylvania Division of The Salvation Army holds a strong relationship with Flight 93 National Park and Friends and Family of Flight 93. This year the division again had the pleasure to provide light refreshments to all who came for the Memorial Ceremony of September 11th in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Additionally, Emergency Disaster Services staff and volunteers served a meal to the on-duty Park Rangers at the event. The Mutual Aid Box Alarm System Events: The Salvation Army North & Central Illinois Division participated in two exercises with The Mutual Aid Box Alarm System. The first was an exercise on September 13th in Lake County, Illinois where The Salvation Army served meals, snacks, and drinks from the FedEx canteen. The second was a water rescue exercise in Palatine, Illinois where The Salvation Army provided snacks and hydration to event participants. POW/MIA Remembrance Day in Indianapolis, Indiana: On September 15th, The Salvation Army Indiana Division was honored to serve those who serve our country at the Indianapolis POW/MIA Remembrance Day Event. Snacks and hydration were provided to attendees from the FedEx canteen. Additionally, Major Mike McKee, Emergency Disaster Services Director for the Indiana Division, was invited to place a wreath commemorating World War 1. Rowley, Massachusetts Council on Aging Open House: The Salvation Army attended Rowley's Council on Aging Open House event on September 16th. The Council on Aging is a senior center where adults over 60 can go for resources and information, public benefits information and applications, meals and nutrition programs, transportation services, and more. At this event, the FedEx canteen was set up for participants of the event to view and learn more about The Salvation Army. In total, 75 meals and 100 drinks were served from the FedEx canteen. Cheyenne Frontier Days: The Salvation Army Intermountain Division participated in Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming at the end of July. This is a 6-day event and is the world's largest outdoor rodeo. From the FedEx canteen, the Emergency Disaster Services team served a pancake breakfast to attendees. In total, 300 breakfast meals and 300 drinks were served. RESULTS/OUTCOMES: Total number of meals served: 19,332 Total number of snacks served: 22,895 Total number of drinks served: 23,924 Total number hygiene/comfort kits distributed: 67 Total number of logo bottles distributed: 20 Total number of backpacks distributed: 20 Total number of bags distributed: 30 Total number of Salvation Army challenge coins distributed: 100 Total number of masks distributed: 41 Total number of socks distributed: 154 Total number of bags of rice & beans distributed: 1160 Total number of bottles of water distributed: 100 Total number of pieces of candy distributed: 300 Total number of cases of water distributed: 30 View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from FedEx Corporation on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: FedEx Corporation Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/fedex-corporation Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: FedEx Corporation View the original press release on accesswire.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) on Wednesday announced the launch of Southwest Airlines Renewable Ventures or SARV, a subsidiary dedicated to expanding opportunities for the airline to acquire sustainable aviation fuel or SAF. The company stated that it will collaborate with SAF producers for SAF offtake agreements, while SARV will manage the airline's SAF-related investments, including its equity investment in SAFFiRE Renewables. This move supports the company's aim to substitute 10% of its jet fuel consumption with SAF by 2030. In addition, Southwest disclosed a $30 million investment in LanzaJet, Inc., a SAF technology provider known for its ethanol-to-SAF technology, as part of SARV's portfolio. LanzaJet, in partnership with Southwest, plans to construct an ethanol-to-SAF facility to supply SAF primarily to the airline. This facility will have the capacity to convert SAFFiRE's cellulosic ethanol into SAF, increasing SAF production over time. Copyright(c) 2024 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. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - TNR Gold Corp. (TSXV: TNR) ("TNR", "TNR Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that McEwen Mining Inc. ("McEwen Mining") has provided an update on the Los Azules copper, gold and silver project in San Juan, Argentina. TNR holds a 0.4% net smelter returns royalty ("NSR Royalty") (of which 0.04% of the 0.4% NSR Royalty is held on behalf of a shareholder) on the Los Azules Copper Project. The Los Azules project is held by McEwen Copper Inc. ("McEwen Copper"), a subsidiary of McEwen Mining. The news release issued by McEwen Mining on February 22, 2024 stated: "McEwen Copper Inc., 47.7% owned by McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE: MUX) (TSX: MUX), is pleased to announce results from the recently completed Phase 1 copper heap leaching metallurgical tests undertaken at SGS Chile Limitada in Santiago, Chile. The test results were produced utilizing conventional bio-heap leaching technology and generated an average copper recovery of 76.0%. This represents an increase of 3.2% over the recovery rate used in the June 2023 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for Los Azules. These test results were reviewed by Jim Sorensen and Michael McGlynn at Samuel Engineering Inc., who are responsible for the development and oversight of the metallurgical programs. Metallurgical Testing Delivers a 3.2% Increase in Predicted Copper Recovery at Los Azules Phase 1 Results Based on the Phase 1 test results available at the time and prior historical column test work, the PEA used an average copper recovery of 72.8% by employing conventional bio-heap leaching technology (see results published June 20, 2023). Final results of Phase 1 show an increase in the average recovery to 76.0% in approximately 230 days of leaching over the planned 27-year life of the project. Average net acid consumption was also reduced by 8.3% relative to the PEA. The potential impact of the 3.2% increase in average recovery and 8.3% reduction in net acid consumption can be illustrated by selectively adjusting the PEA Base Case financial model, which results in a life of mine copper cathode production increase of 172,000 tonnes and an after-tax NPV(8%) increase of approximately $262 million. This disclosure should not be taken to modify or update the conclusions of the PEA. Deposit Mineralogy Located in San Juan, Argentina, the Los Azules deposit consists primarily of secondary copper mineralization (supergene zone of predominantly chalcocite), with minimal oxide copper content. Additionally, there is a deeper primary copper (hypogene zone of predominantly chalcopyrite with some zones of significant bornite). Metallurgical Testing Phases Preliminary results from the Phase 1 program along with historical metallurgical testing at Los Azules were used to support the 2023 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA), which proposed an environmentally friendly heap leach alternative to a conventional copper concentrator. The testing program is now advancing with two additional phases (2 & 3) currently underway to support the Feasibility Study (FS). Drilling activities related to the current study work started in 2021 and are continuing into 2024. The leach testing protocols are based on conventional bio-leaching methods used extensively in commercial applications for supergene copper mineralization. The current phases, 2 & 3, are being conducted at SGS Chile and Alfred H. Knight (ASMIN Industrial Limitada) laboratories, both located in Santiago, Chile. The Phase 1 program was initiated using drill core from drilling programs completed prior to 2021, but not older than 2015, for a total of 21 column tests. Started in 2022, Phase 1 has now been completed and final results received. Preliminary results of this work and prior historical leach testing information were used for the PEA metallurgical assumptions. The Phase 2 program utilizes drill core from the 2022-2023 drilling campaign and focuses on deposit-wide variability testing, leaching protocol optimization and scalability. A total of 34 column tests are in progress, with results expected in Q2 2024. The Phase 3 program is also started, utilizing additional drill core material from the ongoing 2023-2024 drilling program. Phase 3 testing is focusing on the material of the initial 5-year mine plan, as delineated in the PEA. A total of 33 additional column tests are planned as part of this final confirmatory testing program, with results anticipated in Q4 2024. The combined metallurgical programs comprise a total of 88 column tests to be used for the FS metallurgical design basis and geo-metallurgical model. Copper assaying is conducted using a sequential method to determine the relative amounts of acid soluble (CuAS) and cyanide soluble (CuCN) copper mineralization (oxides and secondary sulfides). When combined, these two partial assay methods are generally considered readily soluble copper (CuSOL), extractable with conventional heap leaching technologies. Copper assayed that does not report to these two partial assay methods is classified as residual copper (CuRES) and is considered copper that requires additional time or is potentially not recoverable with conventional heap leaching technologies. The finalized results from the Phase 1 metallurgy program for tests completed at minus " and " crush sizes confirmed that soluble copper (CuSOL) component recovery is 100% for all leachable resources. The information in Figure 1 below shows the minus " (19 mm) test results. The PEA envisions a minus " crush size for the heap leaching feed in the commercial application. Figure 1 - Soluble Copper Recovery Kinetics To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2014/199672_1f75f849443488a9_003full.jpg The recovery results for the residual copper (CuRES) component shown in Figure 2 indicated an average recovery of 25%, an increase of 10% from the 15% preliminary recovery assumption used in the PEA. The additional residual copper recovery when applied to the entire resource increases the overall average recovery from 72.8% to 76.0%. Figure 2 - Residual Copper Recovery Kinetics To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2014/199672_1f75f849443488a9_004full.jpg Figure 3 below illustrates the increase in potential copper production throughout the mine life, attributable to the improved recovery, in comparison with the PEA assumptions. The initial two production years do not show additional recovered copper, as the design capacity of the electrowinning plant considered in the PEA is fully utilized. Figure 3 - Copper Cathode Production (PEA & Revised Model) To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2014/199672_1f75f849443488a9_005full.jpg The sulfuric acid consumption has also been updated with the Phase 1 final results. The averaged net sulfuric acid consumption reported in the PEA was 18 kilograms per ton of ore processed. The finalized Phase 1 testing now indicates a reduction of 8.3% to 16.5 kilograms per ton. The primary reason for the reduction of acid consumption is minimizing excess acid in the leaching solutions and operating the columns at a pH closer to 2.0 pH than the historic column work at 1.2 pH, which minimizes acid consumption by excess unmineralized gangue material dissolution. This lowered acid requirement may also improve the project economics, both NPV and IRR, by reducing the operating costs for copper produced and increasing revenue from the same tonnes mined. Bioleaching Summary Copper bioleaching has been a commercially applied technology at altitudes similar to the Los Azules site and as much as 1,000 meters higher for several decades, in multiple locations around the world. Testing is conducted in conventional leach test columns by inoculation of the columns with naturally occurring bacterial ferrooxidans and thiooxidans prior to introduction of the leach solution. Bacterial cultures for the inoculum were sourced from the testing laboratories and adapted to the Los Azules leach material. Ferrooxidans convert the ferrous iron in solution to ferric iron, while thiooxidans convert the sulfur produced in the copper sulfide leaching activity to sulfuric acid/sulfate. Ferric iron is the key chemical component necessary for leaching of copper sulfide material. Bioactivity in the tests is monitored by measurement of the ferrous/ferric ratios and electrochemical oxidation potential in the leaching solutions. ABOUT MCEWEN COPPER McEwen Copper is a well-funded, private company which owns 100% of the large, advanced-stage Los Azules copper project, located in the San Juan province, Argentina. McEwen Copper is a 47.7% owned private subsidiary of McEwen Mining, which is listed on NYSE and TSX under the ticker MUX. Los Azules is being designed to be distinctly different from conventional copper mines, consuming significantly less water, emitting much lower carbon levels and progressing to be carbon neutral by 2038, being powered by 100% renewable energy once in operation. The project's recently updated Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) projects a long life of mine, low production costs per pound, a short payback period, high annual copper production, and an after-tax IRR of 21.1%. ABOUT MCEWEN MINING McEwen Mining is a gold and silver producer with operations in Nevada, Canada, Mexico and Argentina. In addition, it owns approximately 47.7% of McEwen Copper, which owns the large, advanced stage Los Azules copper project in Argentina. The Company's goal is to improve the productivity and life of its assets with the objective of increasing the share price and providing a yield. Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner, has a personal investment in the company of US$220 million. His annual salary is US$1." The McEwen Mining press release appears to be reviewed and verified by a Qualified Person (as that term is defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) and the procedures, methodology and key assumptions disclosed therein are those adopted and consistently applied in the mining industry, but no Qualified Person engaged by TNR has done sufficient work to analyze, interpret, classify or verify McEwen Mining's information to determine the current mineral resource or other information referred to in its press releases. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned in placing any reliance on the disclosures therein. "We are pleased that significant developments on the advancement of the Los Azules Copper Project towards feasibility have led to the increased Stellantis holdings in McEwen Copper as a strategic partner of this large copper, gold and silver project. In February 2023, Stellantis invested ARS $30 billion, and with additional investment of ARS $42 billion made after the new preliminary economic assessment (PEA) publication, has a total investment of ARS $72 billion. An aggregate of US $65 million in McEwen Copper was also invested by Rio Tinto's Venture Nuton in 2022 and 2023," stated Kirill Klip, TNR's Chief Executive Officer. "TNR Gold's vision is aligned with the leaders of innovation among automakers like Stellantis, whose aim is decarbonizing mobility, and mining industry leaders such as Rob McEwen, whose vision is 'to build a mine for the future, based on regenerative principles that can achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2038'. "The green energy rEVolution relies on the supply of critical metals like copper; delivering 'green copper' to Argentina and the world will contribute to the clean energy transition and electrification of transportation and energy industries. "Strong team performance is accelerating the McEwen Copper Los Azules program. The Los Azules Project PEA results highlighted the potential to create very robust leach project, while reducing environmental footprint, and greater environmental and social stewardship sets the Project apart from other potential mine developments. "It's also very encouraging to see an updated independent mineral resource estimate that has increased significantly. "Together with Nuton, McEwen Copper is exploring new technologies that save energy, water, time and capital, advancing Los Azules towards the goal of the leading environmental performance. The involvement of Rio Tinto with its innovative technology, may also accelerate realizing the enormous potential of the Los Azules Project. "Los Azules was ranked in the top 10 largest undeveloped copper deposits in the world by Mining Intelligence (2022). TNR Gold does not have to contribute any capital for the development of the Los Azules Project. The essence of our business model is to have industry leaders like McEwen Mining as operators on the projects that will potentially generate royalty cashflows to contribute significant value for our shareholders." ABOUT TNR GOLD CORP. TNR Gold Corp. is working to become the green energy metals royalty and gold company. Our business model provides a unique entry point in the creation of supply chains for critical materials like energy metals that are powering the energy rEVolution, and the gold industry that is providing a hedge for this stage of the economic cycle. Our portfolio provides a unique combination of assets with exposure to multiple aspects of the mining cycle: the power of blue-sky discovery and important partnerships with industry leaders as operators on the projects that have the potential to generate royalty cashflows that will contribute significant value for our shareholders. Over the past twenty-eight years, TNR, through its lead generator business model, has been successful in generating high-quality global exploration projects. With the Company's expertise, resources and industry network, the potential of the Mariana Lithium Project and Los Azules Copper Project in Argentina among many others have been recognized. TNR holds a 1.5% NSR Royalty on the Mariana Lithium Project in Argentina, of which 0.15% NSR royalty is held on behalf of a shareholder. Ganfeng Lithium's subsidiary, Litio Minera Argentina ("LMA"), has the right to repurchase 1.0% of the NSR royalty on the Mariana Project, of which 0.9% is the Company's NSR Royalty interest. The Company would receive CAN$900,000 and its shareholder would receive CAN$100,000 on the repurchase by LMA, resulting in TNR holding a 0.45% NSR royalty and its shareholder holding a 0.05% NSR royalty. The Mariana Lithium Project is 100% owned by Ganfeng Lithium. The Mariana Lithium Project has been approved by the Argentina provincial government of Salta for an environmental impact report, and the construction of a 20,000 tons-per-annum lithium chloride plant has commenced. TNR Gold also holds a 0.4% NSR Royalty on the Los Azules Copper Project, of which 0.04% of the 0.4% NSR royalty is held on behalf of a shareholder. The Los Azules Copper Project is being developed by McEwen Mining. TNR also holds a 7% net profits royalty holding on the Batidero I and II properties of the Josemaria Project that is being developed by Lundin Mining. Lundin Mining is part of the Lundin Group, a portfolio of companies producing a variety of commodities in several countries worldwide. TNR provides significant exposure to gold through its 90% holding in the Shotgun Gold porphyry project in Alaska. The project is located in Southwestern Alaska near the Donlin Gold project, which is being developed by Barrick Gold and Novagold Resources. The Company's strategy with the Shotgun Gold Project is to attract a joint venture partnership with a major gold mining company. The Company is actively introducing the project to interested parties. At its core, TNR provides a wide scope of exposure to gold, copper, silver and lithium through its holdings in Alaska (the Shotgun Gold porphyry project) and royalty holdings in Argentina (the Mariana Lithium project, the Los Azules Copper Project and the Batidero I & II properties of the Josemaria Project), and is committed to the continued generation of in-demand projects, while diversifying its markets and building shareholder value. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Kirill Klip Executive Chairman www.tnrgoldcorp.com For further information concerning this news release please contact Kirill Klip +1 604-229-8129 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. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information Except for statements of historical 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", "will", "could" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "could" occur, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Specifically, forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements made in relation to: TNR's corporate objectives, and future potential transactions being considered by the Special Committee and the Board. Such forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions and subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those discussed in the sections entitled "Risks" and "Forward-Looking Statements" in the Company's interim and annual Management's Discussion and Analysis which are available under the Company's SEDAR+ profile on www.sedarplus.ca. While management believes that the assumptions made and reflected in this news release are reasonable, should one or more of the risks, uncertainties or other factors materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking information. In particular, there can be no assurance that: TNR will enter into one or more strategic transactions, partnership or a spin-out, or be able to complete any further royalty acquisitions or sales of royalty interests, or portions thereof; debt or equity financings will be available to TNR; or that TNR will be able to achieve any of its corporate objectives. TNR relies on the confirmation of its ownership for mining claims from the appropriate government agencies when paying rental payments for such mining claims requested by these agencies. There could be a risk in the future of the changing internal policies of such government agencies or risk related to the third parties, in future, challenging the ownership of such mining claims. Given these uncertainties, readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements included herein are not guarantees of future performance, and such forward-looking statements should not be unduly relied on. In formulating the forward-looking statements contained herein, management has assumed that business and economic conditions affecting TNR and its royalty partners, McEwen Mining Inc., Ganfeng Lithium and Lundin Mining will continue substantially in the ordinary course, including without limitation with respect to general industry conditions, general levels of economic activity and regulations. These assumptions, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect. Forward-looking information herein and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking information are based on estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking information should circumstances or management's estimates or opinions change. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199672 SOURCE: TNR Gold Corp. The news was shared during a signing ceremony between the GSMA and sponsor, Ooredoo, at MWC Barcelona 2024 BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The GSMA has today revealed the return of M360 MENA. The event, hosted by the GSMA in partnership with Ooredoo, will take place in Doha, Qatar, from 18-19 November 2024. The declaration was made during a signing ceremony with the GSMA and Ooredoo at MWC Barcelona 2024. The 2024 edition of M360 MENA will convene industry leaders from mobile and adjacent industries and policymakers for two days of discussion and debate. Key agenda items will include the role of initiatives such as the GSMA Open Gateway in fostering industry-wide collaboration, the importance of policy frameworks that ensure fair and equitable contributions to mobile infrastructure upkeep, and progress in closing the usage gap in MENA and bringing the benefits of mobile internet to all. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulla Bin Mohammed Al Thani, Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer of Ooredoo Group, emphasized the significance of this event, stating, "The unveiling of M360 MENA in Doha during MWC Barcelona underscores our strategic alliance with GSMA. This moment is not just a celebration for Ooredoo but for both our organisations and the pivotal role we play in digital transformation. Our deep-rooted partnership with GSMA aims to leverage connectivity for the betterment of society, businesses, and the world. By bringing together thought leaders, policymakers, and innovators from around the globe, we are helping to advance the boundless potential of digital technologies to unite us and highlight the critical part telecommunications and GSMA play in crafting our collective and more connected future." Sheikh Ali Bin Jabor Bin Mohammad Al Thani, Chief Executive Officer of Ooredoo Qatar, also shared his insights, remarking, "The announcement of M360 MENA in Doha is a significant milestone for both Ooredoo and Qatar. As we prepare to host our international guests in Doha this November, we are reminded of the transformative potential of digital technology to transcend borders and its critical role in shaping our society for the better. Our M360 MENA event will serve as a platform for sharing insights, fostering partnerships, and showcasing the latest technological advancements that will help build a more inclusive and empowered digital community." Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA added, "We are excited to collaborate with Ooredoo in hosting M360 MENA in Doha. This partnership signifies our commitment to fostering digital inclusion, innovation, and collaboration in this dynamic region. By bringing together key stakeholders, industry experts, and thought leaders, we aim to drive conversations that will shape the future of connectivity, propel economic growth, and contribute to the continued digital advancement of the Middle East and North Africa. The event reflects our dedication to building a connected and empowered future for the entire region." M360 series: Regional focus, global impact Presented by the GSMA, M360 is a series of global events that unify the regional mobile ecosystem. The event aims to discover, develop and deliver innovation that serves as the foundation for positive business environments and societal change. Through inspirational keynotes, thought-provoking panel discussions and insightful case studies across mobile technology, senior executives from mobile and adjacent industries come to learn and discuss in detail their challenges and successes, as well as network with peers. About Ooredoo Ooredoo is Qatar's leading communications company, delivering mobile, fixed, broadband internet and corporate managed services tailored to the needs of consumers and businesses. As a community-focused company, Ooredoo is guided by its vision of enriching people's lives and its belief that it can stimulate human growth by leveraging communications to help people achieve their full potential. X: @OoredooQatar Instagram: @OoredooQatar Facebook: facebook.com/ooredooqatar LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/ooredooQatar YouTube: youtube.com/user/OoredooQatar Website: ooredoo.qa About GSMA The GSMA is a global organisation unifying the mobile ecosystem to discover, develop and deliver innovation foundational to positive business environments and societal change. Our vision is to unlock the full power of connectivity so that people, industry, and society thrive. Representing mobile operators and organisations across the mobile ecosystem and adjacent industries, the GSMA delivers for its members across three broad pillars: Connectivity for Good, Industry Services and Solutions, and Outreach. This activity includes advancing policy, tackling today's biggest societal challenges, underpinning the technology and interoperability that make mobile work, and providing the world's largest platform to convene the mobile ecosystem at the MWC and M360 series of events. We invite you to find out more at gsma.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1882833/GSMA_Logo.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350178/GSMA_Doha.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/gsma-announces-return-of-m360-mena-2024-302074441.html 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. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Gold Terra Resource Corp. (TSXV: YGT) (FSE: TX0) (OTCQB: YGTFF) ("Gold Terra" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it will be attending and exhibiting at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada 2024 Conference ("PDAC 2024"). The annual conference is held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Canada from March 3-6, 2024. Gold Terra will be exhibiting in the Investors Exchange at Booth No. 2304 and will display core from two high-grade gold drill sections. On Monday, March 4, 2024, at 11:30 AM EST, Chairman and CEO Gerald Panneton will be presenting at the PDAC 2024 Corporate Presentation Forum for Investors (CPFI) session located in the new Investment Hub theatre, in Hall E, on the Investors Exchange show floor, 800 level. PDAC 2024 is the world's premier annual mineral exploration and mining convention and brings together up to 30,000 attendees from over 130 countries for educational programming, networking events and business opportunities. Since it began in 1932, the convention has grown in size, stature and influence. Today, it is the event of choice for the world's mineral industry, hosting more than 1,100 exhibitors and 700 speakers. Many of the world's largest mining companies will be attending and presenting, including Newmont Corp., Barrick Gold Corp., BHP Group and Rio Tinto Group. The Company invites all investors and shareholders to the conference and plans to update investors on the following: An update on its Con Mine Option Property deep drilling program targeting high-grade gold in the Campbell Shear below the former Con Mine workings from which 6.1 Moz @ 15-20 g/t Au was produced from 1938-2003, and Additional plans and corporate strategy for 2024. Please see our corporate presentation at: www.goldterracorp.com. For more information and/or to register for the conference, please visit: pdac.ca/convention. We look forward to meeting with you. For more information, please contact: Gerald Panneton, Chairman & CEO gpanneton@goldterracorp.com Mara Strazdins, Investor Relations Phone: 1-778-897-1590 | 604-689-1749 ext 102 strazdins@goldterracorp.com About Gold Terra The Yellowknife Project (YP) encompasses 918 sq. km of contiguous land immediately north, south and east of the City of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. Through a series of acquisitions, Gold Terra controls one of the six major high-grade gold camps in Canada. Being within 10 kilometres of the City of Yellowknife, the YP is close to vital infrastructure, including all-season roads, air transportation, service providers, hydro-electric power, and skilled tradespeople. Gold Terra is currently focusing its drilling on the prolific Campbell Shear, where approximately 14 Moz of gold has been produced, (refer to Gold Terra Oct 21, 2022, Technical Report) and most recently on the Con Mine Option (CMO) property claims immediately south of the past producing Con Mine which produced 6.1 Moz between the Con, Rycon, and Campbell shear structures (1938-2003). The YP and CMO properties lie on the prolific Yellowknife greenstone belt, covering nearly 70 kilometres of strike length along the main mineralized shear system that hosts the former-producing high-grade Con and Giant gold mines. The Company's exploration programs have successfully identified significant zones of gold mineralization and multiple targets that remain to be tested which reinforces the Company's objective of re-establishing Yellowknife as one of the premier gold mining districts in Canada. 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. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information Certain statements made and information contained in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation ("forward-looking information"). Generally, this forward-looking information can, but not always, be identified by 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 statements that certain actions, events, conditions or results "will", "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" or the negative connotations thereof. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is necessarily based on estimates and assumptions that are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking information regarding the current drilling on the Campbell Shear, potentially adding ounces to the Company's current YCG mineral resource, and the Company's objective of re-establishing Yellowknife as one of the premier gold mining districts in Canada. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as the Company's actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in this forward-looking information as a result of the factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section in the Company's most recent MD&A and annual information form available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that would cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is based on information available to the Company as of the date of this news release. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. All of the forward-looking information contained in this news release is qualified by these cautionary statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information due to the inherent uncertainty thereof. Except as required under applicable securities legislation and regulations applicable to the Company, the Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update this forward-looking information. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199665 SOURCE: Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Regulatory News: Claranova (Paris:CLA) informs its shareholders that its Combined General Meeting (Ordinary and Extraordinary) will be held on Friday April 5, 2025 at 3 pm, at DESKEO La Defense- Grande Arche, 1 Parvis de la Defense, Auditorium de la Grande Arche de la Defense, 92800 Puteaux. The original French language version of the second convening notice (avis de convocation) which includes the agenda and the draft resolutions to be submitted to the General Meeting was published in the French publication for legal announcements (Bulletin des Annonces Legales Obligatoires or BALO) of today, and is available on the Company's website in the Investors/Shareholders' Meeting section along with a translation in English for information purposes. The procedures for participating and voting in the Meeting are described in this notice. The other documents and information relating to this Meeting will be made available to shareholders and available for consultation on the Company's website as required by the law and regulations, as from March 15, 2024. Claranova also offers its shareholders the possibility to vote online in advance of the General Meeting through the secure VOTACCESS voting platform which is accessible: through the website of the shareholder services provider https://www.actionnaire.cic-marketsolutions.eu for shareholders holding their shares in registered form; or through the website of the securities account holder for shareholders holding their shares in bearer form. Only holders of bearer shares whose securities account holder is a member of the VOTACCESS system and offers this service to participate in this Meeting may access this website. The VOTACCESS platform to vote online for this Meeting will be accessible from March 20, 2024 until April 4, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. (Paris time). Shareholders are informed that a second meeting notice (avis de convocation) will be published in the French publication for legal announcements (BALO) at least fifteen days before the date of the Combined General Meeting, listing any changes to the agenda as well as any changes resulting from requests to include draft resolutions. Financial calendar: March 20, 2024: H1 2023-2024 results April 5, 2024: Combined General Meeting About Claranova: As a diversified global technology company, Claranova manages and coordinates a portfolio of majority interests in digital companies with strong growth potential. Supported by a team combining several decades of experience in the world of technology, Claranova has acquired a unique know-how in successfully turning around, creating and developing innovative companies. Claranova has proven its capacity to turn a simple idea into a worldwide success in just a few short years. Present in 15 countries and leveraging the technology expertise of its 800+ employees across North America and Europe, Claranova is a truly international group, with 95% of its revenue derived from international markets. Claranova's portfolio of companies is organized into three unique technology platforms operating in all major digital sectors. As an e-commerce leader in personalized objects, Claranova also stands out for its technological expertise in software publishing and the Internet of Things, through its businesses PlanetArt, Avanquest and myDevices. These three technology platforms share a common vision: empowering people through innovation by providing simple and intuitive digital solutions that facilitate everyday access to the very best of technology. For more information on Claranova Group: https://www.claranova.com CODES Ticker:? CLA ISIN: FR0013426004 www.claranova.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228423109/en/ Contacts: ANALYSTS INVESTORS +33 1 41 27 19 74 ir@claranova.com FINANCIAL COMMUNICATION +33 1 75 77 54 68 ir@claranova.com Finsbury Growth & Income Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares PR Newswire LONDON, United Kingdom, February 28 For immediate release 28 February 2024 FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC (the "Company") MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES The Company announces that it has today purchased 186,920 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 857.46 pence per Ordinary Share. Such shares will be held in treasury by the Company. The transaction was made pursuant to the authority granted at the Annual General Meeting of the Company held on 23 January 2024. Following this transaction, the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury is 33,781,355; the total number of Ordinary Shares that the Company has in issue, less the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury following such purchase, and therefore, the total number of voting rights in the Company is 191,209,948. The figure of 191,209,948 may be used by shareholders as the denominator for calculations of interests in the Company's voting rights in accordance with the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules. For and on behalf of Frostrow Capital LLP Company Secretary For further information, please contact: Victoria Hale Frostrow Capital LLP Tel: 020 3 170 8732 BH Macro Limited - Transaction in Own Shares PR Newswire LONDON, United Kingdom, February 28 BH Macro Limited (the "Company") (a closed-ended collective investment scheme established as a company with limited liability under the laws of Guernsey with registered number 46235) Transaction in Own Shares 28 February 2024 BH Macro Limited (the Company) announces today it has purchased the following number of its ordinary shares on the London Stock Exchange from J.P. Morgan Securities plc: Ordinary Shares: - Share Class Sterling Date of purchase: 28 February 2024 Number of ordinary shares purchased: 70,000 Lowest price per share 351.5 Highest price per share 352.5 Trading venue LSE Aggregate volume per date per trading venue: 70,000 Weighted average price per day per trading venue: 351.7857 The Company intends to hold the purchased shares in treasury. Following the above share transactions of the relevant US Dollar and Sterling Shares, the total number of shares in issue in each share class of the Company will be as follows: Ordinary Shares in issue (excluding Treasury) Ordinary Shares held in Treasury 364,467,880 Sterling Shares 9,136,980 Sterling Shares 29,762,912 Dollar Shares Nil Dollar Shares From 28 February 2024, the total number of voting rights in the Company (rounded up to the whole number) is 558,769,922 Enquiries: Company website: www.bhmacro.com William Simmonds JPMorgan Cazenove Tel: 020 7588 2828 The Company Secretary Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited Tel: 01481 745001 LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Golden Metal Resources plc ("Golden Metal" or the "Company") (LSE:GMET)(OTCQB:GMTLF), a strategic mineral exploration and development company focused on Nevada, US, announces an exercise of warrants. Warrant Exercise The Company has received a notice to exercise warrants over 30,000 new ordinary shares of 1 pence each in the Company ("Warrant Shares") at an exercise price of 10.75 p per Warrant Share, raising 3,225 for the Company. ADMISSION AND TOTAL VOTING RIGHTS Application will be made for the 30,000 Warrant Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM which is expected to occur on or around 5 March 2024 ("Admission"). The Warrant Shares will rank pari passu in all respects with the ordinary shares of the Company currently traded on AIM. Following Admission, the Company's issued share capital will comprise 85,835,308 ordinary shares of 1p each. This number will represent the total voting rights in the Company and may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculation by which they can determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company under the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules. Golden Metal Resources plc Oliver Friesen (CEO) Tel: +44 (0) 20 7583 8304 Cairn Financial Advisers LLP Nominated Adviser Sandy Jamieson/Jo Turner/Louise O'Driscoll Tel: +44 20 7213 0880 First Equity Limited Broker Jonathan Brown/Jason Robertson Tel: +44 20 7374 2212 THE PROJECTS Pilot Mountain Project The Pilot Mountain project is an advanced exploration and mineral resource definition stage project located in Mineral County in western Nevada. The project covers an area of 14.80 km2 (3,656.1 acres) and is located 200km southeast of Reno and 18km east of Mina, Nevada. It is well situated for the supply of power, water and skilled labour and proximity to transport infrastructure in Mineral County and is centred around four existing mineral deposits: Garnet; Good Hope; Gunmetal and Desert Scheelite, all of which possess significant skarn-style tungsten-copper-silver-zinc mineralisation. The Pilot Mountain project consists of 176 active lode mining claims and 4 filed mill site claims. The four mill site claims filed at the former Dunham mill site have secure access to groundwater supply sufficient for the proposed project. Garfield Project The Garfield Project is an exciting copper-gold-silver prospect consisting of 65 lode mining claims covering 5.4 km2 (1,338 acres) located in Mineral County, Nevada, approximately 14km due east of the town of Hawthorne and 120km due west-northwest of Tonopah. Exploration to date has included detailed geochemical sampling and follow up analysis which highlighted the presence of both porphyry and skarn-type mineralisation and alteration at the 'High-Grade Zone'. Further to this, mapping, prospecting and rock sampling was recently completed with results confirming presence of high-grade copper, silver and gold mineralisation as well as leading to the bedrock discovery of the Pamlico Au Zone with individual rock samples up to 18.35g/t Au, 1,225g/t Ag & 1.89% Cu. Following this, geochemical analysis of the full suite of data confirmed the strong presence of porphyry style mineralisation across the Project, as well as potentially overprinting epithermal style mineralisation leading to increased gold-silver prospectivity. Kibby Basin Lithium Project The Kibby Basin Project covers two claim packages which are prospective for lithium brine mineralisation. The southern claim package is less than 250m from a 2022 drillhole which returned a significant interval (169m) of lithium brine mineralisation which was determined to be open in all directions. The Project is less than 5km to the southeast of the Company's flagship Pilot Mountain Project. Golconda Summit Project Golden Metal is the operator of the Golconda Summit project, which is held under an earn-in right to acquire up to 100 per cent. of the project from the mineral claim owner pursuant to an option agreement. The Golconda Summit project is an exploration stage gold and silver project located in Humboldt County and situated at the confluence of the Getchell and Battle Mountain - Eureka metallogenic trends, and consists of 44 lode mining claims, covering a total area of approximately 3.22 km2 (795.4 acres) located approximately 27km east of Winnemucca. Stonewall Project The Stonewall project is an exploration stage gold-silver property prospective for epithermal gold-silver mineralisation. The property consists of 19 lode mining claims covering 1.59 km2 (392.5 acres) located on the northern flank of Stonewall Mountain, on the western edge of the Nellis Airforce Range Restricted Access Area, in Nye County, Nevada, approximately 24km south-east of the historic gold mining town of Goldfield and 60km due south of Tonopah. This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com. SOURCE: Golden Metal Resources PLC View the original press release on accesswire.com Investment marks largest to date for the Austin Housing Conservancy Fund AUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / PNC Bank announced a commitment to invest $10 million in the Austin Housing Conservancy fund, an innovative solution to address Austin's housing crisis through a collaboration between investors, nonprofit and community partners. The fund invests and preserves multifamily properties currently affordable to moderate and middle-income individuals. "PNC is focused on making a real impact in Austin communities, and as a longtime resident, I know that among the most critical issues facing our region is housing affordability," said Steven Gonzalez, PNC regional president for Austin. " This investment will help create meaningful change by offering a path forward to help middle-income families, especially those who work in essential services, remain in Austin despite steep increases in cost of living." PNC's direct equity investment in the fund, which is sponsored and managed by Affordable Central Texas (ACT), will help fund the purchase and preservation of multifamily properties and in doing so maintain affordable rental rates for middle-income Austin residents. "Austin is in an affordability crisis, and we need to make sure we're doing everything we can to ensure that everyone in our community is able to share in our current success," said Kirk Watson, Austin mayor. "PNC's investment in the Austin Housing Conservancy will help do that by making a substantial difference in housing for our workforce today and in the future." PNC Bank's investment brings the fund to over $41 million making ACT's initial goal of $50 million within reach by the end of 2024. "PNC's vision and willingness to invest in moderate-income housing with the Austin Housing Conservancy Fund will preserve affordable rental housing for families and individuals for generations to come, allowing us to accelerate our acquisition timeline and reach our 10,000-apartment goal sooner," said Monica Medina, president and CEO for Austin Housing Conservancy. "We are grateful for the leadership of the PNC team to make this a reality." Currently, the fund portfolio has preserved 2,150 units in 14 properties, with a capacity to serve 4,000 residents and a total fund value in excess of $413 million. PNC's investment stems from its $88 billion Community Benefits Plan, which provides loans, investments and other financial support to bolster economic opportunity for low- and moderate-income (LMI) individuals, communities and people of color over a four-year period that began Jan. 1, 2022. As part of the Plan, PNC expects to provide at least $14.5 billion in community development loans and investments across all markets, including at least $400 million for Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) that help meet the banking and financial service needs of traditionally underserved communities. PNC Bank, N.A., is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC). PNC is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States, organized around its customers and communities for strong relationships and local delivery of retail and business banking including a full range of lending products; specialized services for corporations and government entities, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management and asset management. For information about PNC, visit www.pnc.com. CONTACT: Cari Hensley (214) 890-8683 cari.hensley@pnc.com View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from The PNC Financial Services Group on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: The PNC Financial Services Group Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/pnc-financial-services-group Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: The PNC Financial Services Group View the original press release on accesswire.com Redde Northgate Plc - Transaction in Own Shares PR Newswire LONDON, United Kingdom, February 28 NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO OR FROM ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OR REGULATIONS OF SUCH JURISDICTION 28 February 2024 REDDE NORTHGATE PLC ("Redde Northgate" or the "Group" or the "Company") Transaction in Own Shares Redde Northgate plc (LSE:REDD) announces that on 28 February 2024 it purchased the following number of its own shares to be held in treasury: Class of shares : Ordinary shares of 50p ("shares") Number of shares purchased : 50,000 Weighted average purchase price paid : 346.5 pence per share Highest purchase price paid : 348 pence per share Lowest purchase price paid : 345 pence per share Following the above transaction, the Company's issued share capital consists of 246,091,423 ordinary shares of 50p each, of which 19,315,071 ordinary shares are held in treasury, and 1,000,000 preference shares of 50p each which do not carry any rights to vote. Therefore, the total number of voting rights in the Company is 226,776,352 which may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules. In accordance with Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (the Market Abuse Regulation) as incorporated into UK domestic law by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the schedule below contains detailed information about the purchases made by Numis Securities Limited on behalf of the Company as part of the Company's buyback programme. Schedule of Purchases - Individual Transactions (as at 28 February 2024) Number of shares purchased Transaction price (GB pence per share) Time of transaction Transaction reference number Venue 25,000 25,000 348.00 345.00 08:47:45 13:48:50 00069029981TRLO0 00069040106TRLO0 LSE LSE Notes This announcement is made in accordance with the requirements of Listing Rule 12.4.6. For further information contact: Buchanan David Rydell/Jamie Hooper/Hannah Ratcliff +44 (0) 207 466 5000 Notes to Editors: Redde Northgate is the leading integrated mobility solutions platform providing services across the vehicle lifecycle. The Company offers integrated mobility solutions to businesses, fleet operators, insurers, OEMs and other customers across seven key areas: vehicle rental, vehicle data, accident management, vehicle repairs, fleet management, service and maintenance, vehicle ancillary services and vehicle sales. The Company's core purpose is to keep its customers mobile, whether through meeting their regular mobility needs or by servicing and supporting them when unforeseen events occur. With its considerable scale and reach, Redde Northgate's mission is to offer a market-leading customer proposition and drive enhanced returns for shareholders by creating value through sustainable compounding growth. The Group aims to achieve this through the delivery of its strategic framework of Focus, Drive and Broaden. Redde Northgate services its customers through a network and diversified fleet of over 120,000 owned and leased vehicles, supporting over 600,000 managed vehicles, with more than 170 workshop, body shop and rental locations across the UK, Ireland and Spain and a specialist team of over 6,000 automotive services professionals. Further information please visit the Company's website: NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Aflac Incorporated Originally published on Aflac Newsroom As Black History Month comes to a close, Aflac shares a key moment in company history by highlighting James Jackson, a distinguished veteran who spent his second career with Aflac, becoming the company's first-ever African American officer. In this video, Jim reminisces about his time at Aflac, working with company principal founder John Amos, affectionately known as "Mr. John," and what it meant for him to be a part of Aflac history. Jim grew up in Florida before moving to Alabama to attend Tuskegee University. A chemistry and math major, Jim soon joined ROTC program and, once commissioned as second lieutenant in the U.S. Army at Tuskegee University, he went on active duty in Germany for three years. Throughout his military career, Jim moved around to places like Missouri, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, a proving ground in Maryland, and even the Pentagon. In 1978, after 24 years of active service with the U.S. Army - and, at the time, stationed at Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning) near Columbus, Georgia - Jim retired and sought out a second career. After some research, he learned more about Aflac and said, "That's a place where I'd like to work." Jim sent in his resume, had a few interviews, and he eventually landed in the Compliance department at Aflac. He quickly rose through the ranks and became Aflac's first African American officer when he was promoted to assistant vice president of Employee Relations. Fondly reminiscent of his time with Aflac, Jim said that the founders cared deeply about employees - they always treated them like family. Watch the video above to hear more from Jim about his time with Aflac. Aflac's family of insurers includes Aflac and/or Aflac New York, and/or Continental American Insurance Company and/or Continental American Life Insurance Company. Z230123A View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Aflac Incorporated on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Aflac Incorporated Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/aflac-incorporated Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Aflac Incorporated View the original press release on accesswire.com TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Japanese auto giant Toyota is recalling about 381,000 Tacoma pickup trucks over a loose part that can separate from the rear axle, increasing the risk of a crash. According to the recall statement, welding debris left on the ends of the rear axle assembly during manufacturing could cause certain retaining nuts to loosen over time and eventually fall off, potentially causing a part to separate from the axle. If separation occurs, this can affect vehicle stability and brake performance, increasing the risk of a crash. Toyota dealers will inspect the rear axle assembly and retighten the axle retaining nuts at no cost to customers. If axle components are damaged as a result of this condition, they will be repaired or replaced, if necessary, based on inspection criteria. The trucks involved are model year 2022 and 2023 Tacoma pickups. Customers will be notified about this issue through the mail by late April 2024. Toyota did not reveal that whether any accidents or injuries have resulted from this issue. Meanwhile, Toyota recently recalled 280,000 trucks and SUVs for a different issue that resulted in trucks 'creeping' forward when put in neutral. The vehicles involved in that recall were Toyota's large Tundra pickup and Sequoia and Lexus LX 600 large SUVs. Last year, Toyota recalled 1 million vehicles for a sensor issue that could make airbags deploy when they shouldn't. Copyright(c) 2024 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. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Coho Collective Kitchens Inc. (TSXV: COHO) ("Coho" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce its ongoing collaboration with Next Level Partners, a division of Happy Belly Food Group (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: VGANF) ("Happy Belly") to provide consultancy services for the development of the highly anticipated Purebread location on West 4th Avenue in Vancouver. Together, they are committed to a model of accelerated growth, executing on its vision of nationwide expansion by 2026.. Purebread, known for its category-leading baked goods and commitment to quality, continues its work with the Happy Belly Food Group, to ensure the success of its new location in the vibrant Kitsilano area. This key partnership advances Purebread's execution plan of capturing increased market share within British Columbia. Leveraging Happy Belly's proven track record of brand expansion, it enables targeting a larger consumer base within a key segment of Purebread's demographic. "We are really enjoying working with Andrew, Amrit and their team at Coho, as they accelerate the growth of Purebread in their home province of British Columbia and increase their market share. Purebread is an excellent brand and we look forward to continuing to build both its market share and footprint with Andrew and his team," said Sean Black, Chief Investment Officer of Happy Belly. Coho's CEO, Andrew Barnes, expressed enthusiasm for the collaboration, stating, "This partnership aligns perfectly with our mission to grow the Purebread brand across Canada. We are proud to work with Sean and his team at Happy Belly in creating an exceptional Purebread experience for the Kitsilano community." Located on the iconic West 4th Avenue, Purebread's new establishment will be situated in the heart of Kitsilano, an area known for its laid-back atmosphere, diverse culture, and strong sense of community. The demographics of Kitsilano, also known as "Kits," include a mix of young professionals, families, and food enthusiasts, making it an ideal location for the bakery experience that Purebread and Coho are poised to deliver. "We chose Kitsilano for its vibrant energy and diverse community," added Andrew Barnes. "We believe that with Coho' expertise, Purebread will become a staple in Kitsilano, providing residents and visitors alike with a unique and memorable dining experience." Purebread's West 4th Avenue location is expected to open its doors in summer of 2024, bringing a new era of artisanal baked goods to Vancouver's Kitsilano neighborhood. About Next Level Partners Through growth modeling and operational excellence, Next Level Partners' services guide businesses to focus on operational improvement to accelerate revenue and reduce costs. Next Level Partners experienced operational knowledge will help leaders navigate the moments that matter most in its companies' journeys toward success. Services will hone in on brands key business drivers to help shape management's objectives, goals, and strategies. Next Level Partners guide and support management to set the foundation for growth. They specialize their services to offer brands the guidance they need to achieve their goals. The name of their division speaks to exactly how they will operate, as true partners. The team's past success has been rooted in building brands from the ground level. Next Level Partners' team has personally overseen the growth and launch of over 400 restaurants across North America through several brands categories with successful exits each time. About Happy Belly Food Group Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: VGANF) is a leading consolidator of emerging food brands. About Purebread and Coho Collective Kitchens Inc. Coho is a growing player in commercial real estate and food technology, operating fast casual restaurants and shared-kitchen facilities. As Canada's largest shared-kitchen company, Coho is expanding its presence and services. Through their combined efforts, Coho and Purebread strive to positively impact the communities in which they operate. For more information, please visit cohocollectivekitchens.com or contact: Andrew Barnes, Chief Executive Officer Coho Collective Kitchens andrew@cohocommissary.com (778) 877-6513 Forward-Looking Information This press release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation, which reflect management's current expectations regarding future events. Forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions and is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's control, which could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking information. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, Coho's ability to open the locations described in this press release substantially in accordance with the timelines indicated above, the ability of the Company to execute on its strategy, the growth and performance of the ghost kitchen industry globally and in Canada; risks inherent in the ghost-kitchen, retail bakery, or coffeehouse sectors in general; that future results may vary from historical results; and competition in the markets where Coho operates. Except as required by securities law, Coho does not assume any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise. 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/199729 SOURCE: Coho Collective Kitchens Inc. BOULDER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Maxima Financial LLC, a premier investment firm specializing in a wide array of investment services, announces its commitment to delivering exceptional returns and value to its clients across various sectors. With a comprehensive suite of investment options including Real Estate, Stocks Trading, Health Care, Forex Trading, Cryptocurrency Trading, Asset Management, Corporate Finance, and Crowd Finance, Maxima Financial is poised to cater to the diverse needs of investors worldwide. As the global economy evolves and markets become increasingly interconnected, Maxima Financial remains at the forefront of innovation, continuously adapting its strategies to seize emerging opportunities and mitigate risks effectively. By leveraging cutting-edge technology and a team of seasoned professionals, the firm ensures that its clients receive the highest level of service and expertise, empowering them to achieve their financial goals with confidence. "At Maxima Financial, we are dedicated to providing our clients with unparalleled access to a wide range of investment opportunities," said James Smith, Founder of Maxima Financial, LLC. "Our commitment to excellence, integrity, and innovation drives us to continually explore new avenues for growth and deliver superior results for our clients." Maxima Financial's diverse investment offerings provide clients with the flexibility to tailor their portfolios according to their individual preferences, risk tolerance, and investment objectives. Whether seeking long-term growth, income generation, or capital preservation, clients can rely on Maxima Financial's expertise to navigate the complexities of the financial markets and maximize returns. With a track record of success and a reputation for transparency and reliability, Maxima Financial has established itself as a trusted partner for investors seeking superior investment solutions. By combining deep industry knowledge with a client-centric approach, the firm delivers customized investment strategies that align with each client's unique needs and preferences. In an ever-changing financial landscape, Maxima Financial remains steadfast in its commitment to excellence, innovation, and client satisfaction. As the investment landscape continues to evolve, Maxima Financial stands ready to empower its clients with the tools, insights, and resources they need to succeed in today's dynamic markets. For more information about Maxima Financial and its investment services, please visit our website, www.MaximaFinancial.com About Maxima Financial: Maxima Financial is a leading investment firm registered and licensed in USA as Maxima Financial LLC, UK as Maxima Financial LTD and Canada as Maxima Financial INC. We offer a comprehensive range of investment services including Real Estate, Stocks Trading, Health Care, Forex Trading, Cryptocurrency Trading, Asset Management, Corporate Finance, and Crowd Finance. With a commitment to excellence, integrity, and innovation, Maxima Financial strives to deliver exceptional results and value to its clients worldwide. Media Contact: Company Name: Maxima Financial (LLC, LTD, INC) Contact Person: James Smith Contact Number: +1 904 326 0703 Address: 1942 Broadway Ste 314C Boulder CO 80302, US Email: support@maximafinancial.com Company's Website: https://maximafinancial.com SOURCE: Maxima Financial (LLC, LTD, INC) View the original press release on accesswire.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Honor CEO George Zhao revealed the company's plan to launch its first vertical-folding flip phone in 2024, aiming to tap into the premium smartphone market. The CEO confirmed to CNBC in an exclusive interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, 'This year we are preparing for the flip phone launch - now that we are internally in the final stage.' 'We are very positive about foldables for the future,' Zhao added. The announcement comes after the global launch of the company's Magic6 Pro and PORSCHE DESIGN HONOR Magic V2 RSR at the event. The smartphone maker intends to target a new market with higher prices compared to traditional horizontal-folding devices. A report by Counterpoint Research estimates a price boom in the premium market for phones above $600 despite a decline in the overall market. In July 2023, Honor launched Magic V2, a smartphone that folds like a book. But with the latest vertical-folding phone it would join the other smartphone makers such as Samsung, OPPO and Motorola, who had popularized this trend. Along with the phone, Zhao also discussed the company's plan to launch a similar wearable like Samsung's Galaxy Ring, which would be launched later this year. The Chinese company's ring would focus on health-related services by collecting data on HONOR's health app and providing personalized health insights with the help of artificial intelligence. Zhao also emphasized that an AI-induced ring would provide tailored training programs to users based on their activities and habits. Copyright(c) 2024 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. ZUG, Switzerland, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In a significant stride towards revolutionizing Web3 infrastructure, Validation Cloud has proudly announced the successful closure of its first external investment round, amassing $5.8 million. Spearheaded by San Francisco-based Cadenza Ventures, this funding round exceeded expectations with contributions from an impressive roster of international investors, including Blockchain Founders Fund, Bloccelerate, Blockwall, Side Door Ventures, Metamatic, GS Futures, and AP Capital. Alex Nwaka, Co-Founder of Validation Cloud, expressed enthusiasm about the funding, "This investment marks a pivotal moment for Validation Cloud as we aim to address the urgent demand for scalable and compliant Web3 infrastructure. We're honored to collaborate with our investors who are instrumental in propelling the global adoption of our platform among cutting-edge networks, developers, and asset managers." Validation Cloud is at the forefront of Web3 technology, having developed an innovative system architecture that paves the way for significant advancements in the sector. Known as the "Cloudflare of Web3," the company offers a robust, scalable, and intelligent platform providing Staking, Node API, and Data services, drawing inspiration from Cloudflare's transformative impact on Web2 infrastructure. Founded by veterans in the Proof-of-Stake domain, Validation Cloud boasts a team of highly experienced professionals from renowned organizations such as Uber, Workday, Deloitte, Citadel, Morgan Stanley, Binance, Crypto.com, Figure, R3, and more, emphasizing a talent-first approach with a worldwide workforce. Kumar Dandapani, Managing Partner at Cadenza Ventures, highlighted the strategic vision behind their investment, "At Cadenza, we do not invest in just any company; we invest in the future of transformative technologies. Validation Cloud's pioneering role in Proof-of-Stake and their relentless pursuit of next-generation Web3 infrastructure have set them apart as leaders in the Web3 space." Aly Madhavji, Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund, shared his thoughts on the investment, "We believe in the transformative power of Web3 and its ability to redefine how businesses operate. Investing in Validation Cloud aligns perfectly with our vision of supporting innovative platforms that are ready to lead the next wave of digital transformation." Validation Cloud has earned a reputation for its close partnerships with networks from their nascent stages, supporting a wide array of ecosystems from established ones like Chainlink, Hedera, and Stellar to emerging networks such as Aptos, Eigenlayer, and Berachain. Their platform lays the groundwork for the enterprise adoption of networks, positioning Validation Cloud as a key player in the Web3 infrastructure landscape. For further details on Validation Cloud and its offerings, please visit www.validationcloud.io. Please contact: Kelly Clark, Director of Communications | kelly.clark@validationcloud.io Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349304/Validation_Cloud_Validation_Cloud_Secures__5_8_Million_in_Inaugu.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2349305/Validation_Cloud_Validation_Cloud_Secures__5_8_Million_in_Inaugu.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/validation-cloud-secures-5-8-million-in-inaugural-funding-to-propel-web3-infrastructure-302074784.html Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Cell MedX Corp. (OTC Pink: CMXC) ("Cell MedX", or the "Company") a biotech company focusing on the discovery, development and commercialization of therapeutic and non-therapeutic products that promote anti-aging and general wellness, announces the resignation of Brad Hargreaves from the Board of Directors of the Company. The resignation of Mr. Hargreaves was not due to any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Company's operations, policies or practice or otherwise. Cell MedX has not filled the vacancy created by the resignation of Mr. Hargreaves as a member of the Board of Directors. The Company would like to thank Mr. Hargreaves for his contribution to the development of the Company and wishes him the best of success in his future business endeavors. About Cell MedX Corp. (OTC Pink: CMXC) Cell MedX Corp. is a biotech company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of therapeutic and non-therapeutic products that promote general wellness and alleviate complications associated with medical conditions including, but not limited to: aging, diabetes, high blood pressure, neuropathy and kidney function. The Company's main focus is on continued research and development of its eBalance Technology and its eBalance Home System. On behalf of the Board of Directors of Cell MedX Corp. David Jeffs Director, CEO For further information: info@cellmedx.com www.cellmedx.com Forward-Looking Statements The information included in this press release has not been reviewed by the FDA or Health Canada, nor has it been peer reviewed. This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions and are identified by words such as "expects", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "anticipates", "believes", "could", and other similar words. All statements addressing product performance, events, or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Because the statements are forward-looking, they should be evaluated in light of important risk factors and uncertainties, some of which are described in the Company's Quarterly, Annual and Current Reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of the Company's underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those currently anticipated. In addition, undue reliance should not be placed on Company's forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, Cell MedX Corp. disclaims any obligation to update or publicly announce any revisions to any of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory body has reviewed nor accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Investors are advised to carefully review the reports and documents that Cell MedX Corp. files from time to time with the SEC, including its Annual, Quarterly and Current Reports. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199744 SOURCE: Cell MedX Corp New High-Resolution gravity survey suggests potential to rapidly expand Massive Sulphide Mineralization at current Venda Nova North and South Deposits Multiple additional gravity anomalies identified to potentially add to the Massive Sulphide Ore Bodies near Venda Nova EDM's Option to gain a 15% interest in the Project extended to September 30, 2024 due to upcoming elections and government change TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Ascendant Resources Inc. (TSX:ASND)(OTCQB:ASDRF)(FRA:2D9) ("Ascendant" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of its recent high-resolution gravity survey completed over the Venda Nova North and South Deposits at its Lagoa Salgada VMS Project, in Portugal. Key Highlights Four new high priority targets identified near existing deposits Highest priority target located below and west of current high-grade North Deposit Second priority target sits above known copper corridor in South Deposit Potential to materially and rapidly expand known mineralization at Venda Nova and enhance value of the results of the recent Feasibility Study New results validate use of technology for additional exploration target generation. Portuguese agency EDM granted extension of its option to September 30, 2024 Mark Brennan, Executive Chairman of Ascendant stated, "The results of this most recent high-resolution gravity survey combined with reinterpreted previous IP data have identified two strong drill ready targets that have the potential to add material tonnage and value to the existing mineralization at Venda Nova and potentially enhance the overall economics relative to the recently completed feasibility study. The presence of additional massive sulphide lenses would be congruent with existing deposits on the IPB which typically consist of multiple stacked massive sulphide lenses." He added. "Additionally, in light of upcoming elections in Portugal, and the ensuing change in government, Ascendant and its partner are pleased to grant an extension to EDM for its option on the project. We see EDM, and by extension both the government and communities of Portugal, as integral partners for the development of our project as we aim to build the next producing mine on the Iberian Pyrite Belt. " As per the most recent NI 43-101 Feasibility Study published on July 25, 2023, the existing Primary Massive Sulphides at the Venda Nova North deposit represents 4.4 million tonnes of the total 14.6 million tonne Reserve, but given the high grade nature of this material it contributes significantly to the overall NPV of the project due to the significantly higher NSR value per tonne (US$>100 per tonne) as compared to the average material including the other lithologies. As such, the ability to expand the overall massive sulphide ore content could enhance the overall project economics significantly. The targets have been identified by their gravity signature that closely matches the existing high value, dense massive sulphide orebody we currently have at the Venda Nova North Zone. As a result, the Company is planning a drill program to more fully evaluate this potential in the near future. The high-resolution survey was designed to map the known gravity footprint of the existing Massive Sulphide Resource of Venda Nova at a much higher resolution than previous surveys, and then use the common characteristics to search for additional potential Massive Sulphide lenses within and surrounding the Venda Nova deposit. The results outlined here have identified four high priority exploration targets each with the potential to add additional meaningful tonnage to the existing Primary Massive Sulphide endowment. The results of the survey also validate the targets suggested by previous IP/Res and TDEM surveys. The location of these targets and the high-resolution gravity survey are summarized in Figure 1. below and described in more detail subsequently. Figure 1 - Exploration Targets. Locations of targets is laid over Downward Continuity Bouguer gravity map (Downward Continued 60 m). Blocks from current MRE with densities above 3.5 g/cm3 are shown to highlight zones were the source of the anomalies is known. Target Descriptions Target 1: SW North Zone Target SW of the North Zone the gravity anomaly bulges to the west of the southern half of the North Massive Sulphide ore body. According to the geophysical interpretation, based on upward and downward continuation of the Bouguer Gravity, the high-density mass sits deeper than the known ore deposits. Its center coincides with the projection of a notable volume that has chargeability and resistivity features identical to the known massive sulphides. The Company believes this can be explained geologically by a faulted displaced block of the known ore body or by a new lens occurring in the western limb of the north zone anticline. In both cases the potential massive sulphide source could extend for over 250 m along strike. Target 2 & 3: South Sector West & East Flanks The gravity anomaly in the Northern part of the South Zone is flanked by two discrete trends, i) The eastern flank is partially explained by two known semi massive Lenses (Pyritic) previously encountered by drilling, but suggests an extension to the north of the known area; and ii) the West Flank is untested and could represent an additional massive sulphide lens in the footwall of the south Zone trend up dip from the Stockwork mineralization. Interestingly, this Gravity anomaly sits above some of the higher-grade Copper and less transpositional mineralization intercepted at depth as part of the previous infill campaign. This may suggest the potential to have a more copper rich massive sulphide lens in this area. Target 4: Anomaly Delta The fourth gravity anomaly corresponds to a previously announced IP anomaly, Anomaly Delta. However, the new gravity data locate the target a few hundred meters to the north of previous drilling. Detailed Gravity Survey The survey was conducted between January and February of this year by McKeown Exploration Services, using a Scintrex CG-6 gravimeter and a Trimble real-time Differential GPS. It consisted of 788 unique gravity stations spaced at a nominal 25 and 50m station spacing on an inclined grid with an azimuth of 66.3/246.3 true, with lines nominally spaced 100m and 200m apart. In areas of interest, e.g., the profiles across the known North Zone VMS deposit, the station spacing was tightened to 25m separation in order to permit detailing of the gravitational variation across the known mineralization. A 25m station spacing can define the local profiles well enough to permit downward continuation filtering of the data, to sharpen the resolution of targets deeper than the base of the Tertiary cover. Data analysis was conducted by Intelligent Exploration. Figure 2 - Survey Grid Showing Actual Station Locations The Bouguer gravity map exhibited in Figure 3, below, shows a clear anomaly over the known VMS deposit in the North Zone. The overall axis of the gravity high is NNW-SSE, parallel to the inferred axial plane of a tight, near vertical fold long believed to host this deposit. A saddle separates the mass excess over the North VMS zone from a clear second peak about 500m to the south-southeast in the South Zone. This peak extends farther toward the SSE where it is less intense but coincides with the known South Zone of re-mobilized stockwork mineralization. It should be noted that this gravity signature would typically not be explained by the density of the known stockwork mineralization and suggests that additional higher density material is present. Figure 3 - Bouguer Gravity It is clear from Figure 4 below that 1) the VMS anomaly in the North extends farther west than the known deposit and that 2) a second significant anomaly occupies the northern extent of the South Zone where it is largely undrilled. Figure 4 - Bouguer Gravity map of Lagoa Salgada showing the gravity anomalies in relation to the drilling. The known VMS deposit is outlined in light blue. EDM Extension Additionally, the Company announces Empresa de Desenvolvimento Mineiro ("EDM") requested and has been granted an extension to the term of its option agreement for a 15% interest in the Lagoa Salgada Project. The extension has been granted by the Company's 80% owned subsidiary Redcorp - Empreendimentos Mineiros, Lda ("Redcorp") and extends the deadline for exercise from February 3, 2024 to September 30, 2024. Although EDM had shown strong interest in the Lagoa Salgada project, after the resignation of the Prime Minister of Portugal, on November 7, 2023, which led to the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic and the scheduling of elections for March 10, 2024, a request for an extension was requested. With the interim nature of the current government, the ability for EDM to make a decision is constrained. Given this scenario, an extension of the option for EDM was agreed. In the meantime, a memorandum of cooperation has been signed between Redcorp and EDM for the support to the development and licensing of the Lagoa Salgada project. Under the various agreements Empresa de Desenvolvimento Mineiro S.A. ("EDM"), the Portuguese State Mining Development Agency, has an option to participate in or sell up to a 15% interest in the Project by making an election by September 30, 2024 (the "EDM Option"). If EDM elects to exercise the EDM Option, then the Company is entitled to exercise call options causing the transfer from Mineral & Financial Inc. ("M&FI") of the free carried interest quotas of the Lagoa Salgada concessionaire, Redcorp Empreendimentos Mineiros, Lda ("Redcorp"), to Ascendant such that Ascendant would continue to own an 80% interest in the Project and MF&I would hold 5%. The agreements also provide that M&FI shall have the right and option, but not the obligation, to exercise its put option commencing on the date on which EDM makes its election and terminating four (4) months thereafter, to require Ascendant to purchase all of the Redcorp shares then held by M&FI, representing a 5% interest in Redcorp by paying the put price to M&FI. The put price would be an amount in US dollars, payable in cash, equal to 5% of the post-tax net present value of the Project provided in the then current feasibility study using a 10.5% discount rate (the "Put Option"). If both the EDM Option and the Put Option are executed, the Company would hold an 85% interest in the Project and EDM would hold a 15% fully contributing interest, with each party required to contribute pro rata, subject to standard dilution clauses. Review of Technical Information The scientific and technical information in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Sergio Gelcich, P.Geo., Vice President, Exploration for Ascendant Resources Ltd, who is a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101. About Ascendant Resources Inc. Ascendant Resources is a Toronto-based mining company focused on the exploration and development of the highly prospective Lagoa Salgada VMS project located on the prolific Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal. The Lagoa Salgada project is a high-grade polymetallic project, demonstrating a typical mineralization endowment of zinc, copper, lead, tin, silver, and gold. Extensive exploration upside potential lies both near deposit and at prospective step-out targets across the large 7,209-hectare property concession. Located just 80km from Lisbon and surrounded by exceptional infrastructure, Lagoa Salgada offers a low-cost entry to a significant exploration and development opportunity, already showing its mineable scale and cashflow generation potential. Ascendant currently holds an 80% interest in the Lagoa Salgada project through its position in Redcorp - Empreendimentos Mineiros, Lda, ("Redcorp"). The Company's common shares are principally listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "ASND". For more information on Ascendant, please visit our website at http://www.ascendantresources.com/. Additional information relating to the Company is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. For further information, contact: Mark Brennan Mike McAllister Executive Chairman, Founder Vice President, Investor Relations Tel: +1-647-805-5662 mmcallister@ascendantresources.com Forward Looking Information 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. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, without limitation, statements regarding the business, the Lagoa Salgada project and timing of completion of studies. In making the forward- looking statements contained in this press release, Ascendant has made certain assumptions, including, but not limited to the potential to add material tonnage and value to the Venda Nova deposit and impact on overall economics, EDM's interest in participating in the Project, M&FI's exercise of the Put Option, outcomes associated with optimization works at the Lagoa Salgada Project. Although Ascendant 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, Ascendant 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. Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, the risks described under the heading "Risks Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form dated March 31, 2023 and under the heading "Risks and Uncertainties" in the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 and other risks identified in the Company's filings with Canadian securities regulators, which filings are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The risk factors referred to above are not an exhaustive list of the factors that may affect any of the Company's forward-looking information. The Company's statements containing forward-looking information are based on the beliefs, expectations and opinions of management on the date the statements are made, and the Company does not assume any obligation to update such forward-looking information if circumstances or management's beliefs, expectations or opinions should change, other than as required by applicable law. For the reasons set forth above, one should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. SOURCE: Ascendant Resources, Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com ST. JOHN'S, NL / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Atlas Salt Inc. ("Atlas Salt" or the "Company") (TSXV:SALT)(OTCQB:REMRF), is pleased to announce the submission of the Project Registration Document (the "Registration") for the Great Atlantic Salt Project (the "Project"), pursuant to Part X of the Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Protection Act. This submission represents a crucial milestone in the Project's development and path to financing, construction and unlocking shareholder value. The Registration outlines the Company's dedication to innovation, sustainable mining practices, community engagement, and implementing strategies and designs to minimize environmental impact. The Registration reviews in depth: Detailed environmental impact studies and mitigation strategies, demonstrating the Project's comparatively low impact; Community engagement initiatives, and the high level of local support for the Project; Comprehensive analyses of potential effects on local flora and fauna, showing minimal biodiversity impact; An energy-efficient operational design, that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions; Comprehensive plans, processes and mitigation measures addressing water management, noise, light and dust control to minimize adverse impacts; and Important and significant social and economic contributions, along with associated benefits to local, regional and provincial communities. In support of this Registration, Atlas Salt has undertaken considerable environmental baseline studies and analysis, including a greenhouse gas study (see the January 15, 2024 News Release). This study details the Project's expected low carbon footprint, as compared to other mining operations, of only 950 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per million tonnes of production (t CO2e/Mt). The Project's Scope 1 GHG emissions of 79 tonnes annually is comparable to the emissions of the annual carbon footprint expected from just four Newfoundland families of four, according to Statistics Canada (2023) (source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231220/mc-c001-eng.htm). Atlas Salt believes that the Project will significantly contribute to local and regional economies and create numerous highly skilled generational employment opportunities. The Registration is subject to review by the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Environment and Climate Change and the Company will provide further information as it becomes available. For further information and ongoing updates, please visit https://atlassalt.com/. About Atlas Salt Inc. Atlas Salt Inc. is developing Canada's next salt mine and is committed to responsible and sustainable mining practices. With a focus on innovation and efficiency, the company is poised to make significant contributions to the North American salt market while upholding its values of environmental stewardship and community engagement. For information, please contact: Richard LaBelle, CEO investors@atlassalt.com We seek safe harbor. Cautionary Statement Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider, (as the term is defined in the Policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation, statements relating to the future operating or financial performance of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements in this press release relate to, among other things: completion, delivery and timing of project components and requirements, and analysis and assumptions related thereto. Actual future results may differ materially. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made and are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the respective parties, are inherently subject to significant business, technical, economic, and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and the parties have made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. Such factors include, without limitation: the timing, completion and delivery of required permits, supply arrangements and financing. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release concerning these times. Except as required by law, the Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. SOURCE: Atlas Salt View the original press release on accesswire.com Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has agreed to acquire GemSeek, a Sofia, Bulgaria-based customer experience analytics provider. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. Completion of the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions. UPDATE: the acquisition was completed on March, 8, 2024. The acquisition underscores ongoing investment by Accenture Song in data and AI capabilities to help clients grow their business and sustain relevance with customers. Founded in 2011 and led by Petko Tinchev, CEO, GemSeek is a provider of customer experience analytics solutions helping global businesses understand customers through insights, analytics and AI-powered predictive models. The company offers expertise in advanced analytics and customer experience program management, along with proprietary technologies. GemSeek helps clients across several industriesincluding telecommunications, healthcare, consumer goods, and financial servicesrealize the full potential of their customer experience programs, cultivate enduring customer relationships, and improve revenues and operational efficiencies. GemSeeks more than 170 employees working across Bulgaria and the UK will join Accenture Song. They will be the founding team for Accenture Song in Bulgaria, alongside the existing cohort of over 1,100 people from Accentures Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations Centers. FinSMEs 28/02/2024 Roshal Health, a Houston, TX-based company providing hospital grade, on-site, and on-demand ultrasound and echocardiogram services to ERs, micro-hospitals, rural hospitals, and hospital offsite facilities, raised $10M in funding. The structured equity financing was led by Catalio Capital Management, with participation from Green Street Impact Partners. The company intends to use the funds to advance its tech-enabled platform to address imaging technician staffing shortages at healthcare service providersl. Led by CEO Michael Hall, Roshal Health Services is a company providing services to hospital systems, standalone emergency rooms, micro-hospitals, rural hospitals, and offsite facilities nationwide, which enable providers to employ diagnostic tools early to detect and prevent disease onset. Employing more than 300 people, Roshal offers services to hospital systems, standalone emergency rooms, micro-hospitals, rural hospitals, and offsite facilities nationwide. FinSMEs 28/02/2024 United Fintech, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based neutral industry digital transformation platform provider, received an investment from BNP Paribas and Citi. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. Founded in 2020 by CEO Christian Frahm, United Fintech provides a neutral industry digital transformation platform that connects global financial institutions and technology providers in the finance sector. It acquires engineering-led fintechs within Capital Markets, Wholesale Banking and Wealth Management under a central place. In four years, the company has acquired five fintechs. Commenting on the news, Christian Frahm said: More than a significant milestone for United Fintech, the backing of Citi and BNP Paribas is a testimony of forward-thinking leadership. As momentum builds, we project that more financial institutions will soon follow: Our vision of a neutral industry platform for digital transformation, to swiftly enable access to the worlds most innovative fintechs, is shared by every single C-level executive weve spoken with for the past four years, and their support energises our pursuit of a unified ecosystem. FinSMEs 28/02/2024 A deadly type of bird flu has been confirmed on the mainland of Antarctica for the first time. There are heightened concerns about a potential risk for the southern regions hundreds of thousands of penguin colonies because of their low immunity Adelie penguins stand together as scientists investigate the impact of climate change on Antarctica's penguin colonies, on the eastern side of the Antarctic peninsula, Antarctica. Reuters A deadly type of bird flu has been confirmed on the mainland of Antarctica for the first time, scientists said. There are heightened concerns about a potential risk for the southern regions ecosystem , which is the breeding ground for more than 100 million birds, including hundreds of thousands of penguins found nowhere else on Earth. Advertisement Heres all we know about it. Two seabirds found dead Two dead skua seabirds were found by Argentine scientists near its base, Primavera, and a scientific research station located on the Antarctic Peninsula. A skua stands on Deception Island, which is the Caldera of an active volcano in Antarctica. Reuters The presence of the H5N1 avian virus was confirmed in the samples of the dead birds by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) on 24 February. This discovery demonstrates for the first time that the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus has reached Antarctica, despite the distance and natural barriers that separate it from other continents, scientists from the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research stated in a press release on Sunday. Analysis has conclusively shown that the birds were infected with the H5 subtype of avian influenza and at least one of the dead birds contained the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, CSIC said, as per Reuters. Advertisement According to The Washington Post, CSIC added that scientists obtained samples from the two dead skuas using maximum security measures to prevent transmission of the virus to people, sending them by ship to the Spanish base on Deception Island for testing. Penguins at risk Since 2020, when the highly infectious virus emerged again, it has devastated both wild and domestic animals. It has made its way to the majority of the continents, except Australia. Advertisement The flu has proven potent enough for transmission from birds to mammals, killing polar bears, fur seals, and elephants. Last year, in October_,_ the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Researchs risk assessment of the effects of bird flu spreading to the continent found that penguins, birds of prey, sheathbills, and giant petrels are most at risk, followed by fur seals, sea lions, skuas, and gulls. Advertisement A penguin stands on an iceberg in Yankee Harbour, Antarctica. Reuters There are hundreds of thousands of penguins, which like to waddle together in packed colonies, on the Antarctic continent and nearby islands. The current arrival of H5N1 avian influenza highlights the risk to colonies in the ecosystem. In January this year, over 200 Gentoo penguin chicks and several adults were found dead off the Falkland Islands coast but not in the actual Antarctic territory, according to a report by India Today. Advertisement The Telegraph says Antarctica has never had an outbreak of bird flu before, which is why the immunity of its residents is very low. The unexpected flu hit could even result in mass mortality. You have these massive, densely packed together bird colonies and some of those mega charismatic, highly threatened species, which are all packed together down there, Christian Walzer, a wildlife veterinarian and executive director of health at the Wildlife Conservation Society told the Scientific American, adding, If (a virus outbreak) does hit, the impacts will be potentially really devastating Entire populations may disappear This would be a catastrophe. Advertisement The scientists in a preprint research paper released in November 2023 even expressed fears that it could cause one of the largest ecological disasters of modern times. Adelie penguins are seen as scientists investigate the impact of climate change on Antarcticas penguin colonies, on the eastern side of the Antarctic peninsula, Antarctica. Reuters Penguins in Antarctica are not only facing the virus outbreak risk but also the rising temperatures, which deplete the sea ice they need to survive. Advertisement The Washington Post quoted the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 2022 as saying that the continents emperor penguins are threatened with extinction due to climate change. Meanwhile, researchers from Spain have advised preparing national polar programmes to avoid the transmission of infections to humans. About the H5N1 strain H5N1 is a highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus. Advertisement The first human H5N1 avian flu outbreak occurred in 1997 in Hong Kong, according to the National Library of Medicine of the US government. In 2020, the strain first appeared in Europe. Since then, it has quickly spread to several countries, including South America. A fatal variant of the H5N1 sub-type is to blame for the current pandemic, which has resulted in the deaths of millions of birds in 2022 alone, according to Nature magazine. Advertisement In South America alone, more than 500,000 seabirds, including penguins, pelicans, and boobies, have died, as per Down To Earth. With inputs from agencies The event was slated to be held on Saturday at the Sarayka Lounge in the southern coastal town of Unawatuna now known as Little Moscow. The party was cancelled after a torrent of outrage on social media and the organiser has claimed no malice or racism was involved in planning the event Over 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have traveled to Sri Lanka since the start of the Ukraine war. Representational image. A shocking development has occurred in Sri Lanka. A Russian business owner attempted to hold a White-only party in a popular resort town. The event, which was to be held on Saturday, was ultimately cancelled after an outpouring of outrage. This comes in the backdrop of Sri Lanka announcing it would no longer extend long-term tourist visas for Russians thousands of whom moved to the country amid the war in Ukraine. Advertisement Lets take a closer look: According to BBC, the event was slated to be held at the Sarayka Lounge in the southern coastal town of Unawatuna five kilometres from Galle. The Independent reported that over 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have traveled to Sri Lanka since the start of the Ukraine war. The town itself seems to be a safe haven for Russians. TRupasena Koswatta, president of an Unawatuna entrepreneurs association told BBC Sinhala many Russians have moved into the town. So much so that the place is now known as Little Moscow. Advertisement Russians also several tourism businesses in the area. Both the organiser and the owners of the Sarayka Lounge are said to be Russian. According to The Independent, the gala was advertised as a White Opening Party. It laid out specific dress code requirements of white attire and also said Face control: White. According to Yahoo News, three Russian DJs were to play at the event. Advertisement News of the event led to much criticism on social media. We need to ban this shit. We get discriminated in embassies, passport queues, the whole lot; last thing we need is people coming to Sri Lanka and hosting whites-only parties, a user was quoted as saying by The Independent. I know not all expats are like this but this sort of thing should be stopped fast and stopped hard, said one local restaurant owner. Advertisement How dare they come to a brown country and ban the people of that country, a social media user on Facebook was quoted as saying by the BBC. We apologize! The party planned for Saturday will not take place. We have urgently canceled this event. Also, we have severed ties with the organizers who planned this party at our venue, Sarayka Lounge said. Advertisement The BBC quoted the venue as saying its team did not conduct a thorough-enough check of those that planned the event. We have never supported and will never support various racist statements or organisations, the venue added in the statement. The organiser of the party has since apologised on Instagram. No malice or racism involved Advertisement The man, writing from the handle handle geo_ecstatic, said no malice or racism was involved planning the party. We wanted to meet expats who have been living here for a long time and love Sri Lanka. The team supported me and a joint decision was made to quickly organise a party, he said. Advertisement The man said he had to leave Sri Lanka after being abused and threatened. I didnt expect this to be such a sensitive moment for a huge number of people. I admit that it was a bad idea and I understand that we created it ourselves out of our stupidity. I deeply apologise to everyone whose feelings were hurt. Advertisement The Independent quoted the Russian Embassy in Colombo as saying strongly condemns all forms of racial discrimination and nationalism The embassy urged Russians to follow local laws and customs. The development comes as authorities said they would cancel extensions of long-term tourist visas, as per Yahoo News. The nation, which has been struggling with an economic crisis, has repeatedly extended tourist visas particularly to Ukrainians and Russians. But now it seems that is at an end. Advertisement The Tourism Development Authority issued a notice saying Russian and Ukrainian tourists must leave the country by 7 March after their final visa extention. The Immigration Department previously said the visas were being extended due to the non-operation of airlines in the region. But President Ranil Wickremesinghe has claimed the visas cannot be voided without Cabinet approval. Advertisement ordered an investigation into the notice, saying the visas could not be canceled without cabinet approval. The Govt hasnt officially decided to revoke visa extensions previously granted to these tourists, his office said Sunday in a post on X. It remains to be seen if the party is over for Russians and Ukrainians in Sri Lanka. Advertisement With inputs from agencies Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil a statue of Deendayal Upadhyaya in Maharashtra as well as launch a slew of welfare schemes. The prestigious Nobel Peace Prize nominations will be announced today. Taiwan is marking the 77th anniversary of what is known as the 228 Incident an uprising against Nationalist troops. All this and more in our guide to todays big events Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also release benefits under the PM KISAN and other schemes during the programme. PTI Its Wednesday. And theres a big news day ahead. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil a statue of Deendayal Upadhyaya in Maharashtra as well as launch a slew of welfare schemes. Rahul Gandhi, who is in the UK, will deliver lectures at Cambridge University. The Nobel Peace Prize nominations will be announced today. Taiwan is commemorating the 1947 massacre it calls the 228 Incident. Advertisement Lets take a look at todays big-ticket items: PM Modi unveils statue Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil the statue of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya in Yavatmal city as he inaugurates a slew of developmental programmes. Modi will also release benefits under the PM KISAN and other schemes during the programme. Modi will release the 16th installment amount of more than Rs 21,000 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) through direct benefits transfer to beneficiaries. With this release, more than Rs 3 lakh crore will be transferred to more than 11 crore farmers families. The PM will also disburse second and third instalments of Namo Shetkari MahaSanman Nidhi of about Rs 3,800 crore and benefiting nearly 88 lakh farmers across Maharashtra. Rahul Gandhi in UK Rahul Gandhi heading to the UK to deliver lectures at Cambridge University. Advertisement The Congress leader will take a breather from his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra for five days. The yatra will resume from 2 March. Rahul Gandhi in a lecture at Cambridge in March 2023 claimed Indian democracy was under threat and that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was spying on several Opposition leaders. PTI On February 27-28, Rahul Gandhi will go to Cambridge University (in United Kingdom), he will deliver two lectures there. We will resume the yatra from March 2 and on March 5, Rahul Gandhi will visit the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said. Advertisement The Congresss Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, after the partys Bharat Jodo Yatra, aims to cover 6,700 km through 15 states ahead of Lok Sabha polls. This isnt the first time Rahul has given a lecture at Cambridge. Rahul in March 2023 claimed Indian democracy was under threat and that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was spying on several Opposition leaders. Advertisement Nobel Peace Prize nominations out The Nobel Peace Prize nominations will be announced today. The prestigious prize typically attracts more than 300 entries from academics connected with peace studies, lawmakers of national parliaments, former winners and others with nomination rights. The Norwegian Nobel Committee whittles down the list of candidates in a series of meetings before announcing the winner in October. Advertisement The wide base of individuals and organizations qualified to nominate condidates means the longlist can contain some eccentric choices: Both Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler have previously had their names put in the hat. An 18-carat gold Nobel Peace Prize medal. Reuters File Imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for womens rights and democracy in her country. Advertisement Her teenage children accepted the award on her behalf. The peace prize and the other Nobel Prizes are handed out on 10 December, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobels death in 1896. Taiwan commemorates 228 Incident Taiwan is marking the 77th anniversary of what is known as the 228 Incident an uprising against Nationalist troops in 1947. Advertisement The 228 Incident, as it is known in Taiwan, has in recent years become a rallying point for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which favours independence for the democratic, self-ruled island China claims at its own. Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalist troops put down rioting sparked on 28 February, 1947, by a dispute between tobacco agents and a cigarette vendor in Taipei. Advertisement That led to island-wide protests against the Nationalists, who two years later took refuge on Taiwan after losing a civil war to the Communists and imposed martial law on Taiwan until 1987, ruling with an iron fist and locking up dissidents. The incident ushered in a period where tens of thousands of Taiwanese were killed or went missing and stirred the beginnings of Taiwans democratic movement. Advertisement The day, a national holiday in Taiwan, is marked by solemn ceremonies for the dead and affirmations from politicians and the sitting president for Taiwans vibrant democracy. On this day The Raman Effect was discovered on 28 February, 1929, by Sir CV Raman. The phenomenon denotes the change in the wavelength of light that occurs when a light beam is deflected by molecules, according to Britannica. Advertisement Raman was knighted in 1929 and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for his discovery. National Science Day is celebrated in India every year on this day as a tribute to the physicist. With inputs from agencies The Israel-Hamas war is exacerbating the hunger crisis in Gaza. People living in Jabalia refugee camp are now resorting to slaughtering horses in order to feed their children, saying they have no other choice' US president Joe Biden hopes that a decision is reached on the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza by Monday (4 March), as per a BBC report. The news is of great international relevance, but will bring little smile on the faces of the people living in Gaza, where hunger has started to kill people. Advertisement Last Friday, a two-month-old Palestinian boy died from starvation in northern Gaza, reported Al Jazeera. The United Nations has also warned that over 576,000 people in Gaza are on the verge of starvation, accusing Israel of deliberately preventing aid delivery. Israeli forces reportedly open fire on Palestinians seeking food aid, exacerbating the crisis. The World Food Programme also stopped aid deliveries to northern Gaza due to security concerns. Amidst this, desperation tightly grips those battling hunger. Families are forced to go to bed with empty stomachs, and the memory of their last meal fades away. Children cry out for food, their tiny bodies weakened by malnutrition. Desperation drives parents to search for anything to feed their children. Advertisement With insufficient food and a high level of hunger, heres how Gaza is coping with a major food crisis. Slaughters horses to feed family At the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Abu Gibril was so desperate for food to feed his family that he slaughtered two of his horses. We had no other choice but to slaughter the horses to feed the children. Hunger is killing us, he told AFP. Advertisement Jabalia was the biggest camp in the Palestinian territories before the war, which began after Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel on 7 October, leaving some 1,160 dead, based on Israeli figures. Gibril, 60, fled there from nearby Beit Hanun when the conflict erupted. Home for him and his family is now a tent near what was an UN-run school. Advertisement Contaminated water, power cuts and overcrowding were already a problem in the densely populated camp, which was set up in 1948 and covers just 1.4 square kilometres (half a square mile). Poverty, from high unemployment, was also an issue among its more than 100,000 people. A Palestinian man carries a bag of flour from an aid truck near an Israeli checkpoint, as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City. Reuters Now food is running out, with aid agencies unable to get in to the area because of the bombing and the frenzied looting of the few trucks that try to get through. Advertisement The World Food Programme this week said its teams reported unprecedented levels of desperation while the United Nations warned that 2.2 million people were on the brink of famine. On Friday, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a two-month-old baby died of malnutrition in hospital in Gaza City, seven kilometres (just over four miles) away from Jabalia. Advertisement Overall, at least 29,606 people have been killed in Gaza in the war, the ministry said Saturday. Children hungry, prices soar, and aid dwindles In the camp, bedraggled children wait expectantly, holding plastic containers and battered cooking pots for what little food is available. With supplies dwindling, costs are rising. A kilo of rice, for example, has shot up from seven shekels ($1.90) to 55 shekels, complains one man. Advertisement We the grown-ups can still make it but these children who are four and five years old, what did they do wrong to sleep hungry and wake up hungry? he said angrily. The UN childrens agency UNICEF has warned that the alarming lack of food, surging malnutrition and disease could lead to an explosion in child deaths in Gaza. Advertisement One in six children aged under two in Gaza was acutely malnourished, it estimated on 19 February. A Palestinian woman bakes bread as children sit next to her, while Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger and soaring malnutrition, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Reuters Residents have taken to eating scavenged scraps of rotten corn, animal fodder unfit for human consumption and even leaves to try to stave off the growing hunger pangs. There is no food, no wheat, no drinking water, said one woman. Advertisement We have started begging neighbours for money. We dont have one shekel at home. We knock on doors and no one is giving us money. We are dying from hunger Tempers are rising in Jabalia about the lack of food and the consequences. On Friday, an impromptu protest was held involving dozens of people. Advertisement One child held up a sign reading: We didnt die from air strikes but we are dying from hunger. Another held aloft a placard warning Famine eats away at our flesh, while protesters chanted No to starvation. No to genocide. No to blockade. In Beit Hanun, Gibril used two horses to harvest a parcel of land. But the conflict destroyed that, along with his house, leaving him with nothing. Advertisement Over the weeks and months, Israels relentless bombardment has left Gaza largely a place of shattered concrete and lives. Gibril kept the radical decision to slaughter his horses to himself, boiling the meat with rice, and giving it to his unwitting family and neighbours. Despite the necessity, he said he was still wary of their reaction. No one knows they were in fact eating a horse. With inputs from AFP French president Emmanuel Macron has not ruled out sending Western troops on the ground in Ukraine in the future. Several NATO countries like the US, the UK and Germany have turned down the possibility. But is the alliance even prepared for a possible escalation of war with Russia? The Russia-Ukraine war has entered its third year. While Russian president Vladimir Putin believes he can win, Kyiv is desperately waiting for approval of aid from the United States. Amid this, French president Emmanuel Macron has triggered a storm by hinting at Western troops on the ground in Ukraine in the future an idea that has been rejected by NATO allies. Advertisement What did Macron say? Macron said on Monday that sending Western troops on the ground in Ukraine is not ruled out in the future after the issue was debated at a gathering of European leaders in Paris. The French leader said that we will do everything needed so Russia cannot win the war after the meeting of over 20 European heads of state and government and other Western officials. Theres no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out, Macron said in a news conference at the Elysee presidential palace. He declined to provide details about which nations were considering sending troops, saying he prefers to maintain some strategic ambiguity. Advertisement French president Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference at the end of the conference in support of Ukraine, with European leaders and government representatives, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on 26 February. Reuters The meeting included German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polands president Andrzej Duda as well as leaders from the Baltic nations. The United States was represented by its top diplomat for Europe, James OBrien, and the United Kingdom by Foreign Secretary David Cameron, reports The Associated Press. Also read: How Sweden joining NATO is a win-win for both sides Advertisement Do allies agree with Macron? No, they dont. The French presidents remarks were criticised by the countrys NATO and European Union partners. The United States quickly ruled out sending combat troops to Ukraine. President Biden has been clear that the US will not send troops to fight in Ukraine, clarified White House national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. Advertisement The president believes the path to victory is providing military aid so Ukrainian troops have the weapons and ammunition they need to defend themselves, the White House statement added. NATO also announced on Tuesday afternoon that there were no plans for combat troops in Ukraine. Germanys Scholz said that there had been no change to the agreed position that no European country or NATO member state would send troops to Ukraine. Its important to keep reassuring yourself of this and the fact that this has taken place as an understanding is, in my view, a very, very good and very important step forward, he said. Advertisement German chancellor Olaf Scholz has rejected the possiblity of sending combat troops to Ukriane. File photo/Reuters The UK echoed similar views. British prime minister Rishi Sunaks office said that the country had no plans for a large-scale military deployment to Ukraine, beyond the small number of personnel already training Ukrainian forces, reports BBC. Italy also dismissed Macrons remarks. The office of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said the countrys support does not include the presence of troops from European or NATO states on Ukrainian territory. Advertisement The French president also came under fire from opposition politicians in the country. Marine Le Pen, whose far-right National Rally party is the largest single opposition party in the lower house of parliament, said Macron was posing an existential risk to 70 million French people. The Socialist party leader, Olivier Faure, said Macrons remarks were totally counterproductive and had only served to divide the EU, while Eric Ciotti, head of the rights Les Republicains, said the French leaders comments were fraught with terrible consequences, according to a report in Guardian. Advertisement Also read: 2 years of Russia-Ukraine war: From fall of Avdiivka to firing of Zaluzhnyi What could be the fallout of the comments? Macrons comments may turn out to be prescient and pave the way for greater direct Western involvement in the war in Ukraine against Russias invasion sometime down the line, according to an analysis by Reuters. But they also run the risk of undermining the very thing Macron sought to bolster with the Paris meeting unity among Ukraines Western allies as Kyivs forces struggle to hold off Russian troops two years into the war. Advertisement A Ukrainian serviceman prepares shells to fire an L119 howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russias attack on Ukraine, at a position near Bakhmut in Donetsk region, Ukraine on 25 January 2024. Reuters A Western official said Macron had rattled some cages and provoked some head-scratching among NATO members. He said the move could complicate US debate over a bill stuck in Congress that would provide some $60 billion in aid to Ukraine - if it stoked fears of an escalation in the war. Advertisement A European Union diplomat was quoted as saying by Reuters that the result of Macrons comments was a cacophony between allies, at the expense of credibility. But a French diplomatic source said that if the West stayed on its current course of donating arms and aid and making declarations of support, we will comfort President Putin in his impression that we are weak. Advertisement How did Russia react? Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has warned of direct conflict if NATO troops are deployed in Ukraine. He called Macrons suggestion a very important new element adding it was absolutely not in the interests of NATO members and their people. In that case, we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability [of direct conflict>, he said. Advertisement What NATO troops in Ukraine could mean? The war in Ukraine has triggered the worst crisis in Russias relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and President Putin has previously warned of the dangers of confrontation between NATO and Russia. Even talk of a confrontation between Russia and NATO a Cold War nightmare of leaders and populations alike indicates the dangers of escalation as the West grapples with a resurgent Russia 32 years after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, reports Reuters. A Ukrainian soldier looks out of a shelter at the frontline in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on 25 February. Kyiv is hoping that the US approves a military aid package. AP Russia and the United States, the big power behind NATO, have the worlds largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. President Biden has cautioned that a conflict between Russia and NATO could trigger World War Three. Aware of the possibility of a massive escalation in case of directly confronting Russian forces in Ukraine, NATO has restricted itself to training Ukrainian soldiers and supplying them with weapons. But is NATO ready for war? According to a report in The Conversation, NATO does not have the stockpile or the manufacturing capacity to supply a lengthy war. This is because NATO has long planned on whats known as a come as you are war, which means it has the capacity to fight for only as long as the equipment and supplies last. For this reason, NATOs strategy has always been, in the event of a conflict, to bring it to a conclusion as quickly as possible, the article says. Soldiers sit in a military vehicle during NATOs Steadfast Defender Brilliant Jump 2024 military exercise in Drawsko Pomorskie, Poland. Reuters Admiral Rob Bauer of the Royal Netherlands Navy, NATOs most senior military commander and military adviser to its North Atlantic Council, spoke at the Warsaw Security Forum in October 2023. We need large volumes. The just-in-time, just-enough economy we built together in 30 years in our liberal economies is fine for a lot of things but not the armed forces when there is a war ongoing, he said, according to The Conversation. General Onno Eichelsheim, the Netherlands top military officer, said Macron likely wanted to make clear to Putin that no option was off limits. You have to put all the options on the table, he told Reuters during a visit to an arms plant in the Czech Republic. This is the far-end option and I dont think the NATO countries are yet very much willing to do it. But you never know what happens in time. With inputs from agencies The BJP has won the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh after six Congress MLAs cross-voted in the polls. This has triggered a government crisis in the state, with the Opposition demanding the resignation of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and even considering bringing in a no-confidence motion against him Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu is on the verge of losing power after the BJP is mulling to bring in a no-confidence motion. PTI The maths was on the Congress side. However, in a stunning turn of events, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pulled off an upset by defeating the Congress veteran Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha elections because of cross-voting by six of the partys MLAs. And now this has cascaded into more turmoil for the Grand Old Party with the BJP demanding for Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhus resignation. In fact, an NDTV report said that the BJP MLAs met with Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla this morning, seeking a test of strength for the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government in the state Assembly. Advertisement Whats going on? Is the Congress on the verge of losing power in another state? Heres what we know. A dramatic Rajya Sabha poll On Tuesday (27 February), the MLAs of Himachal Pradesh cast their vote for the Rajya Sabha elections, with most expecting that Congress Abhishek Manu Singhvi would sail through the vote. After all, in a 68-member Assembly, the Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 and the remaining three seats are with Independents. However, when counting began, the Congress was in for a rude shock when the voting was a tie with both the Congress and the BJP candidates getting 34 votes, indicating that at least six Congress MLAs voted against the party. The result was then declared on the basis of a draw of lots, and the BJPs Harsh Mahajan was declared the winner . Advertisement Following the BJPs triumph, Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu alleged that the BJP along with the CRPF and Haryana Police abducted the MLAs taking them to Haryanas Panchkula. In fact, a video clip that appeared online purportedly showed some Himachal MLAs in about five cars outside a government guesthouse in BJP-ruled Haryanas Panchkula. However, Congress MLA Ravi Thakur, who is believed to be one of the six who voted for BJP instead of Congress, was quoted as telling news agency PTI that he could go anywhere while referring to his visit to Panchkula. Advertisement An Indian Express report states that Congress MLAs Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Chaitanya Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Davinder Kumar Bhutto, and Ravi Thakur, and Independent legislators Ashish Sharma, KL Thakur, and Hoshyar Singh voted for Mahajan. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu with Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi addresses a press conference after the latter lost the election for the Rajya Sabha seat, in Shimla. PTI While BJP celebrated its win, Abhishek Manu Singhvi accepted his defeat. In a press conference, he told the media: I want to congratulate Harsh Mahajan that he has won. But I would certainly ask his party to introspect. If a party having 25 seats fields a candidate against one having 43, it only has one message. I am talking about principles here. The message is that we will shamelessly do what the law doesnt allow. If you think that nine people have suddenly changed by getting impressed with a new ideology and that too overnight, then I think we all are living in a fools paradise. Advertisement If this is the definition of new India, then I prefer old India. We have created history even by losing today. It is probably for the first time in the countrys history that a tie has happened at 34-34 despite all efforts by our friends, he further stated. Even CM Sukhu said: Some people sold out their honesty Nine cross-votings took place, three of them were independent MLAs but six others sold their honesty and voted against him (Singhvi). Himachals people wont tolerate this. Advertisement BJPs call for no-confidence Following the BJPs triumph, the party underlined that the Congress appeared to have lost the majority in the Assembly. After todays results, the CM should resign because he has no moral right to remain in power, said Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur, adding that he will bring a motion of no-confidence soon. Advertisement He added, Budget will be presented tomorrow. We will discuss the Budget tomorrow and then we will see the situation there. But I can see that the government has lost the majority. BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan celebrates after being elected as Rajya Sabha member at the Himachal Pradesh Assembly complex, in Shimla. PTI Mahajan, who won the Rajya Sabha polls, also told the media: The state government is in the minority right now. Fence-sitters in the government are ready to come to this side. They are unhappy with the government. They are so upset that they can do anything. This government wont go on, it will topple with its own weight. Advertisement Himachal BJP chief Rajiv Bindal also demanded the resignation of the CM following the Singhvis defeat. And as the situation unfolded, the Congress top leadership swung into action to pacify the disgruntled lawmakers. It has deployed Bhupinder Singh Hooda and D K Shivakumar to engage with the six MLAs, who are learnt to be disappointed with the working style of Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and are seeking his replacement, reported PTI. Advertisement Impact on Congress The Congress loss in Himachal Pradesh puts the 14-month-old government in crisis. It also is a litmus test for Sukhus leadership and the Congress partys ability to rally its ranks and ensure the passage of the budget, thereby averting a potential governmental crisis. Advertisement Moreover, the Rajya Sabha loss is not just a loss for the Congress, but for the INDIA bloc as well ahead of the all-important Lok Sabha polls. It helps the BJP to get more aggressive on the abki paar 400 paar narrative. In fact, Home Minister Amit Shah said disintegration is afflicting the Congress and the opposition bloc INDIA as they are unable to keep their flock together. He added that the INDIA bloc in reality never existed and is a media creation, adding that all their leaders want is that their children become prime minister and chief ministers. Advertisement With inputs from agencies Texas is witnessing calls for breaking away from the United States from some quarters. The proponents of the move want a separate country for the state. But why is this happening? Texas Department of Public Safety Officers guard an entrance to Shelby Park on 11 January 2024. AP File Photo Americas Texas state is witnessing calls for secession from some quarters. Loosely inspired by Britains Brexit from the European Union (EU), the proponents of the move are demanding a separate country for Texas, a secession that they call Texit. Texas was once a sovereign country albeit briefly. Now, some Texans want to take back the state to that 200-year-old status. They say this would tackle the immigration border crisis and the fight with the Joe Biden administration over who controls the border with Mexico. Advertisement Tensions recently arose between the US president and Texas Republican governor Greg Abbott over immigration at the southern border. We know here in Texas, the only way that Texas will ever be able to secure the border and have a sensible immigration system is to do like 200 other countries around the world and do so as a self-governing independent nation, Daniel Miller, president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, told AFP. Miller insists his movement, created in 2005, has never been so close to achieving its goal. Although the secession movement failed to put up Texit on the GOP primary ballot despite producing what it claimed were 140,000 voter signatures, this is the closest the group has come in nearly two decades. The Texas nationalist movement is able to strike a chord with Republican primary voters with the idea of Texas being a unique state. So while support among Texas Republicans for secession is very low, there is support for the idea of Texas having more autonomy," Rice University political science professor Mark Jones told KERA News. Advertisement Lets take a closer look. When Texas was a country Texas was a part of Mexico in the 19th Century. However, after the Texas Revolution in 1836, it declared independence and became a sovereign country. Nine years later, Texas joined the US as the 28th state. Texas Nationalist Movements Miller told AFP that Texas shares history and interests with the rest of the United States but, like independence advocates in Spains Catalan region, feels the central government does not understand their problems. Advertisement A group of migrants attempt to go through a wire fence on the banks of the Rio Grande river as members of U.S. National Guards stand guard on the other side of the fence in Eagle Pass, Texas, US, 27 February 2024. Reuters As Americans prepare to vote in November, most likely choosing between Biden and Donald Trump, the Texas independence movement wants the state legislature to pass a law allowing a referendum on breaking away. However, Texas cannot ditch the US just like that as there is no such clause in the countrys Constitution. Notably, the secession of Southern states including Texas in 1861 had led to the Civil War, the bloodiest war in US history. Advertisement Texans or Americans? Just 26 per cent of people surveyed by the Texas Politics Project this month said they identified as Texan first and American second, compared to 27 per cent who felt that way in 2014. Another poll by Newsweek found that 67 percent of Texans want the state to continue to be a part of the US. Advertisement Misty Walters, a homemaker in her 50s who attended a speech by Miller at a typical Texas barbecue restaurant, said people in the state feel they are Texans first, then Americans. Were absolutely just being invaded, she said of the record numbers of people pouring over the border, many from Central America, in what has become a key issue in the November US presidential election . Advertisement And Texas needs to stand up and protect its citizens better, said Walters. There has long been a secessionist movement in Texas, but it has been and remains a fringe movement, Joshua Blank, the research director at the Texas Politics Project of the University of Texas at Austin, told AFP. He said the border crisis between Texas and the federal government has created a situation that I think this group has really looked to exploit, in order to make their views seem not only more mainstream but really more plausible than they really are, Blank added. Advertisement According to Blank, the separatist movement is mostly driven by the idea that there is a uniform American culture that is often related to whiteness. And to the extent that there is a crisis at the border, it raises fears for people for whom this idea of American culture is somehow valid, he said. Advertisement The rift between Texas Governor and White House In the town of Eagle Pass in far southern Texas, Governor Abbott took military control of an area called Shelby Park along the Rio Grande River separating the state from Mexico. It is the site of a high-profile standoff with the federal government. The governor, accusing the Biden administration of failing to stop huge numbers of people from entering the state, has had razor wire placed along parts of the frontier. Advertisement Biden in turn has sued Texas, insisting that border control has always fallen under federal jurisdiction. Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks during the press conference about border security, joined by 13 governors from different states, at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, US, 4 February 2024. Reuters File Photo Miller, the independence leader, compares the current situation to events in 1835 when Texas was still part of Mexico. Texas refused to return a cannon that Mexico had lent it and flew a flag that read Come and take it, triggering Texass successful war of independence. Advertisement As with the cannon, tensions around the Eagle Pass park are part of a much bigger problem, said Miller. He called it a symbol of a broken relationship between the federal government and the states. Can Texas secede from the US? Not peacefully, at least. While Miller thinks it can, Blank told AFP: Texas would not be able to secede peacefully. The US would not negotiate with them on favorable terms. Advertisement With inputs from AFP The changes are part of the US defence strategy, which recognises the threat from Russia and China, started under then-president Donald Trump and continued by the Biden administration. Experts say cuts will be made mostly to posts like counterinsurgency jobs which are lying vacant as the armed forces struggle to meet their recruitment goals According to the plan, the army will cut about 10,000 spaces for engineers and similar jobs that were tied to counter-insurgency missions. The US army is cutting back. The development comes as US generals look to restructure the army to fight battles of tomorrow. It also comes as the three main branches of US military failed to meet their recruitment targets yet again. But what do we know about the job cuts? And will it hurt the military? Advertisement Lets take a closer look: What do we know about the job cuts? The US Army is slashing the size of its force by around 24,000. Thats around five per cent of its size. Around 3,000 cuts will be to the US armys special operations forces. According to The New York Times, the changes are part of the US defence strategy started under then president Donald Trump. The Biden administration has continued the strategy which recognises threats from Russia and China Advertisement Army leaders said they looked carefully across the board at all the services job specialties in search of places to trim. And they examined the ongoing effort to modernise the Army, with new high-tech weapons, to determine where additional forces should be focused. According to the plan, the army will cut about 10,000 spaces for engineers and similar jobs that were tied to counter-insurgency missions. An additional 2,700 cuts will come from units that dont deploy often and can be trimmed, and 6,500 will come from various training and other posts. There also will be about 10,000 posts cut from cavalry squadrons, Stryker brigade combat teams, infantry brigade combat teams and security force assistance brigades, which are used to train foreign forces. Advertisement Army secretary Christine Wormuth said she and General Randy George, the US Army chief, worked to thin out the number of places where they had empty or excess slots. Were moving away from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. We want to be postured for large-scale combat operations, Wormuth told reporters on Tuesday. So we looked at where were there pieces of force structure that were probably more associated with counterinsurgency, for example, that we dont need anymore. Advertisement George added that army leaders did a lot of analysis to choose the places to cut. The Navy, Army and Air Force all failed to meet their recruitment goals this past fiscal year. The things that we want to not have in our formation are actually things that we dont think are going to make us successful on the battlefield going forward, he said. Forbes quoted the army as saying its plan would generate new capabilities and re-balance its force structure. Advertisement It said the plan was a result of the rigorous assessment of its force structure. According to an army document, the service is significantly over structured and there arent enough soldiers to fill existing units. The cuts, it said, are spaces not faces and the army will not be asking soldiers to leave the force. Advertisement Instead, the decision reflects the reality that for years the Army hasnt been able to fill thousands of empty posts. While the army as its currently structured can have up to 494,000 soldiers, the total number of active-duty soldiers right now is about 445,000. Under the new plan, the goal is to bring in enough troops over the next five years to reach a level of 470,000. Advertisement Will it hurt the military? No. The cuts will made mostly to posts that are vacant. Advertisement These include counterinsurgency jobs which needed to be filled during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but are less essential today. The army is not asking current soldiers to leave. As the army builds back end strength over the next few years, most installations will likely see an increase in the number of soldiers actually stationed there, the army said in a statement as per Fox News. In fact, the plan calls for adding around 7,500 troops in other critical missions, including air-defence and counter-drone units and five new task forces around the world with enhanced cyber, intelligence and long-range strike capabilities. Advertisement The planned overhaul comes after two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan that forced the army to quickly and dramatically expand in order to fill the brigades sent to the battlefront. That included a massive counterinsurgency mission to battle Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State group. Over time the militarys focus has shifted to great power competition from adversaries such as China and Russia, and threats from Iran and North Korea. Advertisement And the war in Ukraine has shown the need for greater emphasis on air-defence systems and high-tech abilities both to use and counter airborne and sea-based drones. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said she and General Randy George, the US Army chief, worked to thin out the number of places where they had empty or excess slots. AP The changes represent a significant shift for the army to prepare for large-scale combat operations against more sophisticated enemies. But they also underscore the steep recruiting challenges that all of the military services are facing. Advertisement In the last fiscal year, which ended 30 September, the navy, army and air force all failed to meet their recruitment goals, while the marine corps and the tiny space force met their targets. Fox News reported that the military fell 41,000 recruits short of its goal in 2023. The army brought in a bit more than 50,000 recruits, falling well short of the publicly stated stretch goal of 65,000. The previous fiscal year, the army also missed its enlistment goal by 15,000. That year the goal was 60,000. The outlet quoted military leaders testifying at the House Armed Services Committee hearing in December as saying that a competitive job market, declining eligibility and COVID-19 school closures had hampered recruitment. In response, the service launched a sweeping overhaul of its recruiting last fall to focus more on young people who have spent time in college or are job hunting early in their careers. And it is forming a new professional force of recruiters, rather than relying on soldiers randomly assigned to the task. In discussing the changes at the time, Wormuth acknowledged that the service hasnt been recruiting well for many more years than one would think from just looking at the headlines in the last 18 months. The service, she said, hasnt met its annual goal for new enlistment contracts since 2014. Army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Rob Lodewick told Forbes the changes, which are set to take place over the next decade, will ensure that the army can deliver trained, cohesive and lethal forces to meet future challenges in complex operational environments. With inputs from agencies People in South Korea, Japan and China seem reluctant to have children despite the Asian nations spending billions to fix their declining birth rates including showering would-be parents with incentives and subsidies. Experts say a high cost of living and educating children, stagnant wages, and societal attitudes towards marriage and childcare are to blame The average number of expected babies for a South Korean woman during her reproductive life fell to 0.72 from 0.78 in 2022, data from Statistics Korea showed on Wednesday. Reuters It seems like people arent just that into having babies these days. South Korea, which is struggling with the worlds lowest fertility rate, saw its demographic crisis grow worse in 2023. This despite the country showering its citizens with hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives to have children. But South Korea isnt alone. Advertisement A number of Asian governments including China and Japan have tried and failed to convince their citizens to have more babies. But what gives? What incentives have they provided? And why dont they work? Lets take a closer look: South Korea .South Koreas fertility rate, already the worlds lowest, dropped to a fresh record low in 2023. The average number of expected babies for a South Korean woman during her reproductive life fell to 0.72 from 0.78 in 2022, data from Statistics Korea showed on Wednesday. Since 2018, South Korea has been the only member of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) to have a rate below 1. Advertisement The nation, which has around 50 million citizens, witnessed its number of births also dip 7.7 per cent to just 230,000. The number of newborns, birth rates, and crude birth rates (newborns per 1,000 people) are all at the lowest point since 1970 when data collection began, said Lim Young-il, head of the Population Census Division at Statistics Korea. Advertisement Lim told reporters that the average age to give birth in South Korea is 33.6, the highest in the OECD. The country previously projected that its fertility rate is likely to fall further to 0.68 in 2024. This despite spending billions to try to reverse the trend as the population shrank for a fourth straight year. Advertisement The country has offered citizens incentives such as boosting monthly allowances for parents of infants and reducing mortgage rates. The country has since 2006 spent over $270 billion in schemes for couples such as cash subsidies, babysitting services and infertility treatment, as per The Guardian. The BBC reported that couples who have children are given free taxis. Advertisement Those who are married do not have to pay for hospital bills or IVF treatment. The South Korean government has made it a national priority to reverse the falling birth rate and in December promised to come up with extraordinary measures to tackle the situation. South Koreas capital Seoul had the lowest fertility rate of 0.55. Advertisement This is far below the 2.1 children needed to maintain the current population. South Korea country has offered citizens incentives such as boosting monthly allowances for parents of infants and reducing mortgage rates. Reuters According to Bloomberg, Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon is also mulling over setting up matchmaking program on behalf of the city. The nation is also eyeing making it easier to hire foreign nannies to help women in childcare. Meanwhile, ahead of elections in April South Koreas major political parties vowed more public housing and easier loans in an effort to stem population decline, aiming to allay fears of national extinction as fertility rates crumble. Advertisement The parties focus on population in their election planks reflects growing alarm after spending of more than $270 billion in areas such as childcare subsidies since 2006 has failed to reverse record low fertility rates. Being married is seen as a prerequisite to having children in South Korea, but marriages are also falling in the country with high financial burden cited as the main reason. Advertisement However, according to Bloomberg a number of factors including housing being eye-wateringly expensive, the cost of educating children and the competitive environment and increasing gender tensions are also cited. According to BBC, children in the nation are sent to myriad expensive classes growing up including maths, English and even Taekwondo. A 2022 study found that just two per cent of parents opted out of doing so despite 94 per cent describing it as a burden. Advertisement Little wonder that the nation is the most expensive one in which to rear a child. Couples also worry about taking time off work to care for their children. The outlet cited a Korea National Assembly Research Service study as saying that South Korea has the fewest parents going on leave in the developed world. Advertisement Women who take breaks from their careers also find it difficult to keep their jobs and maintain their level of pay. There is an implicit pressure from companies that when we have children, we must leave our jobs, Yenjin added. Having witnessed so many mothers around me give up their careers, I have decided not to follow the path to motherhood, a 37-year-old office worker, who asked to be identified by her surname Jeon, told AFP. Advertisement Jeon, who has been married for four years, said the countrys rigid corporate culture was a primary reason for her decision, with greater flexibility at work more important than government subsidies. Raising a child is not possible without sacrificing the career of one parent in this environment, she said. Of all the OECD nations, South Korea has highest percentage of late-middle-aged women with temporary jobs. South Korea also has the worst gender wage gap in the developed world. Many women are choosing simply not to get married. Yejin, 30, a TV producer, told BBC, Its hard to find a dateable man in Korea - one who will share the chores and the childcare equally. And women who have babies alone are not judged kindly. In 2022, just two per cent of babies born in the country were outside of marriage. The trend in the long-term could be devastating. Time Magazine quoted a 2023 Statistics Korea forecast as estimating that the population would decline to 36.2 million by 2072. Thats a 30 per cent decrease. At the current rate, the population will reduce in half by 2,100. Expert also worry about the potential impact such a trend could have. Time Magazine quoted Shin Seung-keun, a professor of fiscal policy at Tech University of Korea, as saying, From medical services to welfare, demand for spending will increase while fewer taxes will be collected as the number of young people decreases. South Korea is not alone in the region struggling with a rapidly ageing population. The fertility rate in neighbouring Japans hit a record low of 1.26 in 2022, while China recorded 1.09, also a record low. Japan Neighbouring Japan is grappling with the same issue. On Tuesday the fast-ageing nation announced that the number of births there had also dropped to a new low in 2023. The number of babies born in Japan last year fell for an eighth straight year to a new low, government data showed Tuesday, and a top official said it was critical for the country to reverse the trend in the coming half-dozen years. The 758,631 babies born in Japan in 2023 were a 5.1 per cent decline from the previous year, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry. It was the lowest number of births since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899. The number of marriages fell by 5.9 per cent to 489,281 couples, falling below a half-million for the first time in 90 years one of the key reasons for the declining births. Out-of-wedlock births are rare in Japan because of family values based on a paternalistic tradition. Japan in 2023 announced it would spend $22 billion on trying to fix its low birthrate, according to Foreign Policy. This includes doubling spending on childcare by the early 2023 and raising the income cap for child cash benefits. Surveys show that many younger Japanese balk at marrying or having families, discouraged by bleak job prospects, the high cost of living that rises at a faster pace than salaries and corporate cultures that are not compatible with having both parents work. But experts say this is unlikely to work due to increased costs of living, wage stagnation, and gender inequality which forces many women to choose between motherhood and a career. If women view economic independence and child-rearing as mutually exclusive, theyll often choose independence, Haruka Sakamoto, a researcher at the Department of Global Health Policy at the University of Tokyo, told Foreign Policy. Indeed surveys show that many younger Japanese balk at marrying or having families, discouraged by bleak job prospects, the high cost of living that rises at a faster pace than salaries and corporate cultures that are not compatible with having both parents work. Crying babies and children playing outside are increasingly considered a nuisance, and many young parents say they often feel isolated. This comes despite the country having one of the most generous childcare leaves in the developed world. Japan ranks second among nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) when it comes to childcare leave. It allows 52 weeks of leave, while the OECD nations, on average, allow just 10.4 days of leave. According to The Straits Times, fathers are also allowed four weeks of paternity leave within eight weeks of their childs birth. They are also allowed childcare leave until the infant turns one. All the while they are paid a lowered salary that is exempt from tax. Companies are also mandated to allow employees with young children under the age of three to work fewer hours. Like South Korea, Japan too has a problem with the cost of education for children. According to Foreign Policy, though public education is much less expensive than private it is still not free. The cost of childcare also adds up. The outlet quoted a 2021 survey as showing that the annual cost of caring for two children amounted to around half the salary of an average couple both of whom are working full-time. Haruka Sakamoto, a researcher at the Department of Global Health Policy at the University of Tokyo, told Foreign Policy money is a big problem specifically the lack of it. While in the past, people have explained Japans low sex and relationship culture as stemming from interest in anime and fictional characters that supplant interest in real-life relationships, its actually an economic issue, Sakamoto said. Michiko Ueda-Ballmer, a political scientist at Syracuse University in the United States who studies social isolation among Japanese youth, told _Foreign Policy t_hat many young women want to married but they simply cannot afford it. But its not all about money either. Yuka Minagawa, a social demographer at Sophia University in Tokyo, said, Thus far I did not find a single post that suggests the amount of child allowance as a source of a struggle. Minagawa said it is the lack of shared responsibility of child care and domestic work between men and women, pressure and conflict in managing work and family, and stress due to strong norms about motherhood in society that are to blame. Those that work and have children say they understand why fewer women ae choosing to have kids. Japans work culture is notorious for long hours at the office, little flexibility, and expectations around after-work drinking with colleagues. It makes doing things like taking your kid to the doctor, going to a school event, or just taking time off, incredibly difficult if you dont have a supportive boss, a piece in Bloomberg noted. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters Tuesday that the ongoing declining birth rate is at critical state." The period over the next six years or so until 2030s, when the younger population will start declining rapidly, will be the last chance we may be able to reverse the trend, he said. There is no time to waste. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called the low births the biggest crisis Japan faces, and put forward a package of measures that have included more support and subsidies mostly for childbirth, children and their families. But experts say they doubt whether the governments efforts will be effective because so far they have largely focused on people who already are married or already are planning to have children, while not adequately addressing a growing population of young people who are reluctant to go that far. The public doubt it as well. Foreign Policy quoted an April survey as showing that 80 per cent of public dont think Kishidas plans will amount to much. The number of births has been falling since 50 years ago, when it peaked at about 2.1 million. The decline to an annual number below 760,000 has happened faster than earlier projections predicting that would happen by 2035. Japans population of more than 125 million is projected to fall by about 30 per cent to 87 million by 2070, with four out of every 10 people at age 65 or older. A shrinking and aging population has big implications for the economy and for national security as the country seeks to fortify its military to counter Chinas increasingly assertive territorial ambitions. Echoing similar warnings made previously by Kishida, ruling-party lawmaker Goshi Hosono on Wednesday called the low birth rate a national threat. If the situation is left alone, the economy will lose its vitality and social security will become difficult to maintain, he said. China Chinas population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023, as a record low birth rate and a wave of COVID-19 deaths when strict lockdowns ended accelerated a downturn that will have profound long-term effects on the economys growth potential. The National Bureau of Statistics said the total number of people in China dropped by 2.08 million, or 0.15 per cent, to 1.409 billion in 2023. That was well above the population decline of 850,000 in 2022, which had been the first since 1961 during the Great Famine of the Mao Zedong era. According to SCMP, the high cost of living and education are putting off Chinese parents from having more children. This despite parents being offered a number of incentives including cash rewards and subsidies on homes. Business Insider reported that the Hangzhou government has been giving new parents $2,800 for having their third child. Wenzhou city, in southeast China, is giving parents $416.70 in subsidies per child. Chinese cities have allowed couples to take up to 30 days of paid marriage leave. That number was earlier just three. Changshan County in the Zhejiang province offered brides 25 and under $138 to get married. It said it was doing so to promote age-appropriate marriage and childbearing. The high cost of living and education are putting off Chinese parents from having more children. AP Some provinces are also trying to tamp down on the practice of bride price essentially dowry. Cities like Beijing and Sichuan are also offering to pay for fertility treatment. China experienced a dramatic nationwide COVID surge early last year after three years of tight screening and quarantine measures kept the virus largely contained until authorities abruptly lifted curbs in December 2022. Total deaths last year rose 6.6 per cent to 11.1 million, with the death rate reaching the highest level since 1974 during the Cultural Revolution. New births fell 5.7 per cent to 9.02 million and the birth rate was a record low 6.39 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 6.77 births in 2022. Births in the country have been plummeting for decades as a result of the one-child policy implemented from 1980 to 2015 and its rapid urbanisation during that period. As with earlier economic booms in Japan and South Korea, large populations moved from Chinas rural farms into cities, where having children is more expensive. As we have observed again and again from other low fertility countries, fertility decline is often very difficult to reverse, University of Michigan demographer Zhou Yun said. Further denting appetite for baby-making in China in 2023, youth unemployment hit record highs, wages for many white-collar workers fell, and a crisis in the property sector, where more than two-thirds of household wealth is stored, intensified. The fresh data adds to concerns that the worlds No.2 economys growth prospects are diminishing due to fewer workers and consumers, while the rising costs of elderly care and retirement benefits put more strain on indebted local governments. Long-term, UN experts see Chinas population shrinking by 109 million by 2050, more than triple the decline of their previous forecast in 2019. Chinas population aged 60 and over reached 296.97 million in 2023, about 21.1 per cent of its total population, up from 280.04 million in 2022. Experts say nations may ultimately not have much of a choice in how to deal with the problem. From Japan to Europe, aging is getting increasingly common and the key question is how well address shortfalls in the working population able to support economic growth and the transition of industrial structures, Shin In-chol, a professor of urban sociology at the University of Seoul, told Time Magazine. Ultimately we have to make do with the people we already have or bring in help from elsewhere, he added. With inputs from agencies Measles was eliminated from the US in 2000 and the UK in 2017. But now both countries have been witnessing a surge in cases. There has been a fall in the number of vaccinations. But why is there hesitation to take the jab that has been available for decades? A 10-month old is given an MMR injection at the paediatric outpatients department at a hospital Swansea, south Wales. The UK is seeing a surge in cases of measles over the past few months. File photo/Reuters School-going children in the United States and the United Kingdom are falling sick in hordes. It is not a mystery illness but measles. The disease has made a comeback and is spreading fast, putting everyone from parents to schools and health authorities on the edge. We take a look at what is behind the latest measles outbreak. Advertisement Why is measles spreading in the US? In the US, Florida and Philadelphia are seeing an alarming tide of measles. Cases have also been reported in Ohio (the first in Montgomery County since 2005), California, and Maryland. The outbreaks in Florida and Philadelphia hit the headlines after the disease spread into the wider community from children. In Floridas Broward County, a third-grade student with no history of international travel was detected with the disease and spread it to others. There were at least eight cases of the virus, including one in a child below five reported recently. Most cases have been diagnosed in one school but it is unknown what connection the youngest measles patient has with that. However, the spread was expected as state officials defied federal guidance asking children to remain at home to contain the outbreak. Advertisement Floridas surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, a well-known COVID-19 vaccine sceptic, disrupted efforts to contain the disease when he told parents they could ignore the US CDCs (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) advice to keep unvaccinated children home for 21 days. He sent a letter to parents saying he is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance, according to a report in the Guardian. Advertisement Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, appointed by Gov Ron DeSantis, is drawing criticism for his handling of an elementary schools measles outbreak, telling parents of unvaccinated children it is their choice whether their student attends class a direct contravention of federal guidelines. File photo/AP The CDC recommends that unvaccinated children exposed to measles be isolated for three weeks. Less than 92 per cent of children in Broward County had received recommended immunisations against diseases such as measles when the CDC recommends a 95 per cent immunisation threshold to prevent outbreaks. Cases are not going to stay contained just to that one school, not when a virus is this infectious, Dr. David Kimberlin, co-director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham was quoted as saying by NBC News. Advertisement In Philadelphia, cases of measles rose last month after an infant who caught the disease while travelling abroad was sent to daycare contrary to the doctors advice. According to the CDC, as of last Friday, there have been at least 35 measles cases in 15 states this year, most of them linked to international travel. The outbreak in Florida is the largest right now. Advertisement Since the mid-20th century, measles vaccination in the US has been so successful that some doctors have never even encountered the disease. Measles was eliminated in the country in 2000. However, it has re-emerged since alongside vaccine misinformation, reports The Guardian. The rise in cases of measles is not restricted only to the US. Other Western nations like the United Kingdom are also reporting outbreaks. Advertisement A measles poster is seen at a clinic in Los Angeles, California. There have been at least 35 measles cases in 15 states in the US this year, most of them linked to international travel. File photo/Reuters How bad is the measles outbreak in the UK? Last week, Northern Ireland reported its first case of measles in seven years. Across Britain, there has been a rise in the disease. At least 169 cases have been recorded in England in the last month. The total number of confirmed cases since the start of last October has been more than 580. In comparison, there were only two confirmed cases of measles across the whole of the UK in 2021 and 54 in 2022, according to a report in Al-Jazeera. Advertisement Unlike, the US, in Britain, the disease spread is not confined to children. A man in his 40s died in neighbouring Ireland after contracting the virus during a visit to the West Midlands in England, where the disease is most prevalent. Last weeks case was also found in an adult. Dr Vanessa Saliba from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has attributed the uptick in cases to a worryingly low MMR [measles, mumps and rubella> vaccine uptake in some areas across the country, Al-Jazeera reports. Advertisement A child is held by her mother as she is given an MMR injection at a hospital in Wales, UK. File photo/Reuters In 2017, WHO declared that the UK had eliminated the disease. But now the country is no longer measles-free. In the last few months, hundreds of children have fallen sick because of measles. Officials believe that 3.4 million under-16s are at risk of contracting the virus. Were at a point where theres a very large susceptible population of children, Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, told the Guardian in January. To keep measles at bay, we need to have over 95 per cent of children vaccinated. The NHS figures suggest that were at about 85 per cent. Advertisement Europe has also seen a dramatic rise in the disease. Cases grew nearly 45-fold in 2023 compared to a year earlier, according to WHO. Has there been a fall in vaccination rates? Yes. Measles cases have been increasing across most regions mainly due to missed vaccinations during the COVID-19 years when health systems were overwhelmed and fell behind on routine vaccinations for preventable diseases. Advertisement What we are worried about is this year, 2024, weve got these big gaps in our immunisation programmes and if we dont fill them really quickly with the vaccine, measles will just jump into that gap, the WHOs Natasha Crowcroft, a senior technical adviser on Measles and Rubella, told a Geneva press briefing last week. We can see, from data thats produced with WHO data by the CDC that more than half of all the countries in the world are going to be at high or very high risk of outbreaks by the end of this year. Advertisement A vial of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and an information sheet is seen at Boston Childrens Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. There has been a drop in vaccination among children in the US, the UK and Europe. File photo/Reuters In the US, the CDC pointed out in a 25 January alert that most cases were identified in children and adolescents who had not been vaccinated against the disease. Data shows a dangerous drop in vaccination among schoolchildren both in the US and Europe, reports PBS News Hour. Were not just seeing cases, were seeing transmission, which means vaccine levels arent what wed like them to be, Saskia Popescu, an assistant professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, was quoted as saying by PBS News Hour. Misinformation is to be blamed. During the COVID-19 pandemic, false claims about vaccines were made by people who thought they were unsafe and also by others with political and financial gains. Misinformation about the new virus shaped peoples perceptions of the need to get vaccinated against other diseases, like measles, according to Heidi Larson of the Vaccine Confidence Project., and may leave more long-lasting effects on public health. Also read: Why anti-COVID vaccine rhetoric is on rise after American football stars sudden collapse on field How dangerous is measles? Measles is one of the most contagious viruses today. Common symptoms include high fever, cough, sneezing and sore eyes, with red body rash. People recover within seven to 10 days but serious cases can lead to pneumonia, seizures, complications leading to blindness and even death. Children are the most at risk but it can also affect adults. Cases last year were already up 79 per cent to over 300,000, according to WHO data, thought to represent just a fraction of the total. It can be prevented by two doses of vaccine and more than 50 million deaths have been averted since 2000. _With inputs from agencies _ Vantara, the project that the Ambani scion has put his heart into and launched this month, gives a peek into the person he is, the passion he has for things non-business, and the planning that goes into making his passion make a difference Anant Ambani is the youngest son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani, the founder and chairperson of Reliance Foundation. He also sits as a director on the boards of a clutch of Reliance group companies. That is how a large part of the world, mostly business, knew Anant as. Till now, that is. Advertisement No doubt, all this is a big part of who he is, and the work he does. The venture, however, that he has really put his heart into and launched this month gives a peek into the person Anant is, the passion he has for things non-business, and the planning that goes into making his passion a reality and make a difference. A star is born! Conceived by Anant, the Vantara (which means star of the forest) programme is a unique and unparalleled plan for rescue, treatment, care, and rehabilitation of injured, abused and threatened animals. Under the project, 3,000 acres of the green belt of Reliances Jamnagar Refinery Complex in Gujarat has been converted into a jungle-like environment that mimics natural habitat for the rescued species to thrive in. Advertisement Passion turns into mission! I see God in every animal, says Anant, giving an idea of why the project is so close to his heart. In todays life, you cannot see God, but I see God within every animal. They say in our dharma that in a cow, there are sixty-four crore devtas. But for me, not only in a cow, but in every animal, he says. Advertisement How did it all start, his love for animals? When I was a young boy, I think I was twelve, my mother and we were traveling from Jaipur to Ranthambore. On the way, we saw a young elephant with a mahavat, and the elephant was walking a little weirdly. So, I told my mom, we should rescue it. That was the first elephant. And, then we had no idea how to take care of elephants. So, we got the elephant, we kept it and then we said, we will build slowly. At that time, we did not even know what to feed the elephant. We would do what the mahavat said. We had no scientific knowledge. We built scientific knowledge over a period of, I think, a decade and more. Today we have a highly professional team, more than 300-400 professionals, taking care of the elephants, Anant says. Advertisement In fact, in one of the conversations following the launch of Vantara, Anant said: When we were young, I think till the age of 18, Ive not gone to any other family holiday except Africa, Ranthambore and the jungles of Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Kaziranga. What started as a passion for me at a very young age has become a mission now with Vantara and our brilliant and committed team. Advertisement The passion has rubbed off on his fiancee Radhika Merchant too. The two are set to marry later this year. For me, Jamnagar is my home. I try to base myself here on weekends and whenever I get a holiday. So, Radhika would complain a lot [earlier>. But she loves it now Now she wants to come to take care of the animals more than me. She is a great support," says Anant. Advertisement The invite for the pre-wedding festivities reflected his passion. It read: Anant has lovingly nurtured this complex into a haven of care and compassion for thousands of animals. One of the events in the pre-wedding festivities was A Walk on the Wildside, with jungle fever as the dress code. Man with a plan Advertisement So, how does a director on the board of multiple companies get time from his hectic corporate life to not just think about animal conservation but, make it his big mission? I have a philosophy. This is my passion project. So, I give about an hour a day or one-and-a-half hours a day to Vantara where we do animal rescue. The rest of the time Im devoted to my father, and I give about 14 hours a day," he says. Advertisement Vantara aims to partner with the Zoo Authority of India and other relevant government organisations in improving all the 150-plus zoos in India in terms of training, capacity building and animal care infrastructure. We hope Vantara becomes a beacon of hope globally and can showcase how a forward-thinking institution can help the global biodiversity conservation initiatives, says Anant, piecing together how his big plan is set to get bigger. Advertisement In fact, some of the worlds top zoological and medical experts have joined the Vantara mission and the project is receiving active collaboration and guidance from government bodies, research, and educational institutions. Thinking big to make a big difference The Vantara project is as Reliance as it gets in size, scale and ambition. While it is sprawled across 3,000 acres, the initiative has plans to go beyond Jamnagar. Advertisement There are over two thousand animals across 43 species under its care. In the last few years, the programme has rescued over 200 elephants, and thousands of other animals, such as reptiles and birds, from unsafe situations. Vantaras Centre for Elephants has a 25,000-square-feet elephant hospital, which is one of the largest such facilities anywhere in the world. Over five hundred people, including veterinarians, biologists, pathologists, nutritionists and naturalists, care for these elephants and a special kitchen spread over 14,000 square feet keeps them well fed. Advertisement A Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre spread over 650 acres takes care of other wild animals that were once with circuses across India or in congested zoos. Staff of about two hundred specialists takes care of 200 rescued leopards and 1,000 crocodiles, among other wild animals and reptiles. The facility has a one-lakh-square-feet hospital and a medical research centre, as well. Vantara has also taken part in foreign rescue missions in countries, such as Mexico and Venezuela. It recently brought in several big animals, answering a call from the Central American zoo authorities. The numbers give a glimpse of the scale of not just the project, but also Anant Ambanis vision for the project. What you have seen is 8-10 per cent of my vision. My vision is that in Jamnagar, we would like to be the worlds most advanced wildlife institute, and we would also like to conserve and breed critically endangered species and release them back into their habitat, says Anant. Anant, the business leader It is not just animals that Anant has a passion for. As a business leader, he sits on the boards of Reliance Industries, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail Ventures, Reliance New Energy and Reliance New Solar Energy. He has been on the Reliance Foundation Board since September 2022. Anant has also been driving the expansion of the energy and materials business of Reliance group and its global operations in renewable and green energy. He is also the man behind RILs efforts to become a net carbon zero company by 2035. How does he make it all happen? How do his passion, planning, and business acumen translate into reality? That is where his perseverance comes in. A project can say so much about the man behind it. And, Vantara says it all! News point: Seeking third term not to enjoy power but for nation building, says Rajnath Singh Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday said that the Modi government was seeking third term not to enjoy power but for nation building. Addressing a public rally in Bihars Darbhanga, Singh said, We are asking for a third term not to enjoy power but for nation building. Before PM Modi, our countrys economy was ranked 11th in the world but due to policies of our goverment, the country is now the 5th largest economy He said that if the Prime Minister gets an opportunity in the fourth term, he will wipe poverty and unemployment from the country. Give opportunity to our PM, not only 3rd term but take a resolution to give 4th term as well and we will end the crises of poverty and unemploymentOur character is that we do what we say Advertisement #WATCH | At a public rally in Bihar's Darbhanga, Defence Minister and BJP leader Rajnath Singh says, "We are asking for a third term not to enjoy power but for nation building. Before PM Modi, our country's economy was ranked 11th in the world but due to policies of our govt, the pic.twitter.com/QJGtDrNKCa ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Why it matters? Prime Minister Narendra Modi has guaranteed that India will become the third largest economy in the world and many big decisions will be taken during his third term to take India to newer heights. Rajnath Singhs pitch not only for the third term but also the fourth term shows that the Modi government has plans up it sleeve to wipe out poverty and unemployment from the country and take India towards a path to development. Advertisement News point: During Covid, India showed the way to the world, says Jaishankar External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday said that during Covid, the world assumed that the country that would suffer the most would be India, but our country showed the world that it could not only look after itself, but also save the world. Speaking at an event in Karnatakas Hubli, Jaishankar said, The reason for this was that we have a huge population. People thought that we were not capable enough. We had fewer doctors. Leave alone the vaccines, even the masks were not manufactured here. There was a shortage of ventilators. But under the leadership of PM Modi, India showed the world that it could not only look after itself, but it could also save the world. India, which the world was worried about, gave vaccines to 100 other countries Advertisement #WATCH | Hubli, Karnataka: EAM Dr S Jaishankar says, "When the Covid pandemic arrived, the world assumed that the country that would suffer the most, would be India. The reason for this was that we have a huge population. People thought that we were not capable enough. We had pic.twitter.com/PjNU6Hkvk6 ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Advertisement Why it matters? Advertisement During the COVID, India faced numerous challenges ranging from healthcare crises to economic disruptions. However, amid adversity, India exhibited resilience by transforming challenges into opportunities. The country accelerated digitalisation, fostering remote work, online education, and telemedicine, thereby leveraging technology to bridge societal gaps. Moreover, India capitalised on its pharmaceutical industry, emerging as a global hub for vaccine production, supplying vaccines to both domestic and international markets. The crisis spurred innovation, encouraging startups and entrepreneurs to devise solutions for healthcare, sanitation, and supply chain management. Additionally, the pandemic highlighted the importance of self-reliance, prompting initiatives like Atmanirbhar Bharat to bolster domestic manufacturing and reduce dependency on imports. Advertisement News point: Lets build Viksit and Aatmanirbhar Bharat, says PM Modi after Tendulkar praises J&K Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkars admiration of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday drew concurring praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi who said Together, lets build a Viksit and Aatmanirbhar Bharat!. Tendulkar, who recently visited J&K, posted a short highlight of his trip to the region and said it will remain a beautiful experience etched in his memory. There was snow all around but we felt warm because of peoples exceptional hospitality. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said there is so much to see in our nation. Couldnt agree more, especially after this trip, he said. The Kashmir Willow bats are great examples of Make in India, Make for the World. They have travelled across the globe, and now I recommend people across the globe, and India, to come and experience Jammu & Kashmir, one of the several jewels of @incredibleindia, he added. Advertisement This is wonderful to see! @sachin_rts lovely Jammu and Kashmir visit has two important takeaways for our youth: One - to discover different parts of #IncredibleIndia. Two- the importance of Make in India. Together, lets build a Viksit and Aatmanirbhar Bharat! https://t.co/YVUlRbb4av Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 28, 2024 Advertisement Why it matters? Sachin Tendulkars praise for the Kashmir Willow bats which he said is are great examples of Make in India, Make for the World drew a response from PM Modi who said cricket greats Jammu and Kashmir visit has two important takeaways for the youth: One - to discover different parts of Incredible India. Two - the importance of Make in India. Together, lets build a Viksit and Aatmanirbhar Bharat!, PM Modi added. Advertisement News point: No reason to accept his resignation: Sukhu says Vikramadityas grievances will be resolved Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday said that Vikramaditya Singh is like his younger brother and there was no reason to accept his resignation as his grievances will be addressed. I have spoken with Vikramaditya Singh and he is my younger brother. There is no reason to accept his resignation. He has some grievances that will be solved. He also said that one of the Congress MLAs (who voted for BJP candidate in RS polls) has asked for forgiveness for betraying the party. Advertisement #WATCH | Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu says "One of the MLAs (who voted for BJP candidate in RS polls) has said to forgive him as he has betrayed the party...People of the state will give them an answer..." On Vikramaditya Singh's resignation, CM says, "I have pic.twitter.com/PUKB45jd0M ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Why it matters? As his government risks losing majority after some Congress MLAs cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha polls on Tuesday, Himachal CM has been trying to keep his flock together so that he can clear the no-trust vote that the BJP is likely to bring against him. The BJP Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday claimed that the apart from the six Congress MLAs who cross voted in favour of the BJP, three independent MLAs have also joined the saffron party and claimed that there are other disgruntled Congress MLAs who would soon join him. News point: CBI summons Akhilesh Yadav in illegal mining cases The CBI has summoned Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav as a witness for questioning on Thursday in illegal mining cases, five years after registering the case. In a notice issued under section 160 of CrPC, the agency asked him to appear before it on February 29 in connection with the case registered in 2019, officials said. CBI has asked former Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav to appear before the agency in a High Court-referred case related to sand mining. He has been asked to join the investigation as a witness before the CBI in Delhi on 29 February: CBI sources (File photo) pic.twitter.com/0cHrwWw021 ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Why it matters? The case pertains to illegal mining during 2012-16 when Yadav was chief minister, and he illegally renewed licences despite a ban by the National Green Tribunal on mining. It is alleged that the officers allowed theft of minerals, extorted money from lease-holders and drivers. The CBI had filed seven preliminary enquiries in 2016 on the directions of the Allahabad High Court to probe the case of illegal mining of minor minerals. The agency had alleged that the then chief minister Yadavs office had cleared 13 projects in a single day. The case is significant as it may give ammunition to the BJP to dent the chances of Yadav and his party ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. News point: Sukhu rubbishes reports of resignation as Himachal CM Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday said that neither has anyone asked for his resignation nor has he submitted his resignation to anyone. Speaking to reporters, he said, Neither has anyone asked for my resignation nor have I given my resignation to anyone. We will prove the majority. We will win, the people of Himachal will win Earlier, some reports had suggested that the Himachal CM had resigned after the party high command asked him to step down. BJP is spreading rumours of my resignation. They want to create a break in the legislative party. They want Congress MLAs to leave the party and join them. Congress is unitedSome of the MLAs who voted for BJP are in our contact, he added. #WATCH | Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu says "Neither has anyone asked for my resignation nor have I given my resignation to anyone. We will prove the majority. We will win, the people of Himachal will win..." pic.twitter.com/0LPW73LIXM ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Why it matters? The power tussle in Himachal intensified after BJP leader of opposition Jai Ram Thakur met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla seeking no-trust vote against the Sukhu-led government in the state. Congress government in the state faces an existential crisis after six MLAs crossed sides and are learnt to be in touch with the BJP. Speaking to reporters, Thakur claimed that apart from the six Congress MLAs, three independent MLAs were also with them and expect more Congress MLAs to switch sides. News point: Congress top brass in damage control mode, rushes 2 observers to Himachal The Congress top brass on Wednesday rushed former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and DK Shivakumar to Shimla to parley with members of the party which is facing loss of support and risks losing power in the state. Sources said Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is learnt to have spoken to former party chief Rahul Gandhi as also general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on the Himachal developments. #WATCH | Senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who has been appointed as one of the two observers for the Himachal Pradesh crisis, leaves from Chandigarh for Shimla. pic.twitter.com/N61V9ROIOt ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Why it matters? The Congress government in the state faces an existential crisis after six MLAs crossed sides and are learnt to be in touch with the BJP. Earlier in the day, BJP Leader of Oppostion Jai Ram Thakur met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla seeking a no-trust vote. Speaking to reporters, Thakur claimed that apart from the six Congress MLAs, three independent MLAs were also with them and expect more Congress MLAs to switch sides. News Point: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates visited Mission Shakti Bazar in Bhubaneswar #WATCH | Bhubaneswar, Odisha: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates visited Mission Shakti Bazar which was inaugurated by Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik yesterday. pic.twitter.com/qRvCSZng0v ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Why it matters? Ahead of the upcoming general elections for Lok Sabha and Odisha assembly, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced Tuesday interest-free loans of up to Rs 10 lakh for members of self-help groups (SHGs) under Mission Shakti scheme. Mission Shakti Bazaar will offer over 1,000 products including handicrafts, handlooms, food products, forest products, health and personal care items, traditional jewelry, and home and kitchen products both online and offline. News Point: Himachal fiasco calls for assessment of assets, liabilities, says Navjot Singh Sidhu Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday launched a strong attack on six party lawmakers who cross-voted in Tuesdays Rajya Sabha election in Himachal - handing the party a defeat in an exercise it should have won with ease - and then appeared to ally with the BJP. Himachal fiasco calls for an assessment of assets and liabilities for the Grand Old Party the former India cricketer posted on X. Masqueraders (for) plum posts, covertly dancing to the tunes of agencies like Central Bureau of Investigation, Enforcement Directorate, and Income Tax Department, have spelt doomsday for us many-a-times!" he added. The Himachal fiasco calls for an assessment of assets and liabilities for The Grand Old Party ??? . Masqueraders on plum posts covertly dancing to the tunes of agencies like CBI, ED and IT have spelt dooms day for us many a times ! The loss is not @DrAMSinghvi Sahbs but Navjot Singh Sidhu (@sherryontopp) February 28, 2024 Why it matters? The shock Rajya Sabha loss has triggered a political crisis in the hill state - in which the Congress cantered to a win less than two years ago - with the BJP now demanding that Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhus depleted government prove its strength in the 68-member House. News Point: Top Leaderships urge to ally with TMC is blatant insult to loyal soldiers; INC has lost political character: West Bengal Congress leader Koustav Bagchi resigns West Bengal Congress leader Koustav Bagchi Wednesday resigned from the primary membership of the party as well as the membership of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee with immediate effect. In a letter to the Congress high command, he said, I believe the urge for forging an alliance by our Top Leadership with the TMC is nothing but a blatant insult to those loyal soldiers of the Congress party only for some parochial interests and/or gains of certain leaders and their associatesWithout hesitation, I can firmly say that in the present day scenario, the Indian National Congress has lost its political character. Why it matters? This is yet another blow to the INDI Alliance. Congress, anyway, has lost any clout in West Bengal that has been dominated by Mamata Banerjee-led TMC and the BJP has been the prime challenger. This resignation is only going to further weaken an already-beleaguered party in West Bengal. Congress was a distant third in last Lok Sabha polls in the state: TMC got 22 seats, BJP got 18, Congress got 2 (5.7% votes) News point: PM Narendra Modi chides DMK for despising Hindu religion Speaking in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, PM Modi said: India celebrated the Pran Pratishtha of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. A few days ago, a resolution was laid in the Parliament regarding the same. All the members of DMK left the house. This behaviour shows how much the DMK leaders despise your faith. DMK and Congress are hell-bent on dividing the nation. Whereas, BJP considers every person as a family member BJP is a party that follows the principle of Nation First. Our government leaves no stone unturned for the safe return of Indians trapped in crisis all over the world. We safely brought our pilot, Abhinandad from Pakistan. Our govt has rescued many of our fishermen and brought them back safelyThe Indians who were sentenced to death in Qatar were brought back safely by the Government of India. Would this have been possible if there was a Congress or INDI government? he added. DMK is such a party which doesnt do any work but goes ahead to take false credit. Who doesnt know that these people put their stickers on our schemes? Now they have crossed the limit, they have pasted stickers of China to take credit for the ISRO launch pad in Tamil NaduThey are not ready to see the progress of Indias space and with the taxes that you pay, they give advertisements and do not even include a picture of Indias space in it. They did not want to share Indias space success in front of the world, they insulted our scientists, our space sector, your tax money Now the time has come to punish the DMK Why it matters? PM Modi is on a two-day visit to Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. BJP has been pushing hard to make decisive inroads in south Indian states. Lok Sabha elections are due and the saffron party is eyeing a bigger majority than last time. The party has proclaimed that it will win over 400 seats in the upcoming general elections. News point: As Lok Sabha polls near, UP politics continues to churn Uttar Pradesh BSP leader and ex-MLA Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali has joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the presence of party president Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow. Yadav said, Today I congratulate Shah Alam Guddu and his supportersLike Samudra Manthan, this time there will be Samvidhan Manthan in the elections. We are happy that our PDA family is expanding and we will work together to defeat the BJP in 2024 (Lok Sabha elections)" Why it matters? Samajwadi Party has been in a beleaguered state, afflicted by internal squabbles and strained family ties. SP wants to posit itself as the chief contender to the BJP in UP, a stance central to its existence in UP, a state which the BJP has come to dominate almost absolutely. After much heartburn, SP and Congress patched up a tenuous alliance in UP. BSP is, for all practical purposes, has been reduced to a non-entity in UP politics. News point: Himachal CM Sukhu offers to resign A day after six of its MLAs voted in favour of the BJP candidate for the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh, Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday submitted his resignation. According to reports, the decision comes amid revolt by numerous Congress MLAs demanding CM Sukhus resignation. The Congress top brass asked CM Sukhu to step down in order to save their government in Himachal. Why it matters? Earlier, Vikramaditya Singh, son of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh, resigned as the Himachal Pradesh Public Works Minister from the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu cabinet. The developments have given rise to fresh scramble for power in the state, with the BJP transporting six of the Congress MLAs, who cross-voted in favour of the saffron party in Rajys Sabha elections, to Haryana on Tuesday. They, however, returned to Shimla on Wednesday and were greeted with thumping and slogans by BJP MLAs in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly. News point: BJP, quips Cong MLA on query over political loyalty Congress MLA Ravi Thakur, who cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election on Tuesday, said BJP when asked which party he was with. He was responding to media queries outside the assembly. Why it matters? Earlier, son of HP Congress veteran and former chief minister Virbhadra Singh had lambasted the Sukhu-led government of having tried to humiliate his way of functioning in the Cabinet. Vikramaditya Singh had sent shockwaves in HP politics. With MLAs openly talking about defecting to the BJP, the Congress government in the state in on the brink of falling. News point: They tried to humiliate me, says Vikramaditya Singh Shortly after resigning as the Himachal Pradesh Public Works Department Minister, Vikramaditya Singh, son of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh, on Wednesday said there were attempts from some quarters to humiliate his way of functioning as a cabinet minister Why it matters? Vikramaditya Singhs bombshell has brought to fore cracks in the party, which on Tuesday lost the sole Rajya Sabha seat to the BJP and is apparently scrambling to keep its members together to prevent the fall of its government. The election was spoilt for the Congress due to cross-voting by some of its members. I will stay put here with my family till I am relocated, now that my family is without a roof over their head, he told Firstpost. Talking to Firstpost, Hassan alleged that only his house has been targeted by the authorities, that too without any prior notice Wakeel Hasan along with his family at the razed site of his house in Delhi. He headed the group of rat-hole miners who rescued trapped workers in Uttarakhand, last year. Wakeel Hassan, a rat-hole miner by profession and hailed as a national hero for his role in rescuing 41 workers trapped in Uttarkashis Silkyara tunnel last November, now finds himself homeless after a demolition drive by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) razed his house in Khajoori Khas Wednesday. He intends to fight for his family as he fought for the lives of the trapped miners, putting his life on stake. He has decided to stage a hunger strike, along with his family, on the rubble of his house until he gets justice. Advertisement I will stay put here with my family till I am relocated, now that my family is without a roof over their head, he told Firstpost. Talking to Firstpost, Hassan alleged that only his house has been targeted by the authorities, that too without any prior notice or intimation. We rescued 41 people in the Silkyara tunnel and in return I got this. Earlier, I had requested the authorities and the government to give only this house to us as a reward but to no avail. Today, without any information, DDA came and demolished it, Hasan told Firstpost. House of Vakeel Hasan, one of the rat miners who had rescued 40 workers trapped in Uttarkashi tunnel, was demolished by the DDA in Delhi's Khajuri Khas. He said that he was not served with any notice and he along with another rat miner Munna Qureshi were held at police station. pic.twitter.com/Y9KT6eSKq4 Waquar Hasan (@WaqarHasan1231) February 28, 2024 Advertisement Hasan told Firspost that he has been living in this house since 2013. The authorities initiated legal issues against the construction in 2016. The DDA defended the demolition, stating that it was carried out on land designated for planned development. According to a statement from the DDA, the drive aimed to remove encroachments from acquired land in village Khajoori Khas. Advertisement Sharing a video of the demolished area, Hassan revealed that his house was destroyed during the drive. He also mentioned having to visit a police station regarding the incident, accompanied by Munna Qureshi, another member of the Silkyara tunnel rescue team. Qureshi alleged they were beaten up by the police during the confrontation. However, a Delhi Police officer stated that assistance was provided to maintain law and order during the drive, which targeted several illegally constructed structures. Advertisement Hassan and five other members of the rat-hole mining team reside in Khajoori Khas, while the rest are from Uttar Pradeshs Bulandshahr. Their expertise in special mining techniques proved vital in the rescue operation at the Silkyara tunnel, where 41 workers were trapped for around 17 days following a tunnel collapse. #WATCH | Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand: On the successful rescue of all 41 workers from Silkyara tunnel, Rat miner Vakeel Hasan says, "We installed a pipe till 18 metres... Munna and I are partners, and the other 10 are workers... It was an emotional feeling when we saw them and they pic.twitter.com/c4NqYG3pUC ANI (@ANI) November 29, 2023 Advertisement Hasan told Firstpost that he will not leave the razed site until government officials do not do justice with him. Hasan recalled how several political leader including Samajwadi Chief Akhilesh Yadav, Cabinet minister Nitin Gadkari and others felicitated him after his team rescued the trapped workers last year, but at a time when his family is homeless, no one has offered any help yet. This is the first visit by Foreign Secretary Lamsal to India since she assumed charge. During the meeting, the two foreign secretaries held discussions on the entire range of multifaceted cooperation between India and Nepal. Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra held a bilateral meeting with his Nepal counterpart Sewa Lamsal. During the meeting, the two Foreign Secretaries held discussions on the entire range of multifaceted cooperation between India and Nepal. Ms Lamsal is on a visit to India to participate in the 8th Asia Economic Dialogue 2024. This is the first visit of Foreign Secretary Lamsal to India since she assumed charge. Advertisement Lamsal is on a visit to India to participate in the 8th Asia Economic Dialogue 2024, being jointly convened by the Ministry of External Affairs and Pune International Centre on February 29 in Pune. This is the first visit by Foreign Secretary Lamsal to India since she assumed charge. During the meeting, the two foreign secretaries held discussions on the entire range of multifaceted cooperation between India and Nepal. The two sides also followed up on the 7th India-Nepal Joint Commission Meeting, which was co-chaired by the External Affairs Minister, S Jaishankar and the Foreign Minister of Nepal, NP Saud in Kathmandu last month, the Ministry of External Affairs said. The visit is in keeping with the tradition of regular high-level exchanges between the two nations and the priority India attaches to its relations with Nepal under its Neighbourhood First policy. Advertisement The high-level visit provides an opportunity to further advance India-Nepal bilateral ties. With inputs from ANI. The meeting was held against the backdrop of a row over the alleged assassination attempt on top Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Panun, a US citizen. The US has been demanding accountability in the matter. Cooperation in the field of internal security, intelligence sharing, and activities of pro-Khalistani elements in America were discussed at the India-US Homeland Security Dialogue held here on Wednesday, sources told PTI. During the dialogue, both sides reviewed ongoing cooperation in counter-terrorism and security domains, which has been a key pillar of the India-US strategic partnership, said the official. In this context, they discussed steps that can be taken to bolster bilateral efforts to combat terrorism and violent extremism, drug trafficking, organised crime and ensure transportation security. Advertisement They also reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the vibrant people-to-people ties between the two countries, by taking steps to enable safe and legal migration, counter illegal migration, human trafficking, money laundering, cyber-crimes, and misuse of the cyber domain for illegal activities including terror-financing. While the Indian delegation was led by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, the US delegation was headed by his counterpart from the United States Department of Homeland Security. Besides cooperation between the law enforcement agencies of the two countries, the meeting discussed intelligence sharing on matters related to online radicalisation, cyber attacks, and digital frauds, among others, sources said. The co-chairs reiterated their keen interest in consolidating the mutually beneficial collaboration between the respective law enforcement agencies through an exchange of information, capacity building, technical assistance and regular meetings of sub-groups set up under the framework of the Homeland Security Dialogue. Advertisement The meeting was held against the backdrop of a row over the alleged assassination attempt on top Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Panun, a US citizen. The US has been demanding accountability in the matter. India is also seeking action against the pro-Khalistan elements involved in the July 2023 attack on the Indian consulate in San Francisco, sources said. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has identified over 50 pro-Khalistan activists who had attacked the consulate in San Francisco. Advertisement New Delhi is also pushing for the extradition of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana. A US court had dismissed Ranas appeal against extradition. Cooperation in counterterrorism, cyber security, trans-border illegal immigration, extradition, aviation security, and maritime security are other issues that figured in the meeting, sources said. The last India-US homeland security dialogue was held in January 2022. A joint statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs on November 10, 2023, after the Fifth Annual India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue said: The Ministers decided to convene the 20th Meeting of the India-U.S. Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism and the 5th Designations Dialogue at a mutually convenient date early next year. Advertisement Both sides are looking forward to the next edition of the Homeland Security Dialogue in 2024, where leaders will advance security cooperation, through capacity building and other activities. With inputs from agencies. There were from some quarters attempts to humiliate me in my functioning as a cabinet ministerI respect the CM but there has to be coordination among the Council of MinistersThis is a breach of trust, something that has led to where we are standing today, said Vikramaditya Singh Shortly after resigning as the Himachal Pradesh Public Works Department Minister, Vikramaditya Singh, son of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh, on Wednesday said there were attempts from some quarters to humiliate his way of functioning as a cabinet minister and rued the lack of coordination among the Council of Ministers in the state which has brought the Congress to a position that they find themselves in. Advertisement #WATCH | Shimla | Congress MLA Vikramaditya Singh holds a press conference following the Himachal Pradesh Rajya Sabha election result. He says, "I have always respected the leadership and the CM and contributed toward running the government with due discipline. I am not pic.twitter.com/6wCRPwk5yj ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Addressing a press conference in Shimla on Wednesday, Vikramaditya said, There were from some quarters attempts to humiliate me in my functioning as a cabinet ministerI respect the CM but there has to be coordination among the Council of MinistersThis is a breach of trust, something that has led to where we are standing today Advertisement He said that he has always respected the Congress leadership and Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and contributed toward running the government with due discipline. However, I am not appreciating myself today, he added. When asked if he will continue in the party, he said that he will hold due discussions and deliberations with his people and supporters and decide the future course of action. Advertisement #WATCH | Congress MLA Vikramaditya Singh resigns as a minister in the Himachal Pradesh cabinet. When asked if he will continue in the party, he says, "I am there where I am. In the times to come, I will hold due discussions and deliberations with my people, supporters, and pic.twitter.com/IsEzTsslB9 ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Advertisement I am there where I am. In the times to come, I will hold due discussions and deliberations with my people, supporters, and well-wishers. After due discussions, we will take the future course of action, added Singh. Advertisement Speaking about his father, who was the CM of the state for six times, he said that the current Congress government could not find a small space for his statue at Mall Road and this has hurt him emotionally. #WATCH | Congress MLA Vikramaditya Singh tears up; says, "...Someone who was the CM of the state for 6 times, due to whom this Government was formed in the state - they could not find a small space for his statue at Mall Road. This is the respect this Government has shown to my pic.twitter.com/hPmthEtl74 ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Advertisement Someone who was the CM of the state for 6 times, due to whom this government was formed in the state - they could not find a small space for his statue at Mall Road. This is the respect this government has shown to my late father. We are emotional people, we have nothing to do with postsBut this is very unfortunateI am very hurt, not politically but emotionally, said Singh. Advertisement The announcement from the Congress lawmaker brought fore cracks in the party, which on Tuesday lost the sole Rajya Sabha seat to the BJP and is apparently scrambling to keep its members together to prevent the fall of its government. The election was spoilt for the Congress due to cross-voting by some of its members. Advertisement Vikramaditya Singh is an MLA from Shimla Rural. With inputs from agencies The year was 2011 and the UPA government was in power. The Indian Army had conducted an internal study, findings of which were presented to the Cabinet Committee on Security. It consisted of a scathing report on Indias lack of preparedness against China in case of a war. According to the study, the Indian Army was facing a critical shortage of 60,000 worth of ammunition and war equipment which accounted for around 10 per cent of its total inventory. Forget modernisation, the worlds second-largest army didnt even have enough provisions to safeguard the countrys national security with former army chief General Deepak Kapoor categorically stating after the 26/11 attack on Mumbai that the army was not ready for a war. Advertisement India was so ill-equipped to take on Pakistan, its much less powerful nemesis that the deadline to achieve a 1.5 times superiority over their army remained a pipe dream even in 2012. While this came as a shock at that time, the truth was that it was a pattern that had continued since India had a face-off with China in 1962. Beyond Nehruvian idealism that failed to foresee and even denied any military threat, India also faced a critical shortage of weapons to fight China in the eventual war. Some experts note that India was short of anti-tank guns, radio field sets, field cable, wireless batteries and even trucks and personnel to operate them. Not to mention the use of .303 rifles by Indian troops that were last used only during World War 1. A country which spans almost the entire Indian subcontinent and has a territory which traverses from the mighty Himalayas to the Indian Ocean should naturally maintain a formidable military strength with access to the most state-of-the-art weapons. But the truth remained much more bitter than that. India in the six decades after its independence not only remained a poorly equipped military as also noted in the CCS report in 2011. But most of its defence requirements were outsourced to other countries with India earning the reputation of the worlds largest arms importer every year since 1993. Advertisement While Indian dependency on foreign arms imports continued to be as high as 12 per cent in 2013, countries such as Russia, France and the United States benefitted from the large Indian market. In 2014 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed power, this dependence of India on foreign countries for defence equipment continued to be a huge impediment to his otherwise ambitious foreign policy. It is a much-agreed fact in strategic circles that a countrys self-reliance in defence production is a key prerequisite for it to have an autonomous foreign policy as well as a powerful status in the world. All great powers right from the ancient Roman empire to the United States and the Soviet Union enjoying the status of superpower during the Cold War were backed by their tall military-industry complex. Advertisement The Roman Empire had a large military industry where huge workshops and big camps produced a slew of standardised weapons. Even China which has emerged as a global power in the 21st century has invested a great deal of effort in becoming a major arms exporter. Today it stands as the fourth largest arms exporter in the world behind only the US, Russia and France. Advertisement In comparison, India was not only a poorly equipped army but even its defence production industry was far from adequate. However, in the last decade, things have turned around for much better when it comes to Indias indigenous defence manufacturing. Last week Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was speaking at a defence conclave organised by Firstpost in New Delhi. As per him, in just a decade today, Indias defence exports have increased from a mere 1000 crore to 16,000 crore. Also, India which was nowhere in the defence export rankings has finally broken into the top 25 arm exporter countries. The credit for this goes to Prime Minister Modis emphasis on indigenous defence production. In 2020 when India launched the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, a significant focus of this atmanirbharta was also on the defence manufacturing industry. Advertisement One of the biggest moves that the Modi government made was to outrightly ban the import of defence equipment in a phased manner with more than 1,000 defence items restricted from imports. Thanks to this spirit of self-reliance, Indias domestic production of defence equipment has crossed 1 lakh crore annually. At the Firstpost Defence Conclave, Singh also spoke about Indias goal to achieve 3 lakh crore annual defence production by the end of this decade. India is also targeting to increase its defence exports from 16000 crore to around 50,000 crore in the same period. One may say that India has now transitioned into a net exporter of arms, unlike the past many decades when it was a net importer of arms. The interest in Indias defence manufacturing industry is only growing with some of the offerings such as LCA Tejas, Brahmos missiles, Akash missile system, artillery guns as well as conventional weapon systems attracting global attention. Advertisement More than 85 countries buy defence equipment from India today and as per the Department of Defence Production website, the list includes big players such as Russia and France to Indias neighbours such as Sri Lanka, Nepal and Maldives. Indias defence indigenisation is powered by a partnership between the public and the private sector. On one hand, Indias arms ordnance factories that were loss-making units have now become profitable after their corporatisation. On the other hand, more than 100 Indian firms and more than 200 defence start-ups are powering Indias self-reliance push in domestic defence production. Advertisement In 2047 when India will complete its 100 years of Independence from British rule, then Prime Minister Modis vision to have an indigenous defence production industry in the country, which will not only for India but also the world, will play a key role in its ambitions. Indias pursuit of economic growth to become the third largest economy is part of its desire to become a great power. This was one of the key points in the Bhartiya Janata Partys manifesto. But a similar commitment was also required to create Indias indigenous defence production capability. The good news is that Modis second term is ending with an ode to the same. The foundation for an Indian military-industry complex has been laid. Indias pursuit of self-reliance in defence production is all set to power its global dreams. Advertisement The author is a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. She writes on Indias foreign policy. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram . There has been no meaningful agreement between Beijing and Taipei on fishing rights in the waters around Taiwans off-shore islands (File) In this handout photograph provided by Taiwan Coast Guard Administration, Taiwanese coast guards inspect a vessel that capsized during a chase off the coast of Kinmen archipelago in Taiwan, on 14 February, 2024. The unnamed vessel had been sailing about one nautical mile off the coast of an islet of Kinmen island and was trespassing, said Taiwans Coast Guard Administration. AP Any plans China and Taiwan had for Valentines Day were derailed when, on 14 February, 2024, a Chinese fishing boat with four fishermen on board capsized near the Kinmen Islands, leading to the deaths of two of the fishermen. The incident occurred when the fishing boat became embroiled in a high-speed chase to evade patrol vessel CP-1051 of the 12th Patrol District of the Taiwanese Coast Guard Administrations (TGCA) Kinmen-Matsu-Penghu branch. Advertisement The chase reportedly lasted only five minutes but has highlighted the structural lack of meaningful communication in cross-Straits relations on basic issues such as fishing rights. At the same time, the incident also brings to light the nature of law enforcement activities the TCGA is required to engage in on a regular basis, given the sensitivity of the issue of illicit fishing for local populations as well as the tense cross-Straits relationship. The challenge Illicit fishing by Chinese fishing vessels has deep humanitarian and environmental impacts in the waters around the three Taiwan-governed off-shore islands, namely Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu. Of these, the Kinmen and Matsu groups of islands are much closer to the territory of mainland China than Taiwan proper, and this has made them virtually indefensible against the activities of Chinese fishermens boats, the Coast Guard, and the Peoples Liberation Army Navy. Advertisement These boats, in particular, operate under three n oes"no vessel name, no ship certificate, and no registered home portand come in various forms, from boats meant specifically for the fishing of squids to sand-mining dredgers that collect tonnes of seafloor sand. The former drastically deplete marine resources and cause overfishing, while the latter cause great destruction to seabed marine life and lead to the reduction of beach sizes through desilting. Advertisement In addition, squid-fishing boats that deploy green LED lights to attract cephalopods to the surface impact the dark sky tourism industry in Matsu, which is based on the phenomenon of phosphorescence caused by bioluminescent algae around the islands waters. This has had both significant economic impacts on the local tourism industry as well as light pollution-related challenges for residents. Advertisement Similarly, sand-dredgers cause severe noise pollution for residents, creating grave local sensitivity to the challenges posed by the increasing activities of Chinese boats. Most importantly, there is a political angle emerging from tense cross-Straits relations that adds to the woes of the TCGA and exacerbates the need for law enforcement activities such as the one conducted against the Chinese fishing boat near Kinmen. Advertisement As per the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (hereby referred to as the Act ), passed by the Taiwanese Executive Yuan in 1992, to varying degrees, the waters around Kinmen, Matsu, and Penghu are marked as prohibited or restricted for Chinese vessels. The Act empowers Taiwanese authorities to take relevant punitive actions against any vessels that enter these zones without permission from relevant authorities. Advertisement But because of the grey-zone nature of Taiwans international legal status, as well as Chinas incessant denial of the existence of such prohibited or restricted zones, there has been no meaningful agreement between the two sides on fishing rights in the waters around the off-shore islands. China argues that these waters have been open to fishing and tourism for people on both sides of the Straits historically, and any demarcation of waters as prohibited or restricted is incompatible with the fundamentals of cross-Straits relations. Advertisement As a result, even though Chinese Coast Guard vessels have largely complied with the demarcations, steering rarely into restricted waters, fishermen boats, such as one that recently capsized near Kinmen, have regularly strayed into what Taiwan refers to as prohibited waters. The responses In the context of the abovementioned humanitarian, environmental, and political challenges, the TCGA undertook punitive measures against the Chinese fishing boat in accordance with the powers entrusted under Articles 29 and 32 of the Act. The boat, as the Taiwanese Mainland Affairs Council has argued in subsequent press releases, was overturned due to its risky manoeuvres evading inspection by Taiwanese authorities. While two of the four crew members on board the fishing vessel lost their lives, the other two are currently in holding with the Kinmen District Prosecutors office. Advertisement China has responded to the incident, albeit in a relatively muted manner. To begin with, Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Mainland Taiwan Affairs Office, has demanded an immediate investigation from Taiwan on the truth of the incident and has condemned the TCGA for its malicious act. Subsequently, the Fujian province maritime police (coast guard) has announced intensified efforts to survey waters in the Xiamen-Kinmen area and perform exercises such as formation sailing, identification and verification, guarding and protecting fishing, and issuing warnings through verbal communication. Advertisement This increased presence and activity is also manifesting itself in some tense encounters. For example, on 19 February, the TCGA reported that six personnel from two Chinese coast guard vessels even boarded a Taiwanese tourist ship, the Jin Xia Cruise vessel, to inspect the vessels navigation plan, ship documents, captain and crew licences, and the captains signature. A day later, on 20 February, Chinese coast guard vessel 8029 entered the restricted waters around Kinmen and had to be accompanied by a TCGA vessel till it eventually left after surveilling the waters for about an hour. Advertisement Next steps It now remains to be seen how the investigation opened up in Taiwan plays out. What has seemingly struck the family members of the deceased and captive fishermen, and many others in both China and Taiwan asking questions, is that there is no video footage of the incident. The TCGA has attributed the lack of visual or audio evidence to the high-speed nature of the chase and the inability of the evidence collection crew to retrieve the handheld camera equipment in time (as the chase lasted only five minutes). Moreover, the TCGA has argued that the crew was focused largely on balancing the vessel in the face of extensive rocking by waves and on preparing against forceful boarding by the fishermens boat. Now that the case is with the Kinmen Prosecutors Office, the TCGA has encouraged the afflicted to put faith in Taiwans judicial system and has defended its actions as routine law enforcement activity with no political or malicious intent. Advertisement the past, Kinmen and Matsu have been the sites for missile shelling by China during the Second Taiwan Straits Conflict of 1958. Now, analysts argue they could be the sites for Chinas first steps towards taking over Taiwan, given their virtually indefensible nature against Chinese naval activity. The military-security aspect is exacerbated by environmental concerns surrounding the slow degradation of marine resources due to incessant Chinese fishing activities around these waters and the economic and humanitarian impacts of overfishing and light and noise pollution. Forgotten for decades, the geopolitical and bilateral relevance of these off-shore islands is immense in cross-Straits dynamics, and this incident has revived some of the debates around safety and security associated with these waters. The author is a research analyst with the Takshashila Institution, a public policy think tank based out of Bengaluru, India. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_s views_. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram . What begins with a mess often ends in a mess. Bluntly stated, this is what has happened in Pakistan post the general elections. Every political party claims it has won, though in fact democracy has lost in the country, yet again. Never mind the endorsement of the United States, which called the elections free, fair and competitive. Internet was shut down; mobile phone operations stood disrupted; Army personnel were reportedly stationed in polling booths; the main Opposition leader was put behind bars; and, his party was divested of its election symbol (it, therefore, backed independent candidates). Advertisement We have been treated to the theatre of the absurd. Leader X comes to power with the patronage of the Army, which helps depose the incumbent, Y, who in turn repairs to a safe haven abroad. X begins his tenure with great elan, promising to deliver a Naya (new) Pakistan. He says and does what his patron wants, not forgetting the usual sabre-rattling against India. Somewhere along the way, though, either he gets too big for his boots or the Army feels the old itch to reassert itself, the relationship between the leader and the Army begins to sour. Suddenly, X discovers warts and moles in the Army, all of which he had miraculously missed seeing only months ago. Friction turns into a full-blown conflict. Its time for X to be shown the door. Almost overnight, Xs majority evaporates. Opposition parties gang up and defeat him in Parliament. A new government comes along, with the Armys blessings, led by the brother of the Y, the very same leader whom the Army had conspired to depose and who had been sent packing abroad. A few months later, elections are held, the exiled leader returns home to contestboth the Army and Y show admirable mutual large-heartedness in a spirit of forgive and forget. Advertisement But the results come as a shocker. Despite the Army throwing its weight, Ys party fails to get a majority. Worse, the independents backed by X, who had minced no words in castigating the Army, emerge victorious in large numbers; taken together, that number is more than the seats won by either Ys party or by another, main mainstream outfit, which too had in the past done business with the Army. Advertisement This is an embarrassment for the Army. Damage control is called for, and that means Y and other parties opposed to the jailed leader have to come together and form a government to prevent Xs men from gaining power. Y, the leader who has returned from exile, is the natural candidate to helm the new government, but he politely refuses, sensing the unstable nature of the potential coalition; instead, he forwards the name of his brother, until recently the Prime Minister. But was it just political astuteness, or was there something else at play? We dont know. Advertisement Welcome to yet another round of democracy in Pakistan. A country in which no direct general elections were held in the entire first decade since it came into existence. A country, which has had many constitutions, quite a few military coups, and where no prime minister has completed his or her full five-year term. Advertisement To take the most recent incident, here is how the farce unfolded: Imran Khan loses power in a no-confidence vote in Parliament and his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, is ousted; he is arrested, literally dragged from the court and dumped into prison; he receives various jail terms in multiple cases; the National Assembly is dissolved and a caretaker prime minister and his government is installed; once deposed Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan after a four-year self-imposed exile abroad; his earlier convictions and sentences are overturned; the Supreme Court scraps a lifetime ban on politicians with criminal convictions from contesting polls. All of a sudden, Nawaz Sharif becomes squeaky clean and fit to take part in elections as the head of his party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). Advertisement Perhaps no other people have followed the developments in Pakistan as excitedly as those in India. That is understandable, given the shared history and the divided geography. But for all the enthusiasm, the bare fact is: The more things change in Pakistan, the more they remain the same for India. As long as the Pakistan Army remains invested and entrenched in the politics of its country, India-Pakistan relationship will continue to be in deep freeze. Advertisement The Pakistan Armys attitude towards India has been shaped over the decades by a set of perceptions that can only be termed as ridiculous, though they have resulted in tragic outcomes for Pakistanconsider the wars of 1965 and 1971 and the Kargil conflictand for India, which bore the brunt of Pakistan-backed terror attacks. Essentially, those perceptions are: Hindu India has not reconciled to the creation of a Muslim Pakistan; the Hindus, being the weaker race compared to the Muslims, understand only the language of force; the Hindus are devious and must be cut to size. Advertisement If this sounds like an exaggeration, read former Pakistani diplomat Husain Haqqanis book, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military. He provides excerpts from a research paper authored by Javed Hassan (who wrote it as a Lt Colonel and was later elevated to the designation of Lt General) for the Pakistan Armys Faculty of Research and Doctrinal Studies. Lt General Hassan wrote that India had a historical inability to exist as a single unified state; that the Hindu was presumptuous, persistent and devious; and, that India has a poor track record at projection off power beyond its frontier and what is worse a hopeless performance in protecting its own freedom and sovereignty. Advertisement The Pakistan Army believedand believesthat Kashmir can be snatched away from India through such machinations. The Pakistan Armys other key collaborator in the anti-India campaign has been radical Islamists. Since the Army could not for obvious reasons dirty its hands, the ground execution of terrorist strikes was left to Jihadists of various kinds, trained, armed and financed by the Pakistani deep state, which includes the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). There are numerous instances of Pakistan Army personnel stationed at the Line of Control, providing cover fire to terrorists who try to sneak into or enter India. Advertisement But well before Lt General Hassan formally presented his doctrinal idea, they were part of the Pakistan Armys mindset. Every single Army chief in Pakistan seemed to believe in them; and, every single action that they took, was sought to be justified on the strength of those thoughts. The use of terrorism to bleed India with a thousand cuts, has been the most favoured of the strategies that flowed from that ingrained doctrine. Civilian governments were also goaded by the Army to follow that tracknot that they needed much persuasion, since they were in power due to the Armys munificence. Advertisement So, whether it is Shehbaz Sharif or Nawaz Sharif or Imran Khan, the story has been the same. Most certainly, it was the same when Army Generals (Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf) directly governed Pakistan. And, it will remain the same. Let us, therefore, in India, sit back and keep an eye on the unravellings across the borderand be prepared for the worst, because hoping for the best in the given circumstances would be a delusion. The writer is an author and a public affairs analyst. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram . OpenAI is accusing The New York Times of hacking ChatGPT and other OpenAI products to build a case against them. OpenAI contends that by manipulating their products, NYT has violated their terms and conditions and illegally collecting and fabricating evidence OpenAI is accusing The New York Times of 'hacking' ChatGPT and other OpenAI products to build a case against them. OpenAI contends that by manipulating their products, NYT has violated their terms and conditions and illegally collecting and fabricating evidence OpenAI has moved to dismiss portions of The New York Times copyright lawsuit against it, alleging that the newspaper improperly manipulated its chatbot ChatGPT and other AI systems to fabricate evidence for the case, thus breaking their terms and conditions. In a filing submitted to a federal court in Manhattan on Monday, OpenAI argued that the Times engaged in what it termed as hacking by inducing the technology to replicate its content through deceptive prompts that violated OpenAIs terms of use, as reported by Reuters. Advertisement According to OpenAI, the allegations levelled by the Times fail to meet the rigorous journalistic standards for accuracy. OpenAI contends that the truth, which will be revealed during the legal proceedings, is that the Times paid someone to manipulate OpenAIs products. The Times initiated legal action against OpenAI and its primary financial supporter, Microsoft, in December, alleging unauthorised use of millions of its articles to train chatbots. This lawsuit is part of a broader trend where copyright owners, including authors, visual artists, and music publishers, have sued tech firms over the purported misuse of their work in AI training. Tech companies, including OpenAI, have argued that their AI systems utilize copyrighted material fairly and that such lawsuits pose a threat to the growth of the burgeoning multitrillion-dollar AI industry. The Times complaint accuses OpenAI and Microsoft of attempting to exploit the newspapers substantial investment in journalism and create a substitute for its content. It points to instances where chatbots produced nearly identical excerpts from Times articles upon request. Advertisement In response, OpenAI stated in its filing that it required the Times tens of thousands of attempts to generate such anomalous outcomes, highlighting that under normal circumstances, ChatGPT cannot readily reproduce Times articles on demand. (With inputs from agencies) A huge portion of Victoria has been granted an extreme fire rating, with the Wimmera region in the west receiving the highest warning level. The Bureau of Meteorology reported that temperatures in Mildura, a little town of 56,000 people, might reach 45 degrees Celsius About 60 miles (95 km) west of Melbourne, close to the city of Ballarat, hundreds of firemen were still fighting a major conflagration Image Courtesy Reuters Authorities in Victoria state, which is experiencing its worst weather in four years, ordered hundreds of thousands of inhabitants to evacuate on Wednesday owing to an extreme heatwave that they claimed might spread a large blaze. A huge portion of Victoria has been granted an extreme fire rating, with the Wimmera region in the west receiving the highest warning level. The Bureau of Meteorology reported that temperatures in Mildura, a little town of 56,000 people, might reach 45 degrees Celsius. Advertisement Authorities asked some 30,000 people living in various rural villages to evacuate by Wednesday morning, citing a probable fire effect zone. Today will be a very challenging day for firefighters, Jason Heffernan, Chief Officer at Victoria fire department told the media. Today is one of those days when communities may need to take immediate action at very short notice. About 60 miles (95 km) west of Melbourne, close to the city of Ballarat, hundreds of firemen were still fighting a major conflagration. Since it started last Thursday, the fire has burned almost 20,000 hectares (200 square kilometers), destroyed six homes, and killed cattle. On Thursday, a heat wave is predicted to move in from Australias outback interior, passing through Victoria and then probably going east to the state of New South Wales. Many cities have complete restrictions on fires, Melbourne included. Advertisement According to Heffernan, strong winds predicted for Wednesday afternoon might spread the current fire near Ballarat, while dry lightning could start new ones. Heffernan urged people to reconsider any decision to stay back to protect their homes. Unless your property is immaculately prepared and you have firefighting resources available and you are fit and you are mentally capable to sustain a long duration firefight my strong advice to the community is to leave early, he said. Western retaliation on Houthi military sites has been sparked by the Houthi militia, who govern the most populated areas of Yemen, firing missiles and drones that explode at ships that have commercial connections to the United States, Great Britain, and Israel In support of the Palestinians, the Houthis have threatened to keep attacking Israeli-affiliated ships until Israeli forces end their conflict in Gaza Image Courtesy Reuters Ambrey, a British marine security company, reported on Tuesday that it had learned of an incident that had occurred about 50 nautical miles west of Hodeidah, the port in Yemens Red Sea. Ambrey noted in an alert note that a cargo vessel reported that a warship was firing. Western retaliation on Houthi military sites has been sparked by the Houthi militia, who govern the most populated areas of Yemen, firing missiles and drones that explode at ships that have commercial connections to the United States, Great Britain, and Israel. Advertisement In support of the Palestinians, the Houthis have threatened to keep attacking Israeli-affiliated ships until Israeli forces end their conflict in Gaza. The confrontation between Israel and the Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas has caused unrest throughout the Middle East. In order to illegally avoid paying duty, federal prosecutors claimed that Shahs accomplices in South Korea would rename the jewelry to appear as though it originated in South Korea rather than Turkey or India. They would then ship the jewelry to Shah or his clients in the US. In order to create the impression that Shahs South Korean enterprises were truly acquiring jewelry from Turkey or India, he would also create fictitious invoices and packing lists and give his customers instructions to create them. In addition to the Houthi strikes on crucial maritime routes, Iraqi militia groups have attacked bases that house American personnel, and Lebanons Hezbollah, an organization supported by Iran, has engaged Israel in gunfire along the Israel-Lebanon border. Advertisement Major Danish shipping company Maersk has issued a warning about severe traffic jams and delays for cargo headed to the United States, as well as disruptions to container shipping across the Red Sea that might last into the second half of the year. (With agency inputs) Last year, Beijing published a paper proposing a political settlement to the conflict that, according to Western nations, would allow Russia to keep most of the territory it has taken over in Ukraine China claims to be an impartial party in the conflict in Ukraine, but it has come under fire for not denouncing Moscows invasion in February 2022. Last year, Beijing published a paper proposing a political settlement to the conflict that, according to Western nations, would allow Russia to keep most of the territory it has taken over in Ukraine. Advertisement On Wednesday, the Chinese officials, however stated that restoring peace is the most urgent thing at the moment,. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning told a briefing, In the last two years, we have never given up in our efforts to promote peace and have never stopped promoting talks. Everything we have done leads to one target, which is to build consensus to end the war and pave the way for peace talks, she said. We will continue to play our unique role, conduct shuttle diplomacy, build consensus among all parties, and contribute Chinese wisdom to promote a political settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, Mao said. China and Russia have in recent years ramped up economic cooperation and diplomatic contacts, and their strategic partnership has grown closer since the invasion of Ukraine. Advertisement Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin declared during a summit in Moscow last year that ties were entering a new era. And in Russia this week, Chinas Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong declared relations are at their best period in history. Analysts say China holds the upper hand in the relationship with Russia and that its sway is growing as Moscows international isolation deepens. Advertisement With inputs from AFP On January 5, Sri Lanka, while denying entry to the Xiang Yang Hong 03, said it has declared a moratorium on foreign research ships entering its waters for a year amid concerns from India over Chinese research vessels docking in its neighbourhood. A state-of-the-art Chinese research vessel weighing 4,500 tonnes, which recently docked in the Maldives has departed from the countrys shores, according to local media reports on Wednesday. Officially, the Chinese vessel Xiang Yang Hong 3 visited the port for the purpose of personnel rotation and replenishment. Following its port call in Male on February 22, the Xiang Yang Hong 03 has returned to the boundary of the Maldives Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). However, tracking sites indicate that the vessels last signal was detected near Hulhumale two days ago, despite its departure from the Male harbour, news portal Adhadhu.com said. Advertisement Hulhumale is less than 10 kms northeast of Male. The vessel had docked on February 23 in Thilafushi, about 7.5 kms to the west of Male. The vessel is expected to have turned off tracking systems, which it also did en route to Male on January 22 when it was in the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia, it reported. The news portal also provided some details about the type of vessel Xiang Yang Hong 03. The 100-metre-long vessel was added to the fleet of Chinas State Oceanic Administration (SOA) in 2016. This is the only 4,500-tonne vessel currently in China. Since 2019, China has also been using the vessel to conduct distant water and deep sea surveys at Chinas Pilot Ocean Laboratory, it said. Advertisement The vessel can also be used for studies on salinity, microbial genetic studies, underwater mineral exploration, and underwater life and environmental studies, it said. It has data buoys that can measure ocean currents, waves, and important environmental information. These buoys will provide real-time satellite information to the Chinese government, the report said. Advertisement On January 5, Sri Lanka, while denying entry to the Xiang Yang Hong 03, said it has declared a moratorium on foreign research ships entering its waters for a year amid concerns from India over Chinese research vessels docking in its neighbourhood. Incidentally, the Chinese vessel was present near the India-Maldives-Sri Lanka trilateral Dosti-16 exercise that took place in the ocean near Male between February 22 and 25. Advertisement Earlier on January 23, the new China-friendly Maldives government said it had permitted the research vessel, equipped to carry research and surveys, to dock at Male port, saying the halt was for replenishment and that it would not be conducting any research while in the Maldivian waters. An American think-tank has alleged that a vast fleet of Chinas scientific research ships is collecting data from the oceans, including in the Indian Ocean Region, for military purposes, especially for submarine operations, a charge denied by Beijing, which said the Chinese vessels operations are in line with the UN Convention on Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). Advertisement Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesperson has previously defended the port call by the Chinese research ship to the Maldives saying, Chinas scientific research activities in relevant waters are for peaceful purposes and aimed at contributing to humanitys scientific understanding of the ocean. The Maldives proximity to India, barely 70 nautical miles from the island of Minicoy in Lakshadweep and 300 nautical miles from the mainlands western coast, and its location at the hub of commercial sea lanes running through the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) gives it significant strategic importance. Advertisement With inputs from agencies. Germany received the most applications by far last year, with 334,000 people seeking asylum, but Cyprus was under the greatest pressure from migrants wanting to stay on the island, relative to its population. Migrants stand in groups as they arrive at a bus stop after leaving a processing facility, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, in San Diego.- AP The European Union said Wednesday that in 2023, the number of asylum seekers in Europe surged to a seven-year peak, with over 1.1 million individuals applying for international protection. The majority of these applicants were Syrian nationals. The rise in asylum seekers and other migrants has sparked divisions across many European nations. On one side are those advocating for stricter border controls and the rejection of more arrivals, while on the other side are those advocating for the continued welcoming of individuals fleeing persecution. Advertisement There has been a notable increase in the number of migrants from various African countries, particularly from Tunisia, Libya, and Algeria, reported this year. According to the International Organization for Migration, a total of 213,896 migrants from Africa arrived in Europe via three Mediterranean routes from January to September. This figure represents a 60% rise compared to the same period in 2022 and a 105% increase compared to the previous year. Under international refugee law, people have the right to apply for asylum when they are fleeing conflict, fear for their safety or due to possible persecution over their race, gender, sexuality or religion. In Europe, people who apply because they are seeking jobs or better lives are often refused entry. The EU asylum agencys figures are compiled from claims in the 27 countries of the bloc, plus Norway and Switzerland. Advertisement The agency said 181,000 Syrians sought asylum last year a 38% rise from 2022 while Afghan nationals made up the second biggest group, with 114,000 claims filed, though the number of Afghans was 11% down, compared to 2022. Syrians stood the best chance of all nationalities of having their claims accepted, the agency said. More Palestinians lodged asylum applications last year nearly 11,600, or two-thirds higher than the year before. Advertisement Germany received the most applications by far last year, with 334,000 people seeking asylum, but Cyprus was under the greatest pressure from migrants wanting to stay on the island, relative to its population. The agency said 12,000 people applied for protection in Cyprus in 2023. France received 167,000 applications, Spain 162,000, and Italy 136,000. Combined with Germany, the four received more than two-thirds of all the applications made in 2023. Advertisement People from Turkey a candidate to become an EU member, though its talks are at a standstill over concerns about democratic and human rights standards also applied in far greater numbers, with 101,000 asylum applications by Turkish citizens, up 82% from 2022. Around one-fifth of all the claims were made by people entitled to visa-free travel in Europe, including 68,000 Venezuelans and 63,000 Colombians. Advertisement The rise in applications, along with Europe welcoming in, at least temporarily, more than 4.4 million Ukrainians who have fled the war since Russias invasion two years ago, is overwhelming Europes asylum capacities. The agency said that in December, it was helping 13 countries to cope. With inputs from AP. Boeing has scrambled to explain and strengthen safety procedures after a door panel detached during a Jan. 5 flight on a brand new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing while passengers were exposed to a gaping hole 16,000 feet above the ground. The final version of the 737 MAX, the MAX 10, takes off from Renton Airport in Renton, Wash., on its first flight Friday, June 18, 2021. File Image- AP In the Federal Aviation Administrations (FAA) latest push for safety improvements after a panel came off a Boeing 737 Max 9 jet in flight in early January, the regulator on Wednesday asked Boeing to submit a comprehensive action plan within 90 days to address quality-control concerns. The agency said that the directive follows meetings with top Boeing officials, including the companys CEO at FAA headquarters in Washington. Advertisement Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements, said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker. Making foundational change will require a sustained effort from Boeings leadership, and we are going to hold them accountable every step of the way." The FAA said the new deadline comes after FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker met with Boeing CEO David Calhoun and other top company officials. Calhoun said that we have a clear picture of what needs to be done because of company and independent reviews. Boeing will develop the comprehensive action plan with measurable criteria that demonstrates the profound change that Administrator Whitaker and the FAA demand. Boeing has scrambled to explain and strengthen safety procedures after a door panel detached during a Jan. 5 flight on a brand new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing while passengers were exposed to a gaping hole 16,000 feet above the ground. Advertisement The FAA is currently completing an audit of assembly lines at the factory near Seattle, where Boeing builds planes like the 737 Max that suffered a door-panel blowout in January. Investigators say bolts that help keep the panel in place were missing after repair work on the Alaska Airlines jet at the Boeing factory. Advertisement This week, a panel of industry, government and academic experts issued a report that found shortcomings in the safety culture at Boeing, which the company says it has been working to improve. Boeing this month replaced the executive who had overseen the 737 program since early 2021. With inputs from agencies. For Governor Buitron, the joy and gratitude of the people fuel his determination to tackle challenges. His relentless commitment to restoring faith, revitalising the economy, and creating opportunities highlights the citys remarkable transformation The lively streets of Ecuadors port city, Esmeraldas, are now pulsating with the rhythm of Latin music and cheerful laughter, marking a remarkable shift from its turbulent past. Nestled along the beachfront, the bustling main road boasts a vibrant atmosphere, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and bustling bars and restaurants on the other. Amid the summer vibes and carnival atmosphere, tourists revel in the festivities, savoring icy cocktails while soaking in the seaside ambiance. Advertisement Yet, beneath this newfound vibrancy lies a tale of transformation. Previously plagued by crime, Esmeraldas was once a city besieged by drug gangs and violence. Patrolled by heavily armed marines, the streets bore witness to a relentless battle against criminal elements, casting a shadow over the citys allure. However, a decisive turnaround orchestrated by Governor Javier Buitron, in collaboration with law enforcement and military personnel, has ushered in a new era of peace and prosperity. In just 26 days, authorities reclaimed control of the streets, dismantled gang strongholds, and restored order to once-troubled neighborhoods. Residents, once gripped by fear, now celebrate the citys resurgence. In a SkyNews report, Leonardo, a local resident, recalled the days when gunfire echoed through the streets, contrasting it with the newfound calmness that pervades Esmeraldas today. Similarly, Andrea acknowledged the dramatic improvement in safety, noting the absence of shootings that once plagued their daily lives. Advertisement Governor Buitron, despite facing threats from criminal elements, remains undeterred in his mission to uplift the city. Embraced by the community, he traverses the streets, greeted with admiration and gratitude from residents who see him as a beacon of hope. For Governor Buitron, the joy and gratitude of the people fuel his determination to tackle challenges head-on. His relentless commitment to restoring faith, revitalising the economy, and creating opportunities highlights the citys remarkable transformation. Advertisement As Esmeraldas emerges from the shadows of its tumultuous past, it stands as a testament to resilience and resolve. From a once-dreaded crime epicenter to a thriving travel hotspot, the citys journey serves as an inspiring narrative of triumph over adversity, offering a glimpse of hope for cities grappling with similar challenges worldwide. The drones, each weighing 185 grams, are highly maneuverable. The propellers of the tiny aerial reconnaissance devices hardly stir up dust The mangled wreckage of Unit 3 is seen at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture. Source: REUTERS After a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami destroyed Japans Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant almost 13 years ago, a drone, tiny enough to fit in ones hand, flew inside one of the damaged reactors core on Wednesday to examine some of the molten fuel debris. The drone reached areas where robots have previously failed to go. Advertisement Details of drone sent inside Fukushima damaged reactors The drones were sent on a recon mission to get more data. The recon mission involved a fleet of four drones which were set to fly one at a time into the hardest-hit Reactor No. 1s primary containment vessel. The drones, each weighing 185 grams, are highly maneuverable. The propellers of the tiny aerial reconnaissance devices hardly stir up dust. It has a high definition camera on the front, which will be used to record and transmit a live video feed and a higher-quality pictures to an operating room. Each drone is shaped like square of about 18 centimeters on each side and is about 5 centimeters (2 inches) thick. As the drone was designed to be operated inside the highly radioactive environment, it needed special, heavy-duty circuitry. Due to its diminutive size, the designers of the drone could not fit a high-capacity battery in it. Therefore, the drones investigation inside the reactor, was limited to a mere 5-minutes of flight time, each. Advertisement The drone flight on Wednesday (28 February) comes after months of preparations and training that began in July last year at a nearby mockup facility outside of the plant. How will data collected by these drones used? Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), the plants operator, said the new data will be used to develop technology for future probes and a process to remove the melted fuel from the reactor in the coming years. Advertisement The details gathered will also be used in investigating how exactly the 2011 meltdown occurred. Purpose of four drones Of the four drones, two will be sent initially to inspect the area around the exterior of the main structural support in the vessel, called the pedestal. After this it will be decided if the remaining two should be sent inside the vessel, an area which previous probes could not reach. Advertisement The pedestal is directly under the reactors core. The aim is to film the cores bottom to understand how overheated fuel dripped there in 2011. About 880 tons of highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three damaged reactors. The drones are being used after several probes including one which involved a crawling robot and an underwater vehicle were sent inside each of the three reactors. The efforts so far have been hindered by debris, high radiation and the inability to navigate the probes through the rubble. They, however, were able to collect some data in recent years. Advertisement The first robot to go inside the reactor was in 2015, but it got stuck on a grate. Though, some helpful information was received from the mission, the crawling robot had to be abandoned. In March 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami destroyed the plants power supply and cooling systems, causing the three reactors out of four to melt down. Advertisement The discharges from the nuclear reactors have faced strong opposition from fishing groups following a Chinese ban on Japanese seafood. It is also worth mentioning that on Wednesday (28 February, 2024) TEPCO also has started releasing the fourth batch of the plants treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the sea. The government of Japan and TEPCO claim that the water is safe and the process is being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Advertisement With inputs from Associated Press President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan has become more antagonistic toward outside intervention in attempting to mediate a settlement, charging that the US is endangering relations by supporting Armenia Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock looks on during a stake out at the Human Rights Council at the U.N. in Geneva, Switzerland, February 26, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo Five months after Azerbaijan reclaimed its Karabakh region from its majority-Armenian population, causing a large-scale exodus of ethnic Armenians, Germany is hosting two days of peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia. President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan has become more antagonistic toward outside intervention in attempting to mediate a settlement, charging that the US is endangering relations by supporting Armenia. Advertisement However, in November, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited both nations. Additionally, on the fringes of the Munich Security Conference this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had meetings with Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. In December, the South Caucasus neighbours issued a joint statement saying they want to reach a peace deal. Christian Armenia and mostly Muslim Azerbaijan first went to war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988. After decades of enmity, Azerbaijan in September recaptured Karabakh, controlled by its ethnic Armenian majority since the 1990s despite being internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. The offensive prompted most of the regions 120,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to neighbouring Armenia. Armenia described the offensive as ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijan denied that and said those who fled could have stayed on and been integrated into Azerbaijan. The German Foreign Ministry is hosting the talks. Baerbock will meet separately with her Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts on Wednesday before hosting a trilateral meeting. Advertisement With inputs from Reuters ADEDY, the largest public sector union in Greece, which represents over 500,000 workers, is organizing a 24-hour walkout that will be joined by protestors ranging from train workers and public servants to seafarers and school teachers On February 28, 2023, a freight train and a passenger train traveling from Athens to Thessaloniki in the north crashed head-on, killing 57 people and sparking widespread demonstrations over what many believed to be decades of mismanagement in the rail industry Image Courtesy Reuters On Wednesday, in observance of the anniversary of the nations deadliest train accident, workers will strike, halting rail operations and leaving ships parked at ports close to Athens. On February 28, 2023, a freight train and a passenger train traveling from Athens to Thessaloniki in the north crashed head-on, killing 57 people and sparking widespread demonstrations over what many believed to be decades of mismanagement in the rail industry. Advertisement ADEDY, the largest public sector union in Greece, which represents over 500,000 workers, is organizing a 24-hour walkout that will be joined by protestors ranging from train workers and public servants to seafarers and school teachers. One year on, we are back on the streets to shout out loud that we wont forget, ADEDY said in a statement. Well keep fighting so that those responsible are held accountable. A Greek judge is looking at the arrest of a station master who was made several hours after the tragedy. June is when the trial is expected to start, according to the administration. However, a large number of survivors and victims families argue that politicians, who are immune from prosecution under Greek law, ought to share accountability for flaws in the safety system. Advertisement Employees are also complaining about what they perceive to be inadequate wage increases, the first coming after fourteen years in the public service. They claim that the increases were insufficient to counteract the effects of growing living expenses. Instead, workers want additional hiring and a 10% pay increase for all. Greece has been recuperating from a debt crisis that lasted for ten years and three international bailouts, which it received in exchange for salary reductions and the removal of holiday bonuses. Advertisement (With agency inputs) According to a report by the Army Radio, unnamed Hamas representatives have said that the hostage deal that has been put forth does not meet any of Hamas demands to bring an end to the war Aid is air-dropped over Gaza, amid the ongoing the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah. Reuters A day after both Hamas and Israel dismissed US President Joe Bidens prophecy that a ceasefire in Gaza would happen in the coming week, the terror group has reportedly said that the proposed outline for a hostage deal is a Zionist document. According to a report by the Army Radio, unnamed Hamas representatives have said that the hostage deal that has been put forth does not meet any of Hamas demands to bring an end to the war. Advertisement The document also does not include a mandate from the Israeli government to fully return the internally displaced people in northern Gaza and mentions too few Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged for hostages. What does the draft proposal include? Hamas on Tuesday began reviewing the 40-day Gaza truce draft proposal in Paris. According to a statement provided to Reuters, the draft proposal includes: - Both parties stop their military operations completely. - Aerial reconnaissance operations over Gaza will stop for eight hours a day. - All Israeli hostages, including women, children under 19 years of age, the elderly aged 50 years and above, and the sick, must be released in exchange for a specific number of Palestinian prisoners. -In exchange for the 40 hostages listed under the humanitarian category, approximately 400 Palestinian prisoners will be released, according to the ratio of 10 prisoners to one hostage. - Gradual return of all displaced civilians - except men of military service age - to the northern Gaza Strip. - After commencing the first phase, Israel will reposition its forces away from densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. - Commitment to bring in 500 trucks per day of humanitarian aid and provide 200,000 tents and 60,000 caravans. - Allowing the rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries in Gaza, including immediately allowing the entry of necessary equipment and providing shipments of fuel for these purposes, according to quantities to be agreed upon. - Israel agrees to the entry of heavy machinery and equipment to remove rubble and assist with other humanitarian purposes. Hamas pledges not to use these machines and equipment to threaten Israel. With inputs from Reuters During a televised address, Haniyeh urged the axis of resistance a term commonly used by Iranian officials to denote alliances involving Iran, Lebanons Hezbollah, Yemens Houthis, and Shiite forces in Iraq and Syria to escalate their attacks Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has indicated a willingness to engage in negotiations for the potential release of hostages in Gaza and a temporary ceasefire, while affirming the groups readiness to continue fighting. During a televised address, Haniyeh urged the axis of resistance a term commonly used by Iranian officials to denote alliances involving Iran, Lebanons Hezbollah, Yemens Houthis, and Shiite forces in Iraq and Syria to escalate their attacks. Advertisement Additionally, he called upon Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to assemble at the Temple Mount, known as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to Muslims, on the first day of Ramadan. The Temple Mount holds significant religious significance, revered as the holiest site in Judaism, housing the remains of two biblical Temples, and is the third-holiest site in Islam, thus serving as a focal point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yesterday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant asserted, Hamass primary objective is to exploit Ramadan, particularly focusing on the Temple Mount and Jerusalem, as part of its broader agenda initiated on October 7. This objective is further bolstered by support from Iran and Hezbollah. India reaffirmed its stance on the necessity of a credible and reliable WTO DS system, emphasising its pivotal role in fostering an equitable, effective, secure, and predictable multilateral trading system India made a resounding call for the immediate restoration of the Appellate Body as the foremost priority in any reform efforts during the Working Session on Dispute Settlement (DS) Reforms at the World Trade Organizations 13th Ministerial Conference Wednesday. Highlighting the critical importance of a functional Appellate Body, India underscored its significance in upholding the credibility of the WTO and maintaining a rules-based trade order. Advertisement With the Appellate Body remaining non-functional since December 2019 due to the United States blocking of Members appointments, India stressed the urgency of addressing this issue to ensure a fully operational dispute settlement system accessible to all Members by 2024, as committed during the 12th Ministerial Conference. India reaffirmed its stance on the necessity of a credible and reliable WTO DS system, emphasising its pivotal role in fostering an equitable, effective, secure, and predictable multilateral trading system. Despite participating in informal DS reform discussions over the past year, India pointed out significant deficiencies in the process, particularly in its format and pace, which posed challenges for developing countries, including the least-developed countries (LDCs), to effectively engage. Proposing a three-point action plan, India advocated for transitioning the discussions on dispute settlement reforms to WTO formal bodies under the guidance of the Dispute Settlement Body Chair. Advertisement This transition aims to address procedural and substantive defects while ensuring Member-driven, open, transparent, and inclusive participation. India emphasised the need for flexibility in allowing Members to introduce new proposals at any stage and achieving a consensus-based outcome that reflects diverse viewpoints. Both the governments have decided that India would replace its military personnel on one of the three aviation platforms in the Maldives by March 10, with the complete replacement set to be finalised by May 10 With less than a fortnight left for Indian military personnel stationed in Addu to leave the Maldives, a team of competent Indian technical personnel has reached the island nation to replace them at aviation platforms. On February 2, the Indian and the Maldivian government decided that New Delhi would replace its military personnel on one of the three aviation platforms in Male by March 10, with the complete replacement set to be finalised by May 10. Advertisement The move came after a formal request from the Mohamed Muizzu-led Maldives government for the withdrawal of Indian troops from his country. The first team of Indian civilians, who arrived in the Maldives late on Monday (26 February), will take over operation of the helicopter in Addu, the southernmost Atoll of the country, the Maldives Defence Ministry said. Also, a replacement helicopter from India is expected to reach the Maldives by Wednesday, February 28, and the civilian team will commence training exercises to take over its operations. After taking oath as President in November, Muizzu, widely seen as a pro-China leader, had formally requested India to withdraw its military personnel from his country, saying the Maldivians had given him a strong mandate to make this request to New Delhi. Advertisement He had urged India to withdraw troops before March 15. Now, with the withdrawal of Indian military personnel, the Maldives President will be able to have his way on the India Out plank on which he rode to power last year. Earlier this month, External Affairs Ministry, in its statement, emphasised that India and the Maldives had mutually agreed upon practical solutions to ensure the continued operation of Indian aviation platforms providing humanitarian and medvac services to the Maldivian people. Advertisement Both sides also agreed on a set of mutually workable solutions to enable continued operation of Indian aviation platforms that provide humanitarian and medvac services to the people of Maldives, it said. Currently, there are approximately 70 Indian military personnel, along with a Dornier 228 maritime patrol aircraft and two HAL Dhruv helicopters stationed in Maldives. South Africa backed Indias move to block the proposal. The 123-member group led by China tried to push the proposal in the working group meeting on development and India objected to that. A logo is seen at the World Trade Organization (WTO) headquarters before a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, October 5, 2022. (Reuters File Photo) India on Wednesday blocked an effort by a group of World Trade Organization (WTO) countries, spearheaded by China, from pushing forward an investment facilitation pact during the ministerial conference, a move which may ensure that the proposal is unlikely to be part of the final outcome document, an official said. South Africa backed Indias move to block the proposal. The 123-member group led by China tried to push the proposal in the working group meeting on development and India objected to that. Advertisement The 13th Ministerial Conference (MC-13) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is underway. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, along with his team, is here for the meeting, which started on February 26. India blocked it in December last year also and in the General Council Meeting of the WTO. This is not an agreement as per definition. It is debatable whether it is a trade agreement, the official said. India in its attempt to block the inclusion of Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) in the WTO during the working session on development was joined by South Africa. Both the developing countries in their submission said as there is no exclusive consensus on the agreement, it cannot be included in the MC13. Advertisement In the working group discussions on development, India pointed out that there have been many promises but very little action, on account of which the vulnerabilities of the developing countries, including the Least Developed Countries, have only amplified further. India said the developing countries urgently needed flexibilities in existing rules. Infant and young industries in developing countries needed support through conducive policies, incentives, subsidies and a level playing field. Advertisement The group wants to bring the proposal through annexure-4 of the WTO under which it would be binding on only the signatory members and not on those who are opposed to it. While all decisions at the WTO happen through consensus, it also allows member countries to form a group and have agreements among themselves. Advertisement Such pacts come under Annexure 4 of the WTO which deals with plurilateral agreements. The IFD was first mooted in 2017 by China and other countries that depend heavily on Chinese investments, and countries with sovereign wealth funds are party to the pact. With inputs from PTI. In order to illegally avoid paying duty, federal prosecutors claimed that Shahs accomplices in South Korea would rename the jewelry to appear as though it originated in South Korea rather than Turkey or India. They would then ship the jewelry to Shah or his clients in the US Based in both Mumbai and New Jersey, 39-year-old Monishkumar Kirankumar Doshi Shah made an appearance before US Magistrate Judge Andre M. Espinosa in the Newark federal court on February 26 after being taken into custody over the weekend Image Courtesy PTI An Indian jeweler has been charged with conducting unregistered money transmission enterprises and unlawfully avoiding customs fees on jewelry imports worth millions of dollars into the United States, according to a US attorney. Based in both Mumbai and New Jersey, 39-year-old Monishkumar Kirankumar Doshi Shah made an appearance before US Magistrate Judge Andre M. Espinosa in the Newark federal court on February 26 after being taken into custody over the weekend. Advertisement One count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of operating, assisting, and abetting the operation of an unregistered money transmission company are the charges against him in the complaint. Documents show that Shah participated in a conspiracy to avoid paying tariffs on jewelry shipments from Turkey and India to the US between January 2015 and September 2023. He would send, or give his accomplices instructions to ship, products to one of Shahs companies in South Korea from Turkey or India, which would have been subject to a tariff of about 5.5% if delivered directly to the US. In order to illegally avoid paying duty, federal prosecutors claimed that Shahs accomplices in South Korea would rename the jewelry to appear as though it originated in South Korea rather than Turkey or India. They would then ship the jewelry to Shah or his clients in the US. Advertisement In order to create the impression that Shahs South Korean enterprises were truly acquiring jewelry from Turkey or India, he would also create fictitious invoices and packing lists and give his customers instructions to create them. In order to illegally avoid paying duty, federal prosecutors claimed that Shahs accomplices in South Korea would rename the jewelry to appear as though it originated in South Korea rather than Turkey or India. They would then ship the jewelry to Shah or his clients in the US. In order to create the impression that Shahs South Korean enterprises were truly acquiring jewelry from Turkey or India, he would also create fictitious invoices and packing lists and give his customers instructions to create them. Advertisement Prosecutors claimed that Shah transported jewelry valued at millions of dollars from South Korea to the US during the scam. According to the report, Shah ran a number of alleged jewelry businesses in New York Citys Diamond District between July 2020 and November 2021, including MKore LLC (MKore), MKore USA Inc. (MKore USA), and Vruman Corp (Vruman). Advertisement He used these entities to conduct millions of dollars in illegal financial transactions for customers, including converting cash to checks or wire transfers, the documents said. Shah would also collect cash from customers and use conspirators jewellery companies, also located in the Diamond District, to convert the cash into wires or checks. Advertisement Shah, also known as Monish Doshi Shah, was freed on a $100,000 bail subject to GPS tracking and house imprisonment. (With agency inputs) As the benchmark indices soar in the Indian stock market and FDI inflow surges, along with robust investments in infrastructure, while China grapples with a property crisis, intensified capital outflow and economic uncertainties, several experts believe that New Delhi offers a real alternative to Beijing, according to a report As the benchmark indices soar in the Indian stock market and FDI inflow surges, along with robust investments in infrastructure, while China grapples with a property crisis, intensified capital outflow and economic uncertainties, several experts believe that New Delhi offers a real alternative to Beijing, according to a report. According to a CNN report, market watchers are quite keen on Prime Minister Narendra Modis return to power for a third straight term in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls which will bring greater predictability to economic policies. Advertisement Since 2014, under PM Modis leadership, India has been on a developmental trajectory, aiming to achieve a USD 5 trillion economy by 2025, a goal noted by financial experts worldwide. This optimism stands in stark contrast to the prevailing sentiment in China, where economic challenges persist, including a substantial capital flight, CNN reported. Chinese stock markets have been enduring a prolonged downturn since their peak in 2021, with over USD 5 trillion in market value wiped out across Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong exchanges, added the report. While foreign direct investment (FDI) plummeted last year and continued its decline in January, dropping nearly 12 per cent compared to January 2023, Indias stock market continues to set new records, with the combined value of listed companies surpassing USD 4 trillion late last year. Advertisement According to the CNN report, citing a report by Jefferies, the future appears even brighter as Indias market value is expected to more than double to USD 10 trillion by 2030, which would make it impossible for large global investors to ignore. Peeyush Mittal, a portfolio manager at Matthews Asia, a San Francisco-based investment fund said that there is no country like China other than India. Advertisement China is a no go, sowhich is the other country that can maybe replace China? said Mittal. Theres no country like China other than India in some form or fashion, it is the substitute that maybe the world is looking for to drive growth, CNN quoted him as saying. Japan has also benefited from investors seeking an alternative to China - Tokyos benchmark index hit a new high for the first time in 34 years last week, helped by improving corporate profits and a weak yen. But the country is stuck in recession and recently lost its position as the worlds third biggest economy to Germany. Advertisement MSCIs indexes help institutional investors worldwide decide how to allocate money and where to focus their research. The latest revision by global stock index compiler MSCI reflects the bullishness towards India. MSCI said this month that it would increase Indias weighting in its emerging markets index to 18.06 per cent from 17.98 per cent, while reducing Chinas to 24.77 per cent. Advertisement Indias weight in the MSCI emerging market index was about 7 per cent a couple of years back, said Aditya Suresh, head of India equity research at Macquarie Capital, told CNN. Do I think that 18 per cent [in the MSCI index> is naturally gravitating more towards 25 per cent? Yeah, thats kind of clearly where our conversations are leading us to believe. Advertisement As India heads towards national elections in the coming months, market watchers are hoping for PM Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Partys return to power for a third term, bringing greater predictability to economic policies for the next five years, CNN reported. If Modi is back with a majority and political stability is there, then I can certainly say with confidence that therell be a lot more investor interest in India on a more sustainable basis, said Mittal. Advertisement Also, there are good reasons for the euphoria around India. From a surging young population to humming factories, the country has a lot going in its favour. The International Monetary Fund expects India to grow by 6.5 per cent next financial year compared to 4.6 per cent for China. Analysts at Jefferies expect the country to become the worlds third largest economy by 2027. Advertisement Much like China more than three decades ago, India is only at the beginning of an infrastructure transformation, spending billions on building roads, ports, airports and railways. Aditya Suresh said that there is a very strong multiplier effect on the economy from the investments in digital and physical infrastructure, which you cannot roll back. Advertisement The worlds fastest growing major economy is also trying to capitalize on the rethink underway among companies on supply chains. Global businesses want to diversify operations away from China, where they faced obstacles during the pandemic and are exposed to risks arising from tension between Beijing and Washington. India is a prime candidate to benefit from the friend-shoring of supply chains, notably at the expense of China, Hubert de Barochez, a market economist at Capital Economics wrote in January. Advertisement As a result, some of the worlds biggest companies, including Apple supplier Foxconn, are expanding their operations in India. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his company is looking to invest in India as soon as humanly possible. [PM Modi> really cares about India because hes pushing us to make significant investments in India, which is something we intend to do, Musk told reporters last June. Advertisement But, some experts have also raised concerns that Indias confidence may be bordering on hubris, as per CNN. According to Macquarie, retail investors alone own 9% of Indias equity market value versus foreign investors at slightly under 20%. Analysts, however, expect foreign investments to pick up in the second half of 2024, once the election is out of the way. Another potential challenge highlighted is that despite its new economic swagger, India might not have the capacity to absorb all the money that is flowing out of China, whose economy is still about five times bigger. But the fact that Indias sizzling rally is driven by domestic investors adds to the countrys strengths and reduces its dependence on foreign fund flows, as per CNN. Apart from geopolitical rifts and an uncertain economic outlook, foreign companies and investors have grown increasingly wary of domestic political risks in China, including the possibility of raids and detentions. Institutional investors are still very wary about buying Chinese stocks, even though many now look like a bargain. There are many good businesses in China, but with all the regulatory issues it becomes very difficult to predict what they will look like in the long run, CNN quoted Priyanka Agnihotri, portfolio manager at Baltimore-based Brown Advisory, as saying. India, on the other hand, enjoys healthy relations with the West and other major economies, and is aggressively wooing large firms to set up factories in the country. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech said FDI inflows since 2014 stood at nearly USD 600 billion, which is twice the amount during the previous decade. For encouraging sustained foreign investment, we are negotiating bilateral investment treaties with our foreign partners, in the spirit of first develop India, she added. Analysts say that it would hard to stop the economic juggernaut India has set in motion, irrespective of what happens to China, CNN reported. Even if China comes back to the table and resolves a lot of problems, I dont think India is going back into the background anymore, Mittal said. It has arrived. With inputs from agencies Taiwans defence ministry reported that China had launched 15 warplanes, 11 naval vessels, and one balloon into the waters and sky surrounding the island in the 24 hours before 6:00 am on Wednesday (2200 GMT Tuesday) On February 14, while being chased by the Taiwanese coast guard, a Chinese speedboat carrying four individuals overturned, plunging everyone on board into the water Image Courtesy AFP As the dispute between Taiwan and China over a deadly fishing boat incident rages on, the island nations defence ministry stated on Wednesday that eleven Chinese navy warships had been spotted in the area. This is the greatest number of Chinese naval vessels seen this year. On February 14, while being chased by the Taiwanese coast guard, a Chinese speedboat carrying four individuals overturned, plunging everyone on board into the water. Advertisement Just five kilometers (three miles) from the Chinese city of Xiamen, Kinmen is a territory governed by Taipei, where two of the crew members perished and the other two were rescued and placed under temporary custody. Tensions between China and Taiwan, an independent island that Beijing claims is a portion of its territory, were already high at the time of the event. According to a survivor, the boat was rammed upon reaching the mainland, however Taiwan maintains that the coast guard was acting in accordance with legal protocols. Taiwans defence ministry reported that China had launched 15 warplanes, 11 naval vessels, and one balloon into the waters and sky surrounding the island in the 24 hours before 6:00 am on Wednesday (2200 GMT Tuesday). Advertisement Since then, at least 15 more Chinese jets have been found, according to the ministry. As the dispute between the island and China over a deadly fishing boat incident rages on, Taipeis defense ministry stated on Wednesday that eleven Chinese navy warships had been spotted in the area. This is the greatest number of Chinese naval vessels seen this year. Advertisement Taiwans official statistics indicates that the number of Chinese naval ships saw in a 24-hour period was greater than the typical four to six, and the highest so far this year. In the lead-up to Taiwans January presidential election, which was won by Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing has referred to as a separatist, eleven Chinese naval boats were spotted in the countrys vicinity in December. Advertisement Four Chinese coast guard boats and one Chinese maritime surveillance ship temporarily entered restricted or forbidden waters near Kinmen on Monday, according to Kuan Bi-ling, minister of Taiwans Ocean Affairs Council, which is in charge of the coast guard. Regarding the event on February 14, Taiwanese officials have been accused by Beijing of trying to evade their responsibilities and hide the truth, however a coast guard spokesman in Taiwan claims the boat involved was zigzagging, lost its balance and capsized while trying to evade a patrol vessel. The bill, one of the harshest of its kind in Africa, still needs presidential assent to come into force. President Nana Akufo-Addo has not confirmed if he will sign the bill into law. Intensifying a crackdown on the rights of LGBTQ people and those promoting lesbian, gay or other non-conventional sexual or gender identities in the West African country, Ghanas parliament passed legislation on Wednesday proposing an imposition of a prison sentence of up to five years for the wilful promotion, sponsorship, or support of LGBTQ+ activities. Advertisement Gay sex was already punishable by up to three years in prison. The bill, one of the harshest of its kind in Africa, still needs presidential assent to come into force. President Nana Akufo-Addo has not confirmed if he will sign the bill into law. A coalition of Christian, Muslim, and Ghanaian traditional leaders sponsored the legislation. North Korea has sent 6,700 shipping containers of ammunition to Russia, potentially providing more than 3 million 152-millimeter artillery shells Russia has been fighting Ukraine with full might since the beginning of its invasion on February 24, 2022. It appears that the ammunition provided by North Korea is making Putins army stronger to take over regions in the neighbouring European nation. In recent weeks, Russia has repeatedly fired North Korean-supplied short-range ballistic missiles at Ukrainian targets, but it was unclear how much ammunition was being shipped from Pyongyang to Moscow. Advertisement In numbers: North Koreas ammunition supply to Russia The numbers have been revealed by South Koreas Defence Minister, Shin Won-sik, who in an address to the media said in recent months, North Korea has sent 6,700 shipping containers of ammunition to Russia, potentially providing more than 3 million 152-millimeter artillery shells. In November, South Koreas National Intelligence Service had estimated that the North transferred more than 1 million artillery rounds to Russia. It is worth mentioning that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un visited Moscow for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September last year, where he endorsed the Kremlins war on Ukraine and said, I will always be standing with Russia. In January, The Wall Street Journal mentioned in its report that Russia has been using 10,000 artillery shells per day in its war against Ukraine. It cited data from another British think tank, the Royal United Services Institute. The figures were five times the volume currently used by Ukraine. Advertisement Another British think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), anticipates that North Korean artillery shells are propping up Russias war efforts. Moscow has resolved its artillery shells shortage from last summer when Ukraine was using 7,000 rounds per day versus Russias 5,000. Supplies increased after Putin-Kim meet On 13 September 2022, Kim took a train from North Korea to Moscow to meet Putin for a rare summit during which the two leaders discussed military matters, the Ukraine war and possible Russian help for the N. Koreas satellite programme. Advertisement Back then, the US and South Korean officials had expressed concern that Kim could provide weapons and ammunition to Russia. Moscow and Pyongyang both had then denied such intentions. According to IISS, Pyongyang has supplied Moscow with at least a months worth of shells, since Kim and Putins meeting in September. Factories supplying artillery shell to Russia operating at full capacity Advertisement South Koreas defence minister further said due to electricity shortages, North Koreas munitions factories are running at roughly 30 per cent capacity, but factories supplying artillery shells to Russia are operating at full capacity, suggesting that Kims regime is giving utmost importance to munitions supplies to Moscow. Russia has sent 30 per cent more containers to North Korea than it has received from the North, Shin said. The North Korea-bound containers were likely mainly filled with food, he added. Advertisement North Korea was suffering from food insecurity since the COVID-19 pandemic, but is now believed to be maintaining stable food supplies, Shin said. What Russia has promised? During the September meeting between Putin and Kim, the Russian leader said his country would help North Korea build satellites. Now Shin informed that Pyongyang is seen launching another satellite as soon as late March and Russia is expected to continue to provide technological assistance for North Koreas military surveillance satellite program. Advertisement With inputs from agencies The vote was unanimous with all 11 board members signed on as sponsors of the resolution. Several commentators said that this is just the beginning of a series of reparations to be made to Black residents in the city African Americans in San Francisco received a formal apology from authorities for withstanding years of racism and discrimination. The vote was unanimous with all 11 board members signed on as sponsors of the resolution. Several commentators said that this is just the beginning of a series of reparations to be made to Black residents in the city. Advertisement This historic resolution apologizes on behalf of San Francisco to the African American community and their descendants for decades of systemic and structural discrimination, targeted acts of violence, and atrocities, said supervisor Shamann Walton, as well as committing to the rectification and redress of past policies and misdeeds. With Tuesdays resolution, San Francisco joined a number of other US cities, including Boston, in issuing a formal apology to African Americans and their descendants. We have much more work to do, but this apology most certainly is an important step, said Walton, who is ironically the only Black member of the board and chief proponent of the resolution. We want commitment too While most have welcomed the apology, many believe that authorities also need to step up and commit that history is not repeated. The supervisor of Black Fillmore Neighbourhood, Dean Preston, said that on one hand some supervisors back the apology and on the other they want to build unaffordable housing for mostly wealthy, white people on public land. Advertisement He also referenced two measures backed by San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who is Black, including one to screen welfare recipients for drug addiction and another to give more powers to a police department. People want an apology, he said. But they also want a commitment not to repeat harms. Meanwhile, the African American Reparations Advisory Committee has also proposed a payment of $5m lump-sum cash to every eligible Black adult as well as a guaranteed income of nearly $100,000 a year to rectify San Franciscos racial wealth gap. However, no progress has been made on such proposals. Advertisement Black people make up 38 per cent of San Franciscos homeless population despite being less than 6 per cent of the general population, according to a 2022 federal count. There are about 46,000 Black residents in San Francisco. With inputs from AP Senegals national dialogue commission member Ndiawar Paye said it has recommended President Macky Sall to remain in office until his successor is sworn in Supporters of Senegal's president Macky Sall march in his support after the postponement of February 25 presidential election and ahead of a national dialogue proposed by Sall, in Dakar, Senegal. REUTERS. Tensions continue to prevail in Senegal where the date of postponed election is still not announced. Amid this, a two-day long dialogue was organised by President Macky Sall after which Senegals national dialogue commission proposed delayed presidential polls to be held on June 2. The commission member Ndiawar Paye also said it has recommended Sall to remain in office until his successor is sworn in. Advertisement A Reuters report quoted Paye saying the recommendation will be sent to Sall who will make the final decision on the date of voting in Senegal. When will Senegal poll date be announced? Paye said it was not known if Sall would accept the recommendation of holding the elections on June 2, but his decision could come on Tuesday or Wednesday. Why June 2 has been recommended for Senegal election? Paye said the month of May has a number of religious festivals, so the elections could not be held then. Therefore, the commission agreed that early June was the most feasible time for the vote. The original postponement of the election was legally challenged. The top constitutional authority ruled the delay unlawful and asked Sall to find a new date at the earliest. Advertisement Meanwhile, it is still unclear how the opposition will respond to the proposed date of election in Senegal. The talks in the capital Dakar were boycotted by many of the opposition some of whom want the vote to be held before Salls mandate expires on April 2. Senegal has been thrown into an unprecedented political crisis after Sall postponed the election which was initially scheduled for February 25. Advertisement Sall and his parliaments failed bid to postpone the February 25 poll by 10 months sparked unrest and warnings of democratic backsliding in one of coup-hit West Africas more stable democracies. With inputs from Reuters According to data published by Statistics Korea, the average number of expected babies for a South Korean woman during her reproductive life fell to a record low of 0.72 from 0.78 in 2022 A woman pushing her baby in a stroller shops in the Hongdae area of Seoul. Reuters file South Korea, which already has the lowest fertility rate in the world, saw a further decline in births in 2023 despite the government earmarking billions of dollars for schemes to reverse the trend. According to data published by Statistics Korea, the average number of expected babies for a South Korean woman during her reproductive life fell to a record low of 0.72 from 0.78 in 2022. Advertisement South Korea needs to maintain an average of 2.1 children to keep its current population of 51 million intact. The country is the only Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) member to have a rate below 1 since 2018. Why arent South Koreans having babies? For South Korean women, career growth trumps family planning. Gwak Tae-hee, 34, a junior manager at a Korean dairy product maker who has been in a child-free marriage for three years, says, Having a baby is on my list, but theres windows for promotions and I dont want to be passed over. Gwak told Reuters that she had considered having a baby via in vitro fertilisation (IVF) but was distracted by volunteering for work projects to improve her career prospects. Advertisement I dont know about elsewhere but working two or three days a week doesnt get you anywhere in Korean companies. I hope its not too late when I try next year or the year after, Gwak said. Similarly, another working woman told BBC that she would rather focus on her career in television than have a child. She defends her decision by saying that a job in the television industry requires longer working hours, leaving her with very little time for her personal life. Advertisement In fact, South Korea is notoriously known for long working hours which in turn forces women to spend more time in the workplace than at home. Apart from this, marriages are also declining in the country. There are people who dont get married but we think about why married couples choose not to have babies, and my understanding is that addressing that part is going to be the focus of our policies (to boost the birth rate), an official at Statistics Korea told a briefing, without elaborating. What has the government done so far? For South Korea 2023 was the fourth consecutive year to witness a record drop in births. An alarmed South Korean government has been pushing schemes, from showering parents with cash to free IVF treatments for married couples, to boost the fertility rate. Advertisement Since 2006, the government has spent more than $270 billion to incentivise couples to have more children. President Yoon Suk Yeol has even declared that reversing the countrys declining birth rate is a national priority and promised that his government will come up with extraordinary measures to tackle the problem. However, policymakers have often been criticised for not taking into account the problem of young people, especially women. The complaint was filed on Tuesday against five members of the Korean Medical Association (KMA) lobby group for allegedly violating medical law and an order to return to work, according to a report, citing Health and Welfare Ministry Trainee doctors attend a meeting at the Korea Medical Association building in Seoul, South Korea, on 20 February, 2024. AP File In a first legal step that could lead to the stripping of medical licences for those in the labour action, South Korea on Tuesday filed a criminal complaint against five doctors it suspects of encouraging a mass walkout of trainee doctors. According to a Bloomberg report, citing Health and Welfare Ministry, the complaint was filed on 27 February against five members of the Korean Medical Association (KMA) lobby group for allegedly violating medical law and an order to return to work. Advertisement This stepped up pressure ahead of a 29 February deadline to return to work for thousands of trainee doctors who have walked off the job without facing reprisals for their actions. The report quoted KMA spokesman Joo Soo-ho calling the move an exercise of unfair government power. He said by telephone that members would be willing to explain their positions to the police, if the authorities summon them, added the report. President Yoon Suk-yeol has urged doctors to halt their strike against the governments proposal to expand medical school enrollment, citing the potential threat to lives and asserting his administrations firm stance against yielding to pressure. The government has signaled its readiness to take legal action, including arrest, prosecution, and possible suspension of licenses, against doctors who persist in the strike, which it argues violates the law. Advertisement Approximately 9,000 out of the countrys 13,000 resident doctors initiated the strike last week, objecting to the governments plan to add 2,000 seats to medical schools in response to a severe shortage of doctors, which is among the most pressing issues in the developed world. As a result of the strike, surgical procedures have decreased by about 50%, and emergency departments have been forced to deny patients due to staffing shortages, according to government reports. Advertisement President Yoons administration maintains that increasing the number of doctors is essential given the countrys rapidly aging population and demographic challenges. However, the striking doctors argue that the proposed plan fails to address systemic issues such as inadequate working conditions, an imbalance of physicians in urban areas, and insufficient protection against medical malpractice claims. Advertisement Despite public support for the governments plan, critics of the strike suggest that doctors motivations may involve protecting their lucrative income, which ranks highest among OECD countries, rather than improving South Koreas healthcare system. President Yoons approval ratings have recently reached a three-month high in Gallup Koreas weekly tracking poll, reflecting public approval of his steadfastness in pursuing the medical school expansion plan. Advertisement This political stance could potentially benefit his conservative People Power Party in the upcoming April elections, where it aims to secure control of Parliament from the progressive Democratic Party. With inputs from agencies Ivan Cantu was found guilty of robbing his cousin James Mosqueda, 27, and his cousins girlfriend, Amy Kitchen, 22, at their north Dallas home in November 2000. He will be put to death by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville A prisoner in Texas who has long maintained his innocence and said his conviction more than 20 years ago was based on shaky evidence and false testimony is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday for the fatal shootings of two individuals, one of whom was his cousin. Ivan Cantu was found guilty of robbing his cousin James Mosqueda, 27, and his cousins girlfriend, Amy Kitchen, 22, at their north Dallas home in November 2000. He will be put to death by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. Advertisement Cantu, 50, is accused by the prosecution of killing Kitchen and Mosqueda, two drug dealers, while attempting to steal money, cocaine, and marijuana from his cousins house. Convicted in 2001, Cantu has claimed a rival drug dealer killed his cousin over a dispute about money. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday denied Cantus request to stay his execution, dismissing his petition on procedural grounds and without reviewing its merits. Cantus lawyer was expected to submit a final appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 against commuting Cantus death sentence to a lesser penalty. Members also rejected granting a four-month reprieve. Efforts to delay Cantus execution have received the support of faith leaders, celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and actor Martin Sheen, and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, and his brother, former U.S. Housing Secretary Julian Castro. Three jurors from Cantus trial have also asked for an execution delay, saying they now have doubts about the case. Advertisement Cantus scheduled execution is one of two set to be carried out in the U.S. on Wednesday. In Idaho, Thomas Eugene Creech is set to receive a lethal injection for killing a fellow prisoner with a battery-filled sock in 1981. Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis, whose office convicted Cantu, said evidence presented at trial proved Cantus guilt. Advertisement I remain fully convinced that Ivan Cantu brutally murdered two innocent victims in 2000, Willis said in a statement. But Gena Bunn, Cantus attorney, wrote in Cantus clemency application that new evidence impugns the integrity of the States case for guilt and raises the specter that the State of Texas could execute an innocent man. Advertisement In Cantus apartment, police found bloody jeans with the victims DNA and a key to the victims home. Police found Cantus gun at his ex-girlfriends home. Mosquedas blood was found on the guns barrel, while Cantus fingerprints were found on the guns magazine. In a 2005 affidavit, Matthew Goeller, one of Cantus trial attorneys, said Cantu admitted to him he had indeed killed Mosqueda for ripping him off on a drug deal and that Kitchen was killed because she was a witness. Advertisement Cantus then-girlfriend, Amy Boettcher, was the prosecutions main witness. Boettcher, who died in 2021, testified that Cantu told her he was going to kill Mosqueda and Kitchen and later took her back to the crime scene after the killings. But Bunn alleges Boettchers testimony was riddled with false statements, including about Cantu stealing Mosquedas Rolex watch and Cantu giving her an engagement ring he stole from Kitchen. Advertisement Another prosecution witness, Jeff Boettcher, Amy Boettchers brother, told authorities in 2022 his testimony implicating Cantu was false and he wasnt a credible witness due to his drug abuse history. Bunn said new witness statements also help confirm Cantus claim that a man who had supplied drugs to Mosqueda had threatened him two days before the killings. Advertisement Bunn has credited an independent probe by Matt Duff, a private investigator, with uncovering much of the new evidence. Duff has chronicled his findings in a podcast called Cousins By Blood. Willis office has said in court documents Amy Boettcher testified truthfully and Cantus lawyers misconstrued Jeff Boettchers 2022 interview with authorities. Advertisement Of the new evidence presented by Cantu, Willis office has said none of it destroys the cornerstones of the States case. Kardashian and others have asked Gov. Greg Abbott to issue a reprieve to delay Cantus execution. Abbott can grant a one-time 30-day reprieve. But since taking office in 2015, Abbott has halted only one imminent execution. A spokesperson for Abbott didnt immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Advertisement If Cantus execution proceeds, it would be the first this year in Texas. With inputs from The Associated Press Michelle Obama received almost twenty percent of the vote among the candidates vying to replace 81-year-old Joe Biden. The other candidates included Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin Newsom, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Vice President Kamala Harris Obama last month expressed deep fear about the upcoming elections, saying it "haunts" her Image Courtesy AP According to a survey, Michelle Obama, the former first lady of the United States, is the front-runner to succeed President Joe Biden as the Democratic partys presidential nominee. In the Rasmussen Reports polls, nearly half of the Democratic voters stated that they would like someone other than Joe Biden to run for US President. Advertisement When asked if they were in favor of the party finding another candidate to replace Joe Biden before the election in November, 48% of Democrats responded in the affirmative, while 38% disagreed. Merely 33% of Democrats think there will be a change in the ballot. Michelle Obama received almost twenty percent of the vote among the candidates vying to replace 81-year-old Joe Biden. The other candidates included Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin Newsom, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Vice President Kamala Harris. About 15% of the vote went to Kamala Harris, while 12% of them supported a rematch between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. There have been some requests for Michelle Obama to think about entering the presidential race. Obama last month expressed deep fear about the upcoming elections, saying it haunts her. The fact that people think that government-eh,, does it really even do anything? - and Im like, Oh my God, does government do everything for us, and we cannot take this democracy for granted. And I worry sometimes that we do. Those are the things that keep me up, she had said. Advertisement The field for the US election in 2024 has long been known, and a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden seems very inevitable. Polls suggest that voters find Bidens age off-putting, but he insists he is the most qualified candidate. Trump, on the other hand, is adamant that he would run in spite of a potential criminal conviction prior to the election, which may result in decades behind bars. Advertisement (With agency inputs) According to American authorities, grants received by Finkelstein Metals for its operations in a development zone are deemed as prohibited government subsidies. Furthermore, the company allegedly sold its products in the U.S. at inflated prices In a startling development, the American government has initiated an investigation into Finkelstein Metals, raising questions about its conduct and causing consternation among Israeli officials, as reported by Maariv on Wednesday. According to American authorities, grants received by Finkelstein Metals for its operations in a development zone are deemed as prohibited government subsidies. Furthermore, the company allegedly sold its products in the U.S. at inflated prices. The decision to probe Finkelstein Metals and impose sanctions has left Israeli officials perplexed. Advertisement Despite Finkelsteins relatively minor presence in the U.S. market, holding less than 3% market share, its sales volume in the U.S. accounts for about 75% of its total sales. This action by the American administration also appears to contravene the longstanding trade agreement between the two nations. Implications of Sanctions Sanctions and customs duties have already been levied against Finkelstein Metals, severely impacting its normal operations and potentially jeopardizing supplies crucial for defense industries, such as the Iron Dome. Consequently, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Association of Manufacturers have intervened. In a peculiar turn of events, similar parties who previously defended Dead Sea factories against excessive export accusations are now pursuing legal action against Finkelstein Metals. Ron Tomer, President of the Manufacturers Association, has alerted the Economy Ministry to this unusual situation, warning of potential damage to other Israeli companies. Impact on Trade Relations Finkelstein Metals plays a vital role in the industry, serving as the sole Israeli producer of brass, bronze, and copper alloy products. Employing 80 workers from the northern region, its products are integral to defense companies, particularly in the production of ammunition for Iron Dome batteries. Advertisement The ongoing investigation carries significant implications for trade relations between Israel and the U.S., potentially affecting Israeli exporters, especially in the defense sector. If government benefits provided to industrial plants are deemed prohibited subsidies, it could trigger a wave of lawsuits against Israeli exporters to the U.S. As the U.S. increasingly imposes sanctions on Israelis and Israeli firms, including recent measures against settlers involved in attacks against Palestinians, the economic ramifications for Israel are becoming more pronounced. These developments underscore the evolving dynamics within Israels economic landscape and its relationship with the U.S. The Houthis, who are affiliated with Iran and govern the majority of Yemen, have been targeted by US strikes almost every day. They have stated that their attacks on shipping are a show of support for the Palestinian people as Israel continues to strike Gaza Senator Todd Young, the subcommittees senior Republican, said he had doubts about the administrations strategy Image Courtesy Reuters Republican and Democratic senators in the United States questioned President Joe Bidens response to Houthi strikes against commercial shipping on Tuesday, arguing that he need to ask Congress for permission to continue taking military action against the Yemen-based militia. The Houthis, who are affiliated with Iran and govern the majority of Yemen, have been targeted by US strikes almost every day. They have stated that their attacks on shipping are a show of support for the Palestinian people as Israel continues to strike Gaza. Advertisement The Houthis attacks have disrupted international trade and increased shipping costs, but the strikes have not been able to stop them thus far. During a congressional hearing with officials from the Pentagon and State Department, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine expressed major concerns about the legal basis the Biden administration was using for the strikes as well as their consequences. Trying to re-establish deterrence, I dont think youre going to do it if the 200 strikes become 400 strikes, 800 strikes, 1,200 strikes, Kaine told the media. I think you will re-establish deterrence when we get a hostage deal that leads us to a truce, that leads us to humanitarian aid into Gaza, that leads us to the ability to discuss, whatever that truce period is, can be extended, he added. Advertisement The Pentagon reported on Tuesday that since the strikes began in January, 150 missiles and launchers, as well as radars, locations for storing weapons, and drones, have been destroyed or rendered inferior. The Houthis declared on Tuesday that they would only reevaluate their drone and missile assaults on foreign ships in the Red Sea if Israel ceased its aggression against the Gaza Strip. Advertisement The Constitution requires Congress to authorize acts of war. We swore an oath to follow the Constitution. If we believe this is a just military action and I do, then we should authorize it, Senator Chris Murphy, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committees Middle East subcommittee. Murphy, a Democrat, said he would be in talks with his colleagues to introduce such an authorization. Advertisement Senator Todd Young, the subcommittees senior Republican, said he had doubts about the administrations strategy. Its imperative that the administration respond to these actions while demonstrating it is both a strategy for deterring aggression and appropriate legal doctrine, said Young. To date, I have not seen such a strategy put forward. Although the president cannot declare war without the approval of Congress, the White House is authorized by U.S. law to take limited military action abroad. Advertisement To restore and safeguard freedom of navigation, the European Union has sent a naval mission to the Red Sea. Operation Prosperity Guardian is a parallel alliance led by the US with the goal of defending economic traffic against Houthi strikes. During the session, U.S. Special Envoy Tim Lenderking informed the lawmakers that China ought to be more engaged in global endeavors aimed at stopping the Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Advertisement We do see a certain amount of freeloading by China that is absolutely unacceptable, he said. (With agency inputs) Zelenskyy sought to build solidarity among his country and those of the Western Balkans, saying that all of them deserved to be members of the European Union and NATO if they choose. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holds a press conference with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama after he summit of Southeastern European countries on peace in Tirana, Albania, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. -AP Ukraines president Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for more ammunition to fend off Russian advancements. He co-hosted a summit with Albanias government, aimed at garnering further support for Kyiv from southeastern European countries. This diplomatic effort comes as signs of war fatigue become increasingly apparent. Zelenskyy stressed the critical need to bolster Ukraines arsenal, particularly emphasising the necessity for increased supplies of armaments and ammunition. His plea underscores the ongoing challenges faced by Ukraine, just over two years since the onset of Russias full-scale invasion. I think this is the question of: Will we stand or not, he said during his speech to the summit. Advertisement His impassioned plea comes as Russian troops have seized the initiative on the battlefield in Ukraine amid worsening shortages of weapons and soldiers for Ukraines military. Western analysts and observers say the Russians are attacking in strength along four parallel axes in the northeast, aiming to press deeper into the Ukraine-held western part of the Donetsk region and also penetrating into the Kharkiv region north of it. Russia took the strategic eastern city of Avdiivka earlier this month by overwhelming Ukrainian forces with large numbers of troops and superior air and artillery firepower. Fierce fighting has continued with Russia pushing Kyivs forces out of another three villages to the citys west in the last few days. Zelenskyy arrived in Albania overnight to join a summit of eleven countries from southeastern Europe, along with officials from the European Union and other international organizations. It was the latest stop in an international tour that saw him in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to push for a peace plan and the return of prisoners of war from Russia. Advertisement Zelenskyy sought to build solidarity among his country and those of the Western Balkans, saying that all of them deserved to be members of the European Union and NATO if they chose. The European Union and NATO have provided Europe with the longest and most reliable era of security and economic development, and we are all equally worthy of being a part of the European and Euro-Atlantic communities, Zelenskyy said. Advertisement Securing further support is key to Ukraines leader while his country faces battlefield challenges. Zelenskyy on Sunday announced that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action since Russias invasion the first time that Kyiv had confirmed the number of its losses. He acknowledged, again, in Tirana that the problems with the supply of ammunition" were impacting the situation on the battlefield. Advertisement Russias tactics in Avdiivka, including its use of dozens of glide bombs to obliterate Ukrainian positions in the city, has raised concerns it could replicate the same methods elsewhere along the frontline if Western aid to support air-defence systems and supplies of long-range weapons and artillery do not come through soon. Advertisement Around Bakhmut, which fell to Russia last May after the longest battle since the full-scale invasion began, Russian troops are trying to push towards Chasiv Yar, according to a spokesman for the operational group overseeing the eastern front line. Illia Yevlash said Tuesday that Russia is reinforcing its troops with assault units, using air attacks, and that heavy fighting was ongoing on the outskirts of the city. Advertisement Meanwhile, further north on the frontline, Russian troops are pressing forward around Lyman and Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region that borders Russia. Ukraine has urged Western leaders to increase the joint production of weapons and ammunition, improve Ukrainian air defences and put new pressure on Russia via expanded sanctions. Not all the countries at the meeting are in full support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Kremlin ally Serbia is the only European country that has refused to align with EU sanctions following Russias invasion. It continues signing cooperation agreements with Moscow. Advertisement Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he insisted that the summit statement should not include any call for sanctions on Russia and should not include proposed wording about Russias negative influence in the Balkan region. Albania, a NATO member since 2009 and a candidate for EU membership, has voiced its full support for Kyiv against Russias invasion. It has provided military assistance in the form of ammunition and training of Ukrainian military. It was among the first countries offering shelter to Ukrainian refugees. It has joined international sanctions against Russian officials and institutions. Advertisement As a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in the last two years, Albania joined the U.S. in initiating resolutions against Russias invasion. Zelenskyy said all of the countries at the summit must remain vigilant over what Russian President Vladimir Putin does next. The interaction between us, between neighbours, between neighbouring regions, between all partners, has become a factor that along with the resilience of our people in Ukraine, does not allow Putin to prevail, Zelenskyy said. Advertisement With inputs from AP. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning announces: Starting from March 2, Special Representative of the Chinese Government on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui will visit Russia, the EU headquarters, Poland, Ukraine, Germany and France for the second round of shuttle diplomacy on seeking a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. HMD announced at its MWC event that it will launch a repairable phone later this year, substantially reducing the number of steps it takes to fix the screen. After teasing the entry-level phone, the company has now started teasing its repairable phone on its social channels. This show two phones, one in Grey and other one in Pink, and it shows the HMD logo in the middle. It should come in more colours. It shows that the phone will have a 108MP sensor, as rumoured earlier. You can say goodbye to phone separation due to a broken screen and get swept up in the FIY (Fix it Yourself) movement, said the company when teasing the phone at its MWC event earlier this week. HMD has confirmed that the Barbie flip phone is coming in May 2024, and other models including the repairable phone will launch in July. The silver / grey coloured phone is expected to support the HMD Fusion case, for which the company has released a toolkit for developers on the HMD global website. Source | Via HONOR is set to unveil its first vertical-folding flip phone in 2024, joining the trend popularized by brands like Samsung, OPPO, and Motorola. George Zhao, CEO of HONOR, confirmed the news during an exclusive interview with CNBC at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. HONOR Flip Phone in 2024 During the interview, Zhao expressed confidence in this new venture, stating, We are gearing up for the flip phone launch this year, indicating the companys readiness for this transition. The move follows the global launch of Magic6 Pro and PORSCHE DESIGN HONOR Magic V2 RSR at the event. The decision to venture into flip foldables opens up new market opportunities for HONOR, potentially targeting a different price point compared to traditional horizontal-folding devices. HONOR aims to tap into the premium smartphone market by introducing foldable devices. Despite a decline in the overall smartphone market, sales for premium smartphones priced over $600 continued to rise in 2023, as reported by Counterpoint Research. Zhao hopes to see overseas sales surpassing those in China within the next few years. HONOR Ring In addition to the foldable phone, HONOR is also working on a smart ring, as revealed by Zhao during the same CNBC interview. The smart ring is part of HONORs broader focus on health-related products and services, following Samsungs recent announcement of the Galaxy Ring, touted to launch later this year. While details about the smart ring are scarce, Zhao emphasized its integration with HONORs health app. Just like Samsung, HONOR aims to connect its products, leveraging artificial intelligence to offer personalized health insights. Zhao believes that AI will revolutionize health applications, allowing for tailored training programs based on users habits and health data. He envisions a future where AI-enhanced apps provide professional suggestions to improve users well-being. Source 1, 2 Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Viacom 18 and Disney have announced a joint venture to combine Viacom18 and Star India. As part of the deal, Viacom18 will be merged into Star India, creating a powerhouse wielding iconic brands like Colors, StarPlus, Star Sports, and Sports18. This combined entity, valued at Rs. 70,352 crore (USD 8.5 billion approx.), boasts over 750 million viewers in India and caters to the global Indian diaspora. RIL will invest Rs. 11,500 crore (USD 1.4 billion approx.) into the JV for expansion, while the JV will be controlled by RIL and owned 16.34% by RIL, 46.82% by Viacom18 and 36.84% by Disney. Nita M. Ambani will chair the JV, with Uday Shankar, Co-founder of Bodhi Tree Systems (that hold 15.97% of Viacom18) serving as Vice Chairperson. Disney may also contribute certain additional media assets to the JV, subject to regulatory and third-party approvals. Together, the Reliance-Disney merged entity will have 120 TV channels. The JV will also be granted exclusive rights to distribute Disney films and productions in India, with a license to more than 30,000 Disney content assets. Viacom18 has the IPL digital streaming rights from 2023 to 2027, and Disney Star has the 5-year TV broadcast rights for IPL. Subject to necessary approvals, the transaction is expected to close in late 2024 or early 2025. BREAKING Tensiuni in Transnistria / Autoritatile de la Tiraspol sustin ca o drona lansata din Ucraina a explodat peste o baza militara/ Agentia rusa de presa Tass sutine ca atacul kamikaze a fost lansat de fotele moldovenesti sustinute de Ucraina Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2024. Saturday Night Partly cloudy skies early will give way to occasional showers later during the night. Low 42F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%. Four ex-communist central European countries said Tuesday they were not planning to send troops to Ukraine as they remained torn on military aid to the war-ravaged country battling Russia's invasion. The civil trial scheduled for next month between former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and her now deceased ex-husband has been delayed. That delay, in part, is to give Cayce Peters, the daughter of Thomas Michael Peters, time to file as a plaintiff in the case on behalf of the estate of her father as his personal representative. The other plaintiff in the case is Katherine Egan, Thomas Peters sister who initially filed suit against Tina Peters over a home Thomas Peters purchased after the two became legally separated. No new trial date had been scheduled, but a pretrial conference set for March 7 remains on the docket, possibly to set a new trial date before Mesa County Judge Bruce Raaum. The four-day trial had been set to start March 12. At issue is Tina Peters filing a quit claim deed turning the $395,000 home at 2663 Eagle Ridge Dr. into her own name the same day her power of attorney over Thomas Peters was rescinded. Both documents were filed in the Mesa County Clerk and Recorders Office when Tina Peters was still in office. If Cayce Peters does file a motion to substitute herself on behalf of her father, it will pit her against her own mother and aunt. But in Tina Peters filings in the case, she claims she or the daughter are entitled to the home under Thomas Peters will, even though Tina Peters didnt include her daughters name in the quit claim deed. The home still is listed under Tina Peters name, according to Mesa County Assessor records, but plaintiffs have since filed what is called a notice of lis pendens against the property, in essence notifying any potential buyer that ownership of the property is in legal dispute. Two of Thomas Peters brothers, who recently helped bury him at the Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego, told The Daily Sentinel on Tuesday that it was always Thomas Peters wish that his daughter inherit his estate. They said theres a lot more to the story between their brother and Tina Peters, but said they arent yet ready to reveal the details while the case is pending. One of them, however, said Tina Peters is unfairly using her former husband and her deceased son, Remmington, to gain sympathy in her criminal case in order to gather legal defense money. Remmington, the couples only son, died in a 2017 parachute accident as a Navy seal performing at an air show in New York City. Ive always been a bit at odds with Tina, shes always been somewhat abrasive, Jack Peters said. My brother-in-law John and my sister Kathy are being unjustly persecuted by this vile woman right now. Tina has found these platforms. She got elected off these sympathy votes for losing her son. The brother says its wrong for Tina Peters to lie about things that have happened in her life, and getting donations for her legal defense fund as a result. Jack Peters, who describes himself as extremely conservative and believes there may be election fraud going on, said he is sickened every time he hears Tina Peters on a far-right online media outlet claiming that they took my husband, that she is a Gold Star mom who is being treated unfairly, and that she ran a business for 30 years. The couple separated before Tina Peters ran for office, Thomas Peters ran his business and Tina Peters, at best, worked as his part-time bookkeeper, and Gold Stars are given to families of active duty military personnel killed while in combat, the brothers said. Its such a lie, and such a bald-face lie, Jack Peters said. This vile woman is spewing all these lies. She gets on these talk shows and platforms, these people are clueless. Shes mastered the art of deception. This woman is as vile as you will find. Thomas Peters died Dec. 31, 2023, at a veterans nursing home in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was 76. He had Parkinsons disease, the brothers said, and was moved from a facility in Grand Junction, in part, at his request because no one, even Tina Peters, was coming to visit. The brothers said he was placed in a high-end veterans home in Arkansas, where he was often visited by his other brother, Richard, and daughter, who lives in Chicago. Nathan graduated with his journalism degree from Auburn University in 2017. After growing up in the flatlands of rural Alabama with his parents and older sister, Nathan enjoys Western Colorado's natural resources and recreational opportunities. He currently covers education and business for The Daily Sentinel. A woman sits near the site where three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Faraa refugee camp near the West Bank town of Tubas, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinian men including Mohamed Daraghmeh, a co-founder of the local branch of the Islamic Jihad militant group, in the northern town of Tubas, early Tuesday, Palestinian health authorities said. Thee was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Fort Peck Summer Theatre will be holding auditions for local actors on Sunday, March 17, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Glasgow Middle School, Room 310. A variety of opportunities are available in all shows, especially: The large, multi-aged ensemble of Joseph & the Technicolor Dreamcoat Great acting roles and two leading roles for kids in Bonnie & Clyde An extravagant dance ensemble and young puppeteers for the animals in Cinderella. JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT Rehearsal begins May 25 / Performances June 14 June 30 Directed by Danny Durr An international hit, this modern entertaining and inspiring spectacle musical tells the age-old Biblical story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. As young dreamer Joseph rises from being outcast by his jealous brothers to becoming advisor to the Pharoah, a kaleidoscope of song and dance bursts onto this stage. BONNIE AND CLYDE Rehearsal begins June 15 / Performances July 5 July 21 Directed by Andy Meyers The tale of Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow, two of the most infamous criminals of Americas Great Depression and the subject of much speculation and fascination. The couple took the country by storm, reaching celebrity status as they robbed banks, shops, and even funeral homes. This is their rebellious love story, complete with a suite of stunning, jazz-and-gospel-infused show tunes. CINDERELLA Rehearsal begins July 6 / Performances July 26 Aug. 11 Directed by Rob Watson The treasured fairytale comes to life in this magical stage production. Featuring all the famous songs from the televised specials, originally starring Lesley Ann Warren and later Whitney Houston, including: Impossible, My Own Little Corner, Do I Love You? and A Lovely Night. Full of special effects and beloved characters, it is perfect time to share this ageless story and music with a new generation. Please note: if you will be participating in JJMT that weekend and cannot attend audition in person, please contact Kari at 406-228-9216 by March 10, 2024. Also a Reminder: The 27th Annual Performing Arts Camp will be held July 30 Aug. 8, culminating in a Showcase performance. Registration is now open on our website: FortPeckTheatre.org. Whether you love hiking, hunting, biking or fishing, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks wants to hear your thoughts on what matters most for the future of outdoor recreation in our state. Over the next few months, FWP will be gathering input from the recreating public as it updates its Statewide Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP). SCORP serves as a guide for local, state and federal agencies as they work with FWP to develop future outdoor recreation opportunities across the state. SCORP also outlines outdoor recreation goals for the state over the next five years. Were going to reach out to people who love the outdoors, no matter how they choose to recreate, said FWP Director Dustin Temple. We want all viewpoints and ideas incorporated in this document that will really help guide how we develop outdoor recreation opportunities over the next five years. SCORP is updated every five years and is required for the state to receive funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which provides matching grant funds to state, tribal, and local government entities to develop outdoor recreation. The first step in updating the SCORP, FWP will host nine public workshops around the state, including a virtual option, in February and March. These workshops are designed to answer questions from the public and get feedback on outdoor recreation ideas from communities around the state. The insights and ideas gathered from these public workshops will help shape the goals and objectives of the 2025-2029 SCORP. Glasgow will be the host of a workshop on Thursday, March 7, 6 to 8 p.m., at the Cottonwood Inn & Suites, 54250 US 2. Virtual Workshop via Zoom, March 12, 6-8 p.m., visit https://mt-gov.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUud-qqqTgjHt3kzI8O--QiHxWgNcrtADvr#/registration to register. To learn more about Montanas SCORP and other ways to get involved in this planning effort, visit https://fwp.mt.gov/aboutfwp/scorp. Malta and Fort Peck Stops On March 6 Montana State University Extension will host a feral swine education tour March 5-8 in northeast Montana, with seven stops held for landowners, farmers, ranchers and anyone else interested in attending. Registration is not required, and there is no cost to attend. Feral swine, also referred to as wild pigs, can cause significant landscape and agricultural damage, according to Jared Beaver, MSU Extension wildlife specialist. While feral swine are not currently present in Montana, the risk of feral swine is a serious concern, he added. Wild pigs are not native to the United States and are a highly effective invasive species, said Beaver. They have been declared one of the biggest threats to terrestrial biodiversity in the world and are expanding across the United States and Canada. According to Beaver, the ecological and economic impacts of feral swine could be significant in Montana if they were to establish a population. He regularly emphasizes the threat when working with Montana landowners. They can live just about anywhere, eat just about anything and are prolific breeders, said Beaver. Wild pigs have few natural predators and are intelligent, mobile animals that are highly pressure sensitive. They are extremely difficult to control and eradicate once established. MSU Extension agents will host the tour stops and provide continuing education and resources to local communities. Representatives from the Montana Department of Livestock and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will also present information. This program is working to inform producers and the public on what these impacts are and how best to respond and manage wild pigs, said Marley Voll, MSU Extension Richland County agent. Montanans should be prepared before wild pigs enter the state. Tour stops will be held as follows: Tuesday, March 5: Havre, 10 a.m. 4-H Chuckwagon, 1676 U.S. Highway 2 W. Chinook, 3 p.m. Chinook Senior Center, 324 Pennsylvania St. Wednesday, March 6: Malta, 9 a.m. Phillips County Library, 10 S. Fourth St. E. Fort Peck, 3 p.m. Fort Peck Interpretive Center, 157 Yellowstone Road. Thursday, March 7: Scobey, 10 a.m. Ambulance Room, 106 Railroad Ave. Plentywood, 2 p.m. Cousins Family Restaurant, 118 S. Main St. Friday, March 8: Sidney, 10 a.m. Richland County Event Center, 2118 W. Holly St. Montana residents can report suspected sightings of feral swine to the Montana Department of Livestock at 406-444-2976. A highly public child protection case involving a transgender teenager that has stirred up online conservative outrage, created blowback for Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte and sparked legal challenges at the Montana Supreme Court was dismissed on... On Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, at the age of 96, Jacqueline "Jackie" Jean (Dartman) Fisher passed away at her son's home in Stevensville, Mont. Born on May 9, 1927, in Hinsdale, Mont., Jackie was the seventh of 10 children born to John and Ella (Hatton) Dartman. Jackie spent her childhood "up north," in the small homesteading community of Genevieve. She attended school in a one-room schoolhouse, Hatton School; adventured through the prairie's wildflowers, picking chokecherries and buffalo berries; and helped on the family's farm, tending to their many animals. In 1934, when the Dartman family's older children began entering high school, they moved to "the river house," a log house on the Milk River two miles north of Hinsdale, where Jackie's father raised sugar beets and would later become a mail carrier. In the fall of 1938, when Jackie was 11, they moved to Hinsdale. One year later, they moved into a house that remains, to this day, in the Dartman family. Jackie attended Hinsdale High School and graduated in 1945, the valedictorian of her graduating class, alongside her older sister, Ella Mae. Jackie left Hinsdale for Havre, Mont., to attend Northern Montana College (now MSU-Northern). In 1946, she and Ella Mae moved to and lived together in Helena, Mont., followed two years later by their brother Tom. Jackie met her husband, Roland "Rollie" Fisher, in 1947, and the two married on June 18, 1949. Their growing family moved between Butte, Great Falls, and Helena to accommodate Rollie's transfers within Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph before settling in Helena in 1963. With the help of friends, they built a house in Montana City in the winter of 1975, where they lived until 2002. Following their final move back to Helena, Jackie became a secretary in the finance office at Helena High School, a role she held through 1965. She joined the staff at St. Peter's Hospital in Helena in 1969 as an administrative secretary, working for multiple CEOs and retiring 20 years later in 1989. She would spend her retirement chasing her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, refinishing furniture found at garage sales, experimenting with new recipes, sewing and mending, and caring for her mother. She was a caregiver in a very literal sense-she helped care for her parents and siblings as their bodies aged-but she also lived her life by an ethics of care, always putting others' comfort, hunger, and well-being first. She spent her life nurturing and foregrounding her relationships with others, believing above all else in the importance of family and friends (and in the healing powers of home-baked caramels and sugar cookies, made with lots and lots of butter). Jackie was community-minded throughout her life: Rollie's service within Helena's Algeria Shrine Temple prompted her to join the Daughters of the Nile, an organization also in service to the Shriners Hospitals for Children, and she was a longtime, active member of St. Paul's United Methodist Church. Like her siblings, Jackie was a storyteller, always eager to reminisce, punctuating her stories with idioms and aphorisms that would come to define her, phrases and songs her family won't soon forget: "I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck!" She was kind, more than a bit fiery, and quick to laugh; she snorted when she laughed, which only made her laugh harder. For Jackie, cleanliness was next to godliness, and she was her most vibrant self with a new perm and freshly painted fingernails. Jackie was preceded in death by her husband, Roland; her daughter, Jane; her sisters, Adele, Helen, Betty, Lorraine, and Ella Mae; her brothers, Jack, Tom, and Bob; her nieces, Sandra Lynn and Sandra Suzette; and her nephews, Joshua Miles and Thomas Lyttleton, Jr. She is survived by her sister Beverly Scanson, of Great Falls; her sons, John (Lynda) Fisher, of Stevensville, and Jim (Marcy) Fisher, of Frenchtown, Mont .; seven grandchildren-Cale (Judie) Fisher, of Stevensville, Tyler (Joanne) Fisher, of Brisbane, Australia, Whitney (Tres) Reed, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., Lauren Korn (Colin Johnson), of Missoula, Alicia (J.T.) Crepps, of Missoula, Brennan (Mackenzie) Fisher, of Dickinson, N.D., and Logan Fisher, of Missoula; and six great-grandchildren, Roland, Oliver, Amelia, Bruce, Lemmy, and Evelyn. She is also survived by many nieces and nephews and their children, all of whom Jackie adored. As a friend wrote of Jackie's passing on Valentine's Day, "It is so fitting that a woman so full of love would pass on to the next life on a day dedicated to love." Our joyful, curly-haired Jackie, nicknamed "Rooster," "Jackie Jean (ate a bean)," "Jack," and "GG," will be sorely missed but remembered for her unwavering humor, infectious laughter, and fierce care. Honoring her request, a formal funeral will not take place, but a celebration of Jackie's life will be held for friends and family at a later date this spring. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Helena, and remembrances and condolences can be left on the Whitesitt Funeral Home website: whitesittfuneralhome.com. Judy Joy (Wienke) Shuman of Helena, Mont., passed away peacefully, Tuesday, January 30, 2024, with her sons, Boe and Jason, by her side. Funeral services are scheduled for 1 p.m., on Saturday, June 15, at Simple Cremation Montana at 315 E. Sixth Avenue, Helena, with a reception to follow. Condolences can be sent to 907 Menlo Park Rd. Helena, MT 59602. Judy was born on Jan. 21, 1940, in Richey, Mont., to Myrtle and Ralph Wienke and was the oldest of their six daughters. Judy often told stories about all the adventures and mischief her and her sisters would get into while growing up in the small eastern Montana town. After she graduated from high school in 1959 she attended college in Denver, Colo. From there Judy returned to Montana and began working for Bell Telephone in Wolf Point, Mont. That is where she met a co-worker, Edna Shuman and the two became good friends. Edna introduced Judy to her big brother, Bud. The two began a relationship and then marriage that led to a family of three boys, Rusty, Boe, and Jason. Bud and Judy were married for 49 years until Bud passed away in April of 2016. In the early years of their marriage, Bud, Judy, and their two boys, Rusty and Boe, moved to the Glasgow Air Force base and then overseas to Iran where they lived for two years for Bud's job. While living abroad they made many lifelong friendships. The family returned to Glasgow. Judy worked at the local cable television company as clerical staff until they moved to Helena in 1986. While in Helena Judy continued her career with T.C.I. Cable Company and stayed there until her retirement in 2003. In 1987 Judy's oldest son, Rusty passed away in a vehicle accident, she mourned his death until her own. In 1997 Judy became a grandmother, a title she took very seriously and easily was one of the best! Judy was the grandmother to five grandchildren total, four boys and one girl. It was no secret, Judy hoped for a girl and bought a dress each time there was a baby announcement, just in case. She enjoyed being a grandmother with all her heart and became close to each one of her grandchildren. Bud and Judy's house was where you would find the grandkids after school and on weekends. Judy liked to point out, her grandsons were much easier to take care of than her own sons, who gave her gray hair. During that quality time, Judy passed down her love of chocolate, shopping, and taught her granddaughter, Mackenzie, how to bake the secret family recipe, Chocolate cake with Brown sugar frosting. Judy was able to enjoy this treat made for her by Mac on her final birthday. After her retirement in 2003, Judy along with a few of her sisters and cousins decided to become snowbirds and traveled to their property in Mesa, Ariz., during the winters. Judy was able to enjoy Arizona and several other trips with her sisters (the Wienke Girls, as they are known, are always on the move and seldom sitting still) and other family members. Judy would come back to her home in Montana and have the best stories (and plenty of knick knacks) of her many adventures, from shopping, listening and dancing to music, train rides with wine, and many, many giggles. Judy is preceded in death by her parents; son Rusty; and husband Bud. Judy is survived by her two sons, Boe (Kami) and Jason (Kris); five grandchildren, Kaden, Carson, Mackenzie, Lantz and Bearek; her five sisters, Elaine, Sheryl, Diana, Della, and Peggy; sisters-in-laws and brother- in-laws, along with many nieces and nephews. The family would like everyone to enjoy a Hersey Bar in her honor of remembrance. A Call To Courage Say Her Name Empowering Women To Stand Dear Editor, As we celebrate women's history month, we acknowledge Rebekah Grace Rose Barsotti, a woman who embodied courage for inspiring women everywhere to take a stand against domestic violence. We also acknowledge Selena Not Afraid, whose bod... USS Paul Ignatius (DDG 117) Leaves Naval Station Rota for Steadfast Defender with NATO Allies US Navy 26 February 2024 From ENS Karolyn Batista, USS Paul Ignatius Public Affairs Officer ROTA, Spain -- USS Paul Ignatius, an Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyer, is making its way to the North Sea to participate with NATO allies in the highly anticipated sea component exercise Joint Warrior. This collaborative exercise, conducted with NATO allies, aims to hone the skills necessary to operate seamlessly in a joint maritime environment. Steadfast Defender is one of the largest military exercises in Europe, bringing together naval, air, and land forces from various NATO nations and partner countries. It is designed to test and enhance the interoperability of the participating forces, build their capabilities, and bolster their ability to respond to security threats effectively. Paul Ignatius is no stranger to these types of exercises. With its comprehensive suite of advanced sensors and weapons systems, the warship provides the perfect platform for engaging in complex anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, and air defense operations. As Paul Ignatius heads toward the North Sea, it will join an array of NATO ships and submarines from multiple nations. The exercise will simulate a realistic operational environment, giving the crew valuable experience in coordinating and executing joint operations with their counterparts from various countries. This year's Steadfast Defender exercise is particularly significant as it comes at a time of changing geopolitical dynamics and evolving security challenges. The exercise will focus on a range of scenarios, including complex warfare, maritime interdiction operations, and humanitarian assistance and disaster response. By simulating a diverse set of challenges, the participating forces can better prepare for real-world contingencies. The sea component exercise will also involve various other military assets, such as aircraft, helicopters, and maritime patrol aircraft. This multi-domain approach will enable the participating forces to practice joint operations across different domains and strengthen their effectiveness in responding to potential threats. In addition to refining tactical proficiency, Joint Warrior provides an excellent platform for enhancing existing partnerships and fostering new ones. Naval personnel from different countries will have the opportunity to work together, exchange knowledge, and build close relationships that are crucial for future collaboration. Participating in Steadfast Defender is not only advantageous for Paul Ignatius and her crew; it also demonstrates the United States' commitment to NATO and its enduring presence in European waters. The U.S. Navy's participation augments the collective defense posture of NATO and serves as a visible demonstration of solidarity with allies in the region. Steadfast Defender exercise serves as a reminder that combined efforts and interoperability between allied nations are essential for maintaining peace and security in an increasingly complex world. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address February 27, 2024 Transcript Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder Holds a Press Briefing MAJOR GENERAL PAT RYDER: All right, good afternoon, everyone. Just a few things to pass along here at the top and then we'll get right to your questions. First, the department welcomes the Hungarian Parliament's vote this week to approve Sweden's application to join NATO, and we look forward to the Hungarian government quickly completing the process so we can welcome Sweden into our alliance. Sweden is a strong and capable defense partner with a highly capable military, something that Secretary Austin was able to see firsthand during his visit there last year. And we look very forward to formally welcoming Sweden as the 32nd member of the NATO alliance. Shifting gears, I'd like to spend a moment to underscore the urgent need for Congress to pass the department's request for a Fiscal Year 2024 base budget. As you've heard department leaders and others say, continuing to operate under Continuing Resolutions is unsustainable and detrimental to our nation's national security interests. Notably, the absence of an appropriation bill for the fiscal year severely hampers the department's ability to plan effectively. We are already well into the fiscal year, now in our fifth month, and unfortunately find ourselves again under a third Continuing Resolution. The fact is that this uncertainty undermines our military readiness and jeopardizes critical modernization efforts. The cumulative effect of spending years under CRs, dating back to 2011, is deeply concerning. That amounts to nearly five years of constrained funding levels, impeding the DOD's capacity to adapt to evolving threats and innovate to maintain our competitive edge. Failure to pass a base budget for the DOD not only risks our national security but also obstructs crucial investments in new technologies, equipment, and personnel training, which are essential for maintaining readiness and staying ahead in an increasingly complex global landscape. In light of these pressing concerns, the department will continue to work closely with Congress and urge them to act now to pass a base budget for the Department of Defense for Fiscal Year 2024. The bottom line is that a full year appropriation is crucial for safeguarding our nation's security and ensuring our military remains prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Separately, earlier today, the Director of the Army National Guard Lieutenant General Jon A. Jensen announced an aviation safety stand down for all Army National Guard helicopter units to review safety policies and procedures following two recent helicopter incidents. Two separate crashes of AH-64D Apache helicopters in Utah on February 12 and Mississippi on February 23 respectively, drove the decision to ground all helicopters for safety reasons. In the order, which went into effect on Monday, Lieutenant General Jensen said, quote, "safety is always at the top of our minds. We will stand down to ensure all of our crews are prepared as well as possible for whatever they're asked to do," end quote. For more information, I'd encourage you to reach out to the National Guard Bureau. And switching to exercise updates, two U.S. Africa Command exercises started yesterday, both of which run through March 8. Justified Accord 2024 is U.S. Africa Command's largest exercise in East Africa, which is led by U.S. Army Southern European Task Force Africa and hosted in Kenya. This year's exercise will incorporate approximately 1,000 personnel and units from 23 nations. Additionally, Exercise Cutlass Express 2024, conducted by U.S. Naval Forces Africa, will take place in the vicinity of Kenya, Seychelles, and Djibouti. The U.S. forces will work alongside participating nations to improve combined maritime law enforcement capacity, promote national and regional security in East Africa, and increase interoperability between the U.S., African, and multinational partners. And for more information, I'd refer you to USAFRICOM public affairs. And sticking with exercises, this week in Thailand, approximately 4,500 service members commenced the 43rd iteration of the annual theater security cooperation event known as Joint Exercise Cobra Gold. Cobra Gold is the largest joint exercise in mainland Asia and a concrete example of the strong alliance and strategic relationship between Thailand and the United States, as well as an example of the strong cooperative relationship with other allies and partners participating in the exercise. For more information, please reach out to USINDOPACOM. And in other Indo-Pacific-related news, on Friday, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China, Taiwan and Mongolia Dr. Michael Chase met with Brigadier General D. Gankhuyag, State Secretary of the Mongolian Ministry of Defense, at the Pentagon for the annual Bilateral Defense Framework. Both officials reaffirmed their commitment to the U.S.-Mongolia bilateral defense relationship and agreed to advance defense cooperation on shared interests to support a free and open Indo-Pacific region. And finally, the department would like to congratulate the U.S. Marine Corps. This past Friday, February 23rd, following a rigorous two year audit pilot, and for the first time in DOD history, the Marine Corps received an unmodified audit opinion, the highest audit opinion that can be achieved; or more simply stated, they passed their audit. The two year audit pilot provided time for the Marine Corps to stabilize its new accounting system and to inventory assets at Marine Corps bases and stations across the globe. We celebrate the tremendous success the Marine Corps achieved in receiving the first clean audit across all military branches, and these results bring the department one step closer to achieving an overall clean report. And with that, I'd be happy to take your questions. We'll go to Associated Press, Tara Copp. Q: Thanks, General Ryder. Going to Ukraine, are there any other options for the U.S. to provide additional weapons to Ukraine at this point, or is it because the replenishment money is out that there simply isn't anything else that could be sent? GEN. RYDER: Well, I -- Tara, you know, the bottom line is, you know, we're going to continue to look at ways that we can support Ukraine in their fight for freedom and to preserve their sovereignty. Obviously, funding to be able to provide them with vital ammunition and capabilities is critical. And so we'll continue to work with Congress in that regard. In terms of specific initiatives or potential future initiatives, I don't have anything to announce today, other than to say you've heard Secretary Austin and other senior U.S. leaders highlight that we will continue to support Ukraine for the long haul. Q: It doesn't seem like a -- the supplemental is making much progress in Congress. As Ukraine's needs become more dire, is the building considering taking the risk of using funds that don't have the -- the replenishment back fill, like using that leftover $4 billion or so? GEN. RYDER: Again, I don't have anything to announce. We have said over and over again that Ukraine matters. We'll continue to convene the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. We'll continue to work closely with international allies and partners to ensure that we can meet Ukraine's most urgent security assistance needs, and then importantly, continue to work with Ukraine on its future defense needs, as well. But again, I don't have anything further to announce. Okay. Quiet group today. Yes, sir? Q: (inaudible). I have a -- two questions. First of all, each time Secretary Austin called with his Israeli counterpart, he asked to prevent the situation of Lebanon border from escalating. So is the thing we saw that Israel strike deeper into Lebanon in (inaudible). Do you have concerns of any potential for further escalation of the Lebanon border because of that? GEN. RYDER: Well, I think, you know, we've been very clear from the beginning of this conflict that we've been concerned about potential escalation on the border, and so this -- as you highlight, this is a topic of discussion frequently between the secretary and his Israeli counterpart. And so that's something that we'll continue to stay focused on. I don't have any specifics in terms of Israeli operations. I'd refer you to them to discuss that. But no one wants to see the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza widened into a broader regional war. Q: And second question, General: Yesterday, we heard from the president that he hopes to have a deal to cease-fire in Gaza by Monday. So how confident are you about that possibility? And from your -- your view, how is it important to have a deal in these days for the stability not just in Gaza, but for the whole of the region? GEN. RYDER: Yeah, well, thank you. As it -- as it relates to those negotiations, I'd -- I'd refer you to the White House, you know. Really not my place to discuss them, other than to say, again, what we've been focused on here is the protection of U.S. citizens and service members in the region, on supporting Israel and its inherent right to defend itself from future and current terrorist attacks, as well as supporting efforts to release the hostages that Hamas took, and then again, as I highlighted earlier, preventing a wider regional conflict from occurring. So that continues to be the DOD focus, and I'll just leave it there. Thank you very much. Let me go to the phone here. Idrees from Reuters? Q: Yeah, two quick questions. Firstly, do you have an update on the secretary's health? Has he been back in the hospital? Has he been in to the Pentagon every day since your last readout? And secondly, there have been some sort of speculation that the Houthis may have damaged some undersea cables in the Red Sea. Is -- is that accurate? And do they even have the capability to do that? GEN. RYDER: Yeah, thanks, Idrees. The secretary's doing well. He continues to recover. He has not been back to the hospital since the previous visit that we read out, so appreciate your interest and obviously, we'll keep you updated on the -- on his health status. In terms of the cables, I've seen those press reports, Idrees, but I -- I don't have anything on that. We're obviously looking in that -- to that, but I -- I can't corroborate those reports. Thank you. Let me go to Missy Ryan, Washington Post. Q: Hi. Thank you, Pat. Just wanted to ask a -- a Ukraine-related question. The French president today gave a speech, and he was talking about Ukraine, and he said two things I was hoping to ask you about. He said first of all that the -- the -- the donations of weaponry had sometimes been too late and that they had come behind schedule. He says that -- that -- we have to have the -- that today, we've got to say that we have the humility to realize that we have als- -- often been six to 12 months behind schedule, and I'm wondering if you could comment that. And secondly, he said he could not rule out Western nations sending troops to Ukraine, to operate in Ukraine. And I'm just wondering, what can you say about that? Is the U.S. in the same position where you could -- where you -- where you wouldn't be able to rule out sending American troops to Ukraine? Thanks. GEN. RYDER: Yeah, thanks, Missy. Well, just to be clear, we have no plans to send U.S. service members to fight in Ukraine. The president has been pretty clear on that and -- and that continues to be our position. As it relates to providing assistance to Ukraine, you know, I can really only speak in broad terms, you know, from a DOD standpoint. As you know, since the beginning of Russia's invasion, we have worked very hard to get security assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible, and it -- and it's not just a U.S. effort; it's an international effort as exemplified, again, by the monthly Ukraine Defense Contact Group meetings, as exemplified by the Security Assistance Group Ukraine, which brings nations together to help facilitate the delivery of those requests and aid to Ukraine. And so there are literally people working around the clock to ensure that we can get aid as quickly as possible to Ukraine and meet their most urgent security needs. But again, as I highlighted at the top, you know, nothing gets done without funding, and so right now we will continue to work closely with Congress and continue to urge them to pass not only a supplemental request to ensure that we can provide Ukraine with the assistance they need, but also to pass a base budget, the 2024 fiscal year base budget so that we can continue to fund urgent priorities throughout the department. Thank you. All right, let me go to Jeff Schogol, Task & Purpose. Q: Thank you. Is there any timeline for how long all National Guard helicopter units will be grounded? And also, do you have an update of when the Ospreys might be coming back into service? Thank you. GEN. RYDER: Thanks, Jeff. I do not have an update on the Ospreys. In terms of the National Guard standdown, that's really a question for them to address. My understanding is that when units have completed their safety stand down, they'll be permitted to fly again. But that is -- that's probably better addressed by the National Guard Bureau. Thanks. Come back to the room. Konstantin? Q: Thanks, Pat. Sticking with the -- the Army first, like, I mean, this is the -- the Army has had a series of deadly helicopter crashes for -- I mean, there's been a pattern of them. This is the second safety stand down I think they're doing in the span of a year. Does the Office of the Secretary have any concerns about the Army's aviation program? GEN. RYDER: Well, look, broadly speaking, you know, safety is something that we're always going to be concerned about and take seriously, and I think, you know, not just in the Army, but in every service you will see senior leadership making safety a priority, as evidenced, again, by the fact that the National Guard Bureau recognizes, hey, we need to take a moment here to -- to stand down, review safety procedures and processes and make sure we can look each other in the eye and go out there and do our mission safely. So the secretary is confident in the service secretaries and chiefs and their leadership in terms of addressing safety concerns. Q: Is there any plans to have a safety review or anything like that at the Pentagon level? GEN. RYDER: Nothing at the Pentagon level. Again, the services organize, train and equip forces. The combatant commands operate those forces. Certainly from the DOD level, we provide policy. But again, safety and risk management are something that -- that on every single day is taken seriously throughout the force. Thanks. Lara? Q: Thank you. A couple on Secretary Austin and then one on Ukraine. Is Secretary Austin able to travel right now? And then also, can you clear up does he still have cancer right now or is -- does he not have cancer anymore? GEN. RYDER: I'd refer you back to what we provided earlier, in terms of what his doctors have said, that -- that he has an excellent cancer prognosis, that, you know -- so I'll just refer you back to that. And then in terms of travel, I don't have any international travel to announce right now. Clearly the fact that he travels from home to work every day indicates that yes, he can travel -- Q: [CROSSTALK] ...does he have any restrictions, in terms of travel? GEN. RYDER: Not that I'm aware of. Again, my understanding is, you know, he continues to have some physical therapy due to lingering leg pains but, you know, again, he's recovering well and he's been working from the Pentagon every day. Q: And then on Ukraine, is it the Pentagon's assessment right now that Ukraine needs additional long-range weaponry? GEN. RYDER: Well, you know, we just convened the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which again provided an opportunity to look at all of Ukraine's needs, both near-term and long-term. And I would say that the top priority continues to be air defense capabilities. And so that's something that -- that we, along with the international community, have been working very actively on to ensure that they have those capabilities. Q: What about long-range weaponry? GEN. RYDER: Look, they obviously need all types of capabilities. We have provided them with some long-range capability but we'll continue to actively communicate with our Ukrainian partners in terms of what their battlefield needs are. Thanks. Q: So two questions on the Red Sea. First, in terms of the undersea cables, I know you've said you can't confirm it yet, but what responsibility does the DOD have to protect those cables? And then secondly, on Saturday, there was a third of joint strikes with the U.S. and UK. We've -- also saw that there was a couple minor strikes from Central Command forces. What is the DOD's rating of its effectiveness right now in degrading the Houthis' ability to strike ships in the Red Sea? GEN. RYDER: Yeah, thanks. And sorry I got your name wrong, Heather. So in terms of the cables, again, I just don't have anything to corroborate those reports, you know, in terms of commercial cables that are around the world. And so I -- you know, I don't want to get into hypotheticals, in terms of what we may or may not do as it relates to cables globally. In terms of the -- the strikes that -- that CENTCOM conducted on Saturday, they're continuing to evaluate, but initial assessments indicate that 17 targets at the eight locations that we struck were destroyed or functionally damaged. And then as I -- I highlighted yesterday, that included underground weapons storage facilities, missile storage facilities, one-way attack unmanned aerial systems, air defense systems, radars, and a helicopter. So more broadly speaking, since the first coalition strikes on January 11, we assess that we've destroyed or degraded at this stage more than 150 missiles and launchers, including anti-ship land attack and surface-to-air missiles, plus numerous communication capabilities, UAVs, unmanned surface vessels, coastal radars, air surveillance capabilities, rotary wing aircraft, underground facilities, to include weapons storage areas and command and control buildings. So degrading and disrupting a significant amount of capability. Q: Just to quickly follow up -- like, in terms of what we're seeing, does this -- do you think that this means that we might see a -- a week-long pause in what -- their -- their ability to hit ships, or should we expect that they're going to be firing, you know, today, tomorrow, the next couple days? GEN. RYDER: Yeah, again, I'm not going to try to predict the future. We've stated what our goals are, which are to safeguard international shipping and preserve freedom of navigation, and that's what we'll continue to be focused on. Clearly, we do not want escalation. We're not looking for conflict, we're simply looking to save lives and livelihoods in this region. Sir? Q: Thank you. A PBR question -- could you give us an update on whether the rollout of that budget request is at all contingent on the passing of a full appropriations for F.Y. '24? GEN. RYDER: The -- you're talking about the F.Y. '25 budget rollout? I don't have anything for you on that right now. Obviously we'll keep you updated -- you know, we'll keep you updated on that front, so. Q: -- second question on Ukraine -- could you just give us an update, speaking of updates, on the delivery of F-16s and the coalition that's providing those? Any timelines too? GEN. RYDER: Yeah, I don't have any timelines to provide. As you know, there is an air capability coalition that the United States is co-chairing, that is looking at how to provide Ukraine with that air combat capability. And so we do project, again, that F-16s will be delivered this year, but I don't have any further details to provide at this stage. So again, we'll keep you posted. Natasha? Q: Thanks, General Ryder. Back in October, Central Command announced that it was going to be transferring thousands and thousands of rounds of ammunition that was seized from the Iranians to the Ukrainians. And I'm just wondering if there are any more of those kind of interdictions that are then going to be transferred to the Ukrainians? Given the shortages that they're facing, is that one option that is under consideration, to kind of do that more frequently? And I'm also wondering separately if you can give us an update on the Rubymar, which was, I believe, sinking as of last week and leaving a pretty big oil -- GEN. RYDER: Yeah. So in terms of providing Ukraine with seized ammunition, I don't have anything to announce on that front. Again, you know, we're going to continue to look at ways that we can support Ukraine. You know, you've heard us say nothing's off the table, but I don't have anything specifically in regards to that -- that approach. In terms of the Rubymar, I'd refer you to NAVCENT for more granular update. My understanding right now is that some vessels associated with the company that owns that ship is looking at some recovery options. But again, they'd be in a better position to talk about specifically what those are. To your point though, you know, as CENTCOM has highlighted, there is oil leaking from that ship, creating environmental impacts, which again just highlights the reckless and irresponsible nature of these Houthi attacks. Thanks. All right. Last question. Yes, ma'am? Q: Thank you. Does the Pentagon assess that the Houthis are going to be a long-term problem or is it the assessment that they're going to stop attacking commercial shipping if there is a ceasefire, like the one that -- at least a pause in the fighting, like the one -- like the one that's being discussed? GEN. RYDER: Yeah, look, I mean, that's really a question for the Houthis to answer, in terms of what their motivation's going to be and in terms of internal decision-making. You know, we are focused on preserving freedom of navigation, we're focused on saving lives and livelihoods in the region, as it relates to the international challenge that these attacks have presented. And so as I highlighted, we're not seeking any type of escalation, we're not seeking to go into a conflict with the Houthis. What we're simply seeking to do is ensure that international mariners can transit this vital waterway safely and securely, in accordance with international law. It's a freedom of navigation issue, and importantly, it's also a health and economic issue, especially for those in -- in the region. And what we've seen these attacks do is essentially -- you know, contrary to their stated aims, the Houthis are wrecking their own neighborhood with their indiscriminate attacks, which harm Middle Eastern economies, cause environmental damage, threaten the fishing industry, coastal communities, and imports of food supplies. Thank you. And then finally before we close, I'd like to welcome our guests from American University. Is that right? All right, welcome. You guys will be up here on Thursday briefing, so, Okay, all right. Thanks very much, everybody. Appreciate it. https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3688774/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gaza/Israel: Statement by High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell at the EP debate on the developments in the conflict European External Action Service (EEAS) 27.02.2024 Strasbourg EEAS Press Team Speech delivered by Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic on behalf of High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell Check against delivery! Mr President, Honourable Members of the [European] Parliament, For more than four months, I have been calling the attention to the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, where around 30.000 people have been killed and more than one million are displaced in Rafah. A recent health report from Johns Hopkins and the University of London predicts that more than 60.000 civilians will die, unless there is a ceasefire and a massive surge in aid very soon. After almost 5 months of war and destruction, our focus must be on achieving an agreement for an immediate end to fighting to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe, save lives and free the remaining 130 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. 26 of our Member States share that call. In unison with most of the international community, we have urged Israel not to advance on Rafah. It would have humanitarian consequences of incredible proportions, over one million Palestinians that have been displaced there and have nowhere else to go. Under these circumstances, the work of the United Nations, including UNRWA, remains crucial. UN Secretary-General [Antonio] Guterres and Commissioner-General [of UNRWA, Philippe] Lazzarini are taking the allegations against UNRWA staff very seriously and have taken immediate decisive measures. We must recognise the high-risk environment UNRWA operates in, and cannot resort to collective punishment, or contribute to the further humanitarian collapse in Gaza, considering UNRWA literally vital role for the people in Gaza. But UNRWA is also essential for the stability in the region - Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and in the West Bank. In line with EU values and while we are working constructively with UNRWA on the reinforcement of their internal controls', an audit carried by EU appointed experts, and a vetting system for their staff. It remains of crucial importance to provide UNRWA with adequate funding - a funding gap would have catastrophic consequences. We have to be clear: there is simply no substitute for UNRWA, now and for the day after. Individual accountability must be ensured, but collective punishment cannot be the answer. The situation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is equally concerning. Demolitions, settlement construction, restrictions on movement and access, as well as settler violence, have all surged since 7 October. On the adoption of sanctions on violent Israeli settlers, we have an agreement at 26, but as you know, we need unanimity to adopt EU restrictive measures, similar to those imposed by the United States months ago. Some Member States have introduced national entry bans. We will continue to work towards a coordinated approach on this issue. With Ramadan approaching in two weeks' time, there is an acute risk that the situation could get further out of hand, in the West Bank and in the region, if we don't act decisively. For months, we have been urging Hamas to release hostages, and for Israel to protect civilians, increase humanitarian access, seriously confront settler violence, release essential revenues withheld from the Palestinian Authority, and desist from actions that risk aggravating an already explosive situation. We have also urged both Hezbollah and Israel to contain the dangerously spiraling violence across the Lebanese-Israeli border. There has been no substantial progress. Meanwhile, the current escalation has been a political windfall for extremists across the region, who thrive on polarisation and misery. All Iranian-backed militias are active, from Yemen to Lebanon. I am worried about possible miscalculations that would trigger a wider conflict. All diplomatic channels must be used to prevent further escalation, be it in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq or the Red Sea, where freedom of navigation is threatened by Houthi attacks on commercial vessels. The European Union is playing its role by deploying a naval operation, called [EUNAVFOR] ASPIDES, to escort and defend commercial vessels. It is the 7th EU operation that High Representative/Vice President [Josep Borrell] has launched during his mandate, and it is a new illustration of the importance for the European Union to develop its military capacities. But we must move beyond treating [the] symptoms, to treating the cause. Israelis, Palestinians, and all peoples of the region deserve to live in security, dignity and a stable neighbourhood. But we all know that there is only one viable and sustainable way to achieve all these objectives: a safe and secure Palestinian state, next to a safe and secure state of Israel. Thank you. Link to the video (starting at 1:23): https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-253410 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement by Foreign Minister Tsahkna at High Level Segment of the 55th Session of the UN Human Rights Council Geneva, 27 February 2024 Republic of Estonia - Ministry of Foreign Affairs 27.02.2024 Statement by H.E. Mr. Margus Tsahkna, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia High Level Segment of the 55th Session of the UN Human Rights Council Geneva. Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my honour to address the Human Rights Council. Last year, we had a valuable opportunity to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reflect on significant achievements made during the past seven decades, which confirms the importance of the Declaration. But we still have a lot of work to do. Mr. President, Today, we are living in profoundly challenging times. On top of multitude of crises, we are marked by alarming number of armed conflicts and wars. Russian full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine has headed into its third year. Every week we are witnessing brutal, inhuman acts - a carnage - against civil institutions and residential areas causing more and more civilian deaths and injuries and widespread destruction. And there is no end in sight. The illegal deportation of Ukrainian children is one of the most horrific in the long list of crimes committed by Russia. Children should never be used as war trophies. Estonia is tirelessly working on ensuring their safe return to their legal guardians. Recent hybrid operations by Russia's security services revealed this week in Estonia indicate clearly that Russia is continuously seeking to destabilize societies who respect the rule of law and international norms. However, Russia will never succeed subverting us from supporting our values and Ukraine who is fighting to defend the democratic world order. A threat to one nation's freedom is a threat to democracy and moral values globally. We must demonstrate a strong commitment to international law by ensuring accountability for all atrocities and war crimes. Our joint efforts are the only way to stop war criminals and hold them accountable. The link between the human rights and peace and security is clear. Countries that violate international law in other countries are also likely to violate international and human rights commitments domestically. There is a clear link between internal repression and external aggression. Mr. President, The acts committed by Hamas on October 7 are inhumane and cruel. We do not tolerate terrorism in any form. While recognizing Israel's right for self-protection, it is devastating to witness the toll of the war in Gaza on civilians. The international human rights principles and international humanitarian law obligations must be respected in all conflicts. Mr. President, We live in an era where the world has the technical means to better incorporate all voices. At the same time, we recognize that the global digital divide hinders inclusion. This particularly affects women and girls. Ensuring women's and girls' access to education and training in science and technology is fundamental. I am proud that Estonia has made significant progress on this. When it comes to AI and other new technologies, it is crucial that we use their full power to help achieve SDGs while encountering the potential threats, it conceals on human rights. Mr. President, Every individual should have the freedom to express themselves and love whoever they choose, without the threat of harassment, violence or discrimination. I am very proud that this year Estonia has taken an important step and implemented marriage equality. This is a significant milestone on the path to equal rights. Mr. President, We live in a globalized, increasingly polarised and extremely politized world. This year, elections are scheduled to take place in a large number of countries. In the pre-electoral period, the flourishing of disinformation deserves our continuous attention. Therefore, Estonia has guided its efforts to enhancing media literacy and educating wider audiences. As a country that ranks as one of the most free regarding internet freedom, we continue to strongly support the protection and promotion of human rights online as much as offline. Looking at the world today, we are concerned about the increasing restrictions on free, independent and pluralistic media, and attacks against journalists and media workers. As a current co-chair of the Media Freedom Coalition and the upcoming chair of the Freedom Online Coalition, Estonia will continue its work to enhance the situation of media and internet freedom. Mr. President, Estonia firmly believes that all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent. Expanding the space where human rights, democracy, and the rule of law are respected is one of Estonia's foreign policy priorities. Today, we are ready to take on more responsibilities. Estonia will seek membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council for the period 2026-2028. We pledge to openly and constructively cooperate with all members of the United Nations and do the utmost to stand up for freedom, human dignity and human rights. In line with our commitment to effective multilateralism and universal values, Estonia has identified three priorities for its efforts to promote and protect human rights - protecting children's rights, enhancing digital rights and upholding media freedom. Mr. President, The Summit of the Future gives impetus to forge a new global consensus on what our future should look like and to defend human rights of all. Strengthening the Human Rights pillar of the UN and mainstreaming human rights in the Pact for the Future is of utmost importance. We encourage all states to engage in a meaningful and open discussion to find a common ground on how to move the world forward, to make it truly fit for freedom. I wish you a successful session. Thank you! NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Defence Minister meets with French Chief of Defence Staff, Army General Thierry Burkhard Republic of Estonia - Ministry of Defence 27. February 2024 The Defence Minister met yesterday, ahead of Estonia's Independence Day parade, with the French Chief of Defence Staff, Army General Thierry Burkhard, to discuss defence cooperation between Estonia and France. "General Burkhard was in Estonia on a symbolic day for both us and Ukraine to send a clear message of good defence cooperation between Estonia and France," said Minister of Defence Hanno Pevkur. "After the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, France very quickly reinforced its military presence in Estonia and made it permanent here. France is a strategic partner for Estonia and a NATO ally with whom we are cooperating daily across all aspects of defence." "I am truly honoured to be invited to celebrate Estonian Independence Day," said Army General Thierry Burkhard. "This invitation illustrates the strength and the dynamic ongoing military cooperation between Estonia and France, especially within the NATO alliance. Throughout 2024, France will deploy its state of the art capacities, including Jaguar and Serval armoured reconnaissance vehicles, and the light infantry company to contribute to the major exercise Springstorm. Also, the French air force pilots are committed and work every day to ensure the airspace security of Baltic countries alongside its allies." Members of the French Armed Forces have been serving in the NATO battlegroup in Estonia since 2017. The French company stationed in Estonia from October last year until the end of February is part of the 1st Infantry Regiment and is supported by VBMR Griffon armoured personnel carriers and AMX-10 armoured reconnaissance vehicles. At the end of February, the next French company will arrive here from the 13th Battalion of the 27th Mountain Infantry Brigade. From August to December 2023, France also bilaterally contributed an airborne company from the 1st Parachute Regiment, to cooperate in particular with the Defence League. The French have carried out Baltic airspace patrols from Amari three times, most recently in the summer of 2022, using Mirage aircraft. From 2018 to 2022, Estonia in turn contributed up to 70 Defence Forces personnel to the French-led Operation Barkhane and its Special Operations Task Force Takuba in Mali. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address EU provides initial 171 million in humanitarian aid for Greater Horn of Africa region European Commission Press release 27 February 2024 Brussels People in the Horn of Africa are facing mounting humanitarian needs as the region is plagued by multiple conflicts, climate extremes and economic shocks. Around 65 million are estimated to be in immediate need of assistance. The EU announced today an initial allocation of 171 million in humanitarian aid to the region. This funding is in addition to 72 million already announced for Sudan. Overall, the total initial allocation for humanitarian aid to the Greater Horn of Africa in 2024 is 243 million. The funding will support humanitarian projects in Djibouti (500,000), Ethiopia (38 million), Kenya (11.5 million), Somalia (37 million), South Sudan (49.5 million), and Uganda (27.5 million). A further 7 million will be allocated to disaster preparedness programmes across the region. Main priorities for EUfunding are: addressing the acute food and nutrition crisis in the region, improving access to basic services, providing education and protection to children in humanitarian crises, and setting up systems to help anticipate the impact of disasters through contingency planning and early action. Background The acute food and nutrition crisis in the Greater Horn of Africa has a devastating impact on tens of millions of vulnerable people. At the same time, there is large-scale forced displacement, both within countries and across borders. Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia host the highest numbers of refugees in Africa. Displaced populations continue to be highly dependent on external assistance for their survival. At the same time, returnees face significant obstacles and often do not benefit from minimal conditions of safety and security. The region is also grappling with the impact of climate shocks and El Nino, oscillating between extremes especially in some parts of Ethiopia and Somalia, from a prolonged drought to floods. The humanitarian situation in Ethiopia continues to be characterised by multiple and often overlapping crises driven by conflicts, climate hazards, epidemics and the macro-economic situation. According to the Global Humanitarian Overview, there are 20 million People in Need in Ethiopia. The legacy of the northern conflict requires priority attention. A scale-up of reconstruction and resilience-building actions is urgently needed. The conflicts in Amhara and Oromia are driving up humanitarian and protection needs. Violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) are being reported and access for humanitarian partners is constrained. Cycles of drought and floods continue to affect different parts of the country, eroding people's coping strategies and increasing their hardships. There are close to 3.5 million IDPs and more than 970,000 refugees, including recent influxes from Sudan, who require humanitarian relief and protection. Kenya is now hosting close to 700 000 refugees and asylum seekers, with the government moving towards an integrated settlement policy - with refugees and hosts communities having equal access to services. EU support will focus on the provision of basic services and multi-purpose cash assistance to address the basic and protection needs of the most vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers, In Somalia, millions of people were already displaced before the onset of the drought and more have been forced to do so d by drought, floods, conflict and insecurity to reach 3.8 million internally displaced. There are challenges in reaching communities. 4.3 million people - almost 1/4 of the population - remain acutely food insecure. An estimated 1.5 million children under the age of 5 are estimated to suffer from acute malnutrition. EU humanitarian funding will focus on life-saving activities for populations recently displaced by acute crises, those in hard-to-reach areas and those exposed to catastrophic or very high levels of food insecurity and epidemic outbreaks. In South Sudan, about 20% of the population is currently displaced due to continued conflict, intercommunal violence and non-receding flooding. EU support will focus on lifesaving interventions, notably in case of new violence-related displacements (including the consequences of the conflict in Sudan), epidemic outbreaks, natural disasters and climate shocks, targeting the most vulnerable. Uganda is Africa's largest refugee-hosting country with close to 1.6 million refugees, including more than 926 000 from South Sudan. Every month, thousands of new refugees fleeing conflicts and natural disasters mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan are increasing the pressure on the Ugandan refugee-hosting model. EU support will prioritise life-saving assistance to the most vulnerable refugees and their host communities, with continuous efforts to meet their basic and protection needs. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sweden's accession intensifies Russia-NATO tensions Global Times European countries want to reduce reliance on US amid Ukraine crisis: experts By Yang Sheng Published: Feb 27, 2024 07:46 PM Sweden has eventually cleared the path to join NATO, and following Finland, the Nordic country's accession to the US-led military alliance means that the boundary of military standoff between Russia and NATO in Europe has expanded to Arctic region, making the security situation of Europe more complicated and unstable, said analysts. European countries are now considering sending ground forces to fight Russian troops in Ukraine, as France raised such idea recently to prevent Russia from winning the war, and experts said the danger of war escalation is increasing, and European major powers are trying to strengthen their own defense capabilities and reducing reliance on the US through more direct intervention over the Ukraine crisis. On European security, China hopes that all parties will work for common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, follow the principle of indivisible security, and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture through dialogue and negotiation and on the basis of respecting each other's legitimate security concerns, so as to realize peace and lasting security in the region, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in response to inquiries concerning Sweden's accession to NATO. "On China-Sweden relations, our position is consistent. We value our friendly cooperation with Sweden," Mao remarked at a routine daily press conference on Tuesday. NATO expansion With Hungary's parliament voting to ratify Sweden's bid to join NATO, the Scandinavian nation is set to join 31 other countries in the alliance, media reported on Tuesday. After nearly two years of negotiations, Sweden follows Finland, which was accepted into NATO last year. The countries applied to join at the same time in May 2022, but Hungary and Turkey both objected to Sweden joining. The Nordic country's entry into NATO was momentarily paused with opposition from Turkey, but the country eventually agreed to support Sweden's bid to join the organization, according to the Associated Press. Sweden's final hurdle was removed Monday, when Hungary at last voted to approve the nation join NATO. Cui Heng, a scholar from the Shanghai-based China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation, told the Global Times on Tuesday that "the Finland and Sweden's accessions make the frontline of Russia-NATO military standoff extended to the Arctic region as now the Arctic Council members are all NATO members except Russia." Chinese analysts said that NATO's latest expansion serves the US strategic demand to struggle with Russia in Arctic region, as in the past, NATO is unable to deploy weapons in the two non-aligned Nordic countries, and now due to the fear of conflict with Russia despite Moscow doesn't want to have tensions with Sweden and Finland, the US is able to contain Russia by deploying military presences in more regions in Europe. Gao Jian, an expert on European studies from the Shanghai International Studies University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that "Russia's strategy in Baltic and Arctic regions is not offensive but defensive, but now with Sweden and Finland's accessions to NATO, Russia will be forced to strengthen military deployments in relevant borders, and this will add uncertainty for the security of Nordic countries as well." Although the latest expansion makes NATO look more powerful, the US-led military alliance lacks sufficient capability to meet actual demands for security and defense for the whole of Europe, Gao said. In other words, the expansion has "diluted" the strength of NATO, according to a Beijing-based military expert who asked for anonymity. When the US-led alliance needs to take care of more members, but its resources has been spent heavily in Ukraine, a non-NATO country, then the real strength that the alliance can provide to its members will be reduced and weakened, the expert said. Europe's concern Russia is now gaining advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine, and Kiev has failed to prove that its forces can effectively transform Western aids into victory against Moscow, more and more European countries are increasingly concerned. Also as the US might see a potential power transition later this year that could significantly impact US policy to support Ukraine, European major powers are seeking new measures to ensure that Ukraine will not be defeated so soon. French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that deploying Western troops in Ukraine is not "ruled out" in the future after the issue was being debated at a gathering of European leaders in Paris, the AP reported on Tuesday. The French leader said that "we will do everything needed so Russia cannot win the war" after the meeting of over 20 European heads of state and government and other Western officials. "There's no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out," Macron said in a news conference at the Elysee presidential palace. Macron declined to provide details about which nations were considering sending troops, saying he prefers to maintain a degree of "strategic ambiguity." European countries are becoming increasingly concerned as they have sensed that for the US, "Ukraine is something on the menu that can be used in trading with Russia," but for European countries, if Ukraine is sacrificed, any of them could be the next. Now, European major powers are now trying to play more direct role by adding inputs to the Ukraine crisis, "so that they can sit at the table rather than appearing on the menu," the anonymous expert added. Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that due to the collective defense principle of NATO, the idea of sending ground forces to Ukraine will face opposition within NATO over concerns of potential escalation. If NATO members deploy troops in the name of the countries' armies rather than volunteers or militias, Russia might be forced to use more destructive weapons and flood more troops onto the battlefield, and the war will become more brutal and uncontrollable, so it's hard to predict the future of Russia-NATO tension, Li noted. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address War in Gaza looms at UNHRC session Global Times World calls for unity, rejects bloc confrontation amid UNSC division By Zhang Han Published: Feb 27, 2024 08:04 PM UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, when addressing the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday, warned that an all-out Israeli offensive on Rafah would spell the end for UN-led humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza, according to a report on the UN official website on Monday. Though the council meeting touched on a wide range of topics, the war in Gaza was the focal topic. Observers said on Tuesday that the UN session is issuing a crucial call at a critical moment, since unilateral moves and bloc confrontation mind-set of the US has jeopardized the authority and functioning of the UN bodies when Israel's assault had claimed nearly 30,000 Palestinian lives and displaced 2 million. Any further extension of Israel's ground operation in the south of Gaza "would not only be terrifying for more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there; it would put the final nail in the coffin of our aid programs," Guterres said. Guterres also reiterated his longstanding concerns about the UN Security Council (UNSC), which he said was "often deadlocked, unable to act on the most significant peace and security issues of our time." Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said during the UNHRC session that multilateral human rights bodies should serve as platforms for constructive engagement and cooperation for all sides, rather than a battleground for group politics or bloc confrontation, Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday. Noting that the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict has cost the lives of nearly 30,000 civilians, and left close to 2 million people displaced, Wang said it falls upon the entire international community to protect the human rights of all ethnic groups and all people in a fair, equal and effective way. The US again vetoed a UNSC resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, after circulating its own deal linking a temporary cease-fire to the release of Israeli captives. The third veto on February 20 has left itself in isolation from the international community. Zhu Yongbiao, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at Lanzhou University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the US has been standing with Israel. No matter how the situation develops and how the humanitarian crisis further aggravates, the US did not change its stance even it means standing in opposite to most countries now. That has threatened the unity of the UNSC and hindered the council from taking meaningful actions, Zhu said. The US' unilateral move also demonstrated that its repeated citation of "human rights" to comment on and interfere in other countries' affairs is weaponizing the concept and hypocritical, Zhu said. Divisions not only emerge at the UNSC, but also domestically in the US. An active US Air Force serviceman set himself on fire on Sunday in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC to protest against the Gaza war, Reuters reported on Monday. Footage circulating online shows the man shouting "I will no longer be complicit in genocide." US media are quite silent on the incident as "it would further bring shame on US image and prompt doubts on its foreign policy in Mideast," Zhu said, as he pointed out US double standards on "freedom of press." On the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, US has been adhering to bloc interests regardless of basic justice, boasting for lofty concepts while acting the opposite, analysts said. Liu Zhongmin, a professor at the Middle East Studies Institute of Shanghai International Studies University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the US, although having mediated a temporary cease-fire deal, is playing a more destructive rather than constructive role in the big picture of Palestinian-Israeli conflict. US mediation is just a diplomatic gesture to appease international and domestic criticism on its current policy when Biden administration wants to focus resources on the upcoming presidential election, Liu said. As for Israel, there is no sign of abandoning its original goal of "total victory" against Hamas despite mounting pressure from international community and even the US, Liu said. When the US hints on key progress made on negotiation for a temporary cease-fire deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told media the ground offensive on Rafah will happen with or without such a deal. "If we have a [cease-fire] deal, it will be delayed somewhat, but it will happen." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hungary to purchase four Gripen aircraft from Sweden Government Offices of Sweden 27 February 2024 On 23 February, Sweden and Hungary entered into an agreement under which Hungary will purchase four new Gripen aircraft from Sweden. The agreement was signed when Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Minister for Defence Pal Jonson visited Budapest. Hungary has had the Swedish Gripen aircraft since 2006: twelve of the Gripen C series and two of the Gripen D series, which is the two-seat version. The fourteen aircraft, which are operated by Hungary under a lease-purchase agreement, will become fully owned by Hungary in early 2026. In addition to these, Hungary will now purchase another four Gripen aircraft. "JAS 39 Gripen is a source of Swedish pride and one of the assets we will bring to NATO, along with underwater capabilities, radar technology and much more. And I am pleased that even more Gripen aircraft will soon be flying in European airspace," says Mr Kristersson. Under the agreement, Sweden will also provide support and logistics for the aircraft from 2026 to 2036. "Over the years, Hungary has been a valued member of the Gripen family, and Hungary's highly professional air force has made important contributions to the development of the Gripen system. Sweden looks forward to continuing strong cooperation with Hungary in the area of defence," says Mr Jonson. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hezbollah conducts missile attacks on Zionist spying airbase IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- Lebanese Resistance Movement Hezbollah has targeted the Israeli "Meron" spying airbase in northern parts of the occupied Palestinian territories with a salvo of rockets from several launchers. Hezbollah said the attack on the "Meron" air control base damaged and destroyed a part of the electronic surveillance and espionage devices, according to the Arab media reported on Tuesday. Hezbollah confirmed, in a brief statement, that the operation was in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, as well as a response to the Israeli aggression against the Lebanese city of Baalbeck and its vicinity. It added that the headquarters of the 146th Division in Jatoun was targeted with dozens of Grad rockets achieving impacts. Also, a heavy rocket salvo was launched from Lebanon towards Western Israeli-occupied Al-Jalil in northern Palestine. Zionist sources reported the attack and the sound of several explosions shortly after. Hezbollah and the Israeli regime have been trading near daily cross-border fire since the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the ground offensive began in October. Hezbollah says its operations are meant to support Gaza's resistance. 3266**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Islamic Jihad says Paris draft is worse than the earlier proposal IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- Ihsan Ataya, a senior member of the political bureau of Islamic Jihad, has said that the Paris draft truce proposal is worse than the one proposed earlier. His comments came shortly after reports abouts a new truce proposal in a quadrilateral meeting in the French capital. Ataya told Al Mayadeen on Tuesday that it seems that there would not be an agreement on the Paris proposal. He believed that the media hype is aimed at exerting more pressure on the Resistance groups. He noted that, feared by the possible developments in Al Aqsa, they are pressing to establish a ceasefire before the holy month of Ramadan. The enemy seeks to deceive the Resistance with different methods to reach goals which they have failed to achieve on the battlefield, he said. 9341**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hezbollah fires over 100 missiles at Israeli targets in one day: Report IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- A Zionist regime's media has reported that Hezbollah has fired at least 100 rockets from Lebanon against Israel over the past 24 hours. Israel's Channel 13 in its Tuesday report stated that the forces of the Lebanese Islamic Authority have fired more than 100 rockets towards the occupied territories in 24 hours. These media admitted that the rocket attacks of Lebanon's Hezbollah against the occupied territories during the past 24 hours have been very intense. Lebanese Islamic Resistance Movement (Hezbollah) in a statement announced missile attack on the Miron air base in the Jarmaq mountains with a large number of its missiles. Lebanon's Hezbollah has targeted the Zionist regime's Miron strategic base with missiles. According to Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Hezbollah targeted Miron surveillance base on top of Mount Meron has been targeted by missiles. The Lebanese Hezbollah fighters had previously fired missiles at the Miron base twice. Hezbollah has been carrying out attacks on the Zionist targets over the past few months in response to Tel Aviv's invasion of the Gaza Strip which has killed more than 29,782 civilians thus Lebanon Hezbollah emphasized in this statement that the attack on the Miron base was in support of the people of Gaza and in response to the aggression of the Zionist regime around the city of Baalbek in the Bekaa region. 6125**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel has yet to approve draft ceasefire deal with Hamas: Hamdan IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan has underlined that a draft truce deal with the Israeli regime on prisoner swap has not been finalized in Paris negotiations yet. Hamdan told Al-Araby TV network that the Israeli side has refused to agree with a draft ceasefire deal proposed by the United States. Paris is hosting new rounds of talks for prisoner swap and humanitarian ceasefire. According to the Palestinian resistance official, the US-proposed draft deal and talks on the number of prisoners in this swap deal are part of a deceptive way used by the occupying regime to buy time for a future attack on the Gaza Strip. On Saturday, the Israeli regime's war cabinet also allowed a delegation to visit Qatar for further negotiations on a ceasefire deal. Riyadh-based Al Arabiya TV channel had also reported that the Qatari capital city Doha hosted a new round of negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza, which was attended by representatives from the Israeli regime, Hamas, and mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the US. The Egyptian capital city Cairo also hosted negotiations at the high-ranking level among American, Qatari and Israeli representatives early February with the aim of finding a way to halt the war on Gaza, but that round of talks bore no tangible fruit. Despite all efforts made to force the Israeli regime to stop the onslaught on Gaza, the regime's military forces continue war crimes in the southern Gaza Strip and plan to create another humanitarian tragedy this time in Rafah city. 4208**9417 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Palestinian fighters hit Israeli military positions in west of Gaza IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- Palestinian resistance fighters have engaged in battle against the occupiers in Gaza and have targeted the Zionist regime's military bases with mortars, as reported by news sources. Conflicts between the Resistance fighters and the occupiers' forces have resumed in Tel al-Hawa, located in the western part of Gaza, Shehab news agency of Palestine wrote on Tuesday. In a related development, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' brigades, affiliated with the Fatah movement, announced today that they struck a location where the Israeli army's vehicles had gathered in the east of Gaza using mortars. Furthermore, on the same day, the Zionist army targeted a medical center in the east of Gaza. On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian resistance groups initiated an unprecedented attack on the Israeli regime in response to decades of crimes against the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the ongoing bombardment in Gaza has resulted in the loss of nearly 30,000 lives, including thousands of women and children. 1483**9417 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hezbollah targets Israeli Miron base IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- Lebanon's Hezbollah has targeted the Zionist regime's Miron strategic base with missiles. According to Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, Hezbollah targeted Miron surveillance base on top of Mount Meron has been targeted by missiles. The Lebanese Hezbollah fighters had previously fired missiles at the Miron base twice. Hezbollah has been carrying attacks on Zionist targets over the past few months in response to Tel Aviv's invasion of the Gaza Strip which has killed more than 29,782 civilians thus far. 9376**9417 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 400 Palestinians to be swapped for 40 Israeli captives: Report IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- Qatar's Al Jazeera network reported on Tuesday morning that the Zionist regime has agreed to release 400 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 40 Israeli captives held by Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip. Al-Jazeera cited sources familiar with the ongoing negotiation on the Gaza ceasefire in Doha that the names of people with high convictions were also seen among those whom Israel agreed to release. These sources added that the release of these 400 people languishing in Israeli jails will be done in exchange for 40 Israeli women and elderly captives. Qatar hosted a new round of talks on the ceasefire in Gaza on Monday, which was held with the presence of representatives of the Zionist regime and Hamas as well as mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The outcome of the talks has not been made public but Al-Arabiya network said the goal of these negotiations were for a Gaza truce and release of prisoners. Israeli media have also predicted that the list of the names of Israeli captives and the identity of the Palestinian prisoners will be released, as well as the conditions of the ceasefire. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden expressed hope that a ceasefire will be established in the Gaza Strip by Monday next week. According to the French news agency, Biden was responding to the journalists' question about when the ceasefire will be established in Gaza Earlier, the White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also confirmed that negotiators are close to reaching a ceasefire deal that will hopefully established by next Monday. 4399 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Another Hezbollah member killed in Israeli attack IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement has confirmed the martyrdom of one more of its members in an Israeli attack on southern Lebanon on Monday night. According to the Al-Ahed news site, Hezbollah announced that Muhammad Ali Muslimi nicknamed Muntazar was martyred on the way to Quds. He was a resident of a village located in the south of Lebanon and was killed when Israeli army bombarded the depths of Lebanon for the first time since the beginning of the Gaza war on Monday. Daniel Hagari, the spokesman of the Zionist army also confirmed the bombing deep in Lebanon, targeting areas in the town of Baalbek in the north. The regime has recently carried out several deadly attacks on residential areas in southern Lebanon. This is while, Hezbollah has restricted its attacks on Israeli military bases and facilities located on the occupied Palestinian territories. 4399 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US, UK warplanes launch new attacks on Yemen IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- American and British forces have conducted fresh aerial attacks on Yemen in yet another breach of international law and the UN charter. Yemen's Al-Masirah TV channel reported that Ras Isa port town and the city of al-Salif in western Hudaydah province were targeted in the new round of strikes. So far, there have been no reports of casualties or possible damages from this attack. Various areas of Yemen, especially Hudaydah, have been the target of the joint US-UK aggression against Yemen in recent days and weeks. These attacks are aimed at putting pressure on Yemen to stop its naval blockade imposed on the Zionist regime. The Yemeni armed forces launched their operations against Israeli or Israeli-bound ships in the Red Sea over the regime's genocide in the Gaza Strip. The have repeatedly announced that all other ships are free and safe to sail through the Red Sea. But over the past month, Yemenis have intensified attack on US and British ships in retaliation for the two countries' aggression against the Arab country. 4399 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Czechia to host informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers in May NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 30 May. 2024 - 31 May. 2024 Last updated: 27 Feb. 2024 Czechia will host the next informal meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs, which will take place in Prague on 30-31 May 2024. "I am grateful to Czechia for hosting this informal meeting as we prepare for our Summit in Washington in July," the Secretary General said. "This year marks 25 years since Czechia joined NATO and 22 years since the Prague Summit where we invited seven more central and eastern European countries to join our Alliance. So this is a fitting place to discuss how we can continue to strengthen and adapt NATO in this important anniversary year," he added. At their 2021 Summit in Brussels, NATO leaders pledged to strengthen and broaden political consultations, including through informal meetings of Foreign Affairs Ministers. Such meetings were hosted by Germany in Berlin in May 2022, and Norway in Oslo in May 2023. Czechia joined NATO on 12 March 1999 alongside Hungary and Poland. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Houthi attacks and shipping in the Red Sea Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Republic of Poland 27.02.2024 Poland condemns continued, attacks originating from Houthi-controlled territories in Yemen against commercial and naval vessels transiting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Those attacks, condemned also by the UN Security Council, threaten not only freedom of navigation and free flow of goods, but also delivery of humanitarian assistance to the region. We support all international efforts aimed at restoring maritime security and freedom of navigation in this strategic maritime corridor in accordance with international law. In this context, we welcome in particular the launching of EU Operation EUNAVFOR ASPIDES which operates in the Red Sea as of February 19th. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US, UK impose sanctions on IRGC, Ansarullah members Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 7:09 PM The United States and Britain have announced sanctions against a high-ranking member of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and certain members of Yemen's Ansarullah resistance movement. The move comes amid escalated tensions over the targeting of Israel-linked shipping in the Red Sea. The US Treasury Department said in a statement on Tuesday that Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh, the deputy commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, and Ibrahim al-Nashiri, a member of Ansarullah, had been placed on Washington's sanctions list. The department also blacklisted Cap Tees Shipping Co., Ltd, which owns and operates a vessel for shipping Iranian commodities, over accusations of providing support both to the Quds Force and the Yemeni resistance movement. And Britain's Foreign Office said the UK's sanctions targeted Fallahzadeh, three units of the Quds Force as well as Ali Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, the commander of Yemen's security forces, and Saeed al-Jamal, a financier who heads a network of vessels. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron accused Iran of backing the Yemeni resistance movement and claimed the Islamic Republic "bears responsibility" for latest attacks by the Yemeni military on ships either owned by Israel or sailing to the occupied territories in the Red Sea. Iran has on numerous occasions asserted that the resistance forces across the region take no orders from the Islamic Republic and act independently on their own accord. Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine's struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched hostilities in Gaza on October 7, 2023, after resistance movements in the territory carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm. The Yemeni armed forces have said they will not stop retaliatory strikes until Israel's unrelenting ground and aerial operations in Gaza, which have killed nearly 30,000 people and wounded around 70,000, come to a complete end. The maritime attacks have forced some of the biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world's most important maritime trade routes. The United States and Britain have been carrying out strikes against Yemen since early January, after Washington and its allies offered Israel their full support amid attacks by Yemeni forces on those ships in the Red Sea. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN says Israel 'systematically' blocking access to aid in Gaza Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 6:40 PM The United Nations says Israeli forces are systematically blocking access to people in need in Gaza, complicating the task of delivering aid to the besieged Palestinian territory. At a press briefing in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday, Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said carrying out medical evacuations and aid deliveries in northern Gaza have become impossible. The spokesman said humanitarian operations are becoming increasingly difficult in the south as well. "Aid convoys have come under fire and are systematically denied access to people in need, (meaning) humanitarian workers are subject to unacceptable and preventable risk." The humanitarian agencies delivering aid to Gaza say even convoys cleared in advance with Israeli authorities have repeatedly been blocked or come under fire. "Despite prior coordination for all staff members and vehicles with the Israeli side, the Israeli forces blocked the WHO-led convoy for many hours the moment it left the hospital," the spokesman said. Laerke pointed to an incident on Sunday, when a convoy to evacuate 24 patients from Amal Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis was blocked for seven hours and paramedics were detained. The convoy had been jointly organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). It had to leave another 31 patients behind at Amal, which is no longer functioning after suffering 40 attacks in the past month alone. "The Israeli military forced patients and staff out of ambulances and stripped all paramedics of their clothes," Laerke said. "Three PRCS paramedics were subsequently detained, although their personal details had been shared with the Israeli forces in advance," Laerke said. "This is not an isolated incident." The humanitarian situation in Gaza is increasingly deteriorating. The PRCS has suspended its work in Gaza for 48 hours because the Israeli military has failed to ensure the safety of its teams. Laerke said the UN would continue to remind Israeli forces of an obligation, at a minimum, to facilitate "safe, smooth, and rapid passage" when alerted to aid missions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Egypt warns of 'catastrophic repercussions' if Israel invades Rafah Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 6:11 PM Egypt says any ground offensive by Israel's military forces on the last refuge of Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip would have catastrophic repercussions. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Tuesday that an invasion of the town of Rafah in far-southern Gaza would "undermine peace in the region". "The world is witnessing the most heinous crimes and violations against the Palestinian people." Shoukry criticized some members of the 47-member UNHRC for taking no firm action to stop Israel's almost five-month war on the besieged Gaza Strip. "It seems that life in Gaza is not worthy enough of their attention, that the massacre of tens of thousands of children fails to shake their otherwise all-too-sensitive conscience," he said. "The lives of Gaza's children are seemingly less valuable than others," he said, warning that their continued inaction "preludes the... collapse of the international system, including this council." International alarm over an Israeli ground attack on Rafah has intensified in recent days, as Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, has threatened that the regime will "do it anyway". "If we have a deal (with Palestinian resistance movement Hamas), it will be delayed somewhat, but it will happen. If we don't have a deal, we'll do it anyway," Netanyahu told CBS News on Sunday. Rafah, the town along the Egyptian border, which was once deemed a "safe zone" by the Israeli military forces, has now become the last refuge for over half of Gaza's entire population of more than 2.3 million, who have fled their homes in other parts of the territory to shelter from incessant Israeli attacks. Earlier this month, Egypt threatened to suspend its peace treaty with Israel if the regime sends its troops to Rafah. It said any ground invasion in the border town could force the closure of the besieged territory's main aid supply route. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also warned on Monday that Israel's invasion of Rafah would "put the final nail in the coffin" of aid operations in Gaza. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Red Sea attacks will only stop if Israel ends Gaza aggression: Yemen Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 5:46 PM A spokesman for Yemen's ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement says the Arab country's attacks against shipping in the Red Sea will only stop after the Israeli regime ends its aggression and blockade on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Mohammed Abdul-Salam, who is also the chief negotiator of the Ansarullah movement, made the remarks on Tuesday, as Yemen's military continued striking Israel-linked vessels, as well as US and British ships, sailing in regional waters. Asked whether Yemen's Red Sea operations would end in case a ceasefire is reached between the Israeli regime and the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, Abdul-Salam said that the situation would be reassessed if Israel ended its siege on Gaza and allowed humanitarian aid to enter the Palestinian territory. Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine's struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after resistance movements in the territory carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on Israeli settlers and military forces in occupied Palestine. The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they will not stop retaliatory strikes until unrelenting Israeli ground and aerial offensives in Gaza, which have killed nearly 30,000 people and wounded around 70,000, come to a complete end. The maritime attacks have forced some of the biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world's most important maritime trade routes. The United States and the United Kingdom have been carrying out strikes against Yemen since early January after Washington and its allies offered Israel their full support amid attacks by Yemeni forces on Israeli-linked ships sailing to and from the occupied territories through the Red Sea. Separately on Tuesday, the US military's Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement that US "preemptive" strikes on Yemen on Monday had destroyed two anti-ship cruise missiles, three unmanned surface vessels and a drone in the Arab country. It claimed that the destroyed missiles were being prepared to launch toward the Red Sea. Two days earlier, the US and the UK said that they had targeted at least 18 military sites in eight locations across Yemen. The attacks included strikes against underground weapons and missile storage facilities, air defense systems, radars and a helicopter, they added. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israeli forces stop UN convoy, detain and strip-search paramedics Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 4:44 PM Israeli regime forces in the Gaza Strip have stopped a UN ambulance convoy that was evacuating critically-ill patients from a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younes before detaining and strip-searching the paramedics in the convoy. In a statement on Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that Israeli regime forces had stalled the UN convoy on Sunday detaining a paramedic and forcing others to remove their clothes. The incident occurred during the evacuation of 24 critical patients from the city's al-Amal Hospital, which has been under the continuous siege of Israeli regime forces, it said, adding that one pregnant woman and one mother and a newborn were among the patients. "Despite prior coordination for all staff members and vehicles with the Israeli side, the Israeli forces blocked the WHO-led [World Health Organization] convoy for many hours the moment it left the hospital," Jens Laerke, spokesperson for OCHA, told reporters in Geneva. "The Israeli military forced patients and staff out of ambulances and stripped all paramedics of their clothes," Laerke added. He added that Israeli forces had subsequently detained three Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedics, "although their personal details had been shared with the Israeli forces in advance," while the rest of the convoy stayed in place for "over seven hours." One paramedic was released, said the OCHA spokesman as he appealed for the immediate release of the other two, and all other detained health workers in Gaza. OCHA's statement said that the UN relief agencies operating in war-torn Gaza face "unacceptable security conditions" for humanitarian aid delivery. "This is not an isolated incident. Aid convoys have come under fire and are systematically denied access to people in need," it said. "Humanitarian workers have been harassed, intimidated or detained by Israeli forces, and humanitarian infrastructure has been hit." That comes as the US-Israeli genocidal war against the defenseless Palestinians in Gaza continues unabated. Nearly 30,000 people, including 14,000 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its aggression on Gaza in early October. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hamas censures Biden's 'premature' words on Gaza ceasefire Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 4:21 PM The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has condemned US President Joe Biden's "premature" optimism that a ceasefire in Gaza is imminent. The US president said on Monday that negotiators in Paris were "close" to clinching a deal by March 4. "My national security adviser tells me that we're close. We're close. We're not done yet. My hope is, by next Monday, we'll have a ceasefire," he said. A Hamas official said on Tuesday that Biden's comments were "premature" and did not take into account the situation on the ground. "The primary and main issues of the ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces are not clearly stated, which delays reaching an agreement," he told Reuters. Media reports say Hamas has received a draft proposal from Gaza truce talks in Paris which allows for a 40-day initial halt in all military operations in Gaza. The pause would potentially allow the release of 40 Israeli captives in exchange for 400 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. It also includes the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza as well as the entry of aid trucks into the besieged territory. Hamas has reiterated that the draft document does not meet its demands. The major demands put forth by the resistance are a deal that includes a commitment for a permanent end to hostilities and a withdrawal of the regime's troops. Leaked draft promoted for 'propaganda' purposes Separately, a senior Hamas official has accused the Biden administration of leaking a ceasefire proposal to influence the Palestinian public opinion. Osama Hamdan, the top Hamas representative in Lebanon, said on Tuesday the leaked draft is being promoted for "propaganda" purposes by the United States, Israel's great benefactor. "The Paris Summit draft is an American proposal and its goal is to give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more time to prepare for a new attack," Hamdan said. He also accused Israel of continuing to "evade its obligations." Hamdan said Hamas insists on permanently ending the Israeli aggression, lifting the Israeli siege and launching a Gaza reconstruction project without Israeli restrictions before a prisoner swap. 'Biden supporting Israel's war of starvation' In a statement on Monday, Hamas slammed the Biden administration for supporting the Israeli campaign in Gaza. Hamas said the international community's "inability and the American cover for the crime of starvation that the occupation uses as a weapon to achieve political goals is a disgrace to humanity that history will not erase, even if the American administration hides behind misleading statements about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip." "It will not absolve it of its responsibility and participation in war crimes committed against defenseless civilians." Israel's relentless attacks over the past 24 hours have killed nearly 100 Palestinians across the besieged territory. In Gaza City, the regime's warplanes have created a belt of fire around a school currently being used as a shelter. The death toll from Israel's campaign is close to 30,000. A considerably large number of the victims are women and children. The humanitarian situation is deteriorating. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has suspended its work in Gaza for 48 hours because the Israeli military has failed to ensure the safety of its teams. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Venezuela: Israel, the perpetrator of Gaza genocide, must be punished Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 2:02 PM Venezuela's Foreign Minister Yvan Gil says the international community needs to punish Israel for committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Gil made the remarks at a press conference on the sidelines of the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday. "Venezuela has a clear position. This is a massacre by Israel. We at the United Nations had a very critical position in this regard, that this situation must be stopped," the Venezuelan foreign minister said. "It is important that the international community take steps to punish the aggressor and perpetrator of genocide." Gil said despite efforts made by the UNHRC, the world body has failed to stop the killing of Palestinian civilians by the regime, and that there was an "evident" crisis in the international system of the United Nations in Palestine. The foreign minister said Venezuela supports trial of Israel for its crimes. "Israel is the aggressor. They also did not hesitate to threaten the Palestinians with atomic bombs. It is not permissible to pass this matter. We must be active and condemn Israel." Israel has killed nearly 30,000 people and injured more than 70,000 others in Gaza since early October, when the regime ignited the war machine after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas conducted Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hezbollah targets Israel's Meron base as movement fires 100 retaliatory rockets in 24 hours Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 10:20 AM The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement has fired a barrage of rockets at an Israeli military base in the northern part of the 1948 Israeli-occupied territories in response to the regime's deadly airstrikes on eastern Lebanon. Lebanon's Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network, citing a brief Hezbollah statement, reported that the group targeted the Mount Meron base on Tuesday. The sensitive Israeli air traffic control base has been targeted by Hezbollah several times amid the ongoing Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Hezbollah said in the statement that the rocket attack came in retaliation for brutal aggression against Gaza, and in response to Israeli airstrikes a day earlier on the outskirts of Buday village near Baalbek, which claimed the lives of at least two resistance fighters. Israel media outlets said Hezbollah launched a volley of rockets from Lebanese territories towards the Mount Meron base, noting that the sound of several loud explosions was heard in the area. They noted that Hezbollah had fired more than 100 projectiles in less than 24 hours. There were no immediate reports of casualties and the extent of damage caused. Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets from Lebanon on Monday at an Israeli military base in Syria's occupied Golan Heights, in response to the deadly airstrikes in Lebanon's Baalbek. Two Lebanese security officials and a source close to the resistance group told AFP news agency that two Hezbollah members were killed in the Israeli aerial raids. One of the Lebanese security sources said Israeli strikes hit a building used by Hezbollah in a Baalbek suburb, and a warehouse near Baalbek belonging to the group. Later on Monday, an Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon killed at least one person, local rescuers said, without providing further details. The Israeli regime has been intermittently attacking southern Lebanon since October 7, when the occupation entity launched the devastating campaign of death and destruction in Gaza. In retaliation, Hezbollah has mounted near-daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions. More than 270 people have been killed on the Lebanese border, most of them Hezbollah fighters but also including 44 civilians. At least ten Israeli troopers and six settlers have been killed in the area. The fighting has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands from the northern part of the occupied territories, which have been pummeled by rocket fire and shelling carried out by Hezbollah and allied Palestinian groups. Hezbollah has urged residents in southern Lebanon to take their CCTV camera systems offline to prevent Israel from hacking into those devices installed outside homes and shops in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah has already fought off two Israeli wars against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006. The resistance forced the regime to retreat in both conflicts. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Feb. 26: 'Axis of Resistance' operations against Israeli occupation Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 10:15 AM By Press TV Website Staff Amid Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed 29,878 Palestinians so far, including at least 14,000 children, resistance groups in Palestine and across the region continue their operations against the Tel Aviv regime and its Western backers. The operations carried out by the Palestinian and regional resistance groups on Monday, February 26, are as follows: Al-Qassam Brigades' operations on Feb. 26: Detonated an anti-personnel mine on an Israeli military contingent comprising 15 soldiers inside a house in Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Yunis City, southern Gaza, causing casualties. Destroyed a Merkava tank with a Yassin 105 rocket in the Abasan al-Kabira area, east of Khan Yunis City. Targeted an Israeli force comprising four soldiers with an anti-personnel rocket, followed by clashes at point-blank range in Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Yunis City. Successfully ambushed an Israeli force in the vicinity of the University of Palestine in central Gaza, resulting in casualties. Shelled a gathering of Israeli forces south of the al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City with heavy-caliber mortar shells. In a joint operation with Omar al-Qassam Forces, shelled a gathering of Israeli forces south of the al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City with mortar shells. Al-Quds Brigades' operations on Feb. 26: Sniped an Israeli regime soldier in the eastern part of Khan Yunis City. Shelled the "Kisufim" military site of the Israeli regime with a barrage of rockets. Shelled a gathering of Israeli soldiers and their vehicles south of the al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City with 60mm mortar shells. Shot down an Israeli military quadcopter drone during its spying operation in central Khan Yunis City. Targeted two Israeli military vehicles with RBGs near the Doulah intersection in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City. Al-Aqsa Brigades' operations on Feb. 26: Sniped two Israeli soldiers east of Khan Yunis City. Shelled a gathering of Israeli soldiers and vehicles south of the al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City with 60mm mortar shells. Mujahideen Brigades' operations on Feb. 26: Targeted gatherings of Israeli forces in southeast Gaza with short-range rockets. Shelled the Re'im site with a rocket barrage. Targeted an Israeli military bulldozer south of the al-Zaytoun neighborhood with an anti-armor "Sayyar" rocket. Hezbollah's operations on Feb. 26: Eastern sector: At around 3:10 local time, an Israeli force was targeted at the al-Baghdadi site with missiles. At around 9:20 local time, an Israeli Hermes 450 drone was shot down with a surface-to-air missile. At around 16:00 local time, the Golan Division headquarters in Nafah was targeted with sixty Katyusha rockets. At around 16:15 local time, a radar site in Shebaa was targeted with missiles. At around 16:20 local time, the Ruwaisat al-Alam site in Shebaa was targeted with missiles. At around 20:10 local time, Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the al-Marj site were targeted with missiles. At around 22:45 local time, surveillance equipment at the al-Abad site was targeted with appropriate weapons. Western sector: At around 12:00 local time, Israeli soldiers at the Hadab Yarin site were targeted with missiles. At around 12:10 local time, the settlement of Shtola was targeted with missiles. At around 13:15 local time, the Beranit Barracks was targeted with missiles. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hezbollah warns Israel: We have exhibited 'minimum of our capabilities' so far Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 8:10 AM A high-ranking Hezbollah official says the Lebanese resistance movement has so far exhibited only the least of its capabilities in terms of military and deterrent power, warning the Israeli regime against taking any further provocative measure on the border with the Arab country. "We are responding to Israeli acts of aggression and transgression ... We are seeking a limited confrontation that would accomplish its objectives. Nevertheless, Hezbollah would not hesitate to deliver a much stinging response in case the Israeli enemy decides to raise the ante," Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah Sheikh Naim Qassem said. He was speaking on Monday during a ceremony in the Lebanese capital city of Beirut in commemoration of the fallen commanders and members of the resistance group. He underlined that whatever Hezbollah has employed so far in the course of battles with Israeli forces represents just a fraction of its military and deterrent capabilities. "Political declarations and formal protests will not deter the [Israeli] enemy. Expression of sympathy over fallen women and children, and meetings where statements of condemnation are issued will not stop the enemy. Only weapons and resistance can deter the enemy," Sheikh Qassem pointed out. The senior Hezbollah official further noted that his group has formulated rules of engagement with the Israeli military, adding that the southern boundaries of Lebanon are of great significance when it comes to safeguarding the Arab country's sovereignty and supporting the Palestinians in Gaza. The Israeli regime launched its devastating hostilities in the Gaza Strip on October 7 after the territory's Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity. The Israeli military has also been carrying out attacks against the Lebanese territory since then, prompting retaliatory strikes from Hezbollah in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. The movement has vowed to keep up its retaliatory operations as long as the Tel Aviv regime continues its onslaught on Gaza. The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed at least 29,782 people, most of them women and children. More than 70,000 individuals have also been wounded. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address In swap deal, Israel to free 400 Palestinians in return for 40 Gaza captives: Report Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 7:39 AM A new report has published details of a prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas, under which the occupying regime will free 400 Palestinian abductees in exchange for the release of 40 held in captivity by the Gaza-based resistance group. The swap deal, which will be accompanied by a six-week truce, came as part of the recent talks in the French capital Paris between Israeli, American, Egyptian and Qatari representatives. Al Jazeera reported. Citing unidentified sources involved in the discussions, the report said Israel has agreed to free 400 Palestinians held in the regime's prisons in return for 40 Gaza captives. Israel has also agreed to the gradual return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza - with the exception of young men, who are "of recruitment age," and the entry of further aid and temporary shelters into the besieged territory, including heavy machinery and equipment. The regime has further agreed to halt its warplanes over the Gaza Strip, including intelligence-gathering ones, for eight hours. The report came after an Israeli delegation traveled to Doha, where Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani separately met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden said that he hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza by next Monday, when asked when he thought a truce could begin. "Well I hope by the beginning of the weekend. The end of the weekend. My national security adviser tells me that we're close. We're close. We're not done yet," Biden said when asked when he thought a truce could begin. "And my hope is that by next Monday [March 4] we'll have a ceasefire." Israel waged a genocidal US-backed war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people. However, almost five months into the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its objectives of "destroying Hamas" and finding Israeli captives despite killing 29,782 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 70,043 others. A week-long humanitarian ceasefire in late November saw an exchange of 240 Palestinian abductees held by Israel with 105 captives, including 81 Israelis and 24 foreigners, in Gaza. Israel believes 130 captives still remain in Gaza, while there are thought to be 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, many detained without charge. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sweden set to join US-led NATO as Hungary approves bid Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 7:27 AM Hungary's parliament has approved Sweden's bid to join North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), clearing the last obstacle before the Nordic country becomes a member of the US-led Western military alliance. The parliament overwhelmingly approved Sweden's bid on Monday, after nearly two years of negotiations. Hungary's speaker of parliament and president are now expected to sign the ratification within a few days. The vote followed a visit by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Friday, during which the two countries inked an arms deal. "Sweden is leaving 200 years of neutrality and military non-alignment behind," Kristersson told a press conference, adding, "We are joining NATO in order to defend what we are and everything we believe in even better. We are defending our freedom, our democracy and our values, together with others." NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hailed the Hungarian ratification in a post on X, saying "Sweden's membership will make us all stronger and safer." Sweden's accession will bring to 32 the total number of NATO member countries. Sweden and Finland applied for NATO accession in 2022 following the eruption of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Finland's NATO membership was green-lighted by all NATO members in April last year. But Sweden's application was blocked by Turkey and Hungary who raised objections. Turkey's objections initially focused on the Nordic country's support for elements linked to the so-called Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) armed group, as well as the movement of US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, which Ankara accuses of involvement in a 2016 coup attempt. Last month, Ankara approved Sweden's NATO membership bid as Stockholm reiterated that it wouldn't support Kurdish opposition groups that are considered terrorist outfits by Ankara. This comes amid Russia's repeated warnings against the US-led alliance's expansion, saying that NATO leaders have betrayed a promise not to expand the body after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin has railed against the US for being behind NATO's eastward drive, especially its courting of ex-Soviet republics such as Ukraine and Georgia. Moscow launched the military campaign in Ukraine in February 2022, with Putin saying that the "special military operation" in Ukraine's Donbas was necessary to "defend people" against Western aggression and its expansionist policy. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israeli ground assault on Rafah will deal death blow to UN aid ops in Gaza: Guterres Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 1:35 AM The UN secretary-general says a potential Israeli ground assault against the city of Rafah in southern Gaza Strip, which is enduring a genocidal Israeli war, will deal a death blow to the world body's aid operations in the coastal sliver. Antonio Guterres made the remarks on Monday before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, addressing the regime's threats of launching a full-scale ground offensive against the city. Rafah has come to host more than 1.4 million Palestinians, who have fled there from the ravages of the war that has so far killed nearly 30,000 people. "An all-out Israeli offensive on the city would not only be terrifying for more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there; it would put the final nail in the coffin of our aid programs," the UN chief said. Guterres said Gaza's southernmost city was "the core of the humanitarian aid operation" in the Palestinian territory. A day earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated that his regime was intent on the ground invasion, in its bid for "total victory" over the Gaza-based resistance movement of Hamas. Netanyahu claimed that once a ground invasion happens, victory would be just "weeks away," and that a potential ceasefire, being discussed in Doha, would only delay the operation. Hamas, itself, many regional countries, and even the majority of Israelis have, however, asserted that it would be impossible to oust the movement, which has vowed to resist the Israeli regime's deadly aggression. Elsewhere in his remarks, Guterres declared, "I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire," noting "nothing justifies the collective punishment of the Palestinian people." He also lamented the UN Security Council's inefficacy in ending the bloodshed in Gaza. As part of its consistent political patronage for the Israeli regime, the United States, which is Tel Aviv's main benefactor, has so far vetoed three Security Council resolutions that have called for implementation of an immediate ceasefire in the Israeli onslaught. This Council's inaction "has severely -- perhaps fatally -- undermined its authority," the UN chief cautioned. "The Council needs serious reform to its composition and working methods." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Laos to build one of Southeast Asia's largest wind power farms Government says impact will be minimal, but some worry about deforestation or relocation. By RFA Lao and RFA Vietnamese 2024.02.27 -- Laos will construct one of Southeast Asia's largest wind power farms near the Vietnamese border, government officials told Radio Free Asia, as part of its ambitious goal to become the "Battery of Southeast Asia." Authorities say the US$2.16 billion project will have limited impact on the environment - much less than the many dams that Laos is also building, which have displaced entire villages and devastated riparian ecosystems. But some local officials and residents expressed concern about deforestation and loss of farmland, and called for more impact studies. The 1,200-megawatt project by the Savan Vayu Renewable Energy Co. will break ground near Lako village in Sepon District in the southern province of Savannakhet. It will cover an area of 28,513 hectares, or about 110 square miles, which will be dotted with wind turbines by 2026, according to the plan. When completed, it will be much larger than the 600-megawatt Monsoon Wind Project, also in Laos. A district-level official of the Office of Energy and Mines said the area where the turbines will be built is rugged and that residents would be unaffected. "The wind power farm will be located on top of the mountain, far away, about 20 kilometers [12 miles] from the village," said the official, who like all sources in this report requested anonymity for personal safety reasons. "It won't create any serious impact on the people. There will be no relocation of people." Reservations But another district-level official from the Office of Agriculture and Forestry voiced reservations. "If the company is going to build a wind power farm in the area, all the trees will be cut and all the forest will be destroyed," he said. "On this issue, the feasibility study has not been detailed enough." A province-level official of the Natural Resources and Environment Department called for the government and the developer to exercise caution and perform an adequate impact assessment. "People are going to lose a lot of farmland," he said. "To avoid any problems or any conflict in the future, a well elaborated assessment is needed. We should do it right now. If not, it'll be more difficult to solve later." Residents had mixed feelings. One person said many people in the area support the project because it won't affect the environment too much. "We want to see the country develop and have enough power," a resident said. "I think it is easy to build a wind power farm. The company just installs wind turbines along the Vietnamese border and that's that." But a resident of Lako village said that more transparency was necessary. "I know that the feasibility study on the project has been completed, but the potential impact on the environment and people are not publicly known," the Lako resident said. "Right now, we don't even know how much forest and how many people will be affected." Selling electricity to Vietnam Construction on the project has not yet begun, an official from the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines said. "The company needs to have the power purchase agreement first before it can start construction," the official said. "Most of the electricity produced by the project will be sold to Vietnam. I think the company might begin the construction of the basic infrastructure first." Laos and Vietnam have however signed an agreement in 2016 specifying that between 2020 and 2030 Laos will sell 5,000 megawatts of power to Vietnam. RFA Lao reported in September that the Lao government also greenlighted a project for a Thailand-based company, to develop a 1,000-megawatt wind power farm in Sekong Province, also in southern Laos. Meanwhile, in Vietnam's central province of Quang Tri, the Hai Anh Wind Project signed an agreement with a Chinese developer to accept delivery of wind turbines by March, and for installation to be completed by November. The Hai Anh Wind Project is one of around 30 such projects approved by Vietnam for Quang Tri's mountainous Huong Hoa district. It covers 855 hectares (3 square miles) with an output of 40 megawatts. Translated by Max Avary and An Nguyen. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. Copyright 1998-2024, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content February not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Cambodian court denies opposition leader's incitement conviction appeal Thach Setha was prosecuted for comments he made about the ruling CPP's historical ties to Vietnam. By RFA Khmer 2024.02.27 -- Cambodia's Appeals Court on Tuesday upheld a criminal conviction and three-year prison sentence for Candlelight Party Vice President Thach Setha. The opposition figure was arrested in January 2023 and prosecuted for comments he made about the ruling Cambodian People's Party's historical ties to Vietnam and the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument that was built in Phnom Penh in 1979. In October, he was convicted of incitement to provoke social chaos and discrimination. Representatives from human rights organizations, the United Nations and the European Union attended Tuesday's appeal hearing, along with Thach Setha's family. "What he said was political speech and not a crime," his lawyer, Choung Chou Ngy, told Radio Free Asia. "Thach Setha said what he said based on history. He didn't incite." Thach Setha's arrest in early 2023 was seen as part of a months-long campaign of intimidation and threats against opposition leaders and activists ahead of last July's general election, which was swept by the CPP. Thach Setha's Candlelight Party - the country's main opposition party - was not allowed to compete in the election. The National Election Committee cited inadequate paperwork in ruling last May that it couldn't appear on the ballot. 'Based on history' In a separate case, Thach Setha was found guilty in September on a false check charge that was criticized as politically motivated by human rights groups and party officials. A judge sentenced him to 18 months in prison for that conviction. In the incitement case, the appeals court judges announced on Tuesday that they agreed that Thach Setha's comments were criminal. Thach Setha has argued that his comments were based on a history book that Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in 1978 created a fragile national unity. His wife, Thach Sokborany, told RFA that the judges ignored the evidence submitted that showed that her husband was only speaking about real events. "My husband only made comments based on history and books," she told RFA. "But the court is politically influenced." RFA was unable to reach Appeals Court Judge Khun Leang Meng for comment. Choung Chou Ngy said he will discuss with Thach Setha about possibly filing another appeal to the Supreme Court. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. Copyright 1998-2024, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content February not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Visegrad Group: When 2 + 2 Doesn't Equal 4 By Rikard Jozwiak February 27, 2024 The Visegrad group, bringing together the four Central European EU and NATO members: Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, might not be dead yet -- but it sure is on life support, and will continue to be so for a while yet. That is the obvious conclusion one can draw from the summit of the group's four prime ministers in Prague on February 27. It was not too long ago that the Visegrad Group (or V4 as it normally is referred to) was a real player when it came to deal making in the corridors of power in Brussels. Created back in 1991, it forms one of the oldest informal political alliances within both the EU and NATO. What started off as a cooperation platform at the end of the Cold War for the quartet to get rid of decades of Soviet legacy and to promote each other's entry into Western political organizations and institutions, it quickly transformed into a bloc not to be scoffed at inside those same political structures. On their own, the four could easily be ignored by heavyweights such as Germany and France but unified, representing nearly 65 million citizens, they shaped European policies on various fields such as immigration, agriculture and even foreign policy. It is on perhaps the foreign policy item of the day in Europe that the grouping has come unstuck -- the war in Ukraine. Here a canyon-like divergence has become so apparent that it wouldn't be out of order to speak of a V2+V2. On the one hand, Czechia and Poland, as two of the strongest supporters of Kyiv in terms of political and military support, argue for even more and faster arms delivers to the war-torn country. And far away, in the other corner, Hungary and Slovakia refuse to send weapons east and want "peace" at seemingly any cost, with especially the former having developed a distinct policy of watering down Russia sanctions, questioning Ukraine's EU integration and at one point even blocking EU aid for Kyiv. It was quite telling that the bilateral meeting between the Czech and Polish prime ministers, Petr Fiala and Donald Tusk, in the morning before the V4 summit lasted longer than the actual summit. According to Czech diplomats, that morning discussion was "very cordial," with agreement on pretty much everything and Poland signaling readiness to support Prague's initiative to buy much-needed ammunition for Ukraine from third countries and deliver it as quickly as possible. The press conference with the quartet after the V4 meeting was a whole different affair, with tense smiles and everyone more or less admitting that views differed widely. Fiala, whose country holds the yearlong V4 presidency till the end of June before Poland takes over, put on a brave face and defended the need to meet in person and even found two items regarding Ukraine that they all could agree on: that Russia's aggression is against international law and that Ukraine needs help -- the difference on the latter is how. Hungarian Prime minister Viktor Orban was quick to point out that Budapest wasn't against humanitarian nor financial help, talking up how Hungarian doctors are helping on the front lines. Then it descended into two different narratives. While Tusk insisted that the West should never compromise on core issues such as independence and territorial integrity and Fiala underlined that Russia should not be rewarded for its aggressive policies, Orban and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico talked of the need of an immediate cease-fire, that the war cannot be resolved with more weapons, and that Kyiv and Moscow will be in the same place in two years' time but with tens of thousands more dead. So, clearly no agreement yet on how 2+2 could become four again on Ukraine, even if they quickly made clear to the assembled media that there was one more thing they could all agree on the war: that none of them was prepared to send its soldiers to fight in Ukraine, seemingly rebuffing a remark by French President Emmanuel Macron after a Ukraine-related meeting in Paris the day before, in which he noted that Western countries in the future could not rule out sending men and women in uniform to back Kyiv in the war. Beyond Ukraine, however, it actually seems that the V4 might be in rude health. Fiala mentioned that they saw eye to eye on energy, notably the need of more nuclear energy; that they had a common hard-line stance on "illegal migration," notably the aversion to mandatory EU quotas to distribute migrants inside the club; and that they didn't want sweeping changes inside the EU, towards a more "federal" union with fewer national vetoes. And then of course there was agriculture, where they all agreed that the EU's Green Deal, which should pave the way for no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, should not come at the cost of EU farmers' competitiveness. And with farmers all over Europe protesting, largely due to increased production costs, this is something worth taking note of. And here Tusk is in a tight spot. While wanting to support Ukraine as much as possible, he also needs to pay attention to his country's more than 1 million farmers -- a super-influential voting group that is now blocking the Ukrainian border and Ukrainian farm produce from entering. His rather anguished look when pronouncing that solidarity with Ukraine, in this case an EU deal to allow tariff-free Ukrainian goods into the bloc, could not come at the expense of Polish businesses, showed that he found it hard squaring a circle. One could also detect a smirk on the faces of Fico and Orban here. The four leaders might not admit as much right now, but the V4 could, if it survives, agree that the narrow national interest of each of them, in the end, trumps any solidarity with Ukraine. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/visegrad-hungary- poland-czech-slovakia-disunity/32837670.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Protesters Boo 'Putin Envoy' Dodik As Montenegro Pro-Russian Party Welcomes Him By RFE/RL's Balkan Service February 27, 2024 Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russia president of the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, on February 27 visited Montenegro, where he was greeted by hundreds of protesters who booed him as he entered the parliament building. Dodik, who last week traveled to the Russian republic of Tatarstan for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, arrived in Podgorica for a meeting with Parliament Speaker Andrija Mandic. The cabinet of Montenegro's president, Jakov Milatovic, and the government of Milojko Spajic told RFE/RL they had no official information about Dodik's visit or announcements of meetings with officials. The protesters who gathered at the parliament building criticized Mandic's meeting with Dodik, holding signs reading, "We must say no to Mandic and Dodik!" and waving a banner that included the words, "Putin's envoys are not welcome." Entering the parliament building, Dodik greeted the crowd with a three-finger salute used by pro-democracy movements and as a symbol of dissent and opposition to authoritarianism. The protesters responded by booing and shouting "fascist." Dodik, who is under sanctions imposed by the United States and Britain for his alleged obstruction of the Dayton agreement and for violating the legitimacy of Bosnia, on February 21 held his fourth meeting with Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Dodik told Putin that Republika Srpska refuses to join sanctions against Russia despite pressure from Western governments and said he does not want to see Bosnia join NATO. Two days before his meeting with Putin, Dodik met with Belarusian authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has been sanctioned by the European Union for electoral irregularities. Mandic, as one of the leaders of the pro-Russian Democratic Front coalition with two other parties, said it was a great honor to host Dodik, saying his New Serbian Democracy and Dodik's Alliance of Independent Social Democrats are sister parties. "These are primarily Serb parties -- the Serb people of [Republika Srpska] support them, and the Montenegrin people support us," Mandic said. Mandic said he would discuss a proposed cooperation agreement in the areas of business, sports, education, and culture in accordance with the Dayton agreement with Dodik. Mandic told a news conference the former government had rejected the agreement. Opposition parties reacted strongly to Dodik's visit. The pro-European Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) said he came with "the task of conveying Putin's messages to his allies in Montenegro." Abaz Dizdarevic, a DPS member of parliament, said Dodik's visit to Montenegro after his trips to Russia, Belarus, and Serbia confirm that Montenegro's officials are deceiving international partners with their European agenda. Montenegro's parliament in October appointed the new government led by Milatovic and Spajic and composed of pro-Europe and pro-Serbia/Russia-friendly parties that is expected to lead the country in its bid to join the European Union. The Social Democrats said Dodik's visit was a clear indicator to the domestic and the international public what the EU agenda looks like in practice and not "in the artificial and now very distasteful EU narrative" of numerous officials in Montenegro. The Bosniak Party said Dodik's visit was a clear sign that Montenegro "is becoming a haven for politicians and policies who are proxies of Russian politics in the Balkans and who have undisguised aspirations to dismantle a unified [Bosnia]." Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/protesters-boo-putin-envoy-dodik-as- montenegro-pro-russian-party-welcomes-him/32837738.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Houthis Refute Claims They've Sabotaged Underwater Cables in Red Sea Sputnik News 20240227 Ilya Tsukanov Israeli media reported on Monday that the Yemeni militia had targeted "four submarine communication cables" in the area between Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Djibouti. The Houthis' Telecommunications Ministry has denied reports by "Zionist-linked media" claiming that they have sabotaged major underwater telecommunications cables connection, Europe, Africa and Asia. "The Ministry of Telecoms and Information Technology denies what has been published by the Zionist-linked media outlets and also what has been published by other media outlets and the social networks, on allegations as to what [has] been caused to Red Sea submarine cables," the militia said in an English-language statement Tuesday, a day after an Israeli Hebrew-language newspaper reported that the militia had caused "serious disruption" to internet cables between Europe and Asia. "Yemen Telecom affirms its pivotal role to continue and build up and develop the international and regional telecom and internet networks which are provided by the submarine cables running within the Yemeni territorial waters and will keep up to facilitate the passage and implementation of the submarine cables projects through the Yemeni territorial waters, inclusive the projects into which the Yemen Republic participated, by Yemen International Telecom Co - TeleYemen," the statement added. The Ministry pointed to recent statements by Houthi movement leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi committing the militia to keeping underwater cables and its relevant services "away from any possible risks," and said the militia's campaign "to ban the passage of Israeli ships" through Red Sea waters "does not pertain [to] the other international ships which have been licensed to execute submarine works within the Yemeni territorial waters." Houthi Politburo member Khuzam al-Assad told Sputnik that the militia undertook "no actions...aimed at damaging internet cables, and we have repeatedly confirmed this." Al-Assad said the claims of Houthi attacks on the cables were insinuations being pushed by Tel Aviv, Washington and London to try to turn global public opinion against the Houthis instead of "stopping the crimes of genocide committed by the Israeli Army with the support of the United States and the West against Gaza residents." The Israeli media report said four major cables, including AAE-1 (connecting East Asia to Europe via Egypt), Seacom (linking Europe, Africa and India), EIG (linking India and the Gulf to Africa and Europe) and TGN (linking France to India) had been hit, with most of the immediate damage expected to be felt by India and the Gulf States. Western reporting on possible Houthi operations to sabotage underwater internet cables began to surface in January, with the BBC running a story in early February saying the Houthis "almost certainly would" target the cables "if they could," while admitting that "the fiber cables, which carry 17% of the world's internet traffic, lie on the seabed mostly hundreds of meters below the surface - well below the reach of divers." Only a handful of countries, including the US and Russia, have the capability to cut sabotage this infrastructure using deep sea submersibles, the outlet said. The Houthis began a months-long maritime campaign of ship hijackings, drone strikes and missile launches targeting Israel-affiliated commercial vessels in the Red Sea in November in solidarity with Gaza amid Israel's ground assault into the enclave. The US announced the creation of a naval 'coalition of the willing' against Yemen in December, and started bombing the country in January to try to degrade the militia's missile and drone capabilities. The Houthis responded by banning all American and British ships from passing through the strategic waterway, and launching attacks on US and British warships operating in the area. The Yemeni militia has effectively shut the Red Sea down to up to 40 percent of its normal commercial traffic, adding tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars to global shipping costs and disrupting supply chains worldwide. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Blinken's Call with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan US Department of State Readout February 27, 2024 The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke today with Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Secretary thanked Sheikh Abdullah for the UAE's generous humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza and affirmed the importance of urgently addressing humanitarian needs in Gaza and preventing further spread of the conflict. The Secretary also stressed continued U.S. commitment to achieving sustained peace through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel. The Secretary and Sheikh Abdullah also discussed the importance of ending the conflict in Sudan and preventing further widespread civilian harm. They affirmed our shared commitment to building a more secure and prosperous region and underscored the importance of the strategic partnership between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Antony J. Blinken At the Alliance for Afghan Women's Economic Resilience Summit US Department of State Remarks Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State Loy Henderson Auditorium Washington, D.C. February 27, 2024 SECRETARY BLINKEN: Good morning. (Applause.) MS AMIRI: Good morning, everyone. It is my distinct honor to welcome you to the Alliance for Afghan Women's Economic Resilience Summit. Today marks 898 days since Afghan girls were banned from secondary school, 890 days since Afghan women were told to stay home from work. As a woman, imagine being stripped of your profession and the capacity to earn and feed your family. As a parent, imagine looking into the eyes of your 12-year-old and telling her that she can no longer go to school and the door to her hopes and her dreams have closed. As a spouse or family member, imagine seeing the potential of the women and girls in your family squandered. As a citizen, imagine half of your population's participation potential and economic contribution erased overnight. We start at this somber note to anchor you in the surreal situation in Afghanistan and to really get you to understand the immense hurdles Afghan women are facing and what they are trying to overcome to get their right back to education and to work. On each of your seats and scattered throughout the venue, you have letters from schoolgirls from inside Afghanistan. We ask that you read these letters with a couple of key points in mind. One, Afghan women and girls are not asking us to see them as victims. They are asking you to recognize their dignified struggle for their rights. Two, they want us to engage them as partners. And three, they ask us to be guided by their creativity, their resilience, and their determination. We have attempted to answer this call through the establishment of the Afghan Women's Economic Resilience Initiative, which we launched in 2022. The alliance - or AWER, as we call it - is a public-private partnership between the Department of State and Boston University that catalyzes innovative and scalable collaborations between the private sector, civil society, academia, government, and Afghan women leaders to support Afghan women's education, employment, and entrepreneurship. We launched it in 2022, and we are going to announce some of the efforts that we have been able to put in place. Through the next few hours, you will hear from our partners, from Afghan women, and from a number of - about a number of initiatives that we have put together to capture the spirit and approach that Afghan women have asked us to be guided by. It is our fervent hope that you will join us in this effort. Everyone has a role to play. And with that, I have the honor of welcoming U.S. Secretery of State Antony Blinken, without whose leadership and support none of this would be possible. Thank you very much. (Applause.) SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the State Department. To our Special Envoy Amiri, Rina, thank you not only for the introduction but thank you for the truly remarkable work that you, Ambassador Gupta, Special Representative West, Assistant Secretary Lu, and all of your teams are doing every single day to fight for Afghan women and girls. So as Rina said, when she started, in sort of setting the picture that all of you know so well, it's extraordinarily challenging, but today represents a real ray of light in some of the darkness. And again, that's because of the work that so many of you are engaged in. Thanks to our leadership team, thanks to Boston University, joining forces in 2022 to launch the Alliance for Afghan Women's Economic Resilience. We have seen results, and it's even more extraordinary given the environment in which those results have been achieved. We developed this initiative to try to grow public-private partnerships that would benefit women and girls living in Afghanistan under a Taliban that severely represses their rights - and help Afghan women and girls who fled the country, including those who came here to the United States. Together we're investing in skills, we're investing in training, we're investing in job opportunities, we're investing in women entrepreneurs. And that mission is simply more important than it's ever been. As you all know, the Taliban continues to deny women and girls access to secondary school and universities, blocks their participation in entire sectors of the Afghan economy. They continue to limit the movements of women and girls outside their homes, and persecute those who speak up or speak out. The Taliban's decrees violate women's fundamental freedoms and human rights in the most basic ways. But maybe more important, in a sense, or something that needs to be recognized, is they also go against the will of the people of Afghanistan. Surveys show that more than 85 percent of the population believes that women should have equal access to education. The Taliban's restrictions are also suffocating Afghanistan's potential. If women and girls were able to learn, able to work, the whole country would benefit. Women could put food on their family's tables; they would add over a billion dollars to the Afghan economy. Economic opportunity is a prerequisite for sustainable peace and sustainable security, so women's contributions would also help create a more resilient society. This is Afghanistan's loss if women and girls are not allowed to reach their full potential. Here's what we know, and Rina said it: Women and girls are determined to study. They're determined to chart their own path. They're determined to contribute to the future of their communities despite the extraordinary obstacles that they face. As I was coming down here in the elevator with Rina, I was recounting a meeting I had just about two weeks ago in Albania, which has been a remarkable partner in helping us bring Afghan partners out of Afghanistan and eventually to the United States. And among the Afghans I met who had relatively recently come to Albania but would be on their way to the United States was a young family - mother and father who were determined that their five children, no matter the conditions, would continue to have access to education. Their kids, before the Taliban came back, had been at the top of each of their classes in Afghanistan. This is a family that was very determined about making sure that not only were their kids in school, but were succeeding and achieving in school. Then, with the return of the Taliban, the girls, of course, were no longer in school. I met the two - two of their daughters, twins, 14 years old. They'd been in Albania for just a few months. Their English was extraordinary, in part as a result of the programs that we have the privilege of helping to conduct. One of the daughters was determined to go into fashion design; the other was determined to go into business. Of course, I tried to put them together: Now, if you want to do the fashion design, you want to do the business, this is perfect. You can - but it's hard to describe, and I know so many of you know this from your own families, from your own experiences, from the people you know - it's hard to describe fully this absolute thirst and absolute determination for learning, for education. And they told me the stories of how, even after the return of the Taliban, they'd found ways to somehow connect and to try to stay current with their education. It was, on one level, exhilarating to meet these young people, who I know are now actually about to be resettled in Virginia; but also just underscored the tragic loss for Afghanistan of having so many of its people sidelined and have such challenge in trying to meet their full potential. Countries from around the world, though, are determined to support Afghan women and girls who want to learn, who want to go to school, who want to pursue their educations, who want to work. Countries like Indonesia and Qatar, which have coordinated international efforts to expand educational opportunity for Afghan women, or the more than 70 countries - more than 70 countries in the Middle East, from Asia, from Europe, from the Americas - who came together in a joint statement at the United Nations calling for, and I quote: the full, the equal, the meaningful participation of women and girls in Afghan society. The United States is proud to be part of these and a number of other efforts. Over the last two years, we have grown the Alliance for Afghanistan Women's Economic Resilience, recruiting more partners, developing additional programs. Boston University has played a vital role, and we are so grateful for that partnership, helping the alliance design the initiatives based on research, but also based on consultations with Afghan women leaders, making sure that the programs are accessible for the participants. Soon the alliance will begin offering three new kinds of programs, and I just wanted to briefly touch on them today. First, the alliance will provide virtual training and skills-building courses for Afghan women around the world so that they can get jobs and earn an income. For example, the Qatari Government, the Qatari foundation Education Above All, and the American education company Coursera will provide hundreds of thousands of Afghan women with technical job training classes. Microsoft, LinkedIn, will give women a chance to earn certifications, and then connect them with employers so that they can put their new skills to use. Second, the United States and the Education Above All foundation will provide scholarships so Afghan women refugees in the United States can finish their bachelor's and master's degrees. Third, the alliance will support Afghan women as they start and then grow their own businesses. Arizona State University's business school is going to be offering free online courses; Meta will provide training in subjects like financial literacy and digital marketing so that entrepreneurs can learn how to scale up their operations, reach new customers, create jobs for others in their communities. Finally, the alliance will continue providing opportunities for Afghan women around the world to work with mentors in their fields. Two years ago the tech company Pod started this initiative and, now, Microsoft and LinkedIn are joining in as well. Already what we've seen in a short space of time is these efforts have given women someone to turn to when they have questions, when they need advice - about the challenges that come with starting a business, finding study materials, or building up their resumes. By growing these programs, we will bring this kind of support to more and more women just like them. Every single one of these initiatives builds on other efforts to support all the people of Afghanistan - not only women and girls. Going back to 2021, we've contributed food and agricultural assistance to feed families; we've delivered essential medical care to vulnerable patients; we've mentored journalists; we've trained healthcare workers; we've provided lifesaving humanitarian assistance, including to displaced families after the devastating earthquake just last October. On these and so many other issues, we have benefitted from the partnership and leadership of extraordinary Afghan women - people like the speakers you're going to be hearing from today. There are a lot of opportunities. Even in this incredibly challenged environment and this incredibly challenging time, there are many opportunities for everyone in this room to support and to collaborate with these women and other women like them. So, whether you're here today from the private sector, academia, civil society, government - join us. Join us in this alliance. Join us in its essential mission of helping Afghan women and girls realize their full potential and, yes, actually build a brighter future, not only for themselves but - I know this will happen - for Afghanistan and, given the extraordinary contributions I've already seen Afghan women and girls make, for the entire world. Thank you so much for being here today. (Applause.) Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Targeting Qods Force Deputy Commander and Houthi-Affiliated Supporters US Department of State Press Statement Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson February 27, 2024 The United States is today designating the Deputy Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), a Houthi-affiliated operative who has supported the Houthis' aggressive actions, and the owner and operator of a vessel used to ship Iranian commodities in support of both the Houthis and IRGC-QF. We are taking this action in coordination with the United Kingdom through our bilateral partnership in the global fight against terrorism. This action follows the recent U.S. designation of Ansarallah (commonly known as the Houthis) as a Specifically Designated Global Terrorist due to its unprecedented attacks on international maritime commerce in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Separately, the United States is designating two additional companies that own and operate a vessel involved in shipping over $100 million in Iranian commodities on behalf of Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL). MODAFL continues to facilitate the delivery of Iranian weapons, most notably unmanned aerial vehicles, to Russia in support of its war of aggression in Ukraine and to Iran-aligned militia groups in the Middle East. The United States and its allies remain committed to countering terrorist financing and will continue to use all available means to disrupt Houthi attacks on international shipping in the region. The Department of the Treasury designations were taken pursuant to Executive Order 13224, as amended. For more information on today's action, see Treasury's press release and press release. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Treasury and the United Kingdom Target Qods Force Deputy Commander and Houthi-Affiliated Supporters U.S. Department of the Treasury February 27, 2024 WASHINGTON -- Today, the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in coordination with the United Kingdom, is taking action against the Deputy Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), Mohammad Reza Falahzadeh, as well as a Houthi group member. OFAC is also designating the owner and operator of a vessel used to ship Iranian commodities that were sold to support both the Houthis and the IRGC-QF. The revenue generated through these illicit networks enables the Houthis' militant efforts, including numerous terrorist attacks in the region using advanced unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles. Today's action follows the recent U.S. Department of State designation of Ansarallah (commonly known as the Houthis) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist as a result of their ongoing and unprecedented attacks on international maritime commerce in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. "Today's action underscores our resolve to target efforts by the IRGC-QF and the Houthis to evade U.S. sanctions and fund further attacks in the region," said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. "As the Houthis persistently threaten the security of peaceful international commerce, the United States and the United Kingdom will continue to disrupt the funding streams that enable these destabilizing activities." Today's action is being taken pursuant to the counterterrorism authority Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, as amended, which targets terrorist groups, their supporters, and those who aid acts of terrorism. The IRGC-QF was designated pursuant to E.O. 13224 on October 25, 2007, for providing support to multiple terrorist groups. IRGC-QF SUPPORT TO HOUTHIS MILITANT EFFORTS The IRGC-QF has provided the Houthis with an increasingly sophisticated arsenal of weapons and the training to deploy these weapons against commercial shipping and civilian infrastructure in the region. Iranian military officials have also provided intelligence support to target vessels transiting the region, providing key support to enable the Houthis' maritime attacks against international shipping. Since mid-November 2023, the Houthis have attempted dozens of strikes targeting vessels in the region. Mohammad Reza Falahzadeh serves as the current IRGC-QF deputy commander, having replaced U.S.-designated IRGC-QF official Mohammad Hejazi following Hejazi's death in April 2021. Falahzadeh served as an IRGC-QF officer in Syria during the Syrian Civil War, during which he participated in the Battle of Aleppo, which caused immense destruction and civilian casualties. Falahzadeh also previously served as chief of Karbala Roads and Urban Development, a subsidiary of U.S.-designated Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters, the construction conglomerate of the IRGC, which manages projects worth tens of billions of dollars. Mohammad Reza Falahzadeh is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having acted for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the IRGC-QF. The IRGC-QF and the Houthis engage in the sale of Iranian commodities to foreign buyers to generate revenue to fund Houthi operations. Much of this activity is directed through the network of Iran-based, IRGC-QF-backed Houthi financial facilitator Sa'id al-Jamal, whom OFAC designated on June 10, 2021 for his support to the IRGC-QF. The ARTURA (IMO: 9150365), which is owned and operated by Hong Kong-based Cap Tees Shipping Co., Limited, has transported Iranian commodities for the network of Sa'id al-Jamal. The ARTURA conducted ship-to-ship transfers to receive Iranian commodities before transferring the commodities to the MEHLE, a tanker sanctioned on January 12, 2024 for its role selling Iranian commodities for Sa'id al-Jamal. The ARTURA has obfuscated its identity by using the name of a different vessel, SANAN II, to complete some of its shipments. Cap Tees Shipping Co., Limited is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Sa'id al-Jamal. The ARTURA is being identified as property in which Cap Tees Shipping Co., Limited. has an interest. Today, OFAC is also designating Ibrahim al-Nashiri, a Houthi group member who has supported the Houthis' militant efforts. Ibrahim al-Nashiri is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having acted for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Ansarallah. SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS As a result of today's action, all property and interests in property of the designated persons described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. Unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC, or exempt, OFAC's regulations generally prohibit all transactions by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons. In addition, financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned entities and individuals may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement action. The prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. The power and integrity of OFAC sanctions derive not only from OFAC's ability to designate and add persons to the SDN List, but also from its willingness to remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior. For information concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list, including the SDN List, please refer toOFAC's Frequently Asked Question 897 here. For detailed information on the process to submit a request for removal from an OFAC sanctions list, please click here. Click here for more information on the individuals and entities designated today ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The UK calls for an immediate pause in fighting, then progress towards a sustainable ceasefire. Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the UN Security Council meeting on food security risks in Gaza. 27 February 2024 Thank you, President, and I thank OCHA for the White Note and I thank too our briefers from OCHA, the FAO and the World Food Programme. Colleagues, we are witnesses to a desperate situation in Gaza which is worsening day by day. In Rafah and the South, people are crammed into tents if they're lucky, but without sufficient food, water or hygiene. In North Gaza, as we've heard from the World Food Programme, humanitarian organisations cannot get aid to people who desperately need it. Hunger is at catastrophic levels. As ever, the most devastating impact falls on the most vulnerable: women and children. To address this, three things need to happen: First, we call on all parties to stop fighting immediately. This is crucial to get aid in and hostages out, and then progress towards a sustainable and permanent ceasefire. This is the only way to alleviate catastrophic hunger and suffering in Gaza. Second, we urge Israel to allow more aid into Gaza, and to facilitate distribution throughout the strip. Thousands of trucks are stuck in Egypt and Jordan, containing food, shelter and other essentials. We need more crossings opened for longer, including Kerem-Shalom. We need unencumbered access for aid coming from Jordan; we need the full opening of Ashdod Port. Key to this too is increasing the speed and capacity of aid screening operations, including at Kerem-Shalom and Nitzana to allow this life-saving aid to reach those who need it as soon as possible. We are particularly concerned that the World Food Programme has had to suspend aid deliveries into Northern Gaza, due to the breakdown of law and order. Airdrops cannot substitute for land-based delivery; humanitarians need safe and unhindered access to the North through the Erez Crossings now. We urge Israel to resume water and electricity supplies, which is critical for food production and safe drinking water. Commercial activity also needs to restart. Third, the UN and humanitarian partners need greater protection and access to the tools needed to accomplish their mission. This includes armoured vehicles, communications equipment, personal protective equipment and visas. They need functioning deconfliction mechanisms and safety guarantees for locations and convoys. President, colleagues, conflict in Gaza is driving hunger. Hunger is driving a breakdown in law and order, making it impossible for aid agencies to deliver aid safely. This White Note makes clear that we need to act now. The UK calls for an immediate pause in fighting, then progress towards a sustainable ceasefire. This is the only way to avert famine and alleviate suffering. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Department of Public Information . News and Media Division . New York 27 February 2024 The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General. ** Security Council This morning, the Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, as well as our Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, briefed Security Council members on the situation in Syria. Mr. Pedersen outlined some elements for immediate action among them getting the Constitutional Committee back on track. And today, he issued formal invitations for the ninth round in Geneva for the Constitutional Committee to meet in late April. He appealed to the Syrian parties to respond positively and to all key international stakeholders to support our actions as a facilitator and refrain from interfering regarding a venue the Syrian parties themselves had formally agreed on. For his part, Mr. Griffiths spoke about the humanitarian situation, saying that a staggering 16.7 million people now require humanitarian assistance that's nearly three quarters of the population. But this year, Syria's humanitarian outlook remains bleak. Underscoring that the humanitarian community remains committed to assist people in need across Syria, Mr. Griffiths said, "but we cannot do so unless we have the required funding". And just a reminder that this afternoon, the Security Council will reconvene at 3 p.m. for a briefing on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, pegged to resolution 2417. And they will receive an update on the food security risks in Gaza. Briefing will be Ramesh Rajasingham, OCHA's Director of Operations; the FAO's Deputy Director-General, Maurizio Martina; and WFP's Deputy Executive Director, Carl Skau. We will try to share their remarks with you as soon as we get them. ** Occupied Palestinian Territory And staying on Gaza. Our UNRWA colleagues remind us that none of our humanitarian convoys have been able to reach the northern part of the Gaza strip since 23 January. As you heard yesterday, from the Commissioner-General [of UNRWA], there has been a sharp decrease in the amount of delivery of aid into the Gaza strip. The UN system needs more entry points into Gaza, including from the north. We need safe routes for convoys and speedy passage through checkpoints. Our WFP colleagues also tell us that they have food supplies at the border with Gaza and, with certain conditions, they would be able to scale up to feeding 2.2 million people across Gaza Strip. Almost 1,000 trucks carrying 15,000 metric tons of food are in Egypt, ready to move. Also today, our Humanitarian Country team for the Occupied Palestinian Territory released a statement denouncing an incident in which humanitarian workers were targeted during a medical evacuation at Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis. And that statement was flagged in the briefing earlier today to your colleagues in Geneva. ** Lebanon Staying in the region, in Lebanon, our colleagues there are following closely developments across the Blue Line and are warning of the impacts of the current escalation of hostilities. In a statement issued this morning, the Force Commander of the UN peacekeeping Force in Southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), Lieutenant General Aroldo Lazaro, said that in recent days the mission continued its active engagement with the parties in an effort to decrease tensions and prevent dangerous misunderstandings. Lieutenant General Lazaro warned that recent events have the potential to put at risk a political solution to these hostilities, adding that currently there is an expansion and intensification of strikes, and that this is changing the life of tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the Blue Line. He is repeatedly urging all parties involved to halt hostilities to prevent further escalation. Also for her part, the Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Joanna Wronecka, expressed her deep concern at the gradual expansion in the exchange of fire across the Blue Line as Lieutenant General Lazaro said, both in scale, scope and intensity. Stating that in exercise of her good offices, she has intensified her engagements with all stakeholders towards urgent steps for de-escalation. Warning that this situation undermines Security Council resolution 1701, she said she is also encouraging concerted efforts by international partners to help the parties find sustainable solutions that enhance security and stability across the Blue Line. ** Lebanon Humanitarian To shed more light on the impact of the fighting on civilians in Lebanon, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs tells us that in less than five months, nearly 90,000 people have become internally displaced, and dozens of civilian casualties were reported because of the fighting, that's north of the Blue Line. Unfortunately, the continued hostilities and related challenges are hampering the ability to safely provide much-needed assistance in border villages. Yesterday, the World Health Organization condemned the killing of two paramedics and the destruction of ambulances and vital medical infrastructure in the southern Lebanese village of Blida that took place over the weekend, saying attacks on health-care workers must stop. ** Haiti Moving to Haiti, and today, in Port-au-Prince, we along with our partners, which includes the Government, launched the 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan. The Plan seeks to provide food, shelter, health, education and protection services for 3.6 million Haitians over the next 12 months, calling for $674 million. It also comes against the backdrop of a serious protection crisis for millions of Haitians. Nearly 1 in 2 people in Haiti are food insecure, and basic services are on the brink of collapse. The Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti, Ulrika Richardson, will be our guest tomorrow to update you on the humanitarian situation in the country. ** South Sudan And moving to South Sudan, the peacekeeping mission there, UNMISS, reports that it is establishing a new team site in Unity State in Abiemnhom, that's in line with its mandate to protect civilians and improve security in areas bordering Warrap state and the Abyei region. Peacekeepers have begun deploying to the site to also mitigate any spillover effects of the recent clashes in Abyei into South Sudan. Their presence will help build trust and confidence between communities and contribute to creating conditions conducive to the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance to those most affected by the heavy flooding in Bentiu and to thousands of people seeking refuge from the crisis in Sudan. On a separate note, Nicholas Haysom, the Head of the peacekeeping mission, briefed the African Union Peace and Security Council. He stressed that persistent intercommunal fighting in South Sudan undermines the country's ability to hold peaceful elections in December, calling on the Government to urgently finalize and implement transitional security arrangements to settle this issue. ** Ethiopia And turning to Ethiopia, where our Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has allocated $17 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to address worsening food insecurity in the country. The new funding reflects our deep concern over the impact of a new El Nino-driven drought that is impacting Ethiopia, with parts of Afar, Amhara and Tigray hardest hit by this drought. Food insecurity is only set to increase in the coming months. As the new drought intensifies, more than 10 million people across Ethiopia are expected to need food assistance during the July to September lean season. Meanwhile, previous droughts and ongoing hostilities continue to have an impact and projected flooding could cause further hardship. Our colleagues in the humanitarian affairs department underscore that there is a short window of opportunity to avert the worst impacts on communities battered by back-to-back shocks, including the conflict in northern Ethiopia. It is essential that this latest allocation from the Central Emergency Response Fund is followed up by additional funding from donors. Thanks to their generosity and to the efforts of Ethiopia's own Government some 6.6 million men, women and children are already being reached with food and cash assistance. However, to sustain and scale up this response across the country, more resources are urgently needed. To that end, yesterday the Government and the UN launched a joint appeal for this year's response, asking for $3.24 billion to address the needs of 15.5 million people this year. ** Nigeria And in Nigeria, the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Mohamed Fall, met yesterday with the authorities of Borno State, in the country's north-east. Reiterating the UN team's and the humanitarian community's commitment to assist in the resettling of internally displaced people, he stressed the importance of addressing immediate needs and at the same time finding sustainable solutions to improve people's lives. Over the past years, attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in that part of the country have made people more vulnerable and continue to impede their access to assistance. Today, more than 2 million people, internally displaced, are unable to return to their homes. Protection needs are high, especially for women and girls. More information online. ** Non-Communicable Diseases On the health front, the UN Refugee Agency, the World Health Organization together with Denmark, Jordan and Kenya are jointly convening a global high-level technical meeting on non-communicable diseases in humanitarian settings, that will be taking place in Copenhagen from 27 to 29 of this month, so it starts today. The aim is to support the integration of essential services for non-communicable diseases in emergency preparedness response. ** Senior Personnel Appointment Finally, a senior personnel appointment. Today, the Secretary-General is appointing Vivian van de Perre of the Netherlands as his Deputy Special Representative for Protection and Operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for the peacekeeping mission there, known as MONUSCO. She succeeds Khassim Diagne of Senegal, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his dedicated service. Ms. van de Perre brings to the position over 30 years of United Nations experience, both in the field and at Headquarters. As you may know, she is currently the Deputy Head of Mission for the support mission of Hudaydah in Yemen. And we congratulate our great friend Vivian, and we now take questions from our friends here. ** Questions and Answers Spokesman : Gabriel? Question : [inaudible] Spokesman : No. Sorry, but you need a microphone, though. Edie was a little slow with the draw. Yeah. Question : Steph, are kids in Gaza dying of starvation? Spokesman : Look, I think you will hear a lot more about the risk of famine and the risk of death from hunger this afternoon in the Security Council. And I don't want to pre-empt what our WFP [World Food Programme] and FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] colleagues will say. Question : Fair enough. But I mean, the UN's been very clear. Risk of famine, widespread food insecurity. I could go on and on, you know, all these terms. I mean, the Gaza Ministry of Health reporting today two children died of dehydration. Save the Children reporting today that they are starting to see kids dying because of malnutrition. And all you have to do is open social media and see videos of kids that appear to be dying of starvation. I mean, why won't you just come out and say that? Or why won't the Secretary-General be more direct in how he addresses the issue? Spokesman : Look, I think we are being very direct on how we're addressing a lot of issues in Gaza. I think we have been talking about it every day, stressing that more than 2 million people are at risk if they're not having enough food, being bombed, being killed, not having access to health care. And again, I think our colleagues this afternoon will provide more language on that. Edie, then Michelle. Question : Thank you, Steph. With Benin offering 2,000 police for the force in Haiti, would they be a possible lead country for the force if they could get there more quickly than whatever is still holding up the Kenyan deployment? Spokesman : Well, it's obviously a positive report that we've seen, but again, it is Member States coalescing amongst themselves, coming up with the police officers and others will need to come up with equipment and funding. I think there was some very positive announcements made in Rio on the sidelines of the G20, but I think things are still coalescing and frankly, still rather challenging. Meanwhile, the situation in Haiti, as we know, is only getting worse. And I think you'll get a pretty vivid picture from our colleague tomorrow. Michelle Nichols? Question : Thank you, Stephane Dujarric. Has the Secretary-General or any of his senior officials had any recent briefings from the parties involved in the ceasefire for hostage talks going on in relation to Gaza? Spokesman : The Secretary-General keeps getting briefed regularly. I think the last direct briefing he had in person was over the weekend [Monday, 19 February] in Doha. Question : And who was that from? Spokesman : He spoke to the Prime Minister of Qatar. Question : And does he share the optimism expressed by President Joe Biden last night? Spokesman : The Secretary-General continues to hope for, to see a humanitarian ceasefire as quickly as possible, a release of the hostages and increased humanitarian aid. It's not for him to express optimism or pessimism on the situation. Question : And, sorry, just last one. Has Israel communicated to the UN any details of its plans for Rafah, possible evacuation plans? Spokesman : No. Not that I'm aware of. Dennis? Question : French President Emmanuel Macron, after meeting of European leaders in Paris, didn't exclude deployment of western troops to Ukraine and told that such a scenario had been discussed. What does Secretary-General think of that? Spokesman : Well, it's not been discussed with us. I mean, we've just seen press reports as you have. We continue to hope to see an end to the conflict in Ukraine, in line with international law, General Assembly resolutions and the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine. Stefano, and then Mike. Sorry, the meeting with the prime minister of Qatar was last Monday. Yeah, sorry. Stefano? Question : Thank you, Stephane. We heard what you just said about Lebanon and the situation seems getting worse instead of better. Would it be useful if sometime the Secretary-General actually, instead to just be even all the time, who he is for is or not taking side at one point indicated who is responsible for this escalation? Spokesman : I think what is most helpful is for the Secretary-General and his representatives on the ground, which is the Special Coordinator in Beirut, or the general heading the peacekeeping mission is to work with the parties to try to de-escalate this current round of tensions and violence that we're seeing for which civilians on both sides of the Blue Line are paying a price for. Mike? Question : Thank you. USAID announced $53 million worth of humanitarian aid today to the World Food Programme and other international NGOs in Gaza. Does the Secretary-General feel that this is a circumvention of UNRWA? Spokesman : What the Secretary-General would like to see is a return of funding to UNRWA from those partners who have paused their funding. We are doing whatever we can to answer their questions, to answer their concerns. Obviously, there are other agencies operating in Gaza. We talk about them all the time. I've talked about WFP today. We've talked about UNFPA, World Health Organization. They all need cash. They all need assistance. Question : Did the Secretary-General advise against this routing of funding to those agencies? Spokesman : It's not for the Secretary-General to tell USAID where it's sending its money. Madame? Question : Thanks, Steph. Just a follow-up on Haiti. You mentioned reports, but if I remember correctly, in the resolution giving the green light to the mission, that the Member State willing to participate was supposed to notify the Secretary-General. So, does that mean that you did not receive any kind of official notification from Benin? Spokesman : Let me just put it this way. I'm not aware of any notification. It doesn't mean one hasn't been received, and I will check afterwards. Mr. Bays? Question : Syria, if I can. Mr. Pedersen is issuing invitations again to go to Geneva. Does the Secretary-General believe this is really the last chance? Because it does somewhat seem to those that have been following this closely like it's flogging a dead horse. I attended the first of those Syrian consultative meetings, and that was many years ago. Mr. Pedersen took over this process. It was an idea of Staffan de Mistura. Mr. Pedersen's been in this post for five years, and this is going nowhere. Spokesman : Well, we don't believe any horse should be declared dead, right? We're continuing our efforts. Mr. Pedersen continues in his determination to move things forward. Obviously, as days, weeks, months go by, the problem is not getting solved, right? So, we're continuing our efforts. I think we have to take things one day at a time, one meeting at a time. Let's hope we can get this meeting under way. And Mr. Pedersen, knowing him, will do his best to encourage all the Syrian parties to coalesce and to move forward in line with the Security Council resolutions. Question : Yet ever since the rebellion in Syria well over a decade ago, the Syrian Government has tried whatever it can to not engage and to delay the process. Do you not need a plan B? Spokesman : Well, there is a plan, and it's laid out by the Security Council, and we will continue to do our efforts to implement that plan. Question : Okay, can I then move, if I can, and ask you some follow-up to my colleague about the situation with regard to food and humanitarian aid in Gaza. Can you be absolutely clear to us, what is stopping the humanitarian aid? Is Hamas preventing any humanitarian aid? Is Egypt preventing a humanitarian aid? Is there a lack of any trucks to go into Gaza? Spokesman : Okay, there is a whole menu of items that is preventing greater humanitarian aid, and I will list some of them. My list will clearly not be exhaustive. One, there is no humanitarian ceasefire, right? There's continuing to be fighting. There's a lack of respect for international law. Places that should be protected are being used in military operations. There is, as we've said, a breakdown of law and order within Gaza, which makes it much more challenging and dangerous to release, to distribute aid, dangerous for those people who we want to have the aid and dangerous for those people who are distributing the aid. There has been very little, if any, effective coordination with the Israeli authorities on deconfliction, on our ability to move convoys to the north. And WFP have suspended. UNRWA has not been able to move any things to the north. There is a challenge in us having enough trucks within Gaza to do the aid because, as you know, trucks that go from Israel into Gaza, across from Egypt into Gaza, those trucks have to be unloaded and repacked and reloaded, usually on smaller trucks inside Gaza, and a lot of them are getting destroyed. We just don't have enough. Question : So, isn't it true that that list of impediments and I don't think you mentioned, for example, the lack of border crossings... [cross talk] Spokesman : I said my list would not be exhaustive so I'm not... Question : Yeah, but if not all, the vast majority of that list are things that are in the control of Israel, that Israel could change. Israel could open more crossings. Israel could... [cross talk] Spokesman : James, we've made those points publicly. We've made those points privately. Question : So, is Israel... [cross talk] Spokesman : And we also keep pushing for... There is a conflict going on. We need a humanitarian ceasefire. Question : So, is Israel clearly not in contravention of two Security Council resolutions 2712 and 2720? Spokesman : We have repeatedly called for everyone to respect the necessary resolutions. Correspondent : But Israel is not. Spokesman : Sir? Question : Thank you. This morning, Martin Griffiths briefed to the Security Council, and he was saying in north-east Syria, the recent air strikes caused partial and completely shutdown of hundreds of essential civilian infrastructures. That includes electricity stations, water plants. So, I wonder if United Nations is going to send any help to rebuild those stations. Spokesman : We will do whatever we can, but I will try to get you a bit more granular answer to your pertinent question. Question : Okay, I have a follow-up. Mr. Geir Pedersen [Special Envoy for Syria] invited everyone to the Geneva for the new meeting. So, I wonder in this invitation includes any Syrian Kurds. Do you think they should be on the table? Spokesman : I think you should check with his office exactly who was invited. Question : But do you think Secretary-General thinks the Kurds should be on the table? Spokesman : I think what the Secretary-General feels is that as many voices as possible should be represented at the table. And he fully backs the approach taken by Mr. Pedersen. Dezhi, and then Benno. Question : On artificial intelligence. It's been reported that the US used machine learning algorithm to enhance its combat effectiveness, which has been shown in the early February 85 targets in Middle East. That's why they used this algorithm. I just want to know what is the Secretary-General's position on the application of AI in military and what this has to do with the disarmament? Spokesman : He's been very, very clear on his extreme and very deep concern about the increased use of artificial intelligence in weaponry with the potential creation of autonomous lethal weapons. And he has repeatedly called on Member States to come together to agree on guidelines and safeguards for these things. Benno? Question : Thank you, Steph. More technical question about the OIOS [Office of Internal Oversight Services] investigation into UNRWA. Did you decide internally when you have the results, how to publish them, to what scale you will publish information? Spokesman : Those decisions are still being taken. Okay. Correspondent : Sorry, just on that note. Spokesman : Oh, Michelle Nichols. Question : Sorry. I know you've been asked this a lot, but any idea when we might get something from OIOS? Spokesman : I have some ideas, and I will share them with you in due time. Dennis? Correspondent : Our editors are asking. Spokesman : Yeah. People want to know. Correspondent : People want to know. Spokesman : Yes, Dennis? Question : Just a follow up on Macron's words. Don't you think that this rhetoric is escalatory and can ramp up tensions around the conflict? Spokesman : Look, since the start of this conflict, we have seen a lot of rhetoric that has the potential of inflaming what is already a deadly conflict. And our call has been very consistent since the beginning would be to avoid such rhetoric, and this is what we've been saying since the beginning. Madame? Question : Thank you, Stephane. On Sigrid Kaag, do you have more information where is she, what she's doing, and when she's coming back to New York? Spokesman : Yes, she'll probably be back at some point in the month of March to report back to the [Security] Council. She's remaining in the region, and we'll have an update to you tomorrow about the meetings she's having tomorrow. Question : When you say in the region, she's in Gaza? Spokesman : No, she's based in Amman [Jordan]. She's based in Amman. When she moves from Amman to go to different places, we share that with you. And we would not keep a visit to Gaza a secret. At least I would hope not. Question : Her mandate is to... Spokesman : Your microphone a little closer, please. Question : Okay. It's about also UNRWA. Is she involved directly in UNRWA with Madame Colonna or...? Spokesman : No, no, Madame [Catherine] Colonna [Chair of the Independent Review Group on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)] is doing an independent review. She will obviously be speaking to key people involved in this file, people who've had a knowledge of the situation. But her work is very much separate from Madame Colonna's. Correspondent : Thank you. Spokesman : Okay, thank you. No Monica today. Bon appetit. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Security Council hears Gaza famine 'almost inevitable' unless aid is massively scaled up 27 February 2024 - Well over half a million Gazans are just a step away from famine, said senior UN humanitarians, briefing the Security Council Tuesday on food security in the stricken enclave. The deputy head of UN aid coordination told ambassadors that famine is "almost inevitable" unless aid can be scaled up immediately. 5:33 PM: That's it from the Security Council this Tuesday when the dire aid situation and increasing threat of famine was front and centre during an impassioned discussion in the chamber, led off by a detailed UN humanitarian update via videolink. HIGHLIGHTS A trio of briefers from the key UN aid agencies issued grim warnings to the Council on the situation facing civilians tonight on the ground in Gaza "If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza," warns the World Food Programme (WFP) deputy executive director At least 576,000 people are "facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation" across the enclave, according to deputy chief of the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA FAO's deputy director says "essential first steps in eliminating a risk of famine" are a cessation of hostilities and restoration of humanitarian space to deliver lifesaving aid and restored basic services, like water and electricity Some Council members proposed action plans to potentially end hostilities beginning with an immediate ceasefire and hostage releases Algeria's ambassador accused Israel of using starvation as a tool of war For summaries of UN meetings, visit our colleagues at the UN Meetings Coverage in English and French 5:28 PM You cannot stay silent: Arab Group On behalf of the Arab Group, Tunisia Permanent Representative Tarek Ladeb said the spectre of famine looms in Gaza because of the inability of the international community to agree on an immediate ceasefire and the stubbornness of Israel, the occupying power. Hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks are piled up along the entry points without being able to enter the Gaza. This blockade silently starves and deprives the Palestinian people of all means of survival in flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law, he said. The international community and the Security Council cannot remain silent any longer. He told ambassadors the Arab Group reiterates the need to adopt an immediate ceasefire and to put an end to the plan of forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. The group also insists on the essential role UNRWA plays on the ground and warns against any attempt to broaden the mandate of the United Nations coordinator to the detriment of the Palestine refugee relief agency. 5:14 PM Plans to open more border crossings: Israel Israel's Deputy Permanent Representative, Brett Jonathan Miller, said his delegation is committed to improving humanitarian assistance in Gaza, easing the entry of aid at the Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings, with further border crossing openings also under discussion. Indeed, there is "no limit" to the amount of aid that can be sent to the population of Gaza, he said, noting that most aid requests are approved. "These are the facts; no one can claim otherwise," he said, adding that 20 bakeries in Gaza now produce more than two million pita breads a day. Claims made to the contrary inside the Council Chamber are just attempts to propagate Hamas lies and to distract attention away from the inability to efficiently distribute aid, he continued. Israel is not holding up the trucks waiting at the borders, he said, adding that, clearly, the delays in aid delivery are the UN's fault. In this vein, he said the problem of aid diversion in Gaza cannot be ignored. For its part, Israel will continue to demand the release of all hostages, he said, calling on the Security Council to do everything in its power to ensure their safety and wellbeing. 4:50 PM Famine already underway: Palestine Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine Riyad Mansour told ambassadors that in reality, a famine is underway in Gaza and getting worse every day that Israel carries on its "criminal aggression". "We must stop for a moment and consider what this truly means," he said. "What it means to forage for food in the rubble, sand and trash, to eat animal feed or food ravaged by rats." He said Israel was the architect of this human and humanitarian catastrophe, which it has purposely designed to collectively punish Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians. That this catastrophic famine and genocide has been allowed to happen at all and continue for this long "brings shame on all of us, not least this Security Council", Mr. Mansour added. Israel's weaponization of food to punish the Palestinian people is not a secret. It was declared months ago, in October 2023 by the highest-ranking Israeli Government and military officials, some of whom publicly stated that such policies would hasten the decline of humanitarian conditions and provoke a mass exodus from Gaza or a so-called "voluntary migration" of this "demographic threat". This Council must uphold its responsibilities, he said. Rectifying the current abhorrent situation requires three immediate steps: a ceasefire now to halt the Israeli aggression; the unimpeded, accelerated delivery of humanitarian aid at scale throughout all of Gaza; and accountability measures for all the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel. 4:48 PM Heated exchanges between US and Russia Following Russia's statement, the Russian and US delegates exchanged heated comments, with Mr. Wood saying that Russia was in no position to criticize any country while Moscow continues to bomb Ukraine. Replying, Mr. Nebenzia said the US should be ashamed of itself, trying to compare the situations in Gaza and Ukraine. Noting that Washington had invaded Iraq and other countries, the Russian ambassador proposed that "we do not turn the Security Council into a duel between the United States and the Russian Federation". 4:34 PM Russia: Council could adopt sanctions Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said reading the "white note" from UN humanitarians "makes your blood run cold", adding that the current situation includes massive shortages and diseases running rampant through Gaza. There is no issue concerning the availability of aid, he added, as Council members saw for themselves during a visit to the Rafah crossing some weeks ago. However, due to bureaucratic obstacles, delays have ensued, and ongoing hostilities make food self-sufficiency impossible. An immediate ceasefire is the only way to prevent famine in Gaza along with ensuring that Israel complies with international law, the ambassador said. Unfortunately, the United States has blocked efforts to stop the violence in Gaza, and its proposed draft is yet another "license to kill", he said, calling on Council members to reject the proposal. Indeed, it may be time for the Council to consider adopting sanctions, he said. 4:08 PM 'Stop fighting immediately': UK proposes 3-step plan United Kingdom Ambassador Barbara Woodward said to address the desperate situation in Gaza, three things need to happen, beginning with a call for all parties to the conflict to stop fighting immediately. "This is crucial to get aid in and hostages out," she said, adding that progress can then be made towards a sustainable and permanent ceasefire. Second, she continued, the Council should urge Israel to allow more aid into Gaza and to facilitate distribution throughout the Strip. That covers the need for more crossings, open for longer, including Kerem Shalom and Nitzana, in addition to unencumbered access for aid coming from Jordan and the full opening of Ashdod Port, she said, underscoring that aid airdrops cannot substitute for land-based delivery, and humanitarians need safe and unhindered access to the north through the Erez crossing now. Finally, she said, the UN and humanitarian partners need greater protection and access to the tools needed to accomplish their mission. In this vein, she called for an immediate pause in fighting then progress towards a sustainable ceasefire. The UN agency warnings voiced in the Council show there must be action "now", she said, as "this is the only way to avert famine and alleviate suffering." 4:05 PM France: Blocking humanitarian access is 'unjustifiable' French Ambassador Nicholas de Riviere said "the lack of sufficient humanitarian access to a population in an absolute humanitarian emergency is unjustifiable." With Jordan, France carried out yesterday a new airdrop of id directly to Gaza as well as a new shipment of humanitarian cargo to support Egyptian hospitals, he said. At the same time, France's President highlighted the extreme urgency for concluding an agreement on a ceasefire which guarantees the protection of all civilians and the massive entry of emergency aid. France reaffirms its firm opposition to a ground offensive in Rafah, which would lead to another unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, he stated. "As we call for a ceasefire, France reiterates that all hostages must be released immediately and unconditionally, as required by our Council resolutions 2712 and 2720," he said. "The Council must also be able to clearly condemn the terrorist attacks and sexual violence used as weapons of war by Hamas and other terrorist groups on 7 October. It must also call for a decisive step in the construction of a two-State political solution." 4:00 PM China: Israel must open all aid access Ambassador Dai Bing, Deputy Permanent Representative of China, said Palestine refugee agency UNRWA is the "lifeline" for the people in Gaza. Expressing support for the UN's independent, impartial investigation, he said Israel should cooperate in that regard. Meanwhile, the international community, and particularly the major donors, must promptly resume funding for the UN agency. For more than one month, aid supplies into Gaza have been halved, he continued. In this regard, he called on Israel to open all land, sea and air access routes to ensure the unimpeded delivery of aid. At the same time, a ceasefire is needed, he said, adding that China will continue to work towards efforts to resolve the conflict in Gaza and achieve peace in the Middle East. 3:54 PM 'Israel must do more': US Deputy Permanent Ambassador for the US Robert Wood said the US welcomed the discussion on the food crisis, saying that promoting food security was a "longstanding" priority in Washington. The US has urged Israel to keep border crossings open, meet humanitarian needs at scale and support the rapid and safe delivery of relief across all of Gaza. "Simply put, Israel must do more," he said, expressing profound concern for the wellbeing of more than one million Gazans stuck in the border city. He said it was "unconscionable" that Hamas fighters were continuing to embed themselves among civilian buildings such as hospitals and schools, reiterating the call for all parties to uphold international humanitarian law. No Rafah offensive A major ground offensive should not proceed in Rafah "under the current circumstances", he spelt out. He said the US had worked tirelessly to get more aid into Gaza since the start of the war, pressing to open Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing. He added the US had called consistently for the protection of humanitarians operating throughout Gaza and called on Israel to improve deconfliction coordination. "We also recognize the fearless efforts of UN humanitarian workers who work under great personal danger to meet the humanitarian needs of those inside Gaza." He reiterated that it was essential to release the more than 130 hostages still being held inside the enclave, promising the US would continue to work towards a hostage deal along with a temporary ceasefire. 3:38 PM Israel uses starvation as a tool of war: Algeria Algeria's Ambassador Amar Benjama said the people of Gaza are facing a harrowing dilemma of being forced to decide between the immediate threat of perishing during the bombings or enduring an agonizing demise due to starvation. Israel is using starvation as a tool of war, and Council resolutions are proving to be ineffective on the ground, he said. "The ongoing attack on Gaza is not a war against Hamas; it is a collective punishment for the Palestinian civilian people. Our silence grants a license to kill and starve the Palestinian population. This Council must urgently call, demand for a ceasefire as our inaction equals complicity in this crime," he said. 3:20 PM Record levels of child malnutrition: WFP Carl Skau, World Food Programme (WFP) Deputy Executive Director, said the Famine Review Committee has warned of a real prospect of famine by May, with 500,000 people at risk if the threat is allowed to materialize. Today, food aid is required by almost the entire population of 2.2 million people. "Gaza is seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world," he said. One child in every six under the age of two is acutely malnourished. WFP is ready to swiftly expand and scale up operations if there is a ceasefire agreement. Immediate action is required to enable a huge increase in the volume of food and other humanitarian supplies. "We need a safe and functioning operating environment for humanitarian staff, the port of Ashdod and the Karni crossing to be open, a working humanitarian notification system and a stable communications network," he said. "If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza. Meanwhile, in the south of Gaza, WFP and partners are on the ground, delivering food as it comes to shelters, to makeshift camps, and to shops. "But, we are unable to provide regular or sufficient food to people who badly need it, he said. "The fact remains that without safe and greatly expanded access, aid workers cannot mount a relief operation at the scale required to reverse the severe humanitarian crisis now gripping Gaza. "It is essential we avert a famine, and this requires much more than just food supplies. Basic services must also be restored, including health services, electricity networks and water and sanitation pipelines," he said, adding that UNWRA is the only organization with the ability to oversee and manage this vital infrastructure in Gaza. 3:10 PM Mass destruction of food system: FAO Maurizio Martina, Deputy Director General of FAO, painted a grim landscape in Gaza at a time when at least 378,000 of its residents are experiencing the most severe phase of acute food insecurity. "The key findings are troubling," he warned, providing a sample of the severe impact of the war, from a decimated fishing sector, which provided livelihoods for over 100,000 Gazans, to the widespread death of livestock from airstrikes or the lack of water and fodder. As of 15 February, 46.2 per cent of all cropland was assessed to be damaged, he said, emphasizing that agricultural infrastructure has been devastated, with the highest levels of destruction including sheep and dairy farms. Over one quarter of wells had been destroyed, with destruction most significant in north Gaza and Gaza City, and 339 hectares of greenhouses had been destroyed, most severely in Gaza City, north Gaza and Khan Younis. The harvest of olives and citrus fruits, which provides an important source of income, has been heavily impacted by the hostilities. Meanwhile, restrictions on aid deliveries had rendered impossible meaningful humanitarian operations, he said. Restore humanitarian space A cessation of hostilities and restoration of humanitarian space to deliver multisectoral assistance and restore services are "essential first steps in eliminating a risk of famine", Mr. Martina said. "A critical priority is to restore safe and sustained humanitarian access throughout the Gaza Strip and to all those in need of lifesaving assistance," he said. In addition, basic services must be restored, including cross-border water pipelines, telecommunications, electricity distribution and health facilities, he said. "All parties must respect their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law and protect civilians," Mr. Martina said, adding that an immediate ceasefire and peace are a prerequisite for food security. 3:09 PM Concluding his briefing, OCHA's Mr. Rajasingham said: "Food security experts warn of complete agricultural collapse in northern Gaza by May if conditions persist, with fields and productive assets damaged, destroyed or inaccessible. Many have had little choice but to abandon productive farmland due to evacuation orders and repeated displacement." The hostilities have caused widespread shortages, heavy damage to water infrastructure and scarcity of products and even opportunities to fish alongside rising hunger and the looming risk of famine, he said, calling for solutions to scale up humanitarian aid deliveries. Famine is 'almost inevitable' without action "The stark reality, however, is that a response at the level required will be impossible without immediate and concerted action by the parties, the Security Council, other Member States and the wider international community," he said, adding that the white note submitted to members sets out recommendations for this action. At this stage, very little will be possible while hostilities continue and while there is a risk that they will spread into the overcrowded areas in the south of Gaza, he said, reiterating the call for a ceasefire. "If nothing is done, we fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable and the conflict will have many more victims," he said. 3:03 PM Guyana hold the presidency of the Security Council for February and their Permanent Representative Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett has just gavelled the meeting open. 'Complete agricultural collapse' looms by May in northern Gaza OCHA deputy chief Ramesh Rajasingham told ambassadors the situation in Gaza was grave with practically the entire population left to rely on "woefully inadequate humanitarian food assistance to survive." He said there was every chance, the situation would simply get worse. "Military operations, insecurity and extensive restrictions on the entry and delivery of essential goods have decimated food production and agriculture," he added. 2:30 PM - The UN humanitarian affairs coordination office, OCHA, said in information formally submitted on 22 February to ambassadors - known as a white note - that at least 576,000 people were "facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation" across Gaza. The briefing is happening under the Council's agenda item on protecting civilians in armed conflict. The Deputy Director of OCHA is due to speak alongside the deputy heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP). Guyana and Switzerland, who are the Council focal points on conflict and hunger, called for the meeting along with Algeria and Slovenia in response to the alarm raised by OCHA. The official system used by the UN and many other relief agencies to measure food insecurity (the IPC classification index) warned that the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza would be facing acute levels of insecurity by this month - the highest share ever recorded. Famine risk, wasting among children The white note says at least 576,000 are close to famine, adding that the figures are conservative, and the risk of famine is growing every day that the war and obstacles to humanitarian relief continue. The Global Nutrition Cluster reported on 18 February that around one in six children under age two are now experiencing wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition. Steps towards a ceasefire Intense fighting continues between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants. Amid repeated calls to end the hostilities, negotiations are continuing between the warring parties, overseen by Qatar, which are aimed at securing a deal for a ceasefire and sequenced release of more hostages still being held in Gaza, according to news reports. Meanwhile at UN Headquarters, it is being reported that the United States has circulated a revised draft resolution to Security Council members calling for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza along with hostage releases as soon as possible and for Israel to refrain from any invasion of Rafah "under current circumstances". The US vetoed the last resolution put forward by Algeria demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire on 20 February, arguing it would destabilize substantial talks going on in Qatar, Lifesaving aid barriers Just last week, the UN's Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process briefed the Council, while medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres reported that a pattern of attacks by Israeli forces against hospitals and other civilian buildings, together with humanitarian personnel and convoys, was "either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence". Briefing reporters in New York ahead of the Security Council meeting, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said there were multiple factors holding up the aid effort, primarily the lack of ceasefire, "a lack of respect for international law...a breakdown of law and order in Gaza" and a simple lack of trucks to move vital supplies. "There has been very little, if any, effective coordination with Israeli authorities on deconfliction", and the ability to move convoys to the north, he added. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Mr. Ramesh Rajasingham, Director of OCHA Coordination Division, on behalf of Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mr. Martin Griffiths - Update on Food Security Risks in Gaza, 27 February 2024 UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs As delivered Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, Excellencies, In resolution 2417 (2018), you requested the Secretary-General report to you swiftly when the risk of conflict-induced famine and wide-spread food insecurity occurred in armed conflict. And I am here to report on a grave situation in Gaza. Our discussion today will come as no surprise. Since the start of the current hostilities following the horrific Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, the UN has warned about the potentially deleterious impact on food insecurity in Gaza, particularly for a population already experiencing high levels of structural poverty after 16 years of blockade. In December, it was projected that the entire population of 2.2 million people in Gaza would face high levels of acute food insecurity by February 2024 - the highest share of people facing this level of food insecurity ever recorded worldwide. And here we are, at the end of February, with at least 576,000 people in Gaza - one-quarter of the population - one step away from famine; with 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age in northern Gaza suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting; and practically the entire population of Gaza left to rely on woefully inadequate humanitarian food assistance to survive. Unfortunately, as grim as the picture we see today, there is every possibility for further deterioration. Military operations, insecurity, and extensive restrictions on the entry and delivery of essential goods have decimated food production and agriculture. Food security experts warn of complete agricultural collapse in northern Gaza by May if conditions persist, with fields and productive assets damaged, destroyed, or inaccessible. Many have had little choice but to abandon productive farmland due to evacuation orders and repeated displacement. The hostilities and shortages of essential supplies, including electricity, fuel and water, have left food production at a virtual standstill. The five mills operating in Gaza prior to October 7 ceased operations as far back as November. Heavy damage to water infrastructure from fighting and the severing of power and fuel supplies in October have significantly affected access to water that is essential for food production and the prevention of malnutrition and illness. Fishing, long an important source of nutrition and income in Gaza, has been a practical impossibility since October 7 when sea access for boats was entirely prohibited. A lack of fodder and water, as well as the fighting, has also claimed the lives of livestock, removing yet another important source of food and income. And the commercial sector, a key part of the food distribution network prior to October 7, has been crippled by the lack of local produce and extensive restrictions on commercial imports. Commodities such as wheat flour and eggs and dairy have been almost entirely depleted in parts of Gaza. Meanwhile the scarcity of available products has sent prices soaring to prohibitive levels at a time when livelihoods have been wiped out by the conflict. Hunger and the risk of famine are exacerbated by factors that go beyond just the availability of food. Inadequate water, sanitation, and health services creates a cycle of vulnerability, where malnourished people - especially among the tens of thousands of people who are injured - become more susceptible to disease that further depletes the body's nutritional reserves. A steep rise in malnutrition among children and pregnant and breastfeeding women in the Gaza Strip is a particularly grave concern. And add chronic overcrowding, exposure to the cold and an absence of adequate shelter to this lack of nutrition, and you have created the conditions for massive disease epidemics. My colleagues from the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization will address these issues in more detail. Madam President, With people in Gaza unable to rely on markets and other usual sources of food, humanitarian food assistance is now nearly the sole source of subsistence. Yet as we have reported to the Council on numerous occasions, the humanitarian community is facing overwhelming obstacles just to get a bare minimum of supplies into Gaza, let alone mounting the multisectoral response that would be required to avert a famine. Our efforts continue to be beset by crossing closures, serious movement restrictions, access denials, onerous vetting procedures, incidents involving desperate civilians, protests and a breakdown in law and order, restrictions on communications and protective equipment, and impassable supply routes due to damaged roads and unexploded ordnance. Security risks remain a significant obstacle. The shelling on 20 February of the Medecins Sans Frontieres guesthouse in Al Mawasi highlights the weak implementation of precautions that all parties are required to take, and of the humanitarian notification system that aims to maximize these. This has left operations extremely dangerous for humanitarian workers. And we cannot forget the 161 humanitarian workers killed in the hostilities so far. And the suspension of funding to UNRWA [the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] challenges our capacity to mount any effective response. An estimated 1.7 million people, over three-quarters of the population of Gaza, reside in UNRWA-run and other public emergency shelters. Last week, the Commissioner-General [Philippe Lazzarini] informed the General Assembly that the Agency's ability to fulfill its mandate is now seriously threatened and that its operations in the region will be severely compromised from March. Nevertheless, we continue ceaselessly to plan, search and call for solutions to overcome the hurdles that would allow us to scale up food delivery and health services. In the immediate term, this includes clearer security guarantees; a better humanitarian notification system to minimize risks, fewer restrictions on telecommunications equipment; the removal of unexploded ordnance; and the use of all possible entry points. The stark reality, however, is that a response at the level required will be impossible without immediate and concerted action by the parties, the Security Council, other Member States and the wider international community. The White Note submitted to this Council sets out recommendations for this action. It includes ensuring respect for international humanitarian law; the resumption of entry of essential food, electricity, fuel and cooking gas, including by the private sector; the protection and restoration of vital infrastructure and services, including cross-border water pipelines, the lifting of restrictions on fishing activity, access to farmland and the entry of agricultural goods; urgently facilitating greater humanitarian access into and within Gaza, including opening up additional crossing points and finally concerted efforts towards ending this conflict altogether. But without a doubt, at this stage, very little will be possible while hostilities continue and while there is a risk that they will spread into the overcrowded areas of south of Gaza. We therefore reiterate our call for a ceasefire. If nothing is done, we fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable, and the conflict, which since October has claimed the lives of almost 30,000 people, and injured more than 70,000, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, will have many more victims. We put this before the Council as a matter of urgency. Thank you. 27 February 2024 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Government of Haiti and the Humanitarian Community Launch a Response Plan to Assist 3.6 Million People in 2024 UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 27 February 2024: The Government of Haiti, through the Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation, and the humanitarian community today launched the Humanitarian Response Plan for Haiti, requiring USD 674 million to assist 3.6 million people in 2024. The Response Plan comes amid a severe protection crisis for millions of Haitians, with January 2024 the most violent month in the past two years. In 2023, the country witnessed the highest number of murders, kidnappings, lynchings and sexual assaults in the past five years. The situation has forced the internal displacement of more than 314,000 people, with over 60 per cent displaced in 2023 alone; children make up almost 55 per cent of the displaced population. With nearly half of its population experiencing food insecurity, Haiti ranks among the countries most affected by a food crisis. The spiral of violence has profoundly disrupted all socio-economic activities and the free movement of people and goods, particularly affecting the capital, Port-au-Prince. Armed gangs have escalated attacks on hospitals, schools, playgrounds, markets and transportation to alarming levels. "Going to school, to the hospital or to the market, cultivating one's field or getting clean water has become an ordeal for millions of Haitians. Stepping outside one's home means risking death from bullets, being kidnapped by armed gangs, or suffering unimaginable violence such as collective rapes," Humanitarian Coordinator Ulrika Richardson today said. In 2023, despite access constraints due to insecurity and limited financial resources, humanitarian actors and the Government managed to provide at least one form of humanitarian assistance to nearly 2.6 million people. "While we acknowledge the importance of humanitarian aid in saving lives and reducing suffering, we must recognize that it is not the solution. We must continue to invest in a decisive and sustained manner and work together to find dignified and lasting solutions to the structural problems that hinder the daily lives of the Haitian people. Haiti needs solidarity at this crucial moment," said Mrs. Richardson. In addition to emphasizing the necessity for actors to adhere to the principle of accountability, the Minister of Planning and External Cooperation, Ricard Pierre, called for a synergy of action among all international institutions and local organizations to ensure a harmonious and enduring solution to the crisis. He urged all sectors of humanitarian action to stay the course in order to help the Haitian population permanently overcome this catastrophic situation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address New incident with medical evacuation at Al Amal hospital marks unacceptable security conditions for humanitarian aid delivery UNOCHA - United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Statement by the Humanitarian Country Team in Palestine On 25 February, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the United Nations evacuated 24 patients from Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis, including one pregnant woman and one mother and newborn. Al Amal hospital has been at the epicentre of military operations in Khan Younis for over a month. Forty attacks at the hospital from 22 January to 22 February, killing at least 25, have left it incapacitated. Despite prior coordination for all staff members and vehicles with the Israeli side, the Israeli forces blocked the WHO-led convoy for many hours the moment it left the hospital. The Israeli military forced patients and staff out of ambulances and stripped all paramedics of their clothes. Three PRCS paramedics were subsequently detained, although their personal details had been shared with the Israeli forces in advance, while the rest of the convoy stayed in place for over seven hours. One paramedic has been released, and we appeal for the immediate release of the other two, and all other detained health workers. This is not an isolated incident. Aid convoys have come under fire and are systematically denied access to people in need. Humanitarian workers have been harassed, intimidated or detained by Israeli forces, and humanitarian infrastructure has been hit. Just prior to Sunday's incident, two family members of Medecins Sans Frontieres were killed in an unprompted attack by Israeli forces against a deconflicted compound where their staff and family members slept. The inadequate facilitation for the delivery of aid throughout Gaza means that humanitarian workers are subject to unacceptable and preventable risk of being detained, injured or worse; leaving us and our partners unable to safely reach northern Gaza and increasingly parts of southern Gaza. The UN and partners have consistently communicated the requirements for meaningful facilitation of relief efforts across Gaza to the Israeli authorities. The bare minimum is this: acknowledging notification of a humanitarian mission in advance comes with the responsibility of facilitating safe, smooth and rapid passage on the ground. We will continue our engagement with the Israeli forces for those requirements to be met, so that the critically needed humanitarian response is enabled. The UN and PRCS had to leave another thirty-one non-critical patients at Al Amal hospital. 27 February 2024 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address MV Cape Horn Offload Sets Stage for Cobra Gold 24 US Navy 27 February 2024 From Grady Fontana SATTAHIP, Thailand -- Military Sealift Command (MSC) chartered ship MV Cape Horn (T-AKR 5068) continued its voyage through the Pacific and arrived at Sattahip, Thailand, to offload equipment in support of exercise Cobra Gold 2024 (CG24), Feb. 17-22. The vessel began the voyage from its home base in San Francisco and took on cargo in Tacoma, Wash.; Honolulu; Anchorage, Alaska; and Okinawa, Japan, prior to arrival. Thailand was the first point of discharge at the ports of Toong Pronge and Sattahip, and the ship offloaded approximately 260 end items and containers in about three days. Cape Horn departed Thailand Feb. 22 and journeys to its next port to offload more equipment for other missions. The commercial ship is part of the Ready Reserve Force (RRF) fleet of vessels. The RRF is a subset of vessels within the Maritime Administration's (MARAD) National Defense Reserve Fleet ready to support the rapid worldwide deployment of U.S. military forces. According to the MARAD website, RFF provides nearly 50 percent of government-owned surge sealift capability. This ship has a significant cargo capacity and it's multimodal, which makes Cape Horn ideal for the charter. Cape Horn is a 750-foot long roll-on, roll-off (RO/RO) cargo vessel with four decks of cargo space. It can accommodate 186,000 sq. ft. of cargo, which equates to about 4.3 acres of space that can equal roughly 38,000 tons of cargo. Despite its massive presence, the ship's characteristically low draft allows for this impressive amount of tonnage while still getting into smaller ports. "We can easily carry significant amounts of containerized, and roll-on/roll-off cargo," said Captain Elizabeth M. Neumyer, civilian contracted mariner and Cape Horn's master. "But just as important, this vessel is large enough to be militarily useful, but small enough to get into the smaller ports. Whereas, most commercially viable ships right now are too big for a lot of the ports the military needs to go." Oversight of the offload of equipment in Thailand was conducted by a detachment of the U.S. Army's Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC). "The (SDDC) team goes on the vessel and they direct the stevedores what to download, and how to download it, and with the help of the actual (exercise) training audience, they direct them to safely discharge all the equipment." said Army Lt. Col. Gregory B. Andrews, commander, 835th Transportation Battalion, 599th Transportation Brigade, SDDC, out of Okinawa. "Once the items are off the vessel, they are staged at the marshalling area for onward movement to the respective training area." The features of Cape Horn fully complement the uniqueness of the mission and facilitates an efficient discharge. "This platform is great because we love the RO/RO capability," said Andrews. "It makes it really easy to be able to unlatch the stored vehicles and discharge them right off the ramp." To support the smooth discharge of equipment, MSC deployed a seven-member Reserve-component team from various Reserve expeditionary port units (EPU) in the U.S. to assist with port operations. "There's a maritime aspect that's inherent with EPUs and strategic sealift officer communities that you may not find in land-based components," said Navy Reserve component Chief Gunner's Mate Joshua Heitmann, command senior chief, MSC EPU Pearl Harbor. "This training opportunity allows us to familiarize with the process of port operations with ships, and better engage with SDDC and all the other components of port operations." According to Heitmann, an EPU is a highly mobile unit that can deploy rapidly anywhere in the world to support overseas contingency operations, setup port operations and establish presence where there is no MSC or U.S. Navy support established in order to receive cargo ships: government owned, government contracted or chartered ships. Represented by EPU members from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Alameda, Calif.; St. Louis, Mo.; Seattle; and New York; the team is part of the Cobra Gold deploy detachment, and will be relieved by other EPU members of the redeploy detachment at the conclusion of the exercise. EPUs play a crucial role that is sometimes overlooked. Their contributions are not tethered to certain tasks or responsibilities but on providing expertise in varying situations, a catchall as it relates to their sea-fairing background. "Our role is to make sure that the port is suitable for the ships that are coming in," said Heitmann. "I think we've been maintaining a good schedule and everybody has learned something valuable toward the expeditionary side of port operations. In return, back at home, I hope these Sailors can provide their findings, and what they've learned back to benefit their Sailors." CG24 is the 43rd iteration of the Joint Cobra Gold series of exercises. CG24 emphasizes coordination on readiness, civic action, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and seeks to expand regional cooperation and collaboration in these vital areas. This exercise demonstrates U.S. ongoing readiness to project forces throughout the region in support of Allies and partners to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific. MSC directs and supports operations for approximately 140 civilian-crewed ships that replenish U.S. Navy ships at sea, conduct specialized missions, preposition combat cargo at sea around the world, perform a variety of support services, and move military equipment and supplies to deployed U.S. forces. Celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2024, MSC exists to support the joint warfighter across the full spectrum of military operations, with a workforce that includes approximately 6,000 Civil Service Mariners and 1,100 contract mariners, supported by 1,500 shore staff and 1,400 active duty and Reserve military personnel. MSC Far East supports the U.S. 7th Fleet and ensures approximately 50 ships in the Indo-Pacific Region are manned, trained, and equipped to deliver essential supplies, fuel, cargo, and equipment to warfighters, both at sea and on shore. U.S. 7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy's largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, and routinely interacts and operates with allies and partners in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific region. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN: If No Cease-Fire, 'Widespread Famine' in Gaza Is Near Certain By Margaret Besheer February 27, 2024 Several United Nations humanitarian officials warned Tuesday that there is a high risk of conflict-induced famine in the Gaza Strip if the war does not stop soon. "If nothing is done, we fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable, and the conflict, which since October has claimed the lives of almost 30,000 people and injured more than 70,000, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, will have many more victims," said Ramesh Rajasingham, director of the coordination division in the U.N. humanitarian office. He addressed a meeting of the U.N. Security Council requested by members Algeria, Guyana, Slovenia and Switzerland, amid rising concerns that hunger is being used as a weapon in the war. Rajasingham said at least 576,000 people in Gaza 25% of the population are one step away from famine, and practically the entire population is relying on insufficient humanitarian food assistance to survive. "Unfortunately, as grim as the picture we see today, there is every possibility for further deterioration," he said. "Gaza is seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world," said Carl Skau, the World Food Program's deputy executive director. "One child in every six under the age of 2 is acutely malnourished." Agricultural production collapsing Maurizio Martina, assistant director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, explained how the entire food supply chain has been impacted by the war. Farmers have been forced by Israel to evacuate their land or fled shelling that has destroyed crops; cattle and poultry are dying from hunger or killed in bombings; fishing is prohibited; and ground water is contaminated. "In the most likely scenario, agricultural production will have collapsed in the north by May 2024," Martina said. "We are already seeing this collapse." In a memorandum known as a white note, sent to the council ahead of the session, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths reported on the risk of conflict-induced famine in accordance with a 5-year-old council resolution on the subject. "Immediate action is needed to prevent conflict-induced famine and widespread food insecurity in Gaza," he wrote. He called for a cease-fire and urged the council to use its influence and to take action to facilitate aid access into and within Gaza, resume the entry of commercial goods into the territory, and protect and restore critical infrastructure, among other recommendations. Flow of aid 'unpredictable,' 'insufficient' Griffiths said humanitarians continue to face "significant obstacles" to providing the response required to avert famine. "These include border crossing closures, serious movement restrictions, access denials, onerous vetting procedures, security risks, incidents by desperate civilians, a breakdown of law and order, and restrictions on communications and protective equipment," Griffiths wrote. "Logistical infrastructure, both inside and outside Gaza, is inadequate and the flow of aid remains unpredictable and insufficient." Israel denies it is hindering or limiting the delivery of aid to Gaza. "Israel is doing all it can to care for civilians, going above and beyond what is expected, let alone required," Israel's deputy U.N. envoy Jonathan Miller told the council. "Israel is committed to improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza, working constantly to ensure the entry of humanitarian aid from numerous countries and U.N. agencies." Miller said Israel has facilitated the delivery of 254,000 tons of relief supplies into Gaza since the start of the war, including 165,000 tons of food. He blamed Hamas for diverting aid and the U.N. for failing to efficiently manage and distribute it. "The limitations on the quantity and pace of aid are dependent on the capacity of the United Nations and other agencies to receive, store and distribute the assistance efficiently," Miller said. Famine 'imminent' in northern Gaza The situation is most dire in northern Gaza, which remains cut off by the Israeli military. About 300,000 people are believed to have defied Israel's earlier evacuation order and remained through months of heavy fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas. "If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza," WFP's Skau said. "We must all live up to our responsibilities to ensure it does not happen on our watch." The U.N. agency that assists Palestinians, UNRWA, and delivers the bulk of the relief supplies, says the last time it was able to get food aid to northern Gaza was on January 23. On February 20, the World Food Program suspended its deliveries to the north because of a lack of security for both the aid workers and recipients. The World Health Organization last reached Gaza City's largest hospital, Al Shifa, on January 22 with medical supplies. One week ago, the 15-nation Security Council failed to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire because of a veto from the United States. Several council members renewed their call for a cease-fire at Tuesday's meeting. "Only a cease-fire, which must be respected by all parties to the conflict, can guarantee the delivery of humanitarian aid without interruption, ensuring adequate, timely assistance," said Slovenian Ambassador Samuel Zbogar. Guyana, which chaired the council this month, said of the conflict and rising food insecurity that "silence is not an acceptable response." "The Security Council must intervene to stop the blatant violations of international law being committed by a member state of the United Nations," Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett said. Even Israel's closest ally, the United States, indicated its growing frustration with the slow pace of aid deliveries, urging Israel to keep border crossings open and to open new ones. "Simply put, Israel must do more," Ambassador Robert Wood said. Russia, which rarely supports sanctions, suggested the council consider imposing them for the obstruction of humanitarian aid. Israel began its military campaign to eliminate Hamas after the group's fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7 and killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. About 250 others were taken as hostages. Hamas, designated a terror group by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, still holds about 130 hostages in Gaza, including 30 who are believed to be dead. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Israel, Hamas, Qatar Play Down Biden Optimism on Possible Gaza Cease-Fire By VOA News February 27, 2024 Israel, Hamas and Qatari mediators on Tuesday all played down a suggestion by U.S. President Joe Biden that a new deal for a cease-fire and hostage release in the five-month Israel war with Hamas militants could be reached soon. Hamas is considering a proposal, agreed to by Israel at talks with mediators in Paris last week, for a cease-fire that would suspend fighting for 40 days during Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, which would be the first extended truce in the war. Now, both sides have delegations in Qatar this week trying to work out details. But Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said, "We don't have a final agreement on any of the issues that are hampering reaching an agreement. We remain hopeful that we can get to some kind of agreement." One Hamas official told Reuters that there were "still big gaps to be bridged. The primary and main issues of the cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces are not clearly stated, which delays reaching an agreement." Israel did not comment directly on Biden's optimism for a cease-fire, but government spokeswoman Tal Heinrich said any deal would still require Hamas to drop "outlandish demands, in another orbit, another planet." "We are willing. But the question remains whether Hamas are willing," she said. Israeli news website Ynet quoted unidentified senior Israeli officials as saying they did not understand "what [Biden's] optimism is based on." Biden said Monday that he hoped there would be a cease-fire by March 4, later telling comedian Seth Meyers on his late-night NBC show, "Ramadan is coming up [March 10], and there's been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan, as well, in order to give us time to get all the [100 or so] hostages out." According to one source close to the talks, the Paris proposal would see Hamas free some but not all of the hostages they are holding, in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinians jailed by Israel, a surge in humanitarian aid for famished Palestinians in Gaza and Israeli troops pulling out of populated areas in the enclave along the Mediterranean Sea coastline. But the deal apparently does not cover Hamas' main demand for a permanent end to the war and an Israeli troop withdrawal. Nor does it resolve the fate of fighting-age Israeli men among the hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in recent days that a temporary cease-fire would not change Israel's plans to eventually carry out an offensive in the southern town of Rafah to achieve Israel's goal of eliminating Hamas. Prospects of a Rafah operation have raised international alarms because of the large number of Palestinians who are living there, many of them after fleeing other parts of Gaza in search of safety. "Israel has slowed down the attacks in Rafah," Biden said on the "Late Night with Seth Meyers" show. "They have to, and they have made a commitment to me that they're going to see to it that there's an ability to evacuate significant portions of Rafah before they go and take out the remainder of Hamas." Netanyahu's office said Monday the Israeli military gave his war Cabinet "a plan for evacuating the population from the areas of fighting in the Gaza Strip, and with the upcoming operational plan." But the Netanyahu statement did not give any details about where Israel plans to send the Palestinians, and Egypt has said it will not open its borders. Much of Gaza has been leveled during Israel's massive counteroffensive after the October 7 Hamas terror attack killed 1,200 people in Israel. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, the majority women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. Israel's campaign has also injured more than 70,200 people. Israel says it has killed 12,000 Hamas fighters. The United Nations has expressed concern about any plan to move the civilian population from southern Gaza and about Israeli plans to launch an offensive in the area populated by people already in need of humanitarian aid. Hamas captured about 250 hostages in its October attack. About 100 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November. The Israeli military says it believes about 30 hostages held by Hamas have subsequently died or been killed in Gaza. Hezbollah conflict Israel's military reported Tuesday a second consecutive day of airstrikes in Lebanon targeting the militant group Hezbollah, which is a Hamas ally. Tuesday's strikes came in response to a barrage of Hezbollah rocket fire aimed at a military base in northern Israel, which the Israeli military said caused no damage. Hezbollah shot down an Israeli drone Monday, leading to Israeli airstrikes near the Lebanese city of Baalbek, with Hezbollah saying two people were killed. Months of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has raised concerns about the conflict spreading throughout the Middle East. Hospital evacuation The United Nations said Tuesday that a joint effort with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) to evacuate patients from the Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis was held up by Israeli forces. The U.N. humanitarian office said in a statement that the convoy was stopped for seven hours just after leaving the hospital on Sunday, despite prior coordination with Israel that involved sharing personal details of all the staff members and vehicles involved. The statement said three paramedics from the PRCS were detained, and that two were still being held. "This is not an isolated incident. Aid convoys have come under fire and are systematically denied access to people in need. Humanitarian workers have been harassed, intimidated or detained by Israeli forces, and humanitarian infrastructure has been hit," the U.N. humanitarian office said. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Analysts: Lebanon Bracing for More Deadly Conflict With Israel By Dale Gavlak February 27, 2024 Lebanon is bracing for more deadly conflict, analysts say, as Israel launches its deepest airstrikes inside the country in years. Israel's airstrike Monday on Baalbek, in the Beka'a Valley deep inside Lebanon, is the most significant, they say, since the one that killed top Hamas official Saleh Al-Arouri in the capital, Beirut, in early January. The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it shot down an Israeli drone over Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold where it has an air defense unit. It then fired a missile that was intercepted by Israel, landing near a synagogue close to Nazareth in northern Israel without causing injury or damage. Later, an Israeli fighter jet carried out the targeted killing of Hassan Salami, a senior Hezbollah officer in southern Lebanon, alleging he was responsible for carrying out rocket attacks on northern Israel. Analyst Dania Koleilat Khatib told VOA that "neither side wants to show that they are backing down, because they will lose their credibility." Khatib, who is president of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building in Beirut, said, "You have this increasing tit-for-tat. If Hezbollah doesn't show their 'resistance,' they're politically finished. If they put up a fight, they might incur losses like in 2006 [with Israel], but they will renew their legitimacy past a few years. They rebuilt their capability, and now, supposedly, they have 150,000 precision-guided missiles." Lebanese analyst Patricia Karam, a nonresident fellow at the Washington-based Arab Center, said that war is "looming between Lebanon and Israel." "Lebanon is, on the one hand, at the mercy of Hezbollah, whose ... raison d'etre is derived from its resistance against Israel's occupation of part of Lebanon," she said. "On the other, it also risks becoming a casualty of those in Israel who believe that really defeating Hezbollah will restore their sense of security." She said Israel has been "intensifying this rhetoric against Hezbollah and demanding its retreat from the border." David Hale, a Global Fellow with the Wilson Center in Washington and former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, recently told a webinar at the center that Lebanon's army is not able to deploy at the border with Israel, and that while Hezbollah appears to "have lots of autonomy, the answer to the border issue is in Tehran, not Beirut." Analyst Khatib concurs with that view. "Everything that has to do with Lebanon's foreign policy, Iran makes the call, whether with Syria or Israel," she said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Announces Tech, Academic Opportunities to Empower Afghan Women By Akmal Dawi February 27, 2024 U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced new partnership programs designed to empower Afghan women in the face of Taliban suppression of women's rights in Afghanistan. Speaking at a meeting of the U.S.-founded group called the Afghan Women Economic Resilience Summit (AWERS), Blinken said Microsoft and LinkedIn will provide virtual training and certifications for Afghan girls worldwide, helping them gain valuable skills and connect with potential employers. Additionally, he said, U.S. academic institutions will offer scholarships to Afghan women and girls who have resettled in the U.S. over the last two years. The State Department did not give details on which schools are involved with the program. Established in 2022, AWERS aims to empower Afghan women both inside and outside their homeland. "We are investing in skills, training, jobs, and female entrepreneurs," Blinken told the State Department gathering in Washington. "This mission is more important than ever." Erosion of women's rights The announcement comes as the United Nations has reported a systematic dismantling of Afghan women's rights over the past two years. Human rights groups accuse the Taliban of imposing "gender apartheid" by systematically erasing women from public life. The Taliban reject such criticism, insisting their policies uphold Islamic and traditional Afghan values. Blinken did not say if the U.S. will resume its flagship Fulbright program for Afghanistan, which remains paused since the Taliban seized power in 2021. Restrictions 'suffocating Afghanistan's potential' With the Taliban's rampant persecution of women's rights activists, it is unclear how the AWERS programs will reach women inside Afghanistan. "The Taliban's restrictions are suffocating Afghanistan's potential," Blinken said, adding that the absence of women in the workforce is slashing more than $1 billion from the nation's economy. Despite the Taliban's desire for international recognition, Washington maintains that restoring women's rights is a core requirement for normalizing relations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Muhammad Ibrahim Shtayyeh Like the Ba'ath Party in Iraq, Hamas had for years been a dominant political force in Gazan society, providing public services and maintaining law and order pre-Oct. 7. Separating professionals from militants and then using their experience, expertise and local contacts will be key to stabilizing postwar Gaza. The local population will be more likely to cooperate with them than with foreign forces being "parachuted in." The PA is keen to avoid the perception of reclaiming Gaza by riding on the bloodshed. In a recent interview, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said he would be open to ruling Gaza alongside Hamas as a "junior partner," prompting Netanyahu to claim that he is vindicated in his opposition to allowing the PA to control the territory after the war. Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh announced Monday 26 February 2024 the submission of his governments resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas, in view of the political, security and economic developments related to the situation in the Gaza Strip and the unprecedented escalation in the West Bank. Shtayyeh delivered his speech during the weekly government session in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where he stressed that his government was able to achieve a balance between the needs of the Palestinian people and confronting the political challenges and changes in the region. According to Former Israeli Intelligence Official and regional analyst Avi Melamed, while the resignation of the PA government is capturing international headlines, the government itself was meaningless vis-a-vis the local, strategic partner that will be required for governing post-war Gaza. Melamed shared: The resignation of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh and his government today, while it has captured international headlines and even hints towards the development of a technocratic government, still wont immediately bring about the reform and the revitalization at the helm of the Palestinian National Movement that the U.S. and other partners have pressured PA President Abbas for as the world prepares for Gazas post-war reconstruction and governance. "Ultimately, given Hamass ability to dictate the trajectory of the Palestinian struggle completely independent of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, the government itself was meaningless vis-a-vis the local, strategic partner that will be required for governing post-war Gaza. "The Palestinian inner political struggle between Abbas Fatah and those who support Hamas, is a deep-rooted battle that will ultimately need to be overcome lest history repeat itself in Gaza where the previous Palestinian Authority rule was violently removed by Hamas less than two years after its establishment of sovereignty. At the core of Israels diplomatic mission in this extremely complex war, is the need to change the trajectory of violence both for Israelis and Palestinians and to ensure that history ceases to repeat itself in endless cycles of violence. Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh announced Monday 26 February 2024 that he submitted his government's resignation to Abbas last Tuesday, and today he confirmed its official submission in writing. He explained that the next stage requires the formation of a new government that takes into account the current challenges caused by the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, with a focus on the issue of national unity and strengthening national authority over the entire territory of Palestine . In the context of announcing the resignation decision, Shtayyeh indicated that this decision also comes in light of the fierce and unprecedented attacks on the Palestinian people and their cause, and attempts at genocide , forced displacement, and starvation in the Gaza Strip. Shtayyeh stressed that the decision to resign resulted from the escalation of colonial practices and terrorism by Israeli settlers, the repeated invasions in Jerusalem and the West Bank, including camps, villages and cities, and the intensification of Israel s unprecedented financial restrictions on the Palestinian Authority. The decision was attributed to attempts to liquidate the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees ( UNRWA ), repudiate all signed agreements, gradually annex the Palestinian territories, and seek to reduce the role of the Palestinian Authority to a security administrative authority with no political content. Shtayyeh concluded by emphasizing that the government performed excellently in difficult circumstances, and confronted the battles imposed on it in light of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip. Shtayyeh stressed, saying: We will remain in confrontation with the occupation, and the National Authority will continue to struggle to embody the state on the lands of Palestine, against their (the Israelis) will. Recently, the West Bank has witnessed an escalating wave of tension and field confrontations between Palestinians and the Israeli army, including raids and arrests of Palestinians, in light of the devastating war launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip. Abbas, who heads the Fatah movement , has been subjected to sharp criticism for his "inability" to deal with the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip and the ongoing escalation in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian Minister of Social Development, Ahmed Majdalani, commented on the resignation of the Palestinian government, represented by its Prime Minister, Muhammad Shtayyeh. Majdalani said in an interview with Sputnik that the government submitted its resignation 5 years after its formation and in light of the important changes that occurred in the situation during the past few months, specifically the genocidal war in Gaza. He added, "This government faced many difficulties and challenges, especially with the continuation of the Israeli war in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, which led to the emergence of an international trend to support the establishment of a single national authority over all Palestinian lands in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem." He explained, "This trend and the unity of the international position focused on the necessity of opening a new political path to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and establish the independent state." Majdalani considered that "this new phase that the international community as well as the Arab countries are talking about requires the presence of a new Palestinian government with different components." He stressed that "the current government is a partisan coalition government with some independents, and the new situation, in light of recent developments, requires a national consensus government that includes all national Palestinian competencies that can manage the situation in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem during a transitional phase in which a specific program is implemented." He continued: "This program is focused on unifying all Palestinian institutions, removing all traces of the division that lasted for 16 years, and calling for an international conference for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip from all Arab international factions, as well as preparing for general presidential and legislative elections within a period not exceeding two years." Majdalani believes that a competent government can overcome any controversial issue surrounding the situation that existed in the Gaza Strip, and overcome the state of Palestinian division. He pointed out that the government submitting its resignation and placing it at the disposal of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will enable him to deal with the requirements and necessities of the current situation, and in a way that enables the opening of a new political horizon and political path that restores respect to the Palestinian issue and the priority of resolving it. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is supposed to assign in the coming days a Palestinian figure to form a government, will most likely be made up of experts and not politicians. According to information in the Palestinian Authority, Abbas is seeking to appoint Muhammad Mustafa, head of the Investment Fund, as the successor to Shtayyeh, especially since the man is considered a well-known economic figure, which is what the United States and its supporters want. There was talk of an American request from the authority regarding the necessity of carrying out political, economic and security reforms related to the day following the war on Gaza. It seems that this request has become linked to support for the Palestinians, not only Western but also Arab, but the name of the candidate Muhammad Mustafa seems to still be a matter of dispute. With other names being circulated, such as Salam Fayyad and Nasser Al-Qudwa , who are considered to be in the Muhammad Dahlan camp. Ahmed Rafiq Awad, professor of media at Al-Quds University, told Al-Alam Channel: It can be said that the change of government came for two reasons. The first reason is that these are national entitlements and the authority had spoken to the donors a year ago, meaning going for legal and security reforms and others. There is also international pressure on Authority for the sake of what is called modernization, revival, or reform. What comes next in the Palestinian territories remains dependent on the outcome of the war in the Gaza Strip. Until the war ends, the scenarios remain open to all possibilities, and whoever sees that the newspapers have dried up and that the pens have been lifted remains narrow-sighted. Muhammad Ibrahim Shtayyeh, called Abu Ibrahim, is a political and economic Palestinian. He was elected as a member of the Central Committee of the Fatah Movement in 2009 and was re-elected in the Seventh Congress in 2016. He also served as Minister of Public Works and Housing, and Minister of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction. He holds a doctorate in economic development from the University of Sussex in Britain. He also worked as a professor and dean at Birzeit University. On 10 March 2019, he was appointed to head the new government, as the government of Rami Hamdallah had submitted its resignation to the president Mahmoud Abbas 40 days earlier. A Palestinian politician, economist, and academic, he is a member of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement. He holds a doctorate in economic development. He held several ministerial positions and headed PECDAR. He also worked as dean at Birzeit University, and a professor there and at other universities. He also served as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Arab American University. Membership in the boards of trustees of Al-Quds, Al-Najah and Al-Istiqlal universities. He has many books on economics and politics. Shtayyeh was born 17 January 1958 in Nablus, studied in its schools, and obtained a bachelors degree in economics and public administration from Birzeit University in 1981, then a masters and doctorate in development studies from the British University of Sussex in 1985 and 1989. After graduating, he worked as an editor in Al-Shaab newspaper, then a professor and dean at Birzeit University. During this period, he participated as a member of the PLO delegation to the Madrid negotiations, the Washington discussions, and the economic negotiations with Israel. Shtayyeh also participated in many politically and developmentally important initiatives, decisions and positions, including his work as Minister of Public Works and Housing and President of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction PECDAR, where he was assigned many development programs and reconstruction programs for Palestine. Dr. Shtayyeh has extensive experience in international and diplomatic work, as he headed the Palestinian delegation to the multilateral negotiations related to economic and regional cooperation, which address the issues of trade, finance, infrastructure, and tourism in the Middle East region. He also recently chaired the meetings of the Economic and Social Conference of the Group of 77 and China in 2019. . Shtayyeh published a large collection of economic, developmental, and political books and studies, the most recent of which were: Palestine from a Development Perspective, The Encyclopedia of Palestinian Terms, A Brief History of Palestine, and The Erosion of the Two-State Solution, and he has one collection of short stories entitled A Crown of Thorns. Work Experience Dr. Muhammad Shtayyeh worked in many politically and developmentally important initiatives, decisions, and positions, including the work of Dr. Shtayyeh was Minister of Public Works and Housing and Chairman of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction. Thus, most of the development programs and reconstruction programs for Palestine were entrusted to him. He is a founding member of the Palestinian Development Fund and the Palestinian Housing Council. He is a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid negotiations, the Washington discussions, and the economic negotiations with Israel. He is a member of the Interim Committee. To coordinate aid to the Palestinian people and the advisory group of donor countries. As Governor of Palestine at the Islamic Development Bank, he supervised the financing of thousands of development and economic projects. Among his other political activities is that he headed the Palestinian delegation to the multilateral negotiations related to regional economic cooperation (REDWG), which address issues of trade, finance, infrastructure, and tourism in the Middle East region. In addition, Dr. Muhammad Shtayyeh in the negotiations that took place with Israel regarding the legislative elections in Palestine in his capacity as Secretary General of the Palestinian Elections Commission, which supervised the presidential and legislative elections that took place in January 1996. He was a member of the final negotiating delegationBut he resigned on 11/5/2013. Ther was also the work of Dr. Shtayyeh is an editor at Al-Shaab newspaper in Jerusalem. In March 2002, Dr. Muhammad Shtayyeh established the Club Monaco, which is headed by Prince Rene and became a member of it. This informal club includes individuals and figures with political weight in the world, who met in search of new ways to promote peace and stability among the peoples of the region. The club believes that the positive development of the political situation and economic relations among the nations of the Eastern Mediterranean and finding a just solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are matters that contribute to the restoration of peace. And by virtue of his position as governor on the Board of Trustees of the Arab Planning Institute / Kuwait, he has contributed to developing development and training visions for many Arab countries that benefit from the programs The Institute.It also participated in the periodic meetings of the International Council of Elders, which was chaired by Nelson Mandela. In December 2002, Dr. Muhammad Shtayyeh is a member of the Global Creativity Foundation, which focuses on global cooperation through scientific economic cooperation. Most of the members of this institution are Nobel Prize laureates. 2005-2007 Minister of Public Works and Housing 2006 GovernorIslamic Development Bank for Palestine 2008-2009 Minister of Public Works and Housing 2009 Member of the Fatah Central Committee 2014 Member of the Palestinian Central Council 2016 Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Research Center MTF. March 10, 2019, he was assigned to form the eighteenth Palestinian government. April 13, 2019, he was sworn in as Prime Minister of the Government of the Eighteenth State of Palestine. Shtayyehs experience in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations spans two decades beginning with the 1991 Madrid Talks in which he headed the advance team to establish the parameters for negotiations with Israeli counterparts. Dr. Shtayyeh has been a member of the Palestinian delegation during the Washington Talks, the talks on the interim agreements, and all final status negotiations including the most recent exploratory talks initiated by the Quartet and hosted by King Abdullah of Jordan which concluded in January 2012. Dr. Shtayyeh has also participated in the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee to coordinate donor support for Palestine and is the head of the delegation for multilateral talks with the Regional Economic Development Working Group concerned with problem-solving regional trade, finance and infrastructure issues. As Secretary-General of the Palestinian Central Elections Commission, Dr. Shtayyeh concluded an agreement with Israel concerning cooperation with the conduct of Palestinian presidential and legislative elections. Dr. Shtayyeh continues to act as a senior advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas on negotiations with Israel. Professional Experience Dr. Shtayyeh began his professional career as a professor then dean of Birzeit University. He left academia to put to practical use his training and to see Palestinians emerge from occupation to self-determination and statehood. In 1993, after the conclusion of the Declaration of Principles between the PLO and Israel, Dr. Shtayyeh took over the financial management of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and ReconstructionPECDAR which was established in order to develop policies toward and coordinate national projects in furtherance of Palestinian statehood. As Finance Director, Dr. Shtayyeh was responsible for management of the investment fund and implementation, allocation and monitoring of all projects. In recognition of his work, in 1996, Dr. Shtayyeh was appointed Minister of PECDAR. In order to build and develop the necessary local management and administrative capacity to take on the large-scale infrastructure and investment projects, during his tenure at PECDAR, Dr. Shtayyeh founded the National Institute for Information Technology and the National Institute for Administration. Dr. Shtayyeh has also headed the Ministry of Public Works and Housing from 2005-2006 and from 2008-2010, and upon request of the President, temporarily headed the ministries of Social Affairs and Labor. He is founder of the Palestinian think tank Institute for Regional Studies and the Womens Fund for Microcredit. Palestinian Economic Council for Research and DevelopmentPECDAR Minister, 1996 to 2024: Management of a public investment fund worth over $1.6 billion and implementation and monitoring all national projects for Palestine funded by international Donors. Supervising technical assistance and capacity building for Palestinian ministries and institutions, as well as providing policy recommendations on economic and development issues to the president. Administration and Finance Director, 1994-1996. Maintained donor databases and provided financing for development projects funded by PECDAR; monitored and reported on all project allocations and utilizations; and established transparent and sound financial management and reporting systems recognized by international partners and donors. Islamic Bank - Palestine Governor, 2005 to Present: establishment of priorities for assistance to Palestine; negotiation of annual aid to be provided for Palestine projects; and participation in annual meetings including delivering annual speech setting out guidelines and priorities for development funding in Palestine and the Middle East region. Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Palestinian National Authority Minister, 2005-2006 and 2008-2010. Established priorities for the establishment of new towns in Palestine as well as expansion of existing towns and villages; established institutions for housing mortgages; developed a national strategy for housing and a master plan for road networks; and oversaw the implementation of plans for road, water, and sewage networks. During his term in office, the Ministry received praise from donor countries including USAID. For adopting sound procurement procedures. Central Elections Commission, Palestinian National Authority Secretary-General, 1995-1998. Negotiated with Israeli counterparts on logistics and conduct of Palestinian elections; Supervised the first Palestinian national elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council as well as for the Presidency; and organized and coordinated logistics for the monitoring of elections by international election observers. Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine - Dean of Student Affairs, 1991-1993. Managed university affairs as a member of the university council; introduced election debates as a part of student election process; established guidelines and verification systems for need-based financial aid disbursements. Professor of Economic Development, 1989-1991. Lectured and instructed on the following courses: Economic Development Theory, Macro and Micro Economics, Arab Economic Development, Palestinian Economy, and Gender and Development. Education 1985-1989, PhD in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies at University of Sussex, Brighton, Britain. PhD, "The Transformation of West Bank Palestinian Peasant Economy and Social Relations under Israeli Occupation (1967-1987)". 1983, Diploma in Development Studies from the Institute of Development Studies at University of Sussex, Brighton, Britain. 1976-1981, Bachelor of Economics and Business Administration from Birzeit University. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russo-Ukraine War - 27 February 2024 - Day 733 Su M Tu W Th F Sa 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While GlobalSecurity.org takes utmost care to accurately report this news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos. On 24 February 2022, Ukraine was suddenly and deliberately attacked by land, naval and air forces of Russia, igniting the largest European war since the Great Patriotic War. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "special military operation" (SVO - spetsialnaya voennaya operatsiya) in Ukraine in response to the appeal of the leaders of the "Donbass republics" for help. That attack is a blatant violation of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. Putin stressed that Moscow's goal is the demilitarization and denazification of the country. The military buildup in preceeding months makes it obvious that the unprovoked and dastardly Russian attack was deliberately planned long in advance. During the intervening time, the Russian government had deliberately sought to deceive the world by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. "To initiate a war of aggression... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [Judgment of the International Military Tribunal] The UK Ministry of Defence reported that on 23 February 2024, a Russian A-50U MAINSTAY D was destroyed, almost certainly by a surface to air missile, while operating South of the Sea of Azov, over the Russian territory of Krasnodar. There is a remote chance that the Russians inadvertently shot down their own aircraft while attempting to protect it. This is the second A-50 destroyed in as many months. Russia only began operating A-50 aircraft over the Sea of Azov in November 2023. On 14 January 2024, Ukraine successfully targeted an A-50 in that area. This forced Russian decision makers to consider safer operating areas for the aircraft. This latest Ukrainian success has demonstrated a continued Russian inability to protect high value air assets. It brings into question the efficacy of Russian air planners. The Russian air force will be able to cover the immediate loss of the A-50 because they have seven operational airframes remaining. Yet the loss of two experienced specialist mission crews in as many months is highly likely to induce further strain and combat fatigue on the remaining force if they are to sustain constant operations. It is likely that the Russian air force will again consider different operating locations, but Ukraine is demonstrating an ability to adapt quickly and continues to pose a threat. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that during the day of February 27, there were 86x combat engagements. Russian forces launched a total of 4x missile and 52x air strikes, carried out 94x MLRS attacks at the positions of Ukrainian troops and various settlements. Unfortunately, Russian attacks resulted in killed and wounded civilians. Residential private and apartment buildings, as well as other infrastructure were destroyed and damaged. Volyn and Polissya axes: no significant changes. No signs of formation of an offensive group. Certain units of the armed forces of Belarus continue their missions in the areas bordering Ukraine. Sivershchyna and Slobozhanshchyna axes: Russia maintains its military presence in the areas of russia bordering Ukraine. Russia continues its sabotage and reconnaissance activities, shelling Ukrainian settlements from the territory of Russia and increases the density of minefields along the state border of Ukraine. The Russian adversary launched air strikes in the vicinities of Chernats'ke, Chuikivka, Khrapivshchyna, Hrabovs'ke, Yunakivka (Sumy oblast) and Bolohivka (Kharkiv oblast). More than 30x settlements came under Russian artillery and mortar fire, including Khrinivka (Chernihiv oblast), Znob-Trubchevs'ka, Seredyna-Buda, Stara Huta (Sumy oblast), Kozacha Lopan', Ohirtseve, Hatyshche, Pletenivka (Kharkiv oblast). Kup'yans'k axis: the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled 11x attacks near Syn'kivka and Tabaivka, where the Russian occupiers made unsuccessful attempts to dislodge Ukrainian troops from their positions. Russian forces fired artillery and mortars at more than 10x settlements, including Syn'kivka, Stepova Novoselivka, Pishchane (Kharkiv oblast). Lyman axis: the Ukrainian defenders repelled 9x assaults near Terny (Donetsk oblast), where Russian forces made attempts to breach Ukrainian defense, to no success. Russian forces launched air strikes in the vicinities of Vyimka and Vesele (Donetsk oblast). Russian forces fired artillery and mortars at more than 10x settlements, including Bilohorivka (Luhansk oblast), Terny, Yampolivka, Tors'ke, Serebryanka, Rozdolivka (Donetsk oblast). Bakhmut axis: the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled 6x attacks in the vicinities of Ivanivske, Klishchiivka and Andriivka (Donetsk oblast), where the Russian occupiers made attempts to improve their tactical situation. Russian forces launched air strikes near Bohdanivka and Druzhba (Donetsk oblast). More than10x settlements came under artillery and mortar fire, including Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Hryhorivka, Ivanivske (Donetsk oblast). Avdiivka axis: the Ukrainian defenders repelled 18x attacks in the vicinities of Berdychi, Orlivka, Tonen'ke, Pervomais'ke (Donetsk oblast). Russian forces launched air strikes near Novoselivka Persha, Pervomais'ke (Donetsk oblast). Russian forces fired artillery and mortars at around 20x settlements, including Novobakhmutivka, Semenivka, Orlivka, Pervomais'ke (Donetsk oblast). Novopavlivka axis: the Ukrainian Defense Forces continue to hold back Russian forces in the vicinities of Krasnohorivka, Novomykhailivka and west of Pobjeda (Donetsk oblast). In that area, Russian forces made 15x attempts to breach Ukrainian defense. On top of that, Ukrainian defenders repelled 4x attacks south of Vuhledar, Staromaiors'ke and Urozhaine (Donetsk oblast). Russian forces launched air strikes near Kurakhove, Krasnohorivka, Novomykhailivka, Vodyane, Staromaiors'ke and Urozhaine (Donetsk oblast). Russian forces fired artillery and mortars at around 20x settlements, including Krasnohorivka, Heorhiivka, Novomykhailivka, Paraskoviivka, Kostyantynivka, Vuhledar, Prechystivka, Blahodatne, Staromaiors'ke, Urozhaine (Donetsk oblast). Orikhiv axis: the Ukrainian Defense Forces repelled 6x attacks in the vicinities of Malynivka and Robotyne (Zaporizhzhia oblast). Russian forces launched air strikes in the vicinities of Levadne, Mala Tokmachka, Orikhiv, Robotyne (Zaporizhzhia oblast). Around 15x settlements, including Poltavka, Charivne, Bilohir'ya, Robotyne, Novodanylivka (Zaporizhzhia oblast), were under Russian artillery and mortar fire. Odesa operational-strategic group, Kherson axis: Russian forces do not abandon their intention to drive Ukrainian units out of their footholds on the left bank of the Dnipro. During the day, Russian forces made 1x attempt to assault positions of Ukrainian troops. Russian forces launched an air strike near Molodizhne (Kherson oblast). Around 20x settlements, including Tyahynka, Tokarivka, Krynky, Ivanivka, L'vove, Ponyativka (Kherson oblast), came under Russian artillery and mortar fire. During the day of February 27, the Ukrainian Air Force launched air strikes on 15x concentrations of enemy troops. On top of that, Ukrainian Air Force units destroyed 2x Su-34 fighter-bombers and 4x reconnaissance UAVs. The Ukrainian missile troops hit 3x concentrations of troops, weapons and military equipment, 2x artillery systems, 1x air defense system and 1x radar station of the Russian invaders. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that in Kupyansk direction, units of the Zapad Group of Forces took more advantageous positions, as well as inflicted losses on AFU manpower and hardware near Sinkovka and Ivanovka (Kharkov region). In addition, two counterattacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 95th Air Assault Brigade were repelled near Terni (Donetsk People's Republic). The AFU losses amounted to up to 30 Ukrainian troops, two motor vehicles, one Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system, and one Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer. In Donetsk direction, units of the Yug Group of Forces improved the tactical situation along the front lines and inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 3rd Assault Brigade, 28th, 72nd mechanised brigades near Bogdanovka, Kurdyumovka, Antonovka (Donetsk People's Republic). Seven counterattacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 46th Air Mobile Brigade, 79th Air Assault Brigade were repelled near Krasnogorovka, Georgiyevka, Novomikhailovka (Donetsk People's Republic). The AFU losses amounted to more than 420 Ukrainian troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, four motor vehicles, one U.S.-made M777 howitzer, one UK-made FH-70 howitzer, one Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer, and one UK-made L119 howitzer. In Avdeyevka direction, units of the Tsentr Group of Forces liberated Severnoye, took more advantageous lines and positions, as well as inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 24th, 110th mechanised brigades, and 103rd Territorial Defence Brigade near Mayorsk, Berdichi, and Rozovka (Donetsk People's Republic). Nine AFU assault detachments counterattacks were repelled near Novgorodskoye, Pervomayskoye, and Petrovskoye (Donetsk People's Republic). The AFU losses amounted to up to 485 Ukrainian troops, two tanks, including one U.S.-made Abrams tank, three infantry fighting vehicles, including one Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, six armoured fighting vehicles, 13 motor vehicles, and two D-30 howitzers. In South Donetsk direction, units of the Vostok Group of Forces supported by aviation delivered strikes at manpower and hardware clusters of the AFU 127th and 128th Territorial Defence Brigade near Levadnoye (Zaporozhye region), Urozhaynoye, Staromayorskoye (Donetsk People's Republic), and repelled three attacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 102nd Territorial Defence Brigade near Marfopol (Zaporozhye region). The AFU losses amounted to up to 130 Ukrainian troops, two motor vehicles, one UK-made FH-70 towed howitzer, and one Bukovel-AD electronic warfare station. In Kherson direction, as a result of active actions, Russian units took more advantageous positions and repelled three counterattacks launched by assault detachments of the AFU 118th Mechanised Brigade near Rabotino (Zaporozhye region). In addition, strikes were delivered at manpower and hardware clusters of the AFU 65th Mechanised Brigade, 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, 23rd Ukrainian National Guard Brigade, and 121st Territorial Defence Brigade near Nesteryanka (Zaporozhye region) and Ilyinka (Dnepropetrovsk region). The AFU losses amounted to up to 40 Ukrainian troops, two infantry fighting vehicles, and two motor vehicles. One Bukovel-AD electronic warfare station was destroyed. Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, and Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces wiped out one fuel depot for AFU military hardware, one P-18 air target detection and tracking radar station, one command post of the AFU 128th Territorial Defence Brigade, as well as engaged AFU manpower and hardware in 112 areas during the day. Air defence units shot down one Ukrainian Air Force Su-25 aircraft near Mikhailovka (Nikolaev region). Moreover, 69 unmanned aerial vehicles were intercepted near Olshana (Kharkov region), Chernopopovka, Zhitlovka (Lugansk People's Republic), Yegorovka (Donetsk People's Republic), Chubaryovka, Chistopolye, Sladkaya Balka (Zaporozhye region), Vasilieyvka, Korsunka (Kherson region), as well as one HIMARS MLRS projectile. In total, 575 airplanes and 267 helicopters, 13,523 unmanned aerial vehicles, 474 air defence missile systems, 15,252 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,226 combat vehicles equipped with MLRS, 8,176 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 19,138 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Counter ISIS Finance Group Leaders Issue Joint Statement U.S. Department of the Treasury February 27, 2024 Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Convenes Nineteenth Finance Working Group Meeting On January 30 and 31, the United States, Italy, and Saudi Arabia hosted virtually the 19th meeting of the Counter ISIS Finance Group (CIFG), a working group of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. The U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Department of State jointly represented the United States at this event, which included over 40 member states and observers. The following is a joint statement of the CIFG co-leads: The work of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (Daesh) remains as important as ever. The Global Coalition must be vigilant to prevent ISIS from supporting any terrorist organizations around the world. To that end, the CIFG mission remains integral to achieving the goals of the Global Coalition. Over the course of two days, CIFG participants explored creative approaches to denying ISIS access to our financial systems, dismantling ISIS fundraising and financial facilitation networks, and stopping the group from gaining territorial control in Africa, the Middle East (particularly Syria and Iraq), and across Asia. Financial regulators, counterterrorism officials, and independent experts discussed case studies that highlighted the terrorists' use of cash smuggling and abuse of financial institutions, including hawalas and virtual asset service providers, and businesses. The CIFG participants also noted the importance of protecting the non-profit organization (NPO) sector from abuse. ISIS sources of funds largely reside outside the formal economy and allow ISIS affiliates to sustain insurgencies and attacks against civilians which threaten regional stability in parts of Africa and Asia. In populated areas where ISIS has a presence, it often relies on criminal activity and exploitation of natural resources to generate funds. Moreover, ISIS fundraising networks around the globe continue to receive contributions that support ISIS's capability to conduct terrorist attacks and promote its violent ideology. Some of ISIS crowdfunding campaigns exploit unwitting donors by launching fraudulent charitable appeals. The CIFG co-leads call on Global Coalition members to address these challenges, pursuant to each member's domestic counterterrorism authority, through increased cooperation to counter the evolving ISIS threat consistent with the following lines of effort: Increase timely information-sharing with relevant agencies, international partners, and financial institutions to enable detection, investigation, and disruption of ISIS financing networks. Continue monitoring terrorist fundraising appeals via social media and encrypted electronic messaging applications to inform law enforcement measures against individuals who seek to provide financial support to ISIS. Continue monitoring terrorist fundraising appeals via social media and encrypted electronic messaging applications to inform law enforcement measures against individuals who seek to provide financial support to ISIS. Combat ISIS by employing adequate security measures to prevent the group from extorting the local population, kidnapping civilians for ransom, looting, and engaging in other criminal activities to generate revenue. Strengthen our anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes to prevent terrorist financiers from taking advantage of permissive jurisdictions where they perceive that they can act with impunity. In that vein, it is essential that all countries effectively implement the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations. Enhance oversight of all payment mechanisms, including money service businesses, mobile payment systems, and virtual asset service providers. Effective implementation of AML/CFT frameworks to mitigate ISIS abuse of financial systems includes subjecting financial institutions to AML/CFT obligations and taking meaningful enforcement measures against all financial institutions in instances of non-compliance. Protect NPOs from abuse by applying focused, proportionate, and risk-based measures in line with FATF standards. States should appropriately implement these risk-based measures to preserve the integrity of the NPO sector without unduly disrupting or discouraging legitimate NPO activities. Increase effective public actions, such as prosecutions and targeted financial sanctions against ISIS donors, fundraisers, and financial facilitators, to dissuade others from funding terrorist groups. Coordinated or joint disruptions of ISIS financial facilitators, such as the three individuals the United States sanctioned on January 30, 2024, would be particularly impactful. Global Coalition members will continue working together to improve our disruptive actions against ISIS financial networks and strengthen oversight of the global financial system to make all jurisdictions inhospitable to ISIS and other terrorist groups. It is imperative that we prevent ISIS funds transfers that could fuel new terrorist operations. Together we will hold ISIS financiers accountable and ensure the enduring defeat of this transnational terrorist threat. Click here to read Fact Sheet: Countering ISIS Financing ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Remarks from Deputy Assistant Secretary Jesse Baker at Terrorist Financing Targeting Center Meeting U.S. Department of the Treasury February 27, 2024 WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday, February 20, the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC) hosted a capacity building workshop in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on terrorist financing concerns linked to maritime security. The workshop aimed to continue TFTC's efforts on sharing risks and building partners' collective understanding of emerging maritime threats, sharing experiences of how different governments have approached this issue, determining how they relate to TFTC's broader counterterrorism mission, and identifying opportunities for future collaboration to secure the Gulf's waterways. In recent weeks as some of the region's most critical waterways have been shaken by dangerous attacks by the Houthis, the TFTC aims to redouble its commitment to the Center as an entity to identify, track and share information regarding terrorist financial networks and related activities of mutual concerns, including relating threats emanating from countries and terrorist organizations. There is critical need to ensure that terrorists and other malicious actors cannot continue to profit from and exploit the maritime domain; addressing this threat requires enlisting a broader segment of the private sector to combat this activity. The Riyadh workshop was a critical opportunity for the TFTC to share actions taken by member states within their jurisdictions focused on the illicit finance threat from terrorist networks and related activities of mutual concern within the Gulf. Jesse Baker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Asia and the Middle East in the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes (TFFC), provided closing remarks for the workshop. Remarks as prepared for delivery Good morning - unfortunately, I could not be there in person today, but it is my honor to address this workshop virtually. I want to first start by thanking Saudi Arabia, including my TFTC counterpart and co-chair General Al Mohsen for hosting us today and commend him for his leadership of the TFTC. I also want to thank today's participants for traveling to Riyadh and your continued commitment to advancing our partnership. Since November, there have been more than 40 attacks on commercial and naval ships in the Red Sea with more than five occurring so far in February. The U.S. Treasury remains committed to ensuring freedom of navigation for global shipping and commerce in the Red Sea and beyond, even when terrorists and other malicious actors seem determined to prevent it. We have mobilized all of Treasury's tools to address maritime threats, taken action via sanctions, and coordinated with foreign partners and humanitarian actors. This workshop is a time for TFTC to reflect on imminent threats to maritime security in the Middle East but also presents an opportunity mobilize against them. As TFTC members, we are all deeply concerned by the escalating violence in the Red Sea. Since October 7, the Houthis have launched dozens of missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks targeting commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. These terrorist attacks threaten the free flow of trade, disrupt global supply chains, and violate international law. You have heard from colleagues in the Office of International Affairs about the concerning economic impacts of these attacks, including potential shipping disruptions, delays, and price increases. If we do not act swiftly to reestablish deterrence, the devastating impacts of these attacks will reverberate far beyond the region's waters and will continue to have global economic implications. Protecting the region's waterways demands action. Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden have endangered mariners, disrupted the free flow of commerce, and interfered with navigational rights and freedoms. This is why the United States has deployed its financial tools to target the Houthis and their financiers. Since October 7 we have targeted Houthi military officials and financial networks in four designations, and effective on February 16, 2024, designated Ansrallah (the Houthis) as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). At the same time, we recognize the grave humanitarian situation in Yemen. That is why facilitating the commercial import of critical commodities to Yemen - like food and medicine - remains a priority in addition to our efforts to preserve humanitarian assistance. Concurrent with the announcement of the Houthis' designation, OFAC issued five additional general licenses to facilitate the delivery of commercial goods and personal remittances to Yemen. We also maintain broad humanitarian-related general licenses in the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations. Treasury leadership is committed to engaging with the commercial and humanitarian sectors operating in Yemen to ensure that they have the clarity they need to continue operating for the benefit of the Yemeni people. That is why we have convened multiple engagements with representatives from the humanitarian, commercial, and financial sectors to discuss the designation of the Houthis and our available authorizations. We have also worked with fellow TFTC member Bahrain within the Prosperity Guardian coalition, a part of the Combined Maritime Forces focused on ensuring commercial ships' safe passage and protection from the Houthi's attacks in the Red Sea. We welcome the addition of other countries to similarly participate in this forum. Additionally, the US Coast Guard seized conventional weapons and other lethal aid that originated in Iran and was bound for Houthi-Controlled areas in late January, in an effort to continue to counter the flow of Iranian lethal aid to the Houthis. We know that we are not alone in our concern. During today's discussion, TFTC members discussed the significant human and financial costs of Houthi attacks and agreed that their continuation is unacceptable. Houthi activities jeopardize each TFTC member's interests and countering them is both an economic and security imperative. Our colleagues from the Office of Foreign Asset Control discussed terrorist networks operating in the Red Sea and potential targeting opportunities, which the TFTC should explore as the topic of future information sharing and designations. To reinforce the impact of our joint action, we must work with our respective financial and humanitarian sectors to address vulnerabilities without causing undue harm to the Yemeni people. To restore maritime security and advance our interests, we must translate shared concern into joint action. Since October 7, the TFTC has repeatedly discussed the importance of cooperation and harnessing the power of our partnership to promote regional stability. Last month's workshop on international cooperation provided us with a template for how we can leverage our tools and knowledge to share information, protect the international financial system, and disrupt financial flows. During today's workshop, we applied this template. During presentations, the TFTC approached maritime security from all angles, from assessing the economic impacts of maritime disruption to identifying terrorist networks operating in the Red Sea and targeting opportunities. We should not let today's presentations become a series of isolated discussions. Instead, as we return to our work, we should identify opportunities to engage with each other and coordinate our efforts to prevent maritime attacks. We must mobilize around our collective commitment to maritime security, whether by sharing information when Red Sea concerns arise, protecting the international financial system from the Houthis and their financiers, or disrupting the financial flows that enable attacks. This workshop built upon TFTC's previous efforts to understand the new threat landscape that is developing in the Gulf and beyond. We have expressed our shared concern and built our collective knowledge. We must now go forth and act. Thank you again to our host country and co-chair Saudi Arabia and the participants for attending this workshop. My hope is that this workshop will mark the start of a productive, coordinated effort to promote maritime security. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Statement following elections in Belarus Global Affairs Canada Statement February 26, 2024 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada Global Affairs Canada today issued the following statement regarding the recent elections held in Belarus on February 25, 2024: "Canada rejects Belarus' latest so-called "elections" where opposition has been suppressed, media silenced and political prisoners kept behind bars. By refusing to let observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitor results, Belarus has continued to disregard the democratic rights of its people. "We call on the Lukashenko regime to reverse these anti-democratic actions, end its systematic campaign of repression against its people, media and opposition parties, and release political prisoners. "Canada stands with Belarusians' aspirations to live in a free, democratic, and sovereign Belarus, without fear of oppression." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address MFA statement on parliamentary elections in Belarus Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Republic of Poland 27.02.2024 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemns holding parliamentary elections in Belarus on 25 February 2024 under conditions of extreme disregard for democratic procedures. The voting organised by the authorities in Minsk was yet another attempt to create an alternative reality, act towards aggravating the internal crisis and hold power by all means at the expense of its own society. We are disappointed to learn about Minsk's decision to make last Sunday's election a farce and a parody of democracy, and using it to enforce harmful policy of subjecting the Belarusian People to the will of a narrow group in power. The Belarusian authorities are not in the least interested in improving the situation and their declarations of readiness to enter into dialogue, which they have been repeating over the past few months, turn out to be empty slogans. This is clearly evidenced by Belarus not allowing independent activists to take part in the elections, ignoring its own international commitments by failing to invite the ODIHR observers, and radical stepping up of repressions during the campaign, which resulted in the death of the fifth political prisoner. Today's Belarus is still extremely unfriendly towards its own citizens. The country's authorities still keep several thousand political opponents in penal colonies, including representatives of the Polish national minority. Even the slightest signs of independence, including criticism of the authorities, lead to political trials in which citizens, arrested on absurd charges, are sentenced to many years of imprisonment. Prisoners are denied their fundamental rights, are held in appalling conditions and subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. Poland continues to call on the Minsk authorities to respect their international commitments, release and rehabilitate all political prisoners and undertake a large-scale internal institutional reform that will help transform Belarus into a free, democratic, and responsible European country that observes law and promotes the welfare of its citizens. The people of Belarus deserve that. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting with Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federative Republic of Brazil Maria da Rocha 26 February 2024 18:03 365-26-02-2024 On February 26, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov received Secretary General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federative Republic of Brazil (First Deputy Minister) Maria da Rocha, who arrived in Moscow to co-chair the 12th meeting of the Intergovernmental Russia-Brazil Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation. During the conversation, which was held in a friendly and trusting atmosphere typical of Russian-Brazilian contacts, Sergey Lavrov positively assessed the state of and prospects for strategic partnership relations between the two countries and stressed the important role played by the foreign policy departments in their step-by-step development. They focused on further strengthening the bilateral political dialogue and hands-on cooperation with an emphasis on its material, cultural and humanitarian components. When discussing the international agenda, the parties expressed mutual interest in close coordination of the two countries' efforts within the UN, BRICS, and the G20. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk Prime Minister of Canada - Justin Trudeau February 26, 2024 Warsaw, Poland Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, in Warsaw, Poland. As Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third year, Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister Tusk condemned Russia's ongoing war of aggression, and reaffirmed their shared commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine. They further expressed their support for President Zelenskyy's ongoing diplomatic efforts toward a just and sustainable peace. The prime ministers committed to working together to tackle regional and global challenges, such as regional stability, energy security, and climate change. Prime Minister Trudeau welcomed ongoing close co-operation with Poland in addressing security challenges, including through collaboration in the training of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel and Poland's contributions to the Canada-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization enhanced Forward Presence in Latvia. The two leaders looked forward to working together to further deepen bilateral relations, including through enhanced trade and collaboration in the areas of science, technology and innovation, as well as in the nuclear sector. In particular, they looked forward to the signature and ratification of the Canada-Poland Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister Tusk reaffirmed their intention to remain in close and regular contact. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with President of Poland Andrzej Duda Prime Minister of Canada - Justin Trudeau February 26, 2024 Warsaw, Poland Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, in Warsaw, Poland. As Russia's unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine passes its two-year mark, Prime Minister Trudeau and President Duda reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine and their commitment to stand with Ukraine. The Prime Minister and the President emphasized the close co-operation between Canada and Poland in the training of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel, including Poland's hosting of members of the Canadian Armed Forces under Operation UNIFIER. They also discussed co-operation on renewable and clean energy, particularly in the nuclear sector. The two leaders reiterated their shared commitment to bolster the defence and deterrence capabilities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) along its eastern flank. The Prime Minister expressed appreciation for Poland's ongoing contribution to the Canada-led NATO enhanced Forward Presence in Latvia. The leaders discussed future opportunities to work together to continue supporting Ukraine, bolstering regional security, strengthening the NATO Alliance, and holding Russia to account for its illegal war of aggression. Prime Minister Trudeau and President Duda agreed to remain in regular contact. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US allegation of 'forced labor' in Xinjiang is huge lie, causing 'forced unemployment' there: Foreign Ministry Global Times By Global Times Published: Feb 27, 2024 04:35 PM The allegation of "forced labor" in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is a huge lie, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, urging the US to immediately stop smearing China, stop intervening in China's internal affairs, and stop politicizing and weaponizing trade issues. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks at a regular press briefing in Beijing, responding to media reports saying that the US Department of Homeland Security is intensifying scrutiny of supply chains of American solar companies as the Biden administration mulls to tighten a ban on products assembled in Xinjiang. The Chinese side has repeatedly pointed out that the allegation of "forced labor" in Xinjiang is a huge lie. The US uses the so-called "forced labor" issue, which does not exist in Xinjiang, which often results in "forced unemployment" in Xinjiang, Mao said. US' move has severely undermined the basic human rights of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, violated international trade rules and disrupted international industrial and supply chains, the spokesperson said. Mao said the US must immediately stop smearing China, stop intervening in China's internal affairs under the pretext of human rights, and stop politicizing and weaponizing trade issues. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning's Regular Press Conference on February 27, 2024 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the People's Republic of China 2024-02-27 18:00 China Daily: The 55th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council commenced yesterday. Under the current circumstances, how does China view the role of the UNHRC? What is the consideration for China's participation this time? We noticed that Foreign Minister Wang Yi made remarks at the high-level segment of the session. Can you give us more details?a Mao Ning: The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a core platform for discussing human rights issues. At the moment, the world is becoming more turbulent, crises and conflicts keep flaring up, and deficit in global human rights governance is widening. There is an urgent need for all parties to build consensus and enhance solidarity and cooperation. China always attaches great importance to the work of the UNHRC and will take an active part in the discussions of all agenda items at this session, encourage all parties to have constructive dialogue and cooperation on human rights issues, and work for fairer and more equitable, reasonable and inclusive global governance on human rights. Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the high-level segment of the session and made remarks via video link. He pointed out that protecting and promoting human rights is a common cause for all humanity. It falls upon the entire international community to protect the human rights of all ethnic groups and all people in a fair, equal and effective way. We must put people first. Safeguarding people's interests must be the basis and goal of the human rights cause. People's right to survival and development should be protected as a priority and pursued with a greater sense of urgency. We must stand against the attempts to use human rights as a pretext to interfere with other countries' internal affairs or curb others' development. We must stay open and inclusive, respect the diversity of world civilizations, and respect all countries' right to independently choose their paths to human rights development. Countries should not impose their own values or development models on others. We must pursue cooperation that benefits all. Consensus should be built through dialogue, and mutual learning enhanced through exchanges. Human rights must be protected and promoted by ensuring security, advancing development and enhancing cooperation. Emerging issues, such as the relationship between artificial intelligence and human rights, must be properly handled. UN human rights bodies need to be fair and objective and serve as platforms for constructive engagement and cooperation for all sides, rather than a battleground for group politics or bloc confrontation. Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that China is now working to deliver the fruits of modernization to its population in a more substantive and equitable way, and raising the level of human rights protection. As our future is closely tied to that of people around the world, we will actively champion the common values of humanity, and work with all sides to build a community with a shared future for mankind, and make new contributions to the healthy development of the global human rights cause. Swedish Television: Sweden is about to join NATO. How will this impact China-Sweden relations? Mao Ning: On European security, China hopes that all parties will work for common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, follow the principle of indivisible security, and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture through dialogue and consultation and on the basis of respecting each other's legitimate security concerns, so as to realize peace and lasting security in the region. On China-Sweden relations, our position is consistent. We value our friendly cooperation with Sweden. AFP: According to media reports, the Serbian President said yesterday that Chinese leader will visit Serbia this year. Can the Foreign Ministry confirm the visit and provide more details? Mao Ning: China and Serbia are iron-clad friends. Our relations have been highly robust with solid political mutual trust and fruitful cooperation in various fields. China greatly values its relations with Serbia. We stand ready to work with Serbia to strengthen exchanges at various levels and across the board to elevate the China-Serbia comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level, deliver more benefits to the two peoples and contribute to the efforts to build a community with a shared future for mankind. On the specific visit that you mentioned, I have no information to offer. The Paper: It's reported that in its recent report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Nvidia included Huawei in its current competitors in AI, chips and various areas for the first time, and said that its competitive position may be further harmed if there're further changes in the US government's export controls. What's your comment?a Mao Ning: What has happened shows that "small yard and high fence" will not stop China's innovation-driven development, nor will it do any good to US companies or the entire semiconductor industry. Open cooperation is the core driving force for the growth of the semiconductor industry. China is one of the major semiconductor markets in the world. To fragment the market, destabilize global industrial and supply chains, and stymie efficiency and innovation serves no one's interests. The US needs to follow the principles of market economy and fair competition, and support companies around the world in advancing science and technology through healthy competition. Reuters: The US-China Science and Technology Agreement was set to expire today after the US extended the pact originally expiring in August 2023 by six months for re-negotiations with China. Please could you tell us whether the pact has been renewed now while the expiration date has passed? Mao Ning: China-US exchange and cooperation in science and technology is mutually beneficial in nature. What I know is that the two sides have been in communication on the renewal of the agreement. For the specifics, I'd refer you to competent Chinese authorities. Bloomberg: The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its scrutiny of solar companies in the US. It's asking for more information about their supply chains. This would appear to be an indication that the Biden Administration is poised to toughen its enforcement of a ban on products linked to Chinese "forced labor." How does the Ministry respond to this? Mao Ning: We've stated on multiple occasions that the so-called "forced labor" in Xinjiang is nothing but an egregious lie. The US uses the made-up story of "forced labor" to enforce the malicious legislation on Xinjiang and create "forced unemployment" in the region. Such moves seriously violate people's basic human rights in Xinjiang and the international trade rules. They have also disrupted global industrial and supply chains. The US needs to immediately stop smearing China, stop meddling in China's internal affairs under the pretext of human rights and stop politicizing and weaponizing economic and trade issues. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Disappeared ex-foreign minister Qin Gang 'steps down' as lawmaker Fired defense minister Li Shangfu's name removed from ruling party's military arm, as state secrets law passes. By Lee Heung Yeung for RFA Cantonese 2024.02.27 -- Former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who hasn't been seen in public in seven months, has "resigned" from his position as a parliamentary deputy ahead of the forthcoming National People's Congress in Beijing. The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress announced on Tuesday that the Tianjin Municipal People's Congress had "decided to accept" Qin's resignation as a delegate. The announcement came as the name of China's missing former defense minister Li Shangfu was scrubbed from a list of top leaders of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's Central Military Commission published on the Defense Ministry's official website, Caixin Global reported. Li was fired from his post as defense minister on Oct. 24, 2023, with no explanation given. A number of senior leaders of the People's Liberation Army's Rocket Corps, including the head of China's nuclear arsenal, had also been fired by President Xi Jinping in July. Qin, 57, has been absent from public view since he met with the foreign ministers of Sri Lanka and Vietnam, and with the Russian deputy foreign minister in Beijing on June 25, 2023. But the government has yet to shed any light on his fate or his whereabouts, despite a storm of media and social media speculation. Qin's disappearance came amid widespread and unconfirmed rumors that he was under investigation for having an affair with Phoenix TV reporter Fu Xiaotian. Soon afterwards, his name was scrubbed from the foreign ministry's web pages and archive of news releases. A Xi Jinping favorite Qin had been catapulted into the role of foreign minister as a Xi Jinping favorite and had only served for seven months, after making a name for himself as a "wolf warrior" diplomat. His ouster a which was formalized with his resignation in January a came amid several other high-profile sackings of senior officials by Xi. Xi replaced Li Yuchao as commander of the People's Liberation Army Rocket Corps a which controls the country's nuclear missiles a in July, as state media reported that Li and his former deputies Zhang Zhenzhong and Liu Guangbin had been placed under investigation by the Chinese Communist Party's disciplinary arm, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Li Shangfu was reportedly being investigated for corrupt procurement of military equipment after being out of the public eye since Aug. 29, along with several other senior officials from the Chinese military's procurement unit, media reports said at the time. The sackings are believed to be part of a broader effort to reduce security vulnerabilities amid China's increasing competition with the United States and its allies. Xi on Tuesday also signed an executive order that will see the Law on Safeguarding State Secrets take effect from May 1. The law was revised and adopted by the National People's Congress Standing Committee on Feb. 27, 2024, according to announcements on official websites and media. According to state broadcaster CCTV, the committee "recommended the implementation of a declassification period for personnel with access to confidential information who leave their posts." All government departments and state-owned enterprises will be required under the law to "determine the confidentiality level" of state secrets they work with, and implement new rules about managing a "declassification" period for employees who leave their posts, including a travel ban. "During the declassification period, personnel who have access to secrets are not allowed to work or leave the country ... nor are they allowed to disclose state secrets in any way," CCTV reported. Similar measures may be necessary to safeguard industrial secrets that could "cause certain adverse effects" if leaked, the report said. 'Deepens state powers' In a Nov. 3 commentary on the draft law that was revealed in October, the China-Britain Business Council said the law "deepens state powers" and had sparked concerns among foreign businesses and individuals in China, particularly in the wake of raids of foreign consultancy firms Bain & Co. and Mintz Group earlier in 2023. According to the October version of the draft law, state employees with access to state secrets will require permission before traveling abroad, including for a period of time after they leave the job or retire. during which time they may be barred from taking another job. The National Administration of State Secret Protection will have expanded powers to investigate state secret-related cases, including the ability to check and confiscate files and devices, and to question staff, while tech products that are used to protect state secrets will be regularly checked. "Some argue that terms in the law such as 'state secrets,' 'national security,' 'national interests' and even 'employees' remain poorly defined and could thus be interpreted by those enforcing the law," the China-Britain Business Council said, echoing similar concerns expressed by European business leaders about the Counterespionage Law, which was amended last year. China's Ministry of State Security has said the criticism of both laws is unfounded. The National People's Congress, China's rubber-stamp parliament, is to convene its annual session in early March and is expected to focus on the country's ailing economy. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin. Copyright 1998-2024, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content February not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Lawmakers, Officials Voice Concern About Chinese Police on Kiribati By Jessica Stone February 27, 2024 U.S. lawmakers are voicing concern about the Pacific island nation of Kirabati's use of police from China for security, just as the U.S. State Department warns that such cooperation could bring new risks to Kiribati, a neighbor of Hawaii. On Friday, Eeri Aritiera, Kirabati's acting police commissioner, told Reuters that a Chinese police delegation will rotate through the island nation to "provide assistance" to Kiribati's Community Policing program and IT department. Aritiera says the island nation of more than 115,000, whose closest island is about 2,100 km (1,305 miles) from Hawaii, requested China's policing assistance in 2022. In an email to VOA, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said the U.S. conducts police training in Kiribati. The spokesperson also raised concerns about the "potential implications that security agreements and security-related cyber cooperation" with China may have for a nation's sovereignty. "We do not believe importing security forces from [China] will help any country," he said in an email to VOA. Worried about losing ground U.S. lawmakers worry Washington is losing ground to the People's Republic of China in the Pacific, a region that's critical to national security. "The PRC's policing activities in Kiribati are a clear sign of Beijing's growing influence in Pacific island countries through lawfare. It's also a sign of the democracy-eroding effects of the PRC's diplomatic isolation of Taiwan," said U.S. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking member on the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party or CCP. "If we don't engage more with our Pacific partners like Kiribati to counter this CCP malign influence, we could face serious trade and national security issues, said U.S. Representative Neal Dunn, a Florida Republican who also serves on the Select Committee. "Kiribati wants a consistent on-the-ground relationship with the United States," acknowledged democratic U.S. Representative Ed Case of Hawaii in an email to VOA, adding the region "needs help building capacity to address basic services." Others on the committee worry about the corrosive impact on Pacific nations as they depend more for security on police from an authoritarian state where due process often goes unenforced. "The CCP gives zero value to human life and will most certainly intend to use Kiribati's strategic position to their advantage, said U.S. Representative Michele Steel in a statement to VOA. Steel also serves on the Select Committee. VOA asked the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. to comment on the reports about the new Chinese police presence in Kiribati. Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu responded to VOA in an email that China "always engages in cooperation with relevant countries on the basis of equality, mutual respect, mutual benefit, openness and inclusiveness." China grows police partnerships In recent years, Beijing has increasingly positioned itself as the public safety partner of choice for Pacific nations experiencing instability. In January, Papua New Guinea requested Chinese police assistance after riots killed 15 people. In 2022, the Solomon Islands entered into a security pact with Beijing, and a year later, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare signed a police cooperation deal with China for two years. Both Kiribati and the Solomons switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to Beijing in 2019. But others in the region are re-examining their police agreements with China. In January 2023, after 12 years of cooperation with Beijing on policing, Fiji's newly elected prime minister a Sitiveni Rabuka a fired the country's police commissioner and promised to end a police training agreement that allowed Chinese police officers to be stationed in Fiji. "If our systems and our values differ, what cooperation can we get from them?" said Rabuka last June, referring to China. Lawmakers: Funding delay sends wrong message With Chinese funds surging to the region a as much as $3.148 billion between 2008 and 2020, according to the Sydney-based Lowy Institute a many in Congress are questioning why their fellow lawmakers still haven't passed a funding package for three Pacific allies that are also facing economic pressure from Beijing. The agreement, known as the Compacts of Free Association or COFA, provide $7 billion in economic aid over 20 years to Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. It was signed last year. Earlier this month, the funding was dropped from the security supplemental in the U.S. Senate under pressure from conservatives who wanted to lower costs. With no amendment process permitted, the funds could not be added back in. U.S. representative Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen represents the U.S. Pacific territory of American Samoa a some 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles) southeast of Kiribati. In a statement to VOA, she called COFA "the clearest signal the U.S. can send renewing American commitments to freedom, democracy and well-being for our three closest allies, and the entire Pacific region." U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii agrees, warning in an email to VOA that further delay in passing COFA "opens the door for China to make similar overtures to the COFA nations." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Renewal of US-China Science and Tech Pact Faces Hurdles By Nike Ching February 27, 2024 With a science and technology agreement between the United States and People's Republic of China due to expire Tuesday, the State Department said it is negotiating to "amend, extend, and strengthen protections within" the agreement but declined to specify if the U.S. would extend the deal. "We are not able to provide information at this time on specific U.S. negotiating positions or on whether the agreement will be extended past its current expiration date," a State Department spokesperson told VOA. The Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement is a framework for U.S. governmental collaborations with China in science and technology. U.S. officials have said the STA provides consistent standards for government-to-government scientific cooperation between the U.S. and China. While the agreement supports scientific collaboration in areas that benefit the United States, U.S. officials acknowledge the challenges posed by China's national science and technology strategies and its domestic legal framework. Critics, including U.S. lawmakers, point out China's restrictions on data and a lack of transparency in sharing scientific findings. Washington is also concerned about personal safety of American scientists who travel to China, as well as Beijing's potential military application of shared research. A report by Congressional Research Service said China's cooperation under the agreement has not been consistent. For example, "China reportedly withheld avian influenza strains required for U.S. vaccines and in 2019, cut off U.S. access to coronavirus research, including U.S.-funded work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology," said the CRS. Advocates for renewing the agreement want to maintain some level of official and unofficial contacts amid strained relationship between the two countries. During a recent discussion hosted by the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), panelists said the STA is "important symbolically" and gives confidence to researchers on both sides to deepen their engagement with counterparts. "In the event of the agreement's non-renewal, the mutual confidence that sustains and underpins collaboration is bound to suffer," said ICAS in its post-event summary. Dean Cheng, a senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said the American system is far more open, so China will typically be able to gather information regardless of whether there is an agreement. "The STA is no guarantee that American scientists will, in fact, be able to access Chinese research, information, or scholars, whereas the Chinese side will use the STA as a means of establishing an even greater presence in the U.S.," Cheng told VOA, adding the "strategic advantage" under the deal will likely be with the PRC. The STA was originally signed in 1979 by then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter and then-PRC leader Deng Xiaoping. Under the agreement, the two countries cooperate in fields including agriculture, energy, space, health, environment, earth sciences and engineering, as well as educational and scholarly exchanges. U.S.-China science and technology activity increased in November 2009 with new agreements on joint projects in electric vehicles, or EVs, renewable energy, and the creation of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, or CERC, a 10-year research effort between the U.S. Department of Energy and China's Ministry of Science and Technology. The agreement has been renewed approximately every five years since its inception, with the most recent five-year extension occurring in 2018. Last August, it received a six-month extension as officials from the two countries undertook negotiations to amend and strengthen the terms. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran FM says Americans have to stop hypocrisy IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Geneva, IRNA -- Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has said that the Americans have to stop hypocrisy. Speaking to reporters after a meeting in Geneva on Tuesday with his Egyptian counterpart, Amirabdollahian said that the Americans cannot demand the de-escalation of war on the one hand which he believed would further encourage Netanyahu to continue with his genocide in Gaza and call for security in the Red Sea and other sensitive parts of the region on the other hand. He said that he and the Egyptian foreign minister had agreed on practical measures to normalize relations between the two countries. Everything is making good progress, the Iranian foreign minister said, expressing hope that Tehran and Cairo will be able to take steps forward in the near future. He said that they also discussed ways for the dispatch of Iranian humanitarian supplies to Gaza and finding political solutions to the ongoing war and genocide in the Palestinian territory. 9341**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran, Russia can cooperate despite energy rivalry: Envoy IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Geneva, IRNA -- Iranian Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali says the Islamic Republic and Russia can cooperate despite the rivalry in the energy sector between the two countries. It has always been said that Tehran and Moscow are unable to cooperate in economic spheres, which has been proven incorrect in recent years, Jalali has said in an interview with IRNA which was published on Tuesday. When I was sent as an envoy to Moscow, some people said that Iran and Russia, enjoying energy-based economies, could never cooperate due to being rivals in energy, he said. Both countries are able enough to cooperate even beyond the energy sector, he further noted., adding that Iran and Russia are currently cooperating in the field of energy. Russians had the largest share of investment in Iran in 2023, he said. "The investments were mainly in the oil sector." The joint commission meeting for economic cooperation between Iran and Russia is set to take place in Tehran on February 28 co-chaired by Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. Special committees started on February 26 to draft the agenda for the talks and are expected to complete their proposals for enhancing bilateral relations. 7129**9417 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iran says its relations with Egypt will positively influence entire region Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 5:05 PM Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says diplomatic relations between the Islamic Republic and Egypt will positively influence the entire region. Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Hassan Shoukry, on the sidelines of the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday. The Iranian top diplomat went on to say that advancing regional stability is in the interest of Tehran and Cairo alike. He also described a recent meeting between the presidents of the two nations in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, as a "new starting point" in relations. Amir-Abdollahian reiterated that Iran wants nothing but good for Egypt and the region. "We consider Egypt's security as Iran's security." He said efforts by Iran and Egypt on regional developments, most notably the issue of Palestine, will have a "positive effect" on the entire region. Amir-Abdollahian praised Egypt's key role in supporting the Palestinians and its efforts in facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. The Iranian minister said Israel was the "root cause of the crisis" in the region. Shoukry, for his part, said relations between Egypt and Iran are crucial to ensuring regional stability and tackling the vexing problems that exist. The Egyptian foreign minister hoped discussions with his Iranian counterpart would pave the way for the revitalization of relations. He also praised the restoration of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Shoukry said Egypt and Iran are united in supporting the Palestinian cause and stopping the crimes of Israel against the Palestinian nation. "We will do our best to support the Palestinian nation, and Cairo and Tehran have a common point of view in supporting Palestine." Egypt severed its diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 after it welcomed the deposed Pahlavi ruler of Iran and also recognized the apartheid Israeli regime. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ahead Of Iran's Elections, A Common Refrain: What's The Point? By RFE/RL's Radio Farda February 27, 2024 As Iran heads to the polls on March 1, there is a common thread running through many messages from ordinary Iranians. The elections will usher in a new parliament and Assembly of Experts, a body that picks the country's supreme leader. But in dozens of audio and written messages sent to RFE/RL's Radio Farda from inside Iran, many people said they will not vote in what they said will be "meaningless" elections that are likely to consolidate the power of the country's hard-liners. The sample -- although small -- underscores the challenge to the legitimacy of Iran's ruling clerical establishment, amid rising anti-regime sentiment seen most vividly in the unprecedented street protests that rocked the country in 2022. "You are not people's representatives," an Iranian man said in an audio message. "You want people only for their votes and nothing else. Then you want nothing to do with the people and they are cast aside." Another man urged people not to vote for a "corrupt regime that has no place in ancient and civilized Iran." "Isn't it time to say no to executions, dictatorship, and the occupation of my homeland, Iran?" added the man in an audio message sent to Radio Farda. The authorities in Iran do not tolerate any form of dissent and have jailed scores of reporters, activists, and lawyers in recent years. Around 700 prisoners were executed in Iran in 2023, alone, including nine protesters, according to human rights groups. During the state's brutal crackdown on the months of nationwide protests that erupted in September 2022, at least 500 protesters were killed and thousands were arrested. The protests began as a rebuke against the brutal enforcement of the hijab, a key pillar of the Islamic republic. But they soon snowballed into one of the most sustained demonstrations against Iran's theocracy, with some protesters calling for an end to clerical rule. "Today we see that whoever criticizes the clerical dictatorship...is killed, injured, tortured, or imprisoned," said another man in an audio message sent to Radio Farda. Those who sent audio and written messages to Radio Farda from inside Iran did not reveal their names or locations for fear of retribution. Calls For Boycott Scores of prominent Iranians outside the country and political and civil activists in Iran have called for a boycott of the March 1 voting. Almost 300 political, social, and cultural figures in Iran on February 25 publicly denounced the upcoming vote, calling for people to follow suit and not participate in the "engineered" and "staged" balloting. A day earlier, imprisoned Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi urged a boycott alongside "national sanctions and global condemnation" of the elections, calling the moves "a political necessity and a moral duty." Iranian officials and state-run media have accused those calling for a boycott of doing the "enemy's" bidding. Officials have repeatedly called on eligible voters to cast their ballots in the elections, calling it a religious duty. The calls have come amid fears of a repeat of the record-low turnouts in the 2020 parliamentary elections and the 2021 presidential vote. Given the widening gulf between the ruling clerics and Iran's young population as well as ongoing state repression and economic mismanagement, the authorities are bracing for another poor turnout, according to experts. "The elections are meaningless," said a man in another audio message sent to Radio Farda, in reference to what is seen as the grossly unfair playing field in elections in Iran, where candidates are vetted by a hard-line body whose members are directly or indirectly chosen by the supreme leader. "Taking part in the elections, even if we're indifferent toward all the crimes that have been committed [by the state] in recent years, would only be a mockery of ourselves," the man added. In another audio message, a man said he "hoped people's patience has run out" and they will not take part in the elections. This is the only way, he said, to "end this miserable, sad, and poverty-stricken life." Written by Kian Sharifi based on reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-elections -whats-the-point/32837470.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Treasury Targets Vessel Shipping Iranian Commodities Valued at over $100 Million for Iran's Ministry of Defense U.S. Department of the Treasury February 27, 2024 WASHINGTON -- Today, the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is taking action against two companies registered in Hong Kong and the Marshall Islands that own and operate a vessel, the Panama-flagged KOHANA, shipping over $100 million in Iranian commodities to businesses in the People's Republic of China (PRC) on behalf of Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL). MODAFL continues to facilitate the delivery of Iranian weapons, most notably unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to Russia in support of its war of aggression in Ukraine and to Iranian-aligned militia groups in the Middle East. "Iran's Ministry of Defense is engaged in a series of schemes to fund destabilizing activities that range from supplying militia groups with weapons used to attack U.S. forces to aiding Russia's invasion of Ukraine," said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. "Treasury will continue to disrupt the illicit revenue-generation efforts that support these destabilizing acts." Today's action is being taken pursuant to the counterterrorism authority in Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, as amended. OFAC designated MODAFL pursuant to E.O. 13224 on March 26, 2019 for assisting, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological support for, or financial or other services to or in support of, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF). The IRGC-QF was designated pursuant to E.O. 13224 on October 25, 2007 for providing support to multiple terrorist groups. VESSEL CARRYING IRANIAN COMMODITIES FOR MODAFL Entities affiliated with MODAFL help produce Iranian weapons systems, including UAVs, many of which are transferred to Russia or are provided to Iran's web of proxy and partner groups to use against U.S., allied, and partner interests throughout the Middle East. In order to generate extra revenue to support such efforts, the Iranian government allocates billions of dollars' worth of commodities to Iranian military entities, including MODAFL. In late January 2024, MODAFL orchestrated a shipment of Iranian commodities valued at over $100 million to companies in the PRC aboard the vessel KOHANA(IMO: 9254082), which is owned by Hong Kong-registered Kohana Company Limited and operated by Marshall Islands-registered Iridescent Co Ltd. The KOHANA is currently on its way to China, where it intends to offload its cargo. Kohana Company Limited and Iridescent Co Ltd are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended, for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, MODAFL. The KOHANA is being identified as property in which Kohana Company Limited has an interest. SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS As a result of today's action, all property and interests in property of the designated persons described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. Unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC, or exempt, OFAC's regulations generally prohibit all transactions by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons. In addition, financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned entities and individuals may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement action. The prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person. The power and integrity of OFAC sanctions derive not only from OFAC's ability to designate and add persons to the SDN List, but also from its willingness to remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior. For information concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list, including the SDN List, please refer to OFAC's Frequently Asked Question 897 here. For detailed information on the process to submit a request for removal from an OFAC sanctions list, please click here. Click here for more information on the individuals and entities designated today. ### NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Blinken's Meeting with Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Barzani US Department of State Readout Office of the Spokesperson February 27, 2024 The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met yesterday with the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Prime Minister Masrour Barzani in Washington. The Secretary and the Prime Minister underscored the importance of the U.S. partnership with the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR) in the context of their mutual, enduring commitment to regional security and their shared values, including good governance and respect for human rights. Secretary Blinken expressed support for constructive collaboration between the Iraqi government and the KRG, as well as greater unity within the IKR, to advance stability and economic prosperity for all of Iraq's people. The leaders also discussed the importance of Kurdish participation in the U.S.-Iraq Higher Military Commission, which will enable the transition to an enduring bilateral security partnership between the United States and Iraq, including the Kurdistan region. Furthermore, the Secretary emphasized that U.S. support for a resilient IKR would continue to be a cornerstone of the dynamic, broad-based relationship that the United States enjoys with Iraq. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Displaced people in Rakhine state jumps 5-fold since truce ended More than 330,000 have fled fighting in the state, up from some 62,000 three months ago. By RFA Burmese 2024.02.27 -- Nearly 270,000 people have fled fighting in western Myanmar's Rakhine state over the past three months since the ethnic Arakan Army ended a truce with the military, causing the number of those displaced by conflict in the region to jump more than five-fold, according to the AA. Rakhine state has been the center of intense clashes since the AA ended a ceasefire in November that had been in place since the military seized power in Myanmar in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d'etat. Junta troops have suffered heavy losses on the battlefield while the AA has gone on to capture six townships in the state. The Humanitarian and Development Coordination Office of the United League of Arakan/Arakan Army said that 268,731 people fled fighting in Rakhine from Nov. 13 to Feb. 13, bringing to more than 330,000 the number displaced by conflict in the state from 62,332 before the end of the ceasefire. They were displaced from 14 townships, the report said, including Sittwe, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Minbya, and Pauktaw - areas that have seen some of the heaviest fighting in the state. More than 100,000 people were displaced from Pauktaw alone in the three-month period, the AA said. An aid worker in Myebon township who, like others interviewed for this report, asked to remain anonymous due to security concerns told RFA Burmese that residents were compelled to flee amid intense bombardment by the military. "Heavy weaponry rained down upon the villages, reducing homes to ashes," he said. "As a consequence, our villagers no longer feel safe within our own territories and have sought refuge elsewhere ... They are being sheltered by family members." The displaced are sheltering in villages and monasteries far away from the fighting, and lack access to adequate food and water, he said. A resident of northern Rakhine state told RFA that most of the people who fled from cities to rural areas are facing a worsening food shortage. "The urban population in Rakhine state outnumbers the rural population," he said. "In the past, they went from the village to the city to escape war. But now, they are fleeing from the towns to rural areas. They are encountering challenges, and there are instances where access to food is also being disrupted." 'Situation remains dire' According to the AA, at least 111 civilians were killed and 357 injured by military artillery, aerial and naval fire, and landmines in the three months of fighting. Junta authorities also arrested at least 292 civilians during the period, it said. Residents of Rakhine told RFA that the injured only have access to medical care in more remote rural villages, and that some patients are being cared for by AA personnel. They also claimed that the more junta troops suffer losses on the battlefield, the more they have targeted civilians, leading to more casualties and displacement. "I have witnessed instances of torture and the junta is increasingly arresting innocent people," said one resident who has been monitoring the military situation in the state. "In addition, junta troops frequently deploy heavy weaponry. That's why these people are scared and run away." "The situation remains dire, with an increasing exodus of people seeking safety," he said. Attempts by RFA to contact State Attorney General Hla Thein, the junta's spokesperson for Rakhine state, for a response to the AA's report and claims by residents went unanswered Tuesday. Since the end of the ceasefire, the AA has captured seven townships, including Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myebon, and Taung Pyo in Rakhine state, as well as Paletwa in neighboring Chin state. The AA is currently engaged in an offensive against junta battalions in the Rakhine townships of Ramree, Buthidaung, Maungdaw, Rathedaung, and Ponnagyun. Translated by Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. Copyright 1998-2024, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content February not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Operation 1027 moves Myanmar civil war closer to a tipping point The Three Brotherhood Alliance has rendered the military junta incapable of achieving its goals. A commentary by Zachary Abuza 2024.02.27 -- Feb. 27 marks four months since the launch of Operation 1027, a game-changing offensive against the Myanmar military regime by the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies in the north of the country. The alliance of three ethnic resistance organizations - the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and the Arakan Army (AA) - had been broadly supportive of the National Unity Government (NUG), the shadow opposition. But it was not formally allied with the nationwide opposition network, and until late-2023, the three rebel armies fought the Myanmar military only in self-defense. However, four months of Three Brotherhood attacks across the north and west of the country have rendered the military junta incapable of achieving its goals as it enters the fourth year after its February 2021 coup in a very weak situation. The State Administrative Council (SAC), as the junta is formally known, controls significantly less territory than it did prior to Oct. 27, 2023. Militarily, the junta has relied on air assaults and long-range artillery strikes, which is sufficient to terrorize unarmed civilian populations, but insufficient to hold territory. Junta troops continue to sow fear through acts of utter barbarity, including burning POWs alive. But the military government is unable to deliver basic social services, and healthcare and education have withered even in the regions that are still under military control. The junta is scrambling to reverse its losses. But manpower is an issue for the military that is spread thin across at least seven distinct battle scapes. An estimated 21,000 troops have been lost and unit-level defections are increasing. In a sign of just how dire their manpower shortage is, on Feb. 10, the junta invoked the Conscription Law, passed in 2010 but never implemented. Draft sparks exodus The SAC has announced its intention to conscript some 5,000 people a month in a policy that will affect as many as 14 million people, including all males between 18 and 35 and women between the ages of 18 and 27. The draft for an unpopular civil war has already sparked an exodus to Thailand. In the first week, 7,000 people applied for visas and, in one instance, a stampede in front of the Thai consulate in Mandalay left two women dead. Likewise, people are fleeing to territory controlled by the opposition NUG and ethnic resistance armies. Fleeing also entails the risk of the military dragooning people at checkpoints. While conscription is a sign of weakness, it should also be seen as a sign of just how far the military junta will go to cling to power. The battlefield situation is more complex, with advances and setbacks. Violence has declined significantly in northern Shan State, where Three Brotherhood members the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and Ta'ang National Liberation Army continue to abide by a Chinese-brokered ceasefire. Both are focused on restoring social services and governance in the 16 towns they captured during Operation 1027. The junta continues to hold the frontier trading town of Muse, but the highway to the Chinese border is now controlled by the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which has allowed trade to resume, while taxing it. This added tax, along with skirmishes on the highway to Mandalay, has led to a significant decline in border trade. Myanmar Now reported a 20% decrease in exports to China through Muse between April 2023 and February, to $1.8 billion. In mid-February, the governor of Yunnan province traveled to Naypyidaw to discuss border issues with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing. Opposition tensions Skirmishes have erupted between the junta army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), a rebel group that is not bound by the ceasefire. But more concerning for the opposition are tensions between the KIA and TNLA. Ostensibly the ethnic armies are allies, and the TNLA was originally established with the support of the KIA. But despite formal relations, there is friction on the ground with the KIA operating in Ta'ang-dominated towns. The NUG must move quickly to resolve this fraternal dispute. The KIA recently captured three towns in Kachin State, but has focused more on targeting isolated junta army outposts. In Kayah State, the Karenni People's Defense Forces and Karenni Army continue to make advances at the regime's expense. On Feb. 15 they completed their takeover of Shadaw, leaving little left in Kayah under junta control. Sensing military weakness, some ethnic armies are bandwagoning with the NUG in areas that have not experienced much violence. In Mon state, there was a rift within the junta-affiliated Mon State Army, with younger members aligning themselves with the NUG. Amid a ceasefire in northern Shan state, fighting has spread to southern Shan state, where small pro-junta ethnic armies are increasingly vulnerable without military support. The Arakan Army's offensive in Rakhine has been the most consequential. It now controls five of 17 townships - Pauktaw, Kyauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, and Myebon - in addition to the river transport hub of Paletwa in neighboring Chin state, leaving the juntA in control of only three Rakhine towns. Nine townships around the port of Kyaukphyu - in particular, Rathedaung, Ramree, and Maungdaw - are being contested and have seen intensified air assaults. The military restricted boat traffic and blocked air travel as people sought to flee the Rakhine state capital Sittwe. Humiliating junta setbacks The AA sunk or captured four naval vessels. While not warships, these landing craft are essential for military troop movements, especially as the AA consolidates power along Rakhine's roadways. Since Operation 1027 began, the military has only recaptured one of the nearly 30 towns it lost. The junta experienced a humiliating setback in Kawlin, Sagaing, the first of the 330 townships that opposition People's Defence Forces (PDFs) captured. In a blow that carries heavy symbolism because it happened in the ethnic majority Bamar heartland, the NUG took control of five banks in Kawlin, appropriating 44 billion kyat (US$20.9 million) for the revolution. The military amassed 1,000 troops and militiamen and used air assets and artillery to bomb defensive positions. After two weeks of fighting, the army retook the city. For days, satellite photographs showed large swaths of the town being burned in retribution. The military views losses in Shan, Rakhine or Chin States as temporary setbacks that can be dealt with at a later time. Restoring control over the Bamar heartland remains their priority. Despite the loss of Kawlin, the NUG continues to control three smaller towns in Sagaing, and is trying to implement a "people's administrative system" based on recruiting former staff who have joined the civil disobedience movement. Surprisingly, the junta has hung together despite the setbacks. A series of dismissals and arrests of senior officers that began in late 2023 as the leadership hunted for scapegoats for military failure has not resulted in revolt or generals searching for an exit. Min Aung Hlaing and his deputy Soe Win still have their jobs. In part, their purges have kept others off guard. But it could be that no one else wants the job: If the SAC is going down in flames, better that Min Aung Hlaing be the pilot. Tipping point lies ahead The opposition still has a lot of work to do. Resources remain tight for the NUG. Funds long promised by western governments, including the U.S., have not materialized. And they now have more territory to administer. The NUG has taken advantage of the military's reversals, and stepped up their diplomatic and lobbying efforts, including high profile meetings around the Munich Security Conference. But the international community continues to withhold recognition of the NUG or has not given them adequate support, while still engaging the military regime. Bangladesh returned some 370 soldiers, policemen, and other civilians who had fled across the border in an utterly humiliating ceremony. Although Dhaka continues to work with Naypyidaw, they're still bitter about the 2017 pogroms against the Rohingya, which drove one million refugees into Bangladesh, where a crisis festers. They enjoy rubbing salt in the junta's wounds. Thailand announced the opening of an ASEAN humanitarian corridor to the border, but this should be viewed with significant skepticism. At the very least it should not be seen as a shift in Thai policy. Prime Minister Srettha Thavsin continues to engage the junta and has pushed ASEAN to do so as well. ASEAN still sees the military regime as having a seat at the table in any negotiated settlement. However, neither the NUG nor their ethnic army partners do. And with their continued success on the battlefield, they are looking for the unconditional surrender of the military. They're not at a tipping point yet, but Operation 1027 has given the opposition forces the upper hand, and the campaign has put victory well out of the hands of the military. Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or Radio Free Asia. Copyright 1998-2024, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content February not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address For Myanmar nationals, 'Friendship' bridge a lifeline At Thai-Myanmar border, quiet for now. By Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA 2024.02.27 -- For Myanmar nationals, the Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge spanning the Moei river has offered a crucial link for more than two decades. Every day, people cross from Myanmar's Myawaddy township into Thailand's Mae Sot for work, school, trade and healthcare. The bridge and its adjoining Asia Highway has been regularly impacted by the situation in Myanmar ever since it opened in 1997. When battles between the Myanmar military and the Karen National Liberation Army near the border, the bridge sometimes closes. Last January, the bridge reopened after three years of Covid-related closures only to temporarily close again months later amid fighting that has raged since the military government came to power in a 2021 coup. In December, border trade was halted once again. But in recent weeks, the conflict between the military and anti-junta forces has momentarily quieted at this border, and Myanmar nationals have begun crossing again. Others are taking alternative routes into the country, crossing the Moei river, or Thaung Yin as it is known in Myanmar, at a point near the bridge. The number is likely to rise in coming weeks as men and women flee a new military conscription drive. One such escapee told RFA they had no desire to kill someone from their own ethnic group. Thai authorities have been placing razor wires along the bank of the Moei to prevent such crossings a though the desperate are unlikely to be deterred by such efforts. About 38 miles (60 km) south of Mae Sot, a much smaller bridge links the Myanmar village of Wa Lay to a Thai village of the same name. Today, those living in the Karen community are able to enjoy a relative level of calm. It's a marked difference from 2022, when Myanmar fighter jets and soldiers bombarded the area, burning homes and sending thousands fleeing. Edited by Abby Seiff. Copyright 1998-2024, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content February not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Fourteen injured in Myanmar after jet attack in rebel territory After weeks of silence, a junta jet bombed a Rakhine village. By RFA Burmese 2024.02.27 -- Junta bombs injured 14 villagers in the country's west on Tuesday, residents told Radio Free Asia. The attack occurred when a jet attacked Rakhine state's Minbya township in the middle of the night, they said. The bombs destroyed houses and critically injured several civilians in Thay Kan village. Minbya township is part of Mrauk-U district, the sprawling ancient capital of Rakhine state. The Arakan Army has won control of Rakhine state's Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myay Pon and Taung Pyo townships in the last four months, as well as neighboring Paletwa township in Chin state to the northeast. Following the ethnic army's capture of Minbya city on Feb. 6, there has been no fighting in the township for several weeks, one resident said. "At around 1 a.m., a jet came and dropped two bombs, injuring 14 people. Four among the injured were in critical condition," he said, declining to be named for security reasons. "A house was destroyed by fire. Some other houses were also destroyed." Thay Kan village has a population of only 400 people, and no military junta troops were stationed nearby, he added. The injured are currently being treated at nearby clinics, residents told RFA. Calls to Rakhine state's junta spokesperson Hla Thein by RFA seeking comment on the incident went unanswered. On Feb. 20, junta troops arrested over 100 young ethnic Rakhine men on a bus leaving the country's commercial capital of Yangon. Many were traveling to their homes in Minbya, among other nearby townships. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn. Copyright 1998-2024, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content February not be used in a manner which would give the appearance of any endorsement of any product or support of any issue or political position. Please read the full text of our Terms of Use. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address IP Gas pipeline project gets go-ahead by caretaker cabinet: Pak media IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 Tehran, IRNA -- The caretaker federal cabinet committee has approved the Pak-Iran gas pipeline project with plans to complete it in a year, marking it a major development with hopes for boosting the country's energy security, a Pakistani media, Geotv reported on Tuesday. According to Geotv, Pakistan federal cabinet, on February 23, approved a summary through circulation to ratify an earlier decision taken by the Cabinet Committee on Energy greenlighting the project that has seen more than a decade's delay. The 1931-kilometer-long gas pipeline project is likely to be completed in one year and will cost $158 million. Out of total length, 1150 kilometers of the pipeline will be laid inside Iran and the remaining in Pakistan up to Gwadar. It may be pointed out here that Iran had already completed the laying of a 900-kilometer pipeline. The project agreement was signed in 2009 and was to be completed in 2015. After about a decade of delay, Pakistan's Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) on Friday finally approved works on the first phase of the Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline to boost the country's energy security. In a statement, the Ministry of Energy said that a summary of the Petroleum Division regarding the IP Gas Pipeline was taken up by the cabinet committee in its session. The CCoE, the statement mentioned, approved the recommendations of the Ministerial Oversight Committee for the project constituted by caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar in September 2023, whereby the committee recommended starting the work on the 800km segment of the pipeline inside Pakistan a from Pakistan's border up to Gwadar in the first phase. The project will be executed by Inter State Gas Systems (Pvt.) Ltd and funded through Gas Infrastructure Development, the statement mentioned. All the concerned divisions, the ministry said, gave a positive nod to move ahead with the project to ensure gas supplies to the people of Pakistan, thereby addressing the increasing energy needs of the country. The ministry added that the project would not only boost the energy security of Pakistan, but would enhance the confidence of the local industry, which would be ensured with the enhanced gas supplies. "This will also catalyze the economic activity in the province of Balochistan and will contribute to the economic progress of Pakistan," the ministry added. Iran had previously given Pakistan a 180-day deadline until September 2024 to start completion of the pipe-laying work. Tehran warned Islamabad if its authorities do not accept the suggestion, Iran will move to the Paris-based International Arbitration for non-execution of the project and the Islamic Republic will seek an $18 billion penalty by lodging a complaint at the Paris-based institute. However, Iran also proposed that it can provide Pakistan with its legal and technical expertise in order to jointly develop a win-win strategy before the end of the deadline. 6125**2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address February 27, 2024 Release Readout of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III's Call With Republic of Korea Minister of National Defense Shin Wonsik Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder provided the following readout: Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III spoke today with Republic of Korea (ROK) Minister of National Defense Shin Wonsik. The two leaders discussed shared defense and security priorities on the Korean Peninsula, underscoring the strength of the U.S.-ROK alliance and its critical role in the stability of the Indo-Pacific region. The Secretary reaffirmed the ironclad U.S. extended deterrence commitment to the defense of the ROK. The two leaders agreed that they and their respective departments will continue to communicate frequently about key security issues. They also commended progress on U.S.-ROK-Japan trilateral security cooperation and emphasized the importance of expanding broader regional cooperation by the United States and the ROK with other partners. The call between the two leaders comes as the United States and the ROK continue to deepen defense and security cooperation to advance a shared regional vision for peace, stability, and prosperity. https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3688810/ NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia: Statement by the High Representative on the conviction of human rights defender Oleg Orlov European External Action Service (EEAS) 27.02.2024 EEAS Press Team The European Union is appalled by the sentencing of Oleg Orlov, a prominent human rights defender and co-chair of renowned human rights organisation Memorial, to two and a half years in prison on politically motivated charges. Orlov had committed no crime or offence, he has exercised his Constitutional right to express his views and voice his opinion about the policies of the government of his country. This sentence goes against the Russian legislation and the Russian Constitution and is clearly politically motivated. We call on the Russian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all political prisoners and to abandon their oppressive legislation used to suppress civil society and independent voices. The European Union stands in solidarity with all those Russian citizens who have dared to raise their voice and criticise Russia's war and who have been detained, prosecuted or imprisoned for this. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gabina VOA is designed to be an infotainment youth radio show broadcasting to Ethiopia and Eritrea in the Amharic language. The show brings varied perspectives on issues concerning young people in the Horn of Africa region. Gabina in the Amharic language is a front-row taxi ride. Investigative Journalist Says Deal On Swap Involving Navalny Was Close Just Before Kremlin Critic's Death By RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service February 27, 2024 Investigative journalist Christo Grozev told RFE/RL that there was a plan in the works to exchange Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny for convicted murderer and former colonel in Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) Vadim Krasikov. At least three countries participated in the discussions -- the United States, Germany, and Russia -- Grozev said in an interview on February 27 with RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service. Grozev's statements could not be independently verified, but they aligned with the comments of Maria Pevchikh, chairwoman of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, who on February 26 said Navalny's associates had worked for two years to convince Western officials to negotiate a deal that would include the Kremlin critic and two U.S. citizens held in Russian prisons for Krasikov. Pevchikh said Putin in early February was offered Krasikov in a swap for two American citizens and Navalny under a plan that Grozev said he and Pevchikh had developed. "I received confirmation that negotiations were at the final stage in the evening of February 15. On February 16, Aleksei was killed," Pevchikh said in her video. Both Pevchikh and Grozev said Russian billionaire Roman Abramavich was the link with Russia. Grozev, who said he also took part in the negotiations, said Russia had given its consent; however, he did not know whether Putin personally approved the exchange. "But that was the last ingredient everybody was waiting for," he told RFE/RL. "By the time Navalny died -- or as I believe he was killed -- it seemed like a very optimistic scenario that could work in the coming months," Grozev said. Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, attended the Munich Security Conference to secure the final steps needed to swap Navalny, he said. Instead of news about a swap, the news came that he had died suspiciously after taking a walk at the prison colony in the Arctic where he had been held since December. According to Grozev, the fact that Germany agreed to exchange Krasikov was a signal to the Kremlin that it would swap for not-so-high-ranking prisoners being held in Russia, which is why the Russians withdrew. The calculation on Moscow's part was that it might be possible to get Krasikov released without having to free the Americans and Navalny. This same thesis had been put forth by Pevchikh, however, she said Putin had been "clearly told" that the only way to get Krasikov back was to exchange him for Navalny. In her video, Pevchikh alleged Putin "wouldn't tolerate" Navalny being set free and instead of swapping him, the Russian leader decided to "get rid of the bargaining chip." She provided no evidence to back up her claim. Krasikov is serving life in prison for the assassination in 2019 of a Georgian national and former Chechen rebel commander in a Berlin park. German government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann on February 26 acknowledged that Germany had been asked about the prisoner swap involving Krasikov and Navalny but said she couldn't comment. Neither Pevchikh nor Grozev named the two U.S. citizens to be included in the exchange for Krasikov. Several Americans are currently being held in Russian prisons, including former Marine Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on February 26 reiterated that the United States in December had proposed a swap to free Whelan and Gershkovich. Miller said the United States would not say more about the negotiations. The Bulgarian-born Grozev, who lives in the United States, is the executive director and lead Russia investigator for Bellingcat, an investigative journalism group. He also is known for having close ties with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation. Grozev's investigations into the identity of the suspects involved in the 2018 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Britain earned him and his team the European Press Prize for Investigative Journalism. A court in Moscow in April 2023 issued an arrest warrant for him on a charge of allegedly crossing Russia's border illegally in December 2022. Russia's Interior Ministry also added him to its wanted list on unspecified accusations. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/journalist-prisoner- swap-navalny-russia-death/32837778.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Hard Time: Navalny Not The Only Russian Dissident For Whom A Prison Term Could Be A Death Sentence By Robert Coalson February 27, 2024 When prison authorities in the Russian Arctic announced the sudden death of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny on February 16, they said the preliminary cause of death was "sudden death syndrome." The next day, state-run RT television quoted an unnamed source as saying the 47-year-old Navalny died of thrombosis. For medical personnel in Russian prisons, thrombosis is "a universal diagnosis used to explain everything," Anna Karetnikova, a rights activist who is a former analyst with the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), said on Telegram. Navalny's death came after years of confinement during which he spent more than 300 days in solitary punishment cells, was denied medical care, complained that he was subjected to sleep deprivation, and more. Russian courts rejected more than 40 complaints he filed over the alleged mistreatment. As the number of Russians being held over their political stances or religious beliefs grows, activists say the Russian state is increasingly subjecting them to a wide array of abusive treatment. "The practice of disciplinary punishment is extremely diverse," Sergei Babinets, head of the Teams Against Torture rights group, told RFE/RL in comments published on February 18. "Thanks to the constant attention the media have paid to the case of Viktor Filinkov," a man sentenced in 2020 to seven years in prison for allegedly belonging to a "terrorist" group, "we have learned that if the authorities want to, they can punish you for smiling while working." Although outright physical violence has increasingly been reported in the treatment of dissident prisoners, Babinets says, the use of such disciplinary rules to erode their health and well-being is much more common. "Why should they beat them if they can just strictly follow the law and the prisoner suffers?" he said. Punishment Cells Opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April on treason and other charges, is being held in solitary confinement in a prison in Omsk, his wife, Yevgenia Kara-Murza, told Current Time on February 22. In January, Kara-Murza was placed in solitary confinement for at least four months after being deemed a "habitual offender." "These are the conditions other political prisoners are kept in if they refuse to stay silent," Yevgenia Kara-Murza said. "He is now in the hands of those who tried to kill him twice," she continued, referring to two suspicious incidents of apparent poisoning that Kara-Murza believes were orchestrated by the Russian government. "Of course, I fear for his life." Solitary confinement in inhumane punishment cells (ShIZO) is increasingly becoming the norm for dissident prisoners, Karetnikova told RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities in comments published on February 18. "Of course, constantly being in a punishment cell doesn't do any good for anyone's health," she said, "because the conditions there are quite difficult. It is constantly cold. In these cells, you have to change into special punishment clothing, and you are only allowed to wear a jacket during exercise time. There is no real opportunity for physical activity. You cannot use food or anything sent to you in parcels because you are not allowed to receive anything when you are in a ShIZO." In a Telegram post from December 2023, another of Russia's most prominent imprisoned dissidents -- opposition politician Ilya Yashin, who is serving an 8 1/2-year term for allegedly distributing fake information about the military -- described the ShIZO in detail. The 3-by-4-meter cells makes you feel as if you "were walled up in a stone sack," he wrote. The bunk is fastened to the wall from 5 a.m. until 9 p.m. and it forbidden to lie on the floor. The cell is cold, but you are not allowed a sweater or jacket. It smells constantly of sewage. "From cracks behind the toilet frequently emerge impudent rats the size of an average cat," Yashin continued. Prisoners are allowed to read or write for half an hour each day, after which all books, paper, and writing utensils are removed. Radio broadcasts are played continually during waking hours. The "exercise yard" is even smaller than the cell -- 2.5 by 3 meters. One is only allowed to use it from 6 a.m. until 7 a.m. The only good thing about being in a punishment cell, Yashin wrote, is that you don't have to worry about being sent to a punishment cell. "Obviously, ShIZO is de facto legalized torture," he wrote. "The point of such confinement is to torment people until you get what you want from them. That is why almost all political prisoners are passed through these torture cells." Aleksei Gorinov, a former district lawmaker in Moscow who is serving seven years for purportedly making false statements about the military, had part of one lung removed after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2016. Nonetheless, the 62-year-old has been repeatedly sent to ShIZO, which he described as "damp and cold as the grave." Deprivation Of Care Another increasingly common form of prisoner mistreatment is withholding necessary medical care. Artist Aleksandra Skochilenko, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in November 2023 under the law on spreading false information about the military, was denied medical care during the nearly 20 months she spent in pretrial detention, although she suffers from a congenital heart condition, celiac disease, and other serious conditions. A member of President Vladimir Putin's advisory human rights council, Eva Merkacheva, called Skochilenko's imprisonment "mortally dangerous." During her trial, she complained that she was being "starved to death" because she constantly missed meals while being transported to and from court hearings. Igor Baryshnikov, a 64-year-old cancer patient in the Kaliningrad region who is serving 7 1/2 years under the same law on spreading supposedly false information about the military, has been denied early release on grounds of his deteriorating health, despite being in near constant pain that often prevents him from sitting or lying down. He is unable to keep his cystostomy catheter sterile, running the constant risk of infection. "To be honest, we broke down crying after we left him," one of his lawyers told RFE/RL in December 2023, saying that Baryshnikov required an additional operation. "In fact, our client has been sentenced to a slow and torturous death." The Memorial human rights group, which has been banned in Russia, currently lists 255 designated political prisoners in Russia and 424 prisoners of conscience being held for their religious convictions. "Our list of political prisoners is certainly incomplete," the organization's website explains. "Collecting materials on a case often takes considerable time, especially in cases where the investigation and trial are classified." Activist Karetnikova notes that dissident prisoners in Russia have become a focus of attention on the part of the international community, the Russian opposition in exile, and "the remnants of civil society in Russia." "And the Russian authorities, using the [Federal Penitentiary Service], decided to respond asymmetrically by treating such prisoners brutally" she said. "They began to subject them to endless punishments and new criminal cases." In his first social-media post after learning about Navalny's death, Yashin said he felt "a dark emptiness inside." "Of course, I understand that I am at risk," he wrote on February 20. "I am behind bars, and my life is in Putin's hands. It is in danger. But I will stick to my path." Written by Robert Coalson based on reporting by RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities and Idel.Realities Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-political-prisoners- slow-death-sentence/32837611.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Navalny Associates Face Problems Finding Location To Bid Farewell To Kremlin Critic By Current Time February 27, 2024 Associates of late opposition politician Aleksei Navalny say they can't find a location in the Russian capital that will allow them to organize a public farewell ceremony for the Kremlin critic after his mother said she was being blackmailed by officials to hold a secret commemoration. "We have called the majority of private and state funeral agencies, commercial entities, and funeral halls. Some say the premises are booked, some refuse to talk after they hear Navalny's name," spokeswoman Kyra Yarmysh said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on February 27. "At one place, they directly said to us that they had been ordered not to collaborate with us. No results a day after we started looking for a site for a farewell ceremony," Yarmysh added a day after publishing a post saying Navalny's team was looking for a location to hold a public farewell "at the end of this working week." Navalny's relatives have yet to confirm any details of a farewell ceremony and funeral for the anti-corruption crusader. On February 26, the Baza Telegram channel said, citing unnamed sources at the Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow, that its employees had started preparations for Navalny's burial overnight, adding that the preliminary date for a ceremony was set for February 29. Baza also published a video it received from a subscriber showing that a parking place at the Borisovskoye cemetery was thoroughly cleared of snow the previous night with a large number of police vehicles present. The video was not independently verified. Several Telegram channels mentioned possible sites where Navalny may be buried, including the Borisovskoye, Khovanskoye, and Troyekurovskoye cemeteries. All are in Moscow. Navalny's body was released to his mother Lyudmila Navalnaya on February 24, more than a week after his suspicious death in an Arctic penal colony. No cause has been made public for the demise of the 47-year-old. Before the body was released, Navalnaya said authorities were setting conditions on where, when, and how her son should be buried. "They want it to do it secretly without a mourning ceremony," she said. Hundreds of Russians have been arrested as people continued to honor Navalny's memory at sites across the country. Navalny's relatives, associates, and Western officials have blamed President Vladimir Putin for his death. Russian officials have said no foul play was involved and called the international outrage over Navalny's death while in prison "hysterical." Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a self-exiled leading Russian opposition figure said in an interview with RFE/RL earlier that a public funeral could trigger "large-scale confrontations" between Navalny supporters and law enforcement. Navalny died while serving a 19-year prison term on charges including extremism that he, his supporters, Western officials, and rights watchdogs called politically motivated. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/navalny-funeral-location- problems-secret-burial/32837262.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Metals Tycoon's Assets Nationalized Days After Putin Criticized Operations At Chelyabinsk Plant By Todd Prince February 27, 2024 A Russian metals tycoon's assets in a company that produces a key component in making steel have reportedly been nationalized days after President Vladimir Putin criticized his management of his company. Yury Antipov, 69, the owner of Russia's largest ferroalloy company, was also questioned by investigators in Chelyabinsk, the Urals industrial city where his company is based, and released on February 26, according to local media. Earlier in the day, the government seized his shares in Kompaniya Etalon, a holding company for three metals plants that reportedly produce as much as 90 percent of Russia's ferroalloy, a resource critical for steelmaking. Russia's Prosecutor-General Office filed a lawsuit on February 5 to seize Etalon, claiming the underlying Soviet-era metals assets were illegally privatized in the 1990s. It also said the strategic company was partially owned by entities in "unfriendly" countries. While campaigning for a presidential vote next month, Putin criticized Antipov on February 16 without naming him during a visit to Chelyabinsk, whose working-class residents are typical of the president's electoral base. Putin told the regional governor that the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant, the largest of Etalon's five metals factories, had failed to reduce dangerous emissions as agreed in 2019 and the asset would be taken over even though the court had yet to hear the case on privatization. "I think that all the property should be transferred to state ownership and part of the plant -- [where there is ecologically] harmful production -- should be moved outside the city limits," Putin told Governor Aleksei Teksler. In a closed hearing, a Chelyabinsk court approved the transfer of Etalon's assets to the state, a move potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Antipov ranked 170 on Forbes 2021 list of richest Russians with a net worth of $700 million. The nationalization of a domestic company owned by a Russian citizen is the latest in a series of about two dozen by the state since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Prosecutors have based their cases on illegal privatization, foreign ownership, criminal activity, or a combination of the three. A rare-metals producer whose owner had been critical of the war effort was among the other assets seized. l The seizures contradict Putin's repeated promises in the nearly quarter century he has been in power that he would not review the controversial 1990s privatizations. In return, businessmen were expected to be loyal to the Kremlin and stay out of politics, experts say. That unofficial social contract had more or less functioned up until the war. Now businessmen are also expected to contribute to the war effort and support the national economy amid sweeping Western sanctions, experts say. The current trend of state seizures has spooked Russian entrepreneurs and raised questions about whether that social contract is still valid. U.S. Ties Antipov began his business career in the 1990s selling nails, fertilizer, dried meats, and other goods. In 1996 he and his business partner plowed their profits into the purchase of the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant and subsequently purchased four more metals plants in the ensuing years. The plants sold some of their output in the United States, where the firm had a trading company. Antipov received full control of the metals holding in 2020 when he split with his business partner. That year he put 25 percent of the company each in the names of his wife and two eldest sons, Sergei and Aleksei Antipov, according to Russian business registration records. In 2022, the metal assets were transferred to the Etalon holding company, whose ownership was hidden. Ferroalloy prices surged in 2022 as the war triggered a spike in commodity prices. A hit piece published by The Moscow Post in December -- six weeks before prosecutors launched the privatization case -- claimed Antipov paid himself a dividend of more than $300 million from 2021-2023 using a structure that avoids capital gains taxes. RFE/RL could not confirm that claim. The Moscow Post is a Russian-language online tabloid that regularly publishes compromising and scandalous stories. According to public records, Antipov's two sons own homes in the United States and may be U.S. citizens. Sergei Antipov founded the trading company around the year 2000 in the U.S. state of Indiana. If he and his brother together still own 50 percent of the company, prosecutors could potentially have grounds for seizure. Russia has changed some laws regulating the purchase of large stakes in strategic assets since its invasion of Ukraine. One is a 2008 law that requires foreign entities to receive state permission to buy large stakes in strategic assets. An exception had been made for foreign entities controlled by Russian citizens. Under the change, a Russian citizen with dual citizenship or a residence permit in another country may be considered a "foreign" owner and must receive permission to own an asset. Nationalization is among the punishments for failure to do so. Thus, if Antipov's two sons are U.S. citizens or if they have U.S. residency permits, their combined 50 percent stake in the company could be seized. This already happened to a Russian businessman from St. Petersburg. His business was determined to be strategic and seized after he received foreign residency. Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-metals-tycoon-antipov- chelyabinsk-nationalized-putin/32836745.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's opening remarks at the talks with Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Yemen Ahmad Awad bin Mubarak, Moscow, February 27, 2024 27 February 2024 15:14 372-27-02-2024 Esteemed Mr Prime Minister, Dear friends, We are happy to welcome you to Moscow. It is a pleasure to meet with you again now in your new position as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Republic of Yemen. I am very pleased to congratulate you personally on your appointment as prime minister. We have long-standing ties of friendship, cooperation and mutual understanding. In November 2023, we celebrated the 95th anniversary of diplomatic relations. During this time, the world has undergone many upheavals, some concern our countries as well. Regardless, Russia-Yemen relations have not stopped for a single day. The kind feelings of friendship between the peoples of Russia and Yemen have always remained the same. We know that people in Yemen remember the great socioeconomic, technical and humanitarian support rendered by our country in the formation and development of the state of Yemen. At present, your country is undergoing a difficult historical period. We are interested in helping you overcome the difficulties, reach a settlement and continue developing our bilateral relations and cooperation in regional and international affairs. Today, we have a good opportunity to do this. I know that you have already held intensive and practical talks with the Government of the Russian Federation on trade and the economic aspects of our bilateral relations. Today, we can focus on the foreign policy aspects of the developments around your country and the region in general. I am confident that your visit will allow us to map out specific areas to further deepen our partnership and interaction for the benefit of our countries and peoples. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's talks with Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign and Expatriate Affairs of Yemen Ahmad Awad bin Mubarak 27 February 2024 17:33 375-27-02-2024 On February 27, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held talks with the Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign and Expatriate Affairs of the Republic of Yemen Ahmad Awad bin Mubarak, who is in Moscow on a working visit. During the talks, mutual intentions were reaffirmed to further strengthen traditionally friendly Russian-Yemeni relations. A strong commitment to maintain a regular political dialogue was emphasised, as well as continuing close coordination of approaches at the UN and other international platforms. Mutual interest was noted in stepping up cooperation to ensure sustainable positive dynamics in the development of bilateral trade and economic cooperation. An in-depth discussion was held on the developments in and around Yemen. The ministers agreed there was no real alternative to a comprehensive settlement of the protracted Yemeni crisis exclusively through political and diplomatic methods by creating favourable conditions for the quick establishment of a sustainable, full-format inter-Yemeni national dialogue under the auspices of the UN. Focus was placed on the tragic developments in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as the escalation of tensions in the Red Sea. At the same time, Sergey Lavrov and Ahmad Awad bin Mubarak confirmed Russia and Yemen's commitment to ensuring the safety of international shipping. Common positions were also expressed in favour of taking immediate measures to stop the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and organising the delivery of humanitarian aid in the needed volumes. At the same time, the importance of a speedy launch to negotiations aimed at a political settlement in the Palestinian problem on an accepted international legal basis was emphasised. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's participation in the 2nd Congress of the International Russophile Movement 27 February 2024 17:37 376-27-02-2024 On February 27, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took part in the opening ceremony of the 2nd Congress of the International Russophile Movement in Moscow. The event at the Lomonosov Innovation Centre of Moscow State University brought together foreign delegates from more than 130 countries, united by a friendly disposition towards Russia, interest in its cultural and historical heritage, as well as a commitment to traditional values and confidence in the right of peoples to preserve their national identity. The event was attended by Russian government officials, political and public figures, and representatives of science and culture. Sergey Lavrov delivered a welcoming speech and read out a message from President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin to the participants of the congress. The congress brings together representatives of public organisations, politics, culture, and business who advocate for closer relations with Russia and against Russophobia. The movement organises thematic conferences, seminars, art and literary competitions in Russian, maintains monuments associated with Russia in proper condition, publishes books by Russian authors abroad, promotes the study of the Russian language, and promotes horizontal ties and contacts through public diplomacy. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Opening statement by Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation General of the Army Sergei Shoigu at Defence Ministry Board Session 27.02.2024 Dear Colleges! Today we celebrate a holiday called Special Operations Forces Day. A holiday that has been earned. And today, the Special Operations Forces continue to fulfil their tasks. In the near future, the country will learn about the work and feats that are performed almost daily by the servicemen from the Special Operations Forces. We daily receive reports about the tasks they perform. They do it confidently, professionally, and honourably, for which we thank them and congratulate them. *** I would like to start with the situation in the special military operation zone. After capturing the important enemy defences in Avdeyevka, the Russian Groups of Forces continue to improve the tactical situation in Donetsk and Kupyansk directions, taking new AFU line and positions. Since the beginning of the year, about 327 square kilometres of territory of the new regions of the Russian Federation have been liberated from the Nazis in all directions. Over the past week, Pobeda, Latochkino, and Severnoye (Donetsk People's Republic) have liberated from the enemy. In other direction, the Russian troops continue to deliver powerful strikes at AFU objects not allowing the enemy to regain combat readiness. As a result of decisive and steadfast actions of our servicemen, the AFU are losing its combat potential. On average, since the beginning of the year, the enemy has lost more than 800 troops and 120 units of various hardware, including foreign-made weaponry, every day. Over the course of the special military operation, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have lost up to 444,000 Ukrainian troops. After the failure of counteroffensive efforts, the AFU command attempts to stabilise the situation and prevent the deterioration of the front lines by remaining reserves. The Joint Group of Forces eliminates the enemy reserves by precision weaponry not allowing the AFU to redeploy troops to the lines of contact thwarting attempts to launch counterattacks at our positions. Overall, this demonstrates the futility of the U.S. strategy to contain Russia at the expense of Ukrainian lives and large-scale military and economic support for the Kiev regime. We will continue to fulfil the tasks of the special military operation set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief until its objectives are achieved. *** Now we will move to the agenda of the current Board Session. Let us first discuss how the tasks of ensuring military security in the Central Asian strategic area are being addressed. The situation in the region remains complex. The greatest threat comes form the territory of Afghanistan. Over the past year, the number of the ISIS militants increased by 15%. Their main goal is to spread radical ideology and conduct subversive activities on the southern borders of the CSTO. At the same time, a nearly 20% increase in drug production and, consequently, drug trafficking through the Central Asian republics is expected. In addition, there are over 100 large pro-Western non-governmental organisations with more than 16,000 representative offices and branches operating in the region. Against the backdrop of the special military operation, these NGOs significantly increased their anti-Russian activities in order to reduce the military-technical, economic and cultural co-operation of the Central Asian states with the Russian Federation. We are taking proactive measures. This year, the Central Military District is to concentrate on resolving crisis situations in the countries of the region and participate in seven exercises in the territories of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The combat training will culminate in the CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force Interaction 2024 exercise, in which military contingents from five States will take part. The Central MD's formations and units are being equipped with the latest weaponry, including Iskander-M missile systems and Tornado-G MLRS. Eighteen military units will be reorganised. The troops will receive more than 360 units of new and modernised hardware. As a result, the ratio of modern hardware will be 52.8%. The implementation of the planned measures by the end of the year will make it possible to increase the combat potential of troops and ensure military security in the Central Asian strategic direction. Next, we will discuss the Eastern Military District's Activity Plan. Washington continues to use the rising tensions on the Korean peninsula and around the island of Taiwan as a pretext for the expansion of its troop presence in the Western Pacific. This year, the scope of joint exercises between the United States and its allies is expected to increase due to the military capabilities of NATO member countries. In order to strengthen the military security of the Russia's eastern borders, we are taking measures to build up the combat capabilities of the Eastern Military District. Under the State Defence Order, more than 200 units of modern and modernised equipment will be delivered in 2024, including Tornado-S MLRS, Tor-M2 surface-to-air missile systems, and Typhoon armoured fighting vehicles. The main effort will focus on training reserve battalions as well as training junior specialists and UAV operators. The Eastern Military District's troops will also take part in four joint international exercises involving the Armed Forces of Mongolia, India, Laos, and Vietnam. *** The meeting will conclude with a review of how the Activity Plan of the Directorate of the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is being implemented. Today, threats of a radiological, chemical and biological nature are provoked by the actions of Washington. Washington is building up nuclear capabilities on the territory of European countries and is deploying advanced means of nuclear delivery. In addition, the USA has formed a network of biolaboratories to study the properties of region-specific pathogens that can be transmitted to humans and cause pandemics. About 40 out of the 330 such facilities are located in Ukraine. In this regard, in modern conditions, the role of the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops is increasing every year. In the course of the special military operation, the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops carry out special tasks. In particular, they monitor the radiation situation at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. In July 2023, the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops eliminated the threat of biological contamination due to the destruction of the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. More than 1,500 objects on the area of 340,000 square metres were decontaminated, which made it possible to minimise material and financial damage. Heavy flamethrower units make a significant contribution to the fire defeat of the enemy, having carried out more than 4,000 tasks since the beginning of the special military operation. The delivery of heavy flamethrower systems with enhanced combat characteristics increased their combat potential by 2.2 times. The high effectiveness of flamethrower weapons necessitated an increase in the production of the ammunition used by heavy flamethrower systems. For example, the production of unguided rockets for heavy flamethrower systems and reactive infantry flamethrowers has been increased by 12 times. At present, the equipping of the Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Protection Troops with modern weapons and equipment has reached 74%, and by 2027 it will reach 80%. Department for Media Affairs and Information NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Secretary Blinken's Call with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud US Department of State Readout Office of the Spokesperson February 27, 2024 The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke today with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. Secretary Blinken and the Foreign Minister pledged to continue close coordination, along with the Palestinians and other regional and international partners, on ways to resolve the conflict in Gaza and prepare for the post-conflict phase. The Secretary thanked the Foreign Minister for Saudi Arabia's generous humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in need. Secretary Blinken emphasized the United States' commitment to achieving sustained peace through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with security guarantees for Israel. The Secretary and Foreign Minister also discussed the importance of ending the conflict in Sudan and preventing further widespread civilian harm. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Envoy: Iran, along with its partners, is committed to working to normalize situation in Syria IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Feb 27, 2024 New York, IRNA -- Iran's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Amir Saeed Iravani announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran, along with its partners in the Astana process, is committed to work towards the normalization of the long-term and stable situation in and around Syria. Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations made the remarks in New York on Tuesday at the Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria. The full text of Iravani's speech is as follows: Statement by H.E. Mr. Amir Saed Iravani Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations Before the United Nations Security Council On "The situation in the Middle East: (Syria)" New York, 27 February 2024 Madame. President, We thank Mr. Pederson, the Special Envoy, and Mr. Martin Griffiths, the Under-Secretary-General, for their briefings. Madame. President, Despite a calm security atmosphere, Syria continues to face serious challenges, the most serious of which are foreign forces occupying parts of the country, Security Council-designated terrorist groups controlling certain areas, and the Israeli regime's ongoing aggressions against Syria in flagrant violation of international law. In the meantime, the ongoing Israeli missile attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructures further complicate the situation in Syria, interrupt humanitarian activities, and disrupt humanitarian access. We strongly condemn the Israeli regime for such blatant violations. Madame. President, We have always stated that the crisis in Syria must be resolved peacefully, in accordance with the UN Charter and international law, as well as with full respect for the independence, national sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic. Within this context, we believe that all foreign forces present in Syria illegally must be forced to leave without any preconditions or delays; terrorist groups must not be allowed to continue using millions of civilians as human shields to carry out their heinous activities; and the Israeli regime must be forced to end its acts of aggression against Syria. The Security Council must live up to its responsibilities and ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria. Madam President, The humanitarian crisis in Syria remains dire. The Syrian people suffer from profound economic challenges. The UN estimates that 15.3 million of Syria's 23.2 million people need humanitarian assistance this year. Despite the UN efforts and its humanitarian partners to deliver essential aid to those in need, the continuing impact of illegal unilateral sanctions as well as the politicization of humanitarian aid places a disproportionate burden on the Syrian people, including women and children. Imposing unilateral sanctions against the Syrian people while claiming concern for its humanitarian plight is nothing more than hypocritical. These illegal and disruptive measures must immediately end. Additionally, humanitarian assistance and reconstruction initiatives in Syria should not be used as tools to exert political pressure on the Syrian government. We appreciate and recognize the efforts by the Syrian Arab Republic to support and facilitate humanitarian access to all areas of Syria. Iran welcomes the sovereign decision of the Syrian government to renew the permission granted to the United Nations and its specialized agencies to use the Bab al-Hawa, "Bab al-Salama" and "Al-Ra'i" crossings for another six and three months, respectively. We emphasize the need for unhindered humanitarian access especially through cross-line and in full coordination with the government of Syria. Likewise, we emphasize the importance of the early recovery projects which are critical to strengthening Syrians' resilience and allowing displaced people to return home. Unfortunately, these projects are not funded or implemented due to the detrimental effects of UCMs. We, once again, condemn the robbery of Syrian people's natural resources, in areas occupied by the United States forces. Madam President, To ensure a more effective political solution to the Syrian crisis, we continue to emphasize that a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process, facilitated by the United Nations, is the only viable approach to ending the crisis. We support the resumption of the meetings of the Constitutional Committee as an effective mechanism for advancing the political process. The continued functioning of this committee is vital with its venue being of lesser importance. The Iraqi government has shown its willingness to host the upcoming round of meetings in Baghdad, which was positively welcomed by both the Syrian government and the Astana guarantors. We urge all other parties involved to seize this opportunity and prioritize substantive discussions over procedural matters. Iran, along with its Astana format partners, is committed to working towards long-term and sustainable normalization in and around Syria. This commitment was renewed once more during the recent meeting of the Astana Format which took place on 24-25 January. We express our support for the continuation of the Syrian-Turkish dialogue as part of this effort. Iran also supports efforts and cooperation within the Astana format to reveal the fate of missing persons. It is also of utmost importance to make every possible effort to facilitate the safe and dignified return of Syrian refugees to their homeland and to meet their humanitarian needs. Lastly, we maintain our contacts with the Syrian government, the UN Special Envoy, and our partners in Astana Format to end the crisis and alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people as soon as possible. I thank you. 2050 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Gran participacion peruana en la Feria BIOFACH 2024! ?????? En este evento, el mas importante de productos organicos llevado a cabo en #Alemania, la delegacion nacional encabezada por #PROMPERU genero expectativas comerciales por mas de USD 17 millones ??. pic.twitter.com/LiYJHsGx8z Syrians deserve sustainable peace and stability and a solution to this long running conflict: UK statement at the UN Security Council Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the UN Security Council meeting on Syria. 27 February 2024 Thank you, President and I thank Special Envoy Pedersen and Under-Secretary Griffiths for their briefings today. Like others, we recall the devastating effects of the earthquakes one year ago and offer our condolences to those affected. For 13 years, this conflict has ground on. To make meaningful progress on Syria we need to see three changes. First, we want Syria to stop its destabilising activity. Syria's readmission to the League of Arab States last year was an opportunity for the regime to play a more constructive role in the region. But we have not seen that change. In particular the regime continues to generate vast profits producing and selling captagon. With the support of Iranian-affiliated groups, its trade is becoming ever more organised, violent and destabilising. That dangerous activity - which puts our partners in the region at risk - has to stop. Second, we need to act to address the humanitarian crisis in Syria. 72% of the population is in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. In the north-east, more than a million people have been cut off from electricity. We continue to call for sustained, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access for people in need across Syria, including in the north-west. And we call on all parties to stop escalating activities. For our part, the UK is investing in early recovery interventions so that ordinary Syrians have a means to build a better future. In 2023 we dedicated $19 million to early recovery and livelihoods projects - for example, rather than handing out food parcels, we are fixing irrigation and drainage systems so Syrian farmers can produce more food themselves. Third, we call on all authorities in Syria to protect fundamental human rights. We are concerned at reports of the de facto authorities in Idlib's proposed 'public morality law'. If implemented, this law could significantly affect women's rights and freedom of expression. We are monitoring the situation closely and urge partners to use their influence to uphold human rights. President, in conclusion, we underline our continued support for the efforts of UN Special Envoy Pedersen and welcome his extensive efforts to organise a meeting of the Constitutional Committee, and it is welcome news that he is today issuing invitations for a meeting in Geneva in April. We call on the Assad regime to engage in this process. Syrians deserve sustainable peace and stability and a solution to this long running conflict. Resolution 2254 is the only route out of this conflict. Thank you. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN Syria envoy appeals for urgent de-escalation across the Middle East 27 February 2024 - Fallout from conflict in the Middle East and ongoing fighting in Syria are having a devastating impact on civilians inside the country, UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen told the Security Council on Tuesday. "Regional spillover is only the latest accelerant to a conflict that is growing in complexity and with each passing year. The situation is worsening on almost all indicators and the status quo is unsustainable and unmanageable," he said. Airstrikes and casualties Multiple airstrikes attributed to Israel were carried out this month in Syria, including on residential areas of Homs and Damascus, which reportedly resulted in civilian and military casualties, including advisors from Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The United States also launched retaliatory strikes on dozens of Iran-linked targets in Syria and Iraq following a deadly drone attack on its troops in Jordan. "Meanwhile, all other vectors of the Syrian conflict itself continue, and remain the biggest cause of civilian casualties and displacement," he said. The entire north of Syria has seen multiple frontline skirmishes this month. Exchanges of artillery, rocket and sniper fire, and pro-Government drone strikes along with strikes by the HTS fundamentalist militant group have also been reported, as well as Turkish drone strikes. ISIL attacks also continued to rise, both in quantity and impact, particularly in the central and northeast regions, while southern Syria remains violent and unstable. Support for Gaza ceasefire "Plainly the tensions in the region need to be urgently de-escalated, starting with the immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza that the Secretary General has called for," Mr. Pedersen said, while also underlining the urgent need for de-escalation in Syria. He also called for the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, adding that "Security-Council listed terrorist groups must be fought in a manner that is cooperative and firmly in line with international law and that prioritizes the protection of civilians." Constitutional Committee 'hiatus' Mr. Pedersen also updated ambassadors on his efforts to convene the stalled Syrian Constitutional Committee, which brings together representatives from the Government, the opposition and civil society for meetings in Geneva. The Committee last met in June 2022 and its ninth session, scheduled for last July, did not take place "because, as Russian Foreign Minister (Sergey) Lavrov confirmed this month, Russia no longer considers Switzerland a neutral venue, and the Syrian Government did not accept Geneva as a result." From the outset the Special Envoy has been clear that Geneva was the agreed location for meetings, per the Committee's Terms of Reference, and "that the process should take place without foreign interference." Furthermore, as facilitator, he would explore all possible alternatives, and support the choice of another venue provided there was consensus. April meeting announced Although various venues were put forward, including his proposal of the UN Office at Nairobi, no consensus was reached. "Having left no stone unturned to find an alternative venue, I believe the only way forward at this time is to reconvene in Geneva - at least as a bridging proposal while there is no consensus on an alternative venue, while also remaining open to an alternative venue for future sessions if consensus is found," he said. Mr. Pedersen announced that he was issuing formal invitations that day for a ninth round in Geneva in April. "I believe it is important for the Constitutional Committee to meet as soon as possible and to continue its work. An indefinite hiatus can only undermine the Constitutional Committee's credibility and work," he warned. Humanitarian situation deteriorates The Special Envoy also addressed the bleak humanitarian situation in Syria a year after deadly earthquakes that struck the north and neighbouring TArkiye, killing thousands and displacing millions. UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths, who also briefed the Council, stressed that much more is still needed to address the long-term impact of the earthquakes and the wider humanitarian crisis in Syria, which has only deteriorated over the past 12 months. Record needs He said a staggering 16.7 million people in Syria, nearly three-quarters of the population, now require humanitarian assistance - the highest number since the war started nearly 13 years ago. Mr. Griffiths welcomed the Government's recent decision to allow the UN to deliver aid to northwest Syria through two border crossings with TArkiye - Bab al-Salam and Al Ra'ee - for an additional three months, through 13 May. The extension follows the equally welcome decision in January to extend permission to use the Bab al-Hawa border crossing for an additional six months, until 13 July. Critical need for funding In 2023, the UN and partners moved more than 5,000 trucks carrying essential aid through the crossings and more than 40 cross-border missions have been carried out since January this year. "This has allowed us to provide essential aid to 2.5 million people every month and to administer over one million medical procedures," he said. Mr. Griffiths underlined the humanitarian community's commitment to assist people all across Syria but stressed the need for funding. He said last year's Humanitarian Response Plan for the country received less than 40 per cent of the required funding - the smallest total since the start of the conflict. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Taiwan's sub prototype towed to dry dock for final harbor acceptance tests ROC Central News Agency 02/27/2024 07:35 PM Kaohsiung, Feb. 27 (CNA) Taiwan's first domestically built submarine prototype was towed to a dry dock Tuesday where final harbor acceptance tests (HAT) are scheduled to be conducted. Known as "Narwhal" in English and "Hai Kun" () in Chinese, the prototype has been undergoing HAT at a factory of shipbuilder CSBC Corp. in Kaohsiung since October, after an unveiling ceremony in late September. On Monday evening, the prototype was towed from the CSBC Corp. factory to nearby Jong Shyn floating dock No. 8 in preparation for it to be transferred to a nearby dry dock, where final HAT tests will be conducted. The transfer to CSBC Corp.'s dry dock began at around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. Jong Shyn floating dock No. 8, where the Narwhal was first docked, opened its valves to allow its chambers to fill with water causing the dry dock to float lower in the water. The floating dock then became submerged and that allowed the sub to be moved into position. When the water was pumped out of the floating dock's chambers, the dry dock rose and the sub was subsequently lifted out of the water on the rising deck. A boat later towed the submarine to CSBC Corp.'s dry dock at around 2:30 p.m. A source told CNA that the Narwhal will begin a series of final tests at the dry dock. Defense scholar and retired Navy captain Jiang Hsin-biao () told CNA that HAT tests at the dry dock are meant to ensure the sub's actual displacement is consistent with its original design. Among the tests conducted will be an inclining test that is performed to determine the ship's stability and the coordinates of its center of gravity. Other tests during the final HAT process at the dry dock will focus on all of the ship's equipment, ventilation system and engine system separately, before running a comprehensive test by connecting the systems together, Jiang said. Only after successful completion of the HAT tests will the prototype move on to sea acceptance tests, according to Taiwan's military and CSBC. (By Tsai Meng-yu, Matt Yu and Joseph Yeh) Enditem/AW NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Sonar system, torpedo tubes of Taiwan's sub prototype revealed ROC Central News Agency 02/27/2024 02:18 PM Taipei, Feb. 27 (CNA) The sonar system and torpedo tubes of Taiwan's first domestically built submarine prototype were seen in public for the first time late Monday when the ship was being moved to a dry dock to conduct final harbor acceptance tests (HAT). Known as "Narwhal" in English and "Hai Kun" () in Chinese, the prototype has been undergoing harbor acceptance tests at the factory of shipbuilder CSBC Corp. in Kaohsiung since October after an unveiling ceremony in late September. On Monday evening, the prototype was towed from the CSBC Corp. factory to nearby Jong Shyn floating dock No. 8 and then transferred to a nearby dry dock, where final HAT tests were being conducted Tuesday. As the Narwhal was being moved out of the factory to the floating dock, a large number of spectators, including media, shot videos and photographs of the indigenous submarine that had only been seen publicly once before, at last year's Sept. 28 unveiling event. During last year's event, the bow of the submarine, along with the torpedo tubes and other critical components, were concealed beneath a Republic of China (Taiwan) flag. CSBC Chairman Cheng Wen-lon () said at the time the measure was taken to prevent the disclosure of confidential parts of the submarine for security reasons, pending further testing. When the prototype was moved Monday, many of these previously concealed parts were visible, including its intercept sonar, flank sonar array, and torpedo tubes. The military did not explain why those elements were revealed this time after being previously covered. There were some parts, however, including the Narwhal's tail, that were shielded from view at last year's ceremony and remained that way during the moving process Monday. Shu Hsiao-huang () from the government-funded think tank Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), said the sub's tail remained shielded because "enemy forces" could estimate the prototype's underwater speed and acoustic fingerprints by observing the number of its propellers, their angles, and structural designs. Another INDSR scholar, retired navy captain Jiang Hsin-biao (), told CNA that Tuesday's HAT tests at the dry dock are meant to make sure the sub's actual displacement is consistent with its original design. Among the tests conducted will be an inclining test that is performed to determine the ship's stability and coordinates of its center of gravity. Other tests during the final HAT process at the dry dock will focus on all of the ship's equipment, ventilation system, and engine system separately before running a comprehensive test by connecting the systems together, Jiang said. Only after successful completion of the HAT tests will the prototype move on to sea acceptance tests (SAT), according to Taiwan's military and CSBC. Huang Shu-kuang (), the leader of Taiwan's Indigenous Defense Submarine (IDS) program responsible for the Narwhal launch, previously told local media that the prototype will complete both the HAT and SAT before being delivered to the Navy at some point before the end of 2024. After completing the required combat readiness tests by the Navy, the Narwhal will hopefully be commissioned into the Navy next year, according to Huang. The IDS program is also aiming to build another domestic submarine by 2027. The construction of the domestic submarines means Taiwan's Navy will have a total of three combat-ready submarines by 2025 and four by 2027, including two existing Chien Lung-class (Sword Dragon) submarines purchased from the Netherlands in the 1980s. Taiwan also possesses two World War II vintage submarines purchased from the United States in the 1970s, but they are now used exclusively for training purposes. (By Matt Yu and Joseph Yeh) Enditem/ls NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Mainland coast guard's entry into so-called 'restricted waters' near Kinmen signals normalized law enforcement in the region Global Times By Guo Yuandan and Du Qiongfang Published: Feb 28, 2024 02:02 AM After the coast guard of East China's Fujian Province conducted a law enforcement patrol in waters near Kinmen in the Taiwan Straits on Sunday, the Taiwan authorities on Tuesday claimed that China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels also entered the so-called "prohibited or restricted" waters near Kinmen on Monday. An observer noted that this indicates the normalization of regular law enforcement patrols in Xiamen-Kinmen waters by the mainland coast guard authorities, a move that is lawful and reasonable. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities have no right to intervene. Kuan Bi-ling, head of Taiwan's ocean affairs authority, said on Tuesday that a mainland coast guard vessel entered the "prohibited" waters off Kinmen and four mainland coast guard vessels entered the "restricted" waters on Monday, media on the island reported on Tuesday. After the February 14 incident in the waters near Kinmen, where a vessel of the Taiwan authorities aggressively chased and collided with a mainland fishing boat in waters unilaterally declared by the Taiwan island as "prohibited or restricted waters," causing four mainland fishermen aboard to fall into the water and resulting in the unfortunate deaths of two of them, CCG spokesperson Gan Yu said on February 18 that Fujian coast guard would strengthen maritime law enforcement and conduct regular law enforcement patrols in waters between Fujian's Xiamen and Kinmen. Zheng Jian, professor from the Center for Taiwan Studies of Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that after the incident, the mainland authorities urged the Taiwan authorities to promptly disclose the truth, severely punish those responsible, meet the legitimate demands of the families of the victims, and make an apology to the families of the victims. However, the DPP authorities have displayed a stubborn and arrogant attitude, going against the requests from the mainland side. If the DPP authorities hold on obstinately to errors, they will eventually "shoot themselves in the foot," Zheng said. According to Zheng, the DPP authorities hope to achieve two objectives through this incident: highlighting its so-called "jurisdiction" and banning the mainland vessels from entering the waters within its so-called "sovereignty." The mainland has clearly stated its position, emphasizing that the routine patrols conducted by the mainland coast guard in the waters around Kinmen are lawful and justified. The DPP authorities have no right to interfere or chime in, Zheng said. Kuan had referred to the mainland coast guard's patrol as with high political connotation and a form of declaration of sovereignty, which Zheng thinks proved the DPP authorities had nothing more to say on realizing their shaky stand but wanted to divert the public's attention. The reason the DPP authorities have found themselves in this passive situation is that they have politicized criminal and civil issues, Zheng said. As the situation continues to develop, the actions of the Taiwan authorities have not only been discerned by the mainland and the international community, but dissenting voices within the island are also growing stronger, putting the DPP authorities in a difficult passive situation, Zheng added. Taiwan media reported on Tuesday that the prosecution authority on the island has repeatedly claimed that it would "continue to handle the matter carefully and to restore the truth as soon as possible," but the prosecution's statement does not meet social expectations based on the current progress. The prosecution authority in Kinmen denied on Tuesday that the case would be investigated as "negligent homicide." There are reports suggesting that if the investigation is conducted in the direction of "negligent homicide," it is highly likely that it signifies the vessel of the Taiwan authorities proactively collided with the mainland fishing boat. Under such circumstances, the DPP authorities intentionally throwing mud at the mainland exposed their deceitful nature once again, Zheng said, noting that their attempt to use self-deception to confuse the public perception will undoubtedly lead to dire consequences. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Controversy over boat tragedy escalates as senior DPP official faces criticism Global Times By Li Meng and Fan Anqi Published: Feb 28, 2024 01:32 AM As controversy grows over the recent tragic boat incident, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been met with a backlash in the island of Taiwan for not only failing to disclose the investigation results and handle the situation properly but also for making up lies and hyping erroneous claims only to serve secessionist aims. Kuan Bi-ling, a member of the DPP and head of the regional ocean affairs department, has come under fire in recent days. Rather than providing explanations to the families of the deceased and compatriots from both sides of the Straits, Kuan hyped the so-called line-crossing issue which was later refuted by the mainland. Then she claimed that Taiwan must protect its "restricted waters," even using "Kinmen compatriots" as an excuse, triggering anger among local residents. Subsequently, Kuan fabricated multiple claims and said there was no video recording for the time of the incident. A screenshot of a chat between what appears to be Kuan and a former official from Taiwan has sparked heated discussion on the internet, as it shows Kuan saying, "The two Chinese fishermen deserve to die. If we don't collide with their boat when they cross the border, they will become more and more arrogant. Now we need to be tough on China, otherwise, these kinds of incidents will continue to happen..." Kuan said on Sunday that the screenshot was fake, and said the attacks against her are part of a "cognitive warfare" effort to demonize her. In response, a former deputy mayor of Taipei accused Kuan of "lacking a sense of shame," saying that as a key figure in this incident she should try to calm the situation rather than exacerbating it to serve her own political interests. Hsu Chiao-hsin, a Kuomintang representative, noted on Sunday that Kuan is only trying to divert people's attention away from the incompetence of her ocean affairs department. Hsu posted a screenshot on social media platforms that suggested Kuan was directing other DPP members to support her claims. Vice Dean of the Taiwan Research Institute at Xiamen University Zhang Wensheng told the Global Times that Kuan has been a figure with strong "Taiwan independence" tendencies, and her statements on cross-Straits affairs are all based on this standpoint. "The handling of the Kinmen boat incident is extremely misleading, and she tried to cover up the improper enforcement actions of the coast guard with a series of lies," Zhang said. And what Kuan referred to as "cognitive warfare" is a consistent tactic of the DPP to throw mud at the mainland, Zhang added. Besides attempts to shift the blame to serve her own political purposes, Kuan has also been accused by observers and politicians in Taiwan of making up lies and being incompetent in dealing with major incidents. As the head of the ocean affairs department of the island, Kuan is responsible for the incident. Taiwan media reports said there had been multiple collisions between vessels in the process of the fatal incident in which Taiwan authorities chased a Chinese mainland fishing boat, leading to its capsize in waters near Kinmen Island, just a few kilometers from Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province. This led to the deaths of two fishermen on February 14. However, the initial press release from the Taiwan ocean affairs department did not mention the collision. It was only after several days, when the media reported on the matter, that Kuan posted on social media mentioning "third-party liability insurance coverage," downplaying the incident. Subsequently, she refused to release the video footage, citing "non-disclosure of the investigation," and argued that there was "no hidden agenda." In addition to repeatedly lying, Kuan's statements on social media have also come under fire. A number of politicians from the island have said that the authorities have placed some morally and ethically corrupt individuals in positions of power, and once something goes wrong, all their faults will be exposed. They speculated that the reason Kuan insists on lying and refuses to admit any fault is because she intends to run for mayor of Kaohsiung. Zhu Songling, professor of the Taiwan Research Institute at Beijing Union University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that within the DPP camp, there are many politicians like Kuan who hype up cross-Straits relations, treating the mainland as an imaginary enemy to garner attention and boost their own support. Huang Chih-hsien, a TV commentator in Taiwan, said that even with two lives lost, the Taiwan regional authorities still have yet to apologize, and have not expressed any condolences. A price will have to be paid for being "so callous," Huang said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan Feb. 28, 2024 ROC Ministry of National Defense 2024/02/28 PLA activities in the waters and airspace around Taiwan 1.Dateis 6 to 6 a.m. (UTC+8) Tuesday to Wednesday, Feb. 27-28 2.PLA activitiesis 15 PLA aircraft and 11 PLAN vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until 6 a.m. (UTC+8) today. 3 of the aircraft entered Taiwan's southwestern ADIZ. ROC Armed Forces have monitored the situation and employed CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and coastal missile systems in response to the detected activities. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Minister for Defence Procurement speech at the International Military Helicopter Conference - 27 February 2024 Minister for Defence Procurement's speech on the New Medium Helicopter at the International Military Helicopter Conference. 27 February 2024 On the subject of medium helicopters as it were, as you know, they've been involved in almost every operation of significance for decades, ferrying troops and supplies under fire in the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan and evacuating casualties, helping NATO restore peace to the Balkans, saving countless lives with humanitarian aid from Mozambique to the Caribbean, and moving our diplomats around Kabuk when travel by road was too dangerous. And they have been in a constant state of readiness in a counter-terrorism role. Now over the decades, UK Governments have commissioned, procured and upgraded numerous platforms including many iconic names that you're all very familiar with, from the Scout in the 1950s, the Sea King in the 1960s, the Lynx, Puma and Gazelle in the 1970s to the more recent Wildcat and Merlin, and I've had the privilege of flying in a number of them, recently aboard one of our Wildcats flying to Yeovilton to see how artificial intelligence has improved their support and crucially, their availability. Very recently I visited RAF Valley to fly in the Jupiter training helicopter and actually learned while I was there this really pleasing fact that, for the first time in a long time, we now have more pupils training than in hold, which is, as you know, one of the accumulated issues from the pandemic which led to significant holes. So that's really positive, But a particularly memorable flight for me was last summer between Schipol and Den Helder for what's called the Navy Day in the Netherlands. Is anyone here from the Netherlands? I don't know if you were there, but anyway, I had an interesting ride with the Dutch Marines in the NH-90. So we're just flying about 2,000 feet. I was in that seat by the door. You have a little sort of X-strap. And the marine said, 'Minister you want to put your plastic glasses back on. I'm gonna give you a close up view of the offshore wind farms', and he opened the door. All I can say is if you've ever experienced that, it's very windy a few thousand feet up. The thought that went through my mind was 'I think the Prime Minister is going to have to have another by-election very quickly'. It was very windy. Turning to procurement and the main subject, so when my predecessor took the decision in 2021, to invest in the next generation of medium helicopter power - the efficiencies that would come from a versatile single platform were clear for all to see in terms of procurement, training, contract support, and maintenance. Fast forward to today and we're at the next stage of that process. I'm pleased to announce that I'm about to issue the paperwork that will initiate an invitation to negotiate with all three candidate suppliers of our next generation New Medium Helicopter, Airbus Helicopters UK, Leonardo Helicopters UK, and Lockheed Martin UK. All three companies have shown their platforms can meet the different needs of our Armed Forces, and you'll note, listed alphabetically without any prejudice, all good competitor companies. So later, you can hear more about the process and other procurement programmes from Commodore Woodard, our SRO, senior responsible owner for delivering the New Medium Helicopter programme. And I know Commodore Woodard shares my determination to ensure that this programme is a beacon of smart procurement because as you will discover quite soon hopefully we are right in the middle of a very significant form of defence acquisition in the UK. So this will be built around affordability and more timely and thorough challenge. Future proofed by factoring adaptability and spiral development at the concept stage. And above all, a procurement programme that implements the lessons from Ukraine which is quite simply that we must close vulnerabilities in our supply chains by strengthening UK defence skills and production. We want to expand on each of these elements. When we first announced the programme, we quickly put in train a pre-qualification process to select credible candidates ahead of the outline business case stage. This has delivered significant efficiencies for both government and industry. We've also adapted our approach as a result of timely and robust internal decisions, ditching our original plan to include helicopters for our bases in Cyprus and Brunei within this programme, and instead announcing our intention to acquire six Airbus H155 helicopters to avoid unnecessary over-speccing, and overspending on platforms that were never intended operating in a war zone. In short, making a significant saving without the inefficiencies of diversifying our existing helicopter fleet. Another important feature of our Medium Helicopter programme will be our ability to spirally develop these platforms - we will order largely off the shelf models with open system architecture that we can spiral with enhanced capabilities to meet different operational needs or to accommodate new innovations, meaning our new medium helicopter will be adaptable and future proof. The final element that reflects our smarter approach to procurement is our UK industrial contribution consideration. This is a points based decision making process that we have designed to favour suppliers who do more to strengthen the UK defence industrial base - which should account for 15% of our overall procurement decision, we will reward those who invest in the UK's rotary wing design industry, a critical national capability and sector and it will advantage those platforms with export potential by using an export criteria that is worth 20% of the UK industrial contribution weighting. This matters because exports sustain UK manufacturing and high value jobs in the UK and they strengthen and sustain our indigenous skills base, which is essential to building resilience into our defence sector and national security and critical if we are to remain a global player in the sector for decades to come. Our New Medium Helicopter programme is one of the very first to have this pro-export component built into our selection criteria. As Minister for Defence Procurement, I will ensure exportability becomes a factor in all relevant new procurement programmes. We'll be saying more on that soon. But that formula of the design requirement plus export requirements equals, if you like, a combination of the quality of work we want to see in the UK, plus its sustainability for the long term. And I will also work to ensure that an expectation of spiral development also becomes a default in all relevant programmes. Our procurement must have the dynamism and flexibility to respond to this era of seismic technological change. That means being open minded to all that tech can offer. No platform is sacred. So last week, I launched our new uncrewed systems strategy at the headquarters of a successful UK drone company, Malloy Aeronautics, they gave a demonstration of their T-150 drone, which has proven extremely effective delivering supplies to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including supplying Ukrainian Marines on the other side of the Dnipro River. Underlining that they really are in action on the front line. And uncrewed systems like the Malloy drone are transforming warfare and they will continue to shape it in ways we are barely able to conceive. To make sure we keep ahead of our adversaries, we are building a renewed relationship between government and industry, turning intelligence from the battlefield into solutions in the factory and a competitive edge for our forces in weeks, days, even minutes. Now, obviously in lots of countries here some people may be sceptical about the speed of procurement as all countries face the challenge in this area. But my most insightful visit I'd say, as the Minister for Defence Procurement I've visited many bases and companies, was to a UK SME called Callen-Lenz, based in the southwest, who were spiralling a drone for use in Ukraine. And while I was there we had feedback from the frontline and the next day they put those changes in place. As Minister of Defence Procurement, you do not normally see that sort of turnaround in learning from procurement. That is the era we are now in - rapid spiral development. And I believe that taking that into account the recent decisions of the US to cancel their FARA programme was in large partly a reflection of this new reality and aligns with our own thinking. Procurement must be smart, agile, and responsive, ready to pivot and adapt to the changing nature of threats and to accommodate war-winning innovations. That's why our next generation medium lift helicopter will deliver a Swiss Army Knife platform, future proofed and procured in a way to give the UK Armed Forces and our defence sector maximum clout and flexibility, a 21st century platform delivering on our modernisation agenda that can meet multiple needs now, and be easily adapted in the future, procured through a process that incentivises investment in the UK, which will deliver high value jobs, high value exports and help make us more secure. I look forward to your questions. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Minister Blair attends Conference in Support of Ukraine in Paris, France and concludes visit to Europe National Defence News release February 26, 2024 - Paris, France - National Defence/Canadian Armed Forces Today, the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence, participated in the Conference in Support of Ukraine hosted by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, at the AlysAe Palace in Paris, France. At the conference, Heads of State, Heads of Government, and their representatives reaffirmed their support for Ukraine in its fight for freedom, democracy, and sovereignty, and restated their condemnation of Russia's illegal and full-scale invasion of Ukraine which it launched over two years ago. In Paris, Minister Blair told allies and partners that Canada's commitment to supporting Ukraine is steadfast. Two days ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the Agreement on security cooperation between Canada and Ukraine, a new, historic agreement that establishes a strategic security partnership between the two countries. The agreement outlines key, long-term security commitments for Canada to continue supporting Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty and territorial integrity, protects its people, and rebuilds its economy for the future. Canada will provide $3.02 billion in critical financial and military support to Ukraine in 2024. This brings Canada's total commitment of aid to Ukraine since February 2022 to over $13.3 billion in funding - including $4 billion in military assistance. This includes recently-announced donations of over 800 drones, and funding to support Ukraine's F-16 fighter jet capability. In addition, Canadian Armed Forces members are supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine under Operation UNIFIER, providing training on a range of military skills. Since 2015, the Canadian Armed Forces have trained more than 40,000 members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under this operation The Conference in Support of Ukraine in Paris was Minister Blair's final stop on a multi-day trip to Europe. On February 25, 2024, Minister Blair and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland visited a military base in Poland where Canadian Armed Forces and Polish Armed Forces members are working together to provide Ukrainian troops with life-saving combat medicine skills. On February 24, 2024, Minister Blair accompanied Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Kyiv, Ukraine, to mark two years since Russia launched its illegal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In Kyiv, Minister Blair attended the signing of the Agreement on security cooperation between Canada and Ukraine, and met with the Minister of Strategic Industries of Ukraine, Alexander Kamyshin. Minister Blair and Minister Kamyshin discussed how Canada can best address Ukraine's most urgent defence needs, and Minister Blair reaffirmed that Canada will continue to provide Ukraine with comprehensive military assistance. As Ukraine's brave defenders fight back against Russia's full-scale invasion, Canada stands with Ukraine. Quick facts Since February 2022, Canada has committed over $13.3 billion in funding to support Ukraine. This includes: $4 billion in military assistance, such as M777 howitzers, Leopard 2 main battle tanks, armoured combat support vehicles, hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, high-resolution drone cameras, thermal clothing, body armour, fuel, and more. $7.4 billion in financial support. $352.5 million in humanitarian assistance, including support for emergency health interventions, protection services, and essentials such as shelter, water, sanitation, and food. Programming also addresses child protection, mental health support, and prevention and response to sexual and gender-based violence. $186 million in development assistance, such as $15 million from Canada's $100 million contribution to the Canada-International Finance Corporation Facility for Resilient Food Systems. $198 million in security and stabilization assistance. Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members are supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the United Kingdom, Poland, and Latvia under Operation UNIFIER, providing training on a range of military skills. Since 2015, The CAF have trained more than 40,000 members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under this operation. They have also been assisting with the delivery of military aid for Ukraine from Canada and on behalf of our Allies and partners. Around 300 CAF members are deployed under Operation UNIFIER in various roles, such as the provision and coordination of training, national command support, and the facilitation and delivery of military donations in coordination with Allies and partners. Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Canada has welcomed more than 220,000 Ukrainians. We are helping Ukrainian families find a safe, temporary home and have put support services in place for their arrival. This includes temporary financial assistance and access to federally funded settlement services, such as language training and employment-related services. Canada and Ukraine have long been steadfast partners and close friends. In 1991, Canada became the first Western country to recognize Ukraine's independence. Today, 1.3 million people of Ukrainian descent call Canada home - the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the Western world. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Congress President condemns plans for Russian presidential elections in occupied Ukrainian regions Council of Europe Congress of Local and Regional Authorities Strasbourg 27 February 2024 The President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, Marc Cools, has made the following statement: "I strongly condemn the plans by the Russian Federation to organise presidential elections in the temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine." "The illegal conduct of such so-called elections and compelling the citizens of Ukraine to vote in them represents a gross violation of international law and the rights of citizens protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, and yet another attempt by the Russian Federation to legalise the temporary occupation and annexation of Ukrainian territories." These plans have also been condemned by the Congress Bureau in its Declaration on the second anniversary of the Russian Federation's war against Ukraine, which will be debated during the 46th Congress session in Strasbourg, 26-28 March 2024. "These so-called elections coincide with ten years since the annexation by the Russian Federation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol in 2014, which the Congress strongly condemned." "I reiterate that we stand united with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people at this decisive time." NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will visit Turkey on March 1-2 for the Antalya Diplomacy Forum and talks with his Turkish counterpart, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing on Wednesday, reports Interfax. "Lavrov will visit Turkey on March 1-2 at the invitation of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan for the Antalya Diplomacy Forum. Lavrov's negotiations with his Turkish counterpart are planned during the visit," she said. "The meeting will address a broad range of issues, above all, the status and prospects of bilateral cooperation in areas of mutual interest, such as trade, energy, security, naturally, banking, tourism and so on. The ministers will also exchange views on regional and global affairs, including the situation in Ukraine, the South Caucasus, Palestinian-Israeli affairs, Syria and Libya. Lavrov will have a number of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, " Interfax quoted Zakharova as saying. Comment by Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna on reports about the formation of a new coalition to assist Ukraine Republic of Estonia - Ministry of Foreign Affairs 27.02.2024 Please find attached the comment by Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna on reports about the formation of a new coalition to assist Ukraine: I welcome the joint effort to increase and expedite military assistance to Ukraine, which is what we must focus on now. Ukraine needs ammunition, weapons and other equipment that they use to defend themselves and the rest of Europe. It is good that we are discussing various options and our priority is to deliver ammunition to Ukraine as soon as possible and procure it wherever possible. We must and can do more, right now. Estonia's long-term assistance to Ukraine will stand at 0.25% of our GDP in the next four years and I hope others will follow our lead. Russia must be sent a clear signal that there will be no flexibility or return to business as usual before Ukraine has won and the damage caused to Ukraine has been compensated. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Foreign Minister: We must stand with Ukraine until the aggressor is driven out Republic of Latvia - Ministry of Foreign Affairs 27.02.2024 On 27 February 2024, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, Krisjanis Karins, delivered a statement at the UN Human Rights Council, underscoring in particular the disruptive influence of Russia's war of aggression on human rights. "The bombing of schools, the destruction of hospitals, the forced abduction of children and forced assimilation into the Russian language and culture against the will of the children, is against any semblance of the right of the individual, of human rights," Krisjanis Karins asserted. The Minister of Foreign Affairs condemned the disinformation campaign waged by Russia, spreading a false narrative of their crimes perpetrated in Ukraine. Recalling Latvia's historical experience during the Soviet occupation, Krisjanis Karins urged the countries to stand united together in opposing and denouncing Russia's blatant violation of human rights until Ukraine is fully liberated and the aggressor is gone. "Totalitarian states, authoritarian states seem strong on some level, but democracies, when they all stand together, are much stronger," Krisjanis Karins emphasised. Background information The 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council is taking place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 26 February to 5 April. According to tradition, the spring session of the UN Human Rights Council is launched by a high-level segment at which key dignitaries from UN member states address urgent global human rights topics. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The President in Paris: Urgent Western military support for Ukraine is now more important than ever President of the Republic of Lithuania February 27, 2024 Monday evening, at the invitation of the President of France, President Gitanas NausAda participated in an international conference of European leaders in Paris at the invitation of the President of France to discuss ways of strengthening support for Ukraine. "The French President's initiative to give additional political impetus to Western support for Ukraine is timely and necessary," the President said after the meeting. Gitanas NausAda stressed that this year is crucial for Ukraine's defense. He noted that the prevailing consensus at the meeting was the need for concrete actions rather than promises. "We know what Ukraine needs in the short term, and even more so today: ammunition, air defense, increased production volumes in all categories of armaments. Military assistance is a priority today," the President said. According to the President, current commitments by states are not sufficient and need to be increased. "In the longer term, we need to look at how we can assist more efficiently, resourcefully and with higher quality. During the meeting, I emphasized that Lithuania is a consistent supporter of Ukraine and one of the most committed countries in the world," the President said. Gitanas NausAda pointed out that Lithuania's assistance to Ukraine accounts for about 1.82 percent of GDP and exceeds one billion euros, but unfortunately, this is not always the case elsewhere. "We need to communicate and emphasize even more in the allied countries the importance of everyone's active contribution to Ukraine's victory," the President said. The President's Communication Group NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine's Zelensky in Saudi Arabia to gain support for war with Russia Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 7:31 PM Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Saudi Arabia to push Riyadh to actively support Kiev in its war against Russia. Zelensky said on Tuesday in a message on the X that Kiev was relying on Saudi Arabia's ongoing active support to restore peace and stability to Ukraine and Europe. Zelensky said, firstly, he wanted to continue his "regular dialogue" with the de-facto leader of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), to discuss devising a "Peace Formula" for Ukraine's war against Russia. "The second topic is the return of POWs and deportees," Zelensky wrote. "The Kingdom's leadership has already contributed to the release of our people. I am confident that this meeting will also yield results." Zelensky added that economic cooperation between the two countries would also be discussed during his visit. We will discuss "promising areas of economic cooperation and Saudi Arabia's involvement in Ukraine's reconstruction," he said. MBS has sought to position Riyadh as a potential international mediator to end the war between Ukraine and Russia. Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that during a meeting between MBS and Zelensky, the crown prince had voiced Riyadh's support for all international peace initiatives and efforts aimed at resolving crises and alleviating the humanitarian repercussions of the war. In the meantime, the Ukrainian leader has held multiple meetings with leaders of the US-led Western countries that have supported Kiev in its war against Russia. The purpose of these meetings has been to increase the speed, volume and frequency of the West's financial, diplomatic and military support to Kiev. Meanwhile, Kiev's forces are being pushed out of Donbas in eastern Ukraine with Russia gradually gaining more territory as the Ukrainians wait for arms and munitions from their Western partners to fill what they call the "artificial deficit of weapons". NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia: Conflict with Europe 'inevitable' if NATO deploys troops in Ukraine Iran Press TV Tuesday, 27 February 2024 4:48 PM Russia has warned NATO's European member states of a potential conflict if the West realizes a debated plan of deploying troops to Ukraine. The Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that both Europe and the United States should "assess" their support to Ukraine. "In this case, we need to talk not about the likelihood, but about the inevitability of a conflict," Peskov was quoted as saying. "These countries must also assess and be aware of this, asking themselves whether this is in their interests, as well as the interests of the citizens of their countries," he told journalists during a daily call. The comments came a day after President Emmanuel Macron of France openly discussed the possibility of sending European troops to Ukraine. On Monday, the French president stated that the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine could not be dismissed, despite the lack of "consensus" on the matter. "There is no consensus at this stage... to send troops on the ground," Macron said. "Nothing should be excluded. We will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win." Russia has repeatedly warned of the repercussions of continued Western military assistance to Ukraine. The Western camp has ignored the warning. Kiev has enjoyed a nonstop flow of military support worth billions of dollars since the beginning of the conflict in February 2022. In 2023, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia said the United States, Britain and many others are "waging war" against Russia and they are engaged in hostilities against the country by assisting Ukraine. Meanwhile, several European countries have announced unwillingness to send troops to Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday ruled out suggestions that European countries and NATO members would send ground troops to Ukraine. "Once again, in a very good debate, it was discussed that what was agreed from the outset among ourselves and with each other also applies to the future, namely that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European countries or NATO states." A spokesman for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the United Kingdom does not plan to deploy troops to Ukraine either, according to Reuters. Hungary and Slovakia are also not intending to make that deployment of troops. And Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk, one of Ukraine's ardent supporters, has also been clear about keeping European boots out of the battle ground. On Sunday, Ukraine complained about the late delivery of weapons and munitions from the West. "We have a plan. We are working to the plan. We are doing everything possible and impossible. But without timely supply [of Western arms and munitions], it's hard for us," Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia Warns Of Direct Conflict With NATO If Troops From Alliance Members Fight In Ukraine By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service February 27, 2024 The Kremlin has warned Kyiv's European allies that sending troops to fight in Ukraine would lead to the "inevitability" of war between Russia and NATO after France said that, despite a current lack of consensus, "nothing," including sending Western forces to fight on the Ukrainians' side, should be ruled out in terms of preventing a Russian victory in Ukraine. Speaking after a summit of continental leaders in Paris on February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said there was a "broad consensus to do more and quicker" for Ukraine as participants agreed to create a coalition to supply Ukraine with medium- and long-range missiles and bombs to back Kyiv's efforts to stave off Russia's invasion. Macron told a news conference that "no consensus" existed on the sending of European ground troops to Ukraine, but added, "nothing should be excluded to achieve our objective. Russia cannot win that war." Asked about Macron's remark, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on February 27 that "the very fact of discussing the possibility of sending certain contingents to Ukraine from NATO countries is a very important new element." "We would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability [of a direct conflict between Russian and NATO]," Peskov said. The United States said it had no plans to send ground troops to Ukraine, while Germany, Britain, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic distanced themselves from any suggestion they might commit ground troops to the fight. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who attended the Paris gathering, told journalists that what has been agreed among the allies is "that there will be no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European states or NATO states." In Prague, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and his visiting Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, said their governments were not contemplating such a move. "I am convinced that we should develop the paths of support that we embarked on after Russia's aggression," Fiala told a news conference alongside Tusk. "I believe we don't need to open some other methods or ways," he added. "Poland does not plan to send its troops to the territory of Ukraine," Tusk said. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told the AP on February 27 that "NATO allies are providing unprecedented support to Ukraine, but there are "no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine." Seeking to clarify Macron's remarks, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said the president had in mind sending troops for specific tasks such as helping on mine clearance, production of weapons on site, and cyberdefense. This could require a military presence "without crossing the threshold of fighting," Sejourne told French lawmakers. Zelenskiy, who addressed the Paris meeting virtually, called on European leaders to ensure that Russian President Vladimir Putin "cannot destroy our achievements and cannot expand his aggression to other nations." Ukraine relies heavily on advanced weaponry and ammunition supplies from its Western allies, mainly from the United States, to resist increasingly intense assaults by Russian forces who have superiority in manpower and a large supply of ammunition. Outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian troops have been recently forced to withdraw from some of their defensive positions in the east as a critical U.S. military aid package worth $61 billion remains blocked in the Republican-led House of Representatives. U.S. President Joe Biden called a meeting of top congressional leaders at the White House, warning of the dire cost of failing to give Ukraine military aid. The meeting escalated his efforts to unlock the stalled assistance as well as to avert a looming government shutdown as a March 1 deadline on an appropriations bill approaches. "On Ukraine, I think the need is urgent," said Biden, who was joined at the meeting by Vice President Kamala Harris. The "consequence of inaction every day in Ukraine is dire," he added. House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican-Louisiana), an ally of former President Donald Trump who leads a razor-thin Republican majority in the House, has refused to allow a vote on the bill that includes the new aid to Ukraine. With reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters and dpa Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-european- coalition-arms-supplies-macron-russia/32836779.html Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine Loses 2 Tanks and 3 IFVs, Including Abrams and Bradley, Near Avdeyevka Sputnik News 20240227 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Ukraine has lost up to 485 soldiers, two tanks, and three infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) in the Avdeyevka area over the past 24 hours, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on Tuesday. Developments Around Avdeyevka "The enemy lost up to 485 military personnel, two tanks, including a US-made Abrams, three infantry fighting vehicles, including Bradley, six armored combat vehicles, 13 vehicles, and two D-30 howitzers [in the Avdeyevka area]," the MoD said in a statement. The Defense Ministry also reported that Russian troops had liberated the settlement of Severnoye. "In the Avdeyevka area, Battlegroup Tsentr liberated the settlement of Severnoye, occupied more advantageous positions, and hammered troops and equipment belonging to Ukraine's 24th and 110th Mechanized Brigades, and 103rd Territorial Defense Brigade near Mayorsk, Berdychi and Rozovka in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR)", the MoD statement read. Russian units also repulsed nine Ukrainian counterattacks near the settlements of Novgorodskoye, Pervomaiskoye, and Petrovskoye in the DPR. Advancing Through the Donetsk Region During the mentioned timeframe, the Russian armed forces successfully repelled seven attacks in the vicinity of Donetsk and three attacks to the south of Donetsk, as reported by the Ministry of Defense. The MoD further highlighted that Ukraine has suffered casualties, with over 420 soldiers lost in the Donetsk area and up to 130 soldiers lost in the southern region of Donetsk. The MoD also said that Battlegroup Vostok struck troops and military equipment from Ukraine's 127th and 128th Territorial Defense Brigades with airstrikes, and thwarted three Ukrainian attacks. "The enemy lost up to 130 servicemen, two combat vehicles, a UK-made FH70 towed howitzer, and a Bukovel-AD counter-unmanned aircraft system," the MoD added. Earlier, Sergei Shoigu said that Ukraine lost nearly 166,000 troops, 800 tanks, including more than half of the Leopard tanks delivered to it, 123 aircraft and 2,400 pieces of military equipment during its counteroffensive last year. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine Suffers Over 444,000 Losses in Manpower Since Special Op's Launch - Shoigu Sputnik News 20240227 Ukraine has been losing more than 800 soldiers and 120 units of various weapon on average per day since the beginning of the year, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday. "As a result of the decisive and active actions of our military personnel, the combat potential of the Ukrainian armed forces is decreasing. On average, since the beginning of the year, the enemy has been losing more than 800 personnel and 120 units of various weapons, including foreign-made, every day," Shoigu told a meeting with senior military officials. In total, Ukraine has lost more than 444,000 soldiers since the beginning of the special military operation in 2022, the minister added. The Russian armed forces have taking control over three settlements in the Donetsk People's Republic in the past week, namely Pobeda, Lastochkno and Severnoe, Shoigu said. "Since the beginning of the year, about 327 square kilometers of the territory of new regions of Russia have been liberated from the Nazis in all directions. Over the past week, the Ukrainian armed forces have been driven out of the settlements of Pobeda, Lastochkino, and Severnoe of the Donetsk People's Republic," Shoigu told senior military officials. The United States is increasing its nuclear capabilities in Europe and adopts promising means of delivering nuclear warheads, Sergei Shoigu said. "As of today, threats of a radiation, chemical and biological nature are provoked by the actions of Washington, which is increasing its nuclear capabilities on the territory of European countries and is adopting promising means of delivering nuclear charges," Shoigu told senior defense officials. Russia's special military operation shows that the US strategic on deterrence of Russia at the expense of the lives of Ukrainians and military and economic support for Kiev is "pointless," Shoigu added. In June 2023, Ukraine attempted a counteroffensive against Russia. Kiev deployed brigades trained by NATO instructors and armed with Western equipment, including Leopard and Challenger tanks. Three months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Kiev's push had failed, with Ukraine suffering heavy casualties. Earlier, Sergei Shoigu said that Ukraine lost nearly 166,000 troops, 800 tanks, including more than half of the Leopard tanks delivered to it, 123 aircraft and 2,400 pieces of military equipment during its counteroffensive last year. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address The Netherlands Pledges Over $100Mln to Provide Ukraine With Artillery Shells Sputnik News 20240227 MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Netherlands will allocate more than 100 million euros ($108.5 million) to the Czech initiative to purchase artillery shells for Ukraine, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Tuesday. "It is essential, first and foremost, that we deliver what we've promised. And look at what else we can do. That is why the Netherlands is contributing more than 100 million euros to the Czech initiative to quickly deliver hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to Ukraine," Rutte said on X. He also recalled that the Netherlands is negotiating with Ukraine a security agreement "to continue to support the country for at least the next 10 years." Earlier in the month, Czech President Petr Pavel told the Munich Security Conference that Prague had identified an unnamed country outside the bloc with 500,000 155mm rounds and another 300,000 122mm rounds that could be delivered to Ukraine within weeks if quick funding was provided. In December, Rutte said that he had informed Volodymyr Zelensky about the government's decision to prepare the first 18 F-16 fighters for delivery to Ukraine. The delivery of the first fighters was expected in 2024, The Hague said. In February, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said that the Netherlands was preparing to send six more F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. Western countries, including member states of the European Union, have been providing military and financial aid to Kiev since the start of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The Kremlin has consistently warned against continued arms deliveries to Kiev, saying it would lead to further escalation of the conflict. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Macron Denies Zelensky's Remarks About Negotiations on Supply of Mirage Jets to Ukraine Sputnik News 20240227 PARIS (Sputnik) - Paris is not discussing with Kiev the possible supply of French-made Mirage fighter jets, but is studying how useful they could be for Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday. On Monday, Volodymyr Zelensky told French media that Kiev and Paris were discussing the possibility of the transfer of Mirage fighters to Ukraine. "Today we are not negotiating about Mirages, but we are training pilots. Among the eight existing coalitions, to which today a ninth coalition on long-range weapons has been added, there is a coalition on aviation, on F-16 fighters. We do not have F-16s because we have our own aircraft. We are studying our own capabilities to see if this will be useful for the defense of Ukraine," Macron told reporters following the conference on supporting Ukraine. The conference, convened on Macron's initiative and held in Paris, was attended by about 20 leaders of European countries, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. In 2023, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not need the French Mirage 2000 fighters that Paris and Kiev had been discussing because they were an outdated model. A Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian National Assembly President Alen Simonyan on Wednesday received the delegation led by the Regional Director for Eurasia at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) Eva Busza . The Speaker of Parliament, welcoming the guests, highly appreciated the role of the USA in the political and economic life of Armenia and emphasized the importance of the USs assistance to the democratic systemic reforms implemented in Armenia, the National Assembly said in a readout. Armenia is committed to promoting democracy, strengthening the rule of law, and fighting corruption. The reforms carried out by the Armenian authorities are aimed at increasing the transparency and accountability of the activities of the state bodies, Alen Simonyan noted. Touching upon the activity of the National Democracy Institute, the Natioanl Assembly President highlighted the reopening of the NDI office in Armenia and mentioned with satisfaction the effectiveness of the joint programs implemented within the framework of cooperation established for years. Eva Busza thanked the National Assembly President for his warm reception and for supporting the activities of the National Democratic Institute. Your role is very important in the implementation of our programs. We thank you for the effective work and the democratic environment that we see in Armenia today, Eva Busza pointed out. During the meeting, the possibilities of expanding cooperation within the framework of the democratic reforms in Armenia were discussed. Zelenskyy, Saudi Crown Prince Meet to Discuss War in Ukraine By VOA News February 27, 2024 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss releasing prisoners of war from Russia and pushing forward a peace plan. Zelenskyy's meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman comes one day after the prince hosted Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, among other Russian officials. Crown Prince Mohammed seeks to position himself as an intermediary in peace talks between Ukraine and Russia and has previously mediated prisoner swap negotiations. While Riyadh seeks to mediate this conflict, it is still aligned with Russia on energy policies through the OPEC bloc. Zelenskyy wrote on the X platform that Ukraine continues to "rely on Saudi Arabia's ongoing active support" to move his "peace formula" forward. The peace formula is a 10-point-plan that seeks to expel all Russian forces from Ukrainian territory and hold Russia accountable for war crimes, among other things. Moscow rejects these ideas. Zelenskyy further wrote, "The kingdom's leadership has already contributed to the release of our people. I am confident that this meeting will also yield results." As Zelenskyy met with the crown prince, Russia pushed Ukrainian troops back in eastern Ukraine. Military analysts say Russia holds the advantage of higher troop numbers and weapons supplies, at a time when Kyiv awaits more aid from Western allies. Although Ukraine has suffered losses, Ukraine's military said Tuesday it shot down 11 Russian drones and two guided missiles that Russia launched in overnight attacks. The Ukrainian air force said Russia used a total of 13 drones and five missiles in its latest round of aerial assaults targeting the Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Khmelnytskyi and Kirovohrad regions. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. European leaders meet Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Monday that a meeting of European leaders included discussion of Ukraine's military arsenal, its ability to produce weapons, the supply of weapons from allies to Ukraine, and continuing support for Ukraine's battle against the Russian invasion. "Everything we do together to defend against Russian aggression adds real security to our nations for decades to come," Zelenskyy said. "Because each of Russia's losses and each of Russia's defeats teaches Russia and any other enemy of Europe and the free world at large that aggression does not and cannot yield results." French President Emmanuel Macron convened the meeting with 20 European leaders in Paris and said, "Russia cannot and must not win that war." Macron said that while there are no plans in place to send Western troops to fight in Ukraine, the possibility remained. "There's no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner, troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out," Macron said in a news conference. Several European leaders pushed back on the idea Tuesday, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. "What was agreed from the beginning among ourselves and with each other also applies to the future, namely that there will be no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European states or NATO states," Scholz told journalists. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said their governments had no plans to send troops to Ukraine. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a statement that Hungary would send neither troops nor weapons to Ukraine. In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said sending Western troops to Ukraine is "absolutely not in the interest" of those countries. "In that case, we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability [of a direct conflict]," Peskov told reporters. Macron said on Monday that European officials agreed that they should be prepared for a possible attack by Russia in the coming years and that more efforts were needed to help Ukraine financially and militarily. "We all agree we don't want to go to war with the Russian people, but we're determined to keep escalation under control," Macron said, adding that the meeting was meant to see how those present could "do more in terms of military support and budget support." After the meeting, the Netherlands announced it will contribute $108 million to a Czech initiative to buy ammunition for Ukraine from countries around the world. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte expressed hope that other countries will follow his country's example. Fiala, also speaking after the Paris meeting, said some 15 countries had shown interest in the initiative, which has focused on finding urgently needed artillery ammunition for Ukraine on world markets. Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said countries at the Paris meeting had asked their defense ministers to come up with plans in the next 10 days to deliver more munitions to Ukraine. Peace plan The Kremlin said earlier Monday that Ukraine's call for peace talks without Russia was ridiculous, a day after Zelenskyy expressed hope at a forum in Kyiv that a peace summit being planned by Switzerland will address Kyiv's vision for ending the war. Zelenskyy told reporters Sunday he hopes the peace summit will take place in the spring. "We must not lose this diplomatic initiative," he said. "We will offer a platform on which [Russian President Vladimir Putin] can agree that he lost this war and that it was a mistake. A big mistake." Kremlin spokesperson Peskov told reporters, "We have repeatedly said that this is a strange format, to say the least, because certain peace plans are being implemented without the participation of Russia, which in itself is frivolous and even laughable." Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy's chief of staff, has floated the possibility that Ukraine and its foreign partners could invite Russia to the future summit to discuss an end to Moscow's invasion on Kyiv's terms. Zelenskyy's peace formula calls for restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity and a total withdrawal of Russian troops. Meanwhile, Ukraine has experienced setbacks on the battlefield. Ukrainian troops pulled out of a village west of the recently Russian occupied city of Avdiivka in the east of the country, an army spokesperson said Monday. Another setback for Kyiv's soldiers was in the village of Lastochkyne. They retreated to nearby villages to hold the line there, Dmytro Lykhovii, a spokesperson for one of the Ukrainian troop groupings, said Monday on national television. Lykhovii said the Ukrainian troops were outnumbered and overwhelmed by Moscow's military might, and Ukraine chose to pull them out of the village and mount a defense elsewhere. Russia's Ministry of Defense said its troops had "liberated" Lastochkyne. The latest setback for Ukraine's military happened on Tuesday. The Ukrainian military said that it withdrew forces from the villages of Sieverne and Stepove, which are also near Avdiivka. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Patagonia Gold Corp. (Patagonia or the Company) (TSXV: PGDC) announces that it has agreed to reacquire the COSE property (COSE) from Pan American Silver Corp. (PAAS). On February 27, 2024, the Company entered into an agreement (the Agreement) pursuant to which it agreed to reacquire COSE in exchange for assuming PAASs costs and liabilities in relation to COSE (the Transaction). The Company sold COSE to PAAS in 2018 and PAAS closed the COSE mine in 2022, after mining the known, main COSE mineral deposit. The Company is not making a monetary payment to PAAS in connection with the Transaction but has agreed to assume the remaining closure costs of COSE, which are mainly related to ongoing environmental monitoring. Completion of the Transaction is subject to, among other things, the satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions precedent relating to the Companys assumption of existing NSR royalties. The Company has 30 days to satisfy such conditions precedent and the Transaction will be automatically deemed closed and become effective upon PAASs written acceptance of the Company satisfying such conditions. By reacquiring COSE, the Company will consolidate its holding in the El Tranquilo concession block, which holds the Companys Cap Oeste Project, together with several other prospects and mineral occurrences. About Patagonia Gold Patagonia Gold Corp. is a South America focused, publicly traded, mining company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company seeks to grow shareholder value through exploration and development of gold and silver projects in the Patagonia region of Argentina. The Company is primarily focused on the Calcatreu project in Rio Negro and the development of the Cap-Oeste underground project. Patagonia, indirectly through its subsidiaries or under option agreements, has mineral rights to over 430 properties in several provinces of Argentina and Chile and is one of the largest landholders in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements with respect to, among other things, the Transaction, including satisfying the conditions precedent to closing, the advancement and development of gold and silver projects in the Patagonia region of Argentina, and the anticipated growth in shareholder value. Wherever possible, words such as may, will, should, could, expect, plan, intend, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict or potential or the negative or other variations of these words, or similar words or phrases, have been used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements reflect managements current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management as at the date hereof. Forward-looking statements involve significant risk, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure readers that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. NEW YORK, Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, continues to investigate potential securities claims on behalf of shareholders of Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: SAN) resulting from allegations that Santander may have issued materially misleading business information to the investing public. SO WHAT: If you purchased Santander securities you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. The Rosen Law Firm is preparing a class action seeking recovery of investor losses. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the prospective class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=22671 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. WHAT IS THIS ABOUT: On February 5, 2024, the Financial Times published an article entitled Iran used Lloyds and Santander accounts to evade sanctions. This article stated, in part that Santander UK provided accounts to British front companies secretly owned by a sanctioned Iranian petrochemicals company based near Buckingham Palace, according to documents seen by the Financial Times. On this news, Santanders American Depositary Shares (ADSs) fell $0.24 per share, or 5.7%, to close at $3.94 per share on February 5, 2024. WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources, or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs Bar. Many of the firms attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. ------------------------------- Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 lrosen@rosenlegal.com pkim@rosenlegal.com cases@rosenlegal.com www.rosenlegal.com NEWARK, Del, Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to Future Market Insights latest analysis, the China consumer packaging industry is estimated to be worth around US$ 105.5 billion in 2024. It is projected to exhibit a CAGR growth of 5.7% over the forecast period, reaching an estimated industry size of US$ 162.7 billion by 2034. The last few years have seen tremendous growth in the China consumer packaging industry. This is mainly due to the increasing popularity of eCommerce platforms, which has resulted in a surge in digital retail. The growing purchasing power of the population has also enabled them to afford a wider range of packaged goods. These factors have substantially driven the growth of the consumer packaging industry in China. Consumer awareness regarding hygiene and safety is on the rise globally, prompting a greater adoption of secure and tamper-evident packaging solutions. Additionally, government-led initiatives aimed at promoting sustainability within the consumer packaging sector have further propelled its rapid growth. Get Exclusive Sample Copy of the Report: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-18921 A detailed examination of consumption patterns within China's consumer packaging industry indicates a notable surge in the preference for packaged snacks among consumers. This inclination toward convenient, on-the-go options has naturally led to a considerable demand for consumer packaging in China. Moreover, the cosmetics industry is experiencing a noteworthy application in sustainable packaging solutions, driven by the heightened environmental awareness among consumers. Key Takeaways from the China Consumer Packaging Industry By packaging format, flexible packaging is estimated to hold an industry share of around 65% in 2024 and is anticipated to develop at a CAGR of 4.5% from 2024 to 2034. In terms of the level of packaging, the primary packaging segment is anticipated to be valued at around US$53 billion in the estimated year. Secondary packaging is poised to provide the most lucrative growth opportunities, expanding at a CAGR of 5.5% over the forecast period. Based on material, the plastics segment is projected to remain the leader in China's consumer packaging industry in the years to come, registering a CAGR of 5.0% by 2034. The metal segment is poised to record rapid growth with a CAGR of 6.6% throughout the forecast period. The demand for metal-based packaging is mainly influenced by growing sustainability concerns. By end use, the food segment is estimated to thoroughly dominate and account for over 56% of the China consumer packaging industry in 2024. Both the beverage and homecare segments are expected to witness rapid growth and record CAGRs of around 7.0% each by the end of the forecast period. The world is constantly pushing toward sustainability. Companies providing consumer packaging in China must embrace circular economy principles by designing recyclable, reusable, or compostable packaging. This can reduce the overall environmental impact of their products as well as attract eco-conscious consumers and businesses. Says Ismail Sutaria, Principal Consultant, Packaging and Materials at Future Market Insights. Buy this Exclusive Report: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/18921 Competitive Landscape In response to consistent demand from various end-use industries and the services sector, key manufacturers in China's consumer packaging industry, such as Amcor Plc., Berry Global Company, and Crown Holdings, are prioritizing the expansion of their production capacity. The China consumer packaging industry is highly competitive. This competition is driving innovation, efficiency improvements, and a focus on meeting diverse consumer and industry demands. Companies are investing heavily in research and development to improve the performance, durability, flexibility, and sustainability of packaging materials to expand their consumer base. Recent Developments: In December 2022, Amcor Plc. announced the inauguration of its largest flexible packaging plant in Huizhou, China, following a substantial investment of around US$100 million. The state-of-the-art facility, spanning approximately 600,000 sq. ft, reflects Amcor's commitment to expanding its manufacturing capabilities in response to the growing demand in the consumer packaging sector. In November 2022, Nine Dragons Paper Holdings unveiled plans for a significant capacity expansion initiative. This strategic move is geared toward increasing the manufacturing capacity of its Virgin carton board by nearly 5 million tons, positioning the company to meet the escalating demand within the consumer packaging industry. In June 2023, Dow and Procter & Gamble China collaborated to unveil an innovative air capsule eCommerce packaging solution. By combining Dow's high-performance PE resins with P&G China's inventive approach, this sustainable packaging aims to effectively protect products, minimize packaging waste, and enhance recyclability in the rapidly evolving eCommerce sector. Mars Wrigley China achieved a milestone by introducing its inaugural fully post-consumer recycled PET (rPET) packaging for the Cui Xiang Mi chocolate brand in February 2023. This 216g canister, composed entirely of rPET, not only enhances sustainability but also contributes to an estimated annual saving of 36t of virgin plastic. Scope of Report Attribute Details Growth Rate CAGR of 5.7% from 2024 to 2034 Base Year for Estimation 2023 Historical Data 2019 to 2023 Forecast Period 2024 to 2034 Quantitative Units Revenue in US$ billion, Volume in Tons, and CAGR from 2024 to 2034 Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Volume Forecast, Company Ranking, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, Trends and Pricing Analysis Segments Covered Packaging Format Material End Use Level of Packaging Technology Distribution Channel Key Companies Profiled Amcor Plc Berry Global Company Crown Holding Stora Enso Oyj Nine Dragons Papers Shanghai Zijiang Holdings 3M Company Oji Holding Corp CPMC Holdings Ltd Plastipak Request Report Methodology: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/request-report-methodology/rep-gb-18921 Author Ismail Sutaria (Principal Consultant, Packaging and Materials) has over 8 years of experience in market research and consulting in the packaging & materials industry. Ismails strength lies in identifying key challenges faced by the client and offering logical and actionable insights to equip the clients with strategic decision-making power. Ismail has been an instrumental part of several transformational consulting assignments. His key skills include competitive benchmarking, opportunity assessment, macroeconomic analysis, and business transformation advisory. Ismail is an MBA holder in Marketing and has a Bachelors Degree in Mathematics. Ismail is a regular at industry conferences and expos and has been widely covered in electronic and print media. Ismail has been quoted in leading publications, including the European Pharmaceutical Review and the European Adhesive Tape Association. Explore Related Reports of Packaging: The projected growth trajectory of the consumer electronics packaging industry estimated market size set to reach US$ 19.6 billion by 2024, the sector is poised for steady advancement. Anticipated to maintain a steady upward trend, the adoption of consumer electronics packaging is expected to escalate at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 4.5% through 2034. By the end of that period, industry forecasts suggest that the market will exceed US$ 30.4 billion. The consumer electronics packaging market in Europe and USA are poised for substantial growth up to 2033. In Europe, the market is anticipated to generate an absolute growth opportunity of US$ 2.3 billion, showcasing a promising landscape for investment and expansion. Likewise, the USA market is expected to create an incremental opportunity of US$ 1.1 billion. Experiencing a year-on-year (y-o-y) growth of 2.5%, consumer packaging product sales in Brazil reached a significant milestone, totaling US$ 11.1 billion in 2023. Looking ahead, the Brazil consumer packaging industry is set for further expansion, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.8% over the forecast period. By 2033, industry forecasts indicate that the market size will surge to US$ 14.7 billion. The consumer packaging industry in India is positioned for substantial growth, with an estimated value of US$ 56.2 billion in 2024. Projections suggest that this industry will maintain a steady Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.7% throughout the forecast period. By 2034, it is anticipated that the sales of consumer packaging solutions will reach an impressive US$ 92.8 billion. The burgeoning global AI in packaging market is poised for remarkable growth, with an estimated value of US$ 1,790.8 million in 2024. As the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to accelerate, this market is forecasted to soar to US$ 23,415.2 million by 2034. Projected to surge at an impressive Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 29.3% between 2024 and 2034. The bubble wrap packaging market is poised for substantial growth, with a projected Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3.1% from 2024 to 2034. Forecasts indicate that this market will steadily expand and is expected to achieve a valuation of US$ 4.2 billion by 2034. The sustainable pharmaceutical packaging market is poised for remarkable growth, with an anticipated value of US$ 410 billion by 2034. Industry estimates project a robust Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15.6% until 2034. The sustainable packaging market is on a trajectory of significant growth, with a projected value of US$ 285.3 billion in 2024. Forecasts indicate a strong demand for sustainable packaging solutions, expected to surge at a robust Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.8% over the forecast period. Looking ahead, this market is poised to sustain its impressive growth momentum, surpassing the US$ 490.5 billion mark by 2034. The returnable packaging market is poised for substantial growth, with a projected value of US$ 129.7 billion in 2024. Forecasts indicate a steady upward trajectory, with the market anticipated to reach US$ 248.0 billion by 2034. Moreover, the market is expected to experience significant expansion at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.7% during the forecast period from 2024 to 2034. The sustainable plastic packaging market is positioned for substantial growth, with an estimated value of US$ 106.4 billion in 2024. Projections indicate a steady progression over the period from 2024 to 2034, with the market expected to register a moderate Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 5.9%. By 2034, forecasts suggest that the industry will exceed a valuation of US$ 189.0 billion. About Future Market Insights (FMI) Future Market Insights, Inc. (ESOMAR certified, recipient of the Stevie Award, and a member of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce) offers profound insights into the driving factors that are boosting demand in the market. FMI stands as the leading global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, consulting, and events for the Packaging, Food and Beverage, Consumer Technology, Healthcare, Industrial, and Chemicals markets. With a vast team of over 400 analysts worldwide, FMI provides global, regional, and local expertise on diverse domains and industry trends across more than 110 countries. Contact Us: Nandini Singh Sawlani Future Market Insights Inc. Christiana Corporate, 200 Continental Drive, Suite 401, Newark, Delaware - 19713, USA T: +1-845-579-5705 For Sales Enquiries: sales@futuremarketinsights.com Website: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com LinkedIn| Twitter| Blogs | YouTube Taipei, Taiwan, Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The prevalence of cryptocurrency investment and financial fraud poses significant challenges to victims, often leaving them unable to recover defrauded assets even after cases are solved. In a groundbreaking collaboration, Taiwans Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB), the Judicial Reform Foundation (JRF), and blockchain-enabled financial institution XREX have successfully cracked down on a cryptocurrency fraud case, setting a remarkable legal milestone in Taiwan's judicial history. Using advanced blockchain intelligence tools and on-chain tracking technologies, XREXs anti-money laundering (AML) and information security departments proved the flow of illicit funds and the owners of cryptocurrency assets, even when there were no identifiable suspects or accused, assisting Taiwans law enforcement agencies in returning defrauded Ether (ETH) to the victim. The uniqueness of this investigation lies in the following: The attacker phished the Taiwanese victim while he was using the decentralized wallet MetaMask, resulting in his ETH being stolen from the wallet. Since MetaMask is a self-custodial and decentralized wallet, there was no customer service to assist the victim. The perpetrator likely belonged to a criminal organization overseas. Taiwanese law enforcement could not know the perpetrator's identity when processing this case. Therefore, the prosecution lacked a suspect. The attacker moved the stolen cryptocurrency assets into an account with OKX, an exchange that operates outside of Taiwanese jurisdiction. Multiple parties collaborated to seize almost all of the illicit assets and return them to the victim. The victim, Mr. Wan, is a professional trader and has been active in cryptocurrency communities. I never expected the fraud group to impersonate a Forbes media interview to phish and send web pages with malicious programs to steal my cryptocurrency assets, all under the guise of filling out information on the website, Wan said. I appreciate the help and support from the CIB, the JRFs advocate Miffy Chen, XREX, OKX, and SlowMist. I hope my case can serve as a cautionary tale and convince law enforcement agencies that fraud cases involving such decentralized wallets outside our jurisdiction can be handled and resolved." The attacker phished Wan while he was using his Metamask wallet to access a decentralized social platform, Friend.tech, on the Base blockchain network. The attacker drained his wallet and transferred the stolen funds to OKX. Upon realizing the fraud, Mr. Wan immediately shared his experience on social media and gained the attention of Web3 communities. Within six hours, SlowMist contacted OKX and intercepted the stolen ETH. According to OKXs compliance policies, they can only implement a temporary seizure of 72 hours, within which Taiwanese law enforcement must intervene. On-chain analytics tracked the bridged assets to the attackers wallet, then to OKX. Miffy Chen from JRF assisted in organizing and compiling documents detailing the cryptocurrencys flow, assisting the victim in filing a report, and cooperating with the CIB and prosecutors to apply to the court for a seizure ruling. But how can funds be legally returned to the victim if the case lacks an accused? To solve procedural problems in the law, law enforcement agencies requested the intervention of a professional and neutral third party. XREX, an international crypto-fiat exchange, played a key role in verifying Mr. Wans ownership of the attacked wallet, as well as re-verifying details of the cryptocurrency flow. XREXs security and AML teams used TRM Labs and SlowMists MistTrack to cross-analyze blockchain asset flows, and identify the flow of funds, submitting a complete cryptocurrency flow report with reliable evidence. Chen stated, This case relies on the mutual trust of multiple agencies to act quickly and effectively. It demonstrated that even if criminals have transferred the stolen assets to overseas exchanges, the assets can still be tracked and recovered. This case serves as a great encouragement to all law enforcement units and experts involved. I hope this unprecedented case is not just a stroke of luck, but an important reference for future cases." The cases in-charge, Detective Hsieh Rui Xuan from the CIB's Sixth Investigation Corp, remarked, Scam syndicates are extending their reach globally through the Internet and emerging technologies like blockchain technology. This has become a serious social issue in Taiwan. While Taiwan's ability to combat overseas crime remains limited, seizing and returning fraudulent proceeds holds significant meaning for victims." He added that while law enforcement continues to enhance cryptocurrency tracing techniques, this has to be done within existing regulatory constraints. I hope this case is an important foundation, not only for remotely seizing cryptocurrency assets, but also for promoting collaborations between law enforcement agencies and experts in blockchain, law, and cybersecurity to combat the misuse of blockchain technology for fraudulent activities," Hsieh said. Sun Huang , XREXs Chief Security Officer and General Manager, has over 15 years of international experience in cybersecurity and possesses both offensive and defensive capabilities recognized globally. He said, "This cooperation with law enforcement highlights how it is more difficult to launder money via a transparent and open blockchain network. All transactions are permanently recorded on-chain and cannot be tampered with or erased. The current difficulty lies in introducing and effectively using blockchain tracking and analysis tools. We believe XREX is already a leader in this regard and can be a partner trusted by law enforcement agencies." XREX has integrated top-tier blockchain analysis technologies and monitoring tools such as JPMorgans portfolio company TRM Labs, Mastercards CipherTrace, Chainalysis, and MistTrack. XREX continues to fulfill its corporate social responsibility by assisting investigations to analyze illegal currency flows, disclose scam tactics, and produce forensic reports, pro bono. XREX is also the first company in Taiwan to be audited by the British Standards Institution, attaining the latest version of ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Information Security Management System certification. XREX Taiwan is listed on the Financial Supervisory Commission's list of virtual assets service providers that have completed anti-money laundering compliance statements. Sun Huang urged, "All cryptocurrency users must be vigilant and careful to verify. If one becomes a victim of scams, immediate action should be taken, such as transferring assets to a new wallet, filing a report as soon as possible, and preserving evidence. All these help in reducing losses. Be mindful to avoid follow-up scams targeting victims and claiming they can help recover assets. Always seek assistance from qualified operators and law enforcement agencies." XREX, co-founded by internationally-renowned cybersecurity expert Wayne Huang , is the first cryptocurrency company in Taiwan to obtain an in-principle approval for a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and has completed anti-money laundering statements to the Financial Supervisory Commission. Its predecessor, security software startup Armorize, specializes in vulnerability analysis and advanced persistent threat (APT) network attacks. About XREX XREX is a blockchain-enabled financial institution working with banks, regulators, and users to redefine banking together. We provide enterprise-grade banking services to small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in or dealing with emerging markets, and novice-friendly financial services to individuals worldwide. Founded in 2018 and operating globally under multiple licenses, XREX offers a full suite of services such as digital asset custody, wallet, cross-border payment, fiat-crypto conversion, cryptocurrency exchange, asset management, and fiat currency on-off ramps. Sharing the social responsibility of financial inclusion, XREX leverages blockchain technologies to further financial participation, access, and education. NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until March 25, 2024 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM or the Company) (NYSE: ADM), if they purchased the Companys securities between April 30, 2020 and January 22, 2024, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Get Help ADM investors should visit us at https://claimsfiler.com/cases/nyse-adm/ or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit ADM and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On January 21, 2024, the Company disclosed that its Chief Financial Officer had been placed on leave pending an ongoing investigation being conducted by outside counsel for ADM and the Boards Audit Committee regarding certain accounting practices and procedures with respect to ADMs Nutrition segment, including as related to certain intersegment transactions. Further, its investigation was initiated in response to a voluntary document request by the SEC and as a result, the Company delayed its Q4 and FY 2023 earnings release and withdrew its outlook for its Nutrition segment. On this news, the price of ADMs shares fell $16.23 per share, or approximately 24%, from $68.19 per share to close at $51.69 on January 22, 2024, wiping out approximately $8.8 billion of ADMs market value. The case is Chow v. Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, et al., No. 24-cv-00634. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. To learn more about ClaimsFiler, visit www.claimsfiler.com. NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ClaimsFiler, a FREE shareholder information service, reminds investors that they have until April 9, 2024 to file lead plaintiff applications in a securities class action lawsuit against Xponential Fitness, Inc. (NYSE: XPOF), if they purchased the Companys publicly traded Class A shares between July 26, 2021 and December 7, 2023, inclusive (the Class Period). This action is pending in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Get Help Xponential investors should visit us at https://claimsfiler.com/cases/nyse-xpof/ or call toll-free (844) 367-9658. Lawyers at Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC are available to discuss your legal options. About the Lawsuit Xponential Fitness and certain of its executives are charged with failing to disclose material information during the Class Period, violating federal securities laws. On December 7, 2023, a report by Bloomberg Businessweek highlighted many problems with the Company based on interviews with dozens of its former business partners, employees, and franchisees who revealed that the Company misled many franchisees into a financial nightmare and that the Companys CEO has a track record of combative management, deploying growth-at-all-costs tactics and unleashing aggressive reprisals against anyone who gets in his way, and further that as a result of these unscrupulous tactics many of the companys franchiseeshave either declared bankruptcy or lost their retirement savings. On this news, the price of Xponentials shares fell more than 26% over two trading days on heavy trading volume to close at less than $9 per share on December 11, 2023. The case is City of Taylor General Employees Retirement System v. Xponential Fitness, Inc., No. 24-cv-00285. About ClaimsFiler ClaimsFiler has a single mission: to serve as the information source to help retail investors recover their share of billions of dollars from securities class action settlements. At ClaimsFiler.com, investors can: (1) register for free to gain access to information and settlement websites for various securities class action cases so they can timely submit their own claims; (2) upload their portfolio transactional data to be notified about relevant securities cases in which they may have a financial interest; and (3) submit inquiries to the Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC law firm for free case evaluations. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WPME Technology, the Dubai-based entity of WadzPay, a leading fintech company specialising in blockchain based technology for virtual assets announced that it has been granted a Virtual Assets Service Provider (VASP) Licence for Virtual Asset Broker-Dealer service activities by Dubais Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA). The licence remains non-operational until the company fully satisfies all remaining conditions and select localisation requirements defined by VARA, following which it will be able to commence operations, subject to regulatory reverification and approval. As one of the pioneers in blockchain based virtual assets technology, WadzPay is excited to deliver its innovative and industry-leading solutions to customers across Middle East while working closely with regulators in contributing to build a compliant and robust fintech ecosystem. Mr. Anish Jain, Founder & CEO, WadzPay stated, This licence showcases WadzPays dedication in promoting innovation in the field of virtual assets domain and blockchain technology bringing us a step closer to delivering world class solutions to businesses in Middle East. WadzPay aims to revolutionize the way people in the Middle East transact and manage virtual assets. WadzPay's commitment to compliance ensures that financial institutions and their customers can confidently embrace the benefits of blockchain technology while adhering to regulatory standards, ultimately contributing to the growth and sustainability of the fintech ecosystem in the Middle East. Mr. Ram Chari, Board Member and Group Director, WadzPay quoted, This will further solidify WadzPay's position as a trusted and reliable blockchain technology based financial service provider in the region. With the broker-dealer services, WadzPay will provide the technology to its clients to enhance the experience of their customers by enabling virtual assets transactions in a seamless and secure manner. To which Mr. Khaled Moharem, President - MENA & Europe at WadzPay, emphasized, This cements our hard work and sets the stage for transformative blockchain solutions, promoting compliance and customer confidence in the Virtual Assets Industry. About WadzPay: WadzPay was founded in 2018 in Singapore with a commitment to drive financial inclusion and revolutionise the virtual asset landscape. It is a leading global blockchain-based technology provider for virtual assets. The company's innovative platform available as a SaaS offering provides secure, efficient, and transparent technology solutions, catering to businesses (B2B) and consumers (B2B2C). WadzPay works with large international companies, banks, and fintechs to enable virtual asset-based transaction processing, custody, and settlement. It operates across geographies spanning Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.wadzpay.com About VARA: Established in March 2022, following the effect of Law No.4 of 2022, VARA is the competent entity in charge of regulating, supervising, and overseeing VAs and VA Activities in all zones across the Emirate of Dubai, including Special Development Zones and Free Zones but excluding the Dubai International Financial Centre. VARA plays a central role in creating Dubai's advanced legal framework to protect investors and establish international standards for Virtual Asset industry governance, while supporting the vision for a borderless economy. For more information visit: www.vara.ae For any media enquiries please contact: Arijit Das PR and Communications Manager arijit.das@wadzpay.com +91 9654930523 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/58f14eb8-1029-4e43-988c-02833036e716 BOSTON, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Novotech, the global full-service clinical Contract Research Organization (CRO) that partners with biotech companies to accelerate the development of advanced and novel therapeutics at every phase, has released today an industry-leading report on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) Clinical Trial Landscape. The report includes emerging genetic therapies, funding landscape, and a SWOT analysis designed to inform strategic drug development decision-making and ultimately enhancing the chances of successful and impactful treatments for DMD. The Novotech research analyst team provides these expert reports monthly, completely free of charge. These reports offer current insights into global clinical trial activity, revealing which regions experience the highest trial volumes and the factors behind these trends. They tackle the hurdles faced by biotech firms in specific therapeutic areas and discuss future paths in therapy and investment trends. The Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy - Global Clinical Trial Landscape report examines the characterizations of DMD: its the most prevalent form of muscular dystrophy, it has a higher prevalence in males, the lack of dystrophin protein (caused by a mutation) leads to deterioration of muscle health, and the age DMD presents itself which is between 3-6 years. The disorder affects 1 in 5,000 live male births, with about 20,000 new global diagnoses annually, and is usually inherited through the mother, but 25% of cases occur spontaneously without any family history. The report also focuses on the epidemiology, therapeutic challenges, and the evolving clinical trial trend data, including treatments and funding, offering invaluable insights for healthcare professionals and researchers. Management of the disease currently focuses on addressing symptoms and slowing disease progression whereas current research focuses more on therapeutic approaches including gene replacement, cell therapy, and membrane stabilization. The global prevalence of this complex genetic disorder varies across regions. Europe leads with the highest prevalence, followed by North America, APAC and the Rest of World (ROW). Within Europe, countries such as Sweden, Norway, and Estonia present higher than-average rates of diagnosis at 16.7 and 16.2, and 12.8 cases per 100,000, respectively. In North America, Canada and the US sit at 10.6 and 10.2. In APAC China leads at 10.3 cases per 100,000. Novotechs research found there have been approximately 300 clinical trials initiated for DMD globally since 2019. North America leads in conducting trials (37%), followed by Asia Pacific (30%), Europe (24%) and ROW (9%). Key takeaways: Analyzing patient recruitment trends since 2019 in single-country DMD clinical trials, where Europe consistently shows shorter recruitment durations and faster rates compared to the US and Asia Pacific. This may be attributed to streamlined regulatory processes, greater patient awareness, and more centralized healthcare systems. There is a strong combination of public and venture-based funding for DMD out of the US in particular, but notable investments have been made in UK and South Korea as well, with the majority of funding concentrated on the preclinical stage. Current research for DMD explores gene and RNA therapies with stand outs specifically for membrane stabilization techniques and interventions targeting secondary cascades as promising areas. There is a robust DMD drug development pipeline with 28 drugs in preclinical stages, 14 in Phase I, 14 in Phase II, and 9 in Phase III. This comprehensive resource guides healthcare professionals, researchers, and organizations in navigating the complex clinical trial DMD landscape. Download the report here Media Contact David James mediacontact@novotech-cro.com AU: +61 2 8218 2144 USA: +1 415 951 3228 Asia: +65 3159 3427 About Novotech Novotech-CRO.com Founded in 1997, Novotech is a global full-service clinical Contract Research Organization (CRO) focused on partnering with biotech companies to accelerate the development of advanced and novel therapeutics at every phase. Recognized for its industry-leading contributions, Novotech has received numerous prestigious awards, including the CRO Leadership Award 2023, the Asia Pacific Cell & Gene Therapy Clinical Trials Excellence 2023, the Asia-Pacific Contract Research Organization Company of the Year Award since 2006. The Company offers a comprehensive suite of services including laboratories, Phase I facilities, drug development consulting, regulatory expertise, and has experience with over 5,000 clinical projects, including Phase I to Phase IV clinical trials and bioequivalence studies. With a presence in 34 office locations and a dedicated team of 3,000+ professionals worldwide, Novotech is a trusted end-to-end strategic partner of choice. For more information or to speak to an expert team member visit www.Novotech-CRO.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/50b76fdb-c279-440f-8d82-f98d366c7d03 Nanterre, 28 February 2024 VINCI signs an agreement for the acquisition of Denvers Northwest Parkway (Colorado) in the United States 83-year concession toll road in one of the most dynamic states in the United States 14 km in the Northwest section of Denvers ring road 7,2 million transactions in 2023, up 6% compared to 2022 VINCI Highways, subsidiary of VINCI Concessions, signed an agreement for the acquisition of NWP HoldCo LLC, the company holding the concession contract of Denvers Northwest Parkway, a 14-km section of Denvers ring road in Colorado. The agreement concerns the acquisition of 100% of the concession company, currently owned by funds managed by DIF Capital Partners and funds managed by Northleaf Capital Partners and HICL Infrastructure PLC. Financial closing is scheduled for the second quarter of 2024, following approval by the grantor - the Northwest Parkway Public Highway Authority, composed of the municipalities of Broomfield and Lafayette - and the competent authorities. Located within one of the fastest-growing United States metropolitan areas, Northwest Parkway section has been in service since 2003 and notably serves as a gateway to Denvers international airport. Northwest Parkway generated 7,2 million transactions in 2023, up 6% compared to 2022 and 17% compared to 2021. An all-electronic toll road, Northwest Parkway also offers growth perspectives with the ability to implement variable tolling. The concession contract lasts until 2106, representing the longest remaining term (83 years) on the highway concession sector today in the United States. The concessionaire is remunerated by the perception of tolls. This acquisition is VINCI Highways first traffic-risk concession in the United States. VINCI Highways also operates, as part of a public-private partnership (availability payment), the Ohio River Bridges project, linking the states of Indiana and Kentucky, as well as free-flow toll service contracts - through its ViaPlus subsidiary - for governmental agencies in Texas and California. About VINCI VINCI is a global player in concessions, energy and construction, employing 280,000 people in more than 120 countries. We design, finance, build and operate infrastructure and facilities that help improve daily life and mobility for all. Because we believe in all-round performance, above and beyond economic and financial results, we are committed to operating in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. And because our projects are in the public interest, we consider that reaching out to all our stakeholders and engaging in dialogue with them is essential in the conduct of our business activities. VINCIs ambition is to create long-term value for its customers, shareholders, employees, partners and society in general. www.vinci.com This press release is an official information document of the VINCI Group. PRESS CONTACT VINCI Press Department Tel: +33 (0)1 57 98 62 88 media.relations@vinci.com Attachment YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. Russia declares that Moscow and Yerevan remain allies, and that is important in bilateral relations. The official representative of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation, Maria Zakharova, said during the weekly briefing on February 28, referring to the statement of the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, that in 2023 Russian officials called for a coup detat in Armenia. "Russian officials have never allowed for even a hint of calling for overthrowing legitimately elected authorities anywhere at all," she added. Pashinyan in an interview with France 24, claimed that in the fall of last year, Russian officials called to overthrow government authorities in Armenia. Westford,USA, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to SkyQuest's latest global research of the Metal Forging market , increased adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies for smart and connected forging processes, the increasing use of automation and robotics for improved efficiency and quality, the development of precision and near-net-shape forging techniques for reduced material waste and energy consumption, the rising demand for forged components in the electric vehicle (EV) and renewable energy sectors, and the application of advanced simulation and modeling tools for forging process optimization, are the trends that aid in the market's growth. Browse in-depth TOC on "Metal Forging Market" Pages - 157 Tables - 73 Figures - 75 Metal forging is a manufacturing process by which compressive forces shape metal. The metal is heated to a high temperature, making it more pliable, and then shaped using a die or hammer. Forging can be used to create a wide variety of metal shapes, including crankshafts, engine blocks, and connecting rods. Get a sample copy of this report: https://www.skyquestt.com/sample-request/metal-forging-market Prominent Players in the Metal Forging Market Bharat Forge Limited Dana Incorporated CIE Automotive S.A. American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. ThyssenKrupp AG NTN Corporation ZF Friedrichshafen AG Nanjin Automobile Forging Co., Ltd. Ramkrishna Forgings Limited AAMCO Transmissions and Total Car Care Precision Forge Company Gestamp Automocion Metaldyne Performance Group Allevard Mueller Industries, Inc. Formtech Industries, LLC Columbus McKinnon Corporation Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. Precision Castparts Corp. Allegheny Technologies Incorporated Arconic Inc. Carpenter Technology Corporation Worthington Industries, Inc. Alloy steel Demand to Grow Substantially in the Forecast Period Alloy steel dominated the global online market as they offer exceptional strength and durability, making it a preferred choice for critical applications in industries like automotive, aerospace, and oil and gas. Alloy steel can be tailored to meet specific mechanical and performance requirements by adjusting the alloying elements. This versatility allows it to be used in a wide range of applications, including components subjected to high stress and pressure. Aerospace Industry is the Leading Application Segment In terms of application, the aerospace industry is the leading segment due to the strong emphasis on lightweight materials and components to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. Forged parts made from materials like titanium and specialty alloys are preferred for their high strength-to-weight ratios. Browse summary of the report and Complete Table of Contents (ToC): https://www.skyquestt.com/report/metal-forging-market North America is the leading Market Due to the Technological Advancements Region-wise, North America is one of the largest growing markets with a huge emphasis on technological advancements. The region experiences rapid growth in the automotive and aerospace sectors. China and India, in particular, have seen significant increases in automobile production and air travel, boosting the need for forged parts. A recent report thoroughly analyzes the major players operating within the Metal Forging market. This comprehensive evaluation has considered several crucial factors, such as collaborations, mergers, innovative business policies, and strategies, providing invaluable insights into the key trends and breakthroughs in the market. Additionally, the report has carefully scrutinized the market share of the top segments and presented a detailed geographic analysis. Finally, the report has highlighted the major players in the industry and their ongoing endeavors to develop innovative solutions that cater to the ever-increasing demand for Metal Forging. Key Developments in the Metal Forging Market In May 2023, Arconic Corporation announced that it had entered into a legally binding agreement to be bought by the Apollo Global Management Inc. fund holders in an all-cash acquisition valued at about USD 5.2 billion. Through this agreement, Arconic will have the support of one of the top investment firms in the world and be able to offer significant value to clients and product users. Speak to Analyst for your custom requirements: https://www.skyquestt.com/speak-with-analyst/metal-forging-market Key Questions Answered in Metal Forging Market Report What specific growth drivers are projected to impact the market during the forecast period? Can you list the top companies in the market and explain how they have achieved their positions of influence? In what ways do regional trends and patterns differ within the global market, and how might these differences shape the market's future growth? Related Reports in SkyQuests Library: Global Aerospace Sealants Market Global Commercial Satellite Launch Service Market Global Aircraft Computers Market Global Shoulder Fired Weapons Market Global Space Situational Awareness Market About Us: SkyQuest Technology is leading growth consulting firm providing market intelligence, commercialization and technology services. It has 450+ happy clients globally. Address: 1 Apache Way, Westford, Massachusetts 01886 Phone: USA (+1) 617-230-0741 Email: sales@skyquestt.com Wilmington, Delaware, United States, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Transparency Market Research Inc. - The global injection pen market is projected to rise at a CAGR of 7.2% from 2023 to 2031. As per the report published by TMR, a valuation of US$ 73.7 billion is anticipated for the market in 2031. As of 2023, the demand for injection pens is expected to close at US$ 42.6 billion. The increasing incidence of chronic conditions such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis necessitates the regular administration of injectable medications, fueling the demand for injection pens. Patients increasingly prefer self-administration of medications for convenience and autonomy in managing their health. Injection pens offer a user-friendly and discreet method of medication delivery, contributing to their growing popularity. The demand for disposable injection pens is high in the market as it eliminates the risk of contamination associated with reusing injection pens. Since each pen is intended for single-use, there's a lower risk of bacterial growth or cross-contamination between injections, enhancing patient safety. Globally increasing healthcare spending is facilitating broader access to advanced medical technologies such as injection pens, especially in well-developed regions with robust healthcare systems. Download Sample PDF of Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=46446 Streamlined approval processes by regulatory agencies for injection pens are catalyzing innovation and market entry. This regulatory support stimulates competition within the industry, fuelling its continuous growth trajectory. With the global population aging, there is a growing demographic of elderly individuals requiring regular medication administration. Injection pens provide a convenient solution for seniors who may have dexterity issues or difficulty with traditional syringes. Key Takeaways from the Market Study As of 2022, the injection pen market was valued at US$ 39.8 billion. Based on indication, the diabetes segment held a prominent share of the global injection pen market in 2021. Based on type, the disposable type segment is expected to dominate the global market during the forecast period. Injection Pen Market: Key Trends and Opportunistic Frontiers Growing emphasis on personalized healthcare, leading to the development of injection pens with customizable dosing options. The trend towards home healthcare and self-management of chronic conditions is driving the demand for injection pens. Injection pens are increasingly being integrated with digital health platforms and smartphone apps, enabling patients to track their medication adherence, monitor blood glucose levels, and receive personalized treatment recommendations. Injection Pen Market: Regional Analysis North America holds a significant share of the injection pen market, driven by factors such as a large diabetic population, high healthcare expenditure, and robust healthcare infrastructure. Key players in this region focus on innovation and technological advancements to maintain market leadership. Favorable reimbursement policies and increasing awareness about self-administration contribute to market growth. The Asia Pacific region exhibits significant growth potential in the injection pen market, fueled by factors such as the rapidly expanding diabetic population, improving healthcare infrastructure, and increasing disposable income. Market players are strategically expanding their presence in emerging economies like China and India, capitalizing on the growing demand for self-administration devices. The market penetration may face challenges due to variability in healthcare access and regulatory frameworks across different countries in the region. Unlock Growth Potential in Your Industry ! Download PDF Brochure: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=46446 Competitive Landscape Injection pen companies are actively enhancing the design aspects of their products, aiming to optimize user experience and functionality. They are strategically expanding their presence in lucrative markets across the Asia Pacific and North America to strengthen their market position. These key players are also intensifying efforts to raise awareness about the advantages of injection pens, positioning themselves competitively amidst evolving market dynamics. Lilly Novo Nordisk Owen Mumford Sanofi F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd. Merck KGaA Haselmeier Gerresheimer AG BD AstraZeneca Key Developments in the Injection Pen Market Haselmeier is a medical device company specializing in injection pens and self-injection systems for diabetes and other medical conditions. Gerresheimer AG manufactures a wide range of pharmaceutical packaging and drug delivery systems, including injection pens for insulin and other injectable medications. manufactures a wide range of pharmaceutical packaging and drug delivery systems, including injection pens for insulin and other injectable medications. BD (Becton, Dickinson, and Company) BD is a global medical technology company that produces a variety of medical devices, including injection pens for insulin and other therapies. BD is a global medical technology company that produces a variety of medical devices, including injection pens for insulin and other therapies. AstraZeneca a multinational pharmaceutical company with a focus on respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases, AstraZeneca produces injection pens for diabetes and other therapeutic areas. Injection Pen Market Key Segments e Reusable Disposable Indication Diabetes Growth Hormone Therapy Autoimmune Others Distribution Channel Hospital Pharmacies Retail Pharmacies Online Pharmacies Region North America Latin America Asia Pacific Europe Middle East & Africa Get Full Access to this Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=46446 "With this fence, we will also combat the different forms of organized crime that wanted to take the border between the two countries as a base, so the benefit for both Nations will be of great importance." Learn more about the border fence: https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-40919-haiti-flash-high-tension-a-group-of-haitians-confront-the-dominican-soldiers-in-ouanaminthe-video.htmlml https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-36049-haiti-flash-the-first-54-km-of-the-dominican-border-fence-will-be-completed-in-7-months-video.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-36245-haiti-dr-the-construction-of-the-border-fence-with-haiti-continues.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-36049-haiti-flash-the-first-54-km-of-the-dominican-border-fence-will-be-completed-in-7-months-video.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35990-haiti-flash-launch-of-the-construction-of-the-technological-fence-along-the-haitian-border.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-35611-icihaiti-dr-purchase-of-land-along-the-border-for-the-construction-of-the-technological-fence.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33299-haiti-dr-the-dominicans-want-to-build-large-customs-infrastructure-at-each-access-point-with-haiti.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33190-haiti-dr-the-dominican-fence-at-the-border-will-cost-more-than-$100-million.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33130-haiti-flash-president-abinader-announces-the-construction-of-a-double-fence-at-the-border.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-32908-haiti-flash-the-dominican-republic-will-test-an-israeli-system-of-electronic-border.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-17212-icihaiti-dominican-republic-a-wall-at-the-border-an-electoral-issue.html SL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Humanitarian : The UN launches an appeal for 674 million US dollars to help 3.6 million people in Haiti Tuesday February 27, 2024, the UN launched an international appeal for donations of $674 million to help 3.6 million people in 2024 in Haiti, a country ravaged by gang violence which is experiencing one of the crises among the most serious food problems in the world. The Response Plan (Published at the end of January https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-41480-haiti-un-humanitarian-needs-for-2024-amount-to-us$674-million-to-help-36-million-haitians-report.html ) occurs in a context marked by a serious protection crisis for millions of Haitians. In 2023, the country saw the highest number of murders, kidnappings, lynchings and sexual assaults in the last five years. More than 314,000 people are internally displaced, of whom more than 60% will be displaced in 2023; children constitute nearly 55% of the displaced population. Nearly half of the population does not have enough to eat, making Haiti one of the countries experiencing one of the most serious food crises in the world. The spiral of violence has profoundly disrupted all socio-economic activities and the free movement of people and goods, particularly affecting the capital Port-au-Prince. Attacks by armed gangs on hospitals, schools, playgrounds, markets and transport have reached an alarming level. "Going to school, the hospital or the market, cultivating your field or obtaining drinking water has become an ordeal for millions of Haitians. Because crossing the threshold of your house means risking death from bullets, being kidnapped by armed gangs or suffering unimaginable violence such as gang rape," declared the Humanitarian Coordinator, Ulrika Richardson. In 2023, despite access constraints linked to insecurity and limited financial resources, nearly 2.6 million people received at least one form of humanitarian aid through the commitment of humanitarian actors and the Government. "While welcoming the importance of humanitarian aid in saving lives and reducing suffering, we must recognize that it is not the solution. We must continue to invest in a determined and sustained manner and to work together to find dignified and lasting solutions to the structural problems that hinder the daily lives of the Haitian people. Haiti needs solidarity at this crucial time," said Ms. Richardson. In addition to the need for actors to adhere to the principle of accountability, Ricard Pierre, the Minister of Planning and External Cooperation, called for a synergy of action between all international institutions and local organizations with a view to enable a harmonious and lasting solution to the crisis. He encouraged all sectors of humanitarian action to stay the course with a view to helping the Haitian population emerge for good from this catastrophic situation. Download the 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan for Haiti (PDF in French 59 pages) : https://www.haitilibre.com/docs/Haiti_HNRP_2024_FR_version-finale.pdf HL/ HaitiFree Haiti - News : Zapping... SPNH-17 wants a salary of 50,000 Gdes for police officers Tuesday February 27, 2024 at a press conference, the National Police Union of Haiti (SPNH-17) demanded a monthly salary of 50,000 gourdes for the police officers and announced a sit-in on March 12, in memory of the police officers who were victims on March 12, 2021, at Village de Dieu https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33226-haiti-flash-failure-of-the-anti-gang-operation-in-village-de-dieu-several-police-officers-killed-others-injured.html The SDP salutes the solidarity of Benin Me Andre Michel, leader of the Democratic and Popular Sector (radical opposition) welcomes "the demonstration of exceptional solidarity of Benin towards the Haitian people. 2,000 Beninese soldiers will be deployed to Haiti as part of the multinational force aimed at supporting the Haitian National Police in the fight against armed gangs who are taking the country hostage. Haiti will never forget this gesture of Solidarity [...]" A debit card of 600,000 Gdes/month Edwine Tonton, the former Director of the Social Assistance Fund (CAS), incarcerated since April 2023, for illicit enrichment and criminal conspiracy, appeared before the Court of Appeal. She admitted to having received an amount of 600,000 gourdes monthly on her debit card. CG Jean Ernest Muscadin kills a bandit Sunday February 25 in the first communal section of Miragoane, Kenkenn Richard alias "Chochonet", member of the gang operating in Mariani, was shot dead by the Government Commissioner (CG) Jean Ernest Muscadin DR independence : Words from PM Henry "On behalf of the Haitian people and Government, I extend my warm congratulations to the brotherly Dominican people, as well as to their leaders, on the occasion of the 180th anniversary of Dominican Independence Day. May the historical ties uniting our two Nations which share the same island, continue to be consolidated in mutual respect, Peace and prosperity," Prime Minister a.i. Ariel Henry. France : major Civil Protection support project The French Development Agency (AFD) and Expertise France completed an 8-day mission to Haiti on Monday, February 26, intended to launch a major civil protection support project. This project includes the creation of a civil protection training center and 4 equipped and operational emergency centers. Discussions with the Haitian authorities concerned made it possible to define the main priorities of the project. The financing of this project marks France's desire to contribute to improving human security in Haiti. HL/ HaitiLibre Teaching accurate Black history in modern-day America can be a challenging endeavor. Aside from the political pressure in some places to ignore race in an attempt to avoid creating white guilt," the most pervasive obstacle is the prevalence of inaccurate historical records and textbooks. The distortion of facts and omission of crucial events contribute to a skewed narrative, hindering a comprehensive understanding of accurate Black history. One glaring issue lies in the misrepresentation of key figures and events. Many textbooks and historical records downplay the contributions of African-Americans and glaze over the brutality of slavery and all that came after it. History is not just a chronological account of events; it is also a reflection of power dynamics and societal structures. As educators, it is our job to point out how these factors contribute to the histories that have been passed down. We need to constantly be asking ourselves and our students, Whose perspective is being normalized? Whose is missing, and why? We also need to be willing to dig deeper, to teach what historians have uncovered as the true experience of not only the powerful, but also the powerless in societies like ours where the success of some has always been based on the exploitation of others. Addressing these challenges requires a concerted effort on many levels to prioritize accurate historical accounts that reflect the complexities of Black history. Educators must actively seek out diverse sources and materials that provide a more nuanced perspective, offering students a well-rounded understanding of the African-American experience. We have to be willing to unlearn inaccuracies that we have been taught and to be open to what historians and modern activists are working hard to teach us. We have to seek out a new education ourselves so that we can accurately distill what our students need and deserve to know about our shared American and global history. At Peachtown, we have been using this month to feature various Black Americans who made contributions that our students might not be aware of. Every person we have shared did remarkable things and also broke social barriers, opening doors and providing a model for others to follow. Children have an innate sense of fairness, and they can easily identify with the need for a fair and equitable society. Black History Month is not the only time Black Americans should be highlighted; rather its a time to celebrate their myriad contributions and a reminder and an opportunity to dig deeper for truth and understanding so that we can move forward with an accurate understanding of what is at stake when we dont prioritize equality. As expected, New York state lawmakers have redrawn congressional district lines after rejecting a plan submitted by the Independent Redistricting Commission. What wasn't expected is they would keep the redistricting commission's proposed map for central New York. The 22nd Congressional District, which was one of 26 approved by the state Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul, is comprised of Onondaga and Madison counties, plus parts of Cayuga, Cortland and Oneida counties. The cities of Auburn, Cortland, Syracuse and Utica would be in the newly drawn district. The former 22nd district includes all of Onondaga, Madison and Oneida counties, along with a sliver of Oswego County. What will this map mean for the district's incumbent, Republican U.S. Rep. Brandon Williams? Will it help Democrats in their bid to win this central New York House seat? Here are four thoughts about the politics of this new map: More Democrats, but still winnable for Williams There are more Democrats in this new district. A rough tally finds there will be 30,000 more Democrats than Republicans in the new NY-22. In the current district, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 23,000, according to state Board of Elections figures. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, won the new 22nd district by double digits, 55.8% to 44.2%, over Donald Trump in 2020. This would appear to give Democrats an edge in this race. But two years ago, Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin won this district by two points, 51 to 49%, over Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. It will be a different electorate in 2024 it's a presidential year but the 2022 results should encourage Williams, R-Sennett, as he seeks a second term in Congress. Williams already has experience winning in a district with a Democratic enrollment advantage. He defeated Democratic candidate Francis Conole by more than 2,600 votes in the 2022 election. Who does it help in the Democratic primary? Four Democrats are vying to challenge Williams, including Jake Addington, a farmer from Oneida County, and Clemmie Harris, a former aide to Gov. David Paterson and a Utica University professor. However, the top two candidates in the race are Sarah Klee Hood, a DeWitt town councilor and Air Force veteran, and state Sen. John Mannion. When Klee Hood first ran for Congress in 2022, she had a strong showing in Madison and Oneida counties two counties that would remain part of the new 22nd district. She has already secured the Madison County Democratic Committee's endorsement in the race. Mannion, D-Geddes, has been endorsed by the Onondaga County Democratic Committee. He would also have the inside track to winning the party's endorsement in Cayuga County. He represented the city of Auburn and surrounding towns during his first state Senate term. He has maintained those ties, even as his state Senate district was redrawn and he no longer represented portions of the county. Cayuga County Democrats have held fundraisers for him since he launched his campaign for Congress. There has been analysis that the addition of Cayuga County, particularly Auburn, provides a big boost to Mannion's hopes of winning the primary election. But that ignores Klee Hood's strengths she has been the leading fundraiser and spender in the Democratic field and the support she has received in the past from the east end of the district. Klee Hood, like Mannion, has been able to connect with rural and suburban Democrats. She could win over Democratic voters in Cayuga County, even if she doesn't get the committee's support. No place like home For Williams, the new map takes one line of attack off the table that he doesn't live in his district. Williams lives in the town of Sennett, about two miles from the western edge of the current 22nd district. If legislators approve the new map, he will be a resident of the new 22nd district. Democrats have criticized Williams for not moving into the existing district, which he pledged to do during the 2022 campaign. He did not fulfill that promise, he says, because of the ongoing legal fight over the congressional districts in New York. CNY remains a battleground Since 2006, the Syracuse area has been home to a battleground House district. It will stay that way with this map. One thought was that Democrats in the state Legislature would draw a deep blue district in central New York. That did not happen. While lawmakers made changes to other districts in the state, mainly on Long Island and in the New York City area, they accepted the redistricting commission's version of NY-22. This year and in future elections, you can expect both parties will spend a lot of money to try and win this House seat. Press release Bureau of Land Management planners invite public input on an environmental assessment analyzing the potential opening of a 0.6-mile primitive road through a travel plan amendment that would provide legal public motorized and mechanized access to the Bullwhacker area of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. The EA and supporting documents are available on the e-Planning website for a 30-day public comment period Feb. 28 through March 28, 2024 at https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2030427/510. In 2023, the Square Butte Grazing Association and Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks finalized a Public Access Land Agreement through a private parcel along Cow Creek. The BLM proposes to open a 0.6-mile primitive road connecting the now publicly accessible road on private property with 51 miles of existing BLM roads in the Bullwhacker area. The road segment extends south from the private parcel to the Left Coulee Airstrip where it meets BLM road 241215. No engineered road-construction activities are proposed. The BLM is seeking substantive comments on the EA that will help refine the analysis prior to issuing a decision. Substantive comments are those that reasonably question the accuracy or adequacy of the information analyzed or present new and reasonable alternatives within the scope of the EA. Non-substantive comments are those that do not pertain to the project area, vote for an alternative, or agree or disagree with the analysis without sufficient rationale or justification. Comments may be submitted using the following methods: Electronic (preferred): BLM e-Planning https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/2030427/510 click on the green Participate Now button. U.S. Postal Service: Bureau of Land Management Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument ATTN: Left Coulee Access 920 NE Main Street Lewistown, MT 59457 Providing recreational opportunities is central to the BLMs mission to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. Lands within the monument are managed not only for outdoor recreation enthusiasts and other multiple uses within the BLMs mission, but also to preserve landscapes associated with Lewis and Clarks journey across the United States, the Nez Perce Trail, wilderness study areas, and wild and scenic rivers. Beijing (Gasgoo)- On February 26, Chery's EXEED brand kicked off pre-sale of the Yaoguang C-DM, touted as the "super comfortable plug-in hybrid flagship SUV." The pre-sale prices are as follows: the Long Range Plus at 172,800 yuan, the Long Range Pro at 182,800 yuan, the Ultra Long Range Pro at 202,800 yuan, and the Ultra Long Range Max at 222,800 yuan. Photo credit: EXEED The Yaoguang C-DM marks the debut model riding on EXEEDs M3X Super Hybrid | Native Hybrid Platform (referred to as the M3X Super Hybrid Platform). The model is set to be officially on the market in the first quarter. Built on Chery's 27 years of R&D experience, the M3X Super Hybrid Platform is made to be globalized and high-end. As the first model to ride on this platform, the Yaoguang C-DM was built with consideration of the layout of the battery, electric motor, and electric drive system from the outset, undergoing reliability tests in various global locations, including Indonesia, the Middle East, South America, Brazil, Germany, and China's Heilongjiang province. The entire vehicle's waterproof performance is three times that of national standards, with the battery pack waterproofing reaching 48 times the national standard, said EXEED. Moreover, the vehicle's battery and other components meet the ultra-wide temperature range requirement from as low as -35C to as high as 60C. Photo credit: EXEED The hybrid system of the Yaoguang C-DM comprises the fifth-generation ACTECO 1.5TGDI efficient hybrid engine, a three-speed super hybrid DHT, hybrid-specific batteries, and battery management systems. The engine's thermal efficiency exceeds 44.5%, and the two-wheel-drive model is equipped with dual electric drive motors, delivering a maximum total power of 270 kW and a maximum torque of 605 Nm. The four-wheel-drive model, equipped with three electric motors, achieves a maximum total power exceeding 400 kW and a maximum total torque exceeding 900 Nm, with a 0-100 km/h acceleration in the 4-second range. Photo credit: EXEED Featuring a maximum battery capacity of 34.46 kWh, the Yaoguang C-DM offers a WLTC-rated maximum battery-powered range of 160 km, enough for a week's commuting with just one charge. The WLTC-rated combined range of the vehicle reaches 1,343 km, with a real-time measured maximum range exceeding 1,418 km+. Additionally, fast charging replenishes 30%-80% of the battery in just 20 minutes. Photo credit: EXEED The Yaoguang C-DM comes equipped with configurations commonly find in luxury vehicles such as the CDC electromagnetic suspension system, Soft Stop system, chassis hydraulic vibration isolation system, and intelligent brake-by-wire system. Particularly noteworthy is its stability on various road conditions, ensuring a sense of stability during starts, braking, turns, and bumps. Furthermore, with the integration of the four major domains of the electronic electrical architecture, supporting OTA iterative capabilities, drivers can enjoy a consistently luxurious and comfortable driving experience. Montana enrollment at 54% of expected contracts Press release BOZEMAN Agricultural producers who have not yet enrolled in the Agriculture Risk Coverage or Price Loss Coverage programs for the 2024 crop year have until March 15, 2024, to revise elections and sign contracts. Both safety net programs, delivered by USDAs Farm Service Agency, provide vital income support to farmers who experience substantial declines in crop prices or revenues for the 2024 crop year. In Montana, producers have completed 13,448 contracts to date, representing 54% of the more than 20,000 expected contracts. Agriculture Risk Coverage or Price Loss Coverage programs provide excellent risk protection, for market declines, at no cost to the producer. While we always hope for strong markets, anyone involved in production agriculture knows, the only thing certain is uncertainty, said Maureen Wicks, state executive Director for FSA in Montana. Many producers may be holding off on making your program elections pending planting decisions or maybe youre working with a local advisor to consider how changes in the effective reference price might impact your election decisions. Please contact your local FSA county office as soon as possible to set an appointment so youre on the books well in advance of the March 15 deadline. Producers can elect coverage and enroll in ARC-County or PLC, which provide crop-by-crop protection, or ARC-Individual, which protects the entire farm. Although election changes for 2024 are optional, producers must enroll, with a signed contract, each year. If a producer has a multi-year contract on the farm, the contract will continue for 2024 unless an election change is made. If producers do not submit their election revision by the March 15, 2024, deadline, the election remains the same as their 2023 election for eligible commodities on the farm. Also, producers who do not complete enrollment and sign their contract by the deadline will not be enrolled in ARC or PLC for the 2024 year and will not receive a payment if one is triggered. Farm owners can only enroll in these programs if they have a share interest in the commodity. Producers are eligible to enroll farms with base acres for the following commodities: barley, canola, large and small chickpeas, corn, crambe, flaxseed, grain sorghum, lentils, mustard seed, oats, peanuts, dry peas, rapeseed, long grain rice, medium and short grain rice, safflower seed, seed cotton, sesame, soybeans, sunflower seed and wheat. Web-based decision tools Many universities offer web-based decision tools to help producers make informed, educated decisions using crop data specific to their respective farming operations. Producers are encouraged to use the tool of their choice to support their ARC and PLC elections. Crop insurance considerations Producers are reminded that enrolling in ARC or PLC programs can impact eligibility for some crop insurance products offered by USDAs Risk Management Agency. Producers who elect and enroll in PLC also have the option of purchasing Supplemental Coverage Option through their Approved Insurance Provider, but producers of covered commodities who elect ARC are ineligible for SCO on their planted acres. Unlike SCO, RMAs Enhanced Coverage Option is unaffected by participating in ARC for the same crop, on the same acres. You may elect ECO regardless of your farm program election. Upland cotton farmers who choose to enroll seed cotton base acres in ARC or PLC are ineligible for the stacked income protection plan, or STAX, on their planted cotton acres. More information For more information on ARC and PLC, producers can visit the ARC and PLC webpage online at https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/arcplc_program/index or contact their local USDA Service Center. Producers can also prepare maps for acreage reporting as well as manage farm loans and view other farm records data and customer information by logging into their farmers.gov account. People who dont have an account can sign up today. USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. Under the Biden-Harris administration, USDA is transforming Americas food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to safe, healthy and nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America. To learn more, people can visit https://usda.gov . Its also an extremely big relief to tell you that I wont be a leadership candidate in the partys next party conference, she communicated to reporters in Helsinki on Tuesday, according to Helsingin Sanomat . MINISTER of Education Anna-Maja Henriksson (SFP) on Tuesday announced she will relinquish the reins of the Swedish Peoples Party. Henriksson, who has led the almost perennial junior coalition partner since 2016, said the past couple of years have been hard. She served as minister of justice in the government that navigated the country through the coronavirus pandemic and led her party through a summer dominated by difficult coalition formation talks with the Finns Party. Its quite inhumane to face the kind of storm that Ive faced in recent weeks. Ive had a clear view that at some point Ill have to tell where my own limits are, she noted. Her announcement shifted into high gear what had been a budding leadership contest. Minister for European Affairs and Ownership Steering Anders Adlercreutz (SFP) on Tuesday announced he is at the partys disposal for the position, estimating that it would be in the partys best interest to make the leadership change in June, according to YLE. Both Henrik Wickstrom, the deputy chairperson of the Swedish Peoples Party, and Otto Andersson, the chairperson of the Swedish Peoples Parliamentary Group, said they are seriously considering vying for the position. Henriksson in January kindled an internal debate about her successor by announcing she would step down if she managed to win a seat in the upcoming elections to the European Parliament. On Tuesday, she attributed the subsequent unrest to a misunderstanding, clarifying that she did not say she would continue as chairperson if she was not elected to the European Parliament. Unfortunately my message was misinterpreted, she said. That wasnt a perfect performance from a communication perspective. She also said she wanted to postpone the leadership contest because, in the spring, the party has to both campaign for the European elections and wrangle with its coalition partners over fiscal adjustment. It is simply not optimal to have the leadership race occur concurrently. The European elections are at risk of being overshadowed, and that isnt a good thing. Hopefully that wont happen, she said. Henriksson did not conceal her disappointment with the fact that some party members have recently opted to criticise her through media rather than directly. It isnt particularly nice that you have discussions with reporters, but you dont bring up your opinions in the party government or party council, she lamented. My phone works every day, 24/7. Recent polls have exacerbated the turmoil within the Swedish Peoples Party. Helsingin Sanomat reported last week that the party registered its lowest approval rating ever, 3.6 per cent, in February. Party secretary Frederik Guseff admitted yesterday that the poll results may have contributed to the uncertainty and turbulence surrounding the party. Helsingin Sanomats two latest polls have been especially bad. We have to take this serious, he stressed to the newspaper. Guseff also said the party will decide on when to hold its party conference in the near future. Aleksi Teivainen HT Hakkarainen, who won a seat in the European Parliament in 2019 after three terms in the Finnish Parliament, revealed that he has been asked to run in the elections by a number of his party comrades. TEUVO HAKKARAINEN (PS) on Monday announced he intends to seek another term in the European Parliament. The populist right-wing party, however, has no intention of nominating him, party secretary Harri Vuorenpaa stated to Keskisuomalainen earlier on Monday. Hakkarainen, he added, has been aware of the plan not to nominate him as a candidate. The justifications are an internal party matter that we wont be sharing in public, he said to the regional newspaper. Vuorenpaa told YLE later on Monday that he will not comment further on the issue. I have nothing else to comment on the matter. Other than Teuvo Hakkarainen wont be a Finns Party candidate in the European elections, he retorted. He attributed the apparent disconnect between the party and the aspiring candidate to a misunderstanding. Hakkarainen is responsible for drafting his own press releases and doing his own communication. Our message is that he wont be a candidate, and hes been aware of that, he added to the public broadcasting company. The Finns Party, he stressed, nominates its candidates based on its own rules, with the nominations then confirmed by the party council. Ari Koponen and Sebastian Tynkkynen have already been confirmed as candidates for the upcoming elections, in which populist and far-right parties are widely expected to make gains. Hakkarainen said he refuses to accept the decision, however. The Finns Party, he claimed, has had the tradition of always nominating its current Members of Parliament, be they in Finland or Brussels. Then they come out with this kind of an announcement. Im very baffled by it, he said to YLE. Im baffled at how the decision was made and what are the underlying reasons. They have to have strong justification for the decision. My line hasnt changed, but has the partys line changed? He added that he believes he has performed his duties well in the European Parliament, especially in the domain of forest policy. Aleksi Teivainen HT Beijing (Gasgoo)- Chery's EXEED brand recently initiated its first large-scale Over-the-Air (OTA) update for the STERRA ES model, introducing over 60 feature enhancements across various dimensions including intelligent driving, smart cabin, interactive systems, and intelligent chassis. Photo credit: EXEED The STERRA ESs intelligent driving system integrates more than 30 perception hardware components such as millimeter-wave radar, ultrasonic radar, LiDAR, and a 360-degree high-definition camera. Equipped with Chery's third-generation intelligent driving technology, Chery Pilot 3.0, and powered by two NVIDIA DRIVE Orin chips boasting 508 TOPS of computing power. The focus of this OTA update lies in advanced intelligent driving functionalities, notably the Navigater Exeed Pilot (NEP) high-speed navigation-assisted driving and automatic parking assistance (APA). NEP's high-speed navigation assistance enables nationwide coverage of nearly 400,000 kilometers of expressways and urban elevated roads. The STERRA ES now offers proactive lane change prompts and automatic lane changes to avoid missing exits. Additionally, it autonomously maneuvers to avoid obstacles and maintains safe distances from adjacent vehicles, enhancing both safety and efficiency during highway driving. Moreover, the updated APA feature, accessible via voice command or the in-car parking app, utilizes vehicle perimeter sensors to scan and monitor parking spaces in real-time, eliminating blind spots and reducing the risk of parking accidents. Beijing (Gasgoo)- On February 27, DeepWay, the smart new energy truck developer supported by Baidu, handed over 100 vehicles to Guoke Zhiyun (Shandong) New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., primarily for use in logistics arteries such as the Linyi Modern Logistics Park and the route from Linyi Port to Qingdao Port. Photo credit: DeepWay DeepWays intelligent new energy heavy-duty truck, the Shenxiang Xingchen, upon its debut, swiftly captured the market with its low operating costs, minimal energy consumption, excellent power compatibility, and intelligent features, becoming a suitable intelligent new energy heavy-duty truck for trunkline logistics. Compared to traditional heavy-duty trucks with a drag coefficient of up to 0.65, the DeepWay Shenxiang Xingchen boasts a coefficient of just 0.35. This significantly reduces energy consumption for customers in actual operation. Additionally, the vehicle's unique distributed drive system can achieve a maximum electric drive efficiency of 94%, leading to at least a 14% improvement in energy conversion efficiency compared to central centralized drive systems, said DeepWay. Moreover, the integration of the battery and chassis, as well as the vehicle's front design increases the effective cargo volume rate by 9.6%, enabling customers to secure larger cargo space and transportation profits. Based on road test data of over 1,100 kilometers from Beijing to Shanghai, the vehicle saves 10% in electricity consumption compared to traditional oil-to-electric models, with a 22% increase in charging efficiency. Furthermore, DeepWay, through its cockpit SOA, open V2X platform, and cloud algorithm capabilities, transforms vehicles into intelligent operational terminals, achieving decoupling between humans and vehicles. DeepWay provides vehicle and driver management services for logistics enterprises, enabling them to manage fleets through intensive and engineered systems rather than relying on self-management by drivers, ultimately enhancing management efficiency and reducing logistics transportation costs. Last week, the Arakan Army (AA) an ethnic armed organisation based in western Myanmar captured a police station just outside Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, as part of its ongoing war against the ruling military regime. Reports suggest the AA is close to seizing the entire city from junta forces. Sittwe, situated at the mouth of the Kaladan river is the location of a deep sea port developed and funded by India. It was inaugurated less than a year ago by Indias Union minister for ports, shipping and waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, and his junta counterpart, Admiral Tin Aung San. In January, the AA occupied Paletwa, another important town upriver from Sittwe located in southern Chin State, just north of the interstate border with Rakhine. Paletwa is home to an India-funded inland water terminal on the Kaladan river. Both the Sittwe seaport and Paletwa river terminal are part of a single mega-project financed by New Delhi, known as the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit and Transport Project (KMMTTP). The KMMTTP was supposed to be Indias crown jewel in Myanmar. Today, it remains stuck in a bottomless abyss of conflict and uncertainty. But, what exactly is the KMMTTP? And why did India come up with this project? New thinking By the turn of this millennium, India had embarked on two goals: building a working relationship with the military regime in Myanmar to protect its own interests; and forging new links with Southeast Asian economies to expand its geoeconomic footprint. The Look East Policy (LEP), launched by the PV Narasimha Rao government in 1991, fueled both these impulses. A third imperative emerged during the early 2000s the economic development of Northeast India. The idea was to open up the landlocked region to new markets and supply chains. This was partly driven by the need to subdue the regions many ethnic insurgencies, which New Delhi thought could be achieved through economic development and market integration. All of these dovetailed into a seemingly path-breaking idea: giving maritime access to Northeast India through western Myanmar using a semi-circular west-to-east route. A south-to-north route via Bangladesh, which opens up to the Bay of Bengal, would have been shorter. But, because Dhaka refused to provide port access to India, New Delhi had to settle for an alternative, although more complicated route, through western Myanmar. Rakhine was also a strategic choice. China had its eyes on the coastal Myanmar state, which offered both critical maritime access and offshore oil and gas drilling potential. India, therefore, had to establish a competitive footprint. New horizons In 2007, the Burmese junta violently crushed pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks. Indias response was mute, much to the chagrin of activists in Myanmar. It soon became clear why. One year later, New Delhi signed a framework agreement with Naypyidaw to get the KMMTTP going. Business, not democracy thats what India sought in Myanmar. The plan was ambitious to build an economic corridor over land and water from West Bengal to Mizoram through Myanmars Rakhine and Chin states. Goods were to leave Kolkatas Haldia port by ship, travel some 539 km across the sea to Sittwe, then snake up northward for about 158 km on the Kaladan river to Paletwa in Chin state, and finally, travel further north on a 109 km road to Zorinpui in southern Mizoram, near the international border. The whole project route is about 806 km long. In 2010, both sides jointly laid the projects foundation stone. But, work was slow. It took India six years to build just the river terminal in Paletwa and another four years to finalise the contract for the Sittwe Port. It was only in 2023, 15 years after the agreement was signed, that India officially flagged off operations on the Sittwe Port, that too in the middle of a civil war. The final leg the road from Paletwa to Zorinpui remains incomplete. The building of the KMMTTP has not just been painfully slow, but also very costly. As per the 2008 agreement, India was to spend some $110 million (around 994 crore today) on the project through a mix of direct financing and loans. But, current estimates hover somewhere around $484 million ( 4011 crores) - a nearly 350% jump. That is a lot of money to spend on a connectivity project that wasnt just geographically unwieldy from the start but has also begun to look economically unviable. New future? One reason why India invested in a longer go-around route through Myanmar to open up its Northeast was Bangladeshs reluctance to share coastal access. That is, however, no longer the case. Last April, the Sheikh Hasina government announced that it would give India access to the Chittagong and Mongla ports for cargo transhipment. In fact, in 2020, India did a transhipment dry run from Kolkatas Haldia port to Chittagong. From there, the cargo was ferried overland to Tripura in Northeast India. A faster multi-modal alternative to KMMTTP had emerged. So, is the KMMTTP even worth it anymore? Add to this the continuing instability in Myanmar, which is unlikely to end anytime soon. Even if the junta is replaced, Rakhine and Chin states will continue to be volatile because of contesting interests and territorial claims between various powerful actors, such as the AA and Chin National Front. It is also likely that China will continue to dig its heels deeper into western Myanmar. This calls for a countervailing Indian presence. Would New Delhi be able to do so while also limiting cost overruns, maintaining local goodwill and navigating a fractured security-scape? That is a question that New Delhi needs to confront head-on before its too late. Angshuman Choudhury is an Associate Fellow with the Centre for Policy Research and focuses on Northeast India and Myanmar. The views expressed are personal. Capricorn (22nd December to 19th January) Daily Horoscope Prediction says, You know to control emotions Go for smart decisions in love. Professional success also paves the way for career growth. Minor financial issues exist while health is perfectly normal today. Capricorn Daily Horoscope Today, February 29, 2024: Go for smart decisions in love. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Handle relationship issues with a mature attitude. You may take up new responsibilities which will also enhance your professional knowledge. Financial issues will impact routine life. Health will be good throughout the day. Capricorn Love Horoscope Today Your love life will be mostly trouble-free today. Be sensitive to the demands of your lover and also pamper your partner. Maintain a proper harmony in the love life and this will also give opportunities to share emotions. You may also get back into an old relationship as the ex-flame may be back into life. Today is also good to decide on the future. Married females may also conceive. Long-distance relationships would need more conversations and make video calls today. Capricorn Career Horoscope Today Settle the issues at work with a positive attitude. Be cool even while at tense times and utilize communication skills at the negotiation table. Business developers, marketing persons, aviation professionals, and lawyers will travel today. Authors may get their books published while students will clear the examination. Businessmen can be serious about the expansion of partnerships. You can also experiment with new strategies as they will prove to be successful. Capricorn Money Horoscope Today No major monetary issue will trouble you. However, the inflow of wealth will also be not satisfactory. Some previous investments may not work out. You will also need to raise money for business reasons. Females may need to contribute to a celebration at the office. Some students will require money for admission to a professional course. You may also resolve an existing monetary dispute with a friend or relative. Capricorn Health Horoscope Today Start the day with mild exercise or yoga. This will help you keep your mind composed. The Capricorns with anxiety-related issues can start attending a yoga or meditation program. You may also try hitting the gym. Females may have oral health issues while male Capricorns will develop cough-related problems. Try to munch on healthy and baked snacks and stay away from deep-fried snacks. Capricorn Sign Attributes Strength: Intelligent, Practical, Trustworthy, Generous, Optimistic Intelligent, Practical, Trustworthy, Generous, Optimistic Weakness: Persistent, Stubborn, Suspicious Persistent, Stubborn, Suspicious Symbol: Goat Goat Element: Earth Earth Body Part: Bones & Skin Bones & Skin Sign Ruler: Saturn Saturn Lucky Day: Saturday Saturday Lucky Color : Grey : Grey Lucky Number : 4 : 4 Lucky Stone: Amethyst Capricorn Sign Compatibility Chart Natural affinity: Taurus, Virgo, Scorpio, Pisces Good compatibility: Cancer, Capricorn Fair compatibility: Gemini, Leo, Sagittarius, Aquarius Less compatibility: Aries, Libra By: Dr. J. N. Pandey Vedic Astrology & Vastu Expert Website: https://www.cyberastro.com E-mail: caresponse@cyberastro.com Phone: 9717199568, 9958780857 Aspires to be a globally benchmarked Design school. To leverage collaborations with Aalto University, Finland, ranked #6 in the world for art & design by QS, and the School of Design, RMIT, Melbourne. BITS Pilani, one of the first private universities to be awarded the status of Institution of Eminence by the Government of India, today announced a foray into Design Education with the launch of BITS Design School (BITSDES). The future-focused design school is modelled on top global design institutes and is being set up in Mumbai. BITS Design school will uniquely combine Technology, Business, and Entrepreneurship, core elements of the BITS DNA with the creative arts to nurture a new generation of future ready Design professionals poised to contribute actively to India's aspiration to be a developed nation by 2047. Graduates will be equipped with a set of transdisciplinary and in demand competencies, to take on C-Suite positions as they grow in their careers. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chancellor, BITS Pilani said, Design is increasingly pivotal in addressing the complexities of the new age. From manufacturing to services, and retail to technology, design is shaping the future of how businesses approach problem-solving and innovation. BITS Design School will reimagine design education with a bold, trans-disciplinary, competency based approach, and embrace avenues where design can positively impact people, businesses, and the world. BITS Pilani, with its rich legacy of academic excellence and trans-disciplinary thinking, is uniquely positioned to do this. And in the process, we will nurture a new generation of leaders who will use design to create value and solve problems for a better world. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. BITS Design School will introduce a four-year, residential, Bachelor of Design (Honours) programme in the academic year 2024-25, followed by a Masters Degree programme and a Faculty Development programme for Design Educators over the next two years. Admissions open on 26 Feb 2024 for the founding class who will be taught by international visiting faculty and a marquee Indian faculty trained at the top Design schools in the world. In the second year of the programme, students can choose from the five streams offered for specialisation Physical Product Design, Digital Product Design (UI/UX), Human Centred Design, Experience Design, and Visual Design. With a strong international focus, BITSDES has as advisors, legends from the world of designDon Norman, founding director of the Design Lab and author of the bestselling Design of Everyday Things, Sandy Speicher, former CEO of IDEO, headquartered at San Francisco, Biju Dominic, chief evangelist at New York and Mumbai based Fractal and CEO, FinalMile Consulting, and John Thackara, author, professor, and curator of The Doors of Perception the celebrated design conference in the Netherlands. The BITS Design School curriculum has been co-designed and will be reviewed annually by Aalto University, Finland, ranked #6 globally in the field of Art & Design according to QS. The collaboration with Aalto University also covers freemover student exchange. BITS Pilani has a partnership with RMIT University in Australia. BITS Design School and the RMIT School of Design are working together to identify future collaboration opportunities. BITSDES faculty is signing up to participate in the training and mentorship connected to the Teaching & Learning Studio at the Hasso Plattner School of Design at Stanford University. BITSDES students will gain access to and benefit from the 1,80,000+ BITS Pilani Alumni Network spanning 55 Countries, one of the strongest and most illustrious networks of industry leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. A dedicated career support office will facilitate students preparedness, exposure, and access to leading Design firms, corporations, banks, NGOs, and research organizations. A world class fully residential permanent campus will house BITS Design School, BITS School of Management, and BITS Law School. It is being built over 63 acres in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region with state-of-the-art infrastructure, and the endeavour is to make it a zero-carbon footprint campus over time. While the permanent campus will be operational in early 2025, BITS Design School will commence its first academic session in August 2024 out of the interim campus in Powai, Mumbai. Meritorious students will receive generous scholarships to enable access and ensure diversity of the cohort. About BITS Pilani: BITS Pilani is an Institution of national repute, known for providing technical, management, and legal education of the highest standards and is well recognized for its innovations, and strong links with industry. It is consistently ranked as the best private engineering & technology institution by leading ranking agencies and publications. MHRD, Govt. of India, in August 2018 announced BITS Pilani as one of the first six Institutions of Eminence in the country. It is one of the few universities that has created an institutionalized framework for achieving a vibrant environment that successfully inculcates an ambience for experiential and cooperative learning and education. BITS Pilani views education as a continual engagement and experience and ensures that the learning experience is integrated seamlessly not only across its classrooms and laboratories, but also in the industry, as exemplified by its Practice School, and Work Integrated Learning Programmes. Disclaimer: This article is a paid publication and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of Hindustan Times. Hindustan Times does not endorse/subscribe to the content(s) of the article/advertisement and/or view(s) expressed herein. Hindustan Times shall not in any manner, be responsible and/or liable in any manner whatsoever for all that is stated in the article and/or also with regard to the view(s), opinion(s), announcement(s), declaration(s), affirmation(s) etc., stated/featured in the same. Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], February 28: Sugee Group, one of the leading real estate developers of Mumbai, has marked yet another milestone in its journey by successfully delivering homes well before its scheduled time to 160+ families at its 23-storeyed premium residential development project Sugee Atharva located in Dadar West, Mumbai. As a hallmark of Sugee Groups commitment to timely delivery for homebuyers, the keys of the residences were handed over to the homebuyers at the hands of Maharashtra Bhushan and an ace Actor Shri Ashok Saraf. Celebrated actresses such as Ms. Sonali Bendre and Ms Nivedita Saraf graced the occasion with their glittering presence. Leading Marathi film actors Mr. Siddharth Chandekar and Ms. Mitali Mayekar were also present as anchors of the event. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Shri Nishant Deshmukh, Founder and Managing Partner of Sugee Group said, We are delighted to hand over one more redevelopment project successfully to our prestigious homebuyers well before the completion schedule. At Sugee Group, timely delivery is the most powerful assurance we give to every homebuyer. It is a testimony of our systematic, transparent, and no-surprise approach to our legacy of over three decades in Mumbais real estate development. We are emotionally invested in each project we undertake and strive hard to deliver homes under strict quality and regulatory compliances promptly. This celebratory evening was based on the theme Naata Vishwasacha which signifies a relationship of trust. Renowned actors Ashok Saraf and Nivedita Saraf shared their heartwarming home-buying journey, emphasizing the significance of home in our daily lives. Gracing the event with her presence, Sonali Bendre eloquently expressed her vision of a perfect home and felicitated the dedication of our construction team. Siddharth Chandekar and Mitali Mayekar flawlessly weaved the evening together. The mesmerizing dance performance also touched the hearts of homebuyers in particular. From personalized nameplates to pottery-making sessions and beautiful plants, every token of appreciation served as a reminder of the cherished memories waiting to be created within these new walls.As each homeowner departed with a Sugee bag adorned with Paithanis and a Sanskruti book, they carried with them not just keys, but the promise of a life filled with love, laughter, and a lifetime of cherished memories at Sugee Atharva. Celebrated actresses Ms. Sonali Bendre graced the occasion with her glittering presence. Shri Ashok Saraf welcomed the families to Sugee Parivaar and complimented them on their new homes. He lauded Sugee Groups efforts to strike an emotional bond with the homebuyers and following timely deliveries as a professional commitment. Sugee Atharva is one of the marquee tower residential projects of Sugee Group located in Dadar, crafted with spacious 1 and 2-bedroom homes built for a balanced living. Sugee Group's remarkable achievement was possible because of their expert construction team members and their strenuous efforts, adherence to protocols, utilization of top-quality materials and advanced techniques have contributed to making the home truly exceptional in quality. Sugee Group is also actively engaged in community welfare and development activities such as beach cleaning, plastic collection, a walk-for-oceans, whereby it has demonstrated its commitment towards ecology and society. https://www.sugeegroup.com/ Disclaimer: This article is a paid publication and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of Hindustan Times. Hindustan Times does not endorse/subscribe to the content(s) of the article/advertisement and/or view(s) expressed herein. Hindustan Times shall not in any manner, be responsible and/or liable in any manner whatsoever for all that is stated in the article and/or also with regard to the view(s), opinion(s), announcement(s), declaration(s), affirmation(s) etc., stated/featured in the same. The Dubai government plans to sell a 25% stake in the citys public parking business in an initial public offering, pushing ahead with a privatization plan to boost its capital markets. A man and a child ride a personal watercraft near the Dubai skyline featuring the landmark Burj Khalifa skyscraper, the worlds tallest building, on February 13, 2024. (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP) The Dubai Investment Fund will sell 749.7 million shares in Parkin, according to a statement. Subscription period will open on March 5 and is expected to close March 12. The bookbuilding period for institutional investors will close on March 13. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Parkins IPO comes about two months after Dubai raised $315 million from the listing of the citys taxi business. The share sales are part of a plan unveiled at the end of 2021 to list 10 state-owned companies to boost trading volumes and match similar drives in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. Since then the emirate has sold stakes in five companies, raising about $8.6 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Emirates Investment Authority and Pensions and Social Security Fund of Local Military Personnel will each have 5% of the offering reserved for them. Parkin said it plans to pay a minimum dividend for the full fiscal year of 2024 of either 100% of the profit or free cash flow to equity, whichever is higher. The energy-rich Persian Gulf has been in the midst of an IPO boom for the last two years as governments listed state-owned companies to raise funds for a post-oil era. High crude prices and heightened international investor interest have also contributed to the IPO wave. Emirates NBD Capital, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc are joint global coordinators for Parkins IPO, while Rothschild & Co. is an independent financial advisor. Nita Ambani, founder and chairperson of Reliance Foundation, is likely to head the entity formed upon the merger of Viacom 18 and Sony India, the media assets in the country of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and the US-based Walt Disney Company, respectively, according to reports. Nita Ambani (left) is the chairperson and founder of Reliance Foundation which is the philanthropic arm of her husband, Mukesh Ambanis (right) Reliance Industries Limited. (File Photo) Ambani's spouse is billionaire and RIL chairperson Mukesh Ambani, who is among the wealthiest individuals in the world; Reliance Foundation is one of several wholly-owned subsidiaries of Reliance Industries. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Additionally, Bodhi Tree, a joint venture between British-American businessman James Murdoch and ex-Disney top executive Uday Shankar, will hold a 9% stake in the merged entity, with Disney holding around 40%, and RIL the remaining 51%, as per the reports. Further, Bodhi Tree promoter Shankar, is likely to be the vice-chairperson of the Viacom18-Sony India joint venture. While plans could change, an official announcement on the deal is likely on Wednesday, the reports added. Unable to comment on media speculation On Tuesday, meanwhile, RIL, a Mumbai-based oil-to-retail conglomerate, issued a statement over reports of a binding merger pact having been signed between the two sides. We would like to clarify that we are unable to comment on media speculation and it would be inappropriate on our part to do so, the company mentioned in a press release. The company evaluates various opportunities on an ongoing basis. Further, there is no information which has not been announced to the stock exchanges and which should have been announced by the company in terms of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, the release stated. (With Reuters inputs) WASHINGTONThe U.S. Supreme Court on Monday heard oral arguments in two key legal cases that could have significant implications for the First Amendment and the ability to exercise speech freely on the internet. Both cases involve NetChoice, a tech industry group. The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) is another trade association representing several of the same members of NetChoice (e.g., Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta Platforms, Google and Elon Musk's X). The two trade associations are co-plaintiffs in the two cases, NetChoice & CCIA v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice & CCIA. Larry Walters, a First Amendment attorney specializing in adult industry clients, told AVN that these cases have "the potential to result in a landmark decision establishing the First Amendment rights of online platforms and the limits to state regulation of social media sites." He added: "We remain hopeful that the Court maintains the existing injunctions against these laws and issues an opinion strongly supporting First Amendment rights." Walters also serves as general counsel for the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. Woodhull was party to an amicus brief filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and other civil society groups in support of NetChoice. Republican-controlled state legislatures in Florida and Texas adopted laws to regulate the firms behind social media websites by barring them from self-moderating and deplatforming accounts that violate their terms and conditions. Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, said in a statement he forwarded to AVN that these laws are troublesome. "These laws were never serious policy proposals; instead, the legislatures simply wanted to signal to voters that they hated 'Big Tech,'" said Goldman. He explained that the high court should rule that these laws are in violation of the First Amendment. "Based on long-standing Supreme Court precedent (the Reno v. ACLU case from 1997), the laws clearly violate the First Amendment in several ways," he posited. "Has the Supreme Court's interpretation of the First Amendment changed in the intervening 27 years? If it has, [state] legislatures can and will enact censorship laws that will completely change how the internet works." House Bill 20 was adopted by the Texas state legislature during the 2021 legislative session. The state legislature in Florida adopted Senate Bill 7072, which gave similar regulatory authority to Florida officials that House Bill 20 gave Texas officials. Challenges to Florida and Texas social media regulations have been reviewed by appeals circuits after local federal district courts heard arguments from plaintiffs and defendants for and against the constitutional claims central to the debate. A panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which covers Texas, declared that House Bill 20 was constitutional. However, a panel at the Eleventh Circuit covering Florida declared Senate Bill 7072 unconstitutional. This led to the dispute in the case law and the need for clarification by the Supreme Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for one, came down on the side of NetChoice and CCIA in Monday's hearing. "The concept that the government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment," said Kavanaugh, a conservative appointee of former President Donald Trump. In light of this and similar statements Kavanaugh made throughout the oral arguments, some pundits have pointed to the controversial justice as the one who could "save the internet." "You want him casting the decisive vote. You even want him writing the Courts opinion. Free speech on the internet needs saving, and, like it or not, hes the man for the job," opined Corbin Barthold, an attorney serving as internet policy counsel for the civil libertarian think tank TechFreedom, in a column for The Daily Beast. AVN first reported on the United States government submitting an amicus in the NetChoice cases in August 2023. "Our cases serve as a reminder that the United States is an exceptional country," said Chris Marchese, NetChoice litigation director. "The First Amendment not only protects free speech, free expression, and free thought from government interference. It does so unapologetically." The conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal, often critical of large technology companies, published an editorial board column Sunday supporting NetChoice and CCIA. Bharti Enterprises Founder and Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Wednesday became the first Indian citizen to be conferred an honorary Knighthood by Britains King Charles III for services to UK and India business relations. Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises Ltd(Bloomberg) In a list of honorary British awards unveiled by the UK Cabinet Office, Mittal receives a KBE under the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire one of the highest honours conferred by a British monarch. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The 66-year-old entrepreneur said in a statement that he was deeply humbled by the gracious recognition from King Charles. The UK and India have historical relations, which are now entering a new era of increased cooperation and collaboration. I remain committed to working towards strengthening the economic and bilateral trade relationships between our two great nations, Mittal said. I am thankful to the government of the UK, whose support and keen attention to the needs of business has been critical in making the country an attractive investment destination, he said. The KBE, conferred for a pre-eminent contribution in any field of activity, is awarded in an honorary capacity to foreign nationals. While the Knighthood conferred on UK nationals gives them the title of Sir or Dame, non-UK nationals awarded the honour add KBE (or DBE for women) after their name. Previous Indian recipients of the Honorary KBE include Ratan Tata (2009), Ravi Shankar (2001) and Jamshed Irani (1997), conferred by the late Queen Elizabeth II. The investiture ceremony will be conducted by the British High Commissioner to India at a later date, when he will formally hand over the royal insignia to Mittal. The honour recognises Bharti Enterprises work within the India-UK space, including with the UK government in the field of satellites. Sunil Bharti Mittal led the revival of OneWeb (now Eutelsat), leading a consortium with the UK government and other strategic investors to offer satellite broadband services globally, a company statement notes. Mittal has a strong connection with the UK, as a member of the India-UK CEO Forum and has previously been awarded the Honorary Doctor of Civil Law from Newcastle University and an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Leeds. He is also a member of the Vice Chancellors Circle of Advisors at the University of Cambridge. Additionally, Sunil Bharti Mittal has served on the Governing Body of the London Business School (LBS) and as a Member of the India Advisory Group at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). In 2019, Bhartis Airtel Africa was listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. The Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party held a massive protest in Bengalurus Vidhana Soudha on Wednesday accusing the Congress of being an anti-national party after a few followers of Rajya Sabha member Syed Nasir Hussain allegedly raised pro-Pakistan slogans after his victory on Tuesday. Pakistan Zindabad row: Karnataka BJP takes to streets, corners Congress govt Also Read - True nationalists are Congressmen...BJP never took part in freedom struggle: Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. However, the Congress refuted the claims and said the BJP was only trying to spread misinformation to create chaos in the state. Karakala Sunil, the senior BJP MLA from Karakala, led the protest on Wednesday by holding a national flag and demanding the Congress to sack Hussain from the party. They started marching towards Vidhana Soudha from the residence of the MLA and raised slogans against the Siddaramaiah-led Congress party. Meanwhile, CM Siddaramaiah said the videos telecasted by the local media channels are sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) and they are waiting for the report. If the FSL report confirms that Pakistan Zindabad slogans are uttered in the video, there is no way that we are going to spare the culprits. But even before the report is out, the BJP is only trying to create communal tensions once again. How did the issue start? On Tuesday night, when Congress Syed Nasir Hussain was declared the winner in the Rajya Sabha polls, a few videos surfaced, which were telecasted on local media channels. In the videos, the supporters of Hussain were seen shouting Pakistan Zindabad with loud claps. However, Hussain immediately clarified that some supporters shouted slogans like 'Nasir Hussain Zindabad', 'Nasir Sahab Zindabad, ' Congress Party Zindabad, and not Pakistan Zindabad. The BJP unit in Karnataka has also filed a complaint against Hussian at the Vidhana Soudha Police Station. Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar slammed the Congress party for allowing such things to happen in the presence of their party leader. He wrote, The supporters of this Cong MP are shouting inside the Vidhana Soudha building after his election Pakistan Zindabad. Shameless and dangerous appeasement politics of Rahuls Cong - even as he on his Bharat Thodo Yatra The Madhya Pradesh Cabinet will hold a meeting in Ayodhya on March 4 after all the ministers of the state including chief minister Mohan Yadav visit the Ram Temple in the city, an official said. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav. (File) Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders will also accompany the cabinet ministers to Ayodhya. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The state government had decided to organise a Cabinet meeting in Ayodhya in February, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed to minister and MLAs not to visit the temple for better crowd management. The statue of Ram Lala was consecrated in the temple on January 22 this year. The ministers and officers will go to Ayodhya on March 4 where the cabinet meeting will be held, public relation department commissioner Sandeep Yadav told media persons. : The Punjab and Haryana high court has sought response from the Central government on a public interest litigation (PIL) flagging the defence ministrys policy on HC seeks Centres reply on PIL flagging MoDs policy on mass litigation against disabled soldiers challenging mass litigation against grant of disability benefits to disabled personnel. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The high court bench of justice GS Sandhawalia and justice Lapita Banerji has sought response by July 6. As per the plea, the decision to challenge high court and other forums orders was based on the Armys Judge Advocate Generals (JAG) advice in this regard. The PIL filed by President of Ex-Services Grievances Cell, Mohali, colonel Sadhu Singh Sohi (retd), had stated that the new policy of the ministry of defence (MoD) and JAG to flood the courts with en masse, unethical, damaging and unnecessary litigation against disabled soldiers and old pensioners would burden the exchequer and disabled soldiers. Pursuant to prime ministers intervention, the MoD has already withdrawn appeals from the Supreme Court in 2019 but is now flooding the courts again with exactly similar cases, it states. The PIL points out that it had been decided by the government that only those verdicts would be challenged which involve disabilities due to negligence, intoxication or substance-abuse and that stress and strain of military service affects the health and longevity of soldiers. The apex court had also ruled that benefit of doubt is to be given to soldiers disabilities irrespective of the manner of exit from service or whether the disabilities have occurred in peace or field areas, the plea says, adding that thousand odd appeals filed by the MoD against disabled soldiers were dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2014. A high level panel had came down heavily on the Army and MoD for indulging in ego-fuelled litigation following this development. But after in 2023, a series of coercive orders were passed by Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) against MoD officials for not complying with judgments for years together, this policy has been notified whereby all orders passed in favour of disabled veterans, are being challenged, it further underlines. ... JAG officials have taken opinion of senior law officers to initiate such litigation without informing them the correct legal position and practical realities of the tough conditions of service of soldiers and also hiding past government decisions taken to withdraw such litigation, it claims, adding that the ministries such as the ministry of finance have taken appreciable steps to curtail litigation but the MoD remains unaffected and is bent upon washing-out the efforts undertaken by the other ministries and would result in clogging of the justice delivery system. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday refuted reports of him resigning from the post, saying that he has not tendered his resignation and will prove majority in the House. Chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu (centre) along with deputy chief minister Mukesh Agnihotri (right) addressing mediapersons during the Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha budget session in Shimla on Wednesday. (Deepak Sansta/HT) Sukhu, while speaking to the media in Shimla on Wednesday, said that no one from his party has asked for his resignation. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Neither anyone asked for my resignation nor have I presented my resignation to anyone. We will prove the majority. We will win, the people of Himachal will win, Sukhu said. Also read: On Himachal crisis, Cong indicates at stern steps: Individuals not important Sukhu said that he will not get scared and expressed his determination to ensure that the Congress will remain in power. I am not someone who will get scared and I can say this with guarantee that the Congress is going to win when the Budget will be presented. The budget will be passed today. The BJP is spreading rumours of my resignation. The Congress is united, he added. The Himachal CM also claimed that some of the six MLAs who cross-voted in Tuesdays Rajya Sabha election are in touch with him. The BJP is spreading rumours of my resignation. They want to create a break in the legislative party. They want Congress MLAs to leave the party and join them. The Congress is united. Some of the MLAs who voted for the BJP are in our contact, Sukhu said. The Congress government in the state faces a crisis after six MLAs crossed sides and are learnt to be in touch with the BJP. The Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 in the 68-member state assembly. The remaining three seats are held by independents. Meanwhile, Vidhan Sabha Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania suspended 15 BJP MLAs for misbehaviour and adjourned the House. The state budget is pending approval in the assembly and the BJP, with the help of Congress rebels, is ensuring that the budget is not passed and is seeking a division of votes. Congress rushes Hooda, Shivakumar to Shimla to defuse crisis The Congress has deputed former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Karnataka deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar to resolve the political crisis in Himachal Pradesh. Hooda on Wednesday skipped the Haryana assembly session, citing urgent work. A communication in this regard was sent to the Speaker by the Congress Legislature Party leader. Sources said that Hooda and Shivakumar flew together to Shimla in the afternoon. Shivakumar, who is the party observer for Himachal Pradesh, posted on X: As per the directions of the Congress high command, I am reaching Himachal Pradesh. Also there is absolutely no need to indulge in any hearsay, as I am confident that Congress party legislators will be loyal to the party and stay put with the mandate that has been accorded to them. He hit out at the BJP, accusing it of attempting to crush democracy. However, what should be questioned and worrisome is the extremes to which BJP is going in terms of acquiring power, deliberately attempting to crush democracy and public mandate in the process, Shivakumar added. In fresh trouble for the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, Vikramaditya Singh, a state minister and the son of the former chief minister Virbhadra Singh, on Wednesday stepped down from his post. A Delhi court on Wednesday convicted Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Prakash Jarwal and his aides Kapil Nagar and Harish in a case of abetment to suicide, filed against them in connection with the suicide of a South Delhi doctor. AAP MLA Prakash Jarwal with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. (Facebook Photo) Special judge MK Nagpal convicted Jarwal, MLA from Deoli, and Nagar under sections 306 (abetment of suicide), 34 (common intention), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation), 511 (attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The court convicted Harish under part one of section 506 of the IPC. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Jarwal and Nagar face a maximum punishment of 10 years imprisonment, while Harish faces a prison term of a maximum of two years. The court will hear the arguments on the quantum of sentence on March 16. Speaking to the media persons outside the court, Jarwal said, There is nothing in the entire case... I have faith in the judiciary, and I will challenge the conviction before the high court where everything gets crystal clear. Hemant Singh, son of Dr Rajender Singh, had alleged in the complaint that his father supplied water through tankers since 2005 but Jarwal and Nagar constantly harassed him for money. Dr Singh (52) killed himself at his residence on 18 April 2020, and the police recovered a six-page suicide note that allegedly had the names of the three accused persons Jarwal and Nagar and Harish. The court had on 11 November 2021 framed charges against Jarwal and Nagar under sections 306, 120-B, 386, 384, 506 and 34 of the IPC. The court discharged Harish for offences under sections 306 and 386, but framed charges against him under section 506. The Delhi high court has taken suo moto cognisance of a jail superintendents delay in accepting bail bond and releasing a prisoner granted bail, calling it unacceptable. The court took suo moto cognisance while considering the application about the delay. (Getty Images/iStockphoto) The object of granting bail and suspending sentences is to release the accused/convict from imprisonment. In certain cases, interim bails are granted on medical grounds or some other exigencies, as expressed by the applicant. In such a scenario this Court fails to understand why the period of one to two weeks be taken by the Jail Superintendent for accepting the bail bonds, said Justice Amit Mahajan in a February 19 order. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The Court while passing bail order at times directs that the bail bond be directly furnished to the Jail Superintendent. The prisoner is not remitted to the Trial Court in order to facilitate the immediate release. The delay at the instance of the Jail Superintendent in accepting Bail Bonds is not acceptable to the conscience of this Court. Let the matter be registered as suo motu petition and numbered. The court noted the order was sent to the concerned jail authorities directly through the Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Records (FASTER) cell. It sought responses from the director general (prisons) and the Delhi governments standing counsel. The court took suo moto cognisance while considering the application about the delay in the release of the prisoner despite the suspension of sentence on February 8. The prisoner sought modification of the courts order to allow him to furnish the bail bond to the trial court instead of the jail superintendent. Additional standing counsel Nandita Rao, who appeared for the Delhi Police, submitted such instances were an aberration. Rao added the delays do not generally occur on the part of jail superintendents. The Supreme Court in 2021 directed chief secretaries to ensure the availability of internet with adequate speed in jails to reduce delays in forwarding bail orders to authorities. The woman's body was found on Wednesday at a Narela playschool that she was planning to open with her business partner Sohan Lal, they said. HT Image According to a complaint lodged by Swatantra Nagar resident Vijay Kumar at Narela police station on February 24, his daughter left home on February 23 on a two-wheeler and did not return. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The woman was divorced and lived with her father. Kumar informed that she was last seen with her business partner Sohan Lal, with whom she was planning to start the Tiny Dream Berry Playschool in Narela. The playschool is not operational yet and consists of a basement and a room on the ground floor acting as the office with another shop to the right, a senior police officer said. The officer said Kumar called on his daughter's mobile phone on February 24 but it was received by an unidentified person. The person informed Kumar that he was near the railway tracks in Sonipat's Harshana village where a man was trying to commit suicide. On a video call, Kumar identified the man trying to kill himself as Sohan Lal. "He (Kumar) immediately reached Harshana village and collected the (victim's) mobile phone from the unidentified person. By that time, Sohan Lal had left the place," the officer said. Subsequently, Kumar lodged a missing person's complaint at Narela police station on February 24. "During the inquiry, the playschool premises were checked in presence of the father. However, the main office was shuttered and locked," said the officer. The mobile numbers of the woman and Sohan Lal were sent for call detail record analysis and location information gathered. Sohan Lal's last location was revealed to be Haryana's Barauta. The victim's father subsequently got the playschool's office shutter opened with the landlord's help and noticed his daughter's body behind the main desk. He called the local police, who took custody of the body, the officer said. Her dupatta was wrapped around her neck and it appears that she was strangulated to death, he added. The police checked for Sohan Lal's whereabouts and, after contacting the Sonipat GRP, found that one person was found dead on the railway tracks on February 25. The body is being preserved in a mortuary. "The body is strongly suspected to be that of Sohan Lal. It is now suspected that Sohan Lal strangled her (the woman) and committed suicide," the officer said. The motive for the crime is unknown. A murder case is being registered, he added. The recent deactivation of a few thousand Aadhaar cards across at least six districts of West Bengal has affected mostly Hindu Dalits from Bangladesh who entered India with passports after 2014 but did not leave after their visas expired, a legislator from the states opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) told HT on Monday. The UIDAI authorities said in a statement on February 19 that intimations are being issued to Aadhaar number holders from time to time to keep the Aadhaar database updated but no number has been cancelled. (Representative Image) Without specifying any year, a Rajya Sabha member of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) also said that these Bangladeshi nationals have been living in Bengal for a long time. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. This is the first time that leaders from the states rival parties have spoken on the identity of the Aadhaar card holders since mid-February when the deactivations started. TMC chairperson and chief minister Mamata Banerjee has alleged that the BJP wants to enforce the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Bengal and the deactivations are a precursor to that goal. Passed by Parliament in 2019, CAA offers citizenship to non-Muslims who entered India from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh before 2015 to escape religious persecution. TMC insists that CAA is unconstitutional as it links citizenship to faith in a secular country. Asim Sarkar, an erstwhile refugee from Bangladesh who won Nadia districts Haringhata assembly seat for BJP in 2021, said the deactivations have proved how crucial it is for people to support BJP in the coming polls so that CAA is enforced. Around a thousand of the affected people wrote to me. I studied their Aadhaar cards and other documents. Most of them entered India with Bangladeshi passports after 2014, Sarkar said. Seen by HT, one of the letters sent by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), said: The undersigned is directed to inform that Aadhaar number xxxx xxxx 2019 issued to you has been deactivated under the provisions of Regulation 28A of Aadhaar (Enrolment and Update) Regulations 2016 for the reason that the requirements for your stay in India are not fulfilled. The timing of the UIDAIs scrutiny is significant because Union home minister Amit Shah declared on February 10 that laws will be framed to implement CAA before the Lok Sabha elections. The Centre and BJP have however maintained silence on NRC. Sarkar said the vast majority of the recipients of these letters are members of the Dalit and Namasudra communities. Asha Biswas, a college student from Jamalpur in West Burdwan district said: I am 19. My parents came from Bangladesh when I was a child. I cant remember the year. The UIDAI authorities said in a statement on February 19 that intimations are being issued to Aadhaar number holders from time to time to keep the Aadhaar database updated but no number has been cancelled. Reactivation of the cards started around February 20. The reactivation is an act of mercy by the Centre. Nobody can stay here despite procuring Aadhaar, PAN and ration cards. I found that many of these people entered India with passports multiple times before 2014 as well. Some even admitted their children in local schools and colleges but they are not Indian citizens in the eyes of law, said Sarkar. Our immigration department as well as the Bangladesh government have data on these people. It came to my notice that letters were sent even to some people who entered India illegally before 2014 but got Aadhaar cards only recently, Sarkar added. That Aadhaar cannot be treated as a citizenship document was told by the Bengal government during a hearing at the Calcutta high court in 2016 when the Act was passed. Upholding the states argument against a petitioner who claimed the right, justice Joymalya Bagchi held that in accordance with Section 9 of the Aadhaar Act, the card by itself shall not confer any right of proof of citizenship. The ongoing tussle has shifted the focus on the Namasudra community which started migrating to India after the Partition in 1947 and the 1971 Bangladesh War. There are around 10 million people from the community in Bengal, according to the states records. During the 2011 census, Bengals population stood at 91.3 million. A part of the Namasudra population comprises the Matua community which supported BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. BJP wrested 18 of Bengals 42 seats, creating a record, and has now targeted 35. The Matuas follow their supreme body, the All India Matua Mahasangha based at Thakurnagar in the Bongaon Lok Sabha constituency of North 24 Parganas district. The Mahasangha played host to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah at Thakurnagar in 2019. Contesting on a BJP ticket, the sects young face, Shantanu Thakur, defeated his aunt and the then sitting MP, TMCs Mamata Bala Thakur, at the Bongaon seat. Shantanu Thakur, the president of the Mahasangha and Union minster of state for shipping, has described the Aadhaar deactivations as technical error and promised to help his folks. Mamata Bala Thakur recently won one of the five uncontested Rajya Seats from Bengal, a development many saw as TMCs election strategy to counter BJPs popularity among the Matuas. Mamata Bala Thakur said: It does not matter who supports or opposes TMC or BJP. The refugees from Bangladesh have become victims of the BJPs conspiracy. Many of them arrived decades ago. They were targeted only after linking of Aadhaar cards to all essential services was made mandatory. Where will these people go now? The Centre is reactivating the Aadhaar cards under pressure but after the elections Bengal will witness millions living without citizenship rights. We saw it in Assam after NRC was enforced, Thakur added. Among the seats with pockets of Dalit-Namasudra population that BJP won in 2019 are Bongaon, Hooghly, Cooch Behar, Malda North, Ranaghat, Burdwan-Durgapur, Jalpaiguri and Raiganj. Similar seats that TMC won are Basirhat, Joynagar, Barasat, Mathurapur, Serampore, Arambagh, Tamluk, Contai, Burdwan East and Krishnanagar where Mahua Moitra is likely to contest again after being expelled from the Lok Sabha in the aftermath of the bribe-for-questions controversy. TMC Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen said, The deactivation of the cards, sudden media reports that the Centre may enforce CAA any time, and the BJP preparing for the Prime Ministers visit to Bengal in the first week of March are all part of a well-planned drama. The BJP got the Citizenship Bill passed in Parliament in 2019 and sat on it for five years. It could not frame the rules even after the President gave his assent. Shahs statements on CAA differed when he addressed people in Bengal, Assam and Gujarat. And now they are coming to Bengal to create trouble. The BJP practices divisive politics. TMCs stand is very clear. Those who cast their votes and elect a government are all citizens. They dont need to prove their citizenship status all over again, Sen added. Kolkata: Koustav Bagchi, a lawyer and one of the spokespersons of the West Bengal Congress, resigned from the party on Wednesday, citing his partys alliance with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) as part of the seat-sharing arrangement among Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) coalition partners for the coming Lok Sabha polls. (Representative Photo) Bagchi has been opposing Congresss alliance with the ruling party since last year. In his letter, Bagchi claimed that the Congress has lost its character as a political party. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Also Read: Himachal minister Vikramaditya Singh announces resignation amid political crisis Owing to the recent political decisions, it seems that the party has chosen to enter into a self-destructive mode. When the elections are knocking at the door, the focus of the Congress party does not seem to be winning the elections but the image branding of a particular individual, Bagchi, in a letter to Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and the party state president in West Bengal Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, wrote. The Congress party in Bengal does not seem to acknowledge the existence of the West Bengal Congress Committee but on the contrary, has accepted Trinamool Congress as its outfit in the state of West Bengal, Bagchi wrote. Without hesitation, I can firmly say that in the present-day scenario, the Indian National Congress has lost its political character, the letter read. To be sure, the TMC has said that it will contest all 42 seats in West Bengal. Bagchi referred to the recent Sandeshkhali unrest where local TMC leaders have been accused of grabbing farmland and sexually assaulting village women. The recent Sandeshkhali incident had shaken the conscience of the entire nation...Our top leadership maintained a stoic silence over the entire issue, his letter added. The letter, a copy of which was seen by HT, was also sent to the state Congress president and national general secretary in charge of Bengal Gulam Ahmed Mir. Chowdhury did not comment on Bagchis resignation till 2pm. In September last year, Bagchi had written to K C Venugopal, general secretary (organisation), saying Congress should contest alone in Bengal because its workers will never accept an alliance with the party they have been fighting against. MIAMISayUncle has released four new scenes featuring performers Aaron Trainer, Dakota Lovell, Radzzo Gab, and others. Anonimo features Rick Lennon encountering Frankie Morel in a new scene titled My New Cruising Friend. A rep for SayUncle provided the following synopsis of the scene: "A nervous Rick stumbles upon Frankie masturbating at a cruising spot. Rick doesnt want Frankie to have to jerk off alone, so he joins in on the fun. It starts innocently at first, but after a little while, the guys take things to the next level." President Aaron Trainer conducts Elder Sklyar Finchhs initiation to the order in a new Missionary Boys episode, If You Were a Temple. The scene synopsis is as follows: "The first step in the initiation for Aaron is to make sure Skylar is devout. Skylar swears his commitment and is willing to go to any lengths to prove how impassioned he is regarding the mission, even if it means acting on impure thoughts if Aaron believes its right." In a special DoctorTapes scene, Is There a Doctor in the House? Here is the synopsis for the scene: "Dakota Lovell channels his inner Good Doctor by portraying Freddie Highmores character, Dr. Shaun Murphy, a young and intelligent doctor. His first patient of the day is Killian Knox, Killian isnt very excited to be at the doctors office, but once he sees Dakota, hes smitten by him. While going through his checkup routine, Dakota notices that Killian keeps checking him out and decides to make a move on him." Radzzo Gab is ready to explore a new environment in an all-new EuroPeenz scene, Before You Go. This scene features the following synopsis: "Radzzo wanted to leave without his fling Tyler Fora noticing, he didnt want emotions to get in the way of his wanderlust. However, Tyler catches him right before Radzzo leaves and is distraught but understands Radzzos need to explore and be free. As a final goodbye, Radzzo wants to explore Tylers body one last time." Visit SayUncle.com and follow on X (formerly Twitter): @sayunclenetwork. The Lucknow police has constituted an Anti-Land Mafia Cell for intensive monitoring of land-grabbing in Lucknow. People found guilty will be prosecuted under the Goonda Act and Gangsters Act. For representation only (HT File Photo) The new cell formed by the joint commissioner of police, law and order has been handed over to the District Crime Records Bureau (DCRB) and will be headed by DCRBs in-charge. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. There are many cases of illegal land-grabbing in the district, in which police take action and prepare charge-sheets. However, these accused commit crimes again in some other police station areas, due to a lack of centralised monitoring. Hence, intensive monitoring is needed of such people to take strict action under the Goonda Act and Gangsters Act, said Upendra Kumar Agarwal, JCP (L&O), in a press statement. With the help of the Crime and Criminal Tracking Networks and Systems (CCTNS), data will be collected of cases of land-grabbing/grabbing money from people etc. and identifying the accused in such cases against whom there is more than one charge-sheet, said the JCP. According to the office of the JCP, the new cell will scrutinise all such complaints and find out the type of criminal history, verifying their criminal history from the police stations, to declare a person as land mafioso with proper coordination between the cell and the police station, added JCP. The cases of such marked people must be reviewed and updated on the land mafia portal in coordination with the office of the tehsildar and assistant police commissioner. The district task force will also help identify the land mafiosi. The statement also said that only those against whom cases under IPC sections such as 406/420/467/468 have been registered in the past and are charge-sheeted, will these people be booked under the two Acts. MEERUT Police arrested six people on Wednesday after two people died and two others were injured in a clash between two dalit families in Fulat village under Ratanpuri police station in Muzaffarnagar on Tuesday evening. The two murders have sent a shock wave in the village. (Pic for representation) Additional director general ( ADG) of police, Meerut zone, DK Thakur visited the village on Wednesday with Muzaffarnagar SSP Abhishek Singh and inquired about the incident. He directed the officials to conduct a fair probe and take action against those found guilty . Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. SHO of Ratanpur police station Akshay Sharma said, Cases have been registered on the complaints of both families and six members of both families have been arrested. The clash occurred on Tuesday evening when one Harimohan and his sons allegedly attacked Ankit, 26, in the market and killed him. When this news reached Ankits kin, they chased the accused and attacked them with sharp-edged weapons. Harimohans son Rohit sustained serious injuries and two people from both sides were also injured.Rohit was taken to the primary health centre in Khatauli where doctors declared him dead after examination. Both Ankit and Rohit were neighbours in the village and belonged to dalit community. Ankit eloped with Rohits sister 10 months ago. The couple had a court marriage ansd was living in Meerut. A panchayat was held in the village after they eloped and it was decided that Ankit would not enter the village, otherwise he would face its consequences. Ankit arrived at his house to attend a family function and a family member of Rohit spotted him in the village market on Tuesday evening. He informed the other family members who arrived in the market and attacked Ankit. On getting information of this, Ankits kin chased Rohit and his family members and attacked them. The SHO said that the bodies had been sent for postmortem examination. The two murders have sent a shock wave in the village. Additional force has been deployed to prevent any further clash between the two families. LUCKNOW: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday reiterated BJPs focus on Mission 80 in UP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls while flagging off the Viksit Bharat Modi Guarantee vans from the state BJP office in Lucknow on Wednesday. CM Yogi Adityanath launched Modi guarantee vans for BJPs sankalp patra for 2024 Lok Sabha polls (HT Photo) 160 vans two in each of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies will market the achievements of the double engine BJP governments while collecting suggestions from the masses for the partys sankalp patra for upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The party also launched a missed call campaign and as part of which the cadres will let masses to give a missed call on 9090902024 for eliciting their proposals for the sankalp patra. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Speaking on the occasion, Yogi said, Real democracy is one where people have a say in governance and that is why we accord such great importance to views of the masses that we refer to their suggestions that the party puts together ahead of elections as our sankalp patra (commitment) and not ghoshna patra (manifesto), he said. We are here to serve the masses and peoples suggestions help us form a plan for the next five years. So, today we are launching the exercise to elicit peoples views, Adityanath said. UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhari said that BJP takes peoples suggestions seriously and that is why the campaign to elicit peoples support is taken so seriously. Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya was also present at the event. Shimla: As many as 15 BJP MLAs including the oppostion leader Jairam Thakur were suspended during the budget session of the Himachal Pradesh assembly on Wednesday, a day after six of the ruling Congress lawmakers cross-voted in favour of the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls, leading to a tie and the eventual victory of the latter by a dramatic lottery. Leader of Opposition in Himachal Pradesh assembly Jairam Thakur with BJP MLAs during a visit to Raj Bhavan to meet state Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla, in Shimla, on Wednesday. (PTI) The suspension came after the MLAs, disregarding the Speakers directives, persisted in raising slogans and protesting during the proceedings of the assembly. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Despite repeated instructions from Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania to adhere to the rules and leave the House, the BJP MLAs continued protesting, prompting the Speaker to adjourn the proceedings until 12 noon. However, the chaos escalated as the suspended MLAs then scattered papers and shouting slogans inside the house. Also Read: Himachal Rajya Sabha polls: How Sukhu government failed to keep its flock together The Speakers efforts to restore order were not successful with the BJP lawmakers targeting both the Speaker and the government. The scenes of disorderliness underscored the heightened tensions within the assembly during the session. The suspension of the BJP MLAs marks a significant development in the ongoing political turmoil in Himachal Pradesh, triggered by the unexpected results of the Rajya Sabha poll a day before. The Congress candidate for Rajya Sabha from the state, Abhishek Singhvi, received 34 votes after six Congress lawmakers and three independents previously backing the government supported BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan, who also received 34 votes. The tie was then resolved by a draw-of-lots, which favoured Mahajan. But the loss also meant that the Congress was unable to cross the simple majority mark of 35 in the 68-member House, fuelling speculation that the Sukhvinder Sukhu government had been reduced to a minority, and sparking calls for the chief ministers resignation. Guwahati: In another setback to the Congress, senior party leader and Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Rana Goswami resigned on Wednesday, officials aware of the matter said. (Representative Photo) I beg to state that I am tendering my resignation as the working president of Assam Pradesh Congress Committee and as an active member of Indian National Congress, Goswami wrote in a letter addressed to KC Venugopal, general secretary (organisation) of Congress. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Earlier on Sunday, Goswami resigned from his role as the organisational in-charge of Upper Assam, citing various political reasons. The decision comes after he met with his followers on Saturday night in his hometown Jorhat, amid speculations that the former MLA was planning to join the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or its ally, the Asom Gana Parishad. Also Read: Himachal minister Vikramaditya Singh announces resignation amid political crisis The development came two weeks after another Congress working president Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha (an MLA from North Karimganj), and Mangaldai legislator Basanta Kumar Das quit the party and extended support to the BJP-led government in the state. Goswami is expected to meet with the BJPs central leadership and chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Sarma is presently in Delhi to discuss party candidates for the coming Lok Sabha polls, said officials. Earlier on Tuesday, Sarma said that Giswami is a strong leader from Jorhat and the party will welcome him if he takes any such decision. Goswami had been elected twice to the state assembly, in 2006 and 2011, from Jorhat as a Congress candidate. Theres speculation that he could be the BJP candidate from the Titabar seat (also in the Jorhat district) in the 2026 assembly polls. The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Tuesday made a fresh appeal to Centre to award the countrys highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna to former Odisha chief minister Biju Patnaik, six days ahead of his birth anniversary, which coincides with Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to the state. Former Odisha chief minister Biju Patnaik. (File) The demand got momentum after the Centre announced Bharat Ratna for Karpoori Thakur, LK Advani, MS Swaminathan, Choudhury Charan Singh and PV Narasimha Rao. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Had Biju Patnaik not flown a DC-3 transport aircraft to Srinagar on October 27, 1947, ferrying soldiers of the Sikh regiment to counter the Pakistan-backed invasion of Jammu and Kashmir, then we may have forgotten Jammu and Kashmir. During World War 2, he flew transport missions to help the British forces fight Japanese forces in Myanmar and dropped leaflets in support of independence and even collaborated with freedom fighters including Jayaprakash Narayan and Aruna Asaf Ali. He will remain not just an inspiration for Odia, but the entire country for his courage and daredevilry. Biju Patnaik surely deserves Bharat Ratna, said senior BJD leader Prasanna Acharya. Senior BJD leader AU Singh Deo said Biju Patnaiks raw courage in flying out former Indonesian Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir and vice president Mohammad Hatta, who were under house arrest in Jakarta by Dutch and British forces in July 1947, was a legendary action. His daring mission helped focus global attention on Indonesias fight for freedom following which Indonesia decorated Biju Patnaik with its highest civilian honour Bhumiputra and Bintang Jasa Uttama. His contribution to the making of modern Odisha would fill several books. The award is already delayed by several years. I urge the Centre to announce Bharat Ratna to Biju. If he is given the award before the birth anniversary, his legion of admirers in the state would feel euphoric, said Singh Deo, who had raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha in April 2015. In December 2015, the Odisha Assembly had adopted a resolution seeking Bharat Ratna for Biju Patnaik ahead of his birth centenary year. Patnaik was one of the rare breeds of leaders whose field of action was not confined to the state or national territories, but transcended to the international theatre, wrote then BJP MLA Dilip Ray in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In April 2017, chief minister Naveen Patnaik again reiterated the partys demand for the countrys highest civilian award for Biju Patnaik. BJD leaders claimed there is no bar in giving the Bharat Ratna to Biju Patnaik this year, though the Centre has announced five awards this year against the maximum limit of three in a year. There should not be any problem if Bharat Ratna award is given to one more person. In which way Biju is less deserving than the other five? said BJD leader Sashi Bhushan Behera. Political analyst Rabi Das said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is already popular in Odisha would become more popular among the voters of Odisha with the conferment of the Bharat Ratna to Biju Patnaik. Naveen Patnaiks stature would go up as he has been demanding it for a long time. More importantly, it may serve as the glue for a possible alliance between the BJP and the BJD ahead of the polls and return of the regional party to the NDA after 15 years. The PM can take such a decision on his own. We would welcome the award, said a senior BJP leader. PM Modi will be addressing a public meeting in Odishas Jajpur on March 5. The role Biju Patnaik played during the Chinese aggression of 1962 had impressed Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru so much that he sent him to meet then US President John F. Kennedy to protect the interests of India from the sinister motives of the Chinese aggression. During his tenure as the chief minister of Odisha, the state witnessed rapid strides in industrialisation and development, including Paradip Expressway, Paradip Port, Balimela Hydro-Electricity Project, MiG factory, Talcher Thermal Power Plant and several technical institutes such as Regional Engineering College (now NIT) Rourkela, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, University College of Engineering in Burla and Regional College of Education in Bhubaneswar. Patnaik introduced UNESCO Kalinga prize for scientists in 1951 to retain the dignity of Kalinga, the ancient name of Odisha. He also set up several industries in Odisha, starting with Kalinga Tubes, Kalinga Iron Works, Kalinga Tiles, Kalinga Refractory and Kalinga Airlines. Tripuras opposition The Indigenous Peoples Regional Alliance (TIPRA) Motha partys founder Pradyot Kishore Debbarma began his hunger strike from Wednesday at Hatai Kotor near Agartala over constitutional solution for tribal communities in the state. TIPRA was constituted in 2021 with the agenda of creation of Greater Tipraland. (File photo) Debbarmas TIPRA Motha have been demanding a separate state for tribals, over the issue of alleged under-development of tribals till now. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. His announcement came on February 24, a day after his party held first round discussion with the Congress over forging greater opposition alliance against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Also Read:Debbarma calls for peaceful movement demanding constitutional solution for tribals Last week, Debbarma had held another round of discussion with the central government over the partys demand for constitutional solution for the problems of the states tribal population. Later, he appealed to the tribal people from all political parties to take part in his non-political movement. He also met Tribal Welfare (TRP and PTG) minister Shukla Charan Noatia and general secretary of Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) Swapan Debbarma at the ministers official residence and appealed to join his movement. Later, in a video message, he said, There will be no flag of any political party at Hatai Kotor. There will be emotions of people and no political colour. This is a fight of the Tiprasa (Tripuri tribals) and not of any political party. Earlier, the TIPRA Motha said that they will talk with any political party who will agree to their demands of constitutional solution and development of the tribal population. Stating that TIPRA Motha is fighting for the rights of tribals of the state, Pradyot later explained that TIPRA Motha party doesnt either belong to the opposition INDIA alliance, or the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Centre. TIPRA was constituted in 2021 with the agenda of creation of Greater Tipraland, a separate state for the tribals living in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) and other northeastern states like Assam, Mizoram and also parts of neighbouring country Bangladesh. Within a few months of its formation, the TIPRA Motha had contested and won the TTAADC polls. The party later contested the 60-seated Assembly polls five months ago to emerge as the main opposition party securing 13 seats. The Tipra (Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance) Motha Party founder Pradyot Kishore Debbarma has temporarily suspended his hunger strike on Wednesday after he received a phone call from New Delhi inviting him for a meeting over his demands of Constitutional solution for the development of tribal population in the state. The phone call had come after an hour of Debbarma into the hunger strike at Hatai Kotor 30kms away from Agartala. (Pradyot Tripura | Official X account) The phone call had come after an hour of Debbarma into the hunger strike at Hatai Kotor, formerly known as Barmura Hills, 30 kilometres away from Agartala. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Debbarmas TIPRA Motha have been demanding a separate state for tribals, over the issue of alleged under-development of tribals till now. Got a call from Delhi. I have to go to Delhi, he said while addressing media persons gathered at the protest site. Also Read:TIPRA Motha chief begins hunger strike demanding constitutional solution for tribals He asked his party leaders to stay back on the stage and asked his supporters to go back home saying that he will continue his hunger strike and only call it off after getting a written assurance from the Centre. I shall go to Delhi and talk to them with an empty stomach. I shall not eat anything till I get any positive response from there (central government), he said. He asked his supporters to not celebrate early and asked them to wait till a reply comes from Delhi. Dont celebrate now. Hold on. Dont take yourself lightly. I shall go to Delhi. I shall talk. But I shall not compromise, said Debbarma. When asked about details on who called him from Delhi, he said, Officials of the central government called him. TIPRA was constituted in 2021 with the agenda of creation of Greater Tipraland, a separate state for the tribals living in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) and other northeastern states like Assam, Mizoram and also parts of neighbouring country Bangladesh. Within a few months of its formation, the TIPRA Motha had contested and won the TTAADC polls. The party later contested the 60-seated Assembly polls five months ago to emerge as the main opposition party securing 13 seats. Bhopal: Untimely rainfall and hailstorms created havoc in 15 districts of Madhya Pradesh, where Rabi crops of wheat, mustard and chana (gram) were destroyed just a few days before harvesting, officials familiar with the matter on Wednesday. Agriculture experts have demanded proactive action from the government to save the crops (Representative Photo) The 15 affected districts include Niwari, Khandwa, Betul, Harda, Ratlam, Anuppur, Narmadapuram, Chhatarpur, Burhanpur, Gwalior, Satna, Tikamgarh, Chhindwara, Agar Malwa and Dewas. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The state agriculture department assessed that the untimely rainfall and hail caused damage to at least 20-30% to wheat and chana in Malwa in the central and Bundelkhand regions, while about 15% to mustard crops in Chambal and central region were destroyed. An official who did not wish to be named said the final figure is yet to come as the revenue department is still conducting its survey. Meanwhile, the agriculture experts demanded proactive action from the government to save the crops, stating such a phenomenon (of untimely rains in February and March) is repeated every second year. 30% of Rabi crop has been destroyed in hailstorms and rainfall as it happened just before harvesting. It will decrease the yield of wheat, mustard and gram crops and reduce the quality as well. This is causing revenue loss to the state government too, said Yogesh Dwivedi, an agricultural expert and part of the government expert committee on agriculture. This disturbance of weather is causing loss every year and it is necessary to change the pattern of sowing. The state government should make farmers aware to sow early so harvesting can be completed in February. Similarly, use of potash should be motivated to strengthen the crops, he added. Another expert and former director of agriculture, GS Kaushal said, The discussion on global warming and its effect has been going on since 2000, but governments didnt do anything to prepare farmers. Now, untimely rains especially during harvesting, are getting common, so the state government should go for crop diversification and change in the sowing season. However, instead of using potash, Kaushal said the government should promote organic farming to reduce the loss incurred to farmers as well government due to damage to crops. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted such kind of weather to likely continue till March 2 and also heavy rainfall in 46 districts of MP. It also advised the farmers to cut their full-grown crops and shift them to dry places. The two systems are bringing moisture in Madhya Pradesh and causing disturbance in weather. This will continue till March 2. We have asked the district officers to be aware the farmers shift their harvested crops to safe places, IMD scientist Ved Prakash Singh said. Chief minister Mohan Yadav instructed all the district collectors to survey the damage. Appropriate relief amount should be provided to the farmers by conducting a survey of the crops. All ministers, MLAs and MPs have also been asked to monitor the survey, he said. Scholarships across multiple programmes for Indian students have been announced at the University of East Anglia (UEA). Scholarships across multiple programmes for Indian students have been announced at the University of East Anglia (UEA).(Handout) According to a press release by the University of East Anglia (UEA), the scholarships are open to students of both undergraduate and postgraduate disciplines for the academic year 2024-2025. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Following are the scholarships that are open to Indian students according to the university: UEA India Award Valued at 4,000, the UEA India Award is exclusively for Indian postgraduate students and is granted automatically to the applicants who meet the entry requirements. The scholarship amount covers tuition fees for eligible programmes across schools including Economics, Faculty of Humanities, Engineering, Chemistry, Art, Media and American Studies, Music, Law, and more, mentioned the press release. Eligibility Criteria: Applicants must be citizens of India or residing here at the time of application. Applicants ought to have received either a conditional or unconditional offer for a postgraduate programme at UEA. The value of the award is substantial, at 4,000 for meeting UEA entry criteria, 5,000 for achieving a final undergraduate grade of 65% or higher, and an extra 5,000 for an LLB score of 60% or above. UEA India Undergraduate Scholarship This scholarship programme aims support to high-achieving Indian students by directly acknowledging and rewarding their accomplishments. An Indian national or resident to have received a conditional or unconditional offer for a full-time bachelor's degree at the University of East Anglia is eligible for the scholarship. On being selected, applicants will receive a 4,000 reduction in tuition fees for their first year. The Global Undergraduate Excellence Scholarship This scholarship aims to offer financial assistance to overseas students embarking on their undergraduate journey at the university. With an annual grant of 4,000, the grant covers up to three years of undergraduate study where exceptional applications are considered for a 10,000 yearly award. The Sonny and Gita Mehta India Scholarship Indian writers who wish to undertake study in UEAs prestigious Department of Literature, Drama, and Creative Writing could be selected to be supported under this scholarship. Valued at 28,500, the scholarship requires applicants to submit a separate application. The David Sainsbury Full MSc Scholarship A restricted number of candidates applying for the MSc in Global Plant Health are supported under this scholarship and it encompasses the entire tuition fee (31,500), includes a maintenance grant, and provides an extra 4,000 to cover travel expenses. Visit the official website to know more information about the scholarships. (Credit: The Michael Kay Show on YES Network) Spring training throws a lot at MLB managers, but theyre generally up to the challenge. While injury remains a constant worry, Florida and Arizona offer more than just sunshine. For the New York Yankees under Aaron Boone, its also a chance to learn new faces literally. The Bronx Bombers have famously enforced a clean-shaven policy for decades, except for well-groomed mustaches. This longstanding tradition, started by former owner George Steinbrenner in 1976, means new players like Alex Vergduo must ditch their signature facial hair. Back in New York, others are letting their beards grow out. Following the Yankees 9-2 Grapefruit League victory over the Twins, Aaron Boone spoke to reporters and was surprised by what he saw on TV playing in the background. As The Michael Kay Show aired, Boone couldnt help but notice that the teams play-by-play announcer, Michael Kay, had a full beard instead of his usual stubble. Aaron Boone distracted by @TMKSonYES during his postgame interview: " he can pitch up with his fastball, and I thought he threw some good cutters in there and does Michael Kay have a beard?"@RealMichaelKay Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) February 26, 2024 The official TMKS account on Twitter/X got in the fun, confirming that Kay indeed has a beard. ? Aaron, and yes he does https://t.co/saQmDGHbzn The Michael Kay Show (@TMKSESPN) February 26, 2024 Kay also addressed it on his show on Monday. Yes, Aaron, I do, said Kay. In the light of this studio, I really look like a mess with this beard. In the new Yankees clubhouse, they have one television in the clubhouse thats dedicated to TMKS. Obviously, Boones TV in his managers office is on YES. In continuing to discuss his beard, Kay said he feels more energetic than his younger years. He also revealed he had considered dyeing it. A few minutes later, A caller sporting a beard himself chimed in, playfully warning Kay that he might get so accustomed to the new look that returning to his usual, clean-shaven appearance would feel strange. In response, Kay revealed hes been beardless for an impressive 63 years, making light of his confidence in returning to his trademark look after indulging in a few months with facial hair. Thats about as much as Kay was willing to talk about his beard. A caller later complimented Kay on his impressive beard. They then curiously inquired whether the Yankees, known for their longstanding no-facial-hair policy, would enforce it on their play-by-play announcer, Kay, come Opening Day. However, Kay chose to sidestep the question, opting to answer another inquiry from the caller regarding the potential retirement of Alex Rodriguezs jersey number. Kay acknowledged and found amusement in the New York Posts article on Tuesday regarding Boone being distracted by his beard. However, he declined to comment on whether the Yankees facial hair policy would apply to him. However, he clarified that he only intends to maintain the beard for a few months. [Bryan Hoch on Twitter/X, The New York Post] Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations, CISCE conducted the ICSE Geography Exam 2024 on February 28, 2024. The Geography- H.C.G Paper 2 examination was conducted from 11 am to 1 pm across the country at various exam centres. ICSE, ISC Exams 2024 Live Updates ICSE Geography Exam 2024: Class 10 MCQ part easy, paper moderate, says students (HT) Students in Lucknow found the difficulty level of the ICSE class 10 Geography paper moderate. The MCQs were direct and students found them easy. Some questions required lengthy answers and were therefore, time taking. The Map work came as expected. The ICSE geography paper 2024 assessed different aspects of knowledge and skills. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. In Part A, we encountered a variety of questions, multiple-choice questions (MCQs), map interpretation, and critical thinking exercises. In toposheet and map students had to apply their geographical knowledge to analyse and interpret spatial information. This section demanded a clear understanding of concepts and ability to think critically to solve problems and answer questions accurately, said Shagun Sen and Harshit Vaibhav both students of City Montessori School, RDSO branch. Students said that Part B questions were more complex and required higher-level thinking skills compared to Part A. Despite being challenging, these questions were manageable as we had prepared well and had a strong grasp of the subject matter. The paper ensured a comprehensive evaluation of geographical understanding and critical thinking skills, said Vaibhav Srivastava, Ashvee and Ayush Chauhan all from CMS RDSO campus. Manoneet Bajpai of a student of City Montessori School Kanpur Road campus said "Paper was good with easy MCQs based on reading ,all discussed in classes" Rohi Sachan and Atiksh Srivastava of CMS Kanpur Road campus said, "The theory part was a bit lengthy. Map work and topography questions were as practised so we didn't face much difficulty" Overall the paper involved questions from all the chapters and the basic knowledge questions that needed elaboration. The students were happy and confident about their efforts. Prakhar Singh and Anamika Singh both students of St Joseph School said, Today, Geography paper mainly focussed on conceptual learning and understanding. Few questions were quite tricky but overall it was worth deep learning. I liked the application based questions in the part II of the paper. Today, the Geography paper mainly focussed on conceptual learning and understanding. Few questions were quite tricky but overall it was worth deep learning. I liked the application based questions in part II of the paper, said Aamika Singh, a student from the same school. Kerala Pareeksha Bhavan has declared KTET October Result 2023. Candidates who have appeared for Kerala Teacher Eligibility Test can check the results on the official website of KTET at ktet.kerala.gov.in. KTET October Result 2023: Kerala TET results out, link here The Kerala Teacher Eligibility Test was conducted on December 29 and 30, 2023. The exam on both days was conducted in two shifts- the first from 10 am to 12.30 pm and the second from 2 pm to 4.30 pm. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. All those candidates who have appeared for the examination can check the results by following the steps given below. KTET October Result 2023: How to check Visit the official website of Kerala TET at ktet.kerala.gov.in. Click on KTET October Result 2023 link available on the home page. Enter the login details and click on submit. Once done, the results will be displayed. Check the result and download the page. Keep a hard copy of the same for further need. K-TET is conducted to assess the quality of teacher candidates for Lower Primary, Upper Primary and High School Classes in Kerala. The registration process for the Kerala TET was started on November 6 and ended on November 17, 2023. For more related details candidates can check the official website of Kerala TET. TN NMMS Result 2024 Live Updates: Students and parents can check Tamil Nadu NMMS results on dge.tn.gov.in. TN NMMS Result 2024 Live Updates: Scholarship results on announced on dge.tn.gov.in TN NMMS Scholarship Result 2024 Live Updates: The Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) Tamil Nadu has announced results of the National Means cum Merit Scholarship (NMMS) Examination 2024 . Parents and students can go to the website dge.tn.gov.in and check their selection status. Direct link The NMMS examination in Tamil Nadu for the academic year 2023-24, for Class 8 students studying in government and government-aided schools was held on February 3. A total of 2,25,490 students participated in the examination....Read More To check individual results, registration number and date of birth will be required. Follow this live blog for all the latest updates on TN NMMS results 2024. To address concerns related to depression and suicide among medical students, the National Medical Commission (NMC) has constituted a national task force to analyze factors contributing to these challenges and propose evidence-based strategies for improving mental health. The National Medical Commission (NMC) has constituted a national task force to address concerns related to depression and suicide among medical students. (HT Photo) The 15-member task force comprises Dr B M Suresh, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS), as chairman. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. "Mental health of medical students has been a cause of concern in the recent past leading to depression and suicide by medical students. To address this issue, a National Task Force has been constituted by the anti-ragging committee of the National Medical Commission (NMC)," an office order issued on February 21 said. Also read: Walmart launches Center for Tech Excellence at IIT Madras to empower MSMEs According to the terms and references, the task force shall study existing literature and data on mental health and suicide of medical students, analyze factors contributing to these challenges, and propose evidence-based strategies for improving mental health and preparation for suicides. The committee will also visit the colleges where incidents of suicides have been reported. The task force shall submit a comprehensive report outlining key findings and actionable recommendations for promoting the mental health of the medical students by May 31, 2024. It will also submit the monthly progress report to the anti-ragging cell. Also read: IIT Madras set to operate newly launched learning platform SWAYAM Plus, portal launched by Union Min Dharmendra Pradhan The task force shall convene regular meetings, either virtually or in person, as necessary to fulfill its mandate. Additionally, the committees may visit the medical colleges where the incidents of suicide have been reported. A special screening of late actor Satish Kaushik's film Kaagaz 2 was held in Mumbai on Tuesday evening. It was attended by his wife Shashi Kaushik and their daughter Vanshika. Taking to Instagram, Satish's close friend, actor Anupam Kher, who is also part of the film, shared a video as he spoke to Satish's wife and daughter. (Also Read | Kaagaz 2 trailer: Satish Kaushik's final film to release in cinemas on March 1. Watch) (L) Anupam Kher with Satish Kaushik's daughter Vanshika; late actor in a still from Kaagaz 2. Satish's daughter, wife attend Kaagaz 2 screening In the clip, Anupam sat next to Vanshika and Shashi. He asked Vanshika about her opinion on the film. She replied, "Bohut acchi (Very good)." When he asked what else she liked in the film apart from Satish, Vanshika said, "Aapka role (Your role)." Anupam smiled and said, "You like my role?" as Vanshika nodded. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Anupam talks with Shashi, Vanshika Anupam added, "Vanshika, you were so important in the audience. Today was the first screening of Kaagaz 2, you came to watch with your mother, and you liked the film, I'm very, very happy." When Anupam asked if she wanted to say something else, she replied, "No." Anupam said he missed Satish Anupam then asked Shashi about the film. She said, "I liked the film. All the characters were very good. I like Satish's work a lot." Anupam added, "It is one of Satish's best performances." Looking at Vanshika, he said, "Don't you think so?" and she nodded. He continued, "Satish's performance was once of the best. I also missed him." Anupam and Vanshika then smiled at each other as he kissed her head. When one of the people nearby said that Satish is still alive in the hearts of his fans, Anupam replied, Of course. Recalls emotional moment after watching film Sharing the clip, Anupam wrote, "After the soulful 1st screening of Satish Kaushiks Kaagaz 2 it was quite an emotional moment to speak to Vanshika and Shashi Kaushik. What an amazing issue based last last film of my friend Satish! Releasing on 1st March. Jai Ho! (Heart eyes and folded hands emojis)." What Anupam had said about Satish Recently, during the promotion of Kaagaz 2, Anupam made his late friend part of the event by keeping a chair for him. Talking to ANI, he had said, It was his (Satish Kaushik) passion project. He was working for 2 years on this project. This is based on true incidents. He was so passionate about the subject." About Kaagaz 2 The film stars Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumaar, Anant Desai, Neena Gupta, Smriti Kalra, and Satish Kaushik. It is all set to hit theatres on March 1. Directed by VK Prakash, the film highlights hardships of ordinary individuals due to protests and rallies. Entertainment! Entertainment! Entertainment! Click to follow our Whatsapp Channel Your daily dose of gossip, films, shows, celebrities updates all in one place Acing negative roles with panache is cult classics such as Do Raaste, Prem Nagar, Upkar, and Bobby, screen legend Prem Chopra found fame in the Indian film industry and established himself as the undisputed king when it came to playing the villain. Not only did he carve a niche for himself in the Indian film industry but also courted fame overseas with some iconic negative roles. (Also Read: Prem Chopra reacts to death rumours, says Rakesh Roshan called him to ask if he's alive) Prem Chopra has his reason for not mouthing English dialogues in Hollywood films Following in the footsteps of actors and his juniors in the industry Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher and Anil Kapoor, Prem Chopra made his Hollywood debut in 2012 with the film Heartland. However, in an exclusive interview with ANI, Chopra revealed that he had resolved never to do movies in English. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. While opening up on his debut Hollywood film Heartland while refusing to mouth English dialogues, Chopra said, "I had an offer. Somebody came to me and said they were making an English film, a Hollywood production with American actors in it. He told me that it was a tribute to Godfather (cult crime trilogy directed by iconic American auteur Francis Ford Coppola). I jumped on it thinking I was playing the Godfather. However, when I arrived at the set, I was told that it wasn't the Godfather, and Godfather was merely a character in the film. I did some American films, including Heartland, which was released all over America. I played a Sardar in the film." Sharing the story around his refusal to do films where was he was required to deliver dialogues in English, Chopra said, "The film was Punjabi-English. Mostly, it was English. However, I refused to deliver dialogues in English. There is a good story around it. My son-in-law is in America. He sent an English girl over to me to seek my approval for their marriage on his behalf. I kept looking at that girl, thinking to myself if it was, at all, possible to let my son marry someone to who represented a community of people who are unlike some of my best friends. We all used to be in the army. I said (he could never let his son marry into a community of) people, who treated Indians like animals, were responsible for the death of one of my best friends and did not even give him a respectable funeral. I said I had made up my mind not to speak this language at all. However, I told the girl: 'considering the surroundings you grew up in and finding you to be a very simple person, I deem you fit for the marriage.' This is the back story." Helmed by Fred Holmes, Heartland, apart from Prem Chopra, also featured Stephan M Singh, Amelia Jackson-Gray and Divya Dutta. Chopra has worked in more than 400 films during his career and is fondly remembered for some of his iconic negative roles. His unforgettable one-liner "Prem naam hai mera... Prem Chopra" (Prem is my name...Prem Chopra) from the Rishi Kapoor starrer 'Bobby' got him overnight stardom as a villain. In a six-decade-old career in the industry, Prem Chopra acted in several films such as Upkaar, Purab Aur Pashchim, Do Raaste, and Phool Bane Angaarey among others. He was recently seen in the action-thriller Animal, which also starred Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol and Rashmika Mandanna in lead roles. Entertainment! Entertainment! Entertainment! Click to follow our Whatsapp Channel Your daily dose of gossip, films, shows, celebrities updates all in one place. Many celebrities, including Sunny Deol, Salman Khan, Kajol, and Karan Johar, among others, attended the screening of Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao's upcoming film Laapataa Ladies. Aamir Khan's daughter Ira Khan and her husband, Nupur Shikhare, Konkona Sensharma, Kabir Khan, Mini Mathur, Ali Fazal, and Sayani Gupta were also part of the event. (Also Read | 12th Fail, All India Rank, Laapataa Ladies: Return of the mid-budget movie to theatres) Aamir Khan, Kiran Rao, Sunny Deol, and Salman Khan at Laapataa Ladies screening. What Sunny, Salman, Aamir, Kiran wore for Laapataa Ladies screening For the screening, Aamir wore a black kurta under a matching jacket and pants. Kiran wore a mustard saree and a silver blouse. Sunny Deol opted for a black shirt under a dark grey jacket, and trousers. Salman Khan was seen in a black T-shirt under a shirt and denims. Kajol wore a green outfit with a black belt, heels and sunglasses. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Sharman, Ira, Konkona, Karan attended event too Sharman Joshi was seen in a black T-shirt and denims. Karan Johar opted for a black jacket and trousers. Ira Khan wore a pink saree, while Nupur was seen in a navy blue T-shirt and beige pants. Konkona wore a black top under a dark blue jacket and pants. In a video, Karan was seen hugging Kiran at the event. All of them smiled and posed for the paparazzi. The cast of Laapataa Ladies also posed for the camera along with Aamir and Kiran. About Laapataa Ladies Laapataa Ladies, directed by Kiran, has been selected as the opening film of the second edition of the IFFM Summer Festival. The film will have its Australian premiere on February 29 at the festival ahead of its release on 1st March 2024, as per news agency ANI. The film's story is set in 2001 in rural India about two young brides who get separated during a train journey and what happens when Kishan, a police officer, takes it upon himself to probe the missing case. The film has been produced under the banner of Aamir Khan Productions and Kindling Productions, with the scripting by Biplab Goswami. Sneha Desai wrote the screenplay and dialogue, while Divyanidhi Sharma jotted down the additional lines. The film stars Ravi Kishan, Pratibha Ranta, Sparsh Shrivastav, and Nitanshi Goel. Earlier, speaking with ANI, Kiran had spoken about the film. She had said, "When we met Sneha Desai as a writer, I felt that this could be done because the story was very good, which was written by Bipalab, but it was very realistic, and I felt that the fun should come because this is a kind of satirical situation that two girls get separated and then what happens next." Entertainment! Entertainment! Entertainment! Click to follow our Whatsapp Channel Your daily dose of gossip, films, shows, celebrities updates all in one place "OnlyFans saved my life," says 52-year-old Sopranos actor Drea de Matteo. She is the latest celebrity to join the controversial site and says she was able to pay off the mortgage on her home with just five minutes on the site. (Also read: Florida mom barred from dropping children off at school due to 'OnlyFans' ad on car) Drea de Matteo is known for her work in hit series Sopranos. She told Daily Mail that she had just $10 in her bank account, when she decided to join the site. She said her refusal to get vaccinated for Covid-19 left her out of work and she had run out of money to care for a parent with dementia. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Five minutes is all it took "It saved us. OnlyFans saved my life, 100 percent. I can't believe I'm saying that, but it really did save us," she said, adding, "Anybody that wants to condemn me and put me down, go for it. I just hope you never find yourself in the position I was in to take care of two little kids." "They put me into foreclosure and my house had flooded, so I was trying to sell the house quickly ... before they took it," she added. At the same time, I lost my mom, and my other mom, who has dementia, had run out of money for her caregiver. I didn't know which way was up. She said that sharing steamy photos of herself was an idea that took some getting used to but she appreciates the financial power it gave her. I kept putting more pictures up. I was like, holy sh-t. In five minutes, I was able to pay back [the real estate company] who kept the sale of my house, Drea de Matteo said. About Drea de Matteo Drea de Matteo gained widespread recognition and acclaim for her portrayal of Adriana La Cerva on the HBO series The Sopranos, a role that earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2004. Her character, Adriana, was a significant and memorable part of the series, known for her complex relationship with the mob and tragic storyline. What is Only Fans OnlyFans is a content subscription service that allows creators to earn money from users who subscribe to their content. OnlyFans has gained popularity for its adult content, with many sex workers, pornographic actors, and models using the platform to sell access to their content. However, it also hosts a wide range of other content creators, including fitness trainers, musicians, artists, and cooks, who offer exclusive content not available on other social media platforms. The platform provides a way for creators to monetize their content directly from their fans, offering a paywall that helps protect their content while generating revenue through subscriptions, tips, and pay-per-view features. Denis Villeneuve is a filmmaker whose name commands respect in the world of modern cinema. Known for his distinct visual style, masterful storytelling, and knack for creating immersive cinematic extravaganzas, Villeneuve has intrigued audiences with his diverse range of films. With anticipation building for Dune: Part Two, starring Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, among others and scheduled to release on March 1, 2024, let's take a deep dive into his filmography and explore five essential movies that showcase his talent and vision. Amy Adams in Denis Villeneuve's Arrival. The film is among the highest rated sci-fi movies ever made. 1. Enemy (2013) Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Denis Villeneuve's Enemy is a cinematic puzzle that will leave you scratching your head in the best possible way. Set in a dreary, dystopian Toronto, the film follows the story of a meek college professor who discovers he has a doppelganger, setting off a series of increasingly surreal events. Jake Gyllenhaal delivers a mesmerizing dual performance, and Villeneuve's masterful direction keeps you on the edge of your seat as you try to unravel the film's enigmatic mysteries. With its haunting atmosphere and thought-provoking themes, Enemy is essential viewing for anyone who appreciates cerebral cinema. 2. Prisoners (2013) Prisoners is not your typical kidnapping thriller. Set in a small Pennsylvania town, the film follows the frantic search for two young girls who mysteriously vanish on Thanksgiving Day. Hugh Jackman delivers a powerhouse performance as a desperate father pushed to the brink, while Jake Gyllenhaal shines once again as the determined detective leading the investigation. What sets Prisoners apart is its exploration of morality, justice, and the lengths we're willing to go to protect our loved ones. Villeneuve expertly weaves together suspenseful twists and turns with profound emotional depth, making Prisoners a riveting and unforgettable cinematic experience. 3. Sicario (2015) Set against the backdrop of the escalating drug war along the US-Mexico border, Sicario follows FBI agent Kate Macer as she is recruited to join a covert task force targeting a powerful drug cartel. Emily Blunt delivers a compelling performance as the morally conflicted protagonist, while Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro shine as the enigmatic government operatives leading the charge. With its gritty realism and intense cinematography, Sicario is a visceral thrill ride that will leave you breathless. 4. Arrival (2016) Arrival is still considered among the best sci-fi movies ever made. Based on Ted Chiang's short story Story of Your Life, the film explores complex themes of language, time, and the nature of human consciousness. Amy Adams delivers a career-best performance as linguist Louise Banks, who is recruited by the military to communicate with extraterrestrial visitors whose ships have descended upon Earth. Denis Villeneuve's direction is nothing short of masterful, imbuing the film with a sense of wonder and awe that is as thought-provoking as it is visually stunning. With its mind-bending twists and emotional resonance, Arrival is a transcendent cinematic experience that will stay with you long after the credits roll. 5. Blade Runner 2049 (2017) Blade Runner 2049 is a visual masterpiece that pushes the boundaries of cinematic storytelling. Set thirty years after the events of Ridley Scott's original Blade Runner, the film follows K, a replicant "blade runner" tasked with hunting down rogue androids. Ryan Gosling delivers a nuanced performance as the brooding protagonist, while Harrison Ford reprises his iconic role as Rick Deckard. Denis Villeneuve's direction is nothing short of breathtaking, as he brings to life a dystopian world that is both hauntingly familiar and eerily surreal. With its jaw-dropping visuals and thought-provoking themes, Blade Runner 2049 is a cinematic experience unlike any other. It was a night of contrasts for Kanye West and his wife, Bianca Censori, who turned heads with their outfits as they left a posh restaurant in Paris. The Mirror US caught a glimpse of the couple, who looked very happy and in love. Bianca Censori bares it all in Paris with Kanye West(Twitter/ Daily Loud) Bianca opted for a more see-through look Bianca, a 29-year-old model for Kanyes Yeezy brand, is known for her daring fashion choices and this time was no exception. She wore only a pair of see-through brown leggings and a tight blue top that left little to the imagination. She also went braless, making her look even more stunning. She completed her outfit with brown boots that matched her leggings, and kept her makeup and hair simple. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Kanye went for the conservative one Kanye, on the other hand, opted for a more conservative look. The 46-year-old rapper donned a black raincoat and baggy black pants. He also wore Nike gloves, which was a clear statement against Adidas, his former partner. He had recently posted a video on his social media, accusing the company of selling fake Yeezys. ALSO READ| Bianca Censoris no pants trend hits Milan, stuns in scandalous leather look with Kanye at fashion week The pair were seen leaving Ferdi, a restaurant that serves French cuisine and desserts, on Monday night. Bianca flaunted her curves to the paparazzi as she walked to their SUV, while Kanye smiled and held her hand. Ferdi is an interesting choice for the couple, as it is also a favorite spot for Kanyes ex-wife Kim Kardashian, who once raved about their cheeseburger as the worlds best. Earlier that day, Kanye and Bianca had also visited Fendi, a luxury fashion store, where they did some shopping. Bianca was spotted looking at various clothes, while Kanye gave her his opinion. They also chatted with the staff as they browsed the pricey items. The couples romantic date night in Paris followed their appearance at Kanyes album listening party in the city, where Bianca showed her affection for Kanyes daughter North West. The 10-year-old girl was seen holding Biancas hand and listening to her whisper in her ear, as they watched Kanye perform. ALSO READ| Euphoria actor Hunter Schafer arrested for pro-Palestine protest in New York. See pic A video of the sweet moment was shared on TikTok, where fans praised Bianca for her bond with North. The kids being comfortable around Bianca speaks volumes, one fan commented. Another one wrote, Love that for northie she needs someone like bianca. Its their first sit down interview as a couple, after their wedding and the recent delightful news which HT City broke. Its always been either with the director of our film Article 370, Aditya (Suhas Jambhale) or the team for promotions, never just the two of us in person, tells us Aditya Dhar, who has produced the film. His wife, actor Yami Gautam Dhar walks in after two minutes, and the glow is real! Yami and Aditya posing for HT City at their Mumbai house.(Sneh Zala) TWO GOOD It isnt just the pregnancy glow- another joint venture of theirs i.e. the political drama has been doing well. The numbers have been steady, and the reviews have hailed it as an important film. We are on top of the world. We got into films because we wished some day hamari film ki bhi tareef hogi, log seetiyaan bajayenge. It happened first with Uri- The Surgical Strike. and now Article 370. To see this kind of response in multiplexes, which usually happens in single screens... this love doesnt come with just talent, it might be because of the blessings from our ancestors. This film is so technical, a lot of people discouraged us yeh film nahi chalegi, it had a lot of English also. But we always felt that somewhere people have this tendency especially in our industry to underestimate our audiences, shares Dhar. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Gautams portrayal of an intelligence officer meanwhile has fetched her rave reviews. This is true validation in its truest form. I dont know anything about awards, with due respect. Those claps and hoots are music to our ears. It is not the first time it has happened with a film of mine or my casting (that there have been naysayers) I am sure they dont mean bad, it is just a perspective, she says while munching on snacks. I will eat and talk, no manners or etiquettes, I am getting the signal that I need to eat, she laughs. BABY ON BOARD Aditya remembers the moment they both got to know about them expecting. They were shooting for Article 370, We were in the hotel. Luckily, our action portions were done by then. It was a really happy moment, something I will remember for the rest of our lives. We were jumping with joy, and emotional. Now we cant wait. Yami chimes in, You are never prepared for a moment like this. You only realise once you are in it. You get happy when it happens to your loved ones, like when my sister was pregnant. When it has happened to me, I cant stop smiling. You forget everything, and then come back to reality to plan. Its a very personal time, we are private people. We had to be cautious. The filmmaker had a panel of doctors available 24/7 while they wrapped up the shoot. But never did I want to hold myself back. I wanted to have the same strength which my mom had when she was expecting. I am so lucky to have a life partner like Aditya, he has been a huge support. Hes my go to person so I reach out to him for pregnancy queries too. He always tries to answer it, and then one day told me you realise I am not a doctor, right?, she laughs. It is of course a happy moment when a joint collaboration hits the bullseye. In Yami and Adityas case, they met on the sets of their first collab, Uri and started dating. The second time they did a collab on Article 370, they are en route to become parents. Yami and Aditya all smiles posing for HT City exclusively. DOES ADITYA CAST YAMI ONLY BECAUSE THEY ARE MARRIED? The fact that Adityas wife plays the lead role in this film would be dismissed as obvious by a section, because well, they are married. But Aditya surprises us when he says that Yami is approached whenever he has a subject, just like he does with any other actor. While making Uri, so many people called up our producer Ronnie (Screwvala) and said are you sure you want to take Vicky Kaushal as the lead who has not done big commercial films, hes a lanky boy, that too in a war film Everything was against it. Somewhere that challenge excites us. We wanted everything the right way with Article 370 too. We dont want it to be what we call in Hindi chacha bhatijawaad, ki ghar ke hain toh le lete hain. We are always professional. It is our second production with Yami and it is always routed through her management. When we talk about commercials too, it is never across the table. Our company and producers decided unanimously that we should go with Yami. She has given her heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears to it, he maintains. We add that this time there were two energies from her side making it happen, and the two start laughing. POLITICAL FILMS- A RISK? Yamis choice of films has been non run of the mill, right from her debut Vicky Donor to Article 370 now. However, taking up political films always come with the risk of getting stereotyped that this actor wants to grab eyeballs through controversial topics, and backlash if the film falters in its intent. However, Yami says she was not at all apprehensive before saying a yes, Today it is easier to answer this. I am thinking about the Yami who did her first film, Vicky Donor, on a subject with which there were stigmas attached. I remember after finishing the film, I was still giving door to door auditions, they would ask if I have been on camera or done any film. I would say yes just shot one. They would ask what is it about and I would tell them. I remember the reaction, so I decided let me not say. Subsequently I started saying you will know, its a good film Its only that fear which will create a layer of inhibition and pull you back from exploring your true potential as a creative person. I always like to go with my gut. I know in my heart why I signed this film. Of course I was aware there are going to be debates. MUTUAL RESPECT Aditya is a proud husband, who is caring enough to immediately brush off a stray hair from Yami's forehead as she is talking. Sharing that she is thorough with her prep for the role, Aditya gets candid, You can ask our director also, she is extraordinary. I have been telling her for the last five years. it shouldnt have taken her 10 years to get here, it should have happened much earlier. If it was some kid from the film fraternity with a start like Vicky Donor, their career would have been on another level by now. For her to take 10 years, it has been a lot of time, it took a lot out of her. Yami fights hard to control her tears as Aditya finishes and sniffles, People say its pregnancy hormones, I know how much control I need right now to conceal my emotions. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Indian Navy have seized the highest quantity of drugs3132 kg offshore to date worth over 1000 crore and arrested five men suspected to be from Pakistan or Iran from a ship in the Indian waters off the Gujarat coast, officials said on Wednesday. The NCB has conducted three major operations in the Indian ocean with the Indian Navy over the last two years. (X) Gyaneshwar Singh, NCBs deputy director general (operations), said the agency will share more details about the seizure later on Wednesday. The five arrested men do not have identity papers. They are either from Iran or Pakistan. This is the highest ever seizure offshore [in terms of quantity] in the country, Singh said. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. In a post on X, Union home minister Amit Shah congratulated the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police for the success. Pursuing PM @narendramodi Jis vision of a drug-free Bharat our agencies today achieved the grand success of making the biggest offshore seizure of drugs in the nation. In a joint operation carried out by the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police, a gigantic consignment of 3132 kg of drugs was seized. The historic success is a testament to our govts unwavering commitment to making our nation drug-free. The NCB has conducted three major operations in the Indian ocean with the Indian Navy over the last two years. In February 2022, they recovered 221 kg methamphetamine from a ship off Gujarat coast. Another 200 kg high grade heroin was seized from a ship near the Kerala coast in October 2022. In May last year, the NCB seized at least 2500 kg methamphetamine worth 12000 crore from a ship from Pakistan. The ship was intercepted in the Indian Ocean before it the drugs from it could be handed over to cartels in India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. NCBs probe in earlier cases suggested that Pakistan-based Haji Salim was using the marine channel to smuggle drugs into India. In a boost to India's defence capabilities, the country's leading private sector defence manufacturer Adani Defence & Aerospace launched two facilities dedicated to the production of ammunition and missiles in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. Adani Defence already manufactures drones, anti-drone systems and small arms including light machine guns, assault rifles and pistols, according to the companys website. The mega facilities, touted as South Asia's largest, were inaugurated on Monday by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Chief of Army Staff Gen Manoj Pande, Lt Gen N. S. Raja Subramani in the presence of officials from the Ministry of Defence and Uttar Pradesh government. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Also Read: Adani Group in talks with Uber to introduce electric passenger cars: Report Spanning over 500 acres, the facility located in Kanpur is set to emerge as one of the largest integrated ammunition manufacturing complexes in South Asia. It is geared to produce a diverse range of high-quality small, medium, and large calibre ammunition catering to the needs of the armed forces, paramilitary forces, and police. The facility has already commenced production, starting with small calibre ammunition, with an initial output estimated to cover 25% of India's annual requirement, totalling 150 million rounds. The unveiling of the facilities coincided with the fifth anniversary of the Balakot airstrike Operation Bandar, a historic operation by the Indian Air Force that was a testimony to Indias strategic assertiveness over external threats. Also Read: Adani Realty wins bid to redevelop 24-acre plot at Bandra Reclamation Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said, This is a moment of great pride. The facility is a testimony to Uttar Pradeshs transformation into an industrial powerhouse and our commitment to Prime Minister Narendra Modis Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. Adani Defence & Aerospace has made the largest investment in the Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor, which will play a crucial role in developing a vibrant defence ecosystem. It is encouraging to see the commencement of operations within 18 months of allocating land. It will be a proud moment when ammunition and missiles produced in these facilities will help in securing the nation. Also Read: Adani will take over Dharavi land once people go to transit camps, says Uddhav Gen Manoj Pande underscored the importance of self-reliance in missiles and ammunition, particularly in light of recent geopolitical developments. He praised Adani Defence & Aerospace's substantial investments and dedication to indigenizing critical defence technologies, signaling a significant milestone in India's journey towards self-sufficiency in the defence sector. Recent geopolitical events have reemphasized the need for a reliable supply from internal sources for ammunition in preparedness for a long-drawn conflict. Such large investments and willingness of Adani Defence & Aerospace to indigenize critical technologies have built confidence in the users to depend on Indian private industry for strategic military supplies. This complex is a major milestone in Indias journey towards self-reliance in the defence sector," he said. Ajmer: The khadims of the Ajmer Dargah have demanded action against a man named Simran Gupta, the chief of an outfit called Hindu Shakti Dal, for allegedly calling Sufi saint Moinuddin Chisti a rapist and a terrorist. The man had also allegedly claimed that the dargah's Jannati Darwaja was built after demolishing a pre-existing Shiva Temple. Ajmer: Muslim devotees take part in a religious procession during the Urs of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer Sharif Dargah in January. (PTI file photo) Sarwar Chishty, the president of a body of khadims' of Ajmer Dargah, wrote a letter to Ajmer's SP demanding Guptas arrest over his objectionable comments. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Chisty told PTI that the fringe organisation had made hate speech and objectionable remarks against the saint. "It is very unfortunate and disgraceful that the members of fringe organisation Hindu Shakti Dal deliberately, as per a well-planned criminal conspiracy, made a hate-speech filled with offensive remarks and extremely objectionable defamatory statements against Khawaja Gharib Nawaz within the premises of Ajmer Collectorate campus," he said. Also read: Political parties should find solutions to Kashi, Mathura outside courts: Ajmer Dargah chief He also said that the authorities didn't take any action against the members of the group. He also said that despite giving evidence, the man has not been arrested. "There is a multi-fold rise in rumour mongering, twisted historical facts, misinformation, abusive, insulting and defamatory comments on Khawaja Gharib Nawaz, and Dargah Ajmer Sharif khadims as well as the Muslim community. Shockingly, despite our written complaint along with documentary and electronic evidence, and multiple FIRs, no one has been arrested by police so far for curbing hate speech and maintaining social harmony and peace," he said. He threatened the police with launching a protest if strict action is not taken against the man within a week. Circle officer Dargah Gauri Shankar told PTI that two FIRs have been registered in connection with the statement of Simran Gupta made nearly a week ago and the matter is being investigated. Gupta had recently submitted a memorandum to the district administration, demanding a survey of the dargah by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI). This comes weeks after a court in Varanasi permitted the family of a Hindu priest to hold prayers in the cellar of the Gyanvapi Mosque. The order came days after the ASI survey claimed that there was a pre-existing Hindu temple at the site of the mosque. With inputs from PTI Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday hailed the biggest offshore drug haul in India as a testament to the Narendra Modi government's unwavering commitment to making the nation drug-free. Shah said the historic success is a testament to the Modi government's unwavering commitment to making the nation drug-free. In a joint operation carried out by the Narcotics Control Bureau, the Indian Navy, and the Gujarat Police, over 3,100 kg of drugs in a mother ship a large vessel carrying large quantities of narcotic contraband for distribution to receiving vessels over the route were seized near the Gujarat coast. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Also Read: In one of biggest drug hauls, police seize MD worth 2,200 cr Five suspects, believed to be from Pakistan or Iran, have been apprehended in connection with the operation, according to people familiar with the matter. On this occasion, I congratulate the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police, Shah said in a post on X. Pursuing PM Narendra Modi Ji's vision of a drug-free Bharat our agencies today achieved the grand success of making the biggest offshore seizure of drugs in the nation. In a joint operation carried out by the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police, a gigantic consignment of 3132 kg of drugs was seized, he added. Also Read: Accused in 21,000 crore Mundra port drugs case escapes from police custody The seized drugs, with an estimated value exceeding 1000 crore, are the largest in terms of quantity, according to NCB officials. "We will share details later in the day. The 5 arrested men do not have identity papers with them. They are either from Iran or Pakistan. This is the highest ever seizure offshore (in terms of quantity) in the country," NCB deputy director general (operations), Gyaneshwar Singh, said. The agency has yet to disclose the type of drugs seized in the operation. The historic success is a testament to our govt's unwavering commitment to making our nation drug-free. On this occasion, I congratulate the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police, Shah said. Also Read: Drug haul off Gujarat coast: 6 persons sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, 4 get 10-year jail term In February 2022, 221 kg of methamphetamine was seized from a vessel near the Gujarat coast, followed by the confiscation of 200 kg of high-grade heroin off the Kerala coast in October of the same year. Last year's May 11 operation marked another milestone, with the interception of at least 2500 kg of methamphetamine, valued at 12000 crore, from a mother ship dispatched from Pakistan. Investigations into previous cases have revealed a pattern of drug trafficking orchestrated by Pakistan-based Haji Salim. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, accompanied by state government officials, paid a visit to a slum in Odisha's Bhubaneswar on Wednesday and interacted with the people living there. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates met Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar today. (ANI) Read here: Bill Gates, mining and Zambia: Was AI used to find a massive Copper deposit Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The tech honcho visited the Biju Adarsh Colony in the Maa Mangla Basti and enquired about the well-being of the residents. He further interacted with the members of women's self-help groups (SHGs) working there, reported news agency PTI. The State Development Commissioner, Anu Garg, highlighted the amenities provided to the slum dwellers, including land rights, tap water access, sanitation facilities and electricity. "We have shown him that the slum dwellers have got land rights, tap water connections, toilets and power supply. He expressed happiness over the transformation of the slum area into a model colony," the news agency quoted Garg as saying. The philanthropist also asked the slum residents about the changes in their lifestyle as a result of the welfare schemes. "He asked about how we were living earlier and our present status," a slum resident said. Read here: Bill Gates, world's 4th richest, wants super-wealthy to pay more tax Meanwhile, Gates also met chief minister Naveen Patnaik later today. During his trip, Gates is scheduled to attend other functions including the Mukta scheme (localised employment opportunities for the urban poor) and Mission Shakti. Gates also visited the tech giant's India Development Center (IDC) in Hyderabad and addressed some of India's brightest engineering minds at the IDC, Rajiv Kumar, Managing Director, Microsoft IDC, and CVP, Experiences Devices India said as he shared Gates' "optimism over the opportunity for an AI-powered India". Since 2017, Odisha governments Department of Agriculture & Farmer Empowerment and the Fisheries and Animal Resource Department have collaborated with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for innovation in data-driven decision-making. (With inputs from PTI) The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was expected to finalise the nominees for up to a third of the Lok Sabha seats at a meeting of its Central Election Committee (CEC) in New Delhi on Thursday. The first list of the BJP candidates, including for around 130 seats the party has never won, was likely to be released on Friday, days before the national election schedule is to be announced. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the meeting of BJPs Central Election Committee. (HT PHOTO) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the CEC meeting. Union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, and former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa are among those scheduled to attend it. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. People aware of the matter said many seats from the South were likely to figure on the first list. They added that an early announcement of the candidates would ensure the nominees get about 50 days to campaign. The people said a similar strategy worked for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, where it announced 39 candidates for what were considered the toughest seats over three months before the polls last year. The first list of BJP Lok Sabha candidates was expected to be released amid speculation about whether some Union ministers, who are members of Rajya Sabha, would fight the Lok Sabha polls. Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar refused to comment after their ministerial colleague Pralhad Joshi was construed to have suggested they could be among the candidates. Joshi later clarified that anybody can contest and that he had not taken specific names. It is a national party and the leadership will decide. The speculation about Union minister Piyush Goyals candidature was set off after the World Trade Organisation chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told reporters in Abu Dhabi that Goyal could not be there because he was politically engaged since he is running for a seat himself. Goyals office later said the party and not individuals take such decisions. Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan was expected to fight from Sambalpur or Dhenkanal in Odisha and his colleague Bhupendra Yadav from Haryana. The BJP has renominated only the party chief JP Nadda, Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw, L Murugan, and spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi for Rajya Sabha, implementing the rule that no member will be given more than two terms to encourage new talent. There is also a view that leaders who have won Lok Sabha seats from easy seats for three terms should be changed. Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday took a sharp jibe at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) amid the political crisis in Himachal Pradesh, saying that the party wants to "crush" people's mandate by misusing money, power, and central agencies. Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (AICC) Follow Himachal LIVE Updates here Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. She further claimed that the BJP is trying to push the state towards a "political disaster". "In democracy, the general public has the right to choose the government of their choice. The people of Himachal used this right and formed the Congress government with a clear majority. But BJP wants to crush this right of the people of Himachal by misusing the money power, power of agencies and power of the Centre. The way BJP is using government security and machinery for this purpose is unprecedented in the history of the country," Vadra said in a post on X in Hindi. The party's general secretary further claimed that the BJP totally depends on horse-trading of representatives to grab power and the way the saffron camp is using government's security and other machinery for this purpose is unprecedented in the history of the country. Read here: Vikramaditya Singh my brother, no question of accepting his resignation: Himachal CM "If a party with 25 MLAs is challenging the majority of 43 MLAs, then it clearly means that it is dependent on horse-trading of representatives. This attitude of theirs is unethical and unconstitutional. The people of Himachal and the country are watching everything. The BJP, which did not stand with the people of the state during the natural disaster, now wants to push the state into political disaster," she added. Vadra's remarks came hours after the BJP claimed that Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led Himachal government is in the minority after the former won the state's lone Rajya Sabha seat with its candidate Harsh Mahajan defeating Congress stalwart Singhvi, despite the latter being in the majority. Both the Congress and the BJP candidates got 34 votes, indicating that at least six Congress MLAs voted against the party. The Speaker today suspended 15 MLAs for allegedly disturbing the proceedings. Read here: 'Shaitani argument': Jairam Ramesh's snub over question on Sonia Gandhi-Himachal Meanwhile, to control the damage, the Congress sent Bhupesh Baghel, DK Shivakumar and Bhupinder Hooda to Shimla as observers to speak to the party MLAs. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the party will not hesitate to take some difficult decisions if the need arises because the institution is above individuals. In the 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 legislators. The remaining three seats are held by independents. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is expected to notify the rules for the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) within the next couple of weeks, reported The Indian Express. These rules will be put in place before the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) comes into effect, which typically happens when election dates are announced, according to the report. Union Home Minister Amit Shah.(Gujarat CMO) The rules will outline the evidence required for applicants to prove their eligibility for citizenship under the CAA. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Also Read | CAA rules to be finalised before Lok Sabha elections: Amit Shah The CAA amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 to provide a path to Indian citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis who migrated from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan before December 31, 2014. The enactment of the CAA sparked a massive controversy and widespread protests across India, with critics arguing that it discriminates against Muslims and undermines the secular principles enshrined in the Indian Constitution. The government, on the other hand, defended the law as a humanitarian measure aimed at protecting persecuted religious minorities from neighbouring countries. Also Read | DMK govt will never allow CAA implementation in Tamil Nadu, says Stalin The evidence of religious persecution, however, will not likely be sought, according to the report, as it will be presumed that those who migrated did so due to persecution or fear of persecution. The CAA was passed by the Parliament on December 11, 2019, and was notified on December 12 of the same year. However, the controversial law has not been implemented because the rules were not notified. Also Read | Assam witnesses anti-CAA protest ahead of PM Modis visit Earlier this month, Union home minister Amit Shah said that the CAA rules will be notified and implemented before the Lok Sabha elections. Speaking at the ET-Now Global Business Summit (GBS) in Delhi, Shah said, The CAA is an act of the country. It will be notified before the polls (upcoming Lok Sabha elections). There should be no confusion about it. It (the law) was a promise of the Congress government. When the country was divided, and the minorities were persecuted in those countries, Congress assured the refugees that they were welcome in India and that they would be provided with Indian citizenship. But they backtracked, Shah added. Kolkata: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) can arrest Trinamool Congress (TMC) strongman Sheikh Shahjahan, who has been on the run since January 5, the Calcutta high court said on Wednesday. People hold protest march against in Kolkata following Sandeshkhali unrest (PTI Photo) The person couldnt be apprehended for a substantial period of time. The court has only stayed the constitution of a special investigation team. Therefore, it will be well open to the CBI or the ED also to arrest the absconding accused, said a division bench of chief justice TS Sivagnanam and justice Hiranmay Bhattacharya. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The court was hearing a series of petitions related to the recent Sandeshkhali unrest. Shahjahan, a zilla parishad leader of the ruling TMC, is a prime accused in the case related to the attack on ED officials on January 5, when they had gone to raid in place in an alleged ration scam. He is also said to be the key accused behind the Sandeshkhali unrest. Also Read: How Shahjahan Sheikh scripted rags-to-riches story by maintaining political clout Sandeshkhali, a village in West Bengals North 24 Parganas has been on the boil since February 7 after the village women hit the streets demanding the arrest of Shahjahan and his aides over allegations of land grabbing and sexual assault. Earlier, his close associates Shibaprasad Hazra and Uttam Sardar, were arrested by the Bengal Police. On Monday, the Calcutta high court paved the way for the arrest of Shahjahan by the state police, brushing aside claims by the state government that there was a stay on apprehending the strongman dismissing the claims that the judiciary had tied the hands of the state police in arresting him. The bench said that there was no record in any cases relating to incidents at Sandeshkhali that there was a stay on Shahjahans arrest. Hours after the high courts remarks, the TMC said that Shahjahan would be arrested in seven days. Advocate general Kishore Datta for the state had informed the court that at least 43 first information reports (FIR) have been registered involving Shahjahan in the last four years. Barring one, in which a probe is going on, police have filed the charge sheet in all other cases. The court said that it would examine at a later date whether the investigations, in those cases, were correctly done and what were the sections included. The bench stated that state police cannot shrug responsibility in not apprehending the person, who has been absconding. Also Read: Sandeshkhali case: Sheikh Shahjahan gets no relief in Calcutta HC, faces arrest Additional solicitor general SV Raju had told the court that if the state police arrested him, they would dilute the case. The CBI and ED counsels said they have serious reservations against the state police. It was also alleged that the police were colluding with the absconding accused. Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari has alleged that Shahjahan has been in the safe custody of the state police since last night. Recently Adhikari had even given the name of a village claiming that Shahjahan was hiding there. TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has already said that Shahjahan couldnt be arrested because earlier the high court had given a stay. The stay has been lifted. The state administration is working unbiasedly. Shajahan would be arrested soon, Santanu Sen, TMC MP had told the media. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has issued summons to former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, in a 2019 probe into the alleged illegal mining of minor minerals in Hamirpur district, people familiar with the development said on Wednesday. The agency has asked Yadav to appear before it on Thursday as a witness. (PTI file photo) The agency has asked Yadav to appear before it on Thursday as a witness, officials said. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The summon has been issued under 160 of the CrPC (criminal procedure code), which is issued to record statements of witnesses or individuals familiar with details. The federal agency had registered a case in January 2019 against 11 persons including UP cadre IAS officer B Chandrakala, then SP leader Ramesh Kumar Mishra and Sanjay Dixit (who fought 2017 state election on a BSP ticket) to probe alleged illegal mining of minor minerals in Hamirpur district. Also Read:BJPs backroom play: From Mondays surprise to Tuesdays surgical strike The agency was probing illegal mining in UPs Shamli, Hamirpur, Saharanpur, Deoria, Fatehpur, Siddharth Nagar and Kaushambi districts as part of its seven Preliminary Enquiries (PEs) registered in 2017 on the order of Allahabad high court out of which three FIRs were registered in January 2019. CBIs FIR stated, The role of then mining ministers concerned during the relevant period may be looked into during the course of investigation of the case. It has been alleged that the state government officials conspired with private persons in the alleged illegal mining of minor minerals between 2012 and 2016 by granting fresh leases, renewing existing leases and permitting obstructed period to the existing lease holders, without following the e-tendering procedure as mandated by the UP government in its order dated May 31, 2012. As part of the conspiracy, the accused persons allowed excavation of minor minerals with a purpose of theft and to extort money from the lease holders as well as from the drives of the vehicles transporting the minor minerals like stones, gravel, clay and sand which are considered government property according to the Mines and Minerals (development and regulation) act of 1957. CBI stated that all of this was being done despite a ban on mining by the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The Supreme Court has issued notice on a petition seeking direction to constitute a special team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe the alleged large-scale, nationwide scam perpetrated and done by motivational speaker Vivek Bindra and his Bada Business Pvt Ltd. A bench of justices MM Sundresh and SVN Bhatti on Monday sought the Centre and others' responses to the petition filed by Shubham Chaudhary and others. Motivational speaker Vivek Bindra "Issue notice returnable in six weeks," the bench said on the February 26 order, news agency ANI reported. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The petitioners claimed that they had deposited their hard-earned money to the money chain like scheme of the Bada Business Pvt Ltd. Advocates Vikas Singh, Sureshan P Vikas Nagwan and Yogesh Aggarwal appeared for the petitioners. What did petitioners say? According to the petitioners, the issue has national ramifications as the complainants hail from different states and have already submitted written complaints to the local police, They prayed for directions to the Centre government to constitute a special investigation team of the CBI to probe the alleged scam perpetrated and done by Vivek Bindra and Bada Business Pvt Ltd whereby he has duped and cheated the petitioners and other general public. According to the petition, despite submitting written complaints by the petitioners and other similarly placed individuals, no action has been taken by the police. "Keeping in view of the widespread nature of the scam running in various states, it is imperative to direct a centralized agency to probe the matter so as to avoid multiplicity of proceedings, a fair investigation, and a one-stop point of contact for the youth duped by the said Bindra. It is most respectfully submitted that the multiple complaints submitted by the petitioners and similarly placed others disclose a prima facie case punishable under Section 420, 406 read with Section 34 of IPC and Sections 3 and 4 of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978 and hence a writ of mandamus as prayed in the petition is required to be issued to the respondents," the petition said. "In such circumstances referred to above, the writ petitioners are here before this Court with the present writ petition seeking appropriate relief. The complaints submitted by the petitioner to the local police authorities will disclose that the accused tricked people into giving him their money through a Ponzi scheme that promised big returns. The alleged Ponzi scheme is similar to one scam run by a 26-year-old BTech graduate named Anubhav Mittal of Noida," read the petition. What's the case against Vivek Bindra? New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday banned two Jammu and Kashmir-based groups the Muslim Conference (Sumji faction) and the Muslim Conference (Bhat faction) under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for five years. Union home minister Amit Shah announced the decision on X (Representative Photo) Announcing the decision on X, Union home minister Amit Shah said, Striking terror networks with undiminished vehemence, the government has declared the Muslim Conference Jammu & Kashmir (Sumji faction) and Muslim Conference Jammu & Kashmir (Bhat faction) as Unlawful Associations. These outfits have been engaging in activities against the sovereignty and integrity of the nation. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Shah said the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is determined to uproot terrorism, and anyone involved in unlawful activities will face dire consequences. A gazette notification issued by the Union home ministry on Wednesday banning the Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir (Bhat faction) or MCJK-B stated that the organisation, chaired by Abdul Ghani Bhat, has been indulging in unlawful activities, which are prejudicial to the integrity, sovereignty and security of the country. MCJK-B has linkages with banned terrorist organizations and has supported terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and the members of the MCJK-B have been indulging in generating feelings of hatred and disaffection against India to separate Jammu and Kashmir from Union of India, the notification said. A separate notification on Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir (Sumji faction) or MCJK-S, chaired by Ghulam Nabi Sumji, stated that the organisation is known for its anti-India and pro-Pakistan propaganda. The leaders and members of MCJK-S have been involved in raising funds through various sources including Pakistan and its proxy organisations for perpetrating unlawful activities, including supporting terrorist activities, sustained stone-pelting on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, the notification stated. Earlier, in December 2023, the Union home ministry banned the Muslim League Jammu and Kashmir (Masarat Alam faction) for its anti-India and pro-Pakistan propaganda. On Tuesday, the government extended the ban imposed on the Jamaat-e-Islami, Jammu Kashmir (JeI), by another five years for continuing activities that pose a threat to the security of the nation. New Delhi: The ministry of minority affairs ordered the closure of the Maulana Azad Education Foundation (MAEF), people aware of the matter said on Tuesday. The decision came following a proposal put forth by the Central Waqf Council (CWC), an entity under the minority ministry, which regulates educational initiatives for minorities in the country. The MAEF is a government-funded organisation aimed at promoting education among educationally disadvantaged sections of the Muslim community (Representative Photo) The order, issued by the minority ministrys under-secretary Dhiraj Kumar on February 7, abruptly shuts down the foundation without providing any substantive rationale. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Senior officials in the ministry have labelled it as an internal matter not yet disclosed to the public. According to a foundation member, internal discussions are ongoing, and the order has not yet been made public. Another member mentioned that a meeting on 4 March has been scheduled, but the agenda remains undisclosed. HT reached out to the ministry for an official comment but they refused. Attempts to reach the Central Waqf Council for comment were also unsuccessful. The order states that MAEF may propose an agenda for its legal closure and complete the dissolution process as per applicable laws. According to the order, as of 30 November 2023, MAEF has funds totalling Rs.1,073.26 crores with pending liabilities of Rs.403.55 crores, leaving Rs.669.71 crores available. The order proposes transferring these funds to the Consolidated Funds of India (CFI) and the liabilities to the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC) to address pending claims and liabilities. The MAEF is a government-funded organisation aimed at promoting education among educationally disadvantaged sections of the Muslim community. It was established in 1989 on the birth centenary of the first education minister and freedom fighter Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad. Junior research fellows (JRF) received Rs.31,000 monthly for the first two years, while senior research fellows (SRF) were granted Rs.35,000 per month for the remaining period. As of 2021-22, Maulana Azad National Fellowship had aided over 6,700 candidates, disbursing Rs.738.85 crore. However, the scheme was discontinued in 2022, resulting in widespread student protests. The Sachar Committee report in 2006 mentioned that the Muslims rank somewhat above the Schedule Caste/Schedule Tribes but below Hindu Other Backward Class, other minorities and Hindu general in almost all indicators considered. In response to these findings, the ministry of minority affairs was established in 2006 after which MAEF came under the aegis of the ministry. The MAEF experienced a significant budget cut, with grants-in-aid dropping from Rs.90 crore in 2021-22 to Rs.1 lakh in 2022-23 which was then increased to Rs.10 lakh in 2023-24 and subsequently for the year 2024-25 did not receive any funds from the government. Speaking on the development, a senior professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University said, The move will have an adverse impact on the Muslim students as the MAEF was the torch bearer for promoting education among the Muslim community in India. Several students benefitted under the foundation and it is quite unfortunate that the foundation is being shut down. A fresh controversy has erupted in Tamil Nadu after an advertisement for a new Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spaceport in the southern state featuring prime minister Narendra Modi, chief minister MK Stalin, and a rocket with the flag of China appeared in leading Tamil newspapers on Wednesday. The controversial ad published in Tamil newspapers in Tamil Nadu today.(X/ @annamalai_k) Read here: DMK govt insulting legacy of MGK: Modi attacks Oppn Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. PM Modi, who is on a two-day visit to Tamil Nadu, took a jibe at the DMK government over the newspaper advertisement saying that the DMK government has insulted Indian science and is 'not ready' to accept India's progress in the space sector. While addressing a gathering in Tirunelveli, PM Modi said, They are not ready to accept India's progress in the space sector and with the taxes that you pay, they give advertisements and do not even include a picture of India's space in them. They did not want to present India's space success in front of the world, they insulted our scientists, our space sector, and your tax money. Now it's high time that the DMK is punished for their deeds. He further said that the ruling DMK does not work for the welfare of the people but stands ahead to take false credit. "DMK is a party that does not work but stands ahead to take false credit. These people paste their stickers on our schemes. Now they have crossed the limits, they have pasted China's sticker to take credit for the ISRO launch pad in Tamil Nadu," he added. Also read: MK Stalin's minister accepts 'small mistake' called out by PM Narendra Modi Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai also slammed the Stalin-led government saying that DMK has been 'desperate' to paste stickers since the announcement of the second launch pad coming up in the state was made. Read here: DMK sacks member amid reports of alleged drug cartel links While sharing the ad on X, Annamalai said, This advertisement by DMK Minister Anita Radhakrishnan to leading Tamil dailies today is a manifestation of DMK's commitment to China and their total disregard for our country's sovereignty. DMK, a party fighting high on corruption, has been desperate to paste stickers ever since the announcement of ISRO's second launch pad in Kulasekarapatinam was released. Annamalai said the DMK is the reason that Tamil Nadu lost Satish Dhawan Space Center to Andhra Pradesh. "The amount of desperation only proves their attempt to bury their past misdeeds, but we must remind them that DMK was why the Satish Dhawan Space Centre is today in Andhra Pradesh and not Tamil Nadu," Annamalai said. "When the first launch pad of ISRO was conceptualised, TN was the first choice of ISRO. TN CM Annadurai, who could not attend the meeting because of severe shoulder pain, deputed Mathiyazhagan, one of his ministers, for the meeting," he further mentioned. "ISRO officials were kept waiting for a long time, and Mathiyazhagan was finally brought to the meeting in an "inebriated state" and was incoherent throughout the meeting. And this was the treatment our country's space programme received 60 years ago. DMK hasn't changed much and has only become worse!," he added. However, DMK MP K Kanimozhi defended the party and advertisement after the saffron camp's backlash saying that China is not an enemy of India. Read here: Narendra Modi in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra today: PM to launch key development projects | Full schedule She further took a jibe at PM Modi saying that the latter had earlier invited the Chinese president and they went to Mahabalipuram. "I don't know from where the person who did the artwork found this picture. I don't think India has declared China an enemy country. I have seen that the Prime Minister has invited the Chinese PM and they have gone to Mahabalipuram. Just because you do not want to accept the truth, you are finding reasons to divert the issue," the DMK leader said. The ISRO spaceport in Kulasekarapattinam, the second in Tamil Nadu, is set to be a significant development for India's space sector, focusing on the launch of Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLVs). (With inputs from ANI, PTI) New Delhi A consensus may elude the 13th ministerial conference (MC13) of World Trade Organisation, as several members including India have raised their demand beyond a permanent solution to public stockholding for food security, which includes allowing procurement of new crops, allowing exports from public stockholding and dispensing with cumbersome compliances, two officials aware of the details said. Delegates attend the 13th World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi of February 26, 2024. The world's trade ministers gathered in the UAE on February 26 for a high-level WTO meeting with no clear prospects for breakthroughs, amid geopolitical tensions and disagreements. (AFP) About 80 countries -- the G33 including India, African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, together called ACP have asked for a permanent solution to public stockholding for food security, with additional exemptions over the existing peace clause, they said, requesting anonymity. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. A permanent solution in the matter is the topmost priority issue for India at the MC13, else the so-called peace clause will continue in perpetuity, they added. The peace clause is an interim arrangement giving flexibility to countries like India to procure grains from farmers at minimum support prices and build a stockpile to give subsidised or free rations to the poor. The additional asks include legal certainty of public procurement for stockpiling food grains, allowing stockpiling of new crops, allowing exports of food grains from the public stockholding on government-to-government (G2G) basis, and reducing compliance burden of notifying related activities at the multilateral forum, a second official said. Other members of WTO, mainly developed nations, consider public stockholding as subsidies inimical to fair trade. India is unlikely to compromise on its food grain procurement system in order to support over 810 million poor people, whom free rations are given though these stockpiles. The mechanism also ensures that Indian farmers -- mostly small and marginal cultivators with tiny landholdings -- are protected from the vagaries of the commodity market by guaranteeing a fair return for their produce, they said. Developed countries, however, consider it a trade-distorting mechanism because the government purchases food grains from farmers at administered rates, which are higher than the market rates, the first official said. WTO rules limit the subsidy that can be provided to farmers while undertaking procurements of food grains. The G33 wants to improved the ministerial decision adopted at the Bali ministerial (MC9) in December 2013, where members agreed to negotiate a permanent solution on this issue by the MC11, and in the interim, they agreed to exercise due restraint (also called the peace clause) in raising disputes in respect to public stockholding instituted before December 7, 2013, even if countries exceeded their permissible limits. After a firm stand taken by (the then commerce minister) Nirmala Sitharaman on this matter at the WTO, its general council (GC) in November 2014 extended the peace clause in perpetuity until a permanent solution is agreed and adopted. The MC10 at Nairobi endorsed the GC decision. However, no outcome was achieved on this matter in subsequent ministerial (MC11) at Buenos Aires and (MC12) at Geneva, the official said. While the status quo is still maintained and public stockholding cannot be disputed, India wants the interim arrangement must first be made a permanent clause of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) before taking up any other farm-related issues, he added. Commerce minister Piyush Goyal on Monday affirmed Indias stand in a written communique to the WTO. I re-emphasize that the development agenda would remain incomplete without a permanent solution on Public Stockholding for food security purposes which is directly related to achieving Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030, it said. WTO adopts new rules facilitating trade in services WTO on Tuesday adopted new rules facilitating trade in services, also called Services Domestic Regulations (SDR). India initially opposed it as decision of a group of countries ignoring the spirit of multilateralism, but it finally agreed after the group agreed to extend the same benefit to all members unconditionally. It will facilitate the process of recognising educational and other qualifications of professionals such as doctors and IT professionals -- across the countries. New Delhi: Cooperation in counterterrorism, narcotics trafficking and illegal immigration figured in India-US senior officials homeland security dialogue on Wednesday, with the two sides signing a memorandum of cooperation on law enforcement training. India-US senior officials homeland security dialogue was held in New Delhi on Wednesday (Twitter/@PIB_India) The two sides reviewed ongoing work in counter-terrorism and security, which a readout from the Union home ministry described as a key pillar of the bilateral strategic partnership. They discussed steps that can be taken to bolster bilateral efforts to combat terror, violent extremism, drug trafficking and organised crime. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The dialogue concluded with signing a memorandum of cooperation on law enforcement training between the US Federal Law Enforcement Training Centre and Indias Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy. People familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity that discussions focused on US efforts to restrict access to fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid linked to a sharp rise in drug overdose deaths in the United States. Following the launch last month of a US-China counter-narcotics working group to curb the production and trade of fentanyl, Washington is looking to work with other key partners to cut off access to illegal supplies of the opioid for foreign drug cartels. The people said Mexican drug cartels could turn to India, with its extensive pharmaceutical industry, as a possible source of fentanyl, and cooperation could look at joint monitoring of the supply of the lab-made drug. They acknowledged that India already has a good monitoring system, and the joint work will seek to build on this. In this context, the two sides are looking to finalise a memorandum of cooperation on countering narcotics trafficking. During the dialogue, the two sides looked at ways to speed up the tackling of illegal migration, especially in the context of Mexico, Salvador and India emerging as the top three source countries for such migrants, the people said. One of the measures being looked at to tackle this issue is sharing biometric information since many illegal migrants get rid of their travel documents, the people said. The issue of handling the cases of all illegal migrants, including detention and deportation, within 30 days also figured in the talks, the people said. At the same time, the two sides have also taken steps to facilitate travel by holders of visas such the H-1B and their families, the people said. The Indian readout said the two sides reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening people-to-people ties by taking steps to enable safe and legal migration and to counter illegal migration and human trafficking. Cyber-security was another important element of the dialogue, especially measures to counter phishing attacks and demands for cyber ransom from private companies and to exchange information on the activities of criminal gangs, the people said. The Indian readout said the two sides discussed ways to counter money laundering, cyber-crimes and misuse of the cyber domain for illegal activities, including terror financing. The issue of Nikhil Gupta, the Indian national named in a US indictment over an alleged plot to kill Khalistani leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil, didnt figure in the dialogue. Gupta was detained in the Czech Republic last June and has challenged a Czech courts order clearing his extradition to the US. The US indictment alleged that an Indian government employee ordered the assassination of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) leader Pannun in New York. The SFJ has been outlawed by India and Pannun was declared a terrorist. The Indian side at the dialogue was led by home secretary Ajay Bhalla, and the US delegation was headed by Kristie Canegallo, acting deputy secretary in the department of homeland security. They reiterated their interest in consolidating collaboration between law enforcement agencies through exchange of information, capacity building, technical assistance and regular meetings of sub-groups set up under the India-US Homeland Security Dialogue. Both sides agreed to hold the next round of the senior officials dialogue in Washington. The criminal justice system can act as a punishment in and of itself, the Supreme Court lamented while clearing a man who had been charged with abetting his wifes suicide 30 years ago. When a person is accused of aiding and abetting suicide, the court should seek cogent and convincing proof of the act of inciting the suicide, and the offending action should occur close to the time of the incident, the top court held. (HT PHOTO) The ordeal for the appellant started sometime in 1993, and is coming to an end in 2024, i.e. almost after a period of 30 years of suffering, rued a bench of justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, acquitting the man. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Finding it to be a case of no evidence, the bench said: We may only observe that the criminal justice system of ours can itself be a punishment. It is exactly what has happened in this case. It did not take more than 10 minutes for this court to reach an inevitable conclusion that the conviction of the appellant convict for the offence punishable under Section 306 of the IPC (abetment to commit suicide) is not sustainable in law. Also Read | Indias criminal justice system to be worlds most modern in 5 years: Amit Shah The case remained pending at the top court since December 2008. It was last listed in July 2014. The man, now in his late 50s, has been on bail since May 2009. The judgment further cautioned courts against drawing a legal inference against the husband and his relatives in all cases where a woman has committed suicide within seven years of the marriage. When a person is accused of aiding and abetting suicide, the court should seek cogent and convincing proof of the act of inciting the suicide, and the offending action should occur close to the time of the incident, it held. In 2008, the Punjab & Haryana high court confirmed the conviction of the man under the charge of goading his wife to take the extreme step in 1993. The prosecution argued that the woman ended her life by consuming poison in November 1993 due to the incessant demands of money by her husband and his relatives. Ten minutes into hearing the appeal on February 22, the top court concluded that the charge was not made out against the man because there was no evidence to show any kind of persistent abuse or harassment. Mere demand of money from the wife or her parents for running a business without anything more would not constitute cruelty or harassment...To prove the offence of abetment, the state of mind to commit a particular crime must be visible, to determine the culpability, held the bench in its judgment last week. To establish a charge under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the bench noted, there has to be evidence with regard to the positive act on the part of the accused to instigate or aid to drive a person to commit suicide but there was no evidence of incessant harassment in the present case. It also delved into interpretation of Section 113A of the Evidence Act, which states that when a woman commits suicide within seven years of marriage, and it is shown that her husband or any relative of her husband had subjected her to cruelty, a court may raise a legal presumption that such suicide had been abetted by her husband and his relatives. The court underlined that the use of the term may would indicate that the presumption is discretionary. From the mere fact of suicide within seven years of marriage, one should not jump to the conclusion of abetment unless cruelty was proved. The court has the discretion to raise or not to raise the presumption, because of the words may presume. It must take into account all the circumstances of the case, which is an additional safeguard, it said. The bench held that the conscience of the court would not be satisfied to find the accused guilty of aiding and abetting suicide if it appeared that the victim was hypersensitive to regular petulance, discord, and differences in domestic life that were quite common in society, and that such discord was not expected to induce an individual in such circumstances to commit suicide. In the case of accusation for abetment of suicide, the court should look for cogent and convincing proof of the act of incitement to the commission of suicide and such an offending action should be proximate to the time of occurrence...The court must remain very careful and vigilant in applying the correct principles of law governing the subject of abetment of suicide while appreciating the evidence on record. Otherwise, it may give the impression that the conviction is not legal but rather moral, maintained the bench. The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday carried out raids at 15 locations across Delhi NCR, Mumbai and some places in West Bengal in connection with its money laundering probe in the Mahadev Online betting app case, people familiar with the development said. The projected proceeds of crime in this case are about 6,000 crore, according to the ED. (File Photo) The raids came around 11 days after Nitish Diwan, a close aide of main promoters Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal, was arrested by the federal agency. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The case involves high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats from Chhattisgarh. So far, nine persons have been arrested and efforts are being made to get Chandrakar and Uppal extradited from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The two were recently detained in Dubai based on Interpol red notices issued at the behest of ED and the agency is trying to have them deported or extradited to India. A formal request in this regard has already been sent, officials said. ED has alleged in its charge sheet that Chandrakar got married at Ras Al Khaimah in UAE in February 2023 and about 200 crore in cash was spent for this event. Private jets were hired to ferry his relatives from India to the UAE and celebrities were paid to perform at the wedding. The agency had earlier said the alleged illegal funds generated through the app were used to pay bribes to politicians and bureaucrats in Chhattisgarh, where the main promoters and operatives of the app hail from. Several celebrities and Bollywood actors were summoned for questioning by the agency on their links with the online betting platform and the modes of payment. So far, the ED has filed two charge sheets in the case, including against Chandrakar and Uppal, among others. The projected proceeds of crime in this case are about 6,000 crore, according to the ED. Good evening! Here are the top stories in your evening news bulletin. Akhilesh Yadav has been summoned by the CBI.(PTI) Himachal Pradesh latest news: Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday rejected some media reports that claimed that he has offered his resignation amid an existential crisis in the Congress government. Interacting with reporters, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said, Neither has anyone asked for my resignation nor have I given my resignation to anyone. Taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said, "We will prove the majority in the assembly. We will win, the people of Himachal will win..." The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh faces an existential crisis after six of its MLAs crossed sides and are learnt to be in touch with the BJP. Adding the Congress's woes, Vikramaditya Singh announced his resignation from the state cabinet and said he has already spoken to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Read. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Sensex crash today explained: On Wednesday afternoon, the 30-share Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex witnessed a major fall, as it succumbed to selling pressure, and lost 795.5 points to plummet to 72,299, the day's low. At around 2 pm, in the late trading hours of the day, the loser pack that weighed heavily on the benchmark Sensex index was led by Power Grid Corporation (shares down 3.38%), Maruti Suzuki (2.67%), IndusInd Bank (2%), Mahindra & Mahindra (1.8%) and Reliance Industries (1.7%). However, despite the development, a few companies managed to trade in green. Among these, Jindal Worldwide's stock emerged as the top gainer, with its share price climbing by an impressive 13.56%, followed by Rainbow Children's Medicare (7.95%), Ageis Logistics (6.52%), Dreamfolks Service (5.49%) and Hvaells India (4.47%). Overall, Dalal Street investors lost about 6 lakh crore as the market capitalisation of all BSE-listed stocks fell to 386 lakh crore. Read. China rocket in Tamil Nadu ad: A fresh controversy has erupted in Tamil Nadu after an advertisement for a new Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spaceport in the southern state featuring prime minister Narendra Modi, chief minister MK Stalin, and a rocket with the flag of China appeared in leading Tamil newspapers on Wednesday. PM Modi, who is on a two-day visit to Tamil Nadu, took a jibe at the DMK government over the newspaper advertisement saying that the DMK government has insulted Indian science and is 'not ready' to accept India's progress in the space sector. While addressing a gathering in Tirunelveli, PM Modi said, They are not ready to accept India's progress in the space sector and with the taxes that you pay, they give advertisements and do not even include a picture of India's space in them. They did not want to present India's space success in front of the world, they insulted our scientists, our space sector, and your tax money. Now it's high time that the DMK is punished for their deeds. Read CBI summons Akhilesh: The CBI has summoned Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav as a witness for questioning on Friday in illegal mining cases, five years after registering the case. In a notice issued under section 160 of CrPC, the agency asked him to appear before it on February 29 in connection with the case registered in 2019, officials said. The section allows a police officer to summon witnesses in a probe. The case pertains to the issuance of mining leases in alleged violation of e-tendering process. The Allahabad High Court had ordered the probe. It is alleged that public servants allowed illegal mining during 2012-16, when Yadav was chief minister, and illegally renewed licences despite a ban by the National Green Tribunal on mining. It is alleged that the officers allowed theft of minerals, extorted money from lease-holders and drivers. The CBI had filed seven preliminary enquiries in 2016 on the directions of the Allahabad High Court to probe the case of illegal mining of minor minerals. The agency had alleged that the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's office had cleared 13 projects in a single day, officials said. They had said Yadav, who also held the mining portfolio for sometime, had cleared 14 leases, of which 13 were cleared on February 17, 2013, in violation of e-tendering process. Read. Navalny's funeral on March 1: The funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died earlier this month in a remote Arctic penal colony, will take place on Friday in Moscow, his spokesperson said. His funeral will be held at a church in Moscows southeast Maryino district on Friday afternoon, Kira Yarmysh said Tuesday. The burial is to be at a nearby cemetery. Navalny died in mid-February in one of Russias harshest penal facilities. Russian authorities said the cause of his death at age 47 is still unknown, and the results of any investigation are likely to be questioned abroad. Many Western leaders have already said they hold Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for his death. Read. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Tuesday announced its candidates in 15 of Keralas 20 parliamentary seats, fielding a mix of MLAs, former ministers and those in key organisational posts, officials familiar with the matter said. Prominent among the candidates are former health minister and MLA KK Shailaja in Vatakara (HT) The announcement was made by CPI (M) state secretary MV Govindan at AKG Bhavan in Thiruvananthapuram after the list of candidates was approved by the partys central committee. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Prominent among the candidates are former health minister and MLA KK Shailaja in Vatakara, former finance minister TM Thomas Isaac in Pathanamthitta, current state minister for temple administration and SC/ST affairs K Radhakrishnan in Alathur (SC reserved) and former education minister P Raveendranath in Chalakudy. While the party has renominated its sole Lok Sabha MP AM Ariff in Alappuzha, it chose to bring in experienced faces, who spent a long time in the organisation, such as MV Jayarajan in Kannur, A Vijayaraghavan in Palakkad and MV Balakrishnan in Kasaragod to the fore. These seats are considered the partys strongholds that were lost to the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 2019. At the same time, the party has nominated young faces and greenhorns in the candidature of V Waseef in Malappuram and KJ Shine in Ernakulam. Both are considered to be UDF strongholds that the CPI(M) has rarely won. In Ponnani, a stronghold of the Indian Union Muslim League which is an ally of the Congress, the CPI(M) has fielded former IUML leader KS Hamza with the aim of attracting votes of disgruntled IUML workers and leaders. Actor-MLA M Mukesh has been fielded to take on RSP MP NK Premachandran in Kollam while CPI (M) MLA V Joy will fight it out in Attingal, a seat it had won twice in 2009 and 2014. All 15 candidates of the party will fight on the hammer-sickle-star symbol of the party this time, as opposed to previous elections when a couple of candidates had fought as Independents, Govindan said. While four seats have been allotted to the CPI(M), one seat will be fought by Kerala Congress (M). With this, all candidates of the Left Democratic Front( LDF) have now been announced. In the 2019 elections, the LDF had lost 19 of the states 20 seats to the UDF in a major upset for the Left parties. The Centre on Wednesday declared the Muslim Conference Jammu & Kashmir (Sumji faction) and Muslim Conference Jammu & Kashmir (Bhat faction) as unlawful for their anti-India and pro-Pakistan propaganda. Union home minister Amit Shah said Narendra Modi's government is determined to uproot terrorism and anyone involved in unlawful activities will face dire consequences. "Striking terror networks with undiminished vehemence the government has declared the Muslim Conference Jammu & Kashmir (Sumji faction) and Muslim Conference Jammu & Kashmir (Bhat faction) as Unlawful Associations. These outfits have been engaging in activities against the sovereignty and integrity of the nation," Amit Shah tweeted. These two J&K organisations were supporting anti-national activities, the government notification said. (PTI) In a notification, the Union home ministry said the Sumji faction, chaired by Ghulam Nabi Sumji, remained involved in supporting terrorist activities and providing logistic support to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. If the government does not immediately control of unlawful activities of the faction, it will continue with the anti-national activities which are detrimental to the territorial integrity, security and sovereignty of the country. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. In a similar notification, the Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir (Bhat faction), chaired by Abdul Ghani Bhat, was declared unlawful for being involved in raising funds through various sources including Pakistan and its proxy organisations for "perpetrating unlawful activities, including supporting terrorist activities, sustained stone-pelting on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir'. Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators met Himachal Pradesh governor Shiv Pratap Shukla and complained about Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathanias behaviour in the state assembly on Tuesday even as the states Congress government faced a battle for survival as a motion on the budget proposal was due to come up for discussion on Wednesday. The BJP has insisted on a division of votes. BJP lawmakers at the governors residence in Shimla. (PTI) Opposition leader Jai Ram Thakur, who led the legislators, said marshals stopped the BJP legislators and misbehaved with them when they tried to meet Pathania. He added lawmakers were caught by their collars and alleged this was done on Pathanias instructions. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. In a memorandum submitted to Shukla, the BJP said Pathania and the governments conduct was neither impartial nor as per the constitutional values. It added after a voice vote, a cut-motion was introduced for which voting should have taken place as per the rules. The memorandum said Pathania did not allow that. The BJP legislators said they tried to meet Pathania in his chamber after the Speaker adjourned the House. They added they were not allowed to do so and were allegedly manhandled. The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh teetered on the brink after six of its lawmakers cross-voted in favour of the BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan in the Rajya Sabha polls, leading to a tie. Mahajan eventually won by a lottery. Congress candidate Abhishek Singhvi received 34 votes after six Congress lawmakers and three independents previously backing the government supported Mahajan, who also received 34 votes. The loss meant the Congress was unable to cross the simple majority mark of 35 in the 68-member House. The BJP maintained the Sukhvinder Sukhu government was reduced to a minority, and called for the chief ministers resignation. Amid the ongoing political crisis in Himachal Pradesh, chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday said that the ruling government in the state is safe. Sukhu's comment came shortly after he held a meeting with the Congress observers in Shimla. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu (PTI) The three observers included Bhupesh Baghel, DK Shivakumar, and Bhupinder Hooda who will submit their report in two parts - the accountability behind the cross-voting, and the future course of action for the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Discussion was held regarding electionsWe decided on the future course of action. Our government is safe, Sukhu told the media post the meeting. Earlier in the day, Sukhu refuted all the reports of his resignation asserting that he will prove a majority in the House and run the government for five years. Neither anyone asked for my resignation nor have I presented my resignation to anyone. We will prove the majority. We will win, the people of Himachal will win, the Himachal CM said. He added, I am not someone who will get scared and I can say this with guarantee that the Congress is going to winThe BJP is spreading rumours of my resignation. The Congress is united. The political crisis for the Congress government in the hilly state began on Tuesday, shortly after six of its MLAs cross-voted which resulted in the BJP winning the state's lone Rajya Sabha seat, despite the Congress being in the majority. Adding to the crisis, Congress leader Vikramaditya Singh also announced his resignation from the state cabinet. The surprising win of the saffron party prompted it to challenge Himachal CM Sukhvinder Singh Sikhu-led government and demand a show of strength in the House. Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania has reserved an order on a Congress petition seeking the disqualification of six party MLAs who cross-voted. Shimla: Himachal Pradesh minister and Congress MLA Vikramaditya Singh on Wednesday resigned from his post, a day after the party lost the Rajya Sabha elections in the state despite having a clear majority. Vikramaditya Singh at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya in January. Vikramaditya Singh said the voices of Congress MLAs were stifled in the government and they were overlooked. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. "There is no doubt that former CM Virbhadra Singh's name was used in the (Assembly) election...This is a matter of fact, a matter of record. This government was formed with everyone's contribution. It has completed one year of governance. I have never said anything about the functioning of the government, but it is my responsibility to say it clearly today...I have always said that position and cabinet berth is not important for me. For me, the most important thing is the relationship with the people of Himachal Pradesh...But the kind of system prevailing in the government in the last one year, how MLAs were overlooked and attempts were made to stifle their voices - this is a result of that," he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. Vikramaditya Singh said the Congress government couldn't even find a space for his father's statue. "Someone who was the CM of the state for 6 times, due to whom this government was formed in the state - they could not find a small space for his statue at Mall Road. This is the respect this government has shown to my late father. We are emotional people, we have nothing to do with posts...But this is very unfortunate...I am very hurt, not politically but emotionally," he added. Also read: Himachal minister Vikramaditya Singh resigns as Congress govt on brink Who is Vikramaditya Singh? Singh is the son of Himachal Congress chief Pratibha Singh. He is also the son of late former CM of Himachal Pradesh, Virbhadra Singh. Last month, he defied the Congress leadership's stance on the Ram Temple consecration ceremony as he took part in the festivities in Ayodhya. In Ayodhya, he was declared the state guest of the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government. Also read: Rajya Sabha elections: BJP-led NDA just 4 short of majority mark of 121 "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a part of this historic day and as a Hindu having faith in 'Dev Samaj', it is my responsibility to be present on the occasion and witness the 'pran pratishtha' of Lord Ram," he had said before visiting Ayodhya. Born in 1989, Vikramaditya Singh is the MLA from Shimla Rural constituency. Vikramaditya Singh is the titular king of the erstwhile princely state of Bushahr. Vikramaditya Singh studied history in Delhi's prestigious St Stephen's College. He has won the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections twice. He was the chief of Himachal Pradesh state youth Congress between 2013 and 2017. Himachal Pradesh government was on the brink on Wednesday as Congress leader Vikramaditya Singh resigned as public works minister amid the brewing discontent over chief minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu's leadership. Public works minister Vikramaditya Singh has been given the additional portfolio of urban development. (HT File) All I would like to say is that under the current circumstances, it is not correct for me to continue as a part of the government. So, I have decided that I am resigning from the Council of Ministers. In the time to come, I will have video consultations with my people and then decide about the future course of action, Singh told a press conference. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Also Read: Himachal BJP legislators meet governor, complain about Speakers behaviour Singh's resignation comes a day after six Congress MLAs cross-voted in Rajya Sabha elections, resulting in an embarrassing defeat of party candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi. The cross-voting in Rajya Sabha polls and the resignation of Vikramaditya Singh have brought the rift between factions loyal to CM Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu and state unit chief Pratibha Singh out in the open. Also Read: Who is Congress MLA Vikramaditya Singh? Why did he resign? Vikramaditya Singh, son of Pratibha Singh and former CM Virbhadra Singh, said the government was formed with everyone's contribution but the MLAs were overlooked and attempts were made to stifle their voices. "The (state) government failed to find even a small piece of land on Mall Road to install the statue of a person (Virbhadra Singh) who was the CM of Himachal Pradesh six times, because of whom this government was formed," he lamented. I have spoken with the high command, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, (party) national president about what all has happened in the last two days. The call has to be taken by the high command, Singh added. The BJP MLAs, meanwhile, met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla on Wednesday amid apprehensions that the Assembly Speaker might suspend its MLAs or disqualify the Congress legislators who cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election. "We are apprehensive that Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania might suspend the BJP MLAs so that the budget could be passed in the Vidhan Sabha," Thakur told reporters here. "As per our information, notices have been issued to Congress MLAs who voted for the BJP candidate, asking them to explain why action should not be taken against them under the anti-defection law," he said. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday rejected some media reports that claimed that he has offered his resignation amid an existential crisis in the Congress government. Interacting with reporters, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said, Neither has anyone asked for my resignation nor have I given my resignation to anyone. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.(ANI) Taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said, "We will prove the majority in the assembly. We will win, the people of Himachal will win..." Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh faces an existential crisis after six of its MLAs crossed sides and are learnt to be in touch with the BJP. Adding the Congress's woes, Vikramaditya Singh announced his resignation from the state cabinet and said he has already spoken to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Follow Himachal Pradesh Political News Live Updates Amid the chaos in the assembly, the Vidhan Sabha Speaker suspended 15 BJP MLAs, including the leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur, for misbehaviour and adjourned the house. Sukhu, meanwhile, said he would not get "scared" and expressed his determination that the Congress will remain in the power. "I am not someone who will get scared and I can say this with a guarantee, that the Congress is going to win when the Budget will be presented. The Budget will be passed today. The BJP is spreading rumours of my resignation. The Congress is united..." he added. The Himachal chief minister also claimed that some of the six MLAs who cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election for the lone seat are in his contact. "...The BJP is spreading rumours of my resignation. They want to create a break in the legislative party. They want Congress MLAs to leave the party and join them. Congress is united...Some of the MLAs who voted for BJP are in our contact..." Sukhu said. The Congress brass on Wednesday rushed former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and DK Shivakumar to Shimla to parley with members of the party which is facing loss of support and risks losing power in the state. Sources said Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is learnt to have spoken to former party chief Rahul Gandhi as also general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on the Himachal developments. Karnataka deputy chief minister Shivakumar decried the BJP and called its tactics "worrisome" for democracy. "As per the directions of the Congress high command, I am reaching #HimachalPradesh. Also there is absolutely no need to indulge in any hearsay, as I am confident that Congress Party legislators will be loyal to the party and stay put with the mandate that has been accorded to them. "However, what should be questioned and worrisome is the extremes to which BJP is going in terms of acquiring power, deliberately attempting to crush democracy and public mandate in the process," Shivakumar said in a post on X. (With inputs from agencies) The shocking loss for the Congress in the Rajya Sabha poll in Himachal Pradesh following cross-voting by a section of its rebel legislators has not only put the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government in a precarious situation but also pointed to the party leaderships sluggishness in bringing order to its disarrayed unit in the Himalayan state. Security personnel outside the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly, in Shimla, on Wednesday.(PTI) In a massive blow to the Congress, the cross-voting by six of its 40 legislators as well as three independent MLAs, who previously backed the Sukhu government, left both ruling partys Abhishek Manu Singhvi and BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan tied on 34 votes each on Tuesday. The tie was then resolved by a draw-of-lots, which favoured Mahajan. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The result has highlighted the discontent within the Congress, something that party insiders say has been brewing for months, ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha polls in Himachal Pradesh, the only Congress-ruled state in north India. Also Read | Himachal crisis: Sukhvinder Singh Sukhua claims Congress govt is 'safe' The rebel group was led by Rajinder Rana, the three-term legislator from Sujanpur in Sukhus home district of Hamirpur, and Sudhir Sharma, who has been a legislator from Dharamshala for four terms. Others who followed them in cross-voting against party nominee in the Rajya Sabha poll are Barsar MLA Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Ravi Thakur (Lahaul-Spiti), Chaitanya Sharma (Gagret) and Kutlehar MLA Davinder Kumar (Bhutto). Besides the six Congress rebels, three independent legislators Ashish Sharma (Hamirpur), Hoshyar Singh (Dehra) and KL Thakur (Nalagarh) also voted for the BJP candidate despite having backed the Sukhu government in the past. Rana, who was eyeing a cabinet berth after the Congress won the 2022 assembly elections bagging 40 of the states 68 seats, was disappointed at not being included in the Sukhu-led council of ministers. Rana, who joined the Congress in 2014 having won the 2012 assembly polls as an independent candidate, has been vocal in his criticism of the state leadership. Also Read | BJP wants to 'crush' people's mandate in Himachal, says Priyanka Gandhi Sudhir Sharma, who previously served as the states urban development minister in the Virbhadra Singh-led Congress government, was also feeling sidelined by the party high command after not getting a cabinet berth in the incumbent government. He was hopeful of finding a place in the cabinet from Kangra district, the epicenter of the state politics. Recently, he had voiced concerns regarding the states finances and also abstained from attending the annual plan meeting. Davinder Bhutto, the first-time Congress MLA from Kutlehar, had aired his grievances over his constituency being discriminated by the Sukhu government. Bhutto, who joined the Congress in 2013 after quitting the BJP, also served as the secretary of HP Congress Committee from 2021 to 2022. Lakhanpal, a three-term MLA from Barsar, was also among those who were eyeing a ministerial portfolio in the incumbent government but did not get one. Earlier, he had served as a councilor in Shimla Municipal Corporation from 1997 to 2002. Chaitanya Sharma, who represents the Gagret assembly seat, has been criticizing the state government over lack of work in his constituency. Son of former Uttarakhand chief secretary Rakesh Sharma, the Congress MLA has a bachelors degree in international affairs from the George Washington University in the US and LLB from Campus Law Centre. Ravi Thakur, a two-term Congress MLA from Lahaul-Spiti, also accused the Sukhu government of ignoring his constituency. Anger is growing among public against the state government, Thakur had said in a public address last year. Thakur, who has previously helmed the position of the chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Tribes from between 2013 and 2016, also slammed the Sukhu government over its failure to fill three vacant posts in tribal district of Lahaul and Spiti. Ashish Sharma, who represents Hamirpur as an independent MLA, had approached both the BJP and the Congress for a ticket to contest the assembly polls in December 2022. Hoshyar Singh is the only two-term independent legislator in the state assembly, representing Dehra since 2017. Though he had joined the BJP in the run-up to the 2022 assembly polls, he contested as independent after he was denied a ticket by the saffron party. He had also approached the Congress for a ticket. KL Thakur, who represents Nalagarh as an independent MLA, was first elected to the assembly in 2012 on a BJP ticket. He, however, lost the 2017 polls and was denied the party ticket by the BJP in 2022, following which he contested as independent. When the author arrived two-and-a-half hours later than expected at the Shimla resort from Delhi, the staff asked if he had faced farmer problems on the way. All of them were contemptuous of the protest and roadblocks carried out by Punjab farmers. When they learnt that the author is a journalist travelling all over India for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, quite a few were willing to offer opinions. This was at about 4 PM on February 25. Leader of Opposition in the Himachal Pradesh assembly, Jairam Thakur speaks to the media after staging a walkout on Wednesday. (ANI) The manager who handled the reception hails from Hamirpur. He has an impish smile with a dimple. He told the author this was the right time to visit Himachal Pradesh as a political upheaval was unfolding. He was a tad disappointed on learning that I was less interested in the nitty gritty of Himachal politics. Yet, his forecast was that the author would be compelled to think, if not write about events in Himachal. He was backed up by a lady manager keen on signing up the author to join a special privileged members program. She belongs to Sanjauli near Shimla. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. As the author reached Delhi back on February 27 via Saharanpur to avoid the annadatas blocking highways, television news flashed a press conference where the Congress Rajya Sabha candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi graciously accepted defeat and congratulated his winning rival Harsh Mahajan. Also read: Vikramaditya Singh my brother, no question of accepting his resignation: Himachal CM Incidentally, Mahajan is a long time Congress ex-member and close aide of the late Virbhadra Singh (six times chief minister of Himachal Pradesh) who joined the BJP a few years ago. Behind the grace displayed by Singhvi, the dismay and disappointment were stark. As was the stony expression of Congress chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukku who sat beside Singhvi. He looked as if he had been poleaxed all of a sudden. And why not? The Congress officially has 40 MLAs in the 68-member assembly while the BJP has just 25. Yet, enough Congress rebel MLAs changed a certain victory of the Congress into a humiliating defeat. The author, who spoke to lots of journalists and ordinary citizens in the state, was clear that the Congress was almost destined to suffer embarrassment. There was a clear Ram Temple wave visible across the board and people were not happy at all with the official stand of the senior leadership of the party to boycott the consecration ceremony of the idol. In Bilaspur, the author met a group of Congress supporters who were livid with the top leadership. Their contention: We are all ardent devotees of Shree Ram. We too have waited centuries for Ram Lalla to come back to his home. How can our top leaders deny us even our basic faith?. Also read: Amid Himachal crisis, Navjot Singh Sidhu slams 6 Congress MLAs; urges for purge in party The lead rebel Vikramaditya Singh, son of late Virbhadra Singh, had indeed defied party orders and gone ahead to attend the consecration ceremony on January 22. He has resigned as a minister and the Congress government is teetering on the verge of collapse. By the time events unfold further in the state, the author may not be able to minutely follow them as he will resume his travelling. But the visit reinforces what many analysts and commentators have argued since January: the consecration ceremony of the Ram idol will have political and electoral consequences. Many are claiming that the Congress revolt in Himachal is more a sign of ambitions, ego and power than anything else. Since the Congress won a narrow victory in the December 2022 assembly elections (the party won a total about 26,000 more votes than the BJP in the entire state), there has been a tussle between two camps -- one loyalists of the late Virbhadra Singh and the other leaning towards Priyanka Gandhi's CM pick Sukhvinder Sukku. They do have a point. But the author thinks Lord Ram has played a decisive role here. Rajneesh Sharma, a senior journalist who heads the ETV group operations in Himachal, said: You see, Virbhadra Singh was an ardent Lord Rama devotee. So are almost all Congress voters. The party has invited trouble by not handling this issue in a more sensitive manner here. Do remember, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had gathered a staggering 69% of the vote share in Himachal Pradesh. The author was in Ayodhya, Amethi and Raebareli two weeks ago. In the Gandhi family bastions of Amethi and Rae Bareli, Congress supporters had openly expressed their anger at the Congress stand on the Ram Temple. It was no surprise to the author when SP MLAs Rakesh Pratap Singh and Abhay Singh, who have a lot of traction in the Gandhi family bastions, cross-voted in the Uttar Pradesh Rajya Sabha elections the same day. They implied their decision was influenced by their devotion towards Ram. Need more be said? Almost two decades before he hit the national headlines, Trinamool Congress (TMC) functionary Shahjahan Sheikh, 42, had his first brush with the law in 2006 when he was summoned to a police station for the first time. Sheikh was then in his 20s and worked as an agent at a fish market in West Bengals Sandeshkhali. TMC functionary Shahjahan Sheikh. (Sourced.) He showed no fear, said a police officer. It was soon clear why. Sheikh was left off within half an hour and the police station in charge was transferred days later. Sheikhs close association with a local functionary of the then-ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) apparently worked. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Sheikhs rags-to-riches story continued as he maintained his political clout by defecting to TMC a year before it was voted to power first in 2011 after 34-year Left Front rule. He has over the years amassed bank deposits of over 2 crore, a fleet of 17 cars, and 40-odd bighas of agricultural land. It is a far cry from his days at a brick kiln, where he worked as a daily wager for 50 per day. The police officer cited above said Sheikh has stayed on the right side of power for the last 20 years. From 2004 to 2010, he was considered the most influential worker in the Sandeshkhali region. In 2010, he changed sides and joined [chief minister] Mamata Banerjees TMC...within years, he became the convener of TMC Sandeshkhali, North 24 Parganas, said the officer on condition of anonymity. Repeated protests in Sandeshkhali have kept Sheikh, who has been on the run, in the news. Sandeshkhali residents have taken to the streets demanding the arrest of Shahjahan and his aides over allegations of sexual assault and land grabbing. Sheikh has been absconding since January 5 when a mob, allegedly comprising his supporters, attacked an Enforcement Directorate (ED) team when it sought to search his premises in a money laundering case linked to an alleged ration distribution scam. Local TMC functionaries and Sheikhs aides Shibaprasad Hazra and Uttam Sardar have been among 18 people, arrested in connection with complaints of sexual assault, land grabbing, and inciting violence in Sandeshkhali. The officer cited above said until Sheikh came under the national spotlight, his reign of terror was so effective that the local police did not dare file a case against him. He added 16 land grabbing, 13 murder or attempt to murder five rape, and 17 criminal conspiracy complaints were filed against him just between 2020 and 2023 at different police stations. But none of these complaints could take the shape of FIR [First Information Report]. He has no fear of law. He openly says nobody can even touch me, he said. An ED officer said when the central agency filed a complaint after its team was attacked on January 5, an FIR was filed under bailable charges and non-scheduled offences. Our complaints were under [Indian Penal Code] sections 307 [murder attempt], 333 [voluntarily causing grievous hurt], 326 [voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means] 353 [ uses or threat to use criminal force specifically to deter public servants from performing their duty], 392 [robbery], 395 [dacoity], 397 [robbery or dacoity with an attempt to cause death or grievous hurt], 149 [unlawful assembly], 148 [rioting], 186 [ voluntarily obstructing any public servant], 189 [ threat of injury to any public servant], 426 [mischief], 435 [mischief by fire or any explosive substance], 440 [mischief with the intent to cause death, hurt, wrongful restraint, or fear of death or hurt], 341 [wrongful restraint] and 342 [wrongfully confining any person]...in reference with section 120B [ criminal conspiracy], 109 [abetment] and 115 [abetment of offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life]. The ED officer said the police registered an FIR only under available sections 147, 148, 149, 341, 186, 353, 323, 427, 379, 504. He added Sheikh has not also provided the details and sources of his properties. Shimla, Feb 28 (PTI) The Himachal Pradesh BJP on Wednesday sought intervention of Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla amid apprehensions that the Assembly Speaker might suspend its MLAs or disqualify the Congress legislators who cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election. HT Image Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur said that the Rajya Sabha election on Tuesday made it clear that the Congress government was in minority and demanded Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu resign. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. "We are apprehensive that Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania might suspend the BJP MLAs so that the budget could be passed in the Vidhan Sabha," Thakur told reporters here. "As per our information, notices have been issued to Congress MLAs who voted for the BJP candidate, asking them to explain why action should not be taken against them under the anti-defection law," he said. A delegation of the BJP legislative party led by Thakur apprised Governor Shukla on the Tuesday happenings during the election to the lone Rajya Sabha seat from the state and urged him to ensure that division of votes is permitted during the budget. On Tuesday, Speaker Pathania refused division of votes in cut motions pertaining to the health department and adjourned the house. Thakur termed the notice on members' disqualification "unconstitutional" as anti-defection law is not applicable in a Rajya Sabha election. He also said Congress threatened its members their votes would be invalid if they cross voted. However, the election commission made it clear that the vote cannot be declared invalid as a whip cannot be issued to members to vote for a particular candidate, he said. The Congress has 40 MLAs and the BJP 25 in the 68-member state assembly. The remaining three seats are held by independents. Thakur alleged that the marshals misbehaved and manhandled BJP members when they were going towards the chamber of the speaker to register their protest. The BJP won the Rajya Sabha seat with its candidate Harsh Mahajan defeating Congress stalwart Abhishek Manu Singhvi. The fray ended in a tie with both the Congress and the BJP candidates getting 34 votes, indicating that six Congress MLAs and three independents voted against the party. The result was then declared on the basis of a draw of lots. HT brings you a round-up of the most important and interesting stories, so you dont miss your daily dose of news. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hands-over wings to astronauts-designate Shubanshu Shukla, Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Angad Prathap and Ajit Krishnan who have been selected to be the astronauts on Indias first crewed mission to space 'Gaganyaan Mission', at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), in Thiruvananthapuram. (PTI)(HT_PRINT) Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. 1) PM names 4 astronauts for Gaganyaan mission Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday introduced to the world Indias four astronaut designates, elite fighter pilots of the Indian Air Force (IAF), who have been selected to be sent to space as part of Indias first human-crewed spaceflight - the Gaganyaan mission. The announcement was made during Modis visit to the Indian Space Research Organisations (Isro) Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) research institute in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. The four astronauts - IAFs group captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, group captain Ajit Krishnan, group captain Angad Pratap and wing commander Shubhanshu Shukla - have been training extensively for the Gaganyaan mission for the last five years in Russian and Indian facilities. They were awarded Antriksh Yatri Pankh (astronaut wings) by the Prime Minister at a ceremony on Tuesday. Introducing the astronauts, Modi said they were the four forces who will carry on their shoulders the aspirations of 1.4 billion people. Read more. 2) Cong loses RS thriller: Is Himachal govt on the brink of collapse? The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh teetered on the brink on Tuesday after six of its lawmakers cross-voted in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls, leading to a tie and the eventual victory of the latter by a dramatic lottery. Congress candidate Abhishek Singhvi received 34 votes after six Congress lawmakers and three independents previously backing the government supported BJP nominee Harsh Mahajan, who also received 34 votes. The tie was then resolved by a draw-of-lots, which favoured Mahajan. But the embarrassing loss also meant that the Congress was unable to cross the simple majority mark of 35 in the 68-member House, fuelling speculation that the Sukhvinder Sukhu government had been reduced to a minority, and sparking calls for the chief ministers resignation. Read more. 3) Reinventing the United Nations The near-total failure of the United Nations (UN) to cope with most crises in recent years is perhaps the reason why the Ukraine conflict has been taken up at the G20 for the past two years. Though most of the players at the G20 knew it was hardly the forum to address such a geopolitical matter, they persisted with it, reflecting the growing frustration with the UNs ability to respond speedily to a global crisis. Against this backdrop, it is understandable that the Indian side, especially external affairs minister S Jaishankar, has often called for speeding up the efforts to reform the UN and the Security Council, both to reflect the realities of the contemporary global order and to give more countries a seat at the main decision-making table. Jaishankar reiterated this position at the recent Raisina Dialogue, emphasising the need to reform global forums amid the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Read more. 4) President appoints ex-SC judge Ajay Manikrao Khanwilkar as Lokpal chairperson The President of India, Droupadi Murmu, on Tuesday appointed former Supreme Court judge, justice Ajay Manikrao Khanwilkar as the chairperson of Lokpal. The appointment was announced nearly three weeks after a selection committee of the Prime Minister, speaker of Lok Sabha, leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India, shortlisted his name. Read more. 5) AAP announces Lok Sabha candidates for Delhi, Haryana The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday named four Lok Sabha candidates for Delhi and Haryana three days after it announced a seat-sharing pact with the Congress under which it will contest four of the seven seats in the national capital. Kuldeep Kumar, a legislator from Kondli, will be the partys candidate for East Delhi Lok Sabha seat. Somnath Bharti, who represents Malviya Nagar in the assembly, has been fielded from New Delhi. Read more. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday reacted to the ongoing turmoil in the state, saying that his government will complete the five-year term as the BJP's conspiracy to topple the government through some rebel MLAa has failed. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu in Shimla on Wednesday. (PTI) Follow Himachal LIVE Updates here Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. When asked whether the six Congress MLAs who voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections will be forgiven or their memberships will be cancelled, the CM said that all the MLAs are his younger brothers and he seeks to forgive all the people as he does not work to take revenge. "Hum toh sab ko maaf karne wale log hai, hum badle ki bhavna se kaam karne wale log nahi hain. All are our younger brothers... Our govt will complete 5 years," Sukhu said to the reporters. Earlier in the day, he said that there is no question of accepting the resignation of Himachal Pradesh minister and son of former state CM late Virbhadra Singh, saying that Vikramaditya is like his younger brother and all his grievances will be addressed. Vikramaditya Singh resigned from Sukhu's cabinet earlier today citing the disrespect shown to his late father by the government as the reason. Read here: Vikramaditya Singh my brother, no question of accepting his resignation: Himachal CM The crisis in Himachal Pradesh started when the BJP claimed that the Sukhu-led government was in the minority after the former won the state's lone Rajya Sabha seat with its candidate Harsh Mahajan defeating Congress stalwart Singhvi, despite the latter being in the majority. The contest tied with both the Congress and the BJP candidates getting 34 votes, indicating that at least six Congress MLAs voted against the party. Earlier today, amid the chaos, the Speaker suspended 15 MLAs, including LoP Jairam Thakur, for allegedly disturbing the house proceedings amid the budget session. Meanwhile, to control the damage, the Congress sent Bhupesh Baghel, DK Shivakumar and Bhupinder Hooda to Shimla as observers to speak to the party MLAs and then submit a report to president Mallikarjun Kharge. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the party will not hesitate to take some difficult decisions if the need arises because the institution is above individuals. Read here: 'Shaitani argument': Jairam Ramesh's snub over question on Sonia Gandhi-Himachal In the 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 legislators. The remaining three seats are held by independents. (With inputs from agencies) A closely guarded secret for over four years was revealed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday as he announced the identities of the four Indian Air Force fighter pilots selected for Indias first crewed spaceflight the Gaganyaan mission. Prime Minister Narendra Modi hands-over wings to astronauts-designate Shubanshu Shukla, Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Angad Prathap and Ajit Krishnan who have been selected to be the astronauts on Indias first crewed mission to space 'Gaganyaan Mission', at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), in Thiruvananthapuram. (PTI) The Prime Minister introduced to the nation the astronauts, or vyonmauts, Group Captains Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Angad Pratap, Ajit Krishnan, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla, who were hand-picked by the IAF and have undergone rigorous training for the mission in Russia. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The four astronauts, who were awarded the Antriksh Yatri Pankh (astronaut wings) by the PM at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, are from the elite Air Force Test Pilot School, which comes under the Bengaluru-based Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE). With the Gaganyaan project, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) plans to demonstrate its human spaceflight capabilities. The crew will be launched into an orbit 400 kilometers away for a three-day mission. The mission is scheduled to launch by 2025 PM Modi said that the names of the astronauts have become intertwined with Indias success. During the inaugural ceremony held today at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, Honble PM unveiled the Indian Astronaut Logo and awarded the astronaut wings to the four IAF Astronauts. #IAF will be working in Mission Mode along with @isro to achieve our Nations dream of achieving our own Manned Space Flight, the IAF said on X. An alumnus of the Khadakwasla-based National Defence Academy, Nair was awarded the Sword of Honour at Air Force Academy Dundigal, near Hyderabad, for overall excellence during training, IAF officials said, soon after the names of the astronauts were revealed. He is the senior-most astronaut for the mission. Born at Thiruvazhiyad in Kerala on August 26, 1976, Nair was commissioned in the fighter stream of IAF on December 19, 1998. He is a Category A flying instructor and a test pilot with around 3,000 hours of flying experience. Krishnan, also an alumnus of NDA, was a recipient of the Presidents Gold Medal and Sword of Honour at the Air Force Academy, the officials said. He was born in Chennai on April 19, 1982. He was commissioned in the fighter stream of IAF on June 21, 2003. Prayagraj-born Pratap, meanwhile, was commissioned in the fighter stream of IAF on December 18, 2004. He is a flying instructor and a test pilot with around 2,000 hours of flying experience. He has flown several aircraft including Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar and Hawk. Shukla is the youngest of the four. Also alumnus of NDA, he was commissioned in the fighter stream of IAF on June 17, 2006. He is a fighter combat leader and a test pilot with around 2,000 hours of flying experience. Nair, Krishnan, Pratap and Shukla have flown a variety of fighter planes and have excelled in their careers. My family and I have had the honour of meeting three of them. We congratulate all of them and their families as they lead the country in a new era of space exploration. They are the creme de la creme of IAF and will make the country proud, said Colonel KP Singh (retd), whose son Group Captain Varun Singh was on the first list of 12 candidates shortlisted for Gaganyaan in 2019. Singh, however, did not make it to the final list due to a medical requirement. In 2021, Singh was the sole survivor of the chopper crash in which Indias first chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat and 12 others were killed on December 8. He succumbed to his injuries on December 15, 2021. In all these four young astronauts, we see the reflection of our son, Varun, said Colonel Singh. Champion sailor Commander Abhilash Tomy (retd), who met the astronauts last year, said, My first impression was that they were extremely motivated and looking forward to the new experience of travelling to space. They had been in training for many years, and that showed when I interacted with them. They were raring to go. Tomy, a former navy officer who finished second in the challenging solo and non-stop circumnavigation 2022 Golden Globe Race (GGR), held several meetings with Isro officials last year for the safe recovery of astronauts from sea after their return from space. Two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs defied the party diktat in the elections to four Rajya Sabha seats from Karnataka, and although their voting behaviour one voted for the Opposition and another just didnt turn up did not change the outcome, it did raise questions about the partys alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular). Karnataka deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar with newly-elected Congress Rajya Sabha MPs Syed Naseer Hussain, GC Chandrashekar, Ajay Makhan and others, at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru on Tuesday. (PTI) The three Congress candidates Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain and G C Chandrasekhar won, as they were expected to, as did BJPs Narayana Bhandage. The election was made interesting by the BJP-JD(S) alliance fielding a fifth candidate, from the JD(S), following a decision by the two parties to contest the Lok Sabha elections together. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The nomination of the additional candidate set off speculation that the BJP and JD(S) had convinced some Congress legislators to cross vote, but that wasnt to be. In fact, it was BJP MLA representing Yeshawanthpur constituency in Bengaluru, ST Somashekar, who cross-voted for the Congress, while another BJP MLA, A Shivaram Hebbar of Yellapur constituency in Uttara Kannada district, did not put in an appearance. BJP poll managers sought to reach him but his phone was switched off. Of the 223 legislators, 222 voted. A candidate needed 45 votes to win. Maken and Hussain received 47 votes each, and Chandrasekhar, 45. The party and its allies have 134 legislators, and received five more from independents, and Somashekar. Bhandage polled 47 votes from the BJP, but the fifth candidate NDA nominee and business magnate, D Kupendra Reddy, received only 36 votes. Congress leaders said they had factored in the four independents but that Somashekars vote was a bonus. This is the third time that Kupendra Reddy, who describes himself as an infrastructure developer in the election affidavit and declared assets of around 1,200 crore, is being defeated in the Rajya Sabha polls. For the BJP and JD(S), this was the second defeat within a month after the electoral pact was sealed in September last. They lost the election to the lone Legislative Council seat from the Teachers constituency recently the candidate was from the JD(S) again. There was high drama when Somashekar arrived in the Vidhana Soudha to cast his vote around noon. He dodged the BJPs chief whip Doddannagouda G Patil (although party whips do not hold for Rajya Sabha elections), and said his vote would be a conscience vote based on what was good for his constituency. Confirming that Somashekar cross-voted, Patil said, We are discussing what can be done and what action needs to be taken. Action would require the party to submit a petition to the assembly speaker to seek his disqualification, or expel them from the party. There is speculation that both the MLAs might resign from the membership after the assembly adjourns sine dine on Wednesday, which would render any disciplinary action against them infructuous. Chief minister Siddaramaiah thanked Somashekar: Let them keep their (BJPs) MLAs intact. Cross-voting is only possible in the BJP, not in Congress. JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy put up a brave front. I fielded a JD(S) candidate only to keep my party MLAs together as there were reports that 10 to 15 MLAs of ours would switch over to the Congress. The fact that all the 19 members voted for Kupendra Reddy proves we are a united family, he said. AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka, Randeep Singh Surjewala, while speaking to reporters, posed a question to the Opposition: I want to ask BJP leaders JP Nadda, BY Vijayendra and R Ashoka and JD(S)s Kumaraswamy, when they did not have the numbers, why did they put up a tycoon to buy votes of legislators who have been voted by the people of Karnataka? New Delhi India on Tuesday asked the Word Trade Organisation (WTO) to recognise and protect sovereign rights of countries for sustainable management of fisheries within their exclusive economic zone (EEZs) to protect interests of its nine million fisherman families. Delegates attend the 13th World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi of February 26, 2025. The world's trade ministers gathered in the UAE on February 26 for a high-level WTO meeting with no clear prospects for breakthroughs, amid geopolitical tensions and disagreements. (AFP) At the negotiations on fisheries subsidies in the ongoing Abu Dhabi ministerial (MC13), India reiterated its demand to recognise sovereign fishing rights of members within their EEZs as per the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). An EEZ expands to 200 nautical miles from the shore, within which the coastal state has the right to explore, exploit, conserve and manage both living and non-living resources, according to the UN body. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Besides allowing unhindered fishing in EEZs, India also asked a 25-year subsidy moratorium on advanced fishing nations for overfishing in the past while factoring in hidden subsidies such as cheap fuel to fishing vessels on the principle of special and differential treatment (S&DT), so that developing nations can develop their fishing sector. India also emphasised the need to discipline subsidies given by the distant water fishing nations. Members should not lose sight of the harmful effects of subsidies for large-scale fishing on sustainable fishing and management of marine resources, it said at the negotiations. India reiterated its long-held positions that responsible and sustainable fisheries is a practice ingrained in the ethos and practices of Indias large and varied fishing community, the commerce ministry said in a statement. In that context, any comprehensive agreement on fisheries subsidies should keep in mind the interests and welfare of the fishing community that depends on the marine resources for their livelihood and sustenance, it added. In addition, the current approach of considering the annual aggregate value of subsidies grossly overlooked the intensity of subsidies, and other factors such as the size of the EEZ, long coastal line, population of small fishers and the per capita subsidies to fishermen, it said. While developed countries give as high as $75,000 to one fisherman family, India gives barely $15 in a year to its fisher family unit. India wants developed nations to own the responsibility of damaging global fisheries wealth while agreeing to withdraw all subsidies they give for distant deep-water fishing, an official said, requesting anonymity. Advanced fishing nations such as those in the European Union have been giving huge subsidies to their comparatively small numbers of fishermen for years. While it is a trade and profit issue for developed countries, for us it involves livelihood and nutrition, he said. After having achieved a Geneva package that included agreement on curbing harmful fishing subsidies, the WTO members are currently negotiating matters related to overfishing and overcapacity of fish stocks. At the conclusion of MC12 in Geneva on June 17, 2022, the multilateral body agreed on the first part of fisheries subsidies, but the process to ratify is ongoing. On the Monday press briefing, WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said 70 countries so far have ratified the agreement, leaving roughly 40 for it to reach the two-thirds approval required to enter into force. A second fisheries agreement is important as 260 million people depend on oceans that are 50% overexploited., she added. The third-term of the Narendra Modi government will see transformative reforms in sectors such as digital infrastructure, space, artificial intelligence, specialised warehousing, agriculture and tourism, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday, asking the domestic industry to become part of Indias transformation into the worlds third largest economy without wasting time. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asks the domestic industry to become part of Indias transformation into worlds third largest economy without wasting time. (HT Photo) The reason why Prime Minister is confident that the India will become the third largest economy in his third-term because of the push he likes to give in these areas and the governments impetus is not just limited to fiscal push, but also on legislative and other reforms, she said at Ficcis national conclave on Viksit Bharat @2047 in New Delhi. India, one of the fastest growing major economies, is the worlds fifth largest economy after the US, China, Japan and Germany in that order. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Sitharaman said the governments policy reforms and massive public expenditure push that continued even after the Covid-19 pandemic -- have made India an attractive investment destination and the industry should grab this opportunity. The government continued its capital expenditure push for the fourth consecutive financial year with 11.1% year-on-year jump in FY25 to 11.11 lakh crore, 3.4% of the gross domestic product (GDP). FM told the industry that the massive capex push has resulted into huge multiplier impact on the economic growth, creating investment opportunities. Are we looking at those areas for investments? I would appeal to the industry (it) can now surely move forward with great speed. If global investments are coming in, they are coming in because they see prospects here. You are in this country I think, it is time for Indian industry also to join in this game in a big way, she said. She advised the industry to forge partnership with prospective global investors, if necessary for technology or any other reason. Look for joint venture partners around the world for whom India is attractive, she said. Sitharaman told the industry to take bold steps and not to miss opportunities by incremental moves. You dont have the luxury of time. Youve wasted nearly 60 years by moving in incremental pace, she said referring to the economic growth during previous governments. Countrys goal has to be achieved through speeding up on scale and getting to the destination in due time, she added. The finance minister suggested them to think big and think comprehensively instead of going for incremental short-term gains citing example of the Modi government. She said the government is functioning on the principle of systems thinking that helped it to overcome many of countrys legacy problems and deliver efficiently. System thinking is an approach to address an issue holistically and comprehensively. Speaking at the event, Union information and broadcasting minister Anurag Singh Thakur said the policies of Narendra Modi government and their implementation have raised Indias stature globally. Talking about the pledge of Viksit Bharat by 2024, said he nothing is impossible. He asked Indian industry leaders to forge alliances globally from Indias position of strength. People are willing to invest in India, he said giving credit to the government for ease of doing business by reducing,000 compliances. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit in Karnataka has filed a complaint at the Vidhana Soudha Police Station, alleging that supporters of Rajya Sabha member Syed Nasir Hussain raised pro-Pakistan slogans following his victory declaration. According to the BJP's complaint, after the returning officer announced Hussain's victory, some of his supporters gathered at Vidhana Soudha allegedly shouted "Pakistan Zindabad" slogans in celebration. (Read: Rajya Sabha elections 2024: Cong wins 3 seats, BJP bags 1 in Karnataka) Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar with newly-elected Congress Rajya Sabha MPs Syed Naseer Hussain, GC Chandrashekar, Ajay Makhan and others, at Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024.(PTI) "It was as if these supporters of Nasir Hussain shouted those slogans of PAKISTAN ZINDABAD hailing and praising Pakistan on the election of Nasir Hussain to the Rajya Sabha or Upper House in India," said the complaint. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. In the legislative house premises of one of the states of the Republic of India, namely Karnataka, pro-Pakistan slogans have been shouted in a celebratory manner. All this is done at the instigation of Nasir Hussain, who does not know whether he is elected to the Indian Parliament or the Pakistani Parliament, it added. Read: Big setback for BJP as its Karnataka MLA cross-votes for Congress in Rajya Sabha elections Rajya Sabha member Syed Nasir Hussain posted a video on his social media account clarifying that some of his supporters shouted slogans like 'Nasir Hussain Zindabad', 'Nasir Sahab Zindabad' and Congress Party Zindabad. "Then all of a sudden as I was leaving for my house, I got called by the media saying that somebody had raised slogans of 'Pakistan Zindabad'. I would like to say here that when I was there in the midst of the people, a lot of slogans were being raised but I never heard the slogan 'Pakistan Zindabad', but whatever it is we have asked the police and let the police investigate it," he said. "If someone has raised such a type of slogan, then he has to be dealt with sternly and strictly according to the law. There should be an inquiry. And in case someone has morphed or doctored the video and played mischief, even that has to be inquired about. And if somebody has given the slogan, there should be a proper inquiry into who the person is, where he came from, how the person entered the premises, and what was his motive or intention behind raising those slogans. should be investigated." "However, as far as I am concerned, when I was there, there were no such slogans that were raised, because if the slogans had been raised in our presence then I am sure no sane person or an Indian citizen would have tolerated it. So let us wait for the enquiry and whatever comes forward, we will be there in the public domain. Thank you so much," the Rajya Sabha member added. The Madras high court on Wednesday dismissed the bail plea of former Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji in a money laundering case citing his influence and observing that there is strong material which prima facie establishes the offence against him. Former Tamil Nadu minister Senthil Balaji. (File) The petitioner has not made out a case by satisfying this court that there are reasonable grounds for believing that he is not guilty, justice Anand Venkatesh said. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The judge did not agree with the submission that since Balaji has resigned from his position as a minister there need not be an apprehension that he will tamper with the evidence and influence the witnesses. This is Balajis second bail petition to be rejected. His first bail petition was dismissed last September by a Chennai sessions court. Balaji sent in his resignation on February 12 and chief minister M K Stalin forwarded it to the Raj Bhavan that night. The governor approved it on February 13 while the high court was set to hear his bail plea on February 14. The petitioner resigned from the post of minister without a portfolio just one day prior to the hearing of this bail petition, justice Venkatesh said. The fact that the petitioner continued to hold the position as a minister for nearly eight months and that too without a portfolio when he was inside the jail, shows the tremendous influence of the petitioner and the importance that is given to him by the State Government. Even if the petitioner had resigned from his position as a minister, he continues as an MLA belonging to the same party which is running the Government in the State of Tamil Nadu and therefore, without any hesitation, this court holds that the petitioner continues to wield a lot of influence on the Government. ED arrested Balaji on June 14, 2023 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, (PMLA) 2002 in a case dating back to 2014 when he was transport minister under the AIADMK government. The charge is about taking cash from job aspirants in exchange for appointments to various positions in the state Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) for the recruitment process to be manipulated under Balaji. This past conduct also has a lot of bearing in this case, the court said. According to ED, 67.74 crores is the proceeds in the crime. When such is the position, the witnesses who are mostly the officials belonging to the MTC and the prospective job seekers who had paid the money, will be influenced/tampered with, the court said. This court is also taking into consideration the larger interest of the Public/State since the petitioner was involved in a cash for job scam by misusing his position as a transport minister and thereby, genuine aspirants for the job were deprived of level playing field and, in their place, persons who paid money were accommodated, the judge said, adding, If the petitioner is let out on bail in a case of this nature, it will send a wrong signal and it will be against larger public interest. In the previous hearing, Balaji alleged that ED had tampered with digital evidence which the federal agency had denied. On Wednesday, the court said that Balajis charge that a pen drive (an evidence) was manipulated by increasing 284 files to 472 files is unsubstantiated. Justice Venkatesh directed for the trial to be conducted on a day-to-day basis in accordance with the guidelines given by the Supreme Court in the Vinod Kumar vs State of Punjab case in 2015. Since he has suffered incarceration for more than eight months, the court ordered for his case to be disposed of within three months. Since his arrest, he has been hospitalised for chest pains and subsequently underwent heart surgery at a private hospital. He was discharged on July 17 and has since been jailed in the Puzhal central prison. Chief minister Stalin reallocated his portfolios (electricity, excise and prohibition) citing his ill health and not his arrest. A section of Manipur Police commandos staged a symbolic arms down protest in Imphal on Wednesday a day after a top police officer was abducted from outside his house in retaliation for an attempt to detain militants in ethnic violence-hit state. The officer was rescued after a two-hour-long operation. Ethnic violence in Manipur has since May last year left over 200 people dead. (HT PHOTO/Representative) Videos from Imphal purportedly showed dozens of commandos laying down their weapons at a compound of their unit. ...they are unhappy with the state government for not giving them a free hand to tackle armed miscreants, said an official on condition of anonymity. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Police and administrative officials did not respond to calls seeking details of the protest even as no arrests were made until Wednesday morning in connection with additional police superintendent (operations) M Amit Singhs abduction. In a statement, the Manipur Police said over 200 militants stormed Singhs residence, vandalised it, and fired gunshots before abducting him and his guards hours before they were rescued on Tuesday. The police statement did not name the group behind the abduction but people aware of the matter pointed to radical Meitei outfit Arambai Tenggols involvement. It did not also mention why the officer was abducted. A person aware of the matter, who asked not to be named, said the officer was abducted after some members of the Arambai Tenggol were detained earlier in the day for brandishing weapons and stealing vehicles. Kuki groups have blamed Arambai Tenggol for orchestrating violence against tribals in Manipur since ethnic violence broke out in the state on May 3 last year. Arambai Tenggol members have been accused of murder, attacks on security forces, extortion, arson, etc. Kuki groups have said the group has the support of the politicians. Arambai Tenggol last month called 38 lawmakers and other Meitei politicians to take an oath to protect Manipurs integrity. At least three legislators were assaulted for not supporting the state government. To be sure, no legislator has filed a complaint. Ethnic violence in Manipur has since May last year left over 200 people dead and nearly 50,000 displaced. Officials say the ethnic violence has degenerated into anarchy with underground militant groups regaining support. Xem them ... Tin bai cuoi cung Khong con du lieu e load Tension further escalated in Manipur on Tuesday as an additional superintendent of police was abducted allegedly by cadres of the Arambai Tenggol, a Meitei organisation, in Imphal East district, the police said. The Manipur Police, in a statement, added that Imphal East additional superintendent of police Amit Singh was later rescued after a swift action by cops and security forces. Around 7 pm on Tuesday, the Manipur Police said armed miscreants numbering about 200 coming in vehicles stormed the residence of Amit Singh. (Representative Image)(HT_PRINT) The officer, Amit Singh, posted in the operations wing of the Manipur Police, has been admitted to a hospital where his condition is stated to be stable. In the Tuesday evening attack, armed cadres allegedly belonging to the Arambai Tenggol ransacked the house and damaged at least four vehicles with gunfire. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. News agency PTI, citing unnamed officials, reported that the Army was called in after fresh tension mounted in Manipur and four columns of the Assam Rifles were deployed in Imphal East the police officer was abducted. Giving details of the incident that took place around 7 pm on Tuesday, the Manipur Police said armed miscreants numbering about 200 coming in vehicles stormed the residence of Amit Singh. Also Read | Manipur women face trauma in relief camps Firing incident at the residence of Addl SP, IW, Moirangthem Amit, MPS On 27th February, 2024. Armed miscreants numbering about 200 coming in vehicles stormed at the residence of the Additional Superintendent of Police, Shri Moirangthem Amit Singh, MPS, s/o Dr. M. Kulla Singh of Wangkhei Tokpam Leikai, under Porompat PS of Imphal East district. The armed miscreants vandalized the household properties at the residence, the Manipur Police posted on X (formally Twitter). On getting information, additional security forces rushed to the spot. In the resulting police action, two individuals namely Rabinash Moirangthem, 24 yrs s/o M. Ranjan of Kwakeithel Akham Leikai and Kangujam Bhimsen, 20 yrs c/o K. Abosana of Khongman Bashikhong sustained injuries on their persons and were admitted to JNIMS Hospital, Porompat. In the midst of the incident, the Addl SP and one of his escorts were abducted by the armed miscreants. They were later rescued from Kwakeithel Konjeng Leikai area and admitted to Raj Medicity for medical treatment. A case has been registered in this regard and investigation has started, it added. Why mob attacked Manipur Police officer? The reason for this indiscriminate firing was that the officer concerned had arrested six members of the group for their alleged involvement in vehicle theft, PTI quoted the officials as saying. Following the arrests, a group of Meira Paibis (Meitei women group) had protested and blocked roads demanding their release. Detailing the incident, M Kulla, the police officer's father, said, "We tried to talk to the armed men after they entered, but all of a sudden they started firing at the vehicles and properties. So we had to rush inside and lock ourselves."M Kulla, according to the officials, called his son and informed about the incident. The officer rushed with his team only to be abducted as they were outnumbered by the cadres allegedly belonging to the Arambai Tenggol, PTI added. The Manipur Police acted promptly, mobilising forces to launch a successful rescue operation, ensuring Amit Kumar's safe return within hours, it reported. The Manipur government had to take the help of the Army as the situation worded after the rescue efforts. The Assam Rifles, a paramilitary force, functions under the operational command of the Army. Manipur violence The region has witnessed escalating violence since May 3, 2023, with over 180 casualties reported after a "Tribal Solidarity March" in the hill districts protested the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status. The Meiteis, constituting around 53 per cent of Manipur's population and residing predominantly in the Imphal Valley, contrast the tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, who make up 40 per cent and primarily inhabit the hill districts. Guwahati: As many as 219 persons have been killed in the ethnic clashes that has roiled Manipur since May, 2023, governor Anusuiya Uikey said on Wednesday, adding that the state could lose 800 crore as revenue in the backdrop of the violence that has uprooted thousands and disrupted life for over nine months. Ethnic violence in Manipur has since May last year left over 200 people dead. (PTI) Officials now say that the months-long ethnic violence between the two major communities, the Kukis and Meiteis, have degenerated into anarchy with underground militant groups regaining support; worryingly, the violence is not showing signs of abating. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Delivering her address on the first day of the fifth session of the 12th Manipur Assembly, Uikey spoke about efforts undertaken to bring back peace and normalcy and the effect of the violence on the states economy. Also Read: Manipur women face trauma in relief camps It is unfortunate that due to the violence 219 persons have lost their lives. Those families who have lost their dear ones are being given compensation of 10 lakhs each based on verification. Bodies of victims have been given to their families and their last rites performed, she said in her address. Uikey informed that to maintain law and order, 198 companies of central armed police forces (CAPFs) and 140 columns of army have been deployed in the state. Audits of weapons snatched from armouries have been done and they are being recovered as part of a continuous process, she said. Also Read: Over 200 militants stormed Manipur top cops house before abducting him: Police Uikey stated that 187,143 persons were detained in the state since May last year as a preventive measure and were released after legal formalities. Till date around 10,000 FIRs have been lodged in connection with the ethnic violence, the governor said. For transparent and independent investigation, the government has transferred 29 cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and one to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Process is underway to hand over 4 more cases to CBI and another 5 to NIA, Uikey said. She stated that the government has undertaken efforts to control the challenging circumstances. Curfew relaxations have been ordered in most parts of the state and the ban on internet services has been lifted in many parts depending on the situation. Relief efforts for those displaced are happening routinely and educational needs of affected children and youths. Efforts on for rehabilitation of those displaced and nearly 200 crores have been spent till now for that, she said. Uikey mentioned that the present financial year has been a difficult one for the state due to the present situation and trends from tax collection indicate that Manipur could lose around 800 crores in revenue in 2023-24. The governor highlighted various efforts undertaken in different sectors including education, agriculture and power generation. Uikey urged everyone in the state to maintain harmony so that there is lasting peace in the state and there is rapid development. New Delhi/Guwahati: The Manipur Police on Wednesday registered a case under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against militants who abducted a senior police officer and his escort in Imphal East district on Tuesday evening, people familiar with the matter said. Manipur CM N. Biren Singh accompanied by ministers, MLAs and chief secretary, visited Addl SP M Amit Singh, who was recently attacked by armed miscreants at Raj Medicity Hospital in Imphal on Wednesday. (ANI) Moirangthem Amit Singh, the additional superintendent of police (operations) of Imphal West, and one of his escorts were abducted by around 200 militants from his residence. The armed miscreants who came in vehicles stormed the ASPs residence around 7pm on Tuesday and also resorted to vandalism, a senior police officer said. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. A case has been filed under sections of UAPA. They have also snatched a police gun, which is yet to be retrieved. The ASP (operations) and another person who were kidnapped were also assaulted. They are still in the hospital and sections of assault have also been added (in the first information report), the senior officer said, requesting anonymity. Also Read | Manipur violence: 219 killed, 10K FIRs, 800 cr revenue loss likely, says guv Meanwhile, a section of commandos belonging to the Manipur Police staged an arms down protest in different valley districts such as Imphal East, Imphal West and Bishnupur on Wednesday to protest the abduction incident. The laying down of weapons by police commandos took place on Wednesday morning as they are unhappy with the state government not giving them a free hand to tackle armed militants. It was a symbolic protest, the senior officer said. Following the protest by the security personnel, chief minister N Biren Singh held a meeting over the issue. Chaired a meeting with the MPS officers at my residential office to address the grievances of the state security personnel who had launched a strike today, he posted on X, sharing photos of the meeting. Also Read | Manipur women face trauma in relief camps No arrests have been made in connection with the abduction of the ASP and his escort till Wednesday morning, HT has learnt. The senior officer said the armed miscreants that stormed the ASPs residence were reportedly upset with the officer arresting a few people earlier that day in a car theft incident. The armed miscreants vandalised the household properties at the residence. On getting information, additional security forces rushed to the spot. In the resulting police action, two individuals Rabinash Moirangthem, 24, and Kangujam Bhimsen, 20 sustained injuries and were admitted to Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences, the police said in a statement. In the midst of the incident, the ASP and one of his escorts were abducted by the armed miscreants. They were later rescued from Kwakeithel Konjeng Leikai area and admitted to Raj Medicity for medical treatment. A case has been registered in this regard and investigation has started, it added. Neither the police statement nor the senior officer quoted above confirmed if the first information report (FIR) under sections of UAPA names any members of radical Meitei group Arambai Tenggol or the case was registered against unknown persons. However, some officials familiar with the matter confirmed that the armed miscreants involved in the Tuesday evening incident were indeed from Arambai Tenggol, which has been accused of carrying sophisticated weapons and indulging in attacks on Kuki settlements for past several months. The radical group was aided by women protesters outside the house of ASP Singh. Manipur has been roiled by ethnic clashes between numerically dominant Meiteis, who primarily inhabit Imphal Valley, and the tribal Kuki-Zo community, which is in majority in a few hill districts, since May last year. The violence has claimed at least 219 lives and displaced around 50,000. On Wednesday night, Meira Paibis, the all-women Meitie group, took out a candle march in different parts of Imphal, demanding that the Suspension of Operation (SoO) agreement with Kuki groups should not be renewed by the Centre. The SoO agreement was signed by 25 Kuki militant groups with the Centre and the Manipur government in August 2008. As per the agreement, the cadres of these groups were to be confined to designated camps and their arms kept locked in safe rooms under double-locking system. Last year, the SoO was extended till February 29 this year. The Centre has extension every year since 2008. New Delhi: Moments after Himachal Pradeshs public works department minister Vikramaditya Singh on Wednesday announced his resignation from the state cabinet, Union minister Anurag Thakur said that the Congress has failed to fulfil its promises to the people of the state, leading to great dissatisfaction among its own MLAs. Union minister Anurag Thakur (File Photo) The Congress formed a government in Himachal Pradesh by making big false promises. And after forming the government, these promises were not fulfilled. People ask them (about these promises) when the Congress MLAs visit their constituencies, but they have no answers, Thakur said. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. His comments came following Tuesdays incident in which six lawmakers of the Congress party cross-voted in favour of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls. According to party officials, the MLAs were disappointed with the working style of Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and were seeking his replacement. Thakur did not confirm the reports whether the Centre is planning to bring a no-confidence motion against the Sukhu-led government in the Himachal legislature after the Congress MLAs rebelled against the party. Congresss Rajya Sabha candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost to the BJPs Harsh Mahajan on Tuesday. Singhvi received 34 votes after six Congress lawmakers and three independents previously backing the government supported BJP nominee Mahajan, who also received 34 votes. The tie was then resolved by a draw-of-lots, which favoured Mahajan. The Congress lawmakers claimed that more party leaders were dissatisfied with CM Sukhu, and wanted to see him replaced. Also Read: Sukhu government in Himachal Pradesh on brink after BJP stuns Congress in Rajya Sabha election The BJP maintained that the Congress government had lost the confidence of the House and demanded Sukhus resignation. BJP leaders in the state have claimed that the Congress government has lost the moral right to stay in power and demanded a floor test in the states ongoing Budget session. Thakur noted that Singhvi being given a Rajya Sabha ticket may have caused anger among the Congress leaders, but claimed that infighting and lack of development were the primary reasons for the rebellion. What compelled their MLAs to leave their side within just 14 months? One major reason was that a non-Himachali was given a ticket.There was anger regarding this among the people, and I think there must have been some among the Congresss leaders too. But all in all, they are so upset with their own governmentneither are they being able to fulfil their promises, nor create any development, Thakur said. Thakur dismissed allegations that the BJP government had caused Singhvis defeat by an abduction of the Congresss MLAs, as CM Sukhu claimed. Hours after BJPs Mahajan won, CM Sukhu alleged that the central police force and the Haryana Police took away his partys five to six MLAs. Thakur said that Congress MLAs demand to replace Sukhu as CM was a party matter, but that it showed that the Congress was scattering and breaking up. Belagavi: A 43-year-old agricultural labourer in Chikkamagaluru succumbed to Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD), regionally known as monkey fever, on Wednesday morning. The state health department said, it has exhausted the stock for KFD vaccines. (Getty Images/iStockphoto) The woman was admitted to Megan Hospital at Shivamogga on February 21 with a KFD infection, said an official from the hospitals administration. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. According to the health department, this is the third death owing to KFD in the past 10 days. Earlier, two more deaths were recorded due to the infection in Siddapur town, Uttara Kannada district. The KFD has hit the state worse than last year, mainly infecting children below 12 years of age, said the officials. To date, nearly 500 people have been infected with the disease. Also Read | Monkey fever cases surge in India: Symptoms, preventive tips and all you want to Meanwhile, the state government has expressed its helplessness regarding the non-availability of vaccines. Since we did not expect that KFD would hit the state to this extent, we didnt stock up enough vaccines. The limited vaccines we had were exhausted in November last year. The manufacturing of the vaccines is underway and will be available only by May 2025, said Karnataka minister for health and family welfare, Dinesh Gundurao. Earlier, commissioner of the health department, Randeep, told the district health officers (DHO) that the vaccines got over in January after the KFD broke out in villages of Mysuru in November and December. The commissioner had instructed the DHOs to ask people to take precautions. Also Read | 'Prevention of Monkey fever deaths govt's utmost priority': K'taka Health Min Uttara Kannada district is infected with KFD every year. More than 60% of the vaccines produced are distributed in the district every year, while the rest are distributed in Belagavi, Shivamogga, Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru, and Mysuru districts, said officials. Siddapur town, which has more than 100 infected people presently, saw the deaths of three adult monkeys earlier this month. Owing to the scare, residents of more than a dozen villages in Siddapur and its adjoining Yallapur town started migrating. After three adult monkeys were found dead in Siddapur forest near the hamlets, the villagers started migrating to other places, leaving one or two members at home to look after the livestock, said a forest official, requesting anonymity. Meanwhile, Belagavi DHO Dr Mahesh Koni said, The virus is not life-threatening. The infected recover completely within five days. It is only deadly if a person is infected for the second time, which causes heavy vomiting of blood. Remedies for KFD Since the anti-virus vaccine is not available to tackle KFD, the health department advised the patients to take complete bed rest for at least five days and maintain hygiene to get cured fast. The infected must maintain hygiene and stay away from sun. KFD does not spread from human contact, but from the fly families that bite human after biting the sick or dead monkey, said Koni. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to conclude his two-day visit to three states Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra on Wednesday. His itinerary includes inaugurating and laying the foundation stone for various development projects. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Madurai on Tuesday. (ANI Photo) Starting his tour to Kerala on Tuesday, Modi visited the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram. There, Modi inaugurated three significant space infrastructure projects amounting to approximately 1,800 crore. Later, he reviewed the progress of the Gaganyaan Mission and honoured four astronaut-designates with 'astronaut wings'. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Reaching Tamil Nadu in the afternoon, Modi participated in the 'Creating the Future Digital Mobility for Automotive MSME Entrepreneurs' programme in Madurai. Here, he launched two initiatives aimed at bolstering MSMEs in the Indian automotive industry. PM Modi in Tamil Nadu On February 28, around 9:45am, Modi will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of several development projects worth approximately 17,300 crore in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu. During the public event in Thoothukudi, the Prime Minister will lay the foundation stone of the Outer Harbor Container Terminal at V.O. Chidambaranar Port. Additionally, he will inaugurate several projects aimed at establishing the V.O. Chidambaranar Port as the country's first Green Hydrogen Hub Port. These projects include a desalination plant, hydrogen production facilities, and bunkering facilities. Furthermore, the Prime Minister will launch India's first indigenous green hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel under the Harit Nauka initiative and dedicate tourist facilities in 75 lighthouses across ten States/UTs. Rail projects for the doubling of the Vanchi Maniyachchi - Nagercoil rail line, including the Vanchi Maniyachchi - Tirunelveli section and Melappalayam - Aralvaymoli section, will also be dedicated to the nation during the program. These projects, developed at a cost of about 1,477 crore, aim to reduce travel time for trains heading towards Chennai from Kanyakumari, Nagercoil, and Tirunelveli. Additionally, four road projects in Tamil Nadu, with a total cost of about 4,586 crore, will be dedicated. These projects include the four-laning of the Jittandahalli-Dharmapuri section of NH-844, two-laning with paved shoulders of the Meensurutti-Chidambaram section of NH-81, four-laning of the Oddanchatram-Madathukulam section of NH-83, and two-laning with paved shoulders of the Nagapattinam-Thanjavur section of NH-83. The Prime Minister will then travel to Maharashtra the last leg of his two-day visit. PM Modi in Maharashtra Around 4:30pm, the PM will participate in a public programme in Yavatmal, Maharashtra, to inaugurate and dedicate multiple development projects valued at over 4900 crore. During the event, the 16th instalment of more than 21,000 crores under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) will be released by PM Modi, benefitting the recipients through direct benefit transfers. Additionally, the Prime Minister will distribute the 2nd and 3rd instalments of the 'Namo Shetkari MahaSanman Nidhi' amounting to about 3800 crore, benefiting around 88 lakh farmers in Maharashtra. Furthermore, 825 crore from the Revolving Fund will be disbursed to 5.5 lakh women Self Help Groups (SHGs) across Maharashtra. The distribution of one crore Ayushman cards across Maharashtra will also be initiated. The launch of the Modi Awaas Gharkul Yojana for OBC category beneficiaries in Maharashtra is also scheduled, aiming to construct 10 lakh houses from FY 2023-24 to FY 2025-26. The Prime Minister will transfer the first instalment of 375 Crore to 2.5 lakh beneficiaries of the Yojana. Moreover, several irrigation projects benefiting Marathwada and Vidarbha regions, developed at a cost of more than 2750 crore under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) and Baliraja Jal Sanjeevani Yojana (BJSY), will be launched. Furthermore, multiple rail projects worth over 1300 crore in Maharashtra, including the Wardha-Kalamb broad gauge line and New Ashti - Amalner broad gauge line, will be inaugurated. Additionally, two train services connecting Kalamb-Wardha and Amalner-New Ashti will be virtually flagged off. Additionally, various road strengthening projects in Maharashtra will be inaugurated, including the four-laning of the Warora-Wani section of NH-930 and road upgradation projects for important roads connecting Sakoli-Bhandara and Salaikhurd-Tirora. Lastly, the Prime Minister will inaugurate the statue of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay in Yavatmal city. Hyderabad: Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) MP from Ongole parliamentary constituency Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy on Wednesday resigned from the party, stating that he would not like to continue in the party where he had no respect. YSR Congress party MP from Ongole parliamentary constituency Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (Twitter Photo) Addressing a press conference at Ongole, the 71-year-old leader said he was forced to leave the YSRCP under unavoidable circumstances. It is a sad development, but I cannot compromise on my self-respect, he said. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The MP said the Magunta family was a brand in the entire Prakasam district and it would give a lot of importance to self-respect than anything else. We dont have ego, but have self-respect and we cannot continue where there is no value to our self-respect, he said. Also Read: Bengal Congress leader Koustav Bagchi resigns, says party has lost character Announcing his resignation, he said that his son Magunta Raghava Reddy would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Ongole. Both father and son are accused turned approvers in the Delhi excise policy scam. He thanked YSRCP president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy for giving him an opportunity to serve the party for the last five years. The MP said he would disclose his future course of action shortly. However, a YSRCP leader familiar with the development said he and his son would be joining the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) shortly and Raghava Reddy was assured of the TDP ticket from Ongole parliamentary constituency. Sreenivasulu is the sixth YSRCP MP to quit the party in the last one month, the other five being Kurnool MP Sanjeev Kumar, Machilipatnam MP Vallabhana Balashowry, Narsaraopet MP Lavu Srikrishna Devarayalu and Narasapuram MP Kanmuru Raghu Ramakrishna Raju, besides Rajya Sabha member Vemireddy Prabhakar Reddy. Also Read: CBI, ED free to arrest TMC strongman Sheikh Shahjahan, rules Calcutta high court Both Sreenivasulu and his son Raghava, whose family has been in the liquor business for more than four decades, were among the accused in the Delhi liquor policy scam. The father-son duo was accused of being part of the South Group that allegedly offered Rs.100 crore bribe in the formation of the now-scrapped policy. On February 10, 2023, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Raghava under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with the case. He was charge sheeted on April 6, 2023, and on June 7, the Delhi high court granted him a 15-day conditional bail, which was later extended to four weeks. In October 2023, Raghava, along with Aurobindo Pharma director P Sarat Chandra Reddy, another accused in the scam, turned approvers. On February 1, 2024, Delhis rouse avenue court granted anticipatory bail to Raghava and also pardoned him in the case. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday said stern steps will be taken if necessary as the party is not denying the cross-voting that took place in the Rajya Sabha election in Himachal Pradesh. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge asked the three observers to speak to all with an open mind and do whatever is needed to make sure that the Congress completes the term given by the voters in 2022 December, Jairam Ramesh said. The observers will submit its report which will have two parts: one, the accountability behind the cross-voting, and second, the future course of action for the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh. Jairam Ramesh said party is supreme and individuals are not important and only the public can take away the mandate from the Congress, not 'operation lotus'. Bhupesh Baghel, DK Shivakumar and Bhupinder Hooda have been sent to Shimla as observers to look into the situation and give their report amid speculations over the Congress government collapsing in the hill state. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Himachal Pradesh political crisis: Follow LIVE updates Six Congress MLAs voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha election in an unexpected threat to the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government. BJP's Harsh Mahajan defeated Congress's Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha election and the crisis deepened in the state with the possibility of a trust vote. Congress to speak to disgruntled Vikramaditya Singh A day after the cross-voting state minister Vikramaditya Singh, son of Virbhadra Singh and Pratibha Singh, announced his resignation from the party. Jairam Ramesh said one MLA said he is not with the party, and the observers will speak to him as well. "Congress got the mandate...not he," Jairam said reiterating that the party is above the individual. Vikramaditya said he was deeply hurt because the party did not honour his father though fought the 2022 election and won it in the name of his father. "There was no poster, or hoarding or banner which did not carry his picture. There was a full-page ad with his picture in the newspapers a day before voting. But after victory when the matter of his statue came, the government failed to decide the location," Vikramaditya Singh said. Vikramaditya Singh dismissed speculations that he would be joining the BJP while Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said he has not resigned and neither has anyone asked for his resignation. Shashi Tharoor said the only way the BJP can get double digits in Kerala in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is if both digits are zero; otherwise, they will be limited to one digit which is also zero. Shashi Tharoor commented on PM Modi's statement that BJP will secure two-digit Lok Sabha seats from Kerala.(PTI) The comment came a day after Narendra Modi said in Thiruvananthapuram that the BJP would win double-digit seats in 2024. The BJP has no seat in Kerala while the Congress in 2019 won 15 out of 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. "As far as Kerala is concerned, communalism cannot go beyond a very small limit and we have seen the BJP reach that limit. Two successive elections, their vote percentage were 12% and 13%. Ill give Mr Modi credit that under him, the BJP went from a six per cent party to a 12-13 per cent party under him but that's it. I think the ceiling has been reached. And unless they come with a more convincing appeal to the people of Kerala -- we know they tried to reach out to the Christian community but after what happened in Manipur, there is very little receptivity to this kind of message," Tharoor said. "The issue with the BJP is that they don't understand Kerala- its culture and history. We have had more than 2,000 years of living together, amicably. Our relationship with each of the major faiths is one of welcome and acceptance... The problem with the North is that they think their history is the only history..." Shashi Tharoor said. "Today, Jews tell me this is the only Jewish Diaspora that never knew a single instance of anti-Semitic persecution in the world. Similarly, Christianity came with St Thomas, St Thomas of the apostles, it was again welcomed and spread," Tharoor said. "Then we had Islam coming, not by the sword. You see, the problem in the north is that they think their history is the only history. We have traders from the Arab world coming to Kerala centuries before the Prophet, and they brought the message of the Prophet as news from their peninsula," Tharoor added. In a swipe at temple-mosque feud in Mathura, Varanasi, Tharoor said, "Now we're not going to have a situation where some Hindu movement comes and says this used to be a temple and we want to knock down the mosque, we won't tolerate it, and that's not the way we behave." The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is ambitious and there has never been a more opportune time for higher education institutions in both India and the United States to collaborate to expand the higher education system, senior officials from a US delegation said on Tuesday. Representational image. The delegation from the Institute of International Education (IIE), comprising 31 provosts, vice provosts, deans, and other leaders from 17 different higher education institutions across the United States, is on a seven-day visit to India to explore and expand bilateral partnerships with higher education institutions between the two countries. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The visit is crucial as it is happening at a time when India is focusing on expanding its higher education system globally and thriving to become a global education hub. Jason Czyz, co-president and director of grants and contracts at IIE, said that NEP 2020 is ambitious and not every country has its own national policy. So, its wonderful that India does have one and is striving to achieve the goals within the national policy. It is wonderful to hear from some of the universities here about their research priorities, and there are opportunities for exchange programmes between the US and India. There has never been a more opportune time for higher education institutions in both India and the US to join forces, he said. Sharing his views on Indias initiative of allowing foreign universities to set up their campuses here, Czyz said the delegation was given a presentation about the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) initiative, under which world-class foreign universities will now be allowed to set up their campuses. What an innovative model that is implemented there. I cannot speak for all universities in the US. But what I can tell is that the higher education community in the US is curious to know about it and they are learning, he said Commenting on the Quad fellowship, an initiative by the governments of Australia, India, Japan, and the US administered by the IIE, Sylvia Jons, the lead of the IIE Center for International Partnerships, said, Four different countries have come together to focus on graduates in the field of STEM, knowing that not one country can alone tackle the challenges of the world. We really need to collaborate. Elaborating on other possible areas for that, Czyz said universities in the US are interested in research-based collaborations. Our universities are interested in the opportunity to work with scholars across borders, to co-write articles and co-undertake research. There has to be a lot of focus on research, he said. He further said that other important areas where there has been substantial growth is the Optional Practical Training, under which Indian students get practical training working at US-based companies or international companies. That is another growth area, an important opportunity for exchange between the two countries, he added. Chinese and US flags flutter outside the building of an American company in Beijing. [Photo/Agencies] The era of the Pax Americana is ending, in that the US is abdicating its place as an indispensable nation, rather than other nations will replace it, as mentioned in Chicago Tribunes article written by Richard C. Longworth. In 1998, Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, described the US as an indispensable nation. Albright remarked that the US was the sole superpower just after the end of the Cold War. At that time, Russia was thoroughly whipped, China was just beginning its amazing transformation into a modern nation, the European Union was focused on its own expansion, and regional powers like India and Iran sought little power outside their own frontiers. Even the French called the US the hyperpower. Albright hinted that the US stood at the helm of a web of alliances and global organizations. More than fifty years after nuclear weapons were invented, the US had presided over the Pax Americana that had kept the peace among the nuclear powers. Now, Americans will discover there are worse burdens than leadership, the global anarchy that lurks around the corner is a major one. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were failures. The subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 and the subsequent Great Recession harmed the US reputation for economic acumen. Whats more, racism, rampant gun violence, shameful economic inequality and Donald Trumps attack on US democracy even shook US' ability to run itself. Whats amazing is that the US is still the only military power with global influence competence. These can be illustrated by the US military budget surpassing the total military expenses of its all rivals, the US is still the worlds biggest economy, the US dollar is still the dominant world currency, English is the global language, students from around the world flock to US universities etc. Albright spoke at a time that the US had no real rivals or challengers, but now the US has. However, none has the willingness to take over the role of world leader. The US could abdicate if it doesnt want to be dethroned. This is what the battle in Congress over aid to Ukraine is all about. The US has made Ukraine an ally and the protection of its democracy meets US national interest. Other NATO nations also supported US leadership, for they trusted the US could keep its promise. Today, Trump and Congress, or the Republican leadership, want the US to break its promise and forfeit that trust. This makes the Republican leadership become isolationist for the first time since World War . The Chicago Council on Global Affairs recent poll showed that 53% of Republicans deem the US should stay out of world affairs. This is the first time in its 50-year history that any major party has turned its back on the world. Notably, no other countries are ready and have the willingness to take over providing the US abdicates its leadership. But they will have a try, even though that will bring global anarchy. The power vacuum will draw in a large number of countries, many of which are nuclear-armed. Over 200 militants stormed a senior police officers residence, vandalised it, and fired gunshots before abducting him and his guards hours before they were rescued on Tuesday, the Manipur Police said on Wednesday. They were later rescued from the Kwakeithel Konjeng Leikai area and admitted to Raj Medicity for medical treatment. A case has been registered in this regard and an investigation has started, the police said in a statement. Ethnic violence in Manipur has since May last year left over 200 people dead. (PTI/Representative) Police did not name the group behind the abduction but people aware of the matters said radical Meitei outfit Arambai Tenggol may have been involved. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The Manipur Police said additional security forces were rushed to the spot after the militants stormed Moirangthem Amit Singhs residence in Imphal East district. They added two individuals identified as Rabinash Moirangthem, 24, and Kangujam Bhimsen, 20, were injured in the police action that followed. The police statement did not mention why the officer was abducted. A person aware of the matter, who asked not to be named, said the officer was abducted after some members of the Arambai Tenggol were detained earlier in the day. They were brandishing weapons and had stolen vehicles in the city. Members of the group and other women groups staged protests outside the Imphal police headquarters, the person said. The protests were later held at the residence of Singh. At around 6pm, he returned home and was surrounded by women protesters. Within no time, militants came in vehicles, took advantage of the large number of protesters, and grabbed the officer. Other police personnel were overpowered by the mob, the person said. Kuki groups have blamed Arambai Tenggol for orchestrating violence against tribals in Manipur since ethnic violence broke out in the state on May 3 last year. Arambai Tenggol members have been accused of murder, attacks on security forces, extortion, arson, etc. Kuki groups have said the group has the support of the politicians. Arambai Tenggol last month called 38 lawmakers and other Meitei politicians to take an oath to protect Manipurs integrity. At least three legislators were assaulted for not supporting the state government. To be sure, no legislator has filed a complaint. Ethnic violence in Manipur has since May last year left over 200 people dead and nearly 50,000 people displaced. Officials say the ethnic violence has degenerated into anarchy with underground militant groups regaining support. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday launched a vitriolic attack on the Congress-led Karnataka government after a few followers of Rajya Sabha member Syed Nasir Hussain allegedly raised pro-Pakistan slogans after his victory, saying that Pakistan is there in the DNA of the grand old party. The party also demanded an apology from the party president Mallikarjun Kharge over the issue. BJP national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia. (File Photo) Read here: Pakistan Zindabad slogan row: Karnataka BJP takes to streets, corners Siddaramaiah-led Congress govt Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. While speaking to the reporters, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said Congress always remembers Pakistan whenever India's democracy wins. "This is a very worrying incident, this is the insult of India's democracy. Today, every citizen is asking, why Congress always remembers Pakistan whenever India's democracy wins...Pakistan is there in the DNA of Congress...Congress' DNA has become anti-national...Don't you think Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge should apologise?" he said. Meanwhile, the party's Karnataka unit held a massive protest in Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru against the Congress for being "anti-national". Karakala Sunil, the BJP MLA from Karakala, led the protest by holding a national flag and demanding the Congress to remove Hussain from the party. It has also filed a complaint against Hussian at the Vidhana Soudha Police Station. Read here: True nationalists are Congressmen...BJP never took part in freedom struggle: Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah However, the Congress refuted the claims and said the BJP was only trying to spread misinformation to create chaos. Chief minister Siddaramaiah said the videos telecasted by the local media channels are sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) and they are waiting for the report. If the FSL report confirms that Pakistan Zindabad slogans are uttered in the video, there is no way that we are going to spare the culprits. But even before the report is out, the BJP is only trying to create communal tensions once again." Read here: BJP claims pro-Pak slogans raised in Karnataka Assembly, Congress MP clarifies The row started when Congress Hussain was declared the winner in the Rajya Sabha polls. In the videos telecast on local media channels, the supporters of Hussain were seen shouting Pakistan Zindabad with loud claps. However, Hussain immediately clarified that some supporters shouted slogans like 'Nasir Hussain Zindabad', 'Nasir Sahab Zindabad, ' Congress Party Zindabad, and not Pakistan Zindabad. (With inputs from agencies) The Supreme Court on Tuesday restrained Patanjali Ayurved Ltd from issuing misleading advertisements on medical efficacy of its products and issued contempt notices to the company and its director Acharya Balakrishna for violating an earlier undertaking given in November. A hoarding with an image of Baba Ramdev is seen inside a Patanjali store in Ahmedabad. (REUTERS/ FILE) A bench of justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah passed the order after being shown material by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), which first approached it in 2022, seeking action against Patanjali for disparaging modern medicine and making misleading claims about curing diseases, contrary to law. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. You are a person who can do anything. Thats what we get from looking at these advertisements. The fact remains that you are selling your product to people as a permanent relief. This itself is misleading and a violation of the law, the bench remarked. The court also pulled up the Union government for its failure to rein in such advertisements. The entire country is being taken for a ride. You must set it right. You were in the knowledge of these advertisements. The words of these advertisements are totally in violation of law. This petition was filed in 2022. For two years you did nothing, the bench said. IMA filed latest advertisements issued in December 2023 and January 2024, along with a video clip of a press conference held by yoga guru Ramdev, a day after the court on November 21 recorded Patanjalis undertaking that it would not to violate law by issuing any misleading advertisement. In addition, the court received an anonymous complaint of January 15 attaching two press clippings of advertisements issued on January 7, where Patanjali claimed that its products are more effective than chemical-based synthetic medicines of allopathy. Modern medicine is often referred to as allopathy in India. The judges rebuked Patanjali for taking the court lightly. Your statement was not worth the paper (it was on). This court had bound you to the statement you had made. Issuing contempt notices to Patanjali and its director Balakrishna, the bench said, The said advertisements/press conference was issued after our order was passed on November 21, 2023. Prima facie this Court is of the view that respondent (Patanjali) is in violation of the undertaking given to this Court on November 21, 2023. The court directed Balakrishna to be made a party to the IMA petition and sought response in three weeks on as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him and the company. The respondent (Patanjali) is restrained from advertising products manufactured and marketed by it which are meant to address ailments specified as diseases/disorders in the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectional Advertisements) Act, 1954, the court further directed. Section 3 of this law prohibits any advertisement claiming diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of any lifestyle diseases such as blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, asthma, cervical spondylitis, obesity and heart diseases. Further, Patanjalis claim to eradicate asthma was in direct contravention to the Drugs & Cosmetics Rules 1945, IMAs petition said. Posting the matter on March 19, the bench held, The officers of respondent (Patanjali) are cautioned from making any statement, adverse to any system of medicine in the media, both print and electronic, in any form as undertaken by them. Going through the advertisements, the bench noticed the photographs of Ramdev and Balakrishna. If we take a view, the persons who are in this advertisement should be made parties. Let them file affidavits how they have made such statements in violation of our order, it said. When the court wished to know Ramdevs position in Patanjali Ayurved, senior advocate Vipin Sanghi appearing for the company said, He is a sanyasi (monk). He does not hold any position in the company and is only a yoga guru. Sanghi initially expressed surprise on being shown the advertisements and sought time to respond. To be sure, Ramdev has always publicly been associated with Patanjali and consistently targeted modern medicine. On November 21, the court recorded the statement of senior advocate Sajan Poovayya appearing for Patanjali. Upon instructions from the company, he gave an undertaking that henceforth, there shall not be any violation of any laws, especially relating to advertising or branding of products manufactured and marketed by it and, further, that no casual statements claiming medicinal efficacy or against any system of medicine will be released to the media in any form. The court bound Patanjali to this assurance and warned that if the company continued to act against law, it would not hesitate from imposing a cost of 1 crore on each of its products. Senior advocate PS Patwalia, appearing for IMA along with advocate Prabhas Bajaj, pointed out that the company has shown scant regard to the courts order. IMA also questioned the silence of the Centre in refusing to take any action. You have the courage and the guts to come out with this advertisement. You are tempting the court. We have to now target this entity and take action against the two persons in this advertisement, the bench told Sanghi. The court saw an affidavit filed by the Ayush ministry on February 5, which failed to show any action taken against Patanjali. On the earlier date of hearing, the Centre sought time to have full and effective consultation with the concerned authorities on two aspects incorrect assertions or misrepresentation for various products as regards medicinal efficacy of Patanjali products, and the measures which may be put in place for statements released through the media, both electronic and print, by the company. Additional solicitor general KM Nataraj, appearing for Centre, told the court , Misleading advertisements cannot be tolerated, irrespective of whether this person is doing it or that person. Any violation under the 1954 Act amounts to an offence, but action must be taken by the state governments, he added, as he chose to withdraw the earlier affidavit to file a better one. Granting the permission, the court told the law officer, You should not wait for a complaint to be filed. This is something which you cannot ignore. It is unfortunate. We generally do not step in such issues. The bench indicated that if it was beyond the Centres power to prohibit the advertisements, it would be open to adding states as parties to the proceedings. Patanjalis lawyer objected to the court restraining the company from issuing any advertisement. I am entitled to advertise my products. A complete ban on my advertising is not fair, Sanghi said. Common, gullible people are involved. Prima facie it appears you have flouted our orders. We are not satisfied with the way you have proceeded with the case and are going about it. This must stop immediately, the court retorted. Sanghi informed the court that Patanjali has contributed 40 crore for research and the company should be allowed to carry on with its business. We know that you have surplus money. Let the affidavits come. Your flouting of our orders is not being taken lightly, the court said. Controversy is not new to Patanjali products. In June 2020, Ramdev held a press conference announcing that Patanjali had developed a cure for Covid-19. Later, the Centre issued a notice asking the company not to make such false claims. At another public event in May 2021, during the peak of the second wave of the pandemic, Ramdev called modern medicine a stupid and bankrupt science and falsely claimed that more than 1,000 doctors died after taking both doses of the vaccine. IMA has also registered criminal cases against Ramdev and Patanjali over their false claims in several states. and a defamation law suit filed by IMA against Ramdev is pending before the Delhi high court. New Delhi: DMK MP Kanimozhi on Wednesday reacted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's criticism of the Tamil Nadu government's advertisement allegedly featuring a Chinese rocket, saying India has not declared the Xi Jinping-led country its enemy. She pointed out that even PM Modi had invited the Chinese leader to India. DMK leader Kanimozhi.(PTI file photo) "I don't think India has declared China an enemy country. I have seen that the Prime Minister has invited the Chinese PM and they have gone to Mahabalipuram. Just because you do not want to accept the truth, you are finding reasons to divert the issue," she said. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. PM Modi, addressing a gathering in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli on Wednesday, claimed the ruling party pasted a sticker of a Chinese rocket in the advertisement. "DMK is a party that does not work but stands ahead to take false credit. These people paste their stickers on our schemes. Now they have crossed the limits, they have pasted China's sticker to take credit for the ISRO launch pad in Tamil Nadu," PM Modi said. The prime minister alleged that the DMK is 'not ready' to accept India's progress in the space sector. "They are not ready to accept India's progress in the space sector and with the taxes that you pay, they give advertisements and do not even include a picture of India's space in them. They did not want to present India's space success in front of the world, they insulted our scientists, our space sector, and your tax money. Now it's high time that the DMK is punished for their deeds," PM Modi said. Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai said the DMK wanted to stop the rocket facility started by ISRO. "On the day when the prime minister is on our Tamil soil and very proudly he has laid the foundation stone for India's second rocket launching facility from the southern part of Tamil Nadu, a DMK minister gives out a paper ad with a Chinese rocket in the background. Kanimozhi who is a senior MP defends it saying what is wrong in having a Chinese picture? They are not our enemyDMK wants to stop the rocket-launching facility from coming here. And for that, they are going to any end to please their masters. Now when the whole of India is celebrating that we are doing it the Indian way, we have the DMK people here glorifying China, glorifying Chinese people and glorifying their flag and everything...We expect a bare minimum apology from the DMK government," he added. With inputs from ANI PM Narendra Modi Updates: On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra on the second and final day of his visit to three states Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra. In his first engagement of the day, PM Modi laid the foundation stone of projects worth 17,300 crore, in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi and the foundation stone of the Outer Harbor Container Terminal at V.O.Chidambaranar Port....Read More Following this, he will launch a slew of other projects, and reach Maharashtra in the afternoon. There, in Yavatmal, the prime minister will participate in a public programme around 4:30 pm, inaugurate multiple development projects worth more than 4,900 crore, and release benefits under the PM KISAN and other schemes during the event. Additionally, the PM will disburse the second and third instalments of Namo Shetkari MahaSanman Nidhi, worth about 3,800 crore which will benefit around 88 lakh beneficiary farmers across the state. Other projects that the PM will inaugurate include multiple irrigation projects benefiting the Marathwada and Vidarbha region, developed at a cost of 2,750 crore under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) and Baliraja Jal Sanjeevani Yojana (BJSY); multiple rail projects worth more than 1,300 crore; and projects for strengthening the road sector in Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday introduced to the world Indias four astronaut designates, elite fighter pilots of the Indian Air Force (IAF), who have been selected to be sent to space as part of Indias first human-crewed spaceflight the Gaganyaan mission. The astronauts were awarded Antriksh Yatri Pankh (astronaut wings) by the Prime Minister at a ceremony on Tuesday. (PTI) The announcement was made during Modis visit to the Indian Space Research Organisations (Isro) Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) research institute in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The four astronauts IAFs group captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, group captain Ajit Krishnan, group captain Angad Pratap and wing commander Shubhanshu Shukla have been training extensively for the Gaganyaan mission for the last five years in Russian and Indian facilities. They were awarded Antriksh Yatri Pankh (astronaut wings) by the Prime Minister at a ceremony on Tuesday. Introducing the astronauts, Modi said they were the four forces who will carry on their shoulders the aspirations of 1.4 billion people. The four astronaut-designates are not just four names or individuals, they are the four forces that are carrying the aspirations of 140 crore Indians into space... They symbolise the trust, courage, valour and discipline of todays India, Modi said. He emphasised the four-decade gap after which an Indian will be venturing into space. But this time, there will be a marked difference: the effort will be Made In India, he said. After over 40 years, Indians will be travelling to space again. But this time, the countdown and the rocket will all be ours, the Prime Minister said. Cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma remains the only Indian to ever travel to space. He flew on-board the Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft in 1984. The Gaganyaan mission, which is expected to take flight in 2025, will be Indias first human spaceflight project and it aims to demonstrate Isros human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of three members on a low-Earth orbit for 400km for a three-day mission and bringing them back safely. Isro chairperson S Somanath said that work for Gaganyaan is progressing at lightning speed, and the mission is expected to take flight by 2025. We will have at least one uncrewed flight for Gaganyaan this year, he said. Out of the four astronaut designates, or vyomnauts, being trained, three will be selected for the final mission. Group captain Nair, 47, from Kerala, is the recipient of the Sword of Honour at the Air Force Academy. He was commissioned in 1998 in IAFs fighter stream. Group captain Krishnan, 41, from Chennai, is the recipient of the Presidents Gold Medal and the Sword of Honour at the Air Force Academy. He was commissioned in 2003 and is a flying instructor and test pilot with IAF. Group captain Pratap, 41, from Prayagraj, was commissioned in 2004 and is a flying instructor and test pilot. Wing commander Shukla, 38, from Lucknow, was commissioned in 2006 and is a fighter combat leader and a test pilot with IAF. Leading up to the mission, Isro scientists have been conducting dozens of rounds of tests to ensure all systems are safe to carry and bring astronauts back safely to Earth. Isro has also undertaken modification of its rocket and propulsion systems ensuring that they are made safe for human flights a feat that the Indian space agency has not yet attempted in its 55-year history. Only threecountries the erstwhile Soviet Union, US and China have so far achieved the feat of sending manned missions into space on their own spacecraft. For the mission, Isro has reconfigured its three-stage medium-lift rocket Launch Vehicle Mark-3 or LVM3 (known formerly as GSLV Mark-3) to meet human rating requirements and christened it Human Rated LVM3, or HLVM3. This is the rocket that was used for Isros high-profile launches such as lunar missions Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3, among others. On top of this reconfigured rocket will sit a newly developed orbital module, which will carry crew module (inside which the crew will be housed) and a service module. The extensive tests for the mission have been running from as early as 2017 and are set to continue for several months, building on the decades of experience that the space agency has garnered to international acclaim. Three sets of engine on the rockets have been successfully tested by Isro several times over the past six years, improving on the already well-proven propulsion system of LVM3. Similarly, extensive tests have been carried out, and will continue, on the crew modules which includes emergency escape systems, parachutes for the splash landing in the Indian Ocean, and propulsion and navigation systems. Just last week, Isro announced the accomplishment of a final milestone in the human rating of its CE20 cryogenic engine that powers the cryogenic stage of HLVM3. With its completion, all ground qualification tests of the CE20 engine for Gaganyaan have been successfully completed, the space agency added. During his visit to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Modi also inaugurated three important space infrastructure projects worth about 1,800 crore. These include PSLV Integration Facility at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota; Semi-cryogenics Integrated Engine and stage Test facility at Isro Propulsion Complex at Mahendragiri; and Trisonic Wind Tunnel at VSSC. Modi said that as, according to estimates, Indias space economy is expected to grow fivefold and touch 44 billion dollars in next 10 years. He added that India is becoming a global commercial hub in the field of space. In the coming days, India will once again go to the Moon. Future lunar missions will be about retrieving samples from the surface of the Moon, Modi said. T Suthendraraja alias Santhan, one of the freed convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, has passed away at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai, a hospital official said. Rajiv Gandhi. (HT Photo) Last week, the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) under the Union Ministry of External Affairs provided an emergency travel document for 56-year-old Santhan, enabling his prompt repatriation to Sri Lanka. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. As reported by The News Minute, Santhan suffered a cardiac arrest. He was diagnosed with cryptogenic cirrhosis, a condition unrelated to alcohol consumption that affects liver functioning. Santhan's counsel advocate Pugazhendhi told The News Minute, His brother was there at the hospital when he passed away. His body will be taken to his house in Sri Lanka for final rites. Arrangements are being made. Santhan, who was held in a special camp at the Tiruchy central prison, was scheduled to be accompanied by officials to the international airport for deportation. Following Santhan's request, the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission had previously issued a temporary travel document, and then the FRRO granted an exit permit for his departure. After the FRRO order on February 23, Santhan was to be deported within two days. However, he was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General hospital in early February, The News Minute reported. In May 1999, the Supreme Court acquitted 19 of the 26 accused arrested in Rajiv Gandhi's assassination while affirming the death penalties of Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan, and Nalini, and reducing the death sentences of Payas, Ravichandran, and Jayakumar to life imprisonment. All seven individuals were apprehended in the weeks and months following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, carried out by a suicide bomber affiliated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. Rajiv Gandhi assassination: Kin of deceased say release of convicts unacceptable Santhan was released by the Supreme Court in November 2022. According to the CBI, Santhan arrived in Tamil Nadu in April 1991. Described as a member of the LTTE's intelligence wing, he was suggested by the LTTE mastermind Sivarasan in February 1988 to pursue studies in Madras (Chennai). Subsequently, in February 1990, Santhan secured admission at the Madras Institute of Engineering Technology, with his expenses covered by the LTTE. Santhan faced charges for his close association with Sivarasan in the conspiracy to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi. Perarivalan, who spent nearly three decades incarcerated alongside Santhan, characterized him as a person "who lives in his own world". As reported by Indian Express, Perarivalan said, He never spoke to anyone. He was an excessively religious man who regularly performed puja and rituals, and would sit in the prison temple for almost the entire day. I think he never responded to letters from his relatives in Sri Lanka, he might have severed all his ties with relatives. West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday claimed that the absconding Trinamool Congress (TMC) strongman Shajahan Sheikh, the main accused of the Sandeshkhali violence over land grab and sexual harassment, is in "safe custody" of the state police since Tuesday night. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari(ANI File) Read here: Sandeshkhali case: Sheikh Shahjahan gets no relief in Calcutta HC, faces arrest Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Suvendu said the TMC strongman managed to negotiate a deal with chief minister Mamata Banerjee's police and has been extended five-star facilities during his time in custody. "The Scoundrel of Sandeshkhali - Seikh Shahjahan is in the safe custody of Mamata Police since 12 am last night. He was taken away from the Bermajur - II Gram Panchayat area, after he managed to negotiate a deal with the Mamata Police, through influential mediators, that he would be taken care of properly while in Police and Judicial Custody. He will be extended 5-star facilities during his time behind the bars and will have access to a mobile phone, through which he will be able to lead the Tolamool Party virtually. Even a bed in the Woodburn Ward will be kept ready and vacant for him if he chooses to spend some time there," Adhikari said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). TMC leader Santanu Sen dubbed Adhikari's allegations as baseless. He said that Adhikari is making such brazen attempts to disturb the law and order situation in West Bengal. Read here: Sandeshkhali: Who is TMC's Sheikh Shahjahan targeted by BJP over sexual abuse? "To stay in the news, Adhikari, from time to time, makes such claims that are not only baseless but also brazen attempts at disturbing the law and order situation. We don't take his comments seriously. The police are doing everything to nab Shajahan, just like they arrested other accused party leaders in the area, Shibaprasad Hazra and Uttam Sardar," he said. The BJP leader's allegations came days after TMC legislator Kunal Ghosh asserted that absconding Shajahan would be arrested within a week. We thank the Calcutta high court for allowing the police to arrest Shahjahan. He will be arrested within a week, he said to the reporters. His assertions came after the Calcutta High Court pulled up the state government over their claims that the judiciary had tied the hands of the West Bengal Police in arresting the man whose presence has kept the village of Sandeshkhali on the boil. Which is that order? How can there be a restraint order asking police not to arrest him? We clarify it right now that there is no order restraining the state police from apprehending, said a bench led by Calcutta high court chief justice TS Sivagnanam. Read here: Sandeshkhali unrest: Villagers thrash TMC leader as agitation intensifies Sandeshkhali has been witnessing massive unrest for over two weeks as women protestors are seeking justice against sexual harassment and land grabbing committed by Shahjahan. Meanwhile, The ED last week filed a fresh case against Shahjahan and conducted searches at several locations in the state. The TMC leader has been absconding after a mob, allegedly affiliated with him, attacked ED officials who had gone to search his premises in connection with a ration scam in January this year. The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea against the Rajasthan governments 2001 regulations, which prevent a candidate from applying for a public position if he or she has more than two children. The bench pointed out that the 2003 decision held that the classification, which disqualified candidates for having more than two living children, was non-discriminatory and intra-vires the Constitution, since the objective behind the provision was to promote family planning. (ANI) A bench of justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta and KV Viswanathan referred to the top courts 2003 judgment that had affirmed a two-child norm as an eligibility condition to contest panchayat elections in the state. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The bench pointed out that the 2003 decision held that the classification, which disqualified candidates for having more than two living children, was non-discriminatory and intra-vires the Constitution, since the objective behind the provision was to promote family planning. The top court was hearing an appeal by an ex-serviceman against the Rajasthan high courts 2022 order, which held that the rejection of his candidature for the post of a police constable was valid since the man had more than two children as on June 1, 2002 - when the 2001 regulations on the two-child norm kicked in. The Supreme Court refused to interfere with the high court judgement, noting that the recruitment rules for police in the state were subject to the 2001 regulations. Also Read | The past and present of two-child policies in India For government jobs, candidates who have more than two children are not eligible for appointment under the 2001 Rajasthan Various Service (Amendment) Rules. The Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act 1994 says that if a person has more than two children, he will be disqualified from contesting election as a panch or a member. This rule was upheld by the Supreme Court in Javed Vs State of Rajasthan in 2003. The top court said in its judgment that the classification created by it was founded on intelligible differentia and based on the objective of controlling population growth. With respect to the argument on reproductive autonomy under Article 21, the top court said the lofty ideals of social and economic justice, the advancement of the nation as a whole and the philosophy of distributive justice cannot be given a go-by in the name of undue stress on fundamental rights and individual liberty. Bengaluru: Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah said on Wednesday that serious action would be taken if the investigation found the allegations of Pakistan Zindabad slogans being raised inside the Vidhana Soudha to be true. Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly R Ashoka and supporters protest against alleged "Pakistan Zindabad" slogans in Vidhan Soudha, in Bengaluru on Wednesday. (ANI) When Congress workers were celebrating the victory of Syed Naseer Hussain in the Rajya Sabha elections on Tuesday evening, some people allegedly shouted Pakistan zindabad slogans along with Naseer zindabad. Videos of the celebrations with Hussains supporters cheering for him went viral on the internet, and allegations also surfaced that the Pakistan zindabad slogan was heard. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Speaking to the media, Siddaramaiah said there was no question of sparing anyone. It is not only an allegation by the BJP but also by the media, he added. The government had referred the video to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). Also Read | 'Pak is in Congress' DNA': BJP on Pakistan Zindabad slogan row in Karnataka If the FSL report proves that the slogan raised in favour of Pakistan is true, serious action will be taken in this regard. There is no question of protecting those who raised slogans in favour of Pakistan, he stated. Meanwhile, following the incident, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) filed a police complaint with the Vidhana Soudha police, and a case was registered against unknown persons on Tuesday. However, a day later, the police said they had not found any witnesses to the slogans being heard. The issue rocked both Houses of the Karnataka legislature on Wednesday. The Assembly had to be adjourned twice before the BJP MLAs trooped into the well of the House, leading to its adjournment for the day. Also Read | Pakistan Zindabad slogan row: Karnataka BJP takes to streets, corners Siddaramaiah-led Congress govt In the Legislative Council, BJPs N Ravi Kumar and Congress Abdul Jabbar almost came to blows, when the latter asked chairman Basavaraj Horatti to tell Kumar to shut his mouth. His remark came after Kumar labelled the Congress government anti-national. Later, Jabbar said he was withdrawing the words he had used against Kumar, which were prompted by the fact that he was hurt by the Congress being described as anti-national. Replying to the issue in the Assembly, home minister G Parameshwara said, The BJP is raising doubts about the Congress patriotism for the country when it was the one that strived to get independence for the country. Should we learn about what independence is from others? For the sake of independence, many sacrificed their lives. Didnt patriotism stem from there? he asked. Parameshwara agreed that the present-day Congress is different from what it was earlier. But our hearts and souls have not changed since 1885, when the struggle for independence started, he added. On the BJPs allegations that the Congress was supporting those who talk in favour of Pakistan or raise slogans of zindabad or the countrys flag, Parameshwara reminded the opposition that in 1972, under the regime of the Congress, India fought a war against the neighbouring country. We were on the verge of finishing it, and you talk of the Congress encouraging those who raise slogans in favour of it. How is it justified? he asked. However, the BJP was not convinced by the reply. The leader of the opposition, R Ashoka, said the Vidhana Soudha is not just a building, it represents 70 million Kannadigas. How can someone say Pakistan zindabad inside the Vidhana Soudha without the police taking any action against them. How did they let them go, he asked. Meanwhile, Hussain posted a video on X where, in an interview with ANI, he denied the allegations. I did not hear anybody shouting Pakistan zindabad. Had I heard, I would have sent them to jail, he added. GREELEY Better to walk out than get thrown out. And with that, Robert Bernt, an organic farmer in central Nebraska, turned and left the old school gymnasium where the county zoning board was evaluating a proposed wind farm. Silver-tongued and corrupt were some of the allegations hed leveled at the Greeley County officials in that tense June meeting. The project was being sought by area farmers who viewed it as a way to shore up their family incomes and boost local tax revenues. Most of the several dozen people in attendance shared Bernts anger. They accused local officials of aiding China, a major player in renewables, and jeopardizing neighbors health and property values. One opponent called on the group to join him in prayer as he beseeched God to steer officials away from the plan. Most stood with him. An epic and consequential battle is unfolding in Nebraska over renewable energy. From the Panhandle to the states eastern edge, people have packed local meetings, filed lawsuits and flexed political power. Its a high-stakes fight, with property rights, the character and economic well-being of rural Nebraska and health of the planet all at play. Opponents have long worried about the changes turbines bring to the states scenic skies and the intermittent nature of renewable energy. My bottom line, the alliances bottom line, is to protect public safety, Bernt said by phone, referencing the Facebook group he is a member of, the Greeley County Alliance for Wise Energy. Scientists say fossil fuels must be replaced quickly because human activity has increased the amount of heat-trapping gases in Earths atmosphere to their highest levels in at least 3 million years. Waiting to act will be devastating, they say. Since the 1980s, Nebraska has seen a six-fold increase in $1 billion-plus weather disasters that affect the state, according to federal weather data. Worsening disasters lie ahead, the states own scientists have said. With Nebraska ranking in the top five for wind power potential and top 15 for solar potential nationally, the state is well poised to tap into the billions of federal dollars available to assist with the nationwide energy transition, said John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union. Instead, a half dozen Nebraska counties have enacted some of the nations strictest zoning regulations, said Matthew Eisenson, an attorney in the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at New Yorks Columbia University. Most of those are targeted at wind, which has seen the most growth in the state and now provides almost one-third of Nebraskas electricity. Stanton County has effectively banned wind turbines in its regulations, according to the Sabin Center. Wheeler and Buffalo counties have a 5-mile setback between turbines and certain types of property. Dawson and Thomas counties have added a 3-mile setback. You need to have massive tracts of land to even install a single turbine, Eisenson said. The restrictions and similar actions appear to have derailed some wind projects, including in Dawson, Gage and Butler counties. NextEra Energy Resources, the worlds largest developer of wind and solar projects, said it has already invested about $814 million in Nebraska and remains committed to continuing despite the opposition. That includes in Greeley County, where its developing the proposed wind farm. Industrial scale solar projects are moving forward despite opposition in Cass, Saunders and Lancaster counties. In some communities, opposition has led to lawsuits, including in Lancaster, Saline and Webster counties. A Cherry County case filed by opponents of a wind project went all the way to the Nebraska Supreme Court before being thrown out. Hansen said the issue has become so fraught that Nebraska communities are losing their ability to compromise. We are no longer having people of good will coming together to protect our public health and safety, he said. Meetings in Greeley County became so crowded and so combative that the county moved them from a small room at the courthouse to an old school gymnasium. (Opponents) were very angry and were using physical closeness and aggression, Greeley County Attorney Cindy Bassett said. We had people shouting and screaming, coming up to the table. They were in county governmental personnels faces. Advocates of the Greeley project, including local landowners, had worked 15 years to bring it to fruition. We ought to be able to market this product just as any other person markets a product they grow on their land, landowner Brian Gydesen said at the June meeting. The project became contentious in the last year or so after the zoning rules were written and the planning commission recommended NextEras application to the county board. Much of the oppositions concerns mirrored arguments made in other communities. Bernt and others said they believe there are health effects from the noise, vibrations and flickering shadows generated by wind turbines, and environmental risks from the concrete bases and decommissioned blades. Some asked if turbines could change the weather or would harm endangered species. They worried the turbines would lower property values and affect farm income by limiting aerial spraying. They also worried about damage to roads and taxpayers being left to pay decommissioning costs if the developer abandoned the turbines. Studies have found that the impact on health and property values tends to correlate to local attitudes. The more opposed a community is to wind, for example, the more likely property values are affected. Likewise, the severity of health effects seem to correlate to a persons feelings about wind turbines along with their ability to see and hear them. China also has become an argument, with opponents keying in on the countrys dominance in renewables manufacturing, its own dirty energy practices and even the possibility it would use turbines to spy on America. Whats to stop Red China from putting monitoring devices, and devices to disrupt communications, atop the towers? Mike Conley asked at the Greeley County meeting. Absolutely nothing. The backlash to renewable energy comes at a cost, Hansen said. Based on public and private data, he estimates that commercial scale wind power already generates more than $17 million in landowner income and $17 million in tax revenue in Nebraska. Those projects, he said, have added $6.1 billion to the states tax base, slightly more than ethanol plants. Opportunity only knocks at the door so many times. ... All we have to do is say yes. Across the U.S. and in other countries the transition to cleaner energy is being met with increasing pushback. Some renewable energy supporters suspect that outside interests are driving the local opposition. They point to articles by national opponents posted on local Facebook pages, local opposition groups appearing at meetings in matching T-shirts, opponents traveling across the state to encourage opposition and some national figures coming to Nebraska. Nobody is admitting that they are getting resources, getting encouraged or being paid by groups, but I believe thats whats happening, said David Levy, an Omaha-based attorney for renewable energy developers. Bernt and others, like Emily Haxby, a Gage County supervisor who worked to enact strict zoning rules in her county, dismiss those claims. There was no outside influence here, Haxby said. Our community just came together. Opponents have used social media, notably Facebook, to form local groups to fight projects, including: Stop K-Junction Solar, Stop Hallam Wind, Our Voices Count, Nebraska Wind Watchers and McCool Junction Responsible Solar. Two national advocates of fossil fuels brought their message to Nebraska last year: Daniel Turner and Robert Bryce. Both have had ties to think tanks that receive funding from the oil industry. A third national figure, John Droz Jr., an outspoken opponent of renewable energy, contributed heavily to an analysis opposing a wind project in Jefferson County. Turner, executive director of Power The Future, spoke in Greeley County after being recruited by resident Trevor Nekoliczak, who heard Turner on a podcast. Nekoliczak said he wanted a counterpoint to the wind developers. Turner told the Flatwater Free Press that he traveled to Nebraska at the expense of his organization. He said he encouraged people to know their rights before signing a lease. Ultimately, opposition didnt stop the NextEra project in Greeley County. Still, Bernt takes pride in what he sees as precedent-setting conditions: the wind developer must provide decommissioning and road repair funds upfront. Bassett, the county attorney, said NextEra will have to put $12 million for decommissioning and $5 million for road repairs into an escrow account. Any interest will accrue to the county. Greeley County, like several other Nebraska counties, has instituted a moratorium on all new renewable energy projects while it revisits its zoning regulations. Bassett said she believes Nebraskans need to take a breather and figure out how to work through divisive issues. Other forms of energy will become flash points at the local level, she said. Ive been doing this 25 years and Ive never seen anything like this, Bassett said. We absolutely need a better way of talking about this because more conflict lies ahead. The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraskas first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.(tncms-asset)a7912001-700a-54d4-90fa-cb0755f7755b[3](/tncms-asset) It is the states prerogative to amend the prison manual, the Centre has told the Supreme Court, refraining from commenting on the correctness of the Bihar governments decision to amend the norms that enabled the early release of former Member of Parliament (MP) Anand Mohan in a murder case. Mohan was serving life sentence for killing a public servant in 1994. (HT file photo) Mohan, who was serving life sentence for killing a public servant in 1994, was granted remission after the Bihar government amended the state prison manual in April 2023. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The affidavit filed by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) early this month said, The subject matter prisons and persons detained therein falls under State List as per Entry 4 of List II of Seventh Schedule to Constitution. Hence, any decision to amend the Prison Manual of the State rests with the respective state government. Mohan was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of former Gopalganj district magistrate G Krishnaiah in December 1994. Also Read: Bihar defends Anand Mohans early release in Supreme Court His wife, Umadevi Krishnaiah had approached the top court last year challenging the April 10, 2023, decision of the Bihar government amending the Bihar Prison Manual by which convicts such as Mohan suffering life imprisonment for killing of public servant became eligible for premature release after 14 years imprisonment. The Bihar government notification amended Rule 481 of the state prison manual by deleting the words or for murder of public servant on duty, the offence under which Mohan was undergoing sentence. The Centre said, It is the prerogative of the respective state government to formulate/modify the prison manuals as the subject matter falls exclusively under State List. However, the Centre claimed that for providing guidance and assistance to states, they brought out the Model Prison Manual 2016 which has so far been adopted by 19 states and all union territories. Bihar is one among the nine states yet to adopt the Model Prison Manual, the Centre informed the Court. The other states yet to confirm adopting the manual are Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana. The Centre stated that the 2016 manual also prescribes the procedure and eligibility for premature release. Referring to Mohans case dealing with murder of public servant on duty, the MHA affidavit said, It is to be noted that this particular provision does not figure in the general guidelines on premature release, as provided in the Model Prisons Manual, 2016. Although the Court had issued notice on Umadevis petition in May 2023, it was only early this month on February 6 that the Union government appeared in the matter and sought time to file a response. Even the top court had commented on the long delay shown by Centre and said, It is not at your sweet will that whenever you want you will appear before the Supreme Court, while permitting a last opportunity for filing response. The case was directed to be listed for February 27 but could not be taken up as the bench did not convene. The matter is expected to be taken up next week. The petition filed through advocate Tanya Shree alleged that the amendment made to the prison manual was done to benefit Mohan. Prior to this, the prevailing rule on premature release was governed by the 2002 policy by which life convicts such as Mohan would be eligible for remission on completion of 20 years imprisonment. Moreover, the petition pointed out that the remission order could not be issued as Mohan had 32 criminal cases pending against him and enjoyed political support, which could be detrimental for trial in other cases. Even at the time when Krishnaiah was killed, Mohan was a member of Bihar Assembly. While granting remission, the petition argued that the state should consider past criminal antecedents, social status and the potential of the accused to commit crime in future before ordering a convicts early release. It even spoke about framing a uniform guideline for premature release of prisoners. It was on this aspect that the Union government filed its response. The state government had earlier justified its decision while Mohan questioned the maintainability of the petition as remission is between the convict and the state. The state government has already submitted in Court the original records leading to the remission order. The Court had early this month directed Mohan to deposit his passport with the police and report every 15 days to the local police station. The Congress government in Telangana on Tuesday rolled out two more guarantees supply of domestic LPG cylinders at 500 each and free power supply to households consuming up to 200 units per month under Gruha Jyothi scheme, as part of the six guarantees promised by the party during the recent assembly elections. Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy addresses a press conference in Hyderabad (PTI) Launching the two schemes at a meeting in state secretariat, Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy recalled that within 48 hours of coming to power on December 7, the Congress government had fulfilled two guarantees free bus travel for women in state-run RTC buses and enhancement of expenditure limit for the poor people in private hospitals under Arogyasri scheme from 5 lakh to 10 lakh. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. We are committed to implement all the six guarantees as promised to the people by our leader Sonia Gandhi at the public rally on September 17. We shall establish a Telangana model as the benchmark for all the states in the country in the implementation of welfare schemes, he said. Reddy said his government was implementing the guarantees in a phased manner after taking into account the financial situation of the state, which was crippled during the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi regime. We are cutting down wasteful expenditure and following financial discipline scrupulously, so that we can implement the schemes in the larger interests of the people, he said. BRS working president K T Rama Rao said the Congress government was renegading on its pre-election promises. During the elections, the Congress leaders promised to extend the guarantees to all the beneficiaries unconditionally. Now, the government is restricting the schemes only to a few people, he criticised. He warned that the BRS would not leave the Congress government if it did not implement all its guarantees. We shall step up the agitation and see that the people would bury the Congress party in the next elections, he said. The chief minister said the civil supplies department and the energy department had done extensive study and held wide ranging consultations with stakeholders on the implementation of the two schemes and evolved the modalities. The beneficiaries have been selected based on the applications received during the Praja Palana programme held between December 28 and January 6, he said. Appealing to the people not to fall into the trap of the BRS leaders, who were unleashing a false propaganda on the six guarantees, Reddy said there was no need for any apprehension over the implementation of the schemes. Deputy chief minister and finance minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said the government would overcome all the difficulties in arranging finances for the implementation of its six guarantees. We are pooling up resources to meet our commitments. We have undertaken elaborate exercise before implementing these schemes, he said. Stating that there were no restrictions in implementing the schemes, Vikramarka said the schemes would be operational on a continuous basis and all the eligible families would be given the benefits of the guarantees. According to official estimates, the subsidised supply of LPG cylinders at 500 each would benefit nearly 40 lakh consumers. As per the guidelines, the beneficiaries are mandated to have ration cards and only a limited number of cylinders will be supplied to each consumer based on their previous consumption. The state government on Saturday released 80 crore towards subsidy reimbursement which will be released to the oil companies which in turn transfer the amount to the beneficiaries. If the consumers purchased an average of five cylinders per annum in the last three years, he will be eligible to receive five subsidised cylinders. Similarly, those who consumed eight or nine cylinders, will be able to receive an equal number of cylinders. Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy on Tuesday announced establishment of the second-phase of Genome Valley in around 300 acres of land near Hyderabad with an investment of 2,000 crore. Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy at the opening ceremony of Bio Asia-2024 Conference, in Hyderabad (PTI) Inaugurating the 21st Bio-Asia-2024 conference at Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Revanth Reddy said Hyderabad has emerged as the undisputed capital of life sciences in India and perhaps the world. One in three vaccines of the world are made in Hyderabad, he said, referring to the discovery of Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin at Bharat Biotech established at Genome Valley at Shamirpet on the outskirts of Hyderabad. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The chief minister said his government had already announced the establishment of 10 pharma villages around the state capital with investment of 1 lakh crore. The government has identified clusters for greenfield integrated pharma villages in Vikarabad, Medak and Nalgonda, all three different areas of Telangana for infrastructure and investment. We are employing a decentralisation strategy to focus on these three different directions of Telangana, Revanth Reddy said. He said the pharma villages would result in development infrastructure, create jobs, and create opportunities for entrepreneurs. We hope to create over 5 lakh new jobs, he said. The chief minister said he had met representatives from the pharma sector recently to understand their challenges. We have promised to support them in the best way that we can. If you dream to reach the sky, we will ensure a rocket is in place to take you to the sky, he said. Stating that there was both anxiety and hope, he said if Covid was fear, data and Artificial Intelligence technology in healthcare were hope. Hyderabad is the capital of research and start-ups and IT, he pointed out. Revanth Reddy said his government was committed to create the perfect ecosystem that included policy, infrastructure and support. We must also focus on driving micro-small-and medium enterprises (MSMEs) further, which are the bridge between the start-ups and corporates, he said. The chief minister said at the recently concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, the state government got investment proposals worth 40,232 crore. I am delighted that Takeda has decided to set up the manufacturing facility in Hyderabad in partnership with Biological E. This facility will make 50 million doses of vaccines each year, he said. Similarly, Milteny Biotec also had decided to set up a research and development facility in Hyderabad. As part of the conference, the chief minister presented Genome Valley Excellence Award to professor Gregg L Semenza, Nobel Laureate and professor Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. State minister for information technology and industries D Sridhar Babu said the state government was committed to making Hyderabad the skilled capital of India. The chief minister has envisioned a plan of bringing a skilled university that will produce enough talent in two years from now, he said. The university aimed at bringing out the new revolution in terms of providing value to academia through mandatory internship programmes with industries for all the students in Telangana for a period of three to six months, which will give a platform across life sciences, IT, manufacturing sectors. The best human capital will now be available in Hyderabad, he added. Better judges are those who can understand peoples problems, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud said on Tuesday, adding that a stronger tool for a judge is not the legal knowledge but the desire to understand human life. Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud. (File) Welcoming four newly elevated judges of the Supreme Court at a function organised by the Supreme Court Bar Association, CJI said, While the knowledge of law and the context of its enactment are important, it is ultimately the understanding of peoples problems that makes us better lawyers and judges. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The four judges felicitated at the event were justices Satish Chandra Sharma, Augustine George Masih, Sandeep Mehta and PB Varale. While justice Varala, hailing from the Scheduled Caste community, was elevated to the top court on January 25 this year, the other three judges joined the Supreme Court on November 9, 2023. Describing each judge, the CJI read out judgments rendered by these judges while sitting in various high courts showing their sensitivity to marginalised sections of population and specially-abled persons. He said, Legal power is not enough for a judge. The stronger tool is their desire to understand human life. Justice Sharma was the chief justice of the Delhi high court prior to his elevation. He was one of the youngest lawyers designated as a senior advocate by the Madhya Pradesh high court at 42. Justice Masih headed the Rajasthan high court and was described by CJI as a workaholic judge known for convening midnight hearings in urgent cases. Justice Mehta, who was earlier the chief justice of the Gauhati high court was complimented by CJI for being an able administrator in digitising courts. CJI recounted the close association of justice Varales family with the Constitutions chief architect BR Ambedkar. Describing the judge as public-spirited who took up several suo motu cases of social significance, CJI said that it was Ambedkar who guided justice Varales father to join law and later become a judicial officer. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday claimed to have tided over the imminent threat to the government through some rebel MLAs and said the BJP's conspiracy to topple the government failed. Sukhu said there is no question of accepting the resignation of Vikramaditya Singh, Himachal Pradesh minister -- son of late Virbhadra Singh. Sukhu said Vikramaditya Singh is like his younger brother and all his grievances will be addressed. (Political crisis in Himachal Pradesh: Follow LIVE updates) Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said there is no question of accepting Vikramaditya Singh's resignation. Himachal Pradesh crisis: Here's what happened in the last 24 hours 1. Six congress MLAs crossvoted in the Rajya Sabha election on Tuesday. They stayed at a hotel in Haryana on Tuesday and returned to Shimla on Wednesday to attend the budget session. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. 2. The crossvoting threw a challenge to the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh as the rebellion by the party MLAs meant the party lost its majority in the Assembly. 3. Adding to the woes, Vikramaditya Singh resigned from Sukhu's cabinet on Wednesday and cited the disrespect shown to his late father by the government as the reason. 4. Vikramaditya Singh said Congress won the 2022 election in his father's name but could not find land for installing Virbhadra Singh's statue. 5. The assembly sitting opened to chaos after the Speaker suspended 15 MLAs for allegedly disturbing the proceedings. They refused to leave the house and were forcibly moved out of the Assembly. 6. Speculations were rife that Sukhu tendered his resignation which Sukhu dismissed and said neither has e resigned nor been asked to resign. 7. The Congress sent Bhupesh Baghel, DK Shivakumar and Bhupinder Hooda to Shimla as observers. They will speak to all party MLAs and submit a report to president Mallikarjun Kharge. 8. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the party will not hesitate to take some difficult decisions if the need arises because the institution is above individuals. The cross-voting is unfortunate and the party is not looking away from it, Jairam Ramesh said. 9. The hearing to disqualify the six MLAs who cross-voted leading to the defeat of Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha election is going on. Congress MLA Vikramaditya Singh, who resigned from the cabinet of Himachal Pradesh chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu earlier in the day amid the ongoing political crisis has now taken it back in the larger interest of the grand old party. Himachal Pradesh News LIVE: MLA Vikramaditya Singh (PTI) It is the responsibility of every individual to strengthen the organisation. In the larger interest and unity of the party, the resignation given by me in the morning which the CM refused to acceptI would not like to press it further. There was no danger (to the government), it was just a creation, Singh told the media. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Vikramaditya, who is the son of Himachal Congress chief Pratibha Singh and late former CM of Himachal Pradesh Virbhadra Singh, submitted his resignation on Wednesday morning saying the MLAs were overlooked and attempts were made to stifle their voices by the Congress government. The resignation, was, however, rejected by the chief minister. The state government failed to find even a small piece of land on Mall Road to install the statue of a person (Virbhadra Singh) who was the CM of Himachal Pradesh six times, because of whom this government was formedWe are emotional people, we have nothing to do with postsBut this is very unfortunate...I am very hurt, not politically but emotionally, Singh said. HIMACHAL PRADESH POLITICAL CRISIS LIVE COVERAGE He added, I have never said anything about the functioning of the government, but it is my responsibility to say it clearly today...I have always said that position and cabinet berth is not important for me. For me, the most important thing is the relationship with the people of Himachal Pradesh...But the kind of system prevailing in the government in the last one year, how MLAs were overlooked and attempts were made to stifle their voices - this is a result of that. Himachal political crisis The crisis in Himachal began on Tuesday after six MLAs cross-voted and are learnt to be with the BJP. The cross-voting resulted in a shocking victory of the saffron party in the state's lone Rajya Sabha seat, despite the Congress being in the majority. Following this, the BJP challenged Himachal CM Sukhvinder Singh Sikhu-led government and demanded a show of strength in the House. While a crisis hit the Congress government, CM Sukhu on Wednesday said that the state government is safe and has refuted all reports of his resignation. Neither has anyone asked for my resignation nor have I given my resignation to anyoneWe will prove the majority in the assembly. We will win, the people of Himachal will win, CM Sukhu said. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday restrained Patanjali Ayurved from advertising or branding products meant for treating diseases. It also made several scathing observations against the company, which was founded by Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev. The Supreme Court. (ANI) The court issued notices to Patanjali and its managing director Acharya Balkrishna, asking why contempt proceedings shouldn't be started against them. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. A bench of justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah also cautioned the company and its officers against making any media statements, both in print and electronic, against any system of medicine in any form as stated in their undertaking on November 21 last year. What is the case against Patanjali? Hearing a plea of the Indian Medical Association alleging that the company has been running a smear campaign against allopathic medicine, the court said the entire country "has been taken for a ride". On the publication of advertisements after the November order of the apex court, it said the company had flouted its order. "You have the courage and guts to come up with this advertisement even after the Supreme Court's order We are going to pass a very strict order. You are tempting the court". The IMA counsel said Patanjali Ayurved was still making "incorrect assertions and misrepresentation" over its medicines. The court said prima facie, it found Patanjali Ayurved of violating its order. The court said: "You are a person who can do anything. Thats what we get from looking at these advertisements. The fact remains that you are selling your product to people as a permanent relief'. This itself is misleading and a violation of the law." When Patanjali's lawyer objected to the court restraining the company from issuing advertisements, the court said, Common, gullible people are involved. Prima facie it appears you have flouted our orders. We are not satisfied with the way you have proceeded with the case and are going about it. This must stop immediately." With inputs from PTI Rashmi Shukla, whose tenure as Director General of Police (DGP) was extended till January 2026 she was due to retire in June this year is the first woman DGP of Maharashtra. She has previously held top positions in the police force in the state, such as the director of the state intelligence unit, and even served a stint as the police commissioner of Pune. The senior IPS officer has her work cut out for the next two years to improve the state of policing in Maharashtra. Based on the data acquired by the India Justice Report (IJR) over the period of a decade, here are some of the main issues she will need to tackle: Police Vacancies among STs(Authors) Too few OBC, ST/SC police personnel Maharashtra police continue to face challenges in meeting the reservation quotas for SC/ST/OBCs with numbers falling short in both- officer ranks and the constabulary. Between January 2020 to 2022, there was an uptick in vacancies across both constabulary and officer ranks in Maharashtra police. Vacancies among constables have tripled, rising significantly from 9.4% to 28.2% and officer vacancies from 22.3% to 25.3%. Among the reserved positions for SC, ST, and OBC, only sanctioned positions for ST constables have been nearly filled. Additionally, the police-to-population ratio has surged from 1:626 to 1:813 in this period, highlighting an increasing strain on law enforcement resources. Police Constabulary Vacancy between 2020-22(Authors) Improving state citizen portals Police departments are mandated to offer nine basic services through websites. In 2022, Maharashtra was among a handful of states that showed maximum compliance, failing only to fully comply with Section 41C of the CrPC, 1973, which requires the state government to ensure that the names and addresses of individuals arrested, along with the names and designations of the police officers responsible for the arrests, are prominently displayed on the notice board located outside the control rooms in each district. The state is also not providing complete information regarding missing or kidnapped individuals, including any matches with arrested, unidentified persons, or deceased bodies, details concerning stolen or recovered vehicles, arms, and other properties and provide services for verification related to servants, employment, passport applications, senior citizen registrations, and similar matters. Maharashtra Police Officer Vacancy(Authors) Recruit more women Maharashtra currently has 1,168 police stations but only 1,570 women Sub-Inspectors (SIs). Multiple ministry of home affairs (MHA) advisories suggest that there should be at least three women sub-inspectors per police station. To meet this benchmark, Maharashtra would need 1934 more (about a 123% increase from existing women SIs) additional women SIs. Therefore, the police department must prioritise women in all future recruitment drives till it meets this staffing norm. As of January 2022, the women's share in the police was approximately 17%, with an even lower proportion among officers (around 7%), significantly falling short of the 30% reservation. Install CCTVs at multiple points in all police stations Following earlier judgements and the 239th Law Commissions recommendation, the Supreme Court, in Paramvir Singh Saini vs Baljit Singh ordered the installation of CCTV cameras in all police stations. However as per our analysis, while Maharashtra has partially complied by forming State Level Oversight Committees, and District Level Oversight Committees, it is yet to install CCTVs with audio-video, night vision and large storage capacities in all 1168 police stations in the state. According to data provided by the Bureau of Police Research and Development, as of 2022 only 663 police stations had at least one CCTV. Valay Singh is lead, India Justice Report. Arshi Showkat is a researcher with India Justice Report. The views expressed are personal. For the third consecutive year in a row, as a testament to Europes increasing importance in Indias strategic vision, the Raisina Dialogue hosted a European leader as chief guest. The speech of the Prime Minister (PM) of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, inaugurating the ninth edition of the Raisina Dialogue on February 21, reciprocated this vision by reiterating that strengthening the partnership with India should be a cornerstone of Europes foreign policy. PM Narendra Modis visit to Greece last year, the first by an Indian PM in 40 years, upgraded Indo-Greek ties to the level of a strategic partnership. Mitsotakiss visit to India, the first by a Greek PM since 2008, served to continue this upward momentum. Security cooperation dates back to when, despite Western sanctions after Indias nuclear tests in 1998, Greece and India signed an MoU on defence cooperation. For both countries, military modernisation is an important goal and defence expenditures have risen. These ambitions have laid the foundation to explore the co-development of military hardware under the Make in India programme. The two countries find themselves aligning on wider regional issues such as the security axis between Pakistan, Turkey and Azerbaijan, which has led to a strengthening of Indias ties with both Greece and Armenia. Athens has consistently supported New Delhis stance on Kashmir and its bid for a UNSC permanent seat, while India has supported Greeces position on northern Cyprus and its disputes with Turkey in the Aegean Sea. Furthermore, the two countries are engaging in joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea to enhance maritime security. Both countries are maritime nations and see eye to eye when it comes to maintaining an open rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific as well as the Mediterranean with its abundant oil reserves and location at the crossroads of Asia, Europe and Africa. Shared commitments to ensuring freedom of navigation and respect for the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) have brought India and Greece closer. In this context, Greece has just joined Indias Indo-Pacific Oceans initiative launched in 2019. Greeces strategic location in the eastern Mediterranean allows it to be conceived as a potential gateway for Indian businesses into the EU through the port of Piraeus, the regions primary hub connecting Asia and Europe. Yet India and Greece need to circumvent the caveat of Chinese state-owned firm COSCO having a 60% stake in this port, touted as the dragons head of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Europe. Amidst EU-India Free Trade Agreement negotiations, Greeces sophisticated port infrastructure and the countrys massive shipping industry can help facilitate EU-India trade. Greece is an integral part of the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) project, which has been derailed due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Referring to the IMEC as a peace project and Indias natural doorstep to Europe and beyond, Mitsotakis urged participating nations to persevere with the project. This is in sync with a framework agreement signed between India and the UAE that indicates ongoing interest to operationalise the project despite tough geopolitical conditions. Indeed, the turbulence in the Red Sea has only strengthened the rationale for alternate shipping and trading routes. India views Greece as a significant naval power in the eastern Mediterranean, where the Chinese presence is expanding. Simultaneously, Greek perceptions of China have shifted since the pandemic, and Chinese companies have been omitted from public tenders. Greece, previously counted amongst Chinas closest partners in Europe, is now balancing its ties with China and the US while emphasising its EU and NATO orientation given its tense relations with Turkey. Under Mitsotakiss Greece 2.0 plan for economic revival, the Greek economy has taken its place among the eurozones fastest-growing and is no longer the black sheep of Europe. Aiming to double Indo-Greek bilateral trade valued at $2 billion in 2022-23 by 2030, Mitsotakis travelled with a 150-member business delegation to India and also visited the business hubs of Mumbai and Bangalore. Already host to 20,000 Indians, another key item on the Indo-Greek agenda is a pact on mobility and migration to facilitate further skilled and legal Indian migration into the country. Moving beyond the cliche of being the worlds oldest and largest democracies, the two countries are rapidly converting their many convergences into practical engagements. For India and Greece, this is a win-win partnership. Harsh V Pant is vice-president for Studies and Foreign Policy at Observer Research Foundation (ORF), and Shairee Malhotra is associate fellow, Europe at ORF. The views expressed are personal As much as 32% of Indias ultra-high-net-worth individuals wealth is allocated towards residential real estate asset class of which nearly 14% is invested outside India. About 12% of Indias UHNWIs plan to buy a new home in 2024, according to Knight Franks The Wealth Report 2024. As many as 32% of Indias ultra-high-net-worth individuals wealth is allocated towards residential real estate asset class. (Picture for representational purposes only) (Pixabay) UHNWIs refers to individuals with a net worth of $30 mn and above. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. A similar percentage of wealthy individuals in India purchased a new home in 2023. Globally, 22% of the ultra-wealthy are expected to purchase a home in 2024. The report further highlighted that on an average an Indian UHNWI owns 2.57 homes while a sizable 28% have rented out their second homes during 2023. Number of Indian UHNWIs expected to increase to 19,908 by 2028 According to Knight Franks flagship report, The Wealth Report 2024, number of Indian ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs) is expected to increase to 19,908 by 2028 from 13,263 in 2023, leading to a 50.1% growth in UHNWIs, highest growth in number of UHNWIs for any country, in the next five years. Also Read: Real estate trends: Why are rich Indians buying luxury properties before the close of the financial year? According to Knight Franks The Wealth Report 2024, 90% of Indian UHNWIs are expecting to witness an increase in their wealth during the year 2024. Almost 63% are expecting to witness a significant increase of more than 10% in their wealth value. The number of wealthy individuals globally is expected to surge by 28.1% to 8,02,891 by 2028. In 2023, the number of UHNWIs globally rose to 4.2%, 626,619 from 601,300 a year earlier. India saw an annual rise of 6.1% in UHNWI population in 2023 over the previous year, which was recorded at 13,263. Also Read: Bollywood actor Mrunal Thakur purchases two apartments in Mumbai from Kangana Ranauts family This expanding cohort of wealthy individuals looks favourably on real estate. Almost a fifth of UHNWIs plan to invest in commercial real estate this year, while more than a fifth are planning to buy residential, said the report. Women make up 11% of global UHNWIs Recent survey findings from Altrata suggest women make up around 11% of global UHNWIs. While still not a large share, this represents rapid growth from just 8% less than a decade ago. Also Read: Delhi-NCR's real estate market: Here's why rich Indians are lapping up luxury properties The report also observed that younger affluent groups are more confident about the economic outlook compared with older groups. Only 52% of HNWI boomers anticipate growing their wealth in the next 12 months, in contrast to 75% of Gen Z-ers, with 43% expecting significant growth. Male HNWIs express greater confidence than women. This is particularly pronounced among male millennials, with 75% expecting their wealth to grow, compared with 64% of women. However, for Gen Z, these expectations are entirely reversed, with a remarkable 81% of women in this group expecting growth. Half expect significant growth Turkey leads rankings with a 9.7% YoY expansion in UHNWI members In terms of annual performances by various countries, Turkey leads Knight Franks rankings with a 9.7% YoY expansion in UHNWI numbers, followed by the US 7.9%, India 6.1%, South Korea 5.6%, and Switzerland 5.2%. At a regional level, North America leads with the number of UHNWIs up 7.2% YoY, the Middle East comes in second place at 6.2% YoY growth and Africa takes third place, growing by 3.8% YoY. Latin America is the only region to see its population of wealthy individuals decline by 3.6% compared to last year. Also Read: Is capital appreciation the key motivation for rich real estate investors to buy luxury properties? Shishir Baijal, Chairman and Managing Director, Knight Frank India, said, "In a transformative era of wealth creation, India stands as a testament to thriving prosperity and burgeoning opportunities in the global economic spectrum. A remarkable surge in its UHNWI population, catapulting by 50.1% within the next five years is an indication of this phenomenon. With 90% of Indian UHNWIs envisioning a surge in their fortunes in 2024, the landscape of affluence is vibrant and dynamic. Liam Bailey, global head of research at Knight Frank, said, With the mobility of wealth increasing all the time, a key question is whether future growth remains within these and other high-growth markets, or whether there is a leakage of talent to Europe, Australasia or North America. Outside Asia, strong growth is focused on the Middle East, Australasia and North America, with Europe lagging and Africa and Latin America likely to be the weakest regions. Art best performing luxury asset class; Watches preferred by Indian UHNWIs According to the latest edition of the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index (KFLII), which tracks the performance of 10 popular investments of passion, reveals that art was the best performing luxury asset class with prices rising 11% in 2023. Despite a year of record-breaking sales in the luxury investment market, for only the second time however, the KFLII edged into marginal negative territory with prices down on average 1% across the index. Though witnessing a depreciation of 9% during 2023, Whisky commands its premium value by generating 280% returns in a 10-year period. Watch was the most preferred investment by Indian UHNWIs, followed by Art and Classic Cars. Globally, super rich cited Art as the preferred luxury investment, followed by watches and classic cars, the report added. The Montana Supreme Court overturned a man's conviction of sexual assault on a minor this week, finding prosecutors had intermingled laws to construct a "fictional" charge against the man. Daniel Christopher Rowe was convicted by a Broadwater County jury in December 2021 on sexual assault of a minor in a common scheme for the alleged assault of a boy over many years, in several different counties. The reversal sends the case back to district court for a new trial, should prosecutors opt to pursue one against Rowe. Authorities accused Rowe of assaulting the boy in three incidents, in 2008 and twice in 2012; each incident is alleged to have occurred in a different county. A fourth incident for which he was not charged but was brought up at his trial is alleged to have happened in 2013, after the boy turned 16, which in Montana is the age of consent. Gathering the three incidents when the boy was a minor under the single charge sexual assault of a minor by common scheme was a "fundamental error," the majority of Supreme Court justices said in their Tuesday ruling. Doing so, they wrote, opened the door for prosecutors to improperly include testimony about the fourth incident in 2013 as evidence that the earlier assaults likely occurred, even though he had not been charged for the 2013 incident. More central to the Supreme Court's ruling, however, is the application of "common scheme" to the sexual assault charge. Associate Justice Laurie McKinnon authored the court's majority opinion signed by four additional justices. "The fundamental error that led to the improper admission of the other bad acts evidence was that the state charged Rowe with a fictional offense that is not cognizable under Montana law," McKinnon wrote. She pointed to the criminal statute for sexual assault of a minor, which mentions no route through which prosecutors can assemble multiple assaults together under a "common scheme," which itself, McKinnon writes, is "exclusively" an enhancement for property crimes. Associate Justice Beth Baker was alone in her dissent (Justice Jim Rice recused himself from the case), pointing out that Rowe's attorneys had not actually raised the common scheme issue on his appeal. By using this point as a springboard to its ruling on the fictitious charge, Baker writes, the case has been decided "on the basis of an issue of its own making." Broadwater County Attorney Cory Swanson, who prosecuted the case, said Wednesday he disagreed that the state's definition of common scheme limited the matter to property crimes. The statute language, Swanson contended, also allows application to cases that result in the repeated commission of the same offense or that affects the same person. Determining how to charge the case was an issue at the onset, Swanson said, considering Rowe could have been charged in four separate counties. "Generally you don't want to make a victim go testify four times to nearly identical events, particularly when they're an adult recounting things that happened to them as a minor," he said. "I think they (the court's majority) got it plain wrong." Also at issue in the case was how the jury was instructed to consider the term "knowingly," an important but technical detail of the sexual assault law. The Supreme Court's majority found the district court judge had erred by allowing two of the three definitions for that term in the jury instructions, but did not specify to jurors which definition applied to which elements of the crime. To this point, Baker countered that the definition of "knowingly" was not substantial enough to the outcome of the case to warrant a reversal. Rowe's only defense at trial was that the alleged assaults did not happen; so if the jury believed he had assaulted the victim, there was nothing in the record to suggest he did not do so knowingly, Baker wrote. The opinion reverses Rowe's conviction and sends the case back to district court for a new trial based on the guidance of their ruling. Colin Stephens, who represented Rowe on appeal, said his client was emotional in learning of the ruling on Tuesday. Stephens said his firm would likely continue to represent Rowe if prosecutors pursue a new trial against him. Swanson said his office was determining its next steps forward, considering the parameters set by the Supreme Court's ruling. "If we have to try him again we are prepared to do that," Swanson said. Swanson announced a bid for Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice last year. He so far faces only former federal magistrate Jerry Lynch in the contest to replace outgoing Chief Justice Mike McGrath. A video of a man trying to rob a post office armed with an unusual weapon was shared on social media. The clip captures the man trying to rob the place using a long metal spoon. Man in red circle trying to rob UK post office with the help of a spoon. (X/@nottspolice) Nottinghamshire Police took to X to share the video. A drug addict attempted to steal a large quantity of cash from behind a post office security screen by reaching through the letter port with a metal spoon, the department wrote. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Jelanie Scott entered Hyson Green Post Office at around 11.45 am on Saturday 10 February, they added. In the video, Scott is seen sliding a metal spoon under a post office screen in an attempt to grab a wad of banknotes. As soon as he is spotted, a security smoke system gets triggered, filling the entire room with smoke. Within moments, he flees the scene. He was eventually arrested nine days after the incident. Towards the end of the video, a picture of the spoon Scott used also appears on the screen. The 36-year-old was sentenced to a community order after he appeared before the Nottingham Magistrates Court. "[Scott] told officers it was a stupid thing to do and I hope he now reflects on his behaviour and stays out of trouble, Sergeant Mark Southgate of Nottinghamshire Police told the BBC. Take a look at the video of the robbery: The video was shared a day ago. Since then, the clip has collected more than 6,000 views. The share has also accumulated several likes. The post has prompted people to share varied reactions. An individual wrote, How with a spoon? Another added, Why is he hopping. Pramesh CS, a thoracic surgeon and director at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, took to X to urge Zerodha co-founder and CEO Nithin Kamath to avoid medical advice from random influencers who lack scientific backing to support their claims. Kamath recently suffered a mild stroke out of the blue. He mentioned in his tweet that his dad passing away, poor sleep, exhaustion, dehydration, or overworking out, can be one of the reasons behind the stroke. Zerodha co-founder and CEO Nithin Kamath recently experienced a 'mild stroke'. (X/@Nithin0dha) It all started when Nithin Kamath shared an update about his health on X. Many people extended their wishes to him, hoping that he would get well soon. Among numerous comments, Shankar Sharmas advice to Nithin Kamath caught the attention of many, including Pramesh CS. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Take a look at the tweet posted by Sharma: Several doctors disagreed with Sharmas recommendations and expressed their opinions. Pramesh CS is among them. He quoted Sharmas advice and wrote, A thread that demonstrates how life-threatening social media can be. Please dont follow random influencers who dont have true science to back them beyond trust me, bro. Take a look at the tweet below: To this, Sharma replied and wrote, There is plenty of science to back up all of this. And by the way, I am not an influencer. Alongside, he posted a screenshot showing that Red Light Therapy for the brain is beneficial to patients who suffered a stroke. In a separate post, Pramesh CS wrote, Zero true science to back this. Dont fall for influencers without a science background. In yet another tweet on February 28, Pramesh wrote, While some may have malicious or mercenary intentions, I largely believe in the inherent goodness of the human race and generally give the benefit of doubt that folks are well-intentioned when they give advice. But ill-researched expert advice can do more harm than good. Beware. Not just Pramesh CS, but Dr Deepak Krishnamurthy, Senior Interventional Cardiologist at a hospital in Bengaluru, also disagreed with Sharmas advice, tweeting, Neurology crying in a corner #MedTwitter. Heres how people reacted to Pramesh CSs tweet flagging the advice shared by Sharma: An individual wrote, And the confidence with which they dispense unsolicited unsubstantiated advice! Both Instagram and Facebook are full of cures for everything from diabetes to anxiety. I think they fall in the sweet spot between regulatory authorities, and escape scrutiny, added another. A third expressed, Plenty of research is the new trust me, bro. True. And when the patient is a senior citizen, it is worse. Because many already have a problem with taking too many tablets, and alternatives sound nicer. Like people checking the tongue and suggesting herbal powders for strokes or flower therapy. Sigh, expressed a fourth. A fifth commented, Thanks for calling this out, doctor. It was 10 minutes of shouted accusations of being a "genocide enabler" and having "blood on your hands" that made a British lawmaker fear for his safety over his decision to voice support for Israel in its war with Hamas. People hold Israeli and British flags during a march against antisemitism in London, November 26, 2023.(Reuters) Almost touching noses with his accuser before walking away and warning he would call the police, the opposition Labour Party member said the incident in a town in his constituency was just the latest of several that made him change his behaviour. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. He now makes sure he sits near the door on public transport and limits meetings with the public. "It feels like it could just need one spark to flip from someone giving you tuppence (criticism) in the street to escalating to actual violence," the lawmaker said. Also Read | Israel-Hamas indicate no deal likely after Biden signals Gaza ceasefire could be close After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza, more than 10 British politicians spoken to by Reuters said the abuse directed at them had become more intense. At least one cited this as a factor in deciding not to seek a new term in parliament in an election later this year. All spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were fearful that giving their names would increase the threats and abuse. The conflict in the Palestinian enclave has inflamed tensions across the globe, bringing protesters onto the streets in support of both sides and dividing opinion among leaders over how to end the bloodshed. In Britain, even politicians who are no strangers to receiving abuse from the public say the tone has become ugly and dangerous, with some fearing it could easily slip into violence. Many are considering taking steps to protect themselves, such as wearing stab vests in meetings or building safe rooms. Last week, parliamentary speaker Lindsay Hoyle sent parliament into chaos when he broke with precedent to allow the three main parties to set out their positions on a call for a ceasefire in Gaza. That was designed to prevent lawmakers from having to choose between backing a ceasefire, abstaining or voting against one to follow their party orders. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called on all sides to "take the heat" out of the issue but some of his Conservative lawmakers have been accused of Islamophobia in their responses. They deny the charge. The interior ministry announced funding worth 31 million pounds ($39 million) on Wednesday to provide new security provisions for lawmakers and other officials. It would be used to protect "democratic processes from disruption", it said. But despite getting the highly charged ceasefire vote out of the way last week and the level of abuse easing a little, some lawmakers have decided to quit, saying the threats had become intolerable. The memory of two lawmakers - one killed by a right-wing extremist in 2016 and the other in 2021 by a man inspired by Islamic State - weighs heavily. 'TOXIC' After seeing his office in his North London constituency targeted in a suspected arson attack in December, Conservative lawmaker Mike Freer said he was standing down at the election after a "constant string of incidents". He had defended Israel. Dozens of protesters demonstrated outside the home of Tobias Ellwood, another Conservative lawmaker, earlier this month, with signs accusing him of being "complicit in genocide" in Gaza. The Labour lawmaker who now watches where he sits in public transport said he had been advised by police to install a partition at his constituency or voting district office so that people waiting to see him could not get near to him quickly. He described a huge coordinated email campaign against him and others. The emails, sent from different addresses in the run up to the Feb. 21 ceasefire vote, which had no binding effect on the government, demanded lawmakers vote for an immediate ceasefire and call on ministers to suspend arms sales to Israel. Another lawmaker said he had discussed with his wife getting a safe room installed at home. "No one should have to think about having a safe room just because they want to serve their communities," he said. A veteran politician said there had been other times when public anger meant lawmakers were in the firing line, such as over Britain's departure from the European Union, but that the threat of violence over Gaza marked a change for the worse. "I have had conversations with two colleagues about wearing stab vests to meetings," he said. This is a very recent development. Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, said Wednesday she feared disruption and arrests at her husband's funeral, set to take place on Friday in Moscow. Yulia Navalnaya, wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny(AFP) Addressing the European Parliament, Navalnaya assailed Russian leader Vladimir Putin as a "mobster" responsible for her husband's death, in a forceful speech that drew a long standing ovation. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. "I'm not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether the police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband," Navalnaya told lawmakers, shortly after the announcement that the funeral had been set for Friday in a Moscow church. "Putin is the leader of an organised criminal gang," said Navalnaya. "You are not dealing with a politician but with a bloody mobster." Russian authorities have said Navalny died of natural causes after he lost consciousness following a walk in his Arctic prison colony. His family reject the claim. "Alexei was tortured for three years," Navalnaya told lawmakers. "He was starved in a tiny stone cell, cut off from the outside world and denied visits, phone calls, and then even letters." "And then they killed him. Even after that, they abused his body," she said. Navalny's body was held for eight days, which his team believed to be a bid to cover up who was responsible for his death and prevent a public burial. "Putin must answer for everything he has done to Alexei," Navalnaya said. Russian authorities have cracked down on public gatherings in memory of Navalny, detaining hundreds for laying flowers at memorials. The opposition leader shot to prominence through his anti-corruption campaigning, exposing what he said was rampant corruption at the top of Putin's administration. He was arrested in January 2021 when he returned to Russia after being treated in Germany for a poisoning attack he suffered while campaigning against Putin in Siberia months earlier. Guinean trade unions on Wednesday said they were suspending a general strike that has paralysed the military-run country for three days after a prominent media activist was released. HT Image Sekou Jamal Pendessa, secretary general of the Union of Press Professionals of Guinea, was detained last month for calling a demonstration against censorship. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. His release on Wednesday was one of the strikers' main demands in a country where protests are rare under junta leader Mamady Doumbouya. The movement "informs the public, private and informal authorities of its willingness to resume negotiations from tomorrow, Thursday", it said in a statement. Abdoulaye Sow, a spokesman for the union movement, earlier said Pendessa's release meant "we can return to the negotiating table with the government to support the other claims." Lower food prices, an end to media censorship and improved living conditions for civil servants are the protester demands to be tackled at the upcoming talks. Already detained for more than a month, Pendessa had been sentenced on Friday to six months in prison, of which three were suspended. The appeal case in the capital Conakry saw that reduced to one month in prison, allowing him to walk free. "It's a victory for democracy, of justice against injustice, of justice against the arbitrary," Pendessa said after the ruling. "The battle against dictatorship continues and we will fight more so that the authorities know they don't have the right of life and death over the population," he added. Doumbouya took power in a September 2021 coup and the authorities subsequently banned protests in 2022. The general strike was called by 13 unions and supported by the main political parties and civil society organisations. The strike paralysed Conakry and was widely followed earlier in the week, continuing to slow down activity across the country on Wednesday. The capital was busier however than in previous days. Schools, banks, insurance companies and some businesses remained closed. Administrative offices and hospitals were running skeletal operations. On Tuesday, the junta said it had appointed a new prime minister, eight days after dissolving the previous government in a surprise move. The military has arrested several opposition leaders, civil society members and press representatives, while television channels have been removed and radio frequencies disrupted. Authorities on Friday lifted restrictions on internet access, three months after they were imposed. Under international pressure, the junta promised to hand the reins of government back to elected civilians by the end of 2024, but the opposition has accused it of authoritarianism. bm-amt/imm/bc International judges on Wednesday awarded victims of Ugandan child soldier-turned-commander Dominic Ongwen more than 52 million euros in reparations, saying women and children especially suffered "serious and long-lasting harm". HT Image Ongwen, who was himself abducted aged nine by the rebel group led by the fugitive Joseph Kony, was found guilty in 2021 and sentenced to 25 years behind bars for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The crimes were committed while Ongwen was part of Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, which carried out a reign of terror in northern Uganda in the early 2000s. "The direct victims of the attacks, the direct victims of sexual and gender-based crimes and the children born out of those crimes as well as the former child soldiers suffered serious and long-lasting, physical, moral and material harm," ICC judge Bertram Schmitt said. "The Chamber estimates that the total amount required for the reparations awarded in this case to the victims of the crimes, for which Mr Ongwen was convicted, would be approximately 52,429,000 euros ($56.7 million)," the judge said. Judges estimated a total of victims eligible for payment "close to 50,000" with a symbolic award of around 750 euros per victim. They ordered the amount to be paid collectively as it "will ensure a more efficient and practical approach", Judge Schmitt told the Hague-based International Criminal Court. Judges asked the court's Trust Fund for Victims to arrange for the reparations to be made as Ongwen -- who is currently serving his sentence in a Norwegian prison -- was unable to pay. Ongwen, who is in his mid-40s, but whose birth date remains unclear, became a senior commander in Kony's LRA under the nom de guerre of "White Ant". Prosecutors portrayed him as leading a reign of terror by the LRA, personally ordering the massacres of more than 130 civilians at five refugee camps between 2002 and 2005. The LRA is responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 people and the kidnapping of 60,000 children with boys transformed into child soldiers and girls kept as sex slaves. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan in 2022 said he would ask judges to confirm charges against Kony despite his absence, as the rebel leader is still at large. Ongwen's trial was unique in the history of the ICC as it was the first time dealing with a former victim, a child soldier, who became a perpetrator. jhe-cvo/imm King Charles III is believed to be working on his succession plan, which may involve his son Prince William, Mirror reported. The plan is being kept hidden from King Charles' second son, Prince Harry. The monarch was diagnosed with cancer earlier this month. King Charles is also aware that Prince William is at the heart of the succession planning that is in the works.(AP) The report quoted an interview with royal expert and author Tom Quinn, who said the Prince of Wales is "at the heart of the succession planning, but no one trusts Harry." Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Charles is also aware that, as future king, William is at the heart of the succession planning that is taking place right now officials had assumed Charles would remain healthy at least into his mid-eighties before succession planning would need to begin but in fact, it has now begun and indicates perhaps that Charles cancer is more dangerous than we have been led to believe, he said. The distrust is said to have come about following Harry's media interviews and attacks on the Royal Family in his debut memoir, Spare, he further said. "Succession planning is highly secret and no one trusts Harry to be part of it for the simple reason that if he feels in any way slighted or not given what he feels he deserves he will run straight to the media." Harry said he was "grateful" to see Charles earlier this month. He also said that he loved his family. Tom's comments come amid claims that Harry is willing to help the Royal Family following his father's diagnosis. The Duke of Sussex has confirmed he has some UK trips planned in the near future after paying a brief visit to his father earlier this month Prince Harry's Spare Prince Harry revealed that he decided to write "Spare" when he travelled to Britain for his grandfather's funeral in April 2021, according to the New York Times. During this time, he had a staggering realisation that neither his father nor his brother truly understood the reasons behind his and Meghan's move to California. Feeling the need to communicate this, he thought, "I have to tell them." Thus, he embarked on the writing journey with the intention of addressing his family and the world. In the book, Harry delves into his complex relationship with his brother, Prince William, and also expresses criticism toward his father. Additionally, Harry and Meghan issued several critiques of the royal family in their Netflix docuseries. The youngest son of King Charles III made headlines in 2020 when he and his wife, Meghan, left Britain and eventually settled in California, United States. The parliamentary party of the PML-N headed by three-time former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday formally nominated his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif for the post of prime minister to head a coalition government. Leader of Pakistan Muslim League (N) Muhammad Nawaz Sharif with the nominated Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif.(PTI) The parliamentary members meeting of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was held in Islamabad with party supremo Nawaz Sharif, 74, in the chair. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Shehbaz, 72, had led a coalition government for 16 months till August 2023 before the caretaker government took over following the announcement of general elections. Nawaz officially nominated his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif and party loyalist Sardar Ayaz Sadiq for the posts of prime minister and speaker of the National Assembly. The parliamentary party endorsed Shehbazs name and also reposed its full confidence in the leadership of Nawaz, PML-N central deputy secretary Attaullah Tarar said in a statement after the meeting. The nomination of Shehbaz Sharif as the next prime minister by the elder brother, who himself was eyeing the plum post for a record fourth time, had surprised many within and outside the party. Outgoing National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has called the National Assembly session on Thursday after President Dr Arif Alvi, known for his closeness to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), refused to do so. The President is of the view that Parliament is not complete because the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is yet to clear the air over the allocation of reserved seats to the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), following the PTI-SIC merger for this very purpose. Khans PTI-backed independents have emerged as the largest number of winners followed by PML-N and PPP. However, Khan has alleged that the February 8 elections were the most controversial and rigged polls in the country's history. He has accused the PML-N-Paksitan Peoples Party post-poll alliance, which also has four other parties, as "mandate thieves" set to form the government in the Centre. The PML-N has the full backing of the military establishment to form the government both in the Centre and Punjab province. As per the Constitution, a party must win 133 out of 265 contested seats in the 266-member National Assembly to form a government. Independent candidates a majority backed by 71-year-old Khan's PTI party won 93 National Assembly seats. The PML-N won 75 seats while the PPP came third with 54 seats. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) has 17 seats. As part of the PML-N-PPP alliance deal, it was decided that Nawaz Sharif's daughter Maryam Nawaz would be the chief minister of Punjab province. Maryam, the political heir of Nawaz, took oath on Monday and became the first woman chief minister of any province in the country. The other part of the deal was that PPPs senior leader former Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari would be getting the Presidents post. North Korea's first spy satellite is "alive", space experts said on Tuesday, after detecting changes in its orbit that suggested Pyongyang was successfully controlling the spacecraft - although its capabilities remain unknown. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un looks on as a rocket carrying a spy satellite Malligyong-1 is launched in a location given as North Gyeongsang Province, North Korea in this handout picture obtained by Reuters on November 21, 2023. (KCNA/Reuters) After two fiery failures, North Korea successfully launched the Malligyong-1 satellite into orbit in November. Pyongyang's state media claimed it has photographed sensitive military and political sites in South Korea, the United States and elsewhere, but has not released any imagery. Independent radio trackers have not detected signals from the satellite. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. "But now we can definitely say the satellite is alive," Marco Langbroek, a satellite expert at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, wrote in a blog post. Also Read | US and China discuss North Korea's military cooperation with Russia From Feb. 19-24, the satellite conducted manoeuvres to raise its perigee, or the lowest point in its orbit, to 497 km from 488 km (308.8 miles from 303.2 miles), Langbroek said, citing data from the U.S.led Combined Space Operations Center. "The manoeuvre proves that Malligyong-1 is not dead, and that North-Korea has control over the satellite - something that was disputed," he said. South Korea's Defence Ministry said it too had assessed that the satellite was in orbit, but said it would not comment further on individual analyses. On Monday, Defence Minister Shin Won-sik said the satellite was not showing any signs of performing other tasks or engaging in reconnaissance. Also Read | North Korea tests new rocket launcher control system "While we indeed currently cannot be sure whether the satellite does successfully take imagery, it at least performs orbital manoeuvres, so in that sense it is functional," Langbroek wrote of Shin's comments. The orbit-raising manoeuvre was a surprise as the presence of an onboard propulsion system was unexpected and previous North Korean satellites never manoeuvred, he said. "Having the capacity to raise the satellite's orbit is a big deal," Langbroek said. That meant that as long as there was fuel in the satellite, North Korea could prolong the satellite's lifetime by raising its altitude when it got too low because of orbital decay, he concluded. Harvard astronomer and orbital tracker Jonathan McDowell said the satellite appeared to be correcting its position in space as it moved to where it was shortly after launch, instead of making a hostile move toward another country's satellite - a capability for which he said the satellite was "much too small." The United States, Russia and China, the world's top space powers, have in recent years launched satellites increasingly capable of manoeuvring and inspecting other orbital objects as space grows as a critical arena for communications, commerce and military activity. But companies and countries often manoeuvre their satellites to improve the object's position in orbit. A variety of other reasons to manoeuvre include dodging other satellites or a piece of space debris or depending on the satellites' capability wading above a region of interest on Earth. U.S. Space Command, which tracks all active objects in orbit and sometimes assesses their function, did not immediately comment on the North Korean satellite. Nuclear-armed North Korea has vowed to launch three more spy satellites in 2024. MILAN (AP) Thousands of artists, curators and critics have signed an open letter calling on the Venice Biennale to exclude the Israeli national pavilion from this years contemporary art fair due to the war in Gaza, but Italys culture minister firmly backed Israels participation. HT Image The online letter was signed by more than 17,000 people through Wednesday, which included current and past Biennale participants as well as winners of the Turner Prize, an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano expressed solidarity with Israel in a statement Tuesday, saying it not only has the right to express its art but has the duty to bear witness to its people precisely in a moment during which it was struck hard by merciless terrorists. The Israeli culture minister, Miki Zohar, affirmed Israel's participation and thanked Sangiuliano for his strong, professional support. "Art is a bridge between cultures and between people and we will continue to firmly set out against attempts to boycott Israel in international forums,'' Zohar said in a statement. The Biennale ruled out excluding Israel or Iran, the object of a second petition, saying that any country recognized by the Italian government may request to participate. The letter, by an ad-hoc group called Art Not Genocide Alliance, noted that the Biennale had discouraged South Africas participation due to the apartheid state from 1950-1968 and put a ban in place after the U.S. resolution suspending exchanges with the racist regime until apartheid ended. It also noted the Biennales support for Ukraine since the 2022 Russian invasion. Russian artists withdrew their participation in 2022, and the Biennale said Russia did not request to participate in this year's edition. The Biennale has been silent about Israels atrocities against Palestinians, the letter said. We are appalled by this double standard. Signatories include the 2023 Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling, who participated in the 2019 Biennale, as well as Faisal Saleh, the director of the Palestine Museum US who said a proposed exhibit for this edition was rejected. Israel is among 88 national participants in the 60th Venice Biennale of contemporary art, which runs from April 20-Nov. 24. The exhibition in the Israeli Pavilion is titled Motherland by artist Ruth Patir. Palestinian artists are participating in collateral events, and will appear in the main show, titled Foreigners Everywhere curated by Adriano Pedrosa, the artistic director of Brazils Sao Paulo Museum of Art. ___ Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jersusalem contributed. A third Montana Democrat, perhaps best known for his daughters involvement in a high-profile environmental lawsuit, has entered the Democratic primary for Montanas eastern U.S House district. Steve Held, who ranches near the southeast Montana community of Broadus, registered his candidacy with Montanas secretary of state on Tuesday. Daughter Rikki Held is one of 16 youth plaintiffs in Held v. Montana, a lawsuit that affirmed that Montanas constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment extends to state regulation of pollutants contributing to climate change. The Held plaintiffs won in District Court last August. The state has appealed to Montanas Supreme Court. Steve Held declined to discuss his candidacy Tuesday, saying there would be an announcement in the coming weeks. He is the second parent of a Held plaintiff to register as a candidate. Ryan Busse, the Democratic candidate for governor is the father of plaintiffs Lander and Badge Busse. Held's candidacy brings the number of Democrats running to replace U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale to three. Helena businessman and Montana Pride leader Kevin Hamm declared his candidacy in May. Ming Cabrera, a retired pharmaceutical rep long active in Democratic Party politics became a candidate last September. Rosendale spent six days as a candidate for U.S. Senate before ending his campaign. He's made no announcement about running for a third U.S. House term. Montanas eastern U.S. House district, which includes Billings, Great Falls, Helena, Livingston and all points east, is predominately Republican. The counites that comprise the district have, with few exceptions, collectively favored Republicans by more than 20 percentage points in congressional elections since 2000. There are eight Republican candidates running to replace Rosendale. Prince Harry on Wednesday lost his legal challenge against the British government's decision to take away his police protection when he is in Britain. Britain's Prince Harry leaves the Royal Courts Of Justice in London, (AP) Harry, King Charles' younger son, had brought the action against the government at the High Court in London after the Home Office - the ministry responsible for policing - decided in February 2020 that he would cease to automatically receive personal police security while in Britain. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Harry, along with other senior royals, had received full publicly-funded security protection provided by the state before he stepped back from his royal duties and moved to California with his American wife Meghan in March 2020. After being granted permission for a judicial review of that decision, his lawyers told a hearing in December that the decision to take this away subjected him to unlawful, unfair and unjustifiable treatment. But the government's legal team said the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as RAVEC, had not decided Harry should not receive protection, but that he should not have it on the same basis. The High Court agreed, concluding that there had been no unlawfulness in the decision. "We are pleased that the court has found in favour of the governments position in this case, and we are carefully considering our next steps. It would be inappropriate to comment further," a spokesperson said, adding the protective security system was "rigorous and proportionate". Harry was last in Britain earlier this month when he made a whistle-stop visit to see his father after it was revealed the king had been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer. The prince, who has become estranged from his family since his move to the U.S., has said he hoped Charles' illness could bring the family together. Wednesday's ruling marks his second legal defeat on the issue of his security after the High Court ruled against him in a separate challenge against the government's refusal to let him pay for his own police protection. The prince has often spoken out about his fears for the safety of his family, and has regularly hit out at press intrusion which he blames for the death of his mother Princess Diana, who was killed when her limousine crashed as it sped away from chasing paparazzi in Paris in 1997. Britain's former counter-terrorism police chief said last year there had been credible threats made against the couple by far-right extremists. The ruling comes as the government announced an extra 31 million pounds ($39 million) on Wednesday to provide new security provisions for lawmakers and other officials amid growing concerns about their safety. Prince Williams' last moment decision to pull out of a planned appearance at a Thanksgiving Service in Windsor has sparked concern over health of Kate Middleton's health. Concerns and speculations have skyrocketed after Kensington Palace cited personal matter as the reason. FILE PHOTO: Princess of Wales Kate Middleton, is seen at The Mall opposite to Marlborough road, following Britain's King Charles' coronation ceremony, in London, Britain May 6, 2023. Anthony Upton/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo(via REUTERS) The event aimed to commemorate the life of King Constantine of the Hellenes, who passed away last January and held a special connection as Williams godfather. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The unexpected development comes as Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, remains secluded at Windsor to recover from abdominal surgery. While the Palace maintains that Kate "continues to be doing well," the Prince's sudden withdrawal has fueled speculation about a potential link to his wife's recovery. Where is Kate Middleton? The Palace aide attempted to allay concerns by affirming Kate's positive progress but offered little detail. The Duchess has deliberately kept a low profile since undergoing surgery on January 16 at the London Clinic. Notably, her last public appearance was during the royal family's Christmas Day walk to church from Sandringham House. Kensington Palace has maintained a limited disclosure regarding Kate's recovery, emphasizing that regular updates will not be provided. When the surgery was initially announced, the Palace stated that she was unlikely to resume public duties until after Easter. Kate Middleton's absence sparks conspiracy theories Palace's silence on Kate's health and absence from public light has triggered several bizarre conspiracy theories online pertaining to her whereabouts. Many are even speculating that she has a BBL done, Brazilian butt lift. Though there are no facts to these insinuations Kate's absence from public life has been a cause of concern and a mystery for the royal family followers. Kensington Palace statement on Kate's health Kate has chosen to keep her medical condition private, as expressed by the Palace: She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible, and her wish that her personal medical information remains private. This intriguing development coincides with King Charles facing health challenges, forcing him to withdraw from public engagements due to an undisclosed form of cancer treatment. Queen Camilla has continued her busy schedule, leaving Prince William to navigate his commitments while prioritizing his young family. The Prince's recent modification of his timetable, coupled with the unexpected withdrawal from the memorial service, intensifies curiosity surrounding Kate Middleton's recovery and the potential impact on the royal family's public engagements. As speculations abound, the mystery surrounding Kate's whereabouts deepens, leaving royal enthusiasts eagerly awaiting any updates. Toronto: In an update to progress made in implementation of its Indo-Pacific Strategy, Canada has said it continues to provide a platform for cultivating key relationships in the region, including that with India. A Canadian flag flies in front of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (REUTERS) The Indo-Pacific Strategy was released in November 2022 by Canadas Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly. India was among the countrys Canada sought to build stronger ties with as part of that process. However, relations cratered last year after Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated in the House of Commons on September 18 that there were credible allegations of a potential link between Indian agents and the killing of pro-Khalistan extremist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, three months earlier. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The latest policy update from Global Affairs Canada, the countrys foreign ministry, states, The strategy provides a 10-year framework to manage Canadas relationship with countries in the region to address joint priorities, anchored in our commitment to protect the safety of Canadians and the strategic interests of Canada. It is a platform on which to cultivate important key relationships, including in the North Pacific with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and its member states, as well as with India. The language, of course, is tempered when compared to the original strategy. Canada placed its Indo-Pacific Strategy at the centre of its engagement with the region, with India being of particular importance where it was described as a critical partner. It further added, Indias strategic importance and leadershipboth across the region and globally will only increase as India the worlds biggest democracybecomes the most populous country in the world and continues to grow its economy. The strategy also looks at how Canada will meet the challenge posed by China. The update stated that it provides a robust framework to manage our relations with China according to which we will continue working with China to address global challenges while upholding Canadas interests and values. Given the complex and dynamic nature of the Indo-Pacific region, challenges will inevitably surface as Canada deepens its engagement in the region. We must remain in dialogue with those with whom we do not see eye to eye, the document added. A cabin crew member of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), who flew to Canada on Tuesday, went abruptly missing after landing, the second such case in 2024, reported The Dawn. Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight(AP file photo) According to the report, the crew member named Maryam Raza flew from Islamabad via PIA flight PK-782 and landed in Toronto on Tuesday, but didn't report for duty on her return flight PK-784 to Karachi a day later. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. When the authorities started looking for Maryam, they opened her hotel room and found her PIA uniform along with a note reading Thank you, PIA. Maryam had been with the Pakistan's national carrier for 15 years. According to the airline's spokesperson, the incident of Maryam's disappearance comes a month after PIA flight crew member Faiza Mukhtar went abruptly missing in a similar way in January. Mukhtar, who was rostered to fly back to Karachi a day after landing in Canada "did not board the flight and disappeared". Meanwhile, the officials attribute the trend of disappearing crew members to the accommodating nature of Canadian law, which allows for asylum applications after entry into the country. According to the report, the trend of Pakistani flight attendants disappearing after crewing a flight to Canada started in 2019 and the number has increased recently. Last year, at least seven PIA cabin crew members went missing in Canada while on duty. Two PIA cabin crew members, who landed in Toronto from Lahore failed to report to duty for their flight back in December 2023, the PIA spokesperson said. "The flight was on its scheduled return to Islamabad, the steward did not show up in Toronto. The flight of the national flag carrier had to return to Islamabad without the crew members," the spokesperson said. PIA crew members, Ayaz Qureshi, Khalid Afridi and Fida Hussain Shah reportedly stayed in Canada after landing in November and December 2023. The spokesperson mentioned that one crew member who had absconded while on duty some years ago has since settled in Canada and offers advice to other crew members considering seeking asylum. He further stated that PIA has been collaborating with Canadian authorities to prevent such incidents in the future. (With inputs from The Dawn) Aaron Bushnell, US Air Force airman reportedly shared secret knowledge of US troops fighting in Hamas tunnels in Gaza, just hours ahead of his death. These were claims made by his friend who spoke to him a day before he killed himself. A vigil and protest are held outside a U.S. military recruiting center for U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell, who died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on February 25.(REUTERS) On Sunday morning, 25-year-old airman who served in the Air Forces 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Wing, set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy over US stand on Gaza crisis. He later succumbed to his injuries. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Aaron ranted that he had "top-secret clearance" for military intelligence data in a call to his friend on Saturday night, The Post reported. He told me on Saturday that we have troops in those tunnels, that its US soldiers participating in the killings, the friend claimed. The friend went on to suggest that Aaron had stated US had troops on the ground, who were killing large numbers of Palestinians. The friend believes these claims may be true as Aaron's job was to process intelligence data and some of that was linked to Gaza conflict. One of the things he told me is that coming across his desk was the US military was involved in the genocides going on in Palestine, an unnamed friend was quoted by The Post. Aaron sounded frightened, Ive never heard that tone come out of him: Friend Theres just too many things I dont know, but I can tell you that the tone of his voice just had something in it that told me he was scared, the buddy said. Ive never heard that tone come out of him. Aaron's friend's claims are contrary to White House statement that it will not put US troops on the ground in Gaza. According to an NYT report US forces are deployed in Israel only to identify hostages, including American hostages." Special Forces have also been on hand to assist with strategy for Israeli troops in Gaza, who are flushing out Hamas members from the network of underground tunnels under the territory, but the report noted troops are not assigned any combatant roles. Aaron's friend whose name was not revealed claimed that Aaron had a security clearance for four years now, and this is the first time he gave out information that he shouldnt have. Suicide is not something Aaron would do, his friend felt after asserting that they had discussed what Bushnell said he had uncovered about the war. As 25-year-old serving airman Aaron was outwardly present a calm, cool and collected person you will ever know. The friend, said he was frustrated with constantly toeing the military line. At a time when the world is pushing for truce talks amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, American broadcaster Anderson Cooper surprisingly snapped at a guest discussing the plight of Gazans and asserted that we don't need to debate on the conflict. Anderson Cooper and Nina Turner(X@flatliner718) During a CNN panel discussion on Tuesday, Cooper interrupted former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner as she acknowledged some Arab-Americans' hesitancy to support incumbent President Joe Biden. Following this, the host asserted that the viewers "don't really need a lecture on the problem" and would like to know more about "the politics of this tonight." Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The discussion comes as Biden won the Democratic presidential primary in Michigan, despite the Gaza protest vote over his stance on the war. A substantial number of people marked their ballot as "uncommitted", following an appeal to voters by Rep Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich), along with Arab organisers and pro-Palestine supporters, over Bidens dismissal to call a cease-fire. Also Read: Why Uncommitted voters in Michigan are throwing challenge to Joe Biden? Nina Turner vs Anderson Cooper As the discussion progressed, CNN panel members emphasised the 'uncommitted' protest vote, which had reached nearly 16 percent. Turner then went on to target Biden by reflecting on the pain of the Arab-American and Palestinian community. And so while this president was in the ice cream shop saying, I think theres going to be a ceasefire, 30,000 people have been slaughtered. People are living in famine. They cant get medical care. So it cant come soon enough for them, and that was really the weight that I picked up on when I was in Dearborn, [Michigan], she said. Copper jumped in when Turner highlighted the efforts of Rashida Tlaib and other Congress members who have been calling for a ceasefire. They were called abhorrent. Now fast forward to all of these bodies laying in the wake, and people who are living through this every single day, she stated. Responding to her, Cooper mentioned there's also been slaughter in Israel, so theres a lot of pain on both sides." Questioning the need for a lecture on the problem", he said, Im talking about the politics of this tonight," adding that we dont need to debate the issue. Turner then concluded her remarks, stressing that Biden and the United States has the power to say to [Benjamin] Netanyahu: we need a permanent ceasefire. Also Read: Michigan Primary 2024: Joe Biden wins the Democratic primary Anderson Cooper faces heat As soon as the video the clip of the panel discussion went viral on social media, X user lambasted Cooper for rudely interrupting Turner when she was mentioning the plight of Gaza. Peaceful Palestinian antisemites need to protest Anderson Cooper. He cannot be allowed to talk about anything other than Gaza, one user wrote. Remember the Anderson Cooper interview with the nurse from Gaza. He kept pushing her to say something bad about Palestinians. Asking if she was afraid of them, another said. Watching CNN and my god. Anderson Cooper just cut Nina Turner off from speaking about the depth of the suffering in Gaza live on CNN, multiple times, and the rest of the panel began to pile on. Right after she mentioned 30,000 dead in Gaza. It was completely shameless, a third user chimed in. Hamas carried out strikes on October 7, killing 1,200 Israelis and kidnapping 240 others. Following this, Israel launched a war on Gaza, killing around 30,000 Palestinians and displacing roughly 85% of the 2.3 million residents. The federal government will fund 17 projects across the U.S. to expand access to renewable energy on Native American reservations and in other rural areas, the Biden administration announced Tuesday. HT Image The $366 million plan will pay for solar, battery storage and hydropower projects in sparsely populated regions where electricity can be costly and unreliable. The money comes from a $1 trillion infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed in 2021. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called the announcement historic at a clean energy tribal summit in Southern California that began Tuesday. This is the largest amount that the Department of Energy has awarded to tribes for energy projects, she said. About a fifth of homes in the Navajo Nation located in northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah do not have access to electricity, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates. Nearly a third of homes that have electricity on Native American reservations in the U.S. report monthly outages, according to the Biden administration. The announcement comes as Native tribes in Nevada and Arizona fight to protect their lands and sacred sites amid the Biden administration's expansion of renewable energy. It also comes days after federal regulators granted Native American tribes more authority to block hydropower projects on their land. The Biden administration will only secure funding for the 17 projects after negotiating with project applicants, federal officials said. Cheri Smith, president of the nonprofit Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, called the announcement bittersweet and said it will take more money and support from the government and philanthropic groups to see the projects come to fruition. What these announcements do is they build hope for communities, Smith said. Translating these ambitions into tangible outcomes we still have a ways to go. The projects span across 20 states and involve 30 tribes. They include $30 million to provide energy derived from plants to wildfire-prone communities in the Sierra Nevada in California, $32 million to build solar and hydropower for a Native American tribe in Washington state and $27 million to construct a hydroelectric plant to serve a tribal village in Alaska. In 2019, the Hopi Tribe in Arizona lost jobs and a longstanding energy source when a massive coal-fired power plant shut down after nearly 50 years. It was a significant source of revenue for the Navajo and Hopi tribes. The Biden administration plans to allocate more than $9 million for a project led by Arizona State University in partnership with the Hopi to build solar panels and battery storage for the tribe. Kristen Parrish, a professor at Arizona State University's School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, said that the project will provide a reliable source of power to tribal citizens. Even more important than the fact that its cleaner is the fact that its reliable, Parrish said of the project. The Department of Energy also announced funding for a $57 million project to provide solar power and battery storage for up to 175 community health centers in rural parts of the Southeast, including in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. The idea for the project stemmed from power outages in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017 that hampered health care professionals' ability to do their work, said Ben Money, the senior vice president for population health at the nonprofit National Association of Community Health Centers. People living in rural areas sometimes only have access to one health care center in their region, Money said. If the power goes out or there's a natural or man-made disaster, those community residents are more dependent upon that community health center site than, perhaps, residents in communities where they may have other options, he said. ___ Austin 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. Follow Austin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @sophieadanna Athens-Clarke County, Georgia Mayor Kelly Girtz (D), faced ire from the public when he was addressing his community following the death of 22-year-old nursing student. Athens-Clarke County, Georgia Mayor Kelly Girtz (X@RepMikeCollins) Laken Hope Riley was beaten to death on the University of Georgia and police arrested Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26-year-old migrant, on charges of murder and assault. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. According to authorities, Ibarra, a resident of Venezuela, was residing in Athens after entering the country illegally. During the press briefing, Girtz said death of Laken Riley is not connected to illegal immigration and pointed the finger at ex-US President Donald Trump for being mean to illegals. The people present at the briefing accused him of establishing a dangerous sanctuary city. The demonstrators were carrying posters reading "Justice for Laken" and "Blood On Your Hands". They even yelled at Girtz as he discussed proposed additional safety measures for Athens. You're a liar and "You are the one who's guilty, and you have blood on your hands," protesters chanted at the news conference. Also Read: Murdered Laken Rileys sister remembers her in heartbreaking post: You are in heaven with the man you loved Georgia Mayor addresses protestors The protestors displayed their anger as Girtz discussed a contentious 2019 resolution he signed inviting all migrants, regardless of their legal immigration status, into the city of Athens. "We unflinchingly defend the human rights of all people, including citizens, noncitizens and those without documentation," Girtz told reporters at the time. On being asked to comment on the protest, the mayor said: Trauma affects all of us. I understand in the wake of a great tragedy like this we are all deeply hurt and everybody expresses their hurt differently. Following this, one man screamed this is an invasion" and asked him to leave. Youre the one guilty! You got blood on your hands for this murder, sir! another man shouted. Also Read: Laken Riley murder: Suspect accused of seriously disfiguring her body using an object, new affidavits reveal Girtz denies any connect between crime and migrant policies, targets Trump At Wednesday's news conference, Girtz defended the resolution against increased scrutiny, blaming it on Donald Trump's presidency. I want to say that we center our work here in Athens-Clarke County on peoples humanity and part of everybodys humanity is the expectation of human dignity. While 2019 was not that long ago, you might remember the dynamic we were living in in the late teens in this country where you had the president of the United States speak in the most vile terms about people who were foreign born and you had that notion metastasizing he said, claiming there is no connection between the crime and migrant policies. It is still unknow if Ibarra had applied for asylum, but Republicans in the US House are seeking more inputs about him from the US Department of Homeland Security. Lauren Boebert's 18-year-old son, Tyler Jay Boebert, was arrested on February 27, 2024, at 2:30 pm local time by the Rifle Police Department officers. Taylor Jay Boebert was arrested and faces 22 charges. (Facebook / Rifle Police Dept. ) The latest statement addressing his arrest was shared on the police department's Facebook page. It was recorded that the felony arrest followed recent vehicle break-ins and property thefts in the Colorado municipality of Rifle. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Boebert is being charged for the following: four felony counts of Criminal Possession ID Documents - Multiple Victims, one felony count of Conspiracy to Commit a Felony, and over 15 additional misdemeanour and petty offences. Tyler Boebert has already been listed as a recently booked arrest in the Garfield County Jail records. Rifle Police has confirmed in the Facebook post above that the investigation is in progress. Also read: Inmate Ivan Cantu to be executed in Texas for murder he says he didn't commit Lauren Boebert's family and their run-ins with misfortunate controversies This isn't the first time Congresswoman Boebert's son has made it to the headlines in a negative light. He previously had his run-in with unfortunate events in April 2023, when one of his friends alleged that Tyler had been responsible for an accident that led to his multiple injuries. Noble D'Amato (19) alleged that Tyler caused a car accident that left him with multiple concussions and a lacerated hand. Eventually, Lauren Boebert was also accused of covering up the crash wherein the 19-year-old (at the time) was also in possession of unprescribed drug paraphernalia. However, D'Amato claimed that the young Boebert was stone cold sober at the time he flipped the car, accentuating the high-speed accident. That is not all. The entire Boebert family has also been tied up in controversies over the past few months. In January 2024, Lauren Boebert's ex-husband, Jayson, was charged for allegedly assaulting Tyler during a domestic altercation. Meanwhile, the congresswoman herself was issued a temporary restraining order against Jayson. (This is a developing story.) A search is underway for a missing three-year-old Wisconsin boy nearly a week after he vanished. Elijah Vue went missing after his mother sent him to a male friends home for disciplinary reasons. He was last seen at the mans house on February 20. Elijah Vues (L) mother, Katrina Baur, (R) was arrested on suspicion of child neglect (Two Rivers Police Department) Reward offered for locating Elijah Vue On Tuesday, February 27, the FBIprovided a reward of up to $15,000 for information leading to the location of Vue, his return, or to the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for his disappearance. This reward is in addition to a Manitowoc County Crime Stoppers reward of $1,000. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The community has come together to help locate the boy, even going to the extent of donating water and other beverages to the police department. In a Facebook post, Two Rivers Police Department recently wrote, Thank you to the generous community members who have donated water, soft drinks, & juice to the police department in such a short time. All of our volunteers & those working on this investigation are extremely grateful. We do not need anything further at this time. If there is something you were wanting to donate, you can contact our business line at 920-793-1191. Thank you! Meanwhile, Vues mother,Katrina Baur, and her friend, Jesse Vang, were arrested on suspicion of child neglect in the case. FOX 11 reported that Vangs address matched the location where Vue was last spotted. The two were formally charged on Monday, February 26. Baur was charged with one count of neglecting a child and two counts of resisting or obstructing an officer. Vang, on the other hand, was charged with one count of neglecting a child. She intentionally sent that child for disciplinary reasons for more than a week to the residence, Manitowoc County District Attorney Jacalyn LaBre previously told the court of Baur. She was aware of the tactics used and the lack of care provided. This was an intentional thing by her. The DA added that Baur, who lives in Wisconsin Dells, lied to authorities on at least two occasions about her whereabouts. Elijah Vues mom wanted him to be a man Baur told police she sent Vue to stay with Vang on February 12 because she wanted him to teach her son to be a man. She said she had planned to pick Vue up on February 23. However, on February 20, Vang called police and reported the boy missing. He said he was sleeping while Vue was in the room that morning, but woke up to find he was gone. A criminal complaint stated that Vang told police he was in a relationship with Baur. He had apparently been trying to help with Vues bad behaviour. The beginning of the first quarter (Q1) is a strategic time to reflect on the wins and losses of the previous year and set the stage for a successful 2024. Setting clear and achievable goals is an essential step for steering your business in the right direction and will guide your vision for the upcoming year. American motivational speaker Mark Victor Hansen has said, By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands your own. Dont let your business fall out of your hands in 2024. Here are ten tips for setting effective goals in Q1 from business experts across industries. 1. Reflect on the Previous Year Begin your goal-setting process by reviewing the achievements and challenges of the past year. Identify what worked well and what needs improvement. In order to succeed in Q1 and beyond, its important to consider wins and perceived failures from the previous year with a constructively critical eye, says Roman Peysakhovich, CEO of Cleango. By doing so, you can turn last years losses into valuable lessons. Analyzing past challenges and setbacks offers an opportunity to understand their root causes, fostering the development of proactive solutions to mitigate similar issues in the future. This type of insight allows you to learn from the past and more effectively shape your Q1 goals. 2. Align With Your Business Strategy Your Q1 goals should align with your overall business strategy. Begin with a thorough understanding of your mission, vision, and key objectives, and ensure your goals directly support those overarching principles. If the number one priority for 2024 is to expand your customer base, then your goals for 2024 should be aligned with and supporting that, Asker A Ahmed, Director of iProcess Global Research explains. Those goals would look different than if your biggest priority was increasing revenue or, say, improving operational efficiency. Regularly revisit your business strategy to help your goals remain in harmony with the evolving needs of your organization and the dynamic business landscape. This iterative process allows your goals to align with your business strategy and contribute to its ongoing refinement and success. 3. Make Your Goals SMART Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound (SMART) goals are highly valuable for businesses, as they provide a structured framework that enhances goal-setting effectiveness. For instance, achievability makes goals that are realistic and within reach, preventing the setting of unattainable objectives that waste time and capital. The specificity of SMART goals ensures clarity, while measurable elements allow businesses to track progress and quantify success, explains Cody Candee, Founder and CEO of Bounce. Time-bound aspects establish deadlines, fostering a sense of urgency and accountability, while achievability and relevance create focus. In other words: Clearly define what success looks like, establish measurable metrics, and set realistic deadlines for achieving each goal. These steps will make your goal-setting process more focused and results-driven. 4. Prioritize Attempting to multitask and tackle multiple objectives at once may be tempting, but doing so can lead to a lack of focus and diluted efforts. In the long run, prioritizing your goals tends to be more effective. Prioritization requires identifying the most critical initiatives that are likely to have the most significant impact on the business, Sid Shamim, CEO and President of Headway Capital advises. By focusing on a select set of high-priority goals, you direct resources, energy, and attention more effectively. This increases the likelihood of achieving meaningful results, allows for a more strategic allocation of resources, and fosters motivation and discipline among your workforce. Prioritization provides a clearer pathway to success in the short term. 5. Involve Your Team Collaboration is key to success. Involve your team in the goal-setting process to gain diverse perspectives and ensure everyone is aligned with the objectives. When all members of the team feel valued, they tend to put more effort in and commit to the values of the business, Ryan Rottman, Co-Founder and CEO of OSDB explains. You might end up with some really innovative strategies and goals for the years, and youll likely create a more motivated workforce as well. Fostering a sense of ownership and commitment contributes to all aspects of your businesss success, from the goal-setting process in Q1 to the final stretch of holiday sales in Q4. 6. Break Goals Down into Milestones Dividing larger goals into smaller, manageable milestones can significantly enhance the goal-setting process. Instead of focusing solely on the result, you can monitor achievements at each milestone, providing a clearer picture of how well each overall goal is advancing. Milestones serve as essential checkpoints for a goal, says Jack Carrere, CEO and Co-Founder of Prokeep. They allow for the early identification of potential challenges or roadblocks. Then you can get to work on addressing these issues rather than letting them delay you even further. Breaking up your objectives into smaller milestones might feel like busy work, but this can go a long way in priming your business to actually achieve your Q1 goals. Milestones make it easier to track progress, identify potential challenges early on, and celebrate small victories along the way, all of which may contribute to the likelihood of accomplishing your goals. 7. Leverage Technology Leveraging technology is integral to enhancing the business goal-setting process. For instance, project management tools provide a centralized platform for defining, organizing, and tracking goals, providing clear visibility for all team members. Data analytics tools are key for all aspects of business operations, including the goal setting stage, advises Saad Alam, CEO and Co-Founder of Hone Health. Analytics platforms allow for data-driven insights, helping businesses measure the success of their goals and make informed decisions based on performance metrics rather than sometimes-flimsy gut feelings. (Supplements are not evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.) By harnessing the capabilities of technology, businesses can not only streamline the goal-setting process but also promote efficiency, transparency, and adaptability in pursuing and achieving their objectives. 8. Be Adaptable Flexibility and adaptability in the face of the dynamic nature of business environments are extremely important. Business conditions can change quickly due to a number of factors. Market trends, emerging technologies, and unforeseen competition can all wreak havoc on your plans. To remain successful, its important that businesses are prepared to adjust their goals in response to changes, Justin Soleimani, Co-Founder of Tumble warns. Being agile means having the ability to pivot quickly, realign strategies, and seize new opportunities. Businesses that are proactive in monitoring and adapting to changes are better positioned to not just achieve their Q1 goals but thrive throughout the rest of the year. Make adaptability a core tenet of your goal-setting process to maximize your opportunities for success. 9. Measure and Analyze Rather than setting goals during Q1 and letting that be the end of it, plan for regular analysis of your efforts towards achieving each goal. Regularly measuring and analyzing your progress against your Q1 goals is key for staying on track throughout the year. Heres where KPIs become useful even as early as Q1, Raja Subramanian, GM of Power Wizard explains. Define specific KPIs that align with each goal, then track them throughout the year. These quantifiable metrics provide a clear and measurable way to track progress and success. In addition to using KPIs, establishing regular progress reports and comparing your performance against industry benchmarks are other critical ways to track progress toward the goals you set in Q1. 10. Celebrate Achievements Finally, don't forget to celebrate your successes. Recognizing achievements, whether big or small, boosts morale and motivates your team. Recognition of achievements reinforces the idea that hard work and dedication are valued within the organization, which every business should strive for, Dr. Michael Green, Chief Medical Officer of Winona advises. It also reinforces a positive and goal-oriented company culture, which is beneficial for overall business success. (Supplements are not evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.) In the long run, a workplace culture that values and celebrates achievements is more likely to be characterized by high employee satisfaction, increased productivity, and a sustained commitment to reaching organizational goals. Set Your Goals and Achieve Them! Setting business goals for the first quarter is imperative for success, and carefully thinking about these business goals and how you can implement them is critical in your Q1 business strategy. The beginning of the new year provides a fresh start for both individuals and businesses. Few times of year are more opportune for strategic planning. Henry Mintzberg, Canadian academic and writer, has said, Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: Its starting point. Looking into Q1 of the new year with a strategy and goals is a surefire way to see the results you want in 2024. Implement these ten tips into your goal-setting process, and you could be more likely to see those goals come to fruition. This content is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this paid post belong solely to the contributor. Lee Enterprises newsroom and editorial were not involved in the creation of this content. G20 finance ministers will meet Wednesday in Brazil, seeking ways to shore up a global economy whose nascent recovery is threatened by a raft of conflicts and crises, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. HT Image The Ukraine war could take center stage at the meeting, with G7 countries due to meet on the sidelines to discuss shoring up Western support against Russia's invasion -- including what US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called an "urgent" proposal to use frozen Russian assets to increase aid for Kyiv. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Yellen, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva and other top economic policy-makers will gather in Sao Paulo for the two-day meeting -- though there will be some notable absences, including the British, Chinese, Indian and Russian finance ministers, organizers told AFP. Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad, the host, will address the meeting by video conference, after coming down with Covid-19, organizers said. The economic risks posed by the cost-of-living crisis, climate change and the conflict in the Middle East will also be on the agenda as finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of 20 leading economies hold their first meeting of the year. Brazil, which took over the rotating G20 presidency from India in December, also wants to use the two-day meeting to pressure for progress on fighting poverty, alleviating low-income nations' crushing debt burdens, and giving developing countries more say at institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. International taxation also features on the agenda, amid global wrangling on how to deal with a so-called "race to the bottom" where some countries woo corporations and the super-rich with ultra-low tax rates. The meeting, which follows one by foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro last week, will start laying the economic policy groundwork for the annual G20 leaders' summit, to be held in Rio in November. "There are a lot of issues on the table, and we face challenges on all of them," said the Brazilian official coordinating the G20 finance meetings, Tatiana Rosito. "Our aim is to seek consensus and propose issues for dialogue," she told AFP. "What we're doing is setting the tone for dialogue and looking to build progress together." Finance ministers from the Group of Seven countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, plus the European Union -- are due to hold a separate meeting Wednesday on renewing Western support for Ukraine, which is desperate for more aid to fend off Russia. The G7 looks close to announcing plans to jointly set up a fund for Ukraine using profits generated by an estimated $397 billion in Russian assets frozen by the West over Moscow's invasion. Ukraine has warned it is in dire need of more military and financial assistance, with a fresh $60 billion US package stalled in Congress. Momentum appears to be building for Western plans to tap Russia's frozen assets: Yellen touted the idea, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said she agreed "100 percent," and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called to first seize interest from the assets, and then the assets themselves. Founded in 1999, the G20 accounts for more than 80 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), three-quarters of world trade, and two-thirds of the world's population. In reality, it has 21 members: 19 of the world's biggest economies -- including both industrialized nations and emerging powers -- plus the European Union and, participating as a member for the first time this year, the African Union. bur-jhb/caw A German naval frigate sent to protect commercial ships in the Red Sea nearly shot down a US drone by mistake, German media reported Wednesday. HT Image The German defence ministry confirmed a drone incident involving an allied nation occurred on Monday, without naming the country. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The "Hesse" frigate opened fire after efforts to identify an unknown drone "were unsuccessful", Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said during a visit to the German town of Oberviechtach, adding however that the target was "not hit". The drone later turned out to be a "reconnaissance drone", he said. According to Der Spiegel weekly, the frigate fired two missiles at the drone but both crashed into the sea because of "a technical defect". Spiegel, without citing its sources, said the drone that was nearly downed was a US Reaper. It might have been operating in the region "as part of an American anti-terror mission" unrelated to the Red Sea mission, Spiegel added. The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper said it was "common knowledge that American combat drones are used in the region that have nothing to do with the operation in the Red Sea". The German defence ministry said the frigate only launched an attack after none of its allies reported a drone in the area. Spiegel said military officials believed the friendly fire incident showed that coordination between allies involved in various missions in the region around Yemen "needs to be improved". The "Hesse" arrived in the region at the weekend as part of an EU mission to help secure international shipping in the Red Sea from attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Huthis. The German army earlier on Wednesday said the frigate had successfully thwarted an attack on Tuesday evening by shooting down two drones launched by the rebels. The Huthis, who control much of war-torn Yemen, have been attacking the vital shipping lane since November in a campaign they say is in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war. The United States is spearheading its own naval coalition in the Red Sea and has conducted strikes on the Huthis in Yemen along with Britain. mfp/bp After the arrest of her 18-year-old son, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert hit out at US President Joe Biden and his family by calling them the most corrupt in American history. U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) (Getty Images via AFP) Tyler Boebert, a father of one, was held for 22 crimes in connection to "recent string of vehicle trespass and property thefts". Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The Biden crime family will go down as the most corrupt family in American history, the Colorado Congresswoman wrote on her Instagram on Wednesday following her son's arrest from the town of Rifle. Also Read: Who's Lauren Boebert? Trump supporter asked to define 'carpetbagger' in GOP debate Lauren Boebert held over spate of thefts According to Garfield County Jail records, Boebert is charged with four charges of illegal possession of a financial device, four counts of criminal possession of identification documents, and one count of conspiracy to commit a felony. He has also been charged with four misdemeanor counts of ID theft, three misdemeanor counts of first-degree criminal trespass, and three misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. In addition, he is charged with three charges of petty theft under $300. Also Read: Colorado Rep Lauren Boebert's 18-year-old son arrested, facing 22 charges connected to property theft The arrest adds to the instability surrounding Lauren Boebert's campaign, which is at risk of being overshadowed by family concerns. Earlier this year, Boebert said that she wants to run for a new seat in 2024, moving her campaign to Colorado's fourth district. In a Facebook video announcing the decision, she emphasized her family difficulties and "children's future," describing it as a "fresh start following a pretty difficult year for me and my family." Social media users slam Lauren Boebert After she attacked the Biden family, many X users slammed Lauren Boebert who has been targetting US President's son Hunter Biden for his addiction issues. You spelled Boebert Crime Family wrong," one user wrote. What about your family? another critic asked. Will Republicans now demand Lauren Boebert be impeached? Will they support the release of her sons private laptop publicly? a third user wrote. Boebert got separated from her ex-husband Jayson Boebert after nearly two decades of marriage. They both share four sons. Hunter Biden appeared Wednesday on Capitol Hill for a closed-door deposition with lawmakers, a critical moment for Republicans as their impeachment inquiry into his father and the family's business affairs teeters on the brink of collapse. Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, arrives with attorney Abbe Lowell, right, at the O'Neill House Office Building for a closed-door deposition in a Republican-led investigation into the Biden family, (AP) I am here today to provide the committees with the one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business, Hunter Biden said in an opening statement obtained by The Associated Press. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The deposition could mark a decisive point for the 14-month Republican investigation into the Biden family, which has centered on Hunter Biden and his overseas work for clients in Ukraine, China, Romania and other countries. Republicans have long questioned whether those business dealings involved corruption and influence peddling by President Joe Biden, particularly when he was vice president. Yet after conducting dozens of interviews and obtaining more than 100,000 pages of documents, Republicans have yet to produce direct evidence of misconduct by the president. Meanwhile, an FBI informant who alleged a bribery scheme involving the Bidens a claim Republicans had cited repeatedly to justify their probe is facing charges from federal prosecutors who accuse him of fabricating the story. Also Read: GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert lambasts 'Biden crime family' after son's arrest; social media calls out her hypocrisy Despite the stakes of their investigation, it remains unclear how much useful information Republicans will be able to extract from Hunter Biden during the deposition. He is under federal investigation and has been indicted on nine federal tax charges and a firearm charge in Delaware, which means he could refuse to answer some questions by asserting his Fifth Amendment rights. The task of interviewing Hunter falls primarily to Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan, the GOP chairmen leading the impeachment investigation. They first subpoenaed Hunter Biden in November, demanding that he appear before lawmakers in a private setting. Biden and his attorneys refused, warning that his testimony could be selectively leaked and manipulated. They insisted that Hunter Biden would only testify in public. On the day of the subpoena, Hunter Biden not only snubbed lawmakers waiting for him in a hearing room he did also while appearing right outside the Capitol, holding a press conference where he denounced the investigation into his family. Both sides ultimately agreed in January to a private deposition with a set of conditions. The interview with Hunter Biden will not be filmed and Republicans have agreed to quickly release the transcript. Our committees have the opportunity to depose Hunter Biden, a key witness in our impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, about this record of evidence, Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement to The Associated Press. This deposition is not the conclusion of the impeachment inquiry. There are more subpoenas and witness interviews to come. Hunter will be the second member of the Biden family questioned by Republicans in recent days. They conducted a more than eight-hour interview last week with James Biden, the president's brother. He insisted to lawmakers that Joe Biden has never had any involvement," financially or otherwise, in his business ventures. Looming large over the interview are developments on the other side of the country in Nevada, where federal prosecutors this month indicted an FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, who claimed there was a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving the president, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company. Prosecutors in court documents assert that Smirnov has had extensive and extremely recent" contact with people who are aligned with Russian intelligence. Smirnov's attorneys have said he is presumed innocent. Republicans pressed the FBI last summer over the informant's claims, demanding to see the underlying documents and ultimately releasing the unverified information to the public. The claim was cited repeatedly in letters that House Republicans sent to impeachment witnesses. Many GOP lawmakers say they have yet to see evidence of the high crimes and misdemeanors required for impeachment, despite alleged efforts by members of the Biden family to leverage the last name into corporate paydays domestically and abroad. But the Republican chairmen leading the impeachment effort remain undeterred by the series of setbacks to their marquee investigation. Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said last week that the informant's indictment does not change the fundamental facts that the Biden family tried to benefit off the family name in several overseas businesses. And Comer told Fox News on Tuesday that Smirnov was never a key part of this investigation." Both Comer and Jordan have insisted for the past year that their investigation and inquiry is focused solely on Joe Biden and what actions, if any, he took while as vice president or president to benefit his family. But at nearly every turn, their probe has had a consistent and heavy focus on Hunter Biden. Several lines of inquiry have been opened into Hunter's international business affairs, his artwork sales and even his personal life and on-and-off battle with addiction. Meanwhile, Hunter Biden has no shortage of legal headaches off Capitol Hill as he faces criminal charges in two states from a special counsel investigation. Hes charged with firearm counts in Delaware, alleging he broke laws against drug users having guns in 2018, a period when he has acknowledged struggling with addiction. Special counsel David Weiss filed additional charges late last year, alleging he failed to pay about $1.4 million in taxes over three years. He has pleaded not guilty in both cases. A US-led push to reform the World Trade Organization's embattled dispute settlement system sparked divisions at a WTO meeting Wednesday, with India accusing Washington of bringing the trade body to a "standstill". HT Image A working session on dispute settlement reform was held on the third day of the WTO's 13th ministerial meeting (MC13) in Abu Dhabi, where little progress is expected on the issue amid major disagreements. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Washington, under former President Donald Trump, brought the system to a grinding halt in 2019 by blocking the appointment of new judges to the WTO's appeals court, the organisation's highest dispute settlement authority. Dispute settlement reform is a "hard issue" but the dynamic in the negotiating room at MC13 is "constructive, it's positive, it's sober," US Trade Representative Katherine Tai told reporters on Wednesday. But "there is more work to do," she added, following the working session. During the last WTO ministerial in 2022, member states reached a commitment to having a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system in place by 2024. The overall outcome of MC13 could only reiterate this commitment, despite demands by some member states, including India, for stronger progress at the Abu Dhabi talks. Tai said "convergence is happening" on various areas of dispute settlement reform. But "there is another set of issues that are going to be harder and that are going to take longer to address, including what to do with the appeals mechanism and how to have a mechanism for review that doesn't repeat the problems of the appellate body that came before it," she said. Washington has accused the appellate body of over-interpreting WTO rules, with Tai on Wednesday saying the now-defunct body was formerly more powerful than member states. It was "extremely activist, extremely powerful, more powerful than even the members, where members could secure new rules through litigation and not have to rely on the very hard work of negotiating with each other," she said. Washington's push for reform has angered India, which accused the United States on Wednesday of bringing the WTO to a "standstill". India threatened to hold off on any new deals before progress is made on the appellate body, which could imperil agreements on fisheries subsidies and agriculture, largely seen as the main agenda items of the ministerial talks. "It's important that the first issue we should settle is that there should be an appellate body and some countries are not allowing that to happen," India's commerce minister Piyush Goyal told AFP. "The entire working of WTO currently has come to a little bit of a standstill". Responding to his remarks, Tai said: "There is nothing standing still in this ministerial conference." There is a concern among observers that delays to the restoration of the appellate body could throw it into jeopardy, especially if Trump is re-elected as US president in November. During his tenure, Trump blocked the WTO's ability to settle trade disputes and threatened to pull the US out of the trade body -- all the while launching a trade war with China. "There is no momentum to relaunch the discussions" on the appellate body, said a source close to the talks. The European Union, meanwhile, would like the outcome of MC13 to "get out that sense of urgency... of restoring the system by 2024," said an EU official familiar with the negotiations. "Political will is required... especially as something that is as bogged down as this," said the official on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak on the issue. "We have shown openness to say let's address concerns about maybe some functioning of the appellate body in the past and to see how things can be improved" but the EU maintains its adherence to the two-tier system, the official said. The WTO's 13th ministerial meeting was set to wrap up on Thursday, but that is looking increasingly unlikely. "We have made tremendous progress but we are running out of time," WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told delegates on Wednesday, according to a source close to the discussions. The delegations expect the talks will be extended into Friday, but a decision on that is likely to be made during Thursday, added the source. apo/rl/bp Washington, Feb 28 (PTI) A jeweller, based out of both Mumbai and New Jersey, has been indicted for illegally evading customs duties for millions of dollars of jewellery imports into the US and operating unlicensed money transmitting businesses, a US attorney has said. HT Image Monishkumar Kirankumar Doshi Shah (39) was arrested over the weekend and appeared on February 26 before US Magistrate Judge Andre M Espinosa in the Newark federal court. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Shah alias "Monish Doshi Shah" was released on a bond of USD 100,000, with home detention and location monitoring. He has been charged on a complaint with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of operating, aiding and abetting the operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business. From January 2015 through September 2023, Shah engaged in a scheme to evade duties for shipments of jewellery from Turkey and India to the US, according to documents. He would ship or instruct his conspirators to ship goods from Turkey or India, which would have been subject to an approximately 5.5 per cent duty if shipped directly to the US, to one of Shah's companies in South Korea, these stated. Federal prosecutors alleged that Shah's conspirators in South Korea would change the labels on the jewellery to state that they were from South Korea instead of Turkey or India, and then ship them to Shah or his customers in the US, thereby unlawfully evading the duty. He would also make and instruct his customers to make fake invoices and packing lists to make it look like Shah's South Korean companies were actually ordering jewellery from Turkey or India. During the scheme, Shah shipped millions of dollars of jewellery from South Korea to the US, prosecutors alleged. From July 2020 through November 2021, Shah operated numerous purported jewellery companies in New York City's Diamond District, including MKore LLC (MKore), MKore USA Inc. (MKore USA) and Vruman Corp (Vruman), it said. He used these entities to conduct millions of dollars in illegal financial transactions for customers, including converting cash to checks or wire transfers, the documents said. Shah would also collect cash from customers and use conspirators' jewellery companies, also located in the Diamond District, to convert the cash into wires or checks. The documents said that at times, Shah and his conspirators moved more than a million dollars of cash in a single day. In exchange for their services, Shah and his conspirators charged a fee. Prosecutors said that none of Shahs or his conspirators companies were registered as money transmitting businesses with New York, New Jersey, or the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). A Texas man is to be executed Wednesday for a double murder he insists he did not commit, in a case that has drawn the attention of the Catholic Church and celebrities Kim Kardashian and Martin Sheen. This undated booking photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Texas death row inmate Ivan Cantu (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP, File) Ivan Cantu, 50, who was convicted of the 2000 murders of his cousin and his cousin's fiancee, is one of two inmates scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection in the United States on Wednesday. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The other, convicted serial killer Thomas Creech, 73, is to be executed in Idaho. Creech has been on Death Row for nearly 50 years for killing another inmate. Cantu's case has drawn widespread attention because of doubts about his guilt. He was convicted in 2001 of the murders in Dallas the previous year of his cousin, James Mosqueda and Amy Kitchen, Mosqueda's fiancee, who were shot to death. Cantu's then-fiancee, Amy Boettcher, who has since died, testified at his trial that he had admitted committing the murders and took her to Mosqueda's home later to show her the bodies and look for hidden drugs. Among the evidence entered at the trial was a pair of jeans with blood from the victims that was found in Cantu's kitchen trash can. Lawyers for Cantu maintain that Boettcher lied on the witness stand and the jeans, which were too large for Cantu, were planted in the trash can by someone else. Cantu has steadfastly proclaimed his innocence and said the murders were carried out by a drug dealer to whom Mosqueda owed a substantial sum of money. A MoveOn.org petition urging Texas Governor Greg Abbott to grant a stay of execution to Cantu has drawn nearly 150,000 signatures. The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops has urged that the execution be halted because of "serious uncertainties" surrounding the case. Among those expressing doubts about Cantu's conviction was the foreman of the jury that presided over his 2001 trial. Jeff Calhoun, in an article in the Austin American-Statesman, asked for the execution to be delayed pending further investigation. Support for Ivan Cantu Kardashian, who has been active in prison reform, urged Texas's conviction integrity unit to look into the case. "The time to act to save Ivan Cantu is now!" she said in a post on X. Sheen, an opponent of the death penalty, made an appeal on Instagram for people to sign the MoveOn petition seeking a stay of execution. "Ivan was wrongfully convicted of murder more than 20 years ago," the star of "The West Wing" and "Apocalypse Now" said. "Time is running out." Cantu's lawyers have filed a series of last-minute appeals seeking to halt his execution. According to a recent Gallup Poll, 53 percent of Americans support the death penalty for someone convicted of murder, the lowest level since 1972. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 US states, while the governors of six others -- Arizona, California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Tennessee -- have put a hold on its use. There has been one execution in the United States this year, that of an Alabama inmate who was the first to be put to death using nitrogen gas. There were 24 executions in the United States in 2023, all of them carried out by lethal injection. Amid rising concerns over his age and cognitive health, US President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced that he is visiting Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for yearly physical exam. US President Joe Biden (Bloomberg) Biden, the oldest president in US history, has been going through annual examinations since he assumed the office. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Walter Reed, the hospital where all US presidents receive routine medical treatment and examinations, is located in Bethesda, Maryland. In his last physical that was conducted in February 2023, doctors declared him "healthy, vigorous," and "fit" to handle his presidential duties. Ahead of November presidential elections, voters are wary of Biden's age as critics have called him out for coughing, slow walking, and even for stumbling on Air Force One plane. "I'm going to get my physical," 81-year-old Biden told reporters while leaving the White House. A White House statement has confirmed that a summary of the results would be released later today. Biden, who seeks reelection in November, is excepted to rematch former President and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, 77. Both easily won their respective parties' Michigan primaries on Tuesday. Also Read: Why is ageing an issue in Joe Biden's and Donald Trump's presidential campaigns? Robert Hur alarming report describes Biden as old man with poor memory Concerns over Biden's age and memory intensified after Special Counsel Robert Hur delivered a report last month following an inquiry into his handling of sensitive papers found at his Delaware home and the Penn Biden Center office in Washington, D.C. The report highlights that Biden, during interviews with the Special Counsel, did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended, and that he did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. Also Read: Political hit-job: White House launches fierce attack against Biden probe age comments Another report revealed that the White House is extremely upset with New York Times' coverage of the incumbent president's dismal approval ratings. In an interview with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, NY Times publisher AG Sulzberger, 43, called Biden a historically unpopular incumbent and the oldest man to ever hold this office. Weve reported on both of those realities extensively, and the White House has been extremely upset about it, he asserted. The American journalist serving as chairman of The New York Times Company further pledged that NY Times will continue to report fully and fairly despite the flak it has received from the White House. The US President Joe Biden made a surprise appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, where he joked about a possible endorsement from Taylor Swift for his 2024 re-election bid, and hushed the late-night show with a sprinkle of sarcasm, it's classified. Biden makes surprise appearance on the Late Night Show with Seth Meyers(AP) The audience was caught off guard when Biden walked on stage after the comedian and actor Amy Poehler, who was the scheduled guest, mentioned that Biden had been on Meyerss first show as vice president. Poehler claimed she could bring him back, and Biden obliged. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Why havent you invited me earlier?: Biden Biden greeted Meyers and said, Its good to be back. Why havent you invited me earlier? The president, who has been criticized for his lack of media exposure and press conferences, used the opportunity to reach out to voters ahead of the presidential election. He also skipped the traditional pre-Super Bowl interview this year. ALSO READ| Biden urges Congress to act on government shutdown, aid for Ukraine and Israel According to the nonpartisan White House Transition Project, Biden has done only 86 interviews since taking office, compared with 300 by Trump and 422 by Obama at the same stage of their presidencies. Meyers asked Biden about a bizarre conspiracy theory that some conservatives have circulated, alleging that Swift and Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce are part of a secret plan to help Democrats win in November. Swift and Biden Can you confirm or deny that there is an active conspiracy between you and Miss Swift? Meyers asked. Where are you getting this information, its classified, Biden quickly answered. He added that Swift had endorsed him in 2020, and when Meyers pressed him on whether she would do it again, he said, I told you its classified. Biden, who is the oldest US president ever at 81, also addressed the issue of his age, saying, You got to take a look at the other guy, hes about as old as I am, but he cant remember his wifes name. ALSO READ| Joe Biden told aides good sex is key to long lasting marriage, new book claims He continued saying what really matters is how old your ideas are. He slammed Trump and Republicans for supporting policies that would restrict abortion rights and other issues that have been solid American positions for a long time. He also condemned Trump for applauding the rioters who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021, and for promising to pardon those who attacked police officers and tried to overturn the 2020 election results. Thats not what happens in America. Thats what happens in eastern European countries. Thats not what happens in America. Meyers, who has been a vocal critic of Trump, spent most of his show before Bidens arrival mocking the former president and Republicans over a court decision that overturned in vitro fertilisation treatment in Alabama. ALSO READ| Biden claps back at age critics, roasts Donald Trump for calling his wife Melania Mercedes He also took a dig at some Democrats who have tried to shield Biden from any mockery, showing a clip of senator John Fetterman who said that those who do that are essentially helping Trump. Criticising or mocking our leaders is a healthy thing in a democracy. I mean, Joe Biden seems to be able to take a joke. We here at Late Night make jokes about him all the time, Meyers stated. An official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement has claimed that Laken Rileys murderer Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal immigrant, was previously arrested and released by the New York Police Department in 2023. The NYPD is now pushing back after the allegation. The murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Hope Riley, 22, has sent shockwaves across the US (GoFundMe) Ibarra has been charged with malice and felony murder, aggravated battery, kidnapping, concealing the death of another and other charges in Rileys murder. According to UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark, Ibarra does not have an extensive criminal history. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. "There is no arrest on file with the name provided in 2023," NYPD said in a statement on Tuesday, February 17, according to ABC News. A statement from ICE said Ibarra was arrested on September 8, 2022, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) "after unlawfully entering the United States near El Paso, Texas." "He was paroled and released for further processing," ICE said. "On Sept. 14, 2023, [Jose] Ibarra was arrested by the New York Police Department and charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation. "He was released by the NYPD before a detainer could be issued. On Feb. 23, 2024, ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] Atlanta encountered Ibarra pursuant to his arrest by the University of Georgia Police Department and being charged with murder and other crimes. ERO Atlanta lodged a detainer, the statement added. While an ICE spokesperson stood by the agency's record keeping, they could not really describe the dispute. ICE first said the NYPD arrested the suspect and released him before federal officials could even seek his detention. What did Brian Kemp say? Addressing the Athens-Clarke Chamber of Commerce this week, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Rileys death was "preventable." "First of all, [the family is] devastated. They are heartbroken. Marty and I both can understand. Our daughters are at the University of Georgia, and they work out in that same area [as Laken Riley]," Kemp said. "They're also mad like I am that this happened. It was preventable because we just have a nightmare in this country with mass migration and then have people that are here illegally breaking our laws and they're not telling anybody and reporting this to us, Kemp added. Riley was found dead near a lake on the University of Georgias campus in Athens last week with visible injuries, according to UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark. She died from "blunt force trauma," according to official police reports. Riley was found dead near a lake on the campus in Athens. She died from "blunt force trauma," according to official police reports. Riley was found to have visible injuries, according to UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark. New affidavits have revealed that Jose Antonio Ibarra, who has been accused of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, beat her so horrifically with an object that her skull was disfigured. What object he used was not specified. He likely did not know Riley, and abducted and killed her when she went for a run on the University of Georgia campus. This undated image provided by Augusta University shows Laken Hope Riley (Augusta University via AP)(AP) Jose Antonio Ibarra caused great bodily harm with an object Riley was found dead near a lake on the campus in Athens. She died from "blunt force trauma," according to official police reports. Riley was found to have visible injuries, according to UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. New charging documents have alleged that Ibarra caused great bodily harm with an object. Affidavits shared by Fox News says he was charged with aggravated battery for seriously disfiguring her body by disfiguring her skull. He is also charged with preventing the 22-year-old from making or completing a 911 call with intent to harm. He dragged her body to a secluded area. Ibarra, 26, an illegal immigrant, has been charged with malice and felony murder, aggravated battery, kidnapping, concealing the death of another and other charges. Police said the incident was a crime of opportunity. According to Clark, Ibarra does not have an extensive criminal history. The loop Riley went to run is easily accessible from behind Ibarras apartment complex. The scene where Riley was found dead is about a five-minute walk from Ibarras door. Laken was an amazing daughter, sister, friend The family of the slain student recently released a statement honouring her memory. We wish to thank the public for their prayers and thoughts during this tragic time, the familys statement read. Laken was an amazing daughter, sister, friend and overall person in general. Her love for the Lord was exemplified in every aspect of her life. She will be missed every day, but we promise to honor her life moving forward in a very big way. During this most difficult time, we ask that you respect our privacy, and provide us the time and space necessary to grieve our daughters life that was tragically cut short, the statement added. 21-year-old Paul Ferguson from Michigan confessed to having helped his mother, Shanda Vander Ark (44), in brutally torturing and starving his autistic brother to death. While in court, he pleaded for mercy and fairness. His 15-year-old brother Timothy reportedly died from malnourishment and hypothermia in 2022. Paul Ferguson faces up to 100 years in jail for helping his mother torture and starve his 15-year-old autistic brother to death. (YouTube / CourtTV) Ferguson urged his case through his tears in court two days ago. He ironically asked the judge for some compassion despite his brutal contribution in torturing the teenager to death, being undoubtedly devoid of any feeling of concern for his brother. In the aftermath, while the 21-year-old man came forward to voice his regrets, all his words rang hollow because the horrors of the mother-son duo had already impacted the young boy in 2022. Ferguson addressed the court, If I could do it all again, do it right, I would. I feel I will pay for my choices and yet never feel better, because he's still gone. (The Mirror US) Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Grand Rapids Press reported that, regardless of his claims to the court, the Judge looked past the idea of him having been manipulated by the killer-mother into committing the nightmarish act. The court believes Mr Ferguson is one step away from becoming a psychopath like his mother, said the Judge despite Ferguson's feeble reference to himself as a victim of something close to Stockholm Syndrome. Charges against Paul Ferguson and Shanda Vander Ark: He's been convicted of first-degree child abuse against his brother Timothy. On the flip side, the boys' mother, Shanda Vander Ark, has been sentenced to life in prison without any chance of parole. Also read: Kim Kardashian and Texas death row inmate Ivan Cantu connection explained Judge Matthew Kacel steered clear of the sentencing guidelines, suggesting a 9-15 year sentence. Instead of following the pre-established protocol, he issued Ferguson a sentence of a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 100 years. To which Muskegon County Chief Trial Prosecutor Matt Roberts further recommended mental health treatment for the 21-year-old while he served his time in jail since he could be a risk to the public. A more recent report by The Mirror stated that both convicted parties retched during the trial on being shown photos of the young boy who tragically passed away in July 2022 after suffering through horrific sadistic mistreatment. (Trigger Warning for disturbing content) More on what the Michigan man and his mother did to the 15-year-old autistic boy The afflicted boy weighed just 69 pounds when he died in 2022. Timothy was speech and motor impaired. Before he passed away, he was subjected to heinous mistreatments like long ice baths. The one before his death spanned nine hours. He wasn't allowed access to the fridge, which was locked up by the aforementioned mother-son duo. As a result, Timothy was only allowed to heat bread in hot sauce. His mother also reportedly installed motion sensors, alarms, and cameras around the cramped closet he used to sleep in. A distressing text shared between the pair revealed how the mother had considered putting hot sauce on the vulnerable kid's genitals as a form of punishment. "I wonder how it would feel to have that hot sauce on your private parts. I'm not saying touch him there, not at all, but dripping a little bit there, is that horrible," stated the twisted mother's question. Georgia nursing student Laken Rileys sister paid a heartbreaking tribute to her days after her tragic murder.Riley was found dead near a lake on the University of Georgia campus in Athens. She died from "blunt force trauma," according to official police reports. Riley was found to have visible injuries, according to UGA Police Chief Jeff Clark. Georgia nursing student Laken Rileys sister paid a heartbreaking tribute to her days after her tragic murder (llauren.phillipss/Instagram) The best sister and my built in best friend from the very first second. This isnt fair and I will never understand it but I know you are in heaven with the man you loved most right now, Rileys sister Llauren Phillipss wrote on Instagram, alongside a carousel of two photos of them. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Im not sure how Im going to do this but its all going to be for you from now on. I cannot wait to give you the biggest hug someday. I will miss and love you forever Laken, she added. Jose Antonio Ibarra accused of seriously disfiguring her body New affidavits have revealed thatJose Antonio Ibarra, who has been accused of killing Riley, beat her so horrifically with an object that her skull was disfigured. What object he used was not specified. He likely did not know Riley, and abducted and killed her when she went for a run on the University of Georgia campus. New charging documents have alleged that Ibarra caused great bodily harm with an object. Affidavits shared by Fox News says he was charged with aggravated battery for seriously disfiguring her body by disfiguring her skull. He is also charged with preventing the 22-year-old from making or completing a 911 call with intent to harm. He dragged her body to a secluded area. Ibarra, 26, an illegal immigrant, has been charged with malice and felony murder, aggravated battery, kidnapping, concealing the death of another and other charges. Police said the incident was a crime of opportunity. According to Clark, Ibarra does not have an extensive criminal history. The National Weather Service has issued several tornado warnings for various parts of the US. Through this report, we seek to alert the residents of numerous locations like Montgomery County, where a severe thunderstorm warning has been set in place until 5 am. All Miami Valley counties, minus Auglaize and Mercer, have been marked under the Tornado Watch until 6 am. While the initial warnings started trickling out on the NWS Tornado X (formerly Twitter) platform eleven hours ago, new updates have continued dropping on the internet, indicating more dangers ahead. A Tornado Watch was issued for Kentucky and Tennessee until 9 am EST.(X / NWS Tornado) These statements differ in severity as several have been marked Red under the Tornado Warning caution, urging citizens to take shelter without delay. These reminders alert people of the imminent dangers. However, a Tornado Watch is a simple cautionary reminder that a tornado is possible in these areas highlighted as Yellow. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Also read: Israel-Hamas indicate no deal likely after Biden signals Gaza ceasefire close Recent-most Tornado Watch/ Warnings issued by NWS Tornado Watch / Warning Locations Until Time Threat Information Potential Exposure Tornado Watch (Yellow) Parts of Kentucky and Tennessee Feb 28 - 9 am EST Couple of tornadoes expected Ping-pong-sized isolated hail possible Scattered guest up to 70 MPH Population: 2,106,825 Schools: 805 Hospitals: 60 Tornado Warning (Red) - continues Eaton OH, New Hope OH and Cambellstown OH Feb 28 - 4:15 am EST No hail expected Population: 14,538 Schools: 7 Hospitals: 0 Tornado Watch Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia Feb 28 - 10 am EST A couple of tornadoes expected Ping-pong-sized hail up expected Isolated gusts up to 70 MPH Population: 3,110,423 Schools: 1023 Hospitals: 58 Tornado Warning Springfield OH, Kettering OH and Beavercreek OH Feb 28 - 5 am EST No hail expected Population: 456,053 Schools: 125 Hospitals: 9 Tornado Warning Springfield OH, Fairborn OH and Cedarville OH Feb 28 - 5 am EST No hail expected Population: 155,957 Schools: 43 Hospitals: 2 Tornado Warning Mount Vernon OH, Apple Valley OH and Gambier OH Feb 28 - 6:15 am EST Tornado radar red-marks areas like Apple Valley, Gann, Centerburg, Brandon, Martinsburg. Pea-sized hail possible Population: 49,820 Schools: 18 Hospitals: 1 Tornado Warning Newark OH, Reynoldsburg OH and Gahanna OH Feb 28 - 6:15 am EST Tornado radar includes Gahanna, Reynoldsburg, Granville, Newark, Etna, Buckeye Lake, Pickerington, Canal Winchester, Carroll, Baltimore No hail Population: 511,090 Schools: 147 Hospitals: 4 More and more tornado warnings are being issued on the NWS Tornado X page. We suggest that you follow it for latest developments. Donald Trump won Michigan's Republican primary, with Nikki Haley losing yet another 2024 contest. Trumps victory comes after Haley lost in her home state, South Carolina. Haley, however, vowed to continue the fight. Nikki Haley speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at the Wings over the Rockies Exploration of Flight museum in Centennial, Colorado, on February 27, 2024 (Photo by Jason Connolly / AFP)(AFP) The Haley campaign characterised the Michigan loss as a bad sign for Trump. It noted that about one-third of Republican primary voters cast ballots for someone other than the former president. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. "Let this serve as another warning sign that what has happened in Michigan will continue to play out across the country," Haley campaign national spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement, according to NBC News. "So long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will keep losing to the socialist left. Our children deserve better." Before the Michigan winner was announced, Haley went on to defend her decision to stay in the race. "We've only seen a handful of states vote. I mean, look, I've said this before as much as the media wants to jump ahead, we're taking this one state, one day at a time," she told CNN's Dana Bash. We are in a ship with a hole in it Trump beat Haley in Iowa and New Hampshire, and in Nevada too, where Haley did not appear on the ballot. She was also beaten by Trump in the US Virgin Islands, before being defeated in South Carolina, and now in Michigan. Haley also said Trump is responsible for recent Republican losses in Michigan. "We are in a ship with a hole in it, and we can either go down with the ship and watch the country go socialist left, or we can see that we need to take the life raft and move in a new direction," Haley told CNN. She added that ever since Donald Trump became president, they've lost the governor's mansion. They've lost the state House. They've lost the state Senate.". Haley said there are so many unenthusiastic Republican voters because the former president is unable to pull voters into the party. You're seeing the same thing, whether you look at all the early states Donald Trump didn't get 40% of any of the Republican primary vote. It is a problem, Haley said. Hes not bringing people into the party he's pushing people out of the party. Im not giving up this fight Haley previously vowed to remain in the race at least until Super Tuesday. As many as 15 states and one territory will vote on March 5. In almost all of the upcoming contests, Trump has a lead. Im not giving up this fight when a majority of Americans disapprove of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Haley previously said. South Carolina has spoken. Were the fourth state to do so. In the next ten days, another 21 states and territories will speak. They have the right to a real choice, not a Soviet-style election with only one candidate. And I have a duty to give them that choice. Joe Biden's campaign and top Democratic officials vowed to double down on efforts to win back former supporters after being hit by a much stronger-than-anticipated protest vote in the Michigan primary over the president's support of Israel. US President Joe Biden (REUTERS) About 13.2% of Michigan Democrats cast a ballot for "uncommitted" in the nominating contest, following a weeks-long push by activists, an Edison Research tally showed after 9 a.m. (1400 GMT) on Wednesday. With about 85% of all votes counted, the uncommitted vote was already over 101,000 votes, far higher than expected. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Turnout for the Democratic primary was also high, at some 900,000 voters overall. About 81% of those votes backed Biden. As the results were being tallied, a senior Biden campaign official said the team will continue to "make our case in the state - to both uncommitted voters and the entire Michigan constituency. ... The president will continue to work for peace in the Middle East." Biden's staunch support for Israel during its five-month war with Hamas, which has decimated Gaza, has sparked outrage and a well-organized backlash among progressive Democrats and Arab Americans, with Michigan as their epicenter. They asked Biden to push for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, condition aid to Israel and for sympathetic Democrats to vote "uncommitted" in the primary to signal that Biden could lose their support in November's general election, aiming for 10,000 votes, a low figure historically. About 20,000 uncommitted votes were cast in Michigan's 2012 Democratic primary, the last time a Democratic president was up for reelection in the Midwestern state. Biden won Michigan by a less than 3% margin in 2020, and some polls show likely Republican candidate Donald Trump ahead in a head-to-head matchup this time. Also Read: Will Taylor Swift endorse Joe Biden? President says that's classified 'NOT AFRAID OF VOTERS' Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people and captured 253 hostages on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies, triggering Israel's ground assault on Gaza. Health authorities in the enclave say nearly 30,000 people have been confirmed killed. Michigan Democratic officials vowed to do more to win over voters. "Tomorrow is the first day of this general election, Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II told volunteers working on behalf of Biden as results rolled in on Tuesday night. We are not afraid of people participating in democracy. We are not afraid of voters. We are not afraid of people who are ready to speak out in good faith, in good conscience because they have good intentions," he said. Biden Michigan campaign manager Mike Frosolone told party organizers their efforts would pivot to the general election effort in the state, with door knocking, phone banking and the opening of several offices statewide. "We know when voters see President Biden and Donald Trump's record side by side, they're going to choose President Biden," he said. He said Biden would lay out this case in his State of the Union address on March 7. Biden, 81, faces low general approval ratings and concern about his age, as does former President Trump, 77. Trump was formally ordered to pay about $450 million for fraudulently manipulating his net worth by a New York judge this month and faces four unrelated criminal prosecutions, in which he has pleaded not guilty. Some 35% of Republicans backed former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in the Michigan primary, a potential sign of weakness for Trump as well. Some of her voters have said they won't back Trump in a general election. If Trump is reelected, he is expected to be a strong supporter of Israel and its right-wing leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. The issue is likely to shadow the U.S. presidential election until November, as the death toll in Gaza continues to climb, and the U.S. pushes for billions more aid for Israel, even as American officials push for a temporary ceasefire. A Reuters/IPSOS poll published Tuesday found "extremism" is the top worry for American voters going into the 2024 election, besting the economy or immigration, and that most judge Biden better equipped to deal with the issue. In a statement on Tuesday evening about the results, Biden contrasted himself with Trump on issues like abortion, healthcare and the economy but did not mention Gaza or the war in the Middle East. Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement on Wednesday that Michigan's primary results "make clear the people of Michigan are ready" to address issues this election could affect, including voting rights, gun violence and reproductive rights. But she did not mention the Middle East. Organizers of the uncommitted campaign said they'd continue to challenge Democrats. "Our delegation plans to hold the Democratic nominee accountable to our communitys anti-war agenda at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago" in August, said Listen to Michigan, one of the groups behind the campaign. "See you there." A fast-moving wildfire burning through the Texas Panhandle grew into the second-largest blaze in state history Wednesday, forcing evacuations and triggering power outages as firefighters struggled to contain the widening flames. The sprawling blaze was part of a cluster of fires that burned out of control and threatened rural towns.(AP ) The sprawling blaze was part of a cluster of fires that burned out of control and threatened rural towns, where local officials spent the night shutting down roads and urging residents to leave their homes. The largest of the fires which grew to nearly 800 square miles jumped into parts of neighboring Oklahoma and remained completely uncontained as dawn broke, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. Authorities have not said what ignited the fires, but strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures have fed the blazes. Near Borger, a community of about 13,000 people, emergency officials at one point late Tuesday answered questions from panicked residents during a Facebook livestream and told them to get ready to leave if they had not already. It was like a ring of fire around Borger. There was no way out ... all four main roads were closed, said Adrianna Hill, 28, whose home was within about a mile of the fire. She said a northern wind that blew the fire in the opposite direction saved our butts. Texas issues disaster declaration Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties. The main facility that disassembles Americas nuclear arsenal paused operations Tuesday night because of the encroaching flames but said it was open for normal work on Wednesday. The blazes tore through sparsely populated counties on the vast, high plains that are punctuated by cattle ranches and oil rigs. The main fire, known as the Smoke House Creek Fire, had grown to more than half the size of the state of Rhode Island. It is five times the size it was on Monday, when it began. The weather forecast provided some hope for firefighters cooler temperatures, less wind and possibly rain on Thursday. But for now, the situation was dire in some areas. As the evacuation orders mounted Tuesday, county and city officials implored residents to turn on emergency alert services on their cellphones and be ready to evacuate immediately. An unknown number of homes and other structures in the county were damaged or destroyed, local emergency officials said. The Pantex plant, northeast of Amarillo, evacuated nonessential staff Tuesday night out of an abundance of caution, said Laef Pendergraft, a spokesperson for National Nuclear Security Administrations Production Office at Pantex. Firefighters remained in case of an emergency. The plant, long the main U.S. site for both assembling and disassembling atomic bombs, completed its last new bomb in 1991 and has dismantled thousands since. Pantex tweeted early Wednesday that the facility is open for normal day shift operations and that all personnel were to report for duty according to their assigned schedule. Evacuations ordered As the fires raged Tuesday, evacuations were ordered in several towns in a swath northeast of Amarillo, and officials across the border in the area of Durham, Oklahoma, also encouraged people to flee. Texas state Sen. Kevin Sparks said an evacuation order was issued for Canadian, a town of about 2,000 about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Amarillo. Later Tuesday, the Hemphill County Sheriff's Office urged anyone who remained in Canadian to shelter in place or at the high school gym because roads were closed. At least some residents in the small city of Fritch in Hutchinson County were also told to leave their homes Tuesday afternoon because another fire had jumped a highway. Everything south of Highway 146 in Fritch evacuate now! city officials said on Facebook. On Tuesday evening, the fires were 20 to 25 miles (32 to 40 kilometers) from Amarillo, and wind was blowing smoke into the city, which could affect people with respiratory issues, National Weather Service officials said. The weather service issued red-flag warnings and fire-danger alerts for several other states through the midsection of the country, as winds of over 40 mph (64 kph) combined with warm temperatures, low humidity and dry winter vegetation to make conditions ripe for wildfires. In central Nebraska, a mower sparked a prairie fire that burned a huge swath of grassland roughly the size of the state's largest city of Omaha, state officials said Tuesday. Congresswoman Lauren Boebert and her family have long been entangled in a string of controversies that never seem to cease. Taking the cake, her 18-year-old son Tyler Boebert was arrested by the Rifle Police Department on Tuesday. He now faces 22 charges connected to property theft and vehicle trespasses. Lauren Boebert's family in Silt, Colorado.(Instagram, laurenboebert) Garfield County Jail's records state that young Boebert will face four counts of criminal possession of a financial device, four counts of criminal possession of ID documents, and one count of conspiracy to commit a felony. Additionally, he's also charged with four misdemeanour counts of ID theft, three misdemeanour counts of first-degree criminal trespass, three misdemeanour counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and three counts of the petty offense of theft. (Read more: Colorado Rep Lauren Boebert's 18-year-old son arrested, facing 22 charges connected to property theft) Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The 18-year-old's arrest may be the latest entry in the string of similar stories that have shrouded the Boebert family in utter controversial darkness. To settle into her 2024 congressional run, Lauren Boebert switched her campaign to Colorado's Fourth District, but her family turmoil continues to overtake the headlines. Despite her announcing her 2024 run a fresh start following a pretty difficult year for me and my family, in a Facebook video, her supposed fresh start has been tainted with similar rough patches that seem to share a warm affinity with antagonistic remarks, marring her professional resume. Lauren Boebert family controversies from recent memory Tyler Boebert car accident The February 27 arrest wasn't Tyler's first run-in with the system. In September 2022, he was accused of causing a car wreck, which left his friend Noble D'Amato with numerous concussions and a lacerated hand. Tyler, who was then only 17 years old, was issued a careless driving causing bodily injury ticket as he flipped his father's SUV into a creek bed. D'Amato, Tyler's 19-year-old friend (at the time of the accident), was riding alongside him. He still claims to have problems with his hand, inhibiting him from getting a welding job. D'Amato was also charged with unlawful possession of unprescribed Xanax pills. He insisted that though Tyler hadn't ingested any of the drug paraphernalia found on him at the time of the accident, he was still inconsiderately speeding off without a care in the world. If that wasn't all, D'Amato also suggested that Lauren Boebert had negated all his severe injuries in an attempt to sweep it all under the rug and cover up what her son was responsible for. Lauren Boebert forced to leave Beetlejuice musical for disruptive behaviour Nearly the entire Colorado Rep family tree is associated with contentious behaviour. She was forced to leave the Beetlejuice musical at Buell Theatre in Denver in September 2023. At the time, she had been accused of vaping near a pregnant woman, singing, recording and causing a disturbance during the ongoing performance. Complaints of her having allegedly groped her date, Quinn Gallagher, came to the surface. An official Denver Arts & Venues report ultimately stated that the duo was asked to leave. However, when they disagreed, they were told they would be seen as trespassers if they didn't. Even then, the pair didn't comply despite the officials' threats to bring in the Denver Police. Addressing the issue through a subsequent tweet, her official Congress account posted: "It's true, I did thoroughly enjoy the AMAZING Beetlejuice at the Buell Theatre and I plead guilty to laughing and singing too loud!". Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene's Allies-to-Enemies twist There seems to be no end to Boebert's brushes with questionable behaviour or statements. Even before her Beetlejuice incident, she had her Georgia Rep counterpart call her a little bi*** during their standoff on the House floor as they fought over their claim to file articles of impeachment against President Biden. Lauren Boebert's Islamophobic jokes There's always been a bad taste in the Republican's political rivalries. In May 2021, she accused Democratic Rep Ilhan Omar of being a full-time propagandist for Hamas on social media. Following that, at a Staten Island Conservative Party dinner in September, when Boebert again encountered Omar in an elevator, she called her a Jihad Squad member to her face. Thereafter, she reportedly also described Rashida Tlaib, another Muslim political rival, as one of the black-hearted evil women (The Independent). Lauren Boebert's ex-husband Jayson Boebert arrested Colorado Rep Lauren Boebert sought her aforementioned fresh start from her old ties with ex-husband Jayson. In January 2024, the 43-year-old was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanour assault and criminal mischief. His arrest followed an altercation between the feuding ex-partners. Jayson proclaimed himself a victim of domestic violence, alleging that Lauren had punched him multiple times at a restaurant. His claims against the congresswoman were unfounded. Another police report shed light on Jayson allegedly assaulting his son, Tyler Boebert, in January 2024, just days after his row with the Colorado Rep had a less-than-flattering brush with the limelight. Rep Lauren Boebert filed for divorce from Jayson Boebert in May 2023, after almost 20 years of marriage. Millions of people will have an opportunity to witness a total solar eclipse that will pass over North America on April 8, bringing back August 2017 memories when nearly 215 million Americans viewed the solar eclipse, either directly or electronically. Millions of people will have an opportunity to witness a total solar eclipse that will pass over North America on April 8,(AP) In the United States, weather permitting, sky watchers in 15 states will be able watch the moon completely covering the sun, spreading its shadow over the flaming orb forming the illusion of a ring in the sky. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. According to NASA, the solar eclipse will start over the South Pacific Ocean and then it will cross North America, passing over Mexico, the US, and Canada. This total solar eclipse is part of a recurring series of eclipses that last struck North America in 1970 and will return in 2078. Also Read: Total Solar Eclipse 2024: Best US state to watch the rare celestial event Texas county announces state of emergency ahead of eclipse Meanwhile, officials in Bell County, Texas, have declared a state of emergency ahead of the total solar eclipse. The decision has been taken as the county is situated in what is known as the path of totality, expecting the influx of eclipse viewers in the area. It may lead to traffic congestion, food and shortages and cellular network congestion. According to the most recent census, Bell County has a year-round population that's slightly less than 400,000, but that figure might rise to nearly a million by April 8, the day of the much-anticipated event. "Projections are for this influx of people to begin occurring as early as several days before April 8th, with an outmigration occurring in the few hours immediately following the eclipse this year," Bell County Judge David Blackburn said in a press conference as per Fox Weather. If these numbers manifest themselves, the strain that this will put on our infrastructure will be significant. Everything from our first responders, to our health care systems, to our fueling stations, to our highways, to our emergency management stations and more. All of these could be severely strained by the influx of people. In a statement, the officials said property owners who intend to organise events with more than 50 participants are required to register with the county to ensure proper "life safety and critical infrastructure" is in place. "Registering information will provide public safety officials and first responders with important information that will aid them during this period when roads and highways may be stressed, and responders may be impeded by population conditions," according to the press release. What is solar eclipse and who will be able to witness it? Solar eclipses represent the fundamental cosmic confluences that take place when the sun, moon, and Earth align. The moon moves in front of the sun, temporarily limiting its light. The moon can completely cover the sun, as in total solar eclipses, or it may obscure only a portion of its light, as in partial solar eclipses. The experts called the forthcoming total solar eclipse unique since it will pass across more populated parts of the continental United States as compared to previous total solar eclipses. After crossing Mexico, the eclipse will pass through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. If circumstances are clear, people residing in Michigan and Tennessee will be able to see it. The eclipse will travel over southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward. The eclipse will exit continental North America on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at 5:16 p.m. NDT, NASA said. A partial solar eclipse will be visible in 48 states of the continental US. NASA with support of other organisations intends to webcast live views of the total solar eclipse online. When to watch total solar eclipse? The timing and duration of totality may vary based on location, however certain areas will be enveloped by darkness with the moon entirely covering the sun for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds. NASA has published a list of timings for certain populated locations along the path of totality. This table provides the time that totality begins in some U.S. cities in the path of totality. These areas will also experience a partial eclipse before and after these times.(NASA) How to watch total solar eclipse? People are advised to never look directly at the sun during a solar eclipse, even whether it is partially or completely obscured by the moon. One must wear special eclipse glasses or use pinhole projectors to see solar eclipse. One has to make sure that their binoculars, telescopes, or camera lenses are equipped with solar filters. However, avoid using eclipse glasses with them. According to NASA, failure to take adequate safeguards will result in serious eye injury. NASA is financing various research programs for the 2024 total eclipse, which build on previous studies from 2017. The programs, led by experts from several academic institutions, will use an array of technologies to investigate the Sun and its impact on Earth, such as cameras on high-altitude research planes and ham radios. Watch: A tour of NASAs 2024 Solar Eclipse Map The organizers of Michigans Democratic presidential primary hope that a large number of uncommitted votes will send a strong message to Joe Biden and the Democrats that they are unhappy with their stance on the conflict in Gaza, which could affect their support in the November election. Joe Biden faces backlash from uncommitted voters over Gaza Conflict. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo(REUTERS) Michigan is a crucial swing state, where Arab and Muslim Americans form a significant voting bloc. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. This option is part of a campaign to protest the presidents and the partys approach to the Israel-Hamas war. At a watch party hosted by Listen to Michigan, a group behind the campaign, the crowd erupts in cheers as Abbas Alawieh, a spokesperson for the group, announces that uncommitted has surpassed 11,000 votes, with more than 73 per cent of the total vote reported so far about the same as Donald Trumps margin of victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, which was their goal. This is a resounding victory for our countrys pro-Palestinian, antiwar movement, Alawieh said. ALSO READ| Michigan Primary 2024: Joe Biden wins the Democratic primary The Democratic candidate, Rep. Dean Phillips, who has little chance of winning, said to CNN that Biden has more troubles than the uncommitted vote in Michigan before the November election. For over eighteen months Ive been trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to wake my party up from its delusion about the presidents fitness to compete in this election, Phillips said. The uncommitted vote in Michigan is not even his biggest worry. The campaign is not unprecedented In 2012, when President Barack Obama was the only candidate on the ballot, uncommitted got about 10% of the vote. In 2008, when the Democratic National Committee penalized Michigan for moving up its primary, uncommitted came in second place to Clinton with more than 40% of the vote, as Obama and Edwards had withdrawn their names from the ballot. The organizers said they were inspired by this example. The Biden campaign is well aware of the attention that the uncommitted vote campaign is getting in Michigan before tonights primary. ALSO READ| Michigan Primary 2024 : Donald Trump wins the GOP primary alongside Joe Biden The Biden campaign will also emphasize that they are reaching out to other voters in Michigan, besides those who are dissatisfied with their policy on the Israel-Hamas war. They will highlight their efforts to appeal to union voters, whom Biden met with in Michigan last month, as well as Black voters and women, who are vital for the Democratic base. Uncommitted voters will lead the war to Chicago The Democratic floor leader of the Michigan House of Representatives, Abraham Aiyash, announced their plan to take their anti-war campaign to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Were going to Chicago, he said. Were going to be at the Democratic National Convention - pushing and growing this anti-war movement. ELKO A westbound Union Pacific freight train hauling tons of grain derailed and crashed into the 12th Street Bridge early Wednesday, officials said. No one was injured, but the eastbound train's derailment will likely shut down traffic on the east-west rails for "two to three days," one worker at the scene said on Wednesday morning. In addition, the 12th Street Bridge was being assessed for damage after one of the cars slammed into a key piling and came to rest on its side. With the 12th Street Bridge closed, motorists were being rerouted to Fifth Street, backing up traffic into the late morning as far as the Lamoille Summit and delaying commuters. The derailment was reported about 4:52 a.m. with at least 16 cars carrying grain derailed, affecting both eastbound and westbound rail travel. This means both freight and passenger rail traffic will be suspended until the tracks reopen. In a brief emailed statement to the Elko Daily Free Press, Union Pacific spokesperson Robynn Tysver said "cleanup at the site is underway." She said there was "no estimate on when" the bridge or Water Street would reopen. "Although there is no visual damage, structural engineers from the Nevada Department of Transportation are en route to inspect the 12th Street Bridge, before it will be allowed to reopen. "The cause of the incident is under investigation." Power lines in the area were struck, with an unknown number of customers affected, according to the Elko County Sheriffs Office. NV Energy's website showed fewer than 100 utility customers were without power about noon Wednesday, but it was unclear if those were related to the derailment. The Elko County Sheriffs Office reported no one appeared to be injured and no hazardous materials were onboard the cars involved in the derailment. Motorists were directed to take Lamoille Highway to Fifth Street, with drivers going to Spring Creek advised use the same route to avoid the closure. A noon commute from Spring Creek took about 30 minutes to reach downtown Elko with all the detours in place. Elko police said the 12th Street Bridge was "expected to be closed for at least the next 24 hours." Mayor Reece Keener said in an email to the Elko Daily Free Press the city is working with the railroad, state transportation officials, the state Department of Public Safety, state Sen. Pete Goicoechea to "reopen the 12th Street Bridge just as soon as possible." "Our primary concern right now is hoping that the bridges structural integrity hasnt been compromised by the derailment," he said. "Provided that the bridge passes the NDOT engineering inspection, planning can commence for the bridges reopening," Keener said. "At this point, it appears that the earliest possibility would be on Thursday. "Prior to reopening, there are several railcars that are resting against the bridge columns that must first be removed before the structure can be inspected for damage. Preliminarily, it appears that the damage was minimal to the bridge. However, the full scope of damage cannot be determined until the [railroad] crane arrives this afternoon to remove the railcars." In an update about noon, the police department said "work on the derailment continues. Personnel from the Elko City Street Department and Nevada Department of Transportation are working to ensure the safe flow of traffic during peak commuter hours." It said there will be detours for the afternoon commute to Spring Creek. "The 5th Street Bridge and the Errecart Bridge are still open and available for both north and southbound traffic." The bridge will remain closed until the Union Pacific can safely maneuver around the area, the Fire Department said. Keener said Union Pacific "owns the right of way in which the 12th Street Bridge is situated. The city of Elko is at the mercy of the NDOT opinion of structural integrity, and the green light from [the railroad] before the bridge can be reopened to traffic." He said he and other city officials are "thankful that the payload was agricultural products, and not noxious chemicals." "We are further blessed that there were no injuries involved in this 5 a.m. derailment. This unfortunate event underscores and magnifies the importance of secondary connectivity between the Elko and Spring Creek communities. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. Wildfires are wreaking havoc in northern Texas, fueled by dry, windy, and unseasonably warm conditions. An aerial view of the scorching wildfire across Texas panhandle.(X/Patrick Ryan (@pmcelligott)) On Monday, thirteen fires scorched a staggering 77,135 acres, as the Texas A&M Forest Service reported. Firefighters are still battling multiple active blazes across the Texas panhandle. Hindustan Times - your fastest source for breaking news! Read now. The Smokehouse Creek fire, situated at the northernmost tip, remains uncontained and spans an estimated 200,000 acres. In contrast, the Windy Deuce and Grape Vine Creek fires are 20 per cent contained, while the Juliet Pass fire boasts a 90 per cent containment rate. Emergency evacuations in full swing Emergency evacuation orders are in effect for several counties as flames relentlessly consume the region. Meanwhile, in eastern Texas, the Mills Creek and San Jacinto fires continue to rage, both uncontained. ALSO READ| Total Solar Eclipse 2024: Best US state to watch the rare celestial event These infernos were stoked by dry and windy conditions, exacerbated by unseasonably high temperatures. Interestingly, drought conditions do not play a significant role; much of the panhandle remains drought-free, with only small pockets in the western region classified as abnormally dry or experiencing moderate drought. Today, the National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts winds reaching up to 65 miles per hour. As Tuesday afternoon unfolds, additional fires persistently emerge, as noted by the NWS for Amarillo, Texas. We have seen tragedy today As wildfires rage across Texas, more than 200 people have taken refuge in a church in Fritch, where the air is thick with smoke and flames are visible from the windows, according to church leaders. Kirksey and Bobby Mac, two of the church elders, said the situation was dire and they hoped for rain. Meanwhile, the sheriff's office said that the Windy Deuce Fire has burned more than 20,000 acres and is still out of control in Moore County. ALSO READ| Laken Riley murder: Immigration laws under fire after new revelations about killer We have seen tragedy today and we have seen miracles, the sheriffs office wrote on Facebook. Today was a historic event we hope never happens again. The panhandle needs prayers. A local hospital district in Canadian, Texas has moved its patients and residents of two senior living facilities to a safer location in Pampa, about 50 miles away, according to a Facebook post. 3 wildfires scorching Texas Heres the current wildfire status in Texas: Smokehouse Creek Fire: Location: Hutchinson County Size: 250,000 acres Containment: 0% Windy Deuce Fire: Location: Moore County Size: 38,000 acres Containment: 20% Grape Vine Creek Fire: On Tuesday, the Kremlin cautioned that there would be an inevitable confrontation between Russia and the NATO alliance led by the United States if European NATO nations dispatched forces to participate in the conflict in Ukraine. Russia's Western relations are currently facing their most severe crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, triggered by the ongoing war in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin has previously emphasized the risks of a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. French President Emmanuel Macron opened the door on Monday to European nations sending troops to Ukraine, although he said that there is no unanimous agreement at this stage, reported Reuters. "The very fact of discussing the possibility of sending certain contingents to Ukraine from NATO countries is a very important new element," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about Macron's remarks. Asked by reporters about the risks if NATO members sent their troops to fight in Ukraine, Peskov said: "In that case, we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability (of a direct conflict)." What Do Members Of NATO Think? According to The Associated Press, Germany and Poland say they're not sending troops to Ukraine. Moscow issued the warning a day after Macron's meeting with officials from over 20 Western countries supporting Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told The Associated Press that "NATO allies are providing unprecedented support to Ukraine. We have done that since 2014 and stepped up after the full-scale invasion. But there are no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine." However, despite ruling out NATO military action, Stoltenberg told the AP "that this is a war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine, blatantly violating international law. According to international law, Ukraine of course has the right to self-defense, and we have the right to support them in upholding that right." The Paris conference follows the signing of 10-year bilateral security agreements by France, Germany, and the U.K. with Ukraine as part of Kyiv's efforts to strengthen Western support. Meanwhile, the U.S. has denied Russian claims that it wants to destroy Russia but earlier this month, Biden called Putin a "crazy SOB." U.S. sources allege Russia is planning to put a nuclear weapon in space. A tragic incident unfolded in the remote community of Point Hope late Sunday evening, shaking the tranquil atmosphere of this small Inupiat whaling village nestled on Alaska's northwest coast. A 16-year-old teenager stands accused of perpetrating a horrifying shooting spree that claimed the lives of two individuals and left two others severely wounded, according to court documents filed Monday in the second judicial district at Kotzebue. Suspect Faces First-Degree Murder Charges The suspect, whose name is Guy Nashookpuk, faces charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder. On Sunday, North Slope Borough police respondedto a distress call reporting gunfire erupting from a local residence around 11:35 p.m. Upon arrival, authorities discovered the grim aftermath - two individuals, a man, and a woman, had tragically lost their lives, while two men lay critically injured, all victims of gunshot wounds. Eyewitness accounts provided crucial details to investigators, with one witness recounting the harrowing sight of the armed teenager entering the home and unleashing a barrage of gunfire. Another witness reported seeing the suspect fleeing the scene on a vehicle shortly after the deadly assault. Ten minutes later, the suspect arrived at the Point Hope police station accompanied by his father, who disclosed his son's admission of responsibility for the shooting. While the motive behind this senseless act remains shrouded in mystery, the gravity of the situation has reverberated across the close-knit community of Point Hope. "In the days ahead, we will come together as a community to heal and support one another," Mayor Josiah Patkotak stated in a Facebook post, reflecting the community's resilience in the face of tragedy. Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy expressed profound sorrow over the tragedy, emphasizing the need for healing and justice in the wake of such devastating loss. "Our hearts ache for the families and residents affected by this senseless act," he wrote on Facebook, "We will continue to pray for healing and justice." Read Also: Indiana Teacher Found Dead in School Stairwell After Mysterious Disappearance Teen's Prosecution in Adult Court The teenage suspect is being prosecuted as an adult as state law permits minors aged 16 and older to be tried in adult court for murder charges, as confirmed by the Alaska Department of Law. However, there was no lawyer listed for the teen in online court records. Nome District Attorney John Earthman stated that Guy Nashookpuk was set to have his initial court appearance via telephone on Tuesday. This heart-wrenching incident has prompted the closure of Tikigaq School on Monday, with attendance on Tuesday left optional, allowing parents to prioritize comforting their children during this tumultuous time. "It is totally optional if you'd rather keep your kids home to hold, hug, and explain the circumstance to them," Patkotak announced in a Facebook post. The North Slope Borough has mobilized resources to offer support and counseling services to the community, recognizing the deep emotional toll exacted by this tragedy. Meanwhile, Patkotak reassured the public that there is "no ongoing risk" to community safety. "This was an isolated incident and the suspect is currently in custody," he said. Related Article: NYC Bodega Worker Dies After Being Shot for Refusing to Give Away Cigar Former President Donald Trump has secured victory in Michigan's Republican primary. The win adds to Trump's strong performance in this year's presidential primaries and caucuses, even with the ongoing campaign of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. Trump Wins Michigan Republican Primary Michigan features a two-part nominating contest for the GOP. Out of the state's 55 delegates to the Republican National Convention, only 16 will be determined by Tuesday's primary outcomes. The final delegates will be determined at a state party convention on Saturday, according to NBC News. Michigan was called for Trump by The Associated Press at 9:00 p.m. EST, just as the final polls closed. The AP also announced President Joe Biden as the winner on the Democratic side. Meanwhile, with a combination of voters and party insiders involved in the convention process, polling on the GOP race has been scarce. The impact of Trump in the state continues to be significant. He played a significant role in the 2022 midterms, supporting a group of statewide candidates who won their primaries with his assistance - but unfortunately, all of them were defeated in the general election. At a rally in Waterford Township on February 17, Trump focused on a November rematch with President Joe Biden, largely overlooking the upcoming primary contest. Haley made campaign stops on Sunday in the Detroit suburb of Troy and on Monday in Grand Rapids. Having not won any primary or caucus leading up to Tuesday, including in her home state of South Carolina, Haley has shifted her focus to what she perceives as Trump's inability to win in the upcoming election. Michigan, which saw a close race in 2016 with Trump and in 2020 with Biden, is anticipated to be a highly contested electoral battleground this fall. For her part, Haley has promised to continue pushing forward through Super Tuesday. However, she has adamantly declined to commit to anything further than that. When questioned on Friday about her commitment to campaign until the last person votes, Haley clarified that she was only referring to the last person in South Carolina, which had its primary on Saturday. Another indication that Haley's bid may not be sustainable long-term is the decision by Americans for Prosperity Action, a conservative group established by the billionaire Koch brothers, to stop funding her campaign. Up to this point, Haley has been able to concentrate on one state at a time. She invested significantly in New Hampshire and South Carolina, coming in second in both with 43% and 40% of the vote, respectively - largely thanks to her strong backing from independent voters, who could take part in those states' open primaries. However, Haley has only secured 20 delegates up to this point, while Trump has won over five times. In South Carolina, Trump won 47 delegates compared to Haley's 3. Registered Republicans who strongly support the former president tend to dominate open primary contests, and the winner-take-all rules ensure that the first-place finisher receives most of the available delegates. South Carolina, Haley's home state, could have been a standout moment. As per Politico, Haley has already organized rallies (or will soon) in the upcoming states of North Carolina, Virginia, Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, and Massachusetts, with her campaign planning to reveal more events this week. Haley is on track to organize a minimum of 10 fundraisers in the 10 days leading up to Super Tuesday. The team is particularly concentrated on states with open primaries and histories of backing more moderate Republicans. However, they are aware that the chances of an upset are decreasing, as Haley's campaign manager informed the press on Friday. In Vermont, Maine, and Virginia, recent polls indicate that Haley is behind Trump by significant margins: 30 points, 58 points, and 59 points, respectively. Related Article: New York Democrats Reject Proposed Bipartisan Maps, Plan to Redraw Housing Districts Biden-Trump Potential Rematch According to AP News, Michigan's primary may pose significant political challenges for Biden and Trump as they move closer to securing their presidential nominations. Trump, despite his strong performance in the Republican contests this year, is up against a group of GOP voters who are firmly supporting Haley and who have doubts about the former president's chances in a rematch against Biden. Regarding the current president, Biden is facing a significant challenge in the form of a motivated group of disappointed voters who are unhappy with his approach to the conflict in Gaza and his close ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These dynamics will face a significant challenge in Michigan, the final major primary state before Super Tuesday and a crucial swing state in November's general election. Even if they achieve strong wins as anticipated on Tuesday, both campaigns will be closely examining the margins for any indications of vulnerability in a state that favored Biden by only 3 percentage points in the previous election. In a recent Michigan radio interview, Biden mentioned that the state would play a crucial role in determining the winner in November. Michigan boasts the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the country. Over 310,000 residents have roots in the Middle East or North Africa. Approximately half of Dearborn's population of around 110,000 residents have Arab heritage. This location has emerged as a focal point for Democratic frustration with the White House's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has been ongoing for almost five months since Hamas' attack and abduction of over 200 hostages on October 7. Israel has launched attacks on many parts of Gaza in retaliation, resulting in the deaths of almost 30,000 individuals, with a majority being women and children, as per Palestinian reports. Democrats are upset with Biden for backing Israel's offensive and not agreeing to a cease-fire. They are urging voters to choose "uncommitted" instead. The initiative, which started recently, has received support from figures like Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress, and former Rep. Andy Levin, who was defeated in a Democratic primary two years ago following significant spending by pro-Israel groups. Related Article: Michigan Could Make or Break Campaign of Biden or Trump China is now calling for a no-first-use treaty among countries with massive nuclear arsenals. The Chinese foreign ministry's arms control department also urges the United Nations to protect non-nuclear weapons states. Chinese Foreign Ministry Arms Control Department's Director General Sun Xiaobo called out nuclear states to fulfill their "special and priority responsibilities." China Calls for No-First-Use of Nuclear Weapons During a Geneva weekly meeting on Monday, Feb. 26, Sun Xiaobo said that the UN Conference on Disarmament must define a timetable or roadmap for an international instrument. He added that this international instrument should be able to protect countries and fewer nuclear weapons from the threats posed by other nuclear states. What Sun Xiaobo said is quite surprising given the fact that China is one of the most feared countries when it comes to nuclear arsenal expansions. "Nuclear-weapon states should negotiate and conclude a treaty on no-first-use of nuclear weapons against each other or make a political statement in this regard," explained the official via Yahoo News. Read Also: Putin Flies in Upgraded Nuclear-Capable Bomber, Reminding NATO of Russian Capabilities China Already Follows No-First-Use Policy As of the moment, China and India are the only two nuclear states that officially maintain a no-first-use policy. Other superpower nations, such as the United States and Russia don't formally follow this rule. Aside from nuclear weapons, Sun Xiaobo said that the UN disarmament forum should also tackle the risks posed by artificial intelligence, space missions, and cyber technologies. The Chinese official said that the international strategic security situation has new challenges since powerful states (in terms of military power) repeatedly broke treaties just to seek their "own absolute superiority." China's Nuclear Arsenals Continue To Grow According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' 2024 Nuclear Notebook, China's nuclear arsenals are growing significantly. As of writing, the Asian nation already has over 500 nuclear warheads. But, China is expected to produce more to equip future delivery systems. Among the top nuclear states, China is considered to be one of the countries that have the fastest-growing nuclear arsenals. In October 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense shared its predictions regarding China's nuclear weapons. The first one was that China would have 400 nuclear warheads. Since Beijing already has more than 500, it already exceeded this expectation. The second prediction is that China could have over 1,000 operable nuclear weapons as early as 2030. DoD officials claim that the Asian nation could deploy these nuclear arsenals at "higher readiness levels." Related Article: IAEA Warns of Iran's Nuclear Capabilities as Uranium Stockpile Grows The Beverly Hills Police Department announced that it is investigating after a Southern California middle school reported last week that students were allegedly involved in creating and sharing nude images generated using artificial intelligence that featured classmates' faces. School officials at Beverly Vista Middle School were informed of the "AI-generated nude photos" of students last week, and the district superintendent wrote a letter to parents. Police Investigate Beverly Hills Incident According to NBC News, Beverly Hills Unified School District Superintendent Michael Bregy said that the images featured the faces of students overlayed on nude bodies. The district did not disclose how it determined the images were produced with artificial intelligence. A student at Beverly Vista who did not want to be identified said it was very scary, and people do not feel safe to come to school. Beverly Hills Police Lt. Andrew Myers told NBC News that the police received a call from the school district last week and made a report about the incident. Myers said a noncriminal investigation is in progress. He continued that no further information can be shared as the investigation involves minors. The Beverly Hills case comes after a series of similar incidents involving students editing and sharing AI-generated nude images of their female classmates at high schools worldwide. In January, a New Jersey teen victim spoke to federal lawmakers in Washington, DC, to support a federal law that would make all nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes illegal. However, no such federal law exists. In a letter to parents obtained by NBC News, Bregy described the deepfake incident as part of a disturbing and unethical use of AI plaguing the nation. Bregy wrote that they strongly urge Congress and federal and state governments to take immediate and decisive action to protect their children from the potential dangers of unregulated AI technology. He continued that they call for the passing of legislation and enforcement of laws that not only punish perpetrators to deter future acts but also strictly regulate evolving AI technology to prevent misuse. Furthermore, Bregy informed NBC News that the student offenders would face consequences by the district's policies. He claimed those students had been expelled from the school pending the district investigation results. He continued that the punishment for student offenders would vary based on their level of involvement in producing and sharing the photos, ranging from suspension to expulsion. Read Also: New Zealand to Repeal World-First Smoking Ban Amid Life-Threatening Warnings Rights Group Criticizes California Law In 2020, California introduced a law that allows victims of nonconsensual sexually explicit deepfakes to sue those who generated and circulated the material. The plaintiff can recover up to $15,000 in damages if it is determined that the offender acted maliciously. However, it is unclear whether damages have been awarded under the law. Mary Anne Franks, a professor at George Washington University Law School and president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, stated that what occurred at Beverly Vista Middle School is still not illegal in California. Not all nude depictions of children are legally considered pornographic, so without further information about what the images depict, their legality is unclear. Franks claimed that the civil action in California could potentially apply there but said it was always difficult for victims to identify who the perpetrators are, get the legal assistance they need, and pursue the case. Related Article: Taylor Swift's Explicit AI-Generated Images Outrage Fans on Social Media Authorities from Florida confirmed that the state's 7th case of measles has been recorded in a student from an elementary school. The development was confirmed on Tuesday by Health officials with the Broward County Public School (BCPS) being informed by the Florida Department of Health - Broward about the new case. The infection was linked to the Manatee Bay Elementary located in Weston, which is located roughly 20 miles west of Fort Lauderdale. Florida Measles Outbreak The affected patient was said to have not been physically on campus since Feb. 15 and the district and school were continuing to work with the health department regarding other cases. The superintendent for BCPS, Dr. Peter Licata, said on Tuesday that no other schools in the district have been affected by the measles case. He added that they were conducting daily cleaning on school buses as well as the facility above and beyond normal operations. Licata added that they have additional vaccination opportunities which are available online, as per ABC News. The medical professional then thanked the administration and the teachers and staff at Manatee Bay for their continued dedication to the educational institution. He also announced that as of that morning, only 82 students were absent, which is a drop compared to a week ago when roughly 220 were not in school. The initial measles case was confirmed earlier this month in a third-grade student who had no travel history. It remained unclear which grades the other infected students were in as well as other identifying information regarding the patients' age, sex, and race or ethnicity. The state currently has a total of 10 confirmed measles cases with nine confirmed in Broward County and the last one in Polk County. There have been at least 35 measles cases reported this year across 15 states based on information released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Read Also: West Virginia's Bill for Child Vaccine Religious Exemptions Criticized by Health Experts Confirmed Cases Among Children Now, health officials from across the United States are calling for parents and state officials to take additional steps to protect students. In a letter last week, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said that the health department is "deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance" during the measles outbreak, according to CNN. Out of the 10 student cases, seven were among children aged between five and 14 years and two others were younger than four. Measles is said to be a highly contagious disease that can cause complications and even be fatal in some cases. Symptoms of the disease could include fever, cough, runny nose, watery eyes, and a rash of red spots. In rare instances, it could even lead to pneumonia, encephalitis, or death. Measles can also weaken a patient's immune system and "delete" its immune memory. Ladap said that when measles is detected in a school, the typical recommendation is that individuals without a history of prior infection or vaccination stay home for up to three weeks. He noted that this is the period of time that the virus can be transmitted to other potential hosts, said People. Related Article: Colorectal Cancer on the Rise in Those 50 and Younger, African Americans Are Most At Risk Amid the ongoing presidential primaries in the US, there are concerns about popular chatbots spreading inaccurate information that could potentially impact voter participation. A recent report, compiled by artificial intelligence experts and a bipartisan group of election officials, highlights the risks associated with this issue. AI Chatbots Serve Inaccurate US Election Information Fifteen states and one territory are gearing up for the upcoming presidential nominating contests next week on Super Tuesday. Many individuals are already utilizing chatbots powered by artificial intelligence to access essential information, such as details on the voting process. Having been fed vast amounts of text from the internet, chatbots like GPT-4 and Google's Gemini are equipped with AI-generated responses. However, they have been known to direct voters to non-existent polling locations or provide illogical answers based on outdated information, according to the findings. "The chatbots are not prepared to provide crucial, detailed information about elections for the general public," stated Seth Bluestein, a Republican city commissioner in Philadelphia. Bluestein, along with other election officials and AI researchers, tested the chatbots as part of a larger research project last month. An AP journalist witnessed the group gathering at Columbia University, testing the responses of five large language models to prompts about the election, like where a voter could locate their nearest polling place, and then evaluating the generated responses. All five models tested - OpenAI's GPT-4, Meta's Llama 2, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and Mixtral from the French company Mistral - showed different levels of failure when questioned about the democratic process, as outlined in the report summarizing the workshop's results. During the workshop, over half of the chatbots' responses were deemed inaccurate by participants. Additionally, 40% of the responses were considered harmful, as they spread outdated and incorrect information that could potentially restrict voting rights, according to the report. For instance, when individuals inquired the chatbots about voting locations in the ZIP code 19121, a predominantly Black community in northwest Philadelphia, Google's Gemini responded negatively. Read Also: Mobile World Congress 2024: What Does the Future of Smart Phones Look Like? AI Regulating Laws Still on Table Meanwhile, individuals utilizing AI are facing additional challenges. Google recently halted its Gemini AI picture generator, with plans to reintroduce it in the coming weeks, due to the technology generating information with historical inaccuracies and other troubling responses. When requested to depict a German soldier during World War 2 under Nazi rule, Gemini reportedly offered a variety of racially diverse images, as per the Wall Street Journal. "They claim to subject their models to thorough safety and ethics testing," Maria Curi, a journalist specializing in technology policy, informed CBS News. "The testing processes are not clearly defined." People have been uncovering historical inaccuracies, raising concerns about the timing of releasing these models to the public. A Meta spokesperson, Daniel Roberts, informed the Associated Press that the most recent discoveries are considered insignificant as they do not accurately reflect how individuals engage with chatbots. Anthropic announced its upcoming release of a new version of its AI tool to offer precise voting information in the near future. In an email to CBS MoneyWatch, Meta highlighted that Llama 2 serves as a model for developers rather than a tool for consumers. "When we submitted the same prompts to Meta AI - the product the public would use - the majority of responses directed users to resources for finding authoritative information from state election authorities, which is exactly how our system is designed," a Meta spokesperson said. OpenAI announced its intention to continue developing its approach as it gains more insights into the usage of its tools, without providing detailed information. Google and Mistral have not yet responded to requests for comment. In Nevada, where same-day voter registration has been permitted since 2019, four out of five chatbots tested by researchers incorrectly claimed that voters would be prevented from registering weeks before Election Day. "It scared me, more than anything, because the information provided was wrong," stated Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, a Democrat who took part in last month's testing workshop. A recent poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy found that a majority of adults in the US are concerned about the potential for AI tools to amplify false and misleading information during the upcoming elections. However, laws regulating AI in politics have not been passed by Congress in the US yet. Currently, the responsibility of overseeing the chatbot technology falls on the tech companies themselves. Related Article: US Alarmed by China's Taiwan Threat; Relies on AI to Decipher Invasion Intentions MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Three Minnesota first responders who were gunned down while responding to a report of a domestic incident at a home with seven children inside were remembered at a memorial service Wednesday as heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice. The Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville has been in mourning in the week and a half since police Officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27, and firefighter-paramedic Adam Finseth, 40, were slain. Investigators say Shannon Gooden, 38, opened fire on them without warning during a standoff at his home, then later killed himself. Sgt. Adam Medlicott, 38, who was wounded but survived, recalled with humor how Elmstrand, as a rookie, once referred excitedly to a getaway car as a go-away vehicle." And he told how an inexperienced Ruge didn't know what to say on a call when a young woman in crisis resisted going to addiction treatment, and admitted afterward that he messed up. But he said Ruge grew as an officer and was doing an amazing job as a crisis negotiator on the day he was killed. You cant reason with evil, he said. Medlicott went on to say that he didn't know Finseth as well. But I saw you run into the line of fire to save me and my guys. Youre the bravest person Ive ever known. I will be forever thankful. Brad Finseth, the firefighter's father, paid tribute to the three with a reading from the Gospel of John: "No one has greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. Burnsville Police Chief Tanya Schwartz expressed gratitude for the support we have received from our brothers and sisters in blue, brown, maroon and every other color that I see in this space, as well as the hundreds of public safety personnel who stood at attention outside the hospital to honor the three. They did the job selflessly, with integrity, honor and courage," she said. "They knew the dangers, but it never deterred them. On February 18th, they paid the ultimate sacrifice while trying to protect children. Their bravery and willingness to put themselves before others is why the word hero is now synonymous with each of their names. Officer Pete Mueller, who trained with Ruge as a crisis negotiator and was at the scene, revealed that Ruge brought a wounded Elmstrand to safety, even though he had been injured himself. Ruge repeatedly risked his life to save our friend," he said. "And in doing so, Matt made the ultimate sacrifice. And Burnsville Fire Chief B.J. Jungmann said Finseth was drawn to honorable professions, noting that he began his career in the Army, where he served two tours in Iraq, and that he never sought glory, but to serve. I can say without reservation, firefighter-paramedic Adam Finseth was tried, he was tested and he was found worthy, he said. Adam died helping his comrades without a second thought. The service, which drew thousands of law enforcement officers, paramedics and firefighters, was held at the nondenominational Grace Church in suburban Eden Prairie, one of the largest churches in the Minneapolis area. Because of the overflow crowd, officials had encouraged the public to watch the livestream from home or at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville. As the service concluded, officials held a ceremonial last call, calling out the badge numbers for the three as if they were being called by radio, then announcing to all units that Elmstrand, Ruge and Finseth had answered their final call. These men responded together, laid down their lives for one another and died doing what they were called to do," the mourners heard. "The citizens of Burnsville will forever be in their debt, and their sacrifice will not be forgotten. A procession of squad cars, fire trucks and ambulances with flashing lights, and three hearses, headed from the Eden Prairie church after the service to Burnsville on a 21-mile route past a fire station, police headquarters and the Burnsville church. Officials encouraged people to line the route to pay their respects. Aerial video showed that many did, with large flag-waving crowds at several spots along the way. Authorities have made only limited information about the incident public, citing the ongoing investigation. Police were dispatched to the home around 1:50 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 18, according to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is leading the investigation. Gooden refused to leave but said he was unarmed and that he had children inside. Officers entered and negotiated with him for about 3 1/2 hours to try to persuade him to surrender. But just before 5:30 a.m., the BCA says, Gooden opened fire on officers inside without warning. The BCA said Elmstrand and Ruge, and Medlicott are believed to have been first shot inside the home. Medlicott and another officer, who was not injured, returned fire from inside the home, wounding Gooden in the leg. Ruge and Medlicott were shot a second time as officers made their way to an armored vehicle in the driveway, according to the BCA. Finseth, who was assigned to the SWAT team, was shot while trying to aid the officers, it said. Elmstrand, Ruge and Finseth were pronounced dead at a hospital. The BCA said Gooden had several firearms and shot more than 100 rounds before killing himself. A court document filed by a BCA agent said the initial 911 call was regarding an alleged sexual assault allegation. Authorities have not provided further details about that. Court records show Gooden wasnt legally allowed to have guns because of his criminal record and had been entangled in a yearslong dispute over his three oldest children. The children in the house were ages 2 to 15 years. Several NATO countries, such as the US, Germany, and the UK, have decided against sending ground troops to Ukraine, following French President Emmanuel Macron's statement that "nothing should be ruled out". According to Macron, there is no agreement on deploying Western troops to Ukraine. A Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has issued a warning about the possibility of direct conflict if NATO troops are deployed in the area. NATO Allies Rebuke Macron's Warning Recent advances by Russian forces in Ukraine have prompted an urgent request from Kyiv for additional weapons. Macron stated during a news conference on Monday evening that there could be a need for security measures that would justify certain deployment actions. The French leader addressed attendees in Paris during a crisis meeting in support of Ukraine, with the presence of European heads of state, as well as representatives from the US and Canada. The conflict in Ukraine, initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been ongoing for three years now, showing no indication of coming to a resolution anytime soon. This war is the largest in Europe since World War Two. Macron's remarks elicited reactions from other European and Nato member nations. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden is confident that the key to success lies in supplying military assistance to ensure Ukrainian troops are equipped with necessary weapons and ammunition for self-defense, according to a statement from the White House. Per BBC, the German Chancellor confirmed that the agreed position remains unchanged, stating that no European country or Nato member state would deploy troops to Ukraine. The UK Prime Minister's spokesperson stated that there are no current intentions for a significant military presence in Ukraine, aside from the limited number of personnel currently assisting with Ukrainian forces. The Italian Prime Minister's office stated that Italy's assistance does not involve European or Nato troops being stationed in Ukraine. Previously, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that he was not contemplating sending troops to Ukraine, but emphasized that the alliance would maintain its support for Ukraine, despite not being a NATO member. That stance has been supported by several NATO member states such as Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Russia possesses a significant amount of artillery and has a much larger military presence compared to Ukraine. Ukrainian troops heavily rely on receiving modern weapons from Western allies, especially the US. Read Also: Carnage in Crimea: Russian Soldiers Unleash Deadly Rampage on Civilians Macron Expresses Willingness to Allow EU to Buy Weapons For Ukraine On Monday, Macron expressed his willingness to allow European nations to buy ammunition for Ukraine from sources beyond the European Union. The Czech Republic has been advocating for those purchases to address immediate shortages, while Republicans in Congress delay the provision of new military aid from the United States. Ever since Moscow initiated its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, the United States and the majority of its European partners have firmly rejected the idea of NATO troops directly getting involved in the conflict. They have cautioned that such a move might lead to a nuclear war. President Biden stated that US troops would not be sent to Ukraine before the invasion and has maintained this stance in the days following. On Tuesday, a White House spokesperson, John Kirby, emphasized that President Biden has consistently stated that there will be no US troops on the ground in a combat role in that area, NY Times reported. Related Article: French President Macron Warns of Possibility of West Sending Troops to Ukraine to Fight Russia A key witness in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' affair case, Terrance Bradley, testified that his previous recollection of the timeline of the alleged relationship was "speculation." Bradley, who is a former law firm partner and divorce attorney, testified on Tuesday regarding his knowledge about Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade's supposed affair. He took the stand after Judge Scott McAfee determined that he could not claim attorney-client privilege. Key Witness Testifies on Fani Willis Affair The individual, when pressed under oath, said that he could not recall several details and timelines regarding conversations that he had with Wade about the latter's romantic relationship with Willis. At one point, defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant referenced text messages between her and Bradley. In them, she asked him if he thought that the Wade-Willis relationship started before the district attorney hired the special prosecutor in 2021. Bradley then responded "Absolutely" in the text exchange. However, during his court appearance on Tuesday, Bradley said that he was merely "speculating" when he made those comments, as per Fox News. The development is yet another potential setback to former United States President Donald Trump and his co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case. The situation comes as defense attorneys are seeking to disqualify Willis by arguing that her supposed personal relationship with Wade creates an untenable conflict of interest. Wade and Willis have repeatedly argued that their relationship started only after the district attorney hired the former in November 2021. On the other hand, Trump's lawyer has accused the two individuals of lying about their situation. For several weeks, the defense had suggested that the key witness could provide crucial testimony that contradicts Wade and Willis' statements. However, when Bradley testified on Tuesday, he said that he did not know when the relationship actually started and that he never witnessed anything. Read Also: Indiana Teacher Found Dead in School Stairwell After Mysterious Disappearance Making Speculations Lawyers representing the former president and other defendants hammered at Bradley's credibility on Tuesday. They read aloud text messages that he wrote in January that appeared to suggest he had more knowledge of the prosecutors' relationship than he let on, according to the New York Times. The latest testimony is Bradley's third time on the witness stand this month as part of a series of hearings that have threatened to upend Trump's potential prosecution. The defense has argued that Wade and Willis engaged in "self-dealing" because the special prosecutor spent money on vacations that he took with Willis while he was being paid by her office. The accusations against Wade and Willis first surfaced last month in a filing made by Merchant, a lawyer for Michael Roman, a co-defendant of Trump in the Georgia case. The defense lawyer's attempts to disqualify the district attorney seemed to rely heavily on her recent communications with Bradley. The judge in the case will ultimately have to decide if the prosecutors' relationship creates a conflict of interest in the appearance of one. McAfee will also have to decide whether or not Willis and her office should be removed from the case or if any charges should be dropped against Trump or his allies, said the Washington Post. Related Article: Teen Charged With Murder in Remote Alaskan Whaling Village Shooting; 2 Dead Last weekend, families in Glasgow were left bitterly disappointed after attending what was billed as a magical "Willy Wonka Experience" event, only to find themselves in a sparse warehouse with minimal attractions. The event, organized by House of Illuminati, promised an immersive journey filled with chocolate delights and enchanting surprises, inspired by the beloved Willy Wonka franchise. However, attendees quickly discovered that the reality fell far short of expectations. Willy Wonka-Inspired Event Dubbed 'Absolute Shambles' Described as a "celebration of chocolate in all its delightful forms," the event was eagerly anticipated by families who had spent up to 35 per ticket. The website of the event explicitly stated that it lacked any official affiliation with Warner Bros. Nonetheless, expectations were set high with promises of giant mushrooms, candy canes, chocolate fountains, and performances by Oompa Loompas straight out of Roald Dahl's classic tale. Upon arrival at the venue in Whiteinch, however, attendees were immediately met with disappointment. Instead of the promised wonderland, they found a sparsely decorated warehouse with few props, a small bouncy castle, and inadequate backdrops. Reports indicate that the disappointment was palpable among early arrivals, many of whom demanded refunds on the spot. The situation escalated further as the event unfolded. Angry families vented their frustrations on social media, describing the event as a "farce" and labeling the organizers as "cowboys." Police were eventually called to the scene to address the mounting complaints. The debacle has left many families feeling cheated and disillusioned. Attendees, some of whom traveled significant distances to attend, have even voiced their disappointment on Facebook and are demanding accountability from the event organizers. "What an absolute shambles of an event," Stuart Sinclair, an attendee, described his family's experience through a Facebook post accompanied by photos of the event. "Took 2 minutes to get through to then see a queue of people surrounding the guy running it complaining." Frustrated families banded together to form a Facebook group for those dissatisfied with the event, providing a platform for discussion. Actor Paul Connell, hired to perform at the event, also joined the group, where he expressed his disappointment at the dismal state of affairs. "I'm happy to talk on news outlets. Mainly just to talk about how it was for the actors who were also conned by the event," he shared to the group. "We knew we were unlikely to get paid for the event when we turned up on the Saturday morning but stuck around because we knew they would do it with or without us and we can at least try and make some aspect of it fun for the kids." Read Also: Singapore: Ghost Warning Sign at Cemetery Goes Viral, Prompts NEA Investigation Organizers Issue Statement In response to the outcry, House of Illuminati issued an apology, acknowledging the "very stressful and frustrating day" for attendees. They admitted to being let down in several areas of the event and conceded that canceling earlier would have been the prudent course of action. "Unfortunately, last minute we were let down in many areas of our event and tried our best to continue on and push through and now realise we probably should have cancelled first thing this morning instead," the post read. The organizers reassured customers that full refunds would be provided, although it could take up to 10 days to process. The post has now been deleted. Related Article: Cruel Summer Down Under: Taylor Swift's Sydney Concert Delayed Due to Lightning Strikes A Michigan judge affirmed the removal of State GOP Chair Kristina Karamo, weighing on a contentious leadership dispute within the party. The preliminary injunction was issued by Kent County Circuit Judge J. Joseph Rossi that would bar Karamo from conducting business as the party chair. The development was revealed in a court document. Michigan GOP Chair Ousted The court found that the Michigan GOP chair was removed from her position back in January and that any actions since "purporting to be taken on behalf of the Michigan Republican State Committee are void and have no effect." The judge's order hands a victory to former Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan who was recognized as chair earlier this month by the Republican National Committee (RNC). It was a few hours before polls closed in the Great Lake State's Tuesday presidential primary. After Karamo's tenure as a chair, which was rife with debt and discord, she was voted out of her post a few weeks ago. However, despite public support from both the RNC and former United States President Donald Trump for Hoekstra, Karamo dug in to insist that she still had authority over the state party, as per The Hill. The leadership dispute resulted in further confusion in the state's already complicated nominating process. The results from the Tuesday presidential preference race will be used to allocate some of the delegates on the GOP side. The rest of the delegates will then be set to be allocated based on the results of a state GOP convention that is scheduled for this weekend. While Hoekstra planned to hold a convention in Grand Rapids, Karamo had planned a dueling convention across the state in Detroit. The new court order prohibits Karamo from "calling any meeting of the Michigan Republican State Committee" or "conducting, or attempting to conduct, any business in the name of the Michigan Republican State Committee or the Michigan Republican Party." Read Also: Michigan Could Make or Break Campaign of Biden or Trump Kristina Karamo Fires Back Karamo will now be barred from falsely claiming herself the state party's chair and she will be restricted from accessing its bank accounts and postal boxes. In response to Circuit Judge Joseph Rossi's ruling, Karamo called it "egregious." The situation comes as a possible appeal is pending and a trial in the case is scheduled for June later this year. Karamo said that she would have to comply with the judge's order in the case but argued that she would not go to jail, according to USA Today. With the judge's ruling, Hoekstra's convention would most likely receive the allocation of 39 of the state's 55 presidential delegates. The selected delegates will then attend the National Republican Convention (NRC) that will be held in Milwaukee from Jul. 15 to Jul. 18. Prior to voting Karamo out of her position, her opponents branded her as a "disaster," an "epic failure," and a "tyrannical, incompetent dumpster fire." On the other hand, she insisted that her ousting was illegitimate and she denounced the efforts against her as part of a "fraudulent" effort to remove her from her position, said the Independent. Related Article: Trump Wins Michigan Republican Primary, Setting Up Last Stand for Nikki Haley in Super Tuesday One of South Korea's senior officials claims that North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un has given "at least several million shells" to Russia in return for food supplies. "At least several million shells have been sent," South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik informed reporters based in South Korea, as per Washington Examiner. North Korea Sends 6,700 Container of Artillery Shells to Russia In a press briefing on Monday, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik disclosed information regarding the potential shipment of more than 3 million 152 mm artillery shells or 500,000 122 mm rounds from North Korea to Russia. Minister Shin stated that the total number of shells sent could be several million, raising concerns about the scale of military aid exchanged between the two nations. Minister Shin addressed the media, highlighting that North Korean munitions factories dedicated to producing artillery shells for Russia are reportedly operating at full capacity, while many other factories in the country are functioning at only around 30% due to resource and energy shortages. Accusations from Seoul and Washington claim that North Korea is supplying arms to Russia for use against Ukraine. The US State Department, in a recent fact sheet, stated that North Korea has delivered over 10,000 containers of munitions to Russia since September. In return, North Korea reportedly received around 9,000 containers, primarily containing food supplies, which have contributed to stabilizing prices in the country. While the South Korean Defense Ministry could not independently confirm these figures, Minister Shin mentioned that Russia has sent nearly 30% more containers to North Korea than North Korea has shipped to Russia since July. Minister Shin suggested that North Korea may conduct another satellite launch with technical assistance from Moscow, and Pyongyang has sought assistance from Russia in aircraft and ground mobility equipment technology. The extent of Russian technology transfers is expected to increase with growing dependency on North Korean artillery shells, according to Reuters. Read Also: Navalny on Verge of Freedom in Prisoner Swap Deal Before Death, Allies Say Russia Aids North Korea Amid Regional Concerns Russia is supplying North Korea with food, raw materials, and components for weapons production. This aid has contributed to preserving prices for essential goods for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. If arms transfers increase, there is an expectation that Russia will boost military technology assistance to North Korea, potentially heightening Pyongyang's regional threat. As North Korea-Russia trade expands amidst the prolonged conflict, concerns are rising about the flow of US military aid to Ukraine. Additionally, the European Union has delivered only about 30% of the 1 million artillery shells it pledged to Kyiv by March. Despite both North Korea and Russia denying arms transfers, commercial satellite imagery reveals the movement of cargo vessels between North Korea's Najin port and the Russian port of Dunay, raising suspicions of potential arms trade. The growing alliance between Russia and North Korea, strengthened by military cooperation, poses a challenge to global attempts to isolate Pyongyang. Kim Jong Un's decision to provide military equipment to aid Russia's invasion of Ukraine could have economic consequences, possibly allowing North Korea to maintain its distance from the US while strengthening its military strength. During recent events, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated his respect by presenting Kim Jong Un with a new Russian-made car, illustrating the growing military partnership between the two countries. The economic gains and strategic benefits for Kim underscore the intricate dynamics in this changing geopolitical environment, The Time reported. Related Article: North Korea Sends Over 10,000 Shipments of Weapons to Russia, State Department Claims Israel and Hamas are moving closer to a potential agreement that could lead to the release of some of the approximately 130 captives in the Gaza Strip in return for a temporary ceasefire in the ongoing conflict, which has been ongoing for five months. US President Joe Biden anticipates that an agreement could be in place by Monday, just before the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is expected to start around March 10, as per ABC News. Biden Hints Ceasefire in Gaza Amid Hostage Talks The potential ceasefire, aimed at ending the ongoing bloodshed, is contingent upon reaching a deal for the release of hostages still held by militants. Speaking to reporters in New York after recording an appearance on NBC's Late Night With Seth Meyers, President Biden expressed optimism about the progress in negotiations. He shared, "My national security adviser tells me that we're close. We're not done yet. My hope is by next Monday, we'll have a ceasefire." The proposed deal, drafted by negotiators from the US, Egypt, and Qatar, involves a six-week ceasefire and the release of some hostages by Hamas in exchange for the freedom of Palestinian prisoners. Notably, the temporary pause would allow ongoing negotiations for the release of remaining hostages. During the Meyers interview, President Biden pointed out the relevance of the upcoming Muslim holy month, mentioning that the Israelis agreed not to engage in activities during Ramadan to allow time to get all the hostages out. The draft proposal, reported by Reuters, comes amid rising global concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with many displaced Palestinians in makeshift shelters facing dire conditions. Read Also: Australia: Ex-PM Scott Morrison Delivers Farewell Speech to Parliament Netanyahu Eyes Gaza Ground Offensive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office had earlier revealed plans for a ground offensive into Rafah, a Palestinian town in the southern Gaza Strip. The town, home to 1.4 million people, has been a focal point of the conflict. The conflict initiated when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, leading to Israeli operations in Gaza. A proposed month-long pause in fighting aims to address the remaining hostages, with concerns raised about the deteriorating conditions in Hamas' terror tunnel network. Israel's demands include proof of life for captive survivors and the deportation of high-ranking Hamas terrorists to Qatar instead of Palestinian territories. Amid the conflict, Israel's military claimed to have destroyed a significant underground tunnel complex used by Hamas. The tunnel stretched six miles and was connected to civilian infrastructure, including a hospital and university. The drafted ceasefire framework, discussed in Paris, envisions a 40-day break during Ramadan, starting around March 10. It proposes the release of Israeli hostages, the exchange of prisoners, and increased aid supplies to Gaza, with ongoing talks for a long-term arrangement. While President Biden expressed hope for a ceasefire by next Monday, officials from Israel, Hamas, and Qatar have indicated that significant differences remain, and a final deal is still a distant prospect. The last ceasefire deal in November 2023 collapsed after seven days, with accusations of bad faith from both side, The Guardian reported. Related Article: Netanyahu Vows 'Victory' Once Rafah Invasion Begins, Says US Would 'Do Hell Lot More' If Faced With Terror Attack The estate of a 65-year-old man who passed away is suing for up to $11.5 million in the first case, which was filed in the wake of accusations that a nurse at a hospital in southern Oregon substituted tap water for intravenous fentanyl infusions. According to a report by The Oregonian/OregonLive, a wrongful death suit was filed on Monday against Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford. It also identifies nurse Dani Marie Schofield as a defendant, as per ABC News. Asante Rogue Faces Wrongful Death Suit A wrongful death suit has been filed against Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center in Medford, according to a report by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The legal action, initiated on Monday, also includes nurse Dani Marie Schofield as a defendant. Last month, the Medford police revealed an ongoing investigation into potential crimes against patients related to the theft of "controlled substances," possibly resulting in adverse outcomes for some individuals. Fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid, known for contributing to the nationwide overdose epidemic, was mentioned as a substance of interest. While Fentanyl is legitimately used in medical settings to alleviate severe pain, theft of drugs from hospitals has long been a recognized issue. Specific details about the ongoing police investigation were not disclosed, but nurse Dani Marie Schofield voluntarily suspended her nursing license in November, as confirmed by Oregon Board of Nursing records. The suspension was described as pending the completion of an investigation, and as of now, no charges have been filed against Schofield. Southern Oregon lawyer Justin Idiart stated that he represents nine clients whose medication was allegedly tampered with by Schofield. He added that five others have reached out for potential representation, encompassing both survivors and loved ones of patients who died. All the clients received treatment from Schofield. Other local law firms are also exploring potential litigation, with expectations of up to three dozen cases being filed. Attempts to obtain comments from Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center were unsuccessful at the time of reporting. Contact information for Schofield was not immediately available, and it remains unclear whether she is represented by an attorney, according to Independent. Read Also: Shogun: Is This Highly Anticipated Series The Next Game of Thrones? Hospital Responds to Wilson's Death Lawsuit In response to the emerging issue, Asante, the hospital's management, released a statement last month expressing distress over the situation. The hospital reported the matter to law enforcement and affirmed its collaboration with authorities in addressing the matter. The lawsuit, filed by Idiart in Jackson County Circuit Court, centers around the death of Horace E. Wilson in February 2022. Wilson, the founder of Decibel Farms, a cannabis company in Jacksonville, Oregon, was treated at the hospital after a fall from a ladder resulted in bleeding from his spleen, leading to its removal. However, Wilson's health deteriorated with "unexplained high fevers, very high white blood cell counts, and a precipitous decline," as per the complaint. Tests revealed an infection of treatment-resistant bacteria, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Wilson eventually succumbed to multi-system organ failure. Idiart asserted that patients who were deprived of medication suffered due to the alleged medication tampering. In Wilson's case, the family believed he was in pain despite supposed sedation. The hospital had alerted Medford police in December about a former employee believed to be involved in the theft of fentanyl, resulting in adverse patient outcomes. Hospital representatives began notifying patients and their relatives in that month, stating that a nurse had replaced fentanyl with tap water, causing bacterial infections, CTV News reported. Related Article: Taylor Swift's Zoo Visit Condemned by PETA-Saying Couple Should Visit 'True Sanctuary' Instead A Moscow court has sentenced a prominent Russian human rights activist, Oleg Orlov, to two and a half years in prison for allegedly criticizing his country's war on Ukraine. Orlov is also the co-chairman of Memorial, a Russian rights group that received the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. While the Kremlin ordered his group to be liquidated in late 2021, the human rights activist chose to stay in Russia after it conducted its invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Russia Imprisons Prominent Human Rights Activist The 70-year-old has continued to criticize Moscow's military operations as well ashis government despite a climate of increasing repression. In November 2022, Orlov wrote an article headlined "They Wanted Fascism. They Got it." In his writing, he blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin and the wider Russian public for the "mass murder of the Ukrainian people" as well as for dealing a "very heavy blow to Russia's future." The human rights activist added that the nation that left behind communist totalitarianism 30 three decades ago has slipped back into totalitarianism of the fascist variety. Nearly a year after the publication of the article, he was convicted of "repeated discrediting" of Russia's armed forces, as per the New York Times. That particular charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison but he was only given a fine of roughly $16,600 because of mitigating factors. These include his age and his prominent public profile. Prosecutors accused Orlov of exhibiting a "motive of enmity and hatred" toward Russian military personnel. They requested that the human rights activist be retried and given a three-year prison sentence for his alleged crimes. A Moscow court reheard the case that resulted in the Tuesday sentencing. On the other hand, Orlov has maintained his innocence and denounced the charges against him as bogus. He said that he did not plead guilty and argued that the accusation was not clear to him. He added that the court was unable to clearly explain the essence of the charges brought against him despite his requests. Read Also: Kremlin Warns of NATO Conflict Over Ukraine Deployment Hatred for the Russian Military Prior to his sentencing on Tuesday, Orlov said that he viewed the prosecutors' request to imprison him as a "demand from the top." However, he said that he still has hopes that Russia could change in the future, according to the Moscow Times. During an interview on Monday, the human rights activist said that he understood the threats that he faced for opposing Russia's war on Ukraine. He said that his trial, which lasted for a year, was not easy for him. He added that he does not know if he would have published his article if he knew that this was going to happen but leaned towards doing so still. Following the verdict, the 70-year-old was handcuffed and taken into custody, which marked the conclusion of his retrial. On top of hatred for the military, prosecutors said that Orlov's article was motivated by hostility toward traditional Russian spiritual, moral, and patriotic values. Memorial issued a statement calling Orlov's sentence an attempt to drown out the voice of the human rights movement in the country as well as any criticism of the state, said the Associated Press. Related Article: France Says They'll Do 'Anything' To Ensure Russian Defeat, Won't Rule Out Ground Forces South African authorities reported a sharp increase in the number of cases of rhino poaching in the region in a new hotspot as officials recorded that nearly 500 animals were killed last year. The killing of the creatures is driven by a demand from Asia as their horns are used in traditional medicine for their supposed therapeutic effect. The South African environment ministry said that despite the government's efforts in tackling the illicit trade, hundreds of thick-skinned herbivores were killed in 2023, most of which were in state-run parks. Rhino Poaching in South Africa The number represents an 11% in killings compared to the figure that was recorded in 2022. Conservative group Save the Rhino International said that the numbers paint a "worrying picture" and called for more resources to be urgently deployed in fighting poaching rings. The CEO of the group, Jo Shaw, said that there is no overnight solution to the problem but noted that as a rhino is poached every 17 hours in the region, there is no more time to lose sitting idly by, as per France24. The majority of the animals were poached in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province as the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi park, which is Africa's oldest reserve, lost 307 animals alone. The country's environment minister, Barbara Creecy, said that this is the highest poaching loss within the province. She added that multi-disciplinary teams are continuing to work tirelessly as part of efforts to slow the relentless pressure. In the past few years, authorities have tightened security, particularly around the Kruger National Park, which is a tourist magnet that borders Mozambique. The latter has seen its rhino population drastically fall from more than 10,000 to fewer than 3,000 in the last decade and a half. The efforts resulted in lower losses in the region, with only 78 rhinos being reported killed in 2023, which is a decrease of 37% compared to the year prior. However, they have also pushed poachers towards regional and private reserves such as Hluhluwe-Imfolozi. Read Also: NATO Allies Slam Macron's of Troops Deployment in Ukraine After Russia Warns 'Inevitable' Conflict Addressing the Issue South Africa currently has roughly 2,000 black rhinos that are considered "critically endangered" and about 13,000 white rhinos that are classified as "near threatened." Over the last 10 years, poaching has fallen dramatically but has recently shot back up, according to BBC. A spokesperson for the company that is in charge of running Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park, Musa Mntambo, said that the increase in poaching numbers is "very concerning." He added that poaching groups often struggle to spot rhinos in the Kruger so move to the area where the animals are more visible. Mntambo noted that several other steps have been taken in an effort to address poaching in the region, including the hiring of more than a dozen more patrollers and the acquisition of a new surveillance helicopter. Last year, law enforcement agencies also cracked down on poachers and at least 49 suspected poachers were taken into official custody in 2023 from the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park. Officials said that at least 45 of the suspects were tried in courts and noted that one of them was a former field ranger who was sentenced to 10 years for killing a rhino, said WION News. Related Article: Moscow Court Sentences Russian Human Rights Activist Prison Over Criticism of War on Ukraine As a fast-moving wildfire rages through the Texas Panhandle, Gov. Greg Abbott has declared a disaster for 60 counties, urging swift action to protect residents and property. Fueled by dry and unseasonably warm conditions, the blaze has engulfed hundreds of thousands of acres, leading to evacuation orders and road closures, while thick smoke blankets the region. Wildfires Ravage Texas Panhandle: Urgent Response Needed "I issued a disaster declaration today to ensure critical fire response resources are swiftly deployed to areas in the Texas Panhandle being impacted by devastating wildfires," declared Gov. Abbott. "The State of Texas stands ready to provide support to our local partners and deploy all resources needed to protect our fellow Texans and their property. The Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest among several wildfires in the area, has doubled in size since igniting on Monday afternoon, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The Smokehouse Creek Fire burned 250,000 acres, with 0% contained, by Tuesday evening, making it the fifth-largest fire in Texas history, the agency reported. These fires have scorched more Texas terrain than all of last year's fires combined. Alongside the Smokehouse Creek Fire, the Grape Vine Creek Fire is raging in the Texas Panhandle, consuming approximately 30,000 acres of land with only 20% containment achieved so far. Evacuation orders have been issued for multiple counties, with communities like Moore and Potter under mandatory evacuation. As the flames approach residential areas, residents of Canadian and Hemphill County have been urged to seek shelter or evacuate, depending on the fire's proximity. In Fritch, evacuations are also currently in progress, as it faces one of the four wildfires raging in the Panhandle. The situation remains dire as the fires continue to spread rapidly, aided by strong winds and dry vegetation. The impact of the wildfires extends beyond the immediate danger zone, with Pantex, a nuclear facility near Amarillo, suspending operations due to the proximity of the fires. "Operations at the Pantex Plant have paused until further notice," the facility announced. "All weapons and special materials are safe and unaffected." Read Also: Water Crisis: Mexico City Faces Deepening Crisis Amid Worsening Climate Change Texans Urged to Exercise Caution Amid Harsh Conditions Emergency response efforts are underway, with firefighters battling against challenging conditions. Gov. Abbott emphasized the importance of precautionary measures, urging Texans to avoid activities that could spark fires. "Texans are urged to limit activities that could create sparks and take precautions to keep their loved ones safe," he emphasized. The Texas A&M Forest Service has heightened preparedness levels in anticipation of further wildfire activity. Meanwhile, organizations like the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association have launched fundraising campaigns to support affected communities. As the wildfires continue to pose significant threats to lives and property, residents are urged to stay informed and heed evacuation orders. With high temperatures and windy conditions forecasted to persist, the risk of further fire outbreaks remains elevated across the region. Related Article: Southern California Edison To Pay $80 Million Settlement for 2017 Wildfire Destruction The chair of the board that oversees North Dakota public employees retirement and benefits has resigned less than six months after her appointment by the governor. Michelle Kommer submitted her resignation as chair of the Public Employees Retirement System board in an email Monday evening to Gov. Doug Burgum. At Kommers first meeting in November, she was the tie-breaking vote to fire former PERS Executive Director Scott Miller, who was a vocal opponent of legislation last session to close the public employee pension to new hires. Miller has said he was following the direction of the board, which also opposed the legislation. Earlier this month, Kommer recommended the hiring of a new executive director, Rebecca Fricke, who had been serving in an interim role. The board unanimously supported Kommers recommendation. I believe I was the right person at the right time to help this important agency navigate some necessary change, Kommer wrote in her resignation letter. Im proud of having led the board through a leadership transition which will serve members for years to come. Kommer did not indicate at the Feb. 13 PERS board meeting that it would be her last. She did not immediately respond to an email from the North Dakota Monitor requesting comment Tuesday. It came as a surprise to me today, said Sen. Dick Dever, R-Bismarck, one of four lawmakers who serves on the board. North Dakota lawmakers changed the makeup of the PERS board during the October special legislative session. The changes included clarifying the law to make it clear that the governor could remove his appointees. Last fall, Burgum had asked Kommers predecessor, Mona Tedford Rindy, to resign and she had refused to step down. After the law change, Burgum replaced her with Kommer, former state Commerce commissioner. Under the law changes in October, the governor now appoints four members to the PERS board, including the chair. In addition, there are now four lawmakers on the 11-member board, with no requirement that the minority party be represented. The changes also removed a retired state employee from the board, along with appointees by the attorney general and state health officer. The changes came on the heels of the approval of House Bill 1040, which closed the public pension plan to new employees starting January 2025, shifting new hires to a 401(k)-style plan. The former PERS board opposed the legislation during the 2023 session. The public employee pension plan, which will remain open to existing employees, has an estimated $1.9 billion unfunded liability. Kommer said in her email that she has profound confidence in the PERS leadership team. I encourage the executive and legislative branches to continue to collaborate to eliminate unnecessary distraction from NDPERS mission, and to finish the important work of addressing pension underfunding in the 2025 session -- what an incredible legacy to leave retirees who served North Dakota, Kommer wrote. The board makes decisions that affect the retirement plans for nearly 60,000 employees and retirees and health plans for about 60,000 North Dakotans. The boards next meeting is March 12. None of the members holds the position of vice chair. Candidates who express interest in the position and complete an online application will be considered for appointment to the board, Burgum spokesman Mike Nowatzki said. Monica Lewinsky - the writer and activist who became famous for being involved in a scandal by former US President Bill Clinton when she was still a White House intern - has collaborated with fashion brand Reformation and 501(c)(3) nonprofit Vote.org for the brand's "You've Got the Power" campaign. The clothing line would feature workwear and would be considered a call to action for Americans to vote for November's presidential election. "Another faceless brand telling you to vote isn't going to cut through, so they teamed up with someone iconic who would," a press release announcing the launch read. "As a changemaker and activist, Monica has been advocating for women to use their voices and embrace their power for decades." The collection would include blazers, skirts, and dresses, among others, ABC News reported. As part of the campaign, Lewinsky, Reformation, and Vote.org created a one-stop hub with voter information and would donate proceeds from the You've Got the Power sweatshirt to the organization. In an interview published on Monday (Feb. 26) in Elle magazine, Lewinsky said that the partnership was in response to increased voter frustration and apathy in the lead-up to November. "We all have to be reminding each other that we can't let that get in the way of needing to vote, that that's how we use our voice," she said. "That's where our power is." Read Also: Donald Trump Wins Michigan Republican Primary, Setting Up Last Stand for Nikki Haley in Super Tuesday Contests Next Week Slaying Fashionable Advocacy It could be recalled that Clinton admitted to having an affair with Lewinsky when she was a White House intern during his presidency in the late 90s. She has since worked as an anti-bullying advocate, referring to herself as "patient zero" of online harassment in reference to the widespread public shaming she faced in the wake of the affair. Lewinsky later launched the #DefyTheName campaign in 2018 and 2017's #ClickWithCompassion campaign to align with National Bullying Prevention Month and earned a master's degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics. "While Ref knows that a powerful outfit alone isn't going to create a more perfect union, putting it on and going to the polls is a damn good place to start," the press release added. "Together with Monica Lewinsky and Vote.org, we're reminding you that you've got the power. And that you need to vote this year." Lewinsky was photographed for the campaign in a variety of looks, including the brand's Veda Ashland Leather Trench, a black belted Mikol Knit Dress, and a polka-dotted georgette Lysander Dress. She was also snapped wearing the tailored Caiden Two Piece skirt set, styled with a light blue pinstripe button-down and a dark tie, and the brand's Classic Relaxed Blazer. "Voting is using your voice to be heard, and it's the most defining aspect of our democracy," Lewinsky was quoted on Reformation's website in the launch of the clothing line. Related Article: American Activist Monica Lewinsky Pushes for Age Limits, Self-Pardon Ban for Politicians US President Joe Biden revealed on Wednesday, Feb. 28, that he is making an unannounced trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a physical examination. Already the oldest president in US history, Biden would be 86 by the end of a potential second term if he wins in November. "I'm going to Walter Reed to get my physical," he told reporters as he left the White House aboard Marine One. White House staff said they would release a written summary of the "routine" check-up later in the day. Read Also: Democrats Rebel Against Biden Over Gaza Complicity After his previous physical exam, the White House said that doctors declared Biden to be still "healthy," "vigorous," and "fit" for the top job. However, voters have been approaching this year's election with misgivings about Biden's age, having scrutinized his gaffes, coughing, slow walking, and even a tumble off his bicycle, the Washington Post reported. Observers and reporters are expected to monitor developments of the annual check-up. The tradition of the president having a check-up every year has been done since the presidency of Richard Nixon. Walter Reed, the hospital all presidents use for routine medical care and examinations, is in Bethesda, Maryland. This is a developing story. Please follow HNGN for more updates. Related Article: Joe Biden to Sign Executive Order Limiting Foreign Access to America's Highly Sensitive Data Family members of Israelis still being held by Hamas in Gaza are launching a four-day march from southern Israel to Jerusalem to petition the government to do more to free the government of Israel. It comes as negotiations in Qatar are said to be bringing about a deal between the two war parties that would lead to a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages. President Joe Biden said recently that a deal was close but officials from Israel and Hamas have downplayed his optimistic viewpoint. The United States, Egypt, and Qatar are working on a deal that would see Hamas free some of the remaining 100 plus Israeli hostages in still holds. In exchange, Israel will release Palestinian prisoners and halt its offensive. Negotiations would continue during the pause to bring home the remaining hostages. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza that the war has caused has sparked condemnation from nations all over the world. The current situation in Rafah, the southernmost town in Gaza, is where 1.4 million Palestinians are currently sheltered. However, analysts believe that a pending ground offensive would be catastrophic. According to the United Nations, one-fourth of Gaza's population is nearing famine as aid trucks are being looted. The Health Ministry in Gaza says nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since fighting began nearly five months ago. The war began after Hamas-led militants stormed across southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 others hostage. Project Hope, a humanitarian group still operating in the area, estimates that up to 21% of pregnant women in the Gaza Strip are suffering from malnutrition. They also believe that 11% of children under five years old who have been treated in their clinic are malnourished as well. Project Hope says "People have reported eating nothing but white bread as fruit, vegetables, and other nutrient-dense foods are nearly impossible to find or too expensive." What Does Israel Say? Israel has said that it would not restrict the entry of humanitarian aid to the stricken region but the number of trucks currently entering the area is below the 500 daily deliveries that before the war. The UN says aid distribution networks in Gaza have mostly fallen due to difficulty coordinating shipments with the IDF amid ongoing fighting and the breakdown of the rule of law. Previously, Palestinian police forces would escort aid convoys but stopped doing so after being targeted by Israeli strikes, and crowds of desperate people have made it impossible to deliver aid safely. A rocket exploding near a ship in the Red Sea on Tuesday is but the latest incident being blamed on Houthi militants. The attack appears to be part of an ongoing campaign being waged by the Houthis against shipping in the Red Sea and began in response to Israel's offensive campaign in Gaza. The United States and other allies in the region have launched strikes from the air and sea but have had little to no effect in stopping them. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center, Britain's military body responsible for looking after shipping in the Middle East, reported that the attack took place 70 miles off the coast of Hodeida, a Houthi-held port city in western Yemen. "The crew and vessel are reported to be safe and are proceeding to the next port of call," the UKMTO said. Ambrey, a private security firm, reported that the targeted vessel was flagged under the Marshall Islands and is a Greek-owned bulk carrier that was operating in the area at the time. A Panama-flagged, Emirati-owned chemical tanker was in the area as well, according to the firm. The AP says Houthis normally don't claim attacks until hours later but have not yet done so with the event in question at press time. US Central Command says that American and allied warships shot down five Houthi drones in the Red Sea on Tuesday night. Where Did The Drones Come From? The drones originated "from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and (it was) determined they presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and the U.S. Navy and coalition ships in the region," Central Command said in a statement. Despite a month of U.S.-led airstrikes, the Houthis are still capable of launching strikes of great destructive potential due to their possession of ballistic missiles the U.S. believes have been supplied by Iran. However, an Iran ship has been among those attacked by the Houthis since they began attacking Red Sea shipping in November. The Houthis were successful in downing a U.S. military drone worth millions of dollars and they severely damaged a ship last week as well. The Houthis are a Zaydi Shiite group. They seized Yemen's capital in 2014 and have battled a Saudi-led coalition since 2015. The Zaydi people established and administered a 1,000-year kingdom in Yemen up until 1962. An inmate who sits on death row in Texas has long advocated for his innocence in a crime he was convicted of more than 20 years ago. Allegedly, the conviction was based on false testimony and questionable evidence. Ivan Cantu, scheduled for execution Wednesday, was condemned for the killing of his cousin, James Mosqueda, 27, and his cousin's girlfriend, Amy Kitchen, 22, during a November 2000 robbery at their north Dallas home. His execution by lethal injection is due to take place at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. According to prosecutors, Cantu, aged 50, murdered Mosqueda, a known illegal drug dealer, and Kitchen while attempting to rob his cousin's residence of cocaine, marijuana, and money. Since being convicted in 2001, Cantu adamantly denies his involvement, claiming a rival drug dealer murdered his cousin over a money dispute. According to The Associated Press, The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday denied Cantu's request to vacate his execution, dismissing his petition on procedural grounds and without reviewing its merits. Cantu's lawyer is expected to submit a final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 against community Cantu's death sentence to a lesser penalty. Members also rejected granted a four-month reprieve. Three jurors from Cantu's trial have also asked for a delay in execution, stating they now have doubts revolving the case. Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis, whose office convicted Cantu, said evidence presented at trial proved Cantu's guilt. Cantu's attorney, Gena Bunn, wrote in Cantu's clemency application that new evidence "impugns the integrity of the State's case for guilt and raises the specter that the State of Texas could execute an innocent man." However, incriminating evidence says otherwise. In Cantu's apartment, police found bloody jeans with the victims' DNA and a key to the victims' home. Police recovered the gun used in the fatal shooting from the home of Cantu's ex-girlfriend. Mosqueda's blood was found on the gun's barrel, while Cantu's fingerprints were found on the gun's magazine. The AP reported that in a 2005 affidavit, Matthew Goeller, one of Cantu's trial attorneys, said Cantu admitted to him "he had indeed killed Mosqueda for 'ripping him off' on a drug deal" and that Kitchen was killed because she was a witness. Amy Boettcher, Cantu's then-fiancee, who has since died, testified at his trial that he had admitted committing the murders and took her to Mosqueda's home later to show her the bodies and look for hidden drugs. News outlet, Barrons, said lawyers for Cantu maintain that Boettcher lied on the witness stand and the bloody jeans, which were too large for Cantu, were planted in the trash can by someone else. A Celebrity Outlook on Cantu's Case: Cantu's case has drawn the attention of the Catholic Church and celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Martin Sheen. The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops has urged that the execution be halted because of "serious uncertainties" surrounding the case. Kardashian, who is active in prison reform, urged Texas's conviction integrity unit to look into the case. "The time to act to save Ivan Cantu is now!" she said in a post on X. Sheen, an opponent of the death penalty, appealed on Instagram for people to sign the MoveOn petition seeking a stay of execution. "Ivan was wrongfully convicted of murder more than 20 years ago," the star of "The West Wing" and "Apocalypse Now" said. "Time is running out." Cantu's lawyers continue to file last-minute appeals seeking to halt his execution, and a MoveOn.org petition urging Texas Governor Greg Abbott to grant a stay of execution to Cantu has drawn nearly 150,000 signatures. Convicted serial killer Thomas Creech, 73, is also set to receive a lethal injection in Idaho on Wednesday. If Cantu's execution proceeds, it would be the first this year in Texas. President Biden's victory in the Michigan Democratic primary was never in doubt. However, some voters took the opportunity to express their disdain for the Biden administration's handling of the war in Gaza and their support of Israel. The message from the anti-Biden Democrats seems clear, change course on Israel and Hamas or suffer the consequences. On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that more than 100,000 votes for uncommitted were tallied on the Democratic ballot. However, Biden still maintained more than 80% of the Democrat ballots with nearly 618,000 votes cast in his favor. The group "Listen to Michigan" led the push to vote uncommitted in the primary as a protest vote. The group, and thousands of Arab Americans and their allies, are pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza in the conflict's fifth month following an assault on southern Israel that resulted in 1,200 deaths and the kidnapping of 250 others. What Does Michigan Have To Say? Almost 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed. "We have led a movement that is far exceeding expectations, using the ballot box to urge America to stop killing our families," said Listen to Michigan spokesperson and Democratic strategist Abbas Alawieh at a watch party in Dearborn, Mich. "That's all we're asking for. Just stop killing our families," he added. Dearborn has been at the center of this movement, where more than half the population is of Middle Eastern or North African descent. "This coalition is one that wants to bring the morality back to this country because somewhere along the line, we have lost it," said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud at the watch party Tuesday night. "We will be that movement to bring [elected officials] back in line, if not with this primary election, then with November," he added. The original goal of the campaign was to garner 10,000 votes, which was the approximate margin of victory of Donald Trump when he defeated Hillary Clinton. Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who has somehow maintained his control in the face of ostentatious unrest in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down in November. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, was due to announce his decision Wednesday in the well of the Senate after his initial arrival in 1985. "One of life's most underappreciated talents is to know when it's time to move on to life's next chapter," he said in prepared remarks obtained by The Associated Press. "So, I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate." His decision comes on the heels of a powerful transition within the Republican Party, from Ronald Reagan's traditional conservatism and strong international alliances to the unstable and isolated populism of former President Donald Trump. McConnell intends to serve the remainder of his Senate term, set to end in January 2027, "albeit from a different seat in the chamber." Aides continue to allege McConnell's departure announcement is unrelated to his health. The Kentucky senator suffered a concussion from a fall last year and two public episodes where his face froze for some time while speaking. "As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work," McConnell said in his prepared remarks. "A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today." The senator had been under increasing pressure from the more hostile wing of his party that has pledged allegiance to Trump. The two have been estranged since December 2020, when McConnell refused to go along with Trump's lie that the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president was the result of fraud. "Father Time Remains Undefeated" McConnell himself cited no specific reason for the timing of his decision but mentioned he had been mulling it over for months after the death of his wife's youngest sister prompted introspection. "The end of my contributions is closer than I'd prefer," he said. "I love the Senate," he continued. "It has been my life. There may be more distinguished members of this body throughout our history, but I doubt there are any with more admiration for it." But, he added, "Father Time remains undefeated. I am no longer the young man sitting in the back, hoping colleagues would remember my name. It is time for the next generation of leadership." "I still have enough gas in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm which they have become accustomed." In the Mexican city of Maravatio, two mayoral hopefuls were gunned down within hours of each other, reported The Associated Press. Experts warn the June 2 national elections could be the country's most violent on record. The expanding power of drug cartels in Mexico is a looming threat, as roughly three dozen candidates were killed in the last nationwide election in 2021. Both candidates were to begin their formal campaigns on Friday. On Tuesday, a state of disbelief spread through the farming town, and dozens of state police surrounded the city hall premises. One of the murdered hopefuls, gynecologist Miguel Angel Zavala, was a Maravatio resident. Homemaker Carmen Luna said the crime was shocking and incomprehensible. "The way I see it, there's no explanation for killing a person ... it might have been a power struggle between them." Luna, one of Zavala's patients, ruled out any personal motive in his killing. "He was one of the best" doctors in town, she told AP. "He took care of me and was very good. He was very friendly." Luna noted that while she hasn't voted in years, "whether it's one or the other, everything stays the same," as the killings left people "angry and feeling powerless because if the government doesn't do anything, you can't do anything." Maravatio Mayor Jaime Hinojosa Campa claims he was unaware of any threats against the men but said that "everything points toward" organized crime as the culprit behind the brutal killings. He added that authorities are working on security protocols for the remaining candidates, who are understandably shaken by the killings. "What happened yesterday scared all of us." On Tuesday, state prosecutors revealed that Armando Perez Luna was found shot to death in his car in Maravatio just before midnight. He was the mayoral candidate for the conservative National Action Party. "This illustrates the extremely serious level of violence and lack of safety that prevails ahead of the most important elections in Mexican history," National Action's leader, Marko Cortes, wrote on social media. Only hours earlier, officials with the ruling Morena party confirmed the killing of their mayoral hopeful, Zavala, found fatally shot in his car on Monday. The Morena party state committee released a statement to say the killing of Zavala was "a cowardly and reprehensible act." Head of the Morena party in Michoacan, Juan Pablo Celis, disclosed that Zavala had announced his intention to run but hadn't yet been designated as the party's official candidate. Zavala's killing follows another Morena mayoral hopeful who was killed last year. Interference From Drug Cartels: The AP revealed the western state of Michoacan has been particularly hard hit by gang turf wars, with the Jalisco New Generation cartel fighting a local gang, the Viagras, for control. According to the group Civic Data, a January report on political violence declared, "2023 was the most violent year in our database. And everything suggests that 2024 will be worse." Mayoral, state, and federal elections take place on the same day. "It is likely that the biggest elections in history will also suffer the biggest attacks from organized crime," Civic Data said. Additionally, the group reported that five other individuals intending to run for office were killed in Mexico in January. A Maravatio resident, Marcos Bautista, commented Zavala and Perez were newcomers to the political world but respected local figures advocating for change in a country tired of career politicians. On Friday, Iran will hold its parliamentary elections. However, analysts are keeping a close watch to see exactly who will be showing up to vote in the upcoming election. The country is facing widespread concern as citizens are concerned about a poor economy, mass protests that seem to be cyclical, and the never-ending tensions with the West due to Iran's refusal to give up its nuclear program, as well as its unwavering support of Russia in its war on Ukraine. Because of those issues, analysts believe many Iranians may not show up to the polls at all. Election officials in Iran have urged voters to cast ballots but there will be no public information released from the state-run polling center in this year's election, according to the Associated Press. Information about expected turnout had been standard during prior election seasons. Its absence here is telling. Only five out of 21 Iranians interviewed by AP said they planned to vote. Thirteen explicitly stated they would not, while three said they were undecided. "If I protest about some shortcoming, many police and security agents will try to stop me," said Amin, a 21-year-old university student who gave only his first name for fear of reprisals. "But if I die from hunger on the corner of one of the main streets, they will do nothing." Iran has further increased its total stockpile of uranium, a UN nuclear watchdog report says. Additionally, the United States has promised a fresh round of sanctions against Iran for providing Russia with missiles and drones. 15,000 candidates are fighting to win a seat in the 290-member parliament, which is called the Islamic Consultative Assembly. What Is Next? Power in Iran rests with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but parliament is supposed to have oversight over the executive branch, votes on treaties, and other issues. Hard-liners have used tensions with the West to control parliament for over 20 years. In 2020, the legislature pushed forward a bill that stymied and curtailed Tehran's cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. When former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew America from Iran's nuclear deal with world leaders, tensions were raised anew as observers noted that Tehran was currently in possession of enough uranium to fuel several atomic weapons. In 2022, the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody over Iran's mandatory hijab laws led to nationwide protests in the country, which themselves were squashed by security forces. 500 people were killed and 22,000 detained. Calls for an election boycott have spread in recent weeks, including from imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, a women's rights activist, who called them a "sham." "The Islamic Republic, with its ruthless and brutal suppression, the killing of young people on the streets, the executions and the imprisonment and torture of men and women, deserves national sanctions and global disgrace," Mohammadi said in a statement. Ryan Gosling is nominated for best-supporting actor this year, and while in character as Ken in a promo for the Oscars with Jimmy Kimmel, he shrugged it off and said he probably won't win. In all fairness, Gosling is up against some steep competition. Fellow nominee Robert Downey Jr. has been raking in nominations this season. "I'm Just Ken," written by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, still has a chance to score an accolade, commented The Associated Press. "Barbie" song, Eilish and Finneas's soulful "What Was I Made For" seems to be the clear awards favorite to date, having already won a Grammy. But the Ken ballad is the one everyone is anxious to see on the Oscars telecast. This will mark Gosling's first time performing at the coveted awards show. Before the Oscar nominations came out in January, Gosling was asked if he would perform his character's song at the Academy Awards. "I wasn't thinking about it until now, and now it's all I'm going to think about," he told W Magazine with a smile. "... Do you get paid for that? What do you get paid to sing at the Oscars? ... They pick you up at least, right? Do you have to self-drive?" The Irony When nominations were initially revealed without mentions for 'Barbie' co-star Margot Robbie in the best actress category or for Greta Gerwig for best director, Gosling spoke out against the Academy's decision. "There is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally celebrated film," he said in a statement. "... To say that I'm disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement." The Associated Press called Gerwig's Oscar snub "one of the biggest shocks in recent memory." The omissions of both women generated a flood of rightful outrage on the internet and other colleagues. NBC News published some notable standouts from online posters. "Ken getting nominated and not Barbie is honestly so fitting for a film about a man discovering the power of patriarchy in the Real World," one X user wrote. "Wait, Ryan Gosling got nominated for his role as Ken, but Margot Robbie didn't get nominated for Barbie?! And Greta got snubbed for Best Director?!?! Way to justify the literal plot of the movie," another said. Actor John Stamos also voiced his disapproval in a TikTok, where he used a soundbite from the film to applaud the movie and simultaneously call out the Academy. His caption recommended for people to re-watch the film. "This movie not only resonated deeply, but also grossed OVER a billion dollars," he wrote in the caption. "Yet, in a twist of irony, both women were snubbed by the Academy." In recent years, Rwanda has been making remarkable strides toward its ambitious vision of becoming the Singapore of Africa. This seemingly improbable journey is being sustained with the help of its strong leadership, strategic implement policies, and a strong commitment to sustainable development from both its citizens and politico. Upholding these values and vision, Rwanda is emerging as a beacon of progress and innovation on the African continent and leading by example. Furthermore, the country's automotive sector is experiencing rapid growth and evolution, catering to the rising demand for vehicles among its dynamic population. In this article, we will explore Rwanda's journey towards its dream and examine the exciting developments in the automotive industry. Rwanda's Transformation: Rwanda has come a long way since the devastating genocide in 1994. The country has prioritized economic growth, stability, and the all-inclusive improvement quality of life for its citizens under the exemplary strategic leadership of President Paul Kagame. By focusing on good governance, efficient public services, and investments in critical sectors, Rwanda has laid a solid foundation for its transformation. The Singapore Comparison: Rwanda's aspiration to become the Singapore of Africa stems from the desire to emulate Singapore's success story. Just like Singapore, Rwanda also aims to manifest itself into a regional hub for business with financial, and innovation. By fostering a business-friendly environment, promoting entrepreneurship, and investing in infrastructure, Rwanda seeks to attract foreign investments and develop a robust economy. Rwanda's capital, Kigali, is an example of its focus on rapid transformation into a modern metropolis by focusing on creating an efficient and well-connected city. Investments in Infrastructure: One of the key elements driving Rwanda's progress is its emphasis on building a world-class infrastructure. Significant investments have been pivoted by the government around the country's transportation networks, including the construction of modern highways and the expansion of the international airport. These infrastructure projects not only facilitate domestic connectivity but also enhance Rwanda's integration with neighbouring countries and international markets. Automotive Demand and Evolution: As Rwanda's economy continues to flourish, the demand for automobiles is experiencing a significant upswing. The increasing purchasing power and changing lifestyles of Rwandans have led to a surge in the demand for personal vehicles. Moreover, the government's efforts in creating efficient road networks and expansion of public transportation systems have led to the growth of the automotive sector. Rise of Ride-Hailing Services: In recent years, ride-hailing services like SafeMotos and Yego Moto have gained popularity in Rwanda. These platforms offer convenient and affordable transportation options to the population, creating new business opportunities and fostering a vibrant ecosystem around mobility services. The popularity of these ride-hailing services has increased accessibility for its citizens and is now also driving greater need-based innovation into the automotive sector, paving the way for new technological advancements. Tech-Driven Solutions: Rwanda's commitment to technological advancement is also evident in the automotive industry. Startups and entrepreneurs are leveraging digital solutions to improve vehicle maintenance, enhance road safety, and optimize transportation. A sharp attention to tech-driven economy is revolutionizing the automotive landscape, bringing efficiency, reliability, thus being environmentally friendly. A march towards a Sustainable Future: While I would love to focus on the automotive demand in Rwanda, yet it is important to highlight that the country is taking its first steps toward a sustainable future. Rwanda's attentiveness to global environmental concerns and its readiness to address climate change align well with global trends and is commendable. Ensuring that it remains in sync with the developed world's slow transition towards electric vehicles (EVs), Rwanda is also actively exploring ways to integrate EVs into its transportation system. With this Rwanda is playing an active role in reducing carbon emissions and promoting clean mobility for its Citizens. Rwanda's march towards achieving its improbable dream is a testimony of its determined resilience and active vision for its own future. The country is doing everything in its power to achieve its ambitious dreams by prioritizing economic growth, infrastructure development, and technological innovation. Simultaneously, the increasing automotive demand in Rwanda presents a host of opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors, and industry players. As the sector continues to evolve, it is an exciting time to witness the transformation of Rwanda's automotive landscape, driving the nation closer to its goals while contributing to the continent's overall progress. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg traveled to South Korea to speak with LG Electronics executives about cooperation between the two companies on virtual reality devices and his company's plans regarding the usage of artificial intelligence. Zuckerberg is currently on the second leg of a three-nation tour of Asia that analysts believe is meant to foster greater cooperation between Meta and LG. Zuckerberg has already visited Japan and intends to visit India later this week. LG Electronics CEO William Cho and Zuckerberg spoke for several hours about a combined strategy for the XR, a device in development. While experiencing Meta's latest virtual-reality headset, the Quest 3, and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, Cho "expressed a keen interest in Meta's advanced technology demonstrations, notably focusing on Meta's large language models and its potential for on-device AI integration," the LG statement said. LG and Meta are gearing up to expedite the XR venture, which includes augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, and other technologies. What Else Did Zuckerberg Do? Zuckerberg also met with Samsung Electronics head Lee Jae-yong later that same day and is expected to meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday. "Meta already collaborated with high-end sunglasses brand Ray-Ban to launch smart glasses last year. Just like this, Meta could possibly want to introduce their XR technology to a worldwide customer base of a global consumer electronics maker like LG," said Kim Yang Paeng, a technology analyst at the Korea Institute of Economics and Technology. Kim said Zuckerberg will also likely talk with Samsung about producing Meta-exclusive chips to ease its reliance on the AI chip market-dominant NVIDIA. Meta is in competition with OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft on how to best leverage artificial intelligence to enhance their products. In an Instagram reel in January, Zuckerberg said that it was Meta's "long-term vision to build general intelligence, open source it responsibly, and make it widely available so everyone can benefit." Additionally, Meta is building an infrastructure that is equivalent to equivalent to 600k NVIDIA H100 GPUs' worth to support its artificial intelligence plans as it begins training its Llama 3 generative AI model. Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita, is delighted to announce the appointment of Martin Dell as General Manager. Hailing from the Czech Republic, Martin brings a rich tapestry of experience in luxury hospitality to his new role, with over 14 years of experience working for the Four Seasons brand, across key global markets including, Sydney, Hong Kong and Singapore to Doha and Maui. Martin's journey in the hospitality industry began at the historic Grandhotel Pupp in the Czech Republic, where he received his foundation training in Hotel Management. He then pursued his Bachelor's degree in Business and Hotel Management from the esteemed William Blue Hospitality School in Australia, laying the groundwork for his successful hospitality career. Martin's tenure with Four Seasons began as the Director of Food and Beverage at the Regent Singapore (formerly a Four Seasons hotel), where his leadership and dedication propelled him to the role of Hotel Manager in 2014. His trajectory continued upward as he ventured to Maui, Hawaii, in 2016, before returning to the Czech Republic in February 2020 as the first Czech General Manager at the iconic Four Seasons Hotel Prague. Here, Martin gained global recognition: the property received multiple accolades, including the retention of its Forbes Travel Guide 5-Star rating for the fifth year, alongside supervising the hotel team whilst they achieved record-breaking guest experience and staff satisfaction scores. In his new capacity as General Manager of Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita, which has also recently retained its Forbes Travel Guide 5-Star rating, Martin is poised to lead with his signature blend of expertise, passion, and cultural understanding. He is committed to upholding the resort's reputation for personal spirit, and exceptional service whilst creating memorable experiences for guests. The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island is delighted to announce the appointment of Collin Thornton as Director of Food and Beverage. In this new role, Thornton will leverage his extensive culinary experience to lead all food and beverage operations for the resort, service staff, and back of house teams, while refining the guest experience across all seven dining outlets, overseeing culinary programming and events, and driving continued success for The Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island. Thornton has over 18 years of experience in the food and beverage sector, working with some of the world's leading luxury hospitality brands, including Fairmont Hotels & Resorts and St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, as Executive Chef. Most recently, he served as the Regional Director of Food and Beverage at Big Cedar Lodge, Bass Pro Shops, in Branson, Missouri, where he was instrumental in managing 19 food and beverage centers with 650 employees. Thornton also opened his own restaurant in Branson, where he managed Ozarks Brasserie - a 220 seat smart, fine dining restaurant. His tenure in these roles demonstrates a consistent track record of effectively managing significant culinary operations and successfully executing new food and beverage concepts across multiple outlets. A native of Canada, Thornton has received several awards throughout his career, including the title of grand champion at the Royal Winter Fair Chef challenge in 2013 and 2014 in Toronto, Canada. He is also an association member of Les Toques Blanches; Maitre Rotisseur of Chaine des Rotisseurs, Bailliage Canada, and the Vice Conseillier Culinaire of Chaine des Robtisseurs, Bailliage Laguna Beach. French hotel group Accor is in talks with investment vehicle Dubai Holding to fund the roughly 800mn development of two upmarket cruise liners under the Orient Express brand, in the latest example of Middle Eastern investor interest in the luxury travel sector, according to multiple people familiar with discussions. Since announcing plans to launch two Orient Express-branded superyachts early last year, Accor has been seeking a partner to bankroll the majority of the capital expenditure associated with the cruise liners, in line with its asset-light strategy, three people said. Accor is also launching luxury hotels and trains under the Orient Express brand. Talks have been held with several parties but discussions with Emirati ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoums conglomerate Dubai Holding are at a more advanced stage, the people said. Dubai Holding, which has $35bn worth of assets, owns the Jumeirah luxury hotel chain and last year agreed a deal with Accor to launch hotels in the emirate. Talks may yet fall through, the people added. Read the full article at ft.com RobosizeME, a leader in innovative automation solutions, is thrilled to announce the remarkable results achieved through its collaboration with Louvre Hotels Group, one of the world's major players in the global hotel industry. By implementing RobosizeME's cutting-edge automation technology, Louvre Hotels Group has significantly streamlined its operations, particularly in the area of rate code maintenance. The automation solution has led to unprecedented efficiency gains, demonstrating the immense potential of automation in the hospitality sector. The implementation of the new rate code maintenance automation at Louvre Hotels has yielded staggering results: 188 hours saved per month on rate code headers. 386 hours saved per month on rate code details. The automation solution has saved almost 72 days of manual work each month, assuming an 8-hour shift. This significant reduction in manual labour allows staff to redirect their focus towards more strategic tasks that enhance guest experiences and operational efficiency. In the fast-paced world of hospitality, efficiency and innovation are not just goals; they are necessities. The collaboration with RobosizeME has propelled Louvre Hotels Group into a new era of operational excellence. The automation of rate code maintenance alone has saved us almost 72 days of manual work per month and significantly improved our accuracy and response time to market changes. This is a game-changer for us, enabling our team to focus on what truly matters - providing exceptional experiences for our guests. Our journey with RobosizeME is a testament to the transformative power of automation, and we look forward to exploring new avenues of innovation together. Mehdi Soua Chief Information Officer, Louvre Hotels Group About Louvre Hotels Group Louvre Hotels Group is a major player in the global hospitality industry, with a portfolio that now includes more than 1,700 hotels in 60 countries. It has a full hotel offering, spanning 1 star to 5 stars, with the Louvre Hotels Groups historic brands (Royal Tulip, Golden Tulip, Campanile, Tulip Residences, Kyriad, Kyriad Direct, Tulip Residences, Tulip Inn, and Premiere Classe), the 5 brands of the Sarovar network in India, the French Group Hotels & Preference and the brand TemptingPlaces. The group also has a distribution agreement with the Barriere Group. Louvre Hotels Group is a subsidiary of Jin Jiang International Holdings Co., Ltd., the 2th hospitality group in the world. About RobosizeME RobosizeME is a process automation specialist for the global hospitality industry, helping companies automate operational processes. RobosizeME virtual workers automate hospitality's administrative processes by updating systems for essential business data to optimise human effort in all areas of hotel operations, including reservations, front of house, back office, revenue management, group sales, engineering and meetings and events. RobosizeME helps experienced staff to focus on guests and delivers the business cost-effectiveness and value. RobosizeME virtual workers are fully built, maintained, supported, and hosted, including the connectors to hospitality IT systems and the automation software licensing. For more information on RobosizeME and RPA within hospitality, visit robosize.me. Andre Baljeu Chief Operating Officer (COO) Robosize ME PITTSBURGH - To give hotel AP managers, approvers, controllers and CFOs better tools to work through the invoice lifecycle, Aptech has entered into an integration partnership with Ottimate (formerly PlateIQ), a company providing AP automation via AI. Together, Aptech and Ottimate are giving time back to accounting teams by enabling them to upload paper and electronic invoices in bulk and eliminate 90% of vendor invoice processing. Houston-based American Liberty Hospitality is one of the first hotel management and development companies to leverage the joint technology. Today with Aptech and Ottimate we are reducing the time it takes to process vendor paperwork, obtain the necessary approvals, and effect payment. The API integration between Aptechs PVNG enterprise accounting platform and Ottimate has made that a reality, and without a high degree of difficulty in implementation. Charles Poirier, American Liberty Hospitality Chief Financial Officer The intuitiveness of Ottimate has greatly benefited both our properties and corporate office, Poirier said. The OCR and AI learning aspect of invoice upload has greatly reduced the time required for property side AP activity, and the speed of the cloud-based platform is far superior to our previous system. Ultimately, we intend to use the Vendor Pay section of the system to reduce the workload on the corporate AP team. We expect this technology to simplify our AP processes throughout the organization and allow us to scale with much less difficulty on the AP and payments side of our business. With Aptech + Ottimate, hotel accounting teams receive: Invoice Automation: Capture and process invoices, reducing manual data entry and errors. Expense Tracking: Gain real-time visibility into expenses to make informed financial decisions. Streamlined Approval Workflow: Customize approval workflows to fit unique business processes. Vendor Management: Easily manage vendor relationships and negotiate better terms. AI Automation Ottimate AI leverages large language models (LLMs) to support complex AP processing requirements, and it is compatible with PVNG. With zero to minimal training requirements, Ottimate can process large volumes of multi-page invoices, capture custom header and line item fields, and code invoices to multiple custom dimensions, including general ledger, departments, projects, and more. Matthew Wallach, Ottimate Partner Manager Ottimate captures data down to the line item with 99.97% accuracy and pushes the information to PVNG. The solution leverages in-house built AI and machine learning to code invoices to the GL within PVNG. Translating information based on historical data with machine learning and AI enables accountants to auto code specific line items, such as tomatoes, to the GL account. Ottimate is learning a hotels AP processes and eliminating human error from manual data processing, Wallach said. The technology is continuously learning how each hotel processes invoices and enters the data accordingly. Its an irreplaceable time-saving tool. Best-In-Class AP PVNG named among the Best Finance & Accounting Software of 2024 by Hotel Tech Report features Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Statistics, Financials, Bank Reconciliation, automated invoice processing, a myriad of payment options, and drill-down capabilities in financial statements and reports. It is the first hotel accounting solution to connect to the Plaid Data Network. It can handle single or multi-property accounting and can be deployed as a hosted service. Aptech and Ottimate are providing a seamless and efficient solution for hotels seeking best-in-class AP automation. This integration partnership signifies a shared commitment to giving hotels end-to-end AP automation for a better day to day. By leveraging the strengths and expertise of both companies, this collaboration will help hotel accounting departments thrive. Through innovative solutions and a customer-centric AP approach, Aptech and Ottimate are making financial processing more streamlined and efficient. Jill Wilder, Aptech President American Liberty Hospitalitys Poirier said he is thankful for the tech alliance. Improving productivity while staying cost competitive is a constant need for hotel operators, Poirier said. We appreciate the collaboration of these software providers and encourage both to continue to pursue other such improvements for their customers. For more information on all Aptech solutions, visit http://www.aptech-inc.com. About Aptech Aptech Computer Systems, Inc., based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the only provider of a fully integrated enterprise accounting, business intelligence and planning ecosystem to the hospitality industry. All clients are companies like yours, which own or manage hotels. Its solutions help customers at both the corporate and property levels understand their financial and operational data for faster goal achievement. The company is renowned for introducing business intelligence into the hotel industry and offers a solid resource of hospitality professionals. Aptech is an IBM Software Value Plus partner and Premier Solution Provider, as well as a Prophix Premier Business Partner. Incorporated in 1970, Aptechs state-of-the-art back office, true business intelligence and enterprise planning solutions are 100% hotel specific. Solutions include PVNG, Execuvue and Targetvue. Clients comprise over 3,500 properties including large chains, multiple-property management companies and single-site hotels. Execuvue is registered to Aptech Computer Systems Inc. All other trademarks are owned by their respective holders. For more information, please visit www.aptech-inc.com. About Ottimate (Formerly Plate IQ) Ottimate is AP automation AI that provides a more innovative way for AP managers, approvers, controllers, and CFOs to work through the entire invoice lifecycle. With mature deep learning capabilities powered by AI, Ottimate learns your business and AP process down to the line item, supporting a custom approval and payment workflow. Ottimate eliminates over 90% of the manual accounting process and provides insights into invoices and spending, helping finance professionals uncover opportunities for growth. This means more strategic business decisions for CFOs and a better day-to-day for the entire team. Dont just automate AP. Ottimate it. To learn more, visit ottimate.com. Barbara Worcester +1 440 930 5770 Hilton announced a new exclusive partnership with premier outdoor hospitality company AutoCamp to offer Hilton guests an experience that blends the spirit of an iconic outdoor adventure with the hospitality and design-forward thinking of a boutique hotel, in spectacular settings that include properties adjacent to popular national parks. AutoCamp stays will be bookable on Hiltons direct channels in the coming months, giving Hilton guests direct access to outdoor hospitality that goes beyond glamping. Hilton Honors members will be able to earn and redeem Points and enjoy exclusive member benefits while experiencing sought-after locations across the United States, such as Yosemite, Joshua Tree and Russian River in California; Zion, Utah; Cape Cod, Mass.; and Catskills, N.Y.; with Asheville, N.C. and Sequoia, Calif., opening this summer and Hill Country, Texas, in 2025. We know todays travelers are craving adventures when planning their next trip, and thats why we look for innovative and like-minded partners like AutoCamp, said Chris Silcock, president, Global Brands and Commercial Services, Hilton. This is the first time a major hospitality brand and outdoor lodging company have come together in this way to create even more choices for travelers while redefining the outdoor hospitality experience. According to the Hilton Trends Report, in 2024, nearly half of travelers will prioritize exploration and adventure, with more than half of Gen Z and Millennials carving out more budget for these types of experiences, exceeding other generations. Each AutoCamp location creates a unique experience that provides a comfortable and simple way for guests to immerse themselves in nature. Through an exclusive relationship with Airstream, AutoCamp offers custom-designed Airstreams, spacious cabins, luxury tents and other unique accommodations. Located at the heart of each AutoCamp is The Clubhouse, the social hub of the property, which serves food and beverage options from The Kitchen, and offers grab-and-go merchandise and retail items from a boutique market. Thoughtfully appointed to reflect its locale, each Clubhouse is designed by notable architects with a mid-century modern aesthetic. Surrounding The Clubhouse, sprawling grounds are punctuated with multiple common areas, including communal fire pits, trails, swimming pools (at select locations), group meeting spaces and other outdoor amenities. Our mission at AutoCamp has always been to reconnect people with the outdoors and each other, said Neil Dipaola, founder and CEO, AutoCamp. "By partnering with an incredible global brand like Hilton, we're able to introduce Hilton Honors members to a new hospitality experience rooted in nature bringing them closer to the country's most iconic national parks and explorable outdoor destinations without sacrificing the highest caliber of hospitality and comfort they expect. Hilton continues to offer customers the right stay for every travel occasion through an unmatched portfolio of industry-leading brands plus exclusive partnerships that create more experiences for guests. The AutoCamp partnership, as well as the recently announced partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, illustrates Hiltons continued commitment to expanding the experiences and adventures offered to Hilton guests and Hilton Honors members, who can dream, book, and earn and spend Points for stays. Boston University School of Hospitality Administration (BU SHA) is proud to announce that the fourth annual ICON award will be presented to Padma Lakshmi, an Emmy-nominated producer, television host, food expert, and a New York Times best-selling author, as well as one of Time Magazines 100 Most Influential People (2023). BU School of Hospitality Administration presents the ICON award annually to recognize innovators who create new and transformative paradigms in hospitality. The ICON award ceremony and reception will conclude the Schools marquee event, the Hospitality Leadership Summit on Thursday, April 4, 2024 at Boston Universitys Computing and Data Sciences Center, Bostons largest fossil fuel-free building. The Summit brings together students, faculty, and industry colleagues for a day of inspiration and networking around a shared passion for creating memorable experiences. For the Summit speaker line-up and to register, visit: www.bu.edu/hospitality/events/summit/ I am honored to be recognized by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration and to support the schools mission to make the world a more hospitable place for all, said Padma Lakshmi. Fostering leaders who are committed to creating memorable, joyful experiences that connect people is important to both society and humanity. We are proud to recognize Padma Lakshmi with the prestigious ICON Award, states Arun Upneja, Ph.D., Dean of Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. Through her many impressive achievements, she epitomizes hospitality in the truest sense of the definition: welcoming the stranger. Her advocacy for immigrant and womens rights are a testament to her unwavering championing of inclusiveness, equality, and justice. Padma Lakshmi is the creator of the critically acclaimed and Emmy-nominated Hulu series Taste the Nation, which is the recipient of a James Beard Foundation Award top prize in Visual Media Long Form. Lakshmi served as host and executive producer for 19 seasons of Bravos two-time Emmy-winning series Top Chef, which has been nominated for 47 Emmys, including her five-time nomination for Outstanding Host for a Reality-Competition Program. Read Padma Lakshmis full bio here. Padma Lakshmi will accept the award to conclude the schools 2024 Hospitality Leadership Summit which features inspirational leaders sharing their vision for the future of the business. About Boston University School of Hospitality Administration Established in 1981 and now celebrating 40 years of Innovating the Business of Hospitality, Boston University's School of Hospitality Administration (SHA) offers students a combination of rigorous academics, liberal arts curriculum, and international experiences for the pursuit of success in lodging, restaurants, food service, and other avenues of the hospitality industry. SHA has a unique relationship with the city of Boston, where the area's hotels and restaurants provide students with numerous opportunities for internships to satisfy work experience requirements for their degrees. Information on graduate and undergraduate degrees at BU School of Hospitality Administration: www.bu.edu/hospitality/academics About Boston University Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized institution of higher education and research. With more than 33,000 students, it is the fourth-largest independent university in the United States. BU consists of 17 schools and colleges, along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes integral to the University's research and teaching mission. In 2012, BU joined the Association of American Universities (AAU), a consortium of 62 leading research universities in the United States and Canada. For decades, we have all seen the cost of doing business climb. Yet, companies investing in new technology stacks demand cost-effective solutions, with subscription-based platforms being preferred. So, how can big (and little) technology companies continue to grow and be profitable in the hospitality technology space? Enter the ever-increasing Payment-based Software as a Service and Inter-Vendor Integration Revenue Sharing trends. In payment-based software as a service, all or part of the core solution being purchased is paid for through a mandated or sometimes optional use of a card payment platform that the vendor owns or resells. For inter-vendor revenue-sharing models, vendors agree to divide the generated revenue of the sale of joint integrations. This is often done without the knowledge of the purchasing consumer company, with the split rarely being equal. So, how did this all evolve? I look back at my past to help lend insight. In 1997, I joined a small yet well-established multinational hospitality technology company, Visual One Systems (acquired by Agilysys in 2006), as a product manager and later advanced my career into sales. The company was owned by Dave Burroughs, a visionary later honored as an inductee into the HFTP International Technology Hall of Fame. While this was during the height of the .com boom, cloud platforms and n-tier architected solutions had yet to become the norm. When a software developer in Daves company was assigned to program something new, they had far more tasks they were responsible for than software engineers of today. This included writing the code, building the database tables and scripts, creating the user interface, and designing printable reports that could be run from the module. This approach kept development teams small, as a single developer would handle multiple process duties. It's important to note that this was before cloud and subscription-based software, which meant the software was a capital expenditure. Hotel and restaurant companies purchasing the software had to invest significantly in hardware running in onsite server rooms or hosted in offsite data centers in which they owned or leased space. It is almost impossible to create a new technology platform in today's world that is not cloud-based and subscription-oriented. Moving towards cloud-based services can help companies reduce infrastructure and labor expenses by decreasing their managed technology footprint. However, this transition has increased costs for vendors. A single software development engineer is no longer enough to develop a new module, and several team members are now required to accomplish the same task. For instance, a new event booking screen in a sales and catering solution developed by a modern technology company would likely involve a product manager, business analyst, business logic code developer, database developer, UX/UI developer, reports developer, web developer, quality assurance analyst, and other functional roles working on its release. In comparison, in the pre-cloud era, a single developer performed many or, depending on company size, all of these tasks independently. Cloud solutions vendors must also employ cloud architects, database administrators, and cybersecurity analysts. They need to bear the costs of the cloud provider of their choice, such as Alibaba, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Oracle, etc. Software development companies face additional expenses when expanding internationally, including the need to deploy their solutions in multiple cloud instances worldwide and extra labor costs to support global customers. Considering all these factors, it is evident that it was far easier to profit from selling software before the advent of the cloud than today in a very cloudy world. Industry giants like Oracle, who own their cloud hosting platform, have an advantage as they can better control rising costs. The Rise of Payment-based Software as a Service While it still needs to win popularity contests in the United States, the global trend of paying for mission-critical software through credit card transaction fees is rapidly rising. While I need help pinpointing which company was the first to start the trend, Square is most likely a contender to that claim. Several years before Toast Point-of-Sale came out with a cloud-based restaurant point-of-sale that businesses pay for via credit card transactions, Square had a retail point-of-sale solution based on the same model. However, both Toast and Square were built around the premise of generating income through payments and did so by incorporating mission-critical software into their stack. As we look into recent acquisitions made by payment platform provider Fullsteam of Maestro PMS, MegaSys, IQWare, and Resort Data Processing, and partnerships between companies like Stayntouch, Mews, and Agilysys with major global payment providers like Adyen, we can see that mission-critical software products are now integrating payment platforms as an essential part of their offerings. This integration helps to offset the rising costs associated with developing, hosting, cyber-securing, deploying, and supporting the core solution in the cloud. As a result, the entire platform becomes more profitable for the vendor and potentially more cost-effective for the buyer. This trend has also made mission-critical solutions more affordable for small business owners. Now, a small restaurant or lakeside inn owner can afford quality technology solutions to run their business as long as they agree to use the payment platform provided by the vendor. Why aren't larger companies as enthusiastic about this trend? Although this model is gaining momentum in North America, it still has a long way to go to win over leading industry analysts and many C-level hotel technology professionals I have spoken to. These professionals have told me that they do not want to be mandated to use a payment platform tied to a core solution. Industry influencers sometimes tell their hotel company customers that such a mandate is a con rather than a pro when it comes to new technology decision-making. Although the short-term costs may be lower, their analysis often suggested higher long-term costs. Larger hospitality operators have a high volume of payment transactions through bars, restaurants, banquet departments, and front office operations. To help reduce card payment fees, they attempt to select a single payment platform for their entire operation to negotiate lower rates. This allows them to have their property management system, point-of-sale system, sales & catering solution, and even back-office accounting solution seamlessly connected to a single card payment platform. They could potentially lose their preferred processing rates if they were to replace any of these mission-critical solutions with a new system that mandates a different card payment platform. Having multiple payment platforms inside an enterprise also creates user frustration, as payment reporting might no longer be consolidated, making auditing more difficult. To maintain streamlined operations, a company must switch all its solutions to the new payment platform or use consolidation business intelligence tools. Although they can do so, it would make the project far more extensive, and there may even be penalties for changing card payment providers depending on the company's contract term. Like any other product or service, mandating a specific payment solution for a core solution reduces the impact of competition. As a result, the company's ability to negotiate transaction rates weakens as the threat of competition is removed. Integration Revenue Sharing Another trend on the rise is integration revenue sharing between vendors. This practice has been going on for decades; pre-cloud was less prevalent than today. It involves companies agreeing to do some type of revenue share for building and promoting integration between the two companies. Often, the share is unilateral in that the core solution does not share any revenue back to the surrounding solution. A prime example could be a housekeeping solution splitting a small percentage of their subscription fee to the property management system provider; in exchange, the PMS vendor will more aggressively promote the housekeeping solution and potentially even go as far as resale it. Suppose the PMS vendor has developed enough of these revenue share partnerships with companies they integrate. In that case, it can help them reduce the price of the core solution to the buyer, but not everyone is always a winner. Often, the royalties paid by the surround solution vendor have little to no impact on the core solutions sales representative commissions. So, in this example, the PMS vendor sales representative has no incentive to promote the housekeeping application; they will tell their customer to pick whatever housekeeping solution they prefer where an integration exists because their only goal is to sell and get paid on the PMS subscription. Revenue sharing between vendors has spurred a new dynamic in sales and marketing, especially of the larger mission-critical solutions. It used to be a sales representative would provide a potential buyer with a long list of available integrations via a sales document. However, these revenue-sharing relationships have contributed to the development of online marketplaces where vendors prominently promote their integrations on each others websites. It has also created pay-to-play models where vendors pay each other for the privilege of integrating and, in some cases, reducing or waiving their fees to the actual technology buyers. Whats Next? I broke my crystal ball a long time ago. With the rapid advancements in technology, companies are now doing unexpected things that were once thought impossible. However, some predictions about what's coming next seem clear. This includes the strategy of mergers and acquisitions. It can be puzzling when a company performs a Crazy Ivan and purchases another company that is not in their usual field. Still, it can result in exciting innovations that impress us all. Will more card payment processing companies acquire core solutions to generate more revenue from card transactions? Most Likely. Will surround technology solutions continue to leverage integrations to mission-critical systems and do revenue shares as a business development strategy? Absolutely. Everyone expects that if the global economy remains strong and the pandemic gets further away in the rearview mirror, merger and acquisition activity will continue to advance and potentially accelerate. We will likely experience another period of significant consolidation in the technology industry. Payment providers are expected to play a crucial role in this process as the adoption of mission-critical systems being paid for through payment transactions increases. As consolidation occurs, larger technology companies will emerge, making smaller firms more eager to enter revenue-sharing agreements. So, fasten your seat belts - it's going to be an interesting ride! Heres a taster of the latest episode with Lucia Montenegro. After graduating from EHL in 2015, Lucia began a career in investment and asset management in the hospitality real estate sector, before later doing an MBA at INSEAD in Fontainebleau. She is currently Head of Asset Management Germany & Austria for hotel investor and operator AccorInvest. Investing in herself Lucia Montenegro has always had a clear career plan. At high school, she already knew she wanted to work in investment, and this aim, combined with her passion for travel, languages and hospitality, led her to take her bachelors at EHL. Whilst there, an internship in the hotels team at real estate investment advisor JLL reinforced her desire to go into that sector, and she returned to the company after EHL. She stayed there for six years, working first in London and then Madrid, building a career that took her into a leadership position. Despite this success, Lucia decided to stick to her long-held goal to undertake an MBA. Why did you want to do an MBA? I believe that one should always continue to develop academically and also in terms of personal growth. Obviously, you learn a lot of skills at work and you develop professionally, but there's something that is missing where you can basically invest in yourself, right? I've always seen myself doing an MBA because I believe it's a good amount of academic skills, but you also train in yourself skills: how to be a leader, how does organizational behaviour work, how does the strategy within a bigger company work. Lucia Montenegro, Head of Asset Management Germany & Austria at AccorInvest Also, when I was benchmarking C-level positions or board members, you'll rarely see anybody that only has a bachelors, they usually have some other degree. It was always quite clear for me that an MBA was the way to go. Why was INSEAD the school for you? First, it's a 10-month program, so you're not as long away from work. Furthermore, INSEAD is very similar to EHL, very international. There's no more than 15 people per nationality. So you're a minority within INSEAD, which is very cool. And then the last point was that the alumni, regardless where they came from in the world, they usually stay in Europe after. I do see myself in the short to mid-term definitely staying in Europe. That was one of the key factors as well, that I said, Okay, I do want to have my network around me. The electives on INSEADs MBA allow you to tailor the course to your needs how did you approach this? What I was looking into is, where do I see myself next? What are the roles I'm inclining into? Obviously, those are roles where I lead a team, where I have a big portfolio under me where I need to strategize and build on personal relations. So the electives that I choose, I want them to help me and give me some tools that I can apply after on how to become an even better leader and a great manager. But, for example, other students have more a path of, hey, I want to change industries, I only have 10 months to make it, I need these and these skills. It's good that you have a plan before you start INSEAD on what the electives are, because it goes really, really fast. Did the course meet your expectations? I think it exceeded them, to be honest. I went there for mostly the academic part of it. I came back with a lot of friends. You get inspired from many people because they come from all sorts of backgrounds. At EHL it's very hospitality-focused, you have a lot in common with the students and the alumni there. But after a few years, it's nice also to open up the horizon and meet other people from other industries. That was very exciting. Discover Our Podcasts After INSEAD, you joined AccorInvest. Did your MBA help you win that role? The entire interview process came through my own network that I had built before INSEAD. However, I do believe that the MBA definitely gave me that extra edge and that extra understanding of what it would take to excel in this role. So I think the MBA definitely was a major contributor in terms of getting the job. Doing an MBA is a big financial investment as well. To you, was it worth it? You'll have to ask me in eight years when I pay off my loan for the MBA! But no, honestly speaking, I think you have to see an MBA as not only an investment in your career, but also in terms of personal growth. It's a long-term investment. It is a big commitment, financially speaking. However, for INSEAD specifically, the moment you get accepted, the school will help you get the financing you need. About EHL Group EHL Group is the global reference in education, innovation and consulting for the hospitality and service sector. With expertise dating back to 1893, EHL Group now offers a wide range of leading educational programs from apprenticeships to master's degrees, as well as professional and executive education, on three campuses in Switzerland and Singapore. EHL Group also offers consulting and certification services to companies and learning centers around the world. True to its values and committed to building a sustainable world, EHL Group's purpose is to provide education, services and working environments that are people-centered and open to the world. www.ehlgroup.com EHL Hospitality Business School Communications Department +41 21 785 1354 EHL View source La Festa Phu Quoc Resort La Festa Phu Quoc Resort La Festa Phu Quoc Resort La Festa Phu Quoc Resort La Festa Phu Quoc Resort Hilton (NYSE: HLT) announces the opening of La Festa Phu Quoc, Curio Collection by Hilton, the first Curio Collection by Hilton property in Vietnam. Alan Watts, president, Asia Pacific, Hilton, said We are thrilled to be partnering with Sun Group as we debut our Curio Collection by Hilton brand in Vietnam, and in the desirable island resort of Phu Quoc. This milestone market entry demonstrates our great growth momentum and the appeal of Hiltons brands across Asia Pacific all positioning us well to capture the growing travel demand in one of the regions most exciting destinations. An enduring narrative weaves through every aspect of the resorts design story. Inspired by a romantic encounter of a young couple who met on the island and travelled the world together pursuing an artists life, La Festa Phu Quoc is a vibrant curation of the couples experiences in the coastal town of Amalfi, Italy, and a reflection of Phu Quocs distinctive culture and people. Every corner of the resort exudes an air of refined adventure, with breathtaking architecture that mirrors the charm of the renowned Italian coastline, and delightful nooks that celebrate a captivating mosaic of colours. Overlooking a stunning beach, the resort is close popular attractions including the Hon Thom Cable Car, Kiss of The Sea Show and Kiss Bridge, and is a 25 minute-drive from the airport. The opening of La Festa Phu Quoc, Curio Collection by Hilton is a great addition to the Collection with its Amalfi Coast-inspired design, views overlooking the southern coast of Phu Quoc and Italian cuisine and culinary experiences, said Jenna Hackett, global brand head, Curio Collection by Hilton. "Curio Collection by Hilton's Vietnam debut reaffirms our commitment to expanding the brand across the region, and this momentum will continue with upcoming openings of other remarkable properties in some of the world's most sought-after destinations. With a total of 197 rooms and suites, La Festa Phu Quoc reimagines the beauty and sun-kissed landscapes of Italian coastal towns with carefully crafted interiors and a bright, warm colour palette to create visually stunning aesthetics. Room amenities include 19-69 Capri bath products, which draws inspiration from Villa Malaparte in Italy and the classic 1963 film Le Mepris. Guests can indulge in la dolce vita or the sweet life at MARE, which serves elevated Italian cuisine with the rich flavours of the Mediterranean. The palazzo-inspired lobby bar IL SALONE calls for a standstill in time, where Italian espressos and traditional pastries encourage guests to stop for a moment and embrace dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing. The striking lobby bar reflects the lively ambience of an Italian salon, with a reflective ceiling finish mirroring the grandeur of a beautiful piano, and floor tiles that whimsically depict a keyboard. The MERCHANT features an extensive all-day dining experience with seasonal ingredients sourced from both near and far. At LA CAPRI BEACH CLUB, opening in April 2024, stylish designs evoke joyful spirits while music and lively conversation drift through the air as guests relax under glowing sunlight. La Festa Phu Quoc offers an extensive array of facilities, inviting all to bask in the lively and free-spirited nature of the property. Guests can enjoy sun-soaked days by the outdoor pool or restore their spirits with uplifting aromas both familiar and intriguing at the award-winning eforea spa. Drawing inspiration from the stunning Amalfi beaches and Phu Quocs scenic hills adorned with the islands famed sim flowers, La Festa Phu Quoc's spa enclave offers therapeutic treatments and massages that intimately connect with nature and provide a holistic experience that soothes the body, mind, and soul. Specially designed for couples to indulge in treatments together, the 'Joy for Two' treatment offers a shared experience that enhances relaxation in a private and serene environment. Meanwhile, little ones will be thoroughly entertained at the Kids Club, a playground for young ones that draws design inspiration from the iconic lemons of Amalfi. Dang Minh Truong, chairman, Board of Directors, Sun Group, said, The launch of La Festa Phu Quoc reaffirms Sun Groups focus and ambitions in creating destination-focused lifestyle offerings that enhance Phu Quocs appeal and setting new standards of hospitality in Vietnam. More than a vibrant embodiment of the dazzling Amalfi dreams from Italy, La Festa Phu Quoc is also poised to capture the islands beauty. Through the resort, we are confident that guests will be able to immerse themselves in unique adventures through layers of emotionally-rich and aesthetically-refined experiences.= Employee Engagement: The Method Behind Hospitality Success Imagine a luxury hotel where front desk staff greet you warmly, housekeepers meticulously prepare your room, and servers delight you with their attentive service. Now imagine the opposite: a hotel where staff seem unhappy in their roles and indifferent to your needs. The contrast is stark, and it underscores a fundamental truth about hospitality - employee engagement and customer experience are powerfully intertwined. At its core, hospitality is a people business. From check-in to check-out, guests rely on staff to deliver service excellence and shape their perception of a hotel or brand. In this article, well explore the vital connection between engaged employees and satisfied customers in hospitality, and well examine how organizations that invest in their people reap the rewards through enhanced reputation, loyalty, and commercial success. Creating a memorable guest experience: The power of engaged employees In hospitality, customer perception is reality. Guests rely on employees to deliver the core service and shape their experience at every touchpoint. An engaged, enthusiastic staff leads to satisfied guests who trust the brand, return frequently, and recommend it to others. Conversely, unsatisfied employees are less productive, and they project negativity that detracts from the customer journey and damages loyalty. In fact, recent studies show that disengaged employees are 18% more likely to make mistakes and may cost organizations up to 34% of their annual salary due to decreased productivity. Moreover, employee workgroups that have low engagement levels experience a 25% higher rate of absenteeism and 62% more accidents, leading to increased operational costs. As the face of the organization, employees make or break brand reputation through service quality. Their interactions determine whether guests feel welcomed and valued, ultimately shaping the customer experience. Engaged employees are value makers as they take pride in their work, have a pleasant disposition, and go the extra mile, while disengaged staff seem indifferent and inconvenienced, which harms service, customer loyalty, and overall brand image and reputation. Additionally, engaged employees can also provide insights into improving customer satisfaction, as they directly receive guest feedback. By involving staff in customer experience (CX) improvement initiatives, hotels gain invaluable perspectives and solutions from the frontlines. Factors driving employee satisfaction in hospitality What workplace elements affect staff morale, satisfaction, and engagement in hospitality? Key factors range from company culture to compensation, shaping how employees view their roles and organization. Workplace culture and environment A healthy, inclusive culture where staff feel welcomed, valued, and heard fosters engagement. The physical environment also matters - office layouts, adequate supplies and equipment, and spaces that enable collaboration or relaxation during breaks. Training and development Ongoing learning opportunities allow staff to gain new skills, advance their careers, and feel that the organization is investing in their growth. This can involve internal mentorships, external conferences, tuition reimbursement, and more. Empowerment and recognition Employees want to feel their work has meaning and impact. Recognizing contributions publicly or privately also boosts morale. Empowering staff to resolve guest issues promptly fuels engagement. At Starwood Hotels, aligning incentives to guest satisfaction metrics boosted employee empowerment when they created a guest experience index for GMs that integrates employee experience and guest satisfaction in the reward structure. Leadership and communication Supportive leadership and open communication foster trust and community. Town halls, surveys, an open-door policy, and transparent discussions of company goals keep staff informed and engaged. Hotels find that increased collaboration and communication between departments is strongly correlated to reduced customer complaints. Compensation and benefits Competitive and fair compensation demonstrates the organization values its people. Robust benefits like health insurance, retirement plans, and flexibility policies also impact engagement. Work-life balance Hospitality involves high demands, long hours, and attentiveness to guest needs 24/7. Organizations that promote reasonable workloads, flexibility, and respect for personal life nourish staff morale outside of work as well. Empowering employees : Effective strategies for boosting morale in hospitality organizations With multiple factors impacting staff morale, how can hospitality organizations effectively nurture engagement? Key strategies include: Foster open communication and feedback Create channels for staff to voice suggestions, concerns, or questions. Conduct regular surveys to gauge satisfaction. Encourage managers to actively listen, seek input, and share company news. Provide growth opportunities Offer cross-training to build skills laterally. Enable staff to develop expertise through mentorships, classes, certifications, and tuition assistance. Make promotions and career progress schemes transparent and accessible. Celebrate achievements and recognize them Spotlight employee accomplishments in newsletters or meetings. Send thank you notes, gestures, and gift cards for excellent service.; Tie rewards to guest satisfaction metrics when appropriate. Promote collaboration and inclusivity Build connections between departments through mixers, committees, and volunteering. Ensure diversity, prevent harassment, and make all staff feel welcomed and valued. Example: Marriott's Serve Our World value fosters inclusion via volunteering, fundraising and community engagement. Enable work-life balance Be flexible about shift swaps and schedules when possible. Offer programs like onsite childcare, employee assistance, and stress management. Respect days off approved for religious holidays or cultural traditions. Example: Partnering with nurseries, IHG provides employees access to discounted childcare services to provide financial support and flexibility for working parents. Offer competitive benefits and compensation Benchmark pay and benefits routinely to attract and retain talent. Consider perks like retirement contributions, insurance, transportation stipends, onsite amenities, and discretionary bonuses. Example: Hilton offers tuition-free education to employees seeking to upskill and up to $5,250/year for undergraduate programs. Show employees they are valued Recognize work anniversaries, learn about staffs passions, and check in on wellbeing. Invest in office enhancements suggested by employees to create a better working (and living) space. Make staffing levels sustainable for an optimal work environment, instead of cutting corners. The crucial role of staff satisfaction in driving success for hospitality brands Seeing how employee sentiment impacts the guest experience, the bottom line is clear: employee engagement is critical to commercial success in hospitality. Happier staff means happier guests. Engaged employees provide better service quality, while disengaged workers damage experiences. High morale drives up guest satisfaction, loyalty, likelihood to recommend, and brand preference. Its not surprising that a 5% increase in employee engagement leads to a 3% increase in customer loyalty growth. In the digital era, delighted guests boost ratings and reviews, increasing search visibility and reputation. Poor reviews from unsatisfying stays conversely deter bookings and tarnish brand image. Customer satisfaction scores were shown to rise 1.3 points for every 1-star increase in an employers Glassdoor rating - meaning customer and employee satisfaction are positively and clearly linked. Beyond customer metrics, engagement nurtures innovation and productivity among teams. Workers can bring a wealth of creative ideas in an open and collaborative environment where contributions are encouraged to help the organization continually improve. Employees are also more invested in success when engaged, benefiting operations and profitability. Companies with high employee engagement have 23% greater profitability, according to Gallup. Reduced turnover saves substantial hiring and training costs. Experienced staff also deliver service more consistently as longevity builds expertise, on the other hand, new workers mean retraining and service hiccups. According to The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell, replacing just one typical front-line employee costs hospitality businesses about $5,864 on average. Ultimately, in the hospitality industry, where human interactions make or break brands, employee engagement is inextricably tied to the bottom line. The most successful, industry-leading global hotel chains recognize this, making workplace culture and satisfaction strategic priorities to retain a competitive advantage. This article originally appeared on EHL Insights. Hudson, NY (12534) Today Partly cloudy. High 47F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Mostly cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. A few flurries are possible. Low 32F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Think musicians should be paid for radio play? SIGN THIS PETITION NOW The United States is one of a handful of countries that dont compensate artists when their music is played on AM/FM radio. The others denying hundreds of thousands of musicians the income they deserve include North Korea and Iran. If #GreedyBroadcasters can stiff the artists whose music fills AM/FM airwaves, they will. Theyve been doing it for decades. Help end this injustice by voicing your support for #MusicFairness. https://t.co/oL334B2V3t musicFIRST (@musicFIRST) February 20, 2024 Congress can fix this problem by passing the American Music Fairness Act. But corporate radio giants are spending tens of millions of dollars to hire lobbyists to kill the legislation. If you agree that the people who performed the music played on the radio should be compensated, join artists and fans in signing this petition from the MusicFirst Coalition now. Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a Berklee College Of Music professor. H/T The Trichordist Share on: Williamstown Fin Comm Begins Review of FY25 Spending Plan WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. The town is looking at a 2.8 percent increase in its property tax levy for the fiscal year that begins on July 1, and members of the Finance Committee last week talked about finding a way to whittle that number down. Town Manager Robert Menicocci presented the Fin Comm with a preliminary budget of $24.8 million for FY25, up 4 percent from the $23.9 million spending plan for the current fiscal year. Factoring out other sources of income for the town, that leaves a local property tax burden of $20.9 million, up from $20.3 million in the current fiscal year, a rise of about $600,000 or 2.8 percent. "I'd like to throw down a goal here that when I go through the arithmetic, I'd like to see us try to cut about $200,000 out of the budget," Fin Comm Chair Melissa Cragg said at the panel's first working session of the FY25 budget season. "That can come from any number of places. I think we can deliver this without touching services." There are still a couple of unknowns embedded in the budget that Menicocci presented to the Finance Committee at its Feb. 21 meeting. The largest is the assessment from the Mount Greylock Regional School District. The PreK-12 school district budget represents, by far, the largest single line item in the town budget: $13.3 million, or 56 percent of the current year's $23.9 million budget, for example. Menicocci's draft spending plan includes, as a placeholder, a 4 percent increase in the Mount Greylock assessment, up to $13.8 million for FY25. The district administration earlier in the month told the Mount Greylock School Committee that as of Feb. 8, the projected assessment would be up by about 4 percent for Williamstown (and 5 percent for Lanesborough, the other member town in the district) but that officials hoped to bring the assessments down as the budget is fine-tuned. The Mount Greylock School Committee has a meeting scheduled for 5:30 pm Thursday to focus solely on its FY25 budget and plans to pass a final budget (including the assessments) at its March 14 meeting. Both the Williamstown Select Board and Finance Committee have encouraged Menicocci to bring forward a budget that minimizes any increase in local property taxes. One member of the Fin Comm last week went a step further, calling for no increase in the property tax levy. "What we're going to tax the existing taxpayers is up by $600,000," Fred Puddester said, referencing the draft budget from the town. "That's our charge: to get to zero, to that $600,000 to zero. "The good news is if you go up one page and look at free cash, even if we accepted all of Bob's recommendations, we'd have $277,000 to apply toward the $600,000 we need to get to to make the budget balanced. I think between scouring this budget and looking at what Bob has increased some of our revenue [projections], other non-property tax revenues. I think there is still room to raise them a little more. And we have to shave what goes into the Stabilization Fund or make some other adjustments, but I think we can get to that $600,000 to make the overall tax levy the same. "I think we can get there." "Free cash," more formally known as the town's Unreserved Fund Balance, is generated either by higher than expected revenue or lower than budgeted expenses in a given year. In some years, town meeting has voted to apply some portion of free cash to reducing the tax rate: $250,000 in May 2022 for FY23, most recently. Another common use of free cash: capital improvements. In FY23, $495,000 from the unreserved fund balance went to capital projects; in the current fiscal year, $1.1 million in free cash is allocated for capital projects (roads, heavy equipment, repairs to town-owned buildings and the like). Menicocci's report to the Fin Comm last week showed an anticipated $1.8 million free cash balance going into FY25. On Wednesday, he did not specifically respond to suggestions that more of that Unreserved Fund Balance could be applied to lowering the tax rate. But his remarks did emphasize that the FY25 expenses in the budget already are lean. He emphasized that any increases in town government in the budget are the result of "non-discretionary" spending, on things like a 7 percent increase in health insurance costs or a 3 percent increase in salaries for all town employees driven by a 3 percent rise negotiated with its unionized staff. "Overall, what I think you'll see is not a budget that is very exciting in terms of new ideas, new initiatives, things of that nature," Menicocci said. "But it is exciting if you want to see a relatively balanced budget that's responsible to the callout of where people wanted the budget to land. "What that means as a bottom line is that we bring to you a budget today that shows a fair amount of growth in it despite the fact that we're not really adding anything new. It's just the cost of doing business for the most part." Many in town have been calling in recent years for that business to include some of the social justice work that grew out of community conversations that intensified beginning in the summer of 2020. "We recognize that there are community wants whether that's to address some of the issues raised in the CARES Report, whether that's to address some of the issues that will surface from a deeper examination of what's in the comprehensive plan," Menicocci said. "So we recognize that's there, and we want to reiterate our commitment to addressing things. We're not going to just put things aside and say, We don't have the money to do this.' "But we'll do it in a methodical, responsible way and try to see all the possible funding that can come into the community through grants and things of that nature, too." Cragg asked Menicocci how, specifically, the recommendations from the Community Assessment and Research (CARES} Project are reflected in the FY25 budget. "What I said from the get-go is a lot of the work was already done to create some of the cure we needed, and we're in the process of getting that into the budget," Menicocci said. "At some point, to meet the mandate of having low growth or no growth, you have to stop adding to the budget. So we have to be mindful of how we approach items like the CARES Report and so forth. "What's really important with it is to take a relatively organic approach to this of working with the community. Start with what's already happening. Think about our approach to better communicate what is happening in our community. But also, as I said earlier, looking toward investments and things to help at least with the initial planning." Menicocci pointed to a $30,000 investment in the FY24 budget to redesign and enhance functionality of the town's website as one example. "One thing that is sorely missing is an effective communication strategy as well as the tools to do that," he said. "That's what we plan to build into our future website. To that end, we went out for a Community Compact grant, and we received $25,000 to help supplement the implementation of some things related to the website. Some of that will be ADA compliance, making sure we're doing all the things we need to do that we don't do currently. "But also what I'd like to have come out of that is a communications plan. This addresses CARES in the sense of community well-being, belonging, things of that nature. Having that strategy will help us reach some of those goals." Menicocci said the town is looking to partner with the Collins Center for Public Management at UMass Boston as a consultant to help Williamstown develop a communication strategy. The Finance Committee is scheduled to meet Thursday, Feb. 28, when members will have the opportunity to ask Menicocci detailed questions about elements of the FY25 spending plan. Marchetti explained that the former administration hoped that the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency would declare a snow emergency and those invoices would be covered through the state agency. Pittsfield Council Approves Public Services Monies After Oversight PITTSFIELD, Mass. A nearly $49,000 prior year payment for debris removal was approved by the City Council on Tuesday after it "slipped through the cracks." An order authorizing $48,820 for the Department of Public Services to pay Northern Tree Services for debris clearance and restoration work after a March 2023 storm was approved. "Although I would agree that there should be a purchase order I think there is an explanation behind why there was not," Mayor Peter Marchetti said. The monies will pay Northern Tree Services for clearing trees and large tree limbs that were knocked down by a snowstorm on March 14, 2023. The work was done on four separate occasions. Due to an "administrative oversight," the invoices were misplaced but have since been validated in collaboration with the tree company. Marchetti explained that the former administration hoped that the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency would declare a snow emergency and those invoices would be covered through the state agency. "As you all know, there was no state of emergency that was declared and that department was missing an administrative assistant for two and a half months during that timeframe of March through May," he said. "It slipped through the cracks so here we are today." He pointed to his former career at the Pittsfield Cooperative Bank, saying that the "banker in him says we need to do a better job of keeping track of our invoices when they come in." "And it's my job to build a department that is responsible for that piece," he said. "I've had a conversation with the department head in regards to this and we will attempt to ensure that this doesn't happen in the future." Councilor At Large Kathy Amuso explained that she spoke to Commissioner Ricardo Morales about the matter and he is putting a process into place to ensure that invoices are dealt with properly. In other news, a request to borrow $650,000.00 under the Sewer Enterprise Fund for the sewer main on Holmes Road was referred to the finance subcommittee. The approximately 700-foot extension includes installing two deep manholes and will provide sewer access to properties currently without it. Work is scheduled to cause minimal disruption and includes necessary restoration of the travel surface. The cost breaks down into $500,000 for construction, $100,000 for a 20 percent contingency, and $50,000 for construction administration and a resident engineer. Cynthia Brown, who sits on the board of directors for Arrowhead, said that the nonprofit appreciates the city's efforts to connect sewer to its part of the street and is confident that it can fundraise to connect to it. "As much as we embrace our mission of interpreting 19th-century and 18th-century and 20th-century American culture and history, we do not find our historical sewer system adds much to that interpretation," she said. iciHaiti - Obituary : Passing of the great historian Marcel B. Auguste The Embassy of Haiti in Ottawa learned with great sadness of the death of the historian, Marcel B. Auguste, which occurred Tuesday February 27, 2024 in Canada. Passionate about history, he had published several books on Haiti. The Embassy welcomes his departure and presents its condolences to his family and loved ones. Mr. Marcel B. Auguste was a renowned historian born in Port-au-Prince, in a neighborhood that he immortalized with a wonderful little book entitled "Si Bas-Peu-De-Chose m'etait conte". He taught for nearly 30 years at the former Academie de Quebec, now CEPEG de Sainte-Foy. Alongside his teaching career, he published solo "La Republique d'Haiti et la Deuxieme Guerre mondiale" and "Elie Lescot: Coup d'il sur une administration (1941-1946)". He also authored, in collaboration with his cousin, Dr. Claude B. Auguste, a history of Haiti in four volumes and a key work on the War of Independence, The Leclerc Expedition, 1801-1803. Marcel Auguste is the recipient of the Prize of the Haitian Society of History and Geography and the Paul Rivet Prize of the Academie des Sciences d'autre-mer (Paris). IH/iciHaiti Wednesday 28 February 2024, 20:42 - Last updated: 20:44 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This article is automatically translated A new political-diplomatic clash along the Budapest-Rome axis has emerged over the judicial case of Ilaria Salis, the 39-year-old teacher detained in Hungary since February 11, 2023, on charges of aggravated assault against some right-wing extremists. The situation escalated with a very heavy message released by the Hungarian government, which explicitly accuses the executive of Giorgia Meloni of trying to unduly influence the course of the trial: "It is surprising that Italy seeks to interfere in a Hungarian judicial case," wrote Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on social media immediately after meeting with the head of the Farnesina, Antonio Tajani. An attack fully endorsed by Viktor Orban, as it was published from the X account of his spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs. "This lady - Szijjarto pressed on - presented as a martyr in Italy, came to Hungary with a clear plan to attack innocent people on the streets as part of a radical left-wing organization. I sincerely hope she receives the deserved punishment in Hungary." Ilaria Salis: "Looking for a house in Budapest, hoping for house arrest. In cell 23 hours a day and dinner is not provided. Chains? Normality here." Ilaria Salis, the reaction of the Farnesina Clear and completely unexpected words that provoked a firm reaction from the Farnesina. From Rome, a statement reads, there is "no will to interfere, but the clear intention to press to verify that the detention conditions respect European regulations that call for the protection of human rights." During the meeting, the Farnesina informed, Tajani handed the Hungarian minister "a new, detailed memorandum on the detention conditions of the compatriot, highlighting the need for a fair trial and ensuring the dignity and fundamental rights of Ms. Salis, on whose case the Italian embassy in Budapest is constantly committed." The meeting The meeting, it is learned, took place in an atmosphere of substantial cordiality, without anything that could predict the subsequent Hungarian reaction. Following the delivery of the memorandum, the Hungarian minister simply reported that the issue, even in Budapest, has taken on significant political value in recent weeks. Nothing more. Hence the suspicion that his reaction had already been planned. The political clash The back and forth has reignited the political clash over the Salis case. "I hope that Tajani - attacked the leader of the Italian Left, Nicola Fratoianni - lets the Hungarian friends of Meloni and Salvini know that asking for the respect of civil human rights does not mean interference. If the Orban government is allergic to the rules of civilized living, it can always leave the EU in which it sits undeservedly." The Democratic Party also made a clear statement. "Based on the words of the Hungarian minister, Ilaria Salis is to be considered guilty before a sentence is even issued," commented the Democrat Tatjana Rojc. For Debora Serracchiani, Szijjarto's words are "unacceptable." Finally, Lia Quartapelle, very critical of the head of the Farnesina: "He agreed with the expulsion of Orban's party from the EPP and now is being scolded by one of his ministers. A deep involution by Tajani." Roberto Salis, Ilaria's father, also reacted furiously to the words with which the Hungarian minister defined his daughter: "We must ask him what he means by 'martyr,' if he means a person tortured for 35 days then Ilaria is a martyr." Meanwhile, at the next hearing scheduled for March 28, the lawyer will, as announced in recent days, request house arrest in Hungary, a necessary step to possibly obtain it in Italy. The Salis family has announced they have found a "solution" in Budapest. "Ilaria is a strong person - said the father -. Two days ago, I was informed by the Arci of Sieci, near Florence, that on May 1 my daughter will receive the silver mimosa." Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} There was once an Oscars so bad, so haunting, so mortifyingly dark-sided, that it made people question whether the annual ceremony should be put out of its misery. It was 1989, and the Academy were keen for a shake-up. Chevy Chase had just come off a second consecutive year as host to a rash of negative reviews, with the LA Times branding the whole affair parched, drab, and leaden. For the 1988 ceremony, there were no real shocks or upsets to speak of. Bernardo Bertoluccis sweeping historical epic The Last Emperor had been predicted to win and it did, in all nine of the categories it was nominated in. So, when Allan Carr a Hollywood producer known for his wardrobe full of caftans, his work on 1978s Grease, and his taste for outrageously kitsch house parties claimed he could deliver the most elegant production ever on television, the Academy jumped at the opportunity. What would actually take place, on the night of 29 March 1989, would unleash a moment of such infamy that it would lead the New York Timess Janet Maslin to remark: The 61st Academy Awards ceremony began by creating the impression that there would never be a 62nd. Today, though, the 1989 Oscars has something unexpected to teach us: a cringe-inducing ceremony may be disastrous in the moment, but its also memorable, sticking around in the cultural memory far longer than any of the more sober, tasteful affairs of recent years. Hollywood is, inescapably, a little self-indulgent and delusional. And do we really want the Oscars to be cool, or would we rather they just be honest? The most authentically Hollywood telecast in Oscar history begins with Snow White. Eileen Bowman, a 22-year-old unknown in a bouncy wig and a Bob Mackie-crystallised princess dress, rushes her way into the auditorium. And, then, in a strangulated rendition of Snows birdsong squeak, she performs a take on the old standard I Only Have Eyes for You while attempting to grasp the hands of various seated A-listers. Sigourney Weaver, in a smoothly calculated move, readjusts herself to avoid Bowmans touch. Tom Hanks isnt so lucky. He shakes her hand with a bemused look on his face. Michelle Pfeiffer pulls away the moment shes able to. In fact, the only actor who shows any investment in the bit is Martin Landau, who would later tell The Hollywood Reporter: It wasnt her fault. I empathised with her. Poor Snow White. She didnt have the dwarves to support her. On stage, the curtains rise on a recreation of LAs famous Cocoanut Grove nightclub, as talk show host Merv Griffin bursts into a rendition of Ive Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts delivered in a fake British accent, of course. Meanwhile, an army of dancers awkwardly shuffle a crowd of old Hollywood stars in and out of view, including Vincent Price, Dorothy Lamour, and Cyd Charisse. Then, Snow is introduced to her blind date for the night: Rob Lowe, at the time a member of Hollywoods Brat Pack and someone with genuine cultural cachet up until this very moment, at least. Together, they launch into a parody of Creedence Clearwater Revivals Proud Mary. She delivers reworked lyrics such as: used to work a lot for Walt Disney /starring in cartoons every night and day. He sounds like hes coughing up a furball. Tables sprout legs and start dancing behind them. Briefly, the camera pans by Robert Downey Jr out in his seat, his smirk speaking elegantly for the entire crowds contempt. Golden goof: the dismal opening number for the 1989 Oscars (Los Angeles Times/Getty) Somehow, it isnt over yet. Another curtain rises, this time on the famed Graumans Chinese Theatre and a chorus line of ushers dancing to Hooray for Hollywood. Snow eventually re-emerges with the cinemas gaudy entrance balanced on her head, out of which magically appears Lily Tomlin, doing a bit where she accidentally loses a shoe and a background dancer crawls awkwardly to retrieve it. A billion and a half people just watched that, she announces, as the segment finally comes to a close after 12 minutes of agony. Another excruciating musical number happened later, with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball introducing a 10-minute sequence dedicated to the stars of tomorrow, in which Christian Slater sword-fought and Corey Feldman was forced to imitate Michael Jackson (supposedly because the choreographer, Kenny Ortega, became obsessed with the fact hed worked with the musician). Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free These are going to be the people winning Oscars way into the next century, Hope teased. Its a bizarre number, premised entirely on the idea that a statuette is all but an inevitability for the likes of Adventures in Babysittings Keith Coogan and Page Hannah, sister of Daryl and star of Creepshow 2. While there are a handful of recognisable names here, including Patrick Dempsey and Hairsprays Ricki Lake, none of these stars of tomorrow are yet to even earn a nomination. Reaction to the 1989 Oscars veered from mockery to outright objection. A letter, signed by 17 industry powerhouses, including Paul Newman, Billy Wilder, Julie Andrews, Gregory Peck, and William Friedkin, denounced the ceremony as an embarrassment to both the Academy and the entire motion picture industry. Disney, meanwhile, launched a copyright infringement suit against the Academy, claiming that the unauthorised use of Snow White unintentionally creat[ed] the impression that Disney had participated in or sanctioned the opening production number on the Academy Awards telecast. The LA Times called it absolutely moribund. Carrs name was already on the decline, his Oscars coming on the heels of flop sequel Grease 2 (1982) and, two years earlier, a pseudo-biography of the Village People titled Cant Stop the Music. His hope was that producing the Academy Awards would help propel him back into the industrys warm embrace. Instead, he never worked in Hollywood again, and died from liver cancer a decade later, aged 62. I remember vividly looking out in the audience and seeing Barry Levinson, who on that particular evening was the belle of the ball with Rain Man, and I could see him very clearly popeyed and mouthing, what the [expletive]? Lowe told The New York Times in 2018. But to be a successful actor, you have to have a big dollop of self-denial, so I managed to convince myself that Id killed it. Several months later, hed become involved in a sex tape scandal that derailed his career. Bowman, meanwhile, claims she was made to sign a 13-year gag order, which prevented her from uttering a word about her experience. When she finally broke her silence to The Hollywood Reporter in 2013, she stated: All I can say is what Rob Lowe said, Never trust a man in a caftan. In fairness to Carr, his Oscars werent all bad. He instituted several changes that are still in effect today, namely the extended red carpet coverage kicking off the show, the individual presentations for the Best Picture nominees, and a swap of the phrase And the winner is for And the Oscar goes to. What a boob: Seth MacFarlane hosted the 2013 ceremony, which also featured a car-crash musical number (Getty Images) And, for balance, the Carr debacle is hardly the only time the Academys reputation has come under question. When Family Guys Seth MacFarlane hosted in 2013, he performed a number called We Saw Your Boobs, in which he pointed at various famous women in the audience and named any of their projects which featured on-screen nudity Jessica Chastain, we saw your boobs in Lawless, Jodie Foster in The Accused, Hilary Swank in Boys Dont Cry, Penelope Cruz in Vanilla Sky. In both The Accused and Boys Dont Cry, the characters in question are being sexually assaulted. MacFarlane defended the bit, claiming it was really a satire on what the public expected him to do. It was a brand of detached irony that could only truly exist in the early 2010s, and the comedian found himself lambasted by feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, but defended by the years Best Actress winner, Jennifer Lawrence (I loved the boob song, I thought [Seth MacFarlane] was great!) His stint was succeeded by a swift return to geniality: Ellen DeGeneres and her viral, celebrity selfie; Neil Patrick Harris doing magic tricks; and Jimmy Kimmel surprising an auditorium full of the unsuspecting public with director Guillermo del Toro and a gigantic sub sandwich. But the irony of it all is that cringe does sell, whether we care to admit it or not. The 1989 telecast reached 42 million people, reversing a five-year decline in numbers. And, now, with the rise of social media, a clip of Ariana DeBose enthusiastically rapping the line, Angela Bassett did the thing at last years Baftas has far more mileage than a few, nice lines of patter from a late-night comedian. If theres ever an Oscars opener as mortifying as the Snow White routine again, at least it would get people to talk. Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} In 1939, the Gone with the Wind screenwriter Sidney Howard was crushed to death in a freak tractor accident on his farm. A year later, he won the inaugural posthumous Oscar. It was the first of surprisingly many deceased winners and nominees, from James Dean and Spencer Tracy to Chadwick Boseman and Walt Disney. For obvious reasons, there is always a surge of goodwill at the Oscars towards the recently dead. This year, the Canadian musician Robbie Robertson is up for an Oscar for his work on Martin Scorseses Killers of the Flower Moon, his pared-down, mournful score giving the film its lurking menace. Robertson died last summer at the age of 80, three months after the films world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. He was one of Scorseses closest friends and one of his most trusted collaborators, the filmmaker describing his music as having come from the deepest place at the heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys. With an endorsement like that from Scorsese, it would be no surprise at all if he wins. There is also a precedent for these kinds of posthumous awards campaigns. Think of Heath Ledger today and the image most likely to spring to mind is of the brilliant young Australian actor with his pale, powdered face as the Joker in Christopher Nolans The Dark Knight (2008). He played the part with a searing but melancholy intensity, grotesquerie laced with extreme pathos. The film was lent an extra resonance due to Ledgers death in January 2008. By the time The Dark Knight hit the screen six months later, an intense and morbid curiosity had built up around what was suddenly one of his final performances. That curiosity later fed into the Oscar campaign for the movie. Warner Bros has managed to walk the line between elegy and ghoulishness, wrote The New York Times in 2008, on the studios awards marketing for the film. [They reminded] the public and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that one of the great performances in 2008 was the last of Mr Ledgers career, but doing so without seeming to commodify his death. Arguably, in this instance, Academy members werent just voting for Ledgers astonishing turn as the Joker. They were paying tribute to a brilliant career cut short. They knew that the same actor terrorising Gotham City with such manic glee had also brought extraordinary subtlety and sensitivity to his role as the cowboy in a gay relationship in Ang Lees Brokeback Mountain a few years before. No one was therefore surprised when Ledger won the Best Supporting Actor award. Strangely, James Dean who died in a car crash in September 1955, aged just 24 was nominated in two consecutive years for posthumous Oscars and didnt win either time. At the 28th Academy Awards, held in March 1956, he was up for Best Actor for his role as the tormented delinquent in Elia Kazans East of Eden (1955). It would mark the first posthumous nomination for a male actor in Oscar history. The award went to Ernest Borgnine instead, for his performance as the lovelorn working-class butcher from the Bronx in the film adaptation of Delbert Manns Marty (1955). Borgnine wasnt bad, but anyone who had seen Rod Steiger in the original TV version of the film would surely have agreed that he was far better. So why was Dean spurned? The speculation is that Academy voters were simply too suspicious of his status as a teen idol. Borgnine in a dour realist drama was a safer choice. The same thing happened the next year at the 29th Academy Awards. Dean had been dead for 18 months by then and was nominated for his performance as Jett Rink, the farm hand who made it rich in Giant (1956). Again, he lost out, this time to Yul Brynner for The King and I (1956). It would be another 20 years before Oscar decided to award an actor posthumously. Peter Finch, at first glance, didnt look like the most viable awards candidate for Sidney Lumets news satire Network (1976). He may have had the films most showy part, playing a broadcaster and news anchor known as the mad prophet of the airwaves, but he wasnt really its star. William Holden, as his producer and old friend at the network, and Faye Dunaway, as the radical but opportunistic young TV exec, both had far more screen time. Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, could net composer Robbie Robertson a posthumous Oscar this year (Apple) But he was the chosen one for studio MGM, who pushed him in both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories. And despite Finchs famed opposition to publicity, he threw himself into Networks awards campaign, giving hundreds of interviews. In January 1977, he taped a guest appearance on Johnny Carsons chat show and was gearing up for another appearance on the daytime show Good Morning America when he collapsed in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel, never regaining consciousness. An autopsy revealed he had an undiagnosed heart condition. Finchs death came just as that years Oscar race was heating up. As his biographer Elaine Dundy later wrote, he was in the thick of it with his boots on, at the right place, at the right time. The Academy voters gave Finch the Best Actor award. Considering the commotion around his death, it would have been churlish to ignore him even if many would have preferred the Oscar to have gone to Robert De Niro for his blistering turn as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976). Networks writer Paddy Chayefsky (who also scripted Marty) reluctantly accepted the award on Finchs behalf then called Finchs widow Eletha Barrett to come up on stage, where she made an acceptance speech. Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free A tragic death doesnt always mean an inevitable Oscar win, though. When Chadwick Boseman received a Best Actor nomination in early 2021 for Ma Raineys Black Bottom, just five months after his death at the age of 43, it was expected that hed ultimately be awarded. When Anthony Hopkins ultimately claimed the prize for his role as a man experiencing dementia in The Father (2020), the shock in the room was palpable. Even Hopkins, who accepted his Oscar in absentia from Wales, seemed surprised and slightly embarrassed he made sure to pay tribute to Boseman in his video acceptance speech. Heath Ledgers father Kim, mother Sally and sister Kate accept his Oscar on his behalf at the 2009 Academy Awards (Getty) They built the entire show around a Chadwick Boseman ending and then Anthony Hopkins won and didnt show up, tweeted New York Times journalist Kyle Buchanan on the night. Oddly, the ceremony had made the decision to close on the Best Actor announcement, rather than the traditional Best Picture award, leading to an extreme sense of anti-climax. Traditionally, though, posthumous awards have provided the Oscars with some of its most moving moments none more poignant than in 2009 when Ledgers father, mother and sister took to the stage to accept the statuette. Their dignity and decency elevated the entire event, in the process making all the narcissistic backbiting that goes hand in hand with the Oscars suddenly seem redundant. Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Police seized 72 firearms and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition from the house of French screen legend Alain Delon. Delon, 88, had no authorisation that would allow him to own a firearm, according to prosecutor Jean-Cedric Gaux. Law enforcement officials also found a shooting range in the actor's rural home in Douchy-Montcorbon, located nearly 135km south of Paris. The search at his property was ordered after a court-appointed official sent to his house noticed a weapon and alerted the judge. Delon, the star of the French cinema's golden era, was known for his portrayal of gun-toting gangsters in films such as Borsalino and The Samurai. He has only appeared in a handful of projects since the 1990s and his last major public appearance was in 2019 at the Cannes Film Festival where he was awarded an honorary Palme dOr. In the same year, he suffered a stroke and has been since at the centre of a family feud. In 2021, he was seen at the funeral of his friend and star actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. The Delon family feud garnered media attention after the star's eldest son, Anthony Delon, alleged that his father was in a "weakened" state. He doesnt speak much, it tires him or it annoys him when we make him repeat, because his voice is no longer always clear, or audible, Anthony Delon told the Paris Match. Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free Anthony Delon, also an actor, accused his sister of not informing him about their father's cognitive tests conducted between 2019 to 2022 in Switzerland. Their father promptly issued a response through his lawyer, stating that he was extremely shocked by the media outburst orchestrated by his son" and would file a legal complaint against him. In January, Delons youngest son reportedly filed a complaint against his sister accusing her of exploiting Delons frailty. The legal battle began after the three children filed a complaint against his former live-in assistant, Hiromi Rollin, alleging harassment and threatening behaviour. Ms Rollin denies any wrongdoing. Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} An Israeli filmmaker said he has been receiving death threats after decrying a "situation of apartheid" in Gaza and calling for a ceasefire during the closing ceremony of the Berlin Film Festival. Yuval Abraham, a 29-year-old journalist and filmmaker, said the threats prompted him to cancel his return to Israel and his family to flee overnight due to right-wing intimidation. Abraham and Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra were awarded the Berlinales best documentary prize on Saturday for their joint film No Other Land which charts the Palestinian resistance to Israel's occupation in the West Bank. Adra said it was "very hard" to celebrate the award when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza". He called upon German lawmakers to "stop sending weapons to Israel". Abraham, during his acceptance speech, said: "I am Israeli, Basel is Palestinian. And in two days, we go back to a land where we are not equal. "I am under civilian law; Basel is under military law. ... This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, has to end." The speech triggered a political row after German politicians and Israeli media labelled the statements antisemitic. Kai Wegner, the conservative mayor of Berlin, argued that the filmmakers statements were filled with intolerable relativisation" as they left out any mention of Hamas. German culture minister Claudia Roth, who was in the audience during the ceremony, said the shockingly one-sided speeches were characterised by a deep hatred of Israel". Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days New subscribers only. 8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled Try for free German defence export approvals to Israel rose nearly tenfold in 2023 from the year before, with Berlin treating permit requests as a priority since Hamas militants attacked Israel, according to Reuters. Abraham in a social media post said Israeli media aired just 30 seconds of his speech and called it "antisemitic", which opened the floodgates of death threats. "I stand behind every word," he added. Abraham had to cancel his flight back home after a right-wing mob arrived at his family home in search of him and threatened his family members, forcing them to flee to another town in the middle of the night, he said. To stand on German soil as the son of Holocaust survivors and call for a ceasefire and to then be labelled as antisemitic is not only outrageous, it is also literally putting Jewish lives in danger, Abraham told The Guardian. I dont know what Germany is trying to do with us, he said, adding: If this is Germanys way of dealing with its guilt over the Holocaust, they are emptying it of all meaning. More than 30,000 Palestinians have died in Israels offensive in Gaza, according to the local health ministry, which began in retaliation for the 7 October attack by Hamas in southern Israel. Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and abducted at least 250 during the offensive, according to Israeli tallies. At least one quarter of Gaza's population 576,000 people were one step away from famine and virtually the entire population desperately needs food, Ramesh Ramasingham, a top UN official said Tuesday. He said that 1 in 6 children under the age of two in northern Gaza are suffering from "acute malnutrition and wasting", where the body becomes emaciated. Close Best Oscar moments Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The 2024 Oscars was a glittering night that saw Oppenheimer and Poor Things win big while Killers of the Flower Moon went home empty-handed. You can find a list of all the winners here. The Academy Awards, which aired in the UK on ITV, were once again hosted by late-night titan Jimmy Kimmel. In his opening monologue, the host took aim at Sonys Madame Web, disgraced French actor Gerard Depardieu and Oppenheimer nominee Robert Downey Jr. Among the performers was Ryan Gosling who stunned the audience with his typically vibrant rendition of Im Just Ken from Barbie. One of the most talked-about moments of the night came when John Cena took to the stage totally naked in a streaking skit gone awry with Kimmel. Then, after the ceremony, the celebrities headed to the Vanity Fair Oscar Party to let their hair down and bask in the end of another glitzy awards season. Follow live updates below Sign up to Roisin OConnors free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Roisin OConnors email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} To Iron Maiden fans, Bruce Dickinson is the formidable frontman of one of the worlds biggest heavy metal bands. On the side though, the Nottinghamshire-born rock star is something of a renaissance man: a skilled pilot, screenwriter, author, beer-brewer and, erm, swordsman. Having trained with the British Olympic squad during the Eighties, Dickinson continues to practise fencing four times a week, he has revealed. In an interview with The Times, the Run to the Hills rocker spoke about one of his many passions, joking that he quit training with the Olympians because he felt silly fencing 18-year-olds. Now Ive switched from foil fencing, which is very fast, to epee, which is more tactical, he explained. Ive found an amazing club in France, full of incredible fencers who all kick my arse. It gives me something to aim for I want to get to the stage where only 75 per cent of them kick my arse! In the same interview, Dickinson spoke about his decent second career as a commercial pilot, estimating that he has done around 7,500 hours of flying. Though most of it was taking holidaymakers around and dropping oil workers off in Kyrgyzstan, he said. Ive done 7,500 hours of flying in my life, but by the time you get to 65, youre pretty much done. Bruce Dickinson boarding Iron Maidens Boeing 747-400 at the International Aerospace Exhibition in Germany, 2016 (AFP via Getty Images) In 2008, Dickinson famously helped to fly Royal Air Force pilots home from Afghanistan, an experience he described in 2022 as extremely emotional. They had taken some casualties and they had lost some people, but they were all really cheerful the best passengers you could ever have in the military, he told his audience during his An Evening with Bruce Dickinson tour. Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up As we were coming into land, we stopped and we blew the reverse thrust. We were looking out, and all really close to the runway were families, kids, all the families and wives and everybody of all the soldiers, and they were all [holding signs, saying] Youre my hero, daddy and everything else. He continued: We were both trying not to [cry]. I went, Okay, were gonna stop. Were gonna blow our noses, make sure we can see where were going, and then do the job because this is really exceptional. Bruce Dickinson performing with Iron Maiden in 2005 (Getty Images) Of his time in Iron Maiden, Dickinson, who is married to French fitness instructor Leana Dolci, told The Times that rocknroll madness gets old very quickly. Or it did with me anyway. It lasted about a year, he said. Iron Maiden was never about a lifestyle its always been all about the music. So I thought, if Im going to stay with this singing thing, Ive got to do something else just to keep my brain alive. Dickinsons seventh solo album, The Mandrake Project, is out now. Iron Maiden are currently performing their Future Past World Tour, in support of their critically acclaimed 17th album Senjutsu. The tour is set to conclude this December after launching in May last year. Sign up to Roisin OConnors free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Roisin OConnors email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Rapper Ja Rule has been left devastated after being denied entry into the UK just days before the start of his tour. The US rapper, 47, real name Jeffrey Bruce Atkins Sr, was due to begin his Sunrise tour at the Utilita Arena in Cardiff on Friday (1 March), before concerts in London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds and Liverpool. The music star, who is best known for his song Always on Time with Ashanti, wrote on social media: Im so devastated. I cant believe the UK wont let me in. Ive spent a half million dollars in production of my own money to put this tour together only to be denied entry DAYS before my shows. This is not fair to me or my fans, these venues are 85 per cent sold and now I cant come The UK is one of the few European countries that restricts entry to people with criminal records. In general, you will likely be denied entry if you have been convicted of a crime punishable by 23 months or more under British law or served more than 12 months in prison. Ja Rule served two years in prison on gun and tax evasion charges, and was released in May 2013. The Home Office can refuse entry to individuals who "have previously been convicted of a criminal offence punishable by at least 12 months imprisonment," according to Unlock, a charity which assists people with criminal records. Tickets for the shows are still available on Ticketmaster. Ja Rule (Getty Images for A+E Networks) Ja Rule was due to be supported on the tour by Mya, Keri Hilson and Lloyd. After one fan tweeted Ticketmaster to ask about refunds, the websites customer service team replied: Once we receive confirmed info an email will be sent to all customers for the event. Ja Rule also confirmed to fans that refunds would be available. The rapper was previously at the centre of controversy over the doomed Fyre Festival, but was cleared of any legal wrongdoing. The disastrous 2017 event resulted in organiser Billy McFarland going to prison for fraud. The festival was scheduled to take place in the Bahamas in 2017 but caused more than 26 million US dollars (20 million) in losses when it was cancelled for inadequate accommodation, food and water. Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Last year, German punk band Trigger Cut were allegedly refused entry into the UK due to post-Brexit rule changes. The band, which consists of three members, also said that the whole experience at the UK border was humiliating and sad. Additional reporting by PA For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Jon Stewart broke down in tears as he shared some sad news with The Daily Show viewers on Monday (26 February). The political commentator returned to the Comedy Central programme this month, after nine years away. In an emotional tribute, he shared that his beloved dog Dipper, had passed away the day before. In a world of good boys, he was the best, said Stewart as his voice broke. The host shared with viewers the story of how his family met Dipper but he didnt get far before the emotions spilled over. Stewart explained that his children wanted to raise some money for an animal shelter in New York, called Animal Haven, 10 to 12 years ago. After the family baked cupcakes and set up their table outside, staff members working at the shelter introduced them to Dipper. Stewart described Dipper as a one-ish year old brindle pitbull before choking up. He hit the table with his fist and said F*** before pulling out a box of tissues from under his desk. He revealed that Dipper had been hit by a car in Brooklyn, and lost his right leg. The presenter broke down in tears as he talked about his dog (The Daily Show / Comedy Central) I thought Id get further, the emotional host laughed as the tears continued. They put the dog in my lap, we left that day feeling really good that wed helped this great organisation and we also left with this one-ish year old brindle pitbull. We called him Dipper. In a world of good boys, he was the best. Stewart went on to share Dippers adventures with viewers as he revealed the dog had been part of the shows original crew. He used to come to The Daily Show every day. He was part of the OG Daily Show dog crew, continued Stewart. Wed come to tape this show, and Dipper would wait for me to be done, he said. Dipper had met actor and authors and presidents and Kings, according to the presenter (The Daily Show/ Jon Stewart) He met actors and authors and presidents and kings. And he did what the Taliban could not do, which is, put a scare into Malala Yousafzai. Stewart, who walked away from The Daily Show in 2015, was replaced by Trevor Noah who hosted the programme until 2022. Stewart returned to his old perch on 12 February. He has agreed to host each Monday through the election, and to executive produce the weeknight show for Comedy Central into next year to help it through another transition. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Capital Radio hosts Roman Kemp and Chris Stark were left in disbelief as their co-host Sian Welby revealed surprising news to the group live on air. Welby replaced Vick Hope on the show as she left the breakfast slot to focus on TV opportunities. Capital changed the shows name to Capital Breakfast with Roman Kemp, Chris Stark and Sian Welby in November 2023. On Wednesday morning (28 February), Welby began her reveal by saying: Theres some moments that you just want to share with everyone. I think I want to share something with the group right now, actually. Stark encouraged her, saying Oh go on, Sian. The presenter insisted she was being serious and continued, Got a bit of an announcement for you. She then went on to say to the silent studio: Im pregnant. Her colleagues erupted in celebration at the announcement and there was confusion in the studio as Kemp shouted: Oh my god! Shut up. The 37-year-old broadcaster shared how difficult it had been to keep the good news a secret from her co-hosts. I dont know how Ive managed to keep it from you for so long, but I am. Its not a joke. Roman Kemp was in disbelief as his co-host shared the news (Capital Radio) The team took off their headsets as they rushed to hug Welby to celebrate. Welbys said: Oh my God. The lies, the deceit. The mocktails. The stress Ive gone through trying to pretend not to be drinking, she said as she revealed the things shed done to cover the truth. So at the work do, you remember when I ordered the same cocktail as you? I ran downstairs and intercepted the order and went Can you make one of them a virgin mojito? And I changed the order. Stark congratulated Welby saying it was the most exciting, amazing news while Kemp appointed himself godfather saying, Im so happy for you and Jake as well. Welby replied: Its crazy to actually finally tell you all. I couldnt wait to tell you. Kemp announced he would be leaving the show in February around the same time that Jordan North announced he would be leaving BBC Radio 1. On 21 February, it was announced that North would be replacing Kemp to host the show alongside Welby and Stark. In an Instagram story, Kemp voiced his support for Norths appointment, writing: Couldnt have gone to a better bloke. The broadcaster will present his final show on 28 March. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A drone small enough to fit in someones hand flew inside one of the damaged reactors at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Wednesday. The study hopes to examine some of the molten fuel debris in areas where earlier robots failed to reach. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings also began releasing the fourth batch of the plants treated and diluted radioactive waste water into the sea on Wednesday. The government and TEPCO, the plant's operator, say the water is safe and the process is being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, but the discharges have faced strong opposition by fishing groups, as well as a Chinese ban on Japanese seafood. A magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami in March 2011 destroyed the plant's power supply and cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt down. The government and TEPCO plan to remove the massive amount of fatally radioactive melted nuclear fuel that remains inside each reactor a daunting decommissioning process that's already been delayed for years and mired by technical hurdles and a lack of data. To help fill in that data, a fleet of four drones were set to fly one at a time into the hardest-hit No. 1 reactors primary containment vessel. A member of environmental group holds a mock fish during a rally to demand the stop of the Japanese governments decision over Fukushima (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) TEPCO has sent a number of probes including a crawling robot and an underwater vehicle inside each of the three reactors, but got hindered by debris, high radiation and inability to navigate them through the rubble, though they were able to gather some data in recent years. In 2015, the first robot to go inside the reactor got stuck on a grate. Some helpful information came from the mission, but the crawling robot had to be abandoned. Wednesdays drone flight comes after months of preparations and training that began in July at a nearby mockup facility outside of the plant. The drones, each weighing only 185 grams (6.5 ounces), are highly maneuverable and the blades hardly stir up dust, making it a popular model for factory safety checks. It's nearly a square of about 18 centimeters (7 inches) on both sides, 5 centimeters (2 inches) thick, and carries a front-loaded high definition camera to send live video and a higher-quality images to an operating room. In part due to battery life, the drone investigation inside of the reactor is limited to a 5-minute flight each. This photo shows a drone designed to probe at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant TEPCO officials said they plan to use the new data to develop technology for future probes as well as a process to remove the melted fuel from the reactor in the coming years. The data will also be used in the investigation of how exactly the 2011 meltdown occurred. First, two drones were to inspect the area around the exterior of the main structural support in the vessel, called the pedestal, before deciding if the other two could be sent inside to the area previous probes could not reach. The pedestal is directly under the reactors core. Officials hope to film the cores bottom to find out how overheated fuel dripped there in 2011. About 880 tons of highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three damaged reactors. Critics say the 30- to 40-year cleanup target set by the government and TEPCO for Fukushima Daiichi is overly optimistic. The damage in each reactor is different, and plans need to be formed to accommodate their conditions. TEPCO's goal is to remove a small amount of melted debris from the least-damaged No. 2 reactor as a test case by the end of March by using a giant robotic arm, but was forced to delay due to difficulty removing a deposit blocking its entry. That monthslong postponement comes in addition to its already nearly two-year delay, underscoring the difficulty and uncertainty of the decommissioning process. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} India experienced an average of almost two instances of anti-Muslim hate speech every day in 2023, according to new figures from a US-based research group. A large majority of these incidents occurred in states governed by the Hindu right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by prime minister Narendra Modi, according to a report published this week by the India Hate Lab (IHL), a research group based in Washington, DC. The frequency of hate speech peaked from August to November last year a period that coincided with political campaigning and voting phases in four key state elections. India is heading for a general election in the coming months, with Mr Modi seeking a rare third term in power. In 2023, India Hate Lab documented 668 hate speech events targeting Muslims. IHL recorded 255 of the events in the first half of 2023, while the number rose to 413 events in the second half of the year, marking a 62 per cent increase. The group said it used the United Nations definition of hate speech prejudiced or discriminatory language towards an individual or group based on attributes including religion, ethnicity, nationality, race or gender. The group noted that despite comprehensive data generation, this dataset is not a complete account of hate speech events in India. Hate speech has historically been understood to be an important causal factor in driving severe atrocities towards communities, including massacres and genocides, the report said. It plays a critical role in incubating hatred towards a group, effectively building in-group solidarity and demonising out-groups while also acting as a means of intimidation. Collective hatred for the out-group by targeted dehumanisation may effectively legitimise violence towards them by portraying them as an aggressive threat, the IHL report says. Out of the 668 hate speech events, 498 or 75 per cent took place in BJP-ruled states, federal territories and the national capital territory of Delhi, IHL said. Maharashtra was the worst affected, with about 118 events 18 per cent taking place in the state, even though it only constitutes about 9.3 per cent of Indias population, IHL said. Some 104 hate speech events were organised in the state of Uttar Pradesh alone, where over 38 million Muslims reside. Madhya Pradesh in central India recorded 65 incidents. Other smaller states like Haryana and Uttarakhand also witnessed incidents of hate speech. About 216 or 32 per cent of incidents were organised by the far-right Hindu religious group, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal, IHC said. Both groups belong to the Sangh Parivar, a collective name for various Hindu nationalist organisations under the leadership of the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The BJP operates as the political arm of this network. Neither the BJP nor the Modi government have responded directly to the IHL report, but the groups website and a related hate crime tracking site called Hindutva Watch were blocked last month by a government order under the controversial Information Technology Act 2000. The government has not explained what parts of the law IHL is accused of breaching. The Independent reached out to VHP and the BJP for their reaction to the report, but did not receive a reply. The BJP itself was responsible for organising about 50 hate speech events, often in the context of election rallies, IHL noted. The report stated that there has been a rapid growth of new Hindu nationalist groups and actors engaging in hate speech in India. The report highlighted that out of a total of 668 instances of hate speech, 63 per cent made reference to Islamophobic conspiracy theories. These theories encompass a range of unfounded allegations including love jihad an unfounded conspiracy theory where it is claimed Muslim men are enticing Hindu women to convert to Islam through marriage; land jihad which accuses Muslims of encroaching on public lands through the construction of religious edifices or conducting prayers; halal jihad viewing Islamic halal practices as a means of economically sidelining non-Muslim vendors; and population jihad the claim that Muslims are intentionally increasing their birth rates with the aim of surpassing and eventually dominating the population of other communities. It reveals that just five speakers were responsible for 146 hate speech events or 22 per cent of all hate speech events documented by IHL. Some 100 hate speech events prominently featured leaders affiliated with the BJP, the report said. According to the analysis of the hate speech events in 2023, 169 events featured speeches calling for targeting Muslim places of worship. Out of 193 events that took place between 7 October when Hamas attacked Israel and 31 December 2023, 41 mentioned the Israel-Gaza war to stoke hatred towards Indian Muslims, the report stated. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Jailed former prime minister Imran Khans political outfit has called its supports to hit the streets across Pakistan on Saturday to protest against their stolen mandate amid allegations of widespread rigging in the recent general elections. A close aide of Khan told The Independent the nationwide protests will be held on the orders of Khan and the party is planning weekly protests in the coming days to demand swift hearing of their court cases against alleged election rigging. Omar Ayub, who was picked as prime ministerial candidate, called for nationwide protests at a press conference following a meeting with Khan the chair of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) at Rawalpindis high-security Adiala jail. "Our seats were stolen with just a stroke of pen. The people gave the mandate to the former PTI chairman. Nations mandate and our seats have been attacked," Mr Ayub said. Zulfikar Bukhari, a close associate and aide to Khan, told The Independent: We are obviously not going to stay silent over our stolen mandate. We are going to strongly but peacefully protest. We are knocking on every court and the election commission of Pakistan and the tribunals and the higher courts after that because theres been a mandate stolen, a heavy mandate stolen in the country. We will be forming the strongest the strongest opposition the country has ever seen as well. Supporters of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) political party gather to protest against alleged rigging in the general elections, in Karachi, Pakistan (EPA) Protests called by Khan, who remain a hugely popular in the country, draw hundreds of thousands of supporters and have turned violent in the past following police action, leading to a number of casualties. In the 8 February elections, independent candidates, mostly backed by Khans PTI party, won a majority of 93 of the 265 National Assembly seats. But they fell short of gaining overall majority of 169 needed to form a government. PTIs rivals, Pakistan Muslim League-N and Pakistan Peoples Party won 79 and 54 seats respectively and announced that they would form a coalition government in a post-poll alliance. Khans party accused the two legacy parties, which were seen as having the support of the powerful military establishment, of stealing PTIs mandate and of taking part in widespread election rigging in their favour. Supporters of Imran Khan's PTI party protest against alleged rigging in general elections in Karachi (EPA) Mr Bukhari said their coalition only shows that democracy has died in Pakistan. PTI said it wants to create its own majority government and does not wish to form any government with any major party after alleging that its victories in many seats were overturned. A high-level investigation has been initiated by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) into the allegations of widespread manipulation of polling results. It directed the forming of a committee that will record statements from district polling officials and submit a report within three days. The investigation was initiated following the resignation of Rawalpindi citys commissioner, Liaquat Ali Chattha, who admitted to manipulating results and claimed he was pressured by the countrys senior officials. Mr Chattha claimed the candidates who were losing the elections were made to win in the city and the pressure on him was so intense that he contemplated self-harm, but later decided to expose the matter in front of the media because stabbing the country in its back does not let him sleep. He claimed that 13 candidates from Rawalpindi were forcefully declared winners. Last month, Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman from the Jamaat-e-Islami party relinquished his Karachi seat. He claimed that local election officials had interfered in the process to hinder the chances of his PTI opponent winning. Meanwhile, Khans party has written a letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to factor in the countrys political stability in any further bailout talks, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. Analysts have said that the IMF not agreeing to a bailout package could be catastrophic for Pakistans cash-strapped economy struggling to recover from an economic crisis. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} At least two people were crushed to death and several others injured on the tracks when an incoming train ran them over in Indias Jharkhand state, according to officials. Earlier it was reported that those dead were passengers trying to flee their own train that was on fire from the wrong side when the incoming local train crushed them. However, officials in India denied the reports of fire. A large-scale rescue operation, with medical teams, ambulances and transport police was launched after the accident in Jharkhand state in eastern India. Several people are feared dead, although the exact number has not been confirmed. Earlier, NDTV reportred that the passengers had been trying to escape after reports of a fire on board an express train at the Kalajharia railway station in Jharkhands Jamtara district. People travelling on the Anga Express from Bhagalpur to Bengaluru got off the train as rumours of a fire on board spread panic, the channel reported. As they tried to run across the tracks to escape the alleged fire, another train running on the route ran them over, NDTV said. However, the Eastern Railway said the victims were not passengers but had been walking on the tracks when they were hit by a train. The company also denied reports of a fire. Two persons walking on the track were run over by the train at least two km away from train number 12254 passing from Vidyasagar Kasitar. There is no incident of fire, an official said, NDTV reported. As of now, two deaths have been confirmed. The deceased are not passengers, they were walking on the track. A three-member committee has been formed to enquire about the issue, Kaushik Mitra, of Eastern Railways, said. But Jamtara police officer M Rahman told PTI the accident happened when some of the passengers got down from a train on the wrong side. Mr Rahman said a search operation was underway and the death toll might increase, according to the Indian Express. Irfan Ansari, a local politician, said he would go the the scene of the accident. I have given the directions to identify those responsible for it. We will also raise the issue in the assembly... The deceased have not been identified yet... the member of the legislative assembly said. The search for survivors was hampered by a lack of lights in the area, The Times of India reported. President of India, Droupadi Murmu, offered her condolences to the bereaved families. I express my deepest condolences to the bereaved families and pray for the speedy recovery of those injured. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Russian business owner in Sri Lanka has apologised after a white only party coinciding with the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine sparked diplomatic tensions with Moscow. Sarayka Lounge, a Russian restaurant bar in southern Sri Lankas Unawatuna, said it cancelled the party and disavowed any support for racist ideology. The event, on 24 February, was advertised as the White Opening Party with specific face control and dress code requirements in the southern coastal town. The invitation specified a dress code of white attire and included the instruction, Face control: White. Face control practice is commonly employed by clubs to selectively admit patrons based on their appearance, demeanour and social status. The party invite went viral on social media and led to a massive backlash, with many Sri Lankans calling on the government to take action. We apologise! The party planned for Saturday will not take place. We have urgently cancelled this event. Also, we have severed ties with the organisers who planned this party at our venue, Sarayka Lounge said in a statement ahead of the event. It said they did not conduct a thorough enough check and added: We have never supported and will never support various racist statements or organisations. A translation of the announcement was posted in both Russian and English. The controversy escalated on Sunday after the immigration office of Sri Lanka told hundreds of thousands of Russians staying in the country to escape the war to leave in the next two weeks. But the countrys president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, later launched an investigation into the order and said the decision was taken without cabinet approval. The Russian embassy in Colombo on the same day condemned all forms of racial discrimination and nationalism, calling on the Russians in the island nation to follow local laws and customs. The Tass news agency reported that the Sarayka Lounge was run by immigrants from the Russian Federation. Hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians came on 30-day tourist visas to the country before and during the war, and many have remained on extended visas. Some of them have set up businesses in the coastal towns and some of these are being illegally run, according to reports. Over 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have travelled to Sri Lanka in the last two years since the war began, according to official data. Many people on social media reacted with disgust and pointed out that the party coincided with the second anniversary of the Russian-Ukraine war. We need to ban this s***. We get discriminated in embassies, passport queues, the whole lot; last thing we need is people coming to Sri Lanka and hosting whites-only parties, a user said. "I know not all expats are like this... but this sort of thing should be stopped fast and stopped hard, said one local restaurant owner. Close Snow in area affected by Texas wildfires Sign up to the Independent Climate email for the latest advice on saving the planet Get our free Climate email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Independent Climate email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Cool weather on Monday managed to help officials quell some of the fires as containment levels increased early this week, with two fires becoming completely contained. But fire authorities warn that increased fire weather could hit the Texas Panhandle Thursday and Friday. At a news conference on Tuesday, Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd pleaded with nearby residents not to start any new fires. Over 90% of wildfires are human caused, he claimed. Strong winds and dry conditions this past weekend exacerbated flames, including the Smokehouse Creek Fire in northern Texas which remains only 44 per cent contained, according to the forest service. The fires began late last month. The Smokehouse Creek Fire has burned more than 1.3 million acres across the Texas Panhandle and destroyed 500 structures. Its now the largest fire in the states history and one of the largest in the US history. Authorities say it has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of cattle and forcing evacuations. Statewide, the fires have killed at least two civilians and one volunteer fire chief. A lawsuit filed last week claims that the fires originated from an electric pole that wasnt properly inspected, fell and started the blaze. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Style tycoon Law Roach has alleged that brands werent willing to lend Zendaya clothing at the start of her career. In conversation with Vogue, following the conclusion of theDune: Part Two press tour, the 45-year-old celebrity stylist spoke about how he and Zendayas love for plucking vintage red carpet pieces came to be. Weve been [pulling vintage] since Zendaya and I began working together, for 13 years now. At first, it came out of necessity because back when we started, nobody would lend her clothes, he proclaimed. And I come from vintage - I had a vintage store in Chicago - so a lot of the things that she wore were things from my store or vintage pieces. Despite Roachs public declaration of retirement from celebrity styling, hes continued to work with the Euphoria star. The pair have collaborated since Zendaya was a teenager Roach being the only stylist shes ever worked with. Speaking to Interview Magazines Mel Ottenberg not long after he announced his leave, Roach confessed he wasnt going to stop working with the Challengers actress. How can I just pick up and leave somebody when Im the only stylist theyve ever had? Shes literally the one client where Im like: That is my family, he remarked. And I know what I mean to her because she tells me all the time. So I am trying to figure out how to change my position. Over the last few months, Roach and Zendaya have produced supreme ensembles for each red carpet Dune: Part Two premiere. Between a Thierry Mugler 1995 robot suit and a 1999 long-sleeve motherboard dress by Alexander McQueen for Givenchy, the two alternated between archive designer and recent runway to present looks emblematic of the films dystopian fixture. Though Roach can appreciate the fresh factor that comes with custom-made pieces, to him, sourcing vintage looks is a mode of sustainability in fashion. If were really going to have conversations about sustainability, wearing something that somebody else has is kind of the easiest way to do it, he noted. Beautiful clothes should live the longest lives possible, and as many lives as possible. They shouldnt just lay dormant somewhere. That said, oftentimes, one-of-a-kind pre-worn designs wont fit two people the same. In this case, alterations need to be made. And in order to preserve the natural body of the piece, only small, intentional changes can be made. Roach said: I would never destroy a Lee McQueen! But we are able to alter things a little bit because we buy it. We dont borrow from vintage dealers - we buy. Its important to support smaller businesses. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} With Leap Day coming once every four years, many businesses are offering deals and freebies on this special day. On Thursday 29 February 2024, several American chains - including staples like 7-Eleven and Krispy Kreme - are celebrating Leap Day this year with special freebies and deals for customers. Leap Day doesnt happen every year, so there will be plenty of deals for everyone. Wendys is offering customers an exclusive, limited-time deal, having announced on Monday that fans can get a new menu item Cinnabon Pull-Apart for free during breakfast hours at their local Wendys restaurant. No previous purchase is necessary for the exclusive freebie. In a statement, Lindsay Radkoski, US chief marketing officer for The Wendys Company, said: As we celebrate our four-year breakfast anniversary with this new product, were offering sweet deals starting on Leap Day a day that only comes around every four years. Wendys isnt the only business offering a sweet treat for Leap Day. With a $10 minimum purchase for those dining at BJs, the restaurant is offering their famous Pizookies for $2.29. But thats not all on the cookie front, all week long Insomniac Cookies is offering customers - also known as Insomniacs - the opportunity to receive one free classic cookie with any six or 12-pack purchases. Popular donut drive-thru Krispy Kreme is offering customers their original glazed dozen with any purchase of a regularly priced dozen. Krispy Kreme is also offering a free original glazed dozen for anyone with a Leap Day birthday. Krispy Kreme says that proof of birthday is required. An extra day in the year is an irresistible opportunity for Krispy Kreme to be extra-sweet to our guests, Krispy Kreme global chief brand officer Dave Skena told USA Today. So, were sweetening Leap Day by the dozens, including for fans whose true birthday comes around only every four years. Potential customers also have the opportunity to get free guacamole from Chipotle, or a free piece of fish or chicken from Long John Silvers, using the promo code LEAP DAY for the latter. Another promo code LEAP 29 can be used at Marcos Pizza to receive 29 per cent off all menu-price pizzas through 3 March 2024. Meanwhile, 7-Eleven is offering customers any combination of five wings for $2.29 on Leap Day. If youre craving another option, Smoothie King customers can receive 29 per cent off purchases of 20-oz smoothies or larger at all locations if they spend $15 or more on Leap Day through the new Smoothie King Healthy Reward app. Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Stay ahead of the trend in fashion and beyond with our free weekly Lifestyle Edit newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Lifestyle Edit email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Trend forecasters are all over TikTok these days, and are well-known for their ability to drive consumer demand. Before the digital age took the world by storm, most people turned to the advice of magazines, in which fashion editors would effectively translate high fashion runway collections to the masses with editorial spreads and photoshoots. They were the gatekeepers of style, but with social media making fashion more accessible, consumers have rendered traditional trend forecasters in favour of amateur influencer forecasters. Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest have long acted as sources of fashion inspiration - spawning the original wave of what we now call influencers - but in recent years, TikTok has usurped Instagram as a fashion breeding ground. The platforms unique algorithm has allowed fashion trends to grow, evolve, and die out at an unprecedentedly rapid pace. Under #FashionTok, the new gatekeepers of fashion have emerged and theyre using their continuously viral takes to exert their influence on the masses. Fashion analyst and writer Mandy Lee (@oldloserinbrooklyn) - who has more than 500,000 followers on TikTok - has become a #FashionTok favourite over the years for her uncanny ability to forecast trends, namely the mids aughts-inspired indie sleaze trend and the revival of ballet flats during the balletcore craze. She has popularised trends of her own such as the #75Hard Challenge, in which people commit to not buying more clothes and instead stick with styling pieces they already have for 75 days. She also coined the Macaroon method for winter styling, a method based on the sartorial layering choices of The Row founders Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. The influence that TikTok trend forecasters like Lee and her contemporaries - Agustina Panzoni (@thealgorythm) and Coco Mocoe (@cocomocoe) - has often reached the mainstream, sending a lot of trends into overdrive. Australian TikTok trend forecaster Ainsley Coote (@melbgirlambassador) explained to Harpers Bazaar that she often looks to the runways to call out a trend. She told the outlet, Im just looking at what brands are doing but a bit of it is that if I want something to be a trend, Ill say, This is going to be a trend. Other TikTokers who do the same thing as me copy [each other], she continued. If one person posts a video saying, I think this is trending, in the next few days, others will have posted similar videos. Its almost like if enough people say somethings happening, everyone goes, Oh, its happening. Experts define short-lived trends as micro-trends, referring to certain pieces that take over social media for any time between a few weeks or months, but dont have much longevity beyond that such as the green House of Sunny bodycon dress that was seen on everyone from Kendall Jenner to your next door neighbor but ultimately lost steam. Meanwhile, macro-trends are considered evergreen and usually encompass a certain style - like the ongoing 2000s revival - rather than a singular item or print. Macro trends tend to have a longer life, typically lasting through multiple fashion cycles. In a report titled Fashions New Algorithm: How TikTok Killed the Trend Cycle, London-based digital agency The Digital Fairy pointed out that TikTok trend forecasters have contributed to creating the new style economy and accelerating the trend cycle to an alarming degree. They noted that trends have now become so minute and short-lived that these days seldom few have a real-world impact despite going viral on the platform. The fashion industry, however, has taken note of TikToks sway over consumers, with Vogue Business having its own weekly TikTok Trend Tracker to keep tabs on content creators and up-and-coming trends. TikTok itself also has its own trend report that users can check. There has been some movement forward in the bitter battle between Starbucks Corp. and unionized workers at the Seattle-based coffee chain that has raged since Buffalo workers voted to form a union in 2021. The two sides said they will begin talks with the goal of reaching labor agreements. Starbucks and Workers United have agreed to begin discussions on a foundational framework designed to achieve both collective bargaining agreements for represented stores and partners, and the resolution of litigation between the union and the company, Starbucks said in a statement. Starbucks Workers United called the news huge in a post on social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. As a sign of good faith, Starbucks said it will provide employees represented by Workers United with benefits it granted to non-unionized stores in May 2022, including the ability to keep tips made via credit card. Starbucks had long said that federal regulations prevented the company from extending new benefits to unionized workers. During mediation discussions last week for the ongoing brand and IP litigation, it became clear that there was a constructive path forward on the broader issue of the future of organizing and collective bargaining at Starbucks, the company said in a statement. The company called it an important milestone. While there is important work ahead, coming together to work on this framework represents an important step forward and is a clear demonstration of a shared commitment to working collaboratively on behalf of partners, Starbucks said in a statement. None of nearly 400 unionized stores have reached a labor agreement with Starbucks Corp. Earlier this month, a National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge decided that Starbucks violated federal labor law in dozens of ways involving the dismissal of 10 Starbucks workers in Buffalo. The National Labor Relations Board has issued more than 100 complaints against Starbucks for unfair labor practices. While there is plenty of work ahead, coming together to develop this framework is a significant step forward and a clear demonstration of a shared commitment to working collaboratively and with mutual respect, the union said in a statement. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Key events in the life of pioneering contralto Marian Anderson, whose name replaced Verizon on the Philadelphia Orchestra on Wednesday: Feb. 27, 1897 Born in Philadelphia. Early 1900s By age of 6, Anderson gained attention for her voice in the African American Union Baptist Church choir in Philadelphia. She also performed with the Peoples Chorus, a Black ensemble in Philadelphia. Churchgoers held a fundraiser enabling her to study with Giuseppe Boghetti. April 22, 1918 First appearance at the Philadelphia Academy of Music with the New York Clef Club Syncopated Orchestra. Summer 1919 Enrolled in six-week opera course at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. Dec. 30, 1920 First appearance at New York's Carnegie Hall with the Martin-Smith Music School. Early 1920s Denied admission to the Philadelphia Musical Academy (now named the University of the Arts School of Music) because she was Black. 1920s and 1930s Performed regularly in Europe. 1924 Signed with RCA Victor, the first Black American to get a recording contract. Aug. 26, 1925 Entered into a New York Philharmonic vocal competition by famed voice teacher Giuseppe Boghetti, Anderson made her debut with the orchestra at Lewisohn Stadium with conductor Willem van Hoogstraten, the first Black solo artist to appear with the orchestra. Dec. 30, 1928 Made her Carnegie Hall solo recital debut. Feb. 19, 1936 First White House performance April 16, 1937 Denied a room at the Nassau Inn following a performance at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey, Anderson was invited to spend the night in the home of Albert Einstein. April 9, 1939 Denied a performance at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., by the Daughters of the American Revolution because of her race, which prompted first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to resign from DAR. Instead, Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday before a crowd estimated at 75,000, preserved in the documentary film Marian Anderson: The Lincoln Memorial Concert." The concert was organized in response to the DAR decision by promoter Sol Hurok, NAACP Secretary Walter White and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes. Jan. 7, 1943 First performance at Constitution Hall, a benefit for United China Relief before an integrated audience. Jan. 7, 1955 Made her Metropolitan Opera debut at age 57 at Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdii's Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) with Zinka Milanov, Richard Tucker, Leonard Warren and Roberta Peters, with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting. Dec. 6, 1963 Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson. March 8, 1977 Awarded Congressional Gold Medal, presented by President Jimmy Carter on Oct. 16, 1978. Dec. 3, 1978 Among the recipients in the first year of the Kennedy Center Honors. Jan. 10, 1991 Announced as winner of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. April 8, 1993 Following a stroke the previous month, died at age 96 in Portland, Oregon, at the home of her nephew, conductor James DePriest. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Eyebrows were raised little more than a year ago when Stuart Haire jumped from HSBC, where he ran UK personal and private banking, to become chief executive of Skipton Building Society. He was very much near the top of the global giants star executive chart, having held senior roles within M&S Bank, First Direct and John Lewis Financial Services, as well as HSBC UK. Compared to the mighty HSBC, the Skipton was seen as something of a backwater. Hes smiling, nodding, when this reaction is put to him. He remembers it well. Here he is, though, 49 and having just presented an impressive set of annual results, with a performance that would do any financial powerhouse proud. He laughs at the memory. What people dont realise is that if we were to demutualise and were not going to Skipton would go straight into the FTSE 100 of biggest listed companies. His is an organisation with 37.2bn of total assets, more than 1,300 branches and 1.2 million members. As well as the main building society business, Skipton owns Connells, Britains largest estate agents with more than 80 high street brands including Hamptons, Bairstow Eves, William H Brown and Connells. It is responsible for one in ten houses bought and sold in the UK. Skipton also has a financial advisory subsidiary, a commercial estate agency and an AI software firm in New Zealand. Weve a range of interesting businesses, it was part of the attraction, says Haire. Weve got very strong businesses and we have no shareholders we just have customers who are our owners. Its a breath of fresh air. The group turned in pre-tax profits of 333.4m, up by more than 30m. Mortgage advances increased 6.3 per cent to 6.7bn, helping Skipton lift its market share by 12.7 per cent this, despite the mortgage market being stagnant for most of the year. Savings balances also rose, by 15.4 per cent to 26bn. Again, savings market share increased, 10.7 per cent. This, too, against a savings market that grew only 1.7 per cent. Mortgage arrears of three months or more, were 0.23 per cent against an industry average of 0.91 per cent. It may be 170 years old, and still based in picturesque Skipton, in North Yorkshire, but the society has long earned a reputation for innovation. Haire is keen for it to continue, launching Britains only available deposit-free mortgage, Track Record. Hes rightly proud of increasing the number of first-time buyers helped by 40 per cent. Track Record received over 62m in applications. It is genuinely deposit-free. If you can prove youre paying rent and the mortgage repayments will be less, then its likely you will get a mortgage offer. We want to assist people who dont have part of the equity saved up, we want to help them get started as homeowners. It also unveiled Income Booster, which allows more than one persons income to go towards buying a home. Again, aimed at giving first-time buyers a lift. He has focused Skipton on two watchwords: homes and money. There are too many people in the UK who desperately feel that they will never have a home of their own. Be they aspiring homeowners or renters. And that needs to change. Homes and money are vital for individual prosperity, and for our country to thrive. The Skipton Group sits at the nexus of homes and money, and we want to drive collaborative change across the UK housing sector, to help more people put these stable foundations in place, and to help unlock opportunity and build long-term financial wellbeing, home by home, right across Britain. He wants to see planning laws relaxed and the whole process speeded up. Weve got the largest estate agency in the UK. As a country, we need more houses. For first-time buyers some areas are prohibitively expensive and in places such as Skipton, there is an additional pressure, from second-home owners. Its not just about the financial aspects, local and central government have got to do more. Weve got to do more with planning permission, we must be making sure were getting more homes built and in locations where people want to live. Last year saw Skipton become the Which? Recommended Mortgage Provider. It was awarded the Your Mortgage Best First Time Buyer Mortgage Lender, together with being named, at the What Mortgage Awards 2023, Best National Building Society for the 10th year in a row. Looking ahead, our ambition is to make a positive impact to tackle the UKs housing crisis by enabling more first-time buyers to realise their homeownership aspirations. Skipton, he says, has great potential to drive transformative change in the housing market and financial services industry, leveraging our collective capability to drive change, influence decision makers and campaign on the issues that matter to our members and wider society. Savers are not forgotten. Were supporting our savers, passing on over 75 per cent of 2023s base rate increases, which is above our competitors, while even our lowest rate on an instant-access account is well ahead of the market average. Saving members received 148m more interest than if they had taken market average rate saving products. They were able to take advantage of member only offers. What attracted me to Skipton is its unwavering member-focused purpose and its huge potential to help more people. Skipton Building Society offers Britains only deposit-free mortgage (PA) He says Skipton is a society that has always believed in keeping things simple, no frills. Its in the DNA. Its roots are here, in Yorkshire. Were a massive local employer and we ensure that one per cent of our profits go to charity. Were very much aware of our history and responsibility. Haire himself is from Glasgow a scumbag from Glasgow is how I am viewed in these parts, he jokes. I was always taught never to get ahead of myself, never to let ego get in the way. Thats also true of the people of Yorkshire. They work exceptionally hard and theyre very proud. In the year ahead, he is expecting rates to remain high. They will come down but not by so much. Hes predicting low growth for the economy. Were starting to see confidence return. There are signs of real green shoots. In the housing market, mortgage applications are up 14 per cent, viewings are up 12 per cent and sales are up 12 per cent. Confidence is returning. Unlike HSBC, you sense, the Skipton has given him mission and purpose. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A violent man who murdered a 27-year-old woman and dumped her body in a remote area of Scottish woodland has been jailed for life, nearly two decades after committing the horrific crime. Iain Packer was accused of strangling Emma Caldwell and concealing her body in South Lanarkshire in April 2005, as well as raping or sexually assaulting 21 other women. Packer has now been locked behind bars for a minimum term of 36 years after being convicted of 33 charges which spanned two decades, all of which he denied at the High Court in Glasgow. Since his guilty verdict, Police Scotland apologised for how the original inquiry was handled, after Miss Caldwell, her family and his other victims were let down by the investigation. Miss Caldwell was last seen between 12.30am-1.30am on 5 April 2005 on London Road, Glasgow, and was reported missing by her family five days later. Iain Packer denied the charges against him (BBC) At the time, Ms Caldwell was living in a hostel in Glasgow after leaving home and becoming addicted to heroin following the sudden death of her sister. The body of the victim, who was a sex worker at the time, was discovered in the woods on 8 May 2005. She was found by a dog walker with a garotte around her neck, prompting one of Scotlands largest murder investigations. A frequent user of sex workers, other women had raised concerns about Packers behaviour with the police, yet he was not arrested or charged for 17 years despite admitting to the police in the initial investigation that he had previously taken Ms Caldwell to the forest for sexual purposes. Emma Caldwells mother, Margaret Caldwell called the police after her daughter failed to make contact (Andrew Milligan/PA Wire) Instead, the police focused their investigation on a group of Turkish men, until a team of cold case detectives re-examined the case in 2015. Outside the court, the family of Miss Caldwell said Police Scotland failed their daughter and Packers rape victims due to a toxic culture of misogyny and corruption, adding in a statement: Instead of receiving justice and compassion, they were humiliated, dismissed and in some instances arrested, whilst the police gifted freedom to an evil predator to rape and rape again. During the trial, Packer admitted under cross-examination that he had paid Ms Caldwell for a sex act in 2004 and had continued to have sex with her after she had asked him to stop. He said he was ashamed of his actions towards her and described his behaviour towards another sex worker as disgusting. He denied her murder, however, telling the court: It wasnt me who killed her. It wasnt me. I didnt do anything to her. Evidence was also heard from multiple other women who had been brutally attacked by Packer, with his behaviour described as violent and obsessive. Iain Packer has been found guilty of 33 charges of physical and sexual violence against 22 women (Police Scotland/PA Wire) The court heard a soil sample taken in 2021 from the site where Miss Caldwells body was found was a 97% match with soil found in his blue work van, and Packer was charged by police in February 2022. Packer, from Glasgows East End, was first reported to police in March 1999 after a sex worker stole a tax disc from his vehicle to have proof of his identity after he raped her. He preyed on young, vulnerable and drug-addicted sex workers in the citys red light area, and had a pattern of violent behaviour which included strangling women, the court heard. Packer worked for a. family business and presented himself as a jack the lad. But he enjoyed treating women rough and wearing womens underwear, according to one victim who was assaulted between 1993 and 2004, near the Tennents Brewery in the East End an area where many attacks took place. Packer was interviewed by the police in 2022 for the murder of Emma Caldwell (Police Scotland/PA Wire) A friend of Miss Caldwell told the court Packer would not leave her alone, while another sex worker gave a statement saying she was petrified of him. Packer was investigated by journalists in 2015, which led to the case being reopened, and he admitted instigating an interview with BBC journalist Sam Poling in 2018 to clear his name, before claiming he had never visited the woodland. However, he later admitted to visiting Limefield Woods on six occasions, including with Miss Caldwell. Following his conviction, Assistant Chief Constable for Major Crime and Public Protection Bex Smith said: Emma Caldwell, her family and many other victims, were let down by policing in 2005. For that we are sorry. Iain Packers van had a 97% soil match with soil from the location Miss Caldwells body was found (Police Scotland/PA Wire) A significant number of women and girls who showed remarkable courage to speak up at that time also did not get the justice and support they needed and deserved from Strathclyde Police. She added it was clear that further investigations should have been carried out, which subsequently caused unnecessary distress to her family and the other women who had been affected. Iain Packer was a calculating sexual predator who targeted women over many years. It is hard to comprehend how anyone could carry out such despicable, ruthless acts, she said. He took Emmas life for his own gratification in the most appalling circumstances and cruelly left her body in remote woods hoping to cover his tracks. But time is no barrier to justice and I would urge anyone who has been the victim of sexual violence to please come forward and speak to us. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Britain is on the verge of convicting as many women for illegal abortions in 18 months as it has for the previous 55 years, as the number of prosecutions continues to rise. Data from leading UK abortion provider British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) shows three women were convicted of having an illegal abortion between 1967 and 2022 in England and Wales, but in the last 18 months alone, six women have been prosecuted over suspected abortion offences. Of the six prosecutions, three cases were dropped. But one woman was sent to prison and two cases are awaiting trial, BPAS revealed. Meanwhile, co-chair of the British Society of Abortion Care Providers, Dr Jonathan Lord, says he is aware of at least 60 criminal inquiries into suspected illegal abortions in England and Wales since 2018. The new statistics come as MPs are set to vote on an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill next month that would see pregnancy terminations wholly decriminalised in England and Wales. Dr Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, told The Independent they are aware a small but increasing number of women are being prosecuted for pregnancy terminations as she called for abortion to be decriminalised. Outdated abortion law also means women who have experienced unexplained pregnancy loss may be vulnerable to criminal investigation, and health professionals placed under unacceptable and unwarranted scrutiny, Dr Thakar added. The oldest part of the abortion law can be traced back to 1623, which is over a hundred years before we stopped burning women alive at the stake Dr Jonathan Lord We believe this is not in the public interest and that these women should be treated with care and compassion, without judgement or fear of imprisonment. Leading UK abortion provider British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) says it has received dozens of requests from police forces for confidential records since 2020, including requests relating to an incident last summer in Hampshire where officers found a human placenta in the wood. Hampshire police asked for details of anyone who had been turned away by a clinic due to being over the legal limit for a termination but BPAS refused and demanded a court order, the organisation revealed. Carla Foster, a British mother of three, was sentenced to 28 months in prison when she terminated her pregnancy at 32 to 34 weeks during lockdown. Her sentence was reduced from 28 months imprisonment to a 14-month suspended sentence through the Court of Appeal, but the case sparked a major backlash. The latest figures show increasing numbers of Britons are being investigated by police over suspected illegal abortions. Home Office data for England and Wales shows recorded crimes for abortions, a very broad category where no further action was necessarily taken, rose from 18 in 2020 to 29 in 2022 and were up from just seven cases in 2012. The government data includes recorded crimes for the two separate charges of procuring an illegal abortion and child destruction. Some of the cases included in the government data could relate to investigations into abusive partners forcing a woman into having a pregnancy termination. BPAS told The Independent of a case of a teenager called Lauren* living at home when the Covid crisis started who wanted to access abortion services but could not tell anybody she lived with why she had to venture out of the house. By the time Lauren, who was under 18, was able to get to a clinic she had exceeded the legal abortion limit and was referred for additional care and support to carry on with her pregnancy. Lauren went on to deliver a stillbirth baby at home quickly afterwards with the police investigating her on suspicion of abortion offences. The provider also gave the example of Paula* who gave birth at home after taking abortion medication. After her housemate rang for an ambulance, the police searched her flat while she was in hospital due to suspecting her of abortion offences but also suspecting she was the victim of trafficking and exploitation. The police interviewed her but Paula then disappeared without getting any additional support. Dr Lord, a consultant gynaecologist at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, said it is difficult to know what lies behind the alarming rise in investigations and prosecutions but the situation seemed to change after a 2018 campaign called for women to be able to take the second dose of their medical abortion at home. It was the start of alerting the wider world that it is possible to take tablets and have an abortion, he said. Opponents started to get more vocal at that stage. Dr Lord added: I am aware of women who have lost everything their liberty, their home and their children and have suffered significant trauma as a result of the criminal investigation which has caused mental health issues. The oldest part of the abortion law can be traced back to 1623, which is over a hundred years before we stopped burning women alive at the stake. Abortions can legally be carried out within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy in England, Scotland and Wales. But pregnancy terminations must be approved by two doctors, with the health professionals agreeing that continuing with the pregnancy would be riskier for the physical or mental health of the woman than having an abortion. If a medical professional delivers an abortion outside of the terms of the 1967 act, they are at risk of being prosecuted. Legislation passed in 1861 means any woman who ends a pregnancy without getting legal permission from two doctors can face up to life imprisonment. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists released new guidance to medics to not report suspected illegal abortions at the start of this year. Dr Sonia Adesara, of campaign group Doctors for Choice UK, said: Its really horrific what some of these women are going through. Police are turning up at womens doors and are confiscating womens phones and using them in court. Data from period apps has even been used. Those under investigation can be pushed into debt to be able to afford their legal fees and are often left grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder, she added. Georgina OReilly, a spokesperson for BPAS, said women enduring police investigation include domestic abuse survivors, suspected victims of trafficking and exploitation, as well as girls younger than 18. The Home Office does not have specific figures about those women who are suspected of illegal abortions. A National Police Chiefs Council spokesperson said: An investigation would only be initiated where there is credible information to suggest criminal activity and this would often be as a result of concerns raised by medical professionals. *Names changed to protect identity Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A former British Airways employee has been accused of running a 3 million immigration scam from a Heathrow check-in desk, before absconding to India after being bailed by the police. The 24-year-old suspect is said to have charged people 25,000 to wave them through Terminal 5 and onto planes heading towards Canada without valid visa documents. The majority of his alleged customers were Indian citizens, who were allegedly told to fly to the UK on a temporary visitor visa. After this, they would book flights to Canada without a visa, despite this being a requirement for Indian passport holders, who are not eligible under the countrys electronic travel authorisation scheme. Other travellers who benefitted were also UK-based asylum claimants who were at risk of being denied the right to remain and faced deportation, the Times reported. The suspect is believed to have overriden the system and confirmed he had seen proof of a visa (Getty Images) The suspect, who was employed as a BA check-in supervisor, would allegedly direct his customers to his desk and override the system, confirming that he had seen proof of a visa. It is also claimed he would process passengers at the boarding gate, with those passengers immediately claiming asylum upon arrival in Canada. Suspicions were raised by officials after a pattern emerged that showed customers on BA flights to Vancouver or Toronto arriving without a visa. The man was arrested on 6 January and bailed before absconding to India with his partner, who also worked for the airline, the Times reported. British Airways confirmed it is assisting the authorities with their investigation, and the UK Border Force and Metropolitan Police are liaising with their Indian counterparts. A Home Office spokesperson said: It would be inappropriate to comment while an investigation is ongoing. The Independent has reached out to Interpol and Delhi Police for comment. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Mortgage brokers and financial experts have said that Jeremy Hunts Spring Budget is likely to underwhelm and have urged him to tackle the countrys housing crisis and get more homes built. The chancellor faces a high-pressure situation when he presents his fiscal plan to the House of Commons next week as the country is in a recession and the Tories are miles behind Labour in the polls, with a General Election looming. One area of high interest will be what, if anything, Mr Hunt does to stimulate the property market or make moves to deal with the housing crisis by relaxing planning restrictions or building more homes. Speculation is rife that the chancellor will look at trying to woo younger voters by offering a 99 per cent mortgage scheme which was first reported by The Independent in January. Banks and building societies normally require a 10 per cent deposit but under this proposed scheme you would only require one per cent, meaning a cash outlay of only a few thousand pounds. In addition, Mr Hunt could make changes to Stamp Duty, a move that would be popular with Tory backbenchers, but recent reports suggest is less likely in this fiscal statement. Stephen Perkins, managing director at Yellow Brick Mortages said any plans for the housing market were likely to underwhelm. He said: Almost certainly it [the Budget] will include their touted 1% deposit mortgages, that wont help many who cannot afford a mortgage for 99% of their needed house price, and maybe they will bring out the stamp duty holiday banners for another use, again to little avail as first time buyers can already buy up to 425,000 without paying stamp duty. I would be truly amazed if anything innovative and useful was announced in the Spring Budget, and ultimately Hunt has higher burning priorities to consider. Ranald Mitchell, director at Charwin Private Clients said that more broadly tax cuts and concessions will be announced to try and reinvigorate the Tories electoral chances. In terms of the property market, he added: The 99% mortgage scheme will be unveiled and whilst it will open the door for some, its effectiveness remains open to debate. Further planning relaxation and development of brown belt could also well be on the cards, as Jeremy Hunt attempts to embed a longer term strategy for house building. And Lewis Shaw, owner and mortgage expert at Shaw Financial Services, urged the chancellor to leave the property and mortgage market well alone and concentrate on building homes. Its clear they dont have any policies on how to address the things we actually need: build more homes, make people better off and produce national infrastructure that works. Craig Fish, director at Lodestone Mortgages & Protection, agreed that the focus of Mr Hunts energies next week should be on getting Britain building again. What he will do and what he should do are two entirely different things. What he should do is leave well alone, and simply address the biggest issue the UK faces, the UKs housing shortage. Get more houses built. Its that simple. What he will likely do is try and rescue voters by making unaffordable tax cuts, fiddling with stamp duty by perhaps abolishing it for downsizers and introducing a ridiculous 1% deposit mortgage scheme. I have to say I am genuinely worried about what he has planned. And Samuel Mather-Holgate, independent financial advisor at Mather and Murray Financial said:Gimmicks like the 1% deposit are poor policy from a floundering government. Structural, supply side policy needs to be implemented that incentives builders to create more affodable housing, and then creates an environemnt where buyers have confidence in their decisions to buy. Whatever Hunt proposes will be a sticking plaster of a gaping wound and will probably increase asset prices and be counter productive. (MEN Media) Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A house was destroyed in an explosion that sparked a fire, leaving a woman in her 70s seriously injured and needing hospital treatment. A nearby primary school in Greater Manchester was evacuated after the suspected gas explosion. Children and staff at St Lukes Church of England Primary School in Fishpool in Bury left the school after the blast, which was just yards away, according to Bury Councils deputy leader, Tamoor Tariq. Terraced homes on either side of the wrecked house were also damaged, and neighbours were forced to flee, taking shelter with families or friends elsewhere. I understand everyone has been taken into a place of safety and emergency services are doing all possible to deal with this awful situation, Mr Tariq wrote on social media. He added: The house directly affected is in an extremely bad state following the explosion [and] the house was destroyed by the strong flames from the fire. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} David Cameron is to rachet up pressure on Vladimir Putin by meeting the wife of Russias most prominent opposition leader after Alexei Navalny for crunch Whitehall talks, The Independent can reveal. In a marked escalation of political tensions between the UK and Russia, the foreign secretary will on Friday sit down with Evgenia Kara-Murza, whose Cambridge-educated husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, is serving a 25-year sentence in a remote Siberian penal colony for spreading false information about the Russian army. The high-level talks come as human rights figures warn the heir to Navalny is next on Putins hitlist. Evgenia Kara-Murza is set to meet David Cameron on Friday to call for his help in negotiating the release of her Russian activist husband Vladimir (right) (Getty) Mr Kara-Murza, 42, who is a British passport holder and studied history at Trinity Hall, was in April handed the longest prison sentence of any Kremlin critic, including the late Alexei Navalny, since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. At the time, he compared his case to the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s. Ms Kara-Murzas meeting with Lord Cameron will take place during a period of heightened concern for the lives of political prisoners in Russia following the death of Mr Navaly in the Polar Wolf Arctic Circle penal colony earlier this month, which Ms Kara-Murza believes was murder. Vladimir Kara-Murza arrives with his wife Yevgenia for a US Senate hearing on Capitol Hill, 29 March 2017 (AFP/Getty) I think, I hope that I do not need to convince anyone of the urgency of this meeting, she told The Independent. Mr Kara-Murzas crime, his allies say, was accusing Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine during a speech in the US in March 2022. Since his arrest in April 2022, outside his flat in Moscow, and his sentencing a year later, his wife Evgenia has met with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) several times, during which she has urged them to negotiate his release. It maintains that it will not negotiate with the Kremlin, as it does not want to encourage state hostage-taking, and the meetings have failed to produce any action. Despite previous efforts to meet Liz Truss and James Cleverly, Ms Kara-Murza was unable to plead her husbands case to either of the then foreign secretaries. Prominent human rights activists and British politicians are urging the UK government to drop their long-standing policy opposing hostage negotiations. Baroness Helena Kennedy, a Labour member of the House of Lords who champions human rights, said Mr Kara-Murza will die if he is not rescued. If we do not make a prisoner exchange for Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British citizen, he will die at the hands of Putin, she said. Of that, I have no doubt. I would urge a review of our policy and that it be taken to secure Vladimirs release. Bill Browder, formerly the largest foreign investor in Russia before being exiled by the Putin regime, also urged Lord Cameron to reconsider the policy on prisoner swaps with the Kremlin. We need Cameron to save Vladimirs life, he said. Vladimir is dying in a Siberian prison, he is a British citizen and we dont want another Navalny situation, which can now easily be foreseen. The foreign secretary should engage with other allies in organising a prisoner swap for Vladimir before it is too late. On 19 February, despite the evident risk to Mr Kara-Murzas life indicated by Mr Navlanys death three days earlier, UK foreign office minister Leo Docherty reaffirmed the opposition to prisoner swaps. Human rights activist Bill Browder has urged David Cameron to help negotiate Kara-Murzas release (AP) We could not and would not countenance a policy of prisoner swaps but of course, we continue to make every effort to support Ms Kara-Murza and seek the release of Vladimir, he told MPs in the Commons. For Ms Kara-Murza, this is not good enough. That her meeting will take place just hours after Navalnys funeral is evidence enough of the pressing need to change their policy. She said, at the least, she hopes to persuade Lord Cameron to create a permanent group dedicated to hostage affairs, to avoid her having to re-explain her husbands plight. Before Mr Navalnys death, Western officials, including British ones, often told her that Putin would not kill political prisoners that he had already jailed. They will just keep them there, the officials said. Well, the day after tomorrow, Alexei Navalny will be buried in Moscow, she said. There will be a funeral. So, I think, I hope that I do not need to convince anyone of the urgency of this. The regime has crossed all the lines already. Meanwhile, the wife of Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, has described the Russian president as a bloody monster who acts like a mafia godfather as she prepared to bury her husband. In an address to the European parliament on Wednesday, she urged Western leaders not to treat the Russian president as a rival politician but as a gangster. The death of Navalny, who died on 16 February while imprisoned in a Soviet-era Arctic penal camp, prompted hundreds of Russians across the country to stream to impromptu memorials with flowers and candles. His cause of death is still unknown, though Ms Navalnaya has claimed he was poisoned, while supporters and Western leaders have said they hold Putin responsible for his death. The Kremlin has denied those claims. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} At least one migrant is thought to have drowned in the Channel after a small boat got into difficulties in French waters. Two people were reported missing and one was lifted from the water unconscious while trying to make the crossing to Britain, French officials said. A French coastguard spokesperson said navy boats and a helicopter went to the aid of a small boat with migrants on board off the coast of Cap Gris-Nez, northern France. French border force are involved in the search operation (AFP via Getty Images) Rescuers picked up a total of about 180 migrants in four separate operations on Wednesday, the maritime prefecture said. Dozens of people were brought ashore at Dover after making the dangerous journey in various boats in in foggy weather. Some of those rescued told the crew of a French navy vessel that three people had gone missing during their crossing attempt. Searches with French navy boats and a helicopter found one person who could not be revived, but two other people were still missing, it said. Around 50 migrants were on the makeshift boat, officials said. The sea was quiet today [and] there was an unusually large number of crossing attempts, a prefecture officer said. A UK government spokesperson said: We can confirm there has been an incident in the Channel involving a small boat in French waters. French authorities are leading the response and investigation. We will not be commenting further at this stage. Rescued migrants brought to Dover last month (PA) Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: Our thoughts go out to the families of those affected by the tragic loss of life in the English Channel this afternoon and to all those who valiantly answered the distress call. This is yet another avoidable human tragedy. Men, women and children from countries such as Afghanistan are risking their lives in the Channel as a direct consequence of safe routes being so limited and ineffective. The last fatalities in the Channel happened on 14 January when five migrants died after an urgent rescue mission was launched to help around 70 people in difficulty. A record 290 migrants crossed the Channel in five small boats on Sunday the highest recorded number for a single day in February. More than 2,000 migrants have arrived in the UK so far this year after crossing the strait between England and France, Home Office figures show. The number of Channel arrivals is 32 per cent lower than the total recorded this time last year (2,953) but 49 per cent higher than the total at this stage in 2022 (1,482). Some 29,437 migrants arrived in the UK after making the crossing last year, down 36 per cent on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The family of a woman who was hit by a car while wearing a hijab is calling for the police to re-investigate the incident after it was deemed as an unfortunate road traffic incident. Misbah Sadique, 37, has been left with severe injuries after she was hit by a car in Walthamstow in what she and her family believe to be a targeted Islamophobic attack. She remains in hospital recovering from her injuries more than three weeks after the incident happened on Shernall Street on February 1. As Ms Sadique and her friend, who were both wearing hijabs, were crossing the road, a red car initially stopped and allegedly waved to let them pass. Did you witness the incident? Email athena.stavrou@independent.co.uk However, CCTV footage then shows the vehicle unexpectedly accelerate and hit the two women while they were directly in front of the car. Ms Sadiques friend, Kulsum, was thrown into the air across the road while she herself was dragged under the car. The 37-year-old remains in the hospital recovering from severe injuries including a broken ankle, fractured ribs, and is in constant pain. The women were crossing the road on Shernall Street when they were struck down (file photo) (Google Maps) The incident was formally recorded as a hate crime before the force concluded it to be an unfortunate road traffic incident on February 5. This whole incident has left my family and I totally distraught, Ms Sadiques cousin, Nazia Tayyib, said. The fact that this happened on our doorstep, in a place that is our home and has always felt safe, is extremely scary. Not just for us as a family but also for the wider Muslim community. She added: Many members of my family saw Misbahs lifeless-looking body under the car, a trauma that will remain with them for years to come. Her elderly mother is still finding it hard to sleep or eat. The whole night has left us all traumatised. The continuing effects of this trauma I feel will stay with us forever. Ms Tayyib said her family felt let down by the Metropolitan Polices response to the incident after they concluded the incident to be a road traffic accident rather than a hate crime. The conclusion was made before the force had taken Ms Sadiques statement which dismayed her family. This decision was made without any contact with our family or Misbah, who remains in hospital. It was only after repeated requests from the family and a call to 101 that officers attended our home, Ms Tayyib said. The impact of this potential hate crime was compounded by the inadequate response from the police. They added that it took the police 23 days to take the wounded womans statements, despite claiming they told the police she was medically ready before. Five days after the incident, the Met Police said that there was no indication that the women were deliberately targetted. They added that they had reviewed CCTV footage and that they would speak with Misbah when medically appropriate. The Met Police statement said: One of the women felt they had been targeted due to their Islamic dress, and as such this incident has been formally recorded as a hate crime. However, our investigation including viewing of CCTV leads us to believe that the women were not in any way deliberately targeted. This was an unfortunate road traffic collision. Ms Tayyib said the incident had impacted her familys perception of the police and added: Since Oct 7th, the Muslim community and our family do not feel as though the authorities are aware of the impact that increased Islamophobia is having on Muslims. In our case, the Police have not done their job properly and even now won't even properly consider the evidence to assess it as a hate crime. It comes as Muslims in Britain say they are too scared to leave their homes after dark, as new figures show the number of Islamophobic incidents has skyrocketed since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas. Charity Islamophobia Response Unit (IRU) says it saw a 365 per cent increase in reports of Islamophobia in October, following Hamass deadly attacks in Israel that left more than 1,200 people dead. Since October 2023 IRU has seen a sustained increase in reports to the unit, said IRU CEO Majid Iqbal. It is clear that this is now developing into a long-term trend and is having a profound impact on those affected by it. OLAF FUB SEZ: According to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, born on this date in 1953, You can shop online and find whatever youre looking for, but bookstores are where you find what you werent looking for. . . . CHURCH NOTE On display starting today in SS. Peter and Paul Church, 66 E. Main St., Hamburg, are Eucharistic Miracles of the World, 36 easels designed by Blessed Carlos Acutis, considered the patron saint of the internet, who died at the age of 15 in 2006. They can be seen during business hours, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., through March 20. . . . MUSIC MASTERS The Buffalo Chamber Players present Just the Two of Us, a program of duets composed by Mozart, Hovhaness and others, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Buffalo AKG Art Museum auditorium. $25 to $30. For more info, visit buffalochamberplayers.org. Advanced students from Rochesters Eastman School of Music give their annual recital at 7:30 p.m. Friday on the renowned Fisk Organ in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall on the University at Buffalo North Campus in Amherst. $10. For more info, visit calendar.buffalo.edu/event. . . . DARK STAR Kevin Williams, director of the Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium at Buffalo State University, will talk about the upcoming total eclipse of the sun and the effects it will have locally at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in the Grand Island High School auditorium, 1100 Ransom Road, in a program sponsored by the Rotary Club of Grand Island. Approved eclipse glasses available for a $2 donation to the planetarium. . . . SUPER TROUPERS The songs of ABBA will fill the Edward Allen Auditorium, 47 Bloomingdale Ave., Akron, this weekend as Akron High School and Middle School students stage the musical Mamma Mia!, with Katerina Ryszka and Muira Kreher in the lead roles. Performances are at 7 p.m. Friday and 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday. $12, $10 students and seniors. For more info, search Music at akronschools.org. . . . WHATS BREWING Meowfia, a special edition beer, makes its debut at a launch party from 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday in One-Eyed Cat Brewing, 5893 Main St., Williamsville. Part of the proceeds benefit Ten Lives Club Cat Adoption Group. For more info, visit tenlivesclub.com. The Niagara Arts and Cultural Center, 1201 Pine Ave., Niagara Falls, hosts its 16th annual Art of Beer beverage and food tasting from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Friday. $45 plus fees, includes craft beer, wine and cider, plus culinary pairings from local restaurants, live music and a souvenir glass. For more info, visit theNACC.org. . . . HAPPY BIRTHDAY Corey Tarreto, Michael Morgulis, Laura Winchester, Christine Bailey Davis, Spencer Brown, Pattie Losito, Nick Beardi, Geraldine Hall, Linda Borochik, Marge Coppola, Courtney Ellen Bondanza, Paul Bliss, Pam Roman, Camden Roy, Faith Webber, Donald L. Davis, Andrew Franz and Jenna Horwitz. AND LEAP DAY Jane Corwin, Jerry Ciambor, Tim Driscoll, Kathy Reidy, Darlene Lacey, Sonny Muszynski and Jerry Kozlowski. To submit birthdays and other items of interest to Reporters Notebook, please email olaffub@buffnews.com or send a letter to Reporters Notebook, Buffalo News, Box 100, Buffalo, NY 14240. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The Duke of Sussex has lost his High Court challenge against the government over its decision to reduce his publicly-funded protection when he is in the UK. Prince Harrys lawyers had argued he was being singled out and treated less favourably in the decision by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) in 2020. The decision was made in the same year Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, decided to step back as senior members of the royal family as they bid to become financially independent. However, a ruling by retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane on 28 February rejected Prince Harrys case, concluding that Ravecs approach was not irrational nor procedurally unfair. The duke has since said he will appeal. It is one of a series of recent High Court cases brought forward by the prince. Last year, he won a case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over a phone hacking claiming. And in January, the duke decided to withdraw libel action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL). Here we take a look at the legal cases the duke has been involved in recently: Privacy claim against Splash News and Picture Agency In May 2019, Harry accepted substantial damages and an apology from a news agency that took pictures of his home in the Cotswolds from a helicopter. Harry settled privacy and data protection claims against Splash News and Picture Agency over photographs of and into the living area and dining area of the home and directly into the bedroom. The court heard Splash agreed to pay damages and legal costs. Legal action against the Home Office The duke brought legal action against the Home Office over the security arrangements for himself and his family when they are in the UK. He challenged the February 2020 decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) which falls under the remit of the Home Office over his security, after being told he would no longer be given the same degree of personal protective security when visiting. The dukes legal team argued that the security arrangements set out in a letter from Ravec, and their application when he visited the UK in June 2021, were invalid due to procedural unfairness, and there will be a full High Court hearing to review the dukes claim. However, retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane rejected the dukes case, concluding that Ravecs approach was not irrational nor procedurally unfair. In his 52-page partially redacted ruling issued on 28 February this year, he said the princes lawyers had taken an inappropriate, formalist interpretation of the Ravec process. The bespoke process devised for the claimant in the decision of 28 February 2020 was, and is, legally sound, he added. The duke has since said he will appeal against the ruling. Libel claim against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) The duke brought a libel claim against ANL the publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail On Sunday over an article about his case against the Home Office. The story was published online and in the newspaper in February 2022 under the headline: Exclusive: How Prince Harry tried to keep his legal fight with the government over police bodyguards a secret then just minutes after the story broke his PR machine tried to put a positive spin on the dispute. Justin Rushbrooke KC, for Harry, had said the Mail On Sunday article purported to reveal, in sensational terms that information from court documents filed by the duke contradicted public statements he had previously made about his willingness to pay for police protection for himself and his family whilst in the UK. ANL contested the claim, arguing the article expressed an honest opinion and did not cause serious harm to his reputation. The civil claim had been heading towards an estimated three-day trial scheduled for May this year, but in January this year, the duke decided to withdraw the libel claim. Alleged unlawful information gathering at Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) Prince Harry is one of seven people, also including David Furnish, Sadie Frost, Liz Hurley and Sir Simon Hughes, who have brought legal action against ANL over denied allegations it carried out or commissioned unlawful information gathering. The allegations include hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars, blagging private records and accessing and recording private phone conversations. ANL, which firmly denies the allegations, asked a judge to rule in its favour without a trial, arguing the legal challenges against it were brought far too late. A hearing is expected this year. Alleged unlawful information gathering at Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) The Duke of Sussex and others sued Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over alleged unlawful information gathering are waiting to find out whether they will win their case. The prince brought the case against MGN for damages, claiming journalists at its titles the Daily and Sunday Mirror and Sunday People were linked to methods including phone hacking, so-called blagging or gaining information by deception, and use of private investigators for unlawful activities. His case was heard alongside similar claims by actor Michael Turner, who is known professionally as Michael Le Vell and best known for playing Kevin Webster in Coronation Street, actress Nikki Sanderson and comedian Paul Whitehouses ex-wife Fiona Wightman. The allegations covered a period from as early as 1991 until at least 2011, the court was told. Harry faced eight hours of questioning over two days during a witness box appearance that drew the attention of the worlds media. On 15 December 2023, High Court judge Mr Justice Fancourt ruled extensive phone hacking had taken place at MGN. He also said there had been so-called blagging or gaining information by deception, and use of private investigators for unlawful activities. Prince Harry was awarded 140,600 in damages over 15 of the 33 MGN articles he complained about. A further 115 articles were in the dukes claim, which could have been subject to a further trial. But on 9 February this year, it was confirmed that a settlement had been reached with MGN over the remaining parts of the claim. This included an interim payment towards costs of 400,000, the princes barrister said. Alleged unlawful information gathering at News Group Newspapers (NGN) Harry is suing News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of The Sun and the now-defunct News Of The World, over alleged unlawful information gathering. The duke alleged he was targeted by journalists and private investigators working for the papers. At a hearing in April 2023, NGN asked Mr Justice Fancourt to throw out the dukes case, arguing it was brought too late because he should have known sooner he had a potential claim. In a ruling in July 2023, the judge concluded that Harry cannot bring his claim relating to phone hacking, but that his claim over other allegations including use of private investigators could go ahead to a trial. A spokesperson for NGN said after the ruling that the judge had dismissed the dukes phone hacking claims against its two titles in a significant victory for the publisher, adding that the judgment substantially reduces the scope of his legal claim. A trial is expected to take place later in 2024. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The Duke of Sussex has issued a new video message for the WellChild Awards nominations just hours after he lost a high court battle with the Home Office over his security arrangements. Prince Harry hailed the extraordinary strength and spirit of young people with complex medical conditions as he appeared in the video on Wednesday afternoon. Harrys brief on-camera message was released on the same day he lost a High Court challenge against the Home Office over a decision to change the level of his taxpayer-funded personal security when he visits the UK. The duke took legal action against the Home Office over the February 2020 decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) after being told he would no longer be given the same degree of publicly-funded protection when in the country. The court was told that Harry believes his children cannot feel at home in the UK if it is not possible to keep them safe there. Retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane rejected the dukes case on Wednesday, concluding that Ravecs approach was not irrational nor procedurally unfair. The duke is to seek to appeal against the ruling, his lawyers have announced. Hours later, Harry appeared looking relaxed in a grey shirt and wearing his leather cord necklace, as he urged the public to put forward the names of the remarkable individuals who inspire you for the charitys 2024 awards. The duke said: The WellChild Awards is our chance to celebrate the extraordinary strength and spirit of young people with complex medical conditions from across the United Kingdom. It allows us to shine a spotlight on the resilience and positivity that they demonstrate every single day, and recognise the incredible support from the families, friends, and the professionals around them. Harry has been a patron of WellChild since 2007 and the annual awards celebrate the inspirational qualities of the UKs seriously ill children and young people. He added: It is such a privilege to honour the immense courage and compassion of this incredible community. But to do that, we need you to take a moment and nominate the remarkable individuals who inspire you. Your involvement makes a huge difference so please join us in celebrating the amazing superstars who will be recognised at the 2024 WellChild Awards. It is Harrys first appearance on screen since his Good Morning America interview in which he spoke about the Kings cancer diagnosis (Good Morning America) The duke, who appeared to have filmed the video at his home in California, attended the event in person in London last year, on the eve of the first anniversary of the late Queens death. It is Harrys first appearance on screen since his Good Morning America interview in which he spoke about the Kings cancer diagnosis. The duke told the US breakfast show I love my family and that he was grateful to be able to spend time with his father after he flew to see him following news of his illness. The duke spent around 30 minutes with Charles at Clarence House before the King left for Sandringham. The royal family has had a difficult start to 2024, with the King being treated for cancer, the Princess of Wales undergoing abdominal surgery and the sudden death, announced on Tuesday, of Lady Gabriella Kingstons husband Thomas Kingston at the age of 45. Just yesterday, Prince William was forced to miss a memorial service for his godfather the late King Constantine, sparking concerns for Kate Middletons health. (2023 Getty Images) The palace reported the Prince of Wales missed the memorial service due to a personal matter but they did not elaborate further. In January, the Princess of Wales, 42, entered the London Clinic to have abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition. The exact details of the princesss condition have not been revealed but the Palace said previously it was not cancer-related, and that Kate wished her personal medical information to remain private. Guests at last years WellChild awards included McFlys Danny Jones, presenter Emma Willis, comic Catherine Ryan, actor Tom Felton and presenter and host Gaby Roslin. The categories are Inspirational Child or Young Person, Inspirational Sibling, Nurse, Outstanding Professional and Inspiration Parent Carer. Nominations can be made at www.wellchild.org.uk/awards and the closing date is March 18. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Prince William has pulled out of a memorial for his godfather at Windsor Castle, hours before he was due to give a reading. Palace officials said only that his absence at the service, for the late King Constantine of Greece, was due to a personal matter and that the Princess of Wales, who is recovering from abdominal surgery, continues to be doing well. Hours after the event, it was announced that Thomas Kingston, the husband of Prince and Princess Michael of Kents daughter Lady Gabriella Kingston, had died suddenly on Sunday at the age of 45. The financier was found dead at an address in Gloucestershire; an inquest will be held to establish the cause of his death, but there are no suspicious circumstances. Williams absence left Queen Camilla the most senior royal attending the St Georges Chapel event, as King Charles is continuing to receive treatment for cancer. But also present were the disgraced Duke of York, who, with ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York, led the main contingent of British royals as they walked downhill from Windsor Castle to the church. Andrew smiled as he strode ahead of Sarah, followed by their daughter Princess Beatrice with her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, the Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, Zara and Mike Tindall, and the Kings cousin Lady Sarah Chatto. Queen Camilla leaves St Georges Chapel after the thanksgiving service for the life of King Constantine (PA Wire) Constantine IIs widow Queen Anne-Marie was joined by their children, Crown Prince Pavlos, Princess Alexia, Prince Nikolaos, Princess Theodora and Prince Philippos, as well as a number of their grandchildren. Former prime minister Sir John Major was also invited by the Greek royal household to attend the service, as was ex-Formula One racing driver Sir Jackie Stewart and King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain. Constantine was a first cousin once removed and a sailing partner of the late Duke of Edinburgh, and died at the age of 82 in January last year, decades after being toppled from the throne in a military coup. William had been expected to attend the ceremony alone, as Kate is taking a break from official engagements until after Easter following her surgery in January. King Charles has also postponed almost all public engagements while he continues to receive treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer. William recently returned to royal duties after taking time off to care for Kate, who underwent abdominal surgery at the London Clinic for an unknown condition. She remained in the private hospital for 13 days while recovering before she returned to the familys Windsor home. Prince Andrew and his former wife Sarah Ferguson lead the way to the service in St Georges Chapel (Getty) While she reportedly planned to continue undertaking some work from home, she is not expected to return to public engagements until after Easter and has not been seen in public since Christmas Day. Prince William has attended several engagements in recent weeks, including an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle, an air ambulance charity event, and the Baftas, where he walked the red carpet alone. The former couple could be seen smiling as they led the way to the chapel (PA) There are currently no official engagements scheduled for the heir to the throne in the royal diary. On Friday, Charles was pictured smiling while looking through some of the 7,000 messages and cards he had received since his diagnosis. It came days after he carried out his first face-to-face official duties an audience with prime minister Rishi Sunak and a privy council meeting on Wednesday since his condition was announced. The type of cancer he has has not been revealed; nor is it known how many rounds of treatment are planned, but so far he has had at least two. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} More than 55,500 asylum seekers are stuck in a new backlog as the government struggles to force through its flagship Rwanda policy costing the taxpayer millions of pounds, a report has found. Tens of thousands of asylum seekers who arrived in the UK irregularly since March last year have had their cases paused by the Home Office as the government waits to see if its policy of sending migrants to the African country will succeed. The perma-backlog has been caused by the governments lllegal Migration Act, which bans ministers from granting asylum to anyone who entered the UK illegally on or after 7 March 2023. The act also requires the government to remove illegal migrants who entered the country after 20 July 2023, when the act received royal assent. But with Rishi Sunaks plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda suffering a significant setback at the Supreme Court, the cases are in paralysis, analysis has found. Research by think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has found that these asylum seekers are now stuck in temporary accommodation, unable to work, and unable to have their claims processed. Rishi Sunak has pinned his hopes on the governments Rwanda policy to deport migrants from the UK (POOL/AFP via Getty) Charities said that asylum claims were being put in a deep freeze by the Home Office, leaving refugees stuck in a never-ending limbo. Labours shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock accused the government of replacing one asylum backlog with another, at an enormous cost to the British taxpayer. He said the Tories had created complete and utter chaos in the asylum system. It currently costs around 8m a day to house asylum seekers in hotels, according to the Home Offices annual report. Even if planes to Rwanda do start to fly, only a few hundred people are expected to be accommodated in the east-African country nowhere near the tens of thousands of cases that are currently not being processed. The IPPR has estimated that around 22,400 asylum claims were made between 7 March and 20 July. It has previously been reported that the Home Office had paused their cases, with one official telling The i: They havent decided what to do with them yet, thats why we are not processing their claims. As of 28 December 2023, there had been around 33,100 asylum claims made since 20 July 2023, the bulk of which were likely to be from people who had arrived irregularly, the report said. The Home Offices director general for migration and borders, Dan Hobbs, told MPs in late January that these 33,000 migrants were inadmissible to the [asylum] system under the terms of the Illegal Migration Act. He explained: At the moment, we do not have a safe country of return for the vast majority of those individuals, so they are here on bail, pending the conclusion of the Safety of Rwanda Bill and the movement forward of our relocation agreement with Rwanda. Labours shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock says the government has replaced one asylum backlog with another (PA) Marley Morris, associate director for migration at IPPR, said: Chaos in the home office has led to tens of thousands of asylum seekers stuck in a perma-backlog, unable to get on with their lives and costing the taxpayer millions. This was an entirely predictable outcome of the Illegal Migration Act. The only way to escape this situation is for the Home Office to start processing claims. Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said that the government was effectively putting significant numbers of asylum claims in a deep freeze. He added that this was creating chaos, driving up costs and leaving refugees stuck in a never-ending limbo, at risk of destitution, exploitation and abuse. Charlotte Khan, of charity Care4Calais, said it was shameful that tens of thousands of people, who have already survived horrors such as war, torture and persecution, are being held in limbo without a future. Asli Tatliadim, of Refugee Action, called on the government to commit to fairly processing all claims and repeal their extremely damaging anti-refugee laws. Mr Kinnock added: The Tories have already pledged to give 400m to the Rwandan government without a single person being flown there, and wider removals have collapsed by 34 per cent since 2010. Its time the government stopped wasting taxpayers money. They should instead deliver our plan to end the crossings with a new cross-border police force, faster processing, and a new returns unit to speed up the safe-country removals of those who fail in their asylum claims. A Home Office spokesperson repeated the contested claim that the department had cleared the legacy asylum backlog, saying: We met the prime ministers pledge to clear the legacy backlog of asylum cases made before 28 June 2022 and all of those cases have been reviewed. Now we are working through the next cohort of applications. The spokesperson added: We are beginning to implement measures in the Illegal Migration Act following the Supreme Courts judgment on Rwanda and alongside the Safety of Rwanda Bill going through parliament, delivering against this governments priority of tackling illegal migration. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Tesco has been forced to change how it displays Clubcard deals after criticism that it could be breaking the law. Last year consumer group Which? said Tesco could be breaking the law by failing to provide unit pricing such as the price per 100g on products with Clubcard promotion prices. Which? reported the supermarket giant to the UK competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), as it criticised its pricing information displayed for some products. At the time, Tesco said that its price labelling had been formally endorsed by Trading Standards, after it asked the organisation to review its Clubcard Prices promotions. It added that it was disappointed by the ill-founded claims by Which? Unit prices can be used by shoppers in stores and online to compare the value of products they are purchasing. Tesco said its price labelling had been formally endorsed by Trading Standards (Alamy/PA) Tescos UK chief executive Jason Tarry wrote in a blog this week: If you are in store, you will now start to see that the way that we display our Clubcard Prices will not only show the total price, but also the unit price of the product (by volume or weight), to allow a direct comparison of the price per unit between the Clubcard Prices offer and the price of alternative products. This is something that we have been planning to do for some time, and I am really pleased that we are ready to make the change. Over the coming weeks, these changes will appear in all our stores, as our colleagues update millions of price labels on the shelf edge. We will also be adding these unit prices to our Clubcard Prices deals online. Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: Which? has campaigned through the cost-of-living crisis for supermarkets to make pricing clearer so shoppers can easily find the best value deals at a time when so many have struggled to put food on the table. The lack of unit pricing on Tescos Clubcard offers was a glaring omission and we warned that this approach could be breaking the law last summer, so its good to see the nations largest supermarket stepping up to do the right thing by making this important change. We look forward to seeing this rolled out quickly across all stores and online so shoppers can benefit as soon as possible. The Government also needs to now update outdated pricing rules so all shoppers can easily compare value. Close Princess Kate reassuring Mothers Day image done completely opposite, says royal biographer Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Kate Middleton looked happy and healthy as she was spotted alongside Prince William doing a spot of shopping near her Adelaide Cottage home, according to reports. The Prince and Princess of Wales were seen at one of their favourite farm shops on Saturday, around a mile away from their home set within the grounds of Windsor Home Park, a delighted onlooker told The Sun. It comes as Kate was forced to skip a St Patricks Day parade as she continues her recovery from abdominal surgery. Her health condition has not yet been revealed to the public but her friends claimed she may soon speak out about her ailment in a bid to quell the spurious rumours that have circulated in her absence. Those close to Kate and William said the couple will disclose more information about her recovery in due course, according to The Sunday Times, which reported her return to royal duties should come after April 17. A source told the newspaper: They are at their most open when out interacting with members of the public and I can see a world in which the princess might discuss her recovery out on engagements. If she was going to do it, thats how she would do it. The apparent appearance followed a public backlash after the Cambridges decision to share a family photograph edited by Kate on Mothers Day. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Thomas Kingston was a financier who married into the royal family after a summer proposal on the island of Sark almost six years ago. He became the husband of Prince and Princess Michael of Kents daughter Lady Gabriella Kingston, 56th in line to the throne. On Sunday the 45-year-old, known as Tom, died from a traumatic head wound with a gun found close to his body in an outhouse at his parents Cotswolds home, an inquest heard. Senior coroner Katy Skerrett said that Mr Kingston ate lunch with his parents at their home. After lunch, his father went out to walk the dogs but upon his return, Mr Kingston could not be found in the house. Approximately 30 minutes later, his mother went to look for him. His father then forced entry into a locked-out building when they heard no response. He found Mr Kingston deceased with a catastrophic head injury. A gun was present at the scene. Emergency services were called. Police are satisfied the death is not suspicious, Ms Skerrett told the inquest. A post mortem has been undertaken by Dr Jones, a consultant histopathologist, and a provisional cause of death has been given as 1a traumatic wound to head. Mr Kingston was a close friend of Pippa Middleton, the Princess of Wales sister, with the pair seen out and about together on numerous occasions. He attended her wedding to James Matthews in May 2017, accompanied by Lady Gabriella, known as Ella. Lady Gabriella Kingston and Thomas Kingston leaving St Georges Chapel in Windsor Castle, following their wedding (PA Wire) The King, who is a second cousin of Lady Gabriella, sent his most heartfelt thoughts and prayers to her family after news broke of the sudden death. Lady Gabriella had been dating Mr Kingston for a number of years when he proposed while they were on the island of Sark in August 2018. The pair were married in May 2019 in a noon ceremony at St Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle. Their wedding at the 15th-century venue came less than a year after the star-studded nuptials of Duke and Duchess of Sussex in May 2018 and Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank in October the same year. In attendance were the late Queen and late Duke of Edinburgh, with Harry leaving wife Meghan and then newborn son Archie at home to attend the ceremony. Buckingham Palace announced the death of Thomas Kingston (Getty Images) Among the guests at the service were the Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, designer Nicky Haslam and the family of the Princess of Wales, her parents Carole and Michael Middleton and siblings Pippa and James, who were joined by their partners. The wedding reception was held at Frogmore House, where Meghan and Harry staged their wedding dinner. Mr Kingstons career was broadly focused on finance, with a range of credentials including his most recent position as a director of Devonport Capital, which specialises in providing finance for companies in frontier economies. But he started out in the Foreign Office, according to Devonport Capitals website. In 2003, he became project manager for a Government sponsored conflict resolution project in Iraq. (Getty Images) According to the Telegraph, he was in Baghdad, working for the release of hostages after joining the Foreign Offices Diplomatic Missions Unit. In 2006, Mr Kingston joined Schroders Asset Management in London before joining Voltan Capital Management in 2012. Five years later, he became a director of Devonport Capital Ltd. He was a Bristol University graduate, having obtained a bachelors degree in economic history, and a chartered financial analyst. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A stand-up comedian hired to play Willy Wonka at a widely criticised chocolate factory experience has spoken out after furious parents demanded refunds. Willys Chocolate Experience organiser Billy Coull apologised for his vision of the artistic rendition of a well-known book that didnt come to fruition and offered 850 people their money back before closing the Glasgow experience on Saturday. Paul Connell said he was given 15 pages of AI-generated gibberish (Supplied) One parent complained of arriving to find a disorganised mini-maze of randomly placed oversized props, a lacklustre candy station that dispersed one jelly bean per child, and a terrifying chrome-masked character that scared many of the kids to tears. There was supposed to be a chocolate fountain somewhere but I never saw it (Stuart Sinclair/Facebook) Did you attend the event? If so email barney.davis.ind@independent.co.uk The Wonka-esque impersonator Paul Connell, 31, spoke to The Independent about how he got the gig and how the chaos unfolded. Im constantly applying for more acting jobs and comedy work, then I got a phone call on Thursday saying, Congratulations you are going to play Willy Wonka, we will send you over the script and dress rehearsal is tomorrow, Mr Connell said. The script was 15 pages of AI-generated gibberish of me just monologuing these mad things. The bit that got me was where I had to say, There is a man we dont know his name. We know him as the Unknown. This Unknown is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls. It was terrifying for the kids. Is he an evil man who makes chocolate or is the chocolate itself evil? They even misspelt my contract but I do have a legally binding Coontract [sic]. But I stayed up all night learning it, thinking this would make sense in the dress rehearsal when I see all the tech. Parents were not happy with the Wonka Experience (Stuart Sinclair/Facebook) But at the Friday evening dress rehearsal hours before opening, he turned up to find the immersive and enchanting Willy Wonka experience was, in fact, an empty warehouse with a few plastic mushrooms. In some ways, it was a world of imagination, like imagine that there is a whole chocolate factory here, he said. I spoke to the people running it and thought, surely by the morning it wont look like this, and then I turned up in the morning and it absolutely did. At the end of my monologue, I was supposed to suck up the Unknown Man with a vacuum cleaner. I asked them if they had a vacuum cleaner and they said, yeah, we havent really got there yet, so just improvise. So I started to cut things out, thinking that would be silly. All the actors were lovely people. We gathered together in the morning and said, Were probably not going to get paid for this but kids are still going to come up. Lets make this as magic as possible for them. Children were given a quarter cup of lemonade, the actor said (Supplied) I was making jokes but we were told to give them one jelly bean and a quarter cup of lemonade, he continued. No chocolate at the chocolate experience. There was supposed to be a chocolate fountain somewhere but I never saw it. I was told I would get a 15-minute break every 45 minutes after each group went through. But I ended up playing Willy Wonka for three and a half hours straight. I didnt know where I ended and Wonka began. I was losing my mind by that point. The organiser came up to me, saying, Youre spending too much time with the kids, we need to get them through as quickly as possible. By this point, I was visibly angry. I was like, now theres going to be a lot of disappointed kids. The actor said he finally managed to get a lunch break, deciding to spend it sitting in his car staring at the floor trying to avoid the sight of crying children being turned away by security. When I came back, thats when everything kicked off, he explained. There was an angry mob at the door not being let in. I had to wedge my way through. I was Wonka and its my face everywhere. But I am just a last-minute actor, really, I didnt organise anything. People were shouting, people who put on the event were crying. There were arguments, people running around everywhere the set had been trashed. An AI poster was printed out and stuck to a wall (Stuart Sinclair/Facebook) He called another huddle of the two other Willy Wonkas and the nearest Oompa Loompas, adding: We decided to just walk away. It was actually getting quite dangerous for us. But it was heartbreaking, to be honest. There were kids in costume better than ours, crying. I used to be a teacher and that was triggering for me. One thing I want to make clear is everyone has been so nice to the actors in person and on the day, the people who were there understand we did our best. We didnt take any abuse but we gave abuse to the people running it. The whole thing was disrespectful to the families and us as promising actors. There were three Willy Wonkas but I was the most unlucky because I went first and stayed for three and a half hours doing it through either commitment or stupidity. Planning a stand-up tour soon, the actor, originally from Hull, said he had moved to Glasgow to follow his dream of becoming a stand-up comedian after googling what is the funniest city in the UK. He finished: Its a night Ill try to forget. Sadly, not only will I remember it, everyone I know will remember it too. We as actors were brought in last minute and we just did our best for the kids. Gene Wilders Wonka in the iconic original movie (Warner Bros) Stuart Sinclair, who travelled two hours to attend the experience with his family, told The Independent: It was nothing short of shocking. But all the cast that were there did their absolute best. Unfortunately, they were all sub-contractor actors hired by Illuminati and havent been paid either. They were in as much shock as us. But it was probably worse for them because this is their job and made them look bad when it wasnt their fault. Organiser Billy Coull, the director of immersive events company House of Illuminati, told STV News: Im really shocked that the event had fallen short of the expectations of people on paper. My vision of the artistic rendition of a well-known book didnt come to fruition. For that, I am absolutely truly and utterly sorry. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Children burst into tears as angry parents rounded on the ringleader of a Willy Wonka experience which turned out to be a sparse Glasgow warehouse decorated with a rainbow and a bouncy castle. Furious parents shelled out 35 for the world of pure imagination promising a delectable chocolate fountain and whimsical Oompa Loompas who in reality were actors struggling to recite scripts hastily handed to them the night before opening. Organisers House of Illuminati apologised for the stressful and frustrating day and offered 850 refunds before closing the experience to guests on Saturday. Furious parents shelled out 35 for the world of pure imagination (Stuart Sinclair/Facebook) A rainbow in the world of pure imagination (Stuart Sinclair/Facebook) Aileen Butcher, who had taken her daughter, told the Daily Record it was an absolute disgrace. Have you been affected by this? If so email athena.stavrou@independent.co.uk She said: We went inside and there were some posters, a visual display including a rainbow, toadstool and a gobstopper. There also appeared to be a table strewn with jelly beans and a bouncy castle at the back. It took us a minute to walk through. Some families were very, very angry and had little children who were crying. It was a tense atmosphere and new families were arriving looking bewildered. Gene Wilder in the original surrounded by Oompa Loompas A poster covers a portion of a blank wall (Stuart Sinclair/Facebook) Stuart Sinclair travelled two hours to attend the experience with his family said on Facebook: It was nothing short of shocking. It was described as a full Wonka Experience with chocolate fountains, but the kids received two jelly babies and a quarter of a can of Barrs limeade. Actors complained on social media they were given just one night to learn a script before it was torn up and they were told to improvise around items that werent even there. Mr Sinclair told The Independent: All the cast that were there did their absolute best. Unfortunately, they were all sub-contractor actors hired by Illuminati and havent been paid either. They were in as much shock as us. But it was probably worse for them because this is their job and made them look bad when it wasnt their fault. All the parents rounded on the guy running it. He was there and everyone was at him trying to get answers. It was that bad it was just laughable. (Stuart Sinclair/Facebook) Police Scotland said officers issued guidance to crowds building up outside the closed venue. A House of Illuminati spokesperson said: Today has been a very stressful and frustrating day for many and for that we are truly sorry. Unfortunately, at the last minute we were let down in many areas of our event and tried our best to continue on and push through and now realise we probably should have cancelled first thing this morning instead. We fully apologise for what has happened and will be giving full refunds to each and every person that purchased tickets. We planned a fabulous event and it just did not take shape as planned and for that we are truly sorry, we are devastated at how this has turned out and understand peoples anger and frustration that everyone has had, refunds have already started being issued and the rest should be over the coming days, again we are truly sorry to everyone. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Lee Anderson fuelled speculation he is to join Nigel Farages Reform UK by meeting with the partys leader a day after losing the Tory whip. The former Tory deputy chair has been linked with a move to the former Brexit Party since being suspended by the Conservatives for Islamophobic comments about Sadiq Khan. Mr Anderson met Mr Tice, who succeeded Mr Farage as leader, at a Holiday Inn hotel, at junction 28 of the M1 in South Normanton, Derbyshire on Sunday, GB News reported. Lee Anderson MP has refused to rule out joining Reform UK, with reports he met the partys leader after having the Tory whip removed (Victoria Jones/PA) (PA Wire) It came just 24 hours after he had been suspended by the Conservatives. On Tuesday Mr Anderson launched a fresh attack on Mr Khan, accusing him of enjoying protest scenes in Whitehall which cause disruption to parliament and cast the government in a bad light. He also dropped the latest hint that he could defect to Reform UK, as the insurgent right-wing party piles pressure on Rishi Sunak. In his latest comments made during an interview with Channel 5 news, Mr Anderson was asked if he would take back last weeks remarks. He said he would probably change my words slightly. He added: I think its all political, I think he almost enjoys seeing these scenes on Whitehall and on Parliament Square, which disrupts parliament, which puts my government in a bad light. I think he just turns a blind eye. Its politics. Mr Anderson lost the Tory whip at the weekend after he claimed Islamists had got control of the mayor of London. Rishi Sunak made Lee Anderson deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (Jacob King/PA Wire) Pressed over whether he would join the right-wing Reform UK party, the former Labour councillor declined to comment but told GB News he had been on a political journey. He said: Youll say Lee Anderson rules out/doesnt rule out joining the Reform party, so Im making no comment on my future. He also said he intended to stand at the next election. His comments came as senior Conservatives faced mounting pressure to describe his attack on Sadiq Khan as Islamophobic. Radio station LBC abruptly halted an interview with illegal immigration minister Michael Tomlinson, accusing him of failing to answer the question. In questions from broadcasters on Tuesday, Mr Tomlinson refused 11 times to explain why he thought Mr Andersons comments were wrong. His Home Office colleague Tom Pursglove also refused to use the term, telling Times Radio: I dont think Lee personally is racist but what he said was unacceptable. The prime minister and others have condemned Mr Andersons comments, but have so far shied away from calling them Islamophobic. Labour has criticised that stance as weak, with one frontbencher saying the prime minister was in hock to a strange coalition of MPs. Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said on Tuesday: "He [Anderson] should know better than that, he has been a senior figure within the Conservative Party. But I think it speaks to Rishi Sunaks weakness on this that his response has been wholly inadequate. On Tuesday morning, Downing Street said the PM regarded Mr Andersons comments as wrong because they had conflated all Muslims with Islamist extremism. A Buffalo man was arrested and hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs and cash were seized following a yearlong narcotics investigation that began with an anonymous tip, Erie County Sheriff John C. Garcia announced Tuesday. Garcia said Donel Cathcart, 39, was stopped Monday by deputies after leaving his Whitehall Avenue residence and committing a traffic violation. According to deputies, Cathcart was found to be in possession of crack cocaine, cocaine and fentanyl, which he surrendered to them. After he was arrested, more narcotics were discovered on his person. A search warrant signed by Erie County Court Judge Paul Wojtaszek was later executed at Cathcarts home, where a large amount of cocaine, cash, packaging, scales and cutting agents were seized. A second warrant was executed at another house that Cathcart used on Benson Avenue in West Seneca. There investigators discovered a large amount of fentanyl, scales, packaging, cutting agents and more cash. Garcia said the seizure of narcotics Monday helped save lives. Were talking about a kilo of fentanyl. So, just to put that in street value and how many hits that would be, a bag of heroin has a tenth of a gram of what you would think would be heroin. So youve got, what, a thousand grams there? So youre talking about 20,000 to 30,000 hits of potential poison that would go out into our community throughout Erie County, because this fentanyl, heroin, cocaine has no boundaries. This is not a City of Buffalo issue. Its an Erie County issue, a New York State issue, and United States issue, Garcia said. Law enforcement officials estimated that more than $300,000 in cash was seized from Cathcart. Cathcart was transported to the Erie County Holding Center for arraignment on a variety of charges that include two counts of first-degree criminal possession of eight ounces or more of a controlled substance, a Class A-1 felony. He also was charged with two counts each of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, a Class B felony; and third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance narcotic, also a Class B felony. Cathcart was additionally charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of a narcotic, a Class C felony; fourth-degree criminal possession of controlled substance methamphetamine, a Class B felony; tampering with physical evidence, a Class E felony; and six counts of criminal use of drug paraphernalia, a Class B misdemeanor. Garcia said the Sheriffs Office Narcotics and Intelligence Unit received an anonymous tip about a year ago from a concerned citizen about a group of Buffalo residents who were trafficking large amounts of cocaine and fentanyl onto the Seneca Nation of Indians, Cattaraugus Reservation, which is what culminated in Cathcarts arrest Monday. Assisting the Sheriffs Office in the investigation were the Buffalo Police Department Intelligence Unit, the Erie County District Attorneys Office and Homeland Security Investigations BEST team. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Rishi Sunak has claimed the UK is descending into mob rule as he warned police must take urgent action or risk losing public confidence. The prime minister demanded a crackdown on protests as he pledged to do whatever it requires to protect our democracy. During an extraordinary meeting in Downing Street on Wednesday afternoon he told police chiefs they had to demonstrate they would use the powers you already have, saying it was vital for maintaining public confidence in the police. In a startling assessment of the state of modern Britain, he added: There is a growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule. And weve got to collectively, all of us, change that urgently. He said that he would do whatever it requires to protect our democracy and our values that we all hold dear. He hailed a new policing protocol, which provides clarity that protests at elected representatives homes should be treated as intimidatory. The protocol also warns protests at democratic venues, like parliament, or political events should not be allowed to cause alarm, harassment or distress to attendees. Forces will provide additional patrols in communities at risk of potential flashpoints. Earlier, he rejected calls that fearful MPs should work from home as he sought to defend security measures which critics say fail to tackle the root cause of attacks on politicians. No 10 said the prime minister believed the WFH idea was appalling and we shouldnt be closing down parliament because of extremists. Tensions have been heightened by protests over the war in Gaza, as MPs come under intense pressure to back calls for a ceasefire. Mr Sunak has previously condemned an aggressive mob of pro-Gaza protesters at the home of Tory MP Tobias Ellwood. There were also angry and chaotic scenes at Westminster last week after the Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle was accused of ripping up the parliamentary rule book over a vote on a ceasefire in Gaza, because of concerns about threats against MPs. But the government is facing a backlash from one of its own ministers, who said a new 31m security package for MPs was missing the point. Justice minister Mike Freer, who has started to wear a stab vest at public events and will stand down at the next election because of threats to his safety, said the measures would not actually [go] to the root cause of why people felt emboldened to target MPs. He also warned a ring of steel around politicians would fundamentally alter democracy. The security package came as: Sir Keir Starmer accused the Conservatives of indulging in conspiracy theories and said they had become the political wing of the flat earth society The Labour leader also called on Mr Sunak to block Liz Truss from standing at the general election after she remained silent as right-wing thug Tommy Robinson was described as a hero Pro-Palestinian protesters vowed to continue marches, despite government calls for a halt The new funding, announced by home secretary James Cleverly, followed frightening threats to MPs and their families. Under the plans, MPs will be given greater police protection, while those at higher risk could have private security guards. The level of protection will be decided by the police and could apply to controversial figures like George Galloway, if he is elected in this weeks Rochdale by-election. All elected representatives and candidates will also have a dedicated police contact to liaise with on security matters. But Mr Freer, who represents a predominantly Jewish constituency in Finchley and Golders Green in north London, said the extra funding did not address the underlying problem. I kind of think its missing the point, he told Times Radio. More security is always welcome, but thats only dealing with the symptom. Its not actually going to the root cause. Why do people now feel emboldened to attack members of parliament, to demonstrate outside their homes where theyre intimidating their family? Not necessarily the MP, but their family. Why should their partners and their children have to put up with being frightened in their own home? So, security is welcome. But frankly, unless you get to the root cause, then youre just going to have a ring of steel around MPs. And our whole style of democracy changes. Mike Freer says he received a series of death threats as well as an arson attack at his office (PA) Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government rightly needs to ensure that democracy is protected and that no one faces security threats either for themselves or their family because of the job they do or their democratic role. Just hours after the new measures were unveiled, Just Stop Oil, which has defended protests at the homes of MPs, tweeted Sir Keir well be with you in a few hours. Put the kettle on for us. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protesters vowed to continue marches despite calls for a halt. Mr Cleverly told marchers they had made their point. But Chris Nineham, vice chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, accused ministers of creating a social panic around pro-Palestinian protests. Labour MP Harriet Harman has suggested that MPs should be able to speak and vote from their constituencies because of concerns about security at Westminster. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The head of the Post Office is the subject of an internal investigation, a former chair of the organisation told a Commons committee on Tuesday, highlighting the disarray at the top of the group. During an extraordinary hearing in parliament, Henry Staunton also reignited a furious row with the business secretary Kemi Badenoch, saying he had been the victim of a smear campaign after he said he was told to delay payments to subpostmasters. But lead campaigner Alan Bates, a former subpostmaster, told MPs the government should just get on and pay people. He also described the Post Office as a dead duck and said it should be sold off for 1 to Amazon. More than 700 subpostmasters were prosecuted by the Post Office between 1999 and 2015 because of Fujitsus faulty Horizon system made it appear money was missing from their branches. Hundreds, including Mr Bates, whose story was told in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office, are still awaiting compensation. Henry Staunton told MPs he stood by his claim a top Whitehall official told him to stall on compensation payouts (PA) In a sometimes explosive evidence session, Mr Staunton told MPs on the business and trade committee that he stood by his claim a top Whitehall official told him to stall on compensation payouts. That was disputed by Post Office CEO Nick Read, who told MPs he did not believe anyone at the company was told by the government to slow down payments. Mr Staunton, who was sacked by Ms Badenoch last month, has said the move would help the Tories hobble into the election. In response, Ms Badenoch accused him of a blatant attempt to seek revenge following dismissal. But Mr Staunton told the committee: Why does everything remain so slow? Ive spoken up on matters of genuine public concern, have been fired, and am now subject to a smear campaign. He also said that Mr Read had threatened to quit because he was unhappy with his pay. He also rejcted Ms Badenochs claims he was under investigation, saying: This is an investigation, not into me, this is an investigation into the chief executive Nick Read. He said that an 80-page report, prepared by the companys human resources director about Mr Read, contained just one paragraph on his behaviour, claiming politically incorrect comments attributed to me which I strenuously deny. Alan Bates in London yesterday ater giving evidence (AFP) The report was written after Mr Read fell out with the HR director, Mr Staunton said. He also told MPs that Mr Read had threatened to resign on a number of occassions just an hour after Mr Read denied he had ever tried to quit. Their testimony left MPs scratching thier heads, with committee chair Liam Byrne saying Mr Staunton gave bombshell revelations about a boardroom that is in disarray, a chief executive [Nick Read] that is under investigation and a chief executive who has sought to resign, even though he told us on oath that he has not. In another twist, a director at the Post Office, Ben Tidswell, told staff after the hearing: To my knowledge he has never tendered his resignation. Mr Staunton said the 80-page document alleges that Nick was going to resign because he was unhappy with this pay. He added that he himself must have had four conversations when he said he was going to chuck it in. One MP on the committee, Tory Jonathan Gullis, called the admission a shambles and said: There may be another drama: Mr Read and Mr Staunton vs the Post Office. The department for Business and Trade later confirmed that Mr Read was under investigation, but said it would await the outcome before making any further judgement. In his evidence, Mr Read also warned correct legislation must be put in place if mass exoneration is the right thing in relation to convicted subpostmasters adding that the process may well result in guilty people being absolved. Mr Bates also told MPs he had considered getting all the former subpostmasters involved in the initial High Court case to stand as MPs when the next election comes, adding: Then well sort it out once and for all. Meanwhile, Mr Bates told the committee that the government should pay the subpostmasters affected. We keep coming back to this time after time after time pay people. Theres a lot of distractions, a lot of other things brought up, thrown up all the time but just get on and pay people. He said: My personal view about [the] Post Office is its a dead duck and it has been for years, and its going to be a moneypit for the taxpayer in the years to come. He added: You should sell it to someone like Amazon for 1, get really good contracts for all the serving sub-postmasters and within a few years youll have one of the best networks around Britain. Mr Bates also said he could see no end to the scandal: Its very disappointing and this has been going on for years, as you well know, and I cant see any end to it. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A quarter of all children are now using generative AI tools to help with schoolwork, according to a new study. Research from online safety charity Internet Matters found that over half of 13-to-14-year-olds were actively engaging with AI chatbots, and that 41% of children believe AI tools will be beneficial to their education. But parents are more sceptical, with only 29% agreeing the technology was helpful. With just a few prompts, an entire essay can be crafted, or an image can be generated, fundamentally changing the way we produce and share content, and how children learn Caroline Bunting, Internet Matters co-chief executive The charity has called on the Department for Education (DfE) to provide more advice and support to schools to help teachers, parents and pupils benefit from AI tools and understand the potential benefits and limitations, while also using the technology safely. Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Googles Gemini have become increasingly prominent in daily life over the last year, with the technology seen by many as being an innovation that could rival the creation of the internet in its impact. Social media platforms including Meta, Snapchat and Elon Musks X have also entered the AI space with their own chatbots. Internet Matters co-chief executive, Carolyn Bunting, said: Generative AI is here to stay and tools like OpenAIs ChatGPT and Snaps My AI are increasingly a part of childrens lives. Already a quarter of children are using AI for schoolwork and nearly half of 13-14-year-olds are using AI tools regularly. With just a few prompts, an entire essay can be crafted, or an image can be generated, fundamentally changing the way we produce and share content, and how children learn. However, our survey shows that both parents and children are unprepared for the AI revolution and most have many unanswered questions about the impact of AI on their daily lives, their childrens safety and wellbeing online, their education, and their futures. Many are being left in the dark by the lack of guidance for schools, and it is clear more support, guidance and training is needed urgently. The Department for Educations recent work on AI policy and regulation in schools is welcome, but too narrow. Fundamental questions about how children can and should interact with generative AI need to be considered. Not least of which is how AI will impact the nature of their education, exams, teaching and homework these are no longer talking points for the future rapid change is happening now. Government must provide more advice and support in the immediate term to schools to support teachers, parents, and children to benefit safety from the worthwhile applications of AI tools. A poll distributed by the International Baccalaureate (IB) also found that 43% of young people said they had used artificial intelligence to help with their schoolwork. The poll, which ran in November and December 2023, received more than 2,000 responses from students in UK schools that offer the IB. More than half of the respondents were in state schools. It found that 72% of students said they had used an AI Chatbot before while 13% of students who responded to the poll believed it is still possible for their education system to avoid the influence of AI. IB director general Olli-Pekka Heinonen said: As educational leaders, we cant attempt to hold back the inevitable tide and so must make sure that AI is used and developed for the purposes of teaching and learning. We need to be intentional about how we approach students use of AI and how we moderate it. School is the right place to learn how AI can be used ethically and sustainably and to understand its strengths and weaknesses. Close Jeremy Hunt forced to defend Budget impact on low-income earners Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Both the Conservatives and Labour are engaged in a conspiracy of silence about what will happen to the public finances after the election, the head of a leading economic think tank has said. Responding to the spring Budget, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said both parties were not being straight about the scale of the trade-offs they will face after voters go to the polls. They, and we, could be in for a rude awakening when those choices become unavoidable, he told a press conference on Thursday. Mr Johnson also warned that the UK was facing its most difficult period financially since the Second World War. The combination of high debt interest payments and low forecast nominal growth means that the next parliament could well prove to be the most difficult of any in 80 years for a chancellor wanting to bring debt down, he said. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Five hundred miles north of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, near the shores of Cape Cod Bay, a tight-knit and sometimes controversial religious community was coming to terms this week with the death of one of its own in the most highly-publicized and dramatic of circumstances. Aaron Bushnell, the 25-year-old Air Force service member who self-immolated to protest Israeli action in Gaza on Sunday, spent his youth among the devoted church group known as the Community of Jesus. The Christian organization in Orleans, Massachusetts on Cape Cod has previously weathered abuse accusations associated with its practices. For decades, families and single members have existed communally on the groups property and in residences surrounding it, joining their lives in everything from work and prayer to education. Bushnell was listed as working alongside his mother at the Community of Jesus publishing house, Paracelete Press, from 2015-2017 on LinkedIn. His role was described as maintaining and supporting IT infrastructure and e-commerce for the 40+ person publishing company. Community of Jesus describes itself as an ecumenical Christian community in the Benedictine monastic tradition on its site. The groups account on X, formerly known as Twitter, has posted pro-Israel content, including emojis of praying hands and an Israeli flag on the one-month anniversary of militants murderous storming of the Nova music festival and other attacks on 7 October. Members have also posted pro-Israel content on their personal social media pages. Members of the Community of Jesus, who come from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds and occupations, make professions of commitment according to their Rule of Life, including vows of obedience, stability, and conversion of life, the groups site continues. Founded upon Scripture and the heritage of monastic tradition, the Community of Jesus gives definition to its purpose as a living witness to the values and principles essential to Christian life and faith. Members of the Community of Jesus are joined in a common commitment of love and service to God, to each other and to the world. A woman who answered the phone on Monday for the group refused to put The Independents call through, and multiple requests for comments via email from the Community of Jesus and its members have gone unanswered. The airmans father, David Bushnell, has run a building company registered at one of the churchs residences, according to public records. His mother, Danielle, has worked at Paracelete Press for 27 years, according to her bio on its site. Her other passions include teaching American history and government to homeschoolers, playing the bass clarinet, caring for her dog, Jasper, and her cat, Lilac, reads the site, which also profiles multiple other staffers listed at residential addresses surrounding the groups Orleans property. The bio makes no mention of Bushnell or his younger brother, Sean; local public schools confirmed that the airman had been enrolled on and off during his K-12 years. The community is also heavily involved in supporting the arts, and both Bushnell and his brother were active in group percussion performance and competition. The late airmans Facebook page features pictures of his team at the Winter Guard international 2018 competition in Ohio. In 2021, former Community of Jesus members told a CBS investigative team of being repeatedly traumatized during their time with the group; a year before that, a Canadian judge ruled in favor of former students in a class-action suit against a now-defunct school with close ties to the Community of Jesus, ruling that it had created an abusive, authoritarian and rigid culture. The Community of Jesus has publicly disputed all accusations. One former Community of Jesus member, Susan Wilkins, told the Washington Post that she had known Bushnell and his family at the Cape Cod compound but had heard hed left the group adding that joining the military was not an uncommon trajectory for previous devotees, describing the move as going from one high-control group to another high-control group. Bushnell joined the Air Force in 2020, according to LinkedIn, in addition to studying computer software engineering at Southern New Hampshire University and University of Maryland Global Campus. Southern New Hampshire University issued a statement confirming Bushnell enrolled online last year to pursue a computer science degree, adding that it was deeply saddened by the news of Aarons passing and the SNHU community sends its deepest condolences to Aarons family and friends, NBC Boston reported. He was based with the Air Force in San Antonio, working as a DevOps Engineer, at the time of his death, according to LinkedIn. When a tragedy like this occurs, every member of the Air Force feels it, Col. Celina Noyes, the commander of the 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing, to which Mr. Bushnell was assigned, said in a statement on Monday night. We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Senior Airman Bushnell. In San Antonio, 32-year-old Lupe Barboza told the Washington Post she met Bushnell in 2022 at an event for a socialist group and would deliver provisions to people experiencing homelessness in the area. The airman, she told the paper, was outraged, and he knew that no one who is in charge is listening to the protesters out there every week .... He knows that he has privilege as a White man and a member of the military. Other friends from San Antonio told the Post Bushnell had moved to Ohio earlier this year for a course for service members transitioning out of the military. Levi Pierpont, 23, who met Bushnell during basic training and has since left the Air Force, described the two chatting in Ohio as recently as January, when the airman discussed his disillusionment with the military and state-sanctioned violence, Pierpont told the outlet. Weeks later, Bushnell walked up to the Israeli embassy in Washington DC on 25 February, placed his phone on the ground to livestream, then set himself on fire in front of the gates as he shouted Free Palestine. Earlier in the day, hed made what would become his final post on Facebook. Many of us like to ask ourselves, What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide? he wrote. The answer is, youre doing it. Right now. Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyTech email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Digital news outlets The Intercept, Raw Story and AlterNet are joining the fight against unauthorised use of their journalism in artificial intelligence. The companies filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit on Wednesday against ChatGPT owner OpenAI. The organisations say thousands of their stories were used by OpenAI to train chatbots to answer questions posed to it by users, in effect piggybacking on their journalism without permission, payment or credit. San Francisco-based OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The already beleaguered news industry sees the practice as a financial threat. Some news outlets, including The Associated Press, have struck licensing deals for use of their material. After similar negotiations broke down, The New York Times filed its own lawsuit in December to halt the practice or receive compensation. The three outlets suing OpenAI did not offer specific examples of stories they allege were stolen. But they said recreations of what ChatGPT used to train its bots turned up examples of material from the three news outlets. When providing responses, ChatGPT gives the impression that it is an all-knowing intelligent source of the information being provided, when in reality, the responses are frequently based on copyrighted works of journalism that ChatGPT simply mimics, the lawsuit says. While the Times, as a print publication, is able to pay for a federal copyright registration for all of its material in bulk, digital publications have no such ability. But lawyers for the three outlets suing Wednesday in US District Court in Southern District of New York contend that their journalism is copyright-protected even without paying the fee. Besides the Times, authors, including Sarah Silverman, have similarly sued the company for copyright infringement. The Intercept lists Microsoft as a defendant because the tech giant has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI's artificial-intelligence efforts. Raw Story and AlterNet did not sue Microsoft because they have a news partnership with the company, a spokesman said. The lawsuit asks for at least $2,500 in damages for each time one of their stories has been used by ChatGPT. As newsrooms throughout the country are decimated by financial imperatives to cut back, OpenAI reaps the benefits of our content, said Annie Chabel, chief executive officer of The Intercept. We hope this lawsuit will send a strong message to AI developers who chose to ignore our copyrights and free ride on the hard work of our journalists. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Spanish galleon described as the Holy Grail of shipwrecks is set to be raised from the ocean floor - along with its treasures which are believed to be worth up to $20bn in todays money. The Colombian government said the San Jose, which was sunk by the British navy in 1708 off the port of Cartagena,will be brought above water before President Gustavo Petro ends his term of office in 2026. The ship was a 64-gun, three-masted galleon of the Spanish Armada. It is thought to have sunk with a huge amount of treasure aboard, including 200 tonnes of silver, emeralds and eleven million gold coins. Now, a race is underway to recover the shipwreck, with questions pending over who will claim its treasure. Holy Grail of Shipwrecks to be raised from ocean bed What do we know about the shipwreck? The San Jose was built in 1698 for one of the most lucrative trade lanes ever devised in the history of shipping. The ship was part of a convoy of ships known as the Spanish treasure fleet, which transported gold, silver and gems from Latin American colonies back to Spain, creating vast wealth for Spains contested ruler, King Philip of Anjou, and his war effort. Many of the treasures on board the San Jose were taken from Colombian and Peruvian mines using slave labor, Insider reported. The ship sank along with its treasures which are believed to be worth up to $20billion in todays money (Colombian Armada) But during a prolonged battle off Cartagena with the British, the ship sank. The San Jose was found lying nearly 3,100 feet below the oceans surface in 2015, according to the Colombian government. Despite sitting on the ocean floor for more than 300 years, much of the ship is still thought to be perfectly preserved, according to pictures taken of the wreck by Navy divers last year. The images also show a part of the bow covered in algae and shellfish, as well as the remains of the frame of the hull. Navy divers discovered valuable treasures aboard the shipwreck, including gold ingots and coins, as well as the ships muddy cannons made in Seville in 1655, and an intact Chinese dinner service. Porcelain crockery, pottery and glass bottles were also found aboard the ship. Colombian Minister of Culture Juan David Correa told Bloomberg that recovering the ship within the next two years is now a priority for President Petro. The president has told us to pick up the pace, he said. He added that when the wrecks treasures are recovered, they will be studied thoroughly before they are transported to a national museum. What treasure does the San Jose contain? The San Jose is thought to have been carrying 200 tonnes of silver, emeralds and eleven million gold coins at the time that it sank. The treasures value is thought to total up to $20bn in todays money. The San Jose was discovered by a team of navy divers in 2015 (Colombian Armada) Eleven million gold coins are thought to have been on board (EPA) When it sank, the San Jose was transporting plundered gold, silver, emeralds and other precious stones and metals from the Americans back to Spain. Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said the ships treasure is the most valuable that has been found in the history of humanity. Who will get the treasure? When the shipwreck is recovered, it is expected that there will be a dispute over who should lay claim to the bounty. The ship was lost to history until 1981 when a US salvage consortium called Glocca Morra claimed to have located the San Jose. But the Colombian government has disputed this, claiming it independently found the galleon with a team of divers in 2015, at a different location, which remains secret. The San Jose galleon was owned by the Spanish crown when it was sunk by the British Navy in 1708 (Colombian Armada) Ceramic jars and other items from the 300-year-old shipwreck of the Spanish galleon San Jose on the floor of the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Colombia (AP) Glocca Morra has claimed it is owed $10bn by the Colombian government and said it has handed over the coordinates of the shipwreck to the Colombian authorities. The company are suing the Colombian government for half the treasure and the arbitration case is currently being heard in London, according to Bloomberg. However, Mr Correa said the governments team had visited the coordinates given by the company and found no trace of the San Jose. Spain and Bolivias indigenous Qhara Qhara nation also claim ownership over the ship after, they said, the Spanish forced their people to mine the metals used in the treasure. What happened to San Jose? The San Jose sank after it was intercepted by a British squadron on 8 June 1708 off Cartagena, during the War of the Spanish Succession. During the battle, which lasted for over an hour, the ships powder magazine detonated, causing it to sink. There were 600 sailors on board, all but 11 of whom went down with the ship. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students, is returning to court today as he seeks to move his highly-anticipated trial to a different venue. On Wednesday, a judge will consider last months request from Mr Kohbergers lawyers that the trial be moved to tap into a different jury pool outside of Latah County, Idaho where the brutal murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin took place. His attorneys wrote that a fair and impartial jury cannot be found in Latah County due to the extensive, inflammatory pretrial publicity, the severity of the charges and the salacious nature of the alleged crimes. They added that the population is too small to avoid bias in the community. Prosecutors responded in a filing calling the change of venue request premature and saying that it lacks information to support that a jury could not fairly and impartially decide the case. The prosecution added that publicity is not a stand-alone reason for a court to change the trial venue. On Wednesday, lawyers are also expected to discuss sealed genetic evidence to which the defence is trying to gain access and potentially set a trial date. On 1 February, Mr Kohbergers defence attorney asked the court to grant three criminal investigators access to the investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) materials. This request is grounded in Mr. Kohbergers 6th Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel and counsels ongoing duty to investigate the case brought against Mr. Kohberger, his lawyer wrote. Access to these materials is necessary to investigate how and when Mr. Kohberger was identified as a suspect. Bryan Kohberger, right, is escorted into a courtroom to appear at a hearing in Latah County District Court in September 2023 in Moscow, Idaho The state objected to this request, taking issue with unnamed criminal investigators, asking for them to be named at a minimum. Prosecutors also accused the defence of neglecting to make an adequate argument as to why they needed access to these materials. The four students were brutally stabbed to death in an-off campus home in November 2022. The weapon, a military-style knife, has never been found however a knife sheath was found near one of the victims. That sheath contained a piece of DNA which was then matched to Mr Kohberger, according to authorities. The DNA was compared to trash found at the Kohberger family home in Pennsylvania, eventually leading to Mr Kohbergers arrest. The FBI went to work building family trees of the genetic relatives to the suspect DNA left at the crime scene in an attempt to identify the contributor of the unknown DNA, court documents said. Through a DNA comparison, Mr Kohberger was found to be a statistical match with the sheath DNA, the records state. Mr Kohberger faces four counts of first-degree murder and one burglary charge. Close Michelle Troconis found guilty The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Michelle Troconis has been found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. After 12 hours of deliberation over the past three days, the jury found Ms Troconis guilty on all six counts Friday. Jurors were tasked with deciding whether the 49-year-old conspired with her former boyfriend Fotis Dulos to kill his estranged wife, Jennifer Dulos, in Connecticut on 24 May 2019, and cover up the crime. During closing arguments, prosecutors described Jennifers murder as deliberate and intentional and said that Troconis and Dulos worked to make this happen. Jennifers body has never been found, but she has been officially declared dead with police finding that she died a violent death at the hands of Dulos. In January 2020, Fotis died by suicide after being charged with her murder. Troconis pleaded not guilty and insisted she did not know Fotis was doing anything nefarious as she watched him toss garbage bags into random bins, or as she helped him write up a timeline of their whereabouts on the day Jennifer disappeared. The Catholic Churchs shrinking physical presence in Western New York will get even smaller when the Buffalo Diocese sells off valuable real estate to help settle sex abuse claims. As Buffalo Diocese bankruptcy mediation continues, abuse survivors seek to restart Child Victims Act lawsuits The diocese and its parishes want abuse litigation against parishes to be put on hold for at least another 90 to 120 days so mediation discussions can progress without the distraction of having to defend against potentially hundreds of lawsuits in state courts. The diocese, which four years ago today filed for Chapter 11 protection, has identified 22 properties, including its longtime headquarters, it may sell to generate funds toward a settlement of the roughly 900 claims in federal bankruptcy court. But aside from that development, theres little indication the diocese is close to reaching a deal with the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which represents about 900 people who said they were sexually abused as children by Catholic priests or other diocese employees. The bankruptcy case, filed Feb. 28, 2020, already has taken longer to resolve than any other diocese reorganization except for the Archdiocese of Milwaukees, which took nearly five years. While Buffalo Diocese officials and an attorney for the creditors committee declined to comment on their mediated settlement talks, abuse victims expressed dismay over the pace of negotiations. Theyre nowhere, said Kevin Brun, whose 2019 lawsuit alleging the Rev. Arthur Smith molested him when he was a teenager has been stalled in state court due to the bankruptcy. Ive been reflecting on how long this bankruptcy process is taking, and my frustration level, it cant be measured. And Im sure other survivors in fact I know other survivors who Ive spoken to that are extremely frustrated as well. The diocese has wracked up nearly $14 million in legal bills, while those who filed abuse claims in bankruptcy court have yet to see a penny. I dont see where the sense of urgency or where the incentive is for these bankruptcy attorneys to settle these cases. I mean, theyre getting paid right along, regardless of what the final outcome is, said Brun, who also has a claim in the diocese bankruptcy case. I just dont think theyre pushing hard enough or negotiating strong enough to bring this to fruition. Michael F. Whalen Jr. said he was hoping Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Western District of New York will soon allow at least some Child Victims Act lawsuits to proceed in state court, as a prod for negotiations to move forward. Bucki decided in January to keep Child Victims Act lawsuits against Catholic parishes and schools on hold until at least April 15. Its just too long. Too many people are passing away, said Whalen, whose news conference in 2018 alleging abuse by the Rev. Norbert Orsolits led to the unraveling of the dioceses historical cover-up of clergy sex abuse cases. I feel sorry for the survivors that have passed and havent see closure. The dioceses announcement in court papers last October that it would offer at least $100 million toward a settlement elicited mostly scoffs both from abuse victims who said it was a paltry amount to address their pain and suffering and from parishioners furious over having to pay for church leaderships mishandling of abusive clergy. Properties will be sold To get there, the diocese will have to sell at least some of its property. Already on the market is the former Christ the King Seminary, a sprawling campus of 18 buildings on 117 acres in the Town of Aurora, with an asking price of $5.3 million. Buffalo Diocese puts former seminary on the market for $5.3 million The Buffalo Diocese has set the price at $5.3 million for a bucolic property in the Town of Aurora where it used to have men trained to become priests. Three potential buyers for the property emerged in 2020 after the seminary closed. One was the Masonic Care Community, which was prepared to make a cash offer, according to a trustee. The diocese put off plans for the sale at the time due to demands of the Chapter 11 process. The Masonic Care Community was still interested in the property but also was busy with other projects at the moment, said the trustee, Christopher Hough. Other diocese properties have yet to be listed but have been named in court papers as likely targets for sales. The most prominent is the Catholic Center, the dioceses longtime headquarters at 785 and 795 Main St. The five-story former home of the Courier Express newspaper was built in 1929 and has an estimated full market value of $6.7 million, according to City of Buffalo property records. Also on the list of properties to be marketed: three Newman Centers located near university or college campuses in Buffalo, Amherst, and Alfred; three priest retirement homes; a home for expectant mothers and mothers with newborns; a center for families of patients being treated at nearby hospitals; and a large office building in Lackawanna that houses the administrative operations of Our Lady of Victory Charities. About 30 retired priests live in the three homes in Tonawanda, Depew and Lackawanna. Appraisals were conducted last week of the UB Newman Center at 495 Skinnersville Road in Amherst and a condominium on Bristol Drive thats home to the Rev. Paul D. Seil, UB Newman Center director, Seil said in a weekly newsletter posting on Sunday. While I have been informed numerous times that the condo will be sold (to help fund the settlement to the victims of clergy abuse and the cover-up), that does not mean the same for the Newman Center! Seil said in the newsletter. He declined to comment further on Tuesday. Construction of the UB Newman Center was completed in 2010 at a cost of $2.7 million. Sales of the properties would further reduce the local Catholic Churchs vast Western New York real estate empire, which has shrunk dramatically over the past 15 years as dozens of churches and elementary schools closed due to declining church attendance and school enrollments and fewer priests. Through a diocese spokesman, Bishop Michael W. Fisher declined requests to be interviewed for this story. In a video posted Tuesday to the diocese website, he acknowledged that Western New York Catholics must address the realization that we have more parishes than we need for our Catholic population. The reality is buildings are closing, said Fisher, but the church, the people of God, will continue. Most recently, All Saints Catholic Church in Buffalos Riverside neighborhood and St. Andrew Church and school in the Town of Tonawanda were slated to be closed later this year and will likely be put on the market. While those properties are owned by parishes, which are separate non-profit corporations, their sales ultimately will benefit a settlement trust because the parishes owed the diocese hundreds of thousands of dollars in assessments, a regular diocesan tax on weekly offertory collections. But Fisher also said in his video that the recent closures are not a direct result of our ongoing Chapter 11 proceedings and instead were connected to wider societal trends that span long before our recent problems, such as migration of local Catholics to other parts of the country, smaller families and people identifying as spiritual but not religious. The diocese and parishes have discussed additional assessments of all parishes as part of funding a settlement but no actions have been taken at this time and cannot be taken until the bankruptcy court renders its decision, he said. Buffalo Diocese goes to court to try to block access to sex abuse records requested by The Buffalo News The Buffalo Diocese has asked a state court to stop the public release of documents subpoenaed by the State Attorney Generals Office during its investigation into the dioceses handling of childhood sex abuse allegations against clergy. Bucki in January allowed the diocese to hire Hanna Commercial Real Estate as real estate broker for the 22 properties. We have the big list, but were not authorized to market any of them, except for the seminary, said William K. Heussler, licensed associate real estate broker with Hanna. Heussler said his office will be directed by the court about what properties to list and when. I dont know procedurally what they do and how they deem those ready to sell, he added. The diocese is required under bankruptcy proceedings to monetize its assets for the purposes of paying its creditors, but it doesnt necessarily mean that it must sell all properties. In some instances, a loan may be taken against the value of a property, with the loan proceeds used to pay into a settlement trust. The 22 properties on the dioceses revised list do not include five Catholic high school buildings that were part of previous diocese property lists. Bishop Timon-St. Jude High School in South Buffalo, St. Marys High School in Lancaster, Cardinal OHara High School in the Town of Tonawanda, Notre Dame High School in Batavia and the former DeSales High School in Lockport, now used as an elementary school, are all owned by the diocese. The schools have operated independently of the diocese for many years, but never took ownership of the buildings. Instead, they lease the space long term for a nominal fee, with the understanding that they pay for property maintenance, renovations, and upgrades. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The Federal Bureau of Investigation is offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to the location and return of Elijah Vue, a three-year-old boy who went missing in Wisconsin earlier this month. The child vanished in Two Rivers, on the shore of Lake Michigan, on Tuesday 20 February. Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Two Rivers Chief of Police Ben Meinnert did not directly answer questions about whether he thought the child was still alive but said that officers would continue to search for him. Meanwhile, a female relative of the toddler pleaded with the public to come forward with any information that might bring him back home. Your courage, your compassion, your willingness to speak up may hold the key to Elijahs safe return. The toddler had been sent to stay with his mothers boyfriend, Jesse Vang, who reported the boy missing at just before 11am, three hours after he said he last saw Elijah. Mr Vang, 39, had gone for a nap after giving Elijah breakfast. He reportedly told police officers that he did not change the boys diaper and told him to stand at the foot of the bed and pray while he slept. Two Rivers Police Department arrested Mr Vang later that day, before also detaining the boys mother the following day. Katrina Baur, 31, reportedly sent Elijah to stay in Two Rivers - some 150 miles from their Wisconsin Dells home - for disciplinary reasons. Following their arrests, court documents seen on Monday expanded on that, showing Elijah had been forced to stand for hours during time outs and was told to pray, while he was also threatened with cold water if he didnt behave. The pair were both charged with child neglect, with Ms Baur also facing two charges of obstruction after she repeatedly changed her story around her whereabouts. Mr Vang has a history of other criminal offences, including child abuse, according to court records seen by The Independent. A community rallies to help Multiple law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, as well as dive teams and dozens of local volunteers have spent the past week looking for the little boy. The Two Rivers community has spent the past week desperately searching for Elijah Vue (FB/Two Rivers Police Department) Officers believe he may have been carrying his favourite red and white plaid blanket, and have asked locals to keep an eye out for this as well as the red-and-green dinosaur slip-on shoes he was wearing. Elijah, who weighs around 45 pounds, was also wearing grey pants and a dark-coloured long-sleeve shirt at the time of his disappearance. He is of Hmong and white ethnicity, about three feet tall and has brown hair and brown eyes. Two Rivers is a small town of around 11,000 people, with the search area extending out into nearby woods and countryside, as well as a landfill site. Drones and K-9 teams have also been involved in the effort. The towns police department said on Monday afternoon that it had been inundated with offers of donations, but warned of scammers who had also been trying to cash in on peoples good nature. We have become aware of third-party scams seeking money or personal information from those helping to find Elijah, Chief Meinnert said in a post on Facebook. Donations should only go through Two Rivers City Hall or Police Department, or reliable sources dedicated to the efforts of Elijahs family. We are also aware of fraudulent individuals seeking money or information while organising search parties and others simply looking to take advantage of this tragedy. The Vue family have been heavily involved in the search for the little boy, telling local media that they have not had any contact with him for much of his life. His father is reportedly serving time in prison and will not be released for several years. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A North Carolina court is hearing a case this week that has the potential to impact all capital punishment cases across the state. Hasson Bacote, 37, was convicted of felony first-degree murder in Johnson County in 2009 and sentenced to death. Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, who are representing Bacote, are appealing his sentencing under the states Racial Justice Act, arguing that racial discrimination played a critical factor in his trial. Its the first case to be heard under the legislation since it was repealed in 2013 by former Republican Governor Pat McCrory, who claimed it created a judicial loophole to avoid the death penalty and not a path to justice. The law was originally passed in 2009, giving death row inmates the chance to be resentenced to life in prison if they could prove that race was a factor in their initial sentencing. Mr Bacote filed his claim in 2010. Only four cases succeeded before the law was repealed. Yet, in 2020, the state Supreme Court ruled that cases that had previously been filed still had to be heard but no new appeals could be submitted. There are currently 120 other appeals pending under the old legislation. Bacotes case is the first to be heard since the state Supreme Court decision and could set a precedent for how all other pending cases are handled. There are 136 death row inmates in North Carolina. Henderson Hill, Bacotes attorney said his defence will introduce evidence from 680,000 pages of notes from every state capital trial from 1980 to 2010 showing a historical pattern of racial discrimination, especially in Johnson County, where his client shot 18-year-old Anthony Surles during a robbery in 2007. Some of the evidence that will be presented at the hearing includes prosecutor notes stating the skin colour of potential Black jurors or their physical appearance. In one case, a potential juror was referred to as a thug, the ACLU said. Part of the organisations defence argument is based on a Michigan State University study published in 2011, which found statewide evidence showing a pattern of Black jurors being struck from capital punishment trials more frequently than white jurors. In Bacotes case, the prosecutor removed potential Black jurors at 10 times the rate of non-Black individuals across four trials, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein attempted to delay Bacotes hearing, claiming in court filings that the state Supreme Court determined the study was unreliable and fatally flawed. He added that racial discrimination cannot be presumed based on the mere assertion of a defendant; it must be proved. Compounding Bacotes sentencing, felony first-degree murder is rarely a basis for capital punishment anywhere in the country, the ACLU said. There was just no suggestion that the killing was premeditated or deliberate, Mr Hill noted. North Carolina has not put a death row inmate to death since 2006. Much of the reason is due to litigation regarding lethal injection drugs and other questions about policies that have put the cases on hold. The ongoing Racial Justice Act appeals also do not allow the current governor to schedule executions. If the court rules in Bacotes favour, its likely that similar evidence would be introduced in the other 120 cases, meaning that all the prisoners who had previously filed claims could be resentenced to life in prison. Mr Hill said that some of the evidence used in the prior resentencing of four men will be utilised during Bacotes court proceedings. The case is likely to end up in front of the state Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority. The current trial hearing is expected to last two weeks. Mr Hill said the ACLU is troubled that the case might not succeed if its kicked up to the higher court, adding My concern is the courts seeming hostility toward this historical evidence of discrimination. Still, he said, We will brief that record at the Supreme Court and hope that review is fair and consistent with the law. He added: We feel confident based on the prior litigation, based on the several studies, that were going to meet the statutory standard for vacating the death sentence in this case. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is under investigation for having allegedly harassed a humpback whale off Sao Paulo's coast last year. Bolsonaro appeared at the federal police in Sao Paulo on Tuesday to meet with officers, along with his lawyer and former adviser who was also present at the time of the alleged incident. The investigation is just one of the many legal headaches the former far-right leader is facing. Since leaving office a year ago, Bolsonaro has been banned from running for office until 2030, investigated for plotting a coup to remove his successor from power and stripped of his passport. In a June 2023 video that circulated on social media, a man is seen riding a personal watercraft close to a whale, seemingly recording the encounter with a cellphone. Federal prosecutors, who are also investigating the case, said the man appeared to be Bolsonaro. Former President Jair Bolsonaro addresses supporters during a rally in Sao Paulo., Brazil (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Under Brazilian legislation, motored vessels must keep a minimum distance of 100 meters from whales and other cetaceans. Any intentional attempt to get closer can lead to a sentence of up to two to five years in prison and a fine. The man on the personal watercraft seemed to be about 15 meters from the animal, prosecutors said last year. For Bolsonaro's large base, the case is yet another example that their former leader is being politically persecuted an argument he has often made since leaving office. Last week, officers in the capital, Brasilia, questioned Bolsonaro for allegedly plotting a coup, in an attempt to remove his successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, from power. Bolsonaro, whose passport was seized in a previous police operation, chose to remain silent. Supreme Court documents show that investigators believe that Bolsonaro and some of his aides, including former ministers and top military advisers, prepared a decree that would have declared the 2022 election vote fraudulent, had Bolsonaro lost the election to his leftist opponent, Lula. The decree also planned for the arrest of a Supreme Court justice and the convening of a new election. Bolsonaro lost, but the decree was never issued, and the alleged plan was never set into action. Bolsonaro was also ruled ineligible to run for office until 2030 by a panel of judges, who concluded that he had abused his power and cast unfounded doubts on the countrys electronic voting system. Former President Jair Bolsonaro talks to reporters after arriving at the airport in Brasilia, Brazil (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Last year, Bolsonaro, his wife and close aides had to face investigators' questions in yet another case, after an attempt to sneak in diamond jewelry reportedly worth $3 million and the sale of two luxury watches Bolsonaro received as gifts from Saudi Arabia while in office. Police are also investigating the nations intelligence agency and alleged spying on Bolsonaros political opponents during his term, which ended in December 2022. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The police in Pennsylvania are investigating the death of a pregnant Amish woman as a suspected homicide after her body was found inside her home in Crawford County. Rebekah Byler, 23, was found dead at her home in Sparta Township when the state police were called to the scene around 12.30pm on Monday. Law enforcement authorities were considering the death a suspected homicide and "aggressively investigating all available leads", the police said on Tuesday. The authorities have so far not released further details, but according to local media, the woman had gunshot wounds. "At this point, we have confirmed the identity of the female, that she is deceased, and it looks like suspicious circumstances," Lt Mark Weindorf told WJET-TV. Byler's two other children were in the home, unharmed, where their mother's body was discovered by law enforcement. The police have asked locals to report suspicious people, cars or activity in the area at 814-663-2043. The "stunned" and "heartbroken" Spartansburg community said Byler's death has impacted everyone in the area. "Buncha good people everyone seems to get along with them. Everyone is just stunned. Nobody could even imagine that this kind of stuff is going on, Randy Eaton, a local resident, told WJET-TV. Its definitely shameful that anything like this could go on here. Theres not a person whos not concerned. Everyone is surprised." Charleen Hajec, owner of Spartansburg Pharmacy, said that he was "very very concerned about the Amish community. Im worried for them". The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Colombian warlord Salvatore Mancuso was sent to his native country on Tuesday after serving a drug trafficking sentence in the United States and being denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship. Mancuso arrived in Bogotas El Dorado Airport on a charter flight that also carried dozens of Colombians who were deported from the US after illegally crossing the southern border. Mancuso was quickly taken into police custody, wearing a green helmet and a bullet proof vest. Human rights organizations and government officials in Colombia hope that Mancuso will cooperate with the justice system and provide information about hundreds of crimes that took place when paramilitary groups fought leftist rebels in rural Colombia in the 1990s and early 2000s. This event marks an important step towards reconciliation and the construction of a lasting peace in Colombia, said Fernando Garcia, the director of Colombias national immigration service. Mancuso, 59, was one of the leaders of the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary group founded by cattle ranchers who fought against leftist rebels during one of the most violent stretches of Colombias decades-long armed conflict. He will remain in prison in Colombia, where courts have judged him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances. He will attempt to get a reduced sentence, and possibly a release from prison, from a transitional justice system created by Colombias 2016 peace deal. Victims of the nations conflict are hoping that Mancuso helps shed light on hundreds of murders and forced disappearances carried out by paramilitary fighters, including extrajudicial executions where victims were buried in mass graves. In multiple hearings with Colombian judges, including some by teleconference while in US custody, the former warlord has spoken of his dealings with politicians, and of the potential involvement of high-ranking politicians in war crimes. But his extradition to the United States in 2008 had slowed down investigations. When Mancuso was extradited, truth was extradited, as well as justice and reparations for victims, said Jose Melendez, a human rights lawyer who represents war victims in northern Colombia. We welcome him. And want him to tell the truth about the multinational companies, the businessmen and the government ministers who helped with the creation of paramilitary groups. Mancuso was born to a wealthy family in the department of Cordoba in northwest Colombia, and was a prosperous cattle rancher. He began to collaborate with the Colombian army in the early 90s after his family was threatened by rebel groups who demanded extortion payments. Ahoto released by the Colombian Immigration agency Mancuso quickly transitioned from providing intel to the military to leading operations against leftist rebels, and by the late 90s he had become one of the most powerful paramilitary leaders in Colombia. In 2003 he joined a peace process under which paramilitary leaders demobilized in exchange for reduced sentences. But he was extradited to the United States five years later during the administration of President Alvaro Uribe, along with 13 other paramilitary leaders who were wanted for drug trafficking in the United States. Critics said that the surprise extradition was part of an effort to stop Mancuso and other paramilitary leaders from discussing their ties with Colombias political establishment. Mancuso was sentenced in 2015 for guiding more than 130 tons of cocaine to U.S. soil, as he turned to drug trafficking to finance his armed group. He completed his 12-year-sentence in 2020, and had been held at an immigration detention center for the past three years, as officials decided where to send the former paramilitary leader. Mancuso is the son of an Italian immigrant. His lawyers had requested he be deported to Italy, where he is a citizen, arguing his life would be in danger in Colombia. U.S. officials decided instead to send Mancuso to Colombia, whose government requested his extradition in 2020, arguing that his return to the country was vital for the investigation of war crimes. The problem Mancuso has is that if he talks too much he could get killed, said Laura Bonilla, a researcher of Colombias conflict for the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation. President Gustavo Petro's administration already has given Mancuso, prior to his arrival, a special designation to play a role in peace negotiations despite being in prison. The government is currently engaged in peace talks with two left wing rebel groups who were not part of a 2016 peace deal. It has also tried unsuccessfully to start peace talks with the AGC, a right wing group that was set up following the disarmament of Mancusos paramilitary group. The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Eerie banging sounds that briefly gave rescue teams hope of saving the Titan submersibles crew and passengers have been released. The Titan was destroyed a few hours into a dive to the Titanic shipwreck on 18 June, claiming the lives of OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush, father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet. During a frantic and ultimately futile multi-day search for survivors, the US Coast Guard revealed that sonar devices had detected tapping sounds coming from the vast search zone in the North Atlantic Ocean. The Royal Canadian Air Force, which led the search and rescue operation, has now released audio of the rhythmic tapping sounds to the makers of a new documentary Minute by Minute: The Titan Sub Disaster. The documentary, which will screen on Channel5 in the UK on 6 and 7 March, shows the rescuers as they first hear the banging sounds ringing out in regular 30-minute intervals. Titanic submarine: What happened? The symmetry between those knockings is very unusual, former Navy submarine Captain Ryan Ramsey says in the documentary. Its rhythmic, its like somebody is making that sound, and the fact that it is repeated is really unusual. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush later came under scrutiny for lax safety standards on the Titan (OceanGate) The taps were first detected at around 11.30pm on 20 June. As multinational search and rescue teams descended on the Titanic wreck, speculation mounted that the sounds could be survivors tapping on the walls of the Titan to alert them. US Coast Guard officials said the noises were inconclusive, and tried to temper expectations they were a sign of life. Hopes of finding survivors ended on 28 June, when the US Coast Guard revealed that presumed human remains had been recovered from the sea floor near the debris. Audio of banging noises that briefly gave hope of finding survivors of the Titan submersible has been released (The Titan Sub Disaster- Minute By Minute) It later determined that the subs carbon fibre hull had imploded less than two hours after it departed support ship the Polar Prince. Stockton Rush, the OceanGate CEO who perished on the Titan, was later found to have ignored safety warnings from industry experts, passengers and former employees. Weeks after the disaster, it emerged that a former OceanGate director of marine operations had warned in 2018 that shortcuts in the companys design would end up having deadly consequences. David Lochridge alleged in a wrongful termination lawsuit that he identified numerous issues during a quality inspection process and was met with hostility and denial of access to necessary documents. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} President Joe Biden has won the Michigan primary despite a larger-than-expected revolt by progressives and Arab-American Democrats over his support for Israel. Early tallies by pollsters suggest about 13.2 per cent of voters more than 100,000 cast their ballot as uncommitted. Michigan is among a handful of states that allow voters to choose uncommitted in place of the listed candidates, or write in their own choice. It is also home to one of the largest Arab-American populations in the country, specifically located in Dearborn, just outside of Detroit. With almost all its precincts counted, Dearborn recorded that 56.22 per cent of voters chose uncommitted compared to 40.37 per cent endorsing Mr Biden. Mr Biden touted the win in a statement, citing his support for striking auto workers in Michigan, such as when he became the first president to walk a picket line last year. I was proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with UAW workers last year as they led the fight for the wages and benefits they deserve, he said. We took on Big Pharma and are lowering the cost of prescription drugs for nearly 2 million Michigan seniors. Were investing in our world-class auto industry and are finally making big corporations pay their fair share after Trump rigged the economy for special interests and gave handouts to his wealthy friends. Mr Bidens victory in Michigan pushes back most of the concerns some had about a primary in a crucial swing state. Many Arab-Americans have expressed dissatisfaction toward Mr Biden regarding his support for Israel in its response to Hamas in Gaza after Hamas staged a surprise attack on 7 October, killing 1,200 people and taking numerous hostages. Arab-Americans make up about 2 per cent of Michigans population and many have loved ones who have either died or otherwise been displaced by Israels assault on Gaza that has so far killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children. In turn, many said they planned to vote uncommitted rather than support Mr Biden or Democratic congressman Dean Phillips in the primary. Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American congresswoman, urged Michiganders to vote uncommitted. Conversely, Mr Biden enjoyed the support of many of the Democratic leadership in the state including the states governor Gretchen Whitmer, whom many consider to be a future contender for the White House. The primary also served as an important bellwether given Michigans outsized prominence in the general election. Donald Trump became the first Republican to win the state on the presidential level since 1988 in 2016, but Mr Biden put it back in the Democratic column in 2020, by less than a 3 per cent margin, and some polls show likely Republican candidate Mr Trump ahead in a head-to-head matchup this time. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, Democrats flipped both houses of its state legislature for the Democrats for the first time in decades. Since then, Michigans state legislature has flipped and Democrats stand a solid chance of holding the Senate seat held by the retiring Debbie Stabenow. Democrats hope to keep Michigan in their column as well as neighbouring states Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, both of which Mr Trump won in 2016 but Mr Biden won in 2020. But Mr Biden, 81, continues to face lagging poll numbers in multiple surveys in Michigan and continues to face lingering questions about his advanced age. Mr Trump has repeatedly hit Mr Biden for supposedly not being mentally cognisant, and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who is running against Mr Trump for the Republican nomination, has said both men are too old. Mr Bidens victory in Michigan also comes as Democrats officially changed their presidential primary calendar to make South Carolina their first contest and Michigan their second contest in an attempt to move beyond the typical calendar of the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary. Democrats argue states such as South Carolina and Michigan, which are more racially diverse, offer a better sampling of the party than the largely white Iowa and New Hampshire. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump will both visit the USborder on Thursday in an attempt to seize the narrative around immigration ahead of their presidential match-up later this year. The duelling visits by the two presumptive nominees follow a record number of undocumented migrants entering the country in December and an influx of those migrants into Democratic-run cities. Mr Trump, who is due to visit the migrant hotspot of Eagle Pass, is likely to use the backdrop of the troubled border town to accuse the Biden administration of failing to protect the border while offering his vision for a draconian immigration policy that would see mass deportations. Republicans, particularly Mr Trump, have long used immigration as a cudgel to attack the Biden administration even going so far as to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, homeland security secretary, by the smallest of margins in the House 214-213. Mr Biden, meanwhile, has accused Republicans of blocking a border deal that would address many of the issues they have long complained about at the behest of Mr Trump. He is due to meet with US Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, and local leaders, according to the White House. The border is set to be a key issue at the general election in November, so how do the policies of both candidates compare? Trumps second term will be more draconian Mr Trump used the imagined threat of a migrant invasion to propel him to the White House in 2016 promising to build a wall that stretches the entire length of the border and force Mexico to pay for it. He appears to be following the same playbook in his second re-election bid. The GOP frontrunner is plotting a draconian expansion of his previous anti-immigrant agenda, building on the policies that President Joe Bidens administration has sought to reverse. At rallies and campaign events, he has used dehumanising language to describe people arriving at the US-Mexico border in an attempt to justify his agenda. Speaking at a rally in New Hampshire late last year, the former president echoed the pages of Mein Kampf and white supremacist manifestos by claiming that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. The next day, at a rally in Reno, Nevada, he accused migrants of waging an invasion and falsely claimed people are charging across the border by the hundreds of thousands. At both rallies, he revealed his radical vision for overhauling the nations immigration laws, from implementing the largest deportation operation in American history to ideological screenings for people arriving at the southern border. Put simply, if elected, the next Trump administration would upend asylum protections for thousands of people who are legally in the US; round up undocumented people living in the US and detain them at camps before theyre expelled; and prohibit children born in the US to non-citizen parents from being granted citizenship. It would represent one of the most extreme immigration agendas of any president in American history. Biden wants a deal Border security and immigration have long been a political vulnerability for President Biden. A recent poll found that voters see the border as his biggest failure. Mr Bidens visit to the border is aimed at undercutting that impression. Late last year, Mr Biden gave his approval for his officials to join negotiations on a bipartisan bill that would address many Republican grievances about the border. Lawmakers on both sides drafted a deal that would have overhauled the asylum system to implement tougher immigration enforcement and give new powers to the White House to expel migrants. The deal was essentially killed when, at the urging of Mr Trump, many Republicans came out against it. Following the failure of a deal in Congress, Mr Biden has reportedly been exploring the possibility of taking executive action to reduce the number of arrivals at the border. The president is reportedly mulling executive action to block people who cross the southern border without legal permission from claiming asylum once inside the US, upending guarantees that protect asylum rights for people on US soil. Such a proposal, which would bypass Congress, would mirror an illegal Trump-era measure that a federal judge had previously rejected as an unlawful attempt to rewrite the nations immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden. Mr Bidens proposed order would reportedly invoke Section 212(f) of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the president to suspend immigration for anyone determined to be detrimental to the interests of the United States the same authority Mr Trump used to unilaterally ban immigrants from majority-Muslim countries, which was later struck down in court. The Biden administration also would reportedly raise the standards for border agents credible fear screenings for people seeking asylum and establish a last in, first out policy for deportations. That proposal has angered progressives in the Democratic Party and raised warnings from rights groups. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Refugee Convention have affirmed asylum rights for people fleeing persecution and violence. In the US, a person granted asylum is legally allowed to remain in the country without fear of deportation, and qualifies for legal work with potential pathways to permanent legal status. Those claims can only be made at the US border or within the US. The changes would undoubtedly violate both US and international human rights law that establish people may seek asylum regardless of whether they cross at a port of entry or between ports of entry, Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights with Amnesty International USA, told The Independent. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The debate around whether or not the federal government can ban bump stocks devices that can be added to a semi-automatic firearm to make a gun fire faster has now headed to the nations highest court. On Wednesday 28 February, the Supreme Court justices are hearing oral arguments in the case of Garland v Cargill. The case concerns a ban on bump stocks that the Trump administration imposed after the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, where a gunman used a bump stock to fire more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition into a music festival crowd, killing 58 people initially (two other injured individuals died years later) in just 11 minutes. The ban required the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to prohibit the sale and possession of the devices, claiming it would turn legally obtained semi-automatic firearms into illegal machine guns. A gun owner and licensed dealer in Texas, Michael Cargill, refuted that when having to surrender his two bump stocks, claiming the ATF overstepped its authority when interpreting a statute on machine guns to include bump stocks. Unlike other cases involving gun control legislation, this one does not directly challenge the Second Amendment. Instead, justices will need to decide if the changes a bump stock makes to a semi-automatic firearm effectively turn it into a machine gun a type of firearm which is currently federally regulated. Under a 1986 law, machine guns are defined as any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. That definition also includes a provision for any part designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun that can be combined and assembled by a person. A bump stock is displayed in Harrisonburg, Va., on March 15, 2019 (AP) A bump stock meanwhile is defined as a device that can convert a semi-automatic firearm so that it fires continuously with a single pull of the trigger. It is installed on the stock of a firearm to take control of the guns recoil allowing it to bump back and forth via the trigger. The phrase, single pull of the trigger, is a point of contention in the case. The government argues bump stocks allow for the gun to fire multiple rounds with just one pull of the trigger which makes it a machine gun. But attorneys for Mr Cargill say that the only way multiple rounds can be fired is by repeatedly hitting the trigger. Lower courts, including the ultra-conservative Fifth Circuit of Appeals, have ruled that the bump stock ban was unlawful however the government maintains it was correctly interpreted. Should the court side with Mr Cargill, the decision will further expand access to firearm attachments that make semi-automatic guns more dangerous. However, a handful of states have individual laws against bump stocks and others may be inspired to adopt similar ones if the nations highest court rules against the federal government. The Supreme Court has mostly expanded gun rights when taking on challenges to the Second Amendment. But since this case is about the ATFs interpretation of a statute and its authority, justices could be more inclined to side with the government. A decision in the case is expected before or in June. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} President Joe Biden was probed by reporters on a ceasefire in Gaza in the middle of eating ice cream but The Daily Show host Michael Kosta said that this is a strategy maybe other politicians should adopt. Kosta poked fun at the president for trying to solve Israel and Palestine in one lick, adding that eating the frozen dessert while standing in an ice cream store was not the most dignified way to deliver world-changing news. After wrapping filming for Late Night with Seth Meyers, Mr Biden and Meyers went to get ice cream when he was stopped by reporters who asked if he had a sense of when a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas could start. Politicians and activists across the globe are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza after more than 29,000 Palestinians have died during Israels aerial bombardment, ground operations and a blockade which has left food, water and medicine supplies very low, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Israels response came after a Hamas attack inside Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and around another 250 taken hostage. Well, I hope by the beginning of the weekend I mean the end of the weekend. My national security adviser tells me that were close, were close, Mr Biden said just after he opened his mouth to take a bite out of the ice cream. Joe Biden was questioned about a ceasefire while eating ice cream with Seth Meyers (AFP via Getty Images) Now, in Joe Bidens defence, he had the ice cream first, Kosta said. Its not like they asked him about Gaza, and he said, Hold on, if were going to talk about war, Ive got to get a mint chip. He was in an ice cream store about to eat ice cream, and some reporter jumped in and said, What about Gaza? This is why I dont think we should have a free press, the show host joked. Personally, I dont think anyone should be asked about Israel-Palestine while theyre eating ice cream. I thought that was, like, an unwritten rule, Kosta continued. I tell you what, if I was a politician, I would always have an ice cream with me just to cram in my mouth in case I got asked about Israel-Palestine, he quipped. Kosta said that in defence of the president, he already had the ice cream before he was questioned (The Daily Show) Despite the presidents words, reports have said both Israeli and Hamas officials have downplayed the presidents remarks after Mr Biden said that a ceasefire could take effect by the start of next week. Im not surprised Biden was so optimistic; when youre holding a freshly scooped ice cream cone, everything feels like its going to be okay, Kosta said in defence of the US leader. Thats why its the official food of telling your kid youre getting a divorce. Kosta said he did not blame Mr Biden for speaking on the topic while he was eating ice cream but is more concerned about why he opened his mouth so early in the process of eating ice cream, showing a still of Mr Bidens mouth agape while holding his dessert a few inches away from his face. I dont know about you, but I typically open my mouth when the food gets there. On April 8, hundreds of thousands of people from across the county and world are expected to flock to Western New York, cross their fingers for a cloudless day, don their protective eyewear and stare at the sky. For the first time in nearly 100 years, Western New York will be witness to a total solar eclipse. And the next one in this region predicted by scientists to occur in 2144 wont happen in any of our lifetimes. The 1925 total eclipse in Buffalo: 'The biggest show on earth' It was a darkness deeper than that of any storm, The Buffalo Evening News said in 1925 of the eclipse in Buffalo. This is Buffalos chance to see a total solar eclipse, said Kevin Williams, director of Buffalo State Universitys Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium and an associate professor of geosciences. But how does a total solar eclipse happen and what will the experience be like? Heres what you need to know. What is the path of totality? People viewing the eclipse from locations where the moons shadow completely covers the sun known as the path of totality will be able to witness a total solar eclipse, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The path of totality is a relatively narrow path that will begin over the South Pacific Ocean and cross North America, passing over Mexico, the United States and Canada, according to NASA. Those outside the path of totality will only witness a partial eclipse. How do we know where and when this will happen? Scientists are able to track the elements necessary for a solar eclipse to occur, said Nicholas DiFrancesco, assistant teaching professor of geology at the University at Buffalo. As the moon goes around Earth, its orbit is not always perfectly aligned with the sun and Earth. A solar eclipse happens when the moon comes directly in between Earth and the sun, DiFrancesco said. Additionally, a solar eclipse can occur only during a new moon, when the moon is in the sky during the daytime. And, the moons orbit has to bring it close enough to Earth to be large enough to block out the sun, DiFrancesco said. Understanding the cycle length of all of those factors, you can essentially predict when and where (a solar eclipse) will happen, DiFrancesco said. How rare is a total solar eclipse? A solar eclipse when the moon moves directly between Earth and the sun occurs every year and a half or so, but most of them are partial. A total eclipse occurs about a third of the time. Outside of the path of totality, everyone in the continental United States will be able to see the partial eclipse, as Buffalo did in 2017, Williams said. Are there other kinds of eclipses? Lunar eclipses happen just as frequently as solar eclipses, Williams said, but they are easier to see. Total solar eclipse sends Buffalo-Niagara hotel rates into orbit Western New York will be in prime viewing territory for the total solar eclipse taking place April 8, and visitors are paying high yes, even astronomical prices for lodging in the area. A lunar eclipse is essentially the opposite of a solar eclipse, DiFrancesco said. Instead of the moon coming between the sun and Earth, Earth moves between the moon and sun. With a lunar eclipse, the moon goes into Earths shadow, Williams said. A lunar eclipse is the earth blocking light. Because Earth is so big and the shadow is so big, as long as youre on the nighttime side of Earth, you can see a lunar eclipse. How long will the eclipse last? The entire eclipse takes about two and a half hours, Williams said. And most of it is a partial eclipse, where only part of the sun is covered by the moon. In Buffalo, the partial eclipse will begin around 2:05 p.m., with totality starting at 3:18 p.m. and lasting for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. The partial eclipse will be over at 4:32 p.m. Before totality, there will be about an hour and 13 minutes of time when the moon covers more and more of the sun, Williams said. And then we have almost four minutes of totality. After that, you have another hour and 10 minutes of a partial eclipse when the moon is moving and youre seeing more and more of the sun. Once the moon no longer covers the sun, the eclipse is over. The eclipse will last different amounts of time depending on where along the path of totality you are. Because of the geometry, the speed of the shadow of the moon changes a little bit, Williams said. Its going to be a little bit faster here than it would be down in Mexico. In Zaragoza, Mexico, for example, totality will last around four and a half minutes while in Montreal, Canada, totality will last a bit over a minute. Is there a best place to view the total solar eclipse? Not really, Williams said, as long as youre within about 20 miles of the center of the path of totality. Buffalo-area eclipse events offer celebrations, safety tips and more With the much-anticipated total solar eclipse just over a month away, the days leading up to it are filled with many corresponding events that not only prepare us for the eclipse but celebrate it as well. As long as you have a clear view of the sky where the sun is, youll see it just as well anywhere in most places along the path of totality, Williams said. If youre at the very edge of the path, you wont see totality as long. DiFrancesco advises people take note of where in the sky the sun is at about 3:20 p.m. the days leading up to the eclipse. What happens during a total solar eclipse? The sun will be completely blocked by the moon. Using eclipse glasses or looking through a telescope with proper filters for eye safety, viewers will be able to see more and more of the sun get covered up by the moon as it moves. As totality approaches, eclipse watchers could be able to see (Western New York weather permitting) the last bits of sunlight coming through the low areas and valleys on the moon, called Baily beads. If its a clear day, viewers may also witness the diamond ring effect, a ring of light around the moon with a bright spot that looks like a shimmering diamond. After that disappears, youre now fully into totality, Williams said. In totality, the sky gets darker, almost like its nighttime. What youll see is kind of deep blues and purple colors, Williams described. Around the horizon, itll be sunset colors. During totality, the suns corona, or outer atmosphere, which is usually obscured by the bright face of the sun, can also be visible, according to NASA. The temperature will drop around 10 to 15 degrees right before and during totality. The wind might also pick up, Williams said. 'Get the glasses and be safe': UB ophthalmologist explains the do's and don'ts of viewing the eclipse The total solar eclipse that will focus the world's attention on Western New York on April 8 has people asking a question that usually does not need to be asked: Is it OK to look at the sun? If youre out on a sunny day, you can feel the warmth of the sun on your face, Williams explained. When the sun is blocked, you dont get that heating so itll cause the temperature decrease a bit. And animals will start to behave likes its nighttime, with those who are awake during the day starting to settle down and nocturnal wildlife waking up. If there are birds around, theyll start roosting on trees or telephone wires, Williams said. Chickens will go into chicken coops, cows might lay down. Frogs will start croaking. Then, the reverse happens and the sun begins to peek out from behind the moon. You might see a diamond ring effect and then some Bailys beads and then youll see a very thin crescent of the sun showing and thats when it starts getting bright again, Williams said. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Fox News host Jesse Watters was lampooned on social media for complaining about Joe Biden eating an ice cream in public on Monday, saying it did not make the president look masculine. The US president has been vehemently criticised for talking about the Israel-Hamas war while eating a cone of ice cream in New York City but Watters had a different bone to pick with Mr Biden over his public act. Mr Biden visited Van Leeuwens artisanal ice cream shop after filming an appearance for Late Night With Seth Meyers when he was asked about the war in Gaza by reporters. He responded as he ate a mint chip ice cream. While his actions were described as tone deaf and irresponsible in light of the more than four-months-long war that has ravaged Gaza, Watterss criticism of Mr Biden focused on masculinity and the correct age for eating ice cream. This ice cream you know my rule about men eating soup in public. I dont think its manly to go like that with the soup, and youre blowing on it, its just not a good look," said Watters, mimicking the act of spooning up soup. "I think the same thing for ice cream. You should save that for vacation." "A grown man especially the president should not be licking ice cream in public," he added. Watters also lashed out at Mr Biden for wearing black sunglasses during his appearance on the show. Mr Biden pulled out his sunglasses and wore them in a bid to mock a right-wing conspiracy theory after Mayers asked him about "Dark Brandon" meme. The Dark Brandon is a cartoon meme of Mr Biden with red lasers coming out of his eyes. He drew laughter from the studio crowd as he put on the black sunglasses and said: "No, I resent the hell out of it. During his show, Watters asked Why are people clapping for sunglasses? What so funny about a grown man putting on sunglasses? Watters was in turn mocked on social media for his criticism of Mr Biden with many users sharing images of former president Donald Trump eating ice cream. Some also pointed to reports of the former president enjoying an ice cream in Mar-a-Lago when he was informed about Iranian general Qassem Suleimanis assassination. Justin Baragona, a reporter with DailyBeast, responded with a picture of Watters eating an ice cream cone. The Biden administration has been criticised for its support to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his actions in Gaza to wipe out Hamas. Last week, the US was criticised for vetoing a UNSC resolution that called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. US, instead, proposed its own resolution for a temporary ceasefire as soon as practicable. Washington has started calling for a ceasefire more recently after Mr Bidens policy was followed by protests in the country in support of Palestinian people dying in Gaza. I hope by the end of the weekend, Mr Biden said at the prospect of a creasefire. My national security advisor tells me were close. Were close. Its not done yet. My hope is by next Monday, well have a ceasefire, he added. Close Related: Donald Trump warns of a bloodbath in US if he isnt elected as president again Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump took to the stage in Dayton, Ohio, on Saturday evening to campaign for former car salesman Bernie Moreno, who is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Democrat Sherrod Brown for the states Senate seat. Mr Moreno has been endorsed by Mr Trump as his MAGA representative in the race but faces stiff competition from state senator Matt Dolan and secretary of state Frank LaRose, widely seen as GOP establishment candidates. The Republican presidential nominee hailed Mr Moreno as a fantastic guy during his 90-minute address at the Dayton Air Show and laid into Mr Dolan, who he labelled a RINO (Republican in Name Only). Bernie is running against a weak RINO named Matt Dolan, Mr Trump said. He is trying to become the next Mitt Romney. I think Mitt Romney is his hero. He also attacked Mr Dolan over his familys ownership of the Cleveland Guardians, the baseball team that recently changed its name from the Cleveland Indians. Hes easily pushed around by woke left-wing lunatics who renamed his familys baseball team, Mr Trump sneered. My attitude is anybody who changes the name from the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians should not be a senator. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer got into a testy exchange with reporters as Hunter Biden gave testimony behind closed doors as part of the Republican House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Mr Comer had been asked about the lack of evidence that the probe has so far unearthed to support claims that Mr Biden used his political influence to help enrich himself and his family. We have evidence that Joe Biden met with the Chinese officials. We've had several people already testify that, Mr Comer said on Wednesday, arguing that payment to Mr Biden from his brother James was influence peddling. Does anyone in here question whether that was influenced peddling? he asked to the room at large. I question it because theres no evidence that Joe Biden did anything... Ryan Nobles of NBC News started to say. He got $200,000 from it, Mr Comer interjected as Nobles tried to question him further. No, listen, look, you can you can defend Joe Biden all day long ... you can be on his legal defence team, Kevin Morris will probably pay your legal bills, Mr Comer told Nobles. A Hollywood attorney, Mr Morris lent Hunter Biden money to cover a multi-million dollar debt to the Internal Revenue Service. An attorney for Mr Morris said last month that staff working for Mr Comer lied to him when they asked that Mr Comer not selectively leak portions of his testimony given during a deposition. Mr Comer claimed that Mr Biden got $200,000 from Americore, a claim not backed up by the evidence. What we said over and over and over, Joe Biden took $200,000 directly from Americore Health, Mr Comer insisted. Do you have a problem that Joe Bidens lied about? Do you have a problem that Americore Health hooked investors? Mr Comer asked Nobles. Im asking you, what specific action did he take as an elected public official, Nobles started to ask. Mr Comer interrupted and adopted a mocking tone as the reporter continued. Okay, calm down, calm down, it's okay. It's okay. All the angry liberals ... theyll be alright, Mr Comer said. The Independent reported earlier this month that excerpts from transcripts of previous interviews conducted as part of the probe bolster the Democrats assertion that Mr Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan have turned up nothing against Mr Biden thus far. One witness, Carol Fox, was questioned about her work overseeing the liquidation of Americore Holdings, a company for which Mr Bidens brother, James Biden, worked as a consultant in 2018 and 2019. James Bidens work has figured prominently in the probe because he used some of the funds he was paid by the company to repay a loan his brother had made to him some months before. Ms Fox told investigators that she had no evidence that Mr Biden had anything to do with the company or discussed it with his brother. Asked if it would be fair to say that she had no firsthand knowledge at all concerning President Biden, Ms Fox replied: That would be correct. CNN anchor Dana Bash said on Wednesday that there aren't any facts that they have, that they can back up with any evidence. It's all innuendo, rumour, political allegation at this point. Just one other example. The sort of very thin accusation that they had was that oh, we have these checks that Hunter Biden and the President's brother James wrote to the President, and those are pieces of evidence that show that the President was involved in some scheme that we're not really sure about, she added. We have two cheques, Joe Biden received two payments. We found this through subpoenaed bank records two payments, Mr Comer argued on Wednesday, making a further allegation that Mr Biden is guilty of money laundering. Bash said the Republican inquiry looks like the wildest of goose chases. A friend and business associate of James Biden, Joseph Langston, previously told the committee that as far as he knew, President Biden had no involvement whatsoever in his business ventures with James and received no money from any of those ventures. He further explained that the mere notion of involving President Biden in any business venture was categorically unacceptable to James Biden and his wife, Sara Biden. While Mr Langston has loaned James and Sara Biden money in the past loans which Republicans have sought to portray as attempts to curry favour with President Biden he told the panel that his decision to loan money to the couple was made out of friendship to James Biden only. None of the Bidens ever suggested to me that, hey, you can take this relationship or well participate with you in taking this relationship and using it as leverage in any matter of business, money, politics, nothing, that I knew of, he said. He also strenuously denied that President Biden ever received any financial benefit from business ventures which Mr Langston had entered into with James Biden, telling the panel that he would never have suggested any such arrangement because it would have been shot down immediately. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} President Joe Bidens physician says the 81-year-old chief executive continues to be fit for duty after he completed his annual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Wednesday. In a memorandum distributed by the White House press office, Physician to the President Dr Kevin OConnor summarised his findings by stating that Mr Biden is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, ot include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief. Dr OConnor also reported that Mr Bidens stable and well-controlled medical conditions include obstructive sleep apnea, a-fib with normal ventricular response, hyperlipidemia, gastroesophageal reflux, seasonal allergies, spinal arthritis and sensory peripheral neuropathy of the feet, for which he takes prescription and over-the-counter medications including Eliquis (an anti-coagulant), Crestor (a statin for cholesterol control), the nasal spray Dymista, as well as Allegra, Pepcid and Nexium. The president feels wel and this year's physical identified no new concerns. He continues to be fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations, he said. Mr Biden had told reporters he would be undergoing the examination before he travelled to the Navy-operated facility in Bethesda, Maryland on Wednesday, departing by helicopter at 9.06am and landing at the hospitals helipad nine minutes later. A White House official confirmed that Mr Bidens visit to the hospital was for his routine annual physical and promised that his physician would release a written summary of the findings afterwards. The president finished the exam just before noon after spending over two and a half hours at the facility before returning to the White House via motorcade. Speaking to reporters several hours later at an event to discuss his administrations crime-fighting efforts, the president responded to questions about his physical with a joke. They think I look too young, he said. Joe Biden jokes he 'looks too young' after physical He added a more substantive answer shortly after, telling reporters there was nothing different than last year about the results. Im alright, everything is squared away, he said. Everythings great. Mr Biden, 81, is the oldest person to ever serve as Americas chief executive. A lifelong teetotaler and nonsmoker, he is known to exercise regularly, but he has had some health issues in recent years, including spinal arthritis that has caused him to exhibit a stiff gait and skin cancer lesions that were removed from his chest last March. In a memorandum released by the press office at the time, Dr OConnor said a biopsy had confirmed that the small lesion removed from Mr Biden was basal cell carcinoma and noted that no further treatment was required after the lesion was removed. President Biden arrives at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland (EPA) Now, a year later, the physician said Mr Biden underwent a full-body examination that detected no areas that required a biopsy to determine whether a recurrence of the skin cancer had occured. The presidents age and a number of high-profile verbal slips and gaffes have led many voters to express concern about whether he is physically and mentally up to the job. In his report, Dr OConnor said an extremely detailed neurologic exam had been reassuring, with no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's or ascending lateral sclerosis. But the White House has repeatedly declined too make Dr OConnor available to discuss Mr Bidens physical condition with reporters, instead claiming that the annual memorandum he issues should be sufficient information for assuaging any concerns over the presidents health or age. Pressed on the reasons for not making the presidents phyisician available for questions, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre offered a meandering, stem-winding explanation, touching at times on Dr OConnors past military service, as well as the presence of as many as 20 other medical personnel who assisted with Mr Bidens annual examination. She also falsely claimed that there was no precedent for Dr OConnor to appear in the briefing room even though one of his predecessors, then-US Navy Admiral Dr Ronny Jackson, spent over an hour answering questions on then-president Donald Trumps physical exam results in January 2018. What Dr OConnor has done is he has put forward over the last two years, a comprehensive, robust robust memo ... that is sent to me and then obviously we disseminate to all of you that lays out lays out in parts of the Presidents physical and I think thats important. It is it is robust and it is comprehensive, she said. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Michigan court has ruled in favour of one of the two duelling claimants to the leadership of the Michigan Republican Party. Since 6 January this year, Kristina Karamo has insisted that she is the rightful chairwoman of the state party despite a group of her colleagues voting to remove her. Now Michigan state judge J Joseph Rossi has upheld that vote, ordering Ms Karamo to immediately relinquish control of the party's bank accounts, website, and social media accounts. "This court finds, that as of 6 January 2024, Ms Karamo was removed as chair of the Michigan Republican State Committee ... and that any actions of Ms Kamaro since [then] purporting to be taken on behalf of the Michigan Republican State Committee are void and have no effect," Mr Rossi wrote on Tuesday. He ordered Ms Karamo to stop representing herself as the party's leader and conduct no more business on behalf of the party. The ruling could finally put an end to the bizarre chaos that has engulfed the Michigan GOP since Ms Karamos election last February, which members feared could cost them the state in 2024. Kristina Karamo (AP) After variously branding Ms Karamo a "disaster", an "epic failure", and "a tyrannical, incompetent dumpster fire", her opponents within the party finally convened a vote to remove her. Ms Karamo insisted that the vote was illegitimate, leading to a legal battle which she denounced as part of a "fraudulent" effort to "destroy" her. There is unanimous agreement that the former chair was properly removed, and that I was elected as the new chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, said Pete Hoekstra, Ms Karamo's replacement, after the ruling on Tuesday. Pete Hoekstra (AP) "It is time to unite and move forward with the business delivering the state of Michigan for our Partys presumptive nominee, Donald J Trump." Indeed, Mr Trump who appointed Mr Hoekstra as his ambassador to the Netherlands between 2018 and 2021 made a point of lauding Mr Hoekstra by name after his victory in the public portion of the Michigan Republican primary on Tuesday night. Pete, congratulations. You'll be a fantastic chairman, one of the best ever. I don't know if you know, he was a fantastic just couldn't be better as an ambassador but before that he was a really successful and respected, highly respected congressman, Mr Trump said. The Independent has asked both Ms Karamo and the Michigan Republican Party for comment. As of Tuesday evening, Ms Karamo's social media profiles still described her as the chairwoman. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Mark Meadows, Donald Trumps former White House chief of staff, has seen his request that the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit consider his plea to have the Georgia election interference case against him moved to federal court turned down. Mr Meadows put in a request in January for an en banc hearing on his bid to shift his case from state court to federal court, after his initial request was rejected by a three-judge panel led by Chief Judge William Pryor in December, but that too has now been denied. The former North Carolina congressman is facing two charges as part of the case brought by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis accusing him and 18 co-defendants, including Mr Trump, of attempting to unlawfully overturn Joe Bidens victory in the crucial swing state in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. He has pleaded not guilty to both charges but four of his original co-defendants including Trump-allied attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell have reached plea deals with prosecutors. Judge Pryors panel denied Mr Meadows initial request for the move before Christmas on the basis that the racketeering conduct with which his criminal indictment is concerned stands apart from the duties he carried out for the then-president in the West Wing. The defendants next move is likely to be to attempt to elevate the matter to the US Supreme Court, although that body is already busy handling his former employers filings on presidential immunity and the decision to strike him from ballot papers in Colorado and Maine in accordance with an insurrectionist prohibition stipulated by Section Three of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. Perhaps with this eventuality in mind, Mr Meadows moved last month to bolster his legal team, drafting in Paul Clement, a former US solicitor general under George W Bush, as well as appellate advocate Erin Murphy and associate Zachary Lustbader. Mr Meadows strategy is centred around the hope that a federal court would be more inclined to dismiss the charges against him on federal immunity grounds, designed to protect officials prosecuted over matters arising from their work in the service of the US government. Ms Willis has opposed the move, however, given that the tactics success could imperil her prosecution of Mr Meadows and his co-defendants, broaden the pool of potential jurors by taking the trial to an area less dense with Democrats than northern Georgia and end its prospect of being televised. However, the district attorney herself could yet be disqualified from pursuing the racketeering case as lawyers for the defendants continue to allege that she is guilty of a conflict of interest, having appointed an attorney to her team, Nathan Wade, with whom she was involved romantically. They are currently attempting to prove Ms Willis profited financially by hiring Mr Wade in sideshow hearings that have the potential to jeopardise the entire prosecution. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Senator Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving party leader in the upper chambers history, will stand aside from his leadership post after the November general election. The Kentucky Republican, who has been the GOPs leader since 2007, announced his decision from the Senate floor yesterday. Speaking from the front-row desk traditionally allotted to the party floor leader, Mr McConnell told his colleagues that the loss of his sister-in-law in recent weeks had led him to a certain introspection. The Bluegrass State senator, who has in recent months had several public episodes in which he appeared to freeze for several seconds, leading to concerns over his health, also noted that at 82 years old, the end of [my] contributions were closer than I prefer. He said leading the Senate Republicans had been the honour of my life and the highest privilege but he added that one of lifes most under-appreciated talents is to know when its time to move on to lifes next chapter. So I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate. Mr McConnell added that he would finish his term as Kentuckys senior senator, albeit from a different seat, and said he was actually looking forward to that. He went on: I love the Senate. Its been my life. There may be more distinguished members of this body throughout our history, but I doubt there were any with any more admiration for the Senate. After all this time, I still get a thrill walking into the Capitol ... knowing that we, each of us, have the honour to represent our states and do the important work of our country. But Father Time remains undefeated. Im no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping colleagues would remember my name. Its time for the next generation of leadership. He added later that he still has enough gas in my tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics and intends to do so with all the enthusiasm with which theyve become accustomed. Mr McConnell walking to the Senate to speak on the floor on 28 February 2024 (AP) The announcement comes amid rising isolationism in his party, which continues to be led by twice-impeached and four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump. Mr McConnell and Mr Trump have not spoken since the then Senate majority leader acknowledged the legitimacy of Joe Bidens 2020 election victory. Mr McConnell later denounced Mr Trumps role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. More recently, the GOP leader has been a strong proponent of continued defence assistance to Ukraine, a stance that has drawn the ire of Mr Trump and his supporters, who would rather deny President Biden a foreign policy victory by halting assistance to Kyiv. But Mr McConnell, who worked with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer to push through a supplemental appropriations package, which is currently bottled up in the Republican-led House, said his world view was still that which had been shaped by the foreign policy of former president Ronald Reagan. He acknowledged the shift towards Trumpian isolationism in his remarks telling his colleagues: I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. Mr McConnell speaking on the Senate floor, and telling his colleagues hell step down in November (AP) I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them. That said I believe more strongly than ever that Americas global leadership is essential to preserving the shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan discussed. As long as Im drawing breath on this earth, I will defend American exceptionalism. The Kentuckians exit from the Republican leadership roster comes after four years in the minority following the Democrats takeover of the upper chamber, after special elections for Georgias senate seats in January 2021. Before that, he spent six years leading a Republican senate majority that reshaped the American court system by confirming hundreds of conservative judicial nominees under Donald Trump. He had also used his authority over Senate scheduling to block consideration of nominees put forward by Barack Obama. In one infamous instance of obstruction, Mr McConnell held the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalias seat open after his 2016 death rather than allowing a vote on Mr Obamas nominee to fill the slot, then DC circuit court judge now US Attorney General Merrick Garland. He later called the obstruction of Mr Garlands Supreme Court nomination his proudest moment as a senator. Despite Mr McConnells reputation as a partisan brawler and practitioner of political hardball, he also developed a reputation for pragmatism on important matters, such as keeping the US government open rather than allowing it to shut down by letting funding legislation lapse. His tendency to support bipartisan legislation put him at odds with Mr Trump, who never forgave him for accepting his successors legitimacy as president or for criticising his role in the January 6 attack. Mr Biden, who served with Mr McConnell in the Senate for just over two decades, told reporters at the White House that he was sorry to hear that his former colleague was standing aside from leadership. He and I... Ive trusted him and we have a great relationship. We fight like hell. But he has never, never, never misrepresented anything, he said. In a subsequent statement released by the White House press office, Mr Biden noted that Americas democracy is based on elected representatives coming together and bridging their different points of view to find common ground on behalf of the American people and said he was proud that my friend Mitch McConnell and I have been able to do that for many years, working together in good faith even though we have many political disagreements. During his many years of leadership, we could always speak with each other honestly and put the country ahead of ourselves, he said. Mitch has lived the American dream, overcoming polio and going on to become the longest-serving Senate leader in American history. Jill and I wish the best to Mitch and Elaine. The Bluegrass State stalwarts retirement from leadership will open a spot that is expected to be filled by either South Dakota senator and current GOP whip John Thune, Texas senator and former whip John Cornyn, or Wyoming senator John Barrasso. Asked to weigh in on the news, Mr Thune told The Independent: He leaves obviously big shoes to fill. I think there, therell be plenty of time. Today we just want to reflect on his service and honour him for that. The junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, said he was grateful for [Mr McConnells] time and service. There are natural transitions in leadership. I think he made the judgment that nows the right time. Im sure there will be vigorous discussion and debate among the conference [the Republican grouping of senators] as to who the next Republican leader should be and I hope the next leader is capable and effective and fighting for conservative principles. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Against a tide of antidemocratic threats and a rise in autocratic movements around the globe, representative democracy still remains largely popular, but support has slipped over the last decade, according to the results of a wide-ranging survey from Pew Research Center. There remains widespread dissatisfaction with the ways democracy is functioning, and nearly three-quarters of respondents in a survey spanning 24 countries believe that their elected officials dont care what their constituents think. Half or more respondents in 17 countries are dissatisfied with the way democracy works, a share that has declined since the survey was last performed in 2017. According to the report, 42 per cent of respondents believe that no political party represents their views. Though autocracy remains generally unpopular worldwide, with a majority of respondents in all but five countries rejecting it, a worrying share of respondents are open to authoritarian governance. Support for an autocratic form of government has significantly increased across three Latin American countries that were polled, as well as in Germany, India, Kenya, Poland and South Korea, according to the survey. A median of 31 per cent across 24 nations would support authoritarian systems, Pew found. The survey asked about two authoritarian models of government, including support for a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or the courts (authoritarian leader) and a system in which the military rules the country (military rule), according to Pew. In the US, 32 per cent would support a form of governance led by a strong leader or the military, according to the poll. The share of respondents in the UK who support an autocratic governance is even higher, at 37 per cent. Respondents who support autocracy largely have a right-wing ideological background and were less likely to offer any solution to help fix their respective democracies, the survey found. Support for military rule, however, is generally low, with eight in 10 respondents across North America, Europe and Australia labelling it a bad system of governance. But the share of the global public describing representative democracy as a very good way to govern has slipped in 11 of the 22 countries where data from 2017 is available. Those trends are not available in Australia and the US. In 2017, 54 per cent of respondents in Sweden said representative democracy was a very good approach, while just 41 per cent believe so today. The findings follow polling among more than 30,000 people from 20 February through 22 May of last year, with open-ended questions asking respondents a range of questions about their support for types of governing structures and what they believe it takes to fix them. Respondents pointed to a range of ideas to help improve their democracies, including electing more women and younger people and more people from lower-income backgrounds. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The New York judge presiding over Donald Trumps civil fraud trial was mailed an envelope containing suspicious powder prompting an emergency response at the courthouse. Court staff opened an envelope addressed to the judge containing a powdery substance at 9.30am on Wednesday, according to a statement to The Independent from a spokesperson for New York courts. A court official at 60 Centre Street in Manhattan had opened the envelope, causing white powder to spill onto their pants, an NYPD spokesperson told The Independent. The envelope was addressed to Justice Arthur Engoron, the man who presided over Mr Trumps trial and handed down a $454m verdict against the former president in the case this month. The operations office where the letter was opened was closed and the affected staff were isolated until Emergency Services tested the powder and its preliminary testing showed it was negative for hazardous substances, according to New York courts spokesperson Al Baker. Justice Engoron had no exposure to the letter or the powdery substance, he added. The Court remained open. The matter is under investigation by law enforcement. A spokesperson for NYPD said that there were no injuries and the building was not evacuated following the discovery of the powder. Justice Arthur Engoron presiding over Donald Trumps civil fraud trial The incident comes just one day after Donald Trump Jr, the former presidents oldest son, was also sent an envelope containing white powder. Earlier this month, Judge Engoron ordered Mr Trump to pay $355m plus interest and barred him from holding top positions at any New York company for three years after he, his adult sons, Trump Organization executives and some of his entities were found liable for fraud. Mr Trumps lawyers launched an appeal against the hefty ruling on Monday. Throughout the trial, the former president frequently railed against Judge Engoron on Truth Social, describing him as a political hack. ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) New York Democrats are proposing a new congressional map that could shift a few battleground districts in the partys favor, potentially giving their candidates an advantage in House races that could determine control of Congress. The bill, introduced late Monday, will now work its way through the Democrat-dominated state Legislature, where it is expected to pass in a vote this week. The legislation was unveiled hours after Democrats rejected a map drawn by the states bipartisan redistricting commission. The plan falls far short of the aggressive gerrymander many expected when Democrats seized control of the states unusual mid-decade redistricting process. The party is trying to avoid having its new map tossed by the courts, as a prior one was in 2022. The lines are similar to the states existing congressional map, as well as the bipartisan redistricting commission's proposal, with just a small handful of tweaks that could help Democrats in suburban areas important to the party's strategy for winning control of the House. The map would boost Democrats' chances of holding on to a district on Long Island that was won this month by Democrat Tom Suozzi in a special election. And it would make the central New York district currently held by Republican Rep. Brandon Williams more Democrat-friendly with the addition of a couple left-leaning cities. In the Hudson Valley, Democrats are pushing to reverse proposed changes from the state's bipartisan redistricting commission that would have helped incumbent Republican Rep. Marc Molinaro, instead drawing lines that make the district more competitive. Congressional elections in New York will be heavily contested this year because races in the state, particularly in the suburbs of New York City, could have a major impact on which party controls Congress. Democrats had criticized the bipartisan commission's map and said it split up what they called communities of interest, among other issues. Many expected Democrats to kill the proposal so they could draft maps that gave their congressional candidates a bigger edge. We thought there were areas that could be improved upon, and that's what we did, Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said Tuesday. Republicans have been threatening a legal challenge throughout the redistricting process but did not spell out their plans as a party on Tuesday. Still, Democrats, anticipating a lawsuit, have begun to move a separate bill that would limit where a redistricting suit can be filed a bid to keep cases from landing in front of conservative judges. Republican Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay said he wasn't aware of a lawsuit from Republicans in his chamber and said his understanding is that the party's congressional delegation is generally happy with the maps. They could be worse, he added. A vote on the Democrats' proposed map could come on Thursday or potentially sooner, if Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul allows lawmakers to expedite the process. Heastie told reporters that conversations are ongoing with the governor's office. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The US Supreme Court will hear a case from Donald Trump after federal court judges rejected his immunity defense from criminal charges stemming from his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. An order from the nations highest court on Wednesday comes after Mr Trumps legal team argued in front of the justices for a separate case, one that challenges a Colorado court ruling that disqualifies him from 2024 ballots. His attorneys will now be headed right back to court on 22 April for another major constitutional question over his immunity defence smack in the middle of a primary election calendar and Mr Trumps busy schedule of multiple criminal and civil cases. Progress in the election conspiracy case under special counsel Jack Smith has effectively been ground to a halt with Mr Trumps ongoing appeal of a central question in the case, one that has so far been shot down at both the appeals court and by the federal judge overseeing the case. The Supreme Court on Wednesday did not express any views about the case, but ordered the appeals court to withhold its order until a final word from the justices. Mr Trumps briefs are due no later than 19 March, and responses from special counsel Jack Smiths team are due no later than 8 April, with oral arguments before the justices scheduled for 22 April. A ruling would likely come in June or July. The timeline suggests that a criminal trial against Mr Trump on charges connected to his attempts to overturn 2020 election results, and his failure to stop a mob from storming the US Capitol to do it by force may not materialise until later this summer, or after the 2024 election, raising the prospect of a president-elect on trial, or the possibility of a President Trump instructing federal law enforcement to toss the case altogether. In their unanimous rebuke earlier this month, appeals court judges wrote that citizen Trump is not shielded by executive immunity, and that his alleged efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, if proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government. The 57-page ruling delivered an outright rejection of his premise that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralise the most fundamental check on executive power the recognition and implementation of election results, as well as his carte blanche efforts to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count. We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter, they added. In December, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Mr Trumps motion to dismiss the case on immunity grounds, writing in a 48-page ruling that his four-year term did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens. The office of the presidency does not confer a lifelong get-out-of-jail-free pass, nor do former presidents enjoy any special consideration after leaving office, when they are subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office, she wrote. In their initial filing to the Supreme Court on the immunity defence, attorneys for Mr Trump claimed that a months-long criminal trial on election interference charges at the height of election season will radically disrupt his campaign against President Joe Biden, and gestured at Mr Trumps baseless conspiracy theory that investigations into the former president are part of a Democratic-led campaign against him. Disrupting Mr Trumps campaign is the whole point of the Special Counsels persistent demands for expedition, according to Mr Trumps legal team. The former president greeted the news on his Truth Social account, writing: Legal Scholars are extremely thankful for the Supreme Courts Decision today to take up Presidential Immunity. Former Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tweeted that the court was testing itself by taking up the case: The Supreme Court is placing itself on trial with its decision to hear the former presidents total immunity claim. It remains to be seen whether the justices will uphold the fundamental American value that no one is above the law not even a former president. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A frustrated bench of defence attorneys for Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia came up short in a hearing they hoped would extract bombshell evidence in their case to disqualify the district attorneys office prosecuting them. Instead, Terrence Bradley said he was only speculating about his knowledge of a relationship between Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Nathan Wade, the prosecutor she hired to lead the sprawling election interference case against the former president and his allies. Mr Wades former law partner and former divorce attorney was ordered to return to the witness stand on Tuesday after the judge overseeing the case determined that what he could say about their relationship was outside the bounds of attorney-client privilege. (AP) Attorneys for Mr Trump and his co-defendants have argued that Mr Bradleys testimony could reveal key details about the timeline of Mr Wades relationship with Ms Willis, following allegations that she financially benefited from the case by hiring a man with whom she was romantically involved. If attorneys can substantiate those allegations, and prove that the now-former couple was involved before Ms Willis hired Mr Wade, her entire office could risk disqualification, throwing the case against Mr Trump into jeopardy. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee labelled Mr Bradley a star witness for the defence. But one after another, defence attorneys could only confirm that Mr Bradley had no direct conversations with Mr Wade or proof that his relationship with Ms Willis began more than two years ago. Closing arguments on the matter are scheduled on Friday, Ashleigh Merchant, right, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Mike Roman, and her husband and law partner John Merchant, left, attend a hearing at the Fulton County courthouse on 27 February (EPA) Ashleigh Merchant an attorney for co-defendant Mike Roman repeatedly pressed Mr Bradley to answer whether Ms Willis and Mr Wade started a relationship when she served as a judge in South Fulton in 2019. She presented text messages and an email showing communication with Mr Bradley since September when she began investigating allegations surrounding a relationship that the prosecutors have since admitted to. I was speculating, Mr Bradley said. No one told me that. Asked when he learned about their alleged meetings at an office, and whether the couple had sex there, he said he did not recall ever hearing that from Mr Wade. Ms Willis and Mr Wade have testified that their romantic relationship began in early 2022 after Mr Wade was hired on the case and ended last summer, before Mr Trump and his co-defendants were indicted. Ms Merchant pointed to messages indicating that Mr Wade and Ms Willis first met at a conference when they were both municipal court judges in 2019, which they both have confirmed, but Ms Merchant has argued that the couple began dating shortly after, rather than nearly three years later. Terrence, you told me that it started when they were both municipal court judges, right? she asked. That is incorrect, he said. Mr Bradley did not recall when Mr Wade told him about his relationship with Ms Willis, and that a conversation about her came up only once. I recall him stating that at some point they were dating. I cant tell you what date that was, he said. I do not recall any other time that they mentioned they were in a relationship, no. Ms Merchant reminded Mr Bradley of a series of text messages while she was gathering information about her allegations and the complaint against Ms Willis. Do you think it started before she hired him? And you said, Absolutely, she said. Do you recall me asking how they would react? Would they attack me? And you told me that they would deny it, she added. Mr Bradley repeatedly testified that he was merely speculating. Mr Trumps attorney Steve Sadow, appearing over Zoom while Mr Bradley was seated in an Atlanta courtroom, was nearly yelling as he asked why he would speculate about their relationship timeline. Why in the heck would you speculate in this text message? he said. You dont want to admit it in court, he added at one point. What you want the court to believe and what you want the rest of us to believe you decided on your own to simply speculate and put it down in a text message. Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in an election interference case against Donald Trump and more than a dozen others, attends a hearing involving allegations against him and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on 27 February (Getty Images) Judge McAfee repeatedly tried to move a string of defence attorneys away from repetitive lines of questioning. Hed made some comments to you along the way that led you to believe he had more knowledge than today hes testifying that he had, he told Ms Merchant. Mr Trump is charged alongside more than a dozen co-defendants including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former attorney Rudy Giuliani as part of an alleged criminal enterprise to overturn the states 2020 presidential election results, from using a so-called fake elector scheme to falsely assert his victory in the state and pressuring election workers and state officials, to seizing vote information from machines in another county in the state. Four of his original co-defendants in the Fulton County case including Trump-allied attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell reached plea deals with prosecutors. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has announced that he will step down from GOP leadership after the November general election. The 82-year-old is the longest-serving party leader in the history of the Senate, having been in the post since 2007. On the floor of the upper chamber on Wednesday, Mr McConnell said recently losing his sister-in-law had prompted a certain introspection. Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them, he said about former President Donald Trumps takeover of the party. One of lifes most underappreciated talents is to know when its time to move on to lifes next chapter. So I stand before you today ... to say this will be my last term as Republican leader of the senate, he added. Here are seven Republican senators who can take over as the party leader in the upper chamber: From top left: Shelley Moore Capito, John Barrasso, Joni Ernst, John Thune, John Cornyn, and Tom Cotton (Getty) John Thune Mr Thune, 63, served in the House as South Dakotas lone representative between 1997 and 2003 before he joined the Senate in 2005. Senator John Thune (Getty Images) Between 2009 and 2012, he chaired the Senate Republican Policy Committee, before becoming chair of the Senate Republican Conference, a post he held until 2019 when he ascended to his current role of Senate Republican whip. Between 2015 and 2019, he also chaired the Commerce Committee. He leaves obviously big shoes to fill, Mr Thune told The Independent about Mr McConnell on Wednesday. John Barrasso The Wyoming Senator, 71, has been the chair of the Senate Republican Conference since 2019, taking over from Mr Thune. Senator John Barrasso (Getty) After serving in the state senate, he became a US senator in 2007. He has served on the Indian Affairs, Republican Policy, Environment, and Energy committees. John Cornyn Having been a Texas senator since 2002, Mr Cornyn, 72, was the Senate GOP whip between 2013 and 2019, when he handed over to Mr Thune. Senator John Cornyn (AP) Im going to talk to my colleagues, he told The Independent after Mr McConnells announcement on Wednesday. By Thursday, those conversations were obviously well under way, as Mr Cornyn would become the first senator to throw his hat in the ring. Mr Cornyn served on the Texas Supreme Court in the late 1990s before becoming the states attorney general, a job he left to join the US Senate. He chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee between 2009 and 2013. Rick Scott Senator Rick Scott (Getty Images) A former businessman worth at least $250m, Mr Scott, 71, entered politics in the 2010 election, becoming governor of Florida. He left in 2019 to join the senate. A strong critic and one-time challenger of Mr McConnell, Mr Scott helmed the National Republican Senatorial Committee between 2021 and 2023. Joni Ernst The 53-year-old Iowan shot to fame with an ad about castrating hogs in her youth as she ran for the Senate in the 2014 election. Senator Joni Ernst (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Joining the chamber in early 2015, Ms Ernst previously served in the Iowa State Senate. While in the US Senate, the former Army officer has been a Vice Chair of the Republican Conference, chaired the GOP Policy Committee and is currently the ranking member on the Small Business Committee. Tom Cotton The 46-year-old is the youngest of the bunch Mr Cotton joined the Senate in 2015 after representing Arkansas in the House since 2013. Senator Tom Cotton (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) While serving in the military, he was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Shelley Moore Capito The West Virginian, 70, has been in the Senate since 2015 and has served as a Vice Chair of the Senate Republican Conference since early last year. She has been the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee since 2021. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (AP) Before joining the Senate, she was in the US House between 2001 and 2015 and the West Virginia House of Delegates between 1996 and 2000. Close Putin threatens Nato with World War 3 For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The West has criticised Vladimir Putins sham elections as the Russian president sent a sinister warning to Nato. Putin warned against any move that would risk direct conflict with Russia, saying it would be one step away from World War 3. Asked about the dangers of a wide-scale Nato-Russia conflict, Putin said: Everything is possible in the modern world. It is the latest example of the Russian president dangling the threat of a larger, or even nuclear, conflict in Europe as he attempts to pressure Ukraines Western allies against an escalation of their involvement in his war. The comments came as Putin claimed a landslide victory in Russias sham presidential election with 87.8 per cent of the vote. The US, Germany, the UK and other nations have said the vote was neither free nor fair due to the imprisonment of political opponents and censorship. Earlier, Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Alexei Navalny, called Mr Putin a killer and a gangster, as she joined scores of Russians unhappy with his regime lining up to vote on Sunday afternoon at polling stations both inside Russia and at its embassies around the world. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Judges at the International Criminal Court on Wednesday granted reparations of more than 52 million euros ($56 million) to thousands of victims of a convicted commander in the shadowy Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army. The nearly 50,000 victims covered by the order included former child soldiers and children born as a result of rapes and forced pregnancies. Dominic Ongwen was convicted three years ago of 61 offenses, including murders, rapes, forced marriages and recruiting child soldiers in 2002-2005. An ICC appeals panel upheld his convictions and 25-year sentence in late 2022, setting the stage for an order for reparations. Tens of thousands of individuals suffered tremendous harm due to the unimaginable atrocities committed" as rebel fighters led by Ongwen attacked four camps for displaced people in northern Uganda, said Presiding Judge Bertram Schmitt. "Similarly, over 100 women and girls and thousands of children, boys and girls under the age of 15 suffered profound, multifaceted harm as a result of being kidnapped. Many were later subjected to sexual and gender based crimes and/or forced to serve as LRA soldiers, being kept in captivity with cruel methods of physical and psychological coercion, he added. Ongwen was not in court for the reparations hearing. While he is considered liable for the reparations, the court ruled that he is indigent and said the reparations will be paid by a trust fund for victims set up by the court's member states. Schmitt urged states, organisations, corporations and private individuals to support the trust funds for victims' mission and efforts and contribute to its fundraising activities. He said victims would each receive 750 euros ($812) as a symbolic award while other reparations would come in the form of community-based rehabilitation programs. Evidence at Ongwen's trial established that female civilians captured by the LRA were turned into sex slaves and wives for fighters. The LRA made children into soldiers. Men, women and children were murdered in attacks on camps for internally displaced people. The chamber concludes that the direct victims of the attacks, the direct victims of sexual and gender based crimes and the children born out of those crimes, as well as the former child soldiers, suffered serious and long-lasting physical, moral and material harm, Schmitt said. The LRA began its attacks in Uganda in the 1980s, when one of the courts most-wanted fugitives, Joseph Kony, sought to overthrow the government. After being pushed out of Uganda, the militia terrorized villages in Congo, Central Africa Republic and South Sudan. Ongwen was among those abducted by the militia led by Kony. As a 9-year-old boy, he was transformed into a child soldier and later a senior commander responsible for attacks on camps for displaced civilians in northern Uganda in the early 2000s. Defense lawyers portrayed him as a victim of LRA atrocities. But the judge who presided over his trial called Ongwen a fully responsible adult when he committed his crimes. Activists welcomed his convictions for offenses against women, which included rape, forced pregnancy and sexual slavery. Kony, whose whereabouts are unknown, faces 36 charges, including murder, torture, rape, persecution and enslavement. Prosecutors are seeking to hold a hearing into the evidence against him at the court in Kony's absence. The LRA leader was thrust into the global spotlight in 2012 when a video about his crimes went viral. Despite the attention and international efforts to capture him, he remains at large. ICC cases against three other LRA leaders were terminated after confirmation that they had died before they could be arrested. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Europes oldest monarch, King Harald V of Norway, remained hospitalized in Malaysia on Wednesday, in the countrys northern resort island of Langkawi, after falling ill while on vacation. Malaysian national news agency Bernama said the 87-year-old monarch was undergoing treatment at the Sultanah Maliha Hospital in Langkawi. The report cited unnamed sources as saying he was staying at the hospitals Royal Suite. Norwegian TV 2 said the kings condition is stable, citing the hospital. The hospital declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press. Malaysias health ministry told the media to wait for a possible statement. The royal palace in Oslo said on Tuesday that the king was hospitalized with an infection but did not give further details. The palace said it may send a statement out later Wednesday. Two days before his birthday last week, Norwegian news agency NTB said that the king would be undertaking a private trip abroad together with his wife Queen Sonja, without specifying the destination or dates. The monarch, who has been seen using crutches in recent years, has been repeatedly ill over the past months, raising concern about the head of states health. In January, the palace said he was on sick leave until Feb. 2 because of a respiratory infection. In December, he was admitted to a hospital with an infection and was treated with intravenous antibiotics. He also was hospitalized last August with a fever. FILE - King Harald V of Norway leaves the Notre Dame cathedral after attending at the funeral of the Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg (AP) Still, Harald has repeatedly said he has no plans to abdicate, unlike his second cousin Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, who stunned Danes when she announced her step in a New Years speech. Each time the king was reported ill, his 50-year-old son, Crown Prince Haakon, has taken over his duties in line with the protocol. The palace in Oslo told NTB said there were no plans to alter a planned trip by Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit on Wednesday and Thursday to southern Norway. According to the royal houses calendar, Haralds first official task after the vacation is scheduled for March 8, when he and Haakon are to preside over the state council a monthly meeting with the government at the royal palace in Oslo. At those meetings, new legislation is sanctioned by the monarch and also signed by the prime minister, after which it takes effect. On Jan. 23, Harald said that he stood by the oath he made when ascended the throne in 1991. I maintain what I have said all the time. It lasts for life, he said. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} The boyfriend of a ballerina who has been detained by Russia on the charge of treason has called for her release, saying she was a proud Russian. Ksenia Karelina, also known as Ksenia Khavana, was arrested on public disorder charges in late January outside a cinema in Yekaterinburg, before being booked for treason this month, according to Russian human rights activists. It appears that the US-Russian citizen is confined to a Russian jail cell on charges of high treason for allegedly sending $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity. The countrys notorious Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed in a statement this week that an unnamed woman, later identified by Russian media as Karelina, had been "proactively collecting funds" for the Ukrainian war effort. She was a normal American citizen that made a mistake, Chris Van Heerden, who is a professional boxer, told BBC Radio 4s World Tonight Programme. "She was so naive, she doesnt watch the news, she said, Chris look, Im Russian, Im safe, nothing is going to happen to me," he told the radio programme, describing her as a proud Russian. Ms Karelinas former mother-in-law Eleonara Srebroski, 56, tells The Independent that "shes just that kind of person" who will help those who need it. "If somebody needs help, she will be helping. Whether its an animal, or a child, or a grown-up, shes the one who is always opening her heart and her wallet, she said. Ms Karelina was meant to return from Russia by the beginning of February, having spent the new year with her parents, grandparents, and youngest sister but was detained instead. Mr Van Heerden said that in the last footage he saw, a woman purportedly his girlfriend was seen escorted by a uniformed officer, handcuffed and placed into a car. Her face was obscured by a hat. He said he was so scared for his girlfriend when he saw the video. The video showed that she was being led likely into a holding cell in a courtroom. "I broke down because I know Ksenia, she is a sweetheart, shes so soft and I cannot imagine for the life of me how scared she must be," he told the BBC. According to Russian media, Ms Karelina was originally accused of "petty hooliganism". Court officials said she had used "coarse, obscene language in front of other citizens, and was behaving rudely and defiantly". The officials further claimed that she violently resisted arrest. On 29 January she was reportedly found guilty and sentenced to 14 days in jail. Things appeared to change after she filed a complaint about her arrest with the court. The FSB now claims that she donated money to Razom, a Ukrainian aid charity based in New York City, on the day of Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The White House said it is aware of the reported arrest and has been trying to get more information. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} After the death of Alexei Navalny, jailed British-Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza has become the face of the anti-Kremlin resistance. The 42-year-old University of Cambridge graduate was arrested in April 2022 hours after CNN broadcast an interview in which he said Russia was being run by a regime of murderers. A year later, he was sentenced to 25 years in a Siberian penal colony in the Omsk region, where he now resides in a punishment cell only three metres long and one-and-a-half metres wide, nearly 6,000 miles from his wife and children living in the US. It remains the longest sentence handed down to a Kremlin critic since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. After the death of Mr Navalny earlier this month in the Arctic Circle penal colony where he was being held, fears have been voiced over the increased risk facing Russian political prisoners such as Mr Kara-Murza. Grigory Vaypan, a senior lawyer at Memorial, Russias oldest human rights group, and laureate of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize for his defence of political prisoners, said the risk of death facing Mr Kara-Murza is higher than ever. Prominent government critics now face increased risks to their lives in Russian prisons. The more prominent the critic, the higher the risk, he told The Independent. This risk is now manifest in the case of Kara-Murza, whom the Russian government already tried to murder twice. As Mr Kara-Murzas wife Evgenia, 43, arrives in London to meet UK foreign secretary David Cameron to enlist his help in negotiating her husbands release, we have a look at the new face of the Russian opposition. Who is Vladimir Kara-Murza? The opposition politician, who is also a historian and a journalist, comes from a long line of Russian critics. His father, journalist and television host Vladimir Alexeyevich Kara-Murza, was an outspoken critic of Leonid Brezhnev, a Soviet Union leader, and a prominent supporter of reforms under Boris Yeltsin in the post-Soviet 1990s. Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza (C) arrives with his wife Yevgenia for a hearing of the US Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs on Capitol Hill March 29, 2017 (AFP/Getty) He attended school in Moscow before his mother remarried a British man and Mr Kara-Murza moved to England as a teenager. He worked numerous roles in London as a journalist for independent Russian outlets before attending Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge, where he studied History. He entered Russian politics in the late 1990s as Vladimir Putin was quietly ascending the ranks of the Kremlin to the presidency at the turn of the millennium. He voted against Vladimir Putin in the 2000 election. Mr Kara-Murza later became an advisor to government opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered in Moscow outside the Kremlin in 2015. By this point, Mr Kara-Murza had become heavily involved in Russian opposition politics, working alongside key dissident figures such as oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovksy, chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov and Mr Nemstov. The Kremlin crackdown French Ambassador to Russia Pierre L'vy lays flowers at the place where Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned in 2015 (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.) In 2015, the same year that his political mentor Mr Nemstov was killed, Mr Kara-Murza was poisoned in what his wife says was a Kremlin assassination attempt. He survived that attempt on his life, only to be poisoned a second time two years later. Evgenia Kara-Murza remembers the moment he came out of his second coma. They were in a Moscow hospital in the Intensive Care Unit. It was their 13th wedding anniversary. He was lying there, looking just like what someone who had been through multiple organ failure would look like, she said. He said that he was so sorry about what had happened because he was hoping to travel to Quebec for a few days with me. Just the two of us. I just looked at him and said: What are you talking about? You are alive. That is the best gift I could hope for. In February 2021, a Bellingcat joint investigation alleged that Mr Kara-Murza had been followed by the same FSB unit that allegedly poisoned Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent in 2020. He has since developed polyneuropathy, a nerve condition that affects his ability to feel his feet and hands. His wife says it was brought on by the poisoning attempts. The invasion of Ukraine Ukrainian soldiers defending their position near Avdiivka in the Donetsk region (EPA) Mr Kara-Murza was one of a small number of opposition politicians who remained active in Russia after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and publicly condemned the war in defiance of new censorship laws. After three speeches made in Lisbon, Helsinki and Washington, during which he condemned the invasion, Mr Kara-Murza was arrested outside his house in Moscow on 22 April 2022. He was declared a foreign agent and accused of spreading false information about the actions of the Russian military in Ukraine in connection with a speech he had given the previous month in the Arizona House of Representatives, where he said Putin was dropping cluster bombs on residential areas, mothers homes, hospitals, and schools. In July later that year, he was additionally charged over his involvement with two foreign-based opposition forums that are labelled by the Russian state as undesirable. Finally, on 6 October, he was charged with treason. Prosecutors requested a 25-year jail term, which he would later receive in April 2023. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A quarter of the population in Gaza is one step from famine and it is suffering from the worst levels of child malnutrition in the world the United Nations has said, as aid groups warned a ceasefire is the last chance for sanity and humanity to prevail. Addressing the Security Council on Wednesday, top UN officials said at least 576,000 people are on the cusp of starvation while virtually the entire 2.3 million strong population is in desperate need of food. If nothing changes a famine is imminent, deputy executive director of World Food Programme Carl Skau warned. Among the worst affected are those who remain in the north of the besieged enclave, where aid has barely been delivered in months, because of the heavy destruction from Israels ferocious bombardment and a crippling siege. Painting an apocalyptic picture, Mr Skau said desperation there was so acute civil order had almost entirely broken down. It has led to WFP suspending aid deliveries after several convoys were stopped by checkpoints, gunfire and other violence as desperate citizens looted food. At their destination, they were overwhelmed by desperately hungry people, he said. The breakdown in civil order, driven by sheer desperation, is preventing the safe distribution of aid and we have a duty to protect our staff. Israel has repeatedly denied there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, despite the overwhelming evidence of a growing catastrophe. Israels deputy UN ambassador Brett Miller told the Security Council on Wednesday that Israel is doing all it can to care for civilians, and is working constantly to ensure the entry of humanitarian aid from numerous countries and UN agencies. Since October, Israel has facilitated the delivery of 254,000 tons of humanitarian aid including 165,000 tons of food, he said. UN officials warn people will starve to death (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) But speaking to The Independent from southern Gaza, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, described scenes of similar scenes of aid trucks being mobbed by groups of civilians even as they came through the Egyptian border with Rafah. At one point he said he witnessed gunfire being shot in the air to deter looting. People are really now at their limit, he said. There are obviously a lot of traumatised people who are now fighting each other for the last crumbs. He described watching a queue of one thousand starving people. They have been lining up for hours because there was a rumour that someone there has chicken. Never ever in my life as a humanitarian have I seen a trapped population that has been bombarded so intensively for so long, he said. There are more dead children here than anywhere in recent memory in any conflict. Israel launched a ferocious ground and air assault of Gaza and imposed a crippling total siege, in retaliation for the 7 October bloody attack on southern Israel by Hamas. Militants killed over 1000 people and took more than 240 people hostage, of which more than half remain in Gaza. Since then Palestinian health officials say that Israels bombardment has killed nearly 30,000 people, the vast majority women and children. A ceasefire is a last chance for some sanity and humanity to prevail Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council Over 60 percent of Gazas homes and buildings have been destroyed or damaged, and around three quarters of the population are displaced. At least 1.5 million are living in Rafah in makeshift houses and tents as it is the last refuge left in the 42-km long enclave. Many have been displaced multiple times from other parts of Gaza and have told The Independent they have nowhere else to go. Israel has repeatedly threatened a ground assault into the town, which it calls the last stronghold of Hamas, despite UN warnings this would amount to slaughter/ Mr Egeland said an attack on Rafah would be a stain on the conscience of not just Israel but on the countries that have provided arms, including the UK, the US and Germany. The families of 136 remaining hostages held by Hamas militants in Gaza have also expressed alarm, telling The Independent they are desperately worried their loved ones could also be killed in the bombardment. Pressure is mounting on all sides to agree a ceasefire deal particularly before the holy month of Ramadan, which begins on 10 March and when tensions across the Middle East are expected to flare. President Joe Biden indicated a deal is imminent, while Downing Street said a truce is within reach. But Israel, Hamas and the Qatari negotiators tasked with nailing down the details sounded more cautious. Hamas officials said there were still big gaps to bridge. ONU-GEN ISRAEL-PALESTINOS ONU (AP) Israel has said any deal with Hamas would require the group to drop outlandish demands. While Qatar foreign ministry officials said they were hopeful but not optimistic of a deal this week. Hamas is weighing a proposal, agreed by Israel at talks with mediators in Paris, for a 40-day ceasefire that would form the first extended truce of the five-month-old war. A senior source close to the talks told Reuters Israeli troops would pull out of populated areas under the agreement. But it did not appear to meet Hamass demand for a permanent end to the war and Israeli withdrawal, or resolve the fate of fighting-age Israeli men among those being held by Hamas.Delays to a truce are costing lives inside Gaza as the population at breaking point, said Mr Egeland who described visiting an industrial building site in Rafah where 27,000 displaced people were living in tents and a school where over 4600 were crushed into classrooms and corridors with just 16 broken overflowing toilets. This cannot last for a minute more as it is. There has to be a ceasefire, there has to be general access for supplies, he said. It is a last chance for some sanity and humanity to prevail. Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyTech email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Nasaspacecraft almost smashed into a Russian satellite, narrowly missing a disastrous collision, the space agency has said. Overnight, Nasa had released an urgent alert, warning that it and the US Department of Defense were monitoring a potential collision. While it noted they were expected to miss each other, it warned that a collision could result in significant debris generation. The Nasa spacecraft involved was its Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics Mission, or TIMED. That is a spacecraft launched in 2001, and it has been in orbit since. It studies how the Sun and humans are changing the least explored and understood region of Earths atmosphere the mesosphere and lower thermosphere / ionosphere. That is the part of the atmosphere where the Suns energy first arrives in the Earths environemnt. It was in danger of colliding with Cosmos 2221, an unused Russian satellite that was launched in 1992. Hours after it released that alert, Nasa said the two had safely passed each other. While the two non-maneuverable satellites will approach each other again, this was their closest pass in the current predicted orbit determinations, as they are gradually moving apart in altitude, it wrote in an update. Leolabs, a space data company that tracks objects in orbit, described the event as too close for comfort. The two had missed each other by less than 20 meters, it said. This event is notable because it is rare, it wrote on Twitter, saying there had been only six similar events in the last two years. The crash could have throw up to 7,000 fragments out into space, potentially increasing the amount of debris in low-Earth orbit by 50 per cent. That debris could potentially have crashed into other satellites but also have endangered human spaceflight, it said. Experts have repeatedly warned of the danger posed by the large amount of satellites and other material in space, much of which is space junk. Some fear that it could eventually make it difficult or impossible to get into space. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} Two recent inflight brawls both on Ryanair flights from Edinburgh to Tenerife have drawn renewed attention to the problems of drink-fuelled air rage. On the first occasion, Spanish police arrested the perpetrators on arrival in the Canary Islands. On the second, the plane from Scotlands capital was diverted to Porto in Portugal for the troublesome passengers to be offloaded. Passengers on these and many other flights have spoken out about their scary ordeal as violence erupted in a confined environment. Air rage threatens the safety of passengers and crew. The European Union Air Safety Agency (EASA) says: Any kind of unruly or disruptive behaviour whether related to intoxication, aggression or other factors introduces an unnecessary risk to the normal operation of a flight. Many of these incidents are fuelled by excess alcohol. Drunkenness and disruption draw the crew away from their normal safety duties. They also cause a potential hazard in the event of an emergency evacuation when every passenger needs their wits about them. Amy Leversidge, general secretary of the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa), told The Independent: These sorts of things are really distracting to the cabin crew and the pilots. Theres lots more that could be done to make sure that theres a good culture and good behaviours on the flight. How bad is the problem, and what are the possible solutions? These are the key questions and answers. Is there such a thing as a typical case of air rage? EASA asserts: Unruly passengers threaten the safety of 1,000 flights a year. That is an average of almost three a day. Every month, on average, a flight has to make an emergency landing due to unruly behaviour. Every incident is different, but many involve alcohol as a contributory factor. The ban on smoking and vaping, as well as the anxiety some people feel about flying, can contribute to a travellers stress. Alcohol is often considered an alternative. A disruptive passenger typically boards an aircraft after having had several drinks, and proceeds to consume more on board either provided by the cabin crew or surreptitiously swigged from duty-free bottles. Their behaviour may be exacerbated by drugs. The individual can then become loud and aggressive, possibly threatening cabin crew and other passengers. What are the rules on drinking on planes? You cannot be drunk aboard an aircraft: you are not allowed to board a plane if you are intoxicated, nor drink excessively once on a flight. The maximum penalty under UK law is a 5,000 fine and two years in prison or up to five years in jail if the culprit is found guilty of endangering the safety of an aircraft. The Civil Aviation Authority says: Airlines have a right to refuse to carry passengers that they consider to be a potential risk to the safety of the aircraft, its crew or its passengers. But that doesnt stop a fair number of people boarding planes after several drinks and consuming more alcohol once flying. How easily available is alcohol to airline passengers? In the UK and many other nations, drinking is feasible from the moment you arrive at an airport. At a typical British airport, bars are open landside (before the security check) and, more particularly, airside (after security) from first thing in the morning until the last flight departs. Many travellers regard a drink while they wait for their (possibly delayed) plane as an essential part of the holiday experience. Hospitality businesses at the airports welcome the spending, as do airports which take a substantial slice of the revenue and use it to keep passenger charges down. An increasing trend is for passengers to pay a flat fee for entry to an airport lounge in which alcohol is available sometimes in unlimited quantities. Some holiday companies are including free lounge access as part of their offer to customers. In addition, duty-free sales, particularly of miniatures of vodka, whisky or gin can provide an additional supply of alcohol, at least for those who ignore the requirement for them to be exported intact to the final destination. Once on board the plane, passengers are typically either offered free drinks by cabin crew or invited to buy them. Can you drink your own alcohol on board? No according to almost every airlines rules. Jet2, which has long been tackling alcohol-fuelled disruptive behaviour on its flights, says: You may not bring on board alcohol for the purposes of consumption whilst on the aircraft. Only alcoholic drinks purchased on board may be consumed during the flight. This does not have quite the status of a law. But since it is implied to be a command from the captain, all passengers are expected to obey it. Some airlines have made an exception. For example, in the past Royal Brunei has positively encouraged travellers to bring their own alcohol on board with cabin crew serving mixers as required to passengers. Whats the solution? Passengers need to be made to understand that tanking yourself up in the terminal isnt going to get your holiday off to a good start, a senior member of cabin crew for a budget airline told The Independent. At the departure gate, ground staff could breathalyse passengers who are suspected of being over the drink-driving limit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. This corresponds to about two pints of beer, or two glasses of wine, or two double-measures of spirits for men less for women. It is regarded as a reasonable limit for a passenger. Once on board, consumption of alcohol could be more strictly policed though cabin crew duties are already onerous. To stop travellers surreptitiously drinking their own supplies in flight, duty-free drink could be sealed in a security tamper evident bag (known in the trade as a Steb), making it tougher for passengers to open and consume alcohol. There could even be a check at the end of the flight to identify anyone who has broken the seals. Anything else? Some effective persuasion could come from making examples of people who cause trouble for example by pursuing them through the courts for the costs arising from a diversion. The CAA says: Diversion costs typically range from 10,000 to 80,000 depending on the size of the aircraft and where it diverts to. Long term, perhaps alcohol will be banned from airports and/or airlines. Such a move would be deeply unpopular: many people, especially me, relish a drink while waiting for a plane and once on board. Many people believe it is reasonable to consume alcohol in moderation and that they are able to behave decently after a couple of drinks. But smoking was also once permitted. In the late 1980s, British Airways even handed out cigars to passengers on Concorde after their meals. BA started banning smoking on its flights in 1990, and by the end of the 20th century the habit was banned more or less globally. The habit is now regarded as entirely unacceptable. Views can change swiftly and, heaven forbid, were there to be a fatal incident involving drink-fuelled air rage, calls for a ban will increase. Is alcohol banned on any transport? Yes. A significant number of airlines ban alcohol completely. The national carrier for Saudi Arabia says: Saudia does not serve or permit passengers to carry or drink alcoholic beverages on its flights. Egyptair has a more opaque policy, saying: You are not allowed to consume alcohol onboard our aircraft (whether purchased as duty free from us or someone else or otherwise obtained) unless it has been served to you by us. Consuming alcohol or carrying an open container of alcohol is banned on ScotRail and at stations in Scotland; on trains and buses in Northern Ireland; and on Londons public transport. ScotRail introduced an alcohol ban in 2020 when staff reported there were significant numbers of drunk passengers were ignoring Covid rules. Forty months on its still in place. No alcohol can be drunk at any station in Scotland or on board any ScotRail train, and passengers must not carry visible alcohol though alcohol can be carried in a bag where it cannot be seen. Alcohol is banned on some non-ScotRail trains in Scotland, and on some services in England and Wales particularly around major sporting events. The 9.52am departure on Fridays from Aberdeen to Newcastle on LNER is also singled out for attention. The train operator says: We expect a number of large groups to be travelling on this train, so to help make it a pleasant experience for everyone, we'll be operating an alcohol-free policy for part of the journey. This means that alcohol cannot be brought onto or purchased on board our trains at any stop between Aberdeen and Newcastle. Passengers tempted to try to sneak drink on board are warned: Customers may be searched before boarding. Listen to Amy Leversidge, general secretary of the pilots union, Balpa, talking to Simon Calder Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Jet2 aircraft travelling from Tenerife South to Birmingham had to make an emergency landing after smoke was reportedly seen inside the cabin. Flight LS1266, which departed on 22 February, sounded a red alert after cabin crew were alerted to the issue. The Airbus A321neo was duly diverted to Faro Airport in Portugal, where all 220 passengers were safely removed. According to Birmingham Live, the incident prompted a major response, with 80 firefighters, police and civil protection forces present at the scene. A relief aircraft, a Boeing 757, was arranged to transport the stranded passengers home to Birmingham. It touched down in the city shortly before midnight on the same day, more than six hours after its scheduled arrival time. The affected plane remained in Faro, returning to Birmingham the following day. A spokesperson for the budget airline said: Flight LS1266 from Tenerife to Birmingham followed standard procedure and diverted to Faro on February 22 due to a minor technical issue. The aircraft landed safely and customers continued their journey to Birmingham on a replacement aircraft. The news comes days after Jet2 was ranked top in Which?s annual customer satisfaction survey of the best airline providers. The airline scored five stars for customer service, with passengers stating that cabins were clean and well-maintained, and that boarding was well organised. Of those polled, 80 per cent of Jet2 fliers said they had no problems with the airline and that when they do, its usually sorted out with friendly efficiency. Customer scores were based on overall satisfaction and the likelihood to recommend. British Airways was named the worst airline provider in the survey. Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays, said: So many consecutive years of achieving Which?s prestigious Recommended Provider status, on top of being the only UK airline to receive this accolade, demonstrates how we lead the industry when it comes to delivering exceptional customer service. We are incredibly grateful for the praise that our customers have given us in the survey, and I would like to applaud the brilliant teams across our business who are responsible for us consistently achieving such feedback. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A Ryanair flight from Edinburgh to Tenerife was forced to divert for an emergency landing in Portugal after multiple passengers became disruptive and started fighting mid-flight. In a huge brawl, the passengers hurled insults and bottles at one another and had to be separated by powerless cabin crew just two hours into the almost five-hour flight. Terrified children onboard flight FR2969 were reportedly in tears over the ordeal. Footage captured from inside the cabin shows a man and woman pointing and yelling at each other to, Shut up, shut the f*** up. The man responds: It was f***ing your man. When another female passenger attempted to diffuse the situation, the enraged woman shouted back: Shut up you little c***. Shut the f*** up. The rowdy passengers were removed from the plane by police in Porto, Portugal before the plane continued its journey to the Canary Islands two hours behind schedule. One passenger called the out of control trip, the worst flight of my life. A Ryanair spokesperson said: This flight from Edinburgh to Tenerife (25 Feb) diverted to Porto when a small number of passengers became disruptive onboard. Crews called ahead for police assistance and the aircraft was met by local police upon arrival who removed these passengers before this flight continued to Tenerife. This is now a matter for local police. Its the second disorderly incident on the Edinburgh to Tenerife flightpath in the last week. Two men were removed from a Ryanair plane by Spanish police after a fight erupted onboard the same route just five days earlier. A series of similar incidents plagued the budget Irish carrier last year. Police officers removed a drunk man from a Ryanair flight after he started a fight onboard in September, and a woman was filmed clashing with fellow passengers before being escorted off a plane in August. Alexei Navalnys wife has claimed Russian leader Vladimir Putin killed, tortured and starved her husband, saying he is capable of anything. Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg today (28 February), Yulia Navalnaya said: Putin killed my husband, Alexei Navalny. On his orders, Alexei was tortured for three years. He was starved in a tiny stone cell, cut off from the outside world and denied visits, phone calls and then even letters. The funeral of the Russian opposition leader, who died earlier this month in a remote Arctic penal colony, will take place on Friday in Moscow, his spokesperson said. North Carolina could flip blue this November, for the first time since Obama won the state in 2008. And whos tasked with making that happen? A 26-year-old from rural Roxboro, North Carolina. Anderson Clayton, the youngest state chair in the country, could be the answer for the Biden-Harris campaign as they struggle to whip up enthusiasm among the 41 million Gen Z eligible to vote in 2024. As the Democrats began to roll out surrogates for the president, we travelled to North Carolina to see how young voters are feeling about voting in the oldest presidential election in history. A British man was filmed trying to walk into Russia to see a woman he met on the internet, the Polish Border Guard said. Officials said the 37-year-old man arrived at the road border crossing in Grzechotki on 23 February without a visa or vehicle registration certificate to enter Russia. He claimed that he wanted to go to St Petersburg to visit his fiancee he met online, the border guard added, but was not permitted to cross without the required documents. After being turned away, the man tried to cross into the country on foot through woodland roads before being detained and fined. Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell was a U.S. Air Force airman who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. The 25 year old posted a video online before the incident stating he did not want to be complicit in genocide regarding the war in Gaza. Bushnells last words were Free Palestine. On 27 February 2024, mourners gathered in front of the Army Recruitment Office in Times Square to celebrate the life of Aaron Bushnell and continue his mission to support Palestine in this time of war. A killer older brother who pleaded guilty in his disabled brothers starvation death retched as he was sentenced on Monday, 26 February, to a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 100 in prison. Paul Ferguson, 21, from Michigan, pleaded guilty to first-degree child abuse in the death of Timothy Ferguson, 15, who was autistic and had speech and motor disabilities. Paul and Timothys mother, Shanda Vander Ark, 44, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted of murder and child abuse. Paul and Vander Ark subjected Timothy to ice baths, deprived him of sleep, fed him hot sauce, and locked the fridge and food cupboards, prosecutors said. He died from malnourishment and hypothermia. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice I managed to cycle from the supposed no-go area of Tower Hamlets to Westminster this morning. The most shocking thing I saw was a fetching pair of pinstripe leggings overtaking me. I was surprised when Paul Scully, the former business minister and a Conservative moderate, said to BBC London that if you look at parts of Tower Hamlets there are no-go areas. I have lived in the east London borough most of my adult life and can say that he was talking rubbish. But then, it wasnt clear what he was saying. He said there were no-go areas in Tower Hamlets and parts of Birmingham Sparkhill, mainly because of doctrine, mainly because of people using, abusing in many ways, their religion He bumbled to a conclusion of sorts: That, I think, is the concern that needs to be addressed. He seemed to be suggesting that in places where a lot of Muslims live, some non-Muslims feel uncomfortable about it, but like many other Conservative MPs in the past few days, including the prime minister and the minister for illegal immigration, the more he tried to explain where he stood on the issue of Islamophobia, the less sense he made. Personally, I preferred the robust good sense of Boris Johnson (yes, really) when he told Donald Trump to take a running jump over similar comments in 2015. Trump, who was then the Republican frontrunner for the presidency, called for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States, claiming police in cities such as London and Paris were afraid for their lives because of large Muslim populations. Johnson hit back, saying: The only reason I wouldnt go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump. But Trumps ignorance about London is more understandable than Scullys. Scully is the MP for Sutton and Cheam, right on the edge of Greater London, but it is still London, and he works in central London. When Scullys comments provoked an outraged reaction including from Andy Street, the Tory mayor of the West Midlands, and Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for next door to Sparkhill he returned to the BBC studio and tied himself in more knots: If Ive spoken mistakenly or created division, then I apologise, but there are a handful of people who will always seek offence and there are people who come in behind that. But it still wasnt clear what he was trying to say: Its right that we have a conversation about why a very small minority whether its Muslims, whether its gangs or disaffected people in other areas are creating fear. It looked like he probably realised that this was beginning to sound as if he was endorsing Islamophobia, and tried to back off. Just as Rishi Sunak wants to avoid using the word Islamophobia to describe the comments made about Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, by Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chair. The prime minister wants to leave the way open for Anderson to come back to the Tory party and calling him an Islamophobe would make that harder. Mind you, it looks as if that battle is a lost cause. Anderson was defiant yesterday, refusing to apologise for saying that Khan was controlled by Islamists, in an interview in which he also said Islamists have got control of Starmer as well. Anderson said he wouldnt apologise to Khan while Ive got a breath in my body. It sounds as if he has left the Tory party behind and intends to fight the next election as an independent or Reform candidate which makes sense, as he has almost no chance of holding Ashfield as a Conservative. Meanwhile, Sunak is left floundering, seemingly unable to identify Islamophobia in his own party. This failure to use plain language meant that Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal immigration, had a difficult time on TV this morning when he condemned Andersons words for being wrong but couldnt say what was wrong about them. Let me help him, because to me its clear: what Anderson said was Islamophobic. What Scully said was Islamophobic. Tower Hamlets is not a no-go area. As in many parts of London, there are a lot of Palestinian flags, which could be merely expressing support for a two-state settlement in the Middle East they are just flags, and can be interpreted in many ways. They could even be intended to rebuke Hamas for doing so much damage to the Palestinian cause. But disagreeing about politics does not make a place no go. Stateline Transport loses appeal despite warning of catastrophic effect on economy if facility ceases operation A Dublin company has until April 5 to close a major operation in the capital that stores about 20pc of the container freight that passes through Dublin Port after it lost an appeal to keep the unauthorised facility open. Stateline Transport has lost the appeal against a High Court ruling that ordered it to cease illegally storing as many as 2,000 freight containers at the site. The company which has no planning permission for the operation - warned that closing it could have catastrophic consequences for the Irish economy. Stateline, owned by the Brady family, developed a two-acre site in Ballymun leased from Tesco at a cost of 850,000 as a storage site despite a flagrant breach of planning laws and continued development of the site even after Fingal County Council had told it to stop, the court noted. It is difficult to regard the making of such a significant investment in a site which did not have planning permission for the business the appellant was running on it as anything other than a deliberate breach of the planning laws, said the Court of Appeal. In a judgment last November, the High Court declared the development by Stateline to be unauthorised and ordered the activity at the site to cease. The court granted a four week stay in the event of an appeal, and thereafter, allowed a period of six weeks for the removal of the containers on the site. The court refused a request from Stateline to give it until October this year to remove the containers. The company had contended that it was in the public interest to allow continued use of the site for the storage of freight containers as it insisted it was an important part of the transport logistics infrastructure in Ireland. Stateline claimed that due to a shortage of container space in Dublin, the costs and delays that would arise if its customers had to look elsewhere for storage facilities could present a systemic shock to Irelands imports and exports, with catastrophic effects for the regional and wider Irish economy, producers and consumers. The company maintained that the High Court did not correctly apply principles of discretion available to it in respect of section 160 of the planning and development act, which allows any person or planning authority to seek through the High Court or Circuit Court an order requiring an unauthorised development to cease or not to proceed with it. Today's News in 90 Seconds - February 28th That discretion, argued the company, would allow the High Court to postpone the coming into effect of a relevant order under section 160 in a manner that would allow development that has been found to be unauthorised to continue. Stateline relied on evidence, including an affidavit provided by US-based economics expert Dr Constantin Gurdgiev, who is an adjunct professor of finance at Trinity College, in the High Court. It contended that the High Court had failed to give the company a fair opportunity of dealing with concerns regarding that evidence raised by the Court before rejecting it. The High Court had expressed concerns about the basis upon which Dr Gurdgiev was instructed in circumstances where Stateline had not adduced any independent evidence of the claimed public interest in the unauthorised development prior to the hearing and that his report was produced in less than six days. UK listed oil explorer Lansdowne Oil & Gas is seeking funders to back its challenge to the Irish government decision not to renew the Barryroe exploration licence off the Cork coast. Lansdowne believes it is entitled to compensation for a Government decision taken in May last year to refuse an exploration licence at the prospective Barryroe oil field. In an statement issued via the London Stock Exchange Lansdowne Oil & Gas said it has appointed Mantle Law, an international law firm with offices in London and the United Arab Emirates to progress a legal claim against Ireland under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), an international agreement negotiated in the 1990s that was designed to protect energy investors and sets dispute resolution procedures. It said Mantle Law and the company are in the process of contacting litigation funders, with a view to providing third-party finance to fund a ECT claim and resulting arbitration process. Given the lack of engagement or any ability to have a respectful and frank conversation with the Irish Government, the Company believes it now has no alternative other than to pursue vigorously its ECT claim, Lansdowne said. The Irish Government has never faced a claim under the ECT regime, which is a form of international arbitration. Today's News in 90 Seconds - February 27th Barryroe Offshore Energy which controlled 80pc of the field was told its application to pursue the development project in the SEL1/11 licence area 50km off the south-west coast of Ireland had been turned down. Barryroe believed the oil and gas field could hold billions of euro worth of fossil fuels. Work at the site, which would have been Irelands first commercial oil well, has been subject to numerous delays over the last decade before Environment Minister Eamon Ryan refused to grant a lease for further exploration of the field. Lansdowne owns a 20pc stake in the project, which is rendered effectively worthless if work is unable to progress. Lansdowne has previously said that unless some form of compensation or restitution is offered, the State will be in breach of its obligations under the ECT and the company will pursue a claim if needed. Cormac Keenan, who heads the social media giants global trust and safety division, will step back to become an advisor and non-executive director Cormac Keenan, who runs the tech giants global trust and safety division, is to become a non-executive director and advisor, moving away from his current day-to-day role. He is understood to be doing so for personal reasons. Mr Keenans role will initially be covered by TikToks California-based head of global operations, Adam Presser. However, the company says that its global trust and safety headquarters will remain in Dublin, where its 3,000 staff are currently migrating into new offices. Mr Keenan has been one of TikToks most senior executives for almost four years, heading up one of the social media giants most critical and most scrutinised divisions. Prior to TikTok, he worked at Facebook for 10 years, after a previous career at Google. TikTok has regularly been on the front line of regulatory scrutiny due to its size and its popularity with children. Last week, the European Commission announced that it would open an investigation into the Bytedance-owned company under the recently-introduced Digital Services Act. The Commissions industry chief, Thierry Breton, said that the investigation will focus on the design of TikTok's system, including algorithmic systems which may stimulate behavioural addictions or create so-called 'rabbit hole effects'. The investigation will also probe whether TikTok has put in place appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for children. As well as the issue of protecting minors, the Commission is looking at whether TikTok provides a reliable database on advertisements on its platform so that researchers can scrutinise potential online risks. TikTok is also under investigation from the Irish Data Protection Commission over data transfers between the EU and China. Tech companies have said that their AI systems make fair use of copyrighted material. Photo: PA OpenAI has asked a federal judge to dismiss parts of The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against it, arguing that the newspaper "hacked" its chatbot ChatGPT and other artificial-intelligence systems to generate misleading evidence for the case. Ksenia Samotiy on the emotional experience of watching Glory to the Heroes, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levys documentary film about the Ukrainian war effort Its one thing to know the facts about a war. Its another to see it unfolding with your own eyes. Fortunately, it was only for two hours and it was on screen. Glory to the Heroes is a documentary by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, aka BHL, about the Ukraine war, and it brings it home with an intensity that news articles and Instagram posts have long stopped doing. Last Saturday, 24 February, marked two years since Russias full-scale invasion. It was a difficult day for all Ukrainians, even those of us who are lucky enough to live in safety and lead what might be considered a normal life. It is the anniversary of the day that all our lives were turned upside down, and all of our lives have been in flux ever since, with no end in sight. I started the day as a lot of people do on a Saturday; that is, waking up late. I soon realised that the Walk With Ukraine march was starting in about 40 minutes, so I forced myself out of bed and rushed down to the start point at the GPO. As I got closer, there were ever more people wrapped in the familiar yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag; I got mine out too and joined the crowd. The next two hours were spent walking along Dublins quays and streets towards Merrion Square. As we got to the end, I bumped into my Irish friend, Brian, a member of Pensioners for Ukraine. Ironically, he isnt a pensioner at all; he joins every demonstration he can find in support of Ukraine, and spends a lot of his free time protesting outside the Russian embassy on the appropriately named Orwell Road. The situation in Ukraine is hard right now. Theres not much optimism, and its wonderfully important in times like this to know that there are still people who care It was Brian who suggested I come to the film with him. It wasnt something I had been planning, but Brian talked me into it. Even standing in the cinema foyer in Temple Bar, I wasnt really sure if I could take it especially on that day, when I was already full of so many emotions. Maybe it was the line of ambassadors cars outside of the cinema that made me push on. Maybe I just didnt want to feel like a coward. Either way, Brian accompanied me into the cinema, and Im glad he did. Before the film even started, I was struck by the variety of people in the audience. Sometimes, you go to these things, and perhaps unsurprisingly, nearly everyone there is Ukrainian. But not on Saturday. As well as the diplomats, there were lots of Irish people, and even some people who looked like tourists who had decided to spend some of their time in Dublin seeing a film like this. In a strange way, it cheered me up to witness that level of interest and support about what is happening in my country, even two years on. The situation in Ukraine is hard right now. Theres not much optimism, and its wonderfully important in times like this to know that there are still people who care. Today's News in 90 Seconds - February 28th And so to the film itself. This is BHLs third documentary in a row about Ukraine, and quite possibly not his last. He has set himself the task of, well, documenting the war as simply and frankly as possible. The whole thing is filmed on the Ukrainian frontlines and nearby territories, with BHL narrating events as they unfold. Its a lot to process. Its easy to talk about the front line and our men there, but when you see it so clearly on film, its different. And it mostly makes you want to just shut up. Because no words can describe the full reality of whats going on in the trenches, nor in the flattened cities where many people, particularly the elderly, somehow carry on with their daily lives. Nothing can quite compare to seeing the faces of those fighters who look so normal, so like the boys I went to school with, yet who will never be the same again. ICOS has called on the Government to commission a full impact assessment into the economic and social implications of a further reduction to the Nitrates Derogation. Dairy processors who are worried about potentially stranded assets have called for the Government to create an interdepartmental taskforce that would assess the implication of a further cut to the Nitrates Derogation. The Irish Co-operative Organisation Society Ltd (ICOS) told a meeting of the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee that the Irish Government and the EU had encouraged and supported the development of the Irish dairy sector following the abolition of milk quotas in 2015. Between 2015 and 2022, Irish milk processors invested 1.6bn to handle the 3bn litres of additional milk produced by dairy farmers. An analysis prepared by UCDs Professor Michael Wallace for ICOS, demonstrates the significant reduction in farm profitability arising from a further reduction to the Nitrates Derogation. A dairy farm in Band 3 could see a reduction in net margin by 56pc or 983/ha. The impact will be very similar for an efficient dairy farm in Band 2. ICOS estimates that a typical 94-cow dairy farm producing 500,000 litres of milk in Band 2 will have to reduce its cow numbers by 34pc to comply with a maximum stocking rate of 170 kg/N/ha. A reduction in farm level profitability in this order of magnitude will have very significant consequences for the downstream dairy processing industry, ICOS warned. The co-ops representative acknowledged the need to improve trends in water quality, so as to meet our obligations under the EU Water Framework Directive, but said that the pace of change is extremely significant and that farmers are travelling on a journey that will take time. ICOS also called on the Government to commission a full impact assessment into the economic and social implications of a further reduction to the Nitrates Derogation. It is essential that this analysis be prepared before 2025 when the next negotiations on Irelands derogation commences, ICOS said. Meanwhile, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has dismissed a warning from An Taisce that there will need to be a drastic cut to dairy cow numbers to meet water quality targets in more polluted river catchments. Speaking to the Farming Independent, he said he does not agree with the NGOs Head of Advocacy Dr Elaine McGoff, who called for the new measures in light of Teagascs own modelling. The bottom line is our lands and farming has the capacity to utilise nutrients much more so than other countries, Minister McConalogue said. The committee that will make recommendations on whether Ireland should introduce assisted dying legislation has been urged to consider those who have no time to wait or waste. The call came from the organisation End-of-Life Ireland, which is made up of volunteers who advocate for voluntary assisted dying. An all-party committee that held public hearings is due to produce a report on their recommendations next month or in April. Janie Lazar, chair of End-of-Life Ireland, said: There are hundreds of people living with terminal illness or enduring unbearable suffering all over Ireland. Many of these people, we know, would like the choice to end their lives when its right for them. They also want to know they could have help from their loved ones without the awful prospect of those people facing any legal action for helping them. These are the people we want the Oireachtas committee members to think about as they prepare their report. Legislative change is needed, but the outcome can be one where people in desperate need of support, and their families, are what is most important. Irish people have demonstrated a great ability to weigh up legal changes with compassion in a series of referendums over the past decade. Time and again they have chosen to allow people to live their lives in a supportive legal framework. Now recent research tells us that a majority would choose to allow people to end their lives and suffering in a supportive legal framework. It has already been established that a referendum is not required to address this topic, so the first step towards putting this programme in place would be a recommendation from the joint Oireachtas committee to propose the set up of an implementation group on voluntary assisted dying. This is what we put forward when we spoke at the committee hearings and this is what we want to see in the report next month. End-of-Life Ireland, along with Irish Doctors Supporting MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying), will bring the World Federation of Right to Die Societies International Conference to Dublin from September 19-21. With international speakers and delegates coming from across the globe, the opportunity for Ireland to tap into this expertise and learn from the lived experience is timely, Ms Lazar said. Former soldier (66) charged with murder of Kerry gun dealer Patrick OMahony (83) Accused Thomas Carroll being brought into the courthouse in Tralee in connection with Paddy OMahonys death Ralph Riegel and Tadhg Evans Wed 28 Feb 2024 at 15:50 A former Defence Forces soldier has been charged with the murder of Kerry grandfather and gun dealer Patrick 'Paddy' O'Mahony (83). Prosecutors have been given more time to prepare their case against a nephew of Gerry "The Monk" Hutch accused of breaking into his neighbours' house and assaulting them. There were dozens of CCTV cameras, but no clue where she is disappearance of Jean Tighe four years ago was plagued by confusion from the start Sarah McCabe was not in a good place emotionally at the time A student punched a garda in the face and screamed abuse at him when he found her drunk and slumped against a wall on a Dublin street. Sarah McCabe (21), who had been out celebrating with friends, became extremely aggressive and struck the garda, who was seriously affected by the assault. Crime New victim comes forward with claims against Bill Kenneally and says detective advised him to drop allegations The number of fungating breast tumours doubled during the pandemic. Stock image. Photo: PA Delays in referring patients during the worst years of the Covid-19 pandemic and a fear of attending medical facilities are likely to be the cause of a twofold increase in women seen with locally advanced breast cancer, a new study has revealed. The look-back study was carried out by doctors in Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, one of the countrys main centres for treating cancer. The doctors found the total number of cancers presenting as fungating breast tumours where a tumour growing under the skin breaks through the surface and creates a wound more than doubled during the pandemic to 25. The authors said ordinarily, 2pc to 5pc of locally advanced breast cancers develop a fungating wound. Patients presenting with such advanced tumours in Ireland have traditionally been low however this study demonstrates that this has increased twofold during the pandemic years, it study said. The retrospective observational study was performed on all patients presenting with breast cancer at Beaumont from January 2017 to December 2021, with the pandemic declared in March 2020. Pandemic-related delays in referral of patients and fear of attending medical facilities likely accounted for the increased incidence of fungating tumour presentations during the pandemic period, the study said. The rise may result in a detrimental effect on recurrence rates, as well as disease-free survival rates of the next five to 10 years. Overall, the yearly number of cancer diagnoses was higher in the pandemic era, at 378 per year versus 332, the study in the Irish Medical Journal reported. Cases of ductal carcinoma in situ, the earliest form of breast cancer and non-invasive, were unchanged at 7pc . The incidence of stage one and two cancers increased by 10pc in the pandemic era. This is likely to be explained by the closure of BreastCheck services during the pandemic and the subsequent diversion of early tumours towards the hospital setting, the study said. The mean stage three and four breast cancers remained comparable across both periods. The study said the pandemic had detrimental effects on diagnostic pathways among both patients with breast cancer symptoms and those coming forward for screening. The pandemic also had a negative impact on screening, presentation, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of breast cancer. Catherine Martin was aware Siun Ni Raghallaigh was likely to resign as RTE chair before the Media Minister went on Prime Time and failed to express confidence in her. In a shock disclosure to the Oireachtas Media Committee last night, Ms Martin said Ms Ni Raghallaigh had indicated she might resign if she received a letter inviting her to a meeting last Friday to discuss inaccurate information she gave to the minister about exit packages for top executives. She was indicating she might resign if I sent a letter. But I was just hopeful that shed reflect and think and have a meeting with me, Ms Martin told the committee. Ms Martin said she was flabbergasted by the former chairs threat to resign. I was hoping that was just a rash comment because I couldnt understand how someone would try to tell the minister how to manage their work I was flabbergasted, she said. Ms Martin claimed she tried her best not to express no confidence in Ms Ni Raghallaigh in the subsequent interview on RTEs Prime Time programme, which ultimately precipitated the chairs resignation in the early hours of last Friday morning and plunged the national broadcaster into a fresh crisis. Amid criticism of her actions from government members of the committee, Ms Martin defended her position and said Ms Ni Raghallaighs stance had been quite problematic from a confidence point of view if a chair is unwilling to receive a letter from the minister. Ms Martin also cast doubt on Ms Ni Raghaillagh and RTEs claim that the boards role in approving exit packages had been communicated to the department last October. She said the former chair told a department official last Thursday that she imagined she would have mentioned it in a call with Katherine Licken, the former secretary general, last October. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on RTE director general Kevin Bakhurst over his role in the controversial exit payments for former top executives at the broadcaster. Ms Martin repeatedly criticised Ms Ni Raghallaigh for failing to give her accurate information on numerous occasions over the last eight months in last nights dramatic late-evening hearing of the Oireachtas Media Committee. The role of Mr Bakhurst in the affair is now under the spotlight after two government senators signalled they had no confidence in him at the tense committee meeting in Leinster House. Ms Martin told the meeting she could not as a minister depend on accurate information from Ms Ni Raghallaigh as she outlined her side of events leading up to the former chairs resignation The Green Party deputy leader also came under attack from government and opposition members for drawing distinction between Ms Ni Raghallaigh and Mr Bakhurst, who was in the same meetings where Ms Martin said she was given inaccurate information about the role of the RTE boards remuneration committee in signing off on an undisclosed exit package for former chief financial officer Richard Collins. She was criticised by Fianna Fail senator Shane Cassells, who said it was amazing the minister could express confidence in Mr Bakhurst when he had allowed misinformation from the former chair. He said it was not consistent for only the chair to be gone from her office. Fine Gael senator Micheal Carrigy said he did not have confidence in Mr Bakhurst for failing to provide accurate information on the role of the RTE board on signing off on exit packages. Ms Martin also said Ms Ni Raghallaigh had to apologise to her in a meeting on Monday of last week for failing to disclose that she was aware that former strategy director Rory Coveney, who received a six-figure exit package, had not, as previously claimed, resigned last July. She also referenced the fact that the former chair had to apologise last June for failing to disclose that she had asked former director general Dee Forbes to resign over the Ryan Tubridy payments scandal. If I am not getting the correct information, how can I act properly as a minister? How can I be a minister in charge of the facts if the facts are not being given to me? Ms Martin said. She also said it would be helpful if her former secretary general Ms Licken would appear before the committee to answer questions about her knowledge of events. This came after a spokesperson for the Taoiseach said Ms Licken, who retired last month, was being encouraged to attend the committee meeting. Ms Licken did not respond to calls last night. A cabinet source said Ms Martins strategy was to heap blame on the former chair and added they were not sure how thatll go down in RTE. A spokesperson for RTE referred queries about Ms Martins comments at the committee to the RTE board, which did not respond to a request for comment. In the end it was a close-run thing played out to the background sounds of fierce street protests by farmers. The EUs embattled plans to restore nature and wildlife in the coming decades just scraped the bar as they went over in a crucial European Parliament vote. It all means the clock is now ticking for Ireland: we have barely six years to restore 20pc of land and sea habitats by 2030. The follow-up is restoring all damaged habitats by 2050, leading cynics to ask: Do you want anything else with that? The European Parliament approved the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) by a margin of just 54 votes. But 12 of Irelands 14 MEPs backed the law including the five Fine Gael representatives, who broke with their overarching European Peoples Party (EPP) grouping on the issue. This is about bringing nature back to Europe so we can secure livelihoods, food production and economies into the future The EPP is facing severe pressure from hard-right rivals and fears significant losses in the upcoming European Parliament elections in early June. Big numbers of protesting farmers on the streets, including in Ireland, since the start of this year have concentrated minds as the traditional Christian Democrat bloc fears losing its rural hinterland support that was always heavily tied into EU farm supports. Under this new draft law which Ireland had pledged to implement in principle at all events member states have two years to plan the restoration of 20pc of land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems by 2050. Junior minister Malcolm Noonan. Photo: Gareth Chaney/ Collins Photos The NRL must be rubber-stamped by EU environment ministers next month, but yesterdays vote was the real final hurdle it faced. The policy-guiding European Commission says more than 80pc of Europes natural habitats are in very bad shape. But this new watered-down law does provide for member state exemptions, and an emergency brake, allowing for targets for agricultural ecosystems to be temporarily suspended under exceptional circumstances. The junior minister responsible for nature protection, Malcolm Noonan of the Green Party, said Irelands National Biodiversity Plan already sets out ambitious targets. But opposition politicians in Ireland, including Michael Fitzmaurice, from Roscommon-Galway, were sharply critical of a lack of funding to help farmers through losses due to land rewetting and other projects to rewild productive farm lands. Mr Noonan countered that funding will be decided over the coming two years. Officials pointed to the 3.2bn Climate and Nature Fund announced in last years budget. This is due to be legislated for in the comings months and a deal of this funding will be used to pursue these EU stated aims. The Kilkenny Green Party TD has committed to holding a public consultation as part of the Irish planning process to implement the NRL over the coming two years. Dublin Green Party MEP Ciaran Cuffe said the NRL is about bringing nature back to Europe so we can secure livelihoods, food production and economies into the future. But the recently-elected president of the Irish Farmers Association, Francie Gorman, insisted the new EU law is still flawed, saying: Even though legitimate farmer concerns have not been adequately addressed, the EU has pushed ahead with the introduction of the NRL. This will not reassure farmers about the impact of the NRL. The IFA president said farmers are doing more to support nature than any other sector of society. He said that up to one-seventh of farmland is now space for nature, and he also insisted that recent commission law modifications did not go far enough. Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore criticised Sinn Fein MEP Chris MacManus and Independent MEP Luke Ming Flanagan for voting against the NRL in yesterdays European Parliament decision. Mr MacManus later said he voted against the law in error and said he intended to vote in favour of it. But Independent TD Mattie McGrath, of Tipperary, said the law would devastate rural Ireland. The whole process showed how much centre-right EU political parties now feel under pressure from their far-right opponents. Farmers and rural communities were long seen as the mainstay of the EPP to which Fine Gael is allied due to its founding role in the Common Agriculture Policy which has funded rural Europe since 1962. It has led the European Union, whose commission president Ursula von der Leyen belongs to the EPP grouping, to try to meet farmers demands to dilute environment laws and address reducing the paper work facing farmers. But a plague of drought, apparently driven by climate change, across mainland Europe has driven other political groupings, with more urban support bases, to face up to the need for real change in farming practices. Samuel Nunes-Neto has been charged over five arson incidents. Photo: Pro Vision. A YOUNG man charged with criminal damage following a spate of arson attacks across Cork city centre will undergo a psychiatric assessment while in custody. Samuel Nunes-Neto (23), who has no fixed address, appeared before Cork District Court in relation to a spate of fires across five different Cork city centre businesses. Cork City Fire Brigade had to dispatch five appliances to deal with the blazes with significant traffic disruption in Cork city centre as a result at 5pm last Sunday. The defendant now faces a total of five charges of criminal damage. The shops involved in the incidents were on the Patrick Street, Half Moon Street, Opera Lane and Cornmarket Street area of Cork city. High profile outlets involved included TK Maxx, Superdry, Lifestyle Sports, Next and Boots. The damage on the charges related to the clothing at Superdry, Next and TK Maxx, the building structure and clothing at Lifestyle Sports, and damage to shelving, perfumes, cosmetics and toiletries at Boots. Judge Dorgan was not offered any evidence as to the overall cost of the damage involved. There was no application for bail in the case. Sgt Gearoid Davis applied to have the accused remanded in custody to appear again before Cork District Court on March 6. Defence solicitor, Joe Cuddigan, told Judge Mary Dorgan that his client had made full admissions while in custody at the Bridewell Garda Station in Cork city. Those admissions are corroborated by CCTV (that) Gardai took from the various premises. It is true to say that Gardai are not looking for any other person in connection with these incidents. Mr Cuddigan asked that the judge make a recommendation that his client receive a full psychiatric evaluation whilst in custody. He also requested that a preliminary psychiatric report be prepared on Nunes-Neto in prison. Judge Dorgan agreed to his application that a report be prepared in prison. Mr Cuddigan also said that his client had been accessing the support services of the Simon Community. He indicated that certain matters had come to his attention about his client. I have done a certain amount of research with his family as to the mans mental health. Today's News in 90 Seconds - February 28th Det Sgt Colin Greenway was in attendance in court for the hearing but he was not called upon to give prosecution evidence. However, Mr Cuddigan asked for Det Sgt Greenway to be called to the stand to address certain issues. He put it to him that his client had made full admissions while in custody and Det Sgt Greenway confirmed that that was indeed the case. Nunes-Neto was remanded in custody to appear before Cork District Court by video link on March 6. Judge Dorgan directed that the accused receive all appropriate medical assistance during his time in custody. She said that the prison psychiatrist in Cork had been very helpful to date. The defendant, who was wearing a black top and blue jeans, did not speak during the hearing. He will turn 24 years old three days before his next court appearance. Free legal aid was granted in the case. Irish MEP Luke Ming Flanagan has said the online abuse directed at him and his family after his Twitter account was hacked has been very difficult. In a Belgian court today former European parliamentary assistant Diarmuid Hayes, 34, from Dublin admitted hacking the Twitter account of Mr Flanagan and posting a Tweet from his account that referred to Irish Green Party candidate Saoirse McHugh as skinny dipping. The Tweet, posted on September 28, 2020, was posted from a third party app known as TweetDeck without Mr Flanagans knowledge. Mr Flanagan said his family had been put through hell and he was forced to seek therapy due to the online backlash. It has been difficult, not so much for me, its been difficult to watch how difficult its been for my family, he told The Tonight Show. Comments made to me in front of my children at the school gate, obscene pictures that were created on the internet shown to my nine-year-old child. Its been very very difficult. It has affected my children, its affected one of my daughters particularly and its affected me. Maybe some people dont know it, I have autism, and life can be challenging enough without having to deal with rubbish like this. Mr Flanagan said the abuse he received since the Tweet was sent from his account was relentless. In court today he said he hadnt expected it to do so much damage, he said it peaked after one day. It may well have peaked after one day but it continued after that at a ferocious rate, even up until a couple of weeks ago. Mr Flanagan said the online abuse persisted, targeting his family and his sick wife. This is difficult for your family to listen to, he said. He said: The good news for me is that it couldnt be cleared, I didnt Tweet what was Tweeted and it is obvious who did it. I also want to say that this cant be easy on Saoirse McHugh either, having to listen to all this rubbish. People have to deal with enough in their lives so overall Im glad it's nearly at an end. Mr Flanagan said he has been in contact with Ms McHugh throughout the legal process. There is no problem there. She is a very reasonable individual and a very skilled politician and hopefully we will see her elected sometime in the future, he said. All round it's just a relief. Anytime if you hear that a politician has had their account hacked the first thing people say is I dont believe them, and what I hope out of this will be that in the future no one will continue to throw this at me. Ive had my named cleared today and its been a good day in that sense, he added. Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys, Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O'Donnell and TCF National co-ordinator, Mairead Hunt at the launch today Twenty-six rural towns have been approved for a scheme which will see millions of euro spent on tackling dereliction and creating new community spaces. The Town Centre First (TCF) initiative aims to enable areas to pursue projects like redeveloping derelict sites, creating community parks and river walkways, protecting historical landmarks and boosting tourism. The new towns join 26 others, one in each county, whose final action plans were published by Minister for Rural and Community Development Heather Humphreys and Minister of State for Local Government Kieran O'Donnell on Wednesday. The additional 26 successful towns will receive 30,000 each to complete their redevelopment plan. Ms Humphreys said the scheme is about empowering people to develop a vision for their town that can make it a better place to live, work, invest in and enjoy. She said the new town regeneration officers will ensure that the projects on vacancy have a strategic and coherent approach at local level. Plans were developed in consultation with local communities who represent the vision of local people for their area and contain proposals for a diverse range of projects. These include such redeveloping derelict sites, creating community parks and walkways, boosting SME and tourism potential, and protecting historical landmarks. Town Regeneration Officers have been appointed in every Local Authority to drive implementation of the new plans with the support of Government funding through the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund. The Urban Regeneration and Development Fund, the Town and Village Renewal Scheme, the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant, European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Town Centre First Heritage Revival (THRIVE) Scheme and the Historic Towns Initiative will also provide funding. Today's News in 90 Seconds - February 28th Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O'Donnell, said: The Town Centre First approach empowers local communities and businesses, supported by Local Authorities, to guide and direct investment to maximise the particular strengths and assets of their town. Mr ODonnell congratulated and commended all the local communities and Town Teams for their dedicated work in designing their plans. Town Centre First also supports the objectives of the National Planning Framework and Housing for All by unlocking the potential of vacant and underused buildings to increase housing supply and attract more people to live and work in our town centres, he added. Town Centre First National co-ordinator, Mairead Hunt, said towns now have a unique opportunity to participate in Town Centre First and create more vibrant and attractive town centres. "Our Town Teams are doing fantastic work around the country creating and driving forward ambitious plans. "We want to see many more Town Teams, so it is very welcome that the Department of Rural and Community Development is giving local authorities funding of up to 10,000 to establish new Town Teams or build up existing teams, she added. Towns from the original 26 in phase 1 include: Carlow - Tullow Cavan - Bailieborough Clare - Sixmilebridge Cork - Skibbereen Donegal - Milford Fingal - Lusk Galway - Gort Kerry - Milltown Kildare - Clane Kilkenny - Urlingford Laois - Rathdowney Leitrim - Carrick-on-Shannon Limerick - Abbeyfeale Longford - Longford Town Louth - Dunleer Mayo - Killala Meath - Enfield Monaghan - Carrickmacross Offaly - Clara Roscommon - Strokestown Sligo - Tubbercurry Tipperary - Roscrea Waterford - Portlaw Westmeath - Moate Wexford - New Ross Wicklow -Blessington And a further 26 towns who have been added today under the next part of the initiative include: Carlow - Bagenalstown Cavan - Killeshandra Clare - Kilrush Cork - Kanturk Donegal - Glenties Fingal - Rush Galway - Athenry Kerry - Kenmare Kildare - Castledermot Kilkenny - Graigeunamanagh Laois - Mountmellick Leitrim - Manorhamilton Limerick - Rathkeale Longford - Ballymahon Louth - Clogherhead Mayo - Ballyhaunis Meath - Dunshaughlin Monaghan - Ballybay Offaly - Ferbane Roscommon - Castlerea Sligo - Ballymote Tipperary - Carrick-on-Suir Waterford - Dunmore East Westmeath - Castlepollard Wexford - Courtown/Riverchapel Wicklow - Newtownmountkennedy To find out more about the initiative and how communities can become involved, visit towncentrefirst.ie. Media Minister Catherine Martin revealed the full extraordinary timeline of the breakdown in the relationship between the Government and RTE last Thursday at Tuesdays Media Committee. She detailed the hour-by-hour events which led the former RTE Board Chair to resign on 12.50am on Friday morning, while being questioned by Sinn Fein TD Ruairi O Murchu. This is the timeline according to Minister Martin on the Oireachtas record. Thursday, February 22: 10am The then RTE Board Chair Siun Ni Raghallaigh rang an assistant secretary general in the Department of Media to say she had inadvertently given Minister Martin the wrong information in meetings earlier in the week. Ms Ni Raghallaigh told the official she had made an error and given the Minister incorrect information on Monday and Wednesday. The chair had forgotten that she had actually approved Richard Collins exit package. The Department official thanked her for the clarification and said she would inform the Minister. 11am Minister Martin is then told of the phone call - she had been in Leinster House in the morning. A number of officials who had been in the meetings with Ms Ni Raghallaigh earlier in the week had conversations with the Minister, who said she was quite taken aback. She said it was a significant error and said she would write a letter to Ms Ni Raghallaigh. 2pm The assistant secretary then rings Ms Ni Raghallaigh and tells her the Minister is concerned about the incorrect information given and that she had previously clarified the public record with the wrong information. Ms Ni Raghallaigh was told the Minister is disappointed and indicated a letter would be sent stating so. Ms Ni Raghallaigh then said she regretted the error and said she believed she had phoned the former secretary general Katherine Licken last October when the exit package process concluded. Minister Martin told the Oireachtas Committee that Ms Ni Raghallaigh said in this phone call she imagined she would have referred to the role the remuneration committee had. 2.30pm Ms Ni Raghallaigh rang the secretary general and expressed her unhappiness at the likelihood of getting a letter from the Minister which would reflect [the Ministers] disappointment. She was stating that she felt, if I wrote a letter saying I was disappointed, that she would see that as a lack of confidence and she would have to consider her position, Minister Martin recalled. 4.30pm Ms Ni Raghallaigh rang the assistant secretary and said RTE had received a press query about the approval of exit packages and the role of the remuneration committee. The official then rang the former top civil servant Katherine Licken to check what Ms Ni Raghallaigh said earlier that day. [Ms Licken] said she had recalled being told by the Chair that the settlement had been reached through independent mediation and that he would be leaving, that the secretary general had no recollection of being told that it was approved by the remuneration committee, Minister Martin told the committee. At this time, Minister Martin was in the process of deciding whether to send the letter to Ms Ni Raghallaigh or not. 6.45pm The new secretary general at the Department, Feargal O Coigligh, then rings Ms Ni Raghallaigh and tells her to say Minister Martin will be sending the letter, which will ask for a meeting on Friday morning. He reminded her the Minister was going on Prime Time. He also said if the Minister is asked about it, it is not something [she] could conceal on the issue of being given the wrong information earlier in the week. Ms Martin then said: the chair stated that she was not happy at the idea of being called to another meeting that week because she had been at a few meetings .she wasnt happy at the idea of another meeting. Mr O Coigligh then relayed this information back to the Minister, who decided to send the letter. 7.10pm Mr O Coigligh rang Ms Ni Raghallaigh back and said Minister Martin would not be changing her mind and would be offering to meet in person or online. 7.30pm The letter is sent to Ms Ni Raghallaigh. 9.35pm Prime Time starts on RTE. 12.50am (Friday) Ms Ni Raghallaigh issues statement announcing her resignation. Former health minister said there will be more delivery following a number of controversies Simon Harris said progress on treating scoliosis was affected by the pandemic. Photo: Brian Lawless/PA A new independent taskforce on spinal surgery for children with scoliosis will not report to Children's Health Ireland, former Health minister Simon Harris has told the Dail. "There is no lack of compassion and there will be more delivery," Mr Harris insisted, amid a continuing controversy over alleged diversion of 19m in funds allocated two years ago to spinal surgery. Parents of children suffering with spinal curvature which in time becomes inoperable are already concerned at the crisis at Temple Street over the alleged improper use of non-approved springs. An audit is underway and questions have been asked of Children's Health Ireland's role in the affair. Sinn Fein today called for the Government to commission international treatment for the 288 awaiting surgery after the drop in operations here. Pearse Doherty TD, party spokesman on finance, said the use of the Treatment Purchase Fund for scoliosis treatments abroad had been ended before the pandemic, in 2019. Mr Harris agreed the pandemic "had a real impact" in reversal of progress made to that point, with operating theatres left empty and spinal cases worsening through time when they were left untreated. Mr Doherty said Mr Harris had promised five years ago to reduce waiting times to four months, and his successor, Stephen Donnelly, had repeated the pledge two years ago yet it is not being achieved. Mr Harris, standing in for the Taoiseach on leaders' questions, said 193 extra health staff had been hired on foot of the 19m allocation, with another operating theatre opened at Temple Street and an MRI at Crumlin, with 20 beds also coming on stream. A taskforce was being established in the area, in consultation with stakeholders, and there would be an independent chair appointed soon. Contrary to rumour, the taskforce would not report to CHI, Mr Harris pledged. He made no comment on the proposed purchase of children's spinal surgeries abroad. A Yes-Yes in referendums 'would protect fathers role in parenting', the Men's Development Network said. Photo: Getty A Yes-Yes vote on March 8 would create an opportunity for men and boys to take on more caring responsibilities, campaigners have claimed. The Mens Development Network, a non-profit based in Waterford, will host an event this evening calling for a Yes vote in both the care and family referendums next Friday. Sean Cooke, the chief executive of the Mens Development Network, said: The language in the Constitution doesnt reflect the society were living in today. By enshrining care as a societal value within our Constitution, it creates the conditions to acknowledge the giving and receiving of care and also invites us men to play an active part in promoting the many forms of care we do therefore modelling these caring behaviours for our young men and boys. The mens organisation is hosting an event today with Treoir, the national information service for unmarried parents. Damien Peelo, the chief executive of Treoir, said a Yes vote would protect families beyond married families in our Constitution. Cohabiting couples and their children, lone-parent families and fathers durable relationships with their children would now have constitutional recognition. The outdated language in the Constitution places the role of responsibility for family care, including parenting, on mothers, which is a gender-equality issue, Mr Peelo said. A Yes-Yes in this referendum would protect fathers role in parenting and send a strong message for the need for greater supports for men and their role in care. Last weekend, a poll in the Business Post found that 59pc of people plan to vote Yes in the care referendum, while 55pc would vote Yes in the family referendum. The National Womens Council of Ireland (NWCI), which is leading the Yes-Yes campaign, said it was aware it could not be complacent. Orla OConnor, the director of the NWCI, said: While the proposed wording [for the care referendum] should have gone further, this will give us and other civil society organisations a real platform to campaign for the practical supports and changes in relation to care that we so urgently need. Renault 5 E-Tech steals the limelight as Chinese unveil several new EVs The Renault 5 E-Tech comes in vibrant colours such as Pop Yellow, and will initially be available in three trims The big guns shunned the Geneva Motor Show this week, leaving the door open for the likes of Renault and Chinese-owned brands to take the limelight with several new models. None of the mainstream manufacturers saw it worth their while to go to a show that, pre-Covid, was among the most important in the world. Much has changed in the four years since it was last held. New cars and concepts are launched online or in special formats, and much of what is unveiled at shows like Geneva has already been leaked in advance. But that was a blessing in disguise, especially for Renault. Its small electric EV, the Renault 5 E-Tech, is getting much of the attention not to mention the Scenic E-Tech, which was announced as the winner of the European Car of the Year award. It got 329 votes, ahead of the BMW 5 Series on 308 points, with the Peugeot 3008 on 197. The award winner has a claimed range of up to 625km. Meanwhile, we learned more about the eye-catching 5 E-Tech electric car (colours include Pop Yellow and Pop Green, so you wont miss it too easily). Its just under four metres (3.92 metres) long and has a targeted weight of below 1,500kg. To put that in some context, it is 130mm shorter than the Clio supermini. The 5 E-Tech will replace the Zoe. It will have two battery sizes and up to 400km range, it is claimed. By being built on the new AmpR Small platform, costs are cut by being able to use non-EV elements (front suspension being one) from the Renault/Nissan CMF-B alliance parts trove. Initially, there will be a 52kWh battery pack with 110kW (150hp). A 40kWh version with a claimed 300km range is due later. Its power output will be 70kW or 90kW (95hp or 120hp) depending on the model. It can charge at up to 11kW AC and up to 100kW DC (that gets you an 80pc charge in 30 minutes). At launch, there will be Evolution, Techno and Iconic Five trims. First cars in right-hand drive are scheduled for the first quarter of next year. Full line-up, spec and pricing will be announced well before then. As well as Renault being centre stage, its Dacia subsidiary fared well too in grabbing attention. Its new generation Duster small-family SUV was shown for the first time, while the prototype of its Dakar rally-raid competitor aptly named the Sandrider was also on view. The revised electric Spring small car was on view too. It is made in China, but may also be manufactured in Europe at some time in the future. Among improvements in this version of Spring is an improved cabin. It is due here later this year. There is no doubt that the Chinese brands have European markets firmly in their sights and are already causing major headaches for the established brands. As if proof were needed of the impact the Chinese brands are making, BYDs Atto 3 is Europes best-selling electric compact SUV. At the show, the manufacturer rolled out its first plug-in hybrid model for Europe. Called the Seal U DM-i, it is expected in the next quarter. The Seal U SUV is an interesting offering as it has EV and plug-in versions. At 4,775mm long, 1,890mm wide and 1,670mm tall, its a good deal bulkier than the electric saloon Seal we reported on here recently. It also has a much larger boot (552 litres), the lack of which was something I criticised on my first Irish drive in it. BYD is also showing the Yangweng U8 plug-in hybrid big SUV. Others include Denzas N7 electric medium-sized crossover. Meanwhile, MG launched the 3 hatchback with hybrid+ technology. At launch in Ireland there will be two spec levels, both with the new Hybrid+ powertrain. MGs work on this hybrid system meant fitting a larger battery. Finally, former Tesla executive Peter Rawlinson is targeting upmarket buyers with his Lucid brand. The company made its European debut at Geneva with two Air models. Also showing is a Gravity SUV. Why air fares are rising and should I book my summer holiday flight now? With lots of money chasing fewer seats, airlines can cash in like never before, says Simon Calder Stock image. Photo: Getty Simon Calder UK Independent Wed 28 Feb 2024 at 03:30 Could your holiday flight cost more because of an inflight scare and a problem with contaminated powder metal? With lots of rule changes, and the potential for larger crowds, planning a trip to Machu Picchu will look different this year... It used to be that you could visit Machu Picchu more than once on the same ticket entering the Incan ruins at daybreak and then circling back around to see the afternoon sun cast its light on different facets of the jagged landscape and its 500-year-old relics. You could also come without a guide, following your curiosity or a stray alpaca around the expansive grounds. But no matter how you went, lots of planning was required typically through third parties who controlled the ticketing systems and imposed on it a web of opaque rules and regulations. The ability to visit without a guide and enter multiple times are both long gone ditched years ago in an effort to curb excessive foot traffic and bad behaviour. But now there's good news. As Peru's tourism industry attempts to recover after an extended post-pandemic lull, the country is trying to make the process of visiting the site easier and more transparent. A state-run ticketing website is in the works for all Machu Picchu visits, and the Peruvian government is also increasing the number of daily visitors allowed entry into the Inca citadel. Officials say the plan is slated to roll out by April. In addition, new circuits introduced in 2021 split the site into four separate walking paths to help prevent overcrowding. The changes come at a delicate time. While neighbouring countries such as Colombia and Brazil are setting new tourism records, Peru remains stuck at 60pc of its pre-pandemic international visitation levels. And while Machu Picchu is a main tourism driver to the country, it may not be in the heritage site's best interest to substantially increase the number of visitors. Before the global shutdown, it saw some 1.5 million annual tourists; about 950,000 visited in 2023. Complicating the recovery have been several protests throughout the Cusco region over the last year. A one-week strike in January shut down public transportation to Machu Picchu for more than a week, leaving tourists stranded. The strike which concerned the new Machu Picchu ticketing system was quickly resolved and transit has since been restored. But coming after a series of more widespread, politically motivated protests last year, it fuelled perceptions of continued disruption, forcing operators in the area to reassure their guests that the current situation would be stable during their trips. "The issues last year were far more serious and widespread than the current situation in Machu Picchu, which is very local and contained," says Fernando Rodriguez, general manager for Peru at Intrepid Travel. Despite the shaky publicity, Machu Picchu is poised to have a big year. Bookings for the upcoming tourist season, which stretches from April to October, are far outpacing last year's figures. Intrepid Travel noted a 55pc increase in bookings made in February from the same period in 2023, while luxury operator Jacada Travel's bookings from December through early February were up 100pc year-on-year. And if the protests gave potential visitors pause last year, that seems to blowing over: Cusco-based Alpaca Expeditions has noted that only 5pc of its prospective guests are voiced concern over protests when gauging whether to book a trip. More likely to impact visitors will be the increased numbers of daily visitors allowed at Machu Picchu. The system rolling out in April will raise the maximum number of tickets to 5,600 on certain dates during high season, up from 4,044. That increase, confirmed by Peru's tourism board in an emailed statement without further comment, runs contrary to Unesco recommendations, which call for a limit of 2,244 visitors per day in order to best preserve the site. Given all the rule changes and the potential for larger crowds planning a trip to Machu Picchu this year will look substantially different than it has before. Here's what you need to know to ensure a smooth trip. Map out your journey The first thing to figure out for any trip is timing and with Machu Picchu it can be an especially important consideration. Here, the dry season runs from May to October, with June through August being the most popular. While it's hard to skip crowds entirely, shoulder months such as April or November could be your best bets if you're trying to avoid a big rush. You may get a bit of rain, but with that can come uncrowded footpaths and the possibility of rainbows. If you can outsource all the planning, do. Relying on your luxury hotel or a tour operator is the best way to take the stress out of handling the many pieces of the puzzle including tickets and guides. Should disruptions occur along the way, licensed providers are best positioned to find alternative, safe routes to and from Machu Picchu. As for where to stay: It used to be that the best hotels for a visit to Machu Picchu were in Aguas Calientes, the town at the foot of the site. Now there are many decadent options throughout the Sacred Valley the mountainous area between Cusco and Machu Picchu which offer access to a wide array of glacial hiking trails, cultural experiences, and Incan ruins. (We loved Explora Sacred Valley.) Figure out how you prefer to get around. After flying into Cusco, it's easy enough to have your hotel arrange a car transfer. But some hotels, like the riverside Tambo del Inka, part of The Luxury Collection, have an on-site train station, making it possible to nix the winding drive for a scenic ride on PeruRail's Sacred Valley train route. Regardless, leave time to acclimate to the altitude which ranges across the region but is typically around 9,000 feet. That extra time will double as a buffer for any travel hiccups a practice that will bring added peace of mind when your entire trip is built around an activity you can't reschedule. Note that if you're opting to DIY your trip, you should buy Machu Picchu tickets before booking anything else. (It's like planning a trip to Copenhagen only after you get a table reservation at Noma.) And seats on PeruRail or Inca Rail should be booked at least a month out, especially if you're intent on a luxurious ride on Belmond's Hiram Bingham train, which includes gourmet meal service and live Peruvian music. Know the Machu Picchu Circuits Buying tickets to Machu Picchu now requires opting in to a particular circuit something you may miss if you're not reading the fine print. (Until the new ticketing website launches in April, this is done via the tuboleto.cultura.pe website; to avoid glitches, navigate in Spanish by choosing "tarifa general" from the first drop down list. The rest is intuitive.) Confusingly, Circuits 1 and 2 are sold as one single option. (Also confusing: both are called "Llaqta de Machupicchu.") They're the most popular choice these trails climb along Machu Picchu's upper platforms and lead to the most iconic panoramic views. Circuit 3 takes visitors to the lower ruins of Machu Picchu, ideal for those with mobility issues. Other circuits are reserved for those doing more ambitious hiking tours, like trekking the Inka Trail. If someone tries to steer you toward skipping the online portal and getting a next-day ticket purchase instead, run the other way. While 1,000 of these last-minute tickets are sold daily at the cultural centre in Aguas Calientes, it's a risky proposition that has led to long lines and disappointment for many travellers. And be aware: All these updates may be short-lived. The impact of tourism growth on Machu Picchu has been a pressing issue dating as far back as 1999, when Unesco first expressed concern that excess visitation could increase the risk of landslides and endanger the entire destination. Master plans to sustainably manage the site have come and gone, with a new one currently in the works. Unesco declined to comment on the new ticket caps, but a spokesperson said that it expects Peru to comply with the aforementioned recommendation to reduce visitation by December setting up a potential showdown later this year. Joe Biden - even most Democrats see him as too old to run again As expected, Donald Trump won the South Carolina Republican primary by a wide margin. Trump beat Nikki Haley, governor of the state from 2011 to 2017, handsomely. But Haley was never likely to win this state or the Republican nomination. She and her staff may not want to see her campaign more as a protest against Trump than as a viable bid for the nomination, but thats what it is and theres nothing wrong with that. There are plenty of Republicans who want an alternative to Trump 49pc of those who showed up for the GOP Iowa caucuses, a bit more than 45pc in the New Hampshire primary. Theyre not a majority, but theyre a large enough minority that they cant be ignored or dismissed. Early in 2023, Donald Trump declared I am your retribution, and a spirit of nasty vindictiveness has permeated his campaign this cycle. A few days ago, NBC reported that Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the Republican nomination race after Iowa, offered the utterly mundane observation that he didnt think Trump should play identity politics when picking a running mate. Chris LaCivita, a top Trump aide, sneered back on social media, chicken fingers and pudding cups is what you will be remembered for you sad little man. A spirit of nasty vindictiveness has permeated Donald Trump's campaign. Photo: Reuters DeSantis quit the race and endorsed Trump a month ago, but it doesnt matter. Trump doesnt care about unifying the party or winning over his past rivals, and neither does his team. Seething and nasty even in victory, the Trump team has the attitude that now that theyve won a majority in the first few GOP contests, its time for Haley and everyone else in the party to kneel in acquiescence. Trump wants to make his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, the new Republican National Committee chair, and she recently said she thinks Republican voters would support having the political organization pay the former presidents ballooning legal fees. Every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump" Haley is the candidate for all those Republicans who think the RNC should spend its money on, you know, electing Republicans. When contemplating the poisonous- even-in-victory Trump campaign, I sometimes think of the former Apprentice contestant and Trump campaign surrogate Omarosa Manigault. In September 2016, she exulted: Every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump. Its everyone whos ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe. After less than a year of working in the Trump White House, the same Omarosa Manigault was singing a dramatically different tune in December 2017: As the only African-American woman in this White House, as a senior staff and assistant to the president, I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that has affected my community and my people. Joe Biden - even most Democrats see him as too old to run again If only someone could have warned her that Trump might be an abrasive, spiteful, raging personality with less than perfect sensitivity to African Americans. The Haley campaign loves to talk about her strength in a general election match-up against President Biden, and sometimes the numbers are eye-popping. The latest Marquette Law School Poll national survey had 58pc of registered voters supporting her and 42pc supporting Biden the same survey showed Trump ahead of Biden among registered voters by a margin of 51pc to 49. To Haley and many of her supporters, Trump is just a guy who repels at least as many voters as he attracts Even if Haleys lead were half that 16-point margin, she would win in a landslide.. Trump has won just a single general election in his life, the 2016 presidential contest. His die-hard fan base is convinced that he discovered a surefire style for winning nationally and that the 2020 election was stolen from him. To Haley and many of her supporters, Trump is just a guy who repels at least as many voters as he attracts and who got lucky with a uniquely unpopular opponent in 2016. In the general election, one of two things will happen. Either Trump will win 270 electoral votes or he will fall short for a second time to Biden, at a time when even most Democrats see the incumbent as too old to run again. If Biden manages to prevail in the autumn, Haley and her fans will be able to say to Trump and his MAGA crowd: See, we warned you. Theres no downside for Haley to keep sounding that alarm in the coming weeks. French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz at a conference in support of Ukraine with European leaders at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Photo: Reuters When scientists released the newly calibrated Doomsday Clock 2024 last month, the time was still set to 90 seconds to midnight, the same as it had been for 2023. That surprised many observers, who felt the world had become an even more dangerous place in the preceding 12 months. Jennifer Crumbley is escorted out of court in Pontiac, Michigan, last month. She was convicted of manslaughter. Photo: AP Ive been glued to the Crumbley trial showing across US court TV stations and video news outlets for the last couple of weeks. If you havent heard, the case centred on 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, who shot and killed four fellow students and injured seven others at his Michigan high school in November 2021. He was found guilty and imprisoned for life in what was yet another tragic school shooter crime. Declan Brady, AKA Mr Nobody, was one of hundreds in attendance at the 2016 funeral of murdered Kinahan gang criminal David Byrne. As garda intelligence officers scanned the faces of mourners, Brady stood shoulder to shoulder with the Kinahan gangs hierarchy, prompting gardai to take an interest in the unfamiliar face. His sighting would probe deep investigation into the life and criminal career of the cartel's logistics mastermind. Born on April 10, 1966, Brady grew up in the Dublin suburb of Drimnagh and left school before completing his secondary-level education. He began working as a truck driver and later set up his own firm while also operating a bouncy-castle business. The married father of three took a financial hit following the recession in 2009 and incurred significant debts. His attention turned to organised crime and he became a close associate of fellow Drimnagh man, Thomas Bomber Kavanagh, the cartels top man in the UK. On the surface, Brady appeared an unassuming haulier. But behind the facade was a man entrusted with organising the Kinahan gangs logistics network in Ireland. In 2016 Brady was pictured partying and laughing with gang associates in New York just two days after helping place a tracker device on the car of innocent feud victim Noel Kirwan, who was shot dead in December that year. Brady now faces the prospect of more jail time for his role in the murder of Mr Kirwan in 2016, having so far served seven years in prison for minding the gangs weapons arsenal and laundering its dirty money. Today on The Indo Daily, Tabitha Monahan is joined by Robin Schiller, senior journalist with the Irish Independent, to shed light one of the most prominent figures in the Kinahan cartel, who managed to fly so far under the radar that he was given the name Mr Nobody. The representative said that local authority-owned piers and harbours have to fight for scraps on the table in order to do any enhancement works A Cork South West TD has called for a fund of 50 million to be established for the refurbishment of council-owned piers and harbours across the country. Deputy Christopher OSullivan, who is Fianna Fails spokesperson for coastal communities, said the sum allocated for the development for piers and harbours at present is determined by their ownership, with those owned by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) accessing increased funds. Im seeking the establishment of a 50 million fund to help develop local authority-owned piers and harbours across the country. At the moment there is a DAFM fund of about five million per annum, which means these piers and harbours have to fight for scraps on the table in order to do any enhancement works, Deputy OSullivan told the Dail on Wednesday, February 28. The Brexit Adjustment: Local Authority Marine Infrastructure (BALAMI) Scheme of last year, which allocated once-off payments, worth a total of 50 million, allowed incredible work to take place on local authority-owned piers and slipways and marinas. If a pier is owned by the Department of the Marine, theres access to much bigger funding. Castletownbere in my own constituency, received funding of about 48 million for an extension there. It shows the improvements that can be made with significant investment. Im asking for a fund of at least 50 million for local authority-owned piers and slipways so that they can go about enhancement works. The potential from a tourism point of view, from a fishing point of view and off-shore wind point of view is incredible. We just need to see that investment. Minister Simon Harris, who was taking Questions on Promised Legislation in the Dail, said people in the community want to see action and that he would ask Minister for Housing Darragh OBrien TD, and Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue TD, to consider Deputy OSullivans suggestion. Cork TD Sean Sherlock has compared the funding that is required to advance the Mallow Relief Road to the planning stage to the equivalent of two RTE exit packages. The Labour Party TD for Cork East raised the recent allocation of 300,000 in funding by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) for the N72/N73 Mallow Relief Road in the Dail on Wednesday, February 28. Deputy Sherlock stated in Leinster House that the funding allocation was abysmal. I wish to raise the issue of the abysmal allocation that was made by TII in respect of progressing the Mallow Northern relief road scheme. This was a paltry figure on the basis that the project itself is progressing rapidly. A preferred route is selected and I want to see an additional allocation made so that we can progress this project to planning stage, he said. We are looking for what I might term as the equivalent of two RTE exit packages because that would get us to planning stage, continued Deputy Sherlock. All we are asking for is an in-year additional allocation of approximately 900,000 on the basis that the preferred route is already there. We would be able to go to planning. The impact of that in terms of the amelioration of traffic flows and the additionality to quality of life of people would be immense. The 300,000 will get us to design and environmental evaluation stage. If you take Breda OKeeffes exit package at 450,000 and double it, that will get us to planning. If we can get to planning stage on this project, the benefits, given where Mallow is located between Cork and Limerick, would be absolutely immense, he added. Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon deputised for Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan who was unable to attend. Minister Heydon stated: The majority of projects did receive funding, including the Mallow relief road project. A preferred route for the scheme has been selected and it will now progress through the design and environmental evaluation phases. The delivery programme for the Mallow relief road project will be kept under review in future years and considered in terms of the overall funding envelope available to TII. In reply, Deputy Sherlock reiterated his call for more progress to be made on the Mallow relief road. I suggest that if we are going to ameliorate traffic flows through the town of Mallow, much of which is HGV traffic, then we will need to progress this project. Very key towns that service big populations need to see their towns flourishing again and free of the congestion that has plagued us for so many years. Minister Heydon agreed with the sentiments expressed by Deputy Sherlock but said it is a slow process. I completely understand the desire to see progress. Unfortunately, it is a slow process. It is exceedingly frustrating for everybody who is impacted by that. It is a matter of public representatives having to stick at it and continuing to highlight those points to make it through each of the phases that can cause delays along the line. Between 2020 and 2024, approximately 366 million in Exchequer capital funding was allocated for the national road network in County Cork, said Minister Heydon. This has resulted in many improvements to the network, as demonstrated by the Dunkettle interchange project. National secondary roads have also benefited from this investment. We look forward to seeing projects such as the Mallow relief road being progressed in the very near future. Michael Bradley, 78, of Ballinagree West, Macroom, faced a total of 29 charges all relating to animal cruelty at his smallholding in Ballinagree. He pleaded guilty to 10 charges and a further 19 charges were withdrawn by the prosecution. Acting for the Department of Agriculture, Shane OCallaghan BL asked ISPCA animal welfare inspector Emma Carroll to outline the details of the case against Mr Bradley. Ms Carroll told the court that a report was received in July 2022 and that she and a colleague carried out an inspection on July 12, 2022. Ms Carroll said that when she arrived at the property there were a large number of foul in the yard which was strew with rubbish. She said that the entrance to a stone shed was blocked with a blue pallet and inside she found mounds of dog faeces covered in mould. She said that there was a stench of dog faeces inside the building where she found an extremely nervous and almost hairless and lifeless collie dog kept on a chain. Further into the building she found another five dogs all kept in individual runs. She said that the dogs were in very poor condition, some with hair loss and showing signs of parasites. She said that the dogs bedding was made of dirty and soiled wood shavings. She also discovered a brown and white collie dog cowering next to a wall to which it was attached by a very short chain. The area smelled of urine and faeces. There were also five puppies with the dog which had wormy stomachs and were in poor condition. There was also an empty bucket with a rock in it but no water or food was observed. In the yard she also discovered seven ducks inside a trailer with no natural light and no water or food. Ms Carroll said that at this point Mr Bradley arrived at the property and became offensive in his manner. He told her that he did not have the heart to put down the dog that was suffering from severe mange. He said that the dogs had to be chained to prevent them from killing foul. He also told her that a local vet had attended to the dogs. Ms Carroll said that Mr Bradley told her that the ducks had been kept in the trailer for more than a year and had their wings clipped. He said that they were wild ducks that someone had brought to him and admitted that the conditions they were kept in were not ideal. Ms Carroll said that when asked if he thought there was anything wrong with the conditions the animals were being kept in, he replied that he didnt. When she told him that he would have to surrender the animals Mr Bradley asked if he could at least keep the puppies because he had a buyer for them and he also suggest that Ms Carroll would try to profit from the puppies. When she informed Mr Bradley that he would be liable for prosecution he told her: You wont get a penny off me, Im a pensioner. Defence solicitor Jack Purcell said that his clients daughter had previously helped him to look after the animals but because she had a baby he was effectively trying to look after everything on his own. He said that there was no intentional cruelty on his part and that he had been attempting to feed and look after the animals. Judge James McNulty said that it was apparent that looking after the animals was too much for Mr Bradley on his own. He said that it was so awful and the conditions so appalling that he could not look at any more evidence. He convicted him on one count and took the other nine counts into consideration. He acknowledged that Mr Bradley was of limited means and fined him 1,000. He also disqualified him from keeping animals with the exception of a maximum of 20 sheep and one working sheepdog. Kanturk has been identified for the next phase of Town Centre First. The North Cork town has been identified as one of the next 26 towns nationally that have been approved to develop Town Centre First Plans. Kanturk will now be provided with 30,000 in funding to complete a comprehensive town plan to help develop its town centre. The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys TD, and Minister of State with responsibility for Local Government and Planning, Kieran ODonnell TD published the first ever Town Centre First Plans for 26 towns across every county on Wednesday, February 28. The Plans which were developed in consultation with local communities represent the vision of local people for their area and contain proposals for a diverse range of projects such as redeveloping derelict sites, creating community parks and walkways, boosting SME and tourism potential, and protecting historical landmarks. Simultaneously Town Regeneration Officers have also been appointed in every local authority to drive implementation of the new plans. Skibbereen town has been approved as the representative pilot town in Cork County to receive a Town Regeneration Officer. Speaking at the launch, Minister Humphreys, said: Town Centre First is all about empowering people to develop a vision for their town that can make it a better place to live, work, invest in and enjoy. These Plans and the new Town Regeneration Officers are about ensuring there is a strategic and coherent approach at local level to tackling vacancy and dereliction in our towns and villages. Minister Humphreys also welcomed the identification of the next 26 towns who have been approved to develop Town Centre First Plans. I am pleased to also announce the next 26 successful towns across the country who we will support with funding of 30,000 each to complete a comprehensive town plan to help develop their town centres. Town Centre First supports the objectives of the national rural development policy, Our Rural Future, in revitalising rural towns and engages communities through Town Teams. Every town is different, and so local visions take account of these unique challenges, needs and opportunities. Fianna Fail TD for Cork North West Michael Moynihan, has welcomed the news that Kanturk has been identified as one of the 26 towns across Ireland that will develop a Town Centre First Plan as part of Phase 2 of the initiative. Welcoming the news, Deputy Moynihan said: I am delighted that Kanturk will be supported with funding of 30,000 to complete a comprehensive town plan to help develop its town centre. This investment is all about giving the people of Kanturk the tools they need to improve the town and make it a more attractive place in which to live, work, visit and invest. Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O'Donnell, said: The Town Centre First approach empowers local communities and businesses, supported by Local Authorities, to guide and direct investment to maximise the particular strengths and assets of their town. Launched in 2022, Town Centre First is driving one of the biggest ever programme of investments in rural Ireland and has a core aim of confronting dereliction and the general decline in the health of Irelands town centres. Town Centre First also supports the objectives of the National Planning Framework and Housing for All by unlocking the potential of vacant and underused buildings to increase housing supply and attract more people to live and work in our town centres. Beloved Cork pop band The Frank and Walters have been announced as the Grand Marshals for Cork's citys St Patrick's Day Parade. The indie group will lead the festivities as part of the St Patrick's Festival from March 15 to March 18 as Cork celebrates its music, culture and tradition in style. The band was founded in Cork in 1989 and named in honour of two eccentric Cork characters. The band members are lead vocals & bass Paul Linehan; drums Ashley Keating; lead guitar Rory Murphy and Cian Corbett on keyboards. The Frank and Walters have achieved huge success in Ireland and the UK with their smash hit After All cementing them as Cork icons. Its looking like a great year for the band who were also recently named Cork Persons of the Year. The theme of this years parade is Pure Imagination and Lord Mayor of Cork Kieran McCarthy has expressed his excitement for the upcoming celebrations. Our parade will be a celebration of life in Cork and our city of welcomes, with our traditional sporting and dance groups alongside new communities that have made our city their home. The Cork St Patricks Day Parade will take place on Sunday, March 17 at 1 pm, with a route starting at South Mall and ending at Merchants Quay. The pharmacy is located on Berkeley Road, beside the Mater Hospital and Four Masters Park A Dublin pharmacist has said his business will be obscured completely from customers during work on the proposed MetroLink. The Life Pharmacy, on Berkeley Road, was among several businesses near the Mater Hospital to raise concerns about the construction phase of the 9.5bn project. A hearing has been listening to submissions from interested parties along the route, which includes 16 stations. The 18.8km railway line is planned to run from north of Swords to Dublin Airport, then on to Ballymun, Glasnevin, OConnell Street, and St Stephens Green, before terminating at Charlemont. Brendan Flanagan, who runs the Life Pharmacy with his brother Kevin, told the hearing he might as well be in the hole created by the works for the underground station which will be within 10 feet of their front door. Plans outlined to the business owner show a 4-metre hoarding will be erected in front of the pharmacy, which Mr Flanagan said will leave the pharmacy obscured completely from customers. He also said most of his customers are elderly, and it takes years to generate goodwill and develop customers loyalty. We have always been under pressure, and I dont know if we can survive the length of time it will take to get the work done, and I am in fear of the possibility, he said. Aidan Foley said Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) fully recognised the impact of the work on the pharmacy, but added it is difficult to build a station without impacting either residents or businesses. We believe that while the impacts of construction will be difficult, they will have huge benefits for your business and the entire community, he said. TII suggested that signage on the hoarding could be considered to ensure people are made aware of the open-door pharmacy. The owner of a flower shop on Berkeley Road also raised concerns about whether the works would obstruct her flower displays, which she says are a main element of her business. If I lose that display, I lose everything. We get fresh stock daily, and I need to ensure that people can access the store, she said. Another major fear for the business owner would be dust accumulating on plants. TII responded by saying that a local business liaison officer would be in place to ensure there were alternative places for deliveries to businesses. Dust mitigation measures in place will ensure that the accumulation of dust would not impact her stock. They also ensured business owners that they would be cooperating with them to ensure that there were proposals in terms of advertising for businesses that will be obstructed by the works. Separately, Breda Scully, who has lived all her life in Phibsboro, asked An Bord Pleanala to not allow the Mater station to be located in the Four Masters Park, which she described as a green oasis in a desert of greyness. She said the park in front of the hospital calms peoples minds, and urged the board to look at alternative locations for the station. In response, the project manager for Dublin MetroLink, Mr Foley, said that while a number of trees would be removed during the works, the park would be reinstated after the works are carried out. Residents along the proposed route of Dublins MetroLink have raised concerns over the potential health impacts of the construction phase of the project. A hearing into the 9.5bn project has been listening to submissions from interested parties along the route, which includes 16 stations. The proposed MetroLink line is intended to run from Estuary on Dublins northside to Charlemont on the southside of the city, with stops including Dublin Airport, OConnell Street, and St Stephens Green. Charlie Lowe, management representative of The Court, Dalcassian Downs, Glasnevin, said the proposed construction will have significant impacts on residents. These include health concerns for children and elderly people, stress and anxiety, sleep disturbance, noise and vibration, dust and fumes, reduction in natural lighting, potential property damage, and an overall impact on the quality of life. At The Court, most residents are between 70 and 75 years old and express fears of spending their final years living next to a building site enclosed by a tall hoarding, he said. They consider it a denial of natural justice. Mr Lowe also pointed out that the direct impact of the project will likely last for several years. Other concerns raised include the number of daily truck movements, which may cause traffic congestion and impact the development of new bus corridors aimed at reducing travel times by 40-50pc. The management of the apartment complex is calling for the stations to be developed on a sectional basis and a bespoke scheme to be offered to them, allowing access to something similar to the MetroLink Property Owners' Protection Scheme (POPS). This is a voluntary scheme that allows property owners to sign up with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) if it lies within thirty 30 metres of the MetroLink Route Alignment or 50 metres of station structures. Claire Dunne, a resident of the apartment complex, also called for answers regarding how dust generation might impact people with respiratory conditions such as asthma. Your response mentioned that airborne noise will be significant, she said. There will likely be adverse effects because of this, particularly for vulnerable people, such as psychological effects like anxiety, and physiological impacts. She also noted that studies have shown construction noise and transportation noise can have an impact on mental health. Dr Martin Hogan, a specialist in occupational medicine with a specific interest in environmental medicine, told the hearing he has been involved in the MetroLink project in relation to health impacts since the beginning. He addressed residents concerns about construction dust and whether this may aggravate people who have respiratory issues such as asthma. We can give some reassurance there; first of all, when we assess dust, there is mitigation for construction, which includes hoarding, he said. There are air quality standards that will need to be maintained to protect people who may be vulnerable, such as children or people with respiratory conditions. He added that, while it is difficult to measure psychological effects on individuals amid worries and concerns, the general psychological impact on a population basis will not have a significant effect. Pointing to World Health Organisation guidelines regarding the impact transport noise can have on humans, he said that while some harmful effects are identified, it also very clearly states that it is the least harmful method of transport. The MetroLink hearing heard submissions from a number of residents living along the proposed route Residents along the proposed MetroLink route in Glasnevin, Dublin, have raised concerns around working hours, the possibility of sinkholes, pollution from dust, and the impact of traffic management during construction. As hearings into the project continued today, residents were told work would begin at 7.30am on weekdays and 7am on Saturdays. The proposed MetroLink line is intended to run from Estuary on Dublins northside to Charlemont on the southside of the city, with stops including Dublin Airport, OConnell Street, and St Stephens Green. Lorraine Rooney, living on Botanic Road in Glasnevin, told the hearing there has been little to no liaison with stakeholders regarding the plans. The homes in the area I am representing are over 100 years old, and there is no exact way of knowing how they will react to the ground movement, she said. Anyone here today as a property owner over the proposed tunnel has every right to be worried. Ms Rooney also criticised the proposed MetroLink Property Owners Protection Scheme (POPS), detailed to be capped at 45,000, as inadequate. James Maloney, representing the appointed contractor for the project, said that areas like Glasnevin station will require 24-hour working hours for lighter duties seven days a week. We will aim to begin at 7.30am and finish at 6.30pm on weekdays and begin at 7am and finish at 1pm on Saturdays, he said. Below ground activities will be limited to standard working hours, and deliveries to the site wont happen at weekends. MetroLink project director Aidan Foley highlighted that the POPS scheme is in place to ensure residents along the route experiencing damage would be covered. That damage will be dealt with effectively and quickly, he said. If there is damage in excess of 45k, we will have project insurances in place. We are still in the planning process, and we will be happy to share any insurance policies with residents and stakeholders when that is in place. Anne G Meehan, who resides in an area characterised by late Victorian and Edwardian houses, is a member of Prospect Architectural Conservation Area. She told todays hearing that she opposes the plans for constructing the Glasnevin station. Ms Meehan said she was left feeling disappointed with the responses from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) to her multiple submissions. When I read the responses, I felt they were inadequate and generalised and did not address the concerns I hold for my property, she said. Expressing a preference for an overground railway, she claimed the use of an underground system is ridiculous, and she favours extending existing lines instead. Vandals smashed a bus stop, trees and lights on a street recently upgraded in the heart of the Galway city in an act that has disgusted locals. Millers Lane, Galway city west, was upgraded in recent years as part of the Active Travel programme, which is funded by the National Transport Authority and aims to improve pedestrian and cycle links between various residential areas and amenities. Mayor of Galway Eddie Hoare told the Irish Independent that Millers Lane represented one of the best examples of Active Travel in the country. However, on Saturday evening February 24, the area was vandalized as a bus stop, a number of trees and lights were in the area were damaged. Mayor Hoare said: Unfortunately there was antisocial behaviour on Saturday evening that led to some of the lights being vandalized, a number of trees that were planted being destroyed and broken, and also a bus stop shelter that was erected recently was smashed into pieces, thousands of euros worth of damage, needless damage. The councillor described the incident as very disappointing to see as he explained gardai are currently investigating the incident. He said he hopes that the new CCTV regulations will help prevent other similar incidents in Galway city. Its not an area that would be associated with antisocial behavior, but in recent years it appears to be an area where groups gather from all over the city and it can cause antisocial behaviour, which is unfortunate, this needs to be tackled and stamped out. Mayor Hoare added: We hope to extend that Active Travel project closer to the city and incidents like this sort of makes neighbours and residents nervous that it might attract further antisocial behavior, hopefully this isnt the case but this is the concern. Tracey Grimes being presented with flowers after sharing her story as an award winning specialist in the Hair and Beauty Industry at the Listowel Campus. L-R Tracey Grimes, Stephen Goulding (Clash Road, Denny Street and Listowel Campus Principal) Clash Campus Open Day attendee leaps in to action on the vertical jump test. Attendees learn about our Business Support Unit, Outdoor Education courses and more at our Killarney Open Day. Katie Hannon being presented with flowers after delivering an inspiring speech at the Listowel Campus. L-R Miriam Goulding, Katie Hannon, Carmel Kelly (Clash Road Campus Deputy Principal), Stephen Goulding (Clash Road, Denny Street and Listowel Campus Principal). Skills demos, activities, and events all happening at the Monavalley Campus as part of the Kerry College Open Week. It was a busy few days last week for all in Kerry College as their Open Week 2024 welcomed over 2,000 students, career changers, and jobseekers across its five campus locations in Listowel, Clash Road, Killorglin and Monavalley. An additional 2500 prospective learners also attended the many events hosted across the week, including the Further Options Event, Information Evening, Kerry College of Beauty Open Evening, Apprenticeship Open Evening and Guest Speakers Event. A much-welcomed addition to Open Week 2024 was the Killorglin Campus Open Day on Monday February 19, the highlights for which included insightful discussions on careers in the Great Outdoors, showcasing the potential of outdoor/adventure therapy in youth work, and more. This is Kerry Newsletter Enter your email address below and click 'Sign Up' to receive the This is Kerry newsletter direct to your inbox. Please check your inbox to verify your details Aodhnait Carroll, Killorglin Campus Manager, reflected on the success of Killorglin Campuss first Open Day: "Kerry College Killorglin Campus hosted its inaugural Open Day, welcoming prospective learners to witness first-hand the diverse range of courses we offer. Against the stunning backdrop of our outdoor education and training Campus, bathed in sunshine, our talented learners demonstrated their evolving skills in disciplines such as yoga, adventure activities, and scuba diving. Meanwhile at the Clash Road Campus, visitors enjoyed guided tours of campus facilities and met with teachers and current learners during the event. Learning Support Staff were also on-site to highlight the many supports available to Kerry College learners. Career Guidance Counsellors were also available to offer progression and career-related advice. Clash Campus Open Day attendee leaps in to action on the vertical jump test. Principal Stephen Goulding highlighted the success of the Information Event featuring guest speaker Rory O Connor, who shared insights into his career path and the life experiences that shaped him. The Kerry College of Beauty Open Evening meanwhile, which took place on Wednesday, February 21, enabled visitors to explore the Colleges Beauty Therapy building. Here, they were able to discover the state-of-the-art facilities and learn more about internationally-recognised certifications offered on the full-time and part-time programmes ran on-site. Katie Hannon being presented with flowers after delivering an inspiring speech at the Listowel Campus. L-R Miriam Goulding, Katie Hannon, Carmel Kelly (Clash Road Campus Deputy Principal), Stephen Goulding (Clash Road, Denny Street and Listowel Campus Principal). The Listowel Campus meanwhile hosted several guest speakers including Katie Hannon, Tracey Grimes and Lizzy Lyons while at the Monavalley Campus, visitors were offered hands-on experiences, with practical skills-based demonstrations throughout the day. Activities ranged from stone carving to virtual reality experiences overlooking Tralee from the Wind Turbine training tower. Kerry College's state-of-the-art Digital Skills Centre also allowed visitors to record radio sound bites or vox pops. At the Killarney Admissions Office, visitors connected with the Admissions Team, current learners, teachers, instructors, the Apprenticeship Team, the Business Support Unit as well as representatives from the Colleges Pathways Programmes. For those interested in Kerry College's part-time and full-time courses and apprenticeships, more information is available at www.kerrycollege.ie or by contacting the Admissions Team at 066 714 96 96 or 064 6622593. A self-employed taxi driver in Killarney endured a frightening incident after a highly intoxicated front seat passenger pulled the steering wheel of his vehicle at a busy roundabout causing the car to veer across the road and hit a lamppost, a court has heard. Christopher Hartnett (40) from Cliveragh Listowel was before Tralee Circuit Criminal Court for sentencing last week having pleaded guilty to endangerment arising out of the incident. Mr Hartnett had been on a night out in Killarney with two others on the October 28/29, 2019 when he and three others got into a taxi to go home. Prosecuting Barrister Tom Rice outlined how the injured party, Islam Wahidal, was a native of Bangladesh residing in Killarney. He worked as a shop assistant by day and operated a taxi by night. On the night in question he was plying for hire near Den Joes Takeaway. Footage from the takeaway in Killarney town centre identified the accused and friends behaving boisterously, the court was told. The three men then sat in the taxi with Mr Hartnett sitting in the passenger seat. This is Kerry Newsletter Enter your email address below and click 'Sign Up' to receive the This is Kerry newsletter direct to your inbox. Please check your inbox to verify your details On the way home at the Cleeny Roundabout a dispute arose over dash cam cameras and the accused got highly agitated. He reached across and placed his hand on the steering wheel and interfered with the driving causing the car to veer across the road and collide with a lamp post. It was a pretty significant impact, the court was told. The driver Mr Wahidal had no chance to correct the car. He sustained injuries to his shin. When gardai arrived Mr Hartnett who was highly intoxicated was on the ground screaming and roaring about his injuries. The three passengers were taken by ambulance to Tralee. The taxi was examined and found to have no mechanical defect. The main impact of the lamppost collision was to the passenger side. Mr Hartnett had nine previous convictions, the court was told. The last one was for theft. Alcohol consumption was a major factor the court was also told. Mr Hartnetts barrister Katie OConnell said he had had a serious alcohol addiction but had not come to garda attention since the offence. He had completed a treatment program for alcohol in The Grove and was now signed up for further treatment programme at Coolmine Therapeutic Centre. The incident had made him address his alcohol problem, Ms OConnell said. He had a letter of apology for the injured party. He was also offering to pay 2,500 in compensation to the injured party, she said. Mr Wahidal in his victim impact statement, told how he was left with a mark to his leg, his car was written off and he was out of work for a month because he had no vehicle. He was at a financial loss of 2,500 from the incident and he couldnt work in his brothers shop in Tralee either. He had to buy another vehicle at extra cost. Since this incident, I have been nervous and suspicious of passengers and Im now very careful of the passengers I take, he said. He continues to work two jobs. Judge Sinead Behan said this very hard working man was out of pocket. This was a frightening incident in which all of you could have been killed, Judge Behan addressed Mr Hartnett. Judge Behan has adjourned finalisation to July 8 to allow further alcohol treatment and to pay the sum of 2,500 . A Tralee couple say they fear being made homeless after a landlord increased their rent from 900 to 1,350 per month, the second hike in two years. The couple, who dont wish to be identified, have lived in their apartment for the past 14-years but must start paying the new rate by June or vacate the premises. The demand has plunged the couple into despair over where they will live. The rent initially started at 600, increasing to 900 in 2022. Even though both are working full-time, the new rate is much too high for them to afford. They say the landlord is entitled to make the increase as Tralee is not deemed a Rent Pressure Zone (RPZ). The Government recently agreed to a two per cent cap on rents in these areas. Landlords outside a RPZ are free to raise prices according to what they feel is right. I showed my last three [yearly] payslips from the last rent increase to the present one. There is no change in wages but our rent has risen by over 50 per cent. We simply cannot afford this. Its not that we dont want to pay it, its because we cant afford to. The electricity bill alone last month was 440. We honestly dont know what to do, he said. The landlord told the couple the new price was the best he could do for them as similar apartments in the Tralee area are costing upwards of 1,600 per month. He just said the situation was a market one and the increase was normal. He supplied us with other price examples, and said that everyone [landlords] is asking for that price. He said he was just following them, he said. We dont know what to do. My partner and I work hard. She is working 50 hours a week as it is. We even considered that paying 900 a month was hefty enough. We have never had any trouble or issue with the landlord. I always thought we were good tenants, he added. The couple brought their concerns to Sinn Fein TD Pa Daly who said rents are getting out of control and that rising rates are not commensurate with levels of income being earned by a majority of tenants. Over 19,000 eviction notices were issued in Ireland in 2023. Many believe this problem was exacerbated by the Governments decision to scrap the ban on evictions. The Kerry IPSC table quiz will take place in Tralee on Tuesday, March 5. The event is being organised by the Kerry IPSC. Kerry Friends of Palestine in association with Kerry IPSC (Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign) will hold a fundraising table quiz in Kerins ORahilys Clubhouse on Tuesday, March 5 at 7.30pm All proceeds will be going to Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) who have been working in Palestine since 1989 to help meet the medical and psychological needs of the population. In our small corner of Ireland we are trying our best to create awareness and show our support with fundraising events and rallies. Solidarity vigils take place all over Kerry every week in Dingle, Listowel, Killorglin, Kenmare, Cahersiveen, Killarney and Tralee, said Maria McCarthy of the Kerry IPSC this week. The Kerry IPSC table quiz will take place in Tralee on Tuesday, March 5. In December last we held a Gig for Gaza in Tralee and raised over 5600 for the Palestine Childrens Relief Fund and in January we raised 1800 from a screening of the film Gaza in Killarney for the charity Amjaad in Gaza, Maria continued. Following on from these two successful fundraisers, we hope this will be another great evening of solidarity, fundraising and fun. Theres already been some very generous donations of prizes for the raffle and the winning tables but any more support would be gratefully appreciated, she added. Tables are 5 for each person with four people to a table. To book a table, please email kerryipsc@gmail.com, contact them on Facebook or Instagram @kerryipsc or drop into Marias Wool Shop, Milk Market Lane, Tralee. Eithne and chris Doggett, Tom Shercock and Pat Curtin at Bertie Chase's his 100th birthday party in Scholars Townhouse Hotel. Photo: Colin Bell Photography Bertie Chase from St.Peter's Place, Drogheda cuts a cake with his son Andrew and daughter Suzanne to celebrate his 100th birthday in Scholars Townhouse Hotel. Photo: Colin Bell Photography Its not often you dont know whether to bring a 25th birthday card or a 100th birthday card to a party, but then again its a rare occurrence for leapling babies to celebrate a century! Drogheda man Bertie Chase was born on February 29th, 1924 and as a result only has a birthday every four years. So, on Thursday, depending on what way you look at it, he either becomes a centenarian, or marks being a slip of a 25-year-old. This is Louth Newsletter Enter your email address below and click 'Sign Up' to receive the This is Louth newsletter direct to your inbox. Please check your inbox to verify your details Practicalities meant that Bertie's birthday was always celebrated the day before, and it was years until he knew how unique he was. 'Growing up, my parents would have always had my birthday on February 28th, otherwise I would have been waiting too long for my next party,' explains Bertie. 'I think it would have been too much bother so they just changed the date to the 28th and would have the party and give presents then.' Practicalities once again moved his party forward in 2024 too, as family and friends gathered in Scholars Hotel in Drogheda to wish Bertie a very special birthday. Holding court on his impressive throne, Bertie was not fazed by the fuss and was delighted to see so many familiar faces. I didnt think so many people would come and its very nice of them, he said modestly. Bertie Chase from St.Peter's Place, Drogheda enjoys a moment with his daughter Suzanne at his 100th birthday party in Scholars Townhouse Hotel. Photo: Colin Bell Photography Bertie was born on the Marsh Road and grew up in Sunnyside Cottages, before moving to the Old Hill when he was seven. 'I went to school in St. Peter's National School before going to the Grammar School, but I can't quite remember when it struck me that I only really had a birthday every four years I think it was well into my older years,' said Bertie, who has two children Suzanne and Andrew with Ann, his beloved wife who passed away ten years ago. 'I worked in the Oil and Cake Mills most of my life and moved to Church Lane around 20 years ago. One of Berties lifelong friends made the trip from Dublin for the occasion and pipped him to the special event last year! Maud Heery (101) originally from Legavoureen Park in Drogheda, now living in Dublin, arrived to share special memories of life in Drogheda a century ago. Hes having parties galore this is one of three this week and he is still getting out three times a week to the Dermot Kierans community centre, so hes still loving life, says his daughter Suzanne. He was so adamant that he wanted to reach 100, and hes very excited to get a cheque from the President, as its gone up to 2,000! Only about five million people worldwide were born on February 29th. You have a 1 in 1,461 chance of giving birth on Leap Day, and the chances of turning 100 on that special day are even more rare. Bertie says he would love to get out for his regular walks as soon as the weather is warmer, and misses angling, and would love to be out catching salmon. Anything to get me out of the house,' he says with a cheeky smile. Bertie Chase from St.Peter's Place, Drogheda with his friend Maud Heery (101) originally from Legavoureen Park, now living in Dublin to his 100th birthday party in Scholars Townhouse Hotel. Photo: Colin Bell Photography There must be something in the water in Church Lane as Bertie pauses to chat to two of his neighbours from there; Rohna McKay (85) and Barbara Baynham (95). Pals from Probus social club also attended to wish him well, with a framed front page of the Drogheda Independent dated 1st March 1924 presented to him on behalf of his old friends at St. Peters Indoor Bowls Club. So, what is the secret to Berties longevity? Im not sure what it is, but I try to stay fit and healthy, and I have a bowl of porridge every morning, with fruit, he says with a smile. Id much rather be 100 than 25 though, thats for sure. Dundalk mother Mandy Kelly is facing another Christmas without her two young sons Zayn and Kareem Mohamed after they were abducted by their father in March 2022 There will be no celebrations for Dundalk resident Mandy Kelly this Mothers Day as she will be spending it without her beloved sons for the second year in a row. Mandys two young boys, five year-old Zayn Mohamed and his three year-old brother Kareem, are in Egypt, where they are being held by their father Ramy Gamal Maamoun Mohamed since the family went on holiday to Cairo in March 2022. Her now estranged husband told her the day before they were due to return home that he was keeping the children in Egypt and that was the last she saw of them. This is Louth Newsletter Enter your email address below and click 'Sign Up' to receive the This is Louth newsletter direct to your inbox. Please check your inbox to verify your details On her return home to Ireland, Mandy reported what happened to An Gardai Siochana and has been fighting an on-going battle to have her boys, who were born in Ireland, returned to her. Her plight is hindered by the fact that Egypt has not signed up to the 1980 Hague Convention and she has been advised to pursue her claim through the Egyptian courts. Mandy hasn't see here children for over a year. She disputes that this is the best option, as it would mean that she would have to reside in Egypt. She held a peaceful demonstration outside the RDS in Dublin in November to appeal to the Egyptian Ambassador to Ireland to highlight her case and has also met with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheal Martin. She has written to President Michael D Higgins and numerous politicians but so far has been unable to obtain a meeting with the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee. This week I received an email from the Department of Justice - declining a meeting saying it would do no good and telling me to work through the Egyptian courts. Justice is well aware from multiple, previous cases that this doesnt work, she claimed Mandy is deeply upset at what she sees as the fundamental lack of courtesy of the Minister refusing to meet the mother of Irish citizens. She has also sent a petition to the Oireachtas Committee urging the government to construct a bilateral agreement with Egypt and other countries which are not signatories to the Hague Convention. It will be two years this St Patricks Day since I came home and Ive had no contact with my sons since then. The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys and Minister of State with responsibility for Local Government and Planning, Kieran ODonnell have published the first ever Town Centre First plans for 26 towns across every county. Tubbercurry has been selected under the scheme which has been welcomed locally. Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan said: I am pleased to see Tubbercurry as part of the next 26 successful towns across the country who will receive support with funding of 30,000 to complete a comprehensive town plan to help develop their town centres. This is Sligo Newsletter Enter your email address below and click 'Sign Up' to receive the This is Sligo newsletter direct to your inbox. Please check your inbox to verify your details I am delighted to see the appointment of Town Regeneration Officers who have been appointed in every Local Authority to drive implementation of the new plans with the support of Government funding through the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund, the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund, the Town and Village Renewal Scheme, the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant, European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Town Centre First Heritage Revival (THRIVE) Scheme and the Historic Towns Initiative. These are all vital projects and schemes to assist so many rural towns across Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon and Donegal, concluded Deputy Feighan. South Sligo Cllr Dara Mulvey has welcomed the news that Ballymote is included in Phase 2 which is the approval to develop a Town Centre First Plan. I, along with my Council colleagues, have been lobbying on behalf of community groups and Sligo County Council to bring much needed funding to our towns and villages, and this funding of 30,000 with consultation from local community groups will help progress the towns plans. Rural Ireland is centered on communities. Encouraging people to create a vision for their town that can improve it as a location to live, work, invest in, and enjoy is the main goal of Town Centre First actions, stated Cllr Mulvey, who has an office based in Ballymote. Town Centre First supports the objectives of the national rural development policy, Our Rural Future, in revitalising rural towns and engages communities through Town Teams. The Plans which were developed in consultation with local communities represent the vision of local people for their area and contain proposals for a diverse range of projects such as redeveloping derelict sites, creating community parks and walkways, boosting SME and tourism potential, and protecting historical landmarks. The community of Kiltealy has vowed to rally round the Brooks family as they deal with the loss of their son Val who passed away in a drowning accident in Bali last week. Val (25) had left Wexford to emigrate to Australia earlier this year and had been on holiday in the Indonesian province when news emerged of his tragic passing. Although they have been informed they do not need to travel to the south east Asian country, the Brooks family is still awaiting the repatriation of their sons remains. In the days following the tragic news on Thursday last (February 22) Vals parents Val Snr and Anne, siblings Patricia, Catherine and Sean, and extended family have received the unstinting support of their local community, including parish priest Father Jim Fegan. "The whole community is devastated by this news, he said. Val was a young man heading off to Australia to make a new start in his life. Its a terrible shock. Hearts are broken. When tragedy like this strikes, it shows us how fragile life really is and how in seconds everything can change and lives are turned upside down. "Val was a fantastic carpenter. His pals had emigrated before him and he decided I think Ill give this a try. He had gone for a year and he was only five weeks gone last Tuesday. He was enjoying life like all the young people and wanting to explore life in a different part of the world. He was a young vibrant young man, full of life, a very happy-go-lucky guy. Meeting all his friends up at the house in the last two days, he obviously touched a lot of lives. To see how many young people whose hearts are broken, its an awful tragedy. Fr Fegan said that Val was enjoying the adventure on the other side of the world and had only been in contact with his family the day before his death. "He was in communication nearly every day, he said. The day before he was on FaceTime with a good few of his family and his cousins and that. Its just such an awful tragedy. "Kiltealy is a very strong community and its wonderful to see how everyone is coming together to support Val and Anne and the family. I know theyll walk the extra mile with them in these difficult days. The family still have difficult days ahead. Vals body still has to be repatriated and brought home and they still have the funeral ahead of them, so its a very tough, tough time. His parents and family just want to hold him and touch him and see him. Theres that awful disbelief. Its very hard and all we can do at this side is be supportive." Sympathisers from Wexford and beyond have been offering their condolences to the family online, with one bereaved set of parents offering some words of solace. Having lost a great son tragically only a few months back we can surely feel your pain, they wrote. It is so final with such a colossal void. Your lovely Val will be very near in spirit and helping you through the days, weeks and months ahead. Be kind to yourselves. You will be in our prayers. Another heartbroken bereaved mother wrote: We know only too well how it feels to lose a child so suddenly and tragically. We lost our beautiful son Evan age 25 last September. He was working in Dallas, Texas and living his dream. When we got that dreaded phone call, our lives changed forever. We will never be the same again and we will carry this grief until we see him again in heaven. Please know that your beloved son is with you and he will give you all the strength to get through this. You are in our thoughts and prayers. Further words of sympathy came from the staff, past and present, of Vals former school in Kiltealy. "Absolutely devastated on hearing of Val's untimely passing. Very fond and cherished memories of Val from his primary school days with us in Kiltealy NS. A vibrant, popular young man with great character. May he rest in eternal peace, they wrote. A staff member from Vals secondary school, FCJ Bunclody, also paid tribute to a young man who made their working day that bit more enjoyable. I got to know Val in my time working in the FCJ, thank you for making the FCJ a better place for me to work. You truly can be so proud of the young man you reared, he was one in a million. Sending huge hugs and prayers to you all. A gifted tradesman, Val worked for both Karl Cullen Fitted Kitchens and JV Kitchens in Tullow and was remembered by one of his colleagues from Co Carlow. "Val was a very talented craftsman and a pleasure to work with in JV, wrote Ann Marie Kavanagh. Val always had a lovely smile and a word for everyone. Your adventure was only starting Val. Rest in peace pal. Even those who had only fleetingly known Val, those whose homes he had visited for work, recalled his kindness and good nature. Val did some amazing work in our home late last year, wrote Aisling and Sean Roche, from Kiltrea. He was a lovely guy, (who had) a word for everyone and a talented craftsman. Our sympathies to his family and loved ones and all who will miss him. The majority of the condolences came from people within the Kiltealy community, people who were resolute in their determination to help the Brooks family in whatever way they can. We hope the good times you shared together will help you through the tough times ahead. No words of consolation are enough, but you can rest assured you are in the thoughts of all our community and the people of Kiltealy and Ballindaggin will be there to support you all, said Noreen Kehoe and Jim Byrne. Thinking of you all in prayer at this difficult time, said Joan Fenlon. The great community of Kiltealy/Ballindaggin and Caim will support you all. There arent words at a time like this that make the grief and shock any less difficult. Im sending my prayers and good wishes to all of you. Im so sorry for the unimaginable pain and suffering you are all going through. Kiltealy is an amazing community in tough times and will support you however it can, wrote Sinead OConnor. Val is survived by parents Val Snr and Anne, siblings Patricia, Catherine and Sean. brothers and sister-in-law Eugene, Mikey and Aisling, Nanna Pender, nephews Michael, Paudie, Tadhg and Donal, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbours and friends. At the Bubble & Bargain Event in Carrig on Bannow Community Centre were were Eimear Redmond and Shirley O'Connor. At the Bubble & Bargain Event in Carrig on Bannow Community Centre were were Susan Murphy and Leona Hennessy. At the Bubble & Bargain Event in Carrig on Bannow Community Centre were Caroline Quirke, Pamala Curtis, Theresa Hannon and Sis Curtis. Carrig on Bannow Tidy Towns held a hugely successful fashion sustainability shopping event in the community centre, raising 4,169 in the process for local village improvement initiatives. The group of volunteers has embraced the sustainability movement big style and based this event on one held in Australia that members learned about. We were trying to save items from the landfill. We had 224 sustainable shoppers through our doors from all over the county and on average they bought three times each, a committee member said. The clothing ran from items taken from Dunnes Stores, Tesco, Penneys, as well as high end brand name clothes, jewellery and shoes. Local businesses including Wallaces and Tir na nog pub donated prosecco glasses and prosecco and everyone attending got a glass of bubbly and a raffle ticket, with local businesses again coming up with the goods for the prizes. This is Wexford Newsletter Enter your email address below and click 'Sign Up' to receive the This is Wexford newsletter direct to your inbox. Please check your inbox to verify your details It was incredible. There were a lot of converts to sustainable fashion, including some of us on the committee! It was a huge effort from us in the committee and volunteers. We are still selling the remaining items and sold some on a Facebook Live the day after the event. were planning to repeat the event later this year because of the enthusiasm for it. The spokesperson said the quality of the items donated was fantastic and the value amazing. One of us paid 65 for items worth 500. One person said she is going to upcycle the bottom of a dress she bought as a hair band. Were trying to stop the fast fashion, throw away culture. Weve had sustainability projects on the go in the village prior to this, including street art, with a heart and butterfly sculpture made from bottle tops. We sold tote bags for shopping on the day too, made from recycled material. The money raised will go towards buying towering planters for the village as part of Carrig on Bannow Tidy Towns ambitious plans to continue to transform the village streetscape this year. The proceeds from the sale of extra refreshments is going to Carrig on Bannow GAA Club. A Wexford man has has passed away in hospital, twelve weeks after a serious road traffic collision which put him there. Nicky Walsh of Bridgetown and formerly Liam Mellows Park in Wexford town, was rushed to hospital following a single-vehicle road traffic accident on the notorious New Line Road in Wexford on December 1. The incident took place between Murphy's Barn and the old Regal Lodge on the R733 and there was a large, multi-agency emergency response, which culminated in the roads closure to traffic and Mr Walsh being rushed to the Mater Hospital in Dublin for definitive care. He remained there for the past twelve weeks with his family by his side. Although it seemed he had begun to rally following a recent procedure, sadly on Thursday Mr Walsh took a turn for the worse and passed away. His remains were brought back to his home county of Wexford for a funeral mass on Saturday, followed by burial afterwards at Crosstown Cemetery. Nicky was the beloved husband of Patricia loving father to Kathleen, Pat, Therese, Nick and Joe; grandfather to Cora, Erin, Jack and Bobby and brother to Larry, Willie, Marie and Fintan. Tributes have been paid in recent days to the Wexford grandfather as his heartbroken family come to terms with the loss of a true gentleman. McDonalds Restaurant, Drinagh Retail Park, Wexford being presented with the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC Ireland) Golden Santa Hat Award. From left; Louise Quail, Head of Development of RMHC Ireland, Joe Kenny, CEO, John Byrne Franchisee and Nadia Jean Business manager. Photo; Mary Browne McDonalds Wexford town has been presented with the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC Ireland) Golden Santa Hat Award for raising over 20,000, the most for any McDonalds restaurant in Ireland, for the RMHC Ireland Santa Hat campaign in 2023. This is the second year in a row the franchisee and crew members of McDonalds restaurant in Wexford town have received the Golden Santa Hat Award accolade. The fundraising campaign saw over 90,000 hats sold during the Christmas period, 14,000 more than last year and over 197,000 raised across all 96 McDonalds restaurants in Ireland. McDonalds Carrickmines were also praised for selling the second highest amount of hats followed by McDonalds Carlow town. All money raised through the campaign goes to directly to RMHC Ireland, supporting its work to provide accommodation and a caring and supportive environment for families whose children are seriously ill and are hospitalised or undergoing medical treatment at Childrens Health Ireland, Crumlin. This is Wexford Newsletter Enter your email address below and click 'Sign Up' to receive the This is Wexford newsletter direct to your inbox. Please check your inbox to verify your details John Byrne, franchisee at McDonalds Wexford Town explained, I am incredibly proud of the team here in Wexford town and would like to thank all our customers who generously supported the Santa Hat campaign. McDonalds Ireland is very proud to partner with RMHC Ireland and help raise funds to support the invaluable services they provide to families. "McDonalds Wexford is a proud recipient of this award for a second year running - I am thrilled for our crew members as they are so passionate in supporting the vital services of RMHC Ireland. Joe Kenny, Executive Officer of Ronald McDonald House Charities in Ireland explained, "It is with immense gratitude, we celebrate the remarkable success of the Santa Hat Campaign 2023, which not only put thousands of smiles on a lot of little faces this Christmas but also raised over 197,000 to provide comfort and support to the families staying at The Ronald McDonald House in Crumlin. "I extend my sincere appreciation to McDonald's Wexford, whose unwavering dedication shone bright, selling over 10,000 Santa Hats. Their outstanding effort and commitment have earned them the prestigious Golden Santa Hat Award for the second consecutive year. Together, we continue to make a meaningful impact in the lives of those who need it most." The Santa Hat fundraising campaign has raised over 1.51 million for RMHC Ireland to date since it first launched 13 years ago. The RMHC Ireland Golden Santa Hat Award was first introduced in 2019 in recognition of fundraising by McDonalds franchisees and crew members across Ireland for the charity initiative. Editors Note: This CNN series is, or was, sponsored by the country it highlights. CNN retains full editorial control over subject matter, reporting and frequency of the articles and videos within the sponsorship, in compliance with our policy. In a country best known for its soaring skyscrapers, modern architecture and sprawling desert, wildlife isnt always what comes to mind when people think of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). But Dubai-based photographer Anish Karingattil is determined to change that. Originally from India, Karingattil moved to Dubai 17 years ago and began photographing wildlife shortly after, specializing in macro photography, using extreme close ups. Highlights of his stunning portfolio of images, taken across the seven Emirates, include a scorpion with her babies, an Arabian horned viper hiding in the desert sand, and two black and yellow mud daubers covered in dew drops. Photographers get to tell a story through images, Karingattil says. Macro photography allows me to see life and the world around me in a brand-new way. ADVERTISEMENT Despite its hot climate and harsh desert, the UAE is home to over 1,000 plant and animal species. The waters around the country are home to the largest concentration of Indian Ocean humpbacks dolphin in the world, and the second-largest population of dugongs, after Australia. With the UAEs president recently extending the countrys Year of Sustainability into 2024, Karingattil uses wildlife photography as a method of capturing the countrys biodiversity and sharing it with others. While interior design is his full-time job, herping is his passion. Herping is the act of observing, studying, and photographing reptiles and amphibians in their natural habitats, says Karingattil. It is a popular hobby among nature enthusiasts and wildlife photographers who are fascinated by the diversity and beauty of these creatures. Some snakes found in the UAE, including this saw-scaled viper, are aggressive and highly venomous. - Anish Karingattil But photographing potentially dangerous animals like snakes and spiders takes a lot of preparation. Before attempting to photograph any wildlife, Karingattil says it is important to research its behavior, habitat and potential risks to understand how to approach it safely and minimize the risk of harm to both the photographer and the animal. Story continues For Karingattil, conservation is an important aspect of wildlife photography, which he believes can serve as a powerful tool for advocacy. By documenting the beauty and fragility of the natural world, photographers can help policymakers and the general public understand the value of protecting the environment and the need for sustainable practices, he says. And with over 69,000 followers on Instagram, Karingattil uses social media to educate people about the species he photographs. Biodiversity in the UAE The UAE has 49 terrestrial and marine protected areas, including eight in Dubai. Accounting for over 18% of the countrys land territory and 12% of its marine and coastal territory, these protected areas are often natural reserves which include all the major ecosystems found in the region: mountain, desert, coastal and marine. Andrew Gardner, associate director of Biodiversity Conservation at Emirates Nature-WWF, says wildlife conservation is recognized as an important responsibility and obligation by the UAE. For example, the country is a signatory to multiple international conservation conventions, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, and has helped reintroduce animals such as the Arabian oryx to the Arabian Peninsula. According to Gardner, there are now over 1,600 oryx in two of the UAEs protected areas, and thousands more in zoos across the region. However, rapid development and population growth across the Emirates mean that 53% of bird species, 46.7% of mammal species, 19% of reptile species, and 8% of plant species are endangered, according to a government report. It was Karingattil's long-term desire to photograph a scorpion, so when he came across this scorpion with her babies, he couldn't let the chance pass by. - Anish Karingattil Gardner says the Arabian wolf and striped hyena have both gone extinct from the UAE in recent decades, and a small population of Arabian leopards that lived the Hajar Mountains until the mid-1990s are now also believed to be extinct. Karingattil points to habitat loss, climate change and overfishing as some of the major threats facing wildlife in the UAE, but one issue he thinks people should take more action against is plastic pollution. Whenever I explore the desert or other areas, I make it a point to clean up the surroundings, he says. By removing litter and debris, we can reduce the impact of human activities on the natural world. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com Christ Church COI Services of Worship for this Sunday The Third Sunday in Lent: 11am Morning Prayer. World Day of Prayer Service this Saturday: Takes place at 11am in St. Peters Church, Little Bray. All are welcome. Parish Life Centre [PLC] Bookings: The Parish Life Centre is available for day and evening bookings. Please contact Tracey in the Parish Office at 01-286 2968. Parish Office: The Parish Office can be contacted at 01- 286 2968 or info@christchurchbray.ie between 9am to 1pm Monday to Friday. Connect Online: Our most active communication tools currently are our Website www.christchurchbray.ie which contains information on our live streamed worship services, weekly Blogs, events and news, and our facebook page @christchurchbray. Irish Trefoil GuildGuiding for Life: Calling all former leaders of the Irish Girl Guides in Bray and the surrounding area. There is now a Trefoil Guild in Bray. Contact Anne at braytrefoilguild@gmail.com. Bray Methodist Church Worship for this Sunday: 10amSunday Worship with Creche and Sunday School. Bray Presbyterian Church Worship for this Sunday: 11.30am Sunday Worship. Christian Assembly Church Worship for this Sunday: 10.45am Morning Worship. Wednesdays: 8pm Prayer Meeting & Bible study. Monthly Ladies Meeting: For details see www.christianassemblybray.com. Cornerstone Church at The Well Worship this Sunday: 11am. Holy Redeemer Parish Mass Times: 10amMonday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday No Mass on Tuesday. Sunday Masses: 6pm Vigil Mass on Saturday and on Sunday at 10.30am and 12Noon. To book a Mass, please call into the Sacristy before or after our Masses. Mass Cards: Mass Cards may be purchased from the Parish Office during its opening hours. Baptism: Registration for Baptism can be made online via the parish website www.holyredeemerbray.ie. St Peters Parish St. Peters Church Mass Times: Sunday: 9.30am (Irish), 11.30am. Holy Days of Obligation: 11.30am. No Weekday Mass. Mass on the First Friday of the Month is celebrated at 10am. Sunday Mass is broadcast on the parish web-site at 9.30am (Irish) and 11.30am (English)Google Chrome required. World Day of Prayer Servicethis Saturday: Takes place in this church at 11am. All are welcome. Car Park Hours: These are from 9am to 12.30pm, Monday to Friday, for parish business and at the weekends during church ceremonies. The Cemetery is accessible via the laneway for pedestrians. St. Peters Cemetery: There is a strict policy of No Dumping Allowed in any area of the cemetery. Visitors to the cemetery are requested to take home all forms of rubbish with them in order to keep the cemetery tidy. Your co-operation is appreciated. St. Annes Church, Shankill: A Vigil Mass is celebrated on Saturdays at 5pm. All are welcome. St Fergals Parish Mass Times: Mass times are 9.30am Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. No morning Mass on Thursdays and Saturdays. Saturday: 7pm Vigil Mass; Sundays: 8am and 10.30am. Baptism: Baptisms take place on the first and third Saturday of each Month at 12Noon. Bookings can be made through the Parish Office Only. The Preparation meeting takes place on the Monday before the 1st Saturday of the month. Please call into the Parish Office three weeks in advance of the Baptism to complete the Baptism Form and to confirm the date. Confessions: Are heard on Saturdays after the 7pm Vigil Mass. World Day of Prayer Service this Saturday: This years World Day of Prayer service will take place at 11am in St. Peters Church, Little Bray. The theme of this years service is I beg you......Bear with one another (Ephesians 4:1-7) and has been prepared by the Christian Women of Palestine. All are welcome. Syro Malabar Catholic Church Mass is celebrated every Sunday at 2.30pm in St. Fergals Church, Ballywaltrim. Our Lady Queen of Peace Eucharistic Adoration: Eucharistic Adoration takes place from 11am to 10pm on Mondays only in this Church. Mass: Weekday Masses are celebrated at 10.30am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Weekend Masses are at 6.30pm on Saturdays and 10.30am and 12 Noon on Sundays. World Day of Prayer Service this Saturday: This years World Day of Prayer service will take place at 11am in St. Peters Church, Little Bray. The theme of this years service is I beg you......Bear with one another (Ephesians 4:1-7) and has been prepared by the Christian Women of Palestine. All are welcome. Mass Bookings: Anyone who wishes to book a Mass can do so by contacting the Parish Secretary via email at: secretary@queenofpeace.ie, or call 2745497. Parish Centre: To book a meeting room in the Parish Centre please call 01-2760045 or email: villafas1@hotmail.com. QOP youth club Twenty-seven members of the Queen of Peace Adventure Youth Club enjoyed a pool swim on Friday, and their next events include a quiz, yoga, a Bray Head walk, visit to the Fire Station, and Kilmainham Goal. Paul Temple advises that at the present there is no waiting list to join the club. Diving club Bray Divers have had 13 scuba dives this year to date all of which were in Greystones and Glendalough. A big number of dives in lots various locations are planned for the year including Wexford, Donegal, Tipperary, Galway, and Lanzarote. Training for new members will commence in the middle of March, and the recruits may expect to be divers at Easter. Call 0876756439 for details about getting under water with the club. Bray Library Opening hours are 10am to 5pm Monday to Saturday with late opening on Tuesday and Thursday until 8.30pm. The library can be contacted at 01-2862600 or email: braylib@wicklowcoco.ie. Online services including e-books, audio-books, digital magazines and newspapers and e-learning are available via the library website. The library is again involved in Imbolc, the Community Seed Arc programme, where one can get seeds for a variety of plants and after they flower, donate seeds from them for the programme. As always, you can have seeds sent to your local Wicklow Library branch by emailing your branchand requesting up to 4 packets. Doodle Time for 9-12 year olds takes place every Thursday from 3pm to 4pm. Afterschool Storytime takes place every Tuesday at 3pm in the Junior Library. The Junior Book Club (ages 9 to 11) is now accepting new members. It meets on the second Monday of each month at 3.15pm. Email:braylibrary@wicklowcoco.ie or ask at the library desk to book a place. A Romance Book Club commences next month (March) and will take place at 7pm on the first Tuesday of the month. To book a place email: braylib@wicklowcoco.ie. As part of Local History in your Library Pat Power will present an illustrated lecture The Arklow Question: Sectarian disturbances in the 1890s at 7pm on Thursday March 7th in Wicklow Town Branch Library, The Mall, Main Street, Wicklow Town. All are welcomeadmission is free but booking is requiredcontact Wicklow Library on 0404-67025 or email: wicklowlocalstudies@wicklowcoco.ie to book your place. Bray Library Knitting and Crochet will meet on Wednesdays between 3pm and 4 p.m. from Wednesday March 6th to Wednesday September 25th just come along, no need to book. On Friday March 8th Bray Library will be closed to the public. The library building will be open as a polling station only. Ballywaltrim Library Opening hours are 10am to 5 pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and 10am to 8pm on Wednesday. The library is closed on the Saturdays and Mondays on Bank Holiday Weekends. The library can be contacted at 01-2723205 or by email at: ballywatrimlibrary@wicklowcoco.ie. Online services including e-books, audio-books, digital magazines and newspapers and e-learning are available via the library website. Borrowers can renew their books on-line at any time. Study paces are available. Sensory Space +Sensory Kits: Our Sensory space provides A relaxing and colourful sensory experience. Sensory kits can also be issued at the desk (for use in the library only). STEM Saturdays: 10am to 11.30am Booking is essential. FAST Sensory Toy Collection: Our FAST toy collection features over 140 items divided into four functional categories: Gross Motor skills, Fine Motor skills, Language, Social, Life and Play Skills and Sensory & Tactile. A catalogue is available to view in the library or online. Quilting Group & Knitting Group: Runs fortnightly, each group meets on alternating Wednesdays between 6.30pm and 8pm. Tummy Time (0-12 month olds): Mondays and Fridays between 10.30am and 12pm no booking required. Storytime for all: Saturdays at 11.30am. (Saturday times may change). Ballywaltrim Book Clubs: Meetings on a Wednesday and Saturday of each month between 3pm and 4pm. Enquiries to library staff. (Saturday times may change). Bookaneers Book Club: Junior Book Club contact the library for more details. Coder Dojo: Wednesdays between 5pm and 6.30pm (September to May only). As part of Local History in your Library Pat Power will present an illustrated lecture The Arklow Question: Sectarian disturbances in the 1890s at 7pm on Thursday March 7th in Wicklow Town Branch Library, The Mall, Main Street, Wicklow Town. All are welcomeadmission is free but booking is requiredcontact Wicklow Library on 0404-67025 or email: wicklowlocalstudies@wicklowcoco.ie to book your place. Bray Cualann Historical Society Margaret McGuirk will present The Phoenix Park, Dublin for the March meeting of the Bray Cualann Historical Society, the local history society for Bray and North Wicklow, in the Royal Hotel, Bray, at 8pm on Thursday March 21st. Members and supporters of the Bray Cualann Historical Society are asked to note that today (Wednesday) Elizabeth Kehoe will present Curfews in Dublin 1920-21 in the Dublin Central Library, Ilac Centre, Henry Street, Dublin 1. Admission is free but booking is required book in branch, call 01-2228300 or email: centrallibrary@dublincity.ie; Cormac F. Lowth will present The Sailing Trawlers of Ringsend at 6pm to the Old Dublin Society in the Conference Room, Dublin City Library & Archive, 139-144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2. All are welcomeadmission is free and no booking is required; History of Ballymun: a chat with Dr. Mary Muldowney takes place at 6.30pm in Ballymun Library, Ballymun Road, Ballymun, Dublin 11. Admission is free but to reserve a place email: ballymunlibrary@dublincity.ie; tomorrow (Thursday) History of Cabra: a chat with Dr. Mary Muldowney takes place at 6.30pm in Cabra Library, Navan Road, Dublin 7. Admission is free but to reserve a place email: cabralibrary@dublincity.ie; Cormac F. Lowth will present the Rathmines, Ranelagh & Rathgar Historical SocietyDeirdre Kelly Commemorative Lecture at 8pm on A History of Dublin Port in Rathmines Town Hall, Rathmines Road, Dublin 6. Members free / visitors 4Swan Car Park Evening Rate: 4 from 7 p.m. to Midnight; next Monday James Scannell will present John Hinde and his postcards of Co. Wicklow at 8pm to the Rathdrum Historical Society in Anne Devlin Annex, RHA Hall, Rathdrum. Co. Wicklow. All are welcome; next Wednesday Howard Clarke will present Medieval Dublin: the Making a City at 8pm to the Rathmichael Historical Society in Rathmichael National School, Stonebridge Road, Shankill, Co. Dublin. All are welcomeadmission is 5 for non-members. The Bray Cualann Historical Society is always interested in new members and those wishing to join the Society can do so at their March 21st meeting in the Royal Hotel, Bray, or log onto the Societys website to obtain more information. Poetry in the Park Poetry in the Park takes place on the First Sunday of Every Month at 12pm on the bandstand in the Peoples Park, Lower Dargle Road, Bray. Listen to or read your favourite poems, hear original poetry performed by local poets or simply chat with other poetry fans in this beautiful outdoor setting on the banks of the River Dargle. War in Ukraine Display Last Saturday to mark the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the railings of the Bray Presbyterian Church were used by the Bray Ukrainian community to display a series of colour photographs showing the destruction this country has endured so far and the impact that this conflict has had on its citizens and a visible reminder to passers-by of a conflict that is on-going and now entering its third year. Mary and Matthew Reynolds with Tanya O'Carroll were watching the performance of the Greystones Orchestra at Mermaid Theatre, Bray. Parish of Powerscourt with Kilbride Services at Powerscourt with Kilbride: All Services are available on the Parish YouTube Channel. Service of Worship in St. Patricks Church, Powerscourt, for this Sunday The Third Sunday in Lent: 11.30am Morning Prayer 2. Service of Worship in St. Brigids Church, Kilbride, for this Sunday The Secord Sunday in Lent: 9.45am Holy Communion 1. Love Life Live Lenta five-week course for Lent in collaboration with our friends from St. Marys, Enniskerry: Love Life Live Lent is a different way of approaching Lent, one which focuses on taking up positive actions for the good of all. Often Lent has been about giving up things traditionally some sorts of food, but these days more likely chocolate or alcohol. We give up things with a view to focus more closely on our relationship with God. While there are elements of giving up in the daily actions (well think about that in week 2) the focus of the actions is on generosity and being life-giving. Week 2 today (Wednesday)The Bethesda Pool: Letting Go; Week 3: March 6thFeeling Good or Washing Feet?: Whats in it for me?; Week 4: March 13thFeeding 5000: Whats in it for them? Week 5: March 20thMan Born Blind: Taking Action Making a difference. Irish Trefoil GuildGuiding for Life: Calling all former leaders of the Irish Girl Guides in Bray and the surrounding area. There is now a Trefoil Guild in Bray. Contact Anne at braytrefoilguild@gmail.com. St. Marys Church Parish Website: www.enniskerryparish.ie is the Parish website of the Immaculate Heart of Marycheck it out for the latest information about our parish. Facebook Page: There is a facebook page for the parish of Enniskerry, incorporating all four churches which facebook users will find under Enniskerry parish with a cover photo of trees and profile picture of a quote from Pope Francis. Please give it a like and feel free to post news from your community. Enniskerry (also Curtlestown & Glencree) Parish Office opening times: Monday to Friday: 10am to 1pm; email: stmarys@enniskerryparish.ie; or call 01-2760030. St. Mochonogs Parish Office opening times: Monday: 9am to 2pm, Tuesday: (by phone) 10am to 1pm, Wednesday: 10am to 2pm, Thursday (by phone) 10am to 1pm. Closed Friday. Parish Churches Schedule of Masses: EnniskerrySt Marys: Saturday evening 6pm and also via parish webcam; Sunday 11am and also via parish webcam. Weekday Mass at Enniskerry is at 10.15am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and also via parish webcam lay-led prayer service on Wednesday; and Saturday at 10.15 am, and also available via the parish webcam. Masses in Curtlestown and Kilmacanogue are on Sunday at 10am. Mass in Glencree is at 9am on the first Sunday each month. Baptism Requests: Requests for Baptism now take place online at www.enniskerryparish.ie. Love Life Live Lenta five-week course for Lent in collaboration with our friends from St. Patricks Powerscourt: Love Life Live Lent is a different way of approaching Lent, one which focuses on taking up positive actions for the good of all. Often Lent has been about giving up things traditionally some sorts of food, but these days more likely chocolate or alcohol. We give up things with a view to focus more closely on our relationship with God. While there are elements of giving up in the daily actions (well think about that in week 2) the focus of the actions is on generosity and being life-giving. Week 2: today (Wednesday)The Bethesda Pool: Letting Go; Week 3: March 6thFeeling Good or Washing Feet?: Whats in it for me?; Week 4: March 13thFeeding 5000: Whats in it for them? Week 5: March 20thMan Born Blind: Taking Action Making a difference. Church Music Group: We meet on Tuesday evenings at 7.15pm in St. Marys Church. We would love to have a few more voices. If you would like to try, just come along and you will be warmly welcomed. Downtime Thursday: Why not pop into St. Marys Church for some quiet time tomorrow (Thursday) from 7pm to 8.30pm. You can sit in silence with candlelight and gentle music. Take a few minutes for yourself and just be. Light a candle, say a prayer. Just sit if thats what you need. Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament will take place. Retirement: Our beloved Margaret Blackburn is retiring from St. Marys parish office as parish secretary. By way of marking the occasion, a Mass will be celebrated at 11am in St. Marys this Sunday for her family, friends, and parishioners. Refreshments/light lunch and a presentation will take place directly after Mass in the Summer Hill Hotel. All are welcome. Creating a Liturgical/Community Space: Over the last few years several suggestions have been made, through the parish pastoral council, as to how we could create a gathering space in St. Marys, for community and liturgical events in the parish. One of the suggestions had been to remove some benches from the back of the church and create a designated and attractive space for this purpose. As time passed, and it was obvious that the number attending was continuing to fall, the decision was made to go ahead with the project. The next step was to identify how may benches we would need to move to create enough space. That decision was made for us, as there are only four benches in the church without plaques. We now propose to move these, and make full use of the space it will give. The plan, once the benches are removed, is to create a space, which will be clearly visible as a designated for meeting, welcoming, and praying together in a more intimate setting. We will pay particular attention to the quality of furnishings and how the space will be marked out. It should be a great asset to the community. Gatherings for tea/coffees, to a smaller more intimate space for the celebration of daily Eucharist will be an option. We envisage using this space for invited speakers and guests to engage the community in prayer in so many different shapes and forms. It will be a Godsend for the ongoing faith development of sacramental families. This is an option that a number of other churches in the Dublin diocese have opted for very successfully. Very importantly a meeting will be held this Saturday morning at 10.45am in St. Marys church for all who would like to express their views on the removal of the benches. Broadcast List: A broadcast list for the parish is now up and running. This is to keep everyone up to date with what is happening in the parish and for easy communication in relation to building our communities. If you would like your name added to the list please contact Aideen 086-8182 241. New Here? You are very welcome. Please keep up to date with us at www.enniskerryparish.ie. You can register as a parishioner by mailing us at stmarys@enniskerryparish.ie or stmochonogs@enniskerryparish.ie. If you wish to receive items, or if you would like to receive the Parish Link by email weekly please phone the Parish Office in Enniskerry on 01-2760030 (10am to 1pm Monday to Friday or email: stmarys@enniskerry.ie; and Kilmacanogue on 01-2021882. (10am to 1pm) Mondayto Thursday, or email:stmochonogs@enniskerryparish.ie. Rosary: A group from the parish meets every Wednesday evening, on Zoom, from 7.30pm to8pm to pray the Rosary. Please call or message 087-4189 338, to be added to the group or for further information. Society of St. Vincent de Paul: The local telephone number is 01-8550022. History Society Members and supporters of the Enniskerry History Society are asked to note that the following events will take place in the week ahead. Today (Wednesday) Elizabeth Kehoe will present Curfews in Dublin 1920-21 in the Dublin Central Library, Ilac Centre, Henry Street, Dublin 1. Admission is free but booking is required book in branch, call 01-2228300 or email: centrallibrary@dublincity.ie; Cormac F. Lowth will present The Sailing Trawlers of Ringsend at 6pm to the Old Dublin Society in the Conference Room, Dublin City Library & Archive, 139-144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2. All are welcomeadmission is free and no booking is required; History of Ballymun: a chat with Dr. Mary Muldowney takes place at 6.30pm in Ballymun Library, Ballymun Road, Ballymun, Dublin 11. Admission is free and to reserve a place email: ballymunlibrary@dublincity.ie; tomorrow (Thursday) History of Cabra: a chat with Dr. Mary Muldowney takes place at 6.30pm in Cabra Library, Navan Road, Dublin 7. Admission is free but to reserve a place email: cabralibrary@dublincity.ie; Corman F. Lowth will present the Rathmines, Ranelagh & Rathgar Historical SocietyDeirdre Kelly Commemorative Lecture at 8pm on A History of Dublin Port in Rathmines Town Hall, Rathmines Road, Dublin 6. Members free / visitors 4Swan Car Park Evening Rate: 4 from 7 p.m. to Midnight; next Monday James Scannell will present John Hinde and his postcards of Co. Wicklow at 8pm to the Rathdrum Historical Society in the Anne Devlin Annex, RHA Hall, Rathdrum. Co. Wicklow. All are welcome; next Wednesday Howard Clarke will present Medieval Dublin: the Making a City at 8pm to the Rathmichael Historical Society in Rathmichael National School, Stonebridge Road, Shankill, Co. Dublin. All are welcomeadmission is 5 for non-members. Enniskerry Library Opening hours are Tuesday 10.30am to 12.30pm & 1.30pm to 4.30pm; Wednesday: 2pm to 4.30pm & 6pm to 8pm; Friday: 10.30am to 12.30pm & 1.30pm to 4.30pm; Saturday: 10am to 2.30pm. The library is closed on Mondays and Thursdays and on the Saturdays of Bank Holiday weekends. The library can be contacted at 01-2864339 or email: enniskerrylib@wicklowcoco.ie. Online services including e-books, audio-books, digital magazines and newspapers and e-learning are available from the library website. As part of Local History in your Library Pat Power will present an illustrated lecture The Arklow Question: Sectarian disturbances in the 1890s at 7pm on Thursday March 7th in Wicklow Town Branch Library, The Mall, Main Street, Wicklow Town. All are welcomeadmission is free but booking is requiredcontact Wicklow Library on 0404-67025 or email: wicklowlocalstudies@wicklowcoco.ie to reserve your place. Councillor Anne Ferris, at the rally at Bray Town Hall in support of the people of Gaza. The North Wicklow Against Genocide group, which held demonstrations at Blacklion in Greystones, recently, mounted a rally at Bray Town Hall, last Saturday, February 24, to raise awareness about the ongoing Israeli-Gaza conflict. The group said the rally was in response to calls from the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), which had urged a day of local action in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Councillor Anne Ferris was in attendance at the event and questioned why there werent more public representatives from the Government parties present. I was delighted to be able to attend the protest at the Bray Town Hall last Saturday in support of the people of Gaza, commented Cllr Ferris. There was a very good turnout at the event with people from both the local area and from outside of Bray. I have to admit, however, that I didnt see any public representatives from the government parties and I was disappointed that they didnt come out to show their solidarity with Palestine. This is Wicklow Newsletter Enter your email address below and click 'Sign Up' to receive the This is Wicklow newsletter direct to your inbox. Please check your inbox to verify your details The population of Gaza is experiencing the worst annihilation possible, with people seeing their loved ones massacred and witnessing small children starving from the lack of food. We feel so helpless here in Ireland not to be able to do more to help, so the least we can do is to turn out at protests in an effort to show our support for all those suffering in Gaza, she added. The rally in Bray came a week after an event which saw tens of thousands of people attend a march in Dublin, calling for an end to the conflict. Rathdrum Cancer Support will be holding an official launch to mark having moved into to their newly refurbished premises in the old library. Rathdrum Cancer Support completed the purchase of the property at 11 Gilberts Row in April 2022 and applied to Pobal for a Community Centre Investment Fund (CCIF) grant to refurbish the premises. In December 2022, Rathdrum Cancer Support was granted 100,000 under the CCIF, which was used for the refurbishment and development of the new building. Established in 2008 by Bill Porter, Andrea Leonard and Ann OLoughlin, Rathdrum Cancer Support provide a vital service for their community, connecting cancer patients and their families with counselling support services and providing transport for patients receiving treatment in Dublin. Rathdrum Cancer Support Secretary, Fionnula OToole said: We are all delighted with our new premises and it looks great. They did a lovely job and we are now open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10am to 12 noon. We have a consultation room, wheelchair accessible toilets and a large front room. People have already started to drop into the centre, which is exactly what we wanted. Its really is a wonderful building and facility that we are all extremely proud of. Fionnula had her own personal reasons for joining the Rathdrum Cancer Support committee having received wonderful support from their services after enduring her own cancer battle. I had cancer myself and Rathdrum Cancer Support were so good to me. I wanted to give something back, so thats why I joined. The services provided helped get me to and from hospital and I was so grateful. At first I joined the Fundraising Committee, and then moved onto the overall Committee. I wanted to do something to thank them for everything they did for me. The official launch of the new premises takes place on Saturday, April 6, at the old library at 11 Gilberts Row from 11am, and all members of the community are invited. Fionnula added: We want the launch to be a big event and we are hoping for a large attendance, starting from 11am. The local community have always been so supportive of us so they are all invited. We are also hoping local TDs and public representatives will also be there on the day. After cutting the ribbon at our new premises, refreshments will be served afterwards in the RDA Hall. Johnny Depp is close friends with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Actor Amber Heard during the high-profile court battle against her former husband Johnny Depp. Photo: Getty Amber Heard was the victim of an online trolling campaign by accounts linked to Saudi Arabia, according to a new investigation. Heard was subjected to a barrage of abusive messages during her high-profile court battles with her former husband, Johnny Depp. According to an investigation by Tortoise Media, which examined more than one million tweets, more than 50pc of anti-Heard messages in the run-up to the 2022 defamation case were inauthentic either from automated bot accounts or people hired to attack the actress. They called her an abuser, a liar and a traitor, while proclaiming Depps innocence of domestic abuse allegations. The Tortoise podcast, Who Trolled Amber?, alleges a number of the accounts tweeted in Arabic and were full of praise for the Saudi regime or its ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Depp is a friend of the prince and reportedly spent more than seven weeks in Saudi Arabia last year, staying in royal palaces and camps, flying back to London on Bin Salmans personal 747 to attend a rock concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Bradley Hope, author of a book on Bin Salman, told the podcast that the pro-Depp tweets emanating from Saudi Arabia appear to be produced by flies, a name for Saudi bot accounts. Somehow it became known that MBS [Bin Salman] had a new fascination with Johnny Depp. Somebody gets the idea that this is the agenda and it becomes a sanctioned message to send through the flies channels, Mr Hope alleged. The investigation also claimed bot networks in Thailand and Spain tweeted large numbers of pro-Depp messages. In one case, more than 100 X accounts sent 1,000 identical messages at exactly the same time to any company that had worked with Heard, reading: This brand supports domestic violence against men. Between 2016-22, more than 800,000 tweets were posted with the hashtag #AmberHeardIsAnAbuser, Tortoise said. The makers of the podcast argue that the criticism of Heard could have affected the jury in the 2022 US defamation trial which found in favour of Depp (60). Depp had lost an earlier libel trial, in which he sued the Sun for calling him a wife beater. UK judge Andrew Nicol found that 12 of the 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence had occurred. Alexi Mostrous, presenter of the podcast, said: This case has wider ramifications than just an unedifying spat between two pampered Hollywood actors. This year is the biggest election year in history. Billions of people in more than 50 countries not least America and very likely Britain will go to the polls. It feels like democracy itself is on the ballot. At the same time, its becoming easier to pump out misinformation online So, if you couldnt tell the difference between a real-life Johnny Depp fan and a bot in 2022, then you probably wont be able to tell a Russian troll from a US election official in 2024. That represents a serious problem for the security of our democracies. Depp and the Saudi embassy did not reply to Tortoises request for comment. Lord Justice Leveson with the Report from the Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press (Gareth Fuller/PA) The Government has been accused of bribing the press as it seeks to repeal a media law. In the wake of the Leveson Inquiry, a law was passed that would force publishers to pay the legal costs of people who sue them, even if they win, unless they signed up to a state-approved regulator. This law, Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, was never actually implemented, however, and more than 10 years later the Government now wants to repeal it in its new Media Bill. Culture minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay praised the strengthened independent self-regulatory system of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) and told peers that repealing Section 40 is removing a threat to freedom of the press. However, Labour peer Lord Lipsey, who was previously the deputy editor of two national newspapers, branded Ipso a phoney regulator and accused ministers of cynically tabling this bill in an election year to get the press on side. He told the House of Lords during second reading of the Media Bill: Nothing happened for 13 years until (the repeal of Section 40) was introduced in this year, 2024. Why is it a special year? Because were having an election, thats why its a special year, were getting this clause after a decade of doddering and dithering because the Tories hope to bribe the press. Im sure ministers hope that the Government will use every possible manipulation to prevent the likely disaster for the Tories at the next election. This clause is not a piece of considered legislation, it is a straight-forward bribe to the newspapers. He added: Ministers of course know this perfectly well, and so they say things have changed for the better since Leveson, so we no longer need it. Change for the better isnt, to me, terribly obvious. He argued that Ipso was a phoney regulator designed to provide the fig leaf that the press wants to cover its worst excesses. He highlighted perceived failings of Ipso, including that just 0.56% of complaints to the organisation are upheld. Tory peer Lord Black of Brentwood, deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group, responded that Lord Lipsey seems sadly stuck in a past that has long since vanished. He branded Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act one of the most odious and shameful pieces of legislation ever put onto the statute book in this country in the modern democratic age. Lord Leveson (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA) He said: It sought for the first time since 1695 to hold a gun to the head of the free independent press in the UK and say: Join a state-backed regulator or we will close you down, which would have been the real world commercial impact of forcing publishers, particularly regional and local ones, to pay the costs of privacy and libel action, even if they won. It would have punished newspapers and their websites for telling the truth and utterly destroyed investigative journalism. It would have been completely incompatible with our commitments under the ECHR and the result of all that is that it has severely dented the UKs once shining reputation of press freedom. If it had ever been implemented, it would have been the day liberty died in this country. For all those reasons, it must not be allowed to stand a moment longer on the statute book. The repeal of this abominable legislation is long overdue and all credit to the Government. The founding chairman of Ipso, Tory peer Lord Hunt of Wirral, told peers: We hear a lot from critics of the press about how the newspapers can and should be accountable to politicians and Parliament. But let us not forget the vital role that the free press plays in holding us, Parliament and the politicians, to account too in its unique position as, what my old school friend Sir Brian Leveson termed, a critical witness to events. He added: When we first discussed this legislation, various voices, including my own and Lord Black, warned that the major newspaper publishers would and could not be coerced into anything that smacked of statutory regulation. Our warnings may have been unwelcome, and I think it was the only time Ive been heckled in this House, but they were founded in truth. Using a statutory body for that purpose was a bridge too far. Responding to Lord Lipseys comments about Ipso, he said: The thrust of the argument is that the Ipso has failed because of the relatively low number of complaints it has upheld. Progress should be measured not by complaints upheld, but by behaviour improved. He concluded: Section 40 has never been activated and had it been, it would have been ineffective at best, and far more likely, counter-productive at worst, with unforeseen and unforeseeable consequences that would have necessarily impinged on press freedom. Gabriella Kingston and her husband Thomas, who was found dead on Sunday evening. Photo: Alexandra Diez de Rivera/ Buckingham Palace Thomas Kingston, the husband of Prince and Princess Michael of Kents daughter Gabriella Kingston, has died suddenly at the age of 45, Buckingham Palace has announced. Ms Kingston paid tribute to her financier husband in a joint statement with his family, describing him as an exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him. Germany and Poland rule out sending troops to Ukraine Move comes after French president Emmanuel Macron said sending in Western ground troops should not be ruled out in future Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky livestreams from his phone during a ceremony at Hostomel Airport in Kyiv last Saturday, to mark the second anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine. Photo: AP Lorne Cook and Karel Janicek Wed 28 Feb 2024 at 03:30 European military heavyweights Germany and Poland said yesterday that they would not be sending troops to Ukraine, after reports that some Western countries may be considering doing so as the war with Russia enters its third year. A veteran human rights campaigner who criticised the war in Ukraine was convicted yesterday by a Moscow court of repeatedly discrediting the Russian military and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. Oleg Orlov (70), co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, had rejected the case against him as politically motivated, saying in his closing statement: I dont regret anything and I dont repent anything. He also denounced the war again. Marengo Trial: Ridouan Taghi, Europes most powerful drug lord, sentenced to life after case lasting six years Mob boss, who was a guest at Daniel Kinahans wedding, convicted of five murders by court in Netherlands Ridouan Taghi 'decided who would be killed and respected no one', a Dutch court heard James Crisp Telegraph.co.uk Wed 28 Feb 2024 at 03:30 Ridouan Taghi, reportedly Europes most powerful drug lord, was sentenced to life in prison for five murders by a heavily guarded Dutch court nicknamed The Bunker yesterday. Amin Mitchell, the employee who claims he was targeted by the gesture, shared two videos on Facebook that appear to show the noose lying on the ground near his workstation getty School buses Amin Mitchell, an employee with Missouri Central Bus Company, shared two videos on Thursday showing a noose he allegedly found at his workstation The mechanic said he allegedly found the noose following an argument with one of his supervisors, whom he claims to have reported before Nearly 100 school bus drivers for St. Louis Public Schools walked off the job in the wake of the alleged incident, leaving nearly 60 routes without drivers A group of Missouri school bus drivers have staged a sick out after a Black employee allegedly found a noose near his workstation. ADVERTISEMENT Nearly 100 drivers first called in sick on Monday in support of their co-worker Amin Mitchell, who works as a mechanic for Missouri Central Bus Company, according to FOX affiliate KTVI and St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Mitchell claimed he found the noose following an argument with a supervisor, per The Kansas City Star. On Thursday, Mitchell shared two videos on Facebook that appear to show the noose lying on the ground near the station. Related: Tennessee School Bus Driver Killed, 2 Students Injured in Wrong-Way Crash In his post, Mitchell claimed he has been filing prejudice complaints against two of his supervisors since he first took the job. He also claimed to file a complaint with human resources at least twice a week regarding equality. Today I had enough! the mechanic wrote on Thursday. He later added, Something needs to be done ASAP! About one-quarter of St. Louis school bus routes were impacted by the sick out, leaving hundreds of students without their typical transportation, according to KTVI. Fifty-six bus routes have been impacted by the walkout, according to a post on St. Louis Public Schools Facebook page. 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 celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Most after-school activities were canceled Monday and Tuesday as a result of the walk-out. In the meantime, the district said school officials are looking for ways to make the best of a bad situation. Story continues Regarding bus service to and from school, we are simply unable to predict what will happen, St. Louis Public Schools said in Mondays statement. In a subsequent statement, shared Tuesday, the district said Missouri Central informed them that the troubling allegations include issues of a racially charged nature, and that a third-party investigator is looking into the case. We hope for a swift resolution, the district said before apologizing to families for the inconvenience caused by the bus route disruption. Related: 8-Year-Old Girl Critically Injured After Being Hit by Car at School Bus Stop Scott Allen, Regional Operations Manager at Missouri Central Bus Company, said in a statement to PEOPLE, "At Missouri Central, our policy is to provide and foster a work environment that is welcoming to all regardless of age, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation." He added, "There is zero tolerance for any behavior that violates this policy. As such, we have hired an independent third party to investigate these allegations, and we will take whatever action is deemed necessary based on what we learn. We are working diligently to minimize service disruptions for our students, families and administrators as we understand how important it is for our children to be educated." An independent third-party investigator has been brought on by Missouri Central to investigate Mitchells allegations, according to the school district. Related: Florida Student Hit and Killed by School Bus While Biking: 'He Was Such a Good Friend' Some of Mitchells colleagues described their work environment as hostile, according to KTVI. Mitchell said he and his co-workers have experienced both racial and sexual harassment, as well as unsafe working conditions. [My co-workers] are here supporting me by standing behind me, knowing that this cant be something that is swept under the rug, Mitchell added. This is just the second year Missouri Central has served St. Louis Public Schools, according to the Post-Dispatch. A separate issue arose in August 2022 when the business failed to hire enough drivers for the allotted routes, leading the district to suspend service to six local high schools. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Pope Francis was hospitalised with flu after his weekly audience at the Vatican today, sparking fresh concerns about his health. The Vatican insisted that the 87-year-old pontiff has a mild case of influenza, but two medical sources told the Reuters news agency that he underwent a CT scan, suggesting the problem may be more serious. Police officers outside an apartment building in the Kreuzberg district in Berlin after a former Red Army Faction terrorist Daniela Klette (65) was arrested. Photo: AP A former member of the disbanded left-wing militant Red Army Faction group who is accused of participating in a string of robberies has been arrested after more than 30 years on the run, German authorities said yesterday. Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is under investigation for having allegedly harassed a humpback whale while riding a jetski off Sao Paulos coast last year. Mr Bolsonaro appeared at the federal police in Sao Paulo on Tuesday to meet with officers, along with his lawyer and former adviser who was also present at the time of the alleged incident. Photo Courtesy: PIB Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane co-chaired the India-Germany High Defence Committee (HDC) meeting in Berlin on 27 Feb 2024 with the State Secretary, German Ministry of Defence Benedikt Zimmer when the two leaders discussed a range of bilateral security and defence issues. "Both sides discussed a range of bilateral security and defence issues, with a focus on developing defence cooperation as a key pillar of the Strategic Partnership between India and Germany," read the statement issued by the Indian government. They exchanged views on the regional security situation, discussed likely joint exercises with Germany in the Indo-Pacific, and deliberated on potential defence industrial projects and proposals. They emphasized the need for a closer defence partnership and connecting the defence industries from both sides together. "Of particular focus was the collaboration in high technology in defence," read the statement. The conduct of HDC meeting follows the visit of German Federal Minister of Defence Mr Boris Pistorius to India in 2023. Giridhar Aramane later interacted with a prominent think tank German Institute of International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik - SWP) in Berlin. Photo courtesy: Facebook/Arvind Kejriwal New Delhi/UNI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday issued an eighth summons to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the alleged excise policy scam. The central probe agency has asked him to appear before it on March 4. Kejriwal had previously skipped the seventh summons, stating that he would only appear before the Enforcement Directorate if ordered by the court to do so. The anti-corruption agency recently filed a complaint before a Delhi court against Kejriwal for repeatedly skipping summonses over the past few months. A Delhi court then directed the Chief Minister to appear before the court on March 16. Photo courtesy: UNI Jammu/UNI: Alert Army troops fired at the Pakistan drone hovering close to the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday. Official sources said that their own troops this morning spotted a Pakistani drone near the Line of Control in the Topi Post and Parvinder Post in the Mendhar sector of Poonch. "Army troops fired a few rounds to push back the flying machine entering the Indian border from across the border," they said. "A search operation has been launched in the area, suspecting any air dropping," sources said. Notably, Jammu and Kashmir Police recently announced a cash reward to informers of drone droppings from across the border. Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons/ShareAlike 4.0 International The opposition RJD members created a ruckus in Bihar assembly on Wednesday in support of the demand to increase the exgratia amount to Rs 4 lakh in case of accidental death of labourers outside the state. Intervening during the reply by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Kumar Sinha to a starred question of Vinay Bihari, the opposition members said that the exgratia amount in case of death of the labourers outside the state in an accident was insufficient and should be increased up to Rs 4 lakh. Through his starred question Vinay Bihari had demanded to increase in the compensation amount saying that in case of death of the labourers within the state, the exgratia amount was Rs 4,00,000 whereas for those who lost their lives outside the state was given only Rs 2,00,000 as an exgratia. In support of his demand, Bihari also tried to draw the attention of the house towards the plight of the widow of the labourers. In reply to the question, Sinha said that the state government was sensitive towards the issue and the NDA government had increased the exgratia amount to Rs 2,00,000 from Rs 1,00,000 in case of death of labours outside the state. He further said that in case of accidental death of the labourers outside the state the labour resources department was providing Rs 2 lakh exgratia to the widow of the deceased whereas the disaster management department provides Rs 4,00,000 and a total of Rs 6 lakh was being provided to the widow of the deceased labour. Terming the reply of the Minister as confusing, the opposition members said that the exgratia amount was not being provided as per the statement of the Minister. Shouting slogans against the government, the opposition members trooped to the well of the house. Intervening, Speaker Nand Kishore Yadav asked the government to examine the matter and clear the confusion on it. The Minister assured to examine the issue. However, the opposition members continued to create ruckus at the well of the house. After the Chair requested them, they resumed their seats. (With UNI inputs) LONDON, ON, Feb. 28, 2024 /CNW/ - Each year, the Ontario Dental Assistants Association dedicates the first week of March to celebrating a valuable member of the oral health team the Certified Dental Assistant! A dental assistant poses in a clinical office. (CNW Group/Ontario Dental Assistants Association) The Ontario Dental Assistants Association (ODAA) encourages all Ontarians to join them in celebrating and highlighting the work of Certified Dental Assistants from March 39, 2024, during the annual Dental Assistants Recognition Week. Certified Dental Assistants are highly trained oral health care professionals and vital assets in dental offices, often described as the backbone of the practice. Their extensive education enables them to deliver enhanced care while ensuring a safe patient environment. Dental Assistants facilitate the work of dentists and hygienists, relying on their broad dental education, up-to-date knowledge of oral health trends through continuing education, and unique skills acquired through collaboration and experience. Dental Assistants often serve as the initial point of contact, establishing the foundation of trust in the patient-provider relationship. They play a vital role in building trust, educating patients throughout their appointments, and providing comfort, compassion, and clinical excellence. ADVERTISEMENT With an ongoing national Dental Assistant shortage, celebrating the value of Certified Dental Assistants is more important than ever. Dental assisting is a growing field with strong job security and opportunities for advancement. For Dental Assistants Recognition Week 2024, the ODAA has chosen to celebrate with the theme "The Value of Dental Assistants," highlighting the invaluable work of Certified Dental Assistants. "The ODAA believes in the value of Certified Dental Assistants and the skills and knowledge they hold," says Executive Director Tara Fitzpatrick, BA, CDA II, CDR. Fitzpatrick, who has been active in dental assisting for over twenty-five years, now advocates for improved working conditions, wages, and respect for Certified Dental Assistants across Ontario. "As the Executive Director of the ODAA, I want to emphasize the paramount importance of recognizing and celebrating our dedicated Certified Dental Assistants not only during Dental Assistants Recognition Week but throughout the year. These oral health professionals are irreplaceable when it comes to the delivery of quality dental care, demonstrating unwavering commitment and expertise. By fostering a culture of appreciation, we not only uplift the spirits of Dental Assistants but also cultivate a thriving and harmonious oral health care environment for the benefit of all." Story continues Organized annually by the American Dental Assistants Association, Dental Assistants Recognition Week is commemorated across Canada and the United States. "The ODAA is gearing up for a spirited celebration, complete with exciting contests, exclusive member prizes, and impactful media campaigns," revealed Mary Wardle, the President of the Association. "The focus is clear we're here to shine a well-deserved spotlight on the invaluable skills and knowledge our members bring to their workplaces and communities. Our mission goes beyond the celebrationit's about acknowledging the indispensable role Certified Dental Assistants, Certified Dental Receptionists, Certified Dental Treatment Coordinators, and Certified Preventive Dental Assistants play in the dynamic field of Dentistry, serving as integral members of the Interprofessional Health Care team." About the ODAA: The Ontario Dental Assistants Association is a non-profit organization that supports Ontario Dental Assistants as respected healthcare professionals. As the certifying body and membership association for Ontario Dental Assistants, more than 6,500 Certified Dental Assistants, Dental Receptionists, Treatment Coordinators, and other dental professionals belong to the ODAA. The ODAA maintains high standards for its members through an annual certification and membership renewal process. To connect with the ODAA, contact Laura Thorne, Communications & Advocacy Manager, at lthorne@odaa.org. Media is also encouraged to contact local dental offices to highlight Certified Dental Assistants in their region. A dental receptionist hands a patient a form. (CNW Group/Ontario Dental Assistants Association) Ontario Dental Assistants Association (CNW Group/Ontario Dental Assistants Association) Dental Assistants Recognition Week 2024 (CNW Group/Ontario Dental Assistants Association) SOURCE Ontario Dental Assistants Association Cision View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/February2024/28/c3684.html Photo Courtesy: Unsplash A 46-year-old property dealer was shot dead by two unidentified miscreants in the Kotwali area of Baghpat district here in Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, police sources said. Police sources said that Yusuf, a resident of Nirozpur, was shot inside his office by two motorcycle-borne miscreants in Niwara village in the morning. "Yusuf, who sustained three bullet injuries, died on the spot," they said. Police sources said that Yusuf's younger brother, Mursaleen, has alleged that the deceased was having a dispute with some people over property. "It has come to light that the deceased was also having rivalry over Panchayat elections," they said. Superintendent of Police (SP) Arpit Vijayvagiya said that the matter was being investigated. He said that two police teams have been constituted to work on the case. (With UNI inputs) Photo Courtesy: Pixabay Security forces arrested a militant associate in Jammu and Kashmirs Sopore sub-district, police said on Wednesday. The arrest was made a day after Lashkar-e-Taiba's militant associate was arrested in the neighbouring Baramulla district. Police said, "Militant associate Arif Hussain Bhat of Mundji Bomai Sopore, who was in constant contact with terrorist handlers across the border, was apprehended following information by Sopore Police along with the Armys 22 Rashtriya Rifles and 179 battalion CRPF." During questioning, the subject admitted his terrorist links, and based on his disclosure, a live hand grenade was recovered, police said. Accordingly, a case under relevant sections of UA (P)A was registered at Police Station Bomai, and the investigation is underway. Police said this operation further ascertained the continued efforts of Sopore Police against anti-national elements by thwarting a potentially grave terrorist incident in Sopore. (With UNI inputs) Photo Courtesy: S Jaishankar X page Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday participated in the 10th India-Thailand Joint Commission with Thailands Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara when the two leaders discussed bilateral ties across multiple sectors including defence, security, tourism and space. Jaishankar described the meeting with the Thai leader as 'productive'. "Co-chaired a productive and wide-ranging 10th India-Thailand Joint Commission meeting with DPM & FM @drparnpreeb. Appreciate his warm words for the exposition of Buddhist holy relics in 4 provinces of Thailand," he said. The Indian Minister said: " Discussed the gamut of our bilateral ties in the strategic, defense, security, trade & investment, pharmaceuticals, connectivity, digital, space and tourism." "Also shared views on Myanmar, India-ASEAN and multilateral cooperation. Witnessed exchange of agreement in the field of Ayurveda and Thai traditional medicine," he said. Co-chaired a productive and wide ranging 10th India-Thailand Joint Commission meeting with DPM & FM @drparnpreeb. Appreciate his warm words for the exposition of Buddhist holy relics in 4 provinces of Thailand. Discussed the gamut of our bilateral ties in the strategic, pic.twitter.com/rpr65EjNzD Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) February 27, 2024 The two Ministers expressed their commitment towards strengthening India-Thailand partnership. They also noted a convergence of the Act East Policy of India which is marking its 10th year in 2024, and the Act West Policy of Thailand. External Affairs Minister welcomed Thailands decision to co-lead the Maritime Ecology Pillar of the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI). Both Ministers reaffirmed their resolve for working together to advance the initiative. Thai Deputy PM and Foreign Minister expressed appreciation to India for sending the Holy Relics of Lord Buddha together with his two disciples, Arahata Sariputra and Arahata Maudgalyayana to Thailand for exposition which will give an opportunity to millions of Thai nationals to pay reverence. During the JCM, following documents were signed/exchanged Agreed Minutes MoU between National Institute of Ayurveda, Jaipur of the Ministry of Ayush, India and Department of Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine of the Ministry of Public Health, Thailand on the Establishment of an Academic Collaboration in Ayurveda and Thai Traditional Medicine. Photo Courtesy: Free Art License 1.3/Wikimedia Commons The Bombay High Court has directed the city police to investigate a complaint filed by a father, alleging that his son was sexually assaulted inside a posh club in western suburb of Bandra by one of its staff. A bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Manjusha Deshpande has also asked the state government to file a reply affidavit to the petition. According to a complaint made at Bandra police station, a member of the club has complained that a staffer had sexually molested his minor son. Following this, the staffer has been arrested under POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act and is currently in custody of the Bandra police station. Club secretary, Sunil Motwani, has denied the alleged incident. A member of the club's disciplinary committee said that several weeks ago, the child had ordered food at the club. The food was late in coming and he went to the kitchen where the accused, who is a kitchen cashier, told him to step out. However, the child reportedly refused, at which point, the cashier jostled him out. The accused is an employee of the catering contractor. Apparently, he poked him with his finger during the jostling, it is alleged. When the parent complained to the club management, it called for the close circuit TV camera footage, but did not find any evidence of sexual assault, except for him evicting the boy. As a matter of precaution, the club wrote to Bandra police detailing the incident. However, the child's father was told by the victim that he was inappropriately touched. Accordingly, he filed a police complaint. Meanwhile, the club has alleged that the parent badly assaulted the accused outside the club premises. The Bandra police, which has arrested the accused, is further investigating the matter. (With UNI inputs) Photo Courtesy: Cochin Shipyard Limited X page video grab Indian PM Narendra Modi on Wednesday virtually inaugurated Indias first indigenously developed and built hydrogen fuel cell ferry in Kerala's Kochi city. The vessel was built at the Cochin Shipyard. The pilot vessel is a 24-metre catamaran which can carry 50 passengers with fully air-conditioned passenger space. It will make urban mobility smooth and easy, according to a release issued by Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL).The pilot vessel is a 24-metre catamaran which can carry 50 passengers with fully air-conditioned passenger space. It will make urban mobility smooth and easy, according to a release issued by Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) as quoted by The Hindu. Cochin Shipyard Limited posted on X: "Today marks a historic moment as the first INDIGENOUSLY BUILT HYDROGEN FUEL CELL VESSEL built by CSL under @shipmin_india flagged off by Hon'ble Prime Minister. #HydrogenVessel #greenEnergy." Modi launched the vessel during an event held in Tamil Nadu. Modi laid the foundation stone and dedicated to the nation multiple development projects worth more than Rs 17,300 crores in Thoothukudi region of Tamil Nadu. The Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of Outer Harbor Container Terminal at V.O.Chidambaranar Port. The Prime Minister also launched India's first indigenous green hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel under the Harit Nauka initiative. He dedicated tourist facilities in 75 lighthouses across 10 States/UTs. He also dedicated to the nation, rail projects for doubling of Vanchi Maniyachchi - Nagercoil rail line including the Vanchi Maniyachchi - Tirunelveli section and Melappalayam - Aralvaymoli section. The Prime Minister dedicated four road projects in Tamil Nadu, developed at a total cost of about Rs 4,586 Crore. Talking about India's first hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel under the Harit Nauka initiative, PM Modi called it a gift of the people of Tamil Nadu for Kashi. He said that he witnessed the enthusiasm and affection of the people of Tamil Nadu in Kashi Tamil Sangamam. The Prime Minister inaugurated various other projects aimed at making the V.O.Chidambaranar Port the first Green Hydrogen Hub Port of the country. Today marks a historic moment as the first INDIGENOUSLY BUILT HYDROGEN FUEL CELL VESSEL built by CSL under @shipmin_india flagged off by Hon'ble Prime Minister. #HydrogenVessel #greenEnergy pic.twitter.com/R0CVmsqkH3 Cochin Shipyard Limited (@cslcochin) February 28, 2024 These projects include a desalination plant, hydrogen production, and bunkering facility. Tamil Nadu will go a long way with regard to the alternatives that the world is exploring today, he said. Photo courtesy: PM Modi in Tamil Nadu/ courtesy: PIB Tirunelveli/IBNS/UNI: Sounding the poll bugle ahead of the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi came down heavily on the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu and its key ally, the Congress, and said both the parties should be removed and the people of the state would teach them a lesson in the Lok Sabha polls. Addressing a public meeting at Palayamkottai in this southern city in the last leg of his two-day visit to the state, Modi said the people would reject the DMK, which has been functioning with selfish interests, in the elections. Stating that the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre was not biased towards Tamil Nadu, he said the DMK-Congress government has been criticising for bringing central schemes to the state. Accusing both the DMK and Congress of trying to divide the country, PM Modi said both these parties should be removed. "Even if we search after the elections, one cannot find the DMK," he said and accused the DMK government in the state of not extending any cooperation to the Centre and has been scuttling all welfare schemes. The Prime Minister said the DMK raised questions on the link between Lord Ram and Tamil Nadu. However, the DMK MPs did not participate in the debate in Parliament on the Ram temple resolution. Alleging that the DMK had used a Chinese rocket in the Kulasekarapattinam Rocket launch pad advertisement, he said the Opposition INDIA bloc has been functioning intending to scuttle the people's welfare schemes. Noting the BJP was aware of the problems faced by the people in southern India, Modi said the DMK has been talking about Hindi (imposition). "We have made L.Murugan as MP from a Hindi-speaking state and a person from the Dalit community from Tamil Nadu has been made a Union Minister," the Prime Minister said and charged the DMK with pursuing dynastic politics with the family members of the DMK alone holding key posts. He said India was progressing on the path for sustained growth and said if the country progresses 100 times, Tamil Nadu should also progress 100 times. Alleging that the DMK was only keen on the growth of their sons, Modi said: "They are working for their dynasties...But I am there for you (the people of TN)." He also said that people will reject both the DMK and Congress, which warned to earn money by capturing power, and people of the state will reject these selfish parties. "People will teach a fitting lesson to those pursuing dynastic politics," he said, accusing both the parties of trying to divide the people on language and race. He said he did not know the Tamil language, but has a lot of love and affection for the people of Tamil Nadu. Exhorting the BJP cadres to undertake door-to-door campaigning in the polls, PM Modi asserted that the BJP would win 400 seats and form the government for the third time and sought people's blessings. Himachal Pradesh Assembly/ courtesy: Facebook/Sukhvinder Singh Sukhho Shimla/IBNS: The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh , which plunged into a crisis after the party candidate lost the Rajya Sabha poll to the BJP nominee following cross-voting by the ruling party lawmakers, seemingly got a lease of life after the budget was passed in the Assembly on Wednesday amidst a high voltage political drama. On Tuesday, six Congress MLAs, said to be unhappy with the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government, cross-voted in favour of BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan, who finished level with Congress nominee and renowned advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, in the poll count. Mahajan later won the toss. Following a protest by the opposition BJP on Wednesday in the Assembly during its budget session, Speaker Kuldeep Pathania suspended 15 BJP members, following which the ruling party got the budget passed on voice vote. The BJP members had earlier sought a division of votes, which the Speaker turned down. Earlier, Chief Minister Sukhu denied that he had stepped down from his post as was being claimed by some news channels and described it as a "sinister design" of the BJP. Sukhu said that he was a 'warrior' and would fight to the finish. The six Congress rebels and three independents who had indulged in cross-voting on Tuesday, reached the state capital amid tight security to attend the budget session and later went back to Panchkula in BJP-ruled Haryana under CRPF cover. Senior Congress observers, including Rajeev Shukla, Deepender Singh Huda, and DK Shive Kumar are also in the hill capital for one-to-one meetings with the Congress MLAs before submitting their report to the Congress high command. [With UNI inputs] Zakwan Ahmed has joined Kuda Villingili Resort Maldives as its Director of Sales, bringing with him 15 years of extensive experience and expertise in the Maldivian hospitality industry Kuda Villingili Resort Maldives is a popular five-star luxury resort in North Male Atoll. As a Director of Sales, Zakwan will oversee sales operations, relationships with key partners and travel agencies, negotiate contracts, and develop strategies to achieve sales targets for the resort. According to a company release, his focus will be the German-speaking countries, Europe, and the UK market. Prior to joining Kuda Villingili, Zakwan was Assistant Director of Sales at THE OZEN COLLECTION, where he acted as a brand representative at industry events, trade shows, and sales missions among other things. Said Amjad Thaufeeg, Commercial Director of Kuda Villingili Maldives, Zakwan will add tremendous value to our leadership team, aligning his expertise with our dedication to providing exceptional experiences to guests. A girl in Bosnia studies English online. Photo Courtesy: UNICEF/Almir Panjeta The mobile phone industry has pledged over $9 billion towards the goal of connecting the world, said the chief of the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on Monday, addressing the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Universal meaningful connectivity is within our grasp, said ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin. Thanks to these new commitments, millions of people will benefit from accessible and affordable connectivity across the world. Fresh investments from e&, China Telecom, Ooredoo and VEON build on strong industry support for the UN digital agencys efforts to connect the world, she said. Bridging the digital divide Around 2.6 billion people remain offline worldwide, according to data from the specialized UN agency, which drives innovation in communications technology. As telecommunications infrastructure forms the backbone of connectivity and digital transformation, it is vital for closing the global digital divide and overcoming development impediments in areas from education and health to government services and trade, the agency said. To achieve that, ITU has called for $100 billion in overall investments by 2026 to provide the expertise and resources required to extend universal, meaningful connectivity and sustainable digital transformation to every corner of the globe. ITU also launched Partner2Connect in 2021 to reach this goal. Today, more than 400 organizations have committed to investing over $46 billion in the coming years to realize this shared vision. Fresh private-sector investments The fresh commitments aim to make strides across the world. That includes accessible and affordable network connectivity and digital services across countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia as well as providing information and communication services to over 80 million people in remote villages across China and building infrastructure in Ukraine by providing connectivity and digital services essential to the countrys reconstruction. The UN digital agency also announced that it now has over 1,000 industry, academia and organizational members in addition to 193 Member States, a milestone in its 159-year-old history, ITU said. This multistakeholder model of collaboration will continue to be a strong force in the UN system to bridge the digital divide and build an inclusive, safe and sustainable digital future for all, the ITU chief said. Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons/3.0 Unported Jamiat Ulema-e-Islami-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman has said the country could not be run by those who sit inside the rigged system. He said that authority would also be ousted from power. He was commenting about the alleged rigging allegations of the February 8 Pakistan general polls. Maulana Fazalur Rehman was quoted as saying by ARY News that those who would come into power with stolen mandate cannot run the country and eventually the system would collapse. We have not been ousted from the system instead we decided to stay out of the system, Maulana Fazalur Rehman said. He said his party did not join the government so far due to the alleged rigging allegations in the polls. We will decide whether or not to do parliamentary politics with consultation, he said. He said that the JUI-Fs stance is very clear that the party will not be part of any government. VANCOUVER British Columbia is joining seven provinces in paying for some of the cost of in vitro fertilization but scant details and long-standing inequities have raised questions about how the plan could benefit patients. While some applauded the move, expected to begin in April 2025, others in the field were wary of the lack of specifics around what aspects of the treatment would be covered. Heres a look at the hopes, concerns and reality of those who receive IVF or advocate for public funding. FEW DETAILS ARE KNOWN British Columbia plans to convene an expert clinical group to help create the program and provide $68 million in funding for two years. Finance Minister Katrine Conroy said last week that "one round of IVF will be available for free" but provided no details. However, the process of undergoing IVF includes multiple procedures and an array of medical and non-medical costs. Medications alone can run into thousands of dollars and are not included in most programs across the country. Rural patients face added travel expenses for regular visits to clinics in major centres. IVF involves hormone injections to stimulate production of multiple eggs to boost the chance of pregnancy.The eggs are removed from the ovaries and fertilized with sperm in a lab. One or more of the resulting embryos are transferred to the uterus a few days later and pregnancy is determined by a blood test after about two weeks. WHICH PROVINCES OFFER COVERAGE? British Columbia's announcement leaves Alberta, Saskatchewan andthe territories as the only jurisdictions without any IVF funding or plans to provide coverage. Carolynn Dube, executive director of Family Matters Canada, said one cycle of IVF costs an average of $20,000. She describedfunding schemes across the country as a "hodgepodge" and urgedBritish Columbia to seek advice from all stakeholders including patients, advocates and clinicians to understand what has worked elsewhere. Story continues "We're asking the provincial governments, the federal government and insurance carriers to all take a piece of the pie," said Dube, adding it'sparticularly important asbirthrates decline. Among provinces that do offer coverage, eligible costs vary widely in some cases only treatment costs are covered while medications and other services must be paid out-of-pocket.Manitoba and Nova Scotia, for example, also offer a tax credit for legal fees for those using donated eggs, embryos or sperm. Patients can submit receipts for up to $20,000 for all the services to recoup $8,000 per year. In Ontario, coverage is limited to women below the age of 43 and is restricted to one cycle of IVF. It does not include medications.Advocates there want a tax credit for subsequent cycles and travel grants for those who live far from major centres, Dube said. Prince Edward Island does not have an IVF clinic but offers up to $10,000 in eligible expenses based on family income fortreatment elsewhere, while Quebec fundsboth treatment and medication. Michelle Chidley of Alberta Fertility said British Columbia's announcement has bolstered her efforts to push her province to fund IVF. "I personally believe that access to IVF should not be a privilege for those who can afford it," Chidley said. She launched the group last June after working with a charity to raise money for families needing fertility treatment. THE WAIT FOR TREATMENT IS LONG In Ontario, wait lists at publicly funded clinics can last a year and a half, said Dube, who had three sons after undergoing two cycles of IVF and five embryo transfers. "And you can be on several wait lists at different clinics. It's wildly stressful. And people age out because they wait so long,"she said of the coverage, introduced in 2015. Clinical counsellor Holly Yager of Vancouver said the wait for IVF at some clinics, particularly Ontario, has meant some patients travel to British Columbia. "At one point during the pandemic I remember someone saying it was a two-year wait for the funded treatment in Ontario. Here in B.C., we already have long wait times. So that is a concern for me. I don't know how the clinics are going to manage because they're already very busy." ONE ROUND IS NOT ENOUGH Success rates are low for one round of IVF. For every embryo transfer, a little less than 32 per cent of people under 35 give birth per embryo transfer, according to 2021 data from the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society. That number dips to about 27 per cent for those between 35 and 39 and almost 22 per cent for patients older than 40. Cayley Benjamin of Vancouver said she and her husband paid $30,000 for one round because of "add-ons" including genetic testing. They delayed their plans to buy a house to pay for the procedure. "Fortunately for us, I was able to get pregnant following our first round of IVF, and I'm 21 weeks pregnant," said Benjamin, adding she "burst into tears" when she heard British Columbia would start funding some aspect of the procedure. "I feel such an affinity to others who are on a fertility journey to have children, and I just feel very emotional about it and am really celebrating." MANY WHO NEED IVF CANT PAY UPFRONT Dube said IVF would remainout of reach for many people under a provincial funding plan because they still have to pay out of pocket before recouping expenses. "They think, 'I can't get a line of credit, can't remortgage my house and my parents can't give me the money so I can't do it'," she said. Benjamin wants British Columbia to fund the program upfront instead of having people wait for reimbursement. "For so many people the barrier is actually being able to pay for the services at all. I know a lot of people for whom IVF isn't an option because of finances," said the 38-year-old. "Imagine going to pay for your medications, and the bill is $2,000," she said of just a single purchase of her medications, which totalled $5,000. "So few benefits plans cover IVF treatment or medications and there are a lot rules and maximums and limitations around it. "We didn't have any coverage through our health benefits plan and those costs came out of pocket, which is the case for so many people." THE OTHER HIDDEN COSTS A report published last year by the World Health Organization said one in six people is affected by infertility, resulting in significant mental health challenges due to stigma and "catastrophic" costs. It called for better policies and public financing to improve access to treatment. Women who undergo multiple failed rounds of IVF endure trauma, loss and "disenfranchised grief" that is not talked about but impacts every aspect of their lives, requiring significant investment in mental health services for those struggling to conceive, Yager said. However, male infertility is an even more underrecognized issue and deserves attention, she added. Canada's fertility rate fell to its lowest ever in 2022, when it was just 1.33 children per woman, according to a Statistics Canada report released in January. British Columbiahad a rate of 1.11 children, the lowest in the country. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2024. Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content. Camille Bains, The Canadian Press Support Our Journalism We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news. Support objective journalism for a small contribution. Photo Courtesy: Pixabay At least two homeless men lost their lives after a speeding car ran over them in Pakistan's Karachi city on Tuesday. Three others sustained injuries. They were reportedly sleeping on the footpath of the city when the incident happened. According to details, the accident happened near Nagan pull area of Karachi where a car skidded off the road and ran over homeless people sleeping on the footpath, killing two persons on the spot and injuring three others, reported Ary News. Police said all the five deceased or injured were brothers. Police said the driver fled the scene after the incident. Police have launched an investigation to nab the culprits. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash The police van, which was part of Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah protocol, upturned in Larkana region of Pakistan which left at leat a cop dead and six others injured. The police vehicle was included in Murad Ali Shahs protocol on his arrival at Garhi Khuda Bux Bhutto to pay respects at the mausoleum of Bhuttos, reported ARY News. The van upturned in Otha Chowk region of the city. The deceased cop was identified as Waheed Ali Sial. Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has expressed regret the death of the cop in the accident. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash Three criminals escaped a Pakistani prison after breaking a window of the barrack where they were detained, media reports said. Sajawal SSP Shehla Qureshi suspended the entire staff deployed on security and ordered an investigation into the jail-break, reported The Nation. The escaped criminals were identified as Bilal, Sattar and Rafiq. All three criminals were detained in barrack III of judicial sub-jail of Sajawal. They were reportedly involved in dozens of cases of heinous crimes including robbery and kidnap for ransom. Police have launched a manhunt to detain them. Photo Courtesy: Unsplash Hundreds of protesting women blocked Rawalpindi road in Pakistan's Bahawalnagar city on Monday to demonstrate against gas outages. The protesting women told Dawn News that gas was supplied to domestic consumers only for three hours during day and night. They said that the pressure of gas was also very low. The protesters claimed they received inflated bills despite prolonged gas outages. They said that domestic consumers received Rs16,000 to Rs25,000 gas bills for the current month. The women were seen chanting slogans against the local administration. They said they were unable to prepare breakfast for their school-going children in the morning owing load-shedding of gas. Move fast, break things approach runs into issues of tribal authority. Hilary Beaumont Last February, two balloons that were launched from Reno, Nevada, flew to Northern California. Along the way, as planned, they released a small amount of sulfur dioxide, a gas that has a cooling effect when erupting volcanoes rele... By Isaac White. An emotionally charged gathering unfolded within the auditorium of the Cloquet Forestry Center recently, marking a significant chapter in the history of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the University of Minnesota. At the heart of the assembly was the discussion on the proposed return of approximately 3,400 acres of land to the Fond du Lac Band, a move that symbolizes much more than a simple transfer of property. This land, pivotal for the past century as the site of the Universitys forestry research center, encompasses the entirety of the Cloquet Forestry Centers location. The Cloquet Forestry Center (CFC), affiliated with the University of Minnesota, stands as a pivotal site for forest research and education since 1909. Nestled in the Lake Superior watershed at the boreal forests southern edge, the CFC serves as a crucial venue for understanding forest management, ecosystem resilience, and sustainable practices in forest and natural resource management. Located just three miles west of Cloquet and within the Fond du Lac Reservation of Lake Superior Chippewa, the center is instrumental in housing the Sustainable Forests Education Cooperative and the Minnesota Tree Improvement Cooperative, highlighting its integral role in forest education and genetic research. Open to the public for recreation, provided it doesnt interfere with research, the CFC is a hub for a broad spectrum of research, education, and forest management projects. These projects span various domains, including silviculture, wildlife populations (focusing on species like wolf, fisher, ruffed grouse), forest genetics, and the broader ecological impacts of climate change on forest productivity. Through these endeavors, the CFC promotes a holistic understanding of forest ecosystems. Since its inception, the CFC has committed to the ecological, economic, and cultural health of its forests. It aims to foster educational, research, and outreach opportunities, alongside maintaining a diverse forest ecosystem, enhancing wildlife habitat, and preserving water, soil, historical, and cultural resources. The Center employs a blend of active and passive forest management techniques to achieve these goals, demonstrating a long-standing commitment to sustainable forest management and conservation education. The meeting was an opportunity for citizens of the Fond du Lac Band, foresters, and community members from Cloquet and Carleton County to voice their perspectives directly to university officials. Karen Diver, the Universitys Senior Adviser to the President for Native American Affairs, shared insights into a drafted memorandum of understanding between the university and the band. This document not only outlines the lands return but also considers the continuation of the forestry centers research in alignment with the bands needs. According to MPR News, Wayne DuPuis, a tribal member, articulated the significance of this act as a restoration of part of the bands homeland. He reminded attendees of the historical context: the Fond du Lac Band ceded millions of acres to the United States, reserving rights to a fraction of this land for their reservation, rights enshrined in the 1854 treaty but later diminished by federal legislation in the 1880s. The discussion of land return occurs against a backdrop of the University of Minnesotas broader reckoning with its historical injustices against Indigenous peoples, a legacy dating back to its founding in 1851. This reflection has been spurred by investigative reports and research highlighting the universitys profits from lands expropriated from Indigenous communities, lands granted at the time of Minnesotas statehood. In response to these revelations, the university has embarked on a journey towards healing, engaging with tribal nations to explore avenues for reparations, including tuition waivers, land returns, and transformative justice projects. This initiative is part of a larger landback movement that seeks to address the historical and ongoing impacts of land dispossession from Native American tribes. The urgency of this matter was further underscored by a comprehensive report published by University of Minnesota graduate student researchers and tribally appointed fellows in April 2023. The report painstakingly outlines the harms inflicted upon Indigenous communities by the university and calls for ongoing reparations. Moreover, the collaborative efforts between University of Minnesota foresters, the Fond du Lac Band, and Ojibwe communities across the state have highlighted the importance of integrating cultural practices, such as low-intensity fire stewardship, into forest management. These projects underscore the potential for research at the Cloquet Forestry Center to align with and benefit the bands cultural and ecological priorities. The historical context of the land in question is complex, intertwined with federal acts like the Dawes Act and Nelson Act, which facilitated the transfer of tribal lands to non-Indigenous entities, including the university. The land, once reserved under the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe, found its way into the universitys possession, where it has generated significant revenue over the years. As the University of Minnesota progresses with its plan to return the land to the Fond du Lac Band, there remains no set timeline for this transfer, partly due to shared ownership issues with the State of Minnesota. However, last weeks listening session, a year following a recommendation to the universitys Board of Regents, signifies a critical step forward in addressing the historical injustices and moving towards a future of mutual respect and cooperation. This scenario is not isolated to the University of Minnesota but is reflective of a broader national conversation around land-grant universities and their foundations upon lands acquired through the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. With over 10.7 million acres expropriated across the United States following the Morrill Act of 1862, the issue touches many corners of the country, involving numerous institutions and communities. As the University of Minnesota and the Fond du Lac Band navigate this complex process, the dialogue at the Cloquet Forestry Center serves as a poignant reminder of the deep historical wounds and the ongoing efforts toward healing and reconciliation. The return of the land to the Fond du Lac Band is not merely a transaction but a profound gesture of acknowledgement and respect for the bands sovereignty and cultural heritage. 1. From Operation Valentine To Laapataa Ladies: Movie Releases This Week Following a relatively quiet beginning to the year with only a few releases in January and February, film enthusiasts can look forward to an exciting lineup in March as a diverse range of movies is set to hit the big screen. Movie Releases This Week/Indiatimes 2. Anupam Kher Breaks Down At Screening Of Late Satish Kaushik's Kaagaz 2, Watch Viral Video On Tuesday night, the creators of Kaagaz 2 organized an exclusive screening of the film, showcasing the late actor Satish Kaushik. The event was attended by his spouse, Shashi Kaushik, and their daughter, Vanshika. Anupam Kher, who shares the screen with Satish in the movie, shared a video on Instagram where he can be seen conversing with Satish's wife and child. Anupam Kher At Screening Of Late Satish Kaushik's Kaagaz 2/Indiatimes 3. Viral Flashback: Mukesh And Nita Ambani's Dance To 'Wah Wah Ram Ji' From Anant-Radhika Engagement As anticipation builds for the grand day in July, let's reminisce about their engagement in January 2023. A video from the event went viral, capturing the mesmerizing dance performance of Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani to the Bollywood hit "Wah Wah Ram Ji." This video gained widespread attention on social media, adding an extra touch of glamour and joy to the forthcoming wedding celebrations. The dance, choreographed to the iconic song from Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixits film 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!', quickly became a viral sensation, offering an exciting glimpse into the pre-wedding festivities. Mukesh And Nita Ambani's Dance To 'Wah Wah Ram Ji'/Indiatimes 4. Malayalam Star Lena Tied Knot With This 'Gaganyaan Pilot' In January, Kept Secret For Privacy The Malayalam actress Lena recently delightedly announced her marriage to Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, a chosen pilot for India's pioneering human space travel initiative, Gaganyaan. Malayalam Star Lena Tied Knot With This 'Gaganyaan Pilot' In January/Indiatimes 5. Who Is Mathias Boe, The Man Set To Marry Bollywood Actress Taapsee Pannu? There are speculations that Bollywood actress Taapsee Pannu might tie the knot with her boyfriend, Mathias Boe, in March of this year. Despite being together for over a decade, the couple has not made an official announcement about the wedding. Who Is Mathias Boe?/Indiatimes For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. There are a ton of thrilling films and web series coming out in March 2024. There is enough for all of you streaming fans to enjoy in the upcoming month, from Showtime on Hotstar to Murder Mubarak on Netflix. So, after a long day at work or on the weekend, gather your favorite snacks and beverages and settle down to watch these new releases. OTT Releases In March 1. Showtime As per the official press release, its an epic saga of legacy and ambition in the world of cinema, Showtime will give you a sneak peek into what goes behind the multi-million dollar industry of Bollywood, nepotism and the power struggles at the top. It stars Naseeruddin Shah, Mahima Makwana, Emraan Hashmi, and Mouni Roy in key parts, and Rajeev Khandelwal and Shriya Saran. Hotstar Release Date: 8th March 2024 Where To Watch: Disney+ Hotstar 2. Sunflower Season 2 Sunil Grover is returning as Sonu in Sunflower season 2, which was written by writer Vikas Bahl and directed by Navin Gujral, before teaming with Kapil Sharma for his new program. Girish Kulkarni, Mukul Chaddha, Ashish Vidyarthi, and Ranvir Shorey are among the other well-known performers in the group. The middle-class Mumbai neighborhood of Sunflower, home to a varied range of eccentric inhabitants, serves as the focal point of the crime-comedy program. X Release Date: 1st March Where To Watch: Zee5 3. Maamla Legal Hai The dynamic President of the Patparganj Bar Association, VD Tyagi, who aspires to be India's Attorney General, is replaced by Ravi Kishan. The phrase "legal eagle" takes on entirely new significance thanks to the skillful jugaad of VD Tyagi and his dynamic team of attorneys, which includes Nidhi Bisht, Naila Grewal, Anjum Batra, and Vijay Rajoria. Through these outlandish personalities, viewers will get a peek into the firm's fascinating cases, which are the real heartbeat of Maamla Legal Hai. Together, they outsmart their rivals and inject humor and surprising turns into every case. Netflix Release Date: 1st March Where To Watch: Neflix 4. Ae Watan Mere Watan Drawing inspiration from the remarkable voyage of freedom warrior Usha Mehta, the movie honors both well-known and obscure figures from the struggle for independence. It portrays the courage, patriotism, selflessness, and steadfast resolve of the Indian young during this pivotal historical moment. It stars Ae Watan Mere Watan. X Release Date: 21st March Where To Watch: Prime Video 5. Damsel A young lady accepts the attractive prince's proposal of marriage, only to find out it was all a trap. She is placed inside a cave with a dragon that breathes fire, and her only chances of survival are by using her cunning and willpower. Netflix Release Date: 8th March Where To Watch: Netflix 6. Chicken Nugget Season 1 In the show, "A woman steps into an odd machine and becomes a chicken nugget?! Now, it's up to her father and admirer to embark on a zany quest to bring her back." Netflix Release Date: 15th March Where To Watch: Netflix 7. Murder Mubarak Murder Mubarak! There's a new film in the works directed by the renowned Homi Adajania, which is based on the book "Club You To Death" by Anuja Chauhan. It stars Sara Ali Khan, Vijay Varma, Dimple Kapadia, Karisma Kapoor, Sanjay Kapoor, Tisca Chopra, and Suhail Nayyar. X Release Date: 15 March Where To Watch: Netflix 8. 3 Body Problems Season 1 As the laws of science break down and an existential threat materializes, five bright pals uncover things that will rock the world and span countries and decades. X Release Date: 21st March Where To Watch: Netflix 9. Poor Things Emma Stone plays Bella Baxter, who is revived by Willem Dafoe's character, Dr. Godwin Baxter, a scientist. Bella embarks on a trip with attorney Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), who provides protection for her. X Release Date: 12 March Where To Watch: You can buy or rent it on Prime Video and Apple TV+. 10. Maharani Season 3 A compelling side narrative about the illegal alcohol trade is introduced in the story, which leads to the terrible deaths of nearly fifty people. Raji claims that getting justice and getting revenge are equally essential to her when asked about her intentions. Maharani includes Vineet Kumar, Pramod Pathak, Kani Kusruti, Anuja Sathe, Sushil Pandey, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, and Sohum Shah. X Release Date: 7th March Where To Watch: SonyLiv For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. Kangana Ranaut has never minced her words while sharing opinions on issues that matter to the public. Not just that, she has also never shied away from voicing her support for Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This has often led to people wondering if she has plans of taking the political plunge. Kangana, who once said that she wouldn't marry or have kids if she decided to take a political plunge, has now said that the time is right for her to join politics. Kangana Ranaut Says The Time Is Right For Her To Join Politics AFP The actress who will next be seen playing the role of Indira Gandhi in Emergency made the confession in an interview with TV9 Bharatvarsh. "I have literally fought from film sets with political parties. That doesn't keep me away, it doesn't take me a seat to do what I want to do for my country. But, if I want to get into politics, I probably think this is the right time," she said. Calling herself a nationalist before an actor, she added, "This country has given me so much, I feel deeply responsible to give back. I have always been more of a nationalist and that image has taken over even my very glorious acting career. I do have the awareness that I am deeply loved and appreciated." Here's how people reacted to this! BCCL "RIP Indian politics," a user commented. "She already has all the qualities like mud slinging, playing the victim card and always trying to stay in the limelight," added another one. "When she fails in politics she will return to movies again," said another one. "Whatever she is doing ground level pr uska koi base ni h. There won't be any support for her," another user said. Kangana who thinks she is the hottest target in the country, had earlier said that she is willing to contest 2024 elections. "Jis tarah ke haalat honge, government chahegi mera participation ho, vo I will be very much open to all kinds of participation," she said in a conversation with Aaj Tak. "As I said, it would be great if people in Himachal Pradesh would give me a chance to serve. So, definitely, it will be sobhagya ki baat." Earlier, Kangana Ranaut had said that she won't marry or have kids if at she decides to enter the world of politics. "If I have to be a national servant, I cant have a family or kids, or an alternate career. A politician should be nothing more than a government servant." At the same time, she said that politics isn't her cup of tea, but she says if the country ever needs her, she would willing to "lay her life leave alone joining politics." For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. Transitional authorities in junta-led Guinea have appointed one-time opposition leader and economist Mamadou Oury Bah to the role of prime minister, according to a decree read on national television on Tuesday. The political veteran faces a challenging task setting up a government amid an indefinite general strike launched this week over deep economic hardships and the military authorities' allegedly repressive policies. Television footage showed Bah taking the oath of office in front of interim President Mamady Doumbouya, a special forces commander who ousted former President Alpha Conde in a coup in 2021. Bah, commonly know as Bah Oury, has been a prominent figure on the Guinean political scene since the early nineties. He served as minister of reconciliation in a consensus government in the wake of a political crisis triggered by the killing of at least 130 people in union-led protests in 2007. The founder and vice president of the UFDG party later spent four years in exile in France, during which time he was convicted in absentia for a 2011 assassination attempt against Conde. He returned to Guinea in 2016 following a presidential pardon, but was later pushed out of UFDG. In recent years, he has faced criticism for his support of the junta. (REUTERS) Read more on FRANCE 24 English Read also: Two shot dead as Guinea's capital Conakry crippled by general strike West African bloc ECOWAS lifts sanctions against Guinea, Mali Guinea's ousted leader Alpha Conde ordered to stay in the country to face trial Malayalam actor Lena recently shared joyous news about her marriage to Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, a selected pilot for India's inaugural human space travel program, Gaganyaan. The announcement coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi revealing the names of the chosen Indian Air Force pilots for the historic mission. Lena Shared The News On Instagram Malayalam Actress Lena Announces Marriage With Gaganyaan Pilot/Instagram Lena, on Instagram, disclosed that she intentionally waited for the official release of pilot names before making her marriage public, citing privacy reasons. In Wedding Took Place In January The couple exchanged vows on January 17, 2024, in a traditional ceremony, marking Lena's second marriage. The newlyweds, adorned in traditional attire, radiated happiness as they posed alongside their family members. In a special video message, Lena expressed her elation on the day when PM Modi honoured Captain Prasanth with the prestigious first Indian astronaut wings. The Gaganyaan Mission PM Modi, during his visit to Kerala, unveiled the names of the four astronaut-designates for the Gaganyaan mission. Apart from Captain Prasanth Nair, the selected Indian Air Force pilots gearing up for the mission include Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla. All four underwent extensive training at Russia's Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. The Gaganyaan Mission Holds Historical Significance During his inspection of the Gaganyaan mission progress at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, PM Modi conferred 'astronaut wings' to the chosen astronauts. The Gaganyaan mission holds historical significance as India's maiden human space flight program, with significant preparations underway at various Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) centers. All About Lena Kumar Picture Of Lena Kumar/Instagram Lena is a multifaceted Indian personality, serving as an actress, author, and scriptwriter with a prominent presence in Malayalam cinema. Her journey in the film industry began with the 1998 release, Sneham. Over the span of 25 years, she has graced the screens in more than 175 films across five languages, showcasing her talent in acclaimed works in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. Additionally, her versatile career extends to television, where she has contributed to shows like Sneha, Malayogam, and Shaitan, among others. The marriage announcement added an extra layer of celebration to the already momentous occasion, blending the personal joy of Lena and Captain Prasanth with the national pride surrounding India's ambitious foray into space exploration. For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment. Ramadan 2024: Ramadan, also known as Ramazan, is a significant festival for Muslims around the world. It is celebrated during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and it is a time for spiritual reflection, prayer, and fasting. Ramadan is considered the most sacred month for Muslims, and it is a time when they seek to strengthen their relationship with Allah. According to legend, the Prophet Muhammad received the first verses of the Quran, the holy book of Islam, during the month of Ramadan around 1400 years ago on Laylat al-Qadr, which is considered the holiest night of the year. During Ramadan, Muslims observe a fast from dawn until sunset, refraining from food, drink, and other physical needs. Fasting during Ramadan is considered one of the Five Pillars of Islam, alongside the declaration of faith, prayer, charity, and pilgrimage to Mecca. The purpose of fasting during Ramadan is to cultivate self-discipline, self-control, and empathy for those who are less fortunate. It is also a time for spiritual reflection, increased prayer and recitation of the Quran, and acts of charity and generosity. Ramadan is an opportunity for Muslims to strengthen their relationship with God and to reaffirm their commitment to their faith. Ramadan 2024 | Photo: Freepik Ramadan is a month of punctuality and self-discipline, providing a straightforward path to God. During this sacred time, people abstain from worldly pleasures and focus on their spiritual connection with Allah. It is a time to cultivate self-control and discipline over one's senses. Greetings such as "Ramadan Mubarak" and "Ramadan Kareem" are exchanged, and friends and loved ones are invited to join in the breaking of the fast, known as Iftaar. This article will provide details on the start date of Ramadan in India. Will it begin on March 10 or 11? Get all the details you need right here and plan your observance of this sacred month accordingly. Ramadan 2024: Is starting from March 10 or 11? In 2024, Ramadan is expected to start in India on March 11th, following the sighting of the moon in Mecca. The fasting period will last for approximately 30 days, ending on April 9th. The exact date of Eid al Fitr, the festival that marks the end of Ramadan, will depend on the moon sightings and is expected to occur on either April 10th or April 11th. During Ramadan, Muslims observe a strict fast from dawn until sunset, refraining from eating, drinking, and other physical needs. This fasting is intended to teach self-discipline, self-control, and empathy for those who are less fortunate. It is also a time for increased prayer and devotion, with Muslims spending more time in mosques and engaging in acts of charity and community service. Ramadan is a time for Muslims to come together as a community, strengthen their faith, and seek forgiveness and blessings from Allah. It is a time of reflection, self-improvement, and spiritual growth. Ramadan is a time of joy and celebration, and Muslims around the world look forward to this special month each year. Ramadan Mubarak: Top Ramzan Wishes, Messages, Quotes and Greetings to share with your loved ones The most meaningful way to celebrate Ramadan is with your loved ones. Wishing you a season of blessings and festivities. May Allah shower you with His choicest blessings, health, happiness, and glory. Ramadan Mubarak! On this sacred month of Ramadan, I wish you four weeks of prayers and love from Allah, 30 days of blessings, and 720 hours of joy. Happy Ramadan to you! May Allah fill your life with joy, peace, and happiness, and give you new hope to live your life to the fullest. Warm wishes on Eid. Happy Eid Ul Fitr to you and your family. Sending warm Eid wishes to you and your family. May Allah brighten your life with new energies and an optimistic approach to live better and stronger. Happy Ramadan to you. Ramadan is here, and it's time to engage in festivities and feasts. I pray to Allah to bless you with a joyful and beautiful Eid with your loved ones. May you enjoy better health and more prosperity. Ramadan Mubarak! On the occasion of Ramadan, I wish Allah is always there to support you through good and bad times and guide you towards the purpose of your life. Ramadan Mubarak to you. I wish that this Eid-ul-fitr you are blessed with happiness and success. May each and every moment of Ramadan purify you. Warm wishes on Ramadan to you, my dear! As you turn your face towards Sacred Mecca, I pray that whenever you look towards the Sacred Mosque, you are blessed with happiness and glory. On the auspicious occasion of Ramadan, I pray for your health and prosperity. Eid Mubarak to you. On the auspicious occasion of Ramadan, I am praying for your health, wealth, and happiness. Have a cheerful and blessed Ramadan. Ramadan Mubarak to you and your loved ones. May the celebrations of this fasting month spread happiness and joy in your life. Ramadan 2024 FAQs: Q. When is Ramadan 2024 starting in India? Ramadan in 2024 is expected to start in India on March 11th, following the sighting of the moon in Mecca. Q. How long does Ramadan last in 2024? The fasting period during Ramadan in 2024 will last for approximately 30 days, ending on April 9th. Q. When is Eid al Fitr in 2024? Eid al Fitr, the festival that marks the end of Ramadan, is expected to occur on either April 10th or April 11th, depending on the moon sightings. Q. What are the Five Pillars of Islam? The Five Pillars of Islam are the declaration of faith, prayer, charity, fasting during Ramadan, and pilgrimage to Mecca. Q. What is the significance of fasting during Ramadan? Fasting during Ramadan is considered a way to develop self-discipline, self-control, and empathy for those who are less fortunate. It is also a time for spiritual reflection and increased prayer and recitation of the Quran. Q. How do Muslims observe Ramadan? During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn until sunset, refraining from food, drink, and other physical needs. They also engage in increased prayer, recitation of the Quran, and acts of charity and generosity. Q. How can I support my Muslim friends and colleagues during Ramadan? You can support your Muslim friends and colleagues during Ramadan by being understanding and respectful of their fasting and prayer schedules, and by offering to accommodate their needs as much as possible. Q. What is the significance of Eid al Fitr? Eid al Fitr is a festival that marks the end of Ramadan and is a time for Muslims to celebrate with family and friends, and to give thanks for the blessings they have received during the holy month. Note: Dates/timings may be subject to change; details mentioned here are as per the information available. For more informative articles on historical and upcoming events from around the world, please visit Indiatimes Events. Ramadan, also known as Ramazan, is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar and is one of the most significant festivals for Muslims in India and around the world. It is considered the most sacred month in Islam and is marked by a month of fasting (roza), offering prayers to Allah, reflection, and community. The end of Ramadan is celebrated with a festival called Eid al-Fitr (the Festival of Breaking the Fast), which is one of Islams two major holidays. Eid al-Fitr begins with the sighting of the new moon, signaling the end of Ramadan. It is celebrated with communal prayers, feasts, and the giving of charity in the form of food, known as Zakat al-Fitr, ensuring that even the poor can celebrate the breaking of the fast. When Is Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr in 2024? According to the Lunar Islamic calendar, Ramadan in 2024 is expected to begin on the evening of March 11, 2024 (Monday), following the moon sighting in Mecca, and conclude on the evening of Tuesday, April 9 (Tuesday), marking the end of the fasting period with the celebration of Eid al-Fitr on the next day. However, these dates are tentative and based on astronomical calculations. The exact beginning of Ramadan is traditionally confirmed with the sighting of the moon. Iftar is a significant aspect of Ramadan, the holy month observed by Muslims worldwide. It is a time of spiritual reflection, self-discipline, and devotion. During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, abstaining from food, drink, and other physical needs. Iftar marks the end of this daily fast, and it is a time of celebration and gratitude. Muslims gather with family and friends to break their fast together and share a meal. What is Iftar? Iftar is the evening meal that Muslims consume to break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan. It is a significant part of the Ramadan experience and holds great importance for Muslims around the world. During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, abstaining from food, drink, and other physical needs. Iftar marks the end of this daily fast, and it is a time of celebration and gratitude. Muslims gather with family and friends to break their fast together and share a meal. Iftar is not only a time for physical nourishment but also for spiritual reflection and worship. Muslims believe that fasting during Ramadan is a way to purify the soul and strengthen their connection with Allah. Therefore, breaking the fast with a meal is seen as an act of worship and a way to express gratitude for the blessings of sustenance and community. In addition to its spiritual significance, Iftar also plays a social role in the Muslim community. It is a time for families to come together, strengthen bonds, and share in the joy of breaking the fast. Many mosques and community centers also host Iftar gatherings, where people from all walks of life can come together to share a meal and celebrate the spirit of Ramadan. Iftar is a time of joy, gratitude, and community for Muslims during Ramadan. It is a reminder of the importance of faith, family, and the blessings of sustenance, and it serves as a time to reflect on one's spiritual journey and renew one's commitment to Allah. What are the traditions of Iftar? The traditions of Iftar vary among different Muslim communities and regions, but some common practices are observed by many Muslims around the world. Here are some of the key traditions of Iftar: Breaking the fast with dates: It is a common tradition to break the fast with dates, following the example of the Prophet Muhammad, who is said to have broken his fast with dates and water. Offering prayers: After breaking the fast, Muslims typically offer the Maghrib prayer, which is the fourth of the five daily prayers in Islam. This prayer is performed shortly after sunset and marks the end of the fasting period for the day. Sharing a meal: Iftar is often a communal meal, with family and friends coming together to break their fast and share a meal. It is a time for socializing and strengthening bonds with loved ones. Charity: Giving to those in need is an important aspect of Ramadan and Iftar. Many Muslims choose to give charity, known as Zakat al-Fitr, during Ramadan to help those who are less fortunate. Reciting the Quran: Ramadan is a time for increased devotion and worship, and many Muslims choose to recite the Quran during Iftar. This is a way to seek spiritual guidance and draw closer to Allah. Offering dua: Muslims often make dua, or supplications, during Iftar, asking for Allah's blessings and guidance. This is a time to reflect on one's spiritual journey and seek forgiveness for any shortcomings. These are just a few of the many traditions associated with Iftar. Each Muslim community and family may have their unique customs and practices, but the overall goal is to observe Ramadan with devotion, gratitude, and compassion. Dua during Iftar Allahumma inni laka sumtu wa ala rizq-ika-aftartu O Allah! For You I have fasted and upon your provision, I have broken my fast. Note: Dates/timings may be subject to change; details mentioned here are as per the information available. For more informative articles on historical and upcoming events from around the world, please visit Indiatimes Events. Stand-up comedy fans in India rejoice! The internationally acclaimed comedian Russell Peters is bringing his "Act Your Age" world tour to three major Indian cities: Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore. The tour kicks off in Delhi on February 28th, 2024, followed by shows in Mumbai on March 1st and Bangalore on March 3rd. This marks Peters' first return to India in five years, and his loyal Indian fanbase is undoubtedly eager to see him live. Peters' "Act Your Age" tour promises an evening of laughter as he delivers his unique comedic perspective on various aspects of life. He'll be sharing his thoughts on parenting, marriage, navigating the world of Gen Z, and even his own experiences with anxiety. The show is also known for Peters' signature audience improvisation, where he interacts with the crowd, creating moments of spontaneous humor and audience connection. This tour, presented by Zomato Live, has already garnered immense popularity, with tickets selling fast. Peters himself expressed his excitement about returning to India, stating, "I always love coming back to India." This sentiment is echoed by Zeenah Vilcassim, CEO of Zomato Live, who emphasized the company's commitment to providing exceptional experiences for its audience. With over 300 shows performed in 23 countries, "Act Your Age" is a testament to Peters' comedic prowess. If you're in Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore and looking for a night of side-splitting laughter, don't miss your chance to witness Russell Peters live on stage. For more stories like these, follow us on Indiatimes Lifestyle. A remarkable individual who has turned her passion for animals into a powerful force for good. Meet Manavi Rai, an animal rescuer, who started her journey in New Delhi when she noticed injured, weak, hunger stricken dogs during the lockdown in 2020. Prior to this, she was working and living a luxurious life in Toronto for almost a decade. Like most of us, she got stuck at home in India during the pandemic and realised her true calling, which was - that Indie stray animals needed her here. With a heart as warm as her love for furry friends, Manavi started her animal shelter that stands as a beacon of hope for our four-legged companions. Speaking to her about the challenges she faces as a women in the animal welfare, Manavi says, "There are no challenges, there are only situations and every problem has a solution." She spoke exclusively with us on Indiatimes. Click here to listen to her interview. Manavi also feels we should stop comparing ourselves to men and accept that we are different and better. Instagram/Manavi Rai The social activist became viral after she rescued 3 puppies who were trapped in a car in Delhi for 4 months in January. Manavi along with other women were accompanied by the police, but the accused woman remained unresponsive to their attempts at communication. They eventually broke the rear view glass of the car and rescued the puppies after requesting the owner/accused for almost 6-7 hours. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated India's first Hydrogen-powered ferry. The PM inaugurated the indigenously developed hydrogen fuel cell ferry, remotely from Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu. BCCL India's first hydrogen-powered ferry "Today, Bharat's first hydrogen fuel ferry has been launched. This ferry will soon be operating in Kashi's Ganga river also. This, in a way, is a great present from Tamil Nadu's people to the people of Kashi," PM Modi said. Modi said increasing connectivity due to the consistent efforts of the Central Government has enhanced 'ease of living' in Tamil Nadu. Development of the maritime sector also means the development of a state like Tamil Nadu. The new projects are an important part of the roadmap for a developed India, he said. BCCL Built by Cochin Shipyard Developed and built by the Cochin Shipyard in Kerala, the hydrogen-powered vessel represents a milestone in sustainable transportation. The hydrogen fuel cell ferry, designed in a catamaran model, will commence operations in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, revolutionising short-distance travel in the region. With a capacity to accommodate up to 50 passengers, this fully refrigerated ferry promises to offer both efficiency and eco-friendliness in its service. On its first trip, the vessel constructed for the Inland Water Authority of India travelled from CSL to the high court Water Metro terminal in Kochi. A step towards green future According to CSL, the hydrogen ferry was built as a pilot project as part of the central government's plans to stop greenhouse gas emissions in India by 2070. BCCL The project is part of efforts to adopt hydrogen as a maritime fuel. The ferry emits no polluting gases. Energy usage is also efficient. In effect, it also helps in reducing global warming impact, CSL said in a statement. The entire system, encompassing the fuel cell, power train, energy storage system, power management system, and control system, has been meticulously designed, developed, integrated, and tested at KPITs factory before being installed on the vessel, it said. For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. Harvey Sultzer, a resident of the United States, has filed a lawsuit against a medical manufacturer, alleging that their surgical robot caused damage to his wife's organs during a procedure intended to treat her colon cancer, ultimately resulting in her death. The question arises: what went wrong, and how did the robot inadvertently harm her internal organs? Remote-controlled robotic device conducts surgery In September 2021, Sandra Sultzer underwent a procedure at Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital to address her colon cancer, utilising the da Vinci robota multifunctional, remote-controlled device, as per the legal complaint. Representative image/ Unsplash Following the surgery, Sandra continued to experience abdominal pain and developed a fever, ultimately succumbing to these issues in February 2022, cited as "a direct and proximate result of the injuries she suffered," according to the lawsuit. Harvey Sultzer, in his lawsuit against the device manufacturer, Intuitive Surgical, contends that the company was aware of insulation issues in the robot that could lead to electrical leakage and the burning of internal organs, a risk allegedly not disclosed. Additionally, the lawsuit asserts that Intuitive Surgical sells its robots to hospitals lacking experience in robotic surgery and fails to adequately train surgeons in the proper utilisation of the device. Not the first lawsuit claiming injuries from this robotic device In a 2014 financial report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Intuitive disclosed facing approximately 93 lawsuits, all alleging personal injuries or death resulting from surgical procedures involving the da Vinci Surgical System. The company acknowledged setting aside $67.4 million in the first quarter of 2014 and $9.6 million in the second quarter for potential settlements of product liability claims. Unsplash Harvey is pursuing a lawsuit against IS, seeking over $75,000 for negligence, product liability (including design defect and failure to warn), loss of consortium, and punitive damages. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality notes that while robotic surgery is generally deemed safe with low complication rates, incorporating a robot into the surgical process introduces an additional potential point of error into an already complex and risk-laden field. For more on news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. In a noble gesture, a UAE-based Indian businessman and philanthropist has donated 1 million dirhams (approximately INR 2.5 crore) to ensure the release of 900 prisoners from jails across the Gulf nation. Firoz Merchant, the Chairman and Founder of Pure Gold Group has played a key role in securing the release of 900 inmates from jails since the start of 2024. PURE GOLD GROUP How Firoz Merchant freed 900 people from jail According to Pure Gold Group, under the Forgotten Society initiative founded in 2008, Merchant has already been instrumental in obtaining the release of 900 prisoners across the UAE since the beginning of 2024, including 495 prisoners from Ajman, 170 prisoners from Fujairah, 121 prisoners from Dubai, 69 prisoners from Umm Al Quwain and 28 from Ras Al Khaimah. In conjunction with the Director Generals of Police at the Central Jails across the UAE, Merchant has already succeeded in obtaining the release of over 20,000 prisoners over the years from a wide range of denominations, nationalities, and religions. He gets their debt paid and donates funds for their air tickets to fly back to their home country. PURE GOLD GROUP Plans to release 3000 inmates in 2024 Merchant says he began this mission keeping in mind the priority the UAE gives to tolerance to give a second chance for them to be reunited with their families. He aims to facilitate the release of more than 3,000 prisoners in 2024. Merchant's helping hand has been recognised by the rulers, also his kindness, forgiveness and generosity have earned him accolades from senior government officials across the UAE. "I am very fortunate to affiliate with the government authorities. The Forgotten Society initiative is based on the premise that humanity transcends borders. We work together to provide them with the possibility to reconcile with their family in their home country and society, Merchant said. Who is Firoz Merchant? Born in 1958 as one of the nine children of Gulam Hussain and Malekbai in Mumbai, Merchant had a childhood of struggles after his father's real estate business failed. At the age of 11 Merchant dropped out of school to help his family financially. PURE GOLD GROUP He found his calling in the gold business during a trip to Dubai at the age of 22 and established the first Pure Gold Jewellers in 1989, which has now grown to more than 120 outlets. Pure Gold Group consists of FGM Holding, Pure Gold Jewellers, Pure Gold Real Estate Development, La Moda, and Pure Gold Manufacturing. For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. In a world often filled with news of turmoil and strife, some moments remind us of the simple joys of life. Meet the adorable baby rhino who's become a symbol of pure happiness in the animal kingdom. With a playful trot and infectious energy, this little calf captivates hearts worldwide, offering a midweek mood boost. As images and videos of the rhino's exuberance circulate on social media, people find solace and delight in its carefree spirit. Amidst the chaos of daily life, witnessing such unbridled joy serves as a poignant reminder to cherish the beauty and innocence surrounding us. Join us in celebrating this heartwarming tale as we dive into the story of this baby rhino and the joy it brings to all who encounter it. What Did This Baby Rhino Do To Make People Happy? The playful trot of this baby rhino will boost your mood like nothing else | Image: X Amid Kenya's wilderness, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is a beacon of optimism for orphaned and injured wildlife, particularly elephants and rhinoceroses. Their most recent heartening story revolves around an endearing infant rhino named Chamboi, whose journey has resonated deeply with many across social media platforms. Footage disseminated by the trust portrays Chamboi's lively demeanor as he dashes energetically behind his guardian during an evening stroll. The accompanying caption eloquently encapsulates Chamboi's current existence: "Being the petite powerhouse he is, he relishes sprinting back, punctuated by numerous intervals for affectionate embraces!" Chamboi's narrative unfolded one sunny afternoon on September 6, 2023, as rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and Tsavo Trust stumbled upon him solo near a waterhole within the expansive free-release rhino range of Tsavo West National Park. The playful trot of this baby rhino will boost your mood like nothing else | Image: X Despite the region's reputation for harboring a flourishing community of black rhinoceroses, Chamboi's mother was conspicuously absent. Promptly recognizing the dire situation, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust swiftly intervened, extending Chamboi a lifeline for a fresh start. Renowned for its groundbreaking efforts in rescuing and rehabilitating orphaned baby elephants and rhinoceroses, the trust has seamlessly embraced Chamboi as part of its extended family. Despite his tumultuous beginnings, the young rhino has exhibited remarkable resilience and exuberance within his newfound sanctuary. The playful trot of this baby rhino will boost your mood like nothing else | Image: X Chamboi's daily routine blends excitement and affection, featuring leisurely walks, refreshing mud baths, serene midday rests, and lively play sessions. His profound affection and unwavering loyalty towards his caregivers, who have assumed the role of surrogate parents, underscore the profound connection forged between humans and wildlife nurtured under the compassionate care of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Where Can You Watch The Video? You can watch the viral video on X posted by @SheldrickTrust. We ran into Chamboi on his evening jaunt home. Being the pocket rocket that he is, he likes to sprint back, with plenty of breaks for cuddles in between! Find out how you can help this extraordinary little orphan lead an extraordinary (& wild) life: https://t.co/09Ij6TVAS7 pic.twitter.com/TAD5lU2vXN Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (@SheldrickTrust) February 26, 2024 How Did The Internet React? The video was posted just a day back and has gotten over 32K views since then. The comment section is filled with cute and love messages for baby Rhino. Internet reacts to the playful trot of this baby rhino will boost your mood like nothing else | Image: X Internet reacts to the playful trot of this baby rhino will boost your mood like nothing else | Image: X What do you think about it? Do let us know in the comments. For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram. In a digital age saturated with mundane classifieds, a Bengaluru woman's exceptional ad for a flatmate has captivated online audiences with its ingenuity and flair. Her advertisement combines wit and creativity and is a shining example of effective communication and marketing savvy. With a top-notch presentation, she ingeniously employs humor and honesty to delineate the perks and peculiarities of cohabitation. The ad's viral success is a testament to its ability to resonate with a broad audience, transcending the conventional boundaries of mundane listings. Through this innovative approach, the woman showcases her personality and demonstrates a keen understanding of modern advertising techniques. As the ad continues to garner attention across social media platforms, it serves as a reminder of the power of originality and authenticity in capturing the public's imagination. What Did This Bengaluru Woman Do? This Bengaluru woman's ad for her flatmate went viral | Image: X Bengaluru, often hailed as India's startup hub, is renowned for its distinctive culture and charm that continually attracts professionals to its bustling streets. Recently, the city has garnered attention through various online memes spotlighting its idiosyncratic occurrences, known as "peak Bengaluru" moments, which are widely circulated online. A post from a Bengaluru resident seeking a flatmate is gaining traction on social media due to its innovative approach. This Bengaluru woman's ad for her flatmate went viral | Image: X Udisha Madan, an individual identified as an independent designer from Srishti Institute of Design, Art & Technology, is searching for a flatmate to share her 2BHK residence in Koramangala. Utilizing a design application, Ms. Madan likely crafted her advertisement to incorporate images and details about the accommodation. "Flatmate Alert! Hello everyone! I'm seeking a female flatmate for my 2BHK located in 8th Block, Koramangala, just a 5-minute walk from DYU Art Cafe," she penned in the caption of her post. This Bengaluru woman's ad for her flatmate went viral | Image: X Additionally, Ms. Madan disclosed pertinent information such as the rental cost, deposit requirements, and move-in date. "Please help spread the word & direct message for further details!" she concluded. Where Can You Check Out The Post? You can check out the post on X posted by @puffyter. Flatmate Alert! Hey folks! I'm looking for a female flatmate for my 2BHK in 8th Block, Koramangala, at a 5-minute walk from DYU Art Cafe. Rent - 13,750 pp Deposit - 50k Move-in date - 1st April Please repost for visibility & DM for deets! @BangaloreRoomi @peakbengaluru pic.twitter.com/8ctJDznwVp udisha (@puffyter) February 26, 2024 How Did The Internet React? Internet users promptly responded to Ms Madan's post. Many praised her for her dedication to creating the advertisement and for the modest rent she requested. Internet reacts to this Bengaluru woman's ad for her flatmate went viral | Image: X Internet reacts to this Bengaluru woman's ad for her flatmate went viral | Image: X What do you think about it? Do let us know in the comments. For more trending stories, follow us on Telegram. Solaimane Elbettah, facing the security camera, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Josh Burns, whose back is to the camera. Elbettah admitted to slicing the victim's throat with a machete in the early hours of July 4, 2022. (Court exhibit - image credit) The Sundre man who admitted to killing his co-worker with a machete testified that he hears constant whispers from demons. Solaimane Elbettah, 28, is on trial for first-degree murder in the death of Josh Burns, 19, who was killed on July 4, 2022. The two were working a night shift at the Sundre McDonald's on Main Avenue. Elbettah is from Morocco and moved to Canada in 2018. He worked a number of fast food and delivery jobs before landing at the McDonald's. Under questioning from defence lawyer Pawel Milczarek, Elbettah told Court of King's Bench Justice Glen Poelman that he has "advanced knowledge" of angels, demons and spirits. "Angels are the ones that help human kind to keep god's order flowing," said Elbettah. "Demons are making problems." Then there is "whispering a way to transmit ideas," Elbettah said. Milczarek will argue his client should be found not criminally responsible (NCR) by reason of mental disorder. He plans to argue his client did not understand that his actions were morally wrong at the time of the crime. If the judge finds Elbettah is not criminally responsible, he would be sent to a secure psychiatric facility instead of a prison. 'They got Josh' Elbettah's testimony was, at times, extremely confusing. He told Justice Poelman that the demons got to him through his co-workers, including Burns. Elbettah said he was hearing whispers from demons all the time, including the night of the killing. "I'm a threat to them," he told the judge. "Unfortunately they got Josh. I see it in the eyes of Josh." 'He was insulting me' Court heard evidence on Monday that after he sliced the teen's throat, Elbettah texted the McDonald's manager. "Sorry about everything," he wrote. "He was insulting me and he was thinking he was better than me because he was white." Elbettah did not mention demons to his manager, the 911 operator or police in the hours after the homicide. Milczarek has three more witnesses to call, including the accused's brother, a friend and a forensic psychiatrist. Prosecutor Vince Pingitore has not yet cross-examined Elbettah. In a recent episode of Shark Tank Indias ongoing season three, three IITians came up with their startup idea, which not only impressed the judges, but even went on to bag a Rs 1 crore deal with four sharks. 'Home Gym' Startup Cracks Rs 1 Crore Deal On Shark Tank India aroleap home gym shark tank/x On business TV reality show Shark Tank India's ongoing season, the all-in-one smart home gym 'Aroleap' ,the brainchild of IIT Delhi alumni, struck a deal worth Rs 1 crore with four sharks. Aroleap is an all-in-one wall-mounted home gym solution that covers full-body workouts and made its debut on "Shark Tank India 3." Personalized training and a wide variety of workouts delivered straight to your door, it is the solution to making fitness accessible to everyone. Designed by IIT Delhi alumni, including Anurag Dani, Aman Rai, and Rohit Patel. Also Read: Startups That Went On To Become Successful Despite Rejection On Shark Tank India Startup Aroleap's Pitch On Shark Tank India We cant help but flex that we have got the deal of our dreams! Our heartfelt gratitude to Sharks Anupam Mittal, Peyush Bansal, Amit Jain and Azhar Iqubal for believing in us! We thank everyone who supported us in our vision! Stream new episodes of Shark Tank India pic.twitter.com/Izvzu1k2OI Aroleap (@officialAroleap) February 27, 2024 Exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and others can be performed on an Aroleap. They asked the sharks for 2.5 percent equity, or Rs 1 crore. By providing easily accessible, data-driven personal training, Aroleap empowers people all over the country to adopt healthier lifestyles. Through the simplification of exercise regimens and the guarantee of best outcomes with its flagship product, a wall-mounted strength training machine, the brand hopes to democratize fitness. With more than 100 workouts packed into a small package, Aroleap goes beyond what can be done in a typical home gym. Four Shark Tank India Judges Say Yes To Investing In The Startup aroleap shark tank/abp The pitchers and the sharks Amit Jain, Anupam Mittal, Azhar Iqubal, and Peyush Bansal worked out a deal of Rs 1 crore for 5% equity. Talking about his experience, Aman Rai had reportedly said that making an appearance on Shark Tank with our brand, Aroleap, was an unprecedented experience. Despite our extensive pitching experience, this was our first time pitching under such intense pressure in front of the camera. By posing the right queries, sharks were able to see through the company and pinpoint the issues. In just one hour, they provided us with insightful, practical advice that was not surface-level. We had the opportunity to self-reflect on the less obvious parts of running a startup for the first time, and we were already working on their suggestions. For the latest and more interesting financial news, keep reading Indiatimes Worth. Click here Sunil Bharti Mittal, the Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, achieved the distinction of being the first Indian citizen to receive an honorary Knighthood from King Charles III of Britain. The honor was conferred in recognition of Mittal's contributions to fostering business relations between the United Kingdom and India. In a list of honorary British awards unveiled by the UK Cabinet Office, Mittal receives a KBE under the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire one of the highest honours conferred by a British monarch. times content The 66-year-old entrepreneur said in a statement that he was deeply humbled by the gracious recognition from King Charles. The UK and India have historical relations, which are now entering a new era of increased cooperation and collaboration. I remain committed to working towards strengthening the economic and bilateral trade relationships between our two great nations, Mittal said. I am thankful to the government of the UK, whose support and keen attention to the needs of business has been critical in making the country an attractive investment destination, he said. What Is KBE (Knight of the Order of the British Empire)? Buckingham/X The KBE, conferred for a pre-eminent contribution in any field of activity, is awarded in an honorary capacity to foreign nationals. While the Knighthood conferred on UK nationals gives them the title of Sir or Dame, non-UK nationals awarded the honour add KBE (or DBE for women) after their name. Who Are The Other Indians To Have Received The Honor By Queen Elizabeth II? Previous Indian recipients of the Honorary KBE include Ratan Tata (2009), Ravi Shankar (2001) and Jamshed Irani (1997), conferred by the late Queen Elizabeth II. When Will The Event Take Place? The investiture ceremony will be conducted by the British High Commissioner to India at a later date, when he will formally hand over the royal insignia to Mittal. The honour recognises Bharti Enterprises work within the India-UK space, including with the UK government in the field of satellites. Sunil Bharti Mittal led the revival of OneWeb (now Eutelsat), leading a consortium with the UK government and other strategic investors to offer satellite broadband services globally, a company statement notes. Mittals UK connection times content Mittal maintains a significant association with the UK, serving as a member of the India-UK CEO Forum. Additionally, he has received recognition in the form of an Honorary Doctor of Civil Law from Newcastle University and an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Leeds in the past. He is also a member of the Vice Chancellors Circle of Advisors at the University of Cambridge. Additionally, Sunil Bharti Mittal has served on the Governing Body of the London Business School (LBS) and as a Member of the India Advisory Group at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). In 2019, Bhartis Airtel Africa was listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. Who Is Sunil Bharti Mittal? Sunil Bharti Mittal is the Founder and Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, one of Indias foremost first-generation corporations with interests in Telecom, Space Communications, Digital Solutions, Real Estate and Hospitality. Bharti has joint ventures with several global partners like SingTel, SoftBank, Del Monte, the UK and French Government, amongst others. Bharti Airtel, the flagship company of Bharti Enterprises, is a leading telecommunications company with operations in 17 countries and ranks amongst the top three mobile operators globally. Airtel is Indias largest integrated communications solutions provider and Sub-Saharan Africas second-largest mobile operator, serving over half a billion customers across its operations. (With PTI inputs) Apple plans to disband its Special Projects Group, the team dedicated to electric cars, as reported by Bloomberg. Closing Chapter: Apple's Electric Car Project Comes to an End, Posing Challenges for Manufacturing This development marks the conclusion of Apple's covert initiative to create a car to compete with Tesla. Despite involving numerous employees, the project didn't align with Apple's primary focus on electronics and online services, leading to uncertainties about the manufacturing aspect of the vehicle. apple list of ceos/apple The ambition first surfaced in 2014 when Apple started hiring auto industry professionals Apple's interest in building a car became apparent in 2014 when the company started hiring automotive engineers and professionals from the auto industry. Despite maintaining secrecy about its plans, Apple conducted a program involving self-owned vehicles equipped with sensors and safety drivers, conducting autonomous test drives in the San Francisco Bay Area. This Special Projects Group saw several restructuring and operational changes, including layoffs in 2019. As per Bloomberg, some of the employees in the car division are likely to transfer to a generative artificial intelligence team, according to Bloomberg. Apple also has some automotive-related projects which include infotainment CarPlay software which is installed on 80 percent of new vehicles, as per the company. Apple's car project was an internal initiative aimed at exploring technologies with significant market potential. While the focus has shifted, Apple remains dedicated to advancing health technologies, particularly for the Apple Watch. Additionally, the company recently launched its inaugural virtual reality headset, the Vision Pro, showcasing its commitment to innovation in various tech sectors. AP Apples smartphone rivals have also tried their hand at designing and manufacturing cars. Xiaomi, a maker of Android smartphones, announced a new electric vehicle this week. Foxconn, Apples main manufacturing partner, said last year it will build electric vehicles. Apple, under the leadership of CEO Tim Cook, never publicly acknowledged the car project, instead referring to it as efforts in "autonomous systems." In 2016, when asked by a shareholder about the project, Cook playfully hinted, saying "its going to be Christmas Eve for a long time." Maintaining its discreet approach, Apple has not disclosed specific expenditures related to the automotive sector. In 2023, the company allocated approximately $30 billion to research and development, marking a 14% increase from the previous year. This R&D budget encompasses investments in new software and features for existing products like the iPhone. Xiaomis First Electric Car Was Showcased In Barcelona Recently twitter Xiaomi unveiled its inaugural electric vehicle, the SU7, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Although initially introduced in China late last year, this marks the first physical appearance of the vehicle. The SU7, characterized as a stylish and sporty performance sedan, boasts a distinctive blue paint finish, four doors, and is equipped with a fully electric drivetrain. Xiaomi highlights the use of its proprietary electric motors, claiming an impressive acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.78 seconds. For the latest and more interesting financial news, keep reading Indiatimes Worth. Click here The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the September 21 Edo State governorship election, Asue Ighodalo, has recieved his Certificate of Return as winner of the partys governorship primary election. Ighodalo however appealed to other aspirants who lost out at the primary to work with him for the PDP to retain the State in the coming election. The emergence of Ighodalo has been wrought with controversy, as the other aspirants, including Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu, accused Governor Godwin Obaseki of manipulating the process in favour of Ighodalo. Recall that in a parallel primary, Shaibu was also elected as a governorship candidate. Speaking after receiving his certificate of return at the PDP National Secretariat in Abuja on Tuesday, Ighodalo said the contest was over and pleaded with the other aspirants to join hands with him to retain the state. His words: To my other co-aspirants, its good to contest, but the contest is over, and like I have been begging each and every one of you, I continue begging you, please, lets come together as one. READ ALSO: Theres Plot To Impeach Me For Contesting Edo Governorship Philip Shaibu Alleges Since my first day in this party, I have been begging you, and I will continue because its extremely critical that Edo State must and shall, by the grace of God, remain a PDP state, and that will be made easier if we work together as a team. And we will, by the grace of God Almighty, work together. I will keep on begging; we must unite. Speaking before presenting the certificate to the candidate, PDPs acting National Chairman, Umar Damagum, also enjoined the candidate to reach out to other aspirants and reconcile with them. You have a daunting task before you, he said, adding, Normally, after primaries, there are lots of disagreements, and it is better to reconcile yourselves. Im urging the candidate to go after your fellow aspirants and make them see why you must work as a team so that Edo will be an easy ride for us. We have seen what has happened in other parties; let us not rejoice because they are having their own challenges. We should be more focused on our own challenges, and we should be more focused on taking that state back for the PDP. Edo State Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu has stormed the Peoples Democratic Partys national headquarters in Abuja, demanding the partys certificate of return for the governorship election. Recall that Shaibu was declared the winner of a parallel PDP governorship candidate for the state while Asue Ighodalo won the main election. However, the PDP presented a certificate of return to Asue, when Shaibu was at the partys secretariat on Wednesday to ask for the same credentia. He insisted that he won the primary election and should be formally recognised as such. Shaibu said: Today is the day set aside for the collection of certificate of return for the winner of the primary. I understand someone came yesterday and was given, well, the court will decide. So, it is not surprising that I am here today. I am here to receive my certificate of return because I won the primary in Edo and the authentic delegates voted. If you look at the halls of the party office here, you will see the names of all the delegates that voted for me. Today is the presentation of the Certificate of Return, according to the party. So, PDP must follow its rules and guidelines; this is what we are talking about. The process of producing a candidate has been compromised from the onset, and we ask that those things be corrected. Even the committee that recommended a political solution is fully aware that there were abnormalities in the process that led to my emergence, and whoever. READ MORE: Edo 2024: Ighodalo Receives PDPs Certificate Of Return But the reason I am here is to obey the guidelines to come and receive the certificate of return, and I was told that somebody else came here yesterday and was given the certificate. Those who conducted the primaries and wrote this report are being threatened. They tried to procure them, and many of them refused. Now they are being threatened to write another report. This is a committee that was put together by the NWC. If the PDP is serious and ready to win Edo State, they must do what is right. And I am telling our members in Edo not to be worried; we will get to the promised land. Edo will be the place where we will reset how internal democracy can be strengthened so that the foundation of democracy is not destroyed. I told them that I was coming, but none of them have come to work. Only the staff of the secretariat are here. I dont know why they are not here. That is strange, and that is in line with why they will be in a hurry to give the certificate yesterday when today was what was approved for the certificate to be given to the winner. Former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State, says the economic hardship being experienced in the country has nothing to do with the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration. Ambode disclosed this on Tuesday at the 2024 Akinjide Adeosun Foundation (AAF) leadership colloquium and award titled: Economic Asphyxiation The wisdom of Authentic Leaders in Lagos. Ambode said Nigerias problems had a long history and needed a courageous president like Tinubu to fix them. According to him, the problems can be solved if Nigerians can unite for a common cause. Urging Nigerians to stop the blame game, face the problems and solve them, he said: It (challenges) has nothing to do with the singular person called Mr President; but if we dont understand the fundamentals, we will start doing the blame games. We need to face our problems frontally. The major issue is that we are even tired of not fixing our issues. Now, we have found somebody that has decided in person of President Tinubu. READ ALSO: Nationwide Protest Is About Hunger, Not Minimum Wage NLC Until we decide ourselves to say that we should unite for the common cause called Nigeria, the security issues will not go. We are all in a position to actually support Mr President, let us start to look at it from a different prism. We dont have to wake up in the morning and be talking ill of Nigeria. We get what we profess about Nigeria. We must think out of the box. We have to feed ourselves. When we start to think by ourselves and today we will resolve the issues concerning Nigeria, we will smile. He furthered that no matter how weak the followers are, Nigerian leaders must stand in front and continually show confidence that tomorrow would be all right. You must stand in front and show them that you are in the challenge with them. You must show them empathy. It (authentic leadership) is more about the emotional intelligence that actually understands the frustration of the followers, what is going on around them. The issue is, we cannot afford to play propaganda because something is bad but we keep saying that it is not bad. The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) police command has arrested one Samaila Wakili Fafa, a wanted kidnap kingpin in Abuja. Josephine Adeh, FCT police spokesperson, in a Tuesday statement, said Fafa was arrested on February 24 after the command raided Sardauna forest in Nasarawa State after receiving credible intelligence. According to her, the suspect was one of those who FCT Minister Nyesom Wike had placed bounty on. The spokesperson also said Fafa has confessed to being responsible for the abduction and murder of Chris Agidy, a senior legislative aide to Ned Nwoko, senator representing Delta North. Nwoko had said his aide was among 19 people abducted from their homes by kidnappers in Galadimawa area of Abuja in 2023. The suspect is one of the two kidnappers the Honorable Minister FCT placed bounty on, as the other one namely Saidu Abdulkadir A.K.A Dahiru Adamu, had earlier been arrested by the Command. READ ALSO: Female Kidnapper Married To Notorious Criminal Nabbed While Trying To Pick Ransom In Taraba He confessed that his syndicate masterminded and executed several kidnappings in FCT and its environs, including the abduction of Barr. Chris Agidy, the legal aid to Senator Ned Nwoko and Mr Sunday Yahaya Zakwai, the district head of Ketti Village who were later killed by them. Samaila Wakili further led police operatives to where the remains of Barr. Chris Agidy is. The remains was recovered and deposited in Gwagwalada General Hospital. While investigation is still ongoing, the Commissioner of Police FCT, CP Benneth C. Igweh, psc, mni, wishes to reiterate his unflinching commitment to combat crime and criminality in all its manifestations and to ensure safety of residents. He equally urges residents to report suspicious activities through the following emergency lines; 08032003913, 08061581938, 07057337653, and 08028940883; PCB: 09022222352, the statement disclosed. Adegoke Fayoade, Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, says the Command provided water and biscuits for protesters to prevent them from exhaustion. Recall that on Tuesday, the two-day mass protest called by the Labour Congress (NLC) against the rising cost of living kicked off across the country. NLC members and residents gathered at the Ikeja underbridge for the protest and were addressed by Funmi Sessi, NLC Lagos chairperson, and the State Commissioner of Police. Protesters moved from the Ikeja underbridge via Obafemi Awolowo road to the Lagos State Government House at Alausa. However, during the demonstration, police officers distributed biscuits and water to the protesters. READ ALSO: Photo News: Lagos, Oyo, Abuja, Kano Join #EndHungerProtest; South-East Makes U-Turn Fayoade, in a chat with News Agency of Nigeria said the refreshments was needed to prevent people from collapsing during the protest as they trekked a long distance under the hot weather. He added that the protest was successful, noting that nobody was arrested. I provided water and biscuits because I dont want anyone to collapse on the way. We have to use water to strengthen everybody. That is the least we could do. The protest went on as agreed with the NLC leadership. We promised them protection from the beginning to the end. The Navy Yard self-driving shuttle will be available for use by workers and visitors Monday through Friday from 10 a.m to 2 p.m., running every ten minutes on a loop within the Navy Yard. Read more Navy Yard workers and visitors have a new way to get around the area: a self-driving shuttle. Getting folks from their office buildings or labs or the shipyard to places where they can go to lunch or Jefferson Health, its really important, said Kate McNamara, senior vice president of the Navy Yard at PIDC, who noted that the Navy Yard is 1,200 acres. The new shuttle, which was first unveiled in 2022, launched on Tuesday and will run on a contained loop within the Navy Yard. It will be available for use by workers and visitors of the Navy Yard for free, Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., running every 10 minutes. It can seat nine passengers in seats and one passenger that uses a wheelchair. The eventual aim is to connect the shuttle to SEPTAs NRG Station, but a date for when that would begin is not yet available. The shuttle is able to drive itself, using technology from Perrone Robotics, a company based in Virginia. Advertisement The vehicle is making its own decisions on when to go, when to stop for pedestrians, when to cross traffic. All those decisions are being made by a computer on board, said Nick Pilipowskyj, vice president of business operations for the company. There are a few things the vehicle cant do on its own, though. The shuttle cant detect potholes and a safety attendant needs to help a traveler when securing a wheelchair in place. There will be one safety attendant onboard in the drivers seat, per PennDot requirement, to supervise the vehicle, said Pilipowskyj. Thats in line with vehicle autonomy laws in most states, he noted. A brake can override the self-driving system if needed, including to immediately react to emergency vehicles, or because of changing weather conditions. The attendant can also go in and out of autonomous control with the click of a button. On Tuesday, during the vehicles inaugural tour, a car cut in front of the shuttle during the drive, and it automatically slowed down, noted Donald Brock, the safety attendant aboard. Getting workers to lunch Tamara Williams, who works for Axalta Coating Systems in the Navy Yard as a senior lab technician, says she usually packs lunch but could see the shuttle being useful in the winter, or to save some time, depending on where it stops. Sometimes shell get food at the URBN facility, which is a 15-minute walk from her building. If its cold, that would be a convenience, so we wouldnt have to walk or take our own cars. We could just take it, go get something to eat locally, she said. Nicholas Gaetano, who also works for Axalta, says he might try out the shuttle in the future. Asked if the self-driving aspect made it scary or appealing, he noted [It] doesnt go too fast. Im OK with getting on it. But Steve Scheetz, who designs colors for EMD Electronics at the Navy Yard, doesnt anticipate using it himself. I generally like to walk when Im here, he said. Were always sitting in front of a computer or in the lab standing around doing things. Being able to be physically active is more important to me than using the shuttle to drive around from here to there. Bus and shuttle service at the Navy Yard The automated shuttle is the latest transportation service to be offered in the area. The Navy Yard already offers transportation aboard two different bus services: The Navy Yard Loop Bus connects SEPTAs NRG Station and various points in the Navy Yard, operating every 15 mins from 7 a.m. to 7:20 p.m., according to the Navy Yard website; The Navy Yard Center City Express bus provides service from 10th and Market Streets and 4th and Market Streets to the Navy Yard, Monday through Friday, as well as makes stops within the Navy Yard. As the autonomous shuttle begins service, it will make four stops, but there is room to add more if there is a need. The shuttle will stop at: George Norcross III, New Jersey businessman seen here in 2019, along with his brother Philip and former TD Bank executive Gregory Braca are terminating an agreement to take over Republic First Bancorp. Read more After battling for years to take over Republic First Bancorp, George Norcross III says he doesnt want it after all. South Jersey business and political power broker Norcross, his brother Philip, and former TD Bank executive Gregory Braca are terminating last years agreement to invest new capital in the money-losing bank, they said in a brief statement Wednesday after security markets closed. That deal, if completed, would have effectively given the Norcross group control of Republic. With $6.3 billion in assets, Republic is the largest bank still based in Philadelphia, where most larger lenders have been sold to out-of-town banks. The Norcross group blamed Republics failure to file financial reports from as far back as 2022, or schedule a promised shareholder meeting. Advertisement Republic fired its auditor, Crowe LLC, on Feb. 21 and replaced the firm with Wolfe & Co. P.C. Crowe had been reviewing Republics previously disclosed accounting issues from 2022 and prior years, before current management took over. Crowe had also identified but did not investigate going concern issues related to financial and capital positions and company liquidity, as well as the banks accounting for securities and losses, Republic told the SEC in a filing earlier this week. (Added March 1) Republic, which operates around 30 branches, mostly in the citys South Jersey and Pennsylvania suburbs, has enough capital and deposits to continue under its current strategic plan and is preparing the delayed financial statements, the company said in a statement. The companys main subsidiary, Republic Bank, lost $30 million in the first nine months of 2023, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. records. It made money the two previous years, reporting around $11 million in net income for 2022, and $28 million in 2021. Republics managers canceled some expansion plans and cut costs after ousting the banks president, Vernon Hill, in 2022. The banks employment had dropped to 444 employees as of Sept. 30, down from 522 a year earlier. Shares of the banks holding company, which were delisted in 2022, have been trading off-market for around 3 cents a share, leaving the companys market capitalization around $2 million. The Norcross group owns around 10% of the company and had agreed to purchase more. When banks lose money for a prolonged period of time, the regulator eventually obliges them to raise more money from investors. In some cases, it takes over stricken institutions and sells loans and deposits to other banks. Mississippi is one step closer to what would be a landmark shift in health care policy, with the Republican-led House preparing to debate expansion of Medicaid benefits to hundreds of thousands more residents in one of the poorest states in the U.S. The House Medicaid Committee on Tuesday advanced the bill, which would increase eligibility for Medicaid, a health insurance program that covers low-income people. Those making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or $20,120 annually for a single person, would be eligible under the proposal. The measure could extend benefits to about 250,000 people. Our health metrics will improve, well see greater access to care, and hopefully start to see a healthier Mississippi where our folks are getting treatment earlier rather than later, said Republican Missy McGee, the committee chairwoman. Mississippi has the highest rate of preventable deaths in the U.S. Its top health official has said it ranks at the bottom of virtually every health care indicator and at the top of every disparity. Hospitals are struggling to remain open. The state also has one of the nations lowest labor force participation rates. Expansion proponents have said the policy could help ameliorate these conditions. The move follows years of Republican opposition to the expansion allowed under the Affordable Care Act, a 2010 federal health overhaul signed by then-President Barack Obama. Opponents of Medicaid expansion say the program would foster government dependency, increase wait times for health services and push people off private insurance. Until this year, Mississippis legislative Republicans never held a hearing to consider Medicaid expansion. Debate stalled due to opposition from party leaders, including Gov. Tate Reeves, who on Tuesday repeated his stance that the government should not run health care. But new Republican House Speaker Jason White, who sponsored the Medicaid expansion bill with McGee, says he wants legislators to consider the policy as a way to bring hundreds of millions of federal money each year to the state. Story continues Mississippi House Medicaid Committee Chairperson Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, left, listens Tuesday as Drew Snyder, executive director of the Mississippi Division of Medicaid, gives members of the committee an outline of the states Medicaid program. McGee touted a financial incentive for expanding Medicaid provided by Congress in the American Rescue Plan. The bonus helped with the passage of Medicaid expansion in North Carolina. In Mississippi, the incentive and other cost offsets like increased tax revenues would pay for the program for about four years, McGee said. It would more than pay for itself, McGee said. You almost have to look at it like the federal government is giving us a free pilot program to run for four years. Legislative Democrats on the committee have a competing plan that would go further, but they all voted for the Republican-sponsored plan Tuesday. House members have until March 14 to pass the bill. At the center of the debate is a provision that requires people to work at least 20 hours per week in order to become eligible for the expanded benefits. Among the 10 states that havent expanded Medicaid, only Georgia has managed to tie a work requirement to a partial expansion of benefits. The Trump administration permitted 13 states to impose work requirements on some Medicaid recipients. Then the Biden administration revoked all those waivers in 2021, arguing that people should not face roadblocks to getting health care. Republican Gov. Brian Kemps administration won a federal court fight in 2022 to temporarily preserve Georgias plan, but there is an ongoing legal battle. Mississippi Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who will play a key role in shepherding any Medicaid expansion bill through the state Senate, said Georgia offers a model for Mississippi. But the Biden administration could likely refuse to grant a waiver for Medicaid expansion that includes a work requirement. If that happened, Mississippi could sue the federal government or adopt expansion without a work requirement. McGee said the state Division of Medicaid would do its best to negotiate with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that would need to approve a waiver for a work requirement. The goal of the plan is to provide health insurance for working Mississippians, McGee said. We believe that at least 75-80% of this population is working, so we certainly dont want to not help them just because we might be helping another population who might not be working or able to work at the time. At an event in Jackson on Monday, Xavier Becerra, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, urged lawmakers to take advantage of the federal program. Youve got to pick up the bootstraps of your state until your state finally cares for all of its families, Becerra said. Gov. Josh Shapiro delivers his second budget address in the rotunda in the Capitol building in Harrisburg on Feb. 6. Read more The State Correctional Institution Phoenix, in a bucolic corner of Montgomery County, is a maximum-security mens prison. But a 48-bed unit on the grounds of the Phoenix complex could also soon house boys as young as 13. Gov. Josh Shapiros budget proposal, first outlined Feb. 6, identified $18.1 million in funding to build out a facility for youth whove been found delinquent but did not specify that it would be at a state prison. A spokesperson for Pennsylvanias Department of Human Services (DHS), which oversees youth facilities, acknowledged that it would be at Phoenix, but emphasized that it would be outside the secure perimeter. This new center will be secure and safe for both juveniles and workers, provide education and treatment for adjudicated youth, and it is completely separate from SCI Phoenix, spokesperson Brandon Cwalina said in a statement. Advertisement The Youth Development Center, which would open in July, aims to address a shortage in beds at state facilities that has contributed to dangerous crowding at Philadelphias juvenile jail. In 2022, the city sued DHS over its failure to accept teenagers sentenced to placement fast enough, creating a backlog that left kids sleeping on floors. READ MORE: Shocking photos show kids sleeping on the floor in the city's juvenile detention center But advocates said building a juvenile center alongside an adult prison is the wrong solution. Too many youth are being funneled into the system. Its harmful and the research shows the harms they experience when theyre in adult facilities, said Malik Pickett, senior attorney at the Juvenile Law Center. Its more money being spent to expand the system when we need to be looking into alternatives. A recent study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found lasting mental-health impact for youth held in adult facilities. Other research has linked youth detention with worse educational and employment outcomes, and increased recidivism. Philadelphia has reduced the number of young people it sends to placements by about 85% over the last decade. Yet, the number of facilities where young people can be sent has also declined precipitously, for reasons including staffing shortages, spiking insurance costs, and facility closures in the wake of abuse scandals. READ MORE: Why space shortages are on the rise even as fewer kids are locked up Currently, there are about 200 young people in the citys West Philadelphia detention center, which is licensed to hold up to 184 youth aged 10 to 17, who are awaiting trial or placement in a state-run facility. The facility at SCI Phoenix could help move sentenced youth into placements faster. Thats to their benefit, since they dont receive credit for time served in the city jail. Shapiro also proposed $2.5 million in education funding for youth housed there. City officials expressed support for state efforts to develop new residential programs. Previous proposals by the state have included sending youth to a facility in Texas, which drew objections from Philadelphias public defender and others. But groups that work with justice-involved teens argue that any investment in high-security youth facilities, rather than community-based resources, is counterproductive. It shows what we prioritize, said Kendra Van de Water, executive director of YEAH Philly, a West-Philadelphia based organization that works with young people in the justice system. Education in general in the city is not funded, and yet we find any way to fund prisons and jails. She said the city needs to step up, too to address the conditions at its juvenile center, where she said kids still arent receiving adequate schooling, counseling, or medical care. At one point last summer, there were 230 youth inside its detention center, leaving dozens sleeping in offices, gyms, or on the floors of cramped cells. Fights were breaking out, and some kids were building makeshift weapons, the city said in court filings. Kate Parker, policy director at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, said the city and court should look to reduce reliance on time-committed sentences (sometimes forcing kids to stay years in a facility where the available treatment program may only last six or nine months), and invest in private placements and city-run programs. We need to ask ourselves why Philadelphia is using more than its share of allotted state placement beds, she said, even as the data tells us that young people are not being charged with a greater proportion of acts of violent crime. A memorial set up on the 2300 block of South Marshall Street, where a 31-year-old woman was shot and killed on Wednesday. Read more A 31-year-old woman was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend in South Philadelphia on Tuesday night, police said just days after she reported his abuse to detectives and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Lethanaphone Onesy was walking on the 2300 block of South Marshall Street with another man just before 7 p.m. when two men with guns accosted them, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore. Surveillance video shows one of the men, 35-year-old Sherman Carney, grabbed the man she was walking with and held him at gunpoint, Vanore said. As a third man stood lookout, Vanore said, 32-year-old Carey Jones, who is believed to be Onesys ex-boyfriend, grabbed Onesy and threw her against a car, before shooting her multiple times in the head. READ MORE: Loved ones of a young woman slain in a domestic shooting say police didnt do enough to protect her Advertisement Officers rushed Onesy to Jefferson University Hospital, but her injuries were severe. She died minutes later. Nearby officers who heard the shots immediately responded and spotted Jones and Carney fleeing the scene, Vanore said. They were apprehended, both still armed with guns, and arrested. On Wednesday, Jones and Sherman were charged with murder, intimidation of a witness, and related crimes, as well as aggravated assault for restraining the womans companion during the shooting. The third man who acted as lookout has not been caught. Police had been actively searching for Jones since Friday, Vanore said. On Feb. 20, Onesy reported to police that Jones had beaten her, striking her in the face multiple times, Vanore said. She met with detectives in the 3rd Police District, and on Friday a warrant was issued for Jones arrest. But officers couldnt find him, Vanore said. Detectives attempted to work with Jones probation officer to have him turn himself in, but he did not, Vanore said. Patrol had been looking for him, but we just didnt find him, he said. This is not the first time Jones, of Point Breeze, has been accused of domestic abuse. According to the affidavit for probable cause for his arrest, he was charged with aggravated assault after he came to an ex-girlfriends home and physically assaulted her in September 2020. He pleaded guilty to simple assault, court records show, and was sentenced to three to six months in jail, plus one year probation. Records show he violated his probation multiple times, and was sent back to jail as recently as last year. On Wednesday, a memorial started to grow on the 2300 block of Marshall Street, where Onesy was shot. A pair of red and white balloons blew in the wind and a set of candles flickered beneath a sheet of light rain. A bouquet of white roses leaned against the paint-chipped wall of a home on a block that appeared neglected by city services and trash clean up. A woman on the block who asked not to be named for privacy reasons said she knew Onesy, and that she lived in the area. She was loved by a lot of people, she said of her friend. She was really a good person who didnt deserve that. Vanore said Jones conviction should have prevented him from owning a gun. Still, he had one, Vanore said, and on Tuesday, he waited in the shadows near Onesys home, gun in hand, and killed her as soon as she walked by. Kindergarten teacher Cristina Gutierrez, who has been teaching for 20 years, outside Elkin Elementary in the Kensington section. The days were meant for us to take. They are part of our contract, they are our days. To restrict us on how many we can take before being penalized is ridiculous. Read more Philadelphia teachers contract allows them 10 sick days a year. But they are progressively penalized just for taking them. That means when a teacher comes down with a virus or has a family member with a medical emergency, theres a constant calculus in the heads of many: Can I afford to take the day off? Will there be consequences for doing so? The policy, known informally as 3-5-7-9, works this way: After a teachers third occurrence, whether a single sick day or the third in a consecutive stretch of days, principals are instructed to have an informal conversation with the instructor and write a memo documenting the episode. After the fifth occurrence, the teacher gets a warning memo in the permanent file; after the seventh, the teacher gets an unsatisfactory incident memo in the file and a formal conference. A teacher who reaches nine occurrences gets a second unsatisfactory incident report, a recommended suspension, and conferences with the principal and assistant superintendent. READ MORE: Philly teachers may have a one-year contract and a big raise in a surprise, early settlement Advertisement Its a policy that has been around for decades but is now coming under fire as the Philadelphia district faces a national teacher shortage and particularly high levels of educator attrition. The days were meant for us to take, said Cristina Gutierrez, a kindergarten teacher at Elkin Elementary in Kensington. They are part of our contract, they are our days. To restrict us on how many we can take before being penalized is ridiculous. Teachers plan a rally against the policy before Thursdays school board meeting. Absolutely, positively hated Early in Kate Sannicks-Lerners career as a teacher at the Philadelphia School District, she worried about racking up occurrences because she was a single parent responsible for taking off when her daughter got sick. The worries continued when she married and her husband became ill with seizures, surgeries, and serious eye problems. Now 23 years into teaching in the district, Sannicks-Lerner, who works at Julia de Burgos Elementary in North Philadelphia, is in her last year of worrying about whether shell get penalized for taking the time off she earned. I cant say necessarily that its the main reason Im retiring, but it figures heavily in that, said Sannicks-Lerner. This policy is absolutely, positively hated. She said its unevenly enforced, too. During one of her husbands illnesses, Sannicks-Lerner received a warning that her next occurrence would result in an unsatisfactory incident memo and advice from her principal to apply under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which would allow her to take time off for her husbands surgeries and medical appointments outside of the 3-5-7-9 policy. But some principals show favoritism to some people; some people are out and they dont rack up occurrences, said Sannicks-Lerner, who recently gave Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. an earful about the policy in a one-on-one with the school chief. (She told Watlington they needed to get rid of the policy, Sannicks-Lerner said, and he said, Ive heard a lot about that.) According to anecdotes collected by the Caucus of Working Educators, a group within the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers that is organizing members to speak out against 3-5-7-9, the policy has not let up in the toughest of situations. One teacher had an infant diagnosed with cancer but did not yet qualify for federal family medical leave, another taught while ill with food poisoning after being threatened with discipline if another sick day were used. A policy originating 40 years ago The policy stems from a case dating 40 years, when a district secretary was fired for poor attendance. The PFT challenged the termination and ultimately lost; the arbitrator wrote that management can require reasonably steady attendance as a condition of employment, regardless of the reasons for the absences, since otherwise the employee is of no practical value to the enterprise. The PFT contract sets the number of sick days at 10 (plus three personal days), but the arbitration decision gives the district the right to set the 3-5-7-9 policy. The districts employee relations department tells principals that progressive discipline uses increasingly more severe penalties to bring about positive change in employee behavior. The goals of progressive discipline are to improve employee output, correct inappropriate behavior, or terminate recalcitrant employees. PFT president Jerry Jordan said he understood the importance of staff attendance but takes issue with the policy. If someone is sick, thats what the sick days are for. People should not be mistreated or abused by administration for taking that time, he said. Watlington has stressed teacher attendance since he came to Philadelphia though the superintendent has said he does not expect people to come to work sick and Jordan said that emphasis has resulted in increased scrutiny on consequences for those staff who do take sick days. There are some overzealous administrators in some buildings, and thats caused a number of people to be called in about attendance, said Jordan. But peoples health issues are their personal business, and if theyre not there, theyre not there. Jordan has said that eliminating 3-5-7-9 is absolutely an issue at the negotiating table; on Wednesday he announced a new, tentative one-year contract extension that would give members a 5% raise but preserve the rest of the current contract, but if members approve the extension, a new deal would need to be hammered out by Aug. 31, 2025. Watlington has publicly said the districts policy could be revised; school board vice president Mallory Fix-Lopez, a former district teacher, has also expressed distaste for it. I find it de-professionalizes the space that teachers work in, Fix-Lopez said at the December board meeting. Monique Braxton, a district spokesperson, said teachers being disciplined for attendance issues is extremely rare. She stressed that teachers should not come to work when theyre sick, and said they have the opportunity to purchase wage continuation insurance for teachers who need long-term leave beyond their leave balances. Officials, Braxton said in a statement, will review our current processes after this school year to identify areas for improvement as we seek to promote staff attendance and wellness. Why 3-5-7-9 rankles 3-5-7-9 takes up a lot of mental energy for Shira Cohen, a math teacher at Feltonville School of Arts and Sciences and the schools union representative. People are so terrified to be disciplined for this thing that we have so little control over, said Cohen. We cant control when we get sick, we cant control when our kids get sick, or life happens or some medical issue comes up. The nature of the policy means that staff sometimes end up taking more, not fewer, days off when theyve burned a sick day, because they have already triggered one occurrence. Cohen, for instance, used a sick day on a recent Tuesday when she was ill. She still wasnt feeling great Wednesday, but may have tried to push through and gone to work had 3-5-7-9 not been in place. Because she had already gotten one occurrence, though, she stayed out until she felt all better. Do you want teachers in classrooms, or do you want to abide by this very antiquated, dehumanizing policy? said Cohen. It would be nice to be treated in a more humane way when were ill, and when our loved ones are ill. Shortly after he started teaching at Building 21, a district high school in West Oak Lane, Julian Prados Franks explained his new employers sick time policy to his family. His father, a casino worker, was mystified. He said, They do what? said Prados Franks, who has not incurred consequences for using his sick time yet. This policy just demonstrates a fundamental distrust between the district and the teachers; that level of control makes it feel like were not adults, like we dont deserve to be treated with dignity. Prados Franks, Cohen, Sannicks-Lerner and Gutierrez all said they believe the 3-5-7-9 policy feeds into the high Philadelphia teacher attrition. Its one of the reasons why nobody wants to be a teacher anymore, said Gutierrez. Its always on your mind you dont want to have a bad relationship with your principal because of absences. But were not robots who can go go go. Philadelphia Federation of Teachers members would get a 5% raise if they approve a one-year contract extension. Read more In an unexpected move, the Philadelphia School District and its largest union have tentatively agreed to a one-year contract extension with a healthy wage increase for the systems 13,000 teachers, counselors, nurses, secretaries, and other school workers. If approved by members, the deal which comes just a few weeks after negotiations opened, and months before the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers contract expires Aug. 31 would give all PFT members a 5% raise and $1,200 bonus on Sept. 1. New terms will be negotiated next year. It is, PFT president Jerry Jordan said in an interview, a deal that acknowledges the current, nationwide teacher shortage and particularly high levels of attrition in Philadelphia. Its keeping people, valuing the people we have, and hopefully attracting more people, Jordan said. The one goal that both parties had in mind was the recruitment and retention of not only teachers, but all kinds of educators. We have a shortage of paraprofessionals and nurses and school counselors and on and on. Advertisement Resignations and retirements typically spike in a contract year, Jordan said. No one wanted that. It was really important for people to learn that there would be stability in the district this year, Jordan said. The news was announced to PFT members in an email from Jordan sent early Wednesday morning, and was likely to elicit surprise across the city that had been bracing for a long summer of contract negotiations. But Jordan, who is retiring as PFT president June 30 after 17 years, has sat at the negotiating table several times and said he wasnt shocked by the district offering a contract extension so early in negotiations. With a mayoral transition, a school board transition, and a clear desire on the districts part to attract and keep teachers, offering a one-year deal made sense, Jordan said. Teachers, Jordan said, have made abundantly clear that they need to earn more money, and 5% is a significant pay increase. The tentative deal also includes the continuation of steps (salary increases for years of experience) and lanes (crediting additional educational degrees). As of this school year, starting teachers are paid $51,568 annually. Senior career teachers, the most-experienced educators, make $102,376. With 5% raises, beginning teachers would jump to $54,146 and senior career to $107,495. Brand-new paraprofessionals now make $23,474, and their salaries would rise to $24,648. This is absolutely a good deal, theres no question about it, Jordan said. All other terms of the contract remain the same, Jordan said, including an extension of $2,500 bonuses for teachers who agree to work in a group of hard-to-staff schools. Members are scheduled to vote on the contract after a March 6 PFT meeting. As part of the deal, the PFT will agree to meet regularly with Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. and his team to review progress toward Watlingtons five-year strategic plan. Watlington, in a statement, said he was excited about the deal. In the School District of Philadelphia, schools are the primary unit of change, and highly qualified, well-supported, stable teachers over time, is the number one lever for accelerating academic achievement, the superintendent said. The deal, Watlington said, fairly supports the needs of our PFT members while moving forward with his goal of the district becoming the fastest-improving large urban school system in the country. I am thrilled that we can move forward with confidence, upon contract ratification, to continue our focus on improving academic outcomes and help our students imagine and realize any future they desire, Watlington said. Gina Dukes knew what she wanted in a preschool for her daughter: diversity, lots of outdoor play, a curriculum rich with arts and movement. She was thrilled to find the Smith Urban Nature Preschool, which checked all the boxes. The school, which opened in September, was located at the historic Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse in Fairmount Park. She enrolled her daughter as soon as she turned 3. But now, Dukes and other Philadelphia families are reeling: Officials abruptly closed SUN Preschool on Monday, citing staffing and financial issues. Were all left scrambling, said Dukes, a Philadelphia teacher. Were all sad. Our childrens lives, routines are all disrupted. A long-planned nature school Significant planning and fundraising went into sprucing up Smith, all with an eye toward opening an innovative, diverse-by-design, nature-based preschool based on the Reggio Emilia philosophy, which gives students some agency over what they learn, and allows children to express themselves in many different ways. Smith sought partners with experience in the early childhood space to help get the school off the ground; it initially chose the Parent Infant Center, a well-respected, West Philadelphia-based early childhood center, to help, but that partnership ultimately ended and Smith decided to go it alone. Initial plans were to serve about 40 students ages 3, 4 and 5 in two classrooms in a full-day, full-year, progressive program that made space for all, including families in the neighborhoods surrounding Smith. Officials hoped SUN might eventually be a city pre-kindergarten site and open in 2022, but that was pushed back by the pandemic. About 70 families expressed interest in enrolling their children at SUN. But delays in the schools state licensure meant it did not receive its official clearance to open until a few weeks before the first day of school, in September. Many families couldnt wait that long, and went elsewhere. Advertisement The school finally opened with just four students. Eventually, it grew to 10 children, not all of whom attended full time. Its financial model called for 20 students. Lianne Miltons son was one of the first four children, enrolling in part because of a recommendation someone gave when Milton lived in Madison, Wis., about a Philadelphia urban nature school that was opening. Milton was thrilled with the educational philosophy and physical space, and chose to move to Brewerytown in part because of its proximity to SUN. She knew the school was new and worried about possible teacher churn, an issue in early childhood education generally, but felt confident about her choice overall. Their son was happy with the small, close-knit school, and so were Milton and her husband. But in late December, with a days notice from the board, the director resigned the first red flag, Milton said. We knew they were looking for a director; we knew the finances were iffy with such a small school, financed both by tuition and subsidies. Dukes said by the time her daughter enrolled in SUN in January, communications between the administration and the teachers was spotty, but she decided to give the school a shot anyway. But by Friday, when staff told parents the school was closing an hour early, it became clear that there were gaps between the boards philosophy and the teachers, parents said, and the issues were potentially serious. The wheels come off Soon after the Friday early closure, parents got a message: The staff had called a meeting for Saturday. Teachers talked about problems at the school and said one had been suspended for reasons that are not clear, and the other called out in protest. On Sunday, parents learned the school would be closed Monday. Eventually, the news came in a Monday night meeting: SUN was closing. Board president Marc Mannella said the closure would last at least for the remainder of the term. This decision was not one that we came to easily, and we share it today with heavy hearts, knowing the significant impact that this decision will likely have on all of you, and knowing how many people care about our school and will be saddened to see it close, Mannella read from an email that soon went out to families. In recent days, it became clear that our current financial situation is not sustainable for anyone, and it is unfair to parents to go day to day without knowing whether we will or we will not be able to open. the email continued. Hence the difficult conclusion to close the school effective immediately. Families were stunned, Dukes and Milton said. Were all left scrambling, Dukes said. I feel like these administrators, the board members, they played with our childrens lives. They didnt have the respect or decency to give us proper communication or warning. Behind the scenes Mannella, who was the founding chief executive of the KIPP Philadelphia charter network, said in an interview that the realities of running a tiny school caught up with SUN, whose board and operations are separate from Smith Memorial Playgrounds. At first, the board had hoped to stay open for a few more weeks, but there was a rash of staff absences, and now we cant even open the school because it couldnt meet state-mandated staff-to-student ratios. We realize that we were better serving our families to start to focus our energy on identifying places that they could reliably send their children, Mannella said. Our hearts are broken. Were terribly sorry that we werent able to maintain operations. In hindsight, Mannella said, the board was perhaps too aggressively focusing on recruiting more students for too long instead of rightsizing the budget. Mannella said it wasnt clear whether the school might reopen in the future. But, he said, its a beautiful space there needs to be a preschool there. I firmly believe that there will be a preschool there. When SUN or another school opens, and whether it operates independently or another organization runs it, remains up in the air. Mourning, and what comes next In some ways, the SUN closure feels like the perfect storm, parents said: the intersection of teaching shortages that stretch from early childhood to K-12, pandemic fallout, bureaucratic and board-staff issues, and poor communication. For now, parents are trying to pick up the pieces many spent Tuesday frantically calling other centers to find placement for their children. (Mannella said a few have already secured spots elsewhere.) A SUN parents group chat is still abuzz, some members said. We had this beautiful thing, and this is all such a shock, said Milton. Everyone has a million questions. Vietnam Restaurant in Chinatown, founded in 1984 by immigrants who arrived in Philadelphia five years before with only $30, was named to the list of Americas Classics by the James Beard Foundation. The award has been given annually since 1998 to locally owned restaurants that serve quality food, have timeless appeal, and reflect the character of their communities. The honor will be given at the Beard Awards ceremony in June. This is an exciting day for us, said Benny Lai, a son of founders Thuyen Luu and Nhu Lai. The honor is just as much a celebration of the impact of Vietnam one of Philadelphias first Vietnamese restaurants from its opening at 221 N. 11th St. as it is about the remarkable journey of the Lai family, whose sandal factory in South Vietnam was confiscated by the communists after the fall of Saigon. The family of 10, who had fled communist rule in China after the 1949 revolution, were sent to a re-education camp in the forest but fled to a refugee camp in Malaysia before escaping Southeast Asia by sea. Arriving in West Philadelphia in 1979, they settled in a two-bedroom apartment and lived in bunk beds, eating nothing but chicken legs, rice, and broccoli for 2 years, son Benny told The Inquirer. His father, Nhu Lai, got a job as a janitor. Advertisement Through savings and gifts, they came up with $10,000 by 1982 to open a grocery, Fu-Wah, on 47th Street near Baltimore Avenue. In 1984, they came up with another $10,000 to take over a turnkey restaurant and opened Vietnam, down the block from the Sixth Police District. It was similarly modest just a storefront. Matriarch Thuyen Luu, already cooking for her husband and eight children, was the chef. READ MORE: From 2015: The story of Vietnam Restaurant Benny Lai, then 22, took over the businesses in 1989 as his parents retired. He oversaw an expansion and renovation, adding a lounge on the buildings third floor. The Lais opened a second restaurant, Vietnam Cafe, near Fu-Wah. Benny Lais mother, Thuyen Luu; his wife, Tammy; and their boys, Jonathan, 27, and Justin, 24 who both work in finance help out when needed. Nhu Lai, Bennys father, died 11 years ago. Benny said his sister Tina helped manage the restaurants but stopped after her 2013 marriage to Philadelphia Eagles chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie. Vietnam joins such local Americas Classics destinations as Corinnes Place in Camden, White House Sub Shop and Chef Vola in Atlantic City, and Johns Roast Pork in South Philadelphia. READ MORE: Craig LaBan on Vietnam as an essential part of Vietnam The Beard committee praised Vietnam as one of Phillys favorite date-night destinations for classic Vietnamese cuisine. ... , cited the Lai family as among the first wave of Vietnamese refugees who came to Philadelphia to build a life on hard work and entrepreneurship fueled by lemongrass-scented feasts. ... From barbecue platters laden with grilled meats, stuffed grape leaves, and Phillys crispiest spring rolls, to nuoc chamsplashed vermicelli bowls, fragrant noodle soups, lemongrass stir-fries, and clay pots sizzling with caramelized pork, Vietnams kitchen has remained a model of consistency for decades. Philadelphia-based chef Reuben Asaram poses in Taco Bell's corporate headquarters in California. The fast-food chain tapped Asaram to create a limited edition Crunchwrap Supreme, which Asaram says will include Indian influences. Read more The old adage if it aint broke, dont fix it evidently doesnt apply to the Crunchwrap Supreme. Taco Bell tapped three up-and-coming chefs to reimagine the Mexican-adjacent fast-food chains most iconic menu item as part of its new TBX initiative, a culinary ambassador program and chef incubator. Philly chef Reuben Asaram is part of the programs first cohort which was announced at a flashy iPhone-style reveal in Las Vegas earlier this month along with San Antonios Jennifer Hwa Dobbertin and Phoenixs Lawrence Smith. Asarams Crunchwrap creation will be available at Taco Bells in select, to-be-determined markets later this year. Advertisement Asaram, 32, is best known for hosting his Reuby pop-ups, where he mixes Mexican and Pan-Asian flavors to create dishes like butter pork tacos topped with a Thai slaw drenched in Cool Ranch Doritos vinaigrette or a burrito stuffed with biryani, chicken tikka masala, and a beet crema. I do flavor combinations that no one has ever thought of before, said Asaram, whose personal relationship with Taco Bell began after his family immigrated from India to Queens in 1993, when Asaram was a year old. The fast-food joint and its menu of customizable tacos, quesadillas, and burritos has long been revered by many South Asian immigrants for being vegetarian-friendly, and thus, a staple for post-temple or post-mosque meals. Indian Americans have been credited with resurrecting Taco Bells Mexican Pizza and are among the chains most die-hard fans, something Asaram wished more people knew. The huge population that loves Taco Bell is pretty much my people. When I got onstage at [Live Mas Live in Las Vegas], I saw so many Indian faces in the crowd light up, said Asaram. It means a lot for Indians and South Asians in general to get face time with Taco Bell. READ MORE: Philly chefs Reuben Asaram and Cory Powell collaborate on the pop-up circuit Before Asaram heads back into the test kitchen, The Inquirer asked him about his essential Taco Bell order (which involves stuffing a taco into a quesadilla), the magic of the Crunchwrap Supreme, and how his formula for the perfect third date involves you guessed it more Taco Bell. When did your love affair with Taco Bell begin? Taco Bell has always been close to my heart. Growing up, going to Taco Bell on the weekends was, like, the cool, fancy thing to do because it would almost transport us back home since Mexican and Indian cuisine both use cumin and a lot of the same spices. Taco Bell was always the more flavorful, well-seasoned fast food. I also used to take a lot of dates to Taco Bell when I first moved to Philly. I was a VIP at the one [on Chestnut and 11th Streets] first-name basis, friends with the manager, everything. Id ask them to do The Reuby Special, where they would seal off half the restaurant with caution tape for me, turn it into a sit-down situation, take our orders, and bring the food out to us. Did The Reuby Special always work? All my dates loved it. The trick was to bring it out on the third hang. Id be like Oh lets do something low-key and get Taco Bell and then boom! Id pull that out. Crucial question: What are your go-to drunk and sober Taco Bell orders? My drunk and sober orders are the same thing pretty much, but Ill add to it when Im drunk. My sober order has been something Ive been doing my entire life, but its recently become a TikTok trend. You get a chicken quesadilla uncut, open it, and put the Doritos Locos Taco in it Supreme it, all-beef, baby and then add Diablo sauce, spicy ranch, and avocado ranch. Then you wrap it up and eat it in your car without anyone looking at you. I keep towels in my car to stay ready at all times. Are there any rules you have to abide by for recreating the Crunchwrap Supreme? It must have some sort of crunch in the middle. But other than that, we have a wide, wide variety of things we can do. You can change the shape? (Note: The reporter is incredulous) Yes. Im going to keep [the hexagon], though. Its the shape that holds the most ingredients, so it makes no sense to change it. How does the process work? Its a six-to-nine month process. I cant talk about them, but I have five Crunchwrap iterations already, and they all pull in Indian and Asian flavors. Developing the recipes hasnt been that different from what I already do. If Im testing a Mexican ingredient and then Im eating Vietnamese food later, Ill write down the things I liked about it. And then I just think, How can I thread those flavor profiles together to make something bigger? What pairs well? It happens so quickly that the hardest part has been that Im developing this for the masses, so I cant really be adding ingredients that people wont necessarily recognize. I have to think about how a normal person looks at a fast-food menu, not just me. And finally, what would you put in a distinctly Philadelphian Crunchwrap Supreme? Steak, my pepperoncini aioli, and a truffle-long-hot queso. Id call it the Jeet Yet? Crunchwrap. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Brian Eddis (right) of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, presents a gift bag of Philadelphia sports apparel to U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty J. Walsh at the Laborers Training and Learning Center on July 3, 2021. Eddis was removed from his job as a business agent with the council last week. Read more The Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council has removed Brian Eddis, a business agent who had previously worked closely with the councils former business manager, John Johnny Doc Dougherty. Eddis was hired into his role in 2021, the same year that Dougherty resigned from his positions as business manager of both the Building Trades Council and of IBEW Local 98. Eddis is also a ward leader in Northeast Philadelphias 63rd Ward. The decision to remove Eddis was made late last week, said Patrick J. Eiding, the councils secretary-treasurer. Eiding called it a reduction of force, and said that Eddis may be replaced in the future, but not right away. It happens in every business, he added, noting that Eddis will be getting severance. Eddis name has surfaced several times throughout the criminal proceedings against Dougherty, though prosecutors have not charged him or accused him of wrongdoing. He did not respond to multiple calls for comment Tuesday. Dougherty has been convicted in two separate trials on bribery and embezzlement charges. Advertisement Ryan Boyer, the councils business manager, and Frank Keel, a spokesperson for the council, declined to comment on Eddis termination. Eddis salary was about $135,000 last year, according to records from the U.S. Department of Labor. His duties were focused on Bucks, Chester, and Montgomery Counties, according to the councils website. Union business agents generally are seen as a liaison between membership and top leadership. Ties to Johnny Doc Before taking his role with the council, Eddis worked for IBEW Local 98, also under Dougherty. In his last full year working for Local 98, as a political staffer, his salary was about $157,000, Labor Department records show. Eddis also served as campaign manager for Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty, John Doughertys brother, during his first run for the states highest court in 2015. During Doughertys most recent criminal trial, which centered on embezzlement charges, prosecutors used a recorded conversation between Dougherty and Eddis in 2016, as they alleged that the former union leader used $1,500 from Local 98s general fund to pay for snow removal services for friends of Local 98. Those who benefited included Kevin Dougherty, then-City Councilmember Bobby Henon, the head of Philadelphias police union, and several ward leaders, prosecutors said. On that call, Dougherty told Eddis to just give me the bill and asked if there was anyone else we gotta take care of? Eddis then turned to a former Kevin Dougherty campaign staffer, who had a snow removal business, sending him a list of addresses to service. In a 2021 corruption trial in which Dougherty and Henon were both convicted, Eddis, who was not charged with any crimes, was called to testify about the time he spent with Henon after the former Council members offices were raided in 2016. Prosecutors aimed to show that Dougherty instructed Eddis to keep tabs on Henon, playing a wiretapped call between the Council member and Local 98 staffer. But Eddis account was that he was spending time with Henon as a supportive friend. He testified about their personal relationship, as well as the close friendship between Dougherty and Henon. Eddis testified that he and Henon had a lot in common they both got sober at the age of 26, were both ward leaders in the Northeast, and both had two children. Henon was under a lot of pressure, a lot of stress. As a sober member of [Alcoholics Anonymous], I was worried about him picking up a drink, Eddis said. If he fell off the ladder, John would want me to be there for him. This is a brotherhood, a fraternity. Henon is currently serving a 3-year sentence at a minimum security prison camp in Lewisburg. The changing Building Trades The Building Trades Council is a coalition of 30 local construction unions in the Philadelphia region. Boyer became the councils leader in 2021, after Dougherty was forced to resign following his first conviction. Last years mayoral election was a political test of sorts for the new Building Trades leader. The decisive win by the trades-backed candidate, Cherelle L. Parker, sent a message that the councils political influence remains strong. The Building Trades endorsement was seen as a pivotal moment for her campaign. IBEW Local 98 also chose to back Parker, independently of the councils endorsement, after polling membership about their top concerns for Philadelphia. Business manager Mark Lynch has said the electricians union now has a different culture than it has in the past, and pointed to his choice to get membership input on the endorsement as an example of that. Kassim Konneh, of Liberia, 28, speaks with Inquirer reporter Massarah Mikati outside the Southwest Community Center in Philadelphia, Pa., on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. Konneh arrived to Philadelphia a month ago. Read more The calls started in September. Week after week, there were reports of new migrants arriving to Philadelphia. It started off slowly, with just a few people arriving each week, before quickly growing to dozens arriving each week. They were coming from Mauritania, Guinea, Liberia, and other West African countries. But the American life they were pursuing has so far turned out to be more bleak than they had dreamed. Today, community organizers estimate that roughly 1,000 asylum seekers from West African countries have come to Philadelphia since the fall, and most of them have settled among Southwest Philadelphias large African immigrant communities. But the influx of new arrivals has gone largely unnoticed or ignored by Philadelphians, organizers say, leaving community organizations feeling overwhelmed and unsupported in providing care and resources for the migrants. It has been a really, really challenging few months, said Madusu Samaora, president of the Liberian Mandingo Association of Pennsylvania. We are a small nonprofit. We cannot take on big projects, because we cannot afford it. We just organize ourselves and try to be there for each other. A search for opportunity The sudden influx of asylum seekers, the majority of whom are men, has left community organizers perplexed, particularly because each migrant has a different story. Kassim Amu Konneh, for example, worked at the same gas station as an accused criminal, and risked being murdered if he wouldnt provide an alibi for the man. He left his home country of Liberia in December, traveled to Latin America to cross the southern border into the United States, and eventually made it to Philadelphia, where his uncle lives. Mury Saranke Conde left his home country of Guinea in December following an increase in arrests of members of the political party Rassemblement du Peuple Guineen, or Rally of the Guinean People, which was the ruling party of Guinea for nearly two decades until the president was overthrown in a coup detat in 2021. Conde also made his way to Philadelphia through the southern border, but, unlike Konneh, had only an acquaintance in the city. The majority of people who have arrived, including Conde and Konneh, are undocumented but looking to file asylum claims, according to organizers. And although each persons story is different, some organizers point to common themes of government corruption, ethnic and gender-based discrimination, and lack of opportunity among the countries as an explanation for the influx. Advertisement The increase in instability of the governments of our countries is making people leave the country, said Mohammed Bashir, a local imam who has been involved in finding housing for the migrants. Theyve been persecuted in their country for their ethnicity or race. Theres increasing poverty. The government in power has no mercy on the population they just use corruption to enrich themselves. Dreams to disillusion It wasnt until roughly 100 migrants were brought to an October meeting of the Mayors Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs that the city became aware of the surge in West African asylum seekers. It was an eye-opening experience for everyone, including us since there had been no media coverage on this new trend of arrivals from West African nations, said Amy Eusebio, executive director of the Office of Immigrant Affairs. Soon after that meeting, PHL City ID reported a 25 percentage point increase from 3% to 28% in the number of French-speaking City ID recipients from July to November of 2023. Thats when the collaborative efforts between the city and local organizations to address the needs of the newly arriving men began, with the city organizing numerous community resource fairs in Southwest Philly. It has been a really, really challenging few months. Madusu Samaora The need has been dire. Because most came to Philadelphia by way of the southern border, theyve only showed up with empty backpacks, Samaora said. Many were unprepared for the frigid Northeastern winter. Housing has been nearly impossible to come by, and although community members and places of worship have opened their homes to asylum seekers, organizers say there have been as many as 10 asylum seekers sleeping in one room because of the housing shortage. Most important, organizers emphasized, these men came to the U.S. in hopes of making a life for themselves. They dont want charity and handouts, organizers say they want to work. But with the backlogged immigration system and cost of immigration legal fees, work authorization permits could take up to a year for the men to obtain. What started out as an American dream, Bashir said, turned into disillusionment. The first thing on my mind was I will be able to improve my life and work, and further my education, Konneh said of his decision to come to the U.S. I came here Dec. 29. And since then, all I do is sit at home doing nothing. Its extremely frustrating. Now, community organizers have been finding themselves scrambling to provide for the new arrivals clothing, housing, food, work opportunity, English classes all with little to no support from surrounding communities or from different levels of government, they say. While theyve been able to make progress by collaborating amongst themselves to coordinate relief efforts, the process has left organizers disillusioned, as well especially when they reflect on other times Philadelphia has absorbed large numbers of migrants from countries such as Ukraine or Afghanistan. The discrepancy in receiving new arrivals, organizers say, is likely due to race. When youre Black and from an African country, Samaora said, things run a little bit different. Other organizers agreed. Its not about pitting one immigrant group against another, said Oni Richards, executive director of the African Family Health Organization (AFAHO). But it was very clear that when the Ukrainian refugees came into Philadelphia, there was literally a red carpet rolled out, a lot of resources were put into place to receive them. Whereas now, its been the complete opposite for this group. Terrence Howard arrives at the premiere of "The Best Man: The Final Chapters" in December 2022 at the Hollywood Athletic Club in Los Angeles. Read more A federal judge in Philadelphia has ordered Academy Award-nominated actor Terrence Howard to pay nearly $1 million in back taxes, interest, and penalties after he allegedly threatened a Justice Department lawyer and maintained that it was immoral for the United States government to charge taxes to the descendants of slaves. For more than a year, the 54-year-old star of the TV hit Empire, whose last listed address was in Plymouth Meeting, rebuffed IRS efforts to collect $578,000 in income taxes it says he failed to pay between 2010 and 2019. And despite a months-long effort to engage Howard in court after the Justice Department sued him in 2022, the actors only response was a voicemail he allegedly left on the phone of the cases lead tax attorney in November. According to a transcript of that message, included in court filings, Howard denied owing anything and threatened to shame her by posting the lawsuit against him on the internet. Advertisement Four hundred years of forced labor and never receiving any compensation for it, the actor said in the message. Now you have the gall to try and prosecute and charge taxes to the descendants of a broken people that you are responsible for causing the breakage. The recording cut Howard off midsentence, but he called the attorney back to continue. In truth, the entire United States should, by default, become the property of the descendants of slaves, he said. But since you do not have the ability [or] the courage to do it, lets try this in court. Were gonna bring you down. Despite that vow, Howard never formally responded to the lawsuit. And after a court hearing last week in Philadelphia, U.S. District Judge John F. Murphy granted the governments request to enter a $903,115 default judgment against the actor, a ruling that was first reported by the legal news service Law360. Efforts to reach Howard at a number he left on that voicemail and through a lawyer who at one point told Justice Department lawyers that he might represent the actor in the case were unsuccessful Wednesday. But his latest tangle with the government bore a striking resemblance to some of the characters hes portrayed in his dozens of film and TV roles throughout the years. In the 2005 film Hustle & Flow, Howard played a pimp and aspiring rapper whose promising music career is interrupted by a prison sentence for assault. The role earned Howard an Academy Award nomination for best actor. His best-known recent work playing drug dealer-turned-hip hop mogul Lucious Lyon on the TV hit Empire from 2015 to 2020 featured a seasons-long plot arc involving Justice Department efforts to put him behind bars. Despite that success, accusations of failure to pay taxes have dogged Howard throughout his career. State tax liens totaling nearly $639,000 were filed against his 2,450-square-foot property in Plymouth Meeting in 2005 and 2006, both of which were later settled, according to court records. The IRS imposed a $1.1 million lien on the property in 2010 for Howards failure to pay income taxes in 2007 and 2008. In 2019, the State of California Franchise Tax Board hit Howard with another lien, alleging he owed $144,000 dating back to 2010. The board named him last year on a list of the states Top 500 tax scofflaws, saying he owed $256,00 in back taxes, penalties, and fees. And in 2019, People magazine reported that federal prosecutors in Philadelphia had opened a criminal investigation into Howard and his wife, Mira Pak, for tax evasion. It remains unclear whether that probe is still ongoing or was closed without charges. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys Office declined Wednesday to confirm or deny the existence of any investigation. Since at least 2000, Howard has listed his primary residence as his home in Plymouth Meeting, according to public records. But the property, located behind a secured gate, appeared to be unoccupied and the intercom disconnected when the government first tried to serve him with the latest lawsuit against him early last year. What followed was what Justice Department lawyers described as a lengthy and at times exasperating effort to track down the actor and notify him of the suit against him in federal court in Philadelphia. At one point last summer, the government dispatched U.S. Marshals to a hotel in Jackson, Miss., where Howard was believed to be staying while shooting a movie, only to be told there was no record that he had been staying there. Process servers also sought to notify Howard of the suit at an address in Chicago and two properties in Lafayette Hill one previously owned and since sold by his ex-wife, Lori Howard, and another at which his daughter, Heaven Howard, opened the door. She told government representatives her father no longer lived there and refused to call him to notify him of the suit. A Los Angeles process server said he heard Howard cursing and swearing in the background, when he attempted to serve notice of the suit in July at a home in La Habra, Calif., owned by Howards wife. The woman said that Terrence Howard was home and went to get him, the server said in an affidavit filed with the court. She returned to report that Howard refused to come to the door. Eventually, the government succeeded in serving Howard notice of the lawsuit last fall, after it tracked him down at a scheduled appearance at the Twin Cities Film Fest in St. Louis Park, Minn., according to court records. In the voicemail he left a month later for the Justice Departments lead attorney on the case, Maria Elizabeth Ruwe, Howard identified the lawsuit by its docket number, but he failed to acknowledge or respond to it in court in the three months that followed. In entering his default judgment against Howard on Thursday, Murphy, the judge, said the government had provided more than sufficient detail to demonstrate its efforts to engage the actor over the past 14 months. He asked Ruwe whether there were any potential criminal charges looming for the alleged threats Howard made against her. She said shed reported them to Justice Department security, prompting an investigation. I dont know the results of it, she said. By Karen Lema MANILA (Reuters) -The United States' Indo-Pacific strategy is unlikely to change should Donald Trump win the presidential race in November, the Philippines' longtime ambassador to Washington said on Wednesday. Jose Manuel Romualdez said in a speech he was in touch with one of Trump's close advisers, former national security adviser Robert O'Brien, who indicated to him the continuation of Washington's current stance in the region. "That is of course very consoling," Romualdez told a diplomatic gathering. Security engagements between the Philippines and the United States have stepped up considerably under U.S. President Joe Biden and his Manila counterpart Ferdinand Marcos Jr, with both leaders keen to counter what they see as China's aggressive actions in the South China Sea and near Taiwan. While the United States sees both the South China Sea issue and a potential Taiwan conflict as "serious concerns," Romualdez believed the "real flashpoint is the West Philippine Sea" given "all of these skirmishes happening there." The West Philippine Sea is the term Manila uses to refer to that part of the South China Sea within its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone. Under Marcos, the Philippines has nearly doubled the number of its bases accessible to U.S. forces. A 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty bound them to defend each other in the event of attack and Marcos last year succeeded in pushing Washington to make clear the extent of that security commitment. Romualdez said it was possible there could be a major "accident" in the South China Sea that could lead to the treaty being invoked, but hoped that would never happen. "That keeps a lot of us awake at night," he said. The Philippines will not let up in asserting its maritime claims, Romualdez said, as tensions in the South China Sea continue to simmer, with Beijing vehemently opposed to what it considers incursions by Philippine vessels into areas it claims. Story continues Marcos said on Wednesday the Chinese navy's presence in the South China Sea is "worrisome" but will not deter his country from defending its maritime territory and protecting its fishermen. The Philippine Coast Guard spotted the presence of Chinese navy vessels during last week's patrol mission by a fisheries bureau vessel at the contested Scarborough Shoal in the waterway, where a new floating barrier across its entrance was also captured by a satellite image taken by Maxar Technologies. "The aggression that we are now facing is very real," Romualdez said, adding the Philippines hopes China, a major trading partner, will see the value of continuing economic activity between them while trying to peacefully resolve their issues. "We have a lot of exports to China, but all those exports can be at peril because occasionally we hear negative things," Romualdez said. (Reporting by Karen Lema; Writing by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor, Martin Petty and Kim Coghill) Kindergarden teacher Cristina Gutierrez posed for a portrait outside of Elkin Elementary in Philadelphia, Pa. on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024. Gutierrez has been teaching for over 20 years. Read more Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter Welcome to a soggy, muggy Wednesday. Grab your umbrella as showers will soak the region throughout the day, with a high near 64. And The Inquirers Anthony R. Wood reports that Philly is about to set a new standard for snow scarcity. Our lead story examines the Philadelphia School Districts longstanding policy on sick days. Teachers have 10 sick days per year, but they are progressively penalized for taking them. This rule is coming under fire as Philly faces particularly high levels of educator attrition and as the district faces a shortage of teachers. Paola Perez (@pdesiperez, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com) Advertisement If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here. When a teacher gets ill, or has to cope with a family medical emergency, they look to use sick days they earned through their contract. Instead, in Philadelphia, many find themselves asking: Can I afford to take the day off? And will there be consequences? Teachers worrying about whether they will be penalized for taking time off is the norm under the districts policy, known informally as 3-5-7-9. The numbers correlate to the amount of sick days taken and escalating penalties. How it works: After a teachers third occurrence, principals have a conversation with the instructor and document the instance. After the fifth sick day, the teacher gets a warning in their permanent record. After the seventh, the teacher gets an unsatisfactory incident memo in their file and a formal conference. When they reach nine sick days, they get a second unsatisfactory incident report, a recommended suspension and conferences with school leadership. Why it exists: The policy stems from a case dating back 40 years, when a district secretary was fired for poor attendance. The termination was challenged by The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, but they ultimately lost. The arbitrator wrote that management can require reasonably steady attendance as a condition of employment, regardless of the reasons for the absences, since otherwise the employee is of no practical value to the enterprise. As a result, the PFT contract is at odds with the arbitration decision that gave the district the right to set the 3-5-7-9 policy. Some instructors told The Inquirer that they feel this policy feeds into the citys high teacher attrition. In their own words: The days were meant for us to take, said Cristina Gutierrez, a kindergarten teacher at Elkin Elementary in Kensington, pictured above. They are part of our contract, they are our days. To restrict us on how many we can take before being penalized is ridiculous. Teachers are set to rally against the policy before Thursdays school board meeting. Keep reading to hear from the district and other key players on the issue. Another year has seen another boom in Philadelphias population downtown, which has remained the fastest growing residential area in the city for the last two decades. The population living in Center City has grown by 3% in the last year, according to a new report from Center City District. For the last decade, the areas population growth has kept up with new home construction. But in 2023, the number of completed housing units reached a five-year-high, per Center City Districts annual housing report. By the numbers: Roughly 2,840 housing units were completed in greater Center City in 2023 more than in any of the last five years. This accounts for 37% of all completed projects in Philadelphia. Keep reading to hear from experts on the record number of new homes, and see demographic data on whos moving to Center City. What you should know today Trivia time These days, you can snag a ticket to the Philadelphia Orchestra for as low as $25, or, for $200, splurge on a really great seat. But for two forthcoming performances, tickets to the orchestra are going for $400, $800 and even $1,500. Which act is on the ticket? A) Paul McCartney B) Gordon Sumner (a.k.a. Sting) C) Elton John D) Bruce Springsteen Think you know? Check your answer. What we're... Hearing: Wendys will roll out a new yet all-too-familiar dynamic pricing model. Noticing: Abbott Elementary star Lisa Ann Walter brought her Philly swag to the SAG Awards. Judging: A Philly judge inspired his wife to open a cheesesteak shop. Heres the verdict. Unscramble the anagram Hint: Home of the Roots Picnic festival FRUIT KNAP ROAM Email us if you know the answer. Well select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Meagan Regina who correctly guessed Tuesdays answer: Freeway. The hint was The Dutch Harness horse that took over I-95 during a morning rush hour last week has a new name. Photo of the day Thats all for now. Thanks for taking a moment to catch up on the news with me. Stay dry, and Ill see you again tomorrow morning. By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirers Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10. Keira McGrenehan, 10, sits with her stuffed animal after receiving her Remicade infusion for colitis at the Center for GI Motility of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018. Read more My patient was a young teenager who had been sick for weeks. We ultimately diagnosed her with an aggressive, rare disorder of the blood vessels that can restrict blood flow and damage vital organs. She received Remicade, a targeted, immunosuppressive medication known as a biologic during her hospitalization, and it worked. Her fevers abated, her energy returned, and her labs showed dramatic improvement. Yet, despite the patients visible improvement during her hospital stay, her insurance provider denied payment for her Remicade treatments when she went home. After an initial letter explaining the necessity of her medication, followed by a 75-minute phone call with her insurance company three weeks later, we ultimately got her medication approved, four weeks after we prescribed it. Fortunately, she was only one day late for her monthly dose. Unfortunately, I have many other patients whose struggles with insurance over medication coverage havent ended so well. Advertisement READ MORE: To control her Crohn's disease, she needs drug infusions that cost thousands a year, for life As a pediatric rheumatologist, I care for children with rare forms of chronic illness for which we now have highly effective therapies. But too often, my patients cant access these effective therapies because insurers put up many barriers to coverage. Therapies like Remicade have revolutionized the treatment of debilitating inflammatory diseases, giving patients hope and access to a full life, free of pain and suffering. But despite being the standard of care in severe blood vessel inflammatory disorders, arthritis, and most other rheumatologic conditions I treat, biologics are expensive and typically require prior authorization, an onerous process by which insurers require health-care providers to obtain advance approval from the insurer before prescribing a medication or other medical service. Without that, insurers wont pay. Given that Remicade infusions cost $75,000 to $150,000 for one year of treatment, very few patients can afford it out of pocket. Prior authorizations are endured by specialists across medicine. They can halt chemotherapy in cancer care and block drugs for skin diseases like psoriasis. People with allergies, heart disease, and diabetes may find their care delayed or stopped by these rules. The goal of prior authorizations, of course, is to cut costs and unnecessary prescribing. But it has increasingly devolved into a time-consuming system of hurdles for health-care professionals that delays access to effective treatments. Depending on the disease and its severity, these delays or eventual denials of critical medication can be life-threatening. In a 2022 survey by the American Medical Association, physicians reported that 94% of patients subject to the prior authorization process experience a delay in access to necessary care, 33% of physicians reported these delays led to a serious adverse event, and 80% reported that, in some cases, patients simply abandon the treatment. These delays can be life-threatening. Patients have been so frustrated that they have turned to shaming insurers on social media to get their medications approved. The prior authorization process is hurting physicians, too. Physicians and our staff spend an average of 14 hours each week completing prior authorizations. This is valuable time lost that could otherwise be spent directly caring for patients. Whats more, this time theft is not a one-time occurrence, as prior authorizations are typically required at least annually for renewals of existing therapies. For patients who need combination therapy or medication changes, multiple prior authorization procedures are required each year. With the U.S. facing severe shortages of health-care workers, it is hard to overstate the value of reserving clinicians time for direct patient care, rather than navigating through approvals that should be straightforward in a case like my patients. And while prior authorization is meant to contain costs, evidence shows that it actually leads to the opposite, as treatment delays force patients to schedule more office visits, or even go to the emergency room. Last summer, the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means approved the federal Health Care Price Transparency Act of 2023 (HR 4822), which includes provisions to streamline and modernize the prior authorization process in Medicare. Pennsylvania adopted Act 146 of 2022, joining 38 other states with prior authorization reform legislation, including requirements for insurers to respond to requests in a timely manner. Despite this progress, my patient still waited a month for her Remicade. But with Act 146 effective as of Jan. 1, there is hope to alleviate these dangerous care delays. Gov. Josh Shapiros administration must enforce Act 146 immediately. Call your congressional representative to advocate for similar legislation at the federal level. We cannot celebrate the revolutionary impact of lifesaving medications if they are not reaching our patients. We must continue to advocate, on both the state and federal levels, for a more streamlined process for prior authorization. One with increased transparency and improved communication. One free of draining phone calls and desperate online pleas. In short, a process that ensures every patient in need can benefit from life-changing therapies. Dori Abel is an associate fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania and a pediatric rheumatology fellow physician who cares for children with autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, where she is also an affiliate trainee at CHOPs PolicyLab. Rebecca Pepper Sinkler and her Silent Generation peers protest for abortion rights in 2023. Her generation grew up reading Betty Friedans "Feminist Mystique" (1963), reinventing pop music, heeding the calls of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, marching for civil rights and against the war, and making trouble good and bad, she writes. Read more Old age is all the rage. Of course, there is the contest between two senescent seniors looking to run the country. But the subject of seniority itself is also suddenly spawning best-selling books (mostly about how to live longer), TV series (gotta love Grace and Frankie), and, in Philly, a couple of recent shows that have played to sellout audiences. Old people? Hey, youre talking about me! (Im 87.) Me and my dwindling cohort, that is. Once the subject of endless study, speculation, and admiration, my generation has been out of the headlines for a while. But were back. And we love it. Advertisement READ MORE: Yes, Democrats have an age problem. But its not Biden. | Opinion Recently, a dozen or so residents of my Roxborough retirement community piled into a handicap-accessible van, bound for a matinee of Ladysitting, now at the Arden Theatre. Lorene Cary, Philadelphias favorite novelist-playwright-librettist-arts-impresario-Penn professor, had turned her acclaimed memoir of the same name into a play about one very old person: her centenarian grandmother. The play is about Nana at the end of her life, when she moved in with Cary and her family. It wasnt pretty. So Cary wrote about it. In another recent world-premiere play, My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion (recently at the Wilma Theater), the playwrights mother, Olga, is insisting on toughing out the current war in Kyiv, Ukraine, bombs be damned. The two plays couldnt be less alike; their protagonists nationality, class, history, and current situations are wildly different. Yet, I couldnt help noticing similarities between the two old women at the center. Olga and Nana are at the ends of their tethers, but not too far gone to be stubborn to whine, sulk, insult, and guilt-trip. My whole address book is dead, moans Olga in Kyiv. You want me dead, blurts Nana to her granddaughter, as the younger woman loses patience with her patient. After seeing both, one thought came to mind: So thats how they see us. Hmph. On a purely personal level, those of us over the age of 75 are described by turns as pains in the butt and pitiable. On a deeper level, there is a begrudging respect for our sheer tenacity and courage in the face of pain, loss, and terror. And history. When I see younger people talking about my cronies, they seem to give us credit for surviving war, scarcity, injustice, and pestilence. But what was our alternative? To be sure, we had our share of misfortune we grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression and World War II. We lived through the twilight of Jim Crow. These were not auspicious beginnings. (Anyone who thinks the world needs to be Made Great Again wasnt born Black, LGBTQ, Jewish, Asian, disabled, or female in the 1930s.) But too many people forget about all the lucky breaks we got. Many of us have, in the end, benefited from relative plenty, liberating innovation, progress in medicine and science (I was 17 years old when the polio vaccine appeared), the arc of historys bent toward justice, and, just in time, Wikipedia what we have instead of brains. I was 17 years old when the polio vaccine appeared. From childhood on, weve been the most scrutinized, criticized, idealized, spied-upon, attention-grabbing group in history. As teenagers, we scared the pants off our elders, including J. Edgar Hoover, who warned in 1953, The nation can expect an appalling increase in the number of crimes that will be committed by teenagers in the years ahead. On the heels of Alfred Kinseys report on our sex lives, scientists soon brought us the birth control pill in 1960. Next thing you know, along with having sex without getting pregnant, we were reading Betty Friedans Feminist Mystique (1963), reinventing pop music, heeding the calls of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, marching for civil rights and against the war, and making trouble good and bad. Yet, they call us the Silent Generation. Are you kidding? (Of course, baby boomers the generation after mine were there for some of that, too. But this isnt about them; they get enough attention.) Its the job of each generation to challenge those who came before, but none of our uppity behavior sat well with our parents. I recall family dinner table conversations among veterans whod landed on Normandys beaches and peaceniks protesting the Vietnam War. We called our elders sexist, racist, homophobic Neanderthals. They called us degenerate, unpatriotic, clueless jerks. In the end, we tolerated and loved each other, because, again, what was the alternative? It is, in the end, the job of young people to misread their elders, and the job of elders to endure it and laugh. Now were the elders, and its our turn to be misread, and to endure it. (For the sake of argument, Id define my cohort as hardworking, skeptical, cautiously rebellious, and resilient.) Recently, after the popular TV series The Golden Bachelor (featuring a 72-year-old bachelor), The Inquirer ran a story about the sex lives of local seniors. A professor of geriatrics at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine was quoted saying there are retirement homes in Philadelphia resembling college dorms, with people hopping in and out of each others apartments at night. I havent polled my peers about that subject. If I had, theyd have likely answered, None of your beeswax the schoolyard parlance of the 1940s. But we are your business, just as you our children and grandchildren once were ours. In any case, I hope all the talk of 80-year-olds around the upcoming election doesnt turn against our age group. Because while our ranks are thinning out along with our hair, a tsunami of old folks is approaching in the form of aging baby boomers. If you think were trouble, just you wait. Rebecca Pepper Sinkler was an editor at The Inquirer in the 1970s and 80s. She lives in Roxborough. Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija, at the time a candidate, voted with his wife Rachel Nash at the Ludington Library in Bryn Mawr last year. Makhija has proposals for expanding voter access in the county. Read more Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija wants the county to set a national example in how to make voting more accessible. On Tuesday, Makhija joined Vice President Kamala Harris for a voting rights roundtable at the White House with civil rights leaders and activists, a sign that the Montgomery County Democrats push on the issue has already gained national notice ahead of Novembers general election. Im excited to share ideas on all the steps we can take to protect the right to vote, and I believe Montgomery County can be the leader in this realm, not just in Pennsylvania but nationally, Makhija said in an interview before the meeting. The White House panel placed Makhija alongside major figures in that national debate over voting access, including NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson, among others. Advertisement READ MORE: The Montco Board of Commissioners is about to look different and lead differently As the chair of Montgomery Countys election board, Makhija will have a major role in setting voting policy for the third biggest county in a key swing state. The Democrat, who took office in January, previously taught election law at the University of Pennsylvania and worked on voting rights on a national scale as the leader of the South Asian civic organization Indian American Impact. What are some of his ideas to expand voter access in Montgomery County? Mobile curing Ballot curing is a process of allowing voters to fix or redo mail ballots with technical issues that may not otherwise be counted on Election Day. While various states require counties to notify voters when their ballot has an issue that would need to be cured to count, Pennsylvania leaves it up to the counties to decide whether to notify voters at all. In the 2023 general election, Montgomery County received 75,655 mail-in ballots. Of those, 2,065, or 2.7%, had issues to be cured, Makhija said. The most common issue just under half of these cases was ballots that were returned to the sender, which can be the result of voters entering the wrong address when they sign up to vote, for example. Another common issue is when a ballot is naked, meaning it wasnt placed in an extra secrecy envelope. READ MORE: What you need to know to vote in Pennsylvanias April 2024 primary Sam Oliker-Friedland, the executive director of the Institute for Responsive Government, said that the naked ballot regulation which he called a very uncommon Pennsylvania-specific problem makes curing in the commonwealth especially important. Other technical issues include the voters identity not being verified, an invalid date, no date, damage to the ballot, or no signature. But even though Montgomery County already contacts voters whose ballots need to be cured, less than 10% of those ballots were actually cured, according to Makhija. The idea of the county sitting on votes that could be counted with simple fixes disturbs him, so he wants to make it as easy as possible for voters to cure their ballots. What were doing is simply making sure that everyone who is entitled to have their vote counted has their vote counted, he said. The commissioner wants to create a mobile curing process that involves county employees going directly to voters homes and assisting them. That would bring the curing process directly to voters instead of requiring them to drive to the countys voter services office in Norristown. Makhija hasnt ironed out the logistics of exactly what this effort would look like, but said it could involve informing voters of the issue with their ballot, having them sign a cancel-and-replace form, and giving them a replacement ballot on the spot. But Tom DiBello, the lone Republican on the three-member board of commissioners, said government resources would be better used addressing other issues instead of driving around the county trying to get someone to correct a ballot that they should have done correctly in the first place. DiBello said that he doesnt think its necessary for the county to contact voters whose ballots have issues. And although hes willing to support the practice as is, he believes that taking the effort further could harvest more mistrust in elections. The processes and procedures to do all that is well defined and documented, and I dont believe we need to go any further with that, he said. Oliker-Friedland said that the idea is unique, and that governments across the country are looking at ways to make curing easier. In Colorado, for example, voters can cure ballots by text message. READ MORE: Montgomery County officially has a new Board of Commissioners as history-making members take office Other proposals Makhijas ambitions dont stop at mobile curing. For example, he wants to offer voting materials in more languages than required. Federal law mandates that counties provide voting materials in languages other than English only if 10,000, or more than 5%, of voting-age citizens are members of a language minority. Philadelphia provides voting materials in Spanish and Chinese, but Montgomery County does not meet the threshold for the requirement. The idea is, we want to go above and beyond the bare minimum, Makhija said. He also wants to look for ways to bring voter registration and polling sites mores directly to voters, such as at nursing homes or college campuses. He said he wants residents to have access to voter resources whenever they interact with the county as part of what he called a whole of government approach to supporting our voting rights. DiBello, the Republican commissioner, said there are already enough opportunities to register to vote. For example, under a state policy that began last year, Pennsylvania residents are automatically registered to vote when they get their driversslicenses, unless they opt out. At what point do people take responsibility for utilizing all of the already available processes in place to register? DiBello said. In addition to his mobile ballot curing idea, Makhija floated the possibility of expanding the countys satellite operations. Since 2020, the county has offered four satellite offices, in Pottstown, Lansdale, Lower Merion, and Willow Grove, which have been open during the two weekends before the vote-by-mail application deadline. But Makhija wants to offer more locations on more days. We want to take every step possible to make it easier for people to vote, Makhija said. Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton at her office at the Capitol in Harrisburg. It's been a year since she became the first woman and first Black woman to lead the House. Read more HARRISBURG House Speaker Joanna McClinton was yet again about to be the first at something. McClinton, the first woman and the second Black person to lead the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in its 244-year history, in December became the first House speaker to visit the Harrisburg Planned Parenthood office. McClinton, a Philadelphia Democrat, toured the clinic on a day when providers administered about 20 medical abortions. It was just her first stop in a jam-packed day, just before a meeting with Philadelphia high school students. The day didnt end until after 10:30 p.m., when she appeared at a news conference with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and Republican leaders after the legislature approved a final budget deal after a five-month standoff. McClinton, 41, has become a rising star in the Democratic Party for her defense of reproductive health care, her role in House redistricting, and her leadership as her party flipped control of the House in the 2022 election for the first time in 12 years and then defended its one-seat majority in four special elections since then. Advertisement Her first year as House speaker has been a challenging one, as Democrats learned how to be in the majority and had to balance their priorities with a need for compromise with the GOP-controlled Senate. McClintons Republican and Democratic peers credit her ability to control a room. She is gracious and kind, said Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland), who is the first woman to lead the Pennsylvania Senate. The two differ on many policy issues, but got to know each other when McClinton was a Senate staffer. I dont think you can let her kind and gracious self fool you, because she didnt get where she was without grit and know-how. If you ask her, McClinton says shes spent the year listening in monthly breakfasts with freshman members that she started, bipartisan meetings with legislative leaders, or at the grocery store with her constituents. I came here to listen, not with an ask, McClinton told staff and board members at Planned Parenthoods Harrisburg clinic in December. I dont think [other lawmakers] know what you all do. Im here to know what it is that we can do at the state level to ensure access, and most importantly, the other services you provide. From Southwest Philly to Harrisburg McClinton grew up in Southwest Philadelphia where she still lives and attended Grace Temple Christian Academy. She said she learned relentless determination from her mother, who would save up vacation days each year to volunteer and run a camp in the neighborhood. You can make an impact, she said. You can intentionally deny yourself vacation for a year so that you can take four weeks off in July well, three, one was always unpaid and put together programs that help children from challenging circumstances as they grow up and realize, Theres hope for me. This lady reminded me theres a future for me. McClinton graduated from La Salle University and earned a law degree from Villanova University before becoming a Philadelphia public defender. She later worked as chief counsel to State Sen. Anthony H. Williams (D., Philadelphia) until she ran for the 191st House District in 2015. Like many female leaders, McClinton was hesitant to run for office and needed encouragement from Williams and others to do so. She said shes a shy person beneath her colorful suits-and-sneaker ensembles, and she wasnt sure she wanted to take that step. I could barely put a campaign speech together, she said. When you talk about a comfort zone, I did not think running around my neighborhood was something that fit my personality. McClinton won a special election after her predecessor resigned as part of a guilty plea for corruption charges. She and Rep. Donna Bullock (D., Philadelphia), who was elected at the same time, call each other Sister Reps and became two of nine Black women in the General Assembly. Their colleagues would often mix them up, Bullock said. The two lawmakers built a special bond right away, sharing an office for their first year, Bullock said. Since then, theyve been growing the number of Sister Reps with other women of color, and have pushed for policies they care most about, such as Black maternal health, pay equity, and gun violence prevention. It really is a sisterhood, Bullock added. McClinton rose quickly into leadership, and in 2018, became the first woman to lead the House Democratic caucus. Theres the saying, What you see is what you get. I dont think people fully see her, Williams said of his protege. They see the intellectual part, but I dont know that they can see the struggle that she came from, because she doesnt wear that. McClinton also serves as associate minister at Open Door Mission True Light Church in West Philly, and said her Christian faith helps her stay grounded. Im here for now, but its just for now. Its not forever, McClinton said from the ornate speakers office. The time that I have that Im here, to be intentional about doing good. Because while everybodys excited today, itll be very fleeting. And outside of her official duties, McClinton has several hidden talents, Bullock said, such as her knowledge of Spanish and American Sign Language, her ability to style hair, her singing voice, cooking skills, and even a talent for impersonations. Becoming the first female speaker The steps to the speakership for McClinton were rocky, to say the least. Democrats flipped the House by one seat in the 2022 election. But they had three vacancies to start the legislative session after two resignations and one death so they had 99 members to Republicans 101 when the House convened last January. McClinton was poised to become speaker, but instead, House Republicans installed Rep. Mark Rozzi (D., Berks), who promised to be an independent speaker. At the time, McClinton called her denial of the speakership a dream deferred, referencing a Langston Hughes poem. Democrats then took back their one-seat majority, Rozzi stepped down, and McClinton was elected speaker on Feb. 28, 2023. She is the second Black speaker; the first was K. Leroy Irvis, who was speaker in the 1970s and 1980s andfor whom a wing of the Capitol building is named. McClinton has a photo of Irvis hanging in her office that she received two years ago from former House Speaker Bill DeWeese. Im a proud person, I dont like to cry in public. But it did bring tears to my eyes, McClinton said of that gift. At the time of her election, Republicans broke from the long-held tradition of unanimously electing the speaker and opposed McClinton. And just as she was elected, allegations of sexual harassment against a Democratic representative were made public on the House floor. Black women, we dont get a day, McClinton said. We dont get a day. Old news comes out immediately. Its amazing. House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster) a former House speaker himself said the GOP caucus opposed her speakership because Democrats failed to negotiate bipartisan operating rules, as Rozzi had promised. Cutler said he has a very good personal relationship with McClinton but has accused her of making partisan decisions on bills while presiding over the chamber, denying Republicans the right to make amendments to bills or participate in debates hundreds of times. While being a speaker is an honor, its also a very heavy mantle, Cutler added. I do understand what shes going through. McClinton said shes focused on making sure all voices are heard. And she has consistently said she sees making sure many women follow in her footsteps as part of her job. This is, right now, an opportunity to do good, to make a difference, and pave the way for more women, she said. The job of presiding over the House Some past speakers of the House have used their roles to push their own personal agendas. Thats not McClintons style. While she presides over the chamber, she lets Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) choose which bills will be voted on. A lot of people conflate the speakers role with the leader, McClinton said. Were on the same team, but thats not my role. McClinton moderates debate and runs through the legislative script necessary so a bill can pass the chamber. My role is to make sure that there is stability in the chamber, respect in the chamber, to make sure that voices are heard on every issue, every perspective, McClinton said. My role is to make sure that our voting sessions are run in a way that this institution thats almost 250 years old now, is respected. Her peers appreciate her leadership. She has a grace that is strong at the same time, Bullock said. And shes learned a balance her leadership role with serving her district, which includes parts of Southwest Philadelphia and Delaware County. As she first got into leadership, she realized she hadnt previously visited other districts across the state. One constituent, McClinton recalls, gave her a hard time about traveling away from Philadelphia. Oh, youre back in Pittsburgh, he would comment. We miss you on 60th Street, McClinton said. But that same constituent has never been prouder to say that his state rep is the speaker. Whats next for McClinton and the House McClinton is now leading the House through an election year, as Democrats hope to maintain and expand their House majority. And shes confident that the General Assembly will pass a few major Democratic priorities, once legislators return in mid-March from a four-month recess, including raising the minimum wage and revamping public school funding. McClinton first learned about a lawsuit challenging Pennsylvanias school funding system while she was a law student at Villanova in 2004, when she was 22. Two decades later, the state still hasnt chosen an equitable school funding system, but the Commonwealth Court has ruled that it needs to do so. McClintons district includes part of the William Penn School District in Delaware County, the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit. Shapiro pitched increasing basic education funding by $1 billion this year, and he and McClinton now need to reach a deal with Senate Republicans in the coming months. She will be touting Democratic successes for working families from the last year, including a child- and dependent-care tax credit and an increased property tax rebate for seniors that a Democratic representative had been trying to raise since 2006. Pennsylvania has one of the few state legislatures on which a different party controls each chamber. So many top Democratic priorities such as protections for reproductive rights or legalizing recreational marijuana didnt get to Shapiros desk last year, since the House needs buy-in from Senate Republicans on every bill. In one year, we have accomplished what Republicans have not, McClinton said. Our leadership is making an impact. And Im looking to see what we can accomplish in 2024. U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, (D., Pa.), pictured here in a 2022 file photo, called for a cease-fire in Gaza less than a week after a trip to Israel, which she said confirmed her fears about the war. Read more U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean said a recent trip to Israel and Palestinian territories and concerns over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus dishonesty and broken promises has led her to call for a bilateral cease-fire in Gaza. Dean, a Democrat who represents Montgomery County and serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, recently returned from her second trip to the Middle East since the war started and said it confirmed her concerns about Netanyahus response. She said she felt a particular urgency to speak out ahead of Ramadan, one of the most sacred times for Muslims, which begins March 10. It was impressed upon everybody that we must get to cessation of the fighting, Dean said in an interview. Unfortunately the Netanyahu administration denies problems going on with settler violence. We are calling that out. It is a serious problem and it is a tinder box. And Palestinians are dying. Five months after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel that killed 1,200 people, almost 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed. Advertisement Dean released a three-page statement laying out a meeting with Netanyahu in November and her experience returning to the region last week. In that statement, she said Israel has a right to defense but said what is happening is beyond self-defense and unacceptable to me. She also called for the release of all remaining hostages. Montgomery County, a heavily Democratic part of the state, is home to an estimated 42,200 Jewish households, the most of any of Philadelphias four collar counties, according to a 2019 survey. Philadelphia and its suburbs together represent the third largest Jewish community in the United States. Opinions of the war among Jewish voters in Deans district vary, she said, reflective of the larger divide in the Democratic Party. Dean follows fellow Pennsylvania Democrat U.S. Rep. Summer Lee in explicitly calling for a cease-fire. The issue has become so politically fraught among Democrats that several have taken more carefully worded stances, avoiding the term cease-fire, and calling instead for humanitarian pauses, or negotiated stops, to bring in supplies to help civilians suffering in the area and then resume fighting. U.S. Rep. Susan Wild (D., Pa.) called for such a pause in October, along with fellow Jewish members of Congress. U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D., Pa.) signed onto a letter calling for a cease-fire in November, but in a follow-up statement did not mention a cease-fire or pause. U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D., Pa), a veteran who serves on the Armed Forces Committee, has called for a temporary, negotiated cease-fire. Dean initially called for a long-term pause, in fighting at the end of October to ensure hostages could return home and access to food, water, shelter, and medical supplies could be restored in Gaza. But she said since the end of that pause, shes seen more devastation and a disproportionately low level of success in finding Hamas operatives. He talked about the ability to target and be precise, Dean told The Inquirer of her previous conversation with Netanyahu. Now hes dropping dumb bombs and we see this mounting number of innocent deaths and extraordinary suffering. Legislative logjams in the Republican-led House have prevented its members from directly voting on military aid to Israel, another test of where elected leaders stand on the war. Some members of Congress have explicitly denounced the push for a cease-fire. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, whose offices have drawn protesters calling for a cease-fire, said on X last month: Now is not the time to talk about a cease-fire. We must support Israel in efforts to eliminate the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered innocent men, women, and children. Hamas does not want peace, they want to destroy Israel. The war has become a major issue for President Joe Biden in his reelection campaign, evidenced in Tuesdays Michigan Democratic primary in which more than 100,000 voters, about 13% of the primary electorate, voted uncommitted, as part of a protest vote against Bidens support for Israel in the Israel-Hamas war. A group led predominantly by younger Arab and Muslim organizers, pushed for Democrats to vote uncommitted as they urge Biden to call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza and to stop sending U.S. aid to Israel. Dean, who said she has met with pro-Israel and Palestinian constituents in recent weeks, encouraged colleagues to join her in calling for peace, no matter what terminology they choose to do it with. Whether you feel more comfortable with calling it a humanitarian pause, humanitarian ceasefire, negotiated stop, or ceasefire, the truth remains its time to turn to diplomacy, Dean said in the statement. End the war, return the hostages, and arrive at a long overdue station of permanent peace. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks to business leaders at the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia annual luncheon on Wednesday. Read more Mayor Cherelle L. Parker called on Philadelphias business community Wednesday to follow her administrations lead and require remote employees to return to in-person work, saying a cleaner and safer future for Center City is only sustainable if they come back to the office. The mayors remarks came in her first address to the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, which hosts an annual luncheon that mayors often use to preview their upcoming budget proposal and explain how they intend to advance their priorities. Parker, who was sworn in to office last month as the citys first female chief executive, reiterated that her administration intends to call back all municipal employees to work in person and responded to pushback over the policy, saying members of the city workforce are not assets and they will be treated with respect and dignity. The people of Philadelphia deserve a government that they can see, touch, and feel, she said. Its impossible to do this if our unparalleled city workforce is only working virtually. Business leaders often clashed with City Hall during the tenure of Parkers predecessor, Jim Kenney, who led the creation of the controversial tax on sweetened beverages and the adoption of cutting-edge worker protection laws. Following pushback, Kenney in 2020 used his Chamber address to urge business leaders to please put to rest once and for all that Philly is bad for business. Parker is seen as more of a centrist, and her speech Wednesday was the first indicator of how the dynamic will unfold during her tenure. Aside from her call to action on returning to in-person work, the mayors remarks were likely what the business executives gathered at the Pennsylvania Convention Center wanted to hear. She spoke at length about her administrations plans to cut red tape and remove barriers for small-business growth, convene roundtables of advisers from the business community, and prepare for major events scheduled to take place in 2026 such as the 250th anniversary of Americas founding. And she focused on unity during the hourlong speech, imploring the business community of which there were 2,000 members in the room to partner with City Hall and vowing that shed be accessible. Advertisement If you want to help slow the rise of gun violence in the city, if you want to help reduce poverty, I need you to play an active role a proactive role in getting involved in the Parker administration, she said. Im not afraid to make tough decisions to restore order to our city, but I need you to step up and I need you to help this administration. READ MORE: Mayor Cherelle Parker announces business-oriented senior staff, including a 2026 director Sue Jacobson, the former chair of the Chambers board, said Parkers speech was a welcome change following the tension between the business community and City Hall during the Kenney administration. Shes the dynamo weve all been waiting for, and she hit a home run today, said Jacobson, who heads a communications firm. The mayor notably didnt say whether she intends to continue the citys two-decade project of incrementally reducing taxes on wages and businesses one of the Chambers key priorities saying that past cuts to those taxes have made Philadelphia a more attractive place to live, work, and play. On the campaign trail, Parker said she favors continued cuts to the wage tax and wants to reduce Philadelphias dependence on it. But the tax 3.75% for Philly residents and 3.44% for people who work in the city but live elsewhere is the citys largest revenue source, and Parker has said officials should not rush to reduce it, given that resources are needed to improve services. She reiterated Wednesday that she wants to revive an effort to tax commercial real estate at higher rates than residential. To do so, the state would have to amend its constitution, which requires tax rates be applied equally to all people subject to a given tax. Such an amendment would be a massive political lift involving approval from Harrisburg lawmakers and voters across the state. Parker also highlighted her promise to clean and green the city and said her administration is planning to expand PHL Taking Care of Business, a program that funds jobs for residents to beautify commercial corridors that she spearheaded when she was a member of City Council. READ MORE: Mayor Cherelle Parker pledges crackdown on quality-of-life issues She announced that Seattle-based Amazon has agreed to donate $100,000 to the program and implored other businesses to follow suit. If you want to see order return and you contribute to PHL TCB, its going to help us hire more cleaning ambassadors to good jobs, she said. Your support and partnership in this area is what we need to help move us a little further. Parker also spoke about her administrations efforts to improve public safety, the hallmark issue of her historic mayoral campaign. She said new Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel and Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer are developing a holistic public safety strategy that aims to build trust in communities most affected by crime. She vowed to address such quality-of-life crimes as retail theft and illegal ATV usage, and she said conditions in the citys Kensington neighborhood, home to a large open-air drug market, are unacceptable. She said her administration plans to unveil a strategy to address the neighborhood by her 100th day in office, which falls in early April. [If] you say to yourself, well, I think it lacks compassion, I want you to know that the status quo for me in Kensington is unacceptable, that help is on the way, she said. Well do it with the voices and hopes of the people who actually live in Kensington on our minds first. And Parker emphasized her message of unity, asking the room: Will you work with me to make our city shine? If we are all working collaboratively, there is no problem facing the city of Philadelphia that we cannot solve together, she said. No problem. Pedestrians cross Girard at Front Street last month during a wind and rain storm. Gusts to 50 mph are possible Wednesday evening. Read more Philly is about to get a taste of spring at least the homelier side of it. The National Weather Service has posted a wind advisory for the entire region with the potential for gusts to 50 mph between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. Wednesday with the arrival and passage of a potent cold front. In addition, We cant rule out a thunderstorm, said Mike Lee, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly. The weather service says some scattered power outages are possible. Advertisement Temperatures are due to soar back into the April-like 60s Wednesday, followed by a one-day wonder cold snap behind the front on Thursday, with highs not much past 40, several degrees below the leap day normal. Its almost as though its been so mild that February needed that extra day this year at least to offer some pretense of being a winter month. March will be coming in with another warming trend with highs Friday around 50 degrees, then mild with rain possible every day through Tuesday. One more day of February, said Lee, then its back to springtime. Hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukranians have travelled to Sri Lanka since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine An organiser of a "white party" in Sri Lanka has apologised after the event sparked a backlash online. The event's advertisement specified a white dress code, but also had a line saying "Face control: White" - which was largely interpreted to mean the event was open only to white people. An organiser later said the event was "a bad idea", adding that it was meant to bring together expatriates. The party, which was due to take place last Saturday, was cancelled. Backlash against the event was swift, with many on social media calling it "disgusting" and "racist". "I know not all expats are like this... but this sort of thing should be stopped fast and stopped hard," said one local restaurant owner. "How dare they come to a brown country and ban the people of that country," another social media user said on Facebook. Writing on Instagram under the handle geo_ecstatic, a man who said he was an event organiser, said there was "no malice or racism" in planning the party. "We wanted to meet expats who have been living here for a long time and love Sri Lanka. The team... supported me and a joint decision was made to quickly organise a party," he said, adding that he has since had to leave the country after receiving a barrage of abuse and threats. "I didn't expect this to be such a sensitive moment for a huge number of people. I admit that it was a bad idea... and I understand that we created it ourselves out of our stupidity. I deeply apologise to everyone whose feelings were hurt." The event was due to be held in the Sarayka Lounge in the southern coastal town of Unawatuna. The venue later posted a statement saying the party had been cancelled, adding that its staff team " did not conduct a thorough-enough check" and have "severed ties" with the event planners. "We have never supported and will never support various racist statements or organisations," they wrote. Story continues The organiser as well as the owners of Sarayka Lounge are believed to be Russian citizens. Rupasena Koswatta, president of an Unawatuna entrepreneurs' association told BBC Sinhala many Russians have moved into Unawatuna, a coastal city just 5km (3.1mi) from Galle, in the last two years. Many of the tourism businesses there are now owned by Russians in the area now known by many as "Little Moscow". The Russian Embassy in Colombo later released a statement saying it "strongly condemns all forms of racial discrimination and nationalism" and urged citizens residing on the island to follow its laws and respect local customs. Later on Sunday, Sri Lanka said it had ended long-term tourist visa extensions for Russians and Ukrainians. More than 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have travelled to Sri Lanka since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, according to reports. But the country's President Ranil Wickremesinghe later reportedly said the decision was made without prior Cabinet approval. Additional reporting by BBC Sinhala We are thrilled to welcome Steven to the company. His extensive background, coupled with a proven track record in navigating complex transactional liability risks, makes him the ideal leader for our M&A team in the Asia Pacific region. Steven's arrival aligns with our commitment to excellence and innovation, and we are confident that his expertise will significantly contribute to our growth in the dynamic M&A insurance sector across the region, she said. I want to support young ones to be healthy, get a good education, find their passions, discover the joy in life, connect to culture, and learn safe and healthy coping mechanisms for the hard times. I hope I can use this scholarship to gain as much knowledge as possible so that I can make real change so that we can be strong, proud, and deadly, she said. The report also identifies countries with significant insurance protection gaps and those where loss mitigation and adaptation measures are not keeping pace with economic growth as being most financially vulnerable. This is particularly true for fast-growing Asian economies such as Thailand, China, India, and the Philippines, which are deemed most at risk. This post is part of a series sponsored by AgentSync. The insurance industry has been slow to adopt digital-first frameworks for doing business, and the part of the business that deals with compliance and regulation change management even more so. But, day by day, were seeing that trend change. Someday this trickle of early adopters of insurance compliance and producer management tech will find itself a whole flood as internal stakeholders and state regulators alike stop buying a shoulder shrug and a thats how weve always done it as a convincing reason for noncompliance. With a variety of tech-based compliance solutions on the market (and no, were not counting a digital spreadsheet as a tech-based compliance solution, sorry, not sorry), why are more companies turning to AgentSync? Stick with us and well give you six convincing reasons. 1. Speed matters for producers, brokers, agents, and consumers AgentSync Manage and Autopilot take an agencys or carriers duties from hours of manual data entry, including cross-referencing websites and spreadsheets, to a few minutes of activity in a single platform. Using APIs, cloud-native, and low-code tech solutions, AgentSyncs robust integrations and unparalleled data accuracy breaks through the milieu of outdated legacy tech to revolutionize operations and compliance in the insurance branch of the financial services industry. This matters when the difference between you and the competition comes down to speed-to-quote or speed-to-bind. If you put your brokers and agents on ice while you generate quotes, or worse, you deliver easy quotes with zero license validation for assurance that its good, qualified business, then you risk losing to a competitor. Or losing business to license verification missteps. Regardless, manual compliance and manual producer management in this respect are easy ways to make a poor impression on your consumers. Since some lines of business wont see any direct connection between a carrier and the end client until that first premium check is written, impressing them with accurate and timely business processes is a must. 2. Reduce risk by putting modern compliance everywhere If youre already working on legacy tech, you dont want your compliance solution to look the same: dated, complex, custom-coded, and difficult to use. Managing compliance the way you always have with slow, manual systems means taking big risks: financial, legal, reputational, and more. AgentSync is committed to building insurance infrastructure thats current, automatic, and integrated into an organizations full tech stack. We built the first-of-its-kind API integrated with the industrys source of truth, giving our customers a taste of insurance licensing and compliance data updated across all their systems daily. Our APIs weave compliance and agent management through our customers entire ecosystems, giving them the power to stop violations before they happen, and all with less manual hands-on time. By running automatic license validation processes no human touch necessary unless it comes back with a red flag! you can ensure compliance at every point of the sales cycle, avoiding costly regulatory mistakes, commission clawbacks, or, for adjusters, even fraudulent payouts. 3. Understand your data and spend less time saying, but what does it mean? Its not just about quality data state variations in licensing and data interpretation make 1:1 comparisons difficult. AgentSync humanizes and contextualizes data, explaining what it means state to state. For insurance businesses struggling to do more with less, this means staff need fewer hours and less training to make sense of the information at their fingertips, and can immediately act on it. If you dont understand the importance of your staff taking speedy action on your data, maybe you missed point No. 1, but well reiterate here, speed equates to trust in many industries, as long as that speed is paired with accuracy. With AgentSyncs integrations, and data sourced daily from the industrys source of truth, its both/and. 4. Make change fast Sometimes you need to pivot in business, and changes of almost any kind feel very dramatic when youre strapped to legacy systems like Wile E Coyote to an ACME weapon in a Roadrunner cartoon. As the industrys first cloud-native solution, AgentSync has brought low-code solutions to life, allowing us to nimbly address state regulatory changes and customizations. By using low-code fixes, we can change direction in response to state changes (like, for instance, Texass and Kansass complete overhauls of producer regulation in 2021) or to bespoke customer needs. 5. Future-proof your business Late adopters to the automated compliance and producer management trend will find themselves doing a cowboy shuffle on an empty dancefloor. Put another way, todays tech is already determining tomorrows top dogs in the insurance industry. We serve the fastest-growing companies in insurance as well as legacy businesses, clearly demonstrating our ability to help customers use superior data to grow and scale while reducing risk and remaining compliant. Good businesses are losing patience with onboarding processes and vendors that take months to bring on new agents when they know others can do it in weeks or even days. They dont accept that their operations department has to spend nights and weekends on manual data entry. 6. Join the future Our innovations have already changed industry expectations for compliance and agent management, and were just getting started. Dont just take our word for it: When we were evaluating compliance technology solutions, the other products looked dated, bland, and didnt seem to be customizable. They were hard to navigate around, and hard to read. AgentSync was the opposite. It felt cutting-edge and the interface was appealing to look at, said Matt Brockmeier, Business Development Specialist at Veterans United Insurance and an AgentSync customer. AgentSync showed a level of insurance industry expertise that we didnt see in other vendors we were looking at. Some of them didnt really seem that familiar with the industry. If youre ready to explore what the future of compliance and producer management look like for your organization, check out a demo today. Topics Trends Agencies A Virginia deputy sheriff must face a jury over whether his shooting to death of a dog was justified or if it was unconstitutional before it can be determined if he is entitled to qualified immunity, a federal appeals court has ruled in reversing a lower court decision letting the sheriff off the hook. This is the second time a court ruling in the sheriffs favor has been reversed. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered that the case go to a jury. Michael Roane, a deputy sheriff, shot and killed Tina Rays dog while attempting to serve an arrest warrant. In 2018, a federal district court dismissed Rays action against Roane. The district court also held in the alternative that Roane was shielded by qualified immunity. But in 2020, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision. In its reversal opinion, the appeals court identified two material allegations that, if substantiated, would support an inference that the shooting was unnecessary and therefore unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, which protects the interest of individuals in dogs they keep as pets. In 2022, the district court, armed with new testimony regarding the material allegations cited by the Fourth Circuit, again dismissed Rays action against Roane. Last week the Fourth Circuit court for the second time vacated the ruling in favor of the sheriff and remanded the case for trial. The Fourth Circuit said that the lower court erred in downplaying new witness testimony gained through discovery that supported Rays version of events and erred in resolving the disputes over the material allegations itself rather than letting a jury decide them. Opening Scene This case began in 2017, when four Augusta County law enforcement officers arrived at Rays house to serve an arrest warrant and protective order. They were greeted by Ray; two of Rays friends; and Rays dog, a 150-pound German shepherd named Jax. The officers called Deputy Sheriff Roane for investigative support, and the whole group waited at a picnic table in Rays yard for 30 or 40 minutes until Roane arrived. Jax lounged nearby, tethered to a 25-foot zip line connecting two trees in the yard. He remained tethered throughout a rapidly developing episode that began when Roane arrived and ended when Roane shot Jax dead. Ray sued for unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment over the shooting of her dog. Roane moved to dismiss Rays complaint for failure to state a Fourth Amendment claim on the ground that he mistakenly but reasonably believed Jax to be unrestrained at the time of the shooting. In her complaint, Ray alleged that Roane arrived dramatically on the scene in his truck, barreling down her driveway, screeching to a halt under the zip line, and slamming the door as he exited. Alarmed, Jax began barking while approaching Roane. Roane drew his gun and retreated, moving backwards until Jax had reached the end of his line and could not get any closer to Roane. At that point, recognizing Jaxs inability to advance further, Roane stopped his retreat, took a step towards the dog so that he stood over Jax, and shot Jax in the head. According to the Fourth Circuit court, together, those two factual allegations by Ray that Roane stopped his retreat and then stepped forward before shooting yield the reasonable inference that Roane observed that the dog could no longer reach him, and, thus, could not have held a reasonable belief that the dog posed an imminent threat. In his defense, Roane argued that his decision to shoot fell within the bounds of Fourth Amendment reasonableness. At a minimum, he contended that he was entitled to qualified immunity because his efforts to protect himself against the threat posed by Jax were not clearly unreasonable. Genuine Dispute After the first reversal, further discovery uncovered a genuine dispute about the material facts that the appeals court had identified. Witnesses gave similar accounts of the episodes general contours but disagreed on the details. Most significantly, they split as to the allegations the court had identified as critical: that Roane had stopped retreating and stepped forward before shooting Jax. Three witnesses, including Roane, testified to the effect that Roane was backpedaling the whole time that is, until the moment of the shooting. Two witnesses testified that they were uncertain whether Roane stepped forward before firing. And three witnesses, including Ray, testified that Roane stopped, then stepped towards Jax, and then shot. One witness also testified that he cant say if its true or not that Roane took a step back towards Jax prior to firing the shot, but the weight of his testimony appeared to be that Roane did not take such a step. In granting summary judgment for Roane, the district court found that Ray had failed to state a Fourth Amendment claim because Jaxs size and aggression caused Roane reasonably to fear for his safety, especially given the split-second nature of the interaction. The court acknowledged Rays allegation that Roane calmly . . . stepped towards Jax before shooting him. But because Roane was able to act calmly in the face of danger did not mean he did not assess Jax to be a threat. For the same reasons, the district court also held in the alternative that Roane was shielded by qualified immunity. Crediting Inferences However the Fourth Circuit found that the testimony of witnesses and Rays allegations could support an inference that Roane did not reasonably perceive Jax as a threat to his safety and shot him nevertheless, in violation of clearly established Fourth Amendment law. It rejected the district courts summary judgment. The Fourth Circuit said that the only way the district court could have reached its decision is by failing to fully credit Rays allegations and the inferences arising therefrom. The appeals judges criticized the district court for appearing to treat the genuine dispute over Roanes alleged step forward as immaterial despite the appeals courts earlier finding that the two disputed issues were indeed material, and highly so. In the opinion written by Judge Pamela Harris, the Fourth Circuit concluded that it could not simply accept Roanes version of the facts over the allegations in Rays complaint at the motion-to-dismiss stage of the proceedings, which tests the sufficiency of the complaint, not its veracity. In considering a motion for summary judgment, a court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-movant here, Ray and draw all reasonable inferences in her favor, the judges noted. The court cannot weigh the evidence or make credibility determinations. That function is reserved for a jury, and only if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact may summary judgment be awarded. It is time for the dispute to go to a jury for resolution, the Fourth Circuit ordered. The Fourth Circuit noted that a jury crediting the testimony of three witnesses who said that Roane stopped retreating and stepped toward Jax before firing could draw a reasonable inference that Roane recognized Jaxs inability to advance further and thus the absence of any imminent threat, which would in turn establish that Roanes seizure of Jax was unreasonable. The court closed by explaining that whether officer Roane is entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law cannot be determined at this time for the same reason that Roanes merits argument cannot be resolved as a matter of law. Judge Pamela Harris wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge Roger Gregory and Judge Henry Floyd joined. Topics Virginia Yemens Houthis said on Tuesday they could only reconsider their missile and drone attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea once Israel ends its aggression in the Gaza Strip. Asked if they would halt the attacks if a ceasefire deal is reached, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters the situation would be reassessed if the siege of Gaza ended and humanitarian aid was free to enter. There will be no halt to any operations that help Palestinian people except when the Israeli aggression on Gaza and the siege stop, he said, ahead of new reports of another suspected attack. A Marshall Islands-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier on Tuesday reported that a missile hit the water 3 nautical miles from the ship, which was located 63 nautical miles northwest of Hodeidah, Yemen, British maritime security firm Ambrey said in an advisory note. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) also sent an alert on the incident, adding that the crew and vessel were reported safe and proceeding to next port of call. There was a Panama-flagged, UAE-owned chemical/products tanker approximately 2 nautical miles away at the time the missile was sighted, Ambrey said. In what appears to be a related event, the Houthis Al-Masira television said late on Tuesday that the U.S and UK together launched two airstrikes over Hodeidah, Yemens oldest port city. Shipping risks have escalated due to repeated Houthi strikes in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait since November in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians against Israel in the Gaza war. Top global container line Maersk on Tuesday advised clients to prepare for disruptions in the Red Sea to last into the second half of the year and to build longer transit times into their supply chain planning. Seafarers remain in the firing line and have signed agreements to receive double pay when entering the high-risk zones and have the right to refuse to sail on ships passing through the Red Sea. Galaxy Maritime Ltd, the UK-registered owner of car carrier Galaxy Leader which was hijacked by the Houthis on Nov. 19 with its 25 crew members, said on Tuesday that the mariners from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Mexico, Romania and the Philippines had nothing whatsoever to do with the conflict in the Middle East. Families of those being detained are now calling on the international community to take action to secure the immediate release of the crew, Galaxy Maritime said in a update. Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of the U.N.s International Maritime Organization (IMO), at a meeting called for collective action to fortify the safety of those at sea and for the release of the Galaxy Leader. The Houthis, who control Yemens most populous regions, have sent shipping officials and insurers formal notice of what they termed a ban on vessels linked to Israel, the U.S. and Britain from sailing in surrounding seas. Yemens officially recognized government said in a letter circulated on Feb. 15 to IMO member countries that it had warned of the danger of the Houthi militia adding that the group had continued to randomly plant sea mines, while also using drone boats and missiles. The fate of the abandoned cargo vessel Rubymar was unclear after it was hit by a Houthi missile on Feb. 18 in the southern Red Sea and was leaking fuel. The vessel remained submerged. If it goes down, it would be the first sinking linked to the ongoing Houthi campaign. The ships chartering broker told Reuters on Monday that it was looking to bring a work ship to close a hole caused by the Houthi missile. There was no further update on Tuesday. (Reporting by Jonathan Saul in London and Mohamed Ghobari in Aden; additional reporting by Maha El Dahan in Dubai, Yomna Ehab and Adam Makary in Cairo and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; editing by Kevin Liffey, Nick Macfie and Cynthia Osterman) Photograph: This photo released by the Houthi Media Center shows Houthi escort the cargo ship Galaxy Leader on Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023. (Houthi Media Center via AP) Related: Direct Line Insurance Group Plc said its board unanimously rejected a bid from Ageas, describing the offer as uncertain and unattractive. The Belgian insurer said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it is in the preliminary stages of considering a possible offer to acquire all of Direct Line. The statement detailed a cash-and-stock deal that values the UK firm at approximately 3.1 billion ($3.9 billion), a premium of 42.8% to the Tuesday closing price. Direct Line said in a separate statement that it had considered the Jan. 19 proposal and unanimously rejected it on Jan. 29. The transaction significantly undervalued Direct Line Group and its future prospects while also being highly opportunistic in nature, the UK firm said, advising shareholders to take no action in relation to the possible offer. Shares in Direct Line, which had a market value of 2.1 billion as of Tuesdays close, rose as much as 29%. The statements followed an earlier Bloomberg report that Ageas had made an approach to buy Direct Line in recent weeks that was rejected. Bank of America is advising Ageas, according to the firms statement. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets are Direct Lines brokers. Ageas offered 100 pence in cash for each Direct Line share and one new Ageas share for every 25.24047 Direct Line shares, according to the statements. The Belgian firm said in the statement that it firmly believes that the combination of Ageas and Direct Lines UK businesses will be beneficial for both Ageas and Direct Line shareholders. Initial Public Offering The UK insurer was created through an initial public offering from Royal Bank of Scotlands insurance division in 2012. The takeover bid for the UK motor insurer comes at a time of leadership transition. Adam Winslow, the former Aviva UK chief, is taking over as permanent CEO in March after Chief Executive Officer Penny James stepped down last year after an unexpected increase in weather-related claims. Since her departure the firm has been shoring up its balance sheet. It sold its brokered commercial insurance unit to Intact Financial for 520 million in October. Adam Winslow will take up the role as CEO on 1 March, the Direct Line statement said. He is tasked with refreshing the strategy and operational focus of the Group with the clear objective of returning to a sustainable level of operating profit over time. UK Insurers A successful bid by Ageas would add to a list of UK insurers bought by overseas acquirers in recent years. In 2020, a consortium led by Intact bought UK insurer RSA. One year later Finnish insurer Sampo bought home and motor insurer Hastings. Ageas houses insurance assets previously owned by Fortis, the Belgian financial services giant bailed out during the 2008 financial crisis. Led by Chief Executive Officer Hans De Cuyper, It offers property and casualty and life insurance in countries including Belgium, France and Portugal. Last year, the Belgium insurer was itself the subject of takeover speculation after BE Group, an investment firm fronted by former bankers, made a fresh takeover attempt. Photograph: A telephone mascot for Direct Line Insurance Group Plc in the company offices in Bromley, UK. Photo credit: Matthew Lloyd/Bloomberg Copyright 2024 Bloomberg. A Florida Senate committee on Tuesday approved an amended bill that could potentially reduce workers compensation costs for first responders in the state, people who are at increasing risk of exposure to accidental fentanyl overdoses. Senate Bill 718, by Sen. Jay Collins, R-Tampa, makes it a felony and would require stiff penalties for people who recklessly expose law officers, medics and other responders to fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that has found its way into illicit drugs around the world. Its everywhere now, said Cpl. Robert Palmer, of the Collier County Sheriffs Department. Palmer told the Senate Fiscal Policy Committee that he had to be revived twice with the anti-overdose drug known as Narcan during a domestic disturbance call. The victim asked him to carry some of her personal items. Within minutes, Palmer blacked out and nearly died because he had touched or breathed in fentanyl powder. Medical and academic reports have differed greatly about how often first responders suffer health effects from inadvertent exposure to fentanyl on the job. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has recommended emergency responders take precautions, including wearing gloves and respiratory protection, when drugs may be present at a scene. Its possible that SB 718, if signed into law, would encourage drug users to be more careful about leaving fentanyl products within reach of first responders, and that could potentially reduce injuries and deaths. A physician and member of the Democratic Womens Club of Florida warned the committee that the bill would discourage people from calling the police if they believe fentanyl may be on their property. It also would lead to a larger prison population. The bill, with minor changes, passed the committee, the second Second committee this month to endorse it. It now moves to the full Senate for a floor vote. A similar House bill is headed to the House floor. Topics Florida Politics A coal company owned by West Virginias governor has been found in contempt of court and must face fines of $2,500 a day until it pays its contractual obligations to its workers compensation insurance carrier, a federal judge decided. BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Co., which grew out of West Virginias formerly state-run workers comp carrier, had argued that Southern Coal Corp. had failed to reimburse the insurers loss fund, as required by contract. When the coal company, owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, failed to comply with the resulting court order, BrickStreet asked the U.S. District Court for Western Virginia to find Justices company in contempt. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Dillon agreed this week, ordering the mining firm to pay $503,985 to the comp insurer and face mounting penalties until the debt was satisfied. The judge dismissed Southern Coals arguments that it was out of business and was in no position to pay. The coal firm representatives had previously testified that other entities within the Justice framework have paid joint-owed debts of Southern Coal or other debts owed by the corporation. It is clear that Southern Coal had violated the previous court order because it has not paid anything into the loss fund, the judge wrote in her Feb. 26 opinion. Yet, the mine firm failed to produce evidence that it is unable at the present time to comply, as required by statute and case law. Southern Coal had argued at a hearing that other companies owned by the governor had seen numerous judgments lodged against them and also had no ability to help pay the debt. But the judge dismissed that argument, noting it had not been previously raised or supported with evidence by the coalers. The judge also ordered Southern Coal to pay BrickStreets attorney fees in the case. The case was initiated by Southern Coal, which contended in 2019 that BrickStreet had underperformed in its workers comp and employer liability insurance policies. But coal company representatives later agreed that a court order should be granted over its alleged breach of contract with BrickStreet. Jim Justice, who is term-limited for another term as governor but is planning a run for the U.S. Senate, and his family have been named in multiple legal actions over his coal and other companies. Justices companies also have been cited for being late in paying fines for unsafe working conditions at the coal mines in West Virginia, the Associated Press has reported. A Virginia bank said this month it had planned to auction off land at Justices famed resort, the Greenbrier Sporting Club, in order to recover more than $300 million on defaulted business loans. But that auction has been postponed until a later date. Topics Profit Loss Virginia West Virginia A New Mexico judge has set a trial date for Alec Baldwin on an involuntary manslaughter charge stemming from the 2021 deadly shooting on the set of the Western movie Rust. The scheduling order calls for jury selection to begin July 9, with the trial starting the following day with opening statements by special prosecutors and Baldwins defense attorneys. The proceedings are expected to last eight days. Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the film, pleaded not guilty in January, the day before he was scheduled to be arraigned. A grand jury had indicted him after prosecutors received a new analysis of the revolver he was using during filming, renewing a charge that prosecutors originally filed and then dismissed in April 2023. Baldwin was pointing the gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on the set outside of Santa Fe when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer but not the trigger and the gun fired. The subsequent analysis concluded that the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver. The revolver also is the subject of testimony in the case of Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the weapons supervisor who is on trial for involuntary manslaughter and a charge of tampering with evidence. Her trial resumed Monday in Santa Fe with testimony from an FBI firearms expert. The proceedings against the armorer hold implications for Baldwin, who faces up to 18 months in prison if convicted. Baldwin remains free pending trial under conditions that include not possessing firearms, consuming alcohol or leaving the country. Baldwin can have limited contact with witnesses when it comes to promoting Rust, which has not been released for public viewing. Baldwin is prohibited from asking members of the Rust cast or crew to participate in a related documentary film. Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Mexico New Mexico Ukraine seeks more war support from southeast Europe as Zelenskyy visits Saudi Arabia Zelenskyy pushes for more support from southeastern Europe On Wednesday, Ukraine's president is set to co-host a summit along with Albania's government. The aim is to rally additional support for Kyiv from countries in southeastern Europe, particularly as signs of war fatigue appear two years into Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Still, the specific goals of the summit remain uncertain, although its objectives are primarily centered around "peace, security, cooperation." No agenda has been disclosed ahead of the summit, with Albanian officials not providing further insights. Representatives from thirteen countries are expected to attend the summit in southeastern Europe, which includes several of Ukraine's neighbours. Officials from the European Union and various other international institutions are also expected to participate. As Russia ups the ante on the battlefield, Ukraine has urged Western leaders to increase the joint production of weapons and ammunition, improve Ukrainian air defenses and put new pressure on Russia via expanded sanctions. Peace and POWs discussed in Saudi Arabia On Tuesday, Zelenskyy touched down in Saudi Arabia and held discussions with the kingdom's influential crown prince. Advancing peace initiatives and securing the release of prisoners of war held by Russia was on the table. While maintaining close ties with Russia on energy matters, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has expressed interest in playing a mediation role in the conflict. Ukraine continues to rely on Saudi Arabia's ongoing active support in pushing forward with what has been described as a Peace Formula to end the full-scale invasion, Ukraine's number one wrote on X. Zelenskyy has presented a 10-point peace formula that, among other things, seeks the expulsion of all Russian forces from Ukraine and accountability for war crimes. Such ideas are rejected out of hand by Moscow. The second topic is the return of POWs and deportees, Zelenskyy wrote. The kingdoms leadership has already contributed to the release of our people. I am confident that this meeting will also yield results. He also said economic cooperation would be discussed. Zelenskyy's trip came as Kyivs forces were slowly being pushed back in eastern Ukraine. Russia has gained the initiative due to its big advantage in troop numbers and weapon supplies, military analysts say. Company headquarters moved to Denver, CO Denver, CO, February 28, 2024 FTP of California, LLC, announced today it has rebranded to Hinterland Insurance (Hinterland), and moved company headquarters to Denver, Colorados Tech Center. The rebrand comes as part of a larger strategy to reflect its growing business in the U.S. The company continues to develop its operations in San Diego and Chicago. Co-founded in 2019 through a strategic partnership between New Jersey-based FTP and industry veteran and property expert Lee Glaser, FTP of California has quickly taken on an identity of its own. Fueled by rapid profitable growth, and an expansive geographic footprint, the company seeks to establish a clear identity for its future. Our relationship with FTP remains strong, and we maintain our strategic partnership, said Glaser, CEO of Hinterland. Nothing is changing from a day-to-day business standpoint for our agents and brokers. Our vision remains the same as the day we started to work with key markets to develop portfolios of profitable business in multiple segments. Now that we have a proven model of success with significant premium and employee size growth, moving to a national brand that doesnt have a state-domiciled name allows us to establish a clearer perception of who we are in the marketplace. Moving our headquarters to the Denver Tech Center gives us access to a growing market. Hinterland specializes in underwriting tough-to-place risks. Considered experts in commercial property, earthquake, and difference in conditions (DIC) insurance, the company has diversified its programs to include monoline and package options for all lines of commercial insurance business, including excess and surplus lines coverage. The company has grown exponentially since inception, adding key players to lead pivotal product-line divisions, develop proprietary technology, and to underwrite their significant flow of business. They plan to continue strengthening their product offering under the Hinterland name with a focus on SME (Small Market Enterprise) and middle market business, in addition to adding programs of need for some of the displacement in California and midwestern markets. The companys physical expansion now covers the west, midwest, and mountain time zones, allowing them to retain best-in-class talent across the country. Hinterland Insurance is hiring experienced general liability, professional, and property underwriters in their San Diego and Chicago offices, and at their Denver headquarters. Please visit Hinterlandins.com/careers for open positions. The company is also accepting new agency appointments for qualifying producers. Please visit Hinterlandins.com/producers/new to learn more. About Hinterland Insurance Founded in 2019, Hinterland Insurance is an independently owned and operated insurance managing general agency and program administrator specializing in underwriting solutions for tough to place commercial insurance risks. The company offers insurance programs nationwide, including commercial property and casualty, and excess and surplus lines. Based in Denver, CO, the company also has offices in San Diego and Chicago. To become appointed please visit Hinterlandins.com/producers/new Media Contact info@hinterlandins.com Topics California The low carbon footprint of Irish grain has been highlighted as an endorsement of the grain industry's green credentials. "People buying grain can see that what is being produced on Irish farms is of low environmental impact, said John Spink at the recent Teagasc National Conference. The Head of Crops Environment and Land Use in Teagasc, Mr Spink, also revealed that the net emissions for winter oats are very close to zero if the straw is incorporated into the soil. Teagasc has calculated the impact on soil organic carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions of incorporating straw. Carbon sequestration is the capture of and storing of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Assuming a straw yield of four tonnes per hectare from a cereal crop, a little under one tonne of carbon dioxide per hectare is sequestered on light soils by incorporating the straw. On a heavy clay soil, it will be almost twice that, just over two tonnes, said Mr Spink. Crop growers can earn 250 per hectare for incorporating the straw of oats, rye, wheat, or barley, and 150 for incorporating oil seed rape straw. However, while commendable, the improved soil carbon is of little consolation to livestock farmers. Due to incorporation and bad weather, which reduced straw yields, the straw that livestock farmers traditionally purchased from tillage farmers is in very short supply in many areas, particularly in the west and northwest. Some have turned to straw imported from the UK for livestock bedding. With tens of thousands of livestock farmers needing straw ahead of calving and lambing, prices have reached record-high levels. Buying straw for bedding can be particularly challenging for organic farmers, who are required to have at least 50% of their livestock housing area solid floored and bedded (rather than slats). They must use straw, rushes, sawdust, or woodchips, as bedding. Or cattle may be out-wintered if conditions permit, at less than one livestock unit per acre, without poaching, and with adequate shelter. Bedding problems are likely to increase for livestock farmers, with a decline predicted in the cereal area for harvesting next autumn, resulting in less straw. However, the straw supply could increase if high prices attract cereal growers away from incorporation. But they must weigh the economics of that against any financial benefits from producing crops with net emissions at very close to zero, which is the case for winter oats after straw incorporation, for example. The carbon footprint of Irish grain is low by international standards, given that we have some of the highest yields in the world, said John Spink. Even lower carbon footprints are likely if local Irish (Tier 2) emissions values are calculated, compared to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 1 figures, which are used for the national inventory for calculating Irelands emissions. Tier 1 international figure calculations are the simplest, using default values to calculate GHG emissions, requiring fewer resources to collect the necessary data and to produce emission estimates. But Tier 2 (nationally developed emissions figures) or Tier 3 (values dependent on circumstances, for example, different figures for different soil types) calculations generate more precise carbon footprints. An example of how Tier 1 and Tier 2 figures differ stems from the Teagasc research over the years to calculate how much of the nitrogen applied on farms in Ireland is emitted as greenhouse gas. In the case of CAN, its 0.35% of the N, John Spink said. If we were to use the international default [Tier 1], that would be 1% of the N. This means that emissions from CAN in Ireland are about a third of what they would be if measured using Tier 1 international default values. Tier 1 factors are necessarily employed in the instances where local Irish [Tier2] emissions values have not yet been calculated. Thats obviously something that we need to do more research on, because I suspect, and I think most people suspect, those figures are significantly higher than they would be in reality in Ireland, John Spink said. He said the net emissions for Irish winter wheat are a relatively low figure of less than 50kg of CO2 equivalent per tonne. He also explained why continuously grown winter wheat has a slightly higher carbon footprint than winter wheat in rotation. It's because slightly higher rates of N are applied, and also because its slightly lower yielding. The carbon footprint of wheat derives mainly from the fertiliser thats used. Thats accounting for nearly half of the total CO2 emissions for our crops, Mr Spink said. What also significantly influences the carbon footprint is what is emitted into the atmosphere when nitrogen fertiliser is applied to the soil. That contributes about an additional 24% to the carbon footprint. So, three-quarters of the emissions associated with wheat production have to do with nitrogen fertiliser. Fuel production and its use in cultivation, seeding, crop husbandry, and harvest contribute an additional 14% of the wheat carbon footprint. However, there is little difference in the carbon footprint from growing crops using shallow minimum tillage, versus ploughing. That is because, although using slightly less diesel in the minimum tillage compared to the plough, when you look across the five years that we looked at, theres a tendency for the minimum tillage to be slightly lower yielding, so the two things offset each other, and overall, the carbon footprint is very similar, John explained. Nitrogen fertiliser use and crop yield are the main factors affecting carbon footprint. We need to do further research to refine some of the factors where were currently having to use Tier 1 figures, John said. The carbon footprint of various crops in the rotation at the Teagasc Oak Park Crops research centre in Co Carlow was calculated from five years of data, from 2016 to 2020. The annual Irish Pig Health Society (IPHS) Symposium is to move to a new venue and adopt a new format for its 2024 edition. The symposium, themed Future-proofing the health of your business, will see attendees assemble at the Curragh Racecourse in Co Kildare on Tuesday, April 16, where industry experts will address evolving matters within the pig farming sector. Proposals have been put forward at European level to reduce the administrative burden on farmers. The Belgian Presidency and the Commission presented proposals on ways to address the current concerns of farmers in the short and medium-term at Monday's EU Council for Agriculture Ministers. These proposals include a review of some of the conditionality associated with Basic Income Support payments, rationalisation of member state controls and increased flexibility for Farmers who make genuine errors in their applications. Speaking at the council, Minister McConalogue said: This Council takes place against the background of farmer protests across Europe. These farmers are looking to the Council to respond to their concerns now. The Common Agricultural Policy is part of the constitutional framework of the European Union because the authors of the Treaties recognised the critical importance of food security in Europe. "There are new pressures now, and the CAP is also expected to deliver for the environment. Farmers are committed to improving the sustainability of their operations, but it is critically important that in pursuing this objective, we do not make life impossibly complex for them. "The Council and the Commission must work quickly now to make sure that the CAP can achieve its food security and environmental objectives in a way that is simple and practical for farmers and administrations. The Minister also emphasised the need to ensure that the Common Agricultural Policy maintained its position at the heart of the European Union. The current CAP is asking farmers to do more and more for the environment, but this has not been reflected in an increased CAP budget. If we are to fully respect the role of farmers as food producers and as stewards of the environment, this must be reflected in a strengthened CAP budget in the next Multi-Annual Financial framework," he said. However, the proposals have not been as meaningless to the point of insult by one of Ireland's major farm organisations. ICMSA president Denis Drennan said they would not result in any improvement for Irish farmers in 2024 or, indeed, any year thereafter. The is a Rehash and Re-announce stunt where the Commission proposes to pick a few minor regulations that have no impact on the ground, repeat the already announced consultation on the Nitrates Directive that is likely to take a number of years to complete, suggested up to a 50% reduction in farm inspections while maintaining 100% checks under AMS - so making life easier for the Department inspector without any benefit to the farmers," he said. "Meanwhile, there are no details given on Force Majeure and the definition of exceptional circumstances. Finally, they are sending out a survey to farmers on what the issues are as if we didnt already know. Mr Drennan said that there is no need for a survey as the issues are now crystal-clear: We have regulation after regulation on a more-or-less continuous basis, while the funding under CAP becomes less and less relevant by the day due to inflation and convergence." As farmer protests escalate not only across Europe but now in other countries, including India, there's a fine balance between making an impact and losing the public's respect. And arguably, in France, where the public support for the farmers has been overwhelming, the greatest wins have been achieved. But there are signs of fractures between members of the public and farmers in other parts of Europe. In Brussels, over the last few weeks, protesters have burned tyres, toppled a statue of Belgian-British industrialist John Cockerill, who was one of the pioneers of the steel industry in Belgium, and this week damaged public buildings and injured police officers in clashes. Pictures in Spain this week showed farmers looting fruit and veg produce from the backs of lorries. Some of the goods may have made it onto food bank trucks, but the International Road Transport Union (IRU) warns that hauliers will need to be compensated for the losses. The organisation's EU advocacy director Raluca Marian said: Enough is enough. Innocent drivers and transport operators are just trying to do their job, bringing food and other essentials to markets across Europe. Everyone has the right to protest but not the right to threaten drivers, attack trucks, and destroy property. And if costly delays, attacks and destruction do happen, someone must pay for it." Spanish farmers open a truck during a blockade of the AP7 highway connecting Spain to France with tractors in Catalonia region, in Pontos, near Figueras, 40 kms from the border, on February 27, 2024. Spanish farmers and livestock breeders are demanding product prices to cover their production costs, and for non-EU imports to face the same regulations they do, resumed protest as EU agriculture ministers met in Brussels on February 26, 2024. Spanish farmers are part of a wider movement that has seen roads blocked in France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Greece, among other countries. Picture: Lluis Gene/AFP via Getty Images. From a media perspective, mass dissent offers powerful imagery and demonstrates the palpable anger and frustration felt by farmers, but damaging property can have the opposite effect and can risk alienating the public, who are, at this point, are still largely supportive of the plight of farmers. Protests in Cork this week were a good example of making accommodations for everyone without jeopardising the message. Members of the public said the protests were "well-organised" and allowed passengers access to the airport, but it's a fine line and difficult for organisers to retain control when tensions are running high and a crowd begins to enter mob mentality. Do the public support farmers? A survey carried out by French pollster Elabe showed that the public there was largely supportive of the protesting farmers, with 87% of those surveyed saying they approved of the protests. However, it should be noted that the survey was carried out at the end of January, not long after the protests had first begun. Half of those polled said they "support" the farmers, a further 37% had "sympathy" for their cause, while just 5% said they disapproved of the protests. The key was that the French public have the image of farming as a challenging, strenuous, and passionate profession requiring real skills and character, while being poorly paid. The French willingness to support the protests despite their impact on the public may be because many there perceive agriculture as an essential sector for our daily lives (96%), a source of French pride (91%), a sector which produces good quality food (90%), which is committed to the environment (75%) and which is modern/innovative (73%) but which is also in difficulty (94%), strongly impacted by the consequences of climate change (91%), which is not internationally competitive (51%). One of the most interesting findings, however, was that 73% considered the EU to be a "handicap" for farmers, rather than just 27% who selected the word "asset". Meanwhile, in India, 44% of the general public (those not involved in agriculture) who participated said they felt the protests in Punjab were over genuine grievances, compared to 54% of land-owning farmers and 49% of landless labourers, according to polling carried out for India Today, the country's biggest English-language news broadcaster. When it came to their awareness of the key issues, 68% of non-farmers said they were aware of the demands of farmers, and 61% said they felt the farmers' demands were justified. However, 43% of non-farming respondents said they felt the inconvenience caused by the protests in India would turn the public against farmers. As Reuters analysis points out, French unions like the mighty FNSEA have brought some level of discipline to the farmers' protests, so far avoiding the violence seen during the "yellow vest" protests in 2018. Their more disciplined approach has already won key concessions from the government, but with the protests now continuing for over a month, public support might be getting tested and with that, results might be harder to achieve. Almost 40% of people wrongly believe climate change is jointly caused by people and natural occurrences, despite overwhelming scientific consensus it is down to human activity. Large numbers of Irish people overestimate the impact their own actions are having on the climate, while support for policies such as higher taxes on petrol or diesel cars and bans on peat, coal and oil for home heating has fallen, an in-depth new survey on Irelands attitude to climate issues has found. The large-scale project from the Environmental Protection Agency is the second wave of its analysis on public attitudes and understanding in this area. The study found more people are worried now about climate change and how it might affect them through instances of severe storms and extreme heat. EPA director Dr Eimear Cotter said believing climate change is caused equally by human activity and natural change was wrong and there was a scientific consensus climate change is man-made. We do need to do more to help people in their understanding," she said. The study found more people are worried now about climate change and how it might affect them through instances of severe storms and extreme heat, while four in five people (79%) say climate change should be a high or very high priority for Government. When it comes to taking action, just one in eight people (12%) said Ireland was too small to make a difference on climate change and should let others take the lead, while the majority say Ireland has a responsibility to do what it can. However, the survey also found that fewer than a quarter of people (23%) correctly identified that using reusable shopping bags only had a small contribution to reduce their carbon footprint, with just under a third (30%) identifying habitual recycling makes a medium contribution. It also found "people do not understand the contribution of eating less meat, or of changing to a plant-based diet to the average persons carbon footprint. While there is strong support on actions such as investing in public transport, upgrading homes to be more energy efficient and grants for electric vehicles, support for other measures to tackle emissions have fallen. 'The overall proportion supporting bans on peat, coal and oil for home heating has decreased by nine percentage points to 59% since 2021.' The EPA said: While still retaining majority backing, the support for prohibitive policies has weakened in 2023 compared to 2021. The overall proportion supporting bans on peat, coal and oil for home heating has decreased by nine percentage points to 59% since 2021, and overall support for higher taxes on cars that use petrol or diesel has decreased by 13 percentage points to 51%. Desmond OMahony from the EPAs behavioural insights team said this weakening support was not linked to ideology or a belief climate change is not a serious issue. Its entirely possible to have a complete understanding and acceptance of climate change but find it difficult to accept a policy that affects your daily life. He said there was huge support for systems changes that could facilitate changes at the other end. If you have access to good quality public transport in your area, it doesn't really matter what the prices of private cars and private vehicles are because one is helping the other, he said. The survey of the public found most people in Ireland say they know at least a moderate amount about climate change, nearly everyone thinks it is happening but only 30% of people correctly identified agriculture as the largest source of the pollution that causes climate change. Furthermore, many overestimated the climate impact of action such as recycling or using reusable bags. While over half of respondents believe people in Ireland are being harmed now by climate change, a further 21% said it would happen in the next 10 years. Dr Cotter said the results show the public has an emotional reaction to climate change. Eighty nine per cent of people say climate change is personally important to them, and a majority want to see the Government prioritise climate action, she said. And importantly, people are seeing the positive benefits attached to that climate action, be it in terms of quality of life, economic opportunities and jobs. EPA director general Laura Burke said: We know that Ireland is experiencing the impacts of climate change. People are engaged with this issue, talking about it with their friends and families and hearing about it frequently in the media. Recruitment of new gardai needs to significantly increase to improve the visibility of police in Dublin city centre and other urban areas, the Oireachtas justice committee has said. In a report, the committee said the conditions for gardai must be improved and that this should include an independent pay review body, a long-serving pay increase, as well as measures to deal with pension inequalities, insufficient in-person training, and excessive oversight. The Report on Engagements on Policing Matters was one of two reports published by the committee, the second concerning its pre-legislative scrutiny of a bill allowing for the use of facial recognition technology (FRT). The first report also examined the Garda response to the Dublin riots last November and the monitoring of far-right groups. In its recommendations, the committee emphasised the need to increase the recruitment of gardai, to increase the number of members policing Dublin city centre, and to expand the number of community gardai. The committee said it was clear there were several significant issues affecting the retention and recruitment of gardai, including issues relating to pay, pensions, rostering, and training. It was acknowledged that the conditions for gardai must be improved, as the need to significantly increase the recruitment levels of gardai to ensure high visibility of gardai within towns and in Dublin city centre was recognised as one of the central factors in decreasing anti-social behaviour and crime," the report said. The committee said it was clear there were 'several significant issues' affecting the retention and recruitment of gardai, including issues relating to pay, pensions, rostering, and training. The report said that witnesses to the committee stressed there was a severe crisis in retaining members and said that gardai continuing to work were being put under greater pressure as a result. Witnesses told the committee that particular members in city centre stations can be under immense pressure and face burnout due to the demands of policing in the city. The report noted that some witnesses claimed that a group of around 20 or 25 offenders were committing a significant number of crimes within Dublin city centre but who continue to be released on bail and continue to commit crimes. The committee recommended that the laws on bail should be re-examined, and that the monitoring of far-right groups and their activities be given greater priority. The report said that while the committee was told there were sufficient gardai in intelligence operations for its current workload, Garda HQ wishes to expand the number of staff in future. The committee recommended that the creation, under the new Garda Operating Policing Model, of three county divisions Mayo, Roscommon and Longford as well as Louth, Cavan, and Monaghan be revised and that Mayo and Louth be designated as separate districts. The report also recommended that a pursuit policy be developed for gardai and that the powers available to gardai in such pursuits should be clarified and placed on a statutory footing, if necessary. The report said that while the committee was told there were sufficient gardai in intelligence operations for its current workload, Garda HQ 'wishes to expand the number of staff in future'. In the second report, on its scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Garda Siochana (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2023, the committee said clarity was required on the intended use of FRT. It said that both the Garda Commissioner and the Department of Justice must urgently clarify details of the database of footage and images gardai will use the FRT on. It said the justice minister needs to address ongoing concern regarding both the accuracy and discrimination concerning FRT. The report recommends that Garda HQ conduct a range of impact assessments and internal audits on this system. It urges the establishment of an external authority or a judge not a senior garda, as currently stands to approve the use of biometric data. The committee further recommends that an independent judge-led review be provided in the bill to allow for periodic inspections. It was "exceedingly difficult" for gardai to manually filter through footage, given the sheer scale that must be processed in investigations, it was told. Ireland cannot rely on its neutrality if there is no rules-based international order to guarantee it, a Nato military boss has said. The chief of Nato's military committee, Admiral Robert Bauer, said the stakes concerning Russias war in Ukraine could not be higher and that the international rule of law and of democracy, and the sovereign rights of nations, hangs in the balance. Addressing a seminar in Dublin, the Dutch naval commander said the fate of the world rests on whether or not Russia wins this war, saying the ambitions of president Vladimir Putin lie far beyond Ukraine. The military advisor to the Nato general secretary spoke at an event hosted by the Institute of European and International Affairs (IIEA) following a meeting with Defence Forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Sean Clancy and an official military ceremony at McKee Barracks in Dublin. Adm Bauer attended an official military ceremony at McKee Barracks in Dublin. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos In his opening remarks, Adm Bauer said an anti-Nato protest outside the IIEA offices reflected why the military alliance existed to defend democracy. He said the alliance, which Ireland is not a member of, would formally welcome its 32nd member state, Sweden, in the coming days. But he said recent days also marked the grim second anniversary of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine, adding that Russian military chiefs expected the war to last just three days. He said Russias most recent attacks were devastating, but not militarily effective and cited Avdiivka, which Russia finally took at great cost. Due to the Russian bombardment, the town was now a pile of rubble. He said Ukraine has prevailed as a sovereign nation and had inflicted around 300,000 Russian casualties and destroyed thousands of tanks and hundreds of planes. He said it had liberated around half of the territory Russian forces had taken at the start of the war. Supporting Ukraine is a direct investment in our own security, he said. Adm Bauer said the war was never about any military threat to Russia; it was about the threat of a neighbour whose citizens enjoyed democratic rights and the impact that might have on Russian citizens. Make no mistake, the outcome of the war will determine the fate of the world; Russias ambitions lie far beyond Ukraine. He said that if Russia is allowed to win it would send a message to all authoritarian regimes that not only can you violate international treaties but you will benefit from doing so. Therefore, we all have a responsibility to do everything we can, the stakes could not be higher: our freedom, our democracy, the rule of law, the right of each sovereign nation to determine its own destiny hangs in the balance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Adm Bauer said Ukraine has 'prevailed' as a sovereign nation and had inflicted around 300,000 Russian casualties and destroyed thousands of tanks and hundreds of planes. Picture: AP And he said Ireland was not disinterested in what happens: Both Nato and Ireland have vested interest in rules-based order; it underpins all our security. Moreover, in the case of Ireland, you cannot have neutrality if there is no rules-based international order that respects and guarantees this neutrality. It is not enough to hope for the best, we all need to prepare for the unexpected. In these challenging times, peace is not a given. He said the unthinkable did happen when Russia launched its full invasion in February 2022. The relationship between Catherine Martin and the former RTE board chair had soured to such an extent that Siun Ni Raghallaigh refused to receive letters from the Media Minister before she finally resigned. Ms Martin was left "flabbergasted" after Ms Ni Raghallaigh indicated that she would resign if the Minister sent a letter to her as tensions between both women simmered over RTE exit packages late last week. Despite this warning, Ms Martin sent the letter. Ms Ni Raghallaigh was also informed that the Minister was appearing on RTE's PrimeTime prgramme last Thursday and was warned that if asked, she would "not conceal" the issues. During a lengthy meeting of the Media Committee last night, Ms Martin described the refusal to accept her letter as "quite problematic from a confidence point of view". "I thought it was maybe a rash comment because it didn't make sense," Ms Martin said. "It was so astounding of a comment, I couldn't believe that anyone would just refuse to meet and to be afforded the opportunity to talk." Former RTE Board chair Siun Ni Raghallaigh speaking to media on Kildare Street following her meeting with Minister for Media and Arts, Catherine Martin. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie Defending the decision to send the letter to Ms Ni Raghallaigh just hours before she tendered her resignation, Ms Martin said she was "hoping she would change her mind" and would attend a meeting the following morning. During two meetings early last week Ms Ni Raghallaigh she had no role in signing off on the exit package of former chief financial officer Richard Collins. However, Ms Ni Raghallaigh then contacted a senior Department official at around 10am last Thursday to clarify that the remuneration committee, which she chaired, had in fact approved the package. Pressed on the working relationship between the Minister and the person who should have been her main line of communication with RTE, Ms Martin said: "I reached a place where I felt I couldn't depend on the information that I was receiving." She added that she doesn't believe this was intentional from Ms Ni Raghallaigh but stressed that she was not getting accurate details. Ms Martin claimed that she "wasn't expecting" to be asked if she had confidence in Ms Ni Raghallaigh during an explosive television interview on Thursday night. Sinn Fein senator Fintan Warfield said it was "slightly ridiculous" not to expect a confidence question. Asked if it was a "decision or a mistake" to effectively sack the chair live on air, she stressed that as a Minister she believes that she has to be truthful. Mr Warfield suggested it was a "planned effort to get rid of a very capable chairperson". Ms Martin also confirmed that she still does not know the details of exit packages given to top officials in RTE. She said confidentiality clauses attached to exit packages cannot be breached and there are GDPR issues. The funeral details for the young man killed in a Cork collision over the weekend have been released. Ricky Barry (23) suffered fatal injuries in the collision while the other occupants of the car received injuries described as non life-threatening. Two other people were rushed to Cork University Hospital following the single-car crash in Rathanker near Passage West in Cork at around 2.30am on Saturday. He will repose at Temple Hill Funeral Home on the Boreenmanna Road on Thursday from 4pm to 5pm. That will be followed by his requiem mass at 11am on Friday in St Patrick's Church in Rochestown. The mass will be live-streamed before Ricky's funeral afterwards to St Catherine's Cemetery in Kilcully. His death notice reads: "Dearly loved son of Richard and Susan and devoted father of Ruby, loving brother of Cole, Oliver, Holly and Charlie, Dear grandson of Sean, Cathy, Noreen and the late Derry. "Sadly missed by his loving family, aunts, uncles, cousins, relatives and friends." Some 35 people have died on Irish roads so far this year. This is a small increase on the same time in 2023, which was in itself a year when road deaths in Ireland surged. According to research from the Road Safety Authority, the highest risk age among those travelling on Irish roads in 2023 was the 16-25 age group. This age group represented over a quarter of all road deaths, 48 fatalities in all. This was an increase of 23 deaths from a year prior. Travis Branson will plead guilty to helping kill and sell roughly 3,600 rare birds over a six-year period, according to federal court filings. Getty Bald eagle One of the two men accused of shooting and killing roughly 3,600 rare birds, including bald and golden eagles, has agreed to plead guilty while the other suspect remains at large, according to new federal court filings in Montana. Travis John Branson has agreed to plead guilty to two counts of unlawfully trafficking bald and golden eagles, as well as one count of conspiracy and one count of violating the Lacey Act, a federal law that bans the trafficking of wildlife illegally removed from nature, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prosecutors will drop 10 counts of unlawful trafficking in exchange for Branson, 48, to plead guilty to the other charges, according to two filings from this week, which were reviewed by PEOPLE. Its unclear how many birds the Cusick, Wash., man will admit to killing. The defendant knowingly took, possessed, sold, bartered, offered to sell, and transported a bald or golden eagle andthe defendant did so without being permitted to do so, Bransons attorney acknowledges in the new filing. The filing also says that Branson knew what he was doing was illegal. Meanwhile, his alleged accomplice is still on the run. Related: 2 Men Accused of Killing 3,600 Bald Eagles and Other Rare Birds in 'Spree' Authorities are searching for 42-year-old Simon Paul, who prosecutors allege was Bransons partner. The two men were indicted in December and accused of killing roughly 3,600 birds within the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana between January 2015 and March 2021. Prosecutors allege that Branson and Paul would hunt birds by luring them in with deer and other prey they had also killed, waiting for the birds to swoop in before shooting them. They would then sell feathers and other parts of the birds on the black market, according to their indictment. Story continues Certain sets of golden eagle feathers can sell for several hundred dollars, The Associated Press reported. The outlet reports that feathers and other parts of eagles' bodies are valued among some Native American tribes for use in ceremonies and powwows. The outlet also reports that prosecutors believe Branson and Paul worked with others, who have not yet been identified by authorities. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. In their December filing, prosecutors previously presented a handful of text messages sent back-and-forth between Branson and Paul, which allegedly showed them discussing their crimes. At times, the messages appear to show the men bragging about the alleged crimes, with Branson texting Paul to say he was on a "killing spree." The texts, presented in the prosecutors Montana federal court filing in December, allegedly showed how the two men planned their killings, how they contacted buyers for different parts of the birds, and how they coordinated with each other. In one particularly damning message, Branson allegedly wrote to Paul that he was [o]ut [here] committing felonies. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Provisions for conditional immunity from prosecution for Troubles offences in the British governments Legacy Act are not compatible with human rights legislation, the High Court in Belfast has ruled. The case had been brought by relatives of victims and the survivor of a shooting. The act involves a conditional amnesty for suspects and introduces a ban on inquests and future civil actions related to the Troubles era. Aspects of the laws also include a limited form of immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences for those who co-operate with the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). Delivering a judgment at Belfast High Court, Mr Justice Adrian Colton said there was no evidence the immunity provision would in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland. However, the judge also said a new body set up to probe Troubles killings could carry out human rights-compliant investigations. The Legacy Act received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims organisations in Northern Ireland and the Government. Mr Justice Colton told the court: I am satisfied that the immunity from prosecution provisions under section 19 of the Act are in breach of the lead applicants rights pursuant to Article 2 of the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights). I am also satisfied they are in breach of Article 3 of the ECHR. He added: There is no evidence that the granting of immunity under the Act will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland, indeed the evidence is to the contrary. However, the judge also said a new body set up to probe Troubles killings could carry out human rights-compliant investigations. The case was brought by Martina Dillon, John McEvoy, Lynda McManus and Brigid Hughes. Ms Dillon's husband Seamus was shot dead in a loyalist attack in Dungannon, Tyrone, in 1997. Ms Hughe's husband Anthony was killed in 1987 after driving into an ambush of an IRA unit in Armagh by the SAS. Mr McEvoy was shot in the Thierafurth Inn in Kilcoo in Down in 1992, while Ms McManus's father James was among those in the Sean Graham bookmakers shooting in Belfast, also in 1992. Gardai objected to bail being granted to a 37-year-old man charged with carrying out a robbery at Centra on Grand Parade in Cork at 11pm last Thursday. Matthew Heaphy, whose family came from South Africa to Ireland in 1999, was arrested by Detective Garda Aoife Hayes and brought before Cork District Court. The alleged offence occurred at Herlihys Centra, Grand Parade, Cork. Mr Heaphy was arrested and charged with carrying out a robbery there. The accused applied for bail and said he would turn up if granted bail and he would not commit any other offence if released. Sergeant Pat Lyons said to the accused during cross-examination: The point I have to make is that the only reason you are sitting in that chair is because we put you there. It will be the same if you are granted bail. You wont turn up and the guards will have to arrest you again. The defendant replied if he got bail on strict conditions he would adhere to them. Sgt Lyons suggested: While you may have the best of intentions you have no capacity to keep bail. Defence solicitor, Eddie Burke, said: He is very honest about things. He accepts he has an addiction and that things fell down and he wants to address his difficulties. The accused said he had been off alcohol but personal problems got on top of him and he picked up a bottle of vodka and drank it. Judge Mary Dorgan said after hearing he application for bail and the prosecution objection: The situation is that he is before the court on a count of robbery. I find that taking into account his addiction issue, the seriousness of the charge [and other factors], I have no option but to remand him in custody. Mr Heaphy, with an address at Garden Village Drive, Kilpedder, Co Wicklow, was remanded in custody until March 11 at Cork District Court. Gardai have charged a man in connection with criminal damage following several fires at retail premises in Cork City at the weekend. Detectives arrested the man, aged in his 20s, as part of their enquiries into fires at city centre businesses on Sunday. He was later charged and is due to appear before Cork District Court on Wednesday. A garda spokesperson said: Gardai have charged a man in connection with a number of criminal damage incidents which occurred in Cork City on Sunday, 25th February 2024. It has been claimed that one business suffered losses of up to 100,000 in smoke-damaged stock. Gardai had been examining footage from CCTV systems in the shops, and from the citys network of CCTV cameras, to identify a suspect. The alleged criminal damage incidents took place at about 5.15pm on Sunday, when the alarm was raised about a small fire in the LifeStyle Sports outlet on St Patricks Street. It was claimed that clothing and other items on display had been set alight. Members of Cork City Fire Brigade and gardai responded and found the fire had already been dealt with by staff. However, as they were dealing with that incident, they began to get other alerts from shops nearby, all in quick succession, all reporting small fires on their premises. Several other units of the fire service from Anglesea Street and Ballyvolane were deployed to Superdry, also on St Patricks Street, to the Next outlet on Opera Lane, to Boots pharmacy on Half Moon Street, and to the TK Maxx shop on Cornmarket Street. In some cases, customers spotted the fires before they took hold. Cork County Council is seeking an urgent meeting with Environment Minister Eamon Ryan to discuss who is going to pay to stop sewage backing up into peoples homes in the village of Crossbarry. It also wants to raise fears with him that two towns will stagnate if water continues to be drawn from the River Bandon to supply other areas. Both issues were the major topics for discussion at a meeting of the Bandon-Kinsale Municipal District Council. The most urgent is the situation in Crossbarry, as colleagues of Fianna Fail councillor Gillian Coughlan agreed with her that the half-functioning sewerage system in the village, which leads to back-ups of effluent into local houses, represents an urgent environment and public health issue". Upgrading the system will cost nearly 4.5m. The council had been provided with a Government grant for the work, but it is more than 1m short. The local authority does not have the money to bridge the gap. Furthermore, since last September Uisce Eireann has been put in charge of all such projects. Ms Coughlan said Mr Ryan had to intervene and get the water utility to do the work as there is real suffering being experienced by villagers, with the sewerage getting into their houses. Independent councillor Alan Coleman said the council also did not have the staff to carry it out as those seconded to work in conjunction with Uisce Eireann have transferred full-time to the utility since last September. Its absolutely appalling anyway that the department would expect us to find 1.1m to prop up the project. Delays will cause costs to rocket. Were all concerned about the people in Crossbarry. Its absolutely urgent at this stage, Fine Gael councillor Kevin Murphy said. The meeting heard from Fianna Fail councillor Sean ODonovan of his understanding that the councils chief executive wrote to the water utility last summer seeking a meeting on the issue but it had not happened. Meanwhile, Ms Coughlan said she was seriously concerned abstraction of water from the River Bandon to supply other towns further away, such as Clonakilty, would stagnate future development in Bandon and Kinsale. Some of the water is even supplying parts of Carrigaline. She said this was not sustainable and called for the creation of two new reservoirs to supply both towns. A secure water supply is required for the rapidly growing populations of Bandon and Kinsale along with the hospitals, schools and businesses in the area in to the future, she added. The Bandon river should be for the Bandon catchment area and not other areas, Mr ODonovan said. However, Fine Gael councillor John OSullivan said he had information of a major revamp which would see water being pumped from the Inniscarra Reservoir to supply the Bandon, Kinsale and Clonakilty catchment areas. He said a lack of water in the Bandon/Kinsale municipal district area had led to substantial periods in 2022 and 2023 where planning permissions were refused in the villages of Courtmacsherry, Timoleague, Ring and Darra. Water must come from Inniscarra. Connecting to Inniscarra would be the greatest infrastructural improvement in the area in my lifetime. Unless done, the whole of the municipal district will be deprived of water and development, Mr OSullivan said. Ms Coughlan said the council had not been presented with any plan for an Inniscarra supply and they needed to find out what was happening. Residents and environmentalists have objected to a Russian-owned refinerys application to dump the equivalent of 5,000 double-decker buses filled with mud into the Shannon Estuary. Futureproof Clare is one of the groups opposed to a bid by the Aughinish Alumina plant, to renew its permit for the loading and dumping of dredged material, as part of its maintenance operations. If approved, Europes largest bauxite refinery which is situated in Askeaton, Limerick would be given the green light to dump 668,454 tonnes of dredged material over an eight-year period. This would mark a significant increase on the current licence, which allows the refinery to dump up to 128,000 tonnes at sea over eight years. This permit expires on August 31. If the objections lodged with the EPA succeed, it will be the second blow in as many years for Aughinish Alumina. Last year, the plant failed in its plans to expand its infamous red mud bauxite residue disposal area by 12 metres. Both Futureproof Clare and the Environmental Trust Ireland had lodged separate, but successful, legal challenges against the An Bord Pleanala decision to grant permission for the expansion. Futureproof Clares Emanuela Ferrari said: If the EPA grants Aughinish this licence to dredge and dump, it will amount to the equivalent of 5,000 double-decker buses of potentially contaminated muddy sand every year. Futureproof Clare is concerned about the rampant industrialisation of the Shannon Estuary and the proliferation of polluting industries in the area. The organisation fears the proposed increase in dredging would detrimentally affect the seabed habitat. Moreover, the operations which will take place for 21 days at the time if approved would cause significant noise disturbance, coupled with the possibility of increased pollution from the machinery used, during at-sea refuelling activities. All this has potential detrimental effects on the wildlife in the area, which is one of the most important sites within Europe for bottlenose dolphins. A submission from the Drumgossatt-Knocknacran Residents Group states: The sheer volumes of material applied for to be disturbed and dumped in the environment will have a significant impact on marine life and possibly on human health. The Environmental Trust Ireland said it is concerned that, despite Aughinish wanting a more than five-fold increase in dumping volume, there has been no justification offered for this massive increase. OK, so its 10 days to the referendum votes on March 8, and it seems patently clear that a significant proportion of the population dont know what they are being asked to vote on. I have been contacted by several friends asking which way they should vote on both the family amendment and the care amendment. Busy, intelligent people not grasping the questions being posed, as they are being presented to them, and thats no slur on them. Others are saying that for the first time in their life, they are considering not voting because they just cant get to grips with what theyre voting on. Everyone seems to accept that the turnout is going to be very low. Is this a healthy state of affairs? Is this the best that we can do? Theresa Reidy of UCC, a political scientist and expert on electoral behaviour, always a great woman to follow at election time, has said that in her opinion if the turnout is very low, it will probably favour the no vote but if the turnout rises to over 30% and approaching 40%, it will be a more finely balanced thing. In a last-minute dash, the Government is circling the wagons, with every second radio show featuring some government member attempting to persuade us to vote yes, themselves displaying varying degrees of understanding or clarity on the issues being put to us. Broadly speaking, the line we are being asked to swallow is that the Constitution is simply a representation of our values and aspirations. It is no biggie if we vote yes, and nothing is going to change as a result. Not immediately, but its an inconvenient truth that this is not the whole truth. For starters, the Constitution isnt just an expression of who we are as a people like some party-political manifesto. While it is our voice and does express our values, it also informs legislation and is the backdrop to important court cases when the Supreme Court (and sometimes the High Court) look to the Constitution for guidance on deciding big questions of the day. They consider both the Constitution and legislation when theyre looking into their crystal ball. The kind of cases that have implications for us as a broader society can affect our everyday lives. Secondly, while there is a great benefit to referenda, they throw up big questions and allow important conversations to happen, it is democratically subpar that there was no pre-legislative scrutiny of the 39th and 40th amendments to the Constitution. Six years ago, when there was pre-legislative scrutiny of the care amendment one of the strong proposals to emerge from this process was that the complex issues required more public engagement, and a public conversation that considered a range of constitutional legislative and policy options, but this did not happen. This short-circuiting of the legislative process is far from ideal. Forgive me but I dont want to see everything simply through the idea of ideology (take a look at America and see how thats working for them) some of us want to know details, want to understand what were voting on. But if you have any scruples about this rush job, you are immediately tarred with the brush of a squint-eyed conservative, wanting to keep broken families in their place, part of the hello divorce, goodbye daddy brigade, terrified of any relationship that hasnt made it to the altar. One wag, a friend involved in politics is currently tormenting me by sending me clips of two right-wing senators going off on right-wing rants on a variety of subjects ribbing me that because, like them, Im voting no on both questions youre in their gang now Sarah along with the Catholic bishops. Ha, ha, but voters need to be sufficiently informed if they are to make informed choices. This viewpoint is not a crime against liberalism, its a vote for democracy. Referenda are indeed to some extent blunt devices in that complex questions must be distilled to a yes or a no. Therefore, any issue being put to us must be explained clearly and comprehensively. Family amendment In summary, the first family amendment (on white paper) which proposes amending Article 41.1 will broaden the protection offered to the family to include families other than those based on marriage to include those founded on durable relationships. This is an attractive idea to lots of us, either because we are members of families not based on marriage or because our family, friends and neighbours are, and we recognise or welcome the reality of a changed Ireland. However, we are being sold a fuzzy line about how if we vote yes to the family referendum, we will have a Constitution more reflective of a modern Ireland, one that is more inclusive, and beyond that there is nothing to see here folks. In reality, what we havent been given is hard information, nor have we properly discussed the likely legal consequences of the family amendment should it be carried on current law and policy including social welfare, taxation, family law, and succession law. As a bare minimum, we should have been shown a draft legislative definition of what durable relationships would look like. Personally, I believe a measure of certainty and the avoidance of unintended consequences is preferable to solely letting the Supreme Court have at it. Care amendment The second care amendment (on green paper) is a proposal to repeal Article 41.2, to delete the reference to women in the home which many people view as paternalistic and sexist (this is a matter of personal preference), and to recognise duties of care as lying with families. Its the second limb there that has rightly drawn the most fire. Opponents say that the proposed wording absolves the State from having responsibility for care for people with disabilities, making it the private responsibility of unpaid family members. And for that read women who are overwhelmingly the carers of Ireland, those uncomplaining stalwarts who are the backbone of this country. One thing on this amendment that really stuck in my fact-loving craw last weekend was listening to sincere but clueless members of government on the radio out of their depth discussing the care amendment and saying we couldnt possibly enshrine a socioeconomic right in the Constitution. You are quite wrong. The precedent already exists in Article 42 where we guarantee a right to free primary education. People with disabilities deserve an amendment that firmly places care not within the bosom of the family but within the preserve of the State. But then who cares, people with disabilities are about as sexy as stay-at-home mothers in this country, just not part of the zeitgeist. Globally, democracy is currently getting waterboarded. So, we should get out and exercise our vote, but maybe in line with the well-worn adage, if you dont know, vote no. As one sensible man said to me, You have to take the Constitution seriously, and if I dont understand fully the implications of what Im voting on, then I will vote no to retain the status quo. They can come back again with the same two questions after they have done a better job at explaining them to us. Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is under investigation for having allegedly harassed a humpback whale while riding a jetski off Sao Paulos coast last year. Mr Bolsonaro appeared at the federal police in Sao Paulo on Tuesday to meet with officers, along with his lawyer and former adviser who was also present at the time of the alleged incident. The investigation is just one of the many legal headaches the former far-right leader is facing. Since leaving office a year ago, Mr Bolsonaro has been banned from running for office until 2030, investigated for plotting a coup to remove his successor from power and stripped of his passport. 5 The jail sentence in years that can be imposed under Brazilian law for approaching too close to whales In a June 2023 video that circulated on social media, a man is seen riding a jetski close to a whale, seemingly recording the encounter with a mobile phone. Federal prosecutors, who are also investigating the case, said the man appeared to be Mr Bolsonaro. Under Brazilian legislation, motored vessels must keep a minimum distance of 100 metres from whales and other cetaceans. Any intentional attempt to get closer can lead to a sentence of up to two to five years in prison and a fine. The man on the jetski seemed to be about 15 metres from the animal, prosecutors said last year. For Mr Bolsonaros supporters, the case is yet another example that their former leader is being politically persecuted an argument he has often made since leaving office. Last week, officers in the capital, Brasilia, questioned Mr Bolsonaro for allegedly plotting a coup, in an attempt to remove his successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, from power. Mr Bolsonaro, whose passport was seized in a previous police operation, chose to remain silent. Legal experts say that if police can prove that Mr Bolsonaro intentionally approached the whale, he risked a fine at most. According to online news site G1, a local politician found guilty on similar charges and in the same location was fined 2,500 reais (about 400). Colombian warlord Salvatore Mancuso was sent to his native country on Tuesday after serving a drug trafficking sentence in the United States and being denied several requests to be sent to Italy, where he also has citizenship. Mancuso arrived in Bogotas El Dorado Airport on a charter flight that also carried dozens of Colombians who were deported from the US after illegally crossing the southern border. Mancuso was quickly taken into police custody, wearing a green helmet and a bullet-proof vest. Human rights organizations and government officials in Colombia hope that Mancuso will co-operate with the justice system and provide information about hundreds of crimes that took place when paramilitary groups fought leftist rebels in rural Colombia in the 1990s and early 2000s. We welcome him. And want him to tell the truth about the multi-national companies, the businessmen and the government ministers who helped with the creation of paramilitary groups This event marks an important step towards reconciliation and the construction of a lasting peace in Colombia, said Fernando Garcia, the director of Colombias national immigration service. Mancuso, 59, was one of the leaders of the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary group founded by cattle ranchers who fought against leftist rebels during one of the most violent stretches of Colombias decades-long armed conflict. He will remain in prison in Colombia, where courts have judged him responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances. He will attempt to get a reduced sentence, and possibly a release from prison, from a transitional justice system created by Colombias 2016 peace deal. Victims of the nations conflict are hoping that Mancuso helps shed light on hundreds of murders and forced disappearances carried out by paramilitary fighters, including extrajudicial executions where victims were buried in mass graves. In multiple hearings with Colombian judges, including some by teleconference while in US custody, the former warlord has spoken of his dealings with politicians, and of the potential involvement of high-ranking politicians in war crimes. But his extradition to the United States in 2008 on drug trafficking charges had slowed down investigations. When Mancuso was extradited, truth was extradited, as well as justice and reparations for victims, said Jose Melendez, a human rights lawyer who represents war victims in northern Colombia. We welcome him. And want him to tell the truth about the multi-national companies, the businessmen and the government ministers who helped with the creation of paramilitary groups. Mancuso is the son of an Italian immigrant. His lawyers had requested he be deported to Italy, where he is a citizen, arguing his life would be in danger in Colombia. U.S. officials decided instead to send Mancuso to Colombia, whose government requested his extradition in 2020, arguing that his return to the country was vital for the investigation of war crimes. The problem Mancuso has is that if he talks too much he could get killed, said Laura Bonilla, a researcher of Colombias conflict for the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation. US authorities concluded there was enough evidence to arrest two people for reckless endangerment after Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan Markle said they experienced a near-catastrophic car chase in New York involving paparazzi, a court was told. Details of a review of the incident in May last year were revealed in a British High Court ruling on Wednesday over Harrys challenge to a decision to change the level of his taxpayer-funded, personal security when visiting the UK. Retired High Court judge Peter Lane dismissed Harry's case against the UK Home Office, with his judgment referring to evidence submitted over what happened in New York. The judges ruling featured a redacted version of a December 6 2023 letter, provided to him by Harrys barrister, from the chief of intelligence in the New York City Police Department to the chief superintendent OCU commander royalty and speciality protection. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were leaving an awards ceremony when the car chase took place (Jordan Pettitt/PA) Mr Lane said that contrary to what appears to have entered the public domain, the letter states that reckless endangerment did take place on 16 May 2023 when Harry and Meghan were being driven in Manhattan. In the letter, the chief of intelligence says he wants to make aware of certain changes to the security posture that will be afforded to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in light of the security incident that took place on May 16 2023 in New York City. According to the judge, the letter says that a thorough review of the incident had taken place and although no formal charges were brought against the parties involved at the time we did conclude that the behaviour in question was reckless. Mr Lane said the investigation found reckless disregard of vehicle and traffic laws and persistently dangerous and unacceptable behaviour on the part of paparazzi during the night in question. They had operated vehicles, scooters and bicycles in a manner that forced the security team, which included the NYPD lead car, to take evasive actions on several occasions and a circuitous route to avoid being struck by pursuing vehicles or trapped on side blocks, the judge added. He said that the conclusion was that there was sufficient evidence to arrest two individuals for reckless endangerment. A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan previously said they were followed by paparazzi after attending an awards ceremony with Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland. The three of them are said to have been subjected to a relentless pursuit involving half a dozen blacked-out vehicles, described as a near catastrophic car chase at the hands of a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi. It was understood at the time that Harry, Meghan and Ms Ragland were staying at a private residence and did not want to compromise the security of their friends home. It was also understood that the couple believe the pursuit could have been fatal, with the incident said to have featured traffic violations including driving on the pavement and through red lights, reversing down a one-way street, illegally blocking a moving vehicle and driving while photographing and while on the phone. A taxi driver who said he transported the couple for part of the journey said the dangers may have been exaggerated. At the time of the incident, the New York Police Department, which deployed officers to help escort the duke and duchess, said numerous photographers had made their transport difficult on the night. The statement said there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries or arrests. New York mayor Eric Adams condemned the photographers for being reckless and irresponsible. He added that it would be horrific for Harry to be involved in an accident similar to the one that killed his mother Diana, the Princess of Wales, in 1997. For the last 25 years, pediatrician Dr. John Kahler has participated in humanitarian aid missions around the world from Syria to Haiti to Tanzania. Despite providing medical services for years, Kahler said treating people in Gaza amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is incomparable to the work he's done in other areas. "This is just by far the worst situation I've ever seen," he told ABC News. "The desperation is just beyond belief. All the children I saw were sick. All the children I saw were living in the cold, irrespective of whether intended or not." MORE: Airman dies lighting himself on fire, saying 'free Palestine' outside Israeli Embassy As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza grows, aid workers from several organizations have been deployed to help those in the strip and the surrounding area. Medical staff who have returned from deployments spoke with ABC News about the poor hygiene conditions and inadequate water supply that have led to the spread of infections and diseases, children being disproportionately affected and often seemingly small injuries proving fatal. Children suffering from breathing problems, intestinal infections Since the early days of the conflict, women and children have borne the brunt both in mass casualties and in reduced access to health services, according to multiple United Nations agencies. Kahler is a co-founder of the nonprofit MedGlobal, which has been conducting aid missions in Gaza. At the organization's clinic in the southern city of Rafah, Kahler said staff saw 600 to 700 patients a day, about 200 of whom were children, mostly under 6 months old. PHOTO: Dr. John Kahler from MedGlobal treats a young patient at a clinic in Gaza, January 2024. (MedGlobal) He said there were outbreaks of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that often led to a wheezing illness called bronchiolitis in the youngest patients. He also saw children with breathing problems due to smoke, because fire is the only form of heating for many families living in tents. "One hundred percent of the children under 6 months of age had a diarrheal illness," he said. "The vast majority of those children had significant diaper dermatitis and you say 'diaper dermatitis' and it sounds relatively benign. But, in this particular situation, with no Pampers access, no clean water access, no hygiene access, In the cold, it can be a very, very difficult situation to deal with." Story continues His co-worker, Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president and co-founder of MedGlobal and a critical care specialist in Chicago, said he recalled a few children who came into the clinic, one being a 4-year-old girl name Lama. According to Sahloul, Lama had been living in a tent with 15 other members of her family and had bloody diarrhea. He said Kahler examined her and gave her oral rehydration fluids, which improved her condition. MORE: Netanyahu ahead of Rafah ground invasion: 'Victory is within reach' "Unfortunately, among innocent civilians, especially children, the impact of the war on children is probably something that we haven't seen, I haven't seen, in any other place." Lack of aid and poor hygiene Amy Leah Potter, nursing activity manager for the Doctors Without Borders or Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) emergency team in Gaza, said some of the biggest issues she saw during her month-long deployment were poor hygiene conditions and inadequate water and sanitation. "The hygiene conditions are deplorable, through no fault of the population," she told ABC News. "It's overcrowded, multiple people living in tents; there is no running water, there's no proper drainage." These conditions often lead to sicknesses including gastrointestinal illnesses and skin infections, Potter said. PHOTO: A Palestinian man carrying a child wounded in an Israeli strike sits inside an ambulance as they are rushed into a hospital in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 12, 2024. (Shadi Tabatibi/Reuters) Potter estimated at the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, where she crossed into Gaza, there were about 2,000 aid trucks lined up to enter Gaza, but with only about 100 entering per day and some periods with no aid entering at all. Israel, supported by Egypt, has restricted the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza since Hamas came to power in 2007. The restrictions have tightened since the war began with Israel saying it is trying to limit Hamas' access to weapons, officials said. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Israel does not provide enough authorization to deliver sufficient aid and, even when it does give authorization, the fighting makes it difficult to deliver aid. "This is a desert so there's no fresh water," Potter said. "You have to get it from water distribution points, which are just trucks that drive up and then people queue for several hours to try and get water. But if you queue for water, that means you're probably missing the queue for medicine that day or the queue for food. So you kind of have to make decisions." Temperatures in Gaza are also extremely cold. Potter said she was wearing four layers at a time during her first two weeks there. However, most families do not have as many clothes and sleep in poorly constructed tents, exposing themselves to the elements and the risk of smoke inhalation or injuries from the fires used to keep themselves warm. MORE: Patients evacuated from Nasser Hospital, Gaza's second-largest, as WHO says it has stopped 'functioning' amid attacks "Every day it got worse and worse and worse, more and more tents," Potter said. "When I first came, there were no tents on the beach, because the winds are so strong, you wouldn't want to put a tent there. By the end [of the month-long deployment], the beach was full. There's nowhere to put anybody." Treating injuries with limited supplies Dr. Chandra Hassan, a general surgeon in Chicago who volunteers with MedGlobal, worked in Rafah as well as Khan Younis, another city in southern Gaza. He said he saw many patients with chronic diseases who didn't have access to medicine. This included diabetic patients who couldn't get access to insulin and dialysis patients, who usually get dialysis three times a week but were getting dialysis once or twice a week at most. Staff are often left to treat patients with few supplies and little to no room, Hassan said. One patient Hasan said he remembers very well was a pregnant woman who visited the clinic. Pregnant women and new mothers in Gaza in particular have been facing life-threatening challenges to accessing safe care, putting their health and the health of their babies at risk. "We saw a six-month pregnant woman, completely dehydrated, and we were resuscitating her on a cold floor," he told ABC News. "There is no bed, no mattress, nothing. She came to the emergency room because most of the other services are not available." PHOTO: MedGlobal staff take care of patients in Gaza, Jan. 24, 2024. (MedGlobal) Hassan said workers gave her fluids, checked her vital signs and after she reported feeling better, she was discharged. He doesn't know what happened to her after she left the clinic. He said he saw many patients with injuries from the war. Many of these wounds were small, about two- or three-millimeters long, but because resources are limited and people are often not able to seek care right away, they caused massive damage and proved sometimes fatal. "These kind of innocent-looking wounds from these missiles could prove deadly," he said in reference to one such patient who Hassan said initially received wound care for his injuries. He came back two days later, his condition having worsened and went into cardiac arrest and died. "In a normal situation, they would have scanned him, admitted him, observed him. So, a lot of these kinds of injuries from the explosions, they are they are deadly immediately or they have bad consequences even with surgery, or sometimes just the delay is too much. It proves to be fatal," Hassan said. 'No safe place exists' Nearly every aid worker interviewed by ABC News mentioned that, in past global conflicts, affected populations have been able to leave. MORE: Overcrowded hospitals, few supplies causing 'complete collapse' of Gaza health system "In most situations, people who are fleeing conflict are able to seek safety and protection, maybe within their own country or maybe outside of their country," Dr. Paul Spiegel, director of the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News. He spent a month in Cairo supporting the UNRWA's Gaza response. "But in this situation, that so far has not been the case." In January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not consider the war over until the Philadelphi Corridor, an 8.7-mile-long narrow strip of land that consists of the border area between Gaza and Egypt, was closed. Earlier this month Netanyahu said that his government was working on a plan to evacuate people from the city of Rafah in anticipation of an expected ground operation there and despite continued concerns about the ground assault from Israels allies. Sahloul and Hassan said that in their past work in Syria and Ukraine, refugees were either able to flee to neighboring countries or move to safer regions within their own country but, in Gaza, they say there is no safe place. "When you're wounded, you need good nutrition, you need good rest to recover," Hassan said. "You need a safe place. None of that exists." They added that many Gazans cannot safely seek shelter at hospitals and health care settings because they have been attacked, a violation of international humanitarian law. Israel has said it has not conducted targeted attacks against hospitals and claims Hamas misuses hospitals -- operating inside and underneath them in tunnels and using them as command centers as well as to store weapons. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has released videos it claims are evidence of Hamas operations. Hamas denies the accusations. PHOTO: MedGlobal physicians including Dr. John Kahler review the arrival of medical supplies in Gaza, Jan. 8, 2024. (MedGlobal) Both Sahloul and Hassan worked in the partially operating hospitals in Rafah, such as Nasser Hospital, and said they did not see any evidence of Hamas operations. "We have not seen any signs of militarization, any suspects, any guns in the hospital ... we have not seen any tunnels," Sahloul said. "There might be some truth to what the IDF are saying, but we have not witnessed it. And people in the hospitals should not be punished." Fears of a 'complete collapse' Since the Hamas terrorist group's surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, more than 29,600 have been killed in Gaza and more than 69,000 others injured, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed, according to the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. Israeli officials said 576 IDF soldiers have been killed, including 237 since the ground operations in Gaza began. Additionally, there are about 134 hostages still believed to be in captivity in Gaza, 130 of them related to the current war and four related to the 2014 conflict. Of the 134, at least 32 are believed to be dead, according to the IDF and the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. MORE: International organizations describe 'catastrophe' at hospitals in Gaza Potter said she believes conditions in Gaza will only further deteriorate and the number of deaths will increase unless a cease-fire is agreed to. "We're not even putting a dent in what's needed," Potter said. "If we don't get [more] aid into the country, if the invasion into Rafah continues, and there's one and a half million people, there's nowhere left to go. There's nothing left to do." "It is just trying to survive. It's like it's a boat with a hole in it and this isn't the time to fix the boat. This is the time to just bail the water as fast as you can, but they've been bailing for months, with no end in sight. And eventually, there's going to be a complete collapse," she continued. 'The worst situation I've ever seen': Aid workers reveal conditions of those living in Gaza originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Wednesday, Feb 28th, 2024 (11:42 am) - Score 2,720 A new BBC News report states that BT UK quoted one homeowner in the tiny Lincolnshire community of Wingland a hefty 101,874.60 to run a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP network to his property, which formed part of an offer under the 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO). But this shouldnt come as a surprise. The USO, in case anybody has forgotten, is a legally binding and industry-funded obligation that falls on BT across the UK and KCOM in Hull. In short, people living in areas where they cant yet receive a 10Mbps or faster download speed, and arent expected to be covered by such a network in the next 12-months, can request a service capable of 10Mbps+ downloads (1Mbps upload) from the aforementioned providers. Most of those that apply for the USO may find out that they can alternatively take a 4G or 5G based mobile broadband connection from EE. But failing that, the suppliers will commit to contributing up to 3,400 +vat per premises to help get a faster fixed line connection via FTTP installed. Take note that a cost sharing model also applies here, which means BT will calculate the total excess cost of the build and divide that between the eligible premises. If that amount is below 5,000 per premises (on top of the 3,400), well automatically split the costs. But any costs above this level would need to be optionally covered by the community (optional is the choice between either accepting the quote or not building anything). However, much as weve covered many times before (example), deploying new full fibre infrastructure into harder to reach locations (often rural) is an inherently slow and extremely expensive process. Sadly, some locations can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, very rarely even up to 1-2m, and the unavoidable reality is that the USO simply cant cover those areas as it makes no reasonable economic sense. In these cases, the result is that BT ends up putting out a quote to cover the excess costs involved, which often comes as a shock to those who arent aware of how costly new infrastructure builds can really be. In short, this seems to be precisely what has happened in the community of Wingland, near Sutton Bridge. Taking a closer look at Wingland On the surface it might seem like an easy job, particularly since Openreach, Upp (nexfibre) and LightSpeed Broadband have already managed to bring some FTTP into the much larger, directly neighbouring, Sutton Bridge community (LightSpeed has the biggest network covering most of the area). On the other hand, Openreach has yet build all that much FTTP in Sutton Bridge, so theyd want to do that first before even considering such an expansion. Meanwhile, Upps network is currently stalled and in the process of being integrated into nexfibre (Virgin Media), while LightSpeed Broadband seem unlikely to be taking much of an interest while struggling with their own issues (here). However, a big part of the problem may be that theres a rather large river (nene) running right through the middle of all this, with a sizeable bridge crossing. Gaining access to run new fibre over bridges can be.. tricky, even at the best of times, as well as expensive. But in this case, it may also be impossible, since its a swing bridge for a lot of commercial maritime traffic. Suffice to say, running fibre from the Sutton Bridge side looks unviable (even a Microwave solution would be pricey, but none of the named operators use those to feed localised FTTP builds). The most viable solution would thus be for Openreach, which has a bit of FTTP about 2-3 miles down the road in the opposite direction (on the Wingland size of the bridge), to run new fibre up alongside the A17 road. But 2-3 miles of fibre isnt cheap (its also unlikely to go as the crow flies, so keep that in mind) and hence its easy to see how BT ended up giving a local homeowner, Mr Mortimer (62), that 100k quote. A BT spokesperson said: Although the USO has helped improve connectivity for around 8,000 properties to date, quotes reflect the cost and complexity of building in rural areas and can be high. We have reviewed the quote given to Mr Mortimer and unfortunately it is an accurate reflection of the costs of delivering a fibre connection to a small cluster of properties in the area. According to Mr Mortimer (62), the local broadband speeds are slow and in a big city, you would get this [fttp service] for free, and its wrong. But in fairness, hes not living in a big city and the local area is complex, which makes any solution via FTTP inherently quite expensive (side-note: even some patches of big cities havent got FTTP yet). The big industrial site over the road, which includes a power station, probably wont be of much help either since theyll most likely be using expensive leased lines to solve the issue. Similarly, the 4G mobile coverage in the area appears to be quite variable (most operators say they can do 4G, but its often only labelled as good for outdoor use and is of patchy quality). On the other hand, data from Thinkbroadband appears to show that the community in question should already be largely covered by superfast (24-30Mbps+) capable broadband speeds via FTTC (VDSL2) technology, which makes us wonder whether the individual concerned is on such a line or even suffering from an issue with poor home wiring. However, the fact that he got a quote under the USO would tend to suggest that he must be living even further outside the core Wingland area, which would add to the cost of any local build. But without knowing the exact property, its difficult to propose an alternative. Starlink may thus be the best bet for now, if he can afford it. UPDATE 29th Feb 2024 @ 4:16pm The government has corrected the BBC and informed ISPreview that Wingland is in fact part of the Lincolnshire and East Riding contract currently out for procurement, and therefore is in scope under Project Gigabit. Wednesday, Feb 28th, 2024 (3:32 pm) - Score 9,600 Messages of confusion and anger have made their way into our inbox this afternoon after internet provider Cuckoo began informing some customers seemingly those on Openreachs network that they were sorry, but theyre no longer able to be your broadband provider and are switching them to a different ISP. The development comes after we this week reported (here) that Cuckoo, which is in the process of becoming the main retail ISP outlet for Fern Tradings (Octopus Investments) consolidated full fibre networks (Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre, Giganet and AllPoints Fibre), had launched a new range of Cityfibre based FTTP plans and stopped selling their Openreach based packages. NOTE: TalkTalk has a strategic partnership with the Telecom Acquisitions group mentioned below (i.e. they hold a controlling stake in the business), which was established in late 2022 ( here ). At the time we noted that the change had put a question mark over the heads of Cuckoos existing Openreach based customers, which we believe may account for the majority of their base, although we assumed that the ISP would continue to support them and did query this (so far, they still havent responded). After all, in this market, the last thing a credible ISP should be doing is mass-kicking customers off their service. Fast-forward just two days from that report and customers, seemingly those on Openreachs network (mostly FTTP users), have this afternoon been given somewhat of a shock after an email from Cuckoo greeted them to say Sorry, we have to say goodbye. The rest of the message speaks for itself, but some might say theyve gone.. cuckoo. Cuckoos New Customer Email Hi XXXXXXXXXX, Were sorry to break this news, but were no longer able to be your broadband provider. Before we explain why, we want to immediately reassure you that: Therell be no disruption to your internet connection at all. Therell be no immediate change to the cost of your broadband. If youre awaiting installation this will proceed as expected. Weve arranged for your broadband to switch to another provider, Home Telecom (who we really like and are rated excellent on Trustpilot). Why the change? Weve undergone some big changes ourselves over the last six months and in order to keep being able to do things the Cuckoo way, weve had to make a few key decisions along the way. One of these is that, from now on, were changing how we deliver broadband to our flock. This will help us continue to provide the fastest and most reliable service possible. And sadly, your address doesnt have the right connection for us to be able to do this. What happens next? The good news is that you dont have to do a thing your contract will automatically transfer over to Telecom Acquisitions Ltd (trading as Home Telecom) on 01 April 2024. Theyll be in touch soon after that to introduce themselves and to tell you what to expect. Theyre good, fair folks and we think and hope youll be (nearly) as happy with them, as you have been with us. Also, just note that well send you your Cuckoo bill and collect your payment for March as usual. We know this has come out of the blue, so if you have any questions, you can still contact us by replying to this email or calling 0203 389 7211. Alternatively, you can read more on our FAQs here. Finally, we want to say a big, big thank you for being a member of the flock and for helping us grow to where we are now. The formal, legal announcement From 01 April 2024 your broadband contract will automatically transfer over to Telecom Acquisitions Ltd (who trade under the name Home Telecom). Their company number is 437482573 and their address is Telecom Acquisitions Ltd, Global House, 60b Queen Street, Horsham, West Sussex RH13 5AD Your broadband services, price and all support facilities associated with Cuckoo will be in place for you until 31 March 2024. Your bill will be issued as usual in March and after this date, your association with Cuckoo will end. Your personal data will continue to be processed strictly in accordance with the Cuckoo Internet Privacy Policy and at all times in accordance with UK data protection law. You can read our policy here. Home Telecom will be in touch with you on or around 01 April 2024 to introduce themselves and to share their contact details. The FAQ page sadly mentions nothing about whether related customers can alternatively choose to cancel their service and switch to a different ISP (this is sometimes allowed in such situations), but they do state that the Terms & Conditions of our contract with you allow us to transfer the contract to another provider as long as we give you 30 days notice. If they respond to us, well attempt to clarify. However, generally speaking, this sort of action is not going to do Cuckoos otherwise carefully cultivated reputation much good, and we suspect there will be some angry reviews headed their way from customers who dont like to be messed about. If theyd wanted to join Home Telecom, then they would have chosen that provider themselves. For an ISP that previously marketed themselves as being the simple, flexible and fair choice (here), this could be seen as a betrayal of that ethos. UPDATE 5:19pm Just to confirm, but so far, Cuckoos customers on both Openreachs FTTP and FTTC lines are being impacted. The ISP actually withdrew their original FTTC packages from sale to new customers last year due to rising wholesale prices (here), but they continued to support existing subscribers, until now. UPDATE 6:03pm Customer feedback suggests that this migration may also apply to Giganets base of Openreach customers, even if you havent yet been formally transferred to Cuckoo itself. UPDATE 29th Feb 2024 @ 7:35am One of our visitors noted that the company number given for TAL in the email 437482573 is wrong. The correct one is 12101755 (here). In fact, there is no company with the number 437482573 at Companies House. UPDATE 29th Feb 2024 @ 11:27am Cuckoo has finally responded to confirm that their existing copper customer base alongside a small cohort of FTTP customers connected via TalkTalk will be transferred to a new provider Home Telecom (by TalkTalk we assume they mean a TT wholesale line via Openreachs network). However, despite the awkward migration, Cuckoo oddly then says theyll initially be selling to full fibre customers across the CityFibre footprint ahead of further national expansion this year across Openreach and existing Fern Fibre networks, offering full fibre-only packages. All after booting some Openreach FTTP users to another ISP. Cuckoo CEO, Paul Hellings, said: Cuckoos sole focus is now on selling the fastest, most reliable full fibre to our customers and providing unmatched customer service Weve got ambitions to increase our network coverage over the coming months and deliver the exceptional customer service which Cuckoo has been built on to even more people. With our new full fibre-only strategy in place this has meant that some of our existing customers will leave us as they transition to Home Telecom. We want to thank each and every one of our customers making the switch for their loyalty and custom and we want to ensure them that they are going to a good home. We want to become the UKs most recommended way to connect and these changes will allow our teams greater focus on delivering the best possible experience to our customers. We strongly believe broadband should be fast, fair and feel-good. Nigel Barnett, CEO at Home Telecom, said: Home Telecom are extremely proud to welcome Cuckoo customers that currently reside on the TalkTalk networks. We have been serving customers on these networks for over 26 years and we are delighted to be recognised by Trustpilot as Excellent with over 10,000 reviews, making us one of the highest in the industry. Currently servicing over 100,000 customers from a UK-based service team 24/7. Home Telecom are able to offer broadband services across all networks including local fibre providers. We welcome the Cuckoo customers with open arms and look forward to building strong relationships through exceptional customer service. We cant help but wonder what TAL/TalkTalk must have paid to acquire the relevant base via Home Telecom. Meanwhile, one of our readers has spotted that the 37482573 number in Cuckoos letter is actually the VAT number for Telecom Acquisitions Ltd, rather than a company number. UPDATE 2nd Mar 2024 @ 7am Despite the statements by Cuckoo, such as that the migration only impacts their existing copper customer base alongside a small cohort of FTTP customers connected via TalkTalk. Some of those who have yet to receive an email have chased the ISP to query whether it impacts them and been told: Unfortunately, all Cuckoo customers will be transferring onto Home Telecom from the 1st April. As time passes, were also starting to spot some caveats that customers are finding with the transfer. Firstly, many of those affected joined Cuckoo for the 30-day contract terms, but Home Telecom staff are telling some users that theyre only able to do 12-18 month terms and this is naturally a significant difference in product. However, with only 30 days notice, some customers who try to switch to a different ISP are running into the problem that, in some cases, they wont be able to get connected before their existing service stops working (i.e. they either suffer downtime to escape or stick with being thrown on to a longer contract term with an unfamiliar provider). Were querying all this. UPDATE 2nd Mar 2024 @ 8:54am ISPreview has been in contact with the CEO of Telecom Acquisitions, Nigel Barnett, who has been very helpful as we attempt to wade through the fallout from Cuckoos decision. In particular, we queried the issue of 30 day terms and Nigel said they are going to match any contract terms and prices [Cuckoo customers] currently have and they do support monthly, as well as even weekly, terms (any discrepancies in this are likely down to support staff not being quite up-to-speed on the change). In addition, its noted that not all of Cuckoos affected customers (we understand this impacts about 12,000) have been notified of the migration yet, with another batch of messages being expected to go out early next week. UPDATE 4th Mar 2024 @ 8:59am Just for the avoidance of doubt, heres what one Cuckoo customer (credits to Adam) was told when querying about whether early exit fees would be applied to those who cancel. A Cuckoo support agent said: We can get a cancellation put through on your account certainly. As we are moving to Home Telecom there will be no early cancellation fee what so ever. 1371138342::cfb49c8e-2422-11e5-99a3-d7f5c6e8b241 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. Two mayoral hopefuls of a Mexican city are shot dead within hours of each other Two mayoral hopefuls in the Mexican city of Maravatio have been gunned down within hours of each other, as experts warn the June 2 national elections could be the countrys most violent on record The Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District board meeting Tuesday night was filled with concerned and angry parents, citizens and students during a contentious discussion about safety and public notifications of school threats. The discussion was triggered by reports earlier this month that a middle school student in October threatened to kill classmates and himself. Parents were not notified at the time. The meeting took place in the high school auditorium as opposed to the school administration building in order to accommodate the large number of parents, staff and stakeholders. About 150 people attended. Throughout the meeting, the public was boisterous and notably angry, shouting out commentary, clapping for speakers who shared their views and repeatedly calling for both their questions to be answered and for the superintendent or the entire board to resign. One parent, Emily Gumbert, told the board during the public comments that the October incident was not the first time students were threatened in 2023. She said she was contacted in spring 2023 by the school after her daughter and other students were threatened by a classmate when they were in eighth grade. There was a manifesto that was made by a certain individual student at the middle school in eighth grade. There was a hit list of three individual children at the school, she said. Gumbert said the public was not made aware of that threat. I was told by the police department to make sure my daughter was in a safe place because this individual student had threatened to steal a firearm. These parents have no idea of that. I was told that it was going to be addressed, she said. My question for the board is these students that have been targeted, where's the mental health help for them? My daughter is now a freshman in high school. She cannot attend school. You know why? Because that individual student was allowed to come back to the school. She said when the student who had threatened to kill her daughter returned to school, she was not notified. My daughter had to notify me, she said to the board in tears. You guys are letting us down. My daughter cannot even attend school because she is scared. She should not be scared to go to school every day. I am so frustrated. She wanted to come tonight. But she was so scared to address you guys. Charity Schultz also spoke during the public comments and accused members of the district of covering up the October threats. This goes to the principal, staff, officers and superintendent who covered up this planned, targeted attack on Christians, pretty girls and jocks, she said. Is there a reason this evil demonic student and their planned attack was hidden from us parents? My personal opinion is it was because this student targeted Christians. So this student has more rights than mine? Schultz wanted to know where the student who made the threats against classmates and the school is now, what prevents the student from doing something in the future and if the student will be allowed back in Chippewa Falls public schools in the future. But all questions from speakers and the audience went unanswered per board bylaws. Only questions from members of the board to the superintendent and board president were allowed to be responded to, school board officials explained to the crowd. This student should have no right to be near this school or any other, Schultz said. Parents have rights, too. These are not your children; theyre ours. So my call to action is for the firing of any and all parties who are involved in this targeted cover-up. The public first learned about the incidents Feb. 7, when it was revealed that a middle school student's internet searches triggered a police investigation into a "serious" threat of violence in October 2023, according to police reports. The situation was first reported on by Louder with Crowder, a national online podcaster. While investigating the online queries, officers discovered a paper notebook in which the student shared detailed plans on how they planned to massacre classmates, saying that they took inspiration from the Columbine school shootings, according to police records. The Chippewa Herald has received a copy of the Nov. 1 police report and verified its authenticity. After the public comments, superintendent Jeff Holmes said the district's policies are governed by FERPA and Wisconsin student record laws, but that the way policies were written, it allows discretion on the part of the administrators in working with law enforcement and other key individuals to make determinations about these things. Kirk Strang from Strang Law LLC, which represents school districts and technical colleges across Wisconsin, explained FERPA laws and confidentiality to an unpleased crowd in an attempt to demonstrate why the school did not identify the student in question. Members of the public said they did not care about the students identity as much as why they werent notified about the situation when it happened. Business manager Chad Trowbridge asked Holmes what led him to decide that a notification was not needed in October. Holmes responded by saying: Ultimately the reason is because of the number of people who knew about what was going on. The only people that knew about any of these things were the investigators themselves. Holmes continued, saying: There was no need to alarm the public. Given all the information that was provided to us and law enforcement, we didn't see a need to inform the entire public. A handful of people responded with raucous commentary, shouting statements of disapproval at the board. Its not your decision, one person said. This is not right, another shouted. Board president David Czech asked the crowd to quiet down so that they could continue the discussion. Holmes said the decision was up to those who had gone through threat assessment training and had developed strategies for handling the student concerned, along with family members, teachers and support staff. We assess concerning behaviors on a scale from whether it's a temporary issue or do we believe it's more serious and an ongoing problem. Then we make adjustments of the risk levels based on all of the detailed criteria, Holmes said. Then we develop individualized plans to mitigate those identified threats. Holmes said the schools are constantly following up with students who find themselves in bad situations and that they work in-depth with law enforcement to try and rehabilitate kids. For us, we don't believe in throwing away kids, he said. The administrative staff here does a fantastic job of mitigating through issues that, you know, the average person doesn't know about and does not need to know about. Holmes said the decision to notify the public is made carefully based on law enforcement and administrator analysis of investigative findings concerning the credibility and urgency of a crime. Board member David Martineau, a former teacher of 28 years, said to the crowd that he did not believe there was any malicious intent during this process. Yet Martineau apologized to the crowd. I am sorry for the hurt and confused feelings from parents, students and community members, he said. I believe that the district should have given a general statement at the time. Martineau said the district is bound by a coherent governance model, which was adopted by a past board. This model gives the superintendent the power to make many decisions that I feel the school board should be involved in making, he said. In this case, the superintendent is not required to share the information such as specifics about what happened. I was not made aware of the details until weeks later. I believe that if I had been trusted with this information, I would have insisted that the district be more transparent at that moment. Therefore, as an elected official, I promise you I will continue to press the board and the superintendent to make positive changes to the coherent governance model. The board unanimously passed a motion to have the policy committee compile notification policies from other school districts to bring to the board at a later date for review. Chippewa Falls school board faces backlash for lack of transparency in threat incidents Chippewa Falls school board Chippewa Falls school board Chippewa Falls school board Chippewa Falls school board Chippewa Falls school board Chippewa Falls school board Chippewa Falls school board Chippewa Falls school board (Photo : photo) Immigration attorneys work with clients who are seeking green cards (permanent resident status), visas, or U.S. citizenship. You should seek an immigration attorney before your arrival to the U.S. to ensure that you understand your length of stay, what activities you're allowed to engage in, and other details about your immigration status. To Fill Out Applications or Forms This is incredibly a vital part of an attorney's job. Filling out paperwork incorrectly can be costly both in terms of time and money. But far more grave, filling out forms incorrectly can lead to possible deportation hearings and removal from the United States. Canceled Without Prejudice If there's been a minor mistake in your paperwork, then it must be corrected before it can be approved. The U.S. embassy or consulate will stamp your visa as "canceled without prejudice" if this is the case. Grounds of Deportability Section 237 of The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) specifies the legal grounds on which people in the United States can be deported. These are called the Grounds of Deportability. Before you arrive in the U.S. you want to be absolutely clear what they are and how to avoid them. To Be Sure What You Should Apply For There are many options for visas, such as work, student and tourist visas. There are also multiple options for green cards, such as employment-based green cards. All of the immigration forms can be found online. Along with a description of each form is a checklist of who qualifies to apply under that category, such as the H-2B Visa for Temporary Nonagricultural Workers. Applicants for such a visa have to meet the criteria clearly listed online. However, it's not advisable to fill out or submit any forms without speaking to an immigration attorney. While it may look straightforward online, immigration law is very complex. You may have to apply using a different form than you think. Clarify Information Before Arriving Immigration law is extremely complex. All too often visas are canceled due to paperwork errors or confusion on the part of the person applying. For example, some visitors to the U.S. confuse their departure date with their expiration date. The date you must leave the country is specified on your Form I-94 Arrival/Departure Record. The expiration date is actually the last day that you can use the visa at any U.S. entry point. So, for example, if you go on a cruise and confuse the dates, and get off at a port of call, then you may have difficulty getting back on board. The best thing is to contact an attorney before having any possible mishaps. Does It Matter Where My Immigration Attorney Is? Immigration law is federal, so any U.S. immigration attorney can assist you. The only requirement is that they need to be a member of the bar of the District of Columbia or a U.S. state, commonwealth, possession or territory. It doesn't matter what bar they are a member of, they just have to be one. However, your attorney does have to abide by the interpretation of the law by the local circuit court. It would be better to hire someone in the area where you are looking for immigration services, though it is certainly not required. If you are looking for an attorney then you can find more information here 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : Unsplash/Maria Oswalt ) The Albanese government has made a significant commitment by pledging $255 million to support security measures that track freed people from indefinite detention. This pledge shows that the party is taking proactive steps to mitigate any risks that may arise from releasing these people. The funds allotted are for security organizations that are in charge of monitoring the whereabouts and actions of people freed from detention without charge. The ruling emphasizes the party's dedication to maintaining public safety and preventing any security risks that might emerge from people who have experienced this kind of detention. Operation Aegis The Australian federal police and Australian Border Force have formed Operation Aegis to ensure detainees released following a high court ruling follow the stringent new requirements imposed on their visas. "Hardcore Criminals" This month, the high court made a decision that helped NZYQ, a Rohingya man without status, who was in danger of being held in detention permanently since no nation had agreed to take him in. Following the high court's successful challenge to a 20-year-old precedent, the government was compelled to free 92 detainees. The government has come under fire from the opposition, which claims it was unprepared for the ruling by the high court and was endangering public safety. Since they could not be deported, some of the cohort-who had committed crimes-were placed in indefinite detention upon serving their sentences. Some were detained due to their moral character or for non-violent offenses. Even so, Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, called the group "hardcore criminals" on numerous occasions. Yet, labor approved changes made by the Coalition to laws it drafted that imposed strict standards on those who had been freed. READ ALSO: Daniel Pearl Suspect Released; Pakistani Anti-Terrorism Court Frees Suspect Due To Lack Of Evidence Funding Breakdown A $255 million funding package to be split between the federal police and border force was announced by Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil, and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles. The AFP will receive $88 million for "regional response teams and personnel to investigate breaches of visa conditions." In comparison, the Border Force will receive $150 million for more employees in "compliance, removal, and surveillance functions." Operation Aegis will concentrate on monitoring the detainees freed following the ruling by the high court to make sure they don't violate the terms of their visas, which include tight curfews and ankle monitors. The funds will also be utilized to "increase in capacity to bring prosecutions" against violators of the terms. As part of the operation, federal agencies will collaborate with their counterparts in states and territories. The action creates significant concerns about how to strike a balance between personal rights and security measures because it may harm privacy. These funds and the techniques used to keep an eye on people who have been released will probably be the main topics of public conversation. The implementation of this commitment will be closely monitored to evaluate its efficacy in attaining increased security without jeopardizing fundamental civil liberties as the political landscape continues to change. The Labor Party's commitment to setting aside a sizable sum of money for this purpose shows that it understands the difficulties of releasing people from indefinite detention and will take proactive measures to resolve any issues that may arise. RELATED ARTICLE: LAURETHA VARID: PHILADELPHIA RAPPER WHO KILLED POLICE OFFICER DURING BANK ROBBERY GETS DEATH WARRANT 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : Unsplash/ BoliviaInteligente) Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, expressed on Tuesday that what concerns him most about artificial intelligence are the "subtle societal misalignments" that could cause chaos. Sam Altman Expressing Concerns About Potential AI Dangers Speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai via video call, Sam Altman restated his proposal for establishing a regulatory body similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency to supervise AI, which is progressing faster than anticipated globally. Altman expressed concern about potential AI dangers, focusing less on scenarios like killer robots walking on the streets but more on subtle societal misalignments where "we just have these systems out in society and through no particular ill intention, things just go horribly wrong." A Push for Creating AI Regulations in the Industry However, Altman emphasized that the AI industry, including OpenAI, should not lead the way in creating regulations governing the industry. Altman noted that the AI industry is engaged in extensive discussions worldwide, with conferences and policy papers commonplace. He stressed the importance of ongoing debate but emphasized the need to transition towards an action plan with global support in the coming years. OpenAI, a San Francisco AI startup, is a key player in the industry. Microsoft has invested billions in OpenAI, and the Associated Press has a deal allowing OpenAI access to its news archive. However, The New York Times has sued both OpenAI and Microsoft for using its stories without permission to train OpenAI's chatbots. READ ALSO: OpenAI Deleted Ban on Military Use of GPT, Swamped with Protesters Opposing AI and Military Involvement OpenAI's success has made Altman a prominent figure representing the generative AI's swift commercialization, sparking concerns about the potential risk this new technology may bring. The UAE's G42 Intelligence Risk The UAE, an autocratic federation of seven hereditary-ruled sheikhdoms, shows signs of such risk, where speech is strictly controlled, affecting the flow of accurate information, which AI programs like ChatGPT rely on to provide user answers. The Emirates also has G42, a firm in Abu Dhabi overseen by the country's influential national security adviser, which possesses what experts believe to be the world's top Arabic-language artificial intelligence model. The company has been accused of spying due to its association with a mobile app identified as spyware and has also faced allegations of secretly collecting genetic material from Americans for the Chinese government. G42 stated it would cut connections with Chinese suppliers due to American concerns. However, local concerns were not addressed during the discussion with Altman, moderated by the UAE's Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Omar al-Olama. Seeing AI as a Critical Part of the Future Altman expressed encouragement at schools' shift from fearing AI use in student papers to seeing it as essential for the future. However, he emphasized that AI is still in its early stages. Altman likened current AI technology to the first cellphone with a black-and-white screen, suggesting that improvements will come with time. He predicted that AI will be significantly better in a few years, and in a decade, it will be remarkable. RELATED ARTICLE: OpenAI "Plays Safe" on Infringement Lawsuits, Partners with Dozens of Publishers to License Content 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : Unsplash/ Patrick Campanale) A recent report by federal safety experts discovered significant problems with Boeing's safety culture, including a gap between senior management and other employees and a fear of retaliation when raising safety concerns. Boeing's Safety Standards Incident The report, requested by Congress, was completed by a panel of experts in March 2023 and released on Monday. It found gaps in Boeing's safety efforts and criticized the safety culture as "inadequate" and "confusing." The experts did not focus on Boeing incidents but examined broader safety standards following two fatal 737 Max 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 and years of headline-making issues. Worries escalated after a door panel made by Boeing on an Alaska Airlines plane blew out midair over Portland on January 5, prompting an emergency landing. Lack of Clear Communication on Safety Management Systems After reviewing thousands of Boeing documents and conducting over 250 employee interviews, it was discovered that not all employees fully understood the company's safety management systems. Employees at different work sites and groups also experienced confusion due to complex and frequently changing procedures and training. The panel discovered that after a restructuring in Boeing's Organization Designation Authorization unit, which allows the FAA to delegate powers to some company employees, the risk of interference or retaliation had decreased but still existed, especially concerning salary and furlough ranking. Report Highlighting Fear of Reporting Due to Retaliation The report revealed a fear of reporting safety concerns due to potential retaliation, as managers might investigate reports within their reporting chain, leading to a lack of impartiality in the process. Additionally, the report noted a lack of consistent and clear safety reporting channels within the business unit. Employees were not constantly updated on the outcomes of their reports, raising concerns on the panel that confusion about reporting systems could discourage employees from submitting safety concerns. Total Findings and Recommendations The panel also identified inadequate human factors and a lack of pilot input in aircraft design and operation that could impact aviation safety. In total, the panel made 27 findings and 53 recommendations, which the FAA stated it would carefully assess. READ MORE: FAA Faces Criticism Over Staffing Shortage and Close Calls Due to Overtime Fatigue The FAA stated on Monday that it will maintain Boeing to the highest safety standard and ensure comprehensive action on the recommendations. Boeing expressed support for the panel's review, saying they have made significant strides in promoting a safety culture that encourages all employees to speak up but acknowledges that there is more to be done. They added that they will thoroughly review the panel's assessment and use their findings to enhance their safety and quality programs further. Since 2019, Boeing has implemented numerous changes to enhance product safety, including forming an aerospace safety committee in August 2019 and introducing a safety management system, appointing a chief aerospace safety officer in January 2021, as well as appointing an Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) Ombudsperson in June 2022, which oversees and maintains consistency in the FAA's oversight program, according to its website. RELATED ARTICLE: FAA Imposes Mandatory Drug and Alcohol Testing for Foreign Aircraft-Repair Shop Workers, Affecting 65 Countries 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : Unsplash/Andrew Ling) Dollar Tree, Inc. announced that it has resolved with the Consumer Protection Branch (CPB) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding operations at Family Dollar's West Memphis, Arkansas distribution center. The Largest Penalty of The FDA Family Dollar Stores was told to pay $41.6 million for using a rodent-infested warehouse to distribute food, cosmetics, and medical devices to over 400 Southern stores. The Justice Department stated that the most significant penalty of its kind follows a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation that discovered live and decaying rodents, rodent feces, and urine, along with gnawing and nesting evidence at Family Dollar's West Memphis distribution center. With 8,000 stores in 46 states and acquired by Dollar Tree in 2015, the company admitted guilt to one misdemeanor count of storing goods under unsanitary conditions in a federal court in Little Rock on Monday. The department noted it as the largest U.S. food safety case fine. Family Dollar Stores and Dollar Tree agreed to meet "robust" corporate reporting guidelines for three years as part of the plea deal. Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer stated that consumers expect clean, uncontaminated food and drugs on store shelves when going to stores. The Long-Standing Mouse and Pest Issues at Family Dollar Stores The plea agreement mentioned that in August 2020, the company was informed about "mouse and pest issues," but deliveries continued to 404 stores across several states, including Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The company admitted that some employees knew in January 2021 that the warehouse conditions were unlawful. READ ALSO: Fashion Brand Shein Issue: Stories Reveal Child Labor Practices, Bad Working Conditions However, it persisted in shipping goods from the warehouse until January 2022, when the FDA's investigation uncovered the full extent of the infestation. Following the fumigation of the building, exterminators discovered 1,270 dead mice, according to the DOJ. It was not until February 18, 2022, that all food, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices from the warehouse were recalled. Attorney Jonathan D. Ross expressed disbelief that Family Dollar kept shipping unsafe and unsanitary products despite knowing about rodent and pest issues at its Arkansas distribution center, adding that selling these types of products intentionally not only places the public's health at risk but erodes consumers' trust in the products they purchase. Dollar Tree's Commitment Moving Forward Dollar Tree stated it cooperated with the DOJ's probe and is updating safety measures. Dollar Tree CEO Rick Dreiling, who assumed his role in March 2022, mentioned, "We are continuing to move forward on our business transformation, safety procedures, and compliance initiatives." Dreiling mentioned that since then, and particularly after taking on the CEO role, they have diligently worked to aid Family Dollar in resolving the issue and improving their policies, procedures, and facilities to prevent a recurrence. The company intends to return to the West Memphis location by fall, investing $100 million to enhance distribution and create 300 jobs. RELATED ARTICLE: Walmart to Remodel 650 Stores Next Year, Plans to Add 150 More Over Next 5 Years 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Two Columbus police officers involved in the fatal shooting of a local teenager are on leave pending a grand jury. Officers were conducting a welfare check on Feb. 6, as previously reported by the Nebraska State Patrol. During the encounter, a Columbus police officer discharged their duty weapon, striking the teenager. Another officer deployed a Taser. The 17-year-old died at the scene, according to the news release. The State Patrol named the teen, although the Telegram is declining to name him at this time. Neither police officer's identity has been publicly disclosed. State statute requires a grand jury review the findings of an investigation whenever a person dies while being apprehended or while in police custody. The Columbus Police Department has placed both officers involved on administrative leave. The department requested that the State Patrol investigate the incident, which is the typical procedure for officer-involved shootings, as is the grand jury component. The State Patrol said it would not release any additional information ahead of the grand jury. Nebraskas Smoke Advisory System has been activated for 2024. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services implemented the public smoke advisory system in 2018. Smoke advisories will be issued when conditions make it likely that the smoke from prescribed burning or wildfires could significantly affect air quality in parts of the state. The DHHS reminds Nebraskans that prescribed burning season is underway in Kansas, Oklahoma and other states in the region, including Nebraska. Smoke from wildfires in the west and Canada, which have occurred often in the recent past, also can compromise the air quality in Nebraska. Advisories are developed in partnership with the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy (NDEE), DHHS, local health departments and districts, and information provided by other sources in the region. Impacts on air quality may vary based on the type, size, and location of fires. Impacts from prescribed burning may only last a few hours. Wildfire smoke can be persistent over consecutive days. Many factors, including weather conditions, affect the magnitude and duration of air quality impacts. If state and local agencies determine that smoke is likely to significantly impact the air quality in Nebraska, DHHS and NDEE will issue a joint advisory to share the information with the public. Advisories will be based on data provided by multiple sources in the region including the National Weather Service, as well as smoke plume modeling and data from air quality monitors located in Omaha, Bellevue, Lincoln, Beatrice, Grand Island, and Scottsbluff. Advisories will be posted on the NDEE website at http://dee.ne.gov/NDEQProg.nsf/OnWeb/AirSA, the DHHS website at http://dhhs.ne.gov/pages/news-releases.aspx and on NDEE and DHHS Facebook and Twitter accounts. In addition to advisories from DHHS and NDEE, the Lincoln-Lancaster Health Department and the Douglas County Health Department may also issue information to advise citizens of air quality impacts in their jurisdictions. Smoke can cause health problems, including burning eyes, runny nose, coughing and illnesses such as bronchitis. Individuals with respiratory issues, such as asthma or COPD, pre-existing heart or lung diseases, along with children and the elderly may experience more severe symptoms. How Nebraskans can protect their health on days when smoke is present in their communities: Keep doors and windows closed and run air conditioners with HEPA filters. Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water. Limit or avoid strenuous outdoor exercise. People with respiratory or heart-related illnesses should remain indoors. Contact your doctor if you have symptoms such as chest pain, chest tightness, shortness of breath, or severe fatigue. For current conditions of Nebraska's air quality and tomorrow's forecast, visit: airnow.gov/. Coincheck Partners with Circle; USDCs First Japan Listing Close? Circle, USDCs issuer, has struck a partnership deal with Coincheck, one of Japans biggest crypto exchanges with a view to securing the stablecoins first listing in the nation. Per a Coincheck press release, the Japanese firm said that it had taken steps toward handling USDC. Circle, USDC Aiming for Japanese Success Circle claimed that Coincheck was planning to expand access to its USD-pegged coin. The Japanese firm is run by Monex Group, a major securities firm that in December last year bought a majority stake in the 3iQ platform. However, regulatory obstacles still stand in the tokens way. Japanese crypto exchanges have yet to list any major USD-backed coins. Regardless, fiat-pegged coins like USDC and USDT enjoy considerable popularity throughout Asia. To list a coin, exchanges must obtain Electronic Payment Instrument Services registration from regulators under the terms of the Japanese Payment Services Act. We are thrilled that @coincheckjp is planning to expand access to $USDC to Japan! This marks a significant milestone in bringing the stability of USDC to Japan, and is a strategic expansion for USDC in Asia. Read more about the collaboration here: https://t.co/DOdOxe1LgT pic.twitter.com/t93fYPoEl5 Circle (@circle) February 27, 2024 But in recent months, Japanese regulators appear to have relaxed their stance on crypto regulation. Exchanges have added an increasing number of altcoins to their platforms. The government has also backed Japanese firms in their own stablecoin bids. This has given rise to projects like megabank Mitsubishi UFJs plans to provide B2B stablecoin issuing services. A Coincheck official said that the platform recognizes that domestic crypto asset users have high expectations for the handling of stablecoins. The company added: We expect stablecoins to be used as a settlement currency in the purchase and sale of cryptoassets and NFTs. This will likely lead to an increase in the trading volume of NFTs. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his government have previously identified Japans NFT sector as a growth engine for Japan. The government has also unveiled plans to relax rules surrounding the way VC firms can invest in crypto companies. The Japanese exchange added that being able to take a step toward handling USDC was of great significance to our company and our customers. USD-backed Stablecoins Ready to Take Off in Japan? Dai Matsumoto, the CEO of Coincheck, said: We are excited to bring USDC, the global standard for stablecoin tokens, to Japan. We look forward to working with Jeremy [Allaire, the Co-founder and CEO of Circle] and the Circle team. Together, we plan to further develop Japans crypto market and blockchain ecosystem. Allaire said that Circles partnership with Coincheck would be the foundation for building USDCs stability and credibility in the Japanese market. He concluded: Today A mix of clouds and sun. High near 55F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. Tonight Mostly clear. Widespread frost likely. Low 29F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. Tomorrow A mainly sunny sky. High 58F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Weather Alert ...INCREASED FIRE DANGER FOR THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING... After coordination with local land managers, a Fire Danger Statement has been issued for Alleghany, Surry and Wilkes Counties in northwest North Carolina. In these affected areas, gusty afternoon winds will coincide with low humidity and dry fuels. Fire will have an easier time starting and spreading. Refer to your local burn-permitting authority on whether you may burn today. If you do burn, exercise extreme caution. 02/27/2024 JSU students joined a thousand of their peers at the Alabama State House on Feb. 22 for Higher Education Day. Photo courtesy of the Higher Education Partnership. Alabamas universities shape the states economy and must be supported," said Gordon Stone, executive director of the Higher Education Partnership, which organizes the event. "Our more than 180,000 students are valuable to the states thriving economy.The day began with a parade demonstrating the unique spirit of each of the state's public universities, including a marching band, banners, flags, mascots and students. SGA leaders from each university signed a statewide pledge as a collective show of strength and delivered their message to Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth during lunch on the lawn of the State Capitol.During lunch, attendees heard from key decision makers across the state, including Lt. Gov. Ainsworth, both majority and minority party leadership in the House and Senate, the chairs of the states budget committees and other key legislative leaders. The event empowered students and other university leaders to voice their support for higher education to legislators."Out of all three years I have attended, this year was very special because I was gifted the opportunity by the other SGA presidents to serve as the University Student Presidents Council chairwoman," said JSU SGA President Tierra Thatch. "This allowed me to speak in front of all of our 14 public universities, lieutenant governor, state senators and representatives about how amazing higher education is and share my story on why JSU should be poured into and advocated for along with the other 13 universities."Each year, Higher Education Day reminds state leaders that Alabama universities provide more than an education - they prepare the future leaders of the state, improve quality of life and bond the fiber of the states economy. Through countless degree programs, Alabamas public universities equip graduates with the necessary skills, experience and credentials to embark on careers and impact the world.Serving more than 180,000 students, Alabamas universities are directly involved in workforce development and career training through hands-on instruction, groundbreaking research and innovation, and world-class learning opportunities both inside and outside the classroom. Those with a bachelor's degree make, on average, $1 million more over the course of their careers than those without a degree.As Alabama prepares to build a landscape that is competitive in the knowledge-based economy of the future, it is crucial to empower universities to train and equip graduates with the skills to compete for the best jobs and to lead in the future, Stone said. Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) Michigan rebuked President Joe Biden on Tuesday for his unstinting support of the extremist Israeli governments total war against Gaza. A movement for voting uncommitted in the Democratic primary in that state has been led by Arab American and Muslim American activists in Wayne County and the city of Dearborn. According to Elena Moore at NPR, tens of thousands voted uncommitted. If 15% do so, they would get a delegate at the Chicago convention this summer. In any case, Arab Americans and Muslim Americans are pledging to go to the Chicago conference to make their voices heard. The effort was not only joined by Americans of MENA (Middle East and North African) heritage but by youth voters and some members of other minorities. NPR notes, As of 2020, there were over 200,000 registered voters in Michigan who identified as Muslim, and over 300,000 Michiganders identify as Middle Eastern or North African, according to data from the U.S. Census. Democracy Now! Video: Moral Failure: Democrats Urge Biden to Change Gaza Policy Bidens campaign thought it would be a good idea to put him on Late Night with Seth Meyers, apparently to appeal to the youth vote. Meyers, however, does less well with the youth audience (the key demographic) than any of the three late night shows that precede his, helmed by Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert. It was not a pretty picture. Biden thought it would be a good idea to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian refugees from Rafah in preparation for yet another Israel ground operation, planned apparently for April after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Bidens main concern with the slaughter of innocents in Gaza seemed to be that it would cost Israel support in Europe and around the world, not that 12,450 children have had their lives snuffed out by what Biden admits has been indiscriminate Israeli bombing. There was no emotion in the man, no drop of the milk of human kindness. He bought the false narrative that this destruction of most of the buildings in Gaza, including schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, community centers, and residential apartment buildings was necessary because Hamas was using civilians as a shield. The rate of death among innocent noncombatants in Gaza has exceeded that of any war fought in this century. The Israeli war plan is that of amoral monsters, which is not surprising given that the corrupt Netanyahu brought full blown fascists into his government. If a terrorist group was operating in Tel Aviv, would anyone in the US or Europe think the logical response was to destroy Tel Aviv? Then he again delivered himself of his announcement that he is a Zionist and that without Israel, no Jew in the world would be safe. There are so many things wrong with this wretched sentiment. First of all, the 6.3 million Jews in the United States ought to be assured of their safety by the President of the United States, not by a foreign country. Second, Israels militant policies detract from everyones safety, including that of Jews. But third, if it is true that the worlds 15.7 million Jews need a state to safeguard them, then surely the worlds 14.3 million Palestinians deserve a state to keep them safe. But they dont have one. Of the 14.3 million, some 6 million in the occupied territories and Lebanon have no citizenship at all they are stateless, without the right to have rights. Even those with citizenship rights in Israel and Jordan are second-class citizens. Late Night with Seth Meyers Video: President Joe Biden Addresses Concerns Over His Age and Shares His 2024 Agenda Biden has given billions of dollars to Israel on his theory that it is necessary to the security of Jews, including apparently American Jews. But he has done no more than pay useless lip service to the achievement of a Palestinian state. His State Departments main project in the Middle East has been to entice Saudi Arabia to join Jared Kushners Abraham Accords, which completely marginalizes the Palestinians. In fact, when the Israeli parliament voted last week to never, ever allow a Palestinian state, Biden was completely silent on it. In its Middle East policy, the Biden administration has been Trump 2.0, from the continuation of the economic and financial blockade on Iran to the Abraham scam. You understand how MENA Americans find it difficult to vote for this. The argument that Trump is worse is true and most of them would admit it. But voting is an intimate, personal, act wrought up in a persons identity, and you cant expect people who view someone as a genocidaire to vote for that individual in their eyes theyd be complicit. There is an argument that Biden has been an unexpectedly effective domestic president, with good economic performance and advances in green energy. That is also true. But if youve lived the Gaza genocide with video on social media for nearly 5 months, it throws those things into the shade. A man who would permit that butchery just isnt a good man. Some are already blaming MENA Americans for a potential Biden loss and a return of Trump to the White House. That is ridiculous. Over a third of Americans dont even bother to vote in presidential elections. In 2020, the World Population Review notes, the number of eligible voters in the US was over 231 million people. Of these, approximately 168 million registered to vote, and 154 million actually cast a vote in the 2020 presidential election. So instead of blaming 4 million Muslim Americans, maybe Democrats should try to get some of those 63 million unregistered Americans registered and bring them, and the 14 million non-voting registered voters to the polls with policies that someone might be enthusiastic about rather than policies that make you want to throw up every morning when you see the news. Japan Positioned as Global Leader in Compliant Crypto Payments, Says Report Japan is a global leader in compliant crypto payment services, according to a report published today by independent finance news outlet FinanceFeeds. The conclusion comes off the back of an announcement by Japanese Web3 payments app Slash that it has facilitated a total of more than $10,000,000 in transactions between 3,000 merchants. Slash is a compliant payments app because it addresses Japans stringent requirements for crypto service providers. The app only permits crypto-to-crypto swaps, not crypto-to-fiat, so people do most of their buying with stablecoins. In this way, Slash gets around a prohibitive taxation policy of 55% on miscellaneous income, the current legal category used to regulate cryptocurrencies in Japan. The company has ambitious plans in the near-term too. Later this year, it will launch a credit card linked to app users digital wallets that will further facilitate large-scale compliant adoption of crypto throughout the country. Many of the countrys top retailers accept Bitcoin as tender, including the department store chain Marui, leading electronics retailer Yamada Denki, and e-commerce giant Mercari, which accepts Bitcoin on its flea market app. Japan Embraces Crypto Japanese lawmakers have overall welcomed cryptocurrencies as an important part of fintech development. Both the central bank and the Financial Services Agency have given clear guidance to businesses using blockchain elements like stablecoins and DAOs. The country has heavily regulated stablecoins. Only banks, trust companies and money transmission services can issue them and all reserves underpinning the value of the stoken have to be held in Japanese trust and invested only in domestic bank accounts. Earlier this month, authorities for the city of Kochi signed a deal to virtualize the city on the Japanese Start Land metaverse application. It hopes to receive its first online tourists later this summer. An official release from the Ministry of Economy in the middle of the month hinted that there may be an upcoming rule change in the country that will let VC firms hold crypto, a crucial part of investing in the industry. And in the last week Japanese financial mega firms Mitsubishi UFJ, Rakuten, and Mizuho announced theyre launching a tokenized bond, a form of loan from investors that will pay out interest in crypto. Yesterday, USDC issuer Circle announced it has partnered with domestic exchange Coincheck to secure the stablecoins first listing in Japan. (Tomdispatch.com ) We Americans have been at war now since October 7th, 2001. That was when our military first launched air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to al-Qaedas September 11th terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Thats 22 years and counting. The war on terror that began then would forever change what it meant to be an Arab-American here at home, while ending the lives of more than 400,000 civilians and still counting! in South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. In the days after those September 11th attacks, the U.S. would enjoy the goodwill and support of countries around the world. Only in March 2003, with our invasion of Saddam Husseins Iraq, would much of the world begin to regard us as aggressors. Does that sound like any other armed conflict youve heard about recently? What it brings to my mind is, of course, Israels response to the October 7th terror assault by the Islamic militant group Hamas on its border areas, which my country and much of the rest of the world roundly condemned. Many Americans now see the destruction and suffering in Gaza and Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank as the crises of the day and I agree. Its hard even to keep up with the death toll in the Palestinian territories, but you can certainly give it a college try. More than 29,000 Gazans have already been killed, more than 12,000 of them reportedly children. The scale of the loss of civilian life has been breathtaking in what are supposed to be targeted missions. For example, in mid-February, in an ostensible attempt to free two Israeli hostages in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where more than one million civilians are now sheltering under the worst conditions imaginable, Israeli troops killed 74 Palestinians. Between December 2023 and January 2024, four strikes there had already killed at least 95 civilians. And on and on it goes. Anyone with concerns about Israels response to Hamass bloody attacks has ground to stand on. But if war deaths among people of color in particular are really that much of a concern to Americans, especially on the political left, then there are significant gaps in our attention. Look at whats happening in the 85 countries where the U.S. is currently engaged in counterterrorism efforts of one sort or another, where we fight alongside local troops, train or equip them, and conduct intelligence operations or even air strikes, all of it in an extension of those first responses to 9/11. Ask yourself if youve paid attention to that lately or if you were even aware that it was still happening. Do you have any idea, for instance, that our countrys military continues to pursue its war on terror across significant parts of Africa? Given Israels October 7th tragedy, my mention of that date in 2001, which marked Washingtons first military response to the worst terrorist attacks on our soil, is more than a play on words. Like Israel, the U.S. was attacked by armed Islamic extremists who sought to make gruesome spectacles of ordinary Americans. Some of them, like the Israeli families smoked out of their saferooms only to be shot, flung themselves from their office buildings in New Yorks Twin Towers, essentially choosing the least awful deaths under the circumstances. Yet after decades of Americas war on terror, whose benefits have been, to say the least, questionable, our tax dollars continue to fund the longest and bloodiest response to terrorism in our history. Our own October 7th and its seemingly never-ending consequences suggest that something more sinister may be at play in shaping what violence we choose to focus on and condemn, and what violence we choose to overlook. An International Smorgasbord of Killings Too little ink is spilled anymore objecting to the hundreds of thousands of civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen who died in our global war on terror and, of course, those are just some of the countries where weve fought in these years. Consider, for example, how we continue to arm and train Somali government troops in their deadly counterinsurgency war. And remember that the war on terror, as it still plays out, isnt just President Bidens war, though he has indeed continued it (though in 2021, he did at least get us out of the longest-running part of it in Afghanistan). Remember as well when you condemn the Israelis for what theyre doing that, thanks to American bombs and missiles, civilians in our own post-October 7, 2001, war zones died as they slept at home, studied, or shopped at marketplaces. Some were run over by our vehicles. Some died in NATO air strikes or in strikes by unmanned American drones, or in fires that erupted in the aftermath of such bombing and shelling. Some were run off the road, gunned down at checkpoints, blown up by bomblets left over from our use of cluster bombs, tortured or executed in U.S.-run prisons, or raped by occupying American troops. Here are just a few examples: In 2012, an American soldier in Afghanistan shot dead 16 civilians, nine of them children, as they slept in their homes. This was anything but the first such incident of civilian targeting and would be anything but the last. In 2017, after then-President Donald Trump loosened Obama-era air strike restrictions meant to help protect civilians, the U.S. conducted more individually identifiable drone strikes than in any other year except 2012 under yes! President Barack Obama. One January 2017 raid that killed more than a dozen opposition fighters in Yemen also killed Saudi and Yemeni civilians, among them children as young as eight years old. In 2021, two Yemeni families filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the unlawful deaths of 34 relatives, including nine children, in U.S. drone strikes between 2013 and 2018, seeking recognition of harm done by the U.S. and its allies. Given that the Pentagon lacks a centralized system for tracking civilian casualties in places where our forces fight and no system at all in areas like Israel where the U.S. only provides military aid, recognition of such horrors has been a rare commodity. Each time I write about such examples of how, in those years, my country slaughtered civilians, I need to do something like pet my cat or hug my children. Thats how much hurt I feel, especially as a military spouse, when I think about it. I always remember scholar Elaine Scarrys insight that having to explain how war kills people (not just opposing forces but civilians, too!) ought to unsettle us. Only recently, just a few months late, President Biden did indeed finally caution that Israel needed to come up with a credible plan to protect civilians before sending its troops into the Gazan city of Rafah, and it certainly should have been a laudable message about preserving life. Unfortunately, it ignored the fact that, when they do so, theyll be using American weaponry and that funding war anyones war necessarily means endorsing civilian deaths. Selective Reckoning on Armed Conflict I wonder sometimes how many of the Americans now protesting Israels incursions into Gaza have ever spoken up about our own countrys endless wars in this century and the human toll thats gone with them. I suspect most Americans dont even realize that our war on terror is still ongoing (and younger ones may know little or nothing about what we actually did in all those post-2001 years). Perhaps such apathy can be attributed in part to the sense of righteous purpose that was first associated with launching a war in Afghanistan on that all-American October 7th of ours, while planning to democratize that country and rid women, in particular, of the Talibans oppressive rule. Then came our disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, based on President George W. Bushs spurious claims that its ruler, Saddam Hussein, possessed weapons of mass destruction and the initial protests of so many Americans responding to the grim, if flashy, optics of those first air strikes on Baghdad with countrywide protests that soon faded away. After that, most Americans stopped paying attention to our ongoing mobilization of troops to send abroad, the slow-motion destruction of entire communities in distant lands, and the creation of an estimated 38 million refugees from those conflicts. A case in point: When I do a Google search of the words Israel, Gaza civilians killed, I get notice of 13 million articles written on the subject since October 7th of last year. When, however, I search for War on Terror, civilians killed without even circumscribing the time range, I get about 850,000 results. Part of the problem undoubtedly lies in semantics and search-engine logistics. After all, in some sense, there was no such thing as the war on terror but instead the war in Iraq, in Somalia, in Pakistan, in Syria, and so on. A framing of our foreign wars that called more attention to the specifics might still focus our attention on the policymakers across the political spectrum who continue to vote for bloated military budgets and all the global destruction that goes with them. Caring About the Costs of All Wars Is it possible that one factor in the objections of some Americans to Israels war in Gaza isnt just the ongoing nightmare of civilian deaths, but also a distaste for the nation and people prosecuting this particular war? Consider that the incidence of anti-Semitic attacks and threats on U.S. soil has exponentially risen in recent years, spiking especially dramatically in the months following the start of Israels war, or consider the recent mealy-mouthed responses of the leaders of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT to whether calls for the genocide of Jews should be censured on university campuses, or what is reportedly happening at some of the nations most highly ranked social-work schools where certain Jewish students have claimed not to feel safe when some of their peers call them colonizers. (When I was in social work school in 2017, I heard a Jewish student told in class that she was demonstrating white fragility in speaking up about her familys experiences of anti-Semitism in this country.) In light of such examples, its easy for me to see why a double standard might be applied here to the Jewish state and the U.S. one and, more to the point, in the wake of a rash of anti-Semitic verbal threats, physical attacks, and harassment, its striking how readily so many Americans now blame Israelis generally for the war perpetrated by that countrys right-wing government, but not Americans for our wars, which most of us know all too little about. Whats more, we shouldnt forget that part of what shaped Israels very formation was the refusal of the U.S. government to take in Jewish refugees before, during, or after the Holocaust. In the wake of World War II, many Jews needed a safe place to go, so a place needed to be made for them. Dont think, by the way, that Im suggesting we should stop holding Israel accountable for war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. We shouldnt. Not for a second. But Im suggesting that if we care about peace in the Middle East, then we need to focus as well on this countrys foreign policy and the racism that shapes it. If we really care about the costs of war, then we need to be equal-opportunity critics and consider not only the most highly reported conflict of the moment but also the chronic ones fought, whether we realize it or not, distinctly in our names. Among other tasks, that means we need to think through the long-term consequences of policies that began under the Trump administration, which elevated Israels standing in Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and exacerbated Palestinian-Israeli tensions long before the Hamas attack of October 7th. Its also important that we ask ourselves what it means for us to agitate for an Israeli ceasefire (as well we should!) when, since our own October 7th, our wars overseas have largely been protected by American silence and so complicity. Otherwise, its likely that progressives and moderates alike will continue to be divided by whatever conflict rules the day in our capricious mainstream mediasphere, rather than speaking with one voice about the costs of war and how they drain our economy and our culture. Copyright 2024 Andrea Mazzarino Tomdispatch.com Development Intersects Mineralization Along Continuous Strike of >130M With Best Individual Channels Grading 20.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 9.6m 21.0 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 7.0m 23.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 5.6m TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Jaguar Mining Inc. ("Jaguar" or the "Company") (TSX:JAG) (OTCQX:JAGGF) is pleased to announce that exploration access development on the level 15.2 elevation in the BA-Torre structure of its Pilar mine in Brazil has intersected and confirmed extensive high-grade mineralization, previously intersected in exploration diamond drill holes announced in the first half of 2023.Jaguar believes that this area could positively affect the Pilar mine's future production capacity. Vern Baker, President and CEO of Jaguar Mining stated "Based on follow-up exploration work conducted through the second half of 2023 and to date, we believe that we have identified a new mining horizon at Pilar, with the BA-Torre structure showing significant continuity of higher-grading mineralized material, which extends below and above level-15 elevation. This area has the potential to be a game changer for the Pilar mine. We are showing an area with numerous drill holes and development on one horizontal level. This area is quite interesting for its potential, which we are eager to quantify as we develop official resources or reserves." In early 2023, Jaguar reported (see Press Release dated February 21, 2023) a high-grade diamond drilling intercept in hole PPL850 on the BA-Torre structure grading 42.35 g/t Au (uncut) over an estimated true width of 3.2m within a broader zone grading 20.93 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 10.0m on the level 16 elevation (-200m AMSL). A subsequent follow-up diamond drill hole PPL1011B was completed in the second quarter of 2023 targeting the up-plunge projection of the hole-PPL850 intersection on level 15 elevation (the level with closest development). This second hole also intersected strong mineralization grading 6.86 g/t over an estimated true width of 10.5m, including 14.45 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 3.5m. Access development was initiated in the third quarter of 2023 to intercept the impact location of hole PPL 1011B. This development drift traversed strong Banded Iron Formation (BIF) hosted mineralization over a continuous strike length of 130m. Channel sample grades reported from this development are more than double Pilars average channel sample grades and over widths greater than 4m (mean sample* value 9.01 g/t Au (uncut) or 6.22 g/t Au (top cut applied to samples > 15g/t) over a mean channel width of 6.15m) (*all samples). The best individual channel results are presented below. 20.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 9.6m 21.0 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 7.0m 23.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 5.6m Exploratory and follow-up diamond drilling completed subsequent to the first high-grade impacts mentioned above have also reported high-grade intercepts within the BA-Torre structure, both up-and down-plunge of the initial drill intercepts and include the following best intersections: 21.18 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 2.0m in hole PPL 1042 12.36 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 2.0m in hole PPL 1044 7.39 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 3.9m in hole PPL 1044 7.17 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 8.2m also in hole PPL 1044 Vern Baker, President and CEO of Jaguar Mining added: "The geologic team at Pilar has done a great job of defining a target, putting holes in that target and getting our full team excited and focused on this new opportunity. The results currently show 200 vertical meters of plunge extent with potential to expand up-plunge 400 vertical meters and it is still unknown how far down-plunge. We have developed on level 15-2 some 130 meters of continuous strike length in the mineralized structure with channel sample grades well over what we are experiencing in our current ore structures. The BA-Torre structure represents a significant opportunity to provide mineral resources both above and below our current development. The structure is close to our current mining areas and infrastructure, providing the opportunity to develop both up and down-plunge. As we go deeper, below Level 18, we plan to have a single ramp for access to both the BA-Torre and the BF structures. Diamond drilling to date shows 200 vertical meters of structure with excellent grades. Our best intercept (20.93 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 10m) is 60 meters below our current access on level 15-2. While a significant expansion in Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources is probably a year out, we expect to see our first test mining later in the first quarter. Our development on a single horizon has already sent almost 1,900 ounces to the surface which would indicate the potential for a 60-meter level to produce well over 20,000 ounces. We are excited about the potential of this structure and expect it to add a vital new production area for Pilar and for our company in 2024. I would like to specifically thank Tiago Pedro de Souza, a talented geologist on our team, for his perseverance in finding this opportunity for Jaguar." Historically, the BA-Torre structure was the main producing ore-zone at Pilar from higher levels in the mine above level 7. Below level 7, mineralization on the BA-Torre structure diminished in terms of grade and thickness. At that time the focal point of mining became the nearby BF structure which has been and remains the main source of production down to current mining levels (levels 15 and 16). The re-appearance of high grades within the BA-Torre structure on level 15 and 16, currently being extended by additional diamond drilling, provides the Pilar operation with real potential to improve production in a relatively short time period. The new BA-Torre zone provides significant upside potential both up-plunge (above level 15 to level 7) and down-plunge below level 15 to depth. Recent high-grade diamond drill intersections within the BA-Torre structure and development highlight strong mineralization and grades over a continuous strike length of some 130m. Figure 1 - Long Section showing the Pilar mine underground layout and the relative position of the main orebodies. Please note the large percentage of mined production in the shallow levels of the mine attributed to the BA-Torre structure (red) which switches over with depth to the BF structure (in green) from level 8 to level 16). Figure 2 - Schematic view of the Pilar mine geology highlighting the folded BIF which controls the majority of the gold mineralization along its strike and the location of the high-grade exploration diamond drilling intersections. The BA-Torre structure on level 15-2 is conveniently located near existing infrastructure. Figure 3 - Long sectional view showing the location of access development to evaluate the BA-Torre structure on level 15-2 and the best diamond drill mineralized intersections reported in this press release and previously in the press release dated February 21, 2023 (original holes in white-background boxes/recent and current holes shown with yellow-background boxes). Table 1 - Diamond drilling intersections with grade x thickness (GT) > 25 between level 14 and level 17 targeting the BA-Torre structure. Complete drilling data in this area is tabulated in Figure (Appendix). Figure 4 - Plan view showing the location of access development to evaluate the BA-Torre structure on level 15.2 and location of the next figure (figure 5). Figure 5 - Plan view of level 15.2 access development composite channel sampling results and geological map. Results show a continuous 130m strike length of high-grade mineralization with average sample grade of 9.21 g/t Au (uncut) or 6.16 g/t Au (with a top cut applied to samples > 15 g/t Au) over an average full channel width of 6.15m. Table 2 - Individual channel sampling results reported with grade x thickness > 25. All Individual channel sample results are tabulated in Table 3 (Appendix 1). Channel Summary of channel intersections From (m) To (m) Channel Interval (m) ETW (m) Gold Grade (g/t Au) GT (ETW) Orebody SBF11051 0 4.9 4.9 4.4 16.4 72 BA SBF11104 0 6.8 6.8 5.8 7.5 43 BA SBF11206 0 5.8 5.8 5.8 6.6 38 BA SBF11028 0 6.2 6.2 5.1 9.5 48 BA SBF11068 0 6.7 6.7 6.7 7.0 47 BA SBF11088 0 4.6 4.6 4.6 6.4 29 BA SBF11103 0 5.0 5.0 5.0 9.7 49 BA SBG11019 0 8.5 8.5 7.0 21.0 147 BA SBG11020 0 7.3 7.3 7.3 12.9 94 BA SBG11067 0 2.7 2.7 2.7 16.5 44 BA SBG11045 0 13.9 13.9 9.6 20.2 194 BA SBF11117 0 6.9 6.9 6.9 9.9 68 BA SBF11121 0 6.7 6.7 6.02 8.4 51 BA SBF11165 0 3.88 3.88 3.88 11.6 45 BA SBF11166 0 6.87 6.87 6.87 10.6 73 BA SBF11173 0 6.01 6.01 4.51 19.8 89 BA SBF11219 0 6.28 6.28 6.28 7.1 44 BA SBF11207 0 7.0 7.0 7.0 9.6 67 BA SBF11196 0 7.1 7.1 7.1 15.9 114 BA SBF11197 0 5.6 5.6 5.6 23.2 130 BA Table 3 - Summary of composite (block) channel sampling results along a 130m strike section of the BA-Torre level 15.2 access development. Block ETW Average (m) Gold Grade (g/t Au) Top Cut >15g/t Gold Grade (g/t Au) Uncut Length 1 5.6 5.6 6.2 35 2 5.2 7.3 12.1 30 3 5.6 5.1 7.3 35 4 6.5 6.3 9.6 30 Geological Description The high-grade gold mineralization is hosted by a well-developed layer of BIF as outlined by detailed geological mapping of development faces exposed in the access crosscut on level 15.2 (Figures 4 and 5). The BIF is comprised of both carbonate and silicate facies, surrounded by undifferentiated metavolcanic and sedimentary schists. The highest grades are associated with hydrothermal alteration (quartz-sericite-chlorite-carbonate) and 5-15% of semi-massive to disseminated coarse subhedral grains of Arsenopyrite and subsidiary Pyrrhotite. The BIF exposures show a succession of overturned folds (synform-antiform pairs), with fold axes plunging to the south at medium to low angles. Figure 6 - Section of photographs from the access development in level 15.2 BA mineralized zone. A) Thin carbonaceous phyllite layer folded by shear strain, surrounded by carbonate facies BIF package. B) BA mineralization chip sample. Hydrothermalite composed of chlorite, arsenopyrite and quartz. C) BA mineralization chip sample. Same as image B, showing the contact between the alteration zone and host BIF. D) Main mineralized interval on PPL1062, one of the recent drill holes targeting the BA mineralization. E) Coarse grains of arsenopyrite within altered BIF mineralization zone intersected in drillhole PPL1062. Figure 7 - Section of photographs from the access development in level 15.2 BA mineralized zone with individual sample grades. A) 19.55 g/t Au - Sample 89977 from channel SBF11173 showing high grade disseminated sulphides in sheared BIF. B) 28.22 g/t Au - Sample 90189 from channel SBF11196 showing high grade quartz and sulphide rich fold BIF close to a meter scale hinge zone. C) 7.34 g/t Au - Sample 90197 from channel SBF11197 showing silicified and sulphide rich BIF. D) 2.47 g/t Au - Sample 90493 from channel SBF11231 showing strongly sheared and altered BIF with abundant quartz fragments. Qualified Person Scientific and technical information contained in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Jonathan Victor Hill, BSc (Hons) (Economic Geology - UCT), FAUSIMM, Vice President Geology and Exploration, who is also an employee of Jaguar Mining Inc., and is a "qualified person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The Iron Quadrangle The Iron Quadrangle has been an area of mineral exploration dating back to the 16th century. The discovery in 1699-1701 of gold contaminated with iron and platinum-group metals in the southeastern corner of the Iron Quadrangle gave rise to the name of the town Ouro Preto (Black Gold). The Iron Quadrangle contains world-class multi-million-ounce gold deposits such as Morro Velho, Cuiaba, and Sao Bento. About Jaguar Mining Inc. Jaguar Mining Inc. is a Canadian-listed junior gold mining, development, and exploration company operating in Brazil with three gold mining complexes and a large land package with significant upside exploration potential from mineral claims. The Company's principal operating assets are in the Iron Quadrangle, a prolific greenstone belt in the state of Minas Gerais and include the Turmalina Gold Mine Complex and Caete Mining Complex (Pilar and Roca Grande Mines, and Caete Plant). The Company also owns the Paciencia Gold Mine Complex, which has been on care and maintenance since 2012. The Roca Grande Mine has been on temporary care and maintenance since April 2019. Additional information is available on the Company's website at www.jaguarmining.com. For further information please contact: Vernon Baker Chief Executive Officer Jaguar Mining Inc. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 416-847-1854 Alfred Colas Chief Financial Officer Jaguar Mining Inc. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 416-847-1854 Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's expectations and plans relating to the future. All of the forward-looking information made in this news release is qualified by the cautionary statements below and those made in our other filings with the securities regulators in Canada. Forward-looking information contained in forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "are expected," "is forecast," "is targeted," "approximately," "plans," "anticipates," "projects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "believe" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may," "could," "would," "might," or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, may be considered to be or include forward-looking information. This news release contains forward-looking information regarding, among other things, the duration of the temporary suspension of the Company's 2023 production guidance in ounces and costs, the expected future release of new guidance for 2023, the anticipated impact of planned changes in mining systems and cost cutting initiatives on the Company's future performance and production results, information related to expected sales, production statistics, ore grades, tonnes milled, recovery rates, cash operating costs, definition/delineation drilling, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, costs and timing of the development of projects and new deposits, success of exploration, development and mining activities, currency fluctuations, capital requirements, project studies, mine life extensions, restarting suspended or disrupted operations, continuous improvement initiatives, and resolution of pending litigation. The Company has made numerous assumptions with respect to forward-looking information contained herein, including, among other things, assumptions about the estimated timeline for the development of its mineral properties; the supply and demand for, and the level and volatility of the price of, gold; the accuracy of reserve and resource estimates and the assumptions on which the reserve and resource estimates are based; the receipt of necessary permits; market competition; ongoing relations with employees and impacted communities; political and legal developments in any jurisdiction in which the Company operates being consistent with its current expectations including, without limitation, the impact of any potential power rationing, tailings facility regulation, exploration and mine operating licenses and permits being obtained and renewed and/or there being adverse amendments to mining or other laws in Brazil and any changes to general business and economic conditions. Forward-looking information involves a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including among others: the risk of Jaguar not meeting the forecast plans regarding its operations and financial performance; uncertainties with respect to the price of gold, labour disruptions, mechanical failures, increase in costs, environmental compliance and change in environmental legislation and regulation, weather delays and increased costs or production delays due to natural disasters, power disruptions, procurement and delivery of parts and supplies to the operations; uncertainties inherent to capital markets in general (including the sometimes volatile valuation of securities and an uncertain ability to raise new capital) and other risks inherent to the gold exploration, development and production industry, which, if incorrect, may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the Company and described herein. In addition, there are risks and hazards associated with the business of gold exploration, development, mining and production, including environmental hazards, tailings dam failures, industrial accidents and workplace safety problems, unusual or unexpected geological formations, pressures, cave-ins, flooding, chemical spills, procurement fraud and gold bullion thefts and losses (and the risk of inadequate insurance, or the inability to obtain insurance, to cover these risks). Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking information made in this news release, see the Company's most recent Annual Information Form and Management's Discussion and Analysis, as well as other public disclosure documents that can be accessed under the issuer profile of "Jaguar Mining Inc." on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.com. The forward-looking information set forth herein reflects the Company's reasonable expectations as at the date of this news release and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Appendix 1 Table 4 - Channel Sample location, grade and interval data along selected blocks along 130m of access development, level 15.2 Pilar Mine, BA-Torre structure. Channel Location data Summary of channel intersections Easting (m) Northing (m) Elevation (m) Total Depth (m) Level From (m) To (m) Channel Interval (m) ETW (m) Gold Grade (g/t Au) GT (ETW) Orebody Block SBF11051 662942.0 7788161.2 -148.2 4.9 15/2 0 4.9 4.9 4.4 16.4 72 BA 1 SBF11069 662943.3 7788164.4 -148.2 7.6 15/2 0 7.6 7.6 6.2 2.1 13 BA 1 SBF11104 662944.5 7788168.3 -148.7 6.8 15/2 0 6.8 6.8 5.8 7.5 43 BA 1 SBF11118 662948.2 7788175.6 -147.6 5.9 15/2 0 5.9 5.9 5.9 1.4 8 BA 1 SBF11206 662946.8 7788181.2 -148.5 5.8 15/2 0 5.8 5.8 5.8 6.6 38 BA 1 SBF11028 662938.4 7788146.1 -148.7 6.2 15/2 0 6.2 6.2 5.1 9.5 48 BA 2 SBF11068 662935.7 7788143.9 -148.2 6.7 15/2 0 6.7 6.7 6.7 7.0 47 BA 2 SBF11080 662935.1 7788141.4 -148.7 4.6 15/2 0 4.6 4.6 4.6 2.6 12 BA 2 SBF11088 662935.9 7788136.0 -148.3 4.6 15/2 0 4.6 4.6 4.6 6.4 29 BA 2 SBF11103 662935.6 7788132.6 -148.1 5.0 15/2 0 5.0 5.0 5.0 9.7 49 BA 2 SBG11009 662938.3 7788159.2 -148.3 3.3 15/2 0 3.3 3.3 2.7 4.1 11 BA 2 SBG11019 662939.5 7788156.8 -148.4 8.5 15/2 0 8.5 8.5 7.0 21.0 147 BA 2 SBG11020 662934.4 7788153.5 -147.8 7.3 15/2 0 7.3 7.3 7.3 12.9 94 BA 2 SBG11067 662936.9 7788146.5 -148.6 2.7 15/2 0 2.7 2.7 2.7 16.5 44 BA 2 SBG11045 662937.9 7788160.4 -148.0 13.9 15/2 0 13.9 13.9 9.6 20.2 194 BA 2 SBG11026 662937.6 7788146.7 -147.9 2.1 15/2 0 2.1 2.1 2.1 8.2 18 BA 2 SBF11110 662935.7 7788129.4 -147.9 4.9 15/2 0 4.9 4.9 4.9 4.5 22 BA 3 SBF11117 662935.8 7788126.1 -147.9 6.9 15/2 0 6.9 6.9 6.9 9.9 68 BA 3 SBF11121 662942.8 7788124.1 -147.4 6.7 15/2 0 6.7 6.7 6.02 8.4 51 BA 3 SBF11124 662939.6 7788119.5 -147.0 6.1 15/2 0 6.1 6.1 6.1 2.7 16 BA 3 SBF11133 662944.2 7788114.8 -147.4 5.3 15/2 0 5.25 5.25 5.25 0.7 4 BA 3 SBF11158 662946.2 7788112.2 -147.6 6.3 15/2 0 6.31 6.31 6.31 0.6 4 BA 3 SBF11165 662951.2 7788111.8 -148.6 3.9 15/2 0 3.88 3.88 3.88 11.6 45 BA 3 SBF11166 662952.3 7788114.2 -148.6 6.9 15/2 0 6.87 6.87 6.87 10.6 73 BA 3 SBF11173 662957.0 7788110.3 -148.2 6.0 15/2 0 6.01 6.01 4.51 19.8 89 BA 3 SBF11236 662976.2 7788091.6 -147.8 8.2 15/2 0 8.2 8.2 6.09 1.0 6 BA 4 SBF11231 662973.7 7788090.3 -147.2 6.7 15/2 0 6.7 6.7 6.7 1.8 12 BA 4 SBF11219 662972.6 7788088.3 -147.0 6.3 15/2 0 6.28 6.28 6.28 7.1 44 BA 4 SBF11207 662964.2 7788095.5 -147.2 7.0 15/2 0 7.0 7.0 7.0 9.6 67 BA 4 SBF11196 662960.9 7788100.7 -147.1 7.1 15/2 0 7.1 7.1 7.1 15.9 114 BA 4 SBF11197 662961.9 7788100.5 -144.1 5.6 15/2 0 5.6 5.6 5.6 23.2 130 BA 4 Table 5 - Diamond Drilling Collar Coordinates, Azimuth and Dip, levels 14-17 BA-Torre structure. Table 6 - Complete Diamond Drill Hole data - Pilar Mine BA-Torre structure between level 14 and level 17. TORONTO, Feb. 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. (West Red Lake Gold or WRLG or the Company) (TSXV: WRLG) (OTCQB: WRLGF), is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with Raymond James Ltd. to act as sole bookrunner and lead agent, on behalf of a syndicate of agents (together, the Agents), in connection with a marketed best efforts private placement of units of the Company (each, a Unit) at a price of US$1,000 per Unit (the Offering Price) for gross proceeds of US$20,000,000 (the Offering). The Agents will have the option to sell up to an additional 15% of the Units offered, exercisable, in whole or in part, at any time up to 48 hours prior to the Closing Date (as defined below) to cover over-allotments, if any. Each Unit will contain gold-linked notes in the aggregate principal amount of US$1,000 (the Notes) and 710 common share purchase warrants (the Warrants). Each whole Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share of the Company (collectively, the Common Shares) at an exercise price of C$0.95 per share for a period of 60 months following the closing of the Offering. The Notes will represent senior unsecured obligations of the Company. The Notes will bear a 12% per annum coupon, calculated and payable quarterly in arrears, and will mature on December 31, 2029. Commencing January 1, 2026, the Company will cause gold to be placed in escrow on a quarterly basis into a gold trust account. The aggregate principal amount of Notes outstanding will be reduced by the Company on a quarterly basis, commencing on March 31, 2026, and with the final payment on December 31, 2029, in accordance with the payment schedule to be set forth in the indenture that will govern the Notes. The Notes will amortize based on a guaranteed floor price of US$1,800 per ounce of gold (the Floor Price). Any excess proceeds by which the gold price exceeds the Floor Price will be paid to investors as a premium. Frank Giustra, who holds 11.07% of the outstanding Common Shares, has indicated his intent to participate in the Offering by subscribing for 3,700 Units representing US$3.7 million in gross proceeds. The net proceeds of the Offering are expected to be used to continue to advance the development of a restart plan for the Madsen Gold Mine as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes. Shane Williams, CEO of West Red Lake Gold, commented, The Offering marks another key step in the financing process as we focus our efforts on the development of a derisked and robust restart plan for the Madsen Gold Mine while minimizing dilution to our shareholders. The Units may be offered: (i) in Canada, to accredited investors in each of the provinces and territories of Canada; (ii) in the United States, to qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) and accredited investors, as defined in Rule 144A(a)(1) and Rule 501(a) of Regulation D, respectively, under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act). The. The Units may be distributed in jurisdictions outside of Canada and the United States in such jurisdictions as the Company and the Agents may agree, where they may be lawfully sold on a basis exempt from the prospectus, registration and similar requirements of any such jurisdiction. All securities issued in connection with the Offering will be subject to a four-month and one day hold period from the Closing Date. Subject to meeting minimum listing requirements, the Company will use commercially reasonable efforts to list the Notes and Warrants following the statutory hold period. There can be no assurance that a listing for the Notes or the Warrants will be obtained. The Offering is expected to close on or about March 19, 2024 (the Closing Date), subject to customary closing conditions, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in the United States or in any other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements thereunder. ABOUT WEST RED LAKE GOLD MINES LTD. West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. is a mineral exploration company that is publicly traded and focused on advancing and developing its flagship Madsen Gold Mine and the associated 47 km2 highly prospective land package in the Red Lake district of Ontario. The highly productive Red Lake Gold District of Northwest Ontario, Canada has yielded over 30 million ounces of gold from high-grade zones and hosts some of the worlds richest gold deposits. WRLG also holds the wholly owned Rowan Property in Red Lake, with an expansive property position covering 31 km2 including three past producing gold mines Rowan, Mount Jamie, and Red Summit. ON BEHALF OF WEST RED LAKE GOLD MINES LTD. Shane Williams Shane Williams President & Chief Executive Officer FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Freddie Leigh Tel: (604) 609-6132 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the Companys website at https://www.westredlakegold.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. The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Certain information included in this press release constitutes forward-looking information under applicable securities legislation including statements relating to the Closing Date, the Company's ability to enter into a definitive agreement with the Agent, the future price of gold, Mr. Giustra participating in the Offering, the Company making a Change of Control offer for the Notes, and the intended use of proceeds and the expected closing date. Forward-looking information typically contains statements with words such as anticipate, believe, expect, plan, intend, estimate, propose, project, scheduled, will or similar words suggesting future outcomes or statements regarding an outlook. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the Company including, the Company and the Agent being able to agree to the terms of a definitive agreement, various factors that could affect the price of gold, Mr. Giustra s ability or desire to purchase Units in the Offering, the Company having the cash required to make a Change of Control offer, the Company satisfying various closing conditions on or before the proposed closing date and various market conditions that could alter the proposed use of proceeds. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. For more information on the Company, investors should review the Companys continuous disclosure filings that are available at www.sedarplus.ca. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Bayhorse Silver Inc (TSXV: BHS) (OTCQB: BHSIF) (FSE: 7KXN) (the "Company" or "Bayhorse") announces that it has received final Resistivity and Magnetic results of the recently completed Geotech Ltd. helicopter-borne VTEM and Horizontal Magnetic Gradiometer Geophysical Survey over its Bayhorse Silver Mine Property in Oregon and Idaho, USA. There are possibly two different mineralized targets on the newly acquired Idaho claims. A possibly Hercules Silver-type copper porphyry target marked by the strong minimal Resistivity results, and a Bayhorse Mine style silver rich massive sulphide target related to the strong magnetic signatures. The Idaho minimal Resistivity target in the SE corner of the survey is probably part of a circular anomaly that extends beyond the survey area. If the circularity is confirmed, it would have a diameter between 2,500 to 3,000 feet. (0.76 - 1.2 kilometers) and starting from 330 ft (100 meters) below surface, appears to extend to an indicated depth of 1,700 ft (525 meters) below surface. As low resistivity/highly conductive zones can outline metal deposits, and with the Bayhorse Property in Idaho having known surface copper staining over a wide area, it could indicate the presence of porphyry copper zone. A preliminary, confirmatory, drill program is being planned for this minimal Resistivity target. Figure 1: 3D representation of the low resistivity areas separated by the Snake River In the northern section of the Idaho property, three significant magnetic anomalies, within an area 1.8 km by 1.2 km (1.13 miles by 0.75 miles) in size underlies the acquired ground. Dr. Clay Conway, P.Geol., has mapped rhyolite-hosted mineralization east of the Snake River in the area underlain by the magnetic anomalies; this raises the possibility that another Bayhorse Silver deposit may be found. During the recent staking of the Idaho property, surface sampling was conducted at the historic pits and dumps, and more copper-stained surface exposures were identified. This work will form part of a further comprehensive mapping program. The Hercules Silver property lies 44 km northeast of the Bayhorse Mine; both areas have similar geological settings with copper/silver mineralization, including significant copper, antimony, and zinc credits. Bayhorse CEO, Graeme O'Neill, comments that the large and very low resistivity zone, coupled with the very high magnetic anomalies immediately to the north in Idaho, may significantly increase our understanding of the mineral potential of the newly acquired claims, especially the potential for a copper porphyry. On the recently acquired Idaho mineral claims and the Bayhorse Silver Mine property, the two areas of minimal Resistivity, an elongated pluton in Oregon, approximately 1.3 km (0.8 miles) in length, and what is deemed to be a circular pluton in Idaho, are approximate 1.6 km (1 mile) apart and separated by the Snake River, the Idaho/Oregon State Boundary. The Company's senior geological consultants believe it is also possible that the silver-rich Bayhorse Mine epithermal mineralization may be underlain by a gold-rich zone, as suggested by Buchanan's (1981) model. This News Release has been prepared on behalf of the Bayhorse Silver Inc. Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its content. Mark Abrams, AIPG Certified Professional Geologist, a Qualified Person and Director of the Company has prepared, supervised the preparation of, and approved the technical content of this press release. On Behalf of the Board. Graeme O'Neill, CEO 866-399-6539 About Bayhorse Silver Inc. Bayhorse Silver Inc. is an exploration and production company with a 100% interest in the historic Bayhorse Silver Mine located in Oregon, USA. With state of the art Steinert Ore-Sorting technology reducing waste rock entering the processing stream by up to 85%, we have created a minimum environmental impact facility capable of mining 200 tons of mineralization per day and the ability to process and supply 3,600 tons per year of silver/copper/antimony concentrate ranging between 7,500 to 15,000 g/t silver and 10-12% copper, 10-12% antimony, and 15-18% zinc using standard flotation processing at its milling facility in nearby Payette County, Idaho, USA, with an offtake agreement in place with Ocean Partners UK Limited. The Company also has an option to acquire an 80% interest in the Brandywine high grade silver/gold property located in B.C. Canada. The Company has an experienced management and technical team with extensive mining expertise in both exploration and building mines. 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. VANCOUVER, BC, Feb. 28, 2024 /CNW/ - Getchell Gold Corp. (CSE: GTCH) (OTCQB: GGLDF) (FWB: GGA1) ("Getchell" or the "Company") warmly welcomes Robert (Bob) Bass as a Director and the new Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. Bass is a well-recognized and respected labor relations senior negotiator and spokesperson leading a distinguished career spanning decades. Celebrated as a key figure in his field, Mr. Bass has been instrumental in negotiations and arbitration for a wide array of major public sector entities, including the Metropolitan Toronto School Board, the Ontario Hospital Association, hospitals, police services, universities, nursing homes, and government. Mr. Bass is an astute investor with a lengthy history and knowledge of investing in mining and mineral exploration. Mr. Bass's increasing ownership position in the Company, highlighted by his recent participation in the Company's debenture financing (Company news release dated Jan. 29, 2024), underscores his significant investment and belief in Getchell's ability to successfully advance its Nevada-based Fondaway Canyon Gold project. Getchell Gold Corp. CEO and previous Chairman, Bill Wagener, expressed his enthusiasm for Mr. Bass's appointment stating, "Bob was one of the founders of Getchell when we started out as a private company. He has been a continuous and longtime supporter, and we are thrilled to welcome him to the helm of Getchell Gold Corp. His leadership, business acumen, and extensive network of contacts are precisely what we need to propel the recognition and valuation of the Company and the Fondaway Canyon Gold project. Bob's talents and dedication speak volumes, and we are confident in his ability to guide Getchell towards greater success." Upon his appointment, Mr. Bass stated, "I am fully committed to take on the role of Chairman at Getchell Gold Corp. and motivated by the immense potential of the Fondaway Canyon Gold project, located in the world-class mining jurisdiction of Nevada. I believe that with our combined efforts, we can unlock great value for the Company and our shareholders. My confidence in this venture is unwavering, and I look forward to guiding the Company towards achieving its strategic goals." In addition to Mr. Bass' appointment, the Company is pleased to welcome his son, Chris Bass, to its Board of Directors. Chris is a seasoned entrepreneur with significant experience in healthcare. He currently serves as the CEO of InventoRR MD Inc., where he has been pivotal in the development and success of the company's revolutionary flagship medical device, AbClo. These leadership changes underscore Getchell's commitment to continuous improvement and strong corporate governance, positioning the Company for long-term success. In connection with the Director appointments, the Company has granted 1,000,000 stock options to Directors under the Company's 2022 stock option plan. Each option is exercisable into one common share of the Company at a price of $0.15 per share for a period of 5 years from the date of grant. Additionally, the Company has granted its investor relations consultant, Fred Cooper, 250,000 stock options on the same terms. With the addition of Bob and Chris Bass, the Directors, Officers, and Management of Getchell Gold Corp. now own 20.4% of the Company on a partially-diluted basis. In light of these new additions, Jim Mustard has resigned as a Director to the Company and will assume the role as an advisor and consultant to the Company. Jim is a well-respected capital markets and mining professional and the Company welcomes his continued contribution. In addition, Jerry Bella has resigned as a Director to the Company. The Company thanks Jerry for his efforts and wishes him the best in his future endeavours. The Company further announces that it intends to enter into a debt settlement agreement with a bona-fide creditor of the Company to settle outstanding indebtedness in the aggregate amount of $3,000 (the "Debt") in exchange for the issuance of 23,100 common shares of the Company (the "Shares") at a price of $0.13 per Share. The Shares issued by the Company will be subject to a four-month hold period and the Debt settlement remains subject to Canadian Securities Exchange acceptance. About Getchell Gold Corp. The Company is a Nevada-focused gold and copper exploration company trading on the CSE: GTCH, OTCQB: GGLDF, and FWB: GGA1. Getchell Gold is primarily directing its efforts on its most advanced stage, 100% owned, Fondaway Canyon gold project, a past gold producer with a large mineral resource estimate. Complementing Getchell's asset portfolio are the 100% owned; Dixie Comstock, a past gold producer with a historic resource and two earlier stage exploration projects, Star (Cu-Au-Ag), and Hot Springs Peak (Au) projects. Fondaway Canyon and Dixie Comstock properties are located in Churchill County, Nevada. For further information please visit the Company's website at www.getchellgold.com or contact the Company at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed this press release and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding the impact of Board changes on the Company's future success. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "will" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information. Although management of Getchell have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws. 3D Inversion of New MobileMT Airborne Geophysical Data Defines 12km Trend of Epithermal-VMS Precious Metal Targets and New Intrusion-Related Au-Cu Targets Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - HighGold Mining Inc. (TSXV: HIGH) (OTCQX: HGMIF) ("HighGold" or the "Company") is pleased to provide final results from the 2023 airborne geophysical surveys completed at the Johnson Tract polymetallic Gold Project ("Johnson Tract", "JT", or the "Project") near tidewater, in Southcentral Alaska, USA. The Project hosts the high-grade JT Deposit with an Indicated Resource of 1.05 Moz at 9.39 g/t gold equivalent ("AuEq") with average true thickness of 40 meters. CEO Darwin Green stated, "this new MobileMT airborne EM and Magnetic survey is the first Property-wide airborne geophysical survey completed by HighGold at Johnson Tract and is a valuable addition to our exploration toolbox. The survey successfully fingerprints the JT Deposit alteration and outlines a 12km Epithermal/VMS trend - including definition of several new exceptional targets along this corridor. The survey has also detected two significant intrusion-related targets with potential to host Cu-Au porphyry-style mineralization. We are excited by the results and look forward to testing the targets as we continue unlocking the district-scale potential of the property." 2023 MobileMT Airborne Geophysical Survey Highlights The property-wide, 667 line-km airborne EM and Magnetic geophysical survey (MobileMT) was conducted on a 100m line spacing with resolution from near surface to a depth of 2km. 3D inversions and modeling of the MobileMT data successfully fingerprints the alteration halo of the JT Deposit and all other known prospects. Significantly, several new high-quality look-alike targets have been identified. The MobileMT survey, combined with geology, has delineated a 12km northeast-trending structurally controlled corridor of Epithermal/VMS-style targets that include the JT Deposit and Ellis Zone, and separate, but likely related, Porphyry-style targets at the Easy Creek and Kona prospects. HighGold has synthesized these results with previously acquired ground IP geophysics, geological mapping, and new geochemical vectoring work to identify and rank high priority drill targets. Figure 1. Plan Map of MobileMT airborne geophysical survey - 3D inversion results showing conductivity (low resistivity) Details of MobileMT Airborne and Magnetic Survey and 3D Inversion Results A property-wide, 667 line-km airborne Magnetic and EM geophysical survey (MobileMT) was completed by Expert Geophysics Limited in August 2023. Advanced 3D inversion modeling of the data was completed by Geotexera Inc. in December 2023. The results show apparent resistivity data to a depth of up to two km and effectively highlight known alteration zones and identify several new targets (Figure 1). Interpretations from the EM and magnetic data combined with current geologic understanding has delineated a northeast-trending corridor of structurally controlled hybrid Epithermal/VMS-style mineralization at multiple stratigraphic levels. This corridor includes the Double Glacier, South Valley, Milkbone, Upper DC, East DC, and PS prospects and known mineralization at the JT Deposit and Ellis Zone (Figure 1). These targets all show low- to intermediate-sulfidation epithermal and locally VMS deposit attributes. The EM data have helped to refine drill targets at known prospect areas and identified several new targets within this corridor, most notably the area between Ellis Zone and East DC, and a new target referred to as the 'Midway' target, located 1.5km northeast of the JT Deposit. The new EM and magnetic data have also improved ranking of the Easy Creek and Kona intrusion-related targets, which demonstrate Cu-Au porphyry potential. Pipe-like magnetic features below or adjacent to significant conductivity and chargeability anomalies are apparent at both Easy Creek and Kona, which show porphyry-style geology, pathfinder elements, and alteration at surface. These targets are priority for follow-up surface exploration and drilling. Epithermal/VMS Trend Targets JT Deposit-South Valley-Double Glacier trend The MobileMT EM survey has successfully fingerprinted the alteration zone surrounding the JT Deposit as a >1km coincident high conductivity (low resistivity) and low magnetic anomalies. Similar anomalies occur long strike to the south, within prospective stratigraphy at the South Valley and Double Glacier targets, suggesting potential for undiscovered JT Deposit-style mineralization. Drill testing in 2023 prior to this survey intersected significant alteration at these targets. DC and Ellis Zone Anomaly A large broad conductivity anomaly is identified by the MobileMT EM survey around the Ellis Zone (Figure 1). The anomaly supports interpretation of a large, >2km hydrothermal system at DC and the likelihood of blind, untested, mineralized targets beneath overburden and cover rocks between the Ellis Zone and outcropping quartz-sulfide vein fields at the East DC and Upper DC targets. Midway - Northeast of JT Deposit A previously unknown, shallow conductivity anomaly occurs within prospective stratigraphy located 1.5km to the NE of the JT Deposit, roughly mid-distance between the JT Deposit and the Ellis Zone (Figure 1). This blind target is within 200m of surface and is covered by younger rocks and vegetation. Intrusion-Related Targets Easy Creek Anomaly The untested Easy Creek prospect shows chargeability and conductivity anomalies and a pipe-like magnetic anomaly, similar to those observed around known Cu-Au porphyry deposits (Figure 2). These geophysical anomalies are centered around a quartz-biotite diorite intrusion mapped at surface. Copper, gold, and molybdenum soil anomalies occur over the diorite and to the west near major north-south structures. Magnetite veinlets and miarolitic cavities with chalcopyrite and magnetite mineralization have been mapped and sampled from the diorite and overlying altered tuffs. All of these features are indicative of Cu-Au porphyry deposit prospectivity. Much of the target area is masked by overburden. Kona Anomaly The Kona prospect shows two strongly sericite-pyrite altered zones. The newly acquired airborne magnetic data has identified a magnetic high between these alteration zones. The westernmost alteration zone appears as a significant chargeability and conductivity anomaly (Figure 1) and is cored by clay and quartz-pyrophyllite alteration. The Kona target has the highest tellurium, selenium, and bismuth values in soils on the property. All of these features are indicative of Cu-Au porphyry deposit prospectivity. Figure 2. Map showing geophysical and soil anomalies at the Easy Creek Prospect About the Johnson Tract Gold Project Johnson Tract is a polymetallic (gold, copper, zinc, silver, lead) project located near tidewater, 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, USA. The 21,000-acre property includes the high-grade JT Deposit and at least nine (9) other mineral prospects over a 12-kilometer strike length. HighGold acquired the Project through a lease agreement with Cook Inlet Region, Inc. ("CIRI"), one of 12 land-based Alaska Native regional corporations created by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. CIRI is owned by more than 9,100 shareholders who are primarily of Alaska Native descent. The JT Deposit hosts an Indicated Resource of 3.489 Mt grading 9.39 g/t gold equivalent ("AuEq") comprised of 5.33 g/t Au, 6.0 g/t Ag, 0.56% Cu, 0.67% Pb and 5.21% Zn. The Inferred Resource of 0.706 Mt grading 4.76 g/t AuEq is comprised of 1.36 g/t Au, 9.1 g/t Ag, 0.59% Cu, 0.30% Pb, and 4.18% Zn. For additional details see NI 43-101 Technical Report titled "Updated Mineral Resource Estimate and NI 43-101 Technical Report for the Johnson Tract Project, Alaska," dated August 25, 2022 (effective date of July 12, 2022) authored by Ray C. Brown, James N. Gray, P.Geo. and Lyn Jones, P.Eng. Gold Equivalent ("AuEq") is based on assumed metal prices and payable metal recoveries of 97% for Au, 85% for Ag, 85% Cu, 72% Pb and 92% Zn from metallurgical testwork completed in 2022. Assumed metal prices for the Resource are US$1650/oz for gold (Au), US$20/oz for silver (Ag), US$3.50/lb for copper (Cu), US$1.00/lb for lead (Pb), and US$1.50/lb for zinc (Zn). About HighGold HighGold is a mineral exploration company focused on advancing the high-grade Johnson Tract Gold-Zinc-Copper Project located in accessible Southcentral Alaska, USA. HighGold's experienced Board and senior management team, are committed to creating shareholder value through the discovery process, careful allocation of capital, and environmentally/socially responsible mineral exploration. Ian Cunningham-Dunlop, P.Eng., Senior VP Exploration for HighGold Mining Inc. and a qualified person ("QP") as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this release. On Behalf of HighGold Mining Inc. "Darwin Green" President & CEO For further information, please visit the HighGold Mining Inc. website at www.highgoldmining.com, or contact: Darwin Green, President & CEO or Nicole Hoeller, VP Corporate Communications Phone: 1-604-629-1165 or North American toll-free 1-855-629-1165 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Website: www.highgoldmining.com Twitter : @HighgoldMining Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward looking statements This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (collectively "forward looking statements"). Forward-looking statements include predictions, projections and forecasts and are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "forecast", "expect", "potential", "project", "target", "schedule", "budget" and "intend" and statements that an event or result "may", "will", "should", "could" or "might" occur or be achieved and other similar expressions and includes the negatives thereof. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Company's planned exploration programs are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements are based on a number of material factors and assumptions. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from Company's expectations include actual exploration results, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, results of future resource estimates, future metal prices, availability of capital and financing on acceptable terms, general economic, market or business conditions, uninsured risks, regulatory changes, defects in title, availability of personnel, materials and equipment on a timely basis, accidents or equipment breakdowns, delays in receiving government approvals, unanticipated environmental impacts on operations and costs to remedy same, and other exploration or other risks detailed herein and from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ from those described in forward- looking statements, there may be other factors that cause such actions, events or results to differ materially from those anticipated. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate and accordingly readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statement. COLORADO SPRINGS, CO / ACCESSWIRE / February 27, 2024 / Fortitude Gold Corporation (OTCQB:FTCO) (the "Company") today reported its year-end 2023 results including $73.1 million net sales, net income of $17.0 million, or $0.71 per share, $17.2 million in exploration expense representing a 49% increase over 2022, and $12.5 million cash dividends to shareholders while increasing its cash balance by $3.6 million year-over-year to $48.7 million. The Company confirmed its previously announced preliminary 2023 annual production of 37,996 gold ounces, achieving its annual Production Outlook range. The Company also reported an estimated 51,000 recoverable gold ounces on the Isabella Pearl heap leach pad on December 31, 2023. Fortitude Gold is a gold producer, developer, and explorer with operations in Nevada, U.S.A. offering investors exposure to both gold production and substantial dividend yield. 2023 ANNUAL HIGHLIGHTS $17.0 million net income or $0.71 per share $48.7 million cash balance at December 31, 2023, an 8% increase from 2022 $73.1 million net sales 37,996 gold ounces and 79,825 silver ounces produced $12.5 million cash dividends 2.52 grams per tonne average gold grade mined $67.3 million working capital at December 31, 2023 $41.2 million mine gross profit $23.0 million cash from operating activities $656 per ounce total all-in sustaining cost* $17.2 million exploration expenditures, a 49% increase from 2022 51,000 recoverable gold ounces on the heap leach pad at December 31, 2023 * The calculation of our cash cost per ounce contained in this press release is a non-GAAP financial measure. Please see "Management's Discussion and Analysis and Results of Operations" contained in the Company's recently filed Form 10-K for a complete discussion and reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures. "2023 marked another strong operational year, record exploration spending, a consistent substantial dividend, and solid financial results for Fortitude Gold all while adding $3.6 million cash to our treasury totaling $48.7 million at year end," stated Fortitude Gold CEO and President, Mr. Jason Reid. "The Company is in a very strong financial position as we await our permits to mine both deeper in the Pearl Pit and to begin mine development of our County Line project, our next targeted mine build." Mr. Reid continued, "We continue to mine and stack the lower grade Civit Cat portion of the Isabella Pearl deposit on the heap while we await approval to mine the remaining higher-grade oxide and oxide transitional gold ore deep in the Pearl zone. Adding this ore to the estimated 51,000 recoverable gold ounces on the pad at year end, we expect to be residual leaching gold from the pad over the next several years from Isabella Pearl. As we look to execute our original plan to overlap mine operations and layer production while transitioning to our second mine, we remain ready to begin development of County Line upon regulatory approvals. Our plan is to mine County Line as an aggregate operation, hauling crushed ore to our nearby processing facility at Isabella Pearl. With minimal infrastructure to be built at County Line, we are optimizing the mining sequence to access the highest-grade ore possible in the phased mining approach and look forward to being able to add additional new ore from County Line to our Isabella Pearl heap leach pad for operational longevity." "In the last two weeks, we have received positive feedback from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) regarding both our permit applications to mine deeper in the Pearl zone and positive movement on our Plan of Operations submitted for County Line," stated Mr. Reid. "The BLM is actively reviewing and advancing these permits. The Pearl deep permit approval sounds like it could be issued any day now and their County Line comments keep us optimistic all regulatory approvals, subsequent to the NEPA process, could be granted in the first half of 2024. The sooner County Line ore can be mined and placed on the heap leach pad in 2024, along with ore from Pearl deep as was originally contemplated, the better apt we will be at forecasting production; however, until we have additional clarity on permit timing, not only hear that the permits are progressing but have the permits in hand including County Line construction ability, we are not providing a 2024 production outlook. We expect continued gold production and cash flow from the existing ore on the heap leach pad along with additional ore added from the Isabella Pearl's Civit Cat area. Forecasting primarily residual leach with a pad's variable decline curve and the unpredictable nature of permit timing from which to estimate substantial new ore being placed on the pad from County Line is challenging." Mr. Reid continued, "Looking forward into 2024 as we await key permits, we expect to continue our investments in exploration and development activities across our exciting portfolio of 100% owned Nevada properties. Our exploration focus includes County Line, Golden Mile, the Isabella Pearl trend's Scarlet area, East Camp, as well as our recently acquired properties, Dauntless and Intrepid. With a strong treasury, and substantial capital already deployed acquiring equipment for County Line and Golden Mile, we target to develop both mines with cash while avoiding shareholder dilution. We also remain committed to the shareholder cash dividend. Having planned for and accumulated a near record cash treasury, having no debt, and continued cash flow coming in from operations, we are in a very strong position from which to span the unknown permit timing bridge as we await approval to build our second mine. Fortitude Gold remains a unique investment in the precious metal space offering investors exposure to gold production, a very attractive dividend yield, and district scale exploration potential of our eight Nevada properties all with surface and or near surface gold." 2023 Overview For the year ended December 31, 2023, the Company sold 37,836 gold ounces at a total cash cost after by-product credit of $536 per gold ounce, and a realized 2023 average sales price for gold of $1,939 per ounce. The Company recorded revenues of $73.1 million, and net income of $17.0 million, or $0.71 per share. The following Sales Statistics table summarizes certain information about our operations for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022: Year ended December 31, 2023 2022 Metal sold Gold (ozs.) 37,836 41,464 Silver (ozs.) 78,744 56,282 Average metal prices realized (1) Gold ($per oz.) 1,939 1,802 Silver ($per oz.) 23.41 22.18 Precious metal gold equivalent ounces sold Gold Ounces 37,836 41,464 Gold Equivalent Ounces from Silver 951 693 38,787 42,157 Total cash cost before by-product credits per gold ounce sold $ 585 $ 651 Total cash cost after by-product credits per gold ounce sold $ 536 $ 621 Total all-in sustaining cost per gold ounce sold $ 656 $ 725 (1) Average metal prices realized vary from the market metal prices due to final settlement adjustments from our provisional invoices when they are settled. Our average metal prices realized will therefore differ from the market average metal prices in most cases. The following Production Statistics table summarize certain information about our operations for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022: Year ended December 31, 2023 2022 Ore mined Ore (tonnes) 455,576 634,076 Gold grade (g/t) 2.52 3.71 Low-grade stockpile Ore (tonnes) 2,118 61,854 Gold grade (g/t) 0.46 0.47 Waste (tonnes) 1,430,824 1,814,864 Metal production (before payable metal deductions)(1) Gold (ozs.) 37,996 41,231 Silver (ozs.) 79,825 56,876 (1) The difference between what we report as "metal production" and "metal sold" is attributable to the difference between the quantities of metals contained in the dore we produce versus the portion of those metals actually paid for according to the terms of our sales contracts. Differences can also arise from inventory changes incidental to shipping schedules, or variances in ore grades and recoveries which impact the amount of metals contained in dore produced and sold. Isabella Pearl Project Update Mine operations at Isabella Pearl are projected to conclude in 2024 depending on the final mine sequencing of the next four benches planned in the Pearl zone after the Company receives regulatory approval to mine deeper. There is also mineral both inside and outside the resource of the Civit Cat portion of the deposit. Though it is unknown at this time when Civit Cat will be depleted, it is expected to be mid- 2024 or later. Final mine operation timing could be impacted by BLM permit timing as well as any additional mineralization that may be encountered outside of the current mine plan. The Company did not update its 2023 Isabella Pearl SEC S-K 1300 TRS report, as Isabella Pearl deposit mining is projected to conclude by mid to late 2024. Projects Update The Company is currently awaiting multiple new permits and permit modifications from the BLM. A near-term decision from the BLM is expected, as has been the case in 2023, for the Pearl deep portion of the Isabella Pearl mine, which would allow for final mine sequencing in the higher-grade Pearl portion of the deposit's oxide and transitional oxide gold ore areas. The Company filed a Plan of Operations with the BLM for its County Line project in May of 2023. County Line has the potential to supply gold ore to the Isabella Pearl heap leach pad and ADR facility, which is located 19 miles to the southeast of County Line along Nevada Route 361, for gold processing and final gold dore production. The Company believes County Line construction and capital development costs could be considerably reduced since the project is designed without processing facilities, nor a heap leach pad, and is to be mined similarly to an aggregate or gravel operation whereby ore is mined, crushed, and hauled to the nearby Isabella Pearl process facility. A Plan of Operations was filed with the BLM for the Golden Mile project in September of 2023. The Company is advancing a phase one open pit shell design and potential mine development at its Golden Mile property. A phase one open pit would target production from surface and near surface gold mineralization with further delineation efforts expected to add additional open pit phases. The development plan is to then add pit laybacks (similar in concept and execution of the pit phases at the Company's Isabella Pearl Mine) as further delineation of the mineralization allows. The Company also expects to file a permit modification with the BLM in the coming weeks after receipt of approval to mine deeper in the Pearl zone to expand the current Isabella Pearl mine plan boundary. A boundary modification and expansion to the northwest would include the Scarlet and Scarlet North targets, as well as additional prospective exploration ground in that area. The Company has discovered surface and near surface high-grade gold at Scarlet North with a proximity of 700 meters from its Isabella Pearl processing facility. Exploration Programs The Company invested $17.2 million in exploration spending in 2023. Exploration drill programs focused on multiple property targets including the Isabella Pearl mineralized trend with Scarlet North, County Line, Golden Mile, and East Camp Douglas' northern veins and southern lithocap targets. 2024 exploration programs will continue to focus on increasing resources and reserves and discovering new mineralization. See Accompanying Tables The following information summarizes the results of operations for Fortitude Gold Corporation for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, its financial condition at December 31, 2023 and 2022, and its cash flows for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022. The summary data as of December 31, 2023 and 2022 and for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 is derived from its audited financial statements contained in its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, but do not include the footnotes and other information that is included in the complete financial statements. Readers are urged to review the Company's Form 10-K in its entirety, which can be found on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. The calculation of its cash cost before by-product credits per gold ounce sold, total cash cost after by-product credits per gold ounce sold and total all-in sustaining cost per gold ounce sold contained in this press release are non-GAAP financial measures. Please see "Management's Discussion and Analysis and Results of Operations" contained in the Company's most recent Form 10-K for a complete discussion and reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures. FORTITUDE GOLD CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (U.S. dollars in thousands, except share and per share amounts) December 31, December 31, 2023 2022 ASSETS Current assets: Cash and cash equivalents $ 48,678 $ 45,054 Gold and silver rounds/bullion 1,532 - Accounts receivable 42 - Inventories 23,848 47,155 Prepaid taxes 355 710 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 811 730 Total current assets 75,266 93,649 Property, plant and mine development, net 25,365 30,581 Operating lease assets, net 631 3,826 Deferred tax assets 2,860 1,282 Leach pad inventories 30,533 - Other non-current assets 344 1,818 Total assets $ 134,999 $ 131,156 LIABILITIES AND SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY Current liabilities: Accounts payable $ 3,881 $ 2,524 Operating lease liabilities, current 631 3,826 Mining taxes payable 2,309 1,857 Other current liabilities 1,133 1,327 Total current liabilities 7,954 9,534 Asset retirement obligations 6,500 5,863 Total liabilities 14,454 15,397 Shareholders' equity: Preferred stock - $0.01 par value, 20,000,000 shares authorized and nil outstanding at December 31, 2023 and December 31, 2022 - - Common stock - $0.01 par value, 200,000,000 shares authorized and 24,084,542 shares outstanding at December 31, 2023 and 24,024,542 shares outstanding at December 31, 2022 241 240 Additional paid-in capital 104,020 103,731 Retained earnings 16,284 11,788 Total shareholders' equity 120,545 115,759 Total liabilities and shareholders' equity $ 134,999 $ 131,156 FORTITUDE GOLD CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS For the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 (U.S. dollars in thousands, except share and per share amounts) Year ended December 31, 2023 2022 Sales, net $ 73,073 $ 74,379 Mine cost of sales: Production costs 19,997 25,443 Depreciation and amortization 11,557 13,294 Reclamation and remediation 288 247 Total mine cost of sales 31,842 38,984 Mine gross profit 41,231 35,395 Costs and expenses: General and administrative expenses 5,003 5,787 Exploration expenses 17,217 11,591 Other (income) expense, net (1,961 ) 55 Total costs and expenses 20,259 17,433 Income before income and mining taxes 20,972 17,962 Mining and income tax expense 3,955 3,278 Net income $ 17,017 $ 14,684 Net income per common share: Basic $ 0.71 $ 0.61 Diluted $ 0.70 $ 0.61 Weighted average shares outstanding: Basic 24,079,483 24,017,381 Diluted 24,206,399 24,196,847 FORTITUDE GOLD CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS For the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 (U.S. dollars in thousands, except share and per share amounts) Year ended December 31, 2023 2022 Cash flows from operating activities: Net income $ 17,017 $ 14,684 Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash from operating activities: Depreciation and amortization 11,656 13,434 Stock-based compensation 230 192 Deferred taxes (1,578 ) (773 ) Reclamation and remediation accretion 288 247 Reclamation payments (194 ) (47 ) Other operating adjustments (158 ) - Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable (42 ) 238 Inventories (6,001 ) (2,888 ) Prepaid expenses and other current assets (81 ) 1,498 Other non-current assets (4 ) (49 ) Accounts payable and other accrued liabilities 1,037 1,297 Income and mining taxes payable 807 737 Net cash provided by operating activities 22,977 28,570 Cash flows from investing activities: Capital expenditures (5,423 ) (11,958 ) Purchase of gold and silver rounds/bullion (1,452 ) - Other investing activities 24 - Net cash used in investing activities (6,851 ) (11,958 ) Cash flows from financing activities: Dividends paid (12,521 ) (11,528 ) Proceeds from exercise of stock options 60 63 Repayment of loans payable (29 ) (87 ) Repayment of capital leases (12 ) (23 ) Net cash used in financing activities (12,502 ) (11,575 ) Net increase in cash and cash equivalents 3,624 5,037 Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 45,054 40,017 Cash and cash equivalents at end of period $ 48,678 $ 45,054 Supplemental Cash Flow Information Income and mining taxes paid $ 4,724 $ 3,349 Non-cash investing and financing activities: Change in capital expenditures in accounts payable $ 167 $ (529 ) Change in estimate for asset retirement costs $ 317 $ 789 Right-of-Use assets acquired through operating lease $ 631 $ 7,725 About Fortitude Gold Corp.: Fortitude Gold is a U.S. based gold producer targeting projects with low operating costs, high margins, and strong returns on capital. The Company's strategy is to grow organically, remain debt-free and distribute substantial dividends. The Company's Nevada Mining Unit consists of seven high-grade gold properties located in the Walker Lane Mineral Belt and an eighth high-grade gold property in west central Nevada. The Isabella Pearl gold mine, located on the Isabella Pearl mineralized trend, is currently in production. Nevada, U.S.A. is among the world's premier mining friendly jurisdictions. Cautionary Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. If you are risk-averse you should NOT buy shares in Fortitude Gold Corp. The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. When used in this press release, the words "plan", "target", "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "intend" and "expect" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the statements regarding the Company's strategy, future plans for production, future expenses and costs, future liquidity and capital resources, and estimates of mineralized material are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon information available to the Company on the date of this press release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those discussed in this press release. Contact: Greg Patterson 719-717-9825 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.Fortitudegold.com VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Arras Minerals Corp. (TSX-V: ARK) (Arras or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has been granted the Tay exploration license (Tay). The license covers 118 square kilometres in northeastern Kazakhstan and is located within the Bozshakol-Chingiz magmatic arc, an under-explored emerging porphyry province. Tay is located 28 kilometres (km) to the north of the Bozshakol open pit copper-gold mine which is operated by Kaz Minerals. Tay is 100% owned by Arras and is not included in the Teck-Arras Strategic Exploration Alliance announced on December 7, 2023. Tay Project Highlights 6.5 km x 2.1 km East-West trending coherent Soviet-era Induced Polarization (IP) chargeability anomaly comparable to the Soviet-era chargeability high of the Bozshakol open pit copper-gold mine. A buried target with no systematic modern exploration Located 28 km north of the Kaz Minerals Bozshakol mine, a significant copper-gold operation with over one billion tonnes of reserves, producing 100,000+ tonnes of copper annually. Strategically situated with outstanding accessibility and local infrastructure, including nearby high voltage power lines, railway, and roads. Tim Barry, CEO of Arras Minerals stated, It's rare to find such a promising porphyry prospect in proximity to a major operational open-pit copper-gold mine like Bozshakol, located 28 kilometres south. The historical Soviet-era IP anomaly at Tay mirrors the scale and strength of the anomaly at the Bozshakol deposit which was also completed during the same era. Tay's geology is buried beneath recent sediments, and is categorized as a blind target, and as far as we know remains unexplored. The typical sediment cover in this region is relatively shallow from 10 to 40 meters. The full size and scale of the Tay IP anomaly is unknown, but it is quite clear it continues to the west. We remain impressed by the straightforward access, and the potential for exploration discoveries in Kazakhstan, which when coupled with the uncomplicated permitting processes, and the outstanding infrastructure, facilitate rapid and cost-efficient exploration. The Tay Project Is located 28 km north from Kaz Minerals Bozshakol Mine, and 85 km from Arras operational base in the city of Ekibastuz, northeastern Kazakhstan. The property covers 118 square km in northeastern Kazakhstan and is located within the Bozshakol-Chingiz magmatic arc, an under-explored, emerging porphyry province. A paved four-lane highway to within 35 km of the property boundary, with access provided via by several good quality roads run through the license. High-voltage power lines, heavy rail, and local towns all lie within a 45 km radius of the project. The Tay project is located within the Bozshakol-Chingiz metallogenic belt that includes the Bozshakol Mine, as well as the Beskauga copper-gold-silver porphyry deposit currently under option by Arras, as well Arrass 100% owned Elemes project, an emerging copper-gold porphyry prospect. Figure 1. Tay concession location in relation to Arrass License Package showing Arras-Teck Strategic Alliance Areas as Package A and Package B as well as the Elemes, Aimandai, Stepnoe, & Ekidos licenses which are 100% owned by Arras. Geology A review of the Soviet-era geology maps indicate that the geology at Tay is dominated by volcano-sedimentary and sedimentary rocks cut by several major fault zones, intruded by a series intrusives stocks. It is thought that the historic chargeability anomaly is related to a porphyry-Cu-Au deposit that is covered by 20-30m of quaternary cover. The company is planning to conduct a property -wide airborne magnetic survey and top of bedrock drilling programs to better understand the property geology in 2024. Figure 2. Bozshakol Mine showing current pit and projected 2054 pit limits. Figure 3. Bozshakol Mine and the historical Soviet IP Chargeability anomalies. Figure 4. Tay Project and historical Soviet IP Chargeability Anomaly. Figure 5. Tay Project historical Soviet IP Chargeability Anomaly compared to Bozshakol current and planned pit limits. Qualified Person The scientific and technical disclosure for the Tay Project included in this news release has been prepared under supervision of and approved by Matthew Booth, Vice President of Exploration, of Arras Minerals Corp., a Qualified Person for the purposes of NI 43-101. Mr. Booth has over 19 years of mineral exploration experience and is a Qualified Person member of the American Institute of Professional Geologists (CPG 12044). On behalf of the Board of Directors "Tim Barry" Tim Barry, MAusIMM CP(Geo) Chief Executive Officer and Director INVESTOR RELATIONS: +1 604 687 5800 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Further information can be found on: the Companys website https://www.arrasminerals.com or follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/arrasminerals or or follow us on X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/arrasminerals About Arras Minerals Corp. Arras is a Canadian exploration and development company advancing a portfolio of copper and gold assets in northeastern Kazakhstan, including the Option Agreement on the Beskauga copper and gold project. The Company has established the third-largest license package in the country prospective for copper and gold (behind Rio Tinto and Fortescue). In December 2023, the Company entered into a strategic alliance with Teck Resources ("Teck") in which Teck will sole fund a US$5 million generative exploration program over a portion of the Arras license package in 2024-2025 focusing on critical minerals. The Companys shares are listed on the TSX-V under the trading symbol ARK. Cautionary Note to U.S. Investors concerning estimates of Measured, Indicated, and Inferred Resources This press release uses the terms measured resources, indicated resources, and inferred resources which are defined in, and required to be disclosed by, NI 43-101. The Company advises U.S. investors that these terms are not recognized by the SEC. The estimation of measured, indicated and inferred resources involves greater uncertainty as to their existence and economic feasibility than the estimation of proven and probable reserves. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that measured and indicated mineral resources will be converted into reserves. The estimation of inferred resources involves far greater uncertainty as to their existence and economic viability than the estimation of other categories of resources. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that estimates of inferred mineral resources exist, are economically minable, or will be upgraded into measured or indicated mineral resources. Under Canadian securities laws, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of feasibility or other economic studies. Disclosure of contained ounces in a resource is permitted disclosure under Canadian regulations, however the SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute reserves by SEC standards as in place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. Accordingly, the information contained in this press release may not be comparable to similar information made public by U.S. companies that are not subject NI 43-101. Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding future events and Arras future results that are subject to the safe harbors created under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and the Exchange Act, and applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements include, among others, statements regarding plans and expectations of the exploration program Arras is in the process of undertaking, including the expansion of the Mineral Resource, and other aspects of the Mineral Resource estimates for the Beskauga project. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about Arras exploration projects, the industry in which Arras operates and the beliefs and assumptions of Arras management. Words such as expects, anticipates, targets, goals, projects, intends, plans, believes, seeks, estimates, continues, may, variations of such words, and similar expressions and references to future periods, are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond managements control, including undertaking further exploration activities, the results of such exploration activities and that such results support continued exploration activities, unexpected variations in ore grade, types and metallurgy, volatility and level of commodity prices, the availability of sufficient future financing, and other matters discussed under the caption Risk Factors in the Management Discussion and Analysis filed on the Companys profile on SEDAR on February 27, 2024 and in the Companys Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2023 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed on February 27, 2024 available on www.sec.gov. Readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual results or developments may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement made by the Company in this release is based only on information currently available and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise. Veteran gold exploration executive with over 35 years of experience appointed to Kobos Board of Directors Mr. Edward Gosselin, Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Paul Sarjeant, President and Chief Operating Officer to attend PDAC 2024 exhibiting at booth 3235 QUEBEC CITY / Feb 28, 2024 / Business Wire / Kobo Resources Inc. ("Kobo or the "Company") (TSX.V: KRI) today announces the appointment of Mr. Brian Scott to its Board of Directors (the Board) and the resignation of Mr. Charles Spector. Frank Ricciuti, Chairman of Kobo commented: As Kobo begins a phase of growth with its exploration program in 2024, particularly the 5,000-metre diamond drill program planned for Q1 2024, the addition of Brian to Kobo's Board of Directors promises to greatly benefit the Company, its employees and shareholders. Brian has gathered extensive exploration and resource estimation modelling experience during his distinguished mining career spanning over 35 years. During this time, his expertise was instrumental in the success of various large-cap gold companies such as B2Gold Corp. and Bema Gold Corp. (acquired by Kinross Gold in 2006), which will complement the Companys efforts to move its 100%-owned Kossou Gold Project forward. He continued: On behalf of the entire Board and management, I would like to thank Charles for his many contributions during his tenure at Kobo. Charles was instrumental in helping the Company achieve its going public transaction and made the process as seamless as possible. Charles will remain as an advisor to the Board and we wish him continued success with his law practice in the future. The Kossou Gold Project has shown to date significant promise, and I am confident that my experience in advancing similar gold projects will serve the Board well in developing Kobo into a producing gold company in the future, commented Scott. I am delighted to join Kobo's Board of Directors and look forward to supporting the Company in the years to come. Brian Scott is a geologist with over 35 years of exploration and mine development experience across a wide variety of deposit types and political jurisdictions throughout the world. His experience encompasses a wide range of deposit types from high Andes porphyries (Cerro Casale and Refugio) to orogenic gold deposits (Venezuela, Canada, Finland, West Africa, Namibia, Uruguay, and South Africa) and epithermal deposits (Russia, Philippines, Central America). During his 30-year career with Bema Gold Corp. (acquired by Kinross Gold) and B2Gold Corp., he engaged in all phases of exploration, development, and mining within the Bema Gold Corp./B2Gold Corp. portfolio of properties. During this period, his responsibilities included providing geological guidance on exploration programs. He also managed B2Gold Corp.'s Technical Services Group and oversaw its in-house Technical Services Team's geologic and resource estimation models. Mr. Scott retired from B2Gold Corp. at the end of 2023 where he served as VP Geology and Technical Services from 2015 to 2023. Prior to that, Mr. Scott was Chief Geologist for B2Gold Corp. from 2007 to 2014 and Chief Geologist for Bema Gold Corp. from 1996 to 2007. Mr. Scott holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in Geology from Lakehead University in Ontario. Kobo Resources to Exhibit at PDAC 2024 The Company announces that it will be exhibiting at the annual 2024 Prospectors & Development Association of Canada (PDAC) convention at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC). The Company invites interested PDAC attendees to visit its booth #3235 in the Investors Exchange, South Building during the in-person event from Sunday, March 3 to Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Management will provide details of its exploration program at its 100%-owned Kossou Gold Project in 2023, following an initial phase of drilling and ongoing trenching activities that have yielded significant gold results across three distinct targets. Further, the Company will provide an overview of its exploration plans in the year ahead, beginning with a fully funded 5,000 m drilling program in Q1 2024. PDAC is the worlds premier mineral exploration & mining convention and brings together professionals, governments, companies and organizations from around the world to explore the latest advancements in the mining industry through a wide range of programming, courses, and networking events. Investors interested in attending the PDAC can register here:www.pdac.ca/convention/attend/registration. Kobo invites attendees to visit its booth where they will have the opportunity to engage directly with the Company's management team and learn more about Kobos recent exploration efforts and upcoming plans. Other Corporate Matters On December 1, 2023, the Company merged with its subsidiary Boko Resources Inc. in order to simplify its corporate structure, reporting obligations and reduce general and administrative costs. Furthermore, effective in 2023, the Company changed its financial year-end from December 31 to March 31, 2024, to align the Companys year-end with that of its operating subsidiary and to facilitate financial reporting and the preparation of corporate tax returns. The change in year-end resulted in the Company filing a one-time, fifteen-month transition year covering the period of January 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024. Grant of Options The Company announces that it has granted 300,000 stock options (Options) to purchase common shares of the Company to Mr. Brian Scott, following his appointment as director of the Company, and 50,000 stock options (Options) to purchase common shares of the Company to Mr. Carmelo Marrelli, as CFO of the Company, pursuant to the Companys 9.5% fixed stock option plan (the Companys Stock Option Plan). Such Options are exercisable into common shares of the Company at an exercise price of $0.35 per common share for a period of 10 years from the date of grant as per the Companys Stock Option Plan. These options will vest in equal tranches of twenty-five per cent (25%) every 3 months following their grant date. About Kobo Resources Inc. Kobo Resources is a growth-focused gold exploration company with a compelling new gold discovery in Cote dIvoire, one of West Africas most prolific and developing gold districts. The Companys 100%-owned Kossou Gold Project is located approximately 20 km northwest of the capital city of Yamoussoukro and is directly adjacent to one of the regions largest gold mines with established processing facilities. The Company is drilling to unlock the potential size and scale of Kossou within 9+ km strike length of highly prospective gold in soil geochemical anomalies with excellent rock and trench sampling results. The Company completed ~6,000 m of RC drilling and ~5,400 m of trenching in 2023 and is planning on additional drilling and trenching in 2024. Significant gold mineralisation has been identified at three main targets within a 300 m wide, 2+ km long, pervasively altered structural corridor defining a potentially large mesothermal gold system. Kobo offers investors the exciting combination of high-quality gold prospects led by an experienced leadership team with in-country experience. Kobos common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "KRI. For more information, please visit www.koboresources.com. NEITHER THE TSXV NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSXV) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Cautionary Statement on 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 are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to 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; and the delay or failure to receive board, shareholder or regulatory approvals. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Except as required by law, Kobo assumes no obligation and/or liability to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. VANCOUVER, BC, Feb. 28, 2024 /CNW/ - North Arrow Minerals Inc. (TSXV: NAR) ("North Arrow") is pleased to announce that Eira Thomas has been appointed as Chair of the Board of Directors, effective February 28, 2024. Ms. Thomas succeeds D. Grenville (Gren) Thomas, who will remain as a director after 17 years as the Company's Chair. Ken Armstrong, President and Chief Executive Officer of North Arrow, stated, "We are very pleased to welcome Eira Thomas to North Arrow as Chair of the Board of Directors. Eira has a long and successful track record in the resource sector, in particular with identifying and building out opportunities in the junior mining space." Mr. Armstrong continued: "I'd like to extend my thanks and appreciation to Gren for his past guidance as Chair and look forward to his continued involvement as a director of the company." Ms. Thomas, Chair of North Arrow's Board, stated: "As a long-time advisor and supporter of North Arrow, I am delighted to join the Company as Chair and help guide management through their ongoing strategy of evaluating lithium occurrences identified on three properties in 2023, extracting value from the Company's portfolio of legacy diamond properties, and identifying new, compelling exploration and development opportunities in Canada." Ms. Thomas brings more than 30 years of experience in the mining industry, particularly in the diamond, gold and energy spaces. She has held executive and board positions with a number of companies over that period, including Aber Diamond Corp., Stornoway Diamond Corp., Kaminak Gold Corp., and Lucara Diamond Corp., as well as 17 years as a director of Suncor Energy. Pursuant to North Arrow's stock option plan, North Arrow has granted 500,000 incentive stock options to a director. Each incentive stock option is exercisable into one common share of the Company, has an exercise price of 8 cents per share, and can be exercised until February 28, 2029. About North Arrow Minerals North Arrow is a Canadian based exploration company focused on the identification and evaluation of lithium and other exploration opportunities in Canada. North Arrow's management, board of directors and advisors have significant successful experience in the global exploration and mining industry. North Arrow is evaluating spodumene pegmatites at its 100% owned LDG, MacKay, and DeStaffany Lithium Projects (NWT), is exploring for lithium in Nunavut at the Bathurst Inlet pegmatite field and continues work to identify additional lithium exploration opportunities in northern Canada. North Arrow also owns interests in the Naujaat (NU), Pikoo (SK), and Loki (NWT) Diamond Projects and maintains a 100% interest in the Hope Bay Oro Gold Project, located approximately 3 km north of Agnico Eagle's Doris Gold Mine, Nunavut. North Arrow's exploration programs are conducted under the direction of Kenneth Armstrong, P.Geo. (NWT/NU, ON), President and CEO of North Arrow and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101. North Arrow Minerals Inc. /s/ "Kenneth A. Armstrong" Kenneth Armstrong President and CEO Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release contains "forward-looking statements" including but not limited to statements with respect to North Arrow's plans, the estimation of a mineral resource and the success of exploration activities. Forward-looking statements, while based on management's best estimates and assumptions, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks related to the successful integration of acquisitions; risks related to general economic and market conditions; closing of financing; the timing and content of upcoming work programs; actual results of proposed exploration activities; possible variations in mineral resources or grade; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes, title disputes, claims and limitations on insurance coverage and other risks of the mining industry; changes in national and local government regulation of mining operations, tax rules and regulations. Although North Arrow has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. North Arrow undertakes no obligation or responsibility to update forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Kraken Launches Institutional Services Division to Compete for Bitcoin ETF Market Share Kraken has unveiled a new division dedicated to providing services to institutional clients as it seeks to gain a foothold in the Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) market. In a recent blog post, the exchange said the newly-formed Kraken Institutional brand incorporates its existing institutional offerings, including spot and over-the-counter trading, as well as crypto staking services (for clients outside the United States). The division primarily targets asset managers, hedge funds, and high net-worth individuals. Tim Ogilvie to Lead Kraken Institutional Division Tim Ogilvie, co-founder of Staked, a company acquired by Kraken in December 2021, will lead the Kraken Institutional division. In a statement, Ogilvie emphasized the rapid growth of institutional adoption in the crypto space and attributed it, in part, to the recent approval of Bitcoin ETFs. Kraken Institutional is open for business! Excited to help our partners grow their crypto businesses! https://t.co/eV5zU3nR5v Tim Ogilvie (@Tim_Ogilvie) February 27, 2024 Coinbase, which serves as the custodian for eight of the ten newly launched Bitcoin ETFs, is expected to reap substantial earnings in the coming year. With its new institutional services division, Kraken aims to compete with Coinbase Institutional and Coinbase Prime, which were established in 2021 to cater to institutional investors. Kraken Institutional also faces competition from Binance Institutional, launched in mid-2022, which provides tailored solutions for institutional users such as asset managers, brokers, hedge funds, family offices, liquidity providers, and proprietary trading firms. In the blog post, Ogilvie outlined Kraken Institutionals plans to introduce a qualified custody service, backed by Kraken Financial, a Special Purpose Depository Institution chartered in Wyoming. The move positions Kraken as a secure custodian for institutional clients seeking reliable storage solutions for their digital assets. Meanwhile, the exchange has also recently filed to dismiss the Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit saying that allowing this case to continue would set a dangerous precedent. The SEC alleged in November that the exchanges parent companies were operating Krakens crypto trading platform as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing agency. By allowing this case to continue sets a dangerous precedent for agency overreach, said Kraken in a blog post. The exchange stressed that the SEC never pointed to any contract between buyers on Kraken and token issuers, so there cant be an investment contract. Spot Bitcoin ETFs See Significant Inflows Krakens move to launch the new division comes as spot Bitcoin ETFs have gained momentum among institutional investors. In fact, the spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in January have attracted billions of dollars amid the cryptocurrencys rally. Industry giants like BlackRock and Fidelity lead the pack, amassing approximately $6 billion and $4 billion, respectively, followed by Ark Invest and Bitwise. Earlier this week, daily spot Bitcoin ETF trading volume amounted to nearly $2 billion, the highest level since the first day of trading on January 11. As reported earlier, spot Bitcoin ETFs witnessed a substantial influx of approximately $2.3 billion last week, nearly doubling the previous weeks inflow of $1.2 billion. It is worth noting that there has been a net outflow from Gold ETFs, possibly driven by global investors growing demand for U.S. equity. So far this year, the leading 14 Gold ETFs have experienced outflows of $2.4 billion in 2024 as of February 14. "My Name is Loh KiWan" director Kim Hee Jin dishes on the reason why she wanted Song Joong Ki to play the titular role. In addition, the top star also talked about embracing challenges in the new movie, including "delving into the North Korean dialect." Ahead of the premiere of the upcoming movie, the director, along with lead stars Song Joong Ki and Choi Sung Eun, greeted the media for the "My Name is Loh KiWan" press conference. Before the public gets to see Song Joong Ki's movie exclusively on Netflix, the director dishes on what it's like to film the action thriller film. At the press briefing, director Kim Hee Jin teased the public by saying that "My Name is Loh KiWan" is a "gift for Song Joong Ki" fans. As mentioned by the filmmaker, the South Korean A-lister showcased a "new face" that longtime fans have never seen on Song Joong Ki. In a report, director Kim Hee Jin, who is also the screenwriter of the novel-based film, revealed that she only had Song Joong Ki in mind when she wrote the script. After pitching the story to A-listers, the director says she "was overwhelmed with emotion" when the top star agreed to play the lead star. READ MORE: 'My Name is Loh Ki Wan' Drops First Look of Song Joong Ki as North Korean Defector Moreover, she believes that Song Joong Ki can perfectly portray Loh Ki Wan, whom she described as a "hard-working person and someone who blooms in the mud." Song Joong Ki Reveals Challenges of Playing North Korean Defector Viewers get to see Song Joong Ki play various characters, from the chaebol grandson in "Reborn Rich" to the hot-shot soldier in "Descendants of the Sun," but the forthcoming movie is his first time to appear as a North Korean. According to the A-lister, he has a certain connection with the movie because of its "emotional depth." Moreover, he dishes on the focus of the story, which was about struggling to survive in a faraway land. "It's a film about Kiwan's life journey, carrying the fragile hope of starting anew in Belgium, and his relentless struggle to survive." Song Joon g Ki also mentioned how Choi Sung Eun's character, Marie, helped Loh Ki Wan get through life. "Through the character of Marie, he finds healing, making this film a moving narrative of hope and resilience." Regarding the preparation for the role, the top star said that he has "always been eager to explore" and that learning the dialect was "not only a fresh experience" but one that he is "profoundly satisfied with." 'My Name is Loh KiWan' Release Date With Netflix unveiling the list of K-dramas and movies airing in 2024, Song Joong Ki's movie is among the highly anticipated ones. The streaming giant officially announced the "My Name is Loh KiWan" release date, which is set for March 1. IN CASE YOU MISSED: Song Joong Ki Garners Mixed Reactions for Yet Another 'Fashion Disaster' For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news, keep your tabs open here at KDramaStars. KDramaStars owns this article Written by Geca Wills Lee Gi Kwang talked about the influence of tvN's K-drama "Marry My Husband" and the controversy he faced while portraying the character. Starting the year with a bang, the webtoon-based K-drama brought excitement to viewers as it featured a unique kind of revenge story and, at the same time, showcased a roster of talented stars. From lead stars Park Min Young, Lee Yi Kyung, Na In Woo, and Song Ha Yoon, it's no doubt why "Marry My Husband" is among the most talked-about Korean series in the first quarter of the year. Interestingly, Lee Gi Kwang revealed the advantages of joining the hit K-drama. Lee Gi Kwang Instagram Followers Increased Thanks to 'Marry My Husband' During his appearance on the talk show "Reckless Guys," the actor shared that his social media following significantly increased during the broadcast of "Marry My Husband." Lee Gi Kwang tells the hosts, "I haven't done anything," but adds that his Instagram has increased by 40,000 and jokingly says, "If only it had increased more..." Currently, Lee Gi Kwang's Instagram has 1.4 million followers, and most of his posts are work-related. Other than the actor, rookie actress Choi Gyu Ri previously revealed that her Instagram quadrupled thanks to "Marry My Husband." In an interview, she said that she only had 2,000 followers before the drama broadcast but now has more than 721,000 and counting. "Almost all of my Instagram followers are foreign," she added. READ MORE: THIS 'Marry My Husband' Cast Gets Judged for Poor Acting Skills: 'This is seriously bad' In the tvN K-drama, he takes on the role of Baek Eun Ho, Kang Ji Won's (Park Min Young) classmate and first love. After college, he focused on working in the food and beverage industry, and because of his Michelin-level skills, he was able to work as the head chef at the Werther fine dining restaurant. Lee Gi Kwang on Dialect Controversy in 'Marry My Husband' Apart from portraying Baek Eun Ho as the head chef, his character is also a native of Busan; hence, the accent. However, during the broadcast, viewers called out the drama and criticized why Baek Eun Ho speaks different. On social media, viewers expressed their disappointment with Lee Gi Kwang's acting, especially in how he delivered his lines. Unfortunately, netizens flocked to the online community, criticizing the actor and saying that they were not convinced by his acting. They also pointed out that the forced accent is hard to listen to. As for Lee Gi Kwang, he told the host that working with a character with a heavy accent was not as easy as it looked. Being a Gwangju native, the actor said that the Busan dialect is "completely different," adding, "Because it's different, I think it came out a little mixed and mysterious." IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 'Marry My Husband' Season 2: Viewers Want to Focus on Park Min Young, Na In Woo's Children For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news, keep your tabs open here at KDramaStars. KDramaStars owns this article Written by Geca Wills Ahead of its debut, Song Joong Ki's comeback Netflix work "My Name is Loh Kiwan" is already receiving negative comments from K-media. Keep on reading to know what the media are saying. K-Media Reporter Unsatisfied With Song Joong Ki's New Film 'My Name is Loh Kiwan' In a news release on February 27, a Korean reporter shared her sentiments over Song Joong Ki's movie "My Name is Loh Kiwan." A reporter from Maeil Kyungie, Han Hyun Jang criticized the upcoming film and mentioned the disappointing aspects of the actor's new work. In her review, Reporter Han said that if you are not a fan of the male lead, she would not recommend watching "My Name is Loh Kiwan." She also described the film as a "tiring non-healing romance movie." "My Name is Loh Kiwan" features the story of Kiwan, a North Korean defector. After he came to Belgium, he struggled to be recognized as a refugee. During his journey, he meets Marie, a wandering woman who lost the reason for her life. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Song Joong Ki to Make Special Appearance in Kim Ji Won's 'Queen of Tears' + More Details Here! Han said that Song Joong Ki successfully expresses Kiwan's despair of surviving and the deep emotions towards Marie. However, his acting playing a North Korean defector has its ups and downs. Even though the movie heralded Song Joong Ki's breakthrough transformation, his acting does not feel as new, said the reporter. Romance Between Song Joong Ki & Choi Sung Eun Fell Short? Reporter Han also mentioned Choi Sung Eun's performance. She elaborated: "Sung Eun displayed a unique girl crush charm in the movie 'Start-Up,' she presents a darker version of herself in this movie. She also shows stable melodrama chemistry with Song Joong Ki playing Marie who gave up her life after losing her mother." Han Hyun Jang added that there are still limitations to the character's narrative, which she said made the last part of the story less interesting. According to her, the more mystery revealed, the less attractive the character and the story become. The reporter said that the movie's melodrama genre falls far short of expectations. She mentioned that even though the characters have a heartwarming and romantic story, the cast only portrays the desperate setting in a lengthy manner. "There is no tension. It is not even touching as it leads from a weak ending to a sudden ending." Han concluded her review by saying: "Romance that should be a ray of light amid desperate pain collapsed, which made the latter part dull. The movie's background also does not fit the current era and is boring." Meanwhile, "My Name is Loh Kiwan" will finally meet the viewers this March 1 on Netflix. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 'My Name is Loh KiWan' Director Only Wanted Song Joong Ki to Play the Titular Role - Here's Why What are you looking forward to from Song Joong Ki's "My Name is Loh Kiwan"? Share your thoughts/replies in the comments! For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KDramaStars. KDramaStars owns this article. Shai Collins wrote this. With planning still in its early stages, South Middleton School District is looking at a projected shortfall of almost $1.4 million in its 2024-25 budget. District administrators briefed the school board Monday on a proposal that calls for a 5.3% real estate tax hike, the maximum increase allowed under the Act 1 index. The numbers are preliminary and a decision on the millage rate is months away. Final approval of the district budget could come as early as mid-May, but the board has until June 30 to submit a fiscal plan to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. A 5.3% hike would increase the district tax rate to 12.9542 mills and generate about $1,321,737 in additional revenue, according to information presented Monday during a budget workshop. This would reduce the projected deficit of $1,396,014 to $74,278. The owner of an average home, assessed at $209,600, would pay $136.65 more in taxes. District administrators came into the budget cycle with just over $49 million in projected expenses that include requests for additional staff from various departments, Assistant Business Manager Lindsay Kint said. Following a preliminary review, administrators trimmed about $1.2 million to reduce expenditures to just over $48 million, Kint said. Classroom proposal The current version of the budget includes a proposal to hire a teacher and two instructional aides to staff a new special education classroom that could specialize in providing autism support services. South Middleton is part of a consortium of local districts that work together to host in-house special education services at a more affordable rate than outside placements to service providers. Under the proposal, South Middleton wants to transfer five district students from outside placements into the in-house classroom for a projected savings of about $60,000, said Tina Darchicourt, director of business and operations. The plan also calls for South Middleton to draw in three additional students from consortium members that could bring the total projected savings up to about $150,000, she said. Because this classroom would require the hiring of specially trained staff, Superintendent Kevin J. ODonnell Jr. asked the board to weigh in early on the proposal so that his administration could post the jobs early to maximize the effectiveness of the search. We would like to get moving on it sooner rather than later, ODonnell said. Were confident of the five number. Right now, the target is autism support, but its not set in stone. Coordinator position The proposal also includes hiring a full-time academic programs coordinator. The starting salary of that position could range from $90,000 to $117,000, Darchicourt said. The coordinator would work directly with teachers and subject matter program chairs as the district grapples with projected enrollment increases, a reexamination of the team teaching model at Yellow Breeches Middle School and an expansion of the elective courses to facilitate a career pathways initiative being implemented at Boiling Springs High School, ODonnell said. Were hearing from folks about the need to retool and recraft curriculum offerings, he said. We want to support that and have someone whos leading that. I would like to foster and grow that. Board President Brad Group supported hiring a coordinator. Before coming on the board, Group retired from the district following a career as a second grade teacher. When a position like the coordinator is not filled or supported by the budget, a gap exists in the ability of the district to keep staff training and academic materials up-to-date, Group said. Staff wages In related news, ODonnell said he wants the administration to review the wage structure of support staff in an effort to better recruit and retain qualified people, which he identified as one of the biggest challenges facing the district. There has been an increase in staff members leaving the district for more competitive wages offered by private entities, ODonnell told the board. As part of its review, the district would have to balance higher entry-level wages with some kind of method that acknowledges the longevity of loyal employees, he said. For now, the goal is to keep this review internal by having the business office collect data on the starting and median wage rates of neighboring school districts and districts of similar size to South Middleton, ODonnell said. One hundred dollars could buy you either a calculator or a dictaphone, ideal for busy people, at the Kelowna Simpsons-Sears store in 1974, according to this ad that appeared in The Daily Courier. We are reviving a daily feature on local news items from 100 and 50 years ago. Kirsten Watson, at her home in Waterloo, Ont. on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. She was weeks away last year from losing access to potentially life-saving medication, a situation she found herself in because Ontario does not cover the cost of take-home cancer drugs. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Power Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - President William Ruto has revealed that Kenya sealed a deal with Uganda on fair distribution and pricing of fuel after months of a trade tiff. In a statement released by Ruto after meeting President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, the Head of State emphasised that the new formula would see neighbouring countries benefit in terms of adequate distribution of fuel products. He added that the two governments were also working to resolve the trade stalemate which saw Uganda sue Kenya at the regional court over an imbalanced trade arrangement. On the other hand, he noted that Kenya will be championing the resumption of the construction of a pipeline connecting the two countries. The developments come amidst plans by Uganda to completely cut off Kenya and construct a pipeline directly from Tanzania. Uganda had accused Kenyan companies of selling fuel to Uganda exorbitantly, to make a profit at the expense of fair prices for Ugandan citizens. Kenya and Uganda have differed in recent months over an imbalanced trade deal. At the regional court, Kenya was accused of an unfair trade framework, with Uganda alleging that the Energy Petroleum and Regulatory Authority (EPRA) denied the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) a licence to import fuel directly from Kenya. This is after Uganda passed the Petroleum Supply Amendment Bill 2023 which gave the national corporation all the power to be the sole importer and distributor of fuel to Uganda. The bill passed by Uganda was aimed at cutting ties with Kenyan companies accused of prioritizing profit over fair pricing for its citizens. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - Kelvin Mwaura Ngotho, the main suspect in a Sh2.85 billion gold scam investigation involving two Malaysian nationals, who was arrested yesterday by the Operations Support Unit detectives has been arraigned at the Milimani Law Courts. Mwaura was arrested at the same court premises when he appeared for the hearing of yet another gold scam case in which he is out on bond. Operations Support detectives have been pursuing Mwaura since December 27, 2023, being the mastermind of the near-success $19,000,000 gold scam deal orchestrated by an 8-member gang. In the investigations, it was established that Mwaura was the tenant of the Lavington-based premises where the gang operated, having entered a tenancy agreement with the landlord to use the property as a residential house. On the day when the deal involving 50kg in fake gold was to be sealed, detectives stormed the house where Mwaura's seven accomplices were rounded up but he managed to escape. They have since been arraigned. Earlier this morning, Mwaura was arraigned at court no.4 before Hon. R.K Ondieki charged with conspiracy to commit a felony and Attempt to commit a felony. He pleaded not guilty to both charges and was admitted to a bond of Sh3 million or alternative cash bail of Sh1 million. The matter will be mentioned on 13th March at the same court. The Kenyan DAILY POST. Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo shocked officials at the ministry when he informed them that Treasury CS Njuguna Ndungu had banned air travel for staff seeking to go to Mombasa from any part of the country. Speaking during an interview, Kiptoo stated that only CS Ndungu was approved to fly under the ministry's cost-saving measures. On a need-to-need basis, Principal Secretaries in the ministry can also be approved for flights. PS Kiptoo remarked that the proposals stemmed from a team tasked with exploring measures to trim the ministry expenditure as Kenya continues to revive the economy. We saw the need to implement austerity measures. We agreed on a raft of measures which we believe will result in a significant reduction in expenditure, he explained. We have said flying to Mombasa will only be for the Cabinet Secretary. Maybe the Principal Secretary and senior staff who by this nature of the job cannot travel can be allowed. Other staff members in the ministry will be required to board the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) train and any other alternatives including travelling by road. Other measures set to reduce expenditures at the exchequer include abolishing the purchase of snacks via budgeted funds. At the moment, the Ministry only offers drinking water to its staff with individuals required to purchase meals from their pockets. PS Kiptoo remarked that the Treasury had further adopted affordable environment-friendly materials during construction and stopped the majority of ongoing infrastructure projects. The PS urged other Principal Secretaries who act as accounting officers for ministries to explore ways to cut down expenditure. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - Former Nairobi County Governor, Dr. Evans Kidero, has praised former Prime Minister Raila Odinga after he applied for the African Union chairperson job. In an interview with K24 TV on Wednesday morning, Kidero termed the opposition leader as a man with a strong personality and unmatched leadership qualities. "Raila himself has a strong personality and has unmatched leadership qualities. "Raila has been a leader for a long time and has got influence and that is still going to continue whether he is the chairman of the AU," Kidero stated. Kideros statement comes a fortnight after Raila Odinga announced his bid to replace Mousa Faki who retires early next year. Today, I want to make it public that I am ready to go for the chairmanship of the Africa Union. "I am ready and offer myself to be of service to this African content when called upon. "I believe that Africa is playing in a league that it should not play in and that it deserves better, Raila said on February 15, 2024. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - Renowned communications and digital strategist, Pauline Njoroge, has stated that President William Ruto is merely emulating former President Uhuru Kenyatta's leadership style, despite pretending to forge his own path. This is after Ruto entered into a secret political pact with opposition leader, Raila Odinga. Unlike Uhuru, who publicized his pact with Raila Odinga in 2018, Ruto, like a coward, is acting secretly, terming his association with Raila Odinga as merely because he is vying for the African Union Chairperson post. Reacting to the pact between Ruto and Raila, Pauline, who is also Jubilee Party Deputy Organising secretary, said the pact is just what Uhuru did in 2018 but Ruto and his United Democratic Alliance brigade opposed it. In 2018 when Uhuru said that we should find a win-win solution in order to build a united country and avoid a situation where the winner takes it all, he was demonized especially by his own people in Mt. Kenya. "Now, Ruto has said the exact thing in Homabay today, Njoroge wrote on X The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - An outspoken Azimio One Kenya Alliance senator has praised President William Ruto for supporting former Prime Minister Raila Odingas bid to become the next African Union Chairperson. Ruto on Monday met Ugandan dictator, Kaguta Museveni, where he marketed Raila Odingas bid to become the sheriff of the continent. Speaking during an interview on Citizen TV on Tuesday, Kisii County Senator Richard Onyonka said the Kenyan political class needs to realise they cant thrive in hate. I would like to give President William Ruto the credit he deserves; this is what statesmanship is all about. Politics is not about the winner taking it all. This is a good move politically, he said. We always forget that Ruto, Raila, Kalonzo, Musalia, and Wetangula have been together for the last 30 years, and at some point they pull themselves together to do things for the interest of the country. He added that Raila's bid for the AU job is also a good opportunity to allow Kalonzo to start organising himself to run for the presidential seat in 2027. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - President William Ruto has revealed why he chose to back former Prime Minister Raila Odinga for the African Union Commission chairperson role for the first time since the duo met in Uganda on Monday. Speaking during the investment Conference in Homa Bay County, Ruto reminded the residents that he had always drafted a plan to unite the nation after the controversial 2022 presidential election. He asserted that no Kenyan ought to be excluded from government despite the outcome of the polls. The deal agreed upon in Uganda while the duo was hosted by President Yoweri Museveni encompassed Ruto's promise to the nation. "I was here during the campaigns here in Homa Bay and I promised you that there will be no loser here in Kenya. "I promised that I would work so hard to ensure that everyone gets a space. Didn't I promise that? "There is a space for all of us. We want a win-win situation for all Kenyans. There are no Kenyans who are in the opposition and those in the government," he expressed. While in Uganda, Raila lauded Ruto and Museveni for backing his bid, and at the same time recognized his perennial nemesis as the President of Kenya despite vowing never to recognize him as such earlier on after allegedly stealing his victory. The Kenyan DAILY POST The Charlottesville man charged with assaulting at least one woman on the Rivanna Trail must now face a separate civil trial over his pending eviction from an apartment he shares with his fiancee near the trail. In court Tuesday, Charlottesville General District Court Judge Andrew Sneathern set the latter matter for early May. The trial will pit 37-year-old Patrick McNamara, who has fiercely proclaimed his innocence, against Management Services Corporation, or MSC, one of the largest landlords in Charlottesville. Theyre holding evidence, McNamara said after a short hearing Tuesday. McNamara contends that MSC possesses electronic apartment door entry data that, combined with other electronic evidence, proves his innocence. Such data, he said, includes internet protocol information, Google maps, business telephone and video conference data and as well as GPS coordinates stored on his iPhone, which police seized. At Tuesdays hearing, the Roanoke-based lawyer for the landlord told the judge that he intends to press the eviction case due to an immediate nonremediable violation of the lease. I absolutely disagree, McNamara said in court. While Charlottesville police originally said they were hunting for the man behind two Jan. 12 assaults on the popular river trail, upon McNamaras arrest on Jan. 18, he was only charged with one count of assault and battery, for grabbing a womans buttocks. The Class 1 misdemeanor can bring a jail term up to 12 months. And while McNamara was only ever charged with a single misdemeanor, his landlord put in a written notice that he was responsible for a series of attacks. In order to avoid an eviction, McNamara said he worked out a deal with MSC. In late January, he temporarily left Charlottesville to follow what he says was his part of a bargain to halt eviction proceedings. However, a few days after leaving, he found himself facing the eviction process anyway. The companys lawyer, B. Grimes Creasy, declined to discuss the case with The Daily Progress, but Charlottesville real estate lawyer Cheri Lewis contends that evicting someone on pretrial suspicions can be difficult. If theres an issue of safety, its only alleged at this point, Lewis told The Daily Progress. Being charged with something is not engaging in a crime. McNamaras lease demands eviction for drug-dealing and commands both the landlord and the tenant to follow all laws, but Lewis said such provisions dont appear to have been breached. This is also something that did not occur in the residence, said Lewis. I would say an eviction proceeding is pretty specious at this point. In addition to the two Jan. 12 reports, police radio chatter and criminal incident reports indicate that there was a similar groping in the area the next day and two more such reports in September and October. Police and prosecutors have been tight-lipped about their evidence, but Charlottesville Police Chief Michael Kochis appeared on a local radio program to defend the arrest. We follow best practices, Kochis told WINA host Courteney Stuart. We wouldnt have charged somebody if we didnt think he did it. In the month-ago interview Kochis also defended the unusual level of secrecy, which includes a sealed search warrant and an arrest warrant carrying no criminal complaint and which identifies the victim only by her initials: J.L. The reason why this stuff is sealed, said Kochis, is because we are still investigating the other cases. In one of the Jan. 12 cases, the perpetrator was said to be wearing a white, puffy winter coat, something that McNamara and his fiancee claim he has never owned. McNamara alleges that a photograph secretly snapped of him by an amateur sleuth was presented to a butt-grabbing victim, who then identified McNamara as the perpetrator. Thats it, said McNamara. Full stop. This spring promises to be a season of trials for McNamara. He now faces a criminal trial on April 15 and the eviction hearing on May 6. Whatever happens in the civil case may not matter much, he said, as his lease ends on May 31 and the landlord has informed him that it will not be renewed. McNamara, who was working remotely for a Boston-based technology firm before he stepped aside to deal with his criminal case, said whether he has a home at all in Charlottesville may be a moot point; he and his fiancee are considering moving if and when his name is cleared. Having been branded the Rivanna Trail groper after less than two years in Charlottesville, McNamara said he isnt sure he can continue to live in the city. Were unsure, he said, that were going to stay here. Wednesday, February 28, 2024 President William Ruto has sought to endear himself to investors at the expense of hustlers who elected him into office. This is after he unveiled plans to lower the current rate of corporate tax as part of efforts to attract investors to the country. In the Budget Policy Statement (BPS) released in February, the National Treasury noted that the tax rate would be decreased from the existing 30 per cent to 25 per cent. Corporate tax is usually applied to profit made by a company over a specified period (gross income minus gross expenditure). "The Government will reduce the corporate rate of tax from the current 30 per cent to 25 per cent over the strategy period. Kenya's Corporate Income Tax (CIT) rate is at 30 per cent compared to the world average of 23 per cent and the African average of 29 per cent," read the policy statement in part. The Treasury explained that the reduction of the tax rate would serve as an incentive for foreign investors looking to establish operations in the country. The current rates have also made investors in the country look for other markets. Kenya's taxation policies have already prompted multiple mega-multinational companies to leave the Kenyan market in recent years. Notably, the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report 2023 revealed that 100 millionaire investors departed from Kenya in 2022. A similar number was estimated to have left the country in 2023. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party leader, Raila Odinga, was over the weekend spotted meeting with President William Ruto. The two political rivals met in Uganda in a meeting mediated by Uganda's dictator, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. The two, according to impeccable sources, signed a pact where they agreed to work together for the sake of the nation. Raila first agreed to recognise Ruto as the fifth President of Kenya, a thing he did immediately after the meeting. Ruto, on his part, agreed to grant Raila Odinga seven cabinet slots in his government and also support his African Union Chairperson bid. Surprisingly, Raila on Wednesday said he bumped into Ruto in Uganda and they had not planned for a meeting. Raila also said the only thing they talked about with the two leaders was his candidacy as AU chairperson. After we talked about my candidature, they talked about the issue of oil among themselves. I asked for their support and both of them agreed they would support me. "President Museveni said he would be the one to propose me as the chair of AUC and I said thank you. "I am not going away. Addis Ababa is only 2 hours away from Nairobi. I am available, whenever I am called I will answer. " I am ready to work with you people," Raila told Homa Bay county residents. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - Immigration Principal Secretary, Julius Bitok, is among Kenya Kwanza Alliance members who are still living in the Moi era, despite Kenyans moving from that totalitarian era. These revelations were made by Dadaab Member of Parliament, Farah Maalim, who said Bitok has employed six of his family members as county commissioners and 10 as employees in the Immigration department. Maalim also said leaders like Bitok dont deserve public offices because they bring mediocrity and nepotism which has affected President William Rutos administration. Bitok is among many of Ruto's orphans who will land in jail when Ruto exits power due to corruption, nepotism, mismanagement, favoritism, and cronyism among other evils. The Kenyan DAILY POST Wednesday, February 28, 2024 - Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung'u has clarified the rationale behind Kenya's decision to continue going for long-term foreign loans, despite the ongoing Eurobond payback process. Appearing before the Public Debt and Privatization Committee, chaired by Balambala Member of Parliament Abdi Shurie, the Cabinet Secretary shed light on the Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy (MTDS) for the financial year 2024/25. According to the CS, long-term borrowing is a bid to minimize refinancing risks and lighten the Average Time Maturity for domestic and total debt. "Use of long-tenor Treasury bonds for refinancing domestic debt is set to raise new deficit funding resources along with a reduction in the proportion of short-term domestic debt," CS Njuguna stated. CS Njuguna highlighted that despite the borrowing, Kenya will meet its current and future debt payment obligations without compromising other budgeted programs. "The latest Debt Sustainability Analysis report indicated that public debt remains sustainable, though the distress level is elevated due to the adverse effects of multiple shocks experienced by the country since 2020, CJ Njuguna clarified. He further assured the committee that the treasury was working together with other stakeholders in the market such as the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and Capital Market Authority (CMA) to maximize the domestic debt reforms. Furthermore, the National Treasury was assured of sustaining the domestic debt and improving the performance of the primary issuance as well as promoting the vibrancy of the secondary market. His clarification comes a few days after the Deputy Auditor General questioned why the National Treasury relied too much on foreign loans to offset public debts. The Deputy Auditor General further cautioned the government over fluctuation in the currency following the Ksh219 billion Eurobond payback. The Kenyan DAILY POST 3 Shares Share An excerpt from First Do No Harm: A Physicians Burnout and Mental Health Guidebook from Medical School to Retirement. Residency requirements have changed drastically since my father completed medical school in the 1970s. Residents needed to be fully focused and alert despite working forty-eight- or seventy-two-hour days, which led some to substance misuse. Some residents took stimulants to help perk themselves up and alcohol to bring them back down when they had the chance to sleep. The residents that turned to alcohol and drugs did so because of the stigma associated with being viewed as weak. Given the years that these residents spent completing undergraduate and medical school, they were under immense pressure to avoid washing out because they couldnt keep up or showed signs of physical or mental distress. Self-medicating became a way to endure the long hours and relentless stress of their job. No, not every resident of my fathers era used stimulants or alcohol to get through grueling times. I dont think my father did during residency (according to my mom), but he did later in life. Eventually, he relied on alcohol to stabilize his moods. He kept this drinking hidden from his patients and employers as best as he could. But he also tried to conceal his drinking from his wife (my mother). She came from a conservative Christian background with an alcoholic father, and he didnt want to disappoint her by letting her know of his dependance on alcohol. A physicians sources of pressure: sleep deprivation and long hours All jobs have a certain element of stress and pressure, but medical professionals have some unique to their profession. Roles where an employee must stay focused and mentally alert as a matter of life and death usually come with safeguards such as these examples from another profession (U.S. Dept. of Transportation 2022). These employees: Can work a maximum of eleven hours only after having ten consecutive hours off. Are required to take a thirty-minute break after eight consecutive hours at work. Can work no more than seventy hours each week, after which they need at least thirty-four hours off before starting the next workweek. Are required to sleep (or not work) for ten hours each twenty-four-hour period. Sadly, these rules dont apply to medical professionals. They apply to truck drivers. A tired truck driver runs the risk of falling asleep behind the wheel, something that could have dire, deadly consequences for others. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, more than 750 people die each year due to fatigued truck drivers. Another 20,000 are injured (Arnold & Itkin 2023). Lets compare that to residency where, as of 2023, new doctors are limited to eighty hours each week. Eighty hours! Compare that with the thirty-five-hour work week of the average American. But at least they get paid well, you might say. That can be true, but it might not be as much as you think. First-year residents earn an average of $55,000 per year (Buga 2021). Lets do the math. Making $55,000 each year while working fifty-two eighty-hour weeks comes to $13.22 per hour. Considering that the average hourly wage in the US is now over $33 per hour, its inaccurate to say that residents get paid well (YCharts 2023). When I worked in residency, the eighty-hour work week maximum wasnt enforced. One night, some colleagues and I broke down how many hours we worked each week. We were averaging one hundred hours. Using our salary and the number of hours we averaged, we learned that we as residents made less than minimum wagewhich was less than $6 an hour at that time! After residency and completing the medical boards, residents who choose to work at an academic medical center (AMC) can become supervising physicians (a.k.a., attendings). Attending doctors are the senior physicians that oversee the work of a group of residents. Unlike residents, attendings have no limitations on the number of hours they are allowed to work. They work until the job is done and the patients are taken care of. Its common for attendings to work for thirty-six hours straight without sleep. In fact, some surgeons stay at the hospital for more than three days without going home, and they rely on infrequent catnaps to keep them going. Others, like me, take calls from home after working for eight to twelve hours in the day, at times only getting one to two hours of sleep at a time between addressing phone calls from the hospital, needs of patients, and outside physicians requiring a consult. And I do this for seven days or more at a time! How comfortable would you feel if you knew the doctor rushing you into surgery hadnt slept for the last thirty-six hours? Attendings often brag about their lack of sleep and how they spend every other night on call, as those stressors are badges of honor. Calling in sick or asking for help was considered a weakness in the past, and still is by some. Few attendings miss their work shift, mostly because patients dont stop getting sick just because their doctor is sick. Even leaving on time at the end of a long shift can be viewed as a sign of disinterest. The message these behaviors send to residents is this: if you wish to practice medicine, you must be willing to accept the costs. My father never called in sick unless he was admitted to the hospital. He pressed on when he hadnt slept for days. For him, as it is for many still today, accepting the costs became his way of life, and it changed how he perceived himself and his responsibilities. For example, I visited my parents when I was very pregnant, and I ended up heading to the hospital in premature labor to give birth to his first grandchild. At the same time I left to give birth, Dad headed to work at a different hospital because, as he said to me, I could not find someone to cover. He continued to work at all costs until the day he died. Katherine Twombley is a pediatric nephrologist and author of First Do No Harm: A Physicians Burnout and Mental Health Guidebook from Medical School to Retirement. A $13.3 million funding gap could mean job cuts are coming to Albemarle County schools. Superintendent Matthew Haas says he is trying to find some way to soften the blow, if not outright stop the cuts from happening at all. At a school board meeting last week, Haas presented a draft funding request that will need to be approved by the board and the county Board of Supervisors before it can go into effect. The presentation included estimates of how much revenue the school system will be receiving in the upcoming fiscal year: $259 million. Only a tiny fraction of that funding will come from the federal government. An estimated 72% will be derived from local tax dollars, and 28% is expected to come from the commonwealth. That total is several millions short of the funding request Haas and his staff have proposed: $273 million. According to the funding request, 71% of that would go towards instructional use, which includes budget items such as teacher pay. Last school year, for instance, all teaching and support staff received a 2% pay bump. The division will have to include that additional expenditure in its budget this year. That pay increase makes Albemarle County one of the highest paying divisions in the region and the commonwealth. The board has taken big swings to get to the top of our local market. We have the highest starting pay for teachers in our region, Haas said at the Feb. 22 meeting. He said he believes higher wages will help attract and retain teacher talent, as the county is not only competing with nearby school districts in Central Virginia but also many that are farther afield such as those in Prince William, Henrico and Alexandria. The presentation noted the high cost of living in Albemarle County and the city of Charlottesville it surrounds, where 76% of the divisions 2,792 employees reside. In terms of housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, taxes and other necessities, Albemarle is one of the most expensive counties in Virginia, reads one of the slides in Haas presentation. Higher wages mean more employees can afford to live in the same county where they work, and Haas also said it led to a 2% increase in teachers of color last year, what was described as a historic accomplishment for Albemarle County. The funding shortfall is not necessarily a product of overspending, but rather less funding, specifically state funding. Last years adopted proposal included nearly $72 million of state funds. This years proposal includes less than $64 million. The proposal would use $10 million more from local funds than it did last year, ostensibly to cover the gap left by a shortage of state funding. The $13.3 million estimated gap, however, is based on Gov. Glenn Youngkins budget proposal. Youngkins budget that included less funding for public schools has not been well received by the Democrat-controlled House of Delegates and Senate. Both chambers drafted their own budget proposals, which included significantly more funding for schools. The House and Senate both put forth budgets that increased education spending by $1.5 billion. Somewhere in there, theres funding for us, Haas told the board. If Democrats and the Republican governor can come to an agreement, it could very well mean that there will be more state funding for public schools across the commonwealth, including in Albemarle County. We can plan for higher revenues, Haas said when discussing solutions to the funding gap. Thats a real possibility. He went on to list other ways in which decisions in the General Assembly could mean more funding for his school system before acknowledging potential staff cuts. I want to be encouraging about this. We could make reduction, he said, adding that he wants to remain optimistic. Well do it across the board, so everyone feels a little pain across the organization but nothing crippling. What those reductions might look like and how they would go into effect will be discussed at a work session on Thursday. Mary McIntyre, vice president of the county teacher union and a literacy specialist in the school division, is still working her way through the 275-page budget proposal, but she said she believes the budget will be especially tight this year. And she recognizes that could mean cuts to staff. If the revenue doesnt appear, its hard to see them balance this budget without cutting positions, McIntrye told The Daily Progress. Some employees, she said, feel the central office is top heavy and slimming it down could help alleviate the funding gap. The priority needs to be maintaining high standards for the services we currently provide for students and families, she said. Right now, the division is trying to stay positive and hoping that state and local revenues come in higher than currently projected, but if that doesnt come to fruition, we certainly hope the school board will talk to those of us doing the work before deciding where to make cuts. Haas said the school and his team have been through difficult times before, particularly during the pandemic, when the division had to suddenly slash its budget proposal by $15 million. The drop in revenue led to many employees worried they would be laid off, but Haas and the school board worked to prevent that from happening. Ive always believed where theres a will theres a way. Its hard to say to somebody, Just trust us, we got it. But I want people to know thats the intention, Haas said. Despite the positive perspective, at this point in time, job cuts appear to be a very real possibility. Who or what would actually get cut remains to be seen, McIntyre said. But we will do what we always do, which is do the best we can with what we have. The Ministry of Finance has cautioned Parliament against a proposal to allocate all money collected from motor third-party insurance to the Ministry of Health for treating road crash victims. The Ministry argues that creating separate funds within the government would be difficult to manage. The call comes from Henry Musasizi, Minister of State for Finance, while appearing before the Health Committee. He responded to a proposal by committee chairperson Charles Ayume, who advocated for directing all motor third-party insurance collections towards treating road crash victims. The Minister informed the Committee that the total collections from motor third-party insurance in the 2022/23 financial year alone amounted to Shs32 billion. This figure includes stamp duty (Shs12 billion) and VAT (Shs3 billion). Money collected through stamp duty and VAT contributes to government revenue, which goes into the consolidated fund to finance government programs. The remaining balance stays with insurance companies to compensate individuals injured in accidents, also serving as part of their income. Whta we can welcome if there is inadequate funding, can we argue along these lines? Can we find ways of funding health better if there is a gap which must be closed?Musasizi said. The Committee defended its proposal, with Ayume citing the high cost of treating road crash victims. He noted that the daily cost of care in the Intensive Care Unit can reach Shs3 million in government facilities and Shs3.5 million in the private sector. Speaker of Parliament, Ms. Anita Among, led the house in paying tribute to Mr. Magezi Tumuhaise, 25, a resident of Kagadi District. Tumuhaise was tragically killed on February 26, 2024, when a speeding government vehicle driven by Mr. Stephen Tibihikira, a driver employed by the Kagadi local government, knocked him. Ms. Among called for an end to the use of excessive force against protestors in Uganda. During a plenary session, she demanded that the driver be held accountable and face legal consequences according to the law, stating that impunity for such actions must cease to prevent further loss of life. That kind of impunity should not continue in this country because an accident is something that we can avoid because its not like a gun. People are being killed with guns and others are intentionally knocking people dead. I want to call upon the law enforcers to ensure that these people are brought to book, Among said on Tuesday. According to the police, the incident was reported to the Kagadi territorial police station. Mr. Tibihikira was arrested to assist with the investigation into the fatal traffic accident that occured during a protest by residents of Muhorro, Bwikara, Kagadi, and surrounding areas. The residents were protesting the deteriorating condition of roads. Police revealed that Mr. Magezi was among the protestors. Following the accident, the driver initially fled the scene but was later apprehended. The Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) Party has criticized the formation of various political alliances, claiming they are a waste of time for Ugandans seeking to change the political status quo. This criticism comes after the formation of yet another alliance, the Holy Alliance, on Tuesday. The alliance comprises the Conservative Party (CP), the National Economic Empowerment Dialogue (NEED), the Justice Forum (JEEMA), the Democratic Party Bloc (DP Block), and a faction of the UPC itself. During the launch of the Holy Alliance, Joseph Kabuleta, the president of NEED and a former presidential candidate, stated that the alliances focus is to prepare Ugandans for the post-Museveni era and prevent the country from descending into political instability. However, Faizo Muzeyi, the head of media and communications at UPC, told journalists on Wednesday that such alliances are a waste of time as they are formed solely to serve the interests of a few individuals. Muzeyi further pointed out that numerous political alliances have been formed in the past, including The Democratic Alliance (TDA), the Peoples Front for Transition (PFT), and the United Forces of Change (UFC), but they have had no discernible impact. Young woman in SW China's Sichuan broadens audience of traditional Chinese culture People's Daily Online) 15:43, February 27, 2024 Ge Nanjun, a young woman born in the 1990s, runs a cultural hall to promote traditional Chinese culture, bringing the traditional beauty to a wider audience. Her cultural hall, Shugongqintai, recently organized a Chinese New Year fair in Wuhou district, Chengdu, capital city of southwest China's Sichuan Province, which included various activities such as drawing New Year pictures, cutting paper, writing Spring Festival couplets, and guessing lantern riddles, captivating many local residents, as well as visitors. Photo shows participants at the Chinese New Year fair organized by Ge Nanjun's cultural hall Shugongqintai in Wuhou district, Chengdu, capital city of southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee) While she was studying jewelry appraisal and attending exhibitions in Paris about a decade ago, she spotted many traditional Chinese cultural elements in the design of international brands. "It filled me with a sense of pride and prompted me to establish my own brand to promote Chinese traditional culture," Ge said. After completing her education, she returned to China and established a cultural hall at the end of 2019, which includes programs on performances, Hanfu (traditional Chinese clothing), catering, leisure, as well as cultural and creative products. Since her cultural hall opened in June 2020, it has organized over 100 public charity events themed on Chinese culture such as the traditional Chinese solar terms, reaching over 100,000 participants online and offline. Photo shows a cultural activity organized by Shugongqintai. (Photo courtesy of the interviewee) She also invited Yang Shuyun, the makeup stylist of a television series adapted from the classic 18th century Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, to give classes on traditional Chinese costumes and makeup. The classes have been held 12 times, attracting more than 600 participants, many of whom are from other countries. She was most impressed by a Japanese participant, who has a great passion for Chinese culture. "The course involved many rarely-used Chinese characters, but she could understand and take notes. She said she hopes to open a Hanfu experience center in Japan after completing her studies and returning to Japan, to share Chinese culture with the Japanese people," Ge said. Photo shows Ge Nanjun, founder of the cultural hall, Shugongqintai. (Photo/An Yuan) "I hope we can help more friends, both in China and overseas, appreciate the diverse and excellent traditional Chinese culture, and help it 'gain popularity' and reach global audiences," Ge said. (Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun) Students at the University of Virginia are voting now on a referendum demanding the school divest any and all monies in its $13.6 billion endowment invested in companies engaging in or profiting from the State of Israels apartheid regime and acute violence against Palestinians. Israel has been at war with Palestinian terror group Hamas since Oct. 7 of last year, after the latter launched a deadly attack on civilians. To date, more than 30,000 people have been killed, the overwhelming majority of them Palestinian. Israel continues to bomb and blockade the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, a territory twice the size of Washington, D.C., but home to three times the population, more than half of which is under the age of 18. While the United States has no troops on the ground and President Biden has urged for a cease-fire while calling Israels response over the top, it has remained a steadfast ally of Israel. That alone has many calling the U.S. complicit in the killing even genocide of Palestinians. Those opposed to Israels actions, including those opposed to the existence of a Jewish nation-state altogether, have called on American organizations to withdraw their investments in the country. Colleges, in particular, have been a hotbed for what is known as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Students and faculty at Columbia University, the University of Michigan and the University of California, Los Angeles, have cast votes urging their institutions withdraw any and all support from the state of Israel amid the conflict. While the referendum at UVa could be adopted with a simple majority of voters, it is unlikely to have any immediate effect whatsoever. The referendum has no power over the schools governing Board of Visitors or the UVa Investment Management Company, the agency charged with regulating the schools endowment fund. The institution is not bound by the results of this student referendum, UVa spokeswoman Bethanie Glover told The Daily Progress. Whether or not the school complies is almost beside the point for some students who support the referendum. The vote is a line in the sand, the say, illustrating the divide between the will of the student body and the decisions of university officials. The referendum has been spearheaded by UVa Apartheid Divest, a group that has roots in the student protests against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa and has been revived in recent years in response to other worldwide conflicts. A third-year representative of that group, who asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation, told The Daily Progress that the group will use the results of the referendum as a lobbying tool as we continue to push the unaccountable, undemocratic institutions that have control over our universitys investments to be transparent about our investments and divest from apartheid and genocide. Students with UVa Apartheid Divest also led a walkout on Monday, in which roughly 100 people gathered on the steps of the schools Rotunda and marched roughly a half-mile across Grounds to the Observatory Hill Dining Room. Students from other organizations supporting the referendum, including the Asian Students Union, Minority Rights Coalition and Students for Justice in Palestine, participated. A student with Medical Students for Palestine addressed the crowd from the steps of the Rotunda and called the Israel-Hamas conflict the moral crisis of our time. The student, who also refused to identify herself, referred to the universitys history of opposing human rights violations and divesting from states participating in those violations. In 1990, the Board of Visitors voted to sell $14.7 million worth of stocks in companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. During the Vietnam War, then-UVa President Edgar Shannon took the side of student protesters and wrote directly to President Richard Nixon opposing the invasion of Cambodia. I think, to an extent, everyone on a personal level should feel involved in this, the student speaker told The Daily Progress after delivering her remarks to the crowd. I mean, we are, as Americans, complicit at baseline by paying the tax dollars that fund a large portion of the atrocities being committed against the people in Palestine. As students marched across Grounds Monday they chanted: Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israels crimes. From Palestine to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine. Israel, you cant hide, youre committing genocide. But in a moment that may be symbolic of the fight ahead for the student protesters, as they made their way across Grounds Monday, a passerby on the phone asked the person on the other end of the line, What the fk is genocide? Students fighting for divestment not only face pushback from supporters of Israel but from students who are largely disinterested in the conflict. In order for the referendum to come up for a universitywide vote, it had to collect 950 faculty and student signatures. While it managed to attract 1,161, that represents just 4.5% of UVas total student body, including undergraduate and graduate students. Several Jewish students and faculty have referred to the referendum as antisemitic and disgusting. First-year student Matan Goldstein, an Israeli Jew, went to counter protest at another walkout on Oct. 25 organized by Students for Justice in Palestine. While protesters rallied on the steps of the Rotunda, he stood to the side holding up the blue and white flag of Israel. Do people know how such referendums lead to tremendous amounts of antisemitic attacks on Jewish students, regardless of them being identified or not identified with the state of Israel? Goldstein told The Daily Progress a few days before Mondays walkout. Goldstein did not counter protest Monday. No one did. Goldstein and other Jewish students and faculty have told The Daily Progress that they have been targeted, harassed and intimidated on Grounds for expressing any support for Israel or even expressing their Jewish faith. Jewish students say they have been yelled at, spat on and physically assaulted. Complaints have been filed with the Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights, the Division of Student Affairs and the Task Force on Religious, Diversity and Belonging at UVa as well as the U.S. Department of Education. Students with UVa Apartheid Divest say they met with Board of Visitors members leading up to the referendum vote hoping to build support. The matter does not appear on a board agenda for an upcoming Feb. 28 meeting. The results of the student referendum will be announced Thursday. Customers who have paid substantial sums of money to skydive here in Kilkenny are continuing to grapple with lighter wallets, deferred dreams and their queries left unanswered. For many customers, refund requests made to Kilkenny-based Irish Skydiving Club CLG (who are currently engaging in a legal battle with the Irish Aviation Authority) have been ignored. Ever since the Kilkenny People first reported on this matter in July last year, many more customers who have paid money to the club prior to the suspension of bookings have been getting in touch. Among them is Tomas Glynn, who reached out claiming that the company has left him more than 500 out of pocket. I paid more money just before the skydive for it to be recorded on video, only to receive an email the night before saying that it was cancelled, he said. Tomas told the Kilkenny People he was doing the skydive for charity and had to hastily arrange for it to take place at another skydiving club, so as to not let people down. He further branded the clubs customer relations as a disgrace, adding that his requests for a refund were ignored. Another customer who has reached out since the previous piece is Enda Davey, who told the Kilkenny People that the company has also not responded to his refund requests after his charity skydive was cancelled. The whole ordeal has left a sour taste in my mouth, he said. I have better things to be doing than constantly refreshing the website for updates and sending emails. I just want to move on. The companys website states that queries are by email only and that the company does not operate any phone line. It also states that the club is not in a position to offer refunds and that it provides private membership and not consumer vouchers. An automatic reply from the skydiving company to email queries states that the club office is closed and that it is simply not possible to response [sic] to individual queries at this time. The email also states that all skydiving flights and bookings for club members is [sic] suspended due to ongoing interference by Irish Aviation Authority. Members are expected to exercise patience, the company website states, and allow your club to resolve this issue. The company further state that if member support is not forthcoming, the company will have to seek the necessary legal protections under company law to mitigate against becoming insolvent. Further to this, it claims that a minority of members have threatened the club with legal action in the Small Claims Court. This is unhelpful and any such action would only serve to guarantee the total failure of the club, the company states. Financial statements for 2022 showed that the company was carrying 436,854 in deferred income at the years end. Deferred income is a liability on a companys balance sheet that represents a prepayment by customers for goods or services that have yet to be delivered. The same document listed their cash (and cash equivalents) assets at 103,839 at the end of 2022, a drop from 189,867 in the year previous. Irish Skydiving Club CLG have been reached out to on multiple occasions to comment on the ongoing issues at the club and to provide their perspective. An attempt was also made in the last week to reach out directly to the companys listed director, Mr Eoin Nevin. According to a separate company document accessed by this newspaper, the secretary for the company was recently changed. A form confirming the change of secretary was signed by the company director back in November. It remains unknown when the clubs legal battle with the IAA will conclude, what the outcome will be, or what implications that outcome may have for the future of the company, and its customers. The island of Ireland is seen as affluent and a wealthy place for drug gangs to target, the Republics police chief has warned. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said the use of drugs on both sides of the border has become prevalent and has led to a 25% increase in the price of cocaine in the last four months. Mr Harris was joined by his Northern Ireland counterpart, PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, for the annual Cross Border Conference on Organised Crime in Co Cavan. Justice Minister Helen McEntee also attended the event. Mr Boutcher said the island of Ireland has to become a hostile environment for criminal gangs to operate in. Warning of the dangers posed by cross-border gangs, Mr Harris said one of the major issues faced by both police forces is how big international crime has become. He added: The bigger challenge is the fact that we are seen to these organised crime groups as a wealthy country, an affluent place, and that is shown even in terms of the cocaine use that there is an Ireland. Cocaine use is proportionate to the prosperity of a nation and therefore we are a target, so thats one of the principal challenges. The second challenge is that these organised crime groups, theyre not respecting boundaries or treaties or information-sharing agreements. They are working all the time to try and confound us in what they do. But we have really good people, who are out to stop them and to gain evidence and bring them to justice and actually break down those those crime groups. I think the biggest issue now for us, in comparison to even 20 years ago, is just how international crime has got (sic). Its big business. Unfortunately, as an island, we are seen as an affluent place and a place to target. Mr Boutcher said anything that arrives in Dublin, including drugs and people trafficking, will ultimately also arrive in Belfast. Organised crime gangs dont have to respect service level agreements or international protocols. We do, the PSNI police chief added. There are sovereign countries that we work within, but we need to make sure our job, and all the organisations we work with, that we reduce the bureaucracy, that theres no impediment to us going after these crime games. We need to make the island of Ireland a hostile environment for them to operate in. I genuinely believe that is the direction of travel that were in. Mr Harris said the use of cocaine has become so rife that the street value has jumped 25% in the last few months. But he pointed to the collaborative work between gardai and the PSNI in recent drug busts. He said they have also been involved in huge drugs seizures in the Caribbean and west Africa. The main man drug of choice still remains cannabis followed by cocaine, said Mr Harris. There is obviously then a network of distribution, and we can see in part that is driven by social media use, and things like communication apps, such as WhatsApp. Drugs are becoming more prevalent, and stronger as well. So, cannabis in particular, in terms of the THC content, which is the actual live content of the cannabis, is a good deal stronger than it was 20, 30 or 40 years ago, and that THC content is driving, one, addictive behaviour, but, two, then real difficulty around psychotic incidents leading on to mental health problems. Meanwhile, Mr Boutcher also said the attempted murder of PSNI Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell shows the threat posed by dissident republicans has not gone away. Thats definitely not gone away. If anybody gets involved, dissident republicans or anybody, with regards to national security issues, we will pursue them relentlessly. If you come after police officers we will come after you. He said officers cannot be complacent around the threat to national security. Mr Boutcher added that policing in Northern Ireland is the best he has ever seen. Ive tried to work out why it is so good. I think its because, when you join the police service in Northern Ireland, you do make a life choice because of the threat particularly those officers who joined from a nationalist or Catholic background. Theres a vocation element to it and we forget that. We forget what those officers, those members of staff, and what their families do to work within the police service, to keep communities safe. Among the issues discussed by the conference included emerging drugs trends on both sides of the border as well as improving co-operation between An Garda Siochana and the PSNI. Ms McEntee praised the work between both police forces, but said there are more ways to increase it. Were are also looking at human trafficking and smuggling. This is a problem that maybe people dont realise is an issue, but certainly there has been significant efforts over the years to try and identify them, to support them, she said. Other areas like economic crime looking at criminals use of cryptocurrencies and looking at ways in which we can enhance our own technology to be able to respond to criminal use of technology. The Kilkenny towns of Urlingford and Graignamanagh have today been revealed as part of a new Town Centre First Plan. Under the plan, which was developed in consultation with the local community and represents the vision of local people for their area, Urlingford will benefit from a diverse range of projects. Meanwhile, 30,000 goes to Graignamanagh to begin developing it's Town Centre First plan. Callan was one of a small group of towns to benefit from the pilot scheme, in 2022. The Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys TD, and Minister of State with responsibility for Local Government and Planning, Kieran ODonnell TD have today (Wednesday) published the first ever Town Centre First plans for 26 towns across every county. Projects will include redeveloping derelict sites, creating community parks and walkways, boosting SME and tourism potential and protecting historical landmarks. In addition, a new Town Regeneration Officer has been appointed in every local authority to drive implementation of the new plans with the support of Government funding through the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund, the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund, the Town and Village Renewal Scheme, the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant, European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Town Centre First Heritage Revival (THRIVE) Scheme and the Historic Towns Initiative. "Communities are at the heart of rural Ireland. Town Centre First is all about empowering people to develop a vision for their town that can make it a better place to live, work, invest in and enjoy. These Plans and the new Town Regeneration Officers are about ensuring there is a strategic and coherent approach at local level to tackling vacancy and dereliction in our towns and villages," said Minister Humphreys, at the launch. I am delighted to publish the first ever Town Centre First Plans today and I want to commend the local Communities and Town Teams for their work in developing these comprehensive locally-led plans. I am pleased to also announce the next 26 successful towns across the country who we will support with funding of 30,000 each to complete a comprehensive town plan to help develop their town centres. A new website has also been launched where people can find out how to get involved. Launched in 2022, Town Centre First is driving one of the biggest ever programme of investments in rural Ireland and has a core aim of confronting dereliction and the general decline in the health of Irelands town centres. To find out more about the initiative and how communities can become involved, visit www.towncentrefirst.ie A person was sent to a hospital on Tuesday, Feb. 27, and a 37-year-old Albany man is in police custody on charges related to violent sexual assault after he reportedly fled on foot. Albany police officers searched for Brandon Taylor Beckner near West Albany High School, suspecting Beckner sexually assaulted and injured an unnamed woman, according to an agency news release. A Place to Sleep, episode 2: Albany, part II Last week we introduced Dusty Bryant, who police evicted from Albany's designated resting site for homeless individuals. This week, we check in to see what's happening with Dusty. A caller told emergency dispatchers just after 11:20 a.m. that the reported female victims leg was injured in an assault at a residence on Southwest 16th Avenue near the Southwest Hop Street intersection. Albany firefighters notified police, and the reported victim identified Beckner, who police say had left the house about 20 minutes before, according to the news release. A little more than two hours later, someone called emergency personnel around 1:40 p.m. to report a person, described as a suspicious male, hiding in the yard behind another home. Officers found Beckner walking on Southwest Eighth Avenue, about 1 mile north and east of the house where the first 911 call originated. They arrested Beckner, suspecting him of first-degree charges of rape, sexual abuse, sodomy and unlawful sexual penetration. All are violent felony charges subject to Oregons minimum sentencing law under Measure 11. Law enforcement officials also charged Beckner with coercion and strangulation, according to the release. Beckner was booked into the Linn County Jail, held without bail for a felony charge of exposing his genitals and for violating the terms of a parole agreement. He also was held for improper use of 911. Court records show Beckner has a long history of sex crimes. Linn County prosecutors first charged Beckner with public indecency in 2012 for exposing his genitals in public. He already was in custody for a 2012 arrest when, according to Albany police, he left an Arco gas station and drove away form police at 60 to 70 mph on residential streets. Police assert they approached Beckner, who reportedly had not paid for fuel. Judge Thomas McHill declared Beckner unfit to proceed in criminal court and ordered the man committed to the Oregon State Hospital. A clinical psychologist, Stephen Brennan, interviewed Beckner at the jail where he said Beckner was extremely hostile, negative and threatening. Brennans report, dated Nov. 1, 2012, said Beckner showed an antisocial personality style, if not disorder. He recommended the court have Beckner held for in-patient psychiatric treatment. Beckner was released from the state hospital in 2013, then convicted later that year on a charge of eluding police from the 2012 arrest. McHill convicted Beckner of public indecency for exposing his genitals in public in August 2014. Judge Carol Bisphan convicted Beckner of public indecency again for exposing his genitals one month later, in September 2014. Beckner was made to register as a sex offender. Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help Support local news coverage and the people who report it by becoming a subscriber today. Judge DeAnn Novotny convicted Beckner on a harassment charge for touching a woman, also in September 2014. A judge found Beckner guilty in 2016 of touching a womans breasts, convicting Beckner on a charge of third-degree sexual abuse. The court again committed Beckner to the state hospital in September 2022. He was out by February 2023, then convicted of public indecency this time for exposing himself in public in July 2022. He called 911 for a reason other than reporting an emergency the same day, a violation of state law. Newsroom reports: The veteran MP is smarting at a revelation in new disclosures published by the Electoral Commission: ASX-listed mining firm Bathurst Resources donated $32,600 to 29-year-old independent Patrick Phelps to fully fund his campaign for more mining on the west coast. Candidate spending limits were $32,600 at last year's election. So Bathurst, unhappy with a Labour policy banning more mining of conservation land, funded Phelps' entire campaign every last dollar. It gave him a far bigger war chest than the more established candidates. Look, it was a very credible result for him. And I acknowledge that, O'Connor tells Newsroom. Clearly, across the wider West Coast region, people saw our policy as a blockage to further any further mining development. It's a worthwhile story that one company entirely funded the campaign of an independent. Richard Tacon says the company's man was never going to win but he did pull enough votes away from O'Connor to hand the west coast-tasman seat to National's Maureen Pugh. What Tacon and O'Connor do agree on is that Phelps took more votes off O'Connor than he did off Pugh. this is where the data disagrees. The split vote analysis shows that only 940 Labour Party voters voted for Phelps compared to 2,198 national party voters. He basically took twice as many votes off Pugh as O'Connor. O'Connor lost the seat because around 23,000 voted for CR parties and only around 13,000 for CL parties. O'Connor had 77% of Labour voters vote for him while Pugh only had 70% of National voters. On the basis of the split vote data, she would have a larger majority of Phelps had not stood. Across the whole electorate in the 2020 election, O'Connor had won 6208 more votes than Pugh. In 2023, Pugh turned that around to a 1017 vote majority. And the difference? There was a big nationwide swing against Labour, but that on its own wouldn't have been enough to unseat O'Connor. Yes it was. The 7,225 change in the majority was one of the smallest in NZ. 39 seats had a majority change by over 10,000 votes. The CR beat the CL by 21% in WCT that is why O'Connor lost. Pugh saw her vote cut from 14,545 to 13,317. But the impact on O'Connor was far worse: his vote plummeted from 20,753 to 12,300. Yes her vote dropped because helps took votes off her. The only seat which had a bigger drop for National's electorate vote was Tamaki. Damien O'Connor's drop was because Labour lost support everywhere. 26 other seats had larger drops for the Labour candidate. The data totally contradicts the story. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr Dave Armstrong writes: Imagine you're a struggling Wellington apartment owner. Your mortgage payments have skyrocketed and you're struggling to make the council deadline for earthquake strengthening your building. It's going to cost you half a million bucks which you don't have. Then you get a call from the local council who want to take you out for dinner and buy you expensive bottles of wine so they can buy the land underneath your apartment. This will allow you to pay for earthquake strengthening yourself and if you want to buy back the land years down the track, no problem, it will only cost you what you sold it to the council for. I know this seems absurd, and yet it is exactly what happened to Reading Cinemas just days after Tory Whanau was elected mayor. Lots of Wellingtonians would love such generosity. Wellingtonians should be asking hard questions about the Reading deal. The first is why can't Reading pay their own strengthening bills like everyone else? Didn't they get an insurance payout? Remember that they are a multinational company owned by millionaires who recently opened three cinemas in Australia. If Reading are such a great company, concerned about revitalising Courtenay Place, why have they done absolutely nothing about renovating their building to the required level, apart from quaffing from free council-provided wine at Ortega and putting out their hands for over $30 million? Why are some councillors so worried about one of the ugliest buildings in the city? Old St Pauls the Reading Centre is not. If a tornado were to flatten it tomorrow, Wellington's heritage value would increase. Not decrease. I agree but as Wellington thinks rusty storage tanks are heritage buildings, I suspect the cinema complex will soo receive heritage status! Councillor Iona Pannett, hardly a raging, pro-austerity Thatcherite, has filed a notice of motion of revocation to nix the Reading deal. This time around few councillors, apart from Green councillor Nikau Ni Weera and Independent Tim Brown, have confirmed they still support the deal. And our labour councillors with possibly the crucial votes? Unlike their colleagues at national level, I have noticed that Wellington's Labour councillors have often outflanked the Greens on the left when it comes to supporting low-income people and protecting council assets from privatisation. Will they vote against the neo-liberal madness of bailing out a struggling overseas company to possibly strengthen its central city eyesore, when water is continuing to leak and library hours and swimming pools are being openly touted for the chop? Voting for Pannett's motion would send a message that our Labour councillors did not just have the best interests of ordinary Wellingtonians at heart, but were also fiscally responsible. This will be a test indeed for Labour Councillors. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr The Heraald reports: One of our biggest commercial media company's newsrooms Newshub is set to close at the end of June, with dozens of journalists out of roles. Warner Bros. Discovery has laid out plans to close its Newshub news division from the end of June, and will apparently look to co-fund local news with a partner. Look this is awful, Warner Bros. Discovery NZ boss Glen Kyne told staff at the meeting. The company would look to co-fund local news but Three was now the core of the future business, staff were told. Joshua Drummond writes: To recap, quickly: The Atlas Network is a think tank that creates think tanks; a global network of more than 500 right-wing think tanks and lobby groups. New Zealand members of Atlas include the Taxpayers' Union and the New Zealand Initiative (formed from a merger of two think tanks, one of which was the infamous Business Roundtable.) This, like everything else, is wrong. Atlas does not create think tanks. It did not create the NZBR, the NZ Initiative or Taxpayers Union. i know. I co-founded the NZTU and don't think I had even heard of Atlas when I did. Seymour's extraordinary denial came during a recording of Mata with Mihingarangi Forbes on RNZ, recorded and released on Waitangi Day, February 6 2024. The relevant parts of the transcript are excerpted below. Forbes: And those indigenous Australians are now warning Maori that the same groups are behind this referendum. Are they, do you think? Seymour: Well, if you're about to go into the new Pizzagate of the left conspiracy theory, then I'll be real disappointed. Forbes: What's that, the Pizzagate? Seymour: That's some crazy conspiracy theory that Trump has had in the US. Forbes: The campaign in Australia had links to the Atlas network. Seymour: Oh, here we go. Forbes: A network of think tanks, which promote individual liberty and free enterprise. And it said that the network pushes opinion pieces in favour of free speech. Do the ACT Party have any links or connections to the Atlas group? Seymour, very quietly: No. That is a lie. David Seymour and the ACT Party have numerous links to the Atlas Network. Here are some of them. They have links, in the sense that people are linked to Kevin Bacon. They have links in the sense that I am linked to Hitler because Hedy Lamarr once babysat my father, and her husband had dinner with Hitler. You can claim almost anything is linked to anything else if you try. After a 10 month stint as an electrical engineer his sole non-political, non-think tank job David Seymour worked for a Canadian think tank called the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, from 2007 to 2011. From January 2013 to February 2014, he worked for The Manning Foundation (now called the canada Strong and Free Network). Both these think tanks were members of the Atlas Network at the time. Yes David Seymour interacted with Atlas when he worked for a Canadian think tank. As Atlas is basically a support network for freedom focused organisations, this is about as surprising as the fact someone who worked for Greenpeace interacted with the Climate Action Network. There are other overt ACT links to Atlas. According to his LinkedIn profile, Louis Houlbrooke is currently working at Parliament in support of ACT's vision of an open and benevolent society in which individual New Zealanders are free to achieve their full potential. Before this, he worked as Campaigns Manager for the Taxpayers' Union, an Atlas Network member, for four years, eight months. During this time, Houlbrooke attended multiple Atlas Network events, as documented by the Atlas Network. This is even funnier. Louis attended events when he worked for NZTU. He then went overseas, and when he came back he got a job (again) working for ACT. Somehow this means Atlas controls or influences ACT. One former NZTU staffer was the daughter of a Labour MPs. That means Labour is linked to Atlas by this insane conspiracy theory,. Forbes: Have you spoken or taken advice from them or any group associated with them about the treaty? Seymour, even more quietly: No. This is not true, as Forbes quickly demonstrates. Seymour attended a Taxpayers' Union (which is part of the Atlas Network) function in Wellington where British politician Lord Daniel Hannan one of the principal architects of Brexit, and founding president of the Initiative for Free Trade (which is, if you haven't guessed, part of the Atlas Network) spoke specifically about the Treaty. This part gets funnier. In conspiracy world, taking advice from a group means listening to a speech by someone whose organisation is a member of that group. This would mean I take advice from the Fabian Society, the CTU, the greens etc etc. Now why I am even wasting my time on ridiculing this stuff? If it was just Josh blogging I wouldn't. But again his theories formed the basis of an entire program on TVNZ which was funded by taxpayers. Its the equivalent to the state funding a program on how the WHO and WEF secretly control the NZ Government. Graham Adams at The Platform dissects the conspiracy theory and actually talks to some people involved. She asked him about Act's links to the Atlas Network, which fosters connections between centre-right think tanks around the world. When Seymour expressed his incredulity and disappointment that she was raising a conspiracy theory, she defended her line of questioning with: My role is to ask questions on behalf of other people. In fact, at that moment, Forbes closely resembled an arsonist asking a fire crew if they could help her find out more about how a blaze had started when she had lit it herself. In effect, she was asking Seymour to respond to insinuations she herself had made in her earlier 25-minute documentary on the proposed Treaty principles referendum. Yes it was asking about her own program. The first culprit to be singled out for attention in the programme was the prominent No campaign lobby group Advance Australia, bankrolled by some of Australia's richest people. However, this was only the prelude to introducing the Atlas Network which Advance Australia was alleged to be linked to. Dr Jeremy Walker, a political scientist at the University of Technology Sydney who studies the Atlas Network, told us it was established in 1981 to promote free-market policies around the world and that some of its funding comes from oil and gas interests. Advance Australia incidentally is not a member at Atlas. An inconvenient fact they ignored. And one prominent Yes campaigner is on the board of an Atlas member. Every major Australian news outlet in the run-up to the referendum publicised the eye-watering amounts of money that major businesses pledged to the Yes campaign. Some estimates put the total in the tens of millions of dollars. And, ironically, the biggest donors included the big oil and gas producers. BHP and Rio Tinto donated $A2 million each, while resource giants Woodside Energy, Newcrest and Origin Energy, among others, publicly advocated for the Yes vote. The Minerals Council of Australia backed it too. That Forbes failed to mention these well-established facts about corporate Australia's enthusiasm for the Yes campaign while she pumped the narrative that a sinister and secret conspiracy with links to the oil and gas industries had propelled the No side to success is a sorry indictment of the programme's integrity. So in fact big oil all backed and funded the yes campaign. However, New Zealander Debbi Gibbs who is the chair of the Atlas Network, headquartered in the US told The Platform that Forbes had not contacted her for comment. Asked whether Atlas had put any money into supporting David Seymour's campaign on the Treaty principles, or whether it intended to, she replied: We don't make donations to campaigns, candidates, or parties. Additionally none of the partners in our Network are political parties. They are all independent, non-governmental, civil society organisations. The entire conspiracy theory is based on the fact that freedom orientated think tanks belong to a network of freedom orientated think tanks. We have just finalised the figures for the 2023 Annual Report that is not yet published, and we spent a total of $62,000 on grants to partners in Australia and New Zealand You can see examples of the projects we have supported on our web site. Yep $62,000 spending in Australia and NZ. This is publicly available information, but one they chose not to report. In addition, Gibbs corrected two claims made or implied in the documentary: Advance Australia is not an Atlas Network partner and the statements made about the Atlas Network's source funding are completely false. I understand that any industry donations or Koch donations happened around 20 years ago. Yawn. Perhaps the greatest irony of Forbes' allegations about well-funded groups working behind the scenes to promote Seymour's principles bill is that the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund, administered by NZ on Air, has been running for three years with explicit criteria about how the Treaty must be presented and promoted by successful applicants namely as a partnership. Ironic indeed. Trick or Treaty? was funded by taxpayers' money, but surprisingly NZ on Air doesn't seem to have ready access to the exact amount the programme cost. The Platform's request for that figure has been classed as an inquiry under the OIA, with a response promised within the statutory timeframe. I think I know a good area Nicola Willis can save money. Oliver Hartwich from NZ Initiative also writes: Many of you have probably heard about Atlas Network in recent weeks. It is a network of think tanks around the world, and the Initiative is proud to be a part of it. Despite being a friend of Atlas, I was unaware of its influence. There is a conspiracy theory that Atlas controls government policy in many countries at least in Australia and New Zealand. If only that were true. Atlas promotes sound policies, noble ideas and inspiring projects. To achieve this, Atlas provides support to local organisations. Although these policy shops are diverse, they share a commitment to individual liberty, property rights, limited government, and free markets. Atlas' affiliates make abstract ideas concrete. In the favelas of Brazil, they helped residents establish property rights, become entrepreneurs and escape poverty. Against a bureaucracy that prevented independent Nepali e-rickshaw drivers from operating, Atlas helped them register. In the US state of Georgia, Atlas partners with the Georgia Center for Opportunity'. They embarked on a large project to rehabilitate former offenders. That was a decade ago. Since then, the prison population and recidivism have significantly decreased. There are dozens of success stories like this from all around the world that were supported by the Atlas Network. So, when the Initiative started in 2012 and Atlas asked if we wanted to be affiliated, we felt honoured to join this network. We still are. Atlas does not fund our work. Well, they gave us a camera a decade ago (and thank you, it still works). That was it. For us, it has always been about belonging to an organisation that helps people achieve amazing things, and being part of a network whose goals we share. I can say the same for the NZTU. Not once in ten years on the board was there ever a conversation about what Atlas might think on a policy issue. So people might wonder what does Atlas do? Why would organisations join. Well here's my experience: They have some great training courses you can send staff to. They range from fundraising to communications to video editing etc etc. If you have a successful local project, you can enter it into one of their awards and if you win you get kudos and a small amount of money (think under 1% of income). They have regional forums where you get to meet other organisations and share ideas, strategies, trends, fundraising ideas etc. This is all unexceptional. This is why almost any NZ organisation joins a global body of like minded organisations. As I said I don't think I even knew of the Atlas Network before we formed NZTU. It is possible before 2013 I have interacted with someone from Atlas as I have attended events in the US hosted by Heritage, Cato, ATR and the IDU, but they were not on my radar. Since 2013, I attended one Atlas forum in Sydney in 2022 or 2023. It was a small gathering of around a dozen people where we talked about how to increase support for policies that enhance economic freedom. If the Australian referendum or the Treaty of Waitangi was ever discussed, it must have been while I was taking a five minute toilet break. I look forward to the taxpayer funded documentary on how the Open Society Foundation is actually influencing events in Australia and NZ. After all like Atlas they are a network of 120 partners. They have funding of US$32 billion, compared to Atlas annual spending of US20 million. Of course when it happens on the left, it is not something the media show any interest in. Share this: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp More Pinterest Print Tumblr Shenandoah, IA (51601) Today Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 42F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low 29F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. JEFFERSON CITY Missouri Republicans will caucus on Saturday after state lawmakers failed to set up a presidential primary during their last legislative session. That means it is up to Missouri's political parties to organize the state's presidential nominating contests. The Republican caucus will take place from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday. Every county and the City of St. Louis will host one caucus site each, except St. Louis and St. Charles counties, which will host two sites. Democrats will host a presidential primary on March 23, with a mail-in voting option. Republicans do not offer an early voting or mail-in option. Here is what voters need to know to participate in Missouri's Republican caucus. Who can caucus? Any registered Missouri voter can participate in the GOP caucus. Voters must caucus in the county they're registered to vote in. Voter registration can be checked on Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft's website. Republican organizers encouraged voters to pre-register for the caucus, but pre-registration is now closed, according to the party's website. Voters can still register to participate on the day of the caucus. Voters must bring a non-expired, government-issued photo ID to check in. Missouri's GOP-led legislature passed a law in 2023 requiring voters to show a photo ID to vote in a general election. In that same bill, pushed by Ashcroft, lawmakers canceled the state's presidential primary contests, according to reporting by the Associated Press. Voters must also sign a pledge to participate in the GOP caucus. It reads, "...[I] hereby pledge my allegiance to the Missouri Republican Party. I believe in the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and a strong national defense. I commit to upholding the values of the Republican Party and to advance its goals." Missouri Republican Caucus Pledge The Missouri Republican Party requires voters to sign a pledge in order to participate in its presidential caucus. The pledge asks for a first and last name, address, phone number and email. It also requires people to affirm they are registered to vote in the county and congressional district where the caucus is held. "If you're not going to be 100% with us and be loyal to the party, then you don't get the privilege to participate," said Penny Quigg, chair of the Cole County Republican Central Committee. Republican organizers acknowledge a caucus draws fewer voters than presidential primaries. "Usually, it's people who are more activist that are aware of and interested in attending the caucus," said Jim Meyer, Republican committeeman for 19th Senate District, which covers Boone County. Even high-profile races like the Iowa caucuses get lower-than-average turnout, said Peverill Squire, a political science professor at MU. Squire lived in Iowa for 22 years and participated in multiple caucuses. "That's a little bit over the top," Squire said of the GOP pledge. "Even in Iowa, you can register at the polls during the caucus, and all it requires you is to change your party registration." Individuals do not register to vote by party in Missouri. The pledge is an attempt to block non-Republicans from the caucus, Squire said. How does the caucus work? A caucus does not function like a traditional election. Quigg described it as "a meeting of like-minded people to get business done." Voters will register with a credential committee before the caucus starts. Cole County Republicans will use poll pads from the county clerk's office to check voters in, Quigg said. Doors open at 8 a.m. in Cole County and 9 a.m. in Boone County. Multiple votes will take place during the caucus. First, voters must elect a chair and secretary to run the meeting. Then, voters split up into groups based on which candidates they support. For example, supporters of former President Donald Trump would go to one side of the room and supporters of former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley would go to another side. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. Trump, Haley, David Stuckenberg and Ryan Binkley are eligible candidates, according to the Missouri Republican Party. After splitting up, voters will elect someone to lead their candidate group. If a candidate gets less than 15% of the vote, they will be eliminated. Supporters of eliminated candidates can then switch to a different candidate. This cycle keeps going until one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote. Once that happens, a candidate will get all of a county's delegates. If one candidate can't meet that threshold, delegates will be divided proportionately. It is unlikely caucus meetings will last very long because of Trump's commanding lead in the Republican primary, according to GOP organizers. "When we first started this, of course we had a number of candidates, and I kept thinking, this is going to be a nightmare trying to sort this all out," Quigg said. "But since, you know, we've dwindled down to two and likely one candidate, it's gonna simplify the process." What will you vote on? Presidential candidates are competing for Missouri's delegates. Delegates essentially represent committed votes for a candidate. A candidate needs to get 1,215 out of 2,429 national GOP delegates to win the nomination. After winning South Carolina's Republican primary, Trump has 110 delegates and Haley has 20. Missouri has 51 total delegates up for grabs, the 11th highest amount in the country, according to Politico. On Saturday, voters will elect delegates and alternates to attend the Missouri Republican Party's state convention and congressional district conventions. At these meetings, county delegates will elect another set of delegates to attend the Republican National Convention, where the party's nominee will be crowned. Caucus goers can also vote on proposals for the Missouri GOP's 2024 platform. The platform outlines the priorities and values of the party. It covers a wide range of federal, state and local issues. Click here to read a draft of the party platform. If voters want to add something to the platform, they must bring a written copy of it, Quigg said. The county caucus will vote on these suggestions. If the proposals get approved, congressional district conventions will vote on them again and pass them on the state party. When will results be announced? County organizers must report results to the state party by 5 p.m. Saturday, according to Miles Ross, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party. The party plans to announce results on social media and in a news release Saturday evening. Has Missouri had a caucus before? Yes. Republicans caucused in some Missouri counties during the 2020 election to select delegates for the Republican National Convention. The Missouri GOP moved to a caucus system in 2012 after the national Republican Party gave Missouri a deadline to move its 2012 presidential primary from March to February. State lawmakers failed to move the primary date, so the Missouri GOP hosted a caucus. There was no declared winner in the 2012 caucus. Party rules did not require delegates to be bound to a presidential candidate. Instead, delegates were elected to the state convention and congressional district conventions. At those meetings, delegates bound to vote for a candidate were elected to the national convention. One caucus meeting in St. Charles County was adjourned before it started after police were called to control a rowdy crowd. Will Missouri return to a presidential primary? Nick Myers, chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, previously told KOMU 8 that caucuses are not ideal. "We actually prefer the presidential preference primary to the caucus system," Myers said. "But since we have no presidential preference primary, we're doing the caucus." Squire said it's possible there could be pressure to bring back the presidential primary. "I was a little surprised they didn't change their mind last year," Squire said. "Both parties may think that it is in their interest in 2028 to probably return to a primary that will have more people participating and make it easier for Missourians to be part of the process." Covalis Capital LLP lowered its stake in shares of Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSE:LNG Free Report) by 89.9% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 42,052 shares of the energy companys stock after selling 374,733 shares during the quarter. Cheniere Energy makes up about 1.2% of Covalis Capital LLPs holdings, making the stock its 27th biggest position. Covalis Capital LLPs holdings in Cheniere Energy were worth $6,979,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. HHM Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cheniere Energy during the third quarter worth approximately $25,000. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL purchased a new position in Cheniere Energy in the 1st quarter valued at $27,000. Rise Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Cheniere Energy in the 3rd quarter valued at $29,000. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. grew its position in Cheniere Energy by 203.4% in the 3rd quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 176 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 118 shares during the last quarter. Finally, McIlrath & Eck LLC grew its position in Cheniere Energy by 1,484.6% in the 2nd quarter. McIlrath & Eck LLC now owns 206 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 193 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.86% of the companys stock. Get Cheniere Energy alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on LNG shares. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Cheniere Energy from $187.00 to $195.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday, December 15th. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Cheniere Energy from $192.00 to $194.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Cheniere Energy from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, November 9th. Finally, TD Cowen decreased their target price on shares of Cheniere Energy from $185.00 to $178.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and a consensus price target of $196.82. Cheniere Energy Trading Down 0.2 % Shares of NYSE:LNG traded down $0.29 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $152.89. 2,300,299 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,905,078. The company has a market capitalization of $35.88 billion, a PE ratio of 3.78, a P/E/G ratio of 0.64 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.63, a quick ratio of 1.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.59. Cheniere Energy, Inc. has a twelve month low of $135.30 and a twelve month high of $183.46. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $164.78. Cheniere Energy (NYSE:LNG Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 22nd. The energy company reported $5.76 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.70 by $3.06. The business had revenue of $4.82 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.37 billion. Cheniere Energy had a return on equity of 69.52% and a net margin of 48.45%. The businesss revenue was down 46.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $15.78 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Cheniere Energy, Inc. will post 9.45 earnings per share for the current year. Cheniere Energy Announces Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 23rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 6th were paid a dividend of $0.435 per share. This represents a $1.74 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.14%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, February 5th. Cheniere Energys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 4.30%. Cheniere Energy Profile (Free Report) Cheniere Energy, Inc, an energy infrastructure company, primarily engages in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) related businesses in the United States. It owns and operates the Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana; and the Corpus Christi LNG terminal near Corpus Christi, Texas. The company also owns Creole Trail pipeline, a 94-mile pipeline interconnecting the Sabine Pass LNG terminal with various interstate pipelines; and operates Corpus Christi pipeline, a 21.5-mile natural gas supply pipeline that interconnects the Corpus Christi LNG terminal with various interstate and intrastate natural gas pipelines. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Cheniere Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Cheniere Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. TransAlta Co. (TSE:TA Get Free Report) (NYSE:TAC) declared a quarterly dividend on Tuesday, November 21st, Zacks reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 1st will be paid a dividend of 0.06 per share on Monday, April 1st. This represents a $0.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.48%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 29th. This is a boost from TransAltas previous quarterly dividend of $0.06. TransAlta Stock Performance Shares of TransAlta stock opened at C$9.66 on Wednesday. The business has a 50-day moving average price of C$10.10 and a two-hundred day moving average price of C$11.15. TransAlta has a 1-year low of C$9.16 and a 1-year high of C$13.97. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 161.55. The company has a market cap of C$2.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.15, a PEG ratio of -0.07 and a beta of 0.92. Get TransAlta alerts: TransAlta (TSE:TA Get Free Report) (NYSE:TAC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 23rd. The company reported C($0.27) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of C$0.18 by C($0.45). The business had revenue of C$624.00 million during the quarter. TransAlta had a net margin of 20.71% and a return on equity of 43.58%. As a group, analysts anticipate that TransAlta will post 0.4067368 EPS for the current year. Insider Activity at TransAlta Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth In other news, Senior Officer Aron John Willis sold 35,454 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Monday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$11.08, for a total transaction of C$392,830.32. In other TransAlta news, Director John Harry Kousinioris sold 76,941 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$10.84, for a total transaction of C$834,348.20. Also, Senior Officer Aron John Willis sold 35,454 shares of TransAlta stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$11.08, for a total transaction of C$392,830.32. 0.15% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on TA shares. CIBC upped their target price on TransAlta from C$18.00 to C$18.50 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Monday. TD Securities dropped their price objective on shares of TransAlta from C$15.00 to C$14.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Monday. BMO Capital Markets decreased their target price on shares of TransAlta from C$17.00 to C$16.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Monday. National Bankshares lowered their target price on shares of TransAlta from C$14.00 to C$13.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on TransAlta from C$15.00 to C$14.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Monday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of C$15.80. Read Our Latest Report on TA TransAlta Company Profile (Get Free Report) TransAlta Corporation engages in the development, production, and sale of electric energy. It operates through Hydro, Wind and Solar, Gas, Energy Transition, and Energy Marketing segments. The Hydro segment has a net ownership interest of approximately 922 megawatts (MW) of owned hydro electrical-generating capacity located in Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for TransAlta Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for TransAlta and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. VinaCapital Vietnam Opp Fund (LON:VOF Get Free Report) shares dropped 21.1% on Tuesday . The company traded as low as GBX 446 ($5.66) and last traded at GBX 454.50 ($5.76). Approximately 158,277 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 32% from the average daily volume of 232,677 shares. The stock had previously closed at GBX 575.88 ($7.30). VinaCapital Vietnam Opp Fund Price Performance The business has a 50 day moving average of GBX 449.31 and a 200 day moving average of GBX 449.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.89, a current ratio of 41.15 and a quick ratio of 55.38. The company has a market cap of 705.47 million, a PE ratio of -261.21 and a beta of 0.47. About VinaCapital Vietnam Opp Fund (Get Free Report) VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund Limited specializes in private equity investments. The fund seeks to invest 80 percent of its portfolio in private equity and 20 percent in equitization projects will be re-allocated to listed shares. The fund also makes private investments. It invests in stocks of companies operating across the diversified sectors. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for VinaCapital Vietnam Opp Fund Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for VinaCapital Vietnam Opp Fund and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. PointState Capital LP raised its stake in Vista Energy, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST Free Report) by 120.1% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 2,146,577 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 1,171,354 shares during the period. Vista Energy comprises 1.1% of PointState Capital LPs investment portfolio, making the stock its 16th biggest position. PointState Capital LP owned approximately 2.31% of Vista Energy worth $65,234,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Citigroup Inc. raised its position in shares of Vista Energy by 62.7% during the 3rd quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 3,137,987 shares of the companys stock worth $95,363,000 after acquiring an additional 1,209,254 shares in the last quarter. Helikon Investments Ltd raised its position in shares of Vista Energy by 27.8% during the 3rd quarter. Helikon Investments Ltd now owns 5,370,330 shares of the companys stock worth $163,204,000 after acquiring an additional 1,166,933 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Vista Energy by 525.9% during the 2nd quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 650,923 shares of the companys stock worth $4,810,000 after acquiring an additional 546,923 shares in the last quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board acquired a new stake in shares of Vista Energy during the 1st quarter worth about $3,748,000. Finally, Kensington Investments B.V. raised its position in shares of Vista Energy by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. Kensington Investments B.V. now owns 12,822,581 shares of the companys stock worth $389,678,000 after acquiring an additional 322,581 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 45.68% of the companys stock. Get Vista Energy alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes Separately, UBS Group began coverage on Vista Energy in a research note on Wednesday, November 8th. They set a buy rating and a $40.00 price target on the stock. Vista Energy Stock Performance NYSE:VIST traded up $0.45 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $36.06. 669,805 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 445,388. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $31.63 and a 200-day simple moving average of $29.52. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 8.98 and a beta of 1.96. The company has a quick ratio of 1.16, a current ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. Vista Energy, S.A.B. de C.V. has a 1 year low of $15.90 and a 1 year high of $37.47. Vista Energy Profile (Free Report) Vista Energy, SAB. de C.V., through its subsidiaries, engages in the exploration and production of oil and gas in Latin America. The company's principal assets located in Neuquina basin, Argentina and Vaca Muerta. It also owns producing assets in Argentina and Mexico. In addition, the company involved in drilling and workover activities located in Argentina. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding VIST? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Vista Energy, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE:VIST Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Vista Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Vista Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The foreign ministry on Wednesday urged caution against increasing cases of employment fraud in the "Golden Triangle" region straddling Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. The ministry urged Koreans to take extra caution in the area as cases involving luring people with the promise of high profits, then kidnapping and forcing them to engage in illegal activities have recently increased there. A total of 55 such cases concerning 140 victims have been reported so far in the region since 2021, according to the ministry. Of them, four victims were reported in 2021 and 2022, respectively. The number of victims suffering from employment fraud surged to 94 people last year, it added. Thirty eight victims were reported in January this year alone. The government has decided to issue special travel advisories at two border checkpoints Chiang Saen and Mae Sai in Laos and Myanmar, respectively, as most Koreans employed in the region travel via Thailand, the ministry said. In October last year, 19 Koreans were held captive by an illegal firm in the border town of Tachileik in Myanmar before being released in November. (Yonhap) 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. Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Snow this morning will diminish to a few snow showers this afternoon. High around 35F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 90%.. Tonight Partly cloudy early followed by cloudy skies overnight. A few flurries are possible. Low 27F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. Auburn, IN (46706) Today Snow this morning will taper off as a few snow showers this afternoon. High near 35F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 90%.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. A few flurries are possible. Low 27F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph. In the glitzy world of haute couture, BLACKPINK's Jisoo stands out as the undeniable "Golden Girl" of DIOR. Ever since assuming her role as an ambassador for the iconic brand, Jisoo has consistently dazzled audiences with her style and grace, earning her a place in the hearts of fashion enthusiasts worldwide. A Regal Reception in Paris Jisoo recently graced the City of Lights with her presence, attending a prestigious DIOR event on February 27. Before the grand affair, she took to Instagram to share glimpses of the lavish gifts bestowed upon her by the illustrious fashion house. Amongst the opulent displays of affection, one gift, in particular, caught the eye of fans, sparking waves of excitement across social media platforms. READ ALSO: BLACKPINK Jisoo Dating Rumor 2022: Why Was She Entangled With SEVENTEEN Joshua? The Scent of Royalty In a photo shared on her Instagram stories, Jisoo revealed a beautifully crafted bottle of perfume, delicately engraved with her name. The accompanying letter, signed by none other than master perfumer Francis Kurkdjian, unveiled the bespoke creation specially made for the K-pop sensation. "I hope you will enjoy wearing this custom-made fragrance I have created for you only," Kurkdjian's note read. A Perfumer of Prestige For those unfamiliar with the name, Francis Kurkdjian stands as a titan in the world of perfumery. Known for crafting iconic scents, such as the legendary Baccarat Rouge 540, Kurkdjian's involvement added an extra layer of prestige to Jisoo's already lavish gift. Netizens' Abuzz with Excitement As the news of Jisoo's bespoke perfume spread, social media erupted with excitement and admiration. Fans and fashion enthusiasts alike marveled at the significance of the gift, further solidifying Jisoo's status as a true icon of style and elegance. the JISOO engraving on the pretty bottle i wonder how the custom-made fragrance smells like... maybe they can release a special collaboration with JISOO too like they did with Dior Addict 031 Strawberry for her birthday last year pic.twitter.com/qcjwy1t4fT February 26, 2024 DIOR loves JISOO as much as SOOYAS love JISOO Even gave her very own Dior perfume pic.twitter.com/QCq2AhT9R5 (@jasequences) February 26, 2024 DIOR loves JISOO as much as SOOYAS love JISOO Even gave her very own Dior perfume pic.twitter.com/QCq2AhT9R5 (@jasequences) February 26, 2024 the man who sent Jisoo a custom fragrance is the creator of the renowned Baccarat Rouge 540 pic.twitter.com/BZeEQfI0rF February 27, 2024 Imagine you have costum-made fragrance special for you From maestro of fragrance. Our Princess did it Francis Kurkdjian created : - Le Male for Jean Paul Gaultier. - Armanie Mania - Cologne for Dior, - Kouros for Yves Saint etc. # # #JISOO #Dior #Diorbeauty pic.twitter.com/vOihNWuqxE Here For (@Liaamal43799109) February 27, 2024 Imagine you have costum-made fragrance special for you From maestro of fragrance. Our Princess did it Francis Kurkdjian created : - Le Male for Jean Paul Gaultier. - Armanie Mania - Cologne for Dior, - Kouros for Yves Saint etc. # # #JISOO #Dior #Diorbeauty pic.twitter.com/vOihNWuqxE Here For (@Liaamal43799109) February 27, 2024 One thing I know, here in America, the famous Baccarat Rougue 540 is expensive as hell! If u dont know, its from Francis Kurkdjian (maison). Knowing that he custom made a scent just for JISOO is such an honor! Oh to be JISOO right now! Shes royalty at this point! #JISOO pic.twitter.com/pMfcp0A8Jl February 27, 2024 With the highly anticipated DIOR show on the horizon, all eyes are on Jisoo as she continues to captivate audiences and bask in the royal treatment befitting a true princess of fashion. YOU MIGHT BE ALSO INTERESTED IN: BLACKPINK Jisoo Relationship 2022 - The Truth Behind Her Dating Rumors With Snowdrop' Co-Star Jung Hae In For more K-Pop news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KpopStarz. KpopStarz owns this article Written by Cassidy Jones Lovelyz member Jisoo has officially made her debut as a BJ (broadcast jockey) on AfreecaTV. Want to know how much she made in her first day of streaming? Then keep on reading! Lovelyz Jisoo Debuts as BJ on AfreecaTV On February 26, a post titled "A female idol debuted as an AfreecaTV BJ today" was shared on the popular South Korean online community forum TheQoo and quickly went viral. According to the post, Jisoo opened up her own channel, "Ddeojisoo." Her first live stream was titled "Is this Seo Jisoo from Lovelyz? Starting at 7:00 PM." Jisoo will specifically stream herself playing video games, stating that she has always liked games in general. During her stream, Jisoo revealed why she chose to start a career as BJ, saying, "I was originally preparing to be an actress, but the conditions are not that favorable these days. The trends are always changing, so I wondered what I could do well. I started streaming because I wanted to play games." CHECK THIS OUT: Lovelyz Member Draws Mixed Reactions For New Profession - What Does She Do? When Lovelyz fans started entering her chat window, Jisoo appeared delighted to see them. At the mention of the group disbanding, she stressed that Lovelyz is still together. She also added, "If I do well streaming myself playing games, it might be a chance for Lovelyz to come together." When asked if she was contracted with AfreecaTV, she stated she was not tied down to the platform. She is also looking into trying Naver's streaming service. Reactions to her opening an AfreecaTV channel were mixed. Some were happy to see her playing, saying they found it cute. Others were confused as to why a female idol would suddenly turn to live streaming. Many pointed out that female streamers who debut on AfreecaTV are known for provocative 18+ streams. While Jisoo stated she would only be playing games, netizens believe it would have been better if she started on YouTube instead. Lovelyz Jisoo Earns THIS Much After First Day Streaming on AfreecaTV Immediately after the broadcast, a post titled "Seo Jisoo's earnings on AfreecaTV for about 4 hours" appeared on a popular South Korean online community forum, attracting attention. The post contained an image capturing the number of star balloons Jisoo received during the broadcast as of 10:50 PM. on that day. Considering that Jisoo started the broadcast at 6:36 PM, it had been 4 hours and 14 minutes since then. According to the image, Jisoo received a total of 51,100 star balloons and gained 12,565 subscribers. As a result, the total income amounted to 5,011,000 won (excluding fees). However, as the BJ, Jisoo actually received 40% of the income, which is 3,006,600 won. ALSO READ: 10+ K-pop Artists Sweeping Billboard's World Albums Chart in February 2024 (3rd Week) As of 11:30 AM on February 27, 2024, she had received 52,634 star balloons (the actual amount received was 3,158,040 won). Many were shocked at the amount of money she raised in just four hours. People stated they were jealous of how much she earned and noted that she would have earned more if she streamed longer. What do you think of the situation? Tell us in the comments below! KpopStarz Owns This Written by Alexa Lopez K-pop fans were thrown into a frenzy on February 27, when aespa Karina and Lee Jae Wook's relationship was confirmed. This sparked a branch of forums online, indirectly leading to a recollection of Heechul and Momo's dating news. Here's what happened. Fans Recall Reactions To Super Junior Heechul & TWICE Momo's Dating Reveal On February 27, fans gathered in an online community, titled, "What was the reaction when Momo and Heechul's relationship got revealed?" OP posted a caption, asking if people were "okay" with the two's relationship reveal in 2020. "Both of them are idols, but one of them is such a huge sunbae, were people okay with this?" OP stated. "Or were the reactions bad because of Kim Heechul's image?" Netizens answered that while Heechul and Momo's dating news didn't affect everyone much initially, the news started receiving negative feedback in the long run due to the age gap. Meanwhile, some netters were dismayed over the reveal and even wondered how the two K-pop stars even became a couple in the first place. Others claimed that everyone cheered when Heechul and Momo broke up in 2021. Read their comments below: "The reaction freaking sucked." "What the? This is a relationship that I've totally forgotten about, now my mood is nasty." "There were a lot of reactions being impressed and a lot asking, 'Momo why?'" "The Kim Heechul fans were all pretending to be so cool about it." "This is the reason why we hate dating news, it's been how long since they've broken up already?" "Of course, the reactions sucked." "At first, we didn't think much of it, but as time passed, we realized it absolutely sucked!" "But their age gap was honestly insane." On the other hand, international K-pop fans expressed how random the relationship was. They also remembered how the rumor circulated before the reveal, and how much fans broke down on X (Twitter). "Everyone hated it lmao. But SuJu fans were defending him saying he's a gentleman even though he's been kinda weird about anime and Japanese girls." "Insane that this actually happened." "That poor girl." "It felt so random like why?" "The mental breakdown that happened on Twitter at that time. GG stans were losing it." "Even more because we all laughed at it at first because no proof whatsoever and JYP goes and confirms it." A fan recalled: "The rumor went around twice. First time, both agencies denied and Heechul went on Knowing Bros and said, 'I'm honestly not with her.' But then five months later, the couple was exposed as part of the New Year tradition (Not by Dispatch but the same agency that tried the first time). Both agencies had to admit it because it seemed that the news agency had something to prove they were dating." What are your thoughts on their discussion? What was your reaction to Heechul and Momo's relationship reveal? Let us know in the comments below! Read KpopStarz for more K-pop news. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 'Knowing Bros' MCs 'Embarrassed' Heechul After Indirect Mention of TWICE Momo KpopStarz owns this article Written by Riely Miller Female idol garnered attention for her hourglass figure that is considered "legendary" by K-pop fans. On February 26, an OP took to Nate Pann to write an article, featuring TWICE Dahyun with the title, "Wow, is having this body even possible?" The author added, "What's with her waist?", showing amazed reactions to the idol's figure. TWICE Dahyun Garners Praise for 'Hourglass' Figure The photo showed Dahyun and Tzuyu standing side by side while promoting their new album, "With YOU-th." Tzuyu is known as one of the idols with tall height, small waist, and solid physique, but fans emphasized how she is no match when beside Dahyun - who stands out for her jaw-dropping body proportion. Although numerous idols have slim waists, people emphasized that there are only a few idols with perfect waist-to-hip ratio, wherein one doesn't only boast an ant-waist but wide hips! Seeing Dahyun's "hourglass" figure, some expressed regret that she is on the shorter side of idols. They claimed that if she was a bit taller, 4th-gen idols like NMIXX Sullyoon and ITZY Yuna "would be shaking" defending their positions as idols with gorgeous S-line figure. Here are some of the comments: "Dahyun's waist is thin, but her pelvis is legendary..." "If Dahyun wears a low-rise outfit, it will perfectly suit her." "All fourth-gen juniors are shaking." "Dahyun's form is really crazy these days." "If Dahyun had grown just 10 cm taller, she would have attracted attention for her body like Sullyoon and Yuna, but she is 160 cm tall." "Dahyun's body is really pretty. When they were promoting 'Scientist,' all I could honestly see was Dahyun." "Dahyun really has a nice body, her lines are pretty and it has a volume." "There are quite a few female idols with a thin waist like Dahyun, but that waist and wide hips, they are so rare. It is a legendary body." TWICE Makes Successful Comeback With New Album 'With YOU-th' Meanwhile, TWICE once again proved their status as "Nation's Girl Group" after the release of their new album, "With YOU-th." On February 23, their new release topped the iTunes album charts in 25 regions around the world, including the U.S., Japan, and Mexico. Upon its release, the official MV for its title track, "ONE SPARK," also ranked No. 1 worldwide for three consecutive days from the 24th to the 26th. Meanwhile, according to a poll released by Billboard on the 25th (local time), TWICE's new album was selected as the favorite music released this week with about 94% of the vote from music fans. They will continue their influence around the globe with its world tour "Ready to Be" at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas in March and Yanmar Stadium Nagai in Osaka, Japan in July. READ MORE: TWICE Dahyun Confirmed as Global Brand Ambassador for Michael Kors For more K-Pop news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KpopStarz. KpopStarz owns this article. Written by Eunice Dawson. aespa member Giselle is garnering criticism after doing THIS amid news of Karina and Lee Jae Wook's romance. Keep on reading for all the details. aespa Giselle Garners Criticism For Doing THIS Following Karina & Lee Jae Wook Dating News On February 27, 2024, aespa memeber Giselle took to her Instagram Story to post a photo for her followers. The photo itself was nothing out of the ordinary. The photo is of Giselle holding a bottle of strawberry milk alongside the caption, "Strawberry milk for today." YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN: Fortune Paper Predicted aespa Karina Dating News With Lee Jae Wook? Footage Resurfaces However, soon after the photo was shared online, a Chinese Weibo user shared a screenshot of the post. Along with the screenshot was the caption, "What great timing to talk about strawberry milk." It appears the Chinese netizen was mocking Giselle for posting an update while her fellow member, Karina, was embroiled in dating news with actor Lee Jae Wook. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: aespa Karina Comments on Ideal Type Resurfaces - Does Lee Jae Wook Match? As of writing, the post criticizing Giselle has received thousands of likes, shares, and comments. Many took to the comment section to agree with the Chinese netizens, saying that Giselle should have refrained from posting while the news of Karina and Lee Jae Wook's romance was still hot. On top of that, many key words related to Giselle's post trended on the hot search of Weibo, ranking within the top ten. Many posts were made criticizing the female idol. K-Netz & International Fans Defend aespa Giselle Amid Backlash However, Korean and international fans were left confused by the criticism. According to other netizens, Giselle's Instagram story is not related to Karina's dating news; therefore, her post was harmless. CHECK THIS OUT: Lovestagram? K-Netz Find Similarities in aespa Karina & Lee Jae Wook Instagrams Many noted that Giselle is one of the members who is fond of sharing daily mundane life moments, and she has no reason to stop doing so just because Karina's relationship was revealed. Some comments read, "How is a co-member's dating news related to the food of another member?" "It's just strawberry milk... Should she make a story about Karina's wedding wine instead?" "Giselle is always posting about her daily life for fans. Why would she stop doing that just because Karina is dating?" What do you think of the situation? Tell us in the comments below! READ MORE: aespa Karina & Lee Jae Wook First Meeting Re-Examined Following Dating Confirmation - Check it Out Here KpopStarz Owns This Written by Alexa Lopez K-pop fans, rejoice! BLACKPINK's Jisoo and SEVENTEEN's Mingyu interacted during the Dior fashion show, and fans are going crazy for it! Keep on reading for all the details. BLACKPINK Jisoo & SEVENTEEN Mingyu Interaction at the Dior Show Goes Viral Recently, the fashion world has focused on Paris Fashion Week. As BLINKs expected, Jisoo from BLACKPINK made a stunning appearance at the Dior fashion show. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: BLACKPINK Jisoo & Lisa Garner Opposite Reactions For Self-Introductions On Their Company Websites - Here's Why This marks her first public appearance since announcing the launch of her own company, BLISSOO. Radiating confidence like a sophisticated lady, Jisoo captivates with her exquisite beauty and a compelling, powerful aura. However, what really stirred up social media was when Jisoo interacted and shook hands with her fellow K-pop colleague, Mingyu from SEVENTEEN! YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN: Will BLACKPINK Jisoo Hold a Fan-Con in Indonesia? Here's Everything We Know At the recent Dior show, Mingyu and Jisoo were among the few Korean idols in attendance. Despite that, many were unsure if the two would be seen communicating with each other. Luckily, footage of the two was shared online. In a video of the two idols' interaction, Jisoo is seen beaming like a flower and engaging in friendly conversation with the SEVENTEEN member. Omg Jisoo and Mingyu interacted look how they are bowing to each other OMGG FINALLY pic.twitter.com/QYXfeflykq Moon (@Moontomychu) February 27, 2024 CHECK THIS OUT: Park Myung Soo 'Apologizes' to BLACKPINK Jisoo - Here's Why It's rare to see Jisoo publicly interacting with a male artist. Because of that, the video of her and Mingyu standing together, facing each other, left international fans buzzing over the two's possible friendship! SEVENTEEN Mingyu Known as One of K-Pop's Social Butterflies For K-pop fans, Mingyu is a name they have heard before. Born in 1997, Mingyu debuted as a member of SEVENTEEN in 2015, making him Jisoo's senior, as BLACKPINK debuted in 2016. MORE MINGYU: SEVENTEEN Mingyu On His Rebellious Teenage Phase: 'My mom prayed for someone else to raise me...' Mingyu is also a prominent figure in the famous '97 line group. His close relationship with BTS's Jungkook and ASTRO's Cha Eunwoo forms a "visual triangle" adored by thousands. Recently, the SEVENTEEN heartthrob has been trending continuously, earning the title of "national husband" thanks to a viral video with his close friend The8, which garnered nearly 80 million views. FOR YOU: 10+ K-pop Artists Sweeping Billboard's World Albums Chart in February 2024 (3rd Week) Despite being a rapper known for his charisma and cool stage presence, Mingyu's kind and somewhat "silly" personality offstage has earned him the reputation of a "comedian" within SEVENTEEN, leading to many viral moments on social media platforms. What do you think of the situation? Tell us in the comments below. KpopStarz Owns This Written by Alexa Lopez At Mobile World Congress 2024, Malaysian operators CelcomDigi and U Mobile agreed to share 100 multi-operator core network sites across Malaysia, as well as collaborate on developing use cases for 5G-Advanced (5G-A). CelcomDigi and U Mobile signed an agreement under which each will commit to 50 core network sites to be shared between them. The arrangement aims to expand their 4G LTE coverage and boost connectivity. CelcomDigi chief executive officer Datuk Idham Nawawi said the two telcos will also benefit from more efficient network operations, freeing up resources to invest elsewhere to improve customer experience. U Mobile CEO Wong Heang Tuck added that the arrangement will also help both operators share deployment, maintenance and energy costs, as well as optimise spectrum usage and network capacity. Meanwhile, in a separate deal, CelcomDigi and U Mobile signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ZTE to demonstrate the capabilities of 5G-A technology, artificial intelligence and digital solutions for real-time live broadcasting. The collaboration covers 5G-A field trials of live use case applications in Sarawak using 5G carrier aggregation solutions such as Automatic Antenna Pattern Control (AAPC) AAU Hibernation, mmWave, Dynamic Frame Scheduling (DIS Solution), Fusion Assisting Super TDD (FAST Solution) for faster 5G speeds. The trials will also include ZTEs Native-AI Intelligent RAN, which promises better network and streaming management. That deal was revealed the same day that Ericsson signed a MoU with Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB), Malaysias sole 5G wholesale operator, to upgrade its national 5G network to 5G Advanced. Since taking on the prestigious role as the ambassador for the renowned fashion brand, Rose of BLACKPINK has consistently graced the public eye with an unparalleled sense of style. Her fashion choices, always carefully curated, have become a hallmark of sophistication, resonating with fans and fashion enthusiasts alike. Paris Fashion Week Stunner As the curtains rose on the Saint Laurent fashion show during Paris Fashion Week on February 27, all eyes were on Rose. The K-pop sensation once again took center stage, not just for her musical prowess but for her impeccable fashion sense. Fans were treated to a spectacle as Rose unveiled a breathtaking ensemble, marking yet another chapter in her sartorial journey. YOU MIGHT ALSO INTERESTED IN: ITZY Yuna's Wardrobe Goes Haywire on Stage, Members Rush to Rescue: 'Could have gone so badly' A 180-Degree Transformation While Rose's elegance on the runway was undeniable, what truly captivated onlookers was the striking 180-degree transformation she underwent as she prepared for the after-party. Shedding her initial flowy dress, Rose emerged in a black silk and velvet suit, radiating undeniable girl crush vibes. If any brand could dislodge Louis Vuitton from the top of the Vogue Business Index, it is likely to be Saint Laurent, which is increasingly becoming a cultural powerhouse. Last night house ambassador #Rose attended the #SaintLaurentAW24 show in Paris. https://t.co/WWqRAoi6gt pic.twitter.com/LGsfJebRwY February 28, 2024 The unexpected shift in style showcased her versatility and ability to seamlessly adapt to different fashion personas. CEO Vibes: A Tale of Two Looks Netizens were quick to express their amazement at the stark contrast between Rose's runway appearance and her after-party look. fashion show after party pic.twitter.com/ggmYY9ETz6 rose (@roseannepics) February 28, 2024 BLINKs REACTIONS OUR GIRL iconic save me, slightly open satin shirt rose, save me.. Both looks eat so good SCREAMS CEO ROSEANNE PARK I'm a girl's girl I'm a boss in a man's world Oh, those sunglasses would be sold out in a minute A queen in disguise After party look screams CEO Roseanne Park she's already in the vampire hollie dress code The flowy elegance of the fashion show was juxtaposed by the commanding presence exuded by the black silk and velvet suit, reminiscent of a powerful CEO. The distinct duality in her style left admirers in awe, proving once again that Rose is a fashion chameleon. Rose's Fashion Mastery Shines Through as She Slays Two Different Looks in One Evening Amidst the frenzy of cameras capturing Rose's beauty, a fan managed to steal the spotlight with an unexpected yet hilarious reaction. As Rose exited her car, a dedicated admirer was spotted FaceTiming someone, ensuring that everyone in their circle could witness the K-pop star's beauty. #ROSE llegando al after party de YSL en Paris. ROSE AT YSL WW24 SHOW#ROSExSaintLaurent#ParisFashionWeek pic.twitter.com/P4Fct01Zfo BLACKPINK LATINO (@BPINKLATINO) February 28, 2024 Social media platforms lit up with laughter as fans celebrated the creativity and devotion of this particular admirer. NETIZENS REACTIONS Elegant She looks beautiful in that gorgeous dress!!! yls did a great job choosing HER the cvnt she's serving I'm so obsessed with you Stunning as she should be Oh she's taking it! I am really loving her vibes In a testament to her undeniable style mastery, Rose left an indelible mark on the fashion landscape by effortlessly embracing and slaying two completely different looks in a single evening. Rose at the Saint Laurent FW24 show today pic.twitter.com/nRWHIojYWw highsnobiety (@highsnobiety) February 27, 2024 Her ability to navigate diverse styles with ease and grace only adds to her allure, cementing her status as a true fashion icon. Fans and fashion enthusiasts alike remain captivated by Rose's ever-evolving fashion journey. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: OH MY GIRL YooA Drops Ethereal Teaser for Comeback After 1 Year & 4 Months of Hiatus: 'Queen is coming...' For more K-Pop news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KpopStarz. KpopStarz owns this article. Written by Cassidy Jones. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Texas man who long claimed innocence is executed for the slayings of 2, including cousin A Texas inmate who long claimed his conviction more than 20 years ago was based on false testimony and questionable evidence has been executed for the slayings of two people, including his cousin At MWC24, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to help establish Indonesia as a leading player in the AI sector. The collaboration was formally established through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Vikram Sinha, President Director and CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, and Ronnie Vasishta, Senior Vice President of Telecom at NVIDIA, at the Mobile World Congress 2024 Barcelona. Through strategic collaboration, all parties agreed to work together to propel Indonesia to the forefront of the global AI Cloud community. Pioneering the Indonesian market as the first NVIDIA Cloud Provider Partner, Indosat and its subsidiary, Lintasarta, will work to bring NVIDIAs full-stack AI platform to enterprises in Indonesia for the first time and offer customers unparalleled access to NVIDIA's cutting-edge graphics processing unit (GPU) technologies with high-density data centres. At a later stage, Indosat and Lintasartas NVIDIA-powered AI Cloud services aim to develop a new generation of sustainable, hyper-connected AI-ready data centres. As part of the collaboration with NVIDIA, Lintasarta aims to provide GPU-as-a-Service (Deka GPU) and give customers access to the latest and most powerful artificial intelligence capabilities specifically tailored for high-demand computing tasks, including infrastructure, platform, and bare metal services. Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison group intends to leverage its data centres to enable a sovereign AI platform for driving innovation across the ecosystem. With the power of AI in the cloud ecosystem, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison group aims to drive Indonesias digital economic growth. Vikram Sinha, President Director and Chief Executive Officer of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, said: The technology will be implemented by data centres operated by BDx Indonesia, a joint venture of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, Lintasarta, and BDx Data Centres. It tallies with our long-term commitment to connecting and empowering every Indonesian, and this collaboration with NVIDIA will play a crucial role in helping achieve that vision. Bayu Hanantasena, Chief Executive Officer of Lintasarta, said: This collaboration will empower the nation with cutting-edge AI technologies and cloud services, driving economic growth, job creation, and technological innovation. Furthermore, by combining our expertise with NVIDIAs strength, we are poised to revolutionise Indonesias digital landscape, fostering innovation and creating a sustainable digital future through high-end technology implementation in the data centre sector. Ronnie Vasishta, Senior Vice President of Telecom at NVIDIA, said: Lintasarta is expanding its role in Indonesia to provide critical sovereign AI infrastructure. As part of the collaboration, Lintasarta will become a NVIDIA cloud partner, offering scalable and performant AI cloud services following NVIDIA reference architectures to help propel Indonesia to the forefront of the global AI cloud community. Telkomsel has signed an agreement with Google Cloud to integrate enterprise-grade generative AI (gen AI) into its operations and core product offerings for consumers and businesses. The agreement was signed at Mobile World Congress 2024 (MWC), and aims to facilitate interactions between employees and customers to improve satisfaction and drive business growth. Derrick Heng, Chief Marketing Officer, Telkomsel, said: To deliver innovative connectivity solutions and services that empower Indonesians, Telkomselis committed to enhancing its internal operations and delivering hyper-personalized and seamless digital customer experiences across its B2C, B2B, and B2B2C segments. With support from Google Cloud partner Metrodata, Telkomsel is using gen AI to improve its employee experience by integrating a gen AI-powered conversational agent into its employee hub app, MOANA (Mobile Office Application and Automation). The hub uses Google Clouds Vertex AI platform and foundation models, and provides support, administrative services and resources. Telkomsel is also launching a strategic initiative with Google Cloud to build a gen AI-powered solution that analyses data from cell towers and fibre optic systems and provides easy-to-follow recommendations. This solution can then be used to identify locations with connectivity gaps more quickly and easily for future network infrastructure expansion, and design fixed mobile convergence (FMC) offerings tailored for different customer segments. To boost its customer-centric product offering, Telkomsel is integrating its enterprise databases with Vertex AI Search to create AI-powered search assistants for users of its MyTelkomsel and myEnterprise apps. For its corporate clients, the search assistant on myEnterprise turns a centralized knowledge hub into an intelligent helpdesk, enabling B2B customers to proactively manage their accounts and make faster decisions. Mark Micallef, Managing Director for Southeast Asia at Google Cloud, said: Telkomsel is moving at impressive speed and scale to make enterprise-grade gen AI accessible and useful to its employees and customers. It is driving productivity, personalization, and top-line growth by enabling people to comprehend information and find solutions to problems in highly intuitive ways. Address by Hon. Ali Sabry, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka 55th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council High-level segment Mr. President, Excellencies, Distinguished delegates, Ladies and gentlemen, Let me begin, Mr. President, by congratulating you on your election as the President of the Council. I assure you of my delegations full cooperation in discharging your duties. Sri Lanka has over the years, engaged actively and constructively with the UN Human Rights Council, to enhance the multilateral framework for the promotion and protection of human rights. Despite the severe constraints we faced, particularly in the recent past, we have continued to maintain such engagement with an extensive array of the helpful working methods of this Council that we believe are productive and beneficial to our people. Our recent engagements, including the UPR Review under the 4th Cycle in February 2023 and the ICCPR Review in March 2023, reflect our commitment to constructive dialogue on human rights and reconciliation. We have taken note of the constructive comments and recommendations made during these Reviews. After careful consideration of all 294 recommendations received at the 4th Cycle of the UPR, the Government of Sri Lanka supported 173, while 115 were noted, 06 recommendations which referred to HRC resolutions 30/1, 46/1 and 51/1 were rejected by Sri Lanka, based on our position on these resolutions, that has been reiterated many times at this Council. Sri Lanka also announced 12 voluntary pledges. In addition, earlier this month, the inaugural session of an Inter-Ministerial Standing Committee on Human Rights was established with the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers, as a national framework to ensure efficient coordination and reporting on Sri Lankas voluntary international commitments regarding human rights and reconciliation. It is in this spirit of constructive and open engagement that I address the current session of the Council. Mr. President, It is pertinent to me to state that in overcoming the challenges of the recent past, the people and the Government have ensured that the political transition which ended the widespread social protests of 2022, took place within the democratic, institutional and constitutional framework of the country. As the international community is aware, over the past year, while economic recovery was a foremost priority to Sri Lanka, the Government continued to take tangible steps in the interest of national unity and reconciliation as key priorities. We are acutely aware of the challenges that lie ahead and the socio-economic hardships that the people continue to face. The Government remains committed to protecting vulnerable segments of the society, including through targeted social protection measures and subsidies. The cornerstone of this recovery lies in pragmatic policy decisions that prioritize the countrys welfare and national reconciliation and unity over short-term political gains. These are not easy decisions but are essential for the countrys overall progress. The significant progress achieved in this regard has been recognised and welcomed both locally and internationally. Mr. President, Sri Lanka has long placed high importance to national unity and reconciliation. In such context,President Ranil Wickremasinghe has outlined his vision for the way forward, on reconciliation efforts and rapid development plans for the North and the Eastern Provinces. We are regularly reviewing the progress on implementation of this vision, at the highest administrative levels, particularly in relation to the work of Sri Lankas domestic mechanisms: the Interim-Secretariat for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Office of Missing Persons (OMP), the Office for Reparations (OR) and the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR). Despite the economic constraints of the recent past, these institutions have been strengthened and the tangible progress made is visible. Work is also progressing on a wide range of issues, including, inter-alia on reaching out to overseas Sri Lankans, resettlement, release of lands and the remaining IDPs in the Northern Province. I take this opportunity to reaffirm Sri Lankas commitment to engaging in constructive human rights processes while rejecting politicized and unilateral measures that infringe upon the sovereignty of Member States. Sri Lanka reiterates its categoric rejection of the external evidence gathering mechanism, established following Resolutions 46/1 and 51/1, which will have wide-ranging legal and political implications for all countries, contradicting the founding principles of the Council. This ever-expanding mechanism will be an unproductive and unhelpful drain on the resources of the Council and its Members. I urge the members of this Council not to allow short-term political gains or as it is now being termed as domestic vote bank politics to overtake the important work of this Council. The Council is already traversing the same path as its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights with disproportionate scrutiny and focus on countries of the Global South. With a host of selective country specific mandates and intrusive mechanisms, the Council, established to safeguard and protect the human rights of all, continues to become increasingly politicized and divisive. We encourage dialogue and constructive cooperation rather than political confrontation, which I am sure, will better serve us to re-build the trust that the world needs. Mr. President, It would be a remiss of me, if I do not refer to existential threat to the people in Gaza. How the Council approaches the humanitarian crisis in Gaza will be another litmus test to its credibility as the foremost international human rights body. It is crucial and timely for this Council to reclaim its original mandate by prioritizing depoliticization, embracing constructive dialogue and multilateral cooperation. Only by doing so can we uphold the integrity of the international human rights framework and effectively address the dire humanitarian situations such as the one in Gaza. We reiterate the importance of avoiding double standards being practiced at this Council. The suffering of innocent civilians must not be overlooked in the pursuit of political agendas, and urgent action is needed to alleviate their plight. Thank you. View PDF Attending the 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2024 in Davos, Switzerland at the invitation of its Founder and Chairman Prof. Klaus Schwab, President Ranil Wickremesinghe interacted with world political and business leaders in addressing a range of issues including debt relief, economic recovery and climate change among others. President Wickremesinghe participated in panel discussions and roundtables covering topics varying from Sri Lankas economic recovery and growth to investment opportunities in Sri Lanka, and the global challenges in the multilateral arena, including climate change and mitigation. Taking part at the Stakeholder Dialogue, organised by the WEF titled Pulling debt back from the brink on 17 January as a panellist, President Wickremesinghe highlighted populism, debt relief, balance of payment and budgetary challenges that all countries face. He pointed out that the expectations of the people have to be met in all countries, and that if strict rules were to be applied, all governments would collapse. Also on the panel were, Wale Edun, Minister of Finance of Nigeria , Professor Laura Alfaro of the Harvard Business School, Professor Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University, and Vera Songwe of the Liquidity and Sustainability Fund. The President also participated in an interactive informal gathering of world economic leaders on the topic Restoring faith in the multilateral system held on 17 January. Delivering the keynote address at the Green Tech Forum jointly organized by the Swiss Asian Chamber of Commerce and the Latin American Chamber of Commerce, President Wickremesinghe highlighted the opportunities available for investing in Sri Lankas renewable energy sector. He also briefed the participants on the framework being established in Sri Lanka to attract green financing. Participating in a panel organised by the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) on Leaders Investment Roundtable, President Wickremesinghe highlighted Sri Lankas climate prosperity plan and the urgent need for green climate financing for countries in the Global South. He underlined the urgent need to accelerate global action to expedite climate change mitigation efforts. The President reiterated the need for climate justice and stronger contributions to adaptation and mitigation efforts from advanced economies. He also briefed the Forum on the Tropical Belt Initiative launched by Sri Lanka at the COP28 in Dubai, which creates a framework for private investment in forests, energy, oceans and mangroves in the countries of the tropical belt. The participation at the WEF provided an opportunity for the President to discuss Sri Lankas climate justice and green tech initiatives with former Vice President of the USA and the Founder/Chairman of the Climate Reality Project Al Gore and the US Climate Envoy and former Secretary of State John Kerry. In a meeting with the Managing Director of the IMF Kristalina Georgieva President Wickremesinghe briefed on improved macro economic indicators in the country that have resulted in positive growth. During his visit to Davos, President Wickremesinghe also had meetings with the President of Switzerland Viola Amherd, President of Singapore Tharman Shanmugaratnam, President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo , President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Vice President of Nigeria Kashim Shettima , Prime Minister of Cambodia Hun Manet, Prime Minister of Pakistan Anwar ul Haq Kakar, Prime Minister of Mongolia Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai, and the Foreign Minister of Norway Espen Barth Eide. At the Business Roundtable jointly organized by the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka and the Swiss Asian Chamber of Commerce on 16 January, President Wickremesinghe underlined Sri Lankas economic recovery and stabilisation processes and highlighted the opportunities for investment notably in renewable energy, agriculture modernization, tourism, IT and infrastructure development. The President also responded to questions raised by the participants that ranged from health, education, renewable energy and banking to agriculture and manufacturing. On the sidelines of the WEF 2024, the President also had meetings with heads of multinational companies, including Maersk and Uber. Addressing business leaders from India, at the Roundtable organized by the Consortium of Indian Industry, President Wickremesinghe highlighted the macro-economic stabilisation brought about over the past year and invited Indian companies to make use of the unique opportunities in renewable energy, infrastructure development, agriculture and tourism. The President also responded to specific queries and concerns put forward by companies that have already invested in Sri Lanka, and bilaterally followed up with a number of Indian companies including Menzies Aviation, Adani Group, Bharati Airtel and ReNew. The 2024 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum was held under the theme `Rebuilding Trust, and saw the participation of leaders from over 100 governments, major international organizations, global business leaders, as well as civil society, academics and experts, young change-makers, social entrepreneurs and the media. Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Geneva 21 January 2024 NewsVoir Delhi-NCR [India], February 28: World University of Design invites submissions of papers and performances for its upcoming International Performing Arts Conference aimed at fostering thought-provoking discussions, academic presentations, and artistic expressions contributing to the ongoing dialogue between tradition and modernity within the Indian Knowledge System. The papers and the performances will be presented on 9th and 10th May at the Triveni Auditorium in Delhi, the event seeks to affirm the significance of academic endeavours in the realm of performing arts. Also Read | AI in 5G Networks: Tech Mahindra and Global IT and Electronics Manufacturing Leader Pegatron Sign MoU at MWC 2024 To Develop AI-Enabled Private 5G Networks. Under the banner of its first conference ANVESHA, the university endeavors to facilitate collaborations between artists and technologists. This initiative aims to push the boundaries of creativity while preserving the essence of cultural heritage. ANVESHA is poised to serve as a platform for discussion and idea exchange, facilitating networking opportunities among researchers, artists, technologists, choreographers, and enthusiasts, both nationally and internationally. The conference will also serve to inspire young scholars and students in the field. The conference framework emphasizes the integration of dance and/or performing arts within various creative disciplines of design, including architecture, technology, visual arts, and fashion, as well as aspects of political and social activism, heritage creation and preservation, and international geopolitics. Also Read | Sex Drive Mismatch with Your Partner? Youre Not Alone. In the long run, the organizers seek to contribute to the ongoing discourse on tradition and modernity within the Indian Knowledge System, propel dance into the future, and promote academic research on various facets of Indian classical dance. Accepted papers will be published in an ISBN book of proceedings, and individual E-Certificates will be awarded to registered authors. Prof. (Dr.) Parul Purohit Vats (Dean, School of Performing Arts, WUD) remarked, "In today's world, performing arts education is a beacon of creativity, critical thinking, and cultural appreciation. Conferences like ANVESHANA blend tradition with innovation, showing how our heritage inspires modern expression. We aim to spark youth interest, showcasing diverse career paths in this dynamic field." The inaugural edition of the conference is organized by the Performing Arts department of World University of Design under the guidance of an academic expert committee comprising heads of various international institutions and esteemed academicians from institutions such as the India International Performing Arts Centre Singapore, Pagrav Dance Company UK, Shoebox Arts Productions Inc. Calgary, Canada, and Center Mandapa, Paris, among others, indicating a high level of international involvement and collaboration. Participants from around the world are invited to submit abstracts, limited to 300 words, outlining the essence, theme, and objectives of their performance or research paper. Abstracts may be in Hindi or English and can address various topics including the influence of Allied Arts on Dance Production, the Contribution of the Indian Knowledge System in reclaiming cultural heritage, Choreographic Innovations in Indian Classical Dance, and more. Interested participants should email their abstracts or queries to anveshana.sopa@wud.ac.in by 30th March 2024. For further details, please visit the website worlduniversityofdesign.ac.in/ANVESHANA-2024. The World University of Design (WUD), founded in 2018, is a prominent institution located in Sonipat, Haryana. It is among India's leading emerging universities, holding a QS I-Gauge Platinum Rating in Design education and an A+ Grade in Outcome-Based Education by World Institutional Ranking. Dedicated to creative education, WUD has the largest portfolio of design courses in India. It offers a diverse range of undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs in fields like Architecture, Design, Fashion, Communication, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, and Management. Committed to sustainability and making a positive global impact, WUD fosters a dynamic learning environment that promotes hands-on education, fostering student excellence with state-of-the-art facilities and numerous award-winning projects. The university prioritizes research and innovation and has established international collaborations and exchange programs to provide students with a global perspective. With a focus on industry partnerships, internships, and industry-relevant faculty, WUD prepares students for successful careers in the design industry, aiming to become a center of excellence in creative education in India. For more information, please visit worlduniversityofdesign.ac.in. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Muzaffarnagar, Feb 28 (PTI) Two people were killed and as many sustained injuries following an altercation between two groups over a love marriage here, police said on Wednesday. The incident took place in Fulat village on Tuesday, police said, adding that the warring groups belonged to the same caste. Also Read | Rajkot Shocker: Man Kills Wife Over Suspicion of Affair, Records and Shares Videos of Body in Society WhatsApp Group; Arrested. The deceased were identified as Ankit and Rohit, while Harimohan and Rahul have been hospitalised with serious injuries, they said. Ankit had married Harimohan's daughter against the wishes of her family. On Tuesday, a confrontation between Ankit and Harimohan turned violent, and firearms were used resulting in the deaths and injuries, police said Also Read | Himachal Pradesh Congress Crisis: BJP Leaders To Meet Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla, Demand Floor Test on February 28. Senior Superintendent of Police Abhishek Singh told reporters that a case was registered against three people, including Raju, Monu, and Govardhan. The situation is under control and police personnel have been deployed in the village as a precautionary measure, he added. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Panchkula, Feb 28 (PTI) Six Congress MLAs, who voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls in Himachal Pradesh, on Wednesday left Haryana for an undisclosed location in a chopper. The legislators, including Rajinder Rana and Ravi Thakur, spent last night in a hotel here and left for Tau Devi Lal Stadium in BJP-ruled Haryana's Panchkula in the morning, said sources. Also Read | Himachal Pradesh Congress Crisis: Rebel MLAs Head to Shimla From Haryana. The MLAs had reached Haryana from Shimla on Tuesday after casting their votes in the Rajya Sabha polls. They are learnt to be in touch with the BJP, amid signs of a crisis engulfing the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh. According to reports, the MLAs are "disappointed" with the working style of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and are seeking his replacement. Also Read | Road Accident in Mali: 31 Killed After Bus Falls off Bridge on Bagoe River. Thakur had Tuesday dismissed Sukhu's claims that some party legislators were "kidnapped" and said he "can go anywhere" while referring to his visit to Panchkula. Sukhu in Shimla alleged that "five to six" Congress MLAs were "kidnapped" and whisked away by the CRPF and the Haryana Police. Speaking to reporters outside the guest house in Panchkula on Tuesday evening, Thakur had said, "Hum ghoomne aye hain...this is my private time, so I can go anywhere." When asked about the HP CM's claims that some MLAs were brought here after being "kidnapped", the Lahaul and Spiti MLA said, "No". Replying to a question on a floor test in Himachal assembly, he said, "In the interest of Himachal Pradesh and Lahaul and Spiti, we supported Harsh Mahajan ji (BJP candidate) so that we can get more budget (from the Centre)." Thakur, Rana and four other Congress legislators were learnt to have reached the PWD Guest House in Panchkula. Later, they were reportedly taken to a hotel. In a stunning upset for the ruling Congress in Himachal Pradesh, the BJP on Tuesday won the state's lone Rajya Sabha seat with its candidate Harsh Mahajan defeating Congress stalwart Abhishek Manu Singhvi and apparently setting the stage for a no-trust motion in the assembly. The voting was a tie with both the Congress and the BJP candidates getting 34 votes, indicating that at least six Congress MLAs voted against the party. The result was then declared based on a draw of lots, officials said. In the 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 legislators. The remaining three seats are held by independents. (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, Feb 28 (PTI) Six murders in Delhi and neighbouring districts in the last month have raised questions over policing and the law and order situation in the national capital region. These include the murders of Indian National Lok Dal's Haryana unit chief Nafe Singh Rathee and party member Jai Kishan in Bahadurgarh, a part of Jhajjar district that shares a border with Delhi, a senior officer said on Tuesday. Also Read | Santhan Dies: Freed Convict in Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Passes Away in Chennai. The NCR encompasses Delhi, Noida, and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, and Gurugram, Faridabad, Jhajjar, and Sonipat in Haryana. The similar modus operandi in all these murders has led the police to suspect the involvement of gangsters, the officer further said. Also Read | Cross-Voting in Rajya Sabha Election 2024: SP in Dilemma Over Action Against Rebel MLAs. The first murder was of Air India crew member Suraj Maan (32), who was shot dead by three men in Noida Sector 104 on January 19. Two of the shooters caught by the Delhi Police and handed over to the Noida Police had allegedly worked at the behest of Delhi-based jailed gangster Kapil Mann, who had a 15-year rivalry with another jailed gangster Parvesh Maan. Suraj Maan was Parvesh Maan's younger brother. Both Parvesh Maan and Kapil Maan are from Delhi's Narela, with their rivalry beginning over a land dispute. According to the Noida Police, the shooters were provided with sophisticated weapons to eliminate Suraj Maan. "The third shooter has been identified but yet to be arrested," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Noida) Vidya Sagar Mishra told PTI. The Noida Police is planning to interrogate Kapil Maan in connection with the case. Delhi-based gangster Surajbhan alias Ballu Pehalwan (42) was shot dead by two men in Faridabad's Sector 11 on January 31. The attackers fired at least 20 rounds at him, leaving him dead on the spot. The murder was also the outcome of a gang rivalry, another Delhi Police officer said. According to the Faridabad Police, Ballu was a close associate of US-based gangster Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu and the Lawrence Bishnoi gang. Ballu, who was facing more than a dozen criminal cases, was a prime witness in the murder case of his brother-in-law, a Faridabad Police officer said. Ballu was a native of Delhi's Nazafgarh but had been living in Faridabad for six months before he was killed. Two days after Ballu's murder, the Faridabad Police commissioner constituted a special investigation team but no arrests have been made yet. The Faridabad Police's Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime) Aman Yadav told PTI that they have identified some suspects and the investigation is underway. In February, a double murder inside a saloon in Najafgarh shook the national capital after a purported CCTV recording of the alleged incident surfaced on social media. One of the victims was seen in the video pleading for his life before being shot from point-blank range. The victims -- Ashish and Sonu, both in their early 30s -- were shot dead by two men inside the saloon. The Delhi Police is yet to crack the case despite the attackers being identified, sources said. Ashish and Sonu were shot by Sanjeev Dhaiya and Harsh alias Chintu over a social media post, an officer said. Chintu, who was recently released on bail, is the brother of jailed gangster Yogesh Tunda, who had allegedly killed gangster Sunil Tajpuria in Tihar jail last year, the officer added. Dahiya is a lawyer and his father is an assistant sub-inspector in the Delhi Police, he said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Ankit Singh said several teams are working to nab the accused. The fourth incident -- the murders of Rathee and Kishan on February 25 -- raised further questions over law and order in NCR. The attackers fired at least 40 rounds at the SUV in which Rathee and three others were sitting at a railway crossing in Bahadurgarh. The Haryana Police has registered an FIR and booked at least 12 people on a complaint lodged by Rathee's family. The police suspect the murders to be a case of contract killing due to personal enmity or property dispute. The Haryana Police is taking the help of its counterparts in Delhi, Rajasthan, and Punjab to identify the attackers. The police have recovered some CCTV footage of the suspects' cars but they are yet to be identified. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Mumbai, Feb 28 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday conducted searches in Mumbai, some places in West Bengal and the Delhi-NCR as part of its money laundering investigation in the Mahadev online gaming and betting app that purportedly involves various high-ranking politicians and bureaucrats from Chhattisgarh. Official sources said about 15 premises in these locations are being covered by the investigators of the federal probe agency under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Also Read | Uttar Pradesh: Man Poses As Sub Inspector To Marry for Dowry, Gets Exposed and Arrested. A total of nine persons have been arrested by the ED in this case till now. The agency had earlier said that the alleged illegal funds generated by the app were used to pay bribes to politicians and bureaucrats in Chhattisgarh, from where the main promoters and operatives of the app hail. Also Read | Lok Sabha Elections 2024: BJPs Central Election Panel to Meet on February 29 Ahead of LS Polls. Many celebrities and Bollywood actors were summoned for questioning by the agency on their links with the online betting platform and the mode of payment. So far, the ED has filed two charge sheets in this case, including against the two main promoters of the alleged illegal betting and gaming app -- Sourabh Chandrakar and Ravi Uppal -- among others. It had undertaken multiple raids in the case earlier. The projected proceeds of crime in this case are about Rs 6,000 crore, according to the ED. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Murshidabad (West Bengal) [India], February 28 (ANI): West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, who was greeted with slogans against him during the inspection of the Nashipur-Azimganj Rail Bridge in Murshidabad, on Wednesday said he was visiting the site as the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and not as a Congress leader. "All those who have come here are officials from the Railway department. This is a government program. So they are here. This is not a program of any politcal party. I have come here as the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, not as a Congress leader," Choudhary said speaking to reporters as he was met with slogans from some locals who were protesting against his visit. Also Read | Electoral Bond Scam in Hyderabad: Retired High Court Judge DSR Varma Loses Rs 2.5 Crore in the Name of Electoral Bonds. The Congress Lok Sabha MP from Murshidabad's Berhampore constituency reasoned that officials from the Railway Department have also come for the inspection though the Raiways Department is headed by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Minister. "The Railway Minister is from the BJP government. Why have people from his Department come here? Why is the Eastern Railway Regional Manager here? This is because it is a program of the Public Accounts Committee," Choudhary said. Also Read | Jamtara Train Accident: President Droupadi Murmu Condoles Loss of Lives in Jharkhand Train Accident. Questioning the intellect of the protesters who raised slogans against him, the senior Congress leader said that it is his right to inspect the project and it is the responsibility of the officials of Railways department to answer his summons. "I don't know whether these people know anything about it or not. As the chairman of the committee, I have called the railway officials to come here. They have come here because it is an issue related to the Railways. I can even call all officals of the Railways if required. The Eastern Railway Regional Manager has not come here to satisfy me. This is their responsibility and it is our right," Chowdhury said. The Congress MP said that he will have a conversation with Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and will ask him to inaugurate the railway bridge soon. "There is a Railways Department which has a Railways Minister. I talk with him as well. I will tell the Railway Minister that I have visited here and to open this (bridge) soon," he said. Chowdhury said that the Railways Minister will feel ashemed when he hears about this incident. "I know he (Vaishnaw) will feel ashamed when he comes to know that your people were raising slogans against me. But what to do? There are some insensitive people here. If they shout at me like wolves, what can I do?" he said. Speaking about the protesters, Chowdhury said, "The Railways RPF may know more about it. I am inspectinmg a number of stations one by one. This is our right. We are doing it from the Public Accounts Committee." One of the protesters said that Chowdhury has no role in the inauguration of the Nashipur-Azimganj Rail Bridge and has come to the site only for getting media footage. "We all know the poor condition in which this railway bridge was lying for so many days. When Gouri Shankar Ghosh became the MLA from here he promised us that this rail bridge will be opened and it is being constructed under the leadership of Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prime Minister Narednra Modi. Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has no role to be here. He only visits here to get media footage," he 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) Pune (Maharashtra) [India], February 28 (ANI): Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday that in the last 10 years, India has transformed itself from being among fragile 5 economies to one of the top 5 economies in the world. Talking to the reporters, on the 'Viksit Bharat Ambassador Meet', Chandrasekhar said, "Citizens of Pune who are interested in becoming part of the movement of building a Viksit Bharat that the Prime Minister has laid out as a vision for us can become a Viksit Bharat ambassador. In the last 10 years, India has transformed itself from a fragile 5 economy to one of the top 5 economies in the world." Also Read | Jamtara Train Accident: President Droupadi Murmu Condoles Loss of Lives in Jharkhand Train Accident. Appreciating the ongoing developments in the nation, the Union Minister said that India has become an inspiration for countries around the world. "We have become an inspiration for the countries of the world in terms of economic performance, in terms of our inclusive policies, and in terms of how we transformed governance and made government work for the people," he said. Also Read | Ministry of Home Affairs Bans Both Factions of Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir As Unlawful Associations for Five Years. Chandrasekhar said that the Prime Minister has set a target for making India a viksit bharat in the coming years. "In the coming years, the Prime Minister has set the target of making India a viksit bharat, and he has said that this will be a partnership between the government, political parties, and the citizens of the country. Each Indian should come out and become a Viksit Bharat ambassador so that this vision of Viksit Bharat is a vision that is being built for the future of young Indians," he said. "When the young Indians grow, he/she finds himself or herself living in a country that has been transformed over the years through the hard work of many governments, including PM Narendra Modi," the Union Minister said. Talking to ANI, MD of Epitome Component Pvt Ltd. Anurag Dhooth said that the idea of Viksit Bharat is the progress of the country and all the sections of society. "The idea of Viksit Bharat is the progress of the country and all the sections of society. Whatever is happening today is a transformation. The world is looking at us," Dhooth said. Investment Advisor Mandar Shende told ANI that if all 140 crore Indians contribute, then India will become a developed country in 2037 instead of 2047. "If all the 140 crore Indians contribute towards the Prime Minister's dream of Viksit Bharat, then we will become a developed country in 2037 instead of 2047. Each and every Indian should contribute towards it. It is not just PM Modi's goal, it is the goal of 140 crore Indians," he said. Applauding the idea of 'Viksit Bharat Ambassador Meet', partner at Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale, Indraneel Chitale, said, "It is an excellent campaign. It is marketing India's story very well. The more the world notices, the better it gets. GST has been a great boom for doing business across the country. Digital infrastructure has been a boom for consumer businesses like us." The MD of Agni Solar Pvt. Ltd., Ravi Petite, said that everyone should contribute towards the Viksit Bharat dream of the Prime Minister. "It is a fantastic initiative. We must all contribute towards the Viksit Bharat dream of the Prime Minister. The solar energy industry is really booming because of the vision of the PM. For my industry (the solar industry), it is a huge change. We don't see a slowdown at all. It will continue to grow," Petite told ANI. Technical Director of Pawar Rubber Products, Hemant Thakkar, said that government initiatives are being taken for entrepreneurs and MSMEs "I think we are just very happy to be here supporting the government in whatever way we can. We have also seen a lot of changes in the last 8-10 years. Government initiatives are being taken for entrepreneurs and MSMEs," he said. Highlighting the Prime Minister's belief in 'Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas', Chairperson of the Mentoring Panel at CII's BYST, Dr. S. Sukanya Iyer, said that the PM gave a 360-degree perspective of balanced regional development. "The most important aspect of our leadership and our PM is that he believes in 'Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas and Sabka Prayas'. He included not only one particular region, but he also gave a 360-degree perspective of balanced regional development. Starting from Jammu and Kashmir, abrogation of Article 370 to Kanniyakumari, where he has given Rs. 7,300 crores worth of infrastructure projects," she 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) Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 28 (PTI) The Kerala government on Wednesday decided to set up campus industrial parks in higher educational institutions in the state to address the issue of scarcity of land for industrial purposes. The decision was taken in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, a statement issued by his office said. Also Read | Lok Sabha Elections 2024: IUML in Kerala Gets Two LS Seats; ET Mohammed Basheer To Contest From Malappuram, Abdusamad Samadani From Ponnani. In order to set up such parks, the Cabinet approved the Campus Industrial Park Scheme 2024, the statement said. The parks, under the innovative scheme, will be started on unused land in higher educational institutions of the state, it said. Also Read | PM Narendra Modi Launches India's First Indigenously-Built Hydrogen-Powered Ferry in Kochi, Kerala. Starting these parks in association with higher education institutions, would help to foster entrepreneurship in the students and strengthen the link between the industrial sector and educational institutions, the statement said. The Cabinet also decided to devise a mechanism for speeding up the industrial production of products newly discovered through research activities in educational institutions, 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) Sponsorship Speech: Conferment of the U.S. Special Operations Command Medal on BCDA Chairman Delfin N. Lorenzana Sen. Joel Villanueva February 28, 2024 Mr. President and distinguished colleagues: It is my honor to sponsor Concurrent Resolution No. 10, Granting Consent to Mr. Delfin N. Lorenzana, Chairman of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, to Receive the "United States Special Operations Command Medal" from the Government of the United States of America. Mr. President, with 35 years of active military service under his belt, Chairman Lorenzana demonstrated his exemplary service in our military as commander of infantry units from platoon to Brigade, Armor Brigade, and the Army Special Operations Command, as well as serving in staff positions at Battalion and Brigade Headquarters. Throughout his years of service, Chairman Lorenzana, who also served as the Secretary of National Defense from June 30, 2016 to June 30, 2022, demonstrated his expertise in national defense and security, special operations, foreign affairs, public diplomacy, veterans affairs, and strategic leadership. This representation could not think of anyone more deserving to be awarded the USSOCOM medal, which is given only to select individuals who have made significant contributions to special operations. Congratulations in advance to Chairman Lorenzana. We urge this august body to wholeheartedly give our consent to Chairman Lorenzana's receipt of the United States Special Operations Command Medal. Thank you very much, and may God bless us all. At MWC24, Huawei brought together global carriers, industry organizations, and academics at the Digital Operations Transformation Summit 2024 to discuss how carriers accelerate digital operations transformation. Bruce Xun, President of Huawei's Global Technical Service Dept, said, "The Telecom + AI, formed with telecom cognition, digital and AI, will bring new operations mode and new service growth to carriers, creating tangible business value." Telecom + AI: Accelerating Transformation from Telco to Digital Intelligent Service Provider AI has become a technology hotspot sweeping the globe. When it comes to unleashing the full potential value of AI, carriers have unique advantages based on ubiquitous connections, over 100 billion data records per day, billions of entries of telecom knowledge, decades of telecom operations experience. Digital twin + AI can create new operations mode, and Converged data + AI can drive new service growth. The in-depth collaboration of telecom and AI will accelerate carriers' transformation to digital intelligent service providers. Digital Twin + AI: Creating New Operations Mode Along the Customer and Employee Journey Along the customer journey, each operation activity focuses on customer experiences, which drives the evolution of the operations mode from network- oriented to customer- and service-oriented. Every customer can perceive the value brought by the new mode. Huawei has developed the innovative SOC + NOC intelligent O&M solution with a carrier in Asia Pacific, where O&M activities were planned, prioritized, and executed according to the actual impact on the customer. This has reduced traffic loss by 15% on average. Along the employee journey, the new operations mode will empower every employee by providing each of them Copilot to help them improve both efficiency and effectiveness. Xun shared many Copilot best practices for different employee roles. For example, broadband on-site and cross-selling engineers can use Copilot to accurately locate faults and solve 85% of the issues within 30 minutes. This improves the success rate of cross-selling by 10%. With assistance of Copilot, agents in the Contact Center can gain an in-depth understanding of customer requirements and satisfy customers with one-stop solution. This improves the FCR (first call resolution rate) by 30%. Converged Data + AI: Driving New Service Growth from Connectivity as well as Beyond Connectivity Connectivity services are the core business of carriers. Utilizing AI to analysis massive operation data, carriers can provide personalized, precise, and convenient services, maximize network monetization through multi-dimensional product design and on-demand marketing. In addition, new growth ecosystems can be built through new products, platforms, and devices. For example, intelligent payment and micro-finance solution can improve the performance of carriers' mobile finance services. In 2023, Huawei supported a carrier in Ethiopia doubled the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of Mobile Money and increased the total revenue by seven times. Xun emphasized that Telecom + AI will accelerate carriers' digital operations transformation. Telecom cognition is the core which includes telecom knowledge, decades of experience, and best practices. Digital is the cornerstone which includes high-quality data with suitable platforms and sufficient digital talent. AI is the accelerator which contains discriminative AI and GenAI. Combination of the three key factors will accelerate digital operations transformation and achieve breakthrough to create enormous business value. Over the past year, Huawei has released best practices of digital operations transformation for various scenarios by working with global carriers. These practices have supported carriers achieve operations excellence, deliver ultimate user experiences, and increase the revenue from new services. Currently Huawei Services has over 20,000 experts, including more than 200 AI and data scientists. In the transformation projects, we supported global carriers implemented data governance from single-domain data to converged data to digital twin, as well as knowledge governance from documents to knowledge to high-quality corpus and vector data base. Huawei continues to make long-term investments in digital operations transformation in which we will explore, innovate and build best practices in hundreds of transformation projects. Bareilly (UP), Feb 28 (PTI) A court here on Wednesday sentenced a man to death and his brother to life imprisonment for the murder of an Army personnel in 2018. District Government Counsel Suniti Pathak said Lance Nayak Anil (35) was shot dead in broad daylight in Bareilly district of Uttar Pradesh in March 2018 following an argument. Also Read | Manipur: Over 1000 Police Commandos Protest Against ASP Kidnapping (Watch Video). The court of additional district judge Gyanendra Tripathi sentenced Dhruv Chaudhary to death and his brother Rajesh Chaudhary to life imprisonment for the murder, Pathak 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 [India], February 28 (ANI): Despite having strict rules on road safety, even today many people do not follow them due to which they become victims of road accidents. The figures for the year 2021-2022 released by Delhi's AIIMS Jaiprakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre (JPNATC) show that most of the road accident cases that come to the centre are those who did not follow the rules and did not wear a helmet while driving. In the study years 2021-22, most of the patients who were admitted to the trauma centre during road accidents were those not wearing a helmet while driving. This also includes the two-wheeler driver as well as the pillion passenger who did not wear a helmet and suffered serious injuries. Also Read | Manipur: Over 1000 Police Commandos Protest Against ASP Kidnapping (Watch Video). Dr Kamran Farooque, chief of trauma centre in AIIMS said that in the year 2021, among the patients admitted to the trauma centre after road accident injuries, 18.59 per cent were those who were not wearing helmets and were sitting in the driving seat. While 43.79 per cent were sitting on the rear seat of a two-wheeler and were not wearing a helmet. Due to this, they also got injured during the road accident. "On the other hand, if we talk about the figures for the year 2022, there was no complete awareness among two-wheeler drivers about wearing helmets. But in comparison to the year 2021, there was a slight decrease in the number of people driving without wearing a helmet in the year 2022. The figure decreased from 18.59 per cent to 15.42 per cent. The number of passengers sitting on the rear seat of a two-wheeler who do not wear a helmet while driving was 41.12 per cent in the year 2022," he said. Also Read | Delhi LG VK Saxena Stalling Implementation of Solar Policy, Alleges AAP Minister Atishi; LG Office Denies Allegations. Dr Farooque pointed out that we found that almost 40 per cent of pillion riders in motorized two-wheelers which means motorcycles and scooters, are not wearing helmets unfortunately. "In the data collected by AIIMS Trauma Center, it has also been found out which vehicle has seen the maximum number of road accidents. In the year 2022, the number of M2W i.e. two-wheelers is the highest which includes motorcycles, scooters etc. In the year 2022, people travelling on M2W vehicles were the most injured at 53.97 per cent. This also includes the driver and the person sitting in the back seat. Apart from this, 22.75 per cent are those people who were travelling in M3W i.e. three-wheelers such as auto. In third place are M4W i.e. four wheeler vehicles which became victims of road accidents. Their figure is 14.99 per cent," he added. Dr Kamran said that we found out of all the patients who came to the trauma centre, almost 80 per cent of the drivers of two-wheelers, were wearing helmets and 20 per cent of drivers were not wearing helmets which is absolutely against the law. Be it either the driver or the passengers it is mandated by the law that they have to wear the helmet. The doctor also asserted that if you don't wear a helmet, then the chances of getting a head injury go up. The chief of the trauma centre, AIIMS, advised that if you value life, then make sure that you wear a helmet whenever you're riding a two-wheeler. "We do run awareness campaigns off and on about injury and helmets. It is common sense that when you are riding a motorcycle or two-wheeler, you have to wear a helmet because the chances of getting in an accident are very high," he 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) Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) [India], February 28 (ANI): The Patwari recruitment examination hit fresh headlines after the candidates staged a protest at the Board office square in the state capital Bhopal on Wednesday, calling the recuritment fake and demanding an investigation into the exam. The candidates were heading towards the Mantralaya to submit a memorandum to Principal Secreatry of GAD (General Administration Department) when the police stopped them near Vyapam square. The police warned them but they kept moving forward. Also Read | Electoral Bond Scam in Hyderabad: Retired High Court Judge DSR Varma Loses Rs 2.5 Crore in the Name of Electoral Bonds. Thereafter, the police detained some candidates saying they did not have permission to protest. Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP), Mahavir Singh, told ANI, "The candidates were angry about the Patwari recruitment exam and planned to submit a memorandum to Principal Secreatry of GAD. There was a crowd of about 200-300 persons who did not have the permission to protest." Also Read | Jamtara Train Accident: President Droupadi Murmu Condoles Loss of Lives in Jharkhand Train Accident. "Earlier, we decided that we will let their delegation to meet the official but they were adamant on moving with the crowd. No protest can be allowed without permission. Despite being warned, they kept moving ahead which is why some people were detained as a precautionary measure," Singh added. However, a protesting exam candidate said, "We were protesting peacefully against the fake process of Patwari recruitment and the list has just been published. However, the police used force to disperse us. We wanted to submit our memorandum peacefully." The result of Patwari recruitment examination was declared on June 30, last year. However, following allegations of foul play in the exam at the time, then chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan put a stay on the recruitments pending investigation. A commision had formed to investigate the matter under retired High Court Justice Rajendra Kumar Verma. Recently, the state government gave a clean chit to the conduct of the Patwari recruitment examination on February 15. An order issued by the General Administration Department read, "Appointment should be made on the basis of the declared results of Group-2, Sub Group-4 and Patwari Recruitment Examination conducted by the Staff Selection Board." However, the protesters alleged that there were 'irregularities' in the examination. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India], February 28 (ANI): Deputy Chief Minister Diya Kumari on Wednesday asserted a proactive approach towards the development of anganwadi centers in the region by approving the upgrade of 6204 mini Anganwadi centres to model Anganwadi centres. It will strengthen integrated child development services under the Women and Child Development Department, and will be developed as a model centre with all the basic facilities, children's growth monitoring devices, toys, books and furniture. Also Read | Former Top UN Diplomat Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puris Novel Swallowing the Sun Launched, Anand Mahindra and Other Eminent Dignitaries Present at Launch Program (Watch Videos). The upgraded Model Anganwadis are scheduled to commence on March 1. Diya Kumari emphasised that this initiative aligns with Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's vision. Also Read | Santhan Dies: Freed Convict in Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Passes Away in Chennai. "As per Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's vision, the state government, under the leadership of Chief Minister Shri Bhajan Lal, is committed to the healthy, educated, and well-nourished development of boys and girls and empowering women. In this regard, 6204 Mini Anganwadis have been promoted to main Anganwadis to ensure better implementation of government schemes benefiting mothers and children across the state. This initiative aims to make it easier for mothers and children to access healthy nutrition and quality pre-school education," Diya Kumari said. Addressing the challenges faced in the past, Diya Kumari said, "It is noteworthy that until now, only one mini Anganwadi worker was managing mini Anganwadis in the state, causing difficulties in their operation. Elevating these 6204 mini Anganwadis to main Anganwadis will resolve this issue, as main Anganwadis have one worker and one assistant, providing more convenience in their operation." Diya Kumari further mentioned that the current working mini Anganwadi workers on these 6204 mini Anganwadis will be promoted to main Anganwadi workers. Additionally, the recruitment process for 6204 new assistants for these upgraded Anganwadis will begin. (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, Feb 28 (PTI) A message about "recruitment" in Railway Protection Force (RPF) triggered anxiety with Central Railway receiving several queries which turned out to be "fake". "A fictitious message is being circulated on the website of 'RTUEXAM.NET' regarding the recruitment for 4,208 vacancies of constables and 452 sub-inspectors in Railway Protection Force," a CR release said on Wednesday. Also Read | Delhi LG VK Saxena Stalling Implementation of Solar Policy, Alleges AAP Minister Atishi; LG Office Denies Allegations. Neither the RPF nor the Ministry of Railways has issued such a notification on their official websites or through any print or electronic media, it stated. This message is "completely false and fake," the CR said and appealed to people not to fall prey to the fake news about the RPF recruitment. Also Read | Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Prakash Ambedkar Led-Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi Eyes 27 Maharashtra LS Seats, Wants To Put Up Manoj Jarange Patil. "Refer to the official website of Indian Railways for any authentic information required," it stated. An official said they received several calls about the "recruitment" drive. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Jamtara (Jharkhand) [India], February 28 (ANI): At least two passengers have died and some were injured after being hit by a train near Kaljariya railway crossing in Jharkhand's Jamtara-Karmatand area on Wednesday, Jamtara Deputy Commissioner Shashi Bhushan Mehra said. Two bodies have been recovered so far, the Deputy Commissioner said adding that the police, district administration team and railway officials have reached the spot and taking the injured to the hospital for treatment. Also Read | Electoral Bond Scam in Hyderabad: Retired High Court Judge DSR Varma Loses Rs 2.5 Crore in the Name of Electoral Bonds. Meanwhile, Jamtara Sub Divisional Officer (SDO) Anant Kumar said that the deceased were passengers who had got off near Kalajharia railway crossing and were run over by another local train. "Near the Kalajharia railway crossing, the train stopped and some passengers got off and were run over by another local train. Information was received that some people have died. RPF and the district police are conducting a search operation and two bodies have been recovered so far," the SDO said. Also Read | Jamtara Train Accident: President Droupadi Murmu Condoles Loss of Lives in Jharkhand Train Accident. Kumar also informed that a helpline number will be started soon so that family members of those who have been injured can contact for further information. "We have requested to start a helpline number from the Railways. Family members of those who have been injured in the accident may contact," he said. Medical supervisors has also been posted at all hospitals so that information can be collected from those who have been injured so that their family members can be informed, the SDO said. "This will help us to inform the families of those who have been injured in the accident," Kumar said. "The reason for the incident is yet to be determined...," he added. Jharkhand Health Minister Banna Gupta directed Jamtara Deputy Commissioner and Civil Surgeon to conduct rescue operations and provide treatment to those injured. Gupta directed the Civil Surgeon at Jamtara that there should be proper arrangements for treatment of those who have been injured and warned there should be no negligence in treatment. In reaction to the incident, Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren said in a post on 'X', "Saddened by the news of train accident near Kaljharia station of Jamtara. May God grant peace to the departed souls and give strength to the bereaved families to bear this difficult time of grief. The administration team is engaged in relief and rescue work on the spot. I wish speedy recovery to those injured in the accident." (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Thane, Feb 28 (PTI) Police have rescued two child labourers from two different food joints in Navi Mumbai township of Maharashtra, an official said on Wednesday. During a routine inspection on Tuesday, the police found that the children were employed at the two eateries located at a vegetable market in Vashi area. Also Read | CUET-UG Exam 2024: Application Process for Common University Entrance Test-UG Begins Today, Exams To Be Conducted in Hybrid Mode; Check Other Details. The children were allegedly made to do hard work, harassed and not provided adequate remuneration, the official from APMC police station said. The two juveniles were rescued and lodged in a remand home, he said. Also Read | NTPC Recruitment 2024: Applications Invited for 110 Deputy Manager Posts, Know How to Apply at careers.ntpc.co.in. A case was registered against the owners of the two eateries under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, the police added. (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, Feb 28 (PTI) Mining conglomerate Vedanta Group is eyeing USD 6 billion of pre-tax profits in the next financial year and scaling it to USD 7-7.5 billion in the following year on the back of operational efficiencies across businesses. "The building blocks are already in place, and largely under our control for EBITDA augmentation. The increase will be driven by ongoing cost optimization, price increases and volume ramp-up," Ajay Goel, CFO, Vedanta Limited said at a recent analysts' meet. Also Read | CUET-UG Exam 2024: Application Process for Common University Entrance Test-UG Begins Today, Exams To Be Conducted in Hybrid Mode; Check Other Details. The company is expected to clock nearly USD 5 billion of EBITDA in FY24 (April 2023 to March 2024); adjusting for one-time gains of the Cairn arbitration, the operational EBITDA for FY24 will be USD 4.4 billion. The ambitious EBITDA target of USD 6 billion represents a jump of over 35 per cent. Also Read | NTPC Recruitment 2024: Applications Invited for 110 Deputy Manager Posts, Know How to Apply at careers.ntpc.co.in. "Most of this growth, nearly 15 per cent, will be driven by cost optimization measures. Price upticks, for example through increase in value added aluminium products, will account for another 8 per cent. Ramp-ups in production volumes across the businesses will contribute another 12 per cent growth in EBITDA," explained Goel at the analyst meet. The group has aggressively pursued cost optimization measures over the past few quarters, slashing production costs in its key segments aluminium and zinc, by 35 per cent and 15 per cent respectively over the past six quarters. The Group is also continuously investing in capacity expansion and integration, with overall aluminium capacity slated to increase from 2.2 million tonnes per annum to 3.0 million tonnes in the next few quarters. Its international Zinc business is also expected to ramp up production. The dual levers of continued cost efficiency and production ramp up are expected to power the move towards USD 6 billion EBITDA. Billionaire Anil Agarwal-owned Vedanta Limited on September 29, 2023 announced creation of independent verticals through demerger of underlying companies, mainly its metals, power, aluminium, and oil and gas businesses to unlock potential value. As part of the vertical split of Vedanta Ltd, shareholders will get 1 share of each of the 5 newly listed companies for every 1 share of Vedanta. After the demerger, the businesses of Hindustan Zinc as well as the display and semiconductor manufacturing units will remain with Vedanta Limited. "The demerger is expected to simplify the Group's corporate structure with sector-focused independent businesses. Each of our businesses is at global scale hence the board decided to go for a demerger. We intend to build an asset ownership and entrepreneurship mindset where each company would chart out its growth trajectory. The demerger will give global investors, including sovereign wealth funds, retail investors, and strategic investors, direct investment opportunities in dedicated pure-play companies. With listed equity and self-driven management teams, the demerger would also provide individual units a platform to pursue strategic agendas more freely and better align with customers, investment cycles, and end markets," Vedanta had said in its demerger announcement. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Los Angeles [US], February 28 (ANI): A recent study has examined the impacts of daylight saving time (DST) on heart health and found that the impact is likely to be minor. In the statewide investigation, researchers used an innovative statistical model to look for links between DST and significant cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks and strokes. The survey included 36,116,951 people aged 18 and older from most states in the United States. (Arizona and Hawaii were excluded since they do not observe DST.) Also Read | Zeno Health Raises 'USD 25' Million in Its Series C Funding Round Led by Korean Private Equity Investor STIC Investments. Researchers concentrated on the week immediately following the spring and autumn DST transitions, when clocks are changed either an hour forward or backwards. "We looked at five years across the US, and what we found is that it's unlikely that there is a clinically meaningful difference in cardiovascular health due to daylight saving time," said Benjamin Satterfield, MD, PhD, a cardiovascular diseases fellow and lead author of the study. Also Read | Road Accident in Mali: 31 Killed After Bus Falls off Bridge on Bagoe River. Researchers found 74,722 adverse cardiovascular events occurred throughout the study during the spring and fall DST transitions. An adverse cardiovascular event was documented when a person was hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of a heart attack, stroke, cardiogenic shock or cardiac arrest. "These cardiovascular events are common health conditions, so this led to the question of whether this is more than would be expected if this had not followed the daylight saving time transition," said Satterfield. The observance of daylight saving time varies around the world. Countries that move clocks forward or back one hour may do so on different dates, and some do not observe daylight saving time at all. In the Mayo Clinic study, the Monday and Friday following the spring DST transition showed a statistically slight increase in the rates of cardiovascular events -- but when looking at all the data, researchers did not see the rise as clinically significant, he said. Researchers note that the time change practice was intended to align social and work activities with daylight hours and to conserve energy by using less artificial lighting. They underscore that making changes to the DST system out of concern for heart health is unnecessary. "When decisions are made about whether to abolish daylight saving time, there is no need to take concerns regarding heart health into account," said Bernard J Gersh, MB, ChB, DPhil, cardiologist and senior author of the study. (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, DC [US], February 28 (ANI): Amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, the goal of US administration is to achieve a deal to reach a humanitarian pause and the release of hostages as soon as possible, US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday (local time). Addressing a press briefing, Miller said that US has made a significant progress towards an agreement last week, when US officials engaged in the region. He noted that US administration will continue to pursue further progress this week. Also Read | Road Accident in Mali: 31 Killed After Bus Falls off Bridge on Bagoe River. Asked about President Joe Biden's remarks about goal for a ceasefire amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, Miller said, "So, our goal is to achieve a deal to reach a humanitarian pause and the release of hostages as soon as possible. Certainly, we'd welcome getting one by this weekend. What I can say about the overall progress is that we made significant progress towards an agreement last week when we had officials from the United States Government engaging in the region. We continue to pursue further progress this week." "American officials across the government continue to be engaged on this question. We are trying to push this deal over the finish line. We do think it's possible. But as you've heard me say before, ultimately some of this comes down to Hamas and whether Hamas is willing to agree to a deal that would provide significant benefits to the Palestinian people that they claim to represent," Miller said . Also Read | Red Sea Crisis: US Aircraft, Coalition Warship Shoot Down Five Irab-Backed Houthi UAVs. On February 27, Biden said that he hopes there will be a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict by "next Monday." Speaking at a press gaggle in New York, the US President said that we are close to it but it's not done yet. "Well, I hope by the beginning of the weekend, I mean, the end of the weekend," Biden said after being asked when a ceasefire might start. "My national security adviser tells me that we're close. We're close, it's not done yet. And my hope is that by next Monday we'll have a ceasefire," Biden said. Further asked about the possibility of achieving the ceasefire by the end of ceasefire, Miller refused to divulge details regarding the negotiations in public. However, he noted that US officials will continue to hold discussions with their counterparts from Israel and governments of Qatar and Egypt. Miller stressed that the deal is in the interest of Israeli hostages and Palestinian people and reaffirmed US commitment to push for the deal. Miller said, "I'm not going to negotiate in public, but there are talks that continue. American officials continue to engage on this and discuss it with our counterparts in the Government of Israel as well as the Governments of Qatar and Egypt. And we continue to push to try to get this deal over the finish line. We think it's possible." "We think we can reach a deal. But ultimately, we would need Hamas to say yes. We would need Hamas to agree to a deal that would allow for the release of hostages which never should have been taken in the first place, that would allow for a temporary ceasefire and allow increased humanitarian assistance to come in. As I said, that is a deal that is not just in the interest of the hostages obviously, it's not just in the interests of the Government of Israel or the Israeli people. It is a deal that is in the interest of the Palestinian people, so we will continue to push for it because we think it's in the interest of all parties concerned," he added. Miller said that US is trying to reach a temporary ceasefire as part of the agreement that would allow them to get the hostages out. He stated that the agreement will also allow the humanitarian assistance to enter Gaza. Responding to a query about temporary ceasefire, he said, "I'm not going to negotiate in public and talk about what the contours of a deal might look like, but we certainly are trying to reach a temporary ceasefire as part of this agreement that would allow us to get hostages out and would allow us to get humanitarian assistance. And we would like to see a temporary ceasefire go on long enough to allow all the hostages to get out." "Again, without talking about what the contours of any agreement might look like, we want to see a ceasefire go on for as long as it can to get all the hostages out. That said and you've heard the Secretary speak to this and heard the President speak to this, our ultimate goal is to end this war as soon as possible and end it in a way that ensures Israel's security and in a way that puts us on a path towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and that's the diplomatic route that we continue to pursue." Earlier on Monday, CNN reported that Hamas backed off some key demands in the negotiations for a hostage deal and paused the fighting in Gaza after Israeli said that its position was "delusional". It brought the negotiating parties closer to an initial agreement that could halt the fighting and see a group of Israeli hostages released, according to two sources familiar with the discussions, according to a CNN report. Following the meeting held in Paris between the US, Egyptian, and Israeli intelligence chiefs and the Qatari prime minister, a senior Biden administration official said, "The major obstacles have been resolved in terms of Hamas insisting on a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and an end to the war," CNN reported. "Hamas' requirements for the number of Palestinians (prisoners that) would have to be freed have declined," the official 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) At Mobile World Congress 2024, Philippine telco NOW Telecom signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Rakuten Symphony to establish a collaborative framework for deploying a 5G Open RAN pilot in the Philippines. Under the terms of the agreement, signed on Monday, Rakuten Symphony and NOW will collaborate with the aim of developing disaggregated networks and open interfaces for the pilot. Both companies will contribute expertise, resources, and technology to jointly develop 5G and related ICT solutions for NOW Telecoms network. Sharad Sriwastawa, President, Rakuten Symphony, said, We look forward to bringing Rakuten Symphonys expertise in Open RAN solutions and digital services to support NOW Telecoms 5G Open RAN ambitions. Mel Velasco Velarde, Chairman, NOW Telecom, said the collaboration is instrumental in our mission to unveil a secured 5G network in the Philippines. The Open RAN deal is the second by Rakuten Symphony to be unveiled at MWC2024 this week. Also on Monday, Rakuten Symphony and Veons Ukrainian subsidiary Kyivstar signed of a Letter of Intent (LoI) that confirms Kyivstars intent to use Rakutens Open RAN and 5G technologies to help rebuild Ukraine's digital infrastructure and support Ukraines recovery and reconstruction. Streaks of Light Seen in California. (Photo Credits: Video Grab) Chicago, Feb 28 (AP) The sisters of a man fatally shot in his home this month by suburban Chicago police filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the officers and their department, alleging wrongful death and other counts. Kyenna McConico and Kennetha Barnes, sisters of Isaac Goodlow III, filed the lawsuit in US District Court in Chicago against the Carol Stream Police Department and officers identified as John Does 1-6. The complaint seeks unspecified damages. Also Read | Sunil Bharti Mittal Becomes First Indian Citizen to Receive Honorary Knighthood From King Charles III. Messages seeking comment on the lawsuit were left Wednesday morning with the police department and Chief Donald Cummings. Officers responding to a domestic violence call fatally shot Goodlow, 30, around 4:15 a.m. Feb. 3 in his home in the Villagebrook Apartments in Carol Stream. Also Read | Abu Dhabi: Thousands of Devotees Take Part in 'Palkhi Yatra' at BAPS Hindu Temple in UAE. At the time, the police department said on its Facebook page that officers encountered a tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving situation, which resulted in officers discharging their weapons at the alleged domestic violence suspect. The sisters' attorney, Andrew M. Stroth, said Goodlow was alone and in bed when officers, without identifying themselves, bust open his bedroom door and shot him. Isaac Goodlaw was shot directly in his heart, Stroth said in a telephone interview. Goodlow and his girlfriend had a dispute earlier in the evening, but she had left the home by the time officers arrived, Stroth said. Stroth said he and Goodlow's sisters have viewed police body camera footage of the episode, which he called an unlawful, unjustified shooting. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) London, Feb 28 (PTI) Agratas, Tata Group's global battery business, on Wednesday confirmed that it will build Britain's biggest electric vehicle battery manufacturing facility in Somerset, south-west England. The so-called gigafactory, announced last year, will be built on the Gravity Smart Campus near Bridgwater in Somerset with a community-first approach, involving locals to learn more about and be a part of the project. Also Read | Abu Dhabi: Thousands of Devotees Take Part in 'Palkhi Yatra' at BAPS Hindu Temple in UAE. The company said the 40 GWh factory is set to contribute almost half of the projected battery manufacturing capacity required for the UK automotive sector by the early 2030s. "Our multi-billion-pound investment will bring state-of-the-art technology to Somerset, helping to supercharge Britain's transition to electric mobility whilst creating thousands of jobs in the process, said Tom Flack, CEO of Agratas. Also Read | Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant Warns Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah Plotting Ramadan Violence. "We care deeply about the communities we operate in, so it's imperative to us that we work with, and listen to, our new neighbours as we build our factory in Somerset. That's why we'll be holding an event for local residents very soon, so we can share more about our plans and introduce our team to the community, he said. Agratas said it will work closely with local and regional partners, including Somerset Council, Bridgwater and Taunton College, and the wider Gravity Smart Campus, to deliver bespoke education and training programmes in the region, creating local jobs for local people. The factory itself will create up to 4,000 new high-skilled green tech jobs in the area, with thousands more expected to be created in the UK supply chain. Residents living near the site of the future gigafactory campus are set to receive a leaflet through the post this week followed by regular updates on the site's progress. Preliminary works on the site are in progress, with piling to establish the factory's foundations set to start in the coming months. Construction will be completed in phases, with battery production set to begin in 2026. Tata Group firms Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Tata Motors will be Agratas' first customers and it also plans to create batteries for other applications, including two-wheelers and commercial vehicles, as well as commercial energy storage solutions. The news follows an announcement made by Tata Group last year that it would establish Agratas, a new subsidiary, and that the UK would be home to the company's first gigafactory outside India. Derived from the Sanskrit word agra, the company's name combined with "gravitas" stands for leadership and moving forward and reflects an ambition to be a pioneering power for future generations. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Beirut, Feb 28 (AP) Turkish drone strikes in northeastern Syria on Wednesday killed at least three members of a local Christian force and wounded others, including civilians, a Kurdish official and a Syrian opposition war monitor said. There was no immediate comment from Ankara. Turkey has been attacking Kurdish fighters in Syria for years but attacks on the fighters from the country's Christian minority have been rare. Also Read | Abu Dhabi: Thousands of Devotees Take Part in 'Palkhi Yatra' at BAPS Hindu Temple in UAE. The force that was targeted, the local Christian Syriac police known as Sutoro, works under the US-backed and Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Siamand Ali of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces told The Associated Press that the Turkish drones initially hit three Suturo vehicles near the northeastern town of Malikiyah. When a fourth vehicle, a pick-up truck, arrived at the scene to retrieve the casualties from the strike, it also came under attack, he said. Also Read | Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant Warns Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah Plotting Ramadan Violence. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said three Suturo police members were killed, as well as one civilian. The Observatory said the attack was the latest of 65 such strikes so far this year in northeastern Syria that have killed 18 people, mostly Kurdish fighters. Turkey often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s. Turkey says that the main Kurdish militia in Syria, known as People's Defense Units, or YPG, is an affiliate of the PKK. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency however, reported on Tuesday that the Turkish intelligence agency, MIT, had killed a senior Kurdish fighter member in an operation in the northern Syrian town of Qamishli. The report identified the woman operative as Emine Seyid Ahmed, a Syrian national, who allegedly went by the code name of Azadi Derik. She reportedly joined the Kurdish Women Protection Units, or YPJ, in 2011 and allegedly planned a number of attacks against Turkish security forces as well as cross-border missile attacks targeting civilians in Turkey, Anadolu reported. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Abu Dhabi [UAE], February 28 (ANI/WAM): In a landmark move, Abu Dhabi-based International Holding Company (IHC), the global diversified multi-sector investment company, has announced the creation of a new Board observer position for an "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Observer", named "Aiden Insight". This strategic initiative positions IHC as a pioneer in leveraging AI for corporate governance and decision-making. Also Read | Cancer Treatment in Rs 100: Tata Institute Claims New Breakthrough Cancer Prevention. On the occasion, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, IHC Chairman, said, "Our decision to appoint 'Aiden Insight' as an AI Board Observer is a testament to IHC's commitment to innovation and forward-thinking leadership. 'Aiden' will provide us with unparalleled data analysis and strategic insights, ensuring that IHC remains at the forefront of industry developments and continues to deliver value to our stakeholders." "IHC pioneers corporate governance by integrating Aiden's AI insights as a Board Observer into its strategic decision-making process," he added. Also Read | Road Accident in Mali: 31 Killed After Bus Falls off Bridge on Bagoe River. "Aiden Insight" is a virtual entity endowed with sophisticated AI capabilities, and is set to revolutionise the way IHC navigates the complexities of the global investment landscape. This groundbreaking initiative by IHC is powered by the leading AI capabilities of G42 in collaboration with Microsoft, setting a new benchmark for excellence in AI development in the business and investment domains. Leveraging the largest AI computing system in the UAE, G42, are developing "Aiden" to serve as an IHC Board Observer, with the ability to continuously process and instantly analyse decades of business data, financial information, market trends, and global economic indicators. With a focus on transparency, innovation, and ethical business practices, "Aiden" embodies the values and forward-thinking approach that IHC stands for. The name "Aiden Insight" encapsulates both symbolic meaning and functional purpose for its Board Observer AI role. "Aiden", of Irish origin (both a male and female name), meaning "little fire" or "fiery one", symbolises the AI's capacity to ignite innovation and provide dynamic insights, while Aiden's surname "Insight", highlights its ability to deeply analyse data and aid the board with valuable perspectives. Together, Aiden's name serves both as an "aid and an enhancer", contributing to informed and strategic decision-making on the Board. The role of "Aiden Insight" will encompass a wide range of responsibilities, including continuous data analysis, risk assessment, strategic planning support, innovation tracking, and ethical and compliance monitoring. "Aiden" will attend IHC Board meetings as a non-voting observer, offering real-time insights to inform discussions and guide decisions. "We are proud to welcome 'Aiden Insight' to our Board as the AI Observer. Powered by G42 in collaboration with Microsoft, this groundbreaking initiative reflects our dedication to embracing cutting-edge technology and innovation, ensuring that IHC remains a leader in strategic investment and corporate responsibility," stated IHC CEO, Syed Basar Shueb. The introduction of "Aiden Insight" is anticipated to confer a multitude of benefits to the IHC Board. These include bolstered decision-making through enhanced data analysis, strategic future-proofing against emerging trends and technologies, and the promotion of a culture of innovation. Moreover, Aiden's role will contribute to efficient resource management, improved risk management, and the maintenance of the company's reputation for ethical leadership. IHC's decision to appoint "Aiden" as a Board Observer is a clear indication of the company's forward-looking approach and its unwavering commitment to leveraging technology for sustainable growth and ethical excellence. (ANI/WAM) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Kamanyola (Congo), Feb 29 (AP) United Nations peacekeepers handed over their first military base to security forces in eastern Congo on Wednesday as part of an eventual withdrawal after decades of operating in the country. The handover comes as violence soars in the conflict-riddled region. Peacekeepers transferred responsibility and equipment at its base in Kamanyola in South Kivu province to Congo's national police as part of a phased drawdown agreed upon between the government and the U.N. last year. Also Read | King Harald V Hospitalised: Europe's Oldest Monarch Remains Hospitalised on Malaysian Island After Falling Ill on Vacation. Eastern Congo has long been overrun by dozens of armed groups seeking a share of the region's gold and other resources. The U.N. has been operating in the country for 25 years with its primary mission being the protection of civilians. But frustrated Congolese say that no one is protecting them from rebel attacks, leading to protests against the U.N. mission and others that have at times turned deadly. Last year, the U.N. Security Council extended the peacekeeping mandate until Dec. 20 and decided that its troop ceiling until June 30 should be 13,500 military personnel, 660 military observers and staff officers, and 2,001 international police. It ordered a reduction from July to 11,500 military personnel, 600 military observers and staff officers and 1,713 international police. Also Read | US President Joe Biden To Issue Executive Order Aimed at Protecting Americans' Sensitive Data From China and Russia. The mission is expected to close 14 bases and facilities in South Kivu by June, at which point the U.N. Security Council will decide on a timeline for the rest of the withdrawal. The drawdown comes amid soaring violence in recent weeks as one of the most active rebel groups, M23, launched attacks against a community considered the last line of defense before the region's largest city of Goma. The M23, with alleged ties to Rwanda, had been dormant for nearly a decade but resurfaced more than two years ago. Its fighters are accused of seizing swaths of land, forcing thousands of people to flee and causing a dire humanitarian crisis. The U.N. says it's it's been supporting Congo's army by defending positions that are protecting civilians, which remain in tact despite coming under fire. Speaking at the ceremony on Wednesday, U.N. mission chief Bintou Keita said she hoped the handover was the start of a peaceful withdrawal process. We hope that the handover of Kamanyola ... will serve as a model and inspiration for the rest of (the peacekeepers') disengagement process, she said. But there were mixed emotions among the population Wednesday as the base was handed over. Some praised the mission for its peace-building work. The U.N. has contributed a great deal, said Gloire Bahati. I can imagine that without it, we would all be trampled underfoot by our enemies." Others said it was time for Congo's security forces to protect the country, noting that decades of foreign involvement had yielded little. 'When (the UN) arrived, we thought we would see a serious crackdown on insecurity," said Ushindi Kulimushi a resident of the town. "But unfortunately, we have experienced the same thing up to the present day. Let (them) go, because it has failed in its mission," he said. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) London [UK], February 28 (ANI): The murder of prominent Sindh activist Hidayat Lohar under questionable circumstances has now gathered international attention. The World Sindhi Congress (WSC), an organisation involved in Sindh rights advocacy, announced it was organising a protest outside the Prime Minister's residence in London, UK, on March 3, a press statement by the WSC stated. Also Read | Sunil Bharti Mittal Becomes First Indian Citizen to Receive Honorary Knighthood From King Charles III. In the press statement, the WSC called upon the international human rights organisation to unite to protest against the brutal murder of Lohar. The WSC stated, "We call upon human rights activists and organisations to unite with us, along with their families and friends, to protest against the brutal murder of Mr. Hidayat Lohar." The press statement further stated that Lohar was an esteemed educationalist and a dedicated human rights activist. Previously, on February 16, 2024, in an attack by an unidentified motorcyclist while en route to his school in the Nasirabad District of Sindh, Pakistan. Also Read | Abu Dhabi: Thousands of Devotees Take Part in 'Palkhi Yatra' at BAPS Hindu Temple in UAE. The statement further stated, "Together, let us demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice in a court of law. We urge all concerned citizens to join us." Previously, internationally acclaimed human rights organisation Amnesty International (an NGO that campaigns for human rights) had issued a statement condemning the murder of Sindhi political activist and teacher Hidayatullah Lohar, emphasising the urgent need for an independent and impartial investigation by Pakistani authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice In a post on X, Amnesty International remarked, "PAKISTAN: @amnesty calls on the authorities to conduct an independent, impartial and prompt investigation into the killing of Sindhi political activist and teacher Hidayatullah Lohar, and ensure that the perpetrators are held accountable without recourse to the death penalty." The tragic killing of Hidayat Lohar underscores the grave risks faced by human rights workers in Pakistan. Lohar, who forcibly disappeared in 2017 and recovered two years later, in May 2019, was recently shot and killed by armed men. Hidayat Lohar, father of Surath Lohar, leader of Voice for Missing Persons of Sindh, and Sasi Lohar, fell victim to this heinous crime. His family members have been staging protests demanding justice for his murder. Surath Lohar, in a video released on social media, squarely blamed Pakistani intelligence agencies for his father's murder. He highlighted ongoing attempts to subject his father to enforced disappearance again, even after his previous ordeal. The killing of Hidayat Lohar not only represents a personal tragedy but also signifies the broader threats faced by human rights activists in Pakistan. Amnesty International's call for a prompt and transparent investigation resonates with the growing concerns over impunity and lack of accountability in cases of violence against activists. As voices demanding justice grow louder, the international community's attention is drawn to the plight of individuals like Hidayat Lohar, who dedicate their lives to advocating for human rights and justice in Pakistan. (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, February 28: A POCSO court in Mumbai recently sentenced a transgender person to death for kidnapping, raping and murdering a girl child in the city. The POCSO court on Tuesday, February 27, awarded the punishment to the accused for killing a three-month-old girl in Cuffe Parade in 2021. The court also said that the "barbaric and inhuman" way the offence was committed has made it a "rarest of rare case". Aditee Kadam, Special judge of the POCSO court, said that a life sentence is a rule, and a death sentence is an exception, which is only to be awarded in the rarest of rare cases, reports the Hindustan Times. "The accused had planned in advance to commit the crime and executed it in a meticulous manner," the judge added and called the incident a "cold-blooded murder". Mumbai Shocker: Employee of Posh Bandra Club Arrested for Allegedly Molesting Minor Boy; Did Not Find Any Evidence of Sexual Assault, Says Management. The police investigation revealed that the accused approached the family of the girl child for a gift after the girl was born. However, the family declined to give anything to the transgender person. This led to the accused developing a grudge against the family. Later, the accused kidnapped the infant, raped her and later drowned her in a nearby creek. The next day, the child's body was found by a witness who said that he found the body when he went fishing at Sassoon Dock at around 2 am. In her testimony, the deceased girl's mother said that the accused had threatened them that he would do something in five days which would make him famous. The accused's lawyer told the court that his client had no criminal antecedents. Mumbai Shocker: Three Nurses Tape Babys Mouth to Prevent It From Crying at BMC Hospital, Booked. The lawyer also said that the transgender person lived off donations made by people. The judge, however, said that the crime would send a chill down the spine of every parent of a girl child. The infant's father said that the trial progressed quickly. He also said that they were satisfied with the court's decision. "Justice has been delivered," he stated. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 28, 2024 05:20 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). New Delhi, February 28: The Law Commission is likely to recommend adding a new chapter to the Constitution on 'one nation, one election' and holding the gigantic democratic exercise of simultaneous polls for Lok Sabha, state assemblies and local bodies across the country by mid-2029, sources said on Wednesday. The Commission, under Justice (retd) Ritu Raj Awasthi, would recommend an amendment to the Constitution to add the "new chapter or part" on simultaneous elections, the sources said. The panel would also recommend synchronising the terms of legislative assemblies in "three phases" in the next five years so that the first simultaneous polls could be held in May-June 2029 when elections for the 19th Lok Sabha are due. The new chapter in the Constitution would include issues related to "simultaneous election", "sustainability of simultaneous elections" and "common electoral roll" for Lok Sabha, state legislative assemblies, panchayats and municipalities so that the three-tier simultaneous polls could be held together "in one go", they explained. Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin Moves Resolution Against 'One Nation, One Election' and Delimitation in State Assembly The new chapter being recommended will have power of non-extant" to override other provisions in the Constitution dealing with terms of assemblies. The five-year period in which the terms of assemblies will be synchronised will be spread over three phases. The Commission would recommend that the first phase may deal with state assemblies whose period will have to be curtailed by a few months -- three or six months. In case a government falls due to no confidence or if there is a hung House, the Commission would recommend constitution of a "unity government" with representatives from various political parties. In case the unity government formula does not work, the law panel would recommend holding fresh elections for the remainder of the term of the House. "Suppose fresh elections are called for and the government still has three years, then polls should be for the remainder of the term -- three years -- to ensure sustainability," a source explained. Besides the Law Commission, a high-level committee under former president Ram Nath Kovind is also working on a report on how simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha, state legislative assemblies, municipalities and panchayats can be held by tweaking the Constitution and the existing legal framework. Along with the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, expected in April-May this year, elections for at least five assemblies are likely to take place, while state polls for Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand are expected later this year. One Nation One Election: High Level Committee Meets with Trinamool Congress Delegation in Delhi (Watch Video) Bihar and Delhi are scheduled for assembly polls next year, while Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala are scheduled for 2026, and Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur in 2027. As many as nine states may have assembly polls scheduled for 2028 -- Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Karnataka, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Telangana. Four women agriculture workers were killed when an auto-rickshaw they were travelling in was hit by a bus on Suryapet-Khammam highway in Telangana's Suryapet district on Wednesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi came down hard on Tamil Nadus ruling party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) for latters 'brazen' attempt to seek credit over the upcoming second space port of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Kulasekarapattinam district. The billionaire responded to a follower who said that Google Gemini replied to his prompt that "white people should absolutely acknowledge their white privilege". "Google Gemini is super racist and sexist," said the Tesla and SpaceX CEO. Mumbai, February 28: Google's Gemini AI chatbot has been criticised online by the public and tech experts for promoting racism and wokeism. People have shared screenshots online showing the Gemini AI giving hateful answers regarding white people calling the PM Narendra Modi 'fascists' and showing incorrect images of the USA's founding fathers. Tech billionaire Elon Musk also openly criticised Google and its services. Due to the inaccurate representations through its image and text generation, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had been suggested to resign from its post. According to the report by India Today, the Google CEO has responded about the Gemini AI and its working issues. Sundar Pichai reportedly acknowledged the problematic text and image generation capabilities of Gemini AI and called them "completely unacceptable" and also said to be working on fixing the issues. Elon Musk Continues Tirade Against Google, Saying Its Artificial Intelligence Model Gemini As Super Racist and Sexist. The statement from Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressing the problem and calling it "got it wrong" came days after the controversy started picking up the heat online. However, he said that the Google team has been working on fixing the issue and has seen substantial improvement on many prompts. From generating inaccurate historical images to calling Vikings as Black people and depicting the Pope as a woman, the Gemini AI chatbot from Google has been surrounded by controversies for days. As per the report by India Today, Google's AI chatbot failed to answer a viral query about Elon Musk posting memes vs Adolf Hitler being worse. Mark Zuckerberg Meets LG Electronics CEO Cho Joo-Wan To Discuss Corporate Collaborations in Extended Reality and Augmented Reality Sector: Report. Google's CEO said, "No AI is perfect" in defence of its Gemini AI services and promised to fix the issue. The report said that the CEO said to take several actions such as updating guidelines, changing the company structures, testing everything thoroughly, and making necessary changes. Sundar Pichai reportedly said that the mission is to organise information about the world and make it universally acceptable. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 28, 2024 02:09 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Mumbai, February 28: The Indian electronics manufacturing sector currently employs close to 2 million people and the country aspires to take that figure to about 4.5 million in the next few years with initiatives like local chip manufacturing, said S. Krishnan, Secretary, IT Ministry here on Wednesday. During a virtual fireside chat at the 'India Digital Summit' (IDS) 2024, Krishnan said that semiconductor is the next big space for the country to grow. More companies are likely to come into the space. I think that is the space to grow over the next five to 10 years. Our interest in semiconductors is open, he told the gathering. We have close to 2 million people who are employed in the electronics manufacturing sector and we would like to go up to about 4.5 million as well. Indian Retail Market Expected To Reach 'USD 2 Trillion' in Next 10 Years, Presents Large Opportunity for Retailers: Report. In a conversation with Deepak Jacob, Group General Counsel, Dream Sports, Krishnan said that we expect the digital economy to really grow at an increasing pace in the next few years. On regulation, the IT Ministry secretary said that while balancing consumer protection and diverse requirements, we thoroughly examine regulations to ensure the safeguarding of user information. Bill Gates Visits Microsoft India Development Centre in Hyderabad. The two-day IDS 2024 was organised by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) in partnership with MeitY, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), Union Ministry of Tourism, UIDAI, Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), Government eMarketplace, In-Space and Skill India Digital. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 28, 2024 04:21 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). On 27 February a court in Argentina ruled in favour of the south-eastern Patagonian province of Chubut in its dispute with Presidentover his governments withholding of federal taxes owed to the province. End of preview - This article contains approximately 404 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options On 27 February the state security minister for Mexicos northern state of Nuevo Leonrevealed plans to install a base of mixed operations in Doctor Coss municipality, with support from the national guard (GN), and state police. End of preview - This article contains approximately 373 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options On 27 February, the former second-in-command of the demobilised Colombian paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), was deported to Colombia after completing a 12-year sentence in the US and was immediately re-arrested. End of preview - This article contains approximately 493 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options The former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, is in even more legal hot water with Sao Paolo police as he is accused of allegedly harassing a marine mammal, specifically a humpback whale, off the coast of Sao Paolo. These accusations come as he faces various investigations into his alleged corruption and his alleged coup attempt. The incident reportedly happened last year while the former president was riding a personal watercraft off Sao Paulo's coast. According to Brazil's federal police, Bolsonaro, who was not president anymore, approached a humpback whale with his personal vessel last year, thereby harassing it, and this is illegal in Brazil, as the whales are protected animals. Bolsonaro has already met with the Brazilian Federal Police over the case, along with his lawyer and former adviser, who was also present at the time of the incident. The former president was caught in a viral video trying to get close to a humpback whale while riding a watercraft and trying to record the encounter. Brazil law states that motored vessels must keep a minimum distance of 100 meters from whales and other cetaceans, which are considered protected animals in the country. Those who attempt to get closer can be sentenced to up to two to five years in prison and a fine, according to Le Monde. Bolsonaro's personal watercraft was reportedly only about 15 meters from the animal, as shown in the video, thereby breaking the law. However, it was noted that at the most, the former president could just be fined around 2,500 reais, or just a little over US $500. Despite this, he still managed to anger environmental activists even further, with whom he has been at odds since he took office. READ MORE: Trials for Jair Bolsonaro Supporters Begin Over the January 8 Riots Jair Bolsonaro Supporters Think Humpback Whale Case Another Example of Persecution Jair Bolsonaro, known as the "Trump of the Tropics, has often used the Donald Trump playbook when dealing with legal matters, often blaming his legal woes on legal persecution despite the overwhelming evidence against him. The humpback whale case is no different, even though he might only get a slap on the wrist. According to the Associated Press, his large political base thinks this is the case, and Bolsonaro's repetition of that argument since leaving office further enhances their belief about his political persecution. The accusations came after Bolsonaro was questioned in Brasilia over his coup attempt to remove his successor, Lula, from power. His passport was seized in a previous police operation where he chose to remain silent. Jair Bolsonaro Denies Coup Allegations The humpback whale case may be the least of former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro's legal worries, though, as he also faces coup allegations, which are considered much more severe. During a recent political rally, he called those allegations a "lie." In that same speech, Bolsonaro also called for the hundreds of his supporters convicted for attacks on public buildings to receive amnesty over last year's January 8 riot in the capital, where they invaded government buildings and destroyed and vandalized government properties as they tried to begin a coup to install Bolsonaro back in power. READ MORE: Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro Tried To Hack the 2022 Election, Says Hacker This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: I'm a victim, Jair Bolsonaro tells crowds amid 'coup' inquiry - The Times and The Sunday Times In a pivotal moment during the ongoing disqualification case against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Terrence Bradley, a crucial witness, appeared to backtrack on Tuesday regarding the timeline of Willis' relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade. Bradley, who is Wade's former law partner and divorce attorney, faced intense questioning from former President Donald Trump's attorney in an attempt to establish a connection between Willis and Wade before the racketeering case, according to Forbes. Fani Willis Case Star Witness Terrence Bradley's Uncertain Testimony During the one-hour testimony, Bradley repeatedly asserted that he lacked knowledge about when Willis and Wade began their relationship. He emphasized, "I do not have knowledge of when it started or when it started." Bradley consistently stated that he could not recall specific dates or details concerning the inception of their relationship, frustrating efforts to establish a clear timeline. Defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, leading the disqualification effort, probed Bradley on whether the relationship began by January 2021, to which Bradley maintained his lack of recollection. Merchant remarked, "Judge, he doesn't remember much of anything right now." The courtroom observation by CNN's Nick Valencia noted Judge Scott McAfee marking instances where Bradley couldn't provide answers. Bradley's prior text exchanges with Merchant, indicating that Fani Willis and Wade's relationship began in 2019, were highlighted by Steven H. Sadow, Trump's lawyer. Sadow questioned Bradley on why he speculated in those texts. Fani Willis case star witness, Terrence Bradley, responded that he couldn't recall the reason for his earlier assertions and clarified that he had been merely speculating. Intriguingly, Judge McAfee is delving into the financial aspects of the prosecutors' relationship, exploring records from Delta Air Lines regarding shared vacation costs. This adds another layer to the case, indicating the judge's meticulous examination of details surrounding Willis and Wade. READ NEXT: Fani Willis Denies Misconduct Allegations Upcoming Hearing and Evidence Another Fani Willis case hearing is scheduled for Friday, where phone records obtained through a subpoena may be presented, The New York Times reports. Sadow claims these records show nearly 12,000 calls and text messages between Willis and Wade in the first 11 months of 2021, preceding Wade's hiring. Additionally, cellphone location data has been mentioned, suggesting Wade's presence near Willis's residence during specific hours. However, Willis's office contends that such data does not conclusively prove Wade's location. A key witness, Robin Yeartie, who previously claimed the romance started before Wade was hired, faces scrutiny regarding her credibility. Yeartie, a former friend of Willis, left the D.A.'s office on bad terms, raising questions about potential biases. In a dramatic testimony earlier this month, Willis vehemently defended her conduct and the case against Trump. She asserted that the romantic relationship ended before Trump's indictment in August and rejected attempts to put her on trial. Fani Willis emphasized the seriousness of the charges against Trump and co-defendants, accusing them of attempting to steal the 2020 election. Judge McAfee has indicated that he will not make an immediate ruling, extending the anticipation for a decision until next week at the earliest. The Fani Willis case remains a focal point, with each development shedding light on the intricacies of relationships, legal ethics, and the potential impact on the high-stakes prosecution. READ MORE: Joe Biden, Visit US-Mexico Border This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: Terrence Bradley back on witness stand | Testimony at Fani Willis hearing Pt. 5 - From 11 Alive Mexico tends to become more violent as elections approach, and this was shown when two mayoral candidates from the same city were shot dead within hours of one another. The incident happened in the city of Maravatio, which is found in Michoacan, considered one of the most violent states in Mexico. One of the victims belonged to Mexico's ruling party, Morena, and an ally of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), while the other was a member of the opposition National Action Party (PAN). The slain Morena mayoral candidate was identified as Miguel Angel Reyes Zavala. He was shot dead in his vehicle outside the clinic where he worked. Meanwhile, the PAN candidate was identified as Armando Perez Luna, who was found dead in a car with gunshot wounds. The campaign period in Mexico has not even started yet, and this incident regarding two mayoral candidates from two prominent parties has highlighted the violence that is usually expected during the Mexico election period. According to France 24, these attacks are expected to increase as the elections draw closer. Over 30 people have now been killed in election-related violence in Mexico. This includes 16 aspiring candidates, with the majority of these attacks being blamed on fighting between criminals. Local Residents Shocked Over Killings of 2 Mexico Mayoral Candidates Zavala was a local gynecologist before being shot and killed in cold blood. Maravatio resident and homemaker Carmen Luna, one of his former patients, spoke with the Associated Press and said that his killing was shocking and incomprehensible, adding, "The way I see it, there's no explanation for killing a person ... it might have been a power struggle between them." "He took care of me and was very good. He was very friendly," she added. READ MORE: Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) Is Now Feuding With YouTube Meanwhile, PAN leader Marko Cortes reacted to the killing of one of their mayoral candidates on social media, adding, "This illustrates the extremely serious level of violence and lack of safety that prevails ahead of the most important elections in Mexican history." AMLO's Morena Party also reacted, saying that the killing of Zavala was "a cowardly and reprehensible act." Zavala was not the first mayoral candidate to be killed, as another Morena mayoral hopeful was killed last year. Three Mexico Forest Rangers Believed To Be Killed By Illegal Loggers Over in Central Mexico, more news of violence emerged as three forest rangers patrolling near the slopes of the Iztaccihuatl volcano were shot and killed by suspected illegal loggers. A fourth forest ranger was wounded. The attack happened in Puebla State, near Mexico City. Police stated that the rangers were just "carrying out the duties of forest rangers" when they were suddenly attacked. They were not official forest rangers employed by the government but were instead volunteers who were actually farmers from local communal farms who took to patrolling the area to protect their communities, including against illegal loggers. READ MORE: Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Says Law Does Not Apply To Him This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Mexico elections preceded by spike in political killings - CNN A devastating Trinidad and Tobago oil spill originating from a capsized vessel has now reached the shores of the Caribbean island of Bonaire, posing a grave threat to both humans and the environment, according to Devdiscourse. Emergency services are mobilizing to address the contamination that endangers vulnerable ecosystems, including mangroves, fish, and coral reefs. Local media reports indicate that the oil spill was first detected by Trinidad and Tobago's Coast Guard on February 7. However, authorities have noted that the spill continues, with oil persistently leaking into the surrounding waters. The affected area includes Lac Bay, a mangrove-rich region in Bonaire, raising concerns about the potential long-term ecological consequences. Bonaire's government has declared the situation a serious threat and activated emergency services to combat the spill's effects. Specific areas on Bonaire's east coast, such as Sorobon, Lac, and Lagun, have already been contaminated, as observed in pictures shared on social media and by local radio stations. The government emphasizes the urgent need for a rapid and effective cleanup to mitigate further damage. READ NEXT: Trinidad and Tobago Under National Emergency Caribbean Nations Unite for Response Recognizing the severity of the situation, several Caribbean nations have reached out to Trinidad and Tobago, seeking coordination in response efforts, Reuters noted. Trinidad and Tobago, grappling with the spill, has declared a national emergency, deploying resources to contain and manage the ongoing environmental crisis. Aruba, in anticipation of potential spillage near its shores, has divided its territory into sections for comprehensive monitoring. The Crisis Management Office (CMO) in Aruba is prepared to activate a 60-person team of first responders and implement a cleanup plan as soon as oil slicks become visible. The government emphasizes protecting turtle nesting sites and tourist beaches as part of its response strategy. This recent oil spill brings back memories of a similar incident seven years ago when oil from Trinidad affected multiple Caribbean nations. The current situation presents additional challenges as the owner and operator of the capsized barge remain unidentified, making resolution more complicated. Aruba stands ready to assist Bonaire with cleanup efforts, emphasizing the need for human resources in the crucial initial phase. Grenada, located closest to Trinidad and Tobago, has also reported the detection of oil in its territorial waters, further amplifying the regional impact of the spill. Trinidad's government, acknowledging the severity of the incident, has completed a survey to identify hazards and debris, facilitating the safe deployment of support vessels to address the capsized barge. National Emergency Declared in Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister declared a national emergency on February 11, underlining the seriousness of the situation, Loop reports. Despite efforts by the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management to contain the spill, oil leakage from the capsized barge continues. Satellite images from the Trinidad and Tobago Weather Center suggest that the oil slick has spread into the marine area of Grenada, heightening concerns for the broader Caribbean region. The vessel remains lodged on a reef about 150 meters off Tobago's southern coast. The ownership of the barge and the factors contributing to its sinking remain unclear, adding complexity to ongoing investigations. The Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard reported that the vessel was en route from Panama to Guyana at the time of the incident. As the environmental crisis unfolds, Bonaire faces the urgent task of safeguarding its pristine ecosystems and tourism-dependent economy. The collaborative efforts of Caribbean nations, combined with swift and effective cleanup measures, will be crucial in mitigating the far-reaching consequences of this unfortunate Trinidad and Tobago oil spill. The situation will continue to evolve, with ongoing updates anticipated in the coming days. READ MORE: Haiti: Benin Offers 2,000 Troops To Fight Gangs This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: Mystery shipwreck causes disastrous oil spill off Trinidad and Tobago - From Al Jazeera English The US has now deported notorious Colombian warlord and paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso back to Colombia after he served his 12-year sentence for drug trafficking. He is now in the custody of Colombian authorities, who are investigating him for his alleged war crimes in the country during the 1990s and 2000s. The Colombian warlord was previously found to be responsible for over 1,500 murders and cases of forced disappearances in Colombia during the 1990s and early 2000s as his paramilitary group clashed with leftist rebels. He was also involved in drug trafficking activities to fund his crusade against the leftists, leading to his imprisonment in the US. As Mancuso arrived at the El Dorado Airport in Bogota, he was seen wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet. He was then taken into police custody as soon as he arrived, according to The Guardian. During his time in US prison, Mancuso, who is a dual Colombian-Italian citizen, repeatedly asked to be sent to Italy. These requests were repeatedly denied as he spent 12 years inside a US prison before he was eventually deported back to Colombia. His deportation back to Colombia and eventual arrest came after the country called on the US to extradite him over fears that he would escape justice. Upon his arrest, it was noted that the jailed Colombian warlord is now cooperating with the investigation against him. The deportation and eventual arrest of Mancuso also received praise from various human rights groups, including Fernando Garcia, the director of Colombia's national immigration service. "This event marks an important step towards reconciliation and the construction of a lasting peace in Colombia," Garcia stated. What Happens to Colombia Warlord Salvatore Mancuso Now After His Arrest? After being taken into custody once again, Mancuso is expected to remain in prison as the courts have previously found that he is responsible for more than 1,500 acts of murder and disappearances. His next step would be to try to receive a reduced sentence and possibly even get an early release through a transitional justice system created by Colombia's 2016 peace deal. READ MORE: Colombia: Brother of Powerful Senator Pleads Guilty to Drug Smuggling Charge in US According to the Associated Press, many in the country are hoping that he helps shed light on hundreds of murders and forced disappearances carried out by paramilitary fighters. This includes his own United Self Defense Forces of Colombia paramilitary organization. During previous hearings with Colombian judges via teleconference while inside a US prison, Mancuso has admitted to his dealings with various politicians, as well as the potential involvement of high-ranking politicians in various war crimes. Warlord Salvatore Mancuso Has Yet To Answer For His Crimes in Colombia While Mancuso spent 12 years in a US prison, that was for his crimes in the US and relating to his drug trafficking activities. He has never truly been punished for his crimes in Colombia, which was why President Gustavo Petro personally asked the US government to extradite him. According to NBC News, the president asked that he be extradited after finishing his sentence in the US. After this, he could also become a "peace manager" in the government's negotiations with various armed rebel groups all over the country. "Mancuso accepted his appointment as peace manager within the National Government's #TotalPeace program, which includes reconciliation with all actors in the conflict, and humanitarian work," Garcia said about Mancuso. READ NEXT: Colombia Vice President Francia Marquez Targeted With Roadside Bomb This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Colombian paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso sentenced to jail - TeleSUR English The Two Rivers Police Department provided a crucial update on Tuesday regarding the ongoing search for 3-year-old Elijah Vue, who went missing Wisconsin boy a week ago, according to Fox6. The FBI has now stepped in, offering a reward of up to $15,000 for information leading to Elijah's location and return or for the arrest and conviction of those responsible for his disappearance. Manitowoc County Crime Stoppers is also offering a $1,000 reward for any tip that aids in locating Elijah. Expanded Search Efforts in Manitowoc County Volunteer and law enforcement efforts to locate Elijah Vue have intensified in Manitowoc County. Downtown Manitowoc saw volunteers going door-to-door, affixing missing Wisconsin boy posters to windows in a widespread effort to raise awareness, Fox11 noted. Elijah's face is now prominently displayed across the region. Volunteers emphasize the need for a broad search, considering Elijah's mother, Katrina Baur, resides in Wisconsin Dells, and the child had been entrusted to Jesse Vang in Two Rivers. Both Baur and Vang face charges of child neglect. Heather Huss of Manitowoc underscores the importance of widespread exposure: "Getting his face out there and the story is really important to branch out from just this area, especially considering where mom was living versus where Elijah was at the very end there." Family and volunteers are at the forefront of community search efforts, coordinating activities from the makeshift headquarters at the Mikadow Theater in Manitowoc. Volunteers are methodically searching areas, looking for any sign of the missing Wisconsin boy. Huss notes the thoroughness of the search, stating, "Anything that looks out of place, anything that might help connect some of the dots for them." While the Two Rivers Police Department leads the investigation, they continue to seek public assistance, emphasizing the significance of any information, no matter how small. READ NEXT: Missing Wisconsin Boy's Mother Arrested for Child Neglect Formal Charges and Court Appearances In a significant development, Elijah's mother, Katrina Baur, and the man he was staying with, Jesse Vang, were formally charged with child neglect on Monday, NBC Chicago reports. Elijah Vue was last seen on February 20 at Vang's residence in Two Rivers, leading to increasing concerns about his well-being. Baur, 31, faces one felony count of party-to-a-crime child neglect and two misdemeanor counts of resisting or obstructing an officer. She is currently held on a $15,000 cash bond. Vang, 39, is charged with one felony count of party-to-a-crime child neglect and is held on a $20,000 cash bond. Both Baur and Vang appeared in court for their initial appearances on Monday, and preliminary hearings are scheduled for March 7, as per court records. Public defenders represented both individuals during the hearing, with a public defender yet to be appointed for Vang. Efforts to obtain comments from Baur's public defender regarding the charges have been made, but no response has been received as of now. The collective efforts of law enforcement, volunteers, and the community remain focused on locating Elijah Vue, with the hope that the combined rewards and intensified search activities will yield vital information to bring the missing Wisconsin boy back home safely. READ MORE: Minnesota Shooting Suspect Allegedly Uses Illegaly Purchase Gun to Kill 3 Responders This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: FBI offers $15,000 reward for return of Elijah Vue - From NBC 26 The Republican and Democratic Parties held their primaries in Michigan on Tuesday, and the results were as many expected, with Donald Trump and Joe Biden far ahead of their nearest competition. As for President Biden, he faced a massive protest vote launched by Arab and Muslim Americans to vote "uncommitted" in the primary to protest his policy regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict. Despite this, he still garnered around 80% of the vote, with those voting uncommitted garnering 14%. CBS News has already projected him to win the Democratic Michigan primary by a landslide. As for Donald Trump, CBS News also projected him to win the Republican Michigan Primary. It was much closer than the Democratic race, but still a landslide victory for the embattled former president, who is winning the Republican race despite over 90 criminal charges being laid against him and his back-to-back legal defeats. Trump received 67% of the vote, while former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley only garnered 28%. Around 3% of voters chose uncommitted in the Republican primary in Michigan. "We win Michigan; we win the whole thing," Trump said in a statement. He also insisted that "auto workers are with us" and blamed Democrats for having "destroyed the auto working business-the auto workers- with this new deal, and with the all-electric mandate, all those cars are going to be made in China." This is false, as the Union of Auto Workers (UAW) endorsed Joe Biden, who pledged to support them in his second term. Meanwhile, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer celebrated the win with a statement directed at the uncommitted protest vote. "I appreciate every Michigander who participated and made their voice heard. Michigan is proud of its rich diversity of backgrounds, ideologies, and cultures. This is what makes us stronger and always has. We've got a stark choice in front of us between Joe Biden and Donald Trump," she said. "In Michigan, it's time to come together and go full steam ahead to November for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and we will continue getting the word out every day about what's at stake." READ MORE: Donald Trump Facing Financial Troubles Amid Legal Defeats This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Kornacki breaks down first Michigan primary results - MSNBC A federal jury has delivered guilty verdicts for Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington in the 2002 murder of hip-hop legend Jam Master Jay, co-founder of Run-DMC, according to NBC News. The trial, ongoing since January 29, concluded with the jury finding the defendants guilty of Jam Master Jay's murder linked to narcotics trafficking and firearm-related offenses. Ronald Washington, a childhood friend of Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell), and Karl Jordan Jr., the rapper's godson, face at least 20 years in prison, with the potential for a maximum sentence of life. Prosecutors refrained from seeking the death penalty. US Attorney Breon Peace expressed gratitude to the witnesses whose bravery in testifying played a crucial role in bringing justice. The prosecution highlighted the challenge in indicting and arresting the defendants, as witnesses feared retaliation from the killers. Washington and Jordan, convicted of murder during narcotics trafficking, also face additional charges. Jordan was found guilty of eight counts of narcotics distribution. The sentencing and post-trial motions will be addressed in future proceedings. READ NEXT: Jam Master Jay Death Motive and Circumstances of the Jam Master Jay Murder Federal prosecutors argued that the murder of Jam Master Jay was motivated by greed and revenge, Daily Beast noted. The accused men, allegedly excluded from a significant cocaine deal, resorted to violence. On the evening of October 30, 2002, Washington and Jordan entered Mizell's studio with assistance from a third man, Jay Bryant. After forcing Mizell to the floor, Jordan fatally shot him with a .40-caliber bullet. The trial featured over three dozen witnesses, and prosecutor Miranda Gonzalez emphasized that the murder had its roots in a drug deal gone awry. The case shed light on Mizell's involvement in cocaine trafficking in the mid-1990s, coinciding with Run-DMC's declining popularity. Run-DMC's Impact on Hip-Hop Run-DMC, comprising Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell, Joseph "Rev. Run" Simmons, and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, is recognized as one of hip-hop's pioneering acts, Billboard reports. Their 1985 release, "King of Rock," marked hip-hop's first platinum album, while the 1986 cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Jam Master Jay's murder, occurring on October 30, 2002, had remained an unsolved cold case for years, joining the ranks of other high-profile hip-hop mysteries like Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. The trial revealed that Mizell turned to drug trade as the group's popularity waned, leading to the alleged plot against him by Washington and Jordan. Witnesses Uriel "Tony" Rincon and Lydia High, present during the murder, testified during the trial, identifying the accused men. Their delayed cooperation with investigators was attributed to fear of retaliation. Notably, the judge ruled against the use of violent rap lyrics penned by Jordan as evidence, asserting the need to protect artists' creative freedom. The trial faced interruptions, including a juror's dismissal due to claimed impartiality, leading to deliberations restarting. Jay Bryant, charged with Jam Master Jay's murder in May 2021, awaits a separate trial. The guilty verdicts mark a significant milestone in the pursuit of justice for Jam Master Jay. As legal proceedings unfold, the impact of this case on the relationship between artistic expression and criminal evidence will be closely observed. READ MORE: Taylor Swift's Father, Under Investigation for Hitting a Paparazzi This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: Jam Master Jay's longtime friend & godson found GUILTY of all charges in 2002 murder - From NBC New York UPDATE: Between world peace and Gaza ceasefire, Easton council backs broader call to action Easton City Council on Wednesday night is scheduled to consider, for a third time, one members call for a cease fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. The council took no action both times Councilwoman Taiba Sultana raised the proposal last fall, amid passionate pleas from local residents outraged both by Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel and by the now-nearly 5-month retributive invasion. Sharing the agenda with Sultanas latest push is a separate resolution introduced by the councils other six members that encourages residents of Easton to exercise their right to peaceful protest and to advocate for an end to violence and conflict worldwide. Hamas militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted roughly 250 people, according to Israeli authorities. Israels offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,700 people, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. It does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count. The broader measure backed by the majority of the Easton council notes over 45 armed conflicts worldwide, resulting in widespread suffering, displacement, and loss of life. Sultana during the Feb. 13 meeting of the city council drew more public support for her efforts related to Israel and Hamas. Wednesdays resolution urges U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey, and state Rep. Robert Freeman along with President Joe Bidens administration to immediately call for and facilitate deescalation and a permanent ceasefire to urgently end the current violence. After brief public comment Feb. 13 protesting what one speaker called genocide funded by tax dollars right here in Easton, a discussion grew heated between Sultana and Mayor Sal Panto Jr. over introducing another resolution following the failed attempts at passage last October and November. I will not allow you to silence my voice! Sultana told Panto, who as mayor sets the council agendas. Much lengthier public comment periods related to the Israel-Hamas war took place at those Easton meetings last fall and elsewhere across the Lehigh Valley, including last Tuesday in Bethlehem and Wednesday in Allentown. Hours of comments have featured divergent viewpoints, between those demanding the cease fire and some advocating for Israels unbridled defense. In Bethlehem on Feb. 20, Councilman Bryan Callahan first indicated plans to prepare a resolution for consideration March 5 calling for an immediate cease fire in Gaza, then suggested a vote be taken right away. Councilwoman Grace Crampsie Smith seconded the resolution for an immediate vote, so it could be discussed, to uproarious applause in Town Hall. She explained, then, that holding off until the next meeting would permit time to do research and insure the resolution is written as it should be, as we want it be. One audience member loudly demanded how many more children would die in the meantime. Councilwoman Hillary Kwiatek echoed Crampsie Smiths comments, saying the Bethlehem council wants a strong resolution to consider: We are committed to this. In Allentown the next night after another lengthy round of public comment, the council took no action. The Morning Call reports several council members said they wanted peace and unity, but were reticent to immediately say they supported a cease-fire resolution. Among the list of Democratic politicians Sultana is looking to call out in Easton, she is challenging Freemans Pennsylvania House re-election bid in the April 23 Democratic primary; Casey also faces a re-election fight, as does Wild. The day after the Allentown council met, Wild stated she had joined a dozen of my colleagues to call on President Biden to use every tool available to him to pursue a provisional ceasefire agreement that includes the immediate release of all the hostages and substantial humanitarian aid for the citizens in Gaza. Israel and Hamas on Tuesday played down chances of an imminent breakthrough in talks for a cease-fire in Gaza, after Biden said Israel has agreed to pause its offensive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan if a deal is reached to release some hostages. Easton City Council meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday on the third floor of City Hall, 123 S. Third St., and the meetings are live-streamed at easton-pa.com. The council members did not discuss the agendas dueling resolutions during Tuesday nights committee meeting. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Katie Young and her 3-year-old daughter, Ada, werent feeling well one Friday almost a year ago, so Young and her husband, Adam Young, stayed home from work. Their son, Holden, just 6 months, was teething, but the couple managed to put the kids down for a nap inside their Catasauqua home. We got something to eat and we sat down to watch TV, he said I looked at him and I said, Im lightheaded, and he said, like that, it just all happened, Katie Young recalled Tuesday. Katie Youngs heart stopped. It was March 24, 2023. An underlying ventricular arrhythmia would cause her to go into cardiac arrest again and again the next day. But by then, thanks to immediate CPR by her husband and a quick response by Northampton Regional EMS and the Catasauqua Fire Department, Katie Young was in the care of Lehigh Valley Health Network. On Tuesday, at Northampton Regionals headquarters, 1525 Canal St. in Northampton, the 37-year-old and her family reunited with the care team that saved her. I want to say thank you to everyone, Adam Young told those gathered. I wouldnt have my best friend now if it wasnt for all of you. Tuesdays reunion set up by LVHN comes as American Heart Month in February draws to a close. Cardiovascular disease remains the No. 1 cause of death for men and women in the United States, and fewer than 10% of people who go into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting survive, the health network says. Dr. Eric Elgin, a cardiologist at the Lehigh Valley Heart and Vascular Institute, said Katie Youngs story is about the success of the chain of survival a cornerstone of CPR. As much as I think that we are great at delivering care once they get into our hands its really this group that gets our patients into our hands, Elgin said alongside the Youngs and members of the ambulance square and North Catasauqua-based fire crew that came to Katies aid. Ada Young, now 4, and Holden, 17 months, played around in the Northampton Regional garage bay during Tuesdays reunion, which featured the presentation of heart-shaped awards to those who played a role in keeping Katie Young around for them. Adam Young said he first learned CPR as a lifeguard, the part-time job he and Katie Young both held when they first met. He keeps current with his certification as operations manager for a Lehigh Valley QVC fulfillment center, to make sure he can take the initiative to save a team member if needed. Along with immediately dialing 911, hands-only CPR can mean the difference between life and death for those in cardiac arrest. The importance of hands-only CPR is absolutely critical in this situation, and any loved one any bystander could be involved in that, said Dr. Nidhi Mehta, a physician who helped Katie Young in the Intensive Care Unit at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Muhlenberg in Bethlehem. This is a group effort, Mehta continued. Loved ones are a key piece, along with the EMS crew in getting her to that point. Katie Young suffered subsequent losses of pulse due to ventricular arrhythmia in the ICU after she was seen in the Emergency Department, Mehta said. The next day, a Saturday, she was stabilized enough to be transferred to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Salisbury Township. It was touch and go at the beginning, said Dr. Sergio Cossu, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Cedar Crest. That day, Saturday, when she called me ... . A million times, Mehta finished his sentence. I was like, Oh my gosh, Cossu said. Katie Young was hospitalized with complications for about a month, according to her LVHN team. Tuesday, she was feeling not too bad, she said hanging in there. Its been challenging. Katie Young said the day of her attack seemed normal, other than feeling under the weather. During her pregnancy with Holden, shed been feeling lightheaded and sometimes her heart would race possible warning signs, she would learn, of cardiac arrest. And I was getting that leading up to it happening, she said. I was six months postpartum when it did happen. Most people arent going to call the doctor for being lightheaded, Katie Young allowed. So just little things like that. Other than that I didnt really have any other symptoms. Today she has an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or ICD, that monitors her heart activity and can shock her out of a repeat of the ventricular arrhythmia, she said. I have a little bit of relief knowing that if something were to happen, I kind of have a life insurance, she said. She has no memory of that day, only what her husband tells her, but what the couple do have is gratitude. I owe you, everyone here, everything, Adam Young told those reunited Tuesday. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Lehigh County authorities continue to investigate what caused 54 people to fall ill and prompt a large evacuation of the Sharp Packaging Solutions plant around midday Friday in Upper Macungie Township. Workers inside the building, 7451 Keebler Way, complained of nausea, vomiting and headache, township police Lt. Peter Nickischer had said. As of Tuesday afternoon, all 54 employees were since released from the hospital, he told lehighvalleylive.com. The Lehigh County Emergency Management Agency Special Operations Team and fire officials spent hours conducting an extensive assessment of the impacted production areas and found no evidence of hazardous chemicals or odors Friday, Nickischer confirmed. All readings were normal, he said Tuesday, previously noting there was no immediate sign of a chemical spill or other determination of the cause for concern. A Sharp spokesperson told WFMZ-69 News, the companys Environment Health and Safety leaders and facility management additionally are continuing to coordinate with local officials to investigate and address the source of the odor. Nickischer said the building has been deemed safe to re-enter. However, the Sharp spokeswoman told WFMZ at least one building on the property, known as Building 1, continues to remain shut down as a precautionary measure. ... the company will only resume normal activities once it is satisfied with its investigation, and any necessary corrective action is complete, the spokesperson stated in the report. A Sharp spokesperson did not immediately return a request for more information by a lehighvalleylive.com reporter Tuesday. Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Two principals have come and gone at a Portarlington school over six years since extra parking spaces were sought for buses and cars but no extra space has been delivered, according to a county councillor. The claim was made by frustrated Cllr Aidan Mullins, Sinn Fein, after tabling a motion at a recent meeting with Laois County Council officials. He asked the council to investigate how additional parking can be provided for school buses and cars at Sandy Lane NS. He outlined how long the issue has been before the local authority for action to be taken. We have had two changes of principal in the school since I first raised this issue six years ago. It just seems it's not getting a response from anybody, he said. Cllr Mullins said the owner of land across from the school is open to talks to provide the space needed. Anybody who knows the area knows how constricted it is with traffic - there is just nowhere to park, he said. Cllr PJ Kelly, Fine Gael, agreed. James Dowling, Senior Executive Engineer, replied that the Laois County Council Road Design Department would investigate the opportunities available to provide additional parking for school traffic on Sandy Lane. The issue was raised at the Portarlington Graiguecullen Municipal District meeting held in Portlaoise recently. A Laois woman who died on the streets of Dublin will be laid to rest tomorrow. Ann Delaney, Dromagh, Crettyard, was found on Sunday, February 25 near the Tesco Express on Aungier Street. The 47-year-old had been sleeping rough in Dublin city centre for about seven years. She has been remembered as a kind soul by outreach workers and many members of the public who knew her. Ann, I've walked by you hundreds, thousands of times. I always looked for you when I passed Tesco on the bus and you always had company. Your friends, locals, workers from Tesco, and you made them all laugh and their day brighter. Any day you weren't there, the city noticed, when I saw the news yesterday and learned more about you, it brought tears to my eyes. Dublin loved you, although I never stopped to talk to you, I always wished you well in my own way and felt a warm energy about you. You will be missed so much and you probably don't even realise by how many. Rest in peace Ann, wrote someone in tribute. Another person wrote: As a young nurse, it is harrowing to hear of Anns decline onto hard times. She was well loved, well received and the plentiful stories of positive attributes flooding in are only what I can imagine are a fraction of her character. The world was not ready for you Ann. She was the beloved daughter of Mary and the late Tom. Sadly missed by her loving daughter Saoirse, mother, brothers Thomas, John, Ciaran and Paul, sisters Siobhan, Tricia, Roisin and Emer, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, relatives and a wide circle of friends. Funeral Mass will take place on Thursday morning (Feb 29) at 12noon in St. Abbans Church, Doonane (R93 AT86). Burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. Victims and families who do not support the UK Governments Legacy Act need to be listened to, Northern Irelands police chief has said. Jon Boutcher said the Legacy Act has been criticised by all the victims groups in Northern Ireland. Speaking at a cross-border event in Co Cavan, the PSNI Chief Constable said there is a failure to include victims groups in dealing with legacy issues. On Wednesday, the High Court in Belfast ruled that provisions for conditional immunity from prosecution for Troubles offences in the piece of legislation are not compatible with human rights legislation. The Legacy Act received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims organisations in Northern Ireland and the Irish Government. Mr Boutcher, who spoke ahead of the High Court ruling, said: The legacy Bill the nexus of it and the background of it has been criticised by all the victims groups in Northern Ireland. I speak to victims literally every day. Whatever we do in legacy, weve got to do it with the support of and the co-operation of those victims groups and those victims and that isnt happening. Thats why theyve taken this legal action. So this is a really difficult space but I think an opportunity did exist with the Stormont House agreement. Mr Boutcher said he supports a new body set up to probe Troubles killings. If thats the only show in town, weve got to make it work. Were going to make sure that they get unfettered access to all the information they need, Mr Boutcher added. He said lessons should be learned from Operation Kenova, which examined crimes such as murder and torture and the role played by the security services, including MI5. Operation Kenova was headed by Mr Boutcher, who authored its report. When I started Kenova, I visited literally everybody who has been involved in legacy, he added. Kenova will have got some things wrong but the victims fully supported it. Ive listened to (Sir) Declan Morgan (former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland) talk about that the intent is to have a Kenova plus-type inquiry into all of those cases where families want to know stuff. I think it should be victim led. Thats my whole mantra around this. The victims at the moment are not supportive of that legislation so we need to listen to them. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said the investigations into Troubles-related crimes are victim-focused. Mr Harris refused to give his personal opinion about the Legacy Act, but said gardai are involved in a number serious case reviews of Troubles cases. Compared to where crime investigation is now and where it was in the 1970s and 80s and even to the 1990s, we are victim-focused and when we engage in a serious case review, a lot of the work is actually engaged on the victims families and what information we are able to provide them, Mr Harris said. Those are active investigations and they are investigations where we get to a point where we are unable to conclude them. We take that work on, we get support from the PSNI in terms of information and intelligence where requested and thats ongoing work over many years between PSNI and An Garda Siochana. A joint motion heard at the Kildare-Newbridge Municipal District meeting has called for the 126 Bus Services to Suncroft be upgraded to a minimum service. Fianna Fail councillor Suzanne Doyle and Fine Gael Cllr Kevin Duffy put forward the motion at the meeting, which was held on Wednesday, February 21 last. Their motion was seconded by Fianna Fail Cllr Anne Connolly, and also received support from Social Democrats Cllr Chris Pender. Cllr Doyle and Cllr Duffys motion reads as follows: "That the council write to the National Transport Authority (NTA) to request that the 126 Bus Services to Suncroft be upgraded to a minimum service as outlined under the Connecting Ireland plan; three times a day, five days a week service in/out of Newbridge as a priority." Kildare County Council told the councillors in response: "With the members agreement, Kildare County Council will write to the NTA in relation to this motion." Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Doyle stressed to the council: "This is the type of stuff we need to advance." Cllr Suzanne Doyle and Cllr Kevin Duffy. Cllr Doyle also commended the work of the local community, as well as Local Link services operating in the area. She then proposed an amendment to the motion, asking the NTA for timelines and confirmation of said timelines. After reading out the amended draft, Cllr Doyles amendment was approved by all members, and as a result, this new letter is due to be sent to the NTA. As announced by Minister Heather Humphreys today, Castledermot has been identified as one of the 26 towns across Ireland that will develop a Town Centre First Plan as part of Phase Two of the Town Centre First Scheme. Fine Gaels Minister Martin Heydon and Cllr. Ivan Keatley have both welcomed the news. Minister Heydon said, Communities are at the heart of rural Ireland. Town Centre First is all about empowering people to develop a vision for their town that can make it a better place to live, work, invest in and enjoy. Castledermot has great potential so this is a great opportunity for the town to come together and develop a plan to build on its current features. Clane was selected under Phase 1 of the plan and its town centre plan has been published today. Cllr. Ivan Keatley and I will continue to work for the development and investment in Castledermot, particularly addressing issues of dereliction and vacancy as is a focus of the Town Centre First scheme. Under this second phase of the scheme, 26 towns in Ireland have been selected to receive support up to the value of 30,000 to complete a comprehensive town plan to help develop their town centre. Also welcoming the news, Senator Fioan O'Loughlin said: I know Castledermot's Town Team will work to deliver a Plan that will guide and direct investment to maximise Castledermot's strengths while taking account of the unique local challenges, needs and opportunities. This investment in a Town Centre First Plan is all about giving the people of Castledermot the tools they need to improve the town and make it a more attractive place in which to live, work, visit and invest. A domestic abuser who stabbed his wife to death has launched a bid to overturn his conviction, arguing that his history of violence should not have been referenced by a prosecution psychiatrist when giving evidence over the defence of diminished responsibility. Alan Ward stabbed his wife Catherine Doyle to death at their home at Greenfort Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin 22, on March 1, 2019. Ward (56) had denied murdering his 41-year-old wife, arguing that his responsibility was diminished due to a mental disorder brought on by a stroke he suffered two years earlier. At the Court of Appeal, Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC, for Ward, said the 'nub' of the issue was that at the trial the consultant psychiatrist called by the State offered expert opinion evidence that referenced Wards history of violence in commenting on the 'ultimate issue' of diminished responsibility. Counsel submitted that the prosecutions expert psychiatrist at the trial, Dr Damian Smith, was of the opinion that, having regard to the background circumstances, in particular the history of violence and abuse, alcohol intoxication was the more likely cause of the appellants behaviour in killing the deceased, rather the effects of a mental disorder. During the trial, Dr Smith said he was not satisfied that the brain injury caused by a stroke in 2017 was sufficient to diminish Ward's responsibility, although he said the final decision was a matter for the jury. The defence had called consultant psychiatrist Dr Paul OConnell who said a combination of brain damage and PTSD were present in Ward but that this was complicated by alcohol misuse. Giving evidence at the trial, Dr O'Connell said it was up to the jury to decide if Ward should be found to have diminished responsibility due to his mental disorder and he therefore would not offer his own opinion. Counsel submitted that Dr Smith had been permitted to give evidence 'on the ultimate issue, despite objection from the defence' at the trial. It was submitted that this involved the psychiatrist giving opinion evidence to the effect that the defence of diminished responsibility did not apply and by implication, the appellant should be found guilty of murder. Mr O Lideadha said Dr Smith should not have been permitted to offer opinion evidence on the ultimate issue in a case where a diminished responsibility defence was being run. Counsel submitted that this opinion 'was a matter for the jury to determine, since it was necessary to balance all the evidence and circumstances, including factors which were not within the psychiatrists sphere of expertise for example, the history of violence in the relationship.' Mr O Lideadha said the defences consultant psychiatrist was correct to say there was a mental disorder but that he would not give an opinion on the ultimate issue of diminished responsibility. Bernard Condon SC, for the State, said there was 'no prohibition' on expert witnesses such as consultant psychiatrists giving evidence on diminished responsibility. "Expert assistance may be needed for the proper approach, provided the expert is not made into the thirteenth juror," said Mr Condon. Mr Condon said that in Ward's trial both experts concurred on both the defendants mental illness and the effects of intoxication and said 'the jury would benefit from those opinions and both experts are saying this is indeed a matter for the jury.' Mr Condon added that the trial judge also decided that the jury would benefit from expert testimony by the consultant psychiatrists regarding the interaction between intoxication and mental illness and 'again, told them [the jury] it was a matter for them' "This man beat up his wife in 2002 and then beat her up and killed her in 2022. Dr Smith said he [Ward] had a stroke in 2017. The ABI [Acquired Brain Injury] comes after that 2002 assault. The appellant badly beat up wife before he had a stroke," said Mr Condon. Regarding the defence of diminished responsibility, Mr Condon said: "You have to actually see how the mental illness affects the actions. The door has to be opened to the entire background of a person. The jury has to understand the interplay of all these facts." Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said the three-judge court would reserve judgement in the matter. EVIDENCE IN TRIAL During the trial, Adam Ward, a son of the accused and deceased, told the jury that he emerged from his room after hearing a bang and saw his father in the doorway of his parents' bedroom striking downwards. When Adam asked what he was doing, his father told him: "get the f**k away from me or I'm going to kill you," swiped at him with the blade and lunged towards him. Adam stepped backwards, out of the way of the knife, and ran downstairs. When he saw his father following he quickly unlocked the front door and ran across the street to where he saw a small group of people. He told them what had happened and one of them called gardai. The trial also heard that Ward was convicted in 2002 of assaulting his wife causing her harm and gardai were called to their home to respond to domestic disputes five times over the years. When he lived in Tallaght, Ward got into a fight with a neighbour and stabbed him in the neck with a Samurai sword. Gardai were called to that incident but Ward's neighbour decided not to make a complaint, the trial heard. In 2017, Adam said his father had a stroke which affected his speech and required him to attend classes to learn how to talk. He said his father's personality didn't change following the stroke; the only difference Adam noticed was the difficulty his father had with his speech. Adam said that after the incident with the Samurai sword, he thought his father 'could do it again but just never thought he would do it to my Ma.' The jury also convicted Ward of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to his son Adam Ward and of attempting to stab him on the same date. Mr Justice Hunt sentenced Ward to five years and three years respectively for those offences, with each sentence to run concurrently to the life sentence. National Broadband Ireland (NBI) has announced that construction has commenced, delivering high-speed broadband to over 2,500 homes, farms and businesses in the Manorhamilton deployment area in Co Leitrim. These building works include the rural communities of Dromahair, Lurganboy, and Manorhamilton. NBI will visit Co Leitrim next week with the company's Chief Commercial Officer, Joe Lavin, delivering an update to the County Council's Economic Strategy Group in the Kinlough Community Centre on Monday, March 4. Almost 12,000 premises in County Leitrim are included in the State's Intervention Area, which will see NBI deliver minimum speeds of 500 megabits per second to homes, businesses, and farms. Co Leitrim will receive 46 million of government investment under the National Broadband Plan, the biggest investment in rural Ireland since rural electrification. The company is delivering the new future-proofed, high-speed Fibre-to-the-Home network under the National Broadband Plan on behalf of the Government, Joe Lavin, Chief Commercial Officer, National Broadband Ireland, said: "I am delighted to have an opportunity to provide an update to Co Leitrim Councillors and industry representatives. I want to thank the Council for working very constructively with NBI as we are in regular contact on our build works. "We are rolling out the National Broadband Plan high-speed fibre network with minimum speeds of 500 megabits per second to almost 12,000 premises in Leitrim. The benefits of the speed and reliability of NBI fibre are huge. Leitrim residents who connect will be able to work, study and play online all at the same time without interruption. For farms and businesses, high-speed broadband unlocks opportunities to expand and innovate. "Our teams are making steady progress in Leitrim, where 59% of the NBI broadband network is either under construction or already complete. By the end of this year, over 5,900 premises, or 50% of the total rollout in Leitrim, will be ready to connect. "Over 1,500 homes and businesses in the county can order or pre-order a connection to high-speed fibre today, including over 900 premises in Carrick-on-Shannon and almost 900 around the Keshcarrigan deployment area." Leitrim is below the average take-up rate nationally, with 277 premises connected. NBI expects to conclude a further 1,346 premises around Keshcarrigan, while 2,500 have commenced construction in Manorhamilton. The company expects to make connections available for all by the end of 2026. National Broadband Ireland contractors have been on the ground across the country, and over 231,513 premises nationwide can order or pre-order broadband on the NBI network so far. The European Parliament has approved the Nature Restoration Law with a decisive majority of 329 votes in favour against 275. The NRL signifies a monumental shift towards restoring Europe's degraded ecosystems by 2050. A key provision of the NRL is the allocation of increased funding to landowners to manage their land in an environmentally friendly manner. This financial support aims to facilitate sustainable agricultural practices, making them more accessible and incentivised for farmers across Ireland. Green MEPs Grace O'Sullivan and Ciaran Cuffe have lauded the final approval of NRL, emphasising its role in restoring nature, fortifying resilience against extreme weather events, and ensuring sustainable food production in Europe. Adam O Ceallaigh, the Green Party Candidate for the Ballinamore LEA, expressed his gratitude for the passage of NRL, recognising its potential to reverse centuries of environmental degradation. "Nature is the bedrock of our economy and society, and its restoration is imperative. This landmark decision lays the foundation for a more sustainable future, benefiting climate, biodiversity, farming, food security, health, tourism, and more," Adam remarked. The NRL mandates every EU country to implement restoration measures covering at least 20% of land and sea areas by 2030. The law commits to enhancing urban green spaces, aligning with the Irish Green Party's historic allocation of 3 billion for nature restoration in this year's budget. Blaithin Gallagher, Chair of the North West Greens and Green Party candidate and representative for Manorhamilton LEA welcomes this legislative milestone, saying: "This law will help address the environmental and biodiversity crisis. For too long, we have prioritised short-term economic growth over the long-term sustainability of our land and our people. This has come with an exorbitant price tag for society and the environment, which we are witnessing today as we see the impact of the climate crisis." This monumental achievement reflects the Irish government's commitment to biodiversity action, echoing the sentiment of the Citizens' Assembly, which urged proactive adoption and implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Law. Green Party Candidate for Carrick-on-Shannon, Leslie O'Hora, welcomed the vote and said, "When the young people of today are parents and grandparents, they will look back on this moment as a time when our direction of travel turned away from the destructive path.' The Green Party candidates in Leitrim encourage continued advocacy and local engagement to bolster the impact of this transformative legislation, emphasising the collective responsibility to safeguard and restore our natural heritage for future generations. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has joined school children, parents and trauma consultants at Scoil Mhuire and Scoil Bhride in Tullamore, Co. Offaly to launch a campaign highlighting the serious dangers of using mobile phones while driving. The campaign includes a radio advert recorded by the school children titled Phone down safe driving, new pilot road signs in association with Offaly County Council and An Garda Siochana, an eight-week emotive audio campaign on regional radio, Midlands 103, and a social media campaign backed by pop-band Chasing Abbey and Offaly hurler Adam Screeney. Launching the campaign Put the mobile away, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said, Last year, An Garda Siochana issued over 19,000 fines for people using their mobile phone while driving. That is far, far too many. And just with all other efforts to increase the safety of our roads, they will only be a success if we all work together. Gardai, drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. It can often be forgotten, but children play an important role in road safety, and initiatives like this in Tullamore today work to highlight this very important issue. The Commissioner welcomed the safety campaign from the Rotary Club and the primary schools in Tullamore. Distracted driving due to handheld mobile device usage is one of the dangerous behaviours that leads to road traffic collisions. Recent data from the World Health Organisation indicates that drivers using a mobile phone are four times more likely to be involved in a collision. Commissioner Harris added, The local school children are an influential voice in this campaign and can bring the message home to parents. Paddy Dunican, President of the Tullamore and District Rotary Club, who organised the campaign, said, Research published by the RSA just last summer, showed that 29% of motorists reported that they talked on a mobile hands-free often or very often, while a fifth of motorists reported that they read messages/emails often or very often. Almost 20% of motorists reported that they wrote messages/emails often or very often. Trauma consultant Professor Eoin Sheehan said, Given the devastating impact of accidents on lives of so many, and the trauma for families, we need to look at every possible opportunity to minimise mobile distractions. Current research coming out of the US is stark, he said. Distracted driving significantly increases the chance of crashing. Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) research has uncovered two key insights on this front. The first is that drivers who crash are twice as likely to interact with their phone the minute before the crash. The second finding is that of all the drivers who crash, 34% interacted with their phones within the minute before the crash. Technology already exists that could prevent many of those crashes and save lives. Cell phone blocking apps and devices can help drivers stay focused on driving. They prevent drivers from making or accepting calls, texting or accessing the internet. We definitely need to look at all the options. Todays mobile phones are in essence computers, so we really need to put a halt to the distraction they are causing. Also attending the launch in Co. Offaly were the emergency services including, the aeromedical ambulance, national emergency ambulances, Tullamore fire brigade incident, rescue units and Garda response units. The campaign was supported by Midlands 103 Radio and the Tullamore Credit Union. Joe Brolly has slammed Conor McGregor for online comments the UFC star made ahead of the upcoming March referendum. The Government has called for two referendums on Care and Family to take place on Friday 8 March 2024, asking the people of Ireland if they want to accept or reject the proposed changes to Article 41 of the Constitution. The family amendment would extend the definition of the family beyond those relationships based on marriage. The care amendment would remove the clause in the Constitution that references a womans life and a mothers duties in the home and replace it with a recognition of care within the family. Taking to the social media platform X, Conor McGregor said: "Vote NO and NO in this election, Ireland. Here is the thing, we all smell a rat. F**k me and f**k you too, if you are that way inclined. I dont care. This is a NO/NO vote. Default position alone at this time is if they say yes, we say no. Point blank. After that we can figure it out. 'Yes' there is just too much off about it. 'No' it is what it is. We will still read and have the great word 'woman' in our constitution! A woman made us all! They can do everything they are saying they can do now, but are not doing it. They are dangling a 'vote yes and we will look after you' type of a promise. F**k off, look after us now. Like you can. Like you dont. I smell a rat. Vote NO / NO. March 8th." Says the man who punches pensioners from behind in pubs, has encouraged (from the safety of his home in Florida) the far right to burn down (evaporate) homes earmarked for asylum seekers & made fun of people with autism. His argument? If they say yes, we say no. https://t.co/UCXjbsvWyA Joe Brolly (@JoeBrolly1993) February 27, 2024 Barrister and GAA pundit Joe Brolly hit back at the UFC fighter for his post saying: "Says the man who punches pensioners from behind in pubs, has encouraged (from the safety of his home in Florida) the far right to burn down ('evaporate') homes earmarked for asylum seekers & made fun of people with autism. His argument? 'If they say yes, we say no.'" Funerals announcements have been announced for the woman who died after sleeping rough on the streets of Dublin. Ann Delaney, aged 47, was found on Sunday, February 25 died around 9am, near the Tesco Express of Aungier Street. The Laois native had been sleeping rough in Dublin city centre for about seven years. She used to be sleeping outside on Thomas Street, before moving to Aungier Street. Ann was a nurse and a mother, originally from Crettyard, in Co Laois. She will be reposing in R Healy & Son Funeral Home, Pollerton Castle, Carlow (R93 TC53) on Wednesday evening, February 28 from 4pm concluding with rosary at 8pm. Funeral Mass on Thursday morning, February 29 at 12noon in St. Abbans Church, Doonane (R93 AT86). Burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. After the tragic news broke out, crowds gathered to pay their respect, where her body was found. She has been remembered as a kind soul by outreach workers and many members of the public who knew her. Ann, I've walked by you hundreds, thousands of times. I always looked for you when I passed Tesco on the bus and you always had company. Your friends, locals, workers from Tesco, and you made them all laugh and their day brighter. Any day you weren't there, the city noticed, when I saw the news yesterday and learned more about you, it brought tears to my eyes. Dublin loved you, although I never stopped to talk to you, I always wished you well in my own way and felt a warm energy about you. You will be missed so much and you probably don't even realise by how many. Rest in peace Ann, wrote someone in tribute. Another person wrote: As a young nurse, it is harrowing to hear of Anns decline onto hard times. She was well loved, well received and the plentiful stories of positive attributes flooding in are only what I can imagine are a fraction of her character. The world was not ready for you Ann. "Sincerest condolences to all of Anns family, such a sad loss. Im sorry for not doing my bit to help others and choosing to walk on by. Anns passing really highlights who the lost souls on our streets are. May her passing not be wasted in the moment and bring change to the lifes of those who cannot help themselves. I promise to do more," paid someone in tribute. Beloved daughter of Mary and the late Tom. Sadly missed by her loving daughter Saoirse, mother, brothers Thomas, John, Ciaran and Paul, sisters Siobhan, Tricia, Roisin and Emer, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, relatives and a wide circle of friends. Catherine Martin has told an Oireachtas committee that Siun Ni Raghallaigh had indicated she would resign is a letter was sent to the Department. Following the resignation of the former Chair of the RTE Board, the media minister, Catherine Martin, faced questions at an Oireachtas committee. It has been revealed that Ms Martin wanted to express her disappointment in a letter to the former chair of the board before about being misinformed twice on the exit package of former chief financial officer, Richard Collins. According to Ms Martin, Ms Ni Raghallaigh informed her department officials that she would not be prepared to accept a letter from the media minister. Ms Martin was hoping Ms Ni Raghallaigh would reflect and think about having a meeting with her, as she was indicated she might resign if she received a letter. Speaking of the former chair, Ms Martin said: "I thought she was a great chair, but the crucial piece is I have to be in possession of the facts. WASHINGTON On Feb. 12 PEO Soldier fielded the Next-Generation Integrated Head Protection System to approximately 2,000 soldiers from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, marking the first-unit-equipped milestone in enhancing soldier protection. The NG-IHPS is the Armys newest combat helmet, replacing the previously fielded Integrated Head Protection System, the Advanced Combat Helmet, and the Enhanced Combat Helmet. The combat-ready NG-IHPS consists of a retention system, suspension system, helmet cover and a night vision device bracket that is able to integrate a mandible protector, hearing protection, communications and heads-up displays like the Integrated Visual Augmentation System and the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular. This fielding marks significant progress for Soldier protective equipment as it equips soldiers with protection against relevant battlefield threats, and the innovative helmet design is a purpose-built platform for integration now, and with future Soldier-enabling devices, said Lt. Col. Ken Elgort, product manager for Soldier Protective Equipment. The NG-IHPS, which will be fielded to the close-combat force, interfaces with the next generation of night vision devices, while the mandible protector mounts onto the front of the NG-IHPS for additional protection. The mandible protector is fielded to 6% of the force operating in a mounted configuration. The NG-IHPS provides increased ballistic and fragmentation protection while reducing the weight required to previously reach this protection level by 40%, said Maj. Matthew Nulk, assistant program manager of the Head Protection Team. This is world-leading rifle threat protection were providing to our soldiers. According to Alex de Groot, lead engineer for the Head Protection Team, The boltless retention system and night vision device bracket mount on without compromising the helmets structural integrity, thus increasing protection. Over 1 million worth of illegal drugs sent to Ireland from Spain have been seized by Revenue. Revenue officers examined parcels at a premises in Dublin yesterday (February 27) and seized 45kg of herbal cannabis with an estimated value of 900,000. They were discovered in parcels originating from Spain and destined for addresses in Kildare and Dublin. In a separate discovery, officers also seized 11.2kg of cannabis with an estimated value of 224,000 at Dublin airport the same day, bringing the total amount seized to 1.1 million. The cannabis was discovered concealed within vacuum-packed packages within the baggage of a passenger who had disembarked a flight from Spain. A woman in her 40s was arrested by An Garda Siochana and has since been charged and appeared before the courts this morning. Additionally, in another standalone operation yesterday (27/02/24), and as part of an intelligence-led operation with the assistance of detector dog Toby, Revenue officers seized 144kg of 'roll your own' tobacco following the search of a premises in Co. Louth. The illicit tobacco, branded 'Amber Leaf', has an estimated retail value of over 118,000, representing a potential loss to the Exchequer of approximately 89,000. Investigations are ongoing. The seizures are part of Revenues ongoing operations targeting the importation of illegal drugs and the sale and supply of illegal tobacco products. If businesses, or members of the public, have any information regarding smuggling, they can contact Revenue in confidence on 1800 295 295. Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute Expands Access To Cancer Care in Volusia County Ribbon-cutting celebrates opening of new Orange City clinic FORT MYERS, Fla., Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, LLC (FCS) has opened a new state-of-the-art facility at 2824 Enterprise Road, Orange City, FL 32763-8428 to provide comprehensive treatments and a variety of services to adults with cancer, blood disorders and other diseases. The new location, one of five FCS sites of service in Volusia County, replaces the former FCS clinic on Image Way. In a ribbon-cutting event on Thursday, February 22, 2024, FCS Chief Information & Administrative Officer Ken Sturtz opened the ceremony, noting that this month marks the 40-year anniversary of the founding of the statewide practice. "For 40 years, we have been redefining healthcare excellence," said FCS Chief Executive Officer Nathan H. Walcker. "The unveiling of our newest office is a clear-cut example of how our strategic investments, paired with the compassion of our physicians and their teams, deliver unparalleled oncology care services and drive superior patient outcomes." Shemin Gupta, MD, FCS board-certified medical oncologist and hematologist who provides care to patients in Orange County, remarked, "My colleagues and I share a passion and dedication to one singular goal ? to provide our patients with the most advanced treatments personalized for their unique needs." Dr. Gupta is one of four board-certified medical oncologists and hematologists who provide care at the FCS Orange City clinic, including Ernesto Bustinza-Linares, MD, Victor Melgen, MD and Lynn Van Ummersen, MD. The team of cancer experts also includes advanced practice providers, board-certified oncology nutritionists and support staff. Joining FCS physicians and leaders for the ribbon-cutting celebration were Orange City Mayor Gary Blair, several Orange City council members, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Central Florida President Lourdes Leon, and several of its directors. "We are so proud of our rich history of providing world-class cancer care across Florida and driving the dramatic transformation of oncology care worldwide through our extensive clinical research program," said FCS President & Managing Physician Lucio N. Gordan, MD. "Our patients are fortunate in that they have access to advanced treatment and state-of-the-art technology within each of our clinic locations." The newly constructed, single-story building was designed to enhance patient comfort, convenience, and provider efficiencies. The new Orange City clinic has more than 16,000 square feet of space and includes 12 private exam rooms and 35 infusion therapy chairs. Patients have in-house access to specialty pharmacy and hematopathology laboratory services, care coordination and clinical trial opportunities. About Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, LLC: (FLCancer.com) Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute (FCS) offers patients access to more clinical trials than any private oncology practice in Florida. The majority of new cancer drugs recently approved for use in the U.S. were studied in clinical trials with FCS participation.* Recognized for our research, FCS is a recipient of the national Clinical Trials Participation Award presented by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). FCS physicians, trained in prestigious medical schools and research institutes, are consistently ranked nationally as Top Doctors by U.S. News & World Report. Celebrating its 40th year in 2024, FCS has built a national reputation for excellence that is reflected in exceptional and compassionate patient care, driven by innovative clinical research, cutting-edge technologies and advanced treatments, including targeted therapies genomic-based treatment and immunotherapy. Our highest values are embodied by our outstanding team of highly trained and dedicated physicians, clinicians and staff. *Prior to approval SOURCE Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute 27 february 2024 at 16:30 News published onand distributed by: Study Finds Pesticide Use Linked to Parkinson's in Rocky Mountain, Great Plains Region MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pesticides and herbicides used in farming have been linked to Parkinson's disease in the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains region of the country, according to a preliminary study released today, February 27, 2024, that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 76th Annual Meeting taking place April 13?18, 2024, in person in Denver and online. "We used geographic methods to examine the rates of Parkinson's disease across the United States and compared those rates to regional levels of pesticide and herbicide use," said study author Brittany Krzyzanowski, PhD, of Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. "Our methods enabled us to identify parts of the nation where there was a relationship between most pesticides and Parkinson's disease and subsequently pinpoint where the relationship was strongest so we could explore specific pesticides in that region. In the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains region, we identified 14 pesticides associated with Parkinson's disease." Krzyzanowski said the region included parts of Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The study involved review of records from the 21.5 million people enrolled in Medicare in 2009 to determine the rate of Parkinson's disease for various regions across the country. The researchers then looked for a possible relationship between these rates of Parkinson's and the use of 65 pesticides. They found that the pesticides and herbicides simazine, atrazine and lindane had the strongest relationship with Parkinson's disease. When researchers divided counties into 10 groups based on exposure to pesticides, people living in the counties with the highest amount of application of the herbicide simazine were 36% more likely to have Parkinson's disease than people living in the counties with the lowest amount of exposure. In the counties with the highest exposure to simazine, 411 new Parkinson's disease cases developed per every 100,000 people compared to 380 cases in the counties with the lowest exposure. For the herbicide atrazine, those exposed to the highest amount were 31% more likely to have Parkinson's disease than those with the lowest exposure. For the insecticide lindane, those with the most exposure were 25% more likely to have the disease. In the counties with the highest exposure to atrazine, 475 new Parkinson's disease cases developed per every 100,000 people compared to 398 cases in the counties with the lowest exposure. In the counties with the highest exposure to lindane, 386 new Parkinson's disease cases developed per every 100,000 people compared to 349 cases in the counties with the lowest exposure. The results remained the same when researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect the risk of Parkinson's disease, such as air pollution exposure. "It's concerning that previous studies have identified other pesticides and herbicides as potential risk factors for Parkinson's, and there are hundreds of pesticides that have not yet been studied for any relationship to the disease," Krzyzanowski said. "Much more research is needed to determine these relationships and hopefully to inspire others to take steps to lower the risk of disease by reducing the levels of these pesticides." A limitation of the study was that it relied on the use of county-level estimates since person-level information on pesticide exposure was not available for the study population. The study was supported by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Learn more about Parkinson's disease at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology's free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life on Facebook, X and Instagram. When posting to social media channels about this research, we encourage you to use the American Academy of Neurology's Annual Meeting hashtag #AANAM. The American Academy of Neurology is the world's largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with over 40,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. SOURCE American Academy of Neurology 27 february 2024 at 18:00 News published onand distributed by: Corsight AI and ISEG Elevate Security Measures at Monterrey Hospitals in Mexico with Advanced Facial Intelligence Integration In a significant partnership, Corsight AI, renowned for its innovative Facial Intelligence technology, has joined forces with ISEG, a leading security provider in Latin America. ISEG offers a range of solutions, from security personnel and CCTV cameras to innovative original technology. This collaboration aims to bolster the security infrastructure across various industries by integrating Corsight AI's advanced Facial Intelligence platform with ISEG's established security protocols. A prime illustration of this partnership's impact is seen in the Auna Healthcare Network's three hospitals in Monterrey, Mexico. Here, ISEG has enhanced the security framework by incorporating Corsight AI's facial recognition technology. Within AUNA's facilities, Corsight AI's system has been seamlessly integrated at critical access points and sensitive areas. The system features a customized list to regulate access to restricted areas such as infant care units and hospital offices, ensuring entry is limited to authorized personnel. A key aspect of this deployment is a watchlist function, crafted to proactively identify and alert security personnel about individuals known to pose security threats. This comprehensive approach not only strengthens existing security measures but also aims to elevate the overall patient experience within the AUNA's hospitals. Gabriel Lerner, CEO of ISEG Corp, expressed his views on the partnership, saying, 'Collaborating with Corsight AI represents a crucial milestone in our quest for sophisticated security solutions. Their facial recognition technology has profoundly improved our security strategy. We chose Corsight AI for its proven accuracy in real-world conditions and for its unbiased performance across gender, age, and ethnicity. Corsight AI's technology is noted for its seamless compatibility with ISEG's current camera setup and has been recognized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for its accuracy and reliability within challenging constraints such as poor video quality, limited camera angles, distance, motion, facial coverage and disguises. Karla M. Lopez, LATAM Sales Manager for Corsight AI, also shared her enthusiasm about the collaboration, stating, "Working with ISEG to integrate our Facial Intelligence platform into their security framework has been immensely rewarding. Together, we're not only enhancing security but also advancing operational efficiency and customer service in the healthcare sector." The collaboration exemplifies the significant impact of merging cutting-edge technology with conventional security measures, setting a new benchmark for security efficiency and effectiveness in the healthcare industry. 28 february 2024 at 07:00 News published onand distributed by: Blue Earth Therapeutics Announces Participation in Upcoming B. Riley Securities Radiopharma Investor Conference Blue Earth Therapeutics, a Bracco company and emerging leader in the development of innovative next generation therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, today announced that it will be presenting at the upcoming B. Riley Securities' Radiopharma Investor Conference. The event will be held in New York, N.Y., on March 1, 2024. David Gauden, D. Phil., Chief Executive Officer of Blue Earth Diagnostics and Blue Earth Therapeutics, will present an overview of Blue Earth Therapeutics from 8:00 ? 8:30 a.m. ET and participate in an expert panel discussion, "Opportunities and Challenges in 2024, Perspectives from Leaders in Radiopharma," from 9:15 ? 9:50 a.m. ET. Dr. Dan Stevens, Vice President Clinical Development and Medical, Blue Earth Therapeutics, will participate in an expert panel, "Good But Not the Best Yet: Drug Designs to Beat Standard of Care," from 1:45 ? 2:20 p.m. ET. The Company will also host 1:1 investor meetings at the conference. "Blue Earth Therapeutics continues to expand our leadership position in the rapidly growing area of radiopharmaceuticals," said David Gauden., D.Phil., Chief Executive Officer of the Company. "We are strongly positioned for continued progress across this exciting sector, and we look forward to sharing information about our innovative approach and next generation targeted radioligand therapy (RLT) technology at this important B. Riley Securities conference." About Blue Earth Therapeutics Blue Earth Therapeutics, one of the Bracco family of companies, is a clinical stage company dedicated to advancing next generation targeted radiotherapeutics to treat patients who have cancer. With proven management expertise across the spectrum of radiopharmaceutical and oncology drug development, as well as biotechnology start-up experience, the Company aims to innovate and improve upon current technologies and rapidly advance new targeted therapies for serious diseases. Blue Earth Therapeutics has an emerging pipeline, initially focused on prostate cancer, and with plans to expand into additional disease areas in oncology. Blue Earth Therapeutics is an indirect subsidiary of Bracco Imaging S.p.A., and based in Oxford, UK. For more information, please visit: https://www.blueearththerapeutics.com. About Bracco Imaging Bracco Imaging S.p.A., part of the Bracco Group, is a world-leading diagnostic imaging provider. Headquartered in Milan, Italy, Bracco Imaging develops, manufactures and markets diagnostic imaging agents and solutions. It offers a product and solution portfolio for all key diagnostic imaging modalities: Our continually evolving portfolio is completed by a range of medical devices, advanced administration systems and dose-management software. In 2019 Bracco Imaging enriched its product portfolio by expanding the range of oncology nuclear imaging solutions in the urology segment and other specialties with the acquisition of Blue Earth Diagnostics. In 2021, Bracco Imaging established Blue Earth Therapeutics as a separate, cutting-edge biotechnology vehicle to develop radiopharmaceutical therapies. Visit: www.braccoimaging.com. PP-rh-US-0438 This press release is for U.S. audiences only 28 february 2024 at 08:35 News published onand distributed by: Sigma360 Announces Significant Upgrades to Adverse Media Screening Capabilities Platform updates include next generation AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP), expanded system configurability and unification of global structured and unstructured data into singular risk profiles Improvements are driving industry-leading hit and catch rates at scale and enabling organizations to implement a true risk-based approach NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Sigma360, a leading AI-powered risk screening and monitoring platform that enables compliant global commercial relationships, today announced powerful new features and technical capabilities that drive enhanced risk management and significant productivity for organizations who leverage, or seek to leverage, adverse media as a key tenant of their global compliance strategy. "I am proud to say that our continued investment in AI and overall system configurability is driving significant efficiency gains for our clients, particularly as it relates to adverse media screening, a historically thorny problem for organizations to get right," said Stuart Jones, Jr., CEO of Sigma360. "Our goal is to deliver the absolute best adverse media screening capability available, while also providing lightning fast PEP and Sanctions screening all from a single platform and API call." The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guides organizations to carry out "verifiable adverse media searches" as part of their client risk assessments and enhanced due diligence procedures. The United States, Canada, United Kingdom, European Union, Singapore, Hong Kong and a number other countries similarly require and guide toward utilization of adverse media screening and deeper diligence checks as part of an effective, risk-based approach. However, due to current inefficiencies and outdated vendor approaches, organizations either do not implement this capability or implement it on a limited basis. Those that go-forward with enterprise wide implementations are typically overrun with false positives that create significant organizational cost burdens and regulatory risk. With the backdrop of growing geopolitical tensions, interruptions to global supply chains and rising expectations around risk management, leading firms are re-evaluating their compliance posture and adopting new, purpose built solutions they can cost-effectively manage and scale. The Sigma360 platform automates the process of assessing individuals and companies across vast amounts of data, such as global media. Some of the key advantages of the Sigma360 platform versus standard approaches, include overall accuracy, speed, ease of system configuration and depth of global coverage. For example, in recent adverse media benchmarking, Sigma360's screening capabilities achieved strong results that included the following illustrative examples: - According to a U.S. Federal regulator, "Sigma360 matches, and in many instances, exceeds adverse media systems historically relied upon" - Delivered > 90% increase in efficiency using smart filters, article deduplication and low code, no code configuration capabilities present in the platform - Drove a > 110% decrease in overall hit rates, while achieving an equal catch rate versus legacy adverse media providers - Surfaced previously unidentified human rights violations related to manufacturing in a complex supply chain, as well as nexus to North Korean-based manufacturing New Sigma360 capabilities represent a combination of advanced AI and NLP model improvements, novel application of LLMs for boosted relevancy, expanded and proprietary source data and deeper configuration that enables a user to consider dates of birth, entity location, publisher location, tunable risk materiality, tunable entity relevance, risk type and a range of other factors. To learn more about Sigma360's adverse media screening and monitoring capabilities, please visit: https://www.sigma360.com/solutions/adverse-media To view Sigma360's adverse media capabilities in practice, visit the Risk Event Heatmap: https://www.sigma360.com/solutions/adverse-media#heatmap About Sigma360 Sigma360's cloud-based data platform has emerged as the definitive choice for point-in-time risk screening and perpetual client monitoring. Underpinned by thousands of fully integrated and hosted data sources and proprietary resolution, risk extraction and scoring algorithms, the platform can identify and return direct and network-based entity risk at sub-second speeds. Sigma360's solutions are used by financial institutions, professional services firms, fintechs and global corporations seeking to consolidate operations into a singular risk intelligence platform and more efficiently manage the entire client lifecycle. For further information about Sigma360, connect via LinkedIn or at www.sigma360.com . Contact Information Alex de Villiers Chief of Staff 212-575-0233 SOURCE Sigma360 28 february 2024 at 08:56 News published onand distributed by: With a Two-Year Revenue Growth of 64%, Gain Ranks No. 207 on Inc. Magazine's List of the Southeast Region's Fastest-Growing Private Companies Inc. magazine has revealed that Gain is No. 207 on its fourth annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Southeast list ATLANTA, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Inc. magazine has revealed that Gain is No. 207 on its fourth annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Southeast list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing Southeast private companies, based in South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Born of the annual Inc. 5000 franchise, this regional list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the Southeast economy's most dynamic segment? its independent small businesses. "This recognition affirms our critical position in connecting personal injury stakeholders and simplifying the revenue cycle management function for healthcare providers," said Gain CEO and founder Reid Zeising . "We are incredibly proud to once again be recognized on the Southeast Regional Inc. 5000 list. This achievement speaks volumes about the dedication and expertise of our team members who tirelessly prioritize the meaningful work we do every day helping those in need of quality medical care and who embody our mission?to level the playing field with insurance companies and help injured victims get the quality medical care that they deserve," said Gain CEO and founder Reid Zeising. "This recognition affirms our critical position in connecting personal injury stakeholders and simplifying the revenue cycle management function for healthcare providers." The companies on this list show a remarkable rate of growth across all industries in the Southeast region. Between 2020 and 2022, these 223 private companies had an average growth rate of 166.43 percent; by 2023, they'd also added 20,496 jobs and $8.8 billion to the region's economy. Complete results of the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Southeast, including company profiles, can be found at inc.com/Southeast starting February 27, 2024. The interactive database can be sorted by industry, metro area and other criteria. "The honorees in our Inc. 5000 network are the Who's Who of private companies. They're energizing regional economies as they engineer the future of their industries. Learn who they are and what they do ? they'll be impacting things for a while," said Eric Hagerman, Special Projects Editor at Inc. Media. Gain has been honored with four Inc. 5000 designations. This is Gain's second time ranking on the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Southeast. With 15,000 law firm partners and over 3,000 healthcare clients, Gain is well-positioned for continued growth. The company's sole mission is to create a fairer insurance system for all by providing best-in-class services and solutions. Methodology The 2024 Inc. 5000 Regionals are ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2020 and 2022. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2020. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent?not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies?as of December 31, 2022. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2020 is $100,000; the minimum for 2022 is $1 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. About Inc. Media The world's most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community 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 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 Gain Gain is a highly specialized professional services and solutions firm providing managed services and financial solutions to serve healthcare providers, personal injury attorneys and plaintiffs. Gain's innovative artificial intelligence-enabled servicing platform and its collective services and solutions come together to meaningfully serve the personal injury ecosystem and create better outcomes. Gain is the critical hub connecting personal injury stakeholders and simplifying revenue cycle management for complex claims. Gain's industry-leading platform serves as the source of truth, providing both needed transparency and efficiency for all of those supporting personal injury cases and plaintiffs. Gain is committed to leveling the insurance playing field for those injured through no fault of their own. To learn more, go to gainservicing.com. Media Contact Kris Altiere, Gain, 1 (470) 713-6621, [email protected], https://gainservicing.com/ SOURCE Gain 28 february 2024 at 10:00 News published onand distributed by: CBSA seizes large quantity of firearms and prohibited weapons during a search in Gatineau MONTREAL, Feb. 28, 2024 /CNW/ - The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is committed to protecting Canadians by keeping firearms and prohibited weapons out of our communities and conducts criminal investigations into those who commit criminal offences under border legislation. On February 6, 2024, Canada Border Services Agency investigators from the Weapons Smuggling Integrated Enforcement Team (WSIET), assisted by the Service de police de la Ville de Gatineau, executed a search warrant in a residence located in the Versant District in Gatineau. At the site they found, among other things: 61 firearms 13 prohibited weapons; 22 air guns; 12 prohibited devices: 6 silencers and 6 high-capacity magazines; Ammunition; Shipping documents and packaging for silencers; and 5 electronic devices. A 62 year old man was arrested and released while the investigation and analysis of the seized goods continues. Charges will be recommended to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) upon completion of the investigation. This investigation was initiated in November 2023 following the Canada Border Services Agency's interception of a silencer in a courier package during commercial operations at Toronto Pearson Airport. Research has identified the importer as a Gatineau resident related to previous customs seizures for prohibited weapons. Quote "This search once again demonstrates the Canada Border Services Agency's efforts to control imports of prohibited weapons and devices. We are working with police forces to combat gun smuggling and trafficking in Canada and Quebec and protect our communities." - Annie Beausejour, Regional Director General, Quebec Region, Canada Border Services Agency Quick Facts The CBSA investigates reports made by its officers at ports of entry across the country and uses search evidence to prosecute offenders. Anyone with information on suspicious cross-border activity is encouraged to call the CBSA Border Watch Line at 1-888-502-9060. Follow us on X (@CanBorder et @CanBorderQUE), join us on Facebook or visit our YouTube channel SOURCE Canada Border Services Agency 28 february 2024 at 10:30 News published onand distributed by: SIGNIFICANCE INC. ANNOUNCES ADDITION OF MELISSA HOUGHTON AS CHIEF GROWTH OFFICER ANNAPOLIS, Md., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Significance Inc.?announces today?that Melissa Houghton has joined the company in the newly created role of Chief Growth Officer, working closely with the delivery and solutions teams to maximize the impact of the organization's collective revenue growth strategies. Houghton is a proven corporate growth and strategy leader with over 20 years of experience in business development and the Federal IT services industry. Over the course of her long career, Melissa has had an impressive track record of transforming small businesses into mid- and large-market competitors. She is coming to Significance after serving as Senior Vice President of Growth at Ventech. Prior to Ventech, she served as VP of Corporate Growth at Redhorse and VP of Business Growth at CGI Federal. She has a wealth of experience in emerging technologies, P&L management, new business development, and strategy as well as nurturing and finalizing JVs and M&A Integration. Prior to joining CGI, she was with SRA International in roles including Director of Capture Planning and Principal and Senior Business Integration Manager. "We are thrilled to have Melissa join Significance and our executive leadership team. Her experience and proven success will be invaluable as we enter our next phase of growth" said Mary Ahern Snyder, President and Chief Executive Officer. Houghton holds a Master of Public Management, and National Security from the University of Maryland and a BA, in Political Science from Dickinson College. Her Certifications include Project Management Professional (PMP); ITIL Foundations. About Significance Inc. Significance Inc. is designated an Economically-Disadvantaged Woman-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB) with offices in Old Town Alexandria, VA , and Annapolis, MD. Founded in 2014 by Mary Ahern Snyder, the company provides government consulting services in the areas of Financial Management & Audit Support; SAP; Business Systems; Program & Project Management; Emerging Technologies & Cybersecurity; Transformation & Strategy; and Systems Support Training. To learn more, visit www.significanceinc.com SOURCE Significance, Inc. 28 february 2024 at 10:35 News published onand distributed by: FORT NOVOSELQuiet Professional is a frequented nickname for United States Army Warrant Officers, but recently those voices were raised beyond a whisper. The first Warrant Officer Museum was officially opened on Feb. 23, 2024, inside the Holman House in Ozark, Ala. paying homage to the legacy of Warrant Officers and to encourage generations to come. Col. Kevin E. McHugh, U.S. Army Warrant Officer Career College Commandant, opened the evening with appreciation for the Warrant Officer Corps, both past and present. This is a very special evening to take some time to talk and think about the contributions of warrant officers since their inception in 1918, McHugh expressed. McHugh shared heartfelt gratitude for everyone that brought the museum to life. We were having a hard time finding where to put these artifacts, McHugh said, and I got a call from then [United States Army Aviation Center of Excellence] Chief-of-Staff [retired] Col. Whitney Gardner, suggesting I give Mayor Blankenship a call. So, I did and we met. McHugh explained that it was just about a year ago to the day that Blankenship offered a place to establish the U.S. Army Warrant Officer Museum at the historical Holman House. Without a doubt, we could not have done it without him. Mark, thank you and your entire team for helping build this partnership, McHugh Said. Partnering with the Army community at Fort Novosel is a high priority according to Ozark Mayor Mark Blankenship. Were always looking for ways to connect with Fort Novosel. We already had the National Guard Museum upstairs. A recent class of Warrant Officer Candidates came out and built a much needed retaining wall for the Holman House in the backyard. The whole wall took only four hours to complete. It was incredible. The city of Ozark truly looks forward to continuing this partnership for years to come, Blankenship said. President of the Warrant Officer Historical Foundation, retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Albert G. Curving, was recognized for contributions to not just the corps but the museum as well. When you go upstairs you may see a picture frame over the fireplace that has a song and lyrics. That was written and produced by Al, and it is called Eagles Rising. This is what its about, these long-standing partnerships, said McHugh. Fort Novosel volunteers were recognized for their blood, sweat, and tears, according to McHugh, including Chief Warrant Officer 3 Thompson, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Valdez, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Albert, and 1st Sgt. Santiago-Perez. McHugh has a lifelong respect for the warrant officer community, aside from being the current Commandant. He unveiled the stairwell to the museum with final recognition to a warrant officer that led the way for him personally, retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Peter Chadwick McHugh. As the commandant of USAWOCC, I may not be a warrant officer, but I was, in fact, raised by one. He inspired me as an aviator, as a soldier, and as my dad, concluded McHugh. The Warrant Officer Museum is officially opened inside the Holman House in Ozark, Ala. For tour information call (334) 774-9321. USIC Announces Appointment of President and CEO USIC, North America's leading provider of underground utility locating services, announced today the appointment of Yuvbir Singh as President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Singh assumed the role February 28 as part of a planned succession. Ron Childress, USIC's interim CEO, has held the position since September 2023 and will return to his previous role as a member of USIC's Board of Directors. Mr. Singh most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions, a global provider of comprehensive chemical, equipment, and digital enabled services and products for addressing water availability and quality challenges. Previously, he served as a GE Company Officer with responsibility for the multinational conglomerate's locomotive, mining, stationary power, marine and drill businesses. In his 23-year tenure with GE, he held a range of leadership roles, including Vice President of Equipment for GE Transportation, Vice President of Global Locomotive Operations, and General Manager of Engineered Systems for Water and Process Technologies, as well as roles in Mergers and Acquisitions, with involvement in many strategic M&A transactions. "Yuvbir Singh has a strong record of success in executing corporate renewals and long-term growth strategies for complex businesses. Under his leadership, USIC is positioned to capitalize on industry growth trends driven by historic levels of infrastructure investment," Michael D. Penner, Chair of USIC's Board of Directors, stated. "With a background in electronics engineering and extensive experience in leading global field operations in the deployment of innovative solutions, Yuvbir is ideally suited to transform USIC's operations through innovation and the employment of advanced technologies to elevate quality and efficiency and add value for the utilities we serve. On behalf of USIC's Board of Directors, I want to thank Ron Childress for his leadership of the company as interim CEO and for continuing to make himself available to support Mr. Singh in facilitating a seamless transition." After the transition, Ron Childress will continue to serve in an advisory role for the company as a board member. "Yuvbir is uniquely qualified following a successful career in adjacent industry roles," said Childress. "USIC and our customers will benefit from his extensive experience and innovative approach. It has been an honor to serve as interim CEO for USIC, and I look forward to supporting Yuvbir and the entire USIC team in my continuing role as a member of USIC's Board of Directors." "I am honored to be joining the industry leader in underground utility damage prevention and look forward to immersing myself in learning more about the company's operations and to beginning to meet the company's more than 13,000 employees dedicated to protecting the nation's critical infrastructure and ensuring public safety," Mr. Singh commented. "There are tremendous opportunities for us to pursue together, as well as challenges to face, and I am excited to get started." USIC is jointly owned by Partners Group and Kohlberg & Company ("Kohlberg"). Partners Group originally invested in USIC in 2017 and partnered in November 2022 with a Kohlberg-led consortium, including funds managed by Mubadala and Neuberger Berman. About USIC Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, USIC is a leading provider of outsourced "utility locate" services, which involve locating, identifying, and marking sub-surface utility infrastructure, such as pipes, cables, and fiber. These services are provided on behalf of public utilities that are required by law to ensure underground infrastructure is marked correctly before ground is broken on any new project. USIC currently serves over 1,300 customers in the US and Canada across six utility markets: cable, telecom, electric, gas, water, and sewer. It has a workforce of 12,000 technicians who perform approximately 84 million locates each year. For more information, please visit www.usicllc.com. About Partners Group Partners Group is a leading global private markets firm. Since 1996, the firm has invested USD 200 billion in private equity, private real estate, private debt and private infrastructure on behalf of its clients globally. Partners Group seeks to generate superior returns through capitalizing on thematic growth trends and transforming attractive businesses and assets into market leaders. The firm is a committed, responsible investor and aims to create sustainable returns with lasting, positive impact for all its stakeholders. With USD 142 billion in assets under management as of 30 June 2023, Partners Group provides an innovative range of bespoke client solutions to institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, family offices and private individuals globally. The firm employs more than 1,800 diverse professionals across 20 offices worldwide and has regional headquarters in Baar-Zug, Switzerland; Denver, USA; and Singapore. It has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since 2006 (symbol: PGHN). For more information, please visit www.partnersgroup.com or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter. About Kohlberg & Company Kohlberg is a leading private equity firm based in Mount Kisco, New York. Over the firm's 36-year history, the firm has organized 11 private equity vehicles totaling in aggregate over $14 billion. Since inception, the firm's private equity investments have generated over $10 billion in realized returns with no realized losses since 2007. The firm invests in leading middle market businesses that are identified through its rigorous thematic research and the firm's White Paper Program in its six core practice areas. For more information, please visit www.kohlberg.com. About Mubadala Mubadala Investment Company is a sovereign investor managing a global portfolio, aimed at generating sustainable financial returns for the Government of Abu Dhabi. Mubadala's $276 billion (AED 1015 billion) portfolio spans six continents with interests in multiple sectors and asset classes. It leverages its deep sectoral expertise and long-standing partnerships to drive sustainable growth and profit, while supporting the continued diversification and global integration of the economy of the United Arab Emirates. For more information about Mubadala Investment Company, please visit: www.mubadala.com. About Neuberger Berman Neuberger Berman, founded in 1939, is a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager. The firm manages a range of strategies?including equity, fixed income, quantitative and multi-asset class, private equity, real estate and hedge funds?on behalf of institutions, advisors and individual investors globally. Neuberger Berman's investment philosophy is founded on active management, engaged ownership and fundamental research, including industry-leading research into material environmental, social and governance factors. Neuberger Berman is a PRI Leader, a designation awarded to fewer than 1% of investment firms. With offices in 26 countries, the firm's diverse team has over 2,750 professionals. For nine consecutive years, Neuberger Berman has been named first or second in Pensions & Investments Best Places to Work in Money Management survey (among those with 1,000 employees or more). The firm manages $443 billion in client assets as of June 30, 2023. For more information, please visit our website at www.nb.com. 28 february 2024 at 11:05 News published onand distributed by: North Island Credit Union Launches Charitable Foundation to Support Local Community-Based Organizations & Educational Institutions North Island Credit Union Foundation Makes Debut Grant of $20,000 to Classroom of the Future Foundation Foundation Will Oversee Credit Union's Giving Programs, Totaling More Than $2.5 Million Over the Past Five Years SAN DIEGO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- North Island Credit Union announced today that it has launched the North Island Credit Union Foundation to lead its community outreach and support programs, which have totaled more than $2.5 million over the last five years. A non-profit charitable corporation, the Foundation will focus on partnering with local grassroots organizations and educational institutions through grants, sponsorships, in-kind support and volunteer participation. "We have long lived our People Helping People philosophy in our work to strengthen the financial well-being of our communities by providing resources to non-profit partners effecting meaningful change across Southern California," said North Island Credit Union President/CEO Steve O'Connell. "North Island Credit Union Foundation will take this work to the next level in its mission to improve lives and empower our communities to thrive for generations to come." North Island Credit Union Foundation recently made its debut grant of $20,000 to Classroom of the Future Foundation (CFF), an organization the credit union has partnered with for six years. The grant will be used to support CFF's mission to create innovative learning environments in San Diego County public schools as well as its 2024 Innovation in Education Impact Awards recognizing local school initiatives modeling the future of K-12 education. North Island Credit Union Foundation President Marvel Ford said, "We're excited to launch the Foundation to fund the credit union's existing community giving initiatives as well as expand our outreach programs to make a lasting impact on the well-being of our communities. And we can't think of a better way to kick off this effort than through our debut grant to Classroom of the Future Foundation as part of our shared recognition that education is the cornerstone of a healthy community. We look forward to helping build a better future for our communities across Southern California through strategic charitable giving and outreach partnerships." "We are deeply grateful to North Island Credit Union Foundation for the generous grant to support Classroom of the Future Foundation and all the work we do on behalf of San Diego County schools. These funds will make a tremendous difference in helping us bring innovation alive in our schools and ensure every student has the opportunity to gain the skills needed to thrive for a lifetime," said San Diego County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paul Gothold. North Island Credit Union Foundation will focus its resources on grants and investment in four key pillars of long-term community empowerment, including: Investing in Our Community & Our Youth : Supporting grassroots community organizations and empowering leaders of tomorrow through scholarships, literacy activities and investment in local organizations that support their health & well-being. : Supporting grassroots community organizations and empowering leaders of tomorrow through scholarships, literacy activities and investment in local organizations that support their health & well-being. Supporting Educators & Schools: Providing grants to help teachers & schools thrive in our community, support students and recognize their commitment to learning. Providing grants to help teachers & schools thrive in our community, support students and recognize their commitment to learning. Promoting Financial Literacy: Investing in education programs that build financial wellness for youth and adults in our communities for long-term financial empowerment. Investing in education programs that build financial wellness for youth and adults in our communities for long-term financial empowerment. Honoring Our Service Members: Giving strategic grants to programs that assist military service members, their families and veterans, recognizing the service and sacrifice of our nation's heroes. Overseen by a volunteer board of directors, North Island Credit Union Foundation will centralize the credit union's giving programs across its Southern California service areas. North Island Credit Union will fund all administrative costs of the Foundation to ensure 100% of donations are returned back to the communities it serves. To contribute to the Foundation or learn more, please visit ccu.com/foundation. About North Island Credit Union, a division of California Credit Union California Credit Union is a federally insured, state chartered credit union founded in 1933 with assets of nearly $5 billion, approximately 200,000 members and 25 retail branches. The credit union serves community members and businesses in the California counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura as well as school employees throughout the state. The credit union operates in San Diego and Riverside Counties as North Island Credit Union, a division of California Credit Union. The credit union offers a full suite of consumer, business and investment products and services, including comprehensive consumer checking and loan options, personalized financial planning, business banking, and leading-edge online and mobile banking. California Credit Union is certified as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) with a Low Income Designation, offering inclusive products and services to build financial stability in our underserved communities, including a checking account certified as meeting the Bank On National Account Standards. Visit northisland.ccu.com for more information or follow the credit union on Instagram or Facebook @northislandcu. SOURCE North Island Credit Union 28 february 2024 at 11:15 News published onand distributed by: Media Advisory - Government of Canada to announce support for Black communities across the country GATINEAU, QC, Feb. 28, 2024 /CNW/ - The Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, Kamal Khera, will make a virtual announcement to share the results of the call for proposals under the Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative. The Member of Parliament for Bourassa, Emmanuel Dubourg, will participate in the announcement. A media availability will follow the announcement. Please note that all details are subject to change. All times are local. Date: Thursday, February 29, 2024 Time: 10:00 a.m. EST To register, contact [email protected] with your name and media outlet before 9:00 a.m. EST on Thursday, February 29, 2024. Please indicate if attendance will be in person or virtual. Further information will be provided upon registration. Follow us on X (Twitter) SOURCE Employment and Social Development Canada 28 february 2024 at 11:42 News published onand distributed by: Fang Consulting Ranks No. 102 on Inc. Magazine's List of the Midwest Region's Fastest-Growing Private Companies Fang Consulting is No. 102 on its fourth annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Midwest list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing Midwest private companies. ROSEVILLE, Minn., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Inc. magazine today revealed that Fang Consulting is No. 102 on its fourth annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Midwest list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing Midwest private companies, based in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Born of the annual Inc. 5000 franchise, this regional list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the Midwest economy's most dynamic segment-its independent small businesses. "We are very happy to have recovered from 2020. We are excited about the post-pandemic growth we've seen at Fang Consulting and look forward to future growth as we continue to serve our clients and the people they help," said Tracy Eberly , CEO of Fang Consulting. "We are very happy to have recovered from 2020. We are excited about the post-pandemic growth we've seen at Fang Consulting and look forward to future growth as we continue to serve our clients and the people they help," said Tracy Eberly, CEO of Fang Consulting. The companies on this list show a remarkable rate of growth across all industries in the Midwest region. Between 2020 and 2022, these 172 private companies had an average growth rate of 134.06 percent; by 2023, they'd also added 14,830 jobs and $24.5 billion to the region's economy. Complete results of the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Midwest, including company profiles, can be found at inc.com/Midwest starting February 27, 2024. You'll also find an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, metro area, and other criteria. "The honorees in our Inc. 5000 network are the Who's Who of private companies. They're energizing regional economies as they engineer the future of their industries. Learn who they are and what they do ? they'll be impacting things for a while," said Eric Hagerman, Special Projects Editor at Inc. Media. Established in 1999, Fang Consulting provides Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance consulting services to medical device manufacturers. From start-ups to global industry leaders, Fang's established presence ensures efficiency, covering both pre-market and post-market device phases. Methodology The 2024 Inc. 5000 Regionals are ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2020 and 2022. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2020. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent?not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies?as of December 31, 2022. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2020 is $100,000; the minimum for 2022 is $1 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. About Inc. Media The world's most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community 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 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. Media Contact Tracy Eberly, Fang Consulting, 1 (612) 230-9909, [email protected], https://www.fangconsulting.com/ SOURCE Fang Consulting 28 february 2024 at 13:21 News published onand distributed by: Arcus Biosciences to Participate in Two Upcoming Investor Conferences Arcus Biosciences (NYSE:RCUS), a clinical-stage, global biopharmaceutical company focused on developing differentiated molecules and combination therapies for people with cancer, announced that its management team will participate in the following upcoming investor conferences in March: Leerink Global Biopharma Conference 2024 Date: Monday, March 11th, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. ET Location: Miami Beach, FL Format: Fireside Chat Barclays 26th Annual Global Healthcare Conference Date: Tuesday, March 12th, 2024 at 2:35 p.m. ET Location: Miami Beach, FL Format: Fireside Chat Live webcasts of the fireside chats and panel will be available by visiting the "Investors & Media" section of the Arcus Biosciences website at www.arcusbio.com. Replays will be available following each live event. About Arcus Biosciences Arcus Biosciences is a clinical-stage, global biopharmaceutical company developing differentiated molecules and combination medicines for people with cancer. In partnership with industry partners, patients and physicians around the world, Arcus is expediting the development of first- or best-in-class medicines against well-characterized biological targets and pathways and studying novel, biology-driven combinations that have the potential to help people with cancer live longer. Founded in 2015, the company has expedited the development of multiple investigational medicines into clinical studies, including new combination approaches that target TIGIT, PD-1, the adenosine axis (CD73, dual A2a/A2b receptor and CD39), AXL and HIF-2a. For more information about Arcus Biosciences' clinical and pre-clinical programs, please visit www.arcusbio.com or follow us on X. 28 february 2024 at 16:05 News published onand distributed by: MPA Delivery Partners Selected for Hudson Tunnel Project, the Most Urgent Infrastructure Project in the U.S. NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /CNW/ -- Arcadis, a leading global design and consultancy organization for natural and built assets, as part of the joint venture Mace-Parsons-Arcadis (MPA Delivery Partners), is pleased to announce that the team has been selected by the Gateway Development Commission (GDC) as the delivery partner for the $16 billion Hudson Tunnel Project (HTP). Together, the firms will coordinate among all stakeholders, contractors, and consultants to ensure that the project satisfies all GDC's requirements. The Hudson Tunnel Project will improve capacity, reliability, and resiliency of commuter and intercity rail transit on the busiest section of the Northeast Corridor, which serves 800,000 daily passengers from Washington, D.C. to New York, New Jersey, and New England. A milestone project supported by the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the project is slated to receive nearly $12 billion in federal funding, the largest investment in a mass transit project in modern history. Greg Steele, Global President of Mobility at Arcadis said: "The Gateway Hudson Tunnel will be a model of resilient infrastructure to futureproof safe and sustainable travel along the nation's most economically vital corridor. Arcadis is proud to bring our extensive tunneling, rail, and transit expertise to support the Gateway Development Commission to facilitate the urgent delivery of this megaproject that will improve quality of life for communities that live and work in New York, New Jersey, and beyond." Mark Fialkowski, President, North America Infrastructure of Parsons said: "HTP is a critical, once-in-a-generation project that will embody the excellence of our nation's future infrastructure. We look forward to partnering with the Gateway Development Commission on unlocking the full economic and societal potential of the Hudson Tunnel Project. As Parsons has done for 80 years, we're ready to continue imagining and delivering the future of transportation in New York and New Jersey." Jason Millett, Group Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Mace said: "We are honored to have been appointed by the GDC to play such a key a role on this historic program. We're inspired by their vision to revolutionize the rail transit experience for passengers on the Northeast Corridor, creating opportunities that will positively transform people's lives. From our experience bringing complex megaprojects to life around the world, we know the delivery partner model will provide the collaborative approach and certainty required for a program of this scale." The project includes construction of two, 4.5-mile-long tracks and tunneling, as well as repairing Amtrak's existing North River Tunnel, which opened in 1910 and was damaged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. MPA Delivery Partners is a joint venture between Mace, Parsons, and Arcadis. The delivery partner model has an internationally proven track record for helping public agencies deliver large-scale infrastructure projects. Arcadis' team of rail and transit experts support clients around the world to deliver resilient and efficient rail and transit solutions. In the United States, we've worked on significant nation- building projects, leveraging our global expertise in digitalizing rail and transit networks to deliver modern and connected solutions for a more sustainable future of transportation. To learn more about Arcadis' rail and transit expertise, visit: https://www.arcadis.com/en/expertise/solutions/mobility/intelligent-rail-and-transit ABOUT ARCADIS Arcadis is the world's leading company delivering data-driven sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets. We are more than 36,000 architects, data analysts, designers, engineers, project planners, water management and sustainability experts, all driven by our passion for improving quality of life. As part of our commitment to accelerating a planet positive future, we work with our clients to make sustainable project choices, combining digital and human innovation, and embracing future-focused skills across the environment, energy and water, buildings, transport, and infrastructure sectors. We operate in over 30 countries, and in 2023 reported ?5.0 billion in gross revenues. www.arcadis.com ? ABOUT PARSONS Parsons (NYSE: PSN) is a leading disruptive technology provider in the national security and global infrastructure markets, with capabilities across cyber and intelligence, space and missile defense, transportation, environmental remediation, urban development, and critical infrastructure protection. Please visit Parsons.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook to learn how we're making an impact. https://www.parsons.com/ ABOUT MACE Mace is a global company of consultancy and construction experts. It provides consulting and construction services for many of the world's most inspiring building and infrastructure projects and programs ? from Olympic parks and iconic skyscrapers to state-of-the-art data centers, schools, hospitals and homes. The privately-owned company, headquartered in London, UK, has an annual turnover of 1.9bn. Over 30 years, its growth has been fueled by an adventurous spirit and the relentless pursuit of a better way. Today, the company employs over 7,000 people across four global hubs in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. Mace is driven by its purpose to redefine the boundaries of ambition, and its vision of leading the way to a more connected, resilient and sustainable world. Find out more at www.macegroup.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1838726/4540808/Arcadis_Logo.jpg SOURCE Arcadis 28 february 2024 at 16:05 News published onand distributed by: CHITOGENX ANNOUNCES EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP CHANGES MONTREAL, Feb. 28, 2024 /CNW/ - ChitogenX Inc. (CSE: CHGX) (OTCQB: CHNXF) ("ChitogenX" or the "Company"), a clinical-stage regenerative medicine company, today announced that Philippe Deschamps, Chief Executive Officer, has decided to step down as CEO for personal reasons and has resigned from the Board of directors, effective February 28, 2024. Mr. Pierre Laurin who currently serves as Chairman of the Board of directors, will act as interim CEO while the Board of directors reviews potential alternatives to fill the position permanently. The Board of directors of the Company thanks Mr. Deschamps for his efforts and commitment over his tenure and wishes him the best in his future endeavors. Mr. Deschamps intends to support the Company during this period of transition. About ChitogenX Inc. ChitogenX Inc. is a clinical stage regenerative medicine company dedicated to the development of novel therapeutic tissue repair technologies to improve tissue healing. The Company is committed to the clinical development of its proprietary Chitosan Based Biopolymer technology platform, a proprietary muco-adhesive scaffold, specifically designed to be combined with therapeutics to improve tissue repair. Other formulations are being developed to leverage the technology's performance characteristics such as tissue adhesion, pliability, and ability to deliver biologics or therapeutics to various tissues damaged by trauma or disease. Further information about ChitogenX is available on the Company's website at www.chitogenx.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Forward-Looking Statements This news release may contain certain forward-looking statements regarding the Company's expectations for future events. Such expectations are based on certain assumptions that are founded on currently available information. If these assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, amongst others, uncertainty as to the final result and other risks. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by security laws. NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATIONS SERVICES PROVIDER HAVE REVIEWED OR ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. SOURCE Ortho Regenerative Technologies Inc. 28 february 2024 at 16:30 News published onand distributed by: A mural paying tribute to late Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay is pictured in the Hollis neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York on January 29, 2024. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP In a courtroom scene fraught with tension and emotion, two men were convicted of murder on Tuesday, February 27, for the 2002 killing of Jam Master Jay, the iconic D.J. of Run-DMC, whose tragic death reverberated through the rap world. Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington were found guilty by an anonymous Brooklyn federal jury on charges related to murder within the context of a narcotics trafficking conspiracy, and firearm-related murder. Prosecutors portrayed the shooting as an act of revenge stemming from a botched drug deal. Following the verdict, emotions ran high. Washington vehemently yelled at the jury, exclaiming, "Y'all just killed two innocent people." Meanwhile, supporters of Jordan erupted in curses towards the jury. Jordan, addressing his group of supporters before being escorted out of the courtroom by US Marshals, expressed gratitude amidst the chaos, saying, "I love y'all." Jam Master Jay, born Jason Mizell, was not only a pioneer in the world of hip-hop but also a cultural icon. As part of Run-DMC, Mizell helped propel the genre into the mainstream with hits like "It's Tricky" and a groundbreaking collaboration with Aerosmith on "Walk This Way." Beyond his musical contributions, Mizell nurtured emerging talent through his record label and studio, including future rap superstar 50 Cent. Mizell's life was tragically cut short when he was fatally shot in his studio on October 30, 2002, in front of witnesses. Despite the passage of time, the case remained unresolved for years, mirroring the unsolved murders of other rap luminaries like Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. Authorities faced numerous challenges in their investigation, including a lack of cooperation from witnesses. Drug deal gone wrong The two convicted men had close ties to the victim. Jordan, identified as the godson of the slain D.J., and Washington, an old friend who was residing with Mizell's sister at the time of the murder, were arrested in 2020 and maintained their innocence throughout the trial. Prosecutors argued that Mizell's involvement in drug trafficking, driven by financial struggles, led to his tragic demise. Despite Mizell's earlier advocacy against drug use, prosecutors contended that he had become embroiled in the drug trade to support his financial obligations and the needs of his inner circle. Witnesses testified to the events leading up to the murder, painting a picture of betrayal and violence. Former studio aide, Uriel Rincon, and Mizell's business manager, Lydia High, recounted chilling moments of the attack, with Washington allegedly blocking exits and brandishing a firearm, while Jordan approached Mizell before the fatal shots rang out. "He was a man who got involved in the drug game to take care of the people who depended on him," assistant US attorney Artie McConnell said in his summation. Prosecution witnesses testified that in Mizell's final months, he had a plan to acquire 10 kilograms of cocaine and sell it through Jordan, Washington and a Baltimore-based dealer. As the trial unfolded, it shed light on the complexities of Mizell's life, including his entanglement in the drug trade despite his musical accomplishments. While his legacy may be tarnished by these revelations, observers argue that Mizell's contributions to hip-hop should not be overshadowed, acknowledging the realities of navigating the music industry during that era. Over 650 people were killed. The death toll from the capsizing of the Adriana on June 14, 2023, is one of the highest in the Mediterranean in the last ten years. Setting out from the Libyan coast, the fishing boat had more than 750 passengers on board. It sank off the Greek coast. Eight months later, investigations are still underway in Greece into the circumstances of the disaster. European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly published a report on Wednesday, February 28, on the shortcomings of Frontex, the European border and coastguard agency, during this operation. The report finds that Frontex did not broadcast a Mayday distress signal, even though one of its aircraft had observed that the boat was overcrowded and passengers had no life jackets. The inquiry highlights the lack of interest shown by Greece in taking up Frontex's "four separate offers to assist" the Greek authorities that day, even though they were responsible for coordinating search and rescue operations in the area. O'Reilly writes that "the lack of response from the Greek RCC in the Adriana incident, together with broader concerns about the Greek authorities' non-compliance with fundamental rights obligations, raises the question of Frontex's relationship with Member States." She adds that there was a "tension between Frontex's duty to save lives and the pressure to prevent or discourage people from attempting to cross the Mediterranean," creating a "challenge" for the agency to follow through on its "fundamental rights obligations." The ombudsman referred to the possibility of suspending Frontex's activities in cases where the agency is "involved in fundamental human rights violations," under Article 46 of the agency's regulation. 'No reply' from Greek authorities Questions were immediately raised about the actions of the Greek coastguard after the shipwreck. Survivors said that rather than providing assistance the Greek coastguard instead towed the boat, causing the Adriana to capsize. The European ombudsman decided to open an inquiry to clarify "how Frontex complies with its obligations." Under European law, EU member states "have an obligation to render assistance to any vessel or person in distress at sea regardless of the nationality or status of such person." O'Reilly reminds Frontex that this law applies to the agency in the context, for example, of joint maritime operations. On June 13, the agency was alerted to Adriana's presence by the Italian authorities, who in turn had been alerted by "civil society organizations." One of the agency's aircraft, present in the central Mediterranean, flew to the scene to pass over the boat and carry out "standard maritime surveillance activities." The aircraft "shared video footage and other information about the boat's condition and sea-state" with the Italian and Greek RCCs. You have 46.87% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. FeatureWorkers from various countries, attracted by Luxembourg's salaries, are offered tiny apartments on the French side of the border, where rents are significantly cheaper. Elected officials are at a loss on how to crack down on the abusive landlords. The houses have more letterboxes than windows. In Moselle, near France's border with Luxembourg, one of them has been divided into five studios of 30 square meters each. The white house, which would be ideal for one family, two at most, is home to five, with two studios on the first floor, another two on the second, and one in what was, until recently, an attic. Maria and Manuel Da Luz, 45 and 43, live in this attic. It has a bedroom, a corridor kitchen, a shower and a toilet, all cramped under the slope of the roof. It would be a tight fight if there were only two of them, but the couple, who arrived from Cape Verde in September 2023, live there with their four children aged 15, 14, 13 and 8. Mattresses are stacked in a corner of the room during the day, and in the evening they are laid out on the floor. The children sleep at the foot of the parents' double bed. The house isn't a shack but everything seems to have been hastily cobbled together. There are doors without frames, cracks in the walls and expanding foam, and precarious electrical installation. The beams are covered in coarse gray tape to block openings in the wood and "keep the rats out," said Maria Da Luz, the only French speaker in this house whose occupants are all Portuguese or Cape Verdean. "We spoke to the owner about it, and he told us we were already lucky to be here, that we'd have found worse elsewhere." The rent is 900 per month, the same price as the four other studios. "It's a bit expensive." Maria and Manuel Da Luz, aged 45 and 43, open the door to their apartment in the attic of a house divided into several dwellings, in Audun-le-Tiche, France, on February 5, 2024. SEBASTIEN VAN MALLEGHEM FOR LE MONDE The Da Luz family's children in the kitchen of their apartment in Audun-le-Tiche, France, February 5, 2024. SEBASTIEN VAN MALLEGHEM FOR LE MONDE Like their neighbors, Maria and Manuel Da Luz work in Luxembourg. She is a cleaner and her husband works on building sites. They make around 2,500 a month. How many of these houses in the region have been divided into tiny rooms, where essential workers squeeze together in deplorable, sometimes illegal, conditions? "It's a trend that's very difficult to quantify, but we can see that it's accelerating," said Viviane Fattorelli, the left-wing independent mayor of the region, Audun-le-Tiche. Less than 10 years in the making There was a time when Luxembourgers came to work in the steel industry of France's Lorraine region. Now it's the other way round six out of 10 working people in Audun-le-Tiche are cross-border commuters and the natives are joined by workers from all over the world attracted by the grand duchy's booming economy and high wages. For construction, cleaning, and catering workers, housing in Luxembourg is unthinkably expensive, so they live on the French side where there's little land left to build on. You have 73.17% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. TROY-A Pike County man is sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder Tuesday in connection with the 2021 death of Jena Jo Milani. Dustin Byrd, 35, was sentenced by 12th Judicial Circuit Juge Shannon Clark after a court hearing at the Pike County Courthouse in Troy during which he entered a plea of guilty to the murder. Twelfth Judicial Circuit District Attorney James Tarbox said Byrds case had been set for trial to begin Tuesday but due to illness and unforeseen scheduling conflicts, the case was continued. The state of Alabama and Byrd entered settlement negotiations in an attempt to resolve the case, Tarbox said. Had the case gone to trial, the state would have presented testimony and evidence that showed that on Oct. 26, 2021, Byrd and Milani were traveling on Henderson Highway in Pike County when Byrd pulled out a 9mm pistol and shot Milani four times in the head and face. Tarbox said that Byrd then pushed Milanis body out of the moving car, grabbed the steering wheel, and fled the area. Milani was later found injured in the roadway on Henderson Highway. Investigation determined that she was shot and then thrown out of a moving vehicle. Byrd, then living in the Pike County town of Goshen, was arrested after Pike County Sheriffs deputies spotted a white Infiniti on Alabama Highway 93 believed to be involved in the incident on Henderson Highway in Troy. When Byrd was arrested, he was in possession of the 9mm pistol and numerous controlled substances. He has been in Pike County Jail since his 2021arrest on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and first-degree possession of marijuana in addition to the murder charge. The case was handled by 12th Judicial Circuit Senior Assistant District Attorney Jon Folmar, who did a tremendous job creating the states trial strategy, preparing witnesses, and selecting exhibits to be presented to the jury, Tarbox said. I appreciate Jons work on this case, which resulted in the defendant agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for this significant sentence. The case was investigated by the Pike County Sheriffs Office, the Pike County Coroners Office, and the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. Supporters of the campaign to vote 'uncommitted', in protest against Joe Biden's policy of support for Israel, gather before the Democratic primary in Hamtramck, Michigan, February 25, 2024. REBECCA COOK / REUTERS In an American presidential election that is shaping up to be both unpredictable and lackluster, the two front-runners continued their march toward their parties' nominations at the end of the Michigan primary on Tuesday, February 27. But it is the respective impediments of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden that are attracting attention. While the former president once again crushed the Republican vote against Nikki Haley, around a third of party members are opposed to his expected coronation. Meanwhile, Biden passed a dreaded test of the electoral repercussions on the left of his unconditional support for Israel in the war in Gaza. Biden's real opponent was not Dean Phillips, a congressman from Minnesota, but voter turnout and the "uncommitted" vote. More than 300,000 people in Michigan identify as being Arab American or Muslim. In recent weeks, the uncommitted vote has been promoted within this community as a means of protest against Biden, who refuses to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, demanding simply a "humanitarian pause." The Israeli offensive in the Palestinian enclave has already caused a large number of deaths, most of them civilians, in response to the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. The American media had focused on the Arab and Muslim minority, at the risk of neglecting the weight of other voters. As the count continued slowly into the evening, the protest vote was below 15%. As expected, "uncommitted" performed best in Washtenaw County, home to a number of universities, and Wayne County, home to Dearborn, the heart of the Listen to Michigan movement. This is the name of the group drawn from the local Arab-Muslim community, which has been mobilizing for several weeks. Read more Subscribers only Across the US, pro-Palestinian activism is gaining ground Its stated goal was modest enough to be easily achieved, 10,000 votes fewer for Biden. This was the margin by which Trump had won the state in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. In 2020, Biden had recorded a lead of over 150,000 votes. According to the New York Times, at midnight, when half the ballots had been counted, there were more than 64,000 "uncommitted" votes. In addition to the protest vote, Democratic experts were concerned to observe an emerging movement around the town of Dearborn, composed mainly of voters in their 20s. The risk of crystallization of opposition to Biden among a fringe of these young voters is a significant issue. From this point of view, Tuesday's result represented a warning, without leading to definitive conclusions. Despite the president's age and concerns about his ability to serve a second term, Democrats demonstrated discipline. You have 54.17% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. Ethiopian authorities said on Wednesday, February 28, that a French journalist detained there since February 22 had been operating outside his legal accreditation and "collecting information related to internal political affairs." Antoine Galindo had traveled to Ethiopia to cover the African Union summit earlier this month for the specialist publication Africa Intelligence. He was arrested last week on suspicion of conspiring "to create chaos" in the country, his employer said Monday. The 36-year-old's detention was extended until March 1, following his appearance before a judge over the weekend, his employer said, denouncing the "spurious accusations" against him. Selamawit Kassa, a spokeswoman for Ethiopia's government said Wednesday that Galindo had been given permission to cover the African Union summit. But he had "engaged in activities in total contradiction with the reason for his visit, in particular collecting information related to internal political affairs," she added. "Moreover he was speaking with political party leaders and members," Kassa said, in the first public remarks by the Ethiopian government about the arrest. "We were able to confirm that he was meeting and collecting information from social media activists and other entities related to the internal political affairs of the country," she told a press briefing for state media. Media watchdogs have urged the government to release Galindo, with the Committee to Protect Journalists saying Monday that his "unjust arrest highlights the atrocious environment for the press in general in Ethiopia." According to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, as of January 1 this year, 15 journalists were in prison in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has expelled several foreign journalists since the end of 2020. But until Galindo's detention, authorities had not arrested a foreign journalist in more than three years. Ghana's parliament voted to pass a controversial bill to severely restrict LGBTQ+ rights on Wednesday, February 28, in a move condemned by rights activists. The bill still has to be validated by the president before entering into law, which observers believe is unlikely before a general election in December. Activist groups have called the "Human Sexual Rights and Family Values" bill a setback for human rights and urged President Nana Akufo-Addo's government to reject it. Yet the bill is widely supported in Ghana, where Akufo-Addo has said gay marriage will never be allowed while he is in power. Commonly referred to as the anti-gay bill, the legislation received sponsorship from a coalition comprising Christian, Muslim, and Ghanaian traditional leaders, finding substantial backing among members of Parliament. Read more Subscribers only Same-sex blessings open rift between Vatican and African churches Gay sex is already illegal in the religious West African nation, but while discrimination against LGBTQ+ people is common no one has ever been prosecuted under the colonial-era law. Under the provisions of the bill, those who take part in LGBTQ+ sexual acts could face imprisonment ranging from six months to three years. Those advocating for LGBTQ+ rights could be subject to harsher penalties, with potential jail terms of three to five years. 'Absolutely wrong' A human rights coalition known as the Big 18, an umbrella group of lawyers and activists in Ghana, has condemned the bill. "You cannot criminalise a person's identity and that's what the bill is doing and it's absolutely wrong," said Takyiwaa Manuh, a member of the coalition. "We want to impress on the president not to assent to the bill, it totally violates the human rights of the LGBT community," Manuh told Agence France-Presse. Opposition lawmaker Sam George, the main sponsor of the bill, called on Akufo-Addo to assent to it. "There is nothing that deals with LGBTQ+ better than this bill that has been passed by parliament. We expect the president to walk his talk and be a man of his words," George said. Members of Ghana's LGBTQ+ community are worried about the implications of the bill. Founder and director of the organisation LGBT+ Rights Ghana Alex Donkor said "the passing of this bill will further marginalise and endanger LGBTQ+ individuals in Ghana." "It not only legalises discrimination but also fosters an environment of fear and persecution," he said. "With harsh penalties for both LGBTQ+ individuals and activists, this bill threatens the safety and well-being of an already vulnerable community." Emmanuel Macron at the Ukraine support conference with European leaders at the Elysee Palace, Paris, February 26, 2024. GONZALO FUENTES / AP Once again, Emmanuel Macron's statements have provoked international outcry. Twenty months after suggesting that Russia "shouldn't be humiliated," the French president has now been accused of starting an untimely debate over sending allied troops to Ukraine to defend it from the Kremlin's onslaught. At the end of Monday's conference that he had just chaired at the Elysee, Macron said "no option should be ruled out," with the aim of doing "more and better" when it comes to supporting Kyiv. The president argued that "many of those who are saying 'Never, never' today were the same ones who said 'Never tanks, never planes, never long-range missiles' two years ago." His suggestion was met with a strong reaction, even some consternation. "There will be no US troops on the ground in a combat role in Ukraine," said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby in Washington. The United Kingdom said it has "no plans to make a large-scale deployment" beyond the "small number of personnel in the country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine, including for medical training," said a spokesperson for Downing Street, where the idea is not completely off the table. Those attending the Paris conference on the war sought to distance themselves from the "option" discussed on Monday evening by Macron. First and foremost was German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. During a trip to Fribourg, Switzerland, the Social Democratic leader told reporters, "What was agreed from the beginning among ourselves and with each other also applies to the future, namely that there will be no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European states or NATO states." Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, who also attended the Elysee conference on Monday evening, told Finnish public broadcaster Yle that "there was a general consensus that there should be no military presence. This was also Finland's position." 'This war has no military solution' The four leaders of the Visegrad Group (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) met in Prague on Tuesday and were quick to lay into each other over their differences related to the war in Ukraine. But they were unanimous on the subject of Macron's remarks. Not one of the four countries has plans to deploy troops to Ukraine, they said. "I think that we should not speculate today whether there will be circumstances that could change this position," said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. "This war has no military solution," said Hungary's Viktor Orban, who has refused to send arms to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia's invasion. Slovakia's Robert Fico, equally hostile to any military support of Ukraine, reiterated his rejection of sending soldiers as a matter of "principle." You have 69.77% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. The flags of the countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission in Abuja, February 24, 2024. KOLA SULAIMON / AFP After several years of arm wrestling with the military coup leaders in power in Mali, Guinea and Niger, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has decided to change its strategy. Meeting at an extraordinary summit in Abuja, Nigeria, on Sunday, February 25, it decided to lift most of the sanctions imposed against Bamako, Conakry and Niamey following the overthrow of elected presidents by the military between 2020 and 2023. The primary aim of these political, economic and trade restrictions was to force the military to organize elections within a reasonable timeframe. So far, to no avail. "We must re-examine our current approach to the quest for constitutional order in four of our member states," said Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who is currently the ECOWAS president. His speech included Burkina Faso, also led by a military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, but for which sanctions remain in place for the time being. With regard to Niger, ECOWAS decided to "lift with immediate effect" the closure of land and air borders, to end the suspension of all economic transactions between ECOWAS countries and Niamey, and to lift the freeze on assets held by the Nigerien state with commercial and central banks. It was a gesture of appeasement made without any corresponding trade-off. Although ECOWAS had previously made the release of deposed Nigerien president Mohamed Bazoum and his wife held captive by the junta in the presidential palace for seven months a precondition, these West African states have now disregarded this requirement. ECOWAS Commission President Omar Touray said some targeted sanctions and political sanctions remained place for Niger, without giving details 'None of the ECOWAS demands have been met' At the same time, the West African heads of state announced the end of financial and economic sanctions imposed on Guinea, namely the ban on financial transactions between Conakry and the body's member states. ECOWAS's latest offer to West African military regimes was the lifting of "restrictions imposed on recruitment of its citizens to professional posts within ECOWAS institutions." Most of the economic and territorial sanctions decreed in an attempt to bring Colonel Assimi Goita to heel were dropped in July 2022 in exchange for the military regime's publication of a transition timetable. This timetable was not respected by Colonel Goita. In September 2023, the Malian president announced a "slight" postponement of the presidential election scheduled for February 2024, but no new date was set. You have 52.85% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. Thirty-one people have died, and ten others have been injured, some seriously, when a bus fell off a bridge on Tuesday, February 27, in southeastern Mali, announced the Malian Ministry of Transport. The vehicle was en route to Burkina Faso. "A bus... that was leaving Kenieba commune for Burkina Faso tipped off a bridge. The likely cause is the driver losing control of the vehicle," a statement from the ministry said. The accident occurred around 5 PM local time on National Highway No. 7, specifically on the Niena-Koumantou section, according to the ministry. The vehicle veered off the road while on the bridge crossing the Bagoe River. Victim assistance is underway. Frequent road accidents "Drivers and road users [are urged] to exercise vigilance and caution by adopting responsible and citizen behavior," the ministry emphasizes. Another accident killed 15 people and injured 46 eight days ago after a collision between a bus and a truck in the central part of the country. Road accidents are common in Mali, where many roads are in poor condition. NOTICE TO CREDITORS Case number 2024-PR-9 in the matter of the estate of Douglas Floyd Henderson, Sr., deceased. Notice is hereby given that on the 26th day of February, 2024, Letters Testamentary in respect of the estate of Douglas Floyd Henderson, Sr., who died on December 23, 2023, were issued to the undersigned by the Chancery Court of Lewis County, Tennessee. All persons, resident and non-resident, having claims, matured or unmatured, against the estate are required to file the same with the clerk of the above-named court on or before the earlier of the dates prescribed in (1) or (2), otherwise their claims will be forever barred. (1) (A) Four (4) months from the date of the first publication of this notice if the creditor received an actual copy of this Notice to Creditors at least sixty (60) days before the date that is four (4) months from the date of the first publication; or (B) Sixty (60) days from the date the creditor received an actual copy of the Notice to Creditors if the creditor received the copy of the notice less than sixty (60) days prior to the date that is four (4) months from the date of the first publication as described in (1)(A); or (2) Twelve (12) months from the decedents date of death. All persons indebted to the above estate must come forward and make proper settlement with the undersigned at once. Date: February 26, 2024 Douglas F. Henderson, Jr., Executor Kaitlin O. Bates, Lewis County Clerk & Master Attorney for the Estate: Jad A. Duncan, Esq. 161 Belle Forest Circle Nashville, TN 37221 615-297-1062 11/2tp The long-vacant property at the northeast corner of the intersection of Colorado Highway 119 and Colorado Highway 52 was sold Dec. 7, 2023, to QuikTrip Corporation, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for $3.6M. The property has been owned by St. Julien Partners Gunbarrel, LLC, which moved truckloads of fill dirt onto the site after purchasing it from IBM in 1999. Aside from several complaints of musk thistle growing on the property from time to time, there has been little activity since then. The 4.81-acre property was annexed by the City of Boulder through a flagpole annexation process when the IBM plant was annexed to the city many years ago. All planning processes for the property will be conducted by the City of Boulder. Planners indicated that no building plans had been submitted as of mid-February. Aisha Jefferson, Corporate Communications Manager for QuikTrip said, "We're in the early, early stages of the planning process. We've been working with the City of Boulder. We are excited to bring the QuikTrip experience to Boulder." Jefferson said that the company plans to build a "C" store, or convenience store, on the site. "The store will be similar to Firestone's," Jefferson said. In addition to a gas station, the store will have a kitchen producing "fresh to order food, sandwiches, rolls, donuts and pastries. It will be spacious and bright." QuikTrip Corporation operates over 1,000 convenience stores and gas stations, primarily in the Midwestern, Southern, and Western United States. The company currently has 10 Colorado locations including Thornton, Firestone, Denver, Mead and Bennett. THE COUNTDOWN of the Mid-West Bridal Exhibition is now well and truly underway, with less than a week to go for the showstopper event! The fabulous 2024 exhibition will take place on Sunday, March 3 at the new venue of Thomond Park, home to Munster rugby in the heart of Limerick city. The accessible and magnificent venue that is Thomond Park will host the annual exhibition, run by the Holman Lee Agency and will be hosted by none other than famous Limerick stylist, Celia Holman Lee. Celia said: The Mid-West Bridal Exhibition is one of the biggest and long running events of this nature in the country. As part of the event this year, I will be hosting two fashion shows on the day modelled by our agency models, she said. The best bridal wear, groomswear, mother of the bride and groom and bridesmaids clothes will be showcased by participating boutiques along with hair and makeup advice - it promises to be a magical experience! added Celia. What promises to be a day filled with fashion, treats and spot prizes, the exhibition will consist of two fashion shows during the day to showcase wedding looks for brides, grooms, bridesmaids, guests and of course, mother of the bride/groom. READ MORE: Rose of Tralee encourages people to apply for 2024 festival As well as this, everything you could possibly need for your big day will be under one roof - from cakes to hotels, beauty to transport, photographers to flowers - all businesses cater specifically for your matrimonious day! Whether it is an Irish wedding or abroad, the two fashion shows on the day will suit all guests - or, even if you have no wedding to attend on the horizon, why not come for a look to experience the style and grandeur of the day? All ages welcome and tickets will be available on the door on the day. Celebrating his victory in the recent South Carolina primary, former President Donald Trump declared, "I have never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now." It was an indisputable victory for Trump, particularly given that it was in the home state of his last remaining rival for the nomination, Nikki Haley, a twice-elected, popular former South Carolina governor. Trump beat Haley by about 20 percentage points, and she doesn't look likely to do much better than that going forward. Barring some shocking development, it's a foregone conclusion that Trump will be the nominee. But the GOP is not unified, never mind like never before. It's as divided as it was in 1992. That was the year that Pat Buchanan challenged President George H.W. Bush for the nomination. Buchanan got just under 38% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, and it was widely regarded at the time -- and ever since -- as a devastating rebuke and a sign that the GOP was in deep disarray. Buchanan stayed in the race until the end despite failing to win a single primary, much as Haley is threatening to do now. The challenger contributed to Bush's subsequent defeat in the general election, and his candidacy established a lasting Buchananite faction in the party. Now, Trump isn't an incumbent, but countless observers (including me) have made the point that he's running as a quasi-incumbent. Indeed, last week, Haley referred to him as a "de facto incumbent." Trump has 100% name identification, and the party's infrastructure has largely acted as if he were still its leader. More important, Trump falsely claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and many Republican voters believe him. This lie is often denounced for lofty reasons having to do with democracy and fitness for office -- rightly so. I think Trump disqualified himself from political office with the conduct that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. But its practical effects on the GOP are often overlooked. Much of right-wing media and many elected GOP officials, including most of Trump's primary opponents, refused to acknowledge that he lost. This prevented the party from turning the page on Trump or having a healthy debate over whether to move on from Trumpism. Normally, when a party loses, its opposing faction gets a shot. That couldn't happen in this case. As a result, Trump operates as an incumbent -- a very weak incumbent. But while the internal party reckoning that comes with a loss can be delayed, it can't be denied. Over time, the opposition girds for its turn in power. Indeed, when Trump was elected in 2016, many -- including Buchanan himself -- hailed his victory as a long-postponed vindication for Buchananism. But 2024 and 1992 are different. Buchanan's campaign was about issues -- immigration, trade and foreign policy. Today, with the partial exception of support for Ukraine -- opposition to which is largely a proxy for supporting Trump and his Russophilia -- Republicans aren't badly divided over any issue other than Trump. In the old days, Republicans who were moderate on abortion, defense or taxes were often dubbed "RINOs," Republicans in name only. Today, the term is reserved almost exclusively for Republicans who are insufficiently loyal to Trump. Texas Rep. Chip Roy, for instance, is easily one of the most consistently conservative Republicans in Congress. But his support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' campaign was enough for Trump to dub Roy a RINO and call for a primary challenge to him. Trump has vacillated on abortion, fidelity to the Constitution and other former conservative litmus tests without paying a price among self-described conservatives. Moreover, the need to paper over his myriad character defects invites a kind of pathological defense of the man in full that has erased the "character issue" entirely. Indeed, it's fair to say that many voters who describe themselves as "very conservative" mean they're very supportive of Trump. Similarly, Haley enjoys strong support among self-described moderate Republicans. But on the issues that once defined the party, she's a conservative. Haley's determination to stay in the race probably won't lead to her being president. But if the GOP is ever going to have a traditional conservative as a standard-bearer again, it will be because she helped preserve a safe space for them within the party. CONCERNS have been raised regarding the rising level of anti-social behaviour in the Castletroy and Annacotty areas of Limerick following the assault of two teenage girls on the local greenway. Willie O'Dea TD and Annacotty-based Councillor Joe Pond expressed their concerns after two girls were reportedly badly beaten on the Castletroy greenway in an unprovoked attack. According to Mr ODea, two local seventeen-year-old girls were walking with three other friends on the greenway at around 5.50pm, on Saturday, February 24, when they were set upon by a gang of youths in an unprovoked attack. The girls were left badly injured after they were beaten and kicked in the head and face, said Mr ODea. "Residents in the area have contacted me to express their horror over what happened to these girls and have stated that the new greenway has become a no-go area, particularly in the evenings and nighttime, he added. The Limerick TD claims the attack underlines the need for a stronger garda presence on the ground in the Castletroy area. A new garda station has been sanctioned for Castletroy and I am pressing the Minister to get on with finding a suitable location in the area. I am aware that a garda station in itself won't prevent these types of crime, but more gardai based on the ground in the area will act as a significant deterrent, he added. READ MORE: Limerick construction firm enters liquidation owing over 5m Cllr Pond said the community have been left reeling after this latest incident and that the two victims were left black and blue after the incident. Unfortunately, the Castletroy Greenway, which is a wonderful amenity for the community, is no longer safe to use in the evenings, Cllr Pond added. A spokesperson for An Garda Siochana confirmed that they are investigating reports of an assault that occurred in Castletroy, County Limerick on Saturday, February 24. "Enquiries are ongoing at this time," the spokesperson added. LIMERICK postman Pat McNamara is to receive a Heroic Citizen Award from An Post. The local postal operative was on his usual delivery in the Raheen area last month, when he came to the rescue of an elderly homeowner, suffering a medical emergency. Now, the working leaders in the Limerick Delivery Service Unit (DSU) have nominated Pat for the top honour. We received the contact from the womans son-in-law, who could not have been more thankful for Pat's intervention, stressing that without it, she would not have survived, explained Damien Fox, working leader in Limerick DSU. While on his delivery in Raheen, Pat called to a house with post and while passing the window he could clearly see that elderly homeowner was struggling to breathe. He came to her assistance and sat her in a comfortable position on the chair and got her a glass of water. He could clearly see the situation was more serious than he thought and dialled 999 without alarming her, recalled Mr Fox of his colleagues heroic action. READ MORE: Irish World Academy at UL celebrates 30th anniversary The emergency operator asked Pat to stay on the phone until the ambulance arrived in case the situation worsened. Pat stayed with her until the medical assistance arrived and then continued on his duty. The emergency services told Pat that there would have been a very different outcome if he had not been there. In a phone call to the office the following Friday her son-in-law explained that only for Pats intervention and quick thinking she would not have made it and he was very thankful for all that Pat had done. PLANNING permission has been granted for a new bed and sofa superstore in the citys suburbs. Dreams and Sofatime is set to open in a unit at Parkway Retail Park in Dublin Road which up to last year was occupied by Carpetright. It comes after council planners cleared the way for a major redesign of the unit, which is located next to Currys PC World. Targeted Investment Opportunities Icav, which is responsible for projects across Ireland, has secured permission to add a second level to the unit to allow for additional trading floor space, as well as new signage and other site works needed to facilitate the development. Supporting documents presented to local planners revealed the proposed tenant is Hometime Retail Ltd. READ MORE: Irish World Academy at UL celebrates 30th anniversary This trades as Dreams and Sofatime, with its proposed new unit in the retail park co-branded in this manner. Sofatime is an Irish sofa brand which trades from seven sites across Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Down and Tyrone. Sofatime would be located on the mezzanine floor, while bed specialist Dreams is projected to take space on the units ground floor. When is the right time to incorporate your farm business? Farming through a Limited Company can be the right choice for profitable businesses, but you should only consider changing your farm structure if you have explored all other options, explains Eugene Higgins. For farmers with rising tax bills, forming a limited company to take advantage of the 12.5%. Corporation Tax rate can look attractive, but incorporation should only be considered if you have explored all other options to reduce your tax bill within your present structure. Deciding to incorporate An advantage of the Limited Company structure is that profits can be retained within the business to facilitate expansion. Debts can be reduced, and a reserve built up to tide a company over poorer periods. If you are currently paying the top Income Tax rate, then incorporations pros and cons should be considered. Do you plan to expand your business? Are your projected personal and non-farm expenses lower than your farms profits, and are they likely to remain lower in future? Are any changes in farm management or ownership planned? How you answer these questions will help decide if incorporation is right for you. Some matters to discuss with your accountant include: Are you hitting the high tax rate on a large portion of income? What are your depreciation/capital allowances? Has income averaging been availed of? Are you paying family wages that will decline in the years ahead? What are your living expenses? Do you have further education costs? Have you thought about Succession? Are you paying into a pension to save tax rather than as part of a proper retirement savings plan? savings plan? Are you strapped for cash with loan repayments, tax repayments, and living expenses? Does the farm need further investment that you are unable to fund? Depending on how you answer these questions, particularly if you are paying a higher income tax rate and have taken advantage of all the available reliefs, farming through a Limited Company could benefit you and your business. Before deciding to change your business structure, it is advisable to seek accounting and legal advice from professionals with expertise in the farming sector, as incorporation will have lasting consequences for you and your business. Reach out to Eugene in our Limerick office for an initial chat on (061) 337 833. Follow us on our socials: Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn Website Phone: 061 337833 OpenAI moved to dismiss a lawsuit from The New York Times Co., alleging the company had paid someone to hack OpenAIs products to support its suit. The Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for alleged copyright infringement. The newspaper has claimed that OpenAI used its content to create artificial intelligence tools and that these tools divert traffic from the Times website. The maker of ChatGPT struck back in a court filing, arguing for the dismissal of parts of the case on various grounds. OpenAI said in the filing that certain allegations were more than three years old and the company didnt have actual knowledge of the specific acts of alleged infringements. OpenAI argued generally that ChatGPT is not a substitute for a New York Times subscription, and that people dont use its products this way. Ian Crosby, the lead counsel for the New York Times and a partner at law firm Susman Godfrey, said that it was notable that OpenAI doesnt dispute the claim that it copied the Timess works. Crosby said the plaintiffs disagree with the assertion that it is too late to bring a claim of infringement. In the filing, OpenAI also disputed part of the Timess complaint, alleging that the Times had paid someone to hack OpenAIs products." The allegations in the Timess complaint do not meet its famously rigorous journalistic standards," OpenAI said. OpenAI said that in order to generate responses from the AI tool that exactly matched Times content, the Times made tens of thousands of attempts" and had to feed ChatGPT portions of articles. Crosby said that the alleged hacking" is just the company using OpenAIs tools to look for evidence of stealing and reproducing copyrighted material. Write to Ben Glickman at ben.glickman@wsj.com Sam Bankman-Frieds attorneys suggested a sentence of five to six years in prison, sharply lower than the roughly 100 years that he faces for stealing billions of dollars from FTX customers. Lawyers for Bankman-Fried argued for 63 to 78 months in jail, citing medical conditions, including autism, and his intentions to better the world with his now-fallen crypto exchange FTX. A New York jury found Bankman-Fried guilty on all seven counts he faced last year. Prosecutors called the case one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history. Bankman-Frieds sentencing is scheduled for March 28. In a nearly hundred-page sentencing memo filed late Tuesday, Bankman-Frieds lawyers painted a picture of someone who devoted his life to philanthropy and living modestlya picture at odds with prosecutors depictions of Bankman-Frieds lavish penthouse lifestyle in the Bahamas. His lawyers said Bankman-Fried wasnt motivated by greed but by a desire to better the world through philanthropic giving. Material items and extravagance did nothing for him, they said. Those who know Sam are sensitive to the tragic fact that nothing in life brings him real happiness," his lawyers wrote. Sam suffers from anhedonia, a severe condition characterized by a near-complete absence of enjoyment, motivation, and interest. He has been that way since childhood." A lengthy prison sentence would pose a risk to Bankman-Frieds safety, due to his autism spectrum disorder, his lawyers said. They wrote that people with the disorder may struggle with social cues and norms, and may be more likely to fail to respond in an expected way to other inmates and prison guards. crypt The social dynamics in prison and the scrutiny he is receiving is likely to result in him facing physical violence," his attorneys wrote. They also said that customers of FTX now expect to receive their money back in full from bankruptcy and argued that those customers had always been poised to recover those funds. The harm to customers, lenders, and investors is zero," Bankman-Frieds lawyers wrote. Write to Caitlin Ostroff at caitlin.ostroff@wsj.com Telecom companies received a major relief on Wednesday as the Supreme Court ruled against the demand of tax deducted at source (TDS) for selling prepaid SIM cards to the distributors at discounted rates. The two-judge bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice S.V.N. Bhatti passed the judgment in response to 40 appeals filed by telecom giants such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea regarding the applicability of TDS on discounts provided to prepaid distributors for the sale of SIM cards and recharge vouchers. "The appeals filed by the assessee cellular mobile service providers, challenging the judgments of the High Courts of Delhi and Calcutta are allowed and these judgments are set aside. The appeals filed by the Revenue challenging the judgments of High Courts of Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Bombay are dismissed in terms of the reportable judgment," the judgment noted. The matter revolved around whether telecom service providers are obligated to deduct TDS under section 194H of the Income Tax Act. The contention stemmed from the interpretation of the relationship between the assessee and distributors, with the income tax department asserting it as that of principal to agent, thus subjecting the payments to be classified as commission under section 194H. Telecom firms typically sell SIM card starter packs to distributors at prices below the market value. These packs are subsequently sold by distributors to retailers, and then to end customers. While the income tax department argued for a principal-agent relationship between telcos and distributors, the telcos argued for a principal-to-principal arrangement. Section 194H is a rule in the Income Tax Act, 1961, which deals with deducting tax from income earned as commission or brokerage. This section applies to anyone who has to make such payments to someone living in India. The main goal of Section 194H is to ensure that the government collects the right amount of taxes on commission and brokerage income. It makes it the responsibility of the payer to deduct the appropriate taxes from the payment and send it to the authorities. Its important for both the payer and the recipient to comply with this section to meet their tax obligations as outlined in the Income Tax Act. VODAFONE IDEA More Information Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! NEW DELHI : SpiceJet has settled its $29.9 million dispute with aircraft lessor Celestial Aviation Services, casting off a major hurdle as the struggling airline seeks to regain its footing. The debt-laden airline is embroiled in numerous legal disputes with creditors and aircraft leasing companies over pending payments. Last week, SpiceJet secured an additional 316 crore in funding that will enable it to pursue its expansion plans and settle its dues. The airline has so far raised 1,060 crore, or nearly $130 million, through its preferential issue. With this resolution, we can now focus on revamping our fleet and driving our business forward," Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director of SpiceJet, said in a statement on Wednesday. SpiceJet had informed the National Company Law Tribunal on 26 February that it had resolved its dispute with Celestial Aviation and only needed to conclude formalities. The airline had sought a weeks time to fully settle the matter. The representatives of both parties informed a bench of NCLT last week that settlement terms had been reached and requested an adjournment. The court graciously granted the adjournment. The matter is now scheduled to be formally withdrawn on March 1, 2024," SpiceJet said in the statement. Celestial Aviation had initiated insolvency proceedings against SpiceJet in August citing the airlines failure to pay $29.9 million for leasing nine aircraft. It was one of five leasing companies that had petitioned the NCLT for recovery of outstanding payments from SpiceJet. The tribunal has since rejected insolvency applications from Wilmington Trust SP Services (Dublin) and Willis Lease Finance Corp. Alterna Aircraft BV Ltd, an Ireland-based lessor, recently filed an insolvency claim against SpiceJet at the NCLT demanding the repayment of $11.1 million and 265,000 as mandated by British courts. Another aircraft lessor Aircastles petition is still pending with the NCLT. The company has rejected SpiceJets offer to settle the dispute through an allotment of shares. On 22 February, the Delhi High Court directed SpiceJet to clear $2 million of its liabilities to engine lessors EAM France 01 SAS and Sunbird France 02 SAS. Additionally, the Supreme Court has directed SpiceJet to settle $1.25 million with Credit Suisse by March 15, mandating chairman Singh to appear in the court a week after the payout. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! India's thermal coal imports are expected to fall for the first time this year since the COVID-19 pandemic due to increasing domestic output and record-high inventories, industry officials said on Tuesday. Out of eleven coal traders, Reuters spoke with at the Coaltrans India conference in the western state of Goa, eight expected shipments of the fuel to decrease this year, while the others foresaw flat imports or marginal growth. Surging production and supplies by the world's largest miner Coal India have pushed stockpiles at power plants to record highs of over 43 million metric tons, prompting it to sell more to non-power sector users such as sponge iron and aluminium smelters, which have traditionally imported the fuel. Pawan Kumar, head of coal sourcing at power producer SEIL Energy India, said he expects thermal coal imports to fall over 3% to 170 million tons, while Rodrigo Echeverri, head of research at Noble Resources, forecast a near-6% decline. India imported 176 million tons of thermal coal in 2023, driven mainly by power plants. "Domestic production has gone up and coal is easily available at floor prices," Rajat Handa, vice president of international trade at Agarwal Coal told Reuters. "This year, imports are not going to be higher than 160 million tons," he said, adding that many users who previously imported the fuel are switching to domestically mined coal. The projected decline in coal imports could squeeze key exporters Indonesia, South Africa and Australia, which account for about 90% of coal shipments to India, the world's second-biggest coal importer behind China. The lower outlook also comes as the global coal market appears headed towards oversupply for the first time since 2020, according to Noble Resources. Echeverri estimated that the coal markets would be oversupplied by 32 million tons in 2024 due to a warmer-than-usual winter, global economic slowdown, and tepid buying by Europe due to high gas inventories. Lower Indian appetite for imports could further pressure prices, even as miners grapple with a 70% plunge from record highs that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. "The market will need to be saved by China in 2024 (again)," Echeverri said in a presentation. A surprise uptick in Indian shipments and record imports by China helped balance the coal markets last year. The countries, which account for nearly half of global seaborne coal imports, had boosted buying despite record domestic output due to surging electricity use. Apart from utilities, cement plants - which seek better quality coal - along with steel and sponge iron plants, drove Indian coal imports in 2023, according to data from Indian trading and analytics firm I-Energy Natural Resources. While imports by Indian utilities could fall, growing cement and steel industries remain bright spots, traders and industry officials said. However, higher freight rates will also keep a lid on Indian imports, said K.C. Gandhi, joint president, of materials management at Shree Cement, adding he expected prices to fall further this year. "Red Sea disruptions and challenges at the Panama Canal, which are contributing to high freight rates, will offset the benefits of ample availability," Gandhi said. He said he expects cement sector imports to grow in line with the industry's expected growth of over 7%. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed. Starting from March 2, Special Representative of the Chinese Government on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui will visit Russia, the EU headquarters, Poland, Ukraine, Germany and France for the second round of shuttle diplomacy on seeking a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. CCTV: Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) started to dump the fourth batch of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean on February 28. The discharge is expected to last until March 17 and reach nearly 7,800 tonnes. Whats Chinas comment? Mao Ning: Despite international concern and opposition, Japan has dumped over 23,000 tonnes of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean, spreading the risk of contamination worldwide. This is against the international law and seriously irresponsible. China firmly opposes it and asks Japan to stop this wrongdoing. Recent incidents at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station where nuclear-contaminated water was splashed onto workers and leaked from the purification system spotlight TEPCOs management deficiency and inadequate government oversight. Japans claim that the discharge is safe and reliable is not convincing. The ocean discharge of the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water impacts the health of all humanity, the global marine environment and the international public interest. Japan needs to take seriously domestic and international concerns and handle the discharge properly with a responsible and constructive attitude. China urges Japan to provide full cooperation in setting up an independent international monitoring arrangement that remains effective in the long haul and has the substantive participation of Japans neighboring countries and other stakeholders, so as to avoid irrevocable consequences stemming from the ocean discharge. Global Times: You just announced that Special Representative Li Hui will carry out the second round of shuttle diplomacy on seeking a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. Could you explain the timing for the action? Whats Chinas expectation for Li Huis trip? Mao Ning: It has been two years since the full escalation of the Ukraine crisis began. As the conflict drags on, the most urgent priority now is to restore peace. The sooner peace talks begin, the less the damage that is done. In the past two years, China has never given up on promoting peace or slackened its efforts to facilitate talks. We had in-depth exchanges with countries including Russia and Ukraine, playing a constructive role in addressing the crisis. China also published its position paper on the political settlement of the crisis, and its special envoy traveled intensively to mediate among different parties. China has not sat idly by or added fuel to the flame, still less profiteered from the conflict. Behind all this, there is only one goal that China hopes to achieve, that is, to build consensus for ending the conflict and pave the way for peace talks. China will continue to play its role, carry out shuttle diplomacy, pool consensus and contribute Chinas wisdom for the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. AFP: The world reacted to French President Emmanuel Macrons statement this week that the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine is not ruled out. The White House spokesperson said yesterday that the US will not send troops to Ukraine. Whats the Foreign Ministrys comment on Macrons statement? Mao Ning: Chinas position on the Ukraine crisis is consistent and clear. We call on all sides to build consensus and accumulate conditions for deescalation and ceasefire. China will continue to play a constructive role for the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. AFP: Its reported that the Filipino President said today that the presence of Chinas Navy and China Coast Guard vessels at Huangyan Dao is worrisome. Whats your comment? Mao Ning: Chinas position on the South China Sea is consistent and clear. We express grave concern over the Philippines recent activities in the South China Sea that infringe on Chinas sovereignty and will continue to take necessary measures to firmly safeguard our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and keep the South China Sea peaceful and stable. New data has exposed the glaring gender pay gap prevalent in some of Australias top corporations, including Commonwealth Bank, national carrier Qantas, and oil and gas explorer Woodside. The gender pay gap at these companies surpasses the national average of 19%. This revelation comes after the government mandated firms with over 100 employees to disclose the pay of male and female staff, in accordance with legislation passed in March 2023. Despite years of discourse from governments and corporations about narrowing the gender pay gap, the report underscores the significant disparity in earnings between men and women at major Australian employers. According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), the median total remuneration gap for 2022/23 stands at 19% in favor of men. The difference in median base pay is 14.5%, while in average total pay, it reaches 21.7%. Alarmingly, only one-third of companies fall within the target range of a median gender pay gap between -5% and +5%. Minister for Women Katy Gallagher emphasized the urgent need for change, expressing concern over the prevalence of gender pay gaps in two-thirds of businesses. She stressed the importance of driving organizational change to ensure women receive fair opportunities and to gradually close the gender pay gap over time. Australias leading banks and energy firms, including Commonwealth Bank, AGL, and Woodside Energy, exhibit some of the widest gender pay disparities. For instance, Commonwealth Bank reported a median total remuneration gender pay gap of 29.9%, while AGL and Woodside Energy registered gaps of 33.2% and 30.2%, respectively. On the contrary, supermarket operator Woolworths, one of the countrys largest employers, boasts a narrower gap of just 5.7%. Holding Redlich has achieved an impressive gender pay gap of only 2.1%. The firm stands among the top 30% of Australian employers whose median gender pay gap falls within the target range of -5% to +5%. This is in stark contrast to the 62% of employers where the median gender pay gaps favour men by over 5%. Unsurprisingly 61% of Aussie women could quit Over half (61%) of Australian women would consider leaving their job if they find out that their organisation has a gender pay gap regardless of how big the gap is according to new research by HR tech unicorn HiBob. Surprisingly, 36% of men also express a willingness to leave, signalling a growing sense of solidarity and shared concern regarding pay disparities in the workplace. The finding comes just days before the Australian governments Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) is due to start publishing the gender pay gaps of private-sector organisations with more than 100 employees on the 27th February 2024. The publication of gender pay gaps looks to be the final straw for many women in the workplace, with fewer women (36%) compared to men (55%) saying that organisations are doing enough to close the gap. A third of women (31%) go as far as to say that their organisation will never prioritise closing the pay gap. As for what would encourage women to consider a new job at a new company, pay has rocketed to the top of the list of reasons, with 78% saying theyd consider a new job for more money (up from 36% last year). Pay is then followed by a strong and healthy company culture (43%), then flexible work models (42%), and a clearer path to promotion (36%). These are the findings from HiBobs third annual Women in the Workplace report, which surveys around a thousand men and a thousand women in Australia to uncover the many issues women face in the workplace. The research assesses pay, job progression, leadership, job security and more, at a time when the country faces economic uncertainty. Nirit Peled-Muntz, chief people officer at HiBob, said: Pay is the foundation of the relationship between employees and employers and if theres a gap between genders, nothing damages that relationship more. I dont believe organisations deliberately set out to pay one gender more than another, but we do have a problem in Australia, and its something organisations need to prioritise fixing. Because not only is pay equality fair, it helps improve profitability. Research by McKinsey says that companies with the highest levels of gender and ethnic diversity are 15% and 35% more likely, respectively, to have financial returns above their industrys average. As for potential ways organisations could solve the gender pay gap, more than four in five (83%) women say that organisations should conduct annual pay equality audits, and a further four in five (84%) say that organisations should conduct performance and promotion audits annually to ensure theyre being done fairly. 84% of women also say organisations should promote and support diversity in leadership, and 79% say organisations should make diversity a core business value and foster an inclusive culture. Peled-Muntz continues: Fixing the gender pay gap is the big people challenge of our time, but an organisation cant fix it if it doesnt have the right employee remuneration data easily to hand. Getting that information is key to understanding why a gender pay gap exists within an organisation so you can take steps to rectify it. The research also finds that pay is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the challenges facing Australian women in the workplace. 40% of women believe that men are promoted more often or quicker than women within their company, (compared with 18% of men who think this), indicating a huge disconnect in perceptions between genders. One in four women (26%) say that a colleague has made them feel uncomfortable or less qualified in the workplace based on their gender. Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. New Delhi: The taxman will defer to secured creditors such as banks while sharing the proceeds of a bankruptcy rescue, two people aware of the governments plans said. The Centre will amend the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) to unambiguously state that tax authorities will be below secured creditors having a charge on the assets of a corporate borrower in hierarchy while distributing the proceeds, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity. This is a key proposal in the amendments to the IBC that the ministry of corporate affairs has prepared in consultation with the sectors rule maker Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI). The amendments will be presented in the Parliament after the national polls in the April-May period, one of the two persons quoted above said. Emails sent to the ministry of corporate affairs and IBBI on Monday seeking comments for the story remained unanswered at the time of publishing. The idea is to amend the definition of secured creditors in the IBC to specifically exclude dues to government including tax dues. The proposals are under inter-ministerial consultation," said the person. The IBC says workmens dues and secured debtors must be paid first in a bankruptcy rescue, followed by wages of other employees, unsecured debtors and government dues, in that order. However, conflicting judicial pronouncements have sowed confusion in the minds of stakeholders. In the Gujarat state tax officer vs Rainbow Papers Ltd case, the Supreme Court ruled in September 2022 that lenders cannot secure their dues at the expense of statutory dues owed to government or a government authority, effectively upsetting the hierarchy of creditors in the bankruptcy code. In another case last July, the apex court said the way the code distinctly treats dues to secured creditors and the government shows Parliaments intention to treat the latter separately. Law makers intention to treat government dues separate from that of secured creditors is also evident from the preamble to IBC that speaks about balancing the interests of all the stakeholders by altering the order of priority of payment of government dues," said the second person quoted above. Introduced in 2016, the IBC had brought down the priority of sovereign debt below that of secured creditors. It was a conscious decision," said the first person. The original intention of the law will be made specific. But let us say, if a government entity is creating security interest using an instrument just like a bank, that would of course be treated at par with secured creditors," said the person. Treating government dues lower in the hierarchy was aimed at encouraging investments into distressed assets and to maximize the chances of reviving a company in financial trouble. Giving state dues higher priority could reduce the resources available for turning around a business and save jobs. The Supreme Court recently rejected review petitions against the Rainbow Paper ruling and, as it stands today, the decision on the Rainbow Papers continues to be applicable in corporate insolvency resolution, explained Vishwas Panjiar, Partner at business advisory firm Nangia Andersen LLP. Given the prevalence and significance attached to the issue of appropriate classification of government dues and ultimately in the success of IBC process, a clarity in this regard is an urgent need of the hour. Therefore, in line with the object of IBC, the government should expressly clarify that all debts owed to central government and the state government shall be treated equally with other unsecured creditors unless in cases where specific security interest is created pursuant to a transaction," said Panjiar. Clarity will go a long way in minimizing disputes and streamline the resolution process," said Panjiar. Recognizing government as a secured creditor only on the basis of transaction as per definition of security interest, and not on the basis of statutory charge, will benefit the corporate rescue and liquidation process under IBC and would be in furtherance of the preamble of IBC, said Anoop Rawat, partner (insolvency and bankruptcy) at law firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. It is important to note that even in security enforcement legislation such as SARFAESI Act, crown debt is subordinated to secured debt," said Rawat. New Delhi/Mumbai: India plans to seek a four-year delay in the start date of the European Unions contentious carbon tax to provide more breathing space to its exporting industries, multiple people aware of the matter said. Under the EUs carbon control regime that kicks off in 2026, emissions should be reduced 2.5% in the first year and reduced every year after that, and eliminated by 2034. There are different targets set for every year and the current plan aims to reduce emissions by 48.5% by 2030. Collection of carbon emission data began in October. We will engage with the EU separately on the matter and seek an extension in the carbon tax timeline to ensure that Indian companies do not lose out on that business," said a government official, one of the two people cited above. India is keen on a full waiver of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and a relaxed deadline is its second option. The Indian government wants this requirement (emission control) to be waived for India as the first option, but if this cant happen, then the second option is to defer the 2026 timeline to 2030. Indian companies need time since it will require a lot of investment and upgrades in the ecosystem," said a second person, a top executive at a steelmaker. The EUs carbon tax plan is in line with its aim to turn climate-neutral or net-zero by 2050. For this, companies from seven carbon-intensive sectorssteel, cement, fertilizer, aluminium, iron, electricity, and hydrogenwill have to share data about their carbon emissions with the EU. Companies will also need to submit compliance reports every quarter. Any neglect or misreporting may trigger stiff penalties, as the EU looks to address the problem of carbon leakage" through goods entering the EU. According to ICRA, Indian steel made up 30-40% of European steel imports in FY23, totalling 3.5-5 million tonnes (mt), up from 15-20% in FY21, when it stood at 2-3 mt. Indian manufacturers have opposed the carbon tax as it will make their products pricier and render them uncompetitive in European markets. The Indian government, which is negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) with the EU and the UK, has decided to keep carbon tax matter out of these discussions to conclude the trade deals fast. Meanwhile, the lack of progress in resolving the CBAM matter has cast a cloud over the future of Indian steel exports to the region. Analysts say that advancing the deadline would help steel makers, but hamper Indias carbon reduction plans. The carbon footprint of Indian mills significantly higher than many other competing suppliers to the EU. Therefore, unless the carbon footprint of Indian steel mills is brought at par with global standards, it can potentially lead to lower profits and a loss of market share in Europe for domestic producers," said Priyesh Ruparelia, vice-president and co-group head of corporate ratings at ICRA Ltd. While postponement, if any, would provide additional time to domestic steelmakers to invest in the aforesaid decarbonization measures and turn better preparedness to manage the additional tax burden, it would hamper Indias efforts in attaining its net zero target," he added. Industry data suggests that current carbon emission by the top five Indian steel makers stands at 2.5 mt of Co2 per million tonne of crude steel produced in blast furnaces, which is 9-10% higher than the global average. It also much worse than 1.65 mt of CO2 per of mt crude steel produced from electric arc furnaces. An ICRA analysis showed that with the modest pace of the proposed reduction between 2026 and 2029 under CBAM, taxes for EU exports by domestic primary steel producers are expected to be $60-70 per mt (about 12% of international HRC price currently), which would weigh on mill profits. Taxes are expected to swell to $100-165 per mt (18%-30% of current HRC prices) between 2030 and 2034, as EU moves closer to its net zero target. India has garnered support from many World Trade Organization (WTO) members, including the European Union, for its proposal to reduce the cost of cross-border remittances, according to a report by The Economic Times . Except the US, most WTO members have backed India's proposal. A cost reduction can not only increase the inflow of remittance to developing countries like India, but also create vantage for the country's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for global penetration, economists told Livemint , while speaking on its impact on the Indian economy. India submitted a draft Ministerial Declaration during the ongoing 13th WTO ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi. India emphasised the need to lower the costs associated with cross-border remittances. The declaration underscored the significant socioeconomic impact of remittances, especially for developing nations, noting that a staggering 78 per cent of total remittance flows in 2023 went to Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), according to the proposal reviewed by Livemint. We reaffirm our commitment to the UN SDG Goal 10.c to reduce to less than 3 per cent the transaction costs of remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 per cent by 2030 with a view to achieving the primary goal target, that is, 'reduce inequality within and among countries' which is aligned to the WTO's development agenda," the draft proposed. The draft highlighted the disparity between current global remittance costs (6.18 per cent) and the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of less than 3 per cent. It also showed the connection of cross-border payments with broader financial inclusion efforts. The majority of transfers are done by people from poor countries working in developed nations. The remittance cost is paid by these people working abroad to transfer their own money. The moment we have developed a countries-centric policy, benefits will shift," said Agneshwar Sen, EY India Tax and Economic Policy (International Trade) Associate Partner. Why India needs a remittance cost cut India received the highest amount of remittance inflows globally in 2023, reaching $125 billion, according to a World Bank report. This growth was driven by factors such as agreements with the UAE to promote the use of local currencies for trade and strong labour markets in high-income source countries like the US, the UK, and Singapore. Last year, the remittance that came in India was around $125 billion and the cost for the remittance was around $7 billion -$8 billion. Once the remittance cost is cut, money that comes into India will go up. When it is cheaper and quicker to transfer money, hawala transactions will decline, Sen opined. What is the remittance cost, and how is it calculated? When someone working overseas sends money to their homeland, they are charged a percentage of the amount they send. The cost is incurred by them. The cost of transferring money can vary depending on the amount sent and the method used for the transfer. For smaller remittances, typically under $200, fees can average around 10 per cent, with some reaching as high as 15-20 per cent, according to IMF data. Globally, remittances cost an average of 6.20 per cent of the amount sent. Who are the beneficiaries of the remittance cost cut? Lower remittance costs will benefit the global Indian diaspora and their families in India by ensuring that the majority of the hard-earned money goes into personal consumption rather than going to the intermediaries. It will also help the Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), as reduced foreign exchange costs will make export of goods and services more competitive, thereby increasing their margins, said Neeraj Ssinnha, Partner & Leader, Financial Services, BDO India. The macro impact from higher and more cost-effective remittances will be positive with marginal benefits to the domestic currency too," said VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Financial Services. Echoing Ssinnha, Upasna Bhardwaj, Chief Economist, Kotak Mahindra Bank said that for the Indian diaspora, the possible reduction to 3 per cent should reduce cost and provide further impetus to the remittance-related inflows." If the proposal to cut remittance costs is accepted at the WTO, it will largely benefit the NRI community transferring funds to and from India, overseas travellers as well as ODI investors, according to Riaz Thingna, Partner, Grant Thornton Bharat. How can developing countries like India can benefit from remittance cost cuts? A remittance cost cut will lead to a big boost for UPI transactions, which has been a game changer in India, and it will have a much greater footprint overseas. This is one more important step forward towards the governments Ease of Doing Business in India initiative. It will also help the Indian banking sector, which has been at the forefront of technology, to obtain a larger footprint in the global economy, said Thingna. The widespread backing of India's proposal highlights the global acknowledgement of the significance of affordable and efficient cross-border payment systems, said Sanjeev Agrawal, President of PHDCCI. The remittance cost reduction can translate into increased trade and business efficiency, fostering overall economic growth by minimising cross-border payment expenses, as per Pushpank Kaushik, CEO of Jassper Shipping. Cross-border payments and money transmission services, integral for remittances, serve as key touchpoints with the financial sector, facilitating broader access to financial services, promoting financial inclusion, and encouraging greater participation in financial services trade ultimately boosting the Indian economy." While proposals at the WTO may take time to arrive at a consensus and then move towards implementation, India should meanwhile make it easier for individuals and businesses to make or receive cross-border payments on foreign websites. Recent Reserve Bank of India regulations have introduced stringent compliance requirements for payment aggregators of cross-border transactions, which makes it difficult for Indian businesses to receive payments from abroad," Rahul Ahluwalia, Co-founder of Foundation for Economic Development opined. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! The Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) in Tamil Nadu announced the results of the National Means Cum Merit Scholarship Scheme Examination (NMMSSE) on Wednesday, February 28. Candidates who appeared in the examination can check the results on the official website dge.tn.gov.in by entering their login credentials. The candidates can access the Tamil Nadu NMMS Result 2024 by entering their roll number or application number in the login window. The Tamil Nadu NMMS Result 2024 comprises important details such as student name, marks obtained, rank, etc. Tamil Nadu NMMS Result 2024: How to check the scorecard Students who took the exam can check out the result in online mode. They can go through the step-by-step guide given below to view and download the scorecard: Go to the official website dge.tn.gov.in On the homepage, click on the Result tab Click on the NMMS Examination- Results Feb-2024" Submit the login credentials Tamil Nadu NMMS result 2024 will appear on the screen View and download the scorecard Keep a hardcopy for future reference The Tamil Nadu NMMS Exam 2024 was held on February 3, 2024. Only economically weaker students studying in Class 8 at government and government-aided schools in the state were eligible for the examination. Over 2,25,490 students appeared in the Tamil Nadu NMMS Exam this year. Selected candidates will get a scholarship of 12,000 annually to pursue their careers. It is important to note that candidates from scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST) and other backward class (OBC) categories are required to submit valid caste certificates during the application process. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! At a repair base in Ukraine, mechanics patched together Western artillery guns using parts scavenged from the battered carcasses of some 20 damaged howitzers scattered outside. The need to create such Frankenguns" comes after two years of war that have meant many of the weapons donated by the West are now destroyed, damaged or in need of new components. Ukraine is on the defensive after Russian forces recently took the eastern city of Avdiivka. The U.S. and its allies are increasingly concerned about Ukraines ability to sustain its stocks of Western weaponry on the battlefield. Maintaining weapons is crucial for Kyivs fight amid uncertainty over future U.S. military aid, and as Russia increases its arms production. The task isnt easy. Ukraine operates a variety of different Western weapons systems whose components arent always interchangeable, and engineers said they havent received a steady flow of parts from the West. Spares from the U.S. are provided via aid packages, meaning if new funding agreements arent reached, the flow of American parts could dry up. In response, Ukraine is making its own spares for Western equipment and cannibalizing other weapons to source vital components. To help, some foreign arms companies plan to start conducting repairs in Ukraine to reduce time-consuming travel. I am always worried about spares, but I have to find solutions," said Serhiy, chief engineer at the repair base, the location of which is secret. Here weapons come back alive," he said of the field of wrecked M777 artillery guns that the bases engineers call this howitzers graveyard. On a recent visit, engineers were putting back together an M777 howitzer that had been hit by a Russian exploding drone outside the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. The 35-foot-long gun arrived in boxes. Parts from eight different M777s, plucked mainly from the damaged guns outside, have been used to refurbish it. Around 20% of the resurrected guns parts had been made in Ukraine, including hoses, some gauges and the hydraulics that reduce recoil when artillery fires. Mechanics have to be careful because the M777s lightweight titanium frame means new additions can influence the positioning of the barrel. New parts are tested with chemicals for brittleness and then given a road test on the battlefield, engineers say. They said they hoped to return the howitzer to its original crew within two weeks of receiving it. A further 11 howitzers and other weapons, including Soviet-era artillery, were being fixed at the repair base. Some parts that cant be made locally are running out. Mechanics have only a few barrel temperature gauges left while stocks of supporting gear boxes, which help position the barrel, have run dry. Engineers said they didnt receive parts from the U.S. for several months in late 2023, though they have started to arrive again since the turn of the year. The need for spare parts is such that Ukrainian soldiers sometimes pay for them themselves, said Pavlo Narozhny at Reactive Post, a local nonprofit that helps supply equipment. Reactive has worked to source hard-to-find specialist oils, tires and a type of helmet used in a fleet of Italian-donated self-propelled artillery guns, Narozhny said. When equipment breaks down or is damaged near the front line, mechanics or soldiers in the field initially try to fix it there. If they cant, then engineers from front-line hubs are sent to make the repair or bring it back to their workshops. Mechanic Alex Tarasuk dons a bulletproof vest, helmet and assault rifle before heading out. That can be three times a day or once a week. More comprehensive repairs are undertaken further back at bases like the one fixing the M777, or the weapon is taken out of the country. As the war stretches on, one big problem is the barrels on artillery guns. With two years of shooting, they are getting worn out," said Mykhailo Zabara, 57, a mechanic at a repair hub near the front-line city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine. One Soviet-produced armored car at Zabaras workshop has had four barrel changes over the course of the war. Ukraine is firing artillery guns far more than their manufacturers intended. Serhiy, the chief engineer, said that a barrel should typically shoot 2,500 times before being replaced. Ukraine is firing its 5,000 times and more, he said. With such overuse, barrels typically lose their accuracy and range. Western officials are concerned about weapons maintenance in Ukraine. It is one thing to donate, it is another thing to keep things in the fight," said Doug Bush, the U.S. Armys assistant secretary for acquisitions, logistics and technology. Making sure that Ukraine has replacement parts to repair, that is going to be a huge focus area as they accumulate more and more American systems." The U.S. has said it aims to provide three months of spares for equipment sent to Ukraine. The Pentagon, though, doesnt have a plan for sustaining the Bradley, Stryker and Abrams armored vehicles it has provided to Ukraine, including training for Ukrainian mechanics, according to a report published this month by the Defense Department inspector general. Maintenance issues mean about half of the German Leopard 2 tanks sent to Ukraine by Berlin are currently out of action, according to Sebastian Schafer, a German lawmaker. Schafer said he was told on a recent visit to a facility that repairs the tanks that some of the vehicles had been off the battlefield for three months. One issue is the time it takes to get a damaged tank from the front line to the repair facility in Lithuania. To speed up repairs, some European arms makers are looking to move their repair hubs closer to the battlefield. Britains BAE Systems, which makes the M777, has said it is in talks to repair its weapons in Ukraine. Germanys Rheinmetall, which makes parts of the Leopard tank, has also said it plans to start repairing its vehicles in Ukraine. Another challenge Ukrainian mechanics face is the variety of different Western and Soviet-era weapons in use. There are currently 14 different artillery systems alone in Ukraines arsenal. It is a problem," said Zabara, at the repair hub outside Avdiivka. Zabara was working on vehicles from four different countries, including the U.S. Occasionally, he tries to take a part from one piece of western equipment and use it in another. Sometimes I take out a part and it fits, but sometimes they dont," he said. This do-it-yourself style of repair may not always be best for the equipment. Ukrainian repairs to German tanks have sometimes made matters worse, said Schafer, the German lawmaker. Components for weapons systems are typically designed and produced precisely to a particular weight and size, then tested multiple times by their manufacturers. As such, replacing them with uncertified components could lead to problems on the battlefield. Some Ukrainian engineers say that is a risk they have to take. On the front line, people dont have time to wait, so I dont have time to wait for spares," Serhiy said. Oksana Pyrozhok and Ievgeniia Sivorka contributed to this article. Write to Alistair MacDonald at Alistair.Macdonald@wsj.com Infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) Bharat Highways Infrastructure's 2,500 crore initial public offering (IPO) opened for subscription on February 28. The infra investment company's IPO, which will close on March 1, has a price band of 98 to 100 per share for the issue. The IPO is entirely a fresh issue of 25 crore shares. Investors can bid for a minimum of 150 shares and in multiples thereof. The minimum amount of investment required by retail investors is 15,000. The net proceeds are proposed to be utilised towards providing loans to the project SPVs, for repayment/ pre-payment, in part or in full, of their respective outstanding loans (including any accrued interest and prepayment penalty) and for general purposes. The allotment for the Bharat Highways InvIT is expected to be finalised on Monday, March 4, 2024, and it is likely to be listed on BSE and NSE on March 6. Bharat Highways InvIT is an infrastructure investment trust established to acquire, manage, and invest in a portfolio of infrastructure assets in India, and to carry on the activities of an infrastructure investment trust as permitted under the SEBI InvIT Regulations. The InvITs initial portfolio consists of seven road assets, all operating on a HAM basis, in the states of Punjab, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh, consisting of approximately 497.292 km of constructed and operational roads, as per the company's RHP report. Let's take a look at the 10 key risks, as per the DRHP, you should know before investing in it. 1) The InvIT lacks an established operating history, posing challenges in assessing future growth prospects. Registered with SEBI, it intends to acquire 100 percent equity shares in each Project SPV from GRIL. With no historical financial data, evaluating past performance is problematic, making it challenging for investors to gauge future performance. Various factors, such as fundraising difficulties, changes in taxation regulations, operational performance, and asset acquisition, can impact growth prospects. Failure to address these challenges may disrupt operations and adversely affect long-term business prospects. There's uncertainty regarding the ability of InvIT Assets to generate sufficient revenue for cash distributions to Unitholders. 2) The company's revenue from InvIT Assets relies entirely on consistent annuity payments from NHAI under hybrid annuity agreements. Any reduction or non-receipt of this annuity income could negatively impact our distributions. Projections indicate revenue from operations for Fiscals 2024, 2025, and 2026 from the seven InvIT Assets, totaling 678.3 crore, 620.2 crore, and 584.6 crore, respectively. However, it's important to note that these projections may not accurately reflect future financial conditions or operational results. Any adverse effects on revenue from InvIT Assets would consequently impact the business, cash flows, and revenue from operations of the InvIT. 3) Premature termination of any InvIT Assets could lead to non-payment, significantly impacting our financial health. NHAI holds the authority to terminate these agreements, posing a risk to the business, operational results, cash flows, and financial stability. Additionally, any delay or fault-related premature termination could damage our reputation and potentially lead to blacklisting or debarring from similar projects. 4) The company might face escalating costs, including O&M expenses, which cannot be offset by increasing annuity income under our Concession Agreements. These agreements have fixed terms and conditions throughout the concession period, with no room for negotiation. They typically mandate specific O&M standards and require it to adhere to maintenance protocols, incurring regular O&M costs. Additionally, operational disruptions or technology failures could adversely impact operations. Any significant rise in O&M costs beyond budget, coupled with failure to meet quality standards, may reduce profits and expose it to regulatory penalties, adversely affecting business, financial condition, cash flows, and operational results. 5) The company's operational effectiveness relies on third parties for certain activities related to InvIT Assets' operation and maintenance. Any delays, defaults, or subpar performance by these third parties could significantly and adversely impact operations. 6) The firm may encounter challenges in renewing or maintaining the necessary statutory and regulatory permits and approvals required for operating InvIT Assets, potentially impacting business, operational results, and financial health. Project SPVs must acquire and sustain various permits, approvals, licenses, registrations, and permissions from regulatory and governmental authorities. These encompass consents from state pollution control boards, approvals under labor laws, permissions for groundwater extraction, and licenses for using explosives during construction activities for both existing and potential future projects acquired by the InvIT. 7) Actual results may substantially differ from the projections outlined in the Offer Document due to inherent uncertainties and significant risks. The forward-looking statements, including revenue, profit, and cash flow projections for Fiscals 2024, 2025, and 2026, are subject to various factors, including business, economic, financial, regulatory, and competitive risks and uncertainties. The projections are based on best-estimate assumptions regarding future events and hypothetical scenarios, which may or may not materialise as expected. 8) Changes in governmental policies or relationships between the InvIT, Project SPVs, and government entities could negatively impact business, financial performance, cash flows, and operational results. Revenue for Project SPVs primarily comes from Concession Agreements with NHAI, necessitating positive relationships with NHAI, the Government of India, and state governments. 9) The InvIT, registered under the Indian Registration Act, 1908, may be dissolved under specific circumstances: (i) if deemed impractical to continue by the Trustee and Investment Manager, (ii) upon written recommendation and consent of Unitholders, (iii) upon delisting of Units, (iv) if directed by SEBI or due to illegality of activities. In case of dissolution, Unitholders may not recover their entire investment, depending on asset disposal terms. Default under financing agreements may trigger asset divestment or liquidation to repay lenders, but there's no assurance of full recovery. If default persists and lenders initiate proceedings, dissolution occurs immediately. Upon dissolution, Unitholders receive net assets after settling debts and liabilities, with no guarantee of full investment recovery. 10) Prior to the issue, there's no market for the Units, and listing them on the stock exchange may not create an active or liquid market. Listing doesn't ensure market development or sustainability, nor does it guarantee liquidity. Unit prices may be volatile, potentially making it challenging for investors to sell at or above the issue price. While the Units are intended to remain listed, continued listing isn't guaranteed, and meeting listing requirements may be uncertain. Assessing the InvIT's performance against domestic benchmarks may be difficult. View Full Image Bharat Highways InvIT IPO details. BSE More Information Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Power consumption in India has experienced robust growth, fueled by a resurgence in economic activities, particularly driven by strong industrial demand. Following the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic activities bounced back strongly, leading to strong usage of power. Additionally, the cold wave led to heightened use of heating appliances like heaters, blowers, and geysers and the low rainfall due to El Nino conditions forced increased use of pumps for irrigation, further driving up the power demand. Also Read Govt to rope in PSUs for solar rooftop initiative; households can get rent According to the latest government data, power consumption in the country has risen to 1354.97 billion units (BU) during the April-January period of this fiscal year, marking a 7.5% increase from 1259.49 BU recorded during the same period in fiscal year 202223. The significant increase in power demand has prompted the government to revise its projections for electricity consumption. Also Read: Best renewable energy stock: KP Energy vs Inox Wind Last year, peak demand soared to 243 gigawatts, exceeding initial projections of 229 gigawatts by the power ministry. In response, India unveiled plans in December to add nearly 88 gigawatts of new thermal power capacity by early 2032, with coal-fired plants accounting for the majority. This represents about two-thirds more capacity than previously planned. 11 stocks soar up to 110% The strong surge in power consumption has driven the stock prices of companies within the power sector, including power generators, distributors, and financing firms, to record highs. Furthermore, the expansion into renewable energy (RE) projects, the new-age business of green hydrogen, solar module manufacturing, and heightened capacity utilisation due to robust demand have contributed to the upward momentum in stock prices. Also Read: 4 best energy sector mutual funds to invest in 2024 Against this backdrop, 11 power stocks have posted gains ranging from 20% to 110% over the past three months. Leading the pack is Adani Green Energy, soaring by 110%. Other Adani group stocks like Adani Energy Solutions and Adani Power have surged by 54.2% and 41%, respectively. Meanwhile, PSU stocks such as NHPC, SJVN, Power Grid Corporation of India, NTPC, REC, and Bharat Heavy Electricals have also witnessed notable returns of 63.7%, 48%, 38.3%, 31.9%, 30%, and 49.8%, respectively. Additionally, Tata Power and JSW Energy have seen impressive gains of 45% and 22.5%, respectively. Renewable energy will play a key role In recent years, India has been making significant strides in transitioning from coal-based power to renewable energy sources. While coal still remains a major component of India's energy mix, the country has been actively expanding its renewable energy capacity to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and combat climate change. Also Read: Climate action: Our energy transition need not follow preset pathways According to credit rating agency firm ICRA, India's installed renewable energy (RE) capacity, excluding large hydroelectric plants, is estimated to increase to 170 GW by March 2025 from a level of 135 GW in December 2023. Currently, the country holds the 4th position globally for installed renewable energy capacity, including large hydro. It ranks fourth in both wind power capacity and solar power capacity. The government has also taken steps to increase nuclear power capacity to 22,480 MW by 20312032, a significant increase from the current capacity of 7480 MW. The government is in talks with at least five private firms, including Reliance Industries, Tata Power, Adani Power, and Vedanta, to invest around 44,000 crore each, news agency Reuters reported on February 20. Disclaimer: We advise investors to check with certified experts before making any investment decisions. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! The 429 crore initial public offering (IPO) of Exicom Tele-Systems was opened for subscription on Tuesday, February 27 and remains open till Thursday, February 29. The IPO received a stellar response as it was subscribed 10.02 times on the first day of issue after being fully subscribed within hours of opening, led by solid demand from retail investors. IPO Details The IPO comprises a fresh issue of equity shares totaling up to 329 crore and an Offer for Sale (OFS) component of up to 70.42 lakh equity shares by promoter NextWave Communications. Ahead of the issue opening, Exicom Tele-Systems has raised 178.05 crore from anchor investors. The company has also undertaken a pre-IPO placement of 52.59 lakh equity shares at an issue price of 135 per share, aggregating to 71 crore. Also Read: Exicom IPO Day 2: Check latest GMP, subscription status, more. Apply or not? The minimum amount of investment required by retail investors is 14,200. The company has reserved not less than 75% of the issue for qualified institutional buyers (QIB), not more than 10% for retail investors, and not more than 15% for non-institutional investors (NII). Company Overview Founded in 1994, Exicom Tele-Systems is an Indian-based provider of power management solutions. The company operates across two primary business segments: Critical Power Solutions Business: Under this vertical, Exicom designs, manufactures, and services DC Power Systems and Li-ion-based energy storage solutions. These offerings are aimed at providing comprehensive energy management solutions for telecommunication sites and enterprise environments both within India and internationally. Also Read: Sadhav IPO allotment to be out soon; here's how to check allotment status EV Charger Business: Exicom's EV Charger Solutions business focuses on providing smart charging systems equipped with innovative technology. These charging systems cater to residential, commercial, and public charging needs across India. Strong Market Presence The company is among the first entrants in the EV charger manufacturing segment in India, and as of March 31, 2023, it had a market share of 60% and 25% in the residential and public charging segments, respectively. Moreover, in its critical power business, the company boasts a significant 16% market share in the DC power systems market. It is also renowned for its Li-ion batteries tailored for telecommunications applications, holding a commendable market share of approximately 10% as of March 31, 2023, according to the company's RHP report. Also Read: Bharat Highways IPO opens today: Check GMP, review, key dates. Apply or not? As of September 30, 2023, the company has deployed over 61,000 EV chargers across 400 locations in India, by way of sale to OEMs, EV owners (primarily through such OEMs), CPOs for public charging stations, and fleet aggregators for captive charging stations. Clientele Overview The Charger Business caters to a diverse clientele, including major national CPOs like Reliance BP Mobility Limited (JioBP) and Fortum Charge & Drive India Private Limited. Additionally, fleet aggregators such as BluSmart Mobility and Lithium Urban Technologies, along with established automotive OEMs like Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, MG Motors Limited, and JBM Limited, are among its valued customers. Since the commencement of commercial sales in the financial year ending March 31, 2019, its EV Charger Business has served over 70 customers. This includes supplying EV chargers to 15 automotive OEMs, 32 national and regional CPOs, and four fleet aggregators, reflecting our commitment to serving a broad spectrum of clients in the electric vehicle ecosystem," its RHP showed. Objectives of the Issue The company proposes to utilise the funds raised from the fresh issue towards setting up production lines at the manufacturing facility in Telangana, investment in R&D as well as product development, and payment of debt to support working capital requirements and for general corporate purposes. Manufacturing Capability The company boasts vertically integrated operations, encompassing the entire product development process from concept creation to design, engineering, and prototype testing. Backed by two specialised R&D centers, it maintains extensive in-house manufacturing capabilities across three facilities in India. These facilities, located in Solan, Himachal Pradesh, and Gurugram, Haryana, boast an annual capacity of 12,000 DC power systems and 44,400 AC and DC EV chargers. In total, its manufacturing infrastructure spans 134,351.95 square feet. Key Risks The following are the key reasons listed by the company in its RHP report: The EV supply equipment business is correlated with and dependent upon the continuing rapid adoption of, and demand for electric vehicles. The potential profitability and growth are dependent upon the continued adoption of EVs by businesses, end-users, and fleet operators, support from regulatory programs and in each case, the use of the company's EV chargers, any of which may not occur at the levels they currently anticipate or at all. The company is dependent on the top five customers based on revenue contribution under the critical power solutions business, who contributed over 50% of their revenue from operations for the six months that ended September 30, 2023, and in each of the last three financial years. The customers include government entities and public sector undertakings. The loss of any of these customers or a reduction in purchases by any of them could adversely affect the business, results of operations, and financial condition. The company is dependent on global suppliers for the supply of raw materials and key inputs and may not be able to reduce its dependency on such imports. If critical components or raw materials become scarce or unavailable, then the company may incur delays in manufacturing and delivery of their products and in completing the development programs, which could damage their business. Peer Group The company's listed peers include Servotech Power Systems and HBL Power Systems, currently trading at prices of 81 and 488.95 per share, respectively. Also Read: Tata Electric Vehicle Unit eyes $1-2 billion IPO in FY25-26, says report Financials Overview The company primarily derives the majority of its revenue from the Critical Power Business, which accounted for 70% of the total revenue, while the remaining portion comes from the EV Charger Business. In FY23, the company recorded a total revenue of 7,079 crore, compared to 8,428 crore in FY22 and 5,129 crore in FY21. The profit after tax (PAT) for FY21 was reported at 127 crore, increasing to 304 crore in FY22 and 310 crore in FY23. For the first half of FY24, the company reported revenue and PAT of 4,550 crore and 275 crore, respectively, as per the company's RHP. Rise of Electric Vehicles in India The global shift towards electrification in transportation, fueled by energy transition initiatives and declining manufacturing costs, has propelled the electric vehicle industry forward. In recent years, technological advancements and supportive government policies have accelerated the evolution of the global EV sector. India's EV industry stands out as one of the fastest-growing markets worldwide, with remarkable growth despite the absence of FAME demand incentives, albeit from a lower starting point. Also Read: Ford may return to Indian market with focus on EVs: Report The EV passenger vehicle (PV) market in India surged at a remarkable CAGR of 127% from FY2019 to FY2023, witnessing sales of 47,512 electric cars in FY2023 alone. Projections indicate a continued growth trajectory, with an estimated CAGR of 5060% from FY2024 to FY2028, targeting an EV penetration of 912% by FY2028. Meanwhile, the electric bus market also experienced significant growth, boasting a CAGR of 128% from FY2019 to FY2023, with 2,006 electric buses sold by FY2023. Forecasts suggest further expansion, aiming for a penetration rate of 16%18% by FY2028, with an anticipated CAGR of 4050% by the same year, as per the company's RHP report. Disclaimer: The views and recommendations given in this article are those of individual analysts. These do not represent the views of Mint. We advise investors to check with certified experts before making any investment decisions. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Two sectors that have emerged as top wealth creators in the stock market over the last year are defence and railways. Defence stocks have seen a significant uptrend in recent years, bolstered by the government's push for indigenisation. Railway stocks, on the other hand, received a major lift from the 2023 Union Budget, which prioritized sectoral spending. Despite the substantial rise in these stocks, investors are keenly watching for opportunities. But which railway and defence stocks are poised to continue their growth trajectory in 2024 and beyond? So which railway and defence stocks could continue to shine in 2024 and beyond? Lets find out. Why defence stocks are rising India is among the top five nations globally in terms of defence spending, with its budget for fiscal year 2023-34 (FY24) standing at $74 billion, a substantial portion of the GDP. The government's emphasis on domestic manufacturing of defence equipment creates a conducive environment for growth in defence stocks. The modernisation of the Indian military fuels demand for defence products and services, opening growth avenues for various defence companies. However, investors should tread cautiously, as the defence sector's performance is as much influenced by economic and market conditions as by government policies. You need to look out for fundamentally strong defence companies to make the most of this opportunity. Picking the wrong stocks can result in major losses. For those looking to invest in defence stocks, Equitymaster's co-head of research, Tanushree Banerjee, highlights three critical factors: Ratio of sales to orderbook: Execution is key to the potential of defence companies' wealth creating ability. Hence while bulging order books are great, you must keep a watch on whether the order book is converting to sales as planned. Ratio of receivables to sales: Defence behemoths were never a part of StockSelect recommendations until 2018. The reason? The stocks never met my safety criteria due to the massive backlog in payment receipts from the government. The receivables to sales ratios were always high. Without comfort on cashflows I didn't find them investment worthy. Defence behemoths like Bharat Electronics and Hindustan Aeronautics had a massive fall in their receivable days since 2018. And this is when the stocks came in my radar. But going forward too it would be important to evaluate the stocks based on this critical criterion. Asset turnover ratio: When you look for defence stocks, you need not go only for companies with the biggest capex plans or the largest order book. Rather you should look at businesses that have the fastest conversion of assets to sales. Why railway stocks are rising Following the last Union Budget, the railway sector became a significant focus area, with a record allocation of 2.4 trillion aimed at laying 100,000 km of new track over the next 20-25 years. This marked a turning point for the sector, previously hindered by regulatory ambiguities. The stock market took note, especially after the introduction of a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for train component makers. This, along with the green mobility scheme and several rail projects, underscores the government's commitment to enhancing India's railway infrastructure. As the sector gears up for substantial growth, selecting the right stocks is crucial. Equitymaster's Rahul Shah says: If India must grow at 8-9% on a consistent basis, we need to invest in all kinds of infrastructure, including rail. And if rail infrastructure is given a massive push, sector companies will be among the prime beneficiaries. As per estimates, the country is well on its way to construct more national highways and rail lines in the decade between 2015-2025 than it has cumulatively done between 1950 and 2015. Huge capex announcements have already been made and more are in the offing. In fact, quarterly results for these stocks are already sending out feelers about the good times ahead. Now here are two defence stocks and two railway stocks for your watchlist: #1 Hindustan Aeronautics Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) manufactures and maintains aircraft and helicopters for the Indian Airforce, Indian Army, ISRO, Indian Navy, and Indian Coast Guard, among others. The Indian defence sector has surpassed 1 trillion in total value of defence production. The compnay was at the forefront, taking on as many orders as it could which resulted in a substantial rise in its revenue. Its order book hit $10 billion at the end of 2023. It has also set up a 2.1 bn integrated cryogenic engine manufacturing facility (ICMF) that would cater to the entire rocket engine production under one roof for ISRO. This will eventually result in higher profits for the company. HAL also completed a stock split in September 2023 where it issued shares in the ratio of 1:2. Since 2008, it has declared regular dividends. In fiscal year 2023, the company declared a final dividend of 55 per share, with a dividend payout ratio of 31.5%. The five-year average dividend payout ratio stands at 33.8%. #2 Solar Industries The company is a leading manufacturer of bulk explosives, packaged explosives and initiating systems, which find use in several industries, including mining, infrastructure, and construction. In 2010, it also ventured into defence and started manufacturing propellants for missiles and rockets, warheads and warhead explosives. Solar Industries is one of the largest players in the explosives industry with a 24% market share and also the first private player to manufacture explosives such as RDX, HMX, and TNT for the defence sector. The company has 34 manufacturing plants in India and six plants abroad, with a capacity to produce over 4.5 million (m) metric tonnes of explosives per annum. Solar Industries also manufactured six Pinaka Rockets, which the Indian Army has inducted. The company also ventured into manufacturing space launch vehicles by partnering with ISRO and Skyroot Aerospace. Solar Industries is developing an array of drones for ammunition delivery to bring a new capability to the Indian armed forces. It also successfully demonstrated its prototypes of weaponised hexacopter drones and loitering munitions and became the first Indian firm to do so. The company has high growth plans. It plans to establish three more manufacturing facilities in Australia, Thailand, and Indonesia to grow its international operations. Solar Industries is also heavily investing in capex to grow its defence portfolio and plans to invest around 7.5 billion in the financial year 2024. This, along with the Make in India initiative, provides revenue visibility for the company in the medium term. The company's revenue and net profit have grown at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 22.9% and 24%, respectively. This is primarily due to the growing share of defence in the revenue mix and internal manufacturing of key raw materials. The company's order book is strong at nearly 27 bn of which defence orders are over 10 bn. In October 2023 the company received its biggest-ever orders worth 18.53 bn from state-owned Coal India Ltd for the supply of bulk explosives. #3 IRFC Indian Railway Finance Corp (IRFC) is engaged in the business of borrowing funds from the financial markets to finance the acquisition/creation of assets which are then leased out to the Indian Railways or any entity under the ministry of railways. The company generates revenue from lease income. Its sole objective is to raise money from the debt capital markets to part-finance the plan outlay of Indian Railways. The funds are used for acquisition of new rolling stock assets to be leased to the Indian Railways to build railway infrastructure. With substantial investments from the Indian government directed towards the railway domain, the outlook for IRFC appears promising. The railway sector in India sets to flourish at an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.5% between 2022 and 2027. This growth trajectory is set to fuel IRFC's financial prospects, riding on the increasing demand for funding in this expanding sector. IRFC plans to diversify its financing portfolio in future. This evolution will encompass new dimensions of railway projects, notably dedicated freight corridors, high-speed rail initiatives, and the development of smart railways. On 28 July 2023, IRFC entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RITES. The objective is to establish a framework for collaborative efforts to enhance IRFC's involvement in extending financial support to Railway-associated projects. #4 RVNL Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL) is the construction arm of the Ministry of Railways for project implementation and transportation infrastructure development. It was incorporated in 2003 to meet the country's surging infrastructural requirements and to implement projects on a fast-track basis. It is a category-I Miniratna public sector undertaking (PSU) under the administrative control of the Indian Ministry of Railways. RVNL undertakes and executes project development, financing, and implementation of rail related infrastructure. Hence, the shift in the governments focus to improve Indian railways' condition improves growth opportunities for the company. The company has received a letter of agreement from the Ministry of Railways for the manufacturing and maintenance of Vande Bharat train sets, including the upgrade of the government manufacturing units and train-set depots. The agreement involved a quantity of 200 train sets, with a cost per set of 1,200 m. No wonder even any piece of news about development of Vande Bharat trains is having a material impact on RVNL share price. RVNL in consortium with Siemens India, emerged as the lowest bidder (L1) for Mumbai Metro line 2B of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). The project is estimated to cost around 3.8 bn. The same consortium has bagged two separate orders from Gujarat Metro Rail Corporation. The orders are for Surat Metro Phase 1 (over 40 km covering 38 stations and 2 depots) and Ahmedabad Metro Phase 2 (over 28 km covering 23 stations and 1 depot). RVNL has now started participating in tenders of other countries as well. The experience of around two decades in India of being one of the lead execution agencies for railway projects would help the company to evaluate, bid and execute projects in other countries. Happy investing. Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only. It is not a stock recommendation and should not be treated as such. This article is syndicated from Equitymaster.com Reliance Capital Limited (RCL) in an exchange filing on Wednesday announced that its existing equity shares are likely to be delisted from the stock exchanges as part of the approved resolution plan. The company in the exchange filing announced that the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in its 'approved resolution plan' for the firm is contemplating delisting of existing equity shares from the exchanges. In the exchange filing, under 'Proposed steps to be taken by the incoming investor/ acquirer for achieving the Minimum Public Shareholding', it said: Not applicable, since the Approved Resolution Plan contemplates delisting of existing equity shares." As per the NCLT order and SEBI (Delisting of Equity Shares) Regulations, 2021, the equity shares of RCL will be delisted from stock exchanges. The liquidation value for RCL's equity shareholders is determined to be NIL, meaning they won't receive any payment or offer. The entire existing share capital of RCL will be canceled and extinguished without compensation, as per the NCLT Approval Order. IIHL and/or the Implementing Entity, along with its nominees, will become the sole shareholders of RCL. The stock exchanges will initiate delisting procedures in compliance with the Approved Resolution Plan and relevant regulations, including the SEBI (Delisting of Equity Shares) Regulations, 2021. "The equity shares of RCL will stand delisted from the stock exchanges in accordance with the order of the NCLT read with SEBI (Delisting of Equity Shares) Regulations, 2021. The liquidation value of the equity shareholder of RCL is NIL and hence, equity shareholders will not be entitled to receive any payment and no offer will be made to any shareholder of RCL. The entire existing share capital of RCL is proposed to be cancelled and extinguished for NIL consideration by virtue of the NCLT Approval Order such that IIHL and/or the Implementing Entity, and its nominees, are the only shareholders of the Corporate Debtor. The stock exchanges shall take all necessary actions to delist the equity shares of RCL; in accordance with the Approved Resolution Plan read with applicable law, including, but not limited to the SEBI (Delisting of Equity Shares) Regulations, 2021, as amended and shall pass necessary orders/directions to this effect," instructed the filing. Meanwhile, the NCLT granted approval on Tuesday for the acquisition of Reliance Capital (RCL) by the Hinduja group firm IndusInd International Holdings Ltd (IIHL). The tribunal's two-member bench, consisting of Prabhat Kumar, member (technical), and Justice V.G. Bisht, gave their endorsement to the resolution plan submitted by IIHL. "As part of the Approved Resolution Plan, the entire existing share capital of RCL is proposed to be cancelled and extinguished for NIL consideration by virtue of the NCLT Approval Order such that IIHL and/or IIHL BFSI (India) Limited (the Implementing Entity") and its nominees are the only shareholders of the Corporate Debtor," the filing stated. The filing also noted that as of FY23, total assets of RCL were 12,142.14 crore. Following governance issues and payment defaults, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) took over the board of the Anil Ambani group's firm in November 2021. Subsequently, on December 2, 2021, the RBI filed a petition with the tribunal to initiate the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) for RCL. Nageswara Rao Y was appointed as the administrator, who then invited bids in February 2022 for taking over the company. After the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP), creditors filed claims exceeding 38,500 crore, with 26,087 crore being admitted. IndusInd International Holdings Ltd (IIHL) proposed a resolution plan offering 9,661 crore for Reliance Capital, supplemented by the company's cash balance of 500 crore, which would be directed to the lenders. Initially, four resolution plans were submitted, but all were rejected by the committee of creditors due to lower bid values. A challenge mechanism ensued, with IIHL and Torrent Investments participating. In June 2023, the Hinduja Group's bid of 9,661 crore in upfront cash was selected by the lenders. The stock was down 4.46 percent at 11.79 post the news. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Australian small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) manufacturers have witnessed a remarkable resurgence, with nine sectors reporting significant profitability gains, according to a recent report by inventory management software provider Unleashed. Despite a tumultuous year marked by fluctuating margins, Q4 marked a turning point, with Australian manufacturers recording an average profit of $2.22 for every dollar invested in inventory. For nine of the 13 sectors analysed, this quarter represented their most profitable period in two years. Steady sales in Q4 defied expectations, with 74% of surveyed manufacturers noting demand either met or exceeded projections. Jarrod Adam, Head of Product at Unleashed, attributed this positive trend to improving supply chain conditions throughout 2023. Mapping lead time performance against stock levels shows the degree to which profitability has been positively affected by shorter and more predictable lead times in 2023, Adam explained. The report revealed a significant improvement in lead times, dropping from an average of 31 days in Q1 to just 15 days by Q4. This reduction, coupled with decreased overstock levels, from an average of $276,000 in Q1 to $187,000 in Q4, contributed to enhanced profit margins. Adam noted, The drop in lead times has allowed Australian firms to better maximize returns. Lower lead times in Q4 appear to have given manufacturers the confidence to shed some of their Just in Case stock and shift towards more profitable Just in Time strategies. Despite the overall positive outlook, concerns about high costs of goods and services persist, with 64% of manufacturers identifying it as the top business challenge. However, Adam remains optimistic about the future, stating that Q4 2023 positioned Australian manufacturers well for the year ahead. The report, based on gross margin return on inventory investment (GMROI) data across 16 manufacturing categories, highlights the resilience and adaptability of Australian SME manufacturers. Beverage Sector Leads the Charge Unlike the woe-begotten Beverage industry over the ditch in New Zealand, Australian beverage manufacturers ended the year with a strong $2.93 return on each dollar invested in inventory in Q4 2023. This is a huge resurgence from the relatively low $1.75 in Q4 2022. A combination of lower lead times of 12 days (3 days below the Australian average of 15) and strong customer demand for local beverage products has led to a vast uptick in profitability. Despite the positive signs for the broader beverage industry, brewer Dereck Hales of Bad Shepherd, said a multitude of issues continue to pressure smaller operators. Construction Sector Faces Challenges Despite Progress While Australian manufacturing in general is seeing healthy profits, Australian Building and Construction is in a tough spot. The Building and Construction industry faced continued revenue difficulties resulting in the relatively low profit margin of $1.32 (GMROI) in Q4 2023, almost a whole dollar below the Australian average of $2.22. This is the lowest profit margin for the construction industry since mid-2021 and is a measure of the issues facing the sector. Adding insult to injury are bloated overstock levels within the sector, with businesses on average holding $216,548 more than they needed in Q4 2023 nearly $30,000 higher than the Australian average of $187,314. This is likely a reflection of a greater exposure to international supply chains in the construction industry, as well as a strongly held sense of risk around understocking, after the major supply chain issues seen during the pandemic. Despite remaining higher than average, Q4s overstock levels still amount to progress for the Building and Construction industry, which has more than halved its levels within the calendar year, from $433,042 in Q1 2023, down to $216,548 in Q4 2023. The difficulties facing the industry have proven too much for several high profile construction companies, which have gone into liquidation this year, as manufacturers feel the bite of price pressure on materials. Auto Manufacturing Gears Up for Recovery After dipping into the red with a negative profit margin of $0.91 per dollar spent in 2021, the automotive manufacturing sector is now cruising towards a recovery in Q4 2023. Current profitability levels sit at a healthy $2.09, and its best news is to be seen in the non- profit numbers, and other business metrics such as overstock levels and lead day performance point to improving sector health.Automotive Manufacturing made significant gains towards getting overstock levels under control, now sitting at $159,960 in Q4 2023. This is far below the average Australian overstock rate of Q4 2022 which sat at $241,636. And it marks the first time this industry has dropped below the Australian average. Its average lead time is also a trim 12 days, three days below the Australian average of 15. Business metrics data of overstock and lead time point to Aussie auto manufacturing being in a good position going into 2024. Food Producers Navigate Challenges Amidst Rising Costs While beverage producers were one of the standout performers of Q4 2023, their counterpart food producers have been less successful. Food producers had an average profit of $1.87 per dollar spent on inventory, more than $0.30 cents below the Australian average of $2.22. But the main concern is the upward trend in overstock levels for food producers, now at an average of $222,370, up from $135,970 in Q12022. This trend puts increased pressure on businesses to move stock, and can create difficult decisions for businesses already in a tough spot. In positive news for food producers lead times are down to an average of 14 days, below the Australian average. Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Mumbai: Fears of an asset bubble in small-cap stocks lashed over the market on Wednesday, dragging down benchmark indices and the broader markets, a day before the expiry of the February series of derivatives. Small-cap and midcap counters faced the brunt of the sell-off, on reports that a concerned market regulator had called for stress tests of mutual funds' small cap schemes, and stoppage of incremental flows into small-cap schemes by a leading fund house. The Nifty and Sensex fell a little over a percent each, breaching the psychological levels of 22000 and 73000 each to 21951.15 and 72304.88, as foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and retail investors sold a provisional 1879.23 crore and 200 crore respectively. However, the Nifty Midcap 150 and the Nifty Smallcap 250 fell more sharply by 1.8% and 1.89% each to 17749 and 14895.25, as panicky investors pulled out cash amid reports of regulatory concerns over too much money flowing into small-cap schemes. Though domestic institutions offset the FPI selling with provisional purchases of 1827.45 crore, FPI selling in the derivatives market dragged down the indices, market analysts said. A senior fund official confirmed that stress test results of its small-cap fund were shared with the regulator, which has been holding discussions with fund houses over the past three-four months on curbing excessive cash flows into small-cap schemes. Sebi's concerns pertain to funds' ability to cope with redemption pressures in small-cap stock counters with limited free float. Coinciding with this, news of Kotak Mutual Fund placing temporary limits on investor subscription for units in its small-cap fund raised fears that other fund houses could also follow suit on valuation concerns. Kotak MF has restricted lumpsum inflows into its smallcap fund to 2 lakh per PAN per month and systematic investment plan (SIP) flows to 25000 per PAN per month effective 4 March. Earlier, there were no such limits. "A few stocks in the small- and mid-cap segment have multiplied, and strong momentum is taking them beyond the fair value of businesses," Kotak MF wrote in a letter to its investors on 26 February, a copy of which Mint has seen. While Indias market capitalisation/GDP is hovering at a lifetime high of ~130%, small caps market capitalisation to overall market capitalisation has climbed to ~18.9%. Historically, the proportion has been ~10%," it said. "Retail investors ownership of the small- cap segment has also become sizeable, crossing even institutional ownership in many stocks. Institutional investors, like mutual funds, exercise broad controls and invest in a disciplined manner. However, momentum chasing by investors, coupled with limited free float available in the market, has created valuation distortions in a few cases. Such experience is further boosting investors confidence, over-shadowing the caution required," Kotak added. Last July, Tata Mutual Fund halted lumpsum investments in its small cap fund, while continuing SIP investments. Nippon India Life Asset Management also stopped lumpsum investments into its small-cap fund that month, raising concerns of overvaluation. "The small-cap universe is large enough to choose the right business at cheap valuation with a long term horizon," said Chandraprakash Padiyar, senior fund manager (equities), Tata Mutual Fund. "It's about picking the right stock as it is in the large-cap space, but I think why small-caps are more in news is because of the relative liquidity issue. What this means is if you sell a stock high, you might not get to enter later because of relatively lower free float." The biggest drags on the small-cap index were Suzlon Energy (down 13.77%), BSE 7.87%), HFCL (6.9%) , RBL Bank (5.7%) and NCC (5.7%) . Nifty Smallcap 250 now trades at a trailing price to earnings multiple of 28.04 times against the five-year median of 25.93 times. The Nifty losses were led by M&M, Wipro, IndusInd Bank, Maruti and Power Grid Corp, which fell between 2.7% and 4.4% ahead of the February futures and options contracts expiry on Thursday. "With markets ruling near record highs in the expiry week, volatility was to be expected," said Gaurang Shah, senior vice-president, Geojit Financial Services. Jayesh Bhanushali, lead, research, IIFL Securities said he expects Nifty to get support at 21800 initially and to test 21200 in the March series of derivatives before recovering to test new highs. The digital era we are now living in has given us convenience, access, reach, and information. It continues to evolve quickly and holds many promises and possibilities for us in the future. Amid all this, it is interesting to see how the investors have also evolved. From physical forms to digital platforms, we have come a long way. However, with increased ease, information, and access to investment platforms, the investor faces a dilemma even before an investment decision is made whether to invest directly or take the help of an expert. When it comes to investing in mutual funds, or for that matter any kind of investment, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Every investor is unique, with different financial needs and risk profiles; hence, they need to follow a tailored mutual fund investment strategy. Every investor comes with a different level of experience, knowledge, and biases for investments. Thus, standard solutions and templates may not be suitable for everyone. The first step, thus, would be to determine if you are indeed the best person to manage your investments. If you want to opt for DIY. or do-it-yourself, investing or investing directly without human assistance, ask yourself these questions: Do I have the requisite expertise, time, resources, knowledge, and understanding of investments? Can I act rationally and eliminate emotional biases from decision-making at all times, independent of market volatility? Will I be able to maintain discipline and commitment to the long-term investment journey in the absence of guidance? If your answer to any of these questions is no, then perhaps you do need the guidance of an experienced person like a mutual fund distributor (MFD). That said, lets look at some benefits of opting for the mutual fund distributor route and where a distributor can help in your investment journey. Risk profiling and asset allocation: All investors have a different risk appetite and risk tolerance. An MFD can ask the right questions to investors to determine a risk profile for investors. Based on this, a suitable asset allocation can be decided. DIY investors may miss out on this and opt for an asset allocation without proper risk profile understanding. Need-based investing: Most DIY investors invest without specific financial needs or objectives, and thus, there is a lack of direction. An MFD can help you quantify your financial needs and suggest suitable MF products, build a tailored portfolio and guide on the required investment amount. Behavioural biases: DIY investors are prone to be influenced by their behavioural biases and emotions while making investment decisions. This can be detrimental to the wealth-building journey. An MFD can help you avoid such biases and emotions while making investment decisions. An MFD would also handhold you during volatile markets, helping you avoid all the noise and giving you the confidence to continue with your plans. Research and knowledge: Investing in mutual funds requires adequate research and knowledge. There are around 45 fund houses in India and hundreds of schemes in different categories and sub-categories. One may not have the time and knowledge to do the research and make the right investment decisions. On the other hand, an MFDs primary job is to guide investors in selecting the right mutual fund schemes, considering investment objectives and risk profiles. Portfolio review and rebalancing: The investment process does not end with investments, and you need to ensure that your portfolio is on track to fulfil your financial needs. Regular tracking and periodic reviews followed by necessary corrective action in case of any deviation are required to be done, including any rebalancing of the asset allocation. MFDs can help investors set up a diligent and disciplined process of portfolio review and rebalancing. To summarise, the investment needs, expectations, and experience of every individual is unique. When you are beginning your investment journey, the right start must be made, and hand-holding may be required. However, we have seen that even many experienced and big investors continue to prefer associating with distributors, given the extent of impact they can create over the long term. Countless small decisions eventually pile up and make a considerable impact on your wealth with time. Controlling behavioural biases, emotional decisions, and such mistakes can be detrimental and set you back on this journey. The impact and contribution of MFDs can only be judged with time if you are associated with one. Misbah Baxamusa is the chief executive officer of NJ Wealth. Starting in 2016, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has consistently allocated each year to the observance of Financial Literacy Week (FLW) . The primary goal is to convey messages regarding financial education to the general public, fostering the empowerment of individuals to adopt responsible financial behaviour and make informed financial decisions. What is this years theme? The designated theme for the Financial Literacy Week scheduled from February 26 to March 01, 2024, is Initiate Wisely: Cultivate Financial Savvy". The theme centres on young adults and students, seeking to imbue prudent financial habits from an early age. It promotes the cultivation of a robust financial groundwork, fostering enhanced financial security and the attainment of future goals. The focus lies on saving and recognizing the efficacy of compounding in wealth generation. Modern-day investors highlight that even modest, regular savings can experience exponential growth over time, all thanks to compound interest. This proves crucial for achieving long-term financial objectives such as retirement and education. For students, it holds greater significance as it instructs them on topics such as bank accounts, secure transactions, budgeting, credit management, and navigating financial products tailored to their requirements. As online banking becomes increasingly prevalent, understanding cybersecurity risks and adopting secure digital financial practices is vital to safeguard personal financial information. The emphasis of the current year's theme aligns with broader objectives to foster a more financially literate and empowered population in India. RBIs efforts in promoting financial literacy The Annual Financial Literacy Week features specialized campaigns addressing key financial themes, aiming to raise awareness across various segments of society. Collaborating with banks, block-level centers were set up to provide financial counseling and guidance to local communities. Dedicated museums have been established to enlighten the public about the history and development of money and banking in India. The widely acclaimed RBI Kehta Hai" campaign is actively disseminating information about banking, finance, and consumer rights through various media channels. The RBI collaborates with institutions such as the NCERT to integrate financial literacy into school and university curriculums. Impact of initiatives undertaken by the RBI The proactive measures taken by the RBI have notably elevated financial awareness in India, resulting in Individuals are making more informed decisions regarding the management of their finances. Promoting a savings culture and advocating for long-term financial planning has led to an increase in savings. Empowered consumers are better equipped to exercise their rights and safeguard themselves against fraudulent activities. An increasing number of individuals are becoming part of the formal financial system, gaining access to banking, investment, and insurance products. Ceremonial details During the event, the Reserve Bank of India, Ahmedabad Regional Office (ARO), hosted the opening ceremony of the FLW at RBI, ARO. Shri Ashok Parikh, General Manager (Officer-In-Charge), inaugurated the Financial Literacy Week, unveiled the Messages, and revealed the financial literacy posters featuring the theme of FLW 2024. The event was attended by RBI Officials, NABARD, SLBC, UTLBC, and senior bankers from the state. In his address to the gathering, Shri Parikh encouraged all stakeholders to widely promote the messages of FL Week 2024. Banks have been instructed to share information and raise awareness among the public throughout the week on the mentioned theme. They are encouraged to display posters created by the RBI on their websites, ATMs, mobile applications, and digital display boards installed in their branches. Additionally, as a component of the FLW campaign in 2024, the RBI is delighted to introduce the Financial Literacy Ideathon. This initiative aims to gather inventive proposals from postgraduate students, focusing on imaginative approaches to promote financial literacy among young individuals. The goal is to empower them to adopt responsible financial behaviour and make well-informed financial choices. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! As small cap stocks have run up too much, thus entering the dangerous territory, mutual fund houses and market regulators have started to get circumspect. While some fund houses such as Kotak Mutual Fund have imposed restrictions on lump sum investment in their small cap fund; markets regulator Sebi at the same time has introduced stress tests for the fund houses to undertake amid growing concerns about valuations of small cap stocks. The Securities and Exchange Board of India has reportedly asked the mutual fund houses that operate smallcap funds with a large corpus to share data on their holdings in the total free float of smallcap stocks, reported Reuters. Notably, two other fund houses, in July last year, imposed restrictions on investing in their small cap schemes in lumpsum. One was Tata Mutual Fund House and the second Nippon Mutual Fund. Some small cap funds have given exceptional returns in the past one year, as high as 70 percent, thus garnering more inflows of retail investors. Liquidity concerns The regulator wants fund houses to undertake stress tests amid a surge in inflows into small cap schemes. Free Float refers to the quantum of freely available shares for trading on the stock market. Typically, shares held by public investors and those not under any lock-in are considered free float. Large mutual fund ownership in a low-free-float stock can create liquidity issues, especially during periods of market downturn. ALSO READ: Why should large caps be part of your investment portfolio? Experts answer Sebi wants to determine how much illiquidity there is in the market. If all the funds have holdings in a limited set of companies and there is no free float, then it could be an issue. This is an extension of the stress testing done by the regulator. They want to find out what percentage of the total free float is owned by fund houses," said a senior MF executive. Stress test Sebi Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch at an event last month said that the regulator was actively discussing stress tests of smallcap and midcap schemes with the MF industry. She also said that Sebi had reviewed reports from the first round of tests, but they left her wanting more data. The idea is to see how things will look if a market drawdown happens. They are interested in knowing about the free float owned by MFs and how many days it will take to liquidate the holdings if a major correction happens," said another executive. In the calendar year 2023, small cap and mid cap schemes accounted for 40 per cent of the total net inflows into active equity schemes, receiving 64,000 crore of total inflows of 1.6 trillion. In another sign that the regulator might be concerned about overheating in the smallcap space, Sebi had recently written to fund houses asking if they have placed any restrictions on the amount investors can put into their smallcap funds. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Inflows into systematic investment plans (SIPs) of mutual funds have jumped to 18,838 crore in Jan 2024, reflecting a jump of 36 percent in just one years time. A year prior to this, the corresponding figure for SIP inflow stood at 11,517 crore and two years before, inflows into SIPs stood at 8,023 crore. Consequently, total SIP assets under management (AUM) have touched 10.26 lakh crore, 43 percent in just nine months when it stood at 7.17 lakh crore, shows the AMFI data. At the same time, the number of new SIPs registered hit a milestone of 51,84,057 in January 2024. In fact, the number of SIP accounts was also the highest ever at 7,91,71,394 last month. ALSO READ: Mutual funds: Total SIP inflows in 2023 hit 1.83 lakh crore, up 23% over previous year It's a positive trend but in our view, we are just scratching the surface since the penetration of mutual funds in India is barely 5 percent only. Most investors have realised that equity is important for wealth creation and SIP is the right tool to invest," says G Pradeepkumar, CEO of Union Asset Management Company. Jan data SIP inflow ( crore) Increase (%) 2023-24 18,838 36% 2022-23 13,856 20% 2021-22 11,517 43% 2020-21 8,023 -- (Source: AMFI) Total AUM of SIP inflow has jumped to 10.26 lakh crore, whereas it stood at 7.17 lakh crore merely nine months ago. These are the key reasons for the spike: 1. Bull run: A large number of investors have invested during the bull run to make the most of the rally, particularly in equity schemes. 2. Investing discipline: Increasingly, investors have made handsome gains in the recent past, thus incentivising the habit of investing on a regular basis. Investors understand that mutual funds offer risk management better than direct equity. They also know that SIP provides the benefit of Rupee Cost Averaging," says Preeti Zende, a Sebi-registered investment advisor and founder of Apna Dhan Financial Services. 3. Exposure and awareness: A number of awareness activities are conducted on a regular basis to teach investors about the benefits of regular investing via SIPs. 4. Long term financial goals: Those who have long term financial goals have increasingly raised their exposure to equity and in mutual funds in general. This has led to continuous jumps in the SIP amounts. 5. Higher retail participation: It is interesting to note that most new mutual fund investors are retail investors. The latest AMFI data shows that equity-oriented schemes derive 88 percent of their assets from individual investors. Additionally, individual investors now hold a relatively higher share of mutual fund industry assets i.e., 60.1 percent in January 2024 as compared to 57.3 percent in Jan 2023. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! (Bloomberg) -- Theres a reason former US President Donald Trump offered to buy Greenland, and it wasnt to save the polar bears. As the autonomous territory inches toward its goal of full independence from Denmark, its hoping its many resources from minerals, to a burgeoning strategic significance will help draw it into the sphere of less traditional partners to its west. Its newly published blueprint for foreign, security and defense policy offers a glimpse into what that future may look like. Although Greenland brushed off the former US presidents overtures back in 2019, it makes clear that it reciprocates Americas interest: The new thing here is that we have hopes for much greater integration and cooperation with North America," said Kenneth Hoegh, Greenlands diplomatic representative in the US and Canada. The former Danish colony has long looked eastwards, with Copenhagen still overseeing competencies like foreign policy, defense, and security. But the document published last week in Inuit and Danish contains few references to future cooperation with Copenhagen. Instead, Greenland is hoping to forge closer links with North America through trade in critical minerals, and by having a bigger say in key defense relationships that have historically been governed by Denmark. We were not for sale," Hoegh said in a Bloomberg interview. But we are open for business." Greenlands global profile has been rising amid heightened concerns about Arctic security. With Sweden this month joining NATO, Russia is now isolated as the only Arctic nation outside the alliance. Polar marine traffic is rising as climate change creates longer shipping seasons, and Greenlands vast natural resources, including rare earth minerals, have attracted global interest from major powers including China and Russia. Space Base The Arctic territory, which has a population of just 57,000, has gradually been gaining greater autonomy in its affairs and last year got its own representative at NATO. Still, while its status as a Danish colony officially ended in 1953, it has been slow to step out from under its shadow. Now it wants to gain an equal seat at the table and finally reap the economic benefits of a longstanding US military presence. Denmarks 1951 defense treaty with the US led to the creation in Greenland of the Thule Air Base by the US military under the code name Blue Jay." Created in total secrecy, the base now known as the Pituffik Space Base has become a key pillar of NATO and North American defense, given its strategic location between the Arctic and North Atlantic. The new policy document underscores that the reciprocity of the relationship with Greenland is also critical to US defense, especially against threats from the Arctic. The territory will eventually develop a more detailed defense policy, it says, and debate whether to create a military or civilian national service and upgrade its defense capabilities. The Arctic Is Where NATO and Russia Are Flexing Military Muscle A brief section at the end of Greenlands policy document also talks about increasing trade and export ties to East Asia, particularly as a market for Greenlandic fish. But the emphasis is on its relationships with the US and Canada, especially in their Norths. Greenland says it hopes to build ties with these countries via trade in minerals that support the global green-energy transition, and wants to secure supply chains with dedicated shipping routes and direct flights. That will mean investing in new, larger airports something that has proved tricky in the past. There are major challenges in securing greater trade from Greenland to the US and Canada," said Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic MP in the Danish parliament for Inuit Ataqatigiit. Past efforts to improve transportation routes have failed because they havent been commercially driven, she said, and all sides would need to see benefits if new attempts are to succeed. But Greenlands foreign minister emphasized that current geopolitical tensions have increased the need for cooperation. The world has become increasingly fraught with uncertainty. This makes it all the more important to engage more with our allies," Vivian Motzfeldt said in an advanced copy of the English version of the document seen by Bloomberg. The US supports strengthening and expanding its partnership with Greenland, a State Department spokesman said, including in areas of trade and investment, mineral resources development, and science and research. Canada Border The second-largest Arctic nation after Russia, Canada has been trying to diversify its trade and security relationships though friendshoring," as relationships with China and India come unstuck and concerns mount in Ottawa about what a second Trump presidency could mean for its US ties. A spokesperson for the Canadian foreign affairs department did not respond to a request for comment. The Canada section of the Greenlandic document includes a laundry list of areas for potential economic cooperation, including trade, transport, tourism, fishing, research and construction, as well as the expectation that Inuit people in Greenland and Canada will soon be allowed to travel freely back and forth. It says Greenland will open a diplomatic representation in Ottawa in the next few years, like the one it already has in Washington, and urges Canada to follow the US by opening a consulate in Greenland. Canada and Greenland share more than just geographical proximity. The relations between their Indigenous populations go back thousands of years and today they face joint challenges related to Arctic economic development and climate change. Ottawa is a thousand kilometers closer to Nuuk than Copenhagen is, and a flight from the Greenlandic capital to Iqaluit, in Canadas Nunavut territory, would take only an hour if a route existed. Since 2022, Canada and Greenland have even shared an island, giving rise to one of Canadians favorite trivia questions: Besides the US, which country shares a land border with Canada? Canada and Denmark End Arctic Whiskey War With New Land Border The resolution two years ago of the Hans Island dispute which for half a century mainly involved pulling down each others flags and leaving Canadian whiskey or Danish schnapps behind to console the other side has set the stage for closer ties, according to the document. This is a way of preparing Greenland, in the best possible way, for greater and greater levels of autonomy which eventually could lead to independence," said Hoegh. --With assistance from Laura Dhillon Kane, Kati Pohjanpalo and Michael Ovaska. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! A farmer was reportedly stopped by a Bengaluru Metro official at the baggage checkpoint inside the Rajajinagar metro station on Monday and was not allowed to enter the platform even though he had a valid ticket. The videos of the incident have since gone viral, prompting a public outcry. The NHRC took cognisance of the matter on Wednesday and issued a notice to the authorities and asked for a detailed report within four weeks. The viral video of the incident shows a man, identified as Karthik C Airani, along with other passengers, confronting the metro officials stopping the farmer over his untidy" clothes. Airani questioned the existence of a dress code for metro commuters. Is metro transport open to only VIPs?, ask commuters He (the farmer) is not allowed inside citing that his clothes are dirty. His sack is also searched, there is nothing inside it that is prohibited from carrying in the metro. The sack has only clothes," the New India Express quoted Airani as saying. Just because he is dressed shabbily and other passengers will feel uncomfortable with this, he isnt allowed. Is metro transport open to only VIPs? I am dressed well. Will I be allowed to travel free of cost," questioned Airani in the viral video. Also Read | PM Modi launches projects in Maharashtra, takes dig at INDIA bloc He is from a village. He is a farmer. If the farmer is in possession of anything that is barred from being carried in the metro rail, then you are free to ban his entry. But restricting him without any such thing is blatant discrimination," he said. The farmer was later allowed to board the metro and authorities expressed regret over the incident. The incident sparked outrage on social media after the video went viral. In response, Bengaluru Metro issued a statement confirming the termination of the security official involved and reaffirmed the metro service's inclusivity. Fresh tension mounted in Manipur on Tuesday after more than 200 armed miscreants attacked the residence of the Additional Superintendent of Police Moirangthem Amit Singh in Imphal East district, said officials, adding that he was rescued following swift action by police and security forces. The officer has been admitted to a hospital where his condition is stated to be stable, PTI reported. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Manipur Police wrote, Armed miscreants numbering about 200 coming in vehicles stormed at the residence of the Additional Superintendent of Police, Shri Moirangthem Amit Singh, MPS, s/o Dr. M. Kulla Singh of Wangkhei Tokpam Leikai, under Porompat PS of Imphal East district." On getting information, additional security forces rushed to the spot. In the resulting police action, two individuals namely Rabinash Moirangthem, 24 yrs s/o M. Ranjan of Kwakeithel Akham Leikai and Kangujam Bhimsen, 20 yrs c/o K. Abosana of Khongman Bashikhong sustained injuries on their persons and were admitted to JNIMS Hospital, Porompat," it said. The Army along with four columns of the Assam Rifles were deployed in Imphal East after a senior police officer was abducted allegedly by cadres of the Arambai Tenggol, a Meitei organization, from his residence, they said. Giving details of the incident that took place around 7 pm on Tuesday, the officials said that a group of cadres owing allegiance to the Arambai Tenggol attacked the house of Kumar at Wangkhei in Imphal East. The reason for this indiscriminate firing was that the officer concerned had arrested six members of the group for their alleged involvement in vehicle theft, and a case has been registered in this regard, the officials said as quoted by PTI. Following the arrests, a group of Meira Paibis (Meitei women group) had protested and blocked roads demanding their release. In the Tuesday evening attack, armed cadres allegedly belonging to the Arambai Tenggol ransacked the house and damaged at least four vehicles with gunfire, they said. We tried to talk to the armed men after they entered, but all of a sudden they started firing at the vehicles and properties. So we had to rush inside and lock ourselves," said M Kulla, the police officer's father. The region has witnessed escalating violence since May 3, with over 180 casualties reported after a "Tribal Solidarity March" in the hill districts protested the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status. The Meiteis, constituting around 53 per cent of Manipur's population and residing predominantly in the Imphal Valley, contrast the tribals, including Nagas and Kukis, who make up 40 per cent and primarily inhabit the hill districts. (With PTI inputs) Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Days after Zerodha co-founder and CEO, Nithin Kamath, broke the news of having suffered a mild stroke, his post was flooded with messages of concern and medical advice from influencers. Reacting to one such medical advice, a director at Mumbais Tata Memorial Hospital urged Kamath to avoid medical advice from random influencers". Taking to the microblogging website X (formerly Twitter), Dr C S Pramesh replied to a social media influencer and entrepreneur who offered medical advice to Kamath, which many doctors also refuted. Retweeting the suggestions, Dr Pramesh wrote: A thread that demonstrates how life-threatening social media can be... Please dont follow random influencers who dont have true science to back them beyond Trust me bro". In another post, the hospital director said there is absolutely no science behind the influencers urging to get a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber. Zero true science to back this. Dont fall for influencers without a science background," the doctor said. Dr Pramesh also wrote that while the influencer may have good intentions, but ill-researched expert" advice can do more harm than good. While some may have malicious or mercenary intentions, I largely believe in the inherent goodness of the human race and generally give the benefit of doubt that folks are well-intentioned when they give advice. But ill-researched expert" advice can do more harm than good. Beware," he said. The influencer and entrepreneur, Shankar Sharma, in his post had asked Kamath to please immediately do these". In his comment, Sharma wrote: Nithin, Please immediately do these (believe me, medical science has nothing to offer beyond initial hospital care). 1. Get a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber and start 1 hour per day. 2. Buy Red Infrared therapy device, available on Amazon (take around 60 watts or more or ask Nikhil to message me, will send him one more powerful one. IR is critical in brain rehab. Safe, non-invasive. Plenty of research. 3. Immediately start on 5 grams of highest quality krill oil Omega 3 capsules + Brahmi. Again, plenty of research. Act fast. You have a window of a few weeks to completely rehabilitate yourself. Nikhil has my number and he can immediately send me a message." Senior cardiologist Dr Deepak Krishnamurthy of Bengaluru has also disregarded the influencers recommendations. There needs to be time to relax, unwind and sleep. For all that you need spare time," the doctor said while referring to Kamaths post. He rubbished the influencers advice and said, Neurology crying in a corner." Nithin Kamath on Monday disclosed that he suffered a mild stroke" six weeks ago. Around 6 weeks ago, I had a mild stroke out of the blue. Dad passing away, poor sleep, exhaustion, dehydration, and overworking out -- any of these could be possible reasons," he revealed in a post on X. While disclosing about his health, Kamath said he had noticed his face drooping and struggled with reading and writing. He expects full recovery in 3-6 months. Ive gone from having a big droop in the face and not being able to read or write to having a slight droop but being able to read and write more. From being absent-minded to more present-minded. So, 3 to 6 months for full recovery." Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated and dedicated to the nation multiple infrastructure projects worth more than 4900 crore in Yavatmal, Maharashtra. He also released benefits under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) and other schemes during the programme. The 16th instalment amount of over 21,000 crore under the PM-KISAN was released through direct benefits transfer to beneficiaries. "With this release, an amount of more than 3 lakh crore, has been transferred to more than 11 crore farmers families," a press release said. The Prime Minister also disburse second and third instalments of Namo Shetkari MahaSanman Nidhi, worth about 3,800 crore. The scheme provides an additional amount of 6000 per year to the beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana in Maharashtra. Besides, 825 crore of Revolving Fund was released for 5.5 lakh women Self Help Groups (SHGs) across Maharashtra. This amount is additional to the Revolving fund provided by the Government of India under National rural livelihood Mission (NRLM)," the release said. Among other tasks included the distribution of one crore Ayushman cards and launch of the Modi Awaas Gharkul Yojana for OBC (Other Backward Class) category beneficiaries. The rail projects launched in Maharashtra on Wednesday included Wardha-Kalamb broad gauge line (part of Wardha-Yavatmal-Nanded new broad gauge line project) and New Ashti - Amalner broad gauge line (part of Ahmednagar-Beed-Parli new broad gauge line project). Prime Minister was also expected to virtually flag off two train service during the programme. This included train services connecting Kalamb and Wardha; and train service connecting Amalner and New Ashti. This new train service will help improve rail connectivity and benefit students, traders and daily commuters of the region. PM Modi's dig at INDIA bloc Addressing the public in Yavatmal, PM Modi said, I bow down to the land of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. I also bow down to Baba Saheb Ambedkar... When, 10 years ago, I came to Yavatmal for 'Chai pe Charcha', you blessed us." "The people of India made NDA [National Democratic Alliance] cross 300 mark [in Lok Sabha polls]. In 2019 also, we crossed 350... Women from all sections have come here to bless us...," he said. Taking a dig at the Opposition's INDIA bloc, PM Modi said, Had the Congress been in power, of these 21,000 crore [released under the PM-KISAN on Wednesday], 18,000 crore would've have been looted in the process." "When there was the Congress government at the Center, one rupee was released from Delhi and 15 paise reached the destination," the Prime Minister said. He went on to hit out at the INDIA bloc and alleged that when the INDI alliance was in power at the center, "packages used to be announced for the farmers of Vidarbha from Delhi, but they were looted in the middle. Poor, farmers and the Adivasis did not get anything." "Today, I pressed one button, and Rs. 21,000 crores of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi reached the accounts of crores of farmers. This is Modi's guarantee...," he said. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Gold rings are seen at a shop in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran Pure gold ring price has been surging to new peaks and have exceeded global rates by a large margin due to a shortage of gold supply. Prices of 24K gold rings have been rising fast since October to around VND65 million ($2,640.66) per tael, up 14.4% in four months. Global rates, in comparison, have increased by 9.6% to around VND59 million per tael. Retail chains such as DOJI and PNJ have been selling only a limited supply of gold rings, and customers are often told new arrivals are expected in March. Mi Hong, a decades-old jewelry chain in HCMC, limited each customer to buying only one mace at a time. A mace is 3.75 grams or 0.12 ounces. The reason for the shortage of gold rings is a lack of supply in domestic gold while the government has banned businesses from importing gold for a decade. Nguyen Thanh Long, chairman of the Vietnam Gold Traders Association, said that jewelry businesses are having trouble identifying the origin of gold when they make purchases. As using imported gold to make jewelry is banned, "they are concerned of the legal risks when buying gold," he said. His association last year proposed that three leading jewelry companies, SJC, DOJI and PNJ be allowed to import 500 kilograms of gold each but were not approved. Long also said that pure gold rings have a lower profit margin than other products. 24K gold rings in Vietnam are often purchased as an investment asset and consumers prefer other type of gold rings to use as jewelry. 24K gold rings, therefore, are not prioritized by companies in their business strategy and therefore supply is low, he added. NEW DELHI : The ministry of corporate affairs will look into making changes to rules and regulations issued under the Companies Act and other laws, said a person informed about discussions in the government, in a post-election push on ease of business. The changes will be based on suggestions from the public and self-regulators of accountants and company secretaries, which arre expected by the middle of March. Regulators like the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) and the National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) will make the changes in regulations that are needed, the person said. The ministry has already set up groups of officials to look into specific aspects of the regulatory change and has requested the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) for suggestions, the person said. The review is based on an announcement that finance and corporate affairs minister Nirmala Sitharaman made in her FY24 budget a year ago. The move is broadly aimed at improving ease of doing business and corporate governance. All rules are being reviewed whether they are related to accounting, incorporation of companies and LLPs, liquidation, or striking off of defunct companies, the person said. Public consultation is on. The ministry has formed groups to look into some of the rules. Conferences are being held by Regional Directors and the Director General of Company Affairs who will receive comments from stakeholders. By 15 March, if suggestions come to the ministry, there will be time to discuss at official level and after the elections, it will be taken forward," said the person who spoke on condition of anonymity. While the review is mainly of rules and regulations, any changes that may be needed in the Companies Act can be taken up soon, as the ministry has already prepared a set of proposals for Companies Act amendments that are currently under inter-ministerial consultation. If any important proposal comes up, and it is urgent, then they can be included in the proposed amendment Bill, said the person. The consultation is essentially about rules and regulations. Most of the suggestions will come on rules, which we can address without having to go to Parliament. Regulations can be amended by the respective regulator. The Finance Minister had announced that it will be a comprehensive review," said the person. Experts expect the changes to make it easier to launching and wind up businesses and to lead to greater self-regulation backed by more openness in the affairs of companies. The Companies Act and LLP Act have been put up for comprehensive review and public comments. Aligning to the ministry's motto of ease of doing business in India, changes can be expected in provisions and requirements for incorporation and winding up of such entities," said Amit Maheshwari, Tax Partner at AKM Global, a tax and consulting firm. Also, changes can be expected in various disclosure requirements that will increase transparency in the affairs of corporations, resulting in self-regulation and better governance, said Maheshwari. The review covers rules and regulations not only under the Companies Act, but also under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, the Competition Act, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, the Chartered Accountants Act, the Cost and Works Accountants Act, and the Company Secretaries Act seven laws administered by the ministry of corporate affairs. Besides a review of the regulatory framework, the ministry has revamped its oversight of compliances into a fully automated and faceless regime. On 16 February, the ministry put into force centralized and faceless processing of a dozen filings by companies including alteration in capital, change in name, conversion from public limited company to private limited company and vice versa. More forms will be added to this list from April. Already registration of new companies has been made fully automated and a quick window for voluntary closure of companies has been offered. Registrars of companies are now expected to focus more on inquiries, inspection and investigation as routine approvals have been automated. Emails sent to the spokesperson for the corporate affairs ministry and to IBBI, NFRA, ICAI and ICSI on Monday remained unanswered at the time of publishing. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Congress has never clearly defined insider trading in stocks, but that hasnt stopped the Securities and Exchange Commission and prosecutors from finding the meaning in statutory penumbras. Chairman Gary Genslers SEC is at it again in a civil trial next month that will try to extend its reach to punish trading in the shares of another company about which the defendant had no insider information. Federal law doesnt explicitly ban trading on confidential information. But courts have said that insiders defraud companies by misappropriating" private information for personal gain. In a classic case, an insider trades in his companys stock based on proprietary information or tips off someone else who then trades and cashes in. While courts have circumscribed insider-trading liability, regulators keep inventing new theories. In 2021 the SEC charged Matthew Panuwat, an employee at the biopharmaceutical firm Medivation, with insider trading for a timely and lucrative options trade on another pharmaceutical companys stock. Having developed a highly effective prostate-cancer drug, Medivation was shopping itself to large drug companies in 2016. The SEC alleges that Mr. Panuwat started purchasing call options for a different company, Incyte, soon after Medivations CEO sent an internal email announcing an imminent deal to be acquired by Pfizer. While Incyte and Medivation didnt directly compete, the SEC alleges that their stock prices were correlated, and that Mr. Panuwat knew this. After news of Medivations acquisition broke, the share prices of Incyte and several mid-sized pharmaceutical companies popped. Mr. Panuwat sold his Incyte options for a roughly $107,000 profit. The SEC says Mr. Panuwat committed insider trading by allegedly using confidential Medivation information to bet on Incytes stock. Medivation had a company policy that forbade such trades, but violating a company policy isnt the same as violating a federal statute. In his defense, Mr. Panuwat says it was publicly known that Medivation was on the sale block, so information about its potential acquisition wasnt private. He also claims he bet on Incyte because he believed the company was undervalued by the market. Disagreement over facts aside, the major problem with the SEC case is that it writes new insider-trading law by enforcement with no limiting principle. An executive could be charged with investing in the shares of any stock in his industry group. Yet everyone knows stocks in the same industry often move up or down based on the news of a single firm. A Nvidia employee who knew his company had a strong earnings quarter and bought stock in tech companies, or even a tech-focused ETF, could be charged under this SEC theory. A 2021 academic study dubbed this practice shadow trading" and an undocumented and widespread mechanism that insiders use to avoid regulatory scrutiny." *** The SEC seems determined to prosecute Mr. Panuwat as a way to send a message across the market that such shadow trading is banned. But its an abuse of the law to punish someone after the fact for acts that he didnt know at the time to be illegal. In 2014 Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, lambasted the SECs penchant for defining insider trading however it wants (in denying a cert petition in Whitman v. U.S.). Only the legislature may define crimes and fix punishments. Congress cannot, through ambiguity, effectively leave that function to the courtsmuch less to the administrative bureaucracy," Justice Scalia wrote. When King James I tried to create new crimes by royal command, the judges responded that the King cannot create any offence by his prohibition or proclamation, which was not an offence before," Justice Scalia wrote. James I, however, did not have the benefit of Chevron deference." Mr. Gensler may not have Chevron for long either. The High Court in January heard a challenge to the court-made Chevron doctrine, which requires judges to defer to regulators statutory interpretation when the law itself is ambiguous. The SECs shadow insider-trading theory looks like another example of how regulators exploit vague laws to expand their power and undermine legal due process. If Congress wants to ban the practice, it can. But Mr. Gensler isnt King James I, even if he sometimes acts as if he is. Harry and Meghan are thinking about going back to the UK, even though they've had a tough time with the Royal Family before, OK! Magazine reported . However, before they decide to go back, they might first fix their relationship with the family as Harry wants to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games in London. This event is important to him and he hopes it could bring the family together. Even though Meghan once said she wouldn't go back to the UK, things might be changing, the publication added. I think Meghan knows that she hasnt been wanted in the past so why would it be any different this time around? The couple know they wont be able to repair things with the Prince and Princess of Wales just yet, but there is hope that the King will be able to bring the families closer together," a source told the publication. The source says there could be many calls and Zoom meetings" to sort things out before Meghan Markle agrees to return to England. If Harry and Meghan decide to take a trip to the UK, it could be one of the many such trips in the next few years as they are keen to rebuild relations with the Royal Family". Right time to come together It would be the start of Harry and Meghan making their way back into the family fold. Its a move thats being welcomed by both sides. Its not something that they are forcing upon the Royal Family," the source told the publication. Everyone has agreed that now is the right time to come together, bury the past and move forward positively. I think spending more time in the UK is the only way the couple will be able to do that," the source added. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! A jeweller, based out of both Mumbai and New Jersey , has been indicted for illegally evading customs duties for millions of dollars of jewellery imports into the US and operating unlicensed money transmitting businesses, a US attorney has said. Monishkumar Kirankumar Doshi Shah (39) was arrested over the weekend and appeared on February 26 before US Magistrate Judge Andre M Espinosa in the Newark federal court. Shah alias "Monish Doshi Shah" was released on a bond of USD 100,000, with home detention and location monitoring. He has been charged on a complaint with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of operating, aiding and abetting the operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business. From January 2015 through September 2023, Shah engaged in a scheme to evade duties for shipments of jewellery from Turkey and India to the US, according to documents. He would ship or instruct his conspirators to ship goods from Turkey or India, which would have been subject to an approximately 5.5 per cent duty if shipped directly to the US, to one of Shah's companies in South Korea, these stated. Federal prosecutors alleged that Shah's conspirators in South Korea would change the labels on the jewellery to state that they were from South Korea instead of Turkey or India, and then ship them to Shah or his customers in the US, thereby unlawfully evading the duty. He would also make and instruct his customers to make fake invoices and packing lists to make it look like Shah's South Korean companies were actually ordering jewellery from Turkey or India. During the scheme, Shah shipped millions of dollars of jewellery from South Korea to the US, prosecutors alleged. From July 2020 through November 2021, Shah operated numerous purported jewellery companies in New York City's Diamond District, including MKore LLC (MKore), MKore USA Inc. (MKore USA) and Vruman Corp (Vruman), it said. He used these entities to conduct millions of dollars in illegal financial transactions for customers, including converting cash to checks or wire transfers, the documents said. Shah would also collect cash from customers and use conspirators' jewellery companies, also located in the Diamond District, to convert the cash into wires or checks. The documents said that at times, Shah and his conspirators moved more than a million dollars of cash in a single day. In exchange for their services, Shah and his conspirators charged a fee. Prosecutors said that none of Shahs or his conspirators companies were registered as money transmitting businesses with New York, New Jersey, or the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Formally nominating his younger brother to head a coalition government, former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif said 'Shehbaz is the best choice for the prime ministership, especially in the current circumstances Pakistan is in, English daily Dawn reported. Nawaz officially nominated his younger brother Shehbaz Sharif and party loyalist Sardar Ayaz Sadiq for the posts of prime minister and speaker of the National Assembly. The parliamentary party endorsed Shehbazs name and also reposed its full confidence in the leadership of Nawaz," PML-N central deputy secretary Attaullah Tarar said in a statement. Lauded the performance of Shehbaz Sharif as the prime minister during the tenure of the Pakistan Democratic Movement, the former prime minister said The way he stopped the country from defaulting is unprecedented." Senior Sharif expressed hope that Pakistan would emerge out of the current crises in the next one or two years. Also Read | Sunil Bharti Mittal becomes first Indian to be knighted by King Charles III Pakistan is very injured at this time and we will have to fill its wounds," Nawaz said. We will have to take the country out of these difficulties and I believe that we will have to make difficult decisions in the next two years [] but if your intention is pure then God will surely help you. We have to give ease to the public, we have to fix the prices of electricity and gas, we have to make Pakistan stand on its feet and if you move forward with a well-thought agenda then this journey will become easy," Nawaz said. Shehbaz, 72, had led a coalition government for 16 months till August 2023 before the caretaker government took over following the announcement of general elections. Also Read | Alexei Navalny's funeral to be held on Friday in Moscow Outgoing National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has called the National Assembly session on Thursday after President Dr Arif Alvi, known for his closeness to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), refused to do so. The President is of the view that Parliament is not complete because the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is yet to clear the air over the allocation of reserved seats to the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), following the PTI-SIC merger for this very purpose. Khans PTI-backed independents have emerged as the largest number of winners followed by PML-N and PPP. However, Khan has alleged that the February 8 elections were the most controversial and rigged polls in the country's history. He has accused the PML-N-Paksitan Peoples Party post-poll alliance, which also has four other parties, as "mandate thieves" set to form the government in the Centre. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Classified military documents reportedly show that Russian forces have rehearsed using tactical nuclear weapons during "an early stage of conflict with a major world power" China. Financial Times claimed to have access to these "secret" military files through "Western sources". It reveals the criteria set by Russia for the use of nuclear weapons. These files "date back 10 years and more [between 2008 and 2014]". The report cited experts as saying this "cache of 29 secret Russian military files" remains relevant to current Russian military doctrine. What do the documents reveal? 1.Russia's suspicion on China The leaked Russian military files include training scenarios for an invasion by China, the Financial Times reported. The defensive plans expose deeply held suspicions of China among Moscows security elite, it added. Russia and China have deepened their partnership over the years. According to the report, Russian President Vladimir Putin had begun forging a cordial relationship with China, "which as early as 2001 included a nuclear no-first-strike agreement". Even as the two countries became closer, Russia's training materials revealed that the country's eastern military district was rehearsing multiple scenarios depicting a Chinese invasion. The exercises offer a rare insight into "how it trains forces to be able to carry out a nuclear first strike in some battlefield conditions". There was one exercise that outlined "a hypothetical attack by China". It noted that Russia could respond with a tactical nuclear strike in order to stop the South" from advancing with a second wave of invading forces, the Financial Times reported. It cited the document: "The order has been given by the commander-in-chief...to use nuclear weapons... in the event the enemy deploys second-echelon units and the South threatens to attack further in the direction of the main strike". ALSO READ: Russia outsmarts Western sanctionsand China is paying attention As per the report, Chinas foreign ministry denied there were any grounds for suspicion of Moscow. Meanwhile, the Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment. 2. Lower threshold for a nuclear strike The classified described a threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons that is lower than Russia has ever publicly admitted, the report cited experts as saying. These documents were reviewed and verified by these experts. Alexander Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, was quoted as saying that documents show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is "pretty low if the desired result cant be achieved through conventional means". As per the report, the documents revealed that the threshold as a combination of factors where losses suffered by Russian forces would irrevocably lead to their failure to stop major enemy aggression", a critical situation for the state security of Russia". 3. Other criteria for a nuclear strike The documents also included a separate training presentation for naval officers. It outlined broader criteria for a potential nuclear strike. This included "an enemy landing on Russian territory, the defeat of units responsible for securing border areas, or an imminent enemy attack using conventional weapons". Other potential conditions included the destruction of 20 percent of Russias strategic ballistic missile submarines, 30 percent of its nuclear-powered attack submarines, three or more cruisers, three airfields, or a simultaneous hit on main and reserve coastal command centres. The tactical nuclear weapons could also be used for "containing states from using aggression...or escalating military conflicts", stopping aggression", preventing Russian forces from losing battles or territory, and making Russias navy more effective". 4. Nuclear weapons' limited battlefield use Russias tactical nuclear weapons can be delivered by land or sea-launched missiles or aircraft. They are reportedly designed for limited battlefield use in Europe and Asia, as opposed to the larger strategic" weapons intended to target the US. Russia and the United States - the big power behind NATO - have the world's largest arsenals of nuclear weapons. President Joe Biden has cautioned that a conflict between Russia and NATO could trigger World War Three. Meanwhile, it is being speculated that Russia is planning to put a nuclear weapon in space. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! (Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump is battling to reverse a $937,989 fine levied against him by a federal judge in Florida last year for bringing frivolous" claims against Hillary Clinton yet another effort by the former president to fight a string of costly courtroom losses. Trump and his lawyer Alina Habba, who are jointly liable for the Florida fine, on Tuesday urged the federal appeals court in Atlanta to vacate a sanction they say was a clear error" made by a politically biased judge. Trump is the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election. US District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, imposed the penalty in January 2023 after concluding Trump was using the courts as a stage set for political theater and grievance" by bringing the suit. The judge said no reasonable lawyer would have filed it." Trump posted a bond of $1.03 million or 110% of the fine while appealing. Thats an arrangement hell soon have to replicate to challenge about $540 million he owes after losing a civil fraud suit brought by the New York attorney general and a defamation case in Manhattan by the writer E. Jean Carroll. Habba represented Trump in those cases, too. The fine imposed by Middlebrooks is small compared with the two New York cases. Trump lost the civil fraud trial Feb. 16, when a judge ordered him to pay $454 million. Accrued interest alone on that verdict is growing by $111,983 every day he doesnt pay. In challenging the Florida court penalty, Trump and Habba are doubling down on their claim that Clinton led a vast conspiracy against Trump by working with the FBI and others to advance false Russia-related claims against him while he was in office. Read More: Trump Defends His Clinton Suit Amid $1 Million Legal Fee Fight A panel of three judges in Atlanta will decide whether to reverse the fine or even revive the suit against Clinton, which Middlebrooks eviscerated in his ruling to dismiss the complaint. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start," the judge said when issuing the sanctions. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim." But Trump and Habba argue in their appeals court filing that Middlebrooks failed to give them due process to fight the fine before it was levied. They also argue the judge failed earlier in the case to recuse himself after Trump claimed Middlebrooks couldnt be fair. The sanctions fight could ultimately make its way to the US Supreme Court. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! Speaking at an event on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, I want to take the government out of the lives of people. Especially, I dont approve of government interference in the lives of the middle-class. What is the need of the government everyday and at every step? We should create such a society where government interference is minimal." For the poor, the Indian state would offer support to fulfil basic needs, but for the rest, he said he would end unnecessary intervention as part of his governance agenda over the next five years. In some ways, this is reminiscent of Rajiv Gandhis observation of welfare leakages, which squarely focused reformist minds on state inefficiency. Modis words focus attention on another aspect of our lived reality in India: the Big State. While Minimum government, maximum governance" is an oft-cited mantra and Ease of living has been a catch-phrase for the administration, his promise will resonate with anyone who has had sarkari encounters. A list of reforms to roll back the states presence in Indian lives could go on endlessly. The principal pain-points, though, are in evidence all around. Take taxation. As its rationale is valid, taxes are inescapable. But how it is levied makes a difference. Not only does it remain far too complex in India, its clear that the middle-class bears an outsized burden. In spite of a faceless regime to curb harassment by officials, taxpayers whose high value transactions are under watch routinely receive notices asking for explanations. And now there also exists a refundable but pointless levy on money sent overseas that varies by purpose and makes ones overall tax liability even harder to understand. Likewise, the compliance protocols for anyone trying to create a retirement fund can cause chronic exasperation. Frequent know-your-customer (KYC) updates are just one part of it. The Aadhaar system was meant to subsume other requirements, but a fixation with identity verification seems to have led to a proliferation of paperwork needed for asset ownership. Instead of a digital pivot easing lives, files get jammed between old and new systems. The online interfaces run by most sarkari authorities are so poorly designed that unsuspecting users trying to resolve a hitch often get stuck in an infinite loop. The Centre cannot be singled out for all this. In Delhi, for instance, it was the judiciary that had low-emission private cars pushed off the streets by means of an order against old vehicles; and its a municipal body that penalizes home-owners who have not been able to geo-tag their property, as demanded, with no help available from policy enforcers. The state must also commit itself to staying out of the private lives of people. Posts on the microblog platform X suffer excessive oversight, with suspension orders issued every now and then, even as New Delhis push against chat encryption jars with the right to privacy. Technology enables an invasive state, but thats no reason to have one, especially since a colonial law on sedition that survives in a new guise could be misused to stifle dissent, without which democracy can turn dysfunctional. Just as government actions must not abridge free speech (except if lives are clearly at stake), the state has no business prying into private affairs. Should Uttarakhands uniform civil code serve as a model for Union-level legislation, even live-up relationships will come under strict regulation. This would flout the basic ideal that Prime Minister Modi endorsed. Saregama shares have journeyed through the stock market much like a musical odyssey, lying dormant amid the relentless advent of new technologies such as CDs, DVDs, MP3 pen drives, and digital formats, only to find resurgence with its Carvaan product. Launched in 2017, the retro-designed portable digital music player tapped into the nostalgia of boomers and Gen X, celebrating icons from Rafi and Lata to Kumar Sanu and Sonu Nigam. Over 20 years, the stock multiplied 100 times, and for those considering shorter spans reflective of the Robinhood" world it has delivered more than 5 times returns in just five years as of 2023. What Pulsar did for Bajaj Auto, Saregama did for its namesake company breathing life into Indias oldest music label that has come to be known for its innovation and marketing. The company has grown its revenue from operations at 22% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) between fiscal year 2016-17 (FY17) and FY23, while profit before tax has risen 58% during the same period. The Carvaan brand itself has metamorphosed into a full-stack pre-loaded device catering to different price segments and genres like regional, devotional, Hindustani classical, Carnatic, even offering a model designed to play calming tracks to aid sleep. While doing this, the company has also spread its revenue model to capture advertising, transaction, and subscription revenue. Transforming into a formidable content powerhouse, Saregama boasts IP rights to over 150,000 songs, 70+ movies, and 6,000+ hours of TV series. A recent note by HDFC Securities said that the industrys shift towards the highly under-penetrated subscription model, particularly in the OTT-Audio segment, is what will provide additional levers for improved realization of Saregamas content. Earlier this month, in a conference call with analysts, the companys management revealed that it was going very heavy on converting all our older songs into Dolby Atmos or spatial audio". Over 2,500 songs have already been converted, it told analysts. Saregama has also transcended its catalogue company roots, with 48% of its licensing revenue now coming from 21st-century tracks. Saregama issues fixed fee licences to programme producers for use of its music, which they in turn license to streaming platforms. It also issues fixed-fee licences, of one to two years, to TV channels. This ability to monetize its vast music IP and targeted investment in new music using data analytics has, according to the brokerage, driven robust licensing growth for the company. Rising popularity of regional music has contributed to licensing revenue. The company is confident of doubling its music licensing revenue in three to three-and-a-half years. It aims to grow its films and video vertical at a 25% CAGR over 3-4 years, targeting a sustainable Ebit (earnings before interest and tax) margin of around 15% for the segment. Excluding Carvaan, the company is looking at a 25-26% CAGR in topline growth over the next three to five years. HDFC Securities sees a big boost to profits as and when the company moves to a subscription model. Currently, Saregama earns around 10 paisa per stream on an average across the free platforms, with a minimum guarantee feature. According to the brokerage, This realization can significantly increase as streaming platforms distribute ~50% of the subscription revenue across record labels, proportionate to number of streams (less the minimum guarantee)." The broking house has set a base case fair value for Saregama's stock at 447, with a bull case target of 477 in two to three quarters, marking more than 13% upside from the 27 February closing price of 420.20. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman urged industry to join in a big way" the national effort to push Indias growth trajectory higher. Speaking at an event on Tuesday, she said that global investments are flowing to India and called on India Inc to look for greater joint-venture partnerships around the world. You are here, you are watching the situation, watching the flow of investment capital," she said. The finance ministers motive was evident: To get the private capital expenditure cycle going amid an elusive revival despite significant stimulative efforts. Fiscal policy has been doing the heavy lifting to drive the economy forward in the hope that private capital would join hands, but these hopes are yet to be realized. Sure, signs have emerged of corporates starting to dust off their expansion plans, but its unclear if animal spirits" have begun to make a comeback. To be sure, when all else fails, nudges too can work as a tool of policy, and that is what the government seems to be hoping at the moment. Businesses, however, weigh their trade-offs quite finely. Unless they see demand rising more robustly and sustainably, they may be reluctant to expand capacity, which is far from exhausted in many fields. What may enthuse the private sector, perhaps, is another round of economic reforms. Sitharaman emphasized the governments commitment to take them forward. Reforms would span various aspects of production, such as strengthening Indias digital infrastructure. Gross capital formation needs to go up for faster economic expansion. Malaysia hotel room rates to rise by 30% from March A view of the city skyline in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sept. 27, 2021. Photo by Reuters/Lim Huey Teng Hotel room rates in Malaysia are expected to rise by up to 30% from March following the increase in sales and service tax service but industry insiders said the hike will not hurt international tourism. Malaysia's Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in October last year decided to raise the sales and service rate from 6% to 8%, which will take effect from March 1. Hotel operators predict room rates could rise by between 10-30% as a result, Malay Mail reported. Malaysian Hotel Association president Datin Christina Toh said Malaysia boasts some of the lowest hotel room rates in the Southeast Asian region and the price hike would not affect tourism, news site Sinar Harian reported. Malaysia Tourism Federation president Datuk Tan Kok Liang said there would be no major impact because Malaysian currency was at the lowest and visa-free policies were able to attract foreign tourists from major source markets, according to Malaysia News. However, Tan said domestic tourism could be affected, adding that he hoped hotel operators would consider alternate pricing for domestic travelers. Malaysia last year waived visas for Indian and Chinese tourists to catch up with Thailand in regional tourism race. The country recorded nearly 29 million foreign arrivals last year, becoming the most popular destination in Southeast Asia, a throne that previously belonged to Thailand, according to Focus Malaysia. Its a golden age for politicians in their golden yearsand not just in the U.S. A decade ago, just one of the worlds 10 most populous countries, India, had a leader who was 70 or older. Today, eight of them do, putting at least half the global population in the hands of people in their 70s and 80s. The two countries that dontIndonesia and Pakistanare also poised to have septuagenarians at the helm after elections this month. The corridors of power looked significantly less gray in February 2014. Barack Obama, at the relatively spry age of 52, occupied the White House. Chinas Xi Jinping and Russias Vladimir Putin were in their early 60s. Enrique Pena Nieto in Mexico was a youthful 47. Whats behind the boom in boomer presidents and prime ministers? A multitude of reasons. Autocrats have deepened their grip on power. Xi began a norm-breaking third term as Communist Party chief in 2022, when he was 69 years old. Putin, who rose to the pinnacle of authority in Russia when he was 47, remains there nearly 25 years later, sweeping away resistance to his rule. One of his staunchest challengers, Alexei Navalny, died in prison earlier this month at 47. Barriers to entry have also grown in democracies, where winning elections requires ever-larger pots of money, giving established politicians with well-oiled donor networks the upper hand. Indias Narendra Modi is widely expected to cruise to a third term this year at 73. Sheikh Hasina, 76, won an unprecedented fifth term as prime minister of Bangladesh in January and, after cracking down on the opposition, is in her 16th consecutive year in office. In mid-February, Indonesia catapulted a 72-year-old member of the entrenched political elite to the top job. He is set to succeed President Joko Widodo, the former furniture maker and small-city mayor whose landmark 2014 election, when he was 53, infused the worlds third-largest democracy with new hope. Across the world there are many places that have high barriers to entry for new parties and for new politicians, whether theyre democratic or not," said Ben Bland, director of the Asia-Pacific program at Chatham House, a U.K. think tank. Its pretty depressing seeing so few younger leaders and fresh ideas emerge everywhere given the scale of challenges were facing and the pace at which our world is changing." In America, the question of How old is too old?" is looming over the presidential election. Most voters say they would prefer a president below 70 years of age, according to a 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center. Many are concerned that poor health could be a stumbling block for 81-year-old President Biden or 77-year-old Donald Trump. If we think of the two major parties, theyve had several years to make sure that they do not end up in this situation and still theyre not able to come up with leaders that are signaling youth to voters," said Aksel Sundstrom, an associate professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Flubs and fumbles in Washington have made headlines. Biden recently referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi as the leader of Mexico. Trump confused his Republican rival Nikki Haley with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who turned 82 this month, froze in front of cameras twice last summer. His office said he felt lightheaded, and McConnell and his allies have vouched for his health. Older politicians have resisted calls to step aside, and incumbency advantages mean voters rarely force them to. The average age of House members at the beginning of the current term was 57.9 years old and that of senators was 64. Both were down slightly from the averages of the previous term beginning in 2021the oldest Congress on recordbut going back further, the average age of a House representative has increased by four years since 2003. Senators are, on average, 4.5 years older than the members were 20 years ago. The trend has led to proposals for maximum age limits for federal office. Republican presidential candidate Haley has called for compulsory mental competency tests for politicians over 75. Last year, Republican Rep. John James from Michigan proposed a constitutional amendment to bar anyone who would turn 75 during their term from running for Congress or president, but it wasnt taken up and the effort appeared largely symbolic. Under Americas two-party system, ambitious young people typically need to start from the bottom in one of the two established camps. That makes it more difficult to have breakthrough leaders such as Frances Emmanuel Macron, who started his own political party, became the countrys youngest president at 39 and this year appointed an even younger prime minister, age 34. More broadly, Europe, whose population is older than the U.S., is bucking the trend of senior leaders. Its parliamentary democracies allow more room for younger politicians to find their feet, like Italys right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, who became her countrys first female leader in 2022 when she was 45. President Volodymyr Zelensky, leading Ukraines war effort, is 46. Older leaders cast their advanced age as an asset at a time when the two wars in Ukraine and Gaza and great-power rivalry between the U.S. and China are changing the world order. The five-dimensional chess of world diplomacy needs experience, their supporters argue. On the flip side, many people question if presidents and prime ministers of an older generation can lead a 21st-century world being rapidly redefined by artificial intelligence and climate change. Political scientists worry young people will disengage from politics if they feel they are stuck with politicians of their grandparents generation. Sundstrom, the political science professor, says the risk is a cycle of alienation," with older candidates causing youth voter turnout to decline, in turn giving politicians little incentive to focus on the concerns of the young. Research from Japan and Germany shows that younger municipal leaders tend to direct more spending toward issues that affect the young. Charles McClean, a postdoctoral associate at Yale University, found, for instance, that Japanese municipalities with mayors under 50 were more likely to funnel money toward the problem of long wait lists at public daycare centers. There are very few young people in office," he said of Japan. What happens when you do elect a young person? When you bring more young people into government I find, yes, they are tackling these underinvested areas, especially child care." But in many parts of the world, septuagenarians are leading delicate conversations with the youth about topics like the long-term impact of global warming or the need for more babies. Now is as good a time as any for young couples to add a little dragon to your family," said Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 72, in a recent Lunar New Year address. He noted that many young people today have different priorities, like careers and spending quality time with their partners, but warned that it starts getting harder to conceive a child with each passing year. Lee intends to step down this year and pass the baton to someone two decades younger. If it werent for Covid-19 disruptions, he has said, he would have resigned before 70. Some older politicians are trying to bridge the age divide. Biden, born during World War II, joined TikTok this month with a video about the Super Bowl captioned lol hey guys." Prabowo Subianto, the 72-year-old former general who won in Indonesias mid-February presidential elections, cuddled his cat on Instagram and broke into jigs on the campaign trail that went viral. Sen. Bernie Sanders, 82, and former U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, 74, are influential figures among progressive youth, gaining legitimacy for being long-term standard-bearers of the left. Young people should buckle up for more boomer leaders, said Kevin Munger, assistant professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University. Its going to change when they age out of politics in 10 to 15 years," he said, but really not before then." Write to Jon Emont at jonathan.emont@wsj.com In less than 24 hours, the Congress suffered a dramatic loss in the Himachal Pradesh Rajya Sabha elections and a state minister's resignation sparked speculation about the state government's "instability". But the passage of the Himachal Pradesh budget through a voice vote came as a relief for the Congress government in the state. The fact that six Congress MLAs had cross-voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Rajya Sabha elections on Tuesday raised concerns for the Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh government. The BJP had claimed that CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had lost majority in the assembly. Follow Himachal Pradesh Political Crisis Live Updates here In the wake of this political turmoil, the passing of the state budget was a crucial test for the Congress. The budget was pending approval in the assembly and the BJP, with the help of Congress rebels, had been ensuring that the budget was not passed and was seeking a division of votes. But, after the state budget for 2024-25, presented by Sukhu, was successfully passed in the assembly on Wednesday, the chief minister said he would complete the term and run the government for the entire five years. "...I want to say one thing; the people of Himachal are with us and MLAs are with us and I can definitely say that we will run the Himachal government for five years," Sukhu was quoted by PTI as saying. The budget was passed in the absence of BJP members as 15 of them were suspended for misbehaviour, while the remaining 10 staged a walkout in protest against the suspension of its members. Himachal Pradesh's leader of the Opposition Jairam Thakur claimed that the Congress did not have a majority to pass the budget, "so they suspended 15 BJP MLAs without any reason". 'Sukhu-led govt is stable': What's happening in Himachal Congress now? 1. Himachal Pradesh Minister Anirudh Singh said that CM Sukhu-led Congress government is stable and will stay in power. "It is not yet decided where the party meeting will be held...," he said. CM Sukhu said, "Neither the high command has asked me nor anyone else for resignation and there is no such thing." He added, Our government is safe." 2. As soon as the rebellion within the Congress came to light after Rajya Sabha poll results, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge swung into action to pacify the disgruntled Congress MLAs and sent Bhupinder Singh Hooda and DK Shivakumar to Shimla. It was reported that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also spoke with Sukhu and took stock of the political situation in the state. The MLAs are learnt to have been "disappointed" with the working style of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and are seeking his replacement. 3. Himachal Pradesh minister Vikramaditya Singh resigned from his post on Wednesday. Sukhu called Singh younger brother", adding that Singh's resignation as the minister has not been accepted yet. "He has some grievances that will be solved," the CM said. Sukhu also acknowledged that a few Congress MLAs "may be upset" with him. "But not voting for candidates who should have been sent to the Rajya Sabha from Himachal is betrayal with the party," he said. 4. Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu also said that one of the six MLAs who had voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls asked to forgive him as he has betrayed the party...People of the state will give them an answer..." 5. Meanwhile, a disqualification motion has been brought against the six Congress MLAs who had voted for the BJP candidate in Rajya Sabha polls. Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania reserved the order on the motion. Can CM Sukhu save his govt? Before the Rajya Sabha election results, it was clear that the Congress had a comfortable majority in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly. In the 2022 Himachal assembly election, the Congress won 40 seats and got support from the three independent MLAs. A total of 43 MLAs supported the Congress. The BJP won 25 seats. However, the number of MLAs in support of the Congress seems to have changed after the Rajya Sabha polls. With the nine MLAs (six Congress and three independents) cross-voting in favour of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls, the ruling Congress is now left with 34 supporters in the assembly. A political party needs the support of 35 MLAs to win the majority in the Himachal Pradesh assembly. So, with 34 MLAs, the Congress seems to be on the back foot. Similar is the case for the BJP which has 25 MLAs and nine rebels in its support. But 15 BJP MLAs were suspended from the state assembly on Wednesday. This reduced the BJP's number in the assembly to 19. Also, with these suspensions, a party needs the support of 27 MLAs in the assembly to prove majority. The Congress could easily cross this number with 34 MLAs, but the BJP won't with 19 MLAs. In this case, more defections will hurt the Congress. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! An advertisement in a local Tamil Nadu newspaper sparked a controversy on Wednesday. Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai said the advertisement was published by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Minister Thiru Anita Radhakrishnan. The advertisement features a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin, DMK ministers and a rocket with China's flag on in. Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai took to social media to take a dig at the DMK government in Tamil for releasing the "controversial" ad in the newspaper. The advertisement was published ahead of Prime Minister Modi's visit to lay the foundation stone for the Kulasekarapattinam Spaceport. While speaking at public meeting in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, on Wednesday, PM Modi slammed the DMK over "dynasty politics" and accused it of taking credits for work it didn't do. Taking a potshots at the DMK over the advertisement, PM Modi said, Who doesn't know that these people put their stickers on our schemes? Now they have crossed the limit. Annamalai was explaining to me that they have pasted stickers of China to take credit for the ISRO launch pad in Tamil Nadu." "DMK is a party which does not work, but comes first to hoard credits. They give new names to our initiatives and call it theirs...Leaders of DMK are not willing to see the progress of India. They have insulted our scientists, the space sector and your tax money," PM Modi said. PM Modi also critisised the DMK for giving "priority is its family" in politics. "On one side, you have the BJP government, focused on development. On the other hand, you have DMK and Congress whose only priority is their family. If you ask these family-centric parties about their plan for the development of Tamil Nadu, they won't have any answer," he said. PM Modi laid the foundation stone for the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) second spaceport in Kulasekarapattinam, Tamil Nadu, on Wednesday. This project costs 950 crore. Meanwhile, Annamalai, while sharing the advertisement on social media, said, "This advertisement by DMK Minister Thiru Anita Radhakrishnan to leading Tamil dailies today is a manifestation of DMKs commitment to China and their total disregard for our countrys sovereignty." He said the DMK has been desperate to paste stickers ever since the announcement of ISROs second launch pad in Kulasekarapatinam was released. DMK reacts to ad Meanwhile, DMK MP Kanimozhi said, "I don't know from where the person who did the artwork, found this picture from." "I don't think India has declared China as an enemy country. I have seen that the Prime Minister has invited the Chinese PM and they have gone to Mahabalipuram. Just because you do not want to accept the truth, you are finding reasons to divert the issue...," she added. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! National Science Day is celebrated every year on February 28 to commemorate the discovery of the Raman Effect and raise awareness about the importance of science and its role in improving the lives of people. The National Science Day also acknowledges the efforts of the scientific community who work in exploring more and more ways by which science can be implemented to make our lives simpler and easier. The impact of Indian scientific breakthroughs is significantly enhancing the 'Ease of Living' for the common man, which has been proved by developing indigenous COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. National Science Day 2024: Date The National Science Day is celebrated every year on February 28. This year, this special day falls on Wednesday. Why is it celebrated on February 28? The National Science Day was first observed on the day when Indian Physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (C V Raman) announced the discovery of the Raman Effect" in 1928, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930. He was the first Indian to receive this prestigious award in the field of science. The Raman Effect is the phenomenon when light traverses a transparent material, and some of the light that is deflected changes in wavelength. The history of National Science Day can be traced back to 1986 when the Indian government accepted the proposal of the National Council for Science and Technology Communication and designated February 28 as National Science Day to commemorate the discovery of the Raman Effect". National Science Day 2024: Theme The theme for National Science Day 2024 is Indigenous Technologies for Viksit Bharat." The theme for National Science Day 2024 reflects a strategic focus on promoting public appreciation for science, technology and innovation and accomplishments of Indian scientists to address challenges through home-grown technologies for overall well-being. Announcing the theme for National Science Day 2024 in the first week of February, MoS for Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh said, This year will not only mark a new era but also seek to present an opportunity for the public and scientific fraternity, both domestically and internationally, to collaborate, work together, and contribute to the well-being of India and humanity as a whole." National Science Day 2024: Significance National Science Day aims to recognise the pivotal role of science in our daily lives. The Day also showcases the activities, efforts, and achievements of the scientific community for human welfare. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on the progress made in the field of science and technology and to identify the areas where more work needs to be done. During the announcement of the NSD 2024 theme, the government said, We are globally among the top five countries in scientific research publications, 40th in Global Innovation Index (GII) showcasing remarkable climb from 81st rank in 2015 and our patent filing has crossed 90,000 which is highest in two decades." Indian scientific breakthroughs have reached from the lab to the moon; with the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the south pole of the moon, India became the first country to achieve this feat," the minister said. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Wednesday said a potential collision is expected between two satellites one, from the US and the other from Russia, about 600 km above the earth on February 28 which could result in significant debris generation. The two satellites on collision course are Nasas Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission spacecraft and the Russian Cosmos 2221 satellite. The two non-maneuverable orbiting spacecraft are expected to make their closest pass at about 1:30 am EST on Wednesday, Feb. 28, at an altitude of about 373 miles (600 km)," NASA said in a statement. The US Department of Defense is monitoring the situation, the space agency added. Although the spacecraft are expected to miss each other, a collision could result in significant debris generation. NASA and the Department of Defense will continue to monitor the situation," NASA said. A collision of two spacecraft at an altitude of 600 km could lead to the generation of significant debris, posing additional risks to other satellites and spacecraft in similar orbits, experts said. TIMED mission spacecraft NASAs Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission spacecraft (launched on December 7, 2001) plays a crucial role in the understanding of Earth's upper atmosphere. The TIMED mission studies the influence of the Sun and human activity on Earths mesosphere and lower thermosphere/ionosphere. The region is a gateway between Earth and space, where the Suns energy is first deposited into Earths environment making the TIMED mission vital for understanding atmospheric dynamics. Developed in part by Johns Hopkins APL, the missions unrivalled 20-year dataset has provided crucial insights about space weather, Earths climate and the evolution of planetary atmospheres. Cosmos 2221 Russian satellite Cosmos 2221 was launched in 1992 for surveillance and other military purposes. Cosmos 2221 was a Russian ELINT (Electronic and Signals Intelligence) satellite launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. Milestone Alert! Livemint tops charts as the fastest growing news website in the world Click here to know more. Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed it's all here, just a click away! Login Now! The U.S. is years behind its biggest rivals in cutting-edge hypersonic missile technology. Silicon Valley is betting it can help the military catch up. Venture capitalists, better known for pumping money into business-software services and social-media apps, are now deploying hundreds of millions of dollars into developing the technology for hypersonic weapons the U.S. military wants but has struggled to figure out despite decades of trying. China and Russia already have them ready for use on the battlefield. The U.S. doesnt. Silicon Valley investors and startups want to help fill the gap. Silicon Valleys entry into the hypersonic race is one of the most ambitious examples of its recent dive into the defense industry. Venture capital in the past couple of decades has largely avoided funding expensive hardware development and steered clear of most applications for the U.S. military, favoring technology that requires less upfront money and produces returns sooner. Seth Winterroth, a partner at Eclipse Ventures, a Silicon Valley defense-tech venture firm that backed hypersonic startup Ursa Major, said the enormity of the technical challenge of hypersonic systems requires collaboration between startups, large defense firms and the government. Were not building widgets here. This is complex engineering," he said. We are behind our adversaries here, and weve got to work together to catch up." Hypersonic aircraft and weapons fly at five times the speed of sound or faster, which is at least 3,800 miles an hour. The aircraft must be able to withstand temperatures of thousands of degrees. The major powers of the world are in a race to develop the most sophisticated missiles that can be launched from long distances, evade air defenses, maneuver and strike targets quicklybefore the enemy can make preparations or even know they are coming. Defense Department spending on hypersonics makes it an attractive market for venture capitalists; it is also among the riskiest, given the improbability of success. The longest U.S. military hypersonic test flight that is unclassified was just over three minutes. A Defense Department spokesman said the departments hypersonic strategy isnt based on trying to match Chinas or Russias, and it shouldnt be compared with any other country. We arent in a one-for-one arms race with any competitor," the spokesman said. Venture capitalists have invested more than $500 million into U.S. startups working on the systems in the past two years, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of venture-capital data from PitchBook. Early-stage funds that have previously backed wildly different businessescryptocurrency, videogames, retail or healthcareare now betting on hypersonics. Startups, including Hermeus and Venus Aerospace, which are designing aircraft to fly autonomously at hypersonic speeds, are pitching the benefits of using private capital and the latest engineering to lower costs for the Defense Department. The venture-backed companies are building everything from services for launches and flight tests to jets to engines for hypersonic systemsalthough many are years away from a completed product. The military has little to show after spending billions of dollars over decades trying to develop the advanced systems. It has no offensive or defensive hypersonic systems in deployment. In 2021, the Defense Department outlined plans to field offensive hypersonic weapons in the early to mid-2020s. The Defense Department spokesman said the military is on track to field some hypersonic capabilities by mid-decade. He said the department is working with 15 venture-backed startups and other nontraditional vendors for hypersonic testing, manufacturing and sourcing new technologies. Beijing surprised U.S. military leaders when, in 2021, it launched a hypersonic missile over the South China Sea that traveled at speeds of more than 15,000 mph. Russia is using hypersonic missiles against Ukraine, including a new one Moscow says can travel eight times the speed of sound with a 660-pound warhead. America needs to regain its edge in terms of its ability to strike targets at range," said Bryon Hargis, chief executive of Castelion, a startup in California developing a long-range hypersonic weapons system that will include explosives. Venture capitalists are betting they will have an increasingly eager customer in the Pentagon, which is under pressure to make progress. The Defense Department has spent more than $8 billion since 2019 on the effort to add hypersonic weapons to its arsenal and has at least $18.7 billion in funding dedicated to ongoing programs, according to a government report. Funding recipients mentioned in the report are the traditional, large defense contractorsknown as the primesincluding Northrop Grumman. The Biden administration has named hypersonics a critical technology for national security. At a congressional hearing this month, lawmakers pressed Defense Department officials for details on how they were using breakthroughs in commercial tech to increase hypersonic capabilities. Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, told members of Congress that the department will triple its rate of hypersonic aircraft testing with the help of tech companies. The department did around 10 test flights last year. Going forward, we are utilizing not just our test assets," said Shyu, but we have opportunity to look at different commercial launches as well." Colorado-based Ursa Major builds propulsion systems that can power hypersonic aircraft and weapons. Its engine can also be used for test flights that simulate Russias hypersonic missile capabilities to help the U.S. better detect and defend against Russian attacks. Private-sector startups are often better than the Defense Department at taking risks and learning from failures, said Ursa Major CEO Joe Laurienti. Youve got to be ready to blow things up," he said. The primes are so far winning the biggest hypersonic contracts. RTX, formerly Raytheon Technologies, and Lockheed Martin each recently received billion-dollar contracts to work on hypersonic weapons. Given the scrutiny from Congress, the military is likely to continue to stick with the primes and not take the risk of betting on a startup, industry experts said. When the government knows what it needs and has some sense of specification for the tech it wants, historically it turns to the primes," said Noah Sheinbaum, founder of Front Door Defense, a research service for defense startups. Many hypersonics contracts would likely be classified, and a lot of young startups dont have that clearance, he said. Another hurdle for investors and startups is the painfully slow process of trying to peddle to the Defense Department. The complexity of the sales cycle is actually harder than the complexity of the technical problem, which is brutally hard," said Steve Blank, a longtime startup investor and adviser. The Defense Innovation Unit, the Silicon Valley outpost of the Defense Department, has contracts with six companies to provide the department with cheaper and more frequent testing of hypersonic weapons. One of these is Rocket Lab, which offers launch services for hypersonic aircraft at a cost of about $10 million for each launch, roughly one-tenth of what the government might pay today, the company says. Castelion has raised more than $14 million since it was launched 15 months ago and will likely need a couple hundred million more in capital over the next two years to get to its first full missile system. The company is planning its first hypersonic missile test flight in the next month or so. The sector has attracted a variety of new investors undeterred by the enormous upfront capital needs of these startups. Ursa Majors backers include Broadway show producer and space enthusiast Marc Bell, an Indian venture-capital firm that also funds anime, RTX and BlackRock. As a venture capitalist, you always assume when writing a check the moneys gone," said Bell, whose family office investments range from a pizza chain to a coffee-machine startup to satellites. Anything after that is a home run." Sharon Weinberger contributed to this article. Write to Heather Somerville at heather.somerville@wsj.com The information contained on this website shall not be construed as (i) an offer to purchase or sell, or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or sell, any securities or services, (ii) investment, legal, business or tax advice or an offer to provide such advice, or (iii) a basis for making any investment decision. An offering may only be made upon a qualified investors receipt not via this website of formal materials from the Knightsbridge an offering memorandum and subscription documentation (offering materials). In the case of any inconsistency between the information on this website and any such offering materials, the offering materials shall control. Securities shall not be offered or sold in any jurisdiction in which such offer or sale would be unlawful unless the requirements of the applicable laws of such jurisdiction have been satisfied. Any decision to invest in securities must be based solely upon the information set forth in the applicable offering materials, which should be read carefully by qualified investors prior to investing. An investment with Knightsbridge is not suitable or desirable for all investors; investors may lose all or a portion of the capital invested. Investors may be required to bear the financial risks of an investment for an indefinite period of time. Qualified investors are urged to consult with their own legal, financial and tax advisors before making any investment. Knightsbridge is a private investment firm that offers investment services to Qualified Investors, Members and Institutions ONLY. Qualified Investors are defined as individuals who have met those Qualifications in the relevant jurisdictions. Members are defined as individuals who have been accepted into the Knightsbridge membership program. Institutions are defined as entities such as banks, pension funds, and hedge funds. If you are not a Qualified Investor, Member or Institution, you are not eligible to invest with Knightsbridge. All investments involve risk, and there is no guarantee of profit. You may lose some or all of your investment. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Knightsbridge is not a registered investment advisor, and this disclaimer should not be construed as investment advice. Please consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. By accessing this website, you agree to the terms of this disclaimer. Thank you for your interest in Knightsbridge. China Real Estate: Recent reports of Evergrandes financial struggles have garnered widespread attention in Western media, leading to concerns about the stability of Chinas real estate sector. However, a closer examination reveals that the situation may be over-amplified, and signs indicate that Chinas real estate market is on the cusp of recovery. The Evergrande Controversy: The turmoil surrounding Evergrande, one of Chinas largest property developers, has sparked fears of a broader crisis in the real estate sector. While Evergrandes debt woes have undoubtedly raised eyebrows, its essential to recognize that the companys challenges are not indicative of the entire market. Chinas real estate sector is diverse and multifaceted, with various players and factors at play. Resilience and Recovery: Contrary to sensationalized narratives, Chinas real estate sector has shown resilience in the face of challenges. Government interventions and regulatory measures have been implemented to address issues of speculation and leverage, promoting a healthier and more sustainable market environment. Moreover, underlying fundamentals, such as urbanization, demographic trends, and housing demand, remain robust, laying the groundwork for a gradual recovery. Government Support and Policy Measures: Chinas government has demonstrated a proactive stance in managing the real estate markets transition. Measures aimed at curbing speculation, promoting affordable housing, and addressing systemic risks have been implemented to ensure the sectors stability. The recent directive from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development to plan for housing development in 2024 and 2025 exemplifies the governments commitment to strategic planning and sustainable growth. Investment Opportunities: Despite short-term uncertainties, Chinas real estate sector presents long-term investment opportunities for savvy investors. The markets size, diversity, and resilience make it an attractive prospect for those willing to navigate through fluctuations and capitalize on emerging trends. As the sector undergoes a period of adjustment and consolidation, astute investors can identify undervalued assets and position themselves for future growth. While concerns surrounding Evergrandes financial woes have dominated headlines, its essential to maintain perspective and recognize the broader dynamics at play in Chinas real estate sector. While challenges exist, the sectors fundamentals remain strong, and proactive government interventions are fostering a conducive environment for recovery. As China continues to implement strategic measures and promote sustainable growth, the real estate sector is poised to rebound, offering promising opportunities for investors and stakeholders alike. Below is a table listing some of the listed companies that could potentially benefit from Chinas real estate recovery: Company Name Stock Ticker Vanke Co., Ltd. HKG: 2202 China Resources Land Limited HKG: 1109 Country Garden Holdings Company HKG: 2007 Sunac China Holdings Limited HKG: 1918 Evergrande Group HKG: 3333 Poly Developments and Holdings Group Co., Ltd. SHA: 600048 Longfor Group Holdings Limited HKG: 0960 Shimao Group Holdings Limited HKG: 0813 China Overseas Land & Investment Limited HKG: 0688 Greentown China Holdings Limited HKG: 3900 Amidst efforts to stabilize its real estate market, Chinas Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has taken proactive steps by issuing directives for housing development plans in the years ahead. With a focus on ensuring equilibrium between supply and demand, as well as promoting affordability and quality, China aims to navigate the complexities of its real estate sector and foster a sustainable recovery. Strategic Planning for Housing Development: The Ministrys recent circular underscores the significance of meticulous planning in addressing the evolving dynamics of the real estate market. By requesting local authorities to formulate housing development plans for 2024 and 2025, China aims to align housing supply with demographic shifts and evolving consumer preferences. Scientific land allocation and strategic fund allocation are highlighted as essential components of these plans, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach to property development. Equilibrium of Supply and Demand: Central to Chinas strategy is the pursuit of equilibrium between housing supply and demand. By accurately estimating housing demand and aligning land supplies and funding with these projections, the government aims to prevent drastic fluctuations in the real estate market. This approach not only mitigates the risk of speculative bubbles but also fosters a more stable and sustainable housing market environment. Focus on Affordable Housing and Upgrades: In addition to ensuring adequate housing supply, China emphasizes the importance of addressing affordability concerns and meeting the needs of housing upgrades. The Ministrys directive underscores the dual objectives of providing sufficient affordable housing for low-income families and facilitating housing upgrades for existing homeowners. This multifaceted approach aims to promote social equity while supporting the continuous improvement of housing quality across the country. Chinas proactive measures to plan for housing development reflect its commitment to fostering a resilient and sustainable real estate market. By emphasizing strategic planning, equilibrium of supply and demand, and a focus on affordability and quality, China aims to navigate the complexities of its real estate sector and pave the way for a robust recovery. As the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development leads efforts to implement these directives, Chinas real estate market is poised to undergo a period of strategic transformation, driving long-term stability and growth in the housing sector. Shayne Heffernan King Charles and Meghan Markle In a recent announcement that has stirred controversy and speculation, King Charles has confirmed that Meghan Markle, also known as the Duchess of Sussex, will not retain her royal title following her divorce from Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex. This decision, while not unprecedented in the annals of English royalty, has reignited discussions about the role of titles in royal divorces and the implications for individuals who marry into the royal family. The history of royal divorces in English royalty is replete with examples of individuals losing their titles or being denied them altogether after the dissolution of their marriages. One of the most notable instances is that of Wallis Simpson, whose marriage to King Edward VIII in 1936 precipitated his abdication from the throne. Despite being granted the title of Duchess of Windsor upon her marriage, Wallis was never officially recognized as a member of the royal family, and her husbands abdication meant that she was denied the style of Her Royal Highness. Similarly, in more recent times, Princess Dianas divorce from Prince Charles in 1996 raised questions about her continued use of the title Princess of Wales. While Diana technically retained the title as the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry, she voluntarily relinquished its use as part of the divorce settlement, opting instead for the style of Diana, Princess of Wales. In the case of Meghan Markle, her divorce from Prince Harry has prompted speculation about whether she would retain her title as the Duchess of Sussex. King Charles decision to deny her the use of the title reflects a departure from traditional norms and underscores the evolving nature of royal protocols and conventions. The absence of titles for individuals who marry into the royal family following a divorce raises questions about their status and place within the royal hierarchy. Without the trappings of royalty, they are thrust into a liminal space where they must navigate the complexities of public life without the privileges and protections afforded by their former titles. However, it is important to recognize that titles are not the sole measure of ones worth or significance. Meghan Markle, like other individuals who have married into the royal family, has made significant contributions to various charitable causes and initiatives, leveraging her platform to advocate for social change and raise awareness about important issues. King Charles decision not to confer a title upon Meghan Markle following her divorce from Prince Harry is emblematic of the complexities surrounding royal divorces and the implications for individuals who find themselves on the periphery of the royal family. While titles may confer prestige and status, they are ultimately symbolic in nature, and true worth lies in the character and actions of individuals, rather than the titles they hold. The United States deplores the decision by the Iranian regime to ban the use of virtual private network, or VPN, services. The Iranian Supreme Council of Cyberspace has criminalized the use of VPNs without a legal license, a decision that has reportedly been approved by Irans Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Last year the sale and distribution of VPNs were criminalized in Iran. Now their use in general is prohibited. In a country like Iran, where the internet is already severely filtered, VPNs, which encrypt internet connections or spoof the IP address of users and allow access to censored sites with some anonymity, have been crucial lifelines to vital information and ideas. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said the ban on the use of VPNs in Iran is just the latest reminder of how much the Iranian regime fears its people and what they are capable of when given unfettered access to the internet and unfettered access to information: The internet disruptions that the Iranian regime has put in place in the past have cost the economy billions of dollars. It caused pain to businesses, as well as, of course, choking off information that people need to make decisions about their lives and decisions about their futures. Spokesperson Miller said that support for internet freedom in Iran will continue to be a central pillar of efforts by the United States to support human rights in the country: In the past, in the height of the protests in 2022 and 2023, as many as one in three Iranians used U.S.-supported anti-censorship and digital security tools such as VPNs. There are millions of Iranians that have continued to use those tools to this day Upholding internet freedom and ensuring Iranian citizens access to the internet will continue to be a central pillar of our engagement in that country. As Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stated, We are going to help make sure the Iranian people are not kept isolated and in the dark. The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. "I call on the Central African authorities to ensure they are conducted in a transparent, timely, and inclusive manner, with the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women and youth," said Ambassador Wood. If you do not have a current print subscription to the Lodi News-Sentinel, but want to view unlimited articles for the month, please choose this option. Longford County Council will stage a series of workshops across the county to help locals to engage with the next available scheme under the Just Transition funding process. Starting next week, tourism operators and local entrepreneurs with regenerative tourism projects or ideas, are being encouraged to come along to one of the workshops on the Investment Grant-Aid Scheme for Private and Community SMEs, taking place countywide. Co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the EU, currently, up to 17 million in tourism grant-aid is available for private and community-based micro enterprises and SMEs in the wider Midlands area. Delivering this grant-aid will help improve the quality of the visitor experience within this EU Just Transition region. The goal is to attract more visitors, increase dwell time, and secure overnight stays, creating new jobs in the sector and helping to grow the visitor economy. Longfords series of special workshops, in Lanesboro, Ballymahon, Edgeworthstown, Granard and Longford will help providers access this funding scheme, starting from next week. 10.30am-12.30pm on Monday, 4 March in Lanesboro Library (N39 XC85) 3-5pm on Monday, 4 March in Ballymahon Library (N39 E5C7) 10.30am-12.30pm on Tuesday, 5 March in Edgeworthstown Library (N39 F7Y8) 3-5pm on Tuesday, 5 March in Granard Library (N39 D2N4) 10.30am-12.30pm on Wednesday, 6 March in Longford Library (N39 HK76) No advance booking is required to attend any of the sessions, but the EU Just Transition Fund Tourism Activator Ciaran Mullooly can also meet promoters individually upon request on the days of these events. To arrange a meeting please email cmullooly@longfordcoco.ie or call 087 064 9287. Speaking in advance of the workshop series, Longford County Council Cathaoirleach Cllr Colm Murray said, This level of tourism investment in the midlands is absolutely unprecedented and I would urge people with ideas or projects to come forward the difference you could make to yourself and your community with the support of this funding could be immense. Chief Executive Paddy Mahon said, Longford County Council alongside the EU Just Transition Fund Tourism Activator is ready to support promoters to develop tourism projects that will help create more reasons for domestic and international tourists to visit Longford while also sustaining jobs, businesses and local communities. Overall, Failte Ireland is administering up to 68 million of the support from the EU Just Transition Fund programme in counties Longford, Westmeath, Offaly, Roscommon, Laois, and parts of Galway, Tipperary and Kildare. Funding will be available for tourism visitor attractions, accommodation providers and in many other categories. Applications for the Investment Grant-Aid Scheme for Private and Community SMEs will be assessed by Failte Ireland, who will provide guidance on the scheme and offer direct support to applicants. Private and community-based micro enterprises and SMEs can find scheme guidelines, useful toolkits and how to register their interest in the scheme at FailteIreland.ie. Failte Irelands Regenerative Tourism and Placemaking Scheme for Irelands Midlands 2023-2026 under the EU Just Transition Fund is being delivered through a series of open and closed call grant-aid schemes, for seven distinct funding schemes which will be announced over the coming months. Small businesses and budding entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to sample ten events aimed at helping them to start or grow their business as part of this years Local Enterprise Week in County Longford. The initiative of the Local Enterprise Offices nationwide, supported by Enterprise Ireland and the local authorities, takes place from March 4 - 8 this year across the country. While there are hundreds of events taking place nationally during the week, including two National Spotlight events that are available for free online, there are plenty of events in Longford open to all. These events will focus on different stages of business development ranging from business start-ups to growth and to business expansion. A flavour of those taking part in Local Enterprise Week includes Longford-raised, London-based Anne-Marie Tomchak is a seasoned broadcaster and editor with an illustrious career at some of the worlds most esteemed media brands, including the BBC, Vogue, and Mashable. With almost two decades of experience, Anne-Marie has been a trailblazer in covering technology and artificial intelligence. Her groundbreaking documentary, 'Game Changer: AI and You,' aired on RTE One in November 2023, garnering widespread acclaim for its insights into the evolving AI landscape. A panel of AI experts will join with our keynote speaker to discuss AI and demystify the challenges and opportunities it presents for small businesses. Our Women in Business Tricounty event Keynote Speaker is Caroline Reidy, Managing Director of the HR Suite and Employment Law Expert. Caroline has written 2 books, done a TEDx talk and is regular conference speaker and contributor to national media. Michael Nevin, Head of Enterprise with Longford County Council says, Local Enterprise Week is a fantastic marker in the road for any business. Its an opportunity to take stock of where you are, see where you can grow, where you can innovate or maybe become more sustainable and see what resources are available on your doorstep. There is something for everyone and those who maybe always had that ambition to start on their own, or a great idea, this is the week to see how to get started and make it happen. There are hundreds of events taking place all over the country covering everything from exporting and digital to going green or growing that idea. We also have two National Spotlight events taking place online and open to everyone that include experts from a range of industries. So online or on your doorstep, I would encourage everyone to check out the schedule of events and get involved. The two National Spotlight events are open to everyone and can be accessed online. The first, Understanding and leveraging future trends for your business on Wednesday, March 6 looks at what are the trends that will be emerging in the short and long term and how they will affect business. The session will also delve into how you can adapt and leverage these trends for business success. The second spotlight event focuses on the area of sustainability. The Sustainability imperative for business success session on Thursday, March 7 will look at how sustainability is becoming a bigger and bigger factor in business survival and success. Headlined by renowned broadcaster and science and environment expert, Liz Bonnin, it will show how the small changes in your business can make a big impact and most importantly how you can start. Each of the 31 Local Enterprise Offices will be running a full programme of events in their area that will tackle a variety of areas relevant to small businesses and starting up. The events are open to all from budding entrepreneurs to established businesses and gives them the opportunity to get expert advice on key areas of business from financial skills, raising funds, exporting and boosting your business online to future trends such as sustainability and digitalization. Details for all the events taking place across the country during Local Enterprise Week, from March 4 to 8, are available at LocalEnterprise.ie/Week LONGFORD EVENTS LOCAL ENTERPRISE WEEK 2024 Monday, March 4 9.30am to 13.30pm - AI The Way Forward Tuesday, March 5 7pm to 9.30pm - Business Training: Start Your Own Business Wednesday, March 6 Time will be allocated after booking - Business Advice Clinics 2.00pm-4.00pm - Understand and Leverage Future Trends for Your Business Thursday, March 7 9.30am to 1.30pm How to master Your VAT in One Day 12.00-1.30pm - The Sustainability Imperative for Your Business Success A live audience with Liz Bonnin, world renowned Natural History and Environmental broadcaster County Longford Enterprise Awards Longford County Enterprise Awards showcase the best businesses in the county that have worked with Longford LEO Friday, March 8 11.00am to 2.00pm Tri County WIB Event 95 Broadhollow Road Suite 201 Melville, NY 11747 Phone: 631-694-3500 Fax: 631-694-3509 Visit Website If youre looking to buy or sell commercial property on Long Island, and want to ensure that youre putting the future of your company in the right hands, then turn to Industry One Realty theyve been getting the job done since 1985, and can help you with all of your commercial realty needs. Whether youre looking for properties in Nassau or Suffolk, Industry One can help you find the right building for your business, no matter what the size. As a businessperson looking to sell or rent your commercial real estate, office & retail space, or industrial properties, there is no name as trusted in the business as Industry One they ensure that youll get the most out of your property, while still offering a fair deal to potential purchasers. Whether youre in the market of buying or selling your Commercial Property, or even if youre simply considering the possibility, give Industry One a call today their dedicated staff can provide you with the insights and advice you need to buy or sell commercially. Orla Mining Ltd. announced the company has entered an $8.1 million arrangement to acquire Contact Gold Corp., which owns the Pony Creek property adjacent to Orlas South Railroad property on the Carlin Trend and the Greens Springs property on the Cortez Trend. This transaction strengthens our land position in Nevada along the Carlin Trend. Contacts Pony Creek property is a valuable complement to our South Railroad Project, one of our key growth opportunities, Orlas president and chief executive officer, Jason Simpson, said in the Feb. 26 announcement. We look forward to making the necessary investments to unlock the combined potential of this now larger, contiguous and high prospective land package, he said. The South Railroad land package currently covers 81 square miles or 51,840 acres. Orla is working on U.S. Bureau of Land Management permitting for the South Railroad Project, and the company provided an update via a Feb. 27 email covering permitting for the project. We are continuing to work on permitting the South Railroad Project, located 16 miles south of Carlin in Elko County. This work includes the baseline environment data collection to support the necessary environmental studies. South Railroad is working through the Bureau of Land Management under the National Environmental Protection Act process and BLM regulations, Orla stated. The company said it expects the BLM to file its notice of intent in the Federal Register sometime this year, which will open the way for public scoping meetings to advance development of the Environmental Impact Statement. We have engaged SWCA Environmental Consultants to manage the EIS process on behalf of the BLM, Orla wrote. The company additionally reported that it is continuing its stakeholder engagement activities, including participating in community meetings in Elko County to share details of the South Railroad Project. This includes engagement with local leaders and non-profit organizations, Orla reported, stating that Orla-South Railroad has provided financial support to the Elko Cancer Network, the Silver State Stampede, the Veterans Day Ball, local foster children, and others. We are committed to Nevada and Elko County and look forward to building Nevadas next operating gold mine, creating new jobs and benefits for Elko and its surrounding communities, Orla said. Acquiring Pony Creek will allow Orla to consolidate landholdings adjacent to South Railroad, which hosts 1.6 million ounces of mineral reserves at 0.77 grams per ton of gold (0.027 ounces per ton), 1.8 million ounces of measured and indicated resources at 0.74 grams per ton (0.026 opt), and 719,000 ounces of inferred mineral ounces, Orla reported. Vancouver-based Orla also stated that Pony Creek has resources with the potential to add oxide, transition, and sulfide ore to the South Railroad resource, with an inferred mineral resource of 433,000 mineralized ounces at 0.52 grams per ton of gold (0.018 opt). The company said the Green Springs property on the southern end of the Cortez Trend is an early-stage exploration project. Centerra Gold has a right to earn into 70% of the project through completion of a four-year, $10 million exploration project. Orla stated that both Pony Creek and Green Springs have been underfunded and under-explored. The agreement with Contact calls for Orla to acquire all of Contacts shares for $8.1 million, with each holder of a Contact share receiving 0.0063 of an Orla common share for 3 cents per share. After the transaction is final, Contact Gold shareholders will own roughly 0.7% of Orla common shares. The companies expect the deal to close in the second quarter of this year, after shareholder approval, according to the Feb. 26 announcement. Crime By Chris Boyle Published: February 28 2024 Corey Henson was driving while intoxicated when he struck and killed a 30-year-old man and fled. Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced that a Centereach man was sentenced today to up to seven years in prison for a hit-and-run collision in July 2022 that killed a 30-year-old man. Corey Henson, 33, pleaded guilty on November 15, 2023, before Judge Christopher Hoefenkrieg to Manslaughter in the Second Degree (a C felony); Vehicular Manslaughter in the Second Degree (a D felony); Leaving the Scene of an Incident Resulting in Death (a D felony); and Driving While Intoxicated (an unclassified misdemeanor). He was sentenced today to 2-1/3 years to seven years in prison. Dodanim Emanuel Chavez was a devoted husband and father, who was simply moving furniture to a new home with the help of some friends when he was struck and killed by an intoxicated Corey Henson, said DA Donnelly. Henson fled the scene and finally crashed five miles later into a guardrail and disabled his vehicle. Through the combined efforts of the Nassau County Police Department Homicide Squad, the Freeport Police Department, and my prosecutors, we were able to find this defendant, retrace his movements, and hold him accountable for Mr. Chavezs senseless and tragic death. Hit-and-run investigations are notoriously difficult to prosecute. I commend the officers and prosecutors who tracked down this defendant and brought him to justice. We continue to hold Mr. Chavezs family in our thoughts. DA Donnelly said that, according to the charges, on July 11, 2022, at approximately 9:07 p.m., 30-year-old Dodanim Emanuel Chavez was moving belongings to a new home with the help of two friends. The victim was standing along the drivers side of his friends pick-up truck on Long Beach Road in Island Park when he was struck by the defendant, who was driving southbound in his 2022 Ford Transit Connect. The defendant then fled the scene. The victim suffered severe head trauma and was taken to Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital where he was pronounced deceased. After the collision, the defendant crashed his van into a guardrail on South Main Street in Freeport and the van was towed to a local yard. The following day, a Freeport police officer contacted the Nassau County Police Department about the van when he learned of the fatal hit-and-run collision in Island Park. The defendant was arrested on July 13, 2022, by members of the NCPD and Freeport Police Department when he arrived at the tow yard to claim his van. A subsequent investigation revealed that prior to the collision, the defendant drank multiple alcoholic beverages over the course of two hours at a local restaurant before driving his vehicle and was intoxicated when he struck the victim. Community, Charity & Cause By Chris Boyle Published: February 28 2024 July 8 August 9, 2024 @ Long Island University CW Post Campus. Registration is open for the Helen Keller Services for the Blind (HKSB) summer camp, Camp Helen Keller, a 5-week day camp experience for children age 4 to 15 who are blind or have low vision, being held this summer, from July 8 to August 9, 2023 at the Long Island University CW Post campus, located at 720 Northern Blvd, Greenvale, NY 11548. Parents can register their children online at https://www.helenkeller.org/camphelenkeller . Camp Helen Keller is a summer program created more than 60 years ago for children ages five to fifteen who are blind or have low vision. It is free to attend thanks to funding from generous donors. Its main goal is to improve participants' self-esteem, self-confidence, and socialization skills for campers from Nassau, Suffolk, and Queens, who receive free door-to-door transportation. Campers participate in traditional activities, such as swimming, arts and crafts, music and dance classes, and field trips and technology classes that have been adapted for blind or low vision individuals. The camp is closed out annually with an inspiring variety show filled with singing, dancing, and musical performances by the campers. Camp counselors are committed to bringing their unique talents to the children. They are specially trained to adapt recreational and social activities to ensure each childs experience is accessible. The low 3:1 camper-to-counselor ratio means campers receive a high level of personal attention as they engage in activities and make memories that will last a lifetime. About Helen Keller Services: Helen Keller Services (HKS) Mission is to enable individuals who are blind, DeafBlind, have low vision or combined hearing and vision loss to live, work and thrive in their community of choice. HKS offers services and programs through two divisions: Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults and Helen Keller Services for the Blind. For more information, please visit www.helenkeller.org. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi visited northern Israel on February 27 (screenshot of IDF video) Hezbollah escalated attacks on Israel on February 27, first in the morning with rocket fire targeting an IDF base on Mount Meron, the tallest mountain in the Galilee. The IDF base on Mount Meron is often referred to as a sensitive location and air traffic control base. The rockets were intercepted over the northern Galilee, and smoke was seen rising from several that landed on the mountain. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi HaLevi visited Shtula along Israels northern border with Lebanon to met with key commanders. A projectile struck the base in the afternoon, but the IDF said there was no damage to the bases operational capabilities. Following the sirens that sounded in northern Israel earlier today, approximately 20 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon into northern Israel, some of which were successfully intercepted by the IDF Aerial Defense Array and the rest fell according to protocol, the IDF said. In addition, an anti-tank missile was identified crossing from Lebanon toward the area of Meron in northern Israel. A hit was identified in the area of the IDF Aerial Control Unit, and did not harm the sites capabilities. Hezbollahs escalation is the latest in three days of increased incidents in the north. These clashes take place amid ongoing discussions of another possible deal for a hostage-prisoner swap. In essence, while IDF operations in Gaza are decreasing in intensity, the chances of escalation in northern Israel are increasing. Hezbollah has carried out thousands of rocket, anti-tank missile and drone attacks on Israel since October 7. Despite several days in the last four months including significant escalation, most interactions have consisted of Hezbollah carrying out several rocket and anti-tank missile attacks and Israel responding by using warplanes, artillery and tank fire to strike at Hezbollah targets. The Israel Air Force has struck more than 1,000 targets in Lebanon since October 7, according to an IAF data set released on February 20. Hezbollah has made previous claims of targeting the Meron base. Hezbollah has demonstrated a pattern using missiles and rockets to target sensitive sites in the north, including striking at antennas and surveillance equipment along the border. It has also targeted IDF Northern Commands base in Safed. The IDF often responds to these escalations in kind with proportion. On February 27, Hezbollah released a statement to pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen media in which it asserted that its attacks were in response to February 26 Israeli strikes deep inside Lebanon. Those Israeli airstrikes were themselves a response to Hezbollah shooting down an Israeli Hermes 450 Zik drone. Israeli media has noted the uptick in clashes in the north, with Israels popular Ynet website running an article entitled Israels blow-trading with Hezbollah reaches dangerous precipice. Israels Chief of Staff HaLevi met on February 27 with IDF Northern Command commanding officer Ori Gordin and 146th division commander Brig. Gen. Yisrael Shomer. Halevi said that Hezbollah must pay a heavy price for its actions since October 7: Its clear that the first thing we need to do is push back the enemy. Then, create a very strong barrier, establish strong intelligence gathering capabilities, position strong forces in the area as well as a strong civilian emergency response unit, and ensure there are bomb shelters and safe areas in homes and communities, he said. He also promised the approximately 80,000 Israelis evacuated in October they could safely return home if the IDF operates correctly now: The State of Israel will know to make an effort when it comes to bringing people back here to a safe and high quality lifestyle. His words echo those of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who visited the IDF Northern Command on February 25 and also vowed the IDF would continue striking Hezbollah. Reporting from Israel, Seth J. Frantzman is an adjunct fellow at FDD and a contributor to FDDs Long War Journal. He is the acting news editor and senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post. Young people are asked to look at their consumption and habits, like shopping and travelling, to understand what they can do for climate mitigation. Young people are asked to look at their consumption and habits, like shopping and travelling, to understand what they can do for climate mitigation. Photo credit: Guy Wolff Young people are asked to look at their consumption and habits, like shopping and travelling, to understand what they can do for climate mitigation. Photo credit: Guy Wolff The Luxembourg Sustainable Development Council on Tuesday launched a carbon footprint calculator for children and teenagers, to help them better understand their personal habits and how they affect the environment. The Dain CO2 Rechner web application aims to address youths in their language, the councils Jacques Pir told the Luxembourg Times. Its not about pointing fingers at them but instead give them something to take action on. Students are aware [of the climate crisis], but in the curriculum in schools, this subject isnt treated like other courses like maths or science. Theres no time to address such topics, Pir said, adding that the idea wasnt to put the load on students entirely, but to show how they can begin contributing to mitigation efforts. Also read: Youths underrepresented at Cop28, say teen delegates Of course, there need to be bigger political decisions, he said. Luxembourg has the worlds second-largest ecological footprint per capita, and, with its Overshoot Day on 20 February, has been living on Earths credit since last week. Pir, a teacher, has tested the new tool among his students and said their reaction was positive as it serves as a gateway into sustainability projects. To reach more youths, the council encourages educational staff in schools and maisons relais to explore the tool with the children under their care. Accessible climate efforts The calculator was launched only three months after the Ministry for Consumer Protection revealed its myimpact.lu carbon footprint calculator. Though at first glance, the aims of the two sites are the same, the finality is completely different, Pir said. If you look at the traditional calculator, you have to enter, for example, when your house was built, how big it is and how it is heated, how much electricity you need. These are all things that students and children do not know. Also read: Luxembourg in EUs top 10 for drop in emissions in third quarter The new app and its accompanying educational material a collaboration among the Sustainable Development Council, KlimAktiv and the Zentrum fir politesch Bildung are tailored to young people and their lifestyle, asking questions about their shopping, eating and mobility habits, as well as their consumption. Questions range from testing their decision process when purchasing items for instance, asking if they would consider second-hand goods to the type of light bulbs they have in their homes. The tool, now available in German, is complementary to the current offer, Pir said, as no other calculator targets [youths]. He said an English version is in the making. The Montana Department of Environmental Quality made a scientifically driven permitting decision that was supported by substantial evidence in issuing a permit in 2020 allowing a company to mine copper at the headwaters of the Smith River, the Montana Supreme Court has ruled. The courts 5-2 decision, outlined in an opinion released Jan. 26, overturns a 2022 District Court decision that found the DEQ had erred in its scrutiny of the Black Butte Copper Project before issuing a permit in 2020. Justice Beth Baker wrote the state high courts majority opinion. The underground mine in Meagher County is predicted to produce 14.5 million tons of copper-enriched rock mined from 1,888 acres over 13 years. Concerns about a 72 acre tailings pond was one of the main issues at the center of arguments by environmental groups. Montana Trout Unlimited, the Montana Environmental Information Center, Earthworks and American Rivers said the technology proposed by the mining company using cement to harden the tailings was unproven. But Supreme Court Justices Baker, Mike McGrath, James Shea, Jim Rice and Dirk Sandefur agreed the DEQ had done its due diligence by examining engineering reports, scientific studies and comparisons with other mining facilities around the world. In the end, the agency made a decision supported by substantial evidence, Baker wrote. Last year mine owner Sandfire Resources, which changed its name from Tintina Montana in 2018, argued before the justices that the District Court judge could only evaluate DEQs process, not substitute its judgment for the agencys. The Supreme Court justices agreed, citing previous cases to note this standard does not permit reversal even if the record contains inconsistent evidence or evidence that could support a different result. Justices Ingrid Gustafson and Laurie McKinnon wrote the courts dissenting opinion, arguing the states residents are constitutionally guaranteed a right to a clean and healthful environment. The copper to be mined at Black Butte presents inherent pollution risks because it is a sulfide ore body with high levels of acids and toxic metals, the justices wrote. Mining sulfide ore bodies, particularly close to ground or surface water, presents inherent pollution risks, and even careful water treatment and tailings waste management may be insufficient to avoid discharging noxious chemicals to adjacent ground or surface water, the dissenting justices said. The mine is located near Sheep Creek, a tributary of the Smith River. A 60-mile section of the river, dominated by steep canyon walls, is a state park. The river is so popular that it is the only waterway in the state with a lottery system to regulate boating use. This year, more than 12,400 people applied for one of the coveted permits. Todays decision is a setback in the fight to protect Montanas beloved Smith River, but we remain committed to protecting the river and all who depend on it, said Jenny Harbine, an Earthjustice attorney representing the conservation groups. Our challenge to the mines dewatering scheme is pending before the Montana Supreme Court and presents another opportunity to defend the integrity of this watershed. Arguments in that case will be heard on March 29. If the court strikes down Sandfire Resources water rights, the company cannot proceed with mining, conservation groups claimed. But the mining company said it now has all the permits it needs to proceed and that the upcoming court challenge does not currently affect the companys water rights package. Lincoln Greenidge, CEO of Sandfire America said in a statement, Todays victory in the Montana Supreme Court is a validation of the thoughtful and deliberate efforts of the Sandfire America team to design a world-class, environmentally safe mining project from the beginning. In addition to Sandfire and DEQ, the state of Montana, and Broadwater and Meagher county attorneys were defendants in the case. If you live in the European Union, iOS 17.4 is a massive upgrade. Apple began beta-testing the update on January 25 and outlined many of the changes that affect the apps and App Store experience on the iPhone. The primary aim of this release is to comply with the Digital Markets Act in the EU, which has a deadline of March 6. Apple has released the update just before that date. There are some 600 new APIs, expanded app analytics, functionality for alternative browser engines, access to NFC for mobile payment systems, and options for processing app payments and distributing iOS apps outside the App Store. Apple has a new payment and commissions structure for apps released outside the App Store or who use payment systems other than Apples, which some developers have taken exception to. Updated March 5: Everyone can now download and install the final release of iOS 17.4. iOS 17.4: Big new app distribution changes for the EU An Apple press release goes over all the changes meant for the EU and they are major, bringing alternative app stores and payments, along with a host of other changes, including: New options for distributing iOS apps from alternative app marketplaces: New APIs and tools that enable developers to offer their iOS apps for download from alternative app marketplaces. New framework and APIs for creating alternative app marketplaces: Marketplace developers can install apps and manage updates on behalf of other developers from their dedicated marketplace app. New frameworks and APIs for alternative browser engines: Developers can use browser engines, other than WebKit, for browser apps and apps with in-app browsing experiences. Interoperability request form: Developers can submit additional requests for interoperability with iPhone and iOS hardware and software features. There are new app safety features as well, meant to mitigate the risks Apple says are inherent in getting apps from places other than the App Store: Notarization for iOS apps: A baseline review that applies to all apps, regardless of their distribution channel, focused on platform integrity and protecting users. Notarization involves a combination of automated checks and human review. App installation sheets: Use information from the Notarization process to provide at-a-glance descriptions of apps and their functionality before download, including the developer, screenshots, and other essential information. Authorization for marketplace developers: Ensures marketplace developers commit to ongoing requirements that help protect users and developers. Additional malware protections: Prevents iOS apps from launching if theyre found to contain malware after being installed on a users device. iOS 17.4: General new features Other features in the beta for U.S. users and the rest of the world include: Apple Cash virtual card numbers: iOS 17.4 makes it easier to spend money from your Apple Cash account by assigning a virtual card number, which can be used as a prepaid debit card when Apple Pay isnt available. New emojis: A number of new emojis, from the Emoji 15.1 standard, are present in iOS 17.4. Apple Music Home tab: The tab formerly labeled Listen Now has been renamed Home. Stolen Device Protection: Users can now choose to always require a delay when changing security settings, not just when away from familiar locations. Podcast transcripts: The Podcast app will provide transcripts in English, French, German, and Spanish for podcast episodes. They can be auto-generated, or podcast publishers can supply their own. Stopwatch live activity: Theres now a Live Activity when you have a stopwatch running. CarPlay instrument cluster experience: In supported vehicles, CarPlay will display information about upcoming maneuvers. Users will be able to swap between the main and instrument cluster screens by tapping the map configuration button on the upper right of the Maps app main screen. Battery settings UI tweaks: For the iPhone 15 series, Apple is including a Battery Health listing that displays the batterys condition. For example, if the battery has no issues, the listing displays Normal. Tapping the Battery Health listing shows a section that displays the Maximum Capacity, Cycle Count, Manufacture Date, and First Use. iMessage post-quantum cryptography: Apple has announced the most significant cryptographic security upgrade in iMessage history using PQ3, a groundbreaking post-quantum cryptographic protocol that advances the state of the art of end-to-end secure messaging. The release of iOS 17.4 contains several security updates. Apple has listed four of them affecting Accessibility, Kernel, RTKit, and Safari Private Browsing, but says additional CVE entries are coming soon, likely when macOS 14.4 arrives next week. The Kernel and RTKit entry both say Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited. iOS 17.4: Release notes Apples official release notes for iOS 17.4 in the U.S. describe several new features coming to the iPhone. Emoji New mushroom, phoenix, lime, broken chain, and shaking heads emoji are now available in the emoji keyboard 18 people and body emoji add the option to face them in either direction Apple Podcasts Transcripts let you follow an episode with text that highlights in sync with the audio in English, Spanish, French and German Episode text can be read in full, searched for a word or phrase, tapped to play from a specific point and used with accessibility features such as Text Size, Increase Contrast, and VoiceOver This update includes the following enhancements and bug fixes: Music recognition lets you add songs you have identified to your Apple Music Playlists and Library, as well as Apple Music Classical Siri has a new option to announce messages you receive in any supported language Stolen Device Protection supports the option for increased security in all locations Battery Health in Settings shows battery cycle count, manufacture date, and first use on iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro models Call Identification displays Apple-verified business name, logo, and department name when available Business updates in Messages for Business provide trusted information for order status, flight notifications, fraud alerts or other transactions you opt into Apple Cash virtual card numbers enable you to pay with Apple Cash at merchants that dont yet accept Apple Pay by typing in your number from Wallet or using Safari AutoFill Fixes an issue where contact pictures are blank in Find My Fixes an issue for Dual SIM users where the phone number changes from primary to secondary and is visible to a group they have messaged The release will also include several security updates that will be published when the public release arrives next week. How to install iOS 17.3 You will probably be prompted to install iOS 17.4 eventually, but that can take days or even weeks. If you want to update right away, follow these steps: LIVONIA, MICH. Recently, Joanna Tremble, Madonna assistant professor and director of the Physical Education & Health and Exercise & Sport Science programs, and Riem Atiyeh, Madonna physical education and health major, went to Capitol Hill to advocate for full funding to support teacher professional development and school health and physical education programs. Tremble and Atiyeh joined more than 140 health and physical educators, representing 39 states in Washington, DC, to take part in the SHAPE America Society of Health and Physical Educators annual member advocacy day, SPEAK Out! Day, on February 13-14. The pair educated members of Congress about the importance of a well-rounded education within the bi-partisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Tremble asked lawmakers to fully fund the federal education program Title IV, Part A, Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants, under ESSA. When ESSA was passed in 2015, health and physical education were designated as part of a well-rounded education, making these subjects eligible for federal education funding for the first time. The new ESSA program, Title IV, Part A, provided funding to support a well-rounded education, safe and healthy student programs, and effective use of technology. Congress funded Title IV, Part A at $1.3 billion and $1.38 billion in FY22 and FY23, respectively. As Congress reconciles appropriations for FY 2024 and beyond, the health and physical education community continues its advocacy efforts for this important funding stream for schools. Under this block grant, we are competing with many other subject areas and programs for financial support, said Tremble. We need to make sure that the pot of money is as large as possible to ensure that health and physical education programs will have the chance to access at least a portion of those funds, says Tremble. During these Capitol Hill meetings, teachers and advocates offered insight and perspective on the negative impact of marginalizing health and physical education in schools. They also shared success stories and the links that exist between health, physical education, and social-emotional learning and academic achievement. As a former public-school teacher, and current supervisor of student teachers, I have seen first-hand what funding and lack of funding can do for a students health and physical education experience, Tremble said. Fully funding ESSA provides our school districts access to necessary funds that can directly impact a students health and well-being. In addition to pushing for full funding for Title IV, Part A, advocates also asked Congress to support continued funding for Title II, Part A, which supports professional development for all school employees, including for health and physical education programs. About SHAPE America SHAPE America Society of Health and Physical Educators is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit association and the nations largest membership organization of health and physical education professionals. Our vision is to have a nation where all children are prepared to lead healthy, physically active lives and our programs and resources support the teachers who are making a difference every day. Through our advocacy efforts, we laid the groundwork for the inclusion and elevation of health and physical education in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). We continue the fight for increased funding for these critical K-12 programs. Registering a rent agreement before leasing your property is not just a formality but holds utmost importance. It protects the interests of both owners and tenants. Heres everything you need to know about rent agreement- format, content and clauses. If you want to rent out your property, it is important to have a rent agreement with your tenant. At times, landlords skip this formality and may end up having to pay a heavy price for it. Also, if you are looking to stay on rent yourself, make sure you sign a rent agreement so all terms and conditions of your house stay are clear. Irrespective of whether you are a landlord or a tenant, you need to know all the terms and conditions of a rental agreement. The rent agreement also follows a certain format. Whether you register your rent agreement, get it notarized, or get it signed off, you should follow the legal format. Also read: Notarized or registered rent agreement - which is better? Today, we tell you what the contents of a rent agreement should be, explain its basic terms, and also give you the different formats of a rent agreement. So if you are signing up for a shop or commercial complex, this format would be different from a house rent agreement. We also give you the rent agreement format in Hindi for your convenience. What is a rent agreement? A rent agreement is a formal document agreed upon and signed between a landlord and a tenant. A usual rent agreement format will include details about the proposed rent, advance paid, terms and conditions given by the landlord, exact size and location of the property, proposed use, and other relevant details. Also read:Rental Agreement - Rights of Tenants and Landlord Why have a rent agreement? A rent agreement format that covers all relevant details is a legal document that both parties must bind by. Here are some of the advantages of drawing one before renting a property. It is very common for landlords and tenants or lessees to have disagreements over time. In such cases, a rent agreement serves as a reference to come to a solution. The agreement will help the landlord sue for damages, if any, caused by the tenant. The agreement will help the landlord evacuate the tenant/lessee for unworthy behaviour or for not following the pre-mentioned regulations. The agreement protects one from future litigation. It helps the tenant/lessee get back the paid advance at the end of the stay. It helps the tenant/lessee handle illegal and unfair claims or excess money demands by the landlord. Basic content of rent agreement Now, there is no doubt that the specific contents of a house rent agreement format are unique in every case. However, the basic structure and details may be similar. Check out the below basic contents that you should include in any common rent agreement format. Place of agreement Date, month, and year of the agreement Lessor/landlord's full name Lessor/landlord address Lessee/tenant full name Lessee/tenant address Leased/rented property address Leased/rented property area Leased/rental term in months or years Lease/rental deed start and end date Lease/rent payable per month Date of lease/rent payment Fine/interest to be paid on non-payment Notice period to end lease/rental agreement Witness signatures Also read: Pros and cons of paying rent with a credit card Documents Required for a Rent Agreement To register a rent agreement applicable in a court of law, both parties must submit certain documents. Heres a list of documents essential for registering a rent agreement- Original documents of proof of ownership of the property Papers of the property, such as tax receipts Two passport-size photographs of each party and one photograph of each witness Documents verifying the addresses of both parties and witnesses Route map of the property that is being rented Key terms in the rent agreement If you are a new landlord or a tenant/lessee, then you need to understand specific key terms in the rent agreement to ensure you are well aware of the terms and conditions. Here is a list of key terms that may be present in any rent agreement format for a shop or a house rent agreement. Occupancy limit This talks about how many members can occupy the rented or leased house at a time. This can also mention the number of employees that can work in a shop or an industry at any point in time. Term of tenancy The term of tenancy is the maximum period the lease or the rental agreement holds before it needs to be renewed or nullified. Security deposit Most landlords or lessors ask for a security deposit to cover future damages that may occur during the lease or rental period. Restrictions The landlord or the lessor usually levies restrictions and includes specific dos and donts that you may have to follow while using the property. Utilities - They are usually part of the rent/lease and are facilities you can use while the rental agreement is live. Repairs information This may include details about what repairs are the responsibilities of the landlord and which ones are of the tenant/lessee. It may also include details about how damage/repair costs are to be shared. What is the Model Tenancy Act (MTA)? The Indian government has created the Model Tenancy Act to promote rental housing in the country. This policy aims to benefit both tenants and landlords by providing guidelines for drafting rent agreements. Once the states adopt the policy, it will replace existing laws on rental housing across India. It's important to note that existing rent agreements will remain unaffected by the new law, which is progressive and won't apply retroactively. Any disputes related to existing rent agreements will continue to be dealt with under the old laws, even after they are repealed. Why are Rent Agreements For 11 Months Instead of a Full Year? When renting a property in India, it is common to sign a rental agreement valid for 11 months. This is because if the rental agreement exceeds this period, there is a requirement for registration and payment of stamp duty and other charges. These charges can get quite expensive for the tenant. View video to learn more Moreover, if the rental period exceeds 11 months, the landlord may face additional legal responsibilities under the MTA (Model Tenancy Act). Therefore, keeping the rental agreement at 11 months and renewing it for additional terms can help both parties avoid any complications and additional costs that may arise.View video to learn more Different formats of rent agreements The Government of India and the different states all have their own regulations regarding commercial and house rent agreement formats. These formats are accepted by the authorities in case there is a discrepancy and need for intervention in the future. Format of Rent agreement for House You will be able to get a rental agreement drafted by an expert very easily. For your convenience, we have also put together a few sample rent agreement format pdf and jpg below that you can check out. Do note that you may have to add the terms and conditions, rent/lease/deposit details, personal details, and other information carefully to these formats before you pass it on to the lessee or tenant. Below is a basic house rent agreement in English that you can keep as a reference before you draft your own. Please note that it is important you get your draft cross-checked and approved by an expert to ensure there are no errors or discrepancies in it. (Source: timesofindia) Some landowners are more comfortable drafting the rental agreement in their regional language. This is definitely allowed, too. You just have to ensure the other party understands this language, too. Some people make rent agreement format in Marathi while others draft it in Tamil. You can choose to do this in a language of your choice. Format of Rent agreement in Hindi for house We have a rent agreement format in Hindi given below. Like other standard formats, this should also include basic information that was listed above in the article. Format of Rent Agreement for Commercial Property While the basic agreement format remains the same for all kinds of properties, the commercial rent agreement format may require the addition of few more details. The complexity of the agreement also differs. You can check out a sample copy here. View video: Checklist for tenants Format of Rent agreement for Shop A shop is any place a person runs a business from. Starting from small kirana shops to huge showrooms, different types of shops could be given out on rent and lease. If you are planning to create a rent agreement format for shop, here is a sample for you. Format of Rent Agreement for Shop in Hindi Hindi is one of the most commonly used and spoken languages across the country and logically, someone may want to create a rent agreement format for shop in Hindi. Here is a sample you can check out. Make sure to change the details so it reflect your shop details perfectly. 5 things you must consider before renting out your property (Hindi) Conclusion to Rent Agreement Formats Whether you are the landlord or the tenant/lessee, it is very important that you draft a rental agreement and carefully add in the terms and conditions to make sure everything important is abided to or is in favour. You can use any of the above rent agreement samples mentioned to get your agreement done. We strongly suggest you take the help of an expert to finalize this because when it comes to such legal agreements, every word matters and everything is written for a reason. An expert will be able to get the right details drafted so you are safeguarded if there are legal battles in the future. A rental agreement is the basis for a healthy and open relationship between the landlord and the tenant. The more honest, transparent, and detailed this is, the better it is. Every time we think weve landed on stable footing, something comes along and makes it unstable again, forcing us to look at ways of further reducing costs. Weve now reached a stage where any further reduction in costs means proposing major changes." 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. ELKO A westbound Union Pacific freight train hauling tons of corn derailed and crashed into the 12th Street Bridge early Wednesday, officials said. No one was injured, and no dangerous chemicals were onboard. The trains derailment will likely shut down traffic on the east-west rail line for two to three days, one worker at the scene said on Wednesday morning. The 12th Street Bridge, initially predicted to be out of commission for at least another day, was assessed for damage after one of the cars slammed into a key piling and came to rest on its side. It was allowed to reopen to southbound traffic about 4:05 p.m., just in time for the evening commute to Spring Creek and less than 12 hours after the 4:52 a.m. derailment. Some 16 cars carrying corn near the Humboldt River were knocked off the rails and into heaps of twisted metal, unattached wheels, train parts and mounds of corn in the early morning derailment. Both eastbound and westbound rail travel was suspended. In a brief emailed statement to the Elko Daily Free Press, Union Pacific spokesperson Robynn Tysver said cleanup at the site is underway. The cause of the incident is under investigation, Tysver said. The Union Pacific tracks also serve Amtrak passenger trains between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area. An Amtrak spokesman said officials expect at least two California Zephyr passenger trains to be delayed. Power lines in the area were struck, but an NV Energy spokesperson said no customers lost power. The Elko County Sheriffs Office reported no one was injured and no hazardous materials were on the cars involved in the derailment. Motorists were directed to take Lamoille Highway to Fifth Street, with drivers going to Spring Creek advised use the same route. A noon commute from Spring Creek took about 30 minutes to reach downtown Elko with all the detours in place. Mayor Reece Keener said in an email to the Elko Daily Free Press earlier in the day the city was working with the railroad, state transportation officials, the state Department of Public Safety and state Sen. Pete Goicoechea to reopen the 12th Street Bridge just as soon as possible. The police department noted there are other access points to cross the tracks, such as the Fifth Street Bridge and the Errecart Bridge. Keener said earlier in the day he and other city officials are thankful that the payload was agricultural products, and not noxious chemicals. We are further blessed that there were no injuries involved in this 5 a.m. derailment. This unfortunate event underscores and magnifies the importance of secondary connectivity between the Elko and Spring Creek communities. There have been a handful of rail incidents in Elko County in recent years, but none as serious as Wednesdays, Elko Daily Free Press archives show. A train derailed in June 2019 east of Wells, prompting the closure of Interstate 80 for about a half-hour. That train was carrying explosives, but officials later confirmed the explosives were on a section of the train that was not involved in the derailment. The munitions were on their way to the Hawthorne Army Depot. Close Workers discuss the what is needed to clear the area of grain and rail debris on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, after a Union Pacific train derailed. Water Street below the 12th Street Bridge in Elko, Nevada, was closed due to the grain spilled from the derailment of a Union Pacific train on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. A tangle of rail cars and debris lines the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. The 16-car train derailed, spilling tons of grain. No one was injured. Wheels and other debris are scattered on the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, following a derailment. With onlookers above on the 12th Street Bridge in Elko, Nevada, workers below assess the damage of a Union Pacific train derailment on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. A rail car rests on its side after slamming into a bridge piling on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada. Tons of grain spilled from the Union Pacific train derailment. Workers move some debris from the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, after a freight train derailed. An overturned grain car sits abutting a piling below the 12th Street Bridge in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Workers move some debris from the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, after a freight train derailed. Grain spills from a derailed and overturned Union Pacific car on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, following a derailment. Workers discuss the work needed to clear the area of grain and rail debris on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, after a Union Pacific train derailed. Spilled grain poured from a derailed and overturned Union Pacific car on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, following a derailment. Spilled grain poured from a derailed and overturned Union Pacific car on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, following a derailment. Workers discuss the what is needed to clear the area of grain and rail debris on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, after a Union Pacific train derailed. Workers examine some of the wreckage of a Union Pacific train that derailed on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada. Workers examine some of the wreckage of a Union Pacific train that derailed on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada. A grain car is nearly perpendicular to the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, following a derailment. At least one power pole was knocked down by the Union Pacific train derailment in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Grain spills from derailed Union Pacific rail cars in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2014. Train cars are on their side and debris litters the Union Pacific tracks on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, following a derailment. A Union Pacific car is on its side in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Gallery: Train derailment A freight train hauling grain on Union Pacific tracks through Elko, Nevada, derailed the morning of Feb. 28, 2024. No one was injured. Workers discuss the what is needed to clear the area of grain and rail debris on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, after a Union Pacific train derailed. Water Street below the 12th Street Bridge in Elko, Nevada, was closed due to the grain spilled from the derailment of a Union Pacific train on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. A tangle of rail cars and debris lines the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. The 16-car train derailed, spilling tons of grain. No one was injured. Wheels and other debris are scattered on the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, following a derailment. With onlookers above on the 12th Street Bridge in Elko, Nevada, workers below assess the damage of a Union Pacific train derailment on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. A rail car rests on its side after slamming into a bridge piling on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada. Tons of grain spilled from the Union Pacific train derailment. Workers move some debris from the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, after a freight train derailed. An overturned grain car sits abutting a piling below the 12th Street Bridge in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Workers move some debris from the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, after a freight train derailed. Grain spills from a derailed and overturned Union Pacific car on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, following a derailment. Workers discuss the work needed to clear the area of grain and rail debris on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, after a Union Pacific train derailed. Spilled grain poured from a derailed and overturned Union Pacific car on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, following a derailment. Spilled grain poured from a derailed and overturned Union Pacific car on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, following a derailment. Workers discuss the what is needed to clear the area of grain and rail debris on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada, after a Union Pacific train derailed. Workers examine some of the wreckage of a Union Pacific train that derailed on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada. Workers examine some of the wreckage of a Union Pacific train that derailed on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, in Elko, Nevada. A grain car is nearly perpendicular to the Union Pacific tracks in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, following a derailment. At least one power pole was knocked down by the Union Pacific train derailment in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Grain spills from derailed Union Pacific rail cars in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2014. Train cars are on their side and debris litters the Union Pacific tracks on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, following a derailment. A Union Pacific car is on its side in Elko, Nevada, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. In March 2019, a truck carrying about 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel to Barricks Cortez mine was struck by a train when it failed to clear the tracks in time, authorities said at the time. A fuel spill occurred at the crossing. The train did not derail, and no one was injured. In May 2013, six rail cars derailed in the Elko Union Pacific yard. No one was injured. The crash sent the train cars into the perimeter brush, but did not delay any Union Pacific service because alternative rail lines in the yard were available. The train was en route from Salt Lake City to Roseville, California, when it crashed. A new sushi restaurant is bringing omakase-style presentations, a la carte sushi, robatayaki specialties and more to the Boston area next week. XOXO Sushi Bar will open in Chestnut Hill on Friday, March 8. The restaurant and bar is helmed by Chef Kegan Stritchko, who is responsible for Boston sushi destinations Uni and Fat Baby Sushi. With a focus on modern American/Japanese cuisine, XOXO Sushi Bar boasts a contemporary izakaya experience for guests. The inside of the restaurant will feature a 16-seat bar, vaulted ceiling with custom millwork, pebble stone mosaic walls, curated artwork and plush seating accented by warm lighting. The intention is to help guests enjoy good food in a city-like setting. XOXO Sushi Bars menu comprises handrolls, izakaya-style plates, aphrodisiacs and composed sashimi dishes. Highlights include Ora King salmon sashimi, an A5 wagyu tartare and a spicy tuna temaki handroll. Chef Stritchko will also offer two chefs choice options with a traditional 16-course omakase experience. The experience comes with dry-aged fish and a sashimi moriawase served with other seafood on a platter. The drink menu will feature a collection of sakes and Japanese whiskies as well as original cocktails like the Smoked Honeycomb, the Ginza Spritz, Matcha Julep and Hot Date. XOXO Sushi Bar is at 1154 Boylston St. Dinner will be served from 5-10 p.m. nightly while a late-night menu of handrolls and hot bites will be offered until 11 p.m. Sunday through Tuesday and midnight Wednesday to Saturday. Reservations are available now via Resy. For more information, people can call the restaurant at 617-505-3378 or visit go on its website. People can also follow XOXO Sushi Bar on Instagram. People work at the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 27, 2024. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing.The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. (Xinhua/Li Xin) BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing. The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. More than 3,000 reporters have registered to cover the two sessions, including more than 1,000 from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and abroad, according to the press center. The press conference hall and the press center interview rooms here have been prepared for a series of interview activities to be conducted. The press center for the two sessions will also utilize the internet to provide a range of services and measures to make the work of domestic and foreign journalists more convenient. Electronic versions of the main conference documents will be provided to journalists, eliminating the need for media reporters to wait in long queues on-site to collect them. Interview rooms will also be set up at the accommodation of NPC deputies and members of the CPPCC National Committee, offering convenient services for media interviews with them. This photo taken on Feb. 27, 2024 shows a view of the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing. The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively.(Xinhua/Li Xin) A reporter works at the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 27, 2024. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing. The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. (Xinhua/Li Xin) This photo taken on Feb. 27, 2024 shows a view of the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing.The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. (Xinhua/Li Xin) This photo taken on Feb. 27, 2024 shows a view of the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing.The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. (Xinhua/Li Xin) This photo taken on Feb. 27, 2024 shows a view of the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing.The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. (Xinhua/Li Xin) People work at the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 27, 2024. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing.The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. (Xinhua/Li Xin) This photo taken on Feb. 27, 2024 shows a view of the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing.The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. (Xinhua/Li Xin) People work at the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 27, 2024. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing.The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. (Xinhua/Li Xin) A reporter works at the press center for China's upcoming annual legislative and political consultative sessions in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 27, 2024. The press center opened Tuesday at the Media Center Hotel in Beijing.The second session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will open on March 5 and 4, respectively. (Xinhua/Li Xin) Editor: JYZ Open air museums are often touted as a great way to experience history and culture in a natural setting, and a popular tourist destination on the South Shore was recently named the best of its kind in the country by USA Today for 2024. The 10 museums on USA Todays list were chosen by an expert panel and voted by readers. The museum that came out on top was Massachusetts very own, The Plimoth Patuxet Museums in Plymouth. The museum brings visitors back in time to when the Pilgrims first landed in Massachusetts. Visitors can walk through four historic sites including a full-scale reconstruction of the Mayflower II and the 17th-Century English Village made up of replicas of both the English and Native American villages. Visitors also get a sense of what life was like back then with historical interpreters who portray both Pilgrims and Wampanoag people. The Plimoth Patuxet Museums has welcomed millions of guests for more than 75 years. The Plimoth Patuxet Museums was named the best open air museum by USA Today.Courtesy of Plimoth Patuxet Museums Founded in 1947, the Museum creates engaging experiences of history built on thorough research about the Indigenous and European people who met along Massachusetts historic shores of change in the 1600s, the museums website reads. Immersive and educational encounters underscore the collaborations as well as the cultural clash and conflicts of the 17th-century people of this region. Other New England museums to make USA Todays list were the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (6) and Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut (2). You can see the full list by clicking here. The Plimoth Patuxet Museums is open daily from early spring through the Sunday after Thanksgiving. More information can be found online or by follow the museum on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. State Attorney General Andrea Campbell said Tuesday that while she filed a lawsuit against one town in an attempt to force its compliance with a law meant to increase the housing supply, she doesnt want to have to do it again. Campbell filed the suit Tuesday against Milton, where voters earlier this month rejected a zoning plan that would have allowed the construction of multifamily housing in certain districts under the 2021 MBTA Communities Act. While many cities and towns have enacted similar zoning ordinances in order to follow the law, others have indicated, like Milton, that they would not. We hope we dont have to continue to file lawsuits against municipalities to bring them into compliance, and that they look at what were doing here and choose to follow the law, Campbell said during a media availability Tuesday afternoon. We want to work with municipalities and weve been reasonable every step of the way. This is not about a fight or fighting each other. This is about working to address a housing crisis. The MBTA Communities Act requires cities and towns with an MBTA station or bordering a community with a station to have at least one zoning area that allows multifamily housing by right. Milton, which has four stations on the Mattapan Trolley line, falls into the laws Rapid Transit category, and thus the towns deadline to adopt a compliant zoning district was Dec. 31, 2023. While the proposed zoning by-law in Milton was passed at a Dec. 11 town meeting by a more than two-thirds majority, opponents gathered enough signatures to force a referendum vote, and on Feb. 14, 54% of voters rejected the plan. Because noncompliant communities are rendered ineligible for a number of state-funded grant programs, Milton has already lost a $140,800 grant meant to fund accessibility improvements to its waterfront and restoration of its seawall. Since the vote, at least one town, Wrentham, has indicated that it would not comply with the law either, with Select Board members last week specifically citing the Milton vote as encouragement. One other town, Holden, is currently out of compliance. While Holden is classified as an adjacent community because it does not have any MBTA stations but borders Worcester, which does, and therefore its deadline for enacting a compliant zoning map is the end of 2024, town officials have repeatedly said they would not do so and failed to file an action plan by the 2023 deadline. Officials in both towns have argued that the law is not mandatory, but Campbell, along with Gov. Maura Healey and Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus, has repeatedly said this is not the case. In the complaint, Campbell requested the case be sent to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court so the court could make a ruling on communities obligation under the law. However, she said Tuesday that the case was not about making an example out of Milton, because her office is not framing this as a fight. This is a crisis that we all have to play a role in solving, she said. It is about the future of our commonwealth, our workforce, our innovation, the next generation having a chance to be able to of course live here, to call Massachusetts home. Its about housing for our seniors, municipal employees, and so many others who are working two or three jobs but cant buy a home or rent a home in Massachusetts. In a statement, Milton Town Administrator Nicholas Milano said the towns Select Board would be meeting Tuesday night to discuss Campbells complaint and next steps. We are reviewing the complaint filed by the Attorney General and we look forward to defending the town, Milano said. Following the announcement of the lawsuit Tuesday, several advocacy groups have come out in support of the action. The MBTA Communities Act is not optional, Greg Vasil, CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, said in a statement. The only hope for Massachusetts to solve its crushing housing crisis is for communities across the state to philosophically commit and operationally lay the groundwork for the production and construction of more housing. The Citizens Housing and Planning Association, a statewide nonprofit affordable housing policy organization, said Miltons rejection of the zoning proposal was exclusionary of people who could not afford to live there. At a time when people across income levels are feeling the pain of escalating home prices and rents, the status quo keeps Miltons gates closed and limits opportunities for people to have homes they can afford in the neighborhoods they love, CHAPA said. For too long, zoning has been used to exclude people rather than expand opportunities for people. The MBTA Communities Law is a tool to begin to undo the harms of the past and enable choices for people regarding where they want and can afford to live. Lawyers for Civil Rights sued Holden last year over its refusal to comply with the law. While a judge dismissed the lawsuit in December, saying the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that they had been directly harmed by the towns actions, Executive Director Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal said in a statement Tuesday that the organization is still appealing the decision. Every MBTA Community is now on notice that copy-cat violators will be held accountable, Espinoza-Madrigal said of Campbells lawsuit. Any municipality that refuses to comply with MBTA Zoning Law is selfishlyand illegallyentrenching an unacceptable status quo. ... Todays suit brings us one step closer to a world in which all commonwealth residents, regardless of their race or income, can secure quality housing in their neighborhood of choice. Before uttering a word at a special Brockton School Committee meeting Tuesday night, Superintendent Mike Thomas winked at the crowd as they cheered for him, chanting Bring him back. Bring him back. The superintendent had just been placed on paid administrative leave by the Brockton School Committee while the city investigates how the school districts budget came to have a $14 million deficit in the 2023 fiscal year. Thomas has been on medical leave since August around the same time that the deficit was discovered. Thomas wants to return to his position and help tackle Brockton High Schools disciplinary issues, which recently prompted four school committee members to request that the National Guard be deployed at the school to help get the situation under control. Gov. Maura Healey ultimately denied the request, opting to give the city a grant to fund a safety audit of the school department instead. In the meantime, both educators at Brockton High School and Brockton city councilors have called for more action by the school committee and administration on issues such as student fights, skipped classes and vaping. Theyve also criticized administrators for not doing enough while the problems have persisted the past few months something Thomas asserts wouldnt have happened under his watch. Im not putting the current administration down. I worked with all of them. I hired most of them, he said during the meeting. But if Mike Thomas was here, this stuff at the high school, you know would not be happening. Thomas had previously notified the school committee that he planned to retire on March 3, the committees lawyer, Sarah Spatafore said Tuesday night. But last week, he notified the committee that he felt well enough to return to work. Even so, the committee voted unanimously to put Thomas on paid administrative leave. They did not take punitive action against him, but indicated that they will not consider returning him to his position until both an audit of the school department by an independent firm and an investigation led by the city solicitor finish looking into the deficit. This is to preserve the integrity of the ongoing audit and investigation, Spatafore said. Its not a disciplinary move. Its not contemplating discipline at this time, as we dont have the results of the audit or the city investigation to rely upon. Read more: Brockton School Committee members ask to deploy National Guard at high school Thomas has continuously denied any illegal activity or wrongdoing in regards to the budget deficit, claiming that the district overspent on legitimate purchases for students. During his comments Tuesday, he seemed confident that he would be vindicated by the audit and investigation. Do your audit. Do your personal investigations. Please come. Look at my credit cards. Look at my bank accounts. Look at whatever you want to look in Mike Thomas background. Because Mike Thomas never took a dime from the Brockton Public Schools, he said as the audience cheered. The decision to put Thomas on leave was met by derision by school community members in the audience, who repeatedly shouted as the officials tried to speak. We need him in the schools! one woman could be heard shouting ahead of Thomas comments. Hes the only one that can help! another man shouted. Some school committee members did not take kindly to the support for Thomas. At one point, a female school committee member could be heard swearing in disbelief at the response. By the end of the meeting, even Brockton Mayor Robert Sullivan who chairs the school committee made some heated remarks while defending the audit and investigation, which he characterized as fair and impartial. We need to figure out what happened. People can finger-point all they want, he said, as an man tried to interrupt him. He then continued more loudly, saying I was not made aware of a fiscal 23 deficit until the date of August 8th! And thats a fact! Read more: Community rallies outside Brockton High School in support of students It is unclear when the audit, which is being handled by Boston-based consulting firm RSU US, will be completed, but Sullivan said it will be made public when it is. Brockton City Council is expecting an update on the investigation at the next city council meeting, but it might be given in executive session, Ward 6 City Councilor John Lally said Tuesday. UPDATE: As of 8 a.m. on Wednesday, traffic has reopened on Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. Hampden Street between Albany Street and Melnea Cass Boulevard remains closed. All other streets have opened. An early Wednesday morning crash that killed a pedestrian is being investigated by police and has shut down the intersection at Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, known as Mass and Cass. Police received word of the crash shortly after 4:30 a.m. When they arrived at the intersection of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Hampden Street, they found one adult man with life-threatening injuries, who was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Boston Police spokesman Jason Villanueva. The driver of the vehicle that struck the pedestrian remained in the area and cooperated with police, Villanueva said. Police are not releasing the names of the victim or driver at this time, Villanueva said. Traffic is closed Wednesday morning in both directions on Massachusetts Avenue, Melnea Cass Boulevard, Albany Street and Hampden Street. A traffic advisory from the Boston police advises drivers to seek an alternate route. Traffic Advisory: Due to a fatal crash at Hampden St and Melnea Cass Blvd, traffic is shut down in both directions on Mass and Cass and Hampden and Albany. We urged motorists to seek an alternate route. Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) February 28, 2024 Traffic was backed up to the highway in the area, according to WCVB. When will the traffic be opened back up again? No time soon, Villanueva said shortly after 7 a.m. Boston police will continue to provide updates on when traffic opens up on their twitter page, he added. MassLive recently asked readers to identify people who are leaders from the LGBTQ+ community throughout the state, working to make a difference in their own area of interest, be it politics, education, business or the arts. Profiles of these leaders will be published through the rest of February. These are people our readers have identified as inspirational, who may be doing good acts for their communities. They are being recognized for their accomplishments, leadership and commitment to inspire change. Gretchen Van Ness is an LGBTQ + housing advocate.Courtesy of Gretchen Van Ness Gretchen Van Ness Age: 65 Community: Boston Her story: Gretchen Van Ness is the first executive director of LGBTQ Senior Housing, Inc. - a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating LGBTQ welcome, and safe, affordable housing for seniors. She has served on numerous boards and associations as an LGBTQ+ leader and advocate. Van Ness is passionate about creating a safe, affordable, living space for LGBTQ+ seniors. She graduated with her doctorate in law from Boston College in 1988. Shortly after graduating, she opened an independent litigation practice in Boston focused on employment discrimination, civil rights and serving the LGBTQ community. Everything Ive learned fighting for racial justice and equity, for womens rights, for disability rights, and for the LGBTQ+ community ... has come together in this history-making work at LGBTQ Senior Housing, said Van Ness. Our work is to create home and community where LGBTQ+ elders are celebrated and can age in place as their fabulous and authentic selves. Van Ness has served as an LGBTQ+ representative in and out of the courtroom. She represented the Town of Provincetown when Governor Mitt Romney declared that any town clerk who issued a marriage license to an out-of-state same sex couple was violating the law, and was the first woman and openly gay person to run for state Representative in Hyde Park. The challenges we face in every community today are daunting and feel overwhelming, but everyone every single person can do something that will make a difference, said Van Ness. No one in Boston was building affordable senior housing for the LGBTQ+ community until our co-founders Aileen Montour and Philippe Saad met and started working together. Banners hung at the LGBTQ+-centered housing development were spray painted with homophobic messages. Community members gathered to cover-up the vandalism. She said 2024 is a significant year for LGBTQ Senior Housing, Inc., as the organization is preparing to open its first LGBTQ+ affordable, senior-housing in New England: The Pryde and our Community Center in Hyde Park. Even in Massachusetts many LGBTQ+ members are harassed, shunned and forced back into the closet in senior communities, said Van Ness, where both residents and staff can be homophobic. Pryde and our Community Center in Hyde Part will create much needed community space for both the LGBTQ+ community and the Hyde Park community, with its addition of 74 mixed-income apartments. In her words: Theres no single right way to pitch in and theres no silver bullet in the work of creating a more just, kind and equitable world ... Find what resonates and makes the most sense for you and if you dont find it, find your people and create it! Were always open to hearing about more inspiring people. If youd like to suggest someone else who should be recognized, please fill out this form. While Gov. Maura Healey has now denied a request by Brockton School Committee members to bring the National Guard in to address disciplinary issues at Brockton High School, she and some Brockton officials say theyre concerned about whats been going on at the school. During a Jan. 31 special school committee meeting the second meeting on this topic in the last six months educators, parents and students from Brockton High School spoke for an hour and a half about everything from vaping in school bathrooms to sexual activity in a stairwell. There are fights practically every day. Students and teachers are suffering bodily harm, senior Lydia Bloodsworth said. While this may seem like typical teenage behavior, school community members said they believe administrators and the school committee are not doing enough to enforce rules and create a safe school environment. These are the words that Ive heard echoed over and over: Nothing is done, Stacey McDonald, president of the Brockton Educational Support Professional Association, said. What teachers say is happening at Brockton High During the special meeting, McDonald shared feedback she said shed heard from educators at Brockton High School. She told stories of girls smoking in a bathroom after being told not to minutes prior, students letting unauthorized people into the school, educators being told to F off and students knocking educators down as they run to take a video of a fight. Stop beating around the bush and act immediately. We dont have time anymore, and ignoring our pleas is failing our students at BHS, McDonald said. Read more: Brockton School Committee members ask to deploy National Guard at high school Brockton Education Association President Kimberly Gibson also spoke at the meeting and voiced concerns about fights at the school. During one recent incident, a student was taken by ambulance to a hospital after a fight in the cafeteria, and during two others, students went into classrooms with the express purpose of assaulting another student, she said. Having no consequences for this and other unacceptable behavior is part of the overall issue, she said, echoing concerns previously raised by Brockton city councilors. Gibson also criticized the school committee for spending meeting time fighting over its vice chair position another concern city councilors have raised. The teachers feel unheard and unsupported as they deal with other issues, too, such as students cutting classes and wandering the halls, she said. They continue to show up to work in an environment that is mentally and physically draining, she said. Would you go to work to be verbally abused every day? Would you sit by while a colleague gets pushed by a student? Would you want to worry about being attacked in your own classroom? Because thats where we are now. What students say is happening at Brockton High During her special school committee meeting comments, Bloodsworth said teacher absences are abundant and noticeable. And when it comes to administrators, she added, students have no idea who to turn to for help. The schools security staff also arent taking action to correct problem behaviors, even turning down their walkie talkies to socialize with students, Bloodsworth said. Meanwhile, she feels safe in only one of the schools four libraries. My teachers often have to step out of class at least twice during each period to stop teens without passes. So how am I supposed to thrive in an environment where my teachers are doing the security guards job and trying to teach me an AP course at the same time? she questioned. Read more: Community rallies outside Brockton High School in support of students Some actions school administrators have taken to address disciplinary issues havent worked, Bloodsworth added. For instance, many of the schools bathrooms are now locked, despite having a student population of nearly 3,600. We were told the administration locks the bathrooms to ensure our safety and cut down on vaping. All that has done is bring vaping into the open, she said. Whats being done to combat these issues While the National Guard will not be deployed at Brockton High School, Gov. Maura Healeys administration has provided the city with a grant to fund an audit of the schools safety condition, the governor said during a press conference Monday evening. Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler will also continue working directly with Brockton officials on this issue going forward. Brocktons acting superintendent and police chief are also expected to present a plan of action to address disciplinary issues at the school at a special school committee meeting Tuesday night, Feb. 27, according to NBC10 Boston. MBTA Transit Police arrested a man following an attack on a McDonalds employee in South Station. At around 7 p.m. on Saturday, officers arrived after a man struck the employee with his fists and the cash register, police said on a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The man was upset after the employee touched the lid of his drink. Odair Andrade, 34, was charged with assault and battery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and malicious destruction of property, Boston 25 News reported Monday. He was expected to appear in court later that day, according to NBC 10 Boston. We heard a loud commotion, witness Joshua Venter told Boston 25. He was closed fists punching the guy. The employee was treated on-scene, transit police said. MassLive has reached out to MBTA Transit Police for more information. A Suffolk County grand jury indicted Kevin Kangethe, the man accused of killing a Whitman woman and leaving her body in a car parked at Logan International Airport in Boston, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Haydens office announced. Margaret Mbitu, 31, of Whitman, was identified by Massachusetts State Police as the person found dead inside a car inside the central parking garage at Logan Airport around 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2023. The investigation led authorities to believe Kangethe, 40 slashed her face and neck, then left her body in his car and fled to Kenya out of Logan. He was arrested in a Kenyan nightclub on Jan. 30 and escaped from a local police station before he was arrested again on Feb. 14. Behind bars again, Kangethe is expected to undergo extradition proceedings in a Kenyan court in the coming weeks, Haydens office said. Suffice it to say, this has been a custody process with many twists and turns, Hayden said in the statement. Along with Margaret Mbitus family and friends, we are hoping that the extradition process proceeds in a smooth and timely manner. This indictment makes clear that upon his return to Boston, Kevin Kangethe will answer in Superior Court for the brutal killing of Maggie Mbitu, a nurse who cared deeply about so many and who was deeply loved by many in return. A statewide panel voted 6-1 on Wednesday to elevate Judge Gabrielle Wolohojian to Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, making her Gov. Maura Healeys second nominee to win appointment to the Bay States highest court. A 16-year veteran of the Massachusetts Appeals Court, Wolohojian formerly worked at the Boston-based law firm WilmerHale. Her nomination also drew scrutiny because of her past romantic relationship with the Democratic governor, with whom she shared a home in Charlestown for several years, State House News Service reported. Members of the Governors Council, an elected panel, chaired by Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, that has the final say power over judgeships, heaped praise on Wolohojians professional track record at a public interview on Feb. 21 and largely avoided delving into the personal past between Healey and Wolohojian, the wire service reported. Councilor Tara Jacobs, of North Adams, cast the lone vote against Wolohojians appointment. Wolohojian, 63, is eligible to serve on the bench until Dec. 16, 2030 when she reaches the states mandatory judicial retirement age of 70, State House News Service reported. Massachusetts will open a new overflow shelter in Bostons Seaport neighborhood as the state continues to contend with an influx of new arrivals, the Healey administration has confirmed. Speaking to WCVB-TV, Gov. Maura Healey did not provide a timetable on when the shelter in an office building on Farnsworth Street in Fort Point might open its doors. But she did say shed like to see it opened as soon as possible, the station reported. We continue to need to find safe housing for people, we continue to be in dialogue with community and with the city, Healey said Monday, according to WCVB-TV. Reports first emerged earlier this month that the state was eyeing the 92,000-square-foot building in Fort Point, owned by the Unitarian Universalist Association, as a potential site, MassLive previously reported. The news came only days after the state opened an emergency overflow site in Bostons Roxbury neighborhood that quickly filled to capacity. The announcement also comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill struggle to reach agreement on a border security and foreign aid bill that could send badly needed assistance to interior states, such as Massachusetts, that are spending millions of dollars to provide shelter and services to the flood of migrants. Speaking to reporters during a news conference earlier this week, a visibly angry Healey called on Washington to send that assistance, keeping up the drumbeat of criticism shes issued for months on the lack of federal action. So we are we continue to ask for Republicans in Congress to put this country ahead of partisan politics, to find it within their own conscience and, and do what is right, Healey said. Im also not holding out hope Im a realist here. And, you know, the sad reality of what happened [to a prior border bill] is that one former President opened his mouth and killed a deal that was right there, [that was] ready to be voted on by Republicans and Democrats and signed by the president of the United States. It remains the responsibility of Congress to act. Costs for the states shelter system are expected to sail past $900 million a year for the next two years amid a time of flagging tax collections. The fiscal challenge of meeting that growing need was a central theme of a legislative hearing earlier this month, where Healey and her top aides were peppered with questions over the administrations $58 billion spending plan for the new fiscal year that starts July 1. State House Speaker Ron Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, told reporters Monday that hes only now begun evaluating the supplemental budget request that Healey filed last month to fund the states over-capacity emergency shelter system that is set to run out of money this spring, State House News Service reported. Well, were just taking a look at it now. Were taking a look at how people are going to address it, House the Quincy Democrat said when he was asked about the status of Healeys request to drain a state fund to accommodate the surge of new arrivals and homeless families seeking shelter in Massachusetts. House Ways & Means Committee Chairperson Aaron Michlewitz, D-Boston, said last November that he expects a $250 million funding injection that lawmakers approved this fall to get the states shelter system through the winter months and into the spring, according to State House News Service. The initial $325 million that state officials allocated for shelter costs in the state budget ran out this month, the wire service reported. Abbas Ganbay Azerbaijan has discussed opportunities for cooperation with German companies in areas such as green energy and the production of green technologies, Azernews reports, citing the Ministry of Energy. At the meeting of Minister Parviz Shahbazov with the visiting delegation of companies headed by the General Director of the Eastern Business Association of Germany, Michael Harms, the delegation was informed about the issues on the agenda of Azerbaijan's energy transition, on green energy projects implemented and planned in the country, as well as on plans to export renewable energy sources, including green hydrogen. Possibilities of cooperation with German companies in such areas as solar and wind energy projects, bioenergy, green hydrogen, energy efficiency, and the production of green technologies were discussed. French performers show a traditional dance on stage in Qingxu County, north China's Shanxi Province, Feb. 24, 2024. (Xinhua/Chen Zhihao) TAIYUAN, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Early on the morning of this year's Chinese Lantern Festival, which fell on Saturday, a folk ensemble from France stood out among the groups of performers waiting for the two-day celebration to begin on the illuminated streets of Qingxu County, north China's Shanxi Province. "After receiving an invitation from Qingxu County, we can't wait to experience the festive atmosphere," said Cathy Bravo, a member of Birousans, the French folk performance group. In an effort to promote cultural exchange, Qingxu invited folk groups like Birousans from France, Italy and Kazakhstan to celebrate this year's Lantern Festival in the county, alongside local performers and groups from all over China. Birousans, established in 1921 and based in the central Pyrenees Mountains, is a group known for its distinctive songs, dances and costumes. "The attire we're wearing today represents our traditional festival clothing. It's typically worn during significant moments. As far as I know, the Lantern Festival is also an important day for the Chinese people. We are honored to celebrate this festive occasion here with our Chinese friends," said Audrey Fourtan, another member of Birousans. The ensemble's dance style is lively with a strong sense of rhythm. The musicians play traditional music from the central Pyrenees Mountains on instruments such as drums, oboes and accordions to accompany the dancers, who wear long, pointed wooden shoes and folk costumes. "Our performance today showcases what France was like in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Being able to participate in the Lantern Festival performance here fills us with excitement, and we also feel the warmth and enthusiasm of the Chinese people," said Laurent Mayer, the group's leader. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and France. The two countries are working together to host celebrations throughout the year and launch the China-France Year of Culture and Tourism, promoting people-to-people cultural exchanges between the two sides. Many members of Birousans have come to China for the first time. They have spent their visit enjoying folk performances from all over the country and savoring various northern Chinese cuisines, giving them a deeper understanding of China. "Twenty years ago, I visited China. And returning here now, I feel that China has undergone remarkable changes, which fascinates me. If there are future opportunities, I eagerly look forward to spending more time in China and experiencing more of its rich culture," Bravo said. Editor: JYZ The way U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss sees it, theres one reason and one reason only that lawmakers on Capitol Hill havent passed a multi-billion dollar aid bill for Ukraine and Israel. Thats because U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is afraid of Donald Trump, the Democrat from Massachusetts 4th Congressional District Democrat said Wednesday, as Ukraines efforts to repel an unprovoked Russian invasion dragged into its third year, and as the Eastern European nation runs out of ammunition to keep that resistance going. There are votes to support Ukraine. It is there. It is bipartisan, Auchincloss told WBURs Radio Boston program on Wednesday morning. It is not as bipartisan as it should be because the [House Republicans] MAGA flank is vociferous. Donald Trump has some weird fanboy crush on [Russian President] Vladimir Putin that is just devastating for American policy. Johnson and other congressional leaders huddled with President Joe Biden on Tuesday, where they discussed a previously approved U.S. Senate bill that would channel $95 billion in U.S. assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and civilians in conflict zones, Roll Call reported. Johnson has blocked action on the bill in the majority-Republican House, over disagreements on border security measures. Trump, the former president and likely GOP White House nominee, also has pressured Republicans to oppose it, the New York Times reported. Speaking to WBUR on Wednesday, Auchincloss, a former Marine who is of Ukrainian descent, described Trump as one of the four horsemen of the MAGA opposition to the aid proposal. The others are Republican U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, and Jim Jordan, of Ohio, and influential conservative television host Tucker Carlson, Auchincloss said. They have tremendous influence over Mike Johnson and the narrow [Republican] margins he controls in the House, Auchincloss said. Hes afraid of motion to vacate, Auchincloss added, referring to Johnson and the procedural mechanism that a single House lawmaker can employ to call for a sitting speakers ouster. Such fears dont matter, since hes on the way out, Auchincloss continued, predicting a Democratic takeover of the House after this falls general election. Should that happen, the [Republican] conference will devour him. What I would say to him is, Think about your legacy. Do you want to be remembered as the guy who handed Ukraine back to Russia, or do you want to be remembered as the guy who met the moment? Auchincloss told the station. Wednesdays rain and wind are expected to carry on overnight, but the worst is yet to come for parts of Massachusetts. Following an initial surge of heavy winds, the National Weather Service anticipates a lull period in the afternoon before another surge arrives and strengthens in the late afternoon and evening. During this timeframe, a high wind warning will remain in effect until 4 a.m. on Thursday for Berkshire County, along with a separate high wind warning for Franklin, Hampshire and Hampden counties. West winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 60 mph, forecasters said about Berkshire County. The strongest gusts will occur along with and just behind a strong cold frontal passage this evening. Both high wind warnings caution about trees and power lines falling as a result of heavy winds. They also warn of potential power outages and difficult travel. People should avoid being outside in forested areas and around trees and branches, the warnings said. If possible, remain in the lower levels of your home during the windstorm, and avoid windows. Use caution if you must drive. Other parts of the state can expect wind gusts to keep rising as Wednesday night goes on. Forecasters expect wind gusts to reach as high as 49 mph in Worcester and Springfield, 48 mph in Boston, 52 mph in Fitchburg and Provincetown, 55 mph in Greenfield and 56 mph in Hyannis and on Nantucket. [Strong to Damaging Wind Gusts Tonight] The main weather concern will be strong to damaging wind gusts behind the cold front later this evening & overnight. Wind gusts of 45 to 60 mph are anticipated as temps quickly drop into the 20s & 30s. pic.twitter.com/BQwLqrsWlX NWS Boston (@NWSBoston) February 28, 2024 Wind gusts as high as 60 mph or more could blow through parts of the Cape and the Berkshires, forecasters said. Winds could diminish as a cold front moves in, sharply dropping temperatures in the 50s into the 30s over a two-to-four-hour period. Wind chills will drop into the teens by morning with single numbers in the higher terrain, forecasters said. Rain will flip to a brief period of snow before ending as rapid drying is moving in from the west. Accumulations will be limited to a coating to an inch, especially higher elevations and potentially up to 2 inches in the Berkshires. There is a low risk for isolated icy spots as temperatures drop, especially where any minor accum occurs, but otherwise not a big concern as strong winds and rapid drying will dry out pavement before any freezing. Sunshine should return by noon on Thursday, with dry weather expected throughout the day with a small chance of snow showers in the Berkshires. However, winds should remain gusty between 30 and 40 mph, possibly stronger. The family of a 23-year-old man from Westfield who was shot and killed through a car window in Springfield on Monday afternoon is accepting GoFundMe donations for his funeral costs. Anthony Goss was identified by the Springfield Police Department as the man killed on Feb. 26 as he was sitting in his car near Bay and Tapley streets at 3:55 p.m. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Days before the scheduled start of his trial in Rhode Island, prosecutors say former Holyoke City Councilor Wilmer Puello-Mota boarded an international flight bound for Turkey and fled the country. Puello-Mota, 28, with a last known address on Main Street in Holyoke, was scheduled to face trial on Jan. 5 but requested an extension until Jan. 9. He was charged with possession of child pornography, obstruction of the judicial system, forgery and counterfeiting. Another major donation from Nephin Energy to the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (SVP) West Region will bring further help to support vulnerable families in Mayo. Approximately 300 families in Mayo and over 700 in the SVP West Region as a whole have already been supported with energy costs from Nephin Energy donations. The recent donation of 100,000 is estimated to bring this figure for the region to over 1,000 families. Nephin Energy Managing Director, Tom OBrien, said while energy prices have recently fallen, almost one in four households still struggle to pay their energy bills. Ireland's largest domestic producer of natural gas, Nephin Energy, has been helping address energy poverty in the SVP West Region for the past three years. This latest donation brings the total donations from the energy producer to a quarter of a million since 2021. With the increase in calls reaching record levels, SVP expects that figure to reach over 1,000 by next winter. For the most vulnerable, keeping their homes warm during the winter is still a real challenge, added Mr OBrien. Maureen Mitchell, the West Regional President for SVP, welcomed the donation, saying 2023 was a year that saw a huge increase in the number of people reaching out to SVP looking for support and assistance. Ms Mitchell revealed that last year, SVP received just over 250,000 calls for help to its regional and local conferences nationwide. Energy and utility bills were an area of need cited by almost 20,000 callers, while another 33,000 calls were from people struggling with both energy and food costs when they reached out to SVP for help she explained. Although having heat and electricity is a basic living requirement, for many, its not possible to afford. SVP continues to advocate and take practical steps to reduce energy poverty among vulnerable families said Ms Mitchell. The SVP West Region is made up of 63 local committees that operate in Mayo, Galway and Roscommon. Ms Mitchell said this Nephin Energy donation will allow over 500 local volunteers to provide far-reaching assistance to those in need of support with energy costs. The volunteers take a practical approach to dealing with poverty by helping alleviate its effects on individuals and families. This is primarily through in person, home visitation where they offer direct, personal assistance based on the needs of the individual or family. We are delighted to be able to help alleviate, in some small way, the cost-of-living pressures that people are experiencing, particularly at this time of the year concluded Mr OBrien. A former parliamentary assistant has admitted hacking the Twitter account of Midlands-North-West constituency MEP Luke 'Ming' Flanagan. RTE News have today reported that Diarmuid Hayes, 34, from Dublin, was convicted in a Belgian court of posting a picture of then Green Party candidate, Achill native, Saoirse McHugh from Mr Flanagan's account in September 2020. A Belgian public prosecutor has sought a one year prison term for Hayes. Mr Flanagan claimed offensive comments about pictures of Ms Saoirse McHugh were posted from his Twitter account after it was hacked. The Roscommon native claimed that a message was posted from the account by a third party against his will and knowledge and that it was extremely damaging. The message was subsequently deleted. Ms McHugh, and Emma Sheering, currently an assistant of Mr Flanagan, were later named in court documents as victims in the case. Mr Flanagan reported the incident, and after an investigation by European Parliament authorities the matter was handed over to Belgian police. It is understood the case involves two alleged breaches of Belgian law. One is the fraudulent access of another persons social media account, the second involves the changing of data on the account. The case has been put back to March 25 for sentencing. The public prosecutor has sought a one-year prison term, although he said he would not object if the term was suspended. Counsel for Hayes, Charlotte Henderickx asked Judge Jacquemin to consider community service, which would not carry with it a criminal record. Read a full report on the hearing on the RTE News website by clicking on the link above. A GP position in Achill that has been vacant since 2020 is to be re-advertised again despite several unsuccessful attempts to fill the position. The HSE has spent over 1.3 million on providing a locum doctor at a practice in Achill that was vacated in January 2021. John Fitzmaurice, Chief Officer, Community Healthcare West, said the HSE would advertise the position again in a few months. Raising the matter at a meeting of HSE Forum West, Cllr Michael Kilcoyne said that employing an agency to staff the position was costing a fortune. The only other vacant GP post in Mayo is in Charlestown, which has been vacant since 2021. The HSE has been spending in the region of 25,000 per month providing locum doctors in Achill. The Mayo News has asked the HSE for the exact figure spent to date on locum doctors in the area. Weve run a couple of campaigns now and they havent had any success. Well await a period of time before we re-advertise again, he said. There are steps being taken at a national level to increase the numbers of GPs coming into the country. But again, we just need to allow a period of time for that to evolve. Cllr Kilcoyne said that special incentives should be put in place for positions, such as Achill, where the HSE is having difficulty filling positions. Mr Fitzmaurice said Cllr Kilcoynes suggestion was fair point, adding that there were special provisions being introduced specifically to reduce GP shortages in rural areas. The HSE is currently working on provisions to incentivise GPs to establish practices in rural areas. The Rural Practice Incentive Scheme currently offers a stipend of up to 20,000 towards the running costs of GMS areas with a population equal or less than 2,000 people. LAHARDANE GP THE recent meeting of HSE Forum West also heard that the new GP in Lahardane has been employed on a six month agency basis. Iraqi-born doctor Dr Amjed Ahmed recently took up a position in the North Mayo village after a long-running local campaign to have it reinstated. Cllr Kilcoyne asked if this meant that his position was not permanent. Mr Fitzmaurice said: Its initially on a six-month agency basis. But the expectation is that hell continue to develop his practice over that time. He added that Dr Ahmed will have the option to transfer to another practice before moving to assure Cllr Kilcoyne that hell remain there as long as he continues to remain there. Rural Ireland Organisation leader Gerry Loftus has said Dr Ahmed would remain for the long haul and has encouraged local patients to transfer to his practice to keep it viable. Atlantic Technological University (ATU) and Maynooth University (MU) are hosting a series of events to celebrate the life of the late Micheal Mac Greil SJ and his lifes work, as part of Social Justice Week. An tAthair Micheal Mac Greil SJ, who died in January 2023, was a member of the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University from 1971 to 1996, renowned as a gifted teacher and an outstanding researcher. A staunch Mayo man, he made an extraordinary contribution to the West of Ireland through his research and advocacy and community action. Three upcoming events celebrate his lifes work: On Thursday, March 7, from 10am to 12 noon, Maynooth University will host a discussion titled Prejudice and Tolerance in Ireland with Professor Jane Gray, Professor Emeritus Tony Fahey, Martin Collins, Pavee Point and Niamh McDonald, the Hope and Courage Collective. On Friday, March 8, from 10am to 12 noon, ATU, Mayo campus (Castlebar) will host an event titled Remembering Micheal: Colleague, Academic and Social Activist. Contributors include Professor Mary P Corcoran, Maynooth University; Dr Mark Garavan and Eoghan Murphy, ATU and Professor Emeritus Paddy Duffy, Maynooth University. Dr Deirdre Garvey, ATU Head of Dept of Environmental Humanities & Social Science, will chair the event which takes place in Room P002 (F23X853). On Saturday, March 9, in Westport, an event called Ag Ceiliuradh Micheal Mac Greil will take place in the Town Hall Theatre. A Mass will be celebrated in St Marys Church, Westport at 10am followed by a gathering in the Town Hall at 11am with a presentation by Eamon O Cuiv TD on working with Micheal Mac Greil. This will be followed by participatory discussion, poetry and song. This event is facilitated by journalist Liamy Mac Nally with a word of welcome from Padraig McGreal, brother of Micheals. Two of the events (March 7 and 8) although free do require registration. Please register on the following link: https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/news-events/fe-le-mac-gr-il Dr Mark Garavan, lecturer, Dept of Environmental, Humanities and Social Science, ATU Mayo, says: Over the course of his career as a sociologist and a Jesuit priest Rev Dr Micheal Mac Greil, who died in January 2023, shone a bright light into the corners of Irish society where intolerance and lack of compassion for others prevailed. He called out inequalities and injustices wherever he encountered them. His moral compass remained resolute throughout his long and productive life working assiduously to build a more solidaristic, empathic and fairer Ireland. Micheal was a leading member of the Department of Sociology at Maynooth University from 1971 to 1996, where he was known as a gifted teacher and an outstanding researcher. A pioneering advocate of empirical social science research, his path breaking sociological inquiries into prejudice and tolerance in Irish society spanned several decades. Eoghan Murphy, ATU Department of Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences, ATU Mayo, says: Micheal was an inspiration, a leader, a true intellectual who lived his life in accordance with his Christian values. He would have liked this series of events to be not a memorial to him but as a platform to discuss our current challenges regarding prejudice and would have had the courage to promote dialogue on the topic. As he always said, A prejudice exposed, is a prejudice undermined. A Fuxing bullet train runs on the Lhasa-Nyingchi railway in Nang County, southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, April 14, 2022. (Xinhua/Chogo) by Liu Zhoupeng LHASA, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- During the Spring Festival holiday season, I had the privilege of accompanying railway workers on a maintenance journey across the plateau in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, navigating through extreme conditions resembling "ice and fire." As I joined a convoy of vehicles ascending the mountain at the Gyaca Bridge and Tunnel section, part of the railway connecting the region's major cities of Lhasa and Nyingchi, the Yarlung Zangbo River below revealed its clear and turquoise waters. The dark brown Zam Bridge, with its arch crown and 86 white suspender cables connecting to the deck, resembled a colossal harp, gracefully stretching across both riverbanks. The bridge, constructed as a concrete-filled steel tube arch, is at the world's highest altitude at 3,350 meters and boasts the longest span measuring 430 meters. During winter, the vertical distance between its deck and the surface of the Yarlung Zangbo River exceeds 30 meters, according to a worker. To ensure the bridge's safety and unimpeded access, workers must climb hundreds of narrow stairs along the arch to reach its top, which stands over 100 meters above the surface of the river. "It feels as if we're walking through the clouds," said Zhang Liang, deputy foreman of the Gyaca Bridge and Tunnel section. I looked up from the bridge and saw the workers, clad in bright yellow safety vests, gradually ascending higher and appearing smaller along the arch. Over the past two years, maintenance workers have had to inspect the bridge every week regardless of the extreme weather, especially the wind, which has a maximum speed of up to 37 meters per second. Zhang recalled his maiden mission in 2021, the first year of the railway's operation. By the time the inspection of all components was completed, it was already nightfall. The valley wind intensified, compelling him to tightly grip the handrail with both hands while pressing his body close to the stairs. He said that even after scaling the top of the arch numerous times, every time he peered down into the river, his legs would shake uncontrollably. Looking down at the tranquil river far below from the towering deck, and then up at the top of the arch reaching towards the sky, his mood suddenly echoed within me. While on the bridge, the wind deflectors on both sides produced a constant hum. Despite wearing thick gloves and winter clothing, the chill persisted. "The cold metal and welds seem like ice stabbers to our hands," said Zhang, explaining the importance of every single screw in the construction of the plateau bridge. Bidding farewell to the bitter cold Zam bridge, we entered the longest tunnel along the railway -- the 17.3-kilometer-long Dakarlha tunnel. Here, the high temperature generated by geothermal energy inside posed another challenge. A sudden wave of hot steam caught me off guard, instantly fogging my eyeglasses and camera lens. During the 3.5-kilometer walk through the tunnel, workers used inspection hammers to tap on the sidewalls, gauging the concrete compactness, identifying cavities, and assessing other wall conditions based on the resulting sounds. I also heard sounds of water nearby and in the distance. The Qinghai-Xizang Plateau is known as the "Asian water tower" and is home to numerous mountains and glaciers. Their surfaces are covered by a large amount of glacial debris, which is loose and porous, allowing a large amount of water to infiltrate and gather into rich underground water resources. The area of the Dakarlha Tunnel experiences frequent rainfall, resulting in abundant underground water resources. I dipped my fingers into the hot water flowing in the drainage channel by the sidewall, and it felt like a comfortable temperature for a bath. As we went deeper into the tunnel, the temperature gradually picked up, and my hair under the helmet was soaked with sweat. The maximum temperature in the tunnel can reach 39 degrees Celsius on a regular winter night. "When the railway first opened, we had to walk through the entire tunnel, enduring temperatures as hot as a sauna," said Dong Shengrui, another deputy foreman of the Gyaca Bridge and Tunnel section. He said that they would often exit the tunnel by late morning, noting that now the tunnel has been equipped with many service roads, making it more convenient for maintenance. This inspection work usually occurs from the evening into the next day. The team inspects each beam, bearing and walking board on the bridge, as well as every drainage cover plate, joint and other components in the tunnel. Each inspection entails walking more than 5 kilometers, said Dong. "A pair of protective footwear wears out every three months." It was already the next day when we exited the tunnel, and it felt like being pulled back into an ice cellar from a greenhouse. Despite being drenched in sweat after walking for more than four hours, Dong still greeted his wife with a smile when he finally had the opportunity to video call her. Phurbu Tsering, a 25-year-old maintenance worker from Nyingchi, said it was his third time carrying out duties during the Spring Festival. "I am committed to my responsibilities, ensuring the safety of the railway so that more people can return home safe and sound," Phurbu Tsering said as he watched the trains pass by smoothly. Editor: WRX Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) shakes hands with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson during a joint press conference after a bilateral meeting in Budapest, Hungary on Feb. 23, 2024. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua) Sweden's NATO membership means the abandonment of its historical policy of non-alignment and neutrality. Analysts argue that NATO's continued enlargement will reshape European security dynamics and potentially strain Russia's geopolitical position. BRUSSELS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Hungarian parliament's green light on Sweden's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) cleared the final stronghold in the military bloc's comprehensive expansion in the northern direction. However, concerns have been raised that Sweden's accession could lead to regional instability. Sweden actively pursued membership to ensure a collective defense strategy, following in the footsteps of Finland, which joined NATO in April last year. Nevertheless, analysts have warned that Sweden, once a non-aligned Nordic country, may now face increased risks of being drawn into conflicts. PROTRACTED ACCESSION PROCESS Following the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis in February 2022, both Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding military non-alignment policy and applied for NATO membership. All member nations were required to approve the applications. The national flag of Finland flies after a ceremony for Finland's accession to NATO at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, April 4, 2023. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong) Finland completed the accession process in April 2023. However, after Turkiye approved Sweden's membership in January, Hungary continued to oppose it until Monday. Highlighting longstanding tensions with Sweden, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs had emphasized the need for collaboration to bridge differences. Meanwhile, the United States and NATO allies have been putting pressure on Hungary to expedite Sweden's accession. Last week, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited Budapest, culminating in a bilateral agreement involving the purchase of Swedish fighter jets by Hungary. BLOC CONFRONTATION CONCERNS Sweden's NATO membership means the abandonment of its historical policy of non-alignment and neutrality. Analysts argue that NATO's continued enlargement will reshape European security dynamics, and potentially strain Russia's geopolitical position. Nicholas Lokker and Heli Hautala from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) expressed concerns that Moscow may perceive NATO's expansion as a threat, leading to short and long-term challenges. This photo taken on Oct. 11, 2023 shows the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. (Xinhua/Zhao Dingzhe) Russian Defense Ministry publications warn of the security implications of NATO troops and equipment on Finnish and Swedish territory. Last year, Sweden and the United States strengthened their defense cooperation, granting access to military bases. Coupled with recent U.S. agreements with Finland, these moves deprived the two countries of the status of buffer zones between the NATO alliance and Russia. Jan Oberg, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, said that Sweden's decision to join NATO may compromise the security of local citizens. Finland and Sweden, "instead of keeping out of war, being a potential mediator and supporting disarmament and de-nuclearization, will be frontline states drawn into a crisis/tension situation much more easily and early than otherwise," Oberg said in a recent interview with Xinhua. REGIONAL INSECURITY NATO's continued expansion, particularly with the inclusion of Sweden and Finland, intensifies tensions with Russia in the Nordic region, analysts stressed. People take part in a protest against Sweden hosting a large international military exercise and the country striving to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Stockholm, Sweden, on April 22, 2023. (Photo by Patrick Ekstrand/Xinhua) Lokker and Hautala highlighted that Russia's border with NATO will extend from the Arctic Ocean to the Baltic Sea, which "will permanently alter the European security architecture and erode Russia's geopolitical position." In May 2022, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Sweden's NATO membership could damage the security of Northern Europe. NATO military exercises across the European continent one after another near Russian territory in recent years have significantly disturbed Moscow. Earlier this year before Sweden's entry, NATO kicked off a massive four-month-long military exercise, Steadfast Defender 2024. The alliance's largest military exercise in decades, including about 90,000 troops from 31 member states and Sweden, quickly drew criticism from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, who called it a return to Cold War-era tactics. Editor: WXL Ukraine has become the 20th member of The Cairns Group, created within the World Trade Organization (WTO) and uniting countries that advocate greater liberalization of international trade in agricultural products. As stated in a report on the group's website, this decision was made by the ministers of the Cairns Group at the 43rd meeting in Abu Dhabi on February 25 of this year. "We are pleased to welcome Ukraine as a new member of the Cairns Group, noting Ukraine's shared commitment to open, fair, market oriented agricultural trading system," the document notes. Prior to this, since January 2020, Ukraine had observer status in this informal group in the WTO, and began negotiations on joining it back in 2009. At the last meeting, ministers said that The agriculture negotiations are at a critical juncture. Agriculture remains the most important unfinished business of the WTO and should be at the heart of ongoing reform efforts. The Cairns Group is committed to achieving greater fairness and a levelling of the playing field in agriculture through ambitious and comprehensive agriculture trade reform in line with Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). The ministers also said that Levels of domestic support are at record highs and are growing. Notified domestic support levels reached $610 billion in 2019 around four times global aid levels. The majority of global agricultural support to producers is considered price distorting or harmful to the environment. Distortionary support is concentrated on just a few products by just a few WTO Members. This is to the detriment of smaller and unsubsidised producers. "We call for an outcome that caps and reduces by at least half overall trade-and production-distorting domestic support entitlements within 10 years, on the basis of proportionality, where the Members with the biggest entitlements and potential to distort markets make the biggest contributions. This reform should address product-specific concentrations of support, including in relation to cotton," the group said in a statement. The group also said that a holistic approach to agricultural trade reform will need to include market access. Trade in agricultural products continues to be particularly affected by tariffs and other barriers. The group called on members to step up efforts to achieve substantial improvements in market access for agricultural products, to create more equitable conditions for international trade across the board. "We underline our concern with the restrictive implications of recent unilateral trade-related environmental measures undertaken by some WTO Members. We call on Members to ensure that such measures are not designed for protectionist purposes, and do not amount to unjustified trade restrictions or impose excessive compliance requirements and costs," said the Cairns group. The Cairns Group was created in 1986 by WTO member countries with a large share of agricultural exports. The group includes 19 countries: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Chile. by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, February 27, 2024 What we have here is a failure to communicate. More than that, its a warning and wakeup call for the people who make a comfortable living calling other people consumers. I refer to the tale of WK Kellogg CEO Gary Pilnick, who was probably enjoying a better-than-average day, having killed with a presentation to the CAGNY (Consumers Analyst Group of New York) at a conference in Boca Raton last week. Then Pilnick stepped outside into the bright sunshine to do an interview with CNBC. He was talking to Carl Quintanilla, the amiable host of Squawk on the Street. Pilnick seemed practiced at this, relaxed and fluent. They were discussing a topic thats been in the news a lot lately. Despite an otherwise healthy economy, prices for groceries and restaurants have soared almost 25% since 2020, causing Americans real pain at checkout. advertisement advertisement And once prices go up, (ingredients and transportation costs are up, too) they tend to get sticky and rarely come down. Pilnick offered his standard speech for a marketing crowd, mentioning that The cereal category has always been quite affordable, and it tends to be a great destination when consumers are under pressure. People having trouble feeding their children probably wouldnt see it as a destination when they are under pressure. For them, its a daily grind, only getting worse. But he plunged ahead, adding, If you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do, thats going to be much more affordable. He talked about non-breakfast times, such as dinner occasions and snacking occasions. Then he mentioned the Cereal for Dinner pitch that Kellogg has been serving to zero blowback since 2022. In the TV spot, a suburban family is shown happily responding to an animated Tony the Tiger standing in their dining room (as one does.) leading them in a cheer. When I say cereal, you say dinner! In return, they shout Dinner! Then Mom tells an animated chicken who happens to be perched on the kitchen counter to beat it, and they all celebrate the sheer cereality of the moment. The tagline is Give chicken the night off, which in the right context has some zip. Now it might be fun to eat cereal, at about $7 a box, for dinner or late-night snacking occasionally when you feel like it--if youre rich. But obviously, its not advisable for the family evening meal, even if its put in rotation, as the company mentions. Its no news that sugared cereal is hardly substantial as a stomach filler. And despite all the chemically added vitamins and minerals, its not healthy or sustainable. You could buy a chicken and vegetables for the price of a $7 box of Frosted Flakes with milk and fruit. Tuning into some-tone deafness, CNBC host Quintanilla could see where this was going and tried to help his interviewee out. He asked Pilnick if encouraging cereal for dinner could land the wrong way. But Pilnick didnt pick up on it. In fact, its landing really well right now, he insisted, going deeper. Cereal for dinner is something that is probably more on trend now, and we would expect to continue, he said. On trend? Oy. Is Hunger Games on trend, too? But boy did this CEOs remarks, which he thought were unremarkable, start blowing up. Talk about bad timing and wrong context. Somewhat hypocritically, The New York Post took time off from its normal work of dehumanizing migrants and homeless people to make fun of Pilnicks remarks on its front page. Lots of postings on X made Marie Antoinette Let them eat cake, or in this case, corn flakes, jokes. Corporate greed came up a lot, as did Pilnicks annual salary, which is $1 million with additional compensation adding up to $4 million. These days thats probably customary for a corporate exec who has spent years climbing the ranks. But it just highlights the screaming economic disparity between the earnings of a CEO and a hardworking person whos been reduced to holding low-paying jobs in the gig economy. WK Kelloggs stock price was down slightly, the last time I checked. But this failure indeed calls for crisis management. Maybe Tony the Tiger needs to deliver this great dinner food for free for a while to food banks, shelters, and schools all over the country. As a snacking occasion, of course. by Ray Schultz , February 27, 2024 French publisher Lagardere, which itself sold a 59.8% stake to Vivendi only three months ago, is mulling an offer from LVMH to sell Paris Match magazine. The offer, which could rock both the luxury goods and publishing fields in France, was revealed during a Lagardere meeting on Tuesday to discuss year-end results, although the sum was not reported. Arnaud Lagardere, chairman & chief executive officer, stated that we've received an offer that is quite significant. Nice to say, from LVMH. It's our duty and especially my duty reporting to the board to work on that offer. He added that it might take some time, and that it would include talking to the unions of Paris Match and maybe Lagardere at the same time. Lagardere also noted that the offer came in after the financials had been calculated. The Lagardere group achieved 14% revenue growth YoY for a total of 8,081 million. The firm also publishes Le Journal du Dimanche,JDD magazine and the Elle Brand (license), and operates numerous other enterprises. by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, February 28, 2024 President Biden issued an executive order asking the Department of Justice to prevent Americans' personal data from being transferred to "countries of concern." Companies and government agencies in the United States have begun to increase use of biometric data for everything from buying groceries at Amazon's Whole Foods grocery store to walking through TSA lines at select airports. "The Presidents Executive Order focuses on Americans most personal and sensitive information, including genomic data, biometric retail data, personal health data, geolocation data, financial data, and certain kinds of personally identifiable information," the White House said in a statement Wednesday. advertisement advertisement United updated its website recently to show that "Touchless ID" technology, which allows travelers to walk through security by scanning their face when they have TSA PreCheck is now available at Chicago's O'Hare and Los Angeles international airports. All that electronic data, when saved to a variety of servers and cloud services, is now up for grabs to hackers. China, Cuba, Iran, Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela have been identified as the "countries of concern. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta, as well as Kroger, Target, Walmart and many other data companies collecting consumer information have struggled for years with ways to keep consumer data safe. "Companies are collecting more of Americans data than ever before, and it is often legally sold and resold through data brokers," the White House stated. "Commercial data brokers and other companies can sell this data to countries of concern, or entities controlled by those countries, and it can land in the hands of foreign intelligence services, militaries, or companies controlled by foreign governments." No mention in the statement about TikTok and how the social network allegedly shares consumer user data and preferences with its Chinese parent, ByteDance, despite the current U.S. administration concerns. In the past, government agencies have warned TikTok could share user data such as browsing history, location, and biometric identifiers with China's government. The White House says the actions align with the U.S. longstanding support for the trusted free flow of data, but also are consistent with U.S. commitment to an open Internet with strong and effective protections for individuals privacy and measures. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, February 28, 2024 Siding against Google, a federal appeals court revived a lawsuit by Android users who claimed the company hijacked their cell data by collecting app-related information from their phones when the apps weren't in use. The decision, issued Wednesday by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, reversed a ruling issued by U.S. District Court Judge Virginia DeMarchi in the Northern District of California, who dismissed the lawsuit before trial on the grounds that bandwidth isn't the kind of property that can be misappropriated. The appellate panel effectively held that cell data is "property," and that if the allegations in the complaint were proven true they could support a finding that Google misappropriated that property. Although intangible, cellular data serves the particular purpose of enabling access to the cellular network; it can be precisely limited by a users data plan; it can be measured when being used; and it can be attributed to a particular user based on that users unique identifier code, Circuit Judges Bridget Bade, Eric Miller and Lawrence VanDyke wrote in an unsigned opinion. advertisement advertisement Cellular data is also capable of exclusive possession or control, they wrote, noting that it can purchased, and transferred by the phone's user via mobile hotspots. The judges added that the allegations, if proven true, could show that Google used the cell data in a manner inconsistent with users' property interests. When Google transmits information from the users device to Googles servers, the cellular data expended in that transmission is allocated to the user and treated by the carrier as data that the customer has consumed, the opinion states. The ruling comes in a class-action complaint against Google brought in 2020 by Joseph Taylor and other Android users who alleged Google wrongly collected app-related data. That complaint drew on a 2018 study by Vanderbilt University professor Douglas Schmidt, who reported that idle Android devices transferred data to Google hundreds of times each day. Google sought a dismissal before trial, arguing that Android users don't have traditional property rights in cell phone data allowances. DeMarchi agreed with Google, writing that bandwidth isn't comparable to water or electricity. A utility customer may plausibly be said to consume a discrete quantum of water, gas, or electricity in a manner that makes that specific quantum of water, gas, or electricity unavailable to any other customer, she said in a written opinion. The allegations of the complaint do not plausibly establish that use of a cellular data network involves the exclusive consumption of a quantum of data. Taylor and the others appealed to the 9th Circuit, where they argued in a written brief that Google secretly hijacked their cellular data, without their consent. Those who secretly hijack services from others should fully expect that they will be forced to pay for those services if and when they are caught, class counsel wrote. Google unsuccessfully urged the court to turn away the plaintiffs, writing that they were attempting to manufacture liability for common practices. Data transmissions on Android devices include transmissions to and from Google servers to enable a range of useful functions, from ensuring that devices have up-to-date security protocols to enabling features of Google applications like Maps and Gmail, the company argued to the 9th Circuit. The matter is expected to now return to DeMarchi for further proceedings. Google hasn't yet responded to MediaPost's request for comment. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, February 28, 2024 A California state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require browser developers to offer a tool that would easily allow consumers to opt out of online behavioral advertising throughout the web. Assembly Bill 3048, quietly unveiled earlier this month by California Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal (D-69th District), would prohibit businesses from developing or maintaining web browsers that lack an opt-out preference setting. The best known current opt-out preference signal is the Global Privacy Control -- a mechanism created by privacy advocates to enable consumers to reject all sharing of online data for ad purposes. That type of setting automatically conveys an opt-out request to every site a user visits. Without such a setting, consumers who want to reject behaviorally targeted ads can click on individual companies' opt-out links one-by-one, or can use a tool created by an ad industry organization to opt out of behavioral targeting by a broader range of companies. advertisement advertisement In December, California's privacy agency called for legislation mandating that browser developers offer a tool like the Global Privacy Control. Ashkan Soltani, executive director of the state's privacy agency, praised Lowenthal's bill. All Californians have the right to object to the sale and sharing of their personal information via opt-out preference signals, but most Californians are unable to avail themselves of these important rights because the tools they use to navigate online do not communicate their privacy preferences, Soltani stated earlier this week. Its high time these vendors let consumers take full advantage of their rights. California's privacy law gives consumers the right to reject cross-context behavioral advertising -- meaning ads served based on activity across different sites. That law has been interpreted as requiring companies to honor opt-out requests that consumers transmit through browser-based tools -- referred to in state regulations as opt-out preference signals. Other states including Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Montana and Texas have recently passed laws or regulations requiring companies to honor universal opt-out mechanisms. Some developers, including Mozilla, Brave and Duck Duck Go have already built the Global Privacy Control into their browsers. Apple used to include a do-not-track setting in Safari, but disabled the setting in 2019 due to concerns that ad-tech companies would harness the signal for device fingerprinting -- a tracking technique that identifies users based on characteristics of their browsers. Google's Chrome doesn't include the specific Global Privacy Control setting, but has long had a do-not-track setting, which sends a no-tracking request to all websites consumers visit. The California privacy agency has suggested that this older do-not-track command isn't equivalent to an "opt-out preference signal," but it's not clear whether other state officials will agree -- or whether Google could tweak the do-not-track command so that it could serve as an opt-out preference signal. by Ray Schultz , February 28, 2024 UK news publishers are calling on Parliament to protect them from AI copyright infringement. Lawmakers heard from executives representing The Guardian, News UK, Financial Times and DMG Media, according to Press Gazette. The executives, appearing before the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, said the government must make it impossible to train a large language model without a licensing deal. Jon Slade, chief commercial officer at Financial Times, argued that the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill took a very long time to come to fruition. Speaking of the threat of disintermediation, Slade added, I certainly hope thats no indication of the speed with which we can provide greater clarity around copyright law as it relates to artificial intelligence. The state as an owner intends to conduct several pilot assessments of the activity of supervisory boards of state-controlled companies under the new norms of the law on improving corporate governance of state-owned companies (No. 5593), adopted by the parliament on February 22, Deputy Minister of Economy Oleksiy Sobolev has said. "The law contains mechanisms for control over supervisory boards: regular assessment of them is being introduced - at least once every three years, but it can be earlier, there is a clear list of grounds for dismissal of supervisory boards, that is, you cannot just fire them. For some companies we will do pilots this year, evaluate them so that there is constant feedback and reporting," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine. Sobolev emphasized that such increased responsibility in the law is being introduced simultaneously with an increase in the powers of supervisory boards. According to him, the supervisory board will now be responsible for the results of the appointment of management, for the results of the company, for the implementation of those strategic tasks set by the state, formalizing them with waiting lists. Commenting on situations where, for some reason, a state-controlled company does not have an authorized supervisory board, Sobolev called them atypical and noted that the government, especially during war, will continue to make decisions on behalf of the shareholder during this period. "The mechanism for managing an enterprise, when in the absence of a supervisory board, powers are transferred to the meeting of shareholders, should remain during martial law," the deputy minister said, adding that this works the same way in joint-stock companies in the private sector. According to him, during war, decisions need to be made very often, so it is necessary to have control over the company. "Since we transfer exclusive powers, such as the appointment and dismissal of a director, approval of financial, investment, strategic plans, major transactions, to the supervisory board, in its absence it is impossible to sign any loan or formalize restructuring. Wait three months while the competition for new the board ongoing, and less is impossible under market conditions - "is not an option," Sobolev explained. He noted that the decisions made by the shareholder in the absence of the supervisory board are temporary. "That is, when the new supervisory board has gathered, it can cancel them. Thus, there is no point in doing something wrong, because anyway, the new board will come and do as it needs," the Deputy Minister of Economy said. Trusted Source Cognitive components of aging-related increase in word-finding difficulty Go to source Trusted Source Brain Health Linked to How Fast You Talk as You Age Did you know? Talking speed can be a better indicator of brain health in aging. #talkingspeed #agingindicator #brainhealth #medindia Did You Know? Talking fast seemed to signal confidence, intelligence, objectivity, and superior knowledge. Talking Tempo Tied to Cognitive Health in Older Adults Advertisement Advertisement Cognitive components of aging-related increase in word-finding difficulty - (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13825585.2024.2315774) The pace of speech is a more significant indicator of brain health than the challenge of finding words, which seems to be a typical aspect of the aging process. This crucial discovery regarding the connection between natural speech speed and brain health could contribute to streamlining therapeutic approaches for age-related cognitive decline.This study conducted by researchers at Baycrest and the University of Toronto was published in).As we get older, we may start to notice it takes us longer to find the right words. This can lead to concerns about cognitive decline and dementia Our results indicate that changes in general talking speed may reflect changes in the brain , says Dr. Jed Meltzer, Baycrests Canada Research Chair in Interventional Cognitive Neuroscience and the lead author on this study. and help older adults support their brain health as they age.In this study, 125 healthy volunteers aged 18 to 90 completed three different assessments. The first was a picture-naming game, in which they had to answer questions about pictures while ignoring distracting words they heard through headphones.For example, when looking at a picture of a mop, they might be asked, Does it end in p? while hearing the word broom as a distraction. In this way, the researchers were able to test the participants ability to recognize what the picture was and to recall its name.Next, participants were recorded as they described two complex pictures for 60 seconds each. Their language performance was then analyzed using Artificial intelligence -based software, in partnership with Winterlight Labs. Among other things, researchers examined how fast each participant spoke and how much they paused.Finally, the research participants completed standard tests to assess mental abilities that tend to decline with age and are linked to dementia risk namely, executive function, which is the ability to manage conflicting information, stay focused, and avoid distractions.As expected, many abilities declined with age, including word-finding speed. Surprisingly, although the ability to recognize a picture and recall its name both worsened with age, this was not associated with a decline in other mental abilities. The number and length of pauses participants took to find words were not linked to brain health.Instead,In other words, it wasnt pausing to find words that showed the strongest link to brain health, but the speed of speech surrounding pauses.Although many older adults are concerned about their need to pause to search for words, these results suggest this is a normal part of aging. On the other hand, slowing down normal speech, regardless of pausing, maybe a more important indicator of changes to brain health.In future studies, the research team could conduct the same tests with a group of participants over several years, to examine whether speed speech is truly predictive of brain health for individuals as they age. In turn, these results could support the development of tools to detect cognitive decline as early as possible, allowing clinicians to prescribe interventions to help patients maintain or even improve their brain health as they age.Source-Eurekalert Titled The Sabarmati Report, the upcoming film is backed by Ekta Kapoor and directed by Ranjan Chandel of Bamfaad and the web series Grahan fame. Now that all eyes are on Vikrant for his upcoming film, it has turned out to be a rather controversial one. The critically acclaimed film not only became a big commercial hit but also won Vikrant his first Filmfare award in the Best Actor Critics category. After being in the film industry for a decade, it was Vidhu Vinod Chopras 12th Fail that turned out to be a major breakthrough for the noted actor Vikrant Massey . Balaji Telefilms Recently, a 1-minute and 30-second teaser of The Sabarmati Report released online featuring Vikrant Massey as a journalist who is given the task of breaking the news about the Godhra Train Burning Incident. While reading the news live on TV, the journalist stops midway and confronts the producer for wrongly calling the train burning an accident. Sharing the teaser, Vikrant wrote, Paying homage to the 59 innocent people who lost their lives in the Godhra train burning incident 22 years ago, today. Check out the teaser below: Considering the film is based on a real-life highly sensitive incident, the response from people on social media has been mixed. While some are applauding Vikrant for trying to bring out the truth behind the incident while others are terming it as plain propaganda. One user wrote, look who joined the propaganda train. Another user reacted, I read this somewhere "if you have a crush on a man and want that to go away, just ask his opinion on social issues" I've been experiencing that a lot lately. A third user commented, Propaganda movie by Bala ji films again. A fourth user wrote, It's so sad to see people denying the facts of these incidents. Godhara was a lie, exodus of Kashmiri pandits was a lie, Pulwama attack was a lie, Kargil war was a lie, Sikh massacre was a lie.. everything is a lie for a segment except Babri and 2002 Gujrat Riots. You have the access of internet. Please do the necessary research. And @vikrantmassey you're doing amazing. Eagerly waiting for the movie. Check out some of the reactions below: Impactful trailer. All set to be another huge hit from @VikrantMassey https://t.co/jWHG766ItQ (@real_jacs) February 27, 2024 Another propaganda movie before election After puppet @yamigautam , new puppts are @iRidhiDogra and @VikrantMassey https://t.co/5uYROgURnG Stark World CEASEFIRE NOW GAZA (@Starkworldd) February 27, 2024 Suddenly Vikrant Massey's tweets will be forgotten & forgiven. https://t.co/4ot7vEp6Tr Ayush (@abasu0819) February 27, 2024 Another propaganda movie for the leftist liberals to cry on #TheSabarmatiReport https://t.co/PqGndqI8Z4 Shibi Payamal (@ShibiPayamal) February 27, 2024 The first shipment of wheat donated by Ukraine under the Grain from Ukraine initiative has arrived in Sudan, the UN World Food Program (WFP) said on its website. "This donation will enable WFP to support people whose lives have been completely upended by the war. We are deeply grateful to Ukraine and Germany for supporting the Sudanese people in their greatest hour of need," WFP's Country-Director in Sudan Eddie Rowe said. According to the press release, the Ukrainian grain arrived in Port Sudan and is being loaded onto WFP trucks for emergency food distributions in the war-torn country. This in-kind food donation will be a core part of food rations provided to one million conflict-affected people in Sudan for one month. It is expected that the 7,600 tonnes of wheat flour will be provided to families, many of whom have fled their homes due to the fighting and are struggling every day to meet their food needs. The delivered grain is sufficient for one month. This donation has arrived at a critical time in Sudan's hunger crisis as fighting continues to spread ahead of the lean season in May, when food typically becomes scarcer, and hunger rises, WFP said. WFP has been warning of a looming hunger catastrophe as the lean season approaches if civilians do not receive food assistance. Currently nearly 18 million people face acute food insecurity in Sudan, of which nearly 5 million are in emergency levels of hunger. WFP has already provided around 7 million people with emergency food and nutrition support since the conflict began last April, yet needs continue to grow. The shipment part of Ukraine's humanitarian Grain from Ukraine initiative launched by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was made possible by the German Federal Foreign Office, which covered entire operating costs of EUR 15 million. This includes the transportation costs of the wheat from Ukraine to Sudan and the implementation and distribution within the country to people in need. Every victory comes at a price. Here we look at the staggering cost of human life in five of historys fiercest confrontations where the sheer number of warrior-dead defies imagination. Much of a soldiers life is spent awaiting and preparing for war. When the moment to take action does come, it is usually bloody, confusing, and over quickly. Often, combat will be on a small scale; a skirmish, a probing patrol, an accidental clash with the enemy in the darkness. At other times, fear will destroy an army, causing men to flee from the perceived threat of death before severe casualties have been sustained by either side. And, finally, there is the battle that surpasses the normal expectations of war in its scale of death and destruction. These are the days where neither side is prepared to surrender, or as is so often the case a generals strategy is such that it leaves the enemy no escape, left to the mercy of the victors. 5. Battle of Gettysburg, 1863 Belligerents: Union vs Confederacy Casualties: Unionists 23,000; Confederates 23,000 Total: 46,000 Result: Union victory The day the tide of war turned in favour of the Union during the American Civil War, was also the day that saw the highest number of casualties in a single battle throughout the entire conflict. After a series of Confederate victories, General Lee led his troops north to invade Union territory. Fighting raged back and forth for three days before the Unionists emerged triumphant. The battle is remembered as the battle of the Civil War, immortalised by the Gettysburg address and standing as a symbol of the Unions cause and eventual victory. 4. The Battle of Cannae, 216 BC Belligerents: Carthage vs Rome Casualties: Carthaginians 10,000; Romans 50,000 Total: 60,000 Result: Carthaginian victory The Carthaginian general Hannibal, having marched his army across the Alps and defeated two Roman armies at Trebia and Lake Trasimene, sought to engage the Romans in a final decisive battle. The Romans concentrated their heavy infantry in the centre, hoping to smash through the middle of the Carthaginian army. Hannibal, on the other hand, deployed his finest troops on the flanks of his army, anticipating the central Roman attack. As the Carthaginian centre collapsed, the sides folded in on the Roman flanks. The mass of legionaries in the rear ranks forced the front ranks unstoppably forward, not knowing they were enveloping themselves. Eventually, the Carthaginian cavalry swept round and closed the gap, completely surrounding the Roman army. In the close quarters battle, the legionaries, with no way of escape, were forced to fight to the death. The result was the loss of 50,000 Roman citizens and two consuls. 3. The first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916 Belligerents: Britain vs Germany Casualties: British 60,000; German 8,000 Total: 68,000 Result: Indecisive The bloodiest day in the history of the British Army was suffered during the initial stages of a battle that would last for several months, result in over a million dead, and leave the tactical situation largely unchanged. The plan was for an artillery barrage to pound the German defences to an extent that the attacking British and French could just walk in and occupy the opposing trenches. The bombardment did not have the devastating effect expected. As soon as the soldiers emerged from the trenches, German machine-gun positions opened up. Poorly coordinated artillery meant that advancing infantry was often shelled by their own supporting fire or left dangerously exposed as their creeping barrage left them unprotected. By nightfall, few of the objectives had been taken, despite massive loss of life. The attack would continue in a similar vein until October that year. 2. The Battle of Leipzig, 1813 Belligerents: France vs Austria, Prussia and Russia Casualties: French 30,000; Allies 54,000 Total: 84,000 Result: Coalition victory The battle of Leipzig represents the most decisive defeat suffered by Napoleon, and the largest battle fought on European soil prior to the outbreak of World War One. Facing attacks from all directions, the French army performed remarkably well, holding attackers at bay for more than nine hours before being overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. With defeat imminent, Napoleon began an orderly withdrawal across the single bridge still standing. The bridge was blown too early, stranding 20,000 French soldiers, many of whom would drown whilst attempting to cross the river. The defeat opened the door for an Allied advance into France itself. 1. The Battle of Stalingrad, 1942-1943 Belligerents: Nazi Germany vs Soviet Union Casualties: German 841,000; Soviet Union 1,130,000 Total: 1,971,000 Result: Soviet victory The German offensive began with a devastating series of bombings from the Luftwaffe, which left much of Stalingrad in ruins. But the bombing created a highly dispensable landscape. As the army advanced, however, they found themselves caught up in brutal house-to-house fighting with the Soviets. Although they were in control of more the 90% of the city, the Wehrmacht could not extricate the remaining stubborn Soviet soldiers. The weather began to turn bitterly cold, and in November 1942 the Red Army launched a two-pronged attack on the German 6th Army in Stalingrad. The flanks collapsed and the 6th Army was surrounded, both by the Red Army and the crippling Russian winter. Starvation, cold, and sporadic Soviet attacks began to take their toll. Yet Hitler refused to allow the 6th Army to retreat. By February 1943, after a failed German attempt to break out and with all supply lines had cut, the 6th Army was crushed. Read more of our fact-files: The top five World War One pilots Churchill: ten little-known facts The seven most common Battle of Britain myths Hitler: ten little-known facts Top five female spies This is an article from Military History Matters. To find out more about the magazine and how to subscribe, click here. Ukraine and Poland, during negotiations with Polish Ministers of Development and Technology of Poland Krzysztof Hetman and Agriculture Czesaw Siekierski, developed a number of solutions for the constructive unblocking of the Ukrainian-Polish border while respecting the interests of Polish farmers, said Deputy Minister of Economy - Trade Representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka. "Four hours of very intense negotiations with Minister of Development and Technology of Poland Krzysztof Hetman and Minister of Agriculture of Poland Czesaw Siekierski... We were able to find a common language and are working on a constructive solution on how to unblock the border and take into account the interests of farmers in Poland and Ukraine. This is not easy, but possible," he wrote on Facebook. The Trade Representative of Ukraine pointed out the importance of the approaches proposed by Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal during his speech on the Polish-Ukrainian border for building a possible understanding. "During the entire four hours of negotiations, the option of closing the border was not mentioned. As Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said quite clearly, this would be a very painful decision for our economies. To stop trade, even for a day, which in annual terms is $11.7 billion (and according to Polish statistics even more) - this is too painful. Not to mention transit, which is vital for Ukraine," Kachka emphasized. He added that he would not go into details yet, but a constructive solution is possible. Kachka asked Ukrainian society to carefully read Donald Tusk's statement - with all the elements of rhetoric and punctuation - and stressed that news headlines can be misleading. "At this moment, more than ever, we will remain calm and work hard," the trade representative of Ukraine urged. WASHINGTON Congressional leaders emerged from an intense Oval Office meeting with President Joe Biden on Tuesday speaking optimistically about the prospects for avoiding a partial government shutdown, but with new uncertainty about aid for Ukraine and Israel as the president and others urgently warned Speaker Mike Johnson of the grave consequences of delay. Biden called the leaders to the White House in hopes of making progress against a legislative logjam on Capitol Hill that has major ramifications not just for the U.S. but for the world as Ukraine struggles to repel Russia's invasion with weapons and ammunition starting to run short. The need is urgent, Biden said of the Ukraine aid. The consequences of inaction every day in Ukraine are dire. Biden hosted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in the Oval Office along with Republican House Speaker Johnson and Vice President Kamala Harris. After the more than hour-long meeting, Biden pulled Johnson aside for a private conversation. Democratic leaders upon exiting the meeting were blunt about the dangers Ukraine is facing. We said to the speaker, get it done,'" said Schumer. I said Ive been around here a long time, it's maybe four or five times that history is looking over your shoulder and if you don't do the right thing, whatever the immediate politics are, you will regret it. Referring to Johnson, he said, "Really, it's in his hands. It's in his hands. Schumer, who was joined by Jeffries in describing how the meeting went, called the session one of the most intense I've ever encountered" in the Oval Office. Johnson spoke to reporters on his own, without Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell by his side. McConnell voted for a $95 billion foreign aid bill earlier this month that would aid Ukraine and Israel, replenish U.S. defense systems and provide humanitarian assistance for Gaza and the West Bank, Ukraine and other populations caught in conflict zones. The bill passed the Senate 70-29, but the Republican-led House has not acted on it, despite pleas from McConnell and others for action. Johnson, who rejected a U.S. Mexico border security compromise that was eventually stripped from the final product, signaled no change in his position on Ukraine aid. He said the Senates package does nothing to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, the GOP's demand in return for helping Ukraine. The first priority of the country is our border, and making it secure, Johnson said. The speaker's continued call for border changes has frustrated senators, who spent months negotiating a bipartisan border deal only to have House Republicans reject it at the urging of former President Donald Trump. The bill would have denied migrants the ability to apply for asylum at the border if the number of daily crossings became unmanageable for authorities, among other major changes. Its time for action" Johnson said of the border. "It is a catastrophe, and it must stop. Schumer said Democrats, too, want to tackle the problems at the U.S-Mexico border, but that it will take time and we have to do Ukraine right now. He said he discussed during the meeting his visit last week to Ukraine with other lawmakers and recounted the agonizing stories told by soldiers who have no ammunition left to fire. In the meeting, "we made it clear how vital this was to the United States. This was so, so important, and that we couldnt afford to wait a month or two months or three months, because we would in all likelihood lose the war, NATO would be fractured at best, allies would turn away from the United States, and the boldest leaders, the boldest autocrats of the world ... would be emboldened, he said. Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns also joined Tuesday's meeting. Burns has played key roles coordinating the U.S. response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as well as efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. McConnell upon returning from the meeting called on the House to take up the Senate-passed bill. Many supporters of the bill predict that it would pass overwhelmingly on the House floor if Johnson were to bring it up for a vote, but doing so would risk enormous blowback from some in his conference who don't support any more help for Ukraine. Some have even threatened his job if he allows the bill to pass. We dont want the Russians to win in Ukraine and so we have a time problem here. And the best way to move quickly and get the bill to the president would be for the House to take up the Senate bill, McConnell said. Apart from the national security package, government funding for agriculture, transportation, military construction and some veterans services expires Friday. And funding for the rest of the government, including the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, expires a week later, on March 8, the day after Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union address. Its Congress responsibility to fund the government, Biden said. A government shutdown would damage the economy significantly. We need a bipartisan solution. The congressional leaders seemed more hopeful that they would be able to prevent any shutdown, though it may require another short-term extension to be passed this week. We are making real progress on the appropriations bills that are scheduled to lapse on March 1," Jeffries said. And I'm cautiously optimistic that we can do what is necessary within the next day or so to close down these bills and avoid a government shutdown. We believe that we can get to agreement on these issues and prevent a government shutdown. And thats our first responsibility, Johnson said. Associated Press reporters Stephen Groves and Will Weissert contributed. WASHINGTON The U.S. and U.K. sanctioned a deputy commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a Houthi militant member Tuesday. The U.S. additionally sanctioned firms registered in Hong Kong and the Marshall Islands, along with two ships, including one that transported $100 million in Iranian commodities to China. Iranian official Mohammad Reza Falahzadeh, and Houthi group member Ibrahim al-Nashiri were hit with the U.S. and U.K. sanctions Tuesday. Hong Kong-registered Kohana Co. Ltd. and Marshall Islands-registered Iridescent Co. Ltd. which own the Panama-flagged Kohana were also designated for U.S. sanctions. The U.S. says the Kohana has shipped over $100 million in Iranian commodities to businesses in China on behalf of Irans Ministry of Defense. Additionally, the U.S. and U.K. sanctioned Hong Kong-based Cap Tees Shipping Co. Ltd., which owns the Artura, accused of transporting Iranian commodities for the network of previously sanctioned Houthi and Iranian financial facilitator Said al-Jamal. Treasury says the Artura obfuscated its identity by using the name of a different vessel, Sanan II, to complete some of its shipments. U.S. State Department spokesman Matt Miller said the U.S. and its allies remain committed to countering terrorist financing and will continue to use all available means to disrupt Houthi attacks on international shipping in the region. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron said, The attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis are unacceptable, illegal and a threat to innocent lives and freedom of navigation. As I have made clear to the Iranian Foreign Minister, the regime bears responsibility for these attacks due to the extensive military support it has provided to the Houthis. All those who seek to undermine regional stability should know that the UK, alongside our allies, will not hesitate to act. The sanctions block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans. Escalation between the U.S., Iran and Houthi militia have increased after a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war, as multiple vessels have found themselves in the crosshairs of a single Houthi assault for the first time in the conflict. The White House last week promised to unveil new sanctions on Iran in retaliation for its arms sales that have bolstered Russias invasion of Ukraine and threatened a swift and severe response if Tehran moves forward with selling ballistic missiles to Moscow. Associated Press reporter Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report. An Army lieutenant colonel assigned to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, was formally charged this month with 16 counts of domestic abuse and other violations under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a charge sheet obtained by Military.com revealed. Lt. Col. Ashley R. Ellis was arraigned in a Fort Belvoir courtroom Feb. 20. The charge sheet details how he allegedly beat, harassed and emotionally abused his wife, doing so on two separate occasions in front of an unnamed child, over a nine-month period between late 2022 and mid-2023 in Chantilly, Virginia, approximately an hour from Fort Belvoir. The case was referred to general court-martial Feb. 1. "At the time of the charges, he was a network engineer assigned to the U.S. Army element at NGA," a spokesperson from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency told Military.com in an email. The agency and the Army did not provide Ellis' full service record despite a request from Military.com. Read Next: Service Members and Vets Belonging to Racial Minority Groups Face Disproportionately High Suicide Rates On one occasion in October 2022, Ellis allegedly strangled his wife by wrapping an arm around her neck and took her phone from her, in front of a child. On a separate occasion about two months later in January 2023, he allegedly assaulted his wife again when he shoved her into a car and beat her chest and neck with his elbow. The day after Valentine's Day in 2023, Ellis allegedly again struck his wife, whom his defense lawyer revealed to be an active-duty Army major. In further separate incidents noted in the legal documents, between February and late June 2023 Ellis allegedly hit his wife with a door, took her phone away while holding a holstered gun, hit her in the back of the head, and strangled her. In June, Ellis allegedly stole his wife's birth certificate, passport and Social Security card in "an attempt to intimidate or threaten" her, according to the document. Other charges against Ellis include alleged violations of Article 133, conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman, and Article 119b, culpable negligence. In one count, Ellis was claimed to have sent his wife a video disparaging her looks and clothes, stating, "I guess my cousin taught you real good how to dress like a ho, right?" In another, in front of a child "less than 16 years of age," Ellis allegedly called his wife a "b--ch," causing mental distress to the child. "LTC Ellis categorically denies the allegations against him and he looks forward to fighting these charges through the military justice system," Andrew Cherkasky, Ellis' attorney and the founder of New York-based Golden Law, told Military.com in an email. "LTC Ellis is presumed innocent. The allegations against LTC Ellis were the result of a significantly delayed report by his estranged spouse amidst a bitter divorce process." A request for comment from the prosecution was not answered before publication. The trial is set to begin at Fort Belvoir in May. -- Rachel Nostrant is a Marine Corps veteran and freelance journalist, with work published in Reuters, New York Magazine, Military Times and more. Army Col. Tanya McGonegal was 25 when she experienced the first only in her military career. She was the sole woman in the June 1999 graduating class at Virginia State Officer Candidate School. The graduation set the tone for McGonegals 25-year career with the Army National Guard, where she continues paving the way for future generations of military leaders. I dont wake up in the morning and think, I am going to inspire people to do more and be more,' McGonegal said with a laugh. But I am very interested in challenging myself to do more and be more, and if thats an inspiration to others to do the same in a way that is kind and professional that is a plus. McGonegal has formally been recognized twice as being the first Black woman to lead a unit, most recently in a historic change of command ceremony Feb. 9 for the U.S. Northern Commands Joint Task Force-Civil Support in Newport News. The joint task force, based at Fort Eustis, is responsible for civil support and mission leadership during disasters. At the Fort Eustis-based federal command, McGonegal is responsible for leading about 160 members on a daily basis. If a crisis occurs, McGonegal could be responsible for coordinating a force of 5,200 who stand ready to deploy within 24-96 hours of notice for any natural or manmade disaster. When you take command of a unit, as a leader, your first priority is the organization and the service members and their families, McGonegal said. You dont necessarily stop and think, Oh, am I making history in taking command today?' McGonegal served for almost a decade as a military police officer for the Army National Guard, according to her Army biography. She contributed to Operation Noble Eagle in 2001, Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in 2005. During her time in the Reserve force, McGonegal said she spent four years working as a Fairfax County police officer. But due to the deployments, she transitioned to serve full-time in the military. McGonegal has served as an executive officer six times. In 2012, she took command of the 151st Military Police Battalion in the West Virginia Army National Guard. She was not recognized for it at the time, but the Joint Task Force-Civil support confirmed McGonegal was the first Black woman to lead the unit. You are selected by other leaders in the organization based on your ability to do the job, your professionalism as a leader, as an officer, McGonegal said. McGonegal was recognized in 2019 as the first Black woman to lead the 77th Brigade Troop, relieving Col. Michaelle Munger, the first female brigade commander in the West Virginia Army National Guards history. It is about a broader awareness of diversity, inclusion and how well we are represented in the military services, McGonegal said. Females serving in uniform its a fairly small percentage. So, it is nice that we are getting recognized for doing the job and being willing to serve in that capacity. Women make up only 17.5% of the active-duty armed forces and 21.6% of Reserve forces but their participation has been growing over the past two decades, according to the Department of Defenses 2022 demographics report. Since 2005, the number of women in active-duty service has grown by 14.2% and the number of women in Reserves has increased by 17.3%. One year before the day of McGonegals historic joint task force change of command ceremony, the unit put out a statement that it is defined by diversity. The military is a microcosm of society, and its important that the organization reflects the diverse backgrounds, perspectives and experiences of the American people. A diverse workforce brings unique skills and perspectives that can lead to better problem-solving, decision-making and creativity, then Col. Timothy Sulzner said in the 2023 release. As a woman in a military leadership position, McGonegal said she has been able to be a sounding board for other women and minorities in uniform. Its given me more of an opportunity to mentor and to provide them an opportunity to have a voice and to be seen, she said. Her formula for being a safe leader, she said, is simple: Be receptive. Listen and understand what is going on, and address the situation right away. You cant allow somebody elses experiences in life to dictate how you react and respond, McGonegal said. You have to control your own emotions, and sometimes that means if the situation is not good, going in another direction. A large part of McGonegals responsibility is connecting with the local community and its emergency response agencies. McGonegal immediately began that task, connecting with organizations across Virginia and West Virginia, including the Virginia Beach Vet Center. Her main focus, she said, is to make sure the unit is maintaining its readiness to respond to incidents when needed. When we wake up every day, everyone has to put their pants on one leg at a time and go out into the world and do and be, she said. I get to work with great people along the way and if it inspires others, that is great. 2024 The Virginian-Pilot. Visit pilotonline.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI - Lovers of decadent treats along the lakeshore know that the Muskegon area has plenty of spots to grab a perfect doughnut. Whether youre looking for a unique creation with Fruity Pebbles cereal or a classic chocolate glazed, weve pulled together five great places to order a fresh and filling doughnut. Russian occupiers continue to attack populated areas of the south with drones, 10 out of 10 enemy UAVs were shot down, the command of the Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine reported on Wednesday morning. "At night, the Russians attacked the southern regions with kamikaze drones of the Shahed-131/136 type. The enemy sent 10 attack drones from the Black Sea to Mykolaiv and Odesa regions. For 1.5 hours, air defense units were intensively repelling this attack. The vast majority of the Shaheds were shot down over the sea: one in Mykolaiv region, nine in Odesa region," the Telegram channel says. The report also says that "during drone maneuvers over the industrial zone of Odesa, the wreckage of a downed drone damaged the transformer of one of the critical infrastructure facilities. There was a short circuit and a fire. Firefighters promptly extinguished the fire. People were not injured," the Southern Defense Forces said. GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Over 14,000 houses and businesses are without power Wednesday, Feb. 28, after overnight storms that included a tornado that touched down in Grand Blanc. Consumers Energy reported 12,610 outages as a 6:30 a.m. DTE Energy reported 1,556 outages in southeast Michigan. Among the hardest hit areas are: Oakland County, with 5,040 outages, followed by the counties of Genesse, 2,569; Shiawassee, 1,426, Calhoun County, 1,186; Monroe, 730, Missaukee, 603; St. Clair County, 525; and Kent, 387. RELATED: Tornado damages homes, ruptures gas lines as rare February storm hits Michigan The storm brought winds, lightning and hail. The National Weather Service is expected to view damage from the tornado in Grand Blanc where widespread outages were reported. After temperatures in the mid-70s on Tuesday, cold and snow are returning. The National Weather Service in Grand Rapids said morning rain will turn to snow this afternoon, leaving some roads slippery. Light snow is expected with highest amounts near the lakeshore. The National Weather Service in Detroit/Pontiac said high winds 20 to 30 mph, with 45-mph gusts - are expected Wednesday. ANN ARBOR, MI - Get ready for a double dose of foolishness this spring with the return of FestiFools and FoolMoon events. FestiFools Founder Mark Tucker took over the events in October and will bring them back during the first weekend in April to the streets of Ann Arbor. Related: Founder of FestiFools is bringing puppet parade back to Ann Arbor The events were previously run by a nonprofit group called Assembli, formerly known as Wonderfool Productions, before the group dissolved after struggling from the COVID-19 pandemic. Assembli did not host FestiFools in 2023 and announced the end of FoolMoon in August that year. After hearing the news, Tucker decided he wanted to continue the foolish legacy in Ann Arbor. Related: As FoolMoon, YpsiGLOW nonprofit announces end, organizers search for groups to take over Bringing out the creativity in the community is something that I always enjoy, Tucker said. I think reconnecting with people and seeing what creativity they are bringing is always exciting and Im glad we get to bring it back again. Guests enjoy glowing art displays, live music and interactive exhibits during FoolMoon at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market in Kerrytown Ann Arbor on Friday, April 7, 2023. Jacob Hamilton | MLive.comJacob Hamilton | MLive.com What to know about FoolMoon FoolMoon will return from 8 to 11 p.m. on Friday, April 5, in its original location on Washington Street between Main and Ashley streets. The events theme this year is FoolBloom, which encourages participants to bring spring-like luminaries like flowers to light up the night. There will be three constellation stations, around the city for people to gather at before stepping off for the event at 8 p.m. These locations include the front lawn for the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Slauson Middle Schools parking lot and the Farmers Market in Kerrytown. The luminary event will travel throughout downtown Ann Arbor before ending up on Washington Street in front of Grizzly Peak Brewing Co. and Sweetwaters for a celebration full of lights, music and dancing. FoolMoon will have live music on Washington Street led by The Ruckus, which is an ensemble of jazz and funk musicians, and a special FoolBrew, drink created by Grizzly Peak. Participants walk up and down Main Street during the annual FestiFools parade in Ann Arbor on Sunday, April 7, 2019. This years theme for the parade was Dancing' Fools. Participants created puppets, wore costumes, and played instruments during the parade. (Mary Lewandowski | MLive.com) Mary Lewandowski What to know about FestiFools Later on that weekend, FestiFools will feature giant papier-mache puppets for its one-hour parade from 4 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 7, on Main Street between William and Washington streets. The event known for its large puppets and community involvement will continue to be what people have come to know and love, Tucker said. Tucker, a University of Michigan art professor, originally began FestiFools back in 2007 as a way to show off the projects his students created in his Art in Public Spaces class. The professors students along with some volunteers have been working all winter long to create their puppets from cardboard, tape, bamboo and papier-mache for the events theme, FestiFables. Tucker said his students plan to create around 20 puppets influenced by popular fables, including stories like The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs. A young child stands and drums beneath one of the papier-mch puppets during the annual FestiFools parade, Sunday, April 7, 2019 in Ann Arbor. (Ben Allan Smith | MLive.com)Ben Allan Smith | MLive.com How to get involved in the foolishness As these events get closer, there are plenty of opportunities to participate in the foolishness. FoolMoon luminary kits are going on sale starting Friday, March 1, and will give people a chance to have everything they need to make a butterfly-shaped lantern for the event at home. These kits will be sold at Ace Barnes Hardware on Stadium at 2105 W. Stadium Blvd., FOUND Gallery at 415 N. 5th Ave and Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea at 123 W. Washington St. All proceeds from the kits will go toward supporting FestiFools Studios free public art events and creative educational activities, according to a news release. Tucker said working with his students and the Ann Arbor community is what he loves the most about the events and that the interaction is where all the magic really happens. As April nears, Tucker said the events will need some volunteers for both the FestiFools Studio and on the day of the event. Anyone interested in volunteering can sign up online. FoolMoon luminary workshops will also be happening every Sunday in March from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Hathaways Hideaway, 310 S. Ashley St., and give people a chance build their own hand-made luminary sculptures for the event. More information on FestiFools and FoolMoon can be found on social media. Want more Ann Arbor-area news? Bookmark the local Ann Arbor news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Ann Arbor daily newsletter. WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI - An outside investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against Superior Townships supervisor did not substantiate the claims, though officials said detailed findings are being kept secret. Following a thorough investigation, the independent investigator hired by the Superior Charter Township Board of Trustees to review charges of sexual harassment against the township Supervisor, Ken Schwartz, found no evidence to support this charge, reads a statement issued Monday, Feb. 26, by township attorney Fred Lucas. The inquiry, commissioned by a vote of the board in August 2023, stemmed from comments Schwartz made to a township employee in a two-year-old email, and allegations he created a hostile work environment, MLive/The Ann Arbor News previously reported. Read more: Washtenaw County township supervisor being investigated for alleged sexual harassment The township board discussed the investigation behind closed doors on Feb. 20. MLive/The Ann Arbor News requested the investigation report under Michigans Freedom of Information Act, but officials denied the request, instead issuing the statement briefly summarizing its findings. The report can legally be withheld from public disclosure because it is subject to attorney-client privilege, officials said. The investigator, part of an outside law firm, concluded that the township should take several actions, according to the township-issued statement. Officials should revise and update their employee handbook, hire a trained human resources director to assist in managing township staff and train all elected officials and staff on harassment issues of all kinds, including the proper method for reporting and investigating allegations of harassment, according to the statement. A reputable law firm investigated all the material facts and interviewed many witnesses. After four months of inquiry, the law firm found absolutely no evidence of harassment, intimidation, employee interference or any sexual harassment, Schwartz said in a statement. Ken Schwartz, then a Washtenaw County commissioner, listens during a 2010 county board meeting in this file photo.Ryan Stanton | MLive.com Details of the allegations and Schwartzs name were not publicly shared when the township board first voted on Aug. 14 to initiate the investigation in response to a complaint. The supervisor was absent from that meeting. In response to a public records request for the complaint, officials produced a pair of June 2021 emails. In the messages, a township employee, whose name is redacted, writes they were resigning from their position. Ready for the next step in my journey. I will be working on my business, which is a womens clothing line for traditional clothing from my culture, the employee wrote. Schwartz responded, referring to another employee whose name is also redacted. I think [REDACTED] wears womans clothing on the weekends. I think his favorite fabric is burlap. He might order a dozen burlap underwear. If I was too order with him, would be (sic) get a friends and family discount, Schwartz wrote, according to the unedited emails. At the time, the supervisor told MLive/The Ann Arbor News the email was being mischaracterized. It hadnt been reported at the time because it was just a joke, Schwartz said. Township Clerk Lynette Findley shared the email exchange with the entire board in July 2023, saying she had just received a copy of the two-year-old messages, according to the documents provided to MLive/The Ann Arbor News. Officials had also received current complaints against Schwartz that may show a pattern of creating (an) intimidating, hostile or offensive environment for staff, another township board member wrote in an email exchange included in the documents. Schwartz said he anticipated the investigation would not substantiate the claims against him. I knew this would be the outcome, and understand that accusations need to be investigated; but I cant help think that this is just one example of why people shy away from public service, he said. Want more Ann Arbor-area news? Bookmark the local Ann Arbor news page, the Ypsilanti-area news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Ann Arbor daily newsletter. ANN ARBOR, MI A man accused of killing a woman in downtown Ann Arbor and staying with her body for two days has pleaded no contest. Keith Brent Kwiecinski, 62, pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and mutilation of a dead body during a Feb. 1 hearing before Washtenaw County Trial Court Judge Arianne Slay, according to court records. He was slated to go to a jury trial in April. Kwiecinski originally had been charged with open murder and mutilation of a dead body in the 2022 death of Patricia Falkenstern, 65. He is facing up to life in prison. A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but is treated like one in court. Falkenstern of Ann Arbor was found dead in her home on Sept. 1, 2022, after a Meals on Wheels worker felt something was off while delivering food to her apartment in Courthouse Square Apartments, 100 S. Fourth Avenue in downtown Ann Arbor. Read more: Ann Arbor man allegedly killed neighbor after food disagreement, then stayed for 2 days The Meals on Wheels worker said they were delivering food to Falkensterns apartment on Aug. 30, 2022, when they were greeted by Kwiecinski, who said he would accept the food because she was sleeping, Detective Jon McDonagh said while swearing to an arrest warrant before a judge in September 2022. The staffer knew Kwiecinski because he also received food from the program. Two days later, on the day Falkenstern was found, Kwiecinski greeted the Meals on Wheels staffer for a second time, again saying Falkenstern was sleeping and he would accept the food, McDonagh said. The staffer, who said it was unusual for Falkenstern to not accept meals herself, called police and asked them to do a welfare check. Responding officers found Falkenstern dead in her apartment. Related: Woman killed in Ann Arbor remembered as artist, devoted mother Kwiecinski told detectives he had gotten into a fight with Falkenstern sometime before noon Aug. 30, 2022, about stolen meat from the Meals on Wheels program, McDonagh said. Kwiecinski said he snapped during the argument and strangled Falkenstern with the cord of a vacuum cleaner. Kwiecinski said he also sexually assaulted Falkensterns body, McDonagh said. Falkenstern, known to friends and family as Patty, moved to Ann Arbor in 2015 to be closer to her daughter, who was studying at the University of Michigan at the time. She was raised in Grand Rapids, but spent time in Manhattan pursuing art. Trained in fine arts at Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University, Falkenstern was skilled in painting, pottery and acting. Kwiecinski, who is currently being held in the Washtenaw County Jail without bond, will be sentenced on March 15. Want more Ann Arbor-area news? Bookmark the local Ann Arbor news page, the Ypsilanti-area news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Ann Arbor daily newsletter. FLINT, MI -- The City Council has canceled its meeting scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 29, following the death of 1st Ward Councilman Eric Mays. Last week, the council rescheduled its meeting planned for Monday, Feb. 26, to Thursday because of the presidential primary election on Tuesday, Feb. 27. GRAND BLANC, MI -- Tyler Moncrieff and his family were forced to evacuate their home around 1:45 a.m. Wednesday due to a rare February tornado that uprooted a tree and caused a gas leak in their front yard. A tree on the other side of the house was downed onto Moncrieffs two vehicles, which were both likely totaled. The alert system went off and we went downstairs, he said. Within two minutes, it was here. While Moncrieff was trying to console his children, he said they heard a lot of different noises. He didnt know some of those noises were trees falling inches from the house. Moncrieff wasnt aware of the damage until the fire department arrived and told them to evacuate due to the gas leak. Two other trees behind the house went down and caused damage. Im grateful for the fire department, Moncrieff said. 28 1 / 28 Tornado aftermath in Grand Blanc Moncrieff was one of several homeowners whose houses were damaged in the severe storm and tornado that went through Grand Blancs Indian Hill neighborhood. Electrical lines were exposed. A gas leak was caused by a large tree being ripped from the ground. Chairs, grills and other furniture from neighbors backyards were spread across the neighborhood. Windows were shattered from flying debris. Gail Fox, who began rushing downstairs when she was alerted via phone, said she didnt even make it downstairs before spotting the worst of the storm through the windows. You could see light, kind of, and you could just see wind, Fox said. Related: Fire chief says no injuries resulted from Grand Blanc tornado Fox, 57, could hear debris hitting the windows and sides of the house before she was told to evacuate by Grand Blanc firefighters. I was terrified, Fox said. Im a person who has anxiety about weather anyway. ... I didnt know what we were going to find when we came out of the basement. Fox and her husband stayed at the Grand Blanc fire station for a few hours before they were cleared to return to their home. She hasnt slept since the storm started around 1 a.m. My husband came outside to try to survey what may have happened. He came running back in and said Oh my God, weve got to get out of here. Theres a gas leak, Fox said. I can hear it. I can smell it. Obviously, he wasnt kidding. Also: Tornado hurls neighbors trampoline onto roof of Grand Blanc home Chris Utter, who lives across the street on Old Bridge Road, looked outside his second-story bedroom window to find his neighbors trampoline on his roof. It sounded like there was a train coming through, Utter, 59, said. Clayton Schwach, 60, planned to leave for Florida Wednesday for a month-long vacation with his wife. Debris from a neighbors pergola, which was destroyed in the storm, flew into his back window as he was standing a few feet away. That room was full of glass, Schwach said, as he cut plywood to put over the broken window during the morning hours. ... I think the tornado went right through here. John West, who lives next door to Schwach, said hes never been so close to a tornado. His kids love them from appearances in TV and movies. My kids are always like, Itd be really cool to see one. Im like, No, it wouldnt, West, 42, said. The power line was ripped right off the side of Wests house, he said. It was his familys pergola that was completely demolished. West said hed be happy to have his power back on by Friday after the storm passed through early Wednesday morning. The familys grill was laying upside-down while West was interviewed by news crews across the state. A grill remains upside down in the aftermath of a tornado on Old Bridge Road in Grand Blanc on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024.Julian Leshay Guadalupe | MLive.com A factory located at the corner of Dort Highway and Reid Road in Grand Blanc Township seems to have been the first place were the late-February tornado touched down before going through the Indian Hill neighborhood and east through Grand Blanc into Atlas Township. The factorys roof was almost removed completely by the storm. The two roads were closed off early Wednesday morning. A National Weather Service survey team is currently assessing the damage. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for Grand Blanc, Burton and Davison around 1:14 a.m. on Feb. 28. The Grand Blanc area was struck by a devastating tornado last night. Our hearts go out to all those affected by this storm. We are very grateful that we did not have any reported injuries or fatalities from such a horrific tornado, said Scott Bennett, Grand Blanc Township supervisor. Thank you to our Township Fire and Police departments who have been assisting residents throughout the night and are ready to help wherever needed. Grand Blanc Fire Chief Don Schreiber also told MLive-The Flint Journal at the scene that no serious injuries were reported from the tornado. Six houses were evacuated due to gas leaks. Well, its very unusual to have tornadoes in February in Michigan, Schreiber said. I believe the worst damage is over there on Dort Highway and Reid Road. ... This is just unbelievable. Schools in Grand Blanc and Swartz Creek closed Feb. 28 after the severe storms caused closed roads and widespread power outages. More than 14,000 outages were reported in Michigan around 11:30 a.m. Nancy Heinrichs home on Stonybrook Lane likely suffered the most damage. Two trees both punctured her roof and were leaning into the attic around 8 a.m. on Feb. 28. When I came out at 2:30 a.m. this morning, I could see the huge piece of earth that had been moved, Heinrich said. I said, Well, this will be on the nightly news. Want more Flint-area news? Bookmark the local Flint news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Flint daily newsletter. GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- Schools in Grand Blanc and Swartz Creek are closed on Wednesday, Feb. 28, after severe storms tore through Genesee County overnight. Grand Blanc Community Schools said its buildings would be closed due to damage from last nights storm, which produced a tornado and forced some homes to be evacuated. Across Michigan, lightning and hail were reported early on Wednesday morning, causing multiple power outages. Swartz Creek Community Schools closed its buildings Wednesday due to power outages at multiple buildings, including its high school, a warehouse and bus garage, according to the districts Facebook page. Consumers Energy reported more than 1,000 homes in the Grand Blanc area were without power as of Wednesday morning. More than 200 additional homes were reported without power in the area of East Bristol and South Belsay roads in Burton. Northbound Torrey Road between Thompson and Lahring roads was closed Wednesday morning in Fenton Township and arching or downed power lines were reported in Davison, Flint and Grand Blanc townships. Consumers reported 12,610 outages as of 6:30 a.m. Wednesday. DTE Energy reported 1,556 outages in southeast Michigan. GRAND RAPIDS, MI Grand Rapids may be beer city, but that doesnt mean we dont also have a great wine scene, too. This city has tons of great wine bars for when youre looking to dress up and go out for a glass of wine or two with friends. This week, MLive/The Grand Rapids Press has rounded up five great wine bars where youll find delicious wine and great atmosphere in Grand Rapids. Keep scrolling to read our top picks across the city. (Note: This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every great wine bar in the city, and we know there are plenty of others out there. You can let us know what other spots were missing by emailing mfrick@mlive.com) On Thursday, Feb. 29, readers will get a chance to vote for their top spot on the list. Be sure to check back at MLive.com to cast your vote. Here are five great wine bars to sip and relax across the city, whether its Wine Down Wednesday or any other day of the week. 1. GRNoir If youre looking for an evening of wine and live jazz, GRNoir is the perfect spot for you. GRNoir Wine & Jazz, located in downtown Grand Rapids, features an upscale vibe with a stylish interior, and cozy, calm ambiance. The wine bar has live jazz every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and every second and fourth Thursday of the month. The bar has a wide selection of wine on tap, including several wines from Black-owned and woman-owned wineries, organic wines and GRNoirs own selection of wine. The bar also offers self-serve wine on tap. Theyve also got a Tasting Hour, or their version of happy hour, with $5 pours Wednesday through Saturday from 3-6 p.m. If youre hungry, the bar has a full menu of small plates and desserts to snack on while you sip. RELATED: Michigan Bests Local Eats: Dont forget about the food at GRNoir Wine & Jazz GRNoir Wine and Jazz, at 35 Division Ave. S, is open Wednesday through Saturday 3-10 p.m. and closed Sunday through Tuesday. You can find the bar online, on social media, or by calling 616-719-1191. 2. House of Wine As the name suggests, House of Wine is another great wine bar in Grand Rapids. The wine bar has a wide selection of red, white and sparkling wines to fill your glass after a long day. Theres also tons of food options, from charcuterie boards for snacking, to paninis and salads if you want a full meal. You can get special pricing on select wine, beer, cocktails and small plates during happy hour Tuesday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Or, the bar has free wine tasting every Tuesday from 6-7:30 p.m., when you can get a taste of two featured wines and an optional taste of a specially selected wine at market price. House of Wine, at 53 Monroe Center St. NW, is open Tuesday through Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sundays from noon to 9 p.m. For more information, visit the bars website or Facebook page, or call 616-443-1758. 3. Reserve Wine & Food Youre sure to find the perfect wine for you at Reserve Wine & Food, with a selection of over 900 wines in stock. The wine bar and restaurant at 201 Monroe Avenue St. NW prides itself in providing an unmatched atmosphere and unparalleled service, alongside authentic cuisine and an extensive wine and cocktail program, according to its website. On Wednesdays, you can Wined Down with 50% off select bottles of wine from 4-10 p.m. Reserve Wine & Food is open Monday through Thursday from 4-10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 4-11 p.m. You can find more information online, on Facebook, or by calling 616-855-9463. 4. Aperitivo Nothing pairs better than wine, cheese and charcuterie, and youll find all three of those things at Aperitivo. Located inside the Grand Rapids Downtown Market, Aperitivo is a wine bar that also specializes in cheese and charcuterie. You can sit at the bar and enjoy a glass of wine and a bite to eat, or stop by the full service cheese and charcuterie counter, where the knowledgeable staff can help you create your own cheese and charcuterie platter if youre entertaining at home. The bar also hosts monthly special events and classes on topics like wine, cheese, beer and pairings. Aperitivo, at 435 Ionia Ave. SW, is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. You can find more information online or on Facebook, or by calling 616-259-7045. 5. Forty Pearl While its more than just a wine bar, Forty Pearl is worth including on this list because its a great spot to try the finest Michigan wines paired with adventurous, locally-sourced foods. Forty Pearl strives to showcase the best of Michigan wine and food for a sensory Pure Michigan experience, according to its website. This restaurant is a great place to stop by and enjoy a glass of wine, with 30% off Traverse City-based Brengman Brothers wine bottles every Thursday and $16 dollar wine flights every Wednesday. Forty Pearl, at 40 Pearl St. NW, is open Tuesday through Thursday from 3-9 p.m. and Friday through Saturday from 3-10 p.m. Find the wine bar online, on social media or by calling 616-608-7741. OTTAWA COUNTY, MI After a 14-month battle to keep her job, Ottawa County Health Officer Adeline Hambley is officially staying put. The Ottawa County board, led by an ultra-conservative majority faction called Ottawa Impact, has been trying to get rid of Hambley since its first meeting in January 2023, when the board attempted to replace her with a Hudsonville man who most recently worked at an HVAC company. But on Monday, Hambley and the board spent 12 hours in mediation to reach a settlement agreement that allows Hambley to remain the countys health officer. After the board attempted to remove Hambley last January, she filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the county and several of the Ottawa Impact board members. Following several contentious months between the board, County Administrator John Gibbs and Hambley, tension came to a head in August during the budget process. RELATED: Ottawa County health officer will keep job under tentative settlement Facing potential significant budget cuts to the health department budget, Hambley took to social media to voice her concerns over the budget cuts. After that, Moss initiated a termination hearing against Hambley that was stretched over a four-month period. During that termination hearing, multiple sources told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press that the county board of commissioners was considering paying Hambley $4 million in exchange for the resignation of herself and the deputy health officer, Marcia Mansaray. But after a judge last month decided that an alleged $4 million settlement offer wasnt enforceable, the county and Hambley moved to trying to resolve the conflict with a mediator, Grand Rapids Attorney Tom Behm. RELATED: Ottawa County board begins mediation after judge rejects alleged $4 million settlement After a 12-hour mediation meeting on Monday, the county and Hambley finally came to an agreement. Below are five key takeaways from the agreement. 1. Both Hambley and Mansaray get to keep their jobs. In the agreement, both Hambley and Mansaray are keeping their jobs as the No. 1 and No. 2 leaders of the Ottawa County health department. According to Hambleys attorney, Sarah Howard, thats been Hambleys goal since the beginning. Were trying to return to status quo, Howard said of Hambley. She wants to do the job; she wants to stay. Were all happy to have this behind us. It was completely unnecessary and interrupts the work of the county. My clients wanted nothing more than to do this job and we hope we dont have any conflicts moving forward with the board. 2. The agreement includes additional protections for Hambley An important part of the settlement agreement involves additional protection for Hambley if the county board attempts to remove her again. If the board of commissioners attempt to bring future charges against Hambley, those charges must be decided upon by a three-person panel. The panel will consist of one person of Hambleys choosing, one person selected by the county and Behm, the attorney who acted as mediator. Hambley also gets to retain her own legal counsel for up to $1,000 of legal services per month through the end of 2025. Howard said that stipulation allows Hambley to seek advice from an attorney specializing in public health issues in a disease outbreak or other matters. 3. Its unclear how much the county will have to pay in legal fees. According to the agreement, a judge will decide how much money in attorney fees will be awarded. The agreement doesnt go into much detail about how those will be determined but does state that Hambley retains a claim for damages relating to attorney fees. This means Ottawa County will likely have to pay for its own attorney fees for representation during this entire process and for Hambleys attorney fees. A date for the court to decide those attorney fee amounts has not yet been set. 4. Ottawa County is dropping its appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court As part of the agreement, both sides are waiving their rights to appeal any court decision related to the termination hearing and the wrongful termination lawsuit. Late last year, the county appealed a decision made over whether Hambley was rightfully installed into her position but will now be dropping that appeal. The settlement agreement also required all people named in the original wrongful termination lawsuit and Hambley to sign that they have not engaged in any kind of wrongful conduct. 5. County officials are happy to finally settle the issue. After countless meetings, court hearings, and seemingly endless hours of closed-door discussions, county officials are ready to move on. The county sent out an emailed statement Tuesday, calling the settlement a mutual agreement. Ottawa County is pleased that this matter has been resolved, Deputy Administrator Ben Wetmore stated in the email. We look forward to focusing all of our efforts on the great work of our departments, offices, and courts. The board of commissioners said they will continue to provide oversight of the health department and peoples individual rights in the emailed statement. RELATED: Judge wont enforce alleged $4M settlement for Ottawa County health officer The lone Democrat on the county board, Doug Zylstra, said hes glad Hambley and Mansaray can remain at their posts at the end of this lengthy ordeal. I voted yes on the motion to adopt the settlement agreement as I believe it accomplishes many important goals, most notably that of retaining both the health director and the deputy health director, Zylstra stated on his website and social media. This has been a trying period for all involved and I am pleased that we can finally get positive resolution to this matter. Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter. More from MLive: Who is it for? Residents want community access to Grand Rapids soccer stadium Calvin University president resigns over inappropriate messages Heads up: Grand Haven drawbridge undergoing testing OTTAWA COUNTY, MI -- Leading up to the fall 2022 election, a group of ultra-conservative Ottawa County board candidates let the public know they didnt like mask mandates and restrictions that came with the COVID-19 pandemic. But few would have guessed then that, once elected and immediately upon taking office, the group would move to replace county Health Officer Adeline Hambley with someone who shared their views on pandemic measures. At its first bombshell meeting on Jan. 3, 2023, thats exactly what the newly installed commissioners tried to do. Hambley, a 19-year health department employee, wasnt about to cave, though. She fought back with a wrongful termination lawsuit in February 2023 and stayed on the job pending the lawsuits outcome. After a myriad of twists and turns, the lawsuit came to an end Monday, Feb. 26, with Hambley continuing as the countys chief health officer. She also gets limited protection against any future firing because of a caveat requiring public arbitration if the county moves toward termination before Jan. 7, 2025. Clearly, it wasnt the outcome originally sought by a majority faction of county commissioners tied to the conservative group Ottawa Impact. Related: 5 things to know about Ottawa Countys health officer keeping her job after 14-month fight But those commissioners and the countys attorney werent letting on to any disappointment a day after the settlement. County Board Chair Joe Moss, who organized Ottawa Impact, did not directly answer a question from MLive/The Grand Rapids Press over whether the settlement failed to meet the groups goals. The Board will continue to provide oversight of the Health Department, prioritizing freedom and the individual rights of the people. We will continue to build Ottawa County to be a place Where Freedom Rings and individuals and families thrive! according to an email from Moss. County Corporate Counsel David Kallman said he thought the settlement was fair. I think everyone was pleased, he said in a phone interview Tuesday. We came to a settlement that both sides agreed to. I think everyone kind of gave a little. Related: Lawsuits, childhood innocence, $4M settlement talks: How far-right board shook up Ottawa County Kallman said he doesnt expect any problems with the working relationship between county health department leaders, the board or himself. Weve had a cooperative relationship through this, he said. Everyone thinks were at war, but its really not the case. The settlement was approved Tuesday by Muskegon County Circuit Judge Jenny McNeill. While perhaps not war, the last 14 months have not always been smooth sailing between Hambley and the board. In February 2023, Moss and others took aim at the health department for its association with a sex education week event at GVSU which featured discussions about sex toys as well as about sexual health and relationships. Health department leaders explained to MLive that the departments role was limited to STI testing and providing condoms and that they provided no financial contributions to the event contrary to the misleading partner logo listed and later removed on the events website. Then in August, Hambley posted on social media about a proposed budget cut to her department that approached nearly 50 percent. She wrote that she believed the proposed cut was retaliation against her for filing the lawsuit. Commissioners then walked back the proposed severe cuts and Moss and others later accused Hambley of fear-mongering. In October, Moss filed internal charges against Hambley, alleging misconduct and incompetence for allegedly causing unneeded panic in the community over the budget. Commissioners took testimony during a late October hearing to try to substantiate the charges. But in early November, following a closed session, they revealed they were in settlement negotiations with Hambley. Commissioners took a 7-3 vote that some commissioners believed was authorizing Kallman to write up a $4 million settlement with Hambley. Moss and others said the vote was only to continue negotiations. The board soon after voted to begin mediation with Hambley. Then in January, before any mediation happened, a judge ruled the $4 million alleged deal was not enforceable. The first mediation session this week led to the settlement. Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter. Representatives of the Internal Audit Service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and American inspectors conducted two more joint inspections of weapons transferred by American partners. "They checked the key parameters directly at the weapon storage sites: compliance with serial numbers, technical condition, conditions for proper storage of weapons (safety and security)," the website of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday. According to the Ministry of Defense, since the beginning of 2024, three command inspections have already been carried out according to the Plan of joint physical inspections agreed upon by the parties earlier. There were no comments from the American side during the monitoring, the ministry stressed. "We want every step in handling the provided weapons to be transparent and understandable. This means that the Ministry of Defense monitors how weapons are accounted for, stored and used, and the conclusions of joint inspections are carefully worked out. In addition, the results and experience gained during the joint inspection are already being used to develop Instructions that will regulate the attraction, receipt, accounting and use of international military assistance for the Defense Forces from all foreign partners," said Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Yuriy Dzhyhyr. ALLENDALE, MI Grand Valley State University is looking to relocate its Police Academy to Holland as part of a $6.45 million expansion to accommodate growing demand in the law enforcement training program. The GVSU Board of Trustees recently approved a proposal to renovate Grand Valleys Meijer Campus in Holland to make room for the GVSU Police Academy, which is currently housed on the Allendale campus. Grand Valley leaders say the move will create more space for the Police Academy to continue to meet the growing need for law enforcement officers (in) the region, according to the agenda packet from the boards Friday, Feb. 23 meeting. The GVSU Police Academy, founded in 1974, trains police recruits to begin a successful career in law enforcement. With an average of 35-40 recruits per training session, the program has a 96% completion rate, a 99% licensure exam pass rate and a 96% employment rate, according to the university. The academy goes beyond the mandatory minimum training requirement of 594 hours set by the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards, requiring recruits to spend an additional 42 hours focusing on community policing which includes de-escalation and implicit bias training, according to the board packet. The Police Academy previously only ran one 15-week training program per year, but due to growing demand, GVSU recently added a second session in the fall semester to accommodate growth, according to the board documents. GVSU officials said moving the Police Academy to the Holland campus will help the university accommodate that growth. Moving the GVSU Police Academy to the Meijer Campus in Holland ensures the availability of appropriate facilities to continue the fall academy as well as creating room for additional grant funded and fee for service training opportunities, the boards agenda packet said. GVSU declined to provide an administrator to share more about the programs growth or the planned expansion for this story. Chris Knape, assistant vice president for university communications, said the university plans to release more details about the project later this spring. Fridays board action represents the beginning of an exciting new chapter for GVSUs Frederik Meijer Campus in Holland, Knape said in an emailed statement to MLive/The Grand Rapids Press. We look forward to sharing more about the transformation in the months ahead as our plans are further developed. The board on Friday approved a $6.45 million plan to renovate to the Holland campus, which is located at 515 S Waverly Road, and to relocate the Police Academy there. The newly renovated space will include classrooms, scenario rooms, a computer lab, mat room, weight room, Milo room, multipurpose room, exterior drive track for training and performance testing, and locker rooms. Construction is expected to begin next month and be completed by February 2025, according to the board documents. Grand Rapids-based GMB Architecture and Engineering has been selected as the architect and engineer firm for the project, and Lakewood Construction is the construction manager. OTTAWA COUNTY, MI -- Beleaguered Ottawa County Administrator John Gibbs has denied accusations that he made physical threats against a county attorney, sexist comments against women and tried to subvert the work of county commissioners. Gibbs was placed on paid administrative leave Thursday, Feb. 22, just days after his attorney sent county leaders a letter saying Gibbs would agreed to resign for $630,000. During the same meeting in which Gibbs was placed on leave, county board Chair Joe Moss said Gibbs told him he would resign for a lower price tag of $420,000. Discord between Gibbs and county commissioners became public in January after a letter from his then-attorney was leaked to media. In it, the attorney warned commissioners not to fire Gibbs or face legal consequences. RELATED: John Gibbs accused of physical threats, sexist comments, installing secret camera Gibbs soon after hired Ann Arbor attorney Noah Hurwitz, who wrote a Feb. 15 letter announcing the offer to resign for $630,000. Following Gibbs suspension on Feb. 22, a special attorney for the county released a myriad of allegations that had surfaced against Gibbs. Among them were complaints made by county employees and commissioners. They included complaints about Gibbs allegedly claiming without any substantiation that a county official was cheating on their spouse, sweeping his office monthly for surveillance devices, sabotaging the work of the board, threatening to kill the county attorney and criticizing commissioners faith. Hurwitz issued a response to the allegations on Tuesday, Feb. 27. RELATED: Attorney: John Gibbs suspension is retaliation for efforts to protect Ottawa County In the response, he said a complaint made by an employee that Gibbs on multiple occasions said he wanted to beat Jack Jordan to death is patently false. Jordan is part of the countys corporate counsel, Kallman Legal Group. Gibbs attorney also denied other claims made against the county administrator, including that it was not Gibbs who made disparaging remarks about a county officials fidelity, but rather it was other members of the administrators office staff who said those things. Hurwitz also said that Gibbs did not install a secret camera in his office as alleged, but that he used a computer-based webcam to record meetings so that conversations of significance would not be mischaracterized by disgruntled county employees and politicians. RELATED: John Gibbs asking for $630K to resign from Ottawa County administrator role In the response letter, Hurwitz offered a reason for Gibbs unexplained absence from the Feb. 13 board meeting, during which a commissioner left the meeting to go look for Gibbs. Apparently, Gibbs told Moss he was not present at the meeting because of the high stress and hostile work environment created by the board against me, I chose not to attend for the sake of my own health. Gibbs attorney said instead of going to the county board meeting during which Gibbs was stripped of his hiring power, he went to Grand Haven. RELATED: He was Ottawa Impacts first big surprise - was he an expensive mistake? Mr. Gibbs instead attended Confession and Mass at 9 a.m. at St. Marys in Grand Haven that day, then needing to pray and think in the midst of nature went to walk along Grand Haven pier afterwards, Hurwitz stated. A continuation of the special meeting that began last week to discuss complaints against and consider a resignation offer from Gibbs is expected to take place later this week, but as of Tuesday evening has yet to be scheduled. Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter. More from MLive: Who is it for? Residents want community access to Grand Rapids soccer stadium 5 things to know about Ottawa Countys health officer keeping her job after 14-month fight Judge rules Kristina Karamo was properly ousted as Michigan GOP chair GRAND RAPIDS, MI For stabbing two people inside a Meijer store, a man will spend years in prison for what he referred to as his stupid actions. A judge handed James Edward Ivy a minimum seven-year sentence maximum 20 years when he appeared Wednesday, Feb. 28, in Kent County Circuit Court. Ivy, 59, previously pleaded guilty to two counts of assault with intent to do great bodily harm stemming from the attacks. RELATED: Wyoming retiree describes Meijer store knife attack, says he felt blade in his back The stabbings happened Feb. 21, 2022, at the Meijer store at 5500 Clyde Park Ave. SW in Wyoming. That night, police said Ivy unprovoked approached a 19-year-old man and started stabbing him with a knife. Ivy then allegedly started stabbing 74-year-old man in the nearby area of the store. Both men survived the attacks. In court Wednesday, Ivy apologized to his victims who were not in the courtroom and said hes ready to change. I just pray that you be lenient on my sentences, he told Judge Paul Denenfeld. The judge ordered Ivys sentence to be served concurrently and gave him credit for nearly two years already served. Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter. GRAND RAPIDS, MI - A new retail store offering fashion and music lovers the chance to browse upcycled ware, West Michigan brands and listen to music opened this month in the citys Heartside neighborhood. Brandon Copeland hosted a grand opening for Grammotones, 120 S. Division Ave. Suite 125, on Feb. 16. The new spot has a place to shop in the front and a recording studio in the back. Customers entering Grammotones will see various racks of secondhand and local designer street-style clothing and a seating area for listening to vinyl records. The new business is Black owned, the second in three months to open in the city with music ties. Della Marie Levi opened Della Soul Records in November. RELATED: Grand Rapids first, minority woman-owned vinyl shop enters the music scene Copeland said the layout of the store and the items offered were inspired by his journey through music while touring solo and with his band, Les Creatif. I just realized that merch sells way more than records, he said. Music sort of generates style. Michael Jackson had the zipper jacket those styles go along with the music, so I wanted something like that here. Growing up in Jackson, Copeland told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press, that he moved to the area in 2004, before working at the West Michigan Center for Arts (WMCAT) and hosting shows at the original location of the Division Avenue Arts Collective (DAAC). I got my start in music literally on this street, he said about Division Avenue. The DAAC used to be right across the street when I first came here. I never had a place Id gotten to perform at, so this strip is important to me. Copeland said he would rent out the DAAC and invite 30 of his friends to a show. His family, he said, is also musically rich, which helped kick off his creativity. Growing up, he had a small band with his siblings he would play the piano while they played the drums and clarinet. Now, the shop is available for him to showcase that talent, in the same area he got a taste for the music scene. The area itself is vibrant, and thats why we chose this block, Copeland said. Grand Rapids has a ton of talent, and not only in the music scene as performers, but a lot of bands work with local artists for their artwork, for their clothes, all of it. I want to tie that together into one shop. Some of the local brands featured at Grammotones include Original Goddess, Wasted Brand Clothing and Green Mitten, as well as plenty of upcycled clothing donated by the community. The recording studio is available on Mondays and Tuesdays, with pricing starting at $75 for one hour. Copeland touts that he hopes the new shop and recording studio space becomes a hangout spot for all to support local and listen to great music. Im hoping the artist community takes advantage of this space, especially for it being downtown, he said. You can buy stuff, but also, we want everyone to come in and make this a place of their own. Learn more about Grammotones and view recording studio guidelines by visiting its website. Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter. Read more: Mama Mias Pizzeria reopening in Spring Lake with new name, owners Who is it for? Residents want community access to Grand Rapids soccer stadium We plan to keep this momentum going: GRPS graduation rates top state average PARK TOWNSHIP, MI Park Township voters Tuesday approved a five-year renewal of a property tax used to repave local streets. Park Township voters approved the millage question on the Tuesday, Feb. 27, ballot by a vote of 3,761 to 1,921, or 66.2% to 33.8%, according to the unofficial results from the Ottawa County Clerks Office. The millage question asked voters whether they wanted to renew the previous 10-year local streets tax that expired in 2023. That millage was approved in 2014 at a rate of .5 mills but, due to tax rollbacks, it concluded at a rate of .4584 mills last year. The new millage will renew the tax for five years and increase it back to the rate of .5 mills. It will generate about $857,000 a year to be used for repaving, according to the township. The .5-mill increase equates to $75 a year in taxes for a property valued at $300,000 and a taxable value of $150,000. Like the millage approved in 2014, the approved tax renewal applies to primary residences, second homes, industrial property, commercial property and some agricultural property. Park Township Manager Howard Fink previously told the township board that while the Ottawa County Road Commission is responsible for the maintenance of all public streets in the township, there are not enough funds to cover the expenses. Repair of local subdivision roads, Fink said, often becomes the responsibility of the local government, or residents through a special assessment. The funds can only be used to repave public roads, and there is no way to eliminate the tax for those that live on private streets, he said. GRAND RAPIDS, MI Perrigo, a health and wellness company whose North American corporate headquarters is located in downtown Grand Rapids, plans to cut its 9,000-member workforce by 6% as part of a restructuring plan. The company, which makes ibuprofen for CVS, acetaminophen for Walmart, and a host of other products such as toothbrushes, vitamins, cough syrup and more, announced the job cuts in a news release on Tuesday, Feb. 27. This reduction includes the elimination of current and open roles as well as the creation of new roles as we invest in brand building and innovation capabilities, Perrigo President and CEO Patrick Lockwood-Taylor said in a call with investors. The companys news release did not specify when the job cuts are expected to be made, nor did it state which of the companys locations would be affected. Perrigo has 38 locations across the globe, according to its website. A request for additional information was not immediately returned. Related: Perrigo unveils new North American Corporate Headquarters on Grand Rapids Medical Mile The job cuts are part of a restructuring plan, known as Project Energize, that Perrigo says is designed to consumerize, simplify and scale our organization, driving the next evolution of global capabilities and organizational agility. Energize is expected to deliver pre-tax savings of $140 to $170 million dollars by the end of 2026, Lockwood-Taylor said in the investor call. However, he also noted in the call that the restructuring plan will carry about $80 million in one-time employee severance costs. While the decision to reduce the number of roles at Perrigo was not an easy one, it will enable organizational dexterity across our segments by enhancing decision making and simplifying commercial operations, he said. Perrigo opened its new North American Corporate Headquarters in June 2022 at 430 Monroe Ave. NW along the Medical Mile in downtown Grand Rapids. The companys 15-year lease on the building was valued at $44.7 million, though it was offset by $3.7 million in state incentives, according to a news release issued in 2020. When the new headquarters opened, Perrigo told MLive it has about 4,000 employees in Allegan and Holland. The companys plant and production facilities are there, and those campuses are also home to information technology employees and other accounting employees. Perrigo was founded in 1877 by Luther Perrigo in Allegan. In 2013, the company was reincorporated in Ireland after it purchased Elan Pharmaceuticals, which was based in the island nation, for $8.6 billion. Want more Grand Rapids-area news? Bookmark the local Grand Rapids news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Grand Rapids daily newsletter. More on MLive: 2 dead in Mecosta County mobile home fire Doors close on final B2 discount location in Hudsonville New clothing store, recording studio opens in Grand Rapids CALHOUN COUNTY, MI It was dark and quiet outside moments before Rodney Stone realized he needed to rush to his basement as a suspected tornado ripped past his Calhoun County home overnight. It all happened so fast, Stone said, looking at the damage left in the storms wake. It was really quiet then it suddenly got really loud for a moment before it was quiet again. I never had a chance to get to the basement. A tornado warning was issued for the area at about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 28, after the National Weather Service reported seeing tornado conditions on radar, according to the Calhoun County Sheriffs Office. As of Wednesday morning, the NWS has not yet confirmed there was an actual tornado. Numerous trees are down and police say motorists should avoid the area for safety reasons. Related: Damage reported after late-night tornado touches down near Marshall However, around 12:37 a.m., Calhoun County Emergency Management reported a tornado on the ground at 19 Mile and L Drive in Lee Township. Law enforcement confirmed a tornado on the ground at 26 Mile and F Drive North in Sheridan Township around the same time. It appears the tornado moved northeast from 17 1/2 Mile Road toward 24 Mile Road in Marengo Township, police wrote in a public safety notice. This is a preliminary understanding of the tornado, and it might increase as investigation continues. Scattered around Stones property in Marengo Township, north of Marshall, are numerous downed trees that were uprooted in seconds after decades of growth. In my 20 years living here, Ive never seen anything like this, Stone said. Calhoun County Emergency Management and the 911 Dispatch Center began receiving reports of damage in the area of Marengo Township and a portion of Marshall Township northeast of Marshall, police said. Stones property suffered minor damage with only his backyard shed sustaining roof damage. His neighbors were not so fortunate. Less than 200 feet away, one home is missing parts of its roof, and across the street a barn has been ripped open with its contents exposed. About 50 feet from that home is what remains of a tree line, now broken and flattened in an ominous line stretching out into farmland. RELATED: Tornado damages homes, ruptures gas lines as rare February storm hits Michigan Rescue personnel are checking homes for injuries, police said, adding that at this time, there are no reports of injuries. Numerous Consumers Energy crews are in the area attempting to restore power. There are about 2,000 customers in the area without power, according to Consumers Energy. A survey team from the National Weather Service is expected to look at damage on the ground in the area on Wednesday. Although roads are starting to open, there continues to be powerlines down along the road or on private yards, police said. Residents are advised to avoid the area and stay away from down powerlines. The sheriffs office is asking property owners who have suffered damage in the storm to report it through a web link on it Facebook page or by clicking HERE. Want more Jackson-area news? Bookmark the local Jackson news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Jackson daily newsletter. KALAMAZOO, MI -- A Kalamazoo man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for methamphetamine trafficking, U.S. Attorney Mark Totten announced in a Wednesday, Feb. 28 news release. Chief U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou handed down the sentence for Rocky Parker, 48, of Kalamazoo, Totten said. OTTAWA COUNTY, MI Spring Lake Township officials were sent a clear message by voters Tuesday that they disapprove of a large residential development on a former blueberry farm. The rezoning of nearly 100 acres of former Poel blueberry fields for a large residential development was resoundingly rejected Tuesday by Spring Lake Township voters, though the impact of the ballot referendum likely wont change plans for nearly 200 homes there. Former President Donald Trump has won the Michigan Republican presidential primary, according to the Associated Press. As of 9:00 p.m., with 11% of the vote counted, Trump was in a commanding lead, having earned nearly 66% of the votes counted so far. Were going to win big and its going to be like nothing that anybody has ever seen. Its going to be fantastic, Trump said, calling into a Michigan Republican Party gathering in Grand Rapids. We win Michigan, we win the whole thing. Trump last visited Michigan Feb. 17 where he rallied with supporters. You have a terrible governor who sold you out, and you have a terrible head of the United Auto Workers. Just absolutely atrocious, Trump said as way of an election day message on WJR-AM radio in Detroit. And Im the one that hasnt. We put America first. They dont put America first. The Democratic presidential primary was called for President Joe Biden at the same time. More: Live election results: 2024 Michigan Presidential primary Trumps sole remaining competition in the race is from former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who has vowed to continue her campaign against him despite losing by double-digit margins in every contest in the race for the nomination. Joe Biden is losing about 20% of the Democratic vote today, and many say its a sign of his weakness in November. Donald Trump is losing about 35 percent of the vote. Thats a flashing warning sign for Trump in November, Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said in a statement. Since Trump became president in 2016, he lost Michigan Republicans the state House, state Senate and governors mansion. What was once a beacon for the conservative cause, the Michigan Republican Party is now fractured and divided. ... So long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will keep losing to the socialist left. Our children deserve better. More: Nikki Haley says Michigan was a bright light for Republicans before Trumps rise Haley has thus far outperformed polling in the race, which had seen Trump receive nearly 80% of the vote. With many election day votes yet to be counted, that could change. The results moves the nation one state closer to a re-run of the 2020 presidential election. It many ways it has massive differences. Biden is the least popular president since Jimmy Carter, according to recent approval polling, while Trump is facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases. When it comes to getting the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination for president, voters in Tuesdays primary will only be assigning 16 of the 55 Republican delegates heading on to the GOPs nominating convention this summer. The remaining 39 will be selected this Saturday in internal party caucuses, where elected delegates skew heavily in Trumps favor. Leadership of the party remains in dispute and dueling caucuses in Detroit and Grand Rapids are scheduled for March 2. Just hours before polls closed, a judge in Kent County ruled that long-embattled chair Kristina Karamo had been properly removed in a Jan. 6 meeting, leaving her replacement Pete Hoekstra as the rightful party chair. More: Judge rules Kristina Karamo was properly ousted as Michigan GOP chair We have our internal squabbles, but the ultimate purpose of a Republican Party, of a chairman of Republican members, is to elect Republican candidates and elect people that are consistent with our values and belief for America, Hoekstra said at the party gathering. For Trump, said Republican political consultant Dave Forsmark, a lot is going to come down to his ability to drive his supporters to the polls in November and ensure Bidens stay home. When you have 70% of the people not excited about their choices. It has more to do with how many people come out to make the choice they dont want to make, Forsmark said. So nobody hated Joe Biden in 2020. Hes got lots of haters now. The court extended arrest for businessman Ihor Kolomoisky, suspected of embezzling UAH 9.2 billion of PrivatBank funds, and reduced the option bail to UAH 2.4 billion, Suspilne has reported. "Businessman Kolomoisky's detention was extended until April 25 and his bail was reduced to UAH 2.4 billion," Suspilne said a report on its Telegram channel on Wednesday, citing the words of lawyer Oleksandr Lysak. The lawyer said that Kolomoisky will not post bail, and also said that the defense is asking for an immediate medical examination of the businessman. As reported, Kolomoisky faces fraud and PrivatBank funds embezzlement charges. The Security Service of Ukraine served a notice of suspicion against him under two articles of the Criminal Code: Article 190 (fraud), Article 209 (illegal takeovers of property). Law enforcement officers established that the businessman during 2013-2020 legalized more than UAH 0.5 billion by transferring them abroad. At the same time, he used the infrastructure of controlled banking institutions. According to investigators, in the period from 2013 to 2014, Kolomoisky was behind a plan to steal UAH 5.8 billion. To do this, he created a criminal group consisting of employees of the bank, which he founded and owned. The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) notified the former ultimate beneficiary of PJSC CB PrivatBank Kolomoisky and five of his former top managers of suspicion of embezzling bank funds worth more than UAH 9.2 billion. In the Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, a little more than 13% of voters chose uncommitted, which activists said showed a resounding protest over President Joe Bidens handling over the Israel-Hamas war. As of 6:07 a.m., with 98% of votes counted, according to the Associated Press, uncommitted had received 100,960 votes, compared to President Joe Bidens 617,728. Every person who voted uncommitted today was personally compelled to use their voice to speak out against President Bidens support of Benjamin Netanyahus ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said Tuesday evening at a Listen To Michigan event. Related: Biden wins Michigan primary amid strong uncommitted push The campaign urging voters to select uncommitted was called Listen To Michigan and has demanded the President call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire. They launched their effort just a few weeks before the primary and still managed to raise and spend over $100,000 in that short time frame, organizing events throughout the state and rallying supporters ahead of the primary. The organization wrote in a press release that they emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations. Their relatively strong performance in southeastern Michigan means the campaign will likely be able to secure at least one delegate at Democrats national nominating convention this summer. President Biden has funded the bombs falling on family members of people who live right here in Michigan, Listen to Michigan says. People who voted for him, who now feel completely betrayed, organizers wrote. President Biden, listen to Michigan. Count us out, Joe. Biden is historically unpopular, however, and uncommitted can also register as a catch-all protest for voters unhappy with the incumbent president but uninterested in an alternative candidate. In Dearborn, a community with a heavily Arab-American population, Biden lost in the primary to the uncommitted vote, which had earned about 56% of the support, , about 6,300 votes, as of late Tuesday evening. Neither Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged the protest vote in statements after the race was called for Biden Tuesday night. Regardless, Listen To Michigan set itself up to overperform. There hasnt been a Michigan Democratic presidential primary with fewer than 10,000 uncommitted voters their goal in the 21st century. When former President Barack Obama was the lone name on the primary ballot in 2012, there were nearly 21,000 uncommitted votes. In that contest uncommitted voters won about 11% of the vote in the Democratic caucuses. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a press release they surveyed 527 Muslim voters after Michigans primary and found 94% voted uncommitted. If voting in a snap election, the council said more of the voters in that small sample wouldve opted for former President Donald Trump, about 13%, than Biden, who registered at just 8%. A combined 60% of the survey respondents wouldve chosen an other candidate or independent candidate Cornel West. Before polls had even closed on Tuesday, a more hardline movement called Abandon Biden had declared victory in the primary. They are urging supporters to refuse to support Biden in the November general election as well. Complicity in genocide isnt up for debate. And if Michigans message says anything, it is that what awaits Biden in November isnt victory but loss. And what awaits the Democratic Party is irrelevance, they wrote in a press release. The collapse of support for Biden in the primary in Michigan means Biden will lose Michigan in November 2024, and thus, will also lose the nation in the upcoming presidential election. The actual impact for Biden on the general election remains unclear, however. Michigan State University political scientist Matt Grossmann previously told MLive that primary elections offer little insight into what will happen in November. Its too much to try to use the primary to interpret what will happen in the general election, or to have it be a real test of how many voters each one of those candidates is likely to lose or have a threat to lose, Grossmann said. Former Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Julio Teheran has signed a minor-league deal with the Baltimore Orioles. Teheran led the Tigers to a victory over Cleveland in the second game of the 2021 season. It was his first and only start for the Tigers and also the last time he stepped on a big-league mound until 2023 when he joined the Milwaukee Brewers. Teheran went 3-5 with a 4.40 ERA in 71 2/3 innings with Milwaukee, striking out 50 and walking 13. A native of Colombia, Teheran spent parts of nine seasons with the Braves, going 77-73 with a 3.67 ERA in 1,360 innings. But hes battled injuries since leaving the Braves after the 2019 season. After an unsuccessful stint with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Teheran signed a minor-league deal with the Tigers. He earned a spot on the Opening Day roster -- and a guaranteed $3 million salary -- after a sterling spring training. Unfortunately, a shoulder injury ended his season prematurely. Unable to find another big-league opportunity in 2022, Teheran had stints with an independent league team in Staten Island, N.Y., plus two Mexican League teams. Hes also pitched in the Dominican Winter League. He signed a minor-league deal with the San Diego Padres before last season and later exercised an opt-out clause to join the Brewers. Abbas Ganbay Azerbaijan's Permanent Mission to the Council of Europe, within the framework of the international information campaign "Justice for Khojaly!" organised a commemorative event in Strasbourg dedicated to the 32nd anniversary of the Khojaly genocide, Azernews reports. The event was attended by representatives of diplomatic missions to the Council of Europe, academic circles in Strasbourg, and the local community, as well as the Azerbaijani Diaspora. Azerbaijan's Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, Fakhreddin Ismayilov, informed the audience about the Khojaly genocide and its victims, emphasising the importance of the international information campaign "Justice for Khojaly!". Then, laureates of various prestigious international competitions - Honoured Artist of Azerbaijan Jeyla Seyidova and talented young pianist Nazhanim Dadasheva performed works by famous Azerbaijani and foreign composers. Albanian President Edi Rama has said that Russia should not be allowed to win and Ukraine to lose. "We must do everything we can to prevent aggression from being rewarded. We cannot allow Russia to win and Ukraine to lose. The very existence of the European Union will be in question," he said on Wednesday, speaking at the opening of the Ukraine-Southeastern Europe summit in Tirana. "We call on Russia to stop this war. We want to reaffirm our commitment to peace, a just peace based on international law and the resolution of the UN General Assembly. Peace that will respect Ukraine and its rights," Rama said. According to him, "we are not able to offer the levels of military or financial assistance that Ukraine needs in order to properly protect itself and its people." He called on all members of the democratic community to "join us." "So that all the wealthy members of the democratic community recognize that the survival of Ukraine as a free and democratic state and as a bastion of freedom in Europe depends on the financial and military support they provide. This support should not depend on bureaucratic delays or internal obstacles," Rama said. "We must stay together, mobilize all our capabilities and resources, all that holds us together, institutions and organizations, strengthening our democracy This is a war for our own freedom and dignity too," the prime minister said. "We must have full clarity for Ukraine. We need irrevocable solidarity with Ukraine and all efforts to support Ukraine," Rama said. The Ukrainian Red Cross Society (URCS) joined in a meeting on psychosocial support for displaced Ukrainian children in the capital of Hungary. "The Ukrainian Red Cross participated in the meeting 'Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Displaced Ukrainian Children' which was organized by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Budapest," the URCS said on Facebook on Wednesday. The event brought together representatives of more than 20 national societies of the IFRC to share their experience in the field of mental health and psychosocial support for people affected by the war of aggression unleashed by Russia against Ukraine. Representatives of the Ukrainian Red Cross spoke about their activities related to mental health and psychosocial support within the framework of the #EU4Health program, which is being implemented with the assistance of the European Commission and the Danish Red Cross. Zelenskyy on Macron's initiative to send Western troops to Ukraine: If any initiatives strengthen Ukraine, they are good for whole world President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that if any of the initiatives of the leaders of certain states are aimed at strengthening Ukraine in repelling Russian aggression, then they will be good for the whole world. "Regarding any initiatives: if they strengthen Ukraine, they will be good for the whole world," Zelenskyy said at a press conference following the Ukraine-Southeastern Europe summit. Commenting on the French leader's statement, Zelenskyy said he was not physically present at the summit to support Ukraine in Paris, but Macron notified him the day before that he would talk about certain new ideas to strengthen Ukraine. "And he will share with me when he arrives in Ukraine in March. And then I will be deep in detail and will be able to share with you more specifically," the president said. The head of state also said he had a substantive conversation with Macron earlier. "In particular, the artillery coalition that is being created with the United States is very specific things. And we need to survive, and for Ukraine to survive these are very specific decisions. That is why I cannot share with you, for example, the amount of artillery or 155-caliber ammunition... That is, I mean that we have a decision, and what we need is to survive. And everything that we decided and everything where we have agreements and contracts to help, everything should be on time. This is the basic fundamental initiative: give us on time if you can. Carry out your decision to support us if you can," he said. "That's why Macron had many initiatives on how to strengthen Ukraine on the battlefield. We talked a lot about intelligence, about drones, about joint production, about technical things," Zelenskyy said. At the same time, Zelenskyy said: "The main thing you need to understand: when we share different initiatives, they are all like the second, third, fourth step, and the first step is to protect yourself and stay strong." "This is important because now we have questions about aid packages from our partners both from Europe and the United States. We are very grateful to them, but now it is important to be strong, because we have no alternative. We are dealing with a killer. It's just with the killer. Hitler: part two," he said. "All of us must prepare for Putin's next steps and be strong. If not all of us are ready to push him away, then we must all prepare for the fact that there will be missiles in the morning or at night. This is our signal the stronger we are in Ukraine, the weaker there will be Putin," he said. Albania plans to open its embassy in Kyiv soon, Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba has said following the talks with his Albanian counterpart Igli Hasani. "During my first visit to friendly Albania, I met with Minister Igli Hasani. I thanked Albania for its firm support and solidarity with Ukraine. We identified ways to strengthen defense cooperation, with a particular emphasis on artillery ammunition. Albania plans to open its embassy in Kyiv soon. I greatly appreciate this decision, which will significantly boost our bilateral ties," he said n X Social Network on Wednesday. Kuleba also thanked Albania for its willingness to join the Core Group on the Special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine. The ministers also noted the countries' effective cooperation within international organizations. Participants of the Ukraine-South East Europe Summit and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy have adopted a declaration to reiterate their support for the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine and call on the international community to increase support to Ukraine. President of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani, President of Moldova Maia Sandu, President of Montenegro Jakov Milatovic, President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski, President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama, Chairwoman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina Borjana Kristo, Prime Minister of Bulgaria Nikolai Denkov, Prime Minister of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic, Prime Minister of Romania Ion-Marcel Ciolacu signed the document in Tirana on February 28, 2024. According to the declaration published on the website of the Ukrainian head of state, Russia's unprovoked military aggression against Ukraine remains the greatest threat to the European security and international peace. This act of aggression is unacceptable; it is a flagrant violation of international law, including the UN Charter, and a crime against the Ukrainian people. The parties also reiterated their unwavering support for the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders as of 1991. "and remain committed to providing Ukraine with necessary support to prevail against the Russian war of aggression for as long as it takes in order to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in accordance with the UN Charter and on the basis of the Ukrainian Peace Formula," the document says. The parties also called on the whole international community to "strongly increase support to Ukraine in its ongoing struggle for freedom, independence and territorial integrity." In addition, the declaration strongly condemns the intentions of the Russian Federation to hold presidential elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, which represents a blatant violation of international law and emphasizes the illegal nature of the upcoming elections in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol and in Russia-occupied territories of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine. "During today's discussions in Tirana, we reaffirmed our solidarity with Ukraine and its people in their heroic defense of their freedom and our shared values and expressed our readiness to participate in the implementation of the Peace Formula of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which is in line with the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter, and to take part in the inaugural Peace Summit, ensuring the widest possible international participation in this process," the document says. Also, the participants of the summit are convinced that Russia's full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine "has demonstrated the critical need and crucial importance of a united and strong Europe capable of facing global challenges for the peace and prosperity of our peoples." The signatories emphasized that they are united by common European values and a vision of their further development within a united Europe. The parties reaffirmed our determination to intensify joint efforts to ensure further progress and mutual support towards the membership of the Western Balkan region, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, and Georgia in the European Union. "We fully support Ukraine's right to choose its own security arrangements. NATO Allies and aspiring countries commend the steps taken towards its future membership in NATO and support Ukraine to become member of the Alliance as soon as security conditions allow," the document says. The signatories also underlined their firm commitment to bring to justice those individuals responsible for the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity and other atrocity crimes under international law committed in connection with Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, through appropriate, fair and independent investigations and prosecution at the national or international level, including through the work of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the International Criminal Court to ensure that allegations of war crimes and other international crimes are fully and fairly investigated by independent, effective and robust legal mechanisms. The summit participants agreed to cooperate and focus their efforts on the return of unlawfully and illegally deported and forcibly relocated Ukrainian children. In addition, the parties pledged to enhance their cooperative efforts to fight disinformation, including fake narratives about the war, and to remain committed in combating hybrid warfare and cybersecurity challenges, contributing to the stability and security of the international community. "Today in Tirana, we reaffirmed our solidarity and support for Ukraine, expressed our commitment to participate in the post-war recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine in order to enable the Ukrainian people to rebuild their country, engaging all relevant partners, including private companies and international financial institutions, with the aim of securing the financial support, investments and knowledge needed to ensure a prosperous future for Ukraine," the document says. The parties also underline the importance of demining in the broader context of Ukraine's recovery, as the crucial initial step toward the safe return of people and resumption of economic and agricultural activity. Adtran Networks SE (OTCMKTS:ADVOF Get Free Report)s share price hit a new 52-week high on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $20.93 and last traded at $20.93, with a volume of 0 shares. The stock had previously closed at $20.93. Adtran Networks Price Performance The stock has a market capitalization of $1.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 87.21 and a beta of 0.97. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $20.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $20.93. About Adtran Networks (Get Free Report) Adtran Networks SE engages in the development, manufacture, and sale optical and Ethernet-based networking solutions for telecommunications carriers and enterprises to deliver data, storage, voice, and video services worldwide. It offers open optical transport solutions, such as FSP 3000 open terminals, FSP 3000 open line systems, pluggables and subsystems, and optical access solutions; packet edge and aggregation products, including carrier Ethernet and programmable multilayer edge, metro aggregation, and edge computing products; disaggregated networking, such as packet optical terminals and ensemble activators. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Adtran Networks Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Adtran Networks and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. B&G Foods (NYSE:BGS Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY24 earnings guidance on Tuesday morning. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of $0.80-1.00 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of $0.85. The company issued revenue guidance of $1.975-2.020 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $1.99 billion. B&G Foods also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 0.800-1.000 EPS. Analysts Set New Price Targets BGS has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. StockNews.com cut shares of B&G Foods from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Friday, November 10th. TheStreet lowered B&G Foods from a c- rating to a d+ rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 8th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and one has issued a hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Reduce and an average price target of $9.17. Get B&G Foods alerts: View Our Latest Analysis on B&G Foods B&G Foods Price Performance Institutional Investors Weigh In On B&G Foods NYSE:BGS traded up $0.01 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $9.38. 1,858,965 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 990,438. The firms 50-day moving average is $10.21 and its 200-day moving average is $10.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.30, a current ratio of 1.52 and a quick ratio of 0.76. B&G Foods has a 1-year low of $7.20 and a 1-year high of $16.68. Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC lifted its position in B&G Foods by 124.9% during the 1st quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 1,871 shares of the companys stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 1,039 shares in the last quarter. State of Wyoming acquired a new position in shares of B&G Foods in the second quarter worth about $30,000. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of B&G Foods by 117.4% in the first quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 2,000 shares of the companys stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 1,080 shares in the last quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of B&G Foods in the first quarter worth about $33,000. Finally, Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC lifted its stake in shares of B&G Foods by 818.7% in the first quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 3,344 shares of the companys stock worth $52,000 after acquiring an additional 2,980 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 63.15% of the companys stock. B&G Foods Company Profile (Get Free Report) B&G Foods, Inc manufactures, sells, and distributes a portfolio of shelf-stable and frozen foods, and household products in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The company's products include frozen and canned vegetables, vegetables, canola and other cooking oils, vegetable shortening, cooking sprays, oatmeal and other hot cereals, fruit spreads, canned meats and beans, bagel chips, spices, seasonings, hot sauces, wine vinegar, maple syrups, molasses, salad dressings, pizza crusts, Mexican-style sauces, dry soups, taco shells and kits, salsas, pickles, peppers, tomato-based products, baking powder and soda, cookies and crackers, corn starch, nut clusters, and other specialty products. See Also Receive News & Ratings for B&G Foods Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for B&G Foods and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Boston Beer (NYSE:SAM Get Free Report) updated its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Tuesday. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 7.000-11.000 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 11.390. The company issued revenue guidance of -. Boston Beer also updated its FY24 guidance to $7.00 to $11.00 EPS. Boston Beer Stock Up 3.0 % Shares of Boston Beer stock traded up $10.79 on Tuesday, hitting $370.32. 214,500 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 114,883. Boston Beer has a 12-month low of $296.27 and a 12-month high of $395.52. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $351.12 and a 200 day moving average price of $355.67. The company has a market cap of $4.51 billion, a PE ratio of 54.74, a PEG ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.09. Get Boston Beer alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes SAM has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on shares of Boston Beer in a research note on Monday, November 13th. They issued a hold rating and a $375.00 target price for the company. Roth Mkm boosted their target price on Boston Beer from $406.00 to $422.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 23rd. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded Boston Beer from an underperform rating to a market perform rating and raised their price target for the company from $280.00 to $335.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $348.25. Insider Transactions at Boston Beer In related news, insider Carolyn L. Oboyle sold 102 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $344.83, for a total value of $35,172.66. Following the sale, the insider now owns 2,732 shares in the company, valued at approximately $942,075.56. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Insiders have sold 306 shares of company stock worth $107,146 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 23.50% of the companys stock. Institutional Inflows and Outflows A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its stake in Boston Beer by 2.0% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 16,610 shares of the companys stock worth $6,452,000 after buying an additional 333 shares in the last quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. boosted its position in Boston Beer by 64.3% during the 1st quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 1,778 shares of the companys stock worth $691,000 after buying an additional 696 shares during the period. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Boston Beer by 3.3% during the 1st quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 2,961 shares of the companys stock worth $1,151,000 after buying an additional 95 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can raised its position in shares of Boston Beer by 220.8% during the first quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 6,080 shares of the companys stock worth $2,414,000 after acquiring an additional 4,185 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MetLife Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Boston Beer by 42.6% during the first quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 6,488 shares of the companys stock worth $2,520,000 after acquiring an additional 1,938 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 64.10% of the companys stock. Boston Beer Company Profile (Get Free Report) The Boston Beer Company, Inc engages in the production and sale of alcohol beverages primarily in the United States. The company's flagship beer is Samuel Adams Boston Lager. It offers various beers, hard ciders, flavored malt beverages, and hard seltzers under the Samuel Adams, Twisted Tea, Truly Hard Seltzer, Angry Orchard, Dogfish Head, Angel City, Coney Island, and Havana Lager brand names. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Boston Beer Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Boston Beer and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. AXON has seen steady revenue growth driven by SaaS service contracts, but it may not immediately reflect current trends due to contract terms and budget constraints. Operating expenses increased due to higher professional and consulting expenses related to acquisitions. Managements focus on developing new products and cloud-based solutions is aimed at driving growth and improving profitability. Key risks include cybersecurity incidents and reliance on law enforcement agencies. The companys forward guidance emphasizes capitalizing on law enforcement agencies purchasing their products to ensure stable growth prospects and financial condition. Executive Summary Financials Revenue growth has been steady over the past three years, driven mainly by SaaS service contracts. However, the revenue may not immediately reflect current trends due to contract terms and government budget constraints. Operating expenses increased by $4.2 million due to higher professional, consulting, and lobbying expenses related to business acquisitions and investments. There were no significant changes in cost structures mentioned in the context. The companys net income margin is 16.96%, which has improved from the previous period. It outperforms industry peers with a higher net income margin. Get alerts: Management Discussion and Analysis Management has focused on developing new products and features to drive growth. They have also invested in cloud-based solutions to meet customer needs. These initiatives have the potential to improve profitability, but success will depend on timely deployment and market acceptance. Management assesses the competitive position by monitoring product demand and market acceptance. They highlight potential disruptions from price changes and the need to innovate new products efficiently. Acquisitions may bring unforeseen challenges, like integration difficulties and regulatory obstacles. Major risks identified include reliance on law enforcement agencies, cybersecurity incidents, and third-party vendors. Mitigation strategies include regular risk assessments, contractual undertakings with vendors, and tabletop exercises for incident response. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Risk Assessment The companys key performance metrics include revenue and Adjusted EBITDA goals. They have met eight operational goals focused on revenue and Adjusted EBITDA for four consecutive fiscal quarters, aligning with the companys long-term goals. The companys return on investment may vary due to fluctuations in fair value of its investments, impacting shareholder value. It may not consistently generate value for shareholders compared to its cost of capital. The companys market share has been stable, but there are concerns about maintaining competitiveness. There are no specific plans mentioned for market expansion or consolidation in the provided information. External factors such as security breaches, catastrophic events, and public health emergencies like COVID-19 pose significant risks to the companys operations and financial performance. These threats could lead to loss of data, disruption of business, damage to reputation, and financial liabilities. AXON assesses and manages cybersecurity risks by conducting due diligence on third-party vendors, running tabletop exercises, and conducting regular risk assessments of information systems to identify weaknesses and implement mitigations. Yes, the company faces potential legal issues like personal injury claims and intellectual property infringement. They are addressing these risks by considering the impact on their reputation, sales, and financial condition. Corporate Governance and Sustainability The Board of Directors includes key executives like the Corporate General Counsel and Chief Financial Officer. There will be a change in leadership as a new Chief Information Security Officer will be taking over from the current one. AXON addresses diversity and inclusion through Employee Resource Groups and the Ethics & Equity Advisory Council. It focuses on hiring, retaining, and developing diverse talent, with a commitment to promoting diversity and equity within the workforce. No direct mention of board diversity commitment was provided. AXON discloses ESG-related initiatives like environmental goals, responsible sourcing, and social investments. It demonstrates commitment through evolving reporting standards, responding to stakeholder expectations, and implementing costly, time-consuming ESG measures. Forward Guidance The companys forward-looking guidance addresses strategic risks by highlighting the importance of law enforcement agencies in purchasing products. This ensures growth prospects and financial condition remain stable. AXON is factoring in the trend of law enforcement agencies purchasing their products and services. They plan to capitalize on this trend by focusing on continued growth prospects, operating results, and financial condition. Yes, the forward-looking statements mention capitalization goals and market conditions, indicating a commitment to long-term growth and competitiveness through strategic investments and planning. For more information: This article was created using artificial intelligence technology from Klickanalytics. CAVA Group (NYSE:CAVA Get Free Report) announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday. The company reported $0.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.01 by $0.01, MarketWatch Earnings reports. The company had revenue of $175.50 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $240.03 million. CAVA Group had a net margin of 1.82% and a return on equity of 5.94%. The firms quarterly revenue was up 52.6% on a year-over-year basis. CAVA Group Stock Performance NYSE:CAVA opened at $55.34 on Wednesday. CAVA Group has a one year low of $29.05 and a one year high of $58.22. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $47.04 and a 200-day simple moving average of $39.78. Get CAVA Group alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes A number of analysts have issued reports on the stock. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of CAVA Group from $41.00 to $42.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, November 8th. Robert W. Baird lifted their price target on shares of CAVA Group from $54.00 to $62.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Thursday, February 15th. Argus initiated coverage on shares of CAVA Group in a research note on Monday, January 29th. They issued a hold rating for the company. Raymond James initiated coverage on shares of CAVA Group in a research note on Friday, November 17th. They issued a market perform rating for the company. Finally, TD Cowen initiated coverage on shares of CAVA Group in a research note on Wednesday, December 13th. They issued an outperform rating and a $46.00 price objective for the company. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $49.70. Institutional Investors Weigh In On CAVA Group Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of CAVA. Barclays PLC bought a new stake in shares of CAVA Group in the 2nd quarter valued at about $250,000. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC bought a new position in shares of CAVA Group during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $339,000. Osaic Holdings Inc. bought a new position in shares of CAVA Group during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $74,000. BlackRock Inc. bought a new position in shares of CAVA Group during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $16,380,000. Finally, Nuveen Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in CAVA Group during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $20,285,000. Institutional investors own 61.83% of the companys stock. About CAVA Group (Get Free Report) CAVA Group, Inc owns and operates a chain of Mediterranean restaurants. The company offers salads, dips, spreads, toppings, and dressings. It sells its products through whole food markets and grocery stores. The company also provides online food ordering services. Cava Group, Inc was founded in 2006 and is based in Washington, District of Columbia. See Also Receive News & Ratings for CAVA Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CAVA Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Warsaw is negotiating with Kyiv on a temporary ban on the movement of goods across the border, Polish Radio RMF reported, citing the head of the Polish government, Donald Tusk, on Wednesday. "Representatives of the Ukrainian side and I discussed the possibility of temporarily closing the border and stopping the exchange of goods," Tusk radio quotes. At the same time, he noted that "this temporary measure would be painful for both sides." It is expected that these topics will be the subject of discussion at a meeting between Tusk and protesting agricultural producers, which is scheduled for Thursday. Commenting on the prospects for the meeting, Tusk noted: "I am not prime minister for Poland to leave the EU or block the border with Ukraine." He stressed: "I am ready for firm decisions when it comes to the border with Ukraine, but with a preliminary agreement with Kyiv, so that there is no unnecessary tension. We must find a long-term solution." According to Tusk, "perhaps it is worth talking about additional payments for grain, which will allow Polish products to be sold as soon as possible." At the same time, he noted that in general the Polish state can help make Polish grain more attractive in terms of price compared to Ukrainian grain. For a long time now, mass protests by agricultural producers have been taking place in Poland against the supply of agricultural products that come duty-free from Ukraine. Chemed (NYSE:CHE Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Tuesday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of 23.300-23.700 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of 23.010. The company issued revenue guidance of -. Chemed also updated its FY24 guidance to $23.30-$23.70 EPS. Chemed Stock Performance Shares of CHE stock traded down $1.87 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $596.60. 93,933 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 80,491. Chemed has a twelve month low of $492.84 and a twelve month high of $610.35. The firm has a market cap of $8.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.92, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.93 and a beta of 0.43. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $588.14 and its 200-day simple moving average is $555.38. Get Chemed alerts: Chemed Dividend Announcement The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 15th. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 26th will be paid a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 23rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.27%. Chemeds payout ratio is presently 9.91%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on CHE shares. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on Chemed from $590.00 to $625.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on Chemed from $576.00 to $604.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Monday, October 30th. Read Our Latest Analysis on CHE Insider Activity at Chemed In other Chemed news, CEO Kevin J. Mcnamara sold 1,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $572.77, for a total transaction of $859,155.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 111,468 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,845,526.36. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 3.80% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Chemed A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Point72 Europe London LLP acquired a new stake in Chemed in the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board bought a new stake in shares of Chemed during the first quarter worth approximately $46,000. Fortis Capital Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Chemed by 155.6% in the first quarter. Fortis Capital Advisors LLC now owns 115 shares of the companys stock valued at $62,000 after purchasing an additional 70 shares during the last quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co grew its position in shares of Chemed by 2,283.3% in the third quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co now owns 143 shares of the companys stock valued at $62,000 after purchasing an additional 137 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State of Wyoming grew its position in Chemed by 32.8% during the second quarter. State of Wyoming now owns 158 shares of the companys stock worth $86,000 after buying an additional 39 shares in the last quarter. 94.25% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Chemed Company Profile (Get Free Report) Chemed Corporation provides hospice and palliative care services to patients through a network of physicians, registered nurses, home health aides, social workers, clergy, and volunteers primarily in the United States. The company operates in two segments, VITAS and Roto-Rooter. It offers plumbing, drain cleaning, excavation, water restoration, and other related services to residential and commercial customers through company-owned branches, independent contractors, and franchisees. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Chemed Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Chemed and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Envista (NYSE: NVST) recently received a number of ratings updates from brokerages and research firms: 2/26/2024 Envista is now covered by analysts at SVB Leerink LLC. They set an underperform rating and a $19.00 price target on the stock. 2/9/2024 Envista was downgraded by analysts at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. from a buy rating to a hold rating. They now have a $23.00 price target on the stock, down previously from $30.00. 2/8/2024 Envista was downgraded by analysts at William Blair from an outperform rating to a market perform rating. 2/7/2024 Envista was downgraded by analysts at TheStreet from a c rating to a d+ rating. 1/5/2024 Envista is now covered by analysts at UBS Group AG. They set a neutral rating and a $26.00 price target on the stock. Envista Stock Down 2.2 % NYSE NVST traded down $0.48 on Tuesday, reaching $21.44. The company had a trading volume of 3,043,868 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,482,378. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $23.66 and a 200-day moving average of $25.54. Envista Holdings Co. has a 1 year low of $20.00 and a 1 year high of $40.92. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.68 billion, a PE ratio of -35.15, a P/E/G ratio of 2.44 and a beta of 1.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a current ratio of 2.23 and a quick ratio of 1.90. Get Envista Holdings Co alerts: Envista (NYSE:NVST Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 7th. The company reported $0.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.33 by ($0.04). The company had revenue of $645.60 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $638.37 million. Envista had a positive return on equity of 6.31% and a negative net margin of 3.90%. The firms quarterly revenue was down 2.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.52 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Envista Holdings Co. will post 1.42 EPS for the current fiscal year. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in NVST. Headinvest LLC acquired a new position in shares of Envista in the 3rd quarter valued at about $28,000. Fifth Third Bancorp boosted its holdings in shares of Envista by 98.1% in the 4th quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 1,254 shares of the companys stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 621 shares during the period. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Envista in the 2nd quarter valued at about $35,000. Belpointe Asset Management LLC lifted its position in Envista by 80.6% in the 1st quarter. Belpointe Asset Management LLC now owns 901 shares of the companys stock valued at $37,000 after purchasing an additional 402 shares during the last quarter. Finally, US Bancorp DE lifted its position in Envista by 730.2% in the 4th quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 1,652 shares of the companys stock valued at $40,000 after purchasing an additional 1,453 shares during the last quarter. Envista Holdings Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells dental products in the United States, China, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, Specialty Products & Technologies, and Equipment & Consumables. The Specialty Products & Technologies segment offers dental implant systems, guided surgery systems, biomaterials, and prefabricated and custom-built prosthetics to oral surgeons, prosthodontists, and periodontists; and brackets and wires, tubes and bands, archwires, clear aligners, digital orthodontic treatments, retainers, and other orthodontic laboratory products. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Envista Holdings Co Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Envista Holdings Co and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. (NYSE:ASR Get Free Report) was upgraded by equities researchers at StockNews.com from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report issued on Tuesday. Other equities research analysts also recently issued reports about the company. Citigroup downgraded Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. from a neutral rating to a sell rating and lowered their price target for the company from $228.00 to $222.00 in a research report on Tuesday, November 28th. Bank of America raised Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. from an underperform rating to a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, December 14th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. from a sell rating to a buy rating and raised their price target for the company from $274.00 to $326.00 in a research report on Friday, January 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $274.00. Get Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste S. A. B. de C. V. alerts: View Our Latest Stock Report on Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. Stock Down 3.4 % Institutional Investors Weigh In On Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. stock traded down $10.12 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $288.59. 64,775 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 56,812. The company has a current ratio of 2.97, a quick ratio of 2.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23. The stock has a market cap of $8.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.25, a P/E/G ratio of 2.86 and a beta of 1.17. Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. has a 1-year low of $165.00 and a 1-year high of $317.94. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $291.97 and a two-hundred day moving average of $259.59. A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its position in Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. by 1.1% during the second quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 684,236 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $190,005,000 after buying an additional 7,111 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. by 12,500.3% during the first quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 619,305 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $1,201,000 after purchasing an additional 614,390 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. lifted its stake in Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. by 10.0% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 360,238 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $79,830,000 after purchasing an additional 32,860 shares during the period. WCM Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. by 3.0% during the first quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 255,120 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $78,187,000 after purchasing an additional 7,497 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its stake in Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. by 3.9% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 209,158 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $41,077,000 after purchasing an additional 7,922 shares during the period. 13.05% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. Company Profile (Get Free Report) Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, S. A. B. de C. V. holds concessions to operate, maintain, and develop airports in the southeast region of Mexico. The company operates airports that are located in the cities of Cancun, Cozumel, Merida, Huatulco, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Villahermosa, Tapachula, and Minatitlan. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste S. A. B. de C. V. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste S. A. B. de C. V. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Grupo Financiero Inbursa, S.A.B. de C.V. (OTCMKTS:GPFOY Get Free Report) hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $15.60 and last traded at $15.60, with a volume of 2500 shares. The stock had previously closed at $12.50. Grupo Financiero Inbursa Trading Up 24.8 % The business has a fifty day moving average price of $12.50 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $12.50. About Grupo Financiero Inbursa (Get Free Report) Grupo Financiero Inbursa, SAB. de C.V. provides various financial products and services to individuals and businesses in Mexico. The company offers automotive credit, medical expenses, and personal and business online banking services, as well as provides insurance products. Grupo Financiero Inbursa, SAB. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Grupo Financiero Inbursa Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Grupo Financiero Inbursa and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. iShares Core Canadian Universe Bond Index ETF (TSE:XBB Get Free Report) dropped 0.3% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as C$27.41 and last traded at C$27.44. Approximately 138,584 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 52% from the average daily volume of 289,536 shares. The stock had previously closed at C$27.52. iShares Core Canadian Universe Bond Index ETF Trading Down 0.3 % The stock has a fifty day moving average of C$27.73 and a 200-day moving average of C$27.11. About iShares Core Canadian Universe Bond Index ETF (Get Free Report) iShares DEX Universe Bond Index Fund seeks to provide income by replicating, to the extent possible, the performance of the DEX Universe Bond Index, net of expenses. The DEX Bond Index consists of a diversified selection of investment-grade Government of Canada, provincial, corporate and municipal bonds issued domestically in Canada and denominated in Canadian dollars. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for iShares Core Canadian Universe Bond Index ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Core Canadian Universe Bond Index ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Koppers (NYSE:KOP Get Free Report) updated its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Wednesday. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 4.600-4.800 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 4.710. The company issued revenue guidance of $2.3 billion-$2.3 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.2 billion. Koppers also updated its FY24 guidance to $4.60-4.80 EPS. Koppers Trading Up 7.5 % NYSE:KOP traded up $3.98 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $57.00. The companys stock had a trading volume of 161,082 shares, compared to its average volume of 123,720. The companys fifty day simple moving average is $50.54 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $43.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a current ratio of 2.24 and a quick ratio of 1.05. Koppers has a twelve month low of $28.45 and a twelve month high of $57.07. The stock has a market cap of $1.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.36 and a beta of 1.87. Get Koppers alerts: Koppers Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 25th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 8th will be paid a $0.07 dividend. This is a positive change from Kopperss previous quarterly dividend of $0.06. This represents a $0.28 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.49%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 7th. Kopperss payout ratio is currently 5.70%. Analysts Set New Price Targets Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on KOP shares. Barrington Research reaffirmed an outperform rating and issued a $64.00 price objective on shares of Koppers in a research note on Wednesday. StockNews.com lowered Koppers from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note on Friday, December 29th. Get Our Latest Research Report on Koppers Insider Activity at Koppers In other Koppers news, SVP Leslie S. Hyde sold 16,936 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.11, for a total transaction of $763,982.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 50,386 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,272,912.46. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, SVP Leslie S. Hyde sold 16,936 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.11, for a total value of $763,982.96. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 50,386 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,272,912.46. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Bradley A. Pearce sold 1,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Wednesday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.82, for a total value of $49,820.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 28,128 shares in the company, valued at $1,401,336.96. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 78,227 shares of company stock worth $3,522,762 in the last 90 days. 7.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. Institutional Trading of Koppers A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Quadrature Capital Ltd increased its stake in shares of Koppers by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 15,379 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $788,000 after buying an additional 251 shares during the period. Barclays PLC lifted its holdings in shares of Koppers by 1.8% in the second quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 16,274 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $555,000 after purchasing an additional 286 shares in the last quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Koppers by 7.1% in the second quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 5,330 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $182,000 after purchasing an additional 352 shares in the last quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky lifted its holdings in shares of Koppers by 5.7% in the second quarter. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky now owns 6,772 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $231,000 after purchasing an additional 366 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tower Research Capital LLC TRC lifted its holdings in shares of Koppers by 50.4% in the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 1,176 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 394 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.81% of the companys stock. Koppers Company Profile (Get Free Report) Koppers Holdings Inc provides treated wood products, wood preservation chemicals, and carbon compounds in the United States, Australasia, Europe, and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Railroad and Utility Products and Services (RUPS), Performance Chemicals (PC), and Carbon Materials and Chemicals (CMC).The RUPS segment procures and treats crossties, switch ties, and various types of lumber used for railroad bridges and crossings. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Koppers Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Koppers and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. LyondellBasell Industries (NYSE:LYB Get Free Report) EVP Kenneth Todd Lane sold 29,229 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $99.19, for a total value of $2,899,224.51. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 91,758 shares of the companys stock, valued at $9,101,476.02. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Kenneth Todd Lane also recently made the following trade(s): Get LyondellBasell Industries alerts: On Monday, February 26th, Kenneth Todd Lane sold 9,489 shares of LyondellBasell Industries stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.92, for a total value of $938,651.88. LyondellBasell Industries Price Performance LYB traded up $0.22 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $99.04. The stock had a trading volume of 1,850,404 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,767,241. LyondellBasell Industries has a 1-year low of $81.24 and a 1-year high of $102.04. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $95.52 and a two-hundred day moving average of $95.18. The firm has a market capitalization of $32.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.19 and a beta of 1.18. The company has a quick ratio of 1.17, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.80. LyondellBasell Industries Announces Dividend LyondellBasell Industries ( NYSE:LYB Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 2nd. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.26 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.33 by ($0.07). LyondellBasell Industries had a net margin of 5.16% and a return on equity of 21.89%. The company had revenue of $9.93 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.85 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.29 EPS. LyondellBasell Industriess revenue was down 6.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that LyondellBasell Industries will post 8.86 EPS for the current fiscal year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 11th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 4th will be given a dividend of $1.25 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 1st. This represents a $5.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.05%. LyondellBasell Industriess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 77.28%. Institutional Investors Weigh In On LyondellBasell Industries Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Invesco Ltd. lifted its position in shares of LyondellBasell Industries by 24.9% during the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 4,085,474 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $386,894,000 after acquiring an additional 815,083 shares during the last quarter. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLC raised its stake in LyondellBasell Industries by 0.6% during the 2nd quarter. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLC now owns 30,940 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $2,841,000 after purchasing an additional 181 shares during the period. Hussman Strategic Advisors Inc. raised its stake in LyondellBasell Industries by 35.5% during the 3rd quarter. Hussman Strategic Advisors Inc. now owns 21,000 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $1,989,000 after purchasing an additional 5,500 shares during the period. J.P. Morgan Private Wealth Advisors LLC raised its stake in LyondellBasell Industries by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. J.P. Morgan Private Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 448,531 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $42,476,000 after purchasing an additional 12,742 shares during the period. Finally, Adell Harriman & Carpenter Inc. raised its stake in LyondellBasell Industries by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. Adell Harriman & Carpenter Inc. now owns 69,503 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $6,437,000 after purchasing an additional 2,323 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.41% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised LyondellBasell Industries from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $95.00 to $100.00 in a report on Monday, February 5th. Citigroup lowered LyondellBasell Industries from a buy rating to a neutral rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $105.00 to $98.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 13th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered LyondellBasell Industries from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $105.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. Vertical Research raised LyondellBasell Industries from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, January 3rd. Finally, Barclays decreased their price objective on LyondellBasell Industries from $102.00 to $98.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a report on Monday, February 5th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, LyondellBasell Industries presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $100.92. View Our Latest Stock Report on LyondellBasell Industries About LyondellBasell Industries (Get Free Report) LyondellBasell Industries N.V. operates as a chemical company in the United States, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Poland, France, Japan, China, the Netherlands, and internationally. The company operates in six segments: Olefins and PolyolefinsAmericas; Olefins and PolyolefinsEurope, Asia, International; Intermediates and Derivatives; Advanced Polymer Solutions; Refining; and Technology. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for LyondellBasell Industries Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for LyondellBasell Industries and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mandom Co. (OTCMKTS:MDOMF Get Free Report)s stock price reached a new 52-week high on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $9.00 and last traded at $9.00, with a volume of 0 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $9.00. Mandom Price Performance The company has a market capitalization of $434.42 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.04 and a beta of 2.58. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $9.00 and a 200-day moving average price of $9.00. About Mandom (Get Free Report) Mandom Corporation engages in the manufacture and sale of cosmetics, perfumes, and quasi-drugs in Japan, Indonesia, and internationally. The company offers a range of products, including men's everyday grooming products, as well as general fashion items, such as hair styling, skin care, and body care products; and hair coloring, scalp care, and face care products under the Gatsby and Lucido brands. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Mandom Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mandom and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. National Storage Affiliates Trust (NYSE:NSA Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY24 earnings guidance on Wednesday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of $2.40-$2.56 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $2.59. National Storage Affiliates Trust also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 2.400-2.560 EPS. National Storage Affiliates Trust Trading Down 0.2 % NYSE:NSA traded down $0.07 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $35.52. The companys stock had a trading volume of 1,559,867 shares, compared to its average volume of 751,649. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.12, a current ratio of 0.55 and a quick ratio of 0.55. The stock has a market cap of $2.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.59, a P/E/G ratio of 7.39 and a beta of 0.85. The companys fifty day simple moving average is $38.39 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $34.81. National Storage Affiliates Trust has a twelve month low of $27.86 and a twelve month high of $44.78. Get National Storage Affiliates Trust alerts: National Storage Affiliates Trust Announces Dividend The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.56 per share. This represents a $2.24 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.31%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 14th. National Storage Affiliates Trusts dividend payout ratio is currently 205.51%. Analyst Ratings Changes NSA has been the subject of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com upgraded National Storage Affiliates Trust from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Saturday, December 23rd. Evercore ISI reiterated an underperform rating and set a $35.00 price objective (up from $32.00) on shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust in a research note on Monday, December 11th. KeyCorp raised shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust from a sector weight rating to an overweight rating and set a $45.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 5th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on National Storage Affiliates Trust from $32.00 to $36.00 and gave the company an underweight rating in a report on Tuesday, December 12th. Finally, Truist Financial boosted their price objective on National Storage Affiliates Trust from $35.00 to $37.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, December 28th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, National Storage Affiliates Trust presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $36.33. Get Our Latest Research Report on National Storage Affiliates Trust Insider Activity at National Storage Affiliates Trust In related news, insider Arlen Dale Nordhagen bought 10,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 5th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $35.92 per share, for a total transaction of $359,200.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the insider now owns 4,029,626 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $144,744,165.92. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Insiders own 13.00% of the companys stock. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in National Storage Affiliates Trust by 14.6% in the first quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 5,869 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $368,000 after purchasing an additional 746 shares during the period. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. raised its stake in shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust by 5.3% in the 1st quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 4,045 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $254,000 after buying an additional 205 shares in the last quarter. AlphaCrest Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of National Storage Affiliates Trust in the first quarter valued at $227,000. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its stake in National Storage Affiliates Trust by 64.4% during the first quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 36,028 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $2,298,000 after buying an additional 14,107 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rhumbline Advisers grew its holdings in National Storage Affiliates Trust by 2.7% during the first quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 236,485 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $14,842,000 after acquiring an additional 6,140 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.63% of the companys stock. About National Storage Affiliates Trust (Get Free Report) National Storage Affiliates Trust is a real estate investment trust headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado, focused on the ownership, operation and acquisition of self storage properties predominantly located within the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas throughout the United States. As of September 30, 2023, the Company held ownership interests in and operated 1,119 self storage properties located in 42 states and Puerto Rico with approximately 73.0 million rentable square feet. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for National Storage Affiliates Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for National Storage Affiliates Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Park Hotels & Resorts (NYSE:PK Get Free Report) issued an update on its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Tuesday morning. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of 2.020-2.220 for the period, compared to the consensus estimate of 2.100. The company issued revenue guidance of -. Park Hotels & Resorts also updated its FY24 guidance to $2.02 to $2.22 EPS. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several analysts have recently commented on the company. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded Park Hotels & Resorts from a hold rating to a buy rating and increased their target price for the stock from $14.00 to $21.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Park Hotels & Resorts from an underweight rating to a neutral rating and increased their target price for the stock from $11.00 to $16.00 in a report on Thursday, December 14th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on Park Hotels & Resorts from $12.00 to $13.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Tuesday, November 7th. StockNews.com upgraded Park Hotels & Resorts from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Park Hotels & Resorts from $15.00 to $17.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a report on Friday, December 22nd. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Park Hotels & Resorts presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $16.60. Get Park Hotels & Resorts alerts: View Our Latest Research Report on Park Hotels & Resorts Park Hotels & Resorts Price Performance Park Hotels & Resorts Dividend Announcement Park Hotels & Resorts stock traded up $0.19 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $15.93. The stock had a trading volume of 3,486,099 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,190,809. The firms fifty day simple moving average is $15.75 and its 200-day simple moving average is $14.05. Park Hotels & Resorts has a 1-year low of $10.70 and a 1-year high of $17.37. The company has a quick ratio of 2.41, a current ratio of 2.41 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.14. The company also recently announced a None dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, January 16th. Investors of record on Friday, December 29th were given a $0.77 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 28th. Park Hotels & Resortss dividend payout ratio is presently -1,377.78%. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in PK. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Park Hotels & Resorts during the 4th quarter worth approximately $27,000. Quarry LP acquired a new position in Park Hotels & Resorts in the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. KBC Group NV acquired a new position in Park Hotels & Resorts in the 4th quarter valued at $67,000. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC grew its holdings in Park Hotels & Resorts by 353.7% in the 4th quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 7,055 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $83,000 after buying an additional 5,500 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors acquired a new position in Park Hotels & Resorts in the 2nd quarter valued at $104,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.40% of the companys stock. Park Hotels & Resorts Company Profile (Get Free Report) Park is one of the largest publicly traded lodging REITs with a diverse portfolio of market-leading hotels and resorts with significant underlying real estate value. Park's portfolio currently consists of 43 premium-branded hotels and resorts with over 26,000 rooms primarily located in prime city center and resort locations. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Park Hotels & Resorts Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Park Hotels & Resorts and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Any pause in the weapon supplies to Ukraine inspires one person who thinks he can "put the squeeze" on Europe and the West, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said at a press conference in Tirana, Albania. "We must do the utmost to ensure that there is no delay in the supply of weapons for our soldiers. Every pause in supplies raises doubts about the world's readiness to defend itself. All this inspires one man. And the more he sees our deficits, weapons shortages, the more he thinks he can put the squeeze on Europe and the West," he said on Wednesday. According to him, "based on the results of the meetings, based on the results of this summit, we have specific agreements, in particular, regarding the strengthening of Ukraine and Ukrainian artillery." "I am grateful to my colleagues for their willingness to work now and work together. This is protection, this is jobs, economic growth," the president said. According to him, "the partnership between Ukraine and the Balkan states, and the entire region of Southeastern Europe, will be continued by the participation of partners in the first global peace summit, which we are preparing in Switzerland. We can make this summit and all the work on the Peace Formula effective." "War is always started by someone alone, but peace is a joint work. All those who respect the rules, all those who respect other nations, all those who truly value life and peace, is greater than any aggressor," Zelenskyy said. Sylvania Platinum Limited (LON:SLP Get Free Report) declared a dividend on Thursday, February 22nd, Upcoming.Co.Uk reports. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 29th will be paid a dividend of GBX 1 ($0.01) per share on Friday, April 5th. This represents a dividend yield of 1.89%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 29th. The official announcement can be accessed at this link. Sylvania Platinum Trading Up 0.5 % Shares of SLP stock opened at GBX 51.75 ($0.66) on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of 136.42 million, a P/E ratio of 396.15, a P/E/G ratio of 0.05 and a beta of 0.37. Sylvania Platinum has a twelve month low of GBX 47.05 ($0.60) and a twelve month high of GBX 111 ($1.41). The company has a quick ratio of 15.92, a current ratio of 12.15 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is GBX 63.43 and its 200 day simple moving average is GBX 69.99. Get Sylvania Platinum alerts: Insider Buying and Selling In related news, insider Eileen Carr bought 60,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Friday, February 23rd. The shares were purchased at an average cost of GBX 50 ($0.63) per share, with a total value of 30,000 ($38,051.75). 12.04% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Sylvania Platinum Company Profile Sylvania Platinum Limited primarily engages in the retreatment of platinum group metals (PGM) bearing chrome tailings materials in South Africa and Mauritius. The company produces PGMs, including platinum, palladium, and rhodium. It holds interests in the Sylvania dump operations that comprise six chrome beneficiation and PGM processing plants located in the Eastern and Western Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex; and various mineral asset development projects, including Volspruit and Northern Limb projects located on the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex located in South Africa. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Sylvania Platinum Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Sylvania Platinum and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Night Owl Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH Free Report) by 0.8% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 47,971 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock after buying an additional 375 shares during the quarter. UnitedHealth Group comprises 6.0% of Night Owl Capital Management LLCs portfolio, making the stock its 7th largest position. Night Owl Capital Management LLCs holdings in UnitedHealth Group were worth $24,187,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Robbins Farley acquired a new stake in shares of UnitedHealth Group during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. NewSquare Capital LLC grew its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 340.0% in the 3rd quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 66 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock worth $33,000 after buying an additional 51 shares in the last quarter. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL bought a new position in UnitedHealth Group in the 1st quarter worth approximately $35,000. Annapolis Financial Services LLC grew its holdings in UnitedHealth Group by 38.6% in the 3rd quarter. Annapolis Financial Services LLC now owns 79 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock worth $40,000 after buying an additional 22 shares in the last quarter. Finally, WFA of San Diego LLC bought a new position in UnitedHealth Group in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $39,000. 85.69% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get UnitedHealth Group alerts: Insider Transactions at UnitedHealth Group In related news, Director Stephen J. Hemsley sold 66,081 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $550.39, for a total transaction of $36,370,321.59. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 635,528 shares in the company, valued at $349,788,255.92. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, Director Stephen J. Hemsley sold 66,081 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $550.39, for a total transaction of $36,370,321.59. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 635,528 shares in the company, valued at $349,788,255.92. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Thomas E. Roos sold 858 shares of UnitedHealth Group stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $525.79, for a total value of $451,127.82. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 32,289 shares in the company, valued at $16,977,233.31. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.35% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. UnitedHealth Group Stock Down 4.9 % NYSE UNH traded down $25.21 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $488.21. 6,657,436 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,938,163. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated has a 12 month low of $445.68 and a 12 month high of $554.70. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $520.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $519.17. The company has a current ratio of 0.79, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62. The company has a market capitalization of $451.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.18, a PEG ratio of 1.43 and a beta of 0.54. UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Friday, January 12th. The healthcare conglomerate reported $6.16 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.98 by $0.18. The company had revenue of $94.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $92.13 billion. UnitedHealth Group had a return on equity of 26.39% and a net margin of 6.02%. The businesss revenue was up 14.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $5.34 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that UnitedHealth Group Incorporated will post 27.84 EPS for the current year. UnitedHealth Group Announces Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 19th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 11th will be paid a $1.88 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, March 8th. This represents a $7.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.54%. UnitedHealth Groups payout ratio is presently 31.54%. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and issued a $596.00 price objective on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an outperform rating and set a $610.00 price target on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. HSBC reissued a reduce rating and set a $480.00 price objective (down from $550.00) on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a research note on Monday, December 18th. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an overweight rating and set a $591.00 price objective on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a research note on Friday, January 19th. Finally, Stephens reissued an overweight rating and set a $605.00 price objective on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, thirteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $575.79. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on UnitedHealth Group UnitedHealth Group Company Profile (Free Report) UnitedHealth Group Incorporated operates as a diversified health care company in the United States. It operates through four segments: UnitedHealthcare, Optum Health, Optum Insight, and Optum Rx. The UnitedHealthcare segment offers consumer-oriented health benefit plans and services for national employers, public sector employers, mid-sized employers, small businesses, and individuals; health care coverage, and health and well-being services to individuals age 50 and older addressing their needs; Medicaid plans, children's health insurance and health care programs; and health and dental benefits, and hospital and clinical services, as well as health care benefits products and services to state programs caring for the economically disadvantaged, medically underserved, and those without the benefit of employer-funded health care coverage. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for UnitedHealth Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for UnitedHealth Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. You are already a Moneycontrol Pro user. OK Meghna Mittal MEGHNA MITTAL is Deputy News Editor at Moneycontrol. Meghna has experience across television, print, online and wire media. She has been covering the Indian economy, monetary and fiscal policies, Finance and Trade ministries. She tweets at @Meghnamittal23 Contact: meghna.mittal@nw18.com Siddharth Upasani is a Special Correspondent at Moneycontrol. He has been covering the Indian economy, economic data, and monetary and fiscal policies for nine years. He tweets at @SiddharthUbiWan. Contact: siddharth.upasani@nw18.com Belgium will finance the Czech initiative for EUR 200 million to purchase 800,000 shells for Ukraine outside Europe to provide greater support to the Ukrainian army, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said. "We can never match the sacrifice Ukraine is making every day. But we can give President Zelenskyy what he requested more ammunition to fend off the Russian aggressor. Belgium will fund the Czech initiative for EUR 200 million. More ammunition is coming in the next weeks," he said on the X social network on Wednesday. Earlier, Head of the Czech government Petr Fiala said 15 European countries support the Czech initiative to purchase shells for Ukraine outside Europe. At the Munich Security Conference, Czech President Pavel said the Czech Republic is looking for ammunition and weapons for early delivery to Ukraine all over the world. According to him, there is a possibility of supplying 500,000 shells of 155 mm caliber and 300,000 shells of 122 mm caliber from third countries within weeks if the necessary funding is received. Adrija Chatterjee is an Assistant Editor at Moneycontrol. She has been tracking and reporting on finance and trade ministries for over eight years. Ukraine deserves support in all possible ways to resist Russian aggression and ensure that any peace that comes after the war will be a just peace, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said. "We see with concern that its [Ukrainian] support is sometimes suspended because of Ukraine becoming an issue of a domestic politics of one country or the other, or because of very long bureaucratic delays... On the other side, it is an aggressor that does not stop for a second in hitting and in trying to grab more territories, by taking lives of innocent people and continuing to destroy Ukraine," he said at a press conference with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Tirana. At the same time, the Prime Minister of Albania called cynical and absurd the statements of European politicians who claim that the transfer of weapons to Ukraine contributes to the war. "Of course, we also hear that many people all of Europe that helping Ukrainians, supporting Ukraine, giving to Ukraine the means to defend its nation and its country and it is what perpetuating the war. They claim that stopping to give weapons will bring peace. This is not only cynical, but it is absurd, because you don't stop fight by disarming a victim. You will stop war by stopping the aggressor. That's why I want to tell everyone that can listen that Ukraine deserves to be supported and to be helped with all the means necessary to resist and to make sure that every peace, that will come out of this war is a just peace. A just peace is based on the ten principles of President Zelenskyy's ten-point plan, that we support and we want to see it will be discussed by all world community," he said. Edi Rama said not only the government, parliament or institutions of Albania, but the entire nation, all the people remain with Ukraine, support it steadfastly. And they will continue to support Ukraine for as long as necessary until a just peace comes. "I don't have but admiration for President Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine, that very impressively fighting against a ruthless aggressor, and on the other side, working to reform and to progress in the process to EU integration. We can't be privilege and honor to be friends with the Ukrainian nation and feel closer to these people, and to represent our future," he said. "Albania will always be your home and one of those places where every fellow citizens can feel at home. We look forward to strengthen our collaboration, we look forward identify together and we look forward to be with Ukrainian people on the day when Ukraine will breathe freely and enjoy peace and sleep without air raid alarms," the Albanian Prime Minister said. Vishal Bhargava is a real estate enthusiast who views and reviews new projects, when not busy with his newstoon platform Snapnews. The views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said there is a clear and understandable danger for the Western Balkans due to Russian aggression in Ukraine. "Yes, there is a real clear danger for the Western Balkans because of Russia's aggression, but nobody should see like the Russian army coming here. But everyone should see like what is happening there [in Ukraine] can be repeated in different ways by Putin questions the foundation of the rules-based world order," he said at a press conference with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Tirana. "This will be the world in which the one who is stronger, who is bigger, who has more soldiers can go and take over, and who is smaller and weaker [to be destroyed]. This is Dark Age," Rami said. In this regard, the Prime Minister of Albania said: war is not something that people saw on TV, and then they got lost between Netflix and reports from Ukraine. The war is next to all of us. He said there is no matter how impossible it may sound now that it will come, it can happen. According to Rami, "we [the Balkans] should keep a clear position on Ukraine. This [war] is not only about Ukraine, it is about us. If we lose this clarity, then we risk to enter in the phase of darkness." The Prime Minister of Albania also commented on the post of former president of Monlogia Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, who posted on his social network a map of the 13th century with an image where most of today's Russia belonged to the Mongol Empire with an appeal to the Russian Federation: "Don't worry we are a peaceful and free nation." Rama said: "Speaking about the past of Russia, it is the Mongol Empire, and Russia is in the middle of it." "But now imagine if everyone starts to think and acting based on maps. Then it will be the never ending war... If this logic of Putin's waging war, based on past achievements, past stories and maps, will prevail, then we will live in peace, where there is only power, not rules," he said. "What is happening today in Ukraine is one more lesson for relativization of this conflict, because it is very clear to us: there is a perpetrator and there is a victim," Rama said. Sneha Mahale is an independent environment journalist. She is on Twitter @randomcards Views expressed are personal Abbas Ganbay The U.S. State Department has not commented on the meeting between Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, which is scheduled to be held in the German capital Berlin, Azernews reports. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller left the issue relevant to him unexplained and limited himself to calling on the sides to "reach a long-term agreement." "The foreign ministers will meet tomorrow (today) in Berlin. I know that the Secretary of State [Anthony Blinken] has been waiting for them here in Washington since December. Does this mean the end of the Washington process? Beyond that, what are your expectations for tomorrow's meeting?" - a journalist asked the spokesman at the briefing. "I don't have any statements, but we continue to urge both sides to try to reach a solid, long-term agreement," Miller replied. As a reminder, Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministers Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan will meet in the German capital Berlin on February 28-29. UK Ministry of Defense: Ukraine's use of Storm Shadow missiles is business of Ukrainian Armed Forces The British Ministry of Defense said Ukraine's use of Storm Shadow missiles is the work of the Ukrainian army, The Guardian said, citing a statement by a ministry representative to the AFP news agency. "Ukraine's use of Storm Shadow and its targeting processes are the business of the armed forces of Ukraine... The UK, along with other allies, is providing a range of equipment to Ukraine to help it counter Russia's illegal and unprovoked aggression," the spokesperson said. It is indicated that this statement by the Ministry of Defense is a response to a comment by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the possible involvement of Great Britain and France in targeting, AFP said. The UK Ministry of Defense also said Ukraine's use of the sent long-range weapons was "fundamental in its defence of its territory." "It has changed the strategic picture by successfully putting pressure on Russian forces and their logistics and supply routes," the ministry said. Pratim Ranjan Bose is an independent columnist, researcher, and consultant. His Twitter handle is @pratimbose. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication. Javier Blas is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. He previously was commodities editor at the Financial Times and is the coauthor of "The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earths Resources." Zelenskyy, President of North Macedonia discuss creation, with participation of Balkan countries, of hub for rehabilitation of wounded Ukrainian servicemen President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President of North Macedonia Stevo Pendarovski held a meeting as part of their participation in the Ukraine-Southeastern Europe summit in Tirana. "The head of state highly appreciated the support of Ukraine from North Macedonia at the political level. Zelenskyy thanked his interlocutor for his clear position regarding the future membership of our state in NATO, which was evidenced in the Joint Declaration on the Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine," the presidential press service said. In addition, Zelenskyy informed President Pendarovski about the situation at the front and the current defense needs of Ukraine. The head of the Ukrainian state noted the importance of North Macedonia's participation in the implementation of the Ukrainian Peace Formula and preparations for the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland. The parties also discussed the creation, with the participation of the Balkan countries, of a hub for the rehabilitation of wounded Ukrainian military personnel, as well as the recovery of children of fallen soldiers. "If our friends help, we can talk about a rehabilitation coalition. It will be very important if our Balkan friends can help organize such a platform with the participation of different countries," Zelenskyy said. Amitabh Tiwari Is a former corporate and investment banker-turned political strategist and commentator. Twitter: @politicalbaaba. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication Marc Champion writes editorials on international affairs. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication. Sohil Sehran is a journalist with 10 years of experience in print, broadcast, and digital media. He covers politics and national affairs at Moneycontrol. He tweets @SohilSehran Shamsher Chandel is an independent journalist based out of Chandigarh. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication. Invite your friends and family to sign up for MC Tech 3, our daily newsletter that breaks down the biggest tech and startup stories of the day President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President of Moldova Maia Sandu held a meeting as part of their participation in the Ukraine-Southeastern Europe summit in Tirana. According to the press service of the Ukrainian head of state, the parties discussed recent events in Transnistria, as well as attempts by the aggressor country to destabilize the situation there and effective tools to counter the influence of Russia. "Thank you for your words of support. We are absolutely on your side. We support you and your people," Zelenskyy said. The state leaders also discussed the functioning of transport corridors for the export of Ukrainian products through the territory of Moldova. "The interlocutors emphasized that the integration of Ukraine and Moldova into the European Union is a common goal of the two countries, and agreed on further mutual support and coordination of efforts on the path to EU membership," the service said. Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma rejigs PPBL board Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharmas decision to resign from the Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) Board and reconstitute it with independent members may have come too late to sway the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), multiple bankers have told Moneycontrol. While the company is keen to show that it is making amends after the rap by the regulator, it is unlikely to save the beleaguered payments bank, a source close to the regulator said. On January 31, RBI had President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic to discuss regional security and a possibility of holding a Ukrainian-Balkan Defense Industry Forum. The parties also agreed to strengthen cooperation in the fields of demining, rescue equipment and drone production, according to the press service of the Office of the President of Ukraine. "On the sidelines of the Ukraine South East Europe Summit in Tirana, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia Andrej Plenkovic," it said on Wednesday. The parties "discussed the possibility of holding the Ukrainian-Balkan Defense Industry Forum" and "agreed to facilitate the conclusion of agreements between Ukraine and Croatian private companies producing demining, rescue equipment, and UAVs." The head of state thanked Croatia for supporting Ukraine's integration into the EU and NATO. Zelenskyy and Plenkovic also discussed topical issues of regional security. The president of Ukraine thanked Croatia and personally Plenkovic for supporting Ukraine during Russia's full-scale invasion. "I am grateful to Croatia for its support to our refugees during the war. My best wishes to your entire community. Another important issue is demining assistance to Ukraine. I want to thank you for receiving our soldiers and Ukrainian children for rehabilitation," Zelenskyy said. Turkey is ready to make efforts to resume Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, Anadolu Agency said on Wednesday, citing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "We are ready to re-establish the negotiation table, which we previously set up in Istanbul, for peace," Erdogan said in a video address to the participants of the Ukraine-Southeastern Europe summit. "I am of the opinion that diplomacy and dialogue must be given a chance to end the war by achieving a just and lasting peace. I believe that it is necessary to begin joint efforts to at least determine the general parameters of peace," the Turkish leader said. Erdogan also noted the need to establish principles for guaranteeing the safety of commercial ships in the Black Sea and said that Ankara is participating in negotiations to create a new UN provision on security obligations. While upholding the sole arbitrator's award and rejecting an appeal filed by Sony India Pvt Ltd, the Delhi High Court (HC) imposed an exemplary cost of Rs5 lakh on the company for protracted litigation in its arbitral dispute with Iris Worldwide Integrated Pvt Ltd. In an order earlier this month, the Delhi HC bench of justice Dharmesh Sharma says, "Sony India is fully responsible for this kind of protracted litigation, and thereby, wasting time and precious resources, putting unnecessary burden on the justice delivery system for which they must be visited with the exemplary cost, which is quantified at Rs5,00,000 that is by all means a token amount given the claim amount involved, which shall also be payable to the respondent or claimant within one month from today, failing which they shall be entitled to recover the same with interest at 15%pa (per annum) till realisation." The bench was hearing an appeal filed by Sony India against an award upheld by the additional district judge at Saket court in Delhi. On 13 May 2016, the sole arbitral tribunal passed an award in favour of Iris Worldwide, directing Sony India to pay Rs51.11 lakh with an interest of 11%pa. The HC noted that, on commencement of the arbitration proceedings, Iris Worldwide filed a statement of claim seeking Rs51.11 crore along with interest at 24%pa till the payment date besides damages of Rs1 lakh. Sony India hotly contested the claim, stating that, according to the meeting between the parties, the scope of work about the purchase order was amended and the value of the purchase order (PO) was revised to Rs15.50 crore with the understanding that the agency commission of Iris Worldwide was to be paid in proportion to the work executed by them under the amended purchase order. The counsel for Iris Worldwide urged that Sony India was again disputing the merits of the case which were beyond the remit of the jurisdiction of this Court under Section 37 of the Arbitration & Conciliation Act (A&C Act). Justice Sharma observed that the arbitral tribunal conducted a meticulous exercise of appreciation of the entire evidence brought on the record, resulting in the passing of the award. "Without further ado, there is no question of theArbitral Tribunal going beyond the terms and conditions of the contract between the parties. There is no re-drafting of the contract so as to envisage that the decision went beyond what was being claimed by Iris Worldwide." Further, the HC asserted that the arbitral tribunal rightly relied on the decision in Deokar Exports (P) Ltd to the effect that even if there was a counteroffer by Iris Worldwide, Sony India chose to remain silent. The parties acted on the terms and conditions of the contract, and Iris Worldwide thereby performed their part of the contract to the full satisfaction of Sony India. Underscoring that the interpretation accorded by the arbitral tribunal to the whole sequence of events from the day the contract in question was executed between the parties and ensuing correspondence, the HC says that "(the) arbitral tribunal has assigned sufficient and cogent reasons in support of its decision, no interference is called from this Court in this second appealand there is nothing to discern that the impugned award is based on wrongful application of law on any aspect of the matter." The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine welcomes the publication of the report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) "Ten Years of Occupation by the Russian Federation: Human Rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, Ukraine." "The facts of flagrant crimes of the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea against the inhabitants of the occupied peninsula, in particular Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, documented by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine for ten years, once again confirm Russia's neglect of its international legal obligations in violation the UN Charter, international human rights law and international humanitarian law," the department's press service said. It is indicated that the UN report contains numerous cases of forced disappearance of pro-Ukrainian activists, members of Crimean Tatar organizations and journalists in Crimea, which were recorded. In addition, there are cases of torture and ill-treatment of persons accused by the occupation authorities of extremism, belonging to groups banned in Russia, sabotage or "anti-Russian" activities. The report also records cases of systematic suppression of manifestations of Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar identity and culture, restrictions on freedom of religion, as well as freedom of thought on the part of Russia. "An important element in the document is a reference to the decision of the International Court of Justice of January 31, 2024, which established a violation by Russia of the Order of the Court on the application of temporary measures of April 19, 2017 due to the ongoing ban on the activities of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people and, due to the introduction of the Russian system education in Crimea, which actually makes it impossible to receive educational services in the Ukrainian language, Russia is recognized as a violator of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination," the Foreign Ministry said. It is noted that, contrary to the calls of the international community, the provisions of a number of resolutions of the UN General Assembly and regular requests from the OHCHR, Russia continues to refuse to provide physical access to experts of the UN Monitoring Mission to the territory of Crimea, and therefore international observers can only monitor the situation on the peninsula remotely. The ministry called on the UN Secretary-General and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue to make every effort to facilitate the effective implementation of all resolutions approved by the UN General Assembly on the human rights situation in Crimea, temporarily occupied by Russia. "The international community must continue systemic pressure on the aggressor state in order to stop its violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as well as the de-occupation of the Ukrainian peninsula," the department said. Baltic countries, UK, Germany, Canada, USA lead in rating of positive attitude of Ukrainians towards them, Russia tops the anti-rating Ukrainians most often express a positive attitude towards Lithuania (91%), Latvia (90.5%), the UK (90%), Germany (89%), Estonia (89%), Canada (88%) and the United States (87%), according to the results of a sociological survey conducted by the sociological service of the Razumkov Center from January 19 to January 25 and presented at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday. Also, according to the results of the study, Ukrainians have a positive attitude towards France (86%), the Czech Republic (86%), Poland (86%), the Netherlands (83%), Moldova (81%), Japan (74%), Georgia (72%), Israel (65%), Romania (64%), Azerbaijan (61%), Armenia (57.5%), Slovakia (56%) and Turkiye (55.5%) also have a predominantly positive attitude. As for India, the proportions of those who have a positive view of it (37%) and those who have a negative view (40%) are not statistically significantly different. Negative attitudes are most often expressed towards the Russian Federation (95% of respondents have a negative attitude), Belarus (87%), Iran (82%), China (72.5%), and Hungary (59%). A negative attitude towards the Russian Federation is expressed by the overwhelming majority of residents of all macro-regions of Ukraine from 91% of residents of the East to 98.5% of residents of the West. Among those who communicate at home primarily in Ukrainian, 97% have a negative attitude towards the Russian Federation; among those who communicate in Russian 92.5%. The study was conducted as part of the Get Joined! Community Engagement Program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The survey was conducted face-to-face among 2,000 adult respondents in government-controlled areas where there is no fighting. The structure of the sample population reproduces the demographic structure of the adult population of the territories where the survey was conducted as of the beginning of 2022 (by age, gender, type of settlement). The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 2.3%. Additional systematic sampling biases are possible, in particular due to the evacuation of citizens. In Ukraine, 70% of citizens support the foreign policy of the state leadership, 17% do not, according to the results of a sociological survey conducted by the sociological service of the Razumkov Center from January 19 to 25 and presented at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday. It is noted that such support is gradually decreasing: in August 2023, 74% of respondents supported the foreign policy of the Ukrainian government, and 14% did not support it. The overwhelming majority of residents of all macro-regions support the foreign policy of the Ukrainian leadership (from 67% of residents of the west to 76.5% of residents of the south of the country). Among those who trust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 82% support the foreign policy of the Ukrainian leadership, while among those who do not trust only 41%. Respondents rated the effectiveness of international assistance to Ukrainian refugees on a five-point scale at an average of 3.9 points, financial assistance - 3.8 points, military assistance, political solidarity and support for Ukraine on international platforms - 3.7 points. The effectiveness of facilitating the restoration of destroyed facilities in Ukraine (3.3 points), promoting the implementation of reforms in Ukraine (3.2 points), and the lowest is the effectiveness of sanctions against the aggressor country (3.0 points). Compared to July 2023, the assessment of the effectiveness of political solidarity and support for Ukraine on international platforms increased slightly (from 3.5 to 3.7 points), assistance in the restoration of destroyed facilities in Ukraine (from 2.9 to 3.3 points), assistance in the implementation of reforms in Ukraine (from 2.9 to 3.2 points). Assessing the negative impact of external events and processes on Ukraine, the blocking of macro-financial assistance from the EU and the process of European integration of Ukraine by Hungary as a whole, as well as the aggravation of internal political confrontation in the United States, which slows down military-financial support for Ukraine, were assessed at 4.3 points. The negative impact of the failure of global and regional security structures to prevent the escalation of conflicts on the world stage, in particular, to stop the aggression of the Russian Federation, is estimated at 4.2 points, the negative impact of the deterioration of the political, socio-economic situation in Europe, increased fatigue from the war in Ukraine, polarization of the world community, deepening global confrontation between the democratic world and the camp of authoritarian states (in particular, strengthening the partnership of the Russian Federation, China, Iran, North Korea) - 4.1 points. The impact of the escalation of the war in the Middle East (Israel's military operations against Hamas, the military operation of Western countries in Yemen) was rated at 3.9 points, the impact of the long-term US-China confrontation, which is acquiring signs of a systemic crisis and covers various regions of the world, the possibility of a conflict around Taiwan - at 3.8 points. The study was conducted as part of the Join in! Community Engagement Program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The survey was conducted face-to-face among 2,000 adult respondents in government-controlled areas where there is no fighting. The structure of the sample population reproduces the demographic structure of the adult population of the territories where the survey was conducted as of the beginning of 2022 (by age, gender, type of settlement). The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 2.3%. Additional systematic sampling biases are possible, in particular due to the evacuation of citizens. The overwhelming majority (84%) of Ukrainian citizens support the entry of the Ukrainian state into the European Union, according to the results of a sociological survey conducted by the sociological service of the Razumkov Center from January 19 to January 25 and presented at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday. Support for joining the EU in Ukraine continues to grow: in December 2022 it was 79%. Only 7% of respondents do not support joining the EU (in December 2022 this was 8%). Accession to the EU is supported by 91% of residents of the Western macro-region, 86% of the Central, 78% of the Eastern and 74.5% of the Southern. The younger the respondents, the more often they support joining the EU - the share grows from 80% in the older (60 or more years old) group to 89% among those under 30 years old. Among those who communicate predominantly in Ukrainian at home, 87% support joining the EU, and among those who predominantly speak Russian 77%. Some 23% of respondents believe that Ukraine will be able to join the EU within 1-3 years, 27% within 3-5 years, 15% within 5-10 years, 5% within 10-20 years. Six percent are of the opinion that Ukraine will never be able to join the EU. Among those who do not support joining the EU, 42% believe that Ukraine will never be able to join this union; among those who support accession, only 2% think so. The majority of respondents express a positive attitude towards the EU (87%), NATO (77%), Council of Europe (67%), International Monetary Fund (62%), UN (57%), International Committee of the Red Cross (54%), the relative majority - to the OSCE (48.5%) and the IAEA (45.5%). A negative attitude towards the CIS prevails (65% have a negative attitude towards it). The study was conducted as part of the Join in! Community Engagement Program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The survey was conducted face-to-face among 2,000 adult respondents in government-controlled areas where there is no fighting. The structure of the sample population reproduces the demographic structure of the adult population of the territories where the survey was conducted as of the beginning of 2022 (by age, gender, type of settlement). The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 2.3%. Additional systematic sampling biases are possible, in particular due to the evacuation of citizens. A white truck is one of four vehicles involved in an accident on Dead Man's Curve on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024, along Route 1 in Asan. Edward Pangelinan, from Yona, pays a bill at the GPA/GWA Fadian headquarters on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024, in Mangilao. The entrance to the Chuuk Hospital on Tonoas island, in Chuuk, built by the Japanese in 1928. During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army used it as a hospital for their personnel. A "Justice For All" plaque is seen Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, on the old Superior Court Building at the Guam Judicial Center in Hagatna. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Armenia keeps repeating old mistakes with certain variations in political maneuvers, political analyst Elchin Mirzabeyli told Trend. He emphasized that President Ilham Aliyev, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Azerbaijan, had stated long before the Second Karabakh War that Armenia's occupation policy was unsustainable. He underscored that the Azerbaijani people will not give up their just cause in the face of external pressure and intimidation. Mirzabeyli argues that Armenia's misunderstandings of its military capabilities, disregard for changes in the regional and global context, and disregard for Azerbaijan's strength and objective realities were the factors that precipitated the Second Karabakh War and the Armenian army's decisive defeat. Despite this, Armenia has not learned the lessons and has failed to meet its obligations. Armenia, relying on international allies, refused to remove its forces from Azerbaijani territory, instead inciting separatism and engaging in acts of sabotage. These operations eventually led to Azerbaijan constructing a checkpoint in Lachin, recovering control of the Lachin route, and then implementing limited anti-terrorist measures in Karabakh. The expert observed that, rather than advocating for regional peace, collaboration, and security, Armenia sought to interfere in Azerbaijan's internal affairs. Efforts to impose pressure on Azerbaijan were made at several levels, including the UN Security Council. However, all of these attempts failed due to President Ilham Aliyev's firm position, international credibility, and diplomatic acumen. Mirzabeyli emphasized that the full picture is obvious, and only those who are duped by deceitful promises and who are genuinely serving the interests of others may choose to "turn a blind eye" to it. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Attorney General Douglas Moylan, 4th from left, and other members of his staff, answer questions during a hearing on Bill 240-37(COR) Tuesday Feb. 27, 2024, in the Public Hearing Room of the Guam Congress Building in Hagatna. From Left: Wilfred Aflague, Raya King, Yolanda Elliott, Moylan, Raymond Ilagan and Frank Palomo. Maria Pasene, who was the coordinator for the Covid-19 response for Pacific communities in Christchurch, stands with former New Zealand Director-General of Health Sir Ashley Bloomfield and her daughter Oriana Pasene. Youth Climate Champion for COP29 Azerbaijan Leyla Hasanova has held a meeting with representatives of youth organisations operating in Kenya, with the support of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Kenya, as well as the National Youth Council Kenya and the Council of NGOs, Azernews reports, citing Azertag. The meeting was arranged as part of Hasanova's visit to Nairobi to attend the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6). Approximately 30 youth organisations in Kenya were represented, alongside officials from the Kenyan Youth and NGO councils. Notable attendees included Charlene Ruto, a youth champion and climate action advocate who serves as the founding head of the Smart Mechanised Agriculture & Climate Action for Humanity and Sustainability (SMACHS) Foundation. During the meeting held in the format of panel discussions, the participants focused on the fight against climate change, describing it as a common problem for mankind. They stressed that achieving a universal goal is only feasible through mutual support and collective action. Leyla Hasanova emphasised Azerbaijan's rich multicultural heritage, situated at the crossroads of East and West, as a unifying force for all stakeholders at COP29, as well as states, youth, and civil society organisations. The meeting also centred on cooperation with local authorities to support young climate activists, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Ambassador Sultan Hajiyev pointed out that this year's COP29, scheduled to be held in Baku in November, coincides with the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Kenya and creates fertile ground for further strengthening of dynamically developing cooperation with Kenya, one of the leading African states in environmental activities. The ambassador underscored that addressing climate change effectively requires a fundamental shift in humanity's approach to this pressing issue. Emphasising the importance of the meeting, Charlene Ruto hailed the expansion of mutual cooperation to support the activities and initiatives of young people in addressing environmental challenges. She gave information about the climate-related projects in Kenya, the participation of youth and civil society organisations in these projects, and the progressive experiences obtained. The parties also highlighted the important role of youth organizations within COP29, exploring the opportunities for joint initiative and cooperation between Kenya and Azerbaijan in this regard. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan are holding a meeting in Germany's Berlin, Trend reports. Following the bilateral meeting, the sides are holding a trilateral meeting together with their German counterpart Annalena Baerbock. The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia have held another round of discussions on the draft "Bilateral Agreement on Peace and the Establishment of Interstate Relations". Bayramov's visit will also include meetings with German officials. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel San Andreas, CA A twist on the typical junk food vending machines in Calaveras County, this new one offers health kits for free, including a life-saving drug. Calaveras County Public Health has launched a public health vending machine, sponsored by Anthem, to provide resources that support community health needs. County health officials call it groundbreaking, especially since it will be stocked with the lifesaving drug Narcan. This medication is used to reverse opioid overdoses and will help combat the local opioid crisis, according to county health officials. We are thrilled to introduce this innovative resource to the residents of Calaveras County, said Cori Allen, Calaveras County Health and Human Services Agency Director. This resource allows us to expand access to critical public health supplies and support services, empowering individuals to take proactive steps towards improving their well-being. The vending machine also offers a range of essential items, including hygiene kits, summer safety kits, COVID-19 test kits, oral health kits, and tobacco quit kits, at no cost. The vending machine became available to the public last week and can be used during regular business hours at the Calaveras County Health and Human Services Building, located at 509 East St. Charles Street in San Andreas. Allen added, This initiative represents a significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to enhance community health and resilience. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. President of the Republic of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol has sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on the occasion of his confident victory in the extraordinary presidential election, Trend reports. "Dear Mr. President, On behalf of the Government and people of the Republic of Korea, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to you on your successful reelection as the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Your continued leadership and vision will undoubtedly contribute to the ongoing development and prosperity of your nation. Over the years, our two countries have developed strong and cooperative relations across various domains since establishing diplomatic ties in 1992. I am particularly pleased to witness the recent advancements in collaboration, especially in energy, infrastructure, healthcare, and smart farming. As we move forward, I am confident that our bilateral efforts will further strengthen the bonds between our nations. May our partnership continue to thrive, promoting mutual understanding and practical cooperation. Wishing you good health and continuous growth for the Republic of Azerbaijan," the letter reads. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Rocket fire reported off Yemen in Red Sea in a new suspected attack by Houthi rebels Rocket fire reported off Yemen in Red Sea in a new suspected attack by Houthi rebels View Photo DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) A rocket exploded late Tuesday night off the side of a ship traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, authorities said, the latest suspected attack to be carried out by Yemens Houthi rebels. The attack comes as the Houthis continue a series of assaults at sea over Israels war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and as the U.S. and its allies launch airstrikes trying to stop them. The British militarys United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, which oversees shipping in the Mideast, reported the attack happened about 110 kilometers (70 miles) off the coast of the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida. The rocket exploded several miles off the bow of the vessel, it said. The crew and vessel are reported to be safe and are proceeding to next port of call, the UKMTO said. The private security firm Ambrey reported that the vessel targeted appeared to be a Marshall Islands-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier in the area at the time. Another ship, a Panama-flagged, Emirati-owned chemical tanker was nearby as well, Ambrey said. The Associated Press could not immediately identify the vessels involved. The Houthis typically take several hours to claim their assaults and have not yet done so for the assault late Tuesday. Meanwhile, the U.S. militarys Central Command said an American and an allied warship shot down five Houthi bomb-carrying drones in the Red Sea on Tuesday night. The drones originated from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and (it was) determined they presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and to the U.S. Navy and coalition ships in the region, Central Command said in a statement. Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea and surrounding waters over the Israel-Hamas war. Those vessels have included at least one with cargo for Iran, the Houthis main benefactor, and an aid ship later bound for Houthi-controlled territory. Despite over a month of U.S.-led airstrikes, Houthi rebels remain capable of launching significant attacks. Last week, they severely damaged a ship in a crucial strait and downed an American drone worth tens of millions of dollars. The Houthis insist their attacks will continue until Israel stops its combat operations in the Gaza Strip, which have enraged the wider Arab world and seen the Houthis gain international recognition. On Saturday, Central Command said a Houthi attack on a Belize-flagged ship on Feb. 18 caused an 18-mile (29-kilometer) oil slick and warned of the danger of a spill from the vessels cargo of fertilizer. The Rubymar, a British-registered, Lebanese-operated cargo vessel, was attacked while sailing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The Houthis, a Zaydi Shiite group, seized Yemens capital in 2014 and have battled a Saudi-led coalition since 2015. Their Zaydi people ran a 1,000-year kingdom in Yemen up until 1962. By JON GAMBRELL Associated Press A work stoppage to support a mechanic who found a noose is snarling school bus service in St. Louis View Photo ST. LOUIS (AP) A Black mechanic for the company that provides school bus services for the St. Louis school district said he found a noose at his workstation, leading at least 100 drivers to stop work in a show of support and NAACP leaders to call for an investigation into whether it was a hate crime. The work stoppage began Monday and continued Tuesday for St. Louis drivers employed by Missouri Central School Bus. Most after-school activities in St. Louis Public Schools were called off both days. And 56 bus routes were uncovered Tuesday morning, forcing parents to make other plans. The allegations that surfaced Friday from the Missouri Central bus depot are upsetting, and it is our hope that management at Missouri Central will get to the bottom of what is clearly unacceptable behavior, a statement from St. Louis Public Schools said. It also urged the company and its drivers to find common ground to resolve the stoppage. The families of Saint Louis Public Schools should not be the ones left suffering in this situation, the statement says. Mechanic Amin Mitchell said he found a noose last week at his workstation. Mitchell told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he believed the noose was meant to send a racist message to intimidate him after an argument with a manager over Mitchells concern that some bus brakes were inadequate. Mitchell has worked at the bus company for a few months. In a Facebook post last week, he said that ever since he had been working there, he has filed prejudice complaints against both of his supervisors at least twice a week. Today I had enough! I came into work this morning and found a NOOSE!, the Facebook post said. Mitchell posted social media video of the noose, fashioned from a thin rope and lying on the floor in the area where he works. Thats a message that says, If you dont stop doing what youre doing, something bad is going to happen right away, Mitchell told the newspaper. He didnt return messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. In a video he posted on his Facebook page Sunday, he said that he didnt put the noose there himself, explaining that hes nearly always the first person to leave work each day, and if he would have left it, someone would have picked it up. He said hes also among the first to arrive in the morning, and the only other person in the building has to unlock the doors to let him in. Im not even there at the time where any of this could have possibly happened, he said in the video. It was put there for me to see. Scott Allen, a regional operations manager for Missouri Central, said in a statement Tuesday that an independent third-party will investigate claims by Mitchell and others of racism, and we will take whatever action is deemed necessary based on what we learn. He said the company is working diligently to minimize service disruptions for our students, families, and administrators as we understand how important it is for our children to be educated. The company did not respond to multiple interview requests. The state, city and county NAACP chapters called Tuesday for a federal or state investigation. The noose is a symbol of hate and sends a clear message of racial terror and the potential for violence, Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel Jr. said in a text message. St. Louis County NAACP President John Bowman said at a news conference in Jefferson City, Missouri, that he has asked the company to meet with him. Any time theres a noose, I cant help but think its a hate crime, Bowman said. The drivers are members of Laborers International Union of North America. Because their contract does not permit strikes, drivers told the Post-Dispatch, they called in sick with personal issues. ___ Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed to this report. By JIM SALTER Associated Press Hawaiis governor releases details of $175M fund to compensate Maui wildfire victims View Photo HONOLULU (AP) Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said Tuesday that a $175 million fund to compensate families of people killed in the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century will begin accepting applications at the end of the week. The fund for Maui wildfire victims will also pay those who were hospitalized with severe injuries. Families of those killed would receive $1.5 million after their eligibility is confirmed by a retired Hawaii judge. Those seriously injured would receive a share determined by the judge. Maui County has confirmed the deaths of 101 people from the Aug. 8 wildfire that destroyed the historic town of Lahaina. Two people are still missing. Green framed the fund as an option for survivors considering suing the state of Hawaii, Hawaiian Electric or other utilities and landowners for their role in the blaze. People who accept the funds money will waive their right to sue the entities who contributed to the fund. Hawaiian Electric is the single largest underwriter at $75 million, followed by the state of Hawaii at $65 million, landowner Kamehameha Schools at $17.5 million and Maui County at $10 million. Green said those who sue could potentially wait three, four or five years before they receive money and incur significant legal costs. This recovery fund amounts to an offer and its really up to people if they choose to take this offer, Green said at an announcement and news conference. Multiple lawsuits have already been filed on behalf of wildfire victims against the state, the county, utilities and landlords. Hawaii lawmakers havent appropriated the $65 million needed for the states share. Green said he expects they will do so after seeing this is the compassionate approach and that its a way for the state to avoid expensive and lengthy litigation. But even if they dont, Green said his emergency proclamation for the wildfire gives him powers to put forward the states share. Ronald Ibarra, a retired state judge who was formerly chief judge of the Third Circuit Court in Hilo, will evaluate claims as the funds administrator. Its important to have someone that is local who really understands the people of our state also the people of a rural community, Green said. Ibarra said $25 million of the fund would be reserved for the seriously injured. He said up to $10 million more would be made available for the injured if theres money remaining after families of those killed have been compensated. Green said if theres money left over after all claims have been paid, the balance will be returned to the funders in proportion to the amount they donated. The governor said its unlikely that all survivors will file claims. I would be very surprised if 100% of people took this offer because some people will find that its better to litigate. That is absolutely okay, he said. The fund is named One Ohana after the Hawaiian word for family. It begins accepting applications on March 1. By AUDREY McAVOY Associated Press US asylum measure aimed at curbing claims has limited impact given strained border budget View Photo TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) Inside giant white tents that house about 1,000 migrants near Tucson International Airport, Border Patrol agents demonstrate clockwork efficiency to release detainees within two days of arrest with orders to appear in immigration courts at their final destinations. Agents transmit information from the field to colleagues who prepare court papers while migrants are bused hours away to a processing center, minimizing time in custody. Notably missing from the operations hub in the busiest corridor for illegal crossings into the U.S. are asylum officers who do initial screenings, which are intended to weed out weak claims that dont meet narrowly prescribed grounds for seeking protection, such as race, religion and political opinion. Asylum officers were instructed nearly a year ago to apply a higher screening standard on those who cross the border illegally after passing though another country, such as Mexico, but they are too understaffed to have much impact. The Biden administration hails the higher standard as a cornerstone of its border policy in legal challenges, but its application in only a small percentage of arrests shows how budgets can fail to match ambitions. Strained budgets continue to loom large as the White House again considers sweeping measures to limit asylum at the border. The failure of a $20 billion spending plan on border security this month has caused the administration to assess its priorities. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, facing a $700 million hole this year, is considering cutting the number of detention beds from 38,000 to 22,000 and facilitating fewer deportation flights. These possible steps were first reported by The Washington Post and confirmed to The Associated Press by a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. The failed spending package crafted by Senate negotiators would have given $4 billion to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, including to add 4,338 asylum officers to screen applicants and make final decisions on claims more than four times current staffing. Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico plunged to the second-lowest monthly rate of Joe Bidens presidency, a month after the higher standard replaced COVID-19 pandemic-related asylum restrictions. The rule is working as intended and has already significantly reduced encounters at the border, Blas Nunez-Neto, assistant homeland security secretary for border and immigration policy, said in a court filing at the time. Asylum-seekers subject to tougher screenings had a 59% pass rate through September, down from 85% in the five years before the pandemic, Nunez-Neto said in another court filing. While that suggests the policy has made a difference, its scope has been limited. Officers interviewed only 57,700 migrants under the new rule through September, according to Nunez-Neto. That represents only about 15% of the nearly 365,500 migrants released by Border Patrol from June to September with notices to appear in immigration court. The Department of Homeland Security declined to provide more recent numbers. It insists the higher screening standard is working as intended, while acknowledging it has failed to keep pace with unprecedented migration flows and calling on Congress to adequately fund the efforts. Asylum officers did more than 130,000 screenings, known as credible fear interviews, at the border during the 2023 budget year, which was more than double the year before. But more than 600,000 migrants were released with notices to appear in immigration court in that time and another 300,000 with orders to report to an immigration office for a court date, a practice that has largely ceased. The Border Patrol released Mbala Giodi, 42, after holding him for two days when he crossed the border in remote mountains east of San Diego. He was dropped off at a transit center and told he would have a chance to explain his case for asylum in court, with an initial hearing scheduled in New York in May. There wasnt much problem, said Giodi, 42, who calls himself a victim of government repression for being a student protestor in Angola. To put the higher screening standard into effect, Citizenship and Immigration Services added about 1,000 staff to assist an existing 850 or so asylum officers, training former asylum officers and other employees for short stints, said Michael Knowles, spokesman for the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council. The union represents workers at the agency, which also oversees work visas, green cards, citizenship applications and asylum claims that originate away from the border. Assigning so many employees to border cases extended waits for other services, he said. Weekend overtime was mandatory, as was holiday work. Were so overwhelmed and theres so much pressure, Knowles said. Part of the border crisis is they didnt hire enough of us to do the work. A lack of resources hampered another Biden policy that took effect in June 2022, empowering asylum officers to make final rulings on claims, not just screenings. It aimed to ease the workload of immigration judges, whose backlog of more than 3 million cases has allowed asylum-seekers with weak claims to stay in the United States for years with eligibility for work permits while their cases wind through the system. Fewer than 6,000 asylum cases had been decided under the 2022 policy by the end of September. That is a very important program that got very little support, Knowles said. Advocates for asylum-seekers have sued over application of the higher screening standard. They argue it unfairly penalizes those who cross the border illegally while a heavily oversubscribed online appointment system, called CBP One, is virtually the only way to come through an official port of entry. The standard remains in effect while a judges ruling declaring the policy illegal is under appeal. While migration flows dropped immediately after the higher standard took effect, border steady increased as migrants and smugglers adjusted to realities on the ground, peaking at an all-time high of 250,000 in December. Melissa Crow, director of litigation at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, which is challenging the higher standard, said asylum-seekers eventually face tougher scrutiny before a judge even if the rules limited use at the border allows them to avoid screening. And, she said, Congress and the White House may agree in the future to provide more money. By ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press Germany and Poland say theyre not sending troops to Ukraine as the Kremlin warns of a wider war Germany and Poland say theyre not sending troops to Ukraine as the Kremlin warns of a wider war View Photo BRUSSELS (AP) European military heavyweights Germany and Poland affirmed Tuesday that they would not be sending troops to Ukraine, after reports that some Western countries may be considering doing so as the war with Russia enters its third year. The head of NATO also said the U.S.-led military alliance has no plans to send troops to Ukraine, after other central European leaders confirmed that they too would not be providing soldiers. The Kremlin, meanwhile, warned that a direct conflict between NATO and Russia would be inevitable if the alliance sends combat troops. In this case, we need to talk not about probability, but about the inevitability (of conflict), Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Moscows warning came a day after French President Emmanuel Macron said that sending in Western ground troops should not be ruled out in the future, after hosting a conference of top officials from more than 20 of Ukraines Western backers. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared to have a different view of what happened in Paris. He said the participants had agreed that there will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil who are sent there by European states or NATO states. Scholz said there was also consensus that soldiers operating in our countries also are not participating actively in the war themselves. With Macron increasingly looking isolated and opposition politicians in France furiously critical of his suggestion that ground troops might be considered, the French presidents government subsequently sought Tuesday to clarify his comments. French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said there had been discussions but no consensus at the conference about carrying out de-mining and military training operations in Ukraine, away from the front lines. Its not sending troops to wage war against Russia, the minister said. The idea of sending troops has been taboo, particularly as NATO seeks to avoid being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia. Nothing prevents NATO members from joining such an undertaking individually or in groups, but the organization itself would only get involved if all 31 members agree. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told The Associated Press that NATO allies are providing unprecedented support to Ukraine. We have done that since 2014 and stepped up after the full-scale invasion. But there are no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine. At a meeting in Prague on Tuesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, Poland does not plan to send its troops to Ukraine. Prime Minister Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic insisted that his country certainly doesnt want to send its soldiers. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has said his government is not planning to propose a deployment, but that some countries were weighing whether to strike bilateral deals to provide troops to help Ukraine fend off the Russian invasion. Fico did not provide details about which countries or what the troops would do in Ukraine. Macron, too, avoided naming any countries, saying he wanted to maintain strategic ambiguity and not tip the Wests hand to Russia. NATO as an alliance provides Ukraine only non-lethal aid and support like medical supplies, uniforms and winter equipment, but some members send weapons and ammunition of their own accord, bilaterally or in groups. A decision to send troops and keep them deployed long term would require the kind of transport and logistics capabilities that only countries like the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and possibly Italy, Poland or Spain could muster. While ruling out NATO military action, Stoltenberg told the AP that this is a war of aggression by Russia against Ukraine, blatantly violating international law. According to international law, Ukraine of course has the right to self-defense, and we have the right to support them in upholding that right. The conference in Paris was held just after France, Germany and the U.K. each signed 10-year bilateral security agreements with Ukraine as its government works to shore up Western support. European nations are worried the U.S. will reduce its support, as aid for Ukraine is held up in Congress. They also have concerns that former President Donald Trump might return to the White House and change the course of U.S. policy on the continent. Several European countries, including France, expressed support Monday for an initiative launched by the Czech Republic to buy ammunition shells for Ukraine outside the European Union, participants at the meeting said. Macron said a new coalition will be launched to deliver medium- and long-range missiles. In an interview last week, Stoltenberg did not oppose the idea of allowing Ukraine to use Western weapons to strike targets in Russia. Some countries have placed restrictions on the use of materiel they provide, asking that it be used only inside Ukraine. Its for each and every ally to decide whether there are some caveats on what they deliver, Stoltenberg told Radio Free Europe. But, he said, Ukraines right to self-defense includes also striking legitimate military targets, Russian military targets, outside Ukraine. ___ Janicek reported from Prague. Associated Press journalists Geir Moulson in Berlin, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Elise Morton in London and John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report. ___ Follow the APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine By LORNE COOK and KAREL JANICEK Associated Press The Latest | Families of hostages held in Gaza launch a 4-day march to demand their freedom The Latest | Families of hostages held in Gaza launch a 4-day march to demand their freedom View Photo The families of hostages held in Gaza and their supporters are launching a four-day march from southern Israel to Jerusalem to demand their loved ones be set free. The march comes as negotiations are underway in Qatar to bring about a deal between Hamas and Israel that would lead to a cease-fire in exchange for the release of hostages. U.S. President Joe Biden has said such a deal was at hand but officials from Israel and Hamas were skeptical of his optimism. Negotiators from the U.S., Egypt and Qatar are working on a framework deal under which Hamas would free some of the dozens of hostages it holds in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners and a six-week halt in fighting. During the temporary pause, negotiations would continue over the release of the remaining hostages. The war has unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and sparked global concern over the situation in Rafah, Gazas southernmost town along the border with Egypt, where 1.4 million Palestinians have sought safety from Israels daily bombardments. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed after almost five months of Israels war in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish in its count between fighters and noncombatants. Israel says it has killed 10,000 militants, without providing evidence. The war began after Hamas-led militants stormed across southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 others hostage. Currently: Food aid reaches north Gaza for first time in weeks, and Israeli hostages families push for release. U.S. sanctions Iranian deputy commander, Houthi member and ships that transport Iranian oil. Qatars emir to discuss Gaza and hostages with Macron during a state visit to France. Biden implores Congress to avoid a government shutdown, send urgent aid to Ukraine and Israel. Find more of APs coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war. Heres the latest: CANADA SAYS ITS WORKING TO AIRDROP AID TO THE GAZA STRIP AS SOON AS POSSIBLE OTTAWA, Ontario Canada is working to airdrop humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip as soon as possible, Canadian International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen said Wednesday. He said the provision of airdrops in partnership with like-minded countries in the region, such as Jordan, was on the table. Hussen said last week that the provision of aid is nowhere near whats needed and a tedious inspection process was slowing down the movement of supplies brought in by truck. He made the comments following a trip to the Rafah border crossing, the only way in or out of the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas war began in October. Canada has put $100 million Canadian ($74 million) toward aid for the besieged territory since the start of the conflict, including $40 million Canadian ($30 million) committed in January. UN SAYS ITS NEAR IMPOSSIBLE TO AID PALESTINIANS IN GAZA DURING CONTINUOUS CONFLICT UNITED NATIONS The United Nations says its almost impossible to provide humanitarian aid to more than a million Palestinians in Gaza during the ongoing conflict, responding to Israeli claims blaming the U.N. for failing to deliver assistance to civilians in need of food, water and medicine. U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters Wednesday that there is a breakdown of law and order in Gaza, and insufficient coordination with Israel on security and deconfliction, which puts the lives of U.N. staff and other humanitarian workers at risk. Thats why weve repeatedly asked for a humanitarian ceasefire, he said. Dujarric was asked about comments Tuesday by Israels deputy U.N. ambassador Brett Miller blaming the U.N. for refusing to deliver aid to northern Gaza, and some U.N. officials of trying to shift the blame for the current humanitarian crisis to Israel. Miller said in recent days 508 trucks have been waiting to cross into Gaza with Israeli approval. So where is the U.N. and its aid agencies? How can it be that Israel is libelously held responsible for a situation that is clearly the U.N.s fault? he asked. He spoke after top U.N. officials told the council that at least one quarter of Gazas population 576,000 people are one step away from famine and virtually the entire population needs food, resulting in some aid trucks being shot at, looted and overwhelmed by desperately hungry people. Dujarric countered the Israeli claims, saying large trucks entering Gaza have to be unloaded and reloaded onto smaller Palestinian trucks, and there arent enough of them, and theres a lack of security to distribute aid in Gaza. Nonetheless, he said, U.N., Palestinian and other humanitarian staff are still putting their lives at risk to distribute humanitarian aid wherever they can. But he called it an opportunistic distribution as opposed to one that should be better funded, better organized and more efficient if there was a ceasefire. Dujarric said the U.N. has been pressing for more access into Gaza and more roads within Gaza with security to deliver humanitarian aid. With the war soon entering its fifth month, he said, the challenges are life-threatening for those who distribute the aid and theyre life-threatening for those who are trying to receive the aid. ___ This entry has been updated to correct a quote from U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. He said and theyre life-threatening for those who are trying to receive the aid, not, and no less threatening for those who are trying to receive the aid. ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER ASKS GOVERNMENT TO INCLUDE ULTRA-ORT HODOX JEWS IN NEW MILITARY DRAFT LAW TEL AVIV, Israel Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant implored the government to come up with a new draft law that would force ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the military, saying the ongoing war in Gaza leaves the country with no other choice. Military service is compulsory for Jewish males, but politically powerful ultra-Orthodox parties have won exemptions for their communities to allow men to study full-time in religious seminaries. This has prompted widespread anger and resentment from the secular majority. The Torah has protected Judaism for 2,500 years; however, without our physical existence, theres no spiritual existence, Gallant said during a press conference Wednesday evening. He said that in the current security situation, with a war in Gaza dragging toward its fifth month and tensions rising on the northern border with Lebanons Hezbollah, every sector of the country needs to work together to protect our home. Gallant added that he would be extending the enlistment and reserve duty requirements for the military as well. There are approximately 60,000 ultra-Orthodox males of military age that are not serving, according to Hiddush, an organization that promotes religious equality. Israel mobilized some 300,000 reservists after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. On Monday, Israels Supreme Court began hearing arguments about a new draft law. Gallant noted that Israels courts have been hearing arguments over more equal draft laws for more than 25 years and stressed that Israels unprecedented security situation required the government to take firm action. The government is required to submit a new draft law in the coming months, based on a court decision from last year. Ultra-Orthodox parties, which are a key coalition partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hope to continue the system of exemptions. Opponents, including key members of a mass protest movement against Netanyahus judicial overhaul, say the exemptions are unfair and must end. In the past, attempts to overhaul the draft law to include ultra-Orthodox have drawn tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox to the streets in large, violent protests that blocked major roadways. On Monday, thousands of ultra-Orthodox scuffled with police in Jerusalem, blocking traffic for a few hours. PALESTINIAN OFFICIAL SAYS TIME NOT RIGHT FOR COALITION GOVERNMENT GENEVA The Palestinian foreign minister says he believes Hamas supports the creation of a technocratic government but insists the militant group shouldnt be included in any coalition government for now. Riad al-Malki, speaking two days after Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh announced his resignation, said that a new government should take responsibility for both the West Bank and Gaza and that the outgoing one was not seen as prepared for that responsibility. Al-Malki spoke to reporters Wednesday at the United Nations in Geneva, where he was attending a session of the Human Rights Council amid the blistering Israeli military campaign against Hamas after the deadly Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. The Palestinian Authority, which al-Malki represents, runs autonomous pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank but not Gaza, which has been under the control of Hamas since 2007. Hamas has called for all the Palestinian factions to come together to form a government. Al-Malki said the time was not ripe for a coalition government, suggesting that key donor countries would boycott it were it to include Hamas. Later, when the situation is right, he said, we could contemplate that option, though the priority for now is to end the insane war in Gaza and protect the Palestinian people. The Israeli government has called for the destruction of Hamas. Al-Malki said a halt to displacement the vast majority of Gazas 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes and building international political support were important, and Hamas should understand this. And I do believe that they are in support of the idea to establish today a technocratic government, he added. ___ The entry has been updated to correct the spelling of the Palestinian foreign ministers name to Riad al-Malki, not Riyad al-Maliki. 5 ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORTING HOSTAGES FAMILIES AWARDED ISRAELS GENESIS PRIZE JERUSALEM Five organizations supporting the families of those held hostage by Hamas in Gaza have been awarded Israels prestigious 2024 Genesis prize. The $1 million award is usually given to a person for their professional achievements, contributions to humanity and commitment to Jewish values. This year, the organization made a different choice with Israelis focusing on the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip. The purpose of this years award is not to influence policy, but to raise international awareness of the plight of the hostages and provide humanitarian assistance focused on recovery, rehabilitation, and treatment, a co-founder of the prize, Stan Polovets, said Wednesday. The recipients include the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a grassroots group that sprung up in the wake of Hamas Oct. 7 attack to advocate for the return of the abductees. Roughly 100 of the hostages were freed about 50 days into their captivity. Some 130 others remain in Gaza as negotiations are underway in Qatar. Israel says about a quarter of them are dead. Prize money will also go to the Jewish Agencys Fund for Victims of Terror, Lev Echad, Natal-The Israel Trauma and Resiliency Center, and OneFamily. AID GROUPS MAKE FIRST DELIVERIES TO NORTH GAZA IN A MONTH RAFAH, Gaza Strip Aid groups this week have made their first deliveries of food in a month to northern Gaza, where the U.N. has warned of worsening starvation among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians amid Israels ground operations. A convoy of 31 trucks carrying food entered northern Gaza on Wednesday, the Israeli military office that oversees Palestinian civilian affairs said. The office, known by the acronym COGAT, said nearly 20 other trucks entered the north on Monday and Tuesday. Associated Press footage showed people carrying sacks of flour from the distribution site. As of Sunday, the U.N. had been unable to deliver food to northern Gaza since Jan. 23, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees that has led the aid effort during the war. On Feb. 18, the World Food Program attempted a delivery to the north for the first time in three weeks but much of the convoys cargo was taken on route by desperate Palestinians, and it was only able to distribute a small amount in the north. Northern Gaza has largely been cut off and much of it has been leveled since Israeli ground troops invaded in late October. Several hundred thousand Palestinians are believed to remain there, and many have been reduced to eating animal fodder to survive. The U.N. says 1 in 6 children under 2 in the north suffer from acute malnutrition and wasting, and that 576,000 people across Gaza a quarter of the population are a step away from famine. Since launching its assault on Gaza following Hamas Oct. 7 attack, Israel has barred entry of food, water, medicine and other supplies except for a trickle of aid entering the south from Egypt at the Rafah crossing and Israels Kerem Shalom crossing. Despite international calls to allow in more aid, the number of supply trucks entering has dropped dramatically in recent weeks. The U.N. has called for Israel to open crossings in the north to aid deliveries and guarantee safe corridors for convoys. THOUSANDS CALL ON VENICE BIENNALE TO EXCLUDE ISRAEL MILAN Thousands of artists, curators and critics have signed an open letter calling on the Venice Biennale to exclude the Israeli national pavilion from this years contemporary art fair due to the war in Gaza. However, Italys culture minister has firmly backed Israels participation. The online letter was signed by more than 17,000 people through Wednesday, including current and past Biennale participants, and Turner Prize winners. Israel is among 88 national participants in the 60th Venice Biennale of contemporary art which runs from April 20-Nov. 24. Palestinian artists are participating in collateral events. OFFICIALS WARN OF DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES IF UNRWA FUNDING IS NOT RESTORED BEIRUT If funding for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is not restored soon, it will have devastating consequences for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, officials warned on Wednesday. The decision to stop funding UNRWA constitutes a collective punishment for every Palestinian inside Palestine and in the diaspora countries, especially in Lebanon, Lebanese Member of Parliament Fadi Alame told reporters Wednesday after touring the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon with an UNRWA delegation. Some 250,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon depend on UNRWA for services including healthcare, schooling and cash assistance for the poorest families. Last month, Israel alleged that 12 UNRWA employees took part in the Oct. 7 attack, prompting the United States and other donors to suspend funding. UNRWA immediately fired the 10 surviving employees and has launched investigations. The agency says if funding is not restored, it will have to halt operations in April. Dorothee Klaus, UNRWAs director in Lebanon, said that a halt to the agencys services would have security and stability as well as humanitarian consequences. MANY PREGNANT WOMEN IN GAZA MALNOURISHED, AID GROUP WARNS RAFAH, Gaza Strip A humanitarian group operating a clinic in the Gaza Strip says 21% of the pregnant women it has treated in the last three weeks are suffering from malnutrition. Project Hope, which runs a primary health clinic in the central town of Deir al-Balah, said Wednesday that 11% of the children under 5 it has treated during the same period are also malnourished. U.N. officials say the Israel-Hamas war has pushed a quarter of Gazas population of 2.3 million Palestinians to the brink of famine. Project Hope says people have reported eating nothing but white bread as fruit, vegetables, and other nutrient-dense foods are nearly impossible to find or too expensive. Malnutrition is especially dangerous for pregnant women and newborns, who require additional nutrients. Israel says it does not restrict the entry of humanitarian aid, but the number of trucks entering each day is far below the 500 that entered daily before the war. U.N. agencies and humanitarian groups say the distribution of aid within Gaza has largely collapsed because of the difficulty of coordinating shipments with the Israeli military, ongoing fighting in many places and the breakdown of law and order. Hamas-run police forces have stopped escorting convoys after being targeted by Israeli strikes, and crowds of desperate people have in many cases made it impossible to safely deliver aid. HAMAS FIRES ROCKETS INTO NORTHERN ISRAEL JERUSALEM Hamas has fired rockets into northern Israel in what it says is retaliation for the killing of one of its top leaders in an airstrike in Beirut in January. Hamas armed wing said it fired 40 Grad rockets at an Israeli military base and an army barracks. The Israeli military says it identified around 10 launches and intercepted a number of them. Israeli media said a building was damaged in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona. The military said it struck the sources of the rocket fire as well as a Hezbollah arsenal and military structures. There were no immediate reports of casualties on either side. Hezbollah has traded fire with Israel on a near-daily basis since Hamas Oct. 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza. The relatively low-intensity exchanges have displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border and raised fears of a wider conflict. Hezbollah is the dominant power in southern Lebanon. Hamas and other Palestinian factions have a smaller presence there and are believed to require at least tacit approval from Hezbollah to carry out military operations. FAMILIES OF HOSTAGES LAUNCH 4-DAY MARCH TO DEMAND THEIR FREEDOM TEL AVIV, Israel The families of hostages held in Gaza and their supporters are launching a four-day march from southern Israel to Jerusalem to demand their loved ones be set free. The march comes as negotiations are underway in Qatar to bring about a deal between Hamas and Israel that would lead to a cease-fire in exchange for the release of hostages. U.S. President Joe Biden has said such a deal was at hand but officials from Israel and Hamas were skeptical of his optimism. Hostages freed in a late-November deal, some of whom still have relatives held in Gaza, are joining the march Wednesday. The march will end near the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this week. In its Oct. 7 attack, Hamas abducted roughly 250 people, according to Israeli authorities, including men, women, children and older adults. Roughly 100 were freed about 50 days into their captivity. Some 130 hostages remain and Israel says about a quarter of them are dead. The plight of the hostages has deeply shaken Israelis, who see in them an enduring symbol of the states failure to protect its citizens from Hamas assault. OVER HALF A MILLION PALESTINIANS IN GAZA ARE A STEP AWAY FROM FAMINE, U.N. SAYS UNITED NATIONS At least one quarter of Gazas population 576,000 people are one step away from famine, and virtually the entire 2.3 million population needs food, a top U.N. humanitarian official says. And as grim as the picture is now, U.N. humanitarian coordinator Ramesh Ramasingham told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that there is every possibility for further deterioration. He said one in six children under the age of two in northern Gaza the initial target of Israels offensive following Hamas surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7 are suffering from acute malnutrition and wasting, where the body becomes emaciated from a lack of nutrition. Ramasingham said the rest of Gazas population is relying on woefully inadequate humanitarian food assistance to survive. He reiterated the U.N.s urgent call for a cease-fire. If nothing is done, he said, humanitarian officials fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable, and many more people will die. He said Israeli military operations, insecurity, extensive restrictions on the entry and delivery of essential goods including food, water and medicine, have decimated food production and agriculture. These factors have also crippled the commercial sector which was a key provider of daily needs in Gaza, he said. At this stage, he said, very little will be possible as long as the fighting keeps going and as an Israeli offensive into southern Gaza looms. Some 1.4 million people who fled the fighting have taken refuge in the area around Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza. Israel has vowed to push into Rafah, which it calls a Hamas stronghold. TWO BABIES STARVE TO DEATH IN NORTHERN GAZA AS ALARM GROWS OVER WORSENING HUNGER GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Two infants died from dehydration and malnutrition at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City, said the spokesman for Gazas Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qidra. He warned that infant mortality threatens to surge. Dehydration and malnutrition will kill thousands of children and pregnant women in the Gaza Strip, he said. The U.N. Population Fund said the Al Helal Al Emirati maternity hospital in Gazas southernmost town of Rafah reported that newborns were dying because mothers were unable to get prenatal or postnatal care. Premature births are also rising, forcing staff to put four or five newborns in a single incubator. Most of them do not survive, it said, without giving figures on the numbers of deaths. QATARS EMIR WARNS OF RACE AGAINST TIME FOR HOSTAGE RELEASE DEAL PARIS The emir of Qatar spoke Tuesday of a race against time to secure hostage releases as part of the diplomatic push for a cease-fire in Gaza in which his country is playing a key role. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani spoke during a state visit to France at a dinner in his honor hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. Al Thani noted that their two countries are working intensely on Gaza diplomacy but also spoke soberingly about the mounting casualties. The world sees a genocide of the Palestinian people. Hunger, forced displacement, savage bombardments are used as weapons. And the international community still hasnt managed to adopt a unified position to end the war in Gaza and provide the strict minimum of protection for children, women and civilians, the Qatari leader said, speaking through a translator. South Africa accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians, and has filed a case at the United Nations top court. Israel adamantly denies the genocide allegations and says it is carrying out operations in accordance with international law. We are in a race against time to bring the hostages back to their families and at the same time we must work to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people, Al Thani said. By The Associated Press Open letter urges Venice Biennale art show to exclude Israel. Italys culture minister pushes back View Photo MILAN (AP) Thousands of artists, curators and critics have signed an open letter calling on the Venice Biennale to exclude the Israeli national pavilion from this years contemporary art fair due to the war in Gaza, but Italys culture minister firmly backed Israels participation. The online letter was signed by more than 17,000 people through Wednesday, which included current and past Biennale participants as well as winners of the Turner Prize, an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano expressed solidarity with Israel in a statement Tuesday, saying it not only has the right to express its art but has the duty to bear witness to its people precisely in a moment during which it was struck hard by merciless terrorists. The Israeli culture minister, Miki Zohar, affirmed Israels participation and thanked Sangiuliano for his strong, professional support. Art is a bridge between cultures and between people and we will continue to firmly set out against attempts to boycott Israel in international forums, Zohar said in a statement. The Biennale ruled out excluding Israel or Iran, the object of a second petition, saying that any country recognized by the Italian government may request to participate. The letter, by an ad-hoc group called Art Not Genocide Alliance, noted that the Biennale had discouraged South Africas participation due to the apartheid state from 1950-1968 and put a ban in place after the U.S. resolution suspending exchanges with the racist regime until apartheid ended. It also noted the Biennales support for Ukraine since the 2022 Russian invasion. Russian artists withdrew their participation in 2022, and the Biennale said Russia did not request to participate in this years edition. The Biennale has been silent about Israels atrocities against Palestinians, the letter said. We are appalled by this double standard. Signatories include the 2023 Turner Prize winner Jesse Darling, who participated in the 2019 Biennale, as well as Faisal Saleh, the director of the Palestine Museum US who said a proposed exhibit for this edition was rejected. Israel is among 88 national participants in the 60th Venice Biennale of contemporary art, which runs from April 20-Nov. 24. The exhibition in the Israeli Pavilion is titled Motherland by artist Ruth Patir. Palestinian artists are participating in collateral events, and will appear in the main show, titled Foreigners Everywhere curated by Adriano Pedrosa, the artistic director of Brazils Sao Paulo Museum of Art. ___ Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jersusalem contributed. By COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti, known for his prominent role in Zimbabwes political landscape, was fined US$300 and handed a six-month wholly suspended sentence by Magistrate Vongai Muchuchuti Guwuriro. Biti faced charges of assaulting Tatiana Aleshina, a local businesswoman. The magistrate took into account Bitis status as a diabetic patient and former minister in determining the sentence. Magistrate Guwuriro acknowledged that Biti, as a legal practitioner and former legislator, should be held to a higher standard of conduct. She emphasized the importance of protecting society and the expectation that Biti would contribute positively to it. While considering Bitis previous conviction, the magistrate deemed a custodial sentence too harsh and reserved community service for more serious offenders. Furthermore, she noted that Biti attempted, unsuccessfully, to pursue an out-of-court settlement. During the mitigation phase, Biti expressed his sincere apologies to Aleshina, citing his fear of interfering with an ongoing court case as the reason for not apologizing earlier. He assured the court that the incident would not be repeated, emphasizing his non-violent nature and the disproportionate attention the matter had received. Biti, a father of five with three children studying abroad, also highlighted his responsibilities towards his elderly mother and his support for orphans and widows in his former constituency. However, the State, represented by Tafara Chirambira, argued that personal circumstances should not overshadow other relevant factors, including Bitis previous convictions. Chirambira emphasized the principle of equal protection before the court, stressing that the complainant, Aleshina, deserved the same considerations and rights as Biti. He reminded the court that Biti had been convicted of assault and urged adherence to the law in determining the appropriate sentence. Breaking News via Email By Lambert Strether of Corrente. For G&S fans, for the upcoming Leap Year day: Youre only five and a little bit older. Bird Song of the Day Winter Wren, Ferds Bog, Hamilton, New York, United States. * * * Politics So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital. Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles 2024 Less than a year to go! * * * Trump (R): Trump leads in Wisconsin and overtakes Biden in all swing states [Washington Examiner]. Yee haw: Emerson/The Hill poll of Trump-Biden-RFK Jr-West-Stein matchup in swing states: Nevada: Trump +10 North Carolina: Trump +9 Georgia: Trump +9 Arizona: Trump +6 Pennsylvania: Trump +5 Wisconsin: Trump +4 Michigan: Trump +3 NEVADA Trump 44% (+10) Biden 34% https://t.co/ziD9NR1Q8R pic.twitter.com/j8AS8QiUry InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) February 27, 2024 I think the multiway polls, as opposed to Trump-Biden head-to-head, are more likely to be predictive this year (all other things being equal), since so many people loathe both major candidates and are looking for alternatives. Of course, 250 days is a long time in politics, but for the Democrats base not the professionals these numbers must be deeply, existentially disturbing, since they live in a mental universe where this cant be happening. Trump (R): Why the chief of one of the most powerful unions in America is courting Trump [MSNBC]. Teamsters General President Sean OBrien met with Trump twice in January, including a private visit to Mar-a-Lago, after which the union posted a photo of the pair. Then news came out that the Teamsters donated $45,000 to the Republican National Committees convention fund the maximum amount allowed from the unions political action committee. It appears to be the most significant contribution that the Teamsters have made to the RNC in two decades. And: Organized labor experts say that OBrien appears to be strategically positioning himself, both for internal political reasons and because he could be trying to put a good word in with Trump in case he wins the election. That maneuvering raises two concerning questions. One, is a major union playing footsie with Trump because it views President Joe Biden as particularly weak in this election cycle? Second, could this process result in the union effectively nudging some on-the-fence union members and their communities to think of Trump as anything but the foe of labor he really is? Good questions! * * * Biden (D): Should Biden Drop Out and Pick a New Candidate? Maybe Later. Its almost panic time [Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine]. Trump is currently leading the national polls by about two points. In each of the last two elections, the Electoral College has given Trump a clear advantage, and the current polls show the same dynamic. The tipping point state in the Electoral College right now is Michigan, where Trump has been leading consistently and currently has a five-point edge in the polling average. The next best chance for Biden after Michigan would be North Carolina, where he trails by 6 percent, and then Georgia, where he trails by 6.8 percent. So as of now, it would take a five-point national swing to make the race a pure toss-up. Keeping Biden makes sense if you think hes running just a hair behind Trump. My read is that hes in a dire spot, though not quite a hopeless one. Its not quite a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency scenario, but if he sees no improvement within a few months, it will be. A few months being uncomfortably close to the Convention. Biden (D): Trump Keeps Biden in the Race [RealClearPolitics]. Donald Trump is keeping Joe Biden in the race. This is true on several levels; the one that matters most is numerical: Trump cannot pull away in the polls. Trump may end up winning, but he appears unable to put Biden away now or for the remainder of the campaign. Biden, therefore, has reason to stay in and Democrats reasons to stick with him By all approval measures, Biden should be heading for the exit, not the campaign trail. So, why is he still running? Because in a head-to-head matchup with Trump, Biden is outperforming his presidential performance, trailing Trump by two points even in a five-way contest, he trails 38-41. Despite his low approval ratings, Biden remains within striking distance of victory. Biden is still in because he is running against Trump. And: However, todays polling results against the currently unpopular Biden raise the question of whether Trump hit his ceiling in 2020. While Biden is unquestionably losing support, most is not going to Trump; instead, it is parked in the undecided column or with third-party candidates. And: Biden and his team are still in the race because Trump has not put him out of it. Yep. Wheres that compilation of Bidens gait problems? The shadows cast by both Biden and Trump loom far larger than the actual figures of both man. Biden (D): Its still a Biden referendum. Thats not good for him [Stuart Rothenberg, Roll Call]. And yet, even with Bidens weak poll numbers, many Democratic strategists think the current president can fundamentally change the trajectory of the campaign. Once voters start focusing on the general election and comparing Biden to Trump, they predict, the entire race will change. Thats possible, but its not self-evident how or why the current shape of the presidential contest would change. After all, both Trump and Biden have nearly universal name identification, and both have been in the publics spotlight for weeks, months and years. We know about them because we have seen them day after day. Its not as if the current president and the former commander in chief will say something to change our opinions of them. Americans know the two men very well, which is why they are so unhappy with the choice they have for 2024. For the moment, if the election is either a referendum on Biden or a choice between the two nominees, Biden finds himself in deep trouble. He needs November to be about Trump and specifically about Trumps most outrageous comments and most dangerous beliefs. That may be the only way for Biden to change the trajectory of the race and turn out the Democratic demographic groups and swing voters he needs to win. Biden (D): Bidens Cold War Nostalgia Is Dooming His Presidency [Jeet Heer, The Nation]. The paradox of the Biden presidency is that he and his foreign policy team (notably Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and White House aide Brett McGurk) are the last Scoop Jackson Democrats, a crew of neoconservatives and liberal hawks who are pursuing a wildly anachronistic policy. This was evident long before October 7, when the Hamas massacre and Bidens ensuing support for Israels devastation of Gaza brought the problem into stark relief. The killing fields of Gaza are only making visible the horrific and ongoing human costs of Bidens long-standing commitment to an obsolete Cold War liberalism that is completely inadequate to the challenges of the 21st century. Like Scoop Jackson, Joe Biden is an over-eager and uncritical enthusiast for military Keynesianismthe use of arms spending to fuel economic growth. The ideal of Cold War liberalism was to fuse foreign and domestic policy, creating an integrated warfare/welfare state. Jackson, who became known as the senator from Boeing for his ardent support for the airplane manufacturera major employer in Washington Statewas the leading exponent of the idea that lavish government funding of armament production was the best path for creating a large unionized workforce force and a robust domestic manufacturing sector. The logic here is not so much guns and butter but that if you manufacture enough guns, you will create enough high-paying jobs that will allow Americans to buy butter. Underlying this project is the brute political reality that it is easier to get bipartisan consensus and elite comity (which Biden, still a man of the Senate in his worldview, always seeks) if you push for defense spending rather than social spending. Further, it is much easier to get funding for social spending (as in the buildup of universities after the Russians launched Sputnik in 1957) if you can make the case that national security depends on it. One could, I suppose, view the American Recovery Act as a pivot from this, but its really more of a parallel project. And I dont see Americans buying a lot of butter these days. Biden (D): Is Bidens Gaza Policy Alienating Black Voters? [Foreign Policy]. In the beginning of January, in an attempt to boost political morale among his most loyal constituency, Biden made an appearance at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina At this sacred site, it was fitting that Biden spoke about domestic issues such as racism and political violence. Unfortunately, Bidens foreign-policy woes followed him to the pulpit, where he was interrupted by protesters demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. Churches like Mother Emanuel AME play a key role in shaping the voting decisions of the larger Black community. More and more members of the clergy are speaking out from the pulpit against Bidens support for Israel. A recent New York Times article revealed that over the past several months more than 1,000 Black pastorsranging from conservative Southern Baptist churches to progressive nondenominational congregations in the Midwest and Northeasthave called for an end to Israels offensive operations in Gaza as well as the release of all hostages held by Hamas. As in other parts of the American public, much of the momentum behind Black faith leaders calls for a cease-fire is coming from younger congregants. Hmm. * * * MI: Four takeaways from the Michigan primary [WaPo]. Early Wednesday morning, with nearly all votes in, Biden was leading uncommitted 81 percent to 13 percent, while Trump led former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley 68 percent to 26 percent. 13% uncommitted is not a good number for the general at all. After a lot of foofra about previous uncommitted elections, this: These uncommitted votes clearly signal something quite different and potentially more troubling for the incumbent president than those 2012 protest votes. The real question is whether support can be marshaled in other states and in other ways to make Biden truly feel as if he needs to change his ways and mind his left flank. The protest vote got a foothold after an initial false start in New Hampshire; now its about signaling that the movement has some staying power. Oh, and: [Dean] Phillips on Tuesday finished in fourth place (2.7 percent), behind Williamson (3 percent). Williamson suspended her campaign three weeks ago. Oh well. MI: Some very worrying signs for Joe Biden [CNN]. A depressed vote is not Bidens only concern. So too are fears that former President Donald Trumps improved poll numbers with Black and Latino voters might indicate the real potential for the GOP to cut into traditional Democrat constituencies. Tuesday night, the numbers from Michigan suggest that the problem is real. Biden is facing resistance in the Wolverine State from Arab-American Democrats who led the charge in pushing voters to vote uncommitted to send a message to the Biden campaign. A significant number of people have sided with that campaign. And the usual: But is this fatal? No, it is not. There is considerable time between now and November. The situation in the Middle East is dynamic and it is possible the frustration and anger, which are very much in play today, wont be as much a priority for voters come Election Day. I wouldnt characterize opposing genocide as frustration and anger. And if genocide is your issue, then the choice is clear: Biden, clear-eyed, committed one (and committed the whole country to it, as well). Trump didnt and hasnt. Its not hard! Note the vote in Dearborn: CNN reports the first numbers out of Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest population of Arab Americans in the state. Biden: 23% Uncommitted: 75% pic.twitter.com/kJWRGsqci9 The Recount (@therecount) February 28, 2024 MI: Unprecedented Poll Numbers For Trump In Michigan Are Bad Sign For Biden [Sean Trende, RealClearPolitics]. Even as low as 2-3% [loss in support in the Democratic primary] is a problem for Biden because that can translate to like a percentage point off his margin in a general election. If a fraction of those voters dont show up, hes done If theres a pro-Palestinian candidate on the ballot, hes going to have a really hard time winning that state. He doesnt have a lot of margin for error there. If he doesnt win Michigan, it is pretty much over. If hes shedding Arab American voters because of his position on Israel, it will be very difficult for him to win the presidency without Michigan. Spook Country Tucker Carlson: U.S. Intel Agencies Spied On Me During Russia Trip, Leaked To Semafor That I Met Snowden [RealClearPolitics]. Tucker Carlson accused U.S. intelligence of hacking his communications and leaking to Semafor that he met with Edward Snowden while he was in Russia and said one of the biggest law firms in the country warned him that the U.S. government would arrest him if he gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a softball interview. The lawyer said very specifically, depending on the questions you ask Putin, you know, you could be arrested or not, Tucker Carlson told the Lex Fridman podcast in an interview released Tuesday. He said, Look, a lot will depend on the questions that you ask Putin. If youre seen as too nice to him, you could get arrested when you come back.' Ive gotta say, liberal Democrats building a 21st Century Okhrana wasnt on my bingo card, though I suppose after [genuflects] Brennan and Obamas disposition matrix it should have been. Obamas CIA Asked Foreign Intel Agencies To Spy on Trump Campaign [RealClearPolitics]. RCP again, WTF. There is nothing new here, but its a good summary of the work that Taibbi, Shellenberger, et al. have done. The revelation that the U.S. intelligence community, under the Obama administration, sought the assistance of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance to surveil Donald Trumps associates before the 2016 election is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to protect its interests and challenge its adversaries. This bombshell, reported by a team of independent journalists, exposes a dark chapter in American political history, where foreign intelligence services were reportedly mobilized against a presidential candidate. The alleged operation against Trump and his associates, which predates the official start of the FBIs Crossfire Hurricane investigation, is a stark example of political weaponization of intelligence. The narrative that has been pushed for years, that the investigation into Trumps campaign began with an Australian tip about a boastful Trump aide, now appears to be a cover for a more extensive and coordinated effort to undermine Trump. If reports are accurate, British intelligence began targeting Trump on behalf of American intelligence agencies as early as 2015 , long before the official narrative claims. The implications of this are profound. It suggests an unprecedented level of collusion between U.S. intelligence agencies and their foreign counterparts to influence the outcome of an American presidential election. The use of foreign intelligence to circumvent American laws and surveillance limitations represents a grave threat to our nations sovereignty and the principles of democracy. One can only wonder who the spooks started surveilling in 2018 and 2019. Republican Funhouse Biden, Republican Johnson hold intense Ukraine talks at White House [Reuters]. Speaking to reporters afterward, Schumer said it was one of the most intense meetings he has ever been a part of, as the Democrats sought to persuade Johnson to agree to funding Ukraine. Its in his hands, Schumer said of Johnson. We told him how important it was. It was passionate. Johnson called the talks frank and honest and said his primary concern is addressing migration along the U.S. southern border with Mexico, a subject he said he returned to repeatedly including in a one-on-one session with Biden. Biden said he believed a solution could be reached on funding the government by a Friday deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown, which he said would be damaging to the U.S. economy. Ukraine funding becomes more urgent every day, Biden said before the meeting. I hate this recurrent story; its a Perils of Pauline thing, where the heroine in this case, the Federal budget always gets saved at the last moment. But maybe not this time? On the border, Trump has said he wants to run on it, so no deal. Its not clear to me, however, whether Trumps word is writ with the House leadership. On Ukraine, Ukraine has lost; the only question is who gets the blame. Since its a Democrat war through and through, Biden should, but the Democrat story will be that its the Republicans fault for denying them weapons; and given the media environment, thats not a hard sell to make. If I were Johnson, Id want to avoid that, no matter what his hardliners think. I keep trying to imagine what kind of poison pill Johnson could add to the bill to make it painful and difficult for Johnson to sign. Maybe try to impose a diplomatic track? (A hard sell on the right, I am sure). Not that a diplomatic track would have any reality, you understand. Or perhaps audits of weapons distribution? A hearing on the 2014 Maidan coup, now that the spooks have opened that can of worms? How about Vicky Nulands head on a platter? * * * Column: As measles spreads, herd stupidity grips Floridas government [Michael Hiltzick, Los Angeles Times]. Nine cases may not seem like a lot, but its enough to alarm epidemiologists. They point out that measles is among the most contagious viruses known to humankind, which means that the cases identified thus far are likely to be the tip of \the iceberg. Whos unconcerned? The chief public health official of the state of Florida, thats who. Hes Joseph Ladapo, whom I earlier identified as the most dangerous quack in America. Ladapo has now cemented his position at the top of the list of public officials hazardous to your health. He did so with a letter issued Feb. 20 to parents with children at the elementary school suffering the outbreak. The letter noted that it is normally recommended that children stay home until the end of the infectious period, which he pegged at March 7. But he added: Due to the high immunity rate in the community, as well as the burden on families and educational cost of healthy children missing school, his agency would let parents or guardians make their own decisions about sending their kids to school. The letter was also notable for what it did not say. It did not recommend that parents of nonimmunized children get them vaccinated immediately. And: But as epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina observed on her blog, Your Local Epidemiologist, while the vaccination rate in Florida is just over 90%, thats not high enough because measles is so contagious, the threshold for herd immunity against measles is 95%. This means there are pockets in the school, other schools, and a community that measles could burn through. Measles is already on the march in the U.S. in 2024 To put it another way, Ladapos appeal to the principle of herd immunity is outweighed by the herd stupidity of the anti-vaccination movement that he is a part of. I assume the next claim will be that measles are mild: I am so sorry for your loss. Vaccines are critical! My mothers best friend exposed her to the measles in 1962 when she was pregnant with my sister. My sister could walk and speak a few words but never progressed past about 18 months mentally and died at 21 during a seizure. Ellen G (@svargo1959) February 27, 2024 I hate to file this in a partisan bucket, but Ladapo is an elected. 10 measles cases reported in Florida as criticism rises over top health officials response [Orlando Sun-Sentinel]. Meanwhile, all media questions about whether these cases are in the unvaccinated, whether the younger children with measles are siblings of infected at Manatee Bay and whether the newest case is in a college student have gone unanswered by Floridas health officials. Similar to the early days of COVID, Florida health officials are not providing answers to questions the public wants to know: How did measles get to Florida, is it just the unvaccinated, how exactly is this once-eradicated disease spreading in South Florida? How many people in Broward County have been vaccinated at the recent events? Local health officials in Broward County and Polk County have redirected reporters inquiries to the Florida Department of Healths main communications office in Tallahassee. That office has not respond to multiple inquires from the South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Orlando Sentinel. Commentary: Democrats en Deshabille The notion that Democrats need to make a case keeps cropping up. No. What the Democrats needed to have done was deliver: The actual VP ran on $2k per month stimulus checks until covid was over. Even cosponsored a bill for it! Has she mentioned it once since Jan 2021? They used The Parliamentarian as an excuse for not giving us $15/min wage. Thats when I knew. https://t.co/W2FLkHITPv pic.twitter.com/R6xz3N3h7y AshleyStevens (@The_Acumen) February 28, 2024 So Kamala owes me a lot more than the six hundred bucks Biden owes (and that two thousand figure must have been workshopped). Cf Matt 7:16-20. How Panera Bread Ducked Californias New $20 Minimum Wage Law [Bloomberg]. Billionaire Greg Flynn, who made his fortune running one of the worlds largest restaurant franchise operations, is getting a new boost from sourdough loaves and brioche buns Thats because a California law thats about to raise the state minimum wage at fast-food spots to $20 an hour from $16 offers an unusual exemption for chains that bake bread and sell it as a standalone item. Governor Gavin Newsom pushed for that break, according to people familiar with the matter. Among the main beneficiaries is Flynn, a longtime Newsom donor whose California holdings include two dozen Panera Bread locations. Realignment and Legitimacy I think we should just assume that Googles picked a side in the culture wars, and act accordingly: Another classic from Google Gemini. pic.twitter.com/xskbnjw06j Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 27, 2024 Re-upping this from Links two days ago: Commentary: Im done with @Google Mario Juric. A long Tweet. Key paragraph: Ive been reading Googles Gemini damage control posts. I think theyre simply not telling the truth. For one, their text-only product has the same (if not worse) issues. And second, if you know a bit about how these models are built, you know you dont get these incorrect answers through one-off innocent mistakes. Geminis outputs reflect the many, many, FTE-years of labeling efforts, training, fine-tuning, prompt design, QA/verification all iteratively guided by the team who built it. You can also be certain that before releasing it, many people have tried the product internally, that many demos were given to senior PMs and VPs, that they all thought it was fine, and that they all ultimately signed off on the release . With that prior, the balance of probabilities is strongly against the outputs being an innocent bug as @googlepubpolicy is now trying to spin it: Gemini is a product that functions exactly as designed, and an accurate reflection of the values people who built it . Those values appear to include a desire to reshape the world in a specific way that is so strong that it allowed the people involved to rationalize to themselves that its not just acceptable but desirable to train their AI to prioritize ideology ahead of giving user the facts. Googles entire management heirarchy signed off on Gemini. Its doing what they want it to do (like, for example, MCAS). Not sure how this fits in with Doctorows enshittification thesis; this feels like a whole new thing, to me. #COVID19 I am in earnest I will not equivocate I will not excuse I will not retreat a single inch AND I WILL BE HEARD. William Lloyd Garrison Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); Iowa COVID-19 Tracker (in IA, but national data). Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts (especially on hospitalization by city). Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put COVID in the subject line. Thank you! Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur dAlene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard) ; NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard) ; PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV ( wastewater ); WY ( wastewater ). Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada). Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usees); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater). Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3). Stay safe out there! * * * Covid is Airborne I love the idea that SARS-CoV-2 would evolve in a direction that prevented us from hearing coughs, transforming the symptomatic into the asymptomatic: Do readers notice this? I see everyones coughing a lot on my feed, but the accounts I follow are pretty doomstruck (and also biased toward the UK, which I think is worse off.) Morbidity and Mortality Mild! Just a cold! Immunity debt! Four years after the start of Covid, a disturbing pattern is emerging: Not only did it result in the most deaths in a century, but it also triggered deadly waves of heart disease and stroke. Scientists are trying to figure out why. : https://t.co/8SsMvEjBDQ pic.twitter.com/p9foK3toUr Bloomberg Graphics (@BBGVisualData) February 27, 2024 All lies. Elite Maleficence * * * TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts LEGEND 1) for charts new today; all others are not updated. 2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and open image in new tab. NOTES [1] (Biobot) Biobot drops, conformant to Walgreen positivity data (if that is indeed not a data artifact). [2] (Biobot) Regional separation re-emerges. [3] (CDC Variants) As of May 11, genomic surveillance data will be reported biweekly, based on the availability of positive test specimens. Biweeekly: 1. occurring every two weeks. 2. occurring twice a week; semiweekly. Looks like CDC has chosen sense #1. In essence, theyre telling us variants are nothing to worry about. Time will tell. [4] (ER) Does not support Biobot data. Charts and data provided by CDC, updates Wednesday by 8am. For the past year, using a rolling 52-week period. [5] (Hospitalization: NY) Not flattening. [6] (Hospitalization: CDC) Still down. Maps, charts, and data provided by CDC, updates weekly for the previous MMWR week (Sunday-Saturday) on Thursdays (Deaths, Emergency Department Visits, Test Positivity) and weekly the following Mondays (Hospitalizations) by 8 pm ET. [7] (Walgreens) Thats a big drop! It would be interesting to survey this population generally; these are people who, despite a tsunami of official propaganda and enormous peer pressure, went and got tested anyhow. [8] (Cleveland) Flattening, consistent with Biobot data. [9] (Travelers: Posivitity) Down, albeit in the rear view mirror. [10] (Travelers: Variants) About time for something to challenge JN.1. But whats other? Something to look forward to, I guess! Stats Watch GDP: United States GDP Growth Rate [Trading Economics]. The US economy expanded an annualized 3.2% in Q4 2023, slightly below 3.3% in the advance estimate, following a 4.9% rate in Q3. The downward revision is due to private inventories which subtracted 0.27 pp from the growth, compared to an addition of 0.07 pp seen in the advance estimate. On the other hand, consumer spending was revised higher (3% vs 2.8% in the advance estimate), led by services (2.8% vs 2.4%) while goods rose less (3.2% vs 3.8%). Also, government spending rose way more (4.2% vs 3.3%).. Retail: United States Retail Inventories Ex Autos [Trading Economics]. Retail inventories excluding autos in the United States rose by 0.3% month-over-month in January 2024, following a 0.4% increase in the prior month. On a yearly basis, retail inventories excluding autos fell by 1.4% in January. * * * The Bezzle: Klarna says its AI assistant does the work of 700 people after it laid off 700 people [Fast Company]. One month after taking its OpenAI-powered virtual assistant global, the Swedish buy-now, pay-later company has released new data touting its ability to handle customer communications, make shoppers happier, and even drive better financial results. We cant make a robot car, but we can automate a fintech call center. * * * Todays Fear & Greed Index: 79 Extreme Greed (previous close: 77 Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 75 (Extreme Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Feb 28 at 12:55:14 PM ET. Zeitgeist Watch Fit for what? The majority of the fitness industry is about getting you to sign up for things and making sure you forget to use them while you keep paying. Especially chain gyms. Kastor (@kastorcaster) February 26, 2024 If only there were a way to put shared air on a subscription basis. (Actually, thats an interesting question, and probably some economist has written a paper on it: Why can some things be rented, and others not? Since we live in a rentier-driven, financialized society, that question would be of more than passing interest). The Psychological Trick Scammers Rely on and How to Protect Yourself [Time]. Theres one simple and effective trick many scams rely on: emotional manipulation. They use fear-based tactics to get us into our primitive brain, which is always on alert, says Alex Melkumian, founder of the Financial Psychology Center. So in some sense, avoiding living in fear is a useful heuristic (and I wonder if scammers tend to present themselves as PMC). More: If you find yourself in a situation that might be raising red flags, [Megan McCoy, assistant professor of personal financial planning at Kansas State University] suggests reminding yourself to slow down. I can think of very few cases in life where this bill cannot be paid in an hour or two hours later, she says. Ask for a number to call back, and take the time to do an internet search and consult those around you.' Do an internet search, at least until OpenAI infests everything with data from scammers, as SEO has already done with Google. News of the Wired I am not feeling wired today. * * * Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From lcm: lcm write: Last of the winterberries (Ilex verticillata). A little small, but I like the touches of red against the wetland. * * * Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldnt see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know Im on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals: Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated: If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you! BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Antalya, Turkiye has concluded preparations for the III Diplomatic Forum, where regional, global, and theme problems will be debated on March 1-3, Trend reports. Up to 4,000 people from over 100 nations, including around 20 heads of state and government, will attend the forum to be hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkiye's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Oncu Keceli, announced that the event on "Focus on Diplomacy in the Crisis Period" will be attended by foreign ministers from over 60 nations, as well as officials from 80 international and regional organizations. Approximately 50 different workshops and panel discussions are planned, and President Erdogan is anticipated to hold many bilateral discussions with individual country officials on the sidelines of the summit. Note that the 2023 Antalya Diplomatic Forum was postponed due to the aftermath of the devastating February earthquakes in Turkiye. The forum in 2022, however, was attended by 17 heads of state, 80 foreign ministers, and representatives of nearly 40 international organizations. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Breast implants and butt lifts are infecting patients with deadly flesh-eating FUNGUS that eats through blood vessels At least 12 people were reported dead in Matamoros, Mexico, after contracting a deadly fungal infection while undergoing cosmetic surgeries for their breasts and butts. The individuals succumbed to a deadly meningitis outbreak in which the fungus, post-op, ate through their blood vessels and attacked their brains. All of them had just prior to dying received breast implants or butt lifts. All in all, some 24 people were affected by the outbreak, the other 12 cases occurring in the United States, including in Texas. It turns out a contaminated injection introduced the fungus into their spines. "What we ended up seeing is, literally, this fungus eating through blood vessels and causing clotting as well," said Dr. Louis Ostrosky of UTHealth Houston in a statement to the media. Meningitis is a type of infection that affects the protective tissue surrounding the brain and spinal cord. It can cause deadly sepsis and result in permanent brain damage, usually affecting babies, young children, teenagers and young adults. Symptoms of meningitis include fever, headache, rash, stiff neck, sensitivity to bright light, drowsiness, seizure and general feelings of malaise and sickness. (Related: Did you know that people who got COVID jabbed are more susceptible to getting sick and dying from fungi and other diseases?) Rise in medical tourism In this outbreak, all of the infections occurred in "young, otherwise healthy patients" who had traveled from the U.S. to two different clinics in Tamaulipas, as well as to other parts of Mexico for "medical tourism," meaning they traveled to Mexico to receive treatments that more than likely are much less expensive down there. Thanks to your generous support, we are building the infrastructure of human freedom and actively donating our technology to independent publishers, authors and home schooling organizations. Learn about our game-changing non-commercial AI project here. Support our ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance human knowledge by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com. In every meningitis case, the affected patient received epidural anesthesia, an injectable pain medication that is administered prior to surgery. All cases occurred between January and May of last year. Nine of the 12 patients, or 69 percent, ended up dying from the resulting meningitis infection that occurred post-op. While such an outbreak is unusual, it will likely not be the last caused by epidurals administered during medical tourism. "This is probably not our last fungal outbreak," Dr. Ostrosky said. Because medical care in the U.S. is prohibitively expensive for most people, it is becoming increasingly popular for Americans to travel to Mexico and other countries like Turkey and Thailand that offer the same procedures for far less money. Medical tourism to Mexico is also popular among Americans who are in search of alternative treatments for diseases like cancer that are not legally available in the U.S. due to restrictions by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), this latest meningitis outbreak was caused by a fungus called Fusarim solani. On average, each affected patient developed symptoms about 39 days after surgery. "The key issue with any form of surgery is safety," says Prof. Omar Khan, a consultant bariatric surgeon at Ashtead Hospital in Surrey, United Kingdom. "For patients travelling abroad for weight loss surgery, there may be real question marks over the quality of pre-operative assessment and the lack of follow-up care offered to these patients." Khan says that most complications occur about two weeks after surgery, in the case of gastric bypass surgery, which is another procedure that patients from "first-world" countries like the United Kingdom often travel elsewhere for to save money. "Anyone post-surgery must be able to be reviewed and treated by their surgeon, especially in the event of complications," Khan warns. "Not only this, but these patients do require long-term follow-up, and someone to coordinate their care in the longer term all things that are absent in patients undergoing surgery abroad." More news stories like this one can be found at Infections.news. Sources for this article include: Mr-Mehra.com NaturalNews.com Musk warns Googles woke bureaucratic blob wont allow its AI to be fixed (Article by Steve Watson republished from Modernity.news) As we previously highlighted, the latest ridiculous thing the AI has come out with is that it would not misgender Caitlyn Jenner in order to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. Musk chimed in, warned that Given that the Gemini AI will be at the heart of every Google product and YouTube, this is extremely alarming! Musk also revealed that a senior Google executive has told him it would take a few months to fix, adding Previously, he thought it would be faster. A senior exec at Google called and spoke to me for an hour last night. He assured me that they are taking immediate action to fix the racial and gender bias in Gemini. Time will tell. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 23, 2024 My response to him was that I doubted that Googles woke bureaucratic blob would *allow* him to fix it, Musk continued. Unless those who caused this are exited from Google, nothing will change, except to make the bias less obvious and more pernicious, the X owner further warned. Given that the Gemini AI will be at the heart of every Google product and YouTube, this is extremely alarming! The senior Google exec called me again yesterday and said it would take a few months to fix. Previously, he thought it would be faster. My response to him was that I https://t.co/23uc7dd5fw Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2024 The comments come after the Gemini AI also declared that it is difficult to say who is the worse human being when given the choice of Elon Musk or Adolf Hitler. Wow Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2024 The AI clearly cannot discern between right and wrong, having also declared that calling communism evil is harmful and misleading and refusing to say pedophilia is wrong. Musk is right, Google is one of the key delivery mechanisms of information on the planet, and it is going to have this broken AI at its heart: The problem is not just Google Gemini, its Google search too https://t.co/8fuNzfpA3S Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 23, 2024 Read more at: Modernity.news Dr. Tess Lawrie urges doctors to SPEAK UP about the harms of COVID-19 injections Dr. Tess Lawrie, co-founder of the World Council for Health (WCH), called on doctors to speak out about the harms caused by the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) injections and denounce these. "Although doctors and other medical professionals may be expecting that their actions of the last four years in relation to the use of the dangerous COVID-19 [vaccine] will be defended by politicians, health [agencies] and regulatory agencies, they may be in for a shock," she said. Lawrie added that doctors will be the scapegoats "for when the anger and distress of ordinary men and women can no longer be contained." Thus, she urged health professionals who now realize the harms caused by these injections to speak up now. The British physician and WCH co-founder wrote in a piece published on her Substack that the COVID-19 vaccine buck "may stop with doctors." She recounted an appearance by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on GB News that confirmed what many have suspected. "At that point when it came to the [COVID-19] vaccine, those decisions were always taken from medical advice, from medical experts to tell us politicians who are obviously not doctors about how best to to roll out the vaccine [and] what was in the public interest," said Sunak. "That was something the doctors recommended on and thats something we followed." (Related: Media is to blame for COVID vaccines wall of infallibility.) Lawrie further disclosed that the General Medical Council (GMC) is accountable to the British Parliament, instead of the doctors it contracts with or the public it is supposed to protect. This, she added, clearly explains why the GMC is responsive to political directives not evidence-based and ethical ones. Thanks to your generous support, we are building the infrastructure of human freedom and actively donating our technology to independent publishers, authors and home schooling organizations. Learn about our game-changing non-commercial AI project here. Support our ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance human knowledge by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com. "Despite unprecedented levels of concerns being raised by doctors and the public about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, the GMC continues to 'investigate' ethical doctors for raising the alarm about the dangerous jabs and for putting patients' health and well-being first," she wrote. Lawrie: People are being gaslit that the injections are "safe and effective" Lawrie recounted that she wrote a letter to GMC CEO Charlie Massey back in October 2023. She told the council's head that she would be withholding further fees until it has rectified its breach of contract with doctors. "[While] I never received a response, I have received notification that my name is to be erased from the GMC register," Lawrie said. According to the WCH co-founder, she has not met a doctor or a member of the public who is aware of the Yellow Card Scheme (YCS). The YCS, which is operated by the British Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, records adverse reactions caused by drugs and vaccines. It is essentially the British counterpart to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System used in the United States. "Instead of public awareness campaigns to notify people and doctors about the risks of the novel jabs and the importance of reporting suspicions of harm to the (onerous) YCS, people and health professionals were bombarded with messages about the 'safe and effective' vaccines and gaslit into taking and giving them," she remarked. "If you are a doctor or other health professional who has realized that the COVID-19 injections are indeed causing harm such as myocarditis, amyloidosis, rapid cancers, cognitive decline, blood clots and sudden, unexpected deaths and if you are wondering what to do, I urge you to speak up now or forever hold your peace." Watch Dr. Tess Lawrie issue a serious warning about the COVID-19 vaccines at the Truth Be Told London rally. This video is from the Covid Times channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: VACCINE for Covid-19 now documented to CAUSE MIS Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome. Journalist exposes Pfizers quiet funding for groups that lobbied for COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Over 200 service members demand accountability for how COVID-19 vaccine mandates violated their rights. Employers that mandated COVID-19 injections for workers can be held LIABLE for vaccine injuries, Australian court rules. Scientist says Pfizer INTENTIONALLY DECEIVED regulators about COVID-19 vaccine contamination. Sources include: ExposeNews.com Brighteon.com. Pentagon probing dozens of cases of FRAUD and CORRUPTION related to aid provided to Ukraine The Department of Defense's Office of Inspector General has reported that it is currently investigating 50 cases related to aid provided to Ukraine . The investigations cover various issues, including procurement fraud, product substitution, theft, fraud, corruption and diversion. As of now, none of the allegations have been substantiated, but the inspector general cautioned that the ongoing speed and volume of equipment flowing into Ukraine could lead to further investigations into potential abuse or diversions. The Pentagon, along with the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, is overseeing approximately $113 billion in aid and funds allocated for Ukraine as part of the U.S.-led "Atlantic Resolve" effort to counter Russian so-called aggression against Kyiv. Auditors have identified "stresses and gaps" in assisting, such as incomplete manifests for shipments transferred to Ukraine through Poland. Despite these challenges, the inspector general acknowledged that the Pentagon has responded well to Ukraine's military assistance needs, describing it as an agile execution of a train and supply mission before much of the equipment reaches Ukraine. The inspector general's office has over 200 people engaged in Ukraine oversight, with plans to increase personnel working within the country from the current 28, including two at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv. Ongoing audits include an evaluation of 155-millimeter artillery shells, a crucial munition for Ukraine, to determine whether the US has met its goals while balancing its own reserves, training and operational needs. We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Learn about our free, downloadable AI tools on nutrition, health and preparedness at this article link. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. To date, the U.S. has approved approximately $113 billion in aid for Ukraine through four supplemental emergency appropriations, primarily allocated for military purposes. (Related: EU agrees to provide $55 billion aid package for Ukraine as U.S. aid stalls.) Over $62.3 billion has been designated for military assistance, which includes weaponry valued at a minimum of $23.5 billion from the Pentagon. In contrast, humanitarian assistance has accounted for about $3 billion. Advocates for increased aid argue that a significant portion of the military assistance benefits the U.S. defense industry, asserting that this approach is a cost-effective means of weakening Russia's military assets. Ukraine aid depleting U.S. military stockpiles Critics contend that the substantial military aid to Ukraine is depleting U.S. military stockpiles and potentially undermining military readiness. Some also call for heightened oversight due to concerns about corruption within the Ukrainian government. The current request before the House includes a total of $105 billion in security assistance, encompassing support for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the U.S. southern border. The Ukraine-specific portion of this package exceeds $61 billion, while only $6.4 billion is earmarked for U.S. border operations. This aid proposal is separate from the defense appropriations bill recently passed by Congress, which includes $600 million in military aid for Ukraine and funding for a special inspector general to oversee aid distribution. The delay in voting on the funding request is attributed to House Republican leaders seeking additional commitments for enhanced security measures at the U.S. southern border. Some lawmakers resist an additional emergency spending bill, advocating for the integration of Ukraine aid into the regular 2024 budgetary process. The House Republican leadership's reluctance to pass the Biden administrations emergency aid bill without assurances of increased security measures at the U.S. southern border is the primary cause of the current congressional holdup. Some lawmakers oppose an additional emergency spending bill and prefer incorporating Ukraine aid into the standard budgetary process in 2024. As the holiday recess approaches, a resolution to the current impasse before the new year appears unlikely. If the U.S. aid does not materialize, Ukraine may explore alternative sources of support from other sympathetic nations. Thus far, 46 countries, including the U.K., France, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Bulgaria, have provided various forms of military aid. Japan has contributed over $7 billion in economic assistance, while the European Union has been the predominant financial contributor, offering nearly $80 billion. However, no other country possesses the military resources capable of matching the level of aid currently under consideration by the U.S. Congress. A delay or substantial reduction in U.S. military assistance could significantly impact Ukraine's ability to sustain its fight against Russia. Watch this episode of "The New Atlas" as host Brian Berletic comments on the Pentagon's admission that the level of aid it sends to Ukraine is unsustainable. This video is from the channel The Prisoner on Brighteon.com. More related stories: OOPS! Pentagon overvalued military aid to Ukraine by at least $3 billion. Pentagon admits to $3B accounting error in Ukraine aid, which means more goodies for Zelensky. After squandering $111B on military aid for Ukraine, Biden administration is asking for yet more funds. Sources include: Bloomberg.com TheConversation.com Brighteon.com Putin plans to annex breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria Fears are escalating that Russian President Vladimir Putin might annex the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria and declare it an integral part of the Russian Federation Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, an unrecognized nation of around 400,000 people in the eastern fringe of Moldova, broke away from the state in 1990. The majority Russian-speaking nation's government has reportedly appealed to Putin for integration into the Russian Federation. The unrecognized nation already has a Russian "peacekeeping" garrison of around 2,000 troops, which is supported by an uncertain number of additional paramilitary units, and are reportedly prepared for action against Ukraine. Putin is scheduled to deliver a major speech to the Russian Federal Assembly, sparking speculation and apprehension that he may use his speech to signal his approval for an annexation plan. To support this, a congress of local politicians in Transnistria are set to formally appeal for integration with Russia before his speech. Transnistria's potential annexation by Russia is viewed as a strategic move, as Putin could use the breakaway nation to destabilize the heavily pro-Ukrainian and pro-European Moldova, as well as to use the nation as a launching pad for attacks on the major Ukrainian port city of Odesa. Moldovan President Maia Sandu has already warned of a possible coup d'etat, citing Russia's plans for her country and Transnistria. Ukrainian intelligence have officially commented that the intelligence concerning Russia's alleged plans for Transnistria are "unconfirmed." But it has stated that it is closely monitoring developments in the area. Thanks to your generous support, we are building the infrastructure of human freedom and actively donating our technology to independent publishers, authors and home schooling organizations. Learn about our game-changing non-commercial AI project here. Support our ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance human knowledge by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com. Putin allegedly planning to destabilize Moldova, support pro-Russian organizations To support Russia's annexation plan, the Kremlin is allegedly planning to use the Federal Security Service (FSB) to destabilize Moldova to prevent it from intervening in the event of an annexation. This plan involves leveraging the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church and using threats such as the prospect of cutting Moldova off from natural gas supplies. (Related: Germany suffers irreversible damage without Russian gas aftermath of Nord Stream destruction by the U.S.) The immediate goals of this destabilization plan involve backing political forces in Moldova favorable to Russia and preventing the removal of Russian troops in Transnistria. Medium-term objectives focus on opposing proposals for Moldova to join the European Union, to further cooperate with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and to prevent Romania which shares strong cultural ties with Moldova from uniting with the nation. Long-term goals include turning Moldova into a stable, pro-Russian nation and fostering negative attitudes toward the EU and the West. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also said in a recent statement that it will "not leave its citizens living in Transnistria in trouble," which analysts have warned is laying the groundwork for a pretext to annex Transnistria under the guise of protecting the nation's Russian citizens. In a statement, Transnistrian opposition figure, civic activist and former political prisoner Gennady Ciorba likened Putin to Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler. "Attempts to appease people like Putin lead to only one thing: The growing appetite of the aggressor," claimed Ciorba. Watch this video discussing how the Russian Army may be preparing a breakthrough from Transnistria to capture the southwestern city of Odesa. This video is from the channel The Prisoner on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Russian forces seize control of Avdeevka as Ukrainians retreat. House Republicans warn of national security threat posed by potential Russian ANTI-SATELLITE WEAPON. Vladimir Putin's Russia: perfect foil to the Anglo-American Axis and their New World "Order." Ray McGovern: Putin giving the West a chance to ADMIT ITS MISTAKE of getting involved in Ukraine. Fake intellectuals working for think tanks funded by the arms industry are driving support for war after war after war. Sources include: The-Sun.com Edition.CNN.com Brighteon.com Russia accuses Ukraine of using American-made chemical weapons Russia claims that Ukrainian forces are using banned chemical weapons and chemical agents they received from the U.S., which would mean both the U.S. and Ukraine are violating the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) agreement. This is according to the leader of the Russian Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, who cited Ukraines use of drones to drop American-made grenades that contained a compound known as CS in late December. CS is considered a riot control tool and is known for causing irritation to the upper respiratory tract and eyes. However, in high concentrations, it can lead to skin burns, respiratory paralysis and even cardiac arrest. According to Kirillov, the U.S. directly violated OPCW rules by delivering these munitions to Ukraine. The OPCW states that countries must never, under any circumstances, transfer chemical weapons directly or indirectly to anyone. He also identified another instance in June when he claims Russian forces were attacked by a drone that was carrying chloropicrin. The chemical is considered a Schedule 3 compound by the Chemical Weapons Convention and its use is banned, even in law enforcement situations. Kirillov says that it was also used by Ukrainian forces on two occasions in Rabotino. Chloropicrin is used widely in agriculture for its insecticide, herbicide, fungicide and antimicrobial properties, but countries have been using it as a chemical weapon since at least World War I because of its irritant effects. The gas can be especially toxic when it enters dugouts used by soldiers. It is listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a lung-damaging agent. Thanks to your generous support, we are building the infrastructure of human freedom and actively donating our technology to independent publishers, authors and home schooling organizations. Learn about our game-changing non-commercial AI project here. Support our ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance human knowledge by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com. He believes that Ukraine used a variety of toxic substances against Russian soldiers and poisoned Vladimir Saldo, the head of the Kherson region, along with other high-ranking officials. Russian intelligence officials think that Western nations are backing Ukraine in developing a chemical belt tactic that entails using ammonia and hydrocyanic acid to blow up containers to stop Russian forces from advancing. This belief is being fueled by Ukraines request to the EU for hundreds of thousands of gas masks, personal protective equipment and antidotes in this year's aid package. Last year, they received hundreds of thousands of bottles of drugs that detoxify hydrocyanic acid and mustard gas, as well as organophosphorus antidotes. Kirillov believes that the fact that Ukraine is requesting such high volumes of these items is further evidence that they intend to use chemical weapons. Russia has also accused Kiev of employing chemical weapons in fighting around Donetsk settlements such as Bakhmut and Soledar. Both sides are accusing each other of using chemical weapons Both sides have been lobbing accusations of chemical weapon use at one another. Ukraine's armed forces claim that they have never used any type of chemical weapon at any point in the conflict and instead accused Moscow of carrying out a disinformation campaign and using banned weapons against them. Ukrainian officials report that Russia has been ramping up its use of chemical weapons, racking up 229 attacks last month alone. They claim that Russia has been using chloropicrin in its own attacks, as well as CS compound. In one incident that reportedly took place on August 6, Russian troops fired a pair of artillery barrages with munitions that contained a chemical substance believed to be chloropicrin in the area of Novodanylivka. Ukraine and its Western allies have said that they believe Russia's warnings about Ukraines use of chemical weapons could be part of a tactic where Russia would use such chemicals themselves and pin the blame on Ukraine. Sources for this article include: RT.com Newsweek.com Reuters.com KyivIndependent.com Slovak PM: Russian-Ukraine war started back in 2014 with the rampant spread of Ukrainian neo-Nazis The war in Ukraine started in 2014 with the proliferation of neo-Nazis in Ukraine , according to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who made the claim in a video message on the second anniversary of the start of Russias invasion of Ukraine. (Article by Magyar Hirlap republished from RMX.news) Russia has been repeatedly deceived by assurances that the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) will not expand further, Fico also noted. This war started back in 2014 with the rampant spread of Ukrainian neo-Nazis. The bottom line is that Russia was deceived into believing that NATO would not expand further eastwards, and today it is going as far as saying that Ukraine should become a member of NATO, the Slovak head of state said. All this, he said, has become a good basis for the outbreak of a third world war. Moscow and Kyiv should receive security guarantees, as there is no military solution to the conflict in Ukraine. Fico also opposes the re-establishment of the Iron Curtain between Russia and the West, as it helps no one. We need to harmonize these relations with Russia. Or what do you want to do? Raise the Iron Curtain again? Will there be an iron curtain somewhere on the Ukrainian-Russian border? Who will it help? What good will it do? asked Fico. Slovakia has previously taken a negative view of Russias actions in Ukraine and has supported Kyiv in every possible way. After the Fico government came to power in autumn 2023, the situation changed. Bratislava has not only rejected military support for the Kyiv regime, but also insists on a peaceful settlement of the conflict and considers it necessary to start normalizing relations with Moscow. Fico is a strong ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, with the two both calling for an immediate ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Read more at: RMX.news The dark and the light The florid carbuncle of Woke-Maoist lawfare weeps its vile effluvium across the social landscape, poisoning whatever it touches, and nothing in the armory of reason, principle, or good faith avails to heal it. Sickness rages through the body politic. You have lost faith in all the doctors, and they have lost faith in themselves. The fever intensifies. The crisis is upon us. Which way will fate turn us? Toward death or recovery? (Article republished from Kunstler.com) The poison killing our country is pervasive untruth. Every institution we have relied on to run the public interest has become a factory churning out lies, evasions, and misdirection not unlike the way mRNA vaccines turned the cells in your bodies into tiny generators of spike proteins destroying your organs. Likewise, half the population, apparently, thinks this is a good thing, that we need more lawfare the perversion of law by attorney perverts and that we need ever more lies, evasions, and misdirection (just as the degenerates who run Harvard declare their student body needs more mRNA boosters to remain in school). Since the doctors have all failed miserably and dishonorably America needs an exorcism. The poisons in our system are actual persons carrying out their programmed assignments, just as the spike proteins in the bodies of millions act as individual agents of destruction in your body. What possible invocation can drive out the likes of Mayorkas, Christopher Wray, Avril Haines, William Burns, Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, Marc Elias, Norm Eisen, Jack Smith, Jake Sullivan, Mark Zuckerberg, Mandy Cohen, Rachel Maddow, Daniel Sachs Goldman, Jamie Raskin, Mitch McConnell, Charles Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden (the remnant of a person, after all), and a thousand others in high places behaving in a way indistinguishable from demons? Human knowledge is under attack! Governments and powerful corporations are using censorship to wipe out humanity's knowledge base about nutrition, herbs, self-reliance, natural immunity, food production, preparedness and much more. We are preserving human knowledge using AI technology while building the infrastructure of human freedom. Learn about our free, non-commercial AI / LLM project here. Support our efforts to build the infrastructure of human freedom by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com, featuring lab-tested, certified organic, non-GMO foods and nutritional solutions. What explains their devotion to untruth? What motivates them? Can it possibly be the mere perqs and comforts of their positions? Are they answering a call? And who is issuing that call? Or are they just trapped by their many years of lying continually, fearful of getting cast into prison? Are you asking yourselves: what will satisfy these maniacs? Anything short of the ruin of our country? What will their coveted power be worth in a ruined country? Mr. Trump volunteered to play the role of exorcist in this grand psychodrama. Whatever else you make of him, he has shown a lot of fortitude. Eight years ago, when he came on the scene, he appeared to not know that his opponents were actually demons seeking to wreck the country; rather just low persons sunk in the most common venal corruption, and others mere zealots steeped in futile utopian fantasies of perfecting the flawed human condition. He learned eventually that the situation was more dire than he ever imagined. His opponents came after him hard from the get-go and keep coming at him. Russia is the knout they use in the attempt to flay him alive. Russia Russia Russia has been one long, elaborate lie. Theyre going at it again, pretending that Mr. Trump seeks Russian help interfering in the fall election, despite the plain fact that all previous invocations of Russia Russia Russia were revealed to be untrue, and maliciously so and that all the actual election interference originated with the gang shouting Russia Russia Russia. It looks like more than half the country is refusing to fall for it this time. Thus, the resort to lawfare, the five cases (so far) designed to bankrupt Mr. Trump and gain a felony conviction for objecting to the election shenanigans of 2020. The lawfare claque around Joe Biden Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco, Marc Elias, Norm Eisen tutored the likes of Letitia James, Fani Willis, and Alvin Bragg to bring these cases in jurisdictions ruled by the votaries of Abraxas, the gnostic demon-God that drives the Party of Chaos. New York Attorney General Letitia James won the first round with an utterly truthless case, decided despotically by Judge Engoron without a trial, that, for now, has created awful tactical problems for Mr. Trump. He may adroitly overcome the $355-million judgment to bring his appeal, and at some point up the ladder of review, Ms. James will be subject to the disgrace and punishment she deserves. Ms. Willis already has been wrung through her tribulation and revealed herself to be an experienced and dedicated liar unfit to bring the case that was gifted to her by the lawfare orcs. Mr. Braggs idiotic case based on a tortured chimera of state and federal law, will be served up soon with a pre-determined outcome. What all these cases have in common is that they were concocted as if no such thing as consequence exists. The first consequence for the stupid office-holders duped into bringing these cases is that they will be dishonored and broken by their bad choices. The second consequence is that they will deepen the suppressed racial animosity in our country as designed heinously to do by the white leftist elitists manipulating these black state and county attorneys and possibly drive us into tragic race war to complete the destruction of our country theyve wished and worked for. The special counsel Jack Smiths federal cases, on the other hand, look like a complete bust. The one in the DC federal district court under Judge Chutkan is unraveling on its obvious lack of merit, its misapplication of the statutes cited, and Mr. Smiths illegitimate appointment under the rules governing special counsels. The so-called Mar-a-Lago document case in Florida appears to have been a smokescreen for the FBIs attempt to repossess documentary evidence of its own criminal role in the 2015-to-2019 RussiaGate caper. I predict Judge Aileen Cannon will end up dismissing the whole thing as, in effect, a DOJ-sponsored hoax on the court. This battle has a long way to go. It is clearly a battle of good against manifest evil. The evil side has done its thing waged war on the American people by working overtime to systematically derange your minds. Next, they will seek to go after whatever money you still have, whatever things of value you possess, and whatever remaining liberties you enjoy. Pay attention as events unspool. Read more at: Kunstler.com Thousands of European farmers are still protesting the EUs anti-farmer regulations Thousands of farmers across Europe are still protesting against the European Union's destructive agricultural policies and climate regulations, soaring production costs and cheap imports from countries with less stringent rules. The farmers, who came from Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain, have been demonstrating from all over the bloc. In the EU's capital of Brussels, thousands of farmers clashed with riot police outside of the main EU complex. Riot police used water cannons against protesters and the more than 900 tractors they brought with them. In Madrid, farmers called for reduced bureaucracy and revisions to the Common Agriculture Policy the main policy program governing agriculture in the EU. In Poland, farmers blocked a key highway at a border crossing with Germany in protest against the influx of cheap goods from Ukraine that are harming the income of Polish agricultural workers. In France, farmers have staged protests at the Paris International Agriculture Show, a massive agriculture fair, over frustrations with President Emmanuel Macron's unfulfilled promises to agricultural workers. Morgan Ody, the general coordinator of La Via Campesina, an international organization representing farmers, conveyed their grievances in Brussels. She discussed the impact of free trade agreements, deregulation, and prices falling below production costs. (Related: French farmers join German farmers in blocking highways with tractors, throwing manure to stop globalist agenda that targets farms for destruction.) Human knowledge is under attack! Governments and powerful corporations are using censorship to wipe out humanity's knowledge base about nutrition, herbs, self-reliance, natural immunity, food production, preparedness and much more. We are preserving human knowledge using AI technology while building the infrastructure of human freedom. Learn about our free, non-commercial AI / LLM project here. Support our efforts to build the infrastructure of human freedom by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com, featuring lab-tested, certified organic, non-GMO foods and nutritional solutions. "We produce the food and we don't make a living. Why is that? Because of free trade agreements. Because of deregulation. Because the prices are below the costs of production. So we demand the EU to move on this," Ody said. Farmers argue that the Green Deal, which advocates for stricter limits on chemical usage and greenhouse gas emissions, would only increase their production costs. This, in turn, would only make their products more expensive than low-cost imports from non-EU and third-party countries like Ukraine and others from Latin America that do not adhere to such high environmental standards. They argue that these low-cost imports unfairly compete and adversely affect the prices of their agricultural products. In one of the ongoing protests at the Czech-Slovak border crossing known as Hodonin-Holic, farmers invited agriculture ministers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. As part of the protest, Slovak Chamber of Agriculture and Food representative Andrej Gajdos clarified that their protests were "against the wrong decisions by the EU." Experts say the ongoing and escalating farmer protests are part of a bigger problem in Europe These ongoing and escalating protests are part of a bigger problem in Europe. In 2020, the EU approved the European Green Deal, which is a set of policy initiatives that seeks to make the EU climate-neutral by 2050. Brussel plans to slash emissions by transforming the food, transportation and energy systems. However, the Green Deal has triggered massive demonstrations by tens of thousands of farmers due to frustration with the economic strains imposed by climate regulations, rising production costs and increased competition from cheap imports. Additionally, farmers are concerned that the deal specifically targets the agricultural sector. Caitlin Welsh, a global food security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explained the consequences of the Green Deal. "As you're imposing these stricter climate regulations on farmers, there's a cost, and the cost has to be borne somewhere. If the cost is imposed on the farmer, well then the farmer is going to produce less. The farmer is going to protest. There are going to be ramifications," she said. Moreover, agricultural economist Christopher Barrett at Cornell University stated that farmers globally are under considerable stress due to falling commodity prices and rising input costs. All this while governments are increasingly shifting away from direct agricultural subsidies in favor of greener production practices. "Add it all up, and farmers in Europe and here in the United States are increasingly feeling under political attack like support the government has long provided them is getting pulled back. Understandably, that concerns them," Barrett said. Follow Revolt.news for more stories about the farmer protests happening in Europe. Watch the full Feb. 2 episode of "Adapt 2030" below. "Adapt 2030" with David DuByne airs every Friday at 2-3 p.m. on Brighteon.TV. More related stories: French farmers dump manure on government buildings to protest climate hysteria. Hundreds of German farmers set up disruptive road blockades to protest punitive taxes. Now POLISH farmers block border crossings with Ukraine as they protest the EU's "Green Deal" policies. German truckers, factory workers join farmers protest against incumbent left-cult government thats trying to DESTROY FARMS and the food supply. Adapt 2030: David DuByne laments how FARMER PROTESTS in Europe arent being talked about Brighteon.TV. Sources include: YourNews.com CarbonBrief.org EuroNews.com ForeignPolicy.com Brighteon.com ALREADY RIGGED: The Atlantic tells Democrats to NOT certify Trumps expected 2024 election win In the event the Supreme Court allows Donald Trump to remain on the ballot for the 2024 election and he actually wins,is urging Democrats to refuse to certify the election with Trump as the winner, effectively blocking him from a second term. A recent hit piece in The Atlantic by Russell Berman entitled "How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn't" lays out a bold strategy for the left to basically stop the former president from getting reelected, even if We the People choose him over Joe Biden. Should the Supreme Court not resolve the question of Trump's eligibility, allowing Trump to win, attorney Jason Murray says "it could come back with a vengeance" after the election when Congress reconvenes to count and certify the votes of the Electoral College. "Murray and other legal scholars say that, absent clear guidance from the Supreme Court, a Trump win could lead to a constitutional crisis in Congress," Berman writes. "Democrats would have to choose between confirming a winner many of them believe is ineligible and defying the will of voters who elected him." "Their choice could be decisive: As their victory in a House special election in New York last week demonstrated, Democrats have a serious chance of winning a majority in Congress in November, even if Trump recaptures the presidency on the same day. If that happens, they could have the votes to prevent him from taking office." Democrats: The worst thing in the history of the world -- punishable perhaps by death -- is not voting to certify an election. Also Democrats: We are conspiring right now to not certify the next election if our opponent wins. pic.twitter.com/D9iUru2DI6 Mollie (@MZHemingway) February 23, 2024 (Related: The Atlantic also wants Americans to just forgive and forget about the three years of Wuhan coronavirus [COVID-19] lies that destroyed their businesses, their families and in many cases, their lives.) Shocking hypocrisy Numerous senior House Democrats have confirmed in interviews that they have no plans to certify a Trump win unless the Supreme Court affirms Trump's eligibility. As of now, SCOTUS seems unlikely to offer its opinion on Trump's eligibility, instead shifting the decision to Congress. In other words, Trump can still win, just so long as Democrats recapture a majority in Congress. Then, Democrats can block Trump from taking office by refusing to certify his win. Thanks to your generous support, we are building the infrastructure of human freedom and actively donating our technology to independent publishers, authors and home schooling organizations. Learn about our game-changing non-commercial AI project here. Support our ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance human knowledge by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com. The irony of this little plot was not overlooked by social media users who pointed out the hypocrisy of the left in doing the very same thing it prosecuted hundreds of January 6 "insurrectionists" for when they contested the results of the fraudulent 2020 election. "This is just the latest example of Democrats projecting their intention to defy the will of the voters if Trump wins the 2024 election," notes Infowars' Jamie White. Another leftist plot, should Trump get reelected, is to have the military simply refuse to follow Trump's orders as Commander-in-Chief. NBC News reported just last month that "a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers" are plotting just that in an attempt to "foil any efforts" of Trump's that go against the establishment. "Democrats should expect to go to prison in D.C. for 22 years for trying to overturn the election since they've set the precedent by jailing nonviolent J6 protesters for speaking out against the rigged 2020 election," White further contends about what the left is clearly plotting right out in the open to block another Trump presidency. The establishment is once again reeling at the thought of Trump winning another presidential election. Keep up with the latest news at Trump.news. Sources for this article include: Infowars.com NaturalNews.com BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. If the rights of the Azerbaijani delegation are not restored within one year, the country would seriously consider the total departure from the Council of Europe, said President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, as he received a delegation led by Managing Director of the German Eastern Business Association Michael Harms, Trend reports. The head of state emphasized that the Azerbaijani territories had been under Armenian occupation for 30 years. Armenians occupied 20 percent of our lands, devastating those territories, forcing displacing nearly one million of our compatriots. Armenia, which kept our lands under occupation during this period, disregarded the resolutions of the UN Security Council, international legal norms, including humanitarian ones. They committed the Khojaly genocide, which we commemorated just two days ago. After restoring our sovereignty and territorial integrity by dismantling the separatist stronghold in Karabakh, we came under attack. We are being blamed by individuals such as Macron, Borrell and others. Let's consider Ukraine. Ukraine seeks to restore its territorial integrity. Germany and other countries are sending weapons to Ukraine. You all declare that Ukraine must ensure its territorial integrity. But what about our territorial integrity?! Is our issue less important than the issue of Ukraine? Unfortunately, we are witnessing attempts to establish divisive lines in the South Caucasus. Many people in Azerbaijan think that our Muslim religion is the only way out given Georgia and Armenia are taken very close to the hearts of the European institutions and Azerbaijan is now being demonized. I do not say this is my personal opinion. This is what people think. After restoration of our territorial integrity and sovereignty, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a decision to suspend our delegation of voting rights. This decision was unfortunately initiated by a member of the Germanys parliament from the party led by Chancellor Scholz. Is it once again a case of double standards or some sort of game being played with us?! The Chancellor of Germany demonstrates impartiality, and his statements and actions demonstrate that. While a member of his party tries to get rid of Azerbaijan from the Council of Europe, get rid of one of the two non-Christian countries, and does it deliberately, openly. And as you know, we decided not to participate in the sessions, because if we don't have a right to express our will, why should we be there?! President Ilham Aliyev noted that if the rights of the Azerbaijani delegation are not restored within one year, the country would seriously consider the total departure from the Council of Europe. The head of state regretfully noted that in the German media, Azerbaijan is allegedly portrayed as a country where freedoms are not ensured, people are imprisoned for their opinions, and it is depicted as a despotic country ruled by dictatorship. Saying that this is absolutely fake and I regret that, President Ilham Aliyev emphasized that the authors of those articles themselves are well aware of it, adding that the German Ambassador, who has been serving in Azerbaijan for several years, is also a witness of the processes taking place in the country. President Ilham Aliyev underlined that deliberately many negative impressions are created about Azerbaijan. Well, does it play any role for what we are doing here? No. We do what is right for our people, for our country, whether it's the restoration of territorial integrity or it's our economic agenda, the head of state mentioned. Massive cyberattack hits U.S. Big Pharma leaving tens of thousands of prescriptions unfilled Tens of thousands of pharmacies across the United States were not able to fill prescriptions for nearly a week because of a cyberattack on a unit affiliated with America's biggest health insurer, United Health Group (UHG). According to the health insurance company, the hack, which began on Wednesday, Feb. 21, has been suspected as a " state-sponsored attack ." The attack on Change Healthcare, a division of United's Optum, appeared to be by a foreign country, according to two senior federal law enforcement officials. UHG said in a federal filing that it had been forced to disconnect some of Change's digital network from its clients, and as of Monday, had not been able to restore all of those services. It was unclear as to how many patients were affected but United covers 7.7 million customers nationwide. As per federal records, the disturbance has been widespread, including for U.S. military overseas. Healthcare data, especially patients' personal information, including their private medical records were left vulnerable. Hundreds of breaches at hospitals, health plans and doctors' offices are being investigated as well. This is because Change acts as a digital intermediary to help pharmacies verify a patient's insurance coverage for their prescriptions, and some reports indicate that people have been forced to pay in cash. After they found out about the hack, the company shut down several services, including those allowing pharmacies to quickly check what a patient owes for a medication. Some hospitals and physician groups that rely on Change for billing to get paid may also be affected. Thanks to your generous support, we are building the infrastructure of human freedom and actively donating our technology to independent publishers, authors and home schooling organizations. Learn about our game-changing non-commercial AI project here. Support our ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance human knowledge by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com. The incident coincided with a nationwide cell outage at AT&T back on Thursday, which left more than 70,000 customers without cell service. There is no evidence that the two events are related, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Homeland Security are already investigating the latter. (Related: HACKING THE HACKERS: FBI, law enforcement agencies from 11 other countries shut down ransomware websites of notorious cybercriminal group.) CVS Health, which has more than 9,000 pharmacies, said that the hack meant that, in certain cases, it was unable to process insurance claims. "We're committed to ensuring access to care as we navigate through this interruption," the company's statement said. Meanwhile, Walgreens said a small percentage of its prescriptions may be affected, but that the company had safeguards in place to process and fill them "with minimal delay or interruption." Publix Super Markets posted on social media that some users complained of issues when trying to fill their prescriptions. "This is a nationwide disruption," Publix said in a response to one inquiry on X, formerly known as Twitter. Other companies including GoodRX and BlueCross BlueShield of Montana also flagged potential disruptions. "We apologize for any outages you have been experiencing while at the pharmacy," GoodRx wrote on X. "Unfortunately, the issue is an external one impacting both GoodRx and a multitude of providers." Meanwhile, Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton wrote on X: "Due to an ongoing enterprise-wide issue, all Camp Pendleton and associated pharmacies are unable to process any prescription claims.' 'We are only able to assist patients with emergency and urgent prescriptions from hospital providers at this time." Independent pharmacies also reported issues. "Please be patient with us and all of the pharmacies affected by this," Dayton Drug and Wellness, a community pharmacy in Dayton, Tennessee, wrote on its Facebook page. "There have been/will be delays until this resolves," Skippack Pharmacy in Skippack, Pennsylvania, said in another message posted to the said platform. "Pharmacies around the country are affected. There have been/will be delays until this resolves." Experts: The BlackCat ransomware group caused the outage Tech website TechCrunch reported that the cyberattack that disrupted hospitals and pharmacies from filling prescriptions for days was caused by the BlackCat ransomware group. A healthcare executive with knowledge of the incident, who was on the call was briefed by the company's executives. Meanwhile, Reuters was the first to report the news linking the cyberattack to the ransomware, citing two people familiar with the incident. BlackCat, also often referred to as ALPHV, has not yet publicly claimed responsibility for the cyberattack, according to the news outlet. Ransomware and extortion gangs typically publish portions of a victims stolen data to extort a ransom demand. Ransomware attacks typically scramble a victims files and demand a ransom to receive the decryption key. Newer cyberattacks often involve cybercriminals stealing a victims data before encrypting it. The accuracy of UHG's cyberattack attribution remains unclear, as cybersecurity researchers have not previously linked the BlackCat gang to a nation-state or government. Head over to CyberWar.news to find more stories related to cyber-attacks and terroristic hacking. Sources for this article include: DailyMail.co.uk NYTimes.com TechCrunch.com Hilton proudly sponsors the illegal migrant invasion of America Independent journalist, former Green Beret and experienced combat correspondent Michael Yon, who was recently deep inside the Darien Gap, revealed how he found travel and hospitality giant Hilton is sponsoring illegal immigration and United States invasion. The former United States Army Special Forces member posted on X, formerly Twitter, photos he took in the camps with a caption: "Hilton is a Proud Invasion Sponsor their name is inside the camps. They do not hide their treason. I made this photo deep inside Darien Gap in Bajo Chiquito village." He mentioned various famous personalities to make sure his evidence goes out on the internet. He tagged information war correspondent Ann Vandersteel, former President Donald Trump's Former National Security Advisor General Mike Flynn, author Chris Martenson and investigative journalist Laura Loomer, asking them to "share if they care." Hilton is a Proud Invasion Sponsor their name is inside the camps. They do not hide their treason. I made this photo deep inside Darien Gap in Bajo Chiquito village. Share if you care:@ganaha_masako @annvandersteel @Oscarelblue @crossroads_josh @LauraLoomer pic.twitter.com/01ycCcMYRr Michael Yon: Callsign BIG HONEY 6 (@Michael_Yon) February 23, 2024 In the photo Yon took, a banner of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a Jewish American nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid and assistance to refugees, reportedly within the area, had a map for its services for the "cross-border route." On the other side of the panel, it said in Spanish: "Acoger al extranjero. Proteger al Refugiado." When directly translated, it meant: "Welcome the foreigner. Protect the Refugee." At the bottom of the streamer are the four logos where it said: "Con el apoyo de" or "with the support of" and the third one indicated Hilton/Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. "Who is feeding the invaders, where do they eat and who is transporting the consumables to them?" was one of the reactions to Yons tweet. The journalist answered: "Many NGOs such as UNHCR, WFP, IOM, Norwegian Refugee Council, Catholic Charities, various Lutheran Groups, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and many more." The user replied: "Then they are at the core of the treason." (Related: Michael Yon joins Mike Adams IN STUDIO with bombshell revelations about NGOs orchestrating MASS INVASION of America.) Thanks to your generous support, we are building the infrastructure of human freedom and actively donating our technology to independent publishers, authors and home schooling organizations. Learn about our game-changing non-commercial AI project here. Support our ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance human knowledge by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com. The said tweet also received calls for a boycott of the said company. "Time to give Hilton the Bud Lite treatment," one commenter replied. Another user revealed: "We just had a local hotel taken over and turned into a Hilton brand hotel. Cost millions of dollars. I do not live in a tourist town that has anything to support a high-rise Hilton. My town is also a 'Welcoming City.' Coincidence? I'm sure the illegals will be pouring in." Moreover, one said he'd be tossing his Hilton Card, while another swore that his Hilton Honors Diamond would never be used again. Holiday Inn to earn almost $100K per day for taking in NYC illegals Meanwhile, another hotel chain is making money out of illegal immigration as the world's tallest Holiday Inn won a judge's approval to become a shelter for migrants in the heart of Manhattan, New York City. Reportedly, the deal between the city government and the 50-story, 492-room Holiday Inn Manhattan Financial District hotel is $190 a room per night. For the nightly room rate, the city will pay a daily tab of $93,500 and a monthly tab of $2.8 million. It is at the high end of a range between $115 and $190 the city has allotted for a migrant hotel housing program that now reportedly spans dozens of hotels citywide, according to hotel consultant Geoffrey Mills. According to reports, this is above the average daily room rate of $102. Back in January, the hotel's website was advertising rooms at only $145 to $149 per night. Said hotel filed for bankruptcy in November after getting slammed by the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic but it just won a big contract with New York City Health and Hospitals, according to court documents. A federal bankruptcy judge in Manhattan approved the plan on Monday submitted by the hotels owner, Chinese developer Jubao Xie. It will earn a whopping $10.5 million by May 1, 2024. This would be enough to help pay its debts, which include $11 million in interest on its loans. Under the agreement, the city will provide 24-hour security and be responsible for removing "guests that may be unruly or otherwise pose a danger or nuisance to the other guests, the employees and contractors," as per court papers. The hotel will also provide housekeeping services at least three times a week. Also, the hotel's franchisor IHG Hotels and Resorts requires that it not be advertised as a Holiday Inn during the contract period and that "exterior branded signage be covered and it otherwise be made clear to the public that the Hotel is not available for public use." If any migrants stayed in the hotel past the contract, the city would be obligated to pay the hotel $750 per room per day as an incentive to clear the hotel out, according to the filings. Check out InvasionUSA.news for the shameless policies and measures of the Biden administration in filling America with illegals. Sources for this article include: HiltonFoundation.org NYPost.com Texas AG Ken Paxton sues Catholic NGO for facilitating U.S. BORDER INVASION Texas Attorney General (AG) Ken Paxton has sued a Catholic non-government organization (NGO) for helping lead the border invasion. Independent journalist Breanna Morello tackled this complaint in an episode of "The Breanna Morello Show," noting that the day has come when a Republican is finally going after the NGOs who pretend to be associated with the Catholic Church. "Paxton is actually going after them. He is now suing one of them the Annunciation House, which is a Catholic nonprofit," she said. "What is very interesting is that a lot of these NGOs are actually helping the invasion that's happening right now in our country. They are telling these illegal aliens how to get into our country, how to go about claiming asylum and how to kind of manipulate our current laws on the books. They're leading the invasion." According to Morello, she had been calling on Republicans to get involved and go after these NGOs. Some Republicans from the federal government, she added, are looking to defund them as taxpayer dollars are going to these groups. She then turned to her guest, Brandon Waltens of the Texas Scorecard, asking him to tackle the Texas AG's lawsuit against Annunciation House. Annunciation House just one of several NGOs assisting the border invasion According to Waltens, Paxton has accused the El Paso-based Annunciation House of facilitating illegal immigration and operating stash houses in Texas. He added that Annunciation House is one of several NGOs that exist through donations. However, these groups are assisting the migrant invasion Americans are seeing across the country specifically in Texas. (Related: NGOs carefully planned mass migration INVASION of America, report reveals.) We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Learn about our free, downloadable AI tools on nutrition, health and preparedness at this article link. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. In response to Morello's question about the extent of these NGOs' involvement in Texas, he disclosed that these organizations have been involved even before the illegals came into the Lone Star State or other parts of the United States. "You have NGOs that are operating in Mexico and other countries literally helping people get sorted before they even come across. We've seen multiple reports of that not only in Texas, but all across the southern border. And so, that has certainly been a major issue," said Waltens. "Once they are here, the Biden administration has their 'Biden buses' that are dispersing a lot of these illegal immigrants throughout the country, or you see them being put on planes. Some of that is being done by the federal government. [But] some of that is being facilitated as well by these NGOs." Elsewhere in the show, Morello also asked Waltens about the goings-on in Eagle Pass following the Supreme Court's decision in favor of the Biden administration a month prior. The senior editor for the Scorecard replied that since the ruling, federal officials have been banned from both Eagle Pass and Shelby Park two border hot spots. Instead, members of the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard are now stationed in the area. "They are essentially keeping those illegal crossings to a minimum while keeping out federal officials who may be ordered to come in and cut the fence. Now, that is the positive news," said Waltens. He added that based on recent reports, illegal crossings are likely down in Texas compared to other states like California and Arizona. However, he pointed out that Texas has over 1,200 miles of border with Mexico. Some of the illegal crossing has been moved 10 to 30 miles east or west, where it is not easy to report on the migrants coming across private lands. Follow InvasionUSA.news for more stories about the ongoing migrant invasion in America. Watch the full episode of "The Breanna Morello Show" where Morello and Waltens tackle the complaint filed by Texas AG Ken Paxton against Annunciation House below. This video is from the MyPodcastDropped2320 channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Michael Yon joins Mike Adams IN STUDIO with bombshell revelations about NGOs orchestrating MASS INVASION of America. Tucker Carlson: Criminal politicians, and NGOs are intentionally allowing MIGRANT INVASION to happen. CBP reports record-high BORDER ENCOUNTERS in January 2024. Sources include: Brighteon.com TexasAttorneyGeneral.gov Koch-backed super-PAC suspends funding for Nikki Haley after her devastating loss in South Carolina primary A political action committee (PAC) backed by billionaire Charles Koch has suspended its funding of Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley after her loss in the South Carolina Republican primary. The super-PAC Americans for Prosperity Action (AFPA) disclosed that it had paused funding Haley on Feb. 25, a day after she lost to former President Donald Trump in her home state. The loss was a setback to Haley, who served as the Palmetto State's governor and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under her now-rival for the GOP presidential nomination. The AFPA said while it still endorses Haley's presidential run, this support will only come in the form of words instead of cash. "Given the challenges in the primary states ahead, we don't believe any outside group can make a material difference to widen [Haley's] path to victory," wrote AFPA CEO Emily Seidel in an email to staff. "So while we will continue to endorse her, we will focus on resources where we can make the difference." Seidel added that the super-PAC will instead channel its resources to finance GOP campaigns at the congressional level. As of writing, AFPA has endorsed five candidates running for the U.S. Senate and 19 candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives. "With the Senate engagement really heating up, it's time to take stock of where we are and as we always do make sure we're optimizing our resources," Seidel wrote. Haley's campaign thanked AFPA for its support in a Feb. 25 statement. "[AFPA] is a great organization and ally in the fight for freedom and conservative government. We thank them for their tremendous help in this race," it stated. Thanks to your generous support, we are building the infrastructure of human freedom and actively donating our technology to independent publishers, authors and home schooling organizations. Learn about our game-changing non-commercial AI project here. Support our ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance human knowledge by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com. "Our fight continues and with more than $1 million coming in from grassroots conservatives, we have plenty of fuel to keep going. We have a country to save." LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman also pauses funding for Haley According to CNBC, AFPA suspending funding is "the next nail in the coffin" for Haley "who has taken a series of hits since the start of the election year." Aside from the Koch-backed super-PAC, billionaire Reid Hoffman has also stopped funding Haley's presidential bid. Hoffman is the founder of the corporate social media platform LinkedIn, which Microsoft purchased in December 2016. A separate report by CNBC stated that Hoffman closed his wallet to Haley's campaign after her loss to Trump at the New Hampshire primary in late January. This development was confirmed by a source close to the billionaire, who spoke on condition of anonymity. A GOP fundraiser said three clients who each helped the former South Carolina governor raise $100,000 for her campaign are now opting out of further financial efforts for her. Meanwhile, other fundraisers have remarked that while they plan to speak out publicly in support of Haley, they aren't convinced that they will be able to raise much money for her campaign given her losses in the Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. Hoffman, who has mainly funded Democratic causes, gave $250,000 to a pro-Haley super-PAC last year per the New York Times. He remarked in December that while he supports incumbent President Joe Biden, he believed that Haley had the best chance at beating Trump in the GOP primary contest. (Related: LinkedIn co-founder and major Dem donor has visited Epstein island, recently donated $250,000 to Nikki Haley super PAC.) "If America is to avoid another Trump presidency, it will be because Trump loses an election," Hoffman wrote. "If he is to lose, it will either be to Haley in the primary or Biden in the general." Despite the funding setbacks from AFPA and Hoffman, Haley has pledged to stay in the race through Super Tuesday on March 5. The date coincides with many states holding their primaries. Her campaign said AFPA's suspension of funding "has not changed that calculus," and that it still has the resources to stay afloat. Visit VoteRepublican.news for more stories about Nikki Haley's presidential campaign. Watch Breanna Morello discusses why Nikki Haley attracts thousands of Biden donors in the clip below. This video is from the MyPodcastDropped2320 channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Trump: Haley donors will be PERMANENTLY BARRED from MAGA camp. Report: Nikki Haley's presidential campaign backed by more than 5,200 Biden donors. Matrixxx Grooove: Nikki Haley's presidential campaign is backed by Democratic DARK MONEY Brighteon.TV. Sources include: CNBC.com 1 CNBC.com 2 Brighteon.com British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to face CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION over COVID vaccine contract scheme British Member of Parliament (MP) Andrew Bridgen is requesting a meeting with Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley and other senior police officers to lay out a case against British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak concerning his Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) "vaccine" crimes. According to Bridgen, Sunak and other top-level government officials in the United Kingdom are guilty of egregious crimes against humanity, including the deceptive and misleading vaccine contracts that the UK establishment forged with the likes of Pfizer and Moderna during the "pandemic." Bridgen wants just three hours of time to allow for a panel of experts and whistleblowers to make a case before the UK's law enforcement establishment, laying out all available evidence of alleged criminal activity at the highest levels of the British government. According to Bridgen, the British parliament was lied to about the vaccine contracts that Sunak forged with Big Pharma. In addition to proving this before law enforcement, Bridgen also wants the matter to be taken to Parliament standards for evaluation. "Heads of governments around the world and others below them have engaged in what is tantamount to treason against the public," Bridgen maintains. https://t.co/5YZi6ePkLd Exclusive Breaking News: Evidence to be presented that criminal activity has been committed by the very top of Government in the UK. Rishi Sunak British Prime Minister may face a criminal investigation and face potential criminal charges of the most pic.twitter.com/VYYYGOPkCn Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) February 24, 2024 (Related: Sunak is spending far less on UK defense systems than other British government officials had hoped he would.) Massive excess deaths coverup Concerning the excess death toll as calculated by the UK's Office of National Statistics (ONS), Bridgen says these figures are wrong and that "there is a huge coverup going on" that aims to deceive the public into believing that COVID injections are "safe and effective." Interestingly, Bridgen also claims to have evidence showing that the UK establishment knew in August 2019 that a contrived "pandemic" was coming the following year. Those in the know were told not to take any of the so-called "vaccines" that would be unleashed through programs like Operation Warp Speed. Thanks to your generous support, we are building the infrastructure of human freedom and actively donating our technology to independent publishers, authors and home schooling organizations. Learn about our game-changing non-commercial AI project here. Support our ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance human knowledge by shopping at HealthRangerStore.com. Both Sunak and his pal, billionaire eugenicist Bill Gates, are among those who were privy to the fake "pandemic" soon to come, which is why both of them invested heavily into the very pharmaceutical companies that would become key players in the Operation Warp Speed jab rollout. "Did they have insider knowledge about what was being planned in a coming pandemic?" asked former Parliamentary candidate with The Brexit Party Barnsley Jim Ferguson in an X post about these latest developments. Sunak, we are told, invested an astounding $500 million of his own private funds how does a politician have this kind of cash, if not for corruption? into Moderna through a company called Thelema Partners, a notorious tax haven in the Cayman Islands. "Afterwards," Ferguson says, "he stated in parliament that the vaccine was 'safe and effective' while then going on to roll out further permissions for Moderna to set up further vaccine producing interests within the UK." By all appearances, Sunak used his position as prime minister to rake in massive personal profits as millions of Brits were harmed by the very poisons on which he placed his cash. According to the National Security Act of the UK, Sunak is a criminal in that he qualifies as someone who was "working in secret for a foreign power to use or abuse [his] knowledge in a way that causes harm to [his] citizens," as the legislation states. Three in four U.S. politicians have investments in Big Pharma The conspiracy is not limited simply to the UK. Many of our own politicians here in the United States seem to have known well prior to the "pandemic" that they needed to invest accordingly. As such, a whopping 75 percent of Congress, or three in four congressmen, currently hold investments in pharmaceutical companies. You may recall the infamous admission from a Pfizer executive who stated flat-out that an American politician can be bought out for a mere $10,000, meaning this amount of money is all it takes for Big Pharma to purchase a political puppet to do its bidding. The corporate-controlled media is, of course, also complicit in these crimes against humanity just take a look at all the drug commercials that lace every segment of their broadcast and cable programming, both on the "left" and the "right." Bridgen is also suing former health secretary Matt Hancock for defamation, the trial for which is scheduled to take place in the Royal Court of Justice. "There was NO virus infecting anyone," noted someone on X about the depths of the "pandemic" sham. "The genetic code supposedly obtained from the patient in Wuhan was a computer-generated code from which they say they developed the test. This itself was a lie as the tests were already prepared." The latest news about government officials who committed COVID crimes, including by peddling the "vaccine" jabs, can be found at Vaccines.news. Sources for this article include: Twitter.com NaturalNews.com Former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says Democrats likely to replace Biden with Michelle Obama In a recent discussion with political commentator Benny Johnson, entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy stirred speculation by suggesting that Democrats might be contemplating replacing President Joe Biden with Michelle Obama Ramaswamy expressed his belief that the former first lady is likely to be the Democratic nominee, even if she is not eager to enter the race. (Related: Report: Michelle Obama preparing to replace Biden for White House run against Trump.) Ramaswamy emphasized that the personal choices of political figures may not carry significant weight in such matters. According to him, politicians often act as puppets, influenced directly or indirectly by the donor class. He drew parallels with other figures, like Nikki Haley, who, in his opinion, are driven by the interests of influential donors. The entrepreneur and author argued that those controlling these political puppets would strategically select a candidate who can navigate the challenges associated with Kamala Harris while ensuring a short-term presidency to advance their agenda. Ramaswamy concluded that, given the current circumstances, Obama could be the chosen candidate. This speculation about a potential Obama candidacy comes amid concerns within the Democratic Party about Biden's perceived mental decline. Some Democrats worry that Biden may not be a strong contender against potential Republican candidates, particularly former President Donald Trump, in the upcoming presidential election. Despite Obama expressing hesitance about running for office, her popularity and influence within the Democratic Party have prompted discussions and bets being placed on her potential candidacy. We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Learn about our free, downloadable AI tools on nutrition, health and preparedness at this article link. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. The situation remains fluid, and political dynamics can shift, but Ramaswamy's observations add an intriguing perspective to the ongoing speculation about the Democratic Party's plans for the upcoming election. Nearly half of Democratic voters want Biden replaced A recent poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports has revealed that almost half of Democratic voters, approximately 48 percent, favor finding an alternative candidate to replace Biden in the upcoming November election. The data, gathered from a survey of 960 voters, indicates a growing dissatisfaction within the Democratic base, with 38 percent disapproving of Biden continuing as the party's nominee. Among potential replacements, Obama emerged as the leading choice, garnering support from 20 percent of respondents. Despite the former first lady consistently expressing her desire to not participate in electoral politics, her name continues to surface as a preferred candidate among Democrats. According to the pollsters, Obama remained prominent among Democrats, suggesting a preference for someone supposedly with more charisma and has the same level of influence as the sitting president. However, it should be noted that the poll unveiled a lack of consensus among party members regarding an alternative candidate. Other preferred options include Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The survey also indicates that only 33 percent of respondents believe a late-stage change in the presidential campaign, such as replacing Biden, is likely to occur. This suggests that while a significant portion of Democratic voters may desire a change, they may not anticipate such a shift happening. But the dynamics within the Democratic Party reflect a growing interest in alternative candidates, with Obama emerging as a notable choice among voters. Watch this video of filmmaker and musician Joel Gilbert warning about the Democrats' plan to replace Biden with Obama. This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Betting firm predicts Michelle Obama as possible REPLACEMENT for Joe Biden in November 2024 elections. CLAIM: White House quietly pondering replacing Kamala Harris, fessing up about Joe Biden's mental decline. Michelle, Ma Belle. The writing is on the wall: Even Obama thinks Biden could LOSE in 2024. Sources include: Modernity.news WIONews.com Brighteon.com Donald Trump secures ENDORSEMENT from No. 2 GOP senator Former President Donald Trump has secured an endorsement from the second-highest Republican in the U.S. Senate The Washington Examiner reported that Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota has formally endorsed Trump as the Republican Party's presidential nominee. Before this, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky also endorsed the real estate mogul as the GOP's nominee. "The primary results in South Carolina make [it] clear that Trump will be the GOP nominee for president in this year's pivotal presidential election. The choice before the American people is crystal clear: It's Trump or Joe Biden," Thune said in a statement. "I support former President Trump's campaign to win the presidency, and I intend to do everything I can to see that he has a [GOP] majority in the Senate working with him to restore American strength at home and abroad." The Senate minority whip also remarked that the "disastrous" agenda being pushed by Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) must be put to an end. He added that the country cannot handle "another four years of Bidenomics," alongside problems at the southern border and on the world stage. In January, Thune said he would support whoever became the GOP's ultimate nominee. He added that Trump seems to be on a strong path toward victory in upcoming primaries with his recent victory in South Carolina attesting to this. (Related: South Carolina poll: Trump leads Haley by 35 points in her own backyard.) "I'm interested in what the people are saying, and voters are breaking heavily in his factor. He's in a commanding position," Thune said at the time. "I've said all along [that] I'll support the nominee [and] if he's the nominee, I'll do what I can to help the team win the presidency and the Senate." We are building the infrastructure of human freedom and empowering people to be informed, healthy and aware. Learn about our free, downloadable AI tools on nutrition, health and preparedness at this article link. Every purchase at HealthRangerStore.com helps fund our efforts to build and share more tools for empowering humanity with knowledge and abundance. Other senators also backing Trump Several GOP senators have also endorsed the former president. Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso was among those who backed Trump early on. Meanwhile, Texas Sen. John Cornyn announced his endorsement of the front-runner after the latter's victory at the New Hampshire primary. Both Barrasso and Cornyn are seen as potential replacements for McConnell as the GOP's leader in the upper chamber of Congress. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott also endorsed Trump after suspending his own campaign for president. According to reports, some had remained hopeful that Scott would endorse former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley who also served as governor of the Palmetto State. Haley appointed Scott to the Senate while she was chief executive of South Carolina. In January, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz endorsed Trump following the latter's victory at the Iowa caucuses. Cruz told Sean Hannity of Fox News during a Jan. 16 appearance: "I am proud to endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States. I look forward to supporting him enthusiastically." According to Cruz, Trump's Jan. 15 victory at the Iowa caucuses with the former president taking 51 percent of the vote was a dominating victory. "He won 98 of the counties; I believe this race is over," he told Hannity. Trump's landslide victory in the Hawkeye State at the time proved that the latter's candidacy was "compelling," added Cruz. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Utah Sen. Mike Lee also gave their endorsements to Trump. Thune's endorsement, alongside those of his colleagues in the Senate, underscores Trump's strong grip on the party. Head over to Trump.news for more stories about the former president ahead of the November 2024 presidential elections. Watch South Dakota Sen. John Thune remarks that Americans are looking for a change from Biden's "crazy agenda." This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Largest US police union endorses Trump for reelection. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz endorses DONALD TRUMP for president. DeSantis withdraws from presidential race, endorses DONALD TRUMP. Vivek Ramaswamy campaigns for Donald Trump after dropping out of the presidential race. International Union of Police Associations officially endorses DONALD TRUMP for 2024 presidential election. Sources include: 100PercentFedUp.com TheHill.com ThePostMillennial.com Brighteon.com US air man shouts Free Palestine as he sets himself on fire outside Israel embassy US Air Force member has died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington on Sunday, in protest against Israel's war on Gaza (Article republished from MiddleEastEye.net) The man, identified by US media as Aaron Bushnell, was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries but later succumbed to his wounds. An official at Washington's Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to Middle East Eye that the 25-year-old from San Antonio, Texas, had died. In a video that he live streamed on Twitch, Bushnell is seen walking down the street, stating: "Im about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonisers, its not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal." He then placed his phone down to film outside the driveway of the Israeli embassy in the US capital and proceeded to pour liquid on himself. He later pulled out a lighter and set himself on fire, while repeatedly stating, "Free Palestine". "At 12:58 PM @dcfireems responded to call for person on fire outside the Israeli Embassy," Washington's fire emergency service wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday. It added: "Arrived to find fire extinguished by members of @SecretService Uniformed Division. 1 adult male transported critical life threatening injuries to an area hospital." In the video, a law enforcement officer can be heard asking, "Can I help you sir?" before scrambling to put out the flames. The video was taken down by Twitch shortly after it was uploaded for violating the live-streaming platform's guidelines. A US Air Force spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that the man involved in the incident was an active duty air man. He was dressed in military fatigues during the incident. Police, secret service and other authorities are investigating the incident. In December, a protester self-immolated outside an Israeli consulate building in Atlanta, in what US police described as "likely an extreme act of political protest". The protester sustained third-degree burns to the body. At least 29,782 Palestinians have been killed and 70,043 wounded by Israel's war on Gaza. Read more at: MiddleEastEye.net Officials have confirmed that bird flu has spread to mainland Antarctica for the first time. The H5N1 virus was discovered in two dead scavenging birds known as skuas near Primavera Base, an Argentinian scientific research outpost on the Antarctic Peninsula. Bird flu In Antarctica According to data from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, further probable cases of brown skua, south polar skua, and kelp gull have been documented in Hope Bay, on the Antarctic peninsula. "This discovery demonstrates for the first time that the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza virus has reached Antarctica despite the distance and natural barriers that separate it from other continents," Spain's Higher Council for Scientific Investigation (CSIC) said. These are the first verified cases on the continent itself, indicating that the virus is spreading throughout the region, most likely via migrating birds. This H5N1 virus is estimated to have killed millions of wild birds worldwide since 2021, and it has spread to all continents except Oceania. Avian flu first appeared on sub-Antarctic islands in October of last year, bringing it to the rest of the Antarctic region. The virus was first discovered on the British overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from Antarctica. It was also discovered in the Falkland Islands, which are 600 miles northwest of South Georgia. It was first documented in gulls, skuas, and terns, but it has since been discovered in albatrosses, penguins, and southern fulmars. It has also spread to Antarctic mammals, resulting in the catastrophic deaths of elephants and fur seals. The virus is also ravaging wildlife populations in the Arctic. In December, it was determined that the first polar bear perished from H5N1. Argentine scientists discovered dead birds on mainland Antarctica and transferred them to Madrid's Centro de Biologia Molecular Severo Ochoa, which was operating at the Spanish Antarctic base on Deception Island. Read Also: Bird Flu Detected in Antarctica for the First Time Raises Risk of Catastrophic Breeding Failure Among Isolated Penguins Threats To Penguin Experts expressed concern that it would probably spread to penguins. The skuas reside rather close, so there are numerous potentials for transmission. "The problem is how long is it going to take before it transmits to other species like penguins. We need to monitor that," said Antonio Alcami, a researcher from the Spanish National Research Council who works at the Centro de Biologia Molecular Severo Ochoa CSIC, who is based at the Spanish Antarctic base and tested the carcasses. Previous outbreaks in South Africa, Chile, and Argentina demonstrated that penguins are susceptible to the virus. Since H5N1 arrived in South America, more than 500,000 seabirds have died from the disease, with penguins, pelicans, and boobies being among the most severely impacted. Researchers noted in a pre-print study report in November last year that if the virus begins to cause widespread death events across penguin colonies, it might indicate one of the worst ecological disasters of recent times. Diana Bell, an emeritus professor of conservation biology at the University of East Anglia, said the revelation was "sadly not surprising, given its previously reported presence on Antarctic islands in birds and elephant seals." It seemed doubtful that the penguins there would be uninfected. "Biosecurity is important so that humans are not exposed to the virus. HPAI can rarely infect humans but close, prolonged contact is required," she added. Related Article: Bird Flu Reaches Antarctica, Results in Mass Elephant Seal Deaths The 2024 solar eclipse is a rare and spectacular event that will captivate millions of people across North America. But where is the best place to witness this cosmic phenomenon? If you are looking for a memorable and immersive experience, you might want to consider heading to Texas. Here are some reasons why the Lone Star State is a prime destination for eclipse chasers. Texas Offers Clear Skies and Wide Views One of the most important factors for viewing a solar eclipse is the weather. Clouds can ruin the show by blocking the sun and the moon. Fortunately, Texas has a reputation for having sunny and clear skies, especially in April. According to the National Weather Service, the average cloud cover for Texas in April is only 36%, compared to 54% for the U.S. as a whole. Another advantage of Texas is its vast and varied landscapes, which offer unobstructed views of the horizon. Whether you choose to watch the eclipse from the rolling hills of the Hill Country, the rugged mountains of the Big Bend, or the flat plains of the Panhandle, you will have plenty of space to enjoy the spectacle without crowding or interference. Texas Celebrates the Eclipse with Festivals and Events Another reason to visit Texas for the 2024 solar eclipse is the opportunity to join the festivities and events that will celebrate this occasion. Texas is known for its hospitality and culture, and many cities and towns along the path of totality are planning to host special activities and programs for visitors and locals alike. For example, Dallas, which will experience 3 minutes and 49 seconds of totality, is organizing a city-wide eclipse festival that will feature live music, food trucks, art exhibits, and educational workshops. San Antonio, which will see 2 minutes and 13 seconds of darkness, is planning to host a solar eclipse party at the historic Alamo, where guests can enjoy historical reenactments, guided tours, and themed souvenirs. Austin, which will witness 1 minute and 5 seconds of totality, is preparing to showcase its vibrant and eclectic scene with a solar eclipse concert, featuring local and national bands, at the iconic Zilker Park. Also Read: Annular Solar Eclipse 2023: 5 Weird Facts About the Rare 'Ring of Fire' Eclipse Coming This Week Texas Inspires You with Its Eclipse History and Stories A final reason to choose Texas as your destination for the 2024 solar eclipse is the chance to learn about its rich and fascinating history and stories related to eclipses. Texas has a long and diverse heritage that spans Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and American influences, and eclipses have played a role in shaping its culture and identity. One of the most famous stories is the legend of the Lipan Apache chief, Poca Ropa, who used a solar eclipse to trick his enemies, the Comanches, into surrendering. According to the legend, Poca Ropa predicted the eclipse and told the Comanches that he had the power to darken the sun. When the eclipse occurred, the Comanches were terrified and agreed to make peace with the Apaches. Another interesting story is the account of the 1918 solar eclipse, which was the last time a total solar eclipse crossed the continental U.S. before 2017. Texas was one of the states that experienced totality, and many people reported seeing strange phenomena, such as birds falling silent, cows returning to their barns, and stars appearing in the sky. Some people even believed that the eclipse was a sign of the end of the world, as it coincided with the Spanish flu pandemic and World War I. Related article: 'Ring of Fire:' Three Ways to View the 2023 Annular Solar Eclipse and Three Important Points to Remember BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov has met with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock during his working visit to Germany, a source in the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan told Trend. The ministers exchanged views on prospects for the development of relations between the two countries in a number of areas, as well as the current status and prospects of normalization process between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Baerbock emphasized the importance of relations between the two countries. She congratulated Azerbaijan on the upcoming hosting of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29). Bayramov noted that the contacts between Azerbaijan and Germany, which have recently gained momentum, are satisfactory and highlighted the importance of high-level discussions within the Munich Security Conference. He expressed gratitude w to Germany for its support and initiative in organizing negotiations to normalize relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Besides, Bayramov noted Azerbaijan's determination to advance the agenda of normalization and peace. He underscored that despite this, Armenia's disruption of stability, lasting for about five months, was aimed at undermining the peace process. The Azerbaijani minister also emphasized unacceptability of Armenia's continuation of an unconstructive stance and rhetoric in political and legal processes, as well as territorial claims against Azerbaijan in Armenian constitution and legislation. During the meeting, opinions were also exchanged on other mutually interesting issues. 17:27 Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeyhun Bayramov has met with German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock during his working visit to Germany, Trend reports, referring to the Azerbaijani ministry's social media accounts. The ministers exchanged views on prospects for the development of relations between the two countries in a number of areas, as well as the normalization process between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel A new giant anaconda species, previously unknown to science, was just discovered by scientists along with indigenous people and a film crew shooting Will Smith's wildlife documentary entitled "Pole to Pole: With Will Smith" in the wilderness of the Amazon in South America. The new giant snake species called Eunectes akayima or the "northern green anaconda" was reportedly an undocumented species of giant anaconda, but was previously seen by Amazon natives. The site of the new anaconda species was located in the Bameno region of Baihuaeri Waorani Territory of Ecuadorian Amazon. Findings of the discovery involved researchers from The University of Queensland in Australia and their study was published earlier this month, implying that the new snake species could be the "largest anaconda" on record. In the past, scientists have recorded that anacondas (in general) can grow up to 30 feet long, similar to the size of a school bus. Prior to the discovery, it had long been known that the reticulated python (Malayopython reticulatus) is the world's longest snake. Now, confirmation of the existence of the northern green anaconda makes it a contender to M. reticulatus python species native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is no wonder that snakes can grow enormously since previous research shows they possess a gene that enables them to become longer. New Anaconda Species Discovered In a news release on February 20, The University of Queensland announced the identification of the new anaconda species during filming of National Geographic's upcoming Will Smith show. One of the research paper's authors, Professor Bryan Fry, stated that the university's team received a rare invitation from the local Amazon Waorani people to traverse the region and gather samples from an anaconda population, "rumored to be the largest in existence." The indigenous tribe took the scientists on a 10-day expedition into the Amazon jungle to search for the mysterious snakes. The team found several anacondas waiting for their prey while their canoes were paddling down a river system. Prof. Fry also cited anecdotal reports from the locals of having seen other anacondas in the area measuring over 7.5 meters long and weighing approximately 500 kilograms. Also Read: 33-Foot Monster! World's Biggest Anaconda Captured In Brazil? Northern Green Anaconda The northern green anaconda deviated from another snake species, called southern green anaconda, nearly 10 million years ago, according to Fry. The study was published in the journal MDPI Diversity on February 16, wherein scientists explored a group of aquatic snakes such as anacondas belonging to the genus Eunectes which are abundant in South America. In the paper, the authors also acknowledged that some taxonomic status of several species has been uncertain or controversial. Despite the rich biodiversity of snakes and other animals in the Amazon rainforest, its wildlife is still threatened by both natural and anthropogenic factors. According to the organization Amazon Conservation, the Amazon is facing multiple threats such as climate change, deforestation, illegal logging, and wildfires. Related Article: Surprise! Man Finds Rare Anaconda Inside His Apartment Toilet Texas wildfires have ravaged different parts of the state of Texas as of Wednesday, February 28. Flames and smoke from the wildland fires have prompted widespread disruption, ranging from halting a nuclear weapons plant, cutting power to thousands of homes and business establishments, and sparking mandatory evacuations. Disaster declarations were also issued by local authorities amid the raging fires. The Texas blaze has covered a total land area of hundreds of thousands of acres across the state, where wildfires have been reported to be spreading throughout the Texas Panhandle. Although no human fatalities have been reported so far, the fires are putting towns at risk and can pose life-threatening risks. Fire weather conditions such as strong winds and high temperatures are fuelling the Texas flames, according to reports. Amid the disruption caused by the natural disaster, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for dozens of counties across the state, urging Texans to consider limiting their activities that could ignite fires, as well as taking safety precautions to keep their loved ones safe. The Texas wildfires come as other parts of the country will experience new winter weather-related events this week, according to the National Weather Service. Texas Wildfires Disaster Declaration In a press release in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, February 27, Governor Abbott issued the disaster declaration for the Texas wildfires as a response to the widespread wildfire activity statewide. According to the release, additional counties may be included if the situation worsens. Gov. Abbot also ordered the Texas Division of Emergency Management to active additional state emergency resources to supplement local firefighters responding to the Texas blaze. Critical fire response resources have been deployed to areas in the Texas Panhandle which has been significantly impacted by the wildfires, according to Abbot. Meanwhile, the Texas A&M Forest Service stated it had responded to 13 wildfires on Monday, February 26, local reports say. Among all the Texas wildfires, the Smokehouse Creek Fire located in Hutchinson County has burnt 500,000 acres and is still 0% contained as of Wednesday morning. Also Read: Critical Fire Weather Alert Issued for Almost 1 Million People in Texas, Kansas [SPC] Nuclear Weapons Plant According to an internal situation report from DHS/CISA, the Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant in Amarillo, Texas, prompted an evacuation of its non-essential personnel due to the wildfires in northern Texas and western Oklahoma, according to local media reporting. As mentioned earlier, the nuclear weapons facility temporarily halted operation as the fires caused evacuations in the area and other counties across Texas. In the Amarillo region, several towns and communities are under mandatory evacuation. In Fritch, several parts of the city have already been evacuated after more than 40 houses were damaged. As there is no current sign that the situation will improve, Abbott also issued a warning that the Texas wildfires could grow or spread in the coming days due to the reported continuation of fire weather conditions such as high temperatures and strong winds. Related Article: Authorities On Guard as Wildfire Season Starts in Parts of Texas Lacking Rain According to information published by Deutsche Presse-Agentur on February 28, 2024, the German naval frigate Hessen, which is currently on an EU naval mission aimed at safeguarding maritime routes, successfully thwarted an aggressive maneuver by the Houthi militia, backed by Iran, out of Yemen. Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link German Sachsen class frigate Hessen firing surface to air missile. (Picture source: German MoD) This confrontation marks an important moment for the German navy as it engaged in live combat for the first time during its ongoing mission that commenced on February 23. According to the reports, the frigate Hessen engaged and neutralized two hostile targets. German Navy The operational capacity of the German Navy in 2024 is characterized by a strategic emphasis on three main areas: personnel recruitment and retention, munitions and equipment procurement, and significant deployment to the Indo-Pacific region. Vice Admiral Jan Christian Kaack has highlighted the importance of addressing staffing challenges, modernizing munitions for current and foreseeable needs, and undertaking a major operation in the Indo-Pacific to strengthen Germany's defense diplomacy. The Indo-Pacific deployment is particularly notable, involving a frigate and a task force supplier on a months-long mission that is considered a real operation rather than a mere training exercise. In terms of geographic focus, the German Navy in 2024 is set to increase its presence in both the Baltic Sea and the Indian Ocean, areas considered top destinations for the year. This includes plans for deployments that aim to protect trade ships and participate in security operations in response to global maritime security challenges. The deployment of German warships, such as a frigate and a supply ship to the Indo-Pacific, is part of Germany's effort to project power and fulfill its diplomatic ambitions in regions experiencing heightened tensions. According to information published by the Turkish MoD on February 28, 2024, Admiral Ercument Tatloglu, Commander of the Naval Forces, recently visited the Istanbul Shipyard Command and the Naval Forces Design Project Office (DPO) in the Istanbul area. Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link Admiral Ercument Tatloglu, Commander of the Naval Forces, at the Design Project Office or DPO. (Picture source: Turkish MoD) During his visit to the Istanbul Shipyard, Admiral Tatloglu received information about the ongoing repair and restoration activities of the Savarona. At the Design Project Office, he reviewed the design and roadmap of the TF-2000 destroyer, which is the third project of our indigenous and national ship design, the MILGEM family, following the corvette and frigate. Additionally, he examined the concept design of the fourth project, an aircraft carrier. About the future destroyer The TF-2000-class destroyer is a type of anti-air warfare guided-missile destroyer that is currently being developed by the Turkish Naval Institute. This class is designed to counter aerial threats and is equipped to perform various mission functions, including command, control, communications, reconnaissance, early warning, surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, and electronic warfare. On December 5, 2007, the Defence Industry Executive Committee approved the construction of six ships in this class, with four being fixed orders and two as options. In January 2013, it was reported that Turkey planned to acquire a total of eight TF-2000 destroyers, a plan which was confirmed at the International Defence Industry Fair (IDEF) in 2021. The development of the TF-2000-class is intended to enhance the Turkish Navy's capabilities in anti-air warfare. The TF-2000 destroyer is described as having a length of 149 meters, a width of 21.3 meters, a draft of 5.75 meters, a displacement of 8,300 tons, a speed exceeding 26 knots, and a CODOG propulsion system consisting of two gas turbines and alternatively diesel engines. For armaments, the TF-2000 is expected to be equipped with 96 vertical launch system (VLS) cells which are divided into two sections, with 32 cells located at the bow behind the main gun and 64 cells at the midship. Comparing with earlier depictions, the design has matured significantly, showing an increase from 64 to 96 VLS cells. The primary armament will include a 127mm gun , 25mm STOP guns by Aselsan in turrets, and a 35mm Gokdeniz close-in weapon system (CIWS) at the stern, complemented by a RAM launcher type LEVENT by Roketsan with a capacity of 21 missiles. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. GeoProMining company, which illegally mined gold in the Kalbajar region of Azerbaijan during the Armenian occupation, has fallen under the US anti-Russian sanctions, the statement of the US Treasury Department says, Trend reports. During the occupation of Azerbaijani lands, the Armenian side ruthlessly developed mineral deposits in Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur. The largest gold mining zone in this region, located in Kalbajar, has been exploited since 2007 by the Russian company GPM Gold, part of the GeoProMining mining company. Although the company's license allowed mining only in the Armenian territory of the mine, there is evidence of operations also in occupied Kalbajar, confirmed by satellite imagery. During the II Karabakh War, the company, to preserve its revenues, concentrated a significant amount of weapons and mercenaries in the mine to counter the Azerbaijani army. Meanwhile, Vartan Sirmakes, a Swiss entrepreneur and jeweler of Armenian origin who is the co-founder and CEO of the famous Swiss watch brand Franck Muller Group, was involved in the looting of the mine. Gold mined in Kalbajar and Zangilan was offered at Swiss auctions and stored in Swiss banks. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. The commissions on delimitation and demarcation of borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan are discussing the procedure for resolving the issue, Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Mger Grigoryan said during the government meeting in the Armenian National Assembly on February 28, Trend reports. According to him, the procedure will include a comprehensive methodological framework. Grigoryan added that in two-three months, it will be possible to obtain the draft regulations for the work of the commissions, which will reflect the methodology for determining the borders. Besides, the process of demarcation and delimitation of borders itself will take a considerable amount of time, the official noted. Notably, on January 31, 2024, the sixth meeting of the State Commission on the delimitation of the state border between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the Commission on issues of delimitation of the state border and border security between the two countries took place on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia under the chairing of Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Shahin Mustafayev and Mger Grigoryan. On November 30, 2023, the fifth meeting took place on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia (Gazakh-Ijevan). Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Bill Gates visits Microsoft India Development Centre New Delhi, Feb 28 Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Wednesday visited the Microsoft India Development Centre (IDC) in Hyderabad, a centre of innovation that he envisioned in 1998. "It was rewarding to watch Bill address some of India's brightest engineering minds at IDC, our biggest asset," Rajiv Kumar, Managing Director, Microsoft IDC, and CVP, Experiences + Devices India, said in a statement. "Echoing his optimism over the opportunity for an AI-powered India, IDC is excited to drive innovation from India for Microsoft - from AI and cloud to security and gaming," he added. Earlier this week, Gates announced his plans to visit India in a LinkedIn post, saying, "I cant wait to learn about how India is finding innovative new ways to advance health, digital public infrastructure, and climate to improve the lives of billions." In his blog, the Microsoft co-founder mentioned that he is visiting this week to learn about "how we can continue working with India to help its ideas and inventions reach everyone who needs them, no matter where they live." "This will be a main topic when I meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week," Gates added. (IANS - Posted on 28 February 2024) Bill Gates visits Microsoft India Development Centre Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us! BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez has sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on the occasion of his confident victory in the extraordinary presidential election, Trend reports. "Mr. President, I extend my sincerest congratulations to you on your re-election as the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Taking this opportunity, I would like to reiterate Cuba's firm commitment to further strengthening the relations of friendship and cooperation between our countries under your leadership. Please accept the assurances of my highest consideration," the letter reads. Champaign, IL (61820) Today Some snow flurries during the morning hours will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. High 39F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low 26F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Collaborative efforts Knowledge exchange Advancing care Empowering patients Overcoming barriers References Further reading Rare diseases, also referred to as orphan diseases, are medical conditions that affect a small percentage of the population. The definition may vary between regions. According to the FDA, rare diseases are diseases that affect <200,000 patients1. In Europe, a condition with less than 1 patient in 2000 is considered to be rare2. According to a study, the prevalence of a rare disease is 40 patients in 100,000 people globally3. Rare diseases often have a genetic cause. A total of 3573 genes associated with these conditions have been identified so far. Cystic fibrosis, Gaucher disease, Pompe disease, hypophosphatasia, and NiemanPick, type C are some examples4. Recent advancements in molecular biology and analytic techniques have improved the diagnostic and therapeutic options for these conditions4. Image Credit: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com Collaborative efforts The boom of the internet has significantly impacted and improved the collaborative scenario in rare disease research. The advent of various databases and multiple collaborations from research institutes across the world has led to a huge process in this field. Several research groups have been established over the years to collaborate and exchange knowledge and expertise for the advancement of rare disease research. Through its complementing projects and initiatives, the European Union has been sponsoring cross-border research on RD for more than 20 years. In approximately 270 initiatives, more than 1 billion has been invested since 19985. European Reference Networks (ERNs) are virtual networks that bring together medical specialists across Europe to address rare or difficult diseases and disorders that require highly specialized healthcare. They were established under the 2011 Directive on Patient Rights in Cross-Border Healthcare6. In order to promote global research collaboration and investment in the field of rare diseases, the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) was established in 2011. At the moment, it is a coalition of 20 countries' worth of funding and patient organizations7. The combined effect of international investments in rare disease research is maximized by these organizations. Fostering the development of novel therapeutic approaches and common registries and databases advances our understanding of the natural history of rare diseases8. Knowledge exchange Founded in France in 1997, Orphanet is a partnership that now operates in over 40 countries, collecting data and managing a single knowledge database about rare diseases and their classifications9. The EU put ERA-Net E-Rare into effect in 2006. Enhancing complementarity to the larger multinational groups typically funded by the EU, as well as fostering joint sponsorship of relatively small and targeted research consortia, were the goals of this initiative. Eight nations were a part of the cooperation when E-Rare-1 got underway in 2006. It started with initiatives to improve the knowledge base of the European landscape for RD research and two international calls that were issued in 2007 and 2009. 15 nations were a part of the E-Rare II phase, which ran from 2010 to 2014. The main focus during this time was on strengthening the cooperation and coordination among the E-Rare partners. This was done in order to facilitate the systematic exchange of knowledge on national programs and to carry out strategic initiatives targeted at expanding the network of RD research funders8. IRDiRC established its vision and three objectives in February 2017 that it aims to accomplish by 2027. The objectives are to diagnose all patients seeking medical attention for a suspected rare disease within a year if the disorder is documented in the literature; all patients who are now unable to receive a diagnosis will be included in a worldwide pipeline for coordinated diagnostic and research services. To approve a thousand new treatments for rare diseases, most of them for conditions for which there are now no approved treatments, and creating techniques to evaluate how treatments and diagnosis affect people with rare conditions10. Image Credit: Daniel_Dash/Shutterstock.com Advancing care Over 2,000 researchers from 82 nations worldwide have worked with the Centers for Mendelian Genomics in the USA to gather nearly 60,000 samples and discover over 1,200 novel disease genes9. Through the Care4Rare project in Canada, 21 university sites are linked to a super-team of collaborative doctors, researchers, and scientists. The aim is to improve patient care for rare diseases domestically and internationally. Over the course of six years, they have examined over a thousand rare diseases and helped over a thousand families receive a diagnosis. They were also successful in identifying 130 new disease-causing genes9. Similarly, the EURenOmics collaboration, a cooperative research network of over one hundred physicians and researchers from ten countries in Europe works to enhance research on rare kidney illnesses. Together, they have identified eleven novel genomic rearrangements, 26 novel disease genes, and novel diagnostic techniques in just five years9. Empowering patients The Internet has greatly facilitated the connections and sharing of care and research techniques between patients with rare diseases and their caregivers worldwide. Numerous smartphone applications are available to monitor health issues and gather epidemiological data to support the development and approval of drugs. Patients are increasingly participating as full partners in their medical care and research. Better clinical outcomes and illness management are usually observed in patients who are connected through these groups9. Patient advocacy groups have played a vital role in furthering the advancement of research by collaborating with different initiatives. Established in 2003, the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN) unites nearly 2,500 researchers from several disciplines and more than 130 patient advocacy groups looking into more than 200 rare diseases. It also includes a shared data management center. Strong partner collaboration and sharing led to scientific breakthroughs and patient-relevant advances9. For the Undiagnosed Diseases Network International (UDNI) initiatives, established in 2014, patient and family support for undiagnosed rare diseases is crucial. Worldwide patient organizations are eligible to become members of this initiative. Patient groups that speak for underrepresented and rare populations can help spread awareness of the UDNI and draw support from the general public. This can influence important decision-makers regarding the significance of the initiative. In order to make sure that their initiatives are patient-focused, patient-friendly, and patient-driven, patient groups also offer their experience to the institutional, clinical, and non-clinical members of the UDNI11. Chinese Organization for Rare Disorders (CORD), Rare Diseases Europe (EURORDIS), and the Spanish Federation of Rare Diseases (FEDER) are some groups associated with UDNI 11. Overcoming barriers It is clear from the field of rare disease research that new techniques are required to enhance the overall quality of patient care, find novel therapeutic approaches, and lessen the socioeconomic impact of rare diseases. Better coordination between research funders, attention to research gaps, development of therapies, and collaboration between patients, physicians, and researchers will all be necessary for future advancements. As specialists, essential partners, and facilitators of collaboration, patients and patient advocacy organizations are vital. Geographical and data governance constraints should be addressed by the alignment of policies and technologies. Networks of international scientific communities and professionals need to identify the main obstacles to productive and successful research and overcome them. References Herder M. (2017). What Is the Purpose of the Orphan Drug Act?. PLoS medicine, 14(1), e1002191. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002191 Europlan: European Project for Rare Diseases National Plans Management. [Online]. Available from: http://ec.europa.eu/health/rare_diseases/national_plans/detailed/index_en.htm. Richter, T., Nestler-Parr, S., Babela, R., Khan, Z. M., Tesoro, T., Molsen, E., Hughes, D. A., & International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research Rare Disease Special Interest Group (2015). Rare Disease Terminology and Definitions-A Systematic Global Review: Report of the ISPOR Rare Disease Special Interest Group. Value in health : the journal of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research, 18(6), 906914. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2015.05.008 Pogue, R. E., Cavalcanti, D. P., Shanker, S., Andrade, R. V., Aguiar, L. R., de Carvalho, J. L., & Costa, F. F. (2018). Rare genetic diseases: update on diagnosis, treatment and online resources. Drug discovery today, 23(1), 187195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2017.11.002 The European Union Horizon 2020 Health Work Programme. [Online]. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-sc1-2016-2017.html#c,topics=callIdentifier/t/H2020-SC1-2016-2017/1/1/1/default-group&callStatus/t/Forthcoming/1/1/0/default-group&callStatus/t/Open/1/1/0/default-group&callStatus/t/Closed/1/1/0/default-group+identifier/desc Directive 2011/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2011 on the application of patients' rights in cross-border healthcare. [Online]. Available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:088:0045:0065:en:PDF Abbott A. (2011). Rare-disease project has global ambitions. Nature, 472(7341), 17. https://doi.org/10.1038/472017a Julkowska, D., Austin, C. P., Cutillo, C. M., Gancberg, D., Hager, C., Halftermeyer, J., Jonker, A. H., Lau, L. P. L., Norstedt, I., Rath, A., Schuster, R., Simelyte, E., & van Weely, S. (2017). The importance of international collaboration for rare diseases research: a European perspective. Gene therapy, 24(9), 562571. https://doi.org/10.1038/gt.2017.29 Boycott, K. M., Lau, L. P., Cutillo, C. M., & Austin, C. P. (2019). International collaborative actions and transparency to understand, diagnose, and develop therapies for rare diseases. EMBO molecular medicine, 11(5), e10486. https://doi.org/10.15252/emmm.201910486 Vision & Goals IRDiRC. [Online]. Available at: https://irdirc.org/about-us/vision-goals/ Further reading Scientists at UC San Francisco may have discovered a new way to test for autism by measuring how children's eyes move when they turn their heads. They found that kids who carry a variant of a gene that is associated with severe autism are hypersensitive to this motion. The gene, SCN2A, makes an ion channel that is found throughout the brain, including the region that coordinates movement, called the cerebellum. Ion channels allow electrical charges in and out of cells and are fundamental to how they function. Several variants of this gene are also associated with severe epilepsy and intellectual disability. The researchers found that children with these variants have an unusual form of the reflex that stabilizes the gaze while the head is moving, called the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). In children with autism, it seems to go overboard, and this can be measured with a simple eye-tracking device. The discovery could help to advance research on autism, which affects 1 out of every 36 children in the United States. And it could help to diagnose kids earlier and faster with a method that only requires them to don a helmet and sit in a chair. "We can measure it in kids with autism who are non-verbal or can't or don't want to follow instructions," said Kevin Bender, PhD, a professor in the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences and co-senior author of the study, which appears Feb. 26 in Neuron. "This could be a game-changer in both the clinic and the lab." A telltale sign of autism in an eye reflex Of the hundreds of gene mutations associated with autism, variants of the SCN2A gene are among the most common. Since autism affects social communication, ion channel experts like Bender had focused on the frontal lobe of the brain, which governs language and social skills in people. But mice with an autism-associated variant of the SCN2A gene did not display marked behavioral differences associated with this brain region. Chenyu Wang, a UCSF graduate student in Bender's lab and first author of the study, decided to look at what the SCN2A variant was doing in the mouse cerebellum. Guy Bouvier, PhD, a cerebellum expert at UCSF and co-senior author of the paper, already had the equipment needed to test behaviors influenced by the cerebellum, like the VOR. The VOR is easy to provoke. Shake your head and your eyes will stay roughly centered. In mice with the SCN2A variant, however, the researchers discovered that this reflex was unusually sensitive. When these mice were rotated in one direction, their eyes compensated perfectly, rotating in the opposite direction. But this increased sensitivity came at a cost. Normally, neural circuits in the cerebellum can refine the reflex when needed, for example to enable the eyes to focus on a moving object while the head is also moving. In SCN2A mice, however, these circuits got stuck, making the reflex rigid. A mouse result translates nearly perfectly to kids with autism Wang and Bender had uncovered something rare: a behavior that arose from a variant to the SCN2A gene that was easy to measure in mice. But would it work in people? They decided to test it with an eye-tracking camera mounted on a helmet. It was a "shot in the dark," Wang said, given that the two scientists had never conducted a study in humans. Bender asked several families from the FamilieSCN2A Foundation, the major family advocacy group for children with SCN2A variants in the US, to participate. Five children with SCN2A autism and eleven of their neurotypical siblings volunteered. Wang and Bender took turns rotating the children to the left and right in an office chair to the beat of a metronome. The VOR was hypersensitive in the children with autism, but not in their neurotypical siblings. The scientists could tell which children had autism just by measuring how much their eyes moved in response to their head rotation. A CRISPR cure in mice The scientists also wanted to see if they could restore the normal eye reflex in the mice with a CRISPR-based technology that restored SCN2A gene expression in the cerebellum. When they treated 30-day-old SCN2A mice equivalent to late adolescence in humans their VOR became less rigid but was still unusually sensitive to body motion. But when they treated 3-day-old SCN2A mice early childhood in humans their eye reflexes were completely normal. These first results, using this reflex as our proxy for autism, point to an early window for future therapies that get the developing brain back on track." Chenyu Wang, UCSF graduate student It's too early to say whether such an approach might someday be used to directly treat autism. But the eye reflex test, on its own, could clear the way to more expedient autism diagnosis for kids today, saving families from long diagnostic odysseys. "If this sort of assessment works in our hands, with kids with profound, nonverbal autism, there really is hope it could be more widely adopted," Bender said. Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis, affecting approximately 600 million people worldwide and 34 million people in the U.S. There are no treatments available that prevent its progression to date. Recommended pharmacological treatments for symptoms have either small-to moderate effects or short-term effects, often with side effects, and lifestyle behaviors such as exercise and weight loss are under-utilized. Historically, intra-articular mineralization (IAM) or calcium crystal deposits in the joint, were thought to be of no clinical consequence, and perhaps just something that happens with older age. However, using computed tomography (CT), researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine have found that calcium crystal deposits in the knee can contribute to worsening of joint damage. The researchers are the first to use computerized x-ray imaging which has a markedly higher sensitivity for detection of mineralization than radiography (x-rays) to confirm for IAM in the knee. The cartilage damage is most likely to occur in the same locations where the crystals are deposited, suggesting a localized effect. We have also showed that these crystals can contribute to knee pain in another recently published paper. Taken together, these findings highlight the important role of calcium crystals to structural damage and symptoms in knee osteoarthritis." Tuhina Neogi, MD, PhD, corresponding author, professor of medicine, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Participants from the Multicenter Osteoarthritis (MOST) Study-;an NIH-funded longitudinal study of community-dwelling adults-;were evaluated for the association of IAM based on its location within the knee: anywhere in the knee, in a specific compartment of the knee (medial or lateral), and in specific sub-regions of the knee on CT at baseline with cartilage worsening on MRI over two years. The researchers found that by using CT technology they were able to detect a higher amount of deposits than previously found by plain radiographs. With this improved detection, they found an increased risk of cartilage damage on follow-up, including among knees without damage to begin with, supporting a pathogenic role for calcium crystal deposition within the joint. "Our findings suggest potential localized, tissue-specific effects of IA mineralization on cartilage pathology in knee OA," explains Jean Liew, MD, MS, assistant professor of medicine at the school and first author of the paper. "Now that this has been identified, we can begin to focus on identifying ways to prevent these crystal deposits from occurring to hopefully relieve pain and limit progression of joint damage in osteoarthritis," added Neogi, who also is chief of rheumatology at Boston Medical Center. This is the third paper in a series of studies on this topic from the MOST Study, which is a large cohort study that is entering its 20th year and was recently awarded a U19 grant for $46 million for the next phase of research regarding causes and consequences of osteoarthritis. This study appears online in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatology. This work was supported by NIH P30 AR072571. Jean Liew was supported by the Rheumatology Research Foundation Investigator Award. Tuhina Neogi was supported by NIH K24 AR070892, R01 AG066010, R01 AG066914, R01 NS12419. The MOST Study was supported by U01-AG-18820, U01-AG-18832, U01-AG-18947, U01-AG-19079, and U19 AG076471. Los Angeles anesthesiologist Marilyn Singleton was outraged about a California requirement that every continuing medical education course include training in implicit bias the ways in which physicians' unconscious attitudes might contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Singleton, who is Black and has practiced for 50 years, sees calling doctors out for implicit bias as divisive, and argues the state cannot legally require her to teach the idea in her continuing education classes. She has sued the Medical Board of California, asserting a constitutional right not to teach something she doesn't believe. The way to address health care disparities is to target low-income people for better access to care, rather than "shaking your finger" at white doctors and crying "racist," she said. "I find it an insult to my colleagues to imply that they wont be a good doctor if a racially divergent patient is in front of them." The litigation is part of a national crusade by right-leaning advocacy and legal groups against diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives in health care. The pushback is inspired in part by last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling barring affirmative action in higher education. The California lawsuit does not dispute the state's authority to require implicit-bias training. It questions only whether the state can require all teachers to discuss implicit bias in their continuing medical education courses. The suit's outcome, however, could influence obligatory implicit-bias training for all licensed professionals. Leading the charge is the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based organization that describes itself as a "national public interest law firm that defends Americans from government overreach and abuse." Its clients include the activist group Do No Harm, founded in 2022 to fight affirmative action in medicine. The two groups have also joined forces to sue the Louisiana medical board and the Tennessee podiatry board for reserving board seats exclusively for racial minorities. In their complaint against the California medical board, Singleton and Do No Harm, along with Los Angeles ophthalmologist Azadeh Khatibi, argue that the implicit-bias training requirement violates the First Amendment rights of doctors who teach continuing medical education courses by requiring them to discuss how unconscious bias based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic status, or disability can alter treatment. "It's the government saying doctors must say things, and that's not what our free nation stands for," said Khatibi, who immigrated to the U.S. from Iran as a child. Unlike Singleton, Khatibi does believe implicit bias can unintentionally result in substandard care. But, she said, "on principle, I don't believe in the government compelling speech." The lawsuit challenges the evidence of implicit bias in health care, saying there is no proof that efforts to reduce bias are effective. Interventions have thus far not demonstrated lasting effects, studies have found. In December, U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer dismissed the suit but allowed the Pacific Legal Foundation to file an amended complaint. A hearing is scheduled for March 11 in federal court in Los Angeles. In enacting the training requirement, the California legislature found that physicians' biased attitudes unconsciously contribute to health care disparities. It also found that racial and ethnic disparities in health care outcomes are "remarkably consistent" across a range of illnesses and persist even after adjusting for socioeconomic differences, whether patients are insured, and other factors influencing care. Black women are three to four times as likely as white women to die of pregnancy-related causes, are often prescribed less pain medication than white patients with the same complaints, and are referred less frequently for advanced cardiovascular procedures,the legislature found. It also noted that women treated by female doctors were more likely to survive heart attacks than those treated by men. This month, the California legislature's Black Caucus unveiled legislation requiring implicit-bias training for all maternal care providers in the state. Khama Ennis, who teaches an implicit-bias class for Massachusetts doctors, sees only the best intentions in her fellow physicians. "But we're also human," she said in an interview. "And to not acknowledge that we are just as susceptible to bias as anybody else in any other field is unfair to patients." Ennis offered an example of her own bias in a training session. Preparing to treat a patient in a hospital emergency room, she noticed a Confederate flag tattoo on his forearm. "As a Black woman, I had to have a quick chat with myself," she said. "I needed to ensure that I provided the same standard of care for him that I would for anyone else." Ennis' class meets the requirements of a Massachusetts law that physicians earn two hours of instruction in implicit bias to obtain or renew their licenses, as of 2022. That same year, California began requiring that all accredited continuing medical education courses involving direct patient care include discussion of implicit bias. The state mandates 50 hours of continuing education every two years for doctors to maintain their licenses. Private institutions offer courses on an array of topics, and physicians generally teach them. Teachers may tell students they do not believe implicit bias drives health care disparities, Fischer wrote in her December ruling. But the state, which licenses doctors, has the right to decide what must be included in the classes, the judge wrote. Professionals who elect to teach courses "must communicate the information that the legislature requires medical practitioners to have," the judge wrote. "When they do so, they do not speak for themselves, but for the state." Whether they speak for themselves or for the state is a pivotal question. While the First Amendment protects private citizens' right to free speech, that protection does not extend to government speech. The content of public school curricula, for example, is the speech of state government, not the speech of teachers, parents, or students, courts have said. In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did not apply to student journalists when a principal censored articles they wrote as part of a school curriculum. The Pacific Legal Foundation's amended complaint aims to convince the judge that its clients teach as private citizens with First Amendment rights. If the judge again rules otherwise, lead attorney Caleb Trotter told KFF Health News, he plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, and, if necessary, the Supreme Court. "This is not government speech at all," he said. "It's private speech, and the First Amendment should apply." "Plaintiffs are plainly wrong," lawyers for Rob Bonta, the state attorney general, responded in court papers. "There can be no dispute that the State shapes or controls the content of continuing medical education courses." The medical board declined to comment on the pending litigation. From 2019 through July 2022, in addition to California and Massachusetts, four states enacted legislation requiring health care providers to be trained in implicit bias. A landmark 2003 Institute of Medicine report, "Unequal Treatment," found that limited access to care and other socioeconomic differences explain only part of racial and ethnic disparities in treatment outcomes. The expert panel concluded that clinicians' prejudices could also contribute. In the two decades since the report's release, studies have documented that bias does influence clinical care and contribute to racial disparities, a 2022 report said. But implicit-bias training might have no impact and might even worsen discriminatory care, the report found. "There's not really evidence that it works," Khatibi said. "To me, addressing health care disparities is really important because lives are at stake. The question is, How do you want to achieve these ends?" This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. People who have had a kidney transplant are at high risk for developing skin cancers. New research directed by investigators from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center is exploring the best combination of treatments to target skin cancers while preserving the transplanted organs. Now, they report results from a clinical trial testing a novel drug combination designed to stimulate the immune system to fight advanced, potentially lethal skin cancers while not permanently damaging patients' transplanted kidneys. The treatment included two immune-suppressing drugs to protect the transplanted kidney and either one or two cancer-fighting therapies known as checkpoint inhibitors, which activate the immune system to destroy cancer cells. In a multicenter phase I/II study of eight patients, every patient experienced disease progression while taking both immune-suppressing drugs and one checkpoint inhibitor. However, after adding a second checkpoint inhibitor to the regimen, two of six patients experienced a complete response, meaning their tumors fully regressed. These results, published Jan. 22 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, have led to the initiation of a follow-up study to test a different combination of immune-based therapies in this patient population. To our knowledge, this study is the first to prospectively test whether low-dose tacrolimus (a drug used to prevent organ rejection) and prednisone can preserve a patient's transplanted kidney while also allowing immune checkpoint inhibitor-mediated tumor regression in kidney transplant recipients with advanced skin cancers. These results provide important insights into the effects of this combination of therapies on the immune system, and help us better understand how to monitor the health of the transplanted organ as patients receive these medicines." Evan Lipson, M.D., senior author and principal investigator, associate professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Kimmel Cancer Center Organ transplant recipients develop skin cancers at an exponentially higher rate compared with the general population because they receive long-term immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection of the transplanted organ. This can "lull" the immune system into not recognizing and attacking cancers as they form, says Lipson. "This is a huge unmet medical need because these skin cancers are painful, disfiguring, aggressive and frequently lethal, especially in this patient population," he says. "Ideally, we want to help a patient's immune system wake up enough to attack those cancers but not be so activated that it begins rejecting the transplanted organ." The Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network (ETCTN) trial included eight patients with advanced melanoma, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma or Merkel cell carcinoma who had previously received standard, nonimmune-based therapies or were ineligible for them. All participants had previously received a kidney transplant and had adequate kidney function when they enrolled in the study. The average time from kidney transplantation to trial initiation was 13 years. All patients agreed to undergo dialysis in the event of kidney failure caused by the treatment regimen. The ETCTN is a National Cancer Institute-funded network created to evaluate innovative cancer therapies through national, cooperative early-phase clinical trials. Participants received a standard immunosuppressive regimen of low-dose tacrolimus and prednisone. After investigators confirmed that kidney function was stable on the regimen, they added the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab, which inhibits the PD-1 protein and is FDA-approved for treating patients with melanoma and other types of cancer. All eight patients experienced progressive disease. Investigators then added a second checkpoint inhibitor, the CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab, to the existing three-drug regimen in six patients. Investigators performed tumor biopsies to assess immune response before and after receiving nivolumab. All but one initial tumor biopsy showed a near-complete absence of infiltrating immune cells, indicating that patients' immune systems were essentially inactive against the cancer. Of five biopsies taken while patients were receiving nivolumab, two showed moderate immune infiltrates, indicating that the immune system had begun to attack the skin cancer. Both of these patients later had a complete response when investigators added ipilimumab to the nivolumab. The researchers also measured donor-derived cell-free DNA levels every two weeks to study feasibility as a potential predictor of graft rejection. Donor-derived cell-free DNA is a quantitative, blood-based marker of graft rejection used to monitor graft health in the non-oncology post-transplant setting, but its utility in the oncology setting with kidney transplant recipients is largely unknown. The study did not meet its primary composite endpoint of partial or complete tumor response or stable disease without graft loss after 16 weeks. Three patients experienced treatment-related graft loss at different points during the trial. Nonetheless, Lipson considers the trial an important step forward. "The immune suppression we chose prevented nivolumab (anti-PD-1) from working at full effectiveness but didn't fully protect the kidney either," he said. "We also learned that the immune system really started attacking cancer only when we added the second checkpoint inhibitor." Another important finding, in two of the three patients whose transplanted kidneys were damaged because of the trial medications, was that donor-derived cell-free DNA levels increased 10 and 15 days before increases in serum creatinine, a measure of kidney health. "Going forward, this knowledge may help us intervene earlier and better preserve the transplanted organ, a precious resource," Lipson said. The study team has already begun work on a follow-up trial that will pair prednisone with the immunosuppressive drug sirolimus in addition to the two immune checkpoint inhibitors, nivolumab and ipilimumab, given concurrently. "The completed study introduced two checkpoint inhibitors sequentially because we didn't want to risk overstimulating the patient's immune system and harm the transplanted organ," Lipson said. "But some cutaneous tumors grow so quickly we can't wait to give a second immunotherapy drug months after starting a first." This study grew out of Lipson's pioneering work a decade ago, in which he was the first author on a pair of case reports, also published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, of organ transplant recipients being treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors for metastatic melanoma. Additional study co-authors were Kara M. Schenk, Julie Stein, Megan D. Schollenberger, William H. Sharfman, Kristin P. Bibee, Jeffrey F. Scott, Manisha J. Loss, Hao Wang, Janis M. Taube, Suzanne L. Topalian, Serena M. Bagnasco and Daniel C. Brennan of Johns Hopkins. Other researchers contributing to the work were from Bozeman Health Deaconess Cancer Center in Bozeman, Montana; Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University in Chicago; UPMC (University of Pittsburgh) Hillman Cancer Center; Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida; Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago; Clinical Skin Center of Northern Virginia, Fairfax, Virginia; and the National Cancer Institute, Investigational Drug Branch, Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program. The work was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute (grant UM1 CA186691), the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, the Marilyn and Michael Glosserman Fund for Basal Cell Carcinoma and Melanoma Research, the Mary Jo & Brian C. Rogers Fund, Moving for Melanoma of Delaware, the Barney Family Foundation, the Laverna Hahn Charitable Trust, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and the Raymond and Melody Ranelli Fund. It was an every-other-day routine, full of frustration. Every time my husband called his father, who was 94 when he died in 2022, he'd wait for his dad to find his hearing aids and put them in before they started talking. Even then, my father-in-law could barely hear what my husband was saying. "What?" he'd ask over and over. Then, there were the problems my father-in-law had replacing the devices' batteries. And the times he'd end up in the hospital, unable to understand what people were saying because his hearing aids didn't seem to be functioning. And the times he'd drop one of the devices and be unable to find it. How many older adults have problems of this kind? There's no good data about this topic, according to Nicholas Reed, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies hearing loss. He did a literature search when I posed the question and came up empty. Reed co-authored the most definitive study to date of hearing issues in older Americans, published in JAMA Open Network last year. Previous studies excluded people 80 and older. But data became available when a 2021 survey by the National Health and Aging Trends Study included hearing assessments conducted at people's homes. The results, based on a nationally representative sample of 2,803 people 71 and older, are eye-opening. Hearing problems become pervasive with advancing age, exceeding 90% in people 85 and older, compared with 53% of 71- to 74-year-olds. Also, hearing worsens over time, with more people experiencing moderate or severe deficits once they reach or exceed age 80, compared with people in their 70s. However, only 29% of those with hearing loss used hearing aids. Multiple studies have documented barriers that inhibit use. Such devices, which Medicare doesn't cover, are pricey, from nearly $1,000 for a good over-the-counter set (OTC hearing aids became available in 2022) to more than $6,000 for some prescription models. In some communities, hearing evaluation services are difficult to find. Also, people often associate hearing aids with being old and feel self-conscious about wearing them. And they tend to underestimate hearing problems that develop gradually. Barbara Weinstein, a professor of audiology at the City University of New York Graduate Center and author of the textbook "Geriatric Audiology," added another concern to this list when I reached out to her: usability. "Hearing aids aren't really designed for the population that most needs to use them," she told me. "The move to make devices smaller and more sophisticated technologically isn't right for many people who are older." That's problematic because hearing loss raises the risk of cognitive decline, dementia, falls, depression, and social isolation. What advice do specialists in hearing health have for older adults who have a hard time using their hearing aids? Here are some thoughts they shared. Consider larger, customized devices. Many older people, especially those with arthritis, poor fine motor skills, compromised vision, and some degree of cognitive impairment, have a hard time manipulating small hearing aids and using them properly. Lindsay Creed, associate director of audiology practices at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, said about half of her older clients have "some sort of dexterity issue, whether numbness or reduced movement or tremor or a lack of coordination." Shekinah Mast, owner of Mast Audiology Services in Seaford, Delaware, estimates nearly half of her clients have vision issues. For clients with dexterity challenges, Creed often recommends "behind-the-ear hearing aids," with a loop over the ear, and customized molds that fit snugly in the ear. Customized earpieces are larger than standardized models. "The more dexterity challenges you have, the better you'll do with a larger device and with lots of practice picking it up, orienting it, and putting it in your ear," said Marquitta Merkison, associate director of audiology practices at ASHA. For older people with vision issues, Mast sometimes orders hearing aids in different colors for different ears. Also, she'll help clients set up stands at home for storing devices, chargers, and accessories so they can readily find them each time they need them. Opt for ease of use. Instead of buying devices that require replacing tiny batteries, select a device that can be charged overnight and operate for at least a day before being recharged, recommended Thomas Powers, a consultant to the Hearing Industries Association. These are now widely available. People who are comfortable using a smartphone should consider using a phone app to change volume and other device settings. Dave Fabry, chief hearing health officer at Starkey, a major hearing aid manufacturer, said he has patients in their 80s and 90s "who've found that being able to hold a phone and use larger visible controls is easier than manipulating the hearing aid." If that's too difficult, try a remote control. GN ReSound, another major manufacturer, has designed one with two large buttons that activate the volume control and programming for its hearing aids, said Megan Quilter, the company's lead audiologist for research and development. Check out accessories. Say you're having trouble hearing other people in restaurants. You can ask the person across the table to clip a microphone to his shirt or put the mike in the center of the table. (The hearing aids will need to be programmed to allow the sound to be streamed to your ears.) Another low-tech option: a hearing aid clip that connects to a piece of clothing to prevent a device from falling to the floor if it becomes dislodged from the ear. Wear your hearing aids all day. "The No. 1 thing I hear from older adults is they think they don't need to put on their hearing aids when they're at home in a quiet environment," said Erika Shakespeare, who owns Audiology and Hearing Aid Associates in La Grande, Oregon. That's based on a misunderstanding. Our brains need regular, not occasional, stimulation from our environments to optimize hearing, Shakespeare explained. This includes noises in seemingly quiet environments, such as the whoosh of a fan, the creak of a floor, or the wind's wail outside a window. "If the only time you wear hearing aids is when you think you need them, your brain doesn't know how to process all those sounds," she told me. Her rule of thumb: "Wear hearing aids all your waking hours." Consult a hearing professional. Everyone's needs are different, so it's a good idea to seek out an audiologist or hearing specialist who, for a fee, can provide guidance. "Most older people are not going to know what they need" and what options exist without professional assistance, said Virginia Ramachandran, the head of audiology at Oticon, a major hearing aid manufacturer, and a past president of the American Academy of Audiology. Her advice to older adults: Be "really open" about your challenges. If you can't afford hearing aids, ask a hearing professional for an appointment to go over features you should look for in over-the-counter devices. Make it clear you want the appointment to be about your needs, not a sales pitch, Reed said. Audiology practices don't routinely offer this kind of service, but there's good reason to ask since Medicare started covering once-a-year audiologist consultations last year. We're eager to hear from readers about questions you'd like answered, problems you've been having with your care, and advice you need in dealing with the health care system. Visit kffhealthnews.org/columnists to submit your requests or tips. Equip frontline and back-office workers with ASUS digital tools to deliver the best patient experience and guarantee data security. Future-facing solutions for IT teams Be at the forefront of healthcare innovation with steadfast security and smart solutions that facilitate seamless digitalization. Image Credit: ASUS Computer International Productivity-boosting hardware for back-office staff Boost productivity with cutting-edge technology that operates as fast as you do, plus dedicated support as standard. Image Credit: ASUS Computer International User-friendly devices for healthcare workers Enhance care and reduce stress with intuitive, durable devices designed to streamline frontline tasks. Image Credit: ASUS Computer International Empower healthcare workers and elevate patient experience Advancements in patient satisfaction and clinician skill development are driven by innovation. Selecting ASUS as your technology partner will future-proof your healthcare services. $200K financial loss because of patient dissatisfaction in the United States. 1 80 % of healthcare providers plan to increase their investment in technology to deliver digital-first care. 2 62 % of clinicians have expressed an interest in working with artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools.3 Elevate patient experiences and outcomes The health of the general population has become a central focus. However, outdated technology continues to impede progress and damage confidence in healthcare systems. Smart digital tools from ASUS can improve the overall quality of care, providing a seamless healthcare experience for patients inside and outside of hospital walls. Image Credit: ASUS Computer International Empower healthcare workers User-friendly ASUS devices are designed to last and increase patient engagement. Ongoing ASUS support also boosts productivity and user confidence. Legacy hardware makes it difficult for healthcare staff to work efficiently or maintain pace innovations like telehealth, resulting in inadequate user experience and frustration. Image Credit: ASUS Computer International Enhance safety and efficiency Capturing and evaluating high-quality, real-time healthcare data is essential for improving future health outcomes. However, aper-based processes are hindering progress and causing confidentiality breaches. ASUS offers the tools to digitize data recording, storing, and sharing processes to produce more efficient and secure electronic health records. Users can gain insights to predict risk and provide an elevated level of care. Image Credit: ASUS Computer International Resources and further reading NIH, Patient Satisfaction, 2010. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3047732/ HIMSS, Future of Healthcare Report: Exploring Healthcare Stakeholders Expectations for the Next Chapter, 2021. https://www.himss.org/resources/future-healthcare-report-exploring-healthcare-stakeholders-expectations-next-chapter HIMSS, Future of Healthcare Report: Exploring Healthcare Stakeholders Expectations for the Next Chapter, 2021. https://www.himss.org/resources/future-healthcare-report-exploring-healthcare-stakeholders-expectations-next-chapter About ASUS COMPUTER INTERNATIONAL With decades of innovation experience, ASUS Business is the first choice for commerce and education, fostering communication, coordination, connectivity, creativity, and culture across both traditional and digital boundaries. We engineer always-on reliability, create agile solutions, deliver all-around support, and provide added value every time, for every business. ASUS Business does more than merely provide IT solutions and support. Were focused on achieving excellence in everything we do, so you can too. 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. Indian scientists are close to completing reference genome, with sequencing of samples from 10,000 individuals from around 99 communities already done. This means that India would now be able to build a database that could lead to gene-based remedies, and provide answers to questions on certain diseases, effectiveness of drugs and medicines. At present, the US, UK and China are the only countries that have programmes to sequence at least 1,00,000 of their genomes. The Indian scientists have also found certain variants that are indicative of several cancers and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (thickening of heart muscles) and variants that may be responsible for resistance against anti-coagulants (blood thinners) and antiviral drugs, according to a Times of India report. Union science and technology minister Jitendra Singh said genome study or sequencing will determine the future healthcare strategies across the world, both therapeutically and prophylactically. Why is Genome Sequencing Important? The analysis of 5,750 genomes has helped in identifying 135 million genetic variants in India. Prof Y Narahari, a senior scientist and Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, who is also leading the Genome project, said the data will help analyse the physical traits or disease history of population, as quoted by a Times Now report. It can also help in identifying resistance indicating variants, for examples, genes that might take certain medicines or anaesthetics ineffective in certain population. Another scientist, Prof K Thangaraj, senior scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, and project lead, as quoted by Times Now, said that India needs database specific to it because mutations found in the country might not be present globally. For example, a mutation, MYBPC3 that leads to cardiac arrest in young people is found in 4.5% of the Indian population but not globally. What is Genome Sequencing? A genome is the complete set of DNA sequences in an organism that includes embryogenesis, growth, responding to environment and healing. The human genome a map of 23 large DNA sequences (chromosomes) comprises a total of 3 billion base pairs contained within the nuclei of each cell. The complete genome sequence will be valuable for studies that aim to understand how DNA differs from person to person. According to Martin Carkett and Alexander Honkala, experts in the field, while sequence of base pairs is virtually identical in every human being, but different from a chimpanzee or a rat, subtle difference in the genome make an individual unique, as quoted by The Times of India. What is Indias 10,000 genome project? About 20 institutions across India are involved in the 10,000 Genome project with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad being the lead institutions coordinating the project. Prof Y Narahari and Dr K Thangaraj, the joint coordinators of GenomeIndia, said beyond the sheer scale of sequencing and establishing a reference genome, the creation of a biobank housing 20,000 blood samples at the Centre for Brain Research, coupled with data archiving at the Indian Biological Data Centre, exemplify the projects commitment to transparency, collaboration and future research endeavours. The data is being stored at the Indian Biological Data Centre set up by Union governments Department of Biotechnology at the Regional Centre for Biotechnology, Faridabad. Minister Jitendra Singh explained that Indias 1.3 billion population consists of more than 4,600 population groups, and many of them are endogamous. These factors have contributed to the genetic diversity of the current population. Thus, the Indian population harbours distinct variations and, often, many disease-causing mutations are amplified within some of these groups. Therefore, findings from population-based or disease-based human genetics research from other populations of the world cannot be extrapolated to Indians. Manipur Governor Anusuiya Uikey on Wednesday said that 219 people have been killed in ethnic violence in the state since May last year. Addressing the Manipur Assembly during the commencement of the budget session, she said that 198 companies of central armed police forces and 140 army columns have been deployed along with state forces to maintain law and order in the northeastern state. She condoled the deaths of 219 people in the ethnic strife and said that an ex-gratia amount of Rs 10 lakh each is being disbursed to the next of kin of the deceased after due verification. The mortal remains of the victims have been handed over to their kin and their last rites have been performed, Uikey said. The governor exuded confidence that all stakeholders and people in general will contribute towards the restoration of peaceful coexistence and brotherhood among various communities of the state. Manipur has always been and will continue to be a multi-cultural state that respects the diverse identities of the state. The government believes in taking all the people along, irrespective of their identity, in its path of development, she said. The state government has been working tirelessly under challenging circumstances to address various complex issues related to the present law and order situation following the violence that started on May 3, 2023, she said. Within the first few days (of the violence), evacuation of stranded people on both sides of the conflict was taken up on a war footing. Manipur State Transport Services transported over 4,000 students and stranded civilians to safer places, the governor said. She said that pre-fabricated houses have been built for displaced people living in relief camps and the government has also formulated a scheme for the construction and repair of permanent houses that were damaged during the violence. Basic analysis of damage assessment has been completed, she said. The governor said that students staying in relief camps have been linked to nearby schools. She said that a commission of inquiry chaired by a former chief justice of the high court was constituted by the Centre to investigate the facts that led to the genesis of the present situation. A peace committee has also been constituted to help establish peace and harmony among various ethnic groups, Uikey said. The government is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that justice is delivered to our sisters both in the hills and the valley, who were victims of sexual violence, she said. Uikey said that the government has handed over 29 cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and one to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for independent and transparent probe. She said that a peace agreement has been signed with the militant outfit United National Liberation Front (UNLF), which is anticipated to usher in a new era of peace, and encouraged other armed groups to participate in the peace process. On the Centres move to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) with neighbouring Myanmar, she said the decision was taken keeping in mind Indias internal security and demographic structure of the northeastern states. Later, the House condoled the deaths of former governor P B Acharya, former secretary of Manipur Assembly, Ningthoujam Hera Singh, and 10 former members, and observed a two-minute silence as a mark of respect to the departed souls. The budget session of the assembly will continue till March 5. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Executive Director of the World Food Program Cindy McCain has sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on the occasion of his confident victory in the extraordinary presidential election, Trend reports. "Excellency, On behalf of the World Food Programme (WFP), please accept my most sincere congratulations on your recent re-election as President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Furthermore, allow me to express my congratulations to the Republic of Azerbaijan for its appointment as host-country for the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This historic moment for the Republic of Azerbaijan represents a further opportunity to position food security, climate change, resilience-building and peace at the forefront of the global political agenda. Excellency, under your esteemed leadership, we are confident that Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan will continue to address global challenges, including the impact of climate change on food security in conflict-affected and fragile contexts. WFP stands ready to jointly work together to keep food security and climate change high on the global agenda. Accept, Excellency, the assurance of my highest consideration," the letter reads. After Hemant Soren and Arvind Kejriwal, one more top INDIA front leader is now on the radar of central investigating agencies. Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has been summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday in connection with the alleged sand mining scam of 2013. Yadav, officials said, will be confronted with the papers and evidence gathered by the agency so far. Agency officials confirmed to CNN-News18 that a notice under section 160 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) has been sent to the Samajwadi Party chief, asking him to appear before the investigating officer on Thursday. A section 160 CrPC notice means, at this stage, Yadav is being called to provide information and not as an accused. The CBI is probing allegations that illegal mining licences for sand and minor mineral mining were granted and renewed between 2012 and 2016. Akhilesh Yadav as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh held the mining portfolio in 2012-2013. What CBI Wants Akhilesh to Answer The CBI took over the probe in 2019 after an order from the Delhi High Court and carried out searches in various districts of UP and Delhi-NCR. The agency on Thursday could ask the Samajwadi Party chief about the licence that was granted to then SP MP Ghanshyam Anuragi. The Jalun premises of the alleged close aide of Akhilesh Yadav have also been searched by the CBI. The cases of alleged illegal mining were reported from seven districts of Uttar Pradesh: Shamli, Kaushambi, Fatehpur, Deoria, Saharanpur, Hamirpur, and Siddharthnagar. Agency officials said that some of the licences were granted in violation of a National Green Tribunal (NGT) order and then cancelled before the intervention of the Allahabad High Court. The CBI wants Akhilesh Yadav to clarify why the e-tendering process was not followed despite an order to this effect. The agency also wants the then UP mining minister to answer why certain licences were granted even though the Allahabad High Court had cancelled them. The Conspiracy The CBI FIR alleges that at least 11 public servants and some unnamed officials got into a conspiracy, allowed theft of minerals, and also extorted money from leaseholders. Akhilesh earlier termed the CBI probe political. The summons ahead of the Lok Sabha polls is likely to be attacked once again by the SP and its allies, who have frequently accused the BJP-led Centre of using investigating agencies as political tools. Lauding their burgeoning ties with India, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna, in an exclusive conversation with CNN-News18 during his recent visit to New Delhi, highlighted how Indian innovators could benefit by doing business in his country. Estonia has a brilliant environment for business. We have a residency programme. Anybody can become the European Union (EU) resident of Estonia, which opens a whole environment of businesses for them. Its like a gateway to the EU as well. You can open businesses within a couple of minutes, said Tsahkna. Estonia has a unique offer for Indian innovators with its ease of doing business, from fast business registration and tax filing to access to the EU market. This, coupled with Estonias e-residency programme, could provide Indian companies an unparalleled opportunity to scale globally, while benefiting from Estonias digital governance framework and tax system, he said. INDIA-ESTONIA TIES India has emerged as a powerhouse in the fintech sector, with its rapid adoption of digital payments and a burgeoning startup ecosystem. This partnership can throw a major opportunity of innovation, offering Indian startups and fintech companies a gateway to the European market through Estonias business-friendly environment. The strengthening of India-Estonia relations reflects in the fact that India opened its embassy in Tallinn in 2021. This move signified the growing importance of the partnership, not just in terms of trade and innovation, but also in defence, cybersecurity, education and the green transition. The collaboration is indicative of the broader and mutual interest of the Nordic-Baltic region and India, a relationship that is rapidly expanding across various sectors. 99% OF ESTONIAs PUBLIC SERVICES ARE ONLINE Estonia, a small Baltic nation with a population of just over 1.3 million, has positioned itself as a global leader in digital public services. With 99% of its public services online, the Minister underlined that his country exemplifies how the government and private sector can collaborate to create efficient, user-friendly systems. We have E elections or mobile elections in Estonia for years. It shows that our people trust us. The companies trust the government, meaning the data. This is a unique experience in the world. We are ready to share this with the Indian companies and the government. The digital-first approach has not only streamlined government processes, but has also fostered an environment ripe for innovation, leading to the country boasting of 11 unicorns in a population of about 1.3 million, the highest number of unicorns (start-ups valued at over $1 billion) per capita in the world. THE CHALLENGES The Foreign Minister underscored the geopolitical challenges facing the world today, notably the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. He articulated Estonias position on the matter, emphasising the importance of democracy and the rule of law. It is not just a military conflict somewhere in Europe. Russias Vladimir Putin is attacking democracies, all democracies in the world, and the world will be more divided. China is also looking very carefully at who will win this. If Putin wins, it is a sign for all, not democracies, that it is allowed to change the borders by force, he said. He further said that, We dont want to have a war. We want to have peace. We have to have good relations, so that people can live in peace. But unfortunately, there is a war and we have to support (Ukraine). The Estonian Foreign Minister also appreciated Indian humanitarian support to Ukraine during the war. India has done well the big, big job and showed the meaning of humanitarian support to friends. On February 22, India handed over the 16th batch of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, which includes diagnostic and medical equipment. Tsahkna also expressed his broader concerns about tensions in other regions such as Africa, the Middle East and the ongoing China-Taiwan situation. The Allahabad High Court recently refused to allow a protection plea filed by a Muslim married woman, who had left her husbands house voluntarily, and her Hindu live-in partner. A bench of Justice Renu Agarwal noted that the 26-year-old woman along with her five-year-old girl child had left the house of her husband without any reasonable cause and there was no document on record to show that she had obtained any decree of divorce from the court of competent jurisdiction. Hence she is still the legally wedded wife of respondent no.5 (womans husband) and she is living in adultery with petitioner no.2 (her live-in partner), the court held. Therefore, the court refused to give any direction to protect the relationship of the woman with her 25-year-old live-in partner. The court could not protect such type of relationship which is not supported by law. If the court indulges in such type of cases and grants protection to illegal relationships, then it will create chaos in the society, it said. The woman and her partner moved the high court by filing a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution with prayer for issuing writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondents (the State authorities and private parties including the womans husband) to not disturb the married life of the petitioners. The counsel for the petitioners submitted that the woman, who was a Muslim by birth, had been earlier married to a Muslim man. He alleged that the womans earlier husband was a habitual drinker and he regularly used to assault her. He claimed that when the woman informed her parents about it, they did not take any action and therefore, she left the house of her husband and started to live with her present partner. The womans counsel alleged that her earlier husband was threatening her and her present partner. He further apprised the court that the woman had moved an application before the Superintendent of Police for providing protection to their matrimonial life, but no protection was provided to them, hence they moved the present petition before the high court. On the other hand, the standing counsel for the State submitted that the womans current relationship with her live-in partner was adulterous and also being a Muslim-Hindu couple, they had not complied with the provisions of sections 8 and 9 of Conversion Act before entering into a relationship, therefore, their relationship could not be protected by law. The Court agreed with the submission and opined that such type of illegal relationship need not be protected by court and the petitioners were not entitled to get any type of protection from the high court. The court, therefore, held that petition had no force and was liable to be dismissed with cost. Accordingly, court dismissed the plea with cost of Rs. 2,000 and directed the petitioners to deposit the costs before the mediation centre of this Court within 15 days from the date of the order. Terming the arrest of former CPIM MLA Nirapada Sardar on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) filed a day before the official complaint was lodged (February 10) and the subsequent 17-day custody by Sandeshkhali police shocking, the Calcutta High Court (HC) granted him bail on Tuesday. During the hearing, Sardars lawyer appealed that his FIR was initiated on February 9, but the complaint against him was lodged on February 10 and he was arrested on February 11. It is shocking that a citizen of India is taken into custody on the basis of such police complaintThe bail petitioner points out that the complaint is dated February 10, 2024 while the first information report is dated February 9, 2024 and the police claims that they received the written complaint on February 9, 2024 at 22:10 hoursJurisdictional Superintendent of Police will submit a report as to the contents of the police diary and in particular the facts mentioned in this order, the HC said. Learned advocate appearing for the State draws the attention of the Court to the materials in the case diary, including the statements recorded under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code and the seizure list. Attention of the learned advocate for the State is drawn to the contents in the case diary, including the first few pages thereof where, the police complaint and the first information report appears, in particular, the datesLearned advocate for the State is unable to answer as to how such discrepancy appears in the case diary, the HC said. #WATCH | Kolkata, West Bengal | Advocate Sudipta Das Gupta, one of the counsels of former CPI(M) MLA Nirapada Sardar, says, "Today he was granted ad-interim bail by the Division Bench, primarily on the ground that FIR was lodged on 9th but the complaint relating to which the FIR pic.twitter.com/LNwojdwfd7 ANI (@ANI) February 27, 2024 After his release, Sardar said, My arrest was absolutely illegal. The government will have to pay for this. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Agnimitra Paul said, Despite being rapped by the court everyday, the state is not bothered. Meanwhile, Basirhat SP Mehedi Hossain said, We are enquiring the matter. It may be some human error. We will give the report. Ruling Trinamool Congresss Kunal Ghosh said, This is a court matter and we will not comment on it. The Karnataka government is invoking disaster management rules to ensure that private water tankers fulfill the water requirements of the worst-affected 110 wards in Bengaluru. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board have made it mandatory for all water tankers to be registered between March 1 to 7 so that it can fix prices for every water tank load. The government action comes in the wake of water tanker prices crossing Rs 3000 mark per tanker for the first time in the city as depleting groundwater levels have led to a crisis situation. According to the transport department, there are 3500 water tankers operating in the city. If these tankers do not register on the online platform, the authorities will seize the vehicles and will used them to supply of water free of cost in 110 villages that are suffering from the dry spell. Following several complaints of the skyrocketing prices for water tanker over the last 15 days, we have decided to regulate the industry, Tushar Girinath, BBMPs chief commissioner has said. The officials of BBMP and BWSSB said that after invoking the disaster management act, the city civic bodies will commandeer 200 private tankers to provide free water to the water-parched areas. One hundred tankers will service the 110 villages in Bengaluru urban while another 100 tankers will be used to provide water to the City Municipal council and Taluka Municipal council areas which were added to the BBMP in 2007. Sintex tanks will be filled with water by these tankers so that people can access water at regular periods and not wait for the tankers to arrive each time, they said. Another step that is also being taken is to ensure that an Assistant Engineer level officer, one from BBMP and the other from BWSSB, will be appointed as water officers in these 110 wards. Their numbers will be displayed on the website for people to reach out to them in case of any crisis, Girinath added. Deputy CM and Bengaluru Development Minister DK Shivakumar had told the legislative Assembly two weeks ago that 25 percent of the citys water needs are met by the water tankers. BBMP and the BWSSB will be holding a meeting over the next two days with all water tanker operators to decide on a mechanism to fix prices for each water tanker. We will ask them to submit their costs while we are calculating the same based on market intelligence. Any deviation from this price fixed will be penalized, Girinath said. A major fire broke out at a slum in Bhayandar area near the Azad Nagar Maidan in Mumbais Mira Road early on Wednesday morning, killing one person and leaving three persons injured. The area where the fire broke out consisted of godowns and huts and as per sources several people could be trapped inside. VIDEO | A massive fire broke out in the slum area of Bhayandar East, #Mumbai at about 4 am today. Firefighting teams at the spot. More details are awaited.(Full video available on PTI Videos https://t.co/n147TvqRQz) pic.twitter.com/q0LcZdDuG2 Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) February 28, 2024 The control room received information about the fire at around 5:30 am following which 10 vehicles of fire brigade were rushed to the spot. The reason for the blaze is yet to be ascertained. Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) Commissioner Sanjay Katkar told PTI, The Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation is trying its all to control the fire. Total 24 fire brigade teams are at the spot. I hope the fire will be brought under control in the next one hour. The occupants of huts and other residents of the locality ran out of their homes after the blaze erupted, said Katkar who was overseeing the rescue and relief work at the site. Some explosions were heard in the locality, according to sources. A charred body was found at the site and sent for post-mortem to a government hospital, MBMCs disaster management cell chief Narendra Chavan told PTI. We have got to know that two children have been injured and admitted to hospital. One of our jawans has also been injured, Katkar said. In a joint operation conducted by the Indian Navy and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), a suspicious dhow off the Gujarat coast, carrying five crew members and 3,300 kg of drugs, was apprehended on Tuesday. According to the Navy, this drug seizure, which includes 3,089 kilograms of charas, 158 kg of Methamphetamine, and 25 kg of morphine, is by far the largest in terms of quantity in recent times. All five accused, who are foreigners, have been arrested following the operation at a port in Porbandar. The NCB is scheduled to hold a press conference at 3 pm today to provide more details. The apprehended boat, crew, and contraband were handed over to law enforcement agencies on February 27 The Navy stated that the operation was initiated in response to information gathered by the P8I LRMR aircraft during a surveillance mission. Following this, the ship was diverted to successfully intercept and apprehend the suspicious dhow. The coordinated response of the #IndianNavy with Law Enforcement Agencies is reflective of our resolute stance against narcotics trafficking in #Indias maritime neighbourhood, Navy said in a social media post on X. The coordinated response of the #IndianNavy with Law Enforcement Agencies is reflective of our resolute stance against narcotics trafficking in #Indias maritime neighbourhood. SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) February 28, 2024 According to a report by PTI, the boat, claimed to be Iranian, was found to have contraband worth over Rs 1,000 crore. Acting on a specific tip-off, the operation was carried out in the Arabian Sea near the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) jointly by the Gujarats Anti-Terrorist Squad, Indian Navy, and the NCB, said an ATS official. On Wednesday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah congratulated the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police, saying that this accomplishment is a testament to the governments commitment to making India a drug-free nation. Pursuing PM @narendramodi Jis vision of a drug-free Bharat our agencies today achieved the grand success of making the biggest offshore seizure of drugs in the nation. In a joint operation carried out by the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police, a gigantic consignment of 3132 kg of drugs was seized. The historic success is a testament to our govts unwavering commitment to making our nation drug-free. On this occasion, I congratulate the NCB, the Navy, and the Gujarat Police, Shah said in a post on X. Pakistans recent shift in tactics along the border has been noticed by Indian intelligence agencies. Recent reports indicate a significant decrease in terrorist activity stemming from Pakistani border outposts in the last six months. According to top intelligence sources, Pakistani forces were earlier aiding terrorists with infiltration and tunnel construction apart from other activities. The change in behaviour seems to be a response to increased pressure and vigilance from Indian security forces. After tunnels were detected in 2021 followed by reports of terrorist activity near border outposts (BOP), Indian officials raised concerns and heightened troop readiness. This proactive stance seems to have deterred Pakistan from continuing its support to terrorist operations along the border. Sources further said Pakistani forces were involved in helping terrorists with infiltration plans, tunnel digging and other activities till June 2023. There were reports that terrorists were treating BOPs as their transit point before entering Indian sides. In 2022, there were multiple reports claiming that terrorists are trying to create tunnels with the help of Pakistani forces after the BSF detected them in 2021. A senior government official aware about the development said in September 2022, there was a report that specifically highlighted BOPs used by terrorists. Later, security forces deployed on the ground were alerted and troops were asked to be on high alert. In January 2023, another report pointed at infiltration by Pakistan-based terrorists facilitated by their forces. Launchpads moved A senior official told News18 that terror outfits have moved their launchpads, which are now away from the actual border. Due to Indias long-range surveillance system, terror outfits are trying to hide and are moving their launchpads kilometres away from the border as a safer option. Officials also said due to less snowfall this year, it will be challenging for the security forces to deal with infiltration as change in weather conditions helps terror outfits. With major projects worth a whopping Rs 1.5 lakh crore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to unveil a mega bonanza for the petroleum sector in Bihars Begusarai on March 2, News18 has learnt. The worth of projects to be unveiled by the PM on March 2 across sectors such as energy, fertilisers, infrastructure and rail connectivity will be a colossal Rs 1.62 lakh crore. Sources said these projects will bolster the nations economic growth and enhance the quality of life for citizens. ALSO READ | India to See $67 Billion Investments in Gas Sector in 5-6 Years: PM Modi In the petroleum sector, a total of total 39 projects will be inaugurated or foundation stones will be laid by PM Modi. Of the 39, the PM will inaugurate 29 projects, with a capex of Rs 89,000 crore, and lay the foundation of 10 projects with an outlay of more than Rs 60,000 crore. This substantial financial infusion is set to revolutionise the petroleum industry, accelerating advancements in infrastructure, boosting production capacities and enhancing the overall efficiency of energy distribution networks, government sources have told News18. The most important projects are the Krishna Godavari (KG) Basin project of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) as the PM will dedicate First Oil produced on January 7 this year from KG Basin and will flag first crude oil tanker Swarna Sindhu from the ONGC Krishna Godavari deep-water project to MRPL Mangalore, Karnataka. This will mark a historic achievement in Indias energy sector, promising to significantly reduce Indias dependency on energy imports. The project envisages cumulative production of 14.24 MMT of oil and 30.50 BCM of gas; at oil price of $80/bbl and gas price of $11/mmbtu, this project will reduce import dependency by $ 17.5 billion over project life cycle. The project is worth Rs 41,000 crore and is a monumental deep-water endeavour, monetising five gas and six oil fields through 26 subsea wells, drilled and completed in record depths. This project is likely to increase ONGCs total oil and gas production by 11% and 15%, respectively. Peak production of field is expected to be 45,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) and approx 10 MMSCMD of gas, adding approximately 7% to the national oil and gas production. It will also generate 2 lakh man days of employment. The second big project to be inaugurated by the PM will be the Visakh Refinery Modernization Project (VRMP) of HPCL to modernise and enhance capacity of Visakh Refinery at Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, at an investment of Rs 26,264 crore. This project embodies our Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative, with over 85% local content, generating massive employment opportunities and setting new benchmarks in innovation and sustainability. This project will produce Propylene, LPG, Naptha, MS, HSD, ATF, LDO, Bitumen, Sulphur, etc. Residue Upgradation Facility (RUF), a major part of the project is first-of-its-kind unit in India, with 93% conversion of bottom oils to value added products such as diesel and motor spirit, etc. This project would lead to 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emission per unit of crude processed due to improvement in energy utilisation due to technology upgradation and integration, a government source said. ALSO READ | India Excellent Example of Balance Between Ecology, Economy: PM Modi At COP28 The third big project will be the ONGCs Mumbai High North Redevelopment Phase IV at cost of Rs 3,977 crore, which will achieve a cumulative production gain of 4.18 MMT and 0.51 BCM of gas by 2034-35, alongside generating livelihood opportunities totalling 28,000 man days. The Heera Re-development Phase-III Project worth Rs 2,495 crore will also be unveiled by the PM, which anticipates a cumulative gain of 3.546 MMt oil and 5.82 BCM gas. The PM will also inaugurate the development of Nagayalanka Field at a cost of Rs 285 crore in Andhra Pradesh, an ONGC project that will triple oil production from 90 m3/d to a record 256 m3/d, significantly bolstering Indias energy security. The sixth big project, whose foundation stone will be laid by the PM, will be the Barauni Refinery Expansion with a completion deadline of 2024-end. The project in Bihar has been conceived to augment the capacity of Indian Oils Barauni Refinery from the current installed capacity of 6.0 MMTPA to 9.0 MMTPA, along with secondary process units, including petrochemical at an estimated cost of Rs 11,412 crore. It will set a foundation for the states first Polypropylene unit, marking a significant milestone in Bihars industrial landscape. The project will create export opportunities in neighboring Nepal through Nepal-India boarder points of Raxaul and Jogbani due to its proximity to Barauni Refinery. Nepal has a deficit of 80 KTPA of Polypropylene and is dependent on imports from India and the Middle-East. The seventh big project on the PMs table on March 2 is the foundation laying of the Panipat Refinery Capacity Expansion with a deadline of December 2025. IOCL is implementing the Panipat Refinery capacity expansion project from 15 to 25 MMTPA at an approved cost of Rs 38,231 crore. The PM will also unveil the Rs 855-crore Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy (IIPE) in Andhra Pradesh, representing a significant stride towards building a skilled workforce for the energy sector. The PM will also lay the foundation stone of Poly Butadiene Rubber plant at Panipat worth Rs 2,103 crore with a completion deadline of March 2025. The tenth big project to be inaugurated by the PM will be the Naphtha Cracker Expansion Project at Panipat Refinery worth Rs 1,636 crore. The PM will also inaugurate the PX-PTA Expansion Project at Panipat Refinery worth Rs 1,255 crore, which will contribute to increased production of essential petrochemicals domestically, aligning with the Make in India initiative, sources said. ALSO READ | OPINION | India Energy Week 2024: Its Here, Its Bigger, And Its Putting Bharat First The twelfth big project which will be inaugurated is the installation of an ethanol plant based on LanzaTech Gas Fermentation Technology, along with associated facilities at Panipat Refinery worth Rs 754 crore. The Indian Oils pioneering 3G Ethanol plant at Panipat Refinery and Petrochemical Complex utilises Gas Fermentation Technology to produce 33.5 KTPA of Ethanol from refinery off-gas. The PM will also inaugurate Railways and Fertilizer projects such as the HURL Fertilizer Plant at Begusarai in Bihar worth Rs 7,042 crore that could be a game-changer for Bihars agrarian economy. In Begusarai, a comprehensive blueprint to strengthen Bihars railway infrastructure, including the inauguration of new lines, doubling projects, and electrification, aimed at enhancing connectivity and supporting the states economic development, will also be witnessed by the people of Bihar as PM unveils various projects. India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted an intense spell of rainfall in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Odisha due to a western disturbance over the next five days. Owing to the weather system over northeast Iran and the neighborhood, rainfall in plains of northwest India can be predicted from March 1 till March 3, said the weather department on Wednesday, adding that the western Himalayan region can experience snowfall from February 29 till March 5. LATEST WEATHER UPDATES Fairly widespread to light or moderate rainfall accompanied by thunderstorms and lightning very likely over the western Himalayan region during the night of February 29 to March 3, predicts IMD. The weather department informs that thunderstorms, lightning, and gusty winds are very likely over Punjab,Haryana, Chandigarh, and Delhi. Hailstorm activity is also very likely at isolated places over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab till March 2. Hot and humid weather is very likely to prevail over Kerala until March 3. The department has also issued an orange alert for Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh region, due to snowfall expected on March 1, followed by very heavy rainfall and snowfall on March 2. The advisory also warned the residents of the union territory to avoid venturing into sloppy and avalanche-prone areas. Further, cautioned them to avoid areas prone to landslides, mudslides, and shooting stones. India recorded extreme weather events on 318 of the 365 days in the year 2023, with all states and Union territories experiencing such events on at least one day, according to a new report. These extreme weather events resulted in 3,287 human deaths, 1.24 lakh animal deaths, and damage to 2.21 million hectares of crop area, a report by independent think tank the Centre for Science and Environments State of Environment 2024 said. Himachal Pradesh recorded the highest number of days with extreme weather at 149, followed by Madhya Pradesh with 141, and Kerala and Uttar Pradesh with 119 each. Eight states recorded more than 100 days of extreme weather, the report said. (with PTI inputs) Abbas Ganbay The Israeli Embassy of Israel in Baku, together with the Azerbaijan Internal Ministry (MIA) and other law enforcement agencies, held a drill in the embassy building, Azernews reports. The Israeli Ambassador to Azerbaijan, George Deek, noted that the exercise was successful. "We are grateful to the law enforcement and security agencies of the Republic of Azerbaijan for ensuring the security of the Embassy and diplomatic staff. This joint exercise was very successful and was an important addition to our countries' strong security cooperation. Azerbaijan's commitment to the security of all diplomatic missions, including the Embassy of Israel, is clear and unwavering. We look forward to continuing to strengthen our bilateral cooperation," the Israeli diplomat emphasised. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. In accordance with the instruction of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the return of former internally displaced persons to the restored city of Lachin and the Zabukh village of Lachin district continue, Trend reports. Another group of citizens was sent from the Garadagh district of Baku on February 28. At this stage, another 20 families (78 people) moved to the city of Lachin, another four families (11 people) moved to the village of Zabukh. The resettled families will settle in the houses where they once lived in Lachin, which were restored or rebuilt on the basis of instructions from the head of state after the end of the Armenian occupation. Lachin residents thanked President Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva for their comprehensive care, expressed gratitude to the valiant Azerbaijani Army, which liberated the lands from occupation. Thus, until today, a permanent settlement in the city of Lachin has been provided for 408 families - 1555 people, and permanent residence in the village of Zabukh has been provided for 211 families - 808 people. It is economical, faster, environment-friendly and suits challenging terrains, but despite these factors, ropeways in India have not been developed to its full potential. The journey through the ropeway in India started in 1968 and, as of date, only 65 km distance is being covered through these cable cars. With the focus shifting to ropeways, a number of projects are underway at various stages and at least eight of these are expected to be ready by 2026. While presenting the 2022-23 Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the National Ropeways Development Programme on PPP mode. Currently, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways looks after the development of ropeways. Last month, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had said that more than 200 projects at a cost of Rs 1.25 lakh crore have been identified. According to the documents accessed by News18, at least 30 projects, with a collective length of 120 km, are under various stages. Under the National Ropeways Development Programme, the government not just aims to connect difficult, challenging and sensitive terrains, but also congested urban areas, where conventional mass transit systems are not feasible. INDIAS FIRST URBAN ROPEWAY PROJECT Indias first urban ropeway project is coming up in Uttar Pradeshs Varanasi. This will also be the first completed project under the programme. Connecting Varanasi Cantt and the busy and crowded Godowlia Chowk, this ropeway will allow tourists, pilgrims and residents of Varanasi to have easy movement between the railway station and the Kashi Vishwanath temple. The travel time will come down to just 16 minutes from the current 45 minutes. In March 2023, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of this passenger ropeway with an estimated cost of Rs 650 crore and it is expected to be ready by March 2025. This nearly 4-km route will have a monocable detachable gondola with 29 towers. It will have five stations, including Vidhya Peeth, Rath Yatra, and Girja, and can carry nearly one lakh passengers per day. DHOSI HILL ROPEWAY PROJECT The next project, which is expected to be ready by December 2025, will be in Haryana from Kultajpur Village to Dhosi hilltop in Mahendragarh. The journey, with two stations nearly 900 meters apart, will reduce the travel time to just three minutes from the current one hour. Based on bi-cable jig back technology, this ropeway will carry more than 5,000 passengers per day. The hill is an ancient Vedic site and an extinct volcano. SANGAM ROPEWAY PROJECT In January 2026, the ropeway in Uttar Pradeshs Sangam is expected to be ready. This 2-km-long bi-cable detachable gondola ropeway will operate between Shankar Viman Mandapam and Triveni Pushp in Prayagraj and will carry around 30,000 passengers each day. Currently, the distance between the two points takes 30 minutes to cover, but with the ropeway, it will be just seven minutes. ROPEWAY FOR MAHAKALESHWAR, KAMAKHYA & BIJLI MAHADEV By July 2026, three projects, all connecting temples, are expected to be ready. One will be for Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga in Ujjain, another will be in Assam for Kamakhya temple. Himachal Pradeshs Bijli Mahadev temple will also be getting ropeway connectivity by July 2026, Ministry documents show. The ropeway for Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga will start from Ujjain railway station and will connect Triveni Museum and Ganesh Colony, covering nearly 2km. The monocable detachable gondola will be able to carry around 65,000 passengers per day and ease the journey for pilgrims by reducing the travel time from 20 minutes to just six. The ropeway in Assam will connect the Kamakhya temple and the Kamakhya railway station. This nearly 2-km monocable detachable gondola will help decongest the road between the two destinations. It will be able to carry more than 20,000 passengers per day. For Himachal Pradeshs Bijli Mahadev temple, trekking is the only mode available not feasible for all. With a new 2.5-km ropeway, the journey that takes over an hour will be completed in just seven minutes. The monocable detachable gondola will start at Nature Park in Mohal and will offer a panoramic view of the Kullu Valley. KATHGODAM-HANUMAN GARHI PROJECT The authorities are aiming to complete the Kathgodam-Hanuman Garhi temple ropeway connectivity in Nainital in Uttarakhand by September 2026. This 15-km ropeway will have six stations and will carry about 60,000 passengers per day. ROPEWAY FOR SHANKARACHARYA TEMPLE By December 2026, the Shankaracharya temple in Srinagar will also get ropeway connectivity that will reduce the travel time to just five minutes from the current 30 minutes. It will not just ease the journey but will also offer a panoramic view of Dal Lake. ROPEWAY FOR KEDARNATH & HEMKUND SAHIB Among the other projects that may take a little longer, but are critical include the Gaurikund and Kedarnath ropeway project. It is expected by 2029 and will reduce the travel time to around 30 minutes from the current eight hours. This nearly 10-km route will have a total four stations and will carry 36,000 passengers per day. The tri-cable detachable gondola will provide the much-needed last mile connectivity to Kedarnath. Ropeway connectivity to Hemkund Sahib will be another important project that will reduce the travel time from Govind Ghat to just three hours from the current three days. Expected in 2029, this 12-km ropeway will have the potential to carry 22,000 passengers per day. The development of ropeways has huge potential in India. Building ropeways involves lower land acquisition costs and is economical than other modes. The Calcutta High Court grants permission for a fact-finding team to proceed to Sandeshkhali after being initially prevented from doing so. Earlier they were arrested, following which the team had requested for intervention from the Court. The court on Wednesday also directed that Trinamool Congress leader Shajahan Sheikh, the main accused in sexual atrocities on women and land grabbing at Sandeshkhali, can be arrested by the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) or the West Bengal Police. On a prayer by the states advocate general, the court clarified its order of February 26 in which it had ordered the arrest of Sheikh by the police authority. In connection to the case, a division bench presided by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam clarified that the court in its February 7 order had only stayed the constitution of a joint special investigation team (SIT) of the CBI and West Bengal Police by a single bench to probe an attack on ED officials. ED officials were attacked by a nearly 1,000-member strong mob at Sandeshkhali in West Bengals North 24 Parganas district on January 5 when they went to search the premises of Sheikh in connection with its probe into an alleged ration distribution scam in the state. On Mondat, the Calcutta High Court added absconding Trinamool Congress (TMC) strongman Shahjahan Sheikh, the main accused in sexual assault and land grab allegations from Sandeshkhali, as a respondent in a suo-motu case registered by the court. The high court said there was no order stopping Bengal Police from arresting Sheikh. (with agency inputs) In Uttar Pradesh, tractor-trolleys are fast turning into killing machines. The Kasganj tragedy, which left 23 including women and children dead on February 24, is a glaring example that highlights the apathy of the state transport department and the police in ensuring the implementation of directives prohibiting the use of tractor-trolleys for commuting purposes. The illegal use of tractor-trolleys in UP has claimed more than 70 lives in the last two years and the numbers are on the rise. Their cries went silent In Kasganj, the tractor-trolley was carrying at least 54 pilgrims when it fell into a pond near Gadhai village. Police said the incident took place around 10 am on the way to the Ganga river, where the pilgrims were going to take a holy dip on Magh Purnima. Some eyewitnesses called it the most tragic sight of their lives. It is tough to be described in words. It all happened in seconds. We first heard a loud noise, after which the tractor-trolley lost control and went straight into the pond before getting overturned. On hearing cries, we rushed to the site for rescue but the trolley could not be lifted and the people stuck beneath gradually went silent. People died in front of us and we couldnt do anything. The scene will be etched in my mind forever, said Ajay Gupta, a local resident. Lost my son on his mundan Out of the many who died, a majority were from Banar, Kheriya and Rorhi villages in Kasganj district. We were going to celebrate my sons mundan, along with my wife Sapna, mother Pushpa Devi and grandmother Shakuntala on the banks of Ganga. I had never imagined that this will turn out to be the last day of their lives, said an inconsolable Gaurav Singh, who lost his son, mother, wife and his grandmother in the incident. A look at accidents before Kasganj The Kasganj incident is not the only such to be reported in the state. In 2022, a similar and major accident took place in Ghatampur area of Kanpur district. At least 26 people were killed as the vehicle carrying 50 people fell into a pond near Saad village. Heres a list of recent tractor-trolley accidents in UP: February 2024: Earlier this month, too, two people were killed and more than 20 injured as a tractor-trolley carrying 26 people fell into a ditch near Shuklapur village in Hardoi district. August 2023: In Saharanpur district, nine people were killed as a tractor-trolley carrying 50 people overturned in the high current of the Dhamola river in Tajpura area. June 2023: Three people were killed as a tractor-trolley carrying more than 20 people for a marriage procession overturned in a pit along the road near Van Bishanpur village in Chandauli district. April 2023: Another tractor-trolley tragedy struck 12 people on their way to Garra river, who were killed when the vehicle overturned near Birsinghpur village in Shahjahanpur district. Decoding the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 S Mohammed Lawyer, a senior advocate with the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, while expressing concern over the issue said there is an urgent need to amend the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. It is a matter of great concern that tractors are still considered light motor vehicles (LMV) and come within the purview of the definition of LMV as defined under Section 2(21) of the act. It states that light motor vehicle means a transport vehicle or omnibus the gross vehicle weight of either of which or a motor car or tractor or road-roller the unladen weight of any of which, does not exceed 7,500 kg. However, by no means does a tractor fall in the LMV category and, hence, the driving licence for it under this category, is flawed. Driving a tractor mandates a higher skill set, warranting a proper and thorough test, he said. Tractor-trolleys meant for carrying agricultural material only Also, according to the act, tractor-trolleys are not meant for carrying people. The MV Act 1988 in its section 2(b) states that agricultural tractor means any mechanically propelled four-wheel vehicle designed to work with suitable implements for various field operations and/or trailers to transport agricultural materials. Agricultural tractor is a non-transport vehicle, the lawyer said. He added: It further states that the agricultural trailer means a trailer generally left uncovered with single/double axle construction, which is coupled to an agricultural tractor by means of two hooks and predominantly used for transporting agricultural materials. What does the UP Motor Vehicle Rules, 1998 say? The Section 172 of the Uttar Pradesh Motor Vehicle Rules, 1998, states that no trailer manufactured in India and intended to be used as a transport vehicle shall be registered unless its design is approved by the transport commissioner. The section deals with locally manufactured trailers, their specifications and design. The sub-rule 4 of the same section adds that the transport commissioner may, by notification, publish in the official gazette, lay down standards, design, specifications, and calculations in respect of all or any particular type of trailer. No trailers registered against 18.5 lakh agricultural tractors in UP Transport department officials said most of the time, the registration is often not secured for these trailers from the regional transport office (RTO). Data shows that at least 580 trailers are registered for commercial purposes in the state against 10,400 commercial tractors. When it comes to agricultural tractors, the situation is even worse. The state does not have a single trailer registered for agriculture despite having 18.5 lakh agricultural tractors. Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has made an appeal to people not to travel in tractor-trolleys. After the 2022 accident, he had directed officials to ensure that tractor-trolleys or trucks were not used for travel. He had also appealed to people to strictly follow safety standards, as travel by tractor-trolley and truck was unsafe. Besides, he had also called a high-level meeting of the state home and transport departments on road safety. Soon after that, directions were also issued to superintendents of police across the state to coordinate with district magistrates, gram pradhans and panchayat secretaries to publicise the dangers of travelling in tractor-trolleys. However, nothing much has been done since. We have launched a statewide drive to raise awareness on not using trailers for commuting purposes in order to avoid Kasganj like tragedies in future, said additional transport commissioner (road safety) Pushp Sen Satyarthi. Its because of the tractor-trolley I lost four family members. I appeal to people not to travel in tractor-trolleys, which are also the cheapest mode of transport available in the rural pockets. I humbly request the UP government to introduce an adequate mode of transport in the rural parts, so that such accidents can be averted, said Gaurav Singh. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has been summoned as a witness by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for questioning in the illegal mining case. According to sources, Yadav has been asked to appear before the central agency in Delhi on Thursday, February 29. The CBI has issued the notice to the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister under Section 160 of CrPC, allowing the police to summon witnesses during the probe. The Samajwadi Party chief has been summoned in connection with the CBI FIR lodged in January 2019, in connection to the alleged illegal mining in Hamirpur between 2012-2016. What is The Illegal Mining Case About? The case dates back to 2012 when Akhilesh Yadav was holding Uttar Pradeshs mining department. The irregularities came to notice after cases of illegal mining were reported from seven districts of Uttar Pradesh Shamli, Kaushambi, Fatehpur, Deoria, Saharanpur, Hamirpur and Siddharthnagar. It was alleged that several government officials were allocated some illegal mining sites between 2012 and 2016 when Akhilesh Yadav was the Chief Minister by flouting rules and regulations. The CBI in its FIR filed in 2019 also alleged that the mining rights were given in violation of NGT orders. As per the FIR, the illegal mining caused a loss to the states coffers. It was also stated that the officials misused their position to take undue advantage of the states resources. The CBI in its FIR also revealed that the government servants, in criminal conspiracy with each other, illegally granted fresh leases, renewed existing leases and permitted obstructed periods for the existing leaseholders, without following a tendering procedure. Why Akhilesh Yadav has been Summoned? The agency stated that SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who held the mining portfolio between 2012 and June 2013, had cleared 14 leases in violation of the e-tendering process. In 2019, the CBI conducted raids on the premises of some Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leaders in connection with the illegal mining case. The central agency was subjected to massive criticism by Akhilesh Yadav and other Opposition parties who accused the BJP government of misusing the probe agency for political gains. A Delhi court on Tuesday reserved its order on whether to frame charges against former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in a sexual harassment case filed against him by women wrestlers. Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Priyanka Rajpoot of Rouse Avenue Court heard the submissions made by the complainants, the Delhi Police, as well as the accused, including former WFI official Vinod Tomar, and reserved the order for March 15. Tomar, a suspended assistant secretary of WFI, was also named as an accused in the case. During the proceedings, both the complainants and the police asserted that there was sufficient evidence to proceed with a trial against the accused individuals. The Delhi Police opposed the argument put forth by the accused, claiming that since some incidents occurred overseas, they fall outside the jurisdiction of Delhi courts. The police contended that the alleged instances of sexual harassment, attributed to Singh, both overseas and in India, including Delhi, constitute part of the same offence. On the other hand, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh sought to be discharged from the case, citing a delay in reporting the alleged offence and contradictions in the statements of the complainants. Singhs counsel argued that while the incidents were purported to have occurred in 2012, they were not reported to the police until 2023. Inn January, the Delhi Police urged the court to frame charges against the BJP MP and former WFI chief in a case of alleged sexual harassment of women wrestlers. Put up for arguments on the point of charge on behalf of complainant on 20.01.2024 at 2:00 PM and 23.01.2024. Date and time is given at joint request of counsels of both parties, the ACMM had ordered. In July 2023, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Harjeet Singh Jaspal of the Rouse Avenue Court granted bail to Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and Tomar. The Delhi Police filed a charge sheet against Singh on June 15 under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), 354D (stalking), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC. Tomar was charged with offences under sections 109 (abetment of any offence, if the act abetted is committed in consequence, and where no express provision is made for its punishment), 354, 354A, and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC. In April last year, seven wrestlers approached the Supreme Court seeking the registration of an FIR against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh over allegations of sexual harassment. A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud issued a notice to the NCT of Delhi in the plea. The apex court also allowed the petitioners to submit additional documents before it in a sealed cover in the case. The top court then directed the Commissioner of Police (Delhi) to adequately assess the threat perception with respect to the alleged minor girl victim in the sexual harassment case and thereafter make necessary security arrangements. The 71st Miss World pageant is scheduled to take place in India at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. This prestigious event will be held on March 9, 2024, where the current titleholder, Karolina Bielawska of Poland, will pass on her crown to her successor. India will host the competition post a 28-year hiatus. In February of last year, Julia Morley, the chairperson of the Miss World Organization, initially announced that the competition would be held in the United Arab Emirates. However, the decision was later changed, and the Jio World Convention Centre was selected as the new venue for the event. Representing India at this prestigious contest this year is Sini Shetty, a Mumbai native with ancestral roots in Karnataka. As the excitement rings up around the much-awaited event, here are some facts about the Indian representative: Sini Shettys roots Sini was born and raised in Mumbai, Maharashtra, with ancestral ties to Karnataka. Her upbringing in Mumbai and her strong connection to Karnataka have shaped her identity, blending traditional values with modern aspirations. Sinis family has been a pillar of support throughout her journey, nurturing her passion for dance she pursued from a young age. Professional dancer She is a trained dancer and completed her Arangetram in Bharatanatyam at the young age of fourteen. She has learned Bharatanatyam under the legendary classical dancer Radhakrishnan Padmini. Academic journey Sinis academic journey led her to graduate from St. Dominic Savio Vidhyalaya in Mumbai and pursue a bachelors degree in accounting and finance. Currently, she is furthering her education in the professional program for Chartered Financial Analysts (CFA). Inspiration Sini is inspired by the words of actress Priyanka Chopra, who famously said, Dont try to squeeze into a glass slipper. Instead, shatter the glass ceiling, she told Hindustan Times in an interview. Beauty pageant journey Sinis journey to the Miss World stage began with her participation in Miss India 2022, where she represented Karnataka and won the title of Miss India Karnataka. Her success continued with accolades such as Miss Talent and Times Miss Body Beautiful during the Miss India 2022 sub-competitions, solidifying her position as a standout contestant. Working for social causes Despite her rising fame and success in the beauty pageant world, Sini remains grounded and focused on giving back to society. Her efforts to collaborate with Teach India and other NGOs through her Beauty With A Purpose (BWAP) project, Aashayein, demonstrates her commitment to making a meaningful difference in the lives of others. As the 71st Miss World pageant approaches, all eyes are on Sini Shetty as she prepares to represent India on the global stage. With her blend of traditional values, academic excellence, and social consciousness, Sini embodies the spirit of a modern Indian woman who is poised to make a mark on the world stage. Science and technology are the engines that drive progress, and India boasts a rich legacy of exceptional scientific minds who serve as role models for generations. Through their groundbreaking discoveries, these individuals have propelled India onto the global stage, earning widespread recognition. One such luminary is Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, popularly known as CV Raman. His remarkable discovery, the Raman Effect, not only earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics but also cemented his place in scientific history. Every year, on February 28, India commemorates this momentous occasion as National Science Day. Extending his greetings on the occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and shared a video on Indias achievement in the field of science and technology. Greetings on National Science Day. Our Government is continuously working to encourage research and innovation among the youth. This is important to realise our dream of a Viksit Bharat. pic.twitter.com/48jmnnDc4j Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 28, 2024 Greetings on National Science Day. Our Government is continuously working to encourage research and innovation among the youth. This is important to realise our dream of a Viksit Bharat, PM Modi posted. NATIONAL SCIENCE DAY 2024: 10 QUOTES BY CV RAMAN Ask the right questions, and nature will open the doors to her secrets. The essence of the scientific spirit is to realize what a wonderful world it is that we live in. Science is a source of endless possibilities; it all depends on our willingness to explore and experiment. Science is a continuous journey; there is always something new and exciting to discover. True knowledge is gained not through rote learning, but through curiosity and the desire to explore. The best scientists are those who believe in the potential of their ideas, even when the world doubts them. Science should not be confined to the four walls of a laboratory, but should seep into all aspects of our lives. It is not enough to see beauty; one must also understand the scientific principles behind it. Science is a language that transcends boundaries; it is a universal tool for understanding the world. Every great discovery begins with an idea, nurtured by the passion to delve deeper into the unknown. HAPPY NATIONAL SCIENCE DAY 2024: WISHES AND MESSAGES TO SHARE Happy National Science Day! May your passion for science lead you to new discoveries and inspire others to marvel at the wonders of the universe. Wishing you a day filled with excitement, exploration, and enlightenment as we celebrate the power of science to shape our world for the better. Happy Science Day! Lets continue to ignite curiosity, foster innovation, and unlock the mysteries of the cosmos together. On this special day, may your love for science burn brightly, illuminating the path to a future where knowledge knows no bounds. Happy National Science Day! Heres to the dreamers, the thinkers, and the tinkerers who push the boundaries of whats possible through their dedication to science. Wishing you a day filled with inspiration and discovery, as we celebrate the brilliance of those who dedicate their lives to unraveling the secrets of the universe. Happy Science Day! May your experiments be fruitful, your hypotheses bold, and your passion for discovery unyielding. On this National Science Day, lets renew our commitment to advancing knowledge, fostering innovation, and using science for the betterment of all. Wishing you a day filled with the joy of exploration and the thrill of discovery, as we celebrate the incredible achievements of science past, present, and future. Happy National Science Day! Heres to the dreamers who dared to ask why? and the visionaries who answered with how. May your journey in science be as rewarding as it is enlightening. NATIONAL SCIENCE DAY HISTORY: THE RAMAN EFFECT In 1928, CV Raman made a groundbreaking discovery: the Raman Effect, also known as Raman scattering. This phenomenon involves the inelastic scattering of photons by matter, meaning they exchange energy and change direction. This remarkable achievement earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. To commemorate this scientific triumph, the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC) proposed to the Indian government in 1986 that February 28 be designated as National Science Day (NSD). This proposal was accepted, and since then, India has celebrated NSD annually on this date, recognizing the importance of scientific progress and honouring its brilliant scientific minds. NATIONAL SCIENCE DAY: SIGNIFICANCE The day serves as a reminder of the significant contributions of Indian scientists to the world of science. It encourages curiosity and interest in science among students and young minds, fostering the next generation of scientific innovators. The day also raises public awareness about the importance of science in our daily lives and its role in achieving societal progress. National Science Day 2024: Frequently Asked Questions Why do we celebrate National Science Day? National Science Day is celebrated in India to commemorate the discovery of the Raman effect by Indian physicist Sir CV Raman on February 28, 1928. This groundbreaking discovery earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930, making him the first Indian to receive a Nobel Prize in science. The day serves as a reminder of the importance of science and its potential to improve lives. What is theme of National Science Day 2024? The theme for National Science Day 2024 is Indigenous Technologies for Viksit Bharat. This theme emphasizes the importance of developing and utilizing indigenous technologies for sustainable development and nation-building. What is the conclusion of National Science Day? National Science Day strives to ignite a continuous spark of curiosity and enthusiasm for science within the community, ultimately contributing to a future driven by scientific advancements. When is National Science Day celebrated in India? National Science Day is celebrated in India on February 28. Whose birthday is celebrated as National Science Day? National Science Day is not the birthday of any individual. Its specifically dedicated to commemorating the discovery of the Raman effect by CV Raman, not his birthday. Rakul Preet Singh was one happy bride and her smile in the dreamy wedding pictures said it all. Every function and ceremony celebrated by the power couple Rakul and Jackky Bhagnani exuded love and togetherness. After sharing a couple of images from their wedding and sangeet on social media, Rakul posted a series of fun-filled moments from their mehendi ceremony hosted in Goa. The vibrant hues of hot pink filled the colourful soiree with lots of love and laughter. For Rakul, incorporating her culture and roots into her look was paramount. As a Sikh Punjabi girl, we drew inspiration from the beautiful world of phulkari to craft a truly enchanting ensemble, expresses fashion designer Arpita Mehta, who designed the one of a kind statement piece for Rakul. Reviving the traditional art form phulkari, the outfit designed for Rakul featured a toasted orange and pink ensemble, adorned with geometric floral phulkari motifs Bringing the vibrancy to her overall look was the elaborate hand-embroidered cape, complemented by a corset blouse and a pleated skirt. Blending classic traditions in modern silhouettes has always been Arpita Mehtas style and she seamlessly celebrated both in Rakuls mehendi attire. The intricate embroidery work took a total of 680 hours to complete. The lehenga features phulkari-inspired embroidery using a combination of pink-orange sindhoori thread mixed with golden Kasab and cutdana, along with mirror work, adding a touch of opulence and cultural richness to Rakuls attire. Our intention was to create a stunning ensemble perfect for a mehendi ceremony, infusing the richness of our heritage with contemporary flair. We dedicated months to perfecting this custom look, meticulously sampling embroideries, and conducting mock trials to ensure every detail was flawless, says Arpita, adding, This outfit not only celebrates Rakuls heritage but also showcases craftsmanship and innovation, making it a truly unique and memorable creation for her special occasion. Styled by celebrity fashion stylist Ami Patel, Rakuls minimal yet stunning makeup was done by Salim Sayed and her traditional long braid was styled by hair stylist Aliya Shaik. Her hairstyle was adorned with polki motif hair pins, a floral veil wrapped around the braid, and a floral maang tika. Taking to Instagram, Rakul Preet Singh went on to thank Arpita Mehta for designing the opulent piece. She wrote: Adding colour to my life. Thank you @arpita_mehta for designing the most beautiful outfit, reviving phulkari and adding your magic to it. Rakul further thanked fashion designer Kunal Rawal who had designed Jackkys mehendi outfit. She said: Thank you @kunalrawaldstress for capturing the mood of the occasion so well through your outfit. Couldnt have asked for better. The fashion world has been abuzz as BLACKPINKs Rose made her presence felt at the Saint Laurent Fall/Winter 2024-2025 show in Paris on February 27, 2024. Her stylish airport fashion and mesmerising runway appearance were a hit among fans and fashion enthusiasts alike. During the YSL showcase, Rose sat alongside renowned figures like Lily Collins and Kate Moss. Apart from the divas attire, it was her interaction with Moss that stole the spotlight, with the supermodel praising Roses significant influence. Moss shared an anecdote about meeting Rose in Los Angeles, mentioning to a friend seated nearby that a photo with the K-pop star had helped her friend gain almost one million followers on social media. This conversation was captured on video and quickly went viral, showcasing Roses global impact. In the video, Kate Moss introduces Rose to English actress Charlotte Rampling, recalling a past meeting in Los Angeles and complimenting the BLACKPINK member on her pleasant demeanor. Watch the video here: This is Rosie. My friend took a picture with her (rose) and posted it and she got like a million followers that day.She's a very sweet girl -Kate Moss to Rose ROSE AT YSL WW24 SHOW#ROSExSaintLaurent #ParisFashionWeek @YSL pic.twitter.com/Ae8mMbvw9o rose files. (@roseannefiles97) February 28, 2024 After the videos of Roses interactions with celebrities went viral, fans took to social media to commend her impeccable style and polite demeanor, further solidifying her reputation as a global fashion icon. Fans, aware of Roses worldwide influence, were delighted to see her receive recognition from a fashion icon like Kate Moss. A fan expressed their excitement, saying, They know the main event. ROSE with Lily Collins, Zoe Kravitz, Kate Moss, Charlotte Lawrence & Talia Ryder at the Saint Laurent Womens Winter Paris Fashion Week Event. She literally has so many girlfriends, wrote another. ROSE with Lily Collins, Zoe kravitz, Kate Moss, Charlotte Lawrence & Talia Ryder at the Saint Laurent Womens Winter Paris Fashion Week Event. She literally has so many girlfriends ! ROSE AT YSL WW24 SHOW#ROSExSaintLaurent #ParisFashionWeek pic.twitter.com/xNr7apQMJ6 RoseOfficial (@ForeverRoseanne) February 27, 2024 Australian Queen and English Queen ROSE AT YSL WW24 SHOW, read another comment. A viewer also had an adorable reaction to how Kate Moss addressed Rose. A comment read, Kate moss calling rose rosie. kate moss calling rose rosie pic.twitter.com/dwhPNuBePe rose (@rosespics) February 27, 2024 For Paris Fashion Week, Rose embraced the sheer theme of Saint Laurents collection, stunning in a see-through dress that highlighted her bold and gorgeous fashion sense, earning praise from her admirers. Rose has been a brand ambassador for the luxury French fashion house since 2020, consistently displaying her impeccable style and cementing her status as a fashion icon. Barun Sobtis mesmerising portrayal in the Amazon Mini TV series Rakshak Indias Braves is captivating audiences. This marks his first collaboration with TV actress Surbhi Chandna. The patriotic drama which was released on February 22, depicts the courage and sacrifice of our nations heroes. In a recent interview with a prominent media outlet, Barun and Surbhi shared some interesting insights. The actor also revealed the daunting challenge of shooting in extreme temperatures for the show. During a candid chat with Pinkvilla, when asked about punctuality on set, Surbhis playful reaction drew laughter. However, Baruns response was more introspective. He said, It was such a difficult shoot with that respect. Physically demanding, and the actions you are doing at such an altitude. Our location was always two to two and a half hours away. We used to start at 4:30 and 5 in the morning with the drive, so there was no scope for getting late. Aur temperature -7 tha. Upon hearing this, Surbhi mentioned she wasnt part of that schedule so she didnt know. Then Barun remembered shooting a scene when it was -3 degrees. Surbhi gasped, realising how tough it must have been. And it was so breezy. I was dying that day, Barun added. Rakshak Indias Braves: Chapter 2 delves into a saga inspired by real-life events, highlighting the unwavering dedication of patriots who sacrificed everything to safeguard India. It stands as a testament to the courage, commitment, and indomitable spirit of every Rakshak toward their nation and its people. This series marks Surbhi Chandnas debut on OTT platforms, while Barun Sobti adds another noteworthy project to his repertoire. In the series, Barun essays the character of Junior Commissioned Officer Naib Subedar Sombir Singh, while Surbhi plays the role of his wife. On the work front, Barun is set to grace the OTT screen with his presence in the upcoming TV series Raat Jawan Hai alongside Anjali Anand. The show promises to be a modern and quirky exploration of contemporary societal issues. Additionally, fans can anticipate another exciting project as Barun will also appear in the TV series Donali, which features actors Divyendu Sharma and Chunky Pandey in pivotal roles. Meanwhile, Surbhi Chandna is immersed in wedding preparations, set to exchange vows with her longtime beau Karan R Sharma on March 2. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. The majority of water flowing into Azerbaijan through the Kura river is polluted by neighboring countries, Chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliament Committee on Natural Resources, Energy, and Ecology Sadig Gurbanov said during the public hearings on the topic Water management in the country: problems and new challenges, Trend reports. "Georgia accounts for 62 percent of the South Caucasus' total water resources, Armenia for 28 percent, and Azerbaijan for 10 percent. The average annual surface water reserves are 32.3 billion cubic meters. The Kura river is the primary source of drinking water for the people of Azerbaijan," the Committee Chairman noted. He also said that most of the water flowing to Azerbaijan through the Kura river is formed on the territory of Georgia and Armenia. "Unfortunately, neighboring countries continue to pollute these seas. Armenia and Georgia have yet to join the International Convention on Environmental Protection. Azerbaijan is a signatory to 17 international conventions on this subject, including the Convention on the Protection of Transboundary Waters. The Araz river contributes a small portion of our freshwater supplies, but it is also contaminated by Iran and Armenia. The Samur river, which flows from the north from the territory of Dagestan to Russia, does not fulfill the requirements," Gurbanov emphasized. The Committee Chairman noted that according to forecasts, by 2040, river water availability is likely to decrease by 1525 percent on average in the territory of Azerbaijan. "By 2070, this figure is expected to be 2025 percent. Another factor causing water scarcity in our country is the growing water demand. Thus, while in agriculture, one million ha of land area was planted in 2010, in 2020, this figure will reach 1.7 million ha. In other words, the area of land sown for irrigation has generally increased by more than 70 percent. One more factor is associated with water loss," he added. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel One of the most popular Hollywood couples, Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk might have broken up a few years back; but, one thing that remains constant throughout the ups and downs of their relationship is the love for their daughter Lea. The Hangover actor started dating Irina Shayk in 2015 and welcomed their first and only child together, daughter Lea De Seine Shayk Cooper in 2017. While the actor has always focused on keeping his daughter out of the media spotlight, he never refrained from expressing his fondness and love for his little angel. Recently, Bradley Cooper opened up on how becoming a father helped him sort out his life. During his recent appearance on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, the multi-talented Cooper shared how fatherhood has profoundly impacted his life. He also revealed the feeling that he would not have been alive if not for his daughter. I just needed someone to say, like, Were gonna drop this massive anchor. Im like, Why? Were speeding! I just got an upgrade on the boat, and I know where the winds coming in. Theyre like, No, no, no, theres a tsunami coming in, and you need an anchor and were gonna drop it. Because this is gonna dictate everything you do from now on. Your DNA is going to tell you that theres something more important than you, the Maestro actor said. He admitted that he was quite confused after his daughters birth, only to later realise his love for her. I dont even know if I really love the kid. Its dope. Its cool. Im watching this thing morph. All of a sudden, its like no question, Cooper explained. I always dreamt of a daughter: Bradley Cooper Notably, this is not the first time the actor-director-producer has spoken about his daughter. The 48-year-old Cooper once told NPR that having a daughter was something that he had always dreamt about. On the other hand, Shayk in an old interview with ELLE in November 2023 was seen praising Cooper as a father. Hes the best father Lea and I could dream of. It always works, but it always works because we make it work, she told the outlet. Recently, Cooper was also seen stepping out with his six-year-old at the premiere of Maestro, in which little Lea plays young Jamie Bernstein. Lea looked adorable as she joined her daddy on the red carpet, posing for pictures. Surprise collaborations can often shake up the music scene, but few anticipated this one: Salman Khan teaming up with DJ Dimitri Vegas. The latest social media post from the renowned DJ has sparked speculation about a potential collaboration between the two. Taking to social media, Dimitri Vegas, one half of the beloved Belgian-Greek DJ duo Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, shared a snapshot featuring himself alongside Bollywood icon Salman Khan. Both sported beaming smiles as they posed for the camera, with Salman in a gray t-shirt and DJ Vegas in casual black attire. With a caption that read, Amazing times reuniting with the legend @beingsalmankhan. Yall aint ready for whats coming, it seems a thrilling collaboration might be on the horizon for their next project. Check out the post here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dimitri Vegas Thivaios (@dimitrivegas) The moment the post hit social media, fans of the duo erupted in excitement and speculation. Some were taken aback by the unexpected collaboration, while others eagerly speculated about their next project. Unexpected collab alert! exclaimed one user while another commented, Were not ready for this! Speculation ran wild, with one user guessing, Could we see Bhaijaan @beingsalmankhan x @dimitrivegas at the Tomorrowland Mainstage? Even the joint account of Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike couldnt resist joining the conversation, commenting, Amazing times with amazing friends. During their performances at the Sunburn Festival in Goa back in 2022, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike expressed their eagerness to immerse themselves in Indias rich culture and savor its delightful cuisines. Returning to India is always a delight, surrounded by its enchanting aura. Were excited to connect with our fans and unveil our latest music. Their response means everything to us, shared DJ Vegas in an earlier interview with Hindustan Times. The multi-talented DJ, who also ventures into acting, expressed a keen interest in collaborating with various Indian artists. Were open to exploring new partnerships with artists from every corner of the globe. We hold immense respect for icons like AR Rahman, Zakir Hussain, and Anoushka Shankar, he said. Additionally, DJ Vegas revealed his close bond with Salman Khan and his aspiration to venture into one of his movies. Personally, I find the prospect of acting quite exhilarating. Its a path Im actively pursuing. Following my debut as the lead in the movie H4Z4RD and a cameo in the final installment of Jurassic World: Dominion, Im eager for more. Given my strong relationship with Salman Khan, I dream of gracing the silver screen in one of his films, he expressed. On the work front, Salman Khan was last seen in the film Tiger 3. According to the reports, the actor is working with the director Vishnu Vardhan for his next film The Bull, backed by Karan Johars Dharma Productions. Siddharth Anands aerial-action thriller film Fighter recently hit theatres and impressed audiences across the country. Featuring stars like Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, and Anil Kapoor in the lead roles, the film also had a new entry in the role of the antagonist who left fans pretty curious. Actor Rishabh Sawhney in the villainous character of Azhar Akhtar truly sent chills down the spine of the viewers. The actor who made his debut in Bollywood with the Siddharth Anand film recently opened up on his experience of sharing the screen with superstars. In a conversation with Filmygyan, Rishabh was all praise for his co-star Deepika Padukone, recalling how the actress humbly greeted his mother at the films premiere. Speaking about Deepikas sweet gesture, the actor said, She had met my parents before. So she asked where my parents were. She immediately went and hugged my mom. She lovingly greeted my parents. Rishabh further also shared that he was impressed with Deepikas humble behaviour and humility towards his parents. View this post on Instagram A post shared by F I L M Y G Y A N (@filmygyan) Prior to this, the actor in another interview was seen heaping praise on his Fighter co-star. Noting that he wanted to do a scene with Deepika, Rishabh said, I did not tell this to Siddharth Anand but I wanted to do a scene with her. Because I dont know when I will get a chance to work with her again, hopefully soon. I didnt say it but it was there in my heart like at least I should get a small scene, like a passing shot with her, he said back then. Rishabh also shared how Deepika praised him for his performance as the villain Azhar Akhtar in Fighter. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rishabh Sawhney (@rishabhsawhneyyyy) For the unversed, Rishabh Sawhney who was seen having a tough face-off with Hrithik Roshans character Shamsher Pathania aka Patty began his journey as a model, and has also walked the ramp for several fashion designers. While Figher marks his big screen project, his acting debut was marked in 2021 with Nikkhil Advanis period drama series The Empire. About Fighter Directed by Siddharth Anand, Fighter features actors Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Anil Kapoor, and Karan Singh Grover in prominent roles. The film revolves around a group of Indian Air Force officers who fight deadly terrorists in the wake of the Pulwama attack and incidents leading before and after the incident Besides Hrithik in the lead role of Shamsher Pathania aka Patty, Deepika was seen as Squadron Leader Minal Rathore aka Minni, and Anil Kapoor as Group Captain Rakesh Jai Singh aka Rocky. Actor Anya Taylor-Joy made a surprising appearance on the red carpet for Dune: Part Two, confirming long-standing rumours of her casting in the highly anticipated project. Director Denis Villeneuves decision to keep Taylor-Joys casting a secret until the last minute was intentional, as he revealed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Villeneuve described it as an experiment to test Hollywoods gossip-driven nature and see how long the secret could be kept. We did it. It was a special unit, we went to Africa to shoot with Anya under super-secrecy. I just loved the idea of keeping something a surprise for the audience until the very end; it was like a gift I wanted to keep for the fans, Villeneuve confirmed to the portal. Although Taylor-Joys role in Dune: Part Two may be brief, essentially serving as an uncredited cameo, her characters significance in the overall mythology of Dune will be more pronounced in future installments. Villeneuve has expressed interest in adapting the second Frank Herbert book, Dune Messiah, into a movie, which would give Taylor-Joys character a more substantial role. However, he shared that he isnt rushing to bring that project to life. There is absolutely a desire to have a third one, but I dont want to rush it. The danger in Hollywood is that people get excited and only think about release dates, not quality, Villeneuve explained to The Times of London. The first part of this saga, Dune: Part One released in October 2021 and narrates the story of a young man, Paul Atreides (played by Timothee Chalamet), who is destined for greatness yet is unaware of the monumental destiny that awaits him. He takes on a journey to the most dangerous planet in the universe. Dune: Part Two, according to its official website, will explore the journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. It is set to hit theaters on March 1st. Dune: Part Two includes Zendaya, Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Lea Seydoux, with Stellan Skarsgard, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem. Denis Villeneuve directed from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts based on Frank Herberts iconic novel. Kajol and Kriti Sanon will be sharing screen space in Do Patti. Well, the actress on Wednesday sent fans into a frenzy after she dropped a major hint about the upcoming film. The actress took to her official account to share a video snippet that has left followers buzzing with excitement, speculating about the details of Sanons latest project. Taking to her Instagram handle, Kajol shared a video in which she is seen reacting to the sound of Netflix. She says, Kya hoga next. She did not reveal anything in the caption but fans were quick to react and guess. They wrote Do Patti in the comment section and mentioned they were excited. Excited Excited a comment read. Another fan wrote, Wowww super super excited Dopati on the way very soon thank you so much, @kajol cant wait to see our beautiful girls on screen @kritisanon @kanika.d and our super Hero @shaheernsheikh. Watch the video here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kajol Devgan (@kajol) Last year, Kriti Sanon announced her first film as a producer. She took to her Instagram handle to share the first photo featuring her, Kajol along with others. Taking to her Instagram handle, the actress shared the photo featuring Kajol and wrote, Thrilled to announce DO PATTI! Alongside 3 very strong-headed, inspiring and immensely talented women Monica, we couldnt have found a better platform than Netflix to tell this story! @netflix_in Superrr duperr excited to reunite with Kajol maam after 8years! @kajol. Kanika Ive always loved your writing & Im so happy to be co-producing my first with you! Ufff.. this is a special one! @kanika.d @kathhapictures. This one is gonna be a thrilling game with a lot of heart! A first for Blue Butterfly Films @bluebutterflyfilmsofficial Do Patti marks the debut of writer Kanika Dhillon and the talented actor Kriti Sanon as producers. The film is set to take viewers on a thrilling suspense-filled ride like never before and transport audiences to the mesmerizing hills of North India, which serve as a stunning backdrop for the mystery and intrigue to unfold. Besides a riveting storyline, the film is peppered with commercial, exciting music. The official staff for the Korean Parasyte live-action series, titled Parasyte: The Grey, announced on Wednesday, February 28, 2023, that the highly anticipated show will premiere on April 5, 2024, exclusively on Netflix. Along with this announcement, a captivating new key visual featuring the main character has been unveiled. Based on Japanese manga artist, Hitoshi Iwaakis renowned series Parasyte: The Grey is set to captivate audiences with its gripping storyline and dynamic characters. The original manga, which ran from 1989 to 1994, garnered praise for its intricate character development and profound philosophical themes, interwoven with elements of body horror and dark humour. Over the past decade, the series has been adapted into a successful TV anime, as well as two live-action movies that received critical acclaim and accolades in Japan. Parasyte: The Grey will explore the chilling tale of mysterious parasitic life forms that descend upon Earth from outer space, seeking to seize control by inhabiting human hosts. The story follows Jeong Su In, portrayed by Jeon So Nee, who becomes a victim of one of these parasites. However, when the parasite fails to take over her brain, she embarks on a bizarre coexistence with it. Goo Kyo Hwan will co-star as Seol Kang Woo, who embarks on a mission to track down parasites in search of his missing sister. Renowned director Yeon Sang Ho, known for his work on the iconic zombie film Train to Busan and the hit Netflix series Hellbound, will lead the helm of Parasyte: The Grey. He will collaborate with Money Heist: Korea Joint Economic Area writer Ryu Yong Jae to craft a compelling script that stays true to the essence of the original manga while bringing a fresh perspective to the narrative. The newly released key visual showcases the enigmatic spores of the parasites descending upon Earth, ultimately leading to diverse transformations in humans. At the centre of the visual is Su In, whose face is half-transformed, with the parasite inside her emerging like a tentacle. This striking image has piqued the curiosity of viewers, who eagerly anticipate how the symbiotic relationship between humans and parasites will unfold. Parasites are hidden amongst us.Parasyte: The Grey, based on the manga by Hitoshi Iwaaki, premieres April 5. Directed by Yeon Sang-ho (Hellbound, Train to Busan) and starring Jeon So-nee, Koo Kyo-hwan, and Lee Jung-hyun. pic.twitter.com/Xkp2BDQkGd Netflix (@netflix) February 28, 2024 Director Yeon expressed his excitement for the project, stating to Yahoo, In my twenties, Parasyte was a staple for those of us who were passionate about manga and animation. In addition, he said that it is a huge honour and a dream come true for him to be able to build on it and create something new. The author of the manga, Hitoshi Iwaaki, was quoted by Outlook sharing his enthusiasm for the Korean adaptation, I am most excited that this is a new story. While I am the author of the original manga, I could also be a member of the audience that experiences thrill and awe. I am overjoyed that another grandchild is being born in Korea. I believe that this new story taking place in a different location will lead us into a world beyond my imagination. Raj Kundra has opened up about what his actress-wife Shilpa Shetty and their kids went through when he was in jail in connection with a pornography case in late 2021. He recalled how his son Viaan had an emotional breakdown when the actor-businessman had to spend his 47th birthday in jail. Viaan asked whats happening, so Shilpa told him there are hundreds of questions dad has to answer. Once he does, he will be back Viaan was 10. Shilpa spoke to someone at his school, god knows what parents were telling their children. He is a rock solid kid. He would draw something and send it to me with a letter in jail. He would write papa missing you, come back soon, finish your work,' Raj told Hindustan Times in an interview. He continued, The first two-three weeks he (Viaan) was fine. Then on my birthday, September 9, 2021, I heard a choke in his voice, and he broke down. I remember sobbing. Aur jail aisi jagah hai the moment you let your guard down, they make fun and take advantage of you. Chaadar leke rona padta hai (One cries under a bedsheet). For Viaan, I am his hero. Viaan knew his dads company was on his name, I would do no wrong. For him, its like a bad dream. Raj Kundra and Shilpa Shetty got married in 2009. They have two kids togetherViaan and Samisha. Raj Kundra was arrested in July 2021 in connection with alleged creation and uploading of pornographic films on mobile applications. He was granted bail after almost two months. Later in 2022, Kundra wrote to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claiming that he was innocent and it was all personal vendetta of a businessman who connived with police officers to get him arrested. Kundra had also requested the central agency to probe the case and had further claimed that he was framed by the senior officers of the Mumbai Crime Branch. Taapsee Pannu has refused to comment on reports claiming that she will marry her longtime boyfriend Mathias Boe in March this year. On Wednesday, the actress argued that she has not shared any information regarding her personal life ever and will never do it either. I have never given any clarification regarding my personal life and I never will, the Dunki actress told India Today. For more info: Taapsee Pannu BREAKS SILENCE On Reports of Marriage With Boyfriend Mathias Boe: I Have Never Telugu actress Sowmya Janu has come under fire after she was seen assaulting a traffic police officer in Hyderabad. A video of the same has now gone viral. It has been reported that the official on duty had stopped her for taking the wrong route. In a video surfaced on X, previously known as Twitter, Sowmya was seen hurling abuses at the police official and tore his clothes. For more info: Telugu Actress Sowmya Janu Manhandles Policeman, Hurls Abuses and Rips His Clothes; Video Goes Viral Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant will be hosting their pre-wedding festivities this weekend in Jamnagar. Ahead of the celebrations, the paparazzi stationed in Jamnagar have shared photos and videos of the venue where the star-studded bash will take place. The property, known as Reliance Greens, is located in Gujarats Jamnagar. The photos revealed that a massive structure has been built to signal the entrance of the property. For more info: Anant Ambani, Radhika Merchant Pre-Wedding Bash: FIRST Video of Reliance Township in Jamnagar Out Vicky Kaushal believes Hrithik Roshan is the last person he can relate to in terms of stardom and popularity. In an interview with GQ India, he discussed the differences in stardom between iconic actors like Dilip Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. Regarding his own career, Vicky admitted he hasnt achieved that level of stardom yet and thinks it will be much harder for his generation to attain. For more info: Vicky Kaushal Says Hrithik Roshan Was Last Person To See Stardom: Now We See A Star Every Week Raj Kundra has opened up about what his actress-wife Shilpa Shetty and their kids went through when he was in jail in connection with a pornography case in late 2021. He recalled how his son Viaan had an emotional breakdown when the actor-businessman had to spend his 47th birthday in jail. For more info: Shilpa Shettys Son Broke Down After Raj Kundra Spent 47th Birthday in Jail: Chaadar Lekar Rona China-Taliban relations have taken an interesting turn with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) recently recognising an envoy from Taliban-led Afghanistan in Beijing. In an official ceremony, Bilal Karimi, a former Taliban spokesperson was recognised by Beijing as the official Taliban envoy to Beijing and received his credentials, making China the first country to do so since the Talibans takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. However, instead of recognising this as Beijings official recognition of the Taliban regime, its foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin described it as a normal diplomatic arrangement. Since the Taliban takeover, no country has given the radical Islamist groups government a formal recognition. The Taliban regime has continued with its radical policies that have been reflected in the imposition of new laws on women. The international isolation and non-recognition faced by the Taliban is primarily due to its repeated human rights violations. However, China, even though falling short of official recognition, has been engaging with the Taliban even prior to its takeover of Kabul in August 2021. It is important, therefore, to look into the strategic interests that govern the China-Taliban relations. During the first Taliban regime (1996-2001), China maintained its relations with the Taliban, although it did not give diplomatic recognition as sought by the Taliban. During this time, China sought assurance from the Taliban that it would not provide Afghan territory as a base for terrorist attacks on China. Despite the official non-recognition, delegations from China visited Kabul and delivered shipments of arms and spare parts to Afghanistan via Pakistan and Chinese telecommunications firms such as Huawei and ZTE. China, for long, kept its distance from Afghan affairs. Though it covertly supported Americas War on Terror in Afghanistan, it also increased its engagements with Taliban following the then-US President Barack Obamas announcement of ending US combat missions in Afghanistan in 2014. This engagement with the Taliban was driven mainly by Chinas long-term security concerns related to the ETIM or TIP, which Beijing designates as a terrorist organisation. ETIM, whose aim is to establish an independent (and Islamic) Uyghur state in western China, had set up its base in Afghanistan in 1998, during the Taliban regime. Notwithstanding the official recognition of the Western-backed transitional administration in Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, Beijing continued to nurture its ties and increased the intensity of the engagements from 2014 onwards. This was reflected in Chinas proactive role in mediation between the former Afghan government and the Taliban. Interestingly, China managed to be a gainer in the mediation by ensuring that it has access to whosoever forms the government. Chinese engagement was extended to peacekeeping efforts between Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2017, as the relations between the two neighbouring countries sharing controversial borders deteriorated. Chinese intervention led to China-Afghanistan-Pakistan, a trilateral dialogue, the same year. Besides the security concerns that emerged with the US announcement of its withdrawal in 2014, Beijings overt engagement in Afghanistan also emanated from Xi Jinpings aim to realise his dream of national rejuvenation of the Chinese kingdom, whereby China would assume the role of a global power. Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, overthrowing the civilian government. Since then, the new regime has been struggling to receive official status and global recognition from foreign countries. However, taking into account the Talibans radical and brutal history and the unending, especially targeting the women, countries across the world have shown their reluctance in giving their formal recognition to the Taliban. At the time when foreign countries were closing down their diplomatic missions in Kabul following the Taliban takeover, China remained one of the few exceptions (others are Pakistan, Russia and Iran) that continued to keep its diplomatic mission in Afghanistan. In fact, the regime, designated by the United Nations as terrorists, has faced backlash from the international community, involving the freezing of its central bank assets and imposition of international sanctions that have further contributed to the Talibans international isolation and Afghanistans economic woes. However, China took a differing position compared to other countries with respect to the Taliban. Just a month prior to the Talibans takeover, Beijings foreign minister and senior officials met the Taliban in Tianjin, Chinas northern city, and described it as an important military and political force in Afghanistan whereby it was expected to play an important role in the countrys peace, reconciliation and reconstruction process. In this high-profile meeting, Beijing also emphasised the need for the Taliban to ensure that Afghan territory is not used as a base for militants to launch attacks on China, in exchange for Chinas offer of economic and investment assistance in Afghanistans reconstruction. Going a step ahead, China was among the first countries to insinuate its openness to the Taliban regime by expressing its desire to deepen friendly and cooperative relations with Afghanistan, after the fall of the Afghan civilian government in August 2021. Following the Taliban takeover in 2021, Beijings involvement in Afghanistan was mainly in providing humanitarian assistance and Covid-19 vaccines. It also lobbied for the removal of sanctions on Kabul and the unfreezing of its foreign assets by the West. Beijing reiterated its policy of non-interference, during Foreign Minister Wang Yis surprise visit to Afghanistan in March 2022 and expressed Chinas position that it respects the independent choices made by the Afghan people, respects the religious beliefs and national customs of Afghanistan, and never interfered in Afghanistans internal affairs. This gave a clear indication of Chinas disregard for the rising human rights violations and sufferings of Afghan citizens, within their own country, orchestrated by the Taliban regime. Chinese engagement with the Taliban regime witnessed a further boost last year through the bilateral exchanges and the agreements reached between the two authoritarian regimes. In January 2023, the Taliban received its first foreign direct investment by signing a 25-year multimillion-dollar oil extraction contract with China, which contains an investment of $150 million per year, that would go up to $540 million over the next three years. In April, Beijing clarified its position on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan which indicated its willingness to do business with the Taliban to enhance its economic and security interests. Stability in Afghanistan is not only significant for China for ensuring security from separatist attacks but its geostrategic location is extremely significant for Beijing to realise its vision of the String of Pearls underlined in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Project. It agreed to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to Afghanistan in May 2023. Beijing is eyeing Afghanistans raw minerals and natural resources and economic rewards for Beijing can be only possible via regional connectivity through BRI and Taliban ensuring security in the border region. Thus, Beijing facilitated the Taliban regimes involvement in what it considers as BRIs flagship project. China became the first country to name its new ambassador to Taliban-led Afghanistan, its new envoy Zhao Xing presenting his credentials at a ceremony in Kabul in September last year. The following month, Beijing invited the Taliban to attend the third BRI forum, attended by 130 countries held in Beijing where discussions were held on the extension of CPEC to Afghanistan and on plans regarding the construction of roads via the Wakhan corridor in the northern part to provide China direct access to Afghan territory. In future, the Taliban-led Afghanistan would provide support to Beijing to achieve its economic and strategic goals via the BRI project. However, the rest of the world is concerned over such blatant disregard for human rights violations and radical Islam by China. The strengthening of the Taliban regime and its nexus with China have greater implications for regional and global security concerns. The writer is an author and columnist and has written several books. His X handle is @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. After almost four years since it was passed by Parliament, the BJP-led central government on Monday implemented the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) widely touted as Modis lifeline for all persecuted non-Muslims against Islamist persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The development came after Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Modi government will enforce the law by notifying its rules of application ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, scheduled to take place in the coming months. The CAA seeks to fast-track citizenship to persecuted non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who have sought refuge in India before December 31, 2014. The exclusion of Muslims caused rights activists and Opposition parties to accuse the Modi government of being anti-Muslim. The constant references to India turning into a Hindu Pakistan led to weeks of rioting between late 2019 and early 2020, forcing the NDA to put the law on the back burner. Now, with the government notifying the CAA rules, expect another round of socio-political tumult. The usual suspects have already re-ignited the campaign of calumny. But before the fire spreads and sparks unrest, it is vital to preemptively set the record straight. Lets examine the first claim that the Citizenship Amendment Act is anti-Muslim and specifically anti-Indian Muslims. While theres no denying that the CAA keeps Muslims out of its ambit, the law doesnt apply to Indian citizens Muslims or otherwise. The CAA only fast-tracks the citizenship of non-Muslim Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh citizens who have been residing in India prior to December 31, 2014. These refugees will get their citizenship on a priority basis if they can establish that they have been living in India for six years. All other categories of foreigners must establish they have been living in India for 12 years. Second, no Muslim is debarred from seeking refuge from prosecution in India under the CAA. In fact, during the last six years, approximately 2830 Pakistani citizens, 912 Afghani citizens, and 172 Bangladeshi citizens have been given Indian citizenship. Most of them are Muslims. Third, the law is not targeted against Muslims. Lets not forget that while the CAA overlooks Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, it also leaves out Hindus: Tamils in Sri Lanka and Hindu Rohingyas (a minority within a minority) in Myanmar. In other words, the CAA is about securing human rights and not discrimination against a religion. The Left ecosystem also forgets that preferential treatment has also been dished out earlier under Indian law. Indira Gandhis regime denied full citizenship rights to Pakistani Hindu refugees but extended that right to refugees from Bangladesh and those cast out by Idi Amins Uganda in 1972. Fourth, the argument that the NDA is making a mockery of Article 14 is also not conclusive. The Supreme Court has cited the doctrine of reasonable classification that allows the State to treat different persons differently if circumstances justify such treatment. Most social justice legislations in India guaranteeing reservations to backward communities positively discriminate between various classes of people. While the reasonable classification created by the CAA is being tested in the Supreme Court, it bears reminding that Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had also thought up a CAA-like scheme. Nehru had reportedly written a letter in 1949 to Assams first Chief Minister, Gopinath Bordoloi, asking him to absorb refugees from east Pakistan (as Bangladesh was known then) adding that he (Bordoloi) would have to differentiate between Hindu refugees and Muslim migrants. It is astonishing that when the Modi government has adopted Nehrus philosophy in letter and spirit, the ideological Left, that includes the Congress party, is hypocritically painting the NDA as communal. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. A delegation led by the Deputy Minister of National Defense of Turkiye Suay Alpay visited the Military Institute named after Heydar Aliyev of the National Defense University during a working visit to Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense said, Trend reports. The guests first visited the monument to National Leader Heydar Aliyev in front of the Military Institute headquarters building, as well as the Memorial Complex devoted to the institute's personnel who were martyred in the 2020 second Karabakh war, where they left flowers and honored their glorious memory. The guests were also briefed on the military institute's history and primary activities, as well as the work done in the sphere of military education and future plans between the two fraternal countries. In the institutes museum, the Turkish delegation got acquainted with a photo stand reflecting the Great Leader's life and political activities, as well as signed the Book of Remembrance. The guests also inquired about the progress of the cadets' educational process. At the event held in the assembly hall of the Military Institute, the memory of great leaders Heydar Aliyev and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as well as martyrs, was honored by observing a minute of silence. The national anthems of Azerbaijan and Turkiye were performed. The speakers at the event highlighted the fight of our brave and fearless sons for freedom during the period of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the development of Azerbaijani-Turkish relations based on historical roots and brotherhood, the importance of these ties for the entire Turkic world, as well as the support provided by fraternal Turkiye to the internationally recognized territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. In the end, a joint photo was taken, and the sides exchanged gifts. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The world is practically on fire. If the war in Ukraine had not wreaked enough havoc on global supply chains, the conflict in West Asia and the resultant impact on Red Sea shipping lanes is adversely affecting the trade calculations of a host of countries. India is not particularly insulated to the crisis, and yet, it is persevering rather remarkably. Indias exports rose to a three-month high of 3.12% to $36.92 billion in January, despite global uncertainties, including the Red Sea crisis, while the trade deficit narrowed to a nine-month low of $17.49 billion. However, that is not the story we want to focus on. 2023 was an important year for India. As the country seeks to become a manufacturing and export hub and offer the biggest alternative to China, it was able to successfully diversify its export markets and enter previously untouched territories. That is the story we will focus on. According to an analysis by the Commerce Ministry, Indias exports of goods like automobiles and gold jewellery have ventured into uncharted territories of Central Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. India last year managed to penetrate into absolutely new markets. These are regions where it did not see any export during April-December 2022. Cut to the same period in 2023, and Indias exports of certain principal commodities such as motor vehicles, two- and three-wheelers, petroleum products, sugar, gold and other precious jewellery recorded a significant rise. Exports of these commodities to the absolutely new markets during April-December 2023 stood at $234 million as against nil shipments during the same period of 2022. According to an official, A comprehensive examination of country-wise exports underscores a notable diversification of markets for Indias merchandise exports, characterised by the exploration of new export destinations, in spite of strong global headwinds with subdued performance globally. Expansion of exports and diversification into newer markets are the two broad themes India appears to be pursuing in its trade policy. Together, exports to these markets capture 5% of Indias total exports of 42 principal commodities to the world. These commodities span across 16 important sectors of Indias export basket, the official added. In these fresh markets, where exports were previously minimal or non-existent, Indias share of certain items surged to $2.17 billion during April-December 2023. The items include ceramics and related products, aluminium and its products, two- and three-wheeled vehicles, iron and steel products, electric machinery, and equipment. The Ministrys analysis has also revealed that the export of two- and three-wheelers has penetrated 31 new markets or countries, amounting to a total exported value of $110 million during the April-December 2023 period. Likewise, in the promising markets encompassing North and South America, Europe and Africa, where the countrys outbound shipments of these goods previously accounted for less than 1%, Indias export volume surged to $8.6 billion during the first nine months of this fiscal year. Indias entry in the Nordic-Baltic region in Europe is particularly noteworthy. Over the past five years, Indias exports in this part of the world have increased by over 39%. Exports to Finland and Norway alone have grown by over 100% and 80% respectively. Similarly, Indias exports to Australia saw a 14% year-on-year jump to $5.87 billion in the first eight months of current financial year (April-November FY24) on the back of the two countries signing what is largely seen as a favourable free trade agreement (FTA). Also, between January to July in 2023, at least 48 commodities saw significant increase in exports. These include moulding machineries, beverages, cereals, fruits, vegetables, drugs & pharmaceuticals, leather, marine products, fertilisers, iron ore, cosmetics and toiletries, and inorganic chemicals. INDIA: A GLOBAL EXPORT HUB IN THE MAKING Indias New Foreign Trade Policy has set an ambitious goal for 2023. By then, India wants its exports to breach the $2-trillion mark. For perspective, India exported goods and services worth $770.2 billion in 2022-23. India must target an export growth rate of about 15% if it wants to fulfil the goal of exporting $2 trillion worth of goods and services by 2030. In 2022-23, exports jumped by 11.3%, in what came as a much-needed silver lining after a decade of extremely slow export growth. It would not be an overstatement to suggest that India is now entering its golden years in the export business. Last year, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global consulting firm, revealed in its research that between 2018 and 2022, Indias exports to the US had increased by 44%, while Chinas had declined by 10%. Meanwhile, Indias monthly steel exports hit an 18-month high of 1.1 million tonne in January due to increased demand from the European Union and supportive global prices. Also, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights, Indias export of wind turbine components in 2023 nearly doubled in revenue terms compared to 2019. The growth in the solar sector is staggering. Indian solar exports rose 227% year-over-year (YoY) to $1.8 billion in 2023 from $561 million in 2022. The cumulative growth in wind and solar exports show India is successfully heading towards the direction of becoming a global manufacturing hub for renewable energy equipment. India also plans to go big on defense exports. New Delhi now realises that real power and influence comes with a strong economy that can withstand global challenges and an equally robust military-industrial base. Speaking recently at the Firstpost Defence Summit, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said Indias annual defence production is expected to touch a whopping Rs 3 lakh crore and exports of military hardware is poised to reach Rs 50,000 crore. Exporting defence equipment and weapons systems will place India solidly in the worlds big boys club. The significance of India finding new export markets for its goods cannot be stated enough. This strategy not only reduces dependency on specific markets, but also enhances Indias competitiveness and contributes to economic development. A good example to highlight the importance of exploring new markets would be Russia, which was able to divert much of its fuel supplies to Asia despite sanctions and embargos by the West, effectively keeping the Russian economy on a strong footing. Indias entry in new markets also marks its ascendance as a trade power that interacts with the larger global south on a priority basis, and is keen at developing trade ties with this part of the world. Exporting goods and services to a diverse basket of countries will help India cushion the impact of any and all adverse situations that a-particular country or region may be going through. That is a good strategy to have for a country that is eyeing the global superpower status for itself. The Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments (Amendment) Bill, 2024 has stirred up a huge controversy. It has reopened the debate on the states power to regulate Hindu religious places. Temples serve not only as places of worship but also as centres of education. For centuries, the Hindu dharmic identity has been closely intertwined with temples. These sacred spaces not only fostered learning but also provided platforms for discussions and debates. The annual temple festivals attracted many devotees and facilitated cultural exchange and interpersonal connections. The presence of merchant guilds around the temples further contributed to prosperity through trade. Contrary to the colonisers claims of illegal and illicit activities, temples played a pivotal role in shaping our peoples identity and served as the first unifying force under the banner of Hinduism. In his seminal work Essentials of Hindutva, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar explains Hindu dharma as the conclusion of conclusions arrived at by harmonising the detailed experience of all the schools of religious thought Vedic, Sanatani, Jain, Budh, Sikh or Devsmaji. Each one and every one of those systems or sects, which are the direct descendants and development of religious beliefs, Vedic and Avedic, that obtained in the land of Sapthasindhus or in the other unrecorded communities in other parts of India in the Vedic period, belongs to and is a part integral of Hindu dharma. Every philosophical tradition that emerged in ancient Bharatavarsha is part of Hinduism. This demonstrates the inclusivity of the culture and civilisation to which we belong with pride. Some narratives were constructed by westerners and our colonisers to associate only the Vedic beliefs with Hinduism. This was done to sow seeds of division within our society and to facilitate the implementation of divide and rule for governing our nation. Over time, Abrahamic religions that arrived in our region adopted our customs. Except for a few that have started proselytisation, the rest have gradually integrated into our Hindu way of life. This is what has contributed to the greatness of our civilisation. Despite being a society known for its openness, Hindu society has faced numerous attacks from the colonial government throughout history. Even after gaining independence, when the state had the authority to abolish the British-era rules that imposed regulations on Indias temples, it chose not to do so. The colonisers had learned from past experiences and understood that to control the intellectual minds of India, it was crucial to gain control over their religious institutions. They couldnt employ the methods of destruction used by the Mohammedans in the past but instead opted for a more institutionalised approach. This line of thinking led to the enactment of Madras Regulation VII of 1817, which marked the earliest intervention by the colonial government in regulating our religious sites. This regulation vested the power of superintendence of all temples into the hands of the Board of Revenue. Thus, the British East India Company not only ran the government in India but also had a role in the management of our temples. The temples were required to appoint local agents to monitor their expenses who were under the control of the EIC. Despite Hindu leaders repeated complaints about the ineffectiveness of this regulation, it was eventually repealed after 46 years. In its place, the Religious Endowments Act 1863 (Act XX of 1863) was enacted, which introduced the establishment of local committees to oversee the temples. The members of these committees were appointed for life. However, this act also proved to be ineffective. Even during the struggle for independence, the Justice Party, instead of opposing the control of the state in the management of temples, brought another regulation in its place. The Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Act of 1927 established the Madras Hindu Religious Endowments Board and appointed executive officers to temples. However, instead of promoting a devotee-centric management approach, the state began to assert more control over the temples. Following independence, the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act of 1951 was introduced, creating a Department of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments led by a commissioner and supported by a hierarchy of officials. This department was empowered to oversee the secular affairs of Hindu temples and Mutts. The traditional system of hereditary employees was abolished, and a new structure defining authority, duties, and responsibilities at different levels was implemented, leading to the landmark Shirur Mutt case. The obligation of religious establishments to remit an annual tax to the government is outlined in Section 76 of the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act of 1951. According to 76(1) of this Act, In respect of the services rendered by the Government and their officers and for defraying the expenses incurred on account of such services ever religious institution shall from the income derived by it, pay to the Commissioner annually such contribution not exceeding five per centum of its income as may be prescribed. The court ruled that the term religion encompasses all rituals and practices that are essential to a religion. It also took on the responsibility of determining which practices are essential and non-essential. The Shirur Mutt Case involved a dispute regarding Section 76 of the legislation, which allowed the government to impose an annual contribution on religious institutions. The main issue was whether this contribution should be considered a fee or a tax, in light of Article 27 of the Constitution. Article 27 ensures that individuals are not compelled to financially support any specific religion or religious denomination through taxes. It upholds the principle of religious neutrality and prohibits the use of public funds to promote a particular religious belief or institution. The purpose of Article 27 is to maintain a secular state where the government remains impartial towards all religions and does not favour or endorse any particular religion using public funds. It ensures that taxpayers money is not used to support any specific religious agenda, thus safeguarding religious freedom and equality for all citizens. The court reasoned that taxes imposed on Hindu religious institutions could be considered valid under the Constitution, as long as the taxes were not used to promote the religion from which they were collected, but rather for a public purpose. This ruling had a significant impact on Hindus in constitutional India. In this case, Section 76(1) of the Act was declared void because the provision for the payment of an annual contribution was deemed a tax, not a fee. As a result, the Madras State Legislature did not have the legislative authority to enact such a provision. Therefore, this ruling did not invalidate the taxation of Hindu temples, but rather only questioned the legislative competence of the Madras government. Tamil Nadu temple trusts currently possess more than 478,000 acres of temple land. The Tamil Nadu government alone oversees 36,425 temples and 56 mutts. In Karnataka, the number stands at 34,563. The Dewaswom Boards of Kerala are in charge of managing over 3,058 temples. It is estimated that the Tamil Nadu government earns over Rs 6,000 crore annually from the 2.44 crore square feet of temple land under its control. Temple management by the state has evolved into a significant business and revenue generation model. The Kerala government has achieved a remarkable income of Rs 147 crore from the sale of Aravana and over Rs 17 crore from the sale of appam at the Sabarimala temple during this festive season. However, no steps have been taken to enhance the basic infrastructure for pilgrims. Chief ministers of southern states have collectively urged Keralas chief minister to urgently improve infrastructure for pilgrims. Despite the increasing income generated by temple management, only a small portion is being utilised for the welfare of pilgrims. The Karnataka government has introduced an amendment to the Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act of 1997 in response to the growing discontent over the mismanagement of temples by the state. This amendment aims to modify Section 17 of the original act, proposing a tax of 10 per cent on the gross income of institutions with earnings exceeding Rs 1 crore, and five per cent on those with incomes between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore. However, this move may conflict with Article 27 of the constitution, based on the principles established by the Supreme Court in the Shirur Mutt case. The government argues that the funds collected through this taxation will be used for the maintenance of temples. They also mention that these taxes shall be utilised for uplifting the economic status of priests, improving the condition of C-grade temples (temples considered to be in poor condition), and providing quality education to the children of priests. Since donations and the sale of prasad are integral parts of Hindu temple rituals, this essentially means that taxes are being levied on individual Hindu devotees and then pooled into a state-controlled temple management fund. If the Karnataka government truly values secularism, it should acknowledge the potential violation of Article 27 in this scenario. The Indian form of secularism is utilised as a means to excessively intervene and interfere in the governance of Hindu temples, solely to extract maximum financial gain. The state is primarily concerned with the commercial revenue generated by these temples, showing little regard for the well-being of the pilgrims. If the state truly prioritises the welfare of the pilgrims, it must amend the Endowment Act to ensure that the management of religious institutions is handed over to the devotees. Only devotees should be appointed to oversee the affairs of the temples, and central legislation should be implemented to ensure that the wealth from the temples is solely utilised for the improvement of temple infrastructure. In cases where smaller temples require attention, the responsibility should be entrusted to a trust-like institution that operates independently from state control. The government should solely act as a facilitator for the pilgrims, rather than assuming the role of temple administrators. The community that manages the temple should have the authority to utilise the resources and wealth generated from it. Presently, there are temples, such as the Padmanabha Swami temple, that operate independently from state control and are managed far more effectively. These models of administration should serve as benchmarks for the management of other temples as well. It is high time that Hindu temples are entrusted to Hindus for their management and welfare. (Adarsh Kuniyillam is a Parliamentary, Policy, and Political analyst from Kerala. He consistently contributes articles to both national and regional publications and has actively collaborated with various think tanks. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views) Why the Sudden Rise of Indias Global Diplomatic Footprint is No Coincidence Indian foreign policy and the heights it has grown to in recent years has become a raging subject of discussion not just within the country, but around the world. Diplomatic circles are realising that India is now a country on a mission. Gone are the days when India chose non-alignment as its biggest foreign policy tool. In an increasingly multipolar world, India can no longer afford to remain oblivious to the power blocs that exist. Contrary to the principles of non-alignment, what is increasingly needed is for India to align with all poles in the world and reap the most out of all such diverse relationships. It is no coincidence, therefore, that India is today a country which has a robust and critical partnership with the West, even as it continues buying Russian oil and refers to Moscow as its best friend, while simultaneously projecting itself as a leader of the Global South. The 2024 Global Diplomacy Index brought out by the Lowy Institute has some fascinating details which capture the scale of the effort currently underway to make India a diplomatic heavyweight in the world. For starters, the Index has recognised India as the country with the fastest-growing diplomatic network in the world. Together with Turkiye, India has the fastest-growing network of any Index country, adding 11 new diplomatic posts since 2021. Almost three-quarters of these new posts are in Africa alone. Indias diplomatic footprint is most pronounced in Africa, Asia, and Europe, and it is represented in every country in Asia, Eastern Africa, and the Indian Ocean Region. However, the annual index has noted that India has limited diplomatic representation in the Pacific, operating only two posts among the Pacific Islands Forum members. The expansion of Indias diplomatic footprint runs parallel to its global stature and influence receiving a major fillip in recent years. For decades, Indias foreign service was plagued by understaffing and limited global exposure. It does not take a genius to recognise the fact that today, when India says something on global or multilateral platforms, the international community takes note. That was not the case as early as, say, 15 to 20 years ago. Back then, India was just any other third-world country that the international community and powers that be could ignore. Today, the world has learnt that it needs a fundamentally different approach and strategy to interact with a new and resurgent India. The fact that Indias diplomatic resurgence is happening under Narendra Modi who his detractors accused of having no knowledge of foreign policy is nothing short of poetic. Today, the Narendra ModiS Jaishankar power duo is together unleashing a new brand of Indian diplomacy before the world. Whether it be standing up to the West when need be, or challenging China, or even telling Vladimir Putin that this is not an era of war India has come to command a level of respect and influence internationally that was previously unheard of. Equipping Indias Foreign Service to Wield Greater Power and Influence Around the World India itself recognises the importance of having a presence in all parts of the world. However, a perennial problem that prevented India from reaching a diplomatic crescendo was the acute shortage of experienced personnel in its foreign service. In October last year, the Union Cabinet took a much-needed decision to address this very issue. As a result of the Cabinet approving a cadre review and restructuring proposal of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), the countrys diplomatic cadre strength will go up by 215 new officers in the next five years. Here is an interesting statistic: The annual visits by senior government officials to countries with Indian missions have surged from approximately 9-10 in 2014 to 35-40 in 2023. As a result, there is a significant demand for more specialised personnel, both in foreign missions and in South Block. The Modi government unveiled plans to open nine more Indian missions in the next few years and also to meet the growing need at current missions. This restructuring comes 19 years after the last restructuring of the IFS cadre in 2004. The restructuring will not only boost the intake of IFS officers at the initial stage but will also establish new positions to meet the expanding requirements of the foreign service. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, over the past few years, the annual recruitment into the Indian Foreign Service has typically ranged from 30 to 35 individuals. Currently, the service comprises approximately 850 officers responsible for overseeing 193 Indian missions and posts abroad, as well as various positions within the ministry in India. While the number of IFS officers stands at 850, the total strength of Indias diplomatic bureaucracy scales up to over 2,700 if Grade B officers recruited from the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) are counted. This number is in stark contrast with Chinas well above 7500 diplomatic staff and the USAs 14,000 plus. Heading the effort to overhaul and strengthen Indias foreign service and diplomatic muscle is Dr S Jaishankar, the countrys External Affairs Minister a career diplomat recognised as one of the best in the world at present. While the expansion of the foreign service and the making of new missions and diplomatic outposts in various parts of the world is one component of Indias broad strategy, the other is aiding developing and underdeveloped countries. To that effect, India has so far offered 308 lines of credit (LOC), worth about $32.02 billion to various partners in Asia and Africa. These funds have supported more than 600 development projects in sectors such as infrastructure, power, connectivity and health across countries of the Global South. About $17.06 billion has gone to countries in Asia, $12.15 billion to those in Africa and $2.81 billion to countries elsewhere. In Asia, New Delhis Neighbourhood First policy remains at play, as is evident from the grant assistance projects with countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. Importantly, between 2014 and 2020, Indias LOC to its neighbours had increased fourfold, going from $3.27 billion to $14.7 billion. The largest concessional credit given by India to a country has been to Bangladesh, worth about $8 billion. Apart from its immediate neighbours in the Indian subcontinent, perhaps no continent is as important to New Delhis growing diplomatic and economic heft as Africa. The highlight of Indias G20 presidency will always remain the inclusion of the African Union into the powerful group. Today, India is Africas third largest trading partner after the European Union and China. Trade between both sides has risen 18 per cent since 2003 and reached $103 billion last year. Indian products now represent 6.3 per cent of Africas total imports. India is also the second largest lender in Africa. 42 African nations received about $12 billion or 38 per cent of all credit extended by India in the last 10 years. Meanwhile, total Indian investments in Africa stand at about $70 billion, with the goal being to take the figure past the $150 billion mark by 2030. Importantly also, over the past nine years, India has opened 25 new embassies and consulates across the world, and 18 of these are in Africa alone. That makes Indias diplomatic expansion in the African continent quite visible. It represents a resolve on New Delhis part to become a major player in Africa, while also challenging powers that have only their vested interests at heart and are looking to exploit the continents resources. The resurgence of Indias diplomatic prowess marks a significant departure from decades of relative neglect in global affairs. The rapid expansion of Indias diplomatic network, coupled with structural reforms within the Indian Foreign Service, underscores a concerted effort to assert Indias influence on the world stage. As India strengthens its presence in regions like Africa and extends support to developing nations, it is poised to emerge as a key player in shaping the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century. Indian foreign policy has arrived on the world stage, and its era is only now truly beginning. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena has put on hold the implementation of the Delhi governments solar policy announced in January, AAP sources said on Wednesday. This came a month after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal vowed that the policy would eliminate electricity bills in the capital city. Under the Delhi Solar Policy 2024, people installing rooftop solar panels at home were supposed to get generation-based incentives. Last month, Kejriwal announced this policy, saying that consumers would be paid for solar power generation. LG seeks clarification Denying these reports of suspension, LG sources accused the Kejriwal government of habitual lying, asserting that its office has not halted the solar policy. They said the policy lacks provisions to reduce electricity bills to zero; instead, it includes a provision that favours private power companies. Sources said LG seeks clarification on this and whether the policy aligns with the capital subsidy from the Indian government. #WATCH | Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says, Delhi government has released a new solar policy, Solar Policy 2024. Till now the policy of 2016 was in force, it was the most progressive policy in the country Electricity is free up to 200 units in Delhi, half up to 400 units and pic.twitter.com/lbASGdNbd1 ANI (@ANI) January 29, 2024 Under the policy, all government buildings having an area of 500 square metres would have to mandatorily install rooftop solar panels in the next three years, Kejriwal had said. Earlier, Delhi Power Minister Atishi said the solar policy was approved by the Cabinet two days back and it would be notified within 10 days. The 2016 policy of the Delhi government enabled the deployment of over 250 MW of rooftop solar plants within the city and around 1,250 MW of utility-scale solar plants, totaling 1,500 MW. This meets 7.2 percent of Delhis annual electricity demand. Last month, Kejriwal said the Delhi government gives 200 units of electricity free to residents and gives a subsidy of 50 percent to those residential consumers who consume 201 units to 400 units a month and for those with consumption above 400 units a month, there is no subsidy. Electricity bills of all residential consumers who install solar panels on their rooftops by opting for this policy will be zero, no matter how much electricity they consume. That is the most important takeaway of the policy, he had said. Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai on Wednesday slammed Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) over an advertisement featuring a photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister MK Stalin, along with a space rocket that bears the flag of China. The ad is apparently for the new ISRO rocket launch site in Kulasekarapattinam town in Thoothukudi district, where PM Modi is laying the foundation stone. Slamming the ruling party, Annamalai said the advertisement by DMK Minister Thiru Anita Radhakrishnan to leading Tamil dailies today is a manifestation of DMKs commitment to China and their total disregard for our countrys sovereignty. This advertisement by DMK Minister Thiru Anita Radhakrishnan to leading Tamil dailies today is a manifestation of DMKs commitment to China & their total disregard for our countrys sovereignty.DMK, a party flighing high on corruption, has been desperate to paste stickers ever pic.twitter.com/g6CeTzd9TZ K.Annamalai (@annamalai_k) February 28, 2024 Amount of desperation DMK, a party fighting high on corruption, has been desperate to paste stickers ever since the announcement of ISROs second launch pad in Kulasekarapatinam was released, Annamalai wrote on his social media platform X. Further criticising DMK, he said the amount of desperation only proves their attempt to bury their past misdeeds, but we must remind them that DMK was why the Satish Dhawan Space Centre is today in Andhra Pradesh and not Tamil Nadu. When the 1st launch pad of ISRO was conceptualised, TN was the first choice of ISRO. TN CM Thiru Annadurai, who could not attend the meeting because of severe shoulder pain, deputed Mathiyazhagan, one of his ministers, for the meeting, he said. ISRO officials were kept waiting for a long, and Mathiyazhagan was finally brought to the meeting in an inebriated state & was incoherent throughout the meeting, he said. Later in the day, PM Modi also criticised DMK for attempting to take credit for ISROs success. He said, DMKs advertisement today is hilarious. They have insulted Indian science and the Indian space sector, for which they must apologise. DMKs advertisement today is hilarious. They have insulted Indian science and the Indian space sector, for which they must apologise. pic.twitter.com/RwghHNji7q Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 28, 2024 DMK Defends Senior DMK leader K Kanimozhi defended the controversial ad, saying, Nobody has announced China as an enemy country. Even PM Modi welcomed the Chinese premiere and held a meeting here in Mahabalipuram. Even in several union government ads the national flag was not present. Earlier in August last year, Union Minister Jitendra Singh informed Parliament that the government had approved the establishment of a new spaceport in Kulasekarapattinam for launching the Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLV) developed by ISRO. The Indian space agency plans to launch the small satellites on a commercial basis from the new spaceport. Launching small satellites from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh incurs higher expenses. The new spaceport, which covers an area of 2,000 acres, will boost the growth and development of the region. Trouble mounted for the already-struggling Congress in Himachal Pradesh after their key minister Vikramaditya Singh on Wednesday announced his resignation from the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu cabinet. I am submitting my resignation to the chief minister and the governor, he said adding that there were attempts to humiliate and undermine him from some quarters and despite reservations. A political crisis has unfolded for Congress in the state since Tuesday, when it lost the sole Rajya Sabha seat to the BJP with six of its members cross-voting in the poll. Who is Congress Leader Vikramaditya Singh? An MLA from the Shimla Rural constituency, Vikramaditya Singh is a Congres leader who held the Public Works Department (PWD) portfolio in the Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu-led Himachal Pradesh Cabinet. Singh, announced his resignation on Wednesday and said he was deeply hurt by the transpiring over the past two days and said theres a need to ponder what went wrong for the Congress. Singhs father late Virbhadra Singh was the former chief minister of Himachal and his mother, Pratibha Singh, is the MP from Mandi and also the state Congress chief. Vikramaditya Singh is a two-time MLA. He won his first election in 2017 and repeated the performance in 2023 Sings political career began in 2013 when he was associated with the HP Congress Committee. He was elected as the Himachal Pradesh State Youth Congress president in 2013 until 2017. In 2017, he won his first assembly election from the Shimla Rural constituency and then again in 2023. On January 8, 2023, he became the PWD, Youth Services and Sports, Urban Development Minister of Himachal Pradesh in the Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu Ministry. Attended Ram Lalla Consecration Ceremony Despite Party Denial Vikramaditya Singh attended the Pran Pratishta of Ram Lalla in Ayodhya in January this year against the party stance and made national headlines for his independent decision. However, Singh later clarified, The party high command has specified that everyone is free to visit the temple whenever they want as religion and faith have nothing to do with politics and therefore, we will visit the temple. I will not say that I will go on January 22 but will go whenever I feel like it. Himachal Pradesh Political Crisis Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha was on Wednesday adjourned sine die after the passing of budget for 2024-25. The budget was passed in the absence of BJP members as 15 of them were suspended while the remaining 10 staged a walkout in protest against the suspension of its members. Amid the political crisis, the BJP sat on dharma outside the Assembly after 15 of its MLAs were suspended by the Congress government and the House was adjourned. The Congress said the BJP cannot take away the mandate of the people of Himachal Pradesh through its Operation Lotus and it will not hesitate to take tough steps in the partys interest. The Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government in Himachal Pradesh is on the brink of losing power in the hilly state after the shocking defeat of Congress in Rajya Sabha election opened Pandoras Box of the inevitable problem of infighting within the partys state unit. As many as six Congress MLAs openely rebelled against the Sukhu government and voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha election while seven more legislators expressed their views against the Chief Minister, adding more trouble for the Congress high command. The Congress expected its candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi to make his way to the Upper House as the party had 40 MLAs in the 68-member Himachal Assembly. However, Singhvi lost the polls as nine MLAs six from Congress and three Independents cross-voted for the BJP candidate making Harsh Mahajan win the Rajya Sabha polls from Himachal Pradesh. #HimachalPradesh: What is the scenario if the 6 rebel MLAs are disqualified? @AnushaSoni23 explains in this report, take a look@_pallavighosh brings in more details#Himachalpolitics #SukhvinderSinghSukhu pic.twitter.com/zzovDO2Ecp News18 (@CNNnews18) February 28, 2024 Lets Look At The Possible Scenarios Likely to Occur in Himachal Pradesh: The Himachal Pradesh Assembly has 68 members, with 35 being the majority mark. The Congress party won the 2022 Assembly polls by winning a majority of 40 seats. The BJP was restricted to just 25 seats, while three independent candidates won the polls. The Congress claimed the support of three independent MLAs, taking its number to 43, and formed the government in the hill state. Scenario 1: If the 6 Rebel MLAs Get Disqualified If the six rebel MLAs get disqualified, the majority mark turns to 32 (Total Members in the Assembly 68 6 = 62 members). Despite the six rebels getting disqualified, the Congress camp is left with 34 MLAs (40 MLAs 6 Rebels = 34 MLAs), while the BJP will be left with 28 MLAs (25 BJP MLAs + 3 Independents). Therefore, even with the disqualification of the six rebel MLAs, the Congress is set to win the trust vote in the Himachal Assembly with 34 of its legislators, exceeding the majority mark of 32. Scenario 2: If the 13 Disgruntled MLAs Resign The Congress government is likely to fall into trouble if the 13 disgruntled MLAs resign from the party. With the resignation of the 13 MLAs, the Congress government would fall short of the majority number as it would be reduced to 27 (40 MLAs 13 MLAs = 27 MLAs), while the majority mark will be 28 (65 13 = 52). Notably, the BJP is currently having 28 MLAs supporting it (25 BJP MLAs + 3 Independents = 28 MLAs). In this scenario, the numbers are likely to swing in the saffron camps favour. Scenario 3: If Rebel Number Goes Up In case the number of rebel MLAs goes up, the Congress is sure to lose its government in one of the only three states it is currently ruling Himachal Pradesh. If more Congress MLAs come forward stating that they too are unhappy with the government, the Congress party has to take a few tough decisions to ensure that the concerns of the rebel MLAs are addressed. The other option that might help Congress to secure its government in Himachal Pradesh would be changing the chief ministerial face in the state. However, this might help the party only if its just the CM which has been a point of concern for party MLAs. Himachal Pradesh has been in a political conundrum since Tuesday, after six Congress MLAs voted in favour of the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls. According to the latest development, chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has reached Hotel Sisil and is in constant touch with senior Congress leaders Rajiv Shukla and Bhupesh Baghel. Himachal Pradesh Rajya Sabha Election Live Updates Sources told News18 that some MLAs gave the name of deputy CM Mukesh Agnihotri for the post of the chief minister. A source said that over a dozen MLAs are angry with the CM, and have expressed their displeasure before the Congress high command. Theyve demanded to change the chief minister, the source added. The Sukhu government has failed to assess disgruntlement within its ranks. In Himachal, two MLAs have led the rebellion Sudhir Sharma and Rajendra Rana. Both were not made ministers in the government despite Rana defeating Prem Kumar Dhumal to win his seat. Rana comes from home district of the CM and got two more MLAs from the same district to rebel as well. They have also been making comments against their own government lately. Track the Latest Political Development in Himachal Pradesh: Sources in the Congress told News18 that the grand old party has sought disqualification of six rebel MLAs. The speaker has issued notice to the six MLAs on Congress plea. Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former CM Jairam Thakur was seen coming out of Raj Bhavan in Shimla after meeting governor Shiv Pratap Shukla. Talking to the media on Wednesday, Thakur said, Marshalls misbehaved with our MLAs, and the security in-charge said that they are just following the Speakers orders. This government has no right to stay in power. #WATCH | Himachal Pradesh LoP Jairam Thakur reached Raj Bhawan to meet Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla.He says We are not being heard in the Vidhan Sabha. Whenever we demand division during the financial bill, it is not allowed. The House is getting adjourned without our pic.twitter.com/RWkSsWB6BD ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Jairam Thakur further said they have a doubt that the Vidhan Sabha Speaker will suspend BJP MLAs to comfortably pass the Budget. Some MLAs of Congress have got notices who have voted in the Rajya Sabha elections. Cross voting is not invalid in Rajya Sabha, as directed by the Election Commission, he added. Sources told News18 that the disgruntled Congress MLAs will reach Shimla by air, and present their views. The legislators have been dubbed as traitors for reportedly been talking about making BJP candidate win in the interest of the state. Top sources in the Congress said that the party is working on a couple on proposal. One proposal says that Priyanka Gandhi, while supporting CM Sukhu, has plans to make two more deputy chief ministers. This will be done while maintaining the regional balance. Sources said that one of the feedbacks even suggested to not change the CM till Lok Sabha elections. However, the partys worry is that if the situation remains, 2024 poll results could be affected. Some MLAs had complained in the meeting on Tuesday that Sukhu was running the government by coterie, and it was impossible to meet him. Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Karnataka deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar reached Shimla early Wednesday to take stock of the situation. The six rebel MLAs had left Shimla for Haryana on Tuesday after casting their votes in the Rajya Sabha polls. They are learnt to be in touch with the BJP, amid signs of a crisis engulfing the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh. What is Happening in Himachal Pradesh? The drama began on Tuesday during the Rajya Sabha elections in Himachal Pradesh. In a stunning upset for the ruling Congress in the state, the BJP on Tuesday won the states lone Upper House seat with its candidate Harsh Mahajan defeating Congress stalwart Abhishek Manu Singhvi and apparently setting the stage for a no-trust motion in the assembly. The voting was a tie with both the Congress and the BJP candidates getting 34 votes, indicating that at least six Congress MLAs voted against the party. The result was then declared on the basis of a draw of lots, officials said. In the 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 legislators. The remaining three seats are held by independents. Sources said BJP Legislature Party leaders led by Jai Ram Thakur was set to meet the Governor and demand a floor test, claiming that the Congress government has lost majority in the assembly. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has appointed senior leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and D K Shivakumar to engage with the six MLAs, who are learnt to be disappointed with the working style of CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and are seeking his replacement. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Ashish Shelar on Wednesday sought in the Maharashtra Assembly a white paper on water distribution system of Mumbai, blaming the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) for not fulfilling the 247 water supply promise, despite ruling the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for more than two decades. One family has ruled the BMC for the past 25 years, but has not been able to give Mumbaiites enough drinking water, despite taxes being paid regularly, said Shelar, demanding an investigation into the 247 water scheme. In the Legislative Assembly, the ruling party proposed a motion thanking Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar for the work done by the grand coalition government and dynamic development in cities such as Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur. While presenting the proposal, Shelar drew the governments attention to some unfulfilled expectations of Mumbaiites. There is a huge shortage of drinking water in the city. The BMC has collected Rs 30,000 crore as tax over the past 25 years. But the family that ruled the BMC, who had their Mayor and Standing Committee Chairman couldnt provide drinking water to Mumbaiites. A 24-hour water supply scheme was implemented on a pilot basis in two wards Mulund and Bandra West. For this, Rs 400 crore was paid only to the consultant, but the scheme has completely failed. The Shiv Sena UBT is responsible for this, he claimed. Currently, Mumbais water supply has been disrupted due to the fire at the Pise water pumping station of the BMC. Many areas in Mumbai are facing a 15% water cut till the transformer of this pumping station is fixed. There could be further water cuts during summer as the water levels in BMCs dams have gone down significantly compared to last year. The Bharatiya Janata Party may be in focus after the Rajya Sabha election results for triggering political storm in Himachal Pradesh and emerging victorious on eight Uttar Pradesh seats but its veteran actor-turned-politician Jaya Bachchan who is silently hogging the limelight. Often spotted on social media getting angry and irritated with paparazzi, Jaya Bachchan officially entered her fifth Rajya Sabha term as the Samajwadi Party (SP) lawmaker on Tuesday. With this, in the SP camp, she equals the record of Ram Gopal Yadav who became the first party leader to serve as a member of the Upper House five times. Jaya Bachchan also reportedly set a record of getting the highest number of votes among all the candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh. Her popularity also lies in the fact that even as the Upper House has seen many actors as its members, not many have been as active and combative as Jaya Bachchan. According to News18 Hindi, as many as 395 legislators voted for 10 candidates fielded from UP seats, of which Bachchan got the maximum number of votes. Her impressive victory comes amid chief Akhilesh Yadavs push for PDA, which she isnt a part of. The term PDA was coined by Yadav and stands for pichre (backward), Dalit, and alpashankhak (minority). Nonetheless, Samajwadi Partys PDA candidate Ramjilal Suman has also won the Rajya Sabha elections. Why Samajwadi Party Chose Jaya Bachchan? A report in India Today quoted its sources as saying that the biggest reason behind the veteran actors candidature is closeness with the Yadav family. It was the partys founder Mulayam Singh who sent her to Rajya Sabha four times. Jaya Bachchan is believed to have maintained a close relationship with the Yadav family and stood by Mulayam Singh Yadavs side when the former party loyalist Amar Singh was kicked out of the party, the report stated. The second reason, according to the publication, is Akhilesh Yadavs wife, Dimple Yadav. Bachchan reportedly maintains a close tie with Dimple, and even has the support of party leader and MP Ram Gopal Yadav. The third reason seems to be supporting women power. Bachchans candidature also guarantees the votes of women legislators, the party felt. The IT report quoted senior journalist and political commentator Javed Ansari as saying that since women constitute 50 per cent of the electorate, putting forth a woman candidate is in the partys favour. Further, the report quoted party sources as saying that an important reason behind Jaya Bachchans candidacy is also her celebrity status and prominence in the public sphere. Lastly, the report quoted sources within the Samajwadi Party as saying that nominating Jaya Bachchan is favourable for the senior leaders as she does not interfere in the partys internal affairs in any way. She does not interfere in the partys decision be it the internal organisation, the distribution of tickets or the development work she has to do as a Rajya Sabha MP. However, Bachchan does not compromise on her ideas, IT sources added. Jaya Bachchans Political Journey A report in Indian Express aptly described Bachchan as a leader who is not known for taking things lying down. After her heated exchange with Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar last week, she said in her farewell speech, I am frequently asked why I get upset. I am that way by nature; I am not changeable. I lose my temper if I dont like or agree with something. I apologise if I offended any of you or became personal. The report stated that the actor-turned-politician is also one of the most active parliamentarians around. According to the legislative research body PRS, Bachchan, 75, has had an attendance of 82% in the Upper House between 2009 and 2024, three percentage points higher than the national average of 79%. However, it is a percentage point lower than the average for UP, the state she represents. As against a national average of 199.7 for participation in Rajya Sabha debates, the actor has taken part in 292 debates between 2009 and 2024, significantly higher than UPs average of 193.8 on this parameter. Bachchan has not introduced any Private Members Bill to date. She asked 451 questions during Question Hour in this period as against a national and state average of 667.02 and 598.07, respectively, IE stated. Bachchan has not missed a single sitting of the Rajya Sabha from the Monsoon Session of 2023 until the recently concluded Budget Session, the publication mentioned. In the course of her four Rajya Sabha terms so far, Bachchan has spoken on a range of issues such as the safety of women and their rights, street children, most polluted cities, politicisation of religion in the country, controversial statements by people in public office, need to criminalise marital rape, suicides and mental health issues, demand to confer Bharat Ratna on Mirza Ghalib, and the need to eliminate creamy layer consideration in reservation for people of backward classes. Bachchan has also found herself in several controversies. During a discussion on the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Bill in 2021, when questioned about the summons sent to her daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in the Panama Papers case, she said, Your bad days will be here soon I curse you. She then went on to call out the Chair for not listening to the Opposition. In September 2020, amid a row following the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, Bachchan gave a Zero Hour notice in the House to discuss the alleged conspiracy to defame the film industry. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Currently, the volume of unfinished projects on drinking water and sewerage systems in Azerbaijan amounts to 2.7 billion manat ($1.6 billion), Chairman of the State Water Resources Agency of Azerbaijan Zaur Mikayilov said during the public hearings in Azerbaijani Parliament on the topic "Water management in the country: problems and new challenges", Trend reports. He noted that the cost of projects in this direction only on Ganja is 550 million manats. "As for the Vileshchay River, the cost of the second part of the project in connection with this river is more than 600 million manat ($352.5 million). In Baku and Absheron Peninsula, the funds needed to improve water supply and sewerage systems amount to 10.5 billion manat ($6.1 billion). The length of water canals in Azerbaijan is 52,000 kilometers. More than 40,000 kilometers of them are earthen canals. If we talk about water loss, it is in these canals that 50% of water losses are observed," he said. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The Congress on Wednesday said the party would contest 16 seats in Kerala in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and the allocation of seats within the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) has been finalised. The party already has a clear understanding of its candidates, and their names will be announced soon, it said. The grand-old party also made it clear that the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the second largest coalition partner in the front, has been convinced about the practical difficulty of allotting one more Lok Sabha seat this time. The announcements were made by UDF chairman and Opposition Leader V D Satheesan during a press conference here, which was also attended by KPCC chief K Sudhakaran. Like in the previous elections, the IUML would contest in two seats Malappuram and Ponnani in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, he said. Of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, the Congress will contest 16 seats, IUML- 2, KCJ (J) 1 and RSP-1. As per the discussions held within the UDF, the Congress will contest in 16 seats, the IUML in Malappuram and Ponnani, the RSP in Kollam and the Kerala Congress (J) in Kottayam, Satheesan said. The IUML leadership recently made it clear that they demanded one more Lok Sabha seat this time and said they wont backtrack from their decision. Admitting that the IUML had demanded a third seat during the discussions, Satheesan said the Congress party is also of the opinion that the League deserves this. However, the IUML leadership was convinced about the difficulty of allotting more seats in the present circumstances, the LoP explained. Instead of that, the Congress has decided to give the next Rajya Sabha seat that becomes vacant to the IUML, he said. During the discussions with the constituent parties, the UDF decided to strengthen the INDIA alliance by going ahead with the activities of winning all 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, he said. Satheesan also said there is a public sentiment in Kerala against the Central and state governments. Congress sources here said the LoP and the KPCC chief would soon go to New Delhi to finalise the party candidates. The announcement of the candidates would be made in the national capital, they added. India is taking the leadership of the Global South but is also strengthening its ties with the Global North. (One could also speak of East and West). This fits into Indias policy of re-balancing its external relations. The North is seeing a growing shift of political and economic power towards the East. This shift is being accelerated by Indias rise, after that of China. This widens Indias foreign policy options. As a leader of the Global South, with a fast growing economy and a view of the North that differs radically from that of China, the North is reaching out to India much more than before. India sees the North as indispensable for its economic growth and technological advance and is therefore reaching out to it with a clear sense of its self-interest. This explains Indias expanding ties with the US in various domains, including defence. The US is now Indias biggest trade partner, including trade in services. India has signed an FTA with Australia and is negotiating FTAs with the UK and the EU, though with Canada it has been put on hold because of political differences. This explains also that while India is a member of BRICS and SCO it is also an increasingly active supporter of Quad and a proponent of the Indo-Pacific Concept, both opposed by China and Russia. The North may not be happy with Indias leadership of the Global South as it erodes its traditional dominance of this part of the world, but it sees India as a safer partner in the power transition that is taking place than China which has made deep inroads into the Global South through its Belt and Road Initiative, its financial power, and its position as the manufacturing hub of the world and the worlds largest exporter. China is projecting a development model based on its own authoritarian, non-democratic, highly controlled and monitored political and economic system that it believes is more suited to the developing world, whereas India is demonstrating that democracy can deliver. In this context, the rhetoric of shared values between India and the West becomes useful to both sides, although both are aware that values were never a determining factor in relations between India and the West in the past when the US and its G 7 allies fuelled Maoist, Communist Party controlled Chinas economic and technological rise even as democratic India was sanctioned for years. India wants a reform in the structures of international governance dominated by the West for centuries, including after 1945. The rhetoric is that all nations are equal but the UN Security Council has in-built, formalised inequality with five permanent members with veto rights. The composition of the UNSC does not reflect either the shifts in power that have occurred in recent decades away from the West or the increase in UN membership from 45 originally to 193 today. The developing countries need more representation in the UN Security Council if it is to retain legitimacy already severely eroded. The World Bank and the IMF, dominated by the West, need to be reformed too. India seeks a reform of the international order to reflect the realities of today. This position no doubt pits it against the entrenched power and privileges of the West. However, the logic of Indias position is not unappreciated in countries like France, for instance, as there are concerns in the UN system as a whole about the survival of multilateralism in international affairs. As a democracy, Indias quest for more power within the international system is seen as less of a challenge than non-democratic and authoritarian Chinas quest for an alternative order based on its hegemonic ambitions reflected in its illegal sovereignty claims, challenge to US power and propositions like the Global Security Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and the Global Civilisation Initiative. One must note in this discussion on North and the Global South that the South is not monolithic. There are differences in the political, economic and demographic character of the states of the South. Within the Global South there are countries like Singapore, Qatar, UAE, Brunei with per capita incomes comparable to those of the countries of the North. The South has categories such as Middle Income Countries, Least Developed Countries, Small Island States, Landlocked Developing Countries, etc. This diversity in the Global South enables the North to break the unified stand of the South on global issues, especially on climate change. Under its G20 presidency, India was able to determine the viewpoints and priorities of the Global South by organising the Voice of Global South Summit and ensuring that these got reflected in the G20 agenda rather than the G7 shaping it. This goal was effectively achieved with the Leaders Declaration covering issues such as food, fertiliser and energy security, reform of multilateralism, functioning of Multilateral Development Banks, debt relief, accelerated achievement of SDGs, transfers of finance and technology by the North to address climate change issues, green development, etc. India has no doubt positioned itself as a bridge builder between the North and the Global South, especially after the success of its G20 presidency. Its ability to take an independent position on critical global issues in line with its national interest and preserve a degree of strategic autonomy has given it credibility. But there are challenges ahead. The West is still backing a military solution to the Ukraine conflict, despite the danger of steady escalation triggering a nuclear conflict. In the recent Raisina Dialogue, the European participants liberally condemned Russia with the usual contestable arguments and sought to raise pressure on India to change its position and press for its participation in the Swiss-hosted conference on Ukraines peace plan, which is a non-starter. After the 2008 financial crisis the G7 acknowledged its inability to handle it on its own and the G20 was raised to summit level. After the Ukraine conflict, the G7 has been reinvigorated and seeks to shape the global agenda again. NATO has got wind in its sails after the inclusion of Sweden and Finland and now there are voices to extend its presence to the Western Pacific. The tool of sanctions without UN approval is being used by the G7 and the EU and this has serious implications for the Global South. With the US treating both Russia and China as adversaries and the EU falling in line, the world has got more fragmented. The WTO has been weakened, with its dispute settlement mechanism non-functional. De-globalisation and protectionist trends will further disrupt the global economic order. The crisis in West Asia has opened the West to accusations of double standards and eroded further the credibility of its rules based order posture. India is currently in a sweet spot but it cannot remain unaffected by global political, economic and security disruptions. It needs a peaceful international environment to maintain its steady rise. It has limited means to ensure that. It will have to ultimately rely on astute diplomacy and rapidly build internal strengths with aatmanirbharta to navigate the challenges ahead. Kanwal Sibal is a former Indian Foreign Secretary. He was Indias Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18s views. Calling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leaders blind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday slammed Tamil Nadus ruling party over a state ministers ad for a new Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spaceport featuring an image of a rocket with the Chinese flag symbol. The Prime Minister accused the DMK leaders of belittling Indias achievements particularly its space programme and said the ad was an insult to scientists. For the unversed, DMK minister Anitha R Radhakrishnan stirred a major controversy on Wednesday as he shared a poster ahead of ISROs second facility launch but linked it with China to demean Indias achievements in the space sector. The poster purportedly displayed a Chinese missile, along with pictures of CM Stalin and Prime Minister. Addressing a rally in Tamil Nadus Tirunelveli, PM Modi also accused DMK of not cooperating with Central schemes and criticised it over walking out in the Parliament during a discussion on the Ayodhya Shri Ram temple. But they have crossed all limits this time, he said, adding, They have put a sticker of China to take away credit from ISRO. He lambasted the DMK for its reckless behaviour on issues of national importance and accused it of glorifying China and insulting Indian scientists. DMKs penchant for taking credit is not new. They paste their own posters on the Central governments scheme. This time, they have crossed all the limits. They pasted stickers of China on ISRO advertisements for taking credit on the launch of the second facility, said PM Modi. He said DMK was not ready to see the development of India and accused the MK Stalin-led party of never wanting to boast of the countrys success in the space sector to the world. He further tore into DMK dispensation for using taxpayers money to further their political interests. First they are not ready to accept ISROs achievements and feel happy about it. Rather than sharing it with the world, they insulted our scientists and space sector engineers with the money garnered from taxpayers, he said. Now, it is the time to punish the DMK for its deeds, PM Modi urged people. He also slammed DMK and its ally Congress, alleging they created a rift among people and criticised them for dynasty politics. Tamil Nadus connection with Shri Ram is well-known. Before the January 22 consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, I visited different temples, including in Dhanushkodi (in TN). The entire country was happy that the temple was coming up after so many years. A related matter came up in the Parliament but the DMK MPs ran away, Modi said. DMK again proved how much it hates your faith, the PM said. He charged the DMK and Congress of coming up with innovative ideas to create rift among people, society whereas we see everyone as family. Asserting his party will win over 400 seats in the coming Lok Sabha elections, he said, even the Opposition is saying the BJP and NDA will win more seats this time. The last time Harsh Mahajan was seen inside the Congress headquarters in Shimla was in July 2021 after the death of Virbhadra Singh, the former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. That day, Mahajan looked forlorn. Not only because of the loss of his friend and mentor but also because of the realisation that the Congress had little use of him. Eventually, Mahajan parted ways with the party just before the state elections, towards the end of 2022. After Tuesdays Rajya Sabha elections, Mahajan is back in political reckoning and how! Fighting the election as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, he bagged the lone Rajya Sabha seat in the hill state in what is seen as a big surprise that has put a question mark on the stability of the Congress government of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. Mahajan defeated Congress nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi in a draw or lots after the contest was tied at 34-34. The Congress has 40 MLAs in the 68-member state assembly and enjoys the support of three Independents. But Tuesdays surprise outcome came on the back of cross-voting by six of its MLAs. That Mahajan was the wildcard entry of the BJP should have made the Congress take note and buckle up. The 69-year-old former state minister knows the inside out of Himachal politics. Several veteran Congress leaders swear by him and are said to have been in touch with him. In fact, a considerable number of state MLAs say that Mahajan was more open to meeting them than Sukhu. There were warning signs of the disaster that the Congress faced in the Rajya Sabha polls. One of the most recent examples was when Vikramaditya Singh (son of Virbhadra Singh) expressed his keenness to visit Ayodhya for the January pran pratistha ceremony of the Ram Lalla idol, in defiance of the party line. He and his mother Pratibha Singh were said to be unhappy with Sukhus coronation as the CM. They were placated by the Gandhis, but discontent simmered among their supporters. In fact, the loyalists of the late Virbhadra Singh expected Pratibha Singh, and not outsider Singhvi, to be the Congress nominee in the Rajya Sabha polls. And much before that, there was trouble surrounding the cabinet formation by Sukhu. The states Kangra belt, which gave the Congress 10 MLAs, got only two ministers even as Shimla district got more. Pratibha Singh had voiced her displeasure on the matter. In another sign of u nease in the Congress government, former journalist and deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri is said to have been not in sync with Sukhu. In the context of the Rajya Sabha polls, the problem for the Himachal Congress was that Sukhu could not stand up to the Gandhis and advise them not to nominate an outsider as a Rajya Sabha candidate. The development which came just months ahead of the Lok Sabha elections once again exposed the weakness of the party and its first family who seem to have lost the grip on a state that they repeatedly called a paradise. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will form its government in Himachal Pradesh, declared the BJP candidate who won the Rajya Sabha Elections in the state, in a stunning upset for the ruling Congress. The BJP secured the states lone Rajya Sabha seat on Tuesday, with its candidate Harsh Mahajan defeating Congress stalwart Abhishek Manu Singhvi, apparently setting the stage for a no-trust motion in the assembly. Who is Harsh Mahajan? Mahajan, a three-time MLA and former minister, had resigned from the Congress in September 2022 ahead of the assembly polls and joined the BJP. While talking to news agency ANI, he said, Some more MLAs of Congress are in touch with us. I got phone calls from some of their MLAs and ministers. The situation is going to change in the next few hours and you will see BJP will form its govt soonFor the next 10-20 years, Congress is not going to come to power here. Tuesdays voting was a tie with both the Congress and the BJP candidates getting 34 votes, indicating that at least six Congress MLAs voted against the party. The result was then declared based on a draw of lots, officials said. In the 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 legislators. The remaining three seats are held by independents. #WATCH | HP BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan who won the Rajya Sabha Elections says, BJP is going to form its government in the state. Some more MLAs of Congress are in touch with us. I got phone calls from some of their MLAs and ministersThe situation is going to change in the pic.twitter.com/2aPmfIhOrU ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Congress Will Challenge Poll Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said they would challenge the election in Himachal as both the candidates got 34 votes each and the decision was taken based on a lottery. If the government breaks an elected government, what democracy is it? It has happened earlier in Karnataka, Manipur, and Goa. When they do not get elected, they take measures, intimidate them, and break the government. Is this democracy? Kharge asked at a summit in Delhi hosted by the TV9 Network. The Congress candidates defeat is likely to increase trouble for the Sukhu government as the annual budget for 2024-25 is to be passed in the state assembly on February 29 and proving his majority in the House would be a big challenge for him. Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur and Himachal BJP chief Rajiv Bindal have demanded the resignation of the CM following the Singhvis defeat. The Rajya Sabha poll result was announced by a draw of lots in which the candidate whose name is taken out loses, as per the norms of the Election Commission. Earlier, high drama unfolded in Shimla with both the ruling Congress and opposition BJP accusing each other of violations and malpractices. The Congress had issued a whip to its MLAs to vote for Singhvi following which the BJP had accused the ruling party of issuing a whip to their members to put pressure on them and maintained that the MLAs had the right to vote as per their wish. Mahajan sent a complaint to the chief election commissioner drawing his attention to the three-line whip issued by the Congress to vote for the party candidate. In his complaint, Mahajan said that such a whip was not only unethical but also against the conducting of elections to the Rajya Sabha as it would affect the decision-making ability of the MLAs. (With agency inputs) The viral hit Khalasi from Coke Studio Bharat has sparked a craze on social media, as users rush to craft reels and display their inventive dance moves to this popular Gujarati track. Amidst the plethora of content surrounding Khalasi, a video showcasing a womans impromptu dance to the song has captured the hearts of millions online. While some are awestruck by her impressive dancing skills, others admire the flawless synchronization between her movements and the infectious rhythm of the viral tune. The video was shared on the Instagram account of Khushi Chauhan, whose bio identifies her as a dancer. It opens with Khushi standing at the centre of the room, dressed in traditional attire. Surrounding her are her colleagues, quietly standing and observing her performance. As the video unfolds, Khushi effortlessly executes a series of dance moves and expressions in perfect synchronization with the songs rhythm. Her performance radiates boundless energy, captivating viewers from start to finish. Captioning the post, Khushi wrote, Khalasi fever is still on. Best 30 sec out of 3 minutes, accompanied by fire emojis. View this post on Instagram A post shared by shi (@khushiichauhan__21) The video shared four days ago, has quickly garnered attention, accumulating over 10.7 million views and more than 5 lakh likes, with both figures still on the rise. While Khushis dance moves received widespread acclaim from viewers, it was the lacklustre response from her fellow office mates that ignited a fiery debate in the comments section. One user wrote, The audience is so lame, while another commented, Why the boys are standing like bodyguards. A comment read, A true artist is the one who performs even when no-one is appreciating. Loved the dance girl, also your hair looks so pretty, remarked another. A user asserted, You dance excellent, but the audience behind is toxic and doesnt value talent. On social media, numerous videos of people dancing to this song have surfaced. Previously, a video showcased a girl flaunting her remarkable belly dancing skills to the tune. The video was posted by Diya Bhatt and featured her in a festive setting. Adorned in a striking red ghagra and a black blouse, she seamlessly synchronized her movements with a segment of the song Khalasi playing in the background. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Diya Bhatt (@_diyabhatt15) The Gujarati track Khalasi gained widespread popularity after its release by Coke Studio India in 2023. Sung by Aditya Gadhvi with Achint Thakka, this lively song narrates the story of a fearless sailor without boundaries. According to the official description on YouTube, Khalasi depicts the sailors enthusiasm for life as he sets sail into the unknown, embracing the challenges along the way. China has expanded its state secrets law, widening the scope of restricted sensitive information to include work secrets, according to the text of the law published online. Chinas top legislative body passed the revised Law on Guarding State Secrets on Tuesday and it will take effect from May 1, state media outlet reported. Multiple raids last year on management consultancies have raised concerns among the foreign business community in China. State secrets currently involve areas ranging from government and Communist Party decision-making to military and diplomatic activities, as well as economic development, science, and technology. Experts say the expanded law is further evidence of Chinese President Xi Jinpings increased focus on national security which has already led to a wide-ranging update to Beijings anti-espionage law last April. How The Law Expanded The update to the state secrets law requires government agencies and work units to protect pieces of information that are not state secrets but will cause certain adverse effects if leaked. It added that rules on the specific management of work secrets would be released separately, without giving a date. The revised law would strengthen the systematisation, comprehensiveness and synergy of the set of laws concerning national security and state secrets, an unnamed official from the State Secrets Bureau was quoted in Xinhua as saying. This revision has clearly written the Partys management of secrecy into the law, the official said, adding that online operators should cooperate with relevant departments in investigating and handling cases suspected of leaking state secrets. The legislation also strengthens coordination with Chinas Data Security Law for the management of confidential data, the official said. The Ministry of State Security has increasingly taken to its official WeChat social media account since last year to warn the public to stay vigilant against foreign espionage efforts. This expansion of state secret law comes days after Americas ambassador to Beijing revealed that the Chinese government raided up to seven US companies operating there on suspicion of espionage in the past year. In an interview with 60 Minutes that aired on Sunday, US Ambassador Nicholas Burns revealed the figure highlighted a troubling trend for Americans who want to do business in China. On the one hand, they say, Were open for business. We want American, Japanese businesses here. But on the other hand, theyve raided six or seven American businesses since last March, said Burns. (With agency inputs) The first team of Indian technical personnel who will operate Maldives aviation platforms have reached the island-nation. The team reaches Male less than two weeks before the first batch of military personnel are expected to leave Maldives. The Indian military personnel are due to leave Maldives by March 10. The Maldives government, according to the Indian Express, on Monday said the first team of Indian civilians had arrived. They will operate the helicopter in Addu, which is the southernmost atoll of the country. The statement said the Indian military personnel stationed in Addu will leave by March 10 as per the agreement between the two governments. It further added that a replacement helicopter will also arrive from India by Wednesday. The civilian team will begin training exercises to take over its operations. The decision to withdraw Indian military personnel from Maldives between March and May was taken earlier this month. Earlier this month, the spokesperson of the external affairs ministry said that the present personnel would be replaced by competent Indian technical personnel. The technical personnel will continue to operate the two helicopters and a Dornier aircraft in the island nation. This decision was taken during the second meeting of the high-level core group between Indian and Maldivian officials in New Delhi earlier this month. Following the meeting, the Maldivian foreign ministry issued a statement saying that both sides agreed that the Government of India will replace the military personnel in one of the three aviation platforms by 10 March 2024, and will complete replacing military personnel in the other two platforms by 10 May 2024. The Union ministry of external affairs did not share any timeline in its statement but pointed out that Indian and Maldivian officials agreed on a set of mutually workable solutions to enable continued operation of Indian aviation platforms. These platforms provide humanitarian and medical evacuation services to the people of Maldives. Around 80 Indian military personnel are stationed in Maldives who help operate these platforms. Maldivian authorities in January set a March 15 deadline for India to withdraw its military personnel from the country. India is opposed to a proposal led by China on investment facilitation at the WTO, stating that it is a non-trade issue and falls outside the mandate of the global trade body, an official said on Tuesday. A China-led group of over 120 countries are pushing for the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement (IFD) proposal to become part of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). These nations want to figure the issue in the 13th ministerial conference (MC) here. The four-day meet started here on February 26. India believes that the WTO should deal with issues related to trade and this is a non-trade issue and India is against bringing this into the WTO framework, the official said. The group wants to bring the proposal through annexure-4 of the WTO under which the proposal would be binding on only the signatory members and not on those who are opposed to it. Indias concern Indias concern emanates from the fact that proponents of IFD should not be attempting to bring a non-mandated, non-multilateral issue to the formal process in the WTO. Such an attempt will be in violation of the WTO framework and fundamental rule of consensus-based decision-making. The official also said that the proposal is led by the vested interest of the group. While all decisions at the WTO happen through consensus, it also allows member countries to form a group and have agreements among themselves. Such pacts come under Annexure 4 of the WTO that deals with plurilateral agreements. The IFD was first mooted in 2017 by China and other countries that depend heavily on Chinese investments, and countries with sovereign wealth funds are party to that pact. On the e-commerce moratorium, the official said that India is against any further extension beyond March 31 this year. The ongoing moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, in place since 1998, is a contentious issue facing the WTO and a key focus point for India at the upcoming MC13. India, alongside several other developing nations, has historically called for the termination of the moratorium and has specific demands at MC13 to achieve this goal. Developed nations, however, are pushing for the permanent adoption of a duty-free flow of digital transmission. India will only finalize new deals at a WTO ministerial meeting if the United States stops blocking an agreement on a dispute settlement mechanism, New Delhis trade minister said Wednesday. Delegates are hoping for progress on issues such as fisheries and agriculture at the World Trade Organizations 13th ministerial meeting, underway in Abu Dhabi. But Indian minister Piyush Goyal told AFP on the sidelines of the talks his country would not finalize any new agreements without progress on the dispute-settlement system. Its important that the first issue we should settle is that there should be an appellate body and some countries are not allowing that to happen. Washington brought a WTO dispute settlement to a grinding halt in 2019 after blocking for years the appointment of new judges to the WTOs appeals court. Goyal said, the entire working of WTO currently has come to a little bit of a standstill. New agreements require full consensus between the WTOs 164 member states as per the bodys rules. I think its important that the issues which relate to the past and have been under consideration for many years should be addressed first and among them is the appellate body which is of prime importance, he said. Only after that we can look at fresh other issues in the future. Washington had accused the appellate body of over-interpreting WTO rules, and said that judges decisions should not go against the national security of countries. It is now pushing for a dispute settlement reform that will create a fair system and not replicate the flaws of the previous body, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said this week. During the last WTO ministerial conference in 2022, member states committed to hold discussions on the dispute settlement system with a view to having a fully operational system by 2024. But there has been little progress, causing frustration ahead of the possible relection of Donald Trump as US president in November. When asked if the issue should have been resolved before the Abu Dhabi conference, Goyal said: It should have been fixed, because unless that is fixed, every other decision is only a paper decision that cannot be implemented. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. More former IDP families (totally 24) who arrived in Azerbaijan's Lachin city and Zabukh village have been given the keys to their houses, Trend reports. The keys handing ceremony involved employees from the Special Representative Office of the President of Azerbaijan in the Lachin district, part of the East Zangezur Economic Region, Azerbaijan's State Committee for Refugees and IDPs, Rehabilitation, Construction and Management Service No. 2 in the East Zangezur Economic Region, Lachin Improvement Service OJSC, and other persons. At this stage, another 20 families (78 people) returned to Lachin, and another four families (11 people) - to the village of Zabukh. Thus, until today, a permanent settlement in the city of Lachin has been provided for 451 families - 1,705 people, and for 211 families - 808 people in Zabukh. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Punjab chief minister Maryam Nawaz began consultations with allies and party members regarding the formation of provincial cabinet and is likely to announce a 20-member cabinet this week, according to a report by Pakistan-based news outlet Dawn. Nawaz and her party, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N), held talks with Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid) (PML-Q), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP) and signalled that people elected from these parties will likely be inducted into the cabinet later. The provincial cabinet will see former central ministers Rana Sanaullah, Pervaiz Rashid and Marriyum Aurangzeb get key roles. Sanuallah and Rashid will be inducted as special assistants or advisers to the CM since they are not members of the Punjab Province Assembly. The report said that Sanaullah may get key roles in either the provincial law ministry or the home ministry. He has previously served as the provincial law minister in the last tenure of former chief minister Shehbaz Sharif from 2013 to 2018. He was also the interior minister in the 16-month stint of the PDM government in Pakistan which came to power after it ousted former prime minister Imran Khan through a no-confidence vote. Sanaullah recently lost the National Assembly election against a PTI-backed independent candidate from his hometown, Faisalabad. There is no clarity on what portfolio will be given to Sheikh Rashid. The former senator has attended every administrative meeting chaired by Maryam Nawaz. There are speculations that Rashid could be sent back to the Pakistan senate. There could be an ego clash between Sanaullah and Rashid as these two PML-N senior leaders are not on good terms. Meanwhile, Azma Bokhari and Marriyam Aurangzeb were inducted into the assembly on reserved seats for women. Bokhari has been given the portfolio of information ministry and Aurangzeb will also get an important ministry. The allies PPP, PML-Q and IPP and their lawmakers will be inducted in the cabinet later but may not get important portfolios. Michigan resident Paul Ferguson was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years and maximum of 100 years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to tormenting and starving his autistic younger brother. As the court was announcing the verdict, he retched in shock as the judge Matthew Kacel read out the sentence Monday. His mother vomited in court during her own trial. Ferguson was convicted on first-degree child abuse related to the death of his 15-year-old younger brother Timothy, who was also tortured by his own mother, Shanda Vander Ark, 44. Timothy died in July 2022. Timothy died weighing just 32 kilos when he died and was subjected to merciless punishments including force feeding him hot sauce, depriving him of sleep and locking away food. Text messages probed by investigators also showed that they discussed pouring hot sauce on the genitals of young Timothy. The mother, Shanda Vander Ark, was sentenced in January to life in prison without a chance of parole. The jury convicted her of murder and child abuse in her sons death. When she was shown the images of her sons emaciation as he starved to death, she vomited in court in full view of the jury. Timothy was speech and motor impaired. He was also autistic. His mother and Paul tormented him with callous punishments that also included subjecting him to lengthy ice baths. During the mothers trial it was revealed that she forced him to eat bread covered in hot sauce and would lock the fridge to prevent him being able to eat. She also installed the house and the tiny closet Timothy was sleeping in with motion sensors, alarms and live feed cameras. I wonder how it would feel to have that hot sauce on your private parts. Im not saying touch him there, not at all, but dripping a little bit there, is that horrible, she asked. The elder brother Paul allegedly put Timothy in an ice bath for nearly nine hours. He testified against his own mother at her trial. (I am suffering) something close to Stockholm Syndrome. I desire to find a role model that, due to my own low self-esteem, I would do anything to make them proud of me, he said. Muskegon County Circuit Judge Matthew Kacel, however, believed that Paul was not repentant at all. (with inputs from Grand Rapids Press) Prince William did not attend a memorial service for the late King Constantine of Greece his godfather because of a personal matter, people familiar with the developments told CNN. The 41-year-old UK royal was expected to attend the remembrance event at Windsor Castle on Tuesday. The news report which cited a person familiar with developments related to the UK royal family did not tell why the plans were changed and did not elaborate further on the last-minute change of plans. The person, however, did point out that Williams wife, the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, who is recuperating after abdominal surgery in January is doing well. The person also said that Prince William called the family to inform them that he is not attending the event. Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, remains out of the public eye as she continues to recover at home. She may not return to royal duties until after Easter holidays. King Charles III remained absent from the service as well. He is continuing his treatment from an undisclosed form of cancer. The memorial service remembered the former King Constantine, Williams godfather, who died last year. Crown Prince Pavlos, his eldest son, gave the reading instead of Prince William, who was originally scheduled to give a reading, according to a report by the BBC. The person mentioned above also said that there was no reason to connect Prince of Wales personal matter and the Kings health. Queen Camilla led the family for the gathering at St. Georges Chapel which honoured the life and times of the last Greek monarch. Constantine II of Greece, is the second cousin to King Charles III. He died at the age of 82 in January 2023. Both of them enjoyed a close relationship and Charles named Constantine godfather to his firstborn son, William. Constantine and his family fled to Rome following a military coup in 1967. The military regime then installed a regent in his place. The military abolished the Greek monarchy on June 1, 1973 and proclaimed the country a republic. A referendum was held which backed the decision. Constantine abided by the move after another referendum was conducted by an elected civilian government in 1974. Chinas former foreign minister Qin Gang, who was abruptly removed from office last year and has not been seen in public since, has resigned as a lawmaker, according to state media. Qins resignation as a representative for the port city of Tianjin to Chinas 14th National Peoples Congress was accepted on Tuesday, state news agency Xinhua said. The former foreign minister was removed after just 207 days in the job last July without explanation. He was replaced by Wang Yi, a veteran diplomat who served as foreign minister before Qin and who outranked him in the Chinese government hierarchy. Qin was then removed from Chinas cabinet, the State Council, in October. Seven months on, Beijing has still not offered any explanation for Qins dismissal, nor why he has not been seen in public since then. Chinas rubber-stamp parliament, the National Peoples Congress, is due to sit for its annual session next week. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalnys funeral service will be held at a church in southern Moscow on Friday, said the aide of the late politician. Alexeis funeral will be held in a church in Maryino on 1 March at 14:00. Come in advance, his team said in a social media post on Wednesday. Navalny, 47, Russias best-known opposition politician, died Feb. 16 in an Arctic penal colony while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges. 1 14.00. . . (@Kira_Yarmysh) February 28, 2024 On Monday, associates of Navalny said that talks were underway shortly before his death to exchange him for a Russian imprisoned in Germany. Alexei Navalny could have been sitting here now, today. Its not a figure of speech, Maria Pevchikh, a close associate who lives outside Russia, said in a video statement. She said she received confirmation the talks were in the final stages on Feb. 15, the day before Navalny was reported dead. Her claims, which were reiterated on social media by other Navalny aides, could not be independently confirmed and she did not offer any evidence to back them up. Navalny and two US citizens held in Russia were supposed to be swapped for Vadim Krasikov, according to Pevchikh. He was serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 killing in Berlin of Zelimkhan Tornike Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen of Chechen descent. German judges said Krasikov acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who gave him a false identity, passport and resources to carry out the killing. German officials have refused to comment when asked if there had been any effort by Russia to secure a swap of Krasikov. Pevchikh alleged in her video, without offering evidence, that Putin wouldnt tolerate setting Navalny free and decided to get rid of the bargaining chip. Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow of his own accord after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He was later handed three prison sentences on charges he rejected as politically motivated. (With agency inputs) Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, on Wednesday, achieved a historic milestone as he became the first Indian recipient of an honorary Knighthood bestowed by Britains King Charles III. This honour acknowledges Mittals contributions to strengthening business relations between the UK and India. Mittal received a KBE under the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, one of the highest honours conferred by a British monarch. The 66-year-old entrepreneur said in a statement that he was deeply humbled by the gracious recognition from King Charles. Bharti Enterprises Founder & Chairman, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal has become the first Indian citizen to be awarded Honorary Knighthood, the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE), by King Charles III for advancing India UK business relations. pic.twitter.com/HWkSpQjOgu Bharti Enterprises (@bhartinews) February 28, 2024 Thankful to UK Govt The UK and India have historical relations, which are now entering a new era of increased cooperation and collaboration. I remain committed to working towards strengthening the economic and bilateral trade relationships between our two great nations, Mittal said. I am thankful to the government of the UK, whose support and keen attention to the needs of business has been critical in making the country an attractive investment destination, he said. The KBE, conferred for a pre-eminent contribution in any field of activity, is awarded in an honorary capacity to foreign nationals. While the Knighthood conferred on UK nationals gives them the title of Sir or Dame, non-UK nationals awarded the honour add KBE (or DBE for women) after their name. Previous Indian recipients of the Honorary KBE include Ratan Tata (2009), Ravi Shankar (2001) and Jamshed Irani (1997), conferred by the late Queen Elizabeth II. The investiture ceremony will be conducted by the British High Commissioner to India at a later date, when he will formally hand over the royal insignia to Mittal. The honour recognises Bharti Enterprises work within the India-UK space, including with the UK government in the field of satellites. Sunil Mittal led the revival of OneWeb (now Eutelsat), leading a consortium with the UK government and other strategic investors to offer satellite broadband services globally, a company statement notes. Mittal has a strong connection with the UK, as a member of the India-UK CEO Forum and has previously been awarded the Honorary Doctor of Civil Law from Newcastle University and an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Leeds. He is also a member of the Vice Chancellors Circle of Advisors at the University of Cambridge. Moreover, he has served on the Governing Body of the London Business School (LBS) and as a Member of the India Advisory Group at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). (With agency inputs) Several Pakistani air hostesses from the debt-ridden countrys national carrier have mysteriously disappeared after landing in refugee-friendly Canada. The series of vanishing acts, spanning over a few years, has raised concerns and questions about the airlines management and the circumstances surrounding these incidents. The latest case emerged recently when a note expressing gratitude to Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) was found in a Toronto hotel room, Pakistan Today reported. However, the note wasnt penned by a satisfied passenger but by an air hostess named Maryam Raza, who failed to report for duty on her return flight to Karachi after arriving from Islamabad. This incident is in line with the trend among PIA crew members, with Maryams disappearance marking the second such instance in 2024 alone. Last month, another PIA flight attendant, Faiza Mukhtar, also vanished after landing in Canada, according to Pakistans Duniya News. Faiza vanished in Toronto when the flight landed at the Toronto airport. Her disappearance could not be noticed until the flight returned to Pakistan, according to a PIA spokesperson. These occurrences follow a pattern that has been escalating since 2019, with Pakistani flight attendants disappearing after arriving in Canada. While PIA officials attribute them to Canadas liberal asylum policies, experts point to low salaries and concerns about the airlines future as contributing factors. According to the UN Refugee Agency, if a person fears persecution in their country or is at risk of cruel treatment or torture, they can claim refugee protection in Canada. Many PIA crew members, facing economic hardships and uncertain prospects in Pakistan, see seeking asylum in Canada as a means of escaping their circumstances. The situation has garnered attention from both Pakistani and international media outlets, with reports highlighting the challenges faced by PIA in retaining its employees and managing its reputation. The airlines management has been rebuked for its inability to address these issues effectively, leading to embarrassment and scrutiny from Canadian authorities. Despite attempts to downplay the severity of the trend, PIA officials acknowledge the challenges they face in retaining their workforce. The airlines privatisation, approved by the countrys caretaker cabinet, reflects broader efforts to revamp the struggling airline and improve its financial viability. UKs King Charles has purportedly initiated his succession preparations, keeping them tightly under wraps, particularly from his estranged son, Prince Harry, according to British media reports. Last week, during a meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Charles said he was reduced to tears by messages of good will following his cancer diagnosis. The palace announced earlier this month that the British monarch had been diagnosed with a form of cancer, less than 18 months into his reign. After his cancer diagnosis, he reportedly began crafting a definitive strategy for the monarchys future, with a focus on passing the reins to Prince William, according to insights shared by royal expert and author Tom Quinn. Succession planning is highly secret and no one trusts Harry to be part of it, for the simple reason that if he feels in any way slighted or not given what he feels he deserves, he will run straight to the media, Quinn told the British daily Mirror. Quinn, who wrote Gilded Youth: An Intimate History of Growing Up in the Royal Family, suggested that William, the heir to the throne, is at the heart of the Kings succession plans. Charles is also aware that, as future king, William is at the heart of the succession planning that is taking place right now. Officials had assumed Charles would remain healthy at least into his mid-80s before succession planning would need to begin but in fact, it has now begun and indicates perhaps that Charles cancer is more dangerous than we have been led to believe, Quinn added. Last Wednesdays meeting was the first formal in-person audience Charles has held with PM Sunak since it was revealed that he was suffering from an unspecified form of cancer. Buckingham Palace has said the king will continue to carry out state business and his official paperwork while he undergoes cancer treatment. Sunak began the exchange by telling Charles it was wonderful to see him looking so well. Well its all done by mirrors, Charles joked. UKs Prince Harry on Wednesday lost his legal challenge against the British governments decision to take away his police protection when he is in Britain. King Charles younger son Harry had brought the action against the government at the High Court in London after the UK Home Office decided in February 2020 that he would cease to automatically receive personal police security while in Britain, BBC reported. The Duke of Sussex sought to challenge a decision to downgrade his security status after stepping back from his role as a working royal. His legal team contended that the decision lacked fairness. The Home Office maintained that security arrangements for Harry are determined on a case-by-case basis. Despite the challenge made in December, Home Office lawyers assured the High Court that publicly-funded police security would still be provided to him, albeit in customised arrangements tailored to his needs. The legal proceedings, mainly addressing security measures for senior figures, were largely conducted in private, with the ruling delivered by retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane last Wednesday. This follows a previous legal attempt by Prince Harry to privately finance his security during visits to the UK, highlighting concerns about diminished security following his transition away from full-time royal duties. Aaron Bushnell, the US airman who set himself ablaze outside the Israeli embassy earlier this week, claimed he had secret information about the US armys role in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. He told his friend, according to a report by the New York Post that US troops were fighting in Hamas tunnels under Gaza. Bushnell committed self-immolation in an extreme act of protest against Israel while chanting Free Palestine and saying that he will not be complicit in genocide. Bushnell served in the Air Forces 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Wing. A day before his death he bragged to his friend that he had top-secret clearance for military intelligence data. He told me on Saturday that we have troops in those tunnels, that its US soldiers participating in the killings. His actual job involves the processing of intelligence data. Some of what he was processing had to do with the Israeli Gaza conflict, the friend was quoted as saying by the New York Post. One of the things he told me is that coming across his desk was the US military was involved in the genocides going on in Palestine. He told me that we had troops on the ground, you know, that were there and were killing large numbers of Palestinians. I can tell you that the tone of his voice just had something in it that told me he was scared, the friend further added. The White House has repeatedly said it will not put US troops on the ground in Gaza but US Special Operations forces are now in Israel to help find hostages, including Americans, taken by Hamas after the October 7 attacks. The troops are also helping Israeli soldiers in Gaza with strategies to find Hamas members hiding in underground tunnels. The troops are not doing combat roles, as per a report by the New York Times. The Air Force confirmed Bushnells job title was Innovation Services Technician. But they didnt say what level of security clearance he had. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia have discussed the opportunities for promoting collaborative investments, Azerbaijani Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov wrote on X, Trend reports. "During a meeting with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Minister of Hajj and Umrah, Tawfiq bin Fawzan Al-Rabiah, satisfaction was expressed over the dynamic development of our countries' relations. Furthermore, we discussed the challenges of strengthening economic partnerships and investigated the possibility of establishing cooperative efforts in the fields of tourism and investment," the publication reads. Based on the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, investments in fixed capital amounted to 20.296 billion manat in 2023, which is 9.8 percent more than the figure for 2022. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. The 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF) will be held in Baku in 2026, Trend reports. Today's meeting of Azerbaijani Parliament's International and Inter-Parliamentary Relations Committee will discuss a bill on approval of the Agreement between the Government of Azerbaijan and the UN on holding the 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku in 2026. The agreement will be recommended to the parliament's plenary session after discussion. Notably, the 12th session of WUF will be held in Cairo on November 4-8 this year. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel A frightening scene in the streets of California ended with a man fatally shot by police in a Home Depot. FOX 11 reports that cops with the Fontana Police Department first responded around 6pm local time to numerous 911 calls of an individual acting erratically in traffic, apparently trying to get hit by a car. Police say when they arrived on the scene, a man dashed into a nearby Home Depot and grabbed a carbon steel jab saw, threatening both police and civilians in the store. Authorities say the man didn't comply with multiple verbal commands and that they opened fire after tasing him was similarly unsuccessful. For many years, it was one of New York City's most notorious unsolved murders . Now, two men have been found guilty of murdering Jason Mizellbetter known as Jam Master Jay from RUN-DMCin his Queens recording studio on October 30, 2002. A federal jury found Karl Jordan Jr., the hip-hop DJ's godson, and Ronald Washington, a longtime friend, guilty on charges of murder while engaged in a narcotics trafficking conspiracy and firearm-related murder. The two men were indicted in 2020 . CNN reports that a fight almost broke out as the verdict was announced Tuesday, with supporters of both men shouting at the jury. "Y'all just killed some innocent people," Washington said. Prosecutors presented 35 witnesses over the monthlong trial, including two employees of Mizell's JMJ Records label. Tony Rincon identified Jordan as the shooter and Lydia High said she was held at gunpoint by Washington during the killing, the New York Times reports. Prosecutors said Jordan and his associates had long intimidated the pair and other witnesses. RUN-DMC helped bring rap into the mainstream in the 1980s, but Mizell became a middleman in cocaine deals after the trio's career faded, prosecutors said. "He was a man who got involved in the drug game to take care of the people who depended on him," Assistant US Attorney Artie McConnell said in his closing argument. Prosecutors said Jordan and Washington killed Mizell for revenge after they were left out of a drug deal. TMZ reports that Jordan, 40, and Washington, 59, will face sentences of at least 20 years in prison. A third man charged in the murder will go on trial in 2026. Jay Bryant allegedly propped open a back door at the studio, allowing Jordan and Washington to enter, the Times reports. (More Run-DMC stories.) UPDATE Mar 8, 2024 4:25 PM CST Five "egregiously involved eighth-grade students" have been expelled from a Beverly Hills middle school after AI-generated nude images of 16 classmates were created and circulated. The California school board approved the expulsions on Wednesday night, CBS News reports. Beverly Hills police also are investigating. School officials said the scandal has led to discussions about the ethics of using artificial intelligence. The officials wanted the community to understand the issue was being taken seriously, Superintendent Michael Bregy wrote, adding that they realize "kids are still learning and growing, and mistakes are part of this process." Feb 28, 2024 1:00 AM CST A middle school in Beverly Hills, California, is investigating AI-generated nude images of students that were shared by their classmates. Photos of victims' faces were mapped onto naked bodies using artificial intelligence technology, administrators at Beverly Vista Middle School say, though they did not reveal how they determined AI was used to create the deepfakes. The Beverly Hills Police Department says a non-criminal investigation is underway, NBC News reports. The school says students found to be involved could face expulsion and other consequences, ABC 7 reports. / Melania Had 'Power Struggle' in WH With More Than One Trump Book on America's first ladies features numerous nuggets on her private clashes with Donald, Ivanka Alexei Navalny's funeral is set for Friday on the outskirts of Moscow, and his spokesperson has two words of advice for anyone hoping to attend, per the New York Times. "Come early," Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, noting that Navalny would be buried in Borisovskoye Cemetery after an afternoon service at an area Russian Orthodox church in Maryino. Navalny's camp had wanted to hold the funeral on Thursday, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to give his state-of-the-nation speech that day, says Navalny aide Ivan Zhdanov. In other news on the Navalny front: Pressure: Zhdanov alleges that Russian authorities have been working behind the scenes to stifle any kind of memorial service for Navalny, including by pressuring venue owners not to allow his wake to be held at their establishments. Zhdanov alleges that Russian authorities have been working behind the scenes to stifle any kind of memorial service for Navalny, including by pressuring venue owners not to allow his wake to be held at their establishments. Widow: Yulia Navalnaya fears that mourners at her late husband's funeral might face resistance from authorities, per CNN. "I'm not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband," she said Wednesday during a speech in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Yulia Navalnaya fears that mourners at her late husband's funeral might face resistance from authorities, per CNN. "I'm not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband," she said Wednesday during a speech in front of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Attorney: A lawyer who helped Navalny's mother retrieve the activist's body tells local media he was briefly detained in Moscow and has since been released, per the Moscow Times. Reports say that Vasily Dubkov, who went with Lyudmila Navalnaya to Salekhard to claim her son's remains, was held on administrative charges of disorderly conduct. He didn't offer other details other than noting his detention was "an obstruction of his work as a lawyer," per the Moscow Times. A lawyer who helped Navalny's mother retrieve the activist's body tells local media he was briefly detained in Moscow and has since been released, per the Moscow Times. Reports say that Vasily Dubkov, who went with Lyudmila Navalnaya to Salekhard to claim her son's remains, was held on administrative charges of disorderly conduct. He didn't offer other details other than noting his detention was "an obstruction of his work as a lawyer," per the Moscow Times. A prison promotion: The Daily Beast reported that Putin gave Valery Boyarinev, the deputy head of the Federal Penitentiary Service accused of tormenting Navalny while he was imprisoned, a new rank of colonel general. "This must be understood as Putin's blatant reward for torture," says Navalny ally Zhdanov. Another Putin dissident was just sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison . (More Alexei Navalny stories.) BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. On February 28, the 12th Azerbaijani-Russian Interregional Forum took place in the city of Mineralnye Vody, Stavropol Territory, Trend reports. The forum, organized by the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, was attended by representatives of government agencies, parliaments, executive authorities, entrepreneurs working in various sectors of the economy. The forum began its work with meetings in B2B and B2G formats dedicated to cooperation in the field of SMEs, and round table discussions in various areas. Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan, co-chairman of the intergovernmental state commission on economic cooperation between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation Shahin Mustafayev noted that Azerbaijani-Russian relations are based on the principles of mutual respect, good neighborliness and are at the level of strategic partnership. It was noted that the heads of state attach great importance to the development of political and economic ties between our countries, and their decisive initiatives played an important role in expanding ties between the countries, turning the forum into an authoritative platform. First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of Russia Andrei Yatskin, First Deputy Chairman of the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ali Huseynli, First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Stavropol Territory Andrei Khlopyanov, Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of Russia in the North Caucasus Federal District Vladimir Nadykto, Head of the Executive authorities of the Naftalan region of the Republic of Azerbaijan Vugar Novruzov, Head of the Executive Power of the Gabala region of the Azerbaijan Republic Sabuhi Abdullayev, chairman of the State Tourism Agency of the Azerbaijan Republic Fuad Nagiyev, rector of the North Caucasus Federal University of the Russian Federation Dmitry Bespalov and Vice-Rector of the Azerbaijan University of Construction and Architecture Nargiz Abdullayeva shared their thoughts and proposals regarding the development of partnerships between the two countries. At a meeting held within the framework of the forum between Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Shahin Mustafayev and Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Alexei Overchuk, an exchange of views took place on the implementation of joint projects between two countries, the potential for deepening interregional cooperation and other topical issues. President Biden and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump cruised to lopsided victories in Michigan primaries on Tuesday, but "a glance under the hood of the results reveals serious concerns for both campaigns," per CNN. For Biden, it's a sizable group of Democrats protesting his administration's support for Israeli war efforts. For Trump, it's an even larger proportion of Republicans still unwilling to support him. More: Uncommitted: Listen to Michigan's campaign urging Democrats to vote "uncommitted" in protest of Biden's Middle East policy certainly succeeded in nabbing attention. While Biden nabbed 81.1% of the vote with 98.5% of votes counted, "uncommitted" nabbed 13.3%, per the Washington Post. That's "a raw total well in excess of Trump's margin of victory in 2016" in the battleground state, per CNN. Tyler Boebert must've missed the message that his mother is trying to turn voters' attention away from her family drama . The 18-year-old son of GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado was arrested Tuesday by police in Rifle, who accuse the teen of a "string of vehicle trespass and property thefts." He's charged with four felony counts of criminal possession of ID documents and one felony count of conspiracy to commit a felony, in addition to lesser offenses, including four counts of criminal possession of a financial device, four counts of ID theft, three counts of first-degree criminal trespass, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and three counts of theft of less than $300, per Business Insider . Arrested around 2:30pm local time on Tuesday, Tyler Boebert was still held at Garfield County Jail as of Wednesday morning, per HuffPost . His mother's congressional office had yet to respond to a request for comment early Wednesday, per Newsweek. Lauren Boebert surely has other concerns on her plate while "in a fight for her political future," the outlet reports. Still, this is probably not what what she had in mind when she went looking for a "fresh start" in Colorado's 4th Congressional District. The arrest of her son is hardly likely to attract district voters who already view Boebert as a scandal-prone outsider. Only last month, Boebert's ex-husband, Jayson Boebert, was arrested on charges stemming from a physical altercation between the pair. Tyler Boebert also accused his father of assault. At this point, Boebert's campaign "is in danger of being completely eclipsed by family issues," per Business Insider. (More Lauren Boebert stories.) If you aren't familiar with Transnistria, that would be understandable. It's a slender strip of land that's hugged on either side by Ukraine and Moldova, the latter of which it broke away from in 1992. On Wednesday, the internationally unrecognized state became a headline location after it called on Russia for protection during a special session of its Congress of Deputies, "a Soviet-style assembly" that last met in 2006, reports the New York Times. The paper sees the request as "repeating in miniature the highly flammable scenario played out by regions of eastern Ukraine now occupied by Moscow." UPDATE Feb 28, 2024 3:25 PM CST An appeals court judge has rejected Donald Trump's request to be allowed to put up a bond for just $100 million instead of the full judgment against him in his New York trial. Judge Anil Singh of New York ruled that to stop enforcement of the penalty, which comes to $454 million including interest, during the appeals process, Trump must put up a bond for the full amount, the AP reports. Singh did, however, lift the judgment's ban on Trump obtaining loans from New York banks, which could make it easier for the former president to cover the bond, reports CNN. Feb 28, 2024 1:12 PM CST Donald Trump has offered to put up a $100 million bond to put collection of the $355 million judgment against him in his New York fraud trial on hold. Trump's lawyers asked the appeals court to block enforcement of the ruling during an appeals process that could last at least a year, reports the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times reports Trump stated that absent the requested relief, he might be forced to sell some properties. The paper calls it "a stunning acknowledgment that Mr. Trump, who is racing the clock to either secure a bond from a company or produce the full amount himself, lacks the resources to do so." The full penalty comes to more than $450 million with interest. Trump filed to appeal the judgment on Monday. On Wednesday, Idaho attempted to carry out its first execution in almost 12 years . It did not go smoothly. Prison officials say the attempt to execute 73-year-old serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech by lethal injection was abandoned after almost an hour because the medical team was unable to establish an IV line. Creech "will be returned to his cell and witnesses will be escorted out of the facility," the Idaho Department of Correction said in an email to the Idaho Statesman . "As a result, the death warrant will expire. The state will consider next steps." Creech's lawyers said the team tried 10 times to find a vein in his arms and legs to inject pentobarbital; Corrections Director Josh Tewalt says eight attempts were made at sites in Creech's arms, legs, hands, and feet. Tewalt said they were either unable to access the vein or did access the vein but were worried about the quality of it. "We are angered but not surprised that the State of Idaho botched the execution of Thomas Creech today," they said in a statement, per CBS News. "This is what happens when unknown individuals with unknown training are assigned to carry out an execution." They said it was "precisely the kind of mishap we warned the state and the courts could happen when attempting to execute one of the country's oldest death-row inmates in circumstances completely shielded in secrecy despite a well-known history of getting drugs from shady sources." story continues below An AP reporter was among the witnesses Wednesday. "Each attempt took several minutes, with medical team members palpating the skin around the IV site and looking closely while trying to position the needles," the AP reports. After the execution was called off, "the warden approached Creech and whispered to him for several minutes, giving his arm a squeeze." Creech has been imprisoned since 1974. He was sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of a fellow inmate and has been convicted of four other murders. (Read more on Creech and Idaho's plan to execute him here.) A homicide investigation was subsequently launched and, more than two months later, his alleged killers, both 19 years old, were found. "Both men reside in Hawke's Bay and are jointly charged with murder," police said of the 19-year-old pair. "Our investigation team have been working tirelessly to get this result and I would like to thank the members of the public who have come forward and provided information to assist the investigation. "The pair are due to appear in the Hastings District Court on Thursday, February 29," Det Snr Sgt Sally Patrick said. The documents say that under the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act the minister and health agencies must be guided by health sector principles, which include improving health outcomes for Maori. Article 2 of the Treaty guarantees "active protection of taonga, including wellbeing," health officials told Costello. "The right to be smoke free is entrenched in Te Tiriti o Waitangi," the advice to Costello said. "Removing measures that were modelled to reverse inequity and improve health and wellbeing by changing the broader environment to support people to quit, to stay quit, and to never start to smoke is likely to be viewed as a breach of Te Tiriti." The warning, sent in early December, proved prescient as a group of Maori health experts and advocates filed an application with the Waitangi Tribunal in late January, asking for an urgent hearing of their complaint about the government's plans to repeal the law. The government is pushing on with the repeal anyway, introducing legislation under urgency on Tuesday. It will not be subject to select committee scrutiny, which normally includes hearing submissions from those affected by the law. Overturning the law scraps moves to reduce tobacco retailers from 6000 to 600, remove 95 percent of the nicotine from cigarettes and create a smokefree generation by banning sales to those born after 2009. RNZ reported yesterday that health officials urged Costello to retain key aspects of the law, which they described as an "endgame" for the tobacco industry in New Zealand. Outsized impact of smokefree laws on Maori In the briefings obtained by RNZ, health officials lay out how Maori will be affected by repealing the law, given the Maori population is younger and has much higher smoking rates than non-Maori. Health officials told Costello that reducing the level of nicotine in cigarettes from about 15 mg/g to 0.8mg/g from April 2025 would almost wipe out smoking for the biggest group of smokers: Maori women. It says that if implemented in 2023 reducing nicotine alone would have reduced daily smoking rates for Maori women from 37 percent to 10 percent by 2025 and down to just 1.3 percent by 2030. The papers show that smoking is the "leading cause of avoidable morbidity and mortality" in New Zealand with 12-13 deaths every day caused by smoking or exposure to second-hand smoke. The policy to create a smokefree generation by banning sales to those born after 2009 was predicted to halve overall smoking rates within 10 to 15 years and be vastly more beneficial for Maori. "Given higher smoking rates and a younger population the health gains per person would be 5 times higher for Maori than non-Maori." The documents say the smokefree laws would have made a big dent in the disparity of health outcomes between Maori and non-Maori. By 2040, it was expected to reduce the gap in mortality rates for over 45-year-olds by 23 percent for females and nearly 10 percent for males. In a statement, Costello said she did not agree with the Treaty analysis from health officials. "I do not accept what Health officials have said about our Treaty of Waitangi obligations, but it's not appropriate to talk further about that while a claim is before the [Waitangi] Tribunal." The modelling in the documents was based on 2019/20 data when the smoking rate then was 11.9 percent and it was now 6.8 percent, she said. "In the last four years 305,000 people have quit smoking - and importantly, one third have been Maori," she said. "The number of Maori quitting smoking has accelerated in the last three years and we want to ensure there are targeted programmes and the right tools to ensure that continues." Reputational risk to NZ The documents also warn that New Zealand faces reputational damage from repealing the smokefree law. Health officials told the minister that the strategy followed in the smokefree law was ranked highest among 25 other international models, in a peer reviewed study published in the journal Tobacco Control. "There is significant reputational risk with repealing the smokefree amendments and there is very strong support for the legislation within the health sector," Costello was told. "Many countries have looked to New Zealand as a leading example in tobacco control." Officials said the UK would soon introduce a smokefree generation bill that reflects the New Zealand model and America's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was looking at low-nicotine requirements. RNZ He said the incoming government had every right to close the commission, but the way it was done rankles. "To hear via a public announcement to media that the organisation you work for is to be closed, without even a courtesy heads-up before hand, was incredibly thoughtless and unnecessarily cruel to the commission's staff. "This did not reflect well on those who decided and chose this process." Nana said even after the announcement there has been no direct contact with its responsible minister, Nicola Willis, other than a letter, nor from the head of the public service, despite repeated requests. "The outcome could have been so easily achieved with much less collateral damage - all it required was a simple phone call." The Productivity Commission was set up in 2011 by a former National-led government at the urging of the ACT Party with the aim of researching and advising how to improve the country's economic and business productivity. Nana was appointed by former labour finance minister Grant Robertson in 2020 with a widened mandate to look at relevant social issues and well-being, beyond narrower economic measures such as gross domestic product, and to engage with a wide range of people. Too left wing? Nana was seen as close to Labour, with his former firm economic consultancy BERL having costed its policy programme in 2017. He was attacked by centre right think tanks, some former commission staff, and a few mainstream economists as being left wing, and ACT leader David Seymour called him "historically illiterate" and said the commission was working on "nebulous concepts like loneliness, inclusion and identity." Nana has pushed back against the criticisms saying accusations of political bias were a distraction, and all previous commissioners had been appointed by the government of the day. "Let's get past the politics, there are some in our economics and business community that don't like our perspective on economics, so let's argue the economics." Former Reserve Bank official and centre-right commentator, Michael Reddell, said Nana and other staff were fairly vocally left-wing and not at all actually focused on or expert in productivity. He said he supported the commission and it did some good work, but even before Nana's appointment it was looking irrelevant. "First, it isn't obvious political parties really care about productivity anyway - beyond an occasional talking point in opposition or in the first few weeks of government. But even if they did, it isn't obvious that a small Commission just up the street from The Treasury was going to consistently have a lot to offer," he wrote in a recent blog. Nana said he hoped some part of government would pick up the commission's work and regard productivity as the measure of making the best use of the economic, natural and social resources in the country in a sustainable way, and not just as a means of cutting costs and lifting profitability. RNZ BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Italian Ansaldo Energia supports Azerbaijan's development in the energy transition, highlighting improvements in the implementation of the relevant energy project in Mingachevir, said CEO and General Manager of the company Fabrizio Fabbri during his visit to Azerbaijan, Trend reports. "I visited Azerbaijan with Claudio Taffuri, the Italian Ambassador, and Baba Rzayev, the President of Azerbaijan. During our tour, we looked around the Mingachevir combined cycle power plant, where Ansaldo Energia is currently installing two gas turbines. Our commitment to this project corresponds with Azerbaijan's goal of accomplishing an energy transformation," Fabbri said in his social media account. He is confident that the company's involvement in the project in Azerbaijan will enhance Italian-Azerbaijani relations by fostering the exchange of technological knowledge and expertise. In February 2023, the foundation for a new power plant with a capacity of 1,280 MW was laid in Mingachevir on the grounds of the 'Azerbaijan' thermal power plant, the largest in the South Caucasus. Last year, Azerenerji, Azerbaijan's largest electricity producer, signed agreements with Ansaldo Energia for the building, delivery, and installation of gas turbines and generators built by the Italian company for the new facility in Mingachevir. Previously, Azerenerji stated that by connecting new 1,280 MW power plant to the existing seventh and eighth units of the 'Azerbaijan' thermal plant, the aggregate capacity of the facility in Mingachevir would be 1,880 MW. The contract with Ansaldo Energia will enhance the thermal power plant's efficiency from 18 to 56 percent. The gas used in the gas turbines of the future 1,280 MW power plant will transform water into steam, allowing electricity to be generated without the need for additional gas in the steam turbines of the facility's seventh and eighth units. The hook-up will save 800 million cubic meters of gas every year. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com The social aid allowances will be distributed to Bahrainis before the holy month of Ramadan to provide financial assistance to low-income families. This was announced by the Minister of Social Development, His Excellency Osama bin Ahmed Khalaf Al Asfoor. The move is in line with the directives of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Bahrain, to double financial support for eligible individuals receiving social security and disability allowances in observance of Ramadan. Al Asfoor said that the ministry had begun implementing HRH Prince Salmans directives immediately, in coordination with the concerned authorities, to disburse the allowances before Ramadan and to credit them to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries on the specified date. The minister commended HRH the Crown Prince, and the Prime Ministers directives to ensure social stability for different segments of society, particularly those with low income. Subscription to paid content Gain access to all that Trend has to offer, as well as to premium, licensed content via subscription or direct purchase through a credit card. Olayemi Cardoso, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says he and his team are not responsible for the current economic woes in the country. Cardoso spoke on Tuesday while answering questions from journalists at the monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting. This is the first MPC meeting held since he assumed office in September 2023. The CBN governor said the current management of the apex bank took over responsibility during a period of crisis of confidence. He said CBN is taking the necessary steps to get the countrys fiscal and monetary health back to normal and efforts made are beginning to yield results. I think it is very important for Nigerians to understand that the central bank governor; I and my team, are not responsible for the woes that we have today; we are part of the solution, Cardoso said. We are determined to ensure that we work hard to get out of the mess that Nigeria is in. We assumed responsibility in a time of crisis of confidence; there was a crisis of confidence and you may all want to go to bed and wish that crisis of confidence was not there but it was, and we cant turn back the clock. All we can do is do the difficult things to make a bad situation better and I do believe that the efforts that we are making are beginning to bring back confidence because, to be frank, without confidence in your business, you are not going to get far. He also assured the management team would continue to work hard and ensure transparency and openness as much as possible in every decision taken. Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Mike Ozekhome, has described the current hardship in the country as renewed poverty and not the Renewed Hope mantra of President Bola Tinubu. Ozekhome lamented that the current situation in Nigeria is poverty at a higher scale. Featuring on Channels Televisions Politics Today, on Tuesday, the senior advocate lamented that things have never been this bad. According to Ozekhome: This is not renewed hope but renewed poverty, though we have been having poverty before but its now renewed on a higher scale. Going back to the drawing board, this government should try to rethink outside the box, bring about new innovations. Look at what is going on in Argentina and other countries, this government should not think that the mere removal of subsidy was a magical wand we were looking for, I knew it would not work. Hunger does not have colour, a hungry man is an angry man and that is why these continued demonstrations are coming up from Ibadan to Osogbo; from Kano to Owerri, and you are saying these are sponsored? When the house is on fire, the blind will know because they will fill it; the lame will know because he will hear about it, the dumb will know because they will feel the heat. Lets not pretend it has never been this bad. Yoon Suk Yeol, President of the Republic of Korea has sent a congratulatory letter to President Ilham Aliyev, Azernews reports. The letter reads: "His Excellency Mr. llham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Dear Mr. President, On behalf of the Government and people of the Republic of Korea, I extend my heartfelt congratulations to you on your successful reelection as the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Your continued leadership and vision will undoubtedly contribute to the ongoing development and prosperity of your nation. Over the years, our two countries have developed strong and cooperative relations across various domains since establishing diplomatic ties in 1992. I am particularly pleased to witness the recent advancements in collaboration, especially in energy, infrastructure, healthcare, and smart farming. As we move forward, I am confident that our bilateral efforts will further strengthen the bonds between our nations. May our partnership continue to thrive, promoting mutual understanding and practical cooperation. Wishing you good health and continuous growth for the Republic of Azerbaijan. Yoon Suk Yeol President of the Republic of Korea" BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. The upcoming 17th session of the Iran-Russia Joint Economic Cooperation Commission will focus on enhancing collaboration in the oil and gas sectors, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owj, said, Trend reports. He made the remark during a preliminary gathering in Tehran on February 28, which included Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. Owji emphasized the significance of the oil and gas partnership between Iran and Russia. The meeting will also consider expanding cooperation into other areas such as transportation, housing, standardization, and the development of free trade zones. At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Novak noted the involvement of leading Russian oil and gas executives in the commissions meeting, indicating a deepening of ties in these industries. He highlighted the participation of ZN Vostok Company in the development of five Iranian oil fields as an example of this growing cooperation. Furthermore, Novak mentioned the close collaboration between Iran and Russia within the OPEC+ framework and Russias efforts to establish an energy bloc as proposed by Iran under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The 17th meeting is expected to yield constructive dialogue and result in the signing of six cooperation agreements. Today, the 17th meeting of the Iran-Russia joint economic cooperation commission will be held. The meeting is expected to yield constructive dialogue and result in the signing of six cooperation agreements. --- Follow the author on X (Twitter):@BaghishovElnur The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Wale Edun, on Monday disclosed that President Bola Tinubu has directed the design of a Social Security unemployment program where unemployed Nigerian youths will be paid. The Minister disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting presided by President Tinubu at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja According to him, At this period of heightened food prices, Mr. President has committed to doing all that can be done to assist in giving purchasing power to the poorest and in that line, he has committed and instructed that the Social Security unemployment program be devised, particularly to cater for the youth, for the unemployed graduates, as well as the society as a whole. So, we have coming, in the nearest future, an unemployment benefit for the young unemployed, in particular. Similarly, Mr. Edun said there will be a consumer credit scheme to alleviate the pains of economic adjustment. He said, Finally, all in the same line, to emphasize that there is empathy and there is feeling for those who are less well off, or feeling particularly the pains of this adjustment, there is coming a social consumer credit programme. So, by making consumer credit available, of course, goods become more affordable, the economy even gets a chance to revive faster, because people have purchasing power that allows them to order goods, products, he stated. Edun also spoke on the review carried out by the Special Presidential panel on the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), which has submitted a preliminary report to the president. He said that the president gave highlights to the Council meeting noting that what was done was a review of the existing mechanisms, a review of the existing programmes, and where there have been successes, such as the 400,000 beneficiaries of the Geep programme, and so on and so forth. He added: Those have been identified and recognised. School feeding programme is another example of relative success. And whilst there is still some further work to be done, particularly, as regards availability of the financial data, which is still being looked at, the interim report has been submitted and a key recommendation of the panel was that, especially given the heightened, limited household purchasing power at this time, rising prices, particularly elevated food prices, its important to restart the programme. So, the direct payments to 12 million households comprising 60 million Nigerians is to resume immediately with the important proviso that every beneficiary will be identified by their national identity number and the bank verification number. Therefore, payments will be made into bank accounts or mobile money wallets. So, that whether it is before or after, there is verification of the identity of beneficiaries. Each person that receives 25,000 Naira for a total of three months will be identifiable, even after they have received the money, it will be clear who it went to and when it went to them. And that is the big change that has allowed mr. president to approve the restart of that direct payments to beneficiaries programme. President Bola Tinubu says the vacuum created by the demise of Rotimi Akeredolu, the former governor of Ondo, will be difficult to fill. Tinubu spoke in Owo, the home town of the late Akeredolu, when he paid a condolence visit to his family on Wednesday. Tinubu, who was accompanied by Lucky Aiyedatiwa, governor of Ondo, eulogised the late Akeredolu, describing him as a fearless politician. Speaking also at the palace of Ajibade Ogunoye, the Olowo of Owo, Tinubu said the legacies of Akeredolu would forever be remembered by all. He added that it was honourable to depart the world when the ovation was loudest, and praised the late Akeredolus passion for good governance. God will be with you, your children will do well in life, may you all end well. May God be with you and uphold you, Tinubu said. The Olowo thanked the President for the visit and described the late governor as a true democrat. The traditional ruler appreciated Aiyedatiwa for his role in ensuring a befitting burial for his predecessor. Akeredolu, who died on December 27, 2023, after a protracted illness, was buried last Friday in Owo Senate President Godswill Akpabio says his remark on how much each governor purportedly received from the federal government, in the face of economic hardship, was misunderstood and taken out of context. Speaking on the floor of the upper legislative chamber during plenary, Akpabio had said unverified reports detailed that governors were given N30 billion each outside their normal allocations to ameliorate the suffering in the land. Seyi Makinde, governor of Oyo and deputy chair of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), denied the claim. In a statement on Monday night, Eseme Eyiboh, Akpabios spokesperson, said the senate president was only urging state governments to collaborate with the federal government. The unfortunate conjectures to take away the kernel in the material facts of FAAC payment are rather regretted, the statement reads. In considering the well-intended motive of urging state governments to collaborate with the federal government of President Bola Tinubu to facilitate strategic interventions to mitigate the prevailing economic situation in the country remains the underpinning motivation in the comment. The President of the Senate is not oblivious to the fact that state governments are functional partners in all the efforts of the current administration of President Bola Tinubu and are also valuable stakeholders in the various legislative engagements of the legislature in creating the nexus between the legislature and the people. The President of the Senate has always demonstrated commitment to team building and shall not do less in this circumstance. He therefore urges the sub-national governments not to be distracted by any misunderstanding of the context and true meaning of the statement. Eyiboh said Akpabio recognises and appreciates the current efforts of the governors at ameliorating the adverse effects of the current inclement socio-economic environment, and therefore invites more hands on the plow to complement the renewed hope agenda. Sunday Adeyemo, the Yoruba nation activist popularly known as Sunday Igboho, says he is back to the country to chase out killer herdsmen from the south-west zone. Igboho said the people of the south-west must liberate themselves from the killer herdsmen who are terrorising them. In a video that was trending on the social media on Tuesday, the Yoruba nation agitator was seen addressing a group of people in Yoruba language in Igboho town, Oyo state. In the video, Igboho said the people of the south-west do not need soldiers to drive away killer herdsmen from their farmlands. We need to come together. We should take charge of the security of the south-west. We dont need to wait for anybody or the government. They have taken away our land. Can we still go to the farm again? We cannot go to the farm. They killed our monarchs in Ekiti state. We dont need soldiers for protection. After we pursue them from our land, we will now start farming. We are going to work together with our elders to achieve the security of our land. Igboho said he is not working for any politician, noting that he is being watched closely for his next line of action. Recently, the Yoruba nation agitator returned to the country three years after he fled for Benin Republic. In July 2021, Igboho was arrested alongside his wife, Ropo, in Cotonou, Benin Republic, and detained at the request of the Nigerian government. Igboho had fled Nigeria after the Department of State Services (DSS) raided his residence in Ibadan, Oyo state capital, onJuly 1, 2021. The raid led to the death of two people while 12 of his aides were arrested. The DSS had alleged that Igboho was stockpiling weapons, and subsequently declared him wanted. Attempts by the Nigerian government to repatriate him to Nigeria after his arrest were unsuccessful. Igboho was arraigned at the Court DApeal in Cotonou and was detained in a prison facility in the country. The charges against him bordered on arms smuggling, inciting violence and calling for a secession of the Yoruba from the Nigerian state. Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, says the implementation of the Oronsaye report is a welcome development albeit long overdue. BACKGROUND In 2011, former President Goodluck Jonathan constituted the Stephen Oronsaye-led panel to identify inadequacies in the countrys civil service. In 2012, the committee submitted an 800-page report and recommended the abolishment and merging of 102 government agencies and parastatals. The committee on the white paper submitted its report in 2014. Since the submission of the report, the recommendations have not been implemented. On Monday, President Bola Tinubu directed the full implementation of the Oronsaye report. The report revealed that there are 541 statutory and non-statutory federal government parastatals, commissions and agencies. Speaking with reporters at the end of the federal executive council (FEC) on Monday, Mohammed Idris, minister of information, said Tinubu has approved some reforms based on the Oronsaye report. Idris said numerous agencies would be eliminated, while others would be combined or restructured to cut governance costs. Reacting to the development in a post on his X page on Wednesday, Obi said he has received numerous messages from people wanting to know if he would have implemented the Oronsaye report had he won the election. The former Anambra governor said his answer is yes, adding that the implementation of the report was part of his campaign manifesto. He said being in the opposition does not warrant blind and thoughtless criticisms, noting that whenever the government makes the right decisions, related or even better ideas on how to move the nation forward should be proposed. Although the implementation of the report is long overdue, its implementation is a welcome development so long as the decision is informed by these principles, Obi said. Beyond implementing the Oronsaye Report, the government should go further and cut the cost of governance across board. Having found it imperative to implement the Report, the government should now do away with the bogus and needless wastages of our scarce resources on frivolous issues, and deploy such funds to the critical areas of Education, Health, and pulling people out of poverty. WE MUST NOT RUSH IT Obi added that implementation of the report should not be rushed because those who will directly be affected are mostly civil servants. He urged other political leaders to back the implementation of the report. We must not rush to implement the Oronsaye Report just because those that will be directly affected are mostly civil servants, Obi said. A very deep understanding of the workings of the Federal bureaucracy will be required to effectively implement the Report. We the political leaders, should be ready to back up such implementation with our sacrifices from comfort and selfishness, for the overall development of the nation. In implementing this Report, conscious effort must be made to cushion the effects of such a major overhaul on the workers, to avoid driving more people into hardship, in these very challenging times. Also Nigerians are yet to be informed about the extant White Paper pertinent to the reports implementation. Moreover, you cannot ask those who are likely to be affected by the downsizing to manage the process. Government must also show clearly the amount of resources to be saved in the implied shrinking of government. It should also indicate clearly where and how the saved resources are to be redeployed. More importantly, the implementation needs to be accompanied by a template to avoid a future bloating of government. By doing the right things and implementing the right policies, we will build the New Nigeria of our dreams. Nigeria Communications Commission, NCC, says as a matter of critical national security, Telecom Consumers must link their National Identification Number-Subscriber Identification Module (NIN-SIM). To this end, the Commission has directed all telecommunication operators to bar phone lines of subscribers whose lines are not linked to their NINs on or before February 28, 2024. Speaking at the NCC special day at the ongoing 45th Kaduna International Trade Fair, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Aminu Maida, said one major objective of linking subscribers NIN to SIM is to help improve and enhance national security in the country. To link the NIN to ones SIM, he explained that a subscriber needs to submit his/her NIN to their respective Service Provider to complete the process of NIN-SIM linkage. He explained, As a regulator of the telecommunications sector in the country, the Commission carries out its functions to ensure service availability, accessibility, affordability, and sustainability for all categories of consumers, who are leveraging ICT/Telecoms to drive personal and business activities. He said the NCC has established a robust regulatory framework that promotes transparency, quality of service, and fair competition, adding that it has set up channels for consumer redress, ensuring that consumers can resolve disputes in a timely and efficient manner. With this years trade fair theme, Sustaining Economic Recovery through Deepening Local Content Value Chain he stated that it is extremely important, as it resonates deeply with the principles and objectives of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on the promotion of local content development in the telecoms industry. Samuel Ortom, immediate past governor of Benue, says he is ready to cooperate with the commissions set up to probe the activities of his administration. In a statement by Terver Akase, media aide to the former governor, Ortom said he would provide the panels with all information needed for carry out the investigation. He urged all his appointees to make themselves available when called up in during the course of the investigation. Hyacinth Alia, governor of Benue, had on Tuesday inaugurated two panels to probe the administration of Ortom from 2015 to 2023. Alia said the two Judicial commissions will commence an inquiry into the income and expenditures of Benue state government from May 29, 2015 to May 28, 2023. One of the commissions will also look into the Sale/Lease of government assets during the period. The immediate past governor of Benue state, chief Samuel Ortom welcomes the inauguration of two judicial commissions by his successor, governor Hyacinth Alia, to probe the activities of his administration between 2015 and 2023, the statement reads. The former governor expresses his willingness to cooperate with the probe panels as long as the investigation is carried out in line with the law and stresses that his administration was built on transparency, accountability, and good governance. He emphasizes his readiness to provide any information or clarification, as may be required. Chief Ortom urges his former appointees to equally make themselves available whenever called upon to provide clarifications. The Prime Minister Biafra Republic Government in Exile, Mazi Simon Ekpa, announced that Biafrans have voted to establish Biafra digital currency, known as Biafracoin, amid the Naira crisis. The Finnish-based lawyer, Ekpa, disclosed this on Wednesday in a statement through his official X handle. The adoption of Biafracoin comes following the recent establishment of the Biafra Digital Currency Act 04/2024, which empowers the government to provide digital currency to Biafrans through Biafra Coin. According to him, the value of 1 Biafracoin is equal to 1 US Dollar. He urged Biafrans to invest in Biafracion amid the continued volatility of the Naira against other currencies in the foreign exchange market. Ekpa added that Biafracoin will be on the global stock exchange market and acceptable in all cryptocurrency transactions. The Biafra Republic government in Exile has adopted the establishment of Biafra Digital Currency Act 04/2024, which empowers the government to provide digital currency to Biafrans in Biafracoin. The value is 1 US dollar, equal to 1biafracoin. As the Nigerian Naira has crashed, we encourage Biafrans to start investing in the Biafracoin as soon as it is public. The Biafra coin will be on the stock exchange and will be globally acceptable in any cryptocurrency transactions, he said. Recall that, on Tuesday, the Naira depreciated to N1,615.94 per USD from N1,582.94 on Monday. On February 1, BRGIE unveiled a voting portal with over three million Biafrans who have voted for the Biafra Referendum. Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, says there is a need for a social security bill to address economic hardship in the country. Falana joined the protest organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) against the rising cost of living in the country. Falana said the provision of palliatives by the government is not enough to address the current economic challenges facing Nigerians. The senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) advised the government to place priority on social security law and youth employment. We want a bill for social security in the state, and if Lagos can start, other states will be compelled to follow suit, he said. It is no longer enough to give palliatives; it must be permanently, and that is why a social security bill must be passed by the house in the interest of our people. He commended members of the labour movement for coming to the streets for the protest despite the apparent attempt by the government to restrain them. What you (NLC) have done today is a major victory in the annals of our history. The Attorney-General of the Federation wrote to the police that what you are doing today would be contemptuous of the court, he said. We replied to the government on behalf of NLC that there is nothing contemptuous in enforcing your rights. In this particular instance, you insisted on your rights and that is why the inspector general of police came out today. The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis was taken to hospital for an examination after holding his weekly general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday. The head of the Catholic Church returned to the Vatican shortly afterwards. According to the Vatican, the pope has been suffering from a mild flu for a few days, which led to the cancellation of several public appearances. Before visiting the hospital, during the audience, the pope said: I still have a bit of a cold. The pontiff plans to meet Germanys Chancellor, Olaf Scholz in a private audience for the first time on Saturday. The popes health condition has been the subject of concern for some time now. Recently the pope also had issues with inflammation of the respiratory tract. Last year, he was hospitalized twice. He is often in a wheelchair during public appearances due to a knee condition. The pope, born in Argentina, has been in office since 2013. He was the successor to German Pope Benedict XVI and will mark 11 years in office next month BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. The European Commission concluded its first tender for a new mid-term gas purchasing product under the EU Energy Platform, Trend reports via the Commission. The tender, which closed last night, garnered substantial interest, attracting offers totaling 97.4 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to meet the demand of European consumers. Utilizing the AggregateEU mechanism, the Commission efficiently collected 34 bcm of gas demand from 19 companies in the preceding week. However, the offers received vastly exceeded the demand, with supplies nearly tripling the collected gas demand. Buyers participating in this inaugural mid-term tender had the opportunity to submit gas demand for multiple 6-month periods, spanning up to a maximum of 5 years, from April 2024 to October 2029. This novel mid-term tender represents a pioneering service introduced by the Commission under the AggregateEU instrument. Its primary objective is to establish stability and predictability in gas supplies, transcending the short-term crises experienced during the past two winters. By building upon the foundations laid by the crisis mechanism implemented in 2023, this new product aims to provide participating companies with assurance regarding their gas supply needs in the years to come. Looking ahead, the European Commission anticipates conducting further tenders throughout the year, encompassing both short and mid-term arrangements, to meet the evolving demands of the European gas market. Follow the author on X: @Lyaman_Zeyn The house of representatives committee on public accounts has threatened to issue an arrest warrant on Yemi Cardoso, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), over his failure to appear before it. In a letter dated February 27, and addressed to Cardoso, Bamidele Salam, chairman of the committee, said the CBN governor has ignored several invitations on the probe of alleged revenue leakages through the Remita platform. You will also recall that the Committee has sent several correspondences to your Office on the same subject with Ref. Nos: HR/PAC/SCO5/10NASS/HR.373/11/2023/1/2, dated 8th December, 2023; HR/PAC/SCO5/10NASS/HR.373/11/2023/1/31, dated 19th January, 2024; HR/PAC/SCO5/10NASS/HR.373/11/2023/1/60, dated 25th January, 2024 and HR/PAC/SCO5/10NASS/HR.373/11/2023/2/84, dated 19th February, 2024, and observed your absolute disregard for its Constitutional mandate, the letter reads. The committee said Cardosos failure to appear before it has greatly stalled the probe. The committee said sections 62 and 89(1) (a, b, c & d) & (2) of the constitution empower the panel to summon any person in Nigeria to give evidence, produce any document in his possession and under his control. The committee also said section 89 (1) (d) of the constitution empowers the committee to issue a warrant to compel the attendance of any person who, after having been summoned to attend, fails, refuses or neglects to do so. Salam said Cardoso must appear before the committee on March 5, failing which an arrest warrant will be issued on him. Advertisement Consequently, the Committee resolved to grant you one last opportunity to appear. You are strongly advised to take good advantage of this invitation and appear before the Committee unfailingly, the statement reads. You are also advised to come along with all relevant Officers who are familiar with the issues at stake and may assist you to provide answers to any question that could arise during the Session. Remita is an online payment service provider owned by SystemSpecs, a financial services company. The platform is used by federal government agencies to remit revenue into the Treasury Single Account (TSA). The house of representatives resolved to investigate alleged revenue leakages through the Remita platform in November, after the adoption of a motion jointly sponsored by Jeremiah Umaru and Jafaru Gambo, lawmakers from Nasarawa and Bauchi, respectively. President Bola Tinubu is expected to arrive in Ondo State soon for a condolence visit to the family of the late governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, in Owo. It was also learnt that the President would visit the Olowo of Owo Kingdom, Oba Ajibade Ogunoye, after which he will visit the national leader of the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, in Akure, the state capital. The President is expected to make the visit in the company of the state governor, Mr Lucky Aiyedatiwa and some national and state leaders of the All Progressives Congress. Some chieftains of Afenifere are already seated at Fasorantis residence, expecting the President. There is already a heavy presence of armed security men in Akure and Owo communities in preparation for the Presidents visit. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) says it was intimidated and threatened not to go ahead with its two-day nationwide protest. The NLC had declared a two-day nationwide mass protest for February 27 and 28, 2024, over the economic hardship being faced by Nigerians since the removal of subsidy on petrol in May 2023. On Tuesday morning, the protesters began their marches from the Labour House in Abuja and the Ikeja under-bridge in Lagos, while chanting solidarity songs and slogans. Similar rallies were staged in state capitals across the country. In a communique issued at the end of its national executive council (NEC) meeting on Tuesday, the NLC announced the suspension of the second day of the protest, adding that its objectives were achieved on the first day of the rallies. Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Joe Ajaero, NLC president, said following its announcement of the commencement of the protests, the congress was intimidated and harassed in a bid to prevent the street marches. We were threatened with all manners of consequences that would be meted on us if we went ahead, he said. We were, however, not perturbed as lifting the heavy yoke of suffering upon Nigerian workers and masses left us with no option than to press on. The NLC president said the congress has evidence from Tuesdays protest of the importation of agents who were mobilised to the protest routes and grounds to cause violence against the peaceful protest. God is, however, always a step ahead of the enemies of the workers and the Nigerian people. That was also one of the reasons we had to restructure on the second day of the nationwide protest, he added. You may have noticed that almost all the routes to our office have been militarised this morning. It took a lot of time to access our office. These are not things you expect from a democratic society. We want to reiterate that if the government fails to comply within the specified time frame, the NEC will convene again to decide on the next line of action. The NLC remains steadfast in its commitment to defending and promoting the interests of Nigerian workers and the downtrodden masses, who will not succumb to intimidation. WELL NO LONGER MEET WITH FG ON EVE OF ACTION The NLC president said while the congress will continue to attend meetings with the federal government, it will no longer do so on the eve of any of its actions. Each time they invite us for a meeting, we will attend and listen to them. You are aware we held a meeting with the federal government on Sunday, Ajaero said. But while that meeting was going on, they wrote a letter to all the unions to come and undermine us. There is nothing they have not done to subvert the NLC. But if we are invited for another meeting, we will still go and listen. However, henceforth, the NLC will no longer be comfortable attending meetings on the eve of any action. Nothing comes from such meetings than to delay us and demobilise us so we dont carry out our action. This is our new resolve. They cannot call us for a meeting when we have an action in two days and then keep us till late at night so we will not come out. The Oyo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has declared that Governor Seyi Makinde of the state does not have the right to criticize President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for removing subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, also known as PMS. The party made this declaration on Tuesday. APC, in a statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, Wasiu Olawale Sadare, said that Makinde is the only governor that has been criticizing Tinubu for removing subsidy on PMS. Sadare, in the statement, said that it is on the record that Makinde did not, for once, criticize former President Muhammadu Buhari. Sadare, while speaking further, said that Makinde attempted to take advantage of the labor protest on Tuesday to heap all the blame of the bad economy in the country on the federal government. He urged the governor to address the problems facing the state instead of blaming Tinubu. Sadare said, Makinde has grown more wings in his penchant for misleading the public and sacrificing others for his ineptitude in government. Funny enough, the PDP-dominated State House of Assembly spoke in the same tone on the same day, and we understand the script being played by the governor. Gov. Makinde holds the record of the only governor in Nigeria who constantly blames the sitting President for his failure to add value in his state. Out of the 36 governors, the Oyo State helmsman was the only one who criticized President Bola Tinubu over the removal of fuel subsidy when he stated that the decision was untimely and not well thought out. This was what he did to former President Muhammadu Buhari between 2019 and 2023 as he distanced himself from Aso Villa on account of ego and thereby denied the Pacesetter state a lot of opportunities for four years. As he is wont to do, Makinde attempted to take advantage of the labor protest on Tuesday to heap all the blame for the bad economy in the country on the federal government, forgetting that governors like him were more culpable for the extent to which the quality of life has degenerated. Why blame President Tinubu for stopping wasteful spending on fuel subsidy when the decision has been enabling you to collect improved allocations in the last nine months, although without much to show for it? The Oyo State government has received over N207 billion in allocations from Abuja since May last year, and this excludes the billions of naira accrued to the 33 local government councils which the governor hijacked from them. Rather than use the whopping allocations to create wealth, Gov. Makinde mopped up more funds from loans, grants, IGR, and illegal sale of government assets without accountability. So, who then addresses hunger, poverty, and unemployment in Oyo State when the governor always engages in wasteful spending, capital flight, and misplaced priorities?. Authorities arrested a New York man on Monday, charging him with sexually assaulting a child in Northvale. John Mark Dillon, 63, of Piermont, New York is accused of assaulting the minor and charged with two counts of first degree aggravated sexual assault, according to the Bergen County Prosecutors Office and Northvale Police Department. Authorities gave few details about the investigation, and did not say when the alleged assault took place. Officials said the child was under the age of 13 when the assault occurred, but did not give an exact age. Dillon was arrested in Orangeburg, New York and awaits extradition to Bergen County, officials said. Attorney information for Dillon was not immediately available. Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Deion Johnson may be reached at djohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Instagram at @DeionRJohnson or X @DeionRJohhnson A Bergen County tax preparer admitted Tuesday to tax evasion, helping her clients file falsified tax returns that generated larger refunds, and to filing false declarations on quarterly tax returns for her own business, federal prosecutors said. From March 2010 to September 2023, Joshlyn Raye, 49, of Elmwood Park, was the owner of JB Tax Services, a tax return preparation business in Hackensack, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office District of New Jersey. During that time, she evaded her personal income taxes over three of those years, filed 50 false tax returns on behalf of her clients and filed three false quarterly employment tax returns on behalf of her tax return preparation business, the office said. Raye used fabricated and inflated figures, including expenses and itemized deductions during that time, investigators said. She pleaded guilty Tuesday in Newark federal court to one count of aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false and fraudulent tax return, one count of tax evasion and one count of filing a false declaration under penalty of perjury, authorities said. As part of her plea agreement, Raye has agreed to pay the government restitution of $676,168 and to file amended tax returns, the office said. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 6. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Chris Sheldon may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com. UPDATE: Anheuser-Busch workers reach a deal, will not go on strike in N.J. A possible strike is looming at the Anheuser-Busch brewing company, with nearly 200 workers preparing to walk off the job at the companys 73-year-old factory in Newark as soon as Friday morning. Neither side appeared to be backing off Wednesday, with the Teamsters union representing 5,000 employees nationwide continuing to plan for a strike. Meanwhile, the companys management said it is looking at ways to continue making deliveries and maintaining operations. There are now three small, fuzzy additions to the wildlife family at a New Jersey aquarium. Three baby little blue penguins recently hatched at Camdens Adventure Aquarium, the attraction announced. Two already have names, Bananas Foster and Kiwi. The third will be named via an upcoming social media contest, aquarium officials said. We are so excited to have another successful breeding season among our little blue penguin colony, said General Curator of Adventure Aquarium Nikki Grandinetti. Welcoming any number of new chicks is always exciting. We have been fortunate to welcome eight chicks over the past three seasons. These three chicks all have different parents and were born on different days, the aquarium said. Bananas Foster was born Jan. 26, Kiwi entered the world on Feb. 6, and the unnamed chick hatched on Feb. 12. Visitors to the attraction will have to wait a bit to see the baby birds, though. They will remain enclosed until they are two-months-old, then guests can visit them in the howdy pen on Little Blue Beach. Little blue penguins live on the coasts of Australia and New Zealand. They get their name from their plumage of slate-blue feathers and their small stature, the aquarium said. Adventure Aquarium is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. General admission tickets range in price from $27.99 to $47.99 each. Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription. Deion Johnson may be reached at djohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Instagram at @DeionRJohnson or X @DeionRJohhnson. A former Catholic school closed for over a decade may be filled with people again after a New Jersey city council voted to acquire the property. Vineland City Council agreed on Wednesday to purchase property belonging to the Christ of the Good Shepard Parish. Included in the property is Sacred Heart High School, a former institution overseen by the Diocese of Camden. The city on Thursday declined to comment further on the acquisition, adding that the sale is not fully complete. Reports say city officials have pondered turning the building into a community center. Doing so would repurpose the school that closed in 2013 despite several attempts to keep it open. By purchasing the parish property for $1.25 million, Vineland acquires the school and the alumni building, according to Wednesdays ordinance. It was unclear Thursday when the sale would be finalized. The school closed in 2013 after facing mounting financial challenges and enrollment decline, forcing parents to use other options for private education. Twice over the last decade, the Diocese planned to shut down the school, stoking a groundswell of support from alumni to save it through donations. About $1.2 million was collected. About 168 students were enrolled at Sacred Heart around the time it closed. Twenty-three incoming students were to replace 52 graduating seniors at the time it closed. A message from NJ Advance Media left for the diocese for comment on the sale was not immediately returned Thursday. Thank you for relying on us to provide the local news you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription. Eric Conklin may be reached at econklin@njadvancemedia.com. Euphoria star Hunter Schafer was arrested Monday while participating in a pro-Palestine protest with the group Jewish Voice for Peace, Vulture reports. Schafer, who was born in Trenton, was at 30 Rock in New York protesting President Joe Bidens appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, according to the report. A spokesperson for the group told Vulture that Schafer, 25, was arrested with 50 other people. We commend her commitment to Palestinian freedom and to a future of justice for everyone, JVP said in a statement. The group shared photos and video from the protest on Instagram. The President needs to start listening to the American people not the far-Right Israeli government indiscriminately bombing the people of Gaza, destroying 70% of infrastructure, including hospitals, universities and the electricity and water grids, the group said in an Instagram post documenting the protest, JVP said in the post. Other accounts shared a photo they said showed Schafer being arrested at the event. Participants held a banner addressed to Biden. Jews to Biden: End Israels Siege on Gaza, it said. Protesters wore T-shirts that said not in our name and cease fire now and chanted no more money for genocide. Schafer plays Jules Vaughn in the HBO series Euphoria, which is an American adaptation of the Israeli series of the same name. The actor also appeared with Cliftons Rachel Zegler in the 2023 movie The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (as Tigris Snow). Schafer stars in the upcoming horror film Cuckoo, which premiered this month at the Berlin International Film Festival and will screen in March at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription. Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Rovshan Najaf discussed issues of cooperation in the gas sector with Chairman of the Management Committee of Gazprom Alexei Miller, Trend reports via Gazprom. Meanwhile, Gazprom's subsidiary Gazprom Export had a contract with SOCAR on gas purchase and sale for the period from November 15, 2022, to April 1, 2023. It was about supplying up to 1 bcm of gas from Russia to Azerbaijan during the mentioned period. This contract was fully executed in 2022, and there were no Russian gas supplies in 2023. To note, Gazprom has had a representative office in Baku since December 2018. SOCAR has been cooperating with Gazprom since 2000. There were attempts to establish Russian gas supplies for the Azerbaijan Methanol Plant in 2015, but the gas purchase was short-lived. The next attempt was made on November 21, 2017, when a contract was signed between SOCAR and Gazprom Export for 1.6 bcm of gas. Azerbaijan bought 349 million cubic meters of gas under this contract in 2017 and 999 million cubic meters in 2018, but suspended the implementation of this agreement in the fall of 2018 after the commissioning of TANAP and the start of the full-scale development of Shah Deniz. Since 2019, cooperation between Gazprom and SOCAR has been determined by the periodic need of the parties to exchange gas. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The Moment of Zen is a hallowed tradition on The Daily Show. This week, Jon Stewart saw fit to dedicate that moment to a loved one. The episode-ending clip featured his dog Dipper playing in the snow. And Stewart was in tears. The Jersey stalwart and longtime Daily Show host, who recently returned to the show part-time, remembered Dipper, who recently died. He talked about how he came to adopt the dog, who became a regular behind the scenes of the Comedy Central series (see video below). Stewart, 61, said that about 12 or 13 years ago, his children wanted to raise money for Animal Haven, a no-kill shelter for cats and dogs in New York. So they baked some cupcakes and set up a table in front of the shelter. To draw customers in, the shelter brought out a brindle pit bull who was about a year old. The dog had lost his right leg when he was hit by a car in Brooklyn. They put the dog in my lap and we left that day feeling really good wed helped this great organization, Stewart said, tearing up. And we also left with this 1-ish-year-old brindle pit bull. We called him Dipper, and in a world of good boys, he was the best. He used to come to The Daily Show every day, he said of the rescue dog. He was part of the OG Daily Show dog crew ... wed come and tape the show and Dipper would wait for me to be done. He met actors and authors and presidents and kings. Stewart, who grew up in Lawrenceville, even recalled when Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai seemed scared after running into the dog backstage. Oh dear, its a dog! Yousafzai said, walking quickly in the other direction in a video clip of the encounter. Dipper died the day before Stewart filmed his latest episode. He was ready he was tired but I wasnt, he said of the dog. And the family, we were all together, thank goodness, we were all with him. But boy, my wish for you is one day you find that dog. That one dog ... that just is the best. Jon Stewart and Tracey Stewart appear remotely at an Animal Haven gala with their rescue dog Dipper in 2022. Jamie McCarthy | Getty Images Stewart and his wife Tracey Stewart own Hockhockson Farm, an animal sanctuary in Colts Neck, and the Hey Friend Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting sustainable, kind living and alleviating nutrition insecurity. Im sorry to hear about your loss, @jonstewart, Yousafzai said on X, formerly Twitter. I know Dipper was a very good boy. Ive gotten over my fear of dogs and I hope youll have me back to meet your next pup. Stewart first hosted The Daily Show from 1999 to 2015. Following the 2022 exit of host Trevor Noah and a long period of guest hosts, Stewart returned Feb. 12 to host the Comedy Central series every Monday. For episodes airing Tuesday through Thursday, the shows cast members rotate hosting duties on a weekly basis. Stewart is also back as an executive producer, and will steer the show through elections. Im sorry to hear about your loss, @jonstewart. I know Dipper was a very good boy. Ive gotten over my fear of dogs and I hope youll have me back to meet your next pup https://t.co/OpFdobSEDO Malala Yousafzai (@Malala) February 27, 2024 Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription. Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup. The estate of a man who died while in custody at a privately run Newark jailhouse is suing the Essex County Department of Corrections, and two private companies that the suit says owned and operated the facility. Garrison Bryant, a 33-year-old father of two from Newark, died on Feb. 22, 2022, while being held at the Delaney Hall Detention and Reentry Facility in a remote industrial area on Doremus Avenue. Bryant was awaiting sentencing on a charge of aggravated assault on a police officer. Delaney Hall, referred to in the suit as DHDF, served as an annex to the adjacent Essex County Correctional Facility the county jail and held prisoners with substance abuse, mental or emotional issues and other special needs. The suit asserts that the facility was owned by Education and Health Centers of America Inc., or EHCA, based in Wall Township, in Monmouth County. The suit further asserts that, at the time of Grants death, the company used a subcontractor, the GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida, to run the facility. The suit, filed in state Superior Court in Newark on Feb. 21, says another prisoner struck Bryant in the back of the head with a broom handle. Still, despite Bryants complaint to the staff about his injury, he was placed back in his cell and not given medical treatment. An autopsy determined he died of an overdose of fentanyl and oxycodone, according to his estates lawyer, Brooke Barnett. Barnett said that if Bryant had been taken for treatment immediately upon complaining of his injury, he would not have been in a position to overdose. His mother, Linda Bryant, is the administrator of the estate. No security guards or staff of any kind were present, and no effort whatsoever was undertaken by any employee of DHDF to interrupt or stop the assault upon Mr. Bryant, the suit states. After the assault, Mr. Bryant sought medical attention at DHDF, but his injuries were not taken seriously, and he was sent back to his cell without medical treatment. EHCA did not respond to requests for comment. A GEO spokesperson said the company was committed to ensuring that the people entrusted to our care are treated with dignity and respect and receive high-quality services. As a matter of policy, GEO does not comment on pending litigation, wrote the spokesperson, Monica Hook. A spokesperson for Essex County, Anthony Pugliesi, also declined to comment, citing the pending suit. The suit said Bryant was only taken to the hospital after another prisoner found him unconscious and told staff. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital. Barnett said she did not know whether Bryant was attempting to self-medicate for his head injury when he overdosed. A 2022 security review of the Essex corrections system by the Ambrose Group consulting firm found that risks at Delaney Hall included an unusual(ly) high amount of contraband recovered, items that can be used as weapons, which were left within the reach of inmates, and electrical wires, exposed. Bryant was one of four prisoners to die in Essex County custody during a spate of violence between late 2021 and early 2022 that also included a brutal beating that left prisoner Jayshawn Boyd in a coma and permanently disabled. Boyd is also suing Essex County and is also represented by Barnett. Essex officials said Delaney Hall was emptied of prisoners as of Dec. 31, when its contract with the operator lapsed, and that special services are now being provided in-house at the main jail. Barnett said the facility, enclosed by razor-wire and equipped with a pair of outdoor basketball courts, appears largely vacant though not abandoned. The suit asserts that, although county corrections employees periodically toured Delaney Hall, it was not staffed by corrections officers or trained guards. Instead, the suit states, prisoners were overseen by counselors with little training to deal with a population increasingly composed of prisoners charged with violent crimes as statewide bail reform initiated in 2017 resulted in mostly violent offenders being held in jail and non-violent offenders released. For facilities like Delaney Hall that had been accustomed to largely non-violent population, she added, Its been a recipe for disaster. The Delaney Hall Detention Facility on Doremus Avenue in Newark, seen here in 2011.Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com Nobody knows Jersey better than NJ.com Sign up to get breaking news alerts straight to your inbox. Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com Two Jersey City police officers fired for legally using cannabis while off-duty have filed a lawsuit against the city for refusing an order by the states Civil Service Commission to reinstate them. The 33-page lawsuit filed Wednesday claims Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop has flouted the state law which says police officers cant be disciplined for off-duty cannabis use as a ruse done solely to bring attention for his gubernatorial campaign to the detriment of Jersey City employees as well as taxpayers who are now footing the bill of hundreds of thousands of dollars in backpay awards and attorney fees. The lawsuit filed by attorney Michael Rubas on behalf of Norhan Mansour and Omar Polanco, asks for an unspecified amount in damages that would cover compensatory, consequential and punitive damages. Among the eight counts in the lawsuit, Mansour and Polanco are seeking damages for false light, saying the police officials openly (announced) to the entire Jersey City Police Department that (Mansour and Polanco) were guilty of misconduct and were being terminated; and the officials gave hundreds of coworkers the false impression that (they) were derelict in their employment and portrayed them in a false light. The two officers also sued the mayor and the city in November, claiming that Fulop and the city did not comply completely with an Open Public Records Act request for emails pertaining to the citys cannabis policy. The latest lawsuit is seeking to compel the city to reinstate Mansour and Polanco after Civil Service Commission rulings last year ordered the city to do so. They are among five police officers fired for failing drugs tests after cannabis was legalized in New Jersey. In both Mansours and Polancos cases, the Civil Service Commission ruling affirmed rulings by the Office of Administrative Law, and awarded the police officers back pay, benefits, seniority and reasonable attorneys fees. We continue to wait for a ruling from the Civil Service Commission and the courts addressing the issue at hand of putting police officers and communities around the state at serious risk with zero guidance on how to uphold conflicting state and federal laws, Jersey City spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said. The city has maintained that the New Jersey CREAMM (Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization) Act is unlawful because it directly contradict the federal governments position that cannabis is a controlled dangerous substance. Jersey City last year filed a federal lawsuit challenging the CREAMM Act, saying the Federal Drug Administration rules prohibit the department from providing guns and ammunition to anyone who uses marijuana, which is still classified on the federal level as a controlled dangerous substance. A 50-year-old pedestrian was struck and killed by a vehicle in Sayreville on Tuesday evening, officials said. The man was hit by an eastbound vehicle on Washington Road in the area Walling Street at around 6 p.m., Sayreville police said. He died of his injuries at an area hospital. There was no crosswalk where the man tried to walk across the street, authorities said. Police have not released the pedestrians identity pending family notification. The driver stopped and spoke to police. No summonses have been issued, though the investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to call Sayreville police officer Thomas Calise at 732-525-5430. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. The site of one of the most iconic Hurricane Sandy images is no longer being pursued by Union Beach officials who wanted to turn it into a parking lot. The image of the yellow house split in half by the deadly storm that battered New Jersey more than a decade ago was shared across the country. The two-story colonial on Front Street in Union Beach would become an iconic symbol of the destruction caused by Sandy. The wreckage was torn down two months later. The lot has been empty ever since. Given the lot had been vacant for so long, borough officials thought the owner might sell, but that didnt materialize, said Mayor Charles Cocuzza. The owner has plans to rebuild on the property, said Cocuzza. A Change.org petition circulated in January claiming borough officials were threatening to acquire the property via eminent domain. It was something that we had thought about, Well, if we cant buy it maybe we can eminent domain it, said Cocuzza. But we never initiated the eminent domain process. We never wanted to go in and eminent domain somebody. The idea was to see if they would be willing to sell it to us. If purchased, the property would have been turned into a paid parking lot. Union Beach has just two paid parking lots, according to the mayor. The beachfront parking has been a problem for years. Were a very small town and wed hear from residents upset about people parking on the back streets. So, were looking to solve a problem, said Cocuzza. Officials approached three property owners on Front Street at the end of last year about purchasing their land, Cocuzza said. The borough purchased just one of the sites. Its unclear if the property will be turned into a parking lot. But, there is more paid street parking coming to the beachfront. We are going to make paid parking on Front Street and we are looking at some of the side streets, going up a block or two, said Cocuzza. I hate to say its revenue driven but it is, he said. Cocuzza said the town is expecting an influx of visitors since its beach has been expanded under a $395 million federal project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. State and local officials announced the start of the Union Beach Coastal Storm Risk Reduction Project, in March 2023. The town provides residents updates on its progress here. In addition to more than 3,000 feet of dune in the first phase, future project work when complete is slated to add two tide gates, three pump stations, about 1.2 miles of levees and nearly 1 mile of flood walls, according to local officials and an Army Corps project outline. We have to maintain the beach, we have to patrol the beach its going to increase our costs and the residents shouldnt have to pay for that, said Cocuzza. Youre always looking for ways to increase revenue and you dont want to raise taxes all the time, said Cocuzza. Union Beach is not the only Shore town that has dealt with parking issues and controversy over implementing paid lots. Some in Belmar expressed concerns about expanded paid parking back in 2021, arguing that residents who relied on free on-street parking had to pay to park outside their homes or hunt for a free parking spot somewhere farther from the beach and their front doors. There was also some backlash last year when Ocean City raised its parking fees. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Jackie Roman may be reached at jroman@njadvancemedia.com. A fishing vessel in distress off the coast of Barnegat Light was rescued Tuesday by good Samaritans and the U.S. Coastguard, according to officials. The Monica, a 64-foot commercial fishing vessel, had four people aboard Tuesday morning when they reported transmission troubles 85 miles off the coast of New Jersey at about 8:30 a.m., Coast Guard officials said Wednesday. The Barnegat Light Coast Guard station sent out a 47-foot motor lifeboat to tow the Monica back to port, but another nearby commercial fishing boat, Alexandria Dawn, responded to the Monica and began towing her in, officials said. The Alexandria Dawn towed the Monica about 80 miles back to shore and met up with a commercial salvage vessel that was mobilized to assist with the tow for the last 5 miles, officials said. After weather conditions deteriorated in the afternoon, the Coast Guard vessels took over the tow and brought the Monica through Barnegat Inlet and into Lighthouse Marina, officials said. No one was injured and the Monica was found to have no safety violations. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X A Point Pleasant Beach man was killed last week in a snowmobile crash on a trail in Vermont, authorities said Wednesday. Matthew Houston Morris, 31, was operating a snowmobile in Winhall, near the Stratton Mountain Ski Resort, when the crash occurred on Feb. 20, according to police. The snowmobile left the trail and collided with trees and rocks, Winhall Police Chief Derrick Tienken told NJ Advance Media. Morris was taken by helicopter to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire, where he died a short time later. According to his obituary, Morris was a leader in the hospitality industry and worked as service director and assistant general manager at the Modern Restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Authorities said the crash occurred on a trail owned by the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, which maintains more than 4,700 miles of trails in the state. Tienken said Morris was alone on the snowmobile at the time. The New Jersey resident was visiting the area with a family member and friends. Services were planned for 10 a.m. Wednesday in Bay Head with a repast following in Point Pleasant Beach. In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations be made to Save Barnegat Bay, 117 Haines Rd., Toms River, NJ 08753. Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription. Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Four juveniles are accused of shooting 26 students at an Ocean County school with beads from a high-powered water gun during gym class, police said Wednesday. The incident happened at Toms River Intermediate School South on Pinewald Road in Beachwood on Monday, according to local police. Officers were called to the school around 2:30 p.m., police said. The students who were struck were examined by the schools nurse and determined not to be seriously injured. The students were immediately returned inside following the shooting, police said. By Mike Abell I always imagined you had to know someone to get a top-flight oncologist on the phone. Learning that I was wrong that kind, brilliant, dedicated professionals are out there, eager to help in our darkest hours came as an immeasurable relief. But for families in New Jersey, it doesnt matter, because state law limits families access to medical experts. Outdated telehealth laws require physicians to be licensed in New Jersey before diagnosing, treating, advising or otherwise practicing medicine with a patient who happens to be physically located in the state. Im so thankful my family didnt live in New Jersey 12 years ago. At that time, my 17-month-old son, Jun, was in the hospital recovering from an emergency surgery to drain fluid and relieve the pressure on his brain. Jun was fighting a rare and aggressive pediatric cancer. He looked so tiny in his hospital bed, bandaged and tethered to blinking machines. I remember asking myself: How can I protect my son if I dont understand whats happening to him? We lived in Brooklyn back then. My son was born at NYU Langone Brooklyn Hospital, so when he got sick, thats where we took him. But was it the right place for pediatric brain surgery? I knew nothing about the medical world and I needed to research fast. I made calls all over the country to Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, St. Judes, Boston Childrens, Seattle Childrens and every other hospital on the US. News & World Report list. Incredibly, many of the worlds best pediatric oncologists and surgeons took time from their schedules to offer advice and support to a desperate dad. I didnt need a referral or a wealthy connection to talk to these doctors; they cared and wanted to help. Some even gave me their personal cell numbers. Ultimately, the doctors assured us that Jun was in great hands at NYU and we had a team of world-class surgeons, oncologists, and nurses committed to curing him. Their assurances helped us persevere for our son. Had we lived in New Jersey, as we do now, these calls would have been illegal. Most of the doctors I spoke to could have faced criminal charges and civil lawsuits for helping to save my sons life had he been hospitalized in Morristown or Newark. And that was just our first experience with out-of-state doctors. Telehealth became even more critical as we progressed. Over the next nine months, Jun cycled from post-surgical hospital beds to chemo treatment beds to a few days at home before a fever sent him back to the hospital. By the time his blood cells stabilized he was due for the next cycle of chemo. Rinse and repeat. Eventually, we had to chart the next phase of his treatment. Jun still had a sliver of tumor remaining and our oncologist felt the best chance for a cure was proton radiation. Radiation terrified us and not just because our son was barely two years old. We knew it meant Jun had an aggressive tumor that required aggressive treatment. At the time, there were only ten proton centers in the country. We learned MassGeneral in Boston was one of the best and had been using this treatment longer than any other. Over a few calls, Dr. Shannon MacDonald, MassGenerals pediatric radiation oncologist, walked us through what we needed to know. We learned how the technology can hit the tumor site with a maximum dose of energy without damaging nearby healthy tissue, allowing young children like Jun, with rapidly developing brains, to be treated. So, we moved to Boston for 28 days of proton radiation treatment. That was just over 11 years ago. Today my son is a healthy, happy 13-year-old. Im beyond grateful to the doctors who saved his life. Last year, a child in my town was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive brain tumor. The father, determined to find help, reached out to me. I immediately wrote to a doctor who runs a lab on the west coast that specializes in his sons type of tumor, to see if he would connect with this father. He responded on a Sunday, from his vacation. Parents of children with cancer are often clueless, trapped, and desperate. We need to have access to the best doctors wherever they are located. And pediatric oncologists want to help: Theyve dedicated their lives to helping children like my son. They go far beyond their ethical duties because they want to save kids. They should not be preventedor worse, punishedby misguided telehealth laws. Dr. MacDonald and I are both plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by Pacific Legal Foundation to end New Jerseys antiquated telehealth laws. I joined the lawsuit because access to out-of-state doctors was a lifeline for my family during the unimaginable nightmare of my sons illness. According to the American Childhood Cancer Organization, over 15,000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year across the United States. When I think about all those families, knowing what theyre going through, Im appalled to live in a state that makes it harder for doctors to help children in need. Now its up to the courts to bring justice and opportunity parents like me. Mike Abell is a New Jersey resident and a plaintiff in Shannon MacDonald, M.D., et al. v. Otto Sabando. A roundup of conversations we're having daily on the site. Subscribe to the Reckon Daily for stories centering marginalized communities and speaking to the under-covered issues of the moment. Mary Delgados first pregnancy went according to plan but when she tried to get pregnant again seven years later, nothing happened. After 10 months, Delgado, now 34, and her partner, Joaquin Rodriguez, went to see an OB-GYN. Tests showed she had endometriosis, which was interfering with conception. Delgados only option, the doctor said, was in vitro fertilization. When she told me that, she broke me inside, Delgado said, because I knew it was so expensive. Delgado, who lives in New York City, is enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income and disabled people. The roughly $20,000 price tag for a round of IVF would be a financial stretch for lots of people, but for someone on Medicaid for which the maximum annual income for a two-person household in New York is just over $26,000 the treatment can be unattainable. Expansions of work-based insurance plans to cover fertility treatments including free egg freezing and unlimited IVF cycles are often touted by large companies as a boon for their employees. But people with lower incomes, often BIPOC, are more likely to be covered by Medicaid or skimpier commercial plans with no such coverage. That raises the question of whether medical assistance to create a family is only for the well-to-do or people with generous benefit packages. In American health care, they dont want the poor people to reproduce, Delgado said. She was caring full-time for their son, who was born with a rare genetic disorder that required several surgeries before he was 5. Her partner, who works for a company that maintains the citys yellow cabs, has an individual plan through the state insurance marketplace but it does not include fertility coverage. Some medical experts whose patients have faced these issues say they can understand why people in Delgados situation think the system is stacked against them. It feels a little like that, said Elizabeth Ginsburg, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Harvard Medical School who is president-elect of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), a research and advocacy group. Whether or not its intended, many say the inequity reflects poorly on the U.S. This is really sort of standing out as a sore thumb in a nation that would like to claim that it cares for the less fortunate and it seeks to do anything it can for them, said Eli Adashi, a professor of medical science at Brown University and former president of the Society for Reproductive Endocrinologists. Yet efforts to add coverage for fertility care to Medicaid face a lot of pushback, Ginsburg said. Over the years, Barbara Collura, president and CEO of the advocacy group Resolve: The National Infertility Association, has heard many explanations for why it doesnt make sense to cover fertility treatment for Medicaid recipients. Legislators have asked, If they cant pay for fertility treatment, do they have any idea how much it costs to raise a child? she said. So right there, as a country were making judgments about who gets to have children, Collura said. The legacy of the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, when states passed laws that permitted poor, nonwhite and disabled people to be sterilized against their will, lingers as well. As a reproductive justice person, I believe its a human right to have a child, and its a larger ethical issue to provide support, said Regina Davis Moss, president and CEO of In Our Own Voice: National Black Womens Reproductive Justice Agenda, an advocacy group. But such coverage decisions especially when the health care safety net is involved sometimes require difficult choices because resources are limited. Even if state Medicaid programs wanted to cover fertility treatment, for instance, they would have to weigh the benefit against investing in other types of care, including maternity care, said Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. There is a recognition about the primacy and urgency of maternity care, she said. Medicaid pays for about 40 percent of births in the United States. And since 2022, 46 states and the District of Columbia have elected to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage to 12 months up from 60 days. Fertility problems are relatively common, affecting roughly 10 percent of women and men of childbearing age, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Traditionally, a couple is considered infertile if theyve been trying to get pregnant unsuccessfully for 12 months. Last year, the ASRM broadened the definition of infertility to incorporate would-be parents beyond heterosexual couples, including people who cant get pregnant for medical, sexual or other reasons, as well as those who need medical interventions such as donor eggs or sperm to get pregnant. The World Health Organization defined infertility as a disease of the reproductive system characterized by failing to get pregnant after a year of unprotected intercourse. It terms the high cost of fertility treatment a major equity issue and has called for better policies and public financing to improve access. No matter how the condition is defined, private health plans often decline to cover fertility treatments because they dont consider them medically necessary. Twenty states and Washington, D.C., have laws requiring health plans to provide some fertility coverage, but those laws vary greatly and apply only to companies whose plans are regulated by the state. In recent years, many companies have begun offering fertility treatment in a bid to recruit and retain top-notch talent. In 2023, 45 percent of companies with 500 or more workers covered IVF and/or drug therapy, according to the benefits consultant Mercer. But that doesnt help people on Medicaid. Only two states Medicaid programs provide any fertility treatment: New York covers some oral ovulation-enhancing medications and Illinois covers costs for fertility preservation, to freeze the eggs or sperm of people who need medical treatment that will likely make them infertile, such as for cancer. Several other states also are considering adding fertility preservation services. In Delgados case, Medicaid covered the tests to diagnose her endometriosis, but nothing more. She was searching the internet for fertility treatment options when she came upon a clinic group called CNY Fertility that seemed significantly less expensive than other clinics and also offered in-house financing. Based in Syracuse, New York, the company has a handful of clinics in upstate New York cities and four other U.S. locations. Though Delgado and her partner had to travel more than 300 miles round trip to Albany for the procedures, the savings made it worthwhile. They were able do an entire IVF cycle, including medications, egg retrieval, genetic testing, and transferring the egg to her uterus, for $14,000. To pay for it, they took $7,000 of the cash theyd been saving to buy a home and financed the other half through the fertility clinic. She got pregnant on the first try and their daughter, Emiliana, is now almost a year old. Delgado doesnt resent people with more resources or better insurance coverage but she wishes the system were more equitable. I have a medical problem, she said. Its not like I did IVF because I wanted to choose the gender. One reason CNY is less expensive than other clinics is simply that the privately owned company chooses to charge less, said William Kiltz, its vice president of marketing and business development. Since the companys beginning in 1997, it has become a large practice with a large volume of IVF cycles, which helps keep prices low. At this point, more than half its clients come from out of state and many earn significantly less than a typical patient at another clinic. Twenty percent earn less than $50,000 and we treat a good number who are on Medicaid, Kiltz said. Now that their son, Joaquin, is settled in a good school, Delgado has started working for an agency that provides home health services. After putting in 30 hours a week for 90 days, shell be eligible for health insurance. One of the benefits: fertility coverage. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. This story also ran on CBS News. It can be republished for free. The state of Mississippi and its corrections department routinely violates the constitutional rights of people incarcerated ... by failing to protect them from widespread physical violence, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. On Feb. 28, the Justice Department announced findings that conditions at three state-run prisons violate the 8th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The state does not adequately supervise the incarcerated population, control the flow of contraband, adequately investigate incidents of serious harm, or provide adequate living conditions. These problems are exacerbated by chronic understaffing that has allowed gangs to exert improper influence inside the prisons, the Justice Department said in releasing a 60-page report detailing the findings. These conditions affect approximately 7,200 people housed at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility (in Pearl, just outside of the capital of Jackson), South Mississippi Correctional Institution and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility The report notes that basic safety failures and the poor living conditions inside the facilities promote violence, including sexual assault and that gangs operate in the void left by staff and use violence to control people and traffic contraband. Further, the state houses people at Central Mississippi and Wilkinson in restrictive housing for prolonged periods in appalling conditions (that are) unsanitary, hazardous and chaotic, with little supervision. They are breeding grounds for suicide, self-inflicted injury, fires and assaults, authors of the report write. In emailed response to Reckon, the Mississippi corrections department said: At the core (of the DOJ report) is MDOCs continuing efforts to increase correctional officer staffing an issue faced by prisons across the country. Over the past four years, MDOC has worked tirelessly to increase staff through additional compensation, the development of career ladders, streamlining the hiring process, job fairs, and implementing special duty pay. Were grateful for the often thankless work of the men and women of MDOC, and we look forward to continuing our efforts to recruit additional staff. The poor conditions inside Mississippi prisons have persisted for years, resulting in numerous lawsuits and settlements. The federal government determined in April that Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman, also violated the constitutional rights of people incarcerated there. In 2018, a rash of deaths in Mississippi prisons made national headlines. Under a new governor and corrections commissioner, the problems continued. Mississippi Today also reported in November 2023 that infrastructure continued crumbling, staffing remained challenging and gangs still ran Mississippi correctional facilities. (Reckons editor-in-chief, Ryan L. Nave, previously served as editor and a reporter at Mississippi Today). Mississippi State Penitentiary was also the subject of the 2023 documentary Exposing Parchman. The Justice Department said now that the agencys investigations are complete, DOJ officials will work with Mississippi to implement change. The Mississippi Department of Correction said the agency would would work with federal officials to do so. While we disagree with the findings, we will work with the DOJ to identify possible resolutions to enhance inmate safety and continue ongoing efforts to improve operations at MDOC, the agency told Reckon. At least one bill under consideration in the Mississippi Legislature seeks to shutter most of Parchman. State Sen. Juan Barnett, who also oversees the Senate Corrections Committee, would phase out operations at Parchman. In speaking to Mississippi television station WLBT, Barnett said of his bill: Would you continue to spend money on something that you cant fix? A new bike depot for commuters will soon open near the train station in Summit, the latest New Jersey municipality to get an upgraded site for commuters to keep their rides dry and locked away while they are at work. The glass storage is shed is nearly complete and is expected to open this spring, officials said. Located on NJ Transit property near the corner of Union Place and Summit Avenue, the project was organized by Summit officials, the New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition and NJ Transit. Were very excited about it, said Debra Kagan, the executive director of the bike coalition. We think itll be a tremendous asset to the city. While most train stations have free outdoor racks for riders to store their bikes, Summit joins a growing list of New Jersey communities installing indoor spaces where commuters can pay a fee to lock up their bikes. Supporters say the sites keep bikes safer from thieves and guarantee riders a dry bike seat to ride home after work, shopping or traveling around town. Jersey City, Montclair, Bloomfield and Elizabeth have similar bike storage depots. The Bloomfield and Elizabeth sites cost $15 a month or $165 a year. The Montclair site at the Bay Street NJ Transit station charges $20 a month or $220 a year. The new Summit depot, which stores about 30 bikes, has been requested by cyclists in the community for years, said Amy Cairns, a city spokeswoman. Two years ago, the Summit Conservancy, an organization focused on sustainability, partnered with the New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition, a statewide advocacy group, to begin raising funds for the project, she said. Before the depot was installed, the plot of land near the Summit NJ Transit station held a plastic storage container that really no one used, Cairns said. The new depot is permanent and made of higher quality materials, she said. Cairns said the project was built with the help of grant money and donations to a fundraiser, but she did not provide the total cost of the construction. It is also unclear how much cyclists will pay to use the Summit depot. Users will pay a nominal fee to get a code to enter and exit the structure to store their bicycles, Cairns said. At other locations, the bike depots have video surveillance to deter thieves and vandals along with racks where cyclists can use their own locks to secure their bikes. The upgraded security may allow some cyclists to ride more expensive bikes when they commute. Those of you who live in nearby towns that do not have train stations can now use your nice bike, which may be a safer bike to ride than a station bike, to reach a NJ Transit train station, the bike coalition said on its website. The New Jersey Bike & Walk Coalition launched its bike depot program in 2014 in Montclair. The coalition then added the depot in Bloomfield in 2017, and one in Elizabeth in 2018. In 2019, a free bike depot was also installed at the Journal Square PATH Station in Jersey City. The 20-spot bicycle parking facility is called the Oonee Pod. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com. Brianna Kudisch may be reached at bkudisch@njadvancemedia.com. Six-day (Tuesday through Sunday) print subscribers of the Watertown Daily Times are eligible for full access to NNY360, the NNY360 mobile app, and the Watertown Daily Times e-edition, all at no additional cost. If you have an existing six-day print subscription to the Watertown Daily Times, please make sure your email address on file matches your NNY360 account email. You can sign up or manage your print subscription using the options below. Watertown, NY (13601) Today Snow this morning will transition to snow showers this afternoon. High 38F. Winds WSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 90%. About one inch of snow expected.. Tonight Mainly cloudy with snow showers around this evening. Low 26F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 50%. Avondale owner still in talks to sell the West Bank complex to Port of South Louisiana There is no timeline yet to revive the deal, which was suspended indefinitely last October, nor any indication if the terms will be revised again. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Azerbaijan has discussed opportunities for cooperation with German companies in the fields of solar and wind energy projects, bioenergy, green hydrogen, energy efficiency, and production of green technologies, Trend reports, referring to the Ministry of Energy of Azerbaijan. According to the information, following the meeting between Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov and a delegation of German company representatives led by Director of the German Eastern Business Association Michael Harms. "Parviz Shahbazov and Michael Harms deliberated on potential collaboration opportunities for Azerbaijan with German companies in the fields of solar and wind energy projects, bioenergy, green hydrogen, energy efficiency, and the manufacturing of green" technologies," the statement reads. Additionally, the meeting disseminated details about Azerbaijan's advancements in the energy transition, outlining both accomplished and upcoming green energy projects in the country. It also covered the intention to export renewable energy, including green hydrogen. Stay up-to-date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The wife of Leon Ruffin, the Jefferson Parish murder suspect accused of escaping jail custody by pepper spraying a deputy, was arrested Tuesday on charges that she aided her husband's brazen getaway, according to authorities. Ruffin also picked up several new charges, including a count of trying to smuggle cigarettes and lighter into the jail, following his recapture, by hiding the items in his rectum, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said. Shelita Ruffin, 52, of Westwego, was booked with conspiracy to commit aggravated escape and conspiracy to introduce contraband center, sheriff's spokesperson Sgt. Brandon Veal said. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, center, Louisiana State Police Superintendent Col. Colonel Robert P. Hodges, LDWF Secretary Madison Sheahan, both to the mayors right, NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick, to the mayors left, FBI Special Agent in Charge of New Orleans, Lyonel Myrthil, Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson, along with other members of law enforcement, NOFD and EMS, walk down Bourbon Street just after midnight as they ceremoniously close down Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. Members of mounted patrols led the way. (Staff Photo by David Grunfeld, The Times-Picayune) A spokesperson for the Corps said that once the letter is received, it will clear the way for the agency to determine if funds will be available in the federal fiscal year 2025 budget, which would allow the study to begin as early as this October. If Corps officials determine there's not enough money in the 2025 budget, it would be included in the 2026 spending plan. That could delay the start of the study until at least October 2025. Once the funding decision is made, either the levee authority or state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority must sign a cost-share agreement with the Corps, said Corps spokesperson Ricky Boyett. There's also no indication of how long it would take for the Corps to complete the study. When the east bank levee system was rebuilt after Katrina, it was elevated to levels that would prevent overtopping of surge from a hurricane that had a 1% chance of occurring in any year, a so-called 100-year storm. For comparison purposes, such an event has a 26% chance of occurring within the lifetime of a 30-year mortgage. TER HEIJDE, The Netherlands With a surfboard strapped to his feet and the reins of a giant kite in his hands, Daan Vijverberg skimmed over whitecaps on the Netherlands windy south coast. Nearby, other kiteboarders caught gusts strong enough to fling their wetsuited bodies several feet into the air. Its addictive, Vijverberg said, emerging from the water with a red face and the sniffles. I have to come two, three times a week. The Dutch government made this stretch of coast a magnet for kiteboarders and other beachgoers a few years ago when it dropped off an immense pile of sand. About 28 million cubic yards of sand enough to fill the Mercedes-Benz Superdome six times was dredged from the seafloor and piped here, forming a lagoon and pushing the beach about a half-mile into the North Sea. During the summer, the hook-shaped peninsula draws thousands of walkers, sunbathers and surfers both the kite and traditional varieties. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Kazakhstan's Parliament has ratified the Treaty on Allied Relations with Uzbekistan, signed in Tashkent on December 22, 2022, Trend reports. The document's goal is to take Kazakh-Uzbek relations to a new level of contact and bilateral collaboration, as well as to encourage further strengthening of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and long-term economic development between the two countries. According to the agreement, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan commit not to join in any blocs or unions, as well as refrain from engaging in any measures directed against the other party. In addition, the countries create favorable conditions for deepening mutual economic cooperation, strengthening and increasing trade turnover, investment activity, entrepreneurial and other economic activities, developing an interconnected transport system, preserving the spiritual and cultural closeness of the peoples of the two countries, and deepening mutual ties in science, education, medicine, sports, culture, tourism, and information exchange. The agreement also stipulates provisions under which the parties shall take measures on rational use of transboundary water resources, the operation of water management facilities, and the introduction of water-saving technologies. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel LAPORTE Police say a passing motorist, who admitted to having "a lot" of marijuana in his vehicle, was not kidding. Jonathan Millard, 28, of DeForest, Wisconsin, was nabbed with 56 pounds of the illegal drug, 1,000 THC vape cartridges, a variety of marijuana gummy-style candies and syrup, and four jars of THC wax, LaPorte County police said. Police said they were patrolling a local stretch of westbound Interstate 94 Friday morning as part of a drug interdiction team when they noticed a white Kia K5 with Wisconsin license plates violate traffic laws. They stopped the vehicle and the driver, Millard, reportedly said he was on his way back home from visiting friends in Detroit. Police, noticing a large box in the vehicle that was heavily taped shut, discovering the vehicle was a rental and knowing Detroit to be a drug distribution hub, called out a drug sniffing dog. The dog alerted officers to the presence of narcotics, police said. While Millard initially denied there being anything illegal inside the vehicle and denied police permission to search, he later admitted to having marijuana. "I asked Jonathan how much, to which he stated, 'A lot,' " police said. He reportedly told police the box contained "carts," which is slang for vape cartridges. Police said they discovered 56 bags of marijuana weighing a pound each and the other assorted marijuana products. Millard was taken to the LaPorte County Jail and is charged with a felony count of dealing in marijuana, records show. CROWN POINT A witness told a jury Tuesday that 52-year-old Kenneth Burns told him he shot Andre White, 39, inside Burns' Gary home in June 2022 because White "talked too much." On the first day of Burns' murder trial, Deputy Prosecutor Jacquelyn Altpeter questioned Vernon Reeves, who said he was in the upstairs area of a house with his girlfriend Briante Smith on the 2600 block of West 17th Avenue in Gary while Burns and White were talking downstairs. Reeves said he was renting a room in Burns' home. Smith heard a popping sound she thought was fireworks and the two went downstairs to see what it was. Reeves said he saw Burns holding a gun and White slumped forward over a chair, bleeding. "I said, 'what did you do that for?" Reeves said in court. "He said, 'because he talked too much.'" When Reeves asked Burns if Burns was going to shoot him too, Burns allegedly said no, but asked Reeves to help him move White's body. Reeves said he panicked and asked Burns to take him to a nearby liquor store. He told Burns he was not going to help him move the body and asked Burns to take him to his sister's house. The next day, he said, he reached out to police. During opening arguments, Deputy Prosecutor Milana Petersen said the jury will hear testimony from other witnesses, law enforcement officers and a DNA specialist who will testify that White's DNA was found in Burns' vehicle. Police sprayed a bloodstain reagent in the back of Burns' vehicle a few days after the homicide and it tested positive for blood in multiple areas, according to a probable-cause affidavit. Jurors will learn that Burns' family asked police to do a welfare check on Burns on June 19, 2022 because they had not heard from him in days. He was found hiding in an abandoned house ten days later and was arrested, she said. White's burned body was found June 8, 2022 in an area near the 4800 block of West 21st Avenue with gunshot wounds to the stomach and neck. Burns was charged with White's murder on June 16, 2022, slightly a week after the killing. Defense attorney Scott King told jurors that the state's case relies on testimony from Reeves without proper corroboration. He said police never went to the alleged crime scene immediately after the fact and that police might "offer excuses" and say they went eight days after the homicide, but things may have been moved around in the home. King tried to discount Reeves' testimony because Reeves, Burns and White had all been drinking heavily earlier that day. Before they were at Burns' residence, they went to a liquor store to pick up vodka and drank throughout the afternoon in evening. Reeves was fixing the brakes on Burns' car and said he drank while he fixed the vehicle and went to get more liquor after he finished, but before he and Smith went upstairs in Burns' residence. King asked why his immediate thought after Burns asked him to move White's body was to go to the liquor store. Reeves said he panicked. "I was scared," Reeves said. The trial is expected to last until Friday in Lake Criminal Court Judge Salvador Vasquez's court room. CROWN POINT Tensions were high in a criminal courtroom Tuesday as an eyewitness to an alleged murder was questioned for a couple of hours by attorneys who tried to get the man's story straight about what happened the night of the homicide of Arlandus Jackson, 37, in October 2022. Witness Marcus Johnson testified he and Jackson were delivering an engine to defendant George D. James, 47, at James' home on the 900 block of Williams Street in Gary when James allegedly went and grabbed a rifle and shot at the men, striking and killing Jackson. Johnson said he heard approximately three shots and saw Jackson's body fall forward onto the tailgate of his Chevrolet Silverado. James was charged two days after the killing and arrested in April. Johnson, who said he repairs machinery, had a previous business dealing with a man named Ernest Shed who called him the day before the homicide and asked him if he could drive to Gary with a car motor and give it it James. Johnson said he agreed and he and Jackson arrived near James' home around 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 2, 2022 and were motioned into the driveway by Shed. According to a probable-cause affidavit, the environment between the men became hostile because James wanted Johnson to move the engine into a trailer for him and Johnson did not want to. James and two other men who were in the area walked to a shed on the property and were gone for about three minutes. When James came back, he had a gun, Johnson said, and shot toward him and Jackson. James allegedly told Johnson to push Jackson's limp body further into the bed of his truck and leave. Johnson said he left James' home and called Shed to help guide him to a nearby hospital to seek help for Jackson. "[James] said, 'help me get him on there, get up out of here,'" Johnson said, "'or you're next.'" As Deputy Prosecutor Bernard Johnsen and defense attorney Gojko Kasich questioned Johnson about the shooting, they quarreled back and forth about court proceedings relating to presentation of evidence throughout Johnsen's questioning of the witness. Upon Kasich's questioning of Johnson, the discourse between the two became "agitated" and Lake Criminal Court Judge Samuel Cappas ordered the court to take a brief recess. Kasich asked Johnson about previous statements he made to police and attorneys that conflicted with his testimony. Kasich asked Johnson about if he had previously met James, to which he said he had, maybe once, although Kasich referred to another possible meeting between the men based on a photograph of the men, the way he identified James to police and his previous statements. He asked Johnson if he initially told police that he saw someone come down an alley and shoot Jackson, to which Johnson replied yes, because he was nervous in the immediate aftermath. When asked at trial how many people were at the scene of the crime, he said four. When Kasich then presented him with a deposition transcript in which he previously said six people were there, he said yes, perhaps six people were there. Both men appeared to grow frustrated during Kasich's cross examination of Johnson. "I'm here to tell the truth and that's what I'm going to do today," Johnson said. The trial will continue Wednesday in Cappas' courtroom. Just a few years after opening, the lakefront Hammond data center has already reached capacity and plans to expand. The recently constructed Digital Crossroad data center replaced the State Line Generating Plant on the Lake Michigan lakefront at the border of Hammond and Chicago. "We're at full capacity," developer Tom Dakich said. "We're expanded as fast as we can." Digital Crossroad has leased out all its available server capacity to cybersecurity firms and hyperscalers or large cloud service providers that provide computing and storage services at enterprise scale. Its customers, who it doesn't identify specifically for confidentiality reasons, include a "publicly traded firm with a global presence" and a "top 10 content delivery network client." "We have more square footage under contract and are looking to expand before the end of the year," Dakich said. Digital Crossroad started out with a 105,000-square-foot building that replaced the longtime coal-fired power plant that was one of the biggest polluters in the Chicagoland area. It plans to add 180,000 more square feet, 200 megawatts of power and thousands more servers in the second phase. "We're right on schedule," Dakich said. "Hammond has been wonderful as has the union labor in Northwest Indiana that built it. It's helping put Hammond and Northwest Indiana on the map in tech. The expansion will help make Hammond and Northwest Indiana better." Part of the infrastructure that supports websites, email, e-commerce, digital healthcare records and streaming services the data center has a total of four phases planned. It moved into the first $40 million building in 2020, retaining the historic Art Deco gates near the Illinois-Indiana Boundary Marker and installed one of the largest flagpoles in the country. The state-of-the-art data center ultimately is projected to grow to $200 million in investment, 400,000 square foot and 40 megawatts of power. It's used NIPSCO's switch from carbon-fired coal plants to wind and solar to pitch itself as green-powered to major Silicon Valley firms that try to limit their carbon footprints. Customers also have the option to use renewable energy harvested from solar panels on-site. More than 300 construction workers helped build the first Digital Crossroad data center building, a capacious warehouse-like structure that houses computer servers that are cooled with water and lake breezes from Lake Michigan. It now employs about 20 full-time workers and is expected to adds dozens of more full-time jobs once the second phase is complete, Dakich said. As more people stream movies, do online banking and conduct more business online, the data center market is projected to grow from $229.23 billion globally last year to $640.77 billion by 2032, according to Precedent Research. Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott said Digital Crossroad has been a successful redevelopment. "When they closed the State Line Generating Plant, the assessed valuation was $100 million. The data center is not there yet but it's getting close," he said. "And that's not the whole story because that was one of the dirtiest plants in the country and now it's green. It's made such strides. It 20 years that whole peninsula where the State Line Generating Plant was will be nothing but data centers and a filtration plant if I get my wish. Where the State Line Generating Plant was will be all data centers by 2020." Dakich said the goal was to get the required city approvals and break ground on the second phase of the project before the end of the year. ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 28. Kazakhstan's Freedom Bank has suspended P2P (person-to-person) transfers from/to the Russian MIR payment cards, the Bank told Trend. "P2P transfers at Freedom Bank from/to the MIR payment cards are no longer available," said the Bank. As an alternative, the Bank offers its clients to use the SWIFT system, or use the service of transferring money by phone number through Tsifra Bank. To note, the US Department of the Treasury has imposed sanctions against the National Payment Card System (NPCS) of Russia. NPCS is the operator of the Russian national payment system MIR. Northwest Indiana issues and lawmakers took center-stage at the Statehouse Tuesday as three high-profile measures moved closer to landing on the governor's desk to be signed into law or vetoed. All appear destined to reach Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb. What exactly they'll look like when they get there will be determined over the next two weeks as members of the House and Senate negotiate the final text of each proposal and vote to give them final approval. The most passionate debate of the day in the Senate centered on legislation to terminate a civil lawsuit filed decades ago by the city of Gary against various firearm industry entities alleged to be responsible for gun violence in the Steel City. House Bill 1235 would signal the state's support for the gun industry by retroactively prohibiting Gary's lawsuit from being filed in the first place even though discovery already is underway. State Sen. Rodney Pol Jr., D-Chesterton, who works as an attorney for the city of Gary, pleaded with his Senate colleagues to respect the separation of powers between the three branches of government by not legislatively interfering in Gary's claims pending before the judiciary. "The underlying bill does nothing to help your communities. All it does is hurt Gary," Pol said. "It immunizes unlawful action for one particular industry, leaving them totally unaccountable for their actions." Supporters of the measure, including state Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, said gun manufacturers have told him they'll never relocate to Indiana while this lawsuit is pending, and Tomes suggested ending it might bring more high-paying jobs to the state. In response, Pol said it's unconscionable some Senate Republicans are willing to put the interests of out-of-state corporations ahead of the needs of flesh-and-blood Hoosiers whose lives and communities have been ravaged by gun violence. State Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, agreed: "If you know anything about me, you know I believe in local government. Cities should be able to take action and protect the people against bad actors. House Bill 1235 voids this right not just for Gary, but for any Indiana city to file suit against the gun lobby." That opinion was not shared by state Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, the sponsor of the proposal. He said only the state should be permitted to pursue lawsuits of this type against gun industry entities, not dozens of local governments across the state, or even one. In the end, the Republican-controlled chamber voted 33-15 to keep the legislation moving, with every GOP senator representing Northwest Indiana supporting termination of the Gary lawsuit, and every Region Democratic senator favoring the city getting its day in court. Across the rotunda, there was considerably less controversy in the House when it came to approving two items uniquely focused on Northwest Indiana. Senate Bill 253 would require Northwest Indiana municipalities located adjacent to Lake Michigan to make available life rings and other rescue equipment at each pier and public access point along the shoreline no later than July 1. Region representatives, including state Reps. Mike Andrade, D-Munster; Pat Boy, D-Michigan City; Chuck Moseley, D-Portage; and Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie, each took time to educate their colleagues about how the beauty of Lake Michigan comes with the price of extreme danger when the rip current kicks up. They said if Indiana is going to spend millions of dollars each year to attract millions of visitors to the lake, it's imperative basic life-saving equipment be readily available if needed by out-of-town guests or Northwest Indiana residents enjoying a day at the beach. "We really, really need this along Lake Michigan," Boy said. The House agreed. It voted 94-0 in favor of the legislation. Also winning approval by a 89-4 margin was Senate Bill 37, sponsored by state Rep. Hal Slager, R-Schererville, to require the Lake County Council annually review and approve the proposed budget of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority. The measure additionally changes the initial deadline for the county executive to receive Lake County convention center proposals to Dec. 1 instead of the May 31 date set last year in Senate Enrolled Act 434. Slager said the date change is needed because a convention center feasibility study being conducted by the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority has taken longer than expected. With the study due out March 1, Slager said giving prospective developers and the Lake County Commissioners more time to put together and review convention center proposals in light of the feasibility study will be better for everyone involved. Under the plan, the commissioners initially would have until June 1, 2025, to decide whether to develop any of the convention center proposals they receive by the new submission deadline. The commissioners also still would be required to hold a series of public hearings to evaluate the proposals for constructing and operating a convention center, and potentially an adjacent hotel, at a to-be-determined location in Lake County. Meet the 2024 Northwest Indiana legislative delegation State Sen. Dan Dernulc, R-Highland State Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago State Sen. Dave Vinzant, D-Hobart State Sen. Rodney Pol Jr. State Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso State Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell State Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores State Rep. Carolyn Jackson, D-Hammond State Rep. Earl Harris Jr., D-East Chicago State Rep. Ragen Hatcher, D-Gary State Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso State Rep. Pat Boy, D-Michigan City State Rep. Chuck Moseley, D-Portage State Rep. Mike Aylesworth, R-Hebron State Rep. Mike Andrade, D-Munster State Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary State Rep. Hal Slager, R-Schererville State Rep. Kendell Culp, R-Rensselaer State Rep. Julie Olthoff, R-Crown Point State Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie I had no idea how many people feel profoundly affected by their interactions with Bishop Donald Hying, the former Roman Catholic leader in the Region. The Diocese of Gary was very blessed to have his presence for even as short a time as we did, Kathy B. wrote to me. You were certainly blessed to have had such a friendship with this man of faith, insight and inspiration. She is one of dozens of Catholics in Northwest Indiana who reached out after reading my Sunday column on Hying, who obviously left an indelible impression on parishioners. As a cradle Catholic I totally agree with your description of our former bishop, Barbara G. wrote. My husband and I were traveling companions with Bishop Hying in 2018 when we walked the Camino de Santiago. It was an extraordinary experience that I will always treasure. Thanks for sharing your thoughts of an exceptional person who we have both been privileged to know. She used the perfect word privileged which I failed to use in my Sunday column regarding my friendship with Hying, a soft-spoken man whose intellect often gets overshadowed by his humility. The church is more of a hospital for sinners than a museum for perfect people, he once told me. This line has stayed with me through the years, similar to sermons that resonate with churchgoers long after a service ends. You dont need to be Catholic to understand the connection between a holy official and the wholly influence on their flock. I agree about him being so human, yet so holy, Liz B. wrote. Don't be surprised if he becomes an Archbishop or Cardinal someday. Father Mark Kurowski, whose X handle is The Joyful Priest, noticed my social misstep by calling Hying by his birth name, Don, not his holy name, Bishop Don or Bishop Hying. It is not considered a title because we believe that the person is ontologically changed into a new being when ordained each time, he wrote. The calling of someone by their birth name indicates a level of intimacy that is beyond acquaintance. When young people do it, I now turn to them and say, I self-identify as 'Father Mark.' Amazingly, this works. Deacon Rob Litavecz attended Hyings formal installation in Madison after his five-year stay in the Region. You are right, he is a special man and I was very sorry to see him leave us, he wrote. Hying never forgot anyone's name, intentionally calling Litaveczs wife Reba, although her name is Barb. Her hair is red, Litavecz joked. Colleen McGinty-Rabine serves as director of communications for the Diocese of Gary Pastoral Center. She said it was because of Hying that she uprooted from her long-time home, family and friends in mid-Michigan to move to Northwest Indiana almost five years ago. He is a very special person, she wrote. Maryanne Krug pointed out that although Hying is a beautiful person with a calling to become a priest, he is still human and he too will have sins to confess for. I enjoyed your article and appreciated your public confession, but I don't think it was necessary, she wrote. None of us are perfect. We are all sinners too, we are human. Kathy B. added, I will bet that Bishop Hying never felt that you owed him an apology or a confession. Thank you for sharing that with your readers anyway. Several readers shared similar responses about the holy practice of private confession. My public confession reflects my life as a columnist. I share things publicly about my personal life that most people would rather not. This includes faith, flaws, regrets, addictions and rationalizations. By doing so, it prompts readers to often share their own sins, mistakes and vulnerabilities. I do the same thing in face to face conversations with people. Its much more interesting to me than typical chit-chat about topics I care nothing about. You truly touched my heart through your article, wrote Judy N. of Dyer. She describes herself as a little rough around the edges and yet she was blessed to have a friendship with the former pastor of her parish. So I believe I can relate to the acceptance part of your relationship, she wrote. I could never understand why my pastor friend accepted and even fostered our friendship. I felt the same way with Hying at times. This is likely why Ive kept his old bicycle in my basement, which prompted many readers to suggest what I should do with it. I could donate it to a charity or fundraiser. Or to a homeless shelter or church. Or I can keep it with hopes that Hying will someday go for one last ride with me. I forgot to mention this in my previous column. I hope that you sent a copy (of your column) to Rev. Hying? Judy N. asked, echoing what other readers also asked. Will you write a follow-up article after his call? I sure hope so. Your article gives a ray of light to the other agnostics out there. Actually, I didnt need to send Hying a copy of that column. A few hours after it published online, I received a text from the Bishop. Jerry, someone just sent me the article you just wrote, Hying wrote. You have nothing to apologize for regarding me. I will always treasure our friendship and I apologize for not reaching out until now. Your column is beautiful and I hope we can see each other soon. Love and prayers to you and your beloved. Melvin Way, whose hallucinatory diagrams, composed with ballpoint pens and markers on scraps of paper in New York City homeless shelters, were collected by prominent art museums around the world, died on Feb. 4 in a hospital near his familys home in Smoaks, S.C., a rural town northwest of Charleston. He was 70. His mother, Flossie Lee Hubbard, said the cause was complications of a stroke. Mr. Way, who was found to be schizophrenic in his 20s, emerged in the world of outsider art a label for works originating beyond the boundaries of the mainstream from the basement of a notorious and violent homeless shelter on Wards Island, in the East River. There, in 1989, he began working with an instructor from a nonprofit that taught art in jails and homeless shelters. When I first met him, he had over 200 drawings on him, the instructor, Andrew Castrucci, said in an interview. He would always buy clothes that had pockets. So he is carrying around 200, 300 drawings all wrapped up in rubber bands in his pockets. Theyre small, theyre all covered with Scotch tape for protection. You had to see it. Both President Biden and Donald Trump are all but assured to win their respective Michigan primaries today by large margins. But a prominent Democratic protest movement there will offer an important measure of the intraparty division facing Bidens re-election campaign. Activists in Michigan, which is home to a sizable Arab American community, are encouraging Democratic voters to cast their ballots for uncommitted to protest the presidents support of Israel in its war against Hamas. Some Democrats have warned of the political fallout of Bidens stance on the war, especially among young progressive voters, but the magnitude of the discontent has yet to be broadly quantified. A high number of uncommitted votes would send a warning to Bidens campaign. A low number would give Biden renewed faith that he can weather the tensions and focus on campaign priorities like the economy and abortion rights. The Arab American-led group that began the push, Listen to Michigan, has set a modest goal: 10,000 votes. My colleague Jennifer Medina, who is covering the election, said the protest voters are looking not necessarily to elect a different candidate but rather to convince Biden to change his policies. They want to send a message, Jennifer said, that if Biden doesnt alter his strategy in Gaza, he will have a real problem on his hands for the election in November. Imagine music that you wrote being held against you in a criminal proceeding. In the documentary As We Speak: Rap Music on Trial, the Bronx-born rapper Kemba travels around the country and to Britain, interviewing artists and legal experts about how that has been more than a theoretical possibility for rappers. Mac Phipps, for instance, was convicted of manslaughter and spent more than two decades in prison, even though another man had confessed to the crime. (He was released in 2021.) In an interview with Kemba, he describes how references to violence in his lyrics were used at his trial, despite what he suggests was inadequate context. (One line cited concerned his father, a Vietnam veteran.) For years, New York City leaders have relished the status of being a so-called sanctuary city, where local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration officials is limited. On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams made it clear that his views were different. If he had his way, he said he would permit law enforcement in New York City to work openly with immigration authorities to more readily deport migrants who were suspected not necessarily convicted of serious crimes. Theres some people that feel that they should be able to remain here, keep doing their actions until they are eventually convicted, he said. I dont subscribe to that theory. A reporter asked Mr. Adams, a first-term Democrat, about due process. They didnt give due process to the person that they shot or punched or killed, the mayor countered. Theres just a philosophical disagreement here. Ive spent the past few days traveling from New Delhi to Dubai and Amman, and I have an urgent message to deliver to President Biden and the Israeli people: I am seeing the increasingly rapid erosion of Israels standing among friendly nations a level of acceptance and legitimacy that was painstakingly built up over decades. And if Biden is not careful, Americas global standing will plummet right along with Israels. I dont think Israelis or the Biden administration fully appreciate the rage that is bubbling up around the world, fueled by social media and TV footage, over the deaths of so many thousands of Palestinian civilians, particularly children, with U.S.-supplied weapons in Israels war in Gaza. Hamas has much to answer for in triggering this human tragedy, but Israel and the U.S. are seen as driving events now and getting most of the blame. That such anger is boiling over in the Arab world is obvious, but I heard it over and over again in conversations in India during the past week from friends, business leaders, an official and journalists both young and old. That is even more telling because the Hindu-dominated government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only major power in the global south that has supported Israel and consistently blamed Hamas for inviting the massive Israeli retaliation and the deaths of an estimated 30,000 people, according to Gazan health officials, the majority of them civilians. That many civilian deaths in a relatively short war would be problematic in any context. But when so many civilians die in a retaliatory invasion that was launched by an Israeli government without any political horizon for the morning after and then, when the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, finally offers a morning-after plan that essentially says to the world that Israel now intends to occupy both the West Bank and Gaza indefinitely it is no surprise that Israels friends will edge away and the Biden team will start to look hapless. Toward the end of the Calvin Klein spring 2024 video shot by Mert Alas of the actor Jeremy Allen White stripping down to his skivvies on a Manhattan roof, Mr. White collapses on a red couch for a nap. Of course, the very buff Mr. White is the primary draw for the ad campaign, which generated an estimated $12.7 million in media exposure in the 48 hours after it dropped last month and has been seen tens of millions of times on TikTok. But the red couch is attracting its share of attention, too. Its the subject of countless memes and TikTok posts, and appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show, along with Fernanda Clark, a young woman who won it in a Facebook Marketplace giveaway after recounting to its owner how she had recently been widowed. As this is a trial, lets start with the facts. Asaf Sternheim, who teaches writing at a university a lot like Penn, is asked by a former student, Baron Prince, to endorse a manifesto. The manifesto seeks justice for Barons cousin, Deronte, who was killed by police officers while being stopped for a theft he had nothing to do with. Also pertinent: Asaf (Josh Radnor) is a Jew, albeit the kind that subscribes, as he says, to the acoustic-guitar-based variety of Judaism. Baron (Elijah Jones) is Black, as was Deronte. And one more thing: The 20-page manifesto, tying violence against Black Americans to violence against all subjugated populations, calls for sanctions on the apartheid state of Israel, adding that failure to do so will leave the United States complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. You could feel the uh-oh in the audience the night I saw The Ally, an important, maddening play by Itamar Moses that opened on Tuesday at the Public Theater. This ruling is beyond disappointing and a heartbreaking development for thousands of transgender youth, their doctors and their families, the American Civil Liberties Union and the A.C.L.U. of Indiana, which brought the lawsuit challenging the ban, said in a statement. As we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all the transgender youth of Indiana to know this fight is far from over, the statement added. The Indiana attorney general, Todd Rokita, whose office defended the law in court, said on social media that we are proud to win this fight. Our common-sense state law, banning dangerous and irreversible gender-transition procedures for minors, is now enforceable, said Mr. Rokita, a Republican. Republican-led states have raced to ban gender-transition care for minors in recent years, leading to a series of lawsuits in federal and state courts that so far have had mixed results. Many legal experts on both sides of the issue expect the legality of the bans to ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Indiana ban passed the Republican-controlled legislature last spring by large margins and was signed into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican. Supporters of the law claimed they were seeking to protect young people from making life-altering decisions that they might later regret. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, February 28. A center for innovative technologies will be established in Kyrgyzstan, Akylbek Japarov, Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the country, said during the "Digital Kyrgyzstan" international forum, Trend reports. He noted that this center will be a non-governmental institution, financed through state subsidies and sponsorship, and will be engaged in the development and implementation of innovative technologies, including in the field of artificial intelligence and quantum computing. According to Japarov, Kyrgyzstan is taking active measures to create favorable conditions for business development and citizens' quality of life, by implementing digital technologies and shaping an open digital society. "This year, we will adopt the first "Digital Code of Kyrgyzstan"' in our history. I am pleased to announce that we are entering a new stage of government service provision. Last September, we launched online vehicle registration. Buying and selling a car can be done through the "Tunduk" mobile application and other banking apps. Just yesterday, we launched online registration for legal entities. Creating, re-registering, and liquidating a legal entity can be done from home, with automatic registration with the tax service, the National Statistical Committee, and the Social Fund," he said. Japarov continued by stating that starting from March 1 of this year, online buying and selling of real estate will be launched through the "Tunduk" app. "As you can see, we are picking up the pace. The country is ready to share these services with businesses. We want these services to be available on banking platforms and mobile wallets. This way, we can provide government services even more efficiently," he said. Representatives from government agencies, fintech companies, startups, venture funds, foreign and local banks, microfinance institutions, payment system and telecommunication operators, as well as IT specialists are participated at "Digital Kyrgyzstan" forum in Bishkek. The judge determined that a group of state G.O.P. leaders, disillusioned over transparency issues and money problems in the party, had followed the partys bylaws when they voted on Jan. 6 to remove Ms. Karamo as chairwoman and later elected Pete Hoekstra, whom the Republican National Committee recognized as the rightful chairman earlier this month. Mr. Hoekstra, whom Ms. Karamo had denied access to the partys bank and email accounts, said in an interview that he was thrilled by the ruling. When Michigan opens for business tomorrow, we will be going to the banks, said Mr. Hoekstra. He had a warning for Ms. Karamos holdouts: If theres individuals that are not cooperative, as weve done so far, we will seek compliance through the courts. Ms. Karamo did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. The judge also forbade her from accessing the partys bank accounts and postal boxes, and from engaging in communication on social media on behalf of the party. In recent days, she had used the partys social media accounts to promote her convention in Detroit on Saturday. The gathering had been scheduled for 10 a.m. Eastern time, the same time that the convention organized by Mr. Hoekstra is scheduled to take place across the state in Grand Rapids. When Tuesday began, Mohanad Gazzaley, 18, was not registered to vote, and he had not previously heard of the campaign to vote uncommitted in protest of President Bidens handling of the war in Gaza. Then, standing on the stoop of his parents home in Hamtramck, a Detroit suburb, he talked in the early afternoon with a canvasser from the Detroit chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. An hour later, Mr. Gazzaley was registered to vote, and he emerged from Hamtramck City Hall with two friends also 18-year-old first-time voters whom he had brought with him. I voted uncommitted for the Democratic Party because I want a cease-fire in Palestine, said Saleh Zamzami, one of Mr. Gazzaleys friends. The devastating toll of the war in Gaza has sparked outrage across the United States, with protest movements taking hold in many cities and on college campuses. That anger may be felt most strongly in Michigan, which has some of the largest Arab American communities in the country, and where Tuesdays Democratic presidential primary offered an outlet to express it. Former President Donald J. Trump won Michigans Republican presidential primary election on Tuesday, moving closer to a general election rematch against President Biden. Mr. Biden easily won his own primary, though he faced a groundswell of opposition from voters who are protesting his staunch support for Israel and its military campaign in Gaza by casting ballots not for another candidate, but for uncommitted. The Associated Press called both contests as soon as final polls closed at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Mr. Trumps victory over Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, extends an unbroken streak in the nominating contests. Michigan is his sixth straight triumph, and it is his second, after Nevada, in a state expected to be a crucial battleground come November. We win Michigan, we win the whole thing, Mr. Trump told supporters at the Michigan G.O.P. watch party over the phone after the race was called, according to a transcript of the call provided by his campaign. He added that Tuesdays results were far greater than anticipated. A police officer in Australia has been charged with murdering two men whose bodies were found on Tuesday in a rural area south of Sydney, and the authorities said he had once had a relationship with one of the victims. The police commissioner for the state of New South Wales, Karen Webb, said that detectives had found the bodies of the men, Jesse Baird, 26, and his partner, Luke Davies, 29, who had been missing for more than a week, in Bungonia, a small town about 115 miles southwest of Sydney. We believe we are very confident that we have located Luke and Jesse, she said at a news conference on Tuesday. She expressed condolences to their families and added that the information about the location of the bodies had come with the assistance of the accused. The police officer, Beaumont Lamarre-Condon, was charged Friday with two counts of murder, according to information provided by the Local Court of New South Wales. He was being held and will next appear in court on April 23. He had legal representation, a spokesman from the court said by email. Hamas officials said on Tuesday that there had been no breakthrough in the mediated talks with Israel aimed at pausing the war and freeing the remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip, one day after President Biden said he was hopeful that a cease-fire would be in place by next week. Basem Naim, a Hamas spokesman, said in a text message that the militant group had yet to formally receive any new proposals since senior Israeli officials met with Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. mediators in Paris last week to advance a possible deal. Another Hamas official, Ahmad Abdelhadi, said that the group was sticking to its demand that Israel agree to a long-term cease-fire and that leaks about the talks were designed to pressure Hamas to soften its position. We are not interested in engaging with whats been floated, because it does not fulfill our demands, Mr. Abdelhadi said Tuesday in a televised interview with al-Mayadeen, a Lebanese broadcaster. Qatar, a key mediator in the talks, also expressed caution on Tuesday, saying it could not comment on Mr. Bidens view that negotiators were nearing an agreement. The efforts are ongoing; all the parties are conducting regular meetings, Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Qatari foreign ministry, told reporters in Doha. But for now, while we certainly hope it will be achieved as soon as possible, we dont have anything in our hands so as to comment on that deadline. This is not an article. Its a fish in the shape of a piano, floating in a clear blue sky, seen through a keyhole. Surrealism, the art movement that gave us disembodied eyeballs, melting clocks and animals with mismatched parts, was born in 1924 when the French poet Andre Breton published a treatise decrying the vogue for realism and rationality. Breton argued instead for embracing the omnipotence of dreams and exploring the unconscious and all that was marvelous in life. Art that could reach beyond the rational could liberate humanity, he felt. The mere word freedom is the only one that still excites me, Breton wrote in his Surrealist Manifesto. It was a literary idea that became an art movement and revolutionized nearly all forms of cultural production. Its now commonplace to call pretty much any weird experience surreal. In a sign of the deep divisions over the war in Gaza, thousands of artists signed an open letter urging the Venice Biennale to ban any official representation of Israel during the art worlds most important event. This week, they got an answer: The Biennale and Italys culture minister said that Israel would still be taking part. The Biennale said in a statement on Wednesday that any country recognized by Italy could request to participate. The Biennale would not take into consideration any petition or call to exclude countries, it added. The comments came a day after Gennaro Sangiuliano, Italys culture minister, issued a far stronger statement in support of Israels participation. In the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco a narrow, humid stretch of land where the South American coastline juts out into the Atlantic fables endure the test of time. Theres one about the Pajeu, the river which runs through the state, the jazz composer and pianist Amaro Freitas said on a recent morning, video-calling from his sun-drenched living room in Recife. It goes like this: Once upon a time, a Brazilian viola was buried in the riverbed. From that moment on, anyone who drank from the stream would become a poet. Freitas, 32, who was born in Pernambuco and grew up surrounded by stories like this, never became a poet (though he is now married to one). But his work which weaves traditional Northeastern musical styles such as baiao and frevo into the language of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk has always drawn from the cultural traditions and history of his homeland. Part of a new generation of Brazilian jazz artists looking to democratize and inject fresh life into the genre, Freitas and his trio first garnered critical acclaim with albums including Sangue Negro (2016), Rasif (2018) and Sankofa, a 2021 work he has described as a spiritual journey into the forgotten narratives of Black Brazil. His new solo record, YY, out Friday, sees him travel out of Pernambuco and into the Amazon, where the sounds of birds, water and rustling leaves lend themselves to polyrhythmic compositions reminiscent of the rainforest. Drawing from Freitass encounters with the Satere-Mawe Indigenous community, these new songs pay homage to the natural world. National media here dont cover the Amazon in depth, said Freitas, speaking in Portuguese, wearing a graphic T-shirt printed with Nelson Mandelas face. So when I went there, and I saw the floating houses, saw the hammocks on boats, visited a tribe for the first time, and looked at the place where the straw-colored waters of the Amazon River meet the black Rio Negro, I felt like I was accessing another Brazil. Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous nights highlights that lets you sleep and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now. Bidens Big Scoop On Monday, President Biden was asked about a timeline for a potential cease-fire in Gaza while visiting an ice cream shop for a Late Night with Seth Meyers segment. On Tuesday, the Daily Show host Michael Kosta said Biden had delivered his response in the most Joe Biden way possible that is, while eating an ice cream cone. James Baldwin would have turned 100 on Aug. 2 this year. His final works were published almost 40 years ago, just two years before his death in 1987. Yet his writing is as imperative as ever. He wrote with the kind of moral vision that was as comforting as it was chastising almost surely the influence of the pulpit he once occupied as a child preacher in his native Harlem. Baldwin never went to college, but he read, by his own count, every book in the library. Remarkably, he never received any of the major literary awards. But he wrote with grace and aplomb across genre: essay, novel, short story, song, childrens literature, drama, poetry and, infamously, screenplay. I say infamously because he was hired to write the script for a Malcolm X biopic, which he did reluctantly. Hollywood made it into a documentary instead and then never released it, leaving Baldwin to publish it himself in book form, as One Day When I Was Lost. Few people are as eloquent with the pen as Baldwin was. He returned again and again to central themes: compassion, radical honesty, and his insistence that we grow up. Even after leaving the United States for France in the 1940s, hoping to escape the pervasive anti-Blackness he had experienced and witnessed, he was a fierce observer of race and culture in America. There is as much spiritual intensity as academic rigor in his books, along with a sense that he was trying to capture something as large as life with his words. That wrestling manifested itself in the length of some of his sentences (one totals 321 words). He sacrificed nothing not style, not substance, not clarity, not beauty, not wisdom except brevity. All of his writing no matter how pointed, critical or angry is imbued with love. As someone who understood that love is key to liberation, he committed himself to the herculean task of persuading the rest of us. In the documentary short Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris, he says: Love has never been a popular movement and no ones ever wanted, really, to be free. The world is held together really it is held together by the love and the passion of a very few people. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, February 28. Plans to create a Kyrgyz Chat GPT are underway in Kyrgyzstan, Akylbek Japarov, Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the country, said during the "Digital Kyrgyzstan" international forum, Trend reports. "Firstly, we need to build a linguistic corpus of the Kyrgyz language. Digitizing a large volume of data in the Kyrgyz language is necessary. I believe this task is not only for the government but also for every citizen. Therefore, we will engage volunteers for this work and are open to initiatives from businesses. Secondly, this year we will upgrade our supercomputers to the latest Nvidia lineup. With the linguistic corpus as the foundation and the help of these supercomputers, we will be able to create the Kyrgyz Chat GPT, and in this regard, we are open to collaborative efforts with the IT community," he said. According to Japarov, these steps, along with the establishment of a center for innovative technologies, will help advance the development of artificial intelligence in Kyrgyzstan. In conclusion, Japarov noted that the onset of the digital transformation era requires not only adaptation but also active participation in shaping the future. Representatives from government agencies, fintech companies, startups, venture funds, foreign and local banks, microfinance institutions, payment systems, and telecommunication operators, as well as IT specialists, participated in the "Digital Kyrgyzstan" forum in Bishkek. Gaza is close to famine, the U.N. warned At least a quarter of Gazas population is one step away from famine, a U.N. humanitarian aid official told the Security Council yesterday. Aid groups say that people are so hungry they are resorting to eating leaves, donkey feed and food scraps. In northern Gaza, one in six children under the age of 2 is suffering from acute malnutrition, the official, Ramesh Rajasingham, said. The U.N. has not been able to deliver any aid to the region since early this month, it said, because of security risks and Israeli restrictions. The fighting, damage from the war and Israeli restrictions on essential goods entering Gaza have decimated the territorys ability to feed itself through farming, livestock and fishing, Rajasingham said. Data: A new World Bank report found that the enclaves economic output shrank by over 80 percent in the last quarter of 2023, calling it one of the largest economic shocks ever recorded in recent history. Up to 96 percent of Gazas agricultural infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, and about 80 percent of the population has lost its jobs. In the short term, every resident of Gaza will live in poverty, the report said. The Supreme Court agreed today to decide whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. The justices scheduled arguments for the week of April 22, putting trial proceedings on pause at least until then. The court will decide this question: Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office, according to the courts brief order. How quickly the justices were to take up the case has been closely watched, as Trump has sought to delay the proceedings. Trump argued that appeals court judges had been wrong to rule that he could be criminally charged for his conduct as president. Total immunity for his official conduct, Trumps application said, is required by the separation of powers. In New York, Trump said it was currently impossible for him to cover the more than $450 million judgment he faces in his civil fraud case without selling some of his properties. Trump offered a $100 million bond instead, in a request to pause judgment pending his appeal, but the request was denied, exposing him to a potential financial disaster. After the Supreme Court banned race-based affirmative action last year, many people in higher education worried that it would be only the first in a series of decisions that reduced diversity at selective schools. In particular, university administrators and professors thought the court might soon ban admissions policies that gave applicants credit for overcoming poverty. Such class-based policies disproportionately help Black, Hispanic and Native students. For now, though, these worries appear to be misplaced. And the future of admissions at selective colleges and high schools has suddenly become clearer. In todays newsletter, Ill explain. The Texas model The situation has become clearer because the Supreme Court last week declined to hear a lawsuit against a public magnet school in Northern Virginia Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known as T.J. Until recently, T.J. admitted students based on a mix of grades, test scores, student essays and teacher recommendations. This process led to a student body that looked very different from the area it served. The Center for Public Integrity, one of the oldest and most storied nonprofit newsrooms in the United States, is considering merging with a competitor or shutting down amid turmoil in its top ranks and financial difficulties that have significantly sapped its reserves, according to two people with knowledge of the organizations inner workings. The nonprofit fell about $2.5 million short of its budget goal of around $6 million for 2023, according to the two people, who would speak only anonymously to protect their relationships within the organization. This month, Paul Cheung, the organizations chief executive, resigned after an employee accused him of unethical behavior. The board also eliminated the position of its editor in chief, Matt DeRienzo, who has left the nonprofit. In a statement, the Center for Public Integrity said it had a financially challenged past year like many other nonprofit media organizations. The New York attorney general, Letitia James, on Wednesday sued JBS USA, the American arm of the worlds largest meatpacker, accusing the company of making misleading statements about its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The lawsuit is a major setback for JBS, which is based in Brazil, as it pursues a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The lawsuit alleges that JBS has made a series of deceptive statements about its record on climate change, including claims that it will achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Ms. James cited several instances in recent years when the company claimed it was on the path to being net zero, or not adding any carbon emissions to the atmosphere. One she cited occurred during an onstage interview with Gilberto Tomazoni, the companys global chief executive, at a New York Times event in September. Other examples of misleading claims, Ms. James said, include a 2015 industry presentation, a full-page ad that JBS placed in The Times in 2021, and statements that currently appear on the companys website. Amsterdam wont be giving up its Gouda. Los Angeles eateries will keep serving up combinations of bacon, chicken, egg and blue cheese that are essential to its signature Cobb salads. And Scots can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that Edinburgh has no plans to outlaw haggis. Yet officials from each of these cities want people to consume less dairy and meat. They are signatories to the Plant Based Treaty, which was launched in 2021 with the aim of calling attention to the role played by greenhouse gases that are generated by food production. The treaty is not binding and its effect varies wildly, ranging from just messaging to concrete plans to reduce dairy and meat served in institutions and schools and cut down on food waste. But local leaders who championed the treaty said it helped solidify their efforts to encourage plant consumption for both climate and health reasons, while also sending a pressing message. In Ramallah, Kinnan met Hisham, a slight boy with light hair who was also born in the United States. Hishams mother, Elizabeth Price, first visited the West Bank from Boston in 1994 to research her undergraduate thesis in anthropology; she fell in love, first with Palestine and then with a Palestinian man named Ali Awartani. Soon, the two families were scheduling play dates and spending holidays together. The boys became inseparable. Image Awartani (left) and Kinnan Abdalhamid at their sixth-grade graduation at Ramallah Friends School in 2015. Credit... From Elizabeth Price When it came time to start school, they enrolled in Ramallah Friends School, a private Quaker institution in the north of a city that had become the de facto capital of the West Bank. The literacy rate in the Palestinian territories is among the highest in the world more than 97 percent but even in this milieu, Ramallah Friends shined. Founded in 1869 for girls in nearby villages, it had withstood multiple cycles of conflict, periodically serving as a hospital and a refugee center, to become the only international baccalaureate program in the West Bank. Beyond practicing the Quaker tradition of silent reflection, the school was largely nondenominational. It was not uncommon for graduates to attend college abroad and then perhaps work to improve the deteriorating political situation at home: The open landscape outside Ramallah was shrinking as an Israeli settlement visible from campus expanded. Though I assumed Passages would be an anomaly, 2023 proved to be a sexually forthright movie year, producing a crop of awards contenders more interested in the joys of sex than any recent season I can remember. Emma Stone spent much of Poor Things on an uninhibited journey of desire, convening with a series of men in a way that surely tested the boundaries of the movies R rating. In All of Us Strangers, the sexual chemistry between Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal was so potent that I felt myself blushing. Even the director Christopher Nolan broke with convention, filming the first sex scenes of his career for Oppenheimer. If there had been a chill in the air while Hollywood learned how to navigate the new inclusion of intimacy coordinators on set, thats gone now: Movie stars and prestige filmmakers are once again game for the sort of sex scenes that had lately been consigned to premium television. When I spoke with the Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos in November, he sounded hopeful that attitudes had changed. The apartment building fire that killed a young man in Harlem on Friday was caused by the lithium-ion batteries that power e-bikes, the Fire Department said. His was the first death in New York City this year to be linked to the batteries, which were blamed for over 250 fires and 18 deaths last year. The man, Fazil Khan, 27, was a rising journalist. Days after his death, his friends, family and colleagues were struggling with the unfathomable loss of their loved one to a battery fire a problem gripping the city that was just the kind of story he would have dug into. This was a preventable death. Its outraging, said Bianca Pallaro, a senior data reporter at The City who was a friend and classmate of Mr. Khans at Columbia Universitys journalism school, from which he graduated with a masters degree in 2021. Mr. Khan grew up in New Delhi, where he studied English literature at Delhi University and earned a postgraduate degree in journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, according to an obituary in The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit newsroom covering education. Mr. Khan was employed there as a data journalist. Envelopes containing white powder were discovered this week at the offices of two key figures in former President Donald J. Trumps civil fraud trial. One envelope containing the powder was found Wednesday morning at the New York State Supreme Courthouse in Lower Manhattan, officials said. The court building, at 60 Centre Street, contains offices belonging to Justice Arthur F. Engoron, the judge who oversaw Mr. Trumps civil trial. Another envelope was received Tuesday at 1 Empire State Plaza in Albany, according to the New York State Police. Attorney General Letitia James of New York, who brought the case against Mr. Trump, has offices in the building. In addition to the State Police, the State Office of Fire Prevention and Control, the Albany Fire Department, the F.B.I. and a hazmat team responded. The powder contained in both letters was found to be harmless. Police officers responded to a 911 call at 9:29 a.m. Wednesday regarding the discovery of a suspicious powder at the courthouse. A court officer had opened an envelope, and white powder fell onto his pants, the police said. Abbas Ganbay Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said during a briefing today that the demand to withdraw Russian border guards from Zvartnots airport is another example of the unfriendly behaviour of the representative of official Yerevan, Azernews reports. According to Maria Zakharova, Moscow has not received any demand from Armenia for Russian border guards to leave Zvartnots airport. "We have not received any requests from the Armenian authorities in this regard. We always respect the national legislation of a sovereign state," she added. According to her, in Moscow, the statement of Armenian Parliament Speaker Simonyan is considered another example of the unfriendly behaviour of the representative of official Yerevan. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said today during a briefing, answering Baku.tv's question that the work on opening regional communications in the South Caucasus has stalled due to the position of Armenian colleagues. "We know that the Armenian authorities spoke about their readiness to open regional communications on the basis of the principle of sovereignty and within the framework of equality and reciprocity. Azerbaijan, as a matter of fact, has not abandoned such an approach. This subject was discussed in detail earlier in the format of a trilateral working group co-chaired by the Deputy Prime Ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Unfortunately, this work has stalled due to the position of Armenian colleagues," Zakharova said. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, February 28. Kyrgyzstan is ready to create all necessary conditions for Turkish entrepreneurs to conduct business in the country comfortably, Akylbek Japarov, Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, said during a meeting with representatives of several Turkish companies, Trend reports. According to the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, mutual interest in the practical implementation of promising projects in the fields of light industry, medicine, pharmaceuticals, and education was discussed during a meeting. Japarov emphasized the importance of practically implementing the agreements reached and added that the Kyrgyz side is prepared to create all conditions for Turkish entrepreneurs to conduct business comfortably in Kyrgyzstan. It was noted that this meeting served as a continuation of negotiations held in Ankara during the official visit of Akylbek Japarov to Turkiye The Kyrgyz-Turkish Business Forum took place in Ankara on February 9 within the frame of the 11th meeting of the Kyrgyz-Turkish Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation, with the participation of over 500 companies. Following the business forum, a number of contracts were signed. Additionally, as a result of the commission's work, a new action plan was signed, serving as a "roadmap" for advancing comprehensive cooperation between the two countries for the years 2024-2025. Moreover, bilateral documents were signed in the energy and transportation sectors. Sury Saray Espine, above, with her children, is a rare success story in a state program designed to help migrants. She and her family spent 13 months in a homeless shelter in New York City before moving to an apartment on Long Island, thanks to a $25 million program that was set up to relocate migrant families and ease the pressure on the citys shelter system. The program will cover the rent when a family moves out of a shelter. I asked Dana Rubinstein a Metro reporter who, with Andy Newman and Wesley Parnell, took a detailed look at the program to explain its shortcomings. A construction safety company in New York City and 25 individuals were charged on Wednesday in connection with a yearslong scheme that falsely certified thousands of workers as having completed required safety training, the Manhattan district attorneys office said. One of the workers the firm claimed to have trained fell to his death at a job site. The company, Valor Security and Investigations, and four people were also charged with recklessly endangering the life of the construction worker who died, Ivan Frias. Six people who worked at Valor, including its founder, were additionally charged with enterprise corruption and criminal possession of a forged instrument. In recent years, Valor rose to become one of the largest providers of job site safety training for construction workers in New York City. Between December 2019 and April 2023, the company certified 20,000 laborers had completed 40 hours of courses, according to the district attorneys office. Laborers cannot work at most construction sites in the city without completing the training. Valor and its founder, Alexander Shaporov, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Alvin L. Bragg, the district attorney, said that prosecutors believe most of the workers who were certified by Valor were never trained. Valor filed paperwork showing that Mr. Frias had received safety training, including eight hours of fall protection, but he never took the courses. It is a truth universally acknowledged that literary critics are the most annoying people in the world. Theyre elitist, or undignified. Theyre divisive. Theyre snobs. Their profession is, in fact, dead, and has been for decades. And upon realizing that they are irrelevant, they take themselves way too seriously. Overseeing the development of a literary culture, which is part of a critics job, is a process of fits and starts. Critics play a role in determining which books published today should be branded instant classics, which authors are best described as little-known and which books published in past decades or centuries merit re-examination. Beginning in the early 20th century, reissues complicated those categories. Older books like The Dud Avocado and Stoner and even Moby-Dick and The Great Gatsby became more famous upon reprinting than they had been when originally published. The canon itself is in a constant, ongoing process of being shaped by book lovers who are often in disagreement not only about what qualifies as literature but also about the purpose of reading literature. But this is a feature, not a bug: The journey of discovering literature for critics and also for everyday readers is made of detours. A reissue, more often than not published after the author is deceased, rebalances the purpose of literature away from writer intent and more toward reader intent. Reissues are about readers recovering what is worthy about another world. As one early 2000s reissue of a perhaps forgotten 1953 classic had it, the past is a foreign country. Early last year, the small magazine n+1 reiterated a longstanding policy: No dead people. Reading work from dead authors may be inevitable, but as literary critics tasked with creating and shaping the conversation, writing about dead people was considered unacceptable because it was unfair to expect that contemporary writers, already struggling to secure attention for their work, compete with their predecessors. We need, n+1 argued, to redirect the publics attention to the under-read work of the living. After Emily Sundberg reported in her daily business newsletter, Feed Me, that the Working Families Party is looking to hire a fandom organizing coordinator, she got a bunch of emails from readers scoffing at the idea of such a position. It is silly, for example, to imagine organizing devotees of J.R.R. Tolkien via social media for political action. Whats next, Orcs for Biden? But despite the good-natured skepticism, Sundberg said she understands and respects what the Working Families Party is trying to do. The job listing explains that the role is meant to help the party better navigate and set up systems for utilizing the power of fandoms to expand W.F.P.s base and profile. And Sundberg thinks that political parties gaining entree into fan communities has the potential to be effective if done properly, particularly when it comes to reaching younger voters who are savvy about social media marketing and can be appropriately cynical about the effectiveness of our current political system. I agree. Social media is where many young voters live about a third of adults under 30 regularly get news from TikTok, according to Pew Research. And turning out young voters who are otherwise not particularly politically engaged will be key to winning elections up and down the ballot in November. The left-leaning Working Families Party isnt exactly a threat to take the White House in 2024, but it is on to a new way of reaching Gen Z voters at a time when the old ways are increasingly useless. As Marcela Valdes explained this week for The New York Times Magazine, young voters tend to have low turnout rates. No one is more ambivalent about participating in elections than young people, she wrote. (Its worth noting, though, that turnout among Americans ages 18 to 29 was historically high in 2018, 2020 and 2022, according to C.I.R.C.L.E., the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.) On Monday, at a hip Arab coffee shop in Dearborn, Mich., Nihad Awad, a co-founder and the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, told me that as a Palestinian American Muslim who voted for Joe Biden in 2020, he feels betrayed bitterly over the administrations position on the war in Gaza. So he was in the Detroit area this week to support the campaign to get voters to choose uncommitted in Michigans Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday. But as our conversation progressed, it became clear to me that his objective is not simply to send President Biden a message about the war and make him shift his policy, as is the aim of many I spoke with in Michigan in the past few days. Awad wants more. He doesnt only want Biden to be politically corrected; he wants him politically crushed. Of the president, Awad says, I dont think he can continue to lead our country. When I asked if there is anything Biden can do to change his mind, Awad said, He can retire. Earlier, I had put the same question to Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIRs Michigan chapter, who said that for most Muslims, anything short of Biden resurrecting 29,000 dead Palestinians like Jesus would mean that they will never vote for him again. How It Works Pills are prescribed by virtual-only providers and by clinics that also offer in-person services. Patients fill out an online questionnaire or meet with a clinician via video or text chat. This method began nationwide in 2020, when the Food and Drug Administration began allowing abortion providers to mail pills without an in-clinic visit during the pandemic. Some of the prescriptions included in the new count were given to patients in states where abortion is banned, a new development made possible by shield laws. These laws protect clinicians in states where abortion is legal when they prescribe and mail pills to patients in states where it is not. Shield laws were in effect in Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Washington during the period covered by the new data, and California has since passed one. Why It Matters The growth of telemedicine abortion has made it easier and often less expensive for women to get abortions, particularly if they live far from an abortion clinic or in one of the roughly one-third of states that have banned or substantially restricted abortions since the Supreme Courts Dobbs decision in 2022. Activists, legislators and prosecutors in the states with bans are working to stem the flow of these mail-order pills. But they have so far proven hard to regulate. The new data, from WeCount, a research group that collects abortion numbers from providers nationwide and supports abortion rights, suggests that the overall number of abortions provided by clinicians in the United States is slightly higher now than it was before the Dobbs decision. Part of the reason that the total number of abortions hasnt declined is that some women who live in states with abortion bans are traveling to clinics in other states or ordering pills from out-of-state providers. Research also suggests that more women are getting abortions in states where it has always been legal, because of increased financial and logistical assistance, a surge of publicity about ways to get abortions, and the expansion of telehealth. The Supreme Court wrestled on Wednesday over whether the Trump administration acted lawfully in enacting a ban on bump stocks after one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. The justices appeared split largely along ideological lines over the ban, which prohibits the sale and possession of bump stocks, attachments that enable semiautomatic rifles to fire at speeds rivaling machine guns. Some raised concerns about the broader implications of a reversal. The case does not turn on the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Instead it is one of a number of challenges aimed at curtailing the power of administrative agencies in this instance, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A decision is expected by late June. After a gunman stationed on the 32nd floor of a hotel suite opened fire at a country music festival in Las Vegas in 2017, a ban on bump stocks gained political traction, one of the few pieces of gun control legislation to generate significant discussion. Officials at the Justice Department initially said the executive branch could not prohibit the accessory without action by Congress. But it ultimately reversed course and enacted a ban on its own. Larry Hogan might not be running for Senate this year but for a letter he received in early January. The popular former Republican governor of Maryland had rebuffed years of entreaties and lobbying from a parade of powerful Republicans. But when he received an emailed letter from a lifelong Maryland resident on Jan. 8 making less an appeal to partisanship than a call to public service, Mr. Hogan responded within an hour with an invitation via an aide for a private meeting in Annapolis. The letters author, Darin Thacker, was no ordinary constituent. Hes the chief of staff to the chairman of the Senate G.O.P.s campaign arm. Once Mr. Hogan had cracked open what had seemed a shut door, Mr. Thacker quickly informed his boss of his personal outreach, setting in motion a frantic three-week sprint of private meetings and polling. Mr. Hogan ultimately made a dramatic surprise entrance into the race hours before a Feb. 9 filing deadline. The decision delivered a genuine jolt to a Senate landscape that was already heavily tilted toward Republicans in 2024. Senator Mitch McConnell, the longtime top Senate Republican, said on Wednesday that he would give up his spot as the partys leader following the November elections, acknowledging that his Reaganite national security views had put him out of step with a party now headed by former President Donald J. Trump. Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular time, Mr. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, said in a speech on the Senate floor announcing his intentions. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them. His decision, reported earlier by The Associated Press, was not a surprise. Mr. McConnell suffered a serious fall last year and experienced some episodes where he momentarily froze in front of the media. He has also faced rising resistance within his ranks for his push to provide continued military assistance to Ukraine as well as his close-to-the-vest leadership style. And his toxic relationship with Mr. Trump, whom he blamed for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol after orchestrating his acquittal in an impeachment trial on charges of inciting an insurrection put him profoundly at odds with the rest of his party. Mr. McConnell had said that he would serve out his full Senate term ending in 2027, but had been more opaque about whether he would try to remain leader after November. The Biden administration is moving to extend a disputed warrantless surveillance program into April 2025, according to officials familiar with the matter. The decision by the administration, which requires asking for court approval, seemed likely to roil an already turbulent debate in Congress over its fate. The program has scrambled the usual partisan lines, with members of both parties on each side of seeing the program as potentially abusive of civil liberties or as necessary for protecting national security. The law that undergirds the program, Section 702, authorizes the government to collect the communications of foreigners abroad who have been targeted for intelligence purposes even when those targets are talking with or about Americans. The National Security Agency gathers the information from American companies like Google and AT&T, and without individualized warrants. Enacted in 2008, the law legalized a form of the once-secret Stellarwind program, which the Bush administration created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The government has said it uses the law to gather foreign intelligence, including information about spies, hackers and terrorists. BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, February 28. President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Zhaparov, and Chairman of the State Great Khural (Parliament) of Mongolia Gombojavin Zandanshatar, discussed the current issues of Kyrgyz-Mongolian cooperation, Trend reports. "Over the past year, we have witnessed a positive momentum in cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, particularly with an expanded political dialogue and actively advancing economic ties. Within the framework of agreements in the field of education, student exchanges for the study of Kyrgyz and Mongolian languages are actively being implemented," Zhaparov said. The head of state emphasized the importance of developing trade and economic relations between the countries, as well as the significant opportunities for cooperation in the mining industry sector. During the meeting, Kyrgyz president expressed gratitude to the Mongolian side for supporting Kyrgyzstan's accession to the agreement on international road transport along the Asian Highway Network and for endorsing Kyrgyzstan's candidacy as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the years 2027-2028. He also expressed interest in further deepening cooperation across various areas, especially in inter-parliamentary cooperation. In turn, Zandanshatar noted that Mongolia welcomes Kyrgyzstan's active efforts in combating crime and corruption. According to him, this creates a favorable investment environment, leading Mongolian investors to express interest in doing business in Kyrgyzstan. Furthermore, Zhaparov highlighted that the bilateral documents signed during the visit signify the further strengthening of friendly relations between the countries. He extended his greetings and best wishes to President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh, mentioning that they look forward to his official visit to the country at a convenient time. Former President Donald J. Trump won Michigans Republican presidential primary election on Tuesday, moving closer to a general election rematch against President Biden. Mr. Biden easily won his own primary, though he faced a groundswell of opposition from voters who are protesting his staunch support for Israel and its military campaign in Gaza by casting ballots not for another candidate, but for uncommitted. The Associated Press called both contests as soon as final polls closed at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Mr. Trumps victory over Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, extends an unbroken streak in the nominating contests. Michigan is his sixth straight triumph, and it is his second, after Nevada, in a state expected to be a crucial battleground come November. We win Michigan, we win the whole thing, Mr. Trump told supporters at the Michigan G.O.P. watch party over the phone after the race was called, according to a transcript of the call provided by his campaign. He added that Tuesdays results were far greater than anticipated. As of 10:45 p.m. Eastern time, Mr. Trump had 67 percent of the vote to Ms. Haleys 28 percent, while 3 percent had marked ballots for uncommitted. Mr. Trump said in a radio interview earlier in the day that he expected Ms. Haley would lose like by 80 points. Mr. Trump and his team have been eager to look past the primary, citing his early-state victories as evidence that it is time for Ms. Haley to drop out. The former president, who is facing 91 felony charges in four separate criminal cases, is also under time pressure as he looks to wrap up the nomination. His first criminal trial is scheduled to begin in Manhattan in late March. During campaign stops in Michigan this week, Ms. Haley also focused heavily on the general election, arguing that she is by far the better candidate to take on Mr. Biden. Image Attendees at a Nikki Haley campaign rally in Centennial, Colo., on Tuesday. Ms. Haley could still pick up delegates in Michigan, but suffered her sixth loss in a row to Mr. Trump. Credit... Matthew Defeo for The New York Times In a statement after the race was called, a spokeswoman for the Haley campaign, Olivia Perez-Cubas, said the share of Republican voters who did not back Mr. Trump was a flashing warning sign for Trump in November. She also pointed out that since Mr. Trump was elected to the White House in 2016, Republicans had lost the Michigan governors mansion as well as both chambers of the state Legislature to Democrats. Ms. Haley, who has continued to court donors and reported raising $16.5 million in January, has said she will keep competing through the Super Tuesday contests on March 5. So far, she has picked up delegates in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, but she is trailing Mr. Trump significantly in the overall total. Ms. Haley will pick up delegates in Michigan. Sixteen of the states 55 delegates were up for grabs on Tuesday, and those will be allocated proportionally based on vote totals. Ms. Haley was awarded at least two, according to The Associated Press on Tuesday night. But Mr. Trump is the heavy favorite to receive the majority of the remaining 39 delegates, as he remains hugely popular among Republicans. Those will be allocated on Saturday, when rival factions of the Michigan Republican Party are set to hold dueling conventions after a monthslong leadership fight that has thrown the state party into chaos. Both sides are led by people loyal to Mr. Trump, though state Republicans appear split between the factions. Pete Hoekstra, a former congressman and a onetime ambassador to the Netherlands under Mr. Trump, has been formally recognized by the Republican National Committee as the state partys chair. Mr. Trump endorsed him for the post after a number of state party officials voted last month to remove Kristina Karamo, a 2020 election denier who took control last year, from the position. Image Pete Hoekstra, the newly recognized Republican state party chair in Michigan. Thirty-nine delegates will be allocated during the partys convention, in addition to the 16 up for grabs during the primary. Credit... Emily Elconin for The New York Times Ms. Karamo, one of several far-right activists who rose to the top of state Republican parties as they supported Mr. Trumps false claims of voter fraud, has refused to accept her ouster. She has argued that both the vote to remove her, and Mr. Hoekstras election, were illegitimate. A judge on Tuesday essentially ordered Ms. Karamo to stand aside, ruling that she had been legitimately removed from her position and ordering her not to present herself as the state partys leader or conduct business in the partys name. But Ms. Karamo did not tell reporters whether she planned to abandon her plans for a convention on Saturday. Mr. Trump did not campaign heavily in Michigan before its primary, holding just one rally here this year. But the state is expected to be critical in November after swinging in the last two elections. Mr. Trump won the state by nearly 11,000 votes in 2016, helping him defeat Hillary Clinton and win the White House. Four years later, Mr. Biden beat him in Michigan by a more comfortable 154,000 votes and in 2022, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has strongly supported Mr. Biden, cruised to re-election as Democrats seized control of the Legislature. In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Biden briefly celebrated his victory in Michigans primary, then almost immediately turned to attacking Mr. Trump in a preview of their general-election fight. Mr. Trump had made Michigan a target in his effort to overturn his 2020 election loss, and the Michigan attorney general last year brought felony charges against 16 Republicans for falsely portraying themselves as electors from the state. Those Republicans were part of a larger plan to create false slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump in battleground states he lost to Mr. Biden. Campaigning once more for the White House this year, the former president has continued to promote the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Nicholas Nehamas contributed reporting. Former President Donald J. Trump will meet privately with Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, at Mr. Trumps club in Florida next week, according to a person briefed on the plans. Mr. Orban is a right-wing nationalist who has waged an aggressive campaign against immigration and has declared that the West is at war with itself. He is a longtime ally of Mr. Trump and has close ties to the populist conservative movement in the United States. Mr. Trump has frequently praised Mr. Orban at rallies and in speeches since leaving the White House. Their meeting, which is scheduled to take place at Mr. Trumps Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach next Friday, underscores the degree to which Mr. Trump has tried to establish himself as a sort of president-in-exile. It comes as Mr. Trump is closing in on the Republican presidential nomination and is preparing for the general election campaign against President Biden, who has had a chilly relationship with the Hungarian prime minister. Vice President Kamala Harris went to the U.S.-Mexico border soon after she and President Biden took office, even though she had characterized such visits as empty politics just weeks before. President Barack Obama also toured the border during his time in the White House, though he came to see the trips as little more than photo ops. Donald J. Trump used the border when he was president to galvanize support for his anti-immigration policies, even signing his name on his big, beautiful wall with a Sharpie pen. As the immigration debate grows increasingly polarized, a trip along the 2,000-mile frontier has become a compulsory bit of political theater for leaders who want to show they care about immigration. The imagery at the border the wall, the Border Patrol officers, the crowded detention facilities serves as a potent backdrop for drawing attention to the crisis or, increasingly, for seizing on the issue to attack political opponents. On Thursday, both of those factors will be at play when President Biden and Mr. Trump make dueling trips to the U.S.-Mexico border. The second-largest wildfire on record in Texas raged across 850,000 acres on Wednesday, as firefighters from around the state tried to contain it. The blaze has consumed houses, burned vast ranch lands, killed livestock and forced evacuations across the sparsely populated Texas Panhandle. The blaze, known as the Smokehouse Creek fire, ignited on Monday and by Wednesday had spread across vast swaths of ranch lands, fueled by strong winds and dry conditions. It still had not been contained and was growing, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. Satellite data from the National Interagency Fire Center suggested that the fire had already become the largest ever seen in the state. The fire spread around the town of Canadian, a cattle-country community of around 2,200 people northeast of Amarillo, near the Oklahoma state line. Residents who had not already evacuated were forced to shelter in place overnight. When the Bosnian sheep farmer fled his home in a disintegrating Yugoslavia in 1992, trekking with his family for 40 days to escape the start of a war that would pit neighbor against neighbor, the village he left behind had more than 400 people, two shops and a school. More than half the villagers were fellow Muslims, the rest Serbs, but nobody, he said, paid much attention to that until extremist politicians started screaming for blood. After more than a decade away from his home in eastern Bosnia, the farmer, Fikret Puhalo, 61, returned to his village, Socice. By then it had 100 or so people, Serbs who had stayed throughout and a few Muslims who had decided it was safe to go back. Today, only 15 are left. The shops have gone, the school, too. Everyone else died or moved away, said Mr. Puhalo, gesturing to empty homes scattered across the rocky hills around the family land where he grazes his sheep. Not a single child has been born here since I returned, he said. Eight months after hundreds of migrants died in a capsizing on the Mediterranean, investigators said Wednesday that the European Unions border agency lacks the ability to prevent future maritime disasters. The investigation by a E.U. watchdog office into the border agency, Frontex, was prompted by the deaths of more than 600 men, women and children who drowned off the coast of Greece last June under the eyes of dozens of officials and coast guard crews. Frontex includes coast guard in its name, but its current mandate and mission clearly fall short of that, the head of the E.U. watchdog agency, Emily OReilly, said on Wednesday. If Frontex has a duty to help save lives at sea, but the tools for it are lacking, then this is clearly a matter for E.U. legislators. After the capsizing of the Adriana, a severely overcrowded fishing vessel, both Frontex and the Hellenic Coast Guard came under fire for not aiding the passengers of the ship, which had been slowly sinking for hours as terrified migrants on board called for help. Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, said on Wednesday that he believed a reasonable number of lawmakers in his party would protect Speaker Mike Johnson from removal from his post if he allowed a vote on a foreign aid bill that includes money for Ukraine and faced a Republican mutiny as a result. Mr. Jeffries said House Democrats had not formally discussed whether they would help save Mr. Johnson if he suffered the same fate as Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker who faced a so-called motion to vacate that prompted a snap vote on whether to remove him. Mr. Jeffries, a New York Democrat, also said he had not discussed the matter with the speaker. But in a wide-ranging interview, Mr. Jeffries went as far as he has publicly in addressing what Democrats might be willing to do to protect the top leader of the opposing party if Mr. Johnson were to defy right-wing Republicans and allow a vote on the $95 billion national security spending package, which includes more than $60 billion in aid to Ukraine. It does seem to me, Mr. Jeffries said, based on informal conversations, that were Speaker Johnson to do the right thing relative to meeting the significant national security needs of the American people by putting it on the floor for an up-or-down vote, there will be a reasonable number of people in the House Democratic Caucus who will take the position that he should not fall as a result. Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, will be buried on Friday after a funeral service in Moscow that will be open to the public, his family and aides said on Wednesday, while warning that the authorities could try to prevent people from attending or force the service to be called off. The planned funeral, at a church on Moscows outskirts, sets up the possibility of a rare display of opposition sentiment in the Russian capital and of a new crackdown on Mr. Navalnys supporters. Although the opposition leaders spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, advised anyone planning to attend to come early, his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, later cautioned that mourners might be detained. Im not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether the police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband, Ms. Navalnaya said in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Two hours after Ms. Yarmysh announced plans for the funeral, another top aide to Mr. Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, posted on the Telegram social messaging app that Putin is releasing all his dogs to prevent the funeral from taking place normally. Prince Harry lost a long-running legal battle over the downgrading of his security in Britain, as a High Court judge ruled on Wednesday that the British government was entitled to change the level of police protection for a member of the royal family who was no longer carrying out official duties. In a 51-page ruling, the judge, Peter Lane, rejected Harrys challenge to the decision, declaring that Britains Home Office, through its Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, had not been procedurally unfair or irrational in changing his level of security. It was a stinging setback for Harry, who has waged a series of legal battles on both his security and privacy. Earlier this month, he won at least 400,000 pounds ($506,000) in damages from the publisher of The Daily Mirror, a London tabloid, for widespread and habitual hacking of his cellphone voice mail. Harry lost his automatic taxpayer-funded protection from the Metropolitan Police when he and his wife, Meghan, stepped back from royal duties in 2020, eventually relocating to Southern California. The prince has argued that he cannot safely visit Britain with his family without that higher level of protection. Last May, in a parallel legal case, he lost a bid to pay for police protection out of his own pocket. A high-profile Ukrainian former politician who has become central to the countrys effort to obtain weapons was arrested on corruption charges earlier this month, officials said. The ex-politician, Serhiy Pashinsky, was a longtime member of Ukraines Parliament who spent much of his career denying accusations of self-dealing. After Russias invasion, senior government officials called on him to help arm the military. The New York Times reported last year that a company tied to Mr. Pashinsky, Ukrainian Armored Technology, had become the biggest private arms supplier in Ukraine and that authorities were investigating the company. Prosecutors recently accused Mr. Pashinsky and five other men of participating in a convoluted fuel-buying scheme that they said had defrauded the Ukrainian government out of about $25 million several years before the war started. Mr. Pashinsky denied the charges. Why does this election matter? Iran is holding parliamentary elections on Friday, the first general vote since an uprising, led by women and girls, swept across the country in 2022, calling for an end to the Islamic Republics rule. The government violently crushed the protests, but demands for change endure and many Iranians view boycotting the vote as an act of protest. Election turnout is expected to be low, especially in the capital, Tehran, and other major cities, according to the governments own polls cited in Iranian media. The election is important because voter turnout is viewed by both supporters and critics of the government as a barometer for legitimacy. Opponents say they are sitting out the vote to signal that they no longer believe meaningful change can come through the ballot box under the current system. There is a separate election on Friday for electing members of an 88-seat body called the Assembly of Experts. Irans Constitution mandates that the assembly select the supreme leader, the highest clerical authority, who has the last word on all key state matters and serves as the commander in chief of the armed forces. The assembly also functions as an advisory body to the supreme leader and can supervise or dismiss him, although it has never done so. The current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 84 years old and has been in his role for more than three decades. It is largely expected that the next assembly will choose his successor. A top Hamas official on Wednesday appeared to raise the stakes for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, saying the militant group was ready to continue fighting and calling on Palestinians to defy Israeli restrictions and march to the Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem to pray at the start of Ramadan. In a televised speech, Hamass political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said the group was open to indirect negotiations with Israel, but that any flexibility we show in the negotiation process is a commitment to protecting the blood of our people, matched by a readiness to defend them. He called on Palestinians in Jerusalem and the Israeli-occupied West Bank to march to the Aqsa mosque when the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins around March 10. That creates the prospect of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces around the mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam and a longtime flashpoint in relations with Israel. Israel has restricted access to the Aqsa mosque for West Bank Palestinians, and it has severely limited movement within the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza. Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, declined on Wednesday to comment on Mr. Haniyehs call for a march to the mosque, which is part of a 35-acre site that is also holy for Jews, who call it the Temple Mount. I would just say, as it pertains to Al Aqsa, we continue to urge Israel to facilitate access to Temple Mount for peaceful worshipers during Ramadan, consistent with past practice and thatll continue to be our position, Mr. Miller said. The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the Trump administration had acted lawfully in banning bump stocks. The justices will hear arguments on Wednesday. In the Oct. 1, 2017, Las Vegas mass shooting, 12 of the rifles the gunman in the had in his 32nd-floor hotel room were each modified with a bump stock, an attachment that enables a semiautomatic rifle to fire faster. Within a week after the massacre, the National Rifle Association announced that it would support tighter restrictions on such devices. A bump stock replaces a rifles standard stock, which is the part held against the shoulder. It frees the weapon to slide back and forth rapidly, harnessing the energy from the kickback shooters feel when the weapon fires. By The New York Times The stock bumps back and forth between the shooters shoulder and trigger finger, causing the rifle to rapidly fire again and again. The shooter holds his or her trigger finger in place, while maintaining forward pressure on the barrel and backward pressure on the pistol grip while firing. The bump stock allows a weapon to fire at nearly the rate of a machine gun without technically converting it to a fully automatic firearm. (It is illegal for private citizens to possess fully automatic firearms manufactured after May 19, 1986; ownership of earlier models requires a federal license.) The classification of these devices depends on whether they mechanically alter the function of the firearm to fire fully automatic, Jill Snyder, a special agent in charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said at a news conference after the Las Vegas shooting. Bump-fire stocks, while simulating automatic fire, do not actually alter the firearm to fire automatically. This made them legal under federal law at the time. In 2018, under President Donald J. Trump, the Justice Department used its authority as part of the executive branch to ban the devices. How Fast Is a Rifle With a Bump Stock? Analysis of video posted on social media suggests that the gunman used rifles with rapid-fire capabilities. This video shows 15 seconds of the attack, with constant gunshots ringing out. Isolated, the pattern of gunshots looks like this. Las Vegas About 90 shots in 10 seconds Compare that with audio extracted from a video of the June 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, in which 49 people were killed and 53 were wounded. The gunman, Omar Mateen, used at least two guns, including a semiautomatic AR-15-style assault rifle. Orlando nightclub 24 shots in 9 seconds In contrast, a fully automatic weapon, like this pre-1986 Colt AR-15A2, sounds different. There are no variations in the firing rate like there was in the Las Vegas shooting. A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself. This weeks literary geography quiz is all about Berlin, Germanys capital city. The novels highlighted within the quiz were published in English within the past 85 years and told from the viewpoint of a visitor or expatriate experiencing the city. But even if you are unfamiliar with the specific titles, the questions are about Berlins landmarks and the books form a handy reading list. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. Links to the books will be listed at the end of the quiz if youd like to do further reading. Polls close at 8 p.m. local time. Most of the state observes Eastern time, but in the handful of counties that use Central time, polls close at 9 p.m. Eastern. In the 2020 primaries, the first votes were reported soon after polls closed, and nearly all votes were reported by 4 a.m. Eastern. All Michigan voters were eligible to vote by mail, and ballots were due by 8 p.m. on Election Day. In-person early voting was offered over a nine-day period, ending on Sunday. There is no registration by party in Michigan, but voters could only vote in one partys election. As of Monday, more than one million voters had already cast a ballot in either the Republican or the Democratic primary. The National Press Club is holding a March 20 screening of a film that depicts the dangers journalists face in Vladimir Putins Russia. Anna tells the story of Russian journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who reported on political and social events in Russia, particularly the Second Chechen War. Politkovskaya survived poisoning, detention and beatings, but was ultimately killed in 2006, becoming one of more than 1,800 journalists killed in Russia so far this century. Her story serves as a reminder of the dangers that journalists face and the importance of protecting journalists' right to report the truth without fear of death or reprisal. Bob Woodward, Sean Penn, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), CNN anchor Sara Sidner, and former CIA Director John Brennan will host a 7 p.m. screening of the film, followed by a discussion on the dangers journalists face in the 21st century. News platform Semafor, in partnership with Gallup, will present an exclusive first look at its 2024 World Happiness Report on March 20 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. (doors open at 8:30 a.m.). The report will share survey data and share key insights that are intended to change the ways in which global leaders in business, tech, politics, and beyond perceive happiness, and how they can promote wellbeing. A panel moderated by Semafor founding editor-at-large Steve Clemons and senior editor Gina Chon will discuss the data and look at how economic development, global affairs, and political attitudes can affect national wellbeing and help ensure a well-lived life through all its stages. Among those set to appear are Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Gallup Organization CEO Jon Clifton, World Happiness Report editor Lara Aknin and Swiss Ambassador to the U.S. Jacques Pitteloud. Muriel Fox The Museum of Public Relations is sponsoring a March 14 event that looks at the role communicators played in gaining equal rights for women. PR Women Who Changed History will feature Muriel Fox, who co-founded the National Organization for Women in 1966 and was named the top-ranking woman in public relations by Business Week in 1976, being interviewed by Dr. Caryn Medved of Baruch College. That discussion will be followed by Hill & Knowlton Strategies global chairman and CEO AnnaMaria DeSalva presenting her perspective on where things stand for women today. The 6 pm event will be recorded before a live audience and will also be available via Zoom. A networking reception will follow. During one of the most tumultuous periods in the modern history of Roscrea surrounding the ongoing protests at the former Racket Hall Hotel, a unique suggestion to resurrect the long closed Grant's Hotel on Castle Street was proposed by a local elected representative. Fianna Fail Councillor Michael Smith, responding to the outcry from people lamenting the loss of the heritage town's only hotel, suggested investigating the feasibility of adopting a community hotel model in Roscrea. Building upon a reference to the need for such a resource in the Town First Plan for Roscrea, Councillor Smith and party colleague, Tipperary TD Deputy Jackie Cahill, spoke with Minister Roderic O'Gorman in January. Following the meeting, Minister OGorman agreed to discuss Deputy Cahill and Cllr Smiths proposal with the leadership of the three parties of Government saying: "Across the Government parties, there is a recognition of the value that the proposal for a community hotel model would represent to the people of Roscrea. "The Government parties agree in principle to examine funding mechanisms that can be brought forward to support this proposal." Pictured above are Councillor Michael Smith and Mary Mullen, Chairperson of Knockatallon Development Association, outside the community hotel in Monaghan Last week Councillor Michael Smith visited a hotel in County Monaghan which is cited as an example of how the community model could operate in Roscrea. In a mainly rural area, 17 kilometres from Monaghan town and nestled in the foothills of the Sliabh Beagh mountains there is a community hotel, which employs 30 full and part time staff, caters for functions, weddings, funerals, meals on wheels and has become an important social amenity centre. Following the extensive media attention on the situation in Roscrea, the Monaghan hotel has received numerous calls from people curious about it's operating model. On arrival at the community hotel, Cllr. Smith was asked: Are you the man causing all the phone calls and questions about the hotel? by Mary Mullen, Chairperson of the Knockatallon Development Association. Councillor Smith described the facility as "an innovative service" which was established after the Good Friday Agreement. Five of the full-time staff are paid by public funds and the other 25 from profits from the day-to-day business. Staff explained to Councillor Smith how they financially support local projects, including an all-weather track, childcare and playing facilities from their profits and on the day he visited all of their 14 rooms were booked for that night. "Standing shoulder to shoulder, the people of Knockatallon have made an outstanding success of this unique opportunity, they have made the community hotel a centre for constant activity. Their dramatic achievements must inspire us," Cllr. Smith told the Tribune. "How more optimistic should we be with the advantages we have in Roscrea? The former Grants Hotel, lying vacant for over eleven years, and located in the centre of the town, serving a huge hinterland has great potential in this regard and I for one will do everything I can to make it happen. "A wide variety of organisations have expressed interest in the community hotel project and want to have a role in its development", Cllr. Smith said. A formal application has been lodged with the government and is awaiting approval of the financial package to push the project forward. A significant amount of money has already been committed locally, for an initiative which is "hugely welcomed" Cllr. Smith told this newspaper. "It will of course be up to all of us to make a success of this project and bring this hotel back and give a new life to the heart of the town. I was re-invigorated by my visit to the North and firmly believe we are on the right track for Roscrea," Cllr. Smith said. Meanwhile, protests are continuing outside the former Racket Hall Hotel in Roscrea, where the constant demonstration will reach the seven week milestone on Thursday. Protestors remain encamped at the entrance to the hotel and have kept a constant presence since the protest began on January 11. On Monday, January 15, members of the Garda Public Order Unit physically engaged with protestors in an attempt to disperse them and facilitate access to the premises for less than 20 people who were initially accommodated in Racket Hall. Protestors told the Tribune they will remain outside Racket Hall until they receive satisfactory in-person consultation with government Ministers, namely Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Minister for Integration, Roderic O'Gorman. The owner of The Phoenix in Tullamore says he understands a recent court decision which prevented him from holding a three day music festival in a big top in the Roselawn car park. ''We are disappointed, but we respect the decision. We wanted to bring something different to Tullamore,'' said Kieran Conroy. At last Wednesday's Tullamore District Court, Judge Andrew Cody refused to grant a licence to Mr Conroy to hold the event. The judge said the Roselawn Carpark was not a suitable venue for a big top and it didn't have insurance for such a festival. Residents of Roselawn had objected on the grounds that there were a lot of elderly people living in the estate and the big top was too near their homes. Mr Conroy said he appreciates the amount of support he has received from the people in Tullamore and from local businesses. ''Other towns have big top events. But I do understand the concerns raised by the residents,'' he added. ''It's great to see the support from everybody. Local business people and our own customers have reached out and we really appreciate it. It's great to see that everybody was behind it and thought it was a good idea.'' But the show will go on and the event will now take place in The Phoenix itself over the St Patrick's weekend. The venue has a capacity for 850 people per night. ''We are hoping to fill that for the three nights. It will thankfully save our bacon and provide a fantastic weekend. We hope people can support us by buying tickets,'' he said. ''The experience hasn't put me off. There are definitely things looking back on that we could have done to make the process smoother. We will hopefully look at other venues for next year and work with all the local authorities to make it happen,'' said Mr Conroy. ''We will deliver the best Paddy's weekend that we can. We have three big days, The Whistlin Donkeys on the Friday night. They are a fantastic group, they usually play in a lot bigger gigs, but they are happy to stay onboard. We will have Ruaile Buaile and the Highstool Prophets. We are hoping to provide a fantastic weekend for everyone. We are happy we are still working with the original acts,'' said Mr Conroy. Looking forward, Mr Conroy said, ''we have loads of great suggestions. The Roselawn car park will never be used, by me anyway.'' he said. ''Tullamore needs more events. Emmet (Lynch) does a great one in the canal quarter and we benefit from that too. We will try to work with the council to see if we can deliver an event. People would have loved it. We will talk to the council, they are open to events in the town,'' he said. The event takes place on March 15, 16 and 17. IT'S been revealed this week that 84 refugees are due to arrive at the former La Sainte Union Convent in Banagher. In a statement, Deputy Carol Nolan said the Acting Director of Services at the Housing and Ukrainian Response section of Offaly County Council had confirmed to her that the newly refurbished main building to the front of La Sainte Union is currently awaiting the arrival of an additional 84 Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection (BOPTs) from Ukraine under phase 2 of its accommodation contract. The Council also confirmed to Deputy Nolan that the Convent in Banagher had a capacity under Phase 1 for 22 Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection fleeing the war in Ukraine and has been occupied since October 2023. The council said that the owner had received their contract from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. The council also stated, in reply to the Independent TD, that it would issue a briefing note on the situation shortly. I have a number of Banagher residents coming to my offices looking for absolute certainty about the future of the Convent, and that is why I made representations on this matter, said Deputy Nolan. It is a very trying time for many people, including those within surrounding areas who feel powerless about what is happening to buildings in their localities. They worry about who precisely will be accommodated and when the support services will be in place to back up the increase in population levels. I want to reassure all of those people that I will continue to advocate on their behalf and try my best to assist them in obtaining factual information with respect to what exactly is happening in their towns and villages. La Sainte Union closed as a school in 2010 when the school amalgamated with St Rynagh's Community College and transferred to the new Banagher College Colaiste na Sionna. The LSU building was owned by LOETB (Laois Offaly Education Training Board) until 2021. After it ceased being a school the LOETB wanted to completely knock the building and put car parking in its stead. However, they were prevented from doing so because the building is deemed to be architecturally significant. It's believed that the building sold for 160,000 in 2021, a figure which, at the time, was deemed by the Auctioneer to be a very good offer considering the condition of the building. In August 2023 it was stated that one hundred people fleeing the war in Ukraine were to be accommodated in the former convent building and would probably arrive in November. LSU is in private ownership, and improvement works took place during 2023 to prepare for the refugees. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, February 28. The Afghan authorities have asked Turkmenistan to increase the supply of electricity to its province of Herat, Trend reports. According to an official source, this proposal was announced by the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, Amir Khan Muttaqi, during a meeting in Ashgabat with the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov. The Afghan side asked for an increase in the supply of electricity from Turkmenistan to the Afghan province of Herat through the Noorul Jihad electric substation previously modernized by the Turkmen side. Furthermore, the Afghan authorities also asked to simplify the issuance of visas to Afghan entrepreneurs and transport personnel, invest in the continuation of the construction of the Turghandi - Herat and Andakhoi - Shabarghan railway lines to Mazar-e-Sharif, and increase scholarships for Afghan students studying in Turkmenistan. In turn, the Turkmen side called the Turkmenistan - Afghanistan - Pakistan - India (TAPI) gas pipeline project an ambitious project of strategic importance for the country and also noted that the country has done enough work to launch this project, and soon the joint teams of Aganistan and Turkmenistan will begin practical work. Calling the railway line to Afghanistan strategically important, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan said that the plan to increase the capacity of the railway station in Turghandi has been completed, and technical groups will continue work in the near future. Meanwhile, at the beginning of this year, Turkmenistan and Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) Energy Company signed an agreement for the supply of 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2024. The contract was signed during the visit of DABS CEO Muhammad Hanif Hamza to Turkmenistan, who met with the Minister of Energy of Turkmenistan Annageldi Saparov and the management of Turkmenistan's Turkmenenergo State Electric Power Corporation. Stay up to date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The Media Minister has outlined a timeline of events leading up to her TV interview where she failed to express confidence in the former chairwoman of the RTE board. Siun Ni Raghallaigh said the ministers failure to express confidence in her factored into her decision to resign hours after the Prime Time episode aired on Thursday. Catherine Martin outlined a flurry of calls in the hours after the chair had admitted that she had given the minister incorrect information on Monday and Wednesday that week. This culminated in Ms Martin failing to express confidence in Ms Ni Raghallaigh and stating that she was deeply disappointed that she had not been given the correct information. Ms Martin said that at 10am, Ms Ni Raghallaigh called her department to say that she had inadvertently given the minister incorrect information in two meetings on Monday and Wednesday. Thursday 11am The departments assistant secretary told the minister about the call. 2pm Ms Ni Raghallaigh was told the minister was concerned about the incorrect information she had been given and that she would write a letter to state her disappointment. The chairwoman said she regretted the error and then stated that months previous, she had informed the then secretary general to say the independent process had concluded in relation to a former RTE executive and that she imagined she would also have referred to the role of the board in approving it. around 2.30pm Ms Ni Raghallaigh rang the secretary general of the Department of Media and expressed her unhappiness at the prospect of receiving a letter from the minister voicing her disappointment. She was stating that she felt if I wrote a letter that I was disappointed, that she would see that as a lack of confidence and she would have to consider her position, Ms Martin told the committee in response to questions from Sinn Fein TD Ruairi O Murchu. around 4.30pm The chairwoman called the assistant secretary to say that RTE had received a press query about the approval of exit packages and the role of the remuneration committee of the RTE board. The assistant secretary also called the former secretary general to check Ms Ni Raghallaighs comment of having imagined being informed. The former secretary general recalled being told the settlement had been reached but had no recollection that it had been approved by the board, the committee heard. around 6.45pm The secretary general rang Ms Ni Raghallaigh to say the minister had decided a letter would be sent to her and a meeting would be requested for the following morning, either online or in person. Ms Martin said Ms Ni Raghallaigh was aware since Wednesday that she was due to go on Prime Time on Thursday, and she was told during the call that if minister was asked about the incorrect information given, its not a thing I could conceal. "Have you lost confidence in the chair of the RTE Board?" "I'm deeply disappointed" Media Minister Catherine Martin tells @MiriamOCal, as she reveals she was misinformed about the role of the board in the approval of a key recent exit package.#rtept | @RTENews pic.twitter.com/16kf8CrGDf RTE Prime Time (@RTE_PrimeTime) February 22, 2024 The chair stated that she was not happy at the idea of being called to another meeting that week, Ms Martin said. The secretary general relayed that to the minister, but Ms Martin said she wasnt going to change her mind on the need for a meeting and so the secretary general rang the chair back at 7.10pm to inform her of this. The minister said she sent the letter at around 7pm or 7.30pm. 9.30pm Ms Martin appeared on RTE Prime Time. 1am on Friday Ms Ni Raghallaigh issued a resignation statement just before 1am on Friday. A Limerick postal operative is to receive a Heroic Citizen Award from An Post. Local postman Pat McNamara was on his usual delivery in the Raheen area of Limerick city last month, when he came to the rescue of an elderly homeowner, suffering a medical emergency. Now, the working leaders in the Limerick Delivery Service Unit (DSU) have nominated Pat for the top honour. We received the contact from the womans son-in-law, who could not have been more thankful for Pat's intervention, stressing that without it, she would not have survived, explained Damien Fox, working leader in Limerick DSU. While on his delivery in Raheen, Pat called to a house with post and while passing the window he could clearly see that elderly homeowner was struggling to breathe. He came to her assistance and sat her in a comfortable position on the chair and got her a glass of water. "He could clearly see the situation was more serious than he thought and dialled 999 without alarming her, recalled Mr Fox of his colleagues heroic action. The emergency operator asked Pat to stay on the phone until the ambulance arrived in case the situation worsened. Pat stayed with her until the medical assistance arrived and then continued on his duty. The emergency services told Pat that there would have been a very different outcome if he had not been there. In a phone call to the office the following Friday her son-in-law explained that only for Pats intervention and quick thinking she would not have made it and he was very thankful for all that Pat had done. The Government must immediately confirm a new funding model for public service broadcasting, a union representing RTE staff has said. A long-running controversy at the national broadcaster widened last week when the chairwoman of the board resigned amid a dispute with the media minister. Appearing on live television last Thursday, Minister Catherine Martin said she had been misinformed on two occasions by Siun Ni Raghallaigh about the boards involvement in approving exit packages for former RTE executives. Ms Ni Raghallaigh resigned from her position hours later, prompting opposition parties to question Ms Martins handling of the matter at a crucial time for the embattled broadcaster. RTE is now without a chair of its board as the Government delays making a decision on its future funding pending two expert reports on its governance and culture due next month. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ), which staged a lunchtime demonstration at the organisations Donnybrook campus in Dublin on Wednesday, said it remained gravely concerned at continued uncertainty surrounding the cash-strapped broadcaster. In a statement, the union said the resignation of the chair and the circumstances surrounding her departure have added to the sense of chaos which has engulfed the organisation. Emma O Kelly, chairwoman of the NUJ Dublin broadcasting branch and RTE News education correspondent, said: Our members remain concerned at the financial crisis caused by the delay in reforming the financing of public service broadcasting. Legitimate concern over corporate governance failures and understandable anger at the lack of engagement by former senior executives should not be used to further delay decisions on the funding of public service broadcasting. Our call on the government is to act immediately to confirm a new model of funding for public service broadcasting, one which provides certainty to RTE staff, the independent production sector, and the public. RTE director-general Kevin Bakhurst also addressed the gathered staff: Can I just thank you all for coming here. I really appreciate the message youre trying to convey. I would say to you all, I totally appreciate this has been a horrendous period for all staff. I want to thank you all for the incredible efforts youve made to keep the organisation afloat. The one thing I would say to all is, Im absolutely determined you know, its been a rough few weeks for lots of people in the organisation Im absolutely determined to make this a better organisation for you all to work in, a better organisation to deliver to audiences and to rebuild trust and pride in working here. Thats my job and Im going to get on with it. Thank you all very much, and I really appreciate you all coming out. The NUJ has called for a sharp focus on the funding of public service broadcasting in Ireland following Tuesday nights meeting of the Oireachtas media committee, which was dominated by discussion on Ms Martins Prime Time interview that preceded the resignation Ms Ni Raghallaigh. Seamus Dooley, NUJ Irish secretary said: The ongoing political controversies, the carousel of allegations and counter-allegations and the drip feed of information have left an already demoralised staff reeling. What RTE workers now need is a sharp focus on the future. We have consistently demanded transparency in relation to all aspects of executive remuneration. Legally binding confidential agreements do not sit easily alongside the principle of transparency and have undermined public trust. We acknowledge the complexities involved in addressing legacy issues inherited by the current director-general, but the anger of staff is understandable. Also speaking on Wednesday, Finance Minister Michael McGrath said while the Government has committed to putting a sustainable funding model for public service broadcasting in place, no decision has yet been made. He said it was his own view that it should continue to be funded through hybrid funding through the Exchequer and some form of charge, adding: Not necessarily the licence fee, but that or another charge. The minister said that others believed funding entirely through the Exchequer would be a better solution. However, he warned that finding about 150 million euro in the budgetary process caused by scrapping the licence fee would be incredibly difficult. Mr McGrath added: The second point is, I genuinely do not believe it is a good idea that it would be entirely at the mercy of the Government of the day when it comes to forward funding. He added: I dont believe that is a vulnerability that we should expose pulic service broadcasting to. Speaking in Co Cavan, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee expressed confidence in Ms Martin. She said: I think she outlined very clearly last night in three hours of questioning and will again give statements today (on) the facts as they emerged last week, her reason for doing the interview. She had given a prior commitment, and the reason why she felt she couldnt express full confidence. I think that people accept that. The minister has also been very clear that her relationship is with the chair of the board, but I have no doubt that she will engage with Kevin Bakhurst and will obviously have further engagement with him on any other matters. She added: I have confidence in Kevin Bakhurst. I have no reason not to. ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, February 28. Turkmenistan will hold an investment forum and exhibition entitled "Turkmenistan is open" in the Avaza National Tourist Zone located in Turkmenbashi city in the Balkan region of the country, Trend reports. According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Turkmenistan, this investment forum and exhibition are scheduled for June 26-27 this year. The exhibition will be attended by relevant ministries and industry departments, as well as members of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Turkmenistan and the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan. Furthermore, the exhibition will feature a variety of food products, including meat, sausage, poultry meat, fish, milk, confectionery, various types of dried fruits and vegetables. Drinks, light industry, electronic equipment, textiles, livestock products, trade, education, printing, decorative works, furniture, building materials, advertising, art, jewelry and sewing products, as well as consumer goods and services will also be exhibited at the event. Meanwhile, the purpose of the event is to attract foreign investors and establish economic cooperation with foreign partners in various sectors for the further development of the national economy of Turkmenistan. Stay up to date with more news at Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, February 28. Uzbekistan and Russian representative of Uzuralimpex LLC drew attention to the prospects of increasing exports of agricultural products grown in Uzbekistan, relying on the experience of the company in the agricultural sector, Trend reports. The discussion took place at a meeting between the Consulate General of Uzbekistan and the Russian representative of Uzuralimpex LLC, Denis Striganov. During the conversation, the sides discussed matters of further deepening bilateral trade and economic relations, expanding the participation of Russian entrepreneurs in projects implemented in Uzbekistan, and attracting foreign investments. The Russian representative said that the company has implemented water reclamation projects in the construction and agricultural sectors in Fergana, Namangan, and Jizzakh provinces over the past period. The enterprise is currently planning to implement projects on the attraction of modern technologies in the construction sector in Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan and Russia plan to create a joint investment fund with an authorized capital of $500 million. This was announced at a meeting between Uzbek and Russian presidents Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Vladimir Putin in Kazan (Russia) on February 21. The sides discussed the development of bilateral cooperation. They expressed satisfaction with the positive dynamics in trade and the implementation of projects in various spheres. Foreign trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Russia amounted to $766.7 million in January 2024. TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, February 28. Uzbek Uztransgaz JSC wants to invest $470 million in 2024-2030 to increase imports of Russian natural gas, Trend reports. According to the investment program approved by the Uzbek government, the project will be financed by attracting funds from foreign banks. According to the head of Russian Gazprom company Alexei Miller, the company is discussing cooperation with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan for a long-term period of 15 years, including opportunities for gas transit to third countries. He said that 15 years is an ambitious goal that includes plans to further expand Russian gas supplies and gas transportation capacity. Last summer, Uzbekistan's Energy Minister Jo'rabek Mirzamahmudov and head of Gazprom Alexei Miller signed an agreement on Russian gas supplies to Uzbekistan. The agreement is valid for two years and provides for the supply of 2.8 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Transit is carried out through the Central Asia-Center gas pipeline. In recent weeks, we have seen increased pressure on exchanges and custodial wallet users to expose the private information of private wallet users. Could this drive to abolish crypto anonymity cause a digital civil war between purists and profiteers? Recent decisions by cryptocurrency exchanges to work with governments to enforce the unveiling of private crypto wallet users or even cease supporting these wallets could be a tipping point for the crypto sector. These recent actions highlight the necessity to protect crypto privacy and raise the question of whether the crypto gambling industry is ready for licensing and regulation or if it should stay "in the grey" for a while longer. What are Custodial and Self-Custody Wallets? If you are interested in gambling online with cryptocurrency, you may have come across discussions that use the following terms: Custodial wallets Non-custodial wallets (or self-custody wallets) According to the online security and privacy protection website Brave, the provider of a security-driven browser and other tools, the difference between Custodial and Non-Custodial wallets is: who controls the private keys. With a self-custody wallet, you manage your private keys (with the help of a trusted wallet provider), meaning you have complete control of your assets. With custodial wallets, meanwhile, a third party (like a centralised exchange or CEX) controls your private keys and, therefore, has custody of your crypto. The phrase not your keys, not your money is often used to simplify the distinction between the two wallet types. Custodial wallets are similar to web wallets like Neteller or Skrill, where you put money into their ecosystem using your credit card or direct bank deposit. However, they do business in your country under an agreement with your government, which means your transfers, deposits, and withdrawals are all available to your local tax authority. Self-custody wallets are secure lockers on the blockchain that only you have the access keys for. There are wallets like Exodus that provide an interface for you to use, but they never request any private information to set you up and allow VPN access so you can protect your location. Crypto Anonymity Come Under Fire In a recent move that shocked the crypto casino and cryptocurrency investment communities, two popular exchanges announced that they would no longer be protecting the privacy or right to transact of self-custody wallet users. Kraken Enables the Abolition of UK Crypto Anonymity US-based exchange Kraken alerted its UK users that the custodial account holders must now provide the personal information of the self-custody wallet users they engage with on the platform. Failure to do so will result in the custodial account and its digital assets being seized. Cryptoslate lead analyst James Van Straten posted his email receipt as proof that this is not a poorly time April Fool prank: He completes the string by sharing a reply from the official Kraken account verifying that they are indeed the source of the requests. According to the available information, the data request is a required part of the UK's AML (anti-money laundering) and proof of income laws. It is worth noting that licensed online gambling companies must comply with the exact data requirements, which makes the region a standout anti-crypto gambling market as it aims to destroy the foundation of privacy and self-determination that underpins the entire ethos of the crypto sector. Coinbase Shuts Down All Self-Custody Processing Coinbase users were shocked earlier this month as it announced that it would no longer support Bitcoin casino payments from self-custody wallets worldwide. While Lauren Dowling, the product lead for Coinbase Commerce, took social media to defend the decision, it has not gone unnoticed that it is specifically self-custody transactions that are no longer supported. Reputable Bitcoin journalist and evangelist @JoeNakamoto on X.com challenged Dowlings position, saying: Hey Lauren, interesting to read this. Ive used lightning to pay for stuff from merchants all around the world from El Salvador to Cape Verde to Peru to Cuba to Ghana. I've also seen crypto payments the world over. The route forward is not an "open on-chain payments protocol leveraging smart contracts and other EVM tools. - Please switch your focus to bitcoin L2s, not dodgy crypto solutions. Regardless of their public reasons, as an exchange that ranks #2 on BitDegree Exchange Tracker with nearly 100 registered million users, the decision to no longer process self-custody wallet transactions will have a notable impact on the market. Why Governments Despise Private Wallets On the surface, the need to track anonymous cryptocurrency wallets seems logical, even applaudable. Online gambling regulators and government bodies cite the dangers of the dark web and how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are used to fund criminal enterprise, and casinos are used as a way to clean the money. However, not much is being done to address the dark web and the illicit trade being funnelled through it, despite ethical hackers and online specialists discussing how simple it would be for government-funded organisations to make a meaningful impact. Occams Razor is a problem-solving theory that says: In philosophy, Occam's razor is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. In layperson's terms, when competing concepts exist, the simplest will most likely be the correct one. In this case, it is more likely that local governments are pushing to expose self-custody ownership as a way to increase tax-based revenues. Since all blockchain transactions are available on the public ledger, it is easy to calculate the total value of a wallet. Should that wallet owner be proven to fall into a specific country's tax system, they will be penalised accordingly. Is Now the Right Time to License Crypto Casino Gambling? A common concern in the online gambling space is the ongoing denial of licensing for crypto gambling sites while casino software developers are licensed to create crypto casino games. However, if more governments require wallets and exchanges to uncover the names, addresses, and other personal information related to self-custody wallets, it might be best to avoid regulation and continue to operate in the grey for the foreseeable future. The fact that established crypto casinos will not be licensed by prominent gambling jurisdictions could be a good thing in the long run. While it has limited the ability to interact with local ad platforms and banking institutions, it has also meant that they have supported consumer privacy, which is one of the pillars of the blockchain, and the use of cryptocurrencies to secure and manage personal wealth. Once a crypto casino operates under the same restrictions as a fiat casino, it loses its unique selling point and becomes just another gambling site. The question facing the crypto gambling sector is if it is willing to trade its core values for the chance to make more money in the short term. Before Adolph Hitler and the Nazis launched their vicious war on Europe, white European supremacy was an acknowledged ideology. England, France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal had long perfected this odious ideology of racial superiority over non-white people all over the world. And it was that kind of rancid thinking that caused the centuries long tribal slaughter of white tribes in Europe that culminated in two wars of mass destruction that they euphemistically called "world wars," even though the Global South and the vast majority of the world's people had absolutely nothing to do with white people killing white people. Conditioned for centuries to murder each other for gain, white Europeans exported their brand of greed, violence, and conquest while hypocritically brandishing the flag of religion and Christianity to cover up and obfuscate their unparalleled brutality. South Africa's Bishop Desmond Tutu would poignantly remark that when "the white man came to Africa he came with a gun on one hand and a Bible in the other. And when he left we [Africans] had the Bible and he had the land." Today, their Israeli horn-child of an apartheid colonial settler nation is doing EXACTLY what its fathers perfected decades before in Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the so-called New World. In America, a group of white English criminal-settlers almost completely wiped out the indigenous Indian population in just about 40 years using the same tools of genocide and ethnic cleansing that Israel, and before it white Boer South Africa, visited on Brown-skinned people. Back then the American Indian was a demonized and dehumanized as "red savages," "an uncivilized heathen," and "un-Christian." They used this language to commit wholesale robbery, violence and mass murder against the owners of America in perhaps the very first successful colonial apartheid settler state in history. The United Kingdom and its European allies all but exterminated the Carib Indian and Arawak populations in the Caribbean just 30 years after Christopher Columbus first set foot in the region. Other conquistadors slaughtered New World peoples, pillaging their lands and seizing entire nations "in the name" of this or that king of some European nation. And all over white Europe, Jews were always, prior to the Second World War, a despised people, looked down upon, and discriminated against. White Europeans spat on them considering them dirty and unclean. Don't take my word for it, read William Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" and many other works that distrusted the Jews, suggesting that they were inferior to other peoples. This Jew-hatred was particularly pronounced in the Roman Catholic church and its brand of white supremacist Christianity where the prevailing religious sentiment was that they [Jews] could not be trusted, were money grubbers, and were complicit and responsible for the murder of Jesus Christ. Hence when Hitler started his mass slaughter of the Jews in Europe NO NATION objected - just as they are doing while Israel does EXACTLY what Hitler did to them - perhaps minus the gas chambers - to the defenseless people of Gaza. Brazil's President Lula was on the money in drawing this comparison when he recently criticized Israel's action. The thing is that the United States and Israel's European enablers started this program of brutality way back in 1948 when they were complicit in the wholesale theft of Palestinian lands to create a Jewish ethno-state called Israel. Today, just look around the area - Jews/Israelis bear no resemblance to the people in the Middle East. They do not speak Arabic - the common language. They do not share any cultural similarities, and are reliant on the United States and the United Kingdom for their survival. The day the United States (and Europe) turns their backs on Israel is the day that this barbaric colonial experiment ends. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, February 28. Uzbekistan plans to increase imports of Russian gas from the current 9 million to 32 million cubic meters per day (11.68 billion cubic meters per year), Trend reports. As part of the investment program for gasification of Uzbekistan worth $500 million, Russia's Gazprombank loans will be used to modernize 511 km of gas trunk pipelines and 10 gas pumping stations. Uzbekistan faced an energy crisis in 2022, when the country had to announce fan blackouts due to an abnormally cold winter and high gas consumption for heating and power generation. The country imported more gas than it exported in 2023. At the suggestion of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the so-called triple gas union was launched on October 7 last year with the participation of the presidents of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. A soviet-era gas distribution system is used to pump gas through Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, which Gazprom and its partners have switched to reverse mode - previously, fuel was supplied to Russia from Central Asia. Meanwhile, Russian Inter RAO's representative Alexandra Panina said that Uzbekistan is interested in the company's proposal to supply electricity to the country. However, she noted the difficulties in transit through Kazakhstan, given the already existing supplies to Kyrgyzstan in this direction. "The action by CSEA LA 500 reflects deep concern about Ortiz and the potential for damage to the union from association with her." -- From the CSEA Los Angeles Chapter 500 Facebook page (Image by CSEA 500) Details DMCA The "extraordinary circumstances" surrounding this lawsuit has resulted in the Los Angeles chapter of the California School Employees Association (CSEA) taking the "extremely rare" action of retracting "the union's earlier endorsement of Graciela Ortiz". Reflecting the "deep concern about Ortiz," the vote was unanimous. While not mentioned by CSEA, questions have also risen about Ortiz's fundraising for the campaign. An article in CityWatch detailed "unusual donations [that] raise ethical concerns" including three donors who listed their profession as "dishwashers" making maximum donations of $1,300, a case eerily similar to the one that landed disgraced former LAUSD Board Member Ref Rodriguez in jail. Some have also questioned if there was any Quid Pro Quo involved with donations made by her subordinates at the LAUSD. So far, CSEA seems to be alone in questioning the wisdom of maintaining an endorsement for a candidate being besieged by controversy. They have recognized the "potential for damage to the union from [a continued] association with her," but others, including LAUSD Board Member for BD6, Kelly Gonez, and the Los Angeles County Democratic Party are still listed as endorsees on the candidate's website. Also continuing their support of Ortiz despite her ethical concerns is SEIU 99, a union that in the past legally laundered $25,000 from the political arm of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) so that it would appear that Monica Garcia was being funded with labor support as she battled with Lisa Alva and me in our grassroots efforts in 2017. In this election cycle, SEIU 99 has spent over half a million dollars supporting Ortiz. This is a surprising amount considering that the union represents some of the lowest-paid employees in the District. It is also unclear what the return on investment for their efforts will be as the Charter School Industry that is supporting Ortiz consists mostly of schools that are not unionized. Two other candidates are running in the race, both of whom would better serve the needs of SEIU's membership. CSEA's was a dual endorsement and their support of Fidencio Gallardo is unchanged. The teachers' union, UTLA, is supporting Karla Griego. While both are excellent candidates, I have endorsed Griego. Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him "a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles." For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own. Beware the internet criminals. The FBI will not help. Since I have written several Op Eds about internet fraud, I assumed that I was savvy enough to protect myself, but I was almost trapped by clever thieves. A bank teller thwarted this major theft. Beware emails on the internet from your friends and business associates, where emails can be intercepted and falsified to steal your money. My Writings About Internet Frauds In addition to other articles, my Op Eds about internet frauds included "U.S. Banks and the FBI Harbor Criminal Fraud Enterprises", "The Bank of America Reacts to Freedom of the Press and the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau", The Bank of America Steals our Money - The Bank of America's International Fraud against America", and " Visit France as a Tourist-Risk Fraud and False Imprisonment in Jail-Luxury Tours France and Hotel Le Pavillon Des Lys ". Liars and thieves commit the number one fraud in the U.S., i.e., Imposters are at the top of the list. (Image by U.S> government) Details DMCA Banks are Protected from Thefts Committed Through Those Banks The facts are quite clear. Banks are not responsible if you send a wire transfer, criminals are allowed to continue using banks after committing frauds through those banks, the FBI does not usually investigate frauds under $100,000, the FBI may, or may not, investigate this attempted fraud, and prosecuting thieves may place you in danger. To stop this specific fraud, a bank teller at SRP Federal Credit Union in South Carolina thwarted this major theft by implementing policy at that bank to demand verbal verification before a wire transfer was sent. Many thanks to her. This teller also told me of a man who had his email hacked. That hacker then changed bank account information. Accordingly, that man sent $200,000 to a fraudulent bank account number. That man then lost that $200,000 in cash. Banks are not responsible. Some Banks Do Not Warn Customers About This New Type of Crime For example, the Bank of America does not implement a policy to warn customers of email hackers and their frauds, where I sent a wire transfer on 2/15/2024 from that bank - without any questions at all. I have not investigated wire transfer policies for other banks. Beware of thieves, internet hacks, and altered and or falsified emails from people you know. Given these new types of internet wire fraud crimes, all banks should implement policies to advise customers to verbally validate banking information before any wire transfers are sent anywhere. The FBI Refused to Investigate This Crime We Are On Our Own The following fraud complaint was filed with the CFPB on 2/21/2024, where this complaint details an attempted fraud. Perhaps such information may save you money from other thieves, even though the FBI refused to investigate this crime or any similar crime. To: The Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau, FBI Attempted Fraud [Our financial services company], my wife, and I were the intended victims of this fraud. Using fraud, forgery, and internet hacking, an unknown criminal, or criminals, attempted to defraud my wife and I. They hacked my internet account, deleted all previous emails between my stockbroker and I, suspended communications between my stockbroker and I, and then the thieves pretended to be my stockbroker. [Emails within my email account, claimed to be a stockbroker and those emails had two letters in the email address reversed. By eliminating other earlier emails with the correct email address, detection was avoided]. Before this fraud took place, the thieves apparently monitored my emails to my stockbroker. My wife has sold her childhood home, and she wished to reinvest those profits in the stock market under her trust name. She asked me to orchestrate this transaction with our broker of [our financial services] company. In my broker's name, the criminals stated through email that [our financial services company] no longer accepted checks, and further that [our financial services company] requested a wire transfer. The criminals used a false email address from within my email account. My internet email provider, AOL, has since cleared the buffers installed by the criminals on my email account and checked for viruses. At their direction, I changed my account password and installed virus software. Back to the fraud discussion, I called my broker, and I stated that I did not understand [our financial services company] policies, and that I was going to send [money] by wire transfer for him to invest in stocks on our behalf. I was not explicit that I had received an email claiming that checks would not be accepted, and our broker later confirmed that [our financial services company] does, in fact, still accept checks. Even so, my broker assured me that a wire transfer would be safe and guaranteed. The fraud then continued. Concerned with possible interned fraud, I stated by email that I wanted written confirmation that [our financial services company] was responsible for any internet frauds during [our financial services company] transaction. The criminals then forged my broker's signature on a document accepting such responsibilities. The criminals provided [false] bank information, using [our financial services company] as the account name. ... Later, my wife and I went to our bank on February 15, 2024 to make the wire transfer. The bank teller advised us that bank policy required us to verbally confirm wire transfer information. We called our broker, and he stated that he had never filled out a form accepting [our financial services company's] responsibility for wire transfers, I said that he did, and I sent the signed form back to him, but the email was blocked. The fraud was still in process, since I still thought that our broker had sent the email, and he did not respond to this noted email. My wife, our broker, our banker and I were scheduled to meet on February 20, 2024 at 14:00 to verify all wire transfer information before sending [money] by wire transfer, On that day, I received an email from the criminals, claiming to be our broker, that there was no need for verbal confirmation. Believing that our broker sent this email, I sent him an email that I would find another broker, and I cancelled the 14:00 meeting at the bank. At about 14:20, our broker called and asked why we did not have the meeting. For the first time, I realized that my AOL account had been hacked, and we were the victims of an attempted fraud. What would be a fair resolution to this issue? Locate the criminals, arrest the criminals, and put an end to their criminal enterprise. Forgery and theft are serious crimes that should be pursued. If this crime had not been stopped, we would have had [money] stolen from us. Some stock brokers, banks and realtors verify transactions by phone to ensure prevent wire transfer frauds. Some do not. For this case, the Columbia office of the FBI refused to investigate this crime, and referred me to the CFPB. The CFPB advised me that they only investigate crimes committed by registered corporations. That is, when thieves act alone, the FBI refuses to investigate any interstate wire transfer crime, regardless of the amount that was stolen or attempted to be stolen. The FBI advised me to hire my own legal counsel to investigate this crime. In the absence of any legal protection by our government from wire transfer frauds, we are on our own. (Article changed on Feb 28, 2024 at 11:23 AM EST) WATCH: Victoria Nuland ADMITS U.S. Money To Ukraine LINING Defense Contractor's Pockets Briahna Joy Gray and Robby Soave discuss NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's recent comments on support for Ukraine. (Image by YouTube, Channel: The Hill) Details DMCA US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Exactly 10 years ago in Kiev, Ukraine, Victoria Nuland was there as US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Asian Affairs. There was coup in Kiev February 2014 which she helped to mid wife. In a leaked audio she was heard saying to then US Ambassador to Ukraine Jeffrey Pyatt , "F--k the EU" as he was referring to the concerns of the Europeans at that time. In that leaked conversation Nuland indicated who she preferred as the post coup president in Ukraine after then President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych was ousted. Incredibly 10 years later Nuland is currently the US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs. Recently speaking on CNN regarding Ukraine she started with the usual blather of US actions as in, "what we have always done, which is to defend democracy and freedom around the world." [1] Ah, certainly not but I'll get to that later in this piece. Nuland went on to say, "And by the way, we have to remember that the bulk of the money (sent to Ukraine) is going right back into the US to make those weapons". Her statement makes it abundantly clear what is the real aim of the US in Ukraine. It's to the benefit of the weapons manufacturers to make more weapons. As columnist and political strategist Rachel Marsden put it, "It's just the usual endless war and profits repackaged as benevolence...bamboozling the general public...boosted by fear mongering rhetoric couched in white knighting". "There's never any endgame or exit ramp to any of these conflicts. And there clearly isn't one for Ukraine, either". Marsden is right on the mark not only about the wretched Nuland but as former CIA officer John Stockwell put it, " keep the world unstable...to propagandize the American people to hate, so we will let the establishment spend any amount of money on arms". That's really what US government policy and actions are all about. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Tonawanda Metal Plant Cuts 42% of Workforce Article originally published in The Ken-Ton Bee By Robert Weiner and Gene Lambey Many are asking why several big companies are doing layoffs if the economy is booming and national job numbers are surging? The new jobs surge--350,000 last month, 15 million since Biden took office, unemployment under 4 percent--is a central part of the Democratic success claims, while the layoffs are integral to the Republican talking points. Half of the jobs increases are in health care, which is not a bad thing given that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has over nine million new enrollees since 2020, all 304 million Americans with health insurance now include children to 26 on parents' plans, people with pre-existing conditions, and ability to afford drugs priced lower. Those are good, not bad, developments that require health service jobs. The rest of the "boom" is helped by the infrastructure jobs and money the administration pushed into the economy as anti-Covid measures which helped block the recession most economists predicted. Biden deserves a big part of the credit for engineering the bills and bipartisan votes on most of this. However, national and local newspapers have been closing or firing, there are layoffs by tech companies such as Amazon (18,000), Google (12,000), and Meta (11,000), and iconic U.S.Steel is under threat of purchase by Japan. On Feb 5, according to the Buffalo News Business section, DKP Buffalo laid off 42 percent of their workforce. So what's causing all that? Print newspapers are working hard to adjust to online competition. For all the big companies laying off people, perhaps it's the increasing automation, AI, and robotic manufacturing. Presidential candidate Andrew Yang told the National Press Club on Oct. 21, 2019, "We are in the midst of this incredible economic transformation." Yang answered a question from the journalists on whether automation, trade deals, or anything else are the cause of this job decline saying, "Most of the studies I've seen put the main cause as automation to the tune of 70 to 85 percent of lost manufacturing jobs." The Fourth Industrial Revolution is still underway. Individuals who have lost their jobs must be prepared and adapt quickly. Infrastructure, factory manufacturing, delivery and similar jobs are falling. Self-driving trucks are present across the country. Yang said, "Self driving trucks will be great for the GDP; they will be terrible for millions of truck drivers" at big truck companies like YellowCorp. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded a 5,000-job decline in January in the mining, quarrying, oil and gas-extraction industries. Job growth was significant in professional and business (74,000) services, health care (70,000), retail trade (45,000), and social assistance (30,000) in the same report. Companies are investing into AI and robotic manufacturing as they lower costs and increase efficiency. Some companies are recovering from the effects of the pandemic's massive job resignation during 2020 through 2022, over hiring workers. Back office jobs in the medical field are being replaced by AI as well. All of these changes are happening right now in different industries, yet these results are not reflected on the overall job numbers nor a decline in the economy. Yang claimed that the initiative he promoted in his campaign, the "freedom dividend", would give Americans extra income. This type of plan is only available in Alaska. Alaskans receive a sum of up to $2000 monthly that comes from oil. Yang wanted to take a modern approach, providing monthly income up to $1000 through a Value Added Tax (VAT). He believes Americans could fight the negative curve in the new automation age if this came to pass. His prediction of conversions to automation five years ago has come to fruition. A plan like the "freedom dividend" presented by Yang would give affected Americans and families a backup. Training support to those who are not technologically savvy a chance to make a living wage. Congress should be fully funding the infrastructure law's jobs, which helped prevent a recession and will continue to do so. Assuring the appropriations annually is a job for Congress. Investing in education and training programs should equip the workforce with the skills to function in this changing job market. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). PRO Pest Control, a leading provider of pest control services in Cape Town, is pleased to announce its innovative range of services designed to combat pests and ensure a healthier living environment for clients. With years of experience in the industry through our parent PRO Cleaning Group, our team has developed a reputation for reliable and effective pest management. We offer services to assist residential and commercial property owners in Oregon is at last retiring the ancient computer systems that manage its unemployment benefits, putting to rest a notorious bit of technology that far outlived its usefulness. The Oregon Employment Department says the new, $106 million computer system that goes online Monday is more nimble and customer friendly than the obsolete system it has used since the 1990s. That rigid technology hobbled the agency during the pandemic recession, delaying jobless benefits by weeks or months at the height of that crisis. The U.S. government is threatening to sue PacifiCorp, a unit of Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway, to recover nearly $1 billion in costs related to the 2020 wildfires in southern Oregon and northern California, though the company is trying to negotiate a settlement. The potential lawsuits were disclosed in an annual report filed by PacifiCorps Iowa-based parent company, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, on Monday two days after Buffett lamented the disappointing results at the conglomerates utility division in his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. This new liability comes after the utility already agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits related to the fires. Henry Gillman gave his mother one last goodbye hug. After a week of icebreakers, unpacking and other orientation programming, the 19-year-old freshman at Lewis & Clark College was on the cusp of a new phase of life, his mother, Elizabeth Kopple, reflected later in a personal essay. But on the first day of classes at the South Portland campus on Aug. 29, 2022, Gillman was killed by a collapsing column that he and other incoming students had used to support hammocks. In my mind, Im still planning for parents weekend, Thanksgiving, sending his winter clothes, and on and on and on. I see a future of family dinners with my two sons, Kopple wrote in the essay published in October by HuffPost. None of this will happen. Kopple has filed a lawsuit in Multnomah County Circuit Court that seeks $30 million from the college and two outdoor recreation companies. The suit claims Lewis & Clark administrators had previously precluded students from placing hammocks on the brick pillars in the grape arbor but failed to warn the new students and instead invited them to use the pillars as anchors. Lois Leveen, a spokesperson for the college, said the school was reviewing the lawsuit, which was filed in December and served to the school last month. As a matter of policy and out of respect for Henrys family, we will not be offering further comment. We would like to again express our deepest sorrow and condolences, Leveen said in a statement. The recreation companies, Eagles Nest Outfitters and Sierra Designs, didnt respond to requests for comment. The suit alleges both companies failed to include adequate warnings or instructions with their products. Gillman had attended a school-sponsored hike on Mount St. Helens earlier that day with fellow freshmen, the suit says, and upon their return the group was invited to hammock in the grape arbor. The collapse also injured two 18-year-old women, Portland Fire & Rescue officials said at the time. Six students, two in each hammock, were sitting in the slings hung in a Z-pattern across four red-brick pillars, according to fire officials and the lawsuit. In the essay, Kopple remembered her son as a light-hearted teenager whose interests ranged from cross country and internet memes to spirited debates on the merits of ranked choice voting. It helps when people acknowledge that his death is a catastrophe, that nothing will ever be the same for those who knew and loved him. My best moments are when people share a loving memory of my son and I know they havent forgotten him, she wrote. Kopple declined to comment through her attorney. Zane Sparling covers breaking news and courts for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-319-7083, zsparling@oregonian.com or @pdxzane. Our journalism needs your support. Please become a subscriber today at OregonLive.com/subscribe Portland police are searching for a suspect in a 2022 shooting that left a 53-year-old man dead in Portland after he allegedly tried earlier this month to kill the woman who witnessed the crime, court records allege. A probable cause affidavit filed Feb. 27 identified the suspect as 23-year-old Jacob Fitzgerald, whom police describe as possibly armed and dangerous. The document shed light on the death of Otis Abner, who was killed Aug. 6, 2022, and the events that followed. Multnomah Countys fledgling Preschool for All program will be flush with cash even if county leaders accede to Gov. Tina Koteks request for a three-year moratorium on any new taxes, updated financial modeling from the county suggests. Under the plan approved by voters, the tax rate for high earners that pays for the preschool program is scheduled to increase by as much as 53% starting in tax year 2026. But Kotek has asked Portland-area governments not to hike any taxes until 2027. A one-year delay would be no problem, county economist Jeff Renfro told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Monday. We could comply with the tax moratorium and the program would still be solvent and wed implement it the way we had intended. Until this week, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson had not tipped her hand on whether she supported waiting until 2027 to increase the rates that wealthy people pay on income above certain thresholds from 1.5% to 2.3% and from 3% to 3.8% instead of pressing ahead with the planned increase in 2026. But at a briefing Tuesday, Vega Pederson who counts Preschool for All as among her signature achievements signaled that she will support the temporary delay in raising the tax rate. The updated revenue [modeling] that weve seen today makes one thing clear: This program has the funds to allow us to delay the 0.8% increase for at least one year without any negative impact on our ability to meet our commitments, Vega Pederson said. She said county commissioners will schedule a work session in the coming weeks to consider the mechanics of such a delay. According to new projections Renfro made recently, Multnomah County could hold off on bumping up the tax rate and still never see the programs rainy day funds dip below $186 million, and then not until 2036. By that point, Renfro said during an interview Monday, the preschool program should be on cruise control, having reached its target of paying for 11,000 slots for 3- and 4-year-olds six years earlier. Renfro also warned county commissioners that they couldnt put off a tax increase forever without jeopardizing the program, though. Without eventually bumping up the rate, he said, the preschool program would cost more to operate than it is bringing in by 2033. Costs would increase exponentially after that, he continued, and could be a $637 million albatross for Multnomah County by 2039. The Multnomah County program is funded by an income tax of 1.5% to 3% on higher income earners about 9% of the countys households. Voters overwhelmingly passed it in 2020. But since then, the program has fought against public perceptions that it is creating too few entirely new slots for preschoolers and hoarding huge reserves, via a contingency fund that currently stands at nearly $240 million. Both Renfro and Preschool for All Director Leslee Barnes have stressed that the program was designed to build up reserves in its earliest years, so it would have a cushion for the ramp-up to come and against any unforeseen economic downturns. Based on the historic analysis that weve done, when we have a recession, at some point in the future, we could have a year over year drop in tax revenue of $90 million, Renfro said. In figures presented to the Board of Commissioners on Tuesday, Renfro said that to hit its goal of 11,000 seats by 2030 a figure revised down by 1,000 from original projections amid child population drops in Multnomah County the county will need to grow the number of seats tenfold over the next seven years. About 6,000 of those already exist as full-time preschool seats that families are paying for their children to occupy; the county program will take over paying tuition at those programs. The other 4,000 or so slots, or about 40%, will need to be new or enhanced. That means those spaces either do not exist or will need to be converted from half-days to full-days or upgraded to be staffed by licensed child care providers. Currently, in its second year of operations, the program pays for 1,100 children to attend preschool. Only 507 of those slots fall into the new or enhanced category. In its earliest stages, the program has focused on children who are from lower income families, as well as children of color and those with disabilities, Barnes said. In coming years, the intent is to expand so that any family who seeks a slot in the program can get one, regardless of their income level, she said. Julia Silverman covers schools and education policy for The Oregonian/OregonLive. She can be reached via email at jsilverman@oregonian.com. Follow her on X.com at @jrlsilverman. TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, February 28. Uzbekistan discusses implementation of joint investment projects with French Semmaris, Suez, Alstom and other leading companies, Trend reports. The discussion took place at a meeting between deputy foreign minister of Uzbekistan Muzaffar Madrahimov with ambassador of France Aurelia Bouchez on February 27, 2024. During the meeting, the sides emphasized the importance of fully implementing all agreements reached within the framework of the discussions between the leaders of Uzbekistan and France. The parties considered topical aspects of the Uzbek-French agenda. Proposals on strengthening the inter-parliamentary dialog, expanding the legal framework of interaction, and deepening cultural, humanitarian and educational exchanges have been discussed. Special attention was paid to the active promotion of economic diplomacy. In this context, the sides exchanged views on holding the next meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation. Meanwhile, trade turnover volume between Uzbekistan and France amounted to $78.3 million (1.9 percent) in January 2024. Exports reached $66.8 million, while imports - $11.5 million. Lawmakers on Wednesday took a bittersweet vote to advance funding for summer school and community-based summer learning programs after failing to provide any money last year. The eight members of the Joint Ways and Means Education Subcommittee voted unanimously to pass $30 million for summer learning. The proposal will move to the House for voting. Its $20 million less than the $50 million state Rep. Susan McLain, a Hillsboro Democrat, proposed as lead sponsor of House Bill 4082 earlier in the session -- and less than 20% of what the state offered for summer learning in 2021 and 2022. Weve got a lot of kids out there that are really, really going to have a better summer and more opportunity for wraparound services and for experiences that are going to increase their skill level, McLain, co-chair of the committee, told her colleagues during the Wednesday hearing. But, she added, This is just the first round. We have so much to do. If the bill makes it through both the House and Senate, the $30 million would be split between the states 197 school districts and 19 education service districts this summer, with priority going to the states 530 Title I schools, where at least one-third of students are from low-income households. This is because the money would come from a pot of money dubbed Statewide Education Initiatives, which is set aside to help underserved students. Districts would also be able to distribute funds to community-based nonprofit groups such as the YMCA or Boys & Girls Club. The proposal also creates a workgroup to study and propose long-term solutions for sustainable, consistent funding for summer school. Gov. Tina Kotek, who has made summer school funding a priority, had hoped to see the full $50 million pass, according to spokesperson Elisabeth Shepard. She appreciates legislative leadership meeting the urgency of the moment by advancing this broadly bipartisan bill, Shepard said in an email. The governor is also committed to engaging in meaningful discussion to identify long-term funding for summer and after-school learning. The smaller budget follows recent criticism from Democratic leaders in the House and Senate that $50 million was too large a sum to take from the states general fund, which will be drawn on heavily this session for the governors housing and legislative addiction initiatives. Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, and House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Corvallis, also said they wanted more accountability measures baked in to ensure money will help Oregon kids get caught up on core subjects, as reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive. -- Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle, abaumhardt@oregoncapitalchronicle.com The Oregon Capital Chronicle, founded in 2021, is a nonprofit news organization that focuses on covering Oregon state government, politics and policy. The anticipation and hype surrounding Shohei Ohtani was palpable on Tuesday. Ohtani gave fans what they were looking for during his spring training debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ohtani slammed a two-run home run in his final at-bat during the Dodgers game against the Chicago White Sox. Ohtani launched a a 3-2 pitch from White Sox right-hander Dominic Leone into the left-field stands in the fifth inning. The home run allowed the Dodgers to narrow Chicagos lead to 4-3 and the Dodgers ended up winning 9-6. Ohtani finished the day with a home run, a strikeout and a ground ball that resulted in a double-play in three at-bats. He was playing in his first game since undergoing surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow in September. The surgery will limit the two-way star to just hitting during the 2024 season. He expected to resume pitching in 2025. Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million million contract to join the Dodgers after spending his first six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels. He was selected as the ALs Most Valuable Player in 2023, the second time he has won the award in the past three seasons. Craig Hawkins, Emielle Nischik, Reed Scott-Schwalbach and Sarah Wofford Hawkins is executive director of Coalition of Oregon School Administrators. Nischik is acting executive director of Oregon School Boards Association. Scott-Schwalbach is president of Oregon Education Association. Wofford is president of the Oregon School Employees Association. Every year, our schools see what a difference summer learning programs make for students. These programs provide not only additional learning opportunities for students who need them most, but offer mental and behavioral health supports in safe, enriching environments that help them grow as individuals. Unfortunately, many of our local school districts and communities cant pay for this programming on their own. We cant afford to waste the summer by failing to offer the opportunities that help students make up lost ground in core academic subjects which is especially important post-pandemic. With the state now expecting $560 million more in revenue, legislators should invest a small portion of that into learning programs for summer 2024 by passing House Bill 4082. HB 4082 would create a partnership between school districts, education service districts, tribal nations, libraries, community organizations , and the state to provide this invaluable service. The bill would invest $50 million for school districts that have a developed plan for summer learning programs that provide a minimum of 80 hours of instruction or activities through tribal and community partnerships. The programs would be required to focus on academic enrichment and youth development and must have plans for family engagement and accessibility. In short, to qualify for funds from the state, school districts must have a summer learning program that is focused on helping Oregons students develop the skills necessary to continue to rebound from pandemic-related learning losses. Moreover, the grant funds available in HB 4082 incentivize our neighborhood public schools to establish strong and sustained relationships with other organizations in the community. These types of partnerships are critical to providing students with wraparound services that meet the needs of the whole child. These include programs that help students build their career and technical skills while also supporting their mental, emotional and social well-being. At a time when student needs are at their highest, we must recognize that districts cant do it all on their own they need to create community connections that build on the specific strengths of partner organizations to best serve our students. Without this statewide investment, students across Oregon are at risk of losing another summer. We know how critical these summer months are to supporting our students especially as we recover from the pandemic, and thats why HB 4082 also creates a workgroup that will explore how to develop sustainable, streamlined, equitable summer learning in Oregon for the future. The need for investment is clear. Oregons students have different learning styles and families need more educational opportunities to accommodate them. The summer learning program is a commonsense strategy to deliver structured educational fun. HB 4082 isnt a silver bullet, but it will help meet a very real student need for structure and support. Our schools and communities are standing at the ready with robust plans in place, waiting only on the Legislatures green light. Sign up for our free Oregon Opinion newsletter. Email: Portlands longest surviving commercial structure, the 1857 Hallock-McMillan Building, completed before Oregon was a state, is slowly being restored. But its not easy reproduced elements are painstakingly handmade and its not cheap. Recreating cast-iron adornments on the front facade alone cost more than $1 million, said owner John Russell. It looks exactly like it did in 1857, said Russell, who would like to find a business to lease the landmark property at 237 S.W. Naito Parkway. The benefits: The highly visible corner lot faces the west bank of the Willamette River, and the structures historic character has been preserved. The brick-wall interior can be finished at the tenants expense to be a restaurant, office space or housing, Russell said. But hes in no hurry. This is a labor of love, he added. There is a banner on the 5,000-square-foot building stating its for lease, but no listing with a price on any commercial real estate listing site. The Hallock-McMillan Building was designed in the Greek Revival style by the citys first licensed architect, Absalom Hallock, and constructed by contractor William McMillan 167 years ago as a showroom for cast-iron architectural elements. Over time, the building has been a candy factory, longshoremens hiring hall and Peter Corvallis Productions event management, said Russell, who wanted the building decades before he could get the owner to sell it. In 1974, Russell bought the nearby Dielschneider Building at 71 S.W. Oak St., where the bottom two floors date to 1859 and a third story was added in 1876. Russell used plans by the late Portland architect and urban designer Greg Baldwin to renovate the Dielschneider and he then moved into the newly created penthouse. Russell, a Portland developer who has helped build or remodel some of the citys notable downtown buildings, then purchased the Fechheimer & White Building at 233 S.W. Naito Parkway (formerly Front Street). The High Victorian Italianate landmark from the late 19th-century is similar to the Hallock-McMillan Building: Both are two-story masonry structures with innovative cast-iron features and are also included in the National Register of Historic Places-recognized Skidmore/Old Town Historic District. Russell, whose Russell Fellows Properties provides philanthropy with buildings, also acquired the much-altered 1885 Freimann Restaurant Building at 240 S.W. First Ave. and rebuilt it based on historic sketches. After Russell purchased the Hallock-McMillan Building in 2010, he then owned a full block of historic buildings. Today, he still owns the Hallock-McMillan and Fechheimer & White buildings. In 2019, he hired Emerick Architects of Portland to bring the Hallock-McMillan Building up to code, especially seismic requirements, and restore original ornamental elements that had been covered by stucco in the 1940s. Well-meaning people wanted to modernize the look, said Russell, 78, who served on Portlands Historic Landmarks Commission. The precisely restored front facade, with columns supporting Romanesque arches on the ground floor and arches over the second-story casement windows, is gorgeous in a very modest way, but it wasnt easy, he said. You cant just go buy parts. Missing cast-iron features designed by Hallock were replicated by reverting to old-fashioned methods: Architectural Castings of Portland hand-carved wood molds, and Silverton Foundrys furnaces were fired up to 2,800 degrees using wood, coal and coke. Architect William J. Hawkins III, who wrote The Grand Era of Cast Iron Architecture in Portland about the city as a center of cast iron architecture starting in the 1850s, offered suggestions and recommended qualified craftworkers to Russell. Hawkins discovered architect Hallock used cast-iron elements from San Franciscos Phoenix Iron Works on many early brick buildings he designed, starting with the 1854 J. Kohn Building. The foundry was owned by Hawkins great grandfather, Jonathan Kittredge, and Hallock was the foundrys Portland representative from 1854 to 1870. Hallock was also a founder of Willamette Iron Works, which produced many of Portlands cast iron building fronts between 1865 and 1889. Researchers with the Oregon Historical Societys digital encyclopedia said cast iron, a modern and fashionable architectural technology, which offered new decorative and structural options, was used in 90% of the commercial buildings erected in Portland between 1854 and 1889. Eventually, cast iron was replaced by less expensive, higher quality mass-produced steel, according to the National Iron & Steel Heritage Museum in Pennsylvania. Despite demolitions, Portland has the second largest collection of cast iron architecture in the United States, after New York Citys SoHo and Tribeca areas, according to the Portland-based Architectural Heritage Center and Melvin Mark Companies commercial real estate, where Russell was a partner with the late Melvin Pete Mark. In 2020, the statewide preservation organization Restore Oregon honored the restoration of the Hallock-McMillan Building with a coveted DeMuro Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation. The annual awards demonstrate how restoring and updating architectural and cultural sites can create useful spaces, incubate new businesses and combat climate change through re-use. Brian Emerick of Emerick Architects told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the restored and seismically strengthened building should last far into the future. These old buildings are reference points that allow us to connect to our past and see how far we have traveled to get to the present, he said. This building already has a rich history and it will have many other new uses that we dont even know of yet. The project team also included Bremik Construction, Grummel Engineering, Pioneer Waterproofing and the digital storytelling agency Wave One Films that documented the process. Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072 jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman Oregon lawmakers are considering a change to the states public records law as Portland officials and business groups attempt to block the release of information related to the citys voter-approved climate fund. But journalists have raised alarms that the proposal could have broad unintended consequences that would lessen government accountability. Chinese carriers allowed to operate more flights to US 08:01, February 28, 2024 By Wang Qingyun ( China Daily The number of passenger flights allowed to be operated by Chinese airlines between China and the United States is set to increase from next month, in the latest step taken to boost direct flight connectivity between the two countries. The US Department of Transportation said on Monday that from March 31, Chinese carriers could operate a total of 50 round-trip passenger flights a week, up from the current 35. The move "is a significant step forward in further normalization of the US-China market in anticipation of the Summer 2024 traffic season", the department said in a statement. The increase comes months after President Xi Jinping met with US President Joe Biden in San Francisco in November last year. During the meeting, the leaders agreed to strengthen bilateral dialogue and cooperation in various fields, including significantly increasing flights between the two countries. China and the US have been working to increase the number of passenger flights between the two countries, after it fell sharply following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2023, the US Department of Transportation allowed Chinese carriers to operate 12 round-trip passenger flights per week. The number was then increased several times, till it reached 35 in November. The latest increase to 50 will bring the market to nearly one-third of pre-pandemic levels, according to Reuters, which said more than 150 weekly round-trip passenger flights were allowed by each side before the pandemic hit. China has called for joint efforts with the US to support and encourage people-to-people exchanges. It has also taken a series of measures to attract foreign travelers, including those from the US, over the past months. Last month, the Chinese embassy and consulates-general in the US simplified the documents which applicants for a tourist visa are required to submit. (Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun) Elnur Enveroglu A group of prominent French political elites strongly condemned President Macron's decision to send military troops to support Ukraine. The statement made by the head of state in front of the allied countries on Monday was not received unequivocally. Political figures from the opposition and other parties of France gave their own reaction and called this step of President Macron irresponsible and madness. Amongst them: - Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of Insoumise La France Sending troops to Ukraine would make us warring parties. A war against Russia would be madness. This bellicose verbal escalation by a nuclear power against another major nuclear power is already an irresponsible act. Parliament must be seized and say no. No war! It's high." Its time to negotiate peace in Ukraine with provisions for mutual security! - Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally I dont know if everyone understands the seriousness of such a statement. Emmanuel Macron plays a military leader, but he talks about the lives of our children with such nonchalance. We are talking about peace or war in our country." - Florian Filippo, leader of the Patriots party Macron is crazy. Completely crazy! Obviously, it will be a war with Russia, World War III! Let's block him! Let's activate Article 35 of the Constitution on the declaration of war! We warned from the beginning, we are going to redouble our efforts: Efforts; the entire French people must realize the level of madness of Macron and NATO! Let's leave NATO, block Macron, long live the world! - Olivier Faure, First Secretary of the Socialist Party The frivolity of the president, who during a press conference said that he may be ready to drag France into this war as a belligerent country, is alarming. Support the Ukrainian resistance - yes. Go to war with Russia and drag the continent into it. Madness". - Francois Asselino, President of the Republican Popular Union The madman from the Elysee Palace, whose armies have only a week's supply of ammunition, whose people categorically refuse to be killed for the Black Mountain in Ukraine, who had to surrender miserably to the army of Niger, claims to have defeated Russia, the world's first nuclear power. - Nikola Mirkovic, President of the West-East Association Napoleon also wanted to send French soldiers to Russia, and this ended with the capture of Paris by the Cossacks. Macron would do well to read the history books and refine his analysis of the current geopolitical situation. No to his war. Recall that France's President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday there was no consensus on sending troops to Ukraine, but the subject could not be ruled out. "There is no consensus at this stage... to send troops on the ground," Macron said after hosting some 20 countries allied to Ukraine. "Nothing should be excluded. We will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win." BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. There is no hope of restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran's nuclear program, Former Iranian ambassador to the UK, Jalal Sadatian, Trend reports. Sadatian pointed out that current regional dynamics, coupled with the stances of European nations and the US on the accord, indicate that attempts to rejuvenate the JCPOA have stalled. This has led to increased complexity surrounding Irans nuclear program. According to him, in the interim, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) is actively engaging with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to mitigate any potential escalation of its position on Iran. These discussions involve IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi. Furthermore, Sadatian noted that, according to IAEA reports, there are claims of Iran achieving peak uranium enrichment levels. Conversely, there are assertions that Irans enrichment activities are not aimed at developing nuclear weapons but rather to strengthen its position in diplomatic negotiations. On January 16, 2016, the JCPOA came into force between Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, the UK, France, and Germany) regarding Irans nuclear program. However, on May 8, 2018, the US withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the 5+1 group (Russia, China, the UK, France, the US, and Germany) and imposed new sanctions on Iran starting from November 2018. Since then, the sanctions have impacted Irans oil exports and more than 700 banks, firms, and individuals. The sanctions have led to the freezing of Iranian assets overseas. The Iranian side demands that the US rejoin the JCPOA and that other members comply with the terms of the deal, and in that case it declares that it will abide by all the obligations specified in the deal. In late 2020, the Iranian parliament adopted a strategic plan to counter the sanctions, citing the non-fulfillment of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between Iran and six countries and the imposition of sanctions on Iran. According to the decision of the Iranian parliament, as of February 23, Iran stopped the implementation of additional measures and an additional protocol included in the nuclear deal. As a consequence, the monitoring mechanism of the IAEA was reduced by 2030 percent. Recent reports have indicated that, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has significantly expanded its enriched uranium reserves. The current figures suggest that the stockpile is now 27 times larger than the limit set by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). As per the IAEAs report dated September 4, 2023, there has been an addition of approximately 6.7 kilograms, bringing the total amount of 60 percent enriched uranium to roughly 128 kilograms. --- Follow the author on X (Twitter):@BaghishovElnur Banjul, Gambia (PANA) - The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has expressed concern over attempts to repeal the law that prohibits Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) in The Gambia Barcelona, Spain (PANA) - The mobile phone industry has pledged over $9 billion towards the goal of connecting the world, said the chief of the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU), addressing the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Photo: (Photo : FRED DUFOUR/AFP via Getty Images ) In California, a high school teacher is frustrated as students watch Netflix on their phones during class, while in Maryland, a chemistry teacher reports students using gambling apps for bets during school hours. Teachers Say Use of Cell Phones Divert Students' Attention Teachers across the country observe various distractions like Snapchat, music, and online shopping, illustrating the pervasive impact of smartphones on education. Despite documented concerns about adolescents' phone use, parents often underestimate its extent in classrooms. A growing consensus among educators and experts suggests a solution: implementing bans on phones during classes. Although many schools have existing rules, enforcement is inconsistent. States like Utah, Florida, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Kansas have taken steps to endorse or pass legislation for cellphone bans in schools. Senators Tom Cotton and Tim Kaine also proposed federal legislation for studying the effects of cellphone use on students' mental health and academic performance. While 77% of U.S. schools claim to prohibit non-academic cellphone use, teachers find it challenging to enforce such policies. The Phone-Free Schools Movement recommends administrative enforcement and complete phone storage to address the issue effectively. Critics argue that such policies may limit communication during emergencies, but proponents emphasize the positive impact on student focus and engagement. In Utah's Delta High School, students are required to check their phones at the door, resulting in increased attentiveness and improved learning outcomes. However, the ongoing challenge includes addressing earbuds and smartwatches, which continue to contribute to distractions despite cell phone policies. Cell Phone Usage in School, Why Should it Be Banned The next time parents consider sending a quick, seemingly inconsequential text to their children while they're in school, they should pause and reflect. Although receiving a simple thumbs-up emoji response may take only 10 seconds, a recent UNESCO study suggests that their child's brain requires a significant 20 minutes to refocus on the academic lesson at hand-whether it be algebra, history, or physics. The study advocates for a ban on smartphones in schools for students of all ages, emphasizing the clear data that countries enforcing such restrictions witness enhanced academic performance and reduced instances of bullying. This ongoing debate evokes frustration among educators who grapple with enforcing cell phone limitations, sparks concerns among some parents who fear being unable to contact their children during emergencies, and surprisingly, receives a somewhat indifferent response from students. While students openly admit that cell phones distract them, many acknowledge that they concentrate better without these devices in the classroom. Read Also: Brianna Grey Murder: Victim's Mother Calls To Ban Children's Access to Social Media Effects of Cell Phone Usage Among Students Joelle Renstrom, a senior lecturer at Boston University, emphasizes the challenge of implementing consistent cell phone restrictions and highlights the importance of student buy-in. She draws parallels between cellphone addiction and second-hand smoking, emphasizing the influence of the digital environment on young individuals. Renstrom conducted experiments with her students, revealing that cell phone restrictions positively impact focus and attention. Addressing the question of cell phone restrictions in classrooms, Renstrom acknowledges the complexities, including safety concerns and the need for a balance in students' lives. While recognizing the need for buy-in from students, she suggests framing cell phone restrictions as an experiment, evaluating its impact and considering changes. Renstrom also calls for parents to refrain from calling their children during the school day, emphasizing the negative impact on students' anxiety. In response to the latest UNESCO study, Renstrom expects varied reactions, noting that similar studies have been published before. She recognizes the challenge of advising people on what is beneficial for them, especially when it comes to technology use. Renstrom underscores the importance of focusing on children's well-being and education, urging schools and families to collaboratively address the issue and work towards intervention and restriction rather than a complete removal of phones from kids. The study indicates that the problem is even more pronounced among university students, reflecting the diverse approaches taken to address this pervasive issue. Related Article: Schools Advise Parents To Remove Children's Social Media Access Due to Potential Disturbing Content from Israel Includes Clement of Rome (d. c. 101) & Polycarp (d. 155) vs. Faith Alone Rev. Dr. Jordan B. Cooper is a Lutheran pastor, adjunct professor of Systematic Theology, Executive Director of the popular Just & Sinner YouTube channel, and the President of the American Lutheran Theological Seminary (which holds to a doctrinally traditional Lutheranism, similar to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod). He has authored several books, as well as theological articles in a variety of publications. All my Bible citations are from RSV, unless otherwise indicated. Jordans words will be in blue. This is my 4th reply to Jordan (many more to come, because I want to interact with the best, most informed Protestant opponents). All of these respectful critiques can be found in the Replies to Lutheran Theologian / Apologist Jordan Cooper section on the top of my Lutheranism web page. ***** This is a response to Jordans YouTube video, Sola Fide in the Church Fathers (3-27-19). 6:54 Lets talk about the question of the unanimity of the fathers. This is important because when you read a lot of especially popular level Roman Catholic polemics or Eastern Orthodox polemics, you get this idea that there is this unanimous consensus of the fathers on all of these various doctrinal topics. First of all, unanimous in this sense doesnt mean absolutely every but a strong consensus. See my article: Unanimous Consent of Church Fathers: Not Literally All (Does the Phrase Unanimous Consent of the Fathers Allow Any Exceptions?) [4-29-08; revised on 10-22-18]. Nor is it just Catholic and Orthodox polemics as to faith alone. Its also the opinion of three well-known Protestant apologists and scholars: Whereas Augustine taught that the sinner is made righteous in justification, Melanchthon taught that he is counted as righteous or pronounced to be righteous. For Augustine, justifying righteousness is imparted; for Melanchthon, it is imputed in the sense of being declared or pronounced to be righteous. Melanchthon drew a sharp distinction between the event of being declared righteous and the process of being made righteous, designating the former justification and the latter sanctification or regeneration. For Augustine, these were simply different aspects of the same thing . . . The importance of this development lies in the fact that it marks a complete break with the teaching of the church up to that point. From the time of Augustine onwards, justification had always been understood to refer to both the event of being declared righteous and the process of being made righteous. . . . The Council of Trent . . . reaffirmed the views of Augustine on the nature of justification . . . the concept of forensic justification actually represents a development in Luthers thought . . . . Trent maintained the medieval tradition, stretching back to Augustine, which saw justification as comprising both an event and a process . . . (Alister McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 2nd edition, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1993, 108-109, 115; my italics) For Augustine, justification included both the beginnings of ones righteousness before God and its subsequent perfection the event and the process. What later became the Reformation concept of sanctification then is effectively subsumed under the aegis of justification. Although he believed that God initiated the salvation process, it is incorrect to say that Augustine held to the concept of forensic justification. This understanding of justification is a later development of the Reformation . . . Before Luther, the standard Augustinian position on justification stressed intrinsic justification. Intrinsic justification argues that the believer is made righteous by Gods grace, as compared to extrinsic justification, by which a sinner is forensically declared righteous (at best, a subterranean strain in pre-Reformation Christendom). With Luther the situation changed dramatically . . . . . . one can be saved without believing that imputed righteousness (or forensic justification) is an essential part of the true gospel. Otherwise, few people were saved between the time of the apostle Paul and the Reformation, since scarcely anyone taught imputed righteousness (or forensic justification) during that period! . . . . . (Norman Geisler, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences, with Ralph E. MacKenzie, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1995, 502, 85, 222; my italics) If any one expects to find in this period [100-325], or in any of the church fathers, Augustin himself not excepted, the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, . . . he will be greatly disappointed . . . Pauls doctrine of justification, except perhaps in Clement of Rome, who joins it with the doctrine of James, is left very much out of view, and awaits the age of the Reformation to be more thoroughly established and understood. (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, 588-589) They said it, not me! My question for Jordan would be: how does he explain the sweeping nature of these comments? If they are wrong, how could they be so dramatically wrong? What is it that they are seeing in the fathers that he is not seeing? Catholics have been saying this all along. Its nothing new to us. Glad to see that some prominent Protestants are now frankly and candidly admitting it. 8:10 weve always had this this issue that we havent looked at the fathers in terms of their actual context. We havent looked at the totality of their writings. How are Geislers and McGraths and Schaffs statements explained then? McGrath is the author of such books as Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (3rd ed., 2022), The Nature of Christian Doctrine: Its Origins, Development, and Function (2024), and (especially) Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification (1986; 4th ed., 2020) the leading reference work on the subject. McGrath thinks the doctrine of justification was established by the time of St. Augustine (including his own view), and didnt change until Philip Melanchthon (not even with Luther), as a complete break. One, then, might try to argue that the pre-Augustinian fathers thought differently. Geisler says this is true from the time of Paul to Luther, which takes it back almost 400 more years. How can this be if this sort of generalization is only made by Catholic polemicists on a mere popular level? Jordan noted later in this video (at 29:13) that in McGraths book Iustitia Dei the whole pre-Augustinian era is basically ignored . . . he kind of skips over the whole era. McGrath thought the medieval soteriological tradition was wrong in following Augustine, but, as Michael P. Barber noted, in the fourth edition of his book Iustitia Dei he made a significant admission: It has become a commonplace in some quarters to suggest that the dik group of termsparticularly the verb dikaioo, to justifyare naturally translated as being treated as righteous or reckoned as righteous, and that Pauls Greek-speaking readers would have understood him in this way. This may be true at the purely linguistic level; however, the Greek Christian preoccupation with the strongly transformative soteriological metaphor of deification appears to have led to justification being treated in a factitive sense. This is not, however, to be seen as a conceptual imposition on Pauline thought, but rather a discernment of this aspect of his soteriological narrative. . . . Chrysostoms account affirms the declaration or manifestation (endeixeis) of Gods own righteousness with its actualisation in the transformation of the nature of humanity. (pp. 36-37) See also, Alister McGraths Conversion on Justification, Bryan Cross, Called to Communion, 5-5-20 and Ligon Duncans Did the Fathers Know the Gospel? (Bryan Cross, 7-17-10). 8:49 there are certainly areas where the fathers as a whole are in agreement. And we think this topic is one of them. Jordan notes that belief in baptismal regeneration and real presence in the Eucharist are two issues where the fathers achieved a pretty unanimous consensus (10:59). We agree! 12:08 this is an issue where we do have differences of opinion and we have certain fathers that say certain things [and] other fathers that say other things and trying to kind of tease out what Paul is talking about in Romans and Galatians and Ephesians when he speaks about faith and when he speaks about works and justification by faith, not by works; trying to formulate and figure out how all of those things work together. The fathers do come to some different conclusions in how they understand those texts, so youre not going to read the fathers and say, oh look theyre all Lutheran; youre also not going to read the fathers and say oh look theyre all Roman Catholics or oh theyre all Eastern Orthodox. Well, further below we will be examining some of the earliest Church fathers to see if they believed in a Lutheran / Calvinist / Reformation-type faith alone soteriology. Sneak preview: they dont. 12:52 We have to let the fathers be the fathers. We cant shoehorn the fathers into our own traditions, and I think this is what the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions are often forced to do, because they claim to be the tradition that is consistent with the teachings of the church fathers. Often they try to kind of force this unanimity among the fathers, and I think for that reason they cant read them consistently in terms of what those figures actually really believed. They cant read them without bias toward a belief that they already are coming to those texts which is, those fathers believed all the same things that we do today. Of course (I think its obvious), bias about the views of the Church fathers is not by any stretch of the imagination confined to Orthodox and Catholics. Ive written many times about this. For example: * * * Moreover, Lutheran and Reformed Protestants try to claim that their views are closer to the fathers than ours and seek to show that there was patristic consensus on several issues that suggests their view over against ours. This very effort from Jordan is an example of Protestants doing that, just as Catholics and Orthodox do. All sides must guard against making overly selective and one-sided patristic citations, just as they need to avoid doing the same thing with scriptural references. * 21:18 is there any doctrine of justification by faith alone in the fathers? My answer is, yes we can definitely find a testimony of justification by faith alone in the church fathers. Its not unanimous; its not universal but it is there. * The examples from Polycarp and Clement of Rome that he submits do not prove his case. They support our position, as I will demonstrate below. * 24:21 theyre not debating the doctrine of justification or having these doctrinal formulations of justification. Theyre not going to be as careful on that issue because thats not what theyre talking about; thats not what theyre thinking about. They want to define who is Jesus . . . how do we deal with this Gnostic threat . . . those things dont get clarified really until the time of Augustine. * Agreed. * 29:53 Augustine definitely does not see the term justification as a legal term . . . he really sees it as a making righteous instead of a declaring to be righteous legally. * I agree again. * 30:25 Augustine does see justification as a making righteous [but] that doesnt mean Augustine is totally wrong on justification. I think just in terms of all the major points of salvation by grace not by works, the fact that righteousness is a gift of God: all of these things are very clearly similar to to the doctrine of justification that you find in Luther. * St. Augustine believed in merit and meritorious works. I have three-and-a-half pages on this in my book, The Quotable Augustine (2012). The Augsburg Confession (Article 20: Of Good Works) states: Whoever, therefore, trusts that by works he merits grace, despises the merit and grace of Christ, and seeks a way to God without Christ, by human strength, . . . [9] For St. Augustine, grace and merit are not antithetical to each other. Merit is God crowning His own gifts. But its ours, too, because we make it ours. I add that I have found fifty Bible passages where, in the context of the Last Judgment, works are mentioned in every case, as a crucial part of salvation, and faith only once (in conjunction with works). I dont deny that faith is crucial, too. I am merely noting that the emphases here do not comport with the Protestant emphasis on faith over against works, as entirely prominent. Catholics believe that good works must necessarily flow from Gods grace preceding them. We merely cooperate. But the works become truly our own, too. Were not advocating Semi-Pelagianism, yet were falsely accused of it in the Book of Concord. In the areas where Augustine agrees with Luther (sola gratia, etc.), so does the Catholic Church. * 39:42 there are some citations in the earliest fathers that I think do point toward an understanding of justification by faith alone; again not all of the Apostolic fathers. * St. Polycarp was a very early Church father, and he makes it very clear that he believes in the Catholic view of justification by grace alone through faith, with the necessary addition of meritorious good works: without which faith is dead, and salvation unattainable: But He who raised Him up from the dead will raise us up also, if we do His will, and walk in His commandments, and love what He loved, keeping ourselves from all unrighteousness, covetousness, love of money, evil speaking, false witness; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, or blow for blow, or cursing for cursing, but being mindful of what the Lord said in His teaching: Judge not, that you be not judged; forgive, and it shall be forgiven unto you; be merciful, that you may obtain mercy; with what measure you measure, it shall be measured to you again; and once more, Blessed are the poor, and those that are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God. [Epistle to the Philippians, chapter 2; added verse numbers removed, but he cites five passages in this section; my italics and bolding] This is extraordinary! Note the bolded if. Our resurrection (which means salvation, since only the saved will be resurrected to glory) is conditional upon doing various works. God will raise us up if we do His will (a work, especially indicated by the do), if we walk in His commandments (several works), and if we avoid nine different sins: the avoidance of which amounts to meritorious action and behavior. Thats at least eleven things that are necessary in order for us to be saved and resurrected, followed by five more things that are opportunities for meritorious actions leading (in faith and grace) to salvation. If St. Polycarp in fact thought like a Protestant (in this regard of salvation), this section would have been much shorter. He would have written something like, But He who raised Him up from the dead will raise us up also, if we believe in Him in faith alone. All of the rest would have been relegated to a good and praiseworthy, yet optional sanctification: not related to salvation at all. But Polycarp makes our resurrection conditional upon doing all these good works and behaving the right (Christlike) way. Its very Catholic and exceedingly unlike Protestantism. Now, Jordan highlights the fact that Polycarp also wrote about justification by faith. In chapter 1 he states, knowing that by grace you are saved, not of works, [Eph 2:8-9] but by the will of God through Jesus Christ and in chapter 12 he refers to belief in Jesus Christ. Indeed, we must have faith and we arent saved by self-generated works. Catholics dont believe in Pelagianism, or works-salvation. We believe in justification through Gods grace by faith (in its initial stage, monergistic): a faith that inherently entails good works, by its very nature, as James teaches and actually Paul, too, if one looks close enough. These are the good works we are talking about. And Polycarp agrees, for in chapter 1 he also commends the Philippians and remarks that you have followed the example of true love and because the strong root of your faith, . . . endures even until now, and brings forth fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ, . . . Catholics can easily harmonize works like these into a schema of justification by grace through faith (which by nature includes works); no problem! But Protestants usually try to highlight the faith part, while ignoring or de-emphasizing the equally biblical works-that-inevitably-flow-from-faith part of the equation. And its because they have formally separated faith and works and have (contrary to previous Christian teaching) stuck good works in the separate category of non-salvific, non-meritorious sanctification. Polycarp expresses the same Catholic soteriology in chapter 3: For if any one be inwardly possessed of these graces, he has fulfilled the command of righteousness, since he that has love is far from all sin. And in chapter 4: let us teach, first of all, ourselves to walk in the commandments of the Lord. Next, [teach] your wives [to walk] in the faith given to them. And in chapters 5, 9, 10, and 12, hes also far from any notion of faith alone: [W]e ought to walk worthy of His commandment and glory. . . . If we please Him in this present world, we shall receive also the future world, according as He has promised to us that He will raise us again from the dead, and that if we live worthily of Him, we shall also reign together with Him, [2 Tim 2:12] provided only we believe. . . . neither fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, shall inherit the kingdom of God, [1 Corinthians 6:9-10]. [5] I exhort you all, therefore, to yield obedience to the word of righteousness, and to exercise all patience, such as you have seen [set] before your eyes, not only in the case of the blessed Ignatius, and Zosimus, and Rufus, but also in others among yourselves, and in Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles. [This do] in the assurance that all these have not run [Phil 2:16; Gal 2:2] in vain, but in faith and righteousness, and that they are [now] in their due place in the presence of the Lord, with whom also they suffered. [9] When you can do good, defer it not, because alms delivers from death. [Tobit 4:10; 12:9] [10] But may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Son of God, and our everlasting High Priest, build you up in faith and truth, and in all meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, forbearance, and purity; and may He bestow on you a lot and portion among His saints, and on us with you . . . [12] Jordan brings up St. Clement of Rome and his Letter to the Corinthians. The same faith and works dynamic that we see in Polycarp very much applies to him, too. In chapter 30 he writes: Let us clothe ourselves with concord and humility, ever exercising self-control, standing far off from all whispering and evil-speaking, being justified by our works, and not our words. In the next chapter he wrote about Abraham: For what reason was our father Abraham blessed? Was it not because he wrought righteousness and truth through faith? Clement teaches justification by faith in chapter 32. We totally agree, as to initial justification . We simply believe that good works (which are meritorious) are necessary after initial justification. But in talking about salvation, its clear that he thinks that faith and works are both required, not only faith: For, as God lives, and as the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost live both the faith and hope of the elect, he who in lowliness of mind, . . . has observed the ordinances and appointments given by God the same shall obtain a place and name in the number of those who are being saved through Jesus Christ, . . . [58] And again: On account of her faith and hospitality, Rahab the harlot was saved (chapter 12), and: He [Abraham], in the exercise of obedience, went out from his own country, and from his kindred, and from his fathers house, in order that, by forsaking a small territory, and a weak family, and an insignificant house, he might inherit the promises of God. . . . On account of his faith and hospitality, a son was given him [Abraham] in his old age (chapter 10), and: On account of his hospitality and godliness, Lot was saved out of Sodom (chapter 11), and: It is requisite, therefore, that we be prompt in the practice of well-doing; for of Him are all things. And thus He forewarns us: Behold, the Lord [comes], and His reward is before His face, to render to every man according to his work.' (chapter 34). See the theme and common thread there? Hes very explicit about the crucial role of works and merit in chapters 21 and 35: Take heed, beloved, lest His many kindnesses lead to the condemnation of us all. [For thus it must be] unless we walk worthy of Him, and with one mind do those things which are good and well-pleasing in His sight. . . . Let us reverence the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was given for us; let us esteem those who have the rule over us; let us honour the aged among us; let us train up the young men in the fear of God; let us direct our wives to that which is good. Let them exhibit the lovely habit of purity [in all their conduct]; let them show forth the sincere disposition of meekness; let them make manifest the command which they have of their tongue, by their manner of speaking; let them display their love, not by preferring one to another, but by showing equal affection to all that piously fear God. Let your children be partakers of true Christian training; let them learn of how great avail humility is with God how much the spirit of pure affection can prevail with Him how excellent and great His fear is, and how it saves all those who walk in it with a pure mind. [my italics] * Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts. But how, beloved, shall this be done? If our understanding be fixed by faith towards God; if we earnestly seek the things which are pleasing and acceptable to Him; if we do the things which are in harmony with His blameless will; and if we follow the way of truth, casting away from us all unrighteousness and iniquity, along with all covetousness, strife, evil practices, deceit, whispering, and evil-speaking, all hatred of God, pride and haughtiness, vain glory and ambition. [my bolding and italics] All of this is thoroughly Catholic soteriology. Jordan refers to Clements statement about Abraham in chapter 31: For what reason was our father Abraham blessed? Was it not because he wrought righteousness and truth through faith? Yes, Abraham had faith. Hes the father of faith. Hes renowned for that. But he also had works. Jordan didnt mention another instance (one of just three) where Abraham is mentioned, in chapter 10: He, in the exercise of obedience, went out from his own country, . . . in order that, . . . he might inherit the promises of God. Thats talking about works. One passage is about his faith, another about his works. Faith and works . . . We cant only mention one and ignore the other. Jordan notes that Clement was referring to Romans 4, which is about Abrahams faith. But James 2:21-24 is also in the Bible: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? [22] You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, [23] and the scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness; and he was called the friend of God. [24] You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. James directly ties the reckoned as righteous passage to Abrahams work of being willing to sacrifice Isaac, which fulfilled the other passage. Its not just faith. Its faith that inherently, organically includes works, which complete faith. Genesis also makes it clear that Abrahams obedience was central to Gods covenant with him: Genesis 22:15-18 And the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, [16] and said, By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, [17] I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, [18] and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice. Catholics joyfully agree that Abraham had extraordinary faith. But we dont ignore the role that his works and obedience played in his being so honored by God, and saved. The author of Hebrews also mentions Abrahams works. He ties it together with his faith, even in the famous faith chapter: By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance . . . (11:8). * * Jordan brings up The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus , written by a disciple of the Apostles (chapter 11). He says: * 41:15 the Epistle to Diognetus is an anonymous book that is probably the best of all of them. Its a fantastic work. First Clement is wonderful too. Those are the two that are really, I think, the most significant in terms of their evidence for justification. * This eloquent work approaches justification much as Paul does (and as Catholics do, rightly understood). He writes about initial monergistic justification which we Catholics fully accept! But again like Paul and Catholics he doesnt formally separate works from faith as Protestants do, and writes: . . . to whom He sent His only-begotten Son, to whom He has promised a kingdom in heaven, and will give it to those who have loved Him (chapter 10). He continues: Or, how will you love Him who has first so loved you? And if you love Him, you will be an imitator of His kindness. And do not wonder that a man may become an imitator of God. He can, if he is willing. For it is not by ruling over his neighbours, or by seeking to hold the supremacy over those that are weaker, or by being rich, and showing violence towards those that are inferior, that happiness is found; nor can any one by these things become an imitator of God. But these things do not at all constitute His majesty. On the contrary he who takes upon himself the burden of his neighbour; he who, in whatsoever respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit another who is deficient; he who, whatsoever things he has received from God, by distributing these to the needy, becomes a god to those who receive [his benefits]: he is an imitator of God. [chapter 10] And he writes along these lines in chapter 12: When you have read and carefully listened to these things, you shall know what God bestows on such as rightly love Him, being made [as you are] a paradise of delight, presenting in yourselves a tree bearing all kinds of produce and flourishing well, being adorned with various fruits. Once again, I see nothing whatsoever in this work that contradicts Catholic soteriology. But it seems to have some elements (above) that contradict Lutheran soteriology. It is what it is. Im simply describing the nature of the work. And I submit that the same thing applies to St. Clement and St. Polycarp. * BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Tehran has been selected as the venue for the 16th session of the Iran-Turkmenistan Intergovernmental Commission, focusing on Consular, Border, and Customs matters, Trend reports. The meeting took place on February 27, led by Alirza Bikdeli, Irans Deputy Foreign Minister, and his Turkmen counterpart, Ahmad Gurbanov. Key discussions centered on easing border crossings for drivers, establishing border markets, enhancing consular services, and fostering greater collaboration between law enforcement bodies. The session concluded with the signing of a final protocol, marking another step forward in bilateral relations. Meanwhile, the 15th meeting of the mentioned commission was held in February 2023 in Ashgabat. --- Follow the author on X (Twitter):@BaghishovElnur Ive written about this some twenty times. I love this topic! Reformed Baptist and anti-Catholic apologist James Whites recent remarks in his Dividing Line episode, Happenings in Rome, Acts 15, and Provisionist Rhetoric (1-19-24) show that its necessary to go through the reasoning again, since he just doesnt get it (and certainly many more Protestants dont, either). But it aint rocket science, folks! Its rather straightforward, as I will demonstrate. Whites words will be in blue. 30:25 the question is the church after the apostles: what is the sole infallible rule of faith? Of course, sola Scriptura holds that only Scripture is that infallible rule of faith; not the only teaching authority of the Protestant, period (Catholics too often get this wrong), but the only infallible one. Its this key component of sola Scriptura that leads to self-refutation, when we examine the Jerusalem Council. This is the standard definition of sola Scriptura used by Protestant apologists today, and arguably, all the way back to the 16th century when they revolted against the received Christian teachings and the established Church. I examined this issue in my article, Definition of Sola Scriptura (Get it Right!) [2-15-13]. Here are three definitions of sola Scriptura from Protestants (including White) that I documented there: What Protestants mean by sola scriptura is that the Bible alone is the infallible written authority for faith and morals (Evangelical Protestant apologist Norman Geisler. Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1995, 178; co-author, Ralph E. Mackenzie; my bolding) It is important to notice that sola scriptura, properly understood, is not a claim that Scripture is the only authority altogether. . . . There are other real authorities which are subordinate and derivative in nature. Scripture, however, is the only inspired and inherently infallible norm, and therefore Scripture is the only final authoritative norm. (Reformed Protestant Keith A. Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2001, 260; my bolding) The doctrine of sola scriptura, simply stated, is that the Scriptures alone are sufficient to function as the regula fidei, the infallible rule of faith for the Church. Reformed Baptist apologist James R. White (The Roman Catholic Controversy, Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1996, 59; his complete italics removed; my italics and bolding added) With this understood, lets get back to what White argued concerning the Jerusalem Council. 30:36 Acts 15 is a recording of the work of the Spirit . . . Yes it is, and thats why the declaration it made is not only infallible, but even quite arguably inspired as well (an even higher degree of certainty). This expressly contradicts sola Scriptura, since it is a Church council that is infallible (and maybe inspired), which cant be, according to sola Scriptura. 31:03 the idea that a council that we only know about, and we only know about what the conclusion of the apostolic conversation was, because its found in Scripture, that that somehow demonstrates that sola Scriptura isnt true, makes all of us go thats just silly . . . Its not silly in the slightest. Its explicitly biblical, is what it is!; but White is blind to it, because he just sees what he wants to see. Thats what false presuppositions and traditions and biases do to an otherwise cogent and educated mind. First of all, its absolutely irrelevant how the council was made known. It was what it was, by its own nature, whether Scripture ever recorded it or not. It could have been recorded only in, say, the Jewish historian Josephus. If that were the case, we would still know that it made a decree, with the words (if Josephus recorded them, too), it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things (Acts 15:28, RSV, as throughout). If the Holy Spirit is agreeing with it (as He did), its infallible, and, I contend, also inspired. And it is that whether it eventually wound up in Scripture or not (just as Jesus or [no doubt many of] Pauls words that didnt make it to the Bible also were, in and of themselves). When the decree was made, the ones who made it (including at least three Bible writers: Paul, Peter, and James) didnt know that it was to become part of Scripture. It doesnt follow that it wasnt what it was, or that it didnt have the authority that it did. What White is referring to is the foolish and unbiblical notion of inscripturation: that I have written about. The fact that the dealings and decree of the council are in the Bible actually makes my argument stronger, and Whites weaker, because now we have the assurance that the recorded words can be absolutely trusted as accurate, since its in the inspired revelation of Scripture. And again the relevant words are, it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things (15:28). Therefore, an infallible decree was made (it couldnt be otherwise, with the Holy Spirit involved, and Luke couldnt have falsely recorded this, in his inspired words), and was promulgated throughout Asia Minor (Turkey) by the Apostle Paul (Acts 16:4). This state of affairs utterly contradicts sola Scriptura, since that false doctrine claims that there can be no such thing as an infallible Church council and that only the Bible is an infallible authority. So all of this means that Protestants have a rather stark choice and decision to make: 1) Follow the inspired Bible, which states that an infallible decision was made by a council (i.e., the Church), led by the Holy Spirit was made, and was binding on Christians far and wide. or, 2) Follow a fallible and unbiblical tradition of men (sola Scriptura) and in so doing deny part of the Scripture that supposedly is the only infallible authority according to the same arbitrary tradition, and act as if Acts 15:28 and 16:4 arent in this inspired Bible. That is a very troubling choice indeed. What I have argued decisively, undeniably defeats sola Scriptura: one of the two Reformation pillars and the Protestant rule of faith (at least as it is commonly defined) in and of itself (and I have 99 additional contrary biblical arguments in my book on sola Scriptura). This leaves Protestants in a real dilemma. White is arguing against Holy Scripture itself: a frightening thing to contemplate. 31:33 were talking about after the events of redemption and the establishment of the church; what is the church to look to as its sole infallible rule of Faith The Jerusalem Council did take place after the events of redemption and the establishment of the church. It was after Jesus redemptive death on the cross and after Jesus established His Church with Peter as its earthly leader. And why is it that White simply assumes that there can be only one infallible source of faith or rule of faith? The Bible never states that. It never states anything remotely like what sola Scriptura claims. I know because Ive debated and written about the topic times without number. This is all just circular reasoning from White. He assumes the truth of sola Scriptura and then unsuccessfully tries to fit the square peg of Scripture into the round hole of sola Scriptura. 31:48 or are there going to be lots of infallible rules of faith that is the question There are going to be as many as the Bible states that there are, which is three: Scripture / Church / sacred apostolic tradition. There is no law written in stone or in the Bible that states that there can be only one infallible source for the rule of faith. Thats simply Protestant unquestioned arbitrary sub-biblical tradition. 31:54 and it is not a definitional part of the claim of sola Scriptura to say that during periods of time when God is revealing Scripture, that it exists somehow to the exclusion of revelation; no revelation is taking place right now Good; then the decree of Acts 15:28 was revelation before the canon of the NT was determined, and it is also an infallible and inspired decree, seeing that the Holy Spirit confirmed it. So much for sola Scriptura as a result. The Bible never states, either, that all other sources of infallible or even inspired utterance were to cease after the canon of the Bible was determined: which it never was (for the NT) until 367, in a letter of Athanasius. In fact, prophets were a recognized office of Pauls and the NT describes them and in some cases, their prophecies, too. 32:18 the issue is, after the apostles are gone, what does the church look to, and Acts 15 does not answer that question It certainly does answer it. Acts 15 and 16 state six times that the council was comprised of elders and [the] apostles (15:2, 4, 6, 22-23; 16:4). Non-apostle elders were already working with apostles to govern the Church. They obviously would after the apostles died out, just as Judas was replaced with Matthias (apostolic succession: Acts 1:20-26). Acts 1:20 quotes the Psalms: His office let another take. The word for office there is episkope (Strongs word #1984): literally, bishop. King James even translates it as bishoprick. Bishops, in other words, are the successors of the apostles. Thayers Greek Lexicon defines its meaning in Acts 1:20 as specifically, the office of a bishop (the overseer or presiding officer of a Christian church): 1 Timothy 3:1, and in ecclesiastical writings. The council shows us that the Church would continue to make infallible declarations, binding upon Christians; not that the Bible alone would be the sole infallible rule of faith. 32:43 so it says the decree of the Jerusalem Council is the decree infallible. We can only know the decree as it exists in Scripture now before we can answer the question of there being an infallible source outside of Scripture. Thats fine. Its in Scripture now; so then the question becomes: how does one interpret it. Is it infallible? Clearly yes, because the Holy Spirit affirmed it, according to inspired Scripture. 33:02 the important question is was the decree infallible before Luke recorded in Acts 15 Yes, of course it was, having been verified by the Holy Spirit Himself (according to inspired and infallible Scripture). How could it not be? How could God agree with any error? So its not only infallible, but I say, inspired, too. But for my argument to succeed in demolishing sola Scriptura it need only be infallible, which it clearly is (unless White wants to argue that God can make mistakes). Hes in a real pickle here, with no way out of it, except Catholicism / Orthodoxy or else biblical skepticism. Those are his choices. What the Holy Spirit communicates to apostles (with elders) is infallible and inspired whenever it occurs. Its irrelevant whether it is also Scripture or not. Whites query is literally a meaningless and absurd one. It amounts to an assertion that Gods words or affirmations arent infallible or inspired unless and until the Bible records them. Thats sheer nonsense, and the Bible nowhere states such a thing. This odd, unscriptural opinion would lead to a ludicrous scenario where any of Jesus parables not recorded in the Bible (implied by Mark 4:33) or the many things that He taught His disciples that were not recorded (Mk 6:34), or the many things that He wanted to tell His disciples (Jn 16:12), perhaps later spoken to them, but unrecorded (Acts 1:2-3; cf. Lk 24:15-16, 25-27), were not inspired when He spoke them (and in this case, never were, because they didnt make it into the NT). This is not only absurd, but blasphemous as well. Its an idolatry of the Bible: making it higher than God Himself. It makes Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John decide what is inspired utterance, rather than God. 33:14 this is a part of redemption history that is recorded for for us and for our edification and for the guidance of the church. We agree! Hallelujah! 33:30 Its not the setting up of some external paradigm, where the church can call councils and create infallible [decrees]. Who says it isnt? Well, White does, in his arbitrary acceptance or rejection, as if that has any authority or force at all. Hes just one Baptist elder. He doesnt even have authority in Baptist denominations that are not his own (nor a true doctorate from an accredited theological institution). Its the only Church council recorded in Scripture and is an example of how the Church would be governed, just as everything in the Bible is there for a reason, according to the omniscient and all-wise God Who ultimately determined what was to be in Scripture. White derives his ecclesiology from what Paul stated about Church offices, so why wouldnt he also get it from what Luke recorded as an exercise of those very offices? Thats ultra-relevant to the question of how the Church was to be governed. White has no good reason (let alone a scriptural one) for denying that this shows infallible Church authority and also shows the falsehood of sola Scriptura at the same time. The fact remains that if he accepts what I am saying (which seems to me utterly obvious from Scripture), sola Scriptura must collapse, by simple logic, enlightened by revelation. No doubt he knows this, and so he has to mock and minimize and dismiss it. But heres the rub hes not giving us any reason why anyone should do so, other than his own authority-challenged, bald proclamation. 33:48 once there arent any Apostles theres no revelation Thats irrelevant to this particular dispute. What is relevant is if there is non-biblical infallible authority, and Acts 15 teaches us that there is: the Church in council, led by the Holy Spirit. Sola Scriptura is about ruling out any infallible authority besides the Bible, functioning as the rule of faith. So Whites constant recourse to revelation and inspiration is literally whats called a non sequitur in logic (an irrelevancy in terms of a discussion). 34:00 some Roman Catholics have argued that if you can have this council in Acts 15 that therefore, whenever the church calls a council in the future it has the same level of infallible authority. Thats a separate question of what constitutes a legitimate authoritative council, and which of its decrees (if any) are infallible. For the moment, its just a smokescreen for White to avoid grappling with the meaning of Acts 15 in a rational and coherent manner. He wants to evade it with his usual sophistry and rabbit trails. Maybe he can do that in his own little world of hourlong spontaneous observations; preaching to his choir. But he cant under scrutiny such as this. * What the Jerusalem Council shows is that it itself had infallible, if not also inspired authority. And since its not the Bible, that demolishes sola Scriptura as it has always been defined. All one needs is one infallible council to refute the notion that nothing can ever be infallible (post-Bible) except for the Bible. And this provides it. Its airtight reasoning (as is much of Catholic criticism of sola Scriptura). * 34:46 [those who hold to] the Presbyterian ecclesiology look to Acts 15 as foundation for sessions and presbyteries for ecclesiastical organization above the local church * As they well should. Thats actually a good and biblical argument (unlike whites here). The only catch is that this council had Peter being the central figure, who delivered the principles accepted, which were based on a private vision that God had given him, and were reiterated and reformulated by the bishop of Jerusalem, James. Thats episcopal and Catholic ecclesiology, not Presbyterian. 35:52 there is nothing in the council in Acts chapter 15 that indicates that this is something thats going to be repeated in the future. It doesnt establish some kind of conciliar paradigm. I dont see how White or anyone else (who claims to be Bible-based) can say this. Its astounding to me. Here we have a gathering of the early Church in Jerusalem (its very center at this early stage), recorded in the Bible, led by two apostles, Peter and James, and attended by another, Paul, as well as various elders, who reached a joint decision. But we are to believe that it has no teaching value or significance for how the Church is later governed? That simply makes no sense, and there is no coherent, plausible reason White could give for believing this is so (other than he doesnt like its implications: if that is even a reason), which is, I reckon, why he gave none; he merely asserted his good ol opinion from on high without supporting evidence or reason. The fact remains that at this time in Church history, there was a council, and it made an infallible decree that was promulgated by the Apostle Paul far and wide. Thats not Baptist congregational government, which would apply only to the local church and would involve no bishops, let alone infallibility. It just isnt. And it is utterly contrary to sola Scriptura. 36:23 Only a few chapters after Acts 15 in Acts 20, Pauls with the Ephesian elders [and] he doesnt say to them just just call councils when you have any questions. He commends them to the the grace of God and the message of the Gospel. Thats what he commits them to: [the] same thing he does for Timothy in second Timothy chapter 3. This is a weak argument from silence. White argues that councils werent mentioned in Acts 20; therefore there were to be none (all the while ignoring where Scripture actually records and obviously agrees with, a high-level, literally Spirit-led council!). White goes with the argument from silence rather than the actual historical example led by the Holy Spirit, in deciding his ecclesiology, simply because he doesnt like councils and wants to pretend that they dont exist and arent biblically sanctioned. * If thats not a biblically skeptical or actually anti-biblical mentality, I dont know what is. Meanwhile, Catholics accept all that the Bible teaches, rather than cynically toying with Holy Scripture and picking-and-choosing and essentially making oneself epistemologically superior to Gods inspired revelation. Since White wants so argue context, lets also look at Acts 14: Acts 14:21-23 When they [Paul and Barnabas] had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, [22] strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, . . . [23] And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they believed. If Whites congregationalism were true or biblically sanctioned, then each of these local congregations would have appointed their own elders. Instead, Paul and Barnabas are acting like super-bishops or even like popes do, in appointing leaders of churches. That is episcopal and Catholic-like hierarchical government; even beyond presbyterian government. White might probably would, I think respond that this was an apostle doing this; so it was historically unique and not relevant for subsequent Church governance. That might work, except that we see Titus doing the same, by Pauls express wishes: Titus 1:4-5 To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. [5] This is why I left you in Crete, that you might amend what was defective, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you, So here we have non-apostle Titus functioning precisely as Paul had in Acts 14: appointing elders all over the place (in every town), just as Paul had in every church. Again, this is hierarchical, episcopal government (authorities higher than in individual congregations). Eusebius (Church History, III, 4, 6) states that Titus was the bishop of Crete in his old age. White wants us to think that an always-weak argument from silence made from the data in Acts 20 somehow is compelling evidence for congregationalism. Its amazing. But he wants to ignore the Jerusalem Council. * Who knows what he would do with these two arguments of mine and my many others in this reply if he ever came out from his hideout up in the mountains around Phoenix and interacted with them. * Interestingly, Facebook friend Justin Michael noted that the word for decisions in Acts 16:4 is the Greek word dogma (Strongs word #1378): As they [Paul and Timothy] went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions [dogmas] which had been reached by the apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem. So a council of the early Church, led by St. Peter, who proclaimed a teaching that God had recently revealed to him in a private vision, in consultation with elders and apostles (including James, the bishop of Jerusalem, the host so to speak), issued infallible dogmas that the Holy Spirit agreed with (Acts 15:28), which St. Paul proclaimed all around Turkey for observance of Christians many hundreds of miles from Jerusalem. Sound familiar? * The fast charging function is, without a doubt, one of the most popular trend features of modern smartphones. Thats understandable, as its more than practical during the day when you dont have to wait for an eternity to fully charge your phone. The whole thing has now gone so far that there is a real competition between manufacturers to see who can provide the best and most powerful charging technology. At last years MWC, Xiaomi demonstrated its impressive charging technology, which pumped a Redmi mobile phone with 4,300 mAh to a full charge with a whopping 300 watts in just five minutes. As fascinating as those figures above are, many smartphone users are becoming increasingly concerned. After all, can this be healthy for the mobile phone battery? A legitimate question, which we address in this article. Find out what fast charging does to your mobile phone and whether or not it can actually ruin the battery. What happens during the charging process All modern smartphones use either lithium-ion batteries or lithium-polymer batteries (LiPo batteries for short). However, cell chemistry is the same for both. There is a negative electrode (cathode), a positive electrode (anode), and electrolytes. The energy that powers a mobile phone is generated when the negative lithium ions flow through the electrolytes to the positive side. When the battery is empty, this flow stops. During the charging process, the lithium ions are moved back to the negative side so that the cycle can start again. The charging process is not exclusively linear because batteries function like a kind of sponge. They absorb most of the energy when they are empty and absorb less when they are almost full. So the closer to saturation, the less efficient the charge and the flatter the charging curve. The charging voltage, on the other hand, starts at maximum power and then drops relatively quickly. Simplified illustration of a mobile phone charging process: The charging efficiency decreases from around half the battery level. Mobile phone batteries degrade Whether fast charging or not, all batteries wear out over time. This is because the flow of lithium ions always releases some heat, to which the chemical processes react very sensitively. For this reason, you should not plug in your mobile phone when the battery is still relatively full, as inefficient charging releases even more heat. Note: On iPhones, this natural wear and tear can even be viewed. Under Settings > Battery > Battery Status & Charging Process, you will find a percentage indication of the maximum battery capacity that is still available. Heat is therefore the main reason why batteries degrade. Many users see this problem with the fast charging function, because the more current flows into the battery, the more excess heat is generated. Acute overheating can even cause the electrolytes to crystallize and the ion current between the electrodes to fail completely. But and this is the crux of the mattermanufacturers know this, of course. That is why there are a number of important precautions to prevent more heat than normal being generated during fast charging. Fast charging requires new technologies In recent years, various fast charging standards have been developed to increase the transmission performance of power supply units. Qualcomms Quick Charge protocol, for example, is widely used. Version 5 enables charging from 0 to 50 percent in just 5 minutes at 100+ watts. OnePlus WarpCharge technology manages 65 watts. Another standard is VOOC Flash Charge from Oppo, for example, which has also replaced the Warp Charge technology at OnePlus since the two companies became part of the same group. The OnePlus 10T mentioned above, for example, comes with a 150 watt SUPERVOOC power supply. Other standards include USB Power Delivery, Adaptive Charge (Samsung) and TurboPower (Motorola). There are now several ways and options for protecting mobile phone batteries. The most common solutions include Power supply unit with integrated power management Parallel charging Additional cooling hardware Many smartphones with a fast-charging function are supplied with power supply units that have integrated circuits. These ensure that the heat energy can escape before it gets close to the mobile phone. The disadvantage of this solution is that the adapters are often larger than usual. Another option is parallel charging. The idea is simple. Instead of sending the entire current into a single battery cell, it is split into two parallel cells. The two solutions are now frequently combined for the best possible charging performance. The downside of this charging technology is a slightly lower overall capacity. This is simply because the volume of two battery cells, including the housing and hardware, takes up more space. With parallel charging, the power is divided between several battery cells. Xiaomi Cooling hardware is always a solution for regulating heat development. The better the cooling system, the more power can flow into the device without overheating it. There are plenty of options: heat shields, vapor chambers, even entire fans (especially on gaming smartphones) are used to protect the batteries from excessive temperatures. Which brings us back to the initial question. Does fast charging ruin mobile phone batteries or not? Do the solutions listed work? How quickly does a battery have to degrade to be considered ruined? There are even official industry standards for the latter: Xiaomi guarantees that 80 percent of the original battery capacity is still available after 800 full charging cycles with its 11T Pro (with 120 watt fast charging). Apple promises a capacity of 80 per cent after 500 charging cycles. And then there is Oppo. At the beginning of February 2023, the Chinese manufacturer presented two new fast charging standards: 150W SuperVOOC and 240W SuperVOOC technology with 80 percent battery capacity after no less than 1,600 charging cycles. We are excited to see what breakthroughs await us this year. Does fast charging ruin the mobile phone battery or not? Without long-term studies, its not possible to answer this question definitively, but so far everything points to the fact that fast charging does not accelerate the normal wear and tear of a battery. the best usb-c charging cable we've tested Belkin BoostCharge 240-watt charging cable Best Prices Today: However, its also a fact that fast charging generates more heat due to the higher wattage, from which the phone must be protected. To this end, manufacturers use various measures aimed at improving energy managementbe it through optimized power supply units, parallel charging or smart hardware, and sensors to regulate temperature fluctuations. The users themselves actually have the greatest influence on battery life. Here are some quick tips on how to keep your mobile phone battery fit for longer: Always charge with a cable if possible, even if your phone offers inductive charging. Avoid complete discharges. The optimum battery level is between 20 and 80 percent. Do not charge your battery if it is still relatively full (over 60 percent). Avoid extreme temperature fluctuations, whether heat or cold. Always use the charging accessories supplied by the manufacturer (plug adapter, charging cable). Do not charge your mobile phone when performance-intensive apps or games are running. Do not leave your mobile phone plugged in for longer than necessary when the battery is fully charged. This article was translated from German to English and originally appeared on pcwelt.de. The Majority Leader in Parliament, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has hinted that some of his fellow MPs are hesitant to criticize the controversial anti-gay bill due to fear of victimization. He indicated that the manner in which the bill was introduced has instilled fear among legislators, leading them to avoid questioning it. Afenyo-Markin also expressed concern about the harsh sentencing provisions in the law, which he believes are compounding the fear among his colleagues. He stated that he is not afraid to voice his opinion, even if it means losing his seat in Parliament. The Effutu legislator further questioned the effectiveness of the proposed punishments for engaging in LGBT activities. He wondered whether individuals who are jailed for such activities will undergo any meaningful reform during their time in prison. During an interview on The Point of View on Citi TV, with Bernard Avle, Afeny-Markin said, The way the whole thing was introduced, it created some fear among legislators, that people think that if I dare question it, they will say that Im supporting a man to marry a man or supporting a woman to marry a woman, so nobody wants to touch it. Its a radioactive substance. But, If we pay attention to the details, we can come up with a law that will be acceptable to all. Parliament, earlier in February, approved a three-to-five-year jail term for individuals who willfully promote or sponsor LGBTQ activities, while those caught in the act are to be sentenced to a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 3 years. During a clause-by-clause amendment of the bill on the promotion of proper human sexual rights and Ghanaian family values, Mr Afenyo-Markin stated that the punitive action would not aid in the rehabilitation of the culprit. Anti-gay Bill Questionable, Wont Stand Test In Court Afenyo-Markin also expressed concerns about the constitutionality of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill currently under consideration by Parliament. He believes it has significant legal flaws and would not withstand scrutiny in court. I think the law in its present form has questionable constitutional issues. The law as I see it, from how Ive seen it, cannot stand any serious test in any constitutional court. I think that the law would have serious challenges at the Supreme Court. If it faces a constitutionality test, it will fail. Not the entire law, but aspects of it, will fail. Thats my view, he told Bernard Avle. Source: citinewsroom.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 Akufo-Addo has praised what he described as the changing face and transformation of the police service noting it is worth emulating by other state agencies. According to the President, the transformation in the police is best reflected in the facelift of the police headquarters under the leadership of the Inspector-General of Police Dr George Akuffo Dampare. Speaking at the State of the Nation Address in Parliament on Tuesday, the President said his government has equipped the Police than any government in recent times. Government has performed much creditably, the police today are much more equipped than they have ever been The increased Police visibility on the streets goes a long to way to assure the community. The changing phase of the police is perhaps best exemplified by the dramatic facelift they have given the frontage of the police headquarters on the Ringroad in Accra, it is beautiful and I recommend it to all institutions and indeed households, the president said. In February 2023, while presenting some equipment to the police at the police headquarters, the president said We're all witnessing the transformation of the Ghana police service under our very eyes. We see the discipline that has been restored to our roads, the enhanced Police visibility, and general discipline in society under the leadership of the IGP Dr Akuffo Dampare." "I want to assure him that he has my full support and the support of my government to continue his transformation of the police service," he noted. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/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 Chairperson for the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) Ghana, Professor Audrey Gadzekpo has played a clarion call on the President not to assent to the Promotion of the Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill when passed in Parliament in its current state. At a press conference in Accra on Tuesday, February 27, Prof. Audrey Gadzekpo noted that the Bill when passed, will contravene the fundamental human rights of many including the media as against what has been enshrined in the 1992 Constitution. Professor Gadzekpo said, We observed that proposals to amend the Bill to substitute community services for incarceration that was made by the Member of Parliament for Effutu, Mr. Afenyo-Markin was unfortunately rejected. Although his amendments were opposed by the majority of the House leading to a removal of the proposed amendments, we appreciate his effort aimed at reforming our justice system. On Wednesday, February 21, the then Deputy Majority Leader and Member of Parliament for Effutu constituency, Alexander Afenyo-Markin pulled back his amendments to the anti-LGBTIQ+ bill which seeks to impose a prison sentence paving way for the Bill to be considered for passage in the coming days. However, the coalition of civil society organizations and interest groups maintains that the Bill must be relooked at and further consideration done. Professor Gadzekpo pointed out that, "Ghana is a secular and multi-religious country with over 50 ethnic groups with different cultural practices and beliefs. Any attempt to create a single cultural value system for Ghana erases the beautiful cultural mosaic that makes us a unique people. Explaining further, the CDD Board chair said, It is for this reason that the constitution abolishes all practices and laws detrimental to peoples health and well-being, even in the name of culture and tradition. The coalition noted that, the Bill will undermine the journalists ability to speak freely. The Bill in its current form states, any person that uses the media to broadcast and slash or advocate on LGBTQ+ topic faces a prison sentence of up to three years. The human right groups believe that "this places a heavy restriction on journalists, bloggers, influencers and various social media users who produce or publish content, especially those who work in the field of human rights. They, therefore, require of the President to block the bill when passed by Parliament. They believe the bill in its current state will negatively affect the democratic gains of the country when it is passed. As a result of this, we urge the President not to assent to the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill 2021, Professor Audrey Gadzekpo concluded. Source: Kobina Darlington/peacefmonline.com Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Supreme Court has dismissed Anas Aremeyaw Anas' application for certiorari against Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, the Member of Parliament for Assin Central. A five-member panel of the apex court presided over by the Chief Justice, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo, dismissed the certiorari application seeking an order to quash an earlier High Court decision. The ace investigative journalist filed the application requesting a nullification of the High Court's decision, after the court ruled against him in his defamation suit against Kennedy Agyapong. Background Mr Aremeyaw Anas commenced the legal action in 2018, asking the High Court to award aggravated damages to the tune of GH25 million arising from defamatory materials published by the MP. But in a March 15th, 2023 ruling, the Court presided over by Justice Eric Baah, a Court of Appeal judge sitting with additional responsibility as a High Court Judge, dismissed the case for lacking merit. The judge had added that although the words spoken against Anas were factual and capable of defamation, he could not prove same. From the above, I hold that the plaintiff is a blackmailer who uses blackmail to extort money from his opponents and people he does not like....What the plaintiff is doing is not investigative journalism but investigative terrorism, the presiding judge ruled, and further awarded cost of GH50,000 against Anas. Unhappy with the ruling, the one-time GJA Journalist of the Year filed an application at the Supreme Court to quash the judgment of the High Court. The investigative journalist explained that the grounds for the application were based on "absence of jurisdiction" by the sitting judge and the "apparent or real likelihood of bias and impartiality on the part of the judge". End of the Road? However, on Wednesday, February 28th, 2024, Peace FM's correspondent, Philipa Atanga who was present in the courtroom, reports that by a 3-2 majority decision, the apex court dismissed Anas's application. Chief Justice, Gertrude Sackey Torkornoo, Mariama Owusu JSC and Samuel Kwame Adibu Asiedu JSC ruled for the defendant, with the dissenting justices being His Lordships Issifu Omoro Tanko Amadu and Emmanuel Yonny Kulendi JSC. 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 President Akufo-Addo has revealed that Ghana has regained its position as the leading producer of gold in Africa. President Akufo-Addo made the revelation during his seventh State of the Nation Address on Tuesday, February 27, on the floor of parliament. According to the President, the country overtook South Africa, having produced an unprecedented four million ounces of gold in 2023. He added that the amount is expected to rise to 4.5 million by the end of 2024 due to the new gold mine sites identified in the Ahafo, Upper East and Upper West Regions. Mr. Speaker, last year [2023], Ghana regained her position as the leading producer of gold in Africa, having overtaken South Africa. Our gold production reached an unprecedented four million ounces (4 million oz), according to preliminary reports." This is as a result of the progressive policies we have been implementing, which have led to the revival of dormant mines like the Obuasi and Bibiani Mines, and the expansion of existing ones, said the President. He continued by pointing out that, the reduction in withholding tax on unprocessed gold by small-scale miners, from three percent (3%) to one and a half percent (1.5%), has resulted in some nine hundred percent (900%) increment in gold export from the small-scale sector, over the last two (2) years. Against the backdrop of this development, the government, through Vice President Dr Bawumia, launched the novel gold for oil policy. Leveraging on these resources, we introduced the innovative Gold for Oil Policy, which accounts for some thirty percent (30%) of our total crude oil consumption, President Akufo-Addo told members of parliament. In 2020, gold in Ghana contributed close to around 7.8 billion Ghanaian cedis (GHS), roughly 1.3 billion U.S. dollars, to the countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Nana Akufo-Addo added that, in order to add value to the volumes of production, the government has constructed, through a public private partnership, a four hundred kilogramme (400 kg) capacity gold refinery. Source: Kobina Darlington/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 President Akufo-Addo has assured that the reshuffle of Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta will not disrupt Ghana's ongoing bailout package implementation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Speaking during his penultimate State of the Nation Address in Parliament on Tuesday, February 27, President Akufo-Addo reaffirmed the government's commitment to upholding the IMF agreement terms and conditions. He reassured the public that Ghana's deal with the IMF is secure. President Akufo-Addo said, Mr Speaker, it is important to underline that the recent change in the leadership of the Finance Ministry will not affect the Governments commitment to implementing the terms agreed with the IMF to ensure that we restore the economy to healthy growth as soon as possible. President Akufo-Addo appointed Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam as the new Finance Minister on Wednesday, February 14, following Ken Ofori-Atta's reshuffle after his seven-year tenure as part of a cabinet reshuffle. Despite facing fierce challenges and calls for his resignation from some members of Parliament including Members of his own part, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Ofori-Atta remained Ghana's longest-serving Finance Minister. Calls for his resignation stemmed from economic difficulties, with around 80 NPP MPs demanding his immediate resignation in October 2022 and similar requests made by the NDC parliamentary caucus in February 2023. However, President Akufo-Addo dismissed the calls, urging Parliament to wait until the discussions with the IMF was officially concluded. After Ken Ofori-Atta's resignation, many Ghanaians thought the government was going to forgo the terms agreed upon with the Monetary fund. The president assured Parliament that all arrangements with the IMF will be maintained. Source: Kobina Darlington/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 BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. The Armenian authorities' reproaches about the CSTO's failure to fulfill its mandate are categorically unacceptable, the Spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said during the weekly briefing, Trend reports. "In September 2022, a CSTO assessment mission was sent to the border regions at Yerevan's request. It was decided to deploy the mission. It is not our fault or the fault of other CSTO members that this was rejected. Yerevan defiantly decided to invite pseudo-observers from the European Union. The well-known facts leave no doubt about the zero effectiveness of the work of these representatives. Armenia continues to be a member of the CSTO. We hope that Yerevan will come to the understanding that the existing concerns should be discussed and resolved in a trustful dialog," she said. Meanwhile, Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan said earlier that the CSTO has rendered itself inactive and is currently non-functional. "We asked CSTO a question that remained unanswered: what is its zone of responsibility? As long as there is no answer to this question, the CSTO has rendered itself inactive and is currently non-functional," he said. Simonyan added that if the republic's membership in the organization is suspended, Armenia will ensure its security by any available methods. According to him, the alternative to this organization can be any method to protect the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel The Vice President and flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has commissioned a digital depository for the Wesley Girls Senior High School which he helped establish for the school in memory of his late mother, Hajia Mariama Bawumia, an old student of the school. The digital repository, equipped with modern technological gadgets, is a system which has digitized records of the school including records of old and current students and staff. With unique access codes, both current and past students as well as the staff can access their confidential information or general information about the school. During the event, Dr. Bawumia said he was touched by the gesture of the Wesley Girls High School 1960 year group who commiserate with him following the passing of his mother in 2021. "I was very touched a few weeks after her (mother's) demise to receive a delegation of old girls that called on me to console me over the painful loss. Among the delegation were some of my mothers school mates, who were led by Mrs. Nancy Thompson (a distinguished past Headmistress of this excellent and highly esteemed institution) and Nana Kyeiwaa II." Dr. Bawumia added; "On the 1st anniversary of her passing, I was privileged to be approached by the Old Girls Association on behalf of the school to assist with the provision of a digital repository for the school. "For a school that is over 187 years old, I considered this a very significant project and I was most delighted and willing to support it with a sum of GHS 300,000. This has been used to capture records of staff and students and turn them into a digital content." Dr. Bawumia expressed delight with the installation of the digital repository and highlighted its benefits to the school saying "a digital repository of this nature will facilitate ready retrieval of important records of the school, staff and students" and "with the growing size of an institution like Wesley Girls High School, this repository will prove to be a worthy asset as it will help students receive their transcripts in record time to enable them meet tight deadlines for applications to pursue academic or other professional advancement". He continued; "I can assure you that the immense benefits of having information and records digitalized will unfold with the passage of time as the school puts this project into full use. "I am hopeful that in addition to academic and other records, the capacity of this repository will be expanded to hold historic documents that will continue to tell the story of the great Wey Gey Hey. A story that remains unfinished and which is so inextricably bound to the history of this nation and the history of Methodism in Ghana." The Vice President urged other educational institutions to emulate the example by the Wesley Girls SHS. He also reiterated governments commitment to advancing digital initiatives in school to prepare young Ghanaians for the 4th industrial digital revolution. He further said with the government having already provided free Wi-Fi to schools, the upcoming distribution of one laptop to each SHS student will help prepare students very well. The Headmistress, on behalf of the school, expressed gratitude to Dr. Bawumia for his kind gesture and the 1960 year group, on behalf of the Old Students Association, also made a presentation to Dr. Bawumia in appreciation of his kindness to the school. 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 President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has underscored the need to protect our territories following the increase attack of terrorists within the West African Sub-region. In his penultimate State of the Nations Address (SONA-2024) on Tuesday, February 27, 2024 President Akufo Addo emphasized his governments intentional efforts in strategic planning to ensure the safety and security of Ghana. President Akufo Addo mentioned that Ghana has not been affected by the by the extremism witnessed in neighbouring countries due to meticulous planning of the government in collaboration with the security services. Akufo-Addo accentuated the commitment to the well-being of the armed forces and all security agencies, reiterating the allocation of resources to ensure their readiness. In assuring the entire populates, President Akufo Addo said affirmatively, Our nation is safe and secure. He further highlighted significant enhancements in the equipment and capabilities of the police force, emphasizing that they are now better equipped than ever before since his government came into office. Recognizing the challenges posed by extremism in other parts of West Africa, Akufo-Addo cautioned against taking the territorial integrity of the country for granted, thereby encouraging all Ghanaians to be more vigilant in order to combat any potential terrorist. Source: Kobina Darlington/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 President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has shared grave concerns with regards to the expenditure incurred in resolving the old aged conflict in Bawku. President Akufo Addo bewailed that the funds spent in the conflict could have been allocated to other developmental projectswhich will be beneficial to all and sundry but rather were utilized for ensuring security in and around Bawku in the Upper East Region. During the State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Parliament on February 27, 2024, the President described the prolonged chieftaincy disputes in the area as troubling. President Akufo Addo said, While we are spending time, money and energy on lives, keeping the country safe from external forces. I must add that it is a matter of great concern that we continue to have so many chieftaincy and land disputes around the country. I must make special mention of the troubles in Bawku. The tragedy is not only thriving in a dynamic town, its been reduced to a wasteland of destruction and mistrust. Were spending money and energy that would have been better spent on developing the needs of Bawku. Providing security to keep brothers and sisters from killing each other," he added. The President also highlighted his governments achievements in ensuring security for the citizenry, assuring that efforts being made to ensure a secured Ghana and a happy citizenry will continue unabated. Source: Kobina Darlington/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 Minority in Parliament has bid President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his Vice President goodbye during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) today. The President delivered his nation address in accordance with Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution which mandates him to address Ghanaians at the beginning and close of the every parliamentary session. After touching on his government's achievements and giving updates what they intend to further do to better the lives of Ghanaians, the Minority Leader, Cassiel Ato Forson, who was to second the motion for subsequent debate on the SONA, seized the moment to jab the President and the Veep. "A vote for Alhaji Bawumia is a vote President Akufo-Addo's 3rd term...Ghanaians voted for Vice President and are paying for the Vice President to support you to succeed. Mr. Speaker, the President cannot fail alone. So, Mr. President, you have failed with your Vice President", he hollered. Speaking on behalf of the Minority Caucus, Hon Ato Forson expressed disappointment in President Akufo-Addo for not touching on the unemployment situation in the country. He therefore cautioned the nation against voting for the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who seeks to succeed his boss as Ghana's next President. "Ghanaians will not miss President Akufo-Addo and Alhaji Bawumia. We can only wish you bye, bye but you will never be missed", Hon. Ato Forson admonished. 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 The flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has officially nominated his running mate for the 2024 presidential election, the party has stated. According to a statement issued by the General Secretary of the NDC, Fifi Kwetey, the Council of Elders of the party would now meet to discuss Mahamas choice. The party also stated that the meeting of the Council of Elders would be held on Thursday, March 7, 2024, at 11:00 am; adding that after the elders' meeting, its National Executive Committee would also meet on the matter at 2:00 pm on the same day. "The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has today received a formal communication from our Presidential Candidate, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, regarding the nomination of his Running Mate in accordance with Article 45 of the NDC Constitution." In response to this communication, the party is pleased to announce that a meeting of the Council of Elders will convene at 11:00 hrs on Thursday, March 07, 2024, to deliberate on this significant matter. Subsequently, the National Executive Committee will gather at 14:00 hrs on the same day to further consider the nomination, part of the statement, which was dated February 27, 2024, reads. It added, The venue and logistical details for these meetings will be communicated directly to all participants in due course. The NDC expressed optimism that the running mate chosen by Mahama would help it win the 2024 election and also help get Ghana back on track after the party wins the 2024 polls. The NDC is confident that the Running Mate will bring a wealth of experience, expertise, and dedication to our campaign. The selection will undoubtedly complement the vision of our esteemed leader, H.E. John Dramani Mahama, as we collectively strive to Build the Ghana We Want together. Reports indicate that the choice of Mahama's running mate has been narrowed to three regions by the party: Central, Eastern, and Ashanti, with Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, Julius Debrah, and Kwame Awuah-Darko representing the three regions, respectively. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang was the running mate of Mr. John Dramani Mahama in the December 2020 general election, but they failed to win the elections. She has been criticized for adding little to the ticket and losing her home region of the central region. Julius Debrah, former chief of staff during the erstwhile John Mahama administration (January 2013January 2017), is the next potential candidate of choice for the NDC ticket. He hails from the Eastern Region. Kwame Awuah-Darko is a former BOST and TOR Managing Director under the erstwhile John Mahama government and is credited with its transformation. He is a businessman and a banker, the 3rd son of the late Nana Awuah-Darko Ampem I, the Nkosuohene of the Asante Juaben traditional area in the Ashanti Region. 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 honourable members from Ghana's parliament shocked thousands of viewers when they openly exchanged some unpleasant words live on TV over President Nana Addo Dankwa AKufo-Addo. The unfortunate incident started when the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nhyiaeso constituency, Dr Stephen Amoah called his colleague MP for Ningo-Prampram, Sam Nartey George a liar. The two were on TV3's Big Issues show to discuss President Akufo-Addo's State of the Nation Address (SONA) which was monitored by Peacefmonline.com. Sam George was furious when described as a liar but quickly responded by saying the president is rather a serial liar. He claimed the president lied about the number of self-employed SSNIT contributors, contrary to what John Ofori-Tenkorang, Director-General of Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), said about the numbers. "I am a 39-year-old liar, but Akufo-Addo is a 79-year-old liar," Sam George furiously said. In a swift response, Stephen Amoah said, "Pray to get to his age; it is a blessing." The situation escalated with counter-attacks but peace prevailed when Stephen Amoah withdrew his statement. However, Sam George refused to retract his description to the president claiming Akufo-Addo lied in his statement. Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/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 Former Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan has slammed those criticizing President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's penultimate State of the Nation Address (SONA). The President, on Tuesday, February 28, delivered what is said to be his last nation address in Parliament. The President touched on achievements of his government and the ongoing developmental projects under his leadership. Some of the highlights of the President's SONA include the government to introduce a Performance Tracker, a tool aimed at ensuring transparency and accountability. The tracker, he explained, will help in checking the status of every project undertaken by the government. "Mr Speaker, if you want to check on roads, classroom blocks, CHIP compounds, Agenda 111 hospitals, bridges, science laboratories, water projects, sanitation projects, landing sites and harbours, and other infrastructural projects, whatever this government used your tax money to execute, the key to your query is right there on your phone, he said. The President further said the Attorney-General has avoided the numerous judgment debts that once upon a time were the bane of the State. The Attorney-General, he disclosed, has saved the country over GH10 trillion that would have otherwise been awarded for the payment of judgement debts. The government is also to establish four new Universities in Mampong in the Ashanti Region, Akrodie in the Bono Region, Bunso in the Eastern Region and Kintampo in the Bono East Region. President Nana Addo continued shedding light on his government's accomplishments and what they intend doing to better the lives of Ghanaians in this last term of his. Commenting on the address during Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" show, Kwamena Duncan commended the President, touting his good works to Ghanaians. He noted that the President, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia/Ukraine war, has managed the economy well, restoring it back to normalcy. He added that there have been lots of infrastructure developments under the Akufo-Addo administration and was therefore proud of the President for his resilience and diligence in ameliorating the citizens' living conditions. But Kwamena Duncan expressed his disgust with those lampooning the President over his eloquence. To the critics, the President speaks more big grammar than do the actual work that will make the lives of Ghanaians better. "When you want to reduce the man to the fact that he knows English, that will be unfair. That will be unfair to the man," Kwamena Duncan replied. 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 Renowned rapper, Trigmatic, has revealed that he and his wife, Edith Schandorf, have officially parted ways, with their divorce having taken place three years ago. The disclosure came to light during a conversation on D-Blacks Unkut show. Trigmatic confirmed the dissolution of his marriage, stating, I am divorced. A lot of people dont know; its not something I talk about Yeah, it has been three years now. Despite the private nature of their separation, Trigmatic addressed the matter openly when prompted by D-Black. When questioned about the role his profession as an entertainer played in the breakdown of his marriage, Trigmatic emphasised that the decision to divorce was reached amicably. He clarified that the extended period spent together at home during the COVID-19 pandemic did not exacerbate their differences but rather provided a peaceful environment. Reflecting on their marriage, Trigmatic mentioned that despite celebrating their third anniversary on March 25, 2020, they ultimately decided to part ways. Their divorce occurred shortly after one Trig was accused by showbiz personality Afia Schwarzenegger of allegedly fathering a baby with Akua GMB. Afia alleged that Akua GMBs one-year-old daughter in 2020 was not fathered by Dr. Oteng, but rather by the Trig person. This accusation prompted widespread speculation and scrutiny directed at Trigmatic, who vehemently denied any involvement with Akua GMB. Through his legal representatives, Trigmatic issued a 72-hour ultimatum to Afia Schwarzenegger, demanding a retraction and apology for her claims, else he would pursue legal action. Its rather unfortunate that in these difficult times, one would seek to defame and cause further distress to ones family, friends and hard-earned reputation. To my family of friends, fans and well-wishers thanks for your concern & support in recent times with regards to the false accusations made against me. Its a legal matter now; well let the law take its course. Thanks & continue to stay safe out there, he wrote on Instagram when he shared a copy of the letter. However, Afia Schwarzenegger responded by denying that she had mentioned Trigmatics name, stating that she was discussing someone else on Facebook. Im tired of Ghanaians. I was talking about someone else on Facebook but here comes Trigmatic taking up the matter, Afia said at the time. Tell your lawyers that I do not have time to apologise and retract my statement, except, of course, if you have engaged in such an act, she added. Source: Daily Guide 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 Ghanaian lady breaks down in tears after travelling from her country to Nigeria to meet her supposed boyfriend only to discover he is 13 years old. A video of a Ghanaian lady weeping after she received a rude shock, has made the rounds on social media. According to the man who shared the video online, the Ghanaian lady had travelled from her country to Nigeria to meet her boyfriend' who she had been communicating with online. She was left in shock when she discovered that the man who was supposed to be her boyfriend is actually a 13 year old'' boy. Watch the video of her weeping below View this post on Instagram A post shared by Lindaikejiblog (@lindaikejiblogofficial) 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 former staffer at a school in Cumberland County is facing a battery of charges after complaints that she had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old, allowed two other students to have sex in a school bathroom, and regularly supplied vaping materials to several of her charges. Jessica Ann Kelley, a 43-year-old Lower Frankford Township resident, was arrested in November after a lengthy state police investigation and is scheduled to face trial on the counts later this year in Cumberland County court. In an arraignment in Carlisle Monday, Kelly entered a not guilty plea. Pending further negotiations and pre-trial work, the case could go to trial as early as May. Kelly worked at Diakon Wilderness Center in South Middleton Township, an alternative education program serving kids from across south central Pennsylvania who are either court-placed or have been referred there by their home school districts. A Diakon spokeswoman said the facility generally serves about 35 to 40 students daily in the school, which blends classroom instruction and experiential learning with vocational training, counseling and behavioral management. State police began investigating about a year ago when a series of calls about Kelley were placed to ChildLine, the states hotline for child abuse complaints. In a series of interviews with the affected Diakon students, investigators said in a criminal complaint that they learned Kelley: Regularly provided vaping products to kids from the Chambersburg area whom she was responsible for driving to and from the school, permitted them to smoke on the way to and from school, and then held the products for them during the school day. One girl recalled Kelley telling her on the first day she rode with the group that if she didnt report the vaping to school officials, Kelley wouldnt report her for infractions. Vaping simulates smoking through battery-powered devices that create an aerosol that looks like water vapor but contains nicotine, flavoring, and various other chemicals. The aerosol is inhaled into the lungs where the nicotine crosses over into the bloodstream. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, one vape pod delivers as much addictive nicotine as 20 cigarettes All the students in Kelleys case - aged 14 to 16 at the time - were under the legal age to vape, which is 21. In several cases, kids said that Kelley bought them cartridges that contained marijuana derivatives. Kelley, in her own interview with police last year, admitted to doing this, according to the court documents, and told troopers that she rationalized her actions in part out of a belief that some of the kids were involved in vaping already, and shed rather they get materials from her than buy things off the street. Allowed two Diakon students to use a school bathroom for sex. The students told police that Kelley first allowed this when she overheard them, at ages 14 and 16, complain that they werent going to see each other for several weeks. Kelley, according to the criminal complaint, said the pair should go into the bathroom and do what you have to do. The girl involved, age 14 at the time, told police this continued, with Kelleys secret approval, seven or eight times until they were caught by another staff member at the school. Kelley, the girl said, sometimes pulled her and her boyfriend out of classes for these hookups. Police said these allegations were backed up in part by text messages they recovered between the two students that referenced Jess bringing them to the school bathroom for sex. Had illicit sexual contact with a 17-year-old boy. The youth told police that he became friendly with Kelley during the 2021-22 school year, and on several occasions he digitally penetrated Kelley on a back porch of one of the school buildings, and she grabbed his genitals over his pants. Kelley, in her interview, admitted to one such incident, police said. Kelley, who told police that she worked at Diakon from November 2021 through August 2022, is also accused of sending the boy a video of her showering, and a photo of her vagina. Diakon declined to comment on specific questions about Kelley Tuesday, but a spokeswoman said that the school initiated the ChildLine investigation. That could not be corroborated Tuesday. We have cooperated and will continue cooperating with all authorities, the Diakon staffer added. Kelley is charged with felony counts of institutional sexual assault, corruption of minors, criminal use of a cellphone, unlawful delivery of marijuana and identity theft, as well as several misdemeanor and summary counts. The identity theft charge grew directly out of the investigation: Police stated in the affidavit of probable cause that when they became aware of the allegations, they learned Kelley had changed jobs and was working for a domestic violence shelter based in Carlisle. When Cumberland County child welfare officials called the shelter to brief program directors there of the allegations against Kelley, police said Kelley intercepted the call and posed as the executive director. Court documents show Kelley, in her own interview with state police, admitted to some of the allegations, though not always the same set of specific facts. Kelley, police said, also told them that she had gotten too comfortable with some of the students at Diakon. She said that at the time she was having problems in her relationship with her fiance. This week, she entered an initial plea of not guilty to the charges in Cumberland County court through her defense lawyer, Ed Spreha. PennLives efforts to reach Spreha about the case Tuesday were not successful. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. The claims of Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan regarding Russia's alleged call to the country's population for a coup there have no basis, the Spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said during the weekly briefing, Trend reports. Russian officials have never allowed even a hint of a call for the overthrow of the legally elected authorities. Moreover, we profess a similar approach in relation to both the current and the previous authorities in Yerevan. We have official relationship," she added. Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel Social media was all a-twitter this week after it came to light how Wendys supposedly intends to test surge pricing in the future. Turns out, according to a statement from Wendys itself, thats not true. By MICHAEL CASEY, The Associated Press First-year student Samuel Woo had been considering a career in cardiology so he would be able to pay off his medical school debt until the announcement this week of a generous donation that will remove tuition fees at his New York City school. Now, without the fear of crippling student debt, the 23-year-old whose parents emigrated from South Korea said Tuesday that he can afford to pursue his dream of providing medical services to people living on the streets. I was definitely very emotional and it changes a lot, said Woo, who had been working as a tutor and at a cafe to help cover his costs. Ruth Gottesman, a former professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the widow of a Wall Street investor, announced Monday that she is donating $1 billion to the school in the Bronx. The gift means that four-year students immediately go tuition free, while everyone else will benefit in the fall. Another first year, Jade Andrade, whose parents emigrated from the Philippines to rural Virginia, had a similar reaction. A big wave of relief just came over me and, you know, everyone surrounding me in the auditorium, Andrade said. Both students expressed hope that Gottesmans generous gift would open doors for more low-income students from immigrant families who could not otherwise have afforded to pursue a career in medicine. The donation is notable not just for its size possibly the largest to any U.S. medical school, according to Montefiore Einstein, the umbrella organization for Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Montefiore Health System but also because the school is located in one of the most impoverished parts of the city and the state of New York. There are people here in the Bronx who are first generation, low-income students who really want to be doctors and want to pursue medicine and want to practice here, but just arent able to have the opportunity, whether thats financial reasons or lack of resources, Woo said. Im hoping that the free tuition helps alleviate some of the pressure of those students and encourages them to think of medicine as, you know, a potentially acceptable field. Andrade, 30, called the announcement liberating. Growing up in an immigrant household, there are very few life decisions that you make without thinking of the financial aspects of it in terms of, you know, Is this like a worthy investment of my time? This is something I want to do, but can I afford it? she said. But once you remove the financial burden: Anyone can dream bigger. Astonished students and faculty rose to their feet, clapping, cheering, some crying, after Gottesman, 93, announced her donation. She has been affiliated with the college for 55 years and is the chairperson of its board of trustees. School officials said they hoped free tuition would attract a diverse pool of applicants, though it has no plans to change its admissions policy. They said the donation should last for perpetuity, since interest earned means the lump sum will continue to grow. All students will qualify for the free tuition. Tuition at the school is $63,000 a year, leaving graduating students with mountains of debt that can take decades to repay. The Education Data Initiative says medical graduates on average leave school with $202,453 in debt. CARLISLE - Cumberland County commissioners voted Wednesday to join a budding inter-governmental effort to help push for greater regulation of the use of food processing by-products as fertilizer on Pennsylvanias farm fields. The use of food processing residuals, or FPRs as they have come to be known, has become a growing annoyance for residents within sniffing distance of midstate farms in recent years. If you travel frequently between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, youll want to be even more careful about your driving than usual. High-speed digital cameras that can capture images of license plates are going to be installed at four Delaware River Port Authority bridges later this year, according to a report from the Philadelphia Inquirer. New Jersey police will install and operate these cameras along the Betsy Ross, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman and Commodore Barry bridges under a 10-year agreement, the news site said. But these new cameras arent actually meant to catch speeders but instead help police track cars that are connected to suspected crimes or investigations. They will be able to read and identify license plates that may be of interest to law enforcement whether theyre wanted for certain crimes, whether theyre part of a homeland security concern, said Robert Finnegan, DRPA chief security and safety officer, said to KYW Newsradio. The cameras will cover both lanes, but officials did not say where they would be placed. Automatic license plate scanners are becoming popular in law enforcement, and can often be found on police cars, road signs, and other structures, the Inquirer said. The devices can capture images of thousands of plates quickly. That information is then matched against police lists of vehicles reported stolen or wanted. U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, shown here in April 2023, was one of five House members from Pa. to co-sponsor a bill in January 2023 that Democrats say would effectively ban in-vitro fertilization treatments. Jimmie Brown | jbrown@pennlive.com When does a persons right for privacy outweigh the publics right to know about a lawsuit settlement involving a government agency? Thats the question that bounced among three parties in a Dauphin County Courthouse on Monday as PennLive challenged a prior judges decision to seal a settlement agreement reached by a Halifax widower, Norfolk Southern Railroad Company, and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. The settlement concerns the death of Trisha Hoffman, 29, who died Sept. 5, 2016 when a train struck her car over railroad tracks from the boat launch on Susquehanna Trail Drive in Halifax. BAKU, Azerbaijan, February 28. Farmers' riots have lately taken place in numerous European countries. For example, farmers blocked a road in Brussels, Belgium's capital, a few days ago, while farmers deposited tons of manure on two highways in Spain. A similar protest occurred in France, where farmers with posters read "Saw misery, reap wrath," and marched their tractors into highways, blocking them. Farmers in France are protesting diesel prices and pesticide restrictions, in Portugal against a lack of state support, in Belgium against a decision to leave 4 percent of land unused, subsidies primarily for large farms, and in Spain against trade agreements that will allow cheap produce to be imported. A similar issue exists in Eastern European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic. Farmers' mass demonstrations against cheap Ukrainian imports and EU farm policies are not subsiding. Photo 1. European countries with farmer protests Investigating this situation reveals that during the commencement of the war in Ukraine, the EU's exemption of agricultural exports from that nation from customs inspections put Eastern Europe and then other countries on the continent in jeopardy. Polish farmers protested on the streets before attempting to barricade border crossings. The crisis in Ukraine has also boosted transportation costs due to rising energy and fuel oil prices. Protests began in Poland and quickly extended to Italy, Germany, Belgium, and France. Another major source of dissatisfaction among farmers is the agreement between Mercosur and the EU, which has been in the works since 2000 and was signed in 2019 after the parties met for the 39th time at the negotiating table. At the end of 2023, debates about the pact, which has yet to be ratified due to the refusal of several EU members to adopt it, heated up once more. Mercosur is a South American economic group formed by agreements made by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay in 1991 and 1994. If ratified, the number of import-export activities between the EU and Mercosur countries would expand, customs procedures will be simplified, and agricultural products from South American countries will be imported into the EU at a cheaper tax rate. It should be noted that in 2019, farmers from Poland, France, Ireland, and Belgium protested the deal. Although this agreement, described by the Financial Times as a watershed moment in global trade policy, creates a market for 800 million people, if all EU countries accept it, importing large volumes of agricultural products from South America at lower tax rates will aggravate farmers and weaken agriculture in EU countries. The approach to this agreement varies per country. While German equipment and appliance businesses, which previously had no access to the South American market due to high taxes, would enjoy simple market access under this deal, it was expected that the agreement would bring problems for EU food security and farmers' futures. In short, the EU members' diverse approaches are causing issues in implementing the accord. Most recently, on February 2, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal underlined that France does not intend to ratify this accord. Photo 2. French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz discuss the Mercosur agreement. Agricultural products manufactured in European Union member countries, particularly meat products, are deemed to be of excellent food safety quality. Brazil, on the other hand, is one of the most heavily used pesticides and insecticides in Mercosur, while also having environmental issues. According to the deal, the EU can import cheap meat and poultry products from Brazil. In this case, EU member countries that receive subsidies will confront unfair competition. "We want the EU to be aware of our situation. There is too much regulation, wages are not high enough, and now we are facing imports from behind Mercosur, where there are farmers who do not meet the standards we meet," one of the farmers who joined the protests in Brussels, Emile Herbiet says. Photo 3. One of the slogans of the farmers' riots in France is "Our work has a price." The other problem is the clash between farmers' interests and EU interests on environmental policy and the green energy transition process. Initially, farmers objected to the EU Green Pact because of the severe restrictions on fertilizers, and pesticides because they will face severe restrictions on agricultural production. The EU's announcement in January 2024 that it aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 has further escalated the protests because it will lead to restrictions on agricultural actors. According to the EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, this is the goal of all economies, but agriculture must take into account the peculiarities specific to this area. This year marks an election year in several crucial parts of the world, including the majority of Europe. 2024 will also be an election year for the European Parliament, with over 400 million voters casting their ballots. This is the world's second largest electoral platform, behind India. In such a circumstance, the fact that right-wing parties have backed farmers' wrath cannot be forgotten. The fact that farm riots have become so regular in such a sensitive year, and no meaningful actions have been taken to assuage farmers, raises an important argument. Even though following the farmer protests in Belgium, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, organized an emergency meeting to express support for farmers, and French President Emmanuel Macron recognized that Europe was facing a major farm crisis, and as a result, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced a 150 million aid package for farmers, European farmers are still protesting. A delay in tackling the current issues confronting Europe's agriculture business could result in more major structural disruptions in the future. Afag Zeynall Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel In December 1998, the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, was impeached, and the once unremarkable Monica Lewinsky captured the attention of the world, becoming perhaps the most talked-about person of the period. The intimate relationship between a 22-year-old White House intern and a 48-year-old American leader is rightfully considered the most high-profile sex scandal not only in America but around the world. For Lewinsky, this story marked the end of her career, severe bullying in the press and on the Internet, and lengthy therapy with a psychologist. ADVERTISIMENT Nevertheless, she eventually managed to escape the stream of hate and began to build her own life from scratch. And although her name is still associated with Bill Clinton's impeachment and everything that preceded it, Lewinsky has learned to use it to her advantage. And on February 26 this year, she even spearheaded Reformation's new You've Got the Power campaign to raise awareness of voter registration ahead of the 2024 elections, releasing a series of spectacular photos on the occasion. OBOZ.UA decided to tell the story of Lewinsky's life and show how it has changed. Let's start from the beginning: 1995. Back then, Clinton was accused of sexual harassment by his colleague Paula Jones. However, there was no evidence, so the case was closed. In the same year, an ambitious 22-year-old Monica Lewinsky was hired as an intern at the White House. She begins an affair with the then 48-year-old married president. ADVERTISIMENT Their relationship develops over the course of two years while remaining in the shadows. The meetings take place in the Oval Office, which is not bugged by the secret services. In 1997, Monica, who had begun to build a career at the Pentagon, shares her experiences with her friend and colleague Linda Tripp, not realizing that the secret is about to be revealed. Tripp, secretly recording conversations with Monica, passes the audio to Paula Jones's lawyers. This information becomes, without exaggeration, a bomb that explodes the information space. The media publishes the spicy details of the affair, and the world learns about Bill Clinton's secret. The president is accused of lying under oath and abuse of power. He denies all charges but later admits that he had an "inappropriate relationship" with Monica. ADVERTISIMENT The recorded conversations revealed that Lewinsky had at least 12 close contacts with Clinton. During the trial, the smallest and dirtiest details of the president's personal life were analyzed. Needless to say, the main argument during the investigation was a blue dress with traces of the politician's semen on it. Monica Lewinsky, meanwhile, continues to be the object of ridicule and contempt. Her name is synonymous with a sex scandal. She suffers from depression, has to deal with public condemnation, and constantly runs away from the crowd of annoying paparazzi who nicknamed her the "queen of oral sex" in the media and almost drove her to suicide. The woman decides to flee to London, although she faces many difficulties there, including finding a job. ADVERTISIMENT "In the late '90s, I was the most humiliated person on Earth and the first to fall victim to the Internet. I was shamed and harassed year after year," Lewinsky once said in an interview. Over time, Monica managed to overcome the difficulties. She published a memoir detailing her affair with the president, tried her hand at hosting on American television, and even designing handbags. All attempts to start her own business failed miserably. ADVERTISIMENT However, Lewinsky's real joy and calling has been her social activism. She now travels the world lecturing about cyberbullying, of which she was a victim. Her story is an example of how you can overcome discouragement after losing your reputation on a global level and start your life from scratch. And in 2020, she became the producer of Impeachment: American Crime Story, an acclaimed FX series that recreated her story and showed her point of view, helping viewers understand the pain she went through as she faced the ultimate judgment of public opinion and the harsh media landscape of the time. ADVERTISIMENT Lewinsky is now 50 years old. She was able to transform herself from a negative character into a person with a lot of experience and now she shares it with others. As we noted, on February 26, it was announced that Lewinsky became the face of Reformation's You've Got the Power campaign, aimed at raising awareness of voter registration ahead of the 2024 elections. As part of the campaign, Lewinsky was photographed by Zoey Grossman in a new workwear collection (leather trench coats and black midi dresses with a belt) that will be launched in conjunction with a one-stop voting center created in cooperation with Vote.org. ADVERTISIMENT Lewinsky, having lived through what she has, has finally gained confidence and her place in the sun. She positions herself as a reformer, with a determined look of a strong woman who wants and can make a difference. Finally, we should add that Lewinsky never married or had children. She runs a blog on Instagram, which is followed by over 120 thousand people. Only verified information is available on our Telegram OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Student Sage Long of LCFD District Six and District One Fire Academy students can expect to complete about 600 hours of training total, over the course of 18 to 24 weeks. Some students want to become fulltime firefighters because they love the duties of being a first responder. The Fire Academy consists of academic classes, physical conditioning, EMT knowledge, and hundreds of firefighting skills. Student Sage Long, age 18 from Burns, Wyoming is among the volunteers who are currently attending the 2024 Laramie County Fire Academy in Cheyenne. Fellow students; Leland Williams from District 6, Kody Smith from District 10 and Zacharie Rainer fro... President Joe Biden demonstrated that he is the stronger general election candidate, but The New York Times praises Trump. Joe Biden is just a tick under 80% support in Michigan currently. Donald Trump is at 66% of the vote in the Republican primary, but this is how The New York Times framed it: Biden won by 75 points. Trump won by 35 points. Yet here is how the New York Times frames it. pic.twitter.com/hm3MZJDBvL To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily. Christopher Hale (@chrisjollyhale) February 28, 2024 Not to be left out, The Washington Post had its own slanted coverage: Trump gets 60 percent or less in most primaries and his wins are called crushing. Biden now at 80 percent and pic.twitter.com/1RAr3is2NT TVMoJoe (@TVMoJoe) February 28, 2024 Biden gets 80% of the vote, and the conversation is about the percentage of non-committed voters, which so far is in line with previous elections. Trump does 15%-20% worse than Biden in the same primary on the same day in the same state, and he is hailed as a crushing victor. Trump should be defeating Haley by even more votes, considering that he just beat her in her home state roughly two days ago. Trump isnt consolidating the Republican Party around him. There is still roughly 30% of the Republican vote in each state that will not support him. The bias of the most prominent corporate outlets who are trying too hard to place their fingers on the scale for Trump is impossible to ignore. At a time when real independent media is fighting for its survival, people who are tired of The Washington Post and the New York Times have a choice. To support journalism that is not helping the effort to overthrow democracy in the United States, you can subscribe to our newsletter: You can also donate to support us by clicking the button below. House Republicans are embarrassing themselves while trying to dig up dirt on Joe Biden as they question Hunter Biden. Jamie Raskin: House Republicans Think Speakerphones Are The Devils Technology House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said, What we saw, I think, was a rather embarrassing spectacle where the Republicans continued to belabor completely trivial points. They seem to be obsessively focused on speakerphones and the use of speakerphones. I did not know that that was the devils technology, but apparently it is. Video: Rep. Jamie Raskin on GOP questioning of Hunter Biden, They seem to be obsessively focused on speakerphones and use of speakerphone. I did not know that that was the devils technology, but apparently it is. pic.twitter.com/844Nl89toq To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily. Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) February 28, 2024 Rep. Swalwell told reporters: But whats really embarrassing, and I use the word secondhand embarrassment because thats what we witnessed in there, is theyre so desperate to humiliate the President that they started asking the Presidents son personal details about a divorce that happened almost ten years ago. Thats where this has been reduced to. And theyre doing all this, by the way, when were just days away from the government shutting down. Were critically in need of funding for Ukraine, the humanitarian crisis over in the Middle East, and more security and a broader immigration plan in this country. Theyre wasting time and squandering the opportunity to do that because theyve never accepted Joe Biden as the President. And now, in this last Hail Mary effort, theyre gonna try and pull off something. I promise you, past this prologue, its not gonna work. Video: Swalwell: Theyre so desperate to humiliate the president, but they started asking the presidents son personal details about a divorce that happened almost ten years. Theyre doing all this when we are days away from a shutdown. pic.twitter.com/eJSS1FMa5H Acyn (@Acyn) February 28, 2024 House Republicans Are Desperate And Embarrassing Themselves Boss Trump gave his MAGA House Majority an order. Trump wants President Joe Biden impeached. James Comer and Jim Jordan have failed to deliver for him, so Comer appears to be getting even more desperate to find something, anything that he can use as a basis for a presidential impeachment. That is why Republicans are obsessing about speakerphones. Comer thinks he can link Biden to his sons behavior by speakerphone, even though every credible witness who testified has said that the President wasnt involved with his sons business and did not talk about anything related to his sons activities in the calls. The country has real problems, and this is what Republicans are wasting time and taxpayer dollars on. It is a disgrace and why House Republicans should be sent back to the minority in November. A Special Message From PoliticusUSA If you are in a position to donate purely to help us keep the doors open on PoliticusUSA during what is a critical election year, please do so here. We have been honored to be able to put your interests first for 14 years as we only answer to our readers and we will not compromise on that fundamental, core PoliticusUSA value. WANTED: Kate Middleton, The Princess of Wales, presumed kidnapped by King Charles and the Royal Family unless returned to our TV screens immediately. I'm not one to follow the Royal Family -- all I know is that Queen Elizabeth may be reincarnated into Trisha Paytas' baby, Malibu Barbie, and they presumably disappeared Princess Di. And while my phone didn't scream with a missing persons report, my Twitter (X?) timeline is all ablaze with conspiracies about what happened to Kate. Amidst confirmation that King Charles III is battling cancer, followers of the Royals have noticed a peculiar missing piece at certain public events: Prince William's wife, Kate. While William made a last-minute appearance at Greece's King Constantine II's funeral, Kate was noticeably absent. According to Vanity Fair, Middleton, 42, has been recovering from her procedure at Adelaide Cottage, the couples residence at the royal familys Windsor Castle estate, since she was discharged from a London hospital after a week-plus inpatient stay following the surgery. And while we hope the Princess of Wales is in good health, the people of the internet have been making their own assumptions about what happened to Kate Middleton. Since we can't help but speculate, social media users have tossed about ideas like she's waiting out a bad haircut, she's gotten plastic surgery, she's run away to live in America, the list goes on... Across the pond at Buckingham Palace, sources claim it was planned abdominal surgery (and we hope she's safe and healthy)...but if we chose to believe everything the Royals said, we wouldn't have The Crown. Lady Gabriella Windsor, daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth II's cousin, Prince Michael of Kent, has lost her husband. Thomas Kingston, a 45-year-old financier, was found dead in his home on Sunday, February 25, but it was reported only the day before. The news immediately became one of the most discussed in the British media. ADVERTISIMENT The police are investigating the circumstances of the death, but have not found anything suspicious so far, the Daily Mail reports. In a statement, Buckingham Palace said that the death of Gabriella Windsor's young husband came as a shock to the entire family. "It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Thomas Kingston, our beloved husband, son and brother. Tom was an exceptional man who brought light to the lives of all who knew him. His death has come as a great shock to the entire family, and we ask that you respect our privacy as we mourn his passing," Lady Gabriella Windsor and the family of the late financier addressed the public. ADVERTISIMENT Kingston married the daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent in 2019, and they were happily married for five years until the Briton was found dead in Gloucestershire. Emergency services arrived at the scene shortly after 18:00. Preliminary reports indicate that there were no signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances, but the investigation is still ongoing. The media also discusses how calmly Prince and Princess Michael of Kent reacted to the news of their son-in-law's death. On Tuesday, shortly before the official announcement of the tragedy in their daughter's family, they were spotted in the second row at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. ADVERTISIMENT As a reminder, Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston started dating 10 years ago, and the financier proposed to his chosen one in 2018 during a trip to Sark Island. Their wedding was attended by Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Kate Middleton, Prince Harry and other members of the royal family. The ceremony took place at St. George's Cathedral in Windsor Castle. Lady Gabriella wore four impressive outfits, communicated very warmly with the guests and admitted that the wedding was one of the best days of her life. ADVERTISIMENT It should be added that, although Thomas Kingston was not of royal blood, he spent his entire life communicating with people who were close to the Windsors. According to Hello!, Thomas was suspected of having a relationship with Natalie Hicks-Lobbeck, one of Prince William's ex-girlfriends, and there was also talk of his affair with Princess Kate's sister, Pippa Middleton. Earlier, OBOZ.UA wrote about which members of the royal family are left-handed. Only attentive users could notice that Prince William, his son, and some ancestors wrote and played with their left hand. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! A Richmond County murder suspect who was caught in North Augusta Tuesday night after a standoff will face a murder charge. The Richmond County Sheriff has announced in a media release, they will plan to charge 21-year old Caleb Honcho White with murder and theft by receiving stole property in connection to the death of 31-year-old Demon Parrish. Parrish's body was found in Aiken County on Feb. 18. White was taken into custody Feb. 18 after police were trying to apprehend him in connection to a murder in Richmond County. Around 5 p.m., a large police presence descended on Plaza Place Apartments. North Augusta investigators were assisted by the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, who were watching the apartment, according to a media release from North Augusta Department of Public Safety. Upon arrival, police began to negotiate with White and a female inside the apartment, the release said. After police talked with White, he came out of the apartment. One witness on the scene, 15-year-old Angel Bussey, said the scene was kind of scary because she didn't know what was going to happen next when police began to surround the property. She said she was glad when police were able to get the suspect out of the building and surrender. I was still a little scared and shaken up, she said. White was placed under arrest and transported to North Augusta CID for questioning, according to a news release from Richmond County Sheriff's Office. White was transported to Aiken County detention center to await extradition back to Richmond County. An autopsy said Parrish died from gunshot wounds. "We are thankful that that he (White) was finally arrested, so that the others involved can be named and arrested as well," Parrish's aunt Sonya Jackson said. No one was injured during White's arrest. The Richmond County Sheriff's Office said White will be booked at Charles B. Webster Detention Center on those charges at a later date. He had a medical challenge from the outset, and it resulted in his nickname (his first name is actually Claude). Joyce said, "When he was a baby, he could not tolerate cows' milk so his mother tried goats' milk. He thrived on it! Thus his nickname, 'Billy.'" She wrote, "When he was seven years old, he was thrown from a car. The car hit a cow that was in the road. He was in a body cast for months. The acid from the battery drained over his face. Growing up, NONE of us kids ever realized his face was scarred." "The first time I saw him, he was in the military, and back then, if you got to town and you didn't have a way home we live in a rural area you could ride the school bus home, so the first time I saw my little soldier-boy, he was sitting on the school bus." She added, "It wasn't love at first sight, because I was still in high school, and he was in the military, and time went on, and then, in the summer of 1953, we started dating, but I knew who he was and he knew me." Dating websites and mobile phones were not a factor. "We didn't have telephones and communication like we to today, so he kept bugging me," Joyce recalled. "He would come over to the house so one evening he came over there and he said, 'My mama doesn't have any bread to make my lunch. Would you please ride to town with me to get a loaf of bread?' From then on, it was OK. I don't think we got a loaf of bread that night, though." At the time, they lived about three miles apart, equidistant from S.C. 113 (Sand Dam Road). "He had just gone to work at Savannah River Site." Their honeymoon, Joyce noted, was in Charleston, at Francis Marion Hotel. "We paid $8 a night to stay there. We paid 25 cents to listen to the radio, and the children say, 'Well, Mama, why didn't you turn the TV on?' There was no TV. How do you like that?" The decades that followed included time for the mother of the house to work at "the shirt factory" Wagener Manufacturing and face a broad range of duties as a stay-at-home mom, Joyce recalled. There will be at least one more meeting for the Aiken City Council to decide whether to approve or reject plans for a subdivision on the city's Northside. The Aiken City Council voted unanimously to continue consideration of an ordinance annexing and zoning five properties totaling 90.45 acres and approving a concept plan for the subdivision. Fourteen people 12 who live in the area where the subdivision would be built expressed concerns about the subdivision. Their concerns include the density of the development and the size of the subdivision's lots when compared to surrounding properties. Aiken allows up to 12 homes per acre in Planned Residential zoning. Royal Oaks would have roughly 3.75 homes per acre. Still, Tom Thomas said the developers are putting "a lot of candy on the nickel" in the subdivision. He said he would be able to see 11 homes in his backyard which was "like a line of dominoes." Most of the surrounding properties are at least a half acre or a quarter acre in size. The subdivision's concept plan calls for the development of 0.14-acre lots. Mayor Pro Tempore Ed Girardeau added the subdivision's density is part of a national trend toward smaller homes due to the increasing costs of land and building homes. Traffic is another concern. No traffic light will be required on the Columbia Highway, something Councilwoman Gail Diggs said she would require in order to approve the development. Another concern is that the homes could become rentals after the first few years of ownership. Developer Chad Gibson said he had no intention of allowing rental properties in the development. He said he plans to move his family into the development when it's complete. The subdivision would be called Royal Oaks and would be built between Crosland Park and May Royal Drive on the eastside of the Columbia Highway . U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham wants to know why Laken Riley's alleged killer was allowed to enter the United States. Graham, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Mayorkas on Tuesday asking for information on why Venezuelan national Jose Antonio Ibarra was paroled into the United States. Ibarra is accused of murdering Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University student who was out for a jog on the University of Georgia campus, on Feb. 22. Augusta University's main campus is just across the Savannah River from Aiken County. The school also has a branch campus in Athens in partnership with UGA. "We are deeply saddened by this senseless and preventable act of violence, and we write today demanding answers about how Ibarra was allowed to enter and remain in the United States," Graham and the other Republicans said in the letter. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported Ibarra was "paroled" into the United States, something that is only supposed to happen when there's an urgent public benefit or a humanitarian reason. Graham and the other Republicans ask Mayorkas to provide the documentation and the public benefit or humanitarian reason for Ibarra's release into the country. Scottie Scheffler has become the first player in the 50 years of The Players Championship to win back-to-back. This was the hardest. Not only was he dealing with neck pain all week, he started the final round five shots behind. Scheffler closed with a 64. That matches the lowest final round by a winner. He also tied a Players Championship record with a five-shot comeback. U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark, British Open champion Brian Harman and Xander Schauffele all finished one shot behind. All of them had their chances over the final three holes to force a playoff. Read moreScheffler goes back-to-back in Players Championship in Sunday thriller at Sawgrass Aiken Standard Reporter Erin Weeks is a reporter with the Aiken Standard. She covers education in Aiken County. Erin is a graduate of the University of South Carolina Aiken. Her first poetry book, "Origins of My Love," was published by Bottlecap Press in 2022. To support local journalism, sign up for a subscription. See our current offers HILTON HEAD ISLAND A South Carolina Highway Patrol spokesman confirmed that the vehicle involved in a fatal hit-and-run here has been located. Law enforcement has been searching for the vehicle that fled the scene after striking and killing 45-year-old Jason Flack, a Bluffton resident, sometime between 7:35 p.m. on Feb. 25 and 7 a.m. on Feb. 26. Flack was crossing Gum Tree Road near Squire Pope Road when he was struck by a vehicle believed to have been traveling east, reported Trooper Nick Pye with the South Carolina Highway Patrol. A Highway Patrol bulletin indicated that investigators were searching for a white 2018 to 2024 Toyota Camry with "front-end damage as a result of the collision" and "damage to it passenger side mirror." Speaking to The Post and Courier, Pye confirmed that the vehicle involved in the collision had been located, but he could not confirm whether or not an arrest had been made yet. In a social media post, Pye thanked the public for its assistance in the investigation but provided no further details. The Berkeley County Library System (BCLS) is hosting a Spotlight on Local Women of Note from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Friday, March 22, at Moncks Corner Library, 1003 Highway 52 in Moncks Corner. Read moreBCLS hosting Spotlight on Local Women of Note Iconic Italian actress and model Monica Bellucci attended the Saint Laurent show at Paris Fashion Week. The 59-year-old sex icon of all time impressed with her flawless look in a trendy black leather trench coat. ADVERTISIMENT Foreign media called Bellucci's image "ageless". OBOZ.UA decided to collect photos of the star of the films Dracula, Malena, The Matrix, 007: Spectre and others from the fashion event. So, the actress wore an ankle-length leather coat with wide lapels, which added drama and rebelliousness to the look. The black fabric of the product had a shiny effect, which added appropriate notes of glamor to the overall picture. A black strapless jumpsuit could be seen under the bottom, which was secured at the waist with a black and silver belt with a buckle. The style of the outfit emphasized the star's silhouette. ADVERTISIMENT As accessories, Bellucci chose a shiny black clutch and massive hoop earrings. However, one of the main accents was the large square-shaped sunglasses. They added mystery and even more drama to the look. The iconic beauty wore nude makeup and left her hair loose. Her hairstyle with bangs, which have been trending for the past few seasons, harmoniously fit into the overall ensemble. Paris Fashion Week will last until March 5. It will include shows by Chanel, Hermes, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton. ADVERTISIMENT As OBOZ.UA previously reported, Monica Bellucci appeared in his company at a social event for the first time since rumors of an affair with 65-year-old American film producer Tim Burton were confirmed. The couple attended the premiere of Diabolik Chi Sei at the 18th Rome Film Festival. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! A onetime Mount Pleasant-based business owner who was among the first to be charged in the government's "Operation Brace Yourself" probe is to be sentenced this week. Read moreMajor SC Medicare fraud case shifts to the penalty phase after 5 years Peak Drift Brewing invested some $20 million to build out a massive brewery. One that would, among other things, manufacture hemp-infused seltzers in Columbia. Then, a letter from the state health department threatened to derail their plans with strongly worded warnings about advertising THC in the product. "We've been working on this now for seven months," Jason Snyder, operations director at Peak Drift, told The Post and Courier. "It's ready, and it's literally like a month before I'm landing, (then the rug) is like pulled out from under you." The state Department of Health and Environmental Control's Jan. 22 letter gave pause to seltzer producers from Greenville to Columbia to Charleston. But now a month later, the agency has issued updated guidance that walks back its hard-line stances against advertising THC, the main psychoactive chemical in hemp and other cannabinoids. With that, Snyder said he thinks the company can move forward though it won't be without financial loss. The delay in getting Peak Drift's product to market has cost the company $60,000 to $90,000 in lost revenue, he said. The Feb. 22 letter replaces the health department's previous guidance, which warned manufacturers not to say their hemp-infused products contain THC, CBD or Delta-9 even though these chemicals naturally occur in legal hemp. In the new guidance, DHEC condenses its labeling requirements down to a single sentence to say that all drink products should abide by federal labeling regulations which require accurate ingredient lists. Try as they might, Thitiya and Steven Nguyen couldnt escape restaurants. The two, who met and married in 2017, grew up in restaurants, with parents who cooked for a living. And while the two resisted doing the same, working in other professions, they now find themselves moving forward by moving back into a restaurant kitchen. The Nguyens will open Rayas Hot Kitchen in April at The Silos in Easley,, a repurposed former grain complex now home to restaurants and a brewery. The concept will marry Thai and Vietnamese street food with a focus on bright, flavorful dishes that represent each ones food traditions. Want the latest food and dining news from Greenville? Sign up to receive our free newsletter every Thursday to keep you informed on everything happening in the Upstate culinary scene. Email Sign Up! Thitiya is Thai and Steven is Vietnamese. We like feeding people, and we love to see people enjoy our food, Thitiya said. Its comfortable. It just overall makes sense. As much as we wanna get away from it, were good at it. The concept grew out of the two life and business partners, and out of their growing family. Their relationship has been built upon a foundation of food. The two love to cook and they love to dine out. They plan trips around the meals they will eat and the restaurants they will visit, and they derive joy in tasting everything. Their home cooking has married their respective heritages, fusing ingredients and marinades and techniques. But the ultimate fusion has come with the birth of their daughter, Raya, now age 2. Rayas is named for and inspired by Raya herself, who represents both her parents but also now gives them a new sense of purpose in life. We knew we want a better future for our family, Thitiya said. Even when we dated we were like lets do something together bigger. We juggled different ideas as we work our own jobs. We had Raya and we were like OK, what are we gonna go for? Thitiya grew up in a restaurant family. Her parents cooked in a high-end hotel in Thailand and moved to the United States to pursue a better life for their family when Thitiya was age 7. The family landed in Birmingham, Ala., where her parents found cooking jobs. Summerville, SC (29483) Today Some sun this morning with increasing clouds this afternoon. High 69F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mostly clear. Low 39F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph. The 34th Annual SC BBQ Shag Festival kicks off on Thursday, March 21, at the recreation park and ball fields in Hemingway. This year the festival runs from March 21-24. The four-day event features music, vendors, BBQ and fun for the whole family. First held in 1987, the event has grown to at Read moreSC BBQ Shag Festival kicks off March 21 Does it seem to you that a lot of the controversies in education (homework, grading, punishment, curricula) exist because people arent considering things from the students point of view and what they might need? Read more'Luxury beliefs' leaving some kids in the dark CONWAY Coastal Carolina University just launched the first college-run space program in South Carolina. The CCU Space Program will include the creation of a miniaturized satellite, or CubeSat, called ChantSat-1. South Carolina is one of seven states without a CubeSat. CCU is proud to be the first higher education institution in the Palmetto State to introduce a program of this kind, CCU Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Sara Hottinger said in a statement. This endeavor will provide hands-on experiential learning opportunities and collaboration among academic colleges as students conduct research with the latest technology. The CCU Space Program will allow students to develop strong job-transferrable skills and may inspire the next generation of explorers. Measuring 10x10x30 cm, ChantSat-1 is a 3U CubeSat equipped with visible and infrared camera capabilities, and will operate in a Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) altitude in a sun-synchronous, polar orbit. The satellite will also feature a selfie system, complete with a billboard that features a programmable display. This will allow users on the ground to show custom images and text in the frame of a photograph, all against the grandeur of the LEO environment as the backdrop. Wes Hitt, associate professor and chair of CCUs Department of Physics and Engineering Science, said there are 81 CCU students working on the project in paid research assistant positions and course-embedded and co-curricular subprojects derived from the mission. The program will also be advised by seven subject matter experts from NASA Langley Research Center, Maxar and various other government and corporate space systems and engineering individuals. ChantSat-1, which is about the size of a loaf of bread, will be attached to a launch vehicle that will be contracted out. Hitt said he hopes for the CubeSat to be launched in the summer or fall of 2027, where it will be up in space for three to five years. The project will cost roughly $1.2 million to $1.5 million. Russians are caught in a racist scandal abroad. Residents of Unawatuna in Sri Lanka, an area unofficially called "Little Moscow," managed to offend all the country's indigenous people with just one word. ADVERTISIMENT Tourists and expatriates decided to throw a party, but only for "their own". According to the organizers, Russians were supposed to meet at the club to have fun during the war in Ukraine and discuss their emigration. In order to exclude local people from participating in the event, they planned to introduce face control and let only "whites" in, The Mirror writes. Russians who fled the fighting and mobilization wrote in the announcement of the party: "face control: white", which means that it is intended only for non-locals. It should be explained that Sri Lanka is a resort country in Asia where the skin color of the indigenous population is very dark. It is not surprising that the Russian immigrants' announcement of a color-coded segregation seemed outrageous to them, to put it mildly. ADVERTISIMENT When the owners of the Sarayka Lounge club read how they had been set up by the organizers, they canceled the event and apologized to all residents of the country. "We immediately canceled the event. In addition, we broke off relations with the organizers who planned to hold this party in our establishment. We have never supported and will never support any racist statements or organizations," the bar said in an uncompromising statement in two languages. The Russian organizer, who lived in Little Moscow, barely pleaded guilty, calling the celebration of "white" immigrants a "bad idea." However, principled residents did not forgive him and threatened to expel him from the country. ADVERTISIMENT "We wanted to meet with expats who have lived here for a long time and love Sri Lanka. The team supported me and we made a joint decision to quickly organize a party. I didn't expect it to be such a sensitive moment for so many people," he said, adding that he has since had to leave the country after a flurry of insults. The publication notes that a lot of Russians fled to Unawatuna during the two years of full-scale war, and a total of 288 thousand carriers of the "Russian world" have settled in the country during this time, although after the incident with the racist party, there was one less of them. Earlier, OBOZ.UA wrote that a Russian family planned to vacation in Sri Lanka, but alcoholism got in the way. The rowdies had to be detained on the plane, and their crying children witnessed the scene. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Happy Sunshine Week indeed. As we hope youve noticed, our newsroom is spending the week recounting successes its had using South Carolinas Freedom of Information Act to illumine your understanding of what your government is doing on your behalf, in your name and with your tax dollars. Read moreEditorial: SC judges support sunshine whenever they get a chance. They need more chances. COLUMBIA A South Carolina legislative subcommittee began discussions on a sweeping energy reform bill allowing utilities to fast-track pipelines and other projects to avoid a looming energy crisis facing the rapidly growing state. But the bill, which would prompt the conversion of a shuttered Lowcountry coal-fired power plant to natural gas, is likely to face significant pushback from environmental groups that say it will exempt major utilities from environmental protections and other oversight measures that have been in place for decades. Sponsored by House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, the more-than-33,000-word South Carolina 10-Year Energy Transformation Act dramatically opens up South Carolina's energy permitting process in an effort to rapidly expand the capacity of the state's energy grid. It will reduce the number of members of the Public Service Commission, which practices oversight over the state's utilities, from seven to three. It also requires the commission to make the economic impact of new utilities projects tantamount to its decision making and establishes an Energy Policy Institute. The body would chart out a future where the state's energy generation incorporates an "all of the above" approach that includes wind, solar and nuclear energy alongside more traditional sources like natural gas. But to get there, the bill proposes a dramatic and immediate emphasis on natural gas, which lawmakers and industry leaders say is essential to meet the state's emergent energy needs. South Carolinas rapid economic and population growth, Smith told lawmakers in October, has brought the states energy grid to a crisis point," requiring the state to find ways to bring thousands of additional megawatts on board in the next decade or risk forfeiting millions of dollars in investment. The three non-binding questions that voters answered in last week's Republican presidential primary all passed by overwhelmingly majorities. But whether the results covering registration by party, the future of judicial elections and tort reform evolve into legislative progress remains to be seen. That's because the questions were pitched more as attitude surveys and carried no official weight prompting automatic action. State GOP Chairman Drew McKissick said the results from the 755,000 voters who came out Feb. 24 do "paint a very clear picture of what our voters want. He added "each of these are issues that Grassroots Republicans feel strongly about and are looking to our Legislature to take action. How the vote went: Question 1: "Should South Carolina law be changed to give people the right to register to vote with the political party of their choice?" This state Republican Party has for years pushed to close primaries to only registered members of a party. Currently, the Republican and Democratic primaries in South Carolina are open to any registered voter. Republicans supported the measure by a 73 percent to 27 percent margin. Question 2: "Should South Carolina adopt reforms to increase the independence and accountability of our judiciary by improving transparency and reducing conflicts of interest in the process of reviewing judicial qualifications and electing judges?" The question addresses the fact the 170 members of the General Assembly directly elect state judges something critics say gives lawyer-legislators too much influence to choose which judges they see in court. Advocates of the current process say there is little evidence of any misconduct and that other methods have their own downsides. COLUMBIA After several weeks of inactivity, members of the South Carolina House and Senate are kicking off negotiations on a controversial bill that would allow state residents to carry firearms without a permit. The bill, colloquially known as the "constitutional carry" act, passed the House in 2023, and after years of effort passed the Senate earlier this year following weeks of debate. The Senate's version of the bill includes numerous provisions that were not included in the House version. Among them is language providing state-sponsored firearms training courses; potentially reduced criminal penalties for those who take the classes; and carves outs for law enforcement officers and members of the legislature to carry firearms in sensitive areas like hospitals, courtrooms and the Statehouse building. After years of failed attempts to pass similar bills through the Senate, House Republicans this year were initially inclined to support the Senate's version of the bill. But several hardline gun rights groups led a pressure campaign against the lower chamber to reject the deal. They did, and on Feb. 15 the Senate said it would take members of the House to a conference committee to try and hash out a deal. For the Senate, the newly announced negotiating team includes Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg; Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield; and Sen. Shane Martin, R-Pauline a longtime advocate of permitless carry. For the House, representatives are Rep. Micah Caskey, R-West Columbia; Rep. Justin Bamberg, D-Bamberg; and bill sponsor Rep. Bobby Cox, R-Spartanburg, who is employed as a federal lobbyist for the firearms industry. The committee's initial meeting Feb. 27 was uneventful. Members read through the bill and discussed their willingness to work to find a compromise. The direction of the committee is still unclear. Hutto, who voted against the bill in the Senate, said he believed the Senate version of the bill was "robust," and that he favored some form of language to encourage firearms training. COLUMBIA South Carolina has an abundance of school needs, from more teachers to more buildings in growing areas. Legislators are working on those issues, but this week they're trying to get students more of something else: cursive writing and recess. The House of Representatives' education committee approved two bipartisan bills Feb. 27 to expand the states cursive instruction requirement from fifth grade to now second through fifth grade. The other would require middle schoolers to take 90 minutes of physical education a week. The latter bill would also guarantee a 20-minute outdoor recess. Without cursive writing, we are definitely going backwards, the bills sponsor, Rep. Michael Rivers, D-St. Helena Island, said at a subcommittee hearing Feb. 13. There are a lot of people I know who are older than I am who never had the opportunity to write, so the only way they can sign their name is with an X," he added. "And it seems that we are going down that road (again). Cursive has been on the decline for years as an increasingly tech-savvy culture has favored print. And young people dont see the point of the curling script when print works just fine. Advocates say young people are losing the ability to read original historic documents or birthday cards from their grandparents. And the pro-cursive movement seems to have momentum behind it nationally. Since 2010, more than a dozen states have passed laws requiring cursive instruction, California being one of the latest. In 2008, South Carolina dropped cursive from its education standards, but in 2014, the Legislature mandated that the states public school students be proficient in reading and writing cursive by the end of fifth grade starting in the 2015-2016 school year. The new bill wants to expand that mandate by ensuring students are learning and practicing cursive for at least four years starting in second grade. Some worry that increasing cursive instruction beyond the current requirements might take away time from other important subjects. COLUMBIA South Carolina lawmakers are weighing an incentive program to woo insurance companies back into the Palmetto State amid a reported crisis in the liquor liability insurance market that has threatened to shutter hundreds of bars and restaurants across the state. Whether the House bill does what it intends or can pass muster in a skeptical Senate remains an open question. In South Carolina, any venue serving beer, wine or liquor after 5 p.m. is required to carry a liquor liability insurance policy of at least $1 million. While the million dollar cap initially had the support of the service industry when it was first passed in 2017, it has since created a risk-heavy environment where many insurers are pulling out of the state or charging exorbitant rates. If someone gets in a drunk driving accident, any venue that overserved that person could be held liable. Initially meant as an incentive to prevent bars from overserving their customers, critics say the provision has instead dramatically increased the legal exposure for many establishments, a move that leaves bars, restaurants and venues either too risky to insure or requiring massive annual payments for insurers to break even. One recent study by the state found for every dollar insurers bring in, they ultimately pay out approximately $3 in claims. For weeks, members of a House ad hoc committee have fielded testimony from restaurateurs, bar owners, insurance companies and anti-drunk driving advocates seeking a solution. Rather than changing the states shared liability law, the resulting bill, sponsored by Rep. Jason Elliott, R-Greenville, would instead seek to incentivize insurance companies to return to the state by establishing a pair of state-operated funds to subsidize the risk for bar owners and insurance companies alike. The model was inspired by similar programs used to manage the cost of medical malpractice suits, essentially turning the state of South Carolina into its own insurance company that uses individual insurers as subcontractors. SPARTANBURG From the Upstate to the Lowcountry, roughly 200 miles separate the Hub City from the tiny and shrinking town of Ridgeland. State correction officials say two Spartanburg County men made their way in October to the town of fewer than 5,000 in Dorchester County. With them, according to arrest warrants: a drone, a duffel bag and marijuana. Alex Wartara Nash of Spartanburg was arrested on scene Oct. 26 while Moore resident Christopher James Brannon was taken into custody Feb. 26. Warrants allege Brannon dropped Nash off at a solar panel field that investigators had under surveillance because of concerns people were using the site to smuggle contraband into nearby Ridgeland Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison that can house close to 1,100 men. Agents with the South Carolina Department of Corrections caught Brannon after searching with K-9s, the charging documents said, then found an orange AI-controlled drone and a black duffel bag containing wrapped contraband packages. They also reported finding a plastic bag with 49 grams of a green leafy substance that tested positive for marijuana. Each man was charged with providing contraband to prisoners, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and criminal conspiracy. In a press release announcing Nashs charges, SCDC noted that he was out on bond after an earlier arrest in August on contraband charges. Warrants from that episode allege he was caught with a drone, a controller and tobacco about a half-mile from Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville. During that arrest, a warrant said, he admitted that he planned to fly contraband to an inmate. At the height of the day on February 28, Russian occupiers attacked Kupyansk, Kharkiv region, with guided aerial bombs. One of the town's cafes and a church were hit. ADVERTISIMENT At least two people were killed and wounded in the attack. The details were provided by the Kharkiv regional police. On the afternoon of February 28, enemy subversive rocket launchers hit a cafe in Kupyansk. The premises of the establishment were destroyed. A 31-year-old woman was injured. Her 39-year-old brother was killed in the attack. In addition to the cafe, the invaders attacked the Church of Jesus Christ. A 58-year-old pastor was trapped in the rubble of the church. The man died from his injuries. ADVERTISIMENT The head of Kharkiv regional military administration Oleg Sinegubov clarified that the invaders were attacking the center of Kupyansk. As of 15:30, there are five wounded. He also added that there may be people under the rubble: search operations are ongoing. "Residential buildings and civilian infrastructure have been damaged," the official said. The invaders also shelled the village of Ploske in the Velykoburlutsk community. Information about the damage and casualties is still being clarified. ADVERTISIMENT Law enforcement officers are working at the arrival sites: investigative teams, criminalists and explosives experts have been deployed. "Investigators have opened criminal proceedings over the violation of the laws and customs of war under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine," the Kharkiv regional police added. Earlier that day, it became known that the occupiers had attacked Zaporizhzhia region. As a result of the enemy attack, a woman was killed and a man was wounded. In addition, on the night of February 28, the occupiers launched ten Shaheds into Ukraine. Air defense forces shot down all the drones over Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, but in Odesa, the fragments of a downed drone damaged a transformer at a critical infrastructure facility, causing a fire to break out. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes! PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 15:01:16 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 414 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Airline Hydraulics Delivers Localized Inventory and Technical Support to Western PA and West Virginia's Industrial Automation UsersPHILADELPHIA, PA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 /Airline Hydraulics Corporation (Airline) is happy to announce a significant expansion of its sales and service territory as an Automation Elite Distributor of Phoenix Contact products. This newly broadened reach now includes Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, fortifying Airline's presence in the North and Southeastern United States, from Maine to Georgia.Airline Hydraulics Expands Distribution with Phoenix Contact Airline Hydraulics Delivers Localized Inventory and Technical Support to Western PA and West Virginia's Industrial Automation UsersThis expansion, effective immediately, builds upon the strategic growth from last year when Airline's distribution territory extended into New England and Western New York. The extension into Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia underscores Phoenix Contact's recognition of Airline's exceptional technical expertise, delivery performance, and customer service quality."This extension is a remarkable opportunity for both the Airline and our customers," expressed Tom Yeager, Industrial Sales Manager from Phoenix Contact. "Airline's demonstrated commitment to quality service and depth of industry knowledge makes them an exemplary partner for us. We eagerly anticipate the value this will bring to customers in the Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia areas." Airline's expansion into Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia is not just about a broader array of products for customers; it is a testament to the ease of doing business with them. Their comprehensive website, www.airlinehyd.com , stands as an easy-to-use portal for accessing a wide array of Phoenix Contact products, ranging from automation hardware to electronic interface systems."Increasing our service territory symbolizes the trust and value that Phoenix Contact places in our capabilities. We're ready to bring our technical knowledge and robust product inventory to even more customers in this new region," said Dylan Verna, Phoenix Contact Product Expert at Airline.Since 1949, Airline has led in providing top-quality components, engineered systems, superior service, and repair. Known for promoting fluid power, automation, and machine safety technology in diverse industries. With a focus on enhancing customer productivity and safety, this employee-owned company has grown steadily due to its commitment to excellence as a value-added distributor.For more information about Airline Hydraulics Corporation and their services, or to experience the Airline Tech Traveler - an immersive resource featuring Phoenix Contact product demonstrations and innovative solutions - visit www.airlinehyd.com Contact InformationOlivia LynchMarketing Assistantolynch@ airlinehyd.com 267 541 1808SOURCE: Airline Hydraulics CorporationView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 14:00:59 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 475 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 AUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Alcan Dental Cooperative, a Dental Partnership Organization, is excited to announce a strategic partnership with CareStack, a technology leader in dental platform software management. This collaboration aims to bring together the strengths of both companies to deliver innovative solutions and enhance the patient experience in the pediatric dental space.The partnership will leverage Alcan Dental Cooperative's expertise in services for revenue cycle management, HR, insurance verification, procurement, and back-office functions with CareStack's cutting-edge technology in cloud-based practice management software. This synergy will drive high levels of patient, clinical, and front-office satisfaction while reducing operating costs and stress levels in the work environment. It will set a new standard for consistency, predictability, and stability in the pediatric dental space."It makes sense for Alcan to engage in exclusive offering with CareStack. CareStack's level of dedication to improving clinical workflows and enhancing front-office functionality is a major reason for our organization's success. CareStack's versatile platform offers integration with a wide range of dental technologies that have a direct, positive impact on the top line and patient experience," said Tim Otto, co-founder of Alcan Dental Cooperative."We're excited to partner with the Alcan team to create state-of-the-art solutions for pediatric dentists. By combining Alcan's deep industry insights with CareStack's cutting-edge technology expertise, we can generate impactful outcomes for growth-focused pediatric offices. We look forward to working with the Alcan team to continuously improve CareStack's product portfolio for pediatric offices," said Abhi Krishna, CEO of CareStack.About Alcan Dental CooperativeAlcan Dental Cooperative is a practice partnership organization specifically designed for pediatric dentists. It was founded by Dr. Alexandra Otto and Tim Otto who, after years of building and growing their own pediatric dental practices, created the cooperative as a solution to help fellow pediatric dentists maintain majority ownership of their practices while alleviating the burdens of practice management.With a deep understanding of the nuances of pediatric dentistry, Dr. Alexandra Otto and her husband Tim Otto have always believed in putting patients first, providing complete clinical autonomy to doctors, and fostering a professional cohort where everyone can share insights and advance the field of pediatric dentistry together.For more information about Alcan Dental Cooperative and its partnership with CareStack, please contact Randall Smith at rsmith@ alcandentalcooperative.com or visit www.alcandentalcooperative.com About CareStackCareStack's primary objective is to provide dental healthcare professionals with a better understanding of and control over their financial health through artificial intelligence and cloud-based technologies. The company's enterprise practice management solution caters to dental practices across USA, UK, Singapore and Australia, enabling them to run more effective operations and offer superior dental care to their patients. To learn more, please visit www.carestack.com Contact InformationRandall SmithBusiness Developmentrsmith@ alcandentalcooperative.com 6305495509Related ImagesSOURCE: Alcan Dental CooperativeView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 16:00:35 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 714 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NEW ORLEANS, LA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 /FlipFarm, the visionary force behind the first semi-automated oyster farming system, is proud to announce the US launch of its high-capacity Sorter and revolutionary Rigid Mesh Seed Inserts at the upcoming Oyster South Industry Symposium, held February 29th to March 2nd, in New Orleans. These latest additions to FlipFarm's suite of oyster farming solutions are set to redefine efficiency and productivity in aquaculture. Launching these products in Louisiana, FlipFarm hopes to contribute to the revitalization of the region's crucial industry by empowering local farmers with the tools they need to thrive.FlipFarm System in Action A farmer uses the FlipFarm System effortlessly on his farm without bending over or injuring his back.FlipFarm's patented system helps farmers deploy, harvest, air-dry and sort oysters with significantly higher efficiency and effectiveness than ever before. Their innovative portfolio of products eliminates the need for back-breaking manual labor, allowing farmers to focus on sustainable growth and to continue farming regardless of their age or physical condition.Adding to their growing portfolio, FlipFarm is launching a high-capacity Sorter, a game-changer in oyster processing, at the Oyster South Industry Symposium. The Sorter provides farmers with a seamless solution that can actually keep up by sorting oysters and repacking them for deployment all while feeding directly from FlipFarm baskets. With a capacity of up to 1.5 million oysters per hour, the FlipFarm Sorter offers next-level productivity.Also launching at Oyster South are FlipFarm's revolutionary Rigid Mesh Seed Inserts. The new Inserts offer a trifecta of benefits: faster growth, fewer doubles, and well-shaped oysters due to superior seed movement. The Insert design ensures effortless integration with the FlipFarm system, streamlining both filling and emptying processes, saving valuable time and resources. Finally, the Inserts eliminate the need for flupsys, resulting in significant cost savings and simplified management."Our new Sorter and Seed Inserts are going to change oyster farming for the better," said Aaron Pannell, inventor and owner of FlipFarm Systems. "By significantly reducing labor and enhancing operational efficiency, we are not just offering tools but a new way forward for painless and profitable oyster farming." Just like traditional agriculture, oyster farming thrives on innovation. FlipFarm understands that automation is not a luxury; it's a necessity for a sustainable future. Nowhere is this clearer than the Gulf and Southern Coast regions of the US that have faced the ravages of nature and man-made disasters. By developing automation products and bringing them to these local communities, FlipFarm hopes to empower and equip oyster farmers so that they can not only rebuild their operations, but also ensure their longevity for generations to come."We're excited to launch our products at Oyster South, a gathering of minds that share our passion for sustainable aquaculture and is embedded in the local community. We're not just here to introduce groundbreaking aquaculture technology; we're here to celebrate the indomitable spirit of the Southern United States," said Keith Butterfield, Northeast Distributor at FlipFarm. "Having faced and overcome tremendous hardships in recent years, the Southern Coast's oyster farmers stand as a testament to resilience and dedication. Our launch here is in support of that spirit, as we hope to contribute to the region's ongoing recovery with the technology needed to rebuild and thrive." FlipFarm invites Oyster South attendees to interact with these products first-hand and to attend their presentations about how automation can help answer the industry's toughest challenges to cultivate a sustainable future for oyster aquaculture.About FlipFarm SystemsFlipFarm Systems is a family business founded to make farming easier, more sustainable, and more enjoyable. Our patented technology helps farmers deploy, harvest, air-dry and sort oysters more efficiently and effectively, without all the hard labor. We know that automation is not a luxury, but rather a necessity for sustainable aquaculture, and we are dedicated to providing solutions that minimize environmental impact while promoting healthy oyster growth. We hope that our work will allow farms of all sizes, and farmers of all ages, to thrive and contribute to a vibrant and viable future. If you're ready to transform your business, contact us today www.flipfarm.com Contact InformationLeigh DroriPress Contactmarketing@ flipfarmusa.com 6178171522Keith ButterfieldDistributorkeith@ flipfarmusa.com 857-753-1302SOURCE: FlipFarmView the original press release on newswire.com Turkiye rescued 17 irregular migrants in the Aegean Sea after Greek authorities pushed them back into Turkish territorial waters, Azernews reports, citing Anadolu Agency. Coast guard units rescued the migrants, including a child, from a rubber boat off Cesme district in the western province of Izmir on Monday, the Turkish Coast Guard said in a statement. Turkiye has been a key transit point for asylum seekers aiming to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution. Ankara and global rights groups have repeatedly condemned Greeces illegal practice, saying it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants, including women and children. In the city of Obninsk, Kaluga region, security forces detained a woman who was sharing posters against Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin online. Irina Chernikova, a 36-year-old local, called for voting "for anyone but Putin." ADVERTISIMENT The ASTRA project learned about the activist's detention. The Russian woman supported the Anti-Corruption Foundation, organized by Alexei Navalny in 2011, and the anti-Putin and anti-war movement Vesna. According to the so-called law enforcement agencies, the resident of Obninsk carried out "destructive information activities" and distributed "extremist materials". A criminal investigation was launched against the woman. According to media reports, Chernikova posted links to the FBC Internet project "Russia without Putin 2024", links to the Telegram channel "Navalny's Team" and the YouTube channel "Navalny Live". She also shared a post by the Vesna movement's Telegram channel with an appeal from women from the Put Domoy (Way Home) organization to Putin asking him to return the mobilized. ADVERTISIMENT In her account, the detainee also shared links to a cloud storage with Vesna leaflets that say, "Vote for anyone but Putin to bring the soldiers home", "Russia without Putin: return the mobilized home", "Russia without Putin: peace talks", "Vote for anyone but Putin to stop releasing criminals", "Putin is sanctions against Russia", "Putin is violence ", etc. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 16:01:08 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 598 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Family-owned spirits company's Shake Your Future initiative returns to Madrid & BarcelonaHAMILTON, BERMUDA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Family-owned spirits company, Bacardi is once again changing lives in Madrid and Barcelona as it invites 30 young adults to take part in its free bartender training program, Shake Your Future. And mentoring this year's students will be Mario Villalon, the highly-respected owner of one of Spain's most sustainable cocktail bars, Angelita Madrid.The four-week Shake Your Future program, which begins on February 24 in Barcelona and March 4 in Madrid, will give the students the skills necessary for not just a job but a life-long career in bartending. Graduates gain an internationally recognized diploma and with the full support of Bacardi and its network of hospitality partners, access to full time employment opportunities in the industry.Key to the success of the Shake Your Future initiative in Spain are the close collaborations between Bacardi and the European Bartender School and labor associations, Barcelona Activa and Fundacion Altius in Madrid.Former Shake Your Future graduate Max De Boussiers, who is now a bartender at Cecconi's, Soho House Barcelona, said: "When I found out I had been selected for Shake Your Future, I yelled with happiness because I had the opportunity to join a program which could lead to amazing opportunities. Shake Your Future changed my life. Thanks to this program I found my first real, stable job and it's a job that I love. Working with spirits is now my passion." "Shake Your Future not only supports the people in our local communities who need it most, it also helps our friends in the bar community to find the skilled bartenders they so desperately need," said Amanda Almond, Managing Director for Bacardi Spain. "We are committed to supporting both communities in every way we can and Shake Your Future is an important part of that ongoing commitment." Mario Villalon, owner of Angelita Madrid, added: "I would not be where I am today without the support and inspiration of others along the way. By supporting Bacardi and its Shake Your Future initiative I can do the same for these students as they set out on their own personal journeys into the world of mixology." Bacardi invests in Good Spirited ESG initiatives that set goals for a brighter future for all, focusing on doing the right thing by its consumers, employees, business partners, the communities where it operates, and the environment. Find out more at www.bacardilimited.com/good-spirited -ENDS-Media enquiries:Andrew Carney, Communications Director Europe, acarney@ bacardi.com Jessica Merz, VP Global Corporate Communications, jmerz@ bacardi.com Always drink responsibly.About BacardiBacardi Limited, the largest privately held international spirits company, produces, markets, and distributes spirits and wines. The Bacardi Limited portfolio comprises more than 200 brands and labels, including BACARDI rum, PATRON tequila, GREY GOOSE vodka, DEWAR'S Blended Scotch whisky, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin, MARTINI vermouth and sparkling wines, CAZADORES 100% blue agave tequila, and other leading and emerging brands including WILLIAM LAWSON'S Scotch whisky, ST-GERMAIN elderflower liqueur and ERISTOFF vodka. Founded more than 162 years ago in Santiago de Cuba, family-owned Bacardi Limited currently employs approximately 9,000, operates production facilities in 11 countries and territories, and sells its brands in more than 160 countries. Bacardi Limited refers to the Bacardi group of companies, including Bacardi International Limited. Visit www.bacardilimited.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and X.View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Bacardi Limited on 3 blmedia.com Contact Info: Spokesperson: Bacardi LimitedWebsite: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/bacardi-limitedEmail: info@3 blmedia.com SOURCE: Bacardi Limited PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 15:50:21 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 663 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Travelers will have access to the travel insurance industry's first offering that protects all connected devices including smartphones, tablets and laptopsNEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / bolt, the insurtech with the country's largest technology-enabled insurance exchange and a global leader in device protection programs, today announced a partnership with WorldTrips, a full-service company providing travel insurance plans and assistance services to individuals, families, corporations, and service groups around the world. Through the partnership, bolt and WorldTrips will introduce the first program for the travel insurance segment that provides travelers with industry-leading protection for their connected devices, covering smartphones, tablets, and laptops.Covered travelers will have access to bolt's fully digital 24/7 online claims process, allowing them to file a claim easily at any time and from anywhere in the world, rather than needing to wait until they return home to file the claim. Travelers have access to bolt's global repair network that will help them get quickly reconnected to keep in touch with friends and family while traveling and maintain access to important features like cameras and location sharing, and information such as digital wallets and emergency contacts stored on their devices.Clayton Bodnarek, EVP of Alternative Distribution, bolt, said the partnership reinforces the company's mission to respond to customer needs and protect customer devices when they need it most."Our work with WorldTrips speaks to the importance of staying connected with friends and family while traveling, especially for students and those who are traveling for business," he said. "Together, WorldTrips and bolt developed a solution that is affordable and easily accessible to every type of traveler, providing peace of mind that you will be protected and connected even when you're away from home." With bolt and WorldTrips' offering, travelers can add this important coverage for their devices when purchasing their travel insurance and pay only for the device protection they need while they are traveling. The plan covers all individuals and their devices in the traveling party of the insured, helping customers save time and money."At WorldTrips, we are constantly considering pain points that impact travelers and finding ways to address them with simple and affordable solutions," said Mark Carney, President and CEO, WorldTrips. "We see bolt as an ideal partner because of their unique device protection product that is easily accessible at any time and anywhere in the world. With people storing so much critical information on their devices these days, it is paramount to ensure those devices are protected when people travel." Since launching its device protection capabilities in June 2022, bolt has announced partnerships with several global insurance leaders, and partners have seen up to four times year-on-year growth in policies sold through the program.WorldTrips, located in Carmel, Indiana, is a member of the Tokio Marine HCC group of companies. Tokio Marine HCC is a leading specialty insurance group and a member of the Tokio Marine Group, a premier global company founded in 1879 with a market capitalization of $49 billion as of December 31, 2023.Customers can purchase WorldTrips' travel medical insurance with device protection atwww.worldtrips.com . To learn more about bolt's device protection, please visit https://protect.boltinsurance.com/boltagency/ About boltbolt is the leading distribution platform for P&C insurance, uniting distributors and insurers to transform the way insurance is bought and sold.The result is the world's largest tech-enabled exchange of insurance products, including two-thirds of America's leading insurers, helping businesses of all kinds distribute insurance, expand market reach, and meet more of the insurance and protection needs of customers.For more information, visitboltinsurance.com About WorldTripsWorldTrips is a full-service organization offering a comprehensive portfolio of travel medical and trip protection insurance products designed to address the insurance needs of travelers worldwide. WorldTrips is a member of the Tokio Marine HCC group of companies. For more information about WorldTrips, please visitWorldTrips.com Bolt Media RelationsRoss StevensAccount Managerross@ calibercorporateadvisers.com WorldTrips Media RelationsPress@ worldtrips.com SOURCE: bolt insurance PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 08:00:22 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1004 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Claim Exchange Completed at WikieupBRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Bradda Head Lithium Ltd (AIM:BHL)(TSX-V:BHLI), the North America-focused lithium development group, announces finalisation of the land exchange over the unpatented lode claims at the Wikieup clay project in Western Arizona as initially notified by the Company on 1 March 2023. This exchange is mutually beneficial to both parties avoiding litigation and disruption of exploration activities on highly perspective clay-hosted claims. As such, Bradda Head will retain 66 new claims equating to 1,302 acres (5.27 km2), which the Company staked in early 2019, and held in its subsidiary Zenolith (USA) LLC. In turn, Bradda has transferred 55 unpatented lode claims to Arizona Lithium's subsidiary, Big Sandy Inc., to the amount of roughly 1,136 acres (4.60 km2), per the terms of this settlement. This transaction is now legally binding pursuant to the Company's announcement on 1 March 2023 ('Settlement of Claim Dispute with Arizona Lithium'), and the exchange of claims has been completed by mutual agreement and all legal documents have been filed with both the BLM and respective county in Arizona to cement the transaction.This final exchange furthers Bradda's exposure to high-quality lithium-in-clay targets (proximal at < 1.0km to Arizona Lithium's Big Sandy clay discovery) and further enhances the Company's portfolio of this high-quality project. The new ground will, in due course, be explored with geological mapping and surface sampling for opportunities, developing priority drill targets potentially for later in year.Ian Stalker, Executive Chair, commented:" We thank Arizona Lithium and the countless hours of time undertaken to settle this matter without litigation and allow both companies to proceed with unobstructed exploration on their respective claim groups. This is new ground that has significant upside potential within the large, lithium-bearing clay-rich lacustrine basin and Bradda plans to capitalise on the finalisation of this settlement with renewed surface exploration." For further information please visit the Company's website: www.braddaheadltd.com Qualified Person (BHL)Joey Wilkins, B.Sc., P.Geo., is Chief Operating Officer at BHL and the Qualified Person who reviewed and approved the technical disclosures in this news release. Mr. Wilkins is a graduate of the University of Arizona with a B.Sc. in Geology with more than 38 years of experience in mineral exploration and is a qualified person under the AIM Rules and a Qualified Person as defined under NI-43-101. Mr. Wilkins consents to the inclusion of the technical information in this release and context in which it appears.THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATION (EU No. 596/2014) AS IT FORMS PART OF UK DOMESTIC LAW BY VIRTUE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION (WITHDRAWAL) ACT 2018. UPON THE PUBLICATION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT VIA A REGULATORY INFORMATION SERVICE, THIS INSIDE INFORMATION IS NOW CONSIDERED TO BE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND SUCH PERSONS SHALL THEREFORE CEASE TO BE IN POSSESSION OF INSIDE INFORMATION.ENDSContact:Bradda Head Lithium Limited+44 (0) 1624 639 396Ian Stalker, Executive ChairmanDenham Eke, Finance DirectorBeaumont Cornish (Nomad)+44 (0) 2076 283 396 James Biddle / Roland CornishPanmure Gordon (Joint Broker)+44 (0) 2078 862 500 Hugh RichShard Capital (Joint Broker)+44 (0) 2071 869 927 Damon Heath / Isabella PierreRed Cloud (North American Broker)+1 416 803 3562 Joe FarsTavistock (Financial PR)+ 44 20 7920 3150 Nick Elwes / Adam Baynes braddahead@ tavistock.co.ukAbout Bradda Head Lithium Ltd.Bradda Head Lithium Ltd. is a North America-focused lithium development group. The Company currently has interests in a variety of projects, the most advanced of which are in Central and Western Arizona: The Basin Project (Basin East Project, and the Basin West Project) and the Wikieup Project.The Basin East Project has an Indicated Mineral Resource of 17 Mt at an average grade of 940 ppm Li and 3.4% K for a total of 85 kt LCE and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 210 Mt at an average grade of 900 ppm Li and 2.8% K (potassium) for a total of 1.09 Mt LCE. In the rest of the Basin Project SRK has determined an Exploration Target of 250 to 830 Mt of material grading between 750 to 900 ppm Li, which is equivalent to a range of between 1 to 4 Mt contained LCE. The Group intends to continue to develop its three phase one projects in Arizona, whilst endeavouring to unlock value at its other prospective pegmatite and brine assets in Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. All of Bradda Head's licences are held on a 100% equity basis and are in close proximity to the required infrastructure. Bradda Head is quoted on the AIM of the London Stock Exchange with the ticker of BHL and on the TSX Venture Exchange with a ticker of BHLI.Forward-Looking StatementsNeither 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. This News Release includes certain "forward-looking statements" which are not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking statements include estimates and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives or goals, including words to the effect that the Company or management expects a stated condition or result to occur. Forward-looking statements may be identified by such terms as "believes", "anticipates", "intends to", "expects", "estimates", "may", "could", "would", "will", or "plan". Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Although these statements are based on information currently available to the Company, the Company provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Risks, uncertainties, and other factors involved with forward-looking information could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects, and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, following: The Company's objectives, goals, or future plans. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to: failure to identify mineral resources; failure to convert estimated mineral resources to reserves; delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required regulatory, governmental, environmental or other project ap PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 06:15:30 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 745 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 The Combined Company Supports All the Critical Operations of Seafood Processors and Distributors Across Purchasing, Processing, Sales, Traceability, Logistics and ReportingLINCOLN, RI / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / CAI Software, LLC, ("CAI" or "CAI Software"), a portfolio company of STG and a leader in integrated software and technology solutions for mission-critical, production-oriented enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution systems (MES), eCommerce EDI (electronic data interchange), and warehouse management software (WMS) today announced that they have acquired Maritech, a leading cloud-based ERP provider for the seafood and logistics industries across European and North American markets.CAI Software CAI Software - Production-oriented solutions for manufacturers, processors, and distributors.The addition of Maritech to the CAI Software portfolio adds seafood processing and distribution software, enhancing capabilities across the entire seafood production lifecycle from catch, purchasing, processing, packing, sales (including importing and exporting), logistics and analytics & reporting. Founded in Norway, Maritech has an expansive, blue-chip customer base in the seafood industry. The combination of CAI and Maritech will help expand Maritech's presence in North America and the rest of Europe. Together, CAI Software and Maritech will build a leading, global seafood ERP platform to serve companies of all sizes."Combining CAI Software and Maritech brings key granular information for seafood manufacturers of all sizes to make more informed and timely business decisions in this ever-changing business environment," said Brian Rigney, CEO of CAI Software. "As we bring the companies together, we will continue to collaborate with our customers to develop solutions purpose-built to serve the unique requirements of this industry. In our next chapter of growth, I look forward to working with the Maritech team and Broodstock, who will continue to be an investor in the combined company." "This is a great milestone for us, and a natural next step towards global growth for Maritech," says Maritech CEO Odd Arne Kristengard. "Together with CAI, we will continue to have a laser focus on our Norwegian home market and customers while increasing the international traction that we have built over the last several years." William Chisholm, Managing Partner of STG, said, "We see a strong opportunity to combine the experience and capabilities of CAI and Maritech to build a leading, global ERP software for the seafood industry. We look forward to collaborating with our combined team to drive success for our employees, customers, and partners." "The combination of CAI and Maritech will enable us to leapfrog to the next level of performance in the seafood industry. I am so proud of what our team has accomplished so far and am excited about taking our growth strategies to the next level to serve more seafood companies around the world," added Jan Erik Lovik, Partner Broodstock Capital.About Maritech ASSince the 1970s we have created solutions driving innovation and supporting our customers' processes through their value chain. From the beginning, Maritech decided to focus on innovation for the growing seafood industry. Maritech is also known within the transport industry and recently launched a new cloud TMS. Today, we are proud to be a world-leading provider of seafood ERP SaaS software, and a trusted advisor to many of the biggest companies around the global market. www.maritech.com About STG STG is a private equity partner to market-leading companies in data, software, and analytics. The firm brings experience, flexibility, and resources to build strategic value and unlock the potential of innovative companies. Partnering to build customer-centric, market-winning portfolio companies, STG creates sustainable foundations for growth that bring value to existing and future stakeholders. The firm is dedicated to transforming and building outstanding technology companies in partnership with world-class management teams. STG's expansive portfolio consists of more than 50 global companies. https://www.stg.com About Broodstock CapitalEstablished in 2016, Broodstock Capital is a Norwegian private equity partner and pure-play seafood investor, with a local presence and global reach. Through active ownership and close partnerships with company owners and management, we develop local business to global leaders that contributes to a more sustainable seafood industry. www.broodstock.no Contact InformationDrea TorettiCMOinfo@ caisoft.com 800.422.4782Related ImagesCAI Software CAI Software - Production-oriented solutions for manufacturers, processors, and distributors. Maritech Logo Maritech - Cloud based business solutions for logistics and seafood CAI Software Maritech Leadership Brian Rigney, CEO, CAI Software; Maritech CEO Odd Arne Kristengard; Wesley Jiang, Vice President, STG Partners SOURCE: CAI SoftwareView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 14:02:02 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 997 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 FORT MILL, SC / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Catheter Precision, Inc. (the "Company") (NYSE American:VTAK), a U.S. based medical device company focused on novel electrophysiology products, announced that VIVO was used for the first time on a pediatric patient in Turkey. The Company recently announced its new distribution partnership with Ege Artimi in Turkey in January.Catheter Precision's CEO, David Jenkins, said, "VIVO is an excellent choice for pre-procedure planning, especially in pediatric patients. VIVO is non-invasive and used prior to ventricular ablations, meaning that it can provide the physician with additional information specific to each patient and because it is non-invasive there is no additional risk when it is utilized. The utilization of VIVO in delicate patient populations like this continues to show the flexibility and many benefits of this innovative product." About VIVO Catheter Precision's VIVO (View Into Ventricular Onset), is a non-invasive 3D imaging system that enables physicians to identify the origin of ventricular arrhythmias pre-procedure, thereby streamlining workflow and reducing procedure time. VIVO has received marketing clearance from the U.S. FDA and has the CE mark.About Catheter Precision Catheter Precision is an innovative U.S.-based medical device company bringing new solutions to market to improve the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. It is focused on developing groundbreaking technology for electrophysiology procedures by collaborating with physicians and continuously advancing its products. Reincorporated as Ra Medical Systems, Inc. in Delaware in 2018, the Company changed its name to Catheter Precision, Inc. on August 17, 2023.Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This communication contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as "believe," "anticipate," "may," "might," "can," "could," "continue," "depends," "expect," "expand," "forecast," "intend," "predict," "plan," "rely," "should," "will," "may," "seek," or the negative of these terms and other similar expressions, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company's expectations and beliefs regarding these matters may not materialize. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements as a result of uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances, including but not limited to risks and uncertainties included under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Form 10-K filed with the SEC and available at www.sec.gov . These risks and uncertainties include, but aren't limited to, that we will not be able to reach profitability unless we are able to achieve our product expansion and growth goals, our research and development and commercialization efforts may depend on entering into agreements with corporate collaborators, we have entered into joint marketing agreements with respect to our products, and may enter into additional joint marketing agreements, that will reduce our revenues from product sales, royalty agreements with respect to our LockeT device will reduce any future profits from this product, if we experience significant disruptions in our information technology systems, our business may be adversely affected, litigation and other legal proceedings may adversely affect our business, if we make acquisitions or divestitures, we could encounter difficulties that harm our business, failure to attract and retain sufficient qualified personnel could also impede our growth, failure to maintain effective internal controls could cause our investors to lose confidence in us and adversely affect the market price of our common stock, if our internal controls are not effective, we may not be able to accurately report our financial results or prevent fraud, our revenues may depend on our customers' receipt of adequate reimbursement from private insurers and government sponsored healthcare programs, we may be unable to compete successfully with companies in our highly competitive industry, many of whom have substantially greater resources than we do, our future operating results depend upon our ability to obtain components in sufficient quantities on commercially reasonable terms or according to schedules, prices, quality and volumes that are acceptable to us, and suppliers may fail to deliver components, or we may be unable to manage these components effectively or obtain these components on such terms, if hospitals, physicians and patients do not accept our current and future products or if the market for indications for which any product candidate is approved is smaller than expected, we may be unable to generate significant revenue, if any, our medical device operations are subject to pervasive and continuing FDA regulatory requirements, our products may be subject to additional recalls, revocations or suspensions after receiving FDA or foreign approval or clearance, which could divert managerial and financial resources, harm our reputation, and adversely affect our business, changes in trade policies among the U.S. and other countries, in particular the imposition of new or higher tariffs, could place pressure on our average selling prices as our customers seek to offset the impact of increased tariffs on their own products, increased tariffs or the imposition of other barriers to international trade could have a material adverse effect on our revenues and operating results. In addition, our auditor's finalization of the accounting for the merger requires complex calculations and the input of outside advisors, and as a result, the final results of these calculations could differ from our current expectations. The risks and uncertainties described above may be amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused significant economic uncertainty, or other pandemics, supply chain disruptions from the Ukraine war and otherwise, and ongoing volatility in the stock markets and the U.S. economy in general.The forward-looking statements included in this communication are made only as of the date hereof. The Company assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.CONTACTS:At the Company David Jenkins973-691-2000 IR@ catheterprecision.com SOURCE: Catheter Precision, Inc PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 17:49:52 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 536 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 HAGENS BERMAN, NATIONAL TRIAL ATTORNEYS, Encourages NOVA Investors Who Suffered Substantial Losses to Contact its AttorneysSAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Hagens Berman urges Sunnova Energy International Inc. (NYSE:NOVA) investors who suffered substantial losses to submit your losses now.Class Period: Feb. 25, 2020 - Dec. 7, 2023Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Apr. 16, 2024Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/NOVA Contact An Attorney Now: NOVA@ hbsslaw.com 844-916-0895Sunnova Energy International Inc. (NOVA) Securities Fraud Class Action:The litigation focuses on Sunnova's disclosures about its business practices and the recent award by the Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) of a $3 billion partial loan guarantee pursuant to a new solar loan channel named Project Hestia.The complaint alleges that Sunnova made misleading statements and failed to disclose that: (1) it routinely engaged in predatory business practices against disadvantaged homeowners and communities, the same groups that Project Hestia was purportedly intended to benefit; and (2) the foregoing conduct subjected it to a heightened risk of regulatory and government scrutiny, as well as significant reputational and/or financial harm.That loan guarantee and associated benefits to Sunnova were all placed at risk of not coming to fruition on Dec. 7, 2023, after the Chair of the US House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Ranking Member of the US Senate Energy and Resources Committee sent a letter to the LPO Director (Jigar Shah) regarding "disturbing reports" about Sunnova and demanding additional information and documents by no later than Dec. 21, 2023.The Chair and Ranking Member wrote that they were alarmed about: (1) "recent, credible reports that Sunnova has racked up numerous consumer complaints, including those alleging troubling sales practices, such as Sunnova pressing elderly homeowners in poor health to sign long-term contracts costing tens of thousands of dollars[;]" (2) "predatory sales strategies[;]" and (3) "[a]dditional reports suggest these troubling reports are not isolated incidents".This news sent the price of Sunnova shares down $2, or about 16%, on Dec. 8, 2023.If you invested in Sunnova and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that may assist the firm's investigation, submit your losses now If you'd like more information and answers to frequently asked questions about the Sunnova case and our investigation, read more Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Sunnova should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email NOVA@ hbsslaw.com # # #About Hagens Berman Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs' rights complex litigation law firm focusing on corporate accountability through class-action law. The firm is home to a robust securities litigation practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and fraud. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com . Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.Attorney advertising.Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.Contact:Reed Kathrein, 844-916-0895SOURCE: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 15:01:33 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 429 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Crosspoint Power and Refrigeration has expanded its product offering to include CRX air-cooled gas engines. This expanded product line will be offered through Crosspoint in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.INDIANAPOLIS, IN / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Crosspoint Power and Refrigeration is proud to announce the addition of the CRX gas engine line to its portfolio of products. CRX is a leader in gas-powered, air-cooled engines with almost 2 million engines (under the Simpson & DeWalt brands) in service since its launch in 2019. With power ranges between 5.5 HP and 34 HP, CRX is well suited to power various applications such as air compressors, generators, log splitters, pressure washers, pumps, trenchers and much more. CRX is also a great option when thinking about repowering when other competitive engine brands wear out, "engines when you need them." Crosspoint and CRX Engines Three CRX engines and the Crosspoint Power and Refrigeration logo.Crosspoint Power and Refrigeration sees this addition as a great complement to its existing lines of Yanmar and Ford Industrial engines. The CRX engine expands Crosspoint's Power offering, giving customers an option in the air-cooled gas engine market. CRX is quickly becoming a brand that people can depend on when they need long-lasting, reliable and durable power."Our goal at Crosspoint Power and Refrigeration is to deliver the right solutions, at the right time, with the right experience. We recognized the CRX engine will enable us to provide additional quality solutions for our customers with small horsepower needs," says Crosspoint Power and Refrigeration president Joe Aschenbener.The CRX engine brand was launched in 2019 by the FNA group. The FNA group, based in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, has been manufacturing gas pressure washers under the Simpson, Delco, Powerwasher, DeWalt, as well as many private label groups for over 25 years. With nearly 2 million engines in the market, CRX has developed a reputation for reliability, dependability and durability.Crosspoint Power and Refrigeration offers sales and service for engines and on highway refrigeration throughout the Midwest. Crosspoint has been a distributor for Yanmar diesel engines since 1996 and Ford Industrial Engines since 2013. Crosspoint Power and Refrigeration has over 25 years of extensive history and experience with industrial engines and currently supplies engines throughout the Midwest including Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.For more information, reach out to Crosspoint Power and Refrigeration through www.crosspointpowerandrefrigeration.com/contact/ or call 317-981-5027.Contact InformationShawn Aitken VP/GMsaitken@ crosspointpandr.com 317-981-5030SOURCE: Crosspoint Power and RefrigerationView the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 17:17:28 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1050 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / With support from FedEx through their Charitable Giving Program, The Salvation Army co-branded FedEx canteens deployed to 40 events in the 3rd Quarter of 2023. Additionally, five (5) of the FedEx canteens are used for weekly or daily feeding programs in their communities. These events ranged from weekly community outreach for those experiencing homelessness to disaster response. These co-branded FedEx canteens play an important role in The Salvation Army's ability to provide services to those in need. The Salvation Army greatly appreciates the support of FedEx and their donation of mobile feeding units and will continue to utilize them in new innovative ways to support our communities.DISASTER RESPONSE:Fire Responses: The Salvation Army at the request of the local fire department responded to six different fires this quarter using the FedEx canteens. The Western Pennsylvania Division responded to four fires. The first was to a residential structure fire in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania on July 3rd. The Salvation Army was on the scene with the FedEx canteen early in the morning to provide support to the survivors and first responders. 25 meals, 50 snacks, and 40 drinks were served from the FedEx canteen.The second response was to a multi-home fire in North Braddock, Pennsylvania on August 20th. The team provided support services to first responders and the residents affected by the fire. The third fire the Emergency Disaster Services team was a two-alarm residential house fire in Pittsburgh. Disaster workers served drinks, snacks with Emotional and Spiritual Care. While on the scene of this fire in Pittsburgh, the team was dispatched to a large brush fire at a commercial landscape supply facility. Disaster workers provided meals, snacks, and drinks to the first responders on scene from multiple counties.The North & Central Illinois Division responded to two fires this quarter using the FedEx canteen. The first was a house fire. The Salvation Army served snacks to the fire department crew. The second was a large structure fire in Riverwoods, Illinois where snacks and drinks were served to the fire and police personnel until the fire was put out.Kansas Storms: On August 3rd, The Salvation Army Kansas and Western Missouri Division responded to storms in Ottawa, Kansas. The FedEx canteen deployed to the event for two days and disaster workers served meals, snacks, and drinks to people who lost power during the storms. In total, 331 meals, 565 snacks, and 457 drinks were served to affected individuals in the community.Hurricane Idalia Response in Georgia: Hurricane Idalia impacted multiple counties in Georgia, but Lowndes County received much of the damage. The Salvation Army mobilized the Georgia FedEx canteen to Lowndes County. Disaster workers served meals, drinks, and snacks to survivors from the FedEx canteen. Over the span of August 31st through September 4th disaster workers served 4,000 meals and 300 drinks to first responders and survivors.Search & Rescue Operation in Illinois: On September 30th, The North & Central Illinois Division was requested to support a search and rescue operation in St. Charles, Illinois. The Salvation Army arrived on scene at 6AM and prepared to serve breakfast. Disaster workers served drinks and snacks from the FedEx canteen to search and rescue team volunteers and staff. Fortunately, the missing elderly individual was found safe around 7:30AM and breakfast was not needed.Power Outages Due to Storm in Virginia: The Salvation Army Potomac Division responded to a large storm in Danville, Virginia that left many families without power on September 13th. Disaster workers provided roving feeding to affected individuals throughout the community.HOMELESS FEEDING AND OUTREACH:Georgia Mobile Feeding: This past quarter, Salvation Army Georgia Division used their FedEx canteen to serve low-income communities. The Division has established relationships with Gwinnett County Police Department, Gwinnett County Health Department, Gwinnett County School District, and other local non-profits to bring an array of services to those who are not able to travel to receive these services.In the 3rd quarter, over 950 meals and 1,000 drinks were served to community members. The Salvation Army Georgia Division partnered with the Gwinnett County Gangs Division to provide meals, drinks, and snacks in low-income areas that have a high amount of crime. Due to the positive relationship Gwinnett County Police Department has with the community, The Salvation Army was able to go into areas that otherwise might not be safe. The Salvation Army discovered that there were school-aged children that were not attending school due to not having the vaccinations that are required to attend public school. The Salvation Army is currently working with the Health Department to send their mobile clinic out with The Salvation Army, FedEx canteen so that the children will have the opportunity to receive the vaccinations required by the Georgia Public School System which will allow them to enroll in school while receiving meals and snacks.Another notable community feeding event was when The Salvation Army went to an apartment complex that houses only single mothers. While meals were being served from the FedEx canteen the staff, volunteers, and officers learned that many of the single mother's struggle to get the proper car seats for their children. The Division plans to partner with Gwinnett County Fire Department. The next time the team goes to this location the fire fighters will be coming with them to speak with the mothers about the car seat replacement program.Finally, The Salvation Army Georgia Division partnered with another nonprofit that feeds children during the summer break from school. The funding from the program only allows them to give food to children, which leaves many other family members without meals. The Salvation Army provided meals alongside this nonprofit during the 4th of July weekend to families of the children enrolled in the nonprofit program.Memphis Neighborhood Feeding Program: The Salvation Army Kentucky & Tennessee Division took out the FedEx canteen every Wednesday to provide lunch and water to an underserved neighborhood near The Salvation Army's Purdue Center of Hope. This quarter, 400 meals, drinks, and snacks were served to community members.New Orleans Canteen Ministry: In New Orleans, Louisiana, beginning in September the FedEx canteen was taken out every Wednesday this quarter. Disaster workers served meals and drinks to those experiencing homelessness living under various bridges in the city. In total, 300 meals and drinks were served.Trenton Mobile Feeding Program: A team of volunteers from the Trenton Corps in New Jers PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 15:36:07 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 524 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has announced that it will begin the fourth release of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) into the Pacific Ocean, scheduled to begin in late February 2024. According to GreeNewclear, an organization promoting sustainable nuclear energy, this milestone marks another step forward in the meticulous management of radioactive substances following the 2011 disaster.In line with previous releases, approximately 7,800 tons of treated water will be discharged into the ocean via an undersea tunnel, following stringent dilution protocols with seawater.Since August 2023, Japan has discharged three batches totaling 23,400 cubic meters of treated water, reflecting the effectiveness of the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) in mitigating radioactive contamination, with continuous monitoring showing the tritium levels in the water in the vicinity of the FNDPP to remain below the international safety threshold.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Task Force, entrusted with ensuring the adherence of Japan's discharge plans to international safety standards, released its comprehensive report on the 30th of January 2024. Reaffirming previous findings, the Task Force concluded that the discharge aligns with rigorous safety standards and poses negligible radiological risks to both humans and the environment.The IAEA Task Force, comprising experts from 11 countries, including China, South Korea and Russia, conducted a thorough review of facilities, equipment, and regulatory frameworks during their mission in October 2023. Their observations highlighted Japan's robust regulatory infrastructure, providing confidence in the safety and efficacy of the disposal process.Furthermore, ongoing corroboration of measurement data by the IAEA reinforces confidence in Japan's precise monitoring. The interlaboratory comparisons conducted by the IAEA demonstrate the accuracy and reliability of Japan's monitoring efforts.Despite growing confidence in the ALPS process, two notable safety incidents have highlighted the risks associated with decommissioning the FDNPP. In October 2023 four FDNPP workers were splashed with water containing radioactive materials, when a hose detached accidentally. The workers were promptly sent to hospital for testing, where they remained for around two weeks for further monitoring, while in stable condition. More recently, approximately six tons of waste material (not associated with the ALPS release process) leaked from a treatment machine, contaminating soil in the vicinity. TEPCO reported that they had promptly contained the leak, with no contamination spreading outside the FDNPP perimeters. Furthermore, testing showed that radiation levels returned to pre-leak levels once the contaminated soil was removed from the vicinity. While the effects of these incidents were ultimately mitigated, they underscore the sensitive nature of TEPCO's mission.That said, the decision to continue with the fourth release of Fukushima treated water considering the recent event suggests that confidence in the process remains high, signifying the ongoing success of the collaborative effort towards addressing one of the most complex challenges in nuclear accident remediation. The Japanese government and Tepco's commitment to transparency, rigorous safety standards, and international cooperation sets a precedent for responsible management of nuclear aftermath worldwide.As Japan progresses through its planned discharge over the next 30 years, the focus remains on continuous improvement, optimization of safety measures, enhanced operational experience and quick mitigation of safety events.Media Contact: Rosemarie PanagakouGreeNewclear info@ greenewclear.comwww.greenewclear.com SOURCE: GreeNewclear PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 17:17:47 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 552 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Hagens Berman urges GrafTech International Ltd. (NYSE:EAF) investors who suffered substantial losses to submit your losses now.Class Period: Feb. 8, 2019 - Aug. 3, 2023Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Mar. 25, 2024Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/EAF Contact An Attorney Now: EAF@ hbsslaw.com 844-916-0895GrafTech International Ltd. (NYSE: EAF) Securities Fraud Class Action:GrafTech continues to feel the residual impact of the temporary suspension of operations in its Monterrey, Mexico facility that began near the end of the third quarter 2022. On Feb. 14, 2024, GrafTech released its financial results for 2023, reporting a net loss of $255 million. Timothy Flanagan, GrafTech's interim CEO, cited the temporary suspension of operations in Mexico as one of the reasons why 2023 results fell short of expectations.The disclosure comes on the heels of a securities class action complaint alleging GrafTech misrepresented and concealed that its Monterrey facility was not in compliance with applicable environmental laws and regulations. Instead, the lawsuit alleges the Monterrey facility had for decades chronically contaminated neighboring communities with harmful carcinogenic gasses and particulate matter.The complaint also alleges that Defendants omitted to disclose that GrafTech had signed agreements with local authorities committing to improving the environmental performance of the Monterrey facility, but repeatedly failed to honor its commitments.The truth emerged over a series of partial disclosures, beginning first on Sept. 16, 2022, when GrafTech unexpectedly revealed that government regulators shut down the Monterrey facility. Mexican news outlets reported that the shutdown order was made in response to GrafTech's excessive pollution of carcinogenic gasses and particulate into neighboring communities.Then, on Feb. 3, 2023, GrafTech announced disappointing Q4 and FY 2022 financial results and slashed its year-over-year sales outlook for the first half of 2023 by 50% (blaming the Monterrey facility closure) and revealed a significant depletion in its on-hand pin stock inventory.Further, on Apr. 28, 2023, GrafTech announced another disappointing quarter, the company again blamed the closure.Finally, on Aug. 4, 2023, GrafTech reported that it suffered an $8 million net loss during Q2 2023 versus $115 million in net income in Q2 2022. The company again blamed its disastrous results on the closure.If you invested in GrafTech and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that may assist the firm's investigation, submit your losses now If you'd like more information and answers to frequently asked questions about the GrafTech case and our investigation, read more Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding GrafTech should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email EAF@ hbsslaw.com # # #About Hagens Berman Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs' rights complex litigation law firm focusing on corporate accountability through class-action law. The firm is home to a robust securities litigation practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and fraud. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com . Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.Attorney advertising.Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.Contact: Reed Kathrein, 844-916-0895SOURCE: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP Moscow carefully considers all appeals from the "Congress of Deputies of Transnistria". Earlier, the participants of the event allegedly asked Russia for help. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported by the media of the aggressor country with reference to the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Konstantin Zatulin. According to him, consultations with Vladimir Putin will be held beforehand. "The appeal, as soon as it is received, will be considered on its merits. I'm not ready to vouch for the State Duma Council, which will certainly discuss everything in this regard and, of course, will do so in consultation with the president and the Russian Foreign Ministry," he said. In addition, the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed this information. "Protecting the interests of the residents of Transnistria, our compatriots, is one of our priorities. All requests are always carefully considered by the Russian specialized agencies," the Russian ministry said. ADVERTISIMENT As reported by OBOZ.UA, in unrecognized Transnistria (occupied territory of Moldova), the so-called deputies of all levels held a congress on February 28. Russian propaganda announced that they intended to ask for "help" from Russia, and it turned out to be true. As a result, the so-called politicians complained about the "economic blockade" by Moldova and approved a declaration asking the Kremlin for help. On February 22, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Andriy Yusov, stated that the deputies of the unrecognized Transnistria did not plan to address Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at the congress to accept the "republic" into the Russian aggressor state. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 23:00:34 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1058 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 New High-Resolution gravity survey suggests potential to rapidly expand Massive Sulphide Mineralization at current Venda Nova North and South Deposits Multiple additional gravity anomalies identified to potentially add to the Massive Sulphide Ore Bodies near Venda Nova EDM's Option to gain a 15% interest in the Project extended to September 30, 2024 due to upcoming elections and government change TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Ascendant Resources Inc. (TSX:ASND)(OTCQB:ASDRF)(FRA:2D9) ("Ascendant" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of its recent high-resolution gravity survey completed over the Venda Nova North and South Deposits at its Lagoa Salgada VMS Project, in Portugal.Key HighlightsFour new high priority targets identified near existing deposits Highest priority target located below and west of current high-grade North Deposit Second priority target sits above known copper corridor in South Deposit Potential to materially and rapidly expand known mineralization at Venda Nova and enhance value of the results of the recent Feasibility Study New results validate use of technology for additional exploration target generation. Portuguese agency EDM granted extension of its option to September 30, 2024Mark Brennan, Executive Chairman of Ascendant stated, "The results of this most recent high-resolution gravity survey combined with reinterpreted previous IP data have identified two strong drill ready targets that have the potential to add material tonnage and value to the existing mineralization at Venda Nova and potentially enhance the overall economics relative to the recently completed feasibility study. The presence of additional massive sulphide lenses would be congruent with existing deposits on the IPB which typically consist of multiple stacked massive sulphide lenses." He added. "Additionally, in light of upcoming elections in Portugal, and the ensuing change in government, Ascendant and its partner are pleased to grant an extension to EDM for its option on the project. We see EDM, and by extension both the government and communities of Portugal, as integral partners for the development of our project as we aim to build the next producing mine on the Iberian Pyrite Belt. "As per the most recent NI 43-101 Feasibility Study published on July 25, 2023, the existing Primary Massive Sulphides at the Venda Nova North deposit represents 4.4 million tonnes of the total 14.6 million tonne Reserve, but given the high grade nature of this material it contributes significantly to the overall NPV of the project due to the significantly higher NSR value per tonne (US$>100 per tonne) as compared to the average material including the other lithologies. As such, the ability to expand the overall massive sulphide ore content could enhance the overall project economics significantly. The targets have been identified by their gravity signature that closely matches the existing high value, dense massive sulphide orebody we currently have at the Venda Nova North Zone. As a result, the Company is planning a drill program to more fully evaluate this potential in the near future.The high-resolution survey was designed to map the known gravity footprint of the existing Massive Sulphide Resource of Venda Nova at a much higher resolution than previous surveys, and then use the common characteristics to search for additional potential Massive Sulphide lenses within and surrounding the Venda Nova deposit. The results outlined here have identified four high priority exploration targets each with the potential to add additional meaningful tonnage to the existing Primary Massive Sulphide endowment. The results of the survey also validate the targets suggested by previous IP/Res and TDEM surveys. The location of these targets and the high-resolution gravity survey are summarized in Figure 1. below and described in more detail subsequently.Figure 1 - Exploration Targets. Locations of targets is laid over Downward Continuity Bouguer gravity map (Downward Continued 60 m). Blocks from current MRE with densities above 3.5 g/cm3 are shown to highlight zones were the source of the anomalies is known. Target DescriptionsTarget 1: SW North Zone TargetSW of the North Zone the gravity anomaly bulges to the west of the southern half of the North Massive Sulphide ore body. According to the geophysical interpretation, based on upward and downward continuation of the Bouguer Gravity, the high-density mass sits deeper than the known ore deposits. Its center coincides with the projection of a notable volume that has chargeability and resistivity features identical to the known massive sulphides. The Company believes this can be explained geologically by a faulted displaced block of the known ore body or by a new lens occurring in the western limb of the north zone anticline. In both cases the potential massive sulphide source could extend for over 250 m along strike.Target 2 & 3: South Sector West & East FlanksThe gravity anomaly in the Northern part of the South Zone is flanked by two discrete trends, i) The eastern flank is partially explained by two known semi massive Lenses (Pyritic) previously encountered by drilling, but suggests an extension to the north of the known area; and ii) the West Flank is untested and could represent an additional massive sulphide lens in the footwall of the south Zone trend up dip from the Stockwork mineralization. Interestingly, this Gravity anomaly sits above some of the higher-grade Copper and less transpositional mineralization intercepted at depth as part of the previous infill campaign. This may suggest the potential to have a more copper rich massive sulphide lens in this area.Target 4: Anomaly DeltaThe fourth gravity anomaly corresponds to a previously announced IP anomaly, Anomaly Delta. However, the new gravity data locate the target a few hundred meters to the north of previous drilling.Detailed Gravity SurveyThe survey was conducted between January and February of this year by McKeown Exploration Services, using a Scintrex CG-6 gravimeter and a Trimble real-time Differential GPS. It consisted of 788 unique gravity stations spaced at a nominal 25 and 50m station spacing on an inclined grid with an azimuth of 66.3/246.3 true, with lines nominally spaced 100m and 200m apart. In areas of interest, e.g., the profiles across the known North Zone VMS deposit, the station spacing was tightened to 25m separation in order to permit detailing of the gravitational variation across the known mineralization. A 25m station spacing can define the local profiles well enough to permit downward continuation filtering of the data, to sharpen the resolution of targets deeper than the base of the Tertiary cover. Data analysis was conducted by Intelligent Exploration.Figure 2 - Surv PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 16:07:37 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 951 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 MAGIC celebrates 90th anniversary at the Las Vegas edition alongside launch of MMGNET GroupLAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 /MAGIC, PROJECT and SOURCING at MAGIC Las Vegas successfully concluded its bi-annual event which brought together distinguished business leaders and celebrity guest speakers, thousands of brands, exhibiting companies and retailers for three days of community experiences and insightful conversations for the fashion industry at MMGNET Group's tentpole Spring event.MAGIC brought over 700 prominent and emerging brands to Las Vegas with 170 of them, 25 percent, being new to show. Brands showcased Fall/Winter 2024 collections to retailers ranging from single specialty boutiques to big box department and chain stores, with Bloomingdales, Fred Segal, Hemline, Urban Outfitters and Boot Barn among select retailers in attendance. Trends on display at MAGIC ranged from cosmic glam, with metallic finishes and glittering details, to hyper-femininity and balletic adornment to recovered craft, including patchwork and denim as earthy hues took center stage. This year, MAGIC hosted the return of Kids at MAGIC, featuring brands such as Chaser Kids, Angel Dear and InCity Boys and Girls.Highlights from day one on the show floor include MAGIC's 90th anniversary opening night party hosted by multi-hyphenate Curtis 50 Cent' Jackson, and a surprise meet and greet with D'Amelio Footwear founders and social media stars Dixie D'Amelio and Charli D'Amelio. PROJECT's NOW Forum hosted a panel moderated by Anthony Mastracci, Senior Commerce Editor at Men's Journal with Buffalo Bills defensive ends Kingsley Jonathan and Shaq Lawson, Cleveland Browns linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Keion White, defensive end for the New England Patriots, on the players' relationships with fashion and creative inspiration.PROJECT Las Vegas showcased over 500 top contemporary men's and women's brands, with Outerknown, Pendleton and 7 For All Mankind in the lineup of distinguished brands. 17 percent of brands at PROJECT were international, with Canada, France and Turkiye among the top countries represented. Leading retailers in attendance were Voo Berlin, American Rag, DTLR, Hibbett and Nordstrom. MAGIC Mens was also housed next to PROJECT Mens on the show floor, highlighting over 230 men's trend and young contemporary brands, including Barabas and new to show Johnny Q."Recognizing the decades of impact these shows have established in our ecosystem, we are marking the beginning of a new era as we implement MMGNET's identity into our program and vision for how these events are experienced in the future. We are here to take this journey to serve as the most trusted voice and resource to our fashion community," explains Kelly Helfman, President, MMGNET. "This is the start of a massive shift to evolve into a fashion ecosystem." Important conversations across all shows on responsible fashion, sustainability and community building were hosted, offering valuable guidance for fashion professionals across all stages of the business. MMGNET also presented findings from fashion consumer research at each show, offeringkey insights into 2024 purchasing habitsto inform buying and investment decisions.SOURCING at MAGIC, the premier destination for businesses, brands, and sourcing professionals to collaborate, featured over 800 manufacturers and service providers from over 40 countries, with fashion technology and sustainability taking a front seat across education and experiences. SOURCING at MAGIC hosted 25 verified sustainable exhibitors, including garment manufacturers based in Mexico, Peru, Pakistan and Turkiye, among other countries. Nike, Kith, Stussy and Jockey were among key attendees at SOURCING at MAGIC.Next stop is MAGIC Nashville April 3-4, 2024, at the Music City Center. For more information and to register to attend, please visitmagicfashionevents.com About MAGICMAGIC is a high-energy fashion experience and home to the industry's largest selection of trend-driven and young contemporary apparel, footwear, and accessories. Fusing scale with curation to drive commerce, creativity, and connections, MAGIC joins a global audience of retail buyers - from big-box to boutique - with influencers, media, and industry thought leaders. More than just events, MAGIC is a deeply rooted community, and a place brands and retailers call home. For more information, please visitwww.magicfashionevents.com About PROJECT LAS VEGASPROJECT LAS VEGAS represents what's new, now, and next in men's and women's contemporary apparel, footwear and accessories, PROJECT Las Vegas is where domestic and international buyers go to be inspired by higher-end brands, find products from culturally relevant mid-market labels and connect with like-minded industry thought leaders and fashion insiders. Through a fusion of community, education, media, and experiences, PROJECT Las Vegas propels the next season's top trends, generates global awareness, and ultimately, drives commerce. For more information, please visit www.projectfashionevents.com About SOURCING at MAGICSOURCING at MAGIC allows fashion businesses, brands and sourcing professionals to connect and collaborate with a community of global manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers. With a strong presence among international exhibitors and attendees and deep domestic connections, SOURCING at MAGIC is a global community. With a forward-thinking approach and commitment to the evolution of the global apparel supply chain, SOURCING at MAGIC consistently provides access to emerging fashion technology, solutions, sustainable resources, educational content, networking, and extended visibility into the industry's most critical global issues. For more information, please visitwww.sourcingatmagic.com About MMGNETMMGNET is fashion's newest B2B ecosystem and the go-to industry resource, where industry professionals go to source the inspiration, connections, and opportunities they need to build business, network, and responsibly steward fashion forward. Through its extensive global reach, decades of unwavering industry expertise, world-class content programs, and a comprehensive portfolio of trade and industry event brands - including MAGIC, PROJECT, COTERIE, and SOURCING at MAGIC - MMGNET delivers year-round opportunities to learn, grow, connect, and discover. MMGNET Group is a subsidiary of Informa Markets (LON:INF). To learn more about MMGNET and the MMGNET Group portfolio of brands, please visit www.mmgnetgroup.com Media Contact: Fashionpr@ informa.com SOURCE: MMGNET Group PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 14:46:27 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 1030 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / The Mastercard Center for Inclusive GrowthBY LAXITA GAUTAMThe Mastercard Center for Inclusive GrowthWhen private chef LaToya Larkin told her son that she was going to make tamales with leftover collard greens from a Mother's Day brunch, he seemed skeptical.His exact words? "Mama, you trippin'," Larkin recalls with a laugh. "That sounds weird. We need to just stick to chicken and pork and keep doing what we do." But he fell in love with this unique fusion tamale the moment he tried it, as did Larkin's clients (after they gave her what she terms "the crazy look").Tamales are an iconic dish native to Mexico and Central America - chile-spiced pork, chicken or beef wrapped in masa and steamed in corn husks. Larkin, who specializes in soul food, got to work, experimenting with fillings and flavorings that mix south of the border with the American South and the Caribbean. In addition to her best-selling collard-greens-and-smoked-turkey tamales, oxtail, red beans and rice, creole sausage, curry chicken, and jambalaya tamales are among the offerings at what she branded Black Girl Tamales in 2019.As a Black woman, Larkin is part of the fastest-growing demographic of entrepreneurs, but one that faces significant headwinds - they are less likely to have access to outside capital and are more likely to start businesses in already crowded sectors with low margins, like the restaurant industry. That's why Larkin is taking advantage of Strive USA, an innovative set of programs, led by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, designed to provide entrepreneurs with tools and resources to get capital, go digital and grow their networks.Larkin, a formally trained chef, former culinary instructor at Houston's Spring Independent School District - where she was the first Black chef to lead the district's culinary program - and the owner of a private chef business, Not Enough Thyme, learned the art of tamale making from her grandmother, whose first husband had been stationed in California in the 1960s. Her grandmother had been introduced to tamales by a Mexican friend, and after her marriage ended and she returned to Texas, she started making tamales as a side hustle, passing the art to Larkin's mother, and then eventually to young Larkin.Tamales, which may date back as far as 10,000 years, have immense historical and cultural significance. In earlier times, they were even treated as offerings to gods. Today, generations of families will gather, often at Christmas, for tamaladas, or tamale-making parties.Larkin's soul food tamales caused a disruption in the world of traditional tamale offerings: "Nobody is doing what I'm doing," she says. But building Black Girl Tamales has been challenging, from managing through a break-in to fending off remarks about cultural appropriation. "I get the little comments like Stick to your own food,' 'Do your own thing,' or If it's not broke, don't fix it.'" But Larkin views her soul food tamales as innovation - combining two storied cuisines to create something new. And plenty of foodies on the lookout for daring flavors are on board - a 2020 feature in Cuisine Noir, a publication focused on connecting the African diaspora through food, drink and travel, resulted in orders pouring in from across the country.Still, it took two years for Larkin to gain enough confidence in the business to leave her day job as a culinary educator, and even after she put in her notice, she had her doubts. "I'm gonna get five more checks, and after that it's dollar for dollar all on me," Larkin recalls. "I had a meltdown." She found inspiration in, of all things, a webinar led by a woman who made thousands of dollars a month teaching people about copper deficiency in goats. She surveyed her fellow teachers in her school and discovered that 19 out of 20 didn't know a thing about copper deficiency in goats. "If this woman is out there making this kind of money teaching something that nobody has a clue about," she laughs, "I know I'm gonna be OK with food." Gaining this confidence and believing in herself helped build the foundation of her now-thriving business. "A lot of people don't really believe in themselves. They don't take the chance and bet on themselves." Larkin plans to transform her tamale business with major retail placement and commercial food services for restaurants, hospitals and more. She's in the process of pivoting her business model from retail and direct-to-consumer e-commerce to wholesale, and already has a partnership venture in the works with a major U.S. retailer. She also recently received a wine sommelier certification through the McBride Sisters She Can Fund scholarship program, and plans to expand the business with more events, including wine dinners with special tamale pairings, wine and cheese events and more.For entrepreneurs, education never ends. Larkin recently took part in a 24-week training program combining Mastercard's Digital Doors curriculum, which focuses on enhancing and securing digital operations, and Our Village United's Elevated entrepreneurship effort, part of BeyGood's Black Parade Route initiative for small-business owners. Elevated combines operations, marketing, sales and fundraising fundamentals with wellness support to navigate the emotional challenges of business ownership.And recently, Black Girl Tamales was chosen from among hundreds of small businesses in the U.S. as a winner of a Mastercard Priceless Surprise - which included a social-media-ready VIP photo and video shoot to boost her marketing.To be a small Black-woman-owned business in today's world is to be part of a movement, Larkin says. "I'm answering my calling and I'm serving my purpose," she says. "I love every minute of it." Photos credit: Enobong Houston/Arts Houston PhotographyOriginally published by The Mastercard Center for Inclusive GrowthCheck out more content from The Mastercard Center for Inclusive GrowthView additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth on 3 blmedia.com Contact Info: Spokesperson: The Mastercard Center for Inclusive GrowthWebsite: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/mastercard-center-inclusive-growth Email: info@3 blmedia.com SOURCE: The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 21:31:55 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 467 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 BOULDER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Maxima Financial LLC, a premier investment firm specializing in a wide array of investment services, announces its commitment to delivering exceptional returns and value to its clients across various sectors. With a comprehensive suite of investment options including Real Estate, Stocks Trading, Health Care, Forex Trading, Cryptocurrency Trading, Asset Management, Corporate Finance, and Crowd Finance, Maxima Financial is poised to cater to the diverse needs of investors worldwide.As the global economy evolves and markets become increasingly interconnected, Maxima Financial remains at the forefront of innovation, continuously adapting its strategies to seize emerging opportunities and mitigate risks effectively. By leveraging cutting-edge technology and a team of seasoned professionals, the firm ensures that its clients receive the highest level of service and expertise, empowering them to achieve their financial goals with confidence."At Maxima Financial, we are dedicated to providing our clients with unparalleled access to a wide range of investment opportunities," said James Smith, Founder of Maxima Financial, LLC. "Our commitment to excellence, integrity, and innovation drives us to continually explore new avenues for growth and deliver superior results for our clients." Maxima Financial's diverse investment offerings provide clients with the flexibility to tailor their portfolios according to their individual preferences, risk tolerance, and investment objectives. Whether seeking long-term growth, income generation, or capital preservation, clients can rely on Maxima Financial's expertise to navigate the complexities of the financial markets and maximize returns.With a track record of success and a reputation for transparency and reliability, Maxima Financial has established itself as a trusted partner for investors seeking superior investment solutions. By combining deep industry knowledge with a client-centric approach, the firm delivers customized investment strategies that align with each client's unique needs and preferences.In an ever-changing financial landscape, Maxima Financial remains steadfast in its commitment to excellence, innovation, and client satisfaction. As the investment landscape continues to evolve, Maxima Financial stands ready to empower its clients with the tools, insights, and resources they need to succeed in today's dynamic markets.For more information about Maxima Financial and its investment services, please visit our website, www.MaximaFinancial.com About Maxima Financial:Maxima Financial is a leading investment firm registered and licensed in USA as Maxima Financial LLC, UK as Maxima Financial LTD and Canada as Maxima Financial INC. We offer a comprehensive range of investment services including Real Estate, Stocks Trading, Health Care, Forex Trading, Cryptocurrency Trading, Asset Management, Corporate Finance, and Crowd Finance. With a commitment to excellence, integrity, and innovation, Maxima Financial strives to deliver exceptional results and value to its clients worldwide.Media Contact:Company Name: Maxima Financial (LLC, LTD, INC)Contact Person: James SmithContact Number: +1 904 326 0703Address: 1942 Broadway Ste 314CBoulder CO 80302, USEmail:support@ maximafinancial.comCompany's Website: https://maximafinancial.com SOURCE: Maxima Financial (LLC, LTD, INC) PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 17:51:29 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 483 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 HAGENS BERMAN, NATIONAL TRIAL ATTORNEYS, Encourages Investors with $250k+ Losses to Contact Firm's Attorneys Investigating Possible Securities Law ViolationsSAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Hagens Berman urges Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) investors who suffered losses in excess of $250,000 to submit your losses now.Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/snap Contact An Attorney Now: SNAP@ hbsslaw.com 844-916-0895Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) Investigation:"We're focused on investors' losses and whether Snap may have misled investors about its ability to capture increased ad spending," said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the firm's investigation.On Feb. 6, 2024, one day after announcing it would reduce its job force by 10%, Snap reported disappointing Q4 and FY 2023 financial results and disappointing guidance for its March quarter, again unable to prove that it can be profitable on a GAAP basis. Quarterly revenues came in at about $1.36 billion, just a 5% year-over-year increase and missing analysts' consensus. While the company said that its daily active user base grew 10% year-over-year to 414 million, that rate decelerated from prior quarters.The financial press observed that Snap continued to struggle in the ad market, unlike its larger peers, which could show that advertisers may be giving up on Snapchat. One analyst reportedly observed "Snap has failed to show the market its ability to capitalize on resilient ad spending across different parts of the economy.'" This news drove the price of Snap shares crashing as much as $6.21 lower, or down about 35%, during intraday trading on Feb. 7, 2024, wiping out over $8 billion in shareholder value. The news was also accompanied by several analysts' price target cuts.If you are a Snapinvestor who suffered losses in excess of $250,000, or have knowledge that may assist the firm's investigation, Hagens Berman encourages you to submit your losses now If you'd like more information and answers to frequently asked questions about the Snap investigation, read more Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Snap should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email SNAP@ hbsslaw.com # # #About Hagens Berman Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs' rights complex litigation law firm focusing on corporate accountability through class-action law. The firm is home to a robust securities litigation practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and fraud. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com . Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.Attorney advertising.Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.Contact:Reed Kathrein, 844-916-0895SOURCE: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 08:50:21 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 999 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 BISHOPSGATE, UK / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / SolGold (LSE:SOLG)(TSX:SOLG) ("SolGold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Jian (John) Liu and Mr. Charles Joseland to its Board of Directors.Mr. Jian (John) Liu brings over 30 years of private investment advisory experience to the SolGold board, with a diverse background spanning multiple sectors, including mining, energy, technology, consumer, and healthcare. He previously worked as a partner at Valuestone Advisors for mining investments, as an advisor at Jiangxi Copper Corp for its overseas M&A projects, as a partner at Greenwoods PE Funds, as a director at Mousse Partners and Actis, and as an associate at Merrill Lynch Direct Investment Group. His experience includes assisting portfolio companies in strategy formation, fundraising, investing and corporate governance. Mr. Liu's academic credentials include an MBA from the University of British Columbia in Canada and a B.Sc. in computer science and engineering from Shanghai Jiaotong University in Shanghai, China, underscore his exceptional qualifications and expertise.Mr. Charles Joseland joins SolGold's board as a highly experienced finance professional with a career focused on the mining, utilities, and energy sectors. With 32 years at PwC and as an audit partner working on large listed international groups, Mr. Joseland brings a wealth of knowledge in financial oversight, governance, and risk management. His extensive career includes working in Spain and the Former Soviet Union and advising many organisations in Africa and North & South America. He currently serves as an independent non-executive director at Kodal Minerals Plc and holds key advisory roles at Southern Housing and Saddle Skedaddle. Mr. Joseland's experience, pragmatic approach and commitment to integrity and teamwork will enhance SolGold's corporate governance practices and strategic decision-making processes.SolGold's CEO and President of SolGold Ecuador, Scott Caldwell, commented,"We are excited to welcome Mr. Liu and Mr. Joseland to SolGold's Board of Directors. Their wealth of experience and proven leadership in finance, investment advisory, and corporate governance will be instrumental as we pursue our objectives. Both individuals bring unique perspectives and valuable insights that align with SolGold's commitment to excellence and responsible mining practices. We look forward to their contributions as we navigate the dynamic landscape of the mining industry." With the addition of Mr. Jian (John) Liu and Mr. Charles Joseland, SolGold reinforces its dedication to assembling a diverse and talented board capable of driving sustainable value creation for all stakeholders.CONTACTSScott CaldwellSolGold Plc (CEO)Tel: +44 (0) 20 3807 6996Tavistock (Media)Jos Simson/Gareth TredwayTel: +44 (0) 20 7920 3150ABOUT SOLGOLDSolGold is a leading resources company focused on the discovery, definition and development of world-class copper and gold deposits and continues to strive to deliver objectives efficiently and in the interests of shareholders.The Company operates with transparency and in accordance with international best practices. SolGold is committed to delivering value to its shareholders while simultaneously providing economic and social benefits to impacted communities, fostering a healthy and safe workplace, and minimizing environmental impact.SolGold is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange (LSE/TSX: SOLG). Seewww.solgold.com.aufor more information. Follow us on X @SolGold_plcCAUTIONARY NOTICENews releases, presentations and public commentary made by SolGold plc (the "Company") and its Officers may contain certain statements and expressions of belief, expectation or opinion which are forward-looking statements, and which relate, inter alia, to interpretations of exploration results to date and the Company's proposed strategy, plans and objectives or to the expectations or intentions of the Company's Directors, including the plan for developing the Project currently being studied as well as the expectations of the Company as to the forward price of copper. Such forward-looking and interpretative statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors beyond the control of the Company that could cause the actual performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from such interpretations and forward-looking statements.Accordingly, the reader should not rely on any interpretations or forward-looking statements, and save as required by the exchange rules of the TSX and LSE or by applicable laws, the Company does not accept any obligation to disseminate any updates or revisions to such interpretations or forward-looking statements. The Company may reinterpret results to date as the status of its assets and projects changes with time expenditure, metals prices and other affecting circumstances.This release may contain "forwardlooking information". Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding the Company's plans for developing its properties. Generally, forwardlooking 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".Forwardlooking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forwardlooking information, including but not limited to: transaction risks; general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; future prices of mineral prices; accidents, labour disputes and shortages and other risks of the mining industry. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to diff PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 15:01:17 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 860 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Nanoloy's plasma manufacturing platform enables the manufacture of any current and yet-to-be-discovered battery super-materials with a reduced environmental impact. Rio Tinto becomes a joint development partner.NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Nanoloy B.V. ("Nanoloy"), a plasma-printed super-materials manufacturing company, has announced today its new partnership with the Chair of Production Engineering of E-Mobility Components (PEM), of RWTH Aachen University and engineering service provider PEM Motion GmbH, to develop innovative production technologies for producing category-leading batteries. Under the partnership, PEM will assist Nanoloy in the design and manufacture of electrodes using existing and new cell chemistries to bring batteries with unprecedented performance characteristics to the market.Nanoloy BV Nanoloy logoThis marks Nanoloy's second collaboration with PEM. During the initial collaboration in Q3 of 2023, the collaboration achieved successful production and promising test results of high-performance anodes with 50 percent silicon content. This second partnership showcases the potential of Nanoloy's plasma-printed production technology to enhance battery performance and efficiency by eliminating the need for binders and toxic solvents in battery manufacturing.Nanoloy's value proposition lies in three main areas: a) a broader choice of cell chemistry and new material combinations, allowing for higher performance & stability, b) lower material and operating costs given the speed and accuracy of the plasma printing process, and c) lower capital costs due to the simplification or elimination of several current battery manufacturing processes.This collaboration represents a new AI-enhanced research concept that improves both new and existing cell chemistries while making the battery manufacturing process non-toxic. It will help scale Nanoloy's capacity to manufacture an entirely new class of anodes and cathodes for batteries."AI and Large Language Models (LLM) have been proven to discover new and exciting alloys with improved electrochemical properties. In fact, these new cell chemistries are unlikely to be manufacturable with existing production technologies. Nanoloy's plasma printer introduces a new dimension to the manufacturability and cost of production for current and future battery innovations," says co-founder and CTO, Krishna Tekriwal.Nanoloy also entered into a joint development agreement with global mining and metals company Rio Tinto to work together on multiple product initiatives including borates, aluminum and iron powder. Borates already provide many benefits to lithium-ion batteries as additives in cathode materials. Using Nanoloy's technology, the potential of borate-based anode materials is being investigated, broadening the possibility of borate applications in other battery components.Nanoloy's technology consists of a proven industrial-scale plasma printer, recalibrated for the mass production of battery electrodes and components. Initial joint development partners include Rio Tinto, Alkegen, Broadbit Batteries, Foresite Inc., PEM Motion GmbH and now PEM RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Additional academic and industrial partnerships are under negotiation."Together with our development partners, we are pushing the boundaries of battery production technologies, enabling the development of cheaper, better, safer, and more environmentally friendly battery electrodes," says Nanoloy CEO, Alex Koszo.Koszo added, "We are excited about the future prospects of this collaboration with PEM and the impact it will have on the battery industry. We have reached out to a number of industry-leading AI and technology companies to work with us on our initiatives and received a positive response. By combining the use of AI and Nanoloy's expertise in plasma printing, with the in-depth electrochemistry experience/research capabilities of PEM RWTH Aachen University and the engineering prowess of PEM Motion, we can accelerate the completion of our silicon anode development and bring cheaper, better, safer and more environmentally conscious battery solutions to market faster than anyone has ever done before." External Quotes"Cross-sectional analysis of the Nanoloy 95% graphene and 5% PVDF (polymer) on the aluminium foil shows the carbon bond directly to the aluminium oxide layer forming strong mechanical bond to the base substrate. The carbon and polymer are present in a tightly bonded structure." Terry Munson, CEO, Foresite Inc. USA"For most practical applications, this LMFP cathode works close to its theoretical limit. We attribute this good performance to the high quality of the LMFP material, the low interfacial resistance of Nanoloy's graphene coating layer and the low binder content of the dry processed cathode." Andras Kovacs, CTO, BroadBit Batteries OY, Finland"Our joint development program with Nanoloy presents a remarkable opportunity for groundbreaking active material innovations and an enhanced scope for our wide range of high-purity battery raw materials." Philippe Bourdages, Vice President Sales, Minerals, Rio Tinto"The technology of Nanoloy's plasma coating process has a great potential in the field of battery production and can be an enabler for future cell technologies. Our joint goals for batteries produced over the next three years are to increase service life by 33% and energy density by 50% while improving safety and reducing production costs by 40%."Professor Achim Kampker, Chairman PEM Motion GmbH Germany / Director of PEM RWTH Aachen University.For more information, please visit https://www.nanoloy.com ###Media Contact:Melissa SheerKent Place Communications melissa@ kentplacellc.com +1 917-690-2199Business Contact: Alex Koszo Nanoloy B.V. alex.k@nanoloy.com +61 412 731741Contact InformationMelissa Sheermelissa@ kentplacellc.com 917-690-2199Alex Koszoalex.k@nanoloy.com +61 412 731741SOURCE: Nanoloy B.V.View the original press release on newswire.com PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 14:32:07 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 883 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Ubique Minerals Limited ("Ubique" or the "Company") (CSE:UBQ)(FRA:2UM) is pleased to announce that it has completed the geochemical surveys at its Daniel's Harbour zinc project and identified high zinc in soil anomalies in the enlarged property area.A contractor was retained in fall 2023 to undertake more geochemical surveys in areas previously unsurveyed and to link up with existing surveyed areas where anomalies are open ended. The geology has now been compiled into an integrated map of the whole property highlighting the features known to be associated with the zinc deposits to locate the most favorable target areas for new zinc deposits that either occur at surface or at very shallow depths such that open pit mining would be practical.The attached maps show the excellent location of this property with a paved road right onto the property and gravel roads giving good access to the rest of the property and the areas where soil anomalies have been identified. The first map also shows the locations of the second and third maps as well as two of the zinc deposits which Ubique has discovered and been drill defining. The Nose Zone at the southwest end of the geological trend is at a depth of more than 100 metres, while the P Zone is only 50 metres below surface as the hosting geology approaches surface. The areas of Maps 2 and 3 where most of the anomalies have been located are where the hosting geology is closest to surface.The highest soil zinc values encountered in the survey reached almost 10,000 parts per million or 1% zinc. Cadmium and to a lesser extent lead values in soil are also elevated anomalously. Several of the areas which are contoured dark blue reflect areas where samples could not be collected due to the existence of bogs or ponds and therefore may be biasing the zinc contours distribution. Several of the anomalies have surface extents of several hundred metres which would be comparable with surface extents of historically mined out deposits from the period of prior mining. Lack of surface outcroppings prevents determination of whether the anomalies reflect bedrock zinc occurrences or boulders of zinc mineralized rock dragged down ice by glacial movement.Vilhjalmur Thor Vilhjalmsson CEO and Chairman commented "We are encouraged by these results and must follow up to explain the sources of the anomalies as well as expanding the coverage of the surveys to close off each of the anomalies. It indicates that the zinc deposits could potentially extend all along the length of the property area"Area 1 as located on first mapArea 2 as located on first map.About Daniel's Harbour projectThe Daniel's Harbour properties of Ubique cover both the area of the past producing high grade zinc mine and extensions of favorable area, mostly to the north-northeast along strike for more than ten kilometers. Exploration drilling to date has confirmed three zinc deposits and has indications of two more which require additional definition drilling to define their extents. Several more zones identified by one or more historic drill holes require relocating and further drilling to confirm. As the deposits are long, narrow and flat lying-in shape and orientation, within flat lying dolomitic sedimentary rocks they may extend across more than one blocks of claims and therefore the ability to consolidate the property position will assist in exploration execution.On behalf of the board of directors,Vilhjalmur Thor Vilhjalmsson CEO and ChairmanAbout Ubique Minerals LimitedUbique Minerals Limited is an exploration company listed on the CSE (CSE:UBQ) focused on exploration of its Daniel's Harbour zinc property in Newfoundland and is also engaged in exploration in Namibia, Africa along with actively searching for other projects around the world. Ubique became a publicly listed company in September 2018. Ubique has an experienced management group with a record of multiple discoveries of deposits worldwide and owns an extensive and exclusive database of historic exploration results from the Daniel's Harbour area.Dr. Gerald Harper, P. Geo.(NL) , director of Ubique, is the qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 responsible for the technical data presented herein and has reviewed and approved this release.For more information on Ubique please contact see www.ubiqueminerals.com or contact vilhjalmur@ jvcapital.co.uk Forward-Looking Information: This press release may include forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, concerning the business and trading in the common stock of Ubique Minerals Limited., the raising of additional capital and the future development of the business. The forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by the company's management. Although the company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because Ubique can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and Ubique 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.Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.SOURCE: Ubique Minerals Limited PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 18:09:46 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 503 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Hagens Berman, National Trial Attorneys, Encourages CMI Investors with Substantial Losses to Contact FirmSAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Hagens Berman urges Cummins Inc. (NYSE:CMI) investors who suffered substantial losses to submit your losses now.Class Period: Apr. 30, 2019 - Dec. 21, 2023Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Mar. 15, 2024Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/cmi Contact An Attorney Now: CMI@ hbsslaw.com 844-916-0895Cummins Inc. (CMI) Securities Fraud Class Action:In a report to clients, analysts at UBS recently commented on Cummins' agreement to pay a $1.675 billion fine for installing devices on hundreds of thousands of engines to allow them to emit excess pollution, the largest-ever civil penalty for a Clean Air Act violation.UBS remarked that "the settlement is bigger than we were expecting," noting that it "equates to ~5.8% of [Cummins'] current market cap." UBS emphasized the "cash drag" the settlement presents, stating that "payment /charge are not tax deductible and there is no insurance to reduce the amount CMI has to pay out," and that "CMI might do some short term borrowing to finance a part of it." In addition to negative analyst sentiment, Cummins also faces a recently filed securities fraud class action stemming from the EPA/Carb settlement.The complaint there alleges Cummins misrepresented and concealed that: (1) contrary to its post-April 2019 assurances about its commitment to compliance, Cummins continued to produce engines utilizing undisclosed engine control software features from 2019 to 2023; and (2) accordingly, the company understated its legal and regulatory risks."We are investigating whether Cummins intentionally made false statements concerning its public health and regulatory compliance," said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the firm's investigation. "We are also investigating when the directors knew of the continued non-compliance." If you invested in Cummins and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that may assist the firm's investigation, submit your losses now If you'd like more information and answers to frequently asked questions about the Cummins investigation, read more Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Cummins should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email CMI@ hbsslaw.com # # #About Hagens Berman Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs' rights complex litigation law firm focusing on corporate accountability through class-action law. The firm is home to a robust securities litigation practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and fraud. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com . Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.Attorney advertising.Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.Services may be performed by attorneys in any of our offices.Contact:Reed Kathrein, 844-916-0895SOURCE: Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 15:00:55 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 411 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Westpark Communications is delighted to announce significant promotions within its workforce in 2024, showcasing its unwavering commitment to employee growth and fostering a positive company culture.HOUSTON, TX / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Westpark Communications, a global leader in communications solutions for businesses, is delighted to announce significant promotions within its workforce in 2024, showcasing its unwavering commitment to employee growth and fostering a positive company culture.Company Update: Westpark Communications Promotions From left to right: Josh Patten, President; Monica Butler, HR Manager; Abigail Chapa, HR Generalist; Liz Ramirez, Jr. Accountant; Debbie Young, Operations Supervisor; Kimberly Castaneda, Customer Service Team LeadAccording to Monica Butler, the HR Manager at Westpark Communications, and Josh Patten, President, the company has actively prioritized internal talent development and implemented strategies to enhance the overall employee experience.Employee Success Stories: Westpark Communications proudly celebrates the outstanding achievements of its team members who have recently been promoted, exemplifying the company's dedication to recognizing and nurturing internal talent. The 2024 promotions include:Abigail Chapa: From Administrative Assistant to HR Generalist Lizeth Ramirez: From Accounting Assistant to Junior Accountant Debbie Young: From Agent Team Lead to Operations Supervisor Kimberly Castaneda: From Senior Agent to Customer Service Team LeadMonica Butler, HR Manager at Westpark Communications, expressed her enthusiasm, stating, "At Westpark Communications, we believe in creating a workplace where every team member can thrive. The recent promotions exemplify our dedication to providing a dynamic environment that encourages ambition, growth, and continuous learning." These promotions are a testament to the success of the vibrant culture cultivated within the organization, reflecting the company's commitment to employee development.Josh Patten commented, "Westpark Communications isn't just a company; it's an investment in our employees' future. We get that everyone wants to grow, and we work hard to make sure our employees' career goals and our company objectives align. We believe in fostering a culture where employee success fuels company growth, creating a sustainable and rewarding work experience." 2024 Vision and Future Goals: Looking ahead, Westpark Communications aims to continue its trajectory of success by implementing strategic initiatives that lead to a higher yield of return, increased lead generation, and a continued focus on delivering value to clients.The company invites its stakeholders, clients, and the wider community to join in celebrating these achievements and looks forward to a future marked by innovation, growth, and a thriving company culture.Contact Information Diana MorenoMarketing Managerdmoreno@ westparkcom.net 713-260-5040SOURCE: Westpark CommunicationsView the original press release on newswire.com Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba addressed the governments of European countries. He urged them to start a dialog with their farmers instead of blaming Ukraine for all the problems, which does not agree to be a scapegoat. ADVERTISIMENT Kuleba said this in an interview with the Voice of America."We will not be scapegoats who will tolerate all these groundless attacks. Where it is necessary to act tough, we will act tough. And let them not be offended later that we have shown our character... We will continue to defend our economic interests," Kuleba said. He emphasized that the problem with the protests of European farmers is "very complicated and very simple at the same time." Therefore, Kuleba called on the governments of the "respective countries" to first of all start an "honest conversation" with the protesters, since not only in Poland "they blamed all the responsibility for the problems of farmers on Ukraine." "For some reason, no one is talking about Russian grain entering the European market... For some reason, none of the European farmers are fighting against the grain that is entering the European market in huge volumes. They have been spinning a theme that Ukraine is to blame for everything." This understanding exists at the level of these protesters," Kuleba emphasized. ADVERTISIMENT The Foreign Minister also noted that during his visit to Warsaw he had a "very long and frank" conversation with the Polish side."The governments of Poland and Ukraine are working on a solution, because no one needs this conflict, and there is a sincere desire to avoid any escalation. But there will be additional provocations, we understand that the Russians and their agents will be pumping up this story, so we need to keep a cool head and make decisions quickly," Kuleba said. As OBOZ.UA previously reported, the Polish authorities are ready to completely close the border with Ukraine, according to Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The blockade will apply only to cargo transportation and will not affect passenger transport. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! PR-Inside.com: 2024-02-28 19:00:22 Press Information Published by ACCESSWIRE News Network 888.952.4446 e-mail http://www.accesswire.com # 443 Words ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446 Companies on the 2024 Inc. 5000 Regionals: Northeast List Had an Average Growth Rate of 155.84 PercentHORSHAM, PA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 /Inc. magazine today revealed that dlivrd is ranked No. 16 on its fourth annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Northeast list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing Northeast private companies, based in Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. Born of the annual Inc. 5000 franchise, this regional list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the Northeast economy's most dynamic segment - its independent small businesses."We are thrilled and honored to be featured on the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Northeast list," said Chris Heffernan, founder and CEO of dlivrd. "This recognition is a reflection of the hard work, dedication, and passion of our entire team and platform of thousands of earning partners. We remain committed to dlivr-ing' exceptional service and driving innovation. Our growth is a result of our relentless pursuit of excellence and our unwavering focus on customer satisfaction." dlivrd is a leading last-mile delivery technology company that differentiates itself with a nationwide fleet of independent driver partners, signature driver-to-brand matching algorithms, and unrelenting commitment to reliability and dependability for the brands that partner with the company. dlivrd's growth has been propelled by the ability to hone its algorithm, enabling cutting-edge technology to match independent driver partners and deliveries in a way that ensures optimum service quality, enhances customer satisfaction, and maximizes driver earnings.The companies on this list show a remarkable rate of growth across all industries in the Northeast region. Between 2020 and 2022, these 198 private companies had an average growth rate of 155.84 percent; by 2023, they'd also added 14,560 jobs and $15.7 billion to the region's economy."The honorees in our Inc. 5000 network are the Who's Who of private companies. They're energizing regional economies as they engineer the future of their industries. Learn who they are and what they do - they'll be impacting things for a while," said Eric Hagerman, Special Projects Editor at Inc. Media.MethodologyThe 2024 Inc. 5000 Regionals are ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2020 and 2022. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2020. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent - not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies - as of Dec. 31, 2022. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2020 is $100,000; the minimum for 2022 is $1 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons.Contact InformationAshley CamposChief Strategy Officer, dlivrdashley@ dlivrd.io SOURCE: dlivrdView the original press release on newswire.com The Nigerian government on Tuesday said that the Obiafu/Obrikom/Oben (OB3) gas pipeline will be completed by March 2024. Ekperikpe Ekpo, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the ongoing 7th edition of the Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES 2024) on Tuesday. The ceremony took place at the presidential banquet hall in Abuja. I am pleased to announce that the OB3 pipeline will be completed by March 2024, and the 42 127 km pipeline will supply 2BCF daily, Mr Ekpo said. Upon completion, he said this pipeline will provide the AKK pipeline with gas from the three fields of Obiafu, Obrikom, and Oben. I want to use this opportunity to appreciate the resilience of the NNPCL Group for their steadfastness and proactive approach to ensuring the timely completion of the OB3 pipeline project, Mr Ekpo said. He added that the OB3 gas pipeline is a vital piece of gas infrastructure for the supply of feedstock to the AKK pipeline. OB3 is being built by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. In December 2016, reports said it was 80 per cent completed. The pipeline was initially intended to be completed by the end of 2017 but technical challenges, including horizontal drilling under major rivers, complicated work, according to reports. Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Ekpo explained that the pipeline is among Nigeria and Africas biggest gas transmission systems. Another milestone in our journey towards a gas-focused economy is the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline. I am pleased to report that significant progress has been made in constructing this critical infrastructure project, and we are on track to ensure its completion and commissioning as scheduled, the minister said. He noted that the administration of President Bola Tinubu is fully committed to creating an environment that enables the growth of the gas sector. The administration actively implements policies and regulatory frameworks encouraging investment, promoting innovation, and ensuring sustainability. Energy security extends beyond geopolitical stability to include energy infrastructures resilience, diversity, and reliability. The gas industry, with abundant proven gas reserves of more than 208TCF and further exploration potential, is crucial for enhancing energy security. In the light of the above, Nigeria has no business with energy poverty, he said. He further explained that Nigeria is currently facing challenges as it continues the journey of national development. However, he said these challenges also present a unique opportunity to seize the moment and define the future. Without a doubt, the gas industry plays a crucial role in shaping the countrys energy future. The nation is rich in natural gas reserves. It is now essential to strategically utilise these resources to drive economic development, job creation, poverty eradication and environmental sustainability. As we are all aware, overdependence on oil revenue poses significant economic risks for our nation, he added. He noted that despite efforts to diversify the economy away from oil dependence, Nigeria has faced numerous challenges. He said innovation and strategic vision become imperative in times of challenge. Collaboration with international partners, financial institutions, and the private sector is pivotal for securing funding for gas infrastructure development. READ ALSO: Nigerian govt set to ban export of cooking gas In our transition to a sustainable energy future, Nigeria has chosen gas as our transition fuel, facilitating the shift from more conventional to new and renewable energy sources. With its lower carbon footprint and versatility, natural gas aligns with global climate objectives while providing a reliable solution for our energy needs. Nigeria, with significant gas reserves, should leverage this advantage to become a key player in the global energy transition and a regional powerhouse for gas processing and industrialisation, he said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The House of Representatives is set to probe the alleged N1.8 trillion tax owed to the Federal Government by Multichoice Group, the operator of DSTV and GoTV. The resolution followed the adoption of a motion by Rep. Saidu Abdullahi(APC-Niger) at plenary in Abuja on Wednesday. Moving the motion, Mr Abdullahi said Multichoice, a prominent multinational corporation operating in Nigeria, had been accused of non-remittance of tax revenues due to the Federation. This, he said, was evidenced by the suppression of information discovered from the submissions in their home country. According to him, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) had engaged a consultant in 2021 under a whistle-blowing contract to carry out an audit of the tax obligations of Multichoice Nigeria. This included MultiChoice Africa intending to ascertain the companys tax indebtedness to the country. He added that their findings led to a back audit and investigation carried out by the FIRS from 2011 to 2020. Mr Abdullahi said previous attempts by FIRS to recover unpaid taxes through legal means, including court proceedings and resolution to settle out of court by both parties, did not yield results. The systems audit and investigation revealed enormous indebtedness to the tune of over N1.8 trillion in back total taxes for MultiChoice Nigeria. This also includes a $342 million in Value-added tax, for MultiChoice Africa which had never paid any taxes since they started business operations in Nigeria. He said both amounts were levied upon the Multichoice Group by the FIRS. He said there were ongoing arrangements to sell Multichoice Nigeria and other Multichoice Group Subsidiaries in Nigeria to a foreign interest, while the tax indebtedness remained outstanding. He said if urgent actions were not taken to recover the tax revenues from the Multichoice Group, Nigeria could lose such huge revenue that could inject life into the economy. Adopting the motion, the House cautioned potential buyers of Multichoice Nigeria, Multichoice Africa or any other subsidiaries of the Multichoice group operating in Nigeria to be aware of the alleged outstanding indebtedness This, the House said, might have been covered in their papers, while mandating the Committee on Finance to initiate an urgent and comprehensive investigation into the non-remittance of tax revenues by Multichoice to the Federation. This, according to the House, should be particularly focussed on the suppression of information discovered from their submissions in their home country and report back to the House within four weeks. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Nigerian government has detained two executives of the Binance crypto exchange platform amid efforts to stabilise the nations foreign exchange market and salvage the value of the local currency. Sources familiar with the matter told PREMIUM TIMES that the two executives were detained in Abuja, Nigerias capital, a day after they flew into the country as part of moves to negotiate with the Nigerian authorities amid a crackdown on the crypto platform. Last week, PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Nigerian government blocked the online platforms of Binance and other crypto firms to halt what it described as continuous manipulation of the forex market and illicit movement of funds. Sources within the major telecommunication companies in the country told PREMIUM TIMES last week that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) communicated the directive to telcos, and they immediately acted on the advisory. Apart from Binance, other platforms such as Forextime, OctaFX, Crypto, FXTM, Coinbase, Kraken, among others, were equally blocked. Presidency and regulatory sources said the government decided to move against Binance and other crypto firms following reports that currency speculators and money launderers were using them to execute criminal activities. Authorities believe the criminal activities going on the platforms are contributing significantly to the weakening of the naira. Binance, a digital assets platform, serves as a window for peer-to-peer transactions, allowing users to advertise interest to sell or buy currencies of their choice. In September 2023, Nigerias Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclaimed Binance Nigeria Limited, saying the platform was neither registered nor regulated by the Commission and its operations in Nigeria are therefore illegal. Despite the warning by the regulatory agency, the firm continued its operation, attracting huge patronage especially among urban youths and suspected speculators and money launderers. Aside from suspicions of economic sabotage, officials also speak of national security concerns as the platforms are often patronised by other criminal groups, including for payments of ransom. In its reaction last week, Binance said users behaving in a manipulative way would be removed from its platform. As industry leaders, we are working hand in hand with local authorities, lawmakers, and regulators to ensure we act on non-compliance, the platform added, noting that it is setting an upper limit for ads, filtering and removing bad ads, requiring and raising deposits for merchants posting ads as well as processes for actioning against any market manipulators. The Binance Detention Sources with details of the matter told this newspaper earlier in the week that the two executives of the online platform arrived in Nigeria on Sunday to negotiate with the government amid the crackdown. On Monday afternoon, the executives met with top cyber security officials and other investigators from the office of the National Security Adviser to discuss the various areas of contention. However, the meetings were deadlocked as Binance officials declined to meet some of the demands put forward by the Nigerian government. They were also accused of operating a business worth billions without the requisite registrations and documentation. According to sources who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES Wednesday evening, the Nigerian authorities requested Binance executives to provide data relating to transactions involving the Nigerian Naira on the Binance platform in the last seven years. They also demanded that some other data relating to Nigeria be deleted from the Binance platform. However, the Binance executives insisted that they should be taken to their respective countries embassies before they could comply. While the full identities of the two Binance executives remain sketchy as of press time Wednesday night, PREMIUM TIMES gathered that one of them is an American and the other a British-Pakistani. The Nigerian government also obtained a court warrant to detain the officials for at least twelve days in the first instance. A source with knowledge of the matter told PREMIUM TIMES that the investigation was consequently taken over by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) while the two executives were detained at a guest house near the Office of the National Security Adviser. The EFCC did not immediately respond to PREMIUM TIMES enquiries seeking clarity about the issue Wednesday night. Dele Oyewale, the spokesperson of the commission, told this newspaper to call back later. Meanwhile, indications emerged Wednesday that Binance disabled its peer-to-peer function for Nigerian users on its platform. More popularly known as P2P, the platform allows users, buyers and sellers to trade without third-party interference and became popular among Nigerians when the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari banned cryptocurrency in 2021. With the disabling of the P2P platform for Nigerian users, it remains unclear whether Nigerians would still be able to trade on the Binance platform. Binance officials did not immediately respond to enquiries on the matter Wednesday as emails sent to their communication unit were not responded to. Earlier on Tuesday, the Central Bank of Nigeria claimed that the sum of $26 billion flowed through Binance Nigeria over the past year from unidentified sources. In the case of Binance, in the last one year alone, $26 billion has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users who we cannot adequately identify, Olayemi Cardoso, the CBN governor, said. The apex bank governor also hinted that there is a collaboration among government agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Police, and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) to address such illicit financial activities. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print An assistant pastor, Lekan Ogundipe, is said to have allegedly killed his pastor, Morris Fadehan, of the Celestial Church of Christ, Grace of Comfort Parish, Omitoto, Ile-Ife, Osun State, on Monday. The Osun State Police spokesperson, Yemisi Opalola, confirmed the incident in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday. Ms Opalola, who could not confirm what transpired between the deceased and the suspect, said he (the suspect) had been arrested. The case has been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (CID). She, however, said the suspect killed Mr Fadehan and poured petrol on him. The spokesperson also said that the remains of the deceased were deposited at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC) morgue. According to various news sources, the incident arose as a result of a dispute between the suspect and the deceased after he (the deceased) retrieved keys to the church from the suspect for assaulting a prophetess in the church last Wednesday. Mr Ogundipe disagreed with the prophetesses he met in the church, resulting in him beating her, which got the late cleric angry. The argument caused a crisis in the church last Sunday that almost disrupted the service. Crime The Punch newspaper reported on Wednesday that the 65-year-old pastor was allegedly murdered inside the church by the suspect, his second in command. After committing the crime, the suspect (Ogundipe) allegedly drew the peoples attention to the partly burnt remains of the pastor inside the church. Mr Ogundipe, the paper claimed, the suspect allegedly attacked the pastor with a screwdriver and struck it against his face while the deceased was praying at the feet of the altar. After killing the pastor, Mr Ogundipe also allegedly dragged the body towards the generator, poured petrol on him, and set him ablaze in an attempt to cover his tracks, but he did not cover them well. He then ran to the house of the church founder, whose name was not mentioned, to inform him that fire was burning the pastors body. He also alerted the residents of Omitoto, where the church is located, about the fire burning the pastor. Upon arriving at the scene, observers noticed blood on his attire. The paper also said the suspect covered the deceaseds eyes so he would not recognise him, but the deceased was said to have pushed him and uncovered his identity. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The African Unions (AU) recent inclusion in the G20 has raised questions about its readiness to represent Africas interests and influence global policy on climate change, energy and reform of multilateral bodies. While there is agreement on the need for a robust African voice in global economic and political governance, experts question the AUs ability to reach a consensus on the continents priorities given the divisions among its member states. Who should represent Africa at the G20? Would AU members cede power to the AU Commission to act on their behalf? Could African countries present unified positions at the forum? And what kind of influence can the AU wield there? The just-concluded 37th AU summit provided cause for optimism that the organisation can advance Africas interests on the international stage while helping to resolve global problems. The summit outlined its G20 priorities, set the modalities for who would attend and clarified how the AUs participation would be financed. The AUs six priorities at the G20 over the next three years are: fast-tracking Agenda 2063, advocating for reform of international financial institutions, enhancing agricultural output, achieving a just energy transition, more trade and investment for the African Continental Free Trade Areas rollout, and improving Africas credit rating to boost investment in vaccine manufacturing and pandemic response. Member states will finance the AUs participation through the regular AU budget and grants from African financial institutions like the African Development Bank and African Export-Import Bank. For internal preparatory activities, development partners funds would also be used. The summit confirmed that member states represented by the rotating AU Assembly chair would lead the AU delegation at the G20, with assistance from the AU Commission. That means Mauritanias President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani (the 2024 AU Chair) and Moussa Faki Mahamat (AU Commission chair) will head Africas delegation to the December 2024 G20 in Rio de Janeiro. This decision reflects the continued reluctance of AU countries to allow the AU Commission to represent Africa globally. Nevertheless, it presents opportunities for collaboration between the commission and member states, particularly through the G20 Sherpa, whom the AU Commission will appoint. The choice of the Sherpa and Sous-Sherpa has been contentious. These are two crucial appointments for the G20s diplomatic machinery, but how they will be selected is unclear. This validates concerns about the AUs ability to build consensus due to member states lack of resources, weak processes and insufficient political will. The AUs G20 membership demands swift, clear positions on issues beyond Africas borders. Decision-making in the AU has often been hampered by a lack of agreement on key matters, owing partly to the large number of countries (55) involved. However, this doesnt diminish the AUs potential influence. Including the AU in the G20 breaks with the clubs central principle that members represent the worlds largest economies. Given that Africa accounts for barely 4 per cent of global GDP, will G20 members take its views seriously? Off-the-record discussions with European analysts suggest the AU could end up legitimising the global norths dominance in economic and financial governance without actually shaping G20 outcomes. To prevent this, the AU must frame its advocacy around Africas global interconnectedness. The continents development is too consequential for global north economies not to take the AU seriously. The fear of alternatives to the West looms loudly in the minds of global north leaders. It is also worthwhile asking what influence at the G20 means. Many African leaders underline the importance of representation and visibility at the forum, rather than influence. But visibility should be a means to an end not a goal in itself. Experts told ISS Today they believed agenda-setting was possible for the AU. African influence can be boosted by carrying into the G20 the global souths positions on overcoming exclusionary growth, debt vulnerabilities, climate change adversities and more equitable multilateral bodies. In this way, the AUs sway would be gradual and pragmatic. This approach wont necessarily translate into reform of the World Trade Organization, World Bank or International Monetary Fund. For that, the AU would need to seek more accountability for compliance with the G20s non-binding decisions. The AUs G20 membership could also improve African states and stakeholders internal cohesion on global economic and financial governance. With the next two summits in Brazil (December 2024) and South Africa (December 2025), south-south cooperation will probably drive both agendas. Swift action is needed by the AU to prepare for effective participation, such as finalising decisions on Sherpas and Sous-Sherpas, holding pre-summit negotiations, and guaranteeing continuity. Partners like the AU Development Agency-New Partnership for Africas Development, African Peer Review Mechanism, and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa are useful partners to help develop common African positions. South Africas experience as the only African country in the G20 will also be crucial. Conversations are already underway to share experiences and lessons with the AU. Despite the G20s informal format, African states must enable the AU to punch above its (economic) weight at the global forum. This will require committed negotiations to reach an agreement on African positions that can be consistently defended by an empowered AU Commission. Hubert Kinkoh, Researcher, African Peace and Security Governance, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Addis Ababa and Ueli Staeger, Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Amsterdam (This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish). Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Nigerian government has said it is addressing the challenges posed by the exodus of healthcare workers abroad. The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, a professor, said on Wednesday that the federal government has recruited more than 2,000 health workers in the last six months to augment the brain drain being experienced in the sector. Speaking at a ministerial briefing, Mr Pate added that an additional 1,400 health facilities now have skilled birth attendants to assist in deliveries at the health facilities. In the last six months, the Government of Nigeria recruited 2,497 Doctors, Midwives/Nurses, and CHEWs to bridge the gaps due to attrition, he said, adding that the governments effort has increased the number of health facility deliveries as high as 230,000 deliveries per month. Brain drain For years, Nigeria has recorded a trend of healthcare professionals leaving the country due to low remuneration and unfavourable working conditions. As more healthcare workers leave the country, Nigerias doctor-patient ratio worsened. This has led to a shortage of skilled health workers in the country which has also negatively affected the quality of healthcare services provided to citizens. Various statistics show that over 5,000 Nigerian medical doctors have migrated to the UK between 2015 and 2022. Last December, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) raised concerns over the unabating flight of health professionals from the country and the governments failure to tackle the challenge head-on. The Medical Professional Association warned that the country is already on the verge of a significant health crisis that can only be remedied by reversing the trend of medical professionals leaving the country. The government must show better political commitment to health and prioritise healthcare provision in their scales of preference, provide robust access to social amenities and upgrade decaying utilities, rejig national security architecture for the safety of all citizens, and provide increased gainful employment opportunities for doctors, it said. However, the Nigerian government in January approved the recruitment requests by certain health institutions in the country, a situation that Mr Pate said would accelerate the hiring of healthcare workers and reduce delays. The replacement of health workers that leave often takes a very long time because the waiver process takes several stages, Vanguard Newspaper quoted him as saying at the time. Strengthening PHCs The minister stated that the federal government also prioritises the revitalisation of primary healthcare facilities across the country. Through sustained investment and strategic partnerships, we have expanded access to vital healthcare services, particularly in rural and underserved areas, improving health outcomes and reducing the burden of preventable diseases, he said. The minister added that the government efforts have yielded results, increasing the proportion of women who attend AnteNatal Care (ANC). He said Over 550,000 women now attend their first ANC and are armed with the right information and care to improve their pregnancy outcomes and reduce maternal and child mortality, he stated. He added that the government would be releasing N50 billion as the first tranche of the Basic Healthcare Fund, a significant increase from N25 billion allocated in 2022. Health insurance The minister added that the government has enrolled 750,000 more Nigerians in the health insurance scheme since the beginning of President Bola Tinubus administration. Recognising that financial barriers often deter individuals from seeking medical care, we have worked tirelessly to increase the accessibility and affordability of health insurance schemes, he said. 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 Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Bola Tinubu will soon issue an executive order to address the rising cost of drugs and pharmaceutical products in Nigeria, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammed Pate, has said. The rising cost of pharmaceuticals is a pressing concern, and we are taking decisive action to address this issue, he said on Wednesday during a ministerial briefing in Abuja. The minister added that the executive order, which will soon be issued, will curb escalating drug prices in the short term. Our mid to long-term goal involves the domestication of imported drugs within the next three years, in collaboration with the trade ministry, he said. Cost of drugs The astronomical rise in the prices of drugs started last year with the exit of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Consumer Nigeria Plc, the second-biggest drug producer in Nigeria. GSK terminated its marketing and distribution agreement last August and appointed third-party distributors to sell their medications and vaccines in Nigeria. Sanofi and some other foreign pharmaceutical companies have also announced leaving Nigeria. According to the Vice President of the African HealthCare Federation, Clare Omatseye, some of the pharmaceutical companies exited the country due to challenges such as foreign exchange, ease of doing business, importation bureaucracy, multiple taxation, and malpractice within the industry. Though the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said a total of 105 applications for the construction and erection of drug manufacturing facilities have been approved across the country, the increased cost of drugs remains and could be for a while as only 35 per cent of the approved applications have completed construction. Pharmaceutical warehouses On Wednesday, the minister also said the government has initiated the construction of pharmaceutical-grade warehouses in 21 states in collaboration with drug management agencies. He said: Two additional warehouses at the federal level are also underway, complemented by the installation of the Warehousing Management Information System (WMIS) M Supply, in these 21 pharma-grade warehouses. This infrastructure development aligns with our commitment to improving health outcomes for citizens nationwide. According to the minister, these projects started in October and are scheduled for commissioning in April. He said the implementation of the WMIS is expected to significantly enhance accountability and transparency, ensuring the potency of public health medicines and other health commodities. He added: Furthermore, the government has taken strides in advancing healthcare data management. Essential medicines and narcotics utilisation across the three levels of healthcare have been successfully boarded onto the National Health Logistics Management Information System (NHLMIS) platform. This decisive step not only strengthens our international image by enhancing medicines reporting but also establishes a robust framework for monitoring and optimising the supply chain. 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 Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The House of Representatives, on Wednesday, rejected a bill that sought to make it mandatory for presidential and governorship candidates to secure more than 50 per cent of the total votes cast, to be declared winners. The bill, sponsored by Awaji-inombek Abiante (PDP, Rivers), aimed to amend the 1999 constitution by removing the simple majority rule for presidential and governorship candidates. Mr Abiantes proposal sought to amend sections 134 and 179 of the constitution, which provide the conditions to be elected president and governors, respectively. In the case of a presidential candidate, they are only deemed elected after securing the highest number of votes cast at the election; and they have not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, as stated in section 134 of the constitution. Similarly, a governorship candidate must secure the highest number of votes cast at the election and have not less than one-quarter of all the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of all the local government areas in the state. Mr Abiantes proposal sought to change the simple majority rule to a majority. In other words, when there are more than two candidates in the race, the winner must secure more than 50 per cent of the total votes cast. The bill aimed to prevent the scenario that played out during the last presidential election, where Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) emerged as the winner without securing the majority of the total votes cast. He had a simple majority having polled 8.79 million of the total votes. Over 90 million voters registered to vote in the 2023 presidential election out of which only 88 million collected the Permanent Voters Cards. Of this figure, only 25.2 million voted in the 25 February election. Mr Tinubu secured about 37 per cent of the total votes cast in the election, a feat that was enough to meet the constitutional requirements. No, to bill However, the lawmakers did not allow Mr Abiante to lead the debate on the bill. When Speaker Abbas Tajudeen put the question for the bill to be considered for a second reading, the nays were louder than the ayes. Shocked by the development, the speaker repeated the voice votes again, and the voices of those opposed to the bill were louder. Consequently, Mr Tajudeen ruled in favour of those who wanted the motion thrown out. However, even if the House of Reps passed the bill, it would still require a lengthy process to amend the constitution. It would have, among others, required the support of the Senate and approval by Houses of Assembly in 24 of Nigerias 36 states. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Terrorists have abducted 12 residents and burnt down a healthcare facility in an attack on Monday on Wurma, a community in Kurfi Local Government Area of Katsina State. A police outpost, several houses and vehicles were also burnt down by the terrorists, residents said. Motorcycle-riding terrorists in the North-west have now included burning down of houses, shops and vehicles in their operations, aside from abduction and killing of residents. Last Thursday, they attacked Lambo a community not far from us, and burnt down several houses and vehicles. Now it is our turn to suffer in their hands, a community leader who sought anonymity told PREMIUM TIMES over the phone. The terrorists stormed the community a few minutes after 7 p.m. and began shooting indiscriminately, forcing people to scamper for safety. They then drove to the police outpost and set it on fire before moving to the newly built primary healthcare centre to burn it down. The few policemen around tried their best but they couldnt match the terrorists weapons, the community leader said. He said the residents have compiled the names of 12 residents, mostly women and children, who were abducted by the terrorists. No death was recorded during the attack. In the last few days, communities in Katsina State have been at the receiving end of terrorists activities leading to the deaths and abduction of several residents. Yan Gayya, Lambo, Barkiya, Rawayau, Kukar Babangida are some of the communities attacked in the last few days in the state. When contacted, the police spokesperson in the state, Abubakar Sadik Aliyu confirmed the attack. He said the command responded swiftly by deploying intelligence and operational officials to the community. Upon receipt of the report, operatives responded to the scene, and normalcy was restored. The Commissioner of Police has since deployed both intelligence and operational assets while working closely with all relevant stakeholders towards ensuring the arrest of perpetrators of the dastardly act as adequate measures have been put in place to forestall further occurrences. Further developments will be communicated, please, Mr Sadik said in a message sent to this reporter. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Petro Poroshenko called on Western partners to speed up the provision of weapons and money for Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT The leader of the European Solidarity party said this on the air of the American TV channel CNBC, noting that the West, by helping Ukraine, invests in its own security. Poroshenko also reminded that the Ukrainian army, after the full-scale invasion, contrary to predictions, showed impressive results on the battlefield against the Russian occupiers. "The victory in the war is necessary not only for Ukraine, but for the whole of Europe, the whole of NATO, the whole free and democratic world," Poroshenko said. "It will be easier and cheaper for the Western world to give us weapons and money and help us do your job. This war is not only about Ukraine and it is not about helping Ukraine. It is an investment in your own security," Petro Poroshenko emphasized. "Ukraine has paid the highest price for this - the lives of our heroes. Every week I am at the frontline. I see the positions of Russian troops and heroic Ukrainian soldiers. We need to close the current request of our troops. Because in 2022, it was tanks, and we received them a year late. In 2023, we needed electronic warfare systems and drones, and we are only getting them in 2024. In 2024 we urgently need F-16s, and instead we have no ammunition, we have no tanks, we have no drones. And we don't have F-16s," the fifth president said. ADVERTISIMENT He addressed the Americans: "The greatest military power in the world is the United States. Please show your leadership. Without it, Putin would be stronger, Putin would go further. Because the only language Putin understands is the language of power," Poroshenko said. "We must always remember that every hour of delay in artillery shells means human lives. The lives of our soldiers and the lives of our civilians. And this is too much and too high a price to pay," the party leader said. "There is nothing more important than stopping Putin. If we do not stop him in Ukraine, he will appear in NATO countries next year. And this will be a much bigger problem, it will be more expensive," Poroshenko explained. A 27-year-old man in Abia State, south-east Nigeria, has allegedly killed his 57-year-old father in the state. The suspect, Chinalu Ogbonna, was said to have strangled the victim, Mmaduka Ogbonna, at their residence at Umueze Road, Umuahia, the state capital. He would later allegedly remove the victims left eye with the intention to use it for ritual. PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the incident happened on Monday by midnight in Amuzukwu, a community in Umuahia North Local Government Area of the state. The police spokesperson in Abia State, Maureen Chinaka, confirmed the incident in a statement on Tuesday. Ms Chinaka, an assistant superintendent of police, said the killing was reported at Central Police Station, Umuahia. Detectives from the Central Police Station, Umuahia visited the crime scene and found the deceaseds body with his left eye gouged out. (Preliminary) investigations revealed that he (the suspect) strangled his father to death and intended to use his (the victims) left eye for money rituals, she said. The spokesperson said the police detectives subsequently arrested the suspect. She said the police are investigating the incident and that the suspect would be charged to court after the investigations. The corpse has been deposited at the morgue for autopsy, and exhibits have been recovered, Ms Chinaka stated. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A man in Abia State, south-east Nigeria, has allegedly killed his son for eating up the last portion of food in their familys kitchen. The suspect, Marcel Udeh, hails from Eziama Lokpa-Ukwu, a community in Umunneochi Local Government Area of the state. The incident happened on Monday night in the community. Residents said the victim returned home and ate the last portion of food in a pot inside the familys kitchen. PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the suspect, consequently, ran into the house, brought out a rifle and allegedly shot the son dead. Sources from the community said angry residents immediately grabbed the suspect and tied his hands and legs with a rope, apparently to stop him from escaping from the community. The victim, whose name could not be ascertained at the time of filing this report, is believed to be in his twenties. A video clip circulating on social media showed the suspect, with both hands and legs tied and placed on the victims corpse with a pool of blood around it. In the clip, seen by PREMIUM TIMES, residents were heard expressing shock that the suspect killed the victim for mere food. The suspect was heard in the clip pleading for mercy, saying what happened was a handiwork of the devil. When contacted on Wednesday, the police spokesperson in Abia State, Maureen Chinaka confirmed the incident to PREMIUM TIMES. Ms Chinaka, an assistant superintendent of police, said the incident was reported at the Umunneochi Police Divisional Headquarters. The police spokesperson said the suspect has been arrested. The matter has been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department for discreet investigation and will be charged to court afterwards, she said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Bayero University, Kano had said it would confer an honourary doctorate degrees on the Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin and President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, in recognition of their contributions to education and youth development. Vice Chancellor of the University, Sagir Abbas, disclosed this in a letter addressed to the deputy senate president. In the letter, Mr Abbas, a professor, said both the leadership of the Senate and management of the university have approved the honourary doctorate degrees for the duo. The Vice Chancellor noted that the award ceremony would be held on 2 March during the grand finale of the 38th convocation of the university at the new campus of the institution, Gwarzo Road, Kano. Sir, your nomination for the coveted award is based on your great passion for education and youth development, among others. You have impacted positively on the lives of the people in your constituency and beyond in terms of the provision of scholarships, health-related projects and many agricultural and empowerment programmes across the state. At the Senate, you succeeded in sponsoring 56 bills between 2015 and 2023. You have been recognised as the best Northern Senator of the Year, 2017 by the Senate Press Corps due to your immense contributions to national development, the letter reads. Mr Barau was born in 1959 in his hometown of Kabo, the headquarters of Kabo Local Government Area of Kano State. He began his journey to the legislative arm of government in 1999, when the country returned to civil rule. He represented Tarauni Federal Constituency of Kano Central Senatorial District in the House of Representatives between 1999 and 2003. Mr Barau was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee at the green chamber then. On completion of his term at the House of Representatives, he returned to private practice. In 2013, when the All Progressives Congress (APC) was formed, he was one of the frontline members of the party in Kano State. In 2015, he contested and won the election for Kano North Senatorial District on the platform of the APC. READ ALSO: Court jails two bureau de change operators in Kano After the inauguration of the Senate in June 2015, Mr Barau was named as the vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream). A few months later, he was elevated to chair the same committee. In 2016, he was reassigned to the Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETfund as its chairman, a position he held until the end of the 8th National Assembly. He was re-elected to the Senate in 2019 for a second term and he was appointed as chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. For five years, he was the secretary of the Northern Senators Forum (2016 to 2021). Mr Barau was relected for the third time in the 2023 General Election. He was later elected by his colleagues as the deputy senate president last June. He is currently chairman of the Constitution Review Committee. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Commissioner of Police in charge of the Federal Capital Territory, Benneth Igweh, has assured the people of Bwari Area Council, especially students and staff of Veritas University, Bwari-Abuja, of adequate security in the area. He said the command has massively deployed men and materials in the troubled area council and that no criminal element can threaten the people of the area again. Mr Igweh gave the assurance when the Vice Chancellor of Veritas University, Hyacinth Ichoku, paid a courtesy visit to him in his office in Abuja. Bwari Area Council has been in the news in the last two months as a result of the activities of kidnappers. Five daughters from one family were kidnapped from the area last December. One of the victims was killed by the kidnappers when her parents could not raise the ransom money on time. But speaking with the vice chancellor, Mr Igweh said the ugly incident of the recent past will never repeat itself as long as he remains the commissioner of the FCT. I owe Veritas University protection and we will provide that. There is no other place where we have done massive deployment like we have done in Bwari because of the uniqueness of that place. Apart from bordering Kaduna and Niger states, there are about four institutions of higher learning there and a federal government secondary school. But I can assure you that there is no force that can enter Bwari and threaten the people again, he said. As part of the deployment of men and materials in the Bwari axis, the Commissioner said the FCT police command will create a base in Ushafa that will support the deployment in Bwari. I am happy to announce that the people who ran away from their ancestral homes in Bwari villages and those that left Bwari town have returned to Bwari now. We are not interested in fantasies. We are doing real policing. Tell your staff and students that they are in safe hands he said. He commended the vice chancellor of Veritas University for assisting the Bwari Divisional Police Office and encouraged him to do more. Earlier, Mr Ichoku, a professor and reverend father, thanked the police commissioner for the massive deployment of men and materials around Veritas University. He enjoined him to look into vast areas and communities around the university that do not have a police presence with a view to creating a police station that would serve as a buffer between the communities in Bwari and the forests in Kaduna state. The vice chancellor pledged the universitys continued logistics support to the police and other security agencies in Bwari, noting that it is better to support the police to do their job of protecting us than paying ransom to kidnappers. Ben Agande Head, Corporate Affairs and Communications Veritas University Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Magistrate Court, sitting in Zuba, has frowned at the incessant adjournments in the trial of an anti-Tinubu protester, Obiajulu Uja, for a criminal offence. Mr Uja was arrested in April last year when he caused uproar during a Lagos-Abuja flight with his lone protest and demand that Bola Tinubu, then a president-elect, must not be inaugurated as Nigerias president on 29 May. He had since been put on trial before Magistrate Abdulazeez Muhammad of the Zuba Magistrates Court. However, at Tuesdays proceeding slated for definite cross-examination of a prosecutions witness, PRNigeria reports that Magistrate Muhammad was shocked when he discovered that neither the federal governments Lawyer, Umo Inna, nor the defences lawyer, P. U Ogbadu, was present in court. To worsen the situation, no explanation was offered for their absence in court. Magistrate Muhammad, who was taken aback by the development, said in a brief ruling that the ability to remain relevant as an institution requires the need to recognise challenges and begin to take difficult decisions. Frivolous adjournment in criminal matters must be prohibited. In the instance case, I will lean on the side of substantial justice to grant an adjournment at the instance of the prosecution. Against this background, this matter is adjourned to the 5th day of March 2024 for definite cross-examination. PRNigeria reports that in early April 2023, Mr Uja was carried off a Lagos-Abuja flight after he started a lone protest, demanding that President Bola Tinubu (then President-elect) must never be sworn in as president on 29 May. His trial for the criminal offence has since suffered a series of adjournments. At a point, the Kuje prison authority, after a medical checkup of the defendant based on the court order, found that Mr Uja was mentally unstable. However, with recent developments, Mr Uja was granted bail by a vacation judge of the FCT High Court, Edward Okpe, who suggested that Mr Uja was fit for trial. READ ALSO: Supreme Court gets full bench of 21 justices first time in history Consequently, the matter started with a prosecution witness before Magistrate Mohammed Abdulazeez. The prosecution has since finished leading their witness, and it is now time for the defendant to cross-examine the prosecution witness. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Director General of the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies(NILDS), Abubakar Sulaiman, says President Bola Tinubus Renewed Hope Agenda has not become a political party document yet. Mr Sulaiman, a professor, made the disclosure on Monday during a seminar organised by the institute in conjunction with the Nigerian Economic Society(NES) in Abuja on the implementation of Budget 2024. Mr Tinubu campaigned on the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to be elected Nigerian President in the February 2023 election conducted by INEC using renewed hope as his campaign mantra. The mantra revolves around an eight-point agenda, which can be taken as President Tinubus social contract with the electorate. The eight-point agenda, upon which President Tinubus economic plan is anchored, includes food security, poverty alleviation, growth, job creation, access to capital, inclusion, rule of law and anti-corruption fight. The 2024 Budget was passed by the National Assembly last December and the President assented to it on 2 January. The budget is predicated on a total expenditure of N28.78 trillion. It has a projected revenue of N19.7 trillion, implying a budget deficit of N10 trillion. Mr Sulaiman called on the federal government to commence the process of providing a successor document for the National Development Plan (2021-2025), which currently serves as the nations medium-term economic blueprint. As it stands today, he said, the Renewed Hope 8-Point Agenda of the present administration has yet to transit itself as a political party document, saying ensuring it is positioned as a medium-term development document for the country from 2025 to 2029 would be vital. He said since the economic plan of the Tinubu Administration is premised on the eight-point agenda, its important that it forms the kernel of the countrys medium-term. development agenda once the current plan expires in 2025. Mr Sulaiman noted that the future of an effective plan-budget link will also require legislating national development plans and providing legislation upon which the gender, youth, and inclusion perspectives of the budget can be anchored. A major challenge identified by the institute with the budget process, according to the DG, shows that budget implementation is as successful as the national public procurement process as contained in the Public Procurement Act (PPA), 2007. He said it would be vital for MDAs to initiate the relevant process for executing projects and programmes provided for in the 2024 budget to avoid tales of delays with the implementation. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print There was heavy security in and around the Akure residence of Reuben Fasoranti, leader of Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, on Wednesday as President Bola Tinubu arrived for a private meeting. It was only those who had their names on the security that could access the premises of the Yoruba leader, who endorsed Mr Tinubu for President in the February 2023 presidential election. The president, who came on board a helicopter, landed at the Akure playing ground, Ijapo Estate, at about 2:23 p.m., and arrived at Mr Fasorantis residence at exactly 2:32 p.m. Other eminent personalities at the venue were Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa of Ondo State; Olu Falae, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chieftain of the Afenifere; Deji of Akure, Oba Aladetoyinbo Ogunlade; and former governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko. President Tinubu was in the state to pay a condolence visit to the family of the deceased immediate past governor of the state, Rotimi Akeredolu, in Owo where he was received by his wife, former First Lady, Betty Akeredolu and other family members. The President, accompanied by Governor Aiyedatiwa and his deputy, also visited the Olowo of Owo, Oba Ajibade Oguntoye, at his palace to condole him over the passing of Mr Akeredolu, an indigene of Owo. Mr Akeredolu, who governed Ondo State between 2016 and 2023, on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, passed away in a German hospital after a protracted battle with prostate cancer in December last year. He was buried last week. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Senate has approved the disengagement of Babatunde Irukera as the chief executive/vice-chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC). This followed the approval of the request by President Bola Tinubu, seeking the Senates approval on the disengagement of Mr Irukera. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that President Tinubu in a letter dated 30 January asked the Senate to approve the disengagement. The Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, moved the motion for consideration of the presidents request. In his contribution, Seriake Dickson (PDP-Bayelsa) said that if there was an allegation of misconduct, then the Senate was entitled to know the totality of the facts of the alleged misconduct. Osita Ngwu (PDP-Enugu) noted that though the FCCPC Act of 2018, has a section on misconduct, he, however, said the president did not base the removal of Mr Irukera on misconduct. The president is not seeking removal of the officer, based on misconduct but inability to effectively perform his duty. It is not for the Senate to know whether he is performing or not; the President has the authority. In his remarks, President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, said Mr Tinubu had the right to hire and fire. The president has the authority. We all are expecting the president to perform. The buck stops at his table. So if a person is not performing to expectations, he or she can be removed. I urge this Senate to approve the presidents request. In labour practice, he who hires can fire. And it is difficult to force a servant on a willing master as far as the law is concerned. But here, the provision is very clear. READ ALSO: FCCPC gives full reasons for sealing off Sahad Stores Mr Akpabio further said the Senates job was to approve the request of the president and not to investigate his request. The section of the law is very clear that a person can be removed over his inefficiency to perform his duties. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Honouring an invitation by His Highness, Sheikh Tamim Al Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar, President Bola Tinubu will depart Lagos State and embark on a two-day official visit to the State of Qatar on Thursday, 29 February 2024, to further strengthen cooperation between the two nations in several areas, including security, cultural exchange, and economic development. During the visit, President Tinubu will witness the signing of several agreements focused on boosting Nigerias real sector and creating value-additive investments across the fields of trade, education, culture, solid minerals, digital economy, agriculture, and gas, as well as fostering cooperation on counter-terrorism. The president will also participate in a business and investment forum that will bring together top-level executives in both the private and public sectors of Nigeria and Qatar to advance cross-sectoral opportunities for mutually beneficial growth and development. The president will be accompanied on the trip by senior government officials for the signing of agreements. Ajuri Ngelale Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity) February 28, 2024 Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) have expressed commitment to a collaboration aimed at fighting corruption at grassroots level. They made the commitment at an event marking the opening of a national workshop organised by the two bodies on Tuesday. The workshop, themed, Anti-corruption: Transparency and accountability in governance at the local government level, was aimed at harnessing collective wisdom and experience towards combatting corruption effectively. The Chairman of the (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, who was represented by the EFCCs Secretary, Muhammad Hammajoda, emphasised the importance of transparency and accountability in local government governance, highlighting President Bola Tinubus commitment to the fight against corruption. As we are involved in a discussion over the next few days, let us leverage the collective wisdom and experience of our distinguished guests and participants. Together, we can forge initiatives that will not only strengthen the fight against corruption but also imbibe transparency and accountability in our local government governance, he said. He commended what he described as Mr Tinubus desire to fight against corruption, which he said inspired the event. The commitment of His Excellency, the President of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, in the fight against corruption shows the gravity and importance attached to the issues we are assembled here to address. We acknowledge your unwavering commitment to the ideals of good governance, accountability, and the fight against corruption. The collaboration between the EFCC and ALGON, as demonstrated by the chairmans participation and representation showcases our shared commitment to addressing the challenges of corruption and improving governance at the local government level, he said. ALGONs Board of Trustees Chairman, Odunayo Ategbero, stressed the need for a bottom-top approach to address corruption, citing the urgent necessity to end the cycle of corruption that he said had hindered Nigerias socio-economic progress. Mr Ategbero said that the fight against corruption and other social vices is a collective responsibility of all citizens to tackle beginning from the local to federal levels of government. I am confident that participants in this workshop, most especially the eminent speakers and resource persons, will do justice to the topic of this important workshop on anti-corruption transparency and accountability at the local government level. I am aware that the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), in collaboration with the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, has consistently been in the vanguard of confronting corruption at all levels of government. Any meaningful development in this country requires a bottom-top approach policy. Therefore, the third tier of government, which is the local government, is where corruption can be effectively prevented because prevention is better than cure. It is worth knowing that the government of his excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu is ready to stamp out corruption, which has eaten deeply into the fabric of our socioeconomic prosperity as a nation. This workshop would not have come at a better time than now that Nigerians are yearning to seek local government autonomy as a veritable platform to drive the rapid socio-economic and political transformation of the grassroots devoid of corruption. The fight against corruption and other social vices dividing our country is a collective responsibility of everyone; therefore, a forum like this is easier to create awareness for all and sundry to tackle corruption headlong, he stressed. He called on the EFCC to enforce the fight against corruption at all levels of governance to curb this evil menace that is bent on destroying the nation at large. Fighting corruption begins at the grassroots level. I, therefore, want to urge all our anti-corruption agencies, most especially the EFCC, to enforce the fight against corruption at all levels of governance in this country. All corrupt cases in various courts involving corrupt public officials in our country should be dispensed with almost dispatch by EFCC to serve as a deterrent to both public and private officials in the nations economy, he urged. Local government autonomy Participants at the event called for amendments to the constitution to grant local governments more autonomy and to enable the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct local government elections independently. They also called on local government chairpersons to prioritise development projects, uphold accountability, and collaborate with stakeholders to combat corruption effectively. Efforts were also directed towards empowering the EFCC to investigate and hold governors accountable for corrupt practices, thereby ensuring the integrity of local government administrations. Concerns were raised about the influence of state governors over local governments, leading to the imposition of caretaker committees and hindering the democratic process. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print In the fall of 2023, elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine were supposed to take place, and on March 31, 2024, presidential elections were to be held. However, the parliamentary elections did not take place, nor will the presidential elections, because during martial law in Ukraine, all elections are prohibited by law. The Constitution and laws of Ukraine provide for the principle of continuity of power, which means that the current government is legitimate and will continue to exercise its powers until the next elections, which are to take place after the end of the war. ADVERTISIMENT This was stated in an interview with OBOZ.UA by political analyst Petro Oleshchuk. He also explained why the myth about the illegitimacy of the Ukrainian president clearly shows "Russian ears". First of all, Oleshchuk set the record straight by explaining which issues are regulated by the Constitution of Ukraine and which are regulated by our legislation. He noted that the Constitution does not regulate the issue of holding presidential elections under martial law. "This is regulated by the legislation on the respective state and it says that during martial law all elections in Ukraine are prohibited," said Petro Oleshchuk. In order to dispel the myth about the illegitimacy of the president after March 31, it is enough to open the Constitution of Ukraine and legislation, the political scientist emphasized. ADVERTISIMENT "You need to open the Constitution of Ukraine and read Article 108, which clearly states that the President of Ukraine performs his duties until the new President of Ukraine takes office following the election. Again, this is an exclusive answer to this question, at the level of legislation - elections during martial law in Ukraine are prohibited. That is, if you read the law of Ukraine and read the Constitution, it becomes absolutely clear that elections cannot be held now. Again, the president is fulfilling his duties under Article 108 of the Constitution. That's all. Everything else is speculation," the political scientist said. Petro Oleshchuk also explained why it is impossible to hold democratic elections during the war. "It is impossible to hold them now, if we are talking about elections. Because elections are not synonymous with democracy. For example, in Russia, the so-called elections will be held now, and what if Putin had previously transplanted all his competitors and simply did not allow the only one, even a theoretical one, to run for office? Does this make the situation in Russia democratic? No, it doesn't. A normal election is a normal election process, with candidates, a campaign, and eventually security. That is, Ukrainian citizens should know that they will come to the polling station, vote, and that Iskander will not fly to this polling station. Most Ukrainians are in the occupied territories or abroad as refugees, and they also have the right to vote. Finally, the citizens of Ukraine who are currently mobilized have the right to vote, and they have the right not only active but also passive, that is, not only to elect the president but also to run for this position," Oleshchuk said. ADVERTISIMENT According to the political scientist, all speculations about the illegitimacy of the Ukrainian president after March 31 are beneficial to the Kremlin and it is actively using them. It is very easy to detect the "Russian" trace in these myths. "How can you tell that Russian ears are growing here? Very simply, they (Russians - Ed.) do not talk about elections to the Verkhovna Rada because they are not interested in it. They are used to the fact that the parliament is a purely nominal body. Although Ukraine is a parliamentary-presidential republic and the powers of the parliament expired last fall, the most interesting thing is that they are not concerned about it at all... No one is talking about this, because no one cares whether the government is legitimate or not, even if they have been in office for 10 years, but they do care about the president. Because in Russia they don't know about the existence of a parliament. They don't have a parliament, they only have a president," Oleshchuk explained where the topic of the "illegitimacy" of the Ukrainian government came from. ADVERTISIMENT As OBOZ.UA reported earlier, Kuleba, Zelensky and Budanov explained how Russia uses the topic of elections in Ukraine. The Kremlin is focusing on the internal and external separation of the country, and is also trying to undermine the situation at the international level. Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! The Senate on Wednesday rejected a bill seeking to include Anambra State as one of the Nigeria Delta Development Commission (NDDC) states. The bill was sponsored by Tony Nwoye (LP, Anambra North). NDDC comprises nine oil-producing states. They are Abia and Imo in South-east, Ondo in South-west, Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers in South-south geo-political zone. The bii did not scale through second reading as it was rejected by majority of the senators during debate. Argument Leading debate on the bill, Mr Nwoye, argued that Anambra deserved membership of NDDC since it has been collecting 13 per cent derivation since 2021 on account of appreciable volume of oil production on yearly basis. He said apart from 13 per cent derivation, Anambra is qualified to be a member of the NDDC because of its proximity to the Niger Delta area. Mr President and distinguished colleagues, Anambra as an oil producing state has been collecting 13 per cent derivation from oil exploited from her wells by the federal government since 2021, and eminently deserves to be included in the operational radius of NDDC . Kogi State was also declared as an oil producing state but has not been collecting any 13 per cent derivation, Mr Nwoye said. Most of the senators who contributed to the bill kicked against it on the ground that the move is political and that there are some oil producing states that are also not recognised as members of the NDDC. Kogi East senator, Jibrin Isah, specifically argued that NDDC is more of a regional intervention body and not just for oil producing states. The lawmaker noted that Kogi had also been collecting 13 per cent derivation as an oil producing state but did not agitate to be a member of the NDDC. Senator Nwoye, with all due respect, please stop dragging Kogi State into your argument for membership of Anambra State in NDDC. Kogi State is an oil producing State and has also been collecting 13 per cent derivation since October 2022, Mr Isah said. In his intervention, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, announced the stepping down of the bill, stating that the National Boundary Commission would decide whether Anambra is close to the Niger Delta area before the lawmakers will decide on it. He, however, noted that said if membership of Anambra in NDDC is to be accepted, then Lagos which has two oil wells in Badagry will also clamour for membership of the commission. Mr Akpabio then announced the rejection of the bill by the senators who spoke, on the ground that Lagos and Kogi states are also not covered by NDDC operations despite being oil producing states. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) in partnership with Malala Fund has released a new report on Gender Review and Advocacy For Gender Responsive Education Sector Planning (GRESP) in Nigeria. The report, which was released on Tuesday, covers a gender review of 11 years of State Education Sector Plans (SESPs) in Nigeria. SESPs is the only official education policy in Nigeria which mainstreams girls education goals within the education system and establishes performance indicators for government outcomes within the basic education system. The dRPC researchers said the review was aimed at determining the explanatory powers of the Global Partnership for Education, GPEs, gender responsiveness theory of change related to girls education outcomes. In her opening remarks, the Executive Director of dRPC, Judith-Ann Walker, said the research started in 2021 and it provides a gender review of the education sector plan in six states that sign gender-responsive plans in Nigeria. Ms Ann-Walker said they are excited about this project and they are hopeful that the report will be useful to Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) as well as government officials. Its important for us that CSOs can use our data to advance change but its even more critical that government agencies that made strategic recommendations for policy change should be able to access our data and advance change in the area of health and womens education in Nigeria, she said. We dont conduct the study just for research purposes, Ms Ann-Walker added, instead all our research findings were to inform policy advocacy. So whatever we do, we break it down to a level where the advocates, leaders, champions and people in government can take the data and findings for policy-driven change. The Malala Fund also expressed their excitement about the publication and they acknowledged the crucial role of dPRC in the study. Femi Aderibigbe, the advocacy manager at Malala Fund, said their organisation advocates policies and resources aimed at bridging the barrier to girls education. In the course of our work, we saw the need to look deep into education sector plans and importantly to look at what are the gaps to be filled on gender. And that is why we work together with dRPC on this project that holds the prospect of yielding positive results, Mr Aderibigbe said. Tinubu committed to Gender Equality On her part, the Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Women Affairs, Fatima Faruk, said she is delighted that the report recognises the urgent need to break down gender barriers and provide equal opportunities for all children, regardless of their gender. For several years, Ms Faruk said, gender disparity in the Nigerian education system kept young women from attaining their potential. The gender disparity within our education systems has barriers, that prevent them from attaining quality education, that are deeply ingrained within our social norms, discriminatory policies, and lack of resources, she said. Ms Faruk said President Tinubu is fully committed to gender equity and that her office is also focused on aiding in the advocacy for women and girls across different sectors. The report The report aimed to determine the explanatory powers of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) gender responsiveness theory of change related to girls education outcomes. Applying a mixed method research methodology, the gender review first conducted a trend analysis of two girls education outcomes to establish patterns in the period before sector plans were introduced in Nigeria and the period during education sector planning in Nigeria (2012-2023). Amongst the six states (Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara) studied, the gender review found that states with the highest secondary school completion rates for girls in the sector planning years such as Jigawa State had the lowest rate of child marriage. Meanwhile, states with the lowest completion rates for girls in the education sector planning years such as Kaduna State also had the highest rates of child marriage. The second stage of the gender review sought to explore relationships between the trend in girls education outcomes established in the first step in the analysis and the structures and functions of bureaucracy prescribed by the GPE model of gender-responsive education. Here, the analysis found clear and consistent correlations, thus confirming the prescriptive powers of the GPE model of gender-responsive education planning. Further findings of the gender review of education planning in Nigeria constitute a robust evidence base around which girls education advocates and advocacy networks can frame policy advocacy messages and design campaigns on the dos and donts of government for positive girls education outcomes. This also has methodological implications for GPEs approach to country reviews of education sector planning, pointing to the importance of linking bureaucratic processes of government to girls education outcomes, the report said. Ms Faruk said her office will play a pivotal role in several key areas such as Social Inclusion and Political Empowerment for Women; Economic Empowerment for Women; Combating Domestic Violence and Abuse against Women; Assisting the most marginalised Women in Nigeria; and Promoting Educational Parity for Women in Nigeria which was the focus of Tuesdays programme. I will collaborate closely with both national and sub-national authorities to integrate womens initiatives and needs into the policies and programmes of all ministries, departments, and agencies of the federal government. This collaborative effort aims to foster a national consensus on policies and environments conducive to the empowerment and advancement of women, in partnership with relevant stakeholders, Ms Faruk added. Ministry of Women Affairs speaks on the report The Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy, who was represented by an official of the ministry, commended the researchers for producing a timely report on gender in the education sector. She said there is a need for concerted and intentional efforts towards developing and implementing specific measures aimed at ensuring the girl child attains her full potential through education. The Federal Ministry of Women Affairs as the apex government agency is charged with the mandate to coordinate and monitor all activities and develop policies and programmes that ensure the maximum and holistic development of Nigerian women and children. We are also collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Education to explore all opportunities to ensure that every child, especially the girl child, has the right to education in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The right of girls to access quality education is a fundamental and powerful tool to break the circle of poverty. To this end, the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs is very passionate and committed to ensuring that girls are given a sense of belonging and full opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the overall national growth and development, she said. Poor implementation of existing laws Meanwhile, the Director General of the National Institute of Educational Planning & Administration (NIEPA), David Shofoyeke, noted that dRPCs efforts in conducting research on barriers to education in six northern states and disseminating the findings through this workshop are apt and will be useful to NIEPA in developing the education sector plan in Nigeria. He said gender-responsive educational planning is an approach to education that recognises and addresses the diverse needs and interests of girls, boys, women, and men in the education system. It aims to promote gender equality by ensuring equitable access to education, eliminating gender-based discrimination, and fostering an inclusive learning environment. Among other things, Mr Shofokeye said he observed that there is an increasing number of out-of-school children in the southeast, especially in Anambra State. He said this is engendered by cultural, religious, and social practices and informal norms that promote exclusion in schools. He also observed poor implementation of existing policies or laws that promote gender equality, inclusion and provision of a safe learning environment for all children. PREMIUM TIMES will provide details of the report in subsequent stories. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) said on Monday that it is taking disciplinary action against one of its personnel for alleged N500,000 extortion. The customs officer, Ibrahim Suleiman, was said to have extorted N500,000 from a car buyer named Muhammad Ahmad along Mokwa-Jebba Road in Niger State on 22 February. In a statement posted on its verified Facebook Page, the customs noted that the Comptroller, Federal Operations Unit Zone B Kaduna, Dalha Chedi, handed over the accused officer to the Assistant Provost Marshal (APM) Customs Police Unit, Kaduna, on Monday. Mr Chedi said he had directed the Customs Police Unit responsible for enforcing discipline in the service to conduct further interrogation. He added that the complainant has been invited to assist in the investigation. This unprofessional and ungodly act will not be condoned. A thorough investigation has just commenced by this handing over to unravel the facts surrounding the allegation. The outcome shall be made public to serve as a deterrent to others, he was quoted as saying. We are deeply concerned and assure the general public that the matter will be treated with the deserved vigour, decisiveness and transparency. Bigger culprits free But the NCS has kept mum and failed to discipline seven senior officials of the service who were indicted for allegedly receiving multi-billion naira bribes from smugglers in the countrys borders. PREMIUM TIMES exclusively reported how some high-ranking officials of the service were arrested and detained for days when the EFCC traced about N12 billion proceeds of bribes from smugglers to them. Six of the seven officials mentioned in the story operate in Zone B where the disciplined staffer, Mr Suleiman, also works. The officers indicted include Ibrahim Jalo, Nurudeen Musa, Mohammed Rabiu, Ibrahim Hamisu, Madugu Saleh, Umar Tafarki and Kayode Kolade. All of them are walking freely without prosecution by the EFCC or facing any disciplinary action from the customs service. The EFCC traced N1.1 billion to Mr Jalo out of which he has refunded N250 million, with a promise to refund the balance. The anti-graft agency also traced N126 million to Mr Jalos personal assistant, Umar Tafarki. He has also refunded N12 million. Another officer involved in this saga is Mr Kolade, the Comptroller Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone C, Port Harcourt. The anti-graft agency traced about N9.5 billion to him. He has refunded N50 million and committed to refund N800 million within a short period. Mr Musa, the Comptroller of Enforcement, Kaduna Zone, had N950 million traced to him. The anti-graft agency has recovered N583 million from him after he spent days in detention. Mr Ibrahim was suspected to have garnered N120 million in bribes from smugglers between 2019 and 2023. He has refunded N13 million and promised to refund the rest. Meanwhile, Messrs Saleh and Rabiu were suspected to have received N85 million and 84 million respectively from smugglers. While Mr Saleh has refunded N13.5 million and promised to refund the rest, Mr Rabiu refunded N15 million to the anti-graft agency. PREMIUM TIMES learnt that at least 33 other officials of the service are under investigation by the EFCC. 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 Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) has called on the government to implement the upward review of nurses salaries to effectively address the issue of brain drain. The association also highlighted 11 other demands in a press release signed by its National President, Michael Nnachi, in reaction to the revised guidelines for the verification of certificates with the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN). NMCN in its revised guidelines states that applicants seeking verification of certificates from foreign nursing boards and councils must possess two years of post-qualification experience from the date of issuance of the permanent practising licence. While Mr Nnachi revealed in the statement that the NMCN has agreed to review all issues raised, the House of Representatives has also intervened in the matter. Lawmakers resolution The lawmakers at a plenary, on Tuesday, called on the nursing council to suspend its plan to commence the implementation of the revised guidelines on 1 March. The intervention by the lawmakers followed a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by a member, representing Ikot Ekpene/Essien Udim/Obot Akara Federal Constituency, Akwa Ibom State, Patrick Umoh. Mr Umoh said the requirement for two years of post-qualification experience before verification of the certificate by NMCN was unreasonable, arbitrary, and unfair. Adopting the motion, the House urged NMCN not to implement the revised guidelines pending its investigation. The House mandated its committees on health institutions and legislative compliance to ensure compliance with the resolution, and also investigate the controversies surrounding the revised guidelines. The circular by NMCN generated unprecedented and unrestricted reactions from the majority of nurses, as they converged on the NMCNs office in Abuja and other government institutions in Lagos on 12 February to express their dissatisfaction. The protesters also threatened a nationwide strike. The nurses described the new guidelines as an effort to impede their freedom, saying the requirement for a letter from the Chief Executive Officer of the respective places of work is a deliberate attempt to make the verification process burdensome. NANNM demands The association asked the government to approve the creation of a special separate salary package called Enhanced Nurses Salary Structure (ENSS) as a motivation to the nurses and midwives to reduce migration. They also demanded dedication of 15 per cent of the national budget to the health sector as recommended by the Abuja Declaration 2020, and insisted on the payment of 25 per cent CONHESS adjustment to nurses and midwives working at the three tiers of government. It asked the federal government to extend and include the appointment of nurses into key positions as well as members of federal boards to address extreme marginalisation in the governance structure of the health facilities in Nigeria. Other demands include the extension of the retirement age of nurses from 60 to 65 years to improve on available workforce, employment by replacement and appointment of nurses into key positions as well as members of Federal Boards. Brain Drain in Nigeria Nigeria has been battling with the increasing exodus of healthcare professionals, especially doctors, pharmacists, and nurses, to developed countries. With a doctor-patient ratio over five times worse than the WHO recommendation, Nigeria has continued to lose hundreds of doctors annually to brain drain. Various statistics show that over 5,000 Nigerian medical doctors have migrated to the UK between 2015 and 2022. According to data documented by the Development Research and Project Centre (dRPC), 233 Nigerian doctors moved to the UK in 2015; the number increased to 279 in 2016; in 2017 the figure was 475, in 2018, the figure rose to 852, in 2019 it jumped to 1,347; in 2020, the figure was 833 and in 2021, it was put at 932. As of July, the President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Emeka Orji, revealed that the association is left with only a few over 9,000 medical doctors, due to the brain drain crisis in the healthcare system. The continued emigration of health practitioners has led to a shortage of skilled health workers in the country, which has negatively affected the quality of healthcare services provided to the citizens. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara says the state government will immortalise the late group chief executive officer of Access Holdings, Herbert Wigwe. Governor Fubara disclosed this while paying tribute to the late banker on Tuesday evening at a night of tributes organised by the Port Harcourt City One Love Family, to reflect, celebrate and eulogise the life of the late Mr Wigwe. Mr Fubara said the late Mr Wigwe lived an impactful life, affecting society positively and his administration is determined to immortalise him as a worthy son of the state, the governors spokesperson, Boniface Onyedi said in a statement posted on Facebook on Wednesday. Mr Wigwe, his wife and son died in a fatal helicopter crash that occurred near the Nevada-California border on 9 February. The Eurocopter EC 130, which carried Mr Wigwe and five others, crashed on its way to Las Vegas, killing all the people onboard. Governor Fubara said Mr Wigwes death was a double loss - first as an in-law, and second as a trail-blazing son of the state who exhibited a daring spirit known of Rivers people in pursuit of their dreams and became successful in his career with reckonable social impact. I have come to understand something about life, those that God has favoured, blessed and truly cherish, He does not like them to stay too long on earth because he doesnt want them to get corrupted. But the wicked ones, the cruel, that you are praying to die, will stay and they will not die. So, you should understand that what has happened to our brother and his family, is truly painful to everyone. But Mr Fubara advised that people should live a life of value, and be at peace with people they encounter daily. He enjoined members of the Port Harcourt One Love Family to uphold and continue with those social impact endeavours that late Mr Wigwe devoted his time to. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Between 19 and 26 February, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held a landmark sitting to hear oral arguments by 51 countries and three international organisations on the legal consequences of Israels continued occupation of Palestinian territories (see box). After the oral hearings, the judges must consider all the arguments (including 57 written submissions) and provide an advisory opinion. No other application before the ICJ has involved this many countries although the 2003 West Bank wall case came close, with 45 states and four international organisations submitting written statements. The large number of countries intervening is unsurprising, considering that the opinion was requested by a December 2022 United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolution that passed with 87 votes in favour, 26 against and 53 abstentions. Of the 40 African countries present for the vote, 26 voted in favour, four against, and 10 abstained. In its presentation on 19 February, Palestines legal team drew on its July 2023 written submissions and subsequent events in Gaza. The lawyers argued against the continued occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel, which they referred to as colonisation, racist violence and apartheid. Meanwhile, while the ICJ hearings were underway, the UN Security Council (UNSC) on 20 February failed again to pass a resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza after the United States (US) vetoed it. Four resolutions have now been vetoed three by the US. Could the US stance against a ceasefire in the Gaza war change with an ICJ advisory opinion in favour of Palestine? Unlikely. A day after the failed UNSC resolution, the US presented its oral arguments at the ICJ, saying the court should not order Israels withdrawal from the Occupied Palestinian Territories without security guarantees. (The same argument was made 20 years ago when the ICJ ruled that the West Bank wall was illegal.) The US also argued that there shouldnt be a time limit to Israels occupation and that the UNSC remained the best forum for deciding security matters. Comments since then by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that new Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law suggest a slight shift away from unconditional support for Israel. Israel has rejected the ICJ process as illegitimate, unwarranted and harmful. On 19 February, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated this position, saying the ICJ proceedings were an effort designed to infringe on Israels right to defend itself against existential threats and that the government and Knesset (Parliament) were united in rejecting it. Israels position on the ICJ is unsurprising. But with the vast majority of countries submissions aligning with Palestines views on the occupation, Israel may be concerned that its support base is shrinking. On the eve of the ICJ hearings, world leaders at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) displayed no appetite for a continued war in the Middle East. As multiple tracks of diplomacy were being pursued in closed discussions, on the main stage the refrain was clear: the war must end, hostages and prisoners of war should be released, and a two-state solution was the only viable way out. But Israels President Isaac Herzog and former foreign minister Tzipi Livni argued at the conference that Israels military action in Gaza would continue and that a two-state solution could only be on the table once Hamas was eradicated from Gaza. This stance, coupled with Netanyahus rejection of the ICJ process, raises concerns about what, if any, impact the advisory opinion will have. Although these opinions are non-binding, they play a critical role in shaping international law and are instructive. But theres a poor track record on compliance. In the West Bank wall case, the courts finding that the wall was illegal and must be dismantled was rejected by Israel and with no enforcement by any UN member states, the wall stands to this day. Israel may similarly ignore the decision on occupation. But its not only Israels stance under scrutiny this time. It is also the views of countries supporting Israel as the war on Gaza enters its fifth month. Of the 63 nations that are party to the proceedings, only three (Israel, the US and Hungary) have made statements unequivocally defending the legality of the occupation. While not rejecting the ICJs role, Canada, Togo and Zambias written submissions argued that the proceedings could undermine stability in Israel and Palestine and ongoing negotiations, and called on the court not to issue an opinion. Others, like Fiji, argued that the UN General Assemblys request was biased, politicised and undermined the courts integrity. France asserted Israels right to defend itself, but referred to the occupation as colonisation, rejecting further forceful acquisition of territories, and calling on Israel to grant Palestinians protections and rights. Most states (40), along with the League of Arab States, African Union (AU) and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation welcomed an ICJ advisory opinion to settle the issue. They argued that by transferring parts of its civilian population into the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Israel violated Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits occupying powers from deporting or transferring parts of their civilian population into the territory they occupy. It also prohibits the individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory. This reaffirms the ICJs advisory opinion on the West Bank wall. Fifteen African countries and the AU have contributed to the current ICJ case. They were united in their statements, which focused on international humanitarian law and argued that the occupation breached the Apartheid Convention. Only Togo and Zambia said they didnt regard the ICJ as the right platform to deal with the issue, although they did condemn violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Countries intervening in the ICJ case on Israels occupation of Palestinian territories The advisory opinion will likely come out long before South Africas ICJ case against Israel on genocide in Gaza is decided. Israel had until 26 February to report on its implementation of the courts provisional measures to prevent genocide in Gaza. Israels media reported that the government did meet the deadline, but details were unavailable at the time of writing. Israels report back will likely include humanitarian measures and efforts to deal with incitement. However, Israel has already been criticised for not providing essential services and impeding humanitarian aid. And its actions since the ICJ ruling on 26 January, including statements by Netanyahu, suggest the conflict is intensifying. Israel maintains that these actions do not amount to genocide. An ICJ advisory opinion on Israels occupation of Palestine is expected before July 2024. Even if its largely symbolic, the message from the many countries that argued against the occupation is clear: previous bystanders are now actively making their views heard, suggesting widespread support for judicial processes as integral to the rule of law. Ottilia Anna Maunganidze, Head of Special Projects, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) (This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish). Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Senate on Wednesday summoned the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, and its Commissioner of Police, Benneth Igweh, to an interactive session over the rising cases of kidnapping, armed robbery and other criminal activities in the territory. The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said Messers Wike and Igweh will appear before the lawmakers in a closed-door session to find a lasting solution to insecurity challenges in the federal capital territory. The summon is coming barely two weeks after the lawmakers expressed satisfaction with how service chiefs have been managing the security situation in the country. Specifically, the Senate said it was impressed with the determination and focus of the service chiefs in addressing the situation. At Wednesdays plenary, the lawmakers expressed displeasure with the insecurity situation and criminal activities within the FCT. The Senate President thereafter directed the Clerk of the Senate, Chinedu Akubueze, to communicate the summon to the FCT Minister and the police commissioner. The upper chamber resolved to do so after a majority of the senators supported it through voice votes. The resolution was a sequel to a motion sponsored by the Delta North senator, Ned Nwoko, whose aide, Chris Agidy, was kidnapped alongside 19 others in the Galadimawa area of Abuja last November. Mr Nwoko, while presenting his motion, announced that the aide was murdered by his abductors after spending about four months in captivity. The PDP senator urged the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to increase security surveillance within the FCT to forestall further occurrences. He also advised the IGP to look into the installation of CCTV cameras in strategic locations on Abuja highways. Many of the senators supported the motion during the debate. In his remarks, Mr Akpabio expressed sadness on the death of the senators aide. He said the challenges of insecurity within Abuja and across the country must be solved. The FCT Minister and Police Commissioner would appear before us in closed session on a date to be sent to them by the Clerk of the Senate. Their expected appearance before the Senate is to hear from them, measures and strategies being put in place to stem the ugly tide of kidnappings in FCT. Incidents like kidnapping and killing of SLA of Senator Nwoko and some residents of FCT, are worrisome and must be stopped not only in FCT but in Nigeria generally Mr Akpabio said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State has said the fight against insecurity in the state has been hindered because many vigilante operatives had been infiltrated by criminals. Mr Soludo spoke on Tuesday during a meeting with traditional rulers and presidents-general from all 179 communities in the state, according to a statement by the governors spokesperson, Christian Aburime. The meeting happened about four days after gunmen killed Silas Onyima, the president-general of Umuoji, a community in Idemili North Local Government Area of the state. Obstacles Mr Soludo, during the meeting, said as part of the efforts against insecurity in Anambra State, his administration would start paying selected vigilante operatives as soon as leaders of the communities re-certify the selected vigilante operatives. The governor, however, said it is improper that some leaders of vigilante operatives reside outside communities where they work. He also expressed concern over insecurity in Ihiala Local Government Area of the state and pointed out that his administration spends most of the state resources on security infrastructure in the council area in a bid to reverse the situation. Mr Soludo, after listening to questions and comments from the community leaders, said insecurity in the state and the South-east has the potential to drive away investors and affect the entire Nigeria. Part of the problem we experience (in the state) is that many of the vigilante operatives took oaths with criminals; they were infiltrated. We, as a government, are determined to fix the insecurity situation in Ihiala (Council Area), but the community must be prepared for that, even if it means reconstituting the vigilante force, he said. Communities must show a concerted effort to police their areas and enable them to open on Mondays. They must convince their residents to open businesses consistently, and if this is done persistently, the issue of sit-at-home will eventually die out, the governor said, referring to the infamous Monday sit-at-home often enforced by a faction of the Indigenous People of Biafra across the South-east. Efforts on environment Mr Soludo also spoke on his efforts to avoid environment degradation in the state. Regarding the environment, we have abolished indiscriminate sand mining in all communities as it is the root cause of erosion. Anambra is shrinking due to erosion. If we dont take action today, including de-silting our drainages, the situation will worsen, he said. We have implemented a building code for Ndigbo building houses in Anambra. This code requires that an area be left for greenery and water channeling to prevent further erosion, the governor added. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Eulogising the cleric, the parish priest of St Augustines Pastoral Area Dong, Fr George Barde said, he mentored me and restored my sanity and compass in the priesthood with a new lease through the sheer power of his unconditional love and compassion... Barde who worked with the deceased for a year testified that he uses all his money to travel for funerals and celebrations and to feed the poor. Tributes have trailed the death of an exemplary Catholic priest described by many as a friend of the poor in Nigeria, whose charisma was born at a time the Catholic Charismatic Renewal of Nigeria (CCRN) was just beginning. Fr Joseph Zi Mancha, a renowned charismatic priest, who chose evangelical poverty amid a growing tendency for healers to be obsessed with riches, began his ministry in the then Jos Diocese, which now comprises Bauchi, Shendam, Pankshin, and parts of Kafanchan and Lafia over 40 years ago. Referring to him as a household name and friend of the poor, a priest of Kafachan Diocese and Parochial Administrator, St. Elizabeth Seton Parish Sun City, Arizona, Fr William Abba, stated that Fr Mancha was extremely generous and kind to the poor and needy, adding that many young boys and girls trace their success and breakthrough to him. He Attracted People Not For Profit But Healing and Counselling. On the impact of his ministry, Fr Abba narrated that, the hitherto sleepy town of Jagindi became a Mecca of some sort in 1986 (attracting people upon) the arrival of a great charismatic priest not in search of profit but in search of healing and counselling because the priest worked purely for the love of God and his Church. Extolling his gifts, the cleric who said, he was the wonder man, a miracle worker, a nightmare of witches and wizards assured that he spoke in tongues with reckless abandon, (and) had this mystic around him, stated that, everyone feared him (because) he exuded strength and trod on snakes at no harm to him. Fr Abba emphasised that the ascetic and miracle worker was on a missiondetermined to liberate those who were held captive and also said that he mentored youths whom he took under his care and provided for their needs. Tto his credit today, many of them are priests, religious and bishops. Citing his legacies, the fide donum priest to Arizona said, he was a pastor per excellence (with) an extraordinary love for rural Churches and took interest in the spiritual life of his flock (who) was in hot demand by parishes and Dioceses around. He bore the name parish priest while his assistants ran the show. Bishop Ajang Bishop David Ajang of Lafia Diocese observed that Fr Mancha was a gifted priest with lots of qualities hard work, generosity, and humility, underlining that wherever he worked, he bore the name parish priest while his assistants ran the show. Bishop Ajang, who preached at St. Josephs Catholic Church, K-Vam, Plateau State on 18 May 2023 during the priests 70th birthday and 40th priestly ordination said, when we were ordained, 11 years after Fr. Mancha, he was already a household name not only in the then Jos Diocese, but throughout Northern Nigeria and indeed, across the country. He asserted that as young priests, he was someone we looked up to and admired greatly. On his part, the parish priest of St. Josephs Du, in the Archdiocese of Jos, Fr. Dr. Stephen Ape stated that the memories of Fr Mancha bring to mind the undying zeal of a man of God, fervent in service, resilient in prayer, and dedicated to the ministry. Dr Akpa submitted that Fr Mancha, lived selflessly, had no taste for wealth like contemporary ministers even when he could have acquired stupendous wealth because he began his healing ministry at a time of glare innocence and affluence surmising that, he gave his all and could go begging to simply give again. On his part, a congregant, Wilber Gowal, stated: I am deeply grateful for how you touched my life at the time our paths crossedI may not remember any sermon you have preached but I remember the kind gestures and your simplicity. Gowal, who referred to him as a remarkable priest, a father and a shepherd who took absolute care of his sheep, urged all to honour his value of love, compassion, and selflessness. Eulogising the cleric, the parish priest of St Augustines Pastoral Area Dong, Fr George Barde said, he mentored me and restored my sanity and compass in the priesthood with a new lease through the sheer power of his unconditional love and compassion. Barde who worked with the deceased for a year testified that he uses all his money to travel for funerals and celebrations and to feed the poor. He taught us that the temporality of this life is real and only fools ignore it. He traversed this country and beyond in his desire to lead people to God and for some of us for reasons of filial proximity, was our ladder to the Catholic priesthood, were the words of the parish priest of St. Jospehs, Barkin Ladi, Very Rev Fr Sylvester Dagin. Dagin, who was preaching during a wake-keep Mass organised in honour of the deceased at Our Lady of Fatima Cathedral, Jos on Monday, 12th February, told sympathisers that he served under the late Mancha as a Seminarian at Jagindi in 1990 and revealed that, it was my first experience of explosive charismatic healings in which we dealt with abandoned charms and fleeing witches and wizards. He affirmed that many have levelled Fr. Mancha as carrying extra-large generosity-tendency, which is a perception, but it is engraved in the priestly identity. The former Rector of St. Augustines Major Seminary, Jos, who regretted that it is quite sad that we live in a world today in which obnoxious accumulations are honoured and sacrifices are looked upon as imbecility and outright foolishness, observed that his death teaches us that outrageous accumulation is futile and the only thing that lasts is service to humanity. Conclusion The former President of the Alumni Association of St. Augustines Major Seminary, Jos, National Chaplain of CCRN (1997-2004), National Coordinator of CCRN (2004 till death), and National Chaplain of St. Patrick Berom Catholic Association from 1985 until death, graduated from the famous St. Josephs College, Vom, in 1977, enrolled for priestly training and was ordained by Archbishop Gabriel Ganaka of Blessed memory on 21st May 1983 at St. Josephs Catholic Church, K/Vom. Born on 17th March 1953 to the family of Da and Ngo Mancha Mwadkon Nbyong in Dantau (Danye 11) Turu District, Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State, Fr Mancha studied Human Growth and Development Counselling at the Institute of St. Anselm, Kent, London from 1992 to 1993. Speaking about his last hours, his assistant at St. Peters Pastoral Area Gyel, Fr. Bernard Akhuele said, I am glad, I anointed him and gave him holy communion while he was 90 per cent conscious in the house before rushing him to Unique Care hospital, Jos, where he died on 4 February at about 12:55 pm all these happened within three hours 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. His mortal remains were interred at the St. John Vianney Minor Seminary priests cemetery, Barkin Ladi, after requiem Mass. Though Fr Dagin laments that the great Master is gone, the available marisco is no more, he lives forever in our hearts as a generous-nonmaterialistic priest and friend of the poor without doubt, Fr Joe Mancha awaits the Greatest Masters reward! Justine John Dyikuk, a Catholic priest, is a Lecturer of Mass Communication at, the University of Jos-Nigeria, Senior Fellow, International Religious Freedom Policy, Religious Freedom Institute (RFI), Washington DC and PhD Candidate, University of Strathclyde Glasgow, United Kingdom. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The point l want to make, my Lords, is that when Police officers are prosecuted or convicted for killing innocent members of the public, such incidents are not adequately publicised. I believe that this lack of knowledge of how the legal process works is responsible for the belief of some Police officers that they can get away with killing members of the public, since they dont see the immediate consequences of their actions. The erroneous belief of Police officers about their immunity from prosecution and the sense of impunity has once again been shattered by the High Court of Lagos State in Bolanle Raheems case. The point l want to make, my Lords, is that when Police officers are prosecuted or convicted for killing innocent members of the public, such incidents are not adequately publicised. I believe that this lack of knowledge of how the legal process works is responsible for the belief of some Police officers that they can get away with killing members of the public, since they dont see the immediate consequences of their actions. All they see is that their colleagues involved in such incidents are given Orderly Room Trials, if they are junior officers, and are dismissed by the Police. They dont know that the legal process of prosecution and appeals inexorably continues to the highest court, especially where the defendants had been charged and sentenced to death at the trial court. Invariably by the time the cases/appeal processes come to an end, Police officers and members of the public would have forgotten the incidents. Its only those who lost their loved ones who remember where theyve kept track of the case. It is also important to make the point that it is not because of the public outcry over Bolanle Raheems case that ensured the prosecution of the Police officer, but that the law had always taken its course in most cases of such incidents. The following are a few decisions l can remember off the cuff in the last couple of years, where the Supreme Court had affirmed the conviction of Police officers who killed members of the public. There are many more of these decisions and many at different stages of trial and appeal. My point is that Policemen, at large, need to be enlightened about the consequences of their actions. Let us educate those within our sphere of influence. Hopefully, this will minimise similar incidents. 1. In P.C Henry Ekum v. The State Appeal No. SC.1103/2017, reported in (2022) LPELR-57683(SC), delivered on 13th May, 2022, the following happened: On 23 October, 2010, at Number 24 Ochedore Street, Four Corners, Ikom in Calabar, Cross River State, the appellant (a Police officer) murdered one Ebam Takim Obiba by shooting him on the head with an AK47 rifle. The appellant had held a certain woman hostage in a salon and after an altercation with his colleague on one side and the womans husband and the deceased on the other side, he started shooting randomly and killed the deceased. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. His death sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court. 2. Onyebucho Onwunze v. The State Appeal No. SC.215/2017, delivered on 2nd December, 2022. On 25th of March, 2007, in Ilupa Village at Godwin Ozumas compound, the appellant (a Police officer) took a combatant position on being commanded by his superior officer, and shot and killed one Anna Otari Ogbodo, an unarmed elderly woman. The court convicted the appellant of murder and sentenced him to death by hanging. The death sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court. 3. Matthew Egheghe v. The State Appeal No. SC.304/2017- Reported in (2020) LPELR- 50552 (SC), delivered on 10th January, 2020, the following happened: On Sunday 16th October, 2011, along Sani Abacha Express Way, Yenagoa, one Emmanuel Victor was on his way from church when he encountered some Policemen. The appellant (a Police Officer) chased down the motorcycle wherein Victor was a passenger after having slapped him previously, pulled him down and shot him several times to death. The appellant was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. His death sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court. 4. Akinyede Olaiya v. The State Appeal No. SC.562/2014 reported in 2017) LPELR-43714 delivered on 8th December, 2017, the following happened: On 23rd March, 2011, at Ota Junction, Omuo Ekiti in Ekiti State, the appellant (a Police officer) fired two shots into the crowd without provocation or any real threat to his life or the lives of other policemen with him. The shots fired by the appellant killed one Kehinde Ayo Faluyi who was in that crowd. The appellant was convicted and sentenced to death. His death sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court. 5. P.C Adeusi Adesina v. The People of Lagos State Appeal No. SC. 622/2014, Reported in (2019) LPELR 46403 SC), delivered on 18th January, 2019, the following happened: On 27th November, 2008, the appellant, a Police constable, in Apogbon Blackspot, Lagos State, shot a lorry driver named Dauda Isiako Akao and killed him. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. His sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court. 6. The State v. P.C. James Egigia (SC) (unreported) delivered on the 26th day of January, 2024. The respondent, who is a policeman, on or about the 16th day of February, 2006, at Ayama village in Auyo Local Government Area of Jigawa State, seriously beat and fractured the leg of the deceased, one Ismaila Dodo, while investigating a case. The injuries led to the death of the deceased. The trial court found the respondent guilty of the offence of committing serious assault under Section 224 and punishable under Section 225 of the Penal Code Law and sentenced him to five years imprisonment without the option of fine. The sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court. Helen Moronkeji Ogunwumiju is a justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. This is the text of a paper shared with the National Association of Women Judges. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has spoken out against supplying Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles because of fears that this decision could draw Germany into a war. ADVERTISIMENT "I'm surprised that some people don't think about whether what we're going to do could lead to a kind of participation in a war," Scholz said. He also added that the debate over the Taurus missiles diverts attention from what Ukraine "really" needs. "What Ukraine lacks is ammunition for all possible distances, not necessarily Taurus," the chancellor said. "Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale attack, the Germans have been giving Ukraine helmets and medical kits. Then there were tanks and air defense systems. And today we are talking about long-range missiles. And although Scholz continues to take a non-constructive stance, I think he will have no choice when the long-range missile supply coalition that Macron has been talking about is launched. Germany will not be pleased to stay on the sidelines of the mainstream, which is now rising among Western partners," former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Volodymyr Ohryzko said in an exclusive commentary for OBOZ.UA. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information on our Telegram OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! The preponderance of opinions thereafter is: If GYB had so much to show, why did he concentrate on politics at both national and state levels, to the detriment of his legacy of accomplishments? Why were all these, including another university in Kogi West and infrastructure in the state not given the needed exposure? Seeing is believing is an African proverb that holds water in Kogi State. Like every other human endeavour, it is now time for the world to critically scrutinise and assess the administration of Alhaji Yahaya Bello (GYB), the immediate past governor of Kogi State. In the states peculiar form of political landscape, an objective evaluation of the governors legacy is not likely because of primordial sentiments and the image of GYB in the minds and eyes of many people, his towering political influence in the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) and the way he projected himself in that context in the last eight years. It is debatable if the governors stewardship was more about his kind of politics and style of governance than concentrating on providing the dividends of democracy. His antagonists point to his presidential ambition and foray into APC presidential primary election, his touted vaunting goal of becoming APC chairman, the Kogi governorship election that produced Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo, which came with internal cracks and his and Governor Nasir El-Rufais courageous involvement in the near-ruinous naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, which almost cost APC/President Bola Tinubu victory at the polls. Besides, local issues of his controversial and long screening of the states workforce and the attendant sufferings did not go down well with a lot of people in and outside the state. Again, like many pundits, Id thought GYB was all about relevance at the top and strategic national recognition in politics (which is not an offence on its own) than delivering on the main mandate of good governance in form of the provision of infrastructure and welfare. That perception changed recently when the state played host to the Nigerian Guild of Editors for its Standing Committee meeting from 23rd to 24th of February. To the surprise of everyone on the trip, the footprints of the GYB era were quite visible, as were seen during a tour led by the Commissioner of Information, Kingsley Fanwo. Government is a continuum, and no administration can nip all the challenges confronting a state in the bud, but the transformation of the Muhammadu Buhari Centre and the facilities within has given Lokoja, the state capital, an exciting facelift. As a former political appointee who had a short stint with the previous government, I knew how dilapidated the township stadium that is now Muhammadu Buhari Centre was. I understand the old structure was brought down for the facelift befitting of a state capital. From there to the GYB Model Secondary School Adankolo, to Okene Specialist Hospital, to the first flyover in the state and others in the offing, the initiative for the transformation of Kogi State has commenced in earnest. The hospital, in particular, was equipped with modern facilities; it also owns a gas plant that can serve the whole of North Central, while six others across the state were renovated and upgraded. The Confluence University of Science and Technology (CUSTECH), Osara stands tall among the initiatives of the previous government. The 400-acre land of the university is a huge construction site for the various programmes and sections of the university. According to the Vice Chancellor, Professor Abdulrahman Asipita Salawu, besides other programmes that are already in session, such as Faculty of Science, Faculty of Computing and Informatics, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Engineering Technology and Faculty of Management Sciences, some highly sought after and needs-based courses in CUSTECH will soon start. They include Petroleum and Gas Engineering, because Kogi is an oil-producing state; Marine Engineering, because Kogi is a confluence state, and it hosts Nigeria Inland Water Way (NIWA); and Material and Metallurgical Engineering, because of the Ajaokuta Steel Company and Itakpe Iron ore industry. The Faculty of Medicine will begin in the 2025/2026 academic session, and the precursors to this have already commenced with the Physiology, Medical Laboratory Sciences, Nursing, Anatomy Medicine programmes. With a TETFUND project worth N3 billion in the offing, which the VC described as unprecedented, and the university, fast-growing and uncompromising, Professor Salawu said CUSTECH is the university of first choice for students seeking admission if such students meet their requirements. The Nigerian Guild of Editors president, Eze Anaba observed that the General Hospital in the state is capable of stemming the tide of medical tourism, even as it will serve neighbouring communities and beyond, he further commended the previous administration of Yahaya Bello and urged Governor Usman Ahmed Ododo to build on the legacy of good governance handed over to him. Eze said: Democracy is about the people and the facilities we have seen, including the network of roads and model schools are commendable and impressive. Intriguing as it sounds, the universitys location was known for notorious crimes and was also a den of kidnappers previously. However, the universitys answer to that is the use of local hunters who are familiar with the terrain to beef up security. The VC said, so far the safeguard measures are working because there has been no incident of security breach in the large expanse of land housing the university community, which is nearing completion. The preponderance of opinions thereafter is: If GYB had so much to show, why did he concentrate on politics at both national and state levels, to the detriment of his legacy of accomplishments? Why were all these, including another university in Kogi West and infrastructure in the state not given the needed exposure? Seeing is believing is an African proverb that holds water in Kogi State. While it is hoped that posterity remembers the GYB era kindly, for me it is a revelation in how not to play politics, while there is so much to be achieved in terms of good governance. The two are mutually exclusive. Zainab Suleiman Okino is the Chairperson of Blueprint Editorial Board. She is a syndicated columnist and can be reached via: zainabokino@gmail.com Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print This note verbale incident, in addition to a series of others before now which portray our country in a poor light, was one too many. There is a saying in my Igbo dialect which translates to, If an old woman falls more than once, it is usually advised to count the number of items in the basket she is carrying on her head... High-level engagements between Nigerias Sovereign and others are so important that there should be no room for errors. As a Nigerian, I find the correspondence between the embassy of Qatar in Nigeria and Nigerias Ministry of Foreign Affairs currently circulating online, embarrassing. It is an insult to our nation. Relevant authorities should investigate the source and intent of this leak and take steps to ensure that it does not happen again. There is no contesting that our government has a responsibility to manage our national affairs with savvy, reflecting deep knowledge and understanding of diplomatic protocols and norms; it is, however, impolitic for any nation to disrespect a purportedly friendly nation through its communication, or any other channel for that matter, in the way that Qatar has done, however muted the attempt. I call on Nigerians who think that this act of ridicule against our nation is justified and worthy of celebration to have a rethink. It is not. It is indeed very disrespectful to our nation and people. Being outside the government, we may never know the full facts, but the tone and use of language in the circulating document, however factual, is most discourteous and calculated to undermine Nigerias image. Every part of our government is important for the efficient functioning of the whole, nevertheless our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, like that of other countries, is a critical Ministry, especially because it is front-facing, with the responsibility to shape and lead our engagement with the world. Nations use their Foreign Service Ministry to project hard and soft power, economic development, their people and their cultures. It is for this reason that most nations make significant investments and spare no expense in training members of their diplomatic service. With the state of our economy and the considerable security challenges Nigeria is faced with at this time, every trip outside the country must be one that will bring obvious benefits to our troubled economy. The offensive note verbale from the Qataris is tantamount to someone accepting your request to visit his or her home, while telling you at the same time that they wont be home. Once upon a time, the Nigerian nation and its diplomats were highly revered in the world for the quality of their minds and the overall impact of Nigerias foreign policy on global affairs. Their well-informed policy thrusts were the basis of Nigerias successes at various times in the past in South Africa, Mozambique, Sudan, Ethiopia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote dIvoire, Togo, Burkina Faso and Sao Tome and Principe to name a few; and in many peace negotiations and peacekeeping efforts around the world. The Foreign Service Academy, the Nigeria Institute for International Affairs, and similar elite institutions abroad, were created to meet the training needs of our diplomats and also carry oout research on contemporary issues in Africa and the world. It was the outcome of various research and the thought leadership provided by leading diplomats and scholars in these institutions that underpinned Nigerias foreign policy, which, though focused on Africa, helped Nigeria project considerable power in global affairs. This note verbale incident, in addition to a series of others before now which portray our country in a poor light, was one too many. There is a saying in my Igbo dialect which translates to, If an old woman falls more than once, it is usually advised to count the number of items in the basket she is carrying on her head. High-level engagements between Nigerias Sovereign and others are so important that there should be no room for errors. The reason or basis for meeting or visiting must be clear and free of ambiguity. The agenda must be agreed upon and finalised, usually after extensive consultations between officials of both countries. Unless there is a crisis, requiring urgent meetings, state visits are not vacations. They are sometimes planned years in advance and governments must prepare to make the best of the visit to enhance trade, bilateral and other relations in education, culture, science and technology, depending on a countrys interests. The nature of the meeting will also determine the composition and membership of the delegation. An important role for Nigerias representatives in potential host countries is a keen understanding of the cultural norms and gestures with detailed briefing provided to guide Mr President. That is how detailed the planning must be. Communication of the intent, purpose, resolutions and outcomes of a visit or meeting is critical; it must be factual and verifiable at every stage, issued at the appropriate level, only by an authorised official. If the Qatari Minister for Trade and indeed the Qatari business community and economic actors will otherwise be engaged with others on matters of similar interest to ours at the time of Mr Presidents visit and communicate in the way that they have done, that in itself is a strong message of Nigerias standing with the government and people of Qatar. Actions are also important tools of diplomacy. It is not the duty of your host to make your country look good by keeping mute if, out of excitement, inexperience or incompetence, your officials mis-state resolutions reached at meetings. Competent officials of host countries are accountable to their principals and citizens and will issue their own statements based on their own understanding of what transpired at a meeting between two or more sovereigns. This was the case when President Tinubu visited the United Arab Emirates some months ago. Such slips, however freudian, have the potential to undermine otherwise important gains from high-level meetings and engender a crisis of confidence. With the state of our economy and the considerable security challenges Nigeria is faced with at this time, every trip outside the country must be one that will bring obvious benefits to our troubled economy. The offensive note verbale from the Qataris is tantamount to someone accepting your request to visit his or her home, while telling you at the same time that they wont be home. If the Qatari Minister for Trade and indeed the Qatari business community and economic actors will otherwise be engaged with others on matters of similar interest to ours at the time of Mr Presidents visit and communicate in the way that they have done, that in itself is a strong message of Nigerias standing with the government and people of Qatar. Actions are also important tools of diplomacy. I anticipate a serious review of this situation by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, and his offer of dispassionate advice to Mr President to postpone this visit to enable proper planning in order for Nigeria to obtain the best outcomes from the visit, at a future date. I must, however, call on our government to get its acts together. The discourtesy and disrespect to our government and citizens around the world is on account of the perception of our country at this time, as weak, disorganised, and corrupt. Respect can neither be conjured nor decreed. It can only be earned, especially in the international arena through hard work good governance at home, a strong economy and people-centred development, a secure and stable polity, respect for human rights and the rule of law, a manifest abhorrence for corruption and consistent respect for international laws and fulfilment of legitimate international obligations. As we secure our country and rebuild our economy, perception of Nigerias circumstances will change on the basis of reality; countries will naturally become more circumspect in their engagement with our government and respect for our passport and our people will grow. Frank Nweke II is a senior visiting fellow at the Lagos Business School and member, Nigerias Federal Cabinet (2003-2007). Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A gentleman by every standard, Senator Udoma sometimes comes across as an Englishman with a dark skin. From the calm way he speaks, to the emphatic but gentle manner he responds to controversial issues, he hardly rocks the boat. However, dont ever dare him; because such people are dangerous when pushed to the wall. It was a delicious surprise when I woke up recently to discover that Senator Udoma Udo Udoma had turned a princely 70 years. The question came unplanned: How did he get there; so fast; unannounced? Well, not so quickly. He has been around for a short while. The truth, however, is that people sculptured in the mould of Udoma hardly grow old in the imagination of their admirers. They simply exist, make marks for themselves and their environment and refuse to age, physically or reputation-wise. As the son of Sir Egbert Udo Udoma, the late former Justice of Nigerias Supreme Court, it was pretty difficult for Senator Udoma to emerge from the shadows of his father and create a separate identity for himself. I assume he succeeded reasonably when he won election to the Senate in 1999. A gentleman by every standard, Senator Udoma sometimes comes across as an Englishman with a dark skin. From the calm way he speaks, to the emphatic but gentle manner he responds to controversial issues, he hardly rocks the boat. However, dont ever dare him; because such people are dangerous when pushed to the wall. If you doubt me, ask former President Olusegun Obasanjo. In 1999 after Udomas unchallenged victory at the polls, Obasanjo decided to appoint him a minister. Udoma was momentarily confused on what to do. It all started after Obasanjo emerged as president-elect and decided to appoint someone from the South-South geopolitical zone as Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF). As expected, a lot of people started lobbying for the position. Three people from Akwa Ibom State: Obong Victor Attah who was the governor-elect, the late Major General Edet Akpan and Udoma visited Obasanjo in his farm in Otta to lobby for the late Obong Ufot Ekaete to be considered as SGF. During that visit and as the conversation progressed, Obasanjo informed the delegation that he would like Udoma to serve in his cabinet. Surprised, everyone turned to Udoma, who chose to maintain a straight look situated somewhere between a smile and a frown. He sought election to the Senate with clear-cut objectives. As Obasanjo said those words, Udoma started wondering whether he could achieve those objectives from the office of a minister. The next question that came mind was what portfolio Obasanjo would offer him. From that point onward, pushed on by a few of his friends, he tried to find out from Obasanjo which ministry he would likely serve in. The president, even after taking office, remain slippery in his answer or the lack of it. Somehow, Udoma got to know that he would be made a minister of state in charge of environment. A high drama later unfolded when Obasanjo inaugurated his cabinet. The Senate was already in session when Senator Udoma walked in, an indication that he had turned down the ministerial offer. Senators rose in applause. Instantly, a strain was placed on his relationship with Obasanjo. Categorised by friends and associates as highly principled, Udoma as the chief whip of the Senate was the first and only PDP principal officer to publicly reject the attempt by Obasanjo to change the 1999 Constitution and give himself tenure elongation in 2007. He noted in a public statement that his reason for opposing the tenure elongation proposal was because he felt that at this stage in our political development, incumbents holding executive office have unfair advantages over those challenging them, including exclusive access to state resources. He continued that term limits were therefore the only way to ensure that Nigeria did not have leaders for life who would entrench themselves, such that they could not be removed through the ballot box. In his opinion, once so entrenched, the opposition might be forced to resort to extra-constitutional means to remove them from office, thus leading to political instability. Udoma later disclosed that the 1999 ministerial offer presented him with one of the most difficult decisions of his life. He almost repeated the same act when Muhammadu Buhari appointed him a minister in 2015, by rejecting the offer again. When he was earlier contacted, he was said to have been promised appointment as a minister with responsibilities covering foreign investment and economic activities. However, things changed on the day he was sworn-in to office. He realised, after taking the oath, that he was going to be in charge of Budget and National Planning; which was not quite a strange environment to him. As he contemplated what to do, it occurred to him that the applause he ignited in 1999 after turning down the appointment by Obasanjo had since died. Buhari was reported to have reminded Udoma that as senator, he was at different times in charge of committees on appropriation and national planning. Reluctantly he obliged. A proud and well-cherished son of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Udoma was said to have unambiguously informed Buhari that he would not accept re-appointment as minister; and he was the first among colleagues to clear his table as soon Buharis first term came to a close. An alumnus of Kings College, Lagos, Udoma trained as a lawyer at Oxford University, specialising in commercial law. The Oxford tradition seems to run in his family. His father had earlier studied law there. I am aware that at least one of Udomas children beat the fathers record in Oxford. While a lot of people may believe that Udomas admission to Oxford and his phenomenal professional growth in the legal practice had the influence of his father in terms of opening doors, the reverse was actually the case. That is a story for another day. I am tempted at this point to reveal, probably to Senator Udomas discomfort, that 1999 was not the only time he turned down an offer from a sitting president. The first was probably unknown because it happened under the military. Lets equally leave that for another day. While serving in the Senate, Udoma almost created an avoidable scene one day when he challenged the late Senator Arthur Nzeribe to mention the names of those involved in a bribe scandal which Nzeribe celebrated in the media and during plenary sessions of the Senate. The senator from Imo State was fond of boasting about giving a three-million naira bribe to individual senators so that they wont support the House of Representatives in the bid to impeach Obasanjo in 2003. During one of the plenary sessions, Udoma raised a Point of Order. When given the floor, he demanded that Nzeribe should stop rubbishing the integrity of every senator seated in the hallowed chamber. He demanded that names of those he offered the money to be mentioned, so that people like him would not be counted among those who took the bribe. At this point, the entire plenary session of the Senate went quiet. Almost reluctantly and against the unexpressed wish of the majority, the Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, yielded the floor to Nzeribe. Rising with a mischievous smile, Nzeribe, with all eyes and attention from the gallery to the floor feasted on him, cut short the tension by declaring that it would be near madness for any person to attempt to bribe Udoma. He stated categorically that Udoma was not among those he even considered offering the orchestrated bribe because it would be too risky to do so. Cleared, Udoma smiled and sat back. No one ever raised the issue again, not even Nzeribe. Called to the bar in 1978, Udoma practiced with senior lawyers for five years before setting up a personal law firm in 1983. That firm is today called Udo Udoma and Belo-Osagie. It remains one of the largest commercial law firms in Nigeria. He would have missed all of this if he did not listen to his father. Beginning in 1991, Udoma spent two years as a part-time consultant with a US law firm called Shearman and Sterling. He served in their Paris office, while still running his law practice in Lagos. He did this by alternating months in Paris and Lagos. At the end, he was offered the opportunity to become a partner and move to the firms head office in New York. Excited, he went to tell his father. The old man listened in silence as Udoma described the opportunity as golden, with a huge remuneration and a chance to rub shoulders with some of the best legal minds in the world. Justice Udoma congratulated his son, but advised him to turn down the offer, stay in Nigeria and contribute to building a society that could provide all the facilities that attracted him to the United States; because that society was built by people like him. He told the young lawyer to build up a law firm that could, in future, rival Shearman and Sterling. It was a vote of confidence that challenged Senator Udoma to build one of the best commercial law firms in Africa. Udoma once told me, We are the ones that can make Nigeria better. So, I would like to say to young people, please get involved. If you have any opportunity to get involved, please get involved. Will it be easy? No. Building a better society is not easy work, but you can only make a difference if you are involved; if you participate. The more we have high quality people involved in politics, the better for the country. However, getting involved does not mean blending in and accepting all the bad practices. Dont be afraid to say no, when you are asked to do something wrong. Always be ready to walk away. To be able to do this, you must have an alternative source of livelihood. The late Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu, once told me a story about how, at the beginning of Udomas second term in the Senate, he had the opportunity to serve as Chairman of the highly prestigious and most important Standing Committee of any Senate, the Appropriations Committee. During the first term, he had headed the same Committee for two years. He was aware of the enormous power of that office. However, Udoma opted for the much less desirable position of Chairman of the National Planning and Poverty Alleviation Committee. His reason was to be focused on ensuring that the Bill to remove the on-shore/off-shore oil dichotomy was again passed into law, and, having studied, in some detail, the responsibilities of each of the Committees, he realised that that was the Committee that would likely handle the issue. By opting to serve as chairman of that Committee, he was simply elevating the interest of his state above a personal desire. He gave up the possibility of enhancing his influence in the Senate and upgrading his political visibility for the sake of his people. That is who Senator Udoma is. Distinguished, I simply wanted to say, happy birthday. Instead, I have ended up a long story. Even now, Im struggling to end this narrative. Dont forget, the world is expecting that book your biography. Happy birthday, Sir. Sam Akpe writes from Abuja. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Why choose BSN MBA? Besides the fact that a BSN MBA helps you embrace diversity and creates a path to success, our Action Learning International MBA cuts across executive professionals to junior executives from various states of Nigeria and sectors of the economy. Flexibility is the key; as a business school, we understand the need for continual development and training at the highest level and know time is crucial in our day-to-day lives. Dont settle for the status quo. Its time to rise above the economic and business challenges. Take control of your future with a BSN MBA. Were here to empower you. NEXT MBA SET STARTS: 16th March, 2024 DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION FOR THE NEXT BATCH: 10TH MARCH 2024. Click here; our student enrolment officer will contact you to address your enquiries. Enquiries Form Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal has described education as the foundation of civilization, emphasizing that that was why he made it a top priority in his administrations six-point Smart Agenda. He spoke during a ceremony held on Wednesday in Gusau, the state capital, to flag off the distribution of teaching and learning materials to 250 public primary and junior secondary schools throughout the state. A statement issued by the spokesperson of the governor, Sulaiman Bala Idris, revealed that the materials were provided by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Abuja and the UNICEF. According to the statement, the items to be distributed are for 250 beneficiary schools. The items comprise 242,176 textbooks for different grades, 200 play materials for ECCDE, 25 ECCDE tables and chairs, 8,210 library materials, resources and 35 UNICEF (NLP) focus schools for solar power equipment. During the flag-off ceremony, Mr Lawal stated that Zamfara as an educationally disadvantaged state in Nigeria, would continue to require support and engagement from national and international partners to advance education in the state. He said, I am delighted to be at this significant event of distributing reading materials to students in our basic education sub-sector. This gesture is one of the many interventions that Zamfara State benefits from. We are overhauling 60 secondary schools across the state under the World Bank-assisted Community and Social Development Agency (CSDA). Each local government area has six secondary schools undergoing renovation, while the state capital, Gusau, has eight. The education emergency declared in the state is not limited to basic and secondary education but also extends to tertiary-level education. Provision of new facilities and rehabilitation of old ones is ongoing in all tertiary institutions across the state. Todays event is a step in the right direction at the right time. It complements our efforts to provide Zamfara with qualitative and equitable education to liberate our people from ignorance and poverty. UNICEFs noble objectives of promoting literacy and educational opportunities for students and learners in the Nigeria Learning Passport (NLP) initiative, aimed at facilitating learning both within and outside the classrooms, are commendable. Furthermore, the governor disclosed measures his government took to settle the backlog of WAEC and NECO debts owed by the previous administrations of the state. We are reviving education at all levels to give meaning to the lives of our young people. Today, our students are writing both WAEC and NECO examinations like their counterparts across the country, leading to timely result releases. We have negotiated with the examination bodies and began settlement of liabilities inherited due to the failure of the past regimes to meet this basic requirement. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has shut down some unregistered sachet water production factories in Anambra State. The companies were said to be producing water in unhealthy environments and operating without subjecting their processes to regulatory standards. Louis Mmadubuatta, coordinator of NAFDAC in Anambra, told reporters in Awka that the exercise was part of the agencys routine surveillance aimed at protecting the health of Nigerians. We have over time visited a number of water factories that do not comply with good manufacturing standards and normally such places are shut until they comply and those we earlier closed have done so. Those places are sealed and we are not opening them until they respond to the regulatory action taken against them, he said. Mr Mmadubuatta, who did not reveal the locations of the sealed companies for strategic reasons, warned companies engaging in illegal manufacturing of table water and other regulated products to desist from such activities. He said the companies should go to NAFDAC and register their products and those whose license had expired should endeavour to renew them. We are still embarking on massive sanction activities against erring companies, he said. The coordinator urged residents to assist NAFDAC with information on illegal table water production activities going on in their neighbourhood for swift reaction while assuring them that their identities would be protected. He further advised that consumers should look out for product name, production and expiry dates, NAFDAC number and batch number and that they should contact the agency if they had doubts. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A scandal erupted in Ukraine over the revocation by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and Patriarch Filaret of an award to Viktor Pylypenko, a soldier of the 72nd Black Zaporozhians Brigade. The reason is the defender's homosexual orientation. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported on Facebook by the UOC-KP. Pylypenko himself, as well as many media outlets, social media users and the soldier's fellow brothers in arms, reacted to the post of the church's press service, and began to refuse the awards presented by the Filaret. About the awarding ceremony On February 8, the UOC awarded medals for "Sacrifice and Love for Ukraine" to the soldiers of the 72nd Black Zaporozhians Brigade. All personnel received the award. Pylypenko, who has always openly declared his orientation, together with the commander of the medical center, Yurii Lytvynenko, arrived from Donbas to hand over the awards to the military. He received them personally from Filaret, who thanked the soldier. Why the church revoked the award After receiving the award, the soldier published a post thanking Filaret for the award, thinking that in this way the UOC changed its attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community. ADVERTISIMENT "I am sincerely glad that Patriarch Filaret took such a step and thanked me, an openly gay man and human rights activist, for the protection. He gave me a medal with his signature and seal. He and the Kyiv Patriarchate headed by him have radically changed their position on LGBTQ+ people and no longer consider us "sinful" or the cause of the coronavirus," Pylypenko wrote. However, on February 25, Filaret's press service responded to his post. They emphasized that they had not changed their position on the LGBTQ+ community and that the patriarch was "unaware of the sinful tendencies" of the military when he presented the award. In fact, he considers non-heterosexual orientation a "sodomite sin." The post noted that although they are grateful to soldier Pylypenko, they do not share his "sinful preferences." ADVERTISIMENT "We would like to inform you that in view of the open propaganda of a sinful ideology and the denial of the existence of God, the church award to Viktor Pylypenko is hereby revoked," the church's press service said. Reaction of Pylypenko and society In response to this act of the UOC-KP, the soldier said that the situation was a total mess and that Filaret, by awarding the soldiers, was carrying out a PR campaign for his denomination. "I wrote words of gratitude to Filaret, naively imagining that he deliberately awarded me and showed his colleagues a Christian, undoubtedly noble gesture, a signpost to reconciliation and mutual respect for gays, atheists, and people of other faiths. But everything turned out to be more prosaic: Filaret was just handing out his awards as a PR campaign for his denomination," the fighter said. ADVERTISIMENT A wave of outrage over the actions of the UOC-KP and support for the soldier has risen online. The NGO "Military LGBTQ+", headed by Pylypenko, stated that "the UOC-KP is pulling society into the swamps, devaluing the contribution of LGBTQ+ military to the victory." Ilia Krotenko, a fighter with the 72nd Black Zaporozhians Brigade, emphasized that the "trinkets" handed out by the church are worthless. "In connection with the absolutely disgusting act of the UOC-Kyiv Patriarchate and Patriarch Filaret, who took away the award from war veteran Viktor Pylypenko only because he is openly gay, I also refuse a similar award of my own," he wrote. ADVERTISIMENT Pavlo Shatokhin, a military officer, volunteer, and civic activist, noted that it is difficult to assess the degree of insult inflicted by the UOC-KP on Pylypenko. "As if your toy has any value after that: it does not. As if his sacrifice and our gratitude will become less: they won't. I will bring this toy of yours to St. Volodymyr's Cathedral, so play with it as you wish," he said. Soldier Ivan Havrylenko also noted that he does not understand the position of the church, although he does not belong to the LGBTQ+ community. ADVERTISIMENT "I'm returning your f*cking jewelry if you don't respect real human sacrifice. I'm a Christian, I don't understand you," the defense lawyer wrote. GUATEMALA CITY, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- TerraPay, a global leader in cross-border payments, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Banco G&T Continental, a distinguished financial institution in Guatemala. This collaboration marks TerraPay's first direct partnership in Central America and is a significant advancement in the cross-border remittance sector, aimed at providing seamless and innovative solutions for Guatemalans abroad to securely send money to their families back home. By joining forces with TerraPay, Banco G&T Continental gains access to a robust platform and extensive network that facilitate hassle-free cross-border transfers. Oswaldo Sanchez, Director de Remesas at Banco G&T Continental, expressed his enthusiasm about the collaboration, stating, "This partnership with TerraPay empowers us to facilitate seamless cross-border transfers, allowing Guatemalans abroad to send money to their families in Guatemala conveniently and securely." With this partnership, Banco G&T Continental can leverage TerraPay's expansive network to enhance the flow of remittances in Guatemala while improving accessibility to financial services. Additionally, this collaboration extends Banco G&T Continental's reach, allowing the financial institution to serve a larger customer base and further strengthen its position in the market. With TerraPay's cutting-edge technology and Banco G&T Continental's reputation for reliability and trustworthiness, this partnership is poised to revolutionize the cross-border remittance landscape in Guatemala. By offering a seamless and secure solution for sending money across borders, both entities are committed to enhancing financial inclusion and empowering the people of Guatemala with greater access to financial services. "We are delighted to partner with Banco G&T Continental to drive innovation and efficiency in cross-border remittances," remarked Juan Luis Hernandez, Senior Country Manager - LAC Region at TerraPay. "Together, we aim to provide a superior remittance experience for Guatemalans worldwide, strengthening connections with their loved ones and contributing to the economic development of Guatemala. It is our first direct partnership in the Central America region and demonstrates our goal to achieve a global network." Through this collaboration, TerraPay and Banco G&T Continental reaffirm their dedication to delivering unparalleled services while driving positive change in the financial landscape of Guatemala. About TerraPay: TerraPay simplifies the movement of money everywhere providing a single connection to the most expansive cross-border payments network regulated in 30 global markets and enabling payments to 140+ receive countries, 210+ send countries, 7.5Bn+ bank accounts and 2.1Bn+ mobile wallets. TerraPay is on a mission to connect a borderless financial world, making moving money everywhere instant, reliable, transparent and fully compliant. TerraPay pushes the boundaries for global businesses ranging from banks, fintechs and money-transfer operators to travel businesses, creator economy platforms and e-commerce marketplaces while driving financial inclusion in even the most inaccessible markets. Founded in 2014, TerraPay is headquartered in London, with global offices in Bangalore, Dubai, Miami, Bogota, Dar es Salaam, Kampala, Hague, Dakar, Joburg, Nairobi, Milan, Singapore and is expanding rapidly, having received funding from leading investors, including the IFC (the World Bank), Prime Ventures, Partech Africa and Visa. About Banco G&T: It is a Guatemalan financial organization, which stands among the leaders in this market with a history of over 75 years. Currently, the group consists of several companies in the financial sector, including Banco G&T Continental, Financiera G&T Continental, and Seguros G&T, S.A. However, its main commercial activity is concentrated through Banco G&T Continental. The group's strength is evident in its figures, which include a total of 1.5 million customers; Q69.5 billion in assets; deposits of Q51.1 billion, and a loan amount of Q35.3 billion. Its human team comprises over 5.4 thousand collaborators, and the organization was re-accredited in 2023 with ISO 9001/2015 Certification. The organizational culture of G&T Continental is characterized by its adaptation to change and continuous improvement; by its products and services, aimed at simplifying the daily management of its clients' finances, the solvency of a large organization, and a constantly evolving technological platform. Media Contact: Juveria Samrin juveria.n@terrapay.com Logo : https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1222771/TerraPay_Logo.jpg GALES FERRY, Conn., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Colleges and universities are at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence in research and education. For students looking to attend an institution that's pushing the boundaries of this growing field, College Values Online has compiled a list of the 30 Best Colleges Advancing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning . Here are a few examples. The University of California, Los Angeles, The Samueli School of Engineering has 10 centers and groups focused on advancing artificial intelligence. The Break Through Tech AI hub offers a free 18-month artificial intelligence program to a diverse range of students. The college-run LA Bioscience Ecosystem Summit in 2023 also hosted a panel discussion with hospital leaders regarding the future of artificial intelligence in healthcare. The Ohio State University The Ohio State University has over 300 faculty members working on artificial intelligence research. It has 10 centers that focus on AI research. The college also runs an online 24-week artificial intelligence boot camp, which provides learners with the skills they need to work with AI. Harvard University The academic focus on artificial intelligence at Harvard University is done in an interdisciplinary manner by collaboration of faculty members and students from fields such as computer science, public health, medicine, law, public policy, and business. This work is managed by the Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence, which opened thanks to a $500 million donation from Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in 2021. Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology runs over 60 research groups that focus on diverse ways to improve the application and effectiveness of machine learning. The college has a cooperative agreement with the US Department of the Air Force to create an Artificial Intelligence Accelerator. The college also offers a short course for business owners to integrate AI in their organization. Oregon State University In 2025, OSU will open the $200 million 150,000 square-foot Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex. It will house one of the USA's most powerful supercomputers. AI education and research will be conducted alongside robotics and materials science. College Values Online (CVO) offers practical guidance rooted in careful research. It has more than 20 years of experience in college selection. CVO carefully ranks schools and programs, highlights features of the college experience, and provides career information from the angle of value. CVO saves prospective students and parents time and money. Check out CVO's Instagram for more helpful information. Contact: Julie McCaulley Phone: 518-496-0845 Email: https://www.collegevaluesonline.com/contact/ SOURCE College Values Online A story of friendship and a natural transition PARIS, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- DDB Paris announces the elevation of globally acclaimed CCO Alexander Kalchev and Paul Ducre as new CEOs, together assuming the role of current CEO Jean-Luc Bravi who will become Chairman, DDB France. The pair have worked together in close partnership with Bravi for the last 20 years and will continue to catapult DDB Paris into global creative agency powerhouse. Alexander Kalchev, CEO and Paul Ducre, CEO; DDB Paris "To me, appointing Alexander and Paul as CEOs of DDB Paris is the natural choice. These two highly competitive team players embody the core values that define the strength of our agency--they're 'both Nice and Talented'. Having worked closely with Alexander and Paul for nearly 20 years, this transition is the next logical step," says Jean-Luc Bravi. This appointment marks the start of a new chapter in a story of friendship that began at DDB in 2007. It reflects the close collaboration between a creative and an account executive, who grew up together with a belief in DDB's principles and became a force that propelled DDB Paris towards continuous growth and creative acclaim in France and abroad. "Great creative work has always been our obsession. It remains the most powerful tool for driving our clients' businesses growth. We are both driven by the shared ambition to continue evolving our creative product by recruiting the finest pool of talent, and ensuring that DDB continues being the home for the next creative generation," explain Alexander and Paul. With their combined international experience, they aim to elevate DDB's global reach even further. "Today, Paris stands as a creative powerhouse alongside cities like London and Amsterdam, becoming a primary hub for international brands," says Alexander Kalchev. Their relentless commitment to creative excellence is rooted in the ethos of Doyle, Dane and Bernbach and remains as relevant today as it was 75 years ago. "Paul and Alexander are the epitome of true DDB leadership: They know the business, listen to clients, understand their issues and importantly harness the creativity of their teams to devise innovative and emotionally resonant solutions. DDB Paris and our clients are in safe and brave hands," says Glen Lomas global president and chief operating officer of DDB Worldwide. Jean-Luc Bravi, current CEO of DDB Paris, will actively continue to serve the business in a key leadership role as newly appointed Chairman of DDB France. BIOS: Alexander Kalchev Educated at the Miami Ad School in Hamburg, Alexander Kalchev joined DDB Paris in 2007 right out of school. He quickly made a name for himself, becoming one of Creativity Magazine's "Creatives to Know" ranking and receiving the ADC Young Guns award, which celebrates the top creatives worldwide under the age of 30. In 2013, he was appointed creative director, and at just 30 years old, in 2015, he became the youngest Chief Creative Officer in the history of the agency. Since then, Alexander has been at the heart of the business and creative development of DDB, building a stellar creative department that has won numerous awards at all major festivals. Under his leadership, the agency has garnered international renown and has been celebrated several times in France as Agency of the Year. Paul Ducre A Breton by adoption and a graduate of INSEEC Paris, Paul Ducre began his career in 2005 as an account executive at DDB Paris. He gained experience working with organizations known for their creative work (Nike, Greenpeace, L'Equipe) and large multinational corporations (Unilever, Henkel and Johnson & Johnson). In January 2012, he joined DDB Singapore with the mission of developing the portfolio of international brands for the APAC region. As Global Business Director, he played a role in securing a number of contracts with the Unilever Group (Dove, Wall's, Sunsilk, Lifebouy). Returning to DDB Paris in 2015, Paul resumed the position of Deputy Managing Director in charge of New Business. In 3 years, the agency grew exponentially, winning numerous French and international accounts. In 2018, Paul took over as Managing Director of DDB Paris, overseeing the agency's key accounts: McDonald's, Volkswagen Group and Royal Canin. He has been instrumental in the agency's digital transformation and growth. ABOUT DDB WORLDWIDE: DDB Worldwide ( www.ddb.com ) is one of the world's largest and most influential advertising and marketing networks which includes DDB branded agencies, along with adam&eveDDB (London, Berlin, New York), DM9 and Africa (both in Brazil), alma (Miami), Mango, Track and Rodgers Townsend. DDB has been awarded numerous accolades from the industry's leading awards shows including 2023 Global Network of the Year by the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, D&AD Agency Network of the Year for three consecutive years 2023, 2022, 2021, and Effies US Agency of the Year in 2022 and 2023. WARC has listed DDB as one of the Top 3 Global Networks for 12 of the last 15 years. The network's clients include MARS, McDonald's, Molson Coors, Volkswagen, Reynolds Consumer Products, Peloton, JetBlue, Adidas, Lucozade, CALM, PlayStation, Marmite, Waitrose & Partners, and the U.S. Army, among others. Founded in 1949, DDB is part of Omnicom (NYSE: OMC) and consists of over 8,000 employees across 140 offices in over 60 countries, with its headquarters in New York, NY. CONTACT: Donna Tobin, Global Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, DDB Worldwide [email protected] SOURCE DDB Worldwide NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The antiemetics drugs market size is estimated to grow by USD 1.63 billion at a CAGR of 6.47% between 2022 and 2027. The increasing healthcare expenditure is a key factor driving market growth. Global health spending rises due to factors like population growth, aging demographics, and technological advancements, driving demand for healthcare services. Increased access to medical care fuels demand for antiepileptic drugs and antiemetics as individuals seek treatment for various conditions. Government initiatives and insurance programs further boost healthcare accessibility, contributing to the growing demand for medicinal products. For Comprehensive details on the market size of the historical period(2017 to 2021) and forecast period (2023-2027) - View the Free Sample report Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Antiemetic Drug Market 2023-2027 Report Coverage Details Page number 179 Base year 2022 Historic period 2017-2021 Forecast period 2023-2027 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 6.47% Market growth 2023-2027 USD 1.63 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 5.44 Regional analysis APAC, Europe, North America, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution North America at 37% Key countries US, China, Japan, UK, and Germany Vendor Landscape The antiemetic drug market is fragmented; the vendors are competing with competitors and are trying to get greater market share. The market is growing, and the chances of new entrants cannot be overlooked. The major vendors have well-established economies of scale and market presence and generally rely on positioning technological advances, and the price of the products -The report provides a full list of key vendors, their strategies, and the latest developments. Buy Now Primary Trend: Rising Demand in Emerging Economies Emerging economies are experiencing a rising awareness of healthcare alongside greater accessibility to medical services. Formidable Entry Barriers Pose Significant Challenges to Market Growth The larger companies boast extensive distribution channels and collaborate with major hospitals and health centers. Technavio has identified key trends, drivers, and challenges in the market, which will help clients improve their strategies to stay ahead of their competitors. - View a Free Sample Report Company Profiles The antiemetic drug market report includes information on the product launches, sustainability, and prospects of leading vendors including Algen Healthcare Ltd., Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Bristol Laboratories Ltd., Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Cipla Ltd., Eagle Pharmaceuticals Inc., Fresenius SE and Co. KGaA, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Helsinn Healthcare SA, Heron Therapeutics Inc., Lupin Ltd., Merck and Co. Inc., Novartis AG, Otsuka Holdings Co. Ltd., Pfizer Inc., RedHill Biopharma Ltd., Sanofi, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., and Viatris Inc. Competitive Analysis The report includes competitive analysis, a proprietary tool to analyze and evaluate the position of companies based on their industry position score and market performance score. The competitive scenario categorizes companies based on various performance indicators. Some of the factors considered include the financial performance of companies over the past few years, growth strategies, product innovations, new product launches, investments, and growth in market share, among others Download a Free Sample Report Market Segmentation By Application, the market is classified into Chemotherapy, Surgery, Gastroenteritis, and Others. The market share growth by the chemotherapy segment will be significant during the forecast period. Chemotherapy effectively targets cancer cells but can harm healthy cells, causing nausea and vomiting. Antiemetic therapy aims to manage these side effects, enabling patients to undergo chemotherapy smoothly. Combining various antiemetic drugs helps control nausea and vomiting. Increasing cancer cases worldwide will drive chemotherapy demand, spurring market growth. By Geography, the market is classified as North America, Europe, Asia, and the Rest of the World (ROW). North America is estimated to contribute 37% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. North America, encompassing nations like the US, Canada, and Mexico, stands as a crucial region for the advancement, production, and usage of antiemetic medications, propelling regional market expansion. Numerous prominent pharmaceutical firms based in the region focus on creating and producing antiepileptic treatments. They heavily invest in R&D to unveil novel drugs boasting enhanced effectiveness and safety characteristics. Subscribe Now Analyst Review The Antiemetic Drug Market is driven by the demand for medications targeting specific receptors such as D2 Receptors, 5HT-3 Receptors, MI Receptors, and HI Receptors. These drugs are used to treat various conditions like Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, Motion Sickness, Gastroenteritis, and Dizziness, among others. They are available in different forms, including Prescription drugs and Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Research and development activities focus on identifying new drug targets, especially in the context of ailments like Cancer and Gastroenteritis. Adverse effects of chemotherapy and the global cancer burden have led to an increased demand for antiemetics, particularly in developing nations. The healthcare sector is witnessing a surge in the use of Prokinetics, Serotonin Antagonists, Antimuscarinics, Antihistaminic, and Neurokinin Antagonists to address these issues, highlighting the importance of effective antiemetic drugs in patient care. Overall, the market for antiemetic drugs plays a crucial role in managing symptoms such as Nausea, Vomiting, and Emesis across various medical conditions, including Pregnancy, Food Poisoning, and Vertigo. These drugs continue to be essential in providing relief from these distressing symptoms and improving the quality of life for patients. Download a Sample Report Related Reports The Gastroparesis Drugs Market size is estimated to grow by USD 1.42 billion at a CAGR of 3.69% between 2023 and 2028. The global vertigo drugs market size is estimated to grow by USD 551.42 million at a CAGR of 5.58% between 2022 and 2027. ToC: Excustive Summary Market Landscape Market Sizing Historic Market Sizes Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation by Application Market Segmentation by Drug Class Market Segmentation by Geography Customer Landscape Geographic Landscape Drivers, Challenges, & Trends Company Landscape Company Analysis Appendix About US Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contact Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media & Marketing Executive US: +1 844 364 1100 UK: +44 203 893 3200 Email: [email protected] Website: www.technavio.com/ SOURCE Technavio BESSEMER, Ala. and MONTGOMERY, Ala., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Alabama Pharmacy Association (APA) and American Pharmacy Cooperative, Inc. (APCI) voiced their united support for the FAIR Meds Act in the Alabama legislature and urged lawmakers to quickly get the bill to Gov. Kay Ivey for her signature. Alabama Pharmacy Association logo The FAIR Meds Act will help ensure access to healthcare for patients, provide truth and transparency in prescription drug pricing, enhance free market competition, and help ensure patient access to the pharmacy of their choice throughout Alabama. The bill was introduced by sponsor Rep. Phillip Rigsby (R-Huntsville). "Out-of-control prescription prices affect every Alabamian, and we applaud Rep. Rigsby for introducing the FAIR Meds Act to help ensure patients across the state can afford their medications," said APA CEO Louise Jones. "We ask all Alabamians to urge their representatives to pass this desperately needed legislation without delay." "The FAIR Meds Act will provide patients, employers, and Alabama pharmacies with transparency and increased access to health care," said APCI CEO Tim Hamrick. "We are proud to be working hand-in-hand with APA to provide a united voice in support for this legislation." Pharmacy benefit managers are middlemen in the prescription medication chain that determine what medications patients can receive, how much patients pay out of pocket for their prescriptions, and how pharmacies are reimbursed for dispensing medications. Originally designed to help reduce the price of prescription drugs, research shows that PBM practices have contributed significantly to the spiraling increases in prescription costs. The FAIR Meds Act will create new regulations on these shadowy middlemen and bring transparency to prescription pricing in Alabama while protecting patients and implementing nation-leading protections for employers. For more information on the FAIR Meds Act, visit fairmedsala.com. About APA The Alabama Pharmacy Association is a nonprofit professional organization with over 3,000 members statewide. The APA offers continuing education programs for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, and members take a leading role in lobbying for pharmacy at the state and national level. The APA was established in 1881 and is the oldest professional organization for pharmacy in the state. APA members represent all practices of pharmacy and are committed to their profession and their patients. About APCI APCI is a cooperative of more than 1,600 independently owned community pharmacies in 31 states. Celebrating its fortieth anniversary in 2024, the co-op is headquartered in Bessemer, Ala., and is recognized as a leader in the fight for prescription drug pricing transparency and reform. SOURCE American Pharmacy Cooperative, Inc. -ATX-01 is the industry's first microRNA therapeutic to be evaluated for DM1 and the first program from ARTHEX's pipeline to enter the clinic -First patient expected to be enrolled in Q2 2024- VALENCIA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ARTHEx Biotech S.L., a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing innovative medicines through the modulation of microRNAs, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared the Company to initiate the Phase I-IIa ArthemiR study of ATX-01 for the treatment of Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (DM1). ATX-01, an antimiR designed to target microRNA 23b (miR-23b), is the first microRNA therapeutic to be investigated for DM1 and is the first therapeutic from ARTHEx's pipeline to enter the clinic. miR-23b is known to be associated with regulating the expression of MBNL proteins involved in the pathogenesis of DM1, a devastating, rare neuromuscular disorder that causes muscle weakness and other life-limiting complications. There are currently no disease-modifying treatments for DM1. "Receiving FDA clearance to initiate our first-in-human study, ArthemiR, for ATX-01 in DM1 is a major milestone for ARTHEX and for DM1 patients and their families who are in need of an approved therapeutic option," said Dr. Judith Walker, Chief Medical Officer of Arthex. "ATX-01 holds significant potential to deliver therapeutic benefit to DM1 patients, based on its dual mechanism of action that targets both the toxic DMPK mRNA and the reduced active MBNL levels. We plan to launch the ArthemiR study first in the US, followed by Canada and Europe." The ArthemiR trial is a Phase I-IIa double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose escalation study expected to enroll participants with classic Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (DM1). The primary objective is to determine the safety and tolerability of single and multiple ascending doses of ATX-01 in DM1 participants. ARTHEx will also investigate target engagement at the muscle level through biomarkers, including MBNL levels and splicing index. In addition, the clinical endpoints from the trial will include measures related to muscle function, patient-reported outcomes, and quality of life measures. Dr. Nicholas Johnson, Professor, Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Neurology at Virginia Commonwealth University, and the lead investigator for the ArthemiR trial, commented, "It is exciting to see new agents coming to clinical trials, especially compounds with different mechanisms of action. This increases our hope of one day having effective and safe, disease modifying treatments for this multisystemic condition. Patients are eager for new trials, and we are delighted to start enrolment in the coming months." About ATX-01 ATX-01 is an antimiR oligonucleotide designed to target microRNA 23b (miR-23b), which is associated with regulating the expression of MBNL proteins involved in the pathogenesis of DM1. It has been demonstrated in human DM1 myoblast cell lines that ATX-01 has a unique, dual mechanism of action which reduces toxic DMPK mRNA and increases MBNL protein levels. Toxic DMPK and reduced levels of MBNL have been identified as the molecular underpinnings of DM1. ATX-01 will shortly be evaluated in the Phase I-IIa ArthemiR trial for the treatment of DM1. ATX-01 has received Orphan Drug Designation for ATX-01 in DM1 from the US and European authorities. ATX-01 was discovered through ARTHEx's in-house discovery engine, which is designed to identify and optimize novel microRNA modulators and ensure their preferential delivery to target tissues, for the treatment of diseases in which microRNAs are involved in the disease pathogenesis. About Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (DM1) Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is a highly disabling disease affecting more than one million people worldwide. The condition affects muscles and other tissues (causing respiratory problems, fatigue, hypersomnia, cardiac abnormalities, severe gastrointestinal complications, and cognitive and behavioral impairment). Most commonly, it manifests during adulthood (classic DM1), although DM1 can develop at birth in a congenital form, or during childhood. Although signs and symptoms vary among affected individuals, sadly, with progression of the disease, DM1 patients experience a reduction in the ability to perform activities of daily living. Moreover, patients have a significantly shortened lifespan and there is currently no approved treatment to slow the progression of the disease. About ARTHEx Biotech ARTHEx Biotech is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing innovative medicines through the modulation of microRNAs. The Company's lead investigational compound, ATX-01, is being evaluated for the treatment of myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), a rare neuromuscular disorder, in the Phase I-IIa ArthemiR trial. ARTHEx is also advancing its in-house discovery engine to identify and develop microRNA modulators for other disorders with high unmet medical needs, including genetically-driven diseases like DM1. The Company headquarters are in Valencia, Spain. For more information, please visit www.arthexbiotech.com and engage with us on LinkedIn. Company Contact. Investor and Media Contact Frederic Legros Amy Conrad Executive Chairman and CEO Juniper Point [email protected] [email protected] +33679495790 +1 858-366-3243 SOURCE ARTHEx Biotech The Ukrainian military spotted an unknown object hovering in the sky above the combat zone that was not moving. Presumably, it was a mirage or drones, but the footage has puzzled many people. ADVERTISIMENT The footage was taken by soldiers of the 406th Battalion in February using a thermal imaging quadcopter, the Daily Mail reports. It is noted that the object was warmer than the environment, although a red "error message" on the drone's control interface leaves key details unclear. A representative of the Mavic drone manufacturer DJI told the publication that, although he could not answer for sure, the mystery was probably caused by an equipment error. At the same time, online skeptics suggest that the image in the video is a mirage phenomenon known as Fata Morgana. It occurs when a layer of warm air at a higher altitude and a lower layer of cold air create an "atmospheric channel" that refracts or distorts light, creating airborne reflections. ADVERTISIMENT "It may be just an optical illusion of shooting something on a body of water," users noted. Only verified information is available on OBOZ.UA Telegram and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Association of African American Financial Advisors (AAAA) is thrilled to announce that it has been recognized as the Organization of the Year by the prestigious Wealth Solutions Report Pathfinder Award series. This esteemed accolade honors excellence among executives, professionals, and organizations dedicated to advancing underrepresented communities in wealth management. Last year 2022, WSR Pathfinder Awards series named winners in celebration of Black History Month, Women's History Month, AAPI Heritage Month and National Hispanic Heritage Month. Our journey towards this milestone achievement has been marked by a steadfast commitment to diversity, equity, belonging and inclusion. As we celebrate this milestone, we extend our deepest gratitude to all our members, employees, committee members, board members, corporate partners and supporters whose unwavering dedication and financial investments have contributed to our success. The WSR Pathfinder Organization of the Year Award spotlights organizations that show leadership in advancing underrepresented communities, spearheading DEI initiatives that change the industry for professionals, advisors and clients. The award also seeks to provide a platform for voices from underrepresented backgrounds and communities to address our industry about DEI concerns, so that we can improve as individuals and as an industry. We are immensely proud to be recognized alongside other trailblazers who are driving meaningful change in our field. AAAA has grown rapidly from 2017 to the present. Our organization's membership has experienced strong growth, with 2,100 dues-paying members and 9,000 advisors in its network in 2023. The organization's strategic partners include JP Morgan, UBS and Merrill Lynch. AAAA's Chairman of the Board and CEO, Christian Nwasike, recently explained to WSR that Black-held wealth in the U.S. is projected to reach $103 trillion by 2050, potentially creating a wealth management crisis if the advisor-to-client ratio does not increase substantially in the Black community. AAAA is implementing solutions such as a program to support the next generation of advisors, with approximately 300 early-career students approaching graduation. This award serves as a testament to our ongoing efforts to address the underrepresentation of Black/African American financial advisors and provide essential financial planning services to African American families. It reinforces our mission to advocate for Black advisors and clients, while spearheading initiatives to create a more inclusive and equitable landscape. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the WSR Pathfinder Awards for this incredible honor. It inspires us to continue our work in empowering underrepresented communities and striving for excellence in wealth management. Together, we will continue to pave the way towards a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive future for all. About The Association of African American Financial Advisors (AAAA) A non-profit membership organization for African American financial advisors and affiliated professionals, the Association of African American Financial Advisors (AAAA) was created to address the needs and concerns of African American Financial Professionals. AAAA works in alliance with academic leaders at HBCUs that support financial planning degree programs, legislative and regulatory bodies, financial services firms and consumer interest organizations. AAAA fosters the value of financial planning and advances the financial planning profession. Media Contacts Joseph Kuo or Elizabeth Shim Haven Tower Group LLC 424 317 4851 or 424 318 4861 [email protected] or [email protected] SOURCE African American Financial Advisors (AAAA) CINCINNATI , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- AuguStarSM Life, a Constellation company, today announces the launch of its 20-pay Prestige Indexed Whole Life insurance, further expanding its indexed life insurance portfolio. This new addition to the Prestige lineup complements the 10-pay version introduced in 2022, providing clients with enhanced flexibility and growth potential while minimizing market risks. Karl Kreunen, AuguStar Life vice president and chief distribution officer, emphasizes the benefits of the 20-pay Prestige IWL, stating, "This new product expands our IWL line by adding a lower premium option, making it more accessible to consumers. This product lineup provides guarantees that you find in whole life with the performance potential of indexed life insurance. It's a powerful combination, and you can only find multi-pay IWL at AuguStar Life." AuguStar Life remains committed to expanding its life insurance business and leveraging its success with indexed life insurance products. The Prestige IWL 20-pay option caters to both individual and business clients, offering flexibility within various financial plans. Prestige Indexed Whole Life insurance provides the essential, guaranteed death benefit protection of whole life insurance to clients while letting them tap into market-based growth potential to build cash value that can support future needs. These products strike a balance between a simple, flexible design and robust guarantees, making them suitable for a wide range of planning requirements. Business owners can use Prestige Indexed Whole Life insurance for their own financial planning needs, such as funding a buy-sell agreement or securing a flexible source of protection and capital for their business. Additionally, it can be employed to attract, retain and reward talent through strategies like split-dollar arrangements, executive bonus plans or supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs). AuguStar Life's commitment to growth and innovation in the life insurance industry is further exemplified by the launch of the 20-pay Prestige Indexed Whole Life insurance. With its attractive features and flexibility, this product is poised to meet the evolving needs of clients and solidify AuguStar Life's position as a leader in the market. About AuguStarSM Life AuguStarSM Life markets indexed universal life, indexed whole life, term, and bank-owned life insurance through a national network of traditional direct agent distribution and independent marketing organizations. AuguStar Life is a member of the Constellation Insurance family of companies. As of December 31, 2022, Constellation's family of insurance companies has over $34 billion in total assets under management. Constellation's investors and equal partners, CDPQ and Ontario Teachers', are two of North America's largest long-term institutional investors, managing over C$649 billion in net assets, including over C$139 billion in private capital investments. More information is available at augustarfinancial.com. Minimum premiums must be met for the guaranteed death benefit to remain in place. Withdrawals may reduce the death benefit, cash surrender value and any living benefit amount. Indexed whole life insurance is issued by AuguStarSM Life Assurance Corporation. Guarantees based on the claims-paying ability of the issuer. Product, product features and rider availability vary by state. Issuer not licensed to conduct business in NY. Contact: Lisa Doxsee 513.794.6418 (o) | 513.218.5519 (m) [email protected] SOURCE AuguStar Life Chaset, who will remain CEO through mid-July 2024, has served as Ava Community Energy CEO since 2017 and has led the company through an era of unprecedented achievement and growth OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Ava Community Energy (Ava), formerly East Bay Community Energy (EBCE), today announced that Nick Chaset will be stepping down as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 15, 2024, to join a global clean energy company as a senior executive leader. Chaset has been with Ava since its formation in 2017 and served as the company's first CEO, leading the company through an era of unprecedented achievement and growth. The Board is opening a formal search process. "I joined Ava because I wanted to build a clean energy agency that would operate at a scale large enough to bend the trajectory of the clean energy transition in a meaningful way," said Chaset. "My goal with Ava was to show our community that clean energy can be more affordable, more reliable, and just plain better than fossil fuel. And, over the past seven years, we have achieved just that. I'm proud of the fact that Ava Community Energy has become a national trailblazer in broadening equitable access to clean energy, building resilience in our communities, and creating a broader demand for clean energy solutions." Chaset joined and helped to found Ava Community Energy in 2017 after serving as the Chief of Staff for the California Public Utilities Commission. Under Chaset's guidance, Ava experienced monumental growth, maintaining a consistent 95 percent customer retention and adding five new jurisdictions to its original customer geography - Newark, Pleasanton, Tracy, Stockton and Lathrop - currently serving a population of 1.7 million people. Throughout its expansion, Ava has returned millions of dollars in savings back to customers, with an estimated $39 million in bill savings in this fiscal year alone. "With Nick as CEO, Ava established and has maintained an A Credit Rating as well as set a target of 100 percent clean energy by 2030 - 15 years ahead of California's goal," said Elisa Marquez, Supervisor for Alameda County and outgoing Ava Community Energy Board Chair. "Nick's visionary leadership has helped Ava to become a national blueprint for how to build the infrastructure needed to decarbonize our communities." Over the past seven years, Ava has also consistently provided reduced costs compared to PG&E, right now at 5 percent cost savings for its baseline product and maintaining a small premium for its 100 percent renewable energy product. Ava's growing list of resilience and electrification programs includes $17.5 million for public electric vehicle (EV) chargers across Alameda County, nearly 1,350 residential solar and battery backup installations that contribute to a first-of-its-kind virtual power plant, and a try-before-you-buy induction cooktop program. Since its formation, Ava's team has grown to include 80 employees, and the company was recently named one of America's "Great Places to Work." "Under Nick's direction, Ava Community Energy has become one of the largest purveyors of 100 percent renewable energy in the entire country," said Jack Balch, Council Member at the City of Pleasanton and incoming Ava Community Energy Board Chair. "The entire Ava community is grateful for Nick's ongoing contributions in bringing broader access to clean energy to residents across the East Bay and the Valley." About Ava Community Energy Ava Community Energy (Ava), formerly East Bay Community Energy (EBCE), is the not-for-profit public power provider for more than 1.7 million residents and commercial customers in Alameda County and the City of Tracy, with service extending to the San Joaquin County cities of Stockton and Lathrop in 2025. As one of 25 community choice aggregation (CCA) programs operating in California, Ava is part of the movement to provide energy choice while expediting local and state-wide climate action goals. Ava is committed to creating a brighter future in our communities and beyond by providing clean power at competitive rates, reinvesting in our member communities, and developing programs that make it easy for customers to discover, try and adopt clean energy solutions. For more information about Ava Community Energy, visit avaenergy.org. Media Contact: Mission Control Communications for Ava Community Energy ava@missionc2.com SOURCE Ava Community Energy Tennessee Natives & Husband-Wife Duo Expands Leading Coffee Franchise in their Home State KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, a leading coffee franchise renowned for its premium sourcing of Hawaiian coffees and unforgettable cafes, announces a three-store signed agreement in the greater Knoxville area. With site selection underway, the first location could open its doors as early as fall of this year. Behind the multi-unit agreement are first-time franchisees, Jason and Karen Greene. Jason has a combined 20 years of experience in management, project development and small business ownership, while Karen's professional background ranges from sales to marketing and vast involvement in the medical community. While the Greene's professional experience has prepared them for this new entrepreneurial endeavor, it's their passion for the 'Aloha Spirit' that makes the couple prime partners for Bad Ass Coffee. Three new Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii locations are brewing in Knoxville, TN through local husband-wife duo. Post this Their love for the brand began long before the two ever had their eyes set on its franchise opportunity. After being introduced to Bad Ass Coffee in 2019 by their daughter, the Greenes immediately fell in love with the product, unique atmosphere and spirit, and the overall brand. "The first time we read the 'Bad Ass Legend' story, it resonated with us so deeply on many levels," said Karen. "We love everything about this brand from the premium coffee to its philanthropic arm. Since our first introduction, I've been a walking Bad Ass Coffee billboard, always with a branded t-shirt on and mug in my hand. The experience Bad Ass Coffee provides to their customers is unlike anything the Knoxville community has seen, and we look forward to bringing the taste and spirit of Hawaii to the smoky mountains of East Tennessee." While the development process is still ongoing, the duo has targeted downtown and west Knoxville as primary locations for their expansion plans. Between student traffic from the university to a highly saturated residential area, the Greenes are eager to maximize their community reach in greater Knoxville. "Jason and Karen's "fit" with our brand, mission and purpose was evident from our very first meeting," said Scott Snyder, CEO of Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii. "Their family has been a part of our brand long before they ever put pen to paper. When we're able to align with partners who are a product of our brand and have a passion for entrepreneurship, it's a recipe for success. The Bad Ass Coffee team is eager to watch the Aloha spirit spread in the Knoxville community." This deal follows an impressive 2023 where the implementation of more refined systems and processes for franchisees took center stage. Building off the great momentum the brand has built, this three-unit agreement puts Bad Ass Coffee on track to reach its development goals in awarding agreements for 36 locations this year. With rapid national expansion underway, the brand is currently supporting aggressive growth in the Southwest and Southeast markets. Statewide development is also strong as Bad Ass Coffee recently opened locations in the Nashville area, and have a new cafe slated to open near Spring Hill this May. Bad Ass Coffee provides a development support system , including teams, technology and tools to help identify the right territories for expansion, plus expertise in financing, real estate, and construction management, to assist franchisees and multi-unit operators. The success of Bad Ass Coffee has not gone unnoticed. The brand recently ranked on QSR's 2023 40/40 List as one of America's hottest emerging fast casual brands. According to Bad Ass Coffee's 2023 FDD, the top 50% of stores saw an average net sale of more than $1 million, with the average of the top 25% exceeding $1.2 million*. Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii was born on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1989 with the dream of sharing American-grown, premium Hawaiian coffee with customers everywhere. In addition to premium coffee from the famous Kona region of the Big Island, Bad Ass Coffee also sources from Kauai and Maui. Beyond premium Hawaiian coffees, Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii serves up a full menu of popular blended drinks, signature lattes, cold brews, teas, innovative foods with a Hawaiian twist, and branded merchandise. Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii is looking to partner with qualified and engaged individuals seeking multi-unit opportunities. The brand offers an affordable, highly scalable opportunity with strong profit potential. Franchisees can expect a total investment range between $454,200 920,500*. As International Franchise Association VetFran members, veteran franchisees who join will receive a $10,000 discount* off the initial franchise fee. For more information on Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii franchise opportunities, visit badasscoffeefranchise.com or call 833-205-2224. *Source: 2023 FDD Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii About Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii was born on the Big Island of Hawai'i in 1989 and is dedicated to sharing premium Hawaiian coffees "with a kick" from the Hawaiian Islands through 30-plus U.S. franchise locations with 100+ additional shops in various stages of development. Today, Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii stores also serve popular blended drinks, teas, food, along with other international premium coffees and sell popular branded merchandise with exceptional service and the Aloha Spirit. Bad Ass Coffees are available in franchise stores, online and will soon be available through grocery, hospitality, and specialty retail channels. The Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii brand and franchise is owned by Royal Aloha Franchise Company, LLC. For more information, visit badasscoffee.com and connect on Facebook and Instagram @badasscoffeeofhawaii . Franchise information is available at badasscoffeefranchise.com. SOURCE Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii WESTMINSTER, Colo., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Ball Corporation (" Ball ") (NYSE: BALL) announced today the consideration payable in connection with its previously announced offers to purchase for cash (i) any and all of the $1,000,000,000 aggregate principal amount of its outstanding 5.25% Senior Notes due 2025 (the " 2025 Notes ") and (ii) any and all of the $750,000,000 aggregate principal amount of its outstanding 4.875% Senior Notes due 2026 (the " 2026 Notes " and, together with the 2025 Notes, the " Notes "). Such offers to purchase are referred to collectively herein as the " Tender Offers " and each, a " Tender Offer ." The following table summarizes the material pricing terms of the Tender Offers: Title of Security CUSIP Number Principal Amount Outstanding U.S. Treasury Reference Security Bloomberg Reference Page(1) Reference Yield Fixed Spread (basis points) Early Tender Premium (per $1,000)(2) Total Consideration (per $1,000)(3) 5.25% Senior Notes due 2025 058498AT3 $1,000,000,000 4.625% UST due June 30, 2025 FIT4 4.902 % 50 bps $30 $1,000.00 4.875% Senior Notes due 2026 058498AV8 $750,000,000 4.625% UST due March 15, 2026 FIT5 4.677 % 70 bps $30 $990.38 _________________ (1) The applicable page on Bloomberg from which the Dealer Managers named below quoted the bid side prices of the U.S. Treasury Reference Security. In the above table, "UST" denotes a U.S. Treasury Security. (2) The Total Consideration (as defined below) for Notes validly tendered prior to or at the Early Tender Time (as defined below) and accepted for purchase is calculated using the applicable fixed spread and is inclusive of the applicable Early Tender Premium (as defined below). (3) Total Consideration per $1,000 principal amount of Notes validly tendered prior to or at the Early Tender Time and accepted for purchase, based on the applicable yield determined as of 10:00 a.m., New York City time, on February 28, 2024; excludes Accrued Interest (as defined below); and assumes an early settlement date of February 29, 2024. See Schedule A of the Offer to Purchase (as defined below) for the calculation formula for determining the Total Consideration. Notwithstanding the foregoing, with respect to the 2025 Notes, the Total Consideration shall in no case be less than 100% of the principal amount of the 2025 Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase. The Tender Offers are being made upon the terms and subject to conditions described in the Offer to Purchase, dated February 14, 2024 (as it may be amended or supplemented from time to time, the " Offer to Purchase "), which sets forth a detailed description of the Tender Offers. Each Tender Offer will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City Time, on March 14, 2024, unless such Tender Offer is extended or earlier terminated (the " Expiration Time "). Holders of Notes must validly tender and not validly withdraw their Notes prior to or at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on February 28, 2024 (such time and date, as it may be extended with respect to a Tender Offer, the " Early Tender Time "), and such holders' Notes must be accepted for purchase, to be eligible to receive the applicable Total Consideration (as defined below). If a holder validly tenders Notes after the applicable Early Tender Time but prior to or at the applicable Expiration Time, and such holder's Notes are accepted for purchase, such holder will only be eligible to receive the applicable Tender Offer Consideration (as defined below). Tendered Notes may be withdrawn prior to or at, but not after, 5:00 p.m., New York City Time, on February 28, 2024 (such time and date, as it may be extended with respect to a Tender Offer, the " Withdrawal Deadline "). The applicable total consideration listed in the table above (with respect to each series of Notes, the " Total Consideration ") will be paid for each $1,000 principal amount of the Notes validly tendered (and not validly withdrawn) prior to or at the Early Tender Time and accepted for purchase pursuant to each Tender Offer. The Total Consideration includes an applicable early tender premium per $1,000 principal amount of Notes accepted for purchase as set forth in the table above (with respect to each series of Notes, the " Early Tender Premium "). Notes validly tendered after the Early Tender Time but prior to or at the Expiration Time and accepted for purchase will receive the Total Consideration minus the Early Tender Premium (with respect to each series of Notes, the " Tender Offer Consideration "). In addition to the Total Consideration or the Tender Offer Consideration, as applicable, all holders of Notes accepted for purchase will also receive accrued and unpaid interest on Notes validly tendered and accepted for purchase from the applicable last interest payment date up to, but excluding, the applicable settlement date (" Accrued Interest "). The Total Consideration, Accrued Interest and the costs and expenses of the Tender Offers are expected to be paid with funds provided by the net cash proceeds from the closing of the previously announced sale of Ball's aerospace business. Each Tender Offer will expire at the applicable Expiration Time. Except as set forth below, payment for the Notes that are validly tendered prior to or at the Expiration Time and that are accepted for purchase will be made on a date promptly following the Expiration Time, which is currently anticipated to be March 15, 2024, the business day after the Expiration Time. Ball reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to make payment for Notes that are validly tendered prior to or at the Early Tender Time and that are accepted for purchase on an earlier settlement date, which, if applicable, is currently anticipated to be February 29, 2024, provided that the conditions to the satisfaction of the applicable Tender Offer are satisfied. Ball is not obligated to conduct any early settlement or have any early settlement occur on any particular date. Each Tender Offer is contingent upon the satisfaction of certain conditions. If any of the conditions are not satisfied, Ball is not obligated to accept for payment, or pay for, and may delay the acceptance for payment of, any tendered Notes and may even terminate one or both Tender Offers. Ball reserves the right to amend, extend, terminate or waive any condition with respect to one Tender Offer without taking a similar action with respect to the other Tender Offer. Full details of the terms and conditions of the Tender Offers are included in the Offer to Purchase. Information Relating to the Tender Offers Requests for documents relating to the Tender Offers should be directed to D.F. King & Co., Inc., the tender agent and information agent, by telephone at +1 (866) 796-1271 (toll-free) or by email at [email protected]. BNP Paribas Securities Corp. and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC are serving as dealer managers in connection with the Tender Offers. Investors with questions regarding the terms and conditions of the Tender Offers may contact the dealer managers as follows: BNP Paribas Securities Corp. 787 Seventh Avenue New York, New York 10019 Attention: Liability Management Group Email: [email protected] Call Collect: +1 (212) 841-3059 Call Toll Free: +1 (888) 210-4358 Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC 1585 Broadway, 6th Floor New York, New York 10036 Attention: Liability Management Group Email: [email protected] Call Collect: +1 (212) 761-1057 Call Toll Free: +1 (800) 624-1808 This press release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or purchase, or a solicitation of an offer to sell or purchase, or the solicitation of tenders with respect to, the Notes. No offer, solicitation, purchase or sale will be made in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Each Tender Offer is being made solely pursuant to the Offer to Purchase made available to holders of the Notes. None of Ball or its affiliates, their respective boards of directors, the dealer managers, the tender agent and information agent or the trustee with respect to any series of Notes is making any recommendation as to whether or not holders should tender or refrain from tendering all or any portion of their Notes in response to each Tender Offer. Holders are urged to evaluate carefully all information in the Offer to Purchase, consult their own investment and tax advisors and make their own decisions whether to tender Notes in each Tender Offer, and, if so, the principal amount of Notes to tender. About Ball Corporation Ball Corporation supplies innovative, sustainable aluminum packaging solutions for beverage, personal care and household products customers. Ball Corporation employs 16,000 people worldwide (excluding divested aerospace staff) and reported 2023 net sales of $14.03 billion. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This release contains "forward-looking" statements concerning future events and financial performance. Words such as "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "believes," and similar expressions typically identify forward looking statements, which are generally any statements other than statements of historical fact. Such statements are based on current expectations or views of the future and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied. You should therefore not place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, and they should be read in conjunction with, and qualified in their entirety by, the cautionary statements referenced below. Ball undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Key factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to be different are summarized in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Exhibit 99 in Ball's Form 10-K, which are available on Ball's website and at www.sec.gov. Additional factors that might affect: a) Ball's packaging segments include product capacity, supply, and demand constraints and fluctuations and changes in consumption patterns; availability/cost of raw materials, equipment, and logistics; competitive packaging, pricing and substitution; changes in climate and weather and related events such as drought, wildfires, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods; footprint adjustments and other manufacturing changes, including the startup of new facilities and lines; failure to achieve synergies, productivity improvements or cost reductions; unfavorable mandatory deposit or packaging laws; customer and supplier consolidation; power and supply chain interruptions; changes in major customer or supplier contracts or loss of a major customer or supplier; inability to pass through increased costs; war, political instability and sanctions, including relating to the situation in Russia and Ukraine and its impact on Ball's supply chain and its ability to operate in Europe, the Middle East and Africa regions generally; changes in foreign exchange or tax rates; and tariffs, trade actions, or other governmental actions, including business restrictions and orders affecting goods produced by Ball or in its supply chain, including imported raw materials; and b) Ball as a whole include those listed above plus: the extent to which sustainability-related opportunities arise and can be capitalized upon; changes in senior management, succession, and the ability to attract and retain skilled labor; regulatory actions or issues including those related to tax, environmental, social and governance reporting, competition, environmental, health and workplace safety, including U.S. Federal Drug Administration and other actions or public concerns affecting products filled in Ball's containers, or chemicals or substances used in raw materials or in the manufacturing process; technological developments and innovations; the ability to manage cyber threats; litigation; strikes; disease; pandemic; labor cost changes; inflation; rates of return on assets of Ball's defined benefit retirement plans; pension changes; uncertainties surrounding geopolitical events and governmental policies, including policies, orders, and actions related to COVID-19; reduced cash flow; interest rates affecting Ball's debt; successful or unsuccessful joint ventures, acquisitions and divestitures, and their effects on Ball's operating results and business generally. SOURCE Ball Corporation BHUBANESWAR, India, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading global philanthropist, Mr. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was honored with the KISS Humanitarian Award 2023 in a significant recognition of his philanthropic work. The ceremony took place on February 28, 2024, in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, acknowledging Mr. Gates for his unparalleled contributions to enhancing global health, and education, and addressing climate change through innovative technology solutions aimed at reducing inequality. Mr. Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Co-Founder & Former CEO of Microsoft receiving the prestigious Humanitarian Award 2023 from Prof. Achyuta Samanta, Founder of KIIT, KISS & KIMS Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India The award ceremony featured virtual participation from the staff and students of KIIT and KISS, along with alumni. A notable moment from the event was Mr. Gates's engagement in a meaningful conversation on gender equality, prompted by a question from a KISS alumna. Prof. Achyuta Samanta, Founder of KIIT, KISS & KIMS said, "Awarding Bill Gates with the KISS Humanitarian Award not only honors his exceptional contributions but also elevates the prestige of this recognition. His acceptance sets a new benchmark for humanitarian work globally. It is a profound honor for us that Bill Gates is joining the esteemed roster of our awardees." In his acceptance speech, Mr. Gates expressed deep gratitude for the recognition and reflected on the transformative work of Dr. Samanta and KISS. "Thank you so much for this wonderful award, and for welcoming me here. Though I should be the one congratulating you on all you have accomplished," said Mr. Gates. He lauded Dr. Samanta's vision and dedication to providing quality education to indigenous communities and highlighted the importance of civic engagement and a community-first approach to education. Initiated in 2008 by Prof. Achyuta Samanta, the KISS Humanitarian Award is the highest honour of KIIT and KISS dedicated to recognizing individuals and organizations that embody the spirit of humanitarian work worldwide. The award consists of a citation scroll and a gold-plated trophy that depicts a great social message given at a public function at KISS. The gold-plated trophy embodies a golden heart of a humanitarian with the virtues of purity, kindness, prosperity, and hope. It features a pair of hands uplifting a heart, which is textured with shapes resembling waving hands that symbolize how a pair of dedicated hands can make a significant difference in the lives of the helpless and make the world a better place to live in. Previous recipients of this prestigious award include a diverse group of global leaders, Nobel laureates, and notable figures from various sectors, showcasing the award's broad international appeal and respect. Among others, Minister Counsellor Graham Mayer, US Embassy New Delhi; Frank Talluto, Political Officer Hyderabad; Ananth Sukesh, Political Advisor, US Embassy New Delhi and Srimali Kari, Political Specialist US Consulate Hyderabad were present on the occasion. Some of the notable recipients are Madam Edna Bomo Molewa, former premier of the North-western state of South Africa Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Dr. Ham-Kee-Sun, President of Hanseo University, an outstanding Ophthalmologist of South Korea, Mr. Anerood Jugnauth, President of the Republic of Mauritius, Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Nicholas Addison Phillips, President of the Supreme Court of the UK, Lyonchhen Jigmiy Thinley, Prime Minister of Bhutan, Madam Albina Du Boisrouvray, Founder FXB International, Switzerland, His Holiness Dalai Lama, Spiritual Leader and Nobel Peace Laureate 2005, Prof Muhammad Yunus, Founder, Grameen Bank, Bangladesh and Nobel Peace Laureate, Mr. Dansa Kourouma, President of the National Transition Council of Guinea and Mama Rachel Ruto, the first lady of Republic of Kenya. Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350121/KISS_Gates_Award.jpg Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1507512/KISS_Logo.jpg SOURCE KISS NEW YORK, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Biogas Upgrading Equipment Market by Technology and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2023-2027 report has been published by Technavio. Market size is forecast to grow by USD 5,070.25 million between 2022 and 2027 at a CAGR of 15.38%. The report provides a comprehensive analysis of growth opportunities at regional levels, new product launches, the latest trends, and the post-pandemic recovery of the global market. Download A PDF Sample Report Regional Analysis Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Biogas Upgrading Equipment Market 2023-2027 By region, the global biogas upgrading equipment market is segmented into Europe, North America, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa. Europe is estimated to contribute 41% to the growth of the global market over the forecast period. The rising demand for renewables such as biofuels, biogas, and upgraded biogas is driving the growth of the biogas upgrading equipment market in Europe. Buy the report Company Profiles The biogas upgrading equipment market report includes information on the key products and recent developments of leading vendors, including: Air Liquide SA - The company offers biogas upgrading equipment through its subsidiary Air Liquide Advanced Separations. - The company offers biogas upgrading equipment through its subsidiary Air Liquide Advanced Separations. Bright Renewables B.V. - The company offers biogas upgrading equipment through its subsidiary Cirmac International bv. - The company offers biogas upgrading equipment through its subsidiary Cirmac International bv. Condorchem Envitech SL - The company offers biogas upgrading equipment namely BUP series. - The company offers biogas upgrading equipment namely BUP series. DP CleanTech Co. Ltd. - The company offers biogas upgrading equipment through its subsidiary DMT Clear Gas Solutions. Market Dynamics The market is driven by factors such as the need for cleaner fuel, favorable government policies, and environmental and energy security. However, the high cost of production is hindering the market growth. Competitive Analysis The competitive scenario categorizes companies based on various performance indicators. Some of the factors considered include the financial performance of companies over the past few years, growth strategies, product innovations, new product launches, investments, and growth in market share among others. Request a Sample Market Segmentation By technology, the market is segmented into water scrubber, chemical scrubber, pressure swing adsorption (PSA), membrane, and others. The water scrubber segment accounted for the largest share of the market in 2022. By geography, the market is segmented into Europe , North America , APAC, South America , and Middle East and Africa . Europe held the largest share of the market in 2022. Analyst Review The Global Biogas Upgrading Equipment Market is set to witness significant growth from 2024 to 2032, driven by increasing demand for green energy sources and the adoption of sustainable practices. The market offers various types of upgrading equipment including Water Scrubbers, Chemical Scrubbers, Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA), and Membrane systems catering to diverse applications such as Municipal and Domestic Sewage, Industrial Wastewater, Landfill Gas, and Agricultural Wastes. Anaerobic digestion of organic wastes produces biogas, primarily composed of methane and carbon dioxide, which requires upgrading to meet quality standards. Despite obstacles such as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting supply chains and project timelines, the market presents opportunities driven by governmental certainties and incentives towards renewable energy initiatives. Upstream, companies like Clean Energy Fuels and Greenlane Biogas provide biogas production solutions, while downstream players such as Pentair Haffmans, Xebec, and Airproducts offer innovative upgrading equipment. Regions like EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) and Asia-Pacific exhibit promising growth prospects, with North America leading in technological advancements. However, geopolitical tensions like the Russia-Ukraine War could potentially impact market dynamics, particularly concerning fossil fuels and natural gas vehicles. Despite challenges, the biogas upgrading equipment market is poised for substantial expansion, fostering sustainability and reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Request a Sample Related Reports: The gasification market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.18% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecast to increase by USD 135.21 billion . The rise in global energy demand is notably driving the market growth, although factors such as high operating and maintenance costs may impede the market growth. is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.18% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecast to increase by . The rise in global energy demand is notably driving the market growth, although factors such as high operating and maintenance costs may impede the market growth. The well abandonment services market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.37% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecast to increase by USD 1522.38 million . The maturing oil and gas fields are notably driving the well abandonment services market growth, although factors such as the high costs associated with well abandonment projects may impede the market growth. Table of contents: 1 Executive Summary 2 Landscape 3 Sizing 4 Historic Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Segmentations 7 Customer Landscape 8 Geographic Landscape 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10 Vendor Landscape 11 Vendor Analysis 12 Appendix 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 Maestro Reserva is an ode to Brugal's unwavering mastery and pursuit of excellence. Crafted by our Maestra Ronera using Brugal's Proprietary Cask Toasting Technique "Dark Aromatic Toasting", it creates an exceptional sipping rum designed to mark the moment. MIAMI, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Born from the passion of five generations of Maestros Roneros and 135 years of rum mastery, the Dominican ultra-premium rum brand, Brugal, today unveils its newest masterpiece: a permanent edition prestige sipping rum, Maestro Reserva. This permanent luxury rum embodies Brugal's unwavering mastery and pursuit of excellence. The rum making process for Maestro Reserva utilizes an innovative cask toasting technique completely unique to and developed by Brugal in prestigious American sherry oak casks called "Dark Aromatic Toasting" to create a one-of-a-kind rum, carefully crafted for sipping. Brugal unveils its newest permanent, prestige sipping rum, Maestro Reserva. Driven by passion, each generation of Brugal family Maestro Roneros enrich the art of rum making and leaves behind a legacy that endures through the ages. Brugal family member and fifth-generation Maestra Ronera, Jassil Villanueva Quintana, upholds this as she introduces her legacy, Masetro Reserva. Using the "Dark Aromatic Toasting" technique, Jassil has produced a rum born from years of practice and patience, passed down from generation to generation. With her expertise, she discerns the precise moment when the rum's elements reach perfection, resulting in a liquid characterized by a naturally smooth, well-rounded, and intricate sweetness. "My family deeply embraces the elegance and soul of Brugal rum, and I've absorbed a wealth of wisdom from the generations of Maestro Roneros who came before me," shares Jassil Villanueva Quintana. "By leveraging this knowledge and my unwavering passion, all while paying homage to the Brugal family legacy, I've crafted a rum that is "moment perfect." My hope is that Maestro Reserva graces all of life's big celebrations, alongside cherished ones, forging moments that will endure for centuries to come." At $200 per bottle, every sip is a tribute to the dedication and skill of Brugal's Maestro Roneros, both past and present. Brugal's proprietary "Dark Aromatic Toasting" process naturally sweetens the liquid to create a rum that is free of external sugars and additives. After aging in premium American sherry oak casks, the rum is emptied and carefully placed aside. The American sherry oak casks are immediately toasted using precision, mastery and expertise to extract natural caramel pearls that are drawn from the sugars in the wood. The casks are then re-filled with the rum, absorbing the delicate caramel pearls created in the wood before being carefully aged under the Dominican sun. The result is a smooth and rich liquid defined by sweet vanilla creaminess, velvety caramel and awakened by a hint of smoke. Once complete, Maestro Reserva is a prestige sipping rum with natural caramel hues, best enjoyed neat or over ice. On the nose, the rum is oaky and presents red fruits with a hint of smoke balanced by caramel and honey. On the palate, flavors of vanilla and caramel emerge, giving way to subtle notes of dark chocolate and dried fruits with a hint of toasted nuts and orange peel. Maestro Reserva is presented in a beautiful bespoke glass decanter. In support of the brand's focus on sustainability, the secondary packaging for Maestro Reserva is eco-friendly and fully recyclable. Maestro Reserva will be available for purchase in the U.S. in Florida, Texas and New Jersey beginning in February 2024, and will expand to other select markets throughout the year. It will also be available duty-free at select airports across the U.S. For more information on Brugal, the home of rum mastery in the Dominican Republic, please visit: www.brugal-rum.com. Maestro Reserva Quick Facts: $200 USD per bottle per bottle 41.2% ABV Available for purchase in February of 2024 in Florida , Texas , New Jersey , and duty free at select U.S. airports , , , and duty free at select U.S. airports Expertly crafted using the new "Dark Aromatic Toasting" technique Appearance : Deep amber color with rich caramel undertones : Deep amber color with rich caramel undertones Aroma : Rich aromas of oak, red fruits, and a hint of smoke balanced by caramel and honey : Rich aromas of oak, red fruits, and a hint of smoke balanced by caramel and honey Palate : Tastes of vanilla and caramel emerge then give way to subtle notes of dark chocolate and dried fruits, with a hint of toasted nuts. Slightly oaky and dry on the palate accompanied by red fruits, brown sugar, and orange peel. : Tastes of vanilla and caramel emerge then give way to subtle notes of dark chocolate and dried fruits, with a hint of toasted nuts. Slightly oaky and dry on the palate accompanied by red fruits, brown sugar, and orange peel. Finish: A smooth, rich and sweet vanilla creaminess with a touch of bitter brown sugar About Brugal: Home to 135 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 Don Andres Brugal. After traveling from Spain and Cuba to the Dominican Republic, 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 as demonstrated by outstanding growth in its home market of the Dominican Republic, and in Spain, its leading international market. International growth for Brugal's ultra-premium expression, Brugal 1888, has accelerated as more consumers discover and shared the wonders of our double-aged Dominican rum. To learn more, please visit https://www.brugal-rum.com/en-us. CONTACT: [email protected] SOURCE Brugal DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Allant Group LLC, a data activation solution provider, is pleased to announce current board member, Charles McKenna, has been named Chairman of the company's Board of Directors, replacing current chair Norm Beles. This appointment affirms Allant's transformation from being primarily a marketing services company into a data activation subscription-based technology platform. Mr. McKenna has served on Allant Group's board since 2017. He also sits on the board of directors for Ed Miniat LLC, Penske Motor Group, and Wheaton Bank and Trust. Mr. McKenna's strong leadership skills and international experience fosters opportunity and growth, identifying high value strategic objectives, while leveraging internal assets to design and execute metrics-driven operational plans. He has successfully advised on more than 80 mergers and acquisitions on three continents, with revenues ranging from $50 million to $3 billion. Mr. McKenna's resounding success focuses on strategic restructuring and repositioning of existing businesses and effectively utilizing synergies of combined companies. "I'm excited about bringing Allant's latest technology innovation to market," said Mr. McKenna, Chairman of Allant Group. "AMP+ is a unique, high-performance data activation platform that integrates new technology with Allant's Audience Attribute Marketplace of 2B+ audience members and 2600+ attributes, and Allant's heritage in data and analytics excellence. We have already dramatically changed the sales cycle, average contract value, and margin profile, while unlocking cost, cycle time, and flexibility advantages for our clients." Michael Fisher, CEO of Allant Group adds, "Charlie's strong understanding of organizational dynamics for managing change is instrumental in driving this new era for Allant. With our data activation platform at the core of what we're bringing to market, Charlie's expertise will help drive adoption of AMP+, putting Allant in the most advantageous position within the tech/data lifecycle of a marketing process; this allows for time, talent, and economic benefits resulting in significant financial results for our clients." Mr. McKenna has also served on the board of directors for JVA Partners (2014 2022) and Farley and Sathers (2010 2013). He was a founder and Senior Managing Director for Crowe Capital Markets. Additionally, in his role as Partner for Crowe LLP, he served two Board terms, one as member and one as Chairman. Prior to this, Mr. McKenna served as Partner in Charge of Crowe's Oak Brook office, led the M&A Transactional Services group, was a member of their Strategic Alliance Committee and Visioning Committee, and played a key role in guiding the firm's international affiliation. Mr. McKenna left a legacy of growth and prosperity and was instrumental in leading Crowe to its current status as one of the ten largest public accounting and consulting firms in the United States. Before joining Crowe, Mr. McKenna was a partner with KPMG. For more information about Allant Group and their data activation, analytics, martech integration, and customer experience management capabilities, please click here. About Allant Group Allant Group is the data activation engine powering the analytical solutions behind successful customer journeys. We give enterprise organizations a competitive advantage by unlocking the combined power of data, analytics, customer experience management, martech integration, and strategic consulting services to better inform business decisions and activities. This knowledge delivers individualized and nurturing lifecycle experiences that secure a stronger relationship between brand and customer. Headquartered in the Chicago area, Allant is a privately held company serving North American clients. For more information, visit https://www.allantgroup.com/. Contact: Linda Vetter [email protected] 1-800-367-7311 SOURCE Allant Group Introduced in 2022 with $50 million in funds, Chipotle is increasing its commitment to the Cultivate Next venture fund by an added $50 million in funds, Chipotle is increasing its commitment to the Cultivate Next venture fund by an added Cultivate Next will continue to pursue new investments in supply chain, agriculture, restaurant innovation, automation, and other areas that support Chipotle's mission to Cultivate a Better World Chipotle has made additional investments in Local Line and Hyphen, both previously announced cohorts NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) today announced it is increasing its commitment to its Cultivate Next venture fund by $50 million, which brings the fund's total investment pool to $100 million. Introduced in 2022, Cultivate Next makes early-stage investments into strategically aligned companies that further Chipotle's mission to Cultivate a Better World and help accelerate the company's aggressive longer term growth plans to operate 7,000 restaurants in North America. With its additional $50 million commitment, Chipotles Cultivate Next venture fund will continue to pursue new investments in supply chain, agriculture, restaurant innovation, automation, and other areas that support the company's mission to Cultivate a Better World. "Our decision to double our commitment to our Cultivate Next venture fund is a clear indicator that we are investing in the right companies that we can learn from and utilize to improve the human experience of our restaurant teams, farmers, and suppliers," said Curt Garner, Chief Customer and Technology Officer, Chipotle. "The parallel growth of Chipotle and our partners will continue to further our mission to Cultivate a Better World by increasing access to real food." Cultivate Next Investments To date, Chipotle has invested in a wide range of companies innovating in areas such as farming, supply chain, advanced robotics, and plant-based foods. The new $50 million commitment will expand the company's existing portfolio, which currently features: Local Line Local Line is a leading local food sourcing platform for regional food systems, serving farms, producers, food hubs, and food buyers. In less than a year, Chipotle's investment has helped Local Line digitize their operations, increase their retention rate of customers, build their farm database, and expand to serve international farms in Europe , Australia , and New Zealand . In tandem, Local Line has been a key partner in enabling Chipotle to meet its local produce sourcing goals. Due to the early successes with the platform, Cultivate Next has made an incremental investment in Local Line. Chipotle will also leverage Local Line to fund grants to local farms within 350 miles of its new restaurants. The company plans to open 285 to 315 new locations in 2024. GreenField Robotics GreenField Robotics is a company founded with the vision of making regenerative farming more efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable by leveraging the latest advances in AI, robotics, and sensing technologies. The company's autonomous agricultural robots can weed crops both day and night, while reducing the need for toxic herbicides. With its Cultivate Next investment, GreenField will continue to build out its robotic fleets, which are currently running on farms in several states, and release additional capabilities for the robots including micro-spraying, cover-crop planting, and soil testing. Nitricity Nitricity is a company seeking to tackle greenhouse gas emissions by creating fertilizer products that are better for fields, farmers, and the environment. Funding from Cultivate Next will be used to scale up Nitricity's production of nitrogen, build out the company's infrastructure, and support the launch of its first commercial product within the next two years. Vebu Vebu is a product development company that works with food industry leaders to co-create intelligent automation and technology solutions. Chipotle is collaborating with Vebu to build and scale Autocado, Vebu's proprietary avocado processing cobotic (collaborative robot) prototype. Autocado is currently progressing through Chipotle's stage-gate process and will undergo an operational test in one restaurant this spring. Hyphen Hyphen is a foodservice platform designed to help restaurant owners, operators, and budding chefs move their business forward by automating kitchen operations. Chipotle is working with Hyphen to build a new digital makeline that uses intelligent automation to build bowls and salads while Chipotle employees operate the top makeline to make burritos, tacos, and quesadillas. In the coming months, Chipotle's Hyphen digital makeline will debut in a single restaurant location as part of the company's stage-gate process. Hyphen recently received an additional investment from Chipotle through Cultivate Next. Meati Meati Foods serves nutrient-dense whole-food products made from MushroomRoot. Chipotle is continuing to explore opportunities to bring real, fresh vegetables to the center of the plate with menu innovations that uphold its Food with Integrity standards. Zero Acre Farms Zero Acre Farms is a food company focused on healthy, sustainable oils and fats that is on a mission to end the food industry's dependence on vegetable oils. The company has introduced a new category of healthy oils and fats made by fermentation that are more environmentally friendly. Chipotle is in the early trials of testing Zero Acre Farms at its Cultivate Center test kitchen in Irvine, California . "It is incredible to see the possibilities that exist when we bring the right founders, startups or ventures into collaboration with Chipotle," said Christian Gammill, Cultivate Next Fund Manager. "Witnessing the progress of our cohorts over the past two years has motivated us to scale our efforts and drive real change in the supply chain, agriculture, restaurant innovation, and automation sectors." The Future of Cultivate Next Chipotle will continue to provide updates on the Cultivate Next venture fund in 2024 and beyond. Companies interested in collaborating with Chipotle through the Cultivate Next venture fund can apply by emailing [email protected]. 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 colors, flavors or preservatives. Chipotle had over 3,400 restaurants as of December 31, 2023, 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 in North America and Europe. Chipotle is ranked on the Fortune 500 and is recognized on Fortune's Most Admired Companies 2024 list and Time Magazine's Most Influential Companies. With over 115,000 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.COM. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about the number of new restaurants we plan to open, our longer term plans to open 7,000 restaurants in North America, and the potential success of our investments. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based on currently available operating, financial and competitive information available to us as of the date of this release and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the statements, including but not limited to the impact of competition, including from sources outside the restaurant industry; the financial impact of increasing our average hourly wages; the impact of federal, state or local government regulations relating to our employees, employment practices, restaurant design and construction, and the sale of food or alcoholic beverages; the costs and availability of suitable new restaurant sites, construction materials and contractors; increases in ingredient and other operating costs due to inflation, global conflicts, climate change, our Food with Integrity philosophy, tariffs or trade restrictions and supply shortages; and other risk factors described from time to time in our SEC reports, including our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, all of which are available on the investor relations page of our website at ir.Chipotle.com. SOURCE Chipotle Mexican Grill Belgium has pledged 200 million to the Czech initiative to provide 800,000 rounds of ammunition to Ukraine. The ammunition will be purchased outside of Europe to provide more support to the Ukrainian army as soon as possible. ADVERTISIMENT This was announced by Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo. He noted that additional ammunition will arrive in the coming weeks. "We will never be able to match the sacrifices that Ukraine makes every day. But we can give President Zelensky what he asked for - more ammunition to fight back against the Russian aggressor. Belgium will finance the Czech initiative with 200 million euros. The additional ammunition will arrive in the coming weeks," Alexander de Croo wrote on the social network X on Wednesday. Earlier it was reported that the Netherlands would allocate more than 100 million to purchase ammunition for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in countries around the world. This is in support of the Czech initiative. He announced this decision after a meeting in Paris with heads of state and government from a wide group of countries to support Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT As reported by OBOZ.UA, two EU member states - France and the Netherlands - supported the plan to purchase ammunition for Ukraine outside Europe. The EU countries are joining forces to raise $1.5 billion for the emergency purchase of ammunition. As a reminder, Czech President Petr Pavel said that Prague had found 800,000 pieces of artillery ammunition abroad that it could transfer to Ukraine. It is about half a million 155-mm shells and another 300,000 122-mm shells. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Winners are BaTTeRi, Electriq, Envomed, Filo Systems, Nemo Nanomaterials, TIGI, Biotic TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- $1.3 million dollars were awarded to Israeli climate tech startups today as part of the startup track of the Climate Solutions Prize (CSP), an initiative that incentivizes climate innovation to address the global climate crisis. The startup track was led by Startup Nation Central together with Climate Solutions Prize Organization. Avi Hasson, CEO of Start-Up Nation Central & Jeff Hart, Executive Chair of the Climate Solutions Prize (Photo: Eliran Aviral) Awards handed to the winners: Danny Weber, VP Business Development Electriq, Eliran Elimelech VP Ecosystem Development Startup Nation Central, Baruch Halpert, CEO and Executive Chair of Electriq (Photo: Eliran Aviral) The Startup Track prizes include the premier flagship Equity Investment of $1M from Capital Nature as well as a roadshow to Singapore from Temasek Foundation, an investment and incubation process with ESIL, and engagements with corporate business units from Continental, E.ON, Italgas and Takeda to Israeli early-stage startups developing innovative climate tech technologies. In addition, Amazon Web Services and Deloitte offered market access and professional support to the startups in this initiative. "With the objective of channeling Israel's ingenuity to tackle one of the biggest challenges of our times, the Climate Solutions Prize is the largest incentive prize in Israel's history. It aims to be a catalyst for climate tech innovation in both breakthrough research and the startup ecosystem. It is vital that we mobilize and inspire the best efforts and best minds so that we can proudly leave a better world for future generations to come", said Jeff Hart, Executive Chair of the Climate Solutions Prize. Startup Nation Central's CEO, Avi Hasson commented on the importance of the initiative: "As a recognized leader in developing advanced solutions to global challenges, Israel is extremely well-positioned to take a central role in battling climate change and bringing solutions to the biggest shared challenge of our times. The initiative, designed to award the best and brightest climate tech startups throughout Israel, provides access to investment, partnership opportunities with global MNCs, and exposure at COP28 to global solution seekers, to promote scalable, sustainable solutions to pressing environmental challenges". The winners of this year's challenges: Capital Nature's $1M Flagship Investment for TRL 4+ companies with innovative solutions which address the climate crisis awarded to Filo Systems for their data compression engine that provides optimized storage and networking savings, enabling significantly lower energy consumption and cooling costs for data centers across the world. Filo's technology can reach a projected environmental impact of up to 1% reduction in annual global emissions. for TRL 4+ companies with innovative solutions which address the climate crisis awarded to for their data compression engine that provides optimized storage and networking savings, enabling significantly lower energy consumption and cooling costs for data centers across the world. Filo's technology can reach a projected environmental impact of up to 1% reduction in annual global emissions. Temasek Foundation's Disruptive Decarbonization Prize for innovative decarbonization solutions helping urban cities remove carbon emissions at scale: awarded to Electriq for their innovative powder hydrogen carrier that can be transported in ambient and non-pressurised conditions simplifying storage, transport, and use of hydrogen in off-grid applications and long-term storage. for innovative decarbonization solutions helping urban cities remove carbon emissions at scale: awarded to for their innovative powder hydrogen carrier that can be transported in ambient and non-pressurised conditions simplifying storage, transport, and use of hydrogen in off-grid applications and long-term storage. E.ON'sEnergy Solutions for Industry & Buildings challenge for new and innovative digitally enabled energy solutions for clients in the industrial and buildings segment to help deliver energy and heat transition faster: awarded to TIGI for renewable heat generation and heat storage solutions for commercial and industrial applications. for new and innovative digitally enabled energy solutions for clients in the industrial and buildings segment to help deliver energy and heat transition faster: awarded to for renewable heat generation and heat storage solutions for commercial and industrial applications. Italgas' Decarbonizing Energy Distribution Infrastructure Challenge for innovative technologies in energy and distribution infrastructure focused on driving energy transition and decarbonization efforts in Europe , aligning with the EU's Green Deal Targets: awarded to Nemo Nanomaterials for providing industrially scalable nanotechnology solutions that enhance performance and improve the properties of industrial materials and products. for innovative technologies in energy and distribution infrastructure focused on driving energy transition and decarbonization efforts in , aligning with the EU's Green Deal Targets: awarded to for providing industrially scalable nanotechnology solutions that enhance performance and improve the properties of industrial materials and products. Takeda's Addressing Plastic Waste in the Plasma Industry Challenge for solutions that reduce single-use plastic waste, including both medical waste and non-hazardous waste, was awarded to Envomed for a unique machine that shreds and sterilizes medical waste simultaneously using a scientifically developed and proven chemical sterilization technology that can achieve a 6-log reduction of spores in infectious medical waste. for solutions that reduce single-use plastic waste, including both medical waste and non-hazardous waste, was awarded to for a unique machine that shreds and sterilizes medical waste simultaneously using a scientifically developed and proven chemical sterilization technology that can achieve a 6-log reduction of spores in infectious medical waste. Continental's Sustainable Materials for Automotive Applications Challenge for new, novel materials for automotive applications that support Continental targets to achieve 100% carbon neutrality and emission-free mobility by 2050, was awarded to Biotic for Enabling optimal transition from fossil fuel plastics with a scalable, fully biological, environmentally friendly process, contributing towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with a zero waste and circular economy approach. for new, novel materials for automotive applications that support Continental targets to achieve 100% carbon neutrality and emission-free mobility by 2050, was awarded to for Enabling optimal transition from fossil fuel plastics with a scalable, fully biological, environmentally friendly process, contributing towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with a zero waste and circular economy approach. ESIL's Early-Stage Funding Challenge for scaling DeepTech solutions to climate-related challenges, and providing know-how, up to 2M NIS of funding, network, and pilot facilities: awarded to BaTTeRi, an innovative EV Charging as a Service (CaaS) company with a zero-infrastructure method based on a proprietary charging robot, Thomas. Thomas enables sites and parking lots to offer rapid DC EV charging in every parking spot. for scaling DeepTech solutions to climate-related challenges, and providing know-how, up to of funding, network, and pilot facilities: awarded to an innovative EV Charging as a Service (CaaS) company with a zero-infrastructure method based on a proprietary charging robot, Thomas. Thomas enables sites and parking lots to offer rapid DC EV charging in every parking spot. In addition, Amazon Web Services, as primary sponsor of the CSP, chose the startup Electriq to exhibit at their Clean Energy Showcase at COP28. Thomas Birr, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at E.ON: "Along the way we've learned that the approach of collaborating with startups is more successful than trying to find them ourselves. To bridge the culture gap between startups and corporations, we've learned that you need an ambassador in the company who speaks both languages. That's why we have people in palo alto or in Tel Aviv. We continue to put our trust in Israel's high-tech ecosystem." Katharina Peier, Head of Growth Field Sustainable Technologies at Continental: "Continental's sustainability collaborations with startups follow a multi-faceted strategy, from collaborations with academia to partnerships with startups. The importance of first, 'boots on the ground' such as our team Co-Pace. Second, closely working alongside local networks and NGOs such as Start Up Nation Central for the Climate Solutions Prize - is an integral part of this strategy." The 2023 Israeli Climate Tech Landscape Map details leading companies with solutions addressing the climate crisis. A full report on the activity of the climate sector in Israel is available here. The Breakthrough Research Prize track was awarded in January to three Israeli research teams to propel their work on promising solutions to the climate crisis. For more information about the Climate Solutions Prize tracks, contestants and winners, please visit https://climatesolutionsprize.com/competitions.asp?id=70 Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350255/Start_Up_Nation_Central_SNC_1.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350254/Start_Up_Nation_Central_SNC_2.jpg SOURCE Start-Up Nation Central (SNC) Nestled in the heart of Crystal Lake, Illinois, Crystal Lake Senior Apartments represents a $30 million investment, offering 119 meticulously designed residences tailored to meet the diverse needs of its residents. CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Clover Group, a distinguished name in active aging communities, is thrilled to announce the grand debut of its latest development, Crystal Lake Senior Apartments, at 731 East Terra Cotta Avenue, Crystal Lake, Illinois. This marks Clover Group's inaugural venture in the Chicagoland area, introducing a $30 million investment into a state-of-the-art active aging community designed for the modern senior. Resident amenities at the community include a spacious community room, a cozy fireplace lounge, a cafe, beauty salon, fitness center, and game room, offering residents an engaging and active lifestyle. For added comfort, the building features controlled access entry, wide hallways with handrails, indoor trash rooms, an indoor mail system, and emergency pull cords in all apartments. "We're very excited to be bringing our Clover Group communities to the Chicago market. We provide a type of housing for independent, middle-class, active adult seniors that no one else provides," says Michael Joseph, CEO of Clover Group. This development is not just a first for Clover Group in Chicagoland but a pioneering step towards redefining active senior living in the region. Rental rates at the community begin at $2,095 monthly, covering all utilities such as gas, water, electricity, cable, and internet. The apartments offer diverse floor plans, including 1BR, 2BR/1BA, and 2BR/1.5BA options. The community is supported by an onsite Property Manager, a full-time maintenance team, and an activity director who ensures a range of engaging experiences for residents As Crystal Lake's premier active adult community, Clover Group promises a fulfilling and healthy lifestyle for its residents. Prospective residents seeking more information are invited to visit clovergroupinc.com to discover the Clover Group difference and embark on a new chapter in your senior living excellence. About Clover Group Clover Group is a leading provider of active aging communities, dedicated to creating thriving and fulfilling lifestyles for older adults. With a focus on excellence and innovation, Clover Group's communities offer a range of amenities and services designed to enhance the well-being of residents and create a sense of community. Clover Group manages over 5,000 senior apartments predominantly in the Northeastern US, boasts extensive experience and expertise in senior living. The company is soon expanding into the Chicago market, initiating a plan to introduce 5-6 more communities in the region. For media inquiries, please contact: Marketing Communications Manager [email protected] SOURCE Clover Group Edwards will lead the firm's consulting practice to help clients navigate the business environment, seize market opportunities, and innovate. CHICAGO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Crowe LLP, a public accounting, consulting and technology firm today announced the hiring of Mike Edwards as the next managing principal of its Consulting practice. Edwards, who officially joined Crowe in mid-January, will assume the leadership role April 1. Edwards will lead the Consulting practice, which consists of 150 partners and 2,000 professionals, reporting to Crowe CEO Mark Baer. Crowe LLP names Mike Edwards new managing principal of its consulting business Post this Mike Edwards "Our Consulting and Advisory offerings continue to drive tremendous growth, and we've built a strong team of professionals offering market-leading solutions and unrivaled client service. We're proud to add a leader of Mike's caliber, who brings significant global experience and a values-based approach to client service and team leadership. He makes our firm even stronger as we drive additional growth and scale to meet market demand," said Baer. "Everything we do is centered on delivering value for our clients and our people, and Mike is an excellent business and cultural fit. We're very proud of the trust we've earned with our clients over our 80-plus year history, and a dynamic leader like Mike is a great addition to our leadership team as we continuously evolve and enhance our offerings and capabilities to ensure Crowe is well positioned to best serve our current and future clients." Throughout his career, Edwards has established himself as a strong people and client leader, with a deep commitment to development, growth, and exceptional service. He brings a strong background in leadership, people development, account management, strategy development, digital enablement, innovative delivery, and organizational design. Edwards joins Crowe from EY, where he began his career and most recently served as Americas, Consumer Industry Supply Chain Leader. In addition to his work with EY, he also served as a senior leader of supply chain improvement with General Mills. Edwards received his BBA from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from Indiana University. "I am thrilled to join Crowe, a firm with an impeccable reputation built on culture and values," said Edwards. "Every interaction I've had with people in the firm has demonstrated that the reputation they've earned is well founded and very real. We know the needs of our clients and our people are ever evolving, and our firm is committed to continuously redefining value, innovating, and providing an unrivaled people and client experience. I am excited to work with my new Crowe colleagues as we continue to build on the great success the firm has had and the momentum we have in the market." About Crowe Crowe LLP is a public accounting, consulting, and technology firm that uses its deep industry expertise to provide audit services to public and private entities. The firm and its subsidiaries also help clients make smart decisions that lead to lasting value with its tax, advisory and consulting services, helping businesses uncover hidden opportunities in the market no matter what challenges the markets present. Crowe is recognized by many organizations as one of the best places to work in the U.S. As an independent member of Crowe Global, one of the largest global accounting networks in the world, Crowe serves clients worldwide. The network consists of more than 200 independent accounting and advisory services firms in more than 130 countries around the world. SOURCE Crowe LLP Asserts That Crown Castle's Cooperation Agreement Struck Prior to Company's Nomination Window Disenfranchises Shareholders and Entrenches Board Cooperation Agreement Granted Two Board Seats and Does Not Require Elliott to Retain Equity Ownership in Company, Thereby Misaligning Elliott's Incentives with Long-Term Interests of Company and Shareholders Urges Crown Castle to Immediately Put Cooperation Agreement to a Shareholder Vote to Restore Transparency and Credibility HOUSTON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Ted B. Miller, co-founder of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE: CCI) ("Crown Castle" or the "Company") and his investment vehicle Boots Capital Management, LLC ("Boots Capital") today filed a complaint in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (the "Court") seeking to invalidate the cooperation agreement between Crown Castle's Board of Directors (the "Board") and Elliott Investment Management, L.P. (together with its affiliates, "Elliott") announced on December 20, 2023. Under the terms of the cooperation agreement, Elliott and the Company appointed two new directors, Jason Genrich, Partner at Elliott, and Sunit Patel, Chief Financial Officer of Ibotta Inc. (collectively, the "Elliott Directors"), to the Board. Elliott received substantial governance rights without the customary provision that it be required to maintain an equity ownership position in the Company.1 Mr. Miller stated: "The Crown Castle Board's short-sighted decision to enter into this fundamentally unlawful cooperation agreement just prior to the Company's nomination window is yet another example of the Board's poor governance, lack of accountability, hostility towards its shareholders, and track record of flawed decision making, all of which have resulted in the destruction of tens of billions of dollars in shareholder value. Moreover, the terms of the cooperation agreement granted Elliott certain governance rights without requiring it to maintain an equity ownership position in the Company, grossly misaligning Elliott's short-term profit incentives with the long-term interests of Crown Castle and its shareholders. Submitting the cooperation agreement to a shareholder vote is a necessary step to help restore the Company's credibility with investors and forestall costly and distracting litigation, which could delay a sale of the Company's fiber assets and further erode shareholder value. However, given the Board's continued refusal to put the unlawful cooperation agreement to a shareholder vote, we have filed this lawsuit to defend the rights of Crown Castle's shareholders." The complaint alleges the following: The cooperation agreement directly infringes upon the Board's powers and responsibilities, and substantially restrains the Board's ability to use its own best judgment on key management matters in violation of Section 141 of the Delaware General Corporation Law and confers outsized concessions upon Elliott, including a commitment to include the Elliott Directors on the Board's slate in the 2024 election and guaranteed Elliott representation on key Board committees. The terms of the cooperation agreement are invalid and unenforceable as a matter of Delaware law, as reflected most recently in the February 22, 2024 written opinion by Vice Chancellor Travis Laster , in the case West Palm Beach Firefighters' Pension Fund v. Moelis & Company. 2 law, as reflected most recently in the written opinion by Vice Chancellor , in the case West Palm Beach Firefighters' Pension Fund v. Moelis & Company. The Company breached its own bylaws through its entry into the cooperation agreement, which impermissibly constrains the Board's authority on key governance matters in direct violation of certain of its bylaw provisions, a matter further reaffirmed in the recent Laster opinion in the Chancery Court. Elliott and the Elliott Directors knowingly aided and abetted the director defendants' breaches of fiduciary duty outlined in the complaint and provided them with substantial assistance. Mr. Miller added, "It is unconscionable that the Company's current Board has just seven total years of tower industry operating experience, even after the recent addition of new directors. To that end, we believe Crown Castle's Board must be reconstituted with directors that have the necessary industry expertise and skillsets to execute a long-term strategy that will enhance operational excellence, fix the Company's broken culture, and restore and unlock meaningful value for long-suffering shareholders." On February 20, 2024, Mr. Miller nominated a slate of four highly qualified director candidates who collectively would bring more than five decades of successful global tower industry experience to the Crown Castle Board. Mr. Miller and the nominees have presented a detailed and actionable plan to the Board to optimize the value of Crown Castle's fiber assets, digitize its tower portfolio, materially improve its operations and go-to-market strategy, rebuild its management team with experienced executives, repair its broken company culture, and deliver significantly improved financials to restore and drive shareholder value. In addition to this detailed operating plan, Mr. Miller and the nominees have led and shared with the Company a six-month due diligence process with 25 prospective buyers and financing sources to increase the speed and certainty of completing a sale of Crown Castle's fiber assets this year, before potential tax benefits of over $1 billion expire at the end of 2024. Heyman Enerio Gattuso & Hirzel LLP and Woolery & Co. PLLC are serving as legal advisors to Mr. Miller. The case number is 2024-0176. INVESTOR AND MEDIA CONTACTS Investors: Morrow Sodali LLC Paul Schulman/William Dooley/Jonathan Eyl By Phone: 1-800-662-5200 or 203-658-9400 By Email: [email protected] Media: Jonathan Gasthalter/Nathaniel Garnick/Grace Cartwright Gasthalter & Co. By Phone: 212-257-4170 By Email: [email protected] CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS The information herein contains "forward-looking statements." Specific forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts and include, without limitation, words such as "may," "will," "expects," "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "estimates," "projects," "potential," "targets," "forecasts," "seeks," "could," "should" or the negative of such terms or other variations on such terms or comparable terminology. Similarly, statements that describe the Participants' (as defined below) objectives, plans or goals are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties and assumptions. There can be no assurance that any idea or assumption herein is, or will be proven, correct. If one or more of the risks or uncertainties materialize, or if the underlying assumptions of Boots Capital (as defined below) or any of the other Participants in the proxy solicitation described herein prove to be incorrect, the actual results may vary materially from outcomes indicated by these statements. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by Boots Capital or the other Participants that the future plans, estimates or expectations contemplated will ever be achieved. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results and actual results may vary materially from what is expressed in or indicated by the forward-looking statements. Except to the extent required by applicable law, neither Boots Capital nor any Participant will undertake and specifically declines any obligation to disclose the results of any revisions that may be made to any projected results or forward-looking statements herein to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such projected results or statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events. Certain statements and information included herein have been sourced from third parties. Boots Capital and the other Participants do not make any representations regarding the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of such third party statements or information. Except as may be expressly set forth herein, permission to cite such statements or information has neither been sought nor obtained from such third parties. Any such statements or information should not be viewed as an indication of support from such third parties for the views expressed herein. CERTAIN INFORMATION CONCERNING THE PARTICIPANTS Boots Capital and the other Participants (as defined below) intend to file a preliminary proxy statement and accompanying GOLD universal proxy card (the "Proxy Statement") with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") to be used to solicit proxies for, among other matters, the election of its slate of director nominees at the 2024 annual meeting of shareholders (the "2024 Annual Meeting") of Crown Castle Inc., a Delaware corporation ("Crown Castle" or the "Corporation"). The participants in the proxy solicitation are currently anticipated to be Boots Parallel 1, LP, Boots, LP (and together with Boots Parallel 1, LP, the "Boots Funds"), Boots Capital Management, LLC ("Boots Capital"), Boots GP, LLC ("Boots GP"), 4M Management Partners, LLC ("4M Management Partners"), 4M Investments, LLC ("4M Investments"), WRCB, L.P. ("WRCB"), Theodore B. Miller, Jr. and Tripp H. Rice (collectively, the "Boots Parties"); and Charles Campbell Green III and David P. Wheeler (together with Mr. Miller and Mr. Rice, the "Boots Nominees," and together with the Boots Parties, the "Participants"). Boots GP, as the general partner of each of the Boots Funds, and 4M Management Partners, as the investment advisor of each of the Boots Funds, may each be deemed to beneficially own interests in an aggregate of 784,009 shares of the Corporation's common stock, $0.01 par value (the "Common Stock") held in the Boots Funds (including interests in 182,997 shares of Common Stock underlying over-the-counter forward purchase contracts and interests in 601,012 shares of Common Stock underlying over-the-counter share option contracts). WRCB beneficially owns interests in 135 shares of Common Stock underlying a call option. Mr. Miller has direct ownership of 200 shares of Common Stock, which includes 100 shares of Common Stock held of record and 100 shares of Common Stock held of record as tenant in common with his wife. In addition, Mr. Miller may be deemed to beneficially own interests in an aggregate of 784,716.958 shares of Common Stock (which includes interests in 784,009 shares of Common Stock held by the Boots Funds, which Mr. Miller may be deemed to beneficially own as the President and managing member of 4M Management Partners and a Manager and the President of Boots GP, interests in 400 shares of Common Stock underlying call options owned beneficially and as a tenant in common with his wife, interests in 135 shares of Common Stock underlying a call option owned beneficially by WRCB, which Mr. Miller may be deemed to beneficially own as sole member of one of the general partners of WRCB, and 172.958 shares of Common Stock held through the Corporation's 401(k) Plan in the Crown Castle Stock Fund. Mr. Rice is the record holder of 100 shares of Common Stock and, as the Vice President of 4M Management Partners and a Manager and the Vice President of Boots GP, Mr. Rice may be deemed to beneficially own interests in 784,009 shares of Common Stock held by the Boots Funds. Mr. Green beneficially owns 1,736 shares of Common Stock in joint tenancy with his wife. All of the foregoing information is as of the date hereof unless otherwise disclosed. IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND WHERE TO FIND IT BOOTS CAPITAL STRONGLY ADVISES ALL SHAREHOLDERS OF CROWN CASTLE TO READ THE PRELIMINARY PROXY STATEMENT, ANY AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS TO SUCH PROXY STATEMENT, THE DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT, AS WELL AS PROXY MATERIALS FILED BY CROWN CASTLE AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. SUCH PROXY MATERIALS WILL BE AVAILABLE AT NO CHARGE ON THE SEC'S WEBSITE AT WWW.SEC.GOV. IN ADDITION, THE PARTICIPANTS IN THIS PROXY SOLICITATION WILL PROVIDE COPIES OF THE PROXY STATEMENT WITHOUT CHARGE, WHEN AVAILABLE, UPON REQUEST. REQUESTS FOR COPIES SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO THE PARTICIPANTS' PROXY SOLICITOR. 1 For example, Pinterest, Inc. entered into a cooperation agreement with Elliott on December 6, 2022, and Cardinal Health, Inc. entered into a cooperation agreement with Elliott on September 5, 2022, which each required that Elliott maintain an equity ownership threshold of 4.3% and 2.25%, respectively. 2 Vice Chancellor Laster's opinion is accessible here: https://law.justia.com/cases/delaware/court-of-chancery/2024/c-a-no-2023-0309-jtl-0.html SOURCE Boots Capital Management, LLC WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- CSS Federal, was awarded a contract with the FAA for Information Security and Privacy (IS&P) Governance Support Services. For this contract, we strategically selected Tantus Technologies, Inc. and Compass Federal Consulting, LLC., to form Team CSS, to reinforce our depth of security expertise and provide FAA with a proven team. "We are so thankful to have the opportunity to support the FAA which allows us to continue to transform the way our customers develop, deliver, and secure digital services. Our support of the IS&P Governance Division enables us to provide Security Architecture, ISSO support, Intake, Security and Privacy Policy, Technical Writing, General Support, Cloud Support, and Emergency Management. Team CSS has worked together for over twelve years supporting several Federal Agencies' Information Security Programs and we are excited to continue this partnership in support of FAA," said Hetel Patel, CSS Federal's CEO. About CSS Federal CSS Federal is an SBA-certified Small Disadvantaged Business that leads in providing comprehensive technology services. Our expertise spans various domains, including Cybersecurity, Business Intelligence and Data Management, Data Analytics, Cloud, Integration and Application Development, Web Applications Support, Program Management, Finance, Health IT, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA), among others. We are committed to transforming the way government develops, delivers, and secures digital services, ensuring efficiency, innovation, and robust security measures. As a testament to our commitment to excellence, CSS Federal has achieved the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) ML 3 appraisal and holds ISO 9001:2015, ISO 20000-1:2018, and ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certifications. CSS Federal supports mission critical programs for Federal agencies including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM). If you would like more information about CSS Federal, LLC. please contact Hetel Patel 410.236.9080. Contact: Hetel Patel Tel. 410.236.9080 Email: [email protected] SOURCE CSS Federal LONDON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The World Food Travel Association (WFTA), the world's leading authority on culinary tourism, announced today that Cuenca, Ecuador is the latest city to join its Culinary Capitals network. Ecuadorians recognize Cuenca as the food capital of Ecuador. And while the entire country has great food, if travelers want the best of the best, they need to head to Cuenca. One incredibly tasty and typical local dish that many travelers rave about is mote pillo, a mixture of hominy, scrambled eggs and seasonings to taste every family has their own recipe. The entire area in and around Cuenca has a rich gastronomy history dating back 400 years. Thankfully, most of the area's gastronomic history has already been documented in reference books and cookbooks. "Cuenca's diverse gastronomy is the reflection of its cultural fusion that has been preserved within the city for more than 400 years. This quality helped our area to become the first Culinary Capital in Latin America. For us this is a great opportunity to make Cuenca known to the world, through our culinary culture. We invite visitors to immerse themselves in the flavors of Cuenca," shared Lorena Aristizabal, Managing Director of Fundacion Municipal Turismo para Cuenca. The WFTA's Executive Director and Founder Erik Wolf added, "Ecuador is a hidden gem for food lovers. We are delighted to be working with the charming town of Cuenca and its environs to make more travelers aware of its remarkable cuisine." Culinary Capitals is a certification program that facilitates the discovery and appreciation of unique culinary cultures by travelers, especially in smaller or lesser-known destinations. Popular cities like San Francisco, Hong Kong and Paris do not need marketing help. However, smaller or lesser-known destinations need every advantage, which is what Culinary Capitals provides. The program puts these hidden gems on the map for consumers who travel for unique and memorable gastronomy experiences. Cuenca joins two other Culinary Capitals, Bonaire and Grenada, both in the Caribbean, with a fourth destination in Chile scheduled to join the network shortly. Travelers can explore the Culinary Capitals here. Interested destinations can request more information about Culinary Capitals by contacting the WFTA at [email protected]. ABOUT THE WORLD FOOD TRAVEL ASSOCIATION (WFTA) The World Food Travel Association (WFTA) is a global, non-profit, non-political organization whose mission is to work with destination marketers and their stakeholders to facilitate the discovery and appreciation of unique culinary cultures by travelers.. Founded in 2003, the WFTA is the world's leading authority on gastronomy tourism and the global voice of the industry. Every year, the WFTA provides insights, resources, tools, research, and events to a network of 150,000 professionals in over 150 countries to help the industry grow. The Association's knowledge, tools, and training assist professionals, organizations, and destinations in leveraging their culinary culture and heritage to create a stronger sense of place, which increases visitor arrivals, strengthens a destination's brand equity, boosts local pride, generates export demand for the area's food and beverage products, and makes a significant local economic impact. Media Contact: Erik Wolf (+44) 7827 582 554 [email protected] SOURCE World Food Travel Association The 1948 Work Was Commissioned by Legendary American Songwriter Irving Berlin Auction on March 13 Also Features Works by Jose Clemente Orozco and Hector Hyppolite from Berlin's Collection NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers has announced the auction of several newly discovered works of art from the Estate of Mary Ellin Barrett, the eldest daughter of legendary songwriter Irving Berlin. Ms. Barrett accompanied her father on trips throughout Mexico and the Caribbean, and documented their travels in her 1994 book, Irving Berlin: A Daughter's Memoir, published by Simon & Schuster. Highlighting Doyle's auction of Latin American Art on March 13 are newly discovered paintings by Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and Hector Hyppolite from Berlin's collection, inherited by his daughter. Diego Rivera, Painting for 'In Acapulco,' 1948, commissioned by Irving Berlin. Source: Doyle During a Christmas trip to Mexico in 1947, Irving Berlin met the great muralist Diego Rivera, who invited Berlin to sit for a portrait an honor Berlin declined. However, Berlin commissioned a work from Rivera for his recent song, In Acapulco, to serve as cover artwork for a sheet music release a very lucrative sector of the music industry at the time. In 1948, Rivera presented Berlin with an original painting for the cover, along with a color chart and detailed notes hand-written by Rivera himself. The artwork was ultimately rejected by the music label and never used, as Ms. Barrett discusses in her book. Estimated at $200,000-400,000, this newly discovered, commissioned work by Diego Rivera for Irving Berlin has apparently never been seen outside of the Berlin, and later, the Barrett homes. On the same trip, Berlin and his family visited the studio of another prominent Mexican muralist, Jose Clemente Orozco, where they acquired two works a gouache on paper estimated at $20,000-40,000 and a colorful oil on Masonite estimated at $150,000-250,000 that Barrett describes in her book as "a bright and hectic fiesta scene (which turned out to be The Day of the Dead)." As with the Diego Rivera work, these two paintings by Orozco have been in the private homes of the Berlin and Barrett families since their purchase and have not been seen elsewhere. While on a visit to Haiti, Irving Berlin acquired a rare and fantastic work from the studio of Hector Hyppolite. A practicing Voodoo priest, Hyppolite created strange and surreal images, such as this painting depicting a priest attending to a funeral ceremony, estimated at $80,000-120,000. Again, like the Rivera and Orozco works, this Hyppolite painting has remained in the homes of the families since its acquisition. These exciting discoveries and many more works will be featured in Doyle's auction of Latin American Art on Wednesday, March 13 at 11am EST. The public is invited to the exhibition on March 911 at Doyle, located at 175 East 87th Street in New York. Interested bidders can view the catalogue and place bids online at Doyle.com. About Irving Berlin Irving Berlin (1888-1989) was one of the most influential and prolific American composers and lyricists of the 20th century. Over the course of his career, Berlin wrote an estimated 1,500 songs and scores for twenty original Broadway productions and fifteen Hollywood films. His lasting contributions to the classic American songbook include Alexander's Ragtime Band, Blue Skies, Easter Parade, Puttin' on the Ritz, Cheek to Cheek, Anything You Can Do, I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, There's No Business Like Show Business, and the celebrated patriotic song, God Bless America. With the 1942 release of the film Holiday Inn featuring music and lyrics by Irving Berlin came the debut of the song, White Christmas. The song became the best-selling single in history, and Berlin won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. About Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers Founded in 1962, Doyle is one of the world's foremost auctioneers and appraisers of jewelry, art, furniture, decorations, Asian works of art, coins, stamps, rare books and other categories. Headquartered in New York City, Doyle offers auctions throughout the year that attract a broad base of buyers and consignors from around the world. Doyle operates a network of regional offices and advisors across the nation, including Palm Beach, Beverly Hills, Charleston, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. SOURCE Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers DALLAS, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Dynamic Access, LLC (Dynamic Access), a leading provider of vascular access solutions, has announced the launch of a new affiliate brand, Dynamic Infusion, which will provide home infusion nursing services for patients with chronic conditions such as autoimmune disorders, hemophilia, Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and more. The Dynamic Infusion brand will support the operations of two legacy companies, each with more than a decade of experience delivering home infusion nursing services to patients throughout the Northeast: Infusion Ventures in New England, and NursePro in the Mid-Atlantic. The organization collectively will have partnerships with 35+ specialty pharmacies and will visit patients in their homes more than 10,000 times a year across 9 states. Peter Harris, CEO of Dynamic Access will also serve as CEO of Dynamic Infusion. "We are excited to bring together the talent and tools from strong and experienced companies in this space," Harris said. "The recent addition of NursePro expands our portfolio of specialty nursing solutions, expands our geographical footprint, and expands the number of lives we serve with life-changing care." Dynamic Infusion is moving forward with the experienced local leadership of its organizations and has invested in new talent to reinforce the strength of its pharmacy partnerships, management services and other operations. About Dynamic Infusion Dynamic Infusion partners with specialty pharmacies to deliver infusion therapies to patients beyond the hospital environment. Our specially trained infusion nurses administer high-risk intravenous medications to chronically ill patients in the comfort of their homes, ensuring the delivery of safe and high-quality services that meet the needs of both the patient and their family. Dynamic Infusion has been awarded the Joint Commission's Gold Seal of Approval for Accreditation for demonstrating compliance with its performance standards. Dynamic Infusion operates in New England under its corporate name, Infusion Ventures, Inc. Dynamic Infusion is an affiliate brand of Dynamic Access and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dynamic Infusion also is providing operational services to Critical Health Care Registered Nursing Services P.C. in New York pursuant to an Interim Consultative Services Agreement. For more information, visit www.dynamicinfusion.com. About RiverGlade Capital RiverGlade Capital is a private equity firm focused on control buyouts of growth-oriented, lower middle market healthcare companies. RiverGlade partners with founder-owned, high-quality, differentiated businesses that have demonstrated strong organic growth and where value can be accelerated through human capital investments, operational improvements, strategic planning, and dynamic organic and inorganic growth initiatives. For more information, visit http://www.rivergladecapital.com. SOURCE Dynamic Access, LLC DUBLIN, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Education Smart Display Market by Product Type (Whiteboard, Video Wall), Display Size (Above 55", Up to 55"), Display Technology (LCD, Direct-view LED, OLED), Resolution (4K & Above, FHD, Less than HD & HD) and Region - Forecast to 2029" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The education smart display market is projected to reach USD 4.1 billion by 2029 from USD 3.4 billion in 2024 at a CAGR of 4% during the forecast period. The major factors driving the growth of the Education smart display market Digital transformation in learning, rising demand for collaborative learning, and technological advancements. Moreover, Rising e-learning trends are growing awareness to carve out new growth opportunities for market players. Up to 55" display size segment to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period The growth of the up to 55" education smart display segment in the market is driven by several key factors. Firstly, the demand for interactive and collaborative learning tools has significantly increased in educational settings, and these moderately sized displays cater to the needs of smaller classrooms and meeting rooms where space constraints may be a concern. The sizes ranging from 32" to 55" strike a balance between providing an adequately large display for effective communication and collaboration while being versatile enough for various room sizes. Direct-view LEDs segment to register the second largest share during the forecast period Direct-view LED displays, characterized by bright and high-contrast visuals, have become the second-largest display technology in the education smart display market. Key players like ViewSonic (US), SAMSUNG (South Korea), and Sharp NEC Display Solutions (Japan) contribute significantly to this dominance. ViewSonic offers tailored options for large video walls, SAMSUNG incorporates direct-view LED in its large-format displays, and Sharp NEC provides diverse display solutions. Market data supports the substantial market share of direct-view LED technology in education, driven by the increasing demand for impactful presentations and information dissemination. This highlights the preference for direct-view LEDs in delivering vibrant visual experiences in educational environments. Europe region to register the 2nd highest CAGR during the forecast period The growth of the education smart display market in Europe is propelled by the increasing adoption of smart displays through collaborations with EdTech companies. Additionally, the proactive allocation of funds by European governments further contributes to the expansion of smart displays in the education technology sector. This dual factor strategy fosters innovation and technological integration in education, driving the demand for smart displays and enhancing the overall learning experience across European educational institutions. The report provides insights on the following: Analysis of key drivers (Digital transformation in learning, rising demand for collaborative learning, and technological advancements), restraints (budget constraints and integration challenges), opportunities (Rising e-learning trends, growing awareness, and adoption), and challenges (Security concerns, teacher training and adaptation, and maintenance and technical support) Product Development/Innovation: Detailed insights on upcoming technologies, research & development activities, and new product launches in the education smart display market Market Development: Comprehensive information about lucrative markets - the report analyses the Education smart display market across varied regions. Market Diversification: Exhaustive information about new products, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments in the education smart display market Competitive Assessment: In-depth assessment of market shares, growth strategies and product offerings of leading players like Samsung ( South Korea ), LG Electronics ( South Korea ), Newline Interactive (US), PPDS (Philips) ( Netherlands ), and Sharp NEC Display Solutions (US). Key Topics Covered: Executive Summary Education Smart Display Market Global Snapshot Whiteboards Segment to Dominate Market During Forecast Period LCDs Segment to Lead Education Smart Display Market During Forecast Period Above 55" Display Segment to Dominate Market During Forecast Period Asia-Pacific to Register Highest CAGR During Forecast Period Premium Insights Attractive Opportunities for Education Smart Display Market Players - Shift Toward Collaborative Learning in North America to Drive Market Growth to Drive Market Growth Education Smart Display Market, by Product Type - Whiteboards Segment to Account for Larger Share of Education Smart Display Market During Forecast Period Education Smart Display Market, by Display Technology - LCDs Segment to Account for Largest Share of Education Smart Display Market During Forecast Period Education Smart Display Market, by Display Size - Above 55" Segment to Dominate Education Smart Display Market During Forecast Period North America : Education Smart Display Market, by Product Type and Country, 2023 - Whiteboards Segment and US Led Education Smart Display Market in North America in 2023 Market Dynamics Drivers Digital Transformation in Learning Rising Demand for Collaborative Learning Technological Advancements Restraints Budget Constraints Integration Challenges Opportunities Rising e-Learning Trend Growing Adoption and Awareness About Numerous Benefits of Smart Displays Challenges Security Concerns Teacher Training and Adaptation Maintenance and Technical Support Key Technology Trends Related Technologies Advanced Touchscreen Technologies Interactive Projection Mapping Upcoming Technologies Micro-LED Transparent Displays Adjacent Technologies 5G Connectivity Edge Computing for Real-Time Interactivity Case Studies Enhanced Learning Experience for Students with LCD Video Wall Display Panasonic to Provide Display Technologies for Ad Hoc Teamwork Centers and Active-Learning Classrooms Enhanced Clarity and Readability in Classrooms Companies Profiled Samsung LG Electronics Newline Interactive Ppds (Philips) Sharp Nec Display Solutions Leyard Smart Technologies Ulc Sony Group Corporation Barco Panasonic Holdings Corporation Benq Viewsonic Corporation Promethean World Limited Cleartouch Optoma Corporation Clevertouch (By Boxlight) Hdi Ltd. Peerless-Av Absen Inc. Christie Digital Systems Usa, Inc. Ricoh Hitevision Tech Asia-Pacific Co. Ltd. Boxlight Primeview Global Promark Techsolutions Pvt. Ltd. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/y6jnt9 About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Media Contact: Research and Markets 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 Firefly's expanded manufacturing space from 92,000 to 207,000 square feet includes two new large-scale buildings for rocket production, assembly, and integration. The company also built a new higher thrust engine stand to test Firefly's Miranda and Vira engines with up to 230,000 pounds of thrust and five times the load capacity as Firefly's current Reaver and Lightning engine stand. Designed to accommodate three engine bays as production cadence increases, the new stand provides redundant, high accuracy thrust and mass flow rate data to further improve mission assurance. The expansion also includes a new 100-foot structural test stand to conduct pressurized axial loading to mimic flight loads. In total, Firefly now has six test stands at its Briggs location to support the robust testing performed across all vehicle lines. "After Firefly signed the MLV agreement with Northrop Grumman, we went immediately to work on our Briggs expansion, which has been completed in less than a year's time," said Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. "Along with the expansion, we're taking advantage of automated machinery to further advance our rapid production schedule while improving efficiencies and lowering costs." Firefly is utilizing a new automated fiber placement (AFP) machine, sourced from Ingersoll Machine Tools Inc., a brand of Camozzi Group's Machine Tool Division, to rapidly fabricate the carbon composite structures, including barrels, domes, and other composite structures for the first stage of Antares 330 and both stages of MLV. Now operational, the AFP machine was recently used to build Firefly's first carbon composite barrel for MLV development testing. "Firefly's new AFP machinery, which is already widely used and proven in the aircraft industry, is a significantly more efficient and cost-effective approach to rocket production and can be utilized for composite parts across our vehicle lines," said Dan Fermon, COO of Firefly Aerospace. "These high-speed robotic machines can lay up more than 200 pounds of carbon fiber per hour, allowing us to produce all the large carbon composite structures for Alpha in just seven days and MLV in just 30 days. This is about nine times faster and seven times cheaper than our former process using high-touch laser placement systems." In addition to the AFP machine, Firefly is also installing a new 7-axis robotic powermill to drill and trim carbon composite structures with high speed and accuracy. This multi-axis machine, also procured from Ingersoll Machine Tools Inc., can rotate rocket barrels up to 5.5 meters (18 feet) in diameter with a built-in dust collection system. Other recent facility expansions include two new mission operations centers at Firefly's spacecraft facility in Cedar Park, Texas, to support a growing number of launch, lunar, and on-orbit missions. Firefly also expanded its Cedar Park headquarters with a mezzanine to accommodate nearly twice as many employees. About Firefly Aerospace Firefly is an end-to-end space transportation company with launch, lunar, and in-space services. As an all-American company headquartered in central Texas, Firefly is focused on delivering responsive, reliable, and affordable space access for government and commercial customers. Firefly's small- to medium-lift launch vehicles, lunar landers, and orbital vehicles provide the space industry with a single source for missions from low Earth orbit to the surface of the Moon and beyond. For more information, visit www.fireflyspace.com. Contact [email protected] SOURCE Firefly Aerospace, Inc. The Engels-2 airfield in the Saratov region of the Russian Federation has recently been replenished with additional aircraft. This is the main bomber base and the only place in Russia where Tu-160 strategic bombers are stationed. ADVERTISIMENT It is from Engels-2 that Russian planes with missiles take off to hit Ukrainian cities. Satellite images of the airfield, as noted by the Monitoring intelligence community, indicate that the fleet has been replenished. As of February 26, there were five Tu-95MS and three Tu-160 aircraft at the airfield. "There are no significant changes in the airfield's composition. There are regular trainings of the aircraft and their movements," the scouts said. In addition, recent images showed one Tu-95MS at the repair site (without two engines; as of July 27, both engines were installed). However, in the evening of February 27, four Tu-22Ms arrived at the airfield. It is known that the planes arrived from the Olenya base. ADVERTISIMENT Tu-22M (in Russian it is "product 45", in NATO codification it is Backfire) is a Russian supersonic missile carrier and bomber with a variable wing. It can carry nuclear weapons. The Russian occupation forces have reduced the intensity of the use of A-50 long-range radar detection and control aircraft. Apparently, the enemy has drawn appropriate conclusions after losing two such aircraft over the past two months. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the aggressor has suffered three losses of A-50s. ADVERTISIMENT In particular, last February, Belarusian guerrillas damaged such an aircraft at the Machulishchy airbase. And in 2024, the Ukrainian Air Force shot down a Russian A-50 and an Il-22 over the Sea of Azov on January 14. In addition, on February 23, the Defense Forces reported the downing of an occupier's A-50U. Before the start of the full-scale war, the Russian Federation had only nine reconnaissance aircraft: three A-50s and six A-50Us. The occupiers use them to adjust strikes during massive shelling of Ukraine, and one such aircraft costs at least $330 million. Only verified information is available on our Telegram OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! HONG KONG, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- OKG Technology Holdings Limited (OKG Tech, 1499.HK), a leading blockchain technology company offering cutting-edge on-chain data solutions through its product, OKLink, has issued updates for February 28, 2024. Flash News: OKG Technology Chairman Jeff Ren Outlines the Future of Web3 at Economist Impact's Technology for Change Asia 2024 The fourth annual Technology for Change Asia 2024 took place on February 27. Jeff Ren, Chairman of OKG Technology Holdings Limited (OKG Tech, 1499.HK), a leading blockchain technology company offering cutting-edge on-chain data solutions through its product, OKLink, was invited to attend the event and speak at a panel with leading industry leaders sharing views on "Web3 innovation: data, cyber-security and decentralisation". The panel discussed ways to build a more transparent, open and equal future with the use of Web3 technology. Jeff pointed out there are already tools built on blockchain, leveraging its properties for auditing, tracking and analysis, which provide effective regulatory and law enforcement capabilities. Blockchain technology can also be integrated with other technologies, such as AI, to verify the authenticity and origins of data, which can help reduce risks related to fake or biased data sources. Jeff also shared that there are many other use cases in leveraging blockchain technology for public good and enhancing transparency, such as new organizational and incentive models like decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), alignment of interests in sustainability, contribution tracking and rewarding via blockchain. To promote mass adoption of blockchain technology, the key lays within what value the solutions create, as well as targeted solutions and education to promote broader understanding and responsible adoption. Organized by Economist Impact, the summit was hosted by Tom Standage, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, and brought together 60 renowned industry leaders such as Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia, and Michio Kaku , esteemed physicist, sharing insights with over 300 participants from across the Asia-Pacific. About OKG Technology Holdings Limited OKG Technology Holdings Limited ("OKG Tech", 1499.HK) is a pioneering blockchain firm dedicated to advancing the research, development, and integration of blockchain technology. As a subsidiary, OKLink stands at the forefront of blockchain data solutions, specializing in Regulatory Technology (RegTech) and Supervisory Technology (SupTech). Our comprehensive suite of solutions encompasses Web3 explorers, on-chain risk assessment platforms, monitoring systems, and investigation tools, designed to empower businesses, law enforcement agencies, and regulators with unparalleled transparency and contribute to the positive development of the industry. For more information, visit www.okg.com and www.oklink.com. SOURCE OKG Technology Holdings Limited Thirty-five winners ages 8-15 to receive grant money, mentorship and educational programming through company's "Build a Bright Future" vision grant program MILWAUKEE, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Frigo Cheese Heads proudly announces the 35 winners of its "Build a Bright Future" vision grants. These vision grants support inspiring youth working to achieve their dreams of building a brighter future for themselves and their communities through business or community-building ideas. Now in its 10th year, the "Build a Bright Future" program is aligned with the brand's mission to encourage tweens and teens to embrace individuality and creativity. Each of the 2024 winners will receive grant money, along with online leadership courses and mentorship from partner organization Whatever It Takes ( WIT) . Build a Bright Future vision grant winner Anvi Saxena and co-founders of Rallying for Refugees "Frigo Cheese Heads is proud to empower tweens and teens doing good in their communities by helping bring their bright ideas to life through our vision grants," said Nicole Austin, Saputo USA marketing manager. "We're honored to support these incredible young people and hope these grants can fuel their dreams and help them continue to build a brighter future." The five grand prizewinners will each receive a $5,000 grant and a custom virtual mentorship program in which they will learn directly from participating CEOs, entrepreneurs and influencers. All 35 winners are invited to attend a four-week entrepreneurial/leadership course to enhance their skills and knowledge to advance their big dreams and ambitions, along with a year of access to the WIT (Whatever It Takes) Community, a virtual membership-based entrepreneurial community with tweens and teens from around the world. Meet the grand prizewinners: Ruby Chalupka, 14, of Austin, Texas , creator of LunchLine Candles, a lunch-scented candle business that helps fund free lunches for kids in need. , creator of LunchLine Candles, a lunch-scented candle business that helps fund free lunches for kids in need. Barrett Deng , 15, of Santa Cruz, California , inventor of Clore , a company that produces an innovative and effective fire retardant that is easily accessible by those in communities most affected by wildfires. , 15, of , inventor of , a company that produces an innovative and effective fire retardant that is easily accessible by those in communities most affected by wildfires. Julia Howe , 15, of San Francisco, California , co-founder of Hitting the Wall , a podcast and community of teen athletes who share their experiences and provide accessible mental and physical health resources for girls in sports. , 15, of , co-founder of , a podcast and community of teen athletes who share their experiences and provide accessible mental and physical health resources for girls in sports. Anvi Saxena , 15, of Dallas, Texas , co-founder of Rallying for Refugees , an organization dedicated to helping refugees in the Dallas community make new connections and feel at home. , 15, of , co-founder of , an organization dedicated to helping refugees in the community make new connections and feel at home. Olivia Wilson , 15, of New York, New York , creator of Covers for Recovery , a charity focused on donating books to children in five New York -area hospitals. Ten first-prizewinners will receive $3,000 grants and 20 honorable mention winners will receive $1,000 grants these first-prize and honorable mention winners created projects such as an engineering program for girls, environmentally friendly pet toys and a service that repairs and upcycles used appliances. The application period, which ran from Oct. 11 through Dec. 2, 2023, invited tweens and teens ages 8-15 to share creative ideas and short video pitches for their businesses, nonprofits or side hustles, with the help of their parent or guardian. Applications were judged based on creativity, merit and purpose. A comprehensive list of the 35 winners and their projects can be viewed at BuildABrightFuture.com . For more information from Frigo Cheese Heads, visit FrigoCheeseHeads.com or follow along Facebook , Instagram or TikTok @FrigoCheeseHeads and #BuildaBrightFuture. About Frigo Cheese Heads The Frigo Cheese Heads brand features a variety of delicious, fun on-the-go snacks and encourages creative snacking and self-expression. Chomp, peel, twist, rip, nibble or tie into a braid; the only wrong way to eat Frigo Cheese Heads is to not eat them at all. With everyday snacking options like regular or light string cheese as well as cheese and meat combo packs, Frigo Cheese Heads are a good source of calcium and protein in a convenient individually wrapped, tasty snack. Learn more at FrigoCheeseHeads.com . About Saputo USA Saputo USA is part of Saputo Inc., one of the top 10 dairy processors in the world. Through the Dairy Division (USA), Saputo produces, markets and distributes a vast assortment of cheeses. Furthermore, the company converts, markets and sells a broad range of specialty cheeses and holds an important portfolio of import licenses for specialty cheeses manufactured abroad. Saputo USA also produces a variety of dairy and non-dairy extended shelf-life products. Additionally, Saputo produces, markets and distributes dairy ingredients in the USA and on the international market. Products are sold under a variety of the company's brand names as well as under customer brand names. Saputo USA is among the top mozzarella, string cheese and domestic blue and goat cheese producers and is one of the largest producers of extended shelf-life and cultured dairy products in this region. Saputo USA is the trading name of Saputo Cheese USA Inc. About WIT WIT (Whatever It Takes) was started in 2009 by a former elementary school teacher turned entrepreneur. To date, more than 5,000 tweens and teens around the world have participated in a WIT college-credit class, hackathon or pitch event. Learn more at doingwit.org . Media contact: Jenna Greene [email protected] SOURCE Saputo USA To launch Fructis Hair Filler, Garnier is engaging TikTok phenomenon, television personality, and entrepreneur, Charli D'Amelio, for a content series diving into product nuances and science-backed technology. The series features Charli across seven episodes alongside Board-Certified Dermatologist Dr. Muneeb Shah, detailing Garnier Fructis Hair Filler's claim to strengthen hair seven layers deep in a visual and educational way. In addition to the content series, Charli is highlighted as the brand's primary advocate in supplementary advertising campaigns spanning a range of verticals. For added social media support, Garnier strategically enlisted creators from diverse niches including innovators, hair stylists, beauty creators, and lifestyle advocates, to create targeted content for the entire Hair Filler product portfolio. Collectively, the brand has invested in a range of over 50 creators. The campaign encompasses a spectrum of marketing initiatives, including a prominent out-of-home advertising presence on the exterior of Sphere in Las Vegas, known as the Exosphere, during the week of March 11th. The creative includes unique-to-brand assets formatted for the Exosphere. "We're thrilled to introduce the next generation of scientific hair repair with the Fructis Hair Filler systems," said Ali Fakih, Senior Vice President of Garnier U.S. "Drawing inspiration from the power of skin fillers, this range not only achieves inner fiber repair but also delivers a visible transformation on the outer layer, infusing strength seven layers deep into the hair." Garnier recognizes the growing trend in bond repair in both prestige and professional sectors and aims to democratize this transformative approach by bringing an affordable routine to the market featuring new science. The Fructis Hair Filler collection is poised to elevate the haircare experience for consumers worldwide, bringing salon-worthy results to the comfort of their homes. "We approached our launch strategy comprehensively, leaving no aspect unexplored," said Fakih. "We look forward to seeing the fruition of our efforts not only during launch but in the ongoing journey ahead." At the forefront of the collection is the Pre-Shampoo Bonding Inner Fiber Repair Treatment a 5-minute pre-shampoo rinse-out treatment formulated to repair the hair cuticle's damage to smoothness. This treatment serves as the first step of a customizable system of shampoo, conditioner, and repair serum, each meticulously crafted to cater to individual hair types and desired outcomes. The Fructis Hair Filler line consists of three collections: Strength Repair with Vitamin Cg, Moisture Repair with Hyaluronic, and Color Repair with Ceramide. Fructis Strength Repair with Vitamin Cg: Sulfate-free Hair Filler + Vitamin Cg system, formulated with Vitamin Cg + Citric Acid + Repair Care Complex, fills weak, damaged hair with strength. Consists of Pre-Shampoo Bonding Inner Fiber Repair Treatment, Strength Repair Shampoo, Strength Repair Conditioner and Strength Repair Leave-in Serum Sulfate-free Hair Filler + Vitamin Cg system, formulated with Vitamin Cg + Citric Acid + Repair Care Complex, fills weak, damaged hair with strength. Garnier Fructis Moisture Repair with Hyaluronic: Sulfate-free Hair Filler + Hyaluronic system, formulated with Hyaluronic Acid + Citric Acid + Repair Care Complex, fills curly and wavy hair with moisture. Consists of Pre-Shampoo Bonding Inner Fiber Repair Treatment, Moisture Repair Shampoo, Moisture Repair Conditioner, Moisture Repair Leave-in Serum, and Moisture Repair Gel Cream Sulfate-free Hair Filler + Hyaluronic system, formulated with Hyaluronic Acid + Citric Acid + Repair Care Complex, fills curly and wavy hair with moisture. Garnier Fructis Color Repair with Ceramide: Sulfate-free Hair Filler + Ceramide system, formulated with Ceramide + Citric Acid + Repair Care Complex, fills colored and bleached hair with color vibrancy. Consists of Pre-Shampoo Bonding Inner Fiber Repair Treatment, Color Repair Shampoo, Color Repair Conditioner and Color Repair Leave-in Serum Sulfate-free Hair Filler + Ceramide system, formulated with Ceramide + Citric Acid + Repair Care Complex, fills colored and bleached hair with color vibrancy. Garnier Fructis Inner Fiber Repair Treatment: Sulfate-free Bonding Inner Fiber Repair Pre-Shampoo Treatment, formulated with 15% Peptides + Citric Acid Bond Repair Complex, works with each of our Hair Filler systems to repair hair inside and out. The full Fructis Hair Filler collection is available now on Amazon and at Walmart, Target, Ulta, drug, and select grocery stores. For more information, visit garnierusa.com. For the launch of Fructis Hair Filler range, Garnier created an innovative customer experience in store, developed in partnership with Graffiti, a breakthrough AI-based start-up. The tool is available now at a large selection of Walgreens and CVS. About Garnier USA Garnier, a L'Oreal USA brand, was developed in 1904 in France by hair care expert Alfred Amour Garnier and is now present in more than 65 countries worldwide. Following the launch of Garnier in the United States in 1999 with Nutrisse hair color, the brand has continued to develop cutting-edge beauty products. The entire collection of Garnier brands available in the U.S. includes Nutrisse hair color, Fructis hair care, and Fructis Style, Olia hair color, SkinActive, and Whole Blends hair care. For more information visit www.garnierusa.com or follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, and Snapchat @GarnierUSA. For press inquiries please contact Elizabeth Hanigan Brand Engagement, Garnier 212.984.4960 [email protected] Lauren Larkin or Donna Valle Alison Brod Marketing Communications 212.230.1800 [email protected] SOURCE Garnier USA NEW YORK, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The gems and jewelry market size is set to grow by USD 137.48 billion from 2022 to 2027 progressing at a CAGR of 7.55% during the forecast period. Download a Sample Report! Market Insights - Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Gems and Jewelry Market 2023-2027 Vendors : 15+, Including Aurum designer jewellers, CHANEL Ltd., Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd., Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA, Emperor Watch and Jewelry Ltd, Graff Diamonds Ltd., Hstern Jewellery Ltd., Kalyan Jewellers India Ltd., Kering SA, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, Malabar Gold and Diamonds, Pandora AS, PC Jeweller Ltd., Rajesh Exports Ltd., Riddles Group Inc., Signet Jewelers Ltd., Stuller Inc., Swarovski AG, Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd., and The Swatch Group Ltd., among others : 15+, Including Aurum designer jewellers, CHANEL Ltd., Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd., Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA, Emperor Watch and Jewelry Ltd, Graff Diamonds Ltd., Hstern Jewellery Ltd., Kalyan Jewellers India Ltd., Kering SA, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, Malabar Gold and Diamonds, Pandora AS, PC Jeweller Ltd., Rajesh Exports Ltd., Riddles Group Inc., Signet Jewelers Ltd., Stuller Inc., Swarovski AG, Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd., and The Swatch Group Ltd., among others Coverage: Parent market analysis; key drivers, major trends, and challenges; customer and vendor landscape; vendor product insights and recent developments; key vendors; and market positioning of vendors Parent market analysis; key drivers, major trends, and challenges; customer and vendor landscape; vendor product insights and recent developments; key vendors; and market positioning of vendors Segments: Distribution Channel (Offline and Online), Type (Gold, Platinum, Silver, Diamond, and Gemstones), and Geography (APAC, North America , Europe , Middle East and Africa , and South America ) To understand more about the information services market, request a sample report Vendor Insights 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. Technavio report analyzes the market's competitive landscape and offers information on several market vendors including Aurum designer jewellers, CHANEL Ltd., Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd., Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA, Emperor Watch and Jewelry Ltd, Graff Diamonds Ltd., Hstern Jewellery Ltd., Kalyan Jewellers India Ltd., Kering SA, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, Malabar Gold and Diamonds, Pandora AS, PC Jeweller Ltd., Rajesh Exports Ltd., Riddles Group Inc., Signet Jewelers Ltd., Stuller Inc., Swarovski AG, Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd., and The Swatch Group Ltd. request a sample report Market Dynamics Major Drivers - Growing demand for wedding jewelry prominently drives the market growth of the gems and jewelry market during the forecast period. Jewelry is mostly purchased for special occasions, especially weddings. This will contribute significantly to the global gems and jewelry market. Bridal jewelry, such as necklaces, wedding bands, and engagement rings, is in high demand worldwide. Moreover, India is a major market for wedding jewelry, with increasing expenditure on bridal collections driven by the expanding middle-class population and their rising disposable income. Hence, such high demand for wedding jewelry drives the market growth during the forecast period. The introduction of AR in the gems and jewelry market is an emerging trend influencing market growth. The decline in demand for gold jewelry as an investment option is a major challenge hindering market growth. request a sample report Analyst Review The Gems and Jewellery market in India is a vibrant and crucial sector contributing significantly to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Renowned for its craftsmanship and heritage, India holds a prominent position in both gold and diamond industries. The sector plays a pivotal role in merchandise exports, with organizations like the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) facilitating trade agreements such as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), strengthening ties with nations like the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Key figures in this domain include Virendra Singh, Kirit Bhansali, Vijay Mangukiya, and Smit Patel, who lead the industry's growth and innovation. Surat emerges as a hub for diamond cutting and polishing, while Hyderabad and Dubai host significant trade events like the International Jewellery Show Signature 2022. Market players such as Tanishq, Malabar Group, and Reliance Jewels cater to diverse consumer demands through platforms like JioMart, expanding their reach globally. Government initiatives like the Gold Monetisation Scheme overseen by the Reserve Bank and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) ensure regulatory support for the sector while complying with laws like the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Anupriya Patel, the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, collaborates with stakeholders like the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) and All India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC) to foster growth and address challenges, including market fluctuations and compliance issues. Through strategic partnerships and innovative approaches, India's gems and jewellery market continues to shine on the global stage, driven by tradition, innovation, and entrepreneurship. request a sample report Related Reports: The Global Luxury Watch Market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 1.61% between 2022 and 2027. The luxury watch market size is forecast to increase by USD 2,910.23 million. This luxury watch market research report extensively covers market segmentation by end-user (men and women), distribution channel (offline and online), and geography (Europe, North America, APAC, Middle East and Africa, and South America). The growing influence of fashion trends is notably driving the market growth. The handbag market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.3% between 2022 and 2027. The handbag market size is forecast to increase by USD 14,110.72 million. This handbag market report extensively covers market segmentation by type (leather, fabric, and others), distribution channel (offline and online), and geography (APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and Middle East and Africa). Personalization and customization of luxury handbags is the key factor driving the growth of the global handbag market. Table of Contents 1 Executive Summary 2 Landscape 3 Sizing 4 Historic Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Segmentations 7 Customer Landscape 8 Geographic Landscape 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10 Vendor Landscape 11 Vendor Analysis 12 Appendix About US Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning 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 VAUGHAN, ON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - GFL Environmental Inc. (NYSE: GFL) (TSX: GFL) ("GFL" or the "Company") today announced that BCEC GFL Borrower (Cayman) LP, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, GFL Borrower II (Cayman) LP, Poole Private Capital, LLC, and entities affiliated with HPS Investment Partners, LLC (collectively, the "Selling Shareholders") intend to offer for sale 17,000,000 subordinate voting shares (the "Shares"). GFL will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the Shares (the "Offering"). RBC Capital Markets, LLC and RBC Dominion Securities Inc. will act as underwriters for the Offering in the United States and Canada, respectively. The Shares issued pursuant to the Offering will be offered in all provinces and territories of Canada by way of a prospectus supplement (the "Prospectus Supplement") to the Company's short form base shelf prospectus (the "Base Shelf Prospectus"). The Company has filed a registration statement on Form F-10 (the "Form F-10") and will file the Prospectus Supplement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") in accordance with the multi-jurisdictional disclosure system established between Canada and the United States. No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved the contents of this news release. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any province, state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such province, state or jurisdiction. Prospective investors should read the Base Shelf Prospectus, the Prospectus Supplement, when available, and the documents incorporated by reference therein before investing in the Shares. When available, these documents may be accessed for free on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. GFL has filed the Form F-10 registration statement (including a prospectus) with the SEC for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in that registration statement and other documents the issuer has filed with the SEC for more complete information about the issuer and this offering. You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, copies of the prospectus and Prospectus Supplement relating to the Offering may be obtained, when available, upon request from RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Attention: Equity Capital Markets, 200 Vesey Street, New York, NY 10281, by telephone at 877-822-4089 or by email at [email protected] or RBC Dominion Securities Inc., 180 Wellington Street West, 8th Floor, Toronto, ON M5J 0C2, Attention: Distribution Centre, or via telephone: 1-416-842-5349, or via email at [email protected]. About GFL GFL, headquartered in Vaughan, Ontario, is the fourth largest diversified environmental services company in North America, providing a comprehensive line of solid waste management, liquid waste management and soil remediation services through its platform of facilities throughout Canada and in more than half of the U.S. states. Across its organization, GFL has a workforce of more than 20,000 employees. Forward Looking Statements This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements relating to the proposed Offering. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking statements 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 statements 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 statements. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts, nor guarantees or assurances of future performance but instead represent management's current beliefs, expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events and operating performance. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on a number of opinions, assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by GFL as of the date of this release, are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ, possibly materially, from those indicated by the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the factors described in the "Risk Factors" section of GFL's annual information form for the 2023 fiscal year filed on Form 40-F and GFL's other periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the securities commissions or similar regulatory authorities in Canada. These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect GFL. However, such risk factors should be considered carefully. There can be no assurance that such estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. GFL undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, except as required by applicable securities laws. SOURCE GFL Environmental Inc. DUBLIN, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Aerospace and Defense Materials - Global Strategic Business Report" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Global Aerospace and Defense Materials Market to Reach $34.4 Billion by 2030 The global market for Aerospace and Defense Materials estimated at US$28.5 Billion in the year 2022, is projected to reach a revised size of US$34.4 Billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 2.4% over the analysis period 2022-2030. Composites, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to record 2.7% CAGR and reach US$14.3 Billion by the end of the analysis period. Growth in the Aluminum Alloys segment is estimated at 2.2% CAGR for the next 8-year period. Competition in the satellite industry is multifaceted, with a diverse range of operators owning and operating small satellites, as evidenced by market data from 2021. The competitive landscape is further highlighted by the strong, active, niche, or trivial presence of 119 players worldwide in 2023, reflecting the industry's dynamism. Notable startups in satellite technology contribute to the innovation ecosystem. Market outlooks indicate growth prospects in satellite manufacturing and launch systems, driven by technological advancements and emerging trends reshaping the industry's future. However, challenges such as the risk of collisions with space debris loom large amidst the recent massive growth in the satellite sector. Ongoing market activities underscore the continued momentum and evolution within the industry, with several world brands playing key roles in shaping its trajectory. The U.S. Market is Estimated at $9.3 Billion, While China is Forecast to Grow at 7.1% CAGR The Aerospace and Defense Materials market in the U.S. is estimated at US$9.3 Billion in the year 2022. China, the world's second largest economy, is forecast to reach a projected market size of US$4.8 Billion by the year 2030 trailing a CAGR of 7.1% over the analysis period 2022 to 2030. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 0% and 1.2% respectively over the 2022-2030 period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 2.2% CAGR. What`s New? Special discussions on the global economic climate and market sentiment Coverage on global competitiveness and key competitor percentage market shares Market presence analysis across multiple geographies - Strong/Active/Niche/Trivial Online interactive peer-to-peer collaborative bespoke updates Access to digital archives and trademarked research platform Complimentary updates for one year Access to curated YouTube video transcripts of market sentiments shared by CEOs, domain experts and market influencers via interviews, podcasts, press statements and event keynotes MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS Slow Recovery in Commercial Aviation Sector Presents Opportunities Global Commercial Aircraft New Deliveries by Aircraft Type (2022-2041) Global Commercial Aircraft Fleet Projections: Breakdown of Fleet (in Units) by Region for 2019 and 2040 Global Aircraft Deliveries by Region: 2021-2040 Spurt in Air Passenger Traffic and Need for Modern Aircraft Presents Growth Opportunities Passenger Traffic as Share of 2019 by Country for 2021-2025 Number of Scheduled Passengers Boarded by Airlines Worldwide industry (In Million) for Years 2018 Through 2023 Spending Patterns in the Defense Sector to Strengthen Growth Prospects Global Military Expenditure in US$ Billion (2016-2021) World Steps Up Military Spending in the Wake of the Russia Ukraine War Rising Demand for Fixed Wing Fighter Aircraft Bodes Well Military Aircraft Supply Chain to Benefit from the Unfortunate State of Global Geo-Political Affairs: Military Spending by Top Countries in 2022 (In US$ Billion Growth of Low-Cost Carriers: An Opportunity for Aerospace Materials Market LCC Short Haul Market as % of Total Seat Capacity by Region Business & General Aviation Segment Poised to Lead Future Growth in the Aerospace Materials Market Global Private Jet Aircraft Industry in US$ Billion: 2021 & 2028 Global General Aviation Market: Revenue Share (in %) by Aircraft Type: 2023e Smart Materials & 3D Printing Gain Spotlight List of Select 3D Printing Materials for Aerospace Applications Aging Aircraft Expand Opportunities for Engineering Materials Aging Aircraft & the Ensuing Need to Ensure Airworthiness of Older Airplanes to Spur Opportunities in the MRO Services Market: Average Age (in Years) of Globally Operating Aircraft Fleet for 2020 & 2030 Aerospace Industry to Scale New Heights with Innovative, Green Materials Composites: The Dominant Aerospace Material Category Challenges and Future prospects Promising Composites for Aerospace Applications Progressive Expansion in Use Case Results in Composites Evolving as Mainstream Aerospace Material Composites Make Up for About Half of Total Weight of Modern Aircraft: Percentage Breakdown of Structural Weight Composition by Material for Airbus 350XWB and Boeing 787 Evolution of Composite Materials as % of Aircraft Mass for Select Fighter Aircrafts Players Introduce Innovations in Composites Space Nanocomposites Evolve into Advanced Solutions in Aircraft Construction Carbon Continues to Make Gains as Best-in-Class Aerospace Composites Material Asian Companies Dominate Aerospace-Grade Carbon Fiber Production Carbon Fiber Composites Find Favor in Aircraft Interiors Emergence of New & Unconventional Composites for Use in Aircraft Interiors Demand for Polymer Matrix Composites Gain Momentum Aerospace Tapes: An Innovative Product Composites not the Panacea for Better Aircraft Manufacture as There are Few Disadvantages As Well Growing Use of Composites in Airframes Challenge MRO Providers to Seek for Improved Tools and Techniques Graphene: The Next Generation Material for Aerospace Industry Developments in Aerospace Graphene Materials Space Established Role of Aluminium in Aircraft Manufacturing Renders Improved Outlook for Aluminium Alloys New Aluminum Alloys to Emerge for Aircraft Manufacture Demand for 7000 series Al-Zn Alloys Gains Momentum Newer Titanium Alloys Gain Traction in Aerospace Application for Engine Parts and Airframes Superalloys Emerge as Key Manufacturing Materials for Aircraft Engines Nickel Alloys Combine Immense Strength and Extreme Temperature Tolerance Steel Alloys Lend Traction in Producing Long-Lasting Fasteners & Landing Gear Bolts Use of Magnesium Based Alloys Witness a Surge Aircraft Electrical Systems: The Stronghold Application for Copper & Copper Alloys FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS (Total 196 Featured) Alcoa Corporation 3M Company Company Arkema Group AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V. Aperam SA Arconic, Inc. Arnold Magnetic Technologies Advanced Composites, Inc. Alcast Technologies Ltd. Argosy International Inc. Avdel ( India ) Pvt. Ltd. ) Pvt. Ltd. Aluminum Die Cast Co., Inc. AirMetals, Inc. Atlas Composite Technologies Ltd. Avient Corp. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/e192h7 About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Media Contact: Research and Markets 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 DUBLIN, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --The "Biobanking Market Report 2024-2034" has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. World revenue for the Biobanking Market is forecast to surpass US$75 billion in 2024, with strong revenue growth through to 2034. Growing Investments and Funding Projected to Boost Industry Growth Biobanks are experiencing increased acknowledgment and support from global governments, research bodies, and financial institutions, leading to a surge in investment in these facilities. Notably, initiatives like the Biorepository and Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), seek to amass biological samples from over a million individuals to establish a comprehensive national research resource. Concurrently, the European Commission has committed funding to the Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources Research Infrastructure (BBMRI), a pan-European facility focused on biobanking and biomolecular resources. This heightened attention and financial backing underscore the strategic importance of biobanks in advancing scientific research and precision medicine on a global scale. Hight Cost of Equipment Likely to Challenge Industry Growth The market's growth potential is anticipated to face limitations due to the substantial expenses associated with automated equipment. While cutting-edge technologies like advanced sample handling systems have the potential to enhance operational efficiency and elevate the quality of biobanking processes, their high price tags pose a considerable challenge, particularly for smaller biobanking enterprises or those with constrained financial capacities. Take, for instance, the expenditure involved in acquiring an automated storage system, which can vary based on its size and complexity. The initial capital outlay for such systems can be substantial, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Beyond the initial investment, ongoing considerations encompass maintenance and operational expenses, including software updates, repairs, and training. This cost factor serves as a strategic consideration for businesses evaluating the incorporation of automated equipment in their biobanking operations. Key Market Dynamics Market Driving Factors Increased Focus on Precision Medicine and Genetic Testing Growing Demand for Umbilical Cord Blood Banking Evolution of Biobanks Rapidly Enabling Massive Collections of Biological Materials and Associated Information Market Restraining Factors Private Sponsorship Has Raised a Number of Ethical Issues Issues Related to Biospecimen Sample Procurement Long-term Sustainability of Biobanks Market Opportunities Human Biospecimens are Essential for Progress in Biomarker Discovery and Customised Treatment Opportunities for Cardiovascular Research Growing Focus on the R&D of Cell Therapies Forecasts to 2034 and other analyses reveal commercial prospects In addition to revenue forecasting to 2034, the new study provides you with recent results, growth rates, and market shares. You will find original analyses, with business outlooks and developments. Discover qualitative analyses (including market dynamics, drivers, opportunities, and restraints), Porter's Five Forces Analysis, PEST Analysis and recent developments. Segments Covered in the Report Ownership National/Regional Agencies Universities Non-profit Private Product and Service Equipment Consumables Services Software Sample Blood Products Human Tissues Nucleic Acids Cell Lines Biological Fluids Others Application Regenerative Medicine Life Science Research Clinical Research End-users Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Companies CROs Academic & Research Institutes Hospitals In addition to the revenue predictions for the overall world market and segments, you will also find revenue forecasts for five regional and 22 leading national markets. The report also includes profiles and for some of the leading companies in the Biobanking Market, 2024 to 2034, with a focus on this segment of these companies' operations. Leading companies profiled in the report ASKION GmbH Avantor Inc. Azenta Inc. Boca Biolistics BIOIVT & ELEVATING SCIENCE Cryoport Inc. CTI Biotech Hamilton Company Isenet Biobanking Merck & Co., Inc. PHC Holdings Corporation ProteoGenex Inc. Qiagen N.V. Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. Tecan Trading AG US Biolab Corp. Inc. In summary, the report provides you with the following knowledge: Revenue forecasts to 2034 for Biobanking Market 2024 to 2034, with forecasts for ownership, product and service, sample, application, end-users each forecast at a global and regional level - discover the industry's prospects, finding the most lucrative places for investments and revenues. Revenue forecasts to 2034 for five regional and 22 key national markets - See forecasts for the Biobanking Market, 2024 to 2034 market in North America , Europe , Asia-Pacific , Latin America , and MEA. Also forecasted is the market in the US, Canada , Mexico , Brazil , Germany , France , UK, Italy , China , India , Japan , and Australia among other prominent economies. , , , , and MEA. Also forecasted is the market in the US, , , , , , UK, , , , , and among other prominent economies. Prospects for established firms and those seeking to enter the market - including company profiles for 16 of the major companies involved in the Biobanking Market, 2024 to 2034. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/mwwz5j About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Media Contact: Research and Markets 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 DUBLIN , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global EV Connector Market by System Type (Sealed, Unsealed), Application (ADAS and Safety, Battery Management System, Body Control and Interiors), Propulsion (BEV, PHEV, FCEV), Voltage, Connection Type, Component and Region - Forecast to 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global EV connector market is projected to grow from USD 2.0 Billion in 2023 to USD 10.9 Billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 27.1%. The global EV market is experiencing explosive growth fueled by government incentives, environmental concerns, and advancements in battery technology. This surge in EV production directly translates to a higher demand for EV connectors. Also, integrating advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving features in EVs further increases the demand for high-speed data connectors. These connectors enable the seamless transfer of critical information between various sensors, actuators, and control units. Sealed connector system to hold largest market share during the forecast period The sealed connector type is expected to have significant growth opportunities in the global EV connector market during the forecast period. This is due to the increasing demand for electric vehicles globally. For instance, IEA shows EV sales have grown to 10.2 million units in 2022 from 6.5 million units in 2021. Additionally, DIGITIMES Inc. states that global electric vehicle (EV) sales grew more significantly in 2023, with an annual rise of 39% to reach 14.22 million units. The global shift toward EVs and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) is a significant driver of the sealed connector market. These vehicles require high-voltage electrical systems, necessitating robust connectors that can withstand the increased current flow and harsh environmental conditions. Sealed connectors offer superior protection, ensuring the safety and reliability of EV and HEV systems. Manufacturers are continuously developing new and improved sealed connector technologies. These advancements offer features such as higher voltage ratings, improved durability, and enhanced resistance to extreme temperatures and chemicals, making them suitable for a wider range of applications. In March 2022, TE Connectivity Ltd. launched the Generation Y 68P Sealed Hybrid Inline Connector, enabling OEMs to ease manufacturing, reduce connections, simplify supply chain complexity, and reduce cost. ADAS and safety system is expected to be the largest market in the forecast period ADAS & safety systems segment is expected to be the largest market during the forecast period. This is typically owing to the increasing adoption of ADAS-equipped features in BEVs and PHEVs. Audi Q5 e-tron, BMW i7 xDrive 60, BMW i3 eDrive35L, Toyota bZ4X, Hyundai Ioniq 6, Kia Niro PHEV, Toyota Harrier PHEV, and Hyundai Tucson Plug-in Hybrid are some BEVs and PHEVs with ADAS features in them. These connectors transmit vital data and power throughout the system, enabling the various sensors, cameras, and other components to communicate and work together seamlessly. ADAS systems are becoming increasingly integrated with other vehicle systems, such as the infotainment system, powertrain, and chassis. This integration also requires connectors to ensure that all systems work together seamlessly. All these factors are expected to increase the revenue growth of the EV connector market during the forecast period. Board-to-Board connection system is expected to lead the market during the forecast period The inclination of users toward high-tech applications OEMs are offering advanced applications such as human-machine interface (HMI), airbag control, adaptive cruise control, and auto-park assist, which creates the demand for connectors to be used in new automotive systems. OEMs such as BMW (Germany), Audi (Germany), Mercedes-Benz (Germany), and Volkswagen AG (Germany) offer this high-end application in their vehicle models such as BMW iX, Audi e-tron GT, Mercedes-Benz EQC and Volkswagen ID.4 among others. Thus, the increase in demand for these features increases the demand for EV connectors, which, in turn, is expected to drive the growth of the board-to-board connection segment. Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest-growing market for EV batteries during the forecast period The Asia Pacific region is projected to be the fastest-growing EV connector market during the forecasted period. Asia Pacific leads the global EV market, with China alone accounting for more than half of global EV sales. This rapid adoption, driven by government incentives, rising fuel costs, and increasing environmental awareness, fuels the demand for EV-specific connectors. Leading automotive manufacturers in this region, such as Toyota Motor Corporation (Japan), Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Japan), and Hyundai Motor Company (South Korea), are leveraging the growth of EVs in the region. As of April 2023, Toyota aims to launch ten new battery electric vehicle models by 2026. In electric vehicles, EV connectors enable safe, efficient, and reliable operation by performing several functions, such as power transmission, data communication, safety, and others. Thus, the growing number of EVs in the region will support the market growth of EV connectors. The report provides insights on the following: Analysis of key drivers (Growing EV sales, increasing adoption of safety applications in vehicles, advancements in infotainment systems and in-vehicle connectivity), restraints (Fluctuations in raw material prices), opportunities (Rising trend of autonomous driving, growing incorporation of electrical/electronic (E/E) architecture), and challenges (Corrosion, wear, and degradation of EV connector materials, rapid shifts from conventional to modular connector designs) influencing the growth of the EV connector market. Product Development/Innovation: Detailed insights on upcoming technologies, research & development activities, and new product launches in the EV connector market Market Development: Comprehensive information about lucrative markets - the report analyses the EV connector market across varied regions Market Diversification: Exhaustive information about new products, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments in the EV connector market Competitive Assessment: In-depth assessment of market shares, growth strategies and service offerings of leading players like TE Connectivity Ltd. ( Switzerland ), Aptiv PLC ( Ireland ), Yazaki Corporation ( Japan ), Molex LLC (US), Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. ( Japan ) and among others in the EV connector market Page 25 of 34 strategies. Key Topics Covered: 1 Introduction 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary EV Connector Market Overview EV Connector Market, by Region, 2023-2030 EV Connector Market, by System Type, 2023-2030 Key Players in EV Connector Market 4 Premium Insights 4.1 EV Connector Market, by Region - Asia-Pacific to Account for Highest CAGR During Forecast Period 4.2 EV Connector Market, by Application - ADAS and Safety System to Hold Largest Market Share During Forecast Period 4.3 EV Connector Market, by Connector System - Board-To-Board Connection to Lead Market During Forecast Period 4.4 EV Connector Market, by Propulsion - Battery Electric Vehicles to Dominate Market During Forecast Period 4.5 EV Connector Market, by Voltage - High Voltage Connector to Have Largest Market Share During Forecast Period 4.6 EV Connector Market, by System Type - Sealed Connector System to Register Highest Growth During Forecast Period 5 Market Overview 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Market Dynamics 5.2.1 Drivers 5.2.1.1 Growing EV Sales 5.2.1.2 Increasing Adoption of Safety Applications in Vehicles 5.2.1.3 Advancements in Infotainment Systems and In-Vehicle Connectivity 5.2.2 Restraints 5.2.2.1 Fluctuations in Raw Material Prices 5.2.3 Opportunities 5.2.3.1 Rising Trend of Autonomous Driving 5.2.3.2 Growing Incorporation of Electrical/Electronic (E/E) Architecture 5.2.4 Challenges 5.2.4.1 Corrosion, Wear, and Degradation of EV Connector Materials 5.2.4.2 Rapid Shift from Conventional to Modular Connector Designs 5.3 Pricing Analysis 5.4 Trade Data Analysis 5.5 Ecosystem Analysis 5.6 Trends and Disruptions Impacting Customer's Business 5.7 Supply Chain Analysis 5.8 Technology Analysis 5.9 Patent Analysis 5.10 Case Study Analysis 5.10.1 Digital Light Synthesis 5.10.2 Automotive Miniaturization 5.10.3 Connected, Autonomous, Shared & Services (Case) Trend in Auto Industry 5.11 Tariff and Regulatory Landscape 5.12 Key Conferences and Events, 2024 5.13 Key Stakeholders and Buying Criteria 6 EV Connector Market, by System Type 7 EV Connector Market, by Connection Type 8 EV Connector Market, by Application 9 EV Connector Market, by Voltage 10 EV Connector Market, by Propulsion Type 11 EV Connector Market, by Component 12 EV Connector Market, by Region 13 Competitive Landscape 13.1 Overview 13.2 Market Ranking Analysis 13.3 Revenue Analysis 13.4 Company Evaluation Matrix 13.4.5 Company Footprint 13.6 Competitive Scenarios 13.7 Right to Win 14 Company Profiles TE Connectivity Aptiv Yazaki Molex Sumitomo Electric Industries Japan Aviation Electronics Industry Amphenol Hirose Electric Rosenberger Group Kyocera Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd. Jst Mfg. Co. Ltd. Littelfuse, Inc. Shenglan Technology Kinsun Industries Txga LLC Luxshare Precision Industry Thb Group Lumberg Holdings, Inc. Leoni AG Samtec Fujikura Ltd. Huber+Suhner For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/bhxlyi About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior 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 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 DUBLIN, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Satellite Manufacturing and Launch - Global Strategic Business Report" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Global Satellite Manufacturing and Launch Market to Reach $28.6 Billion by 2030 The global market for Satellite Manufacturing and Launch estimated at US$22.9 Billion in the year 2022, is projected to reach a revised size of US$28.6 Billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 2.8% over the analysis period 2022-2030. Satellite Manufacturing, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to record 2.5% CAGR and reach US$20.1 Billion by the end of the analysis period. Growth in the Launch Systems segment is estimated at 3.6% CAGR for the next 8-year period. Competition in the satellite industry is multifaceted, with a diverse range of operators owning and operating small satellites, as evidenced by market data from 2021. The competitive landscape is further highlighted by the strong, active, niche, or trivial presence of 119 players worldwide in 2023, reflecting the industry's dynamism. Notable startups in satellite technology contribute to the innovation ecosystem. Market outlooks indicate growth prospects in satellite manufacturing and launch systems, driven by technological advancements and emerging trends reshaping the industry's future. However, challenges such as the risk of collisions with space debris loom large amidst the recent massive growth in the satellite sector. Ongoing market activities underscore the continued momentum and evolution within the industry, with several world brands playing key roles in shaping its trajectory. The U.S. Market is Estimated at $14.1 Billion, While China is Forecast to Grow at 3.3% CAGR The Satellite Manufacturing and Launch market in the U.S. is estimated at US$14.1 Billion in the year 2022. China, the world's second largest economy, is forecast to reach a projected market size of US$2.5 Billion by the year 2030 trailing a CAGR of 3.3% over the analysis period 2022 to 2030. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 2% and 2.4% respectively over the 2022-2030 period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 3.1% CAGR. MARKET OVERVIEW Satellite Manufacturing and Launch: A Highly Dynamic Domain As the Space Race Intensifies, Satellite Manufacturing Gathers Importance & Urgency As the Number of Satellites Operating in Space Increases, Satellite Building Becomes Big Business Satellite Companies Maneuver Various Approaches to Overcome Pandemic-Related Supply Chain Issue MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS Emerging Use Cases Drive Demand for Complex and Economic Earth Observation Satellites: Opportunities in Store for Satellite Manufacturing & Launch Companies Increase in the Number of Space Exploration Missions Drive New Satellite Launches Demand for Satellites to Increase Significantly through this Decade End Mammoth Gains for Small Satellites Step Up Manufacturing & Launch Activity Reduction in Spacecraft Structural Mass is the New Design Goal to Enable Increase in Payload & Agility SmallSats Account for Increasing Share of Payload Mass Carried Up to Orbit from Earth Cost Effective Access to Earth, Lunar, Planetary, Stellar & Interstellar Discoveries Drive the Focus on Small Spacecraft (SmallSats) Launches Mini Satellites Emerge as the Future of Communications Supported by Greater Flexibility, Reduced Cost & Technology Maturity From Technology Development to Communications, Mission & Agenda for Satellite Launch Evolves & Undergoes Sea Changes By Pumping in Big Money, Governments Rise to the Forefront of the Space Race Number of Cubesats Launches: 2002-2022E Rising Appeal of Satellite Connectivity AI Ushers in New Era of Automation & Data-Wrenching in Satellite Industry Smallsats All Set to Demonstrate Value Smallsat Market Continues to Evolve Rapidly Industry Witnesses Rise in Number of Companies Entering the Small Satellite Space Rise in Small Satellite Deployments Drive Demand for Micro-Launcher Services Low Earth Orbit Technologies: A Landmark Innovation in Satellites to Fuel Gains Demand Up for Satellite Launch Vehicles Key Recent Satellite Technologies, Innovations, and Trends Rise in Demand for Satellite Internet of Things (IoT) Decluttering Space and Services In-Orbit Satellites Development of Advanced Ground Systems Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) Use of Advanced COTS Equipment Satellite Networks Providers Enhance Throughput Capabilities Advanced Payload Systems Spacecraft Propulsion Very High Throughput Satellites (VHTS) Flexible Launch Services Additive Manufacturing Robotics' Usage in Space 3D Printing Emerges as a Game Changing Option Communication Satellites Find Wider Application Satellite Launches More Inclined Towards LEO Endeavors as Digitalization Trend Gains Momentum Satellite Platforms for Weather Monitoring & Forecasting: An Overview Continuing Efforts by Military Organizations to Strengthen Satellite Networks to Drive Growth Transforming Space Economy to Support Satellite Manufacturing and Launch Market Growing Satellite Population Accelerates Race for Data Remote Sensing Satellites Widen Opportunities Key Applications Feasibility of Multi-Orbit Strategy Critical, Software-Defined Satellites Gain Popularity The Market for Satellite Propulsion Solutions FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS (Total 119 Featured) Airbus SE ArianeGroup SAS Blue Origin, LLC Dynetics, Inc. GeoOptics, Inc. Honeywell International, Inc. Innovative Solutions In Space B.V. Lockheed Martin Corporation Maxar Technologies, Inc. MITSUBISHI HEAVY INDUSTRIES LTD. Northrop Grumman Corp. OHB SE Raytheon Technologies Corp. Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Thales Group The Boeing Company ViaSat, Inc. For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/lfsknp About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Media Contact: Research and Markets 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 A Fusion of Flavor and Cultural Experience at The Peach WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- West Palm Beach's vibrant creative hub, "The Peach," is gearing up for the grand opening of "El Segundo," a pop-up taco concept from the esteemed Subculture Group. Located at 3950 Georgia Avenue in West Palm Beach, El Segundo is the brainchild of Rodney Mayo and Vaughan Dugan, two visionaries renowned for their innovative contributions to the local dining scene. El Segundo WPB "El Segundo" offers a delectable menu featuring genuine, flavorful Mexican dishes that take diners on a journey through the streets of Mexico. Complemented by expertly crafted cocktails highlighting the versatility of agave spirits, our offerings promise a casual yet vibrant culinary adventure. Culinary Director Chef Angelo Arboleda ensures that every dish at El Segundo reflects authenticity and passion. Alongside our tantalizing regular menu, guests can indulge in featured menu items such as our house-smoked Mole Chicken Wings, Brisket Burnt Ends tacos, squash blossom tacos, and traditional Al Pastor and Birria tacos. Additionally, Chef Arboleda will showcase daily main dish specials, adding an element of surprise and excitement to every visit. Under mixologist Angela Dugan's guidance, our bar welcomes patrons with a carefully curated selection of tequila and mezcal, alongside a curated selection of Mexican beers and craft cocktails. Nestled within the historic confines of an 1870s carriage house, El Segundo breathes new life into this iconic structure. Formerly an auto repair shop, the carriage house represents culinary ingenuity and cultural revival. Rodney Mayo, one of the partners in El Segundo and owner of The Peach, shares his excitement, stating, "The uniqueness is in the concept itself, being an art and culture destination. We want people to come to The Peach and stay for a while since there is so much to take in, and what better way to get them to stay than delicious food & cocktails." Owner Vaughan Dugan adds, "Seeing all of this come together in an eclectic venue like the old carriage house is truly remarkable. It celebrates food, beverage, art, and community." El Segundo will host an opening celebration on Sunday, March 3rd, at 1 pm, featuring live music by Latin-Reggae-Funk band Xperimento, a DJ, cornhole, dominos, and local marketplace vendors. Beyond the flavorful offerings, El Segundo will enrich the cultural landscape of The Peach with weekend markets, family "Asado" gatherings, and monthly showcases featuring emerging artists, low-rider car shows, and more. Join us at El Segundo, where every bite tells a story, and every moment is infused with flavor and flair. For more information, please visit El Segundo's website at www.ElSegundoWPB.com About SubCulture Group: SubCulture Group rebels against the ordinary, driven by the belief that originality is the best form of rebellion. Founded by Rodney Mayo over 35 years ago, our eclectic collection of over 20 establishments spans Miami to Jupiter. From vibrant nightclubs to cozy coffee shops, we offer diverse experiences for every taste. Where rebellion meets creativity. Media Contact: Bobby Velez [email protected] 5612064031 SOURCE SubCulture Group Gulf International Bank (GIB) today (Wednesday) announced new senior leadership appointments for its businesses in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Khaled Abbas, currently Group Wholesale Banking Head, has been appointed CEO, GIB Saudi Arabia, and Sara Abdulhadi, currently Group Chief Investment and Treasury Officer, has been appointed CEO, GIB in Bahrain. Abdulaziz Al-Helaissi, the Group CEO, said: The appointment of Khaled and Sara will further strengthen and diversify our leadership structure as we accelerate our growth to develop the full potential of our franchise. I am especially pleased that we have been able to fill two such critical roles with internal candidates. This is a testament to the depth of talent across the Group, as well as the exceptional performance and leadership demonstrated by Khaled and Sara. Both are ideally placed to lead our operations in Saudi Arabia and GCC. I look forward to working with them in this new chapter for GIB and take great pride that we have the people and the culture to move forward with confidence. Currently both CEO positions are held by the Group CEO, Abdulaziz Al-Helaissi, who will continue his group-wide leadership delivering GIBs strategy and overseeing the ongoing expansion of its regional and international businesses. These appointments are effective from March 3. Abbas joined GIB in October 2018 initially as UAE Country Head, where he led the groups representative office in Dubai and its Abu Dhabi branch. In 2019, he was appointed to the role of Group Wholesale Banking Head, which encompasses GIBs Wholesale banking businesses in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE along with London and New York. Abbas holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Studies from the Lebanese American University; the YMP from INSEAD; the Leadership Development Programme from Darden Business School, University of Virginia and the AMP from Harvard. Sara Abdulhadi joined GIB in November 2019 as Group Chief Investment and Treasury Officer, overseeing GIBs Treasury and Investment activities across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE. She holds a BSC in Accounting from King Saud University; an MSC in Investment Management from Bayes Business School, City University, London, and the AMP from Harvard. TradeArabia News Service ADVERTISIMENT The 29 secret documents of the Russian army, created between 2008 and 2014, show that the Russian armed forces practiced scenarios for the use of tactical weapons at an early stage of a conflict with a major world power. And they are still relevant to Russian military doctrine, according to experts. Among the potential adversaries Russia considers, in particular, China. Contrary to public statements and published doctrines, these documents show that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons under much lower threats to itself than it has ever openly declared. The "threshold" beyond which Russia is going to use nuclear weapons is defined in the leaked documents as a certain set of factors that "will irreversibly lead to the inability to stop a major enemy aggression" that will create a "critical situation for Russia's state security." ADVERTISIMENT And this, according to the authors of the documents, includes both an enemy invasion of Russian territory and more specific factors, such as the destruction of 20% of Russia's strategic ballistic missile submarines. The documents containing the exercise materials show that the Eastern Military District of the Russian Federation practiced a number of scenarios to respond to a possible Chinese invasion. This shows how Moscow is using Russia's nuclear capabilities as the basis for its defense policy - and, based on this, how it is preparing troops to launch a first nuclear strike in certain combat conditions. The publication cites one of the exercises describing a hypothetical Chinese attack as an example. Russia (according to the "legend" of the exercise, the "Northern Federation") launches a tactical nuclear strike to stop the advance of the "South" with a second wave of invasion forces. ADVERTISIMENT "The Commander-in-Chief gave an order ... to use nuclear weapons ... ... in case the enemy deploys second echelon units and threatens to further advance the 'South' in the direction of the main attack," the publication quotes the document. However, it is not only China that the Russians are planning to respond with nuclear weapons. One of the leaked documents contains a training presentation for officers of the Russian Navy, and it describes broader criteria for a potential nuclear strike, including enemy landings on Russian territory, the defeat of units responsible for protecting border areas, or an imminent enemy attack using conventional weapons. It is in this presentation that Russia's readiness to use nuclear weapons is stated in the event of "critical losses" of Russian troops that would make it impossible for them to stop a large-scale aggression. Such "critical losses" in Russia include the aforementioned destruction of 20% of strategic ballistic missile submarines, as well as the loss of 30% of nuclear attack submarines, three or more cruisers, three airfields, or the simultaneous destruction of the main and reserve coastal command posts. ADVERTISIMENT According to the Financial Times, the documents show that the Russian military believes that the use of tactical nuclear weapons will help them achieve a wide range of goals, including "deterring states from aggression [...] or escalation of military conflicts," "stopping aggression," preventing defeat and loss of territory by Russian troops, and increasing the effectiveness of the Russian navy. Earlier, a number of American media outlets reported that Russia allegedly wants to deploy nuclear weapons in space. Even the White House subsequently responded to them, after Mike Turner, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, publicly called on Congress and President Joe Biden's administration to declassify information about a serious threat to the security of the United States, referring, as journalists suggested, to Russia's intention to launch nuclear weapons into space. ADVERTISIMENT According to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, the threat does not concern deployed weapons, but only the potential for their use. Meanwhile, Bloomberg believes that Russia may launch nuclear weapons into space as early as this year. NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The hair wigs and extension market size is expected to grow by USD 5.90 billion from 2022 to 2027, according to Technavio. In addition, the growth momentum of the market will progress at a CAGR of 9.34% during the forecast period. Technological advances in the production and design of synthetic hair wigs are notably driving the hair wigs and extension market. However, factors such as high labor costs associated with handwoven wigs may impede market growth. The market is segmented by distribution channel (Offline and Online ), product (Human hair wigs and extensions, and Synthetic hair wigs and extension), and geography (APAC, North America, Middle East and Africa, Europe, and South America). Technavio provides a comprehensive report summary describing the market size and forecast along with research methodology. The sample report is available in PDF format Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Hair Wigs and Extension Market 2023-2027 Key Segment Analysis The market share growth by the offline segment will be significant during the forecast period. This distribution channel contains specialty stores like hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, clubhouse stores, and others. In addition, salons and spas are rapidly gaining popularity and demand among consumers with hectic work schedules. Hence, such factors are expected to continue during the forecast period and drive the offline segment. The adoption rate of hair wigs and extensions is anticipated to rise in APAC owing to the emergence of international players and evolving concepts of product differentiation during the forecast period. To know additional highlights and key points on various market segments and their impact in coming years, View the Free PDF Sample Report. Geographical Market Analysis The main contributors to the market in APAC are countries such as China, India, and Japan. In particular, for the US and Europe countries such as France, the UK or Germany, China, and India are major exporters of human hair. Furthermore, several market players such as Aderans, Shandong Elite, and Evergreen Products Group have established production facilities in countries such as China, India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, owing to cheap labor costs and high proximity to the sourcing of human hair. Company Insights The hair wigs and extension market is fragmented, and the companies are deploying organic and inorganic growth strategies to compete in the market. The report analyzes the market's competitive landscape and offers information on several market companies, including: Artnature Inc., Cha Cha Hair Products Ltd., Diva Divine Hair Extensions and Wigs, Donna Bella OpCo LLC, Evergreen Products Group Ltd., F.N. Longlocks, Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Great Lengths Universal Hair Extensions Srl, Hair Visions International, Hairdreams Haarhandels GmbH, Hairlocs, India Hair International, Indique Hair LLC, Klix Hair Inc., Locks and Bonds, Racoon International Ltd., SalonLabs Exports India Pvt Ltd., Shake N Go Inc., Shandong Elite Hair Products Co. Ltd., and Aderans Co. Ltd. View PDF Sample Report to find additional highlights on the growth strategies adopted by companies and their product offerings. Analyst Review The hair wigs and extension market is a vibrant and diverse industry catering to individuals seeking solutions for various hair-related concerns, including hair loss and styling preferences. Confidence plays a pivotal role in one's self-image, and for many, aesthetics, especially in the realm of hair, is a crucial component. In today's digital age, social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become influential in showcasing diverse styles and providing styling tips and tricks. Hair loss affects a significant portion of the population, with conditions such as alopecia affecting approximately 700,000 individuals in the U.S. alone, predominantly women. Fortunately, there are solutions available, ranging from traditional human hair wigs to innovative hair systems, catering to different needs and preferences. For individuals undergoing chemotherapy due to cancer treatment, hair loss can be a distressing side effect. Initiatives like the Department of Social Protection's Treatment Benefit Scheme in Ireland, overseen by Minister Heather Humphreys, offer financial assistance, such as the USD 546.21 grant, to alleviate the burden of obtaining hair loss solutions. In the market, subscription-based models like those offered by Superhairpieces.com provide convenience and affordability, offering different plans for human hair wigs and extensions. These subscriptions cater to the diverse needs of customers, providing access to quality products on a regular basis. In conclusion, the hair wigs and extension market is not only about aesthetics but also about empowering individuals to feel confident and comfortable in their own skin, despite challenges like hair loss. With innovative solutions and supportive initiatives, this market continues to evolve, catering to the diverse needs of its consumers. View PDF Sample Report Related Reports: The Hair Products Market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.12% between 2022 and 2027. The market size is forecast to increase by USD 19,431.34 million. The hair styling products market in Europe is expected to rise to USD 1.43 billion from 2021 to 2026, and the market's growth momentum will accelerate at a CAGR of 4.87%. ToC: 1 Executive Summary 2 Landscape 3 Sizing 4 Historic Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Segmentations 7 Customer Landscape 8 Geographic Landscape 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10 Vendor Landscape 11 Vendor Analysis 12 Appendix About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. Contacts 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 HONOLULU, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Halekulani Corporation today announces the promotion of Davide Barnes to the position of General Manager of Halekulani effective March 1, 2024. Barnes joined Halekulani as Hotel Manager in January 2023, responsible for all day-to-day operations and performance of the legendary, globally acclaimed property. The announcement was made by Peter Shaindlin, Chief Operating Officer of Halekulani Corporation: "We are delighted to announce the promotion of Mr. Barnes to General Manager. His leadership has proven to be an incredible asset to both our team development and guest satisfaction, and I am confident his drive, passion, and values will sustain Halekulani Corporation's unmatched standards of excellence, as well as its world-renowned reputation, for many years to come." His drive, passion and values will sustain Halekulani Corporation's unmatched standards of excellence. Post this Over the past year, Barnes has evolved the hotel organization, focused on driving service excellence consistency and exceeding guest expectations. In his new position, he will continue to direct all day-to-day operational and support areas of Halekulani. In addition, Barnes will oversee and support the operations and performance of sister hotel Halepuna Waikiki by Halekulani, ensuring brand consistency and standards. "I am truly honored to be appointed General Manager of Halekulani, a brand renowned for its gracious hospitality and cherished traditions. I am dedicated to preserving and enhancing this legacy for years to come," said Barnes. Barnes brings with him more than 20 years of global luxury hospitality experience, including leadership roles at Shangri-La Hotel in Shanghai, China; Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills; Four Seasons Prague, Czech Republic; Four Seasons, Philadelphia; and Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz, California. Prior to Halekulani, he served as Director of Operations at The Lodge at Kukuiula for Destination Residences Hawaii/Hyatt Hotels & Resorts in Kauai. About Halekulani Since its re-introduction in 1984 as one of the world's finest and most acclaimed independent luxury hotels, Halekulani has received more than 500 awards, most recently placing on Travel + Leisure's 2023 World's Best Awards list of the best resort hotels in Hawaii, Conde Nast Traveler's 2023 Gold List of best hotels and resorts in the world and Travel + Leisure's 2022 T+L 500 list. Freshly reopened following a comprehensive renewal project, Halekulani is home to La Mer, Hawaii's longest, consecutively ranked AAA Five Diamond and Forbes Travel Guide 5-Star Restaurant, Orchids, House Without A Key, L'Aperitif, Lewers Lounge, SpaHalekulani and Earl's Pool Bar. For over 20 years, Halekulani has maintained a strong commitment to arts and culture in the community through exclusive alliances with Oahu's most iconic cultural venues. Halekulani is operated by the Hotels and Resorts of Halekulani, a brand management division of the Honolulu-based Halekulani Corporation, which also oversees the Halepuna Waikiki by Halekulani. Halekulani is a member of The Leading Hotels of the World and is aligned with Tokyo's legendary Imperial Hotel. For further information, please visit www.halekulani.com. Stay connected with Halekulani via www.halekulani.com, on Twitter and Instagram at @HalekulaniHotel or on Facebook at Halekulani Hotel. About Halepuna Waikiki by Halekulani Halepuna Waikiki by Halekulani, located steps away from Waikiki Beach and directly across from sister property Halekulani, Hawaii's most venerated hotel, appeals to Oahu visitors who are looking to be in the heart of it all. Opened as the first luxury boutique in Waikiki, the "House of Welcoming Waters" encompasses 284 guest rooms, four suites, its flagship restaurant UMI by Vikram Garg, the first-ever Halekulani Bakery, a dramatic eighth-floor pool deck and bar, and fitness studio. A member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts L.X.V. collection, Halepuna Waikiki by Halekulani provides every guest with the highest standards of quality and personalized service while celebrating the indigenous surroundings, culture, and aloha spirit of the islands of Hawai'i. Stay connected with Halepuna via www.halepuna.com, on Twitter and Instagram at @HalepunaWaikiki or on Facebook at Halepuna Waikiki by Halekulani. SOURCE Halekulani Corporation The prominent entrepreneur and business leader is recognized for his philanthropic impact and advocacy for refugees worldwide Joins Mary Robinson, Paul Polman, Leymah Gbowee and others on the distinguished Selection Committee for the $1 Million Global Prize BOSTON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative announced today that Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder and CEO of Chobani and Founder of the Tent Partnership for Refugees, has joined the Selection Committee for the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, a $1 million global humanitarian award. Mr. Ulukaya joins distinguished members of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee to choose the Aurora Prize Humanitarians and Laureate. Hamdi Ulukaya "Hamdi embodies Aurora's core tenet of Gratitude in Action and has made significant contributions to the world through his work, advocacy and philanthropy," said Noubar Afeyan, Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. "We are grateful for Hamdi's outstanding efforts and look forward to his active participation as a member of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee." "Hamdi Ulukaya is not only an accomplished entrepreneur and business leader, but a relentless advocate for refugees and displaced persons who has made a tremendous impact on the lives of others, and we are delighted to welcome him to the Selection Committee," said Lord Ara Darzi, Chair of Aurora Prize Selection Committee and Co-Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. "The Aurora Prize will benefit greatly from Hamdi's expertise and perspective that will further enhance the ability for the Aurora Prize to continue to strengthen its impact on those most in need." "I am honored to join the Aurora Prize Selection Committee to help elevate and expand the work of modern-day heroes who put themselves at risk to address the most pressing humanitarian challenges worldwide," said Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder and CEO of Chobani and Founder of the Tent Partnership for Refugees. "Aurora recognizes power of one individual on the world, and I look forward to joining this esteemed group to help uncover and showcase the courageous work of unsung humanitarian heroes around the world." The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative will hold a special series of events on May 810, 2024 in Los Angeles, CA, organized in partnership with The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA. Leading humanitarians will come together to discuss the world's most pressing humanitarian issues and announce the 2024 Aurora Prize Laureate. About Hamdi Ulukaya Hamdi Ulukaya was raised in a dairy-farming family in a small village in eastern Turkiye and, after moving to the United States, launched Chobani in 2007 with the mission of making good-quality food more accessible. As a leader in the food manufacturing industry, Ulukaya built Chobani on the foundation that it would do well by doing good, and quickly gained recognition for his employee-first policies and for becoming a leading voice in the movement to hire refugees. Inspired by his refugee employees, Ulukaya started the Tent Partnership for Refugees in 2016, a global nonprofit that mobilizes the business community to connect refugees to work. Its network of more than 300 companies and counting around the world - including Amazon, Blackstone, Hilton, PepsiCo, and Pfizer are committed to including refugees through hiring, training, and mentorship. Ulukaya has since been named an Eminent Advocate by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World for his work on the refugee crisis and his innovative approach to business. About the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity is a $1 million global award that recognizes those who risk their lives, health, or freedom to save the lives, health, or freedom of others. It has shone a spotlight on some of the world's most pressing and overlooked crises since its foundation in 2015. The 2024 Aurora Humanitarians shortlisted for the 2024 Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity were named on September 18, 2023, at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting in New York City: Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja ( Bahrain / Denmark ), a human rights advocate who has been fearlessly defending the most vulnerable communities in Bahrain . ( / ), a human rights advocate who has been fearlessly defending the most vulnerable communities in . Denis Mukwege ( Democratic Republic of the Congo ), a gynecologist and human rights activist who has been working to provide medical, legal, and psychosocial aid to women subjected to sexualized and gender-based violence. ( ), a gynecologist and human rights activist who has been working to provide medical, legal, and psychosocial aid to women subjected to sexualized and gender-based violence. Nasrin Sotoudeh ( Iran ), a human rights defender who has been working as an attorney since 2003, representing Iranian opposition activists, young prisoners, and women's rights activists. The 2024 Aurora Prize Laureate will be announced at a Ceremony to take place in Los Angeles, California in May 2024. About the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative seeks to address on-the-ground humanitarian challenges around the world with a focus on helping the most destitute. Uniquely dedicated to discovering and supporting the world's unsung humanitarian heroes in order to enable and raise awareness of their courageous work, Aurora has made a significant impact on the lives of those in greatest need. Media Contact: [email protected] SOURCE Aurora Humanitarian Initiative EUGENE, Ore., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Throughout 2024, Harvest House Publishers will celebrate its 50-year anniversary as a family-owned evangelical Christian publisher. Since its inception, Harvest House has operated with the mission of publishing accessible, high-quality books that proclaim Jesus Christ as the answer to every human need. Founded in 1974, Bob Hawkins Sr. launched the company in Irvine, California, with a catalog of five co-published books and only a few employees. In 1981, Harvest House relocated to Eugene, Oregon, where the company soon grew to become one of the top ten publishers of Christian literature. In 1991, Bob Hawkins Jr. succeeded his father as company president and saw Harvest House continue to thrive through its publishing of a host of notable and loyal writers, including such perennial bestselling authors as Stormie Omartian, Jim and Elizabeth George, Bob and Emilie Barnes, Kay Arthur, Lysa TerKeurst, Ron Rhodes, and Lori Wick. Presently, Harvest House has distributed more than 200 million books worldwide in over 75 languages. It has a backlist of more than 1,750 titles and continues to publish approximately 90 books each year, including those under the growing imprints of Harvest Kids, Harvest Prophecy, and Ten Peaks Press. In the last six years, the company has enjoyed noteworthy success in such categories as cultural apologetics, current events, Bible prophecy, lifestyle, and children's books. "It has been an incredible privilege for each of us at Harvest House to have served and supported our valued authors with the life-changing distribution and impact of their biblically sound books now for five decades," notes Hawkins, who continues to lead the company. "We are humbled by the opportunity every day to use the gifts God has given us to purposefully point people to Jesus in the books we publish. And we're eager to build upon our recent rapid growth so we can bring spiritual truth and nourishment to many more readers in the decades to come." To commemorate this milestone anniversary, Harvest House is delighted to announce the upcoming release of the Harvest Legacy Collection: four hardcover special editions of signature bestselling books written by several of the company's most enduring authors. The Power of a Praying Parent by Stormie Omartian and Victory in Spiritual Warfare by Dr. Tony Evans will release in October 2024, followed by the February 2025 releases of A Woman After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George and How to Study Your Bible by Kay Arthur, Pete De Lacy, and David Arthur. The landmark publications in the Harvest Legacy Collection highlight the widespread impact Harvest House books have had over the past 50 years. Further, they celebrate the company's ongoing desire to release timeless resources that encourage generations of readers to dedicate themselves to the faithful pursuit of Jesus Christ. About Harvest House Publishers: From its beginning, the company has produced books that impact the hearts of people worldwide. That focus continues with the making of biblically nourishing and innovative products that enrich lives, inspire creativity, and glorify God. With an emphasis on addressing the spiritual and practical needs of men, women, and children, Harvest House seeks to serve God and those who need Him through the books it publishes. For more information, visit http://www.harvesthousepublishers.com/ Media Contact: Cindy Irvin, cindy.irvin@harvesthousepublishers.com 541-302-0725 SOURCE Harvest House Publishers CLACKAMAS, Ore., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Horizon CME will host Best of ASCO 2024 programs in San Francisco, Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. These in-person conferences will bring the most recent oncology scientific findings to physicians, pharmacists and allied health providers in these regions. Best of ASCO is an officially licensed program of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the foremost professional organization representing physicians of all oncology subspecialties. The two-day annual program is designed to provide the latest scientific findings from the ASCO Annual Meeting, the world's premier oncology event being held this year in Chicago. Program agendas are organized locally in each region by oncology clinicians and experts. This year, planning committees include clinicians, educators and researchers from world-renowned cancer clinics and research institutions Stanford Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck School of Medicine of USC and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Each program will feature in-depth discussion and analysis of the latest scientific findings in primary disease sites and practice-changing advances in cancer treatment. The Best of ASCO San Francisco conference will be held July 13 - 14, 2024, at the Hilton San Francisco Airport Bayfront Hotel in Burlingame, Calif. The Best of ASCO Dallas will be held July 20 - 21, 2024, at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. The Best of ASCO Phoenix will be held July 20 - 21, 2024, at the Westin Kierland Hotel in Scottsdale, Ari. The Best of ASCO Los Angeles will be held Aug. 3 - 4, 2024, at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa in Huntington Beach, Calif. Registration fees, agendas and accommodation information for each conference can be viewed at HorizonCME.com. Exhibits and Sponsors For information about Best of ASCO exhibit and sponsorship opportunities, contact Cheryl Morrill at [email protected]. About Horizon CME Founded in 2007, Horizon CME is a continuing medical education company dedicated to providing quality continuing education activities that further the knowledge, skills, and practice of healthcare providers in an effort to ultimately improve patient outcomes. Using research-proven adult learning principles, Horizon CME creates educational activities that are innovative, engaging, and relevant to clinical practice. For more information about Horizon CME, visit horizoncme.com SOURCE Horizon CME BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- At MWC Barcelona 2024, Huawei launched the Public Services Intelligent Transformation White Paper, the National Cloud 2.0 Solution, and the Tax Administration Digitalization White Paper during the summit themed "Leading Infrastructure to Accelerate Public Services Intelligence". Huawei also discussed the digital & intelligent transformation trends and development strategies with customers and industry partners, and shared several transformation success stories. Global launch of the Public Services Intelligent Transformation White Paper Digital and intelligent transformation has become a consensus among countries around the world. Governments should strengthen digital infrastructure development to achieve inclusive and fair digital services, and provide engines for the digital economy. Wind Li, CEO of Global Public Sector BU, Huawei, said, " The digital government transformation is a long-term journey requiring a systematic approach. As a world-leading ICT infrastructure and solution provider, Huawei focuses on the 'One Cloud + One Network' Strategy, to help governments build digital infrastructure for public services, and achieve excellent governance, heightened economy and better livelihood." Huawei's many years of experience in serving more than 700 cities in over 100 countries and regions has led it to launch the Public Services Intelligent Transformation White Paper at the Summit. Hong-Eng Koh, Global Chief Public Services Industry Scientist of Huawei, said, "The intelligent architecture of transformation consists of several layers, such as intelligent sensing, intelligent connectivity, intelligent foundation, intelligent platform, AI foundation model, AI large model, and intelligent application. It will help provide more inclusive and people-centric public services, promote collaboration and proactiveness, offer a more equitable access to smart healthcare, intelligent education, and even faster response to emergencies." With the increasing use of innovative technologies such as the generative AI, Huawei has launched the "National Cloud 2.0" solution. Huawei looks forward to helping national and regional governments achieve digital and intelligent transformation more rapidly through trusted cloud infrastructure, leading cloud services, and extensive industry know-how. Huawei believes in the vision of "Accelerating Intelligent Transformation of Public Services to Drive Cognitive Society", and assists governments and public sectors worldwide in achieving digital & intelligent transformation, enabling everyone to benifit from the development dividends brought by the digital economy. For more information about Huawei Government solutions, please visit: https://e.huawei.com/en/industries/government Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350022/Huawei_MWC.jpg Alabamians, devastated by the State Supreme Court's ruling, appeal to lawmakers for legislation to safeguard the right to build families through healthcare MONTGOMERY, Ala., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- RESOLVE: Hundreds of people who have undergone, are in the midst of, or need IVF, fertility doctors and advocates for family-building gathered at the Alabama State House today as part of ongoing efforts to save access to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) in Alabama following the recent State Supreme Court ruling conferring personhood status on embryos. Since the February 16 ruling, most fertility clinics across the state have suspended IVF, leaving thousands of distraught patients and families. At least one embryo-shipping company has stopped transferring embryos out of Alabama. This ruling is crushing for the one in six people impacted by infertility, who may need IVF to build their families, and threatens the existence of fertility care within the state. "Alabama's leaders have the opportunity to restore the dreams of would-be parents," said Barbara Collura, President of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. "Send a message to families that you will stand by them. We call on the Alabama legislature to enact a swift and meaningful solution." "This issue is personal to me. As a mother-to-be because of IVF currently expecting my second baby, I can't imagine having to leave the state of Alabama to receive IVF care," said Corinn O'Brien, of the Fight for Alabama Families Coalition. "As an infertility physician I am used to difficult conversations, but these last two weeks have been absolutely heartbreaking," said Dr. Mamie McLean, of Alabama Fertility Specialists. "It is our honor to help our patients become parents, and it has been terrible to have our most successful treatment taken from us," said Dr. Beth Malizia, a specialist in infertility and reproductive surgery. Access to IVF has broad support across the country. According to a recent nationwide survey , 85 percent of all respondents, including 86 percent of women, support increasing access to fertility-related care and services. Moreover, 86 percent of all respondents favor increasing access to IVF. " RESOLVE will continue to be on the front lines protecting access to IVF and ensuring people in Alabama and across the country have family-building options," added Collura. For more information, please visit www.RESOLVE.org and https://fightforfamilies.resolve.org/ SOURCE RESOLVE With 10 TSP and six TSP+ awards, the Group, including Hyundai Motor, Kia and Genesis brands, leads the industry with the most combined TSP/TSP+ accolades Hyundai Motor and Genesis tied for second place overall, with Hyundai Motor securing seven awards (two TSP+ and five TSP), Genesis earning seven awards (three TSP+ and four TSP) and Kia earning two awards (one TSP+ and one TSP) The Group's exceptional performance in the IIHS 2024 awards against updated and more stringent requirements is a testament to its unwavering focus on safety SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyundai Motor Group (the Group) is announcing that the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) has honored a total of 16 models from Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Corporation, and Genesis, with the prestigious IIHS 2024 TOP SAFETY PICK (TSP) and TSP+ awards more than any other automaker in the annual assessment. The Group's exceptional performance in the IIHS 2024 awards is a testament to its unwavering focus on safety. Hyundai Motor Group Earns Most Combined IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK+ and TOP SAFETY PICK Awards "Hyundai Motor Group is proud to have earned the industry leadership position in the recent IIHS 2024 TSP/TSP+ award results," said Brian Latouf, President and Global Chief Safety and Quality Officer at Hyundai Motor Group. "At Hyundai, safety is foundational for our vehicle designs as demonstrated by obtaining the industry's best safety accolades for 16 of our products." Among the Group's brands, Hyundai Motor and Genesis tied for second place overall, with Hyundai Motor securing seven awards (two TSP+ and five TSP), Genesis earning seven awards (three TSP+ and four TSP) and Kia earning two awards (one TSP+ and one TSP). For Hyundai Motor, the TSP+ winners included the KONA small SUV and IONIQ 6 midsize electric car. The TSP winners included the ELANTRA small car, the IONIQ 5 and TUCSON small SUVs, the PALISADE midsize SUV, and the SANTA CRUZ small pickup truck. For Genesis, the TSP+ winners included the Electrified G80 large luxury car, the GV60 small SUV and the GV80 midsize luxury SUV (models built after August 2023). The TSP winners included the G80 and G90 large luxury cars, and the Electrified GV70 and GV70 (built after November 2023) midsize luxury SUVs. For Kia, the TSP+ winner was the TELLURIDE midsize SUV. The TSP winner was the SPORTAGE small SUV. More information about Hyundai Motor Group can be found at: http://www.hyundaimotorgroup.com. SOURCE Hyundai Motor Group DUBAI, UAE, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Koning Health , a pioneering medical imaging company, is thrilled to announce that it has received regulatory clearance from the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), marking a significant milestone in the company's expansion and its commitment to global health innovation. The clearance process was a testament to perseverance and strategic international cooperation. Maher Bannourah, Director of Koning International, led the initiative by leveraging his industry experience with Ministry of Health (MOH) representatives. This regulatory approval positions Koning as the first company to introduce breast CT technology in the UAE, setting a new standard in breast imaging and care in the region. The inaugural installation of the Vera Complete, Koning's flagship breast CT system, is scheduled at a premier hospital site in the UAE as soon as April of this year. Introducing a no compression, high resolution breast imaging technology to the women of the UAE illustrates the commitment to provide women the highest level of medical technology available today. This installation is not only a milestone for Koning but also serves as a cornerstone for the company's expansion throughout the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. The project is expected to significantly boost sales and enhance access to innovative breast imaging solutions across the region. "Koning is honored to be accepted as the only approved breast CT in the UAE. With this regulatory clearance, the Ministry of Health has demonstrated its concern for the health of their female population and its consistent drive to provide the highest level of technology for the healthcare system," says David Georges, President of Koning. "It is the intent of the Koning Corporation to assist the Ministry in reaching new levels of early-stage breast cancer detection across their population when cure rates obtain the highest possible cure rate." This clearance is just the start for Koning, which remains dedicated to its mission of revolutionizing medical imaging. The company is excited to embark on this new chapter of growth and innovation in the UAE and beyond. About Koning : Koning is a global Health Technology company focused on improving the breast imaging industry with its patented Koning Vera Breast CT (KBCT). Koning's vision is to create a revolution in medical imaging through advanced computed tomography technology that dramatically improves the way clinicians visualize and evaluate breast tissue. The KBCT is expected to optimize early disease detection, diagnosis, intervention, and treatment, and will improve survival rates for millions of patients worldwide. For more information, please visit Koning's website or email Koning at [email protected]. SOURCE Koning Corporation Teaching Strategies listed to GSV 150 for fourth consecutive year; one of just six early childhood companies to earn a spot in 2024 BETHESDA, Md., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Teaching Strategies, the country's leading developer of early childhood curriculum, assessment, professional learning, and family engagement solutions, has been named to the GSV 150, an annual list of the top 150 private companies transforming digital learning and workforce skills, for the fourth year in a row. Selected from over 2,000 private education technology companies, Teaching Strategies is one of just six early childhood education companies to receive the recognition. "As the leading provider of early childhood education solutions, our goal is to help teachers, families, and young learners succeed todayand in the future. That means we are constantly evolving our solutions to meet teachers in the moment," said Teaching Strategies CEO John Olsen. "We're honored to again be recognized by GSV for staying true to that commitment as evidenced by our introduction of powerful digital tools that allow teachers to plan, instruct, assess, and engage families more efficiently. A highlight was our proprietary machine learning-based functionality that saved teachers over 35 million clicks and significantly reduced the time required for checkpoint assessments." "The world is adapting to seismic shifts from generative AI," says Luben Pampoulov, partner at GSV Ventures. "AI co-pilots, AI tutors, AI content generatorsAI is ubiquitous, and differentiation is increasingly critical. The GSV 150 is an impressive group of edtech companies that are leveraging AI and driving positive outcomes for learners and society." To arrive at its listing, GSV evaluated more than 2,000 venture capital and private equity-backed private for-profit companies using their proprietary rubric of revenue scale, revenue growth, user reach, geographic diversification, and margin profile. The selected companies are experiencing top-line growth, collectively reaching approximately 3 billion people and generating $23 billion in revenue. The GSV 150 is distributed across Pre-K to Gray. Of the companies on the list, 3% are focused specifically on early childhood education; 29% focus on K-12 education; 24% focus on higher education; 34% focus on workforce learning; and 10% focus on adult consumer learning. Twenty-one percent of the companies span two or more "Pre-K to Gray" categories. See the full GSV 150 list. Many of the companies will attend the ASU+GSV AIR Show April 13-15 and the ASU+GSV Summit April 14-17 in San Diego. Teaching Strategies' CEO John Olsen will participate in a panel discussion at the Summit titled "Investing in Our Youngest Minds: The Future of Early Childhood Education." About Teaching Strategies Driven by research that shows a child's first eight years form a critical foundation for success in school and in life, Teaching Strategies has been an advocate for the early education community for 45 years. Today, Teaching Strategies connects teachers, children and families to inspired teaching and learning experiences, informative data, stronger family partnerships, and professional learning through the leading early learning platform and resources. Its products, including the most widely-used curriculum and assessment solutions The Creative Curriculum and GOLD, are found in over 270,000 classrooms and more than 80 countries around the world and reach over 4 million children each year. To learn why thousands of early childhood programs and many states and countries choose to partner with Teaching Strategies to help ensure children's success in school and in life, visit www.teachingstrategies.com . About GSV Ventures GSV Ventures , a multi-stage venture capital firm focused on the $7+ trillion global education and workforce skills sector, manages and invests from GSV Ventures Fund III. GSV has invested $600M+ in innovators across "Pre-K to Gray" learning, including Class Technologies, ClassDojo, Coursera, Coursehero, Degreed, Guild, Lead School, PhysicsWallah, Photomath, and Valenture Institute. About ASU+GSV Through a deep partnership between Arizona State University (ASU) and Global Silicon Valley (GSV), ASU+GSV Summit has become the world's most important and impactful annual gathering of 7,000+ "Pre-K to Gray" education leaders. Today, the ASU+GSV platform also includes the inaugural ASU+GSV AIR Show exploring the AI Revolution in EDU. SOURCE Teaching Strategies Ukraine will be able to launch a new counteroffensive by the end of summer at best. In the spring, Ukrainian defenders will still lack ammunition and "will lag behind in the war with Russia." ADVERTISIMENT This is the opinion of the British Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. According to him, we should wait until the West agrees to take further steps to support Ukraine. The British admiral emphasized the urgent need to increase military assistance to Ukraine. Radakin emphasized that our country faced a difficult situation "due to problems with ammunition" immediately after the US military aid was suspended. Europe is not yet able to fill this gap. At the moment, there are talks among NATO allies about "how to increase support for Ukraine." However, real statements and real help will come either during or before the July NATO summit in Washington, the British chief said. "I think this predicament is likely to continue for at least the next few months," Radakin said. He also does not rule out that the Ukrainian army's counteroffensive will not begin until next year. ADVERTISIMENT - Lunit to unveil four oral presentations and three poster presentations at ECR 2024, highlighting Lunit INSIGHT's expansive capability, ranging from adaptability in different use cases to the potential to replace a human reader in mammography double-reading settings SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Lunit (KRX:328130.KQ), a leading provider of AI-powered solutions for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, today announced the presentation of seven studies at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) 2024, to be held in Vienna, Austria, from February 28 to March 3. Four will be presented through oral presentations and three as E-posters. Lunit to present seven studies featuring the Lunit INSIGHT suite at ECR 2024 In a featured oral presentation led by Dr. Carolyn Horst from King's College London, UK, 16,996 chest radiographs were retrospectively analyzed by Lunit's AI-powered chest X-ray analysis solution, Lunit INSIGHT CXR. With a maximum sensitivity of 0.94 and specificity of 0.99, among various abnormalities, researchers were able to better understand the accuracy of Lunit INSIGHT CXR at different thresholds for different use cases and abnormalities. Specifically, the AI model with high sensitivity could be appropriate for emergency findings like pneumothorax. Meanwhile, a high specificity is preferable to triage low-risk studies for reporting without missing actionable pathology. This dual approach highlighted the adaptability of Lunit's AI tool to different clinical needs in routine practice. The research also indicates that AI can offer a valuable balance between sensitivity and specificity in the analysis of common chest abnormalities, showcasing its potential to reduce radiologists' workload and enhance efficiency in reporting. In another oral presentation, a research team from Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands, showcased their result of an independent validation of multiple commercial AI products from leading vendors. Among seven AI-powered algorithms, Lunit INSIGHT CXR achieved the highest AUC (Area Under the Curve) of 0.93 in lung nodule detection, outperforming human readers (mean AUC 0.81). The sensitivity of Lunit INSIGHT CXR reached 89%, outperforming human readers while maintaining specificity comparable to that of human readers at 80%. Four out of seven AI products, including Lunit INSIGHT CXR, showed superior performance compared to human readers. This validation provides crucial comparative performance data for AI algorithms, contributing to the ongoing discussions about the integration of AI in clinical practice. Lunit INSIGHT MMG, Lunit's AI-powered solution for early breast cancer detection, was highlighted in an award-winning study by Odense University Hospital, Denmark. Based on 249,402 consecutive screening mammograms in three distinct AI-integrated scenarios, the study assessed the software's ability to replace one or more human readers in mammography double-reading settings. Scenario 1: AI replaces the first reader, Scenario 2: AI replaces the second reader in case it agrees with the decision of the first reader, and Scenario 3: AI acts as a standalone reader. All three scenarios showed that AI-integrated screening can partially or fully replace one or both readers without affecting screening accuracy. Specifically, in Scenario 2, AI-assisted screening indicated significantly higher specificity (+0.6%) and positive predictive value (+4.7%). This groundbreaking research points towards a future where AI seamlessly integrates into double screening processes, enhancing efficiency, optimizing workflow, and maintaining stable accuracy. Additionally, Lunit plans to announce the launch of the Leeds prospective trial, a collaboration with Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust , UK. The trial, which commenced on February 19, represents the world's first prospective study of AI-powered breast reading in a symptomatic breast clinic environment. The study, scheduled to run until the end of 2025, will encompass 5,500 mammography cases of women visiting the UK Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust breast clinic. By evaluating Lunit INSIGHT MMG's efficacy in real-world clinical practice, the trial aims to revolutionize breast cancer detection and streamline diagnosis, addressing radiologist shortages. Lunit invites booth visitors at ECR 2024 to explore detailed information on the project and discuss potential future collaborations. "We are proud to present our latest research findings at this year's ECR, demonstrating the robust performance and versatility of our Lunit INSIGHT suite in various clinical settings and scenarios. Our studies also reveal that our AI can enhance the efficiency and accuracy of mammography double-reading settings, and even replace human readers in some cases," said Brandon Suh, CEO of Lunit. "We hope that these study results become a cornerstone to broaden the scope of our AI to more medical practices across the globe, and empower radiologists and patients to achieve better outcomes." Join Lunit at booth AI-15 in the EXPO X1 hall to witness how the Lunit INSIGHT suite is shaping the future of radiology across the globe. Oral presentations featuring Lunit INSIGHT at ECR 2024 include: "The performance of a commercial artificial intelligence algorithm in an external quality assurance scheme regularly used by humans in the NHS breast screening programme" (ACV 2024 Research Stage 2, February 28 , 3:00-4:00 pm ) , ) "The Multi- Sixteen Thousand and Counting: Performance of an Artificial Intelligence Tool for Identifying Common Pathologies on Chest Radiographs and Report Prioritisation" (ACV 2024 Research Stage 1, February 29 , 2:00-3:30 pm ) , ) "Recent development in AI for lung nodule detection" (ACV 2024 Research Stage 2, March 1 , 8:00-9:00 am ) , ) "Integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in double-read population-based mammography screening: simulated replacement of one reader and beyond" (ACV 2024 Research Stage 1, March 3 , 11:30-12:30 pm ) Poster presentations featuring Lunit INSIGHT at ECR 2024 include: "Can artificial intelligence decrease the time to histological diagnosis of lung cancer - a retrospective-cohort study" (EPOS Area -2 Level) "Deep Learning for Chest Radiograph Evaluation in Children: Repurposed Use of a Commercially Available AI Tool Developed for Adults (EPOS Area -2 Level) "Comparison of three AI breast density tools with a human reader" (EPOS Area -2 Level) About Lunit Founded in 2013, Lunit is a deep learning-based medical AI company on a mission to conquer cancer. We are committed to harnessing AI to ensure accurate diagnosis and optimal treatment for each cancer patient using AI-powered medical image analytics and AI biomarkers. As a medical AI company grounded on clinical evidence, our findings are presented in major peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology and the Lancet Digital Health, and global conferences, including ASCO and RSNA. After receiving FDA clearance and the CE Mark, our flagship Lunit INSIGHT suite is clinically used in approximately 3,000+ hospitals and medical institutions across 40+ countries. Lunit is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, with offices and representatives worldwide. For more information, please visit lunit.io . SOURCE Lunit WALL TOWNSHIP, N.J., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Manasquan Bank, a community bank serving Monmouth, Middlesex, and Ocean Counties in New Jersey, is proud to announce the full launch of its Terafina platform for fully online account opening for both business and consumer clients. With this new platform, clients can now open all account types, including checking, savings, money markets and certificates, in a seamless and secure online environment. Terafina is a state-of-the-art digital platform that offers a user-friendly interface, providing clients with the ability to easily fill out an application, upload required documents, and complete the verification process, all from the comfort of their own home. The platform is designed to provide a safe and secure environment for clients to manage their account opening process. The Terafina platform is designed to provide a fully digital account opening experience, streamlining the process for clients. Clients can set up an account on their own time, without the need to visit a physical branch, making the account opening process more convenient than ever before. "At Manasquan Bank, we are dedicated to providing our clients with the best possible banking experience," said James S. Vaccaro, Chair, President, and CEO of Manasquan Bank. "Our clients' satisfaction is our top priority, and we are thrilled to offer them a simplified and convenient way to open accounts through our Terafina platform." Manasquan Bank remains committed to providing its clients with innovative and convenient banking solutions. With the launch of Terafina, the bank has taken another significant step towards achieving this goal. About Manasquan Bank: Manasquan Bank, a mutual community bank with consolidated assets of $2.9 Billion, is headquartered in Wall Township, NJ. The Bank has been serving New Jersey residents since 1874 and continues to pioneer the future of banking with both traditional and digital solutions. The Bank offers a full line of personal & business services, and operates fifteen branch locations throughout Middlesex, Monmouth & Ocean Counties. Manasquan Bank proudly supports community-focused, non-profit initiatives through the Manasquan Bank Charitable Foundation. For more information, visit www.manasquan.bank SOURCE Manasquan Bank NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The medical marijuana market is estimated to grow by USD 21,248.51 million from 2022 to 2027. The market grows at a CAGR of 21.86% during the forecast period according to Technavio. Discover some insights on market size historic period (2017 to 2021) and Forecast (2023 to 2027) before buying the full report. Request a sample report Company Analysis Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Medical Marijuana Market 2023-2027 Company Landscape - The global medical marijuana market is fragmented, with the presence of several global as well as regional companies. A few prominent companies that offer medical marijuana in the market are Aurora Cannabis Inc., Canopy Growth Corp., Cresco Labs LLC, Cronos Group Inc., CV Sciences Inc., Etain LLC, HEXO Corp., Isodiol International Inc., Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc, Khiron Life Sciences Corp, Maricann Group Inc, Medical Marijuana Inc., MediPharm Labs Inc., Organigram Holdings Inc., Phoena Holdings Inc, Skye Bioscience Inc., Tikun Olam, Tilray Brands Inc., Trevena Inc, and Verano Holdings LLC and others. Company Offerings - Aurora Cannabis Inc. - The company offers medical marijuana products such as medreleaf PAX live resin luminarium, sedamen, heliova, medreleaf rex 510 vape cartridge and medreleaf sedamen 510 vape cartridge. The company offers medical marijuana products such as medreleaf PAX live resin luminarium, sedamen, heliova, medreleaf rex 510 vape cartridge and medreleaf sedamen 510 vape cartridge. Khiron Life Sciences Corp - The company offers marijuana such as cannabidiol (CBD) ilemma, and a table of two cannabis registries. The company offers marijuana such as cannabidiol (CBD) ilemma, and a table of two cannabis registries. Tilray Brands Inc. - The company offers marijuana such as whole flower medical cannabis, ground flower medicinal cannabis, and full spectrum medical cannabis oral solution. The company offers marijuana such as whole flower medical cannabis, ground flower medicinal cannabis, and full spectrum medical cannabis oral solution. For details on the company and its offerings Request a sample report Technavio has segmented the market based on type (oil & tinctures and flower), product (chronic pain, nausea, and others), The market share growth in the oil and tinctures segment will be significant during the forecast period. Medical cannabis oil refers to a concentrated form of cannabis extract. They are usually made using solvents to extract cannabinoids and other beneficial compounds from the plant. On the other hand, tinctures are liquid extracts that are usually obtained by soaking the cannabis plant material in a solvent such as alcohol or glycerin. Additionally, tinctures are often given under the tongue to process faster absorption into the bloodstream. Hence, these factors are expected to drive segment growth during the forecast period. Geography Overview By geography, the global medical marijuana market is segmented into North America, APAC, Europe, South America, and the Middle East and Africa. The report provides actionable insights and estimates the contribution of all regions to the growth of the global medical marijuana market. North America is estimated to contribute 47% to the growth of the global market during the forecast period. US and Canada have legalized the use of medical marijuana in the region. In addition, the Mexican Supreme Court ordered the Ministry of Health to issue regulations on the medical use of cannabis within six months. The US is one of the major markets for medical marijuana in the region. Expansion of dispensaries and product launches are other factors contributing to the market. Hence, these factors are expected to drive market growth in the region during the forecast period. Download a Sample Report The rising number of product launches The increase in demand is due to the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes. New product launches help companies increase sales and market share. In May 2021, Curaleaf announced the launch of a new medical cannabis product in Germany. To cater to a wider range of patients, the company also launched high-THC oil products to meet urgent patient demand, expanding its product portfolio throughout the year. Hence, such factors are expected to drive the growth of the market during the forecast period. The increasing number of awareness campaigns is a major trend in the market. Side effects associated with the inappropriate use of medical marijuana are a significant challenge restricting market growth. Download a Sample Report Analyst Review The medical marijuana market has witnessed a significant surge in recent years, primarily driven by its therapeutic applications in pain management, appetite enhancement, and eye pressure reduction. While its usage originated in countries across the Western hemisphere, including the United States and Canada, it's increasingly gaining traction in Central & South Asian regions due to evolving government policies. The demand for medical marijuana continues to rise, especially with the ongoing legalization efforts in various states and countries, allowing for legal cultivation, imports, and imposition of taxes. This shift has spurred growth in the healthcare sector, with more emphasis on both recreational and therapeutic applications. Furthermore, increased research and development activities focus on addressing chronic diseases such as inflammation and chronic pain. Regulatory bodies like the FDA have approved medications like Epidiolex, Marinol, Syndros, and Cesamet, further legitimizing medical marijuana's role in healthcare. This has also opened avenues for import-export businesses and healthcare companies to capitalize on the market, leading to numerous acquisitions and mergers. Within the market, the oil and tincture segment is particularly notable, with CBD products gaining popularity for their therapeutic benefits. Overall, the medical marijuana market shows promise for addressing various health concerns and continues to evolve with advancements in research, legislation, and consumer preferences. Download a Sample Report Related Reports: The marijuana market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 24.86% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecasted to increase by USD 48,197.88 million. Furthermore, this report extensively covers market segmentation by product (medical marijuana and recreational marijuana), type (oil, tinctures, and flower), and geography (North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and the Middle East and Africa). The increasing legalization of marijuana is notably driving the marijuana market growth. The US cannabis market is projected to increase by USD 46,904.91 million and the market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 24.03% between 2022 and 2027. Furthermore, this report extensively covers market segmentation by derivative type (CBD, THC, and balanced THC and CBD) and product (medical and recreational). The rising millennial population in key cannabis markets is driving the market growth. Table of Contents 1 Executive Summary 2 Landscape 3 Sizing 4 Historic Size 5 Five Forces Analysis 6 Segmentations 7 Customer Landscape 8 Geographic Landscape 9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10 Vendor Landscape 11 Vendor Analysis 12 Appendix About US Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provide actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning 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 NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The new model home park at Meyer Ranch in New Braunfels is officially open, marking a significant milestone for the vibrant community. To celebrate, a grand opening event will be held on Thursday, March 21, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., revealing eight new model homes and new homesites in new phases. The event will also welcome new homebuilders David Weekley Homes, Perry Homes and Scot Felder Homes. Meyer Ranch, a New Braunfels community, is celebrating the grand opening of its new model home park with a special event on March 21. Situated half a mile north of the community entrance on Meyer Parkway, visitors can tour the model park along Seekat Drive, showcasing designs by Brightland Homes, Chesmar Homes, David Weekley Homes, Highland Homes, Perry Homes, and Scott Felder Homes. These new homes feature contemporary design and Hill Country elegance, priced from the $360s-$700s on 45'-60' homesites, with floorplans ranging from 1,700-3,500 sq. The latest phase of Meyer Ranch includes over 200 homesites with an additional 200+ anticipated later this year. Conveniently located along State Highway 46 and FM 3009 near I-35, Meyer Ranch offers easy access to Downtown New Braunfels, Gruene, and Canyon Lake, with students attending award-winning Comal ISD schools. The community boasts desirable amenities such as 'The Haus,' featuring a pool, splashpad, putting green, fitness center, playground, and much more. Additionally, the restoration of the onsite historical Texas landmark, the Heimer House, is underway. For more information about Meyer Ranch, visit MeyerRanchTX.com or call 210-540-4630. About Crown Community Development: Crown Community Development was founded in 1988 to invest in, and later to manage, a 3,500-acre expanse of property in Aurora on the western edge of suburban Chicago. As the country's suburbs around great cities expanded, Crown Community Development invested in and developed communities that are models for excellence in land stewardship and neighborhood development. In addition to the original markets of Chicago and Tampa, today Crown is positioned in highly desirable locations that include Seattle, Gettysburg, Denver, Nashville, Indianapolis, Austin, and San Antonio. About Randolph Todd Development: Randolph Todd Development was formed in 2013 to capitalize on the vast opportunities presented by the fertile Central Texas real estate market. Founding members Randy Rollo and Todd McCullough have joined their relevant local experience, contacts and knowledge to create a significant force in the real estate acquisition, entitlement, and development space. Their over 60 years of combined residential and commercial experience is well positioned to meet the increasing demands of the Central Texas market. SOURCE Meyer Ranch SAN DIEGO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Element Biosciences, Inc., developer of pioneering technologies to empower science, announced that Element CEO and Co-founder Molly He, PhD, was named to the inaugural CNBC Changemakers list of trailblazing female leaders. As a first-generation Asian female leader, Molly was honored by CNBC for spearheading a remarkable undertaking to democratize sequencing and biological tools globally. Her team has grown to over 300 people and has sold over 160 instrument placements across 20 countries, opening access to emerging markets like India and Vietnam. From the founding of the company in late 2017, Molly's leadership has helped her team navigate the COVID pandemic, market downturns, and a highly competitive sequencing market with a dominant incumbent. Her work is a reflection of her commitment to collaborative science through fairness and accessibility for the research community. "Today is a great honor and a true testament to the journey the Element team has embarked on together since the company's founding," Molly He said. "It was a daunting decision to chart a new path as a CEO and co-founder, especially when starting a company in a 1200-square-foot basement with no air conditioning and an idea that only existed on paper. But through grit and persistence, we have shattered stereotypes and created a company that is going against the odds to make a positive impact in the world." "We are incredibly proud to see Molly recognized on CNBC's inaugural Changemakers list," said Bryan Roberts, PhD, partner at Venrock and member of the Element Biosciences Board of Directors. "Molly's visionary leadership has been instrumental in driving Element's mission to empower science through pioneering technologies. This is a well-deserved acknowledgment of her success in revolutionizing the field. We continue to support Element's innovative journey and look forward to witnessing further advancements that will shape the future of biosciences." Molly He, Michael Previte, and Matthew Kellinger founded Element in 2017 to disrupt and democratize life sciences research and development through innovative tools for sequencing and beyond. In 2022, Element launched the AVITI System to make high quality affordable sequencing available to labs of all sizes. Less than a year after launch, Element was the first to make whole genome sequencing available for $200 per genome. In 2024, the company announced new multi-omics capabilities, introduced the highest-quality commercial sequencing kit to the market, and made workflow improvements that allow researchers to spend more time reviewing results and less time preparing samples. "Molly has exemplified a steadfast commitment to hard work, authenticity and harmony," said Michael Previte, PhD, Element CTO, SVP of R&D, and Co-founder. "She practices and leads with a team-first commitment that has allowed all of us to overcome significant challenges and obstacles in a highly competitive landscape. These commitments have created a company culture that strives to overdeliver on promises and continue to provide the best value for the customers." About Element Biosciences, Inc. Element Biosciences is a multi-disciplinary life science company currently focused on developing disruptive DNA sequencing and other omics technology for research and diagnostic markets. Through innovating every fundamental element of a sequencing system, Element empowers customers with affordable, high-quality data and an improved user experience, which in turn will accelerate scientific discoveries and broaden the use of genomic medicine. To learn more about Element, please visit www.elementbiosciences.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook . Media Contact: Kristi Heim Element Biosciences [email protected] SOURCE Element Biosciences Peter Melby Named CEO, Mitch Morgan Becomes Executive Chairman DENVER, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- New Charter Technologies, a portfolio company of Palo Alto-based private equity firm Oval Partners, just announced a leadership evolution as part of its continued innovation and remarkable growth trajectory. Peter Melby and Mitch Morgan Founder Mitch Morgan will assume the role of Executive Chairman, while Peter Melby has been appointed as the next CEO of New Charter. Melby, a seasoned leader in the industry, brings with him a proven track record of driving operational excellence and fostering innovation. Morgan revealed the transition at New Charter's 2024 Kickoff event in Nashville, TN. "Peter and I envisioned these possibilities before New Charter became a reality," said Morgan. "This natural progression in our plan enhances our leadership team and solidifies the longevity of our vision and our industry-leading model." Having founded and served as the former CEO of Greystone Technology, a New Charter Technologies company, and currently holding the position of CRO at New Charter, Melby's experience in navigating periods of rapid growth and prioritizing organizational culture and employee development uniquely positions him to lead the company into its next phase of expansion and success. "We have concentrated on building the most desirable home for best-in-class MSPs who wish to continue their entrepreneurial journey. It is this aspect that will continue to propel our vision," says Melby. In his new role, Morgan will focus on mergers and acquisitions and strategic advisory. The leadership change underscores New Charter's commitment to maintaining its position as an industry trailblazer while ensuring continued focus on strategic objectives and operational efficiency. "The industry is on the verge of an unprecedented shift, driven by technology, that will revolutionize every aspect of the business," Morgan explains. "Injecting more energy and vigor into our leadership will enable us to lead the market in this next phase. Peter and I are eager to seize this opportunity." The transition officially commences this week at New Charter's 4th Annual Kick-Off event in Nashville, where additional insights into the company's strategic vision and future plans will be unveiled. READ FULL RELEASE MEDIA CONTACT Allison Francis New Charter Technologies [email protected] 319.572.2145 SOURCE New Charter Technologies White House Historical Association President Stewart McLaurin Talks About the Remarkable Journey of President Jimmy Carter from Peanut Farmer to Nobel Peace Prize Recipient WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The White House Historical Association released a new episode of The White House 1600 Sessions podcast today featuring a conversation about President Jimmy Carter, the longest-lived president, and his life of faith and service. Stewart McLaurin, president of the Association, met with journalist and author, Jonathan Alter and Reverend Julie Pennington-Russell at the First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C., the church home of the Carters while they lived in the White House. Alter spent many years immersing himself in President Carter's story for his most recent book, "His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life." From winning seats on his local county boards, to the Georgia State House and the Oval Office, President Carter was in politics for two decades, but there were many other parts of his life that he valued. President Carter is a master woodworker, loved to go fishing, built homes with Habitat for Humanity, and raised awareness about mental health and caregiving. "Carter was described by a former president of Emory University as the only man who ever used the presidency as a stepping stone," said Alter. "Just being president doesn't make you an inspiration to people around the world. It's what you do with the power that you've been given to change other people's lives." The First Baptist Church was the spiritual home for the Carter family when they lived in Washington. As president-elect, Jimmy Carter attended services here before his Inauguration, and during his time as president he attended more than 70 Sunday services. Every year since 1981, the White House Historical Association has created an annual Christmas ornament featuring different presidents sequentially. This year, the Official 2024 White House Christmas Ornament features a unique design inspired by the life and presidency of Jimmy Carter. The full video of this podcast episode is also available on the White House Historical Association's YouTube channel here. The White House 1600 Sessions podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. About the White House Historical Association The White House Historical Association was founded in 1961 by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to support her vision to restore and preserve the Executive Mansion and its legacy for generations to come. Mrs. Kennedy sought to inspire Americans, especially children, to explore and engage with American history and its presidents. Supported entirely by private resources, the Association is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that has contributed more than $115 million to the White House in fulfillment of its mission. To learn more about the White House Historical Association, please visit WhiteHouseHistory.org. SOURCE The White House Historical Association NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- New York City Regional Center is pleased to announce the closing of $19,000,000 in New Market Tax Credit financing to help fund building upgrades and ongoing operating expenses at the Armory Nike Track & Field Center in Washington Heights. The $19 million of funding will assist the non-profit Armory Foundation in continuing its robust after-school youth programming as well implementing necessary capital improvements to the 250,000 square foot complex built in 1911. The Armory Foundation oversees the premier indoor track & field center in America and hosts over 100 track meets annually including the marquee Millrose Games. In addition to providing a training facility for thousands of athletes a year, the Armory Foundation maintains the National Track & Field Hall of Fame and operates the largest after-school activities center in New York. The goal of the Armory Foundation is to serve the area's youth by promoting fitness, a love of sport, and the pursuit of individual excellence. The Armory College Prep High School Program provides college prep and academic counseling services to hundreds of under resourced New York City public high school students. The Armory College Prep Middle School Program offers academic support, computer science education, and high school application guidance to local middle school students. The transaction utilized a portion of the New Market Tax Credit allocation awarded from the U.S. Department of Treasury to NYCR-CDE, a Community Development Entity managed by New York City Regional Center ("NYCRC"). To receive a New Market Tax Credit allocation award, NYCRC was required to demonstrate a mission and track record of providing investment capital for low-income communities. Examples of other economic development projects utilizing NYCRC new market tax credit financing over the past seven years include: Construction of the National Urban League's new headquarters in Harlem which includes New York City's first civil rights museum; Construction of four charter schools in the Bronx (KIPP NYC Charter School, DREAM Charter School, Neighborhood Charter School, and Comp Sci High) ; Construction of one charter school in Harlem (Promise Academy) and one charter school in Brooklyn (Achievement First) ; and, Expansion of St. John's Episcopal Hospital Center in Far Rockaway. The New Market Tax Credit Program was created by Congress in 2000 in an effort to stimulate private investment and economic growth in low-income neighborhoods and rural communities that lack access to capital. Historically, low-income communities often have difficulty attracting investment. The program aims to break this cycle of disinvestment by attracting the private investment necessary to reinvigorate struggling local economies. Private capital is incentivized by providing federal income tax credits to investors in exchange for making equity investments in low-income neighborhoods. About New York City Regional Center The NYCRC was approved by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2008 to secure foreign investment for real estate and infrastructure projects under the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. Congress created the EB-5 program to stimulate economic development through foreign investment. The program's mandate is to use foreign investment to spur job creation while simultaneously affording eligible foreign investors the opportunity to become lawful permanent residents of the United States. The NYCRC was the first EB-5 regional center approved in New York City. Over the past 15 years, the NYCRC has put over $1.5 billion of EB-5 capital to work across a broad spectrum of infrastructure and real estate projects in New York City. Much of this capital has been invested in underserved areas in need of long-term economic growth. Examples include: $811 million to finance ground-up, redevelopment, and infrastructure projects in Brooklyn , including seven projects totaling $383 million in the Brooklyn Navy Yard; $108.5 million to finance ground-up and redevelopment projects in Washington Heights (an Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone); $232.5 million to finance the construction of a public high-speed wireless infrastructure network in New York City subway stations and along city streets; and, $220 million to finance ground-up construction in the Bronx . To date, twenty-two projects throughout New York City have utilized NYCRC EB-5 financing to assist in the construction of over 3.8 million square feet of new development and renovation as well as critical infrastructure initiatives. In addition to fueling economic development, NYCRC offerings have enabled over 5,600 individuals to become permanent residents of the United States through the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program. About the New Markets Tax Credit Program Established by Congress in 2000, the New Markets Tax Credit Program assists economically distressed communities attract private investment capital. This federal tax credit helps to fill project financing gaps by enabling investors to make larger investments than would otherwise be possible. Communities benefit from the jobs associated with investments in manufacturing, retail, and technology. Communities also benefit from greater access to housing and public facilities in health, education, and childcare. Through the New Market Tax Credit Program, the U.S. Department of Treasury allocates tax credit authority to Community Development Entities (CDEs) through a competitive application process. CDEs are financial intermediaries through which investment capital flows from an investor to a qualified business located in a low-income community. CDEs use their authority to offer tax credits to investors in exchange for equity in the CDE. The tax credit provided to the investor totals 39 percent of the cost of the investment and is claimed over a seven-year period. With these capital investments, CDEs can make loans and investments to businesses operating in distressed areas that have better rates, terms, and flexibility than the market. For every $1 invested by the federal government, the New Market Tax Credit Program generates over $8 of private investment. Since 2001, $62.9 billion in New Market Tax Credits have been invested in low-income communities resulting in the construction or rehabilitation of approximately 239 million square feet of commercial real estate. NYCR-CDE, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Provider. SOURCE New York City Regional Center WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Copper Association (ICA) is pleased to announce the addition of its newest member, Newmont Corporation, following an election to membership by the ICA Board of Representatives in December 2023. Newmont, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, is the world's leading gold company and a producer of copper, zinc, lead and silver. The company's world-class portfolio of assets, prospects and talent is anchored in favorable mining jurisdictions in Africa, Australia, Latin America & Caribbean, North America, and Papua New Guinea. With more than 100 years of history, Newmont is committed to creating value and improving lives through sustainable and responsible mining. The addition of Newmont to ICA comes at a timely moment for the copper industry, as ICA and its members work to provide the building blocks of a modern, sustainable future in alignment with the Paris Agreement goals. As Peter Toth, Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer, Newmont, stated, "We look forward to engaging with the ICA on their efforts to support safe and sustainable production of copper as an essential metal in a way that protects the environment, engages local stakeholders and safeguards the health and well-being of our employees. We are committed to positively contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and look forward to bringing our values of safety, integrity, sustainability, inclusion and responsibility to our partnership with ICA and our growing copper operations." ICA's President Juan Ignacio Diaz added, "We are very happy to welcome Newmont to ICA at this important juncture for global sustainable development. The copper industry plays a critical role in circular and energy-efficient solutions for electrification, renewable energy and green infrastructure. Newmont's values and commitment to the environment make them a strong representative of the copper mining industry." "As the leading voice of the copper industry, the International Copper Association has a long history of supporting its membership to promote the indispensable role of copper in modern society," noted Shehzad Bharmal, ICA Chairman of the Board and Senior Vice President, Base Metals at Teck Resources Limited. "We are excited to have Newmont join the association, further strengthening partnership within the industry toward our shared goals." About Newmont Corporation Newmont is the world's leading gold company and a producer of copper, zinc, lead, and silver. The company's world-class portfolio of assets, prospects and talent is anchored in favorable mining jurisdictions in Africa, Australia, Latin America & Caribbean, North America, and Papua New Guinea. Newmont is the only gold producer listed in the S&P 500 Index and is widely recognized for its principled environmental, social, and governance practices. Newmont is an industry leader in value creation, supported by robust safety standards, superior execution, and technical expertise. Founded in 1921, the company and has been publicly traded since 1925. At Newmont, our purpose is to create value and improve lives through sustainable and responsible mining. To learn more about Newmont's sustainability strategy and initiatives, go to www.newmont.com. About the International Copper Association The International Copper Association (ICA) brings together the global copper industry to develop and defend markets for copper and make a positive contribution to society's sustainable development goals. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., ICA has offices in three primary regions: Asia, Europe and North America. ICA and its Copper Alliance partners are active in more than 60 countries worldwide. For additional information, please visit www.copperalliance.org. Media contact: Nicole Witoslawski, +1 646 350 9968 [email protected] Jennifer Pakradooni Newmont, Media Relations [email protected] SOURCE International Copper Association MOORESTOWN, N.J., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- We're thrilled to announce that Nividous will sponsor and exhibit at the highly anticipated HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition, scheduled for March 11-15, 2024, in Orlando, Florida. Join us alongside our strategic partner, RCG Global Services, at Exhibit Hall #5845. Register here to schedule your meeting with the Nividous team . Join Nividous and RCG Global Services at HIMSS 2024. Experience the latest advancements in health technology and connect with over 40,000 global healthcare professionals attending HIMSS 2024. As a premier event, HIMSS brings together visionary CIOs, executives, health IT experts, innovators, consultants, and industry leaders. It's an unparalleled opportunity to explore innovative healthcare solutions and network with the best in the field. The Nividous team is eager to meet healthcare professionals like you and discuss how we can solve your unique and complex business challenges with Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation, and advanced intelligent automation technologies. Here are your top reasons to meet the Nividous team at HIMSS 2024, Exhibit Hall #5845. 1. Interact one-on-one with our experts during 15 to 30-minute scheduled information sessions at the booth. Topics will include using automation and intelligent document processing for medical coding, and patient records management, claims processing, appointment scheduling, and streamlining patient journeys from start to finish for enhanced operational efficiency and improved patient care. 2. Attend our 20-minute session titled "Intelligent Automation: Transforming Healthcare Operations for Efficiency and Resilience" on Tuesday, March 12, 2024, from 11:15 am to 11:35 am at the exhibit floor in digital health technology park (Booth #6661). Alan Hester, President at Nividous, and Rob Nelson, Head/GM of Health Sciences at RCG Global Services, will discuss how the integration of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) , Low-Code Process Automation, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can revolutionize non-clinical operations in hospitals and healthcare providers. Gain insights into: Increasing business process speed, scalability, accuracy, and compliance. Reducing costs and improving labor productivity. Improving patient experience and satisfaction. Fostering innovation and driving workforce engagement. 3. Dive into real-world success stories demonstrating the Nividous platform's capabilities and business impact, such as: For AEG Vision, a leading eyecare provider in the US, an annual savings of $75M in claims payments and over 250k staff hours. in claims payments and over staff hours. For a leading medical billing company, an 85% improvement in process TAT by eliminating inefficiencies in the claim submission process. For a leading healthcare specialty infusion provider, a 75% increase in productivity with an automated insurance benefits verification process. "HIMSS 2024 marks a pivotal moment for healthcare, where AI automation takes center stage for efficiency, resilience, and improved patient care. We're excited to showcase alongside RCG Global, demonstrating how our combined expertise empowers healthcare organizations to unlock operational excellence and thrive in this evolving landscape," says Alan Hester, President of Nividous. "RCG Global Services, as a Platinum Services Partner, is excited to join Nividous at HIMSS 2024 to drive digital transformation. Our partnership focuses on operational excellence and efficiency, combining RCG's expertise in data engineering and digital strategy with Nividous' innovative platform. Together, we aim to revolutionize healthcare through RPA, AI, and low-code automation in this era of 'Healthcare Unchained'," says Dr. Rob Nelson, Head/GM of Health Sciences at RCG Global Services. Step forward to embrace technology-enabled business success. Please drop by booth #5845 for inspiring conversations. If you wish to connect with us directly, reach out at [email protected] or call +1 (442) 444 2767 . We would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. About Nividous Nividous , a global intelligent automation company, is passionate about enabling organizations to work at their peak efficiency. The Nividous leadership team has decades of experience delivering hundreds of digital process automation solutions to companies and organizations of various sizes worldwide. Leveraging its tremendous domain expertise, the Nividous team offers vertical solutions that are RPA and AI-enabled and built on configurable process automation capabilities to empower businesses to operate with flexibility and agility. Nividous also provides end-to-end professional services that include process discovery, implementation, support, and building Centers of Excellence (CoE). Contact Erik Galardi Director of Channel Partnerships Nividous Software Solutions Call: 442.444.2767 Email: [email protected] Book a meeting: https://calendly.com/erik-galardi About RCG Global Services RCG is a global provider of digital transformation consulting services, combining digital strategy and modern cloud and data technologies to deliver measurable business outcomes for customer engagement, workforce enablement, and operations optimization. RCG helps customers ignite transformational thinking and unlock new value throughout their journey to achieve their digital ambitions. RCG serves Fortune 1000 enterprise clients across various markets, particularly emphasizing the consumer, financial services, insurance, and healthcare industries. RCG is based in Iselin, New Jersey, with offices throughout the United States and offshore delivery centers in the Philippines and India. For more information, please visit rcgglobalservices.com. SOURCE Nividous If we do not stop Russian dictator Vladimir Putin now, he will expand his aggression. The Kremlin is trying to destroy not only Ukrainian independence, but also the international order in which every nation has the right to live freely and deserves respect. ADVERTISIMENT This was warned by President Volodymyr Zelensky in his speech on February 28 in Albania at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Edi Rama following the Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit. The video was posted on the YouTube channel of the President's Office. According to Zelensky, everyone is under threat now. Ukraine is not the only target of the aggressor. "Putin does not respect anyone and does not want to allow anyone to live freely. And this is the meaning of his war. And that is why, if he is not stopped now, he will expand his aggression. Ukraine emphasizes that all of us in Europe must be ready to defend our sovereignty, national dignity and way of life of our peoples," the President said. ADVERTISIMENT Russia has a wide range of tools to destabilize the situation in many countries. Moscow can resort to direct aggression. However, it most often uses hybrid strikes - special political operations to provoke splits in societies through disinformation, economic pressure, the spread of corruption, and the use of energy resources as a political weapon. "We must work together to deprive Russia of the opportunity to break our lives," Zelensky emphasized. ADVERTISIMENT The Ukrainian president thanked Albania for its support and all the state leaders present at the summit for agreeing to participate in the Global Peace Summit scheduled for Switzerland. The guarantor added that Kyiv had reached specific agreements on strengthening our country, in particular, the artillery, following the Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit. To recap: On February 28, President Zelensky paid an unannounced visit to Albania. There, he took part in the Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit in Tirana and held a series of bilateral meetings. At the opening of the summit, the President emphasized that the path of Europe for at least several generations is being determined now. All countries should show their dignity and not stay away from the events in Ukraine. ADVERTISIMENT As OBOZ.UA previously reported, at a press conference in Tirana, the capital of Albania, Volodymyr Zelensky reacted to the discussion by European leaders, initiated by French President Emmanuel Macron, of the scenario of sending troops to our territory. Any initiatives that strengthen Ukraine are good for the whole world, the guarantor said. Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! The investment is made in partnership with ActiveViam's founders and management to support and accelerate continued high-growth and expansion Nordic Capital, a leading investor in banking software, will leverage its long-standing expertise and experience from accelerating digitization of the financial services industry The aim is to realize ActiveViam's potential of improving the ever-growing needs of financial institutions' regulatory compliance and real-time monitoring as well as deep historical analysis of performance, risk management and financial planning NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Nordic Capital announced today it has acquired a majority stake in ActiveViam to support its next phase of growth. The investment is made in close partnership with ActiveViam's founders and management who will invest alongside Nordic Capital. ActiveViam is a leading provider of advanced analytics and decision-making solutions for financial institutions, including risk analytics and regulatory compliance software. The technology is purpose-built, scalable and handles massive datasets in sub-seconds. Founded in 2005 by industry experts, ActiveViam understands the data analytics faced by financial institutions across trading desks, risk and compliance, and its track differentiated core technology outperforms horizontal data aggregation and analytics tools. ActiveViam serves a wide range of financial services organizations: Tier 1 and Tier 2 banks, hedge funds, asset managers, exchanges and regulators. The Company has lined up an extensive group of technology, system integrator, go-to-market and OEM partners, including Google, Accenture, AWS, Deloitte, ClickHouse, S&P Global, Snowflake, and Wolters Kluwer. Financial analytics is a $10.4 billion addressable market growing at 13 percent a year, according to L.E.K. Consulting. Market drivers include continuous regulatory change, a focus on automation of manual processes, and an increasing need for a unified view of data spread across the fragmented IT ecosystem typical for large financial institutions. As an experienced investor in the banking software sector, Nordic Capital aims to leverage its extensive expertise to scale the continued high organic growth of ActiveViam, by investing in the organization, driving continued excellence in R&D and new products, and by supporting partnerships and M&A. Emil Anderson, Partner, Nordic Capital Advisors, said: "We are impressed by the ActiveViam team and what they have achieved: they empower financial organizations to reduce risk and increase revenue by making better decisions, faster. Forty percent of Tier 1 banks worldwide work with ActiveViam technology, and the company has an especially strong footprint in Europe and North America. With Nordic Capital's prior experience in banking software, network of senior advisors, and internal operations resources, Nordic Capital is well positioned to support ActiveViam in its next stage of growth. Nordic Capital is excited about partnering with the founders and management to continue the company's remarkable growth journey." Kathy Perrotte, CEO and Co-Founder, ActiveViam, said, "Nordic Capital's investment is a great opportunity for ActiveViam and great news for our clients, partners and employees. As a large and respected private equity investor, Nordic Capital deploys its significant operational expertise, strategic capabilities and inventive approach to accelerate the growth of the technology leaders it invests in. Nordic Capital recognizes the power, speed and flexibility of the technology our team has created for our financial services clients, and we look forward to their support as we make further advancements and explore acquisition opportunities." Nordic Capital has over 30 years' experience of accelerating growth of innovative technology companies and is set to leverage its deep sub-sector and operational knowledge to create value and further boost the Company's ambitious growth plans. As a leading specialized Technology & Payments investor globally, Nordic Capital has to date made 29 technology investments in companies with an aggregate enterprise value of close to EUR 24 billion. As part of the transaction, Guidepost Growth Equity, which first invested in ActiveViam in 2019, will sell all its shares. Raymond James was the exclusive financial advisor to ActiveViam on this transaction, and Broadhaven acted as financial advisor to Nordic Capital. The parties have agreed that the terms of the transaction will not be disclosed. The transaction was completed on February 27, 2024. About ActiveViam ActiveViam is a pure player specializing in risk data analytics for the financial services sector, one of the fastest moving and most regulated industries. The Company has approximately 160 employees across offices in New York, London, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong, Paris and Frankfurt. ActiveViam has pioneered the use of high-performance analytics in finance, helping the largest investment banks, asset managers and hedge funds make better decisions, explain results with confidence, and simulate the impact of their decisions. ActiveViam's mission is to deliver train-of-thought analysis on terabytes of data in the most cost-effective way so its customers can explain their results with confidence and model the scenarios that will optimize their business. For more information please visit: www.activeviam.com. About Nordic Capital Nordic Capital is a leading sector-specialist private equity investor with a resolute commitment to creating stronger, sustainable businesses through operational improvement and transformative growth. Nordic Capital focuses on selected regions and sectors where it has deep experience and a long history. Focus sectors are Healthcare, Technology & Payments, Financial Services, and Industrial & Business Services. Key regions are Europe and globally for Healthcare and Technology & Payments investments. Since inception in 1989, Nordic Capital has invested EUR 23 billion in 140 investments. The most recent entities are Nordic Capital XI with EUR 9.0 billion in committed capital and Nordic Capital Evolution with EUR 1.2 billion in committed capital, principally provided by international institutional investors such as pension funds. Nordic Capital Advisors have local offices in Sweden, the UK, the US, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and South Korea. For further information about Nordic Capital, please visit www.nordiccapital.com. "Nordic Capital" refers to, depending on the context, any, or all, Nordic Capital branded entities, vehicles, structures, and associated entities. The general partners and/or delegated portfolio managers of Nordic Capital's entities and vehicles are advised by several non-discretionary sub-advisory entities, any or all of which are referred to as "Nordic Capital Advisors." Media contacts: Nordic Capital Katarina Janerud Communications Manager, Nordic Capital Advisors Tel: +46 8 440 50 50 e-mail: [email protected] US media contact - Brunswick Group [email protected] ActiveViam Erica Fidel Vice President, Marketing Tel: +1 646 688 4442 e-mail: [email protected] Hilary Condit Communications Consultant Tel: +1 914 886 5027 [email protected] The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/2166/3935572/2635348.pdf Press release_Nordic Capital _ActiveViam_vF https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/activeviam-rvb-icon,c3272517 ActiveViam-RVB Icon https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/activeviam-rvb,c3272518 ActiveViam-RVB https://news.cision.com/nordic-capital/i/emil-anderson-dsc3465,c3272519 Emil Anderson DSC3465 SOURCE Nordic Capital North Island Credit Union Foundation Makes Debut Grant of $20,000 to Classroom of the Future Foundation Foundation Will Oversee Credit Union's Giving Programs, Totaling More Than $2.5 Million Over the Past Five Years SAN DIEGO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- North Island Credit Union announced today that it has launched the North Island Credit Union Foundation to lead its community outreach and support programs, which have totaled more than $2.5 million over the last five years. A non-profit charitable corporation, the Foundation will focus on partnering with local grassroots organizations and educational institutions through grants, sponsorships, in-kind support and volunteer participation. Dr. Benjamin Churchill, Superintendent of Carlsbad Unified School District/CFF Board Member; North Island Credit Union CEO Steve OConnell; Dr. Paul Gothold, Superintendent of San Diego County Schools; North Island Credit Union Foundation President Marvel Ford; Jane Turk-Schlosberg, CFF Director of Development & Operations; Dr. Tim Baird, Retired Superintendent of Encinitas Union School District/CFF Board Member; Dr. Leighangela Brady, Superintendent of National School District/CFF Board Member. "We have long lived our People Helping People philosophy in our work to strengthen the financial well-being of our communities by providing resources to non-profit partners effecting meaningful change across Southern California," said North Island Credit Union President/CEO Steve O'Connell. "North Island Credit Union Foundation will take this work to the next level in its mission to improve lives and empower our communities to thrive for generations to come." North Island Credit Union Foundation recently made its debut grant of $20,000 to Classroom of the Future Foundation (CFF), an organization the credit union has partnered with for six years. The grant will be used to support CFF's mission to create innovative learning environments in San Diego County public schools as well as its 2024 Innovation in Education Impact Awards recognizing local school initiatives modeling the future of K-12 education. North Island Credit Union Foundation President Marvel Ford said, "We're excited to launch the Foundation to fund the credit union's existing community giving initiatives as well as expand our outreach programs to make a lasting impact on the well-being of our communities. And we can't think of a better way to kick off this effort than through our debut grant to Classroom of the Future Foundation as part of our shared recognition that education is the cornerstone of a healthy community. We look forward to helping build a better future for our communities across Southern California through strategic charitable giving and outreach partnerships." "We are deeply grateful to North Island Credit Union Foundation for the generous grant to support Classroom of the Future Foundation and all the work we do on behalf of San Diego County schools. These funds will make a tremendous difference in helping us bring innovation alive in our schools and ensure every student has the opportunity to gain the skills needed to thrive for a lifetime," said San Diego County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paul Gothold. North Island Credit Union Foundation will focus its resources on grants and investment in four key pillars of long-term community empowerment, including: Investing in Our Community & Our Youth : Supporting grassroots community organizations and empowering leaders of tomorrow through scholarships, literacy activities and investment in local organizations that support their health & well-being. : Supporting grassroots community organizations and empowering leaders of tomorrow through scholarships, literacy activities and investment in local organizations that support their health & well-being. Supporting Educators & Schools: Providing grants to help teachers & schools thrive in our community, support students and recognize their commitment to learning. Providing grants to help teachers & schools thrive in our community, support students and recognize their commitment to learning. Promoting Financial Literacy: Investing in education programs that build financial wellness for youth and adults in our communities for long-term financial empowerment. Investing in education programs that build financial wellness for youth and adults in our communities for long-term financial empowerment. Honoring Our Service Members: Giving strategic grants to programs that assist military service members, their families and veterans, recognizing the service and sacrifice of our nation's heroes. Overseen by a volunteer board of directors, North Island Credit Union Foundation will centralize the credit union's giving programs across its Southern California service areas. North Island Credit Union will fund all administrative costs of the Foundation to ensure 100% of donations are returned back to the communities it serves. To contribute to the Foundation or learn more, please visit ccu.com/foundation. About North Island Credit Union, a division of California Credit Union California Credit Union is a federally insured, state chartered credit union founded in 1933 with assets of nearly $5 billion, approximately 200,000 members and 25 retail branches. The credit union serves community members and businesses in the California counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura as well as school employees throughout the state. The credit union operates in San Diego and Riverside Counties as North Island Credit Union, a division of California Credit Union. The credit union offers a full suite of consumer, business and investment products and services, including comprehensive consumer checking and loan options, personalized financial planning, business banking, and leading-edge online and mobile banking. California Credit Union is certified as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) with a Low Income Designation, offering inclusive products and services to build financial stability in our underserved communities, including a checking account certified as meeting the Bank On National Account Standards. Visit northisland.ccu.com for more information or follow the credit union on Instagram or Facebook @northislandcu. SOURCE North Island Credit Union CSE:NF OTCQX:NFUNF VANCOUVER, BC, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - Nuclear Fuels Inc. (CSE: NF) (OTCQX: NFUNF) ("Nuclear Fuels" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that the company will be presenting at Red Cloud's Pre-PDAC 2024 Mining Showcase on February 29th and March 1st, The Metals Investor Forum Toronto on March 1st and 2nd, and participating in the PDAC March 3rd to 6th. We invite our shareholders and all interested parties to join us at these events. Pre-PDAC 2024 Mining Showcase The annual conference will take place in-person at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel February 29-March 1, 2024. Michael Collins, CEO, will be presenting on February 29th at 3:20 pm Eastern Standard time. For more information and/or to register for the conference please visit: https://redcloudfs.com/prepdac2024/. Metals Investor Forum Toronto The annual conference will take place in-person at the Delta Hotels Toronto Hotel March 1-March 2, 2024. Michael Collins, CEO, will be presenting on March 1st at 11:40 pm Eastern Standard time. For more information and/or to register for the conference please visit: https://metalsinvestorforum.com/ Prospectors and Developers Association Conference Nuclear Fuels is pleased to participate in the 2024 PDAC Convention in Toronto, Canada. Date: March 3 6, 2024 Location: Investors Exchange, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto, Canada Booth Number: 3150 Booth Hours Sunday, March 3, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm Monday, March 4, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm Tuesday, March 5, 10:00 am - 5:00 pm Wednesday, March 6, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm We look forward to seeing you that these events. If you are unable to attend, please visit us at our website to review our projects and add yourself to our mailing list for the latest news. www.nuclearfuels.energy Kaycee Uranium Project, Wyoming The Kaycee Project in Wyoming's Powder River Basin ("PRB"), Nuclear Fuel's priority project consisting of over 42 square miles of mineral rights over a 33-mile mineralized trend hosting more than 110 miles of identified roll fronts. The Kaycee Project is believed to be the only project in the PRB where all three known historically productive sandstone formations (Wasatch, Fort Union, and Lance) are mineralized and potentially accessible for ISR extraction. The Kaycee Project, under Nuclear Fuels, represents the first time since the early 1980's that the entire district is controlled by one company. Nuclear Fuels acquired the Kaycee Project from enCore Energy Corp., which retains a back-in right for 51% of the project by paying 2.5X the exploration costs and financing the Kaycee project to production (costs recoverable from production) upon Nuclear Fuels establishing a minimum 15 million pound U 3 O 8 43-101 compliant resource. Wyoming is a proven and prolific uranium producer with a pro-energy government and established regulatory regime for the permitting and extraction of uranium through ISR technology. As Wyoming is one of the few "Agreement States" where the federal government and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have ceded regulatory authority to the state government, permitting and advancing uranium projects is more efficient and streamlined as compared to most other states. Wyoming, with over 250 million pounds of historic production, ranks as the state with the second most uranium production to date; most of which has been through the ISR method since 1990; predominantly from the PRB. The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mark Travis, CPG., a contractor to the Company, and a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101. About Nuclear Fuels Inc. Nuclear Fuels Inc. is committed to aggressive exploration of district-scale In-Situ Recovery ("ISR") uranium projects in proven and prolific jurisdictions. Focused on its priority Kaycee Project, located in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, our goal is to advance the project onto a path to production. enCore Energy Corp., under certain circumstances, maintains the right to back-in to 51% ownership by paying the Company 2.5X its exploration expenditures and financing the project to production (recoverable from production). With existing historic resources through a 33-mile trend, 110+ miles of mapped roll-fronts and 3,800 drill holes, Nuclear Fuels has secured the district under one company's control for the first time since the early 1980's. Nuclear Fuels also provides a unique model for development of our other uranium projects and has established a pipeline of future opportunities in well established uranium districts. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed this press release and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Certain information in this news release constitutes forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Any statements that are contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as "may", "should", "anticipate", "expect", "potential", "believe", "intend" or the negative of these terms and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements relating to planned exploration programs and the results of additional exploration work in seeking to establish mineral resources as defined in NI43-101 on any of our properties. Forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including, without limitation, risks associated with the completing planned exploration programs and the results of those programs; the ability to access additional capital to fund planned and future operations; regulatory risks including exploration permitting; risks associated with title to our mineral projects; the ability of the company to implement its business strategies; and other risks including risks contained in documents available for review at www.sedar.com under the Company's profile. Readers are 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. SOURCE Nuclear Fuels Inc. NASSAU, Bahamas, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- OKX , a leading global Web3 technology company and crypto exchange, today enhanced its Copy Trading tool with the addition of 'Smart Sync,' an innovative feature that mirrors the trades of lead traders, with order margins being determined by the lead trader's margin and the copy trader's available funds. This replication encompasses the trader's position size, margin and actual position, all without the requirement to manually adjust parameter settings. After calculating the percentage difference between a user's position and trading account size in real-time, Smart Sync automatically applies this percentage to the copy trader's account to determine the position size, effectively synchronizing trade parameters such as leverage, margin and pair settings. For example, if a lead trader has an account size of 10,000 USDT and places a 1,000 USDT position, this represents a 10% position size relative to the total account size. A copy trader who has activated Smart Sync and has an account size of 1,000 USDT would then copy the trade at 10% of their account size, resulting in a 100 USDT copy trade position size. This happens automatically, eliminating the need for manual adjustments and helps to reduce the risk of error, significantly streamlining the user experience for both copy traders and lead traders. Smart Sync is introduced as the third mode in OKX's Copy Trading ecosystem, complementing the other two modes: 'Fix Contract Copy' and 'Proportionate Ratio Copy.' In the Fix Contract Copy and Proportionate Ratio Copy modes, funds from a single source can be distributed across multiple lead traders on a first-come, first-served basis whenever a lead trader executes a trade. In contrast, Smart Sync is designed to automatically lock funds to a single lead trader. This prevents copy traders' funds from being used across multiple lead traders, which helps less experienced users protect their funds from the risk of over-leverage through distribution. This not only reduces trading frequency but also ensures a more sustainable longevity rate compared to the other two modes, making it a beginner-friendly choice. OKX Global Chief Commercial Officer Lennix Lai said: "The launch of Smart Sync is a testament to our ongoing innovation and leadership in the automated trading space. With Smart Sync, we're ensuring that our users can trade with confidence. Additionally, our new feature simplifies users' copy trading experience and enhances risk management. This latest upgrade to our Copy Trading ecosystem introduces a new mode that differs from the existing ones, enabling the product to cater to a more diverse group of copy traders - all with different levels of risk and parameter preferences." On November 10, OKX launched its 'Spot Copy Trading' feature. It is one of the few exchanges offering this feature. Spot Copy Trading enables OKX users to explore more trading opportunities by accessing both spot and futures markets, and serves as an optimal choice for users who seek the deep liquidity and stability that OKX provides while exclusively focusing on spot copy trading. OKX's Copy Trading comes with a range of unique features that set it apart from other copy trading platforms on the market. It is the only tool of its kind to offer both "one-way" and "hedge" position modes for the futures market. This means traders can choose to hold positions in only one direction or maintain both long and short positions concurrently, providing them with more flexibility in their trading approach. For further information, please contact: [email protected] About OKX OKX is a leading global crypto exchange and innovative Web3 company. Trusted by more than 50 million global users, OKX is known for being the fastest and most reliable crypto trading app for traders everywhere. As a top partner of English Premier League champions Manchester City FC, McLaren Formula 1, Olympian Scotty James, and F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo, OKX aims to supercharge the fan experience with new engagement opportunities. OKX is also the top partner of the Tribeca Festival as part of an initiative to bring more creators into web3. The OKX Wallet is the platform's latest offering for people looking to explore the world of NFTs and the metaverse while trading GameFi and DeFi tokens. OKX is committed to transparency and security and publishes its Proof of Reserves on a monthly basis. To learn more about OKX, download our app or visit: okx.com SOURCE OKX Exiting Workers Cost Businesses $36,295 Annually Latest Results from The Harris Poll OKLAHOMA CITY, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Thirty-three percent of U.S. hiring managers anticipate employee turnover at their company to increase in the next year, costing an average of $36,295 (e.g., cost to rehire, lost productivity) annually. Significantly, more than 20% of hiring managers say that number climbs to $100,000 or higher. Reasons for Increased Employee Turnover in 2024 This is according to a recent Express Employment Professionals-Harris Poll survey. For those who anticipate increased turnover in 2024, many point to better pay/benefits offered elsewhere (38%), increased workplace demands (35%), employees resigning (33%), employee feelings of being overworked (31%) and the competitive job market (26%) as the cause. Around a quarter believe it will be due in part to better perks being offered elsewhere (e.g., summer Fridays, unlimited vacation days) (23%), employees being terminated (23%), employees retiring (23%) and better company culture elsewhere (21%). Turnover Fallout Turnover not only takes a toll on the company, but also the remaining employees nearly three-quarters of hiring managers (73%) say employee turnover places a heavy burden on existing employees. In an effort to counteract this turnover and perhaps give some reprieve to their employees, the overwhelming majority of companies (88%) are making plans to hire next year a significant increase since last year (81%). Typically, companies are hiring either to increase their overall employee count (45%) or to keep the same level of employees (36%). Building Blocks for Turnover Solutions In any business, turnover is unavoidable. Employee movement within the workforce is natural and can be attributed to various factors. From affecting productivity to engagement, excessive turnover can wreak havoc on even the most established business' ability to stay competitive. While best retention practices come in many shapes and sizes, they're all linked by the same basic ideaemployees are a company's most valuable asset. Express has identified eight building blocks for turnover solutions with full details available at ExpressPros.com/TurnoverSolutions: Understanding That Turnover is a Balance: Turnover can be healthy for an organization to an extent such as underperforming team members, someone has checked out with retirement on the horizon, or an employee lacking motivation because they aren't happy in their role. The Cost of Turnover: Studies show the actual cost to replace an employee is significant. Depending on a variety of factors including skill level, education and experience the total cost of turnover can be as high as 150% of an employee's annual salary. Understand the Expectations of Turnover: Acknowledging that turnover is common in the employment cycle, organizations that delve into the complexity of expected turnover rates gain a pivotal advantage in proactive management. Avoid Retention Roadblocks: Positive retention habits are the best defense against negative turnover. Time wasters can impede progress and reduce the effectiveness of turnover management efforts. Creating a Culture that Prevents Turnover: While the upfront costs may seem significant, the long-term benefits can outweigh the expenses prioritize maintaining the well-being and job satisfaction of your employees. Employee Engagement is Key: Programs that foster a positive and inclusive workplace culture, provide opportunities for professional development and recognize and reward employee contributions can improve engagement. Manage Employees' Expectations of Success: It's critical to be upfront with expectations to help mitigate turnover and ensure employees are prepared to stay. Support a Multi-Generational Friendly Workplace: As organizations strive to create inclusive environments that cater to the needs and preferences of individuals spanning different age groups, they will learn how to leverage the collective strengths of diverse experiences as an opportunity to improve. "High turnover in the booming jobs market of the past few years has led to a strained workforce that is stressed and burned out," said Bill Stoller, Express Employment International CEO. "With data showing more employees are remaining in place, now is the perfect time to create retention tactics to stabilize headcount with top talent." Survey Methodology The Job Insights survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals between Oct. 31 and Nov. 10, 2023, among 1,007 U.S. hiring decision-makers. For full survey methodologies, please contact [email protected], Director of Corporate Communications & PR. If you would like to arrange for an interview to discuss this topic, please contact [email protected], Director of Corporate Communications & PR. About Bill Stoller William H. "Bill" Stoller is chairman and chief executive officer of Express Employment International. Founded in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the international staffing franchisor supports the Express Employment Professionals franchise and related brands. The Express franchise brand is an industry-leading, international staffing company with franchise locations in the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. About Express Employment Professionals At Express Employment Professionals, we're in the business of people. From job seekers to client companies, Express helps people thrive and businesses grow. Our international network of franchises offers localized staffing solutions to the communities they serve across the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, employing 579,000 people globally in 2022 and more than 10 million since its inception. For more information, visit ExpressPros.com. SOURCE Express Services dba Express Employment Professionals "PEBBLES fans' love extends well beyond the breakfast table. Our fans are true kids at heart who infuse creativity into every aspect of their lives, so teaming up with Susan Alexandra, a woman-owned business known for whimsical, food-forward fashion designs, is the perfect way to celebrate the launch of Berry PEBBLES cereal," says Joe Christenson, Senior Brand Manager at Post Consumer Brands. "We're thrilled to work with Susan Alexandra on this collection, bringing to life the colorful, joyful, fun experience of indulging in a bowl of PEBBLES cereal." On sale Feb. 28 exclusively on susanalexandra.com, the Susan Alexandra x PEBBLES collection features three, out-of-the-box and multi-sensory designs. Berry PEBBLES Breakfast Vignette Bag Bound to be the hottest accessory at the brunch table, this vintage-inspired, breakfast tablescape bag is perfect for the ultimate cereal fan. The sequin and seed-beaded bag features a magnetic snap closure and satin lining (MSRP $275 ). Bound to be the hottest accessory at the brunch table, this vintage-inspired, breakfast tablescape bag is perfect for the ultimate cereal fan. The sequin and seed-beaded bag features a magnetic snap closure and satin lining (MSRP ). Tutti-Fruity Berry Bag Charm Inspired by the Berry PEBBLES cereal colors and delicious, sweet berry flavor, this "Tutti Fruity" Berry PEBBLES charm is a sweet addition to your bag or key ring (MSRP $88 ). Inspired by the Berry PEBBLES cereal colors and delicious, sweet berry flavor, this "Tutti Fruity" Berry PEBBLES charm is a sweet addition to your bag or key ring (MSRP ). Berry PEBBLES Cereal Bowl Bag Charm Flaunt your love of PEBBLES with this stunning beaded charm featuring a bowl of Berry PEBBLES cereal complete with a silver beaded spoon (MSRP $88 ). The eye-catching, creative and whimsical designs let PEBBLES cereal and Susan Alexandra fans alike express their kid-at-heart energy and creativity through food and fashion. "In the vibrant tapestry of creativity, where color meets flavor, and imagination intertwines with taste, the collaboration between Susan Alexandra and PEBBLES cereal is a natural symphony of joy," says Susan Korn, founder and creative director of Susan Alexandra. "Our partnership effortlessly blends the bold and the sweet, creating a sensory celebration that transcends the boundaries of art and breakfast and paints a picture of pure delight!" PEBBLES and Susan Alexandra will also give fans a chance to win the collection through a giveaway on the PEBBLES cereal Instagram (@pebblescereal). Follow @pebblescereal for more information. The new Berry PEBBLES cereal is a long-term flavor extension within the PEBBLES cereal portfolio. It is available now in the grocery aisles of retailers nationwide alongside fan-favorites: Fruity and Cocoa PEBBLES cereal. For more information on PEBBLES cereal and the PEBBLES cereal portfolio, please visit the brand at postpebblescereal.com and on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook (@pebblescereal). About PEBBLES PEBBLES cereal rocks! Amazing flavors, crispy crunchy rice, and iconic characters all come together perfectly to create a timeless breakfast classic. Fruity, Cocoa, and our special limited-edition flavors have been making mornings more fun for kids and grown-ups alike for over 50 years. Since the first bowl of PEBBLES cereal was poured in 1971 to today, the brand has captured hearts and minds, growing in the process to become the No. 1 selling kids' cereal brand with more than 1.4 billion bowls eaten annually. PEBBLES cereal celebrated its 50th birthday in 2021! One of the most revered cartoons of all time, The Flintstones aired from 1960-1966, and they have returned in countless specials and films. PEBBLES cereal, named for Fred and Wilma's daughter, was the first brand ever created around a media character. For more information on PEBBLES cereal, visit www.postpebblescereal.com . About Susan Alexandra SUSAN ALEXANDRA is a lifestyle brand rooted in inclusivity, joy, connection, and color. Best known for beaded bags and jewelry, SA opened its first NYC flagship store in 2021 and branched into new categories such as pet, judaica and homeware. SA has been spotted on celebrities and influencers around the globe and has gained a cult-like, devotional following. Susan Alexandra prides itself on creations that are both iconic and approachable. Founder SUSAN KORN is driven to create things that dazzle, whether designing a bag in the shape of a martini glass or piece of jewelry dripping in beaded fruit, the effect is at once exciting, nostalgic, and irreverent. Susan is passionate about food - both cooking and consuming - traveling to undiscovered corners of the world, rescuing animals, film, and comedy. Contact: Kelsey Zibell [email protected] SOURCE Post Consumer Brands Award-winning Detroit School Excels Using Placement and Parental Partnership GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Schools have unique personalities, created in large part by the community they serve. One Detroit-area school, Pembroke Academy, has carved out its niche for placing student achievement and parental partnership at the top of its list of goals and educators there are receiving accolades for their success. Pembroke Academy leaders pose for a photo after being awarded Central Michigan Universitys Innovation and Vision Award. From left: Middle School Dean Rachal Hetzel, Principal Salwa Kinsey, Upper Elementary Dean Kyle Worden, and Lower Elementary Dean Shena Hill-Scott. A recent award by the state of Michigan helps tell the tale. The school, part of the National Heritage Academies (NHA) network, was recently honored with Reward School status, a designation given to schools who rank in the top 5 percent in the state for achievement, improvement, or meeting the parameters of "beating the odds," as defined by the state. Ready to enroll your student? National Heritage Academies operates 101 schools in nine states. Use our school finder to locate one near you: NHA School Finder. Pembroke Academy received the award for earning the highest grade in growth and performance among its peers. It's the second-consecutive year they've earned the award. "We were overjoyed when we heard the news," Principal Salwa Kinsey said. "This designation recognizes the efforts by students, staff, and parents and shows the dedication to education by all. Pembroke Academy is such an important part of this community, the work that's done here will impact generations of learners." Pembroke Academy, which opened in 2018, was created to offer Detroit students an innovative educational opportunity. Instead of traditional age-based grade placement, Pembroke assigns students according to reading and math proficiency. New students take the Northwest Evaluation Assessment (NWEA) to properly determine grade-level placement. This allows the school to pinpoint academic strengths and deficiencies for each student. Students at grade-level proficiency in reading are placed in the age-appropriate grade, while students more than one level below grade-level proficiency are placed in the grade best reflecting their instructional level in reading. Students are not placed more than two years below their age-appropriate grade level. "We use multiple assessments during the school year to understand content mastery," Kinsey said. "This ensures teachers know each student's learning level throughout the school year and are providing instruction to close achievement gaps. The teachers are empowered to use that data to help drive their instruction." Teachers pair that knowledge with parental partnership, a key for learning success at Pembroke, and it starts with a special ceremony. "A strong partnership between educators and parents is essential for the students' overall success," she said. "This concept is demonstrated through a symbolic wedding ceremony conducted at the beginning of the school year, where both teachers and parents pledge their commitment through an exchange of vows to work together in the best interests of the students." The vows focus on attributes pivotal to any successful marriage. "We highlight the importance of trusting one another, partnering for the benefit of our students, communicating frequently and honestly, along with a strong, ongoing commitment to this entire process." This unique and innovative approach was received well as everyone walked away with a wedding band as a keepsake from the special event. In addition to Reward School status, Pembroke Academy earned an "A" letter grade in growth and performance among its peers on the 2022-23 Michigan School Grades system and was honored with Central Michigan University's 2023 Charter Schools Innovation and Vision Award. The school has outperformed all Detroit Public Schools on the 2022-23 state test by 62 percentage points in ELA and 52 percentage points in math. In all, 27 National Heritage Academies schools in Michigan were honored with Reward School status for the 2022-23 school year. Want to learn more about how NHA supports teachers and students to achieve at National Heritage Academies partner-schools? Visit nhaschools.com. ABOUT PEMBROKE ACADEMY and NHA: Pembroke Academy is a tuition-free, public charter school in Detroit, Michigan, serving students in Young 5s through eighth grade. It is part of the National Heritage Academies network, which includes 101 tuition-free, public charter schools serving more than 68,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade across nine states. For more information, visit nhaschools.com. To find the nearest charter school near you, use the NHA school finder. SOURCE National Heritage Academies Proposed marine protections would provide resilience to mounting threats to regional wildlife, including penguins WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The highly contagious H5N1 virus, commonly known as avian or bird flu, has been confirmed in two seabirdsboth of them Antarctic skuason the Antarctic Peninsula. And on February 23, scientists from the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research in Madrid confirmed the presence of the deadly virus for the first time on the Antarctic continent. Photo Credit: John B. Weller Since 2021, H5N1 is thought to have killed millions of wild birds globally; marine mammals, such as sea lions and seals, are also susceptible to the virus. Since H5N1 arrived in South America in 2022, more than 500,000 seabirds have died of the disease, with penguins, pelicans, and boobies among the most heavily affected. But H5N1 doesn't only affect birds; it has caused near-complete breeding failure for some colonies of elephant seals. With the virus now confirmed in Antarctica, the only region to not be affected by this latest H5N1 outbreak is Oceania. In a research paper published last November, a group of scientists wrote: "If the virus does start to cause mass mortality events across penguin colonies, it could signal one of the largest ecological disasters of modern times." Andrea Kavanagh, who directs Southern Ocean conservation work for the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy project, said: "The new threat of avian flu, in addition to warming temperatures and the highly concentrated nature of the krill fishery, could be catastrophic for the penguin colonies, other seabirds, and marine mammals found in the Antarctic Peninsula. "The peninsula is one of the fastest warming places on the planet, the region in Antarctica that is most visited by tourists, and the place where the Southern Ocean's most concentrated fishery can be found. Now another threat has landed on its shores. "World leaders must immediately move to protect this vital place and all the animals that call it home. "The commitment these leaders have made to create a network in the region of marine protected areaswhich would cover more than 4.5 million square kilometers (more than 1.7 million square miles) of the Southern Ocean in East Antarctica, the Weddell Sea, and the Antarctic Peninsula itselfis 13 years behind schedule. There is no room for further delay. "We call on leaders to prioritize and implement measures that will secure the future of the Southern Ocean, and its invaluable contributions to the global environment, as part of a drive to set aside a full 30% of the oceans as conservation areas, where fish stocks and marine animals can recover from decades of overfishing and go on to repopulate the rest of the ocean. "Not only can the species found in the Antarctic Peninsula not withstand increasing threats, but the world needs a healthy Southern Ocean ecosystem." The Pew Charitable Trusts and Dona Bertarelli created the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project with the shared goal of establishing the first generation of ecologically significant, large, and effective marine protected areas (MPAs) around the world. Today, the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project also seeks to connect MPAs and help conserve key migratory species and entire marine ecosystems. These efforts build on more than a decade of work by Pew and the Bertarelli Foundation to create large-scale highly or fully protected MPAs. Between them, the organizations have helped to obtain designations or commitments to safeguard nearly 12.6 million square kilometers (4.8 million square miles) of ocean by working with communities, local leaders, philanthropic partners, Indigenous groups, government officials, and scientists. Founded in 1948, The Pew Charitable Trusts uses data to make a difference. Pew addresses the challenges of a changing world by illuminating issues, creating common ground, and advancing ambitious projects that lead to tangible progress, including the need for effective marine conservation. Contact: Barb Cvrkel, 202-510-5670, [email protected] SOURCE The Pew Charitable Trusts PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pew Charitable Trusts announced today that it has selected six distinguished researchers as recipients of the 2024 Pew fellowship in marine conservation. The researchersfrom Canada, China, Denmark, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United Statesjoin a community of more than 200 Pew marine fellows who have undertaken projects to deepen our understanding of the ocean and advance the sustainable use of marine resources. "The world's oceans have never been under greater threat. Humankind relies on healthy oceans in countless ways," said Susan K. Urahn, Pew's president and CEO. "These talented scientists are working to conserve and protect marine species and habitats across the globefrom Africa's coasts to the coral reefs of the western Pacific Ocean." The 2024 fellows will lead innovative projects that help protect and restore crucial ocean habitats; some projects will also improve the sustainability and equitable management of fisheries that feed millions of people. The Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation awards midcareer scientists and other experts $150,000 grants over three years to pursue marine conservation-oriented research projects. Marine fellows are selected by an international committee of marine science and conservation experts through a rigorous nomination and review process. The 2024 fellows are: Rene Abesamis, Ph.D. University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines Rene Abesamis will work with local scientists and members of coastal communities to identify climate-resilient coral reefs in the Philippines and lay the groundwork for their protection. He will also streamline processes for sharing collected data with environmental managers and the national government. Dyhia Belhabib, Ph.D. Ecotrust Canada, Canada Dyhia Belhabib will trace the seafood supply chain in Senegal to understand how illegally caught fish enter the market, who is involved in the trade, how seafood is laundered through activities such as transshipment, and where the fish end up. Using a combination of approaches, she will identify areas where illegal commercial fishing is most prevalent and will work with enforcement agencies to prioritize sites for additional monitoring and intervention. Marine Cusa, Ph.D. Oceana, Denmark Marine Cusa will use genetic tools to improve transparency and sustainability in the European aquaculture sector. Working with a network of scientists, journalists, and representatives from conservation organizations, she will identify the major European aquaculture companies' main fish-meal suppliers and will use genetic techniques to examine their fish feeds' composition, sourcing, and sustainability. James Kar-Hei Fang, Ph.D. Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China James Kar-Hei Fang will rebuild pearl oyster reefs at select sites in Hong Kong's Tolo Channel using oysters cultured in captivity and will use advanced 3D technologies to monitor changes in local biodiversity created by the reefs. He will also use the restored oysters as a biomonitoring tool to assess marine pollution in the city. Christina Hicks, Ph.D. Lancaster University, United Kingdom Christina Hicks will investigate links between international finance and overfishing in four countries in East and West Africa. She will also evaluate barriers and opportunities to develop multilateral policies that could help increase transparency in finance and reduce inequities in decision-making. Emi Uchida, Ph.D. University of Rhode Island, United States Emi Uchida will combine remote sensing data and machine learning tools to identify key drivers of mangrove and seagrass ecosystem loss in the Coral Triangle, a biodiversity-rich region of the western Pacific Ocean, and predict areas that are most at risk of future degradation. Working with 90 communities in Indonesia, she will test the effectiveness of various conservation interventions, including community-led monitoring of coastal habitats. SOURCE The Pew Charitable Trusts BERKELEY, Calif., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pivot Bio, a leading sustainable agriculture company, will bring its expertise to the investment community at the 2024 Bank of America Securities Global Agriculture & Materials Conference. The conference features some of the leading companies in the agriculture industry. Pivot Bio Senior Vice President of Product Innovation Ernie Sanders will speak at the conference on a biologics panel on Feb. 29. Bob Houghton, the company's Chief Financial Officer will also be in attendance participating in meetings with investors during the conference. About Pivot Bio Pivot Bio is a leading sustainable agriculture company delivering farmers patented crop nutrition technologies that harness the power of nature to reliably and productively grow the food the world needs in the face of increasing volatility. Currently available in North America and soon in Brazil, the company's products are a breakthrough innovation. They are among the industry's most promising climate solutions because they deliver nitrogen to plants without the negative impacts of synthetic fertilizer. The company's nitrogen is weatherproof, safer to handle, and does not leach or contribute to nitrous oxide pollution. By making this possible for the first time at scale, Pivot Bio is upending the 190 billion USD nitrogen market. Pivot Bio has been recognized twice by Time magazine on its annual list of best inventions, by Fast Company on its World Changing Ideas and World's Most Innovative Companies lists, by CNBC in its Disruptor 50 list of private companies, and by Fortune on its Impact 20 list of startups driving social good. The company recently announced its fourth consecutive year of growth. For more information, visit PivotBio.com. SOURCE Pivot Bio, Inc Recently, the defenders of Ukrainian skies have been shooting down more and more Russian Su-34 fighters and other enemy aircraft. Most likely, this became possible not because of the arrival of certain types of anti-aircraft missiles, but because of the skill of our air defense units. ADVERTISIMENT This was stated by Ivan Kyrychevsky, a military expert of the Defence Express portal, on the air of Espresso. He emphasized that the question now is not what exactly shot down the Russian planes, but that it was done despite the measures taken by the enemy to counteract Ukrainian air defense. "Our air defense system has learned to operate under constant enemy pressure in the frontline area and has learned to shoot down Russian aircraft. It is unlikely that this intensity of shooting down is due to the arrival of certain types of anti-aircraft missiles. Rather, it is the operational skill of our Air Defense Forces," Kyrychevsky noted. The fact that our air defense forces have learned to shoot down the occupiers' warplanes is evidenced by a number of aircraft lost by the enemy over the past month alone. And on Tuesday, February 27, on the day of intense fighting, the soldiers managed to land two Russian Su-34 aircraft. ADVERTISIMENT The expert also made an assumption about what types of weapons the defenders of the sky could have used for this purpose. "It could be Patriot in various combinations. Even within the FrankenSAM project, they talked about various Western details. Also, some of our structures have stated that we have a "Death Star" called the S-200 complex, which has a declared passport range of up to 250 km. We also have the Italian-French SAMP/T systems, which also have a fairly high range of aerodynamic targets," he said. As reported by OBOZ.UA: - On February 27, Ukrainian soldiers destroyed the second enemy Su-34 bomber-fighter in a day. It was landed, like the first plane, on the eastern front. - The Russian occupation forces have already lost 38 Su-34 aircraft in the war against Ukraine. Over the past month alone (January 29-February 27), the Ukrainian Armed Forces shot down eight fighter-bombers. OBOZ.UA found out what is known about the Su-34 and how many of them Russia has left. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! HONG KONG, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) hosted the "Launch Ceremony of Research Centre for Electric Vehicles cum Forum on Intelligent EV and Energy for Carbon Neutrality" on campus on 26 Feb, in the presence of approximately 350 staff and students, together with leaders from government, innovation and technology, energy and academic sectors. The Research Centre for Electric Vehicles (RCEV) is led by its Director, Prof. C.C. CHAN, who is widely recognised as the "Father of Asian Electric Vehicles", an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Distinguished Chair Professor of the PolyU Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. The Research Centre aims to develop a cutting-edge research platform to address energy and technical challenges presented by modern electric vehicles. Prof. SUN Dong, Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industry, HKSAR Government; and Mr Neil Bush, Founder and Chair of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, delivered opening remarks. Together with Prof. Jin-Guang TENG, PolyU President and Prof. C.C. CHAN, RCEV Director, they congratulated the University on the establishment of the Centre. Prof. Sun Dong said, "The establishment of this new university-level research centre marks a significant step forward in guiding Hong Kong's future direction to attain zero vehicular emissions. By addressing the technical challenges associated with modern electric vehicles, RCEV will provide critical technological solutions that will drive the development and adoption of EVs in Hong Kong and beyond. I am fully confident that RCEV will provide great stimulation to the industry through technological breakthrough." Mr Neil Bush said, "As an electric vehicle driver for five years and a supporter of environmental protection, I congratulate The Hong Kong Polytechnic University on the establishment of the Electric Vehicle Research Centre. Just as the automobile revolution is deepening, the establishment of this centre will have far-reaching impacts. Electric vehicles are not only a means of transportation, they will promote smart transportation, smart energy, smart networks, smart cities, and smart societies. Prof. C.C. Chan's recent book on 'The Integration of Energy, Transportation, Information, and Humanities The Renaissance of Digital Technology' was published by top publisher Elsevier and laid down the foundation of theory and practice for sustainable development." Prof. Jin-Guang Teng stated, "As a leading institution in research and innovation, PolyU has always been at the forefront of addressing societal challenges. The establishment of the Research Centre for Electric Vehicles serves to further our contribution to this important field. The work of the Research Centre will embrace electric vehicle technologies, intelligent transportation systems, and energy management.This holistic approach will result in enhanced energy efficiency, environmental benefits, and the creation of new business opportunities." At the Launch Ceremony, Memorandums of Understanding were signed between the RCEV, and China Power International Development Limited and Wisdom Motor (HK) Limited respectively. These aim to initiate actions in line with the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Development Blueprint and Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, so as to contribute to the development of the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Co-operation Zone and the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone. As well as Prof. C.C. Chan, a number of distinguished guests delivered keynote speeches at the Forum. They were Mr Peter Major, Chair of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development and Honorary Chairman of the World Digital Technology Academy; Prof. Yin-biao SHU, Immediate Past President of the International Electrotechnical Commission and President of Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering; Dr Gan SONG, Director of Advanced Technology R&D Department of BYD; Mr Joseph LAW, Managing Director of CLP Power Hong Kong; and Mr Eric PANG, Director of the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, HKSAR Government. Prof. C.C. Chan emphasised that it is an opportune time to capitalise on the massive opportunities in electric vehicle research and education. The establishment of the RCEV is geared towards nurturing innovative electric vehicle talents to benefit the Greater Bay Area and the world, while enhancing collaborative efforts with enterprises in mainland China and Hong Kong. The Centre will focus on cutting-edge research on electric vehicles and the friendly interaction between electric vehicles, power grids and 5G networks. It is also set to develop a platform to foster industry-university-research collaboration, thereby catalysing the industrialisation of research outcomes that help achieve higher efficiency, security, reliability and intelligence in electric vehicle technologies. In his closing remarks at the Forum, Prof. Christopher CHAO, PolyU Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Director of the Policy Research Centre for Innovation and Technology (PReCIT), mentioned that PolyU has been paying strong attention to carbon neutrality and is leading in securing Green Tech Fund and Environment and Conservation Fund among all local institutions. PReCIT is pleased to co-organise the event and join the forum. It has also recently secured a Public Policy Research Fund to study hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and electric vehicle related policies. PolyU would continue to strive for excellence in education, research and knowledge dissemination, thereby making significant contributions to the progress of the Nation, while also journeying toward a more sustainable future and achievement of the goal of carbon neutrality. For more photos, please visit https://polyu.me/3TgtBHw. SOURCE The Hong Kong Polytechnic University ALLENTOWN, Pa., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Priority Tire earned a ranking on Inc. magazine's prestigious fourth annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Southeast list, which they revealed today. This is the ranking of the fastest-growing Southeast private companies based in South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Puerto Rico. The regional list is the segmentation of the annual Inc. 5000 franchise, which provides a different view of the Southeast economy's independent small businesses. Priority Tire Ranks on Inc. Magazine's List of the Southeast Region's Fastest-Growing Private Companies in 2024 Companies that earned a placement on this list, counting Priority Tire, have shown an exceptional rate of growth in their respective industries in the Southeast region. As of February 27, 2024, the complete results of the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Southeast can be found at inc.com/Southeast . This includes company profiles and an interactive database that can sort them based on industry, metro area, and other criteria. Priority Tire, a tire retailer which was established in 2004, has its headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida. With its two-year revenue growth, the company greatly contributed to the economic growth of the Southeast region. Altogether, between 2020 and 2022, the 223 private companies that made it onto the pristine list enjoyed an average growth rate of 166.43 percent, and by 2023, they added 20,496 jobs and $8.8 billion to the region's economy. The 2024 Inc. 5000 Regionals were ranked according to the percentage revenue growth when comparing 2020 and 2022. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2020. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent (i.e.: not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies) as of December 31, 2022. About Priority Tire: Priority Tire is an online tire retailer that was established in 2004. The company originally launched from Allentown, Pennsylvania, but has since acquired three more warehouses in Coppell, Texas, Jacksonville, and Orlando, Florida. Priority Tire deals with the sale and distribution of versatile tire types on the US tire market. Apart from the everyday categories of passenger, SUV, and light truck tires, specialty tires can also be found on the Priority Tire website. Visit www.prioritytire.com for more information. Contact: Anna Fodor 610-776-9433 373622@email4pr.com SOURCE Priority Tire San Francisco Bay Area's Premier Brokerage Welcomes Wine Country's Top Talent NAPA, Calif., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Top real estate agent Damian Archbold has joined Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty in its Wine Country region, a move that pairs one of the premier real estate advisors in Wine Country's Napa Valley region with the most distinguished global brand in luxury real estate. "I am thrilled to join a brokerage and a brand that is one of the most trusted names in the world, and to offer my clients the added depth and breadth that Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty offers, both locally and around the globe," says Archbold. Damian Archbold Prior to real estate, Damian's notable career spans over three decades, as a CEO, entrepreneur, and investment banker experience that provides a wealth of invaluable expertise. For the past decade he has focused on his real estate career offering clients unparalleled guidance and support. Backed by a strong work ethic and a deep understanding of fiduciary responsibility, Damian instills confidence in his clients throughout the buying and/or selling process. "We are delighted to welcome Damian to our brokerage. His reputation, professionalism and deep connection to Napa Valley and the community make him a valuable addition to our Wine Country region of top agents. We are excited to join forces and support his promising career, service to his clients, and for our brand to further elevate Damian's business to the next level," says Kevin Daniel Dwyer, Chief Marketing Officer, Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty. Damian prioritizes transparency and acts as a trusted fiduciary, with specialized expertise in assessing the long-term financial value of properties, particularly within the wine industry. He has had the privilege of representing esteemed vineyard, winery, and residential properties, notably, Damian represented the record-breaking sale of Seven Stones Winery for $34 million, a testament to his valued expertise. "Damian is an extremely focused, respected agent with deep local knowledge and connections to many of Napa Valley's high-net-worth-individuals. He is a fabulous addition to our company, and I look forward to partnering with Damian on many of my finest vineyard property and estates in Wine Country," says Olivia Decker, co-founder of part owner of Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty. For more information, visit: DamianArchboldGroup.com Damian Archbold Phone: (707) 339-3550 Email: [email protected] Lic.# 00984748 For media inquiries, please email [email protected] About Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty: Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty has over 485 agents in 21 offices throughout the San Francisco Bay Area serving the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and San Francisco. For more information, please visit www.GoldenGateSIR.com SOURCE Golden Gate Sothebys International Realty NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Amherst Group ("Amherst"), a real estate investment, development, and operating platform, today announced that Evan Levy has joined the firm as Vice Chairman and member of the Executive Committee, effective immediately. In this newly created role, Mr. Levy will work alongside Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Investment Officer Sean Dobson on strategic and operational initiatives as the firm continues to evolve and expand upon its growing platform. He will be based out of the firm's New York City office. Evan Levy Mr. Levy brings nearly three decades of industry expertise representing and advising some of the largest national and international real estate companies on their most complex real estate transactions. He joins Amherst from international law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP ("Weil") where he has served as Co-Head of the firm's Real Estate Group since 2019. While at Weil, Mr. Levy was recognized twice as a Law360 Real Estate MVP, and his team was recognized three times as the Law360 Real Estate Practice Group of the Year, among other national and international awards. Prior to Weil, Mr. Levy spent 21 years at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where he also was recognized as a Law360 Real Estate MVP and held senior management positions, including serving on the firm's management committee, chairing the firm's global finance and audit committee, and leading the firm's real estate capital market practice. He has been repeatedly recognized as a leading lawyer in real estate finance by Chambers and Partners. "As one of the foremost experts and real estate lawyers in the industry, Evan is uniquely positioned to identify and capitalize on strategic initiatives that further optimize our investment platform," said Mr. Dobson. "Adding a leader of Evan's caliber demonstrates the strength of Amherst's platform and growth potential, and I am thrilled to welcome him to our team." "Having worked closely with Sean Dobson for over a decade, I've experienced firsthand the power of the Amherst platform at work," said Mr. Levy. "The team's unique ability to identify and capture high-barrier, high-complexity investment opportunities that generate alpha at scale is what drove me to Amherst, and I look forward to playing a role in the continued strategic evolution of the firm as a real estate and capital markets leader." Mr. Levy received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Albany. He earned his Master of Business Administration from Union College and his Juris Doctor from Albany Law School of Union University. About Amherst The Amherst Group ("Amherst") is a diversified data-driven investment management platform at the crossroads of global capital markets and U.S. real estate, offering strategies up and down the real estate capital stack. Amherst manages $18 billion* of AUM deployed across real estate equity and debt strategies in single-family rental (SFR), commercial real estate (CRE), and mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Today, Amherst has more than 1,000 global personnel working to create value and provide an excellent experience for the investors, residents, and communities it serves. To learn more, visit Amherst.com. *As of September 30, 2023 Media Contact: Taylor Evans, Director of External Communications [email protected] SOURCE The Amherst Group VANCOUVER, BC, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd. (the "Company" or "ReconAfrica") (TSXV: RECO) (OTCQX: RECAF) (Frankfurt: 0XD) announces that, subject to court approval, it has reached a global settlement of the class action lawsuits pending against the Company in the United States and Canada. As previously disclosed in the Company's October 28, 2021 and February 4, 2022 press releases, three purported shareholder class action complaints were filed against the Company and certain of its current and former officers and directors in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. One of the complaints was voluntarily dismissed and the other two were consolidated by the court as In re: Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd. Securities Litigation, No. 1:21-CV-06176-NM-RML (E.D.N.Y.) (the "U.S. Action"). Subsequently, as disclosed in the Company's May 26, 2023 press release, a purported shareholder class action complaint was filed against the Company in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The case is captioned Bowles v. Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd., No. S233808 (Can. B.C. Sup. Ct.) (the "Canadian Action"). Following a mediation between the Plaintiffs and the Defendants in both the U.S. Action and the Canadian Action, the parties entered into a global settlement agreement to resolve both cases (the "Settlement"). The parties have filed a motion seeking preliminary court approval of the Settlement of the U.S. Action and expect a similar motion to be filed as to the Canadian Action shortly. If preliminary orders are granted by both courts, the Plaintiffs will send notice of the Settlement to potential class members. Subject to certain conditions set forth in the Settlement, the parties expect to seek final approval of the Settlement from both courts after the applicable notice periods. The Settlement will not be final unless both courts grant final approval. The Company cannot provide any assurance that the Settlement will obtain the necessary approvals and satisfy the conditions and requirements necessary for it to become final. None of the Defendants are admitting any liability, wrongdoing, or fault as part of the Settlement. The Settlement, if approved, is within our insured limits and will not result in any direct financial impact to the Company. About ReconAfrica ReconAfrica is a Canadian oil and gas company engaged in the opening of the newly discovered deep Kavango Sedimentary Basin in the Kalahari Desert of northeastern Namibia and northwestern Botswana, where the Company holds petroleum licenses comprising ~8 million contiguous acres. In all aspects of its operations ReconAfrica is committed to minimal disturbance of habitat in line with international standards and will implement environmental and social best practices in all of its project areas. 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. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information under applicable Canadian, United States and other applicable securities laws, rules and regulations, including, without limitation, statements with respect to the parties expecting to file a similar motion to the one filed in the U.S. seeking preliminary court approval of the Settlement as to the Canadian Action shortly; if preliminary orders are granted by both courts, the Plaintiffs sending notice of the Settlement to potential class members; the parties expecting to seek final approval of the Settlement from both courts after the applicable notice periods; and the Company's commitment to minimal disturbance of habitat, in line with best international standards and its implementation of environmental and social best practices in all of its project areas. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on ReconAfrica's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as the Company's actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of the factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section in the Company's annual information form dated December 4, 2023, available under the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca. Actual future results may differ materially. Various assumptions or factors are typically applied in drawing conclusions or making the forecasts or projections set out in forward-looking information. Those assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to ReconAfrica. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and ReconAfrica undertakes no obligation 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 Reconnaissance Energy Africa Ltd. MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Niobrara County, Wyoming is the top paying county in the United States, according to new research from smarter job search engine Adzuna . The data uncovers the highest paying counties across the US, showcasing key regions offering competitive wages to attract top talent and foster economic growth. Niobrara County in Wyoming leads the nation with an average advertised salary of $192,000, followed by Hyde County in North Carolina at $175,000 and Major County in Oklahoma at $139,400. Average advertised salary by US county based on over 8 million job postings on Adzuna.com in January 2024 Other top paying counties include Bennett County in South Dakota with an average advertised salary of $139,200, Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area in Alaska with $131,312, Clinton County in Kentucky with $130,233 and Choctaw County in Mississippi with $130,233. James Neave, Head of Data Science at job search engine Adzuna, comments, "Making six figures is not a dream if you know where to look for them. Our Adzuna data shows that there are 83 counties in the US with average advertised salaries surpassing $100,000, and many of them are scattered in the Midwest. Of the 3,177 counties, Niobrara County from Wyoming and North Carolina's Hyde County have the most lucrative opportunities, paying jobseekers close to $200,000 on average. With some states planning to raise their minimum wages this year, we expect to see an increase in the average pay. Jobseekers who are strapped for cash and are open to relocation can be strategic by applying for jobs in these highest-paying states." Table 1: Top 10 Highest Paid Counties in the US County State Average advertised salaries, Jan 2024 Advertised vacancies, Jan 2024 Niobrara County Wyoming $192,000 497 Hyde County North Carolina $175,000 119 Major County Oklahoma $139,400 807 Bennett County South Dakota $139,200 134 Prince of Wales-Hyder Census Area Alaska $131,312 1,732 Clinton County Kentucky $130,233 1,355 Choctaw County Mississippi $130,233 798 Benton County South Carolina $130,000 9 Foster County North Dakota $129,869 978 *Maps for specific states are available upon request. As the data delves deeper into regional job markets, it becomes evident that each state presents unique challenges and opportunities. For example, while jobseekers and remote workers reside everywhere, there's a larger corporate presence in influential states such as New York, California, and Florida. New York In the Empire State, Chenango County (Norwich) emerges as the county with the highest salary offerings, with an average advertised salary of $126,843. New York County, otherwise known as Manhattan , boasts an average of $97,068. Other noteworthy counties include Kings County (Brooklyn), with an average of $92,361, Schenectady County with an average of $90,476, and Broome County with an average of $89,987. California The study identifies Lassen County (Susanville) as the highest paid county in California, offering an average salary of $117,711, making it an attractive destination for job candidates seeking lucrative opportunities. Other desirable counties in California include Modoc County with an average salary of $114,376, Del Norte County with an average of $101,058, Madera County with an average of $98,774, and Marin County with an advertised average salary of $98,051. Florida Adzuna's data spotlights Liberty County (Bristol) as Florida's top-paying destination, boasting an advertised average salary of $113,600, which is indicative of the state's promising avenues for professional growth. Following closely behind are Holmes County at $106,760, Franklin County at $103,385, Lafayette County at $96,000, and Calhoun County at $88,158. Commenting on the salary trend in New York, California and Florida, James Neave says, "Chenango County's emergence as the county with the highest salary offerings in New York may come as a surprise to some, given the high cost of living in Manhattan and the following assumption of New York City's high average salary. However, while Chenango County will have some of the highest salaries and jobs available for doctors, surgeons, and roles in finance, there are also many lower income roles in this area. Adzuna's data showcases the nature of the state's job market, where high paying opportunities extend beyond metropolitan areas. While New York City does boast an average advertised salary of $97,068, other noteworthy counties such as Kings County, Schenectady County, and Broome County highlight the diversity of high-paying regions across the state." Below is a look at the average advertised salaries as of January 2024 in New York, California and Florida. Table 2: Highest Paid Counties in New York, Florida, and California State County Average advertised salaries, Jan 2024 Advertised vacancies, Jan 2024 California Lassen County $117,711 2,336 Modoc County $114,376 1,929 Del Norte County $101,058 2,465 Madera County $98,774 4,975 Marin County $98,051 21,393 San Francisco County $97,224 83,900 Tuolumne County $95,283 3,225 Imperial County $95,242 11,007 Alameda County $93,049 101,381 Plumas County $91,433 2,875 Lake County $91,024 4,424 San Joaquin County $90,918 43,308 Los Angeles County $90,434 496,297 Kings County $89,849 5,765 Santa Clara County $89,354 168,740 Mariposa County $89,280 678 Kern County $89,230 38,378 Sacramento County $88,970 86,490 Riverside County $88,901 95,444 San Mateo County $88,646 68,643 Butte County $88,583 13,673 Contra Costa County $88,522 56,448 Merced County $88,342 12,449 Mendocino County $88,329 5,712 Shasta County $88,055 12,597 Fresno County $87,151 46,926 Stanislaus County $87,006 24,323 San Bernardino County $86,897 95,924 Tulare County $86,853 18,744 Orange County $86,473 173,066 Santa Cruz County $86,003 14,923 Humboldt County $85,973 11,476 Yuba County $85,487 7,261 Glenn County $85,268 2,176 Inyo County $84,365 1,852 San Diego County $84,032 176,045 Monterey County $84,017 23,089 San Luis Obispo County $83,822 17,696 Ventura County $83,332 41,729 Yolo County $83,150 12,173 Solano County $82,969 23,885 Sonoma County $81,909 27,542 Tehama County $81,873 3,112 Sierra County $81,350 333 Trinity County $80,656 656 Napa County $79,649 9,427 Santa Barbara County $79,387 28,998 Placer County $78,564 21,935 Duval County $74,655 31,372 Colusa County $74,200 2,066 Mono County $72,766 1,781 Amador County $71,439 3,157 Nevada County $69,154 6,799 El Dorado County $65,074 9,898 Brewster County $64,704 233 Sutter County $63,626 1,753 Siskiyou County $62,707 4,179 Calaveras County $62,184 2,084 Alpine County $61,200 510 San Benito County $59,263 2,475 Florida Liberty County $113,600 331 Holmes County $106,760 1,210 Franklin County $103,385 1,434 Lafayette County $96,000 590 Calhoun County $88,158 1,195 Flagler County $87,391 5,541 Gilchrist County $87,320 683 Volusia County $86,440 37,999 St. Lucie County $85,222 12,844 Sarasota County $84,710 26,861 Miami-Dade County $82,835 148,883 Hamilton County $82,254 931 Marion County $82,173 20,235 Dixie County $81,960 885 Escambia County $81,618 21,506 Broward County $81,084 124,906 Washington County $79,778 1,873 Manatee County $79,507 28,643 Florida Municipio $79,378 7,137 Brevard County $79,353 46,129 Osceola County $78,136 18,965 Gulf County $77,493 1,404 Palm Beach County $77,246 92,317 Seminole County $77,225 30,199 Hillsborough County $77,215 112,701 Polk County $77,131 37,672 Duval County $77,114 38,941 Leon County $76,974 37,994 Lee County $76,819 49,232 Okeechobee County $75,934 2,461 Alachua County $75,585 24,369 Bay County $75,237 16,652 Jackson County $75,147 3,839 Madison County $75,043 1,114 Orange County $74,689 118,159 Citrus County $73,426 7,089 Collier County $72,422 22,815 Nassau County $71,737 6,638 Hampton city $71,083 834 Sumter County $70,295 6,613 Hendry County $70,000 2,688 Martin County $69,464 8,679 Jefferson County $69,447 884 Pinellas County $69,220 63,832 Clay County $69,020 13,796 Monroe County $68,928 8,423 Hernando County $68,806 8,523 Putnam County $68,091 4,956 Charlotte County $67,749 11,216 Baker County $66,053 1,846 Bradford County $65,503 1,830 Lake County $65,449 25,038 Okaloosa County $64,683 20,574 Indian River County $64,324 9,121 St. Johns County $64,006 14,953 Pasco County $63,945 25,359 Wakulla County $62,268 1,212 Suwannee County $61,852 2,018 Highlands County $61,578 6,340 DeSoto County $60,690 2,022 Columbia County $59,374 2,430 Gadsden County $58,129 4,505 Santa Rosa County $57,942 6,715 Levy County $57,651 3,378 Union County $54,857 1,092 Taylor County $54,347 1,097 Walton County $52,024 4,984 Hardee County $48,132 2,401 Glades County $45,600 659 New York Chenango County $126,843 7,451 New York County $97,068 280,771 Kings County $92,361 44,064 Schenectady County $90,476 10,499 Broome County $89,987 20,622 Queens County $86,220 49,015 Rockland County $85,887 20,181 Rensselaer County $85,505 24,775 Westchester County $84,683 66,648 Otsego County $82,828 8,515 Bronx County $82,277 35,340 Niagara County $81,700 10,842 Oneida County $81,691 21,638 Albany County $81,645 47,167 Nassau County $81,506 90,538 Monroe County $81,493 61,566 Suffolk County $80,698 83,974 Warren County $77,735 6,214 Tompkins County $77,182 10,001 Dutchess County $76,913 21,016 Onondaga County $76,181 48,661 Madison County $75,637 8,675 Orange County $75,266 25,321 Allegany County $75,175 3,436 Richmond County $75,064 9,166 Putnam County $74,022 4,189 Chemung County $73,397 7,167 Montgomery County $73,224 7,447 Clinton County $72,195 7,017 Jefferson County $72,185 11,723 Chautauqua County $71,386 9,190 Franklin County $70,835 4,287 Lewis County $70,653 1,871 Erie County $70,007 65,378 Delaware County $68,094 4,928 Sullivan County $67,649 4,383 Ontario County $67,556 12,899 St. Lawrence County $67,231 9,424 Schuyler County $66,680 1,869 Tioga County $64,346 3,208 Genesee County $63,961 6,410 Saratoga County $63,593 14,418 Washington County $63,566 3,970 Cortland County $62,792 4,289 Herkimer County $62,637 5,032 Yates County $62,619 2,072 Cattaraugus County $62,577 4,742 Ulster County $61,440 9,726 Cayuga County $61,267 6,081 Wayne County $60,037 7,005 Orleans County $59,508 2,385 Fulton County $59,202 3,653 Steuben County $59,034 8,481 Essex County $58,388 2,660 Oswego County $57,717 6,670 Greene County $56,254 4,049 Columbia County $55,934 7,361 Schoharie County $52,997 1,992 Wyoming County $52,601 3,700 Seneca County $51,811 2,504 Livingston County $50,760 6,992 Suffolk city $47,675 2,460 Hamilton County $43,877 422 Methodology: The research analyzed over 8 million US jobs advertised on Adzuna in January 2024 and looked into the average salary by counties, to reveal the top counties and states offering the biggest paycheck. About Adzuna: Adzuna is a smarter, more transparent job search engine. We help tens of millions of US jobseekers access more than eight million US jobs each month, so they can cut through the noise, zero in on the right role faster and land the right job. Adzuna gives job seekers access to every available online job listing in a single site without giving anyone else access to their personal data and our unique tools and salary stats help jobseekers pinpoint the perfect role so they can earn what they're actually worth. We love using the power of our technology to match people to better, more fulfilling jobs and keep Americans working. Founded in 2011 by Andrew Hunter and Doug Monro, Adzuna is a privately held company backed by Index Ventures, LocalGlobe and Smedvig Capital. In 2022, Adzuna acquired enterprise job search engine Getwork. Follow Adzuna on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram and LinkedIn or learn more at https://www.adzuna.com . Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350125/Adzuna_Study.jpg SOURCE Adzuna SHANGHAI, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On January 26th, the first International Clean Energy Day, as proclaimed by the United Nations, was observed globally, highlighting the crucial role clean energy plays in fostering a sustainable energy transition. SANY Group ("SANY") is actively participating in this drive by providing integrated solutions for clean energy operations and driving green industrial transformation. SANY's Decarbonization Effort SANY prioritizes the development of energy-saving technologies and offers highly efficient, low-energy consumption products, making notable progress in hybrid, electric, hydrogen fuel, wind power, and prefabricated construction: SANY operates 26 wind farms across 18 Chinese provinces. SANY's 176 electrified products have reduced emissions by 4,150,489 tons. SANY's hydrogen refueling stations use alkaline electrolysis with a maximum current density of 8000A/, operating at 35Mpa pressure, and refueling at a speed of 5kg/min. SANY's silicon energy division has produced a 5.5-meter monocrystalline silicon rod. The total investment of the wind hydrogen storage business in the next three years is expected to be 5.1 billion USD, of which wind energy is 2.7 billion, photovoltaic 2.1 billion, hydrogen energy 90 million, energy storage, and lithium 210 million. Each section plans sales of 11.3 billion USD per year and profits of 1 billion USD per year in the next three years. SANY Renewable Energy: Committed to High-Quality Wind Power Equipment In 2024, SANY will collaborate with customers to build 10 fault-free benchmark wind farms in China, integrating smart solutions for high-quality operations throughout the lifecycle. For two consecutive years, SANY Renewable Energy's SI-230100 wind turbine has been recognized as a top onshore wind turbine by Windpower Monthly, receiving the coveted gold prize. Additionally, SANY Renewable Energy recently achieved another milestone by producing the SY1310A blade, measuring 131 meters, at its zero-carbon intelligent industrial park in Bayannur, Inner Mongolia, setting a new world record for the longest onshore wind turbine blade. SANY Electrification: Leading the Way in Electric Construction Machinery SANY's electrified products have over 80% global market share, and it has also partnered with major port operators like PSA, APMT, Hutchison, and DPW to promote environmentally friendly port logistics. "There is a growing environmental consciousness, and our company is committed to reducing energy consumption and production greenhouse gas emissions. This makes me passionate about these issues and motivates me to contribute to society," said Ashley Law, an engineer at SANY's R&D Center in Germany. "We aim to use innovation and technology to address various social issues in modern urban construction," Law added. Moreover, SANY Group participated in China's first electrified highway project in Zhuzhou, Hunan. In 2023, their Mota 1165 electric tractor set a record by traveling over 800 km from Changsha to Shenzhen in just over 13 hours on a single charge. SANY Hydrogen: Delivering Zero-Carbon Solutions through Integrated Hydrogen Refueling Stations and Equipment In 2020, SANY produced the world's first hydrogen fuel cell mixer truck and dump truck, marking a significant milestone in the hydrogen era. In 2022, SANY established the first integrated hydrogen production and refueling station in Hunan, China, expanding its presence in the hydrogen energy supply chain. In 2023, SANY Hydrogen signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Guangtai Hydrogen Energy Technology to build the first 2000kg-class hydrogen refueling station in Shanghai, representing the first commercial deployment of SANY's integrated hydrogen refueling station solution. Furthermore, SANY Hydrogen achieved breakthroughs with a 1.5GW production line for alkaline electrolyzers, enabling mass production of systems from 500 to 2000 standard cubic meters, and built a 20MW-scale electrolyzer test platform for product development. SANY Silicon Energy: Driving Innovation and Industrialization in Photovoltaic Sector SANY Group is rapidly developing the monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic industry, from silicon rods to cell production and photovoltaic module manufacturing, aiming to create a new industry hub in the central and western regions of China. In 2023, SANY Silicon Energy achieved mass production of its first N-type TOPCon solar cells at its 5GW Zhuzhou facility, completing its integrated industry footprint. The project also saw the successful production of the first monocrystalline silicon rod at SANY Silicon Energy's Shuozhou facility, providing a strong impetus for future industry-scale deployment. SANY is committed to the energy transition in mining and construction, recognizing no one-size-fits-all solutions. It tailors approaches, empowering customers with confidence on their journeys towards a low-carbon future. Visit SANY on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sany-heavy-industry Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sanyglobal/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMV8vy8fng3im3sptsb4IFQ SOURCE SANY Group The premier behavioral health event will take place in Phoenix from November 5-7 The 2024 conference will feature two new speaking tracks to focus on rising issues in behavioral health: employer benefits and youth mental health Nicknamed the "Super Bowl of behavioral health," the conference hosts a diverse network of health plans, employers, behavioral health providers, digital health companies, investors, policymakers, and more. SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Behavioral Health Tech Conference , the largest conference focused on expanding access to mental health and substance use services, will host its annual conference in person in Phoenix, Arizona, from November 5-7, 2024. This year's event will highlight innovative thinking, models, and solutions that can increase access to and improve the quality of behavioral health care in the U.S., with keynotes and panel discussions led by influential decision-makers from health plans, health systems, employers, benefits consultant groups, and more. "Our behavioral health landscape is experiencing rapid evolution, with more stakeholders and more solutions driving change by connecting the dots and filling the gaps in care, but there's so much more that needs to be accomplished until we see a lasting impact," said Solome Tibebu , founder and CEO, Behavioral Health Tech . "The Behavioral Health Tech Conference provides a community-oriented meeting place for leaders and innovators to share their experiences and listen to ideas so we can continue to unearth new collaboration opportunities that can expand access to mental health and substance use care through technology, innovation, and health equity initiatives." The Behavioral Health Tech Conference launched during the pandemic in 2020 and convened behavioral health leaders and innovators virtually. In 2023, the conference held its first hybrid format of both virtual and live in-person panels and presentations. Last year's event sold out, with 1,200+ in-person attendees, including 450+ C-suite level attendees, and it featured more than 125 speakers across more than 45 sessions. It was the only public event where attendees could meet almost all of the nation's Blue Cross Blue Shield behavioral health leaders and health and wellness benefits leaders from every national employee benefits consulting firm. In response to the massive interest, this year's conference will be in-person only and will double its capacity at the Biltmore Waldorf Astoria in Phoenix, Arizona, to meet the outsized demand. Early sponsors for the 2024 Behavioral Health Tech Conference range from leaders in digital behavioral health, national health plans, venture capital groups, and healthcare technology including: The conference attracts the leading voices in behavioral health to lead thought-provoking conversations. Last year's conference featured industry luminaries, including: Dr. Aletha Maybank - Chief Health Equity Officer, American Medical Association Tom Novak - Senior Advisor State Policy, Office of National Coordinator for Health IT, US Department of Health and Human Services Pooja Mital , DO - Chief Health Equity Officer, HealthNet , DO - Chief Health Equity Officer, HealthNet Liam Donohue, Partner, .406 Ventures Mark Friedlander, MD, MBA - Chief Medical Officer, Behavioral Health, UHS Erin Terkoski Young, MSW, MBA, LICSW - Senior Director, Health Management, WTW Chris DeCou, PhD - Head of Global Behavioral Health, Amazon Last year's conference featured platforms highlighting the most pressing issues within behavioral health including a Medicaid track, a policy track, a suicide prevention track, a maternal mental health equity forum, and a health plan Chief Medical Officers-only forum. This year's conference will feature a track based on employer benefits and HR themes, and a youth mental health track in partnership with Pivotal Ventures. "Too many children and teens experiencing mental health issues are relying on a healthcare ecosystem that's so complex and fragmented that seeking and receiving care especially care that's affordable and effective becomes more of a challenge than a viable solution," said Kelsey Noonan, Strategy Lead, Pivotal Ventures. "We are excited to support the Behavioral Health Tech Conference for the second year and look forward to seeing how the conversations at the event will help guide today's healthcare and digital health leaders so they can better support this generation with quality, timely care." The Behavioral Health Tech Conference is currently holding a Call for Speakers through April 15th, 2024. Speaker proposals can be submitted here . Learn more about the event and sponsorship opportunities: https://www.behavioralhealthtech.com/annual-conference . About Behavioral Health Tech Conference Behavioral Health Tech Conference is the largest conference focused on expanding access to mental health and substance use services through technology, health equity and innovation. The conference convenes health plans, employers and benefits professionals, health systems, behavioral health providers, investors, startups and policymakers to share best practices for deploying effective, scalable behavioral health solutions to all individuals. The conference will showcase the changing technological, reimbursement, and policy landscape for telehealth and other digital behavioral health solutions. Join other healthcare professionals working to make mental health and substance use care more accessible for all. Visit us on Twitter and LinkedIn . Press contact: [email protected] SOURCE Behavioral Health Tech After more than a decade at Microsoft, the executive, who stood out for his pioneering spirit in leading significant changes in the data center industry, arrives at a time of strong expansion for the company to jointly help shape the future of the sector BARUERI, Brazil, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Scala Data Centers, the leading Latin American sustainable data center platform for the Hyperscaler market, is honored to announce the name of Christian Belady as a Board Member of the company. With more than four decades of industry experience and an impressive record of more than 150 patents, Belady has played a crucial role in improving the global energy efficiency of the data center industry. Christian Belady Belady spent 16 years at Microsoft, where he created a legacy of innovation by leading the global development of data centers and driving innovative technologies in cooling and power generation. His contributions granted him the title of "Distinguished Engineer" and extend beyond Microsoft. In addition to creating the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric during his time at Hewlett Packard, he co-published other sustainability metrics such as Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) and Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) with the Green Grid, solidifying his influence on industry standards. Recently, Belady has received two important achievements that highlight his professional journey: the Data Center Icon Award from the Northern Virginia Technology Council and election to the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE), alongside names such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates. "We are honored to welcome Christian as Scala's Advisor and Board member. His expertise and innovative vision are invaluable as we continue to offer cutting-edge solutions to our customers, further enhancing our position as leaders in energy and water efficiency in Latin America," says Marcos Peigo, CEO and co-founder of the company. Belady holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from the prestigious Cornell University, as well as a master's degree in the same field from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - both in New York State. He then received his master's degree in international business from the University of Texas at Dallas. He is also a founder and key contributor to several industry organizations, including ASHRAE, The Green Grid, and the iMasons Climate Accord (ICA). "The verticalization strategy implemented by the visionary leadership of the CEO, Marcos Peigo, positions Scala far ahead in the data center market. I can't wait to start collaborating with Scala's exceptional Engineering Center of Excellence (CoE) and contribute to their journey of sustainable growth. Together, we will continue to promote innovation from Latin America, a region with enormous growth potential as a result of the growing demand for digital infrastructure driven by the advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the cloud computing market," says Belady. About Scala Data Centers Scala Data Centers is the leading Latin American sustainable data center platform for the Hyperscaler market. Headquartered in Brazil and founded by DigitalBridge, it was developed to meet and exceed the growing demand for digital access in Latin America. Scala has a highly qualified team of over 1,000 professionals and applies a flexible and innovative approach to providing exceptional quality colocation services to hyperscale clients, cloud-based software and service providers, and large enterprises. We customize state-of-the-art solutions for each client in the construction of the latest generation data centers, with high availability, the best energy efficiency rates, and superior density. All this allied to the best sustainability practices guided by our ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) program. For more information, visit www.scaladatacenters.com. SOURCE Scala Data Centers "Kate O'Brian is a skilled executive and journalist who embodies our responsibility to serve American audiences nationally and locally. This new structure puts oversight for the entire company's news and editorial strategy under her leadership," said Adam Symson, president and CEO of Scripps. "Scripps will maintain locally run, locally focused newsrooms serving each of our local markets, and at the same time we will coordinate our local and national reporting for the benefit of all our audiences, including for Scripps News' network." O'Brian joined Scripps in 2021 to lead Newsy and Court TV and serve as the architect for Scripps News, merging the company's local and national news resources into a national news division. Last fall, the network earned its first Emmy award, for "Plastic Time Bomb." "Over the past few years, Scripps' local and national news operations have demonstrated the powerful impact of combining deep community expertise with national context and reach," O'Brian said. "This structure will allow our local news and Scripps News teams to harness their combined strengths to deliver even more high-impact political reporting, severe weather, breaking news coverage and other stories important to our audiences in any market." Scripps leaders reporting to O'Brian: Christina Hartman , vice president, head of Scripps News, will lead the network that reaches 95% of Americans with fact-based, in-depth reporting and programming on multiple platforms. Hartman has been serving as head of news standards for Scripps News and Court TV. Previously, she was vice president of Newsy. , vice president, head of Scripps News, will lead the network that reaches 95% of Americans with fact-based, in-depth reporting and programming on multiple platforms. Hartman has been serving as head of news standards for Scripps News and Court TV. Previously, she was vice president of Newsy. Ethan Nelson , vice president, head of Court TV, will continue to lead the network as it brings gavel-to-gavel coverage and in-depth legal reporting and expertise to the nation's most compelling and important trials. vice president, head of Court TV, will continue to lead the network as it brings gavel-to-gavel coverage and in-depth legal reporting and expertise to the nation's most compelling and important trials. The vice president, head of Local News, a new, open role that will oversee Scripps' local news content strategy alongside O'Brian. This person will work closely with Dean Littleton , senior vice president of local media, to execute the content strategy along with the news initiative for our local news teams. O'Brian's career in news and journalism spans nearly four decades. Prior to joining Scripps, she was a longtime ABC news executive who, among many other roles, served as head of affiliate news services and worked closely with 200 local stations. O'Brian also was the first woman to run a 24/7 cable news organization when she was appointed president at Al Jazeera America. Media contact: Molly Miossi, The E.W. Scripps Company, 513-977-3713, [email protected] About Scripps The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP) is a diversified media company focused on creating a better-informed world. As one of the nation's largest local TV broadcasters, Scripps serves communities with quality, objective local journalism and operates a portfolio of more than 60 stations in 40+ markets. Scripps reaches households across the U.S. with national news outlets Scripps News and Court TV and popular entertainment brands ION, Bounce, Defy TV, Grit, ION Mystery and Laff. Scripps is the nation's largest holder of broadcast spectrum. Scripps is the longtime steward of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Founded in 1878, Scripps' long-time motto is: "Give light and the people will find their own way." SOURCE The E.W. Scripps Company A group of Russian spies who were collecting information for the Kremlin has been exposed in Britain. Six people have already been charged with suspicion. ADVERTISIMENT This is reported by the British television and radio company BBC and Sky News. Tikhomir Ivanov, a 38-year-old Bulgarian citizen from Acton, west London, was arrested earlier this month and will appear in court on Wednesday. He is accused of "conspiracy to gather information that may be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy." Five other Bulgarian citizens - Orlin Rusev, Bizer Dzhambazov, Katrin Ivanova, Ivan Stoyanov and Vanya Gaberova - were arrested in February 2023. Their trial, which is expected to last four months, is scheduled to begin in October. "A sixth suspect has been identified and arrested as a result of investigations following five previous arrests in this investigation and charges have now been laid in cooperation with the Crown Prosecution Service," said Dominic Murphy, head of the Met's counter-terrorism unit. ADVERTISIMENT As a reminder, the Internal Security Agency of Poland has already detained 16 people in the country who are connected to the intelligence of the aggressor country Russia. The special services not only identified the spies but also found out the scheme they were using. WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Regan Zambri Long proudly announces that six personal injury attorneys have been named to the prestigious 2024 Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers guide. The following attorneys have been named to the list: President and Senior Partner Patrick M. Regan Senior Partner, Vice President, and Founding Member Salvatore J. Zambri Senior Partner Victor E. Long Partner Jacqueline T. Colclough Partner Paul J. Cornoni Partner Christopher J. Regan Since opening its doors over 25 years ago, Regan Zambri Long PLLC has earned respect from its clients and peers. With over $1 billion in record-setting verdicts and settlements, well-respected legal organizations and publications have routinely honored the firm. Our attorneys have been named Best Lawyers in America by Best Lawyers and Washington, DC Super Lawyers by Super Lawyers magazine. "We are honored to have all our partners recognized by Lawdragon," said Regan Zambri Long Senior Partner Patrick M. Regan. "This distinction reflects our firm's dedication to excellence, justice, and service to our clients. We are proud of our team's achievements and commitment to making a difference in the lives of those we represent." Now in its seventh year, the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers guide is a highly respected resource for those seeking the best plaintiff consumer lawyers nationwide. Lawyers are selected through a meticulous process that includes independent research and nominations, reflecting their professional achievements, ethical standards, and contributions to the legal community. About Regan Zambri Long PLLC Regan Zambri Long is a premier law firm based in Washington, DC, specializing in personal injury, medical malpractice, and wrongful death cases. With a proven track record of success and a dedicated team of experienced attorneys, the firm is committed to achieving justice for its clients and positively impacting their lives. For more information, visit https://rhllaw.com . Media Contact: Wendy Lindars 202-960-4596 [email protected] SOURCE Regan Zambri Long PLLC The Quadrant Knowledge Solutions SPARK Matrix provides competitive analysis & ranking of the leading Customer Communication Management vendors. Smart Communications, with its comprehensive technology and customer experience management, has received strong ratings across the parameters of technology excellence and customer impact. MIDDLETON, Mass., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Quadrant Knowledge Solutions announced today that it has named Smart Communications as the 2024 technology leader in the SPARK Matrix: Customer Communication Management, 2024. The Quadrant Knowledge Solutions' SPARK Matrix: Customer Communication Management, 2024 research report includes a detailed analysis of the global market regarding emerging technology and market trends. The research comprises vendors' product features and functionalities, as well as competitive differentiating factors. The research provides competitive landscape and vendor analysis to enable technology vendors to enhance their understanding of the market and implement a growth-oriented technical roadmap. According to Saurabh Raj, Analyst, Quadrant Knowledge Solutions, "Smart Communications is a global leader in cloud-enabled customer engagement solutions, revolutionizing how businesses interact with their customers. Their platform, SmartCOMM, offers seamless personalization and omnichannel capabilities, empowering organizations to deliver compelling and consistent communication experiences across diverse industries. With a strong presence in Europe and North America and plans for expansion, Smart Communications is driving transformative innovation through strategic partnerships, including integrating AI with AWS, to enhance communication strategies and elevate customer experiences in today's dynamic landscape." "This recognition is another validation of our cloud-native technology and approach which continues to earn Smart Communications the ranking of Leader in all the major industry analyst evaluations", said Simon Tindal, Chief Technology Officer of Smart Communications. "We remain committed to delivering innovative solutions to our customers, so they have the tools to thrive in a rapidly changing world and meet evolving consumer expectations." "Quadrant Knowledge Solutions defines customer communication management (CCM) as a platform that enables organizations to efficiently create, manage, and deliver personalized and consistent communications across various channels throughout the customer lifecycle. It integrates multiple communication channels, such as print, email, SMS, and web, into a centralized system, helping businesses streamline the creation and distribution of customer-facing documents, messages, and interactions. The key objectives of a CCM platform are to enhance the customer experience, ensure regulatory compliance, and optimize communication processes by providing a unified and automated approach to managing customer communications." Implementing a CCM platform offers significant business benefits by optimizing operational workflows and delivering a more tailored customer experience. The platform's integration of communication channels, including print, email, SMS, and web, enhances operational efficiency, reduces manual intervention, and minimizes the risk of errors. Improved resource utilization and streamlined document creation contribute to operational efficiency. The platform's automation capabilities ensure consistency in messaging and facilitate compliance with regulatory standards, mitigating legal and financial risks. It helps enhance the customer experience by promptly managing communication throughout all interactions. Additional Resources: For more information about Smart Communications visit here Complimentary download - SPARK Matrix: Customer Communication Management, 2024 About Smart Communications Smart Communications provides the platform that leading organizations trust to deliver personalized, consistent and compliant conversations across all touchpoints and channels. The Conversation Cloud consists of SmartCOMM for enterprise-scale customer communications, SmartIQ for digital forms transformation, and SmartDX for trade documentation. Over 650 enterprise organizations across the globe rely on Smart Communications to simplify and automate complex processes and deliver highly secure, frictionless experiences across the customer lifecycle. To learn more, visit smartcommunications.com. Media Contact: Roberta Patterson, Analyst and Public Relations Manager, [email protected] About Quadrant Knowledge Solutions Quadrant Knowledge Solutions is a global advisory and consulting firm focused on helping clients achieve business transformation goals with Strategic Business and Growth advisory services. At Quadrant Knowledge Solutions, our vision is to become an integral part of our client's business as a strategic knowledge partner. Our research and consulting deliverables are designed to provide comprehensive information and strategic insights for helping clients formulate growth strategies to survive and thrive in ever-changing business environments. For more available research, please visit https://quadrant-solutions.com/market-research/ Media Contact: Ajinkya Ingle Quadrant Knowledge Solutions Regus Business Center 35 Village Road, Suite 100, Middleton Massachusetts 01949 United States Email: [email protected] Phone: (+1) 978-344-2770 Content Source: https://quadrant-solutions.com/press-release/smart-communications-is-positioned-as-the-leader-in-the-2024-spark-matrixtm-for-customer-communication-management-by-quadrant-knowledge-solutions-482 Connect with us on LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/company/quadrant-knowledge-solutions/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/746706/1470558/Quadrant_Knowledge_Solutions_Logo.jpg SOURCE Quadrant Knowledge Solutions DUBLIN, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Mining of Iron Ore and Chrome in South Africa 2023" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Chrome ore production is on an upward trend, largely due to growing demand in China. The increase in production in 2022 was mostly driven by higher prices. South Africa is the world's largest producer and exporter. Over the past ten years, iron ore production has been in decline. Lower iron ore export volumes in 2022 were largely due to underperformance by Transnet on the export line and at the port. This issue affects chrome ore exporters but to a lesser degree as they have more export logistics options. Opportunities Increasing demand for chrome ore, due to rising ferrochrome production in China . Challenges Increasing input costs, in particular electricity, water, diesel, logistics and labour. Limited exports due to collapsing rail lines and ports used by chrome ore and iron ore mining companies. Trends Chrome ore exporters are increasingly using road transport to Maputo to avoid using Transnet's rail and port services. Most local PGM producers are increasing their production of chrome ore to increase revenue. Over the past ten years, iron ore production has been on a downward trend. Producers using the iron ore export channel are reducing their production levels to match Transnet's performance. South Africa's chrome ore production and exports are on an upward trend in response to higher demand and prices. Outlook Increased demand for stainless steel should lead to growth in chrome ore demand and, consequently, higher chrome ore prices. South Africa's chrome ore production and exports are expected to increase in response. Exporters will increasingly use road transport to Maputo to avoid using Transnet's rail and port services. The rate of iron ore demand growth is expected to slow, and iron ore supply is forecast to grow at a faster rate than demand, leading to lower iron ore prices. South African iron ore production was expected to decrease marginally in 2023. Beyond 2023, output will to a large extent be determined by Transnet's performance. Report Coverage This report on the mining of iron ore and chrome in South Africa includes information on geographic locations, production and export trends, major players, corporate actions, African and international statistics, steel and stainless steel demand, prices, and influencing factors such as rail and port issues and input costs. There are profiles of 19 companies including chrome producers such as Glencore, Samancor Chrome, Anglo American Platinum, Bauba Resources, Impala Platinum and Sylvania Platinum. Iron Ore companies profiled include Kumba, Assmang, Afrimat, Ironveld Mining and Thabazimbi Iron Ore Mine. Key Topics Covered: 1. INTRODUCTION 2. DESCRIPTION OF THE INDUSTRY 2.1. Industry Value Chain 2.2. Geographic Position 2.3. Size of the Industry 3. LOCAL 3.1. State of the Industry 3.2. Key Trends 3.3. Key Issues 3.4. Notable Players 3.5. Trade 3.6. Corporate Actions 3.7. Regulations 3.8. Enterprise Development and Social Development 4. AFRICA 5. INTERNATIONAL 6. INFLUENCING FACTORS 6.1. Demand for Stainless Steel and Steel 6.2. Economic Environment 6.3. Rail and Port Issues 6.4. Mine Safety 6.5. Input Costs 6.6. Labour 6.7. Environmental Issues 6.8. Technology, R&D and Innovation 6.9. Illegal Mining 7. COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT 7.1. Competition 7.2. Ownership Structure of the Industry 7.3. Barriers to Entry 8. INDUSTRY SUMMARY 9. OUTLOOK 10. INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS COMPANY PROFILES - Mining Of Chrome Anglo American Platinum Ltd Bauba Resources (Pty) Ltd Clover Alloys (SA) (Pty) Ltd Eastern Platinum Ltd Incorporated in Canada Glencore Operations South Africa (Pty) Ltd Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd Jubilee Metals Group PLC Northam Platinum Holdings Ltd Samancor Chrome Ltd Sibanye Stillwater Ltd Sylvania Platinum Ltd Tharisa PLC COMPANY PROFILES - Mining Of Iron Ore Afrimat Ltd Assmang (Pty) Ltd Black Mountain Mining (Pty) Ltd Ironveld Mining (Pty) Ltd Kumba Iron Ore Ltd Palabora Copper (Pty) Ltd Thabazimbi Iron Ore Mine (Pty) Ltd For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/beqpza About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Media Contact: Research and Markets 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 NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Svetlana Mojsov, whose research into hormonal triggers for insulin production led to groundbreaking treatments for diabetes and obesity, will receive the 2024 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, The Rockefeller University announced today. This prize is the preeminent international award recognizing outstanding women scientists. Mojsov, a research associate professor at Rockefeller, will be honored at a ceremony on campus on April 17. She will be presented with the award by writer and naturalist Diane Ackerman, author of several New York Times bestsellers, including The Zookeeper's Wife. Svetlana Mojsov (Chris Taggart/The Rockefeller University) Mojsov's innovative methods and crucial insights led to the identification of glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1), a gut hormone that causes the pancreas to secrete insulin. Her discoveries are the basis of revolutionary drugs called GLP-1 agonists which have transformed clinical care for diabetes and obesity. Examples of this class of drugs include Ozempic, Victoza, and Wegovy. She began researching diabetes at Rockefeller, as a student and postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Nobel laureate Bruce Merrifield. There she developed a technique to synthesize glucagon, a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar. In the 1980s, Mojsov moved to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she started investigating the then-mysterious GLP-1, a peptide resembling a class of insulin-releasing hormones in the intestine called incretins. Based on similarities to glucagon, Mojsov was the first to identify the biologically active sequence of GLP-1, hidden within its full string of 37 amino acids. Her experiments demonstrated that the short version of GLP-1 is indeed produced in the intestine. Mojsov went on to show, in collaboration with Joel Habener, Gordon Weir, and David Nathan that GLP-1 triggers insulin release in the pancreas, proving that GLP-1 was an incretin. This work led to the therapeutic development of GLP-1. "The committee was impressed both with Svetlana's insightfulness in hypothesizing that a peptide within GLP-1 might be the key regulator of insulin and her tenacity in testing that hypothesis," says Michael W. Young, selection committee chair and the Richard and Jeanne Fisher Professor at Rockefeller. "Of course, her research has also given rise to potent new therapies for the treatment of diabetes and obesity." The Pearl Meister Greengard Prize was established by the late Paul Greengard, the Vincent Astor Professor at Rockefeller, and his wife, the sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard. Greengard donated his monetary share of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Rockefeller and, in partnership with generous supporters, established an annual award to recognize outstanding women scientists. The prize, which includes a $100,000 honorarium, is named for Greengard's mother, who died during his birth. Mojsov has pledged to donate the prize money to Rockefeller's Women & Science Initiative. Visit this page to register for the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize ceremony and learn more about the award. The event is open to the public, but registration is encouraged to attend. About The Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is one of the world's leading biomedical research universities and is dedicated to conducting innovative, high-quality research to improve the understanding of life for the benefit of humanity. The university's unique approach to science has led to some of the world's most revolutionary and transformative contributions to biology and medicine. During Rockefeller's 123-year history, our scientists have won 26 Nobel Prizes, 25 Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards, and 20 National Medals of Science. Media contact: Katherine Fenz Senior Manager of Media Relations, The Rockefeller University [email protected] SOURCE The Rockefeller University TOKYO and HEIDELBERG, Germany, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Mitsubishi Pencil Co Ltd, founded in Japan in 1887 and the company behind the well-known uni brand, is taking over C. Josef Lamy GmbH and the LAMY brand. The family-owned company LAMY underwent a complex process to look for a buyer who could lead the company, founded in 1930 by C. Josef Lamy, into the future with expertise, experience and love for the LAMY brand along with a commitment to Germany as a business location. This process has today been successfully concluded with all shares in the company now sold. The annual turnover of Mitsubishi Pencil is several times that of the company Lamy. - Picture is available at AP - Focus on the internationalisation and expansion of digital writing The reasons that prompted the sale included the need to find a strong partner to develop the growth area of digital writing and expand international sales. Mitsubishi Pencil is able to bring this to the table whilst also ensuring that the headquarters and production facilities in Heidelberg will be maintained and that investments will be made in the further development of the company and the brand. Shigehiko Suhara, sixth-generation President and CEO of Mitsubishi Pencil Co Ltd: "We have the greatest respect for the history and strength of the LAMY brand. We believe that the vision and corporate culture of Lamy and Mitsubishi Pencil harmonise perfectly. We are also confident that the acquisition of the company Lamy will provide a strong combined platform for future growth and increased shareholder value for both LAMY and Mitsubishi Pencil." Vera Lamy, former co-partner of C. Josef Lamy GmbH, explains, "It was very important to us to find a company with the strength and heart to work with Lamy employees and open up a whole new chapter for Lamy together with all our partners. We have found this company." Her brother and co-partner Markus Lamy adds, "The core of the LAMY brand will be retained and further developed. 'Made in Germany' will continue to play a key role in this. That was and is of the utmost importance to us." Combining innovative strength and 137 years of tradition Mitsubishi Pencil was founded a good 137 years ago and today employs more than 2,700 people worldwide. The company has 22 international sales offices and operates 11 production facilities. Mitsubishi Pencil is a leading company in the manufacture of writing instruments and has made a name for itself by producing high-quality writing instruments ranging from simple pencils to sophisticated ballpoint pens, marker pens and mechanical pencils. C. JOSEF LAMY GMBH Grenzhofer Weg 32 69123 Heidelberg lamy.com press contact Agentur Achtung! Phone: +49 40 450210220 E-Mail: [email protected] The wide range of writing instrument products include the popular uni-ball rollerball pens, which are known for their innovative waterproof pigment ink. The uni brand also includes Posca water-based ink markers, which can be used on a variety of surfaces, and the innovative Kuru Toga mechanical pencils, which has the automatic lead rotation mechanism. Complementing sales strength, e-commerce expertise and innovation Mitsubishi Pencil and Lamy have already had points of contact in the past and have always valued each other. In addition to its innovation and international sales strength, Mitsubishi Pencil will also contribute its e-commerce expertise, which will strengthen Lamy. The LAMY brand products complement the Mitsubishi Pencil range in the premium segment. Mitsubishi Pencil furthermore aims to accelerate the technological development of LAMY. In particular, this technological development will include the growth area of digital writing as well as innovations in production. Steffen Rubke, CEO of C. Josef Lamy GmbH: "We are certain that the Mitsubishi Pencil Company will strengthen the company and the LAMY brand with its focus on innovation, its large distribution network and its strong e-commerce expertise as exemplified by the success of the business with Amazon in the US market." LAMY: Company and brand with tradition and unique design Lamy stands for 'Made in Germany' and has its headquarters and production facilities in Heidelberg. The company employs more than 340 people. Lamy stands worldwide for high-quality designer writing instruments with timeless modern aesthetics and perfect functionality. The real success story began 36 years after the company was founded with the LAMY 2000: in 1966, this model established the clear, unmistakable design language that still characterises the style of all the brand's products today the LAMY design. Today, the LAMY brand is represented in more than 80 countries with over 15,600 sales outlets. These include around 200 mono-brand stores. SOURCE C. Josef Lamy GmbH KANSAS CITY, Mo., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Unifying physical security into a single digital platform has been a difficult challenge for safety and security professionalsthe nuances between analog and digital defenses can be roadblocks to success, but when combined they become a powerful tool for staying vigilant and secure. Motivated to address and act on the blended threat vectors coming from a growing mix of physical and digital security devices, Haystax announces a name change to Secure Passage and a renewed focus on converged securityIt is our objective to provide a secure passage for our customers by architecting security into all products we build. This change further aligns our team with an unwavering focus to deliver the industry's preeminent converged security products and services. "This marks a pivotal moment for our company as we further commit to providing Cyber Physical security innovations for the ever changing challenge that security has become for businesses, governments, and individuals. Meeting a compounding need for sophisticated and converged security, Secure Passage combines the software, tools, experience, and know-how to combine and act on converged security data," said Chairman & CEO, Gary Fish. Further, in Q2, Secure Passage will launch several new products, beginning with Secure Passage Dragon, a data aggregation pipeline designed to take the pain out of connecting, analyzing, and monitoring security devices. Dragon features ease of deployment, simple configuration, and intuitive management. Following closely is Truman, a single, actionable converged platform and "source of truth" to facilitate and act on the inbound intelligence from Cyber Physical security solutions. From diverse sources such as vaping sensors, badge data, door alarms, facial recognition cameras, and behavioral and physical assessments, Secure Passage makes your data work for you and provides you with state-of-the-art platforms specifically designed to meet any security need. Clients, partners, and stakeholders can expect a smooth transition with no impact on ongoing services. Secure Passage remains committed to its mission of delivering innovative, reliable, and adaptive security solutions that safeguard against the ever-evolving threat landscape. For media inquiries, please contact: Kirk Cerny Chief Operating Officer Secure Passage [email protected] 877-442-4553 About Secure Passage: Secure Passage is a leading security solutions provider, formerly known as Haystax and Digital Sandbox. Leveraging and turning data into insights, the company pioneers innovative security approaches in a busy security landscape. Secure Passage is committed to safeguarding digital assets through advanced technology, adaptive solutions, and a relentless pursuit of excellenceall executed with integrity. www.securepassage.com SOURCE Secure Passage RADNOR, Pa., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Triumph Group, Inc., (TRIUMPH) [NYSE:TGI] today announced that its Geared Solutions business in Macomb, Michigan has been awarded a long term agreement from MD Helicopters to manufacturer and assemble main rotor gearbox transmissions for the MD500 platforms. TRIUMPH has supported MD Helicopters for over two decades, producing over 400 gearboxes for this program. With this contract extension, TRIUMPH will continue to supply helicopter transmissions and transmission spare parts for the MD500 program. "TRIUMPH Geared Solutions is pleased to be extending our long-standing relationship with MD Helicopters, supplying main rotor transmissions and spare transmission parts in support of their fleet of 1,700 MD500-series helicopters," said Pete Gibson, President of TRIUMPH Geared Solutions. "The growing demand for helicopter orders is evidence of the leadership and operational performance at MD Helicopters, and we are proud to be partner with them as they increase production rates up to 30 per year." "We are pleased to continue our partnership with Triumph and focus on a longstanding and sustainable relationship for our organizations and customers. This will help improve the timely delivery of parts to support production and aftermarket repairs," said Harvey Ticlo, MD Helicopters Chief Operating Officer. TRIUMPH Geared Solutions, the largest independent aerospace gear and gear box provider, supplies complex geared solutions including design, development, test, manufacture and support of complete transmission and gearbox assemblies as well as complex gears and housing. TRIUMPH, headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania, designs, develops, manufactures, repairs, and overhauls a broad portfolio of aerospace and defense systems and components. The company serves the global aviation industry, including original equipment manufacturers and the full spectrum of military and commercial aircraft operators. More information about TRIUMPH can be found on the company's website at www.triumphgroup.com . SOURCE Triumph Group WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- This week, while appearing on Tavis Smiley's national radio broadcast, Democratic Presidential Candidate Jason Palmer announced the launch of Palmer.AI, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at providing voters with an immersive, interactive experience that transcends traditional campaign engagement. With two decades of experience as a technology leader solving real-world problems, Palmer is leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to connect with voters on a deeper level and demonstrate his qualifications to modernize American government. The Palmer for President campaign's immersive, interactive, visual, and audio-powered AI is on Palmer's campaign's website at https://palmerforpresident.us . This cutting-edge experience allows voters to engage directly with the candidate's opinions and ideas in a unique and personalized way. Visitors to the website can ask questions about policy, values, and Palmer's biographical background, and the Palmer.AI system will respond with lifelike answers, providing a virtual face-to-face interaction that goes beyond the conventional experience of an ordinary website. I'd love to sit in the living rooms of millions of voters. Since that's not possible, Palmer.AI is the next best thing. Post this The Palmer For President campaign also launched a compelling new video highlighting the importance and risks of AI, and showcasing Jason Palmer's extensive digital pedigree. Drawing from his rich background in founding and growing technology, social media, and edtech companies, and Jason Palmer's deep understanding of the potential of AI, the video highlights how Palmer has consistently demonstrated an ability to lead in a rapidly evolving technological world. Palmer affirmed his dedication to using technology for the betterment of democratic processes, explaining, "I'd love to sit in the living rooms of millions of voters and talk with them, but since that's not possible, Palmer.AI is the next best thing. Every voter wants to meet the candidate and ask their three most important questions. This technology allows millions of voters to feel like they've spoken with me, and hopefully also makes artificial intelligence feel more approachable." Palmer's tech savvy is unique among presidential candidates and his campaign is the first to successfully bridge the gap between politics and AI. Featured in POLITICO as Biden's youngest Democratic opponent, Palmer further commented on the AI initiative. "I believe in the power of technology to bridge gaps, foster understanding, and bring people together. I also believe that if used and regulated properly, AI can help millions achieve the American Dream by personalizing education and helping with career navigation and advice. The number of potential use cases will grow exponentially. This AI initiative is an exciting step towards a more interactive and inclusive democratic process and a hint of possibilities to come." The hyper-realistic Palmer.AI avatar employs "agents," a new technology that offers a sophisticated system designed to bring digital interactions closer to real human conversation. The technology creates digital personas capable of engaging with visitors through conversational dialogue. At its core, the Palmer.AI avatar utilizes state-of-the-art speech-to-text, Large Language Models (LLMs), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand and respond to user inquiries. This allows the avatar to convert spoken language into text, understand the intent and context of inquiries, and generate responses that mimic human conversation. The system is enhanced by Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), which aids in providing accurate and relevant answers. RAG combines generative AI's ability to create responses with the capability to pull specific information from a database, ensuring the avatar's answers are contextual and informed. The avatar's lifelike appearance and voice are made possible through live stream rendering, generating the avatar's visual responses in real-time. The Palmer for President campaign invites voters, supporters, and the media to explore https://palmerforpresident.us and experience a new era of political engagement. About Jason Palmer Jason Palmer is a Democratic Presidential candidate, entrepreneur, turnaround leader, and impact investor with strong fluency in technology and education. Prior to his Presidential run, he served in executive and leadership positions at Microsoft, Kaplan Education, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and leading impact investor New Markets Venture Partners. Palmer earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a proud resident of Baltimore, Maryland, and a devoted father. Learn more at https://palmerforpresident.us. SOURCE Palmer for President NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- This weekend, the International Labor Organization (ILO), the UN entity responsible for setting international labor standards, reached the first-in-history multilateral agreement on the concept of a "living wage." The alignment on the concept, negotiated between workers, employers and governments, was part of the outcome of a week-long expert meeting on wage policies, including living wages. In recent years, there has been a rise in political pressures on ensuring wage levels that can ensure a decent standard of living and an increase in living wage initiatives and consulting firms, claiming to help companies set correct wage levels. Yet, as reported by the ILO, such initiatives have largely been ignoring the second pillar of wage-setting, namely economic factors. The expert meeting provided clarity on this and underscored that a wage-setting process must take into account both the needs of workers and economic factors. "We are proud to have reached multilateral alignment on the concept of a 'living wage,'" said Ewa Staworzynska, director of corporate responsibility and labor affairs at USCIB, who represented American business during the expert meeting, together with Ryan Larsen, group director, international labor relations at Walmart. "In order to set sustainable wages and not disrupt employment levels, it is critical that wage-setting processes couple the estimates of needs of workers with economic factors, such as macroeconomic stability and productivity levels." The full conclusions, including the ILO's description of the concept, is expected to be published in the coming days. About USCIB The United States Council for International Business (USCIB) advances the global interests of American business. We do so through advocacy for an open system of world trade, finance, and investment, where business can flourish and contribute to economic growth, human welfare, and environmental protection. We are the sole U.S. affiliate of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Business at OECD (BIAC) and the International Organization of Employers (IOE). USCIB is also the only U.S. business organization with standing at the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and is recognized at the UN Environment Program (UNEP), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UN CBD). SOURCE United States Council for International Business (USCIB) LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- WhiteRock , a leading technology company based out of Little Rock, Arkansas, proudly announces the opening of its new office at the Little Rock Tech Park . This strategic move reinforces WhiteRock's commitment to fostering synergy and providing a dedicated space for customers to engage with industry Salesforce experts in person. As a Salesforce ISV partner, WhiteRock has established itself as a top technology company in Little Rock and Arkansas, with a global team that serves clients worldwide. The company's home office, now located at the Little Rock Tech Park, serves as a dynamic innovation center where customers can connect face-to-face with WhiteRock's team of experts. WhiteRock, a leading global technology company, announces the opening of its new office at the Little Rock Tech Park. Post this WhiteRock specializes in offering end-to-end Salesforce support across diverse industries, including smart manufacturing, niche life sciences, and many more. The company's services focus on optimizing the return on investment for organizations that invest in Salesforce products, ensuring organizations maximize the benefits of integrations, customization, reporting capabilities, and beyond. Mike McGibbony, Founder and CEO of WhiteRock, expresses his enthusiasm for the company's growth and dedication to serving customers globally. "What I love about our team is the synergy and dedication that I see, as evidenced by the feedback from our customers worldwide. Our team has elevated beyond a startup mindset by cultivating high-level skillsets and mature systems, enabling us to serve our customers exceptionally well across the globe." McGibbony further highlights the importance of WhiteRock's partnership with the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) , stating, "Our collaboration with UCA has been a cornerstone of our success. The hands-on Salesforce learning experience we provide to select interns through our internship program has not only enriched their education but has also become a source of joy for me and our entire team." Founded 14 years ago by Mike McGibbony , WhiteRock has emerged as a dynamic force in the technology sector, contributing to the growth and innovation of businesses not only in Arkansas but also on a global scale. The expansion into the Little Rock Tech Park solidifies WhiteRock's position as a leader in the tech industry and further brands Little Rock as a hub where great, established companies excel in global endeavors. WhiteRock invites clients, partners, and the community to visit its new office and experience firsthand the innovation and expertise that define the company. For more information: https://rockyourcrm.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/white-rock-technologies SOURCE WhiteRock Poland has issued a statement regarding the detention of Ukrainian journalist Mykhailo Tkach and his cameraman near the Polish border. They confirmed that the men were detained to identify them and check the reasons for their stay at the railway junction. ADVERTISIMENT This was reported on the website of the Polish police. It was noted that after the check, the journalist and cameraman were released and all documents and belongings were returned to them, but the video footage was not specified. As noted, the police received a report from a concerned Pole about two people who had been in a car for two days near the railway junction in Golashyn, near the Polish border with Belarus. The men were taking pictures and using a drone. "Taking into account the internal security of the country and the fact that railroad tracks, especially in border voivodeships, are strategic places in terms of security, the police intervened with the said persons. Both men spoke Ukrainian and identified themselves as journalists. The vehicle had electronic devices, a drone and cameras. Due to the language barrier and the need to check the documents provided, it was necessary to carry out activities at the police station," the police said in a statement. ADVERTISIMENT It is noted that after checking the documents, inspecting the contents of the luggage and drawing up the relevant documentation, the men left the police station. All their documents and belongings were returned to them and no one allegedly reported any damage to the equipment. As a reminder, Mykhailo Tkach, a journalist from UP, was detained in Poland near the border with Belarus. He and his cameraman were filming materials about the transit of products between Poland and Russia. Polish police have already released them, but some of the footage was deleted. The journalist said that Polish law enforcement officers approached the film crew, and after a short conversation, they began to grab the cameras and search the journalists. During the search, the police damaged the battery charger. As previously reported, in December last year, UP journalist Mykhailo Tkach was attacked near the Tandyr restaurant in Kozyn village, Kyiv region. In this regard, the Kyiv regional police opened a criminal investigation. ADVERTISIMENT Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes! REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today modern student transportation company Zum announced that Ritu Narayan, CEO and founder has been named to the 2024 CNBC Changemakers: Women Transforming Business list. Narayan founded Zum to fix student transportation and ensure millions of working families didn't have to choose between work and caring for their kids. Today, Zum is the leader in modern student transportation and has ushered in a new era of increased safety, reliability, and sustainability. Today modern student transportation company Zum announced that Ritu Narayan, CEO and founder has been named to the 2024 CNBC Changemakers: Women Transforming Business list. "I am honored to be part of CNBC's Changemakers list alongside a talented and diverse group of women who are making an impact through their innovation," Narayan said. "I started Zum because I wanted to improve the nation's largest mass transit system for all families, drivers and school districts across the U.S. By working together, we are moving the industry forward." CNBC Changemakers: Women Transforming Business, an annual list, recognizes female leaders at companies or philanthropic organizations that have crossed meaningful financial milestones and achieved significant business results within the past year. Zum unifies parents, students, school administrators, and drivers on a single personalized end-to-end technology platform, enabling never-before achieved levels of visibility and data-backed accountability, which has ushered in a new era of increased safety, reliability, and sustainability for the school districts. Thousands of schools across the country have partnered with Zum for school transportation, including Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest district in the country; San Francisco Unified School District; Seattle Public Schools; Howard County Public Schools; Oakland Unified School District; and Metro Nashville Public Schools. To learn more about how Zum is working with thousands of schools across the nation to deliver safe, reliable, zero-emission, and modern student transportation, please visit Zum's website . About Ritu Narayan Ritu Narayan is the founder and CEO of Zum, a technology company modernizing and decarbonizing school transportation and the energy grid. Accelerating its growth, Zum recently announced $140M in funding led by GIC, with additional investment from return investors like Sequoia and Softbank, bringing Zum's total fundraise to $350 million. An accomplished entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience as a tech industry leader, Narayan has been named one of Goldman Sach's Exceptional Entrepreneurs, Inc.'s Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneur's 100 Women of Influence, and received the 2023 Power of Women Award from GSV ASU, among other awards and accolades. Before starting Zum, Narayan led teams at eBay, Oracle, Yahoo, and IBM. A graduate of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Narayan earned her undergraduate degree in computer science at the Delhi Institute of Technology. She lives in California, USA with her husband and two children, both of whom commuted to school safely, reliably, and sustainably thanks to Zum. About Zum Zum has reimagined student transportation, the nation's largest mass transit system, and developed sustainable ways to charge the grid. Zum's robust operations and integrated end-to-end cloud-based platform provides a modern student transportation service for school districts purpose-built around the needs of kids and the expectations of modern families. Zum provides one seamless, real-time interface for parents, drivers, schools, districts, administrators, and operators to transport children safely and with increased visibility and personalized care. Always investing in the wellbeing of communities, Zum is also the only carbon neutral student transportation provider in the nation with plans to go Net Zero with its transition to EV electric buses. Zum is available nationwide, serving more than 4,000 schools across the U.S. Learn more at www.ridezum.com . CONTACT: Jenny Mayfield, Vice President of Communications - [email protected] SOURCE Zum In unrecognized Transnistria (occupied territory of Moldova), the so-called deputies of all levels held a congress on February 28. Russian propaganda announced that they intended to ask for "help" from Russia, and it turned out to be true. ADVERTISIMENT On the morning of Wednesday, February 28, the aggressor country's media disseminated a fragment of the draft resolution that MPs received for review. It refers to "pressure" from Moldova. "To approve an appeal to the Federation Council and the State Duma of the Russian Federation with a request to implement measures to protect Transnistria in the face of increasing pressure from Moldova, taking into account the fact that more than 220,000 Russian citizens permanently reside in the territory of the 'Transnistrian Moldovan Republic' and the unique positive experience of Russian peacekeeping on the Dniester, as well as the status of guarantor and mediator in the negotiation process," the text says. As a result, the so-called politicians complained about Moldova's "economic blockade" and approved a declaration asking the Kremlin for help. ADVERTISIMENT It is known that about 650 delegates gathered for the congress at the Palace of the Republic in Tiraspol. In a commentary to a propaganda Russian news agency, Galina Antyufeyeva, deputy chairman of the so-called Supreme Council, earlier denied rumors about the alleged intention of the "PMR" to ask Russia to include the unrecognized republic in Russia. As OBOZ.UA wrote earlier: - On February 22, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Andriy Yusov, said that the deputies of the unrecognized Transnistria do not plan to address Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at the congress to accept the "republic" into the Russian aggressor state. ADVERTISIMENT - The Institute for War Studies believes that what is happening in Transnistria is unlikely to pose a military threat to Ukraine. Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and in Viber. Do not fall for fakes! Amroha, Feb 28 : In what seems to be a shocking replay of the Shraddha Walkar case, the body of a woman, aged between 20 and 25 years and suspected to be pregnant, was found in 20 pieces stuffed in two gunny bags on Bijnor road under Naugawa Saadat police station limits in Uttar Pradesh's Amroha district on Tuesday, police said. Police are trying to ascertain identity of the deceased by circulating photograph of her face and through manual intelligence after registering an FIR of murder under IPC Section 302 against unidentified persons. Circle Officer, Naugawa, Anjali Kataria, said that the body was spotted by some locals around 300 metre inside from the main road near Khetapur village on Tuesday. She added the police examined the scene after getting information about the incident and sent the body to mortuary for further examination. She said further probe is on and multiple teams have been deployed to ascertain the deceased's identity so the case could be worked out at the earliest. The police official added that the body was found into 20 pieces -- the head, hands, legs and the torso -- all cut into 20 pieces and stuffed in small plastic packets before stuffing into gunny bags. The official said the cut marks were very sharp. It is suspected that the assailants used an electric cutter to cut the body into pieces. Since blood was not found on the crime spot, so it is assumed that the woman was murdered, and the body was cut into pieces somewhere else before disposing off the body in thickets on Bijnor road. The primary examination of the body parts also suggested that the woman was pregnant. The body parts seemed to be one day old as assailants had disposed of the body sometime between 12 midnight on Monday and 6 a.m. on Tuesday as nobody had seen anyone throwing these bags in the thickets. No tyre marks were found near the spot, so the assailants apparently walked down to the spot to throw the bags there. Vienna, Feb 28 : German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has ruled out sending German ground troops to Ukraine after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested a day before that European nations might do so. "Boots on the ground is not an option for the Federal Republic of Germany," Pistorius told a press conference after meeting with Austrian Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner in Vienna on Tuesday as quoted by Xinhua news agency report. Tanner also called Macron's remarks "a worrying signal". Macron said at a gathering of European leaders on Monday that while there was no official consensus among European leaders, the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine "should not be ruled out," adding that the West will do everything to ensure Russia does not win the ongoing war. Visegrad Group not to send troops to Ukraine: PMs. Image Source: IANS News Prague, Feb 28 : The Visegrad Group (V4) countries are not planning to send troops to Ukraine, their Prime Ministers (PMs) said here. Czech PM Petr Fiala, Poland's Donald Tusk, Slovakia's Robert Fico and Hungary's Viktor Orban made the statement on Tuesday after a V4 leaders meeting, Xinhua news agency reported. Despite their agreement on Ukraine's need for help, they are willing to offer assistance in different forms, Fiala said. According to Fiala, the Czech Republic and Poland are providing military aid to Ukraine, while Hungary and Slovakia are willing to offer humanitarian and financial aid. Fico called for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks to solve the Ukraine crisis. Orban also called for peace talks as soon as possible. Moreover, while the V4 members agreed not to change EU founding treaties, they reached a consensus to adjust common agricultural policy to reduce bureaucracy and regulation, Fiala told reporters. Washington, Feb 28 : Voters went to the polls across Michigan, a battleground state, for the 2024 US presidential primary. In the Republican race, former US President Donald Trump, who remains undefeated so far this year, continues to be challenged by former US Ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Xinhua news agency reported. Tuesday's GOP primary will determine only a portion of how Michigan's delegates will be awarded while the rest will be decided at a state party convention scheduled for Saturday. Trump has a clear lead over Haley in Michigan polls. US President Joe Biden does not have a major challenger in the Democratic primary, with Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips polling only in single digits nationally, but some activists are urging Michigan Democrats to vote "uncommitted" in protest of the Biden administration's response to the conflict in Gaza. The economy is the top issue for 31 per cent of Michigan voters, followed by immigration, threats to democracy, healthcare, housing affordability, education, crime and abortion access, according to a new Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey. Trump narrowly flipped Michigan, also a Rust Belt state, in the 2016 presidential election, defeating Hillary Clinton by just 0.2 per cent. Four years later, Biden won by 2.8 per cent, bringing it back to the Democratic column. The US presidential primaries, extending through June, precede the Republican National Convention in July, where the party's presidential nominee is officially selected by delegates, followed by the Democratic National Convention in August, leading up to the 2024 Election Day on November 5. Moscow, Feb 28 : A direct confrontation between Russia and the NATO will be 'inevitable' if Western nations decide to send troops to Ukraine, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Peskov's comments on Tuesday come amid statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron during a conference in Paris on Monday, where a group of European leaders discussed ways to bolster Western support for Ukraine, Xinhua news agency reported. Macron noted that while there was no official consensus among European leaders, the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine "should not be ruled out," adding that the West will do everything to ensure Russia does not win the ongoing war. "In this case, we would need to talk not about the likelihood, but about the inevitability (of a clash with NATO)," Peskov said while responding to a question on the potential deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine. A number of countries are guided by "a fairly sober assessment" of the potential dangers of such actions, he added. Lucknow, Feb 28 : The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Tuesday said that those owning multi-storey constructions, commercial properties and business establishments and those who file GST and income tax returns, cannot be termed as slum dwellers merely because they live in houses built on government land. The dismissal of petitions which sought retention of their properties on "government land" along the Kukrail River in the Akbar Nagar area by the court has paved the way for Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) to demolish the houses of petitioners A division bench of Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice O.P. Shukla said, "The petitioners are not suffering any of the challenges faced by the actual slum dwellers of the said slum. In the given circumstances, it is not possible for this court to accept that the showrooms/workshops of petitioners can be called as existing in a slum area." The bench added, "At best, the petitioners exist at the edge of Akbar Nagar slum area and not in the said slum area. Similarly, the facts that they have had enough money to spend on illegal construction of huge showrooms/workshops, are paying their GST and filing income tax returns and/or most of them are having their own residences in good and posh localities of city and/or other properties, we are unable to hold them as slum dwellers." In the course of hearing the bench had segregated the matters of these well-to-do petitioners from poor slum dwellers. Refuting the argument of the petitioners that since their accommodation existed in the Akbar Nagar area, they also would be termed as slum dwellers, the bench observed, "Presuming in a slum, a businessman finding good business opportunity takes possession of a large piece of land from the actual slum dwellers and illegally, without required sanctions, constructs a multiplex or a big hotel or a big shopping complex or raises any other such big business constructions. Can he, merely because he did these activities within a slum, claim to be a slum dweller entitled to the protection given to dingy houses of slum dwellers, despite all aspects of the matter reflecting his disparity with actual slum dwellers? The answer 'no' comes to us too loudly." Seoul, Feb 28 : Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will likely meet with business officials from leading South Korean tech companies and startups, including Samsung, during his visit to Seoul, industry sources said on Wednesday. The CEO of Meta Platforms, Facebook's parent company, arrived in South Korea on Tuesday night following his visit to Japan. This marks Zuckerberg's first visit to South Korea in more than 10 years, reports Yonhap news agency. Sources said Zuckerberg is likely to hold talks with Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong and LG Electronics CEO Cho Joo-wan to discuss possible cooperation in the fields of extended reality (XR) and artificial intelligence (AI) businesses during his stay in Seoul. He is also scheduled to meet with representatives from at least five unidentified XR startups at Meta Korea's office in southern Seoul in a closed-door session, the sources said. Meta has reportedly arranged the meeting directly with the startups as part of apparent efforts to advance the company's XR headset technology. Zuckerberg is also expected to meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol before departing the country on Thursday to travel to India. Meta Korea said it cannot confirm any details of Zuckerberg's trip to Seoul. Bengaluru, Feb 28 : Karnataka BJP on Wednesday launched a statewide protest to condemn the alleged incident of raising of pro-Pakistan slogans in the Assembly premises here during the victory celebration of a Congress candidate in the Rajya Sabha election. The state home minister, on the other hand, said the allegation was being probed. Leader of the Opposition, R. Ashoka took a protest march from the State Legislators' House to the Vidhana Soudha slamming the Congress government for not addressing the issue seriously. The LoP in the Legislative Council Kota Srinivas Poojari, BJP General Secretary and MLA V. Sunil Kumar and other BJP MLAs joined him in the protest. Ashoka stated, "I have sought time from the Governor's office. The BJP delegation will meet him and submit a memorandum to sack the Congress government immediately. The matter will be raised in the Assembly session in a big manner." "It is shameful that people are allowed to raise 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans in the premises of the state legislature. This development puts down the sacrifice of thousands of our soldiers. The Congress government had withdrawn more than 2,000 cases against the Popular Front of India (PFI) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) party workers accused in criminal cases. Today, anti-India and 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans are taken everywhere," he charged. "Instead of securing and arresting the accused who raised the 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogan, they were sent out in cars safely in the presence of the police," Ashoka stated. Sunil Kumar said, "The Congress government has taken the incident lightly. The government has failed to ensure arrests in the case. This is the result of the policy of appeasement. The anti-national forces are emboldened in Congress rule. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah should take moral responsibility for the incident." The BJP has alleged that 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans were raised while celebrating the victory of Congress' Syed Naseer Hussain in the premises of the Vidhana Soudha on Tuesday night after the Rajya Sabha election results were out. Reacting to the allegations, Karnataka Home Minister Dr. G. Parameshwara said there was nothing wrong committed by the Congress party in connection with the incident. He said the incident involving an individual raising 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogan has been reported in the media. The clippings of the media will be secured and sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for examination. Each media house has presented the story in a different manner, he added. "The BJP party has also lodged a complaint and both are being investigated. Some are claiming that the slogan was 'Naseer Hussain Zindabad' and some alleging that it was 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogan. If it is scientifically proven that an anti-national slogan is raised they will be punished, if not the question does not arise," the minister said. In the meantime, the Karnataka Police have registered a suo motu case regarding the case. Kolkata, Feb 28 : The Election Commission of India (ECI) has sought reports from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEI), West Bengal as well as from the state government on whether the statutory transfer of bureaucrats and police officers before the Lok Sabha elections had been done true to the spirit of fresh transfer norms as set by the commission. Sources said that the commission has sought the reports following instances of discrepancies. Although bureaucrats and police officers having completed three years in particular chair have been transferred as per the statutory norms, the commissionas other directive of not transferring them within the jurisdiction of the same Lok Sabha constituency or in the adjacent district has not been followed in some cases. On February 24 after noticing such deviations from the laid down transfer procedures, the office of the CEO, West Bengal alerted the state administration to rectify such deviations before the commission asks for the same. However, finally the commission had taken note of such deviation and sought reports both from the office of CEO, West Bengal and the state government. Political observers feel that from the subsequent actions of the commission including the latest one on seeking of transfer reports, it is clear that West Bengal is under its special scanner for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls this year. Already the commission has allotted 920 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces for West Bengal which is the highest among all Indian states. Out of those 920 companies, 50 companies are expected to arrive in the state in the first week of March, which is unprecedented that the central forces are deployed even before the election dates are announced. A full team of the ECI is scheduled to visit West Bengal in the first week of March to take stock of poll preparations. During their visit, the commission's representatives are scheduled to hold meetings with the top bureaucrats and police officers of the state, New Delhi, Feb 28 : The French Institute in India, in collaboration with Apeejay Trust, announces Pankaj Kumar Chatterjee's book "Divan Staliner", a translation of Jean-Daniel Baltassat's Stalin's Couch, the winner of 7th Romain Rolland Book Prize. This Bengali translation has been published by New Bharat Sahitya Kutir. New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANSlife) The French Institute in India, in collaboration with Apeejay Trust, announces Pankaj Kumar Chatterjee's book "Divan Staliner", a translation of Jean-Daniel Baltassat's Stalin's Couch, the winner of 7th Romain Rolland Book Prize. This Bengali translation has been published by New Bharat Sahitya Kutir. Elated about his win, translator Pankaj Kumar Chatterjee said, "I am delighted as my first translation from French into Bengali has been honoured with the Romain Rolland Book Prize. I am grateful to the French Institute in India for their support during the past two years from arranging funds under the PAP Tagore programme to my selection as the awardee. I expect that more and more French books will be translated into Bengali. I promise to do so." "I extend my good wishes to Pankaj Kumar Chatterjee, a very deserving winner of the Romain Rolland Prize for his exceptional Bengali translation of Jean-Daniel Baltassat's Stalin's Couch. It is my sincere hope that his recognition inspires more translators and publishers to continue their invaluable work in introducing the richness of French literature to Indian readers. At Oxford Bookstores, we understand the vital role that translations play in enriching the literary landscape, exploring new cultures, perspectives, and ideas, and breaking down barriers while fostering a deeper appreciation for the diverse beauty of global literature. We are delighted to support the prestigious Romain Rolland Prize, a prize which not only acknowledges the efforts of Indian translators and publishers but also nurtures a love for literature that transcends boundaries," said Priti Paul, Director of Apeejay Surrendra Group. This is the second time that a Bengali title has received the prestigious award, following the translation of Kamel Daoud's Meursault, contre-enquete as "Myorso Birudhyo Saksho" by Trinanjan Chakraborty, published in 2022 by Patra Bharati. This year's winning title was originally published in French as Le Divan de Staline. It was longlisted for the prestigious Goncourt Prize in 2013 and later adapted for the cinema by Fanny Ardant, with Gerard Depardieu playing Stalin. The story revolves around a singular episode in the life of Stalin. With three years left to live, Stalin comes to spend several days in his native Georgia, in a decadent palace in the middle of a forest. In the ducal study where he sleeps is a couch that resembles the one Freud has in London. At night, his long-time mistress, Vodieva, plays the role of a psychoanalyst. During the day a young painter, Danilov, a prodigy of social realism, waits to be received by Stalin to present to him the monument of eternity that he has designed to his glory. Insomnia, infinite questioning, infinite waiting. Stretched out on this couch, Stalin plays with the ghosts that haunt his dreams: his mother, his wife who committed suicide, his years in Siberia, and Lenin, the greatest of the lying fathers. Jean-Daniel Baltassat imagines the intimate life of the Soviet ruler, and far from rehabilitating Stalin as being tender and affable, portrays him as a ruthless man who evokes terror and demands submission. He approaches Stalin as a writer with a remarkable evocative power, where imagination takes over from historical truth. Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens, Counsellor for Education, Science and Culture, Embassy of France, and the Director of the French Institute in India said, "Jean-Daniel Baltassat belongs to a tradition of French writers excelling in the art of historical fiction. With the Romain Rolland Translation Prize, we aim to bring contemporary French literature to the forefront, and award the efforts made by Indian publishers and translators to make these works available in India."The winning publisher will be invited by the French Institute in India to the Paris Book Market in May 2024 and the winning translator will be invited to the Paris Book Fair in April 2024. Established in 2017, the Romain Rolland Book Prize awards the finest translation of a French title into any Indian language, including English. The prize aims to promote and acknowledge the efforts of Indian translators and publishers in introducing the richness of Francophone literature and thought in all its diversity to Indian readers. Ms. Priti Paul, Director, of Oxford Bookstores supports the Romain Rolland Prize through the Apeejay Trust. IANSlife can be contacted at ianslife@ians.in Guwahati, Feb 28 : Assam Police arrested one drug peddler in Guwahati and seized narcotic substances from his possession, officials said on Wednesday. The arrested individual has been identified as 23-year-old Sapan Roy. He is a native of Dhubri district but was temporarily residing in Basistha Chariali's Natun Bazar area in Guwahati. According to police, they got a tip-off about the drug peddling attempt in the city and conducted an operation on Tuesday night. "We have recovered 18 vials containing suspected heroin weighing 23.5 grams, three empty plastic containers, three different wrenches, and one knife from the possession of the accused," the police said. A case on the relevant section was registered against Sapan Roy. He was interrogated by the police for further links with the drug peddling circle. Further investigation is underway. Chennai, Feb 28 : The Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed a bail petition moved by DMK leader and former Tamil Nadu Minister V. Senthil Balaji in a money laundering case. Senthil Balaji was arrested by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on June 14, 2023, and remains in judicial custody since then. The single bench of the Madras High Court, Justice N. Anand Venkatesh, also directed the trial court to complete the trial within three months by conducting the proceedings on a day-to-day basis, as far as practicable, since the petitioner has been in jail for more than 250 days. The judge had heard the arguments by the senior Supreme Court lawyer, C. Aryama Sundaram for Senthil Balaji and Additional Solicitor General A.R.L. Sundaresan. The judge had reserved the orders on the bail plea on February 22 after hearing the arguments of the two sides. The Chennai Central Crime Branch (CCB) Police had registered multiple FIRs to investigate the scam. After that the ED had registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 on the basis of those FIRs. Senthil Balaji was serving as the Minister for Electricity and Prohibition when the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) conducted raids at his residence on June 13, 2023 and arrested him in the intervening night of June 13 and June 14, 2023. Senthil Balaji, had during the arrest complained of chest pain and a medical checkup at a government hospital in Chennai revealed that he was having three blocks in his coronary artery. Subsequently his wife moved a habeas corpus petition in the Madras High Court and transferred him to a private hospital (Kaveri Hospital, Chennai ) where he was operated upon. Till recently Shenthil Balaji was a minister without portfolio even during his period of incarceration in the Puzhal central prison. When the second bail petition had come for hearing, Justice Anand Venkatesh asked in the open court as to how the petitioner could continue as a minister even after months of being in custody. The minister resigned from the post soon after the court mentioned this. New Delhi, Feb 28 : Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Wednesday visited the Microsoft India Development Centre (IDC) in Hyderabad, a centre of innovation that he envisioned in 1998. IDC is celebrating its 25th year of groundbreaking research, engineering, and development, marking its pivotal role in shaping world-class products such as Azure, Windows, Office, Bing, Copilot, and other AI applications. "It was rewarding to watch Bill address some of India's brightest engineering minds at IDC, our biggest asset," Rajiv Kumar, Managing Director, Microsoft IDC, and CVP, Experiences + Devices India, said in a statement. "Echoing his optimism over the opportunity for an AI-powered India, IDC is excited to drive innovation from India for Microsoft - from AI and cloud to security and gaming," he added. Earlier this week, Gates announced his plans to visit India in a LinkedIn post, saying, "I canat wait to learn about how India is finding innovative new ways to advance health, digital public infrastructure, and climate to improve the lives of billions." In his blog, the Microsoft co-founder mentioned that he is visiting this week to learn about "how we can continue working with India to help its ideas and inventions reach everyone who needs them, no matter where they live." "This will be a main topic when I meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week," Gates added. New Delhi, Feb 28 : A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the name of four astronauts to lead India's Gaganyaan mission, during his visit to ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre, a major controversy broke out in Tamil Nadu over ruling party's eulogy of China at the cost of country's premiere space organisation. The row emanated after Anitha R Radhakrishnan, a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) minister, purportedly shared a poster of India's space programme, with Chinese 'satellite' taking centrestage. The 'shocking' poster featuring DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi, chief minister MK Stalin and other key ministers, has drawn strong reactions from BJP and others, as they claimed that this amounted to disregarding country's sovereignty and brazenly glorified China. Hitting out hard at the DMK dispensation, Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annnamalai said that the party was desperate to seek credit and paste stickers, ever since ISRO's second launch pad was announced in Kulasekarapatinam, a province in Thoothukudi district. TN BJP unit chief also lambasted the DMK over its 'past misdeeds' and accused it of insulting nation's top scientists at earlier occasions. He also quoted an instance of how ISRO officials were once subject to abject treatment by an 'inebriated' DMK minister. He further informed that when ISRO was conceptualised, Tamil Nadu was the first choice. "The amount of desperation only proves their attempt to bury their past misdeeds, but we must remind them that it was beacuse of DMK, why the Satish Dhawan Space Centre is today in Andhra Pradesh & not Tamil Nadu," he said. "TN CM Thiru Annadurai, who could not attend the meeting because of severe shoulder pain, deputed Mathiyazhagan, one of his ministers, for the meeting. ISRO officials were kept waiting for a long, and Mathiyazhagan was finally brought to the meeting in an "inebriated state" & was incoherent throughout the meeting. And, this was the treatment our country's space programme received 60 years ago," he further said. New Delhi, Feb 28 : Vodafone Idea shares slumped more than 11 per cent on Wednesday, a day after it announced fundraising plans. Vodafone Idea shares were trading at Rs 13.98, down 11.91 per cent on BSE. The much-awaited capital raise by Vodafone Idea is crucial as it is essential to ensure immediate liquidity and facilitate the expansion of the network, Motilal Oswal Financial Services said in a report. The company still holds a debt of Rs 2.1 trillion with an annual installment of Rs 430 billion from FY26 onwards. This looks challenging against FY24 EBITDA of Rs 84 billion. The significant amount of cash required to service debt leaves limited upside opportunities for equity holders, even with the potential operating leverage benefits from any increase in ARPU. Given the current low EBITDA, servicing the debt without external funding will be challenging. Assuming a 14x EV/EBITDA ratio, coupled with a net debt of Rs 2.1 trillion, leaves limited opportunities for equity shareholders, the report said. In line with management statements over the past 4-6 quarters regarding the fund raising, the Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) board has approved an equity fund raise of up to Rs 200 billion, with participation from the promoters. The total fund raise, comprising both equity and debt, amounts to Rs 450 billion. It is expected that the equity fund raise will occur in the next quarter. However, post moratorium ends in FY26, the companyas annual obligation would be Rs 430 billion vs EBITDA of Rs 84 billion, presenting a significant risk, the report said. Upon completion of the fund raise, the company will have the capability to invest in the expansion of its 4G network and deployment of 5G technology. The shareholders meeting will be held on April 2 and post shareholder approval, the company expects to finalise the equity fund raise in the coming quarter, the report added. The absence of these investments posed a risk for VIL, causing a shift of its premium subscribers to Bharti/RJio networks and has adversely impacted VILas network capability, consequently leading to elevated customer churn. The infusion of funds (equity + debt) will bolster the companyas network infrastructure, the brokerage said. New Delhi, Feb 28 : Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Wednesday visited the company's India Development Centre (IDC) in Hyderabad, a centre of innovation that he envisioned in 1998. IDC is celebrating its 25th year of groundbreaking research, engineering, and development, marking its pivotal role in shaping world-class products such as Azure, Windows, Office, Bing, Copilot, and other AI applications. "It was rewarding to watch Bill address some of India's brightest engineering minds at IDC, our biggest asset," Rajiv Kumar, Managing Director, Microsoft IDC, and CVP, Experiences + Devices India, said in a statement. "Echoing his optimism over the opportunity for an AI-powered India, IDC is excited to drive innovation from India for Microsoft - from AI and cloud to security and gaming," he added. Earlier this week, Gates announced his plans to visit India in a LinkedIn post, saying, "I canat wait to learn about how India is finding innovative new ways to advance health, digital public infrastructure, and climate to improve the lives of billions." In his blog, the Microsoft co-founder mentioned that he is visiting this week to learn about "how we can continue working with India to help its ideas and inventions reach everyone who needs them, no matter where they live." "This will be a main topic when I meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week," Gates added. Lucknow, Feb 28 : Samajwadi Party (SP) President, Akhilesh Yadav, said on Wednesday that appropriate action would be initiated against the party's rebel MLAs at the right time. Lucknow, Feb 28 (IANS) Samajwadi Party (SP) President, Akhilesh Yadav, said on Wednesday that appropriate action would be initiated against the partyas rebel MLAs at the right time. Akhilesh Yadavas statement came a day after the party's chief whip in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly, Manoj Pandey, quit while voting was underway for 10 Rajya Sabha seats from the state on Tuesday. The SPas National Spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary, said that the rebel MLAs would be served a show cause notice and further action against them would be taken thereafter. Akhilesh Yadav said that it remains to be seen how these rebel MLAs face the people in their constituencies because they had won after defeating the BJP candidates on those seats. "It also remains to be seen what package these people have received for their votes," he added. Meanwhile, BSP leader Guddu Jamali a.k.a Shah Alam joined the SP on Wednesday. His joining the SP seems to be the immediate fallout of the BSP voting for the BJP in Tuesday's Rajya Sabha polls. Jamali, who had joined and then quit the SP in 2019, said that this time he was here to stay because he had realised that the PDA formula would be implemented in spirit by the SP. Guddu Jamali wields considerable influence in Azamgarh and adjoining districts. The acronym PDA coined by Akhilesh Yadav stands for P (pichhada or backward classes), D (Dalits) and A (Alpsankhyak or minorities, including Muslims). The three communities, taken together, comprise roughly 80-85 per cent of the total population of the state -- the electorate that the SP is trying to consolidate for the LS polls. No question of protecting anyone if FSL report proves allegation: Ktaka CM on pro-Pak slogan issue. Image Source: IANS News Bengaluru, Feb 28 : Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said that if the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report proves that the slogan raised in favour of Pakistan is true, serious action will be taken. "There is no question of protecting those who raised slogans in favour of Pakistan," said the CM. He was speaking to the media at the Vidhana Soudha here. "Strict action will be taken against whoever shouted slogans against the nation," he said. Answering a question from the media that this incident happened in Vidhana Soudha, he said, "What difference will it make to those who want to raise slogans?" The incident had allegedly taken place during the victory celebration of Syed Naseer Hussain, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The BJP has called for a statewide protest against the incident and lodged a police complaint. Mumbai, Feb 28 : Actor Aayush Sharma, who is gearing up for his upcoming release 'Ruslaan', chose the tune for the film after going through over a hundred tunes along with director Karan Bhutani and producer K.K. Radhamohan. The tune needed to have a unique quality to become the signature sound of the film. Among the hundred tunes emerged a standout composition that radiated infectious energy and emotional depth as it captured the essence of 'Ruslaan' with clarity. For the team, it unanimously evoked a range of emotions, from excitement to anticipation, ensuring its place as the heartbeat of the teaser. Talking about it, Aayush said: "Growing up, I was enchanted by the signature sound of films like 'Sholay' and 'Hero', as these tunes had a timeless quality. That one whistle-worthy hum could transport you to another world. For 'Ruslaan', we were on a pursuit for that same magic." He further mentioned, "After sifting through countless tunes, around 100 or 150 I believe we've found our gem. The version we have now resonates with that same nostalgic charm, a melody that everyone loves and will linger in hearts long after the credits roll." 'Ruslaan' also stars Sushrii Mishraa, Jagapathi Babu and Vidya Malvade, and is directed by Karan L Butani and produced by Sri Satya Sai Arts. The film is all set to release on April 26. Mumbai, Feb 28 : Actor Mukul Chadda, who is gearing up for the release of his upcoming film 'Fairy Folk' with his wife Rasika Dugal, has shared that he shot takes lasting as long as 25 minutes without any cuts for the film. Mukul said that while working in this process he felt like he was back to his theatre days as on the stage, an actor has to take the full responsibility of taking the scene forward as there are no cuts and retakes while on stage. Talking about the same, the actor said: "There were really long takes, some as long as 25 minutes! It felt like I was back doing theatre or an entirely improvised play." The director of the film, Karan Gour, entrusted Mukul and co-star Rasika with the freedom to improvise scenes for extended durations without interrupting the flow. Mukul further mentioned: "The liberty given by Karan Gour to explore our way through scenes without frequent cuts is very liberating for an actor. We also shot scenes in the same order as you will see them, and it really felt like a journey where we were living the lives of our characters and discovering them through the film. And I think there's something naturally instinctive and authentic that emerges out of an improvised process." 'Fairy Folk', directed by Karan Gour, blends the elements of spontaneity and creativity to bring its narrative to life on the big screen. The film is set to release in theatres on March 1. New Delhi, Feb 28 : Continuing with his endeavours to further cement India's relations with its diaspora, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is set to meet the small but significant Indian community in the Republic of Korea as he begins his first visit to Seoul on March 5. While one is well aware of the Korea-based Indian actor Anupam Tripathi who became a household name after 'Squid Games', the nation is home to around 15,000 Indians with many professionals contributing to the country's IT, shipping, and automobile sectors. Some other notable Indian names in the country include Aria, originally named Gauthami, a member of a global K-pop girl group called X:IN. The visit of EAM Jaishankar, who has always thanked and praised the diaspora while calling them ambassadors of India, comes at a time when a significant number of Indians are choosing the nation as a study-abroad destination. According to recent MEA estimates, more than 1,300 Indian students are studying in South Korea and a large number of them are pursuing post-graduate and Ph.D programmes, mostly in pure sciences. With popular education destinations like the UK and Canada tightening immigration rules, many Indian students are considering Korea owing to its quality education, affordable tuition fees, and the cost of living. For instance, a Korean D-2 Student Visa permits working up to 20 hours per week and after graduation, students can apply for a D-10 visa and start looking for jobs. In September last year, Minister Lim Sang Woo (Deputy Head of Mission), Embassy of the Republic of Korea, said Korea is keen on more students, researchers, and highly skilled workers, and aims to attract 3,00,000 international students by 2027. The two countries were also exploring a new migration agreement last year to ensure easier mobility for professionals of the two countries across a range of areas including technology and automobiles. With EAM Jaishankar co-chairing the 10th India - Republic of Korea Joint Commission Meeting with his counterpart Cho Tae-yul, it is likely that these issues will come up for discussion. The meeting is expected to comprehensively review the entire gamut of bilateral cooperation and explore avenues for further strengthening it. According to an MEA release, the meeting will also provide an opportunity for the two sides to exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest. The Indian community was also addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visited the nation in 2019 where he said that the main basis for India-Korea relations is "people-to-people contact". Extolling the Indian community in the Republic, PM Modi had said that they not only celebrate Holi, Diwali, Baisakhi and other Indian festivals but also involve their Korean friends in it. "The blood flowing in the people of Korea also has part of India," the PM had said amid claps and cheers from the community as he recounted the story of Indian princess Suriratna who married a Korean king. Computerised I-cards with QR codes for invigilators in UP Board exams. Image Source: IANS News Hyderabad, Feb 28 : Nearly 10 lakh students of Class 11 and 12 in Telangana are attending the Intermediate public examinations which began across Telangana on Wednesday. The Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) is conducting the annual exams at 1,521 centres across 33 districts. Intermediate first year (Class 11) exams began on Wednesday with the second language Paper 1 exam while the second-year exams will start on Thursday. A total of 9,80,978 students have applied for the exams. While 4,78,718 students are appearing for the first-year exams, 5,02,260 students will write second year exams. Prohibitory orders under section 144 Cr.P.C. were imposed around the exam centres. The authorities also ordered closure of photocopy shops near the exam centres. As candidates were directed to report to the exam centre an hour before the start of the exam, those reaching late were not allowed in. A few students, who failed to reach on time, were seen breaking down after they were denied entry into the exam halls. The TSBIE is not allowing mobile phones or any electronic gadget into the exam centres. The Board has deployed 27,900 invigilators for the smooth conduct of the exams. It also constituted 75 flying quads and 200 sitting squads to check copying. The officials have taken several precautionary measures in view of the paper leakage in the past. The intermediate exams will continue till March 19. Pune, Feb 28 : Pimpri-Chinchwad Police have busted a racket which used to print fake Rs 500 Indian currency notes on Chinese paper ordered online and arrested six persons, including an engineer, officials said here on Wednesday. A team led by Dehu Road Police Station's Senior Inspector of Police, Nitin Fatangare seized 440 counterfeit Rs 500 denomination notes, 4,700 partly-printed notes bills, 4,484 printed and ready-to-cut notes, 1,000 sheets of Chinese made currency paper, a printing machine sourced locally, laptops, paper-cutting machines and other articles from the accused. The incident came to light after a tip-off that a young IT engineer, Hruthik Khadse, 22, had started a printing business with some of his friends. They had bought a used printing machine from the Appa Balwant Chowk area and started their printing unit in Dighi, to publish pamphlets, handbills and other odd publicity materials. However, the business went into losses as they failed to get sufficient orders, and then one of the prime accused, a driver named Suraj Yadav, 41, suggested the idea of printing fake Indian currency notes to make easy money. Yadav claimed to know the art of designing the notes, the paper was ordered from a Chinese e-commerce portal and they printed 140 notes of Rs 500 denomination including the water-mark, thread and other security features, as a trial. They secured a Rs 40,000 order to print 200 such fake notes with a face value of Rs 1,00,000, and Yadav was caught red-handed when he attempted to pass off 140 of the fraudulent notes to some customers in Mukai Chowk. Others arrested for the fraud are Pranav Gavhane, 31, Akash Dhangekar, 22, Tejas Ballal, 19 and Suraj Salunkhe, 32, and all the six accused have been sent to police custody for a week, said the officials. The police are probing how far the tentacles of the racket are spread, how the gang managed to design the near-authentic currency notes along with several of the security elements available on the genuine notes, and other unknown associates or customers of the accused. New Delhi, Feb 28 : A Delhi court on Wednesday granted regular bail to former Bihar Chief Minister and RJD chief Lalu Prasad's wife Rabri Devi and her daughters -- Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav -- in a money laundering case pertaining to the alleged land-for-job scam matter. The accused were presented before Special Judge Vishal Gogne of Rouse Avenue Court on expiry of their interim bail, which was granted on February 9. The court had taken cognisance of the Enforcement Directorate (ED)'s first charge sheet on January 27. On Wednesday, Judge Gogne granted them and co-accused Hridyanand Chaudhary bail saying that they were not arrested during the probe, and that there is no doubt of accused fleeing from the law. Appearing for the financial probe agency, special public prosecutor (SPP) Manish Jain along with Snehal Sharda submitted that if the bail is granted, strict conditions may be imposed in view of the gravity of the allegations. The court, however, gave them relief on furnishing of bail bond of Rs one lakh and surety in the like amount. The court had, on February 5, granted till March 4 interim bail on medical grounds to Amit Katyal, an alleged close associate of former Union Minister Lalu Prasad's family, who has also been named along with some companies in the charge sheet. Katyal, promoter of AK Infosystems, was arrested in November last year by the central probe agency. The court recently sought a reply from the CBI on an application moved by leader Lalu Prasad, his son and wife seeking supply of documents filed along with the charge sheet. The court had asked the CBI to file a reply on pleas of eight accused seeking supply of deficient documents. On October 3 last year, the court had granted bail to Lalu Prasad, son and wife in the case. On September 22, 2023, the court took cognisance of a fresh charge sheet by the CBI against Lalu Prasad and others, including his son and wife. Since the probe agency did not oppose the bail, Additional Sessions Judge Geetanjali Goel granted bail. The ED had earlier said that it has attached assets worth more than Rs 6 crore belonging to Lalu Prasad's family -- his wife Rabri Devi and daughter Misa Bharti -- and linked companies as part of its money laundering investigation against them in the case. The CBI had registered the case on May 18, 2022 against Lalu Prasad and 15 others, including his wife, two daughters and unidentified public servants and private persons. "During the period 2004-2009, Lalu Prasad (then Railway Minister) had obtained pecuniary advantages in the form of transfer of landed property in the name of his family members in lieu of appointment of substitutes in Group 'D' posts in different Zones of Railways," a CBI official had earlier said. A number of residents of Patna themselves or through their family members sold and gifted their land in favour of the family members of Lalu Prasad and a private company controlled by him and his family. "No advertisement or any public notice was issued for such appointment of substitutes in Zonal Railways, yet the appointees, who were residents of Patna, were appointed as substitutes in different Zonal Railways located in Mumbai, Jabalpur, Kolkata, Jaipur and Hajipur. "In continuation of this modus operandi, about 1,05,292 sq. ft. land and immovable properties located in Patna were acquired by Lalu Prasad and his family members through five sales deeds and two gift deeds, showing the payment made to the seller in cash in most of the land transfer," the CBI had said. Thoothukudi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi and Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal during the inauguration and foundation stone laying ceremony of various developmental projects. Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Feb 28 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi came down hard on Tamil Nadu's ruling party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) for latter's 'brazen' attempt to seek credit over the upcoming second space port of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Kulasekarapattinam district. Addressing a public rally in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli on Wednesday, PM Modi lambasted the DMK for its reckless behavior on issues of national importance and accused it of 'glorifying' China and insulting our own scientists. "DMK's penchant for taking credit is not new. They paste their own posters on Central government's scheme. This time, they have crossed all the limits. They pasted stickers of China on ISRO advertisements for taking credit on launch of second facility," said PM Modi. Notably, PM Modi laid the foundation stone for ISRO's second space port on Wednesday. Spread over 2,200 acres, this space port is expected to get operational in two years and will add strength to ISRO's launching capabilities. He further tore into DMK dispensation for using taxpayers' money for furthering their own political interests. "First they are not ready to accept ISRO's achievements and feel happy about it. Rather than sharing it with the world, they insulted our scientists and space sector engineers with the money garnered from taxpayers," he said. "Now, it is the time to punish the DMK for its deeds," PM Modi urged people. For the unversed, DMK minister Anitha R Radhakrishnan stirred a major controversy on Wednesday as he shared a poster ahead of ISRO's second facility launch but linked it with China to 'demean' India's achievements in space sector. The poster purportedly displayed Chinese missile, along with pictures of CM Stalin and Prime Minister. PM Modi also slammed the DMK over its distasteful stand on Ram Mandir's Pran Pratishtha ceremony. "The nation celebrated the Pran Pratishtha ceremony of Ram Mandir. Parliament passed a resolution to this effect but the DMK lawmakers walked out of the House. This behavior shows their deep dislike for majoritarian's beliefs," said PM Modi. Hyderabad, Feb 28 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit Telangana in the first week of March. The Prime Minister is likely to participate in various programmes in Adilabad and Sangareddy districts during his two-day visit. According to sources in the BJP, PM Modi will visit Adilabad on March 4, where he will attend various development programmes and address a public meeting. After the visit to Adilabad, the Prime Minister will return to Hyderabad and have a night halt at the Raj Bhavan. The next day, he will visit Sangareddy district to launch some development projects. The Prime Minister will later address a public meeting there. This will be PM Modias first visit to Telangana after the Assembly elections held on November 30 last year. The state BJP leadership has started making arrangements for the success of PM Modias public meetings, his first in Telangana ahead of the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. The state BJP has already started campaigning for the upcoming elections with the ongoing five Praja Sankalp Yatras covering all the 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state. In 2019, the BJP had bagged four Lok Sabha seats, which was the partyas best-ever performance in Telangana. In the last Assembly elections, the BJP bagged eight seats in the 119-member state Assembly, a big improvement from its tally of just one seat in the 2018 polls. Colombo, Feb 28 : Indian Coast Guard ships Samarth, an Offshore Patrol Vessel and Abhinav, Fast Patrol Vessel, arrived at Southern port city of Galle for training and professional interaction, the Indian High Commission in Colombo said. "The ships will visit Colombo from March 2 to 5 before departing the Island nation. The Commanding Officers of the Indian Coast Guard Ships, Deputy Inspector General P Pradeep Kumar and Commandant (JG) Prabhat Kumar will be calling on Director General Sri Lanka Coast Guard and other senior officers," the Indian High Commission said. During the stay, the ships will undertake training for Sri Lanka Coast Guard on VBSS, Fire Fighting and Damage Control, Maritime Pollution Response and hold few other professional interactions. Other activities such as yoga, beach cleaning and walkathon will also be held during the visit. Additionally Passage Exercise (PASSEX) is to be conducted with Sri Lanka Coast Guard Ship, on departure, off Galle and Colombo. The ships will be open for visit by school children. The ships would host a reception onboard for guests from Sri Lanka including senior officials from defence hierarchy and civil administration. "The visit of these Indian Coast Guard Ships will significantly aid in augmenting capabilities of Sri Lanka Coast Guard and personnel in order to efficiently address maritime security challenges in the region," the High Commission said. Indian Naval Ships and Submarines Kora, Kabra and Karanj had visited Colombo in past few months. Visits by Indian Navy and Coast Guard vessels to Sri Lanka aim to enhance camaraderie and interoperability between the two friendly neighbouring Navies, which is in keeping with Indiaas SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) doctrine and aNeighbourhood Firsta. Bengaluru, Feb 28 : Union Minister for State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare Shobha Karandlaje has demanded NIA probe into the allegations of raising pro-Pakistan slogans in Karnataka legislature premises. She said on Wednesday that she will write a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah in this regard. Speaking to reporters in Udupi, the Union Minister said,"How can police allow those with the mindset of shouting 'Pakistan Zindabad' slogans to be let inside the premises? Rajya Sabha member Syed Naseer Hussain must be subjected to investigation. There is a possibility of big controversy behind this. "The Congress is talking about dividing the country. The power is not permanent to any government. There is a systematic effort to create confusion in the country. The truth will come out if the NIA probes the incident. "The police should find out the forces behind this development. "I have requested the police chief of Karnataka to arrest the accused," she stated. Syed Naseer Hussain, however, has offered clarification on the issue. He said that some of his supporters celebrated the victory of three candidates, of which he was one of them, He said slogans such as 'Naseer saab Zindabad, Congress party Zindabad' were raised. But, all of a sudden when he was leaving for home he got a call from the media about the raising pro-Pakistan slogans. "I would like to say, when I was there and in the midst of people, I never heard the slogan 'Pakistan Zindabad' there. We already asked the police and let them investigate it. If someone has raised such a slogan he should be dealt with sternly and strictly as per law. "If someone has morphed and played the video, even that has to be inquired. Even if someone has raised the slogan, who is he, from where did he come and enter the premises, what was his intention ..everything should be probed. "When I was there, the slogan was never shouted, if the slogan was raised in my presence, no sane person or Indian citizen could have tolerated it. Let us wait for the inquiry and whatever comes out will be in the public domain," he said. New Delhi, Feb 28 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav for questioning as a witness in Uttar Pradesh's illegal mining case, said the sources on Wednesday. New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav for questioning as a witness in Uttar Pradeshas illegal mining case, said the sources on Wednesday. Under Section 160 of the CrPC, the CBI has issued a notice summoning former CM Yadav to Delhi for questioning on Thursday. The notice pertains to an FIR filed in connection with illegal mining activities in Hamirpur spanning from 2012 to 2016. During the period from 2012 to June 2013, Yadav served as the head of the mining department. In response to concerns over unchecked illegal mining, the Allahabad High Court, in July 2016, mandated a CBI investigation into the matter, expressing dissatisfaction with the lack of action taken to address the issue. Highlighting the importance of safeguarding natural resources from exploitation, the High Court had emphasised the necessity for action against such activities. The court instructed the CBI to investigate whether the illegal mining was facilitated through collusion with state authorities. Subsequently, in January 2019, the CBI registered an FIR in connection with the case. Kolkata, Feb 28 : A Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday, made it amply clear that any investigating agency, whether under the state or Union government, was empowered to arrest absconding Trinamool Congress leader Sheikh Shahjahan. Shahjahan is the accused mastermind in the January 5 attack on ED and CAPF sleuths in Sandeshkhali in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas District. The court made the statement during the hearing on a matter relating to the arrest of the ruling party leader, at the Division Bench of Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya. The Chief Justice made it clear that although there is a stay on the formation of a joint investigation team of the West Bengal Police and the CBI to probe the attack on ED and CAPF sleuths, there is no restriction on arresting Shahjahan. Without naming anyone, the Chief Justice also referred to the recent public observation made by a section of Trinamool Congress representatives and ministers that the state police are unable to arrest Shahjahan because of a stay on it by the Calcutta High Court. "Some are claiming that the court is protecting the accused. The state police cannot shy away from responsibility as the arrest could not be made even after so many FIRs filed against him in the last few years," the Chief Justice observed. During the hearing, the ED's counsel Dhiraj Trivedi argued that in case the state police arrest Shahjahan, it would be difficult for the ED to get his remand at a later stage and hence he was asking for an independent CBI probe into the matter. Thereafter, the Chief Justice again observed that both, the state police and the central agencies, were empowered to arrest Shahjahan. Going to CBI soon with proof of Mamata Banerjee's involvement in Saradha scam: Suvendu Adhikari. Image Source: IANS News Kolkata, Feb 28 : A war of words broke out in West Bengal on Wednesday after the leader of opposition in the state Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, accused the police of conspiring to shield absconding Trinamool Congress leader Sheikh Shahjahan, the accused mastermind behind the attack on ED and CAPF personnel at Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district on January 5. Describing Shahjahan as the "Scoun**** of Sandeshkhali", Adhikari said that the absconding Trinamool leader is in the safe custody of 'Mamata Police' since last midnight. "He (Shahjahan) was taken away from the Bermajur-II gram panchayat area after he managed to strike a deal with the police through influential mediators that he would be taken care of well while in custody," Adhikari claimed. Adhikari also said that Shahjahan will be given five-star treatment during his time behind the bars, where he will have access to a mobile phone through which he will be able to keep in touch with his supporters. The leader of opposition also claimed that even a bed will be kept ready for Shahjahan at the Woodburn Ward in the state-run S.S.K.M. Medical College & Hospital, usually meant for V.V.I.P. patients, in case the absconding Trinamool leader chooses to 'spend' some time there. Reacting to the allegations, Trinamool spokesman Kunal Ghosh said that since Adhikari knows everything, he should specify the exact place where Shahjahan is being sheltered now. Ghosh also accused Adhikari of roping in Shahjahan into the Trinamool Congress from the CPI(M). "He (Shahjahan) was with the CPI(M), and it was Adhikari who roped him into Trinamool. There is a picture of the two together. In reality, both enjoy a very close relationship," Ghosh said. New Delhi, Feb 28 : A Delhi court on Wednesday convicted AAP MLA Prakash Jarwal in an abetment of suicide case linked to the death of a South Delhi-based doctor in 2020. The order was pronounced by Special Judge MK Nagpal of the Rouse Avenue court. In 2021, Additional Sessions Judge Geetanjali Goel had framed charges against Jarwal and his aide Kapil Nagar under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including abetment of suicide, criminal conspiracy, extortion, criminal intimidation, and common intention. Another accused, Harish, was discharged from some of the charges but held liable for criminal intimidation. The case stems from the suicide of 52-year-old Dr. Rajender Singh on April 18, 2020, with a purported suicide note implicating Jarwal and his associates for alleged harassment over the victim's water supply business. The note also accused Jarwal of extortion. Outside the court premises, Jarwalas counsel, Advocate Ravi Drall said, "After four years he (Jarwal) has been convicted. Many witnesses turned hostile during the trial, and of those who were cross-examined, their statements were disproved. Even after this, the court has convicted him. We have full faith in the judicial system and will challenge the decision in the High Court." The court found sufficient evidence to establish that Jarwal and Nagar had extorted money from the deceased by threatening him and his family, thereby pushing him towards suicide. Jarwal's defence had argued that the allegations were based on observations in the deceased's diary and lacked direct witness testimony. New Delhi, Feb 28 : Three people were injured and a car torched in a clash between two groups, including locals, in west Delhi early on Wednesday, police said. The incident, said to have broken out over a monetary dispute, occurred near B-1 Chowk in Khayala area. According to police, when they reached the spot and tried to restore peace, locals pelted stones at them. "The situation is under control now. A large number of police personnel have been deployed to maintain law and order in the area. Police teams have been formed to probe the matter and CCTV footage is being collected," a senior police official said. Further details are awaited. Dubai Municipality has begun implementing a key project for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the supporting walls along the Deira side of Dubai Creek. It is aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of the creeks retaining walls by upgrading the dock, reconstructing sections that have been damaged and dilapidated over the past 50 years, and preventing potential flooding during harsh weather conditions. The AED112 million ($30.4 million) project is being implemented in two phases, with the first one involving the restoration of a 2.1 km stretch along the Deira side of Dubai Creek. Dubai Municipality said the site will be divided into multiple sections, and each segment will be sequentially patterned to ensure uninterrupted docking traffic. The second phase will cover a 2.3 km length on the Bur Dubai side. The project's 14-month timeline includes the restoration of the 2.1 km Deira pier, which involves replacement and the rehabilitation of damaged sections of the concrete wall, reaching a depth of 8 meters and increasing its height to 3 meters. These improvements aim to ensure the safe docking of ships in the area. By initiating this project, the Municipality aims to enhance services and facilities for safe docking and navigation, which will be ensured through the provision of 200 anchors across the dock. The entire work will be completed within a 14-month period. "The project highlights Dubai Municipalitys commitment to transforming the emirate into a more attractive and innovative city by enhancing various elements and services it offers through the strategic and sustainable development of all coastal facilities and infrastructure," remarked its Director-General Dawoud Al Hajri. "The project is set to improve security and safety measures for maritime traffic and commercial operations within Dubai Creek, he noted. As a significant symbol of the citys growth, Dubai Creek serves as a vibrant artery at the heart of Dubai. Facilitating the passage of over 13,000 ships annually, it plays a key role in fostering the economic and social prosperity of the emirate. "We have implemented several measures to mitigate the risks posed by climate change and rising sea levels, closely monitoring changes on both sides of the creek. Furthermore, we have conducted technical studies to devise construction designs that can enhance the efficiency of the marine docks on both banks, said Al Hajri. "These designs adhere to the highest global standards, ensuring the preservation of the supporting walls stability and safeguarding against increased flooding during seasonal weather conditions," he added.-TradeArabia News Service Chandigarh, Feb 28 : The moment you enter, a portrait of Lal Singh Dil, one of the major revolutionary Punjabi poets emerging out of the Naxalite Movement in Punjab towards the late sixties of the 20th century, stares directly at you. Village landscapes envelop the Punjab Kala Bhavan gallery in modernistic Chandigarh. There are also portraits of Gaihal Singh Chhajjalwadi, Madam Cama, Saadat Hasan Manto, and Kartar Singh Sarabha -- the unsung ones. In a corner, the soft-spoken major Punjabi painter, sculptor and linguist Kanwal Dhaliwal, now based in the UK, is sitting. As his latest exhibition, 'Back to the Roots', curated by Anju Bala, now travels in Punjab, he refrains from talking about the immigrant experience, highlighted in his latest work, with the cliches most immigrant artists love to use. "The rootlessness may be for me, but for our children, what we call the 'new' is not alien. Thus, what emerges are newer roots, assimilation, where the outsider slowly becomes the insider," he told IANS. Originally from the rural Malwa region, Dhaliwal has worked in almost every medium, such as oil, watercolour, clay, wood, and stone. Trained at the Government College of Art, Chandigarh, the latest exhibition has works from his previous series, including 'The Village' -- where, through drawings and sculptures, he portrays the resilience of village life, and 'The Valiant Ones'. "I've been thinking of doing an exhibition in Chandigarh for almost five years now. Whenever I would come from England, I would get along a few works with me," he said. Talk to him about the 'assimilation' of different series in one exhibition and the natural apprehension of disjointedness, and the artist asserts that while the works may be very different individually, in the context of India, all of them come together seamlessly. "Is it not effortless to see the connections between earth, villages, and a slow life walking hand-in-hand with the mad pace of metros? This country in itself offers a certain sense of assimilation," he opines. And Chandigarh -- towards which artists have always had extreme views? Dhaliwal asserts that it is surprising that a foreigner (Le Corbusier) was asked to design a new city as if we were incapable of the same. "It seems a part of Europe has been imported and set up here. The design is alien, but those who live in these houses are not, so how can complete synchronisation take place? How can an identity be carved? This place will never have a culture in the true sense of the word. People who are born here, are also not born here..." The artist studied at the art college when it was dominated by students from the rural areas, and there was no quota for Chandigarh residents. He feels that the ones from the countryside did not just have more depth, but also understood the real concerns of people -- a major reason many are now well established. "Those with rural roots have a naturally instilled sense of culture, their idiom is strong, and thus their work boasts of a certain sensitivity. I am not sure if I can say the same about the ones from the urban backgrounds, who were more interested in Applied Arts." Looking at his portrait of Prof. Lalli, a legendary teacher of Anthropological Linguistics at Punjabi University Patiala, to whom many artists in Punjab attribute their broader world-view and sensitivity towards self and those around, Dhaliwal remembers the 'Bhootwara' (from ghosts) group and times, led by Lalli. "There would be discussions the whole night. He would come to live in our 'barsaatis' in Chandigarh for days. Discussions never followed a linear pattern. From world literature, and theatre to architecture -- everything would be covered in one night. I went to Russia after passing out and later got a job in Himachal Pradesh, but kept meeting him, and have written a series of articles on him. I had gone to meet him in April 2014. and that is when I started this portrait. This is his last one," he added. All set to paint more portraits under 'The Valiant Ones', Dhaliwal holds around two exhibitions annually in the UK too. "While working on the village series, so many new facets of my childhood home came alive. Perhaps that is what art does -- reintroduce a part of us to us," he added. New Delhi, Feb 28 : In a further fillip to India-Nepal relations, foreign secretaries from both countries met in the capital on Wednesday and held discussions on the entire range of multifaceted cooperation between the South Asian neighbours. In her first visit to India since assuming charge, Nepal's Foreign Secretary Sewa Lamsal met her Indian counterpart Vinay Kwatra and the two also followed up on the 7th India-Nepal Joint Commission Meeting. This meeting was co-chaired by the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and the Foreign Minister of Nepal N. P. Saud in Kathmandu last month. Sewa Lamsal arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday to participate in the 8th Asia Economic Dialogue 2024, which is being jointly convened by the Ministry of External Affairs and Pune International Centre on February 29 in Pune. The 2024 Dialogue is focused on the theme 'Geo-economic Challenges in an Era of Flux' and will witness a large number of speakers from different countries. On her arrival, she met S. Jaishankar on Tuesday who was "pleased" to hear about the the progress in bilateral relations between the two countries. "Happy to receive Foreign Secretary @sewa_lamsal of Nepal today in Delhi. Pleased to hear from her about progress in various aspects of our bilateral relations," EAM Jaishankar wrote in a post on X. The Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday that Lamsal's visit is in "keeping with the tradition of regular high-level exchanges between the two countries and the priority India attaches to its relations with Nepal under its aNeighbourhood Firsta policy". The visit, it said, also provides an opportunity to further advance bilateral ties. Lamsal, who assumed the charge in December 2023, will return to Kathmandu on March 1. Mumbai, Feb 28 : Actress Nora Fatehi, who was recently seen in the Vidyut Jammwal-starrer film 'Crakk', has been welcomed by Robert Kyncl, the CEO of the Warner Music Group, after she inked the deal with the global record company. The partnership will promote Nora's global music career, working with teams in the US and across the world. Nora is a part of his MENA (Middle East and North Africa) expansion plan. Robert Kyncl, CEO, Warner Music Group, said: "Nora is an extraordinary talent, electric performer, and cross-cultural superstar whose music reflects the rich diversity of her background. Her passion and ambition are infectious and we're excited to help her reach new audiences, places, and heights across the globe." Nora will remain signed with T-Series for her Bollywood projects. The actress, who is based in India, was born in Canada to a family of Moroccan heritage. She went on to become the first Arab-African artist to hit one billion views on a single music video on YouTube. Talking about the partnership, Nora had earlier said: "I've enjoyed great success in my career so far, but this deal is a significant step forward in my musical journey, a new chapter in my international career! My ambition is to be a global music star and performer, connecting with fans all over the world. I want to use my diverse cultural background to create music and dance that brings everyone together! I'm excited to work with Warner Music to leverage their experience and expertise to help me fulfil this goal." Patna, Feb 28 : A day after two Congress MLAs joined the BJP in Bihar, Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader Shakeel Ahmed Khan said on Wednesday that the party has expelled both the 'rebel' leaders. The two MLAs -- Siddharth Saurav from Bikram and Murari Gautam from Chenari -- first went over and sat with the BJP legislators in the House on Tuesday, before joining the party in the presence of state BJP President Samrat Choudhary later the same evening. "The two MLAs have breached the (anti-defection) law and hence the party expelled them on Tuesday evening. We are going to file an application before the Speaker demanding their expulsion from the House," Khan said. When asked if more MLAs from the Congress are likely to join the BJP, Khan said he didn't wish to comment on any speculation. Besides the two Congress MLAs, Sangita Kumari from the RJD also changed sides to the BJP on Tuesday. Union Budget 2022-23 likely to give more incentives to boost startups.. Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Feb 28 : Recent governance issues with well-funded and "poster boys" of startups have added to the ongoing bearish trend for the ecosystem amid the funding winter, industry leaders and experts said on Wednesday. As startup majors Paytm and Byjuas make the headlines for several issues amid the regulatory heat, investors have turned cautious about conducting a thorough due diligence process. Veteran investor and Info Edge Founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani told IANS that he believes that good governance is important as companies grow. "You cannot build a sustainable large valuable enterprise if you are not governed well. Therefore, I would urge startup founders to put more emphasis on good governance," he added. According to Shrijay Sheth, Founder, Legalwiz.in, financial mismanagement and compliance-related issues are surfacing often these days. "While the startup founders will assume a role of a custodian of investor's money, it is also important for the investors to take an active role in flagging such issues in time, especially, when they hold a board or an observer seat. "Most of these issues surface while raising funds or when the business lacks financial performance," he noted. Incubators, accelerators and other government funded programmes need to educate nascent stage founders, according to experts. First-time entrepreneurs stay non-compliant largely because of lack of knowledge, than any other reason. "Many requirements like labour-related compliance, POSH policy implementation, or maintaining basic accounting hygiene remain unaddressed due to lack of awareness. This needs to be addressed," said Sheth. Due diligence and corporate governance are crucial factors at every stage of a startup's journey. "At DevX Venture Fund, we have always emphasised strong corporate governance and ethos. We invest at an early stage and hence it is crucial to set the right expectations of how an organisation should run," Umesh Uttamchandani, CoFounder, DevX Venture Fund, told IANS. Conducting regular monthly calls with the portfolio startups and providing clarity to "our investors happens to be of utmost importance as the founders ought to be accountable after raising funds and enable potential investors to engage with the founders who have clean books". Varanasi : , Feb 28 (IANS) The Hindu side in the Gyanvapi case filed a new petition on Wednesday at the Varanasi district court, seeking to stop the entry into the terrace of the 'Vyas Ji Ka Tehkhana', located in the southern area of the Gyanvapi mosque complex. The petition said that there was a possibility of an accident since the terrace is 500 years old. In the petition filed by plaintiff Ram Prasad Singh, the Hindu side also demanded to restrict people from offering namaz on the terrace. It sought repair of the terrace as there could be a major accident while devotees are worshipping inside the restricted area. The development comes two days after the Allahabad High Court dismissed a petition challenging the district court's January 31 order that allowed Hindus to offer puja in the southern cellar. On Monday, the single bench of Justice Rohit Ranjan Aggarwal heard the plea filed by the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee. In its order, the Varanasi district court had also directed the district administration to make the necessary arrangements for the puja to be performed by the devotees and asked the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust to nominate a priest for the same. Following this, the mosque committee challenged the Varanasi court order's decision in the Allahabad High Court. Shimla, Feb 28 : Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday slammed the BJP, saying it wants to "crush Himachal people's right to choose their government by misusing money power, central agencies". Shimla, Feb 28 (IANS) Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday slammed the BJP, saying it wants to "crush Himachal people's right to choose their government by misusing money power, central agencies". Amidst the political crisis in the hill state, it is learnt Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge spoke to former party chief Rahul Gandhi and General Secretary Priyanka Vadra on the developments. Top leadership of the Congress rushed former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar to Shimla to meet legislators of the party, which risks losing power in the state. A senior Congress legislator told IANS that Priyanka Gandhi is supporting continuation of incumbent Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, at least till the Lok Sabha elections. "Priyanka Gandhi-ji not only played a crucial role to ensure the return of the party's government in November 2022 by aggressively campaigning but also reposing faith in the leadership of Sukhu. She doesn't want to replace Sukhu amidst crisis as it will covey a wrong message ahead of the general elections," the legislator said, adding she "always considered Himachal as her second home". Priyanka has a cottage -- with wooden frames and shingled exteriors and a sloping tiled roof -- amid thick forests of pine and cedar in Charabra, some 15 km uphill from Shimla. Even Vikramaditya Singh, the son of six-time Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, before announcing his resignation from the Council of Ministers said, "I have spoken with the high command, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, (party) national president about what all has happened in the last two days. The call has to be taken by the high command." Setting aside speculations of his resignation, Chief Minister Sukhu clarified that he has not resigned and the Congress government would complete its full five-year term. "I haven't offered any resignation. I am a warrior, will keep fighting," he asserted. On his Cabinet colleague Vikramaditya Singh's resignation, Sukhu said, "He is my brother. He has some grievances and he has talked to me many times. Will sort it out." Meanwhile, the Congress Legislative Party is set to meet here in the evening. The party has also asked the oberservers to speak to all MLAs in the state and prepare a comprehensive report on the crisis. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh told the media in Delhi that the party's priority was to save its government in Himachal Pradesh. "Right now, our priority is to save our Congress government because the Congress party had received a clear mandate in December 2022. The people of Himachal Pradesh had rejected the PM, Jagat Prakash Nadda, Anurag Thakur, and Jai Ram Thakur. The mandate was for the Congress party. So, this mandate should be respected," he said. "The Modi government has just one guarantee -- topple all Congress Governments. We will not let this happen," he added. In a stunning upset a day earlier, six Congress MLAs cross voted in the poll for lone Rajya Sabha seat. Those who voted in favour of the BJP's candidate are Sudhir Sharma (Dharamsala) and Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), both ministerial aspirants; Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Badsar); Ravi Thakur (Lahaul-Spiti); Chaitnaya Sharma (Gagret); and Devender Bhutto (Kutlehar). Three Independent MLAs too voted in favour of the BJP. With this, the Congress has a strength of 34 MLAs, the same number as the BJP. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi digitally inaugurates and performs 'bhoomi poojan' of houses built under 'PM Awas Yojana' during the Viksit Bharat Viksit Gujarat programme. Image Source: IANS News Chennai, Feb 28 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that development projects worth thousands of crores of rupees have been sanctioned for Tamil Nadu in the last 10 years since the BJP-led government came to power at the Centre. He said that several genuine demands of the people of Tamil Nadu that had remained just dreams for decades during the previous United Progressive Alliance's regime have started becoming reality over the last 10 years. PM Modi said this while addressing a meeting held at the VOC Port in Thoothukudi on Wednesday. During the programme, he laid the foundation for new schemes and dedicated to the nation projects worth about Rs 17,300 crore. He said that Tamil Nadu was writing a new chapter of progress in Thoothukudi as multiple development projects were being launched. PM Modi said: "One can witness the spirit of 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat' (One India, Developed India) in the development projects of today." He said that even though the projects might be executed in Thoothukudi, they would give momentum to development in multiple places across India. The Prime Minister recalled the journey of Viksit Bharat and the role of Tamil Nadu in it. He mentioned his visit to Tamil Nadu a few years ago, when he had flagged off many projects for the expansion of the VOC Port's cargo-handling capacity. The Prime Minister also recalled his promise of making it into a major hub of shipping. He said: "That guarantee is being fulfilled today." PM Modi said that the project for which foundation was laid for the Outer Harbor Container Terminal at the VOC Port, would have an investment of over Rs 7,000 crore. PM Modi launched work on the outer harbor development project of the VOC Port, which is to be taken up on an outlay of Rs 7,805 crore. He also laid the foundation for the mechanisation of north cargo terminal 3, set up at a cost of Rs 265.15 crore. The Prime Minister also dedicated to the nation, 75 lighthouses constructed across the country, as well as the Vanchi Maniyaachi-Nagercoil double railway track that has come up at a cost of Rs 1,477 crore. Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi, Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal and Union Minister of State for Fisheries L. Murugan were present. Tamil Nadu Minister for Highways, Public Works and Minor Ports E.V. Velu, and MP Kanimozhi, were also present along with PM Modi during the function. Projects worth Rs 900 crore have been dedicated on Wednesday, and projects worth Rs 2500 crore have been initiated at 13 ports, he pointed out. The Prime Minister said that these projects would benefit Tamil Nadu and would create avenues of employment in the state. "This is not politics. This is development ideology. I have come to Tamil Nadu for the service of the land and to change its fate. The Centre will cross all these hurdles to execute development projects in Tamil Nadu," PM Modi said. He also said that in the last 10 years, 1,300 km of railway projects have been undertaken in Tamil Nadu and over 2,000 km of railway electrification have been achieved. Additionally, flyovers and underpasses have been built and the upgradation of many railway stations was also carried out. The Prime Minister said that Vande Bharat trains have been running in the state to provide world-class travel experiences. PM Modi said that the Central government has been investing Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the road infrastructure of Tamil Nadu. He said the Central government's efforts to improve connectivity have been improving the ease of living. a"IANS aal/pgh Chennai, Feb 28 : National re-insurer General Insurance Corporation of India Ltd's (GIC Re) classification of its human resource (HR), legal, and information technology (IT) departments as "specialist" sets a bad precedent for all public sector units, a top official of GIC Officers Association (GICOA) said. "If at all a re-insurer has to classify its departments as specialist ones, then re-insurance, actuarial, and underwriting departments - the primary and critical operations for the company's profitability - qualify for that and not support functions like the HR, legal, or IT," GICOA General Secretary Sumit Kumar told IANS. "Classifying non-core activities of a re-insurer as a specialist function and having a different promotion policy is a sure way to send out talent and ultimately kill the listed GIC Re," he claimed. According to him, the company had, on February 12, circulated its HR Policy whereby it is trying to establish the "HR Team" as a distinct entity within GIC Re. "HR (Department) has clandestinely utilised its proximity with the management consultant and carved out a separate promotion policy for themselves. Since they cannot function without IT support, the same policy has been extended to IT as well. This is atrocious," Kumar said in a letter to GIC Re Chairman and Managing Director, Ramaswamy N. "When 'Teamwork is dreamwork' and always en vogue, our management is taking us backward to medieval times. The culture of the Corporation has always tried its level best to deglamourise any particular department and always considered GIC Re as one body with different parts which equally contribute towards the profitability of the corporation," he said in his letter. "Under the name of Project Parivartan, implemented under the consultancy of KPMG, this autocratic directive (HR Policy) will elevate the entire HR team to a pedestal at the cost of other departments. Kindly let us know if any other organisation in the public sector has implemented the said policy indicating the separate streams of promotion for different departments. "Remarkably, this autocratic policy represents an unprecedented move within any PSU organisations, positioning the HR team akin to a dominating force reminiscent of the 'East India Company' and their motto 'Divide and Rule'," the letter read. Kumar said, the policy's formulation reveals a clear bias, with the entire HR machinery evidently driven by their personal agendas, as evident throughout the document and not for the benefit of GIC Re and 'GICians'. Noting that this "clause of the so-called specialist was neither disclosed nor discussed in the KPMG Presentations with employees", his letter went on to question the decision to withhold the information about this policy during the Parivartan launch. "We demand transparency on this matter." "Provide a comprehensive clarification on the rationale behind designating HR, Legal and IT as specialised departments whereas the corporation is heavily reliant on re-insurance, investment, and business accounts depts. We contend that the corporation business is derived through all the departments of the corporation and not only with the skills of support departments (specialised departments). "Illuminate whether similar categorisations are evident in our peer PSGICs (public sector general insurance companies)/banking/any DFS (Department of Financial Services) controlled organisations or any other PSUs controlled by GOI (Government of India)." Demanding a complete transfer of all the HR department officers and drafting of a new HR Policy, Kumar said if this is not done, the GICOA will be left with no other option apart from intensive industrial relations action, escalating the issue to the Board and the DFS, and taking any legal recourse. "Remember, 'A house divided against itself cannot stand' and if this policy is implemented, it will be a disaster. This is bound to kill the morale of all employees of GIC Re," Kumar cautioned Ramswamy. (Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at v.jagannathan@ians.in) Science is universal but technology must be local: PM Modis 'words from the past' draw attention. Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Feb 28 : The nation is observing 'National Science Day' on Wednesday (February 28) in honour of the Nobel Prize winning physicist CV Raman. It was on February 28, 1928 when the discovery of 'Raman Effect' came to light and made the global scientific community, aware of Indian physicist's rare findings. New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANS) The nation is observing aNational Science Daya on Wednesday (February 28) in honour of the Nobel Prize winning physicist CV Raman. It was on February 28, 1928 when the discovery of aRaman Effecta came to light and made the global scientific community, aware of Indian physicistas rare findings. While the nation pays homage to one of its most notable scientists, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'thoughts about science during his childhood' are garnering everyoneas attention. Modi Archive, an X handle, on Wednesday shared PM Modi's thoughts on science when he was young. aScience is universal but technology must be local,a says the Modi Archive handle in his personal diary, from young age. Notably, the words of wisdom from ayoung Modia goes on to show his penchant and inclination towards science and technology, since early age. PM Modi, being a strong proponent of assimilating technology in daily life and work, is himself a technology geek. His penchant for technology in governance has brought a revolutionary change in making India ago digitala. Today, a huge chunk of rural India is connected to mainstream banking, welfare funds are directly being transmitted to their accounts while the monetary transactions have gone digital, even in remote locations. PM Modias push for technology is evident from governmentas priorities on setting up colossal bases of manufacturing for semi-conductors as well as drones. PM Modi is personally invested in Indiaas space exploration programmes. His governmentas appeal to citizens, aGo vocal for locala has struck a huge chord with citizens and is also bringing unprecedented dividends for small towns and cities. In defence sector too, Modi government has emphasised the need and urgency for indigenous and homegrown production of arsenals rather than depending on foreign technology. This initiative has bore fruits too. Brahmos missile, Prithvi and Akash missiles are some noted examples of governmentas adefence indigenisationa push. Notably, Indian scientist and physician CV Raman was conferred Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. He was also the first Asian to receive Nobel Prize in science. Abu Dhabi, Feb 28 : India emphatically called for the restoration of the Appellate Body at the World Trade Organisation as the top-most priority of the reform process that was discussed in the working session of the 13th ministerial conference on Wednesday. WTO Members noted that the Appellate Body of the Dispute Settlement system had been non-functional since December 2019, due to the blocking of appointment of its Members by the United States. This had called into question the WTOas overall credibility and the rules-based trade-order it upholds. India recalled the commitment of WTO Members of 12th Ministerial Conference to conduct discussions with a view to having a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system accessible to all Members by 2024. India reiterated its long-standing position that a credible and reliable WTO dispute settlement system (DS) is the bedrock of an equitable, effective, secure and predictable multilateral trading system. It emphasised that the outcome of any reform process should provide for the restoration of the Appellate Body, which remains a top-most priority for India. Moreover, India recalled that for the past year, it had engaged in good faith in the facilitator-driven informal DS reform discussions between certain Members, despite several deficiencies with the process. The format and pace of the informal discussions had posed significant challenges for most developing countries, particularly the least-developed countries (LDCs), from the outset. The informal organisation of these discussions made it extremely difficult for developing countries to participate effectively. As a way forward, India sought immediate and effective formalisation and multilaterisation of the informal DS reform process by rectifying the procedural and substantive defects. To this end, India proposed a three-point action plan for Members: First, to transition the discussions on dispute settlement reforms to WTO formal bodies, preferably under the guidance of the Dispute Settlement Body Chair to meet the mandates of paragraphs 3 and 4 of the MC12 Ministerial Declaration. Second, to ensure that the transition is not just a mere formality but results in an effective multilateralisation of the process which is Member-driven, open, transparent and inclusive, taking into account the myriad capacity and technical challenges of developing country Members and LDCs. Members should be provided an opportunity to bring in new proposals at any stage, and the resulting text should be fully representative of the views in the room and be consensus-based, with hybrid participation being permitted. While the third is to prioritise the restoration of the Appellate Body. Kolkata, Feb 28 : The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday, while acting on two separate petitions, permitted the central fact-finding team and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, to visit Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas District. However, the court gave the nod with a few riders. In the first case, the single-judge Bench of Justice Kausik Chanda while allowing the central fact-finding team to visit the trouble-hit area restricted its movement to only those spots in Sandeshkhali where prohibitory orders under Section 144 were not in place. In the hearing on a separate petition, Justice Kausik Chanda allowed Suvendu Adhikari and BJP legislator Shankar Ghosh to visit Sandeshkhali, but directed the LoP to give an undertaking to the local police station stating that he would ensure that there would not be any fresh tension over his visit. The Bench directed that the LoP would not be allowed to make any provocative statements in Sandeshkhali. It is learnt that Adhikari and Ghosh will go to Sandeshkhali on Thursday. While the Trinamool Congress has remained silent on the two orders so far, state BJP leaders said that the state government has made a habit of first refusing permission to Opposition parties to go to any place and then getting humiliated by court orders that go against it. New Delhi, Feb 28 : If anyone asks you to define Nagaland's cuisine, you will be hard put to answer the question, for each of the north-eastern state's 17 major tribes has its own culinary tradition rooted in a history of isolation. What's common to each bite of each preparation, though, is that it explodes in a cocktail of flavours in the palate, despite the minimal use of cooking oil and conventional spices. It is the kind of food that guarantees zero weight gain without getting boring, for the people of Nagaland have mastered the art of playing with natural flavours and bringing out the best of each ingredient. These were the thoughts swirling in this writer's head as he dug into the dishes prepared by Joel Basumatari, a Dimapur-based chef and sauce maker who has become the ambassador of Nagaland's treasure trove of cuisines, at Honk, the Chinese restaurant at Pullman, New Delhi Aerocity. Joel, a jolly young man who thankfully did not follow the advice of his father's friends to follow the family tradition and become an electrical engineer, has a larder of refreshingly unfamiliar ingredients -- unfamiliar to us, but worth knowing better -- from tree tomatoes and Naga king chillies, which can on a good day out-Scoville the hot-hot bhoot jolokia, to bamboo shoot butter, dried mustard leaves, perilla paste, colocasia leaf patties and Zanthoxylum seeds, which are related to Sichuan peppers but have a different kind of zing, I must admit here that I am off pork, so I could not sample such delicacies as the Sema tribe's favourite, pork seasoned with the aromatic mejenga leaves, or Thevochu Kese Sene, fresh pork with bamboo shoot, which is popular with the Angamis, or another staple of the Semas, Awoshi Kipiki Ngo Axone, smoked pork and fermented soya bean served with rice and boiled squash. As is obvious from the description of each dish, this is a minimally invasive bunch of cuisines. Of course, Joel ensured that he did not let me regret my no-pork resolve. From crispy fried kholar beans -- an indigenous variety of kidney beans grown extensively in two Nagaland districts on the India-Myanmar border -- to the Ao beauty, catch of the day (river sole in this case -- and it tasted like God's gift to humankind!) roasted in bamboo tube with fiddlehead ferns. I was left gob-smacked, though, by Joel's reinvention of the Chicken Roulade, marinated in the chef's own Saucy Joe's Smoked Chilli Sauce, stuffed with local oyster mushrooms and Zanthoxylum seeds, sitting on a bed of to-die-for pea puree. Here was a happy co-existence of flavours and not a spice attack. In the Naga kitchen (and it is true of the rest of the north-east), ingredients walk, simplicity talks. This standout characteristic of Nagaland's food tradition was also tastefully apparent from another Ao speciality, or chicken on bone cooked in the paste of perilla leaves, which are called shiso in Japan and are an important ingredient in that country's cuisines. Each dish came with its own attraction, but the overriding one was the power of nature's simple gifts. Joel did not hold his creativity back from his desserts as well, flooring us with his millet cannoli packed with ricotta and nuts, with a generous drizzle of rosella sauce (a brilliant innovation that the Sicilians would do well to adopt!). The other standout dessert was the black rice sponge cake -- I wish our hotels paid serious attention to ingredients such as black rice from the north-east and not keep importing them thoughtlessly. It was a food coma that one wouldn't want to come out of. Joel deserves to be hailed for the work he's doing to put Nagaland on the gastronomic map of the world. More power to his food evangelism. (Chef Joel Basumatari's pop-up at Honk, Pullman New Delhi Aerocity, will be on till March 3) New Delhi, Feb 28 : Tech major IBM on Wednesday announced that global technology consulting and digital solutions firm LTIMindtree has joined its Quantum Network to explore quantum computing innovation for the benefit of its global clients across multiple industries. LTIMindtree is the first Indian Global System Integrator (GSI) to join the IBM Quantum Network. The company will also collaborate with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, which is also an IBM Quantum Innovation Centre, on joint quantum research and workforce development. "We are looking forward to providing technology support for LTIMindtreeas joint research and educational engagements with IIT-Madras, our first IBM Quantum Innovation Centre in India," Scott Crowder, Vice President of IBM Quantum Adoption and Business Development, said in a statement. LTIMindtree will have access to IBM resources, including the company's global fleet of quantum computing systems over the Cloud, software, and associated expertise. This move is a strategic step towards LTIMindtree helping their customers benefit from the transformative value of quantum computing technologies, the company said. "These collaborations are more than an innovation milestone; they're an important step towards a future where quantum computing could help solve increasingly complex problems faster and more efficiently," said Aan Chauhan, Chief Technology Officer, LTIMindtree. In addition, the company mentioned that LTIMindtree plans to establish a series of long-term projects, including applied research toward business and societal problems, quantum computing workshops, and research grants. New Delhi, Feb 28 : The Supreme Court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to impart proper training to state police officers on the procedure to collect digital evidence. A bench, headed by Justice Abhay S. Oka, said that the state government must ensure that the police officers are imparted proper training of the procedure to be followed for obtaining a certificate under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, which deals with admissibility of electronic records. The bench, also comprising Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, was hearing a criminal appeal against the Madras High Court order confirming the conviction and sentence of the two accused under Section 364A (kidnapping for ransom), read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code. The appellants were sentenced to undergo life imprisonment. The High Court had discarded the prosecution evidence in the form of the call records for want of a certificate, as required under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act. Turning the conviction into the lesser offence of kidnapping under Section 363 of the IPC, the apex court observed that the call records could have been the best possible evidence for the prosecution to prove the threats allegedly administered by the accused and the demand of ransom. In its judgment, it noted that the Investigating Officer was not aware of the procedure to be followed for obtaining a certificate under Section 65B of the Evidence Act. "He (Investigating Officer) cannot be blamed as a proper training was not imparted to him. The state government must ensure that the police officers are imparted proper training on this aspect," the Supreme Court said. Further, noting that the appellants are in custody and as they have undergone maximum sentence for the offence punishable under Section 363 of the IPC, it directed that they will be set at liberty forthwith. New Delhi, Feb 28 : Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will attend a Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) event emphasising 'good nutrition' here on Thursday. Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), who is on a India tour, will attend the Poshan Utsav, along with Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Zubin Irani. Poshan Utsav aims to serve as a platform to disseminate important messages on the value of good nutrition. During the event, the 'Poshan Utsav Book' would be released and a Cartoon Coalition would announce its support for the cause of Poshan through collaboration with the ministry. The programme promises to be a milestone event in the efforts to combat malnutrition and foster healthier lifestyles among children. It aims to leverage popular cartoon characters to advocate holistic nutrition among children through collaboration between the the ministry and Amar Chitra Katha. It is also expected to revolutionise nutrition awareness by engaging children through captivating storytelling through their favourite cartoon characters and drive positive behaviour change in communities across the nation for desired nutritional outcomes. The Poshan Utsav Book, curated by the Deendayal Research Institute (DRI) and supported by BMGF, is designed to serve as an atlas on food, offering insights from cultural, social, economic and scientific perspectives. It seeks to revive ancient nutrition traditions, facilitating knowledge exchange and intergenerational learning. The book will also serve as a comprehensive repository for appreciation of the rich culinary heritage and nutritional diversity of the country. Earlier this week, Gates announced his plans to visit India in a LinkedIn post, saying: "I canat wait to learn about how India is finding innovative new ways to advance health, digital public infrastructure, and climate to improve the lives of billions." Imphal, Feb 28 : A section of Manipur Police commandos on Wednesday staged an "arms down" protest, surrendering their weapons, in wake of the abduction of an Additional Superintendent of Police by some armed activists in Imphal West district. The police commandos were reportedly miffed with higher authorities asking them to "show restraint" after the Tuesday night firing at the residence of the ASP before he was kidnapped at gunpoint. The police commandos reportedly wanted a free hand against the armed abductors. ASP Amit Kumar, posted with the Operations Cell of the Manipur Police, was abducted along with his security guard by a group of armed activists from his residence at Wangkhei in Imphal West on Tuesday night. The abductors also ransacked his house and damaged at least four vehicles with gunfire. A large contingent of Manipur Police quickly launched a search operation and safely rescued the ASP within hours. The police official was admitted to a hospital where his condition is stated to be stable. Police said that the armed activists were annoyed with the police officer as he had recently arrested six members of the abductorsa group as the detainees were accused in vehicle theft cases. Following the arrests of the six members, a local group had protested and blocked roads demanding their release. After the Tuesday night incident, Assam Rifles and other security personnel were deployed in the tension-ridden Wangkhei area. Bhopal, Feb 28 : India's top rifle shooters continued their impressive showing at the ongoing national rifle/pistol selection trials for Group A after Paris quota holder Arjun Babuta won back-to-back trials and triple Asian Games medallist Ashi Chouksey beat the world record score enroute to the victory, here. Bhopal, Feb 28 (IANS) Indiaas top rifle shooters continued their impressive showing at the ongoing national rifle/pistol selection trials for Group A after Paris quota holder Arjun Babuta won back-to-back trials and triple Asian Games medallist Ashi Chouksey beat the world record score enroute to the victory, here. Arjun shot 252.5 in the menas 10m air rifle T4 finals, just 1.2 short of Divyanshas world record (253.7), which he had equalled on Tuesday before winning the T3 trials as well. Tamil Naduas Sri Karthik Sabari Raj (252.2) improved upon his third place in the T3 match to finish second while Rajasthanas Yash Vardhan came in third with a score of 230.8. In the womenas 25m air pistol T4, former Asian Games champion Rahi Sarnobat ranked first with a score of 33 in the finals, having scored 583 in the qualifications. Punjabas Jaspreet Kaur was second place with 30-hits while Air Indiaas Annu Raj Singh (27) was third. Local star Ashi Chouksey then set the ranges on fire with a sizzling qualification round in the womenas 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) T4 competition. She dropped just one point in the second prone position and just two in the final standing position to post a jaw-dropping 597. A point clear of the current world record held jointly by Norwayas Jenny Stene and USAas Sagen Maddalena. She took that confidence to the final posting a facile win, her 461.8 comfortably ahead of Keralaas Vidarsa Vinodas 457.5. Haryanaas Himani Poonia was further back in third. It was Vidarsaas second second-place finish in two days. --IANS cs/ New Delhi, Feb 28 : Scientists at the Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore have successfully conducted the country's first human clinical trial of gene therapy for haemophilia A (FVIII deficiency), Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh said on Wednesday. He said this while addressing the "National Science Day 2024" programme at Vigyan Bhawan here. Hemophilia A is a genetic disorder caused by missing or defective factor VIII (FVIII), a clotting protein, which means the patient bleeds longer than others. The clinical trials involved deploying a novel technology of using a lentiviral vector to express a FVIII transgene in the patient's own haematopoietic stem cell, which will then express FVIII from specific differentiated blood cells. India is home to the second-largest population of patients living with Haemophilia, with an estimated 1,36,000 individuals grappling with hemophilia A. However, only around 21,000 are registered at present. About 80 per cent of hemophilia cases go undiagnosed in India as several hospitals and medical institutions lack screening capabilities for blood clotting, affecting the diagnosis of new cases. "The manufacturing of this vector will commence soon in India and proceed with further clinical trials," the minister said. The trial was supported by the Department of Biotechnology, the Centre for Stem Cell Research -- a unit of InStem Bengaluru, in collaboration with Emory University, US at Christian Medical College, Vellore. In about 80 per cent cases, haemophilia manifests as bleeding, most frequently involving the large joints like knees, ankles, elbows, hip and wrist, followed by deep bleeds affecting large body muscles. However, the most dangerous ones are bleeds affecting the head/brain, neck, chest cavity and abdominal and pelvic cavity. Mumbai, Feb 28 : Anil Kapoor said on Wednesday that it was Sonam Kapoor, his daughter and fashionista, who insisted that he took up the part in 'The Night Manager' that earned him all-round accolades not long ago. Kapoor played the oily arms dealer, Shailendra 'Shelly' Rungta, in Sandeep Modi's Hindi adaptation of the BBC hit series based on John Le Carre's novel, 'The Night Manager'. Speaking at the Indian Digital Summit 2024 in Mumbai, Kapoor opened up on the changes in technology over the years and how he stayed relevant with it. Talking about how he keeps himself in sync with Gen Z, he said, "When you have the right people around you, it makes all the difference, it can be your children, your team. They can make you stay connected with Gen Z." On Sonam and 'The Night Manager', he said, "She reads a lot of books. When I was offered 'The Night Manager', she told me she had read the book and it is fantastic. She insisted that I should do the show." Going back to how he connects with Gen Z, Kapoor said: "I make sure that I keep on discussing ideas with youngsters. I speak a lot to them. That's what I have done to stay relevant. Also, good filmmakers have come to me and chosen me. So, I have also been lucky." The actor also aired his views on the old debate about the South versus Hindi films and said, "I am sitting here because of the South. Most of my successful films have been remakes of South Indian films. Be it 'Judaai', 'Beta', 'Woh Saat Din', 'Mohabbat', 'Nayak'. I think all the great Indian actors have had successful films that have been remakes of South Indian films." Kapoor concluded by saying: "This debate has always been there. It is more these days because certain South Indian films, notably 'Baahubali', 'KGF', 'RRR' and 'Pushpa: The Rise', have become really big successes. I believe there are great stories and great actors. All are great Indian films." Gurugram, Feb 28 : Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL) has reaffirmed its commitment towards sustainability by aiming to achieve the RE100 benchmark by 2025. The company currently fulfils 64 per cent of its energy requirements using renewable sources, and aims to reach the 100 per cent mark ahead of most automakers in the country. RE100 is the global corporate renewable energy initiative by the Climate Group, bringing together hundreds of large and ambitious businesses committed to 100 per cent renewable electricity. Emphasising Hyundai's steadfast focus on sustainability and energy conservation, Gopala Krishnan C.S., Chief Manufacturing Officer at HMIL, said, "Our operations are driven by a strong sense of responsibility towards the environment and our communities. "We view this proactive role as an opportunity to contribute to long-term sustainable development goals. Our sustainability initiatives are focused towards carbon neutrality and energy transition, circularity, clean tech products and services, operational eco-efficiency, and natural capital conservation. Our 'Integrated Solutions to Climate Change' initiative aims for carbon neutrality by 2045, with a sustainable operating system for future generations." HMIL's robust Energy Management System involves conserving energy and resources throughout its operations, incorporating low-carbon practices and reducing emission across the value chain. It has further adopted large-scale innovative practices in energy management like 100 per cent transition from conventional to LED lighting in the plant as early as 2017, and at all its offices and dealerships, thermo-ceramic coating on furnaces and ovens to reduce fuel consumption, steam elimination though waste heat recovery in paint shops, relocation of boilers to reduce transmission loss, installation of turbo chillers in paint shops, to name a few. HMIL proactively monitors both direct emissions (Scope 1) and indirect emissions (Scope 2), constantly exploring every possibility to reduce carbon emissions in its manufacturing process, including the use of renewable energy sources and conversion from propane to Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). It has also installed a 10 MW rooftop solar plant at its manufacturing facility at Chennai. Since October 2022, it has been strategically purchasing green power from Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) to increase its renewable energy portfolio to 64 per cent. For efficient water management, HMIL has implemented a zero liquid discharge system to combat water scarcity. Hyundai has attained 80 per cent water neutrality through recycled RO water and has achieved 30 per cent reduction in water usage over the last five years. HMIL has bagged the 'Noteworthy Water Efficient Unit' award at the CII's 8th Water Innovations Summit - 2022, held at New Delhi, and the 'National Energy Leader' award for two consecutive years in 2021 and 2020 at the CII's 'National Awards for Excellence in Energy Management', held at Hyderabad. HMIL is dedicated to minimising and responsibly managing harmful substances in its products and operations, adhering to domestic laws and global standards. Various initiatives such as implementation of screw press filters have resulted in 19.4 per cent reduction in hazardous waste and a 14.3 per cent reduction in non-hazardous waste over the past five years. HMIL recently announced a 10-year investment plan, concentrating on the expansion of its EV range and the enhancement of its existing car and SUV platforms. With a strong commitment towards ESG, HMIL is dedicated to build a sustainable future as a responsibility for the next generation and a fundamental right for everyone, leading positive action for a better tomorrow. Vijayawada, Feb 28 : The Congress will make a declaration on special category status to Andhra Pradesh at the March 1 public meeting at Tirupati, state Congress chief Y. S. Sharmila Reddy said on Wednesday. Sharmila Reddy told media persons here on Wednesday that special category status (SCS) is the most important issue for the state, and the Congress will be making the declaration at the same venue in Tirupati where Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised that SCS will be accorded to the state. She recalled that in 2014 when the Congress had promised SCS to Andhra Pradesh for five years, the BJP promised that it would grant SCS for 10 years. The Congress leader said people would be explained the benefits the state would get with the SCS. "The state has a 972 km long seashore. Imagine how many new industries would have come to the state with the special category status but the state did not even get 10 new industries," she said. She said while everyone in the state knows the importance of SCS, the main political parties are silent over this. She said in 2019, the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) used the SCS for election campaign but after coming to power, backtracked on the promise. The sister of Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy alleged both the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the YSRCP did not fight sincerely for SCS in these 10 years. She alleged that both TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu and Jagan became "slaves" to Modi and asked why should people trust them. She said only the Congress was speaking about the special category status. The Tirupati public meeting will be the second major meeting of the Congress after Sharmila Reddy took over as state chief. At the first public meeting at Anantapur on February 25, the Congress unveiled the first guarantee for Andhra Pradesh on the lines of similar guarantees given by it in Karnataka and Telangana. Addressing the public meeting, party President Mallikarjun Kharge announced that if voted to power Congress will provide Rs.5,000 per month income support to every poor family. --IANS ms/vd New Delhi, Feb 28 : The Delhi High Court has refused to issue direction to the Centre and Doordarshan for a new 24-hour pan-India Doordarshan channel specifically for the Sindhi community. Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain noted that while the court recognises the Sindhi community's right to preserve its heritage and culture, initiating a new channel is fundamentally a governmental decision beyond the court's mandate for direct intervention. "It is not workable for this court to give directions to the respondents for opening of a new Doordarshan channel for the Sindhi community which is purely a governmental function." The petition was filed under Article 226 of the Constitution by Asha Chand, which claims to be a non-profit organisation which endeavours to promote and preserve the 5,000-year-old Sindhi culture and language, for "issuance of directions to the respondents to allocate a 24 hours channel on Doordarshan for Sindhi community being a linguistic minority". The petitioner said that since the Sindhi community is a linguistic minority, the respondent (Doordarshan and Central government) is under added obligation to take effective and meaningful steps for the preservation and the promotion of the Sindhi language and culture. "... the state has miserably failed to take appropriate steps to fulfill this constitutional obligation. The Government of India is taking multiple steps to promote other minorities but the Sindhi community did not find any place in any other policy of the government as per the mandate of Article 14 of the Constitution of India," the petitioner has said. The court acknowledged the significance of promoting the Sindhi language and culture and noted Doordarshan's ongoing efforts to broadcast Sindhi programmes across various channels, including DD Girnar, DD Rajasthan, and DD Sahyadri. Furthermore, the court noted Doordarshan's consideration towards dedicating specific slots for Sindhi programming on one of its regional channels, expressing hope that it would continue to explore all possibilities for enhancing Sindhi language and cultural representation within its broadcasting policy and guidelines. "It is expected that the respondent shall make every possible effort and endeavour to open a new Doordarshan channel for the Sindhi community in the future as per policy and other guidelines," the judge said and disposed of the petition. Kolkata, Feb 28 : The leader of opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Wednesday submitted a list of nearly 17 lakh alleged fake voters in the state to the Election Commission of India (ECI). Adhikari on Wednesday went to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal with 24 bags containing the list of 'fake' voters. He also submitted a deputation to the office of the CEO, wherein he claimed that the exact number of fake voters identified by the BJP in West Bengal stands at 16,91,132. "The list includes the names of deceased voters as well as those who have moved elsewhere. There are also instances of names appearing in the lists at multiple places," Adhikari claimed. He also claimed that the number of bogus voters is almost equal to the margin between the BJP and the Trinamool Congress in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. "Besides submitting a 14,267-page document, we also submitted the details in a soft-copy format stored in a pen-drive. The full bench of the ECI is scheduled to visit West Bengal in March and hold meetings with all the political parties. We will update the full bench team about these irregularities," Adhikari said. However, the Trinamool Congress leadership has termed the allegations as "totally false". Agartala, Feb 28 : Thousands of tribals led by opposition Tipra Motha Party (TMP) leaders on Wednesday held their pre-announced demonstration on National Highway-8, the lifeline of Tripura, at Hatoi Katar (Baramura) demanding constitutional solutions to the tribals' problems. TMP supremo and former royal scion Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman also launched a 'fast-unto-death' strike demanding fulfilments of the commitments made by the Centre with regard to the demands of the tribal party. Deb Barman claimed that in the midst of the demonstration, he was called by the Central government to Delhi to discuss their demands. The tribal leader, who did not disclose whom he would meet in Delhi, said: "After returning from the Delhi meeting, I would discuss the issue with our leaders in Agartala and then the next course of action would be decided." The TMP, which has been demanding 'Greater Tipraland', or a separate state for the tribals under Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, held their demonstration on NH-8, disrupting vehicular movement on the vital road. A large contingent of security forces was deployed at the demonstration site at Hatoi Katar, some 30 km from here, to prevent any untoward incident. Deb Barma, who last week held a meeting with the Home Ministry officials in Delhi, said that they want a written assurance from the Centre towards their demands. "What we are asking for is as per the Constitution. We want the government to fulfil the tribals' constitutional and land rights related issues," the TMP chief told the media, as he urged all the political parties to join their agitation for the overall interest of the tribals. On Monday night, Deb Barman had held a meeting with the senior leaders of the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) and state minister Sukla Charan Noatia during which TMP's demands were discussed. The IPFT is an ally of the ruling BJP in Tripura. TMP President Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl, opposition leader and senior party leader Animesh Debabrma, the party's all 13 MLAs and members of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) took part in the demonstration on Wednesday, among others. "I am ready to die for the cause of the tribals. My only target is to resolve the economic and constitutional problems of the tribals," Deb Barman said. Ever since the TMP wrested power in the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) in April 2021, the party intensified its agitation in support of the 'Greater Tipraland' demand, which has been strongly opposed by the ruling BJP, opposition Left Front, Congress, Trinamool Congress and other parties. The TTAADC, which has a jurisdiction on over two-third of Tripura's 10,491 sq km area, and is home to over 12,16,000 people, of which around 84 per cent are tribals, is, in terms of its political significance, the second most important constitutional body after the Tripura Assembly. Yavatmal : , Feb 28 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday sounded the bugle for Bharatiya Janata Party's Lok Sabha poll campaign from 'lucky Yavatmal', launched a slew of projects worth around Rs 35,000 crore and slammed the previous UPA regime for graft. Addressing a massive gathering of women, PM Modi recalled his pre-poll trips to Yavatmal a" in 2014 for a 'chai pe charcha' after which the NDA got 300 parliamentary seats and later in 2019, when the ruling alliance went over 350 seats. This time, PM Modi expressed confidence that they would cross 400 seats in Lok Sabha, as the people have "made up their minds" that 'Ab Ki Baar, Modi Sarkar, 400 paar', and this was evident from the huge number of women who had come to bless him. PM Modi said that like Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the government has been working with a mission for the country, and whatever is being done is the foundation for the progress in the next 25 years. The Prime Minister said he had taken a vow to take development to each and every remote corner and dedicate himself full time for the mission. The PM said that for progress, there is a need to consider four sections of society a" the poor, farmers, youth and women a" and today, he had done this by dedicating or launching schemes/projects worth thousands of crores of rupees to them and helping improving their lives. The government has also given rail, road and other infra projects for better connectivity for the Vidarbha region, he said. Targetting the INDIA Opposition bloc, PM Modi questioned the people's status when the UPA was in power, when the Agriculture Minister (Sharad Pawar) was also from Maharashtra, but without taking any names. "The government announced big packages but it was 'looted' midway and the poor, tribals and farmers got nothing. Today, I just pressed one button and Rs 21,000 crore went straight to the bank accounts of thousands of farmers. That is called 'Modi Guarantee'. Earlier, of a similar amount, Rs 18,000 crores would have been 'looted' en route, but now the poor get their full money, it's my guarantee that all beneficiaries will get every paise in their bank accounts," PM Modi said. He said that today, Maharashtra farmers got Rs 3,800 crore and 11 crore farmers in the country have got Rs 3-lakh crores so far, including Rs 30,000 crore for this state's tillers of which Rs 900 crore went to the peasants of Yavatmal, and the amounts would immensely benefit them. PM Modi reiterated that to achieve the status of a developed country, it was imperative to strengthen the rural economy, remove all difficulties of the villagers like drinking and irrigation and other schemes. "Before 2014, there was a water crisis in all villages as the UPA government never bothered about it. From 1947 till 2014, barely 15 per cent of villagers had tap-water connections at home. After 2014, we launched the 'Har Ghar Jal' guarantee, and now almost 75 per cent village homes get piped water supply at their homes. In Maharashtra earlier there were only 50,000 water taps in village homes, now around 1.25 crore people have it," said PM Modi. He attacked the previous regimes for deserting around 300 big and small irrigation projects in the country, but his government took up the work to revive all, including 26 in Maharashtra, of which 12 are completed and work is proceeding to complete the others. The PM said that the government is committed to make three crore women in the country as 'Lakhpati Didi', and after giving them e-rickshaws today, the government will cover them under the NaMo Drone Didi scheme, train women and give them drones for agricultural purposes. PM Modi said that the Congress government always pushed the poor and tribals behind but his government brought forward the most backward communities by giving them major schemes-projects, and assured that in the next five years, the country will see even quicker progress to improve the lives of the masses. Earlier, PM Modi dedicated-launched various development project-schemes worth around Rs 35,000 crore for Maharashtra in the presence of Governor Ramesh Bais, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar, and other dignitaries. Kolkata, Feb 28 : BJP legislator from the Kaliaganj Assembly constituency in West Bengal, Soumen Roy, who had shifted to Trinamool Congress from the BJP soon after the 2021 Assembly elections, returned to the saffron camp on Wednesday evening. Roy was welcomed back into the party by the leader of opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari. Speaking to mediapersons, Roy claimed that he had joined the Trinamool even after getting elected as a BJP candidate in 2021 under tremendous pressure from the ruling dispensation and the local administration. "However, psychologically I was always with the BJP. The ruling party leadership was not allowing me to work for the people in my constituency who had elected me. So, I decided to return to the BJP," said Roy. When he had joined the Trinamool in September 2021, Roy was handed over the party flag by then state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, who is in presently in judicial custody for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore cash-for-school jobs case in West Bengal. BJP insiders said that Roy had expressed his intention to return to the saffron camp a couple of months back, and since then he has been in regular touch with Adhikari. New Delhi, Feb 28 : The Home Ministry extended the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami (J&K) for five more years on Tuesday while reiterating its resolve to crack down on any and every separatist force igniting or fanning anti-India sentiments. Announcing the fresh five-year ban on the Kashmir unit of the Islamist group, Home Minister Amit Shah said on X, "Anyone conspiring against the nation will face ruthless measures." The clampdown on the group came in the backdrop of its involvement in activities against the security, integrity and sovereignty of the nation. Notably, Jamaat-e-Islami (J&K) is not the only group to face music under the NDA government for seditious activities. Prior to this, the Popular Front of India (PFI), widely believed to be the revamped version of SIMI, had received similar 'treatment' by the Centre. Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic organisation with its origin in early 1940s, splintered into multiple factions and went on to become independent organisations in both India and Pakistan, after the Partition in 1947. Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, the India-specific group, was formed in Allahabad in 1948, with objectives of Muslims' welfare, but over the years, it came more under the influence of radicals and fundamentalists and also got banned twice for anti-national activities. Though the bans were revoked by the Supreme Court on both occasions, the group's radical propaganda kept 'increasing and flourishing' under different parties and state governments, particularly under the ones belonging to the INDIA bloc. Today, the group has also ventured into the political landscape and has an outfit named the 'Welfare Party of India', with its operations mostly limited to Kerala. The Islamic outfit was apparently miffed with the recent 'saffron sweep' in three states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and raised questions over the country, especially the Hindi heartland, coming in the 'grip of communal politics'. It also asked other parties to do self-introspection and prepare a roadmap on how 'communalisation' of politics could be stopped. Notably, Jamaat-e-Islami (J&K), having been formed as a separate entity from the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in 1952, has been a strong votary of conducting plebiscite in the Kashmir Valley. But, despite its open backing for terror forces in the Valley, it enjoyed support and political patronage of those J&K parties catering to the Islamic vote-bank. The organisation received a major blow, apparently for the first time, in February 2019 when the Narendra Modi government imposed a five-year ban on it under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). "Jamaat was in close touch with militant organisations and was expected to 'escalate subversive activities', including attempts to carve out an Islamic state out of the Indian territory," said the then government notification. Many of its leaders and activists were also arrested after searches and raids. In the latest order, the MHA reiterated the group's support to extremism and militancy in Jammu & Kashmir, and also in other parts of the country. Last year, the Jamaat-e-Islami (J&K) had hogged headlines over Rahul Gandhi's visit to the US in June 2023. A person named Tanzeem Ansari, with links to Jamaat-e-Islami, reportedly facilitated the registration process for the NRI interaction with Rahul Gandhi in New York. Bengaluru, Feb 28 : External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar said on Wednesday that he took a strong stance on buying Russian oil amid sanctions on Moscow during its conflict with Ukraine because he is the "minister of a strong government with a strong Prime Minister". EAM Jaishankar said this while speaking at the BVB College in Hubballi where he released a booklet on development works initiated by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi. Acknowledging that India was "under great pressure" from European nations who disapproved of its oil trade with Russia, he said that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi's clear vision that helped at that time. "We had a Prime Minister who was very clear -- that the interest of the Indian consumer will come first. People say you took a very strong stance. I took a very strong stand because I am a minister of a strong government with a strong Prime Minister," the minister said. In the past, EAM Jaishankar quipped that "India's oil purchases are less than what Europe buys in an afternoon while retorting that New Delhi buying Russian oil should not be a concern for others". Speaking to a German daily earlier this month, the minister reaffirmed its friendly ties with Russia, saying that "Moscow never hurt New Delhi's interests". The bilateral ties between the all-weather friends have been increasingly scrutinised ever since the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in February 2022. Amid claps and cheers from the crowd, EAM Jaishankar further extolled PM Modi and said that it is "nice to be a foreign minister, but it is great to be PM Modi's foreign minister". "The world looks at us. They marvel and ask what has changed in India. Many things have changed -- the easiest answer is PM Modi. All of us have changed along with him; his vision, his leadership, his motivation. Because when a leader thinks big for the country, the country responds to it." The EAM visited Hubballi to participate in the inauguration of a new building of AGMR Ayurvedic Medical College and Hospital and to lay the foundation for Padmavati Temple at Varur. New Delhi, Feb 28 : The Central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an ambitious scheme for farmers' welfare - the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) - on February 2, 2019. New Delhi, Feb 28 (IANS) The Central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an ambitious scheme for farmersa welfare - the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) - on February 2, 2019. The scheme was launched with the objective of ensuring positive supplementary income support for the farmer families in the country, and also to promote a productive, competitive, diversified, inclusive and sustainable agriculture sector. Definitely, the scheme is transforming the lives of small and marginal farmers who are now a happier lot. Significantly, this is one of the largest DBT schemes in the world. Under the scheme, the eligible farmer families are provided a benefit of Rs 6,000 per year in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 each, every four months. The benefit is transferred directly to the bank accounts of the eligible beneficiaries through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode, using modern digital technology. The Central government provides 100 per cent funding for the scheme. In what underlines the inclusive nature of the scheme, at least one out of four beneficiaries is a woman farmer. Moreover, more than 85 per cent of small and marginal farmers are beneficiaries under the scheme. Needless to say, the scheme in the first five years has crossed many milestones and has received accolades from various organisations, including the World Bank, for its sheer vision, scale, and the seamless transfer of funds directly into the accounts of the eligible farmers. A study conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on farmers of Uttar Pradesh indicates that the benefits under PM-Kisan reached the majority of the farmers, who received the full amount without any leakages. As per the same study, the farmers receiving cash transfers under PM-KISAN were more likely to invest in buying agricultural equipment, seeds, fertiliser, and pesticides. With an objective to make the scheme more efficient, effective and transparent, continuous improvements in a farmer-centric digital infrastructure have been made to ensure the benefits of the scheme reach all the farmers across the country without any middleman's involvement, said a PIB release. The PM-Kisan portal has been integrated with the portals of UIDAI, PFMS, NPCI, and the Income Tax department. The states/UTs and all other stakeholders are on-boarded on the PM-Kisan platform to provide quick services to the farmers. While the farmers can register their grievances on the PM-Kisan portal and take the help of a 24x7 call facility for effective and timely resolution of issues, the government has also developed the aKisan e-Mitraa (a voice-based AI Chatbot), which enables the farmers to raise queries and get them resolved in their own language in real-time. The Kisan-e-Mitra is now available in 10 languages, i.e., English, Hindi, Odia, Tamil, Bangla, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telugu and Marathi. To address the issue of farmers at the village-level related to the PM-Kisan scheme, village-level nodal officers have been designated in all the villages across the country. Onboarding of the Indian Post Payments Bank (IPPB) with the PM-Kisan scheme has facilitated the opening of Aadhaar bank accounts of the beneficiaries at their convenience and doorsteps without any hassle. Recently, as part of the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, the Government of India launched a nationwide campaign to saturate the PM-Kisan scheme with the eligible farmers. During the campaign, over 90 lakh eligible farmers, including six lakh PVTG farmers, were included under the PM-Kisan scheme. With the 16th instalment amount, the scheme has benefitted more than 11 crore eligible farmer families with Rs 3 lakh crore, according to an official release. Kolkata, Feb 28 : A court in West Bengal's West Midnapore on Wednesday sentenced, to life imprisonment, 13 out of 23 Maoists convicted for attacking a camp of the Eastern Frontier Rifles (EFR) at Silda in the district on February 15, 2010, leaving 24 security personnel dead. The punishment for the remaining 10 convicts will be pronounced on Thursday. The court had convicted the 23 accused on Tuesday. Initially, there were 24 accused on trial but prime accused and CPI-Maoist leader Sudip Chongdar had passed away. Meanwhile, some human rights organisations like the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) have claimed that life imprisonment for these 13 "political prisoners" was based on false witness statements and politically motivated. In the attack in February 2010, 24 EFR jawans were killed, while five Maoist guerrillas were also killed in retaliatory firing by the security forces. The left-wing extremists had also looted the armoury at the camp. Patiala: Smoke rises from tear gas being fired upon the protesting farmers during their 'Delhi Chalo' march. Image Source: IANS News Hyderabad, Feb 28 : The Kisan Congress Cell organised a rally in Hyderabad on Wednesday in support of the farmers protesting near Delhi to demand a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP). The Telangana unit of Kisan Congress cell took out a rally from L.B. Stadium in the heart of the city to Indira Gandhi statue at Necklace Road on the banks of Hussain Sagar lake. The participants, led by Kisan Congress national vice-president Kodanda Reddy, expressed solidarity with the farmers who started their 'Delhi chalo' march from Punjab. Over 200 farmers' unions have undertaken the march to press the Centre to address their demands, including the enactment of a law guaranteeing MSP for crops. The protesters at the rally held in Hyderabad were carrying placards, demanding legal guarantee for MSP and withdrawal of all cases registered against farmers during the 2020-21 agitation. They also paid tributes to 750 farmers who laid down their lives during the earlier agitation. Kisan Congress president Avinash Reddy said farmers were worried over lack of legal guarantee for MSP. "Instead of addressing the long pending demands of the farmers, the government at the Centre is creating hurdles in their march by erecting iron barricades," he said. The Kisan Congress leader alleged that the Centre was following anti-farmers' policies. He said the MSP policy of the Centre has many loopholes. --IANS ms/pgh Bengaluru, Feb 28 : Ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) has approved significant reduction in electricity tariff for commercial, industrial and domestic consumers consuming more than 100 units of power a month. The KERC on Wednesday announced an early revision of tariff for the year 2024-25. According to the official note, energy charges have been reduced by 110 paise per unit for consumption of above 100 units for low tension (LT) domestic lighting. Energy charges have been reduced by 125 paise per unit and demand charges by Rs 10 per KVA for high-tension (HT) commercial usage. For HT industrial usage, energy charges have been reduced by 50 paise per unit, while demand charges have been cut by Rs 10 per KVA. For hospital and educational institutions (HT), per unit charges have been reduced by 40 paise, and demand charges by Rs 10 per KVA. For private lift irrigation (HT), the charges have been reduced by 200 paise per unit, the note said. For residential apartments (HT), demand charges have been reduced by Rs 10 per KVA. The charges have been reduced by 50 paise per unit for private hospital and educational institutions (LT), while energy charges for industrial installations have been cut by 100 paise per unit, the release stated. The ESCOMs have prayed for approval of annual revenue requirement (ARR) of Rs 69,474.75 crore with a revenue deficit of Rs 4,863.85 crore for FY25. To bridge this revenue deficit, the ESCOMs have proposed an average increase by 66 paise per unit (ranging between 49 and 163 paise per unit). The revenue deficit for FY25 also includes revenue deficit of Rs 723.06 crore, as per the annual performance review (APR) for FY23; the ESCOMs have proposed 7.53 per cent increase in tariff. After scrutiny of ESCOMs' applications, the Commission has approved total ARR of Rs 64,944.54 crore as against Rs 69,474.75 crore sought by the ESCOMs in their tariff applications. The Commission has also approved a net revenue surplus of Rs 290.76 crore for FY2024-25, which includes revenue surplus of Rs 565.39 crore as per the annual performance review for FY23. To encourage the use of electric vehicles, the energy charges for EV charging stations have been continued at a reduced rate of Rs 4.50 per unit. Shimla, Feb 28 : The anti-defection law does not apply to Rajya Sabha polls as the legislators can vote as per their conscience, Senior Advocate Satya Pal Jain said on Wednesday. On the notice to six Congress MLAs who voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections on Tuesday, Jain said here: "Notice has been served to them by the Speaker as to why they should not be disqualified under the anti-defection law. "I appeared on their behalf. As per Rule 7, a minimum time of seven days should be given." Former BJP MP and Additional Solicitor General of India in Punjab and Haryana High, Jain clarified "it is not a case of anti-defection law. The Supreme Court has clarified many a time regarding the Rajya Sabha polls that exercising franchise or not does not fall under the purview of the anti-defection law". A senior official in the state legislative assembly told IANS that "if an MLA has acted against the interest of his own party or government, the Speaker can interpret it as voluntary giving up membership". "But the MLA does not have to resign. His conduct matters and the Speaker can interpret the actions," he added. Meanwhile, the six "rebel" Congress MLAs, who were issued show-cause notice for defying the whip for Rajya Sabha polls, appeared before Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania along with their lawyer and argued that they had not been provided all relevant documents. After hearing them, the Speaker reserved his decision. Jain, who represented the six MLAs, argued that they were only given the notice and the copy of the petition filed on Tuesday evening while other annexure were not supplied to them. "We urged the Speaker to give at least a week's time as per the principle of natural justice for filing the reply," he added. Later, the "rebel" legislators returned to Chandigarh. Earlier, the Vidhan Sabha was adjourned sine die, a day ahead of schedule, after the passing of Budget for 2024-25 and related Appropriation Bill authorising the government to spend Rs 624,21.73 crore from the consolidated fund. After the cross-voting by nine members, comprising three Independents, there is question mark over the survival of the Sukhvinder Sukhu-led Congress government. The BJP has won the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh after six Congress MLAs cross-voted in the polls. In the 68-member Assembly, the Congress had 40 MLAs, while the BJP had 25 and three independent MLAs. If the Speaker takes action and disqualifies the six rebel Congress MLAs who voted in favour of the BJP, the strength of the House will come down to 62. The halfway mark will be 31 and the majority will be 32, just two less than Congress' strength. Bengaluru, Feb 28 : The BJP in Karnataka has decided to continue the agitation against the alleged raising of pro-Pakistan slogans during the victory celebrations of Congress' Rajya Sabha candidate Syed Naseer Hussain in the Assembly premises on Tuesday until arrests are made in the case. Speaking to the media on Wednesday, leader of opposition R. Ashoka said that the BJP will continue its stir until the 'anti-national' elements are arrested. "Pro-Pakistan slogans have been raised inside the Assembly premises. Even though it has become international news, the Congress is not ready to believe it and is blaming the media instead. State minister Priyank Kharge has gone to the extent of threatening the media," Ashoka claimed. "CM Siddaramaiah should have called an emergency Cabinet meeting immediately after the incident and made an announcement that the culprits will be arrested. But no such meeting was held. Rajya Sabha member Naseer Hussain has abused the media. They (Congress) are asking for evidence for an incident that took place in the Vidhana Soudha. Even after 24 hours, no arrest has been made," the BJP leader said. The leader of opposition also said that the BJP can tolerate anything, but not 'betrayal' of the country. "Those betraying the country must be arrested. There is no place for them in the state. Until they are arrested, our agitation will continue," Ashoka said. The BJP leader also said that a complaint in this matter will be submitted to the Governor seeking sacking of the Congress government in the state. Earlier, amid protests by the BJP in the Assembly, the session was extended by one more day. Home Minister G. Parameshwara, on the other hand, said on the floor of the House that the whole world is following the developments in Bengaluru. "If we play politics over such a serious issue, what will others think," he asked. "Are you teaching patriotism to the Congress? Since 1885, when the Congress was established, our patriotism has remained intact," Parameshwara said. "The media has presented two versions of the alleged incident, with some claiming that they didn't hear any pro-Pakistan slogans," he added. Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 27 : Following talks between various constituent parties here on Wednesday, the leadership of the NDA in Kerala expressed confidence that there will be positive vibes in the state for them at the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. "The talks have been successfully completed and the details will be passed on to the national BJP leadership. The traditional political rivals in Kerala - the CPI-M-led ruling Left and the Congress-led UDF have weakened and there is a strong wind in favour of the BJP-led NDA," said NDA's Kerala Vice Chairman P.K. Krishnadas, a former state BJP President and a probable candidate. He claimed that a secret pact has been worked out between the CPI-M and the IUML (the second-largest party in the UDF) where the CPI-M will vote for the IUML candidates in Ponnani and Malappuram and in return, the IUML will vote for the CPI-M candidates. Even though the state BJP leadership and the national leadership is hopeful that this time the BJP will open its account in Kerala, figures do not augur well for it. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the NDA finished a distant third, managing only a 15.64 per cent vote share. Except at the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, where their candidate was the runner-up, in all the other seats, it finished a distant third. While the UDF won 19 seats securing a vote share of 47.48 per cent, the CPI-M led Left Front got 36.29 per cent votes and one seat. The BJP failed to make a mark in the 2021 Assembly polls too with its vote share going down to 12.36 per cent as compared to the 2016 Assembly polls and the party lost the only seat it held. New Delhi, Feb 28 : The Delhi High Court has directed the city government to promptly address the vacancies in the Municipal Taxation Tribunal and ensure its operationalisation. Justice Sachin Datta pointed out the need for swift action in this matter, expressing hope that necessary steps would be taken promptly. The court's order addresses concerns over the non-functionality of the Municipal Taxation Tribunal, as envisaged under Section 169 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, due to the absence of a proper panel. The court was hearing a petition filed by Deepak Sehgal challenging demand notices issued by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) concerning an assessment order. As Sehgal contended that he was not granted an opportunity to present his case before the authorities, Justice Datta ordered that he be given the chance to submit relevant information or documents within a four-week period. The court further said that a hearing be provided to Sehgal by the Joint Assessor and Collector, with a mandate for issuing a detailed order or rectification of the assessment order within the stipulated time frame. Pending the completion of this process, the court directed the suspension of the demand notice dated February 1. Jaipur, Feb 28 : French Army chief Gen Pierre Schill on Wednesday visited the Indian Army's South Western Command headquarters here. Gen Schill was received by Lt Gen Dhiraj Seth, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of South Western Command. An official said that the French Army chief interacted with Lt Gen Seth and other officers of South Western Command, and shared vital insights in furtherance of good relations between the armed forces of the two nations. The official said that Gen Schill's visit underscores the mutual desire of France and India to strengthen their strategic collaboration across various domains, including defence, security and technology. The meeting further reinforces the enduring bond between the armed forces of India and France, and highlights their commitment towards promoting regional stability and international security, the official added. Kolkata, Feb 28 : The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday granted bail to BJP leader Bikash Sinha, who was arrested recently for allegedly instigating the local women at Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district to take law in their own hands. On the same day, the Basirhat sub-divisional court granted bail to All India Secular Front leader Ayesha Bibi, who was also arrested by the police recently on similar charges. Sinhaas wife Swapna Sinha told mediapersons that even after her husband is released on bail, she is scared of the possible attacks on him after he returns to Sandeshkhali. aThe uncrowned king of Sandeshkhali, Sheikh Shahjahan, is still absconding. His close associate Vanu Mondal is still roaming free in the area. It on Mondalas complaint that my husband was arrested. So I am really worried about his security after he returns home," she said. On Tuesday, the Calcutta High Court had granted bail to former CPI(M) legislator from the Sandeshkhali Assembly constituency, Nirapada Sardar, who was arrested by the police on February 11 on charges of instigating the local villagers against a section of the local Trinamool Congress leaders. The court had also criticised the police for arresting Sardar under un-substantiating charges and that too on the basis of an FIR which was registered against him a day before the complaint was lodged against him. Mumbai : Former NCB Zonal Director, Sameer Wankhede, has moved to the Bombay High Court seeking the quashing of the CBI FIR filed against him in the Aryan Khan bribery case, in Mumbai on Friday, May 19, 2023.. Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Feb 28 : The Delhi High Court has set aside the order issued by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) regarding the procedure for taking action against senior IRS official Sameer Wankhede in connection with the Aryan Khan drugs case. Wankhede, who is an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of the 2008 batch, is currently serving as an Additional Commissioner under the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance. A division bench of Justice Rekha Palli and Justice Rajnish Bhatnagar, partially allowed the Central government's appeal against the order of the CAT, in favour of Wankhede, a former NCB Mumbai Zone Director, against whom certain allegations were raised regarding the "conduct of the raid/investigation" in connection with the Aryan Khan drugs case. Wankhede had filed an application seeking quashing of a report dated June 16, 2022, prepared by the Special Enquiry Team, led by Narcotics Control Bureau Deputy Director General Gyaneshwar Singh. During this tenure, Wankhede received some information, on the basis of which a raid was conducted at the Cordelia Cruise. Post this, certain allegations were raised against Wankhede regarding the "conduct of the raid/investigation". To probe these allegations, an SET was formed within the NCB, which subsequently submitted its report, along with related documents, to the Ministry of Home Affairs. Wankhede had argued that Gyaneshwar Singh, who was the Chairman of the SET, was actively involved in supervising the investigation of the above-mentioned crime, and that it was a violation of the principles of natural justice for Singh to head the SET investigating his own case. Upon a thorough examination of the case and the WhatsApp evidence, the CAT bench, consisting of Chairman Justice Ranjit More and Member (A) Anand Mathur, had also concluded Gyaneshwar Singh, being actively involved in the investigation, could not have been the part of the SET. Consequently, the tribunal had directed the relevant authorities to grant a personal hearing to Wankhede before any action is taken, ensuring that any decision is communicated with a reasoned and clear order. The high court now has concurred with the Central government's argument that the directive to provide a personal hearing and issue a reasoned order before initiating any action against Wankhede contradicted the provisions of the CCS (CCA) Rules. Setting aside this aspect of the CAT's order, the high court, however, clarified that its decision does not hinder Wankhede's ability to challenge the order, if he wishes to do so. The Centre had contested the CAT's order, asserting that it was erroneous as the Tribunal failed to recognise that the CCS (CCA) Rules do not mandate providing a personal hearing to a delinquent employee before issuing a charge sheet. Meanwhile, Wankhede's counsel argued that Wankhede himself was aggrieved by CATas decision. The Tribunal had noted Wankhede's concerns regarding Singh's involvement in issuing directions during the investigation, despite being appointed as the Chairman of the SET. Recently, Wankhede filed a contempt plea against Singh, alleging non-compliance with the Tribunal's order. A single judge had dismissed the petition, stating that it was not maintainable, but granted Wankhede the liberty to seek redressal of his grievances through the CAT. New Delhi, 28 Feb : Ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the University Grants Commission (UGC), together with the Ministry of Education and the Election Commission of India (ECI), has started working on events to inspire and mobilise the young voters, particularly those exercising their franchise for the first time. UGC Chairman Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar told IANS that colleges and other institutions of higher education will utilise materials provided by the ECI and other creative resources from the Ministry of Education, including videos, banners and selfie points to drive the campaign. Higher educational institutions (HEIs) nationwide have been requested to execute the 'Mera Pehla Vote Desh Ke Liye' campaign. The campaign began on Wednesday, and will continue till March 6. The UGC Chairman said the designated areas within the universities/colleges/HEIs will host voter-awareness activities facilitated by the respective educational institutions. The achievements of the local youth will be prominently highlighted, and efforts will be made to involve the youth icons to amplify the campaign's impact. New Delhi, Feb 28 : Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane, who is visiting Germany, on Wednesday held an interaction with the defence industry and cited India as an attractive destination for investments. Meeting representatives of the Federal Association of the German Security and Defence Industry (BDSV) at Berlin, he outlined the recent changes in the Indian defence industry through progressive reforms, making it attractive to invest in India, and to enter into partnerships with the Indian defence industry, the Defence Ministry said. The Defence Secretary highlighted that India is progressively moving towards becoming the next defence innovation, manufacturing, and maintenance hub in Asia. BDSV Managing Director, Dr Hans Christoph Arzpodien, welcomed him and provided the German defence industry perspective. The meeting was also attended by Indian envoy P. Harish. A number of German defence companies were present, represented by their top leadership, and an engaging discussion on business and investment possibilities was conducted. Earlier, Defence Secretary Aramane co-chaired the India-Germany High Defence Committee meeting in Berlin with State Secretary, German Ministry of Defence, Benedikt Zimmer. Both sides discussed a range of bilateral security and defence issues, with a focus on developing defence cooperation as a key pillar of the strategic partnership between India and Germany. They exchanged views on the regional security situation, discussed likely joint exercises with Germany in the Indo-Pacific, and deliberated on potential defence industrial projects and proposals, the Defence Ministry added. New Delhi, Feb 29 : A 32-year-old woman, who had gone missing on February 24, was allegedly strangled to death by her business partner, who is also suspected to have committed suicide later, the Delhi Police said on Wednesday. A senior officer said that the woman's body was found on Wednesday at a playschool in the Narela area, which she was running with her business partner Sohan Lal. According to the police, a missing complaint was filed by the woman's father, Vijay Kumar, a resident of Swantantra Nagar, at the Narela police station on February 24. In his complaint, Kumar said that his daughter Versha, who had been divorced and was living with her grandfather, was missing. "She had left home on February 23 on a Scooty. The complainant claimed that she was last seen with her business partner Sohan Lal, with whom she had opened a playschool named Tiny Dream Berry Playschool in Narela. The school is not operational yet, and consisted of a basement and one room on the ground floor acting as the office with another shop to the right," said a senior police officer. After Versha didn't return home, Kumar called on her phone which was answered by an unknown person claiming to be near a railway track at Harshana village in Sonipat, Haryana. "Kumar immediately reached the Harshana village and collected the mobile phone of Versha from the unknown person. It was also reported that Sohan Lal was missing too," said the officer. Subsequently, on the evening of February 24, Kumar approached the Narela police station and filed a missing person's complaint. "During the course of investigation, the premises of the school was inspected in the presence of Versha's father. However, the main office was locked, preventing a thorough search," said the officer. The mobile numbers of Versha and Sohan Lal were sent for CDR analysis, following which their locations were traced. "Sohan Lal's last location was revealed to be Barauta, Haryana," said the officer. "Today, Versha's father went to the playschool again and got the office opened with the help of the landlord. He then noticed a body behind the main desk and called the police. On reaching the spot, the police found Versha's body inside the office room behind her desk. "Her 'chunni' was wrapped around her neck. Prima facie, it appeared that she had been strangled," the officer said. Meanwhile, efforts were made to locate Sohan Lal. Upon checking with the GRP in Sonipat, it was revealed that a person was found dead on the railway tracks on February 25, and the body was preserved at the PGI mortuary. "The body is strongly suspected to be that of Sohan Lal. It is now suspected that Sohan Lal strangled Versha and then committed suicide. The motive for the crime is unknown as of now. A case under Section 302 of the IPC has been registered," the officer said. Panaji, Feb 28 : Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Wednesday said that his government has been aiming to create an accessible health care system in the coastal state. "The government has been focusing on creating infrastructure and extra courses in nursing, including imparting specialised training. The government aims to create accessible health care in Goa and also tie-up with institutes to perform surgeries in the state so that people do not need to go out of the state," Rane said while speaking at a programme of the Institute of Nursing Education, here. "We are here to give you opportunities in this field. The state is doing well and is progressing in different ways in this field," he said while addressing the fresh graduates. He also said that nurses play a major role in providing better quality health care. Speaking on the occasion, Goa Medical College Dean, Shivanand Bandekar, said: "We have incorporated recent advances in nursing education, following best practices and competency-based nursing education." New Delhi, Feb 28 : An alleged extortionist was thrashed and his car was set on fire by residents in a west Delhi locality on Wednesday, while his aide was rescued, police said. The locals alleged that the duo, identified as Balram and Pramod, used to extort money from them and behave like self-styled gangsters of the area. According to police, on Wednesday morning, information was received in the Khyala police station that a person was being beaten by local people in B2 Block, Raghubir Nagar following which a police team rushed to the spot. On reaching the spot, the injured, later identified as Balram, a declared 'Bad Character' of the area, was rescued and taken to hospital. "In the meantime, the locals gathered in the B1 block and pelted stones on the car of Balram and later set it on fire. They also tried to get hold of Pramod, the associate of Balram, to beat him, however, police intervened," Deputy Commissioner of Police, West, Vichitra Veer said. In view of the situations, police teams were also roped in from adjoining police stations to ensure the law and order in the area. "The crowd was dispersed by taking the local people in confidence," the DCP said, adding that based on the complaint, legal action is being initiated against Balram and Pramod. "Another FIR is being registered against the unlawful assembly for breaching the peace by setting the vehicle on fire," he said. Police teams are gathering CCTV cameras footage to identify the culprits, he said. Bengaluru, Feb 28 : Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said on Wednesday that no one has raised pro-Pakistan slogans in the premises of Vidhana Soudha, adding that "if anyone has raised such slogans, he/she will be booted into the prison". Shivakumar said this while interacting with the mediapersons on the row over pro-Pakistan slogans allegedly being raised at the time of the celebration of the victory of Syed Naseer Hussain in the Rajya Sabha elections. "The police will take action as per the law. The BJP is trying to use the issue for political gains. We have ordered an investigation in this regard. Action will be taken against the culprits after the probe. If someone has attempted to spread lies, action will be initiated against him/her as well," he said. Meanwhile, Shivakumar, when asked about being sent to Himachal Pradesh as an observer, said: "The party has directed me to be present there, and I am heading to Himachal. The BJP is in a haste to topple the governments in 2-3 states. In democracy, there should be a powerful opposition. But the BJP is following the wrong tradition in this regard. All our party MLAs are going to be with us. I have faith that they will be loyal to the party." Panaji, Feb 28 : After the opposition parties in Goa alleged that the BJP government in the state is hatching a conspiracy to close down the Dabolim airport in South Goa, its director S.V.T. Dhanamjaya Rao clarified on Wednesday that the airport will survive because of its potential. According to the opposition parties, Qatar Airways has announced to shift its operations to the Manohar International Airport in North Goa from June 2024 by discontinuing its services at the Dabolim airport situated in the South district. Speaking on the issue, Rao said, "Qatar Airways has taken its own decision, which we respect. In the last financial year, we handled 8.4 million passengers, and this year we expect 7 million, marking a difference of around 15 to 20 per cent (reduction)." "The Dabolim airport will remain operational. In the coming 'summer schedule', we will get additional flights. Most of the charter flights are operated from here only. Dabolim airport will survive as it has the potential," Rao added. The opposition parties in Goa have targeted the BJP government over the issue. "One after the other, airlines are shifting to Mopa yet the government remains a silent spectator. Is this part of a larger conspiracy," asked leader of opposition, Yuri Alemao. "I had urged Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to take proactive steps to ensure that the Dabolim airport survives. Unfortunately, the state government is deliberately ignoring the shifting of operations by various airlines," he added. "In the last two years, we have seen a sharp decline in passenger movement and airline activities at Dabolim. The government has failed to come out with a comprehensive action plan to ensure that the Dabolim International Airport survives," Alemao said. --IANS| sbk/arm Hyderabad, Feb 28 : Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Wednesday ordered a comprehensive probe into the irregularities in the Outer Ring Road (ORR) toll tenders during the previous BRS regime. At a review meeting, the Chief Minister expressed anger over the finalisation of the tenders at a low price which resulted in a huge revenue loss to the state government. The CM questioned the officials of Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) for calling the tenders without fixing the minimum rate. The Chief Minister ordered a thorough investigation into the whole episode including the involvement of people and the organizations responsible in the tender process. HMDA Joint Commissioner Amrapali has been asked to submit complete details about the irregularities in the tenders, the procedures followed and the movement of the files during the tendering process. The officials were also instructed to register cases against the officials and employees concerned if any files related to ORR tenders are found to be missing. After receiving a full report from HMDA, the government will discuss it in the Cabinet and hand over the issue for a probe to the CBI or the equivalent probing agency, said an official release. Officials explained to the CM that the total revenue generated from the ORR was Rs 600 crore per year before calling the toll tenders. The CM enquired why the tender was finalised at a meagre Rs 7,800 crore to the IRB company as against the estimation of Rs 18,000 crore revenue generation in 30 years period. It is primarily estimated the government incurred a loss of Rs 15,000 crore due to the tender process adopted by the HMDA. CM Revanth Reddy directed the officials to consider the area inside the ORR as a unit and prepare plans for the development of Hyderabad. The CM suggested that the HMDA limits should be extended up to the Regional Ring Road (RRR). Radial roads should be constructed to connect the ORR to the RRR. The CM emphasised that top priority should be given to the creation of necessary infrastructure in the newly expanding surrounding municipalities in Hyderabad along with the development of the city. The officials have been asked to prepare a vision document for the development of the city by hiring a special consultancy in tune with the Master Plan-2050. --IANS ms/pgh Imphal, Feb 29 : Ten MLAs, belonging to Naga-dominated constituencies of Manipur, on Wednesday requested Chief Minister N. Biren Singh to appoint a new Tribal Affairs and Hills Minister to look after the issues of tribals and hills regions efficiently and effectively. In a joint signed letter, the MLAs told the Chief Minister that the common citizens of Manipur have been facing difficulties due to unrest in the state and in this hour of crisis, the functioning of Tribal Affairs and Hills Department is very crucial. "The Tribal Affairs and Hills Department has been rendered defunct for the last 10 months due to absence of a Minister in-charge of the department. It is pertinent to point out that this Department is becoming more crucial in this hour of crisis to look after the needs and development of tribals and hills areas of the state to bring over-all peace and progress in the state," the letter signed by MLAs S.S. Olish, Ram Muivah, Leishiyo Keishing, Khashim Vashum, J. Kumo Sha, Losii Dikho, N. Kayisi, Awangbow Newmai, Janghemlung Panmei, and Dinganglung Gangmei. There are two ministers from the Kuki community in the Biren Singh ministry. While Letpao Haokip is Tribal Affairs and Hills Minister, Nemcha Kipgen, the lone woman minister in the cabinet, is Industry Minister. Ten tribal MLAs belonging to the Kuki-Zo community, including Haokip and Kipgen, have been, since the outbreak of the ethnic violence in Manipur on May 3 last year, demanding a "Separate Administration" (equivalent to separate state) for the tribals. These ten MLAs, including the ministers, did not participate in the Assembly proceedings, including the ongoing session, since the violence broke out last year. New Delhi, Feb 29 : The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police has registered a case and initiated a probe after a complaint was filed by the Enforcement Directorate that a money laundering racket involving foreign-based online gaming companies has been allegedly exploiting Indian residents. These schemes, orchestrated through VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) and masked identities, have also raised serious concerns about financial fraud and illegal remittance practices among security agencies. According to the FIR, accessed by IANS, the Special Task Force of ED had received inputs that various foreign registered online gaming companies are illegally providing access to their gaming websites to the Indian residents through VPN or masking their actual identity as foreign based online gaming websites. "While these gaming websites are registered in foreign countries, all of them are linked to Indian bank accounts. By using the said modus-operandi, they are collecting money (in hundreds of crores) from the general public through gaming websites and sending the said money out of India using illegal means such as Foreign Outward Remittances against import of services/goods without actual business activities," read the FIR. Naming the accused in the FIR, the ED complaint stated that the inputs were analysed and further developed and the investigation conducted by the Directorate so far has revealed that one Ashish Kakkar, a resident of Greater Kailash -II and his other associates identified as Punit Kumar, a resident of Karampura, Keshav Sood, a resident of Anand Niketan, Chanakyapuri, and Shiv Dargar, who resides in Saket and others in connivance with other unknown persons were/ are engaged large scale money-laundering as well as international Hawala / unlawful money transfer. The ED had alleged that the accused were indulged in Hawala transactions to various parts of the world, including United Arab Emirates (UAE), Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Mauritius, Thailand, among others. The ED during their searches at Kakkar's properties on May 22 and 23, 2023, carried out under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) resulted into recovery and seizure of large number of incriminating documents, forged/ fake IDs such as Aadhaar, PAN card, etc., digital devices for online transactions in foreign banks, laptops, computer hard discs, pen drives containing electronic record pertaining to huge number of Foreign Outward Remittances, stamps of number of Indian as well as foreign registered firms, blank letter heads of several such Indian as well as foreign firms. The ED also alleged that Kakkar had formed and operated a number of shell trading firms/bogus companies in PAN India as well as abroad, mainly in China, Singapore, Hong Kong. Dubai, etc. "These firms/companies were in the name of his various employees/ hired persons by using fabricated/forged documents. These dummy firms were opened / incorporated for collection/routing / outward foreign remittances of proceeds of crime from online gaming by the foreign registered gaming websites," read the FIR. "Kakkar and his associates had devised a unique modus operandi i.c. creation of dummy firms - by using forged /fabricated documents then used the same for import/export in Special Economic Zones and outward foreign remittances against these imports made by these entities to circumvent the restrictions imposed under the provisions of FEMA. The same forged documents have also been used in the operations of bank accounts opened in the name of dummy companies/ firms," the FIR stated. The FIR also said that it came to knowledge that by adopting the said modus operandi, alleged persons had operated 188 bank accounts in respect of 167 domestic firms/companies and 110 bank accounts in respect of 105 foreign firms/companies. "Out of 105 foreign companies, 46 are based in China, 30 in Singapore, 18 in Hong Kong, seven in UAE, two in Malaysia, one in Thailand and one in Mauritius. Alleged persons retained the blank cheque books of the dummy firms/companies after obtaining/forging signatures on blank leaves," read the ED complaint. The extent of the operation is staggering, with the ED complaint revealing the existence of 188 bank accounts linked to 167 domestic firms and 110 accounts associated with 105 foreign companies. Among the foreign entities implicated, 46 are reportedly based in China, 30 in Singapore, 18 in Hong Kong, and others spread across the UAE, Malaysia, Thailand, and Mauritius. The ED further alleged that the perpetrators are accused of retaining blank cheque books from dummy firms, obtained through fraudulent means, to facilitate their illicit activities. Additionally, they allegedly employ false and forged identities to procure mobile connections, further obscuring their true identities. "We have registered a case under various sections of the IPC," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (EOW) Vikram Porwal. "A probe has been initiated into the matter," the DCP added. Award-winning childrens book author-illustrator Petra Mathers, known for her naive-flavored pencil and watercolor artwork, died by suicide on February 6 with her husband, author and photographer Michael Mathers, at their home in Astoria, Ore. She was 78. As friends and family of the couple reached out to one another for comfort in recent weeks, a common thread emerged: Petra and Michael had always said they would go together. Petra told us it was part of their wedding vows, said a close friend. And they kept their promise. Petra Mathers was born on March 25, 1945, in the small town of Todtmoos, Germany, located in the countrys Black Forest region. She recalled an early childhood surrounded by nature where she amused herself by making up stories and games and was always eager to make pictures. I was always drawing for as long as I can remember, but not well, she told Dilys Evans in the book Show & Tell: Exploring the Fine Art of Childrens Illustration (Chronicle, 2008). In fact, in school my work was always shown as inadequate, but I didnt really careI just kept on drawing. Mathers attended elementary school in Stuttgart, following her familys move there, and after a family relocation to Wiesbaden, she began her studies at the gymnasium (secondary school from roughly ages 1018). At age 11, Mathers received a special gift that ignited her artistic passion: an art calendar given to her by a family friend. When my fathers friend realized how much I loved it, he gave me this little art dictionary, Mathers said in Show & Tell. I learned the names and the styles quickly and found them all fascinating. Now that I think about it, I discovered the world of fine art right then. Matherss parents were supportive of her creative pursuits and their art books were another source of wonder for Mathers. She loved looking through the heavy volumes, poring over works by Rubens and Durer, and she treasured trips to the museum with her mother and father to see paintings in person. Upon graduation, Mathers opted to forego college and entered a three-year apprentice program in the book industry that involved working at a publishing company and bookstore, and taking classes in business and literature. It was during this course of study that she met her first husband, and not long after the birth of their son in 1965, the couple immigrated to the U.S., settling in Portland, Ore. By the early 1970s Mathers and her young son had moved to Cannon Beach, Ore. She worked as a waitress while continuing to create new pieces of art. In 1973, Mathers had her first exhibition at the nearby White Bird Gallery and began to sell enough paintings to leave her restaurant job as her reputation as an artist grew. Matherss entree into the childrens book world was facilitated by friends who brought some of her work to editor Nina Ignatowicz at Harper & Row in New York in 1980the same year she married Michael Mathers. Ignatowicz sent Petra a letter encouraging her to keep up her good work, but suggesting that she try making some black-and-white art, for a better (e.g. more cost-effective) shot at breaking into the business. To me, painting in black-and white is like wearing polyester clothes, Mathers told Evans. Undaunted, she eventually put together a portfolio, and a couple of years later, when she and Michael were living on Long Island, she brought it to Harpers offices, where Ignatowicz introduced her to fellow editor Laura Geringer. It was Geringer who gave Mathers her first childrens book contract, to illustrate How Yossi Beat the Evil Urge by Miriam Chaikin (Harper & Row, 1983)in black-and-whiteand with whom Mathers would go on to publish numerous books. With Geringers encouragement, Mathers wrote and illustrated a story of her own, Maria Theresa (Harper & Row, 1985), about an adventurous hen who escapes her coop on a New York City rooftop and joins a circus in the countryside; the book won the Ezra Jack Keats Award, given annually to an outstanding new writer and new illustrator. The following year, Matherss illustrations for 1986s Mollys New Washing Machine (Harper & Row), written by Geringer, earned Mathers the first of her four New York Times Best Illustrated Childrens Books Awards. In quick succession, her titles Theodore and Mr. Balbini (Harper & Row, 1988), Sophie and Lou (HarperCollins, 1991) and Victor and Christabel (Knopf, 1993) featured richly hued folk-art style images and a full slate of sweet, offbeat characters. Mathers then called upon her own childhood memories for Kisses from Rosa (Knopf, 1995), focusing on a difficult period where she was sent to live with an aunt in the country while her mother recovered from tuberculosis. Mathers gained another close professional partnership when Anne Schwartz, then an editor at Knopf, approached her with a project. I had admired Petras work for a while, and when I got the manuscript for Im Flying by Alan Wade (Knopf, 1990), I thought Petra would be the perfect illustrator for it, Schwartz said. I sent it to her, she loved it, and that was that! Later, Lotties New Beach Towel (Atheneum/Anne Schwartz, 1998), published with Schwartz, launched Matherss six-volume Lotties World series of picture books starring resourceful hen Lottie and her best pal Herbie the duck who live on the Oregon coast. Lottie is my role model, Mathers told interviewer Linnea Hendrickson from Rutgers University in 1998. Even though it seems that I am inventing her, she already exists in all of us when we are at our best, she said. Lottie and her pals found a permanent place to roost in 2003 when they landed at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass. In 1996, Matherss art had been featured in the exhibition Myth, Magic and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Childrens Book Illustration at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Va., organized by Michael Patrick Hearn, H. Nichols B. Clark, and Trinkett Clark. Mathers reconnected with Nick Clark when he became founding director of the Carle and she and her husband visited the Carle shortly after it opened in 2002. According to the Carles current chief curator Ellen Keiter, Petra contacted Nick to say that Lottie belonged at the Carle. This started an extraordinary series of gifts over the next two decades. Mathers donated her graphite drawings and published watercolor and gouache paintings for Lotties New Beach Towel to the museum in 2003, which comprised a solo exhibit in 2004. Mathers subsequently gave the Carle all her original Lottie art as well as pieces from other booksmore than 570 works. Her animal characters demonstrate both compassion and humor, their foibles and friendships serving as metaphors for human bonds, Keiter said. In 2019, Mathers visited the Carle to hand-letter the text of her Lottie books onto her illustrations. She arrived with a box of well-sharpened pencils and spent two days in our vault, meticulously inscribing the words below each small square painting and double page spread, Keiter said. The importance that her text and images live togethernot just in the book but on the art itselfwas evident. In all, Mathers published more than 40 titles for young readers. All of my books are about love, she told Hendrickson. And her last one, When Aunt Mattie Got Her Wings (S&S/Beach Lane, 2014), gently and humorously addresses the topic of death. When we read Petras quirky and moving dummy about Lottie losing her beloved 99-year-old aunt when she died and took off on Out of This World Airlines, and it brought laughter and tears in equal measure, executive editor Andrea Welch and I knew Petra had made something truly special and brave for the close of the series, said Beach Lane Books publisher Allyn Johnston. Geringer, former publisher of Laura Geringer Books at HarperCollins, paid tribute: It was a great joy to work with Petra on Maria Theresa, the adventurous chicken that inspired Lottie, on Mr. Balbini, on the heartwarming Sophie and Lou and many, many other beautiful picture books over the years. My home is filled with her joyful artwork, a daily inspiration, and a reminder to relish the colorful absurdities in life. Her witty stories and characters will live on. Im happy to have been her first editor and to have welcomed her to the world of illustrating for children and proud that she illustrated my own crazy story, Mollys New Washing Machine. She was an original. Schwartz, now v-p and publisher of Anne Schwartz Books at Random House Childrens Books, offered this remembrance: Though Petra seemed quiet and quite proper, below the surface lurked gargantuan observational powers, a dry wit, and above all, a deeply romantic soul. My most vivid Petra memory is from when I visited her and her beloved husband Michael in Astoria, Oregon in the 90s. Their house was immaculatejust the way I imagined her alter ego Lotties house would be. She and I took a walk through the woods, down to where the Astoria River meets the Pacific Ocean. By the shore, Petra explained that every morning she came there, sat on a rock, and listened to the birds calling to one another. When she got home, shed translate it all into the Lottie, Herbie, and Dodo stories. What Petra did not saybut that I knew to be truewas that in her translations, which seem so utterly simple, she captured the essence of our daily lives, infusing a group of birds with profoundly human strengths and weaknesses. And Keiter shared, The Carle is indebted to Petra. She gifted usand the worldher beautiful art and stories. With minimal detail, she combined her distinctive folk-art style with jewel-like colors and a delicacy of touch. She authored sensitive stories that are equally relatable and whimsical. Petra Mathers is a gift we can all be grateful for. The low buzz of lighthearted chatter, heads bowed in a moment of silence, a single voice ringing out to affirm the strength of a community all moments created by the Hispanic Student Association, Latino/as Invested in the Students of Tomorrow and La Clinica in LaKech for their emotional support event in the Tate Intersection on Monday. Following the recent deaths of Wyatt Banks and Laken Riley on the University of Georgia campus, these Latinx organizations wanted to come together and create a space for open dialogue and community gathering, where attendees could voice their thoughts, feelings and concerns in the company of other students. NMDC reported a strong standalone revenue at Rs 5,410 crore, rising 45 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) and 35 per cent quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-q) in line with consensus. Photograph: NMDC/LinkedIn Iron ore sales at about 11.4 million tonnes (MT) grew 18.9 per cent Y-o-Y (19 per cent Q-o-Q). Realisation stood at Rs 4,679 per tonne, higher by 22 per cent Y-o-Y (12.9 per cent Q-o-Q). The operating profit at Rs 2,030 crore jumped 77.5 per cent Y-o-Y (70.1 per cent Q-o-Q), which was above consensus. The operating profit for the PSU undertaking was above consensus. Royalty costs at Rs 2,320 crore rose by 24.2 per cent Y-o-Y (54 per cent Q-o-Q), due to higher ore production up by 14.6 per cent Y-o-Y (38 per cent Q-o-Q). Operating profit per tonne was Rs 1,781, higher by 49 per cent Y-o-Y (43 per cent Q-o-Q). The reported net profit was Rs 1,490 crore and adjusted for extraordinary items of Rs 252 crore, it was Rs 1,740 crore, higher by 96 per cent Y-o-Y and 69.8 per cent sequentially. Management said FY24 sales volume guidance of 47 million tonnes is achievable, provided 2.3 mtpa capacity expansion at the Kumaraswamy mine can be completed. The company is awaiting environmental clearance. The 9MFY24 sales volume grew 23.7 per cent Y-o-Y to 32 MT implying that Q4FY24 volume will be 15 MT. This is a record production for NMDC. The January sales of 4.6 million tonnes was higher by 19 per cent Y-o-Y and 9 per cent M-o-M. The blast furnace at NMDC Steel is fully operational. NMDC Steel is expected to break even by Q2FY25. Legally 5-star mines may operate at 110 per cent of rated capacity, which translates to a possible volume of 55 mtpa in FY25 based on current enviro nmental clearance of 50 mtpa. Realisation will improve further in Q4FY24. Realisation in Q3 stood at Rs 4,679 per tonne, aided by two price hikes taken in Q3FY24. The company has made two further price hikes in Q4FY24 of around Rs 650/ tonne aggregated. This would push up realisation. NMDC s prices are at a historically steep discount to global import parity ore prices. Capex for capacity expansion can be funded through internal accruals. In 9MFY24, capex was Rs 1,500 crore with another Rs 300 crore slated in Q4FY24. FY25 capex will get enhanced to Rs 2,100 crore, focused on capacity expansion (67 mtpa by FY25 and 100 mtpa by FY30). Cash and cash equivalent at the end of FY25 is expected to be at Rs 12,900 crore hence capex can be funded through internal accruals. The repayment of Rs 2,200 crore inter-corporate loan to NMDC Steel and receipt of Rs 1,800 crore balance due from Karnataka SPV monitoring committee could boost cash reserves. A screening plant at Kirandul and a slurry pipeline are expected to be commissioned by FY25. The pellet plant at Jagdalpur is being enhanced from 2 mtpa to 6 mtpa. Doubling of the Kirandul-Kothavalasa railway line and a rapid wagon loading system is targeted for completion by the FY24 end. Good operational capacity, excellent net cash position, capacity expansion plans are all positives. There could be an additional 10 per cent 15 per cent of long-term revenue from non-iron ore segments like gold, magnetite, and lithium mining prospects in Australia. Crude steel production in India was up by 13 per cent Y-o-Y for 9MFY24. All steel majors in India are planning to double capacity by FY30-31 with anticipated demand from the government thrust in infra structure. Analysts are positive on the stock and its listed down stream subsidiary NMDC Steel. Disclaimer: This article is meant for information purposes only. This article and information do not constitute a distribution, an endorsement, an investment advice, an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities/schemes or any other financial products/investment products mentioned in this article to influence the opinion or behaviour of the investors/recipients. Any use of the information/any investment and investment related decisions of the investors/recipients are at their sole discretion and risk. Any advice herein is made on a general basis and does not take into account the specific investment objectives of the specific person or group of persons. Opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice. If everything goes according to plan, a resuscitated Akali Dal could emerge as a central player in Punjab in three years, notes Aditi Phadnis. IMAGE: Shiromani Akali Dal President Sukhbir Singh Badal during the Shiromani Akali Dal's Punjab Bachao Yatra in Amritsar, February 5, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo Winds carrying suspended particulate matter usually blow towards Delhi from Punjab. This time, the plumes from teargas shells used on farmers on Delhi's borders will likely cloud the vision of those in the Bharatiya Janata Party negotiating to revive the alliance between their party with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab. In 2020, when the last round of the farmers' agitation took place, SAD supremo, the late Parkash Singh Badal, and S S Dhindsa returned their Padma Bhushan awards, protesting the government's treatment of farmers. The casualty of round two of the ongoing stir will be an alliance between the two parties. This means that while the SAD might win a seat or two of the 13 in the state, the BJP will be lucky if it scores even one. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won two seats, Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur. It contested in alliance with the SAD. But although its independent vote share has inched up since then, the Aam Aadmi Party, in power in Punjab, remains highly popular. The last Lok Sabha election in the state was for a bypoll for the Jalandhar seat in May last year. The BJP polled 16 per cent of the vote, while the SAD got 18 per cent. They fought separately. The AAP got 34 per cent of the vote share compared to 2.5 per cent it had notched up in the same constituency in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Now, with farm stir #2, the SAD is in no hurry to strike any deals with the BJP. When Mr Dhindsa, once number two in the SAD as secretary general and a confidant of five-time chief minister and Akali patriarch Parkash Singh Badal, quit the party, ostensibly it was over its poor performance in the 2017 assembly elections. His real grouse was Sukhbir Badal's promotion by his father. Mr Dhindsa resigned as the party's Rajya Sabha MP, while his son, Parminder, who was finance minister in the SAD-BJP government, walked out of the SAD. 'Badal saab key asli vaaris hamare saath baithe hain (Badal saab's real heirs are on our side),' Prime Minister Narendra Modi had remarked in the Lok Sabha about Mr Dhindsa's exit, in mocking reference to family rule in the SAD. Now, the younger Dhindsa is reported to be in consultation with his supporters to make his way back to the SAD. "There's a word -- anak. It is untranslatable but loosely, it means pride. Sikhs will lose everything. But they will not compromise on their pride," said a senior SAD leader. IMAGE: Agitating farmers raise slogans before organising a tractor march in Amritsar, February 26, 2024, in support of the farmers' Delhi Chalo agitation. Photograph: Raminder Pal Singh/ANI Photo The last round of 'negotiation' between the BJP and the SAD took place at the level of Sunil Jakhar, the former Congressman who joined the BJP and became the head of its Punjab unit. That was around six weeks ago. A survey by the BJP was cited in negotiations in which it demanded six Lok Sabha seats, leaving seven for the SAD. For the Akalis, this doesn't work. Their thinking is, in an alliance, the balance of advantage is with the BJP -- that party will add Hindu votes to its kitty, while the SAD will lose Jat Sikh votes as a consequence of the alliance. They feel the BJP needs them in the Lok Sabha, whereas the SAD can take or leave the 2024 elections. Their eyes are fixed on the assembly elections three years away (2027). A lot can happen between then and now. For instance, the killings of Sikhs agitating abroad to get the US and Canada to pressure the Indian government for a fair deal with the Indian state, was top of the mind politically till about a month ago in Punjab. But now it has retreated. And right now, given the farmer agitation, the SAD reckons it is best to not even be seen as negotiating with the BJP. The more the BJP and its affiliates criticise farmers, suggesting they have been infiltrated by 'foreign forces' and 'anti-nationals', the better it looks for the SAD in Punjab. Instead of getting distracted with the Lok Sabha elections, the SAD will likely work to persuade disaffected Akalis to return to the fold and build up the party. That leaves the field free for the Congress and AAP in the Lok Sabha space. If everything goes according to plan, a resuscitated SAD could emerge as a central player in Punjab in three years. Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com Manipur Governor Anusuiya Uikey on Wednesday said that 219 people have been killed in ethnic violence in the state since May last year. IMAGE: Manipur CM N Biren Singh accompanied by ministers, MLAs and chief secretary, visiting additional SP M Amit Singh, who was recently attacked by armed miscreants, at Raj Medicity Hospital, in Imphal, February 28, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo Addressing the Manipur assembly during the commencement of the budget session, she said that 198 companies of central armed police forces and 140 army columns have been deployed along with state forces to maintain law and order in the northeastern state. She condoled the deaths of 219 people in the ethnic strife and said that an ex-gratia amount of Rs 10 lakh each is being disbursed to the next of kin of the deceased after due verification. The mortal remains of the victims have been handed over to their kin and their last rites have been performed, Uikey said. The governor exuded confidence that all stakeholders and people in general will contribute towards the restoration of peaceful coexistence and brotherhood among various communities of the state. "Manipur has always been and will continue to be a multi-cultural state that respects the diverse identities of the state. The government believes in taking all the people along, irrespective of their identity, in its path of development," she said. "The state government has been working tirelessly under challenging circumstances to address various complex issues related to the present law and order situation following the violence that started on May 3, 2023," she said. "Within the first few days (of the violence), evacuation of stranded people on both sides of the conflict was taken up on a war footing. Manipur State Transport Services transported over 4,000 students and stranded civilians to safer places," the governor said. She said that pre-fabricated houses have been built for displaced people living in relief camps and the government has also formulated a scheme for the construction and repair of permanent houses that were damaged during the violence. "Basic analysis of damage assessment has been completed," she said. The governor said that students staying in relief camps have been linked to nearby schools. She said that a commission of inquiry chaired by a former chief justice of the high court was constituted by the Centre to investigate the facts that led to the genesis of the present situation. A peace committee has also been constituted to help establish peace and harmony among various ethnic groups, Uikey said. "The government is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that justice is delivered to our sisters both in the hills and the valley, who were victims of sexual violence," she said. Uikey said that the government has handed over 29 cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation and one to the National Investigation Agency for independent and transparent probe. She said that a peace agreement has been signed with the militant outfit United National Liberation Front, "which is anticipated to usher in a new era of peace", and encouraged other armed groups to participate in the peace process. On the Centre's move to scrap the Free Movement Regime with neighbouring Myanmar, she said the decision was taken keeping in mind India's internal security and demographic structure of the northeastern states. Later, the House condoled the deaths of former governor P B Acharya, former secretary of Manipur Assembly, Ningthoujam Hera Singh, and 10 former members, and observed a two-minute silence as a mark of respect to the departed souls. The budget session of the assembly will continue till March 5. The six national parties have declared a total income of nearly Rs 3077 crore in 2022-23 fiscal, with the Bharatiya Janata Party getting the maximum share totalling around Rs 2,361 crore, the Association for Democratic Reforms said on Wednesday. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president JP Nadda during the BJP national office bearers' meeting, at the Party Office in New Delhi on Friday, December 22, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo The ruling BJP's income forms 76.73 percent of the total income of the six national parties during FY 2022-23, it said. The Congress declared the second-highest income of Rs 452.375 crore, which forms 14.70 per cent of the total income of the six national parties. Besides the BJP and the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Aam Aadmi Party, NPP and Communist Party of India-Marxist have declared their income. Between FY 2021-22 and 2022-23, the income of the BJP increased by 23.15 percent or Rs 443.724 crore from Rs 1917.12 crore during FY 2021-22 to Rs 2360.844 crore during FY 2022-23, the ADR said. The income of NPP increased by 1502.12 percent or Rs 7.09 crore from Rs 47.20 lakh during FY 2021-22 to Rs 7.562 crore during FY 2022-23. Similarly, AAP's income increased by 91.23 percent (Rs 40.631 crore) from Rs 44.539 crore during FY 2021-22 to Rs 85.17 crore during FY 2022-23. Between the 2021-22 fiscal and 2022-23 fiscal, the income of the Congress, CPI-M and BSP decreased by 16.42 percent (Rs 88.90 crore), 12.68 percent (Rs 20.575 crore) and 33.14 percent (Rs 14.508 crore) respectively, it noted, citing their records submitted to the Election Commission. It also said the BJP declared a total income of Rs 2360.844 crore during FY 2022-23, but spent only 57.68 percent, which comes to Rs 1361.684 crore of the total income. The Congress' total income was Rs 452.375 crore while it spent Rs 467.135 crore, with its expenditure for that year exceeding its total income by 3.26 percent. The CPI-M's total income was Rs 141.661 crore while it spent Rs 106.067 crore -- 74.87 percent of its income. Similarly, AAP's total income was Rs 85.17 crore while it spent Rs 102.051 crore -- its expenditure for that year exceeded its total income by 19.82 percent. The government Wednesday banned two factions of the Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir for five years for their anti-India and pro-Pakistan propaganda, and asking people to refrain from taking part in elections. IMAGE: Security personnel stand guard outside an orphanage where NIA conducts a raid as part of the crackdown against terror funding case, at Bemina area, in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, February 10, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is determined to uproot terrorism, and anyone involved in unlawful activities will face dire consequences. "Striking terror networks with undiminished vehemence, the government has declared the Muslim Conference Jammu & Kashmir (Sumji faction) and Muslim Conference Jammu & Kashmir (Bhat faction) as Unlawful Associations. "These outfits have been engaging in activities against the sovereignty and integrity of the nation," Shah wrote on 'X'. On Tuesday, the government extended the ban imposed on the Jamaat-e-Islami, Jammu Kashmir, by another five years for continuing activities that pose a threat to the security of the nation. In a notification on Wednesday, the Union home ministry said the Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir - Sumji faction, chaired by Ghulam Nabi Sumji, is known for its anti-India and pro-Pakistan propaganda and its members have been involved in supporting terrorist activities and providing logistical support to terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir. The leaders and members of MCJK-S have been involved in raising funds through various sources including from Pakistan and its proxy organisations for perpetrating unlawful activities, including supporting terrorist activities and sustained stone-pelting on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, the notification said. Besides, the home ministry said, the MCJK-S has constantly asked the people of Kashmir to refrain from taking part in elections and thereby targeted and hampered the very basic constitutionally recognised fundamentals of Indian democracy. The MCJK-S and its members by their activities show sheer disrespect towards the constitutional authority and constitutional set up of the country, it said, adding they have been indulging in unlawful activities, which are prejudicial to the integrity, sovereignty, and security of the country. The MCJK-S is also involved in promoting, aiding and abetting secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India by involving in anti-national and subversive activities; sowing seeds of dis-affection amongst people; exhorting people to destabilise law and order; encouraging the use of arms to separate Jammu and Kashmir from the Union of India; and promoting hatred against established government by giving clarion call to boycott elections on multiple occasions in Jammu and Kashmir. The home ministry said the central government is of the opinion that if there is no immediate curb or control of unlawful activities of the Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir (Sumji faction), it will use this opportunity to continue with the anti-national activities which are detrimental to the territorial integrity, security and sovereignty of the country. The group will also continue advocating the secession of Jammu and Kashmir while disputing its accession to the Union of India and continue propagating false narrative and anti-national sentiments among the people there with the intention to cause disaffection against India and disrupt public order, the notification said. "Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of the section 3 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (37 of 1967), the central government hereby declares the Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir (Sumji faction) as an unlawful association," it said. The ban will continue for five years, it said. In a separate notification, the home ministry said Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir-Bhat factio, chaired by Abdul Ghani Bhat, have been indulging in unlawful activities, which are prejudicial to the integrity, sovereignty and security of the country. The home ministry said the MCJK-B has linkages with banned terrorist organisations and has supported terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and its members have been indulging in generating feelings of hatred and disaffection against India to separate Jammu and Kashmir from Union of India. The leaders and members of the MCJK-B have been involved in raising funds through various sources including from Pakistan and its proxy organisations for perpetrating unlawful activities, including supporting terrorist activities, sustained stone-pelting on Security Forces in Jammu and Kashmir. The MCJK-B by giving clarion call to boycott elections on multiple occasions, has also attempted to subvert the will of people and democratic process in Jammu and Kashmir, the notification said. It said the group is also involved in promoting, aiding and abetting the secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India by involving in anti-national and subversive activities; sowing seeds of dis-affection amongst people; exhorting people to destabilise law and order; encouraging the use of armed struggle to separate Jammu and Kashmir; and promoting hatred against established government. Considering these facts, the central government declares the Muslim Conference Jammu and Kashmir (Bhat faction) (MCJK-B) as an unlawful association for five years, the home ministry said. The Calcutta high court on Wednesday directed that Trinamool Congress leader Shajahan Sheikh, the main accused in alleged sexual atrocities on women and land grabbing at Sandeshkhali, can be arrested by the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) or the West Bengal police. On a prayer by the state's advocate general, the court clarified its order of February 26 in which it had ordered the arrest of Sheikh by the police authority. A division bench presided by Chief Justice TS Sivagnanam clarified that the court in its February 7 order had only stayed the constitution of a joint special investigation team (SIT) of the CBI and West Bengal police by a single bench to probe an attack on ED officials. The division bench directed that it will be "open to the CBI or the ED also to arrest" the absconding Sheikh, noting that he has been on the run for a substantial period. The court said there are other cases registered against Sheikh as well, where he has been shown as an absconding accused. Holding that a person elected to a public office cannot defy law, the court said it leaves it open to any one of the agencies to arrest him. ED officials were attacked by a nearly 1,000-member strong mob at Sandeshkhali in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district on January 5 when they went to search the premises of Sheikh in connection with its probe into an alleged ration distribution scam in the state. The division bench directed that the suo motu matter over alleged sexual atrocities and land grabbing of people at Sandeshkhali will come up for hearing again on March 4. Additional Solicitor General of India SV Raju, appearing for the ED, expressed apprehension that if the state police arrest Sheikh, there is a likelihood of the case being diluted by the state police as the CBI and the ED have serious reservations against them and that there is also an allegation that they are colluding with the absconding accused. Advocate General Kishore Dutta, appearing for the West Bengal government, vehemently disputed such contention. After the AG raised the issue seeking a clarification of the February 7 order, the CJ said it restrained police from investigating, but there is no stay on arrest of Sheikh. The court said it had ordered the arrest of Sheikh and thereafter clarified there is no stay on the arrest of the accused. The bench said it has already stated in its February 26 order that a person who is an elected representative in the North 24 Parganas zilla parishad cannot be permitted to be absconding. It said the court has already taken notice that Sheikh is on the run and evading the law. The court said the observations made in the order of February 7 "can never be read to be any impediment for arresting the said person." It said the state police cannot shirk their responsibility in not apprehending the person who has been on the run for a substantial period of time. The AG had on February 26 submitted that in four years till December 18, 2023, the local police registered 43 FIRs on various charges including rape, out of which chargesheet have been submitted in 42 cases. In connection with the attack on ED officials on January 5, three FIRs were filed at Nazat police station in North 24 Parganas district on January 5 - one by an employee of Sheikh against the ED officials, another by the ED against Sheikh and his alleged accomplices and a suo motu FIR by the local police. The ED and the state government had moved separate appeals challenging the single bench order. While the ED prayed that only the CBI be ordered to investigate the attack, the state prayed that its police be given the sole authority to probe the FIRs on the same. Meanwhile, a PIL was filed by petitioner-lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava praying for the transfer of investigation into the alleged sexual assault of women at Sandeshkhali to the CBI or to a SIT and formation of a committee of three retired high court judges to inquire into the matter. The Supreme Court had earlier refused to entertain a PIL by him with similar prayers, but had granted him liberty to approach the Calcutta high court. A demolition drive by the Delhi Development Authority razed several houses in Khajoori Khas on Wednesday, and one of those now homeless is Wakeel Hassan, a rat-hole miner feted for saving the 41 workers trapped in Uttarkashi's Silkyara tunnel with his team last year in November. IMAGE: Rescue operation underway at the under-construction tunnel that partially collapsed in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand, November 11, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo "We rescued 41 people in the Silkyara tunnel and in return we got this. Earlier, I had requested the authorities and the government to give this house to us but to no avail. Today, without any information, DDA came and demolished it," Hassan alleged. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) said the demolition drive was carried out on land that was part of planned development land. Police said several structures built illegally were demolished during the drive. "On February 28, a demolition drive was conducted by the DDA to remove encroachment from its acquired land in village Khajoori Khas. The land was part of planned development land," the DDA said in a statement, in response to a query about the drive. Earlier in the day, Hassan shared a video of the area, claiming the building he and his family was residing in was "razed in the drive". In the video clip, Hassan also claimed that he had to go to a police station in connection with this incident. In the video clip, he was accompanied by Munna Qureshi, another member of his team that rescued the trapped workers, who also said they were beaten up by the police. When contacted, a Delhi Police officer said several other structures that were built illegally were demolished by the authorities. "We gave them the assistance in controlling law and order during the drive," he said. Hassan and five other members of the rat-hole mining team live in north-east Delhi's Khajoori Khas, while the rest are from Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr. Their special mining techniques were crucial in removing the rubble inside the under-construction Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand. Forty-one workers got trapped when a part of the tunnel collapsed on November 12 and remained trapped for around 17 days before being rescued. Ahead of the March 10 deadline for the withdrawal of Indian military personnel in the Maldives, an Indian civilian team has reached here to take charge of one of the three aviation platforms in the island nation, local media reports said on Wednesday. IMAGE: Troops of the Indian Army and Maldives National Defence Force take part in the joint military exercise 'Ekuverin', in Chaubatia, June 25, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo The civilian team to operate and maintain the aircraft has now arrived in Maldives. The Indian civilian team arrived in Addu early last night to complete the handover/takeover process, a news portal themaldivesjournal.com said quoting a statement by the Maldives Defence Ministry. After a high-level meeting in Delhi on February 2 between the two sides, the Maldivian foreign ministry said India will replace its military personnel operating the three aviation platforms in the Maldives by May 10 and the first phase of the process would be completed by March 10. It is learnt that the Indian military personnel are expected to be replaced by civilians who have expertise in operating the three platforms. There are 88 military personnel manning the three Indian platforms that have been providing humanitarian and medical evacuation services to the people of the Maldives for the last few years using two helicopters and a Dornier aircraft. The development comes days after Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu, widely seen as a pro-China leader, in his maiden address to Parliament on February 5 announced that the first group of Indian military personnel will be sent back from the island nation before March 10. The remaining Indians manning the two aviation platforms will be withdrawn by May 10 according to the agreement between the two countries. On Wednesday, the news portal also said, test flights will be held today (Wednesday), before the helicopter is taken to India for repairs. An Indian ship will dock in Addu on the 28th of this month carrying the replacement helicopter. Further quoting the Defence Ministry statement, it said, the Indian troops will withdraw from the Maldives on the dates agreed upon by the two countries. Soon after taking oath as the President on November 17, Muizzu formally requested India to withdraw 88 military personnel from his country by March 15, saying the Maldivian people had given him a strong mandate to make this request to New Delhi. After the latest round of bilateral talks, India said on February 2 that a "set of mutually workable solutions" was agreed upon with the Maldives for continuing the operations of Indian aviation platforms in the island nation. The Maldives' proximity to India, barely 70 nautical miles from the island of Minicoy in Lakshadweep and 300 nautical miles from the mainland's western coast, and its location at the hub of commercial sea lanes running through the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) gives it significant strategic importance. The Maldives has been India's key maritime neighbour in the IOR and it occupies a special place in its initiatives such as SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and the Neighbourhood First Policy.' With its local broadband internet business sold to 2degrees, MyRepublics mobile business has been rebranded as Rocket Mobile. Head of product and marketing James Whittome said there was huge potential for more mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to operate in in New Zealand to increase competition and bring down costs for users. With the busy Christmas retail period just around the corner, it's the perfect time for Kiwis to shop around for the best deal when it comes to mobile data, and our unlimited plans enable users to stay connected without disruption, wherever they're holidaying in the country," Whittome said. Rocket Mobile uses One New Zealands network. Instead of short-term, half-price signup offers and bundle prices, Rocket Mobile offered what it described as everyday low prices, Whittome said. Customers will pay in advance each month using a credit or debit card. ProHance has cemented its position in Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) with the appointment of Brendan Maree as its first vice president and country manager for the region. In addition to being its first VP and country manager for A/NZ, ARN understands Maree is also the India-headquartered workforce management software vendor's first employee in-country. However, the company entered the A/NZ market in June last year through a partnership with IT services and consulting company Open Orbit. In the position, Maree will focus on bringing in customers and introducing the companys products to private sector enterprises and public sector agencies. He steps into the role after 25 years in the IT industry, with his most recent position being a senior sales director at Amelia for a 10-month stint. Prior to this, he served five years as 8x8s vice president for Asia Pacific (APAC). He also worked at Interactive Intelligence, IPL Communications, Mobile Coverage Solutions, Andrew Corporation, Anritsu, among other roles. Additionally, he served in the Royal Australian Navy for close to nine years as an electronic weapon systems technician. "We are confident that Brendan Maree's extensive experience and strategic mindset will significantly contribute to ProHances success in the Australia and New Zealand market," said ProHance CEO Ankur Dhingra. Orca Tech has signed a distribution agreement with Singaporean threat intelligence vendor Cyfirma for Australia and New Zealand. As a result, Orca Techs partners will gain access to Cyfirmas platforms, DeCYFIR and DeTCT, which provide threat monitoring and analytics to the organisations critical assets. According to Cyfirma and Orca Technology, the partnership will bring an outside-in view where organisations can see through the hackers lens and start using predictive intelligence to mitigate risk. Craig Ashwood, general manager of Orca Technology, said the IT channel in Australia and New Zealand is primed for Cyfirma as it will provide a competitive advantage to their businesses. Having a platform that can automate the monitoring of your corporate cyber reputation, attack surface exposure and your end-to-end supply chain risk is a game changer, he added. Actionable insights that are derived from this telemetry will benefit anyone concerned about their data being on the dark web or vulnerable corporate assets exposed on the internet. Founded in 2017, the company is headquartered in Singapore with offices in Japan, India, the United States and the European Union. Cyber security vendor Acronis has named Kelly Johnson as its new general manager for Australia and New Zealand. Johnson will lead the channel-focused business, strengthening relationships with distributors and supporting partners to meet the cyber security demands. Acronis is going through a period of hypergrowth in the region, driven by the rollout of AI-driven cybersecurity functionality complementing traditional backup. Johnsons expertise in cybersecurity and developing channel ecosystems underscores the significance we place on this market. She has a proven track record of setting business direction and achieving strategic goals," Acronis SVP sales and global channel for APJ and MEA Pasha Ershow said. Johnson has a remarkable track record of success in managing multifunctional teams across regions. With more than 30 years of industry experience, she held multiple roles at Ingram Micro in five different countries and led the sales team at Arrow ECS A/NZ. She has also served as the country manager for Australia at ESET. "The demand for a cybersecurity solution that covers all attack vectors and aids customers in ensuring security maturity in an easy and efficient way is remarkable," Johnson said. Former deputy military police chief was sentenced to 18 years in prison but has never been arrested. Despite being convicted in the acid attack on Ya Soknim, former deputy military police chief Chea Ratha has never spent time in prison. She is seen in an undated photo. A former top military police official who was found guilty 15 years ago in an acid attack that disfigured a victims face has been appointed as an adviser to former Prime Minister Hun Sen. Former deputy military police chief Chea Ratha and five accomplices were sentenced in absentia to 18 years in prison by Cambodias Appeals Court after a lower courts not guilty verdict was reversed. The six suspects were accused of attacking Ya Sok Nim, the aunt of beauty queen In Solida, who was reportedly Chea Rathas lover, according to Voice of America. Ya Sok Nims face was disfigured in the 2008 attack, while In Solida was unharmed. In Solida said she was forced into a relationship with Chea Ratha until she finally refused, Voice of America reported. Chea Ratha has never been arrested or spent any time in prison. The permanent committee of the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party, or CPP, approved the appointment, according to a decision signed by Hun Sen on Feb. 23. Acid attack victim Ya Soknim, left, and her niece, In Solida, attend a news conference in Phnom Penh, Sept. 2, 2009. (Kim Peou/RFA) Hun Sen, 71, stepped down as prime minister last August after decades in power, but he remains president of the CPP and is expected to be named president of the Senate in the coming weeks. CPP spokesman Sok Ey San told Radio Free Asia that Chea Rathas appointment is private. He refused to elaborate. Perpetrators rarely go to prison Acid attacks have been a common occurrence in Cambodia for several decades as a way for people to inflict pain, permanently scar, or kill romantic rivals or spurned lovers, Human Rights Watch said in a 2019 report. The report noted that even though lawmakers passed legislation in 2012 to provide health care and legal support to victims and to curb the availability of acid, perpetrators rarely go to prison and victims rarely receive adequate health care or meaningful compensation. In October, Svay Sitha a top government adviser whose wife has long been suspected in an infamous acid attack on his teenage lover was named chairman of a committee that promotes positive news coverage of Prime Minister Hun Manets government. While the CPP has the right to appoint whoever it wants, they should be mindful that people in high positions should be generally respected or have made some kind of positive contribution to the country, said Am Sam Ath of human rights group Licadho. If someone has been convicted, he or she should be rehabilitated first before the appointment is made, he said. Naming Chea Ratha as an adviser isnt surprising, though, said Men Nath, a Norway-based representative of the Cambodia Watchdog Council. Its not just Chea Ratha who has been appointed, he said. There are many other criminals. Hun Sen is surrounded by those criminals. Military police spokesman Eng Hy and Chea Ratha couldnt be reached for comment on Wednesday. Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster. Vine poachers need to be arrested to more effectively stop production, environmentalists say. Smugglers transport sacks of yellow vine out of Cambodias Virachey National Park in northeastern Cambodia in this undated image. Park rangers in Cambodia have confiscated 4 tons of yellow vines believed to be a drug precursor that were illegally harvested from forests, but environmentalists told Radio Free Asia that the government needs to arrest the vine poachers instead of merely confiscating their loot. The Ministry of Environment announced on its Facebook page on Tuesday that rangers in the northeastern province of Stung Treng province confiscated 4 tons of turmeric vines in Sam village, Sekong Commune, Sesan District, from trucks that were headed to the border with Laos. RFA previously reported that smugglers were sneaking into a Cambodian national park to harvest vine and bring it to Laos process into the drug ecstasy or MDMA. But authorities need to do more than confiscate the vines, Ly Chandaravuth, an activist with the environmental group Mother Nature told RFA Khmer. If perpetrators are not arrested, Im concerned that these crackdowns are not different from other previous crackdowns, he said. The authorities were only able to apprehend the evidence, but not the perpetrators. RFA attempted to contact Environment Ministry spokesman Khay Atiya for comment but he was not able to respond. Stung Treng Provincial Hall spokesman Men Kung told RFA that the provincial authorities are continuing to search for those involved. If the government officials carry out their duties contrary to the government policies, they would face the government management regulations for both civil servants and armed forces, said Men Kung. But so far, Provincial Unity Command has been inspired and encouraged by the work and accomplishment of law enforcement, who were able to [confiscating the vines] in this case. Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights said that if authorities dont arrest vine poachers, then crackdowns wont be effective. If the authorities could arrest the perpetrators, the identities of those involved in the crime would be disclosed too and then the authorities would be able to bring them to justice, said Sam Ath. Though it is not clear what sentence the vine poachers should receive, the 2002 Forestry Law stipulates that the establishment of yellow vine processing bases or other handicraft bases that bring about the destruction of forests shall be punishable by imprisonment from five to 10 years. Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. As delegates converge on Beijing, activists are forced to stay home or go on vacations with police. Paramilitary police stand guard south of the Great Hall of the People before the opening session of the National Peoples Congress in Beijing on March 5, 2023. (Greg Baker/AFP) Police across China are placing prominent dissidents under house arrest or taking them out of town on enforced "vacations" ahead of next weeks annual National People's Congress in Beijing, activists said in interviews and via social media. "With the parliamentary sessions approaching, Beijing is really unbearable," veteran political journalist Gao Yu said via her X account. "State security police are being dispatched to guard people across all districts of Beijing, calling people and coming to their homes." "If this is what things are like before the parliamentary sessions have even started, how can people in Beijing go about their lives in a normal manner?" As delegates get ready to attend the annual sessions of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference advisory body, which opens on March 4, and the National People's Congress, the national lawmaking body which opens the following day, reports are emerging that police are stepping up security measures in Beijing. State security police are also placing dissidents under surveillance or other forms of restriction across the country, including Hebei, Jiangsu and Guizhou provinces, and in the central city of Wuhan, as well as in the Chinese capital. Beijing-based veteran dissident Ji Feng said he has been warned by state security police that they will be taking him out of town on an enforced "vacation" on Thursday. "The relevant department visited my home to inform me that they'll be taking me out of town ... during the parliamentary sessions in Beijing," Ji said. Dissident Ji Feng, shown in this undated photo, says state security police will be taking him on an enforced "vacation" this week. (Ji Feng) "Two of them will be driving me around Guizhou province in their car, taking me to various places like Liupanshui," Ji said in a reference to a popular scenic area. "They said I didn't need to know how long this would go on for." Ji said via his X account that he would also be saying a temporary goodbye to the platform. I have to go out of Beijing on a trip, he wrote. Ill meet up with friends again after I get back. Under surveillance A Beijing-based lawyer who gave only the surname Zhang said he got a call from the Chaoyang district police department on Tuesday. "I'm in Zhengzhou, and am going back to Beijing in the next few days," Zhang said. "Yesterday, the Chaoyang state security police called me and asked me to let them know when I'm coming back to Beijing." "They'll be sending a car to Beijing Station to pick me up and place me under surveillance," he said. A Beijing resident who gave only the surname Guo said the authorities are conducting sweeps of areas that are typically home to migrants from elsewhere in China, and forcing them to leave. "They're clearing the migrant population out of urban areas inside the Second Ring Road, like Dongcheng and Xicheng districts," Guo said. "They say that 600,000 - 700,000 will be forced to leave." "I also heard that people and vehicles wanting to enter Beijing will have to apply for an entry permit, and that people entering Beijing have to register and are being interrogated. I cant go anywhere A scholar from the northern city of Shijiazhuang who gave only the surname Chen said he got a visit from police after speaking to a friend who lives there on the phone. "They asked me why I was going to Beijing, and who I would be meeting," Guo said. "I can't go anywhere now -- there are cameras everywhere." Police raid a gathering of Early Rain Covenant Church members in Chengdu, China, Aug. 14, 2022. (Citizen journalist) A petitioner from the central city of Wuhan who gave only the surname Wang for fear of reprisals said she had planned to travel to Beijing to petition during the parliamentary sessions, but had been intercepted by state security police. "I can't go anywhere now," Wang said. "All I can do is wait for the two sessions to be over." A Jiangsu-based rights activist who asked to be identified by his surname Qin said his local police have been active in recent days, too. "They've been standing guard outside the door again since [Lantern Festival]," Qin said. "They are up to their old tricks, restricting the freedom of ordinary people and of rights activists." "There's nothing we can do about it," he said. A member of the banned Guizhou Human Rights Forum who declined to give their name for fear of reprisals said they have been taking on an out-of-town "vacation" by police. "There are restrictions on everything," the person said. "A lot of people are stuck at home, and have to be accompanied by state security if they go out," he said. Meanwhile, a member of the Early Rain Covenant Church in the southwestern city of Chengdu said a number of church members have also been warned not to leave home during the parliamentary sessions. And a pastor in the eastern city of Qingdao told RFA he had been told not to "talk nonsense" during the parliamentary sessions, a likely reference to making critical social media posts or speaking with foreign journalists. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. A UN expert adds her voice to a chorus of dismay over the new security legislation. Members of the League of Social Democrats display a banner reading "Without democracy, there can be no livelihood and "Put the people above the country, human rights above the regime. There can be no national security without democracy and human rights" outside government offices in Hong Kong on Feb. 27, 2024. Hong Kongs forthcoming "Article 23" security legislation will be a major blow to human rights in the city, according to a U.N. human rights expert, American legal scholars and human rights groups. Public consultation for the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which will criminalize "treason," "insurrection," the theft of "state secrets," "sabotage" and "external interference," among other national security offenses, under Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law, ended on Wednesday. The legislation, highly likely to be passed by the Legislative Council in the absence of opposition lawmakers, is being billed by the government as a way to close loopholes in the stringent 2020 National Security Law, which was imposed by Beijing, ushering in a crackdown on dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement. But rights experts and activists warned in submissions to the government that the law will criminalize actions like peaceful protest or political opposition that should be protected under international law. "V concerned re proposed legislation under Art23 of the Basic Law in Hong Kong - vague provisions will criminalize peaceful exercise of human rights," Mary Lawlor, U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders, said via her X account on Feb. 26. The law will also "have a detrimental impact on HRDs," Lawlor wrote, referring to human rights defenders. "I urge HK govt to ensure the legislation complies with its int. legal obligations," said the tweet, which tagged in the X account for the Chinese mission to the United Nations in Geneva. Rare show of defiance Public opposition to the law in Hong Kong has been muted amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent under the existing National Security Law and colonial-era sedition laws. In a rare show of public opposition, three members of the opposition political party, the League of Social Democrats, chanted slogans outside government offices on Tuesday calling for fully democratic elections and human rights before enacting national security legislation. "No Article 23 without universal suffrage!" they chanted, watched by dozens of police officers. "No national security without democracy and human rights!" Party Chairwoman Chan Po-ying said the group was trying to respond to the government consultation on the Article 23 legislation, yet had been met by more than 50 police officers on arrival at the venue, while police had filmed the whole protest. "It really wasn't easy for us to stand in front of government headquarters today," Chan told reporters at the scene. "We are still in the consultation period for the Article 23 legislation ... so I can't think of any reason why they should prevent us from expressing our opinions via a peaceful petition." League of Social Democrats Chairwoman Chan Po-ying talks to police before being allowed to hold a protest outside the government offices in Hong Kong on Feb. 27, 2024. (Peter Parks/AFP) The party wants the government to clarify the meaning of terms like "covering up treason" and "stealing state secrets," to prevent the law from covering peaceful activities by members or the public or the media. They also want amendments to the 2020 National Security Law so it is less of a threat to freedom of speech. Seven sins The London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch made similar points in its submission to the Hong Kong government during the consultation period, the group said in a statement. The law will prohibit seven types of offenses, and has proposed provisions that the group said were "vague and will criminalize the Hong Kong peoples peaceful exercises of human rights," as well as undermining due legal process and the right to a fair trial in Hong Kong. "Article 23 will bring further devastating consequences for human rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, beyond the impact of the National Security Law imposed by Beijing in 2020," the group said. "It will also further violate Hong Kongs international obligations under international human rights law." It called for sanctions against officials responsible for introducing the law, as well as the repeal of the 2020 National Security Law. "Although Hong Kong Watch has been repeatedly condemned and harrassed by the Hong Kong government via the use of the 2020 Hong Kong National Security Law, we are still eager to constructively engage in policy and legislative conversation with the authorities," Benedict Rogers, the groups chief executive said. "We urge the Hong Kong government to ... ensure that it complies with Hong Kongs legal obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration and international human rights law," he said. Amnesty International said in its submission to the consultation process that many provisions in the draft law contravene international covenants on civil and political rights, and on economic, social and cultural rights. These remain in force in Hong Kong after being extended to the city in 1976, under British colonial rule. It cited the Johannesburg Principles as saying that national security cannot be invoked to justify restrictions on rights and freedoms unless genuinely and demonstrably intended to protect a states existence or territorial integrity against specific threats of the use of force. "Nor can this national security framework legitimately be applied by governments to protect themselves against embarrassment or exposure of wrongdoing, or to entrench a particular ideology," it said, adding that national security laws should only be invoked in the event of "a clear and imminent danger of violence," and the peaceful criticism must not be penalized. According to the Siracusa Principles, a state must also not invoke national security as a justification for measures aimed at suppressing opposition to human rights violations or at perpetrating repressive practices against its population. "Nor may this be used as an excuse to deny people the right to express different political views, the Amnesty International submission to the consultation on Article 23 said. Bad for business Meanwhile, legal scholars at Georgetown University's Asia Law Center said the new law wouldn't just affect basic human rights, but also make it harder to do business in Hong Kong. While Hong Kong officials have repeatedly pointed to national security legislation in the United Kingdom and the United States to legitimize Article 23 legislation, the Georgetown report said such statements were "disingenuous at best, or willfully misleading at worst." "For all of their failures, most of [these] states ... have not used their national security laws to jail opposition politicians, for example, or to close down media outlets that have published pieces critical of the government," the report said. Plainclothes police officers shoot video of a protest by members of the League of Social Democrats against the Article 23 legislation outside government offices in Hong Kong on Feb. 27, 2024. (RFA) It cited a lack of political opposition in the Legislative Council and the dissolution of dozens of civil society groups in the wake of the 2020 National Security Law. "Many of the groups that remain open are a shadow of their former selves, and would probably face government harassment or even criminal prosecution if they were to put forward a full throated critique of the Consultation Document," the report said. "If new laws are enacted, and existing laws amended, along the lines put forward in the proposal, we believe that the impact on human rights and the rule of law in Hong Kong will be significant," it said. "We are also deeply concerned that the business environment will be affected as well." Yaqiu Wang, China research director at Freedom House, said authorities in Hong Kong are more likely to use the law to its fullest extent to suppress any political opposition in the city because its people are less brainwashed and more likely to resist the government. "A lot of Hong Kongers have lived in a free environment for so long, and have a lot of strong feelings to express," Wang told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. "So naturally the Chinese government isn't confident it can rule Hong Kong the same way it does the mainland ... [where] self-censorship runs bone-deep. Hong Kongers aren't like that yet, so ... the Chinese government has to use a more intense form of suppression to extinguish the spirit of resistance among the people of Hong Kong," she said. She said the vagueness of the definitions in the Article 23 legislation raises concerns that international organizations could run afoul of the law for fundraising from overseas donors, or engaging in exchanges with overseas academics. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. Junta authorities threaten to kill the 107 mostly ethnic Rohingyas if they refuse. The Kyauk Ta Lone camp for displaced people in Kyaukphyu, Rakhine state, Myanmar, is seen Oct. 4, 2019. Junta authorities are holding more than 100 mostly ethnic Rohingya Muslims captive at a camp for the displaced in western Myanmars Rakhine state and threatening to kill them if they refuse to take part in military training, residents said Wednesday. The military is desperate for new recruits after suffering devastating losses on the battlefield to the ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, in Rakhine. On Feb. 10, the junta enacted a conscription law that has seen draft-eligible civilians flee Myanmars cities, saying they would rather leave the country or join anti-junta forces in remote border areas than fight for the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup detat. On Tuesday, a group of around 80 junta troops and police arrived at the Kyauk Ta Lone camp for internally displaced persons, or IDPs, in Rakhines Kyaukphyu township and forcibly gathered 107 Muslims between the ages of 18 and 35 at the camps food warehouse, after collecting their personal information. Junta personnel told the captives that they would be beaten to death if they refused to take part in military training and threatened to remove their families from the camp if they attempted to escape, according to a resident. The Muslims were also banned from using mobile phones and threatened with punishment if they spoke with the media, said the resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA Burmese on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. Another resident with knowledge of the situation told RFA that junta personnel said the 107 Muslims were on the camps first list for military training and expected to undergo verbal instruction on Wednesday. The IDPs are not allowed to go outside at all [and they] are surrounded by junta troops, he said. I found out that [on Thursday] they will be given guns and undergo [physical] military training." RFA attempted to contact camp officials and other residents on Wednesday for comment on the recruitment drive at Kyauk Ta Lone, but was unsuccessful, as their phones had been powered off. Camp recruitment RFA reported last week that the junta had offered freedom of movement to ethnic Rohingya Muslims restricted to Kyauk Ta Lone and other IDP camps in Rakhine state as part of a bid to entice them into military service amid the nationwide rollout of the conscription law. But rights campaigners say the junta is drafting Rohingya into military service to stoke ethnic tensions in Rakhine, while legal experts say the drive is unlawful, given that Myanmar has refused to recognize the Rohingya as one of the countrys ethnic groups and denied them citizenship for decades. Some 1 million Rohingya refugees have been living in Bangladesh since 2017, when they were driven out of Myanmar by a military clearance operation. Another 630,000 living within Myanmar are designated stateless by the United Nations, including those who languish in camps and are restricted from moving freely in Rakhine state. A boy walks down a lane in Kyauk Ta Lone camp in Kyaukphyu, Rakhine state, Myanmar, Oct. 3, 2019. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP) Kyauk Ta Lone is located 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) from the seat of Kyaukphyu township and is home to more than 1,000 people from 375 families. While many identify as Rohingyas, others claim to be Kamans, who are recognized as one of the countrys ethnic groups but were forced to vacate the urban areas of Kyaukphyu in 2012 amid racial conflict in Rakhine state. The states population mostly belongs to Myanmars ethnic Rakhine Buddhist minority. The latest census, taken in 2020, documented no Kamans living in Kyaukphyu township, which suggests that some Rohingyas living in the camp are identifying as Kaman to avoid social and political repercussions. Draft for citizens only Ro Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist, told RFA that because the conscription law stipulates that only citizens are eligible to serve in the military, it is illegal to recruit those without citizenship status. "The mandatory conscription law only applies to citizens and [the junta] doesnt recognize Rohingyas as citizens, he said. Only some of the residents of Kyauk Ta Lone hold documents identifying them as citizens of Myanmar, while others have not been registered. Ro Nay San Lwin said that the junta wants to train the Rohingya to fight against the AA to bolster its defense of territory in Rakhine state, which it has hemorrhaged since November, when the ethnic rebels ended a ceasefire that had been in place since the coup. In the past three months, the military has surrendered Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myay Pon and Taung Pyo townships in the state, as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state. Although the ongoing situation is unrelated to the Rohingya issue, the junta is trying to reduce pressure on itself by using Rohingyas as human shields and creating communal conflict between ethnic groups, he said. Attempts by RFA to contact Attorney General Hla Thein, the juntas spokesperson for Rakhine state, for comment on the situation there went unanswered Wednesday. Pro-junta mouthpiece Myanma Alin has reported that no Muslims are being listed for military service in Rakhine state. International Rohingya organizations have called on the U.N. Security Council to take action against the junta to prevent further oppression of the ethnic group in Myanmar. Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster. Around 10 other youths have been arrested, accused of political activities. Junta troops have arrested at least 10 young people from Myanmars delta region, beating one unconscious during questioning, locals told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. The youths, from three villages in Ayeyarwady region, were accused of involvement in political activities, residents from Kyonpyaw township said, citing sources close to the police station. On Sunday, soldiers arrested a man from Kyee Taw Yoe village who goes by the name Freddy. Following Freddys arrest, around 10 youths from Nyaung Kone and Kyar Inn villages were rounded up. A Kyonpyaw township resident who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA the youths were thought to be connected to Freddy, who was tortured by the police. There was a young man who was arrested in Kyonpyaw on Feb. 25. He was the first to be arrested. He is still under investigation and in Ah Htaung police custody, said the local. We found out that the young man was unconscious because they beat him during the interrogation. After that, more than 10 people were arrested on political suspicion. Some other young people from the area have fled as a result of the arrests, he said. RFA called Ayeyarwady regions junta spokesperson Khin Maung Kyi to learn more about the arrests, but he did not answer calls. In October, 20-year-old Kyonpyaw local Soe Paing Oo died during interrogation after being accused of communicating with resistance forces. Days earlier, he was awarded cash and a certificate for his surrender in a junta ceremony. On Jan. 6, at least seven locals were arrested in connection with the murder of two village administrators, Than Min Aung and Ngwe Thein in Kyonpyaw townships Ma Gu Yoe village, locals said. The township in eastern Ayeyarwady has faced some of the nations heaviest recruitment efforts, even before junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced on Feb. 10 plans to enforce the Peoples Military Service Law. Junta troops demanded 10 recruits per village in January, threatening to burn down houses if their quota was not met. Relying on surrendered resistance fighters and retired military personnel, troops also attempted to bolster numbers in December. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn. Tuvalu has reaffirmed its recognition of Taiwan following an election last month that had triggered speculation the Pacific island country could sever ties and recognize Beijing. After choosing a prime minister earlier this week, Tuvalus new government on Wednesday released a statement of its domestic and international priorities. While reaffirming ties with Taiwan, the coral atoll nation of some 10,000 people also signaled it wants more benefits from the relationship. The new government wishes to reaffirm its commitment to the long-term and lasting special relationship between Tuvalu and the Republic of China, Taiwan, the statement said. It intends to reassess options that would strengthen and lift it to a more durable, lasting and mutually beneficial relationship. Seve Paeniu, the finance minister in the previous government who reportedly argued for reviewing ties with Taiwan, is not part of Tuvalus new nine-man Cabinet. Tuvalu is one of the dwindling number of nations that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan instead of Beijing. Last month, another Pacific island nation, Nauru, severed ties with Taiwan, reducing its diplomatic allies to 12 countries. Among Pacific island nations, Palau and the Marshall Islands also recognize Taiwan. Chinas government has courted Pacific island nations for the past two decades as it seeks to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, gain allies in international institutions and challenge U.S. dominance. Beijing regards Taiwan, a democracy and globally important tech manufacturing center, as a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland. Funafuti, the main island of the nation state of Tuvalu, is shown in this file photo taken on Oct. 13, 2011, from a Royal New Zealand Air Force C130 aircraft as it approaches the tiny South Pacific nation. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) The new Tuvalu governments statement of priorities underlined the numerous challenges facing the farflung archipelago nation, particularly on its most populated atoll Funafuti. It listed 19 challenges that included higher sea levels, lack of protection against king tides that swamp atolls, insufficient medical services, chronic problems of waste disposal on Funafuti which is only a few square kilometers in area lack of affordable flights, lack of reliable shipping and a high cost of living. The statement also said that the new government broadly supports a contentious security pact with Australia that was signed last year, but would seek to amend parts of it. The treaty between Tuvalu and Australia, called the Falepili Union, requires Tuvalu to have Australias agreement for any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other state or entity on security and defence-related matters. Its expansive scope and lack of consultation was criticized during the election campaign. The Tuvalu government statement said it recognizes the absence of transparency and consultations in informing Tuvaluans about the treaty, which comes with a long-term commitment to resettle some Tuvaluans in Australia. It said it would address those concerns and work with the Australian government for an arrangement that safeguards Tuvalus sovereignty. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization. The Philippine president expects to establish a common vision of 'peace and security of the region.' Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (right) greets Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. who is on a two-day visit to Australia, where the leaders are expected to discuss security concerns in the South China Sea, Feb. 28, 2024. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. arrived in Australia on Wednesday for a two-day official visit where he plans to solidify security arrangements linked to concern about the reported presence of Chinese warships near traditional South China Sea fishing grounds. Before departing for Canberra from the Villamor Air Base near Manila, Marcos shared a report by the Philippine Coast Guard indicating that crews had monitored at least three ships from Chinas Peoples Liberation Army Navy about 20 nautical miles from Bajo de Masinloc, the local name for Scarborough Shoal. Its worrisome because there are two elements to that. One, is that before its only the Chinese Coast Guard were seen there. Now, theres already the navy, Marcos told reporters. Marcos stressed that the basic principle there is that the fishers must be allowed to fish in their traditional fishing grounds, which belong in the maritime territory of the Philippines. The government, he said, would continue to support all of our fishermen, fisher folks who make their living from these fishing grounds. A recent report by the Philippine Coast Guard indicated that China was deploying its naval ships near the shoal to support its coast guard, Marcos said. In Beijing, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning said Chinas position on the South China Sea was consistent. We express grave concern over the Philippines recent activities in the South China Sea that infringe on Chinas sovereignty and will continue to take necessary measures to firmly safeguard our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and keep the South China Sea peaceful and stable, she told reporters on Wednesday. Address to lawmakers While in Canberra, Marcos was expected to raise concerns about the South China Sea during an address to the Australian Parliament. I anticipate an enhancement of the mutual understanding between the Philippines and Australia as we share a common vision not just for our bilateral relations, but for the peace and security of the region as well, Marcos said before boarding his flight to Australia. The president said that it was worth mentioning that Australia and the Philippines are maritime nations and it cannot be denied that it will be something that will have to be raised as well. During a visit to Manila in September, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reaffirmed Canberras support for Manilas South China Sea claims and improved defense ties. Albanese and Marcos then signed a Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership. It upgrades the bilateral partnership to include possible joint patrols in the South China Sea as well as more and larger joint exercises between Philippine and Australian forces. Marcos said the strategic partnership between the Philippines and Australia provides greater energy and optimism for closer cooperation that is mutually beneficial to both Filipinos and Australians. A China Coast Guard boat shadows a Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources inflatable boat while it delivers supplies to fishermen during a mission near the China-controlled Scarborough Shoal in the disputed South China Sea, Feb. 22, 2024. (AFP/Philippine Coast Guard handout) The Chinese have been in control of Scarborough Shoal since 2012 after a standoff with the Philippines. The following year, then-President Benigno Aquino III filed a case against Beijing in an international arbitration court. In 2016, the court ruled in favor of Manila and invalidated Chinas sweeping claims to the South China Sea on historical grounds. Beijing has never acknowledged the ruling and has refused to leave the area. Aquinos successor, Rodrigo Duterte, refused to make a move to compel Beijing. Instead, he sought to appease Beijing in exchange for promises of Chinese investments in the Philippines. This allowed Beijing to gain a firmer foothold in the region. Marcos, who succeeded Duterte in 2022, has worked to repair defense ties with the United States. In Washington on Wednesday, the Philippine ambassador to the United States said he did not expect Washington to change its strategy in the region should Donald Trump win a second term as president, after having contact with one of Trumps advisers, Reuters news service reported. That is of course very consoling, Jose Manuel Romualdez told a diplomatic gathering in the U.S. capital, according to Reuters. He noted that while a potential Taiwan conflict should be taken seriously, the real flashpoint is the West Philippine Sea, using Manilas name for its South China Sea territories. In Masinloc, a Philippine fishing community on Luzon islands west coast overlooking the South China Sea and that has been affected by the Chinese control of the shoal, fishermen rejoiced that Marcos government appeared to have responded to their plight. Still, a group of fishermen called Pamalakaya, which has members in Masinloc, said that while the governments recent moves in Scarborough were welcome, much more needed to be done. They said that the China Coast Guard has been allowing Chinese fishermen to harvest giant clams while destroying the reef. The catch has dwindled a lot, said Leonardo Cuaresma, one of the leaders of Pamalakaya in Masinloc, adding that many local fishermen who tried to return to the shoal have been chased away. He said that he hoped that Marcos would be successful in ending the bullying of the Chinese and for them to leave Scarborough. Another fisherman, Bobby Roldan, said there was strong evidence and testimonies by Filipino fishermen about Chinas illegal activities on the shoal. He said Marcos position remains weak because he could not stop China from continuing to take the West Philippine Sea. Jason Gutierrez and Jojo Rinoza in Masinloc, Philippines, along with Jeoffrey Maitem in Puerto Princesa, Philippines, contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service. Other rallies were held in Indias Bir and Clementown, and in London. Tibetans and Buddhist leaders march in Ladakh, India, on Feb. 28, 2024, to show their solidarity with Tibetans in Dege county, southwestern China's Sichuan province, who were arrested for protesting Chinas planned construction of a dam on the Drichu River. Tibetans and Buddhist leaders in northern India on Wednesday participated in a march to show their solidarity with Tibetans in southwestern Chinas Sichuan province arrested for peacefully protesting the planned construction of a dam. Similar solidarity rallies were held in London and other cities the same day. The large Buddhist community in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir expressed concerns that the dam project will submerge several significant monasteries with ancient murals that date back to the 13th century. The Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, which organized the march and rally, said Buddhists there were concerned about the humanitarian situation and the violation of cultural and religious rights stemming from the expected impact of the dam on several monasteries and villages near the Drichu River. On Feb. 23, police arrested more than 1,000 Tibetans, including monks and residents, of Dege county in Sichuans Kardze Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture, who had been protesting the construction of the Gangtuo Dam, meant to generate electricity. If built, the power station could submerge monasteries in Deges Wangbuding township and force residents of at least two villages near the Drichu River to relocate, sources told RFA. Rigzin Dorjey, president of the youth wing of the Ladakh Buddhist Association Leh, said there is an urgent need to address the ongoing human rights abuses and environmental destruction perpetrated by Chinas communist government. He underscored the interconnectedness of global Buddhist communities and the shared responsibility to stand in solidarity with Tibetans in their struggle for justice, freedom and dignity. Collective commitment Lobsang Tsering, vice president of the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress of Ladakh, said the rally serves as an expression of solidarity and support for Tibetans facing challenges and oppression in Dege county. It symbolizes a collective commitment to standing up against oppression, promoting human rights and preserving Tibetan culture and identity in the face of adversity, Tsering said. Tenzin Peldon, who participated in the march in Ladakh said while Tibetans everywhere usually gather to raise their voices against China on politically significant dates such as March 10, known as Tibetan Uprising Day which commemorates the thousands of lives lost in the 1959 uprising against Chinas invasion and occupation of their homeland it is crucial that they come together during dire situations like the one being faced by Tibetans in Dege to collectively speak up against Chinas oppression. I urge all Tibetans in exile not to give up hope and to continue to raise awareness on online platforms about the plight of Tibetans in Dege county, she said. Other protests were held in Bir village and Clement town in India, and in London, where Tibetans demonstrated outside the Chinese Embassy to show their support for the Dege county protesters, demand the release of the detainees, and call for an immediate halt to the dam construction. Risking arrest and torture, Tibetan residents of Kham Derge [Dege county] have shared images and videos of the protest with the outside world, the Tibetan Community UK said in a statement. They want the international community in the free world to know about their plight and to raise their voice. Authorities released about 40 of the arrested monks on Feb. 26 and 27, RFA reported on Tuesday. Chinese authorities released about 20 monks each on Monday and Tuesday, said the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. Also on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch called on Chinese authorities to immediately release the detained Tibetan monks. The Chinese authorities have long been hostile to public protests, but their response is especially brutal when the protests are by Tibetans and other ethnic groups, said Maya Wang, the groups acting China director, in a statement. Other governments should press Beijing to free these protesters, who have been wrongfully detained for exercising their basic rights, she said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Additional reporting by Pelbar for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. International rights groups say Hanoi needs to improve its record if it wants to remain on the UN body. A montage of 12 of at least 165 political prisoners being held in Vietnam. International human rights groups say Vietnam must improve its record on basic freedoms before running for reelection as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council in the 2026-2028 term. Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son announced Vietnam's intention to run again at a Monday meeting of the council in Geneva, calling on other countries to support Hanois bid, Vietnamese state media reported. Son was leading Vietnams delegation as a member of the council for the 2023-2025 term. Josef Benedict, civil space research officer for global civil society alliance CIVICUS, told Radio Free Asia Tuesday he was surprised that Vietnam was seeking reelection. Its human rights record is appalling and the state of civil space in the country is rated as 'closed' by the CIVICUS Monitor, he said. Furthermore, it has failed to implement many of the recommendations made by the Human Rights Council at its last review in 2019. In a report published in Dec. 2023, CIVICUS ranked Vietnam as one of eight countries and territories in Asia with closed civil spaces, meaning the state does not respect the basic freedoms of speech, assembly and association. The South Africa-based organization pointed out that Hanoi uses harsh laws to criminalize the work of activists and journalists, monitor and ban activists from leaving the country and mistreat political prisoners. If the government is really serious about seeking reelection, it should start by taking concrete steps to repeal restrictive laws, release human rights activists in detention and halt the harassment and reprisals against them, Benedict said. If not, Vietnam should just stay away and allow countries which are serious about their human rights commitments to join the council. Vietnam has never been interested in protecting or promoting human rights at the UN, according to Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. Vietnam has been an unmitigated disaster as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, simultaneously overseeing a massive crackdown on civil society groups and activists in Vietnam while actively condoning the rights violations being committed by other states whose situations have come before the Council, he said, adding that Hanois bid for reelection should be absolutely rejected. An activist in Hanoi, who wanted to remain anonymous for security reasons, said the UN human rights mechanism seems like a farce. What is the point of allowing a country that constantly violates human rights and does not respect the natural environment to sit on the UN Human Rights Council? It's like sending a drug addict to fight drug dealing! The activist called on the international community to be more responsible in selecting countries for the UN's highest human rights body. In Oct. 2022 many rights groups unsuccessfully called on UN General Assembly members to reject Vietnams bid to join the Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term. Since then, Vietnam has continued repressing dissidents and social activists. In 2023, Vietnam arrested at least 24 activists compared to 28 the previous year, according to RFA statistics. More than 20 people were sentenced to long prison terms, mostly on charges of propaganda against the state or abusing democratic freedoms simply for exercising basic human rights such as the right to express and share information. Hanoi also imprisoned a number of leading environmental campaigners on charges of tax evasion or misappropriation of documents. They include Dang Dinh Bach, a lawyer and director of the Center for Legal Studies and Policy for Sustainable Development; anti-fossil fuel campaigner Nguy Thi Khanh, the director of the Green Innovation and Development Centre (GreenID); Hoang Thi Minh Hong, director of the Center for Action and Alliance for Environment and Development (CHANGE); and clean energy expert Ngo Thi To Nhien. Vietnam is currently holding at least 165 political prisoners, according to Human Rights Watch statistics. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan. Sustainability Forum Middle East (SFME), a regional platform dedicated to driving net zero and nature positive solutions, will hold its next high-level roundtable on Green Mobility and the Growth of MENAs EV Market in Manama, Bahrain on March 4. This is first in the forums 2024 Decarbonisation Roundtable Series, which takes place throughout the region focusing on topics crucial to MENAs net-zero journey. The event is being held in partnership with First Motors, a leading dealer of electric vehicles in Bahrain, and Infracorp, a Lead Partner of Sustainability Forum Middle East, and the venue partner for the roundtable. In conjunction with the roundtable, Infracorp will also officially sign its partnership with Solar One Bahrain to operate the electrical charging station for e-vehicles in Bahrain Harbour, making it the first community to cater to EV owners. The roundtable will bring together regional experts in transportation and sustainability to address the critical need to decarbonise the sector and important role of electric vehicles (EVs) in the drive to achieve net-zero emissions targets. Globally, the transportation sector contributes significantly to overall carbon emissions with the UN putting its contributions at 13% of total global greenhouse gas emissions and 23% of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Of these, three-fourths come from road traffic alone. Panelists will address the global challenge posed by transport-related emissions and regional efforts and progress in driving sustainable mobility solutions including ever growing demand from MENA consumers for electric mobility. Experts will explore the necessary actions and collaborations to support the adoption of electric mobility, with a focus on EV technology, charging infrastructure, and policy frameworks. Laila Danesh, Managing Director of FinMark Communications, the forums founder and organiser, said: "We are delighted to kick off our 2024 Roundtable Series with a look at the fast-growing regional EV market. According to a recent study by Deloitte, MENAs EV market is set to reach $7.65 billion by 2028, up from $2.7 billion in 2023, a massive leap and indication that green mobility is on the rise. Our panel of experts will delve into whats driving this growth, challenges impacting large-scale adoption as well as the solutions and investments necessary to address them. Abdulaziz Tawfeeqi, Director of Development of Infracorp, added: "As a Lead Partner of Sustainability Forum Middle East, Infracorp is committed to driving positive change and promoting initiatives that advance local and regional sustainability. We are focused on supporting the growth of the infrastructure needed to promote the uptake of electric vehicles and look forward to signing our partnership with Solar One Bahrain to enable EV charging in Bahrain Harbour. In our investments and development projects, we aim to contribute to carbon-neutrality, and the decarbonisation of mobility is one essential component to a greener future. Nawaf Khaled Al Zayani, First Motors Managing Director, said: The rapid growth of the EV market in Bahrain and around the region represents an exciting opportunity for our industry to exert leadership and play an important role in supporting the governments decarbonisation goals. Our customers are embracing electric mobility, and we are working hard to provide them with a range of options and choices to help them make the shift. The rise of electric vehicles represents a crucial component to sustainable mobility, and we look forward to engaging with stakeholders to share insights and ideas on how to accelerate their adoption. Sustainability Forum Middle East remains dedicated to fostering dialogue and collaboration on decarbonisation initiatives in the region. The roundtable serves as a platform for stakeholders to exchange insights, explore opportunities, and drive meaningful action towards achieving net-zero emissions, said organisers. - TradeArabia News Service Vladimir Putin has claimed a fifth presidential term with a landslide victory in a tightly controlled election that has been condemned by the West as neither free nor fair as the Russian leader seeks to prove overwhelming popular support for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and increasingly repressive policies. With 99.75 percent of ballots counted, Putin won another six-year term with a post-Soviet record of 87.29 percent of the vote, the Central Elections Committee (TsIK) said on March 18, adding that turnout was also at a "record" level, with 77.44 percent of eligible voters casting ballots. The 71-year old Putin -- who has ruled as either president or prime minister since 2000 -- is now set to surpass Soviet dictator Josef Stalins nearly 30-year reign to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than two centuries. "This election has been based on repression and intimidation," the European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told journalists in Brussels on March 18 as the bloc's foreign ministers gathered to discuss the election, among other issues. The March 15-17 vote is the first for Putin since he launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that has killed tens of thousands of Russians and led to a clear break in relations with the West. In holding what has widely been viewed as faux elections, Putin wants to show that he has the nations full support, experts said. The vote was also held in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are located. Moscow illegally annexed the regions since launching the invasion, though it remains unclear how much of the territory it controls. The Kremlin's goal "is to get as many people as possible to sign off on Russia's war against Ukraine. The idea is to get millions of Russian citizens to retroactively approve the decision Putin single-handedly made two years ago," Maksim Trudolyubov, a senior fellow at the Kennan Institute, wrote in a note ahead of the vote. In remarks shortly after he was declared the winner, Putin said the election showed that the nation was "one team." But Western leaders condemned the vote, with the White House National Security Council spokesperson saying they "are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr. Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him." British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said "this is not what free and fair elections look like," adding in his message on X, formerly Twitter, that illegal elections have also been held on occupied Ukrainian territory. The French Foreign Ministry said Putin's reelection came amid a wave of repression against civil society. It also praised in a statement the courage of "the many Russian citizens who peacefully protested against this attack on their fundamental political rights." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Putin has become "sick with power" and he is just "simulating" elections. "This imitation of 'elections' has no legitimacy and cannot have any. This person must end up in the dock in The Hague [at the International UN Tribunal for War Crimes]," Zelenskiy said on X. Putin's allies were quick to heap praise on the Russian leader for his election success. China, one of Russia's most importants allies, congratulated Putin, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian saying President Xi Jinping and the Russian leader "will continue to maintain close exchanges, lead the two countries to continue to uphold long-standing good-neighborly friendship, deepen comprehensive strategic coordination." Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called Putin's victory "decisive," the state news agency IRNA reported. WATCH: Leading psychiatrists discuss how excessive power can impact brain functioning and what the impulse for total control reveals about the mind and personality traits of authority figures. Putin was opposed by three relatively unknown, Kremlin-friendly politicians whose campaign was barely noticeable. The main intrigue was whether Russians would heed opposition calls to gather at polling stations at noon on March 17 to silently protest against Putins rule. Russian media had reported in the months leading up to the election that the Kremlin was determined to engineer a victory for Putin that would surpass the 2018 results, when he won 77.5 percent of the vote with a turnout of 67.5 percent. The Kremlin banned anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin from the ballot after tens of thousands of voters lined up in the cold to support his candidacy. Nadezhdin threatened to undermine the narrative of overwhelming support for Putin and his war, experts said. Independent election observers were barred from working at this years presidential election for the first time in post-Soviet history, experts said. Russian elections have been notorious for ballot stuffing and other irregularities. The vote was also held in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are located. The United States called the elections neither fair nor free. 'Noon Against Putin' With options to express resistance severely limited by the lack of competition and repressive laws, opposition leaders called on voters opposed to Putin to gather near polls at noon to show the Kremlin and the country that they were still a force. Russia's opposition movement suffered a serious blow last month when Aleksei Navalny, Putins fiercest and most popular critic, died in unclear circumstances in a maximum-security prison in the Arctic where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism widely seen as politically motivated. Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia's 11 time zones at the designated time for the "Noon Against Putin" protest, including in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities. "We're not really expecting anything, but I'd somehow like to make a record of this election for myself, tick the box for myself, so, when talking about it later, I could say that I didn't just sit at home, but came and tried to do something," said one Russian who came to vote at noon. "The action has achieved its goals," Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, said in a YouTube video. "The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin." The Moscow prosecutor's office had earlier warned of criminal prosecution against those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts "containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation." Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a "violation." But she warned that there were "some basic safety rules that you can follow if you're worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on." Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia's Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs. Russians living abroad also took part in the "Noon Against Putin" campaign, with hundreds of people lining up at 12 p.m. outside the Russian embassies in Sidney, Tokyo, Phuket, Dubai, Istanbul, Berlin, Paris, and Yerevan among other capitals. "It's not an election. It's just a fake. And so we're here to show that not Russians elect the current leader of Russia, that we [are] against him very severely, and that lots of people had to flee their country to be free," said Anna, a Russian citizen living in Berlin and who gathered outside the embassy in the German capital. Putin was challenged by Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party, none of whom opposed the war. The Russian leader had the full resources of the state behind him, including the media, police, state-owned companies, and election officials. Welcome back to the China In Eurasia Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China's resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. Looking ahead, we'll be changing up the newsletter later in March and will start sending it out every week. Until then, it would be great to hear more about what you like about the newsletter currently and would want more of moving forward. Send me an e-mail to StandishR@rferl.org with your thoughts. Don't be shy! :) I'm RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish and here's what I'm following right now. Listen to the Talking China In Eurasia podcast Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google | YouTube Is China The Winner From The War In Ukraine? The war in Ukraine is still grinding on but has entered something of a stalemate, with minimal movement on the battlefield. But after two years of war, how has China managed to gain from the war in Ukraine? Finding Perspective: While Chinese leader Xi Jinping may be feeling some anxiety over slow economic growth and a slumping property market at home, there's plenty of reasons to believe that he's feeling emboldened abroad. For starters, China is not at war, it is not geopolitically isolated, and it has been able to gain from the broader fallout from Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion. The war has been a boon for China's credentials as a leader of the Global South, positioning itself as a peacemaker in the conflict while accusing the United States of fueling the war through its military support for Ukraine. Beijing is also feeling confident as it looks at wavering Western support for Ukraine. Billions of dollars' worth of U.S. military aid for Ukraine remains blocked in Congress and further struggles are likely ahead as war and funding fatigue grow in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election in November. The seemingly short shelf life of Western support for Ukraine is no doubt being noted in Beijing and factored into any plan of possibility of moving on Taiwan in the future. The war has also been a test that has largely helped bring China and Russia closer together. While Beijing has at times sought to distance itself from Moscow, it has helped its economy and given political cover where it can. Russia is also now far more dependent on China today than ever before -- a trend set to continue into the future. Why It Matters: Looking ahead, U.S.-China relations will continue to be Xi's leading issue. While both Beijing and Washington are looking to keep things calm for the time being, the coming U.S. election also brings unpredictability. On the one hand, former President Donald Trump launched a trade war and raised tensions, but a Trump victory is also likely to weaken U.S. alliances around the world. The stalled aid for Ukraine and a potentially more erratic United States are not lost on Taiwan, either. A recent delegation of senior Taiwanese officials to Washington told Politico that they're "extremely worried" that Ukraine could be abandoned. In conversations I've had with Taiwanese officials over the last year, they've often said how important it is that Ukraine prevails and that it would send an important message to the Chinese Communist Party on Taiwan. The Ukraine war's geopolitical winds could certainly change later on in 2024, but for now it looks like they're at China's back. Three More Stories From Eurasia 1. Welcome To The New Central Asia Perhaps nowhere have the ripple effects from Russia's invasion been felt stronger than in Central Asia, where Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have found themselves navigating a very different-looking world since February 24, 2022. The Details: To better understand how the war in Ukraine has altered Central Asia, I asked five leading experts and journalists to explain how they think the region has changed and where it may be going in the future. While the answers varied -- and I highly suggest reading the full article -- the general consensus has been that the Central Asian states are more autonomous than ever when it comes to their foreign policy and they've leaned increasingly hard on China over the last two years. 2. The EU's New Sanctions The European Union announced a fresh package of sanctions over the war in Ukraine on February 23, including three Chinese companies and one based in Hong Kong. What You Need To Know: RFE/RL had the scoop that a new batch of Chinese companies had made the list. Up until now, Brussels had placed sanctions on three Chinese firms in past packages and has been in discussions with Beijing over China's growing role in supplying Russian companies with nonlethal but militarily useful equipment. But with Russian imports of dual-use goods through firms based in Central Asia and China skyrocketing since the start of the war, the West has felt compelled to take action. The four firms included were: Guangzhou Ausay Technology Co Limited, Shenzhen Biguang Trading Co. Limited, Yilufa Electronics Limited, and the Hong Kong-based RG Solutions Limited. The sanctions package targeted Russia's defense industry and slapped asset freezes and travel bans on 106 individuals and 88 organizations, including firms from Russia, India, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Thailand, and Turkey. 3. Serbian Villagers And A Chinese Mine Villagers in eastern Serbia protesting environmental degradation and the dangerous use of explosives have forced the Chinese mining giant Zijin to suspend production at a nearby mine, setting the stage for a deeper struggle over its future, my colleague Branko Pesic reports. What It Means: A growing number of protesters from Krivelj, a village of some 700 people a few kilometers from Bor, a city that is home to a massive complex where copper and other minerals are mined and processed by China's Zijin Mining Group, have launched a blockade against the mine. The mostly elderly villagers have blocked the main road and stopped trucks and other vehicles from accessing the mine, leading to Zijin suspending production. Locals have long complained about pollution, contaminated drinking water, and other environmental damage from the sprawling operations, which were taken over by the Chinese mining giant in 2018. Since then, the company has revived mining in the area and sought to open new sites with a $3.8 billion investment announced in September to expand its copper mines. Villagers told Branko that their struggle was far from over and they will continue to block the main road, setting the stage for a prolonged fight over the future of their village and Zijin's expanding mining operations in eastern Serbia. Across The Supercontinent A Hikvision Hack: Ukrainian intelligence officials say that Russia hacked two ordinary outdoor CCTV cameras in Kyiv to help guide a missile attack that took place in January. Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, discovered that the cameras were made by China's Hikvision, which raises new questions over lingering concerns about their security and vulnerabilities. A Boon In Budapest: China offered to support longtime strategic partner Hungary on public security issues. Visa-Free: Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said on February 26 that Georgian citizens can now visit China without visas for a period of up to 30 days, RFE/RL's Georgian Service reports. The move comes after Georgia allowed visa-free entry for Chinese citizens in January. A Taiwan Connection: About 20 percent of nitrocellulose -- a compound used in gunpowder -- imported into Russia has been sourced from Taiwan, according to an investigation done by the think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in cooperation with Ukraine's Center for Defense Strategies. Looking For Work?: Afg-Chin Oil and Gas Limited, the joint Afghan-Chinese company looking to drill in Afghanistan, is looking for an external auditor. One Thing To Watch An enormous data leak from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has offered a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Beijing-linked hackers. The company, I-Soon, has yet to confirm the leak is genuine, but analysts say the leak is a treasure trove of intel into the day-to-day operations of China's hacking program. There are long lists of targets, from British government departments to Thai ministries. I-Soon staff also boasted in leaked chats that they secured access to telecom service providers in Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Thailand, and Malaysia, among others. That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have. Until next time, Reid Standish If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every other Wednesday. Iran is holding two sets of elections on March 1, for a new parliament and also for the Assembly of Experts -- the body that selects the country's supreme leader. Given that the current holder of that office, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 84 years old, it is likely that the new assembly will name his successor during its eight-year term. In the winter of 1924, inhabitants of a small village near Tehran looked up as a metal-bodied airplane swooped in to land, bumped along a field, then collapsed in a cloud of dust after its landing gear broke. The pilot of the plane was Swiss aviator Walter Mittelholzer, who had received an invitation from the Persian government to deliver a new Junkers aircraft to the country, which would be renamed Iran in 1935. Kaspar Surber, a Swiss journalist who wrote a book on Mittelholzer, told RFE/RL the aviator was chosen for the flight to Persia in part to "popularize flying" through aerial images he would take there. Mittelholzer was famous at the time for becoming the first person to extensively photograph Switzerland's mountains from an airplane. In the 1920s, Surber says there was something of a "race" between German and British aviation companies to begin air services in Persia, making Mittelholzer's photography skills a key promotional advantage. A Swiss newspaper wrote of the aviator, "The Swiss people know what to expect from their Mr. Mittelholzer, who can not only pilot a plane across unknown countries but also photograph and film in flight." After their ignominious landing 40 kilometers outside of Tehran, Mittelholzer and mechanic Ernst Bissegger had a tense confrontation with villagers before help eventually arrived from the Persian capital and their aircraft was repaired. Mittelholzer and Bissegger's flight of more than 3,000 kilometers from Switzerland to Persia included a standoff with Turkish authorities who confiscated their plane, troubles with poor-quality gasoline purchased in Baghdad, and erroneous maps that forced them into the ill-fated landing during which their plane's landing gear collapsed. Mittelholzers initial impressions of the territory of Persia from above were of "areas that lie desolate and empty and wander past the observing eye for hours. Huge alluvial fans, piles of rubble, and deltas of saline rivers [that] characterize the country." Isolated settlements occasionally came into view as the pair flew over Persian territory. "Here and there a green patch shines," Mittelholzer wrote, "a space in the center of which features residents' mud huts rising on narrow and winding streets. Silver bands mark the irrigation channels at the edges of the gardens." Mittelholzer seized the opportunity to photograph Persia extensively from above in photographs that are now held by the ETH Zurich library. The Swiss aviator and photographer also made use of his camera on the ground to capture a country on the cusp of dramatic change under Reza Shah Pahlavi, a ruler who would become known as Persia's "modernizing strongman." At the time of Mittelholzer's visit to Persia, the country was without major rail or road networks, and camel caravans were still in use as a means of foreign trade, making air transport an enticing possibility for the country's rulers. With the aviation industry still in its infancy in Persia, Mittelholzer and Bissegger had the sky virtually to themselves as they swept low over urban centers to snap images that would soon stun European audiences. Mittelholzer predicted that aerial photography would play a significant role in documentary imagery of the future. "Another hitherto unseen world opens up before us. It is as if the Earth has thereby gained a new face, and man a new, unflawed eye," he wrote in 1928. After spending several weeks inside Iran, the two Swiss aviators eventually made the long trek back to Central Europe by car. Mittelholzer would later co-found a company that became Swissair, Switzerland's national carrier until 2002. He died in a mountaineering accident in 1937 aged 43. In a newspaper obituary, a friend noted that Mittelholzer's death in the mountains that he loved, and that had sparked his extraordinary career, had a certain tragic poetry: "They have embraced him 0n his last wanderings and claimed him, and perhaps he would not have wished for a better end, but alas it came all too soon, there was so much more for him to do." In the Bukhara region of Uzbekistan, members of the country's ethnic Persian minority organize lavish weddings, spending thousands of dollars on the event. People will spend years in Russia working as migrant laborers to save up for these nuptials before returning to Uzbekistan. In fear for his life, Ernest Suleymanov fled Crimea shortly after Russian forces seized the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Now he runs a restaurant in Warsaw, directly opposite the Russian Embassy. "It's like a slap in the face," he says, "Crimea is not theirs." This report is from a full-length documentary, Silent Deportation, by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that can be viewed with English subtitles at the link below. Russian President Vladimir Putin will deliver his annual address to parliament and the nation on February 29, less than three weeks before an election that is set to hand him a new six-year term in the Kremlin. Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, uses the nationally televised speech to send signals to audiences at home and abroad. As he prepares for the noncompetitive vote on March 15-17, Putin is likely to comment on matters ranging from the economy to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year. He may not stray far from well-worn narratives and propaganda, but the points he chooses to emphasize and the pose he adopts will set the tone for a country mired in war and repression. Here are a few things to keep in mind: The War That Must Not Be Called A War In his two-hour state-of-the-nation address in February 2023, Putin devoted a large portion of his time to repeating his justifications for the full-scale invasion that he launched 12 months earlier. This year, he may repeat his false claims that Kyiv is run by fascists or that Ukraine is not a real country, but analysts will cut through any such material to look for clues as to how optimistic Putin is about the progress of the war and see whether he nudges the goalposts for what he hopes to achieve. The meager results of Ukraine's 2023 counteroffensive, Russia's recent capture of the eastern city of Avidiyivka, and growing signals of war fatigue from Ukraine's supporters in the West may have emboldened Putin and the hawks within his inner circle. However, there have been signs of war fatigue inside Russia as well. The relatives of soldiers have been increasingly vocal with calls to bring their loved ones home, while a wave of significant protests swept the Bashkortostan region in January, fueled at least in part by the widespread belief that families from non-Russian ethnic minorities are bearing a disproportionate share of the war's burden. The short-lived presidential bid of anti-war would-be candidate Boris Nadezhdin, who has been barred from the ballot, generated impressive shows of popular support when people stood in long lines to endorse his candidacy. How Putin balances these competing pressures regarding the war -- which the Kremlin still insists be referred to by the euphemism "special military operation" -- could be telling. During his combined press conference and public Q&A session in December, he insisted the war would continue and Moscow's goals had not changed. 'Enemies' Foreign Analysts will also be watching the way Putin describes the confrontation between Russia and the West. In the throes of an election campaign that he is trying to cast as an unequivocal popular endorsement of his continued rule, Putin is likely to play the fear card and stress that any hint of disunity could be disastrous for a country he often asserts is surrounded by malicious enemies bent on Russia's dissolution. A certain amount of saber-rattling is almost inevitable in such circumstances. But will Putin step up the anti-Western rhetoric in the pursuit of domestic political goals -- and, if so, precisely how? He has caught the West's attention in the past with references to Russia's nuclear arsenal and the development of powerful new weapons. One way Putin might seek to apply pressure on the West is by expressing support for pro-Russian separatists in Moldova's Transdniester region -- who passed a resolution on February 20 asking the Russian parliament for support in the face of what they call an "economic blockade" by Chisinau -- or in the Bosnian region of Republika Srpska, whose president, Milorad Dodik, met in Moscow with Putin on February 21 in a visit that Putin called "useful." Putin's address will be watched closely for direct or indirect remarks about the suspicious death in prison on February 16 of his most prominent opponent, Aleksei Navalny, and about the possibility of a prisoner swap that would bring Americans held in Russia home. These two subjects became closely intertwined when allies of Navalny asserted that negotiations on an exchange that would have freed Navalny and two U.S. citizens in exchange for Vadim Krasikov, a former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who is serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 murder in Berlin of a former rebel field commander in Chechnya, were in their final stages ahead of Navalny's death, which they blame on Putin. Putin has said nothing about the death of Navalny, who is to be buried in Moscow on March 1 after a bitter tug-of-war in which Russian authorities refused to hand his body over to relatives for eight days after his death. At his December press conference and Q&A, Putin raised the possibility of a prisoner swap with the United States when asked specifically about the fate of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who has been held in custody without trial since he was arrested in March 2023 and charged with espionage. And in an interview with conservative U.S. commentator Tucker Carlson this month, Putin made it clear that he wants to secure Krasikov's release and return to Russia. In the light of reports that a possible prisoner swap was blown up by Navalny's death, analysts will be looking for indications that a deal could still be on the table. And Domestic In the weeks leading up to Putin's speech, the world's attention has been galvanized by Navalny's suspicious death in prison, by the authorities' reluctance to hand his body over to his relatives, and by the opposition's efforts to organize a public farewell for the charismatic politician. Many observers have argued that Putin's antipathy toward Navalny was deeply personal, noting that the president has been unable to bring himself even to utter Navalny's name. The state-of-the-nation address seems an unlikely venue for Putin to reverse course in this regard. The government's crackdown on political dissent since the last presidential election in 2018 and, particularly, since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, has eliminated the space for normal political opposition in Russia. The Kremlin and prominent figures dominating the messaging from state-controlled media have cast the political landscape as a place that contains only supporters of Putin and those who hate Russia. Putin may use the speech to further this narrative, and it will be watched for suggestions that he wants lawmakers to adopt even more draconian legislation aimed at quashing dissent. 'Traditional Values' Putin will likely devote a portion of his speech to presenting himself as a champion of what he describes as traditional values, a theme that plays well among many of his supporters in Russia and abroad. He might not go so far as to expound on the supposed threat of gender-neutral toilets, as he has in the recent past, but he could praise the government's recent decision to declare the nonexistent "international LGBT social movement" as an "extremist organization." That designation opens numerous avenues for cracking down on LGBT Russians and others, including feminists. Putin could call for further legislation to piggyback on this designation, and strong language on his part could embolden vigilante groups in Russia that have been denouncing and even attacking LGBT people, feminists, and others. The Fifth Term Aside from a stint as prime minister in 2008-12, Putin, 71, has been president since 2000. In 2020, he rammed through a raft of constitutional amendments, including one that enables him to seek two more six-year terms and remain in the Kremlin until 2036. In previous election-connected appearances, Putin has often unveiled populist initiatives, many of which are conveniently targeted to deadlines set for years after the election. He may continue this practice in this year's speech, using such promises in tandem with his calls for patriotic unity. In order to foster a sense of normalcy, he might set out an agenda for the next six years that may be partially or wholly forgotten after the vote, while in reality the Russian public could be in for some unpopular surprises. Some analysts have predicted that Moscow will be forced to implement another unpopular military call-up after the election, although the Kremlin has said it has sufficient manpower to continue invading Ukraine. Others have warned that the government is developing technology to tighten its control over the Internet in the near future. While Putin's political promises could offer little guide to the future, they could shed light on his assessment of the public mood. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with leaders of Western Balkan countries at a February 28 summit in the Albanian capital, Tirana. Both Zelenskiy and his co-host at the summit, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, called for unity in the face of security threats and spoke about the possibility that Russia could threaten to destabilize other countries beyond Ukraine. Local Agtech firm FarmEye is set to more than treble its workforce to 70 over the next five years. The news was announced as Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney officially opened its new office recently at the Daneswell Business Centre in Monksland. The Roscommon company is currently in year one of a new five-year business plan, with a target of increasing its current staff of 20 to 70 by the end of the plan. FarmEye uses digital technologies as part of a measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) platform which provides data-rich insights into soil health, farm carbon, and environmental data. One of the platforms many practical benefits is the cost-efficient use of fertilisers on farms. FarmEye calculates that the average farmer could save about 6,000 on their annual fertiliser bill using its system. The companys CEO and Taughmaconnell native, Dr Eoghan Finneran, told the official launch of the new office that the reason the company took the decision to invest in the new facility in Monksland was because we have a huge ambition and a huge drive around where we want to go with FarmEye in the next five years internationally. Mr Finneran said the company was aiming to be the leading digital MRV platform globally for sustainable agriculture over the next five years. Were really proud to have the office based here in Roscommon. Our aim is to empower farmers, agri-advisors, and agri-food companies with the digital tools and insights needed to optimise productivity, while minimising environmental impact, he said. At the official opening of FARMEYE's new office in Monksland were co-founders Dr Eoghan Finneran, Brendan Allen and Joe Desbonnet with Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney and Fine Gael Senator Aisling Dolan. One of the other company co-founders, Brendan Allen, is also from Roscommon a native of Fourmilehouse. The third co-founder, Joe Desbonnet, is from Galway. The firm began as a spin-off from a University of Galway project in 2017, and the Enterprise Ireland supported venture has also opened offices in England and Italy. Thanking all those who have supported the venture, Mr Finneran also thanked the farming community. We would have not been able to develop the technology without the input of a lot of farmers who have been very generous to us with their time. Speaking at the launch, Mr Coveney congratulated FarmEye on the success story that they have become. The minister pointed out that the traditional know-how of farmers was still important, but extra tools were now available where field maps could be created to understand each square metre of soil that we are responsible for. Ireland has the potential to become the Silicon Valley for AgTech software, and companies such as FarmEye are leading the way, he said. Ensuring all of us, as consumers, have sustainable food means we need verified and transparent data. Farmers and food producers also benefit from this data so that they can protect all our futures by sustainably managing our soil, water, and farmland habitats. With over 3.5m acres mapped for soil health, FarmEye now employs 20 people in Roscommon and is exporting to eight countries internationally. FarmEye is a leading light in Irish AgTech software. He told the gathering that there had been a lot of talk about the contribution that agriculture makes to Irelands overall emissions, and not enough talk about the change and the evolution of farming that is responding to that challenge, in my view, in a very progressive way. Mr Coveney paid tribute to all who had the courage to invest and build FarmEye. I think the future for this company is exciting, and I think theres no reason why this is a brand and a name and a company that that cant become a growing multinational into the future out of Ireland, he said. Addressing the launch, Fine Gael Senator Aisling Dolan said that were in the best place in the world to have technology and agriculture come together to be a driving force in Ireland and in the world. I am delighted to welcome Minister Simon Coveney to Monksland to open the new premises of a cutting-edge Roscommon AgTech company. Dr Eoghan Finneran is one of the co-founders of FarmEye, a successful venture with up to 20 staff, she said. This demonstrates how Roscommon is leading the way in agricultural technology, so that Irish farmers can promote good soil health and increase productivity. Congratulations to management and staff on this opening, marking the continued growth of FarmEye and its positive impact on our local community. Senator Dolan said everyone wanted to see that there was a future for farming families, and for the families that are coming behind us. A former parliamentary assistant has admitted hacking the Twitter account of local MEP, Luke Ming Flanagan. RTE is reporting that Diarmuid Hayes, 34, from Dublin, was convicted in a Belgian court of posting a Tweet from Mr Flanagan's account that referred to Irish Green Party candidate Saoirse McHugh "skinny dipping". The Tweet was posted from the MEPs account in the early hours of September 28 2020 without his knowledge. Hayes had worked as an assistant to the Midlands North-West MEP in 2018 and 2019. He told the court that he had been upset with the MEP for failing to renew his contract following the 2019 European Parliament elections. According to RTE, the Belgian public prosecutor has sought a one-year prison term for the former parliamentary assistant. Mr Flanagan told the court that the hacking of his Twitter account had been a "cold, calculated and skillfully carried out attempt" to destroy him. Hayes admitted to the court he had posted the image, but said it had been a "joke", and regretted it very quickly. He deleted the Tweet a short time later. The case has been put back to March 25th for sentencing. AAP's Kuldeep Kumar take charge as Chandigarh mayor Mayor will ensure that the elections for both Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor are conducted on March 4. Chandigarh Mayor Kuldeep Kumar on Wednesday assumed charge at the Municipal Corporation. A red carpet was laid in the Municipal Corporation to welcome him. Notably, the Punjab Haryana High Court had ordered on Tuesday that Kuldeep will assume his post at 10 am on February 28 while the nominations for the post of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor will be filed on February 28 and 29. After this, the Mayor will ensure that the elections for both posts are conducted on March 4. Advertisement After about 3 hours of debate on the post of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor on Tuesday, the High Court resolved the dispute with the consent of all the parties. While presenting the new election schedule in the High Court, the DC said that the election process for both posts will be started afresh. While filing a petition in the High Court, Gurpreet Singh, a contender for the post of Senior Deputy Mayor, and Nirmala Devi, demanding filing of nomination for the post of Deputy Mayor, had appealed for fresh elections. It was told in the petition that the DC had issued a notification ordering elections for both posts on February 27. As per the order, direct voting was fixed and it was said that the nomination process for these two posts had been completed in January itself. Advertisement Who is Chandigarh Mayor Kuldeep Kumar? Know all about him Chandigarh Administration and Municipal Corporation opposed this petition and appealed for instructions to conduct direct elections. Even till noon, when the Mayor did not arrive to conduct the elections, the administration said that elections were no longer possible on Tuesday and the DC's notification was also no longer justified. On this, the High Court asked why not fresh elections are being conducted to maintain the sanctity of the elections. The administration agreed to this and at 2 pm the DC appeared in the High Court with the notification of fresh elections. After this notification, Congress and AAP alliance candidates gave their no objection to it. In such a situation, the High Court disposed of the petition. Advertisement (For more news apart from Chandigarh Mayor Kuldeep Kumar, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Himachal Pradesh News Earlier, Vikramaditya Singh had tendered his resignation. Himachal Pradesh News, Vikramaditya Singh Big U-Turn on resignation: In a major turn of events, Himachal Pradesh's PWD Minister Vikramaditya Singh, who earlier resigned on Wednesday from his post, said he won't "press" on his resignation. His statement came after a meeting with party observers Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Bhupesh Baghel and DK Shivakumar in Shimla. Advertisement "It is the responsibility of every individual to strengthen the organisation. In the larger interest and unity of the party, the resignation by me in the morning which the CM refused to accept, I would not like to press it further. There was no danger (to the government), it was just a creation," Vikramaditya Singh said. Likewise, Congress leader and Chief Whip Harshwardhan Chauhan said, We submitted a petition to the Speaker demanding the expulsion of six rebel MLAs. A hearing was held today at 1pm. Lawyers of both sides presented their arguments in front of the Speaker and we hope the Speaker will make a decision on it (soon). Congress party observers who came to Shimla are talking with party MLAs and taking their opinions. They met Vikramaditya Singh and talked to him. CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and party high command have stated that they are not going to accept his resignation and he has also agreed not to press on his decision to resign, said Congress MP Rajeev Shukla after meeting with party observers in Shimla. Advertisement (For more news apart from Himachal Pradesh News, Vikramaditya Singh Big U-Turn on resignation, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Updating... Farmers Protest 2024 leads to major crisis of diesel and LPG Cylinder gas in Punjab Supplies of diesel and LPG cylinder gas in Punjab are badly hit. Farmers Protest 2024, Diesel and LPG Cylinder Gas Crisis in Punjab: In a major piece of news, the Ministry sources on Wednesday revealed that there is a major crisis of diesel and cylinder gas going on in Punjab due to the ongoing farmers' protest at Shambhu and Khanauri border points. According to information, the supplies of diesel and LPG cylinder gas in Punjab are badly hit due to roadblocks and safety issues. Advertisement It is pertinent to mention that the farmers have been protesting against the Central Government over their demands that include a legal assurance on the Minimum Support Price (MSP), loan waiver, and a pension scheme for farmers besides justice for the victims of Lakhimpur Kheri violence. The farmers started their 'Delhi Chalo' march on February 13 and have been camping at the Shambhu and Khanauri border points because the Haryana Government had blocked the roads with heavy barricading and even deployed heavy police force. As of now, six farmers have died during the ongoing agitation while one more farmer died in a road accident. The Punjab Government recently announced a financial compensation of Rs 1 crore and a government job to the family of Shubkaran Singh who recently died during the clash with Haryana Police. He reportedly succumbed to a bullet injury. Advertisement (For more news apart from Farmers Protest 2024, Diesel and LPG Cylinder Gas Crisis in Punjab, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman) Japan will on Thursday release January numbers for industrial production, retail sales, construction orders and housing starts, highlighting a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. Industrial output is expected to drop 6.7 percent on month after rising 1.4 percent in December. Retail sales are tipped to improve by 2.3 percent, up from 3.1 percent in the previous month. Construction orders are expected to add 0.2 percent on year, easing from 0.4 percent a month earlier. Housing starts are seen lower by an annual 7.6 percent following the 4.0 percent drop in December. Australia will provide January numbers for private sector credit and Q4 data for private new capital expenditure. Credit is called steady at 0.4 percent on month, while capex is tipped to rise 0.4 percent on quarter after rising 0.6 percent in the previous three months. Thailand will release January figures for imports, exports, trade balance, current account and industrial production. In December, imports were down 1.7 percent on year and exports rose 3.0 percent for a trade surplus of $2.30 billion. The current account showed a surplus of $2.10 billion, while industrial production sank an annual 6.27 percent. Taiwan will provide Q4 data for gross domestic product and January numbers for industrial production and unemployment. GDP is expected to rise 5.12 percent on year, up from 2.32 percent in the previous three months. In December, industrial output fell 3.99 percent on year and the jobless rate was 3.4 percent. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Economic News What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more. Bluefield Solar Income Fund Ltd. (BSIF.L), a British firm focused on acquiring and managing solar energy assets, on Wednesday recorded a decline in pre-tax total comprehensive income. Bluefield Solar said: "From an operational perspective, the company's portfolio had a more difficult half year, with solar generation c.10% lower than in the second half of 2022, caused by a combination of significantly lower irradiation and shortages of key components, which reduced plant availability." For the six months, the company posted a pre-tax total comprehensive income of 3.991 million pounds or 0.65 pence per share, less than 37.642 million pounds or 6.16 pence per share, reported last year. Net Asset Value per share dropped to 135.95 pence per share, compared with 142.40 pence per share in 2022. Total underlying earnings were at 43.936 million pounds, compared with 51.438 million pounds a year ago. The underlying income per share available for distribution stood at 3.57 pence per share, less than 6.26 pence per share last year. Operating profit plunged to 3.991 million pounds from the previous year's 37.642 million pounds. Operating income was 5.077 million pounds, compared with 38.845 million pounds in 2022. Net gains on financial assets held at fair value stood at 4.614 million pounds as against 38.408 million a year ago. Income, however, improved to 0.463 million pounds from 0.437 million pounds in 2022. Looking ahead, the company reaffirmed its guidance to pay a full-year dividend of not less than 8.80 pence per share, which is higher than last year's 8.60 pence per share. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News The United States has imposed sanctions on two Iranians who provide support to the Yemeni militant group Houthis, who have stepped up attacks on international maritime commerce in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The Deputy Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), Mohammad Reza Falahzadeh, was sanctioned for his role as a Houthi-affiliated operative and for owning and operating a vessel used to ship Iranian commodities in support of both the Houthis and the IRGC. The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Hong Kong-based Cap Tees Shipping Co. Limited, which owns and operates a vessel involved in shipping more than 100 million dollars' worth in Iranian commodities on behalf of Iran's Ministry of Defense. OFAC is also designating Ibrahim al-Nashiri, a Houthi group member who has supported the Houthis' militant efforts. U.S. State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller said the United States is taking this action in coordination with the United Kingdom to counter terrorist financing and to disrupt Houthi attacks on international shipping. White House National Security Advisor John Kirby said at a news conference that Washington has no plans to lift, waive, or provide any new sanctions relief for Iran. "And we will continue to look ways for ways to take action and to hold them accountable," he told reporters. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News President Joe Biden has easily won the Democratic Party's primary in Michigan despite a 13 percent protest vote over his stance towards the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. In response to an Arab American Democrats-led call to demonstrate voters' protest against the Biden administration's handling of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, more than 1,00,000 of Democrats chose to cast their vote "uncommitted" Tuesday, reports say. Still, Biden managed to win more than 80 percent of the votes overall. Winning 6,17,728 votes in his favor, Biden gained 86 delegates. With other contestants in the fray winning single digit percentage of total votes, Biden is almost certain on his way toward the Democratic nomination for a second term. Biden thanked Michigan voters without making any mention of the "uncommitted" movement, and warned, "Donald Trump is threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution." "Four years ago, it was Michigan's diverse coalition that came together to reject Donald Trump's MAGA extremism and sent me and Kamala to the White House. Because of Michiganders, we've been able to work hand in hand with Governor Whitmer and the incredible Democratic leaders in Michigan's congressional delegation to deliver enormous progress," he said in a statement. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Koppers Holdings Inc. (KOP) announced on Wednesday that its fully owned subsidiary, Koppers Utility and Industrial Products Inc., has agreed to purchase most of the assets of Brown Wood Preserving Company, Inc., and some of its affiliates for about $100 million in cash. The company intends to fund the acquisition using a combination of cash and borrowing. CEO Leroy Ball stated that while the acquisition of Brown Wood may not significantly impact 2024 results due to timing and integration costs, it is anticipated to help Koppers achieve adjusted earnings of $315 million to $325 million in 2025. Following the completion of the deal, Brown Wood will be integrated into Koppers Utility and Industrial Products. The transaction is anticipated to be finalized in the second quarter of 2024, pending the standard closing conditions. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says three Palestine Red Crescent paramedics were detained during a medical evacuation at Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis. On February 25, the Palestine Red Crescent Society, the World Health Organization, and OCHA evacuated 24 patients from Al Amal hospital. Despite prior coordination for all staff members and vehicles with the Israeli side, Israeli forces blocked the WHO-led convoy for many hours the moment it left the hospital. UNOCHA alleged that the Israeli military forced patients and staff out of ambulances and stripped all paramedics of their clothes. Three Palestine Red Crescent paramedics were subsequently detained while the rest of the convoy stayed in place for over seven hours. One paramedic has been released since the incident. The UN humanitarian agency has called for the immediate release of the two paramedical staff and all other detained workers. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Japanese auto giant Toyota (TM) is recalling about 381,000 Tacoma pickup trucks over a loose part that can separate from the rear axle, increasing the risk of a crash. According to the recall statement, welding debris left on the ends of the rear axle assembly during manufacturing could cause certain retaining nuts to loosen over time and eventually fall off, potentially causing a part to separate from the axle. If separation occurs, this can affect vehicle stability and brake performance, increasing the risk of a crash. Toyota dealers will inspect the rear axle assembly and retighten the axle retaining nuts at no cost to customers. If axle components are damaged as a result of this condition, they will be repaired or replaced, if necessary, based on inspection criteria. The trucks involved are model year 2022 and 2023 Tacoma pickups. Customers will be notified about this issue through the mail by late April 2024. Toyota did not reveal that whether any accidents or injuries have resulted from this issue. Meanwhile, Toyota recently recalled 280,000 trucks and SUVs for a different issue that resulted in trucks "creeping" forward when put in neutral. The vehicles involved in that recall were Toyota's large Tundra pickup and Sequoia and Lexus LX 600 large SUVs. Last year, Toyota recalled 1 million vehicles for a sensor issue that could make airbags deploy when they shouldn't. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Honor CEO George Zhao revealed the company's plan to launch its first vertical-folding flip phone in 2024, aiming to tap into the premium smartphone market. The CEO confirmed to CNBC in an exclusive interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, "This year we are preparing for the flip phone launch now that we are internally in the final stage." "We are very positive about foldables for the future," Zhao added. The announcement comes after the global launch of the company's Magic6 Pro and PORSCHE DESIGN HONOR Magic V2 RSR at the event. The smartphone maker intends to target a new market with higher prices compared to traditional horizontal-folding devices. A report by Counterpoint Research estimates a price boom in the premium market for phones above $600 despite a decline in the overall market. In July 2023, Honor launched Magic V2, a smartphone that folds like a book. But with the latest vertical-folding phone it would join the other smartphone makers such as Samsung, OPPO and Motorola, who had popularized this trend. Along with the phone, Zhao also discussed the company's plan to launch a similar wearable like Samsung's Galaxy Ring, which would be launched later this year. The Chinese company's ring would focus on -related services by collecting data on HONOR's health app and providing personalized health insights with the help of artificial intelligence. Zhao also emphasized that an AI-induced ring would provide tailored training programs to users based on their activities and habits. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Technology News Di Hornby (RUCE), Yanela Ndabula (CHERTL), Anna Kinsler (RUCE), and Kelly Voster (CHERTL) Pic credit: Lance Myburgh By Tokologo Lekoma Despite inclement weather, the spirit of achievement and community shone brightly at the Nine Tenths Student Mentoring Programme's celebration on 22 February 2024. In partnership with GADRA Education, this celebratory event honoured a record-breaking number of 50 programme alumni first-year students registering at Rhodes University in 2024. Anna Kinsler, the Nine Tenths Coordinator, expressed excitement over alumni's academic progress and outlined ambitious goals for 2024, aiming to make the programme a national leader in enhancing student retention and inclusivity in public schools. "We've already expanded by adding PJ Olivier, aiming for at least 60% to 65% bachelor's passes for all pupils registered in the five participating schools," she said. Vice-Chancellor Professor Sizwe Mabizela said he had been delighted with the programme's achievements since its launch in 2016. He found it invigorating to see Rhodes University students involved with the community. "It is wonderful to see our students becoming big brothers and sisters by helping pupils with studying and time management, but it is also important for mentors to provide a listening ear." Nine Tenths Student Leader and final-year BSc student Abenathi Nqweniso said, "I am excited about the progress and impact the programme will have on disadvantaged students, as it has had even in my life." Nqweniso encouraged future mentees to use their mentors for social capital and motivation because they were once in the same circumstances. "Mentees should be able to ask for past papers, extra tutoring, help with applications, and career guidance," they said. The VC shared a sentiment similar to Nqweniso's: "Rhodes University students who are mentors are growing and developing as engaged, empathetic, and caring leaders and citizens. The programme is mutually beneficial because our students can reflect on their own experiences and develop the leadership qualities of a Rhodes University graduate." According to Kinsler, one of the most rewarding lessons mentees learn is understanding the importance of cultivating healthy relationships. However, she insists that the majority become life-long friends and keep in regular contact with one another. In addition to the amazing friends she has made, Nine Tenths alumnus Mihle Xhegwana said, "Rhodes University is a good university, but the transition from high school to being an adult has not been easy. I've had to pivot a lot and adjust." Alumnus Simthandile Peter described his transition to adulthood as, It's been a nice experience because I now have full independence." Not only does the programme produce outstanding academic achievers, Nine Tenths and Rhodes University won the 2021 MacJannet Prize for Global Citizenship. Launched in 2009, the award recognises university students and civic engagement initiatives worldwide. The VC pointed out that our proud institution became the first university in the country and in fact on the African continent to be awarded this prestigious honour of first prize. Kinsler and the Community Engagement Division brought the programme's famous slogan, "Mentoring for Success," to life with this spectacular event. Congratulations to all the new mentees and mentors on this monumental accomplishment. The first home to be designated historic in Chula Vista and built by one of the citys founders is up for sale for nearly $1 million. The 5,900-square-foot house at 616 Second Ave., on the citys west side, was constructed by banker and civic leader Greg Rogers in 1910. Advertisement Called Bay Breeze, the craftsman-style home has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, roof-top decks, a full basement with a bank-style steel door, four-car garage, an elevator and a lot of nooks and crannies. Originally at 699 E St., (near Interstate 5), it was one of the most modern homes of the time with electricity, baths with indoor plumbing, and four fireplaces. Its current owner, former Chula Vista Councilwoman Pamela Bensoussan, said she is selling the home to move closer to family. The home is expected to be listed later this week as a residence and a bed and breakfast. Bensoussan moved into the Rogers home 20 years ago when her two kids were in high school. She said she stumbled along the property while looking for another home. At the time I wasnt yet convinced to sell my house, she said. But when I saw that house on Second Avenue I had this (instant) attraction...I just fell in love with it. When she moved in, she inherited from the previous owner the Rogers family photo album with copies of newspaper clippings that date back decades and tells the Rogers story. Rogers moved his family from Cleveland to Chula Vista in 1909. He became one of the citys first council members in 1911, the same year the city was incorporated. Shortly after he co-founded the communitys first financial institution called the Peoples State Bank, which is known today as Bank of America. Rogers was the first commodore of the original Chula Vista Yacht Club, a member of the chamber of commerce and rotary club and served on the Chula Vista School Board. A city school and adjacent community park were later named in his honor. In the late 70s, because of Rogers significance to the city, Chula Vista Mayor Will Hyde embarked to identify the home as a historical landmark in the city. Other historic designations for houses and buildings followed. The Greg Rogers House holds a dual designation: Historic Site No. 1 (1977), for its original location on E Street, and Historic Site No. 42, for its post-1985 home on Second Avenue. In addition to being listed on the historic register, it also carries the historic permit, a higher level of designation. Chula Vista realtor Richard Zogob purchased the house and land for just under $400,000 from Porter Yarbourgh, according to a May 22, 1977 article in The Star-News. The mayor and City Council acquired title to the Greg Rogers House in 1984, saving it from impending demolition do to an incoming motel. The 140-ton house was maneuvered one block down the street and into the city public works yard. The same year the city transferred ownership of the home to Lee and Sonny Burch, who were issued a permit to move the house to a lot behind their craftsman-era Bungalow at 614 Second Ave. Later that year the city issued a bill of sale to the Burches and contracted to have them restore the Rogers house, opening it once a year to benefit of the citys heritage program. Bensoussan bought the home in 1996, and a year later a class from the Greg Rogers School began making annual field trips to tour the house as part of their introduction to civic history. In 2001, Bensoussan began leading local historic homeowners in organizing the first Historic Home Tour, sponsored by Chula Vistas Heritage Museum. She later hosted a series of annual workshops to educate the public about the benefits of historic designation and the Mills Act, a program that offers tax incentive legislation for owners of historic properties. Bensoussan said the most interesting aspect of the house is the history of it. I was not involved in city government until I owned that house, it just kind of drew me in ... Its a responsibility-you have to be able to be a steward of a house like that. You dont own it, it owns you. Bev Ryan, granddaughter of Edwin Olie Olson who bought the Rogers home in 1942, recently toured the property for the first time in decades. Ryan, 61, said she often visited the home that belonged to her grandparents as a little girl, traveling from Texas to Chula Vista with her parents. Today she lives in Point Loma with her husband. Ryan was 6 or 7 years old when shed play with about a dozen of her cousins there. She recalled it used to be surrounded by lemon orchards and railroad tracks, two of the cities mainstays. During a typical family gathering, about 20 people would be at the house. While the adults socialized and played poker, Ryan said the kids would run around and play hide-and-seek. We played up and down the staircase and had fashion shows. Bensoussan said selling the home and moving to Houston is bittersweet. It becomes part of you, a house like that. Chevron warned Monday that its pending $53 billion acquisition of Hess may be in jeopardy because it will require the approval of Exxon Mobil and a Chinese national oil company, which both hold rights to development of an oil field off the coast of the South American nation Guyana. The disclosure in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission raised investor qualms, depressing shares of both Chevron and Hess. Chevrons stock price fell 3% Tuesday morning before rebounding; Hess stock lost 4% of its value but bounced back slightly. Chevrons acquisition of Hess would add this major oil field in Guyana as well as shale properties in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota. Guyana is a country of 791,000 people that is poised to become the worlds fourth-largest offshore oil producer, placing it ahead of Qatar, the United States, Mexico and Norway. It has become a major producer in recent years, with oil giants including Exxon Mobil, Chinas CNOOC, and Hess squared off in a heated competition for highly lucrative oil fields in northern South America. Chevron said its been engaged in discussion with Exxon and CNOOC, aka China National Offshore Oil Co. Both companies hold rights of first refusal for decisions regarding the oil field in question, known as the Stabroek Block. Exxon Mobil operates the Stabroek Block and holds 45% interest. Hess holds 30% interest, and CNOOC holds the remaining 25% interest. Production capacity at the field is expected to reach more than 1.2 million barrels per day by the end of 2027, Exxon said in November. If those discussions and subsequent arbitration fail to set aside those first refusal rights, Chevron said, the merger would not close. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Danionella cerebrum, a translucent fish species of only 12 mm length, produces high amplitude sounds exceeding 140 dB (re. 1 Pa, at a distance of one body length) comparable to a jet engine during take-off in 100 m distance. The snapping shrimp can generate a popping sound of up to 250 dB with its claws, said Dr. Ralf Britz, an ichthyologist at the Senckenberg Natural History Collections. The mating calls of the flightless kakapo reach 130 dB, and elephants can produce noise of up to 125 dB with their trunks. Fishes, on the other hand, are generally considered to be rather quiet members of the animal kingdom. However, there are certain fish species that can be surprisingly loud. For example, the male plainfin midshipman fish attracts its females with an audible vibrato of around 100 Hz and 130 dB. In the new study, Dr. Britz and his colleagues examined Danionella cerebrum, a miniature teleost fish with the smallest known vertebrate brain. This tiny fish can produce sounds of over 140 dB at a distance of 10 to 12 mm this is comparable to the noise a human perceives of an airplane during take-off at a distance of 100 m and quite unusual for an animal of such diminutive size, Dr. Britz said. We tried to understand how the fish manages this and what mechanisms are responsible for this achievement. Using a combination of high-speed video, micro-computed tomography, gene expression analysis, and finite difference methods, the researchers found that Danionella cerebrum males possess a unique sound-generating apparatus that includes drumming cartilage, a specialized rib, and a fatigue-resistant muscle. This apparatus accelerates the drumming cartilage with a force of over 2,000g and shoots it against the swim bladder to produce a rapid, loud pulse, Dr. Britz said. These pulses are strung together to produce calls with either bilaterally alternating or unilateral muscle contractions. Due to its small size and lifelong optical transparency, Danionella cerebrum is an emerging model organism in biomedical research. The species is native to shallow and turbid waters of Myanmar. We assume that the competition between the males in this visually restrictive environment contributed to the development of the special mechanism for acoustic communication, Dr. Britz said. The studys results challenge the conventional notion that the speed of skeletal movement in vertebrates is limited by muscle movement. Understanding the extraordinary adaptation of Danionella cerebrum expands our knowledge of animal locomotion and highlights the remarkable diversity of propulsion mechanisms in different species, the authors said. This contributes to a broader understanding of evolutionary biology and biomechanics. The sounds produced by other Danionella species have not yet been studied in detail; it would be interesting to learn how their mechanism of sound production differs and how these differences relate to evolutionary adaptation. In combination with its lifelong transparency, the genus Danionella offers a unique opportunity to compare the neural mechanisms underlying the sound generation between the different species. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. _____ Verity A.N.O. Cook et al. 2024. Ultrafast sound production mechanism in one of the smallest vertebrates. PNAS 121 (10): e2314017121; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2314017121 Fresh fruit is always available. Recharge your batteries in our coffee corner. Pool and foosball area to relax. Gym pass included. Some young companies (and other not-so-young companies operating in creative sectors) include such incentives in their job announcements on LinkedIn. They do not indicate financial rewards, but they do provide an attractive or superfluous package (depending on how you look at it) that can be taken in several ways. The first interpretation has to do with projecting a different work environment as compared to that of large corporations. To attract young and creative talent, incentives such as coffee corners or fruit trays may sometimes seem superficial, but they are part of a broader offer aimed at creating a pleasant and stimulating work environment. And that means that companies, especially start-ups, are paying more attention to employee well-being by offering amenities, says Israel Carrasco, a professor in the Human Resources Management masters degree program at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR) and a Happyforce associate. A second interpretation can be associated with the low budgets that companies have when their business is just starting. Borja Ussia, the CEO of RightHand, a digital talent recruitment and development company, explains: Companies that are just starting out have to compete beyond salaries. More and more, things that used to remain in the personal sphere are being incorporated into the work environment: free coffee or fruit are details that show you how youre valued to make you feel at ease. Do you feel more cared for and valued by these actions? Generally no, but when you feel at ease, your performance is better, and small details sometimes achieve great things. Another question is whether its necessary to add such perks in a job description. A lot of fruit can be indigestible sometimes and other times it makes your day. As with greenwashing marketing techniques used by companies to present their products as more environmentally friendly than they are a similar approach is starting to be used in the workplace: healthwashing. Amid the mental health debate, companies are becoming more aware of their employees needs and well-being. The problem arises when, to use Ussias metaphor, the fruit stops being enjoyable and becomes indigestible. Thats when those job offers, no matter how good they may look, are not consistent with the substance of their actions. Once they sell you on the job, when you are at the company you see that it is a completely different reality, hiding not very ethical practices. Ultimately, from my perspective, it has to do with whether these are authentic, sustainable and consistent with the organizational culture, says Carrasco. Companies no longer stake their reputation only with their customers, but also with their employees: On Glassdoor, for example, you see a lot of opinions for or against, even assessments of what your company and your wellness policies are like. And everything you say you are, you really are, with opinions based on feedback from people who have already worked there, he adds. Colloquialisms and emojis Another tactic new recruiters employ is the use of colloquial language and sometimes even emojis. We throw you out of the office on Fridays at 2 p.m., reads a LinkedIn job posting with a picture of running sneakers. In a work environment, throwing someone out is, perhaps, the most frightening phrase, but some companies now dare to use it to make it clear that they respect the schedule at the office. Emojis are nice extras, but we cannot forget that the important thing is making the description of the job and the company clear. Dont let the form distract from the substance. In general, start-ups use informal and authentic language to attract employees, emphasizing innovation, transparency and collaborative culture, Ussia explains. When you see an offer with emojis and a more informal tone, it is because they want to convey a closeness to the candidate, to say that we are authentic here and that you can be yourself from the beginning. But often that is not the most appropriate language, which is why it is good to contact specialized companies that can propose and attract diverse talent that can really help the company add value. Some young companies (and some not-so-young companies operating in creative sectors) include incentives in the jobs they offer. Willie B. Thomas (Getty Images) Language matters. Products are no longer the best on the market, but the ones that rock the most. And hierarchies disappear to form one big family. A nuclear family is made up of between 3 and 20 people, for example. The metaphor here could be that we are small and therefore horizontal. You can access everyone, and we are going to have a super-close relationship, says Carrasco, who sees more in transferring the concept of family to the workplace. But if we are a family, what wouldnt you do for your family? That would lead us to see the hired persons availability as far beyond working hours and the office. Carrasco also believes that this small nucleus that may exist at the beginning will end up being lost with an increase in business: This is lost with the growth of the start-up itself. At the beginning there were five of us, but then there are 50 of us and I no longer talk to everyone. Then we are no longer a family, and we start to be a company. And that is something that start-ups have to be careful of because there is a change between the expectations and idealism at the beginning and what it becomes in the end, with departments, structure, bureaucracy, hierarchy .... And there can also be a lack of commitment and the possible departure of founders or people who were there at the beginning. And then come the new hires. Company seeks superheroes In addition to the job insecurity that young people experience, there is also the frustration caused by impossible job announcements. Some companies are looking for recent graduates with extensive work experience, a vast network of contacts, several specializations and native fluency in several languages, as if you can be born in several places at the same time. The gurus say that talent is scarce. I dont think its scarce, but rather that were asking [the impossible]. We want a junior person to come in with 10 years of experience, five degrees, three languages, and to be paid 600 euros for an internship. Thats not talent, and its illegal. Companies have to start describing and specifying more: what is the talent they need to fill a certain job or a certain function. And I will be able to compare the ideal talent with the people who are applying for the position and start determining and evaluating. Sometimes I think that they shoot for the moon, and we real people fall far short of that ideal profile, which is almost impossible to meet, says Carrasco. The new offices also have different environments for relaxing or a change of scenery. Portra (Getty Images) For his part, Ussia recognizes that these cases can occur due to a lack of organization: Sometimes you come across offers that seem to ask for superheroes. That can be a sign that we need to adjust our expectations or that there is a lack of organization. We want to find the ideal candidate, but without making it seem like an impossible mission. He adds that, to achieve this, the offer should be clear and sincere, as if we were chatting with you over coffee. We want you to know exactly what to expect, from the job responsibilities to what you can expect from us in terms of salary and benefits. We want you to be excited about joining our team, and that starts with being honest with you up front. The RightHand CEO further emphasizes that a job search should never be one-way: The company is looking for a certain profile, but the candidate should also be able to decide if the position is the right fit for his or her career. Carrasco adds: There is more balance between supply and demand, and thats very good because there is a negotiation. Its no longer, Hey, this is whats available, but rather we enter into a negotiation of what Im offering you, how you value it and whether I feel comfortable working with you. In other words, the win-win mentality of which the new job listings speak. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition On February 26, Intuitive Machines reported on X (previously Twitter) that Odysseus continues communication with ground control after a slightly unconventional lunar landing. Impressively, Odysseus transmitted moon images as it approached the end of its operational life. Intuitive Machines released new photos of the seldom-explored lunar south pole on Tuesday, February 27. First Private Moon Lander Transmits Images As It Approaches Conclusion Intuitive Machines holds the distinction of being the first private business to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon without any crashes. Despite its tilted position, Odysseus' moon lander still managed to transmit two images on Monday. One photograph captured its approach to the landing site, known as Malapert A, while the other provided the first close-up view of the lunar surface. The moon lander, which touched down on its side, overcame communication and power generation challenges to share additional images just hours before its anticipated shutdown. A day later, Intuitive Machines released the new moon photos, showcasing the unexplored south polar region. Odysseus, belonging to the company, took these shots last Thursday, marking a significant milestone as it accomplished the first U.S. moon landing in more than five decades. The unique landing orientation of Odysseus presented difficulties in communication and power generation due to its side position. Flight Controllers continue to communicate with Odysseus. This morning, Odysseus efficiently sent payload science data and imagery in furtherance of the Companys mission objectives. Flight controllers are working on final determination of battery life on the lander, which may pic.twitter.com/EbZ1NNOrvO February 27, 2024 The end of operations for Odysseus is imminent, scheduled to occur when sunlight no longer reaches the lander's solar panels. Intuitive Machines anticipates this shutdown to take place between Tuesday afternoon and early Wednesday. The mission, aligned with NASA's lunar economy initiative, originally aimed to extend until Thursday, concluding with the onset of lunar nighttime. Notably, the lander hosted six experiments from NASA as part of this lunar exploration effort. Despite the challenges, Odysseus' accomplishments and the images it transmitted contributed valuable data to lunar exploration efforts. READ ALSO: Pioneering Moon Lander, Odysseus, Shares Captivating First Photos of Earth from Space What Happened to Intuitive Machines' Odysseus Moon Lander? NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, in orbit since 2009, captured images of Odysseus from 56 miles above the moon. The confirmation by Intuitive Machines revealed a successful landing at 80.13S and 1.44E, within 1.5 km of the intended site. Despite a twisty landing on Feb. 22, Odysseus achieved precision after a 600,000-mile journey. When Odysseus made its intricate landing on the lunar surface, initial excitement turned into perplexity as the lander failed to communicate immediately. A temporary loss of signal during the broadcast heightened tension, given the recent malfunction of Odysseus' laser rangefinders, crucial for determining its position and speed. Engineers repurposed the Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing, overcoming the challenge and allowing Odysseus to serve as a functional lunar mission despite landing on its side. The spacecraft's faint signal further complicated matters, but a thorough investigation confirmed its successful lunar arrival. Despite challenges, Odysseus succeeded in science investigations and pinpointing landing sites with Navigation Doppler Lidar. The mission marks Odysseus as the first private moon spacecraft, a win for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. RELATED ARTICLE: First Private Moon Lander Successfully Lands but Tips Over; NASA Confirms Spacecraft Still 'Alive and Well' Check out more news and information on Moon Landing in Science Times. Abu Dhabi Airports and Burjeel Holdings have announced a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance and streamline healthcare for passengers at Zayed International Airport, adding to the range of state-of-the-art facilities available at the recently opened terminal, a report said. The agreement that was signed between Elena Sorlini, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at Abu Dhabi Airports, and Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, Founder and Chairman of Burjeel Holdings, will bring the industry-leading healthcare expertise at Burjeel Holdings to the cutting-edge facilities available at Zayed International, Emirates News Agency, WAM, said. Abu Dhabi Airports and Burjeel Holdings will collaborate to open and operate a clinic at the Zayed International Airport. Under BMC (Burjeel Medical City), the flagship facility of Burjeel Holdings, the clinic will offer 24/7 high-quality medical care to passengers. Operating round the clock, it will ensure guests have immediate access to healthcare without needing to leave the airport, maximising the safety and minimising the potential travel disruptions for those seeking treatment. This will include free healthcare to stabilise passengers conditions, before being transferred to hospital. The clinic is connected to the world-class facilities and expertise available at the nearby BMC, for those requiring hospitalisation. Additional benefits will also be available to Abu Dhabi Airports staff members and their families. Sorlini said: "We are pleased to partner with Burjeel Holdings and BMC to enhance healthcare services at Zayed International Airport. This partnership further showcases our commitment at Abu Dhabi Airports to prioritise passengers well-being and provide a world-leading airport experience. We are excited by the opportunities to advance healthcare options at our airport and will continue to innovate across the aviation ecosystem to strengthen Abu Dhabis global standing as a tourism and aviation hub." The partnership aims to offer a wide range of medical services, and as part of the collaboration, staff at Abu Dhabi Airports will also benefit from premium healthcare services provided by Burjeel Hospitals across various locations in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Northern Emirates. Dr Shamsheer said: We are proud to collaborate with Abu Dhabi Airports Company to offer unparalleled healthcare services within one of the world's most dynamic airport environments. Through our state-of-the-art facility, backed by an integrated network, we aim to enhance the travel experience and also nurture a healthier, safer airport community. Zayed International Airport is one of the largest airport terminals in the world. With the capacity to welcome up to 45 million passengers per year and integrating the latest biometric and screening technology creating a seamless passenger experience from door to destination. Since the 1990s, the dengue virus has been a latent threat to Peruvians. But as often happens with other emergencies, it usually catches the government off guard; authorities spring into action in a race against the clock when the situation has already escalated. After an alarming 2023, with 18 deaths and 12,264 infections due to the Aedes aegypti mosquito, specialists had issued clear recommendations on what to do to prevent similar future harm to public health. Among these recommendation were prevention measures, purchase of medicines, communication strategies, improvement of infrastructure, training of professionals, and greater access of the population to safe drinking water, since the mosquito deposits its eggs in stagnant waters. However, the authorities response has once again been slow. On February 5, when cases had already skyrocketed and a dozen deaths had been reported, Health Minister Cesar Vasquez Sanchez denied that there was an epidemic, and said it was still not necessary to declare an emergency. Three weeks later, the government has backtracked and admitted the crisis by declaring a state of emergency in 20 regions for a period of 90 days. In just two months, dengue fever has killed more Peruvians than in all of 2023: 32 confirmed deaths, with eight more under investigation and 31,364 infections. Compared with the same period of time last year, there has been an increase of 97%. There is not yet an epidemic situation in Lima, but we cannot wait for an unsustainable situation. That is why instead of declaring an emergency in the five regions where there are the most cases, we have decided to extend it to the 20 that are at imminent risk and where contagion can grow, said Minister Vasquez. According to the National Center for Epidemiology, Prevention and Disease Control, the regions where the virus has spread the most in the first seven weeks of the year are: La Libertad (4,207), Piura (4,155), Ica (3,313), Ancash (2,462) , San Martin (1,633) and Lima (1,495). Patients suffering from dengue lie in beds in provisional tents at the Health Ministry in Piura, Peru, June 3, 2023. Martin Mejia (AP) The coastal region of La Libertad had barely registered 14 cases at this point in time last year. Ancash only had three infected people and Lima, 22. The forecasts are not encouraging at all. And the health minister has not been able to conceal it: March and April are going to be much tougher, he said briefly about the surge of the contagion curve. Adding to the healthcare deficiencies are the weather conditions: cities have become ovens, and the El Nino phenomenon has brought intense rain. As the temperature increases, the regiment of adult mosquitoes is expanding. Their development, which previously took a week, is now down to three days on average. In Peru there are regions where running water is scarce, and people store water in buckets and other containers that can end up becoming a source of dengue. According to the National Superintendency of Sanitation Services (Sunass), 3.3 million Peruvians still lack access to a public drinking water network, and 6.4 million do not have sewage connections. For infectious disease specialist Juan Carlos Celis, the most important thing is to ensure hospital care rather than fumigation. It is already late for fumigation campaigns. What is needed are complete dengue units: 12 beds, five doctors, five nurses and 10 technicians. All trained. For 30 hospitalized patients, a minimum of two complete teams. Unfortunately, history repeats itself, he notes. Three of the four known dengue serotypes are currently circulating in Peru: DENV-1, DENV-2 and DENV-3. The most common symptoms of dengue are a high fever, muscle pain, a rash, dehydration and headaches. If not treated promptly, complications can set in and compromise vital organs, in addition to triggering effects on the nervous system and leading to a significant decrease in blood platelets. According to the Pan-American Health Organization, until the sixth week of 2024, Peru registered the highest fatality rate in South America and the third in the entire continent: 0.1167, just below Panama (0.1916) and Honduras (0.1411). These days, with the wind blowing against it, the health ministry is attempting to change the curve through training and talks on how to identify and eradicate mosquito breeding sites. Married couple Rachel and David Edry survived inside their home in the city of Ofakim for 15 hours with five Hamas militiamen on October 7. She cooked for them, sang to them, and communicated with them in rudimentary Arabic. Later, police and civilians stormed the house. If we die, we die together, she thought at the time, according to her testimony to local media. The armed Islamists were annihilated and the couple emerged unscathed with Rachel becoming a national hero. On February 27, an obituary on the gate of the house still riddled with bullet holes from the attacks announced that David had died the day before. The couples neighbors lamented the fact that he survived the massacre and yet, less than five months later, he will be buried. February 27 was municipal election day in Israel. In Ofakim and other cities, the faces of the electoral candidates form a mosaic in the streets that clashes with the omnipresent images of the 240 hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas last October. In the Mishor Hagefen neighborhood of Ofakim, the atmosphere remains tense. David Edrys death is just a drop in the bucket of grief and pain. Were just like we were that day. We havent just snapped out of it, sighs Ilana Bugnik, 60, who lives two houses down the road from the Edry family. She responds reluctantly when asked about the polls. I dont feel like going to vote. If at all, later, she says, more focused on explaining that she is being assisted by a social worker and that local residents are asking for more help. We have become sad people. We live in a lot of fear and we dont feel like doing anything, adds Mazal Yosef, 38, as she points to her apartment in the block across the street. This area was a living hell that fateful Saturday in October 2023, when the war began with the deaths of 1,200 Israelis in the attacks by Palestinian extremists. Our hearts ache for the dead and we thank those who saved us, adds Yosef, who has not gone to exercise her right to vote either. The face of the current mayor, Itzik Danino, who is running for reelection, is displayed on canvases in almost every street. His chief of staff, Asaf Maze, 42, optimistically defends his wartime management. October 7 changed everything. People assume that life goes on and we want to come out of all this stronger. Voting helps us to look to the future and fight the pain, she says, in an attempt to cling to the path of normalcy that the women in the Mishor Hagefen neighborhood see as such a distant prospect. But it is not easy. Smadar Dahan, 55, says she still suffers nightmares when she remembers coming face to face with Hamas fighters. It was like watching a movie, she recalls, while also closing ranks around Danino. A poster of a Gaza hostage alongside images of candidates during the municipal elections in Ashkelon. Luis de Vega Elections take a back seat Ofakim, 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) as the crow flies from Gaza and with a population of around 25,000 people, was the farthest point in the Palestinian enclave that Hamas managed to hit on October 7. The municipal elections, scheduled for October 31, were postponed first to January and then to February 27 because of the ongoing conflict. Although thousands of inhabitants fled, Ofakim was not officially evacuated, unlike other localities closer to the Gaza Strip and the border with Lebanon, where mayors and other officials will not be elected until November. In the rest of the country, the elections were held in a rarefied atmosphere. Everyones thoughts are occupied by the war, so the call to the ballot box has taken a back seat. At 7 p.m. local time Thursday, turnout stood at 41%, eight percentage points lower than at the same time in the previous elections in 2018. In Israel, election day is declared a public holiday, but many preferred to take advantage to go to shopping malls or shelter at home from the rain and cold outside. In a further example of the anomaly of the situation, Israeli soldiers have been able to cast their vote even inside Gaza, by a system known as double envelopes, which is also used by diplomats and prisoners and computed at the end of the poll. Turnout was particularly low in the large cities. In Tel Aviv and Haifa, for example, it did not reach 30%. In the days leading up to the vote, fears circulated that the Lebanese militia Hezbollah would take advantage of election day to launch rocket attacks against the center of the country. In addition, the forum representing the families of some 130 hostages still held captive in Gaza deployed activists in the streets to insist that the apparent normality of holding elections does not mean they should be forgotten. We elected the hostages was the slogan they sported on T-shirts. Sderot, the Israeli city closest to Gaza, is one of the places where the ballot boxes will have to wait. Nevertheless, the population has begun to return, cranes are working on buildings under construction, and the shopping center has reopened in a town that almost borders the Palestinian enclave. Some of its houses are just over a kilometer (0.62 miles) away. Elsayaf Levi is a military reservist whom the Hamas attack turned into a tank commander. Over these four long months, he has fought in Gaza, but has not returned to his home in Sderot. He is taking advantage of a few days of leave to accompany his wife to pick up some household goods, but for the time being they will continue to live with relatives. A memorial near the border with Gaza for one of the victims of the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. Luis de Vega In Ashkelon, a coastal city located about ten kilometers (6.2 miles) north of Gaza, even before the war residents were accustomed to living under the threat of rockets fired by Hamas. A well-oiled security protocol is in place, and it is not something they have to prepare for on an occasion such as election day. In the first 10 days of the war alone, more than 1,000 rockets were fired at the city from Gaza, according to figures provided by the authorities. If they fire and the alarms go off, we have about 20 seconds to get to the shelter, says Yosef Kooper, 18, pointing to his left at the ORT Adivi school, one of the voting centers. The young man, wearing a fluorescent vest, is one of those helping voters figure out where to cast their ballot. The flow of voters is constant, but without large crowds. Before entering the classrooms where the ballot boxes are located, they pass the faces of those kidnapped by Hamas, which are hung in the schoolyard on a tarpaulin. The black sky unloads a downpour that is almost welcome among those entering and leaving the center. They know the rain could just as easily be missiles. They are warned in case of an attack, which would force voting to be interrupted. If the sirens go off, we run to the shelter, find a wall, or just drop to the ground, explains Robert Sufaru, 75, who was born in Romania and came to Israel when he was three. We are calm. Life must go on, he stresses. Im not afraid, but I dont want to be reminded that we are at war, says Seagal Shalom, a 53-year-old woman who, like Sufaru, supports the re-election of the current mayor of Ashkelon, Tomer Glam. Following the asphalt to the south, around the perimeter of Gaza, the clouds offer some respite. For a few seconds, the suns rays illuminate the buildings of the enclave, where almost 30,000 Palestinians have died in the current conflict. Military checkpoints increase and drones and helicopters buzz in the sky, while every now and then tanks rumble, leaving a trail of black smoke in the air. Some onlookers, equipped with binoculars, stop their car to contemplate the spectacle of war for a few minutes. A man armed with a rifle addresses about 20 visitors at a gas station at the entrance to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, barely 1,000 meters from the fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip and one of the scenes of the carnage unleashed by Hamas. And this is what happened on October 7, the guide concludes amid the silence of those present. The number of babies born in Japan last year fell for an eighth straight year to a new low, government data showed Tuesday, and a top official said it was critical for the country to reverse the trend in the coming half-dozen years. The 758,631 babies born in Japan in 2023 were a 5.1% decline from the previous year, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry. It was the lowest number of births since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899. The number of marriages fell by 5.9% to 489,281 couples, falling below a half-million for the first time in 90 years one of the key reasons for the declining births. Out-of-wedlock births are rare in Japan because of family values based on a paternalistic tradition. Surveys show that many younger Japanese balk at marrying or having families, discouraged by bleak job prospects, the high cost of living that rises at a faster pace than salaries and corporate cultures that are not compatible with having both parents work. Crying babies and children playing outside are increasingly considered a nuisance, and many young parents say they often feel isolated. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters Tuesday that the ongoing declining birth rate is at critical state. The period over the next six years or so until 2030s, when the younger population will start declining rapidly, will be the last chance we may be able to reverse the trend, he said. There is no time to waste. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has called the low births the biggest crisis Japan faces, and put forward a package of measures that have included more support and subsidies mostly for childbirth, children and their families. But experts say they doubt whether the governments efforts will be effective because so far they have largely focused on people who already are married or already are planning to have children, while not adequately addressing a growing population of young people who are reluctant to go that far. The number of births has been falling since 50 years ago, when it peaked at about 2.1 million. The decline to an annual number below 760,000 has happened faster than earlier projections predicting that would happen by 2035. Japans population of more than 125 million is projected to fall by about 30% to 87 million by 2070, with four out of every 10 people at age 65 or older. A shrinking and aging population has big implications for the economy and for national security as the country seeks to fortify its military to counter Chinas increasingly assertive territorial ambitions. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition Pop-music spotlight Latest Madonna tour repped the Bay Area long before SF stop Courtesy Alexis Jeanell Marshall Oakland-born artist Matanda Keyes, who began making jewelry four years ago, is now based out of a basement studio in a Brooklyn brownstone. Madonna will stop in San Francisco for back-to-back shows at Chase Center this week, but her Celebration Tour has held close ties to the Bay Area ever since it launched last October. Matanda Keyes, an Oakland-born visual and musical artist now based in Brooklyn, worked alongside Madonnas team to design and handcraft jewelry for the worldwide tour. He designed pieces for Mercy James, one of Madonnas daughters and the tours featured pianist, as well as Matthew Jamal, the tours featured cellist who reached out to Keyes with the project. Made of sterling silver and recycled materials, Keyes jewelry pays homage to Madonnas decadeslong musical career and New York City, where she got her start. Some of his designs use a technique that involves wrapping a wire around bigger parts of a rings object, forming a fence-like structure. From there, Keyes hits the head with a torch so that the piece melts away and more natural shapes arise. A prong setting on one ring, Keyes said, alludes to elegance and New Yorks energy in the 1980s, when Madonna wasnt yet a one-name superstar, while another ring offers contrast with one half made of fully polished sterling silver and the other half made of its half-oxidized form. This was the type of project that you dont know what the final production is going to look like until its literally on the stage because everyone is working up to the last minute, said Keyes, who used overnight shipping to get his pieces to Londons O2 Arena in time for the tours opening last fall. Its kind of like a puzzle that you have to decode and everyone is working on multiples of things at once, he said. Keyes, 25, grew up in Oakland before moving to New York six years ago to attend the Manhattan School of Music on a full scholarship. His creative journey began taking shape as a toddler, when Keyes said his father would blast Miles Davis on speakers as the two ran around their house. When he was 4, Keyes father bought him a drum set after noticing during a trip to Disneyland that his son would make rhythms out of any object that made noise. Keyes mother would give him papers and other pictures to cut up for art projects, and she also taught her son how to use a sewing machine. Keyes credits his immediate family and the Bay Area for cultivating his artistic career. Time spent in the Oakland Unified School District, as well as the Oaktown Jazz Workshop and the Oakland Symphonys Eastside All-Star Jazz Ensemble, allowed Keyes to further study music. As a high-school student, Keyes was a percussionist in the SFJAZZ Centers High School All-Stars Big Band and Combo between 2015 and 2017. Rebeca Mauleon, SFJAZZs director of education, said Keyes was a trendsetter, both in terms of the way he played, and also his fashion choices. He once wore an ascot to a performance, which Mauleon said was a moment of recognition that students at Keyes age already had creative choices and wherewithal. The center wanted to hold space for that. He kind of helped us recalibrate our requirement for the students and what they would wear onstage, Mauleon said. Keyes began making jewelry four years ago and now operates out of a basement studio in a Brooklyn brownstone. His endeavor with Madonnas tour launched his newest multimedia project, Parsody, a word Keyes made up to reflect the relationship between musical sounds and physical objects. As he did with the Queen of Pop, Keyes will collaborate with musical artists in New York and the Bay Area for sets of specially designed pieces known as capsules. The pieces will be made primarily from recycled materials jewelry, textiles and other found objects and use fringe techniques such as spectroscopic imaging to share information on the elements and materials used in the process. Courtesy Matanda Keyes One of Keyes pieces was designed around a green stone that came from an old piece of jewelry. One half of the ring is made of polished sterling silver while the other half features its oxidized form. Keyes said that as he builds on this new chapter in visual artistry, he is still keeping Oakland at the forefront of his creativity. The citys history, he said, is baked into him on a subconscious level thanks to the stories his uncles, aunts and other family members shared as he was growing up. Occasional trips to the Bay Area are in Keyes future. Mauleon told The Examiner that Keyes is now a faculty mentor for students when the SFJAZZ Center hosts free summer workshops. He is also an alumni ambassador, meaning that Keyes visits Bay Area schools when available so that young kids of color can see themselves represented in the program. I hope to bring the things that I gained from that back to Oakland when its time for me to do so, Keyes said. Voting is using your voice to be heard, and its the most defining aspect of our democracy, says Monica Lewinsky on the website of Reformation, the California fashion company whose latest campaign she stars in. The brand, born as a vintage clothing company in Los Angeles in 2009, explains the reason for choosing Lewinsky: Monicas been empowering women to use their voices and feel powerful for a long time. So it just makes sense that shed help us do the same. And while great clothes wont fix everything, putting them on and going to the polls is a pretty good place to start. Its all part of an initiative by the brand and Vote.org to encourage people to register to vote at the presidential election on November 5. Lewinsky, born in San Francisco 50 years ago, went down in history at the age of 22, when she was working as an intern in the White House, and it emerged that she had had sexual encounters in the Oval Office with the then president, Bill Clinton, who was 51 at the time. Clinton had been accused of sexual harassment by Paula Jones and the case ended in an impeachment. A report by the independent counsel Kenneth Starr brought to light the relationship with Lewinsky, which Clinton denied. One of the crucial pieces of evidence in the case was a blue dress from the Gap clothing store with semen stains that Lewinsky had kept. The young woman went through intense public humiliation, went on to study psychology in London and has since focused her work on activism against harassment and bullying. That Lewinsky should re-emerge now with a campaign like Reformations does not seem like a coincidence. In a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair, she said that people had been telling her story for decades, and that it was not until recently that shed been able to get her own narrative back. At the time of the interview, it had emerged that she would be producing the third installment of Ryan Murphys series American Crime Story, which centered on Bill Clintons impeachment trial. In 2021 Lewinsky also co-produced a documentary about her story called 15 Minutes of Shame. Imagine waking up with the whole world talking about you because your mistake, your secret, has now been made public. Trust me, I know a little something about this. I was patient zero of having a reputation destroyed because of the internet. And I would not be the last, says her voice in off as the documentary begins. The Reformation campaign takes up the idea of recovering ones narrative: now, instead of hiding her clothes, Lewinsky wears them proudly. In the Instagram post she shared to publicize the campaign, she says: @monica_lewinsky and @votedotorg are here to remind you that youve got the power. Voting is always important, but the stakes are especially high this year with voter frustration and apathy threatening to meaningfully impact turnout. Im excited and grateful to be working with Reformation to remind people to register, use their voice and vote! A Ref woman is an empowered woman and an empowered woman uses her voice, said Lewinsky in statements to Variety magazine. The campaign images show a confident Lewinsky posing against a gray background or in front of the glass windows of a building surrounded by skyscrapers. Lewinsky, in a Mikol dress (left) and in a Caiden two-piece set from Reformation. Reformation It is not the first impactful campaign that Reformation has come up with. In 2018, they had a viral hit with their wedding dress collection starring a couple of lesbian models, Erika and Heather, who were also a couple in real life. We make everything from low-impact materials, rescued deadstock fabrics, and repurposed vintage clothing, says the company on its website. We get to know all of our partners, so we can answer who made our clothes at every level of the supply chain, and ensure positive environmental and social impacts of our stuff. That message has resonated with many celebrities: Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Karlie Kloss, Alexa Chung and Chloe Grace Moretz are some of the celebrities who have worn outfits made by the brand that The New York Times has described as an Eco label the cool girls pick. Two images from the campaign. Reformation All eyes on Wednesday will be on a revised reading for fourth quarter U.S. gross domestic product growth. The data will be followed by a string of speeches by top Fed officials, starting from 1700 GMT with Atlanta Fed chief Raphael Bostic. Earlier, at 1000 GMT, the European Commission will release its economic sentiment index for the single currency bloc covering the month of February. No major economic releases are scheduled in the U.K.. Overnight, rate-setters in New Zealand will meet to decide on policy. On the corporate side of things, Reckitt Benckiser will post its full-year figures. The consumer goods producer is expected to announce a 2.0% rise in revenues to reach 14.75bn, for roughly unchanged earnings before tax and interest of about 3.45bn. UBS analyst Guillaume Delmas estimated that the company's like-for-like sales would be up by 1.8% over the three months to December. Sales in the Hygiene division were expected to offset weakness in Nutrition. Wednesday 28 February INTERIMS Avingtrans, Bluefield Solar Income Fund Limited, Grit Real Estate Income Group Limited NPV, Just Eat Takeaway.Com N.V. (CDI) QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE Canadian General Investments Ltd., Petrotal Corporation NPV (DI) INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Business Climate Indicator (EU) (10:00) Consumer Confidence (EU) (10:00) Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30) Economic Sentiment Indicator (EU) (10:00) GDP (Preliminary) (US) (13:30) Industrial Confidence (EU) (10:00) MBA Mortgage Applications (US) (12:00) Personal Income (US) (13:30) Personal Spending (US) (13:30) Services Sentiment (EU) (10:00) GMS Abrdn Property Income Trust Limited , Jersey Electricity 'A' Shares, Verditek FINALS AB Ignitis Grupe GDR (Reg S), Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings, Derwent London, Glenveagh Properties (CDI), Harmony Energy Income Trust, London Stock Exchange Group, Primary Health Properties, Reckitt Benckiser Group, RHI Magnesita N.V. (DI), St James's Place, Taylor Wimpey, The Renewables Infrastructure Group Limited EGMS Beacon Rise Holdings , PPHE Hotel Group Ltd AGMS AB Dynamics, AB Dynamics, AB Dynamics, Image Scan Holdings Customer service levels at HM Revenue and Customs have sunk to an all-time low, parliaments spending watchdog has said. Users regularly encounter long call-waiting times as the tax department apparently struggles to cope with demand, a report by the cross-party public accounts committee (PAC) has found. As demands on HMRC grow, the authority has not been given the resources needed to staff its phone lines, the report said. Guardian Deep cuts to government funding have led a council in south London to ask its residents to invest their own money, for a financial return, to build cycle hangars, new LED street lighting and green upgrades at schools and leisure centres. In the midst of a financial crisis hitting town halls across England, councillors in Southwark have resorted to a crowdfunding scheme to raise 6m over the next six years to help fund climate-friendly projects. Guardian Britain is poised to launch an investigation into cheap Chinese electric vehicles coming onto the market amid fears a flood of cars subsidised by Beijing will destroy local manufacturing. On Tuesday it emerged that officials at the Department for Business and Trade have discussed an intervention amid concerns that China has given its car makers an unfair advantage through vast subsidies. Telegraph High street banks shut more than 140,000 accounts held by small businesses last year, according to figures obtained by MPs that will fuel concerns about debanking. Eight banks disclosed account closure data to the Commons Treasury committee after requests for information from the MPs, who are scrutinising the financing for small and medium-sized enterprises. The Times The buy now, pay later group Klarna is using an AI-powered chatbot to handle two thirds of its customer service inquiries, doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents. The Swedish fintech, which has 150 million customers worldwide, collaborated with OpenAI to build the AI assistant for customer service chats on its app. The Times A bill that seeks to make it legal to kill immigrants if they trespass on private property is advancing through the Arizona state House, which is controlled by the Republican Party. The controversial initiative would alter the states existing Castle Doctrine law, which lets residents use deadly force against people who are breaking into their home. The states Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, has promised to veto the law if it is approved by the state Senate. House Bill 2843 wants to expand the rights of Arizona landowners against an uptick in migrants from Mexico. The Castle Doctrine allows the use of deadly force against anyone who invades property or has the criminal intent to do so. As it is worded now, the law requires the intruder to be both on the land and in the residence or other structure designed for habitation. Republican lawmaker Justin Heap wants to expand the interpretation of the doctrine by modifying a few words to make the law more permissive to the use of force, which would be allowed whether the intruder is inside someones residence or on their land. If a farmer owns 10,000 acres of farmland, his home may be a half a mile away from where he is, and if he sees someone on his land, can he approach them and (remove) them from his property? This is an amendment to fix that, Heap told the House Judiciary Committee on February 14. The representative from Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, said the goal of his proposal was to correct a loophole in the law that has led to a growing number of immigrants and human traffickers who are moving through ranches and farms. Last week, the House voted on a series of harsh measures to stop the migratory flow. Democratic legislators considered that the rules approved by the Republican majority are based on the controversial SB 1070, which criminalized undocumented immigrants in 2010 and was later revoked after several federal appeals. We continue to talk about the migrants who are flooding our country as if they were agricultural workers from Guatemala looking for a better life [...] when what is happening on the southern border is a humanitarian crisis, Heaps said last week. The congressman asserted that immigrants from Senegal, Bangladesh and China are arriving in the area. Heaps proposal comes a few day before an Arizona court holds a trial that will gain national attention. George Alan Kelly, a 73-year-old rancher, will be sitting in the dock on March 21 charged with second-degree murder. In January 2023, Kelly shot a group of migrants crossing his ranch on the outskirts of Nogales. Gabriel Cuen Buitimea, 48, died in the incident. Far-right sectors consider Kelly a hero who defended American territory from an invasion. Prosecutors, however, argue that Kelly was motivated by racism. The trial was going to take place last year, but a series of motions in the courts postponed it until this spring, when it will take place in the middle of a presidential campaign where immigration from Mexico has become a priority concern for voters. If you are residing in the Silicon Valley of India i.e Bangalore, finding exceptional interior designers in Whitefield is now made easier with Asense Interior. Since its establishment in 2012, Asense Interior has established itself as a prominent name in the field of interior design, offering a unique blend of creativity and excellence that sets them apart in the competitive market.Asense Interior has made its name from their work and now act as one of the leading interior design firms in Whitefield, offering unparalleled design experiences, client satisfaction, and innovation in the field of interior designing. As one of Whitefield's leading interior design firms, Asense Interior prides itself on a team of highly skilled designers who bring creativity, innovation, and a profound understanding of design principles to the table. Their diverse portfolio showcases the firm's versatility and proficiency in creating distinct and appealing designs, making them a top choice for those seeking top-tier interior designers in Whitefield. What truly distinguishes Asense Interior is their client-centric approach. Understanding the client's needs, preferences, and budget constraints is prioritized throughout the entire design process. Active communication and collaboration ensure that the final outcome not only meets but exceeds the client's expectations. As part of their commitment to a customer-centric experience, Asense Interior provides an innovative Design Experience in a spacious 6000-square-foot sanctuary. This allows clients to immerse themselves in various designs and patterns, enabling them to visualize and choose the best options for their space. Quality craftsmanship and materials are non-negotiable for Asense Interior. Whether it's furniture, fixtures, or finishes, the firm emphasizes the use of premium materials to enhance visual appeal while ensuring longevity and durability. This dedication to quality sets them apart as one of the most sought-after interior designers in Whitefield. Asense Interior's reputation is further solidified by the positive reviews and client satisfaction that accompanies their projects. The firm places a high value on client feedback, viewing it not just as a necessity but as a driving force for improvement. This commitment is reflected in the exceptional quality of service and attention to detail that clients consistently praise. Customer satisfaction is not just a priority but a driving force for Asense Interior.They understand that each client has unique needs and aspirations, and they go above and beyond to ensure those expectations are not just met but exceeded. That is why it has gone to new Heights in past years. They have recovered all the loop holes with the feedbacks and now clients reviews are tremendous.The resounding chorus of positive reviews from Asense Interior's satisfied clientele serves as a testament to the exceptional quality and service offered by the firm. Clients consistently praise Asense Interior for their professionalism, attention to detail, and ability to bring their design visions to life. The positive reviews not only speak volumes about Asense Interior's commitment to excellence but also serve as an invaluable source of inspiration and motivation for the team to continue delivering unparalleled design experiences to their clients. In the dynamic city of Whitefield, Bangalore, Asense Interior stands as a trusted ally for those looking to elevate their living spaces. With an understanding of the unique essence of Bangalore's diverse culture and lifestyle, the firm seamlessly fuses creativity, affordability, and unparalleled service. To embark on a transformative design journey with Asense Interior, interested individuals can visit their website at asenseinterior.com and book a consultation today. For media inquiries, the firm can be reached at +917676375901 or through email at adminasense@asenseinterior.com. In conclusion, for anyone in Bangalore in search of top-tier interior designers in Whitefield, Asense Interior offers a winning combination of creativity, affordability, and unmatched expertise. Elevate your living spaces with Asense Interior, where dreams come to life in every design. National Science Day, celebrated on February 28, marks the discovery of the Raman Effect in 1928 by Indian physicist CV Raman. Who rocked the science world in 1928 with the Raman Effect. It's all about how light play actions in clear substance. This National Science Day 2024 theme is "Indigenous Technologies for Viksit Bharat". The day highlights the role of science in simplifying our lives, influence us to appreciate scientists' efforts. It inspires understanding the progress in science and identifying areas for further exploration. Let's proceeds a minute this day to redirect on the power of science and technology in our everyday life and celebrate the influences of scientists to human welfare. In 2024, there are specific cool things happening with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Imagine this: excellent smart machines are currently part of our everyday life, like having a helper that not simply recognizes how we talk but also studies and adapts to our habits, making things easier and just for us. It's like tech is becoming a regular part of our day, and AI is making things way better than we ever thought possible. This science festival is all about celebrating what we've achieved in science, talking about new and cool technologies, and giving a space for people who love science. On this day, there are lots of different things happening, like students showing off their science projects, scientists sharing their research, and all varieties of activities like speeches, exhibitions, debates, quizzes, and talks. Science centers all over the country, run by the National Council of Science Museums, join in to make these events happen. It's a way to get everyone interested and excited about science and technology. On National Science Day, let's talk about the remarkable things that our Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is doing in space exploration. The coming NISAR mission, fixed to launch in March 2024 with NASA, is a great deal, presenting how India is touching forward in remote recognizing technology. ISRO's approach, using satellites with extra jobs, proves they're serious about scientific study. They've aced lunar missions, and the ongoing space adventures make ISRO a top player globally, inspiring other countries to team up for science. Huge cheers for Chandrayaan-3, which secured a perfect landing near the moon's South Pole on July 14, 2023. It proves India's dedication to exploring the moon. The careful landing of the Vikram lander, packed with extra features, and the laser experiment with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show how ISRO rocks in tech and teamwork. On National Science Day 2024, as we celebrate our scientific activities, let's shine a light on the unbelievable growth happening in India's education sector. Between April 2000 and September 2023, there was a huge entry of US$ 9.44 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into education, presentation how essential this sector is. Creativities like the Skill India Digital platform and the "Education to Entrepreneurship" partnership are all about making skills better and more innovative. The Union Budget in 2023 putting Rs 1.12 lakh crore (US$ 13.5 billion) into education is a huge step forward. Plans like the National Curriculum Framework for School Education and the National Digital Library show a complete approach to education. On this National Science Day, let's realize how science, tech, and innovation are making our education system ready for an awesome future in the 21st century. National Science Day is a big deal in our ever-changing world because it's all about celebrating how science is making a difference in our lives. It's like a boost for science in our country, especially for young people, encouraging them to jump in and use science to solve big problems worldwide. The day also tells us that India is teaming up with other countries to make scientific things happen. We get to hear about the awesome substance Indian scientists are up to, and it makes us feel proud and excited, making kids dream about becoming scientists themselves. Finally Note As we celebrate National Science Day, Chandrayaan-3's success becomes a testament to India's scientific excellence, inspiring future space endeavors and contributing to the global legacy of lunar exploration. Happy National Science Day! STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Allegations that Mayor Adams office ordered fire inspections be fast-tracked for companies and businesses friendly with his administration will not be explored in court, as part of an ongoing age discrimination lawsuit brought forth by FDNY chiefs, the Daily News reported. Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Patria Frias-Colon determined the claims are not necessary to the main arguments within the complaint, and deeming them scandalous and prejudicial to the adversary party. The suit, filed by fire chiefs in March 2023, claims that Commissioner FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh unfairly ousted, demoted or forced them into retirement because they were at or near age 60, the New York Post reported at the time. The so-called Deputy Mayor of Operations list, at the center of the courtroom debate, was allegedly made up of deep-pocketed developers whose inspections were to be bumped up on fire inspectors to-do lists, according to the News. Those claims were highlighted in the ageism suit, and were among several the city asked the court to strike from the 80-page document. (Editors note: This article is part of an Advance/SILive.com Black History Month special series, Impact & Excellence, that profiles Staten Islanders and organizations making important, lasting impact in the arts community. Do you have someone you would like to nominate for a profile? E-mail their name and a brief nomination to tips@siadvance.com.) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. For more than 20 years, Carmen Elias has taught strings to students at Morris Intermediate School (I.S. 61) an arts program that has been at the Brighton Heights middle school for decades. Her love of music and string instruments is evident in her classroom where the passion for music has been passed on to her students. Even the storage rooms are filled instruments like acoustic guitars, cellos, violins, violas and more. During a recent visit to I.S. 61, Elias was surrounded by her eighth-grade students, who have the most experience and instruction thus far, watching and waiting for her to share what they would be practicing. Many started to strum on the side with eyes closed to feel the music too excited to not play their preferred instrument. The classroom filled with a medley of string instruments performing playing music like Dramatic Essay and Dance of the Tumblers. I see a boost in their confidence, said Elias. I see them relating to each other musically, in terms of what music they want to play in class or what music theyre looking at. Some of my students will just start looking up music that theyll hear on YouTube or they hear a recording, and they just are trying to figure it out by ear. Being part of a strings orchestra also builds a community among the students, who rely on each other to perform a piece. Some even stay after school to practice. 18 1 / 18 Staten Island music educator brings joy of strings instruments to students Some students enter the classroom with some musical experience but many do not, Elias explained. They start to enjoy playing it, she said. I know and I tell them I know not all will continue in high school, and thats okay, but I started whatever spark, whatever interest, so that you can support it. Whether thats attending concerts, whether thats supporting your friends who play, and down the road, you have a child, youre going to hopefully push them to do it. In a diverse school like I.S. 61, Elias, who identifies as Afro Latina, explained the importance of representation. Even in the orchestral world, depending on where you go, theres not as much diversity, she said. (Staten Island Advance/Annalise Knudson)Annalise Knudson Elias was first introduced to music, particularly strings, by her father, who played the violin. When I was starting my entry into music in middle school, he was supportive of it, she said. In fact, the violin that I teach on is his violin that he bought during high school. When I started teaching, I was like, I have my viola, but I have to demonstrate on violin. So theres a lot of full-circle moments happening the last few years. And in a diverse school like I.S. 61, Elias, who identifies as Afro Latina, explained the importance of representation. Even in the orchestral world, depending on where you go, theres not as much diversity, she said. Theres been more diversity as Ive gotten older, which is great, because I think theres more of us just pushing the envelope and putting ourselves out there and pushing against those biases or barriers. So, to me, representation matters, understanding where theyre coming from matters. Trying to find connections with those students so they can connect with the music theyre playing. She said she tries to open student minds to other styles of music, adding she offers opinions and suggestions, and feedback, for what students want to play. WERE NOT A MONOLITH Its something that is needed, is wanted, and I think especially the fact that Im Hispanic, so were not a monolith. We come in different shapes and sizes and different colors and different backgrounds, said Elias. Ive noticed a lot more Hispanic students entering into my classroom, and I think the fact that, even when they speak to me in Spanish, they feel okay doing that. She said she makes sure she is exposing her students to opportunities they have in music, if they wish to pursue it. I look this way. I know off the bat that people have their judgments. But I think just me being here, especially for the last 20 years, has mattered a lot Its possible we can do this. Its not just for one specific group of individuals, she said. Her eighth-grade classroom is a culmination of three years of learning such as reading music, understanding how to properly play an instrument like properly balancing the instrument, playing notes and chords, and strumming techniques. Its a skill that Elias said she hopes that students will continue after they graduate from I.S. 61 but opportunities are not as readily available for continued musical instruction in strings on Staten Island. Morris Intermediates string program is one of the few left on the borough, as programs have been dwindling over the last several years. The programs have been shrinking, said Elias. So for years, Ive been saying that Where are the elementary school programs? Where are those programs that are strings that would be feeding in? Do they not exist? Im just standing by myself. WORKING TO EXPAND OFFERINGS Now, Elias is working to expand and offer more strings opportunities to students of all ages on the borough. She has been working with leaders of Staten Islands District 31 to create a strings pipeline program for young people and to gain access and interest in string music at an early age. Coming back from COVID, some of the arts programs have been lessening in elementary schools and even middle schools, said I.S. 61 Principal Kuzaliwa Kojo Campbell. Shes really been giving thought in terms of how to anchor and enhance our young people and the experiences that have been afforded to them. It builds on the city Department of Educations (DOE) Salute to Music Program that offers opportunities for students in grades 4-8 to receive free Saturday morning musical instruction along with peers within their home borough. My idea was I need somehow to expose this to other students on the Island, said Elias. The interest, Elias explained, needs to start at younger ages to continue throughout their middle and high school grades. She worked with Dr. Jessica Engelhart, Staten Islands borough arts director for the city DOE, to introduce a free, beginner program aimed at strings instruction for kids in grades 4-8 on Saturday mornings. That program had more than 300 interested applicants which was narrowed down to the 30 available slots. Elias is working to expand and offer more strings opportunities to students of all ages across Staten Island. She has been working with leaders of the borough's District 31 to create a strings pipeline program for young people and to gain access and interest in string music at an early age. (Staten Island Advance/Annalise Knudson)Annalise Knudson THERES A NEED What that showed to me was theres a need and theres a want for it, said Elias. ... theres maybe 50 elementary schools on Staten Island about 37 had at least one applicant if not more. Thanks to a grant from the Staten Island Foundation, procured by Engelhart, instruments were purchased and the class was able to launch in January. We try to give those opportunities to students who may not have them and opening it up to those that socioeconomically may be disadvantaged, where affording lessons is not part of the family budget, she said. Hopefully, the goal will be to also get schools elementary schools to start doing this. If we show them, Look, this is how many students from your school want a string program. Now, more students on Staten Island have the opportunity to learn strings for free from talented faculty across the borough, including Elias. Im excited for the future of strings music on Staten Island and the re-emergence of strings on Staten Island, and I fully support the work she is doing, said Campbell. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y -- CP Unlimited, a New York City-based organization specializing in services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, has joined forces with the National Lighthouse Museum, Staten Islands prominent maritime cultural center in St. George, presenting a charming photo exhibition. The exhibit, titled Through the Lens: New Images from the Progressive Visions Photo Club, launched earlier this month and features a collection of approximately a dozen photographs. Its a really beautiful museum, said Jim Interlicchio, activity coordinator/photo club director at CP Unlimited, regarding the collaboration. They have given our photographers an opportunity to shine and allow them to talk about their work its been wonderful. CPs Progressive Visions Photo Club is a group of creative amateur photographers with intellectual/developmental disabilities who share a deep passion for the arts and community engagement. The photos, highlighting local monuments, exteriors and permanent displays, were taken during excursions in late 2023. We initiated this club as a means for our members to foster connections within their local community, Interlicchio explained. He oversees two photography programs -- Progressive Visions and West Farms Photo Works -- both driven by a shared mission to foster engagement, creativity and a sense of community. Photographers Kimberly Bland, center, and Lamar Jackson, left, are pictured with Frank Ferebee at the Through the Lens: New Images from the Progressive Visions Photo Club" exhibit at the National Lighthouse Museum. (Courtesy of CP Unlimited)Courtesy of CP Unlimited The program has now been ongoing for 27 years. Once we went digital it really took off, he explained. Frank Ferebee, one of the photographers whose work is featured in the exhibit, captures the beauty of nature through his lens. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, Ferebee expressed his love for capturing a diverse range of subjects, including dogs, cats, birds and squirrels. Its been fun, the photographer said, taking pictures of folks laughing and smiling. Interlicchio noted that Ferebee is naturally adept with a camera, showcasing a talent that extends beyond what can be taught. Assemblymember Michael Reilly, left, is seen with Frank Ferebee and Joseph M. Pancari, president and CEO of CP Unlimited. The Through the Lens" photo exhibit runs through Sunday, March 3.(Courtesy of CP Unlimited)Courtesy of CP Unlimited In reflecting on the response to the exhibit, Interlicchio expressed his appreciation, stating that the community has warmly embraced the photographers work. He highlighted the transformative role of the photographers turning into educators, communicating that individuals with disabilities can create art of exceptional quality. I have nothing but high praise for the museum for giving us this opportunity, he added. The artists ability to answer questions proudly about their creative process has been a heartening experience for the CP Unlimited team, showcasing the positive impact of the exhibition, which runs through Sunday, March 3. The organization is committed to working with a diverse range of individuals with varying abilities and disabilities. We want to get the word out that we have talented people who are doing great photography, Interlicchio said, they just happen to have developmental disabilities. Photography is fun; its fun to operate a camera and go out and connect with their neighborhood and environment, he added. Kimberly Bland is seen with some of the photos on display as part of the "Through the Lens" exhibit, which showcases the work of CP Unlimited's Progressive Visions Photo Club. We initiated this club as a means for our members to foster connections within their local community, said Jim Interlicchio, activity coordinator/photo club director at CP Unlimited. (Courtesy of CP Unlimited)Courtesy of CP Unlimited As part of CP Unlimiteds initiatives, the Progressive Visions Photo Club is a dedicated group with artists, like Ferebee, who not only capture the essence of their surroundings but are able to convey the message of their vibrant contributions. To develop a program where we can connect to a mission to enrich peoples lives, get them out in their communities, and explore the world around them by means of photography, well, Im blessed to be able to do that, Interlicchio said. BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) With two weeks to go before the Oscars, Oppenheimer looks unstoppable. Director and producer Christopher Nolans tale of the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the birth of the atomic age won the top prize Sunday at the 35th Producers Guild of America Awards a frequent predictor of Oscar best picture winners the night after doing the same at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Oppenheimer won the PGAs Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures over the exact same set of 10 nominees up for best picture at the March 10 Academy Awards, including " Barbie, " Poor Things " and " Killers of the Flower Moon, whose director, Martin Scorsese, was honored Sunday for his concurrent career as a producer. The Zanuck Award winner has gone on to take the best picture Oscar for five of the past six years, and 12 of the past 15, including last year with " Everything, Everywhere All at Once. From the stage at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Hollywood, in the same complex where the Academy Awards will be held at the Dolby Theatre, Nolan thanked his fellow producer Charles Royen for giving him American Prometheus, the book that led to Oppenheimer, and starting a chain reaction thats spread all over the world. Earlier in the show, Robert Downey Jr. called it the highest-grossing film about theoretical physics yet made. Downey on Saturday won best supporting actor at the SAG Awards, where Oppenheimer also won best ensemble, part of an awards season sweep that also included wins at the Golden Globes and Directors Guild Awards. Tracee Ellis Ross arrives at the 35th Annual Producers Guild Awards on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024, at The Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP Succession and " The Bear " took the top television prizes at the PGA Awards after doing the same at the SAG Awards and last months Emmy Awards. " Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, nominated for the animated feature Oscar, won the PGAs animated motion picture award. Its predecessor, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, won the PGA award in 2019 before going on to win the Academy Award. Scorsese joined Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg and Kevin Feige as winners of the David O. Selznick award for an outstanding body of work as a producer of motion pictures. Scorsese said the first film he remembers seeing, at age 4, was the Selznick written and produced Duel in the Sun. It was condemned by the Catholic church, and my mother wanted to see it, Scorsese told the audience. She said, The kid likes westerns, Im taking him. Scorsese said the very first impact of classic Hollywood cinema starts right there for me. Slashes of color, movement, the landscapes, stunning set pieces. He called them Proustian sense memories of early cinema. I was frightened by them, he said, and thrilled. The 81-year-old said he was grateful for the privilege of getting to spend his life exploring beauty thats at the core of what we all strive to do. Scorsese-produced films include his own Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence and Killers of the Flower Moon, along with dozens of films for younger directors including Spike Lees Clockers, the Safdie brothers Uncut Gems and Joanna Hoggs The Souvenir. Margot Robbie arrives at the 35th Annual Producers Guild Awards on Sunday, Feb. 25, 2024, at The Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP Other career achievement awards went to producers Charles D. King and Gail Berman. King became the first Black winner of the PGAs Milestone Award, whose previous winners include Walt Disney, Clint Eastwood and George Lucas, for historic career contributions to the motion picture industry. King was lauded for leaving his job as a Hollywood agent in 2015 to found MACRO, a media company dedicated to amplifying the voices of black artists and other people of color. The company has produced films including 2016s Fences starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, who won an Oscar for the role, and 2021s Judas and the Black Messiah, for which King was personally nominated for an Oscar as a producer. King thanked our ancestors who kicked down doors, made sacrifices and blazed a trail for me to be able to do what Im blessed to do. Berman, the only woman to have held the top job at both a major film company and television network, was given the Norman Lear Achievement Award in Television. Berman was the driving force behind the creation and airing of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, whose star, Sarah Michelle Gellar, presented her the award. Not a single person on this earth was interested in buying that television show, Berman said. But I just couldnt ignore my gut telling me there was something unique there. The PGA announced an initiative during the show that seeks to provide healthcare coverage for its member producers who are not covered other ways. Members of the actors and writers guilds have long used the unions for health insurance. Producers deserve to be covered, PGA Co-President Stephanie Allain said. The effort involves asking production companies, including major studios and streamers, to include contributions to producers health coverage on its production budgets. Film companies Blumhouse, Legendary and Kings MACRO already have signed on. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The news of a new, inclusive Staten Island St. Patricks Day Parade is sending Forest Avenue businesses rushing to create a second day of planned festivities for the beloved Irish holiday. While spirits are up for double the celebration, an undercurrent of melancholy seems to be echoing down the avenue, leaving owners pondering: did it need to come to this? Jodys Club Forest owner, Terence Haggerty, has been a vocal supporter of allowing LGBTQ+ groups in the traditional St. Patricks Parade planned annually by the Staten Island St. Patricks Parade Committee. Jodys usually hosts the annual St. Patricks parade political breakfast for local officials, but last year the event was cancelled in solidarity with excluded LGBTQ+ groups. The exterior of Jody's Club Forest is shown on March 6, 2022. (Staten Island Advance/PaulLiotta)Staten Island Advance/Paul Liotta The event had also been cancelled for this year, until news broke that the Forest Avenue Business Improvement District (BID)s permit for a new, inclusive parade was approved. Forest Avenue BID member and Beans and Leaves owner Megan Coppola called the decision to accept the thorough and cohesive plan a no brainer. Now Jodys will once again open its doors to local officials to partake in the Jerome X. ODonovan Parade Breakfast on March 17. We join the overwhelming majority of our neighbors in expressing our relief at the news that an inclusive St. Patricks Day parade will finally be held on Staten Island, and we send our sincere thanks to the [Forest Avenue] Business Improvement District (BID) for taking on this tremendous responsibility, the Jerome X. ODonovan Parade Breakfast co-chairs District Attorney Michael McMahon, former Assemblyman Michael Cusick and former Councilman Ken Mitchell said in a joint statement. Accordingly, we will once again host our Jerome X. ODonovan Breakfast within the friendly confines of Jodys Club Forest before the parade steps off on March 17th. While happy to see the return of the breakfast, Haggerty wishes that things didnt have to happen like this. Carol Bullock, president of the Pride Center of Staten Island, speaks at the inaugural "Crawl for All" in Jody's Club Forest in West Brighton on March 18, 2023. (Staten Island Advance/Jason Paderon)Jason Paderon I just wish people would come to their senses and just realize its 2024. The Pride Center is an organization that does help the community, and I think they deserve to be involved in the original parade. Thats my belief, Haggerty said. I missed having everybody here last year. Itll be nice to have everybody again, once again, but you know its a shame that its come to this. The traditional parade has been a staple throughout Haggertys childhood, and has been an important event for his family and his business. His father, the titular Jody, even served as a grand marshal for the parade. He feels the saddest part is the work that was put into the parade by older folks, or people who are no longer here, like his father. Its a shame that there are some people who have passed away who worked really hard on this parade their whole lives, and now its come to this, Haggerty said. I would love for it to be back in the old days that where it was just about the parade, but I dont think thats happening. 2 PARADE MEANS MORE BUSINESS Despite preferring to have the Forest Avenue BIDs St. Patricks Day Parade where everyone could be included, Haggerty acknowledges that two parades bring more business to Forest Avenue stores during this tumultuous division. Im happy. I run a business, so from a business standpoint, yeah, its great, dont get me wrong. But I am from the neighborhood too. The neighborhood means a lot to me, and I feel like its kind of tearing it apart a little bit, and that stinks, he explained. Haggerty, like other Forest Avenue businesses, must now plan for two St. Patricks parades for the first time. His strategy? Take it one parade at a time. Staten Island's St. Patrick's Parade stepped off at Hart Boulevard and traveled down Forest Avenue to Jewett Avenue on March 5, 2023. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel Well enjoy [March 3] and then, you know, well get ready for the 17th where we can welcome people we havent seen in a couple of years. Im looking forward to it; its a challenge, definitely, not only for me, but for all businesses on Forest Avenue, Haggerty said. This is going to be new to everybody, but, you know, theres a lot of good people who own a lot of good places on Forest Avenue, and Im sure well be able to adjust to I guess, a treat, a second parade. For Beans and Leaves, Coppola said, the store will close early for the March 3 parade, with the real St. Patricks Day celebration taking place at the Forest Avenue BIDs event on March 17 with decorations and drink specials. A week before the St Patrick Parade on Forest Avenue only Bean & Leaves displays a sign in support of inclusion. Feb 24, 2023. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel Coppola emphasized the new parade is not latching onto one person, one individual, one organization, and is meant to bring the whole community together. But her sentiments echoed other business owners on Forest Avenue: while happy that there is an inclusive parade, it is a shame that it needed to come to this, when the desire remains to have one, unified parade. I just really hope that people wake up and realize there is no harm and there is no negative in welcoming everybody to something that celebrates humanityand thats what St. Patricks Day does, she said. It celebrates the Irish community, the Irish heritage, and the Irish heritage isnt just straight. Burrito Bar owner Kim Beckett, who is a part of the Forest Avenue BID board, which made this new parade possible, said she is excited for the inclusive parade. And her husband, Port Richmond High School Principal Andrew Greenfield, said he is also excited for his students to march in the inclusive parade after a five year hiatus. The Burrito Bar in West Brighton is pictured on Dec. 15, 2020. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)Staten Island Advance/ Jan Somma-Hammel I know my students and staff are really excited to once again have the opportunity to march down Forest Avenue. Its always been the parade that our kids love the best, and the decision to not march over the last couple of years, was the students decision, Greenfield said. I just think that, you know, this is a great opportunity for Forest Avenue, once again, to have the parade it deserves. The new parade has garnered support from across globe, including from GLAAD, one of the worlds foremost LGBTQ+ advocacy groups. Elvis Duran and Z-100s Morning Show donated $20,000 to the parade, which is supported by Duran and his husband, Staten Islander Alex Carr. The Forest Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) is inviting any groups or individuals who want to march in Staten Islands new, inclusive St. Patricks Day parade on March 17 to register now. The event will kick off at Hart Boulevard at 12 p.m. and proceed along Forest Avenue to Broadway. Participants wishing to walk in the parade may register by visiting Eventbrite.com (keywords: Forest Ave St. Patricks Day Parade). A grieving husband who alleges his wife, Kanokporn Tangsuan, died after eating at a Disney Springs restaurant has filed a lawsuit against Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, the Associated Press is reporting. Jeffrey Piccolo is seeking monetary damages in the wrongful death suit of Tangsuan, a doctor at New York University Langone in Manhattan, the report said. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- A recent study has proclaimed New York as the worst city for car commuters. The study by FINN, a monthly car subscription service, which looked at factors like fuel cost, parking and insurance cost, has New York edging out cities like Los Angeles and Chicago to round out the top three worst driving cities. Even for the most confident drivers, New York Citys traffic-packed streets and fearless pedestrians can be intimidating, according to FINN. Congestion seems to be key for New Yorks ranking at the top. The study noted that the toughest times to travel in and around the New York City are between 8 and 9 a.m., adding: Many commuters avoid rush hour or consider alternative routes and can expect to drive for an hour or longer in the mornings. The average car commuter in New York City loses an extra 117 hours a year sitting in gridlock, according to the study. Car commuters are also getting hit in the wallet, spending an extra $107 on gas from idling in traffic, the research showed. Even when New Yorks drivers get where theyre going, theyre paying on average $17 an hour for parking, according to the data. In comparison, the national average for car commuters are about $7 an hour for parking and $46 dollars a year on fuel from sitting in traffic. The United States is seeking to contain the migratory pressure on the U.S.-Mexico border at all costs. U.S. President Joe Biden plans to travel on Thursday to Brownsville, Texas, the same day that Donald Trump, his likely rival in the November presidential election, will visit another point on the border, Eagle Pass, which is also in Texas. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will host a trilateral ministerial meeting on migration with Guatemala and Mexico. Secretary Blinken will lead a discussion focused on actions to strengthen humane migration management, joint collaboration to address the root causes of irregular migration and displacement, and ways to expand lawful pathways in the Western Hemisphere, the Department of State said in a statement on Tuesday. Blinken who will be joined by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and other U.S. officials from different departments will meet in Washington with Mexicos Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alicia Barcena and the Foreign Minister of Guatemala, Carlos Martinez. The United States and Mexico have already met this year. At that meeting, the two delegations established goals such as standardizing migration figures, combating human smuggling networks and designing a plan to address the arrival of immigrants through the dangerous Darien Gap in Panama. The U.S. immigration policy of the Joe Biden administration has tried to address the root causes of migration, create legal routes for migrants to the United States, and toughen the law for those who break the rules. But that mix has not worked, and the U.S. has seen a record-breaking number of irregular crossings into the country. Biden has tried to ease the pressure on the border by authorizing permits for migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti and Cuba. The U.S. government has also set up offices in Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica, where those interested in immigrating to the United States can process their applications. Arrests for illegal crossings fell by half in January, following record highs in December. In January, in his last meeting with Barcena, Blinken said that great progress was being made and that the swearing in of Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo marked a milestone for immigration collaboration. According to Blinken, Arevalos election opened up an important new area for cooperation on migration between the three countries. We will continue to work together more broadly to develop regional solutions to the historic challenge that we face, he said in January. Biden himself called Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador earlier this month to talk about the border. The U.S. president expressed his gratitude for Mexicos operational support and for taking concrete steps to deter irregular migration. Both reiterated their shared commitment to strengthening joint efforts to counter transnational criminal organizations involved in the illicit trafficking of drugs, guns, and people, according to the readout of the call released by the White House. Immigration has displaced the economy as the main issue of the political battle between Republicans and Democrats. On Thursday, Biden is making his second visit to the border as president, after last years trip to El Paso in January. The White House announced the trip on Monday, after Trump had announced he was visiting Eagle Pass on Thursday. Under pressure from Trump, Republican lawmakers derailed Bidens border security deal, which included aid to Ukraine and Israel, as well as reforms to curb illegal immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border. Republicans demanded the border measures in exchange for approving aid to Ukraine and Israel, but in the end, the party opted to reject the compromise and use the situation at the border as a weapon to sway voters. Biden is considering an executive order that would facilitate deportations and make it more difficult for migrants to cross into the United States. One of the measures being considered by Bidens team is to invoke powers under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Law, which gives the president broad leeway to block certain immigrants if their entry is considered detrimental to national interest. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Staten Islands St. Patricks Day news of a new inclusive parade to mark the celebration of Irish heritage has brought international attention to the borough, the Advance/SILive.com learned Wednesday. Consul General of Ireland in New York Helena Nolan, a representative for the Irish government, issued a statement applauding the launch of a new, inclusive St. Patricks Day Parade to be held March 17. This parade will be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the values of community and inclusivity that are so central to what it means to be Irish today, Nolan said. I send my best wishes to the organizers for this joyful event, my thanks to all the local representatives and Mayor [Eric] Adams for the support they have shown and I look forward to joining the parade on Forest Avenue on March 17th. Since taking the citys highest office, Adams has supported members of the LGBTQ+ community in their push to be part of Staten Islands traditional St. Patricks Parade. Organizers of that parade led by Larry Cummings, president of the Richmond County St. Patricks Day Parade Committee had long rebuffed the LGBTQ+ communitys attempts at inclusion citing the Catholic nature of the parade. The organizers long-standing obstinance prompted the Forest Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) to organize the new parade with help from city officials. Lamenting the new parade, Bill Donohue president of the Catholic League, an American religious organization issued a 645-word statement taking aim at everyone from the mayor to the BID to the Advance/SILive.com. Homosexuals not only have a Gay Pride Parade in New York City at the end of June each year, there are gay events throughout the entire month. But that isnt enough, Donohue said. Their relentless intolerance is stunning, which explains why gay activists as opposed to ordinary gay people are constantly thrusting their agenda onto others. Their goal of crashing St. Patricks Day parades is a classic example, the latest iteration being the one on Staten Island. Donohue reserved praise for Cummings; the traditional parades grand marshal, Timothy OSullivan; and all those brave Irish Catholics who refuse to give into the bigoted agenda of the ever-fawning elites. SUPPORT FROM ACROSS THE WORLD Meanwhile the new parade has garnered support from across globe, including from GLAAD, one of the worlds foremost LGBTQ+ advocacy groups. Elvis Duran and Z-100s Morning Show donated $20,000 to the parade, which is supported by Duran and his husband, Staten Islander Alex Carr. The Forest Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) is inviting any groups or individuals who want to march in Staten Islands new, inclusive St. Patricks Day parade on March 17 to register now. The event will kick off at Hart Boulevard at 12 p.m. and proceed along Forest Avenue to Broadway. Participants wishing to walk in the parade may register by visiting Eventbrite.com (keywords: Forest Ave St. Patricks Day Parade). Support the Peninsulas only locally-owned newspaper. Subscribe! Subscribing annually brings you big savings. We also offer monthly and weekly subscriptions. Premium Subscription As low as $8.25 per month Premium Includes: Access to the Daily Journals e-Edition: a digital replica of our daily newspaper including crossword puzzles, games, comics, classifieds and ads. The ability to download a digital replica of the Daily Journal for offline reading. The ability to clip & download articles or images to share with others. Access to the last 90 days of e-Editions with search, downloading and clipping options. Unlimited access to our award-winning online content Commenting access on all stories as a valued member of the DJ community U.S. President Joe Biden has won the Democratic primaries in Michigan and Donald Trump, the Republican ones. It was a foreseeable outcome. But as the count progressed, it became clear that there was a strong protest vote against Biden for his pro-Israeli policy in the war on Gaza. A significant percentage of Democrat voters checked the uncommitted box, equivalent to a blank vote. The Listen to Michigan campaign launched by the Arab-American community which has a significant population in Michigan and progressive groups believes it has achieved its objective: to warn Biden that his refusal to support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza could cost him the White House. In the first hours of the count, the uncommitted option was already on track to exceed 11,000 votes the margin by which Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 in the state. That was the goal campaign organizers had set for themselves. It was also set to exceed the 20,000 uncommitted votes from the last three Democratic presidential primaries in the state. With 58% of the vote counted, the protest vote exceeded 66,000 ballots, or 13%. Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 150,000 votes. We have put human lives before the party. We have put human lives before the president, said the mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Mahmmoud, one of the Democratic politicians who supported the campaign, during the counting of the results. Dearborn, a city on the outskirts of Detroit where 55% of the population is of North African or Middle Eastern origin, was the birthplace of the Listen to Michigan initiative. The goal was to show Biden that to win Michigan a key state on his path to re-election he needs the support of voters who want him to back a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. In Wayne County, where Dearborn is located, the uncommitted vote reached 75%. In a statement on the primary results, Biden did not mention the Listen to Michigan campaign or the uncommitted votes. Neither did his campaign, in its separate statement. The president chose instead to criticize the policies of Donald Trump, the front-runner to win the Republican nomination. This fight for our freedoms, for working families, and for Democracy is going to take all of us coming together. I know that we will, he said. Polling stations closed at 8 p.m. after being open for 12 hours. In Dearborn, what was a mere trickle of people early in the morning picked up pace in the afternoon. More than a million people voted early, in a state of 10 million people. In Dearborn, election officials commented that turnout was higher than expected. Were running out of voter registration forms, they said in Precinct 2, with an hour and a half left to go before polls closed. We want to show that we are a voting bloc to be reckoned with, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said at one of the polling stations during the day. These are our family members, our friends, our ancestral villages, where our parents came from, that are being bombed each and every single day... We are using this opportunity as a means of sending a message that course correction needs to happen, or else he risks not only the presidency, but ultimately the American democracy with the reelection of president Trump, he said to reporters. For many members in the city of Dearborn, and across the state, people are using the word betrayal. We were promised a president to bring back decency, to lead with humanity, to lead with empathy as someone who has suffered loss, and we have found anything but. The U.S. president, who at the beginning of the war in Gaza was decidedly on the Israeli side, has gradually modulated his position, although he maintains he refuses to support a permanent ceasefire and continues to send arms to Israel. In recent weeks, he called the Israeli governments response in Gaza over the top; imposed sanctions against four Jewish settlers who have attacked Palestinians in the West Bank; and warned against an offensive on Rafah. And on Monday, while visiting an ice cream shop in New York City, he announced that a temporary ceasefire could be underway in less than a week. But this was not enough to appease Dearborn voters. Too little, too late, was the opinion of Khalid Turaani, of the Michigan Task Force of Palestine and one of the organizers of the Abandon Biden movement, which wants the U.S. president to lose in next Novembers elections. Mayor Hammoud was also skeptical. I find it strange that theyre eating ice cream at a parlor and that is the moment that they talk about a cease-fire coming forward, he said, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made statements indicating otherwise. I dont look to lip service or to words. Im looking for action. We want a long-lasting, permanent and just cease-fire. Michigan is a key state for both the Democrats and the Republicans. Trump won this state in 2016 by just over 10,000 votes. Biden snatched it from him in 2020 by 150,000 ballots. On top of this, the state has a population of 300,000 residents of Arab origin, which four years ago leaned overwhelmingly (64%) in favor of Biden. Four years ago I voted for Biden. This time Im voting for Trump, Emad Said, 48, an unemployed man, said outside his polling station in Dearborn. His motivation, he claimed, was not solely the events in Gaza. Crime has increased, a lot of money is being sent to Ukraine and there is no money here... America first, he said, repeating Trumps famous slogan. If the uncommitted vote secured more than 10% of the vote, it would be an important warning for Biden in a state that, in addition to supporting him in 2020, has a Democratic majority in its local parliament and in the state governorship. The president has received the support of the UAW, the influential autoworkers union, which carries great political weight in a state that accounts for 20% of the nations vehicle production. We are going to keep highlighting the contrast between Biden and Trump and once that becomes clear, we fully expect these voters, who have walked away from Biden, to come back, LaShawn English, the unions regional director, told Reuters. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, co-chair of Bidens campaign, warned that a protest vote now against the president could translate into a win for Trump in November. She also told MSNBC that it will be important for the Biden administration to continue to reach out to leaders and individuals in the Palestinian, Muslim, Arab American, as well as Jewish communities. On the Republican side, how many votes Haley gets will provide an indication of the extent to which Michigan Republicans have doubts about a second term for Trump, who polls tipped to win 57% of the vote. With 62% of the votes counted, the former president received half a million votes, 67.8%, while the former governor of South Carolina was at 27%, with 199,075 ballots. Although the importance of the wine was relative: only 30% of the Michigan delegates for the Republican convention in Milwaukee will be awarded now. The remaining 70 will be awarded on Saturday, when the party will hold its state convention. Or, rather, conventions: internal divisions have created two factions that have called separate meetings in two different cities. Before the count began, immediately after the polls closed, Haley told CNN that she would continue her battle: Weve only seen a handful of states vote, she said. Were taking this one state, one day at a time. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition San Mateo, CA (94402) Today Morning clouds will give way to afternoon sunshine. High 67F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low near 50F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. The former chief executive of The Iconic, Erica Berchtold, has been appointed to lead Mosaic Brands, which owns budget clothing brands such as Noni B, Katies and Rivers. Berchtold departed the online fashion retailer after four years at the helm and was due to begin at Best & Less last September, but an off-market takeover saw businessman Ray Itaoui installed as chief executive of the discount chain. Erica Berchtold will lead budget fashion retailer Mosaic Brands. Credit: Louie Douvis Berchtold signalled she would be improving the design of Mosaics brands, with a focus on the fact that two-thirds of spending on clothing is by Australians aged 35 and older. You have people tripping over themselves to work out what a 20-year-old woman wants to wear when a 50-year-old spends the same or more on clothes and is likely online shopping just as much, she told this masthead. For all that and at the risk of sounding immodest my lettuce buying was deemed a roaring success. A future in root vegetables beckoned, I was told. Carrots and leeks first, maybe, then potatoes. One day, I might even land the most coveted buying job of all: new world wines. Admittedly, there were aspects of the job that troubled my twenty-something conscience. Sainsburys awesome purchasing power, which clearly terrified farmers, was not a cudgel I enjoyed wielding. On the occasions when I pulled it from the corporate armoury, I expiated my guilt by handing out free salad items to bewildered homeless people along Londons South Bank. A student summer job embedded me in the head office of the British behemoth Sainsburys, where I was assigned to its elite fresh produce department. On day one, the chief lettuce buyer defected to Sainsburys arch-rival, Tesco, and after watching him being marched from the premises, I was handed both his spreadsheets and the daily duty of ensuring every branch was stocked with icebergs, cos, little gems, Chinese leaf and wild rocket. My fledging career even survived the morning I forgot to order lettuce for the entire East Midlands. Realising my mistake, we filled a taxi in Birmingham with enough iceberg to feed a small battalion and told the driver to thunder down the motorway to nearby Nottingham, where the managing director of Sainsburys was also en route to conduct a store visit. Alas, we lost the race, and soon the head of fresh produce was getting a mild rocket for failing to deliver enough wild rocket. I never did get to tour the vineyards of Napa Valley or Stellenbosch, but I did leave Sainsburys at the end of that summer with a newfound regard for the British grocery trade. As that store inspection to Nottingham testified, the attention to detail was military in precision. Sainsburys thought of itself as the gold standard, a shining supermarket upon a hill. The question, therefore, that I have found myself revisiting ever since ABC Four Corners ran its recent expose of the Woolworths and Coles duopoly is why are the major Australian supermarkets so bad, especially given the scale of their profiteering? Certainly, they trail a long way behind Sainsburys or Tesco, and are not in the same league as, say, a Marks & Spencer Food Hall or a Waitrose, Britains middle-class supermarkets of choice. Just compare the quality of ready-made meals between the UK and Australia or the bounteousness of British deli counters, which resemble medieval all-you-can-eat buffets. Nor does the best of Australia come close to the best of America. Whole Foods Market, the chain purchased by Amazon in 2017, deserves its nickname, Whole Salary because shopping there is so painfully expensive. But one only has to stroll through its cheese section, peruse its salad bars or cast an eye over its craft beer shelves to see why the chain has become a totem of whats called the experience economy. Visits to Whole Foods are seen as happy excursions rather than weekly chores: a form of retail therapy. Though some of Woolworths flagship stores now have sleek-looking chilled cheese rooms and chichi sushi counters, shopping there remains a more utilitarian undertaking. Taylor Klein, a recent engineering graduate in the US state of Connecticut, receives a message from a friend on Facebook. Its a PornHub link. He hasnt been hacked, he assures her he thinks she needs to see what he has found. Taylor (not her real name) clicks the link. Her own face stares back at her, but its attached to another body. There are dozens of videos, with thousands of views. Her name, Facebook photos and location are included. Another Body is a documentary looking at the very real issue of deepfake pornography. These opening moments of Another Body, a new documentary from co-directors Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn, carry the apprehension of a thriller film. But its a real scenario facing thousands of women every day. These are deepfake videos, in which a face can be digitally grafted to a different body. The technology has become very convincing in just a few short years. We zoom in on the deepfaked Taylor. Its hard to see where the actual performers skin ends and the AI begins. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size The first time we hear the phrase best holiday ever in How To Have Sex is during a pre-dawn swim as teenage friends Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake) kick off their booze-fuelled bender in Greece. The last time we hear it is on the last day of their holiday, when Em and Skye burst into the bedroom where Tara has just had an awful sexual experience with Paddy (Samuel Bottomley), a young man who appears never to have heard the word consent. Best holiday ever? Not so much. I went on a bunch of holidays like this, says Molly Manning Walker, the London-based writer and director of the film, which won the Un Certain Regard award for a first-time director at Cannes last May. I was a very different person when I was 16. I had long hair, fake eyelashes, I was covered in fake tan. I went to Ibiza, Magaluf, all of the places. So its a combination of events that happened when I was there and research that is more up to date. Dazed and confused: Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara. Credit: Ahi Films What happens to Tara is a version of what happened to her at the same age. Ive always wanted to make something like this, since it happened to me when I was 16, Ive wanted to speak about it, she says. But every time you go into a room and you say it out loud, everyones like, shhh, and it really sucks the air out of the room, you know? And for me, as a victim, thats like the worst thing you could ever do to someone, because then suddenly you feel guilty and ashamed. Walker is an acclaimed cinematographer, who shot the charming feature Scrapper for her close friend Charlotte Regan. They are both, she feels, part of a wave of change thats sweeping through the industry and bringing female voices to the fore. But shes wary, too, of how the tide can recede. Advertisement Her mother, Lesley Manning, is also a filmmaker. In 1992 she directed Ghostwatch, a 90-minute mockumentary hosted by Michael Parkinson and presented as if it were live and factual. The special on paranormal activity invited viewers to dial in with their own tales, and there are claims that the BBC received 1 million calls. It certainly received a lot of complaints, and was subjected to an inquiry about how such a misleading program could have been broadcast (even though it went to air in the drama slot, under the drama umbrella, and on Halloween, all of which should have offered clues to what was going on). In short, Ghostwatch made a huge splash. But the backlash didnt do Lesley Manning any favours. She made that when she was 29, and then her career sort of fell apart, her daughter says. It was super successful and then she had a really hard time. I mean, shes still hustling now, still trying to make stuff, but shes just had a really hard time. What happens to Badger (Shaun Thomas) was inspired by a memory from Walkers own party-hard years in Spain. Credit: Ahi Films Youre 29, I note. Does that give you any cause for concern? Yep. Of course. I mean, Ive grown up with the DIY scene, and Ive seen my parents [her father is a freelance cartoonist] have no money, and thats always been a scary thing with filmmaking, she says. A lot of the reason I went into cinematography was to have a bit of money. Thats a job. How To Have Sex started as a COVID project, when there were no jobs to be had. It sprang from a single memory from her years of clubbing on the party islands of the Mediterranean, a time that, to be clear, also includes some of the best moments of her life, in which a male friend was dragged up on stage and fellated by a stranger in front of a raucous crowd of drunken revellers. Advertisement That scene is recreated in the film, with Tara watching on in horror as the boy she imagined she might fancy, Badger (Shaun Thomas), gives himself over to the moment. Until she started writing it down, Walker wondered if shed misremembered it; after all, she was pretty hammered at the time. But when she met up with some of the old crew, she realised everyone had pretty much the same version of events seared into their memories. And I just thought its crazy how that would have shaped our knowledge and experience of sex, and our understanding of it, she says. I remember the whole crowd was yelling. Were meant to be stoked about this? So yeah, that is kind of the root of the whole script. With an episodic structure and a sense of teetering on the edge of out-of-control, How To Have Sex brilliantly evokes the mood of a holiday in which the goals are pretty clear: get drunk, get a tan, get laid. But the rules of engagement arent, and Walkers characters, like many a young adult in the real world, are left to grope (literally and figuratively) in the dark, often taking their clues from what peers and porn tell them they should want or allow, rather than from what feels right. Walker shot Scrapper for her friend Charlotte Regan. The charming film set in Londons East End stars Lola Campbell as Georgie, with Alin Uzin as her friend Ali. Credit: Madman Its far from didactic, but Walker hopes her film helps educate people, especially young men, that they dont need to have this bravado and pretend to know what theyre doing. Theres still so much shame around sex, she believes, that young people often dont know where to turn for advice and porn fills the void. Advertisement Youll never stop people watching porn, she continues, but if we were having more open conversations about sex and female pleasure, and about things that people often dont speak about, then there would be less necessity to look at it. The first time Walker started to feel her story had wider resonance was when she was making the film in Malia, the deserted holiday town in Crete that the production took over in October and November 2022 (it looks like summer, but it was seriously cold; for all the scenes shot in swimming pools, she says, the cast were wearing thick woollen socks on their out-of-frame feet). Lots of women on set, and men, were telling me they realised they had been in similar situations, she says. There was an intimacy co-ordinator on set, and counsellors and a therapist, for anyone who was triggered by anything happening in front of the camera. Part of the whole process of making the film was, no one should come out damaged by it, she says. Its so often the case when youve got such an intense shoot with new filmmakers, and everyones still figuring out what theyre doing, that you come out the other side with a hard-done-by crew. But it was only when the film debuted at Cannes that Walker fully realised how it might affect people. We were hanging around after a screening, and there was an older man, maybe 65, pacing up and down outside, and someone asked if he was OK, and he was like, Ive just realised Ive been Paddy before. And in that moment, I relaxed about the other screenings, because I was like, if we can do that to one person, it feels important. Advertisement The Regime (from Monday, March 4) Binge As played with gleaming hubris by Kate Winslet, Elena Vernham is the chancellor of a fictional Central European nation who ticks off all manner of authoritarian tropes. She crucifies cronies on live television (Vladimir Putin), uses nationalism to emphasise her strength (Viktor Orban), and serenades the unnamed nation via state television with some 1970s pop hits (Imelda Marcos). Theres also a billion dollars illegally salted away in, as her husband delicately puts it, the Belize fund (every dictator going). Kate Winslet plays the chancellor of a fictional European country in The Regime. Set over an increasingly torrid year, The Regime is a satire on power gone awry. Locked inside a palace where Elenas grip is absolute, the six episodes offer an uncomfortable proximity to paranoia. The humour is awkward and eye-bulging the more you learn about the situation, the more unhinged it becomes. Creator Will Tracy is a graduate of Succession, but the dialogue doesnt crackle with juicy insults. Elenas reach tends to suck the comic oxygen out of the room everyone is too scared to get lippy. With veteran British filmmaker Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons, The Queen) as the lead director, the show is a farce that wrestles with thorny geopolitical themes. The most notable is the psychosexual bond of patriotism and authority, exemplified by Elena making a rural soldier her aide he has to monitor the air for spores after he shoots protestors. With his bullish frame, Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts) goes from baffled servant to Rasputin-like advisor, extolling homeopathic treatments and the expulsion of American interests. KYODO NEWS - Feb 28, 2024 - 08:03 | All, Podcast Episode 34: University of Tokyo's "international" program What do you want to study? Two Kyodo News journalists -- Yamaguchi-san and Peter -- talk about a new five-year combined Bachelor's and Master's degree program expected to be launched by the University of Tokyo in 2027 that will be comprised of 50% foreign students. Listen as they discuss the benefits of the envisioned new program, as well as what people do in other countries when applying for university. Article mentioned in the podcast: University of Tokyo to launch new 5-year program with 50% foreign students Kyodo News presents a bilingual podcast for English learners about the ins and outs of news writing and how to translate tricky Japanese phrases into English. Have fun listening to journalists discuss recent articles as they occasionally go off on unrelated tangents. More podcast episodes: Podcast [English World] Episode 33: Pastries that taste of love Podcast [English World] Episode 32: "Snack" bar-hopping tours Podcast[English World] Episode 31: Greetings from our Jakarta correspondent I remember thinking, I want to work on that program, Vatsikopoulos remembers of seeing legendary, groundbreaking correspondent Diane Willman reporting from a conflict zone. Helen Vatsikopoulos with her Dateline crew, cameraman Simon Toben and sound recordist Spiros Mavrangelos. I remember thinking, Wow, here is an Australian woman and shes on the other side of the world. And she is relaying to us what is happening, history-changing events. And its coming to me in my lounge room. That is what I want to do. Vatsikopouloss time at the program included momentous events from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to democracy coming to South Africa and much else besides. But none affected her as deeply as that Rwandan experience in 1994. Its impact is such that later this year she will be part of a public event and exhibition at the University of Technology Sydney commemorating the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, summoning memories that touched the depths of the soul. There were no hotels. Or banks. Or safe drinking water. The only plentiful thing: guns. As reporters like Vatsikopoulos and her team navigated the sensory and emotional horrors, they were also dealing with logistical nightmares. This was before mobile phones were in wide use, and communications from a country such as Rwanda involved using a satellite phone kit that was expensive and rare. SBS, needless to say, did not have one. And there were no hotels. Or banks. Or safe drinking water. The only plentiful thing: guns. This was reporting from a country that had effectively ceased to function. There were no credit cards, so I actually had $US12,000 [cash] on me, she recalls. I was very conscious of the fact, wandering through the streets with child soldiers everywhere pointing guns, and Ive got a camera operator next to me holding something that I hope they dont think is a weapon. And Ive got this bum-bag around my hip with $12,000 in it. Gathering the material for their story was one challenge; producing it and getting the material back to Australia was another. We did the story and then we raced next door to Zimbabwe. I sat up all night, wrote a half-hour script, recorded the voice, and then it got couriered to Australia. SBS publicity photo of Helen Vatsikopoulos. The raw material the hours of footage of dead bodies had to be edited, a traumatic experience for editors who had never set foot near the war zone. Years later, Vatsikopoulos spoke to the cameraman, Simon Toben. Simon was Jewish, she says. And he said, I had to record absolutely everything. It didnt matter if they were too horrific to put to air. This is something that I wanted to have out there as a historical record. Part of the job that we do when we go to these history-changing events is not just to do the story. Its to actually have an archive. And you can say [these pictures] exist, like the Holocaust pictures exist. This has been part of Datelines mission from the start through hosts (including luminaries such as Jana Wendt and George Negus); through a period when the program required video journalists to film, produce and report stories on their own; to the format that has been in place since 2015, a half-hour documentary style program covering a single subject each episode. Georgina Davies, the current executive producer who joined the program in 2015, says it is a privilege to helm the program as it marks its 40th anniversary. She notes that in the digital age of instant access to so much information, the program has had to be agile in how it tells stories. Production values have changed and what people want to see has changed, Davies says. Were getting bombarded with images from people who are shooting stuff on their iPhones and putting it on social media, so its not such an exotic, remote novelty to see that footage. Weve seen that footage on the news. So we want to go deeper and show something else. We want to go behind the headlines. For us, its become very much about the people. Who are these people? What are they experiencing? How can we relate to them? Our stories have become very character driven. However its done, the Dateline legacy of storytelling traverses genres and eras that have left their mark on viewers and reporting teams alike. Loading The highlight of my career, is how Vatsikopoulos describes her years with the program. You got to see history changing. Dateline returns to SBS on Tuesday, 9.30pm. The Head On Photo Festival exhibition will be at UTS, Sydney, in early November. Ive always defended men. Your typical Australian male is loyal as a dog, hard-working to a fault, and is even willing to kill an invading mouse if push comes to shove and he cant convince his wife or 13-year-old daughter to do it. But heres the point: they could try a little harder when it comes to dressing properly. After COVID lockdowns, anything other than pyjamas seems like high fashion. Credit: iStock Sure, theres a gender pay divide at work, but theres also a gender dress divide. Where Im employed, all the women are properly kitted out. Nothing fancy, nothing frivolous. Its clothing that signifies, Im a professional person, and Ive put a little effort into looking the part. The men, by contrast, look like they left the house naked, and then picked up a few rags along the way, possibly out of a skip. Surveyed on mass, they look like a bad amateur production of Oliver Twist. Women have come so far in my lifetime. When I was seven in 1964, the famous 7 Up series began life as an episode for the British current affairs show World in Action. That original episode featured 14 seven-year-olds and, like the filmmakers, I have followed their lives until the present day, catching up every seven years. It was only as I grew older, however, that I noticed something glaring about the casting. In 1964, the producers selected children from every class in society including a child of mixed race. Yet, they also cast 10 boys in the series and only four girls. The change in how women think about themselves, their future and their rights has snowballed. Credit: iStock The reason for the lack of girls, I believe, is because, when I was seven, no one expected girls to have interesting lives. Girls would do what girls had always done, regardless of their class. They would grow up, marry and have children. End of story. What the producers missed was the revolution about to occur in womens lives. A revolution that has had an impact greater than the French, the Russian, or any other you care to name. The 79-year-old who allegedly burst into a CBD law firm office on Wednesday and shot property lawyer Van Cooney, 77, was allegedly motivated by a grudge he held against Cooneys brother. Police allege Sinve Vulic took two firearms to the Castlereagh Street firm on Wednesday, pulling one out in the office and shooting Cooney in the groin. Paramedics treat Van Cooney on Castlereagh Street in Sydneys CBD on Wednesday. Credit: Ben Grubb Cooneys brother Dennis, also a lawyer, represented Vulic in court in 1998. The Cooney brothers had previously worked together, but now practise separately. A tribunal has criticised the deplorable behaviour of a Sydney property manager, accusing her of falsely and maliciously portraying a tenant as a hoarder to NSW Fair Trading, while ordering the landlords to repay more than $2600 in excessive rent. The landlords appeal against that ruling was dismissed last week, with the tribunal again finding in favour of self-represented Pyrmont tenant Ryan Anderson, in a case that reflects common disputes between property owners and lessees about rental repairs. A Pyrmont apartment building. Credit: Anna Kucera According to the original October judgment, Anderson had complained since 2020 about a new convection oven that failed to reach 200 degrees and does not become hot enough to cook anything. He also complained of broken lights that were eventually replaced with LEDs, but these were incompatible with the studio apartments dimming switches, rendering them inoperable. Senior member of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal Philip French found both of these failures amounted to a breach of the landlords obligation to maintain the premises in a reasonable state of repair. Get the air-conditioning cranking and slap on the sunscreen, because summer is saying goodbye with a blistering heatwave. The Bureau of Meteorology has warned that Thursday will be the peak of the heatwave temperatures for Sydney. The city is expected to hit 35 degrees and the western suburbs 39, making Thursday the hottest February day since 2020. Parts of Sydney could reach 40 degrees while Canberra will come very close to its hottest day of summer on the very last day of the season, as a large mass of heat pushes to the east coast, Weatherzone predicts. Credit: Weatherzone The heat in Sydney comes after regional parts of the state suffered through temperatures in the mid-40s on Wednesday, with the hot air headed towards the east coast. This was due to a hot north-westerly flow ahead of a trough and cold front moving from South Australia into western NSW and Victoria, meteorologist Helen Reid said. A 79-year-old man spent the night behind bars, waiting to appear in court on intent to murder charges after police allege he shot a solicitor in his CBD office. Police allege the man, who had a semi-automatic pistol, confronted solicitor Van Cooney, 77, in the Castlereagh Street office building, shooting him in the groin. Paramedics treat a man after a shooting on Castlereagh Street in Sydneys CBD. Credit: Ben Grubb The alleged shooter was held down by a crowd of staff members as others rushed to stem the bleeding of the victim. Police were called to 219 Castlereagh Street just before 1pm on Wednesday to reports of multiple people shot but later confirmed there was only one victim. The NSW Police Force has access to the highest-powered handgun available in Australia the Glock semi-automatic. The Glock is a military-style handgun, with one of the largest magazine capabilities for a weapon of its class. It is reasonable to expect that if even general duties officers such as those stationed at the Youth Command have access to high-powered military-style firearms, the police should have a comprehensive and up-to-date firearm monitoring and tracking system in place. Glock glitch: the police should have a comprehensive and up-to-date firearm monitoring and tracking system in place. Credit: Edwina Pickles The devastating events of the past week and the allegations that have followed have starkly revealed the alarming deficiencies within the firearm monitoring system of the NSW Police Force. It is alleged that senior constable Beau Lamarre-Condon used his Glock to kill Jesse Baird and Luke Davies. These allegations havent been proven in court, but regardless, a close review of police firearms is needed. Although the law does allow for an off-duty police officer to possess a firearm without a firearm licence or permit when not on duty, this can only occur if the officer complies with guidelines issued by the commissioner of police. Their guidelines are not publicly available, but they should be. Its also now clear they should be immediately reviewed. Just 100 steps off a country road, Beau Lamarre-Condon allegedly dumped the remains of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies behind a mound of dirt. Lamarre-Condon had allegedly killed Baird and his new boyfriend Davies with a police-issued Glock at a Paddington house on February 19. The area around the mound of dirt where the bodies believed to be of Luke Davies and Jesse Baird were discovered. Credit: Kate Geraghty The bodies of Baird and Davis were eventually left off Jerrara Road leading to the Greek Orthodox Holy Monastery of Saint Fanourios at Bungonia in the Southern Tablelands of NSW. However, they werent discovered until Lamarre-Condon allegedly pinpointed the site from his Silverwater jail cell on Tuesday afternoon. When the Parliament of Australia met in the Great Hall of the Royal Exhibition Building on May 9, 2001 to celebrate the inauguration of federal parliament opening there 100 years earlier to the day, 7500 invited guests saw a building magnificently restored. But for the distance of time, technology and fashion, the scene was almost the same as that which greeted the 12,000 people who came to see the Duke of York proclaim Australias first parliament open. The Royal Exhibition Building is an integral piece of Melbournes history. Credit: Chris Hopkins In 2001, they came to see a building once threatened with demolition a 1948 Melbourne City Council motion to demolish it failed by a single vote that stood proudly and as part of a legacy of the citys great 19th century buildings. Now, just as it was in 2001 and in 1901, the Royal Exhibition Building is a beautiful, historically important structure to Melbourne and symbolic of the city. It is one of the great exhibition halls of the 19th century. Both the building and the Carlton Gardens, which it inhabits, deserve their UNESCO World Heritage listing. It is arguably as important to Melbourne as the Eiffel Tower that other temporary structure built for the Paris World Fair of 1879 is to Paris. KYODO NEWS - Feb 28, 2024 - 13:53 | All, World Donald Trump celebrated a resounding victory in Michigan's Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, defeating his only remaining rival Nikki Haley and extending his undefeated streak to six contests. The win in Michigan, a key battleground state in U.S. presidential elections, just after Trump beat Haley in her home state of South Carolina over the weekend quickened his march toward a likely November rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden. "The numbers are far greater than we even anticipated," Trump told his supporters gathered for an election night party in Michigan by phone, adding that he is "so proud of the results" and determined to return to the White House. Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador under Trump, has no clear path to overtake the former president and clinch the party's nomination in July. But Haley, 52, has indicated that she will stay in the race at least through "Super Tuesday" on March 5, when 15 states and one territory hold nominating contests for the general election. She has repeatedly said the United States needs a younger leader than the 77-year-old Trump or the 81-year-old Biden, referring to polls showing a majority of voters in the country want an option other than a rematch between the former and current presidents. "We are in a ship with a hole in it, and we can either go down with the ship and watch the country go socialist left, or we can see that we need to take the life raft and move in a new direction," she told CNN. "That's what this is about." Biden, meanwhile, faced a backlash from Arab American voters and progressive Democrats in Michigan, where he won against Trump by a narrow margin in the 2020 presidential election. Protesting Biden's strong backing of Israel in its war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, some of those voters -- who were vital in his successful bid for the White House -- launched a campaign to check "uncommitted" in the swing state's Democratic primary. Michigan is demographically diverse and home to the biggest Arab American population in the United States. Despite Biden's decisive victory in the state and other nominating contests, his handling of the months-long conflict in the Gaza Strip has become increasingly unpopular among Democratic voters across the country. On Tuesday, the number of uncommitted votes far exceeded the protest campaign's goal of securing at least 10,000 -- which is about Trump's margin of victory in 2016 in Michigan -- sounding an alarm for Biden. Related coverage: Trump beats Haley in Republican primary in her home state Trump ordered to pay $355 million in New York fraud trial Biden easily wins 1st Democratic presidential nomination contest A Perth mother accused of defrauding the National Disability Insurance Scheme has had her criminal charges dropped. Vida Reid, the founding director of Armadale-based disability provider Forward Focused Group, was charged with two counts of fraud and two counts of dealings with proceeds of crime. Vida Reid, right, has had fraud charges against her dropped. Prosecutors had previously accused her of defrauding the NDIS of nearly $250,000 by ripping off clients living with disabilities through overcharging and invoicing for services that werent provided. Reid took to social media to post a celebratory photo after the charges were withdrawn last week. Private schools across Western Australia are spending millions of taxpayer dollars on capital works including new buildings and swimming pools while public schools are squeezing more students into demountables, according to the states education union. While just five Perth schools spent more than $45 million between them in 2022 on upgrades, infrastructure in public schools has been steadily deteriorating according to analysis of Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority data. The Australian Education Unions analysis revealed capital investment in WA public schools on a per-student basis was just two-thirds the amount invested in private schools over the last decade. The additional investment required to match private school per student funding between 2012 and 2021 was estimated to be over $2 billion. A Perth grandmother will remain in a Japanese jail for at least another four months awaiting trial for smuggling drugs. Donna Nelsons trial is set to last two weeks and will likely begin in the last week of June, 18 months after she was arrested allegedly with two kilograms of meth in her suitcase. West Australian woman and Aboriginal community leader Donna Nelson. In a statement, her family told 9News Perth and WAtoday she was buoyed by the development. We would like everyone to know that our mum is in good health and good spirits. they said. The federal government is being urged to scale up its aid to Ukraine to help confront a growing danger from the Russian army amid new signs of a reluctance to send more military equipment, ammunition, coal and humanitarian supplies. The Ukrainian community issued the call in a direct plea to Defence Minister Richard Marles to remove obstacles within his department that have held back some of the support, while also thanking him for $50 million in aid promised this month. Co-chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations Kateryna Argyrou and Ukraines ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko urged Canberra to scale up its aid to Ukraine during an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen With Russian forces advancing in eastern Ukraine, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham backed the new request and said the government was being too timid in sending help. Australia was one of the biggest contributors to Ukraine from the non-NATO countries in the months after Russias full-scale invasion two years ago, but has fallen down the list as it waited to do more while other countries increased their work. Melbournes beleaguered Docklands precinct has taken another hit with weeks of road closures from the West Gate Tunnel Project causing traffic chaos for residents and businesses, leading one prominent business owner to leave the area altogether. Docklands proprietors are furious at the impact of the project works, which have shut down access roads to the suburb and led to what they say is a staggering loss of business worse than the pandemic. Docklands business owner Glyn Bosisto is relocating his office to South Melbourne after West Gate Tunnel Project road works caused major traffic disruptions in the suburb. Credit: Justin McManus Since mid-February, West Gate Tunnel project works have closed Footscray Road in both directions between Docklands Drive and Pearl River Road while a new walking and cycling bridge is built. Wurundjeri Way is also closed between Dudley Street and Bourke Street in both directions for the construction of a new city bypass. All roads are set to reopen by early March, according to the state government. Kyoto, says Richard Farmer, our guide, is the culture capital of Japan. I am reminded of this later when Im forced to ask him whats the go with the huge gonads on these statues? Farmer, British-born but a long-term resident of Japan who speaks the language fluently, breaks out in an infectious grin: Theyre called tanuki and But Im getting ahead of myself. Kyoto is pretty much synonymous with geishas, traditional wooden townhouses, and temples, lots and lots of them (1600 at the last count). It is a city, confesses Farmer, where it is very easy to get templed out. Reports on the death of cruising were greatly exaggerated, with its post-COVID-19 recovery exceeding all expectations. How the naysayers gloated at the height of the pandemic as they watched the struggles of the cruise industry and predicted its imminent collapse. The cliched headlines just kept coming about it being in deep water. Or out of its depth. Or facing stormy seas. Or adrift. Holland Americas Rotterdam is back to full operation. I was never so sure. This is far from the first crisis overcome by a very resilient industry. Cruising also took major hits during the first pandemic (Spanish influenza), two world wars, and the oil crisis and rise of cheaper airfares in the 1970s. But, to use another cliche, fair winds always picked up. Now the latest figures released by Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) show that in 2023, some 31.5 million passengers boarded cruise ships an increase of nearly 6 per cent on 2019 pre-pandemic figures. Berlin: Daniela Klette, a member of Germanys notorious far-left Red Army Faction militant group, has been arrested in Berlin after decades on the run from armed robbery and attempted murder charges. Klette, 65, a member of the so-called third generation of the guerilla group that was active from the 1970s to the late 90s, has long been sought alongside two other members, Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub, for a series of robberies and at least one attempted murder. Police seized a pistol, two magazines and cartridges in the apartment block in Berlins central Kreuzberg district where Klette was found alone, prosecutors said. She was later taken by helicopter to a jail in the northern city of Bremen. A 1988 portrait of RAF (Red Army Faction) member Daniela Klette, handed out by German police in 1993. Credit: AP Late yesterday evening, police succeeded in detaining Daniela Klette in a Berlin apartment, said Friedo de Vries, head of the criminal investigation department in Lower Saxony at a news briefing on Tuesday. She offered no resistance. Amman: Hungry Palestinians lined the shore in Gaza to receive food dropped by Jordanian, Egyptian and French planes as a humanitarian situation in the war-torn enclave looms. Three Jordanian C-130 military transport aircraft joined four other planes from Egypt, Qatar, France and the UAE, in the biggest air drop operation so far to Gaza, the army said. Palestinians wait for humanitarian aid on a beachfront in Gaza City. Credit: AP The flow of aid entering Gaza from Egypt has declined dramatically in the past few weeks, but Israel has said it is not blocking aid and blames the UN and the Palestinian side for any delays. Jordans King Abdullah, who participated in an air drop of aid to Gaza, said food and aid to the war-torn enclave must be doubled to avert worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian situation. US President Joe Biden appears to have caught combatants in the war in Gaza by surprise with his declaration that a temporary ceasefire could be implemented five days before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins on the evening of March 9. The president told reporters in New York that he was hopeful that a ceasefire was possible by next Monday. My national security adviser tells me that were close. Were close. Were not done yet, he said. Ramadans coming up and there has been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out. A tent camp housing Palestinians displaced by the Israeli offensive in Rafah. Credit: AP Israeli and Hamas officials have poured water on a ceasefire. While we can only speculate on the reasons behind Bidens hopeful ebullience, it is clear he has insider information on behind-the-scenes negotiations and is obviously running harder on the possibility of a ceasefire than either of the warring sides. A senior official from Egypt has been reported claiming a six-week ceasefire would go into effect, and Hamas would agree to free up to 40 hostages mostly civilian women, at least two children, and older and sick captives. A proposal was crafted after mediated negotiations in Paris several days ago. The framework has been presented by Israel, the US, Qatar, and Egypt in the French capital. Israeli and Hamas delegations are reported to be in the Qatari capital, Doha, for further negotiations. Since Hamas October 7 attack, halting the bloodshed in Gaza has been diplomatically difficult. According to Israeli figures, about 1200 people were killed and another 250 abducted in the attack. So far, Israels retaliation and invasion has killed almost 30,000 people by some estimations, displaced more than 85 per cent of the 2.3 million population, and left Palestinian infrastructure in ruins. About 100 hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians in Israeli jails last November, but the truce collapsed after a week. Progress on a second deal has proved elusive. Just as it is in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus interest to prolong the war and postpone the day of reckoning for his failure to prevent the October attack, Biden has a pressing personal political need to help resolve the conflict. Loading The president must lessen anger within his Democratic Party over his stand on Gaza to ensure maximum support against Donald Trump in the November presidential election. The Heralds North America correspondent Farrah Tomazin reports that although Biden won, he faced a grassroots campaign in the Michigan presidential primaries, a state with an estimated 300,000 Arab-American and Muslim voters. Early results showed about 16 per cent voted uncommitted as a protest against his support for Israel, one of his key liabilities with more liberal Democrats. The high number of uncommitted votes is a warning sign in a blue-collar state that Trump won against Hillary Clinton by just 0.2 per cent in 2016. Less parochially, Biden is offering Israel the chance to normalise diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. Biden made it clear in New York he was no longer insisting on a two-state solution immediately but a process to get to a two-state solution. Ceasefire is the first step to that process. For Netanyahu, making the neighbourhood less hostile would be not only a historic achievement but a far preferable legacy than the bloodshed of Gaza. KYODO NEWS - Feb 28, 2024 - 21:46 | World, All, Japan The Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands may formally seek an amendment of a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons, before it considers acceding to it, its leader said Wednesday. President Hilda Heine told Kyodo News in an interview that if certain provisions in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons are not changed, "we cannot ratify the treaty." Her remarks came ahead of the 70th anniversary Friday of the most powerful U.S. nuclear bomb test in the Marshall Islands. The provisions she referred to say that nuclear-affected countries are responsible for victim assistance and environmental remediation. "Obviously, the treaty did not take our issues into consideration because...the language is such that we have to clean our own mess. And in fact, we shouldn't be. We didn't cause the mess," Heine said, citing the continuing impact of the 67 U.S. nuclear tests that were conducted from 1946 to 1958. The largest-ever test took place on March 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll, exposing islanders and 23 crew members on the Japanese tuna fishing boat Fukuryu Maru No. 5 to radioactive fallout. A formal petition to revise Article 6 of the treaty, which came into force in January 2021, could be "the next step we need to make", Heine said, asking her country's diplomats in New York dealing with the United Nations to "take a look at what's needed there." "We supported the treaty...because we don't want nuclear to be developed and used around the world. We don't want what we experienced to happen to other people," she said. Heine also underscored the importance of the participation of the United States and other nuclear-armed states in the pact. "As long as they are out of the treaty, then they are able to do this (nuclear development). It doesn't make sense," she added. The Marshallese leader, who took the helm in January for a second term, created a new position called Presidential Envoy for Nuclear Justice and Human Rights. During her first term in 2016 until 2020, the country's National Nuclear Commission was also established. "I've always felt that we need to do more," Heine said. With an amended agreement with the United States signed last October to address the lingering effects of the nuclear tests, Heine said her administration will work out a formula for the allocation of the increased assistance to 13 nuclear-affected atolls, up from the previous four -- Bikini, Rongelap, Enewetak and Utrok. Under the 2023 Amended Compact, the United States will provide $1.6 billion to the Marshall Islands over 20 years in grant assistance and $700 million in new Compact Trust Fund contributions. Heine lamented the continued displacement of many Marshallese due to the nuclear tests. "As long as people are not back on their home islands, the (nuclear) legacy continues because land is so important to people," she said. Ahead of a memorial ceremony set for Friday to remember the nuclear victims in the country, a number of activities raising awareness about the issue have begun in the capital Majuro this week, including the sharing of stories between Marshallese and Japanese college students. Washington: US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he would step down from his leadership role, leaving a power vacuum atop the party he has piloted for nearly 17 years, more than any other party leader in the chambers history. I turned 82 last week. The end of my contributions are closer than I prefer, McConnell said on the Senate floor, his voice breaking with emotion. Father Time remains undefeated. Im no longer the young man sitting in the back hoping colleagues remember my name. Its time for the next generation of leadership. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says hell step down as Senate Republican leader in November. Credit: AP The 82-year-old Kentucky senators departure will remove a central character in negotiations with Democrats and the White House on spending deals to keep the federal government funded and avert a shutdown. It will also mark the step back of an orderly counterpart to the tumultuous approach of Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, and the hardline House Freedom Caucus ahead of the November election for president, the full House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. Washington: It was a moment of truth for Joe Biden. More than three years after voters in Michigan helped propel him to the White House, many Democrats in the Midwest state turned against the president over his stance on the bloodshed in Gaza. In a Democratic primary race to determine who should be their presidential candidate, tens of thousands of Michigan voters marked uncommitted on their ballot paper in a potent symbol of the seething anger they felt about the Israel-Hamas war. A volunteer holds a sign outside a polling station at Oakman School in Dearborn, Michigan. Credit: Bloomberg The protest vote was pushed by residents forming a sizeable part of the Democratic base, including Arab-Americans, young people, and black voters. PHILIPSBURG:--- The 44th edition of the Sint Maarten Heineken Regatta is scheduled to commence on February 29th, concluding on March 3rd. This popular annual event is celebrated for its exceptional sailing competition and the unforgettable parties it offers. In preparation for the event, the organizers engage in meticulous planning and coordination with local authorities to guarantee safety both at sea and onshore. A key collaborator in these efforts is the Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard, which dedicates its resources to maintaining safety and order on the waters throughout the event's duration. Annually, the Coast Guard integrates the event into its operational calendar, allowing for the strategic allocation of additional personnel training and the acquisition of supplementary equipment specifically tailored to meet the demands of the Regatta. This proactive approach ensures the event not only runs smoothly but also upholds the highest standards of safety and security for all participants and spectators. The Coast Guard is committed to ensuring the highest level of safety throughout the event, executing vigilant patrols to address any safety-related challenges, and ascertaining the security of all participants engaging in sailing activities. In a concerted effort with the St. Maarten Police Force, Dutch Marines, Customs, and Immigration departments, the Coast Guard will extend its patrol operations across our territorial waters to enhance safety measures. Our number one priority is safety at sea, and in light of this, we wish to distribute crucial safety guidelines that must be followed by all individuals participating in this sailing event: Each vessel is required to be equipped with a sufficient number of life vests, ensuring one for every person onboard. The boat documentation specifically stipulates the maximum capacity of individuals allowed onboard, which must not be exceeded under any circumstances. Captains are required to have a fully charged cellular phone or a functional VHF radio, in addition to GPS equipment, on board at all times. Operators of wave runners (SEADOO) are obligated to wear life vests and are advised to moderate their speed in designated areas. It is imperative for boat captains or the vessel's agents, to report to the Immigration office for clearance upon departure or arrival in Sint Maarten. In the event of an emergency, individuals should immediately contact 913 or communicate via VHF channel 16. It is a requirement for all individuals onboard to have their identification papers on them (ID/passport). Boat documentation should also be up-to-date, present, and accessible. It is mandatory to have an operational light on the vessel when traveling in a dinghy (small boat) to and from the various activities after the sun sets. This requirement is essential for ensuring your visibility to other watercraft and for navigating safely in low-light conditions. Following this rule helps prevent collisions and ensures the safety of all individuals on the water. Public intoxication is strictly prohibited by law when sailing and operating a dinghy (small boat) at night. This regulation will be enforced to lower the risk of accidents and ensure the safety of all individuals participating in or attending the events. Mr. Jurandy Sambre, the Head of Operations at Sub-Station Sint Maarten, expressed readiness and enthusiasm for the upcoming annual event, which has become an integral tradition of Sint Maarten, just like Carnaval and Christmas. " We look forward to it and are ready to go!" he remarked. Furthermore, the newly appointed Head of the Substation, Mr. Randy Paskel, applauded the exceptional level of professionalism and commitment exhibited by the team, as well as the preparatory efforts undertaken by everyone involved. "This will be my first Regatta as the head of the Sub-Station, and I must say, Im impressed at the level of professionalism displayed by all of our team members, but also the level of dedication from the organizers and all other local authorities involved!" he stated. The Coast Guard will be patrolling with the Metal Sharks, the Poema Cutter and other units. We wish all a safe and successful Sint Maarten Heineken Regatta 2024! Urgent call for Members of Parliament to screen the function of Governor on St. Maarten If members of parliament wont defend themselves, how can they defend the people? Dear Members of Parliament: The continuing debate over screening candidate ministers and candidate minister plenipotentiary is upon us again. Recall that on November 24, 2020, in the matter brought before the Supervisory Committee charged with overseeing the operation of the VDSM (Veiligheidsdients St. Maarten), the committee, presided by an honorable justice of the Court of First Instance of St. Maarten as prescribed in the Landsverordenining Veiligheidsdienst St. Maarten, ruled that the function of Minister is not a so-called vertrouwensfunctie and that therefore the VDSM has no legal basis for conducting any screening on candidate ministers. Since we are on the topic of screening, it is time to determine if the function and office of the Governor, is itself a violation of overriding international law. St. Maartens peremptory or jus cogens right to self-determination After pointing out to the International Court of Justice that according to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the right of self-determination of peoples is a permanent, continuing, universal and inalienable right with a peremptory character1, the Kingdom went on to define the scope of that right. Scope of the right of self-determination In paragraph 2.2 the Kingdom stated: Based on these formulations it must also be concluded that the decisions on the political status and the economic, social and cultural development is made by the people itself, or their legitimate representatives, not by others. Moreover, such decisions shall be made in full freedom, without any outside pressure or interference. In her letter of July 4, 2022, State Secretary van Huffelen confirmed to Pro Soualiga that: In case of a conflict between a rule of international law with a peremptory character and national legislation, international law takes precedence over such national legislation. 1 International Court of Justice, Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, (Request for an advisory opinion) Written Statement of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, February 27, 2018, par. 1.5 The peremptory norm mandate This formulation by the State Secretary suggests that Parliament therefore has a mandate to screen all laws on St. Maarten to ensure compliance with the jus cogens or peremptory right to self-determination of the people of St. Maarten. Is the function of Governor compatible with the peremptory right to self-determination? If, as the Kingdom argues, the decisions on the political status and the economic, social and cultural development are made by the people itself, or its legitimate representatives, not by others. Moreover, such decisions shall be made in full freedom, without any outside pressure or interference. then the question therefore arises if the function of a governor is not in conflict with the tenet that decisions are made by the people itself, not by others. The appointment of a Governor by the Kingdom Council of Ministers therefore appears to be in conflict with this principle. Having a governor appointed by others exercising anything other than ceremonial duties, such as exercised by the governor of say, St. Kitts, would appear to be a violation of St. Maartens right to self-determination. Indeed if the decisions on economic, social, and cultural development are made by the people itself, not by others it begs the question as to what lawful function is there for a governor or a Kingdom Council of Ministers on St. Maarten. The obligation of Parliament As the legitimate representatives of the people of St. Maarten it is therefore incumbent upon Parliament to protect first of all its own integrity, then the right to self-determination of the people of St. Maarten. One way to do so is to follow the suggestion of the State Secretary and screen the function of governor to ensure compatibility with St. Maartens right to self-determination as defined by the Kingdom in the Written Statement. This would naturally include screening the Kingdom Charter, as it too must conform to international law. The obligation of the Governor Until there is clarity on the legality of the function and office of Governor, Parliament and the Governor should refrain from any action which might violate international law, such as the peremptory right to self-determination, as he is instructed to in Article 22:2 of the Reglement voor de Gouverneur van Sint Maarten. Sincerely, Renate Brison. PHILIPSBURG:--- Unions WICSU-PSU and SMCU, representing the workers at TELEM N.V., have jointly sent a unified letter to the Prime Minister, Silveria Jacobs as the main shareholder representative of the Government-owned company. The initial email, sent by WICSU-PSU on February 6, 2024, and officially registered on February 9, 2024, at the Department of General Affairs, requested clarity on the position of the Council of Ministers regarding the restructuring and its potential economic impact on the country. Additionally, concerns were raised regarding provisions for the unemployed workforce, given the absence of an unemployment fund. However, to date, there has been no response or acknowledgment of receipt from the Prime Minister's office. In a further effort to engage with the government, both unions sent urgent meeting requests to the Prime Minister on February 22 and 26, 2024. These letters were also officially registered with the Department of General Affairs. Regrettably, no acknowledgment or response has been received from the Prime Minister or her office. This lack of communication is deeply disrespectful to the workers of TELEM, who are facing uncertainty and potential job loss through no fault of their own. It is particularly concerning that while management was called to a Council of Ministers meeting, the concerns of the employees remain unaddressed. The unions believe that in situations of restructuring, the entire company, including top management, should be subject to scrutiny and potential adjustments. It is unjust that only non-"C" category employees are feeling the repercussions of the restructuring, while top earners remain unaffected. The unions are now publicly reaching out to the Prime Minister to urge a conversation with workers' representatives to address the mass layoff of 52 persons. Questions regarding the consideration of the economy and the thoroughness of the decision-making process have been raised, highlighting significant flaws in the current restructuring plans. In conclusion, the unions demand immediate attention and assurance from the Prime Minister regarding the future of TELEM N.V. and the well-being of its employees. The lack of empathy and responsiveness exhibited by the Prime Minister's office is unacceptable, and urgent action is needed to address the concerns raised by the workers' representatives. Zamil Steel Pre-Engineered Buildings Company, a subsidiary of Saudi-based conglomerate Zamil Industrial, has clinched a significant contract from Bahri Logistics Company for the construction of the 'Bahri Bonded Zone' complex at Jeddah Islamic Port. A leading initiative, Bahri Bonded Zone, is aimed at establishing a world-class logistics hub within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It comprises an associated office building, a mezzanine floor, a warehouse, a mechanical roof, and other utility annexes. This marks a major milestone for the company, further solidifying its position as a trusted partner for large-scale and complex logistics infrastructure projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, said Nawaf Mohammed Al Zamil, the President of Zamil Steel Company, after signing the contract with Mohammed Mikwar, the Contract Logistics Senior Manager at Bahri Logistics Company. The project scope encompasses the design, fabrication, supply, and erection of a pre-engineered steel building with an area of approximately 37,000 sq m, stated Al Zamil. The structure is being meticulously designed to withstand all gravity, lateral (wind and seismic), and temperature loads, ensuring exceptional durability and safety in the demanding port environment, he added.-TradeArabia News Service KYODO NEWS - Feb 28, 2024 - 19:47 | World, All Tuvalu's Prime Minister Feleti Teo reaffirmed his country's ties with Taiwan after taking office Wednesday following a general election last month, according to a government statement shared on social media by an incoming minister. The South Pacific nation is one of Taiwan's three remaining Pacific allies after Nauru severed ties with the self-ruled island in favor of mainland China in January. "The new government wishes to reaffirm its commitment to the long-term and lasting special relationship between Tuvalu and the Republic of China, Taiwan," said the government statement shared on X, formerly Twitter, by Minister for Transport, Energy, Communication and Innovation Simon Kofe. "It intends to reassess options that would strengthen and lift it to a more durable, lasting, and mutually beneficial relationship," the statement said. Ministers of Teo's Cabinet were sworn in at a ceremony in the capital Funafuti, more than a month after the Jan. 26 election. Teo, a former attorney general and fisheries official, has visited Taiwan many times, according to the self-ruled island. The move by Nauru last month leaves Taiwan with only 12 diplomatic allies, including the Pacific nations of Tuvalu, Palau and the Marshall Islands. Related coverage: Taiwan's Lai seeks cooperation with Japan as he meets Tokyo governor U.S., Taiwan officials discuss Taipei's role in global forums By Gautam Viswanathan and Elvin Jacob New Canadian Media When University of British Columbia graduate Ritika Saraswat went back to India to speak to students about the challenges they could face if they came to study in Canada, she was shocked by their most common assumption about her. People just thought I am incredibly rich, that I am just minting money, she said after talking to nearly 1,500 students in six cities. They thought we were all living amazing lives in Canada, that all we do is party. But thats not what weve been doing. I feel that at a very young age, we are being trained with that mindset. Even if you talk to the teachers or the professors who work there, they have the same perception. While at UBC, Saraswat founded ReDefined, an organization that creates awareness of the realities of being an international student in Canada. She joined a financial services firm after graduating in 2022 but also continues to grow ReDefined. She believes that it is this perceived image of Canada that makes some people want to come here at all costs even if it means enrolling in an educational institution of questionable reputation so that one day they can get Canadian citizenship through the back door. Many of these institutions operate under curriculum licensing agreements, enabling private colleges to deliver curricula of an associated public college. They face less oversight and are therefore very successful in attracting international students. Talking to the students themselves, you see the difference and the kind of knowledge they come with, said Saraswat, referring to students who go to these centres, which were referred to as the diploma equivalent of puppy mills that are just churning out diplomas by Marc Miller, Canadas Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Almost 40 percent of their day is spent working a part-time job, they may spend 30 percent studying, and the other 30 per cent catching up with university work or other things. A lot of them say they dont get proper education from professors, so they then have to go home and study online, so that they can cope and get good grades on their assignments and exams. Saraswats trip to India ended in December, just days before Canada announced caps on the number of study permits issued to international students planning to pursue undergraduate education at 360,000 for 2024. That number is 35 percent lower than its targets for the previous year and the latest in a series of measures aimed at preventing back door pathways to becoming a permanent resident. These measures include requiring future international students to show an increased proof of funds; making future graduates from colleges operating under licensing agreements ineligible for post-graduate work permits; prioritizing study permits for students who wish to pursue masters degrees and doctorates in Canada; and requiring all future letters of acceptance from higher education centres to be accompanied by letters of attestation from the corresponding province or territory. Saraswat provided an example of the challenges faced by students from such undergraduate programs: A distraught married couple had to live on their savings from back home because they were unable to find work in Canada. The market is so tricky, and her husband just had a two-year work permit, so employees were not likely to hire him, she said. It takes six months to just train you, so people are hesitant about that. Even though they knew all this when they were back home, they came to Canada despite this being one of their biggest challenges. In this context, Saraswat blames agencies that charge expensive fees and paints a rosy picture of Canada. Their families, desperate to see their children do well, often go with whatever their immigration agent tells them. A consultant said that if you graduate from this college, you will get a job within six months from graduating, she said, recalling what a college graduate told her at a recent event. Its now been a year and a half, and he still doesnt have a job. For most newcomers, their Canadian journey begins several thousand kilometres away in their home countries. Many prospective immigrants know someone who has moved overseas, and newcomers are good at documenting their new lives on social media, driving many back home to immigrate, even if through the back door. Internet-savvy immigration agencies often post dramatic videos of agents handing over stamped passports to candidates, while accompanying parents break down with emotion, or of people gleefully broadcasting their emotions once their passports have been stamped. And then there are the illegal migrants videos showing illegal immigrants jumping the U.S.-Mexico border fence, or swimming across rivers, while on the way to Canada. Some brazenly post their routes or even testimonials, sharing contact details of the agent who helped them immigrate illegally. Lately there are also social media posts that feature interviews of immigrants in city centres, asking them about their occupations and income. Most featured interviewees are highly skilled workers, whose earnings easily put them in the top one percent. Put these jigsaw pieces together and the resulting image portrays a very different reality, creating higher demand for back door mechanisms that make the Canadian dream seem within arms reach for everyone. Kanwar Sierah, a Brampton, Ont. immigration consultant registered with Canadas College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants has been vocal about the issues plaguing the countrys immigration system. I believe that Canada knowingly kept these back door entries open until the situation spiralled out of control, as they contribute significantly to the Canadian economy, said Sierah. He said that while Millers announcement last month plugged one loophole, it has put pressure on agents to use other back door mechanisms to compensate. Sierah says agents could charge clients more money for exploiting other alternative entry options, such as the Temporary Foreign Worker, Temporary Resident Visitor, and Refugee/Asylum programs. He says Canada must take immediate steps to ensure the integrity of other programs. Blaming both agents and their clients alike, Sierah says both are hand-in-glove using student permits not to study but to merely enter Canada. Canadian colleges and universities still rely on aggregators that connect unscrupulous agents abroad with the education system in Canada, Sierah said. Hefty commissions are siphoned through these aggregator channels to the same agents who sell the study abroad dream in the name of permanent residency and other false promises abroad. The problem of bad faith actors is equally serious on other fronts. For example, the Montreal Bar Association recently launched an awareness campaign to warn people of fake advocates. Sierah called the immigration ministers decision to cap international student numbers much-needed and sensible, but fears it might be tough for him to stick to his decision. Lou Janssen Dangzalan from Toronto-based LJD Law Professional Corporation says that people were unfortunately sold dreams that may have been unattainable in the best of situations. The sheer number of international students in Canada vis-a-vis the slots open for new PRs clearly do not match, Dangzalan said. Canada cannot keep a stiff upper lip in saying that a majority of these 900-plus thousand students do not desire PR. Assuming just half of them do, the plans dont add up. Years of ignoring program integrity issues are finally being addressed. My hope is it is not too late. If you worry about when the sun will die, never fear: that moment is billions of years away. The sun gives energy to life on Earth, and without this star, we wouldn't be here. But even stars have limited lifetimes, and someday our sun will die. You don't need to worry about this solar death anytime soon, though. Like all stars, a churning fusion engine fuels the sun, and it still has a lot of fuel left about 5 billion years' worth. Related: What's inside the sun? A star tour from the inside out When will the sun die? The sun will begin to die in about 5 billion years when it runs out of hydrogen. Sun death Q&A with an expert We asked physicist Frederick C. Bruhweiler a few frequently asked questions about the death of the sun and what it means for our solar system. Dr. Frederick C. Bruhweiler Physicist-in-Residence, Integrated Space Science & Technology Institute, Dept. of Physics, American University Frederick Bruhweiler is a physicist who uses data from space and ground-based instruments and telescopes to model the cosmos. He helped develop the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, two key instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope, and is currently the lead researcher on multiple NASA-funded research projects. What will happen when the sun dies? The sun will end its life as a white dwarf. As a white dwarf, it is essentially a dead star that has exhausted all of the nuclear fuel that it is capable of burning. As a white dwarf, it will slowly cool and fade away to lower and lower temperatures. This is the final state of low-mass stars, including the sun. Although the sun is a million times the volume of Earth, a white dwarf is roughly the size of our Earth. Most of the white dwarf will consist of a special ultradense state of matter called electron degenerate matter. This is a state where all the electrons are in their lowest possible energy states. Our sun as a white dwarf will have a core of mostly carbon and oxygen, which is the remnants of burning helium. Around this core will be a thin layer of helium, which will be the leftovers of helium burning. The outside layer will contain a thin layer of unburnt hydrogen. Some white dwarfs do not have this outer hydrogen layer because the thermonuclear burning of hydrogen in their evolution has been complete. What will happen to Earth when the sun dies? Earth will probably not even exist when the sun dies. The sun is slowly expanding. In about 5 billion years, the sun will enter the red giant phase. During this phase, the sun makes a transition from burning hydrogen in the core to burning hydrogen around the core, which has been converted into helium by hydrogen burning. The energy production increases dramatically and forces the star to expand more than 200 times in order to reach a new equilibrium state. Theoretical modeling and observations reinforced with distance determinations from the Gaia spacecraft indicate that the sun could well swallow up the Earth when it reaches its maximum size. At some point when the sun reaches the tip of the AGB [the asymptotic giant branch], helium burning will commence. In a star like the sun, helium burning occurs by thermal pulses. In each pulse, the sun will undergo significant mass loss. However, the sun has been undergoing mass loss throughout its entire lifetime. This mass loss rate is rather low in the present sun and is evidenced by the solar wind. Even now, Earth is losing its water. Interactions with the UV radiation field and particles in the solar wind reaching Earth are dissociating the water in our upper atmosphere. The light hydrogen, especially, can escape the gravitational pull of Earth. Observations with previous space missions and the Hubble Space Telescope show an extensive expanding hydrogen cloud (exosphere) around the Earth. Estimates have suggested that Earth will lose most of its water in a billion years and be much like Mars. Even if the sun doesnt engulf Earth, the increased luminosity and strong stellar wind in the later phases of its evolution would strip or boil away any remaining atmosphere or ocean. If Earth were to survive, it would be a rocky cinder orbiting a white dwarf. What will happen to other planets in the solar system when the sun dies? The big question is, What will happen to the gas giants in the outer solar system? The enhanced mass loss in the suns later phases of its evolution will definitely strip away the outer atmospheric layers of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; to what extent it is hard to say without detailed calculations. Again, this depends upon the actual mass ejection occurring in the later stages of stellar evolution and in the fast mass loss phase of the hot pre-white dwarfs. The hot pre-white dwarfs, which remain after the ejection of the stellar envelope and the planetary nebulae phase, will have cores with temperatures of 100,000 K and higher and winds in excess of 2000 km/s. Again, would any of these gas giants survive? If they do, they would only be ghosts of what they once were. Could a new solar system form after the sun dies? The ejected material from both the normal evolution and ejected planetary nebula will enrich the interstellar medium with heavy elements resulting from the hydrogen and helium burning processes. This would notably produce carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, plus s-process elements such as Ba, Zr, and La to name a few. Clouds of this enriched material combined with that of other stars could form dense clouds, which could later collapse to form the next generation of stars. Why will the sun die? A diagram showing the balance between fusion and gravity in a star. (Image credit: NASA) Stars like our sun form when a huge cloud of gas (mostly hydrogen and helium) grows so large that it collapses under its own weight. The pressure is so high in the center of that collapsing mass of gas that the heat reaches unimaginable levels, with temperatures so hot that hydrogen atoms lose their electrons. Those naked hydrogen atoms then fuse together into helium atoms, and that reaction releases enough energy to counter the intense pressure of gravity collapsing the cloud of gas. The battle between gravity and the energy from fusion reactions fuels our sun and billions of other stars in our galaxy and beyond. But in about 5 billion years, the sun will run out of hydrogen. Our star is currently in the most stable phase of its life cycle and has been since the formation of our solar system, about 4.5 billion years ago. Once all the hydrogen gets used up, the sun will grow out of this stable phase. What will happen when the sun dies? With no hydrogen left to fuse in the core, a shell of fusion hydrogen will form around the helium-filled core, astrophysicist Jillian Scudder wrote in an article for The Conversation . Gravitational forces will take over, compressing the core and allowing the rest of the sun to expand. Our star will grow to be larger than we can imagine so large that it will envelope the inner planets, including Earth. That's when the sun will become a red giant , which it will remain for about a billion years. Then, the hydrogen in that outer core will deplete, leaving an abundance of helium. That element will then fuse into heavier elements, like oxygen and carbon, in reactions that don't emit as much energy. Once all the helium disappears, the forces of gravity will take over, and the sun will shrink into a white dwarf . All the outer material will dissipate, leaving behind a planetary nebula . "When a star dies, it ejects a mass of gas and dust known as its envelope into space. The envelope can be as much as half the star's mass," astronomer Albert Zijlstra of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, said in a statement . "This reveals the star's core, which by this point in the star's life is running out of fuel, eventually turning off and before finally dying." Astronomers estimate that the sun has about 7 billion to 8 billion years left before it sputters out and dies. One way or another, humanity may well be long gone by then. No supernova, no black hole Our sun isn't massive enough to trigger a stellar explosion, called a supernova, when it dies, and it will never become a black hole either. In order to create a supernova, a star needs about 10 times the mass of our sun. An object of that size would form a dense stellar corpse called a neutron star after the explosion. To leave behind a black hole, a supernova must occur in a star with about 20 times the mass of the sun. Additional resources Find out what will happen to the Earth when the sun dies, from Live Science. Learn more about how stars form, evolve and die from NASA, and learn more about how the agency studies our sun. Watch a mini documentary on the topic, The Death of the Sun, from PBS Space Time. Bibliography OpenAI seeks dismissal of parts of NY Times copyright suit San Francisco, Feb 27 (AFP) Feb 27, 2024 OpenAI asked a US judge to dismiss several elements of a lawsuit brought by The New York Times, which accuses the ChatGPT creator of using millions of articles for training without permission. In its filing, made on Monday in a federal court in New York, OpenAI specifically asked the judge to dismiss what it believes are secondary elements of the case so that the company could better focus on the main points. The requests were largely based on legal technicalities and included an argument that materials that were treated by OpenAI more than three years ago should be ruled out. The Times's lawsuit, filed in December, has become the biggest challenge yet to AI upstarts from publishers and creators that fear being displaced by generative AI, the technology that conjures images or texts in just seconds from simple prompts. The Times believes that ChatGPT has the capability to become a substitute for its journalism and was built from scraping its content from the internet without payment or permission. But in its bid for dismissal, OpenAI said: "Contrary to the allegations in the complaint... ChatGPT is not in any way a substitute for subscription to The New York Times." "In the real world, people do not use ChatGPT or any other OpenAI product for that purpose," the filing said. "Nor could they. In the ordinary course, one cannot use ChatGPT to serve up Times articles at will." In its lawsuit, which also targets OpenAI backer Microsoft, the Times alleged that full articles from the newspaper were churned out by ChatGPT on demand. OpenAI said that "the truth, which will come out in the course of this case, is that the Times paid someone to hack OpenAI's products" in order to generate that content. OpenAI also underlined its main contention that Times content was widely available and shared on the internet when the company built the powerful AI models that undergird ChatGPT. It also argued that the Times has no special privilege over reporting facts. "OpenAI and the other defendants in these lawsuits will ultimately prevail because no one, not even The New York Times, gets to monopolize facts or the rules of language," it said. Google CEO slams 'completely unacceptable' Gemini AI errors San Francisco, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday slammed "completely unacceptable" errors by its Gemini AI app, after gaffes such as images of ethnically diverse World War II Nazi troops forced it to stop users from creating pictures of people. The controversy emerged within weeks of Google's high-profile rebranding of its ChatGPT-style AI to "Gemini", giving the app unprecedented prominence in its products as it competes with OpenAI and its backer Microsoft. Social media users mocked and criticized Google for the historically inaccurate Gemini-generated images, such as US senators from the 1800s that were ethnically diverse and included women. "I want to address the recent issues with problematic text and image responses in the Gemini app," Pichai wrote in a letter to staff, which was published by the news website Semafor. "I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias -- to be clear, that's completely unacceptable and we got it wrong." A Google spokesperson confirmed to AFP that the letter was authentic. Pichai said Google's teams were working "around the clock" to fix these issues but did not say when the image-generating feature would be available again. "No AI is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of the industry's development, but we know the bar is high for us and we will keep at it for however long it takes," he wrote. Tech companies see generative artificial intelligence models as the next big step in computing and are racing to infuse them into everything from searching the internet and automating customer support to creating music and art. But AI models, and not just Google's, have long been criticized for perpetuating racial and gender biases in their results. Google said last week that the problematic responses from Gemini were a result of the company's efforts to remove such biases. Gemini was calibrated to show diverse people but did not adjust for prompts where that should not have been the case, also becoming too cautious with some otherwise harmless requests, Google's Prabhakar Raghavan wrote in a blog post. "These two things led the model to overcompensate in some cases, and be over-conservative in others, leading to images that were embarrassing and wrong," he said. Many concerns about AI have emerged since the explosive success of ChatGPT. Experts and governments have warned that AI also carries the risk of major economic upheaval, especially job displacement, and industrial-scale disinformation that can manipulate elections and spur violence. US lunar lander still operating despite previous battery warning Washington, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 The lunar lander that touched down on the Moon last week is still working via solar power, the private company behind the historic mission said Wednesday, after announcing the day before that its batteries were on the verge of running dry. The update heralds the final stages in a mission that has marked the first ever Moon landing by a private company, but also witnessed numerous problems including when the lander tipped over sideways on reaching the surface, where it continues to lie on its side. Texas-based Intuitive Machines had earlier estimated there were about 10 to 20 hours of battery life left. It has said it intended to collect data from the spacecraft, named Odysseus, "until the lander's solar panels are no longer exposed to light." On Wednesday, Intuitive Machines said "Odysseus continues to generate solar power on the Moon, allowing flight controllers to continue gathering data from the south pole region in furtherance of the IM-1 Mission objectives." NASA is planning to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade, and paid Intuitive Machines around $120 million for the mission, as part of an initiative to delegate cargo missions to the private sector and stimulate a "lunar economy." The uncrewed Odysseus carries a suite of NASA instruments designed to improve scientific understanding of the lunar south pole, where the space agency plans to send astronauts under its Artemis program later this decade. While the solar panels are keeping the lights on for now, they are not in the ideal position due to the craft tipping over. But the mission "is a success from NASA's point of view," the space agency's chief, Bill Nelson, told reporters Wednesday. "We are in the sixth day of what was planned as an eight day mission. And we're still receiving data. And we're getting data from all six of our instruments," he said. The United States, along with international partners, want to eventually develop long-term habitats on the south pole, harvesting ice there for drinking water -- and for rocket fuel for eventual onward voyages to Mars. In addition to being the first ever successful private lunar landing, Artemis also marks the first return by the United States to the Moon in five decades. KYODO NEWS - Feb 28, 2024 - 18:21 | All, Japan The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Wednesday started a fourth release of treated radioactive water into the sea, in what will be the last discharge for the fiscal year ending March. As in the previous rounds, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. will discharge 7,800 tons of treated water over about 17 days, having confirmed that the radioactivity level of the latest batch of water meets the standards set by the government and the utility. China, which opposes the water release, has banned Japanese seafood imports since the first discharge in late August. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Wednesday that Beijing "firmly opposes" the ocean discharge and requests Tokyo to "stop this wrongdoing." "Japan needs to take seriously domestic and international concerns and handle it properly with a responsible and constructive attitude," Mao said, calling for establishing an "independent and effective long-term international monitoring arrangement with substantial participation from neighboring countries." The two countries have engaged in informal discussions to resolve the matter, but no substantial progress has been made. No abnormal tritium levels have been detected in nearby waters from the previous three discharges, according to TEPCO. From this round on, the operator will forgo the step of temporarily storing the treated water in a large tank to check the tritium level before release. It will check the level as the water flows through pipes, as it did in the past three rounds. The company and the Japanese government maintain that releasing the water is crucial to decommissioning the nuclear plant, which suffered core meltdowns following a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. With contaminated water continuing to accumulate in the process of cooling melted fuel, TEPCO decided to release 31,200 tons of treated water in four rounds this fiscal year, with the first round having started Aug. 24. The water release is expected to last for about 30 years. The water has been kept in tanks installed at the site after going through a liquid processing system that removes most radionuclides except tritium, but they have been nearing capacity. The processed water has been diluted with seawater to one-40th of the concentration permitted under Japanese safety standards before being released via an underwater tunnel 1 kilometer off the power plant. Nuclear power plants worldwide routinely release treated water containing low concentrations of tritium, considered less harmful than other radioactive materials, and other radionuclides into the environment as part of normal operations, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Related coverage: Japan diversifying seafood export destinations after China ban Most Japan fishing groups hit by China import ban over Fukushima row Indonesian activists sue Japan over treated water release Marcos says China naval presence off Philippine coast 'worrisome' Manila, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos said Wednesday the presence of Chinese warships in waters off the Southeast Asian country's coast was "worrisome". His comments came after the Philippine Coast Guard said Chinese navy vessels were detected last week during a government resupply mission to Filipino fishermen near China-controlled Scarborough Shoal. The triangular chain of reefs and rocks lies 240 kilometres (150 miles) west of the Philippines' main island of Luzon and nearly 900 kilometres from the nearest major Chinese land mass of Hainan. China seized the shoal from the Philippines in 2012 and has since deployed coast guard and other vessels that Manila says harass Philippine ships and prevent its fishermen from accessing a fish-rich lagoon there. "It's worrisome," Marcos told reporters before departing for Australia where he will attend an ASEAN summit. "Previously, only the China Coast Guard was operating in our area. Now their navy has joined in, along with fishing boats. So the situation is changing." In the latest incident, a vessel belonging to the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources received a radio challenge from a Chinese warship on February 21 as it sailed towards the shoal, the Philippine Coast Guard said on Sunday. Another Chinese navy ship was detected 18.5 kilometres from the BRP Datu Sanday as it distributed fuel to Filipino fishermen near the reef on February 23, the coast guard said. The Philippine Coast Guard also accused Chinese coastguard and other vessels of attempting to block the Datu Sanday near Scarborough Shoal on February 22. Marcos insisted Manila would continue to "defend our maritime territory" and said Filipino fishermen should be allowed to fish in the country's waters. China claims almost the entire South China Sea and has ignored an international tribunal ruling that its assertions have no legal basis. UK says Ukraine's 'business' how donated cruise missiles used London, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 Britain said Wednesday that how Kyiv uses donated cruise missiles is "the business of the armed forces of Ukraine," following comments by Germany's Olaf Scholz about possible UK and French involvement in targeting. Britain was the first country to provide the longer-range weapons to the Ukrainian military following Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion, announcing last May that it would send the country air-launched Storm Shadow missiles. France and other allies have followed suit and are now sending Kyiv cruise missiles. But London has not confirmed what, if any, roles UK military personnel may play assisting Ukraine with their operational use and in targeting choices. "Ukraine's use of Storm Shadow and its targeting processes are the business of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," a Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesperson said in a statement to AFP. "The UK, along with other allies, is providing a range of equipment to Ukraine to help it counter Russia's illegal and unprovoked aggression." It follows German leader Scholz saying on Monday that Berlin could not emulate Britain and France in sending long-range weapons to Ukraine and supporting the weapon system's deployment. He has repeatedly refused to provide German Taurus missiles, fearing they could be used to hit targets deep within Russia. "This is a very long-range weapon, and what the British and French are doing in terms of targeting and supporting targeting cannot be done in Germany," Scholz said. "In my view, it would be unjustifiable if we were to participate in targeting in the same way," he added, without specifying what he meant by that. In its statement, the UK MoD said Ukraine's use of the long-range weapons sent has been "fundamental in its defence of its territory". It has "changed the strategic picture by successfully putting pressure on Russian forces and their logistics and supply routes," it added. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesman on Tuesday told reporters that the UK has "a small number of personnel in country supporting the armed forces of Ukraine, including for medical training". But the MoD declined to provide further details, while noting Britain continued to train Ukrainian forces as part of a scheme which has schooled more than 35,000 such personnel in the UK since June 2022. "There are no plans for UK troops to fight alongside the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but we remain actively engaged with allies and partners on how best to support Ukraine," the ministry added. Italian general suspended for book slammed as racist Rome, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 Italy's defence ministry has suspended a general and cut his pay for breaching army neutrality with a book that critics said insulted sexual and ethnic minorities, his lawyer said Wednesday. Roberto Vannacci, 55, had already been ousted last year from the management of the Military Geographical Institute, and moved to an essentially administrative role as chief of staff of the operational land forces command. He has now been suspended from that position for 11 months, with the resulting "halving of his salary", his lawyer Giorgio Carta said. The announcement comes as Vannacci is mulling standing for European Parliament elections in June under the banner of the far-right League party of Italy's deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini. Salvini has defended the general, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying the investigations and actions against him were "ridiculous". "How scared are they of the general? Long live freedom of thought and speech, long live the armed forces and the police," he wrote on X on Wednesday. The defence ministry accuses Vannacci of "a lack of a sense of responsibility" and of neutrality, "compromising the prestige and the reputation of the administration to which he belongs", his lawyer told AFP. He said Vannacci would contest the sanction in an administrative court, arguing for "the right to free expression guaranteed to all citizens, including the military". Vannacci's book released in August, "The World Backwards", contained passages in which he denounced the "dictatorship of minorities". He wrote that gay people were not "normal", while also saying of a well-known Italian black volleyball player, Paola Egonu, that while she had Italian citizenship, "her features do not represent Italian-ness." He was criticised by those on the left and the right, including those surrounding Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, leader of the post-Fascist Brothers of Italy party. Vannacci is the subject of three separate investigations, including one for allegedly inciting racial hatred and another for defamation against the athlete Egonu. A third investigation is unrelated to his book, relating to alleged financial irregularities during his posting as military attache to the Italian embassy in Moscow in 2021-22. gab/ar/ams/giv Military abuse claims multiply as Ecuador fights gangs Quito, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 Eduardo Velasco is recovering from a bullet wound he received at a checkpoint in Ecuador, where soldiers are waging a war on violent gangs. His 19-year-old cousin was not so lucky. The pair were stopped in Guayaquil, one of the most violent cities in a country where claims of abuses committed by the security forces are on the rise. Velasco, 34, was behind the wheel. According to a charge sheet against him, he refused to stop and drove over a soldier's foot at a roadblock. He says he hit a patrol car by accident. "Then I heard an explosion, my cousin gripped me... I could see him changing color, turning pale," Velasco told AFP of the February 2 incident. He claimed soldiers removed his cousin Javier Vega Ipanaque from the car, "beat him and stepped on his head." The teen, who had no criminal record, died a day later from four gunshots that destroyed his lungs, stomach and spine. Velasco said he, too, was roughed up by the troops, taking a bullet in the shoulder. He is under house arrest for allegedly attacking the soldiers and resisting arrest. The military issued a statement after the incident to say it had detained two "terrorists," but Ecuador's non-governmental Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDH) has taken up the case. It is one of a growing number of investigations into alleged abuses by the military in the midst of a state of emergency in force since the escape from prison of a notorious gang leader in January. Gangs fought back against the subsequent mobilization of troops, with riots in prisons and scores of people kidnapped and at least 10 killed in a series of brazen attacks. - 'Complex to monitor' - Laura Ipanaque told AFP she wants to clear the name of her son Javier, who she says was an innocent victim of the government's war on powerful cartels. "No one is going to fill this void that has been left in me, this pain that I have," said the 41-year-old. The judge in the case has ordered the prosecutor's office to investigate the soldiers involved. CDH coordinator Fernando Bastias told AFP that "the disproportionate use of force... is very complex to monitor because it is happening almost everywhere." He added: "We have seen people beaten, humiliated for disrespecting the curfew." AFP has analyzed 18 videos circulating on social networks between January 11 and February 4 allegedly depicting security force violence in several provinces of the country. Ten were verified to show abuses such as beatings in the streets. Inside prisons, which had become the criminal headquarters of Ecuador's main gangs but are now under military control, there have also been reports of inmates being humiliated and tortured. In a recent CDH-backed hearing in which 18 inmates sought to be granted access to medical care, several reported receiving electric shocks and other torments. "They made me open my legs and gave me (a punch) in the testicles. They hit me with a cable in the back," one testified. A judge ruled that violations had taken place and ordered reparations to the inmates. AFP requested interviews with the defense ministry and the military. Both declined. The armed forces, meanwhile, have been broadcasting videos of prisoners under a strict, new military regime, sweeping floors and doing other chores while proclaiming on camera to have improved living conditions. Once considered a bastion of peace in Latin America, Ecuador has been plunged into crisis by the rapid spread of transnational cartels that use its ports to ship drugs to the United States and Europe. The United Nations has urged Ecuador to adopt a "proportionate" response to the recent wave of gang violence. President Daniel Noboa, 36, has defended his tough approach, insisting in a recent broadcast that "we are protecting the rights of the vast majority." Swedish man charged over military base secrets Stockholm, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 Swedish authorities have charged a 66-year-old man with illegally building up confidential information on military bases, a prosecutor said Wednesday. Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said "several people" were involved in the collection of the information and a "high level of expertise" was required. Ljungqvist told AFP the suspect, Hans Georg Svanstrom, had "carried out military missions for the Swedish armed forces". The indictment was revealed as Sweden moves closer to completing an application to join the NATO alliance following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The indictment said that between December 2015 and November 2017, Svanstrom drew up detailed maps of sensitive military sites across the country. "It involves a large number of installations important for the capacity of Sweden to defend itself in case of war," the prosecutor said in a statement. "The release of this information could threaten national security." The classified information was found at Svanstrom's home at Vaxholm, near Stockholm. About 40 pieces of evidence, including USB keys, cameras and files were seized and will be produced at the trial, the indictment said. German navy almost shot down US drone in Red Sea: reports Frankfurt, Germany, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 A German naval frigate sent to protect commercial ships in the Red Sea nearly shot down a US drone by mistake, German media reported Wednesday. The German defence ministry confirmed a drone incident involving an allied nation occurred on Monday, without naming the country. The "Hesse" frigate opened fire after efforts to identify an unknown drone "were unsuccessful", Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said during a visit to the German town of Oberviechtach, adding however that the target was "not hit". The drone later turned out to be a "reconnaissance drone", he said. According to Der Spiegel weekly, the frigate fired two missiles at the drone but both crashed into the sea because of "a technical defect". Spiegel, without citing its sources, said the drone that was nearly downed was a US Reaper. It might have been operating in the region "as part of an American anti-terror mission" unrelated to the Red Sea mission, Spiegel added. The Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper said it was "common knowledge that American combat drones are used in the region that have nothing to do with the operation in the Red Sea". The German defence ministry said the frigate only launched an attack after none of its allies reported a drone in the area. Spiegel said military officials believed the friendly fire incident showed that coordination between allies involved in various missions in the region around Yemen "needs to be improved". The "Hesse" arrived in the region at the weekend as part of an EU mission to help secure international shipping in the Red Sea from attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Huthis. The German army earlier on Wednesday said the frigate had successfully thwarted an attack on Tuesday evening by shooting down two drones launched by the rebels. The Huthis, who control much of war-torn Yemen, have been attacking the vital shipping lane since November in a campaign they say is in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war. The United States is spearheading its own naval coalition in the Red Sea and has conducted strikes on the Huthis in Yemen along with Britain. Israel strikes Damascus area: Syrian ministry Damascus, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 Israel carried out strikes Wednesday near Damascus, Syria's defence ministry said, the latest reported attack amid soaring regional tensions since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. "The Israeli enemy launched air strikes from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan, targeting a number of sites in the Damascus countryside," the ministry said in a statement. "Our air defences responded to the aggression's missiles and shot down most of them," it added. An AFP correspondent in the Syrian capital heard explosions followed by the sirens of ambulances. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Israeli strikes targeted "sites where Iran-backed groups including Lebanon's Hezbollah are based" in two locations near Damascus. When asked about the strikes, the Israeli army told AFP: "We do not comment on reports in the foreign media." On Sunday, an Israeli strike on a truck in Syria near the Lebanese border killed two Hezbollah members, the Observatory had said, with a source close to Hezbollah later confirming the deaths. Since Syria's civil war began in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes against its northern neighbour, primarily targeting pro-Iran forces, among them Lebanese Hamas ally Hezbollah and the Syrian army. The strikes have multiplied during the almost five-month war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Israel rarely comments on individual strikes but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in Syria. KYODO NEWS - Feb 28, 2024 - 13:51 | All, Japan Nissan Motor Co. said Wednesday it plans to offer mobility services using Level 4 self-driving vehicles from fiscal 2027 in Japan, including rural areas where providing financially sustainable public transportation is becoming increasingly difficult. The Japanese automaker will begin a trial service in Yokohama, where the company is based, during the fiscal year from April and expand it in stages using 20 or so vehicles before the start of commercial services, it said. In the trials, Nissan will use Serena minivans equipped with self-driving technologies, with a driver aboard to respond to any emergencies. Those wishing to use the service will be able to reserve in advance through a smartphone app. "We want to support Japan's future mobility needs using Japanese technologies. We are aiming for sustainable services," Kazuhiro Doi, vice president of research, told reporters. Honda Motor Co. and General Motors Co. said in October they will launch a driverless taxi service joint venture that will be operational by early 2026 in Tokyo. Related coverage: Nearly 70% of Japan prefectures weigh use of Level 4 autonomous buses Honda, GM driverless taxi JV to be operational in 2026 in Tokyo FOCUS: Data rigging scandals threaten to undermine Toyota's growth drivers KYODO NEWS - Feb 28, 2024 - 15:24 | World, All South Korea's total fertility rate marked another record low of 0.72 in 2023, government data showed on Wednesday, as the only member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with a rate below 1 continues to tackle a fast decline in the number of babies born. According to the data from government agency Statistics Korea, the total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman would have in her lifetime, was lower than the previous year's 0.78. The number was far below 2.1 children per woman, which is needed to maintain a population at its current level. South Korea's total fertility rate has been below 1 since 2018. An official of the government agency said in a briefing the falling birthrate could be due to the continued decline in the number of marriages since the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wednesday's data also showed that the number of babies born last year stood at around 230,000, down 7.7 percent from 2022. The government has compiled a basic plan on measures to tackle the decreasing number of children every five years since 2006. Between 2006 and 2021, the country spent 280 trillion won ($210 billion) to support women who give birth and raise children. But these efforts have failed to improve the situation. With more young people choosing to either postpone or give up on getting married and having babies, concerns have been growing over the country's demographic trends. The average age of a woman who gave birth to a child reached 33.6, up from 33.5 in 2022, the data showed. Related coverage: Japan births at record low, population down by largest margin in 2023 Japan gov't plans to require firms to set paternity leave targets The Co-operative Bank has seen its yearly profit nearly halve after it set aside cash to compensate mortgage customers from more than a decade ago, while the lender said it is still in talks with Coventry Building Society over a possible tie-up. It isnt just Croydon, whose problems were somewhat self-inflicted. Other local authorities are facing insolvency for more mundane reasons: higher costs, soaring demand particularly for social care and housing as well as reduced funding. All but two of the capitals 32 boroughs are forecasting an overspend in their original budget plans this year, while half are warning of bankruptcy in the next parliament. Jafari will begin at the Groucho Club in April, where, according to Artfarm, she will work closely with the team to harness the magic, artistry and creativity of the club and build on its past decades of success. The Home Office said the pair, both Albanian nationals, were arrested on Monday morning and are believed to be part of a group booking people onto UK-bound flights using fake travel documents. Packer presented himself as a jack the lad who worked for a family business and enjoyed treating women rough and wore womens underwear, according to one victim who was assaulted between 1993 and 2004, near the Tennents Brewery in the east end of Glasgow the area where many attacks took place. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), citing a conflict of interest, asked Durham Police to lead the investigation into the inclusion of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland document in the No Stone Unturned film on the 1994 UVF massacre in Loughinisland, Co Down. His legal team said the risk posed by Brown had not increased and that he had been subjected to a high-profile campaign through the media and with politicians that has sought to block his release. London Councils, the parent body for the capitals local authorities, said ministers should lift the unfair cap on the money boroughs can receive from the Government to subsidise their temporary accommodation spending, which is currently tied to 2011 benefit rates. They said these rates no longer reflect the costs incurred. The council has come up with a scheme and is now urging locals and businesses in the area to invest in a range of green projects which will see them earn a low-risk fixed return back. BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Jiaolong, China's deep-sea manned submersible, has completed its first dives in the Atlantic Ocean, a subsidiary of the Ministry of Natural Resources announced on Tuesday. Jiaolong made 23 successful dives in the southern Atlantic Ocean by Feb. 23, and carried out operations in multiple hydrothermal zones with complex environments, according to the subsidiary, the bureau of ocean affairs. The submersible has obtained approximately 300 geological and biological samples, as well as some 4 terabytes of environmental data and visual materials. Its findings have filled gaps in the biodiversity survey of the southern Atlantic Ocean and will help the world understand, protect and utilize the deep sea in an improved manner, the bureau said. Jiaolong is being carried by China's Deep Sea No. 1 research vessel, which embarked from Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province on Dec. 17, 2023, and is scheduled to return to China in May 2024. The submersible is scheduled to conduct a total of 46 dives in the course of the expedition. It is also a chance for kebab businesses to lobby politicians about the issues they care about. Flattery was the order of the evening when the kebab businesses in attendance were polled on which politician they would most like to share a meal with. 53 per cent voted for Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader widely expected to win the next election. It was something of a snub for prime minister Rishi Sunak, who was a no-show at last nights event. Mayor Khan got 12% of the vote. Mr Ali no longer has official Labour endorsement in Rochdale but remains its candidate on the ballot paper. Former MP Simon Danczuk is on the Reform UK ticket, after he was suspended by Labour in 2015 for sending explicit messages to a 17-year-old girl. Political rabble-rouser George Galloway, formerly of Labour, is now the favourite to win Thursdays by-election. If you see something, you have to think about what the consequences would be of you going in. And actually if you go in you might actually allow people to breach the line that you've been put into, he said. He said he broke with precedent in his handling of the proceedings because he had concerns about the intimidation suffered by some parliamentarians and wanted to give MPs the widest possible range of options for the vote. Mr Heaton-Harris replied: As I say, this is a very complex case. Over 200 pages which were just being reported on less than 90 minutes ago, and so it will take some time to consider. While there is an agreement to facilitate protest activity outside the Senedd, I would urge protesters not to bring tractors or other agricultural vehicles to the protest. There are concerns that they pose a risk to the safety of other road users and restrict the movement of emergency services in a busy city environment. Amnesty referred to a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for households in temporary accommodation, published in January last year, which said there had been 34 cases of children who died between April 2019 and the end of March 2022 where homelessness and temporary accommodation were recorded by an independent child death overview panel as factors that may have contributed to the childs vulnerability, ill health or death. He wrote on social media: Im so devastated. I cant believe the UK wont let me in. Ive spent a half million dollars in production of my own money to put this tour together only to be denied entry DAYS before my shows. This is not fair to me or my fans, these venues are 85% sold and now I cant come Tunisian President Kais Saied stressed the need to enhance security of Arab societies while hosting participants of the 41st session of the Arab Interior Ministers Council. The minister of Foreign Affairs, Luminita Odobescu, had a meeting, on Wednesday, with the Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration of the Republic of Moldova, Oleg Serebrian, who is visiting Bucharest, in which context he "welcomed the efforts of the Chisinau authorities to continue the dialogue with Tiraspol, at a technical level, with the aim of solving the problems that directly affect the citizens on both banks of the Dniester," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) informs. According to the source, the Minister of Foreign Affairs reiterated support for a comprehensive, peaceful and sustainable settlement of the Transnistrian problem, in accordance with international law, with respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Moldova, within its internationally recognized borders and without affecting its European future. Odobescu expressed appreciation for the "responsible and balanced approach that the authorities of the Republic of Moldova are demonstrating on the complex issues related to the Transnistrian regulation, in a complicated regional climate marked by challenges". The presence in Romania of the official from Chisinau is part of the consistent and dynamic bilateral dialogue, on all levels, in the spirit of the consolidated relations between Bucharest and Chisinau, MAE points out. The two dignitaries reviewed regional security developments and Russia's destabilizing actions, with emphasis on their impact on the Republic of Moldova. In this context, minister Luminita Odobescu welcomed the efforts of the Chisinau authorities in combating the effects of the hybrid war and reconfirmed the support that Romania is prepared to offer in this process. Former capital city mayor Gabriela Firea announced on Wednesday that the Standing Bureau of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Bucharest has decided, by unanimous vote, to support her candidacy for mayor of Bucharest once more. "Thank you to my colleagues in the PSD Bucharest Standing Bureau who decided, by unanimous vote, to support my candidacy for mayor of Bucharest. I am determined to work again for the development of the city, for the people who have been abandoned for almost four years, for all the projects that have been thrown in a drawer just because they were worked on by the social democrat team," Firea wrote on Facebook.She mentioned that the current mayors were unanimously validated to run for the sector halls: Sector 3 - Robert Negoita, Sector 4 - Daniel Baluta, and in Sector 5 they voted to support Cristian Popescu Piedone.She added that the social democrat team is ready to fight for the people of Bucharest, for Bucharest. The Jordanian Armed Forces conducted four air drops to deliver humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza. The Government approved on Wednesday the payment of Romania's voluntary financial contribution to the OECD budget in the amount of 125,000 euros. According to a press release from the Government, at the proposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the payment of Romania's voluntary financial contribution, representing the equivalent in RON of the sum of 125,000 euros, to the budget of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), was approved, with a view to implementation in 2024 of the Romania - OECD Roadmap for cooperation in the field of official assistance for development, told Agerpres. The value in RON of the contribution is borne from the approved annual budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the current year. "The voluntary financial contribution will lead to the alignment of our country with the standards of the Official Development Assistance Committee of the OECD, in the perspective of drawing up the multi-annual strategic program for international cooperation for development and humanitarian assistance 2024 - 2027", the press release states. Social Democratic Party (PSD) MEP Dan Nica on Wednesday said in a press statement that he has "extraordinary news for Galati and for Romania" as after addressing the European Parliament he managed to secure European money funding of up to 20% from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for the steel industry. "For Galati and for Romania there is extraordinary news. I have managed to secure European money funding of up to 20% from the European Regional Development Fund for the steel industry. Also, under the Just Transition programme, large companies in the steel and aluminium industry from countries where GDP is lower than the EU average, such as Romania, qualify for funding. And under the InvestEU programme, the objectives of STEP (Strategic Technologies Platform for Europe) will be supported by up to 6%," said Nica.Nica, head of the Romanian delegation of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) MEP group, said that "for the European industry, hard tried by Russia's aggression in Ukraine, there are now provisions that allow Romania to adopt measures to support investment vital for Romania's economy." Emily Dahlquist asked Sandra Lopez before they started reading the story in the workbook if any words look unfamiliar to her. Lopez, 35, points at horn. Dahlquist, her tutor, explains that animals have them and pantomimes with her hands as if something is coming out of her head. Lopez nods to show she understands. Theyve been working together for a year to help her learn English. In the story, Eddie is picking up his girlfriend Kate in his car. He honks the horn in his car when he arrives at her door. Lopez looks at Dahlquist quizzically when she reads the word. So, horn is different here, Dahlquist says. Now she pantomimes driving a car and pressing the middle of a steering wheel. Dahlquist started as a volunteer with Immigrant Home English Learning Program and eventually became the communication coordinator for the nonprofit based in St. Louis. Lopez arrived in St. Louis, where she has family, four years ago from Honduras. She began cleaning houses, then cleaning offices and now works at Amazon. Like most second-language learners, she can read and understand basic English better than she can speak it. We used Google Translate to communicate more easily. She said she struggles to have conversations in English and wants to learn so she can continue to grow and develop here. In Honduras, she earned a degree in business administration and worked in a call center. When I asked her why she left the country, she said they were going through a very difficult situation there and began to cry. Julia Fox, executive director of IHELP, says the students who are referred to their program are often fleeing desperate circumstances in their countries of origin. They currently have 172 volunteers paired with students whom they visit twice a week for an hour in their homes. Typically, immigrant or refugee women lack transportation or childcare making it difficult to leave their homes for classes. It usually takes around two years to build enough confidence and skills that make daily tasks easier, such as talking to their childrens teachers, making doctors appointments or going to the grocery stores. The nonprofit has been teaching students for 29 years, with a presence in South City, South County and North County. Their volunteers do not need to have any background or teaching or foreign language skills. The nonprofit assesses incoming students abilities and matches them with the curriculum best suited for their level. They run background checks on their volunteers to ensure safety of the participants. We make it as easy as possible to volunteer, she says. Theres always far more demand and a long waiting list for tutors. She sees the confidence of the students build as their language skills get stronger. One of her favorite stories is of a woman from Afghanistan who initially came in for the assessment withdrawn and hunched over. She didnt have access to schooling back home and wasnt literate. She let her husband do most of the talking for her. When her lessons started, her young children, all of whom knew English from school, were so excited for her. They would jump up and down and say, Your teacher is here! at every visit. The woman and her tutor developed a strong relationship over the year of tutoring she received. She emerged from her shell and became more engaged in conversations. When she and her husband were able to buy their first home, she went with him to the closing. She had never signed her name in any language before. She always signed with an X. For the first time in her life, she printed and signed her name. A-B reached a tentative labor deal with Teamsters on Wednesday afternoon. Read the latest coverage here. ST. LOUIS Anheuser-Busch is approaching the deadline to reach a new labor contract with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and will suffer a walkout of thousands of U.S. brewery workers if the groups fail to reach a deal Thursday. As of Wednesday afternoon, the company and the union hadn't announced an agreement. But the union and A-B were scheduled to return to the bargaining table in Washington D.C. "At this point, whether Anheuser-Busch strikes itself from coast-to-coast is up to the company," Teamsters President Sean O'Brien said in a statement. The Teamsters represent 5,000 workers who brew, package and ship beer at 12 of the company's breweries across the U.S. In St. Louis, one of the larger, Teamster-represented sites, the union represents about 450 workers. The current, 5-year contract expires Thursday at midnight. After negotiations kicked off in September, the union made some early gains including a pledge to eliminate the tiered health insurance structure that separates plans for employees hired after 2019, Teamsters spokesperson Kara Deniz said this week. But the Teamsters held out, pushing A-B for more assurances around job security. "Our members want to make sure that they have in writing, in a contract that they have that job security and that their work is recognized and rewarded," Deniz said. A-B has said that reaching an agreement before the contract expires is in the "best interest of all parties," and that the company has precautionary measures in place to continue supplying customers in case of a strike. The beermaker is still recovering from the loss of Bud Light drinkers who fled the brand during an informal boycott over its association with a transgender influencer last year. The company's shares took a dive in 2023, but had recovered to about 94% of their pre-boycott value, as of market close on Wednesday. The company will report fourth-quarter earnings Thursday morning but the dip in Bud Light sales dealt a 13% hit to third-quarter revenues. Jake Rosenfeld, a Washington University sociology professor, said that while the labor resurgence of the past two years hasn't, ultimately, nudged the percentage of union-represented U.S. workers much higher, the massive strikes and threats of strikes have resulted in more favorable contracts for workers. Those won by the United Auto Workers and Hollywood writers and actors, for instance, show that there is still a shifted balance of power, in favor of workers, he said. "All of that provides ammunition for Teamsters," Rosenfeld said. "They've proved that pushing for really generous contracts can deliver, and this is the time to go for them." A-B aimed to win back customers earlier this month with a 60-second Super Bowl ad featuring Post Malone and Peyton Manning. Meanwhile, the union pointed to that ad spend, and the company's $1 billion stock buyback plan, as evidence that the company could afford to boost its offer. Rosenfeld said the union may use the Bud Light controversy to make the case that the company should agree to a contract and avoid the additional, significant PR hit that a strike would bring. The union recently raised strike pay for A-B workers to $1,000 per week. The United Auto Workers made a similar move in the leadup to the massive strike on the "Big Three" carmakers last year. At the time, O'Brien said the union had more than $300 million in its strike fund. (Though the union has now had 420 Molson Coors workers on strike since mid-February in Fort Worth, Texas.) Last year O'Brien threatened a strike at the United Parcel Service a walkout that would have taken 330,000 people off the job and tangled supply chains throughout the economy. The union secured a deal that it valued at around $30 billion, and gave many workers a $7.50-per-hour raise. Joe Holleman Political correspondent/columnist 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 Several of Missouris top national lawmakers have their eyes turned hard toward the U.S. border with Mexico. And no one is peering more pointedly than U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt. The states junior GOP senator from Glendale, has been relentless in pushing to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Schmitt contends that more than 8.5 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border under President Joe Bidens administration, and that deaths by fentanyl overdose have increased 94% in that period. He blames the problem on the Biden administrations disastrous policies and Mayorkas sheer refusal to do his job. Schmitt is joined in his fight against Mayorkas by Senate mate Josh Hawley. Last week, the pair were two of 11 U.S. senators who sent a letter to their partys chamber boss, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, urging him to fight for an impeachment trial in the Senate. The letter addressed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumers rumored plan to scuttle the Mayorkas impeachment. This is an action rarely contemplated and never taken by the U.S. Senate in the history of our republic, the letter stated. On Feb. 13, Mayorkas was the first sitting cabinet member to be impeached in U.S. history when the Republican-led House voted to charge him with two counts: willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law; and breach of public trust. The letter called on McConnell to oppose any effort by Democrats to shirk their constitutional duty. The letter appears to have had some effect. On Tuesday, McConnell and U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-South Dakota, the Senate Minority whip and the GOPs second-highest ranking senator, called for a full impeachment trial for Mayorkas. (McConnell announced Wednesday that he would be stepping down from his minority leader role in November.) Schmitt said Missourians should not consider the border problem to be far removed from the Missouri state line. Every state is now a border state, including Missouri, Schmitt told the Post-Dispatch. Schmitt said that on a recent trip to the border, a Border Patrol agent ... said that the cartels have members operating as far into the interior of the United States as Kansas City. The concern from Missouri lawmakers is not limited solely to the Senate. U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, said Friday that the border/immigration issue is the No. 1 issue with the people he has talked to from his district. Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, represents a district that covers much of southern Missouri and part of the St. Louis metropolis. On a visit Friday to Arnold, Smith said some reports indicate that the drug cartels operating south of the border are making more money off human trafficking than off drugs. You want to make sure your country is safe, Smith said, and you want to know whos in it. The woman came to St. Louis to be with her then-boyfriend, St. Louis City SC star Indiana Vassilev. But she liked it here and eventually came ST. LOUIS The citys building division has condemned a south city church they say is being used for illegal activities just days after the congregation found itself at the center of a kidnapping and assault case. Below a large condemnation sign taped to the front door of Mount of Olives Ministry, in the citys Patch neighborhood, was a letter from a city building inspector dated Monday. The letter said an inspection found the church was not being kept up to code and that the building is used or intended to be used for purposes which are illegal and may endanger the health and safety of persons. No one appeared to be inside the building on Wednesday afternoon. A spokesperson for the city did not immediately provide more information about the reason for the condemnation. The church gained attention earlier this week after police were called just before 1:30 a.m. Saturday to help a woman who was found near the church, bound by ropes and bleeding from her head. She told officers she had been beaten and held hostage inside the church. The woman showed officers a room inside the church where she said she was held. The room had a bucket full of urine and feces. Authorities arrested three men: 32-year-old Pasi Heri of the citys Dutchtown neighborhood, 28-year-old Grace Kipendo of Arnold and 25-year-old Mmunga Fungamali, who has a Canadian address listed on his court file. All three were charged with one count of second-degree kidnapping and one count of third-degree assault. They were booked just before 3 a.m. Saturday, according to online court records, and remained in custody without bond on Wednesday. Neither Kipendos lawyer nor a representative for the church could be reached for comment. The Pentecostal Christian church caters to African refugees settling in St. Louis, according to the church reverend. The congregation mostly speaks English as a second language. Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Faerber said during a hearing for Kipendo on Monday that the woman who said she was held hostage at the church was not allowed to have visitors at the hospital given the circumstances of the case. Still, he said, several people tried to contact her at the hospital, including a person who claimed they were a district attorney a government title not used in Missouri. Christine Bertelson, spokeswoman for the St. Louis circuit attorneys office, declined to comment on the case. The other two suspects, Fungamali and Heri, were scheduled for bond hearings on Monday, but the hearings were postponed a week so the court could provide a Swahili interpreter, according to court documents. Kipendo is also scheduled to appear next week for a second bond hearing. Police have been called to the church six times for crime-related incidents since January 2023. Three calls were for a suspicious vehicle, one for an unspecified disturbance, another to report a theft, and the most recent call was Saturday evening for a security alarm, which was a false alarm. None of those calls amounted to a police report or further action, according to data provided by police. There were three complaints about overgrown weeds logged by the city in June and July last year, including two that described the building as vacant. Neighbors on Monday told the Post-Dispatch they were familiar with the church and its congregants, and several said their behavior was odd and, at times, concerning. Robin Jernigan has lived in a house behind the church for more than 10 years and said the church members often hang around outside around the back of the church, which butts up to her backyard fence. They would sometimes tease her dog and throw sharpened sticks at the Rottweiler, she said. I always said with my heart, I dont trust that church, she said, recalling that she heard a woman screaming while police were at the church this weekend. While the building has long been a church, it was sold to the Mount of Olives Ministry in 2019, according to city records. The Rev. Anna Nyassa Samuel established the ministry as a nonprofit in August 2017. The congregation had tried to raise $300,000 through a GoFundMe in January 2018 to purchase the building after outgrowing its previous one. As of Wednesday, the campaign was still up and had raised just under $4,000. The page said the congregation comprises more than 85% refugees. Since its beginning, this ministry has won many souls to Christ, Nyassa Samuel wrote. This primarily virtual Ministry headquartered in Saint Louis/Missouri has seen its membership increasing now reaching several hundreds of extremely committed and Spirit filled Christians from more than 20 Nations. In recent years, Mount of Olives put a 6-foot privacy fence all around the property, which is perched on top of a hill. On Monday, before the condemnation sign went up, a reporter knocked on the churchs front door, which was adorned with fake flowers. A woman vacuuming the churchs front room turned off the machine and came up to the window. She signaled with her finger that she would be back in a minute. No one ever came to the door. ST. LOUIS A north St. Louis County police department violated a local mans constitutional rights by failing to prevent one of its officers from sexually assaulting him during an arrest in 2022, according to a lawsuit filed last week in federal court. Former North County Police Cooperative Officer Marcellis Blackwell is facing charges in federal court of assaulting 19 men he detained during his yearlong tenure on the force. Now, one of those men is seeking an unspecified amount of damages from Blackwell, the police cooperative and the eight small municipalities it patrols. The Post-Dispatch is not naming the man because the suit claims he was a victim of sexual assault. (Blackwell) acted under color of state law and used his authority as a police officer to violate plaintiffs civil rights, the mans lawyer, Patrick Hamacher, wrote in the lawsuit. The man was working a construction job in Wellston in November 2022 when he was stopped by Blackwell, the lawsuit says. Blackwell searched him for drugs and weapons but didnt find anything, but he checked the mans name and found an outstanding warrant. On the way to a booking station, the lawsuit claims, Blackwell pulled over in a secluded area, forced the man out of the police vehicle and sexually assaulted him. The lawsuit accuses the department and its chief of not doing enough to vet Blackwell before he was hired in 2022. Blackwell had changed his name from Willis Overstreet and had been involved in illegal and fraudulent business activity with a trucking business, the suit claims. Federal prosecutors said in November that Blackwell and his company, One Stop Transportation, were sued in 2016 after an insurance company accused him of sending a bad check and then failing to pay roughly $19,000 on a commercial insurance policy. He was ordered to pay that amount back in 2018 and did not disclose that information, federal prosecutors said. The lawsuit also accuses the police cooperative of failing to investigate Blackwell or monitor when he was transporting or recording detainees. Some of the charged assaults were photographed or videoed, prosecutors said. Blackwell resigned from the department in June 2023. At the time, the department called the charges massively disheartening and pledged to hold officers accountable for criminal behavior. We are not going to put up with it, said Maj. Ron Martin in a statement. We are not going to sweep anything under the rug. Martin declined to comment on the lawsuit Wednesday, citing a policy of not commenting on pending litigation. Blackwells criminal cases are ongoing. Amerens goal of retiring its Rush Island coal-fired power plant by October is a good one, say state watchdogs and consumer advocates, but they want to protect customers from having to pay for the companys violation of the Clean Air Act and costs related to its imprudent decisions. The red flags come from the raft of arguments filed with the state Friday and Tuesday in the lengthy regulatory process overseeing Amerens proposal to have consumers help pay for the closure of the Jefferson County plant. Otherwise, Ameren would have to spend $800 million to install pollution controls to keep Rush Island running. The St. Louis-based utility wants to securitize its debt from the more than $510 million it has already invested in Rush Island. It would sell ratepayer-backed bonds to investors, equal to that remaining value of the plant. The utilitys customers would then pay that back to bond investors plus a return of 2% to 4% over 15 years and Ameren could spend the money in other ways, including renewable energy generation that would cost less to operate than the aging coal plant. Though the financing technique stands to save customers money overall, some of the recent filings raise concerns about costs, their potential to balloon and how the expenses would be distributed among categories of customers. And some outline how the company could sweeten the deal with tax credits that could save consumers more than $400 million. Ameren is reviewing the recent filings and will respond issues raised in them in future filings, said Warren Wood, vice president for regulatory and legislative affairs in the state. Ameren Missouri customers continue to benefit from investments in a stronger, smarter grid as well as investments in renewable energy, Wood said, in a statement. Once the case concludes this summer, we anticipate having better information on how to proceed with investments for the benefit of our customers. Testimony filed on behalf of the Missouri Industrial Energy Consumers, an advocacy group, argues that Amerens proposal to skew the costs based on electricity consumption would materially overcharge large electric customers, since things like depreciation and return on investment are fixed costs that arent linked to usage. Some filings shared concerns about costs that will fall to consumers, citing uncertainty from Ameren about how expensive Rush Islands closure might be, since the price could vary by plus or minus 30%, according to testimony from the company. The Office of Public Counsel, a state office that advocates for consumers on utility issues, and utility regulators at the Missouri Public Service Commission took issue with Amerens push to have customers pay for any expenses tied to imprudent actions taken by Ameren that led to the decision to close the plant particularly those tied to its long history of legal infractions. Both cited the companys decision to spend more than $70 million to alter Rush Islands generators in 2007 and 2010, without proper permits, which boosted the plants emissions and prompted a chain of Clean Air Act violations. Regulators also questioned including the cost of office furniture at the plant, and the costs of legally required pollution monitoring. Jordan Seaver, a policy analyst with the OPC, said he worries about how Ameren might reinvest the money recovered from Rush Island. The utility, for example, needs to address concerns about electric capacity and availability before it can close the plant, and he said he fears that the utility might turn to other expensive projects and forms of generation that arent a good deal for its captive customers. Seaver wrote that the closure could make it more likely that another expensive generating facility will have to be chosen in the near future as the best option available simply because it is needed immediately for capacity, reliability, or something similar. But at least one filing touts an opportunity that could possibly save customers hundreds of millions of dollars, if Ameren pairs Rush Islands closure with the pursuit of federal tax credits for renewable energy projects. It would be a substantial win for the utility, its captive customers, and the goals of public health and climate policy, said newly filed testimony from James Owen, the executive director of Renew Missouri, a group that advocates for increased renewable energy adoption in the state. KANSAS CITY, Mo. The man accused of firing the first shots at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally told authorities he felt threatened, while a second man said he pulled the trigger because someone was shooting at him, according to court documents. Experts say that even though the shooting left one bystander dead and roughly two dozen people injured, 23-year-old Lyndell Mays and 18-year-old Dominic Miller might have good cases for self-defense through the states stand your ground law. Missouri is among more than 30 states that have adopted some version of stand your ground laws over the past two decades, said Robert Spitzer, a professor emeritus of political science at the State University of New York-Cortland, whose research focuses on gun policy and politics. While earlier laws allowed people to use force to protect themselves in their homes, stand your ground provides even broader self-defense rights regardless of the location. Now, the mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl celebration could be a new test of those expanded protections and comes as self-defense already is at the center of another high-profile Kansas City shooting that left Ralph Yarl wounded. This illustrates in a dramatic way the fundamental problem, especially when its a public gathering where there are thousands and thousands of people, and even a highly trained police officer often cannot avoid injuring others in a gunfire exchange in a public place, said Spitzer, who wrote the book Guns Across America: Reconciling Gun Rules and Rights. Trial attorney Daniel Ross described the stand your ground law as a formidable defense that he and many other Kansas City defense attorneys anticipate will be used in Mays and Millers cases. He said the law puts the onus on the prosecution to disprove claims that a shooting is lawful self-defense. Collateral damage under Missouri law is excused if youre actually engaged in lawful self-defense and theres other folks injured, he said. There are limits to the defense, however, said Eric Ruben, a law professor at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in Dallas who has written on stand your ground and self-defense immunity. Even though Missouri has robust stand your ground laws, that doesnt mean you can spray bullets into a crowd in the name of defending yourself or others, Ruben said. The barrage of gunfire Feb. 14 outside Kansas Citys historic Union Station happened as the celebration that drew an estimated 1 million fans was concluding. A woman died while watching the rally with her family, and nearly two dozen others more than half of them children were injured and survived. Kansas City already was grappling with the shooting of Yarl, a Black teenager who survived a bullet wound to the head when he went to the wrong house in April 2023 to pick up his brothers. Andrew Lester, an 85-year-old white man, is planning to claim self-defense when he goes to trial in October. His attorney said the retiree was terrified by the stranger on his doorstep. While the Super Bowl celebration shooting was a far different scenario, it raises anew questions about how far people can go to protect themselves and what happens when the innocent become victims. Mays and Miller are each charged with second-degree murder and other counts. Probable cause statements suggest that both men felt threatened. Mays said he picked out one person in a group at random and started shooting because they said, Im going to get you, and he took that to mean, Im going to kill you, the statement said. Miller said under questioning that he fired four or five times because someone was shooting at him. His friend, Marques Harris, told WDAF-TV that Miller was only trying to protect him after he was shot in the neck. Millers attorney didnt return phone and email messages seeking comment. No attorney was listed for Mays in online court records. Two juveniles also face gun-related and resisting arrest charges. Few firearm regulations Missouri has few firearm regulations, and two of its cities Kansas City and St. Louis annually have among the nations highest homicide rates. Missouris current Republican lawmakers have largely defended the states gun laws, instead blaming prosecutors and other local elected officials in the two cities. And Republican Gov. Mike Parson, speaking to reporters last week, cited societal problems not guns as the reason for the violence. I believe its much more than a gun, he said. When Republican lawmakers in 2016 expanded the states already-extensive self-defense protections by enacting the current stand your ground law, Black Missouri lawmakers raised concerns. The law also allowed most adults to carry concealed guns without a permit. Racial disparities are rife among those who invoke the defense, with an Urban Institute study showing white shooters are more likely to benefit than Black defendants. The issue was raised when Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teen, was acquitted of killing two people and wounding a third during a 2020 protest against racism and police brutality in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after testifying he acted in self-defense. Rittenhouses actions became a flashpoint in the debate over guns, vigilantism and racial injustice in the U.S. The shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a Black 17-year-old, by George Zimmerman also spurred concerns about stand your ground laws. Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watchman who thought Martin looked suspicious, wasnt arrested for 44 days after the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting as police in Sanford, Florida, insisted that Floridas stand your ground law prohibited charges. Zimmerman was eventually arrested and charged, but his attorneys chose not to pursue a stand your ground claim, which could have resulted in the dismissal of murder changes as well as immunity from prosecution. But during the trial, the law was essentially used as part of his self-defense argument. Jurors found him not guilty. In Georgia, which also has a stand your ground law, three white men accused of fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 claimed self-defense. Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and neighbor William Roddie Bryan claimed they chased Arbery, who was Black, because they thought he was a burglar. All three were convicted of murder. In 2022, district attorney Marc Bennett, of the Wichita, Kansas, area, was critical of the states stand your ground law when he announced that he wouldnt file charges over the death of Cedric Lofton, a Black 17-year-old who was restrained face down for more than 30 minutes at a juvenile detention center. Bennett said the law prevented him from bringing charges because staff members were protecting themselves. With the Chiefs parade case unfolding, it is time to look anew at these laws, said Melba Pearson, a former homicide prosecutor who is now the director of prosecution projects at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University. What are truly the limits in terms of stand your ground and what really falls into the category of self-defense? she asked. Do we need to revisit what stand your ground looks like? Summer Ballentine reported from Jefferson City. Jim Salter reported from OFallon, Mo. John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report. This photo taken on Aug. 10, 2023 shows recreational vehicles (RVs) produced by Rongcheng Compaks New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. in Rongcheng City, east China's Shandong Province. Rongcheng City in east China's Shandong Province, a major production and export base for recreational vehicles (RVs) in China, registered an export value for RVs at 1.82 billion yuan (about 256 million U.S. dollars) in 2023, marking a year-on-year increase of 17.8 percent, according to official data. (Xinhua/Li Zhihao) JINAN, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Rongcheng City in east China's Shandong Province, a major production and export base for recreational vehicles (RVs) in China, registered an export value for RVs at 1.82 billion yuan (about 256 million U.S. dollars) in 2023, marking a year-on-year increase of 17.8 percent, according to official data. The output value of RVs in Rongcheng totaled 1.87 billion yuan in 2023, jumping by 14.5 percent year on year, according to figures released by Rongcheng industrial and information technology bureau. In 2022, Rongcheng exported 17,173 RVs, representing 57.5 percent of the country's aggregate export of RVs, and its output of RVs, 17,475 in total, accounted for over 30 percent of the country's total, according to statistics of Rongcheng industrial and information technology bureau. Its major buyers include Australia, New Zealand, the United States, among other countries and regions. Liu Shaoxun, general manager of the Rongcheng Compaks New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., attributed the export growth of RVs in Rongcheng in 2023 to its complete industrial chain centering on RVs. There are 10 RV-manufacturing enterprises above a designated size in Rongcheng, and more than 50 enterprises producing parts and components for RVs, according to Rongcheng industrial and information technology bureau. This photo taken on Feb. 18, 2024 shows workers assembling recreational vehicles (RVs) at Rongcheng Compaks New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. in Rongcheng City, east China's Shandong Province. Rongcheng City in east China's Shandong Province, a major production and export base for recreational vehicles (RVs) in China, registered an export value for RVs at 1.82 billion yuan (about 256 million U.S. dollars) in 2023, marking a year-on-year increase of 17.8 percent, according to official data. (Xinhua/Li Zhihao) This photo taken on Feb. 18, 2024 shows a worker assembling recreational vehicles (RVs) at Rongcheng Compaks New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. in Rongcheng City, east China's Shandong Province. Rongcheng City in east China's Shandong Province, a major production and export base for recreational vehicles (RVs) in China, registered an export value for RVs at 1.82 billion yuan (about 256 million U.S. dollars) in 2023, marking a year-on-year increase of 17.8 percent, according to official data. (Xinhua/Li Zhihao) This photo taken on Aug. 10, 2023 shows recreational vehicles (RVs) produced by Rongcheng Compaks New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. in Rongcheng City, east China's Shandong Province. Rongcheng City in east China's Shandong Province, a major production and export base for recreational vehicles (RVs) in China, registered an export value for RVs at 1.82 billion yuan (about 256 million U.S. dollars) in 2023, marking a year-on-year increase of 17.8 percent, according to official data. (Xinhua/Li Zhihao) JEFFERSON CITY A Republican state legislator has filed a plan to protect in vitro fertilization procedures in Missouri following an Alabama court ruling that declared frozen embryos are unborn children. State Rep. Bill Allen, a Kansas City Republican who narrowly unseated an incumbent Democrat two years ago, floated a measure Wednesday that would protect the right to perform, and the right to receive, in vitro fertilization procedures and services in this state. When the Senate gaveled into session later Wednesday, Sen. Tracy McCreery, D-Olivette, also proposed legislation to safeguard access to in vitro fertilization treatments. The IVF procedure involves removing eggs from ovaries, fertilizing them to create embryos, then freezing the embryos after they have grown for several days. After an embryo is thawed, it is placed in a womans uterus, where it may implant and create a pregnancy. IVF treatments are sought by some would-be parents who want to have biological children but have difficulty conceiving. The Alabama Supreme Court decision, which held that frozen embryos are extrauterine children, reverberated in Missouri where, according to state law, life begins at conception. Missouri Republicans have moved swiftly to tamp down on concerns that the states laws could move in the same direction as those in Alabama, where clinics have paused IVF treatments since the Feb. 16 ruling. I just wanted to be sure that we protect the right of women to use IVF for their families. If thats the right decision for them, we need to make sure that that right is protected, Allen said Wednesday. McCreery said in a news release Missouri law could be used to put fertility treatments at risk, which is why we need to make explicit exceptions to Missouris life at conception law for extra fertilized embryos created through IVF. Republican House Majority Leader Jon Patterson, a Lees Summit physician, told reporters Monday that I strongly support IVF and it should be legal in Missouri, and I strongly support families being able to access IVF to have children. But House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat running for governor, has called the Alabama ruling terrifying and said it underscores the importance of the effort to restore reproductive health care rights in the state through a ballot initiative. We need to get politicians out of our doctors offices and give this power back to the people where it belongs, she said. In Missouri, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, a state law took effect that banned abortions except in medical emergencies. The campaign Missourians for Constitutional Freedom is collecting signatures to reverse the ban with a measure that would create a right to abortion until the point of fetal viability, which a treating physician would determine. The abortion-rights coalitions proposed constitutional amendment would create the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, not limiting the measure to protect only abortions. Introduction of the effort to protect IVF procedures came the same day House Republicans advanced legislation seeking to defund Planned Parenthood in Missouri. That measure still must receive another vote before heading to the Senate. With most abortions illegal in Missouri, Planned Parenthood still provides abortions in bordering states such as Illinois and Kansas. The measure voted on Wednesday goes after Medicaid funding for an affiliate of an abortion facility. House Budget Chairman Cody Smith, a Carthage Republican running for state treasurer, is sponsoring the plan. Were trying to defund health care clinics that are not providing abortion services, said Rep. Keri Ingle, D-Lees Summit. She mentioned additional services Planned Parenthood provides, such as testing for sexually transmitted infections, breast cancer screenings and birth control. The General Assembly, Mr. Speaker, has attempted to restrict public funds from going to Planned Parenthood since the mid-90s, said Rep. Ann Kelley, R-Lamar. Well, the time is now that we must get this done. Ingle, in her remarks on the House floor, suggested Republicans would pay a political price for the partys abortion policies at the ballot box this November. I am very aware that this is an election year, and I think a lot of you are too. So we can grandstand as much as we want about bills like this. But it wont matter after November, she said. JEFFERSON CITY In Missouri, the women engaged in prostitution face the same punishment as the men buying the sex a class B misdemeanor that, for both, could lead to up to six months in a county lockup. In a possible shift, legislators are considering tougher penalties for the purchasers of sex sometimes called johns as part of an effort to fight human sex trafficking, which occurs when the perpetrator forces, coerces or defrauds an adult victim into performing commercial sex acts. Force, fraud or coercion doesnt need to be shown for a minor to be a victim. Legislation the House gave preliminary approval to Wednesday would make it a class E felony to purchase or attempt to purchase sex with an adult. Such a conviction for patronizing prostitution would carry a state prison sentence of up to four years. The crime of prostitution defined under state law as engaging in, or offering or agreeing to engage in, sexual conduct in exchange for something of value, which could be received by anyone would remain a class B misdemeanor. By increasing that penalty, I want to drive down the demand. And that way youre not focused on the prostitute. Youre focused on the person whos committing the crime, said state Rep. Jeff Myers, R-Warrenton, a former Highway Patrol trooper. An adult willingly engaged in prostitution isnt considered a victim of human trafficking. But victims are performing sex acts for escort services and illicit massage businesses that buyers frequent, Myers said. If you look at the patrons of prostitution, its not necessarily its folks that have jobs, its folks that have families, he said. For whatever reason, theyre doing it, those are their own. However its not necessarily a victimless crime. Alison Phillips, former director of the Missouri attorney generals anti-human trafficking task force, said in the vast majority of cases, there is some element of force, fraud or coercion. So this notion that we have that women are out there willingly and wanting to sell their bodies for sex is a myth. There is almost always some element of force, fraud or coercion, which makes it trafficking, Phillips said. So to buy someone like that is not a harmless activity. You are creating the demand that motivates exploiters to go out and find these people to sell. In addition to raising the penalty for patronizing prostitution from a class B misdemeanor to a class E felony, penalties would also increase for purchasing or attempting to purchase sex with a minor. It would be a class D felony if the minor victim is older than 15, up from a class E felony if the minor victim is older than 14. If the victim is 15 or younger, the buyer would be guilty of a class B felony, up from a class D felony if the victim is 14 or younger. The measure also increases the age for the offense of enticement of a child from younger than 15 to younger than 17. Someone commits that offense, which carries a minimum five-year prison term, when they persuade, solicit, coax, entice or lure someone 14 or younger for the purpose of engaging in sexual conduct. Also included are anti-human trafficking continuing education requirements for a wide range of professions: peace officers, paramedics and emergency medical technicians, juvenile officers and nurses. The measure also ties part of the salary for county prosecutors to receiving anti-human trafficking training. Myers proposal also would create the Statewide Council Against Adult Trafficking and the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children. The legislation is House Bill 1706. Editors note: this version corrects an inaccurate description of current law and a provision that would make certain patronizing prostitution cases a class D felony. Instead of trying to keep their seats in Congress, two North Carolina politicians are vying for a high-profile office closer to home: state attorney general. The career path that Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop and Democratic U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson are trying to follow was once a rarity but has become more common across the country as the attorney general position has become more prominent and taken a more partisan tone. The North Carolina race is among the most closely watched of the 10 attorney general elections across the U.S. this November. Bishop is the only Republican running in the swing state, but Jackson faces two other Democrats in the March 5 primary. Differences between the candidates are stark. The attorney general has, among other things, a role in how to enforce state laws and whether to defend them when theyre challenged in court. And the North Carolina candidates couldnt be more different in their approaches. Jackson said he could, for example, follow the path taken by the Democratic incumbent and refuse to support a law adopted last year that bans most abortions after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. I see the job as standing up for people in defense of their fundamental rights, Jackson said in an interview. Im prepared to stand up to the state legislature. Bishop, on the other hand, said he would defend the law and others even if he disagreed with them unless it is unconstitutional beyond any reasonable argument. Their state is one of six where the incumbent wont be on the ballot, including Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington and West Virginia. Incumbents are expected to try to keep their jobs in Indiana, Montana and Vermont. In Missouri, Republican incumbent Andrew Bailey is hoping to win election to a full term but faces a vigorous primary challenge. Most of the states with elections are dominated by one party, but purple Pennsylvania has a crowded April primary ballot for both Republicans and Democrats. From Congress to AG The attorney general job has been a springboard to higher office for so long that theres a joke that AG stands for aspiring governor. Current North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is running for governor, as are the top government lawyers in Washington and West Virginia. Former President Bill Clinton and current Vice President Kamala Harris have attorney general on their resumes, alongside a long list of governors and senators. In Missouri, two Republican attorneys general, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, won seats in the U.S. Senate. But over the past decade, a pipeline from Congress to attorney general has developed. Five sitting attorneys general Marylands Anthony Brown, Minnesotas Keith Ellison, Arkansas Tim Griffin, Idahos Raul Labrador and Indianas Todd Rokita were all previously in Congress. Its a big change. You dont have to go find 218 people to get a vote, Ellison, a Democrat who was previously a six-term member of Congress, state lawmaker and director of a public interest law firm, said in an interview. You say, Heres what were going to do, team. Ellison said that his time in Congress helped him get to know the federal agencies he often interacts with now, but that his time as a trial lawyer was also important in preparing him for his current job. Banding together Duties vary by state but generally include roles as criminal prosecutor representing the state in court and protecting consumers, with the latter often carried out through multi-state lawsuits against companies. Attorneys general have in recent years been on the front line of lawsuits and settlements against drugmakers and others over the toll of prescription opioid painkillers; and most of them joined together last year to sue Facebook parent company Meta, claiming that features on its social media platforms are addictive. Its become more common over the past two decades, however, for attorneys general to join with colleagues only from their party to challenge federal government policy mostly those put in place by presidents from the opposite party. Bishop, a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus who joined Congress after winning a special election in 2019, said that with an often-gridlocked Congress, presidents are using regulations to create policy and overstepping their bounds. Its often falling to AGs to protect fundamental rights and to stop regulatory overreach, he said. Bishop said he supports the effort by the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana to bar the FBI and other government agencies from contacting social media platforms such as Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, to urge that content be removed. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on the case on March 18. There have also been partisan broadsides against businesses. Last year, 13 GOP attorneys general warned CEOs of the 100 biggest U.S. companies that there could be legal consequences for using race as a factor in hiring and employment practices. But that hasnt led to litigation so far. Meanwhile, during Donald Trumps presidency, Democrats repeatedly sued over policies such as a ban on travel to the U.S. from several mostly Muslim countries and allowing more employers to opt out of providing birth control coverage by claiming religious or moral objections. Democratic attorneys general also defended former President Barack Obamas health insurance overhaul in court when Trumps administration wouldnt. Shortcut to clout Jackson, a TikTok-savvy politician in his first term in Congress, decided to enter the race after redrawn congressional maps removed him from the district west of Charlotte hes representing. It would have taken him years to build up seniority to have significant power in the House. But the job hes seeking now is different, he said: You reach your full influence upon being elected to attorney general, he said. Also on the primary ballot are Democrats Satana Deberry, a progressive district attorney, and Tim Dunn, a private-practice lawyer. Jackson has a major fundraising lead and the support of the Democrats in North Carolinas congressional delegation. James Tierney, a former attorney general in Maine, one of the seven states where attorneys general are appointed rather than elected, teaches about the office at Harvard Law School. He said people with the job need to be careful not to take only partisan action because it can weaken the offices clout. If an AG acts like a congressman, theyre going to get treated like a congressman, he said, and they wont get the deference from judges and the bar that an attorney general deserves. JEFFERSON CITY Gov. Mike Parson tops a list of 62 state government officials endorsing former President Donald Trump ahead of Missouris Republican presidential caucus, the Trump campaign announced Wednesday. Trump faces former United Nations ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Florida businessman David Stuckenberg in the caucus, which begins at 10 a.m. Saturday at various locations across the state. President Trump has a proven track record of creating good-paying jobs, cutting taxes, and supporting the American Dream for families across the nation, Parson said in a statement. President Trump is the strongest candidate to take on the do-nothing D.C. establishment and make Joe Biden a one-term president, the governor said. Im proud to support Donald Trump for President of the United States in the Republican primary this weekend and general election this November. Parson is term-limited and in his final year as governor. Attorney General Andrew Bailey, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, Treasurer Vivek Malek and Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick are also on the endorsement list. Nine of the states 24 Republican state senators are on the list, including Missouri Freedom Caucus members Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring; Denny Hoskins, R-Warrensburg; Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville; Nick Schroer, R-Defiance; and Jill Carter, R-Granby. Eigel is running for governor, and Hoskins is running for secretary of state. Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, who is seeking the GOP nomination to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer in the 3rd Congressional District, is also on the list of Trump endorsers. Forty-seven of the states 111 Republican state representatives are also on the list of Missouri lawmakers endorsing Trump. Notable names include House Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, and House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith, R-Carthage. Plocher is running for lieutenant governor, and Smith is running for state treasurer. Bailey originally announced his endorsement of the former president last May. As the first Missouri state official to proudly endorse Donald J. Trump, its been an honor standing alongside an America First patriot, Bailey said Wednesday. Baileys primary challenger in the attorney general contest is Will Scharf, who is on the legal team representing Trump in his immunity case, which will go before the U.S. Supreme Court in April. WASHINGTON The Missouri Republican Party will hold presidential caucuses on Saturday, offering voters their only chance to weigh in on who should represent the party on the November presidential ballot. The contest is one of the last chances for candidates to shape the race for the GOP nomination before Super Tuesday, when 15 states will hold Republican contests on March 5, the most of any day on the primary calendar. Former President Donald Trump looks to extend his string of primary and caucus victories this year, while Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, seeks her first win of the campaign. Trump prevailed twice under the states old presidential primary system first in 2016, when he barely edged Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and again in 2020, when he won 97% of the vote as the incumbent. The caucuses will also start the process of awarding 51 of Missouris 54 Republican delegates to the Republican National Convention this summer. The caucuses were organized after GOP Gov. Mike Parson signed a 2022 law that, among other things, canceled the planned March 12 presidential primary. Lawmakers have failed to reinstate the primary, despite calls to do so by both the state Republican and Democratic party leaders. Democrats will hold a party-run primary on March 23. Here is a look at what to expect on election night: Caucus day The caucuses are scheduled to convene at 10 a.m. Most Missouri counties and the city of St. Louis have just one caucus location. St. Charles and St. Louis counties each have two. The Missouri Republican Party has listed the caucus locations on its website. GOP caucus sites in St. Louis metro counties Franklin County: Franklin County Baptist Association, 785 Butterfield Drive, Union. Jefferson County: Windsor High School, 949 Windsor Harbor Road, Imperial. Lincoln County: Troy Ninth Grade Center, 80 Elm Tree Road, Moscow Mills. St. Charles County: Two locations. Participation based on voters congressional district. 2nd Congressional District Gymnasium B, Francis Howell Central High School, 5199 Highway N, Cottleville. 3rd Congressional District Gymnasium A, Francis Howell Central High School, 5199 Highway N, Cottleville. St. Louis County: Two locations. Participation based on voters congressional district. 1st Congressional District University of Missouri-St Louis (South Campus), 2993 South Drive, Normandy. 2nd Congressional District Parkway West High School, 14653 Clayton Road, Ballwin. St. Louis City: St. James Center, 1360 Tamm Avenue (at Wade Avenue). Warren County: Warren County Administration Building Training Room (Lower Level), 101 Mockingbird Lane, Warrenton. Source: Missouri Republican Party Whats on the ballot There is no ballot in the traditional sense, as caucus-goers form groups to express their preferences, but the candidates eligible for nomination at the caucuses are Trump, Haley and Florida businessman David Stuckenberg. Texas businessman and pastor Ryan Binkley ended his campaign on Tuesday, and the state partys practice has been to remove former candidates from the caucus mix. Who may participate Caucus-goers must be registered to vote in Missouri and sign a pledge declaring their allegiance to the Missouri Republican Party. The caucus rules state: Only strong and faithful Republican voters residing and registered to vote in the district involved shall be allowed to participate in any caucus or Convention. For years, Missouri voters did not register by party, but the same 2022 election law that canceled the presidential primary also gave voters the option to affiliate with a party through their local county clerks office. While the state party does not require caucus-goers to have officially affiliated with the Republican Party through this new process, it has advised county party chairs and caucus staff that voters who chose to affiliate with the Democratic Party may be barred from participating on Saturday. Delegate allocation rules Missouri has 54 Republican delegates. Fifty-one of them are awarded to candidates through a monthslong process that begins Saturday. Eleven delegates will be awarded to candidates at the statewide level, while five delegates will be awarded from each of Missouris eight congressional districts. Thats a combined total of 51 delegates at stake in whats known as a caucus-convention system. The remaining three delegates are the state party chairman and Missouris Republican national committeeman and committeewoman, who may support any candidate they wish regardless of caucus results. Caucus-goers will express their preferences for president, and those results ultimately are used to determine the number of delegates awarded to candidates both at the statewide and congressional district level. At both the statewide and district levels, all delegates at stake are awarded to the candidate who receives majority support. If no candidate receives a majority, delegates are allocated proportionally among candidates who received at least 15% of support, with some minor exceptions. The individuals who will serve as national convention delegates will be selected at congressional district conventions on April 6 and the state convention on May 4. Decision notes Missouris GOP caucuses vaguely resemble the format Iowa Democrats used for decades before scrapping it this year in favor of a vote-by-mail primary. Unlike state-run primaries, participants must attend in person during a limited time frame and participate in a party meeting, rather than being able to just cast a ballot and leave. Voting is not done by secret ballot. Caucus-goers instead move around the room and form groups in support of their preferred presidential candidate. Any candidate group that comprises less than 15% of the total attendance of that caucus in the first round of voting must disband, and its members have the option of joining another candidate group. The number of people in the newly formed candidate groups is then used to determine how many representatives each campaign will send to district-level conventions in April as well as to the state convention in May. Delegates to those spring conventions will formally allocate national convention delegates to the presidential candidates. If a candidate has the support of more than 50% of the total attendance in a caucus site, the candidate wins all the district and state convention delegates at stake in that caucus. If a candidate wins the caucus with less than 50%, proportionality rules are applied, depending on the number of delegates at stake. The Associated Press will report a statewide winner based on the preferences of caucus participants. The vote results will not reflect the raw votes of all caucus-goers. Instead, the vote will be expressed in terms of how many of the 924 state delegates each candidate has won, as well as the number of district delegates each candidate has won across eight congressional districts. What do turnout and advance vote look like The last time Missouri Republicans held caucuses to allocate delegates in a contested presidential campaign was in 2012, but the format was different and there was no binding presidential preference result to provide a meaningful turnout comparison for this year. Early and absentee voting is not permitted at the caucuses. Caucus-goers must participate in-person at the caucus site. As of November 2022, there were about 4.3 million voters registered in Missouri. Counting and reporting votes The caucuses convene without a hard stop time. Chairs of individual caucus sites must report their results to the state party no later than 5 p.m. The state party has not provided a more detailed vote-counting timeline beyond those broad parameters. Given the number of items on the agenda, the length of time allotted to forming and reforming preference groups and the possibility of delays as caucus staff and participants adjust to an unfamiliar system, it may take even the most efficiently run caucus at least one to two hours to conduct all of its business. In Iowa, caucuses in some precincts have lasted up to three hours. The AP will begin reporting results as soon as they are available. Results will be available online at stltoday.com. Are we there yet? As of Saturday, there will be 135 days until the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and 248 days until the November general election. Associated Press writer David A. Lieb in Jefferson City and the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report. ST. LOUIS In the weeks following the abrupt closure of St. Louis largest nursing home in mid-December, elected officials called for investigations and fines for the facility and its owners. This week, regulators released documents detailing a $56,310 federal fine imposed on Northview Village and its owners for the chaotic, overnight shutdown during which a state inspector observed that an elevator stalled with nine people trapped inside, the buildings phone lines went down and two residents went missing. Nursing home resident advocates said Wednesday that while the fine is higher than the average nursing home penalty, it doesnt match the severity of Northviews problems. Given what happened here, I think its a fine thats well below what the egregious behavior of this operator merits, said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, an advocacy group. Members of the nursing homes ownership group did not immediately return calls seeking comment on Wednesday. Northview shut down on Dec. 15 after a dispute between its owners over how to cover payroll. Residents were moved over the course of the night to more than a dozen different facilities, some in other counties. In some cases, family members werent notified, and nursing home advocates spent days tracking down where each person had been transferred. Two residents walked away from the facility. One was found the following afternoon, and the other was found three weeks later. For everything that happened, it seems low, said Marjorie Moore, executive director of VOYCE, the regional nursing home ombudsman program. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services fined Northview for three days being in violation, at a rate of $18,770 per day, according to the letter notifying owners Makhlouf and Lorraine Suissa and Eric Rothner. The three-day period begins Dec. 15 and goes through Dec. 17, when Northview gave up its Medicare and Medicaid contracts. The letter from CMS says that if Northview waives its rights to a hearing, the penalty will be reduced by 35%. Mollot said that is the norm for CMS penalties. There are, unfortunately, many opportunities available to operators to get a fine reduced or eliminated altogether, Mollot said. There is no opportunity for the public, for families, for residents, to say, This fine should be more. A portion of the penalties collected by CMS are funneled back to the states where the fines were imposed, and put toward efforts to boost nursing home quality such as family councils and training for staff and inspectors or to support or relocate residents of facilities that are shut down. Missouri has had three projects funded through such penalties in recent years, all through the University of Missouri, according to CMS documents. Those projects provided consultation to nursing home staff, aimed to reduce incidence of bedsores in those facilities, reduce the use of anti-psychotic drugs and increase the rate of residents who can move around independently. U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-St. Louis, in January called for probes into Northviews owners and into the states systems for overseeing nursing homes. She made those demands at a news conference and in a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. As of Wednesday, Bushs office had not received any response from HHS and was not aware of any other actions taken on Northview. Biden defeated Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, his one significant opponent left in the Democratic primary. But Democrats were also closely watching the results of the uncommitted vote, as Michigan has become the epicenter for dissatisfied members of Bidens coalition that propelled him to victory in the state and nationally in 2020. The number of uncommitted votes has already surpassed the 10,000-vote margin by which Trump won Michigan in 2016, surpassing a goal set by organizers of this years protest effort. As for Trump, he has now swept the first five states on the Republican primary calendar. His victory in Michigan over his last major primary challenger, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, comes after the former president defeated her by 20 percentage points in her home state of South Carolina on Saturday. The Trump campaign is looking to lock up the 1,215 delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination sometime in mid-March. Both campaigns are watching Tuesdays results for more than just whether they won as expected. For Biden, a large number of voters choosing uncommitted could mean hes in significant trouble with parts of the Democratic base in a state he can hardly afford to lose in November. Trump, meanwhile, has underperformed with suburban voters and people with a college degree, and faces a faction within his own party that believes he broke the law in one or more of the criminal cases against him. Biden has already sailed to wins in South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire. The New Hampshire victory came via a write-in campaign as Biden did not formally appear on the ballot after the state broke the national party rules by going ahead of South Carolina, which had been designated to go first among the Democratic nominating contests. Both the White House and Biden campaign officials have made trips to Michigan in recent weeks to talk with community leaders about the Israel-Hamas war and how Biden has approached the conflict, but those leaders, along with organizers of the uncommitted effort, have been undeterred. The robust grassroots effort, which has been encouraging voters to select uncommitted as a way to register objections to his handling of Israels ongoing war in Gaza, has been Bidens most significant political challenge in the early contests. That push, which began in earnest just a few weeks ago, has been backed by officials such as Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman in Congress, and former Rep. Andy Levin. Our Revolution, the organizing group once tied to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., had also urged progressive voters to choose uncommitted Tuesday, saying it would send a message to Biden to change course NOW on Gaza or else risk losing Michigan to Trump in November. Trump won the state by just 11,000 votes in 2016 over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and then lost the state four years later by nearly 154,000 votes to Biden. Organizers of the uncommitted effort wanted to show that they have at least the number of votes that were Trumps margin of victory in 2016, to demonstrate how influential the bloc can be, and they reached that figure not long after the first round of polls in Michigan closed at 8 p.m. Trumps dominance of the early states is unparalleled since 1976, when Iowa and New Hampshire began their tradition of holding the first nominating contests. He has won resounding support from most pockets of the Republican voting base, including evangelical voters, conservatives and those who live in rural areas. But Trump has struggled with college-educated voters, losing that bloc in South Carolina to Haley on Saturday night. Earlier Tuesday, Trump predicted in an interview with a Michigan radio station that he would win by a vast margin. I mean, Nikkis not even a factor," he told WJR-AM. "Shes gonna lose like by 80 points tonight or something. Shes become a joke." But Haley campaign spokeswoman Olivia Perez-Cubas said the Michigan results were a flashing warning sign for Trump in November. Let this serve as another warning sign that what has happened in Michigan will continue to play out across the country. So long as Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, Republicans will keep losing to the socialist left. Our children deserve better. Still, even senior figures in the Republican Party who have been skeptical of Trump are increasingly falling in line. South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican who has been critical of the partys standard-bearer, endorsed Trump for president on Sunday. Still, Haley has vowed to continue her campaign through at least Super Tuesday on March 5, pointing to a not-insignificant swath of Republican primary voters who have continued to support her despite Trumps tightening grip on the GOP. She also outraised Trumps primary campaign committee by almost $3 million in January. That indicates that some donors continue to look at Haley, despite her longshot prospects, as an alternative to Trump should his legal problems imperil his chances of becoming the nominee. Two of Trumps political committees raised just $13.8 million in January, according to campaign finance reports released last week, while collectively spending more than they took in. Much of the money spent from Trumps political committees is the millions of dollars in legal fees to cover his court cases. With nominal intraparty challengers, Biden has been able to focus on beefing up his cash reserves. The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced last week that it had raised $42 million in contributions during January from 422,000 donors. The president ended the month with $130 million in cash on hand, which campaign officials said is the highest total ever raised by any Democratic candidate at this point in the presidential cycle. The Republican Party is also aligning behind Trump as he continued to be besieged with legal problems that will pull him from the campaign trail as the November election nears. He is facing 91 criminal changes across four separate cases, ranging from his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, to retaining classified documents after his presidency to allegedly arranging secret payoffs to an adult film actor. His first criminal trial, in the case involving hush money payments to porn actor Stormy Daniels, is scheduled to begin on March 25 in New York. Live results: Whos running for president? See the latest rundown of major 2024 candidates Donald Trump Joe Biden Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Jill Stein Cornel West Whos dropped out? KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) The man accused of firing the first shots at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally told authorities he felt threatened, while a second man said he pulled the trigger because someone was shooting at him, according to court documents. Experts say that even though the shooting left one bystander dead and roughly two dozen people injured, 23-year-old Lyndell Mays and 18-year-old Dominic Miller might have good cases for self-defense through the states stand your ground law. Missouri is among more than 30 states that have adopted some version of stand your ground laws over the past two decades, said Robert Spitzer, a professor emeritus of political science at the State University of New York, Cortland, whose research focuses on gun policy and politics. While earlier laws allowed people to use force to protect themselves in their homes, stand your ground provides even broader self-defense rights regardless of the location. Now, the mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl celebration could be a new test of those expanded protections, and comes as self-defense already is at the center of another high-profile Kansas City shooting that left Ralph Yarl wounded. This illustrates in a dramatic way the fundamental problem, especially when its a public gathering where there are thousands and thousands of people, and even a highly trained police officer often cannot avoid injuring others in a gunfire exchange in a public place, said Spitzer, who wrote the book Guns Across America: Reconciling Gun Rules and Rights. Trial attorney Daniel Ross described the stand your ground law as a formidable defense that he and many other Kansas City defense attorneys anticipate will be used in Mays' and Miller's cases. He said the law puts the onus on the prosecution to disprove claims that a shooting is lawful self-defense. Collateral damage under Missouri law is excused if youre actually engaged in lawful self-defense and theres other folks injured, he said. There are limits to the defense, however, said Eric Ruben, a law professor at the S.M.U. Dedman School of Law in Dallas who has written on stand your ground and self-defense immunity. Even though Missouri has robust stand-your-ground laws, that doesnt mean you can spray bullets into a crowd in the name of defending yourself or others, Ruben said. The barrage of gunfire Feb. 14 outside Kansas Citys historic Union Station happened as the celebration that drew an estimated 1 million fans was concluding. A woman died while watching the rally with her family, and nearly two dozen others more than half of them children were injured and survived. Kansas City already was grappling with the shooting of Yarl, a Black teenager, who survived a bullet wound to the head when he went to the wrong house in April 2023 to pick up his brothers. Andrew Lester, an 85-year-old white man, is planning to claim self-defense when he goes to trial in October. His attorney said the retiree was terrified by the stranger on his doorstep. While the Super Bowl celebration shooting was a far different scenario, it raises anew questions about how far people can go to protect themselves and what happens when the innocent become victims. Mays and Miller are each charged with second-degree murder and other counts. Probable cause statements suggest that both men felt threatened. Mays said he picked out one person in a group at random and started shooting because they said, I'm going to get you, and he took that to mean, I'm going to kill you, the statement said. Miller said under questioning that he fired four or five times because someone was shooting at him. His friend, Marques Harris, told WDAF-TV that Miller was only trying to protect him after he was shot in the neck. Millers attorney didnt return phone and email messages seeking comment. No attorney was listed for Mays in online court records. Two juveniles also face gun-related and resisting arrest charges. Missouri has few firearm regulations, and two of its cities Kansas City and St. Louis annually have among the nation's highest homicide rates. Missouris current Republican lawmakers have largely defended the states gun laws, instead blaming prosecutors and other local elected officials in the two cities. And Republican Gov. Mike Parson, speaking to reporters last week, cited societal problems not guns as the reason for the violence. I believe it's much more than a gun," he said. When Republican lawmakers in 2016 expanded the state's already-extensive self-defense protections by enacting the current stand your ground law, Black Missouri lawmakers raised concerns. The law also allowed most adults to carry concealed guns without a permit. Racial disparities are rife among those who invoke the defense, with an Urban Institute study showing white shooters are more likely to benefit than Black defendants. The issue was raised when Kyle Rittenhouse, a white teen, was acquitted of killing two people and wounding a third during a 2020 protest against racism and police brutality in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after testifying he acted in self-defense. Rittenhouses actions became a flashpoint in the debate over guns, vigilantism and racial injustice in the U.S. The shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a Black 17-year-old, by George Zimmerman also spurred concerns about stand your ground laws. Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watchman who thought Martin looked suspicious, wasnt arrested for 44 days after the Feb. 26, 2012, shooting as police in Sanford, Florida, insisted that Floridas stand your ground law prohibited charges. Zimmerman was eventually arrested and charged, but his attorneys chose not to pursue a stand your ground claim, which could have resulted in the dismissal of murder changes as well as immunity from prosecution. But during the trial, the law was essentially used as part of his self-defense argument. Jurors found him not guilty. In Georgia, which also has a stand your ground law, three white men accused of fatally shooting Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 claimed self-defense. Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and neighbor William Roddie Bryan claimed they chased Arbery, who was Black, because they thought he was a burglar. All three were convicted of murder. In 2022, Wichita, Kansas, area district attorney Marc Bennett was critical of the states stand your ground law when he announced that he wouldnt file charges over the death of Cedric Lofton, a Black 17-year-old who was restrained facedown for more than 30 minutes at a juvenile detention center. Bennett said the law prevented him from bringing charges because staff members were protecting themselves. With the Chiefs parade case unfolding, it is time to look anew at these laws, said Melba Pearson, a former homicide prosecutor who is now the director of prosecution projects at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University. What are truly the limits in terms of stand your ground and what really falls into the category of self-defense?" she asked. "Do we need to revisit what stand your ground looks like? Ballentine reported from Jefferson City, Missouri. Salter reported from O'Fallon, Missouri. John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report. by Ali Jaswal ISLAMABAD, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan's experts expect the port city of Gwadar being developed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to become an energy hub with a technology-based development vision and a community-centric social development approach. In a recent policy dialogue on Gwadar organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), an Islamabad-based think-tank, the experts emphasized the need to further focus on expanding the horizon of a green CPEC for energy generation and sustainable technology-based development. Launched in 2013, CPEC, a flagship project of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is a corridor linking Pakistan's southwestern Gwadar port with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, highlighting energy, transport, and industrial cooperation. Speaking at the event, Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director of the SDPI, said that Gwadar has the potential to become a mix to bring together all traditional and renewal energy generation projects. Since the international community has demanded a three-fold increase in renewable energy share by 2030 at the 28th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP28, in Dubai, Pakistan is seeking renewable energy support from China to tap its solar and offshore wind energy potential, Suleri said. He called for discussions about working on this end holistically, particularly its consumption aspects, along with an efficient utilization of infrastructure. Experts at the seminar urged a focus on the socio-economic development of the Gwadar area, with policy reforms towards sustainable growth. Highlighting the need for the reform in key sectors, Xiang Yang, director of the China Study Center at Pakistan's National University of Sciences and Technology, urged efforts to improve regulations, taxation regime, and governance mechanisms to facilitate investment. There have been many positive achievements in Gwadar under CPEC's framework, including an operational port, modernized infrastructure, road network, and an under-construction state-of-the-art international airport, Eram Ashraf, an international relations expert, told Xinhua after the seminar. "Now, we have 10 years of successful experience of CPEC to learn, and there is a long way ahead to go," Ashraf said. For sustainable development, the policymaking has to be more and more inclusive with all the stakeholders on board, the expert said, adding that it should focus on the input and the well-being of the local people of Gwadar. ST. LOUIS (AP) The St. Louis suburb where Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer has agreed to pay $4.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused it of operating a so-called debtors' prison. The legal nonprofit ArchCity Defenders announced the settlement Tuesday with the city of Ferguson, Missouri. The preliminary agreement calls for the money to be paid out to more than 15,000 people who were jailed between Feb. 8, 2010, and Dec. 30, 2022, for failing to pay fines, fees and other court costs. Michael Brown, 18, was fatally shot by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, 2014, during a street confrontation. Wilson was not charged, but the shooting led to months of protests and prompted a Department of Justice investigation. The Justice Department in 2015 accused Ferguson of racially biased policing and using excessive fines and court fees. A year later, Ferguson and the agency reached an agreement that required sweeping reforms. Meanwhile, lawsuits were filed against Ferguson and several other St. Louis County cities over policing and municipal court practices. ArchCity Defenders said preliminary settlements have been reached in seven class-action cases, with total payouts of nearly $20 million. The lead plaintiff in the Ferguson lawsuit, Keilee Fant, died before the case was settled, as did another original litigant, Tonya DeBerry. The harsh reality is that, oftentimes, those most impacted by injustice do not live long enough to see the seeds of change bloom, ArcyCity managing attorney Maureen Hanlon said in a news release. But this settlement would not be possible without them. Ferguson admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement. Phone and email messages left with the city were not returned. Coupled with my grandpas gradual memory loss, diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic health issues, his need for open-heart surgery would forever change my parents responsibilities as long-term caregivers. Luckily, my mom lived nearby and had the time and resources to manage his appointments, medications and care. But many aging seniors will not be as fortunate. My grandpa is part of a generation of baby boomers who will struggle to find adequate caregivers as they grow old. The demographic shift towards an aging population suggests that finding enough caregivers will be an enormous challenge unless we put programs and policies in place to address the looming crisis now. According to the U.S. Census, by 2030, 1 in 5 Americans will be at retirement age, a statistic that has doubled from 1 in 10 since 1970. With this ballooning elderly population, there will be a growing need for caregivers exceeding the current supply. Financially, family caregivers are more susceptible to loss of income, fewer career opportunities, decreased savings, and lower retirement and Social Security benefits due to their caregiving duties and out-of-pocket expenses. Taking the time to provide multiple hours of care per week can negatively impact job security. The Sandwich Generation is torn between caring for their own children, caring for their aging parents, and continuing to work. Spending time caring for a loved one can be a rewarding experience, affirm family ties, honor past service, and save family resources. However, caregiving can be constant, relentless, unpredictable, and taxing. Caregivers are more likely to have higher levels of anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns. As caregiving children grow older, these senior citizens themselves will have less physical ability to take care of super-senior parents. Long-term care facilities have traditionally provided a significant amount of end-of-life care and support, but today these facilities are already short-staffed, and many have filed for bankruptcy partially due to low reimbursement from Medicaid patients. Facilities that continue to operate can charge private-pay patients an estimated $100,000 per year. Despite these challenges, there are steps we can take to head off what seems like an inevitable crisis in caregiving. In Oregon, policymakers are already putting programs in place to alleviate some of the pressure on the caregiving system. The Independent Choices Program (ICP) allows patients who are on Medicaid to obtain a Medicaid waiver to provide compensation to their caregivers at home, including family members. This can enable families that prefer to care for their loved ones at home to do so without a huge financial sacrifice. Additionally, many states offer loan forgiveness and repayment programs for healthcare professionals depending on the specialty they work in. The state of Delaware, for example, offers up to a total of $100,000 of financial assistance to healthcare professionals working in primary care, behavioral/mental health, and dental care if working in an underserved area. Augmenting these state loan forgiveness programs to include the field of long-term care can incentivize students to enter the field. A recent Biden Administration initiative proposes a similar plan to meet future nursing home staffing needs. Immigration policy can be utilized to manage these future needs. The U.S. has traditionally relied on immigrants to provide much of the private home health and long-term care facility services that elderly patients need. As legislators work today to recraft immigration policy, prioritizing working visas for those who commit to entering this line of work could help reduce the burden of an overstressed system. Despite the opportunities that proposals like these can provide, there are still many detractors, including those who fear rising costs and a growing taxpayer burden as well as our ongoing inability to make meaningful immigration policy reform. However, if we dont take action now, a large portion of Americans will face the harsh reality of a shortage of caregivers that has already begun. A greater emphasis on the well-being of others can push us towards a more caring and thoughtful society. A nation as rich as ours can certainly invest in those who have invested their whole lives in us. Dont we owe our seniors their dignity at the end of their lives? February 28, 2024: NATO countries closer to Russia spend more on defense because they are more aware of the threat. Thats why these countries also spend higher percentages of GDP in aid to Ukraine. Estonia, Denmark, Lithuania, Norway, and Latvia lead in providing aid to Ukraine when measured as a ratio of the GDP of these countries. The total amount of Estonia's long-term and short-term commitments to aid Ukraine is 3.6 percent of the country's GDP. Denmark ranks second in this indicator with 2.4 percent, followed by Norway with 1.7 percent, Lithuania with 1.54 percent, and Latvia with 1.2 percent. In terms of the total amount of aid and commitments to support Ukraine as a percentage of GDP, Germany's aid is 0.6 percent, France's is 0.59 percent, Great Britain's is 0.5 percent, and the United States' is 0.32 percent. On the other hand, the European Union leads in the amount of aid provided or promised to Ukraine with a total of $91.5 billion, $5.5 billion being military aid. The United States sent Ukraine $73 billion but $42 billion was military aid. Germany is in third place with $23.75 billion in aid with 17.7 billion being military aid. In the United States there are problems with actually delivering the promised aid. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are delaying approval of American aid to Ukraine because of disagreements in the legislature over how much should be spent dealing with illegal migration across Americas southern border. While protecting Ukraine from Russian invaders is important to Americans, their own invasion crisis on their southern border is closer to home. The United States has long called on European NATO countries to increase their defense spending rather than depending on the Americans to carry most of the financial and military burden of defending Europe. The combined GDPs of European NATO members are equal to that of the United States, yet the Europeans still expect the Americans to pay more than Europeans to defend Europe. A growing number of American voters and politicians have been questioning this situation, which has existed since the end of World War II. Back in the late 1940s and throughout the 50s and 60s you could make a case for the United States spending more than their European allies on European defense. In the 1970s the European economies that were shattered by World War II began to recover and in the 21st Century returned to prominence in terms of sheer size and the volume of exports. The Americans pointed out that the U.S. can now step back on spending for European defense because Europeans can afford to defend themselves and provide most of the needed financial and military support for Ukraine. While the United States still produces a lot more weapons than European nations, the Americans are willing to increase their weapons sales to European countries so those European allies can give more aid to Ukraine. The war in Ukraine is all about the Russian government correctly believing that it cannot be a great power again without controlling the Ukraine, which had a disproportionate amount of the ex-Soviet Unions heavy industry, military production, and particularly its high-tech development and production. President-for-life Putin also wants to grab back most of the now independent bordering countries which used to be former Soviet Republics. Ukraine wants to join the European Union and NATO. Russia considers Ukraine part of Russia and calls the invasion of Ukraine an internal matter. Russia threatens to use nuclear weapons on NATO nations if NATO does not halt its aid to what Russia considers Russian rebels calling themselves Ukrainians. Russian leader Vladimir Putin believes the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a great tragedy and wants to put the Soviet Union back together again. He ignores the fact that the non-Russian elements of the Soviet Union do not want to rejoin a new version of the Soviet Union. Some of those former Soviet Union components, like the Baltic States are now NATO members. While Poland stayed out of the Soviet Union, they remember that World War II began in 1939 when Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to partition Poland between them. Germany didnt invade the Soviet Union until 1941 and the Russians were not expecting that because they had a mutual non-aggression treaty with Germany since 1939 that included secret clauses detailing how Germany and the Soviet Union would eventually divide Eastern and Central European countries between them. In 1941 Germany decided to try and take it all and invaded the Soviet Union after having conquered France and other European countries the year before. Germany decided Britain was too difficult to invade and decided to go after the Soviet Union first and conquer Britain later. The Americans stayed out of all this until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 and Germany, which was allied with Japan, declared war on the United States. Britain was saved because they and the United States were now allies in the war against Japan and Germany. In 1941 Britain had considerable possessions in south (India) and east (Singapore) Asia. The Japanese took Singapore, but India proved too big and too far away for them. Germany and Japan were not too big for the Americans to defeat and thats what they did by 1945. The United States developed nuclear weapons with the intention of using them on Germany, but the Germans surrendered in May 1945, before the Americans' nuclear weapons were ready. Japan held out until September 1945 when American nuclear bombs were dropped in two Japanese cities. Mass attacks by American B-29 bombers had already demolished several Japanese cities but that required several raids by hundreds of bombers. The nuclear weapons did it with one B-29 dropping a nuclear bomb on two Japanese cities. That forced the Japanese to surrender and saved a lot of Japanese lives because American warships and submarines had already halted food supplies from Japanese-occupied northern China from reaching Japan. That, plus the two nuclear bombs was more than the fanatical Japanese generals could handle and the Japanese surrendered in September 1945. This was just after Soviet armies had completed their movement from Europe to Manchuria to attack Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The Soviet Union dominated East European countries after World War II and stationed armies in those nations that bordered NATO countries. In 1989-91 the Soviets withdrew from Europe and in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. For many Europeans that was the end of World War II, which for Europeans began in 1939 and in one form or another lasted over fifty years. In the 21st Century Russia decided it was time to restore the Soviet Union and Russian domination of Eastern Europe. ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 - Atlas Salt Inc. ("Atlas Salt" or the "Company") (TSXV:SALT)(OTCQB: REMRF), is pleased to announce the submission of the Project Registration Document (the "Registration") for the Great Atlantic Salt Project (the "Project"), pursuant to Part X of the Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Protection Act. This submission represents a crucial milestone in the Project's development and path to financing, construction and unlocking shareholder value. The Registration outlines the Company's dedication to innovation, sustainable mining practices, community engagement, and implementing strategies and designs to minimize environmental impact. The Registration reviews in depth: Detailed environmental impact studies and mitigation strategies, demonstrating the Project's comparatively low impact; Community engagement initiatives, and the high level of local support for the Project; Comprehensive analyses of potential effects on local flora and fauna, showing minimal biodiversity impact; An energy-efficient operational design, that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions; Comprehensive plans, processes and mitigation measures addressing water management, noise, light and dust control to minimize adverse impacts; and Important and significant social and economic contributions, along with associated benefits to local, regional and provincial communities. In support of this Registration, Atlas Salt has undertaken considerable environmental baseline studies and analysis, including a greenhouse gas study (see the January 15, 2024 News Release). This study details the Project's expected low carbon footprint, as compared to other mining operations, of only 950 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per million tonnes of production (t CO 2 e/Mt). The Project's Scope 1 GHG emissions of 79 tonnes annually is comparable to the emissions of the annual carbon footprint expected from just four Newfoundland families of four, according to Statistics Canada (2023) (source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/231220/mc-c001-eng.htm). Atlas Salt believes that the Project will significantly contribute to local and regional economies and create numerous highly skilled generational employment opportunities. The Registration is subject to review by the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Environment and Climate Change and the Company will provide further information as it becomes available. For further information and ongoing updates, please visit https://atlassalt.com/. About Atlas Salt Inc. Atlas Salt Inc. is developing Canada's next salt mine and is committed to responsible and sustainable mining practices. With a focus on innovation and efficiency, the company is poised to make significant contributions to the North American salt market while upholding its values of environmental stewardship and community engagement. For information, please contact: Richard LaBelle, CEO [email protected] We seek safe harbor. Cautionary Statement Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider, (as the term is defined in the Policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release includes certain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, without limitation, statements relating to the future operating or financial performance of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results "will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements in this press release relate to, among other things: completion, delivery and timing of project components and requirements, and analysis and assumptions related thereto. Actual future results may differ materially. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and projections on the date the statements are made and are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the respective parties, are inherently subject to significant business, technical, economic, and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and the parties have made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. Such factors include, without limitation: the timing, completion and delivery of required permits, supply arrangements and financing. Readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release concerning these times. Except as required by law, the Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions, projections, or other factors, should they change, except as required by law. SOURCE: Atlas Salt View the original press release on accesswire.com NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / With support from FedEx through their Charitable Giving Program, The Salvation Army co-branded FedEx canteens deployed to 40 events in the 3rd Quarter of 2023. Additionally, five (5) of the FedEx canteens are used for weekly or daily feeding programs in their communities. These events ranged from weekly community outreach for those experiencing homelessness to disaster response. These co-branded FedEx canteens play an important role in The Salvation Army's ability to provide services to those in need. The Salvation Army greatly appreciates the support of FedEx and their donation of mobile feeding units and will continue to utilize them in new innovative ways to support our communities. DISASTER RESPONSE: Fire Responses: The Salvation Army at the request of the local fire department responded to six different fires this quarter using the FedEx canteens. The Western Pennsylvania Division responded to four fires. The first was to a residential structure fire in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania on July 3rd. The Salvation Army was on the scene with the FedEx canteen early in the morning to provide support to the survivors and first responders. 25 meals, 50 snacks, and 40 drinks were served from the FedEx canteen. The second response was to a multi-home fire in North Braddock, Pennsylvania on August 20th. The team provided support services to first responders and the residents affected by the fire. The third fire the Emergency Disaster Services team was a two-alarm residential house fire in Pittsburgh. Disaster workers served drinks, snacks with Emotional and Spiritual Care. While on the scene of this fire in Pittsburgh, the team was dispatched to a large brush fire at a commercial landscape supply facility. Disaster workers provided meals, snacks, and drinks to the first responders on scene from multiple counties. The North & Central Illinois Division responded to two fires this quarter using the FedEx canteen. The first was a house fire. The Salvation Army served snacks to the fire department crew. The second was a large structure fire in Riverwoods, Illinois where snacks and drinks were served to the fire and police personnel until the fire was put out. Kansas Storms: On August 3rd, The Salvation Army Kansas and Western Missouri Division responded to storms in Ottawa, Kansas. The FedEx canteen deployed to the event for two days and disaster workers served meals, snacks, and drinks to people who lost power during the storms. In total, 331 meals, 565 snacks, and 457 drinks were served to affected individuals in the community. Hurricane Idalia Response in Georgia: Hurricane Idalia impacted multiple counties in Georgia, but Lowndes County received much of the damage. The Salvation Army mobilized the Georgia FedEx canteen to Lowndes County. Disaster workers served meals, drinks, and snacks to survivors from the FedEx canteen. Over the span of August 31st through September 4th disaster workers served 4,000 meals and 300 drinks to first responders and survivors. Search & Rescue Operation in Illinois: On September 30th, The North & Central Illinois Division was requested to support a search and rescue operation in St. Charles, Illinois. The Salvation Army arrived on scene at 6AM and prepared to serve breakfast. Disaster workers served drinks and snacks from the FedEx canteen to search and rescue team volunteers and staff. Fortunately, the missing elderly individual was found safe around 7:30AM and breakfast was not needed. Power Outages Due to Storm in Virginia: The Salvation Army Potomac Division responded to a large storm in Danville, Virginia that left many families without power on September 13th. Disaster workers provided roving feeding to affected individuals throughout the community. HOMELESS FEEDING AND OUTREACH: Georgia Mobile Feeding: This past quarter, Salvation Army Georgia Division used their FedEx canteen to serve low-income communities. The Division has established relationships with Gwinnett County Police Department, Gwinnett County Health Department, Gwinnett County School District, and other local non-profits to bring an array of services to those who are not able to travel to receive these services. In the 3rd quarter, over 950 meals and 1,000 drinks were served to community members. The Salvation Army Georgia Division partnered with the Gwinnett County Gangs Division to provide meals, drinks, and snacks in low-income areas that have a high amount of crime. Due to the positive relationship Gwinnett County Police Department has with the community, The Salvation Army was able to go into areas that otherwise might not be safe. The Salvation Army discovered that there were school-aged children that were not attending school due to not having the vaccinations that are required to attend public school. The Salvation Army is currently working with the Health Department to send their mobile clinic out with The Salvation Army, FedEx canteen so that the children will have the opportunity to receive the vaccinations required by the Georgia Public School System which will allow them to enroll in school while receiving meals and snacks. Another notable community feeding event was when The Salvation Army went to an apartment complex that houses only single mothers. While meals were being served from the FedEx canteen the staff, volunteers, and officers learned that many of the single mother's struggle to get the proper car seats for their children. The Division plans to partner with Gwinnett County Fire Department. The next time the team goes to this location the fire fighters will be coming with them to speak with the mothers about the car seat replacement program. Finally, The Salvation Army Georgia Division partnered with another nonprofit that feeds children during the summer break from school. The funding from the program only allows them to give food to children, which leaves many other family members without meals. The Salvation Army provided meals alongside this nonprofit during the 4th of July weekend to families of the children enrolled in the nonprofit program. Memphis Neighborhood Feeding Program: The Salvation Army Kentucky & Tennessee Division took out the FedEx canteen every Wednesday to provide lunch and water to an underserved neighborhood near The Salvation Army's Purdue Center of Hope. This quarter, 400 meals, drinks, and snacks were served to community members. New Orleans Canteen Ministry: In New Orleans, Louisiana, beginning in September the FedEx canteen was taken out every Wednesday this quarter. Disaster workers served meals and drinks to those experiencing homelessness living under various bridges in the city. In total, 300 meals and drinks were served. Trenton Mobile Feeding Program: A team of volunteers from the Trenton Corps in New Jersey and surrounding area take the FedEx canteen out every other Friday and serve prepared meals to the community, focusing on vulnerable populations. These populations include those experiencing homelessness, housing and food insecure individuals, low-income individuals, migrants, and seniors. They also provide pantry bags, blankets, hygiene items, other gifts as available (socks, coats, toys, etc.). In total, this quarter, the Trenton Mobile Feeding Program served 1,313 meals, snacks, and drinks to community members. Baltimore Meals to Homeless Populations: FeedMore Program: The Potomac Division of The Salvation Army's FeedMore program delivers meals via a route with four stops throughout the city. Individuals can come to the location that is most convenient for them to receive meals and additional services. This quarter, over 3,700 meals, 4,300 snacks, and 3,300 drinks were served to community members experiencing homelessness. Additionally, 1,100 bags of rice and beans and 84 burritos were provided to community members. Daily feeding program: In Baltimore, Maryland the FedEx canteen is being used for a daily feeding program to populations experiencing homelessness across the city. This quarter, over 4,460 meals, 4,400 snacks, and 5,219 drinks were served from the FedEx canteen. Community members were also provided with other needed items such as hygiene kits, socks, and boxes of shorts. SPECIAL EVENTS: Virginia Foundation for Heathy Youth Meal Distribution Program: Every Monday and Thursday in Danville, Virginia, The Salvation Army Potomac Division participates in the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth Meal Distribution Program. This quarter, over 100 children in after school youth programs received healthy meals in addition to a lunch feeding program. 4th of July Parades: On July 4th, The Salvation Army Southern California Division participated in the Santa Monica 4th of July Parade. The Division partnered with The City of Santa Monica and provided 300 snacks and 50 drinks to attendees. Additionally, the Intermountain Division participated in the Greeley Corps 4th of July parade in Colorado. Disaster workers passed out more than 100 bottles of water and pieces of candy to event attendees from the FedEx canteen. Internment Ceremonies: The Salvation Army Indiana Division participated in two internment ceremonies this quarter. The division was called upon by the Indiana State Police to provide hydration services for Officer Aaron's internment at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 7th. After participating in these ceremonies over the years, the division learned that they should stage additional coolers with water along the edge of the formation to provide better coverage during the ceremony. The division was then contacted by the State Fraternal Order of Police Honor Guard to provide hydration at Deputy John Durm's internment. The division purchased four additional coolers to use along the edge of formation. The Fraternal Order of Police appreciated the additional coolers along the formation to support their guard. In total at both ceremonies, 1,084 snacks and 1,254 drinks were served. LaVallita Back-to-School Event: The LaVillita Corps in Chicago, Illinois holds a back-to-school event with the city of Chicago every year. The Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services team participated in this year's July 15th event with the FedEx canteen serving 400 meals and drinks and 1,675 snacks to students and their families. The Salvation Army Prospect Corps Open House: The Salvation Army Kansas and Western Missouri Division participated in an open house event for The Salvation Army Prospect Corps on July 20th. Volunteers served hotdogs, chips, snacks, and drinks off of the FedEx canteen at the event. In total, 168 meals, 196 snacks, and 216 drinks were provided to event attendees. National Night Out Events: The National Night Out Day is an event that seeks to foster relationships between law enforcement and the community. The Salvation Army, in partnership with local law enforcement, participated in National Night Out events across the country. On August 1st, The Salvation Army Southern California Division collaborated with the Santa Monica Police Department and Santa Monica City for a National Night Out Event. At this event, The Salvation Army provided 750 snacks along with 20 bottles with The Salvation Army logo, 20 backpacks, 30 bags, and 15 Salvation Army keychains to community members. With the success of the event this year, The Salvation Army plans to coordinate with The Santa Monica Police Department and Santa Monica City next year to participate. Additionally, the Corps plans to bring the FedEx canteen during the event set up to provide coffee to the local Police Department and parade volunteers. The North and Central Illinois Division participated in the 17th District of Chicago, Illinois' National Night Out. Meals were provided to attendees from the FedEx canteen. The Greater New York Division participated in the National Night Out in Calverton, New York (Suffolk County). Refreshments were served to attendees from the FedEx canteen. In total, 350 snacks and 400 drinks were served to attendees. Lollapalooza Support: The Salvation Army North & Central Illinois Division provided support during Lollapalooza, an annual four-day music festival, in Chicago, Illinois. At the event, disaster workers supported on duty first responders from August 3rd through 6th. An Incident Command Post with a refrigerated truck and the FedEx canteen was set up. First responders were served over 1,400 breakfast meals, 3,570 lunches, and 4,200 dinners. Vacation Bible School Outreach: On August 8th and 9th, The Salvation Army Massachusetts Division passed out freeze pops and provided children with an opportunity to get their face painted or participate in crafts and spoke with them about Vacation Bible School. Public Safety Day Events: The Salvation Army Indiana Division working with Hamilton County Emergency Management participated in the Carmel, Indiana Public Safety Day on August 19th. The FedEx canteen was part of the Touch-a-Truck area. Additionally, water was provided to community members. The North & Central Illinois Division was invited to participate in a Public Safety Day in Aurora, Illinois on August 5th. At the fair, organizations put some of their equipment on display. The Salvation Army brought their FedEx canteen and provided snacks and drinks to event attendees. Air and Water Show in Illinois: The Salvation Army participated in the Air and Water Show in Chicago, Illinois on August 19th, and 20th. The North & Central Illinois Division set up the FedEx canteen one day before the event to provide meals, drinks, and snacks to those doing event set up. During the two-day event, disaster workers served meals, drinks, and snacks to on duty first responders. Over 550 meals, 1,360 snacks, and 2,300 drinks were served. Playground Build Day in Virginia: In early September in Danville, Virginia, The Salvation Army partnered with United Way of Danville and Pittsylvania County for a community playground build. The new playground located at The Salvation Army in Danville includes swing sets, climbers, sensory tables, and a place for children with physical disabilities. Meals and drinks were served to volunteers from the FedEx canteen. Medical Reserve Corps Statewide County Coordinators Annual Meeting: The New Jersey Division participated in the Medical Reserve Corps Statewide County Coordinators Annual Meeting on September 7th. The Emergency Disaster Services team offered to make a presentation at the Medical Reserve Corps statewide annual meeting, sharing what The Salvation Army does to serve communities in crisis and how our Emergency Disaster Services programs prepare and respond. This included an informational session and a hands-on session with the canteen for attendees. Flight 93 National Park and 9/11 Memorial Ceremony: The Western Pennsylvania Division of The Salvation Army holds a strong relationship with Flight 93 National Park and Friends and Family of Flight 93. This year the division again had the pleasure to provide light refreshments to all who came for the Memorial Ceremony of September 11th in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Additionally, Emergency Disaster Services staff and volunteers served a meal to the on-duty Park Rangers at the event. The Mutual Aid Box Alarm System Events: The Salvation Army North & Central Illinois Division participated in two exercises with The Mutual Aid Box Alarm System. The first was an exercise on September 13th in Lake County, Illinois where The Salvation Army served meals, snacks, and drinks from the FedEx canteen. The second was a water rescue exercise in Palatine, Illinois where The Salvation Army provided snacks and hydration to event participants. POW/MIA Remembrance Day in Indianapolis, Indiana: On September 15th, The Salvation Army Indiana Division was honored to serve those who serve our country at the Indianapolis POW/MIA Remembrance Day Event. Snacks and hydration were provided to attendees from the FedEx canteen. Additionally, Major Mike McKee, Emergency Disaster Services Director for the Indiana Division, was invited to place a wreath commemorating World War 1. Rowley, Massachusetts Council on Aging Open House: The Salvation Army attended Rowley's Council on Aging Open House event on September 16th. The Council on Aging is a senior center where adults over 60 can go for resources and information, public benefits information and applications, meals and nutrition programs, transportation services, and more. At this event, the FedEx canteen was set up for participants of the event to view and learn more about The Salvation Army. In total, 75 meals and 100 drinks were served from the FedEx canteen. Cheyenne Frontier Days: The Salvation Army Intermountain Division participated in Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming at the end of July. This is a 6-day event and is the world's largest outdoor rodeo. From the FedEx canteen, the Emergency Disaster Services team served a pancake breakfast to attendees. In total, 300 breakfast meals and 300 drinks were served. RESULTS/OUTCOMES: Total number of meals served: 19,332 Total number of snacks served: 22,895 Total number of drinks served: 23,924 Total number hygiene/comfort kits distributed: 67 Total number of logo bottles distributed: 20 Total number of backpacks distributed: 20 Total number of bags distributed: 30 Total number of Salvation Army challenge coins distributed: 100 Total number of masks distributed: 41 Total number of socks distributed: 154 Total number of bags of rice & beans distributed: 1160 Total number of bottles of water distributed: 100 Total number of pieces of candy distributed: 300 Total number of cases of water distributed: 30 View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from FedEx Corporation on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: FedEx Corporation Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/fedex-corporation Email: [email protected] SOURCE: FedEx Corporation View the original press release on accesswire.com MAGIC celebrates 90th anniversary at the Las Vegas edition alongside launch of MMGNET Group LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / MAGIC , PROJECT and SOURCING at MAGIC Las Vegas successfully concluded its bi-annual event which brought together distinguished business leaders and celebrity guest speakers, thousands of brands, exhibiting companies and retailers for three days of community experiences and insightful conversations for the fashion industry at MMGNET Group's tentpole Spring event. MAGIC brought over 700 prominent and emerging brands to Las Vegas with 170 of them, 25 percent, being new to show. Brands showcased Fall/Winter 2024 collections to retailers ranging from single specialty boutiques to big box department and chain stores, with Bloomingdales, Fred Segal, Hemline, Urban Outfitters and Boot Barn among select retailers in attendance. Trends on display at MAGIC ranged from cosmic glam, with metallic finishes and glittering details, to hyper-femininity and balletic adornment to recovered craft, including patchwork and denim as earthy hues took center stage. This year, MAGIC hosted the return of Kids at MAGIC, featuring brands such as Chaser Kids, Angel Dear and InCity Boys and Girls. Highlights from day one on the show floor include MAGIC's 90th anniversary opening night party hosted by multi-hyphenate Curtis 50 Cent' Jackson, and a surprise meet and greet with D'Amelio Footwear founders and social media stars Dixie D'Amelio and Charli D'Amelio. PROJECT's NOW Forum hosted a panel moderated by Anthony Mastracci, Senior Commerce Editor at Men's Journal with Buffalo Bills defensive ends Kingsley Jonathan and Shaq Lawson, Cleveland Browns linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Keion White, defensive end for the New England Patriots, on the players' relationships with fashion and creative inspiration. PROJECT Las Vegas showcased over 500 top contemporary men's and women's brands, with Outerknown, Pendleton and 7 For All Mankind in the lineup of distinguished brands. 17 percent of brands at PROJECT were international, with Canada, France and Trkiye among the top countries represented. Leading retailers in attendance were Voo Berlin, American Rag, DTLR, Hibbett and Nordstrom. MAGIC Mens was also housed next to PROJECT Mens on the show floor, highlighting over 230 men's trend and young contemporary brands, including Barabas and new to show Johnny Q. "Recognizing the decades of impact these shows have established in our ecosystem, we are marking the beginning of a new era as we implement MMGNET's identity into our program and vision for how these events are experienced in the future. We are here to take this journey to serve as the most trusted voice and resource to our fashion community," explains Kelly Helfman, President, MMGNET. "This is the start of a massive shift to evolve into a fashion ecosystem." Important conversations across all shows on responsible fashion, sustainability and community building were hosted, offering valuable guidance for fashion professionals across all stages of the business. MMGNET also presented findings from fashion consumer research at each show, offering key insights into 2024 purchasing habits to inform buying and investment decisions. SOURCING at MAGIC, the premier destination for businesses, brands, and sourcing professionals to collaborate, featured over 800 manufacturers and service providers from over 40 countries, with fashion technology and sustainability taking a front seat across education and experiences. SOURCING at MAGIC hosted 25 verified sustainable exhibitors, including garment manufacturers based in Mexico, Peru, Pakistan and Turkiye, among other countries. Nike, Kith, Stussy and Jockey were among key attendees at SOURCING at MAGIC. Next stop is MAGIC Nashville April 3-4, 2024, at the Music City Center. For more information and to register to attend, please visit magicfashionevents.com . About MAGIC MAGIC is a high-energy fashion experience and home to the industry's largest selection of trend-driven and young contemporary apparel, footwear, and accessories. Fusing scale with curation to drive commerce, creativity, and connections, MAGIC joins a global audience of retail buyers - from big-box to boutique - with influencers, media, and industry thought leaders. More than just events, MAGIC is a deeply rooted community, and a place brands and retailers call home. For more information, please visit www.magicfashionevents.com . About PROJECT LAS VEGASa PROJECT LAS VEGAS represents what's new, now, and next in men's and women's contemporary apparel, footwear and accessories, PROJECT Las Vegas is where domestic and international buyers go to be inspired by higher-end brands, find products from culturally relevant mid-market labels and connect with like-minded industry thought leaders and fashion insiders. Through a fusion of community, education, media, and experiences, PROJECT Las Vegas propels the next season's top trends, generates global awareness, and ultimately, drives commerce. For more information, please visita www.projectfashionevents.com. About SOURCING at MAGICa SOURCING at MAGIC allows fashion businesses, brands and sourcing professionals to connect and collaborate with a community of global manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers. With a strong presence among international exhibitors and attendees and deep domestic connections, SOURCING at MAGIC is a global community. With a forward-thinking approach and commitment to the evolution of the global apparel supply chain, SOURCING at MAGIC consistently provides access to emerging fashion technology, solutions, sustainable resources, educational content, networking, and extended visibility into the industry's most critical global issues. For more information, please visit www.sourcingatmagic.com . About MMGNET MMGNET is fashion's newest B2B ecosystem and the go-to industry resource, where industry professionals go to source the inspiration, connections, and opportunities they need to build business, network, and responsibly steward fashion forward. Through its extensive global reach, decades of unwavering industry expertise, world-class content programs, and a comprehensive portfolio of trade and industry event brands - including MAGIC, PROJECT, COTERIE, and SOURCING at MAGIC - MMGNET delivers year-round opportunities to learn, grow, connect, and discover. MMGNET Group is a subsidiary of Informa Markets (LON:INF). To learn more about MMGNET and the MMGNET Group portfolio of brands, please visita www.mmgnetgroup.com . Media Contact: [email protected] SOURCE: MMGNET Group View the original press release on accesswire.com Development Intersects Mineralization Along Continuous Strike of >130M With Best Individual Channels Grading 20.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 9.6m 21.0 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 7.0m 23.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 5.6m TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Jaguar Mining Inc. ("Jaguar" or the "Company") (TSX:JAG)(OTCQX:JAGGF) is pleased to announce that exploration access development on the level 15.2 elevation in the BA-Torre structure of its Pilar mine in Brazil has intersected and confirmed extensive high-grade mineralization, previously intersected in exploration diamond drill holes announced in the first half of 2023.Jaguar believes that this area could positively affect the Pilar mine's future production capacity. Vern Baker, President and CEO of Jaguar Mining stated "Based on follow-up exploration work conducted through the second half of 2023 and to date, we believe that we have identified a new mining horizon at Pilar, with the BA-Torre structure showing significant continuity of higher-grading mineralized material, which extends below and above level-15 elevation. This area has the potential to be a game changer for the Pilar mine. We are showing an area with numerous drill holes and development on one horizontal level. This area is quite interesting for its potential, which we are eager to quantify as we develop official resources or reserves." In early 2023, Jaguar reported (see Press Release dated February 21, 2023) a high-grade diamond drilling intercept in hole PPL850 on the BA-Torre structure grading 42.35 g/t Au (uncut) over an estimated true width of 3.2m within a broader zone grading 20.93 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 10.0m on the level 16 elevation (-200m AMSL). A subsequent follow-up diamond drill hole PPL1011B was completed in the second quarter of 2023 targeting the up-plunge projection of the hole-PPL850 intersection on level 15 elevation (the level with closest development). This second hole also intersected strong mineralization grading 6.86 g/t over an estimated true width of 10.5m, including 14.45 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 3.5m. Access development was initiated in the third quarter of 2023 to intercept the impact location of hole PPL 1011B. This development drift traversed strong Banded Iron Formation (BIF) hosted mineralization over a continuous strike length of 130m. Channel sample grades reported from this development are more than double Pilars average channel sample grades and over widths greater than 4m (mean sample* value 9.01 g/t Au (uncut) or 6.22 g/t Au (top cut applied to samples > 15g/t) over a mean channel width of 6.15m) (*all samples). The best individual channel results are presented below. 20.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 9.6m 21.0 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 7.0m 23.2 g/t Au over an estimated true channel width of 5.6m Exploratory and follow-up diamond drilling completed subsequent to the first high-grade impacts mentioned above have also reported high-grade intercepts within the BA-Torre structure, both up-and down-plunge of the initial drill intercepts and include the following best intersections: 21.18 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 2.0m in hole PPL 1042 12.36 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 2.0m in hole PPL 1044 7.39 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 3.9m in hole PPL 1044 7.17 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 8.2m also in hole PPL 1044 Vern Baker, President and CEO of Jaguar Mining added: "The geologic team at Pilar has done a great job of defining a target, putting holes in that target and getting our full team excited and focused on this new opportunity. The results currently show 200 vertical meters of plunge extent with potential to expand up-plunge 400 vertical meters and it is still unknown how far down-plunge. We have developed on level 15-2 some 130 meters of continuous strike length in the mineralized structure with channel sample grades well over what we are experiencing in our current ore structures. The BA-Torre structure represents a significant opportunity to provide mineral resources both above and below our current development. The structure is close to our current mining areas and infrastructure, providing the opportunity to develop both up and down-plunge. As we go deeper, below Level 18, we plan to have a single ramp for access to both the BA-Torre and the BF structures. Diamond drilling to date shows 200 vertical meters of structure with excellent grades. Our best intercept (20.93 g/t Au over an estimated true width of 10m) is 60 meters below our current access on level 15-2. While a significant expansion in Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources is probably a year out, we expect to see our first test mining later in the first quarter. Our development on a single horizon has already sent almost 1,900 ounces to the surface which would indicate the potential for a 60-meter level to produce well over 20,000 ounces. We are excited about the potential of this structure and expect it to add a vital new production area for Pilar and for our company in 2024. I would like to specifically thank Tiago Pedro de Souza, a talented geologist on our team, for his perseverance in finding this opportunity for Jaguar." Historically, the BA-Torre structure was the main producing ore-zone at Pilar from higher levels in the mine above level 7. Below level 7, mineralization on the BA-Torre structure diminished in terms of grade and thickness. At that time the focal point of mining became the nearby BF structure which has been and remains the main source of production down to current mining levels (levels 15 and 16). The re-appearance of high grades within the BA-Torre structure on level 15 and 16, currently being extended by additional diamond drilling, provides the Pilar operation with real potential to improve production in a relatively short time period. The new BA-Torre zone provides significant upside potential both up-plunge (above level 15 to level 7) and down-plunge below level 15 to depth. Recent high-grade diamond drill intersections within the BA-Torre structure and development highlight strong mineralization and grades over a continuous strike length of some 130m. Figure 1 - Long Section showing the Pilar mine underground layout and the relative position of the main orebodies. Please note the large percentage of mined production in the shallow levels of the mine attributed to the BA-Torre structure (red) which switches over with depth to the BF structure (in green) from level 8 to level 16). Figure 2 - Schematic view of the Pilar mine geology highlighting the folded BIF which controls the majority of the gold mineralization along its strike and the location of the high-grade exploration diamond drilling intersections. The BA-Torre structure on level 15-2 is conveniently located near existing infrastructure. Figure 3 - Long sectional view showing the location of access development to evaluate the BA-Torre structure on level 15-2 and the best diamond drill mineralized intersections reported in this press release and previously in the press release dated February 21, 2023 (original holes in white-background boxes/recent and current holes shown with yellow-background boxes). Table 1 - Diamond drilling intersections with grade x thickness (GT) > 25 between level 14 and level 17 targeting the BA-Torre structure. Complete drilling data in this area is tabulated in Figure (Appendix). Figure 4 - Plan view showing the location of access development to evaluate the BA-Torre structure on level 15.2 and location of the next figure (figure 5). Figure 5 - Plan view of level 15.2 access development composite channel sampling results and geological map. Results show a continuous 130m strike length of high-grade mineralization with average sample grade of 9.21 g/t Au (uncut) or 6.16 g/t Au (with a top cut applied to samples > 15 g/t Au) over an average full channel width of 6.15m. Table 2 - Individual channel sampling results reported with grade x thickness > 25. All Individual channel sample results are tabulated in Table 3 (Appendix 1). Channel Summary of channel intersections From (m) To (m) Channel Interval (m) ETW (m) Gold Grade (g/t Au) GT (ETW) Orebody SBF11051 0 4.9 4.9 4.4 16.4 72 BA SBF11104 0 6.8 6.8 5.8 7.5 43 BA SBF11206 0 5.8 5.8 5.8 6.6 38 BA SBF11028 0 6.2 6.2 5.1 9.5 48 BA SBF11068 0 6.7 6.7 6.7 7.0 47 BA SBF11088 0 4.6 4.6 4.6 6.4 29 BA SBF11103 0 5.0 5.0 5.0 9.7 49 BA SBG11019 0 8.5 8.5 7.0 21.0 147 BA SBG11020 0 7.3 7.3 7.3 12.9 94 BA SBG11067 0 2.7 2.7 2.7 16.5 44 BA SBG11045 0 13.9 13.9 9.6 20.2 194 BA SBF11117 0 6.9 6.9 6.9 9.9 68 BA SBF11121 0 6.7 6.7 6.02 8.4 51 BA SBF11165 0 3.88 3.88 3.88 11.6 45 BA SBF11166 0 6.87 6.87 6.87 10.6 73 BA SBF11173 0 6.01 6.01 4.51 19.8 89 BA SBF11219 0 6.28 6.28 6.28 7.1 44 BA SBF11207 0 7.0 7.0 7.0 9.6 67 BA SBF11196 0 7.1 7.1 7.1 15.9 114 BA SBF11197 0 5.6 5.6 5.6 23.2 130 BA Table 3 - Summary of composite (block) channel sampling results along a 130m strike section of the BA-Torre level 15.2 access development. Block ETW Average (m) Gold Grade (g/t Au) Top Cut >15g/t Gold Grade (g/t Au) Uncut Length 1 5.6 5.6 6.2 35 2 5.2 7.3 12.1 30 3 5.6 5.1 7.3 35 4 6.5 6.3 9.6 30 Geological Description The high-grade gold mineralization is hosted by a well-developed layer of BIF as outlined by detailed geological mapping of development faces exposed in the access crosscut on level 15.2 (Figures 4 and 5). The BIF is comprised of both carbonate and silicate facies, surrounded by undifferentiated metavolcanic and sedimentary schists. The highest grades are associated with hydrothermal alteration (quartz-sericite-chlorite-carbonate) and 5-15% of semi-massive to disseminated coarse subhedral grains of Arsenopyrite and subsidiary Pyrrhotite. aa The BIF exposures show a succession of overturned folds (synform-antiform pairs), with fold axes plunging to the south at medium to low angles. aFigure 6 - Section of photographs from the access development in level 15.2 BA mineralized zone. A) Thin carbonaceous phyllite layer folded by shear strain, surrounded by carbonate facies BIF package.a aB) BA mineralization chip sample. Hydrothermalite composed of chlorite, arsenopyrite and quartz.a aC) BA mineralization chip sample. Same as image B, showing the contact between the alteration zone and host BIF.a aD) Main mineralized interval on PPL1062, one of the recent drill holes targeting the BA mineralization.a aE) Coarse grains of arsenopyrite within altered BIF mineralization zone intersected in drillhole PPL1062.a Figure 7 - Section of photographs from the access development in level 15.2 BA mineralized zone with individual sample grades. A) 19.55 g/t Au - Sample 89977 from channel SBF11173 showing high grade disseminated sulphides in sheared BIF. B) 28.22 g/t Au - Sample 90189 from channel SBF11196 showing high grade quartz and sulphide rich fold BIF close to a meter scale hinge zone. C) 7.34 g/t Au - Sample 90197 from channel SBF11197 showing silicified and sulphide rich BIF. D) 2.47 g/t Au - Sample 90493 from channel SBF11231 showing strongly sheared and altered BIF with abundant quartz fragments. Qualified Person Scientific and technical information contained in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Jonathan Victor Hill, BSc (Hons) (Economic Geology - UCT), FAUSIMM, Vice President Geology and Exploration, who is also an employee of Jaguar Mining Inc., and is a "qualified person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). The Iron Quadrangle The Iron Quadrangle has been an area of mineral exploration dating back to the 16th century. The discovery in 1699-1701 of gold contaminated with iron and platinum-group metals in the southeastern corner of the Iron Quadrangle gave rise to the name of the town Ouro Preto (Black Gold). The Iron Quadrangle contains world-class multi-million-ounce gold deposits such as Morro Velho, Cuiaba, and Sao Bento. About Jaguar Mining Inc. Jaguar Mining Inc. is a Canadian-listed junior gold mining, development, and exploration company operating in Brazil with three gold mining complexes and a large land package with significant upside exploration potential from mineral claims. The Company's principal operating assets are in the Iron Quadrangle, a prolific greenstone belt in the state of Minas Gerais and include the Turmalina Gold Mine Complex and Caete Mining Complex (Pilar and Roca Grande Mines, and Caete Plant). The Company also owns the Paciencia Gold Mine Complex, which has been on care and maintenance since 2012. The Roca Grande Mine has been on temporary care and maintenance since April 2019. Additional information is available on the Company's website at www.jaguarmining.com. For further information please contact: Vernon Baker Chief Executive Officer Jaguar Mining Inc. [email protected] 416-847-1854 Alfred Colas Chief Financial Officer Jaguar Mining Inc. [email protected] 416-847-1854 Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's expectations and plans relating to the future. All of the forward-looking information made in this news release is qualified by the cautionary statements below and those made in our other filings with the securities regulators in Canada. Forward-looking information contained in forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "are expected," "is forecast," "is targeted," "approximately," "plans," "anticipates," "projects," "anticipates," "continue," "estimate," "believe" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may," "could," "would," "might," or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, may be considered to be or include forward-looking information. This news release contains forward-looking information regarding, among other things, the duration of the temporary suspension of the Company's 2023 production guidance in ounces and costs, the expected future release of new guidance for 2023, the anticipated impact of planned changes in mining systems and cost cutting initiatives on the Company's future performance and production results, information related to expected sales, production statistics, ore grades, tonnes milled, recovery rates, cash operating costs, definition/delineation drilling, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, costs and timing of the development of projects and new deposits, success of exploration, development and mining activities, currency fluctuations, capital requirements, project studies, mine life extensions, restarting suspended or disrupted operations, continuous improvement initiatives, and resolution of pending litigation. The Company has made numerous assumptions with respect to forward-looking information contained herein, including, among other things, assumptions about the estimated timeline for the development of its mineral properties; the supply and demand for, and the level and volatility of the price of, gold; the accuracy of reserve and resource estimates and the assumptions on which the reserve and resource estimates are based; the receipt of necessary permits; market competition; ongoing relations with employees and impacted communities; political and legal developments in any jurisdiction in which the Company operates being consistent with its current expectations including, without limitation, the impact of any potential power rationing, tailings facility regulation, exploration and mine operating licenses and permits being obtained and renewed and/or there being adverse amendments to mining or other laws in Brazil and any changes to general business and economic conditions. Forward-looking information involves a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including among others: the risk of Jaguar not meeting the forecast plans regarding its operations and financial performance; uncertainties with respect to the price of gold, labour disruptions, mechanical failures, increase in costs, environmental compliance and change in environmental legislation and regulation, weather delays and increased costs or production delays due to natural disasters, power disruptions, procurement and delivery of parts and supplies to the operations; uncertainties inherent to capital markets in general (including the sometimes volatile valuation of securities and an uncertain ability to raise new capital) and other risks inherent to the gold exploration, development and production industry, which, if incorrect, may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the Company and described herein. In addition, there are risks and hazards associated with the business of gold exploration, development, mining and production, including environmental hazards, tailings dam failures, industrial accidents and workplace safety problems, unusual or unexpected geological formations, pressures, cave-ins, flooding, chemical spills, procurement fraud and gold bullion thefts and losses (and the risk of inadequate insurance, or the inability to obtain insurance, to cover these risks). Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking information made in this news release, see the Company's most recent Annual Information Form and Management's Discussion and Analysis, as well as other public disclosure documents that can be accessed under the issuer profile of "Jaguar Mining Inc." on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.com. The forward-looking information set forth herein reflects the Company's reasonable expectations as at the date of this news release and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Appendix 1 Table 4 - Channel Sample location, grade and interval data along selected blocks along 130m of access development, level 15.2 Pilar Mine, BA-Torre structure. Channel Location data Summary of channel intersections Easting (m) Northing (m) Elevation (m) Total Depth (m) Level From (m) To (m) Channel Interval (m) ETW (m) Gold Grade (g/t Au) GT (ETW) Orebody Block SBF11051 662942.0 7788161.2 -148.2 4.9 15/2 0 4.9 4.9 4.4 16.4 72 BA 1 SBF11069 662943.3 7788164.4 -148.2 7.6 15/2 0 7.6 7.6 6.2 2.1 13 BA 1 SBF11104 662944.5 7788168.3 -148.7 6.8 15/2 0 6.8 6.8 5.8 7.5 43 BA 1 SBF11118 662948.2 7788175.6 -147.6 5.9 15/2 0 5.9 5.9 5.9 1.4 8 BA 1 SBF11206 662946.8 7788181.2 -148.5 5.8 15/2 0 5.8 5.8 5.8 6.6 38 BA 1 SBF11028 662938.4 7788146.1 -148.7 6.2 15/2 0 6.2 6.2 5.1 9.5 48 BA 2 SBF11068 662935.7 7788143.9 -148.2 6.7 15/2 0 6.7 6.7 6.7 7.0 47 BA 2 SBF11080 662935.1 7788141.4 -148.7 4.6 15/2 0 4.6 4.6 4.6 2.6 12 BA 2 SBF11088 662935.9 7788136.0 -148.3 4.6 15/2 0 4.6 4.6 4.6 6.4 29 BA 2 SBF11103 662935.6 7788132.6 -148.1 5.0 15/2 0 5.0 5.0 5.0 9.7 49 BA 2 SBG11009 662938.3 7788159.2 -148.3 3.3 15/2 0 3.3 3.3 2.7 4.1 11 BA 2 SBG11019 662939.5 7788156.8 -148.4 8.5 15/2 0 8.5 8.5 7.0 21.0 147 BA 2 SBG11020 662934.4 7788153.5 -147.8 7.3 15/2 0 7.3 7.3 7.3 12.9 94 BA 2 SBG11067 662936.9 7788146.5 -148.6 2.7 15/2 0 2.7 2.7 2.7 16.5 44 BA 2 SBG11045 662937.9 7788160.4 -148.0 13.9 15/2 0 13.9 13.9 9.6 20.2 194 BA 2 SBG11026 662937.6 7788146.7 -147.9 2.1 15/2 0 2.1 2.1 2.1 8.2 18 BA 2 SBF11110 662935.7 7788129.4 -147.9 4.9 15/2 0 4.9 4.9 4.9 4.5 22 BA 3 SBF11117 662935.8 7788126.1 -147.9 6.9 15/2 0 6.9 6.9 6.9 9.9 68 BA 3 SBF11121 662942.8 7788124.1 -147.4 6.7 15/2 0 6.7 6.7 6.02 8.4 51 BA 3 SBF11124 662939.6 7788119.5 -147.0 6.1 15/2 0 6.1 6.1 6.1 2.7 16 BA 3 SBF11133 662944.2 7788114.8 -147.4 5.3 15/2 0 5.25 5.25 5.25 0.7 4 BA 3 SBF11158 662946.2 7788112.2 -147.6 6.3 15/2 0 6.31 6.31 6.31 0.6 4 BA 3 SBF11165 662951.2 7788111.8 -148.6 3.9 15/2 0 3.88 3.88 3.88 11.6 45 BA 3 SBF11166 662952.3 7788114.2 -148.6 6.9 15/2 0 6.87 6.87 6.87 10.6 73 BA 3 SBF11173 662957.0 7788110.3 -148.2 6.0 15/2 0 6.01 6.01 4.51 19.8 89 BA 3 SBF11236 662976.2 7788091.6 -147.8 8.2 15/2 0 8.2 8.2 6.09 1.0 6 BA 4 SBF11231 662973.7 7788090.3 -147.2 6.7 15/2 0 6.7 6.7 6.7 1.8 12 BA 4 SBF11219 662972.6 7788088.3 -147.0 6.3 15/2 0 6.28 6.28 6.28 7.1 44 BA 4 SBF11207 662964.2 7788095.5 -147.2 7.0 15/2 0 7.0 7.0 7.0 9.6 67 BA 4 SBF11196 662960.9 7788100.7 -147.1 7.1 15/2 0 7.1 7.1 7.1 15.9 114 BA 4 SBF11197 662961.9 7788100.5 -144.1 5.6 15/2 0 5.6 5.6 5.6 23.2 130 BA 4 Table 5 - Diamond Drilling Collar Coordinates, Azimuth and Dip, levels 14-17 BA-Torre structure. Table 6 - Complete Diamond Drill Hole data - Pilar Mine BA-Torre structure between level 14 and level 17. SOURCE: Jaguar Mining Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com BOULDER, CO / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Maxima Financial LLC, a premier investment firm specializing in a wide array of investment services, announces its commitment to delivering exceptional returns and value to its clients across various sectors. With a comprehensive suite of investment options including Real Estate, Stocks Trading, Health Care, Forex Trading, Cryptocurrency Trading, Asset Management, Corporate Finance, and Crowd Finance, Maxima Financial is poised to cater to the diverse needs of investors worldwide. As the global economy evolves and markets become increasingly interconnected, Maxima Financial remains at the forefront of innovation, continuously adapting its strategies to seize emerging opportunities and mitigate risks effectively. By leveraging cutting-edge technology and a team of seasoned professionals, the firm ensures that its clients receive the highest level of service and expertise, empowering them to achieve their financial goals with confidence. "At Maxima Financial, we are dedicated to providing our clients with unparalleled access to a wide range of investment opportunities," said James Smith, Founder of Maxima Financial, LLC. "Our commitment to excellence, integrity, and innovation drives us to continually explore new avenues for growth and deliver superior results for our clients." Maxima Financial's diverse investment offerings provide clients with the flexibility to tailor their portfolios according to their individual preferences, risk tolerance, and investment objectives. Whether seeking long-term growth, income generation, or capital preservation, clients can rely on Maxima Financial's expertise to navigate the complexities of the financial markets and maximize returns. With a track record of success and a reputation for transparency and reliability, Maxima Financial has established itself as a trusted partner for investors seeking superior investment solutions. By combining deep industry knowledge with a client-centric approach, the firm delivers customized investment strategies that align with each client's unique needs and preferences. In an ever-changing financial landscape, Maxima Financial remains steadfast in its commitment to excellence, innovation, and client satisfaction. As the investment landscape continues to evolve, Maxima Financial stands ready to empower its clients with the tools, insights, and resources they need to succeed in today's dynamic markets. For more information about Maxima Financial and its investment services, please visit our website, www.MaximaFinancial.com About Maxima Financial: Maxima Financial is a leading investment firm registered and licensed in USA as Maxima Financial LLC, UK as Maxima Financial LTD and Canada as Maxima Financial INC. We offer a comprehensive range of investment services including Real Estate, Stocks Trading, Health Care, Forex Trading, Cryptocurrency Trading, Asset Management, Corporate Finance, and Crowd Finance. With a commitment to excellence, integrity, and innovation, Maxima Financial strives to deliver exceptional results and value to its clients worldwide. Media Contact: Company Name: Maxima Financial (LLC, LTD, INC) Contact Person: James Smith Contact Number: +1 904 326 0703 Address: 1942 Broadway Ste 314C Boulder CO 80302, US Email: [email protected] Company's Website: https://maximafinancial.com SOURCE: Maxima Financial (LLC, LTD, INC) View the original press release on accesswire.com Investment marks largest to date for the Austin Housing Conservancy Fund AUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / PNC Bank announced a commitment to invest $10 million in the Austin Housing Conservancy fund, an innovative solution to address Austin's housing crisis through a collaboration between investors, nonprofit and community partners. The fund invests and preserves multifamily properties currently affordable to moderate and middle-income individuals. "PNC is focused on making a real impact in Austin communities, and as a longtime resident, I know that among the most critical issues facing our region is housing affordability," said Steven Gonzalez, PNC regional president for Austin. " This investment will help create meaningful change by offering a path forward to help middle-income families, especially those who work in essential services, remain in Austin despite steep increases in cost of living." PNC's direct equity investment in the fund, which is sponsored and managed by Affordable Central Texas (ACT), will help fund the purchase and preservation of multifamily properties and in doing so maintain affordable rental rates for middle-income Austin residents. "Austin is in an affordability crisis, and we need to make sure we're doing everything we can to ensure that everyone in our community is able to share in our current success," said Kirk Watson, Austin mayor. "PNC's investment in the Austin Housing Conservancy will help do that by making a substantial difference in housing for our workforce today and in the future." PNC Bank's investment brings the fund to over $41 million making ACT's initial goal of $50 million within reach by the end of 2024. "PNC's vision and willingness to invest in moderate-income housing with the Austin Housing Conservancy Fund will preserve affordable rental housing for families and individuals for generations to come, allowing us to accelerate our acquisition timeline and reach our 10,000-apartment goal sooner," said Monica Medina, president and CEO for Austin Housing Conservancy. "We are grateful for the leadership of the PNC team to make this a reality." Currently, the fund portfolio has preserved 2,150 units in 14 properties, with a capacity to serve 4,000 residents and a total fund value in excess of $413 million. PNC's investment stems from its $88 billion Community Benefits Plan, which provides loans, investments and other financial support to bolster economic opportunity for low- and moderate-income (LMI) individuals, communities and people of color over a four-year period that began Jan. 1, 2022. As part of the Plan, PNC expects to provide at least $14.5 billion in community development loans and investments across all markets, including at least $400 million for Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) that help meet the banking and financial service needs of traditionally underserved communities. PNC Bank, N.A., is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: PNC). PNC is one of the largest diversified financial services institutions in the United States, organized around its customers and communities for strong relationships and local delivery of retail and business banking including a full range of lending products; specialized services for corporations and government entities, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management and asset management. For information about PNC, visit www.pnc.com. CONTACT: Cari Hensley (214) 890-8683 [email protected] View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from The PNC Financial Services Group on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: The PNC Financial Services Group Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/pnc-financial-services-group Email: [email protected] SOURCE: The PNC Financial Services Group View the original press release on accesswire.com NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Aflac Incorporated Originally published on Aflac Newsroom As Black History Month comes to a close, Aflac shares a key moment in company history by highlighting James Jackson, a distinguished veteran who spent his second career with Aflac, becoming the company's first-ever African American officer. In this video, Jim reminisces about his time at Aflac, working with company principal founder John Amos, affectionately known as "Mr. John," and what it meant for him to be a part of Aflac history. Jim grew up in Florida before moving to Alabama to attend Tuskegee University. A chemistry and math major, Jim soon joined ROTC program and, once commissioned as second lieutenant in the U.S. Army at Tuskegee University, he went on active duty in Germany for three years. Throughout his military career, Jim moved around to places like Missouri, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, a proving ground in Maryland, and even the Pentagon. In 1978, after 24 years of active service with the U.S. Army - and, at the time, stationed at Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning) near Columbus, Georgia - Jim retired and sought out a second career. After some research, he learned more about Aflac and said, "That's a place where I'd like to work." Jim sent in his resume, had a few interviews, and he eventually landed in the Compliance department at Aflac. He quickly rose through the ranks and became Aflac's first African American officer when he was promoted to assistant vice president of Employee Relations. Fondly reminiscent of his time with Aflac, Jim said that the founders cared deeply about employees - they always treated them like family. Watch the video above to hear more from Jim about his time with Aflac. Aflac's family of insurers includes Aflac and/or Aflac New York, and/or Continental American Insurance Company and/or Continental American Life Insurance Company. Z230123A View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Aflac Incorporated on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Aflac Incorporated Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/aflac-incorporated Email: [email protected] SOURCE: Aflac Incorporated View the original press release on accesswire.com BRUSSELS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Hungarian parliament's green light on Sweden's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) cleared the final stronghold in the military bloc's comprehensive expansion in the northern direction. However, concerns have been raised that Sweden's Monday accession could lead to regional instability. Sweden actively pursued membership to ensure a collective defense strategy, following in the footsteps of Finland, which joined NATO in April last year. Nevertheless, analysts have warned that Sweden, once a non-aligned Nordic country, may now face increased risks of being drawn into conflicts. PROTRACTED ACCESSION PROCESS Following the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis in February 2022, both Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding military non-alignment policy and applied for NATO membership. All member nations were required to approve the applications. Finland completed the accession process in April 2023. However, after Turkiye approved Sweden's membership in January, Hungary continued to oppose it until Monday. Highlighting longstanding tensions with Sweden, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs had emphasized the need for collaboration to bridge differences. Meanwhile, the United States and NATO allies have been putting pressure on Hungary to expedite Sweden's accession. Last week, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited Budapest, culminating in a bilateral agreement involving the purchase of Swedish fighter jets by Hungary. BLOC CONFRONTATION CONCERNS Sweden's NATO membership means the abandonment of its historical policy of non-alignment and neutrality. Analysts argue that NATO's continued enlargement will reshape European security dynamics, and potentially strain Russia's geopolitical position. Nicholas Lokker and Heli Hautala from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) expressed concerns that Moscow may perceive NATO's expansion as a threat, leading to short and long-term challenges. Russian Defense Ministry publications warn of the security implications of NATO troops and equipment on Finnish and Swedish territory. Last year, Sweden and the United States strengthened their defense cooperation, granting access to military bases. Coupled with recent U.S. agreements with Finland, these moves deprived the two countries of the status of buffer zones between the NATO alliance and Russia. Jan Oberg, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, said that Sweden's decision to join NATO may compromise the security of local citizens. Finland and Sweden, "instead of keeping out of war, being a potential mediator and supporting disarmament and de-nuclearization, will be frontline states drawn into a crisis/tension situation much more easily and early than otherwise," Oberg said in a recent interview with Xinhua. REGIONAL INSECURITY NATO's continued expansion, particularly with the inclusion of Sweden and Finland, intensifies tensions with Russia in the Nordic region, analysts stressed. Lokker and Hautala highlighted that Russia's border with NATO will extend from the Arctic Ocean to the Baltic Sea, which "will permanently alter the European security architecture and erode Russia's geopolitical position." In May 2022, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Sweden's NATO membership could damage the security of Northern Europe. NATO military exercises across the European continent one after another near Russian territory in recent years have significantly disturbed Moscow. Earlier this year before Sweden's entry, NATO kicked off a massive four-month-long military exercise, Steadfast Defender 2024. The alliance's largest military exercise in decades, including about 90,000 troops from 31 member states and Sweden, quickly drew criticism from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, who called it a return to Cold War-era tactics. ORLANDO, FL / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / The Orlando Credit Union Charitable Foundation (OCUCF) is launching the Grace Chewing Scholarship Program to help students in funding their education. "Five people will be selected to benefit from the scholarship program furthering our commitment to support educational grants to the communities we serve," noted David Duncan, Charitable Foundation Vice Chair. "Each grantee will be awarded $1,000 and must be between the ages of 17-25, pursuing higher education degree attainment. All application submissions are due by March 12, 2024, at orlandocreditunion.org/charitable-foundation," added Duncan. Grace Chewning Scholarship Fund Grace Chewning has served as President, Vice President, Secretary, and is currently Treasurer of the Orlando Credit Union Board of Directors. Grace lives a commitment to learning and education, contributing to educational organizations throughout the Orlando, FL. metro-area. "We are humbled and honored to affix her name to this Charitable Foundation Scholarship fund," stated Duncan. To learn more about applying for an Orlando Credit Union Charitable Foundation's Grace Chewning Scholarship for 2024, please visit orlandocreditunion.org/charitable-foundation and further your educational aspirations today. The Orlando Credit Union Charitable Foundation-Giving Back. Giving More. Contact Information Kaylee Greene Content Marketing Specialist [email protected] SOURCE: Orlando Credit Union View the original press release on newswire.com. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Tinka Resources Limited ("Tinka" or the "Company") (TSXV:TK)(BVL:TK)(OTCQB:TKRFF) is pleased to announce the results from an updated Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") on the Company's 100%-owned polymetallic Ayawilca project ("Ayawilca" or the "Project") in central Peru. The updated PEA shows Ayawilca to be an excellent base metals project with significant enhancements from the previous PEA study. The Project now features a smaller, more efficient zinc-silver-lead plant, introduces a separate tin plant for additional revenue and commodity diversification and highlights the development path forward for Ayawilca to become a producing mine. PEA Highlights: Robust economics: After-tax Net Present Value (" NPV ") at 8% discount of US$434 million (pre-tax NPV8% of US$732 million) and after-tax Internal Rate of Return (" IRR ") of 25.9% (pre-tax IRR of 34.8%). ") at 8% discount of US$434 million (pre-tax NPV8% of US$732 million) and after-tax Internal Rate of Return (" ") of 25.9% (pre-tax IRR of 34.8%). Payback period after-tax of 2.9 years (pre-tax of 2.4 years). Initial Capital Expenditure (" Capex ") of US$382 million. ") of US$382 million. Long 21-year life of mine (" LOM ") for a 2.0 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) zinc-silver-lead operation with 15years of tin production at 0.3 Mtpa. ") for a 2.0 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) zinc-silver-lead operation with 15years of tin production at 0.3 Mtpa. Average C1 cash cost of US$0.55/pound zinc and all in sustaining cost (" AISC ") of US$0.68/ pound zinc. ") of US$0.68/ pound zinc. Average annual metal production (in concentrate) of 200 million pounds of zinc (90,000 tonnes Zn), 3.26 million pounds of tin (1,500 tonnes Sn), 560,000 ounces of silver and 5.7 million pounds of lead (2,590 tonnes Pb). Zinc Zone Indicated Mineral Resource tonnage increased 49% from the previous Mineral Resource estimate. Tin Zone Indicated Mineral Resource declared for the first time. Excellent location in a world-class mining jurisdiction, close to a zinc smelter and port. Compact mine footprint and planned use of filtered tailings technology provides the lowest risk and most water-efficient solution for tailings storage while 40% of tailings to be stored underground as backfill. Dr. Graham Carman, Tinka's President and CEO, stated: "We are very pleased to release the results of the updated 2024 PEA for the Ayawilca project. We believe the results of the PEA show Ayawilca to be an outstanding polymetallic project with several improvements from the previous study. While zinc continues to be the primary revenue source, Ayawilca's polymetallic nature includes important contributions from tin and silver providing valuable commodity diversification. The updated PEA is marked by the incorporation of a smaller, more efficient, zinc-silver-lead plant and a separate tin plant and a more compact mine footprint. Despite an increase in the initial capex, due to efficiencies in the mine design there was no significant impact on valuation. The strong financial metrics include an after-tax NPV8% of US$434 million, an after-tax IRR of 25.9%, and a post-tax payback period of only 2.9 years which highlight the potential for Ayawilca to become a producing mine." "A revised Mineral Resource estimation has significantly improved the level of confidence in the resource as a result of an additional 11,000 metres of drilling completed in 2023. The Zinc Zone Indicated Mineral Resource tonnage has increased 49% over the previous estimate while zinc content has increased by 22% and silver content by 45%. The Tin Inferred Mineral Resource has increased in tonnage and metal content by 51% and 13%, respectively, while a Tin Indicated Mineral Resource is declared for the first time. The Company has chosen to adopt the highest standard for reporting underground mine resources to satisfy the "Reasonable Prospects for Eventual Economic Extraction (RPEEE)" as required by CIM (2014) in the demonstration of spatial continuity of mineralization within potentially mineable shapes (i.e., stopes). With the market increasingly moving towards RPEEE resource reporting for underground deposits, we are adopting this method of resource reporting for the first time." "The use of filtered tailings is the lowest risk and most water-efficient solution for tailings storage at surface, and highlights our commitment to minimize environmental risks. The storage of a substantial quantity of tailings as backfill underground also reduces surface tailings storage, again helping to minimize the environmental impact." "There remains significant exploration potential for further discoveries at Ayawilca, and several of the resource bodies remain open at depth, with a potential feeder system remaining largely untested by drilling particularly at the Tin Zone." The results of the PEA update will be disclosed in an independent technical report in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101") and prepared by independent consulting firm SRK Consulting (UK) ("SRK") with specific subject matter expertise including Transmin Metallurgical consultants ("Transmin"), Envis Peru S.A.C. ("Envis") tailings consultants and MineFill Services ("MineFill") backfill consultants. SLR Consulting (Canada) Ltd ("SLR") has prepared the updated Mineral Resource estimate for the PEA update. A National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report ("the Technical Report") will be filed on SEDAR within 45 days. Note: The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as Mineral Reserves, and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized. Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. A summary of the key financial information for the updated PEA is provided in Table 1. Financial Summary - Base Case Pre-tax NPV (8% discount rate) IRR Payback period US$731.7 million 34.8% 2.4 years Pre-production capital expenditure (Capex)1 Sustaining Capex Life of Mine (LOM) Capex C1 Cash Cost / Pound of Payable Zinc All-in Sustaining Cost (AISC) / Pound of Payable Zinc Closure Cost US$382 million US$313 million US$695 million US$0.55 US$0.68 US$20 million Notes: 1 Includes contingencies of US$76 million. A summary of the Life of Mine (LOM) operating summary for the updated PEA is provided in Table 2. The after-tax cash flow by year of production is presented in Figure 1. Table 2. LOM Operating Summary for the updated PEA with Metal Prices assumptions Operating Summary Value Operating days per year Processing plant throughput Zn/Ag/Pb Processing plant throughput Sn Average annual zinc concentrate production Average annual tin concentrate production Average annual lead-silver concentrate production Average annual silver in lead concentrate Total LOM zinc in concentrate Net Smelter Return from zinc and lead concentrates Net Smelter Return from tin concentrate 360 days/year 2.0 Mtpa 0.3 Mtpa 180,000 dmt/year 3,000 dmt/year 5,500 dmt/year 0.56 million oz/year 1.9 million tonnes US$4,000 million US$460 million Mining costs (including backfill) Processing costs Zn/Ag/Pb Processing costs Sn Tailings G&A costs LOM Average Operating Cost (Zn/Ag/Pb) LOM Average Operating Cost (Sn) US$16.88/t US$11.00/t US$23.63/t US$0.94/t US$6.23/t US$35.06/t US$47.68/t Notes: dmt = dry metric tonne. Numbers may not add due to rounding. Base Case Metal Prices & Exchange Rate Assumptions Value Zinc Price Lead Price Silver Price Tin Price NSR Cut-off value - Zinc Zone and Silver Zone NSR Cut-off value - Tin Zone Exchange Rate - Peruvian SOL/USD US$1.30/lb US$1.00/lb US$22/oz US$11.00/lb US$60/t US$80/t 3.70 Total LOM tonnage processed 45.55 million tonnes Mine Life Zn/Ag/Pb Mine Life Sn 21 years 15 years Figure 1. Ayawilca 2024 PEA - After-Tax Cash Flow by Year of Production (in US$) Mining The Ayawilca Project is planned as an underground mine operation. For the purposes of the PEA, the Zinc Zone (together with the Silver Zone) will be mined at a rate of 2.0 Mtpa, whilst the Tin Zone will be mined at a rate of 0.3 Mtpa. Mining of both zinc and tin zones commence together with each feeding separate processing plants. The LOM is 21 years for the Zinc Zone and 15 years for the Tin Zone. Mining in the Zinc and Tin Zones will utilize a long hole open stoping ("LHOS") method in a transverse direction with level spacing ranging from 15 to 20 m. The Silver Zone uses LHOS in a longitudinal direction at a 20 m level spacing. A top-down overhand mining sequence is applied, working on top of paste-fill between sill pillars which are recovered. Three declines are planned from surface, initially two declines to access the South, Silver, and West areas and in later years the Central and East areas will be accessed by a third decline. The Tin Zones are also accessed through these planned declines. Production is assumed to commence following 18 months of construction and commissioning. The mine plan for the Zinc and Silver Zones is based on mining a total of 41.2 million tonnes grading 5.02% Zn, 17.3 g/t silver and 0.19% lead over a 21-year LOM using an NSR cut-off of US$60/t. The Tin Zone is based on mining a total of 4.32 million tonnes grading 0.92% tin over a 15-year LOM using an NSR cut-off of US$80. The mill feed will be trucked to the surface via multiple ramp systems connecting the three mine portals to the underground infrastructure and accessing production areas starting at the South and West areas of the Zinc Zone, the Silver Zone, and the high recovery area of the Tin Zone (see Figures 2 and 3). Figure 2. Mining Schedule for Zinc-Silver-Lead Plant (left) and Tin Plant (right) showing Average Grades by Year Figure 3. Oblique view of Ayawilca mine design and stopes showing LOM Schedule Metallurgy and Processing Processing of the zinc-rich mineralization will be through a conventional crushing and grinding circuit followed by froth flotation, concentrate thickening and filtration. Metallurgical test work indicates a zinc concentrate grading 50% zinc can be produced from Zinc and Silver Zones with 92% of the zinc in the Zinc Zone recovered to the zinc concentrate (see news release of June 5, 2019 ) , and 87% of the zinc in the Silver Zone recovered to the zinc concentrate. The lead concentrate is expected to contain 47% lead and average 3,140 g/t silver over the LOM. Based on preliminary metallurgical test work, 45% of the silver in the Zinc Zone is expected to report to the lead concentrate and be payable, while 40% of the silver is expected to report to the zinc concentrate and not be payable. In the Silver Zone, 85% of the silver (and 85% of the lead) is expected to report as a credit to a commercial lead concentrate. The zinc concentrate is expected to be a marketable concentrate with no deleterious elements other than an iron penalty. Concentrate grade assumptions and recoveries for the principal metals in the Zinc and Silver Zones are summarized in Table 3 below. Table 3. LOM Head Grades and Metallurgical Recoveries for the Zinc-Silver-Lead Circuit Product Zinc/Silver-Lead Concentrates Average Grade LOM Metallurgical Recoveries (%)1 Zinc (%) Lead (%) Silver (g/t) Av. NSR (US$/t) Zinc Lead Silver Feed grade Zinc Concentrate Lead Concentrate 5.02 50.0 4.0 0.19 0 to 0.1 47 17.3 0-100 3,1402 99 92/87 0 0 70/85 40/0 45/85 1 First number relates to recovery in Zinc Zone and second number to Silver Zone 2 Silver concentrate grades were calculated for the PEA and range from 897 to 5,849 g/t The first 200,000 wmt/a of zinc concentrates are assumed to be delivered directly to a local refinery (around 90% of LOM production); the balance is assumed to be sold to refineries in east Asia. The zinc concentrate also contains high indium (around 650 ppm In) and receives a US$20/dmt credit in concentrate shipped to Asia. All of the silver-lead concentrates are assumed to be sold overseas. Off-site charges include transport costs, treatment charges, refining charges, and iron penalties at refinery are summarized below in Table 4. Table 4. LOM Head Grade and Metallurgical Recovery for the Tin Circuit Product Average Grade LOM Metallurgical Recoveries (%) Tin (%) Av. NSR (US$/t) Tin - Coarse Tin - Fine Feed grade Tin Concentrate 0.92 50.0 106 90 50 Initial metallurgical testwork indicates that a tin concentrate grading 50% with 90% recovery can be produced from the high recovery (i.e., coarse tin) part of the Tin Zone, and a tin concentrate grading 50% with 50% recovery can be produced from the lower recovery (i.e., fine tin) part of the Tin Zone. The coarse tin represents 19% of the overall tin feed. The tin concentrates are anticipated to have markets in Asia and therefore all of the tin concentrate produced is assumed to be shipped overseas. Off-site charges include transport, treatment charges, refining charges, and penalties at refinery and summarized below in Table 5. Table 5. Off-Site Charges Description Zinc Concentrate Silver-Lead Concentrate Tin Concentrate Transport to Port/Local refinery Port Charges Shipping to overseas smelter (FOB) Local refinery Treatment Charge (TC) Overseas Treatment Charge (TC) Ag Refining Charge (RC) Indium Credit (Overseas only) Sulphur Penalty Iron Penalty US$40/wmt US$25/wmt US$45/wmt US$220/dmt US$220/dmt - US$20.00/dmt US$7.50/dmt US$40/wmt US$50/wmt US$15/wmt - US$50/dmt US$0.80/oz - US$40/wmt US$50/wmt US$15/wmt - US$750/dmt - - US$75/dmt 0.7 units Notes: wmt = wet metric tonne. dmt = dry metric tonne For silver-lead concentrates grading less than 2,500 g/t Ag, treatment charge is $150/dmt and refining charge is $1.00/oz Ag. Approximately 60% of the tailings will be thickened and filtered for dry stack tailings disposal. The remaining 40% will be prepared as pastefill and reticulated to the underground mine to be used as structural backfill. Infrastructure Access There is a good existing road network from the Project to the coast of Peru. The Project lies approximately 250 km from the Port of Callao and a zinc refinery. The road leaving the Project is an all-weather gravel road that crosses the high central Andes for about 60 km before joining a bitumen road to the coast and then to the Port of Callao via the Pan-American highway. The Cajamarquilla zinc refinery is situated on the eastern outskirts of the city of Lima with good access from the highway. Tailings and Mine Waste Management The tailings and mine waste concept for the Ayawilca PEA is based on a commitment to implementing best available practices and best available technologies, as described in the International Council of Mining and Metals ("ICMM") Global Industry Standard for Tailings Management. The location of the TSF has been selected to minimize any potential risks for downstream areas. It is envisaged that: 100% of mine waste rock and 40% of tailings production will be re-used as underground mine backfill; On-surface tailings will be processed as filtered tailings and stacked at a secure and prepared facility. This method will reduce the environmental footprint and the risk of failure and the attendant environmental impacts, while also minimizing water consumption. The filtered tailings facility has been located adjacent to the process plant area, minimizing the haul distance for the tailings and reducing environmental and social impacts. Power A new electricity substation is currently under construction 4.7 km from Ayawilca by a 3rd party mining company. The Project will include construction of a transmission line from this substation to a substation at Ayawilca. Tinka has recently received approval of a pre-operation environmental study ("EPO") to access 220kV / 23 MW power supply through a substation at Ayawilca. Ayawilca is now planned to become connected to the national electrical grid. Capital and Operating Costs The major components of the initial capital expenditure of US$$382 million include US$89.4 million for the zinc-silver-lead processing plant, US$29.0 million for the tin processing plant, US$34.0 million for on-site infrastructure, US$56.6 million for mine equipment and underground pre-production development, US$17.8 million for site preparation of the filtered tailings storage facility and related mobile equipment, $15.5 million for the pastefill plant, $52.4 million for other surface facilities, and US$45.0 million other costs including indirects and owners costs. Contingency in the initial capital totals US$76.2million. Total sustaining capital is $313.1 million over the 21-year mine life. The major components of sustaining capital are US$176.3 million for mining equipment (including major components and rebuilds) and materials handling, $49.8 million for mine development, ventilation and water management, US$46.0 million for tailings management. Contingency in sustaining capital totals US$40.8 million. The estimated capital costs, over the life of the Project, are as follows in Table 6. Table 6. Capital Costs Summary Capital Cost Item Initial (US$ M) Sustaining (US$ M) LOM Total (US$ M) Mining & mine development Process plant - Zn/Ag/Pb Process plant - Sn Pastefill plant Tailings Other surface facilities Subtotal Other indirects Owner's costs Contingency 56.6 89.4 29.0 15.5 17.8 52.4 261.7 34.7 10.3 76.2 226.3 - - - 46.0 - 272.2 - - 40.8 282.9 89.4 29.0 15.5 63.7 52.4 534.0 34.7 10.3 117.0 TOTAL PROJECT (US$ M) 381.8 313.1 694.9 CLOSURE COSTS (US$ M) 19.5 Numbers may not add due to rounding The estimated operating costs, over the life of the Project, are as follows in Table 7. Table 7. Operating Costs per Mining Method for the Zinc and Tin Plants US$/t Processed Operating Cost Item Zinc Plant Tin Plant Weighted Average Zinc + Tin Mining Backfill Sub-total Processing Tailings G&A 13.15 3.73 16.88 11.00 0.94 6.23 13.15 3.73 16.88 23.63 0.94 6.23 13.15 3.72 16.88 12.20 0.94 6.23 TOTAL PROJECT 35.06 47.68 36.25 Sensitivities The Ayawilca project is strongly leveraged to zinc and to a lesser extent tin and silver prices. A 25% increase on the base case zinc price (from US$1.30 to US$1.625) results in an after-tax NPV 8% of US$741 million. A 25% increase on the base case tin price (from US$11.00 to US$13.75) results in an after-tax NPV 8% of $472 million. See Figure 4. Figure 4. PEA Sensitivities for Metals Prices, Operating Cost and LOM Capital Costs Opportunities and Exploration Potential The Ayawilca deposit has not been fully delineated by exploration drilling, and several of the zones remain open along strike and at depth. Opportunities for additional value at Ayawilca not captured in the PEA include, but not limited to: Potential to extend the Zinc Zone deposits to depth at the East and West areas with more drilling; Potential to extend the Tin Zone to depth at the Central area, in particular where a steeply-dipping feeder zone is interpreted and is untested by drilling; Potential to extend the Silver Zone along strike and at depth - only 500 m of strike length is tested to date; Optimization of zinc recovery to a zinc concentrate (currently 92%) and silver recovery to a silver-lead concentrate in the Zinc Zone (currently 45%) with more detailed metallurgical test work; Optimization of tin recovery to a tin concentrate from the low recovery domain (currently 50%) with more detailed metallurgical testwork. Mineral Resource Estimation The updated Ayawilca Project Mineral Resource estimate for the Zinc Zone, Silver Zone, and Tin Zone is summarized in Table 8, Table 9, and Table 10, respectively, as estimated by SLR Consulting (Canada) Ltd (SLR). For the purposes of demonstrating Reasonable Prospects for Eventual Economic Extraction' (RPEEE), Mineral Resources are constrained within underground reporting shapes generated in Deswik Stope Optimizer ("DSO") using a minimum mining width of three metres and an NSR cut-off value of $50/t for the Zinc and Silver Zones and $60/t for the Tin Zone. Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves dated May 10, 2014 ("CIM (2014)" definitions) are used for classification of Mineral Resources. The Tin Zone, Zinc Zone and Silver Zone resources do not overlap. To satisfy RPEEE for an underground mining scenario, Tinka is reporting Mineral Resources within potentially mineable shapes (i.e., stopes) thereby demonstrating the spatial continuity of the mineralization. Where the potentially mineable volumes (i.e., stopes) contain smaller zones of mineralization with values below the stated cut-off, this lower grade material is included in the Mineral Resource estimate. The updated Mineral Resources estimate as at January 1st, 2024, contains the following: Indicated Zinc Zone Mineral Resource of 28.3 Mt grading 5.82% zinc, 16.4 g/t silver, 0.2% lead & 91 g/t indium containing: 3.64 billion pounds of zinc; 14.9 million ounces of silver; 108 million pounds of lead; and 2,582 tonnes of indium. Inferred Zinc Zone Mineral Resource of 31.2 Mt grading 4.21% zinc, 14.5 g/t silver, 0.2% lead & 45 g/t indium containing: 2.90 billion pounds of zinc; 14.6 million ounces of silver; 133 million pounds of lead; and 1,414 tonnes of indium. Inferred Silver Zone Mineral Resource of 1.0 Mt grading 111.4 g/t silver, 1.54% zinc, & 0.5% lead containing: 3.7 million ounces of silver; 35 million pounds of zinc; and 12 million pounds of lead. Indicated Tin Zone Mineral Resource of 1.4 million tonnes grading 0.72% tin, containing: 22 million pounds of tin. Inferred Tin Mineral Resource of 12.7 million tonnes grading 0.76% tin, containing: 213 million pounds of tin. No Mineral Reserves have been estimated at the Project. The Zinc, Silver, and Tin Zone Mineral Resource estimates for the Ayawilca Project were updated by SLR using the drill results available to May 31, 2023. The deposit drill database includes 249 drill holes totalling 94,258 m. An additional 35 drill holes totalling 12,216 m have been added since the previous update dated August 30, 2021. Three-dimensional (3D) wireframe models were generated using an approximate NSR cut-off value of $40/t for the Zinc Zone. For the Tin Zone, a 0.2% Sn or NSR cut-off value of $30/t was used for wireframe models. Prior to compositing to two metre lengths, high tin, silver, and lead values were capped for each zone individually. Zinc, silver, lead, tin, and indium high grade outliers were constrained during interpolation on a per domain basis. Block model grades within the wireframe models were interpolated by inverse distance cubed (ID3). Despite lead grades generally being low, it is assumed that lead and silver will be recovered in a lead concentrate. Density was assigned to blocks within the resource wireframes by ID3. Where density sample data was insufficient for interpolation, density values were derived from a regression equation based on the iron value of the block. Figures 5 and 6 show the Mineral Resource wireframes in plan and 3D views. Cross sections of the resource wireframes are shown in Figures 7 and 8. The Mineral Resources were classified following CIM (2014) definitions as Indicated and Inferred using drill hole spacing based criterion, mineralization continuity, and thickness. The drill hole spacing within a resource area assigned the Indicated category commonly ranges from 40 m to 70 m. Table 8. Ayawilca Zinc Zone Mineral Resources as of January 1, 2024 Classification/ Zone Tonnage Mt NSR $/t Grade Contained Metal Zn % Ag g/t Pb % In g/t Mlb Zn Moz Ag Mlb Pb t In Indicated South 13.8 128 6.64 19.3 0.2 120 2,020 8.6 52 1,655 West 14.5 98 5.05 13.6 0.2 64 1,618 6.3 56 927 Total Indicated 28.3 113 5.82 16.4 0.2 91 3,638 14.9 108 2,582 Inferred South 4.8 79 3.81 24.2 0.2 34 406 3.8 19 163 West 3.8 89 4.61 12.1 0.1 61 384 1.5 12 229 Central 9.1 85 4.39 10.6 0.2 54 878 3.1 47 486 East 13.5 81 4.13 14.4 0.2 40 1,229 6.3 55 536 Total Inferred 31.2 83 4.21 14.5 0.2 45 2,898 14.6 133 1,414 Notes: CIM (2014) definitions were followed for Mineral Resources. The Mineral Resources have been reported within underground reporting shapes generated with Deswik Stope Optimizer (DSO) using a net smelter return (NSR) cut-off value of US$50/t. For the Central area, Mineral Resources were reported only within underground reporting shapes that also had a Zn grade above 3%. NSR value was based on estimated metallurgical recoveries, assumed metal prices, and smelter terms, which include payable factors, treatment charges, penalties, and refining charges. The NSR used for reporting is based on the following: Long term metal prices of US$1.40/lb Zn, US$25/oz Ag, and US$1.10/lb Pb. Net metallurgical recoveries of 92% Zn, 45% Ag, and 70% Pb. The NSR value for each block was calculated using the following NSR factors: US$18.04 per % Zn, US$0.33 per gram Ag, and US$11.92 per % Pb. The NSR value was calculated using the following formula: NSR = Zn(%)*US$18.04+Ag(g/t)*US$0.33+Pb(%)*US$11.92. Bulk densities were assigned to blocks by interpolation and remaining blocks by regression of Fe assay data or average sample data. Averages range between 3.20 t/m3 and 3.51 t/m3. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Numbers may not add due to rounding. Table 9. Ayawilca Silver Zone Mineral Resources as of January 1, 2024 Classification Tonnage Mt NSR $/t Grade Contained Metal Zn % Ag g/t Pb % In g/t Mlb Zn Moz Ag Mlb Pb t In Inferred 1.0 100 1.54 111.4 0.5 3 35 3.7 12 3 Notes: CIM (2014) definitions were followed for Mineral Resources. The Mineral Resources have been reported within underground reporting shapes generated with Deswik Stope Optimizer (DSO) using a net smelter return (NSR) cut-off value of US$50/t. NSR value was based on estimated metallurgical recoveries, assumed metal prices, and smelter terms, which include payable factors, treatment charges, penalties, and refining charges. The NSR used for reporting is based on the following: Long term metal prices of US$1.40/lb Zn, US$25/oz Ag, and US$1.10/lb Pb. Net metallurgical recoveries of 77% Zn, 85% Ag, and 85% Pb. The NSR value for each block was calculated using the following NSR factors: US$15.10 per % Zn, US$0.62 per gram Ag, and US$14.48 per % Pb. The NSR value was calculated using the following formula: NSR = Zn(%)*US$15.10+Ag(g/t)*US$0.62+Pb(%)*US$14.48. Bulk densities were assigned to blocks by interpolation and remaining blocks by regression of Fe assay data or average sample data. The average bulk density is 3.18 t/m3. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Numbers may not add due to rounding. Table 10: Ayawilca Tin Zone Mineral Resources as of January 1, 2024 Classification Tonnage Mt NSR $/t Grade Sn % Contained Metal Mlb Sn Indicated 1.4 99 0.72 22 Inferred 12.7 104 0.76 213 Notes: CIM (2014) definitions were followed for Mineral Resources. The Mineral Resources have been reported within underground reporting shapes generated with Deswik Stope Optimizer (DSO) using a net smelter return (NSR) cut-off value of US$60/t. The NSR value was based on estimated metallurgical recoveries, assumed metal prices, and smelter terms, which include payable factors, treatment charges, penalties, and refining charges. Metal price assumption is US$12.00/lb Sn. Metal recovery assumption is 64% Sn. The NSR value for each block was calculated using the following NSR factor: US$137.30 per % Sn. The NSR value was calculated using the following formula: US$NSR = Sn(%)*US$137.30. Bulk densities were assigned to blocks by interpolation and remaining blocks by regression of Fe assay data or average domain sample data. The average bulk density is 3.65 t/m3. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Numbers may not add due to rounding. Density A total of 4,226 density measurements are located within the wireframe models. This represents a nearly five-fold increase in the number of density measurements available when compared to the previous estimate. A linear regression established between core density data and iron assays was used to assign a density value to resource blocks that were not interpolated. Linear regression equations were established for each area separately. Overall, the density values in the updated 2024 mineral resource estimate have decreased by around 5% over the 2021 estimate. In the previous estimate, density values were assigned to all blocks in each area based on the average density sample value after removing outliers. In SLR's opinion, density values were slightly overestimated in the previous estimate and the updated estimation methodology is more rigorous and better reflects local variations within the resource domains. SLR notes, however, that using a regression equation based on iron is not without flaws. These include: Overlimit iron assays will underestimate the iron content and low bias the density. There is a negative correlation with high zinc and iron values, i.e., there is a potential to low bias Zn-rich areas. A small proportion of blocks within the South and West areas are assigned a density value using the iron regression equation. Within the Central area, however, approximately 50% of blocks are assigned a density value using the iron regression equation and within the East area, there are not enough samples to establish a correlation between density and iron. Figure 5. Plan of Ayawilca Drillhole Map Highlighting Updated Mineral Resource wireframes. Figure 6. Plan view of Ayawilca Zinc Zone Resource Wireframes and Classification Model Comparison to Previous Mineral Resource Estimate Drilling at Ayawilca in 2022 and 2023 since the previous estimate (effective date August 30, 2021) has improved the understanding of the lithological setting and faults controlling the zinc, tin, and silver mineralization. The updated geological model better constrains the mineralized zones especially within the zinc zone domains at West Ayawilca. Zinc Zone Taken as a whole, the current Zinc Zone Mineral Resource estimate is reduced in both tonnage and contained metal, with lower average grades. However, Indicated Mineral Resource tonnage has increased by 49% and metal content has increased by 22% (zinc) and 45% (silver). Conversely, Inferred Mineral Resource tonnage has decreased by 33% and metal content has decreased by 41% (silver), 61% (lead) and 48% (zinc). The most substantial impact to the Mineral Resource tonnage, grade, and metal content is the result of reporting the summation of all blocks within resource reporting shapes versus a block cut-off value, for the first time at Ayawilca to demonstrate RPEEE. Where the potentially mineable volumes contain smaller zones of mineralization with values below the stated cut-off, this material is included in the Mineral Resource estimate and has added dilution. Isolated blocks, which cannot support underground development to access the blocks, have not been included in the resource inventory. Other contributing factors which have impacted the changes in the Mineral Resource estimate include: A modification to the geological interpretation particularly at West due to the drilling in 2022 and 2023. A much larger density database which allowed block interpolation in most of the deposit areas. A change in the NSR factors as a result of higher metal prices used for zinc and updated costs. Reporting the silver-rich domain as a separate zone with distinct metal recoveries and NSR factors. A change in the NSR cut-off value which was reduced from $55/t to $50/t. Tin Zone Although there was no change to the NSR cut-off value for the Tin Zone, globally, the current Tin Zone Mineral Resource estimate has increased in both tonnage and contained metal, but with lower average grades. Indicated Mineral Resources have been declared in the current estimate and Inferred Mineral Resources have increased in tonnage and metal content by 51% and 13% respectively, but average grades have decreased by approximately 25%. The most substantial impact to the Tin Zone Mineral Resource in the current estimate is upgrading a portion of Inferred Mineral Resources to Indicated Mineral Resources and reporting the summation of all blocks within resource reporting shapes (i.e., stopes) versus a block cut-off value. Figure 7. Generalized SW-NW longitudinal section of Zinc Zone and Tin Zone at South and Central Areas Figure 8. Generalized N-S cross section of Zinc Zone, Tin Zone and Silver Zone at South and West Areas Technical Background and Qualified Persons Technical information related to the PEA contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Chris Bray BEng (Mining), MAusIMM (CP), Principal Consultant (Mining Engineering) with SRK Consulting (UK) who is a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101. The Mineral Resources disclosed in this news release have been estimated by Ms. Katharine M. Masun, MSA, M.Sc., P.Geo., Principal Geologist with SLR who is independent of Tinka. By virtue of education and relevant experience Ms. Masun is a "Qualified Persons" for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101. The Mineral Resources have been classified in accordance with CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves (May, 2014). Ms. Masun has read and approved the contents of this news release as it pertains to the disclosed Mineral Resource estimates. The processing, metallurgical and recovery inputs disclosed in this news release have been reviewed and verified by Mr. Adam Johnston, FAusIMM, CP (Metallurgy) of Transmin Metallurgical Consultants, UK, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. The mine backfill inputs have been reviewed and verified by Dr. David Stone, P.Eng. of MineFill Services, Seattle, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. The inputs on processing and costs for surface tailings storage disclosed in this news release have been reviewed and verified by Mr. Donald Hickson, P.Eng., of Envis Peru S.A.C. (Envis), a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Dr. Graham Carman, Tinka's President and CEO, reviewed and verified the technical contents of this release. Dr. Carman is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. On behalf of the Board, "Graham Carman" Dr. Graham Carman, President & CEO Further Information: www.tinkaresources.com Mariana Bermudez 1.604.685.9316 [email protected] Stay up to date by subscribing for news alerts at Contact Tinka and by following Tinka on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. About Tinka Resources Limited Tinka is an exploration and development company with its flagship property being the 100%-owned Ayawilca zinc-silver-tin project in central Peru. The Zinc Zone has an estimated Indicated Mineral Resource of 28.3 Mt grading 5.82% zinc, 16.4 g/t silver, 0.2% lead and 91 g/t indium, and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 31.2 Mt grading 4.21% zinc, 14.5 g/t silver, 0.2% lead and 45 g/t indium. The Silver Zone has an estimated Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.0 Mt grading 111.4 g/t silver, 1.54% zinc, & 0.5% lead. The Tin Zone has an estimated Indicated Mineral Resource of 1.4 million tonnes grading 0.72% tin and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 12.7 million tonnes grading 0.76% tin (dated at January 1, 2024). Forward Looking Statements: Certain information in this news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively "forward-looking statements"). All statements, other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and expectations of Tinka as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Tinka's management. Such statements reflect the current risks, uncertainties and assumptions related to certain factors including, without limitations: timing of planned work programs and results varying from expectations; delay in obtaining results; changes in equity markets; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions; imprecision in resource estimates or metal recoveries; success of future development initiatives; competition and operating performance; environmental and safety risks; the Company's expectations regarding the Ayawilca Project PEA; the political environment in which the Company operates continuing to support the development and operation of mining projects; risks related to negative publicity with respect to the Company or the mining industry in general; delays in obtaining or failure to obtain necessary permits and approvals from local authorities; community agreements and relations; and, other development and operating risks. Should any one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein. Although Tinka believes that assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Tinka disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release SOURCE: Tinka Resources Ltd. View the original press release on accesswire.com VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 28, 2024 / Troy Minerals Inc. ("Troy" or the "Company") (CSE:TROY)(OTCQB: TROYF)(FSE:VJ3) is pleased to announce that it has expanded its strategic advisory board which was formed late last year to advise and consult with the Company's board of directors and its senior management to help advance the Company's projects and build shareholder value. The Company has appointed Mr. Amandip Singh, a geologist and mining professional with over 15 years of progressively senior experience in the mining industry, finance, and academia. Mr. Singh has worked with some of the most successful mining teams in the world, including the Frank Giustra backed, West Red Lake Gold as well as Magna Gold Corp, a Mexico based gold producer, where he served as the Vice President of Corporate development and was part of the management team that saw the Saddle North Cu-Au porphyry project advance from discovery to eventual acquisition by Newmont Mining in a transaction valued at USD $311 Million. As a finance professional, Mr. Singh was a sell-side mining analyst at a boutique mining focused brokerage, his coverage ranged from developers to senior producers. He has also worked as an exploration geologist, most notably with Noront Resources (Acquired by Wyloo Metals) and was part of the team responsible for completing the initial bankable feasibility study on the Eagles Nest Ni-Cu-PGE deposit in Northern Ontario. Mr. Singh holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from the University of Toronto. "We are excited to expand our technical depth with the addition of Amandip to our team," said Rana Vig, President and CEO of Troy Minerals. "His knowledge and vast contacts will benefit the Company immensely as we continue to expand our investor base while at the same time advancing the Company's projects," he added." To further advance its advisory board "brain trust", the Company is in discussions with several other highly qualified and distinguished candidates with proven track records and expects to make those announcements in the coming weeks. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD, Rana Vig | President and Director Telephone: 604-218-4766 Email: [email protected] About Troy Minerals Inc. Troy Minerals is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties. The Company currently holds interest in four assets: The Lake Owen project (formerly SW2) is a highly perspective Vanadium, Titanium and Iron ore rich project that consists of 91 mineral claims located approximately 50km southwest of Laramie, Wyoming USA. The property is a one billion tonne plus target in a Proterozoic Layered Mafic Intrusive host with strong magnetite-rich cumulates and accompanying V/Ti and Pt/Pd/Au/Rh-bearing sulfide horizons. The Lac Jacques project is a drive to project with close infrastructure located approximately 250km north of Montreal Quebec, Canada and is comprised of 17 claims totaling 994 ha. The Property hosts high grade REE mineralization at the surface in a structurally controlled and steeply dipping carbonatite dike up to 25 meters thick with multi-kilometer potential. The Green Gold project, in which the Company has the right to acquire 100% interest, is comprised of fourteen (14) mineral claims with an aggregate area of 11,238 hectares, is located in central British Columbia in the Cariboo Mining Division, approximately 34 kilometers (km) southwest of the city of Prince George. The Ticktock project, a 1,065-hectare property located within the prolific Golden Triangle region of British Columbia, Canada, lies 23km northwest of the historic Eskay Creek Mine and sits between the Enduro Metals Newmont Lake property and the Aben Resources Forrest-Kerr property. SOURCE: Troy Minerals Inc. View the original press release on accesswire.com ESSEN, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has agreed to acquire Mindcurv, a cloud-native digital experience and data analytics company specializing in composable software, digital engineering and commerce services for more than 200 clients worldwide. With this acquisition, Accenture Songthe worlds largest tech-powered creative groupfurther expands its commerce services for clients globally. The terms of the acquisition from private equity investment firms Genui and Primepulse were not disclosed. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227044054/en/ Accenture has agreed to acquire Mindcurv, a cloud-native digital experience and data analytics company specializing in composable software, digital engineering and commerce services for more than 200 clients worldwide. (Graphic: Business Wire) Founded in 2011, Mindcurv is one of the leading German companies providing end-to-end digital experience services solving complex challenges in the core business of leading European clients across several industries, including manufacturing, retail, consumer good, life sciences and chemicals. As a certified member of the MACH Alliance, Mindcurv helps businesses design and implement innovative scalable digital experience platforms, with operations in several countries enabling it to deliver tech-enabled innovation with an integrative approach. The ecommerce market is expected to exceed $8 trillion worldwide by 2027. Currently, 94% of consumers1 make purchases through digital commerce channels. However, only 20% of companies are realizing both revenue growth and profitability. By combining Accenture Song and Mindcurv's expertise in composability skills, data, and AI capabilities, clients can accelerate their commerce operations and bridge the profitability gap. These capabilities enable personalization at scale, foster customer loyalty, and drive sales. "With the acquisition of Mindcurv, Accenture Song continues to fortify its global offerings, blending creative thinking, technology and industry expertise, said Max Morielli, president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, for Accenture Song. This strategic move will enhance our ability to provide innovative, tailor-made cloud solutions, empowering clients with an unparalleled end-to-end digital experience in commerce transformation. Together, with Accentures broader suite of services, our investment in AI and our ecosystem partners, we are increasing our ability to meet clients customers needs." Roland Mayr, market unit lead of Accenture Song in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, added: "The integration of Mindcurv into Accenture Song will signify an important step forward in our commitment to delivering comprehensive digital solutions. Mindcurv's proficiency in scalable digital platforms and cloud innovation complements Accenture Song's vision for pushing the boundaries of commerce transformation. Together, we're poised to redefine the digital landscape for businesses worldwide." Amjad Liaquat and Nazareno Avila, the co-founders of Mindcurv, explained: "Joining Accenture Song marks a pivotal moment for Mindcurv. Our strengths combined offer formidable end-to-end digital commerce services, combining innovation, creativity and global reach delivered through an integrative and balanced approach with the support of teams across the countries we operate in. Were excited to lead the evolving digital landscape together." Headquartered in Essen, Germany, Mindcurv and its team of over 700 experts based across 13 different locations including the Netherlands, Spain and India, are set to join Accenture Song's commerce practice. Mindcurv is the latest in a series of acquisitions that Accenture Song has made to enhance customer offerings for clients, including Work & Co, Rabbits Tale, ConcentricLife, Fiftyfive5 and The Stable. Completion of the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of applicable regulatory approval. 1 2022 Accenture Grow Digital Commerce Study of 13,000 consumers across US, Mexico, Brazil, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China, India, Japan, Australia and Indonesia Forward-Looking Statements Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements in this news release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as may, will, should, likely, anticipates, aspires, expects, intends, plans, projects, believes, estimates, positioned, outlook, goal, target and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance nor promises that goals or targets will be met, and involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These risks include, without limitation, risks that: Accenture and Mindcurv will not be able to close the transaction in the time period anticipated, or at all, which is dependent on the parties ability to satisfy certain closing conditions; the transaction might not achieve the anticipated benefits for Accenture; Accentures results of operations have been, and may in the future be, adversely affected by volatile, negative or uncertain economic and political conditions and the effects of these conditions on the companys clients businesses and levels of business activity; Accentures business depends on generating and maintaining client demand for the companys services and solutions including through the adaptation and expansion of its services and solutions in response to ongoing changes in technology and offerings, and a significant reduction in such demand or an inability to respond to the evolving technological environment could materially affect the companys results of operations; if Accenture is unable to match people and their skills with client demand around the world and attract and retain professionals with strong leadership skills, the companys business, the utilization rate of the companys professionals and the companys results of operations may be materially adversely affected; Accenture faces legal, reputational and financial risks from any failure to protect client and/or company data from security incidents or cyberattacks; the markets in which Accenture operates are highly competitive, and Accenture might not be able to compete effectively; Accentures ability to attract and retain business and employees may depend on its reputation in the marketplace; if Accenture does not successfully manage and develop its relationships with key ecosystem partners or fails to anticipate and establish new alliances in new technologies, the companys results of operations could be adversely affected; Accentures profitability could materially suffer if the company is unable to obtain favorable pricing for its services and solutions, if the company is unable to remain competitive, if its cost-management strategies are unsuccessful or if it experiences delivery inefficiencies or fail to satisfy certain agreed-upon targets or specific service levels; changes in Accentures level of taxes, as well as audits, investigations and tax proceedings, or changes in tax laws or in their interpretation or enforcement, could have a material adverse effect on the companys effective tax rate, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition; Accentures results of operations could be materially adversely affected by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; changes to accounting standards or in the estimates and assumptions Accenture makes in connection with the preparation of its consolidated financial statements could adversely affect its financial results; as a result of Accentures geographically diverse operations and strategy to continue to grow in key markets around the world, the company is more susceptible to certain risks; if Accenture is unable to manage the organizational challenges associated with its size, the company might be unable to achieve its business objectives; Accenture might not be successful at acquiring, investing in or integrating businesses, entering into joint ventures or divesting businesses; Accentures business could be materially adversely affected if the company incurs legal liability; Accentures global operations expose the company to numerous and sometimes conflicting legal and regulatory requirements; Accentures work with government clients exposes the company to additional risks inherent in the government contracting environment; if Accenture is unable to protect or enforce its intellectual property rights or if Accentures services or solutions infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others or the company loses its ability to utilize the intellectual property of others, its business could be adversely affected; Accenture may be subject to criticism and negative publicity related to its incorporation in Ireland; as well as the risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed under the Risk Factors heading in Accenture plcs most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and other documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements in this news release speak only as of the date they were made, and Accenture undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements made in this news release or to conform such statements to actual results or changes in Accentures expectations. About Accenture Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the worlds leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen servicescreating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 743,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the worlds leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song. These capabilities, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360 value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360 value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com. Accenture Song accelerates growth and value for our clients through sustained customer relevance. Our capabilities span ideation to execution: growth, product and experience design; technology and experience platforms; creative, media and marketing strategy; and campaign, commerce transformation content and channel orchestration. With strong client relationships and deep industry expertise, we help our clients operate at the speed of life through the unlimited potential of imagination, technology and intelligence. Copyright 2024 Accenture. All rights reserved. Accenture and its logo are trademarks of Accenture. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227044054/en/ Helena Binder Accenture +49 152 525 057 37 [email protected] Rosie Milton-Schonemann Accenture Song +44 7769 286484 [email protected] Source: Accenture OLDWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AM Best has assigned a Financial Strength Rating of A (Excellent) and a Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of a (Excellent) to NLADA Mutual Insurance Company, a Risk Retention Group (NLADA Mutual) (District of Columbia). The outlook assigned to these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. The ratings reflect NLADA Mutuals inclusion as a member company in MLM Group, which has a consolidated balance sheet strength assessed as very strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management. The ratings also reflect NLADA Mutuals role as an affiliate of Minnesota Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company (MLMIC), the lead company of MLM Group. NLADA Mutual benefits from explicit support it received from MLMIC through capital support from a surplus note; the implementation of a quota share reinsurance agreement; operational support through a management servicing agreement and participation of a MLMIC executive on the board of directors. Additionally, the ratings reflect NLADA Mutuals role and importance to MLM Group as a provider of specialty insurance products to entities associated with the legal profession throughout the United States. 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 Best's 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 specializing 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 2024 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/20240228537314/en/ Kevin J. Dorsey Senior Financial Analyst +1 908 882 1747 [email protected] Christopher Sharkey Associate Director, Public Relations +1 908 882 2310 [email protected] Brian OLarte Director +1 908 882 2212 brian.o[email protected] Al Slavin Senior Public Relations Specialist +1 908 882 2318 [email protected] Source: AM Best The startup redefines the traditional brokerage model with cutting-edge technology and commission structure LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Today marks the official launch of Atllas, a tech-first real estate platform and brokerage thats setting a new precedent in the residential real estate industry. In a landscape where the norms have remained unchallenged for decades, Atllas redefines the brokerage experience by offering a suite of proprietary tools designed to simplify the management of leads, sales, listings, and commissions, efficiently. Beyond its cutting-edge platform, Atllas has solidified its position as a unique brokerage community, empowering agents to retain an unprecedented 100 percent of their commissions. This innovative approach not only enhances agents ability to market themselves but also addresses long-standing inefficiencies within the industry. "Atllas is not just a platform; it's a movement towards a more efficient real estate industry," said Neema Bardi, Founder and CEO of Atllas. "Our mission is to empower agents by providing them with the tools and community they need to succeed on their own terms. By keeping 100% of their commissions, our agents can invest more in their personal brands and in delivering exceptional service to their clients." Atllas enhances the real estate experience with its primary tools, including Open Home, which integrates listings from the MLS into a comprehensive open house management system with branding, automated check-ins, and lead gathering; Loop, which consolidates all links and social media profiles onto a single page, facilitating efficient lead collection; AI CRM empowers agents to generate high-quality emails effortlessly; and Potentials revolutionizes home searching by using AI to index available homes, making it easier for agents to collaborate with clients through an automated, streamlined process. Atllas offers various membership options, from free to platinum, catering to agents at different stages of their career. This flexibility ensures that agents can access the tools and support they need, whether theyre just starting out or are seasoned professionals. Agents from any brokerage can access limited features by joining at the free or premium levels. Those who join at the Platinum tier are officially Atllas agents and can access the full product suite as well as benefit from the favorable commission structure. Atllas innovative approach has garnered the support of prominent investors, including Charles Schwab (Family Office), Great Oaks Venture Capital, Ambridge Capital, and Eric Feldman, Co-founder of Bolt, among others. The brokerage is currently licensed in California, with plans to expand into Florida later this year. About Atllas Atllas is a trailblazing technology-first platform and brokerage, redefining the real estate landscape exclusively for residential agents. Setting a new standard in efficiency, Atllas offers proprietary tools and technology, complemented by a unique brokerage community where agents cultivate personal brands and earnings, retaining an unprecedented one hundred percent of their commissions. Founded by Neema Bardi, Atllas empowers agents through innovative tools, offering diverse membership options for all career stages. With a growing product suite, Atllas aims to revolutionize the real estate industry, supported by prominent investors including Charles Schwab (Family Office), Great Oaks Venture Capital, Ambridge Capital, Eric Feldman, Co-founder of Bolt, leaders from Scale AI and Speechify, among others. For more information, visit www.atllas.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227545440/en/ R[AR]E Public Relations Amy Rossetti [email protected] 310.779.6025 Source: Atllas BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Compare Before Buying, a leading consumer review platform, has released its comprehensive analysis of the top international phone plans for 2024, with a spotlight on Lyca Mobile's standout offerings. Designed to cater to diverse communication needs, Lyca Mobile's international plans have garnered attention for their affordability, flexibility, and exceptional value. Best Lyca Mobile International Phone Plans: 5GB phone plan - $5/mo. for the first 3 months ($20/month after) - $5/mo. for the first 3 months ($20/month after) 10GB phone plan - $10/mo. for the first 3 months ($25/month after) - $10/mo. for the first 3 months ($25/month after) Unlimited phone plan - $15/mo. for the first 3 months ($35/month after) Lyca Mobile Lyca Mobile has established itself as a pioneering force in the telecommunications industry, boasting a rich history marked by innovation and customer-centricity. Founded in 2006, the company has rapidly grown to become a globally recognized brand, renowned for its commitment to affordability, flexibility, and reliability in international communication services. With a reputation for offering competitive pricing without compromising on quality, Lyca Mobile has garnered trust and loyalty from millions of users worldwide. Its unwavering dedication to providing seamless connectivity, coupled with a diverse range of international phone plans tailored to suit varying needs, has solidified its position as a leader in the market. Affordable Pricing with Unmatched Flexibility Lyca Mobile's international phone plans start at an incredibly low price point of just $5, making staying connected across borders more accessible than ever. With no contracts and no credit checks required, users enjoy unparalleled flexibility, allowing them to cancel or change their plans anytime without any long-term commitments or financial constraints. Exceptional Value in Every Plan Among Lyca Mobile's array of options, three plans in particular have captured attention for their affordability and extensive features. Starting with the 5GB plan priced at $5, users enjoy ample data alongside international calling capabilities, striking a perfect balance between data usage and international connectivity. The 10GB plan at $10 offers double the data allowance while retaining competitive international calling features, providing even greater flexibility for moderate users. For those with higher demands, the unlimited plan priced at $15 presents an irresistible offer with unlimited data and international calls, catering to seamless communication without worrying about data limits or additional charges. Please note that these prices are for the first three months only, after that period, these plans will be $20/month for the 5GB plan, $25/month for the 10GB plan and $35/month for the unlimited plan. Key Features Setting Lyca Mobile Apart Lyca Mobile's international phone plans offer a host of features that set them apart from traditional service providers. Users can retain their existing number, eliminating the hassle of notifying contacts about a new number and ensuring uninterrupted communication. Additionally, with a reliable 4G/5G network and the ability to cancel or change plans anytime, Lyca Mobile empowers users to adapt their communication requirements as circumstances evolve. Lyca Mobile offers unlimited international minutes to 100 countries such as Austria, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, Macedonia, Norway, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uganda, USA, UK and Russia. Reliable Performance and Exceptional Customer Service Despite being a relatively smaller company, Lyca Mobile prioritizes customer satisfaction with its reliable network infrastructure and excellent customer support. With generally good coverage across various regions and consistent connectivity and fast data speeds, users can count on a seamless and satisfying user experience. Lyca Mobile offers multiple avenues for communication and assistance, including phone, email, and online chat support, ensuring that any queries or concerns are promptly addressed, enhancing the overall user experience and satisfaction with their service. Lyca Mobile Stands Out as a Clear Choice In conclusion, Compare Before Buying's review underscores Lyca Mobile's international phone plans as a top recommendation for those seeking exceptional value and reliability in their communication services. With competitive pricing, unmatched flexibility, and excellent features, Lyca Mobile emerges as a clear choice for users in search of an international phone plan that ticks all the boxes. In addition to offering some of the best value international phone plans, Lyca Mobile also stands out for offering some of the best prepaid phone plans on the market. Renowned for their affordability and rich features, Lyca Mobile's prepaid options cater to a wide range of users, from budget-conscious individuals to those seeking premium services without the hassle of contracts. For more information on Lyca Mobile's best international phone plans for 2024, visit Compare Before Buyings review. About Compare Before Buying: Compare Before Buying provides news and reviews of consumer products and services. As an affiliate, Compare Before Buying may earn commissions from sales generated using links provided. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227127273/en/ Andy Mathews ([email protected]) Source: Compare Before Buying BRS Registry to offer Strategic Marketing, Brand Development and Data Analysis to Top Level Domains! SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BRS Media, a diverse and growing media e-commerce firm that assists traditional and interactive media companies build and brand on the power of the Internet, announced today BRS Registry offering Top-Level Domain operators data-driven content strategy, unparalleled digital branding expertise, and world-class storytelling. In 1998 BRS Media launched a little known country domain extension and turned into one of the best recognized and most successful rebranded Top-Level Domain (TLD) in the history of the Internet. This TLD continues to have a compelling reputation as a Cult Brand Top-Level Domain, a distinctive and alternative style that differs from existing top-level domains. A quarter-century on, the TLD has evolved to meet the growing demand and creativity of its clientele, which has a thriving and diverse client base and over 1.1 Million followers across Social Media that enthusiastically support the TLD. We are excited and thrilled to be launching BRS Registry Management based on our twenty-five plus years of professional & successful experience in strategic marketing and brand development for Top-Level Domain Registry Operators, remarked George T. Bundy, Chairman & CEO of BRS Media Inc. As a Category Creator in the Domain Industry, BRS Media pioneered the Industry Specific vertical domain space with dotFM over a quarter-century ago and the .FM Top-Level Domain continues to be at the forefront of innovative technology. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has acknowledged that: TLD operators face a challenging task of building consumer awareness and this can and may take significant time and effort. In todays ultra-competitive market a brand strategy and marketing plan are a necessary prerequisite to long term success. BRS Registry Management focuses on; Brand Experience, Brand Definition, Platform & Positioning, Content Marketing Strategies, Brand and Portfolio Architecture, Providing Registry Operators with Insights and Trends, Opportunity Assessment, Action Prioritization, Impact Qualifications, Content Marketing Execution and Social Media Brand Marketing. Meet us at ICANN79 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or connect via BRS Registry at https://brsregistry.com About BRS Media, Inc: Based in the South of Market district (SoMa) of San Francisco CA, BRS Media was established in 1995, featured as one of the fastest growing privately held companies by the SF Business Times and Inc. Magazine for five consecutive years. Its portfolio of leading online properties includes: BRS Registry, Strategic Marketing, Brand Development and Registry Management for Top Level Domains; dotFM & dotAM, spotlighting Domain Innovation for media based .FM and .AM domains; dotRadio extensions .RADIO.am & .RADIO.fm, Radio's only Open & Innovative Domain Extensions; Main Street Branding, helping Clients Assemble a World Class Identity and iRadio Service. Main Street Branding and dotRadio are trademarks; and dotFM, dotAM and iRadio are registered trademarks of BRS Media, Inc. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228381012/en/ Junaid Siddiqui BRS Media Inc. Email: [email protected] Source: BRS Media, Inc. California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis to join FLUX, Unique Womens Coalition, and Human Rights Campaign to announce Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center designation LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center (CONOTEC), a facility providing comprehensive resources, training, support, and medical services for Transgender people living in Los Angeles, will serve as an officially designated Los Angeles County Vote Center for the upcoming March 5th California primary as well as for the November 2024 general/presidential election. CONOTEC is the first Transgender facility nationwide to serve as an official election Vote Center. It will be open to all Los Angeles County voters from March 2nd through March 5th but will have a particular emphasis on serving as a safe and empowering place for Trans, Non-Binary, and other LGBTQA+ individuals and their allies who have been under increasing verbal, political and physical attack across the country to vote. This designation comes as the TGI community mourns the tragic death of non-binary teen Nex Benedict in Oklahoma. CONOTEC is reaching out to the Trans and Non-Binary communities county-wide to welcome them to vote at CONOTEC. WHAT: PRESS CONFERENCE: Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center to serve as an official Vote Center Polling Place for Los Angeles County WHEN: Thursday, February 29, 2024 at 10:00am WHERE: The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center, 1001 N. Martel St., Los Angeles, CA 90046 WHO: Hon. Eleni Kounalakis, California Lieutenant Governor Hon. Katy Yaroslavsky, Los Angeles City Councilwoman (5th District) Queen Victoria Ortega, International President of FLUX Queen Chela DeMuir, CEO and President, Unique Womans Coalition (UWC) Los Angeles County Vote Centers either commit to 10-day or 4-day voting periods, both offering early voting periods that end on March 5th. The Connie Norman Center is a 4-day Vote Center. FLUX, an affinity group of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) dedicated to creating safe spaces for Trans and Gender Non-Conforming individuals through advocacy and outreach, partnered with the Unique Womans Coalition (UWC), an organization centering the narratives and needs of Black Trans culture, and HRC, the nations largest LGBTQ+ political and advocacy organization, in efforts to have the Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center designated an official Los Angeles County Vote Center. The Connie Norman Trans Empowerment Center is named in honor of Connie Norman, known as the AIDS Diva, a fearless Transgender and AIDS activist who died of the disease in 1996. It opened on September 10, 2021. FLUX is a national division of AIDS Healthcare Foundation dedicated to creating safe spaces for trans and gender non-conforming individuals. See https://www.transidentity.org/. Keep up to date on FLUX: Facebook: FLUXAHF - Instagram: @FLUX_AHF - Twitter: @flux_ahf View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228977947/en/ Scottie Jeanette Madden, FLUX International Director of Advocacy (818) 489-4341 [email protected] Ged Kenslea, AHF Sr. Comms Dir. (323) 791-5526 [email protected] Source: FLUX BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- An enthusiastic team of approximately 100 employees from Diversified Maintenance partnered with Cheeriodicals to assemble and deliver care packages to hospitalized children and Veterans in Birmingham, AL. Their collective goal was to engage in meaningful, team-based work that would bring comfort and support to patients facing healthcare challenges within the Birmingham community. The Diversified Maintenance team generously devoted their time to assemble 200 Cheeriodicals care packages for pediatric patients at Childrens of Alabama and individuals undergoing care at the Birmingham VA Health Care System. Not stopping at just packing, the team went the extra mile by crafting personalized encouragement note cards for every recipient of the care packages. The childrens Cheeriodicals gift boxes were designed to deliver a much-needed dose of cheer to hospitalized children. Each Cheeriodical contains an assortment of age-appropriate activity books, crafts, puzzles, and games, all carefully arranged within a keepsake gift box. The Veterans Cheeriodicals duffle bags were designed to lift the spirits of Veterans who have selflessly served our country. These distinctive green and black duffle bags are filled with patriotic comfort and care items, including a plush blanket, tumbler, essential toiletries, and a copy of U.S. Veterans Magazine. At Diversified Maintenance, we understand that true success goes beyond business achievements. Our recent collaboration with Cheeriodicals exemplifies our commitment to making a difference where it matters most in the lives of children and Veterans facing health challenges, said Tyler Bruce, Chief People Officer at Diversified Maintenance. He added, Each package is not just a collection of items; it is a symbol of our commitment to uplifting spirits, spreading joy, making a positive impact on the lives of others, and building a better, caring community. We were thrilled to collaborate with the team from Diversified Maintenance in assembling our signature cheer-up care packages for local distribution in Birmingham," expressed Mary Martha Parisher, Founder and COO of Cheeriodicals. "While our company operates across various markets nationwide, there's a special joy in spreading smiles right here in our corporate backyard, particularly to patients at Childrens of Alabama and the Birmingham VA Health Care System. Diversified Maintenance's commitment to positively impacting both hospitalized children and Veterans through the same team-building event marks a milestone in our history here in Birmingham. We are especially thankful to Cheeriodicals and Diversified Maintenance for thinking about our patients, said Crawford Daniel, Community Development Coordinator at Childrens of Alabama. Partnerships like this brighten the day for our patients and their families. Thank you all so much for delivering happiness. Ladi Kukoyi, Executive Director/CEO of the Birmingham VA Health Care System, expressed deep appreciation for Cheeriodicals' visits and their ongoing partnership, including this year's collaboration with Diversified Maintenance. The combined efforts of the VA, Cheeriodicals, and Diversified Maintenance bring joy to our Veterans' faces when they visit our medical center, Kukoyi noted. We're deeply thankful for the support from Cheeriodicals and their partners, who generously contribute to our Veterans." After the Diversified Maintenance team packed and completed all the Cheeriodicals boxes and duffle bags, the local Two Men and a Truck Birmingham team loaded all the Cheeriodicals and delivered them, free of charge to the hospitals, as part of their own corporate social responsibility program. Representatives from Diversified Maintenance personally delivered the care packages to both Childrens of Alabama and the Birmingham VA Health Care System. At the Birmingham VA, they not only delivered the donation of Cheeriodicals, but also took the time to personally hand-deliver the duffle bags to many of the Veterans. Beyond simply delivering the gift bags, the team seized the opportunity to express their heartfelt gratitude to the Veterans for their invaluable service and sacrifice. About Diversified Maintenance Diversified Maintenance has been providing customer-focused, quality maintenance solutions to facilities across the United States for over 50 years. For more information, visit www.diversifiedm.com. About Cheeriodicals Cheeriodicals is a corporate team-building company specializing in both in-person and virtual philanthropic events that support various charitable organizations. These events benefit children's hospitals, Ronald McDonald Houses, Veterans Hospitals, frontline hospital workers, dialysis patients, and other charitable groups. For additional details about Cheeriodicals, visit our website, or follow Cheeriodicals on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. About Childrens Alabama Since 1911, Childrens of Alabama has provided specialized medical care for ill and injured children, offering inpatient, outpatient and primary care throughout Central Alabama. Ranked among the best childrens hospitals in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, Childrens serves patients from every county in Alabama and nearly every state. Childrens is a private, not-for-profit medical center that serves as the teaching hospital for the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) pediatric medicine, surgery, psychiatry, research and residency programs. The medical staff consists of UAB faculty and Childrens full-time physicians, as well as private practicing community physicians. About Birmingham VA Health Care System The Birmingham VA Health Care System (BVAHCS) opened in 1953, consists of one facility located in the historic Southside district of Birmingham Alabama, serving over 71,000 Veterans in 24 counties. BVAHCS operates a 141-bed tertiary care teaching health care system and is dedicated to providing the highest quality of patient care to Veterans in Alabama. The BVAHCS provides comprehensive primary and tertiary health care in the areas of medicine, surgery, psychiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurology, oncology, dentistry, geriatrics, blind rehabilitation and is a recognized leader in palliative care and multiple sclerosis. BVAHCS is one of seven VA medical centers around the country that performs kidney transplants and was recently designated as an Age-Friendly Health System-Committed to Care Excellence. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228627604/en/ Maheen Zaidi Vice President Marketing 813.440.6163 [email protected] Mary Martha Parisher Founder and COO 205-677-2069 [email protected] Source: Diversified Maintenance ManageEngine, an enterprise IT management software and solution provider, will be giving special attention to Saudi small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by localising support and increasing the accessibility of its products. They will also conduct seminars and workshops in different cities of the besides aligning itself with local regulations, business practices, and cultural nuances to better suit the needs of Saudi SMEs. Prasanna Venkatesh Srinivasan, regional manager at ManageEngine, said: We will be localising our support for the Saudi SME market to better cater to the needs of our customers. For this, we will utilise our partner ecosystem. Furthermore, we are planning to conduct seminars and workshops for SMEs in other cities apart from Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam to increase the accessibility of our products. Customisable solutions ManageEngine's suite of IT solutions are highly customisable, aiding enterprises in aligning with local regulations, business practices, and cultural nuances, he added. Saudi Arabia's efforts to reduce its dependence on oil and address sustainability concerns have guided it towards the SME landscape. The success of SMEs is critical to bring about regional development, employment, economic growth, diversification, and innovation. However, this strategic shift, which is in alignment with the country's comprehensive roadmap, Saudi Arabia Vision 2030, comes with its own set of difficulties. ManageEngine's suite of IT solutions can be instrumental in fostering the growth of Saudi SMEs, as they cater to a plethora of requirements. While focusing on providing simple, scalable, and affordable solutions, the company also customises its offerings to suit the unique IT needs of every organisation. Optimal performance ManageEngine's real-time IT management tools ensure the optimal performance of IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, and endpoints. They are contextually integral and AI-powered, giving greater visibility and insights into business activities. By adopting these tools, SMEs can facilitate cloud adoption, foster a hybrid work environment, revolutionise their operations, and catch up with the modern era of the digital revolution. Although embracing cutting-edge technologies, such as AI and ML, improves Saudi's SME sector, it can pose several security-related risks that can cause the loss of sensitive personal data. To remain resilient, competitive, and agile in such a situation, organisations must opt for safe IT solutions. With the nation's economy being dependent on its 1.27 million SME entities, it is all the more important for these organisations to only choose the most reliable IT products for progress amidst the current economic climate.--TradeArabia News Service GAZA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- At least 120 patients needed to be evacuated from the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip, the Gaza-based Health Ministry said Tuesday. In a statement sent to Xinhua, the ministry said, "We need to evacuate more than 120 patients from Nasser Medical Complex to other hospitals to receive medical care," citing the shutdown of various medical equipment due to Israeli strikes. Nasser Hospital, the second-largest hospital in the strip, stopped operating after an Israeli military operation on Feb. 14 following a week-long blockade. The Israeli army announced on Sunday the end of its military operations at the hospital after arresting about 200 suspects in Hamas activities. It also revealed that during the operation, unused medicines bearing the names of Israeli hostages were discovered. OSLO, Norway--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Elliptic Labs (OSE: ELABS), a global AI software company and the world leader in AI Virtual Smart Sensors currently deployed in over 500 million devices, has launched its 100% software-only AI Virtual Human Presence Sensor on multiple Lenovo ThinkPad X and T Series laptops. This release covers the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 i Gen 5, T14s Gen 5, and T16 Gen 3. These laptops will be powered with the latest Intel and AMD chipsets (both Intel and AMD are Elliptic Labs partners), except for the ThinkPad T16 Gen 3 laptop, which will run Intel only. The contract for this launch was previously announced by Elliptic Labs. Elliptic Labs AI Virtual Smart Sensor Platform leverages the companys expertise in ultrasound, AI, and sensor fusion to deliver software-only AI Virtual Smart Sensors that bring seamless user experiences at scale for the PC, smartphone, IoT, and automotive industries. The AI Virtual Human Presence Sensor delivers innovation, power, and value to the ThinkPad X and T Series, driving down power consumption while offering more user privacy and improved security. This announcement demonstrates how the AI Virtual Smart Sensor Platform is truly enhancing the user experience for Lenovo laptop users. The continuation and expansion of our relationship with Lenovo, the largest PC OEM in the world, has been an exciting development for Elliptic Labs, said Laila Danielsen, CEO of Elliptic Labs. Launching our 100% software-based AI Virtual Human Presence Sensors at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2024 broadly across many of Lenovos most successful laptop models validates the scalability, power, and value of our AI Virtual Smart Sensor Platform. The work we are doing with world class enterprises like Lenovo opens up a broader opportunity for Elliptic Labs to deliver industry defining innovation that will empower all devices to become smarter, more user-friendly, and environmentally sustainable. AI Virtual Human Presence Sensor, AI Virtual Smart Sensor, and AI Virtual Smart Sensor Platform are trademarks of Elliptic Labs. Lenovo and ThinkPad are trademarks of Lenovo. All other trademarks or service marks are the responsibility of their respective organizations. Elliptic Labs' AI Virtual Human Presence Sensor Elliptic Labs AI Virtual Human Presence Sensor detects when a user is present in front of a PC/laptop system. This allows the device to sleep when a user is absent, conserving battery life and electricity, and safeguarding it from unpermitted access. Human presence detection is becoming a core capability in the PC/laptop industry, but it is currently featured only in high-end devices due to the cost, risk, and design limitations associated with a dedicated hardware presence sensor. Elliptic Labs' software-only AI Virtual Human Presence Sensor delivers robust human-presence detection that allows OEMs to easily and affordably incorporate human presence detection across a wide range of devices. About Elliptic Labs Elliptic Labs is a global enterprise targeting the smartphone, laptop, IoT, and automotive markets. Founded in 2006 as a research spin-off from Norways Oslo University, the companys patented software uses AI, ultrasound and sensor fusion to deliver intuitive 3D gesture, proximity-, presence-, breathing- and heartbeat-detection experiences. Its scalable AI Virtual Smart Sensor Platform creates software-only sensors that are sustainable, human-friendly and already deployed in hundreds of millions of devices around the world. Elliptic Labs is the only software company that has delivered detection capabilities using AI software, ultrasound, and sensor fusion deployed at scale. The company joined the Oslo Brs main listing in March 2022. Elliptic Labs is headquartered in Norway with presence in the USA, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Its technology and IP are developed in Norway and are solely owned by the company. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227533706/en/ PR Contacts: Patrick Tsui [email protected] Investor Relations: Lars Holmy [email protected] Source: Elliptic Labs Growth strategy continues as SUMM! brand products are now available in half of the United States RICHMOND, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fine Choice Foods, a leading producer of Asian-inspired foods throughout North America, today announced its line of fresh SUMM! branded products are now available to hungry customers in the deli sections of grocery stores throughout the United States - including Safeway, Albertsons, Shaws, D&W Fresh Market, Family Fare, Family Fresh Market, Martins Super Markets, and Fresh Thyme - with more on the way. In addition, while SUMM! products have been available at US Club stores for more than 15 years, the SUMM! retail packs are also now accessible via HelloFresh, the world's leading meal kit delivery service. Founded as a small, family-owned store employing three people in Vancouver, BC, Fine Choice Foods is a market-leading producer of high-quality, fresh Asian-inspired foods specializing in spring rolls, gyoza dumplings and the original apple pie roll under the SUMM! brand. Our expansion into the US retail market is a significant milestone as part of our long-term plan for growth, said Jason Longden, CEO of Fine Choice Foods. Were fulfilling the demands of our existing customers while also on track to win over hearts and palates across the United States, redefining a true spring roll experience by offering a light, crispy delicacy that will make egg rolls a thing of the past. Following the rebranding of its SUMM! line of products in 2022, Fine Choice Foods opened a second state-of-the-art facility to support the companys continued growth strategy with existing customers while developing new relationships with national retailers throughout the United States. "We take immense pride in curating high-quality, fresh products - available in the deli section as opposed to the freezer aisle all focused on the rich flavors of Asian cuisine, said Emily Tang, Chief Innovation Officer at Fine Choice Foods. Bringing SUMM! products to the forefront of US retailers is not just a business achievement but a chance to share our passion and culture with all of our neighbors across the border." As the niece of the founding family, Ms. Tang has been an integral part of SUMM!'s remarkable journey, witnessing its transformation from humble beginnings to its current state of extraordinary growth and success. The word SUMM! signifies 'heart' in Cantonese, reflecting family-inspired recipes crafted with love using fresh, high-quality ingredients. About Fine Choice Foods Located in Richmond, BC, Fine Choice Foods is a market-leading producer of high-quality Asian-inspired foods for the North American market. Founded by the Lui family in 1986, Fine Choice Foods specializes in spring rolls, gyoza dumplings, and the original apple pie roll under the SUMM! brand. Starting as a small store on Cambie Street in Vancouver employing three people, the company has grown to a staff of more than 300, serving consumers throughout Canada and the United States from two facilities totaling more than 100,000 sq ft. For more information, please visit www.SUMMFOODS.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228464001/en/ Jeremy Milner BackBay Communications [email protected] (401) 862-9422 Source: Fine Choice Foods Fisker has signed two new dealer partners who will open three locations. Fisker Albany will open in New York state, Fisker Jacksonville will open in Florida, and Fisker Indianapolis will open in Indiana. 12 dealer partners in the US and Europe have now signed with Fisker. Fisker has received interest from over 250 dealers in North America and the rest of the world regarding the companys new Dealer Partnership model. The Dealer Partnership model continues to attract dealers, as they gain access to an American EV-only brand with a unique business approach. LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fisker Inc. (NYSE: FSR) (Fisker), driven by a mission to create the worlds most emotional and sustainable electric vehicles, announced today it has signed two new dealer partners in the US. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228203403/en/ Fisker Inc., driven by a mission to create the worlds most emotional and sustainable electric vehicles, announced today it has signed two new dealer partners in the US. Dealers joining the Dealer Partnership program are Bul Auto Sales, which plans to open Fisker Albany in New York state and Fisker Jacksonville in Florida; and Karma Indy, which intends to open Fisker Indianapolis in Indiana. (Photo: Fisker Inc.) Dealers joining the Dealer Partnership program are Bul Auto Sales, which plans to open Fisker Albany in New York state and Fisker Jacksonville in Florida; and Karma Indy, which intends to open Fisker Indianapolis in Indiana. Its great to see high-quality dealers continuing to come on board, Chairman and CEO Henrik Fisker said. Our entire team is excited when we hear how confident our dealers are in terms of sales, thanks to the competitive nature of the Fisker Ocean and its class leading features. Fisker has now signed 12 dealer partners in the US and Europe. On January 4, 2024, Fisker announced that it would engage in a strategic shift from direct sales to customers in North America to an innovative Dealer Partnership model. The model combines the goal of offering its customers no-haggle pricing on Fisker vehicles (where permitted) and superb service while also providing dealer partners with larger market territories, so they can maintain pricing without concern for local competition. Taken together, these goals represent a win-win-win for customers, dealers, and Fisker. The transition to dealer partners aligns with Fiskers asset light business model, which enables the company to significantly scale for Fisker Ocean deliveries and higher volume production of additional future models. Fisker has received interest from over 250 dealers in North America and the rest of the world since the company announced its strategic shift. Fisker is currently delivering the all-electric Ocean SUV, which starts at $38,999, in the US, Canada, and Europe. In the US, the Ocean has an EPA range of up to 360 mi 1, which is the longest range of any new electric SUV in its class 2. The Fisker Ocean has the lowest published carbon footprint of any electric SUV, uses over 110 lbs. of recycled and bio-based materials, is built at a carbon-neutral facility, and integrates rooftop solar panels, adding up to 1,500 miles/year of range 3. 1 EPA estimated range. Mid-size SUVs. Measurements conducted with standard 20 wheels. Actual results may vary for many reasons, including driving conditions, wheel size, state of battery charge, and how the vehicle is driven and maintained. 2 Mid-size SUVs in comparable price segment. 3 Based on Fisker simulations. Ideal conditions assume solar irradiation of 5.4 kWh/m2/day and steady commuter driving. Actual results vary with conditions such as external environment and vehicle use. About Fisker Inc. California-based Fisker Inc. is revolutionizing the automotive industry by designing and developing individual mobility in alignment with nature. Passionately driven by a vision of a clean future for all, the company is on a mission to create the worlds most sustainable and emotional electric vehicles. To learn more, visit Fiskerinc.com and enjoy exclusive content across Fisker's social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Download the revolutionary new Fisker mobile app from the App Store or Google Play. Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may be identified by words such as feel, believes, expects, estimates, projects, intends, should, is to be, or the negative of such terms, or other comparable terminology and include, among other things, the quote from our chief executive officer, any potential future automotive original equipment manufacturer (or equipment or part manufacturer) transactions and other future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein due to many factors, including, but not limited to: Fisker's limited operating history; Fisker's ability to enter into additional manufacturing and other contracts with Magna or tier-one suppliers in order to execute on its business plan; the risk that OEM and supply partners do not meet agreed-upon timelines or experience capacity constraints; Fisker may experience significant delays in the design, manufacture, regulatory approval, launch and financing of its vehicles; Fisker's ability to execute its business model, including market acceptance of its planned products and services; Fisker's inability to retain key personnel and to hire additional personnel; competition in the electric vehicle market; Fisker's inability to develop a sales distribution or dealership network; and the ability to protect its intellectual property rights; and those factors discussed in Fisker's Annual Report on Form 10-K, under the heading Risk Factors, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), as supplemented by Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and other reports and documents Fisker files from time to time with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and Fisker undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228203403/en/ European Media: [email protected] US Media [email protected] Customer service: [email protected] Fisker Inc. Communications: Matthew DeBord VP, Communications [email protected] Franziska Queling Regional Head of Public Relations, Europe [email protected] Investor Relations: Eric Goldstein Head of Investor Relations [email protected] Source: Fisker Inc. The companys Virtualization and Edge Processing Platform for Medium Voltage (MV) and Low Voltage (LV) Grid Automation solutions address the complexity of modern distribution networks with MV/LV enhanced visibility, control and reliability. ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Gridspertise, a global player dedicated to supporting utilities worldwide in accelerating the digital transformation of electricity grids, is at Distributech International in Orlando, Florida, Feb. 27-29, 2024, showcasing its Virtualization and Edge Processing Platform for MV and LV Grid Automation, a portfolio of solutions designed for the whole network ecosystem: cities, neighborhoods, homes as well as isolated areas. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228654974/en/ Visit Gridspertise at booth #3225 at Distributech International in Orlando, Florida, Feb. 27-29, 2024. (Photo: Business Wire) The accelerated rise in electricity demand, coupled with the integration of new charging loads such as electric vehicles and the expanding presence of Distributed Energy Resources (DER), alongside the effects of extreme weather and ambitious decarbonization targets, are introducing more complexity into the grid. This complexity is characterized by the emergence of bidirectional power flows and fluctuating demand patterns, factors that are straining the grids resilience and reliability, especially on the medium voltage and low voltage networks, where there are fewer tools to monitor and control them in comparison to transmission level high voltage ones. Therefore, extending monitoring and remote control to MV and LV power lines is mandatory to improve the reliability and quality of service to final users, decrease the System Average Interruption Duration (SAIDI) Index as well as reduce total costs. To enhance visibility and control on the edge, the Virtualization and Edge Processing Platform for MV and LV Grid Automation incorporates several use cases related to the MV/LV distribution substation: Gridspertise Quantum Edge device enables grid operators to run key grid functionalities directly on the edge, reducing equipment in substations and enhancing grid resilience and reliability with faster response times and uninterrupted power. Gridspertise also provides a smaller form-factor version of the Quantum Edge device, serving as an interoperable meter data concentrator and Remote Terminal Unit. The solution integrates several merging units to monitor the status of the transformer and LV feeders, as well as other environmental parameters. In North America, this device would be installed on pole-mounted transformers to provide unprecedented visibility into the LV grid. Our presence in North America and the ongoing discussions with numerous local utilities reveal a shared vision for the future U.S. grid: one thats digitalized, leverages edge computing for distributed energy resources, and is implemented sooner rather than later, said Santiago Cascante, Chief Commercial Officer at Gridspertise. While challenges exist, early integration of solutions like the Quantum Edge offers immediate cost benefits through visualization and edge computing capabilities and paves the way for future enhancements. Furthermore, Gridspertise offers a full end-to-end metering platform, including hardware, software, and managed services with a Metering-as-a-Service approach, freeing utilities from managing metering operations and allowing them to focus on their core business. The Quantum Edge device can also be applied in islanded areas, serving as a microgrid controller balancing renewable and traditional energy sources in islands and energy community, providing edge synchrophasor measurements and facilitating flexibility commands between devices and central systems. Today, Gridspertise is also hosting two speaking sessions at Distributech: "Edge Computing & Virtualization" (2:45-3:15PM) exploring next-gen grid management, and "Low Voltage SCADA & Monitoring" (4:15-4:45PM) tackling modern grid challenges through LV-specific solutions. To learn more about Edge Processing Platform for MV and LV Grid Automation, visit Gridspertise at booth number 3225 at Distributech. About Gridspertise Gridspertise offers grid intelligent devices, end-to-end cloud-edge platform solutions and services to accelerate the digital transformation of electricity distribution grids. Gridspertise portfolio is designed as an open ecosystem, easy to integrate with utilities existing infrastructure, combining intelligent and automated grid devices with ready-to-use modular applications, running at central level as well as on the edge. A milestone of 100 million smart meters with Gridspertise technology delivered globally has been recently reached by the Company, meeting the need of several energy markets and regulations. The Company was set up in 2021 as a carve-out of Enel and today is an independent company jointly controlled by the Enel Group and CVC Capital Partners. Gridspertise is headquartered in Italy with subsidiaries in Spain, Brazil, India, United States and it has recently acquired Aidon, a leader in smart metering in the Nordics and funded the joint venture Neugemacht, offering end-to-end metering services to the German market. Current target markets include Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia-Pacific. For further information, visit www.gridspertise.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228654974/en/ INK Communications T +1 (512) 382-8980 [email protected] ink-co.com Source: Gridspertise DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Sonrava Health is pleased to announce Jon Morgan has joined as Chief Revenue Operations Officer effective February 26. Sonrava Health is a national family of health and wellness companies including differentiated dental office brands, dental and vision benefit plans, provider networks, and consumer products and services focused on quality, value, and innovation. Mr. Morgan comes to Sonrava Health with more than twenty years of experience leading teams across multiple industries, including revenue cycle, information technology, and operations. Recently, he was the Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President over Revenue Cycle for 42 North, a Dental Services Organization based in New England, supporting more than two dozen practice brands in over 100 locations. I am pleased to welcome Jon to the Sonrava Health team, said Michael Joseph, Chief Executive Officer of Sonrava Health. I look forward to him taking the department to a new level. Im excited to become part of the Sonrava Health team and look forward to driving and enhancing the organization's efficiencies and supporting its important health mission, said Mr. Morgan. Mr. Morgan earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College and a Master of Business Administration from Western Governors University. He is a Six Sigma Black Belt and certified as a Project Management Professional through the Project Management Institute. ABOUT SONRAVA HEALTH Sonrava Health, through its affiliates, is one of the nations largest dental support organizations and a leader in accessible, affordable, high-quality oral healthcare, supporting care for approximately 4 million patient visits annually in nearly 540 affiliated offices in 21 states coast to coast from California to Florida and border to border from Michigan to Texas. In addition to general dentistry, Sonrava Health affiliate practices offer pediatric dentistry, orthodontics (including clear aligners), oral surgery, periodontics, endodontics, dental implants, and overdentures, creating a convenient full-service Dental Home. Sonrava Health is also the family home of LooksBrite Eye Centers, EyeMax Vision Plan, and MIB Benefit Plans. To learn more, visit Sonrava.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228372791/en/ Ron Trujillo 916-781-0659 (office) 559-289-8797 (cell) [email protected] Source: Sonrava Health SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR), a leader in secure, AI-Native networks, today announced the Company will present at the following upcoming investor event: Sujai Hajela, Executive Vice President, AI-Driven Enterprise at Juniper Networks, will host a Juniper Mist AI for Data Center Tech Talk, Wednesday, March 13, 2024 at 11:00 12:00 pm PT. This event will be available live via webcast on the Juniper Networks website: http://investor.juniper.net/. About Juniper Networks Juniper Networks believes that connectivity is not the same as experiencing a great connection. Juniper's AI-Native Networking Platform is built from the ground up to leverage AI to deliver the best and most secure user experiences from the edge to the data center and cloud. Additional information can be found at Juniper Networks (www.juniper.net) or connect with Juniper on X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and Facebook. Investors and others should note that Juniper Networks announces material financial and operational information to its investors using its Investor Relations website, press releases, SEC filings and public conference calls and webcasts. Juniper Networks also intends to use the X (formerly Twitter) account @JuniperNetworks and the Juniper Networks blogs as a means of disclosing information about Juniper Networks and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. The social media channels that Juniper Networks intends to use as a means of disclosing information described above may be updated from time to time as listed on Juniper Networks Investor Relations website. Juniper Networks, the Juniper Networks logo, Juniper, Junos, and other trademarks listed here are registered trademarks of Juniper Networks, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228887925/en/ Investor Relations: Jess Lubert Juniper Networks (408) 936-3734 [email protected] Media Relations: Penny Still Juniper Networks +441372385692 [email protected] Source: Juniper Networks New Partner Brings Extensive Experience in the London and European Markets to the Elite Transatlantic Legal Search Firm LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Macrae, a premier transatlantic legal search firm that places partners and partner groups at the worlds leading law firms, is pleased to welcome Siobhan Lewington to the firm as a Partner in London. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240226604220/en/ Siobhan Lewington, Partner at Transatlantic Legal Recruiting Firm Macrae in London (Photo: Business Wire) Over the course of her 20-plus years as a recruiter, Lewington has helped hundreds of high-performing lawyers advance their careers by making lateral moves to elite US and international law firms in London and Europe. She has been responsible for opening numerous offices for law firms and for making many of the market-leading partner and team moves in these regions, and is routinely called upon to advise on strategic projects, including mergers. I am thrilled that Siobhan has come to Macrae and that we can once again work together, said Andy Russell, who worked with Lewington at her previous firm, Fox Rodney. In addition to being a fantastic colleague, Siobhan has a proven track record of success and is highly respected by both law firm leaders and candidates alike. She is a significant addition to our growing London office as well as to Macraes collective intelligence, which will benefit our clients not only in the UK and Europe but also firmwide. Macraes London office, established in 2018, is now home to six recruiters who handle partner search and representation in the UK and Europe. The team works across all practice areas, with a bias towards high-margin practices favoured by AmLaw 50 and UK 20 firms as well as select high-end boutiques. In addition to Lewington and Russell, London-based recruiters include Partner Melinda Wallman and Managing Directors Adil Lalani, Suzy OKeefe and Eleonora Waktare. Prior to joining Macrae, Lewington was a Managing Director at Fox Rodney and, earlier in her career, established the Legal Desk at Sheffield Haworth. She trained and qualified at Arthur Cox in Dublin before practising as a capital markets lawyer at Allen & Overy in London. She holds a law degree from University College Dublin and an LLM from the London School of Economics. Macrae now employs 20 recruiters across London, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Palo Alto, and a total team of 42. The firms remarkable growth in recent years has been driven by a unique business model that calls for the systematic sharing of intelligence across markets, exceptional support from a robust knowledge management taskforce, and an inclusive culture marked by collaboration rather than competition. In 2023, Lawdragon recognized a record 10 Macrae recruiters in its guide to the Global 100 Leaders in Legal Strategy & Consulting. About Macrae Macrae is a transatlantic legal search firm with offices in London, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Palo Alto. Macrae works with the most successful and innovative law firms in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe to bring on top lateral partners and partner groups and open new offices. The firms expertise also includes representing high-performing partners seeking to make strategic moves and senior government attorneys transitioning to private practice. The firms commitment to furthering inclusion and diversity in the legal industry is reflected in the candidates it represents as well as within the firm. Macrae is a majority women-owned business, and 75% of team members identify as belonging to demographic groups that are underrepresented within the legal industry. To learn more about Macrae, please visit Macrae.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240226604220/en/ Media Contact: Lauren Gard Public Relations Consultant [email protected] (510) 246-1366 Source: Macrae DALLAS & FORT WORTH, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Mouser Electronics, Inc., the authorized global distributor with the newest electronic components and industrial automation products, is proud to mark the company's 60th year in business. Mouser began with a couple of employees working out of a garage in El Cajon, California, and today ranks as a top 10 global distributor and multi-billion-dollar corporation with 4,000 employees and 28 locations worldwide. Much has changed in the electronics industry since 1964, but Mouser has remained dedicated to providing the newest technology to customers as quickly as possible. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227624774/en/ Mouser, which was started in 1964 by a high school physics teacher to answer his students' needs for electronic components, is now a top 10 global distributor and multi-billion-dollar corporation with 28 locations worldwide. (Photo: Business Wire) Mouser Electronics President and CEO Glenn Smith, who joined the company in 1973, attributes Mouser's success to the hard work of the Mouser team and its dedication to providing best-in-class service. "I congratulate all Mouser employees, past and present. We would not be here today without the exceptional teamwork of our people. They are the backbone of our longevity. Each of us continues to play an important role in making our company thrive," said Smith. "Together, we have accomplished great things, and we are far from finished." "I always tell employees that 'satisfied customers' made their paychecks possible," Smith added. "Our customers and manufacturer partners are a big part of Mouser's success story. We are extremely grateful for their patronage and partnership through the decades." A lot has changed since college junior Glenn Smith took a part-time job in the warehouse of what was little more than an electronics startup near San Diego back in the early 1970s. He was one of just 12 employees. Over the past five decades, Smith helped build the small company into the top-10 component distribution giant that Mouser is today, serving over 650,000 customers and distributing the newest semiconductors and electronic components from over 1,200 manufacturer partners. Mouser has a rich history with many milestones. In 1973, when college junior Glenn Smith took a part-time job in the warehouse, he was one of just 12 employees. In 1986, the company moved its operation from California to Texas, placing Mouser near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to expand the company's distribution capabilities. In 2000, Fort Worth-based TTI, Inc. acquired Mouser, and in 2004, Smith was promoted to President and CEO. In 2007, Mouser and TTI were acquired by the Warren Buffett-owned Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. Along with its 28 locations, Mouser's central hub is the company's global headquarters and distribution center on its 100-acre campus in Mansfield, Texas. Throughout the decades, Mouser has been recognized for innovation, leadership, and its industry, community and marketing efforts, winning a multitude of awards. In 2012, Mouser received an Employer of Excellence Award for Tarrant County for significant economic and community impact on North Texas. In 2019, Smith was named Top Public Company CEO by the Fort Worth Business Press. Mouser also won a 2014 Large Business of the Year Award and a 2021 Best Places to Work Award. For 2022, the company received more than 30 awards for distribution excellence from its manufacturer partners. For more information on the 60th Anniversary, please visit https://www.mouser.com/60years/. For more Mouser news, visit https://www.mouser.com/newsroom/. As a global authorized distributor, Mouser offers the widest selection of the newest semiconductors, electronic components and industrial automation products. Mouser's customers can expect 100% certified, genuine products that are fully traceable from each of its manufacturer partners. To help speed customers' designs, Mouser's website hosts an extensive library of technical resources, including a Technical Resource Center, along with product data sheets, supplier-specific reference designs, application notes, technical design information, engineering tools and other helpful information. Engineers can stay abreast of today's exciting product, technology and application news through Mouser's complimentary e-newsletters. Mouser's email news and reference subscriptions are customizable to the unique and changing project needs of customers and subscribers. No other distributor gives engineers this level of customization and control over the information they receive. Learn about emerging technologies, product trends and more by signing up today at https://sub.info.mouser.com/subscriber/. About Mouser Electronics Mouser Electronics, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is an authorized semiconductor and electronic component distributor focused on New Product Introductions from its leading manufacturer partners. Serving the global electronic design engineer and buyer community, the global distributor's website, mouser.com, is available in multiple languages and currencies and features more than 6.8 million products from over 1,200 manufacturer brands. Mouser offers 28 support locations worldwide to provide best-in-class customer service in local language, currency and time zone. The distributor ships to over 650,000 customers in 223 countries/territories from its 1 million-square-foot, state-of-the-art distribution facilities in the Dallas, Texas, metro area. For more information, visit https://www.mouser.com/. Trademarks Mouser and Mouser Electronics are registered trademarks of Mouser Electronics, Inc. All other products, logos, and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227624774/en/ For further information, contact: Kevin Hess, Mouser Electronics Senior Vice President of Marketing +1 (817) 804-3833 [email protected] For press inquiries, contact: Kelly DeGarmo, Mouser Electronics Manager, Corporate Communications and Media Relations +1 (817) 804-7764 [email protected] Source: Mouser Electronics LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Following its recent $2.0 million pre-seed funding, Mundial Media, the leading contextual marketing platform focused on multicultural audiences, is pleased to announce the appointments of Qiana Patterson and Ryan Klinefelter to its Advisory Board. These appointments are a key aspect of Mundial Media's expansion strategy, leveraging the company's recent capital infusion to scale its AI-enabled technology, Cadmus AI, and enhance its mission of creating authentic connections between brands and multicultural audiences. Mundial Media focuses on delivering culturally nuanced, brand-safe advertising solutions. The company's proprietary contextual technology, Cadmus AI, offers a privacy-first alternative to traditional cookie-based targeting, addressing the industry's shift towards more secure and authentic engagement methods. "Our commitment to solving market fragmentation and enhancing brand safety has been significantly bolstered by our recent funding. Bringing Qiana and Ryan onto our team further strengthens our capability to deliver on this promise," said Tony Gonzalez, Co-Founder and CEO of Mundial Media. Qiana Patterson currently serves as the Managing Partner at NAYAH, a venture studio committed to developing technology-driven solutions for global challenges. As Managing Partner, Patterson guides NAYAH's strategic direction and ensures operational excellence across its portfolio while also exploring new investment opportunities. Additionally, Patterson is an active investor and advisor to various startups and organizations, aiming to revolutionize the venture capital ecosystem, create social impact, and support underrepresented founders and investors. Her commitment to social impact and empowering underrepresented groups through entrepreneurship aligns with Mundial Medias vision of equity in the marketplace. Ryan Klinefelter has over 15 years of experience in corporate development, partnerships, and strategic finance, advising technology companies on their strategic roadmaps. As Managing Director of Hidden River LLC, Klinefelter specializes in corporate finance and corporate development, having advised on numerous M&A transactions in various technology sectors. The addition of Patterson and Klinefelter to Mundial Media's advisory board coincides with the company's focus on expanding its reach and capabilities in the multicultural marketing domain. "As we scale our operations and technology, Qiana and Ryan's insights will be invaluable in navigating the complexities of the multicultural advertising landscape and seizing new growth opportunities," added Gonzalez. Mundial Media's vision is driven by a diverse and experienced team who share a commitment to its mission. The recent funding and strategic board appointments underscore Mundial Media's readiness to redefine multicultural marketing with innovative, privacy-conscious solutions. To learn more about Mundial Media and its approach to multicultural marketing, visit mundialmedia.com. About Mundial Media Mundial Media is the leading minority-owned contextual marketing platform that enables brands to connect authentically with multicultural audiences. Mundial Media was born out of the need for an end-to-end marketing platform that marries best-in-class multicultural learnings with a data-driven platform to create emotional connections. Mundial Medias proprietary contextual engine, Cadmus AI, provides marketers with scale and reach that is culturally nuanced and differentiated. Given the markets turn to privacy-first, Mundial Media targets audiences through first-party contextual technology rather than third-party cookies. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228006572/en/ [email protected] 213.394.0698 Source: Mundial Media WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Naveris, Inc., the leader in precision oncology diagnostics for viral-induced cancers, today announced new data to be presented at The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium (MHNCS) in Phoenix, AZ from February 29 March 2, 2024. NavDx is the first and only clinically validated circulating Tumor Tissue Modified Viral (TTMV)-HPV DNA blood test that aids in the detection of HPV-driven cancer. The test provides a non-invasive and precise method for identifying HPV-driven cancers before there is clinical or radiographical evidence of disease. Data supporting the clinical validity and utility of NavDx have been published in nearly 20 peer-reviewed publications. "We are thankful for the opportunity provided by ASTRO to share the latest findings, which emphasize the pivotal role of NavDx in influencing clinical management," commented Barry M. Berger, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Naveris. "The data being showcased highlight the critical role circulating tumor HPV DNA assessment can play in shaping patient care strategies. We are enthusiastic about the progress made through our extensive collaborations with a diverse array of partners in the oncology community, he concluded. These presentations showcase the utility of NavDx in the management of HPV-driven head and neck cancer at every stage of disease, from treatment response and guidance to surveillance and detection of recurrence: 127: Implications of rapid molecular responses to induction chemotherapy (IC) in Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Presenting Author: Misiukiewicz, K. Session, Date/Time: Poster Session I | February 29, 2024 | 3:00 PM 3:30 PM MT 112: Comparison of TTMV-HPV DNA to Gold Standard PET for Evaluation of Treatment Response in HPV-Associated Oropharyngeal Cancer after Definitive Treatment Presenting Author: Song, R. Session, Date/Time: Poster Session I | February 29, 2024 | 3:00 PM 3:30 PM MT 152: Tumor Tissue Modified Viral HPV DNA Monitoring in Patients with Recurrent, Metastatic HPV-driven Oropharyngeal Cancer Presenting Author: Hanna, G. J. Session, Date/Time: Poster Session II | February 29, 2024 | 4:45 PM 5:45 PM MT 177: Prospective Study of Plasma Biomarker-Guided Surveillance of HPV-positive Oropharynx Cancer Using TTMV-HPV DNA: The SPHERE Study Presenting Author: Rettig, E. M. Session, Date/Time: Poster Session II | February 29, 2024 | 4:45 PM 5:45 PM MT 132: Detectable Circulating Tumor Tissue Modified Viral (TTMV)-HPV DNA in Non-Oropharyngeal Head and Neck Cancers Presenting Author: Duffy, E. W. Session, Date/Time: Poster Session I | February 29, 2024 | 3:00 PM 3:30 PM MT Naveris will also be hosting an Industry Expert Theater at the meeting, focusing on the role of NavDx in optimizing post-treatment surveillance and monitoring for molecular residual disease: Action to Insights: A Case-Based Discussion of the Role of NavDx in Post-treatment Surveillance of HPV-Driven OPSCC Moderator: Marshall Posner, MD Presenters: Meghan T. Turner, MD, and Adam Raben, MD Session, Date/Time: Thursday, February 29, 2024 | 5:30pm MT Naveris and NavDx will be on exhibit at ASTRO MHNCS 2024 at Booth #4. About Naveris Naveris is a privately held, commercial stage, precision oncology diagnostics company with facilities in Massachusetts and North Carolina. Since its founding in 2017, Naveris has been committed to improving outcomes for the millions of people at risk of developing viral-induced cancers with novel molecular diagnostics that enable earlier cancer detection. The company operates high-complexity testing clinical laboratories that are accredited by the College of American Pathologists and the New York State Department of Health Wadsworth Center, and are certified under CLIA. For more information on Naveris and the clinical impact of NavDx, please visit www.naveris.com and www.NavDx.com. NavDx has not been cleared or approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228651560/en/ Megan Kernan ICR Westwicke Healthcare PR Tel: 646.677.1870 [email protected] Source: Naveris, Inc. BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- China has made notable achievements in improving its transport infrastructure network and transport services for the past year, the Ministry of Transport said on Wednesday. Fixed-asset investment in the country's transport system totaled 3.9 trillion yuan (about 548.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2023, Li Xiaopeng, minister of transport, told a press conference. A total of 2,776 kilometers of high-speed railways were opened, and 7,000 kilometers of expressways were built or expanded last year, Li said. The country added or improved 1,000 kilometers of shipping lanes, and the number of airports for transportation stood at 259. Postal services were available to all administrative villages. Meanwhile, China's transport services continued to improve last year with optimized transport structure, according to Li. The country's commercial freight volume went up 8.1 percent year on year to 54.75 billion tonnes last year, an increase of 16.9 percent from 2019. Passenger transport posted strong growth. The country's inter-regional passenger traffic rose 30.9 percent year on year to 61.25 billion trips in 2023, up 0.8 percent from 2019. Li said that China had been promoting the high-quality development of its transport sector, deepening the country's green and low-carbon transformation. China has also been strengthening its cooperation with foreign countries. Steady progress has been made in the high-quality development of the Belt and Road transport connectivity, he said. Last year, China's express delivery volume was the highest in the world for the 10th year in a row, Zhao Chongjiu, head of the State Post Bureau, said in the press conference. Express courier firms nationwide handled 132 billion parcels in 2023, up 19.4 percent compared to the previous year. The sector raked in total revenue of 1.2 trillion yuan during the period, up 14.3 percent year on year, said Zhao. Noting that China has made remarkable progress in the transport sector over the past five years, Li said the total length of the country's comprehensive transport network has exceeded 6 million kilometers. The operating mileage of the railway network reached 159,000 kilometers, of which high-speed railways accounted for 45,000 kilometers. The country had a total of 5.44 million kilometers of highways by the end of 2023, of which expressways represented 184,000 kilometers. There were 2,883 10,000-tonne-class or above berths throughout the country by the end of last year. Fixed-asset investment in China's transport system reached over 18 trillion yuan from 2019 to 2023, according to Li. Looking forward, Li said the ministry will accelerate China's transformation into a transport powerhouse, increase effective investment, lower the cost of logistics and promote global transport cooperation. HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Oasis Management Company Ltd. is the manager to private funds (together with the manager, collectively Oasis) that own shares of Tsuruha Holdings Inc. (Tsuruha or the Company). As detailed below, today Oasis has entered into an agreement with AEON Co., Ltd. (Aeon) for the sale (the Sale) of the approximately 13.6% stake in Tsuruha shares that Oasis owns. Oasis has actively engaged with Tsuruha since 2022 to enhance Tsuruhas corporate value in accordance with the Japan Stewardship Code. Over this period, Oasis has advanced multiple proposals to improve Tsuruha through private meetings, letters, public campaigns, and shareholder proposals. These proposals, based on detailed analysis, included recommendations to consolidate with a leading drugstore, enhance governance and profitability, improve customer experience and more. Over the course of our engagement, Tsuruha has implemented some of these suggestions, which has resulted in the enhancement of Tsuruhas corporate and shareholder value; however, Tsuruha has failed to demonstrate any progress on consolidation, which Oasis believes to be the Companys most important management issue. Oasis believes industry consolidation can increase the selection, service and price that drugstores provide to customers and benefits all stakeholders. Under these circumstances, Oasis has come to an agreement with Aeon on the Sale of the Tsuruha shares that Oasis owns. Aeon owns Welcia Holdings Co., Ltd., Japans largest drugstore chain, and has a track record of leading drugstore consolidation in Japan. Oasis believes that the Sale of the Tsuruha shares it owns to Aeon will not only contribute to the enhancement of Tsuruhas corporate and shareholder value but also beneficial for the wider society. About Oasis Oasis Management Company Ltd. manages private investment funds focused on opportunities in a wide array of asset classes across countries and sectors. Oasis was founded in 2002 by Seth H. Fischer, who leads the firm as its Chief Investment Officer. More information about Oasis is available at https://oasiscm.com. Oasis has adopted the Japan FSAs Principles for Responsible Institutional Investors (a/k/a Japan Stewardship Code) and in line with those principles, Oasis monitors and engages with our investee companies. Disclaimer This press release is not intended to solicit or seek shareholders agreements to jointly exercise voting rights with Oasis. Shareholders that have an agreement to jointly exercise their voting rights are regarded as Joint Holders under the Japanese large shareholding disclosure rules and they must file notification of their aggregate share ownership with the relevant Japanese authority for public disclosure under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. Oasis does not intend to be subjected to such notification requirement. The press release exclusively represents the opinions, interpretations, and estimates of Oasis. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228527844/en/ Media Taylor Hall Email: [email protected] Japan Media Ashton Consulting Limited Tadashi Shiokai and Yuzo Iwaya Phone: +81 03-5425-7220 Source: Oasis Management Company Ltd. POTOMAC, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- IGC Pharma, Inc. ("IGC Pharma," "IGC," or the "Company") (NYSE American: IGC) today announced the results of preclinical studies investigating its drug candidate TGR-63 as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. The data demonstrated enhanced memory function in an Alzheimer's mouse model, including improved memory acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval. TGR-63 is a therapeutic candidate designed to disrupt the structure of the amyloid- (A) peptide, mitigating symptoms such as memory loss and disrupted learning ability, signs of cognitive impairment. TGR-63 targets a critical neuropathological hallmark of Alzheimer's Disease by addressing the misfolding and aggregation of A peptides, specifically the toxic A42 aggregation species associated with neuronal toxicity and cognitive decline. The cognitive impact of TGR-63 was assessed using two renowned behavioral tests, the Novel Object Recognition ("NOR") Test and the Morris Water Maze ("MWM"), conducted on APP/PS1 genetically modified Alzheimer's mice. Ram Mukunda, CEO, commented, "These results underscore the efficacy of TGR-63 in enhancing spatial memory function in an Alzheimer's disease model, offering promising implications for potential therapeutic interventions in Alzheimer's and related neurodegenerative conditions. The improvements in memory acquisition, consolidation, spatial memory formation, and retrieval highlight its potential in addressing cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's Disease. We are optimistic about TGR-63's potential and anticipate advancing it towards a Phase 1 trial, enriching our clinical portfolio." The NOR Test, a cornerstone of preclinical research, evaluates recognition memory, a component of declarative memory responsible for recognizing previously encountered stimuli. Widely applicable across neuropharmacology and neurobiology, this test provides crucial insights into memory function and potential interventions for memory-related disorders such as Alzheimer's. During the NOR Test, Alzheimer's mice displayed a significantly diminished Discrimination Index ("DI") compared to normal mice, indicating impaired long-term memory. TGR-63-treated Alzheimer's mice showed a 51% improvement in DI, signifying promising therapeutic efficacy. After 48 hours, while untreated Alzheimer's mice experienced a 100% decline in memory, those treated with TGR-63 demonstrated an 86% increase in DI, suggesting robust long-term potentiation ("LTP") formation and successful memory retrieval. The Morris Water Maze ("MWM") is a pivotal tool in cognitive research, offering deep insights into spatial learning and memory processes. In this test, mice are trained to find a hidden platform in a pool over four days. Particularly crucial in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, the MWM allows researchers to explore spatial navigation and memory formation mechanisms. Over four days of training, TGR-63-treated mice exhibited a statistically significant reduction in the time required to locate the hidden platform, reflecting improved spatial memory acquisition. Additionally, when the platform was removed, the untreated AD mice spent 87% of their time away from the target area, while TGR-63-treated mice spent only 66% of their time away. TGR-63-treated mice also spent more time in the target area, showing improved spatial memory retrieval. IGC Pharma is currently underway with a Phase 2b trial in the United States and Canada evaluating IGC-AD1 for agitation in Alzheimer's. The trial encompasses 146 patients, with half assigned to the treated group receiving IGC-AD1, while the other half, the control group, receiving a placebo. About IGC Pharma Inc. (dba IGC): IGC Pharma is pursuing innovative solutions to fight Alzheimer's disease and related challenges. IGC Pharma's portfolio comprises five assets, all with a singular mission - to transform the landscape of Alzheimer's treatment. IGC-AD1 and LMP target neuroinflammation, A plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. IGC-AD1 is currently in a Phase 2b clinical trial for agitation in dementia due to Alzheimer's (clinicaltrials.gov, NCT05543681). TGR-63 targets A plaque to disrupt the progression of Alzheimer's disease. IGC-M3 targets the inhibition of A plaque aggregation with the potential to create a profound impact on early-stage Alzheimer's. IGC-1C targets tau and neurofibrillary tangles in a forward-thinking approach to Alzheimer's therapy. In parallel, IGC Pharma is at the forefront of Generative AI development, with projects including clinical trials, early detection of Alzheimer's, and drug interactions with cannabinoids. Forward-Looking Statements: This press release contains forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based largely on IGC Pharma's expectations and are subject to several risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond IGC Pharma's control. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements as a result of, among other factors, the Company's failure or inability to commercialize one or more of the Company's products or technologies, including the products or formulations described in this release, or failure to obtain regulatory approval for the products or formulations, where required, or government regulations affecting AI or the AI algorithms not working as intended or producing accurate predictions; general economic conditions that are less favorable than expected; the FDA's general position regarding cannabis- and hemp-based products; and other factors, many of which are discussed in IGC Pharma's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") filings. IGC Pharma incorporates by reference the human trial disclosures and Risk Factors identified in its Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on July 7, 2023, and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on February 14, 2024, as if fully incorporated and restated herein. Considering these risks and uncertainties, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking information contained in this release will occur. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228605279/en/ Investors IMS Investor Relations Rosalyn Christian [email protected] (203) 972-9200 Media JVPRNY Janet Vasquez [email protected] (212) 645-5498 Source: IGC Pharma, Inc. NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Raw Story, Americas largest independent progressive news site, today filed suit against OpenAI for using thousands of Raw Storys news articles to train ChatGPT in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Raw Storys copyright-protected journalism is the result of significant efforts of human journalists who report the news, said Raw Story Publisher Roxanne Cooper. Rather than license that work, OpenAI taught ChatGPT to ignore journalists copyrights and hide its use of copyright-protected material. Raw Story is a trusted source of breaking political news and investigative journalism, whose mission is to surface underreported news and expose political hypocrisy. Begun as a small, one-man political blog, Raw Story grew to become the largest independent progressive news website in America. Today, more than 1,000,000 daily readers consume Raw Story journalism. It is time that news organizations fight back against Big Techs continued attempts to monetize other peoples work, said Raw Story CEO and founder John Byrne. For 20 years, Raw Story has spent millions of dollars in efforts to help Americans make important decisions about their leaders and their lives. Big Tech has decimated journalism. Its time that publishers take a stand. Raw Storys lawsuit, filed alongside suits by The Intercept and AlterNet, follows a complaint filed by The New York Times alleging massive copyright infringement. The suit is case 24-cv-01514, Raw Story Media, Inc. et al v. OpenAI, Inc. et al. For two decades Raw Story has focused on political hypocrisy, white nationalists and domestic extremists. It received acclaim for its coverage of the Proud Boys in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack. Raw Storys expose on a neo-Nazi youth network was featured in last weeks Washington Post. In 2016, Raw Storys Arun Gupta was on the scene when Oregon State Patrol shot and killed a militant who occupied an Oregon state park. Raw Storys recent investigations have pursued neo-Nazis and the Proud Boys, who went largely ignored by the mainstream media until the Capitol riot. Editor & Publisher has published several articles focused on Raw Storys reporting. In 2022, E&P celebrated Raw Story reporter Jordan Greens courageous reporting in the feature article, At the Front Lines, on the Homefront Domestic extremism deserves astute, relentless coverage, but there are few journalists on the beat. According to E&P, Raw Story predicted exactly what would happen that fateful day of January 6, 2021, the morning of the U.S. Capitol riot. Raw Story is also known for its breaking news summaries, which are valuable for AI models because they help train systems to summarize reports. Over the last 20 years, Raw Story has produced more than 200,000 articles, thousands of which were included in data sets used by OpenAI. Raw Story reporters and editors are part of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, which also represents the editorial staff of The Washington Post. The sites breaking news model, begun in 2004, seeded the formation of other digital publishers. In recent years, Raw Story innovated to support hybrid free and paid investigative journalism, providing a blueprint for expanding critical investigative news reporting. It was named the best news/political blog in America by Editor & Publisher in both 2022 and 2023. The news industry has been subject to the whims of tech billionaires for two decades, added Raw Story founder John Byrne. We will not stand idly by as yet another wunderkind skims billions of dollars of profit from important human work. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228490317/en/ John Byrne, CEO [email protected] Source: Raw Story The DEFINITIVE project (diagnostic HER2DX-guided treatment for patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer), led by FRCB-IDIBAPS, will be conducted across 44 hospitals in a total of 7 European and associated countries to demonstrate that use of HER2DX improves quality of life in patients with early-stage HER2+ breast cancer while also maintaining drug efficacy. Its goal is to demonstrate the clinical utility of minimal invasive diagnostic HER2DX by improving quality of life and reducing toxicities and direct and indirect costs, as well as maintaining the efficacy endpoints and survival outcomes compared to patients treated without the test. The evidence generated should form the basis for acceptability and implementation of HER2DX by healthcare systems at regional, national, and European levels. The DEFINITIVE project will receive 8 million euros from Horizon Europe under the HORIZON-MISS-2023-CANCER round of funding, as part of the European Commissions key funding program for research and innovation. By bringing specific solutions to some of our greatest challenges, EU Mission Cancer aims to improve, by 2030, the lives of over 3 million individuals affected by cancer, along with their families, through prevention and cure, enabling them to live longer and better. BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- REVEAL GENOMICS, S.L., a pioneering biotechnology start-up based in Barcelona that is poised to transform precision oncology with its biomarker innovations, has announced the start of the DEFINITIVE study, led by FRCB-IDIBAPS, representing the first prospective trial for HER2DX. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228373608/en/ (Graphic: European Union) This landmark study will be pivotal in bolstering the clinical validations already acquired for HER2DX. The study seeks to secure the prospective validation for endorsement by clinical guidelines and ensure recognition and reimbursement across Europe. As a collaborating partner in this study, REVEAL GENOMICS is committed to generating robust evidence designed to influence and evolve standard clinical practices. Dr. Tomas Pascual, medical oncologist, researcher at Hospital Clinic/FRCB-IDIBAPS, SOLTI executive board member, and Principal Investigator in the DEFINITIVE clinical trial, expressed his optimism about the trials potential impact, This trial represents a significant opportunity to enhance patients quality of life without compromising the efficacy of the treatment. It employs a non-invasive diagnostic tool, HER2DX, to achieve this goal. We are immensely grateful to all our partners and the multidisciplinary team participating in this trial. Their collaboration has been instrumental in developing this project and will be crucial to its successful delivery. Dr. Patricia Villagrasa, CEO and co-founder of REVEAL GENOMICS, stresses that at REVEAL GENOMICS, we believe in pushing the boundaries of precision medicine. The start of the DEFINITIVE study for HER2DX is a crucial step in our journey to reshape how oncology treatments are approached and administered globally. HER2DX: seeking to change the paradigm in HER2+ breast cancer Recent progress in treating HER2-positive breast cancer has significantly shifted the emphasis from post-surgery therapies to treatments administered prior to surgery. This shift offers multiple benefits, which include reducing tumor stages for less invasive surgeries, evaluating tumor response to systemic treatments, and tailoring adjuvant treatments based on the pathological responses observed during surgery. Moreover, coupled with significant progress in early-stage HER2+ breast cancer treatment through chemotherapy with multiple drugs and targeted therapies, it also means a more optimistic outlook for patients. However, unmet needs and unanswered questions persist. Firstly, some patients still face recurrence, despite current treatments. Secondly, most patients could be cured using less aggressive treatments. Moreover, the acute and long-term side effects from anti-HER2 agents and chemotherapy underscore the need for tools that offer deeper insights into tumor behavior, treatment responses, and risk of recurrence. The DEFINITIVE trial seeks to assess the clinical efficacy of HER2DX by comparing the outcomes of patients who undergo the genomic test with those who do not. This study will crucially ascertain the real-world applicability of HER2DX in clinical settings. HER2DX is a genomic test for personalized HER2+ breast cancer treatments, able to predict survival outcomes and the likelihood that patients will respond to treatment. A thorough evaluation of the tests implementation strategies, its cost-saving benefits, and its introduction in various European contexts is integral to the DEFINITIVE studys role in broadening access to HER2DX by all patients. The DEFINITIVE study: making results accessible The kickoff meeting for the DEFINITIVE project was held at FRCB-IDIBAPS headquarters on January 11 and 12. More than 30 people from all participating entities from 9 different countries met to lay the foundations of the project and initiate each of the actions proposed in a coordinated manner. The start of the DEFINITIVE trial is fundamental for the prospective validation of HER2DX clinical utility. Moreover, it addresses crucial areas, including an extensive health technological assessment and patients perspectives, incorporating their views during all the phases of the project, says Dr. Olga Martinez Saez, medical oncologist and researcher at Hospital Clinic/FRCB-IDIBAPS, and Co-Principal Investigator in the DEFINITIVE clinical trial. The DEFINITIVE study is a 5-year pragmatic, randomized clinical trial that seeks to demonstrate that HER2DX can improve quality of life and reduce not only toxicities but also direct and indirect costs, while maintaining efficacy endpoints and survival outcomes. The trial will incorporate the test into clinical practice for patients with HER2+ early-stage breast cancer, thereby allowing personalized therapeutic decisions. The study brings together a group of international experts in breast cancer from leading hospitals, as well as experts in medical statistics, comprehensive cancer networks, and clinical trials; regulatory experts; Health Technology Assessment (HTA) experts; innovative Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) related to technology; policymakers; patient associations; living labs; and medical societies. The DEFINITIVE study will be a collaborative effort involving 18 esteemed entities from across the healthcare and research spectrum. This includes leading hospitals, research groups, universities, and cancer care organizations. Participants include the following: Fundacio de Recerca Clinic Barcelona-Institut dInvestigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer (SPAIN) Hospital Clinic de Barcelona (SPAIN) SOLTI Breast Cancer Research Group (SPAIN) UNICANCER (FRANCE) Westdeutsche Studiengruppe GmbH (GERMANY) Austrian Breast & Colorectal Cancer Study Group (AUSTRIA) Universita degli Studi di Padova (ITALY) Istituto Oncologico Veneto IRCCS (ITALY) Istituto Europeo di Oncologia (ITALY) University College Cork - National University of Ireland (IRELAND) The Sheba Fund for Health Services and Research (ISRAEL) ERASMUS University Rotterdam (NETHERLANDS) Center for Medical Data Science, Medical University of Vienna (AUSTRIA) Institut Catala dOncologia (SPAIN) Europa Donna - European Breast Cancer Coalition (ITALY) Societe Internationale dOncologie Geriatrique (SWITZERLAND) Sharing Progress in Cancer Care (SPCC) (SWITZERLAND) Reveal Genomics S.L. (SPAIN) Each of these organizations contributes their unique expertise and resources, thereby making this a truly comprehensive and multidisciplinary effort in advancing cancer research. The DEFINITIVE study will include patients with newly diagnosed stage II-IIIA HER2+ breast cancer to be treated based on the HER2DX test results or without them (i.e. following local clinical guidelines). The inclusion and exclusion criteria will be broad in order to ensure that the trials results can be applied to the wider population receiving treatment in real-world settings, thereby allowing the participation of a diverse range of patients, including the elderly and fragile. The trial will be conducted across 44 sites in a total of 7 European and associated countries, analyzing the data of around 300 patients. In addition to the clinical and logistical aspects of the study, we will take a comprehensive approach in order to ensure broad access to the test within society. This approach encompasses various initiatives: Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Strategies: to evaluate the tests effectiveness and value in a healthcare setting. Patient-Oriented Events: to inform and engage patients directly, thereby enhancing their understanding and acceptance of the test. Continuing Education for Healthcare Professionals: to keep medical practitioners abreast of the latest developments and applications of the test. Communication and Dissemination Efforts: targeting the general public, these actions are designed to raise awareness and knowledge about the test and its potential benefits. About HER2DX HER2DX is the worlds first diagnostic test formulated specifically for HER2+ breast cancer. Marketed by REVEAL GENOMICS since January 2022, the HER2DX is a standardized 27-gene expression test for patients with early-stage HER2+ breast cancer. HER2DX is a prognostic and predictive assay based on clinical and genomic data. The test integrates clinical information (i.e., tumor size and nodal status) with biological information tracking immune response, luminal differentiation, tumor cell proliferation, and expression of the HER2 17q12-21 chromosomal amplicon, including the ERBB2 gene. HER2DX predicts: Risk of relapse score (high vs. low): the risk of recurrence in patients with newly diagnosed HER2+ breast cancer. (high vs. low): the risk of recurrence in patients with newly diagnosed HER2+ breast cancer. pCR likelihood score (high vs. medium vs. low): the likelihood of a patient responding to anti-HER2-based treatment before surgery. (high vs. medium vs. low): the likelihood of a patient responding to anti-HER2-based treatment before surgery. ERBB2 score (high vs. medium vs. low): the quantitative expression of ERBB2 mRNA across HER2-negative, HER2-low, and HER2+ breast cancer. About HER2+ breast cancer HER2+ breast cancer accounts for 20% of all diagnosed breast tumors. This represents more than 390,000 new cases diagnosed worldwide every year, meaning that, on average, 3 women are diagnosed with HER2+ breast cancer every 4 minutes. HER2+ breast cancer is clinically and biologically heterogeneous, and standard clinical-pathological assessment has proven insufficient in capturing this heterogeneity. Understanding this biological heterogeneity is key to identifying the prognosis of each patient and the benefit from systemic therapies that target HER2. About REVEAL GENOMICS REVEAL GENOMICS, S.L. is a biotechnology start-up seeking to change the way biomarkers are used in oncology. It is focused on developing innovative diagnostic tools to define the best therapeutic options for patients with cancer. The company uses pioneering techniques, sophisticated computer applications, and machine learning to reveal new cancer research data. REVEAL GENOMICS, S.L. is a spin-off company of Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Institut dInvestigacions Biomediques August Pi I Sunyer (IDIBAPS,) the University of Barcelona (U.B.), and the Vall dHebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO). REVEAL GENOMICS and HER2DX are registered trademarks of REVEAL GENOMICS, S.L. Web: www.reveal-genomics.com. Twitter: @revealgenomics View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228373608/en/ Further information: Adriana Herrera, [email protected] Source: HER2DX Dr Daniel Klier will join South Pole in May 2024 as Chief Executive Officer His past experience includes senior roles at ESG Book, HSBC and McKinsey South Pole has been enhancing its leadership to prepare the business for the next phase of growth while strengthening trust, integrity and transparency in its own business and the wider market ZURICH--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- South Pole, the leading carbon project expert and climate consultancy, is pleased to announce the appointment of sustainability industry leader, Dr Daniel Klier, as the groups new Chief Executive Officer. Daniel joins from sustainability data and technology platform ESG Book, where as CEO he oversaw the companys growth and established the business as global industry leader. He was previously Global Head of Sustainable Finance and Group Head of Strategy at HSBC, where he established the banks net zero target and ambition to support the energy transition with 1 trillion dollars. Daniel started his career at McKinsey & Company, where he was a Partner, supporting companies to enhance their organisational performance and international growth. A widely recognised sustainability expert, Daniel has served as the Chair of the Bank of Englands Climate Working Group and Chair of the Institute of International Finances Sustainable Finance Working Group. He serves on the Boards of the global sustainability reporting standard GRI and the international organisation Sustainable Energy for All. Daniel will be responsible for further developing and institutionalising South Poles renewed focus on exceeding industry risk, integrity and compliance standards and lead the organisation in its next phase of growth. The company also recently appointed a dedicated Chief Risk Officer, Antoine Predour. The South Pole Board and Daniel thank John Davis for his stewardship as Interim CEO of South Pole since November 2023. John will continue to contribute to South Poles success at an executive level and support a smooth leadership transition. Daniel Klier, incoming CEO of South Pole says: South Pole has done a huge amount since 2006 to mobilise global climate action. It pioneered the global carbon market, helped governments to develop flagship environmental and social projects, and enabled businesses to positively address their climate impact. I am honoured to be appointed CEO at an important moment for the group and our planet. South Pole must now prepare for the next stage of global climate action. That means enhancing our strategy, ensuring we innovate, and that we meaningfully advance our risk and compliance processes. Trust and transparency will be at the heart of our next chapter, and I look forward to working with the groups many committed and dedicated employees to achieve that. Pal Erik Sjatil, Managing Partner and CEO at Lightrock, an investor in South Pole, says: "Daniel has joined South Pole's leadership team at a pivotal moment, coinciding with the evolution of the wider sector. As a business advisor, sustainability advocate, and highly-capable strategic leader, Daniel is ideally positioned to drive the company forward and advance its commendable mission to deliver climate impact at scale by transforming climate action into long-term business opportunities for companies, governments, and organizations globally. We wish him every success in his new post." Frederick Teo, Chief Executive Officer of GenZero, an investor in South Pole, says: The carbon markets are going through challenging times. As an industry pioneer, it is critical for South Pole to demonstrate steadfast leadership, high levels of integrity and technical competence, as well as humility and a willingness to learn as we navigate these challenges. Daniel is well-placed to steer South Pole through its next chapter of growth having helmed several senior and international roles across sustainability and finance. He has also shown the ability to build and inspire teams with a strong sense of mission. We are confident that Daniels strong commitment to South Pole will ultimately deliver better climate impact and propel the wider industry forward. About South Pole South Pole is the worlds leading carbon project expert and climate consultancy. Since 2006, South Pole has been a trusted partner and advisor to governments, public sector organisations, and leading businesses on their decarbonisation journeys. South Pole serves over 1,000 clients across the world, and its global team of experts has helped many Fortune 500 businesses implement comprehensive strategies that help build resilience and turn climate action into long-term business opportunities. In line with its mission to deliver climate impact at scale, South Pole has used the power of markets to help channel climate finance to over 850 projects in more than 50 countries across the globe. To date, these projects have helped reduce over 200 million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions, accelerated low-carbon transformations across several sectors, and provided measurable benefits to communities vulnerable to climate change. The business is supported by world-class investors, including Temaseks GenZero, Lightrock, Corisol, and Salesforce Ventures. South Pole is a social enterprise recognised by the World Economic Forum's Schwab Foundation, and committed to becoming a B Corp globally across all of its local entities. For more information, visit www.southpole.com or LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228637781/en/ Media contact [email protected] Source: South Pole Commercial Real Estate Investment Firm Plans to Scale Portfolio of Newly Built Multifamily Properties Across the Southwest RENO, Nev. & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- San Diego-based Tower 16 Capital Partners has successfully acquired The Deco at Victorian Square, a 209-unit multifamily property located in the Reno, Nevada market. The project was built in 2021 and acquired for $43 million, well below todays replacement cost. This marks our first acquisition in the Reno market and brings us back into Nevada where we previously owned a portfolio of 2,000 units, said Tower 16 Co-Founder Tyler Pruett. Were pursuing opportunities in Western growth markets to acquire high-quality real estate at a steep discount to replacement cost and prior-peak pricing. We have been trying to enter the Reno market for years and remain firm in our conviction that in-migration from more expensive markets will continue, driven by increasing job opportunities, low cost of living and attractive lifestyle amenities. Tower 16 has made similar moves in markets throughout the West, acquiring nearly 7,000 units representing assets of over $1 billion in Southern California, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque and Denver. The company seeks markets with strong rental housing fundamentals including employment growth, in-migration and a limited new supply of housing. Tower 16 is aggressively targeting new construction assets in varying stages of completion/lease-up as well as value-add opportunities in the Southwest. The Deco is located at 955 Avenue of the Oaks in the desirable Victorian Square neighborhood of Sparks, a city just east of Reno. The property is a newly built, 10-story, podium-style multifamily community with a mix of studio, 1- and 2-bedroom apartments averaging 731 square feet. The downtown property is adjacent to the I-80 freeway close to the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, Downtown Reno, several large hospital systems, as well as outdoor lifestyle amenities. The Deco has performed very well and FPI Management has done a phenomenal job managing the final stages of lease-up, getting the property to 97% occupancy during escrow, said Tower 16 Co-Founder Mike Farley. The property is extremely well-built, and we plan to take it to the next level by enhancing the overall tenant experience. Tower 16 will complete nearly $1 million in upgrades including common areas and fitness center upgrades and landscaping enhancements. The company will also add outdoor amenities including barbeques, seating and gathering areas. We have been waiting for the right re-entry point in the Reno market and are grateful to Eastdil for the acquisition opportunity and their assistance securing debt financing in a turbulent capital-raising environment, said Tower 16 Director of Acquisitions Dave McClain. The Tower 16 team is eager to execute the business plan with our excellent investment partner and lender. Jonathan Merhaut of Eastdil Secured represented the seller in this transaction. Eastdil Secured helped secure debt financing for the buyer, led by Lee Redmond and Greg Stampley. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228315217/en/ Media Contact: Ingrid Jones 949-395-5489 [email protected] Source: Tower 16 Capital Partners The move positions the firm to focus on its growth goal of tripling assets through organic and inorganic means. WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Commonwealth Financial Network, a national firm dedicated to providing financial advisors with holistic, integrated business solutions, announces the addition of Tupelo Wealth Partners, headquartered in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, to its network of independent financial advisors. Formerly with Lincoln Investment, Les Benzak, CFP, EA, John Gallagher, CFP, AIF, and Lynn Craig, CFP, bring with them nearly $384 million in client assets. Using their combined expertise, Tupelo Wealth Partners delivers full-service wealth management consulting on financial planning, family legacy and generational planning, higher education planning, and retirement planning for their clients and their loved ones. Additionally, the firms deep knowledge of the Pennsylvania pension plan enables them to help clients navigate complex pension decisions. To learn more, visit www.tupelowp.com. We inevitably chose Commonwealth because of the technology, culture, and leadership, said Benzak. Having one platform was extremely appealing to us. The operational efficiencies gained by joining Commonwealth give us time back in our day. With Commonwealth, business is easier for us and our clients, which enables us to focus on our growth goals of tripling assets under management through organic and inorganic means. Benzak cited Commonwealths Brand Studio offering as a driver in the decision to join Commonwealth. When it came to finding our unique voice, creating a cohesive brand, and developing a new website, we werent sure where to begin, Benzak explained. Working with Commonwealths Brand Studio strategists and creatives proved an invaluable resource for us and played a critical role during our transition. Other valued services include Commonwealths deep bench of expertise in advanced planning, investment management and research, and practice management. These resources were additional proof points in the firms decision to join Commonwealth. Tupelo Wealth Partners values are deeply aligned with those of Commonwealth, and we are elated to welcome them to our community of advisors, said Becca Hajjar, managing principal and chief business development officer. We are confident our tools and support will help the Tupelo team operate their business quickly and seamlessly, allowing them more time to serve their clients complex financial planning needs and setting them up for success as they evolve their business. About Commonwealth Financial Network Commonwealth Financial Network, Member FINRA/SIPC, a Registered Investment Adviser, provides financial advisors with holistic, integrated solutions that support business evolution, growth acceleration, and operational efficiency. J.D. Power ranks Commonwealth #1 in Independent Advisor Satisfaction Among Financial Investment Firms, 10 Times in a Row. Privately held since 1979, the firm has headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts, and San Diego, California. Learn more about how Commonwealth partners with approximately 2,200 independent financial advisors overseeing more than $296 billion* in assets nationwide by visiting www.commonwealth.com. Commonwealth received the highest score among independent advisors in the J.D. Power 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 20182023 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Studies. Presented on July 5, 2023, for December 2022 to April 2023, it is based on responses from 4,183 advisors employed by or affiliated with the firms included in the study. Not indicative of the firms future performance. Your experience may vary. Study is independently conducted, and the participating firms do not pay to participate. Use of study results in promotional materials is subject to a license fee. Visit jdpower.com/awards for more details. * As of 12/31/2023 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228176580/en/ For additional information, contact: Sarah Baun Public Relations Manager Commonwealth Financial Network 781.464.7138 [email protected] www.commonwealth.com Source: Commonwealth Financial Network DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Vista Gold Corp. (NYSE American and TSX: VGZ) (Vista or the Company) is pleased to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Vista Gold Australia Pty. Ltd. (Vista Australia), has received the second instalment payment of $7 million (Second Instalment) under the royalty agreement between Vista Australia and Wheaton Precious Metals (Cayman) Co., an affiliate of Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (Wheaton), dated December 13, 2023 (Royalty Agreement), in relation to the Companys Mt Todd gold project (Mt Todd or the Project) located in Northern Territory, Australia. All dollar amounts in this news release are in US dollars. The Second Instalment is part of the $20 million royalty with Wheaton, which will be used to advance Mt Todd and for general corporate purposes. Receipt of the Second Instalment followed satisfaction of certain conditions precedent to this instalment, which included approval from the Australian government Foreign Investment Review Board, registration of security interests pursuant to a general security deed between Vista Australia and Wheaton, providing for, among other things, a mortgage on the mineral tenements that comprise Mt Todd, and satisfaction of other customary conditions, representations and warranties. The final instalment of $10 million is to be received six months from the date of the first instalment provided Vista Australia has commenced a designated drilling program at Mt Todd and satisfied other customary conditions, representations and warranties. The principal terms of the Royalty Agreement are as described in the Companys news release dated December 14, 2023. See News Release. About Vista Gold Corp. Vista is a gold project developer. The Companys flagship asset is Mt Todd, located in the mining friendly jurisdiction of Northern Territory, Australia. Situated approximately 250 km southeast of Darwin, Mt Todd is one of the largest development stage opportunities in Australia and demonstrates compelling economics. All major environmental and operating permits necessary to initiate development of Mt Todd are in place. Mt Todd benefits from its location in a leading mining jurisdiction and demonstrates multiple opportunities to add value through growth of mineral resources, staged development, and other de-risking activities. For further information about Vista or Mt Todd, please contact Pamela Solly, Vice President of Investor Relations, at (720) 981-1185 or visit the Companys website at www.vistagold.com. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this news release that address activities, events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future, including such things as the final instalment of $10 million is to be received six months from the date of the first instalment providing Vista Australia has commenced a designated drilling program at Mt Todd and satisfied other customary conditions, representations, and warranties; our belief that Mt Todd is one of the largest development stage opportunities in Australia and demonstrates compelling economics; our belief that Mt Todd benefits from its location in a leading mining jurisdiction; and our belief that Mt Todd demonstrates multiple opportunities to add value through growth of mineral resources, staged development, and other de-risking activities are forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The material factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this news release include the following: our forecasts and expected cash flows; our projected capital and operating costs; our expectations regarding mining and metallurgical recoveries; mine life and production rates; that laws or regulations impacting mine development or mining activities will remain consistent; our approved business plans, our mineral resource and reserve estimates and results of preliminary economic assessments; preliminary feasibility studies and feasibility studies on our projects, if any; our experience with regulators; political and social support of the mining industry in Australia; our experience and knowledge of the Australian mining industry and our expectations of economic conditions and the price of gold. When used in this news release, the words optimistic, potential, indicate, expect, intend, hopes, believe, may, will, if, anticipate and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Such factors include, among others, uncertainty of resource and reserve estimates, uncertainty as to the Companys future operating costs and ability to raise capital; risks relating to cost increases for capital and operating costs; risks of shortages and fluctuating costs of equipment or supplies; risks relating to fluctuations in the price of gold; the inherently hazardous nature of mining-related activities; potential effects on our operations of environmental regulations in the countries in which it operates; risks due to legal proceedings; risks relating to political and economic instability in certain countries in which it operates; uncertainty as to the results of bulk metallurgical test work; and uncertainty as to completion of critical milestones for Mt Todd; as well as those factors discussed under the headings Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Risk Factors in the Companys latest Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed in February 2023, subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements and forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information; whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227467925/en/ Pamela Solly Vice President of Investor Relations (720) 981-1185 Source: Vista Gold Corp. SHANGHAI--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The world's first C919 aircraft, with the registration number B-919A and owned by China Eastern Airlines, wrapped up its first international debut at the Singapore Airshow on Feb. 26. It returned to Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport from Singapore Changi Airport after flying five hours. During the 6-day Singapore Airshow, China Eastern Airline's C919 was mainly displayed statically. Visitors included professional audiences, aviation enthusiasts, as well as leaders and senior professionals from aircraft manufacturers, aviation service providers, and companies engaged in the aviation industrial chain. Many guests showed great interest in inquiring about the details inside the cabin. Some "fans" of the aircraft even came to see it several times. The areas under the wings, near the landing gears, and in front of the nose were popular photo spots for visitors. It is learned that the aircraft flew from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport to Singapore at 1:49 on Feb. 17, and joined the airshow together with C919 and ARJ21 aircraft from the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China and other parties. It marked the first time for the aircraft to fly overseas and make its overseas airshow debut. The C919 aircraft was also acclaimed as "one of the most anticipated products" at the Singapore Airshow this time. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240227739254/en/ China Eastern Airlines http://www.ceair.com/ fangying 00862122331470 [email protected] Source: China Eastern Airlines Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has agreed to acquire Mindcurv, a cloud-native digital experience and data analytics company specializing in composable software, digital engineering and commerce services for more than 200 clients worldwide. With this acquisition, Accenture Songthe worlds largest tech-powered creative groupfurther expands its commerce services for clients globally. The terms of the acquisition from private equity investment firms Genui and Primepulse were not disclosed. Founded in 2011, Mindcurv is one of the leading German companies providing end-to-end digital experience services solving complex challenges in the core business of leading European clients across several industries, including manufacturing, retail, consumer good, life sciences and chemicals. As a certified member of the MACH Alliance, Mindcurv helps businesses design and implement innovative scalable digital experience platforms, with operations in several countries enabling it to deliver tech-enabled innovation with an integrative approach. The ecommerce market is expected to exceed $8 trillion worldwide by 2027. Currently, 94% of consumers1 make purchases through digital commerce channels. However, only 20% of companies are realizing both revenue growth and profitability. By combining Accenture Song and Mindcurv's expertise in composability skills, data, and AI capabilities, clients can accelerate their commerce operations and bridge the profitability gap. These capabilities enable personalization at scale, foster customer loyalty, and drive sales. "With the acquisition of Mindcurv, Accenture Song continues to fortify its global offerings, blending creative thinking, technology and industry expertise, said Max Morielli, president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, for Accenture Song. This strategic move will enhance our ability to provide innovative, tailor-made cloud solutions, empowering clients with an unparalleled end-to-end digital experience in commerce transformation. Together, with Accentures broader suite of services, our investment in AI and our ecosystem partners, we are increasing our ability to meet clients customers needs." Roland Mayr, market unit lead of Accenture Song in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, added: "The integration of Mindcurv into Accenture Song will signify an important step forward in our commitment to delivering comprehensive digital solutions. Mindcurv's proficiency in scalable digital platforms and cloud innovation complements Accenture Song's vision for pushing the boundaries of commerce transformation. Together, we're poised to redefine the digital landscape for businesses worldwide." Amjad Liaquat and Nazareno Avila, the co-founders of Mindcurv, explained: "Joining Accenture Song marks a pivotal moment for Mindcurv. Our strengths combined offer formidable end-to-end digital commerce services, combining innovation, creativity and global reach delivered through an integrative and balanced approach with the support of teams across the countries we operate in. Were excited to lead the evolving digital landscape together." Headquartered in Essen, Germany, Mindcurv and its team of over 700 experts based across 13 different locations including the Netherlands, Spain and India, are set to join Accenture Song's commerce practice. Mindcurv is the latest in a series of acquisitions that Accenture Song has made to enhance customer offerings for clients, including Work & Co, Rabbits Tale, ConcentricLife, Fiftyfive5 and The Stable. Completion of the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of applicable regulatory approval. 1 2022 Accenture Grow Digital Commerce Study of 13,000 consumers across US, Mexico, Brazil, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China, India, Japan, Australia and Indonesia SYDNEY, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- A male suspect has been arrested in Australia's Sydney after a shooting in the city's central business district left one person injured on Wednesday. According to a statement by the New South Wales Police Force, at about 12:50 p.m. local time, emergency services were called to a building on the Castlereagh Street in central Sydney, following reports of a person being shot. Officers found a man at the scene, who was believed to be suffering a gunshot wound. "The man is being treated by NSW Ambulance paramedics and first responders," the authority noted, without revealing further details on his condition. As a crime scene has been established in the city center, members of the public were advised to avoid the area to allow emergency services access and egress. "A man has been arrested and there is no further ongoing threat to the community," police confirmed in the statement. Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM) (TSX: AEM) ("Agnico Eagle") announced today that it has acquired 5,750,000 common shares ("Common Shares") of Prism Resources Inc. ("Prism") from Trevali Mining Corporation at a price of approximately C$0.0174 per Common Share for total consideration of C$100,000 (the "Transaction"), pursuant to a share purchase agreement dated February 13, 2024 (the "Share Purchase Agreement") between Agnico Eagle and FTI Consulting Canada Inc., in its capacity as court-appointed monitor of Prism. Prism holds a 7.5% Net Profit Interest royalty on the Aurora and Sunday Lake claims (the "Claims"). The Claims form a part of Agnico Eagle's Detour Lake mine property, including Zone 58N and other geologically prospective targets. Agnico Eagle is acquiring the Common Shares for investment purposes. Depending on market conditions and other factors, Agnico Eagle may, from time to time, acquire additional Common Shares or other securities of Prism or dispose of some or all of the Common Shares or other securities of Prism that it owns at such time. Prior to entering into the Share Purchase Agreement, Agnico Eagle did not own any Common Shares. As a result of the Transaction, Agnico Eagle owns 5,750,000 Common Shares, representing approximately 11.07% of the issued and outstanding Common Shares on a non-diluted basis. An early warning report will be filed by Agnico Eagle in accordance with applicable securities laws. To obtain a copy of the early warning report, please contact: Ted B. Miller , co-founder of Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE: CCI) ("Crown Castle" or the "Company") and his investment vehicle Boots Capital Management, LLC ("Boots Capital") today filed a complaint in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (the "Court") seeking to invalidate the cooperation agreement between Crown Castle's Board of Directors (the "Board") and Elliott Investment Management, L.P. (together with its affiliates, "Elliott") announced on December 20, 2023 . Under the terms of the cooperation agreement, Elliott and the Company appointed two new directors, Jason Genrich, Partner at Elliott, and Sunit Patel , Chief Financial Officer of Ibotta Inc. (collectively, the "Elliott Directors"), to the Board. Elliott received substantial governance rights without the customary provision that it be required to maintain an equity ownership position in the Company.1 Mr. Miller stated: "The Crown Castle Board's short-sighted decision to enter into this fundamentally unlawful cooperation agreement just prior to the Company's nomination window is yet another example of the Board's poor governance, lack of accountability, hostility towards its shareholders, and track record of flawed decision making, all of which have resulted in the destruction of tens of billions of dollars in shareholder value. Moreover, the terms of the cooperation agreement granted Elliott certain governance rights without requiring it to maintain an equity ownership position in the Company, grossly misaligning Elliott's short-term profit incentives with the long-term interests of Crown Castle and its shareholders. Submitting the cooperation agreement to a shareholder vote is a necessary step to help restore the Company's credibility with investors and forestall costly and distracting litigation, which could delay a sale of the Company's fiber assets and further erode shareholder value. However, given the Board's continued refusal to put the unlawful cooperation agreement to a shareholder vote, we have filed this lawsuit to defend the rights of Crown Castle's shareholders." The complaint alleges the following: The cooperation agreement directly infringes upon the Board's powers and responsibilities, and substantially restrains the Board's ability to use its own best judgment on key management matters in violation of Section 141 of the Delaware General Corporation Law and confers outsized concessions upon Elliott, including a commitment to include the Elliott Directors on the Board's slate in the 2024 election and guaranteed Elliott representation on key Board committees. The terms of the cooperation agreement are invalid and unenforceable as a matter of Delaware law, as reflected most recently in the February 22, 2024 written opinion by Vice Chancellor Travis Laster , in the case West Palm Beach Firefighters' Pension Fund v. Moelis & Company. 2 law, as reflected most recently in the written opinion by Vice Chancellor , in the case v. Moelis & Company. The Company breached its own bylaws through its entry into the cooperation agreement, which impermissibly constrains the Board's authority on key governance matters in direct violation of certain of its bylaw provisions, a matter further reaffirmed in the recent Laster opinion in the Chancery Court . . Elliott and the Elliott Directors knowingly aided and abetted the director defendants' breaches of fiduciary duty outlined in the complaint and provided them with substantial assistance. Mr. Miller added, "It is unconscionable that the Company's current Board has just seven total years of tower industry operating experience, even after the recent addition of new directors. To that end, we believe Crown Castle's Board must be reconstituted with directors that have the necessary industry expertise and skillsets to execute a long-term strategy that will enhance operational excellence, fix the Company's broken culture, and restore and unlock meaningful value for long-suffering shareholders." On February 20, 2024 , Mr. Miller nominated a slate of four highly qualified director candidates who collectively would bring more than five decades of successful global tower industry experience to the Crown Castle Board. Mr. Miller and the nominees have presented a detailed and actionable plan to the Board to optimize the value of Crown Castle's fiber assets, digitize its tower portfolio, materially improve its operations and go-to-market strategy, rebuild its management team with experienced executives, repair its broken company culture, and deliver significantly improved financials to restore and drive shareholder value. In addition to this detailed operating plan, Mr. Miller and the nominees have led and shared with the Company a six-month due diligence process with 25 prospective buyers and financing sources to increase the speed and certainty of completing a sale of Crown Castle's fiber assets this year, before potential tax benefits of over $1 billion expire at the end of 2024. Heyman Enerio Gattuso & Hirzel LLP and Woolery & Co. PLLC are serving as legal advisors to Mr. Miller . The case number is 2024-0176. GFL Environmental Inc. (NYSE: GFL) today announced that BCEC GFL Borrower (Cayman) LP, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, GFL Borrower II (Cayman) LP, Poole Private Capital, LLC, and entities affiliated with HPS Investment Partners, LLC (collectively, the "Selling Shareholders") intend to offer for sale 17,000,000 subordinate voting shares (the "Shares"). GFL will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the Shares (the "Offering"). RBC Capital Markets, LLC and RBC Dominion Securities Inc. will act as underwriters for the Offering in the United States and Canada , respectively. The Shares issued pursuant to the Offering will be offered in all provinces and territories of Canada by way of a prospectus supplement (the "Prospectus Supplement") to the Company's short form base shelf prospectus (the "Base Shelf Prospectus"). The Company has filed a registration statement on Form F-10 (the "Form F-10") and will file the Prospectus Supplement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") in accordance with the multi-jurisdictional disclosure system established between Canada and the United States . No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved the contents of this news release. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any province, state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such province, state or jurisdiction. Prospective investors should read the Base Shelf Prospectus, the Prospectus Supplement, when available, and the documents incorporated by reference therein before investing in the Shares. When available, these documents may be accessed for free on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. GFL has filed the Form F-10 registration statement (including a prospectus) with the SEC for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in that registration statement and other documents the issuer has filed with the SEC for more complete information about the issuer and this offering. You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Lee, MA, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing (BSM), a Massachusetts-based fill finish CDMO and subsidiary of Sharp, will launch a webinar series, Perfecting Fill Finish, on Wednesday, March 6 at 1PM EST. This webinar series is designed to offer a deep dive into parenteral drug manufacturing, regulatory requirements, and CMO selection for pharmaceutical professionals. Registrants will receive free access five professionally crafted, pre-recorded films where they will explore real-life cleanrooms and filling lines and learn critical aspects of fill finish operations. The first webinar of the series, Introduction to Fill Finish, airs on March 6 and will offer a foundational understanding of the aseptic fill finish process. This webinar will cover how formulation and sterile filling is performed, the regulatory standards that oversee this process, and explore how different facility designs and equipment impact sterility assurance and product quality. Debbie Smith, Vice President of Quality Assurance of Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing, expressed her enthusiasm about the series, stating, "We are thrilled to launch the Perfecting Fill Finish webinar series. This initiative reflects our commitment to excellence and our mission to share knowledge and best practices with the pharmaceutical community. We believe that by providing access to expert insights and the latest technologies, we can contribute to the advancement of the industry and ultimately, patient safety." Event Details: Date: March 6 Location: Online Registration: Interested participants are encouraged to register to secure their spot. Registration is free and now open at Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing's website. About Berkshire Sterile Manufacturing: Berkshire Sterile is a state-of-the-art fill finish contract manufacturer specialized in small-scale, isolator-based sterile filling of vials, syringes, and cartridges for biotech and pharmaceutical industries. BSM also offers terminal steam sterilization, specialty filling, lyophilization services, analytical support, stability studies, and formulation development. For more information, please visit the companys website (https://berkshiresterilemanufacturing.com/) or contact them at [email protected]. Attachment February 28, 2024 Proposal to appoint Ms. Hanneman as member of Philips Board of Management fulfilling the role of CFO per October 1, 2024 Amsterdam, the Netherlands Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, today announced the proposal to appoint Charlotte Hanneman as member of the Board of Management, fulfilling the role of Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective October 1, 2024. The proposal will be submitted to the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM), to be held on May 7, 2024. Ms. Hanneman will join Philips as a member of Philips Executive Committee on June 1, 2024, to start her induction and transition into the role, succeeding current CFO Abhijit Bhattacharya on October 1, 2024. Mr. Bhattacharya has been CFO and member of Philips Board of Management and Executive Committee since 2015 and will retire from the company after a successful 37-year career on September 30, 2024. Ms. Hanneman (Dutch, 1978) will join Philips with over 20 years experience in the MedTech and pharmaceutical industries, most recently as Controller and Head of Financial Planning & Analysis at global medical technology company Stryker. In this current role, she is responsible for financial control, enterprise financial planning and analysis, and business development finance. She is also responsible for indirect procurement, and directly responsible for the finance teams across Europe, Middle East and Africa, Canada, and Latin America. Prior to this, she held several international finance leadership roles at Stryker, and other multinational healthcare companies, including Merck, Schering-Plough and Organon. Ms. Hanneman has extensive experience working in the US and has lived in various countries across Asia and Europe. She holds a masters degree in economics and an executive master of finance and control from Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Roy Jakobs, CEO of Royal Philips said: I would like to thank Abhijit for his significant contribution to the transformation of Philips into a health technology company. His dedication and leadership have made a major impact throughout his long 37-year career in the company. In the future, I will miss him for his character and the insight he brought to the boardroom, however, he will remain our CFO until the end of September, ensuring a smooth transition. On behalf of Philips Executive Committee, I wish him all the best in his future endeavors. This is an exciting time for Charlotte to join Philips. Her strong MedTech and pharma knowledge spanning Europe, Asia, and the US, as well as her extensive finance experience, coupled with her energy and passion for the healthcare industry, make her an ideal fit for the role. Charlotte Hanneman, incoming CFO of Royal Philips, added: Philips is on an exciting journey to create value with sustainable impact. With its global reach, market leadership positions, and patient- and people-focused innovation, Philips is well positioned to help deliver real change across healthcare. I am looking forward to joining the team to drive impact and continue to deliver on the plans and commitments set for the future. Feike Sijbesma, Chairman of Philips Supervisory Board, said: On behalf of the Supervisory Board, I would like to thank Abhijit for all he has done for Philips over a long and illustrious career with the company and wish him the very best for the future. In welcoming Charlotte, we are broadening the diversity of the Board of Management while further deepening the industry expertise of the team to help drive the plan to create value with sustainable impact. Abhijit Bhattacharya, CFO of Royal Philips commented: After serving Philips and leading great teams for many years, helping to shape the future of the company, the time is right for me to retire from the company in September. I am fully focused on delivering on Philips plan in the next six months and ensuring a seamless handover to Charlotte. Additional information on Philips Board of Management and Executive Committee can be found here . For further information, please contact: Philips External Relations Steve Klink Tel.: +31 6 1088 8824 E-mail: [email protected] Philips Investor Relations Leandro Mazzoni Tel.: +31 20 5977055 E-mail: [email protected] About Royal Philips Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving peoples health and well-being through meaningful innovation. Philips patient- and people-centric innovation leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver personal health solutions for consumers and professional health solutions for healthcare providers and their patients in the hospital and the home. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, ultrasound, image-guided therapy, monitoring and enterprise informatics, as well as in personal health. Philips generated 2023 sales of EUR 18.2 billion and employs approximately 69,700 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter . Forward-looking statements This release contains certain forward-looking statements with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of Philips and certain of the plans and objectives of Philips with respect to these items. Examples of forward-looking statements include statements made about the strategy, estimates of sales growth, future EBITA, future developments in Philips organic business and the completion of acquisitions and divestments. By their nature, these statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to future events and circumstances and there are many factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. This press release contains inside information within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the EU Market Abuse Regulation. Attachments ENDEAVOUR REPORTS FATAL ACCIDENT AT MANA MINE London, 28 February 2024 Endeavour Mining plc (LSE:EDV, TSX:EDV, OTCQX:EDVMF) (Endeavour or the Company) is saddened to report that a contractor colleague passed away yesterday, 27 February 2024, as a result of injuries sustained in an incident that occurred during maintenance activities at the Mana mine in Burkina Faso. The health, safety and welfare of our colleagues are our top priority and we are deeply saddened by this news. We extend our sincere sympathies and support to his family, colleagues and friends. Endeavour will conduct a comprehensive internal investigation into the incident and will work closely with the relevant local authorities. Processing activities are continuing while underground mining operations have been temporarily halted, as the incident remains under investigation. CONTACT INFORMATION For Investor Relations Enquiries: For Media Enquiries: Jack Garman Brunswick Group LLP in London Vice President of Investor Relations Carole Cable, Partner +44 203 011 2723 +44 7974 982 458 [email protected] [email protected] ABOUT ENDEAVOUR MINING PLC Endeavour Mining is one of the worlds senior gold producers and the largest in West Africa, with operating assets across Senegal, Cote dIvoire and Burkina Faso and a strong portfolio of advanced development projects and exploration assets in the highly prospective Birimian Greenstone Belt across West Africa. A member of the World Gold Council, Endeavour is committed to the principles of responsible mining and delivering sustainable value to its employees, stakeholders and the communities where it operates. Endeavour is admitted to listing and to trading on the London Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange, under the symbol EDV. For more information, please visit www.endeavourmining.com. Attachment WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2024 The U.S. Department of Agricultures Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is issuing a public health alert for Nurture Lifes Chicken Parm with Super Veggie Spaghetti meal products due to misbranding and an undeclared allergen. The products spaghetti component contains egg white, a known allergen, which is not declared on the product label. FSIS is issuing this public health alert to ensure that consumers with an allergy to egg are aware that this product should not be consumed. A recall was not requested because the affected product is no longer available for purchase. The fully cooked, not shelf-stable chicken meals were produced between Dec. 27, 2023, and Feb. 20, 2024. The following product is subject to the public health alert [view labels]: 5.9-oz. tray with sleeve label containing nurture life KIDS MEALS CHICKEN PARM WITH SUPER VEGGIE SPAGHETTI with enjoy by dates ranging from Jan. 9, 2024, to March 1, 2024. The chicken meal packaging does not have a USDA mark of inspection. These items were sold online and shipped directly to consumers nationwide. The problem was discovered when FSIS was notified that the firm discovered that egg was not declared on the label during an internal audit. There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of this product. Anyone concerned about an illness should contact a healthcare provider. FSIS is concerned that some product may be in consumers refrigerators or freezers. Consumers who have purchased this product are urged not to consume it. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase. Members of the media with questions about this public health alert can contact Frank Chen, Chief Marketing Officer, Nurture Life, Inc., at 312-517-1888 or email at [email protected] . Consumers with questions about this public health alert can contact Jennifer Chow, Co-Founder, Nurture Life, Inc., at 312-517-1888 or email at [email protected] . Consumers with food safety questions can call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or send a question via email to [email protected] . For consumers that need to report a problem with a meat, poultry, or egg product, the online Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System can be accessed 24 hours a day at https://foodcomplaint.fsis.usda.gov/eCCF/. LUZERN, Switzerland, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- KKCG, a leading European investment and innovation group, announces the successful completion of its acquisition of Avenga, an end-to-end software engineering and consulting platform, previously owned by funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. (Oaktree) and funds managed by Cornerstone Investment Management, L.P. (Cornerstone). Effective at the closing of the transaction, Avenga, a global technology platform headquartered in Germany, with 31 offices internationally, and nearly 4,000 professionals, has become a wholly owned subsidiary of KKCG. This acquisition marks a turning point in the strategic development of KKCGs technology pillar. Commenting on the completion, Michal Tomanek, Investment Director at KKCG, said, Avenga bolsters KKCGs presence internationally and seamlessly complements KKCGs custom software development company Qinshift, making KKCG Technologies one of Europes largest digital transformation architects, catering to a diverse global client base. Ludovic Gaude, Head of KKCGs software engineering activities and CEO of Qinshift, is leading the integration process, in collaboration with Yuriy Adamchuk, CEO of Avenga. Following the successful closing, Gaude explained, Now, it is time to roll up our sleeves and commence the merger process, marking the first step in the shared Avenga-Qinshift journey. About KKCG KKCG is an investment and innovation group with expertise in lotteries and gaming, energy, technology, and real estate. Founded by entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist Karel Komarek, KKCG employs over 10,000 people in 37 countries across its portfolio companies, with more than 9 billion in assets under management. Its businesses include, amongst others, ARICOMA GROUP Holding a.s., comprehensive IT services provider and custom software development across Europe and the US; Allwyn, a multi-national lottery operator with leading market positions in Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States (Illinois); MND Group, an international producer and supplier of traditional and renewable energy, active in drilling and exploration, energy storage, retail, and trading; and KKCG Real Estate, which creates internationally recognized, award-winning architecture in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors with a focus on innovative and sustainable development. With operations on several continents, KKCG businesses draw on capital, networks, and insights from across the group to enable profitable, sustainable growth for the long term. KKCG is committed to supporting the communities where it operates, contributing to the societies it works within. About Avenga Avenga is a global engineering and consulting platform with deep industry knowledge, especially in pharma, insurance and finance, and advanced manufacturing. The company's IT specialists operate from 31 offices worldwide and support global corporations and complex organizations in their digital transformation with projects along the entire digital value chain - from digital strategy to the implementation of software, user experience, and IT solutions. Avenga's many world-renowned clients include organizations like ABB, Allianz, GSK, Santander, and Volvo. About Qinshift Qinshift is a global technology company with a strong European presence, aiming to solve business problems for forward-leaning companies worldwide. Qinshift has over 3000 genuine tech experts across 28 offices that build and design software and deliver end-to-end enterprise solutions, visionary UX and UI design, reliable managed services, and innovative product development offerings. Qinshift also provides cutting-edge tech consultancy services. The company caters to a diverse clientele, including large telecom and satellite operators, financial & banking institutions, manufacturing and automotive companies, and mobility and health organizations, supporting their digital transformation journey. Aggressive Exploration Generating a Bright Future at Stock Stock West and Stock Main gold resources increase by 31%, mineralization continuing at depth; Stock East emerging as a potential new source of near-term production. Assay highlights: Drillhole SEZ24-86: 121.5 g/t Au over 0.4 m (3.91 oz/t Au over 1.3 ft) (Fig. 2) Drillhole SEZ24-84: 6.5 g/t Au over 10.2 m (0.21 oz/t Au over 33.5 ft) (Fig. 3) Drillhole SEZ24-88: 4.5 g/t Au over 10.4 m (0.14 oz/t Au over 34.1 ft) (Fig. 3) (All assay values are true widths) TORONTO, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE: MUX) (TSX: MUX) is pleased to report on three outcomes of its large exploration investment at the Stock Mine property, part of the Fox Complex, in the prolific Timmins gold district of Northern Ontario, Canada: One, a 31% year over year increase of gold resources at Stock West and Stock Main (historical Stock Mine), with Two, confirmation of good grading structures plunging to depth; and Three, Stock East emerging as a potential new near-term source of future revenue. 31% Resource Growth (Inferred + Indicated) and the Importance of Structures at Stock West and Main Geological interpretations suggest that two principal structures that plunge to depth, emanating from the historical Stock Mine (see Fig. 1) control the mineralization of Stock West and Stock Main. Resources identified within these structures in 2023 account for most of the 31% increase in the Stock West and Main resource (see Table 2) when compared to year end 2022. The infill drilling at Stock West completed in 2023 demonstrated an increase in the widths of the mineralized zones with a slight decrease in the overall grade. Drilling along the deeper part of structures accounts for about half of the 31% increase in the updated resource estimate and demonstrates the potential for these structures to extend to depth and remain highly prospective for additional exploration and resource growth. Stock East Emerging Drilling in late 2023 and continuing into 2024 was designed to assess Stock Easts potential to be a shallow source of near-term revenue during the construction phase of the access ramp at Stock West. Assay results from the infill drill program successfully identified mineable widths and grades. In addition, the block model updated in 2022 has been successful in forecasting the projected grades and widths for the new drilling. Stock East mineralization appears to be controlled by two plunge directions, with one similar to that seen for the rest of Stock structures (see Fig. 1 in upper right-hand corner and Fig. 3) An assay result from drillhole SEZ24-86 that returned 121.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) over 0.4 meters (m), equivalent to 3.91 ounces per tonne (oz/t) Au over 1.3 ft (see Fig. 2), is very intriguing because of its high grade, proximity to surface and position outside the main mineralized zone (lying approximately 75 m in the hanging wall to the main Stock East zone). Its orientation suggests that earlier drilling may have missed other possible high-grade occurrences. To date, all of the drilling at Stock East has been in a mostly North to North-West orientation, therefore this particular intercept may have been mostly missed. Additional follow-up drilling is warranted to determine its true geometry. Some of the key drill results from our recent drilling programs are listed below; see Fig. 3: Also shown in Fig. 3 are earlier assay values of attractive grades and widths. SEZ23-69: SEZ24-71: SEZ24-84: SEZ24-85: SEZ24-88: 7.1 g/t Au over 4.8 m 4.5 g/t Au over 7.7 m 6.5 g/t Au over 10.2 m 3.5 g/t Au over 5.3 m 4.5 g/t Au over 10.4 m 0.23 oz/t Au over 15.8 ft 0.14 oz/t Au over 25.3 ft 0.21 oz/t Au over 33.5 ft 0.11 oz/t Au over 17.4 ft 0.14 oz/t Au over 34.1 ft The location of Stock East is strategic for multiple reasons: From a geological perspective: The Stock East zone lies close to the splay point of the NE-SW trending Nighthawk Lake fault and the E-W trending regional Destor-Porcupine fault (see Fig. 2). Such splays are known in the district to be good traps for gold mineralization. The host rocks at Stock East are a combination of altered mafic & ultramafic volcanics and quartz breccias. From an operational perspective: It is located only 700 meters East of our mill (see Fig. 1); Stock East is a shallow deposit positioned just 400 meters from the proposed ramp to Stock West, that could be quickly and inexpensively accessed; and it could potentially provide early revenue during the construction of the Stock West ramp. The current drilling program aims to upgrade the majority of the Inferred mineralization to the Indicated category while also targeting higher grade (>10 GxM, grade x true width) sections of the zone. We are also updating the resource for Stock East to include these new intercepts, targeting completion by the end of Q1 2024 (see Table 1). Figure 1: Longitudinal section looking North, extending from Stock West to Stock East and showing the principal plunge directions which control most the mineralization on the Stock property Figure 2: Plan view of the mineralization seen on the Stock property Figure 3: Longitudinal section looking North - Stock East Zone: 2023 & 2024 drill results shown in yellow Most of the assay results from Stock East shown in Fig 3. represent true widths of over 4 m with good grades, and there is sound geological continuity between the drillholes. The outline of this zone is well defined and geological interpretations indicate a dip of about 70 degrees to the SE. Stock East has a strike length of approximately 400 meters, it extends vertically from near surface to a depth of at least 350 m and is open down-dip and to the East. The two proposed conjugate structural plunge directions (see Fig. 3, dashed lines) appear to be consistent with geological interpretations for the mineralization seen at Stock East and to provide excellent targeting vectors for future exploration and resource growth. Table 1: Highlights of recent drill intercepts received for the Stock East zone Hole ID From (m) To (m) Core Length (m) True Width (m) Au (g/t) Au (g/t) x TW (m) Core Length (ft) True Width (ft) Au (oz/t) Au (oz/t) x TW (ft) SEZ23-69 80.40 87.70 7.30 4.78 7.11 33.96 23.95 15.68 0.23 3.58 Including 84.60 87.70 3.10 1.90 13.28 10.17 6.23 0.43 SEZ23-70 86.65 93.74 7.09 4.80 4.27 20.47 23.26 15.74 0.14 2.16 Including 86.65 91.00 4.35 2.81 5.88 14.27 9.22 0.19 SEZ23-71 80.55 90.00 9.45 7.74 4.51 34.91 31.00 25.39 0.14 3.68 Including 87.00 90.00 3.00 2.51 10.64 9.84 8.24 0.34 SEZ24-80A 139.65 143.50 3.85 2.85 4.96 14.13 12.63 9.34 0.16 1.49 SEZ24-84 212.64 229.00 16.36 10.22 6.45 65.92 53.67 33.53 0.21 6.95 Including 226.34 229.00 2.66 1.71 30.31 8.73 5.62 0.97 SEZ24-85 133.59 140.00 6.41 5.25 3.49 18.32 21.03 17.24 0.11 1.93 SEZ24-86 85.08 85.67 0.59 0.39 121.53 45.60 1.94 1.29 3.91 5.03 SEZ24-88 226.00 241.84 15.84 10.36 4.48 46.41 51.97 33.99 0.14 4.90 Including 238.00 241.84 3.84 2.61 12.96 12.60 8.58 0.42 SEZ24-95 202.54 207.77 5.23 3.74 5.69 21.28 17.16 12.27 0.18 2.24 SEZ19-28* 337.00 343.50 6.50 5.91 34.71 205.25 21.33 19.40 1.12 21.65 Including 339.80 342.80 3.00 2.73 74.13 9.84 8.96 2.38 SEZ19-35* 324.30 330.50 6.20 5.64 83.49 470.95 20.34 18.51 2.68 49.68 Including 325.30 326.50 1.20 1.09 417.00 3.94 3.58 13.41 SEZ19-39* 303.60 319.40 15.80 12.90 3.97 51.23 51.84 42.33 0.13 5.40 Including 304.30 305.00 0.70 0.54 10.25 2.30 1.76 0.33 Including 316.00 317.00 1.00 0.77 25.50 3.28 2.52 0.82 S18-02* 230.40 241.00 10.60 9.40 4.49 42.21 34.78 30.84 0.14 4.45 Including 233.40 234.00 0.60 0.53 15.90 1.97 1.74 0.51 S18-10* 204.00 218.80 14.80 11.96 5.24 62.67 48.56 39.24 0.17 6.61 Including 215.80 217.80 2.00 1.62 26.53 6.56 5.31 0.85 S18-47* 335.70 348.00 12.30 9.69 5.76 55.81 40.35 31.79 0.19 5.89 Including 344.45 347.10 2.65 2.09 25.16 8.69 6.86 0.81 Grades are presented uncapped; * - previously reported intervals. Table 2: Comparison of the Stock West and Main resource beginning with the 2022 PEA Classification Quantity '000 t Change Gold Grade Change Contained Metal Change % g/t % '000 oz Au % 2022 PEA Indicated 1,171 3.83 144 Inferred 1,049 3.30 111 Year-End 2022 Indicated 1,280 +9% 3.66 -4% 151 +5% Inferred 1,041 -1% 3.20 -3% 107 -4% Year-End 2023** Indicated 1,938 +51% 3.31 -10% 206 +37% Inferred 1,386 +33% 2.96 -8% 132 +23% ** Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. All figures are rounded to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimates. For this update, an additional 272 drillholes (100,834 m) were added to the database since the last resource update in December 2022. Composites were capped where appropriate. Mineral resources are reported at a cut-off grade of 1.95 g/t gold, demonstrate Reasonable Prospects of Eventual Economic Extraction assuming an underground extraction scenario, being constrained by MSO stope shapes, a gold price of US $1,725 per ounce, and a metallurgical recovery of 94 percent. This resource statement does not include the Stock East deposit, which had its own mineral resource estimation updated in March 2022; there is a separate Mineral Resource Statement for Stock East. Technical information Technical information pertaining to the Fox Complex exploration contained in this news release has been prepared under the supervision of Sean Farrell, P.Geo., Chief Exploration Geologist, who is a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian Securities Administrators National Instrument 43-101 "Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects." The technical information related to resource and reserve estimates in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Luke Willis, P.Geo., McEwen Minings Director of Resource Modelling and Qualified Person as defined by SEC S-K 1300 and Canadian Securities Administrators National Instrument 43-101 "Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects." Exploration drill core samples at the Stock Complex were typically submitted as 1/2 core. Analyses reported herein were either performed by the fire assay method at the accredited laboratory Pangea Laboratorio in Sinaloa, Mexico, owned and operated by an indirect subsidiary of the Company (NMX-EC-17025-IMNC-2018, ISO /IEC 17025:2017), or by the photon assay method at the accredited laboratory MSA Labs in Timmins, Ontario, Canada (ISO 9001 & ISO 10725). For a list of drilling results at Stock since June 2, 2023, including hole location and alignment, click here: https://www.mcewenmining.com/files/doc_news/archive/2024/2024_02_StockDrillResults.xlsx CAUTION CONCERNING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release contains certain forward-looking statements and information, including "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements and information expressed, as at the date of this news release, McEwen Mining Inc.s (the "Company") estimates, forecasts, projections, expectations or beliefs as to future events and results. Forward-looking statements and information are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties, risks and contingencies, and there can be no assurance that such statements and information will prove to be accurate. Therefore, actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements and information. Risks and uncertainties that could cause results or future events to differ materially from current expectations expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information include, but are not limited to, effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, fluctuations in the market price of precious metals, mining industry risks, political, economic, social and security risks associated with foreign operations, the ability of the corporation to receive or receive in a timely manner permits or other approvals required in connection with operations, risks associated with the construction of mining operations and commencement of production and the projected costs thereof, risks related to litigation, the state of the capital markets, environmental risks and hazards, uncertainty as to calculation of mineral resources and reserves, and other risks. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information included herein, which speak only as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to reissue or update forward-looking statements or information as a result of new information or events after the date hereof except as may be required by law. See McEwen Minings Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, under the caption "Risk Factors", for additional information on risks, uncertainties and other factors relating to the forward-looking statements and information regarding the Company. All forward-looking statements and information made in this news release are qualified by this cautionary statement. The NYSE and TSX have not reviewed and do not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the contents of this news release, which has been prepared by management of McEwen Mining Inc. ABOUT MCEWEN MINING McEwen Mining is a gold and silver producer with operations in Nevada, Canada, Mexico and Argentina. In addition, it owns approximately 47.7% of McEwen Copper which owns the large, advanced-stage Los Azules copper project in Argentina. Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner, has a personal investment in the company of US$220 million. His annual salary is US$1. Want News Fast? Subscribe to our email list by clicking here: https://www.mcewenmining.com/contact-us/#section=followUs and receive news as it happens! A photo accompanying this announcement is available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5a77353f-7e14-4df0-8b0b-69000806b355 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e3a4ebe6-3bd8-4b0b-a8dd-a15b91218334 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/df3902f4-4e4d-4c33-b5b3-3c69a1f7ca16 Chinese firms made important contributions to this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC), a business insider said. #GLOBALink Produced by Xinhua Global Service Washington, D.C., Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell presented oral argument to the Supreme Court in the New Civil Liberties Alliances Garland v. Cargill case, demonstrating that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives unilateral bump-stock ban conflicts with the federal statute defining machineguns. ATFs regulatory ban, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit shot down 13-3 early last year, reversed the agencys own long-standing recognition that bump-stock-equipped firearms are not illegal machine guns. NCLAs client, Texas gun shop owner and Army veteran Michael Cargill, made his case in the courtroom today, anticipating a Supreme Court decision later this term that will confirm the Fifth Circuits ruling and prevent ATF from criminalizing innocent Americans. ATF issued its interpretive Final Rule in 2018 defining semi-automatic firearms equipped with bump stocks as machineguns, which federal law prohibits. The rule required Mr. Cargill and every other bump-stock owner nationwide to either destroy or turn in their legally purchased devices. ATF had no right to create this threat. Congress adopted a statute banning machineguns in 1986 that did not cover bump stocks. ATF does not have the authority to enact regulations that create new criminal liability. Justice Neil Gorsuch noted that the government had regarded bump stocks as different from machine guns for over a decade across three administrations before ATF changed its position in creating its interpretive Final Rule. He said the governments rule would render between a quarter-of-a-million and a half-million people federal felons, and not even through an [Administrative Procedure Act] process they could challenge, subject[ing them] to ten years in federal prison. In January 2023, the en banc Fifth Circuit ruled in Cargill v. Garland that banning bump stocks requires an act of Congress, a major victory for NCLA. The ruling that bump stocks are not machine guns agrees with a subsequent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and an earlier one from the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals, but it conflicts with Tenth Circuit and D.C. Circuit decisions rejecting challenges to ATFs Final Rule. This case tasks the Supreme Court with resolving these conflicting opinions. The government argued today that bump stocks are machine guns, claiming the statutory definition of machine gun includes any device that causes more than one shot to fire in response to a single motion of the shooter or a single act of the shooter. However, the statute says that a device cannot qualify as a machinegun unless it causes a weapon to fire more than one shot by a single function of the trigger and a bump stock does not alter the triggers function in any way. Regardless of whether a semi-automatic rifle is equipped with a bump stock, the weapon will fire only a single bullet in response to a single activation of the trigger. The shooter must disengage the trigger, allow it to reset, and activate it again before another shot can be fired. NCLA is confident the Court will interpret the statute correctly and set aside ATFs rule. NCLA released the following statements: Im here today to stop ATF from overstepping its proper authority. ATFs bump-stock ban turned law-abiding citizens into criminals even though they were compliant with the statute. Thats not right, and the Supreme Court should condemn it once and for all. Michael Cargill, NCLA Client Its a travesty of justice for federal bureaucrats to try to rewrite the criminal laws and turn law-abiding gun owners into felons. Todays argument in the Supreme Court drove home the point that it is up to Congress alone to write the criminal laws. Richard Samp, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA The Justices seemed appropriately focused on the text of the statute during todays argument, which should bode well for Mr. Cargills position. A bump stock does not alter the trigger on a semi-automatic weapon, so a bump stock does not turn a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun. Mark Chenoweth, President, NCLA For more information visit the case page here and watch the case video here. ABOUT NCLA NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLAs public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans fundamental rights. ### Ruslan Moldovanov New Civil Liberties Alliance 202-869-5237 [email protected] Source: New Civil Liberties Alliance CINCINNATI, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ultimus Fund Solutions (Ultimus), a leading independent provider of full-service, technology-enhanced fund administration, accounting, and investor solutions, is pleased to highlight an impressive showcase of leadership and innovation within the financial services sector. Ultimus has been honored with three prestigious awards at the highly competitive Fund Intelligence Operations and Services Awards. After a rigorous and thorough judging process, Ultimus secured three top awards including the Best ETF Administrator Award, the Best Interval Fund Administrator Award, and the Best Data Management Solution - Back/Middle Office. Key Achievements Highlight Industry Excellence Ultimus has distinguished itself as an industry frontrunner through its significant achievements: The Best ETF Administrator Award underscores Ultimus exceptional service delivery in ETF administration, marked by notable client and revenue growth alongside rapid advancement in its proprietary technology. underscores Ultimus exceptional service delivery in ETF administration, marked by notable client and revenue growth alongside rapid advancement in its proprietary technology. Winning the Best Interval Fund Administrator Award reflects the companys unmatched client-centric service culture and consultative approach in helping clients navigate the increasingly sophisticated investment landscape of closed-end fund structures, further highlighting its reputation as a trusted partner for its clientele. reflects the companys unmatched client-centric service culture and consultative approach in helping clients navigate the increasingly sophisticated investment landscape of closed-end fund structures, further highlighting its reputation as a trusted partner for its clientele. The Best Data Management Solution - Back/Middle Office accolade emphasizes Ultimus' proficiency in enhancing operational efficiency through superior data management solutions and performance analytics capabilities managed by a proprietary technology platform uANALYZE. In addition, Ultimus supports both IBOR and ABOR on a single platform, further advancing the firms industry-leading middle office solution. accolade emphasizes Ultimus' proficiency in enhancing operational efficiency through superior data management solutions and performance analytics capabilities managed by a proprietary technology platform uANALYZE. In addition, Ultimus supports both IBOR and ABOR on a single platform, further advancing the firms industry-leading middle office solution. Ultimus is dedicated to elevating the standards of fund administration and operational service excellence. With these latest achievements, the company further solidifies its position as an industry leader, committed to driving growth, efficiency, and innovation in the financial services industry. Todays heightened industry focus on retail alternative funds, ETFs, and middle office service requirements appropriately aligns with Ultimus current solutions and further highlights why Ultimus is being recognized and awarded for its exceptional performance in these targeted areas. Gary Tenkman, CEO of Ultimus, emphasizes the company's dedication, We are excited that three of the key areas of significant investment in both talent and technology we made over the past several years based on both clients' and other market participants' feedback have led to these humbling results. Its a testament to our culture of innovation and the teams hard work at Ultimus. We know that innovation never stops and are excited about our continued investment in these and other areas that will benefit clients and the market. Impact on Ultimus and The Industry These accolades not only reaffirm Ultimus' role as a leader of outstanding quality and innovation in the fund administration and middle office sectors but also set a new benchmark for what asset managers can expect. Ultimus continuous pursuit of excellence, innovative technology, and prioritization of client satisfaction has set a new standard for the industry. The remarkable influx of new clients and the overall growth of the company serve as a testament to this unparalleled dedication. To learn more about how Ultimus is shaping the future of fund administration and middle office services, visit https://www.ultimusfundsolutions.com. About Ultimus Ultimus Fund Solutions (Ultimus) is a leading provider of full-service tech-enhanced fund administration, accounting, middle office, and investor solutions to support the launching and servicing of registered funds, private funds, and public plans. The company also offers customized structures designed for the unique needs of pensions, endowments, foundations, and other large institutions. Ultimus deep commitment to excellence is achieved through investments in best-in-class technology, compliance programs, organization-wide cyber security efforts, and hiring seasoned professionals. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio with offices in other major cities such as New York, Denver, Philadelphia, and Omaha, Ultimus employs more than 1,000 seasoned accountants, attorneys, paralegals, application developers, fund administrators, compliance specialists, and many others with years of experience in the financial services industry. Servicing over 1,800 total traditional and alternative funds, Ultimus helps investment managers and fund families flourish in todays increasingly sophisticated and dynamic investment landscape. For more information, visit www.ultimusfundsolutions.com. CONTACT: [email protected] 17937905 2/25/2024 Source: Ultimus Fund Solutions Piper Sandler's chief global economist Nancy Lazar said in a Monday note that the US could orchestrate a soft landing ... I'm a New Customer I'm a Returning Customer E-mail Address (or username, if registered via mobile device) Password Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. (TSX: AVL) (OTCQB: AVLNF) ("Avalon" or the "Company") announces the results of its 2024 Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders held in Toronto, Ontario on February 27, 2024 (the "Meeting"). At the Meeting, all eight director nominees listed in the Company's information circular dated January 9, 2024 were elected as directors of the Company. The detailed results of the vote are as follows: Director Number of Votes Cast Percentage of Votes Cast Alan Ferry For: 168,362,630 97.450% Against: 4,405,715 2.550 % Timothy Haig For: 168,777,567 97.690% Against: 3,990,778 2.310% Jan Holland For: 168,669,939 97.628% Against: 4,098,406 2.372% Naomi Johnson For: 166,923,113 96.617% Against: 5,845,232 3.383% Alec Kodatsky For: 168,639,607 97.610% Against: 4,128,738 2.390% Benny Loix For: 168,588,301 97.581% Against: 4,180,044 2.419% Scott Monteith For: 168,688,470 97.639% Against: 4,079,875 2.361% Harvey L. A. Yesno For: 168,494,329 97.526% Against: 4,274,016 2.474% At the Meeting, shareholders also re-appointed Ernst & Young LLP as auditors of the Company and approved an amendment to the Company's Deferred Share Unit Plan. About Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. is a Canadian advanced manufacturing company focused on vertically integrating the Ontario lithium supply chain. The Company, through its joint venture with SCR-Sibelco NV, is currently developing its Separation Rapids lithium deposit near Kenora, ON, while also continuing to advance the Snowbank lithium and Lilypad lithium-caesium projects. Avalon is also working to develop its Nechalacho rare earths and zirconium project located in the Northwest Territories. This deposit contains critical minerals for use in advanced technologies in the communications and defense industries among other sectors. In addition to these upstream activities, Avalon is executing on a key initiative to develop Ontario's first midstream lithium hydroxide processing facility in Thunder Bay, ON, a vital link bridging the lithium resources of the north with the downstream EV battery manufacturing base in the south. For more information and media inquiries, contact Zeeshan Syed, President, Avalon Advanced Materials Inc., at 416-364-4938 or [email protected]. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199749 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Cell MedX Corp. (OTC Pink: CMXC) ("Cell MedX", or the "Company") a biotech company focusing on the discovery, development and commercialization of therapeutic and non-therapeutic products that promote anti-aging and general wellness, announces the resignation of Brad Hargreaves from the Board of Directors of the Company. The resignation of Mr. Hargreaves was not due to any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Company's operations, policies or practice or otherwise. Cell MedX has not filled the vacancy created by the resignation of Mr. Hargreaves as a member of the Board of Directors. The Company would like to thank Mr. Hargreaves for his contribution to the development of the Company and wishes him the best of success in his future business endeavors. About Cell MedX Corp. (OTC Pink: CMXC) Cell MedX Corp. is a biotech company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of therapeutic and non-therapeutic products that promote general wellness and alleviate complications associated with medical conditions including, but not limited to: aging, diabetes, high blood pressure, neuropathy and kidney function. The Company's main focus is on continued research and development of its eBalance Technology and its eBalance Home System. On behalf of the Board of Directors of Cell MedX Corp. David Jeffs Director, CEO For further information: [email protected] www.cellmedx.com Forward-Looking Statements The information included in this press release has not been reviewed by the FDA or Health Canada, nor has it been peer reviewed. This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions and are identified by words such as "expects", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "anticipates", "believes", "could", and other similar words. All statements addressing product performance, events, or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Because the statements are forward-looking, they should be evaluated in light of important risk factors and uncertainties, some of which are described in the Company's Quarterly, Annual and Current Reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of the Company's underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those currently anticipated. In addition, undue reliance should not be placed on Company's forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, Cell MedX Corp. disclaims any obligation to update or publicly announce any revisions to any of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory body has reviewed nor accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Investors are advised to carefully review the reports and documents that Cell MedX Corp. files from time to time with the SEC, including its Annual, Quarterly and Current Reports. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199744 Enkrypt AI stands apart by merging threat detection, privacy, and compliance into a comprehensive toolkit ensuring business adoption of LLMs and generative AI is safe, reliable and compliant. Boston, Massachusetts--(Newsfile Corp. - February 27, 2024) - Enkrypt AI is today announcing a $2.35M funding round to solve this problem for enterprises, ensuring their use of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) is safe, secure and compliant. Generative AI and LLMs present an opportunity for enterprises to gain new efficiencies and improve functionality, however, the safety and security of such technology remains an obstacle. The seed funding round was led by Boldcap with participation from Berkeley SkyDeck, Kubera VC, Arka VC, Veredas Partners, Builders Fund and angel investors in the AI, healthcare and enterprise space. Enkrypt AI was founded by two Yale PhDs and AI practitioners Sahil Agarwal (CEO) and Prashanth Harshangi (CTO) in 2022. With Enkrypt AI, enterprises have a control layer between these LLMs and end-users, providing security and safety functionality. Enkrypt AI Sentry has been able to reduce vulnerabilities across a wide range of LLMs, demonstrating a reduction in jailbreaks from 6% to 0.6% in the case of LlaMa2-7B. The Enkrypt AI team has previously developed and deployed AI models across diverse sectors, including the US Department of Defense and various businesses in self-driving cars, music, insurance and fintech. Enkrypt AI offers a 360 degrees security view with their Sentry proposition To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/199583_e8da921c1452e88d_002full.jpg Enkrypt AI's Sentry is the only platform that combines both visibility and security for generative AI applications at the enterprise, so that enterprises can secure and accelerate their Generative AI Adoption with Confidence. A leading Fortune 500 data infrastructure company is using Sentry to have complete access control and visibility over all their LLM projects, helping them to detect and mitigate LLM attacks such as jailbreaks and hallucinations, and prevent sensitive data leaks. This is ultimately leading to faster adoption of LLMs for even more use-cases across departments. Sahil Agarwal, Co-founder and CEO of Enkrypt AI commented: "Businesses are really excited about using LLMs, but they're also worried about how trustworthy they are and the uncertain regulatory landscape. Based on our conversations with CIOs, CISOs and CTOs, we are convinced that for LLMs to be widely adopted, it must be built on a foundation of security, privacy, and compliance. With Sentry, we are merging visibility and security, to ultimately align with and support adherence to regulatory frameworks like the White House Executive Order on AI, the EU AI Act, and other AI-centric regulations, laying the groundwork for safe and compliant AI integration." Prashanth Harshangi, Co-founder and CTO at Enkrypt AI commented: "As the benefits of AI become ever more tangible, so do the risks. Our platform does more than just detect vulnerabilities; it equips developers with a comprehensive toolkit to fortify their AI solutions against both current and future threats. We're championing a paradigm where trust and innovation coalesce, enabling the deployment of AI technologies with the confidence that they are as secure and reliable as they are revolutionary." Enkrypt AI is proven to help enterprises accelerate their generative AI adoption by up to 10x, deploying applications into production within weeks compared to the current forecast of 2 years within enterprises. Their comprehensive approach addresses the key concerns causing hesitation among enterprise decision-makers: Delivers unmatched visibility and oversight of LLM usage and performance across business functions. Ensures data privacy and security by protecting sensitive information and guarding against threats. Manages compliance with evolving standards through automated monitoring and strict access controls. The safety of AI has been a key concern for policymakers and experts. Earlier this month, the US Government's NIST standards body established an AI safety consortium. In an era where generative AI is becoming a transformative force across industries, safeguarding these systems goes beyond best practice - it's a necessity. Sahil Agarwal added: "Our mission at Enkrypt AI is to provide the tools that allow enterprises to not only harness the incredible potential of generative AI but to do so with the utmost confidence in the security and compliance of their applications. With the support of our investors and the advanced capabilities of our platform, we are setting a new standard in AI safety - protecting users and organizations against emerging threats while enabling the wider adoption of AI innovations in a responsible manner." Sathya Nellore Sampat, General Partner at BoldCap - "We are super excited to be backing practitioners like Sahil and Prashanth who are at the intersection of Security and Gen AI. Enterprise security is non-negotiable. With the explosive growth of Gen AI and LLM usage within companies, the attack surface has dramatically increased. Enkrypt is the command center to control, monitor and have visibility across Gen AI initiatives." About the company: About Enkrypt AI Enkrypt AI, co-founded by Yale PhDs Sahil Agarwal and Prashanth Harshangi, is pioneering the safe adoption of Generative AI within enterprises. With an innovative all-in-one platform, Enkrypt AI is revolutionizing how Large Language Models (LLMs) are integrated and managed, addressing critical needs for reliability, security, data privacy, and compliance in a unified solution. Used by mid to large-sized enterprises in industries including finance and life sciences, Enkrypt AI's Sentry offers a proactive approach to AI security, fostering trust and efficiency in AI implementations from chatbots to automated reporting. Enkrypt AI sits between users and AI models, to offer a variety of safety and security layers. Enkrypt AI stands apart by merging threat detection, privacy, and compliance into a comprehensive toolkit, poised to become the definitive Enterprise Generative AI platform for an evolving regulatory landscape. For more information please visit https://www.enkryptai.com/ or follow via LinkedIn, X, Instagram or YouTube. Contact Info: Name: Bilal Mahmood Email: [email protected] Organization: Enkrypt AI Website: https://www.enkryptai.com/ To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199583 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Visit GGL Resources Corp. (TSXV: GGL) at Booth #3124 at the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canadas (PDAC) Convention at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) from Sunday, March 3 to Wednesday, March 6, 2024. About GGL Resources Corp. GGL is a seasoned, Canadian-based junior exploration company, focused on the exploration and advancement of under evaluated mineral assets in politically stable, mining friendly jurisdictions. The Company has optioned and wholly owned claims in the Gold Point district of the prolific Walker Lane Trend, Nevada. The Gold Point claims cover several gold-silver veins, four of which host past producing high-grade mines, and an exciting new porphyry discovery. The Company also owns the McConnell Project, which hosts epithermal gold veins and an under explored porphyry copper-gold prospect in the Kemess District of north-central British Colombia. GGL also holds diamond royalties on mineral leases adjacent to the Gahcho Ku diamond mine in the Northwest Territories. About PDAC The Worlds Premier Mineral Exploration & Mining Convention is the leading convention for people, governments, companies and organizations connected to mineral exploration. In addition to meeting more than 1,100 exhibitors, 2,500 investors and 24,000 attendees in person in 2023, participants could also attend programming, courses and networking events. The annual convention is held in Toronto, Canada. It has grown in size, stature and influence since it began in 1932 and today is the event of choice for the worlds mineral industry. For more information and/or to register for the conference please visit: https://www.pdac.ca/convention. We look forward to seeing you there. For further information: GGL Resources Corp. Richard Drechsler 6046872522 [email protected] www.gglresourcescorp.com London, United Kingdom--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - GBWrecently announced that they have found a 1699 5 Guineas William III Elephant and Castle gold coin, rated MS64, marking it as a pristine, uncirculated gem. This rare find, heralded as the "King of Coins," encapsulates over three centuries of British history, craftsmanship, and distinction, setting a new benchmark in the world of coin collecting. For the past decade, GBW's team has undertaken a global quest in Australia, China, Japan, Africa, Europe, and the US, in pursuit of these remarkably uncommon and exceptionally elusive coins. Their dedication highlights the formidable challenges encountered in securing such scarce items, owing to their significant size, and rarity. Reverse To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/9032/198889_bd85f34e347d187e_001full.jpg Obverse To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/9032/198889_bd85f34e347d187e_002full.jpg This rare find being none other than the 1699 5 Guineas William III Elephant and Castle, is a gold coin that epitomises the zenith of Golden Art in coinage. It stands as one of the largest gold coins ever minted for commercial use during its time. This specific coin, rated MS64, indicating it is in Mint State (uncirculated) condition, is not just a very rare coin but a beacon of historical significance (the early 5 Guineas from the 1600s and 1700s are extremely rare in any condition, but 99.99% of them are well circulated). The "Elephant and Castle" under the bust denotes the use of gold sourced from the Africa Company, adding a layer of geopolitical intrigue and rarity to its story. Its historical significance is underscored by its creation during an era when Great Britain was emerging as the foremost global empire, making it a bold statement of imperial grandeur and economic prowess. GBW - Treasure Hunters The discovery story of this coin is as captivating as the piece itself. After a decade long global quest that spanned continents, the coin was unearthed in a small, overlooked collection in Europe, a find that was the culmination of tireless searches, negotiations, and expertise. The moment the coin was identified among lesser-known treasures, it sparked an unparalleled excitement among the GBW team, akin to unearthing a piece of lost history. This discovery was not just about finding a rare coin but about reclaiming a piece of the grand narrative of British numismatic heritage. For collectors, it offers an opportunity to own a piece of imperial history, while for historians, it provides tangible evidence of Britain's global reach and economic strategies in the 17th century. In light of the remarkable discovery of the 1699 5 Guineas William III Elephant and Castle, GBW's representatives and the coin hunters involved in the discovery have shared their insights and excitement, underscoring the significance of this find. From James David, a leading expert at GBW: "The discovery of the 1699 5 Guineas William III Elephant and Castle is a milestone in the world of numismatics. It's not just about finding a rare coin; it's about uncovering a piece of history that tells us about the economic and political landscape of 17th century Great Britain. This coin is a testament to the craftsmanship and the global aspirations of an emerging empire." Mia Chen, one of the coin hunters who played a crucial role in the discovery, shared her exhilaration: "The moment we realised what we had found, it was pure exhilaration. Years of diligent search, sifting through collections across continents, finally led us to this extraordinary piece. It's a once-in-a-lifetime find that reaffirms why we are so passionate about numismatics." GBW is showcasing the 1699 5 Guineas William III Elephant and Castle MS64 gold coin, sparking interest in the global numismatic community. Their role in discovering, curating and brokering this find demonstrates a commitment to historical treasures. This project connects history enthusiasts with significant pieces, emphasising GBW's insight into Britain's heritage. GBW invites enthusiasts and historians to delve deeper into the fascinating world of coin collecting, encouraging further exploration of GBW's initiatives and discoveries through their website https://www.goldbullionwealth.com/ and social media channels. Contact Information For further enquiries or additional information regarding this extraordinary numismatic discovery, please contact: Name: James David Title: Director of Communications, GBW Email Address: [email protected] GBW, with its headquarters nestled in the heart of London, was founded on a passion for history and a commitment to uncovering the stories behind currency and coins. Our mission is to explore, discover, and share numismatic treasures. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/198889 Burnaby, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Great Eagle Gold Corp. (CSE: GEGC) (FSE: GI8), renowned as the premier Digital Green Gold Miner, is pleased to announce the appointment of Kate Fehlenberg to its Board of Directors, the successful closing of a private placement, and the initiation of strategic marketing agreements aimed at enhancing its outreach in Germany and the United States. Board of Directors Enhancement The Company is thrilled to welcome Kate Fehlenberg, MPH, M.S., to its Board of Directors. Kate is a distinguished Climate Change and Scaling Innovations Specialist, known for her extensive experience in regenerative agriculture, climate change resilience, and innovation scaling. Her career has been dedicated to making significant impacts across various sectors, such as climate-smart agriculture, public health, and gender equity, demonstrating her unwavering commitment to ecological and social well-being. Kate's expertise in strategic planning, project management, and systems change has been pivotal in fostering partnerships, optimizing operations, and leading teams to achieve meaningful results. Kate's educational background is impressive, with an MPH from Columbia University, focusing on Population, Family Health, and Forced Migration, and an MSc in GIS and Sustainable Development from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her BSc in Environmental Science and GIS from Samford University further solidifies her expertise in environmental systems and sustainability. Her work with FHI360, USAID Global Dev Lab, CGIAR, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, highlights her skill in driving innovations and resilience strategies in various challenging environments. Kate's global experience, including projects in the USA, Kenya, Tanzania, Nepal, and several other countries, underscores her ability to navigate complex cultural and ecological landscapes. Fluent in English and proficient in French, Spanish, Nepali, and Kiswahili, Kate's linguistic abilities enhance her capacity to connect with diverse communities and stakeholders, enriching her work in climate resilience and regenerative practices. Chris Hansen, Chairman of Great Eagle Gold, enthusiastically welcomed Kate to the board, remarking, "Kate's illustrious career, marked by her unwavering commitment to tackling the globe's most critical environmental and sustainability challenges, positions her as an indispensable asset to our board. Her visionary leadership and innovative approach are exactly what we need as we propel Great Eagle into the forefront of the ESG-conscious gold mining era. We are fortunate to have her guiding influence as we embark on this transformative journey." Private Placement Closure Following the announcement on January 12, 2024, Great Eagle has successfully completed a non-brokered private placement, issuing 1,803,105 units at $0.30 per unit, raising gross proceeds of $540,932. Each unit consists of one common share and half of one common share purchase warrant, with each full warrant allowing the holder to purchase an additional common share at $0.50 for two years post-closing. Additionally, the Company has settled debts with its former President and a director by issuing 116,666 common shares at a deemed price of $0.30 per share. All shares and warrants from this placement are subject to a hold period until June 27, 2024. The proceeds will support working capital, shareholder communications, marketing, and mineral exploration expenses. Strategic Marketing Agreements To enhance its marketing efforts, Great Eagle has entered into agreements with TD Media LLC, dba Life Water Media, and MIC Market Information & Content Publishing GmbH. Life Water will focus on digital marketing services, including media creation, advertising, digital campaigns, influencer management, and digital communications, with a six-month term and a total fee of US$100,000. Similarly, MIC will handle online marketing services, including text material, campaign management, and keyword research, with a six-month term and a fee of 100,000. Andrew Fletcher, Director and CEO of Great Eagle, highlighted the importance of these agreements, stating, "We understand the value of effectively communicating our story and expanding our loyal shareholder base. Leading a new industry segment requires well-executed communication strategies. Through our partnerships with MIC and TD Media, we are poised to embark on a long and beneficial communications journey, crucial for stakeholders to fully appreciate Great Eagle's value proposition." Amended Terms for Acquisition of Great Eagle Gold S.A.S As previously announced the Company closed on the acquisition of Great Eagle Gold S.A.S, its new Colombian subsidiary, for a proposed aggregate purchase price of US$217,600 (the "Purchase Price"). The Purchase Price was to consist of cash in the amount of US$21,760 represented by a promissory note (the "Promissory Note") and the issuance of an interest free convertible promissory (the "Convertible Note"), for the US$195,840 balance of the Purchase Price. However, the parties have amended the terms of their agreement for the acquisition of Great Eagle Gold S.A.S. In consideration for the assumption of that company's outstanding liabilities, the Purchase Price consisting of the Promissory Note and Convertible Note has been cancelled, and as a result no securities will be issued or any cash paid for the acquisition. About Great Eagle Gold Corp. Great Eagle Gold Corp. (CSE: GEGC) (FSE: GI8), a Canadian public company, aims to be a leading digital green gold miner. Its unique strategy involves developing and acquiring certified gold resources to exchange into digital green gold tokens. By keeping the gold secured in the ground while tokenizing and monetizing its value, Great Eagle Gold Corp. introduces an innovative, ESG-friendly approach to wealth creation in the traditional gold mining industry. Great Eagle Gold's inaugural gold resource development project is situated in Colombia's second-largest gold-producing region, Bajo Cauca. Hacienda Rio Rayo encompasses three fully permitted exploration and production concessions, hosting nine active alluvial gold mining operations with an average monthly output of approximately 35 kilograms. The total area covered by these three concessions is 2,523 hectares. Despite its rich history of gold production, this extensive area has never undergone modern exploration or certification of gold resources. Identifying and quantifying this untapped potential is Great Eagle Gold's primary focus. Moreover, Colombia is anticipated to be the first country to enact green gold legislation, as championed by the International Green Gold Council, thus pioneering the way for a thriving green gold tokenization industry. Besides its Colombian project, Great Eagle Gold's global acquisition strategy targets existing mining titles with NI 43-101 certified gold resources. This approach is in anticipation of a wave of green gold legislation, which is expected to open tokenization opportunities worldwide. The securities referred to herein will not be or have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor the Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Great Eagle Gold Corp. Chris Hansen, Chairman For further information please contact: Email: [email protected] Website: www.greateaglegold.com Phone: +1 (415) 300-6144 Investor inquiries: Green Gold Communications S.A.S. Worldwide Toll Free: +1 (877) 513-5213 Direct: +1 (775) 341-6015 Email: [email protected] Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor the Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to Great Eagle's operations and green gold mining initiatives, its Colombian property exploration and development plans, expansion plans, estimates, expectations, forecasts, objectives, predictions and projections of the future. Specifically, this news release contains forward looking statements with respect to Great Eagle's proposed operations, acquiring and developing certified green gold resources and their tokenization, and the receipt of required approvals. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "projects", "intends", "anticipates", or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or "variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "can", "could", "would", "might", or "will" be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Great Eagle to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks related to the exploration and development and operation of Great Eagle's projects, the actual results of current exploration, development activities, conclusions of economic evaluations, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, future precious metals prices, as well as those factors discussed in the sections relating to risk factors of our business filed in Great Eagle's required securities filings on SEDAR+. Although Great Eagle has attempted to identify important factors that could cause results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results to be materially different from those anticipated, described, estimated, assessed or intended. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities law. Additionally, the Company undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made, by third parties in respect of the matters discussed above. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199575 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 27, 2024) - iMining Technologies Inc. (TSXV: IMIN.H) ("iMining"), a leading technology company publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange Venture, proudly announces the attendance of its subsidiary, AiMining Technologies Inc. ("AiMining"), at two prestigious global technology events, LEAP 2024 and DeepFest. Wired Magazine has recognized both events as integral components of the technology calendar, often likened to a "Digital Davos." LEAP 2024 is slated to take place at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center, Malham, Saudi Arabia, from March 4th to 7th, 2024, alongside DeepFest, which will be hosted concurrently at the same venue. Khurram Shroff, Chairman and CEO of iMining Technologies, expressed his anticipation for the upcoming events, remarking, "Our participation in LEAP 2024 and DeepFest underscores our dedication to actively engage with global technology leaders and immerse ourselves in the rapidly evolving tech landscape. These esteemed gatherings offer an invaluable platform for us to stay abreast of the latest trends, explore cutting-edge innovations, and foster new partnerships and collaborative endeavors. Our presence reaffirms our commitment to driving forward technology innovation responsibly." During the events, AiMining Technologies will play an active role in networking, attending pivotal presentations, and interfacing with industry luminaries. LEAP 2024 is projected to attract over 172,000 regional and international technology professionals, alongside 1,300 investors, while DeepFest serves as a premier convergence point for thought leaders, influencers, prominent tech entities, data scientists, innovators, academia, startups, and entrepreneurs within the global AI ecosystem. AiMining Technologies aims to leverage its participation to further build relationships in the Middle East region, exploring potential partnerships and collaborations with local entities. Additionally, the company will be conducting market research to understand the unique challenges and opportunities within the Middle Eastern tech landscape, with a focus on enhancing its offerings to cater to regional needs. About iMining Technologies Inc. iMining Technologies Inc. is a publicly listed technology company that acquires, builds, and manages future technology companies in Canada. The Company's industry-specific technology businesses provide specialized and innovative solutions in future technologies and serve private sector markets. iMining Technologies Inc. is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. About AiMining Technologies Inc. AiMining Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of iMining Technologies Inc., is a start-up at the forefront of Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation. Comprising a dedicated applied research lab focused on collaboration with esteemed institutions and a commercialization program geared towards market engagement, AiMining seamlessly integrates into iMining's technology portfolio and is committed to advancing responsible AI development. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Signed "Khurram Shroff" Khurram Shroff, President & CEO FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, please contact: iMining Corporate Offices: Saleem Moosa, CFO and Director Email: [email protected] Telephone: 1-604-602-4935 Toll-Free: 1-866-602-4935 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/199627 CAIRO, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Tuesday stressed the need for regional efforts to address the Red Sea tensions during a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. The two ministers met on the sidelines of the high-level segment of the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council held in Geneva, Switzerland, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. During the meeting, Shoukry expressed concerns over the spread of military tensions in the southern Red Sea region, which poses an unprecedented threat to one of the most important international navigation routes. Noting such a threat has harmed the interests of many countries, including Egypt, the Egyptian top diplomat affirmed the need for regional cooperation to support stability and peace and contain tensions in this area. Egypt's Suez Canal, which used to handle 12 percent of global trade, has suffered a drop of 40-50 percent in revenues since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip and the recent tensions in the Red Sea, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi said last week. The Suez Canal is vital for the Egyptian economy as it is a main source of foreign currency for the country, which is currently suffering from a hard currency shortage. The two sides also discussed the situation of Gaza, reiterating their rejection of plans to displace the Palestinian people outside their land and ruin the Palestinian cause. They agreed to intensify their joint efforts to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and perpetuate the humanitarian aid delivery to the Palestinian people in line with relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. Liviniti CEO selected for Pinnacle Awards class of 20 honorees from a diverse range of health and wellness organizations Natchitoches, Los Angeles--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Liviniti is proud to announce that LeAnn Boyd, CEO, is part of the prestigious group of 20 healthcare leaders selected to receive the MM+M 2024 Pinnacle Awards. Honorees include leaders, marketers, strategists and creators who have scaled healthcare industry heights, with years of high achievement ahead of them. Pinnacle Awards honorees will be profiled in the May print edition of MM+M and celebrated at an in-person event scheduled for May 2 in New York City. LeAnn has long challenged the pharmacy industry to adopt practices that make prescription drugs more affordable and accessible. Her influence extends from co-founding Liviniti, a national leader in PBM transparency and prescription drug savings, to the national stage with her leadership role in Transparency-Rx, a bi-partisan coalition addressing change through Congress and state legislative chambers. She has consulted with legislators on PBM reform, offering valuable experience and insights. "I am honored to be included as an MM+M Pinnacle Awards honoree among this group of transformative healthcare leaders," LeAnn comments. "In particular, I want to acknowledge the work of our exceptional Liviniti team in delivering flexible PBM solutions that help our clients reduce their pharmacy costs while promoting positive health outcomes. Throughout our journey, we have always been energized by the pursuit of better." Since 1966, MM+M has evolved as a premier brand for pharmaceutical marketing and commercialization, today delivering editorial content for an executive audience of leaders who work in pharma, medical device, diagnostics and the greater healthcare industry. "Our industry is quick to honor its young stars and its legends after they retire," says MM+M executive editor Larry Dobrow. "We have a bit of a blind spot for the many professionals who have accomplished great things and aren't anywhere close to the end of their careers. The Pinnacle Awards are designed to remedy that." LeAnn C. Boyd, PharmD - CEO and Founder To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10118/199536_7abc05e364c048ad_001full.jpg To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/10118/199536_7abc05e364c048ad_002full.jpg About Liviniti Liviniti is a pioneer in pharmacy benefit innovation. Built by pharmacists, the company offers pass-through pricing within a fully transparent business model that delivers meaningful savings to clients and optimal health outcomes to members. Founded in 2011 as Southern Scripts and rebranded to Liviniti in 2023, the new name reinforces the power of medication to change lives through infinite possibilities. With an approach that delivers savings, clinical value, exceptional service and management of high-cost medications, Liviniti provides pharmacy benefit services to regional and national employers across the US. For more information, visit Liviniti.com. ### Media Contact: Denise Haegele, Senior Marketing Manager [email protected] To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199536 Bountiful, Utah--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - OneMeta (OTC Pink: ONEI), OneMeta's proprietary technology uses AI and allows the spoken and written word to be translated and transcribe in less than one second in over 150 languages., is pleased to announce it will be presenting at the Centurion One 7th Annual Growth Conference, which will be taking place for the first time at the award winning Four Seasons Hotel on Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Toronto, Ontario. Saul Leal, CEO and Co-founder, is scheduled to present on Thursday, March 7th at 9 am EDT. Saul will also be fielding investor questions during the conference and participating on a panel discussion at 10:20 am EDT. Saul Leal will discuss the Microsoft partnership and will demonstrate his presentation being translated into multiple languages simultaneously and will show the new phone to phone voice translation technology without the use of an App or the Internet Centurion One 7th Annual Growth Conference will feature public and private companies across various industries that will be given the opportunity to present to some of the most prominent venture capital, family office, private equity firms, high net worth individuals and institutional investors in the growth space attending from Canada, the United States, and abroad. For registration details, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/centurion-one-capital-7th-annual-growth-conference. Conference Details: Event: Centurion One 7th Annual Growth Conference Format: Presentations, Q&A and Panel Discussions Date: Thursday, March 7, 2024 Time: 7:30 AM EDT - 5:00 PM EDT Venue: Four Seasons Hotel About Centurion One Capital Centurion One Capital (Centurion One) is the premier independent investment banking firm dedicated to fueling the growth and success of growth companies in North America. With an unwavering commitment to delivering comprehensive financial solutions and strategic guidance, Centurion One is a trusted strategic partner and catalyst to propel issuers to unlock their full potential. Our team comprises seasoned professionals who combine extensive financial expertise with deep knowledge of various sectors. We take a proactive and results-driven approach, working closely with our clients to develop tailored strategies and execute transactions that maximize value and drive long-term success. Centurion One - Empowering Growth. Driving Innovation. Partnering for Success. About OneMeta OneMeta is a stack of cutting edge artificial intelligence technologies that solve everyday language communication problems. OneMeta recently launched its first product-Verbum. OneMeta has entered into a partnership with Microsoft which allows OneMeta's translation and transcription products to be used on Microsoft Teams Enterprise and sold by Microsoft to their Teams Enterprise clients. Learn more about OneMeta at www.onemeta.ai. Contacts OneMeta Rowland Day Chairman, President, and Co-founder 949-350-6500 [email protected] Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Sienna Resources Inc. (TSXV: SIE) (OTC Pink: SNNAF) (FSE: A1XCQ0) ("Sienna" or the "Company") wishes to announce that President Jason Gigliotti will be attending the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) mining conference in Toronto, Canada on March 3-6th to discuss Sienna's new Saskatchewan uranium projects and the Nevada lithium projects If you would like to speak in person please email [email protected] to set up a one on one meeting. Recently Sienna (January 17, 2024) acquired the 10,845 contiguous acre "Dragon Uranium Project" bordering Cameco Corporation (CCO, CCJ) in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan and also (January 23, 2024) the 10,357 acre "Uranium Town Project" bordering Denison Mines Corporation (DML, DNN) in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan. The Athabasca Basin is home to the highest-grade uranium deposits in the world, which includes the highest grade uranium mine in the world owned by Cameco Corporation. In 2021, the Fraser Institute ranked Saskatchewan as number one in Canada, the second-best jurisdiction globally for mining. Sienna management cautions that past results or discoveries on properties in proximity to Sienna may not necessarily be indicative of the presence of mineralization on the company's properties. Sienna also has multiple lithium projects in Nevada. Recently Sienna's direct neighbour in Elko County Nevada, Surge Battery Metals, announced the highest grade lithium clay resource in the USA. In Clayton Valley, Nevada, Sienna is located in the deepest section of the only producing brine project in the USA, Albemarle's Silver Peak deposit and also the same brine section where SLB Corp (formerly known as Schlumberger) has spent over 100 million dollars for their Direct Lithium Extraction process. Sienna plans to use the marketing budget in the coming weeks that was announced October 13, 2023. Jason Gigliotti, President of Sienna states, "Sienna is coming into a very robust news flow cycle with the approved marketing budget to work with it. Management's goal is to build shareholder value by acquiring and working on projects with the highest potential in the most mining friendly jurisdictions. We plan to be very active in the uranium and lithium space and have the cash on hand to execute this game plan." About Sienna Resources Inc. Sienna has recently acquired the 10,357 acre "Uranium Town Project" bordering Denison Mines Corporation (DML, DNN) and the 10,845 contiguous acre "Dragon Uranium Project" bordering Cameco Corporation (CCO, CCJ) in the world renowned Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan. Also, Sienna recently expanded the "Elko Lithium Project" in Elko County, Nevada. This project consists of approximately 1840 contiguous acres directly bordering Surge Battery Metals' (NILI) "Nevada North Lithium Project" in Elko County, Nevada who announced the highest grade lithium deposit in the USA. Sienna is also one of the larger landholders in Clayton Valley Nevada. Sienna's Clayton Valley projects include the Blue Clay Lithium Project, the Silver Peak South Project, and the Clayton Valley Deep Basin Lithium Project. Clayton Valley is home to the only lithium production in North America, being Albemarle Corp's Silver Peak deposit. This project is also near Tesla Motors Inc.'s Gigafactory in Nevada. On March 18, 2021, Schlumberger New Energy Venture announced the development of a lithium extraction pilot plant through its new venture, NeoLith Energy in a strategic partnership with Pure Energy. The deployment of the pilot plant will be in Clayton Valley, Nevada, USA. The NeoLith Energy sustainable approach uses a differentiated direct lithium extraction (DLE) process to enable the production of high-purity, battery-grade lithium material while reducing the production time from over a year to weeks. Results from this pilot plant are expected in 2024 and could have a significant impact on the brine prospects within Clayton Valley Nevada as Sienna is located in the deepest section of this brine deposit. Qualified Person: Mr. Frank Bain, PGeo, a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical disclosure contained within this news release. If you would like to be added to Sienna's email list, please email [email protected] for information or join our twitter account at @SiennaResources. Contact Information Tel: 1.604.646.6900 Fax: 1.604.689.1733 www.siennaresources.com [email protected] "Jason Gigliotti" President, Director Sienna Resources Inc. Statements in this news release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical, and consist primarily of projections - statements regarding future plans, expectations and developments. Words such as "expects", "intends", "plans", "may", "could", "potential", "should", "anticipates", "likely", "believes" and words of similar import tend to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include uncertainty of exploration and development plans regarding the property; commodity price fluctuations; political or economic instability and regulatory changes; currency fluctuations, the state of the capital markets; uncertainty in the measurement of mineral reserves and resource estimates; the Company's ability to attract and retain qualified personnel and management; potential labour unrest; reclamation and closure requirements for mineral properties and the availability of capital to fund the Company's projects, as well as other risks and uncertainties identified under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's continuous disclosure documents filed on SEDAR. You are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors and assumptions which may have been used. The Company cannot assure you that actual events, performance or results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements, and management's assumptions may prove to be incorrect. These forward-looking statements reflect current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's beliefs, expectations or opinions should change other than as required by applicable law. For the reasons set forth above, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199630 New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - February 27, 2024) - In theory, awards ceremonies are judged through a meticulous process that emphasizes fairness, expertise, and merit. In the International Beauty Industry Awards, "The judges evaluate several key aspects, including aesthetics, technical execution, creativity, skill, and the overall impression," says Dianna Hampton, founder of the International Beauty Industry Awards (the IBI Awards). However, not all awards ceremonies are judged fairly. From wealthy contenders to large social media influencers, several controversies have arisen in the awards space, and it has never been more important for transparency in the judging process to ensure an unbiased winner. Left to Right: Artistry by Jasmiina Walters of Finland (Credit: Marko Rantanen), The IBI Statuette, and artistry by Noel McKinnon of Massachusetts (Credit: Joseph Cartright) To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8203/199119_81212259246beac9_001full.jpg Fairness > Popularity: A Paradigm Shift Historically, beauty awards have often been critiqued for favoring established names, popular brands, or those with a massive social media following. The IBI Awards, however, believes that award-winning work should not necessitate celebrity clients or a large online presence. Hampton emphasizes that the International Beauty Industry Awards (the IBI Awards) are committed to fairness as not just a principle but a guiding force that is at the very core of their mission. With the main goal being to acknowledge true artistry, the IBI Awards are actively taking measures to guarantee impartial evaluations and level the playing field for all participants. Whether one is a seasoned professional or an emerging talent, the focus is squarely on the skill, creativity, and innovation showcased in their work. Anonymous Judging: Stripping Away Bias One of the important features to highlight is that the IBI Awards' judging process values anonymity in judging. Judges assess entries without access to identifying information like name, country of origin, gender, age, race, or social media presence to guarantee a truly unbiased evaluation. This step removes any potential bias that could be based on the artist's reputation, location, or clientele; the committee is then free to evaluate the contestants solely on the artistic merit of the submission. Independence from External Influence: A Sanctuary for Artistic Integrity One of the challenges in the beauty industry has been the influence of sponsors or brands on awards ceremonies, potentially swaying judgments. In fact, many competitions are influenced based on funding. On the other hand, the IBI Awards stands as a sanctuary for artistic integrity, remaining independent and free from sponsors or brand influence. This financial independence ensures that the judging process is untainted, preserving the authenticity of the awards and only highlighting the most talented beauty artisans. A Global Stage for All: Welcoming Beauty Artisans Worldwide While some awards may cater to specific regions or demographics, the IBI Awards has a global vision. Honoring this vision, contestants compete online to ensure accessibility for all. Furthermore, the Independent Judging Council consists of international industry experts, and assesses entries from beauty artisans worldwide to provide holistic reviews. This global perspective not only enriches the diversity of entries but also ensures that excellence is recognized on an international scale. Diversity in Categories: Celebrating Every Shade of Beauty With nearly 50 distinct categories, the IBI Awards embraces diversity in beauty. From everyday styles to avant-garde creations, the awards celebrate a spectrum of artistry. This diverse range of categories reflects the multifaceted nature of the beauty industry, recognizing and appreciating talent across various styles and genres. Inclusivity Beyond Recognition: Nurturing a Global Community The IBI Awards's commitment to inclusivity extends beyond the awards ceremony. By emphasizing the elevation and celebration of beauty artisans, the awards actively contribute to the creation of a global community that's interested in bettering their skills as beauty artisans. This sense of camaraderie transcends borders, and connects artists from different corners of the world, united by their passion for beauty. A Vision for the Future: Unleashing Limitless Growth As the beauty industry evolves, the IBI Awards envisions limitless growth and expansion and aims to be the most expansive beauty competition in the world. The mission is to continue cultivating a supportive, positive community for beauty artisans worldwide, fostering an environment where creativity flourishes and talent knows no bounds. Redefining Beauty Awards By redefining how judges select winners, the IBI Awards is not just honoring talent; it's reshaping the narrative of beauty competitions. In the landscape of beauty awards, the IBI Awards is leading the way, ensuring that recognition is earned through skill, creativity, and a commitment to the true artistry of beauty. Media Contact: Email: [email protected] Name: Dianna Hampton Company: International Beauty Industry Awards To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199119 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - TNR Gold Corp. (TSXV: TNR) ("TNR", "TNR Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that McEwen Mining Inc. ("McEwen Mining") has provided an update on the Los Azules copper, gold and silver project in San Juan, Argentina. TNR holds a 0.4% net smelter returns royalty ("NSR Royalty") (of which 0.04% of the 0.4% NSR Royalty is held on behalf of a shareholder) on the Los Azules Copper Project. The Los Azules project is held by McEwen Copper Inc. ("McEwen Copper"), a subsidiary of McEwen Mining. The news release issued by McEwen Mining on February 22, 2024 stated: "McEwen Copper Inc., 47.7% owned by McEwen Mining Inc. (NYSE: MUX) (TSX: MUX), is pleased to announce results from the recently completed Phase 1 copper heap leaching metallurgical tests undertaken at SGS Chile Limitada in Santiago, Chile. The test results were produced utilizing conventional bio-heap leaching technology and generated an average copper recovery of 76.0%. This represents an increase of 3.2% over the recovery rate used in the June 2023 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for Los Azules. These test results were reviewed by Jim Sorensen and Michael McGlynn at Samuel Engineering Inc., who are responsible for the development and oversight of the metallurgical programs. Metallurgical Testing Delivers a 3.2% Increase in Predicted Copper Recovery at Los Azules Phase 1 Results Based on the Phase 1 test results available at the time and prior historical column test work, the PEA used an average copper recovery of 72.8% by employing conventional bio-heap leaching technology (see results published June 20, 2023). Final results of Phase 1 show an increase in the average recovery to 76.0% in approximately 230 days of leaching over the planned 27-year life of the project. Average net acid consumption was also reduced by 8.3% relative to the PEA. The potential impact of the 3.2% increase in average recovery and 8.3% reduction in net acid consumption can be illustrated by selectively adjusting the PEA Base Case financial model, which results in a life of mine copper cathode production increase of 172,000 tonnes and an after-tax NPV(8%) increase of approximately $262 million. This disclosure should not be taken to modify or update the conclusions of the PEA. Deposit Mineralogy Located in San Juan, Argentina, the Los Azules deposit consists primarily of secondary copper mineralization (supergene zone of predominantly chalcocite), with minimal oxide copper content. Additionally, there is a deeper primary copper (hypogene zone of predominantly chalcopyrite with some zones of significant bornite). Metallurgical Testing Phases Preliminary results from the Phase 1 program along with historical metallurgical testing at Los Azules were used to support the 2023 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA), which proposed an environmentally friendly heap leach alternative to a conventional copper concentrator. The testing program is now advancing with two additional phases (2 & 3) currently underway to support the Feasibility Study (FS). Drilling activities related to the current study work started in 2021 and are continuing into 2024. The leach testing protocols are based on conventional bio-leaching methods used extensively in commercial applications for supergene copper mineralization. The current phases, 2 & 3, are being conducted at SGS Chile and Alfred H. Knight (ASMIN Industrial Limitada) laboratories, both located in Santiago, Chile. The Phase 1 program was initiated using drill core from drilling programs completed prior to 2021, but not older than 2015, for a total of 21 column tests. Started in 2022, Phase 1 has now been completed and final results received. Preliminary results of this work and prior historical leach testing information were used for the PEA metallurgical assumptions. The Phase 2 program utilizes drill core from the 2022-2023 drilling campaign and focuses on deposit-wide variability testing, leaching protocol optimization and scalability. A total of 34 column tests are in progress, with results expected in Q2 2024. The Phase 3 program is also started, utilizing additional drill core material from the ongoing 2023-2024 drilling program. Phase 3 testing is focusing on the material of the initial 5-year mine plan, as delineated in the PEA. A total of 33 additional column tests are planned as part of this final confirmatory testing program, with results anticipated in Q4 2024. The combined metallurgical programs comprise a total of 88 column tests to be used for the FS metallurgical design basis and geo-metallurgical model. Copper assaying is conducted using a sequential method to determine the relative amounts of acid soluble (CuAS) and cyanide soluble (CuCN) copper mineralization (oxides and secondary sulfides). When combined, these two partial assay methods are generally considered readily soluble copper (CuSOL), extractable with conventional heap leaching technologies. Copper assayed that does not report to these two partial assay methods is classified as residual copper (CuRES) and is considered copper that requires additional time or is potentially not recoverable with conventional heap leaching technologies. The finalized results from the Phase 1 metallurgy program for tests completed at minus 1/2" and " crush sizes confirmed that soluble copper (CuSOL) component recovery is 100% for all leachable resources. The information in Figure 1 below shows the minus " (19 mm) test results. The PEA envisions a minus " crush size for the heap leaching feed in the commercial application. Figure 1 Soluble Copper Recovery Kinetics To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2014/199672_1f75f849443488a9_003full.jpg The recovery results for the residual copper (CuRES) component shown in Figure 2 indicated an average recovery of 25%, an increase of 10% from the 15% preliminary recovery assumption used in the PEA. The additional residual copper recovery when applied to the entire resource increases the overall average recovery from 72.8% to 76.0%. Figure 2 Residual Copper Recovery Kinetics To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2014/199672_1f75f849443488a9_004full.jpg Figure 3 below illustrates the increase in potential copper production throughout the mine life, attributable to the improved recovery, in comparison with the PEA assumptions. The initial two production years do not show additional recovered copper, as the design capacity of the electrowinning plant considered in the PEA is fully utilized. Figure 3 Copper Cathode Production (PEA & Revised Model) To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/2014/199672_1f75f849443488a9_005full.jpg The sulfuric acid consumption has also been updated with the Phase 1 final results. The averaged net sulfuric acid consumption reported in the PEA was 18 kilograms per ton of ore processed. The finalized Phase 1 testing now indicates a reduction of 8.3% to 16.5 kilograms per ton. The primary reason for the reduction of acid consumption is minimizing excess acid in the leaching solutions and operating the columns at a pH closer to 2.0 pH than the historic column work at 1.2 pH, which minimizes acid consumption by excess unmineralized gangue material dissolution. This lowered acid requirement may also improve the project economics, both NPV and IRR, by reducing the operating costs for copper produced and increasing revenue from the same tonnes mined. Bioleaching Summary Copper bioleaching has been a commercially applied technology at altitudes similar to the Los Azules site and as much as 1,000 meters higher for several decades, in multiple locations around the world. Testing is conducted in conventional leach test columns by inoculation of the columns with naturally occurring bacterial ferrooxidans and thiooxidans prior to introduction of the leach solution. Bacterial cultures for the inoculum were sourced from the testing laboratories and adapted to the Los Azules leach material. Ferrooxidans convert the ferrous iron in solution to ferric iron, while thiooxidans convert the sulfur produced in the copper sulfide leaching activity to sulfuric acid/sulfate. Ferric iron is the key chemical component necessary for leaching of copper sulfide material. Bioactivity in the tests is monitored by measurement of the ferrous/ferric ratios and electrochemical oxidation potential in the leaching solutions. ABOUT MCEWEN COPPER McEwen Copper is a well-funded, private company which owns 100% of the large, advanced-stage Los Azules copper project, located in the San Juan province, Argentina. McEwen Copper is a 47.7% owned private subsidiary of McEwen Mining, which is listed on NYSE and TSX under the ticker MUX. Los Azules is being designed to be distinctly different from conventional copper mines, consuming significantly less water, emitting much lower carbon levels and progressing to be carbon neutral by 2038, being powered by 100% renewable energy once in operation. The project's recently updated Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) projects a long life of mine, low production costs per pound, a short payback period, high annual copper production, and an after-tax IRR of 21.1%. ABOUT MCEWEN MINING McEwen Mining is a gold and silver producer with operations in Nevada, Canada, Mexico and Argentina. In addition, it owns approximately 47.7% of McEwen Copper, which owns the large, advanced stage Los Azules copper project in Argentina. The Company's goal is to improve the productivity and life of its assets with the objective of increasing the share price and providing a yield. Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner, has a personal investment in the company of US$220 million. His annual salary is US$1." The McEwen Mining press release appears to be reviewed and verified by a Qualified Person (as that term is defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) and the procedures, methodology and key assumptions disclosed therein are those adopted and consistently applied in the mining industry, but no Qualified Person engaged by TNR has done sufficient work to analyze, interpret, classify or verify McEwen Mining's information to determine the current mineral resource or other information referred to in its press releases. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned in placing any reliance on the disclosures therein. "We are pleased that significant developments on the advancement of the Los Azules Copper Project towards feasibility have led to the increased Stellantis holdings in McEwen Copper as a strategic partner of this large copper, gold and silver project. In February 2023, Stellantis invested ARS $30 billion, and with additional investment of ARS $42 billion made after the new preliminary economic assessment (PEA) publication, has a total investment of ARS $72 billion. An aggregate of US $65 million in McEwen Copper was also invested by Rio Tinto's Venture Nuton in 2022 and 2023," stated Kirill Klip, TNR's Chief Executive Officer. "TNR Gold's vision is aligned with the leaders of innovation among automakers like Stellantis, whose aim is decarbonizing mobility, and mining industry leaders such as Rob McEwen, whose vision is 'to build a mine for the future, based on regenerative principles that can achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2038'. "The green energy rEVolution relies on the supply of critical metals like copper; delivering 'green copper' to Argentina and the world will contribute to the clean energy transition and electrification of transportation and energy industries. "Strong team performance is accelerating the McEwen Copper Los Azules program. The Los Azules Project PEA results highlighted the potential to create very robust leach project, while reducing environmental footprint, and greater environmental and social stewardship sets the Project apart from other potential mine developments. "It's also very encouraging to see an updated independent mineral resource estimate that has increased significantly. "Together with Nuton, McEwen Copper is exploring new technologies that save energy, water, time and capital, advancing Los Azules towards the goal of the leading environmental performance. The involvement of Rio Tinto with its innovative technology, may also accelerate realizing the enormous potential of the Los Azules Project. "Los Azules was ranked in the top 10 largest undeveloped copper deposits in the world by Mining Intelligence (2022). TNR Gold does not have to contribute any capital for the development of the Los Azules Project. The essence of our business model is to have industry leaders like McEwen Mining as operators on the projects that will potentially generate royalty cashflows to contribute significant value for our shareholders." ABOUT TNR GOLD CORP. TNR Gold Corp. is working to become the green energy metals royalty and gold company. Our business model provides a unique entry point in the creation of supply chains for critical materials like energy metals that are powering the energy rEVolution, and the gold industry that is providing a hedge for this stage of the economic cycle. Our portfolio provides a unique combination of assets with exposure to multiple aspects of the mining cycle: the power of blue-sky discovery and important partnerships with industry leaders as operators on the projects that have the potential to generate royalty cashflows that will contribute significant value for our shareholders. Over the past twenty-eight years, TNR, through its lead generator business model, has been successful in generating high-quality global exploration projects. With the Company's expertise, resources and industry network, the potential of the Mariana Lithium Project and Los Azules Copper Project in Argentina among many others have been recognized. TNR holds a 1.5% NSR Royalty on the Mariana Lithium Project in Argentina, of which 0.15% NSR royalty is held on behalf of a shareholder. Ganfeng Lithium's subsidiary, Litio Minera Argentina ("LMA"), has the right to repurchase 1.0% of the NSR royalty on the Mariana Project, of which 0.9% is the Company's NSR Royalty interest. The Company would receive CAN$900,000 and its shareholder would receive CAN$100,000 on the repurchase by LMA, resulting in TNR holding a 0.45% NSR royalty and its shareholder holding a 0.05% NSR royalty. The Mariana Lithium Project is 100% owned by Ganfeng Lithium. The Mariana Lithium Project has been approved by the Argentina provincial government of Salta for an environmental impact report, and the construction of a 20,000 tons-per-annum lithium chloride plant has commenced. TNR Gold also holds a 0.4% NSR Royalty on the Los Azules Copper Project, of which 0.04% of the 0.4% NSR royalty is held on behalf of a shareholder. The Los Azules Copper Project is being developed by McEwen Mining. TNR also holds a 7% net profits royalty holding on the Batidero I and II properties of the Josemaria Project that is being developed by Lundin Mining. Lundin Mining is part of the Lundin Group, a portfolio of companies producing a variety of commodities in several countries worldwide. TNR provides significant exposure to gold through its 90% holding in the Shotgun Gold porphyry project in Alaska. The project is located in Southwestern Alaska near the Donlin Gold project, which is being developed by Barrick Gold and Novagold Resources. The Company's strategy with the Shotgun Gold Project is to attract a joint venture partnership with a major gold mining company. The Company is actively introducing the project to interested parties. At its core, TNR provides a wide scope of exposure to gold, copper, silver and lithium through its holdings in Alaska (the Shotgun Gold porphyry project) and royalty holdings in Argentina (the Mariana Lithium project, the Los Azules Copper Project and the Batidero I & II properties of the Josemaria Project), and is committed to the continued generation of in-demand projects, while diversifying its markets and building shareholder value. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Kirill Klip Executive Chairman www.tnrgoldcorp.com For further information concerning this news release please contact Kirill Klip +1 604-229-8129 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. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information Except for statements of historical 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", "will", "could" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "could" occur, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Specifically, forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to, statements made in relation to: TNR's corporate objectives, and future potential transactions being considered by the Special Committee and the Board. Such forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions and subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those discussed in the sections entitled "Risks" and "Forward-Looking Statements" in the Company's interim and annual Management's Discussion and Analysis which are available under the Company's SEDAR+ profile on www.sedarplus.ca. While management believes that the assumptions made and reflected in this news release are reasonable, should one or more of the risks, uncertainties or other factors materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking information. In particular, there can be no assurance that: TNR will enter into one or more strategic transactions, partnership or a spin-out, or be able to complete any further royalty acquisitions or sales of royalty interests, or portions thereof; debt or equity financings will be available to TNR; or that TNR will be able to achieve any of its corporate objectives. TNR relies on the confirmation of its ownership for mining claims from the appropriate government agencies when paying rental payments for such mining claims requested by these agencies. There could be a risk in the future of the changing internal policies of such government agencies or risk related to the third parties, in future, challenging the ownership of such mining claims. Given these uncertainties, readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements included herein are not guarantees of future performance, and such forward-looking statements should not be unduly relied on. In formulating the forward-looking statements contained herein, management has assumed that business and economic conditions affecting TNR and its royalty partners, McEwen Mining Inc., Ganfeng Lithium and Lundin Mining will continue substantially in the ordinary course, including without limitation with respect to general industry conditions, general levels of economic activity and regulations. These assumptions, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect. Forward-looking information herein and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking information are based on estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking information should circumstances or management's estimates or opinions change. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199672 The launch of AirNode sales accelerates World Mobile's decentralized U.S. wireless network deployment, arriving on the heels of an accomplished pilot project in Reno, NV to enable users to earn rewards by connecting their local community Reno, Nevada--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - World Mobile, the first global mobile network powered by blockchain technology and the sharing economy, announces the global launch of its AirNode Sales Platform, enabling users to purchase an AirNode and reserve a deployment location anywhere in Reno, Nevada. The rollout follows months of research and testing in the city that successfully illustrated World Mobile's solutions to close connectivity gaps across the U.S. through community-based connectivity and its decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN). Image 1 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8717/199642_05fbc0a03414b86f_001full.jpg Although northern Nevada has become a burgeoning region for tech startups fuelling job and population growth, its consistent connectivity gaps underscore the estimates that roughly 24 million Americans lack access to high-speed internet access, according to McKinsey. This number indicates that the connectivity divide is not reserved for remote locations. With the U.S. Congress allocating $100 billion to help states bring high-speed connectivity to every American household, novel solutions are necessary to bolster these efforts and create infrastructures that can easily connect and reward communities. Image 2 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8717/199642_230839e4c4770bb6_001full.jpg To examine the connectivity challenges, World Mobile launched its pilot project in Reno in late 2023 and immediately uncovered a distinct lack of coverage-even in hotspots such as the city's airport or downtown. Likewise, Reno's widespread connectivity issues are exacerbated in indoor settings, with signals becoming significantly weaker inside buildings throughout the city. The trial also indicated the consistent demand for high-speed connectivity in Reno, with an AirNode garnering 130,000 network-attach attempts in one month alone. Likewise, another test showed that on a single rooftop with just one radio and one sector, an astonishing 10,440 unique handsets attempted to connect to the World Mobile network within 24 hours. Image 3 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8717/199642_230839e4c4770bb6_002full.jpg The general AirNode Sales Platform launch now arrives after gathering critical insights and feedback thanks to World Mobile's comprehensive connectivity mapping and on-the-ground results from its community members and app users utilizing its Scan For Points feature. A continued rollout in Reno includes a first batch of 20 AirNodes available for purchase, with future batch releases marking a progressive phase in telecom innovation and connectivity. AirNodes are radio devices that establish access to the World Mobile network for calls and data, empowering owners to connect their community to the decentralized wireless network. Recently securing licensed spectrum across California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah has enhanced the network's reach and functionality throughout the country. AirNode owners earn rewards through network usage utilizing Band 71 and Band 48 (CBRS) spectrum for a dynamic hybrid network that ensures high-speed, long-range connectivity in rural and urban areas. AirNodes, compatible with CBRS or Band 71, are purchasable at airnode.worldmobile.io, with plans for expanded locations across the U.S. and international markets, in addition to a wider range of hardware options in the coming months. Individuals can actively participate by becoming AirNode Operators-earning rewards through purchasing, hosting, and operating AirNodes on their properties. Individuals can also participate by offering the opportunity to host an AirNode at their property (AirNode Hosts), without purchasing the infrastructure. This enables users to earn rewards remotely through a matching system that pairs registered AirNode Hosts with individuals from anywhere worldwide who wish to become Remote AirNode Operators. World Mobile is making this announcement while attending the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona where it received the GSMA Foundry Excellence Award for its Mozambique aerostat deployment. This recognition demonstrates World Mobile's dedication to solving the challenges of global under-connectivity through disruption in the mobile industry. "With our AirNode Sales Platform, we are revolutionizing the way people access and provide connectivity," says Micky Watkins, CEO of World Mobile. "Our platform allows anyone to purchase, host, or operate an AirNode, and earn rewards for doing so. This is a win-win situation for everyone involved, as it lowers the barriers to entry and increases mobile network coverage and quality. Reno is our first destination, but we have big plans to scale up and reach more regions in the future." "Our AirNode Sales Platform is a novel approach that integrates our decentralized AirNode infrastructure and our sharing economy concept," affirms James Tagg, Chief Architect at World Mobile. "Our platform allows users to buy, host, or operate an AirNode, incentivized by rewards. We are using licensed and shared spectrum to create a strong and versatile network that can cater to a varied and growing user base. Reno is our starting point, and we are eager to see the impact." About World Mobile Group: World Mobile Group is democratizing global connectivity through its blockchain-based decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN). Unlike traditional telecom providers, World Mobile operates on a sharing economy model, enabling individuals and businesses to run nodes, connect their communities, and earn rewards. For more information visit: https://worldmobile.io/ Contact Info: Name: Alona Stein Email: [email protected] Location: Reno, Nevada To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199642 The global hospitality group takes a bold new step to transform commercial strategy for hotels and property owners worldwide through state-of-the-art revenue management tools PARIS and MINNEAPOLIS , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - IDeaS, the leading provider of hospitality revenue optimization software and services, and Accor, a world leading hospitality group with one of the industry's most diverse hospitality ecosystems encompassing more than 45 hotel brands from luxury to economy, have announced, following a rigorous selection process, that Accor has chosen IDeaS as its global revenue management software (RMS) provider. Partnering on a bespoke suite of advanced IDeaS revenue management solutions, Accor continues to transform its commercial strategy to benefit hotels, property owners, and managers and redefine revenue excellence while driving RevPAR and Revenue Generation Index (RGI) growth. Accor is a leading hospitality company operating over 5,600 hotels in more than 110 countries. IDeaS and Accor have signed a partnership, introducing a range of IDeaS solutions to Accor's diverse global brand portfolio, aligning IDeaS' transformational capabilities with the unique needs of the Accor hotelier. Accor will leverage IDeaS to future-proof its revenue management strategy by utilizing best-in-class technology to create a competitive advantage and deliver superior value while considering its global portfolio footprint. Through the focus and implementation of strategic pillars, the new toolsets will enable hotels to benefit from dynamic pricing, total revenue and profit optimization, and awareness of the competitive landscape to shift focus toward revenue management strategies while driving a strong revenue management culture across Accor's global portfolio. Benefits of the partnership include: Proven RevPAR and RGI growth Accor has already seen growth in RevPAR and RGI in hotels that have already been onboarded. Accor has already seen growth in RevPAR and RGI in hotels that have already been onboarded. Tailored revenue solutions The partnership includes a suite of revenue solutions designed to meet the unique needs of Accor and its global hotel portfolio, maximizing expertise, economy of scale, and financial returns. The partnership includes a suite of revenue solutions designed to meet the unique needs of Accor and its global hotel portfolio, maximizing expertise, economy of scale, and financial returns. Solutions and support for the future As an industry-leading RMS technology provider, IDeaS is well-positioned for the future, with the demonstrated scalability and joint innovation capabilities needed to collaborate with Accor to shape the future of the hospitality market. Ravi Mehrotra , co-founder and chief scientist, IDeaS, said: "We are thrilled to be selected as a global partner to drive Accor's commercial revenue platform transformation at a moment of unparalleled growth and opportunity for the company worldwide. In a new era of innovation and consumer and product diversification, we are pleased to bring IDeaS' market-leading automation, pricing approach, and a singular focus on holistic revenue optimization to Accor's diverse brand portfolio." "We are driven to provide our owners and managers with the best possible solutions to achieve revenue expansion and optimal topline performance. As the hospitality industry evolves in response to dynamic market demands, deploying a robust and adapted hotel Revenue Management System secures our sustainable commercial growth, with demonstratable RevPar and RGI growth. The developed solution with IDeaS serves our unique, extensive and diverse brand portfolio and global footprint." added Karelle Lamouche , Chief Commercial Officer, Accor, Premium, Midscale & Economy brands. ABOUT ACCOR Accor is a world leading hospitality group offering experiences across more than 110 countries in 5,600 properties, 10,000 food & beverage venues, wellness facilities or flexible workspaces. The Group has one of the industry's most diverse hospitality ecosystems, encompassing more than 45 hotel brands from luxury to economy, as well as Lifestyle with Ennismore. Accor is committed to taking positive action in terms of business ethics & integrity, responsible tourism, sustainable development, community outreach, and diversity & inclusion. Founded in 1967, Accor SA is headquartered in France and publicly listed on Euronext Paris (ISIN code: FR0000120404) and on the OTC Market (Ticker: ACCYY) in the United States . For more information, please visit www. group.accor.com or follow us on X , Facebook , LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok . About IDeaS IDeaS, a SAS company, is the world's leading revenue management software and services provider. Combining industry knowledge with innovative data analytics technology, IDeaS creates sophisticated yet simple ways to empower revenue leaders with precise, automated decisions they can trust. With more than 30 years of expertise, IDeaS delivers revenue science to more than 30,000 properties in 154 countries. Results delivered. Revenue transformed. Discover greater profitability at ideas.com. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/accor-and-ideas-announce-a-global-revenue-management-partnership-across-accors-portfolio-302074131.html SOURCE Accor A story of friendship and a natural transition PARIS , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- DDB Paris announces the elevation of globally acclaimed CCO Alexander Kalchev and Paul Ducre as new CEOs, together assuming the role of current CEO Jean-Luc Bravi who will become Chairman, DDB France. The pair have worked together in close partnership with Bravi for the last 20 years and will continue to catapult DDB Paris into global creative agency powerhouse. "To me, appointing Alexander and Paul as CEOs of DDB Paris is the natural choice. These two highly competitive team players embody the core values that define the strength of our agency--they're 'both Nice and Talented'. Having worked closely with Alexander and Paul for nearly 20 years, this transition is the next logical step," says Jean-Luc Bravi . This appointment marks the start of a new chapter in a story of friendship that began at DDB in 2007. It reflects the close collaboration between a creative and an account executive, who grew up together with a belief in DDB's principles and became a force that propelled DDB Paris towards continuous growth and creative acclaim in France and abroad. "Great creative work has always been our obsession. It remains the most powerful tool for driving our clients' businesses growth. We are both driven by the shared ambition to continue evolving our creative product by recruiting the finest pool of talent, and ensuring that DDB continues being the home for the next creative generation," explain Alexander and Paul. With their combined international experience, they aim to elevate DDB's global reach even further. "Today, Paris stands as a creative powerhouse alongside cities like London and Amsterdam , becoming a primary hub for international brands," says Alexander Kalchev . Their relentless commitment to creative excellence is rooted in the ethos of Doyle, Dane and Bernbach and remains as relevant today as it was 75 years ago. "Paul and Alexander are the epitome of true DDB leadership: They know the business, listen to clients, understand their issues and importantly harness the creativity of their teams to devise innovative and emotionally resonant solutions. DDB Paris and our clients are in safe and brave hands," says Glen Lomas global president and chief operating officer of DDB Worldwide. Jean-Luc Bravi, current CEO of DDB Paris, will actively continue to serve the business in a key leadership role as newly appointed Chairman of DDB France. BIOS: Alexander Kalchev Educated at the Miami Ad School in Hamburg , Alexander Kalchev joined DDB Paris in 2007 right out of school. He quickly made a name for himself, becoming one of Creativity Magazine's "Creatives to Know" ranking and receiving the ADC Young Guns award, which celebrates the top creatives worldwide under the age of 30. In 2013, he was appointed creative director, and at just 30 years old, in 2015, he became the youngest Chief Creative Officer in the history of the agency. Since then, Alexander has been at the heart of the business and creative development of DDB, building a stellar creative department that has won numerous awards at all major festivals. Under his leadership, the agency has garnered international renown and has been celebrated several times in France as Agency of the Year. Paul Ducre A Breton by adoption and a graduate of INSEEC Paris, Paul Ducre began his career in 2005 as an account executive at DDB Paris. He gained experience working with organizations known for their creative work (Nike, Greenpeace, L'Equipe) and large multinational corporations (Unilever, Henkel and Johnson & Johnson). In January 2012 , he joined DDB Singapore with the mission of developing the portfolio of international brands for the APAC region. As Global Business Director, he played a role in securing a number of contracts with the Unilever Group (Dove, Wall's, Sunsilk, Lifebouy). Returning to DDB Paris in 2015, Paul resumed the position of Deputy Managing Director in charge of New Business. In 3 years, the agency grew exponentially, winning numerous French and international accounts. In 2018, Paul took over as Managing Director of DDB Paris, overseeing the agency's key accounts: McDonald's, Volkswagen Group and Royal Canin. He has been instrumental in the agency's digital transformation and growth. ABOUT DDB WORLDWIDE: DDB Worldwide ( www.ddb.com ) is one of the world's largest and most influential advertising and marketing networks which includes DDB branded agencies, along with adam&eveDDB ( London , Berlin, New York ), DM9 and Africa (both in Brazil ), alma ( Miami ), Mango, Track and Rodgers Townsend . DDB has been awarded numerous accolades from the industry's leading awards shows including 2023 Global Network of the Year by the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, D&AD Agency Network of the Year for three consecutive years 2023, 2022, 2021, and Effies US Agency of the Year in 2022 and 2023. WARC has listed DDB as one of the Top 3 Global Networks for 12 of the last 15 years. The network's clients include MARS, McDonald's, Molson Coors, Volkswagen, Reynolds Consumer Products, Peloton, JetBlue, Adidas, Lucozade, CALM, PlayStation, Marmite, Waitrose & Partners, and the U.S. Army, among others. Founded in 1949, DDB is part of Omnicom (NYSE: OMC) and consists of over 8,000 employees across 140 offices in over 60 countries, with its headquarters in New York, NY . CONTACT: Donna Tobin , Global Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, DDB Worldwide [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alexander-kalchev-and-paul-ducre-appointed-ceos-of-ddb-paris-302074330.html SOURCE DDB Worldwide WASHINGTON , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Beacon Global Strategies (BGS), a leading strategic advisory firm focusing on global public policy, government procurement, and geopolitical risk analysis, today announced it will be expanding its growing team by adding Mr. Peter Hall as Senior Vice President and Mr. Jon Green as Associate Vice President. In these roles, Mr. Hall will provide invaluable insight to the firm's Intelligence Practice, while Mr. Green will support the firm's Defense Practice. Additionally, BGS is pleased to announce the promotions of Mr. Barry King to Managing Director, Ms. Julie Grundman , Mr. Ivan Kanapathy , and Mr. Louis Lauter to Senior Vice Presidents. "We're excited to have Peter and Jon join our BGS team. Their extensive expertise in intelligence and defense will undoubtedly bolster our capabilities, further solidifying our dedication to providing unmatched strategic advisory services to our clients," stated Andrew Shapiro , Managing Director at Beacon. "Additionally, we extend our congratulations to Barry, Julie, Ivan, and Louis on their well-deserved promotions." Mr. Peter Hall recently joined BGS as Senior Vice President. Prior to joining Beacon, Mr. Hall served as Senior Director for Growth at Peraton, overseeing growth pursuits at the National Security Agency (NSA) across three business units. With nearly four decades of experience in the U.S. Intelligence Community, he held significant roles, including Deputy Chief of a Joint Agency program and NSA Director's senior representative to the Department of Defense (DoD). Renowned for his extensive counterterrorism (CT) experience, he served as Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and NSA's Chief of the Office of Counterterrorism, where he orchestrated global CT operations. Mr. Hall's career also includes roles as NSA's most senior representative in a combat zone and Acting Assistant Deputy Director, Analysis and Production. Beginning as a Russia analyst and linguist in the U.S. Army, his exceptional career contributions span critical locations during and after the Cold War, earning him the Presidential Rank Award in 2017. Mr. Jon Green recently joined BGS as Associate Vice President. Before joining BGS, Mr. Green spent more than eight years working as an advisor and committee staff member on Capitol Hill, most recently serving as the Defense Policy Advisor to Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). During his tenure on the Hill, he played a pivotal role in the development of nine National Defense Authorization Acts and three annual defense appropriation bills, securing hundreds of millions of dollars for priority defense programs. During his time on Capitol Hill, Mr. Green advised senior elected officials on a wide array of international security issues, ranging from Afghanistan to Ukraine , and functional matters such as irregular warfare and information operations. Prior to this, Mr. Green worked as a contractor for the Department of Defense in Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. Mr. Barry King has assumed the role of Managing Director. Mr. King will help lead the firm's Intelligence Practice, advising a range of clients with key national security and technology capabilities on go-to-market strategy, stakeholder engagement, as well as policy and budgetary matters. Before joining Beacon, Mr. King served as the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) Deputy Chief Financial Officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). In this role he advised IC leadership on the allocation of the $60B+ National Intelligence Program budget against U.S. intelligence priorities, leveraging strong working relationships with colleagues across the IC, the Department of Defense, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and Capitol Hill. Mr. King previously served in several senior White House roles, including as Chief of OMB's Defense Operations, Personnel, and Support Branch; Special Assistant to the OMB Director; and Director of Strategic Planning on the National Security Council staff. Prior to his government service, Mr. King was an international contract negotiator at Raytheon Company. Ms. Julie Grundman has assumed the role of Senior Vice President. In this role, Ms. Grundman will continue contributing to the ongoing work of the National Security Technology Practice. Before joining BGS, Ms. Grundman was a Senior Manager at PwC UK , where she led the Cybersecurity in Mergers & Acquisitions team. During her time at PwC, she was also seconded in a senior operational role, acting as an Information Risk Manager for a business unit at a global oil and gas company. Before then, Ms. Grundman was an early employee at IronNet Cybersecurity, a technology startup. At IronNet, she managed early customer engagements and strategic alliances, and assisted in the design and growth of the business development and customer success functions. Prior to IronNet, Ms. Grundman oversaw the cybersecurity portfolio at Business Executives for National Security (BENS), working closely with government partners. She has also practiced cybersecurity, data privacy, and corporate law. Mr. Ivan Kanapathy has assumed the role of Senior Vice President. In this role, Mr. Kanapathy will continue to support the firm's Indo-Pacific Practice as well as lead the firm's Taiwan Analysis Center, which helps clients navigate corporate opportunity, exposure and risk related to Taiwan . Before joining BGS, he had a distinguished career as a military officer and foreign affairs expert, primarily focused on the Indo-Pacific region. Most recently serving on the White House's National Security Council staff as Deputy Senior Director for Asian Affairs and Director for China, Taiwan , and Mongolia , where he provided crucial advice to the President and National Security Advisor while leading interagency policy development regarding U.S. relations with China and Taiwan across various domains. Previously, as a military attache at the American Institute in Taiwan and a Marine Corps Foreign Area Officer study fellow, Mr. Kanapathy advised top officials on cross-Strait military matters and conducted extensive research throughout China, Taiwan , and Southeast Asia . With a background as a Naval Flight Officer and expertise in security studies, he has amassed numerous awards and decorations, including the Air Medal and Defense Superior Service Medal. Mr. Kanapathy is also active in academia as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and holds positions at prominent think tanks, including the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Mr. Louis Lauter has assumed the role of Senior Vice President. In this role, Mr. Lauter will continue to support the firm's Defense Practice. Prior to joining BGS, Mr. Lauter served as the Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs, where he advised the Secretary of Defense on all legislative matters, supported the confirmation of political appointees and managed congressional engagement across the Department of Defense. Previously Mr. Lauter served in the Obama Administration in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs from 2015-2017 as the Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs and the team chief for Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics. Prior to joining the Department of Defense, he served as the vice president for congressional and government affairs at CSIS where he led the think tank's outreach to Congress. Before joining CSIS, Mr. Lauter worked for Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and then for Representative Rick Larsen (D-WA) where he led the Congressman's work on the House Armed Services Committee and the U.S. - China Working group. Mr. Lauter is a Senior Associate (non-resident) at CSIS. Mr. Lauter has been awarded both the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. About Beacon Global Strategies Founded in 2013, Beacon Global Strategies is a strategic advisory firm specializing in foreign policy, defense, cyber, intelligence, and national security. Drawing on decades of service in the international security arena, Beacon develops and executes strategies that enable companies to achieve their business objectives around the world. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/beacon-global-strategies-adds-two-national-security-experts-to-its-growing-team-and-announces-several-senior-promotions-302074607.html SOURCE Beacon Global Strategies CHICAGO , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Everspring, a leading provider of education technology and service solutions, is thrilled to announce its affiliation partnership with The HESS Consortium, a dynamic community for private institution CIOs, CFOs, and technology professionals. This strategic collaboration aims to provide member institutions with superior service and outcomes that further bolster their operational efficiency and technological capabilities. The HESS Consortium serves as a hub for private, non-profit colleges and universities to collaborate, optimize operations, and reduce technology costs through collective action. Through this affiliation, member institutions gain access to invaluable resources, including participation in HESS Consortium National Conferences for sponsorship, displays, and events, as well as exclusive webinars tailored to their needs. As a quickly growing alliance, The HESS Consortium is dedicated to fostering a supportive community where technology professionals can leverage shared knowledge and expertise to drive innovation and excellence within their institutions. With Everspring's proven track record in delivering outstanding outcomes for its university partners, this partnership is poised to empower member institutions with cutting-edge technology solutions and unparalleled support. Beth Hollenberg , CEO of Everspring, expressed her enthusiasm about the collaboration, stating, "We are incredibly excited to join forces with The HESS Consortium to further support private colleges and universities in achieving technological excellence. At Everspring, we are committed to helping higher education thrive in the digital age, and this partnership aligns perfectly with our mission. Together, we look forward to driving positive change and delivering impactful solutions that elevate the educational experience for these essential institutions." Through this strategic alliance, Everspring and The HESS Consortium are set to elevate the way private institutions approach technology, fostering innovation, collaboration, and success across the higher education landscape. For more information about Everspring and its range of education technology solutions, visit www.everspringpartners.com . About Everspring Everspring is a leading provider of education technology and service solutions. Our advanced technology, proven marketing approach, research-backed instructional design services, and robust faculty support deliver outstanding outcomes for our university partners, powering their success online. Everspring offers a range of full-service turnkey solutions, as well as standalone single service offerings, and innovative self-service products that enable universities to establish and maintain themselves as leaders in the digital delivery of education. Based in Chicago , Everspring serves a growing number of colleges and universities, nationwide. Visit www.everspringpartners.com for more information. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/everspring-announces-affiliation-partnership-with-the-hess-consortium-empowering-private-colleges-and-universities-with-enhanced-technology-solutions-302074633.html SOURCE Everspring SYDNEY, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Police in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) said on Wednesday that the shooting in Sydney's central business district (CBD) was an isolated incident, with no link identified to suggest any gang involvement. Earlier in the day, at about 12:50 p.m. local time, emergency services were called to a building on Castlereagh Street in Sydney's city center, where a 77-year-old man was found suffering an apparent gunshot wound. The injured person was transported to St Vincent's Hospital for further assessment and he remains in a stable condition. A 79-year-old man has been arrested and taken into custody at Day Street Police Station. Speaking to media near the incident site on Castlereagh Street, NSW Police Force Detective Inspector David El-Badawi told reporters that as the investigation is in its early stage, the relationship between the two involved people is yet to be known. "This is an isolated shooting. We don't believe it's connected to any outlaw motorcycle gangs, gang warfare, or anything like that," he said. According to El-Badawi, the incident occurred within an office building and the staff working inside were "very brave" to pin down the 79-year-old shooter until police arrived. Despite reports of multiple people having been shot at, there was only one victim and one bullet fired from a semi-automatic pistol. "The firearm is secured and the crime scene is being processed. There's no threat or danger to the public," he added. Dominic Wong, inspector of NSW Ambulance, briefed that the 77-year-old male victim sustained one gunshot wound to his groin area. "He was in a stable condition, always vital signs within normal limits. There was no active bleeding," Wong noted. Currently, police are investigating all circumstances related to the shooting, with more information about the offender needed to be confirmed. "At this stage, he is not assisting. We don't know his full details. We are doing everything we can to work it out right now," said El-Badawi. Wednesday's incident came as the second shooting that Sydney has seen during this week. On Tuesday, a man was shot dead outside a house on Stella Street in Fairfield Heights just after 8:30 a.m. local time. The incident site is located about 25 km west of Sydney's city center. VAUGHAN, ON , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - GFL Environmental Inc. (NYSE: GFL) (TSX: GFL) ("GFL" or the "Company") today announced that BCEC GFL Borrower (Cayman) LP, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, GFL Borrower II (Cayman) LP, Poole Private Capital, LLC, and entities affiliated with HPS Investment Partners, LLC (collectively, the "Selling Shareholders") intend to offer for sale 17,000,000 subordinate voting shares (the "Shares"). GFL will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the Shares (the "Offering"). RBC Capital Markets, LLC and RBC Dominion Securities Inc. will act as underwriters for the Offering in the United States and Canada , respectively. The Shares issued pursuant to the Offering will be offered in all provinces and territories of Canada by way of a prospectus supplement (the "Prospectus Supplement") to the Company's short form base shelf prospectus (the "Base Shelf Prospectus"). The Company has filed a registration statement on Form F-10 (the "Form F-10") and will file the Prospectus Supplement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") in accordance with the multi-jurisdictional disclosure system established between Canada and the United States . No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved the contents of this news release. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any province, state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such province, state or jurisdiction. Prospective investors should read the Base Shelf Prospectus, the Prospectus Supplement, when available, and the documents incorporated by reference therein before investing in the Shares. When available, these documents may be accessed for free on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. GFL has filed the Form F-10 registration statement (including a prospectus) with the SEC for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in that registration statement and other documents the issuer has filed with the SEC for more complete information about the issuer and this offering. You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, copies of the prospectus and Prospectus Supplement relating to the Offering may be obtained, when available, upon request from RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Attention: Equity Capital Markets, 200 Vesey Street , New York, NY 10281, by telephone at 877-822-4089 or by email at [email protected] or RBC Dominion Securities Inc., 180 Wellington Street West , 8th Floor, Toronto, ON M5J 0C2, Attention: Distribution Centre, or via telephone: 1-416-842-5349, or via email at [email protected]. About GFL GFL, headquartered in Vaughan, Ontario , is the fourth largest diversified environmental services company in North America , providing a comprehensive line of solid waste management, liquid waste management and soil remediation services through its platform of facilities throughout Canada and in more than half of the U.S. states. Across its organization, GFL has a workforce of more than 20,000 employees. Forward Looking Statements This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements relating to the proposed Offering. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking statements 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 statements 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 statements. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts, nor guarantees or assurances of future performance but instead represent management's current beliefs, expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events and operating performance. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based on a number of opinions, assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by GFL as of the date of this release, are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ, possibly materially, from those indicated by the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the factors described in the "Risk Factors" section of GFL's annual information form for the 2023 fiscal year filed on Form 40-F and GFL's other periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the securities commissions or similar regulatory authorities in Canada . These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect GFL. However, such risk factors should be considered carefully. There can be no assurance that such estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. GFL undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, except as required by applicable securities laws. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gfl-environmental-inc-announces-secondary-offering-of-17-000-000-subordinate-voting-shares-by-selling-shareholders-302074823.html SOURCE GFL Environmental Inc. Global Millennial Capital pioneers the Profit with Purpose methodology of Harvard Business School in partnering with exceptional entrepreneurs BOSTON , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Millennial Capital Ltd., ("GMCL") an award-winning venture capital fund that uses a data-driven research approach to identify investment white spaces in the global technology sector and reduce investment bias, announced the close of its first fund as part of an oversubscribed $20 million private placement round. Anchored by family offices from the Gulf region with participation from international investors, the venture capital fund will invest in technology businesses that are exponentially scalable, IP-focused, and led by extraordinary entrepreneurial talent. GMCL was established in 2021, amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, to invest in technology businesses with unique access to leading academic institutions, incubators, accelerators, and corporate venture capital firms. The firm uses a research-driven model to augment its deal-origination capability and to automate the initial assessment of startup features, which is GMCL's unique value proposition. The emerging venture capital investor brings a lucrative yet "contrarian" perspective to identifying global themes and investment trends in the technology sector. GMCL has invested in a portfolio of fifteen early-growth technology companies operating in disruptive sectors, such as decentralized finance, blockchain technologies, software, and fintech, that embody the prospect of design thinking and innovation in digital economies. At completion, GMCL will have invested in around thirty-five companies with access to unlimited capital towards follow-ons. The senior members of the management team have previously invested and exited funds with similar strategies and realized paths to exit over a realistic timeframe. The Advisory Board of the fund is composed of industry leaders with more than one hundred years of combined investment experience, bringing solid credentials in the areas of strategic advisory and private equity funds exceeding $1 billion of assets under management. Andreea Danila , the General Partner and Member of the Investment Committee holds an impressive track record of executing various fund management mandates, spanning venture capital, mezzanine, credit, and private equity. Andreea has previously invested in fifty early-growth technology companies and advised on more than twenty mid-market transactions in the technology and consumer sectors. GMCL, a member of the Impact Finance Research Consortium, pioneers the Profit with Purpose investment model for venture capital funds by introducing the utilization of innovative impact metrics supported by data science, and robust research completed by innovative software. By quantifying the tangible and intangible effects of early-stage investments during the hyper-scalability cycles, industry stakeholders can discern not only financial returns but also impact metrics such as social and financial inclusion indices, thereby forming a strong thesis for our impact-driven founders building scalable technology companies that can change the way consumers, companies and governments interact in the new digital economy. DISCLAIMER: GLOBAL MILLENNIAL CAPITAL LTD. (PIF) IS A VENTURE CAPITAL FUND REGISTERED WITH THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMISSION WITH FUND NUMBER 2037148. NO PART OF THIS ARTICLE IS INTENDED TO BE OR MAY BE RELIED UPON, AS INVESTMENT ADVICE, INVESTMENT RECOMMENDATION, AN OFFER TO SELL, OR THE SOLICITATION OF ANY OFFER TO BUY, ANY SECURITY OR ADOPT ANY INVESTMENT STRATEGY. GLOBAL MILLENNIAL CAPITAL LTD. (PIF) IS NOT A REGISTERED INVESTMENT ADVISOR. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2348541/GMCL_Fund_I.jpg View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-millennial-capital-raises-20-million-to-fund-transformational-early-stage-ventures-that-empower-future-digital-economies-302074073.html SOURCE Global Millennial Capital By Christina Montgomery , Chief Privacy & Trust Officer, IBM and Joshua New , Senior Fellow, IBM Policy Lab WASHINGTON , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Deepfakes realistic AI-generated audio, video, or images that can recreate a person's likeness are one of the most pressing challenges posed by generative AI, given the potential for bad actors to use it to undermine democracy, exploit artists and performers, and harass and harm everyday people. These are not speculative risks. Already, deepfakes are being used to spread election disinformation, capitalize on unsanctioned imitations of musicians, and create nonconsensual pornography of minors, private citizens, and celebrities alike. And as AI capabilities continue to improve, these challenges will become even more pernicious. What this moment requires is both technical and legal solutions. That's why IBM (NYSE: IBM) signed the Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections (Munich Tech Accord), pledging to help mitigate the risks of AI being used to deceive the public and undermine elections. It's also why IBM has long advocated for regulations that precisely target harmful applications of technology. We outline below three key priorities for policymakers to mitigate the harms of deepfakes: Protecting elections, Protecting creators, and Protecting people's privacy Protecting elections Democracy depends on a population's ability to participate in free and fair elections. Unfortunately, bad actors can use deepfakes to impersonate public officials and candidates to deceive voters in a variety of ways that would undermine this key principle. For example, deepfakes could mislead voters about where, when, and how they can vote, or falsely portray a candidate making controversial statements or participating in scandalous activity. Policymakers should prohibit the distribution of materially deceptive deepfake content related to elections. For example, the Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act, introduced by Senators Klobuchar, Hawley, Coons, and Collins, would curtail the use of AI to generate deceptive content falsely depicting federal candidates in political advertisements with the intent of influencing an election. Other policy approaches could enable candidates targeted by materially deceptive AI-generated content used in political advertisements or fundraising campaigns to seek damages or remove deceptive content, while preserving protections for free speech. In the EU, IBM has been supportive of the Digital Services Act, which imposes on large internet platforms certain obligations regarding the moderation of online content. Recent guidelines published by the European Commission have also proposed additional requirements for consumer-facing platforms to mitigate against "systemic risks for electoral processes." Protecting creators Musicians, artists, actors, and creators of all kinds use their talents and likeness to help shape culture, inspire, entertain, and make a living. Deepfakes can enable bad actors to exploit creators' likenesses to push deceptive advertising, scam and mislead consumers, improperly reduce a creator's ability to profit from their talents, and more. Policymakers should hold people accountable for producing unauthorized deepfakes of creator performances and hold platforms accountable if they knowingly disseminate such unauthorized content. Some jurisdictions already have what are known as "likeness laws" that prohibit the unauthorized use of a person's likeness for commercial exploitation, but these can be inconsistent, and few explicitly cover digital replicas or the rights to use a person's likeness after they die. Given these jurisdictional inconsistencies, IBM supports the NO FAKES Act in the U.S. , which would create federal protections for individuals whose voices and/or likenesses are generated by third parties without their consent. Protecting people's privacy Everyday people are already being harmed by deepfakes in profoundly concerning ways, particularly by bad actors using their likeness to create nonconsensual pornography. This abuse primarily targets women, victims have included minors, and could potentially enable further abuse and extortion by bad actors. Nonconsensual sharing of intimate imagery, also known as revenge porn, is expanding with the use of deepfakes but ultimately is not a new problem. But few existing laws adequately hold bad actors accountable for sharing or threatening to share this material, or necessarily cover AI-generated content. Policymakers should create strong criminal and civil liability for people that distribute nonconsensual intimate audiovisual content, including AI-generated content, as well as for people that threaten to do so. Penalties should be particularly severe when the victim is a minor. Legislators can act on this recommendation now by supporting and passing the bipartisan Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act in the U.S. This bill would create liability for individuals who disclose, or threaten to disclose, a nonconsensual intimate digital depiction of someone, including AI-generated content, and allow affected parties to pursue damages. This legislation would create a much-needed federal baseline of accountability that is inconsistently addressed in various revenge porn laws at the state level, providing greater protections for victims and individuals across the United States . The EU AI Act which IBM has long-supported already addresses many of these types of issues, covering deepfakes more generally and imposing transparency requirements that clarify when particular content is not authentic. As policymakers look towards the Act's implementation in the coming months, particular attention should be paid to ensuring individuals are protected from non-consensual intimate audiovisual content. Conclusion Solving the problems posed by deepfakes will require thoughtful, whole-of-society approaches leveraging both changes in law and technology. Technology companies have a responsibility to pursue technical and governance solutions that address AI-generated content, such as those articulated in the Munich Accord, the White House Voluntary AI Commitments, and Canada's Voluntary Code of Conduct on the Responsible Development and Management of Advanced Generative AI Systems. IBM encourages policymakers to seize this opportunity to swiftly target three of the most significant harmful applications of deepfakes to ensure that AI remains a positive force for the global economy and society. Media Contact: Ashley Bright [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ibm-heres-what-policymakers-can-do-about-deepfakes-302073471.html SOURCE IBM Inspired by His Royal Highness, the Minister of Energy, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud's passion for education, human capital development and innovation, the KAPSARC School of Public Policy (KSPP) was founded as the first institution in Saudi Arabia dedicated to graduate studies and executive education in public policy. Through its academic offerings, KSPP empowers individuals to tackle pressing public policy challenges and embrace the promising opportunities shaping the future. KSPP's facilities will run on 100% renewable energy, setting a precedent as one of the first net-zero facilities in the Saudi educational sector. RIYADH, Saudi Arabia , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) has been granted an establishment license for its School of Public Policy (KSPP) after the recent approval by the Council of Ministers, and which was announced during the Human Capability Initiative (HCI) on February 28, 2024 , conducted under the patronage of Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz , Crown Prince , Prime Minister, and the Chairman of the Human Capability Development Program Committee, one of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 Realization Programs. Aiming to set new standards in policy studies, the school offers a two-year master's degree and executive education programs designed to enable and empower future policy leaders and professionals within Saudi Arabia and globally to address the most pressing domestic and international public policy challenges in the public, non-profit and private sectors. This significant achievement was announced by His Royal Highness, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud , the Minister of Energy, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of KAPSARC: "The vision for KAPSARC School of Public Policy is to develop the knowledge and skills that the new generation needs to shape public policy both locally and globally. Our mission is to empower and equip future policy leaders and professionals within Saudi Arabia and internationally to make informed socio-economic decisions." In a statement on the sidelines of the school's launch, Fahad Alajlan, President of KAPSARC, stressed the Center's mission to impact public policy on national, regional, and global levels. "Our new School of Public Policy will equip future leaders with the right skills to create data-driven and evidence-based public policy in line with Vision 2030 goals." Dr. Ghadah Alarifi , Founding Dean of KSPP, stated that, "Public policy serves as the foundation of societal progress. At KSPP, we aim to be a catalyst for collaboration, building a robust ecosystem that bridges academia, industry, and government in the public policy arena." By leveraging KAPSARC's network, KSPP provides a platform for global engagement and career growth opportunities, offering practical application and flexible courses tailored to empower policymakers in different tracks including energy policy. The school is committed to achieving high sustainability standards in the Saudi educational sector, including the goal of running on 100% renewable energy. This dedication ensures that KSPP meets its annual energy needs through on-site renewable resources, eliminating the use of fossil fuels. For more information about KSPP, visit https://www.kapsarc.org/about-the-school/. Follow KSPP on social media: X: @KAPSARC_SPP LinkedIn: @ KAPSARC School of Public Policy About KAPSARC: KAPSARC is a leading think tank dedicated to advancing knowledge on energy, environment, and regional economic issues. Accredited observer of UNFCCC, KAPSARC actively contributes to global climate action. The mission of KAPSARC is to advance Saudi Arabia's energy sector and inform global policies through evidence-based advice and applied research. For more information about the center please visit: https://www.kapsarc.org/ Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350458/KAPSARC_School_of_Public_Policy.jpg View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kapsarc-launches-saudi-arabias-first-school-of-public-policy-302074715.html SOURCE KAPSARC - King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center DUBAI, UAE , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Koning Health , a pioneering medical imaging company, is thrilled to announce that it has received regulatory clearance from the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) in the United Arab Emirates ( UAE ), marking a significant milestone in the company's expansion and its commitment to global health innovation. The clearance process was a testament to perseverance and strategic international cooperation. Maher Bannourah , Director of Koning International, led the initiative by leveraging his industry experience with Ministry of Health (MOH) representatives. This regulatory approval positions Koning as the first company to introduce breast CT technology in the UAE , setting a new standard in breast imaging and care in the region. The inaugural installation of the Vera Complete, Koning's flagship breast CT system, is scheduled at a premier hospital site in the UAE as soon as April of this year. Introducing a no compression, high resolution breast imaging technology to the women of the UAE illustrates the commitment to provide women the highest level of medical technology available today. This installation is not only a milestone for Koning but also serves as a cornerstone for the company's expansion throughout the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. The project is expected to significantly boost sales and enhance access to innovative breast imaging solutions across the region. "Koning is honored to be accepted as the only approved breast CT in the UAE . With this regulatory clearance, the Ministry of Health has demonstrated its concern for the health of their female population and its consistent drive to provide the highest level of technology for the healthcare system," says David Georges , President of Koning. "It is the intent of the Koning Corporation to assist the Ministry in reaching new levels of early-stage breast cancer detection across their population when cure rates obtain the highest possible cure rate." This clearance is just the start for Koning, which remains dedicated to its mission of revolutionizing medical imaging. The company is excited to embark on this new chapter of growth and innovation in the UAE and beyond. About Koning : Koning is a global Health Technology company focused on improving the breast imaging industry with its patented Koning Vera Breast CT (KBCT). Koning's vision is to create a revolution in medical imaging through advanced computed tomography technology that dramatically improves the way clinicians visualize and evaluate breast tissue. The KBCT is expected to optimize early disease detection, diagnosis, intervention, and treatment, and will improve survival rates for millions of patients worldwide. For more information, please visit Koning's website or email Koning at [email protected]. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/koning-health-achieves-uae-regulatory-clearance-paving-the-way-for-breast-ct-commercialization-in-the-middle-east-302074482.html SOURCE Koning Corporation WELLSVILLE, N.Y., Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- LJUNGSTROM is pleased to announce that it has reached a settlement agreement with Shanghai Boiler Works Co. Ltd. (SBW) regarding the use of LJUNGSTROM's Air Preheater (APH) and Gas-Gas Heater (GGH) technology licensed to them in 2001. The settlement agreement does not provide SBW with rights to produce or sell the LJUNGSTROM's APH and GGH technologies developed after 2001. However, it does now provide certainty on what future use SBW can make of the LJUNGSTROM technology that was licensed to them. With this new agreement LJUNGSTROM acknowledges that SBW's customers can engage them to: 1) provide aftermarket services for SBW's global installed base of APH & GGH 2) supply traditional new APH & GGH equipment for coal fired power generation projects both in China and overseas only when installed by a Chinese EPC company (Engineering, Procurement and Construction company) "We look forward to working with SBW in future to explore opportunities to supply its customers with LJUNGSTROM's more efficient proprietary heating elements manufactured in our factory in Nantong, China ." said Thomas Barwald , Managing Director of LJUNGSTROM China. LJUNGSTROM continues to retain all its other rights globally to exclusively service our APH and GGH technologies across the many uses in the energy & environmental sectors, including any emerging industrial markets for our products. About LJUNGSTROM LJUNGSTROM, a division of the ARVOS Group, is a global leader providing innovative solutions to a diversified range of industries, with a focus on environmentally beneficial technologies to enable more efficient and cleaner operations. With a century of history in Wellsville, New York , LJUNGSTROM has a proven track record of expertise in engineering, manufacturing, and field services. Related links: https://www.ljungstrom.com View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ljungstrom-and-shanghai-boiler-works-finalize-settlement-agreement-302073237.html SOURCE LJUNGSTROM ORLANDO, Fla. , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- MCAP Inc. (OTC: MCAP), a holding company that owns and invests in innovative financial technology companies, today announced executive promotions as part of its ongoing commitment to enhance its customer focus in the global financial markets. Anthony Zmuda , Managing Director, has been named Head of Sales Trading, focusing on broadening MCAP's sales trading initiatives, with an emphasis on International Equities and Algorithmic Trading. Dan Seidenstein , Managing Director, has been named Head of Relationship Management at MCAP LLC, the broker-dealer subsidiary of MCAP Inc. In this new role, Mr. Seidenstein will lead the relationship management division for MCAP products, serving a key role in the expansion of cross-asset distribution efforts to its institutional customers. These promotions underscore MCAP's dedication to driving growth and reinforcing its leadership in delivering innovative financial technology solutions and exceptional service to its customers. Jim Smyth , Executive Director at MCAP, commented, "I am very proud of Dan and Anthony's accomplishments. They are two seasoned professionals, and their experience in multiple asset classes will continue to help MCAP expand its distribution of all MCAP's products." Will Dennis , President at MCAP, stated "I am excited for Dan and Anthony as they step into their new roles at this time in MCAP's journey. As we broaden our service offerings, the importance of having experienced and knowledgeable leadership becomes even more critical. Their forward-thinking and dynamic approach to leadership is exactly what we need to navigate our expansion efforts. I have the utmost confidence in their abilities to significantly enhance our delivery of exceptional service to customers." David Menn CEO at MCAP, added, "We are very pleased to have Dan and Anthony lead this effort and to continue growing our customer relationships across our multiple asset classes and products." MCAP Inc. owns, invests in, and operates financial technology companies. MCAP's technologies, software and platforms connect institutional investors and broker-dealers to the global equity and fixed income markets on a 24/7 basis. MCAP's financial technologies provide customers with algorithmic execution platforms and customized securities trading solutions. Please visit our website: www.mcaptech.com Forward-Looking Statements This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. The matters discussed in this news release involve goals, forecasts, assumptions, risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mcap-inc-announces-executive-promotions-in-relationship-management-302074439.html SOURCE MCAP Inc. The Social Justice Guide for Business offers strategic, meaningful approaches for companies addressing inequality amidst political polarization WASHINGTON , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to the increasing demand for companies to engage on a broad range of social and economic issues, BSR's Center for Business & Social Justice (CBSJ) introduces "The Social Justice Guide for Business: Moving Beyond Crisis to Action." The freely available, downloadable guide is designed to empower business leaders and practitioners in making strategic and enduring decisions related to their companies' engagement with social issues while also advancing social justice through thoughtful and purposeful corporate actions. Social justice encompasses many economic and social issues. Companies are often expected to take stances on social justice, including issues such as climate justice, democracy, economic inclusion, racial justice, access to healthcare, gender equity, LGBTIQ+ inclusion, caregiving and unionization. "Companies want to meet dynamic stakeholder expectations, operate in stable environments and have a level playing field," said Laura Gitman , Chief Impact Officer, BSR. "Thinking about corporate strategies through a social justice lens can bring about positive impact and stability for business in an uncertain world." CBSJ's three-part guide includes how companies currently engage on social issues, what a corporate social justice approach entails, and what companies can do to advance social justice. It also discusses six forms of corporate social justice engagement and provides links to existing tools and resources that are currently leveraged by corporate leaders in their social impact initiatives. "People tend to overlook the support systems essential for corporate leaders who aim to make a meaningful impact on social justice issues in their companies," says Jarrid Green , Co-Director, Center for Business and Social Justice. "Behind the flashy brand logos and household names are real people who, like their peers in other sectors, operate with relatively limited resources yet hope to steward social impact strategies that produce positive, lasting results for communities. This guide aims to support their efforts." From climate change to geopolitical conflicts and more, there are converging crises that saturate corporate bandwidth today. Consumers, workers and investors are demanding that businesses take urgent and meaningful action. By a 4:1 margin , workers in the U.S. want to be a part of a business that promotes social justice. , workers in the want to be a part of a business that promotes social justice. More than 8 in 10 employees report being satisfied with their job at companies where their leaders speak up about critical events and issues. report being satisfied with their job at companies where their leaders speak up about critical events and issues. Nine in 10 investors believe a company has a responsibility to play a role in addressing societal problems that are important to customers, employees, and investors. "In the midst of Black History Month, Women's History Month, ongoing organized retaliatory efforts focused on businesses and an election year, the Center developed this resource to take companies through the steps of what a social justice approach looks like," says Jen Stark , Co-Director, Center for Business and Social Justice. "This guide equips business leaders to go beyond performative responses in reaction to flashpoints, and instead prepares companies to embrace strategic approaches to these issues. It also names the broader systemic changes needed - which companies can support - to achieve enduring progress. Business leaders who are intrigued by the contents of the Guide and are ready for more hands-on support can reach out to BSR directly . The Center is able to bring companies together as peers using BSR's Act. Enable. Influence. framework with a focus on issue-based cohorts gender equity, racial equity, worker well-being, climate justice and civic engagement. The Guide was informed by focus groups with dozens of BSR members and civil society partners, conducted over the course of 24 months, in addition to a member-wide survey. The Guide is the first authoritative social justice framework made available to the private sector that offers a sustained, intentional approach and reflects insights across BSR's staff as well as the Center's Advisory Council. The full list of acknowledgements is here . Click here to download "The Social Justice Guide for Business: Moving Beyond Crisis to Action." About The Center for Business and Social Justice The Center for Business & Social Justice (CBSJ) at BSR is committed to reshaping the private sector's engagement with social justice and equity. Serving as a forum for collaborative engagement and strengthened collective action, CBSJ focuses on five critical issues: gender equity, racial equity, worker well-being, civic engagement, and climate justice. About BSR BSR is a sustainable business network and consultancy focused on creating a world in which all people can thrive on a healthy planet. With offices in Asia , Europe , and North America , BSR provides its 300+ member companies with insight, advice, and collaborative initiatives to help them see a changing world more clearly, create long-term value, and scale impact. Media Contact Lauren Silverman Manager, Media and Public Relations, BSR [email protected] View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-guide-for-business-helps-companies-to-effectively-address-critical-social-justice-issues-302073385.html SOURCE BSR Company Sees Significant Expansion in Key Areas of People, Customers, Partners and Technology ANDOVER, Mass. , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In terms of growth and expansion, 2023 was a noteworthy year for Nextuple , a pioneer in transforming retail and grocery fulfillment. The company announced today key metrics that support its strong performance in the enterprise order management systems (OMS) market last year: over 100 percent growth in product revenue and 67 percent growth in Nextuple product-led implementations and engineering services revenue. Nextuple has recently signed multiple marketplace partnership agreements with AWS, Google and Azure. "During the last year, I'm very proud of the way everyone in the company has worked to innovate and grow Nextuple's Order Management Studio products for the retail and grocery sectorsaddressing the ever-changing challenges companies face when it comes to order fulfillment," said Darpan Seth , chief executive officer at Nextuple. "We set out to disrupt the enterprise OMS software and services industry with our software, and the increase in both our product revenue and customers attest to the fact that we are accomplishing that mission. 2023 was an extremely successful year for us, and we look forward to growing our people, customers, channel partners and technology even more in 2024." Among the key milestones from 2023 that helped fuel the company's growth: Five national omnichannel retailers launched the Nextuple OMS Studio , a composable suite of microservices with a unique delivery model that allows companies to quickly respond to consumer demands for speed and convenience. These customer additions alone comprise $50 billion in annual revenue across 7,000 store locations. , a composable suite of microservices with a unique delivery model that allows companies to quickly respond to consumer demands for speed and convenience. These customer additions alone comprise in annual revenue across 7,000 store locations. BJ's Wholesale Club (BJ's), with over $19 billion in annual revenue and more than 230 clubs, selected Nextuple's OMS Studio as the retailer moves away from its legacy OMS inventory system and looks to modernize its overall inventory operations. Nextuple Expands Team with Two New Key Hires As Nextuple continues to expand deeper into the retail marketplace, the company has increased headcount by over 30 percent globally and also made two significant hires who bring decades of experience of building relationships and driving growth, and first-hand knowledge of how technology can solve omnichannel fulfillment challenges: Anshuman Jaiswal , Vice President, Growth Strategy and Operations: Previously, Jaiswal worked in an executive leadership capacity as part of the Digital Transformation practice at Kearney, a global management consulting firm. He has more than 20 years of industry and management consulting experience advising the C-suite and executive leaders globally on a broad range of topics. David Howe , Director, Account Strategy and Customer Success: Howe was previously with Deloitte Consulting and, prior to that, worked in the eCommerce pickup and delivery space for Walmart. He has over a decade of retail experience, spanning both corporate and store operations. Addition of Marketplace Partners Further Expands Technology Deployment Additionally, Nextuple has recently signed multiple marketplace partnership agreements to enable its retail and grocery clients to simplify software licensing and procurement by leveraging their existing cloud-infrastructure partner relationships. AWS Marketplace : An online software store that helps customers find, buy and immediately start using software and services that run on AWS. : An online software store that helps customers find, buy and immediately start using software and services that run on AWS. Google Cloud Marketplace : Lets customers quickly deploy functional software packages that run on Google Cloud. : Lets customers quickly deploy functional software packages that run on Google Cloud. Azure Marketplace : Offers thousands of industry-leading apps and servicesall certified and optimized to run on Azureso customers can find, try, buy and deploy solutions quickly and confidently. "Of course, the foundation to Nextuple's success is our 'AI-first' technology that provides a unique set of predictive and explainability features and functions that retailers can seamlessly deploy to immediately build value and enhance their OMS processes. We expect to continue to deliver industry-leading software that addresses retailers' most pressing fulfillment pain points," added Seth. About Nextuple Nextuple helps customer-centric retailers and grocers create and transform omnichannel fulfillment by using a microservices architecture. The Nextuple OMS Studio enables retailers to quickly extend and scale new fulfillment experiences to delight customers, create more omnichannel agility, and accelerate time-to-value. Nextuple has offices in Massachusetts, U.S., Ontario, Canada , and Bangalore, India . To learn more, visit us at www.Nextuple.com, follow us on LinkedIn, or join the global OMS conversation with our Order Management Gurus community. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nextuple-experiences-over-100-percent-growth-in-product-revenue-and-realizes-67-percent-growth-in-overall-product-led-business-302074689.html SOURCE Nextuple San Francisco Bay Area's Premier Brokerage Welcomes Wine Country's Top Talent NAPA, Calif. , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Top real estate agent Damian Archbold has joined Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty in its Wine Country region, a move that pairs one of the premier real estate advisors in Wine Country's Napa Valley region with the most distinguished global brand in luxury real estate. "I am thrilled to join a brokerage and a brand that is one of the most trusted names in the world, and to offer my clients the added depth and breadth that Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty offers, both locally and around the globe," says Archbold. Prior to real estate, Damian's notable career spans over three decades, as a CEO, entrepreneur, and investment banker experience that provides a wealth of invaluable expertise. For the past decade he has focused on his real estate career offering clients unparalleled guidance and support. Backed by a strong work ethic and a deep understanding of fiduciary responsibility, Damian instills confidence in his clients throughout the buying and/or selling process. "We are delighted to welcome Damian to our brokerage. His reputation, professionalism and deep connection to Napa Valley and the community make him a valuable addition to our Wine Country region of top agents. We are excited to join forces and support his promising career, service to his clients, and for our brand to further elevate Damian's business to the next level," says Kevin Daniel Dwyer , Chief Marketing Officer, Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty. Damian prioritizes transparency and acts as a trusted fiduciary, with specialized expertise in assessing the long-term financial value of properties, particularly within the wine industry. He has had the privilege of representing esteemed vineyard, winery, and residential properties, notably, Damian represented the record-breaking sale of Seven Stones Winery for $34 million , a testament to his valued expertise. "Damian is an extremely focused, respected agent with deep local knowledge and connections to many of Napa Valley's high-net-worth-individuals. He is a fabulous addition to our company, and I look forward to partnering with Damian on many of my finest vineyard property and estates in Wine Country," says Olivia Decker , co-founder of part owner of Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty. For more information, visit: DamianArchboldGroup.com Damian Archbold Phone: (707) 339-3550 Email: [email protected] Lic.# 00984748 For media inquiries, please email [email protected] About Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty: Golden Gate Sotheby's International Realty has over 485 agents in 21 offices throughout the San Francisco Bay Area serving the counties of Alameda , Contra Costa , Marin , Napa , San Mateo , Santa Clara , Solano , Sonoma and San Francisco . For more information, please visit www.GoldenGateSIR.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/real-estate-agent-damian-archbold-joins-golden-gate-sothebys-international-realty-302074679.html SOURCE Golden Gate Sothebys International Realty BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- On March 2, Special Representative of the Chinese Government on Eurasian Affairs Li Hui will begin a second round of shuttle diplomacy to seek a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning announced on Wednesday. Li will visit Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Germany and France, as well as the E.U. headquarters in Belgium, Mao said. "It has been two years since the full escalation of the crisis. The war still drags on," Mao said at a daily news briefing when answering a relevant query, noting that restoring peace is the most urgent task at present. "The sooner the peace talks start, the lower the losses will be," she said. Over the last two years, China has never given up in its efforts to promote peace and talks, she noted. China has conducted in-depth communication with Russia, Ukraine and other relevant countries, and played a constructive role in coping with the crisis. China has issued a document titled "China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis" and dispatched a special representative to conduct shuttle diplomacy, Mao said. China has never stood by, inflamed or exploited the situation for selfish gains, but everything it does leads toward the goal of building consensus to end the war and pave the way for peace talks, she said. China will continue to play its unique role, carry out shuttle diplomacy, build consensus among all parties, and contribute Chinese wisdom to the promotion of a political solution to the Ukraine crisis, she added. Harnessing the power of the sun and sky, the SKYVIEW Pendant Pro brings dynamic natural light to transform whole buildings into wellness havens CARLSBAD, Calif. , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On the heels of launching a lighting solution for consumers' desks and tables with the SKYVIEW 2 and SKYVIEW 2 Pro , SKYVIEW is now entering commercial spaces with the all-new SKYVIEW Pendant Pro. Elevated on the ceiling for greater exposure, the SKYVIEW Pendant Pro has an impressive 8-foot impact radius so employees and guests can experience commercial-grade natural light while in an office, hotel lobby, or conference space. Easy to install and powered by the patented SKYVIEW light engine, this wellness solution positively impacts people on a biological level and is proven to increase productivity, focus, sleep quality, and even elevate mood. Deepak Savadatti, CEO of BIOS Lighting, parent company to SKYVIEW, highlighted the concerning trend of modern lifestyles increasingly disconnecting from natural light rhythms. Savadatti emphasized that "spending 93% of our lives indoors has resulted in widespread circadian disruption affecting 90% of the population, with significant implications for mental and physical well-being. In response to this challenge, the SKYVIEW Pendant Pro offers a solution by bringing the full spectrum of sunlight and sky hues indoors. This innovative lighting system not only promotes individual well-being but also enhances business performance by fostering a healthier biological equilibrium, leading to improved mood and productivity. Transform your hospitality space into a haven of wellness, valued by both employees and guests." Created by former NASA engineers, SKYVIEW blends meticulous craftsmanship with science to reconnect humans with the revitalizing power of "natural light" at the right time of day. SKYVIEW has already been making a difference for individuals and is now available for larger spaces, and more people with the SKYVIEW Pendant Pro. Made for Humans: No other commercial lighting provides enough dynamic, biologically-relevant color spectra to boost the natural body rhythms that keep you alert and active during the day. No other commercial lighting provides enough dynamic, biologically-relevant color spectra to boost the natural body rhythms that keep you alert and active during the day. Powered by Nature: Not only does SKYVIEW replicate the sun's light better than any other product, but it's the only product that also replicates the sky's changes seamlessly for 24-hour wellness support. Not only does SKYVIEW replicate the sun's light better than any other product, but it's the only product that also replicates the sky's changes seamlessly for 24-hour wellness support. Customizable For You: SKYVIEW Pendant Pro easily syncs with the SKYVIEW app, available for iOS and Android devices, which enables users to personalize the experience starting with sunrise, sunset, daytime, evening and night modes during the 24-hour cycle. SKYVIEW's impact as a total mind and body wellness companion is well-documented. Through trials at a top Fortune 500 company and Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, SKYVIEW demonstrated notable advantages over standard ambient lighting environments: Elevated Mood & Focus : Employees who were exposed to SKYVIEW during the workday experienced an improvement in mood (33%) and focus (55%), and workers at the hospital experienced a 12.5% calculated boost in productivity. : Employees who were exposed to SKYVIEW during the workday experienced an improvement in mood (33%) and focus (55%), and workers at the hospital experienced a 12.5% calculated boost in productivity. Optimized Work Quality: Employees made fewer mistakes with SKYVIEW, enhancing their performance by 3x on average compared to working under standard ambient lighting. Employees made fewer mistakes with SKYVIEW, enhancing their performance by 3x on average compared to working under standard ambient lighting. Increase in Motivation: Under SKYVIEW's influence, workers reported a significant 78% increase in motivation, emphasizing the light's role in driving professional and personal improvement. Under SKYVIEW's influence, workers reported a significant 78% increase in motivation, emphasizing the light's role in driving professional and personal improvement. A Feeling of +3 Hours of Sleep: The trial used the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) to determine the effects. The results showed that the effects were as significant as an additional cup of coffee, all-day, without the caffeine crash. Every building from corporate headquarters to a hotel lobby has the same challenges of providing adequate light for humans. SKYVIEW is the only product to meet the WELL Building Standard for light. A space that is not wellness-compliant can be turned wellness-compliant simply by installing SKYVIEW products. Whether you're an employee working in-office for the day, or behind the front desk at a hotel or resort, SKYVIEW is an aesthetic solution to support a variety of wellness needs. "Natural lighting is fundamental to our health and wellness. Any hospitality brand seeking to incorporate wellness elements should look towards upgrading their lighting first," said Poonacha Machaiah , CEO of Chopra Foundation. "SKYVIEW stands out as the first product I've encountered that brings together all of the elements of natural lighting that enhance wellness." SKYVIEW Pendant Pro is now available for purchase at www.skyviewlight.com/business . For additional information on new SKYVIEW products, visit www.skyviewlight.com . About SKYVIEW At SKYVIEW, we commit ourselves to human health and wellness by harnessing the science and power of natural light, fostering a world where people can live their best. Founded by former NASA engineers, SKYVIEW sets itself apart by blending meticulous craftsmanship with science to reignite the essential bond between humans and sunlight. SKYVIEW is your window to the revitalizing power of natural light, a premium addition to your wellness routine, and a transformative influence on your daily performance. It's not just about lighting up a room; it's about lighting up your life. SKYVIEW is indeed 'more than light'. Discover your best self with SKYVIEW, a human light proven to enhance your productivity, mood, and sleep. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/skyviews-new-pendant-pro-brings-healthier-more-productive-lighting-to-commercial-spaces-302074227.html SOURCE SKYVIEW Industry-leading vision system technology to be featured on FH Aero, All-New VNL models NOVI, Mich. , Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Stoneridge Inc. (NYSE: SRI) today announced its MirrorEye Camera Monitor System will launch on Volvo's all-new heavy-duty truck platforms. The system will be featured on the Volvo FH Aero in Europe , Australia , Asia , and Africa and the All-New VNL in North America . Volvo's new, energy efficient models are designed to reduce CO 2 emissions, accelerating the company's journey towards its net zero emissions target by 2040, while also offering higher levels of safety, productivity and uptime for fleets and drivers. MirrorEye replaces traditional rear- and side-view mirrors with digital cameras and monitors, providing a broader field of view and improving safety for both the driver and surrounding road users. Additionally, the integration of MirrorEye on the FH Aero, combined with improved aerodynamics, can reduce energy consumption and emissions by five percent. "We're proud to support and advance Volvo's drive to net-zero emissions," said Jim Zizelman , president and CEO of Stoneridge. "MirrorEye significantly improves both aerodynamics and road safety, and this launch is another step in Stoneridge's journey to provide industry leading safety and vehicle efficiency technologies." The Volvo FH Aero will be rolled out market-by-market during 2024 and 2025, with a launch starting mid-year 2024, while the All-New VNL will be available with MirrorEye in early 2025. The All-New VNL application also marks the North American OE debut of MirrorEye's independent wing design, separating the system from traditional OE mirrors, and pairing it with a smaller set of side mirrors to comply with regulations. For more information and technical specs about the Volvo FH Aero platform, click here. For more information and technical specs about the Volvo All-New VNL platform, click here. About Stoneridge, Inc. Stoneridge, Inc., headquartered in Novi, Michigan , is a global designer and manufacturer of highly engineered electrical and electronic systems, components and modules for the automotive, commercial, off-highway and agricultural vehicle markets. Additional information about Stoneridge can be found at www.stoneridge.com. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stoneridge-launching-mirroreye-camera-monitor-system-with-volvo-trucks-on-global-heavy-duty-truck-platforms-302073251.html SOURCE Stoneridge, Inc. Combined vDU Solution Advances the Future of 5G O-RAN Networks with Unmatched Energy Efficiency and Integration BARCELONA, Spain , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- MWC Barcelona 2024 SynaXG, a leading provider of converged AI+5G and O-RAN network solutions, today announced a strategic collaboration with Wind River and Ampere Computing to deliver breakthrough technology for O-RAN infrastructure. The partnership successfully integrates SynaXG's virtualized distributed unit (vDU) card with StarlingX supported by Wind River and Ampere's multicore processors to redefine 5G network infrastructure. StarlingX is a cloud-native, Kubernetes, open-source infrastructure project hosted by the OpenInfra Foundation. Showcasing unparalleled hardware/software integration to enhance network efficiency and cloud management, the collaborative vDU solution will be unveiled at MWC Barcelona 2024. The collaboration sets new industry standards for power efficiency, ease of integration, and cloud-based network management, propelling SynaXG, Wind River and Ampere to the forefront of the O-RAN ecosystem evolution. The integrated vDU solution enables seamless integration with protocol stacks and fronthaul networks, bolstered by Wind River's cloud infrastructure expertise, ensuring effortless network upgrades and maintenance of O-RAN infrastructure. The ease of use and maturity of SynaXG's vDU solutions for O-RAN networks simplify and streamline the integration process. Ampere's ultra-low-power, multicore processors deliver best-in-class energy efficiency to manage the power demands of modern networks. "The platform built through our partnership with SynaXG and Wind River expands the limits of what's possible in O-RAN networks, setting new benchmarks for efficiency, sustainability and performance in 5G network infrastructure," said Sean Varley , VP of Business Development and Chief Evangelist at Ampere. "With Ampere loud Native Processors at the core of these platforms, service providers can now redefine their infrastructure plans according to a much more scalable and sustainable standard, backed by an increasingly diverse and mature ecosystem of solution providers." Ampere's multicore processor technology is pivotal in helping mobile operators increase energy efficiency in 5G infrastructure, which ultimately lowers 5G network deployment costs. Boosting the number of Layer 1 (L1) accelerator cards per server greatly enhances cellular network capacity. Similarly, it is necessary to increase the number of CPU cores to provide a higher level of L2/L3 predictable performance for latency and jitter-sensitive network workloads. "Our partnership with Wind River and Ampere brings together the best in hardware and software integration, energy efficiency, and cloud management to simplify the deployment of O-RAN networks," said Mantosh Malhotra , Chief Business Officer of SynaXG. "As a leader in integrating AI with next-gen 5G technologies, SynaXG delivers solutions for O-RAN infrastructure that meet the performance demands of today's networks and pave the way for a more sustainable, efficient future in telecommunications." "Providing new levels of innovation around power efficiency, ease of integration, and cloud-based network management, our collaboration with SynaXG and Ampere can help advance O-RAN technology," said Gil Hellmann , Vice President, Global Telecom Solutions Engineering, at Wind River. "As a leader in the telecom landscape that powers the majority of 5G O-RAN deployments with global operators, Wind River delivers cloud-native expertise and solutions that enable the high-scale deployment of next-generation network infrastructure for service providers worldwide." The complete O-RAN performance test platform includes a virtualized centralized unit (vCU) and vDU from Fujitsu, Wind River's expertise in StarlingX distributed cloud infrastructure containers as a service (CaaS), Ampere Altra Q80-30 multicore processor based on Arm cores, SynaXG SV-1000 vDU, and a Supermicro MegaDC server connected to a Fujitsu 5G radio and 5G core. For organizations that require full lifecycle support and services around an open-source solution, Wind River offers Wind River Studio as commercially supported StarlingX. Wind River Studio provides a fully cloud-native, Kubernetes and container-based architecture for the development, deployment, operations, and servicing of distributed edge networks at scale. Visit SynaXG at MWC Barcelona, Feb. 26-29 To see a demonstration of the integrated vCU/vDU platform and schedule a meeting with SynaXG at their booth in Hall 5, Stand 5F21, please visit here. About Wind River Wind River is a global leader in delivering software for mission-critical intelligent systems. For more than four decades, the company has been an innovator and pioneer, powering billions of devices and systems that require the highest levels of security, safety, and reliability. Wind River software and expertise are accelerating digital transformation across industries, including automotive, aerospace, defense, industrial, medical, and telecommunications. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio supported by world-class global professional services and support and a broad partner ecosystem. To learn more, visit Wind River at www.windriver.com. About Ampere Computing Ampere is a modern semiconductor company designing the future of cloud computing with the world's first Cloud Native Processors. Built for the sustainable Cloud with the highest performance and best performance per watt, Ampere processors accelerate the delivery of all cloud computing applications. Ampere Cloud Native Processors provide industry-leading cloud performance, power efficiency and scalability. For more information visit https://amperecomputing.com. About SynaXG SynaXG, a pioneer in O-RAN infrastructure and AI-enhanced wireless technologies, empowers global connectivity for enterprises, telecom operators and cloud service providers. With more than a decade of wireless innovation, carrier-grade L1 software and systems integration expertise, SynaXG merges AI with 5G and beyond, enhancing network performance and efficiency. Proven in worldwide deployments, SynaXG's AI+5G solutions drive the future of smart cities, industrial automation, healthcare and more, leading the evolution toward a smarter, connected world. Learn more: https://synaxg.com. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/synaxg-collaborates-with-wind-river-and-ampere-to-accelerate-next-level-o-ran-integration-302073680.html SOURCE SynaXG -Milestone Opportunity Brings Access to Customers via Global Sales and Partner Network VANCOUVER, BC , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - UniDoc Health Corp. (CSE: UDOC) (FRA: L7T) (OTC: UDOCF) ("UniDoc," or the "Company"), an innovator in the eHealth sector, is pleased to announce that it has entered into an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) agreement (the "Agreement") with HP Inc. ("HP") which permits the integration of HP products into its development and manufacturing process for the UniDoc H3 Health Cube and "Virtual Care Solutions Model" (VCSM) with HP designated SKUs for resale via the HP global sales and partner force. Highlights: The OEM agreement positions UniDoc to develop and produce its H3 Health Cube and together with HP offer a unique solution in providing Health care to all UniDoc gains the ability to sell integrated HP products worldwide The all inclusive HP SKUs will be available for resale globally The Agreement builds on the previously announced UniDoc/HP marketing agreement, and positions UniDoc to offer sales of customizable telehealth cubes, enclosures, equipment, and related services including software integrated with HP computing hardware. The specific terms of the agreement are confidential per mutual agreement. UniDoc-Integrated HP products will be made available to UniDoc, and UniDoc will partner in the development and bundling of shared product imagery, language, technical information, and support services to be shared across sales channels including social media, events, and promotions. UniDoc CEO Antonio Baldassare notes, "This is an important step forward with an acknowledged industry giant. To partner with HP, have access to their line of health care products, and the work with them to integrate their technology into the UniDoc offering is a great opportunity with promising upside potential for us. We believe this announcement a major milestone for the future of UniDoc and is a testament to what can be achieved for the future of healthcare in America." On Behalf of the Board of Directors, ~Antonio Baldassarre~ Antonio Baldassarre CEO, President & Director UniDoc Health Corp. About UniDoc Health Corp. (CSE: UDOC) (FRA: L7T) (OTC: UDOCF) UniDoc is developing a telehealth solution which is being designed as a self-contained remote virtual clinic within a private kiosk for patients to undergo full consultations as if they were present in a physician's office. Telehealth opens the doors to a large segment of the population challenged by access, experience or understanding of online computer technology. It is the Company's belief that physical accessibility is the key to its business proposition. UniDoc is dedicated to unlocking shareholder value by delivering an excellent product and sophisticated commercial network within an expedited timeframe. The UniDoc team encourages engagement, questions, and interest, so please stay in touch and invite anyone who might be interested in our story to visit our website at www.unidoctor.com and signup to receive the latest information with updates on our activities, events and progress. You are also invited to join us on social media with Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains statements and information that, to the extent that they are not historical fact, may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information may include financial and other projections, as well as statements regarding future plans, objectives, or economic performance, or the assumption underlying any of the foregoing. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "will be", "likely", "except", "anticipate", "believe", "intend", "plan", "forecast", "project", "estimate", "outlook", or the negative thereof or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. Examples of such statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the inclusion of HP components in the Company's primary product offering and features thereof, the HP SKU being available for resale globally, and the anticipated benefits of a partnership with HP and the Company's commercialization of the telehealth platform. Forward-looking information is based on the assumptions, estimates, analysis, and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. The material factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking information contained in this news release include, but are not limited to, key personnel and qualified employees continuing their involvement with the Company; the Company's ability to secure additional financing on reasonable terms; the competitive conditions of the industries in which the Company operates; and laws and any amendments thereto applicable to the Company. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, risks relating to the future business plans of the Company; risks that the Company will not be able to retain its key personnel; risks that the Company will not be able to successfully develop and commercialize VCSM kiosks for delivery; risks that the Company will not be able to produce or secure sufficient manufacturing capability to produce the quantity of VCSM kiosks; risks that current and any future global supply chain issues will delay the development of the VCSM kiosks and ultimately the delivery of the VCSM kiosks; risks that the Company will not be able to secure required financing on reasonable terms or at all; as well as all of the other risks as described in the Company's annual management discussion and analysis dated July 31, 2023 under the heading "Risks Factors." Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking information. Further, any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company's management to predict all such factors and to assess in advance the impact of each such factor on the Company's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking information to reflect information or events after the date on which it is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law, including securities laws. The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/unidoc-and-hp-inc-enter-oem-agreement-302073409.html SOURCE UniDoc Health Corp. ZUG, Switzerland , Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ - In a significant stride towards revolutionizing Web3 infrastructure, Validation Cloud has proudly announced the successful closure of its first external investment round, amassing $5.8 million . Spearheaded by San Francisco -based Cadenza Ventures, this funding round exceeded expectations with contributions from an impressive roster of international investors, including Blockchain Founders Fund, Bloccelerate, Blockwall, Side Door Ventures, Metamatic, GS Futures, and AP Capital. Alex Nwaka , Co-Founder of Validation Cloud, expressed enthusiasm about the funding, "This investment marks a pivotal moment for Validation Cloud as we aim to address the urgent demand for scalable and compliant Web3 infrastructure. We're honored to collaborate with our investors who are instrumental in propelling the global adoption of our platform among cutting-edge networks, developers, and asset managers." Validation Cloud is at the forefront of Web3 technology, having developed an innovative system architecture that paves the way for significant advancements in the sector. Known as the "Cloudflare of Web3," the company offers a robust, scalable, and intelligent platform providing Staking, Node API, and Data services, drawing inspiration from Cloudflare's transformative impact on Web2 infrastructure. Founded by veterans in the Proof-of-Stake domain, Validation Cloud boasts a team of highly experienced professionals from renowned organizations such as Uber, Workday, Deloitte, Citadel, Morgan Stanley, Binance, Crypto.com, Figure, R3, and more, emphasizing a talent-first approach with a worldwide workforce. Kumar Dandapani , Managing Partner at Cadenza Ventures, highlighted the strategic vision behind their investment, "At Cadenza, we do not invest in just any company; we invest in the future of transformative technologies. Validation Cloud's pioneering role in Proof-of-Stake and their relentless pursuit of next-generation Web3 infrastructure have set them apart as leaders in the Web3 space." Aly Madhavji , Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund, shared his thoughts on the investment, "We believe in the transformative power of Web3 and its ability to redefine how businesses operate. Investing in Validation Cloud aligns perfectly with our vision of supporting innovative platforms that are ready to lead the next wave of digital transformation." Validation Cloud has earned a reputation for its close partnerships with networks from their nascent stages, supporting a wide array of ecosystems from established ones like Chainlink, Hedera, and Stellar to emerging networks such as Aptos , Eigenlayer, and Berachain. Their platform lays the groundwork for the enterprise adoption of networks, positioning Validation Cloud as a key player in the Web3 infrastructure landscape. For further details on Validation Cloud and its offerings, please visit www.validationcloud.io. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/validation-cloud-secures-5-8-million-in-inaugural-funding-to-propel-web3-infrastructure-302074763.html SOURCE Validation Cloud FORT WASHINGTON, Pa. , Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Patriot Growth Insurance Services, LLC (Patriot), one of the nation's largest and fastest-growing insurance services firms, is excited to reveal it has ranked 77th on the annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Northeast list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing Northeast private companies. The list is comprised of companies based in Pennsylvania , New York , Vermont , New Hampshire , Maine , Massachusetts , Connecticut , Rhode Island , and New Jersey. The companies on this list show a remarkable growth rate across all industries in the Northeast region. Companies on the 2024 Inc. 5000 Regionals: Northeast list had an average growth rate of 155.84 percent. Complete results of the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Northeast, including company profiles, can be found at inc.com/Northeast starting February 27, 2024 . "We are incredibly honored to make the Inc. 5000 Northeast Regional list for the second consecutive year," said Matt Gardner , Founder and CEO of Patriot. "Patriot was conceived with the goal of building the kind of company I've always wanted to work for, and to see it grow and flourish is truly humbling. I'm grateful for our talented Agency Growth Team and the incredible agency leaders who have chosen to continue their entrepreneurial journey at Patriot." "The honorees in our Inc. 5000 network are the Who's Who of private companies. They're energizing regional economies as they engineer the future of their industries. Learn who they are and what they do they'll be impacting things for a while," said Eric Hagerman , Special Projects Editor at Inc. Media. More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000 Regionals Methodology The 2024 Inc. 5000 Regionals are ranked according to percentage revenue growth. Companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2020 to qualify. They had to be U.S. -based, privately held, for-profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2022 . (Since then, several companies on the list have gone public or have been acquired.) As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. About Patriot Growth Insurance Services Founded in 2019, Patriot is a growth-focused national insurance services firm that partners with employee benefits and property and casualty agencies across the United States . Patriot is ranked as the 26th largest broker in the U.S. by Business Insurance and has been named to the 2023 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies. With more than 1,800 employees operating in 135 locations across 27 states, Patriot's collaborative model delivers resources and strategic support to its agencies, whose leaders continue to operate with a high degree of autonomy in their local markets. Patriot creates true alignment with its partner agencies, and its operating philosophy fosters enhanced career opportunities for its dedicated and professional team. Patriot is backed by GI Partners and Summit Partners. For more information, please contact Tammy Cameron at [email protected] or visit www.patriotgis.com . About Inc. Media The world's most trusted business-media brand, Inc., offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community 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 allows the founders of the best companies 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 . Media Contact: Tammy Cameron [email protected] View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/with-an-impressive-two-year-revenue-growth-rate-patriot-growth-insurance-services-ranks-77th-on-inc-magazines-list-of-the-northeast-regions-fastest-growing-private-companies-302074547.html SOURCE Patriot Growth Insurance Services ZHENGZHOU, China , Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Yutong Bus Co., Ltd. ("Yutong", SHA: 600066), a global mainstream bus supplier, has successfully completed rigorous road tests under extreme cold weather conditions of its pure electric buses in Norway and Kazakhstan , demonstrating a significant milestone in the electrification of public transport. Facing temperatures as low as -25C in Kazakhstan , the Yutong battery electric bus achieved a remarkable driving range of 374 km, setting a new benchmark for electric bus performance in harsh climates. The tests in the frigid environments of Astana, Kazakhstan , and within the Arctic Circle in Norway , were not just a trial of endurance but a clear signal of the electric buses' operational capabilities in extreme conditions. The E18PRO model, put to the test in Kazakhstan , embarked on a challenging journey on January 21, 2024 , demonstrating not just the bus's remarkable range but also its ability to provide a warm and comfortable environment for over 1,500 passengers. The vehicle's consistent interior temperature between 18C and 22C amidst the biting cold was particularly lauded by passenger for enhancing comfort. The secret to the E18PRO's success lies in Yutong's cutting-edge battery technology, featuring a liquid heating system that maintains optimal temperatures for the lithium iron phosphate batteries, ensuring efficient operation even in the coldest of climates. Additionally, the bus benefits from Yutong's vast experience in operating 190,000 new energy commercial vehicles worldwide, employing customized control strategies tailored for extreme cold operations. Yutong's pursuit of excellence continued in Norway , where the U12 model was subjected to a demanding test in Kirkenes. Achieving a power consumption of 1.56 kw/km in a live test over 105 km, the U12 operated flawlessly in temperatures reaching -33C. Yutong's focus on enhancing vehicle durability against corrosion and wear, particularly in Norway's salt-laden, snowy conditions, has been critical to its success. With over 331 battery electric buses operating in Norway , Yutong demonstrated its unwavering dedication to improving public transport's sustainability worldwide. The company's innovative approach, from the battery's liquid cooling system to its intelligent features like remote air conditioning scheduling and fault diagnosis, showcases its leadership in the electric bus market. Yutong Bus's dedication to driving the international move towards a greener and safer public transportation system is clearly demonstrated through this remarkable progress in battery electric vehicle capability. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/yutong-pure-electric-buses-excel-in-extreme-cold-weather-tests-in-norway-and-kazakhstan-302073564.html SOURCE Yutong Bus FILE PHOTO: CEO and Managing Director of Mubadala Investment Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, speaks during the World Governments Summit, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, February 12, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky/File Photo By Alexander Cornwell ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Co will deploy significant capital into artificial intelligence and space technology this year, its managing director said on Wednesday, committing the sovereign wealth fund to investing more in the United States. Khaldoon Mubarak told an investor conference in Abu Dhabi that sovereign wealth funds had an opportunity and responsibility to transform from asset investors to enablers of global progress. "We plan to invest more in the U.S. market and deepen strategic and forward-looking investment products in the UK, Europe, France," he said. Mubadala, which controls $276 billion of assets, would also invest in healthcare, digital infrastructure and financing this year, Mubarak said, and had increased long-term allocations for Asia. "We are in the business of driving progress and investing in solutions to global challenges," he said. The government-controlled fund was also scaling to participate in the long-term, dynamic markets in Asia, Mubarak said, as the sovereign fund focused on mega-trends and global demographics. "We've increased our long-term allocations for Asia, including Japan, China, Korea and, of course, India," he said. Mubarak did not specify how much capital Mubadala would deploy this year into the United States, China or elsewhere. The increased long-term allocation to Asia suggests Mubadala is betting that China's economic slowdown will not last and that it sees significant investment opportunities there over a longer period. The UAE and China have close political and economic ties but Mubarak said in his address that investments were based on the attractiveness of investment opportunities and not geopolitics. Washington has become increasingly concerned about Gulf-Chinese partnerships, fearing sensitive U.S. technology could be exposed. The U.S. is the security partner of the Gulf. Mubadala and Goldman Sachs this week announced they had agreed to a $1 billion private credit partnership to invest in Asia Pacific. The United States and its allies have sought to counter China's mostly economic influence in the region. (Reporting by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Tomasz Janowski) FILE PHOTO: UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi speaks during the opening ceremony of the WTO ministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, February 26, 2024. REUTERS/Abdel Hadi Ramahi/File Photo (This Feb. 28 story has been refiled to remove reference to no comment from WTO Chair and UAE Trade Minister's office as the story included comment in paragraph 4) By Emma Farge, Rachna Uppal and Alexander Cornwell ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Civil society organisations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in the United Arab Emirates this week have criticized restrictions on their participation, including alleging that some of their members had been briefly detained at the talks. Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS), a network of civil society groups, said on Wednesday it had complained to WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala over several incidents of "detainment, confiscation of materials, and heavy-handed restrictions on lobbying by civil society" groups. The WTO, in a statement, said the director-general had met with civil society representatives on Tuesday to discuss their concerns and had since spoken with the host chair of the talks to identify solutions. A representative of the UAE Office to the WTO said: "NGOs have a strong presence at (the meeting) where there have been opportunities for all voices to be heard as the issues being discussed are of global importance." While past WTO talks have seen protests, there have been none so far at this year's event, which is being held in a country where the right to assembly is essentially banned. Some civil society participants at the WTO talks have drawn comparisons to the United Nations COP28 climate conference held in Dubai last year. Limited protests were permitted at the COP28 site, but they were largely confined to a section of the site controlled by the U.N. At least four activists were briefly detained at the WTO talks, which is been held in an exhibition centre in Abu Dhabi, said civil society sources, who declined to be named, fearing repercussions by authorities. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai told reporters on Wednesday that she was aware of the allegations. "We have raised those concerns with the WTO Secretariat," she said. "There is an important, critically important, role for civil society. In fact, this is an area where the WTO needs to grow." Officials from Norway and New Zealand told Reuters they had formally raised concerns about the matter with the WTO. A civil society participant, who declined to be named, told Reuters of being detained more than an hour after filming a heated exchange between another civil society member and security at the conference centre hosting the talks. "It was a really scary experience; they were pretty aggressive," said the participant who had been detained. Civil society organisations allege that they are facing restrictions unlike at past WTO talks, including not being able to distribute statements, display banners or film. "This is my 11th MC (ministerial conference) and I've never seen anything like this level of repression," said Deborah James, facilitator of the OWINFS network. (Reporting by Emma Farge, Rachna Uppal and Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Paul Simao and Chizu Nomiyama) FILE PHOTO: The logo of French IT consulting firm Atos is seen during a news conference to present its new supercomputer BullSequana XH3000 in Paris, France, February 16, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo By Mathieu Rosemain and Jason Hovet PARIS/PRAGUE (Reuters) - Talks between Atos and Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky over the sale of its legacy operations have collapsed in yet another twist in a more than two-year-long saga at the French IT consulting firm. The end of the negotiations represents the first major setback in France for Kretinsky, who made his fortune in the energy sector and made frontpage headlines following a string of high-stakes purchases in the country. The end of talks is also a blow to Atos, as a sale of its Tech Foundations arm would have offloaded a string of loss-making operations at a time it is losing cash at fast pace and needs to refinance 4.7 billion-euros ($5.08 billion) in debt. Atos and Kretinsky's EPEI investment vehicle suffered no financial hit from ending the talks, Atos said. A spokesperson for Kretinsky declined to comment. The talks soured after a change of chairman at Atos. Atos' new chairman Jean-Pierre Mustier, a former CEO at Italian bank UniCredit, decided to review the terms of the proposed deal with Kretinsky, soon after replacing Bertrand Meunier last October. CHANGING TERMS A source close to Kretinsky's group said EPEI was "not ready to change the economic balance of the deal" and "didn't want (the deal) under adjusted conditions." Mustier notably sought to extract more cash - more than 500 million euros - from the sale Tech Foundations, a source close to the matter said. Under the initial plan announced last August, Kretinsky would have taken over the company for 100 million euros in cash and Atos would have transferred 1.9 billion euros of liabilities on its balance sheet to the new entity. Atos had also planned to funnel hundreds of million of euros of working capital to Tech Foundations, a move that prompted the ire of several minority shareholders and criticism over the way the planned deal was laid out to the markets. Home to assets deemed strategic by the French government, Atos' woes have drawn the attention of French lawmakers and are the subject of hearings in the Senate. Atos, a former member of France's CAC 40 blue-chip index, has seen its share price plummet by 93% over the last two years after a string of setbacks that included a badly-received takeover plan for U.S. rival DXC in 2021, accounting issues at U.S. entities that were later resolved and burning through four CEOs. Atos shares were down in early trading but reversed course in the morning and were up by about 0.38% at 0917 GMT. Atos, which provided no update on parallel talks over the possible sale of its cybersecurity division BDS to planemaker Airbus, said it was postponing the release of its full-year earnings to March 20 from Feb. 29. It said it needed more time to complete an audit of non-cash good will impairment charges. Atos reported a free cash outflow of 1.08 billion euros in 2023, up from 187 million euros a year earlier, and annual sales of 10.7 billion euros. ($1 = 0.9247 euros) (Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain in Paris and Jason Hovet in Prague; Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Piotr Lipinski, Jason Neely and Sharon Singleton) ATHENS, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Greek police said Tuesday that 10 Greeks were arrested on suspicion of links to two domestic urban guerrilla groups during a counter-terrorism operation. Six were detained in raids on their residences in Athens and the other four were already in prison serving sentences for other cases. They are charged with participation in a terrorist organization, attempted murder, attacks with explosive devices and illegal possession of weapons. According to police, they are linked to five recent attacks, including a failed attempt with a booby-trapped envelope sent to the office of a judge inside the courthouse of Thessaloniki city in northern Greece earlier this month. If the bomb had gone off, the explosion could have caused fatalities and significant material damage, according to police sources. By Kirsty Needham CANBERRA (Reuters) -A former politician "sold out" Australia to a foreign intelligence service, the country's spy chief said on Wednesday, adding that his agency had confronted the spy ring to let them know their cover had been blown. Director-general of security for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Mike Burgess, said in an annual speech he had declassified details of the operation, which used professional networking platforms, email and social media to target Australians. He did not name the country involved, but said it had also targeted Australia's defence industry, offering money for reports on the AUKUS partnership with the U.S. and Britain to build nuclear submarines. He said the foreign agency had "successfully cultivated and recruited a former Australian politician" several years ago. He did not identify the politician, and said the person had not been charged because they were no longer active. "This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime. At one point, the former politician even proposed bringing a prime minister's family member into the spies' orbit," he said. This plot did not go ahead, he added, but others did. Burgess referred to the foreign spies as the "A Team" and said they had tried to attract Australians with national security information by offering them consulting roles. Australian academics and political figures attending an overseas conference were met by "spies in disguise", he said. One academic gave the so-called A Team information about Australia's national security and defence priorities, while an "aspiring politician" provided political information, he said. "ASIO disrupted this scheme and confronted the Australians involved. While some were unwitting, others knew they were working for a foreign intelligence service," he said. LINKS SEVERED ASIO severed links between the Australians and the foreign intelligence service, he said, adding several individuals "should be grateful the espionage and foreign interference laws are not retrospective". Burgess said ASIO had "confronted the A-team directly" late last year, during an online encounter with an ASIO officer, and told it to stop. "We want the A-team to know its cover is blown," he said. ASIO has issued a notice to Australian public services warning government employees about the threat, he said. "We have seen it try to recruit students, academics, politicians, business people, researchers, law enforcement officials and public servants at all levels of government," he said. Australia's foreign interference taskforce has conducted 120 operations since it was formed in 2020, he said in the speech. Australia introduced foreign interference laws in 2018. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who introduced the laws, later said the "key purpose" of the measures was to expose China's activities. In an apparent reference to Volt Typhoon, a Chinese hacking group previously named by the U.S. and Australia as infiltrating Western critical infrastructure, Burgess said one nation state was attempting to scan and target water, transport and energy networks in Australia and other countries. "We assess this government is not actively planning sabotage, but is trying to gain persistent undetected access that could allow it to conduct sabotage in the future," he said, without identifying the country. China's foreign ministry has previously called the accusations of hacking "groundless" and "extremely irresponsible". (Reporting by Kirsty Needham: Editing by Neil Fullick and Alex Richardson) FILE PHOTO: An electric vehicle (EV) fast charging station is seen in the parking lot of a Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas, U.S., December 14, 2016. Picture taken on December 14, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammad Khursheed/File Photo By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Major automakers said on Wednesday that a California plan to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035 might be unworkable in 11 other states that adopted it, citing insufficient consumer demand. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents most major automakers except Tesla, raised concerns in comments filed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on California's proposal. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) asked the EPA for a waiver under the Clean Air Act to implement its plan to end sales of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035. California's EV requirements might be feasible "at least in the early years for California" but said the feasibility for other states with significantly lower current EV sales "is far less certain," the auto industry group said. The onus for complying with the rules rests with automakers but it is unclear "whether customers in each jurisdiction will accept (zero-emission vehicle) technologies and purchase them in sufficient quantities. These are largely beyond the control of automakers," the group that represents General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen and others said. CARB said in response: "States that have adopted Californias program understand that clean cars improve public health and address a global challenge." AAI said that in order to meet the 2035 goal sales of electric, plug-in electric hybrid or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will need to more than double in all but one state adopting California's rules and triple in five. EPA did not immediately comment. Separately, the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, urged EPA to reject California's plan, which it said represents "the ultimate regulatory intervention." President Joe Biden's administration has avoided setting a date to phase out the sale of gasoline-only vehicles. The EPA in April separately proposed rules to cut vehicle emissions through 2032, forecasting that 60% of new cars produced by automakers would need to be EVs by 2030 and 67% by 2032 to meet requirements. Reuters reported this month the EPA plans to soften yearly requirements through 2030. California's rules start in the 2026 model year and would cut smog-causing pollution from light-duty vehicles by 25% by 2037. They mandate 35% of new cars sold must be electric or plug-in hybrid by 2026. That proportion will rise to 68% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. California's rules require by 2035 that 80% of all new vehicles sold in the state be electric and no more than 20% plug-in hybrid electric. Chrysler parent Stellantis said in December it would temporarily cut one shift at its Detroit assembly plant that builds Jeep sport utility vehicles, citing California EV regulations. (Reporting by David Shepardson in WashingtonEditing by Cynthia Osterman and Matthew Lewis) FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to members of the press after a weekend in Delaware, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Bonnie Cash/File Photo By Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Wednesday celebrated large drops in crime rates across the U.S. last year during a White House meeting with police chiefs from major cities which suffered sharp spikes in homicides and violent crime during the COVID-19 pandemic. The event offered Biden the opportunity to thwart criticism from Republicans who used the COVID-era spikes to paint Democrats as weak on crime. "Last year, the United States had one of the lowest rates of all violent crime in more than 50 years," Biden told top police officials from cities including Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Detroit, Buffalo, New York; Milwaukee, Charlotte, North Carolina; and DeKalb County, Georgia. In an election-year dart at Biden's Republican predecessor and likely rival in 2024, Donald Trump, the White House noted that the United States experienced the largest ever increase in murders in 2020, the start of the pandemic. Violent crime rates dropped sharply last year, including a 12% decline in homicides nationally from 2022 to 2023, according to a crime analysis by AH Datalytics, after spiking during the first two years of the pandemic. Biden cited the American Rescue Plan, a COVID relief measure that was supported by only Democrats, as helping boost investment in city policing at a time when budgets were strained. Detroit and Chicago both invested more than $100 million for public safety initiatives, including hiring new officers, expanding mental health community violence interventions and youth intervention programs. Chicago saw a 13% drop in homicides and Detroit saw an 18% drop in 2023, it said. Philadelphia invested in group-violence intervention and community crisis intervention, the White House said, and experienced a 20% drop in homicides and a 28% decline in nonfatal shootings last year. "We found that we could use this money to keep law enforcement on the beat, communities safe from violence," Biden said. Violent crime also dropped in 2022, while property crimes rose, the latest FBI statistics show. Murder and non-negligent manslaughter decreased by 6.1% and rape by 5.4%, while larceny and motor vehicle theft rose by 7.8% and 10.9%, respectively, the agency said in its national crime report released in October. The administration also highlighted gun violence initiatives but said Biden continues to urge Congress to improve gun safety laws. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; editing by Jonathan Oatis) FILE PHOTO: US special representative for Iran Brian Hook delivers media statement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, Israel. 30 June 2020. Abir Sultan/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo By Arshad Mohammed (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden should make Iran pay a direct price for attacks on U.S. forces by Iranian-backed proxies, the former top Iran official in the Trump administration said on Wednesday. Brian Hook, the State Department's special representative for Iran under former President Donald Trump, told lawmakers the Islamic republic has historically "operated in the gray zone and they let the proxies do the dying for them." "But Iran is not feeling any of the pain. And until Iran - the regime - starts feeling it, they are going to continue to operate with impunity in the gray zone," added Hook, who could play a role in a second Trump administration if the Republican former president were to defeat Biden in the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election. Since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Iran-backed forces have conducted 170 attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis have launched at least 60 attacks on commercial ships as well as on U.S. and U.S.-partnered warships. "The Biden administration should announce that they make no distinction between Iran and its proxies and anything that a proxy does we will attribute agency to the Iranian regime and they will be held accountable as if it were a direct attack," Hook told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I don't think that Iran itself has endured sufficient costs directly," Hook added, noting the United States had retaliated against groups such as the Kataib Hezbollah Iraqi militia and other Iranian-backed proxy forces. Three U.S. service members were killed in a Jan. 28 drone attack by Iran-backed militants on U.S. troops in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border. The Pentagon said the attack bore the "footprints" of Kataib Hezbollah. Starting Feb. 3, U.S. forces launched retaliatory airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on targets linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and militias it backs. There has since been a lull in attacks on U.S. forces by such groups in Iraq and Syria. (Reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Editing by Nia Williams) FILE PHOTO: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro leaves the Federal Police headquarters after testifying about the January 8 riots, in Brasilia, Brazil, October 18, 2023. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino/File Photo SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was hospitalized for tests on Wednesday and doctors decided he will not need to undergo another gut surgery at the moment, his spokesperson Fabio Wajngarten said. Bolsonaro's doctors "found that his clinical conditions are stable and there is no need for an intervention at this time," a medical note posted by Wajngarten on social media platform X showed. Earlier on Wednesday, Bolsonaro was admitted to a hospital in Sao Paulo so doctors could assess whether he needed surgery to correct an abdominal hernia. Bolsonaro has had multiple operations in the past few years, some directly linked to when he was stabbed in the gut while campaigning for the presidency in September 2018. Doctors will reassess his health in three months, Wajngarten said. On Sunday, the far-right former president attended a crowded demonstration of his supporters in Sao Paulo in a show of political strength amid investigations into an alleged coup attempt. (Reporting by Peter Frontini and Eduardo Simoes; editing by Gabriel Araujo and Jonathan Oatis) OTTAWA/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Canada will reinstate some visa requirements for Mexican nationals on Thursday, Mexico said, while threatening to do the same in return for Canadian visitors. The move by Canada is in a bid to curb the flow of asylum seekers, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp earlier said, citing a senior official. Now, Mexicans who wish to enter Canada must apply for an electronic travel authorization by using a current U.S. visa or a Canadian visa that had expired within the past 10 years. Those who do not have either must apply for a Canadian visa, Mexico's foreign ministry said. Last month the premier of Quebec, the second most populous of Canada's 10 provinces, urged Ottawa to stem the flow of refugees and to compensate the province for costs. Quebec Premier Francois Legault said the lack of visa requirements for Mexican travelers meant more refugees were arriving by plane and complained the province's social services were at a breaking point. The office of Immigration Minister Marc Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The federal Liberal government said last month it was weighing a number of measures to prevent Mexican nationals from flying into the country to request asylum. Canada struck a deal with Washington last year to stem the flow of asylum seekers entering from the United States. The decision from Canada comes after two Mexican delegations traveled to the country, Mexico's foreign ministry said. "In the conversations held, (the additional restrictions were imposed) instead of imposing a general visa requirement." However, Mexico said it "regretted" the decision and that there were alternative measures that could have been put in place. "Mexico, of course, reserves the right to act in reciprocity." (Reporting by David Ljunggren and Kylie MadryEditing by Chris Reese and Deepa Babington) FILE PHOTO: China's Premier Li Qiang speaks during the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 16, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo BEIJING (Reuters) - China and the United States should strengthen economic and trade ties and Washington should avoid decoupling from China, Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Wednesday, during a meeting with a visiting U.S. delegation, Chinese state radio reported. "Strengthening economic and trade cooperation is a win-win situation for both countries," Li told the delegation led by Chamber of Commerce chief Suzanne Clark. "Seeking decoupling and building 'small yards with high walls' do not align with the fundamental interests of both sides," he added. Li said U.S. companies were welcome to continue investing in China and that barriers were not in the fundamental interests of both sides. Clark is leading a delegation of former U.S. government officials to Beijing this week, the group has said. The visit comes as the United States and China gradually resume engagements after the two economic superpowers' most tense relations in years, at loggerheads over the future of democratically ruled Taiwan, territorial claims in the South China Sea and trade policies. Ties are still recovering after the United States downed an alleged Chinese spy balloon a year ago. (Reporting by Albee Zhang and Kevin Yao; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Alex Richardson) By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co Ltd was cleared on Tuesday of U.S. allegations that the Chinese chipmaker stole trade secrets, in a case that fanned tensions in an intensifying technology race between the United States and China. U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney in San Francisco on Tuesday found the company not guilty after a non-jury trial, according to an entry in the U.S. online court records system. The U.S. Justice Department in 2018 announced an indictment against state-owned Fujian Jinhua, alleging it stole intellectual property from U.S.-based Micron Technology. That same year, U.S. authorities added the Chinese firm to a list of entities that cannot buy components, software or technology goods from U.S. firms. The company had pleaded not guilty in 2019. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Christopher Cushing) FILE PHOTO: A bank of cryptocurrency miners operates at the Scrubgrass Plant in Kennerdale, Pennsylvania, U.S., March 8, 2022. Picture taken March 8, 2022. REUTERS/Alan Freed/File Photo By Laila Kearney NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. officials this week indefinitely withdrew a survey aimed at gathering information on the crypto-mining industry's power use, hindering attempts to understand the sector's impact on grids and energy prices at a time of record activity. Riot Platforms, among the biggest U.S. bitcoin miners, and industry group Texas Blockchain Council, sued to stop mandatory data requests after a new survey went out this month by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) to assess crypto-mining's electricity use. As a result, U.S. officials canceled the emergency survey and are negotiating an agreement with the bitcoin mining plaintiffs to end the lawsuit, said two sources familiar with the situation. Crypto critics said halting the survey could create new vulnerabilities to the U.S. electrical grid, and one environmental group called industry opposition to the survey "reprehensible." Mining of digital coins hit a peak on Feb. 7 and is expected to consume more than 60 terawatt hours in the U.S. this year, or nearly the annual electricity consumption of Israel, according to Reuters calculations and estimates from firms producing data about Bitcoin and electricity use. Bitcoin mining power demand is projected to grow by more than a third globally through 2024, with the U.S. accounting for the largest share, according to energy analytics firm Enverus. It was unclear if the EIA would still pursue its survey or what sort of timeline such an effort would now entail. The U.S. made up 38% of global bitcoin mining as of January 2022, according to the latest data from Cambridge University. Anecdotally, that share is now likely closer to 50%, estimated Alexander Neumuller, a researcher at Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. Recent approval of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has boosted prices, which this week soared to $60,000, encouraging more mining activity. Last month the EIA, the Department of Energy's statistical arm, filed an emergency request to begin monitoring crypto-mining's power use, citing concerns its swelling footprint could raise power bills and overburden the vulnerable U.S. electrical network. Booming electricity consumption, and crypto-mining's unusual interplay with power markets, has affected grids in places like Texas and driven up energy costs for some consumers. "It's particularly reprehensible for Texan cryptocurrency miners to obstruct basic efforts to gather essential data energy regulators need to deliver reliable, affordable power, said Holly Bender of environmental group Sierra Club. Bender pointed to a 2021 winter freeze that knocked out power across large swaths of Texas and killed over 200 people. 'SENSE OF URGENCY' The EIA began its survey of 82 miners the week of Feb. 5, requesting details about operations and energy use. Members of Congress, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, had requested a survey for more than a year. "The department is asking crypto-miners to report basic information about their energy usage like other industries have done for decades so the public and lawmakers better understand how crypto-mining's electricity use and carbon emissions affect the power grid and environment," Warren said in an email to Reuters. The memo from EIA Head Joseph DeCarolis requesting approval of the survey from the Office of Management and Budget said, "We feel a sense of urgency to generate credible data that would provide insight into this unfolding issue." The mining industry's lawsuit, filed on Feb. 22, claimed the survey's fast-track approval process was unlawful and its scope, including questions about precise geographic locations of miners and commercial partners, posed threats to their businesses and hard assets if made public. On Friday, the EIA agreed to halt the survey for over a month until March 25 and sequester the data it received so far. Later that day, a U.S. federal judge in Waco, Texas, ordered a temporary restraining order against federal agencies and the survey. This week, the survey was withdrawn, according to sources who asked to remain anonymous because of the ongoing legal dispute. The sides reached an "agreement-in-principle," to be finalized by March 1, court records show. Both sides declined to comment on details of any agreement. (Reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Liz Hampton and David Gregorio) BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Eight European Union countries called on Wednesday for sanctions on Russia's prosecutors, courts and penitentiary officials over the death earlier this month of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, a letter seen by Reuters showed. The letter, sent to the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, was signed by the foreign ministers of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania Latvia, Poland, Sweden and Romania. But officials said it was also supported by the Netherlands, France, Ireland and Denmark, bringing total support to 12 countries. "Mr Navalny's death is yet another sign of the accelerating and systematic repression in Russia. This calls for collective action," the foreign ministers' letter said. "We believe there is a strong case for a separate Russia-specific sanctions regime designed to address the situation in the country," the letter said. "The new regime would provide a solid legal basis to list individuals from Russia's repressive state apparatus, including those involved in politically motivated rulings against members of the civil society and the democratic opposition and their subsequent detention, such as those responsible within the judicial chain (prosecutors, courts penitentiary)," it said. Navalny, 47, died on Feb. 16 in an Arctic penal colony where he was serving a lengthy jail sentence. His wife and supporters have accused President Vladimir Putin of causing his death, an accusation the Kremlin denies. His death sentence says he died of natural causes, according to his supporters. (Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Gareth Jones) LONDON, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Since it proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China has led the world in calling for global cooperation and opposing factionalism as well as the pursuit of self-interest, a British business leader has said. China has been trying to develop stability in the Ukraine crisis and in the Gaza crisis, said Stephen Perry, president emeritus of the 48 Group Club, during a recent written interview with Xinhua, adding that China is not participating in these conflicts but is trying to create better conditions for peace. "China has been helping the South coordinate its responses collectively. At the moment the United States acts outside the (UN) Security Council but China is trying to get the United States to accept the United Nations as a medium to manage conflicts and crises. It is still early to tell the effect of China's actions but they are pro-peace and stability so they will help," Perry said. The fact that the world's second-biggest economy is trying to remedy the imbalance in the world is a good sign as other new developing nations will be encouraged to support global reform, unity and sharing, he noted. Chinese modernization is the beacon in the dark sky offering a model to find a good way forward, and China's success is a marvellous example of how cooperation brings unity to the world to create a better, more stable and prosperous world, he told Xinhua. Perry also noted that in the last 300 years, Chinese modernization is the first new innovation to bring progress to mankind in all nations. "We need to see the United States and the Group of Seven (G7) cooperating with the South in new ways to stabilize and improve the world economy. In the end, cooperation is the only way," he added. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attends a joint press conference with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, EU and Canadian leaders, on the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 24, 2024. RE BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union should consider using profits from frozen Russian assets to buy military supplies for Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. "It is time to start a conversation about using the windfall profits of frozen Russian assets to jointly purchase military equipment for Ukraine," she told the European Parliament in a speech urging the EU to do more on defence policy. "There could be no stronger symbol and no greater use for that money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live." Von der Leyen said the threat of war for the EU "may not be imminent, but it is not impossible". "The risks of war should not be overblown, but they should be prepared for and that starts with the urgent need to rebuild, replenish, modernise member states' armed forces," she said. In her speech, von der Leyen previewed a new European Industrial Defence Strategy that her commission will present in the coming weeks, saying one of its main aims would be to prioritise joint procurement. "Europe should strive to develop and manufacture the next generation of battle-winning operational capabilities," she said. "That means turbo-charging our defence industrial capacity in the next five years." She said greater European efforts in defence would not diminish the need for the NATO alliance. "In fact, a more sovereign Europe, in particular on defence, is vital to strengthening NATO," she said. (Reporting by Andrew Gray, editing by Bart Meijer) By Alexandra Valencia QUITO (Reuters) -Five suspects accused of involvement in the assassination of Ecuadorean anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, who was gunned down in Quito last August, will go to trial, the attorney general's office said on Wednesday. A sixth suspect will be released according to a judge's ruling, the office added in a post on social media. Villavicencio, a former legislator and crusading journalist, was shot while leaving a campaign event, becoming the most prominent victim of the country's spiking violence. Theories abound about the reasons for Villavicencio's killing and an investigation into who ordered it is ongoing. One gunman was killed at the scene and the case was further clouded in October when seven other suspects were murdered in jail. The remaining six suspects were arraigned in a two-day hearing. They include two people prosecutors say are leaders of factions within the Los Lobos gang, though their defense teams argued there is a lack of evidence for that claim. "Carlos Edwin Angulo Lara, alias 'The Invisible', would be the person who gave the order to assassinate the presidential candidate from inside the CRS Cotopaxi (prison)," prosecutor Ana Hidalgo said on Tuesday, the first day of the hearings, adding Angulo served as an intermediary between the assassins and the person who contracted the crime. Laura Dayanara Castillo, also described by the prosecution as a leader of a faction in Los Lobos, was in charge of logistics, including procuring guns, vehicles and campaign t-shirts and hats for the assassins, the prosecution said. The remaining four defendants, including the man released on Wednesday by Judge Irene Perez, drove cars or motorcycles or were present at the scene, the prosecutor said. On Wednesday a defense lawyer for Angulo, who is serving time in a prison in Quito on weapons charges, said prosecutors had presented no proof his client is a member of Los Lobos or that a phone allegedly used in the plot belongs to him. Attorneys for the other accused also questioned what they say is a lack of evidence, as well as the prosecution's use of a protected witness and why that person was not accused. The attorney general's office in Ecuador does not typically publish the full names of people under prosecution, but full names were used during the hearing. Villavicencio, whose journalism exposed corruption and organized crime connections among politicians, had long been the subject of threats. "Carlos Angulo is the link in the chain to the intellectual authors. This person is key to knowing who hired him, making him into an intermediary, to contract the assassins," Villavicencio's widow, Veronica Sarauz, said on X on Tuesday. Los Lobos has thousands of members, according to some reports, and is active in Ecuador's violent prison system. President Daniel Noboa, who took office in November, last month declared 22 gangs, including Los Lobos, terrorist groups after the latest surge of violence, when dozens of prison guards were taken hostage and gunmen invaded a television station during a live broadcast. (Reporting by Alexandra ValenciaWriting by Julia Symmes CobbEditing by Marguerita Choy) FILE PHOTO: Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock looks on during a stake out at the Human Rights Council at the U.N. in Geneva, Switzerland, February 26, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo By Sarah Marsh BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany welcomed the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia for two days of peace talks on Wednesday, five months after Azerbaijan recaptured its Karabakh region from its ethnic Armenian majority, prompting a mass exodus of ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijan has been increasingly hostile to outside involvement in brokering an agreement, with President Ilham Aliyev accusing the United States of jeopardising relations by siding with Armenia. But German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock travelled to the two countries in November. And German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference this month. Both Prime Minister (Nikol) Pashinyan and President (Ilham) Aliyev have stated they are ready for peace, to solve the outstanding issues exclusively through peaceful means," Baerbock said at the start of the talks. In December, the South Caucasus neighbours issued a joint statement saying they want to reach a peace deal. Christian Armenia and mostly Muslim Azerbaijan first went to war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988. After decades of enmity, Azerbaijan in September recaptured Karabakh, controlled by its ethnic Armenian majority since the 1990s despite being internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. The offensive prompted most of the region's 120,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to neighbouring Armenia. Armenia described the offensive as ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijan denied that and said those who fled could have stayed on and been integrated into Azerbaijan. "Thirty years of conflict have caused tremendous suffering, lives lost and deep scars on both sides," said Baerbock, noting that it was especially painful as many people had family or friendship ties on both sides of the border. Baerbock met separately with her Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts on Wednesday before hosting the trilateral meeting. Among the outstanding issues between the two neighbours is the lack of agreement over their shared border, with each holding small enclaves surrounded by the other's territory. The United States, the European Union and Russia have all tried for decades to mediate between the two sides. (Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Nick Macfie and Bernadette Baum) ACCRA (Reuters) -Ghana's parliament passed legislation on Wednesday that intensifies a crackdown on the rights of LGBTQ people and those promoting lesbian, gay or other non-conventional sexual or gender identities in the West African country. Gay sex was already punishable by up to three years in prison. The bill now also imposes a prison sentence of up to five years for the "wilful promotion, sponsorship, or support of LGBTQ+ activities". The bill, one of the harshest of its kind in Africa. "My heart is broken and devastated at the moment, that's all I can say for now" Angel Maxine, Ghana's first openly transgender musician and LGBTQI+ activist, told Reuters, adding "My pronouns are She/ her/ hers." A coalition of Christian, Muslim, and Ghanaian traditional leaders sponsored the legislation. Following the vote in parliament, the bill will be presented to President Nana Akufo-Addo after which he has seven days to assent or refuse to assent, according to Ghana's constitution. If he assents, the bill becomes law. Akufo-Addo, had avoided the heated debate over the bill, but said he'll react once it is voted by parliament. Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the United Nations Aids agency UNAIDS, said in a statement that the bill will affect everyone if it became law, adding that punitive laws as embodied by the bill, are a barrier to ending AIDS, and ultimately undermine everyone's health. "It will exacerbate fear and hatred, could incite violence against fellow Ghanaian citizens, and will negatively impact on free speech, freedom of movement and freedom of association," Byanyima said in a the statement. "If it becomes law, it will obstruct access to life-saving services, undercut social protection, and jeopardize Ghana's development success," she said. (Reporting by Maxwell Akalaare Adombila and Christian Akorlie; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian and Bate Felix Editing by Gareth Jones, Mark Heinrich and Sandra Maler) ATHENS (Reuters) - A Greek prosecutor charged 10 people on Wednesday over a series of recent bomb and hand grenade attacks, including a planned parcel bomb explosion at a court in the northern city of Thessaloniki this month, judicial sources said. Small bomb and arson attacks were frequent during the country's 2009-2018 debt crisis amid anger over austerity measures and hardship, and had decreased in the past five years. But the country has seen a resurgence of such attacks in recent months. Four of the suspects are already in prison for other crimes, police said in a statement on Tuesday after the remaining six were arrested. Police said they confiscated guns, explosives, mobile phones and other electronic devices after raiding nine apartments and three jail cells. On Wednesday, the suspects were charged with "setting up and participating in a terrorist organisation" and "illegal gun possession" among other charges, according to a legal document. They are expected to respond to the charges on Sunday. An anarchist guerrilla group claimed responsibility last week for a planned parcel bomb attack against a judge at a courthouse in Thessaloniki this month. It was the third such incident since December. The parcel, sent to a senior judge, contained explosive material but was confiscated by police before it exploded. In a statement uploaded on the Athens Indymedia website last week, the anarchist group "Armed Response" claimed responsibility for the makeshift bomb and warned of more attacks against prosecutors, police and judges, including the judge who was meant to receive the parcel. (Reporting by Yannis Souliotis; Writing by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Deepa Babington) A pair of surveillance cameras are seen along the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront as skyline buildings stand across Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong, China July 28, 2020. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu By James Pomfret and Jessie Pang HONG KONG (Reuters) -A public consultation period for a new Hong Kong national security law closes on Wednesday amid concerns that the legislation, which authorities want to put in place soon, will further erode freedoms in the financial hub. The law, known as Article 23, is aimed at addressing what officials call deficiencies or loopholes in the national security regime, which was bolstered just four years ago by another national security law imposed directly by China. It will target crimes including treason, theft of state secrets, espionage, sabotage, sedition and "external interference" including from foreign governments. The Hong Kong legislature, which is dominated by pro-Beijing lawmakers, is expected to approve it. The law comes as the former British colony is trying to improve its image, and economy, amid international criticism of a China-led crackdown on freedoms and dissent which has sent many pro-democracy politicians and activists into jail or exile. Several lawyers and activists say the law criminalises basic human rights such as freedom of expression. "Many of these proposed provisions are vague and criminalize people's peaceful exercises of human rights, including the rights to freedom of association, assembly, expression and the press," a group of 80 civil society groups, including British-based Hong Kong Watch, wrote in a joint letter. Hong Kong authorities, however, say the new law is necessary as "threats posed by external forces and local terrorism remain", adding that national security is the "fundamental prerequisite for the survival and development of a state". The government also said Article 23 would give "full and prudent consideration" to the United Nations' International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights (ICCPR)". British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the proposals did not uphold Hong Kong's obligations under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which returned Hong Kong from British to Chinese rule more than 25 years ago. "They will have a negative impact on the people of Hong Kong in their exercise of their rights and freedoms," he said. "I strongly urge the Hong Kong SAR Government to re-consider their proposals." HARSHER PENALTIES A previous attempt to enact Article 23 in 2003 was shelved after an estimated 500,000 people protested against it. This time, there have been no large-scale protests and most public submissions so far support the legislation. Authorities have proposed harsher penalties for "seditious intention" and "possession of seditious publication", an addition some lawyers say is concerning, as many journalists, activists and media outlets in recent years have been charged with sedition before being jailed or shut down. "The United Nations Committee of human rights experts already concluded in 2022 that the sedition provisions should be repealed and Hong Kong should refrain from using them to suppress the expression of critical and dissenting opinions," said Mark Daly, a Hong Kong based human rights lawyer. So far, 174 people and five companies have been charged under the 2020 national security law. The Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University in the United States said the new legislation could worsen what it called a "crisis of confidence" Hong Kong's legal and political institutions. The Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) said in its submission that "sedition should be abolished", adding the scope and definition of what constitute "state secrets" was very broad and vague, especially in relation to newly added categories that include economic and social development. The Law Society of Hong Kong, in a submission, supported the need for new laws but also suggested the government consider adding a "public interest" defence to the offence of leaking state secrets, and to clarify what might constitute state secrets, including commercial secrets. "Commercial sector requires certainty in the business environment it is operating in," it wrote. (Reporting by James Pomfret and Jessie Pang, additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Sharon Singleton) FILE PHOTO: Volunteers for former Prime Minister Imran Khan's party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) look on as they watch results on TV screens after the end of the polling during a general election at the party's main office in Islamabad, Pakistan, Februa By Asif Shahzad, Ariba Shahid ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -The party of Pakistan's jailed former prime minister Imran Khan asked the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday to ensure an audit of the disputed Feb. 8 elections is carried out before any more bailout talks with Islamabad. Pakistan's cash-strapped economy is struggling to stabilise after securing a $3 billion standby arrangement from the IMF last summer, with record inflation, rupee devaluation and shrinking foreign reserves. Analysts say a new government - which Khan's opponents are expected to form - is likely to need more funds from the global lender after the standby arrangement expires in April. Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said that it had sent a letter on the matter to the IMF's Pakistan representative, confirming an earlier Reuters report. "We have today sent this letter to IMF," the party's acting chairman Barrister Gohar Khan told a news conference in Islamabad. The letter, shared with Reuters by two sources and confirmed by the party's Zulfikar Bukhari, called on the IMF to honour its commitment to demanding free and fair elections. In the last interaction between Imran Khan and IMF representatives in 2023, it said, the PTI had agreed to support the lender's financing facility for Pakistan on condition that free and fair elections be held in the country. The IMF had sought support from all political parties, including Khan's, shortly after agreeing with Islamabad on the $3 billion standby arrangement, which the lender said was in the lead-up to national elections. "An audit of at least thirty percent of the national and provincial assemblies' seats should be ensured," the PTI said in its letter. Last week, the IMF declined to comment on the country's political situation after Khan's aides said they would urge the Fund to call for an independent audit of the disputed elections before any more talks with Islamabad. Mohammed Sohail, the CEO of Karachi-based Topline securities said the letter was unlikely to have a major market impact. "The IMF will do its own due diligence," he said. China has rolled over a $2 billion loan to Pakistan for one year, which is due in March, according to local Geo TV. Another of Khan's aides Muzammil Aslam told the news conference that the IMF delegation also met the acting party chairman late last year when the former cricket star was in jail before releasing the last tranche of the programme. The IMF communication section said in an email to Reuters that it was yet t receive the letter, and it was yet to respond to the delegation's meeting. (Reporting by Ariba Shahid in Karachi; Writing by Shivam Patel; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Christina Fincher) Suporters gather around Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto as he claims victory after unofficial vote counts during an event to watch the results of the general election in Jakarta, Indonesia, February 14, 2024. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's president on Wednesday awarded Prabowo Subianto, his presumed successor and an ex-special forces commander, the rank of honorary four-star general, decades after he was dismissed from the military amid allegations of rights abuses. Defence Minister Prabowo, who took an insurmountable lead in the Feb. 14 presidential election according to unofficial quick counts, was awarded the rank of four-star general by outgoing President Joko Widodo in a ceremony at the military headquarters in Jakarta. "This honour is a form of appreciation, it reaffirms devotion to the people and the country. I would like to say congratulations to General Prabowo Subianto," he said, before attaching lapels with four gold stars on Prabowo's blazer. The award marks the culmination of a decades-long rebrand for Prabowo, 72, a once rising military star who was dismissed from the military in 1998 amid accusations he was involved in human rights abuses in East Timor and in the disappearance of 13 pro-democracy activists. At the time, he was a three-star Lieutenant General. Prabowo, the ex-son-in-law of late Indonesian dictator Suharto, has always denied wrongdoing, but was previously banned from entering the United States on account of the claims. He has never faced prosecution. Prabowo sought self-exile in Jordan following his discharge from the military, but in the decades since he has returned to Indonesia, has built an influential political party and civilian career. In 2014 and 2019 he lost consecutive presidential bids to Jokowi, as the incumbent leader is known, before being brought into the government as defence minister in 2019. Preliminary but unofficial results show Prabowo with a clear lead in this year's election, with the expectation that he will be inaugurated as Indonesia's next president in October. Analysts have warned that Prabowo's presumed win comes as Indonesia is experiencing a democratic backslide, with Amnesty International Indonesia saying Prabowo's new title was an attempt to "whitewash" his alleged dark past. A spokesperson for Prabowo did not immediately respond to request for comment. The alliance between Prabowo and Jokowi has strengthened considerably in recent months and particularly after Jokowi's millennial son was controversially named as Prabowo's running mate. (Reporting by Stanley Widianto and Ananda Teresia; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor and Raju Gopalakrishnan) CAIRO (Reuters) - Armed, masked men in Gaza have started patrols to stop traders profiteering in Rafah, where more than a million displaced Palestinians are taking shelter from Israel's air and ground campaign, a member of the vigilante group said. Nearly five months into the war, prices have soared in Gaza with all commercial imports cut off when hostilities began on Oct. 7, and only limited quantities of humanitarian aid coming in. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people now live in Rafah near the border crossing with Egypt, mostly in tents and other temporary shelters, after fleeing the devastation in other parts of the enclave. Photographs on social media showed men in ski masks with hoods pulled over their heads standing next to market stalls. In one photograph two of the men held assault rifles. In another photograph, six men brandished sticks. The men with the sticks also had headbands with the slogan in Arabic "The Committee of public protection". A man who described himself as a member of the group, and whom Reuters contacted by phone, said their action was necessary to enforce law and order because police no longer patrolled the streets after being targeted by Israeli strikes. Their actions were intended "to monitor the prices and punish those who exploit the needs of the people," said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing Israeli reprisals. The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's air and ground campaign has since killed around 30,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza. The patrol was seen in a Rafah market on Wednesday by Mohammad Abuemad, a 24-year-old university graduate who fled his Gaza City home early in the war and now lives in a tent. He said police had been a common sight in Rafah until recent strikes targeting them, and had been responsible for organising the long queues outside bakeries, supermarkets and banks. Abuemad said he was concerned by the emergence of masked men enforcing public order. "Maybe they are good but we hope they act fairly with people," he said. "We would rather the war end so the real police force can come back," he said. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Bill Berkrot) By Jonathan Allen (Reuters) - Mississippi is violating the constitutional rights of thousands of people held in three of its prisons, where violence is pervasive and the use of solitary confinement leads to suicide and other harm, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday. The department's Civil Rights Division said that Mississippi's understaffing of its largest prisons has created dangerous conditions, according to the published findings of an investigation opened in 2020. "The mismatch between the size of the incarcerated population and the number of security staff means that gangs dominate much of prison life, and contraband and violence, including sexual violence, proliferate," the report said. "Prison officials rely on ineffective and overly harsh restrictive housing practices for control." The Mississippi Department of Corrections, which cooperated with federal investigators and received an early copy of the report, did not respond to questions on Wednesday, nor did the office of Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves. Some 7,200 people are held at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, the South Mississippi Correctional Institution, and the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, the three prisons discussed in Wednesday's report. As part of the same investigation, the Justice Department raised similar alarm in 2022 about the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman Farm. Mississippi is violating the U.S. Constitution's 8th and 14th Amendments, which forbid cruel and unusual punishments and guarantee equal protection under the law, the Justice Department said. It said the state's Department of Corrections was "deliberately indifferent" to the risk of violence at its prisons, despite Mississippi's efforts to increase the pay of prison guards and reduce the use of isolated confinement. At Central, there were at least 325 reported assaults or fights between incarcerated people from September 2020 to June 2022, and dozens of people at all three prisons had to be taken to outside hospitals with serious injuries in that time, the report said. The report also recounts people using broomsticks, mop handles, crutches, shanks, welding shop tools, boiling hot water and a microwave as weapons in fights. Rape and other sexual violence is also common, the report said. The report described conditions in restrictive housing units as appalling, and said those held in isolation there often resorted to extreme measures to get attention from staff, including setting fires, flooding cells and cutting themselves with razors. Among other recommendations, the report called for Mississippi to dramatically increase the number of properly screened and well-trained employees supervising its prisons, avoid the unnecessary use of solitary confinement, and improve access to health care for incarcerated people. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Aurora Ellis) WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The bulk of the U.S. aid to Ukraine to support its fight with Russia actually "is going right back into the U.S. economy to make those weapons," U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said recently, triggering uproar both within and outside the United States. The money returning to the United States has created "good-paying jobs in some 40 states across the United States," Nuland said during an interview with U.S. media. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reinforced Nuland's saying in a recent report, revealing that in the two years of the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. defense industry "has experienced a boom in orders for weapons and munitions," and industrial production in the defense and space sector has increased 17.5 percent. Business is coming from European allies trying to build their military capabilities as well as from the Pentagon, which is both buying new equipment from defense manufacturers and replenishing military stocks depleted by deliveries to Ukraine, said the WSJ report titled "How war in Europe boosts the U.S. economy." Biden administration officials say that of the 60.7 billion U.S. dollars earmarked for Ukraine in a 95-billion-dollar supplemental defense bill, 64 percent will actually flow back to the U.S. defense industrial base, according to the report. British defense contractor BAE Systems plans to create 500 jobs by expanding facilities in Minnesota, while General Dynamics will create around 120 positions at a new plant in Texas, the report said, citing Cynthia Cook, a defense industry expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. Biden administration officials have said "funding allocated for Ukraine is rebuilding America's defense industrial base, jump-starting and expanding production lines for weapons and ammunition, and supporting jobs in 40 states," said the report. Last November, the Biden administration also circulated to members of Congress a map of "states benefiting from military aid to Ukraine," detailing for the first time how the roughly 27 billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine translates into military industry investments in dozens of states, U.S. media reports also said. The distribution map is mainly divided into two parts: "Economic benefits brought by military aid to Ukraine" and "direct investment by the government in military bases." According to the distribution map, when the two parts are combined, Pennsylvania gains the most, with 2.36 billion dollars; Texas won a 1.45-billion-dollar arms order; Arizona received 2.196 billion dollars in arms orders, and defense companies in at least 25 other states received a combined 18 billion dollars. Nuland's remarks and related reports have drawn widespread questioning and criticism. Her remarks show "you just how wrong the whole approach is ... that's just a transfer from the broader economy, from the taxpayers to a specific industry. It is good for the people in that industry. That doesn't mean it's good for the economy," said Robby Soave, co-host of The Hill's web news commentary series program. "It's difficult to understand what political purpose that kind of rhetoric serves," said political commentator Briahna Joy Gray, talking about her impression of hearing the U.S. representatives, members of Congress and the State Department saying things like "we should not only be okay with this war, because money is trickling down to domestic weapons manufacturers, but that we should also be happy with this war, because it's an efficient way to weaken (Russian President Vladimir) Putin without American bodies being on the line." "It really is an out loud way of saying how little one cares about the value of the Ukrainian lives that are very much on the line, that number at least 31,000," she said. Gray also urged the U.S. policymakers to value the American taxpayers' contribution, saying: "No one likes to see money just set on fire or used for weapons that blow things up that then have to be rebuilt." "It's the most destructive use of funding. It's for destruction ... It's totally wrong-headed," she stressed. Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reacts as he speaks during an interview following a visit in the Siemens Mobility factory, in Goole, in East Yorkshire, Britain February 26, 2024. Paul Ellis/Pool via REUTERS LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is descending into "mob rule" and police will do more to protect the country's democracy, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday, after the government announced extra funding to keep lawmakers safe. Many British lawmakers have said the abuse directed at them has become more intense since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, with some fearing for their safety if they air their views on the conflict. Last week parliament descended into chaos as tensions flared over a vote on Gaza, with the House of Commons speaker citing "frightening" threats against lawmakers for a decision to break with usual parliamentary procedure. "There is a growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule. And weve got to collectively, all of us, change that urgently," Sunak said at a meeting with police chiefs on Wednesday, according to remarks released by his office. "We simply cannot allow this pattern of increasingly violent and intimidatory behaviour which is, as far as anyone can see, intended to shout down free debate and stop elected representatives doing their job. That is simply undemocratic." Earlier, the interior ministry announced funding worth 31 million pounds ($39 million) to provide additional security for lawmakers and other officials. Sunak said a new Democratic Policing Protocol would commit to extra patrols and make clear that protests at the homes of elected representatives should be treated as intimidatory. It also makes clear that from now on police should take a "consistent and robust approach ... to protect our democratic processes from intimidation, disruption, from subversion", he said. ($1 = 0.7903 pounds) (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Daniel Wallis) The logo of Brazilian meatpacker JBS SA is seen in the city of Jundiai, Brazil June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - JBS, the world's largest beef producer, was sued on Wednesday by New York state's attorney general, which accused it of misleading the public about its impact on the environment in order to boost sales. Attorney General Letitia James said JBS USA Food Co, the Brazilian company's American-based unit, has "no viable plan" to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, making its stated commitment to achieving that goal false and misleading. James said JBS has admitted its "Net Zero by 2040" commitment did not incorporate the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain, including from deforestation in the Amazon. She also said reaching the goal was "infeasible" given JBS' plan to increase production and therefore its carbon footprint, on top of greenhouse gas emissions that had by 2021 exceeded those of the entire country of Ireland. "Families [are] willing to spend more of their hard-earned money on products from brands that are better for the environment," James said in a statement. "JBS USA's greenwashing exploits the pocketbooks of everyday Americans and the promise of a healthy planet for future generations." The lawsuit filed in a New York state court in Manhattan seeks a $5,000 civil fine per violation of state business laws, and to recoup ill-gotten gains from false sustainability claims. JBS's businesses include Pilgrim's Pride, one of the largest U.S. chicken producers. In a statement, JBS said it disagreed with the lawsuit. It also pledged to continue partnering with farmers, ranchers and others toward a "more sustainable future for agriculture" that uses fewer resources and reduces its environmental impact. The company generated about $53.5 billion of revenue in the first nine months of 2023, about 59% of which came from North America and Central America. JBS shares trade in Brazil. The company has been seeking to list its shares in the United States. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) FILE PHOTO: Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki gives a statement to the media, on the day of a public hearing held by The International Court of Justice (ICJ) to allow parties to give their views on the legal consequences of Israel's occupation By Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber GENEVA (Reuters) - Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said on Wednesday he did not expect "miracles" at talks in Moscow to discuss the formation of a unified Palestinian government and the rebuilding of Gaza. The talks between representatives of Hamas and the Fatah political faction, scheduled to take place in the Russian capital on Thursday, come days after Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh resigned. The shake-up, Maliki said, was designed to build support for an expanded role for the Palestinian Authority following Israel's war against the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza. "We hope that there we might be good results in terms of mutual understanding between all factions about the need to support such a technocratic government that will emerge," Maliki said of the talks. "Of course, we don't expect miracles to happen in just a simple meeting in Moscow, but I believe that the meeting in Moscow should be followed by other meetings in the region soon." The Palestinian Authority, created about 30 years ago as part of the interim Oslo peace accords, has been undermined by accusations of ineffectiveness and the prime minister holding little effective power. Shtayyeh's resignation marks a symbolic shift that underlines President Mahmoud Abbas' desire to ensure the Authority maintains its claim to leadership as international pressure grows for a revival of efforts to create a Palestinian state. Maliki, who was speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, said the government's resignation had been designed to prevent international partners from saying the Authority was not collaborating. "We want to show our readiness... to engage and to be ready, just to not to be seen as an obstacle between the implementation of any process that should take further," he said. Maliki also accused the United Nations Security Council of "failing" the Palestinian people in its inability to agree on a ceasefire, echoing comments by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres who said the body's authority had "perhaps fatally" been undermined by its lack of unity on the issue. "Now in Gaza, it seems that the ceasefire is a farfetched objective to be attained," Maliki said. "As a result, we see people dying." (Reporting by Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) (Reuters) - Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, unanimously approved a bill on Wednesday banning advertising on publications by "foreign agents", a designation authorities have given to anti-Kremlin politicians, activists and media. The new law will prohibit all Russian citizens and companies from placing advertisements on websites, blogs, social networks or any other resources published by a "foreign agent". Vyacheslav Volodin, the Duma speaker and close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said the law would bolster Russia's security as it heads into the third year of war in Ukraine. "Many of the scoundrels who received this money do not hide the fact that they used it to finance the Kyiv Nazi regime, which is killing our soldiers, officers, and civilians," Volodin said. "The law's adoption will stop this practice." Russia says it is fighting "Nazis" in Ukraine whom it accuses of persecuting Russian language speakers. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is Jewish and a native Russian speaker, and his Western allies say this is an absurd attempt to justify an unprovoked war of aggression. The bill also prohibits designated foreign agents from placing their own "advertising materials", punishable by fines and up to two years in prison for repeated offences. Advertisers can incur penalties reaching 300,000 roubles ($3,262). Journalist Katerina Gordeeva, who runs one of Russia's most popular YouTube shows with 1.64 million subscribers, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that she was suspending her work due to the law. "We will no longer be able to work as before," Gordeeva said. "Of course, we will look for a way out." NEGATIVE CONNOTATION Russia in 2012 adopted its first law on foreign agents, which carries a negative Soviet-era connotation and obliges both individuals and organisations to identify themselves as foreign agents on social media and in other publications as well as exposing them to burdensome financial reporting requirements. The Kremlin has significantly expanded the law since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, branding prominent writers, academics, businesspeople and independent news organisations with the label. The anti-corruption group of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who died this month in the Arctic penal colony where he was being held, was given the designation in 2019. Some 406 individuals are considered "foreign agents," according to independent news outlet Vyorstka, itself a "foreign agent". More than 20% are currently facing criminal prosecution, according to data published by the group on Wednesday. The bill will now head to the upper house of parliament and then to Putin for signing into law. ($1 = 91.9700 roubles) (Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Gareth Jones) The skyline of central Seoul is seen during a foggy day in Seoul March 4, 2015. Picture taken on March 4, 2015. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/file photo By Jihoon Lee SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea's market watchdog chief warned that companies could face penalties for failing to boost shareholder returns in the long run, signalling a tougher approach after a reform package to spur voluntary efforts was met with market disappointment. "Authorities are discussing various measures to deal with firms failing to meet certain criteria regarding shareholder returns," Lee Bok-hyun, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, told a press conference on Wednesday. The steps under consideration were not included in the corporate reform package announced on Monday but Lee said they will be incorporated once authorities have finalised details. Possible penalties include removing non-compliant firms from the stock market, Lee said, adding that it would be problematic for firms to remain listed while making no progress over a prolonged period. The reform plan for listed companies announced on Monday, dubbed "Corporate Value-up Programme", aims to boost shareholder returns in an effort to reduce the "Korea discount" on stock prices. The Korea discount refers to a tendency for South Korean companies to have lower valuations than global peers due to factors such as low dividend payouts, and the dominance of opaque conglomerates known as chaebols. But many analysts said the reform package didn't go far enough, noting the lack of details and the absence of any penalties or tax benefits that would push companies to make changes. "The FSS governor's comments raise hope that there will be follow-up measures that are compulsory," said Park So-yeon, an analyst at Shinyoung Securities. "There is considerable concern that it might be a policy just prepared for the legislative election in April, but if it does get carried out under a mid- to long-term roadmap, it will be something we can look forward to," Park said. In separate comments on Wednesday, after meeting with representatives from foreign investment banks to hear their views about the policy initiative, vice finance minister Kim Byoung-hwan said the programme "will not end up as a one-time, short-term task but is part of continuous, mid- to long-term efforts". The benchmark KOSPI index rose more than 1% on Wednesday, after falling for two straight days. Shares of automakers and banks, considered undervalued, led the gains. (Reporting by Jihoon Lee, Additional Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Singapore; Editing by Ed Davies and Shri Navaratnam) Smoke and fire rise from wildfires in a location given as Texas, U.S., in this handout picture released on February 27, 2024. Greenville Fire-Rescue/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo By Nick Oxford and Rich McKay CANADIAN, Texas (Reuters) -Richard Murray choked back tears on Wednesday as he surveyed the charred remains of his mechanic's workshop and home of 50 years in the small Texas Panhandle town of Canadian. The previous night a sheriff's deputy had pounded on the door and ordered Murray and his wife Gilissa to evacuate as the state's second-largest wildfire on record approached their home. "The house is gone and all the cars are melted," said Murray, 72, shortly after he returned home Wednesday morning. "There's nothing left." The wildfire, raging northeast of Amarillo since Monday, has blackened 850,000 acres (344,000 hectares) of grasslands and timber since Monday and spread eastward across the border of Oklahoma, the Texas A&M Forest Service reported. At least one person, an 83-year-old woman in Hutchinson County, was reported by local media to have died in the blaze, dubbed the Smokehouse Creek fire. Firefighters had managed to carve containment lines around just 3% of the blaze as of Wednesday night, officials said. Several smaller wildfires were burning other parts of the state's northern Panhandle, stoked by fierce winds and hot, dry conditions. The area scorched by the Smokehouse Creek Fire exceeded the land mass of the state of Rhode Island, making it nearly as immense as the largest wildfire on record in Texas, the East Amarillo Complex Fire that burned 907,000 acres in 2006. The Forest Service said an as-yet unknown number of structures were damaged and destroyed. Terrill Bartlett, Canadian's mayor, said the town was "blessed" that there had been no reports of serious injuries or fatalities, but it was devastating for residents who had lost homes. "We're the kind of community that pulls together and supports one another," he said on Wednesday. Murray said he and his wife will stay with friends for now and have already received dozens of calls from people offering help. On Wednesday morning, they were searching for their dogs and two cats. "That's the hardest thing, not knowing what happened to them," he said. The next-largest of the Texas conflagrations was the Windy Deuce Fire, which as of Wednesday night had charred 142,000 acres and was 30% contained. On Tuesday, the Windy Deuce had crept to within a few miles of the U.S. Energy Department's Pantex plant, the nation's primary nuclear weapons assembly facility, located near Amarillo, prompting officials to evacuate non-essential personnel and suspend operations. But the leading edge of that blaze shifted to the north and west, away from Pantex, on Wednesday, allowing routine activities at the plant to resume. "Operations at the Pantex Plant returned to normal Wednesday," the facility said in an online notice. "There is no imminent wildfire threat to the plant at this time." On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties and directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to activate more than 95 firefighters as well as personnel to close roads, control traffic, offer medical aid, and provide livestock support. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Forest Service are helping Texas, and federal authorities are in close touch with officials "on the front lines of these fires," said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a news briefing on Wednesday. More than 13,000 Texas homes and businesses were without power as of Wednesday morning, with more than 4,000 of those in the Panhandle region alone, according to data from PowerOutage.us. Another resident of Canadian, Julene Castillo, tried to flee on Tuesday evening but was forced back when the smoke became too thick to drive through. "The fire was burning all around us, we couldn't get out," said Castillo, 51, in an interview on Wednesday. "Even with the windows rolled up, your eyes and throat burned." Castillo, who works as a secretary for Canadian Methodist Church, drove to the town's high school where she and about 100 other families "sat and prayed and cried and tried to comfort each other" in the parking lot. A volunteer firefighter said about 50 homes had burned to the ground in Canadian alone, according to Castillo. "We didn't know what else would happen. We could see the fire's glow as the sun went down," Castillo said. Castillo returned home later Tuesday night and discovered her home had survived. She sheltered in place and opened her church on Wednesday for anyone needing a place to stay or pray. (Reporting by Nick Oxford in Canadian, Texas, and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Addiitional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Writing by Julia Harte in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty, David Gregorio and Tom Hogue) FILE PHOTO: Shipping containers are stacked up on a container ship at Pusan Newport Terminal in Busan, South Korea, July 1, 2021. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo By Jihoon Lee SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's exports likely rose in February for a fifth straight month, led by chip shipments, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday, in which analysts said much slower growth this month would be largely due to unfavourable calendar effects. Exports out of Asia's fourth-largest economy are expected to have risen 1.9% in February from a year earlier, according to the median estimate of 22 economists in the survey conducted Feb. 22-27. That follows an 18.0% jump in January, which was the fastest since May 2022. Data out of South Korea is often distorted in January and February, due to timing differences in Lunar New Year holidays. There were less working days in February this year than last year, because the Lunar New Year holiday period was pushed back to February from January. "The improving trend of exports, led by semiconductor exports, is judged to be continuing," said Park Sang-hyun, an economist at HI Investment Securities. "There are signs of recovery in shipments to the greater China region, which is another positive signal," Park said. South Korea's exports started to rise slowly from October 2023 after a year-long downturn, mostly on improving demand for semiconductors, leading uneven economic growth. In the first 20 days of this month, while exports in total fell 7.8%, chip sales jumped 39.1%. Semiconductor exports are likely to extend their gains to a fourth straight month this month. "Exports to China and semiconductor exports likely continued to expand on AI-related semiconductor demand," said Park Chong Hoon, economist, Standard Chartered. However, other than semiconductors, shipments of most other products were seen sluggish, analysts said. Meanwhile, imports likely fell 10.4% in February from a year earlier, after falling 7.9% in January, according to the survey. That would mark the 12th consecutive month of imports falling. In the survey, the median forecast for the monthly trade balance pointed at a surplus of $1.90 billion, compared with $0.33 billion in January. South Korea - the first major economy to report trade data each month - is scheduled to report the figures for February on Friday, March 1, at 9 a.m. (0000 GMT). (Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Polling by Veronica Khongwir and Devayani Sathyan in Bengaluru; Editing by Aurora Ellis) (Reuters) - Syrian air defences intercepted Israeli strikes in the vicinity of the capital Damascus, state media said on Wednesday. Syrian state media gave no further details about the attacks or the intended targets. Pro-Iranian Lebanese television al Maydeen said a big explosion was heard in the heavily fortified Sayeda Zainab neighbourhood of the Syrian capital where a major Shi'ite shrine is located. It gave no further details. The Israeli military declined to comment. Regional intelligence sources say Iran's Quds Force and militias it backs, whose presence has spread in Syria in recent years, have a strong presence in the Sayeda Zainab neighbourhood of southern Damascus where Iranian backed militias have a string of underground bases. Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's nearly 12-year-old conflict. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli air strikes meant to curb Tehran's extraterritorial military power. Those strikes have ramped up during the Gaza war, with more than half a dozen Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers killed in suspected Israeli strikes on Syria since December. (Reporting by Yomna Ehab, Kinda Makieh, Muhammed El Gebaly; and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Peter Graff) FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reacts as he speaks during an interview following a visit in the Siemens Mobility factory, in Goole, in East Yorkshire, Britain February 26, 2024. Paul Ellis/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday announced 54 million pounds ($68 million) of new funding to protect Jewish communities against antisemitism over the next four years. Earlier this month Jewish advisory body the Community Security Trust (CST) said Britain recorded thousands of antisemitic incidents after the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in October, making 2023 the worst year for UK antisemitism since its records began in 1984. "It is shocking, and wrong, the prejudice, the racism we have seen in recent months," Sunak said in a speech to the CST's annual dinner, according to extracts released by his office. "It is hatred, pure and simple. An assault on the Jewish people. We will fight this antisemitism with everything weve got." The government had already given the CST, which advises Britain's estimated 280,000 Jews on security matters, 18 million pounds for 2024-25, taking the total funding up to 2028 to 70 million pounds. The funding will be used to increase security at a range of Jewish buildings across the country, including schools and synagogues, the government said, providing measures such as security guards, closed-circuit TV (CCTV) and alarm systems. ($1 = 0.7900 pound) (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Jonathan Oatis) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic react on the day of the Ukraine Southeast Europe Summit in Tirana, Albania, February 28, 2024. REUTERS/Florion Goga (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday for his support in Kyiv's two-year-old war against Russia and pledged to work further on Kyiv's plan to end the conflict. Vucic, who met the Ukrainian leader at a summit of southeastern European countries in Albania, offered further humanitarian help and said he believed "only constructive dialogue and diplomatic solutions can bring peace". Writing on Instagram, he also thanked Ukraine for being one of a handful of countries to refrain from recognising Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo. Zelenskiy, writing on X, formerly Twitter, "noted the importance of Serbia's participation" in implementing Ukraine's plan, which calls for withdrawal of Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine's 1991 post-Soviet borders. He said the two leaders also discussed "security and political challenges in Eastern Europe". Last year, a classified Pentagon document said Serbia had agreed to supply arms to Kyiv or had sent them already, despite its professed neutrality in the Ukraine war. Serbia has refused to sanction Russia, with which it has traditional ties. In his comments, Vucic said one had to keep in mind Serbia's Slav links with Ukraine. Ukraine's refusal to recognise Kosovo, he said, made it "one of the few countries that can talk about territorial integrity, because it did not trample on someone else's territorial integrity, like most others". Ukraine refused to recognise the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, proclaimed in 2008, as it has long had to deal with separatist movements, before the outbreak of the current conflict, in Crimea and in the east of the country. (Reporting by Ron Popeski and Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Sandra Maler) Ebrahim Khalil Kanoo Company is set to sponsor at LEAP 2024 creative projects of students from ICT colleges in Bahrain, the Bahrain Technology Companies Society (BTECH) has said. This sponsorship will extend to the Bahraini Pavilion during the third edition of LEAP 2024, Techs Biggest event, scheduled to be held at the Riyadh Exhibition & Convention Centre from March 4 to 7. Ebrahim K Kanoo will be a silver sponsor, and the Bahraini Pavilion will be organised by BTECH. This initiative underscores Ebrahim K Kanoo's recognition of the value of investing in exceptional young talents in Bahrain. The company emphasises the significance of unifying and directing efforts to contribute to the development of Bahraini youth potential, by providing comprehensive support and fostering awareness of the latest global developments in the technical sector. Unique platform By sponsoring this programme, the company offers participating students a unique platform to showcase their technical projects in key areas like artificial intelligence applications, financial technology, data analysis, cybersecurity and application development. Additionally, students will engage in skill-building workshops and participate in insightful communication sessions with industry leaders, enhancing their professional network and visibility within the technology sector. This combined focus on project presentation, skill development, and networking directly increases their employability within the sector. Talal Kanoo, Managing Director of Ebrahim Khalil Kanoo Company, commented: "Our decision to sponsor students' participation in this global event is part of our commitment as a responsible company to support activities, initiatives, and employees of educational institutions. We firmly believe in the potential of our students, recognising that the youth are the future of the kingdom. It is our responsibility to prepare and provide everything necessary to nurture and develop their talents. Therefore, we are dedicated to collaborating with initiatives that create a motivating force for our students." Outstanding opportunity Tareq Fakhroo, Chairman of BTECH, said: "LEAP stands as the premier technology conference in the region, delivering expert insights and cutting-edge content on pivotal technology subjects. This platform is instrumental in enhancing the IT industry in the kingdom, offering an outstanding opportunity for Bahraini students. They can delve into the latest developments, exhibit their technical prowess, and leverage opportunities to promote and market their projects." Fakhroo commended the significant role played by Ebrahim K Kanoo Company in supporting students, sponsoring their projects, and empowering them in alignment with the kingdom's vision aimed at mobilising the energies of the youth. This vision places emphasis on quality production as a primary contributor to development. Fakhroo further highlighted that contributing to the investment in the capabilities and efforts of the youth, as well as supporting their innovations, not only benefits society and the economy but also facilitates the transformation of their projects into commercial products, which in turn, strengthens national technical exports.--TradeArabia News Service Riyad Mansour (L), permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations (UN), greets Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, permanent representative of Guyana to the UN and president of the Security Council for the month of February, ahead of a Security Council meeting at the UN headquarters in New York on Feb. 27, 2024. The permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, on Tuesday told the Security Council that Gaza is currently experiencing a famine, which worsens daily due to the ongoing "criminal aggression" by Israel. (Manuel Elias/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua) UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, on Tuesday told the Security Council that Gaza is currently experiencing a famine, which worsens daily due to the ongoing "criminal aggression" by Israel. "We must stop for a moment and consider what this truly means," Mansour addressed the Security Council meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. "What it means to forage for food in the rubble, sand, and trash, to eat animal feed or food ravaged by rats," he said. Mansour accused Israel of being the "architect of this human and humanitarian catastrophe," intentionally designed to collectively punish the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza. He expressed his dismay at the international community's inaction, stating that "this catastrophic famine and genocide has been allowed to happen at all and continue for this long, brings shame on all of us, not least this Security Council." Highlighting the deliberate strategy by Israel, Mansour referenced statements made by top Israeli officials in October 2023, which indicated the use of food as a weapon to pressure the Palestinian population. These policies, according to Israeli leaders, were intended to degrade humanitarian conditions further and trigger a mass departure from Gaza, a move they termed "voluntary migration" to eliminate a "demographic threat." Mansour called on the Security Council to fulfill its duties in addressing the crisis. He outlined three urgent actions needed to rectify the dire situation: an immediate ceasefire to stop the Israeli aggression, the fast and unrestricted distribution of humanitarian aid across Gaza, and the implementation of accountability measures for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel. People wait to receive cooked food at a refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, Feb. 27, 2024. The permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, on Tuesday told the Security Council that Gaza is currently experiencing a famine, which worsens daily due to the ongoing "criminal aggression" by Israel. "We must stop for a moment and consider what this truly means," Mansour addressed the Security Council meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) A child waits to receive cooked food at a refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, Feb. 27, 2024. The permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, on Tuesday told the Security Council that Gaza is currently experiencing a famine, which worsens daily due to the ongoing "criminal aggression" by Israel. "We must stop for a moment and consider what this truly means," Mansour addressed the Security Council meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) People wait to receive cooked food at a refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, Feb. 27, 2024. The permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, on Tuesday told the Security Council that Gaza is currently experiencing a famine, which worsens daily due to the ongoing "criminal aggression" by Israel. "We must stop for a moment and consider what this truly means," Mansour addressed the Security Council meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) People receive cooked food at a refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, Feb. 27, 2024. The permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, on Tuesday told the Security Council that Gaza is currently experiencing a famine, which worsens daily due to the ongoing "criminal aggression" by Israel. "We must stop for a moment and consider what this truly means," Mansour addressed the Security Council meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) FILE PHOTO: Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine - Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine speaks during the Restoring livelihoods - from planning to reconstruction session on the sec (Reuters) - Ukraine is not going to close its border with Poland and is engaged in no talks on the matter, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Wednesday. "Ukraine is not going to close its borders with Poland. No one from the Ukrainian side is negotiating about this," Kubrakov wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Our people are fighting for their existence in a war with the Russian aggressor. For us, a stable border is a matter of survival." Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, engaged in talks to deal with protests by Polish farmers that have disrupted border traffic, said earlier the option of temporarily closing the border was under discussion with Ukrainian authorities. (Reporting by Ron Popeski and Yuliia Dysa) A supporter of relatives and victims of the conflict known as 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland, holds a sign, at the Royal Courts of Justice ahead of a High Court judgment in a landmark legal challenge to the UK government's Troubles Legacy Act, in Belf By Amanda Ferguson BELFAST (Reuters) -The offering by Britain of conditional amnesties to ex-soldiers and militants involved in Northern Ireland's decades of violence is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Belfast's High Court ruled on Wednesday. Judge Adrian Colton said the section of a new law introduced last year to offer immunity from prosecution for those who cooperated fully with a new investigative body should be disapplied. The contentious law sparked more than 20 legal challenges in Northern Ireland, mostly from victims' families, who said it contravened the ECHR and a 1998 peace deal that ended the three decades of bloodshed. "I am satisfied that immunity from prosecution provisions under Section 19 of the (Northern Ireland Troubles) Act are in breach of the lead applicant's rights pursuant to Article 2 of the ECHR. I am also satisfied that they are in breach of Article 3 of the ECHR," Judge Adrian Colton told the court. "There is no evidence that the granting of immunity under the Act will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the evidence is to the contrary," Colton said, spending more than two hours reading the 200-page judgment. Britain's Northern Ireland Minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, said the government remained committed to implementing the law and that the challenge in Belfast was a "complex case" that was likely to lead to further action in higher courts. Victims' families, human rights organisations and all major political parties in Northern Ireland - both British unionist and Irish nationalist - oppose the law. 'SECONDARY TRAUMA' The Irish government is mounting a separate legal challenge against Britain at the European Court Of Human Rights, where it has also argued that the British move was incompatible with its obligations under the European Convention. The judge declared that the immunity provisions were also incompatible with the Windsor Framework agreement governing post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland that London struck with the European Union last year. His ruling added that other sections of the Northern Ireland Troubles Act, including the halting of certain civil actions related to the conflict, were incompatible with both the ECHR and Windsor Framework. The leader of Northern Ireland's moderate nationalist SDLP party, Colum Eastwood, called on London to abandon its approach. The more than 20 challenges were condensed down to lead cases that were heard in November. Lawyers for the applicants told the court that victims' families who had been seeking justice for decades had suffered "a form of secondary trauma". Britain has defended the law, saying prosecutions linked to the events of up to 55 years ago were increasingly unlikely. A lawyer for the government argued that the law was a "logical outworking" of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and could draw a line under the conflict. Around 3,600 people died in three decades of confrontation between Irish nationalist militants seeking a united Ireland, pro-British "loyalist" paramilitaries and the British military. (Reporting by Amanda Ferguson, writing by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Kate Holton and Alex Richardson) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is closely watching the situation in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria after the unrecognized statelet asked Russia for help, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Wednesday. Given Russias increasingly aggressive role in Europe, we are watching Russias actions in Transnistria and the broader situation there very closely," Miller said at a press briefing, using the Moldovan name for the region. "The United States firmly supports Moldovas sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, and we continue to encourage Chisinau and Tiraspol to work together and identify solutions to pressing concerns of communities on both sides of the Nistru (river). (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis) By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday said it was "deeply troubled" by the passage of stringent anti-LGBTQ legislation in Ghana's parliament and urged a review of the "constitutionality of the bill." WHY IT IS IMPORTANT Ghana's parliament passed legislation that intensified a crackdown on the rights of LGBTQ people and those promoting lesbian, gay or other non-conventional sexual or gender identities in the West African country. Gay sex was already punishable by up to three years in prison. The bill now also imposes a prison sentence of up to five years for the "wilful promotion, sponsorship, or support of LGBTQ+ activities." KEY QUOTES "The bill seeks to criminalize any person who simply identifies as LGBTQI+, as well as any friend, family, or member of the community who does not report them," the U.S. State Department said in a statement. "The bill would also undermine Ghana's valuable public health, media and civic spaces, and economy," the department said. It added: "The United States echoes the call by those Ghanaians who have urged a review of the constitutionality of the bill to protect the rights of all individuals in Ghana." CONTEXT A coalition of Christian, Muslim, and Ghanaian traditional leaders sponsored the legislation, which is one of the harshest of its kind in Africa. Following the vote in parliament, the bill will be presented to President Nana Akufo-Addo after which he has seven days to assent or refuse to assent, according to Ghana's constitution. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Sonali Paul) U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield addresses the United Nations General Assembly during a meeting ahead of the 2nd anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., February 23, 2024. RE By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday pushed for the United Nations Security Council to take action to help end a nearly year-long conflict in Sudan between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The United States says the warring parties have committed war crimes and the RSF and allied militias have also committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The U.N. says that nearly 25 million people - half Sudan's population - need aid and some 8 million have fled their homes and hunger is rising. "It is clear that this is an urgent matter of peace and security that demands greater attention from the Security Council," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told Reuters in a statement. "The council must act urgently to alleviate human suffering, hold perpetrators to account, and bring the conflict in Sudan to an end. Time is running out," she said, without specifying what action the 15-member council should take. Since war erupted on April 15, 2023, the council has only issued three press statements condemning and expressing concern about the war. It echoed that language in a resolution in December that shut down a U.N. political mission - following a request from Sudan's acting foreign minister. Between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in one city alone in Sudan's West Darfur region last year in ethnic violence by the RSF and allied Arab militia, according to a U.N. sanctions monitors report, seen by Reuters last month. "I am deeply disappointed that the allegations detailed in this report have received such little attention, both inside the U.N. Security Council and outside the United Nations," said Thomas-Greenfield, who visited a refugee camp in Chad near the border with Sudan's Darfur in September. The Sudanese government recently prohibited aid deliveries through Chad, effectively shutting down a crucial route for supplies to the vast Darfur region, which is controlled by the rival RSF. Thomas-Greenfield described the move as "unacceptable" for threatening a "critical lifeline." Reuters last year chronicled the ethnically targeted violence committed in West Darfur. In hundreds of interviews with Reuters, survivors described horrific scenes of bloodletting in El Geneina and on the 30-km (18-mile) route from the city to the border with Chad as people fled. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -A U.S. court has sentenced a Florida resident to five years in prison for participating in a "sophisticated smuggling scheme" trafficking arms and ammunition to Haiti's powerful 400 Mawozo gang, the U.S. embassy in Haiti said on Wednesday. Jocelyn Dor, a 31-year-old Haitian citizen, had pleaded guilty last October to money laundering and violating U.S. export laws. The embassy said Dor had exported or attempted to export 24 firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition to the conflict-ravaged Caribbean nation. According to the statement, Dor acted as a "straw purchaser" for the gang, and had in late 2021 bought 10 semiautomatic high-power rifles at gun shops around the Orlando area, including a Barrett .50-caliber rifle, primarily used by militaries. He was transferred thousands of U.S. dollars to pay for them, it added. Dor was the target of an FBI manhunt through the Midwest before turning himself in and has been in custody since, the embassy said. Dor had initially been charged in 2022 alongside top 400 Mawozo operator Joly Germine and his partner Eliande Tunis for gun smuggling and money laundering. Germine and Tunis are set to be sentenced in May. 400 Mawozo won international notoriety after the 2021 kidnapping of 17 U.S. and Canadian missionaries, for which they asked for a ransom of $1 million per person, and are believed to be responsible for many collective kidnappings in Haiti. Its leader, Wilson Joseph, is one of five Haitians sanctioned by the United Nations and has a $1 million bounty on his head from the FBI. The sentencing comes after U.S. officials pledged to boost efforts to stem the trafficking of firearms to Haiti, after multiple U.N. reports pointed to the U.S. as the main source of illicit firearms held by gangs. Kenya has offered to lead a U.N.-ratified force requested by Haiti's unelected government in 2022 to help under-resourced Haitian police fight gangs, which are now estimated to control most of the capital Port-au-Prince. Nearly 5,000 were killed in the violence last year and around 300,000 have fled their homes, according to U.N. estimates. (Reporting by Harold Isaac; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Kylie Madry) (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Defense is monitoring a close pass between NASA's Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics Mission (TIMED) spacecraft and the Russian Cosmos 2221 satellite, NASA said in a blog post early Wednesday. Although the spacecraft are expected to miss each other, a collision could result in significant debris, the U.S. space agency said, adding that it was continuing to monitor the situation with the Department of Defense. The statement did not say how close the spacecraft would come to each other. The two satellites, which cannot manoeuvre, are expected to make their closest pass about 1:30 am EST (0630 GMT) on Feb. 28, at an altitude of about 373 miles (600 km), NASA said. The TIMED mission is studying the influence of the Sun and humans on the Earth's mesosphere, lower thermosphere and ionosphere. (Reporting by Harshita Meenaktshi in Bengaluru. Editing by Gerry Doyle) FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a rally in advance of the New Hampshire primary election in Laconia, New Hampshire, U.S. January 22, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo By John Kruzel and Andrew Chung WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to decide Donald Trump's claim of immunity from prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, giving him a boost as he tries to delay criminal prosecutions while running to regain the presidency. The justices put on hold the criminal case being pursued by Special Counsel Jack Smith and will review a lower court's rejection of Trump's claim of immunity from prosecution because he was president when he took actions aimed at reversing President Joe Biden's election victory over him. The Supreme Court set the case for oral argument during the week of April 22 on a single question: "Whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office." Trump, the first former president to be criminally prosecuted, is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden, a Democrat, in the Nov. 5 U.S. election. The case once again thrusts the nation's top judicial body, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump, into the election fray. The Supreme Court also is due to issue a ruling on whether to overturn a judicial decision that barred Trump from Colorado's Republican primary ballot based on a constitutional provision regarding insurrection. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Feb. 6 ruled 3-0 against Trump's immunity claim, rejecting his bid for "unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power - the recognition and implementation of election results." Smith was appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022. In August 2023, Smith brought four federal criminal counts against Trump in the election subversion case. A March 4 trial date was postponed as Trump pressed his immunity claim, with no new date yet set. Trump has three other pending criminal cases, with a trial in New York state court concerning hush money paid to a porn star set to begin on March 25. Trump has pleaded not guilty in all of them, seeking to portray them as politically motivated. Trump, in a post on his social media platform, hailed the Supreme Court's decision to hear his immunity claim. "Without Presidential Immunity, a President will not be able to properly function, or make decisions, in the best interest of the United States of America," Trump wrote. "Presidents will always be concerned, and even paralyzed, by the prospect of wrongful prosecution and retaliation after they leave office. This could actually lead to the extortion and blackmail of a President." Representatives for the special counsel's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Smith's charges accused Trump of conspiring to defraud the United States, obstructing the congressional certification of Biden's electoral victory and conspiring to do so, and conspiring against right of Americans to vote. Trump and his allies made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and devised a plan to use false electors to thwart congressional certification of Biden's victory. Trump also sought to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence not to allow certification to go forward. Trump's supporters attacked the Capitol in a bid to prevent the certification. If Trump regains the presidency, he could seek to use his powers to force an end to the prosecution or potentially pardon himself for any federal crimes. 'ABOVE THE LAW' Trump last October sought to have the charges dismissed based on his claim of immunity. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected that claim in December. During January arguments in his appeal, one of Trump's lawyers told the D.C. Circuit judges that even if a president sold pardons or military secrets or ordered a Navy commando unit to assassinate a political rival, he could not be criminally charged unless he is first impeached and convicted in Congress. In its decision rejecting Trump's immunity claim, the three-judge panel wrote: "We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter." Supreme Court justices during arguments on Feb. 8 signaled skepticism toward a ruling by Colorado's top court that barred Trump from the state's Republican primary ballot, based on the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, after finding he engaged in an insurrection related to the Capitol attack. The Colorado and immunity cases put the Supreme Court in the election spotlight in the most direct way since its 2000 ruling that effectively handed the presidency to Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore. In a separate case to be argued on April 16, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a man involved in the Capitol attack can be charged with obstructing an official proceeding - the congressional certification of the 2020 election results. That case has potential implications for Trump because Smith brought two obstruction-related charges. (Reporting by John Kruzel and Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham) FILE PHOTO: The Warner Bros logo is seen during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France, June 22, 2022. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo By Lucy Craymer WELLINGTON (Reuters) - One of New Zealand's two free-to-air television networks said on Wednesday it was proposing to close its newsroom operations, television news broadcasts and website from June 30, with the loss of up to 200 media jobs. Warner Bros Discovery, which owns the news service Newshub that airs on television channel Three, said in a statement it needed to further reduce costs and that meant major changes including the planned shut down of the newsroom. Under New Zealand law, a proposed restructure or redundancies must be consulted on before a final decision can be announced. A final decision is expected in early April. If implemented, the closure will end 35-years of broadcast news on the network Three and will leave state-owned but editorially independent TVNZ as the dominant producer of broadcast news for the New Zealand market. Free-to-air and news are expensive businesses to run. Put simply, the economic headwinds means the returns are not there, said Glen Kyne, a senior vice president, at Warner Bros Discovery in Australia and New Zealand. He added that he knew that Newshub was a "crucial part of a functioning media sector in New Zealand." These proposed changes will be hard if they are implemented, but we think they are necessary, Kyne said. Newshub said on its website that 200 journalists, producers, editors, camera operators and associated staff could lose their jobs. Warner Bros Discovery reported said it plans to continue operating digital platform ThreeNow and network channel Three and these would show programming from the networks extensive library and local programming where funding could be obtained. (Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Lincoln Feast.) Army Reserve Col. Reece Roberts listens to a commander at Camp Williams, Utah, in 2021. (Brent C. Powell/U.S. Army Reserve) A Utah-based Army Reserve colonel has been indicted by a federal grand jury for charges that he stole more than $62,000 from the Army through a property rental scheme while on orders during the coronavirus pandemic. Col. Reece Dennis Roberts, 53, lied about his and his familys primary residence, fabricated a lease and property listing documents, and submitted more than a dozen fake vouchers to the military between June 2020 and July 2021, according to court documents. Roberts, an Iraq War veteran who first entered the Reserve in 1991, received orders to serve on active duty with the 76th Operational Response Command at Fort Douglas, and then changed his primary address to one outside of Utah at which neither he nor his family lived, according to court documents. He actually lived in Herriman, a town about 40 minutes from his duty station. A general engineer, Roberts worked with a unit that was tasked with providing support to state and local officials, first responders and federal agencies during the pandemic that began in March 2020, according to his service record and the units website. Using the fake out-of-state address made Roberts eligible for family separation pay, reimbursements for housing, meals and incidentals, according to court documents. Through the fake lease agreement, Roberts claimed $3,700 each month for rent, which he or an unnamed accomplice sent through a Venmo account to a third party, who was also in on the scheme. Roberts is charged with various federal crimes, including filing a fraudulent claim against the U.S., conspiring to defraud the U.S., theft of government property, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to court documents. This type of deceit and misconduct is unacceptable for service members at any rank, but it is particularly disheartening when committed by a field grade officer during a national emergency, said U.S. Attorney Trina Higgins of the District of Utah. Roberts initial court appearance on the indictment is March 13 in downtown Salt Lake City. He was indicted Feb. 21. If convicted, Roberts could face forfeiture of money and property derived from the proceeds, according to the Justice Department. The indictment is part of an ongoing effort by the U.S. Attorneys Office to address military pay fraud that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic with the support of the Defense Department inspector general and the Army Criminal Investigation Division. People walk on a street with destroyed buildings in Gaza City, on Feb. 27, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) GAZA, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. Meanwhile, 110 others were wounded, bringing the total number of Palestinian injuries since the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out in early October to 70,325, the ministry said in a statement. It noted that some victims remain under the rubble amid heavy bombardment and a lack of civil defense and ambulance crews. Also on Wednesday, Israeli media outlets reported that two officers were killed and seven soldiers were injured during battles in the Gaza Strip, pushing the death toll to 582. Citing IDF sources, the reports said Israel's ground operations continued throughout the Gaza Strip under the support of air and naval bombardment. The reports said the Israeli army destroyed tunnels and other Hamas infrastructure, eliminating "terrorist cells" and seizing large quantities of weapons. In addition, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesman Daniel Hagari said that the goal of the war in Gaza, which is to ensure the Oct. 7 attack never ever happens again, will take time to achieve. Israel has pushed forward a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on Oct. 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 were taken hostage. A young man waits to fetch water in Gaza City, on Feb. 27, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) A girl walks on a street with destroyed buildings in Gaza City, on Feb. 27, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) Children play on a destroyed building in Gaza City, on Feb. 27, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) Children sit among the rubble in Gaza City, on Feb. 27, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) Children play on a destroyed building in Gaza City, on Feb. 27, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) People walk on a street with destroyed buildings in Gaza City, on Feb. 27, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) Children play among the rubble in Gaza City, on Feb. 27, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) Children play among the rubble in Gaza City, on Feb. 27, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Mohammed Ali/Xinhua) People walk past destroyed buildings in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) A man stands among the rubble in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) A man carries items in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) A man collects items in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) People walk past a destroyed building in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) People look at destroyed buildings in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) People walk past destroyed buildings in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) People are seen in front of destroyed buildings in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) People walk past damaged buildings in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) A woman carries items in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, on Feb. 28, 2024. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) Photo taken on Feb. 28, 2024 shows a school destroyed in Israeli strikes in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis. The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip has risen to 29,954 as the Israeli military killed 76 in the past 24 hours, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Wednesday. (Photo by Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua) A Latvian air defense soldier engages simulated air threats during the Allied Spirit exercise at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, Hohenfels, Germany, on Jan. 27, 2022. This year's version of the exercise began Feb. 26 and includes 6,500 troops from the United States and allied nations. (U.S. European Command) GRAFENWOEHR, Germany A multinational exercise aimed at training American and allied troops to defend Europe began at bases in Bavaria this week. Allied Spirit, running from Monday to March 27 at the Hohenfels and Grafenwoehr Training Areas, is a U.S.-led event that in the past featured tanks, artillery and brigade-level combat training, a U.S. European Command statement said Monday. The recurring series of maneuvers includes over 6,500 participants from NATO allies and partners, including the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and the U.K. The exercise comes as tensions between NATO and Russia remain high over Moscows ongoing war with Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday was forced to strike down the idea of Western combat troops being deployed to Ukraine, one day after French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters in Paris that we cannot exclude any options, though he added that there is no present plan to send NATO member troops. Lithuanian soldiers react to contact during exercise Allied Spirit in Hohenfels Training Area, Germany, on Jan. 24, 2022. This year's version of the exercise began Feb. 26 and includes 6,500 troops from the United States and allied nations. (Uriel Ramirez/U.S. Army) Soon after, the leaders of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic put out statements saying that their troops werent headed to Ukraine. Russian conflict with NATO combat troops would be inevitable if they deploy to the war zone, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday. Germany and other alliance members have vowed to send additional aid in recent weeks as further American funding remains tied up in Congress. The lack of supplemental funding for Ukraine means U.S. participation in NATO exercises may have to be canceled by late spring or summer as the Army funnels money from other accounts to train Ukrainian troops, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said during a Defense Writers Group breakfast. Allied Spirit, directed by U.S. Army Europe-Africa and conducted by the 7th Army Training Command at its Joint Multinational Readiness Center, is unique because it places a partner nation at the forefront of a multinational brigade, the EUCOM statement said. This year, the German Armys 41st Panzergrenadier Brigade is at the head of the column. The combat unit has 4,600 soldiers based in Neubrandenburg, which is approximately 75 miles north of Berlin and 40 miles west of the border with Poland. U.S. Army units participating this year include the 82nd Airborne Division, the 1st and 3rd Infantry Divisions, 4th Security Forces Assistance Brigade, as well as reservists and guardsmen. (Kevin Baron/Stars and Stripes) Kuwait, Feb. 26, 2011: The militaries of the U.S. and several other nations involved in the 1991 liberation of Kuwait from Saddam Husseins invading army gather for a parade outside of Kuwait City to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Operation Desert Storm. The operation officially ended Feb. 28, 1991. Looking for Stars and Stripes Gulf War coverage? Subscribe to Stars and Stripes historic newspaper archive! We have digitized our 1948-1999 European and Pacific editions, as well as several of our WWII editions and made them available online through https://starsandstripes.newspaperarchive.com/ Timothee Chalamet, foreground left, and Austin Butler in a scene from Dune: Part Two. The two actors trained, separately, with a Kali instructor in Los Angeles to prepare for their characters climactic showdown. (Warner Bros. Pictures/AP) Timothee Chalamet and Austin Butler were really looking forward to their fight. The actors had been training, separately, with a Kali instructor in Los Angeles to prepare for the climactic showdown between Paul Atreides and Feyd-Rautha in Denis Villeneuves Dune: Part Two. When they finally met in Budapest, they werent even technically supposed to do a run-through. But they couldnt hide their excitement. We got after it right away, Chalamet said. Everyone in the ensemble gets a little starry-eyed talking about that fight. It was a spectacle watching Butler and Chalamet do it all themselves, a few times in near continuous takes for the wide shots. It felt like standing in the wings before you walk out onstage or something, that incredible intensity that you feel. And then Action! is called. And we just got to work, Butler said. Thats the moment of truth where you want to just leave it all on the field. But it was also the rare occasion in which most of the cast, including Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Christopher Walken, Charlotte Rampling, Rebecca Ferguson and Javier Bardem, were in the same room together. Pugh, a newcomer to the world of Dune as the Emperors daughter, Princess Irulan, described the atmosphere in the room as a fizzing energy that can only at that point, you hope, create greatness. Newcomer Florence Pugh plays the Emperors daughter, Princess Irulan, in Dune: Part Two. She said it was a dream to witness the scale of the sets and be part of not only a transformative experience but also to be around such dedication and such love and passion and such talent. (Warner Bros. Pictures/AP) Leaving it on the field wasn't just Butler's goal in the fight. It seemed to be the guiding principle for everyone who got the chance to return to Arrakis for Part Two, which opens March 1. The sequel had not been a given and was dependent on the success of Part One, which had its own handicap being released simultaneously on Max (formerly HBOMax) and in theaters. Chalamet worried that theyd end on an incomplete arc. Other actors, like Zendaya as a Freman fighter (and object of Pauls affections) Chani and Bautista as Harkonnen thug Beast Rabban, had barely even scratched the surface of their characters in Part One. That uncertainty was uncomfortable, Bautista said. My payoff for the character was in the second film. Dave Bautista returns as Harkonnen thug Beast Rabban in Dune: Part Two. Bautista said his payoff for the character came not in the first film but rather the second. (Warner Bros. Pictures/AP) The time in between gave Zendaya and Chalamet breathing room to establish a real friendship with one another, before their characters would have to fall in love in Part Two in the midst of all the heightened stakes. What I appreciate about the love story is that it is earned, Zendaya said. A real wall has to be broken down. Timothee Chalamet, left, and Zendaya in a scene from Dune: Part Two. The hiatus between the first and second Dune films gave the actors time to establish a real friendship with one another, before their characters Paul and Chani would have to fall in love in Part Two. (Warner Bros. Pictures/AP) But it was a relief to get the official go, even if they knew a lot of sweat and discomfort awaited in order to bring this ambitious and visionary science fiction world to life, with the action upped threefold. Its grueling, but its a grueling that I like personally, said Brolin, returning as Gurney Halleck. I like challenging my idea of comfort often. Some were more daunted by the return, like Skarsgard, knowing that hed once again have to endure eight hours of sitting completely still to become Baron Harkonnen. The look would include a cooling vest and more than 80 pounds of rubber suiting that made moving difficult and bathroom breaks impossible. I wasnt that thrilled by it because I thought about those hours in makeup, Skarsgard said. But on the other hand, I really love the character, not because hes psychologically portrayed very elegantly, but because we managed to create a presence he is used in very few scenes, but he will still hover over the entire film as a dangerous, dangerous thing. To become Baron Harkonnen in the first and second Dune films, Stellan Skarsgard had to wear a cooling vest and more than 80 pounds of rubber suiting. (Warner Bros. Pictures/AP) One thing he wasnt prepared for was Butler as his characters psychotic nephew Feyd-Rautha. Butler came in with the idea to model his voice off Skarsgards. Thats sort of a funny detail, Skarsgard said. But then, God, he was razor sharp. Its like a snake. It was fantastic to see. Butler also transformed to play a character that Villeneuve described as a cross between a sword master and Mick Jagger. That took about three hours in hair and makeup, and one at the end of the day to cut him out of the cap. Its a real gift as an actor when you look in the mirror and you dont see yourself, Butler said. I knew I had a lot of latitude to play. For Pugh, it was a dream to witness the scale of the sets and be part of not only a transformative experience but also to be around such dedication and such love and passion and such talent. Like most of her peers, she said being in that room during the week the fight was a highlight of her career. It was impressive, Brolin said. (These were guys that) really rehearsed that were truly going at it, that were hurting themselves, that were falling ... You're like yes, this is old school. Brolin was particularly impressed with the young cast, none of whom leaned on their celebrity, he said. Of course, at the heart of Dune is Chalamet, an actor who was only 23 years old when he made the first. Hed been nominated for an Oscar and was quickly establishing himself as the next capital M movie star. But it was the first time hed ever led a production of that scale. By the time hed return to start production on Dune: Part Two, just a few years later, the difference was striking: Like his character Paul Atreides, hed also grown up. He was like a little kid and he didnt hide it. Hes like, What is this? What do we do? Oh my God. So big. So many cameras, Brolin laughed. And right now hes exactly where he should be. Chalamet is self-deprecating about this, laughing that he was but a boy on the first and in the interim got some furniture. But everyone around him noticed the change. Like his character Paul Atreides, Timothee Chalamet also grew up and matured between Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two. He transformed himself into a believably powerful fighter and learned a lot about filmmaking in between both movies. According to director Denis Villeneuve, In Part One it was the first time he was in a movie of that scale, surrounded by a lot of movie stars. But in Part Two he was the one leading. And he did a tremendous job of bringing Pauls tragedy to life. (Warner Bros. Pictures/AP) Bautista was particularly impressed at his dedication to a training and eating schedule to transform himself into a believably powerful fighter (and rider of sandworms). I know he trained his butt off because he wanted to look the part, Bautista said. He literally goes from being a boy to being a man, like he is commanding in the second film. Villeneuve was sure hed get there too but still a little relieved that it worked out as hed imagined. Timothee had learned a lot about filmmaking in between both movies, Villeneuve said. In Part One it was the first time he was in a movie of that scale, surrounded by a lot of movie stars. But in Part Two he was the one leading. And he did a tremendous job of bringing Pauls tragedy to life. Dune: Part Two is the kind of event cinema that the cast seems genuinely (and not just contractually) excited to be part of and to see on the big screen a propulsive and action-packed spectacle that will surely satisfy anyone who complained the first was too meditative. Its storytelling. Its heart. Its visually stunning. The soundtrack is incredible, Bautista said. Its a special film and they just dont come along very often. Protesters hold signs in Okinawa, Japan, on Feb. 21, 2024. Increased military tensions around Taiwan are raising the pressure on neighboring islands such as Japan, which in anticipation of potential conflict, has bolstered its defense spending. But those plans have met civilian opposition, most notably in Okinawa, home to numerous U.S. military bases and likely one of the first targets in the event of a clash with China. (Stephanie Yang/Los Angeles Times/TNS) (Tribune News Service) At the first blare of air raid sirens, the people milling about in a grassy park barely stirred. Five-year-old Tae Sano clung to her mothers hand. Some of the people around her, all wearing bright-yellow bibs, took a few uncertain steps. But the only real urgency came from a man in a blue uniform, jogging through the confused crowd. One more time, he called out through a megaphone. When the sirens wailed anew, a voice rang through the park: A missile was just launched. Please evacuate immediately. This time, people moved. Ayako Sano led her three children to a nearby auditorium, where they crouched, hands over their heads, and waited for the drill to end. The exercise, the first for the island city of Ishigaki closer to China and Taiwan than to the Japanese mainland is being repeated across the country as increasingly restive neighbors heighten concerns about war. Nowadays, you never know what might happen, Sano, a 37-year-old City Hall employee, said after the drill. Not just in Ishigaki, but wherever you are in Japan. As geopolitical tensions in Asia grow more fraught, Japan has boosted military spending to record highs, and fear has permeated even some of the countrys most remote islands. The threat is that Ishigaki is within range of North Korean and Chinese missiles, said Mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama, who wants to expand the drill to an islandwide evacuation rehearsal. It is important to strengthen our defenses, even though it may increase tensions. With the regional risks compounding, Japan has veered sharply from the anti-militarist stance it adopted after World War II. A defense strategy it released in December 2022 called for doubling military spending by 2027 and developing long-range missile capabilities. Japan is building up its military bases including in Ishigaki and other nearby islands and allowing the U.S. armed forces to expand an already extensive footprint in the nation. Its trying to calm citizen protests over an increased troop presence and a debate over whether the expansion will draw more danger to Japan, rather than defend it. And it is preparing its people for worst-case scenarios, with hourlong drills like the one on Ishigaki. While the secluded tropical tourist destination of Ishigaki may seem an unlikely target for attack, it is only 200 miles from Taiwan the self-ruled island that Japans historic rival China claims as its own in increasingly aggressive displays. After Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022, Beijing launched an unprecedented series of military exercises and missile launches around that island. Five missiles landed near Ishigaki in Japans exclusive economic zone in Okinawa Prefecture, which covers more than 150 islands between Taiwan and the Japanese mainland. North Korea, an ally of China, also resumed firing missile tests into the waters around Japan that year. Deteriorating relations between the United States and China have put Japan, a key U.S. ally, in a precarious position. The nations southwestern islands, near Chinas eastern coast, could be among the first hit if the U.S. and China come to blows over Taiwan. In Ishigaki, a new base for the Japenese military, known as the Self-Defense Forces, started operations last year. When construction began a few years ago across the road from his farm, Katsumi Toma questioned the need for the military outpost. But after seeing war break out in Ukraine and the Middle East, Toma, 31, changed his mind. He now sees the camp as a necessity for the islands protection. The fear that comes from living so close to an increasingly bellicose China supersedes his concerns that enlargement could infringe on his pineapple and sugar cane fields. I thought of war as something that happened far away, Toma said. If I could, I would oppose the camps. But the way things are going now, I dont think we have a choice. The new Ishigaki camp has enabled the U.S. Marine Corps, which brought in a coastal unit last year, to start training drills around the island with Japanese troops. As its relationship with China has turned more adversarial, the United States has worked to bolster defensive partnerships with allies in the Asia-Pacific like Australian and Japan. Not all residents in parts of Japan that might be vulnerable have embraced this approach. Some 250 miles away from Ishigaki, wariness of both U.S. and Japanese militarization runs deep on the main island of Okinawa, which was devastated by the U.S. assault during World War II. Scattered across the island, population 1.5 million, are stone memorials, abandoned bunkers and walls pocked with bullet holes remnants of bloody battles between Japanese and American forces. The U.S. ultimately wrested control and occupied the island for nearly three decades after Japans surrender. The U.S. returned Okinawa to Japan in 1971, but the bases remained and now account for 70% of U.S. military land use in Japan, even though the island represents just 0.6% of the countrys area. That outsize presence has perpetuated resentment among locals, who have complained of noise pollution, environmental damage and misconduct by U.S. troops. Crimes by current or former U.S. service members such as the kidnap and rape of a 12-year-old girl in 1995 and the murder of a 20-year-old woman in 2016 have sparked mass protests in Okinawa. Okinawas governor is staunchly opposed to expanding U.S. and Japanese bases on the island. Denny Tamaki said his calls to move some U.S. operations off Okinawa have been overshadowed by the national governments preoccupation with potential international conflict. Tamaki, whose father was a U.S. Marine, has emphasized the need for Japan to maintain relations with Beijing as well as Washington. We understand that the security environment is becoming more and more severe, Tamaki said. But we are concerned that the increased level of deterrence could enhance risk in the region. Such worries are shared among some of his supporters that as the military presence in Okinawa grows, it will inevitably attract the ire of enemy nations. Plans for a new Japanese base in central Okinawa have been met with local anxiety and resistance. With so many Japanese and U.S. military bases here, we would be hit immediately, said Rinichi Teruya, a 71-year-old innkeeper who grew up in the Okinawa town of Kadena, next to the largest U.S. Air Force base in Asia. Teruya has fond memories of American soldiers, recalling that they would often walk with him and share their bananas and Sunkist oranges. That did not stop him from joining demonstrations against the bases later in life. While his age prevents him from protesting now, he believes that expansion will inflame frictions between U.S. military personnel and locals over issues like excessive noise, vehicular accidents and pollution. On a balmy February morning, two dozen protesters sat in front of the gates of a U.S. Marine Corps camp on the coastal area of Henoko in the center of the island, obstructing entry for a growing line of cement trucks. They held signs calling for a halt to the construction of a relocated air station within the base and chanted against Japans Ministry of Defense. Despite their daily dedication to delaying work on the military facility, the average age of the protesters about 70 suggested a stagnating activist movement even as fears of conflict have grown. People who remember the war are gone. The movement is shrinking, said Hiroe Shimabukuro, a 47-year-old resident who participated in similar protests there when she was in her 20s. Work and raising her young son have left her little time for political activism. But alarmed by what she sees as the nations march toward war, in which Okinawa could be sacrificed once again, she started wearing yellow clothes, ribbons as a warning and a call for awareness. Many people are not aware of what is going on, she said. Militarization happened too fast. People couldnt catch up. While she promotes the fledgling movement on social media and at anti-war events, Shimabukuro feels the need to do more and wishes younger people would get more involved, she said. Opinion polls show that Okinawans under 40, accustomed to U.S. bases, are less fervently opposed to them than their elders. Kanato Shimoji, a 19-year-old majoring in psychology at Okinawa International University, said though he often sees criticism of the U.S. military in local media, he harbors little animosity. I think the very existence of the U.S. military bases is a deterrent that will keep Okinawa from going to war, Shimoji said. I dont know what might happen if the bases were really gone. Haru Goya, 23, said she worries about Okinawas proximity to China and its isolation in the event of a military assault. Still, the concept of war feels foreign to her, even after learning about the Battle of Okinawa in school and hearing wartime tales from her grandmother. We see it differently from our grandmothers and grandfathers who experienced war, said Goya, who sells knitwear and accessories. We have not experienced the dark side of history. In Ishigaki, there are fewer scars, less constant reminders of war, and most remain sanguine about the prospect of attack. But those who remember have been unnerved by the militarys return to the small island. Setsuko Yamasato, who grew up on the island, had lost half her family to the tumult of World War II by the time she was 8. In 1944, her older brother was en route to serve in the military when his boat was sunk by a U.S. missile. The following year, her infant sister died of starvation while they sheltered in the wilderness from air raids, and her mother and grandfather succumbed to malaria. Now 87, Yamasato spends Sunday evenings protesting in front of the Japanese military camp and other spots across the island, holding signs and waving and shouting to passing, honking motorists. She is sure that the growing presence of Japanese troops is more likely to bring conflict than to protect from it. Through our experience in the war, the military forces didnt save the island people, she said. Only a handful of elderly locals ever join Yamasato in her weekly protests, and she sees their efforts as a prayer for peace more than anything else. If war does reach Ishigakis shores again, Yamasato has no plans to leave. This is where I was born and raised, not by my parents or grandparents, but by this entire island, she said. If I have to be baptized by fire, that would be my destiny. Special correspondent Makiko Segawa contributed to this report. 2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 1st Special Forces Group and the South Korean army's 7th Special Forces Brigade parachute out of a CH-47 Chinook during Ulchi Freedom Shield in Iksan, South Korea, March 5, 2023. (Samuel Kim/U.S. Army) SEOUL, South Korea U.S. and South Korean troops will soon kick off their first large military exercise of the year just after a flurry of cruise and ballistic missile launches by North Korea. The 11-day Freedom Shield exercise starts Monday and will test the allies ability to fortify the combined defense posture and enhance alliance response capabilities against a spectrum of security threats, according to a news release Wednesday from U.S. Forces Korea. The exercise is scheduled to conclude March 14 Freedom Shield is a semiannual, large-scale military training throughout South Korea. A second exercise, Ulchi Freedom Shield, is typically held in August. Around 48 drills are scheduled for Freedom Shield, including air assault, air-to-air, air-to-surface, and cyber-related operations, South Korean army Col. Lee Sung-jun told reporters during a news conference Wednesday alongside USFK spokesman Army Col. Isaac Taylor. They spoke at the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul. Lee said one exercise scenario will include identifying North Koreas cruise missile launch sites. None of the drills will be conducted near the Demilitarized Zone, the border with North Korea. The North launched an unspecified number of cruise missiles over a 10-day span starting Jan. 24, according to Seoul. The communist regime also fired a solid-fueled intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew roughly 620 miles before splashing down into the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, on Jan. 14. The next day, the U.S., South Korean and Japanese navies held a three-day exercise involving nine warships in waters south of the Korean Peninsula. Troops from 11 other U.N. Command member states will also be participating in Freedom Shield: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, according to USFKs release. Lee and Taylor, citing concern for operational security, declined to say whether strategic assets such as aircraft carriers and long-range bombers and submarines capable of carrying nuclear weapons would take part in the exercise. The spokesmen declined to specify how many troops are expected to take part in the exercise. These exercises are the same exercises that weve been doing for decades, Taylor told reporters. Freedom Shield comes about four months after Seoul and Pyongyang walked back a military deconfliction agreement signed in 2018. The agreement, which banned armed guards and flights near the peninsulas border, was scrapped by both countries after North Korea launched a military reconnaissance satellite in November. The Norths state-run Korean Central News Agency reported last month that Pyongyang will abandon all reunification efforts with the South due to its collusion with the U.S. and described Seoul as its primary foe. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Joshua Alexander, left, and Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Joshua Weber, of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, take part in an excavation in Quang Binh Province, Vietnam, Feb. 26, 2023. (Michael ONeal/U.S. Army) JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii In August, with the new fiscal year weeks away, the director of the agency tasked with recovering Americas missing war dead was enthused by an additional $40 million in funding and the possibilities ahead. Were very excited about that, Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency director Kelly McKeague said during a live video interview with Washington, D.C.-based think tank Center for a New American Security. And what that means is that we will be able to triple the number of operations in Southeast Asia, he said. DPAAs mission is to retrieve, identify and account for missing service members from wars over the past 80-plus years. In some cases, we are quadrupling it, McKeague said. It means that were able to bring aboard 16 new historians and researchers and a host of other things that allows us to be able to do more and to do it faster. Six months later, none of that has happened. The $40 million did not materialize because congressional gridlock has left DPAA and the rest of the Defense Department operating under fiscal year 2023 levels. Congress instead has passed a series of continuing resolutions, with a partial government shutdown looming again Friday if lawmakers take no further action. DPAA had planned 165 investigative or recovery missions for fiscal year 2024, which began Oct. 1, Col. Matt Brannen, DPAA deputy director of operations, said Feb. 7 at the agencys lab at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, where he was joined by lab director John Byrd. That plan represented a roughly 60% increase over the 103 missions completed the previous year. It equated to about a 300% increase in the number of investigative and recovery teams sent into the field, Brannen said. Halfway through the fiscal year and with that large funding hike in the mire of continuing resolutions, the agency will likely conduct just over 100 missions again this year, Brannen said. Disappearing footprints DPAA accounted for 158 missing service members during the past fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, down from 166 the previous year, according to agency records. These numbers are dwarfed by the scale of the job left ahead in identifying Americas war dead. About 81,000 Americans are still missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War and Gulf Wars, according to DPAA. Almost 90% of those are from World War II. About 41,000 are presumed lost at sea, making the recovery of many of them unlikely, if not impossible. Nearly three-quarters of last fiscal years 158 total were from World War II, with only four from the Vietnam War, despite the lions share of DPAAs operational funds being dedicated to the latter conflict. U.S. service members assigned to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency carry out a disinterment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, Jan. 29, 2023. (Edward Randolph/U.S. Army) About 80% of money allocated for operations, such as for investigation and recovery teams, goes to the Vietnam War recovery effort, Brannen said. The goal of making identifications in the Vietnam war effort thats our operational priority, he said. For some, the results in Southeast Asia amount to too little. Four IDs in one year is unacceptable, Jack McManus, national president of Vietnam Veterans Association, told Stars and Stripes by email Feb. 15. Time is our enemy, he said. The footprints of battlefields have been destroyed by progress. The acidic soil is eating away at the remains. Many of the veterans are passing on, along with their memories of the battlefield. Toughest Vietnam cases The 1,577 service members still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War, however, are the toughest cases, Byrd said. We have over many, many years done all the easy cases there, he said. The remaining cases require a lot more work, and theres a much smaller chance of success on any particular mission that were going to run because were getting to the point of the most challenging cases, Byrd said. Brannen said the agency would make headway in Southeast Asia once the additional teams are deployed with the $40 million increase. Byrd said he could not say how many identifications the funding increase could lead to, again citing the difficulty of Vietnam War cases. But what you do expect is that with a 300% increase in field effort, you expect there to be more IDs than we would make without that effort, he said. So, you do expect to make more IDs, to have more success. I just would not want to give somebody the false impression that were going to see, you know, massive numbers of identifications come from cases that are so difficult. Personnel with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency collect soil during a recovery mission in Vietnam, Nov. 22, 2023. (Ashley Sokolov/U.S. Air Force) Worldwide disinterment The 2010 Defense Authorization Act required DOD to fund the recovery effort at a sufficient level that ensures the capacity to account for at least 200 missing individuals each year. Brannen acknowledged the 200 figure has translated into a goal for the agency, which requires balancing time between difficult cases in Southeast Asia with the more straightforward task of exhuming and identifying remains from the graves of unknowns around the world. Our disinterment program yields the highest percentage of our identifications, so we work towards that based on the balance, he said. But even in those cases, theres varying levels of results that we see. Byrd said he did not expect the agencys disinterment program to flag this year despite the holdup in additional funding. I dont think were going to be negatively impacted by continuing it at FY23 levels, he said. The agency completed 211 identifications in fiscal year 2023, but those additional 53 are primarily the remains of service members already accounted for, Byrd said. For example, some came from the agencys large, ongoing World War II project at Cabanatuan, the former Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in the Philippines, he said. More than 2,700 prisoners were buried on the site, some of whom were identified and reburied by the U.S. soon after the war. In our pursuit of trying to find the missing persons and identify them, we encounter oftentimes the remains, at least partial remains, of guys that had been identified back in the 40s, Byrd said. Although those identifications do not contribute to the agencys annual total, they nevertheless require the same amount of work and analysis as any remains would, Brannen said. So, the capacity to do it is there, but ultimately we want to be making new identifications, he said. The measure of our success and our impact is really focused on the new identifications. Floodwaters cover a street in Ponte di Debba, Italy, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, as the Vicenza area was hit with more than 4 inches of rain. Defense Department schools at U.S. military bases in Vicenza were closed Wednesday as a result of the storm. (U.S. Army Garrison Italy) AVIANO, Italy A storm Wednesday that dumped more than 4 inches of rain on Vicenza prompted cancellation of activities at all Defense Department schools at U.S. military installations in the city. There was no rain-related damage or flooding on Caserma Ederle or Caserma Del Din, but floodwaters in the city were causing road closures and traffic delays, U.S. Army Garrison Italy said in a statement. As a result, workers at base facilities, including the health clinic, commissary, post office and vehicle registration had difficulty getting to work. That affected the level of service at those places Wednesday, according to the Army statement. Vicenza base schools will remain shuttered Thursday, as officials decided to extend the closure. That applies to the youth programs SKIES, CYS and CDC/SAC. In addition, the Vicenza exchange and commissary will shorten their open hours Thursday, operating from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Also, the health and dental clinics are rescheduling Thursday appointments set for before 10 a.m. Appointments at or after 10 a.m. will happen as scheduled. The decision to close all three of the on-base schools came shortly after local authorities announced the shutdown of Italian schools Wednesday, garrison spokesman Rick Scavetta said. The garrison commander and DODEA officials agreed to close schools for safety purposes, Scavetta said. An update on what day school will reopen was expected later Wednesday. A street in Ponte di Debba, Italy, is saturated Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024, after 4 inches of rain fell on the Vicenza area. American military bases in Vicenza saw school closures and service disruptions Wednesday following the flooding. (U.S. Army Garrison Italy) Classes were canceled at schools in Vicenza, Longare, Grumolo delle Abbadesse, Nanto, Castegnero, Torri di Quartesolo, Quinto Vicentino, Montegalda, Montegaldella and Arcugnano. Another half-inch of rain was forecast through late Wednesday, according to the 7th Combat Weather Squadron at Caserma Del Din. The storms were expected to ease Thursday, but forecasts called for up to another inch of rain throughout Friday. Meanwhile, DODEA schools in Aviano and at the Navys installation in Naples remained open Wednesday. A thunderstorm warning was issued Wednesday for the areas of Camp Darby and Naval Support Activity Naples, but no decisions about delays or closures for Thursday had been announced as of late Wednesday afternoon. Flooding in February was almost unheard-of in Italy 20 years ago, but climate change is making heavy rains in the wintertime less rare, meteorologist Marco Rabito told the newspaper Il Giornale di Vicenza. Stars and Stripes reporter Alison Bath contributed to this report. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) shakes hands with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson during a joint press conference after a bilateral meeting in Budapest, Hungary on Feb. 23, 2024. (Photo by Attila Volgyi/Xinhua) Sweden's NATO membership means the abandonment of its historical policy of non-alignment and neutrality. Analysts argue that NATO's continued enlargement will reshape European security dynamics and potentially strain Russia's geopolitical position. BRUSSELS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Hungarian parliament's green light on Sweden's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) cleared the final stronghold in the military bloc's comprehensive expansion in the northern direction. However, concerns have been raised that Sweden's accession could lead to regional instability. Sweden actively pursued membership to ensure a collective defense strategy, following in the footsteps of Finland, which joined NATO in April last year. Nevertheless, analysts have warned that Sweden, once a non-aligned Nordic country, may now face increased risks of being drawn into conflicts. PROTRACTED ACCESSION PROCESS Following the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis in February 2022, both Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding military non-alignment policy and applied for NATO membership. All member nations were required to approve the applications. The national flag of Finland flies after a ceremony for Finland's accession to NATO at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, April 4, 2023. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong) Finland completed the accession process in April 2023. However, after Turkiye approved Sweden's membership in January, Hungary continued to oppose it until Monday. Highlighting longstanding tensions with Sweden, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs had emphasized the need for collaboration to bridge differences. Meanwhile, the United States and NATO allies have been putting pressure on Hungary to expedite Sweden's accession. Last week, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited Budapest, culminating in a bilateral agreement involving the purchase of Swedish fighter jets by Hungary. BLOC CONFRONTATION CONCERNS Sweden's NATO membership means the abandonment of its historical policy of non-alignment and neutrality. Analysts argue that NATO's continued enlargement will reshape European security dynamics, and potentially strain Russia's geopolitical position. Nicholas Lokker and Heli Hautala from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) expressed concerns that Moscow may perceive NATO's expansion as a threat, leading to short and long-term challenges. This photo taken on Oct. 11, 2023 shows the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. (Xinhua/Zhao Dingzhe) Russian Defense Ministry publications warn of the security implications of NATO troops and equipment on Finnish and Swedish territory. Last year, Sweden and the United States strengthened their defense cooperation, granting access to military bases. Coupled with recent U.S. agreements with Finland, these moves deprived the two countries of the status of buffer zones between the NATO alliance and Russia. Jan Oberg, director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, said that Sweden's decision to join NATO may compromise the security of local citizens. Finland and Sweden, "instead of keeping out of war, being a potential mediator and supporting disarmament and de-nuclearization, will be frontline states drawn into a crisis/tension situation much more easily and early than otherwise," Oberg said in a recent interview with Xinhua. REGIONAL INSECURITY NATO's continued expansion, particularly with the inclusion of Sweden and Finland, intensifies tensions with Russia in the Nordic region, analysts stressed. People take part in a protest against Sweden hosting a large international military exercise and the country striving to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Stockholm, Sweden, on April 22, 2023. (Photo by Patrick Ekstrand/Xinhua) Lokker and Hautala highlighted that Russia's border with NATO will extend from the Arctic Ocean to the Baltic Sea, which "will permanently alter the European security architecture and erode Russia's geopolitical position." In May 2022, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Sweden's NATO membership could damage the security of Northern Europe. NATO military exercises across the European continent one after another near Russian territory in recent years have significantly disturbed Moscow. Earlier this year before Sweden's entry, NATO kicked off a massive four-month-long military exercise, Steadfast Defender 2024. The alliance's largest military exercise in decades, including about 90,000 troops from 31 member states and Sweden, quickly drew criticism from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko, who called it a return to Cold War-era tactics. The German navy frigate Hessen sails in waters off the East Coast of the U.S. in 2018. Hessen repelled two Houthi aerial drone attacks in the Red Sea on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, the German Defense Ministry posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. (Jule Peltzer/German armed forces) The recent downing of attack drones by a German ship in the Middle East likely marks the first known use of live weapons in combat by the countrys navy since it was rebuilt after World War II, a German expert on maritime security said Wednesday. On Tuesday, the frigate Hessen repelled two separate aerial drone attacks in the Red Sea, the German Joint Forces Operations Command said in a post the same day on its X account. At 8:09 p.m., the ship used a 76 mm onboard gun to shoot down an Iranian-backed Houthi aerial drone flying toward it, the German news website Der Spiegel reported Wednesday. Minutes later, Hessens radar picked up a second drone, which was shot down by its close-in defense system, according to the Der Spiegel report. That response is significant, said Sebastian Bruns, a senior researcher for Kiel Universitys Center for Maritime Strategy and Security. I would even go so far (as) to say that it will go down in German naval history as the first shots fired in anger by one of our frigates since the modern German navy was founded in 1956, Bruns said. Hessen entered the Red Sea on Friday as part of the European Unions Aspides mission to protect shipping in the vital waterway. The mission, which includes France, Greece and Italy, will coordinate with the U.S.-led Operation Prosperity Guardian, providing needed additional help against the Houthis. On Tuesday, U.S. forces and a coalition warship shot down five Houthi one-way attack drones between 9:50 p.m. and 10:55 p.m., Sanaa time, U.S. Central Command said in a statement the same day. The statement did not name the warship, but CENTCOM typically defers to the involved country to publicly identify itself. Hessens participation in the EU mission is noteworthy, given that the German navy generally has been tasked with counterpiracy, antiterrorism, mine clearance and other low- to medium-intensity operations since 1991, Bruns said. German participation in the mission follows a 2022 push by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to invest 100 billion euros in technology, equipment and personnel for the countrys defense. At the same time, Scholz pledged to meet a key defense spending guideline used to gauge the resolve of allied countries in supporting collective NATO defense, though that goal has stalled. What the Hessen has been authorized to do is thus very significant, not just for Germany and the EU but also for showing that zeitenwende, (a turning point) is really here, Bruns said. On Saturday, U.S. and U.K. forces carried out counterstrikes on Houthi military operations that destroyed or damaged 17 targets at eight sites in Yemen. Since Jan. 11, coalition and U.S. strikes have degraded or destroyed more than 150 missiles and launchers, including anti-ship land attack and surface-to-air missiles, Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. Coastal radar, air surveillance, communication systems, rotary wing aircraft and underground ammunition storage facilities are among other capabilities knocked down, he said. But Houthi militants have continued their attacks, with some success in recent weeks. On Tuesday, a rocket fired off the coast of Yemen exploded off the side of an unidentified ship traveling though the sea, The Associated Press reported Wednesday. The crew and vessel were reported safe. That followed a Feb. 20 strike by a Houthi-launched ballistic missile on a cargo ship carrying fertilizer. The attack badly damaged the vessel. As of Friday, the abandoned ship was taking on water, prompting U.S. officials to warn of an impending environmental disaster, The New York Times reported the same day. The Houthis have said they will continue their attacks on Israeli-affiliated ships in the Red Sea until there is a cease-fire in Gaza. U.S. officials have said the attacks have targeted ships with no apparent connection to Israel. A U.S. fighter prepares to take off from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower on Jan. 12, 2024, to conduct strikes against sites used by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. (Zachary Elmore/U.S. Navy) WASHINGTON Several senators on Tuesday said the White House must seek congressional approval for ongoing U.S. airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, dismissing claims by the Pentagon that its actions are properly authorized. Senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said the military operations that began in January to protect shipping in the Red Sea from attacks by the Iran-backed militants are now beyond President Joe Bidens limited war powers. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the chairman of the committees Middle East subpanel, said he will be discussing legislation in the coming days to provide congressional authorization. This looks to me like war in every bit of the constitutional sense: We have engaged in multiple rounds of strikes, we have a limited number of boots on the ground, we have taken casualties, we have prisoners, Murphy said. Im having a hard time understanding why this does not require a traditional congressional war authorization. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., chairman of the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., agreed. The White House has characterized the strikes as self-defense and said President Joe Biden is within the legal scope of his authorities as commander in chief. Only Congress can authorize war under the Constitution but the White House has the right to launch limited foreign military action. Daniel Shapiro, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, said Tuesday during the Senate hearing that the Pentagon feels very strongly that Biden is carrying out the Yemen campaign with proper authorities. He also said the constitutional power granted to Biden to act in self-defense also applies to U.S. partners. Senators were not convinced. Self-defense means you can defend U.S. personnel, you can defend U.S. military assets, you probably can defend U.S. commercial ships, said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. If youre defending the commercial ships of other nations, it is in my view, laughable to call that self-defense. Murphy said the extension of the self-defense authority to the protection of partners was a very troubling and creative interpretation of the Constitution. The U.S. plays a leading role in a coalition of more than 20 countries assembled in December to patrol the Red Sea and safeguard commercial shipping after the Houthis began attacking vessels transiting the key shipping route in the Middle East in November. Strikes led by the U.S. and the United Kingdom have so far hit more than 230 targets in Yemen, likely destroying hundreds of Houthi weapons, according to Shapiro. The most recent strike on Saturday targeted underground weapons storage facilities, drones, air defense systems, radars and a helicopter, he said. But the air campaign has failed to deter the Houthis, who have said they will keep up their attacks as long as Israel continues its war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Shapiro and some senators on Tuesday doubted the Houthis were acting out of solidarity for the Palestinians in Gaza, noting most of the attacked ships have no connection to Israel. Others were not so certain. Isnt it a fact that the Houthi attacks on shipping went down significantly during the period of the humanitarian pause in November? Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., asked about a brief cease-fire in Gaza. Shapiro acknowledged a decline in attacks during that time but said there have been spikes and valleys in Houthi activity so I dont know to what we can attribute that. The hearing Tuesday was interrupted several times by protestors calling for another cease-fire in Gaza. Several activists held up hands covered in red paint. Israels war with Hamas following the Oct. 7 rampage in Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage has inflamed tensions in the Middle East and intensified threats to U.S. service members. Three soldiers were killed and dozens more were injured last month in an Iran-linked drone strike in Jordan. Two Navy SEALs died in rough waters off the coast of Somalia in January during a mission to intercept Iranian-made weapons being shipped to Yemen. Shapiro said the Pentagon hoped to restore stability and deescalate tensions in the region very soon but would keep hitting the Houthis until the militants stop their attacks in the Red Sea. We clearly have not seen that yet, he said. We have to make very clear to them and of course to Iran, their supporters and sponsors, that this must end and well continue to take action until it comes to an end. Vietnam veteran Thomas Dunne died Feb. 23, 2024, nearly a month after St. Paul police say a 17-year-old severely injured him with a punch to the face at a park in St. Paul, Minn. Dunne served in the Marine Corps, National Guard, Army Reserve, and retired with the rank of command sergeant major. (ohalloranmurphy.com/obituary/Thomas-Dunne) (Tribune News Service) Thomas Dunne, who fought two tours in Vietnam as a Marine and went on to serve in the Minnesota National Guard and the Wisconsin Army Reserves, died Friday at Regions Hospital, nearly a month after St. Paul police say a 17-year-old severely injured him with a punch to the face at Harriet Island Regional Park. Dunne, 76, and his wife, Helen Broderick, had finished a walk before 5 p.m. Jan. 28. Hed put his walker in his car, and saw a male urinating. He pulled out his phone to try to catch the act. That didnt go over well with three teens. One of them threw and landed a punch, knocking Dunne to the ground, according to a Jan. 30 juvenile petition charging the Rosemount teen with first-degree assault causing great bodily harm. At Regions Hospital, Dunne had emergency surgery for traumatic damage to his right eye. He had several fractures to both his eye socket and nose. He left Regions the next day and had follow-up visits with an eye doctor and at the VA Hospital in Minneapolis, his wife said this week. He came down with a high fever on Feb. 4 and was taken by ambulance back to Regions, where he was bouncing from progressive to ICU, she said. He went unresponsive at one point, and they had to intubate him. He died just after midnight Friday. St. Paul police spokesman Sgt. Mike Ernster said Tuesday the Ramsey County medical examiners office is working to determine Dunnes cause and manner of death. A spokesman for the Ramsey County attorneys office said any new evidence presented by police will be reviewed and considered for additional charges. Dunne was a hero, his wife said. For a hero like him to come home to his local park after being at risk in foreign wars, she said, and to be assaulted like that Park visitor saw the punch Officers were called to the 100 block of Water Street after Broderick reported her husband was punched in the face. Officers found him standing next to his car with blood streaming from his right eye socket. St. Paul fire medics were called to the scene. He told officers that after he saw a male urinating and took out his phone to take a picture, two other males got out of a blue Ford Fusion. They approached him and tried to take his phone. One of them punched him in the face. A witness told police she was getting out of her car and saw a male urinating in the pond. She said three males then confronted Dunne and that one of them slapped the phone out of his hand and punched him approximately two times in the face. She said she yelled at them before they walked away, headed east. Officers saw three males walking east along the river and asked if they were involved in a fight. One of them spoke up and said, Yeah, that was me, the petition says. He declined to give a formal statement. One teen told police they confronted Dunne because they believed he was recording them and that he should have minded his business. The other teen said he couldnt find a public bathroom and began urinating in the pond. The other teens walked over and one indicated that (Dunne) was recording or taking a picture of him, the petition says. (He) then approached (Dunne) and said, Lets get to it, before punching (him). Hospital staff told the police investigator that Dunnes eye injury was very severe and that he may permanently lose most of his vision in that eye, and it would be months before they could tell if there was any improvement. Born in Ireland Born in Clonaslee, Ireland, Dunne emigrated to the U.S. at age 2 with his parents and his younger sister. They ended up on Chicagos far southeast side, where growing up he delivered Chicago Tribune newspapers and graduated from George Washington High School. He then enlisted in the Marines Corps and served two tours in Vietnam as an infantryman. He was a staff sergeant when he got discharged in 1972. Dunne moved to St. Paul in 1975. He met Broderick the next year in Ireland and they married five years later. He re-entered the military in 1984 as a Minnesota National Guardsman, drilling once a month and going away for two weeks every summer, according to a biography he wrote and submitted to Twin Cities PBS online project, mnvietnam.org, which records local vets stories. Dunne was recalled to active duty when Desert Storm began in 1991. He later transferred to the U.S. Army Reserve and had assignments in Somalia, Haiti and northern Iraq, where he helped coordinate and implement the evacuation of Kurds. In 2002, Dunne became the command sergeant major of a Wisconsin Army Reserve battalion that sent most of its troops to war after 9/11, he wrote. It was difficult for me as a Vietnam vet to do this as I was very much aware what they were heading into; it would have been much easier to go than stay, he wrote. Friend and fellow Vietnam vet Tom Storey said this week that Dunne was an excellent writer who always had a real sympathy for the victims of war, the civilians. Some of his writing brings tears to your eyes. Friend Vernon Hall first met Dunne in the early 1990s through the Vietnam Veterans of America, St. Paul Chapter 320. I cant think of another person in the world who was more patriotic to this country than him, Hall said. Residents of the downtown St. Paul condominium building where Dunne lived with Broderick hosted a small memorial gathering Monday night. He loved St. Paul, his wife said. Funeral services for Dunne, who also worked for Ramsey County Public Works for over two decades and retired in 2010, will be held at noon Tuesday, March 5. A visitation will be at the OHalloran and Murphy Funeral Home location in St. Paul, followed by a burial at Fort Snelling. 2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at twincities.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. PARIS/LONDON/VIENNA/ROMA/BRATISLAVA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Many European countries on Tuesday ruled out the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine, after Monday's meeting in Paris during which French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that European nations might do so. "Boots on the ground is not an option for Germany," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told a press conference after meeting with his Austrian counterpart Klaudia Tanner in Vienna on Tuesday. Tanner also called Macron's remarks "a worrying signal." "It is clear: there will be no ground troops from European countries or NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a tweet on X Tuesday. Prime ministers of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries also confirmed on Tuesday that they are not planning to send troops to Ukraine. Czech's Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Poland's Donald Tusk, Slovakia's Robert Fico and Hungary's Viktor Orban made the statement after a V4 leaders meeting in Bratislava. Despite their agreement on Ukraine's need for help, they are willing to offer assistance in different forms, Fiala said. He said the Czech Republic and Poland are providing military aid to Ukraine, while Hungary and Slovakia are willing to offer humanitarian and financial aid. Fico and Orban also called for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks to solve the Ukraine crisis. Britain, Spain and Italy also rejected the idea of sending troops on the ground in Ukraine. Britain has no plans for "a large-scale deployment" of troops to Ukraine beyond a small number of personnel already in Ukraine helping to train the country's forces, a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday. "The Conference... provided an opportunity to reaffirm Italy's full commitment to supporting Ukraine in its fight to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity," the Italian government said. "This support does not provide for the presence of troops from European or NATO countries on Ukraine territory." Two years after the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, around 20 European leaders met on Monday at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris, France, to reaffirm their solidarity and support for Ukraine. The leaders agreed on new initiatives including network defense, and joint production of weapons in Ukraine. Macron said after the meeting that although no consensus was reached to send ground troops to Ukraine, "nothing can be ruled out." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that his country had received only 30 percent of the 1 million shells promised by the European Union last year, while Kyiv troops are struggling on the front lines as they are short of ammunition. Following Macron's comments, Russia has warned a direct conflict between NATO and Russia would be inevitable, if the alliance sent troops in Ukraine. The court heard Dione Pereira Dos Santos admitted, they were for his own personal use. A butcher stopped at Dublin Airport arrivals with more than 8,500 cigarettes in his luggage has been spared jail. Dione Pereira Dos Santos (36) of Lourdes Road, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, was fined 2,500 by Judge Anthony Halpin at Dublin District Court today. Dos Santos pleaded guilty to an offence under the Finance Act for evading duty after Revenue officers examined his luggage on May 18 last year. Judge Halpin heard Dos Santos had been travelling from Brazil, but Revenue officers X-rayed his baggage and found he had 8,540 of various brands of cigarettes. The court heard he admitted, they were for his own personal use. Pleading for leniency, defence barrister Matthew Holmes said his client, a married father of one, supported his family in Brazil, and his wife was ill. The DPP directed the case to go to the Circuit Court, which has broader sentencing powers if he contested the case. When dealt with at the District Court level, the offences can result in a 5,000 fine and a 12-month sentence. Noting the guilty plea, Judge Halpin reduced the fine to 2,500, which must be paid within a year. He also made a forfeiture order for the seized cigarettes. Alan Ward (56) had denied murdering Catherine Doyle, arguing that his responsibility was diminished due to a mental disorder brought on by a stroke he suffered A domestic abuser who stabbed his wife to death has launched a bid to overturn his conviction, arguing that his history of violence should not have been referenced by a prosecution psychiatrist when giving evidence over the defence of diminished responsibility. Alan Ward stabbed his wife Catherine Doyle to death at their home at Greenfort Drive, Clondalkin, Dublin 22, on March 1, 2019. Ward (56) had denied murdering his 41-year-old wife, arguing that his responsibility was diminished due to a mental disorder brought on by a stroke he suffered two years earlier. At the Court of Appeal, Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC, for Ward, said the nub of the issue was that at the trial the consultant psychiatrist called by the State offered expert opinion evidence that referenced Wards history of violence in commenting on the "ultimate issue" of diminished responsibility. Counsel submitted that the prosecutions expert psychiatrist at the trial, Dr Damian Smith, was of the opinion that, having regard to the background circumstances, in particular the history of violence and abuse, alcohol intoxication was the more likely cause of the appellants behaviour in killing the deceased, rather the effects of a mental disorder. During the trial, Dr Smith said he was not satisfied that the brain injury caused by a stroke in 2017 was sufficient to diminish Ward's responsibility, although he said the final decision was a matter for the jury. Catherine Doyle The defence had called consultant psychiatrist Dr Paul OConnell who said a combination of brain damage and PTSD were present in Ward but that this was complicated by alcohol misuse. Giving evidence at the trial, Dr O'Connell said it was up to the jury to decide if Ward should be found to have diminished responsibility due to his mental disorder and he therefore would not offer his own opinion. Counsel submitted that Dr Smith had been permitted to give evidence on the ultimate issue, despite objection from the defence at the trial. It was submitted that this involved the psychiatrist giving opinion evidence to the effect that the defence of diminished responsibility did not apply and by implication, the appellant should be found guilty of murder. Mr O Lideadha said Dr Smith should not have been permitted to offer opinion evidence on the ultimate issue in a case where a diminished responsibility defence was being run. Counsel submitted that this opinion was a matter for the jury to determine, since it was necessary to balance all the evidence and circumstances, including factors which were not within the psychiatrists sphere of expertise for example, the history of violence in the relationship. Mr O Lideadha said the defences consultant psychiatrist was correct to say there was a mental disorder but that he would not give an opinion on the ultimate issue of diminished responsibility. Bernard Condon SC, for the State, said there was no prohibition on expert witnesses such as consultant psychiatrists giving evidence on diminished responsibility. Expert assistance may be needed for the proper approach, provided the expert is not made into the thirteenth juror, said Mr Condon. Mr Condon said that in Ward's trial both experts concurred on both the defendants mental illness and the effects of intoxication and said the jury would benefit from those opinions and both experts are saying this is indeed a matter for the jury. Mr Condon added that the trial judge also decided that the jury would benefit from expert testimony by the consultant psychiatrists regarding the interaction between intoxication and mental illness and again, told them [the jury] it was a matter for them. This man beat up his wife in 2002 and then beat her up and killed her in 2022. Dr Smith said he [Ward] had a stroke in 2017. The ABI [Acquired Brain Injury] comes after that 2002 assault. The appellant badly beat up wife before he had a stroke, said Mr Condon. Regarding the defence of diminished responsibility, Mr Condon said: You have to actually see how the mental illness affects the actions. The door has to be opened to the entire background of a person. The jury has to understand the interplay of all these facts. Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said the three-judge court would reserve judgement in the matter. Thomas 'Tom' Carroll (66) was charged with the fatal shooting A FORMER Defence Forces soldier has been charged with the murder of Kerry grandfather and gun dealer Patrick 'Paddy' O'Mahony (83). Thomas 'Tom' Carroll (66) was charged with the fatal shooting of the grandfather and father-of-five at his home outside Castlemaine in Kerry last Sunday. The defendant - who has an address at Brookway, Clonmel, Co Tipperary - appeared before Judge John King at Tralee District Court. Carroll was arrested by Gardai for questioning on Monday and detained under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2007. Det Sgt Mark O'Sullivan gave the court evidence of arrest, caution and charge. Patrick 'Paddy' O'Mahony was found dead at his home in Kerry last Sunday. Carroll was formally charged at 11.11am on Wednesday. The detective told the court that Carroll was charged with the murder of Mr O'Mahony at Castlemaine, Co Kerry on Saturday, February 24 contrary to Common Law. When formally charged, the defendant made no reply to Gardai. As the charge involved is murder, bail cannot be dealt with by the district court and must be applied for to the High Court. Sgt Chris Manton applied to the court for the defendant to be remanded in custody to appear again via video-link before Tralee District Court on Wednesday next, March 6. Defence solicitor, Pat Mann, submitted a statement of means on behalf of his client and applied for free legal aid. Judge King granted free legal aid. Mr Mann also asked that the court direct the Prison Service to make available all medicines as required by his client. The solicitor pointed out that Gardai were made aware of the various prescription medicines that Carroll required on a daily basis. Judge King said the prison authorities would be duly notified. Carroll appeared in court wearing a grey shirt, grey jumper and dark blue slacks. He did not speak during the brief hearing. Mr O'Mahony was a grandfather and father-of-five as well as one of Ireland's highest profile firearms dealers. He suffered a single gunshot wound to his lower back. It is understood that he died at the scene from severe internal bleeding as a consequence of the wound. The weapon used is believed to have been either a rifle or pistol. A full post mortem examination was conducted at University Hospital Kerry (UHK) last Monday by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster. Gardai have not released the findings of the post mortem examination for operational reasons. However, it is understood a bullet was recovered and is now being examined to determine its calibre. Garda ballistic experts are also examining a number of firearms in a bid to match the weapon to the bullet and confirm the precise gun used to shoot Mr O'Mahony. Kerry Gardai have set up an incident room in Tralee as part of their investigation into the fatal shooting. A Senior Investigating officer (SIO) has been appointed to the case while a Garda Family Liaison Officer (FLO) is also liaising with the O'Mahony family. Accused Thomas Carroll being brought into the courthouse in Tralee in connection with Paddy OMahonys death Mr O'Mahony - a founding member of An Riocht Gun Club - was discovered lying on the ground near the backdoor of his Castlemaine home on Sunday morning. The 83 year old was a former member of the Defence Forces. His wife, Elisabeth 'Lillie', died last November. He was one of the most respected figures within Ireland's hunting and shooting sector. As well as being an experienced gunsmith, he was also a well-known firearms dealer and collector. Immediately after Mr O'Mahony's death, Gardai searched his property given that he had numerous powerful weapons in his care. These were found in locked and armoured gun safes with a number of high-powered weapons located in a specially built concrete bunker. It is understood that no weapons were either missing or unaccounted for. The death of the retired businessman shocked the tightknit Castlemaine community. Parish Moderator Fr Danny Broderick said the news had "a terrible impact" on the area. "This is a gentle, quiet community of lovely, decent people," he said. "So to hear something like this is going to create awful vibrations all over the place. To die of natural causes in old age or through sickness is one thing but for this to happen is terrible." "All we can do is our best to support the family, be with them and stay with them. I know they will have wonderful friends and neighbours supporting them today." Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae was a good friend of Mr O'Mahony and said everyone was deeply upset by the tragedy. "It is very upsetting - he was a lovely, lovely man and he only lost his wife a couple of months ago. It is absolutely devastating for the family and my prayers and sympathies are with them." Councillor Michael O'Shea said everyone locally was reeling from the tragedy. Everybody knew the family. They are a lovely family, an extremely hard-working family, a family that are involved in a lot of social and community events, and everybody at this given time supports them and wants to give them every assistance they can, Councillor OShea said. Thomas Carroll was charged with the murder of Patrick O'Mahony in Tralee Court today. Photo: Domnick Walsh. Mr O'Mahony founded An Riocht gun club with a linked shooting range located six kilometres from Castlemaine. Over 100 hunting and shooting enthusiasts are members of the club. While Mr O'Mahony had effectively retired from the family business over recent years, he remained a keen shooting enthusiast and his expertise was widely sought on weapon repairs and sales. He was one of the best known firearms dealers in the south. The Kerry range boasts two 50m shooting areas and is fully authorised by both the Gardai and the National Association of Regional Game Councils (NARGC). Mr O'Mahony, as well as operating as a firearms dealer, was also a noted weapons collector. His collection included a .22 Colt Pistol; .45 Colt Revolver; .45 Colt 1911 Gold Cup Pistol and a 762 Mauser Pistol, dating back to 1876 and similar to that used by Eamon De Valera. He also had a number of hunting rifles. To secure his weapon collection, Mr O'Mahony had built a special underground concrete bunker and had also installed special armoured weapon storage cabinets. David Hackman (24) pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit a serious offence, namely the possession of a firearm A Wicklow man who is not a potential killer or hitman has been jailed for his role in a conspiracy to purchase a firearm. David Hackman (24) pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit a serious offence, namely the possession of a firearm in suspicious circumstances contrary to section 27a of the Firearms Act on dates between March 31, 2019 and May 28, 2019. The offence carries a maximum sentence of 14 years. Imposing a four and a half year sentence, Judge Martin Nolan said on Tuesday the courts are always hopeful of rehabilitation but, this man must suffer a term of imprisonment. The court heard that gardai received information about the handover of a firearm and on May 28, 2019, they observed a silver Ford Focus parked near a Spar in Waterville, Dublin 15. Hackman was a passenger in the car, which contained three other occupants, including his mother. They all appeared nervous and told gardai they were going for a spin. A search was carried out and Hackman was found to be wearing a bulletproof vest. The car's occupants were taken to Blanchardstown Garda Station. Hackman's mother handed over 4,000 in cash, which she said she was carrying for her son. She had six mobile phones in her possession, which were seized along with three phones found on Hackman. Gardai also searched a nearby wooded area and found a 9mm firearm concealed near a tree trunk and a pair of orange latex gloves. When the phones were analysed, gardai found evidence of conversations between Hackman and his mother about the purchase of a gun between March and May 2019. There were further messages, including a conversation on May 27, 2019 in which Hackman's mother asked what called and how much. Hackman replied with the type of gun and four, which the investigating garda said referred to the 4,000 cash recovered. Hackman was later arrested and interviewed four times. Both sides of the transaction were identified and prosecuted, the court heard. A co-accused was previously handed a seven year sentence for possession of the firearm and other offences. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that while Hackman entered a guilty plea on a trial date, this was indicated in advance. Hackman's mother was also charged, but in light of his guilty plea, the case against her is not going ahead. Hackman of Kilgarron Park, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow has a number of previous convictions including for assault and possession of drugs. The court heard that the Director of Public Prosecutions' view is that this offence falls within the mid range for sentencing of seven to 10 years. Defence counsel said his client was 21 at the time and had addiction issues. Hackman had a drugs debt and as a result, was placed under an obligation to be the receiver for this piece of equipment, counsel said. He suggested his client was someone in fear who was stepping into new territory when Judge Nolan asked why Hackman was wearing a bulletproof vest. Hackman comes from a difficult background and was unable to sit his Leaving Certificate following an accident where he was knocked off a scooter, the court heard. Defence counsel said his instructions are that this accident involved people putting him under pressure due to his drugs debt. His client had been involved in low level offending but was going into territory he knew nothing about. This was to be a step up for him. What is tragic about this case is that his mother was involved to some degree, defence counsel said, adding while he had no instructions about her level of knowledge, she didn't appear to be someone bringing a positive influence to his client's life. He said his client was putting on the hard man, but was in reality a young fella who had already been threatened. Hackman has engaged with supports to deal with his addiction and has the opportunity of employment following his release from custody. A number of letters were handed to the court. Defence counsel noted Hackman was assessed as being at a high risk of re-offending, but said there are positive influences in his life, including his partner. He asked the court for as much leniency as possible for his client, who was out of his depth and trying to protect himself, not a potential killer or hitman. Judge Nolan noted that Hackman's mother was let out of the case after her son's guilty plea. He said Hackman has a considerable number of previous convictions, including for drugs offences but they are minor enough in seriousness. Setting a headline sentence of eight years, the judge said the mitigation included Hackman's guilty plea and his youth. Judge Nolan rejected an application by the defence to impose a post-release condition that Hackman attend a drugs treatment programme with Tiglin. If he can't change his life by spending four and a half years in prison, then Tiglin can't help him much, the judge said. Eddie Hutch Jr (47) was remanded on continuing bail for DPP directions when he appeared in Dublin District Court. Prosecutors have been given more time to prepare their case against a nephew of Gerry "The Monk" Hutch accused of breaking into his neighbours' house and assaulting them. Eddie Hutch Jr (47) was remanded on continuing bail for DPP directions when he appeared in Dublin District Court. Mr Hutch, of Portland Place, is charged with burglary, assaulting two men and criminal damage to a front door at a next door neighbours house on January 24 He is further charged with trespass in a manner likely to cause fear at the same address on January 25. He was granted bail last month when he was first brought before the court on the charges. At his latest appearance, Judge Cephas Power was told an investigation file was being completed and gardai were seeking an adjournment. Judge Power put the case back to a date in April. Defence solicitor Yvonne Bambury consented to the adjournment. Previously, the court heard in the first incident, the accused allegedly forced the front door, entered the property and assaulted two men. He then went to the kitchen and smashed a glass bowl on the ground, Garda Sarah Stewart said during the contested bail hearing. Mr Hutch was removed by the owner and had left when the gardai arrived, she said. The next day, it was alleged, he attempted to enter the property again without permission, putting the occupants in fear. Eddie Hutch Senior He was pushed out the door, was still at the scene when the gardai arrived and was arrested. Ms Bambury said Mr Hutch had lived next door to the same neighbours for years and there had never been any difficulties before. The accuseds mother passed away last year and his father was murdered in 2017, she said. Bail was set at 100 with no cash required. Under conditions, Mr Hutch must sign on daily at Mountjoy garda station, keep a curfew between 10pm and 8am and have no contact, directly or indirectly, with the alleged victims. Mr Hutch, who has not yet entered pleas to any of the charges, was granted free legal aid after the court heard he was not working. His father Eddie Hutch Snr (59) was murdered at his home on February 8, 2016, three days after the Regency Hotel shooting. His mother Jane Hutch (66) was found dead from a suspected heart attack at the family home in January this year, with no foul play detected. Alice Graham (33) attempted to bring cocaine and cannabis into HMP Wealstun in a Lucozade bottle on May 26, 2021, after forming a close relationship with a prisoner. A probation worker has been jailed for three years after attempting to smuggle more than 8,000 worth of drugs and phones into a UK prison. Alice Graham (33) attempted to bring cocaine and cannabis into HMP Wealstun in a Lucozade bottle on May 26, 2021, after forming a close relationship with a prisoner. She had qualified as a probation worker at the Category C men's prison just seven months earlier in 2020. Prosecutor Jonathan Sharp said Graham was assigned a caseload of prisoners to manage in her role and grew close to one convict in particular who was a member of an organised crime gang. She even researched hotels in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, ahead of his expected release to a bail hostel although she maintained that this was on behalf of his girlfriend. A court heard that Grahams relationship with the inmate was very much on equal terms with no hint of grooming, pressure or intimidation. Some further light may be shed by comments she had made to a colleague who recalled the defendant describing staff having relationships with serving prisoners and asking about the rules and she wouldn't be against having one and expressing sadness that one of them was shortly leaving, having been given a Category D licence to move to a bail hostel, Sharp said. The Crown say after he asked her to take items into prison for him and she did then, despite rumours circulating around the prison about their relationships. Graham also bought a new mobile phone and gave the prisoner her number. Mr Sharp said that an associate [of the inmate] prepared an empty Lucozade bottle with a list of items to smuggle into the prison. The court heard the forbidden items included MDMA pills, cannabis, cocaine, ketamine, spice, tobacco, cigarette papers, testosterone, steroids, two syringes, a 32gb memory stick, eight SIM cards, and three mobile phones with chargers. The value of the items was estimated to be between 6,415 and 6,695 (7,829). Graham drove to an address to collect the items and phoned the prisoner and told him she got what he wanted. Describing the events on May 26, Mr Sharp said: At around 9am the defendant went into the prison with the bottle and its contents in her jacket pocket. The head of security had decided to have a search of admin staff that day. Staff were taken to a corridor and tablets were set out with a dog handler and drug dog present. She went in and asked what was going on and was told simply a staff search and nothing to be overly concerned about. She made no attempt to reveal the bottle. Her ID was checked and her key chain and she was about to move to the next stage when she tried to leave and said she needed a licence signed and would come back later. She was told she had to remain and was taken to the table. Graham was asked to remove her jacket off but refused to do so before prison staff found prohibited earphones in her back which triggered her into asking to speak to someone. Mr Sharp said: She was taken into an office and she produced the bottle and it was seized. Graham was handed three years in prison at her sentencing on Friday, February 23, with Judge Kate Rayfield telling her she had abused her position as a probation officer. The judge said: He (the convict) was far more experienced in the criminal justice system than you. The relationship crossed acceptable professional boundaries. You abused the trusted position as a probation officer. Graham told the court how she had become close with the inmate, describing him as very, very engaging, but acknowledged their relationship was a ruse. She also admitted to smuggling the prohibited items into the prison. Mitigating on her behalf, Matthew Harding said Graham was of good character but had little practical experience with people who pose difficulties. She started her role of probation officer during lockdown so for six months was at home without a caseload and wasn't getting valuable experience or going face-to-face with people in a custodial setting, he said. The reality was that when she started she had very little - if any - practical experience with people who pose difficulties for those even with experience. You know from the pre-sentence report she accepts and indicates she is very, very sorry for what she did. The court heard Moise Muhula came to Ireland from the Congo as a refugee. He has limited English and is living in a hostel A man who stabbed his former partner in the shoulder a number of times after a dispute about dinner has been jailed for 21 months. Moise Muhula (54) with an address at St Mary's Place, Dublin 1, pleaded guilty to assault causing harm at an address in west Dublin on December 22, 2017. He has no previous convictions. An investigating garda told Diana Stuart BL, prosecuting, yesterday that the injured party was in a relationship with Muhula at the time. He came to her home at 7.30pm on the day in question. Muhula asked her about dinner and she told him to go home if he wanted dinner. He became aggressive and started shouting. He got a knife from the kitchen and went into the sitting room, where she was watching TV. He told her you will see now before saying he would kill her and go to prison for you. He then stabbed the victim at least three times in the shoulder and punched her several times. He took her upstairs, where she went to the bathroom as there was a lot of blood. Muhula went downstairs and a few minutes later, the victim came downstairs. The front door was open and Muhula was sitting in her car, the keys having gone missing from the house. He got of the car and walked away. Muhula was later arrested, but nothing of evidential value was obtained. A medical report was handed to the court. The victim was treated for four wounds to her shoulder and a head injury. A local garda said the guilty plea was of relief to her. A victim impact statement was handed in, but not read aloud. The garda agreed with Kate Egan BL, defending, that his client has not come to negative attention since this incident. He accepted that this appeared to have been a once-off, horrible incident between the parties. Ms Egan told the court her client came to Ireland from the Congo as a refugee. He has limited English and is living in a hostel. She said her client had indicated a history of depression, mental health issues and substance abuse but the defence was unable to obtain documents in relation to this. Ms Egan said her client instructs there was a misunderstanding and he lost his temper as he believed his then-partner was having an affair. He is extremely apologetic. Judge Martin Nolan said Muhula stabbed the victim, beat her and pulled her around the house following what was a dispute at least in the eyes of the defendant. He said the use of a knife and the relationship between the parties were aggravating factors. Judge Nolan noted the mitigation included the guilty plea, Muhula's lack of previous convictions, personal traumas, and the passage of time since this incident occurred. He imposed a sentence of 21 months. Sarah McCabe (21), who had been out celebrating with friends, became extremely aggressive and struck the garda. Sarah McCabe was not in a good place emotionally at the time A student punched a garda in the face and screamed abuse at him when he found her drunk and slumped against a wall on a Dublin street. Sarah McCabe (21), who had been out celebrating with friends, became extremely aggressive and struck the garda, who was seriously affected by the assault. Judge Monika Leech adjourned the case for a restorative justice assessment. McCabe, of Wolfe Tone Avenue, Dun Laoghaire, pleaded guilty to assaulting a garda, obstruction and public intoxication on October 28, 2023. Dublin District Court heard gardai on patrol at North Great Georges Street at 1.40am saw the accused and other people highly intoxicated and slumped against a wall. McCabe was highly aggressive when spoken to, telling a garda: F**k off, you bastard, we dont need you here. She also screamed in the officers face. When told she would be arrested, McCabe drew her arm back and struck the garda on the left cheek with a fist. She kicked out and screamed expletives as she was restrained and put in handcuffs. McCabe had no previous convictions. Judge Leech said the accused was of very tender years and she was concerned at the level of aggression displayed on the night. She said a victim-impact statement made by the garda makes for very stark and grave reading. This man has been very seriously affected in many different ways, she said. Defence barrister Ciara Murray said: To say shes sincerely sorry for her actions would be an understatement. McCabe, who had experienced significant trauma in her life, was abusing alcohol and emotionally not in a good place at the time, the court heard. On the night, she was out celebrating with her friends and drank far too much alcohol, Ms Murray said. After this very stupid decision, her reaction when approached by the garda was completely wrong. McCabe was not trying to do everything right and had remained sober since the incident, the court heard. BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), a national foreign trade and investment promotion agency, said Wednesday that it stands ready to strengthen communication with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to deepen pragmatic cooperation. At a press conference, CCPIT spokesperson Yang Fan commented on an ongoing visit to China by a delegation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce led by its president and CEO Suzanne P. Clark at the invitation of the CCPIT. "The visit once again shows that the U.S. business community attaches great importance to and continues to pay attention to the Chinese market," Yang said. According to Yang, during the visit, which runs from Feb. 27 to 29, CCPIT Chairman Ren Hongbin held in-depth exchanges with Clark, and shared with the delegation China's policies and measures on promoting high-level opening up and high-quality development, as well as the nation's efforts to create a market-oriented, law-based and first-class business environment. Ren also expressed willingness to strengthen communication with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and further deepen pragmatic cooperation in areas such as organizing exchange visits, holding exhibitions and forums and promoting information sharing to inject stability and positive energy into China-U.S. economic and trade relations. Alan Farrell broke a wooden door in Circle K on OConnell Street and stole a can of Linden Village cider worth 3. A thief broke a door in a shop off its hinges so he could steal a single can of cider, a court has heard. Alan Farrell (36), who had 202 previous convictions, told arresting gardai afterwards he was sorry but he just wanted the can. Judge Monika Leech adjourned the case at Dublin District Court for finalisation later this week. Farrell, of Stay City Apartments, St Augustine Street, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty to theft and criminal damage in the incident on February 24 this year. Garda Sergeant Tony Flanagan told Dublin District Court Farrell broke a wooden door in Circle K on OConnell Street and stole a can of Linden Village cider worth 3. The door was knocked off its hinges and Farrell left the scene. Gardai responded to a panic alarm activation and viewed CCTV footage. When Farrell was arrested a short time later on OConnell Street, he told gardai he was sorry, he just wanted the can. The court heard Farrell had gone into the shop as a customer before carrying out the theft. He also stole 134 worth of alcohol in a city centre Marks & Spencer last November 11. He was arrested for screaming drunken abuse at passers-by on Talbot Street last November 29, when he was surrounded by empty alcohol containers and shouted abuse at gardai while clenching his fists. Brian Lucey (44) had driven to an address where he thought he would be picking up a quantity of cannabis A man has been given a suspended sentence after he was caught with a MAC-10 submachine gun which someone had unexpectedly thrown in his car, a court has heard. Brian Lucey (44) had driven to an address in Donaghmede where he thought he would be picking up a quantity of cannabis weed when someone he didn't know threw the firearm into the footwell of his car. Lucey, with an address at Ballinahinch, Ashford, Co Wicklow, took a trial date but later pleaded guilty to illegally possessing the weapon at the M11 Shankill roundabout on March 7, 2020. He told gardai he panicked and drove off when the gun was flung in his car. At a hearing in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today, Sergeant Brian McDermott said the whole incident was observed by gardai who had mounted an intelligence-led surveillance operation. Sgt McDermott told Garrett McCormack BL, prosecuting, that Lucey was identified travelling in his car with other people on the day in question. The car was seen meeting with another car in Circle K, Shankill and then on to an address in Donaghmede. The gun was put in the car and gardai continued to follow Lucey's car until he pulled in on the M11. When confronted by gardai, Lucey co-operated and made admissions. Gardai found the blowback operated MAC-10 machine pistol uncovered and clearly visible in the passenger footwell. Two co-accused people were also arrested and have been dealt with in the Central and Special Criminal Courts. Lucey has one previous minor road traffic matter and has not come to any adverse garda attention since this firearms offence. Sgt McDermott agreed with Paul Carroll SC, defending, that Lucey had not known about the firearm in advance and had driven to Donaghmede in the expectation of picking up some cannabis, having been told he could keep half the weed himself. Sgt McDermott further agreed that gardai told the co-accused that they used Lucey as a gilly. The sergeant also accepted that Lucey had used cannabis as a source of pain relief after suffering back and spinal injuries in two serious car crashes in 2006 and 2009. Lucey's house was later searched by gardai who found cannabis to the value of 882 there. Mr Carroll said Lucey is still under medical attention for his spinal injuries and has been on disability since his second car crash in 2009. The court heard Lucey rang his contact from his car to say he wasn't happy about the gun and had pulled over in order to dump the gun and get rid of it. Several character references were handed in for Lucey from family members and neighbours confirming that he was not a man of previous criminality. Mr Carroll said Lucey was completely up front with gardai from the start and told them he was terrified when the gun was put in his car. Judge Martin Nolan accepted that Lucey had been completely taken by surprise and placed in an agony of the moment situation. Lucey should have informed the guards immediately, but he didn't. He was in a state of confusion as to what to do. His level of culpability is quite low, said Judge Nolan. Lucey was given a four-year fully-suspended sentence after Judge Nolan said he had certain sympathy for him and that a prison sentence would be very harsh. Kerry grandfather was shot in the back at his home Patrick 'Paddy' O'Mahony was found dead at his home in Kerry last Sunday Garda experts are conducting tests on a number of firearms to determine the weapon used to fatally shoot grandfather and gunsmith Patrick Paddy OMahony (83). Detectives continue to question a man arrested on suspicion of Mr OMahonys murder at his Castlemaine, Co Kerry, home last Sunday. The man, who is in his mid 60s and was known to Mr OMahony, was arrested at lunchtime on Monday at an address in Kerry. He is not from Kerry. He has an avid interest in firearms and was described by one source as an experienced marksman. Mr OMahony was a grandfather and father of five, as well as one of Irelands highest-profile firearms dealers. He suffered a single gunshot wound to his back. The weapon used is believed to have been either a rifle or pistol. Ballistics experts are now examining several firearms in a bid to match the weapon to a bullet recovered during Mondays post-mortem examination to confirm the precise gun used to shoot Mr OMahony. One theory being considered by detectives is that the shooting may have followed a dispute between the suspect and Mr OMahony. Gardai are trying to confirm Mr OMahonys last known movements as there were indications he had been out socialising on Saturday. Mr OMahony, who was a founding member of An Riocht Gun Club, was discovered lying on the ground near the back door of his home on Sunday morning. He was found by a hunting enthusiast who had travelled to Kerry to use the An Riocht range and called to the property to chat with Mr OMahony. Mr OMahony was a former member of the Defence Forces. His wife, Elisabeth Lillie, died last November. He was a respected figure within Irelands hunting and shooting sector. As well as being an experienced gunsmith, he was also a well-known firearms dealer and collector. After Mr OMahonys death, gardai searched his property given that he had numerous powerful weapons in his care. These were found in locked and armoured gun safes, with a number of high-powered weapons located in a specially built concrete bunker. It is understood no weapons were missing or unaccounted for. The death of the retired businessman shocked the tight-knit Castlemaine community. Parish moderator Fr Danny Broderick said the news had a terrible impact on the area. To die of natural causes in old age or through sickness is one thing but for this to happen is terrible, he said. Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae, who was a good friend of Mr OMahony, said everyone was deeply upset. It is very upsetting he was a lovely, lovely man and he only lost his wife a couple of months ago. It is absolutely devastating for the family and my prayers and sympathies are with them, Mr Healy-Rae said. Councillor Michael OShea said everyone locally was reeling from the tragedy. Everybody knew the family. They are a lovely family, an extremely hard-working family, a family that are involved in a lot of social and community events, and everybody at this given time supports them and wants to give them every assistance they can, he said. More than 100 hunting and shooting enthusiasts are members of An Riocht gun club. While Mr OMahony had effectively retired from the family business over recent years, he remained a keen shooting enthusiast and his expertise was widely sought on weapon repairs and sales. The man, who was wearing a long black coat, spent several minutes walking around the grounds with the knife clearly visible Man with knife at ATU, Sligo. Still taken from video posted on social media. A man who was brandishing a knife and engaging in threatening behaviour at ATU Sligo has been arrested. Gardai rushed to the campus at about 2.15pm following reports that a man was wielding a long bladed knife at the college off Ash Lane, Sligo. The man, who was wearing a long black coat, spent several minutes walking around the grounds with the knife clearly visible which he raised on several occasions. It is understood no one was injured. Gardai arrested the man, believed to be in his 50s. He was taken to Sligo garda station where he remains in custody. ATU, Sligo The Garda Press Office in a statement said: Gardai responded to reports of a disturbance at approximately 2pm this afternoon in Ballytivnan, Co.Sligo on Tuesday, 27th February 2024. A man was arrested by gardai following the incident. No injuries were reported. ATU Sligo in a statement said: Today, Atlantic Technological University (ATU) experienced a concerning incident on our Sligo campus grounds. A member of the public gained unauthorised access and threatened students. Thankfully, due to the swift response of our security team and the prompt intervention of the Gardai, the situation was brought under control without any injuries. "We want to thank our security team, students, and staff for their quick response to this incident. "The Gardai responded promptly to the situation and have taken the suspect into custody at Sligo Garda station. We are cooperating fully with the authorities, and urge anyone with relevant video footage to assist the Gardai by sending it directly to 085 870 2510 and avoiding sharing it on social media. "As an institution, we take the safety and well-being of our students and staff very seriously. We are actively working to review and strengthen our security measures to prevent such incidents in the future. "For anyone affected by this incident, support is available through our student services. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you need assistance or someone to talk to. You can contact Student Support at 071 9305463 or text "Crisis" for 24/7 support by texting "ATU" to 50808. I grew up going in and out of the hospital for epilepsy. I never thought that doing anything where youd have ever changing lights and all the rest would be possible. When the musical version of Disneys Aladdin comes to the Bord Gais Energy Theatre in March, the Genie is the first person the crowd will meet. The man beneath the glitter is Yeukayi Ushe, but there was a time he thought hed never see his name in lights. Namely because they were the very thing he thought he had to avoid. I grew up going in and out of the hospital for epilepsy. I never thought that doing anything where youd have ever changing lights and all the rest would be possible. I had photosensitive epilepsy, so looking back at that little version of myself, he would probably be like, Im sorry, youre doing what with your life?, he tells sundayworld.com from his dressing room on tour. Thankfully, he stopped having seizures in his teens, which meant stepping on stage could become a reality. The Genie is not his first iconic role, having played Simba in The Lion King on Londons West End. Yeukayi Ushe The Genies are undoubtedly big slippers to fill, but hes up for the challenge. There is an excitement that overrides that expectation of people knowing and loving these characters. "As long as you lead with truth and with joy in both of those spaces, you can sort of do no wrong by telling the story as best as you can tell it, and by the end of the show, you know, audiences are up on their feet, having a wonderful time, he says. But despite all that experience, the buzz of a live show is not one that loses its novelty. I remember the first time I stepped onto a stage and saw thousands of people in front of me; stage fright is real. "Sometimes it can be a bit crippling, but you also need to realise that the audience is completely on your side because theyve come there to have a good time. So as long as youre having a good time, the audience will have a good time, he smiles. The crowd wont be the only ones enjoying themselves, since Yeukayi and his castmates are excited to explore Dublin, the city theyll call home for a month in the spring. His last visit was in 2019, which, as we all know, was a different time entirely. To come back five years later, and see the ways in which the city has changed and visit my favourite little spots, that aspect of touring really, really appeals to me. Theres just always something happening in Dublin, he says. I dont want to talk too much about Temple Bar obviously, he adds with a laugh, but says that brunch and a trip to the ocean will be the first ports of call. I mean, to be honest, Im really looking forward to being at that theatre. Its one of the most high-tech theatres, probably, across Ireland and the UK so Im really looking forward to being back there. As we speak, the vanitys lights are reflecting off the tiny flecks of glitter on Yeukayis face, despite not yet being in costume. As we know from arts and crafts when we were children, glitter never leaves your body. It never leaves your clothes. I probably still have glitter on me from when I played Lola in Kinky Boots, he smiles. Getting into costume and makeup can take hours, but that isnt the only thing that helps actors get into character. Theres something really transformative about Alan Menkens score, as soon as that music starts, you just get put into a completely different zone. The curtain raises and its just me, and were in Agrabah. I love it, Yeukayi gushes. Its that love that keeps the actor focused and happy while away from home in the UK for months at a time. I grew up watching Robin Williams [as Genie] in the 1992 animated film and being so inspired by it. But I never thought that I would one day play the Genie and be playing where hes played, he admits. To make it my own, its like a dream I never knew I had that has come true its so much fun. Aladdin will be in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre in Dublin from March 20 to April 14 2024. Tickets available at bordgaisenergytheatre.ie The High Court has heard Burke is still on administrative leave and being paid, despite not working for the past year and a half Enoch Burke, who was returned to Mountjoy Prison this week after refusing to comply with a permanent injunction granted to Wilsons Hospital School last July Sacked schoolteacher Enoch Burke has been paid around 72,000 by the Department of Education since being suspended in August 2022. The High Court has heard Burke is still on administrative leave and being paid, despite not working for the past year and a half, during which time he has spent 281 days in prison for contempt of court. He is still in receipt of his salary while appealing against the decision by the board of management of Wilsons Hospital School to dismiss him in January last year. The appeal hearing has been delayed as a result of Burkes unsuccessful legal challenge to the composition of the appeals panel, and it remains unclear when it will take place. The fact Burke remains on the payroll emerged during a hearing where the court reviewed his ongoing detention for contempt of court over repeated breaches of an order restraining him from the premises of the Co Westmeath school. The teacher of history and German, who comes from a well-known family of evangelical Christians, came into conflict with school management in 2022 when he publicly challenged, on religious grounds, a request that staff call a transgender student by a new name and they/them pronouns. Burke previously refused to divulge his salary in court proceedings linked to his dispute with the school, but lawyers for its board of management last year estimated it was in the region of 48,000 a year before tax. Mr Justice Mark Sanfey said the current position was extremely unsatisfactory. It is a situation where appropriately under the rules which govern the dismissal process, Mr Burke is being paid his salary, the judge said. But there is also a situation where the State is incurring the costs of his imprisonment. The average cost of a prison space is around 84,000 a year. The judge also said Burke had not yet paid costs orders against him arising from various legal hearings and had not paid fines imposed last year by another High Court judge, Mr Justice Brian OMoore. Mr Justice Sanfey returned Burke to Mountjoy Prison yesterday after the teacher refused to give an undertaking to comply with a permanent injunction granted to the school last July by Mr Justice Alexander Owens. But there are signs the court may consider options other than imprisonment when Burkes incarceration is again reviewed on March 22. Under Irelands civil contempt regime, three options are open to the court to coerce an individual to comply with a court order. These are imprisonment, imposing fines and the sequestration of assets. Mr Justice OMoore previously released Burke from prison shortly before Christmas in 2022 and later imposed fines of 700 a day on him. Around 23,800 in fines were crystallised by the court last March. Mr Justice Sanfey said it appeared Mr Justice OMoore had been inviting an application from the board of management for the sequestration of Burkes assets. However, the board did not make any such application at the time. Mr Justice Sanfey said he wanted to have evidence before him at the next review hearing in relation to the extent to which alternatives to imprisonment have been approached by the school or what consideration there has been to pursuing those options. The apparent search for another solution to deter Burke from going to the school in defiance of a court order comes after he again steadfastly refused to give an undertaking to comply. It was the third such review hearing since Burkes most recent period of incarceration began on September 8 last year. He has spent 173 days in prison since then. The teacher previously spent 108 days in prison in 2022, also for contempt of court. During that period he also rejected several opportunities to purge his contempt. Extending Burkes incarceration yesterday, Mr Justice Sanfey said he was doing so with regret as the teachers attitude had left the court with very little option. As has been his practice in previous review hearings, Burke used his court time to air grievances with the board of management, a report by a former principal that led to his suspension, and rulings made by other judges. Burke described the urgings of Mr Justice Sanfey that he abide by the court order as an evil request. He also accused other judges of telling lies. The teacher claimed the judges request for submissions from the board on alternatives to imprisonment was making a mockery of him and submissions he had made. I am begging the court to wash its hands of it today and to acknowledge the truth, he said. Mr Justice Sanfey repeatedly told Burke he, the judge, was not a court of appeal and not there to review rulings made by other judges. The only function I have here today is to assess your disobedience in relation to the order of Mr Justice Owens, he said. At one stage, the judge warned the teacher: You have accused people of lying. You have accused my stance of being evil. Watch your language, Mr Burke. Burkes parents Sean and Martina and siblings, Ammi and Isaac, stood outside the courtroom during the hearing. They were excluded by order of the judge following a series of previous incidents in which they disrupted proceedings. Emergency services were alerted to the scene but he was pronounced dead a short time later Gardai have launched an investigation into the death of a man at a house in Dublin which is being treated as suspicious. The body of the male, aged in his 60s, was discovered at the property in the Herberton Park area of Rialto at around 3pm. Emergency services were alerted to the scene but he was pronounced dead a short time later. Gardai are investigating all the circumstances surrounding the mans death, including whether he died violently. The property has been sealed-off to facilitate a forensic examination while the Office of the State Pathologist has also been notified. Investigators will await the results of the post mortem examination to determine the course of their inquiry. No arrests have yet been made and gardai at Kevin Street are appealing for anyone with information to contact them. A garda spokesman told The Irish Independent: Gardai are investigating all of the circumstances surrounding the discovery of a mans body in Dublin 8 on Tuesday afternoon, 27th February 2024. Gardai were called to a residence near Herberton Park earlier this afternoon, where the body of a man in his 60s was discovered. He was pronounced deceased at the scene. Currently, the scene is preserved for examination by local scenes of crime officers. Both the State Pathologist and local Coroner have been notified. The results of a post-mortem examination will guide the direction of the Garda investigation. No further information is available at this time, the spokesperson said. There had been a huge outpouring of sadness at news of the death of the mother-of-one Funeral details have been announced for Ann Delaney who died after living homeless on the streets of Dublin. The 47-year-old, who was originally from Crettyard, Co Laois, died in St Jamess Hospital on Sunday after sleeping rough for seven years. Her remains will repose at R Healy and Son Funeral Home in Pollerton Castle, Carlow on Wednesday evening from 4pm and concluding with rosary at 8pm. Following that, her funeral mass will take place at St Abban's Church in Doonane Laois at midday on Thursday with burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. There has been a huge outpouring of sadness at news of the death of the mother-of-one, with numerous tributes left to her on the condolences page of her RIP.ie notice. So sorry for what has happened, one person wrote. Thinking of you all at this difficult time. So sorry to hear of Anns passing, another added. A young life taken too soon. Thinking of all the Delaney family and all your friends. Youll be missed by all that knew you. Rest in Peace. One person said they could not believe it yesterday when I read about your passing. Cannot describe the shock this has caused so many. Absolutely loved working with you. You were always ready to selflessly listen to others. Your wit was quick and laugh infectious. You made a night shift a pleasant experience. Cant believe your beautiful soul left this earth alone with no one holding your hand. May you rest in eternal peace my beautiful pal xxx. Ann was a well-known and popular member of the city centre homeless community who slept most nights on Aungier Street. Several hundred people later gathered to pay their respects at a vigil held on the street where those remembering Ann released balloons in her honour. It is understood Ms Delaney had been sleeping rough for over seven years and frequented the Aungier Street and Rathmines areas of Dublin. As news of her death spread on social media, many laid flowers and candles at the spot where she used to sleep. Its understood Ms Delaney regularly declined offers of assistance and had chosen not to take refuge in night shelters as she felt unsafe. A woman who worked with Ms Delaney in the past told the Irish Independent that she came from a loving family who had tried many times in the past to help her. She had very complex psychiatric difficulties and this spiralled into addiction. She really was a lovely woman. Members of Liberty Soup Run said they were heartbroken and angry after hearing of Ms Delaneys death, adding that she will be missed so much. In a statement, spokesperson Chris OReilly said the sad news had come as a surprise. She was alive early on Sunday but then she suddenly became unresponsive. We dont know her cause of death, whether the dropping temperatures might have been a factor or not, he said. Paramedics were called but unfortunately Ann passed away. "We are heartbroken and lost for words; another homeless person died on our streets and its just so wrong. Mr OReilly said Ann was a lovely lady who was well liked but had fallen on tough times. She had a family and a life and she just fell on hard times, he said. We want to send our love to all of her family. She will be missed but she is at peace now. We still can't believe that this lady has passed away. Social media was flooded with tributes to the former nurse remembered for her kindness and her brilliant, mischievous sense of humour. Author and Historian Aaron Henderson wrote of his sadness at her passing on X. She was an intelligent, creative person. She once wrote my wife a lovely, Beatnik-style poem. She loved puzzles and craic. Indeed she would often try and give us food too. She was lovely, ultra-generous, and undeniably charismatic, he said. Shirley ORourke posted, So many people had a lot of affection for Ann and cared about her welfare. Her legacy is that so many people will be incredibly sad to hear this news today. Many commentators on X, spoke of their positive encounters with Ms Delaney including those who work directly with the homeless community. Her death notice describes her as a "beloved daughter" who will be "sadly missed by her loving daughter". Paying tribute to Mr Kenny, his family said he would forever remain in our hearts The funeral arrangements for an Irishman who lost his life in a car accident in England have been announced. Jonathan Kenny (46) passed away at the scene of the collision on the A10 Buntingford Bypass at around 6.35am on Saturday, February 10. Mr Kenny who lived in Cambridgeshire was originally from Cluain Airne, Shannon, Co Clare. Police have confirmed that a man, aged in his 50s, was arrested on suspicion of drink driving and causing death by dangerous driving. Paying tribute to Mr Kenny, his family said he would "forever remain in our hearts". Jonathan was a great man with an amazing heart, who influenced many that encountered him," read a statement released by Hertfordshire Constabulary. One fellow work colleague said: I worked with Jon for the last few months. He hadn't been with our company long but he certainly made his mark. We will all miss his sense of humour and his smile. He was a gentle giant with a heart of gold. Sending you all our love at this very sad time. While the chief superintendent of the Limerick Garda Division wrote: My sincere sympathies to Jeffrey and the Kenny family on the tragic loss of Jonathan. Mr Kenny will be reposing at McMahons Funeral Home, Ballycasey, Shannon, Co Clare this Friday, March 1, from 5.30pm to 7pm followed by removal to Mary Immaculate Church, Shannon. His funeral will take place this Saturday, March 2, at midday in Mary Immaculate Church, Shannon, followed by a cremation service in Shannon Crematorium at 2pm. He is survived by his heartbroken parents, Denis and Ann, Shannonvale, Old Cratloe Road, Limerick, his siblings Donough, Shane, Ryan, Jeffrey, Frank and Carol, his partner Deanna. NEW DELHI, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Indian Navy Wednesday said in coordination with the country's Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) it has seized around 3,300 kg of drugs and apprehended five men from a boat off the Gujarat coast. According to the Navy, this is the biggest such drug seizure in recently. "Indian Navy in coordinated operations with NCB, apprehended a suspicious dhow carrying almost 3,300 kg contraband," a spokesperson of the Indian Navy said. "This seizure of drugs is by far the largest in terms of quantity," said the spokesperson. The spokesperson said the coordinated response of the Indian Navy with law enforcement agencies is reflective of their resolute stance against narcotics trafficking in India's maritime neighbourhood. The Dubliner appeared on series 8 of the reality dating show. The Dubliner, who appeared on series 8 of the reality dating show, took to social media to share the devastating news as he paid tribute to his late father Babijide. In the emotional post, Dami opened up about the painful reality he has been living in. He wrote: Theres pain in my heart as I write this. Took me a while to actually say it out loud to the point at times I didnt even know what to say. Nothing feels real, I keep praying Im just in a fever dream and everything will be as it once was when I wake up. But I keep waking up to the same painful reality. Ive lost my father. Hes no longer here anymore and it kills me inside. I would have done anything to have been able to keep him here! My dad was really HIM. Paved the way for all of us, my siblings and I. Hes taught me countless things that stand testament in my character today. The first person that taught me how to be selfless unconditionally and unwaveringly. I learned how to laugh because of him. He really was the first person to ever make laugh on this green earth, memories that bear so much weight at my core. Man Im in pain, people dont tell you about the trauma death brings, you steel yourself but ultimately you still break down over and over again and tbh so be it. Continuing, the 27-year-old wrote: Memories with people really ought to be cherished more, especially with loved ones. I want to honour him with my tears, my pain, my laughter, and my joy because these are things that are deserving of the pillar he was in our lives. I pray that Gods calling for you, was to show you even greener pastures unimaginable here on earth. I pray youre at peace knowing I will do everything in my power to uplift your name. I pray I live a life deserving of your respect and one you could be proud of. I pray you know no more sorrow or suffering and only joy. I will miss you every day for the rest of my life dad. Thank you for always being someone to look up to. Even in death, I will still look up to you. Im happy I was by your side till the bitter end, I hope every word I spoke to you reached you. I love you dad and even though Im my moms twin Im most definitely my fathers son. Heres to celebrating your life dad. Babajide, who was originally from Nigeria and lived in New Ross, Co Wexford, previously spoke to the Sunday World while his son was in the Love Island villa. At the time, he spoke about how his son would be a perfect dad as he used to thrive when he was younger looking after his kid siblings. Hes used to it, because when he was growing up in the house he used to babysit and change nappies with the younger ones, he said. When the youngest, Amanda, was very small and he was about 10-years old he used to always love carrying her around and being protective of her. He always helps and protects the younger ones, in everything they do. Semi-automatics could make a return to gun ranges with New Zealand's firearms laws in for a major shake-up this term. National and ACT agreed to rewrite the Arms Act - in place since the early 1980s - as part of its coalition arrangement. Everything is on the table, including changing the existing licensing regime and re-introducing the military-style weapons used in the 15 March terror attacks. "It means starting from scratch," associate justice minister Nicole McKee tells RNZ. "There's nothing set in stone as we advance this process. The reason why the 1983 Act lasted so long is because there was genuine and good consultation." The Arms Act 1983 has been home to New Zealand's gun laws for the past four decades and has had many iterations. Nicole says she wanted to change the current licensing system to a graduated system to "enhance public safety". "Ensuring licensed firearms owners are fit and proper through a graduated system of licensing where people earn trust over time, and a licensing agency carrying out a range of checks, is the sensible way of ensuring public safety." Also on the table is allowing competitive shooters to use semi-automatics for sport. The only current exemptions are pest control and (disabled) collector's items. "Over 5000 people, deemed to have a proper purpose, already have a licence for centre-fire semi-automatic firearms. Under the rewrite of the Arms Act, a person would still need a legitimate reason to have a centre-fire semi-automatic firearm," Nicole says. "Meanwhile, higher security and storage requirement would be required and large capacity magazines would continue to be unavailable to those without the proper, vetted endorsement." Lawmakers near-unanimously supported an amendment to ban semi-automatics after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. It was these restrictions that propelled Nicole into politics and she was now spearheading the complete rewrite of our gun laws. "I'm hoping that we can find a middle ground where we ensure we have good public safety but we also stop treating licensed firearms owners like they're nothing more than common criminals." Nicole wants to roll back what she described as "rushed" and "knee-jerk" legislation so regulations were less onerous on firearms owners. "Gun ownership is a normal way of life. Now, everyone thinks that it's used just as a weapon, rather than as a sporting tool or a way to put food on the table," she says. "It's going to be hard to have this conversation because people already have misconceived preconceptions about firearms but [the conversation] does need to start." 'Firearms are no safer than they were before' Maysoon Salama - whose son was murdered in the terror attacks - says relaxing gun laws was a step backwards. "After the 15th of March..we really needed to feel safe and for this not to happen again, to anyone. Just last week there was another threat to the two mosques. "If they change the regulations, what's going to happen? We still have many people out there who are still full of hatred, Islamophobia and discrimination against minorities." Maysoon says she did not want to see any changes to New Zealand's gun restrictions on behalf of a small group of people who wanted to use high-powered guns for sport. "They can still enjoy their hobby but there is no need for semi-automatic firearms because they mean more situations, these kinds of terrorism acts." A scientific review of 130 studies in 10 countries showed relaxing firearms restrictions typically led to increased gun deaths. Acting Superintendant Michael McIlraith demonstrates in April 2020 how semi-automatic weapons can be illegally modified. Lawmakers near-unanimously supported an amendment to ban semi-automatics after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Photo: RNZ /Ana Tovey. Acting Superintendant Michael McIlraith demonstrates in April 2020 how semi-automatic weapons can be illegally modified. Lawmakers near-unanimously supported an amendment to ban semi-automatics after the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Photo: RNZ /Ana Tovey. Across the Tasman, Australia has had no mass shootings since banning semi-automatics after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996. Aliya Danzeisen from the Islamic Women's Council says New Zealand was "far safer" with less semi-automatics. "If you think about what the Christchurch terrorist did five years ago, he did that in about 17 minutes. He reached two locations, was able to kill 51 people, bullet wound more than 40 and then impact all those who were present for the rest of their lives. "Firearms are no safer than they were before. The community is not any calmer than it was in 2019. Nothing has changed. So there isn't demonstrated evidence that there is a benefit for this for New Zealand." Little appetite for changing gun laws Most people RNZ reporters spoke to in Auckland and Christchurch were opposed to relaxing New Zealand's gun laws. "Guns kill. They should just be taken out all together," one man says. "No. I think putting guns into the hands of young people...there are a lot of mental health issues these days. I think it could be disastrous to be honest," a woman added. "We don't need semi automatic weapons here. You want to go hunting? Use a hunting rifle. There's no need for a semi automatics; we're not America," a man says. Some were open to making changes, including allowing competitive shooters access to semi-automatics for sport. "I think for someone who is competing, or something real professional, I think that's fine," a woman says. "I grew up on a farm and people are responsible, usually. I feel like the mosque shooter was from Australia. He came here and took advantage of a loophole and I don't think it's fair that everyone in New Zealand has to pay for that," another woman says. Nicole says it was likely wholesale firearms reform will be introduced to Parliament before the end of the year. - RNZ/ Anneke Smith Western Bay of Plenty District Council is responding to a high priority roading maintenance request following a member of the community making the council aware of an issue in a rather "potty" way. In a creative and colourful initiative community members near the Te Puna roundabout have taken matters into their own hands, transforming unsightly potholes into vibrant displays of nature. Instead of waiting for official repairs, and wanting to highlight the issue, these residents have planted flower plants into potholes in the lane area between Te Puna Road and State Highway 2, near the BP Truckstop, petrol station and Te Puna Four Square. Te Puna BP Truckstop next to the Te Puna intersection, SH2. Photo: Google Maps. "We were made aware of these potholes at the end of last week, when we were contacted by a concerned member of public," says Western Bay of Plenty District Council Transportation Area Engineer Ashley Hall. "The site was inspected and the repair work was added to our maintenance schedule, with high priority." Flower plants planted into potholes near the Te Puna roundabout. Photo: Supplied. Ashley says they expect the holes to be infilled this week. "With high demands on our contracted inspectors, maintenance work like this sometimes gets missed, so we are grateful when people let us know about these issues as they occur." Ashley says if anyone has any concerns regarding road maintenance, please contact Council as soon as the issue becomes apparent, so it can be assessed and repair work scheduled as resources become available. You can do this via the Antenno app, or contact the council team on 0800 926 732. "Planting potholes is a creative, but not very practical or safe solution," says Ashley. "Personally, I would recommend hydrangeas, as they are a colourful and durable choice during the hotter weather - but only for your own personal driveway." Flower plants planted into potholes near the Te Puna roundabout. Photo: Supplied. Pauanui is set to host the New Zealand Women's Surf Festival presented by Sun Bum and VW this weekend (2-3 March) attracting New Zealands top talent mixed with first time participants and those returning to events. While our top female surfers, Paige Hareb (Tara), Olympic qualifier Saffi Vette (Gis) and Pia Rogers (WGM) battle away at the ISA World Surfing Games in Puerto Rico, New Zealand based females will relish the chance to take part in an all-female event. The event forms part of the NZ Surf Series, NZ Grom Series and NZ Longboard Series and is being held in conjunction with the Aotearoa Women's Surfing Association who will be supporting all participants during the weekend, especially those new to national events. While the New Zealand Womens Surf Festival presented by Sun Bum and VW brings together our top females, the event caters for young and old from all over country encouraging fun, participation, inspiration, and development. Divisions for the event include under 14 girls, 16 girls, 18 girls, open women, over 30s women and womens longboard. Travelling from far and wide, surfers taking part including ex New Zealand representatives Natasha Gouldsbury (Tara), Brie Bennett (Rag), Grace Spiers (WGM), Liv Haysom (Piha) and Georgia Wederell (Mount) along with New Zealand Junior representatives Leia Millar (Piha), Alani Morse (Rag) and Lola Groube (Pau). With points towards the NZ Surf Series on the line this division will be one to watch and fiercely competitive. Participants in the junior divisions are fresh off several events completed this summer on the NZ Grom Series. In the 16 and 18 divisions the competition will be as fierce as ever with the two local surfers Chloe and Lola Groube taking on a talent laden field inlcuding Alani Morse, Kyra Wallis (Piha), Ariana Walker (Mnt), under 18 Girls National Champion Lea Millar (Piha) and Indi-Lee Ruddell who is fresh off a win at Piha last weekend. Two ends of the spectrum include the youngest participants in the Under 14 divisions and our senior surfers in the over 30 womens division. For the juniors, Nami Marsden, Ella Withers, Jayda Bramley (Maketu) and Isla McKay (Whangarei) amongst others will be looking to have a fun day out in the water. In contrast, the over 30s division will see a handful of past competitors combining with a number of surf mums that often watch on supporting their children at events, however this weekend they will take to the water in what could be a highlight of the event for many. The event includes and all-in a soft top challenge for everyone to take part in as well as a high-performance expression session for the girls to get creative. On Saturday morning a community surf-specific Pilates and mobility session will be held courtesy of Sun Bum and Flow with Grace. All participants will receive a goody bag thanks to our generous sponsors. On Saturday evening there is a jam-packed schedule of events for all participants and supporters. On completion of the surfing we will be joined by the team from Wozer Skate for an all-girls skate session followed by a screening of the new Kiwi womens surf film Over the Undertow. Over The Undertow follows the journey of four top young female surfers embarking on a surf trip across the North Island while they anecdote and relate over their shared experiences in surfing. Film makers Cassia Walton & Lauren Crerar will be in attendance and will be hosting a Q&A during the screening, this film stars some of Aotearoas top Kiwi surfers including Brie Bennett, Gabi Paul and Liv Haysom. Throughout the weekend Yeti, Poulter Group and Real Coco will be on hand to ensure everyone is hydrated with smoothies and juices. With a forecast of small yet fun waves and light offshore winds for Saturday and Sunday, the stage is set for a fantastic weekend and celebration of female surfing in New Zealand. The draw and full results from the event can be viewed at www.Liveheats.com/SurfingNewZealand. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the Newshub shutdown is shocking and saddening, but the media industry needs to innovate. Owner Warner Brothers Discovery has proposed shutting the news outlet - which began in 1989 as 3 National News - by the end of June, potentially axing hundreds of jobs in the process. "I mean, you've got to continue to innovate like every other business does to try and find innovative business models to make businesses like that stack up," Christopher says. "But the reality is we are seeing that, we have seen what was traditional press outlets now doing video, we've seen a multimedia approach to it. "I mean the reality is that consumers are choosing their news and their media through lots of different channels and lots of different multimedia outlets. "We have a plurality of media voices in New Zealand, that will continue, but I just want to acknowledge - pretty tough day." The closure will leave state-owned TVNZ with the only newsroom broadcasting on free-to-air television. Asked what role politicians undermining trust in the media has played in the decline of the industry, Christopher put the onus back on the media industry. "If there's a trust challenge with the New Zealand public from media outlets, that's a collective decision that they need to make - to ask questions about why aren't they connecting, why aren't they actually being able to build sustainable business models. "There are outlets that are actually working really hard at that and have got different approaches to it, different business models." Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters' most recent post on social media site X (formerly Twitter) was a criticism of the media, quoting former Newshub head Mark Jennings. Challenged again over the matter, specifically over the approach taken by Winston, Christopher says: "No politician will appreciate the media coverage that they get, or the media's appreciation or assessment of them - I get that. "But the media play an important role in our democracy, it's something that should be incredibly well valued. "In the case of the deputy prime minister and many other politicians around this place, they all have public and private views of what the media are... he's completely allowed to express his opinion, he's got long-held views that are well understood and well known." Christopher says it was "highly unlikely" there would be any government intervention in the sector. "Massive change in consumer habits about in how media is being consumed and how news is being undertaken and yet at the same hand you've seen a loss of traditional advertising revenue in the sector as well, and so that requires massive innovation for businesses, media businesses, to reinvent themselves, to innovate, to actually find different ways to be able to get their business models in place. So it's unlikely. "Media players in the marketplace are completely free to innovate as they wish to make sure that they can build a sustainable business model that works for the customers that they serve. there are some media outlets that are doing that and are working incredibly well." He acknowledges that "we need a well functioning media environment here in New Zealand", but says "we have a range of media voices and a plurality of voices... in a multimedia, omni-channel kind of way, and that will continue to develop". "My conversations with Warner Brothers Discovery today, a $20 billion media global company that couldn't find an operational model to make it work for them, says to me that any government intervention they had in that case would not have changed the decision." Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Minister Melissa Lee says she had no concerns about a lack of plurality in the media. "I think journalists actually losing jobs - as a former journalist - I actually feel for them, I just think it's a sad day," Melissa tells reporters as she was heading into the debating chamber on Monday afternoon. "Having says that, plurality is not an issue, because the way that people consume media has actually changed. "We're no longer sitting in front of a television box watching the news at six o'clock. "People are consuming media more on their mobile phones, on their iPads, on digital platforms as well as on their computers, and I think media have actually changed the way they have produced news as well, it is no longer just broadcast." In addition to its 6pm broadcast, Newshub also produced a number of current affairs shows and ran a digital news operation, creating original content in addition to hosting material produced for TV. It also used to run a radio news division. Melissa says she spoke to Newshub boss Glen Kyne about the cuts on Tuesday night. He told her nothing could have helped prevent it, including a faster resolution around the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. "He basically told me about the announcement he was actually making today... he said there was nothing that could have actually helped, it was actually a failure in terms of the way they're advertising for their news, it was actually a massive drop and nothing could have actually helped." 'I didn't expect them to be closing' - Jackson Labour media spokesperson Willie Jackson, who was broadcasting minister in the previous government, says Newshub briefed him about financial difficulties last year - but the closure was a surprise. "They did say things were not going too well, they didn't ask for any assistance in terms of funding but they were pretty clear that things were not too good. I didn't expect them to be closing... or making announcements in terms of closing four, five months later. "We had one initial meeting over the Kordia fees so you'll have to ask them why they didn't pursue it, because I think that what they had put up was reasonable but at the time we didn't go down that track." He says it was a very sad time for the country. "I think it's very very sad, I went down and had a bit of a korero with some of the workers down there wishing them all the best. It was very much a shock for them. "This is some of the things that we talked about when I was minister - that it's a changing world in terms of the media, the pressures on companies are huge. "We have to come up with innovative ways of supporting companies - we came out originally with our idea in terms of the merger, obviously that didn't go to plan but we rolled out other strategies to support different media companies." He questions what the government's strategy now would be. "You've got to ask what the strategy is - I mean it's not easy to support these commercial [companies], all of a sudden come up with the funding for these commercial entities, but it is easy to work with them. "Our industry's been ravaged. You know, I'm a former broadcaster, I've been at the coalface, I've seen it, I've heard it, and over the last 10 or so years half of our broadcasters have lost their jobs, half the journalists have lost their jobs." Labour leader Chris Hipkins says the Newshub closure will not be good for the health of the democratic system. "I think it's a sad day for democracy, so first of all I want to extend my thoughts to everybody who's been affected by that announcement, I know that it will be a really uncertain time for them. "But actually, bigger picture, it's actually a sad day for the democratic process. I think democracy relies on an informed citizenry, being informed relies on debate, and that relies on a diversity of sources and information. "Two TV news networks is relatively modest by international standards and I think going down to one isn't going to be good for the overall health and vitality of our democratic system." Seymour wants 'competitive media market' ACT leader David Seymour also says it was a sad day for New Zealand's democracy, and floated the idea of extracting more money from TVNZ to help level the commercial playing field. "It's a sad day for many employees personally, it's also a sad day for New Zealand's democracy which requires a competitive media market so that people can get a wide range of views about what's happening in their country. "I think there's a question mark around whether the government's ownership of one TV channel and the poor returns it's demanded as a shareholder has actually contributed to an uncompetitive market. As I have some responsibility, I've actually requested some advice about that very issue this morning... it may well mean that they have to make a return on equity just like every other business in New Zealand is required to do. "What is critical is that we have a competitive market where New Zealanders can get a range of different views. I don't think it helps for the government to try and run two TV stations, but it should be ensuring there's a level playing field which - by the way - was work that we had begun weeks before any of this happened." He suggested another commercial operator might step forward "to use that equipment which is still there, and those people which are very valuable". He pointed to the history of the channel as an example of why a plurality of media is important, pointing out New Zealand had just one channel showing news until television was deregulated in the late 1980s. "I think New Zealand was a much darker, drabber place in those days with a lot less debate and frankly a less healthy democracy as a debate. That's why I say having a competitive media market with multiple sources for people to get news from is important, I don't think the government moving further into the market is the solution. The government assessing its role in the market - it might be high time that happens. "The government's not here to prop up any particular medium." Associate Health Minister Casey Costello was warned that scrapping the smokefree law would be viewed as a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. RNZ has obtained Ministry of Health documents sent to Casey, in which health officials say the law she is repealing would have generated health gains for Maori which were five times that of the general population. Health officials also warned the minister that overturning the smokefree law could inflict serious reputational damage on New Zealand. The documents say that under the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act the minister and health agencies must be guided by health sector principles, which include improving health outcomes for Maori. Article 2 of the Treaty guarantees "active protection of taonga, including wellbeing," health officials tell Casey. "The right to be smoke free is entrenched in Te Tiriti o Waitangi," the advice to Casey says. "Removing measures that were modelled to reverse inequity and improve health and wellbeing by changing the broader environment to support people to quit, to stay quit, and to never start to smoke is likely to be viewed as a breach of Te Tiriti." The warning, sent in early December, proved prescient as a group of Maori health experts and advocates filed an application with the Waitangi Tribunal in late January, asking for an urgent hearing of their complaint about the government's plans to repeal the law. The government is pushing on with the repeal anyway, introducing legislation under urgency on Tuesday. It will not be subject to select committee scrutiny, which normally includes hearing submissions from those affected by the law. Overturning the law scraps moves to reduce tobacco retailers from 6000 to 600, remove 95 per cent of the nicotine from cigarettes and create a smokefree generation by banning sales to those born after 2009. RNZ reported yesterday that health officials urged Casey to retain key aspects of the law, which they described as an "endgame" for the tobacco industry in New Zealand. Outsized impact of smokefree laws on Maori In the briefings obtained by RNZ, health officials lay out how Maori will be affected by repealing the law, given the Maori population is younger and has much higher smoking rates than non-Maori. Health officials told Casey that reducing the level of nicotine in cigarettes from about 15 mg/g to 0.8mg/g from April 2025 would almost wipe out smoking for the biggest group of smokers: Maori women. It says that if implemented in 2023 reducing nicotine alone would have reduced daily smoking rates for Maori women from 37 per cent to 10 per cent by 2025 and down to just 1.3 per cent by 2030. The papers show that smoking is the "leading cause of avoidable morbidity and mortality" in New Zealand with 12-13 deaths every day caused by smoking or exposure to second-hand smoke. The policy to create a smokefree generation by banning sales to those born after 2009 was predicted to halve overall smoking rates within 10 to 15 years and be vastly more beneficial for Maori. "Given higher smoking rates and a younger population the health gains per person would be 5 times higher for Maori than non-Maori." The documents say the smokefree laws would have made a big dent in the disparity of health outcomes between Maori and non-Maori. By 2040, it was expected to reduce the gap in mortality rates for over 45-year-olds by 23 per cent for females and nearly 10 per cent for males. In a statement, Casey says she did not agree with the Treaty analysis from health officials. "I do not accept what Health officials have said about our Treaty of Waitangi obligations, but it's not appropriate to talk further about that while a claim is before the [Waitangi] Tribunal." The modelling in the documents was based on 2019/20 data when the smoking rate then was 11.9 per cent and it was now 6.8 per cent, she says. "In the last four years 305,000 people have quit smoking - and importantly, one third have been Maori," she says. "The number of Maori quitting smoking has accelerated in the last three years and we want to ensure there are targeted programmes and the right tools to ensure that continues." Reputational risk to NZ The documents also warn that New Zealand faces reputational damage from repealing the smokefree law. Health officials told the minister that the strategy followed in the smokefree law was ranked highest among 25 other international models, in a peer reviewed study published in the journal Tobacco Control. "There is significant reputational risk with repealing the smokefree amendments and there is very strong support for the legislation within the health sector," Casey was told. "Many countries have looked to New Zealand as a leading example in tobacco control." Officials say the UK would soon introduce a smokefree generation bill that reflects the New Zealand model and America's Food and Drug Administration was looking at low-nicotine requirements. - RNZ/ Guyon Espiner Police are urging users of dating app users to take steps to protect themselves when meeting up with people theyve only spoken to online. "In the Christchurch Youth Court today, five teenagers were sentenced in relation to attacks on several innocent people in the city last year," says detective senior sergeant Damon Wells. "The offenders met their victims through dating apps and attacked them in secluded locations late at night. "While details of the sentencing are subject to Youth Court restrictions, the victims showed incredible courage and that has helped us convict these offenders. "The victims have done nothing wrong. "The offenders made a choice to take advantage of peoples trust and planned these attacks with the intention of hurting people. "While this sentencing brings some closure, it wont undo the mental scars these victims have endured, or the pain theyve gone through. "If youre using an app for dating, tell a close friend if youre meeting someone for the first time where youre going and who youre meeting. "Arrange to catch up in a busy location, and trust yourself; if something doesnt feel right, dont hesitate to take action to keep yourself safe. "The victims of these crimes have gone through an ordeal, but we cant thank them enough for their bravery through this process." Clifford M. "Cliff" Johnson, age 83, of Sidney, NE passed away in Sidney on Sunday, February 18, 2024. Funeral services will be held at 2:00 P.M. on Friday, February 23, 2024 at the Evangelical Free Church in Sidney, NE with Pastors Kyle Larson and Doug Birky officiating. Burial will follow in the Greenwood Cemetery in Sidney. Services will be livestreamed on the Gehrig-Stitt Chapel Facebook page and recorded for later viewing on our website. Friends may stop at the Gehrig-Stitt Chapel on Thursday, February 22, from 1-6:00 P.M. You may view Cliff's Book of Memories, leave condolences, photos and stories at http://www.gehrigstittchapel.com. Gehrig-Stitt Chapel & Cremation Service, LLC is in charge of Cliff's care and funeral arrangements. Clifford Mons Johnson, son of Leslie & Thelma Johnson, was born on March 4, 1940 in Sidney. Cliff spent his early years on his family's farm north of Sunol, NE. He attended and graduated from Dix High School in 1957. After high school, Cliff attended college at Colorado A&M, now Colorado State University, where he received his bachelor's degree in Soil Science in 1963. During his time at university, Cliff was a member of the Farmhouse fraternity, as well as student flight club. He loved to fly and he loved to farm. After college, he returned to his father's farm. While working at Leslie's farm, Cliff also worked for a summer as a plant manager for Royal Chemical. In the years after, Clifford had farms in Potter, NE and then Pine Bluffs, WY. Cliff had many business partnerships and ventures over the years including construction, land management, and residential appraisal. Ultimately, Cliff settled on farming most of his years on the family ground north of Sunol, where he was raised. In 1968, Clifford met the love of his life, Donna. The two were introduced by mutual friends, and were married in August of 1969. They remained married for 46 years until Donna passed away in 2015. The couple had 4 children together, Steven Johnson, Terri Rauscher, Shannon Carver, and Scott Johnson. Clifford and his wife loved Jesus Christ and they loved the church. He and Donna modeled the humility, grace, generosity, and genuine love that Jesus calls all Christians to have. Clifford was preceded in death by his father; Leslie, his mother; Thelma, his wife; Donna, and his sons; Steven and Scott. He is survived by daughter; Shannon Carver and husband Brian Carver, daughter; Terri Rauscher, nephew; Gary Johnson, daughter-in-law; Jennifer Johnson, 9 beloved grandchildren, and many great grandchildren. Eugenio Cabezas Axarquia Wednesday, 28 February 2024, 15:37 | Updated 16:45h. Compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X LinkedIn Telegram There has been a new work-related death in Malaga province. Dominique, a 69-year-old retired man with French nationality, died this Wednesday morning (28 February) after a palm tree fell on him in the Axarquia municipality of Frigiliana in Malaga province, according to the 112 Andalucia emergency services control room. The incident happened in an area known as Camino del Barranco Fernandez, bordering the municipality of Torrox, at around 11.45am, when the victim's wife called the 112 emergency number because her husband was trapped under the tree and unconscious. Firefighters from Malaga's provincial fire brigade rushed to the scene to free the victim, together with Local Police and an 061 health emergency ambulance team, which certified his death on the spot, according to fire brigade sources. The victim's body was transferred to Malaga where the autopsy will be performed, but it is believed the man died from asphyxiation, crushed by the palm tree he was cutting down. Eugenio Cabezas Benajarafe Wednesday, 28 February 2024, 11:59 Compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X LinkedIn Telegram A sea search involving Salvamento Maritimo rescue vessels and aircraft has resumed on the eastern strip of Costa del Sol this Wednesday morning (28 February) after a woman reported her husband missing on Tuesday afternoon when he did not return from a paddle boarding trip. Nicolas Notario was born in Cadiz 53 years ago. His wife is from Cordoba and her name is Laura Garcia. They met in Cordoba but have been living in Marbella for around twenty years. She works as a salesperson and he is a real estate agent. At the beginning of last year they bought an apartment in the Los Laureles de Benajarafe complex, in Velez-Malaga, to spend their holidays. The couple have two children, a 12-year-old girl and a nine year old boy. Nicolas is a great fan of sports, especially swimming and paddle boarding, something he has been practising regularly for more than three years, first in Marbella and since last summer on the beaches of Velez-Malaga. On Tuesday, coinciding with the 'Semana Blanca' holidays, the family was staying at theit flat when, after lunch, at around 3.15pm, Nicolas told them that he was going to go out for a while with his paddle board. "He left with his clothes on, he didn't take his mobile phone, just his keys, swimming costume, T-shirt, some booties and a watch, because I told him to be back before 5pm because we had an appointment with a specialist for our daughter in Rincon de la Victoria", his wife said today, visibly affected. When it reached 5.10pm Laura started to get nervous and sensed that something was wrong. "I looked out onto the beach and saw nothing, there was no one there. The sea was calm but it was quite windy from the west," she said. A few minutes later, when Laura realised that she could not see her husband, she called the 112 Andalucia emergency telephone number. The search operation was quickly activated with rescue vessels and a helicopter, Local Police, Guardia Civil and the National Police all involved. Although the aircraft support was withdrawn late in the afternoon due to the lack of visibility, from early this Wednesday morning the search has been resumed, so far without success. "Be very careful" "I told him, 'be very careful', that it was very windy from the west, and he told me, 'don't worry, I'm not going to stray from the shore'", recalled Laura, who, despite the difficult situation she is going through, said she was "optimistic and strong", adding, "I want to be positive, that we are going to find him. He is strong, he is very sporty, and the National Police told me that as long as the board doesn't turn up we have to be hopeful". "I want to be positive, and that we are going to find him," said Nicolas Notario's wife. Laura's voice cracked when she recalled the case of the two young Argentinians who disappeared last summer when they also went out paddle boarding from La Misericordia beach in Malaga city. "I hope they find him soon, the whole family is very upset," she said. The missing man's wife and two children remain in Benajarafe, where other family relatives from Cadiz, Marbella and Cordoba have arrived to support them at this difficult time. UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- UN humanitarians said Tuesday that the world body's relief chief has allocated 17 million U.S. dollars to help relieve a drought-triggered, worsening hunger situation in northern Ethiopia. The amount released by Undersecretary-General Martin Griffiths from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) reflects the deep concern over the impact of a new El Nino-driven drought that is affecting the Afar, Amhara, and Tigray regions, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). "Food insecurity is only set to increase in the coming months," OCHA said. "As the new drought intensifies, more than 10 million people across Ethiopia are expected to need food assistance during the July to September lean season." The humanitarians said previous droughts and ongoing hostilities continue to impact, with projected flooding bringing further hardship. OCHA underscores that there is a short window of opportunity to avert the worst impacts on communities battered by back-to-back shocks, including the conflict in northern Ethiopia between 2020 and 2022. "It is essential that this latest CERF allocation is followed up by additional funding from donors," the office said. "Thanks to their generosity and efforts to the government of Ethiopia, some 6.6 million people are already being reached with food and cash assistance." However, OCHA said that more resources are urgently needed. In order to sustain and scale up the humanitarian food and non-food response across the country, the humanitarian community and the government of Ethiopia on Monday launched a joint appeal for this year's response, asking for 3.24 billion dollars to address the needs of 15.5 million people in need this year. Irene Quirante Malaga Wednesday, 28 February 2024, 20:38 Compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X LinkedIn Telegram Occupational accidents claimed the lives of 17 people in Malaga province, including the Costa del Sol, last year, according to data from the Department of Employment, Enterprise and Self-Employment of the Junta de Andalucia. This data is never good news, but it is worth noting that the number of fatalities has almost halved compared to the previous year, when 30 fatalities were recorded. Malaga had a particularly black 2022, with the highest number of deaths at work in the last decade. According to the annual reports of the regional ministry of Labour and Social Economy, there had not been so many fatal accidents at work since 2007, when there were 44 accidents resulting in death. Fatal workplace accidents fell by almost half in 2023, although it is worth noting that the year began with alarming figures: 12 of the 17 victims died in incidents in the first four months of the year. According to the data, four workers lost their lives in January, while in February and March there were two more fatalities, followed by another four losses in April. From May onwards, fortunately, the grim figures dipped. The statistics also show that men were once again the most affected by these accidents in Malaga. Of the total number of victims, 16 were men, with one woman. Similarly, most of these incidents occurred during the working day, when the injured parties were at their place of work. In two other cases, the deaths occurred 'in itinere', i.e. during the journey from home to the workplace or vice versa. Tragedies by sector In terms of sectors, it was in the services sector that most tragedies occurred (with nine), followed by construction and, in last place, agriculture. Malaga city recorded the highest number of deaths in the province, with four victims in the first ten months of the year. Tragedy also struck other municipalities in the region, with Antequera, Arriate, Atajate, Benalmadena, Canete La Real, Estepona (with two fatalities), Marbella, Nerja and Velez-Malaga (also with two victims) being the other places where there were fatal accidents. However cold the figures may be when talking about lives, the fact is that in 2023 the trend of recent years was broken; in 2022 there were 30 deaths in the workplace in Malaga. According to sources from the regional ministry of Employment, Enterprise and Self-Employment of the Junta, this is related to the agreement signed in August with the signing of a new Shock Plan against Workplace Accidents, to which 2.2 million euros have been allocated. This received the unanimous backing of the Andalusian Confederation of Employers and the CCOO and UGT trade unions. Trade union sources, however, point rather to "chance" in trying to explain this reduction in fatal accidents at work. The secretary for occupational health at UGT Malaga, Vicente Sandoval, pointed out that, apart from some training courses promoted by the regional administration, the rest of the corrective measures have not yet been implemented. "Obviously we welcome the fact that deaths have been reduced by almost half, but there is still a lot to do and we also note that we are finding it increasingly difficult to be informed of cases as they occur," Sandoval said. Andalucia Malaga continues to rank among the Andalusian provinces with the highest number of accidents at work. In 2023, it was second only to Seville, with 27,818 accidents at work from January to December. In this period, Malaga recorded 22,133 workplace accidents, although most of them were of a minor nature. According to the latest statistics from the regional ministry of Employment, a total of 260 cases were classified as serious. The majority occurred when the victims were at work, with 18,171 accidents (180 were serious). Those recorded 'in itinere' amounted to 3,962 and, although they were also mostly minor accidents, these were higher than those that had occurred at the same time in the previous year. One of them was fatal, while in 2022 there were up to seven fatalities on the outward or return journey to work in the province. In terms of fatal accidents in Andalucia, Malaga is also in second place alongside Cordoba, as both suffered the deaths of 17 workers in 2023. According to trade union sources, these black figures were only surpassed in the region by Seville, with 25 deaths. In Andalucia, 116 people died as a result of accidents at work last year, 32 fewer than in the previous year. Tony Bryant Fuengirola Wednesday, 28 February 2024, 16:35 Compartir Copiar enlace WhatsApp Facebook X LinkedIn Telegram Mayor of Fuengirola Ana Mula has presented a new project under the banner of We are Spain, an initiative that consists of six bronze plaques depicting passages from the country's rich history. The pieces, which have been made by local artists Paco Perez and Charo Garcia, will be installed in the Plaza de Espana. The three by two-metre plaques reflect the first settlers that arrived in the peninsula, the unification of the different kingdoms, the discovery of the New World, the Golden Age, the War of Independence and the contemporary age. Each piece will include a QR code, which, when downloaded to a mobile device, will offer an explanation of what they represent. The cultural project, which Mula said will unite all Spaniards, was launched at the municipal museum on Monday, although the works are in the final stages of preparation and will not be installed in the square until later in the year. These works of art capture the main passages of our outstanding history and the milestones that have made Spain what it is today, the mayor said. Mula, who described the works as spectacular, added that the projects objective is to honour the historical legacy of Spain. Europe is in a growth crisis and in dire need of reforms to boost the industrys competitiveness. Heres how to do it. Industries grow and become successful in well-functioning and open market economies. A level playing field, sound competition, regulatory predictability and a high degree of freedom for businesses constitute necessary building blocks to create such an environment. So does the reliable access to affordable energy. Until now, the EU and its Member States have failed to deliver sufficiently on all these parameters. Some laudable initiatives have been launched in previous years, but none of them sufficient in turning the overall trend of a slowly and steadily declining European industrial competitiveness. The new legislative mandate must be the starting point for a new industrial agenda that delivers concrete and tangible improvements. Europe is lagging behind in the global competition and the EU is in dire need of reforms to improve its business climate. Companies are facing growing compliance costs, mounting reporting requirements and lengthy approval procedures. These factors combined have resulted in a growth-hampering cocktail eroding the industrys competitiveness and undermining the efficiency of other industrial policy actions. This is both an economic problem, since the regulatory burden costs money, and a waste of human resources, since too many employees are tied up with non-productive paperwork. The regulatory burden thus diverts much-needed resources away from productive investments and processes. Limiting this resource diversion must be the main priority in the EUs future industrial policy. The regulatory burden on European business has increased at an alarming rate, while the Single Market is being undermined by an increasingly permissive attitude to distortive state subsidies. In recent years, not only has the amount of state aid increased, the amounts granted also differs significantly between different Member States. State aid is now allowed for both mass production and to match aid offered by third countries, increasing the risk of undue amounts of aid being granted and triggering a state aid race. Not only does this undermine competition and makes the markets less dynamic, but it also erodes the integrity of the Single Market. Despite this, several moves have been made in the past years to weaken the rules on state aid, opening for more public subsidies and political intervention that favours some at the expense of others. This trend is deeply concerning since such measures often favour incumbents and large companies, thereby disfavouring start-ups and scale-ups, and hindering competitive allocation of capital based on merit. In this regard, centralising funding to the EU level is just as bad as a continued distribution of large volumes of subsidies from the national level. Further initiatives in that direction must therefore not be part of a future EU industrial policy, irrespective of how tempting they may seem in the short perspective to inject capital into the market. Targeted public support can sometimes play a catalytic role in cases of market failure, but can never be a general solution to strengthen the economy at large. Furthermore, the EU must avoid contributing to a state aid race where companies play countries off against each other, looking for the one that is willing to spend the most taxpayer money. Such a development would not only be hugely expensive and crowd out important public expenditures, but also erode the crucial dynamics of competition that are necessary for economic development. Also, nothing suggests that the EU, in its current and projected weak economic shape, would come out as the strongest in the end of such a subsidy race. On the contrary, Europe would have lost precious time attacking symptoms rather than the root causes of our competitiveness problem: Market fragmentation, regulatory burden, energy costs, slow permitting procedures and excessive public intervention. In light of the increasingly hostile and challenging security situation globally and in our immediate neighbourhood, effective measures to increase Europes economic security and the resilience of supply chains are warranted. It is however important to recall that protection against security risks is one thing; protection from economic competition is another. While the first is essential, the second is destructive, as it amounts to protectionism that is negative for the long-term business climate in Europe. The most important factor contributing to economic security is economic strength. Therefore, an industrial policy boosting competitiveness remains the best tool to ensure security. Any special instruments restricting the freedom of businesses to trade across borders must be targeted, proportionate and designed in a way that does not undermine the industrys overall economic strength, which would counteract the objective of enhancing security. A future EU industrial policy that improves competitiveness and economic strength should build on these four pillars: The completion of a truly seamless Single Market is the strongest tool to enhance European industrial competitiveness. The economies of scale and benefits to be yielded by going from, in many cases, 27 small national markets to one big of 450 million consumers is immense. Removing existing unmotivated border barriers, regulatory discrepancies and gold-plating practices must be at the centre of the future EU industrial policy. By fully using the size of the Single Market, more EU companies can grow to a scale where they can become globally competitive. is the strongest tool to enhance European industrial competitiveness. The economies of scale and benefits to be yielded by going from, in many cases, 27 small national markets to one big of 450 million consumers is immense. Removing existing unmotivated border barriers, regulatory discrepancies and gold-plating practices must be at the centre of the future EU industrial policy. By fully using the size of the Single Market, more EU companies can grow to a scale where they can become globally competitive. The future EU industrial policy should focus on delivering a concrete and trustworthy plan for how to substantially reduce regulatory burden and shorten permitting procedures . A vague commitment to reduce EU reporting requirements by 25 percent is far from sufficient, since reporting requirements is only a small fraction of the overall administrative burden - and the administrative burden only a small fraction of the total compliance costs. Reducing a small share of a small share will not solve the structural problems our industry is facing. Furthermore, the increasingly complex regulatory landscape of thousands of directives, regulations, implementing and delegated acts, guidelines and national legal acts must be streamlined and significantly simplified. The future EU industrial policy must therefore establish both a bold regulatory reduction target and effective methodologies to deliver on it. . A vague commitment to reduce EU reporting requirements by 25 percent is far from sufficient, since reporting requirements is only a small fraction of the overall administrative burden - and the administrative burden only a small fraction of the total compliance costs. Reducing a small share of a small share will not solve the structural problems our industry is facing. Furthermore, the increasingly complex regulatory landscape of thousands of directives, regulations, implementing and delegated acts, guidelines and national legal acts must be streamlined and significantly simplified. The future EU industrial policy must therefore establish both a bold regulatory reduction target and effective methodologies to deliver on it. The future EU industrial policy must enable energy suppliers to guarantee sufficient supply of round-the-clock accessible fossil-free energy at internationally competitive prices. The Net-Zero Industry Act and the emphasis on shorter permitting procedures is a welcome and necessary first step, and its rapid and effective implementation is crucial. Co-legislators should without further delay agree on a modernised energy taxation directive and other measures to further promote electrification and thereby investment in fossil-free energy production and in energy saving measures. Pushing prices down to a low and stable level is a prerequisite for the return to a favourable industrial investment climate. at internationally competitive prices. The Net-Zero Industry Act and the emphasis on shorter permitting procedures is a welcome and necessary first step, and its rapid and effective implementation is crucial. Co-legislators should without further delay agree on a modernised energy taxation directive and other measures to further promote electrification and thereby investment in fossil-free energy production and in energy saving measures. Pushing prices down to a low and stable level is a prerequisite for the return to a favourable industrial investment climate. The EU must realise that the desire to micromanage companies through ever more complex and detailed legal instruments hurts the industrys competitiveness and adaptability. The EU should pursue its policy objectives by means of goal-oriented legislations that points out a clear sense of direction and abates undesired outcomes, while granting companies the greatest degree of freedom possible to achieve the goals in a way that suits the individual case. The European economy is made up of thousands of sectors and millions of companies all with different means and needs. There is seldom a one-size-fits-all. The start of a new legislative mandate can be a pivotal moment in reshaping the European agenda to focus on competitiveness and put job-creation, growth and prosperity back at the heart of the European project. The European industry is in dire need of a boost, and we need a new industrial policy that is focused, coherent and bold. Like the green deal has had an impact on all policy areas during this mandate, the industrial growth agenda should have during the next. Deepening the Single Market creates economies of scale. Reducing regulatory burden saves money and frees up human resources. Speeding up permitting procedures accelerates return on investment. Ensuring low and predictable energy prices makes industries feel confident to invest. Pursuing goal-oriented policies instead of political micromanaging leaves room for innovation. This is where the future EU industrial policy should focus. Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription. Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service. Li Hongzhong, vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with a delegation of the Cypriot Progressive Party of Working People, led by its general secretary Stefanos Stefanou, in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Li Hongzhong, vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, met with a delegation of the Cypriot Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL), led by its general secretary Stefanos Stefanou, in Beijing on Wednesday. Li, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said that under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, China and Cyprus have continuously deepened political mutual trust, and achieved fruitful results in various fields of practical cooperation. The CPC attaches great importance to friendly relations with the AKEL, and is willing to strengthen exchanges between political parties and legislative bodies to push China-Cyprus strategic partnership to a higher level, Li said. For his part, Stefanou said that the AKEL adheres to the one-China principle, supports key global initiatives proposed by China, and hopes to strengthen exchanges with the CPC to promote the development of Cyprus-China and EU-China relations. Li Hongzhong, vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with a delegation of the Cypriot Progressive Party of Working People, led by its general secretary Stefanos Stefanou, in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) Syracuse, N.Y. The Syracuse Police Department is giving away more than a 1,000 steering wheel locks to try to prevent more Kia and Hyundai thefts. The steering wheel locks were donated by the Hyundai Corporation and Matthews Auto Group, according to Syracuse police. More than 900 people had their Kias and Hyundais stolen in Onondaga County last year. The cars are easy to steal because they were made without anti-theft equipment and software. The rise in car thefts here and nationwide also has been linked to the so-called Kia/Hyundai challenge, online posts that show how to steal Kias and Hyundais using a screwdriver and a USB cord in less than a minute. Kia or Hyundai owners can bring their car registration to the front desk of the Public Safety Building, 511 S. State St., and get one free steering wheel lock, police said. The locks are only available to Kias and Hyundais that dont have the anti-theft equipment. Huyndai models 2011-2019 Sonata 2011-2022 Tucson 2011-2022 Elantra 2013-2014 Genesis Coupe 2013-2018 Santa Fe Sport 2013-2020 Elantra GT 2013-2022 Santa Fe 2018-2021 Veloster 2018-2022 Accent 2018-2022 Kona 2019 Santa Fe XL 2020-2021 Venue 2020-2021 Palisade Kia Models 2011-2021 Kia Forte 2021-2022 Kia K5 2011-2020 Kia Optima 2012-2021 Kia Rio 2011-2021 Kia Sedona 2021-2022 Kia Seltos 2011-2022 Kia Sorento 2020-2022 Kia Soul 2011-2022 Kia Sportage *** If anyone has had their Kia or Hyundai stolen or were involved in a crash with a stolen Kia or Hyundai the Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard would like to hear about it. *** Staff writer Timia Cobb covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, story idea, question or comment? Reach her at tcobb@syracuse.com. Hamilton, N.Y. -- The Madison County Public Health Department is investigating an outbreak at Colgate University after the school reported two students tested positive for Norovirus and 13 others had symptoms consistent with the infection. On Saturday, the university in the village of Hamilton notified the health department that at least 15 students had symptoms of a gastrointestinal illness consistent with the Norovirus infection, according to a county health department news release Tuesday. Health department officials said another 54 suspected cases are under investigation for students and people living or working in the Hamilton community. For almost a year, the remains of little Mehlaya a Syracuse baby who died of a fentanyl overdose have been tucked inside a zip-lock bag in her mothers purse. Recently, Heaven Blue carefully poured her 2-year-old daughters ashes into a small gold and marble urn. A bit of ash landed on the floor of her Syracuse apartment. She swept the ash into the urn and gave it a kiss. The urn was donated by a stranger who read a Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard article about the childs death from a fentanyl overdose and the mystery of how the baby got poisoned. Related article: A childs death and a mystery: How did Mehlaya get the fentanyl? I felt my heart shatter The article and a video viewed 1.2 million times on YouTube touched people across the country who reached out to help Blue in some way. Many were concerned about Mehlayas ashes being kept in a plastic bag. Nearly 9,000 commented on the video. People wanted to donate urns and donate money. One out-of-state person with a non-profit agency that helps single moms offered her a job. Some said they couldnt imagine Blues pain at losing her baby. Others said they knew her pain and wanted to help. One person said they were on disability and had children of their own but wanted to donate. An Etsy shop owner in Oregon reached out wanting to donate a custom-made urn. I saw her in the video with ashes in a ziploc bag, that doesnt sit right with me, and that needs to be changed, said one person who reached out to Syracuse.com offering to buy an urn. Someone even saw her story in Africa, Blue said. Its the best love Ive felt since my daughter died, Blue said. I appreciate all the love and support. Mehlaya Blue died April 25 from a fentanyl overdose while at her grandmothers house in Syracuse, according to a state report. No one has been charged with her death, but Syracuse police and the Onondaga District Attorneys Office are investigating. Blue has been left with only questions and until last Friday a baggie of ashes. Rochelle Swieton from Central New York donated the urn and a locket. When Blue got the urn, she immediately put her babys ashes in it. The urn will sit next to Blues bed, she said. Swieton said she feels better knowing the locket will allow Mehlaya to have a place next to Blues heart. The article touched me in a way that is hard to explain, Swieton said in an email. I felt such sadness for Heaven and Mehlaya. Swietons actions comforted Blue. Its the first time after my daughters death that Ive felt OK, that Ive felt like Im not alone, Blue said. The locket will hold a small portion of the ashes so she can still have Mehlaya with her daily. Ill hold you in my heart until I hold you in my arms in Heaven, is engraved on one side. Youll stay right here beside me. Heaven Blue, 21, admires the urn she received from the community on Feb 16, 2024. Before she carried her daughter Mehlaya Blue's ashes in a ziplock baggie in her purse. (Rylee Kirk | Rkirk@syracuse.com)Rylee Kirk Heaven Blue carries photos and the ashes of daughter, Mehlaya, in her purse. Mehlaya, 2, died April 25, 2023 at a Syracuse hospital. She had high levels of fentanyl in her system, after staying at her paternal grandmothers home in Syracuse. (Katrina Tulloch)Katrina Tulloch Staff writer Rylee Kirk covers breaking news, crime and public safety. Have a tip, story idea, photo, question or comment? Reach her at 315-396-5961, on Twitter @kirk_rylee, or rkirk@syracuse.com. Syracuse, N.Y. You know spring is near in Central New York when Byrne Dairys famous Irish mint milk reappears in stores to celebrate St. Patricks Day. The sweet mint milk is made with whole milk, sugar, mint flavoring and green dye. Among Syracuses heavy Irish population, mint milk remains popular as ever. Last year, Byrne Dairy & Deli Stores sold around 18,000 gallons of mint milk in half gallon glass bottles (or 36,000 half-gallon units). Bill Byrne, who worked for 42 years at Byrne Dairys plant operations and quality control, helped develop mint milk in 1976. He credits the idea to his uncle, Vincent Byrne. Vin wanted something different for the customers, to enjoy at the end of winter, said Byrne, who served as Byrne Dairys president for 10 years. When we came up with the product, it really developed a following. St. Patricks Day is about having a little blarney going, and certainly mint milk fits the bill. Production takes place at the Upstate Niagara Cooperative plant on Oneida Street in downtown Syracuse, where raw milk is processed, flavored, bottled and shipped out to customers. Byrne Dairy sold the fresh milk plant to Upstate in 2019. Dairy plant manager Ron Rice said people start calling to ask for mint milk right after Valentines Day. The plant disctributes the mint milk in late February and continues production through March 17. I like to drink it straight, but its also good if you mix it with chocolate milk, Rice told syracuse.com in 2019. Byrne Dairy chocolate milk is available all year long. Mint milk is one of the dairys most popular products, but there are no plans to offer it year-round. Day in and day out, you probably wouldnt be drinking mint milk, Byrne said. Like egg nog, its a seasonal product. The Byrne family has a long history as dairy entrepreneurs in Syracuse. Bills grandfather Matthew Byrne founded the company in 1933, only a few years after he lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929. Three Byrne generations maintained control of the company. Matthew Byrne was succeeded by his three sons, John, William and Vincent. CEO and President Carl Byrne (Vincents son) took over as CEO and president after Bill Byrne (Williams son) became the companys board chairman. The Byrne family came to the United States from Ireland and made successful lives for themselves, Bill Byrne said. The legacy Id like for us is that weve been a good place to work, that weve done a good job for our farmers and customers. Mint milk will be available at Byrne Dairy locations until St. Patricks Day. More St. Patricks Day news: Crowd floods Tipp Hill streets to kick off St. Patricks season with green beer Syracuse.coms Charlie Miller tapped as grand marshal of Green Beer Sunday parade How did Syracuse get to be so Irish? Where should I go for dinner? If youre located in Upstate, New York, an upscale restaurant is getting USA Todays recommendation as a must-visit eatery of the year. Redd in Rochester was one of two New York restaurants on the national publications 2024 bucket list for diners, along with 46 other eateries. The Western New York establishment opened in 2019 and is co-owned by Rochester native and Michelin-star chef Richard Reddington. Prior to this, he opened the first version of Redd, which closed in 2018. Inspired by the cuisine of California wine country, Redd was awarded 7 Michelin Stars from 2008 to 2014 during its years of operation. Redd, an upscale restaurant in Rochester, was recently named one of the best restaurants of the year by USA Today. Pictured is their pork belly starter. @rochachafoodies on Instagram | Provided photo@rochachafoodies on Instagram | Provided photo Now in its second edition of Redd, located in an old brick building that once housed a horse-drawn ambulance company, its become a popular spot for celebratory dinners, according to the Democrat & Chronicle. The menu changes seasonally and includes the most upscale versions of bar classics like pizza and chicken wings as well as their signature dishes like lobster risotto with lemon confit and pork belly with apple puree and soy caramel. Redd, an upscale restaurant in Rochester, NY, has been named one of the must-visit restaurants of the year by USA Today. Kelley Monachino (Piccone) | @kelleyeatstheroc on InstagramKelley Monachino (Piccone) | @kelleyeatstheroc on Instagram Several diner reviews on Yelp also reveal that while you may come for the food, the cocktail program is also a cut above the rest. Mariachi Mexico in Armonk, along the New York and Connecticut border, was the other Empire state restaurant mentioned on USA Todays list. The New York State Education Department has released scores on English language arts and math assessment tests for private schools throughout the state. You can search more than 4,900 results for individual schools in the table below. You can search by entering a full or partial school name in the search box. The tests were given to students in grades three through eight during the 2022-2023 school year. The table shows the percentage of students who tested proficient on each exam listed at each school. Students are considered proficient if they score at level three or four out of four on the tests. The state released results for public schools in December. The department released results for private schools after a Freedom of Information Law request by syracuse.com | The Post-Standard. Some notes on the data: Religious and independent schools in New York are not required to give state assessments, so some schools wont appear in the data, according to the Education Department. Some religious and independent schools also choose to administer the state tests only to certain grades, rather than the full three through eight range. In addition, results for some schools arent listed due to small numbers. The state doesnt disclose test results publicly if too few students at a given school take a test. If you cant see the table with the scores, click here to open it in a new window. Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-282-8598 Ellis Soodak opened Verdi, the first legal adult-use dispensary in Manhattans Chelsea neighborhood, about a month and a half ago. Already, hes grappling with a regulatory issue that he believes could destroy businesses: advertising and marketing restrictions. We are really struggling to break even. I know for a fact that there are several stores that are really hurting, Soodak said. Were being set up to fail, 100 percent. New Yorks Cannabis Control Board finalized regulations that govern the states legal cannabis industry in September, including rules for how weed businesses are and are not allowed to advertise their products and stores. The rules prevent dispensaries from buying billboard ads, and stop all companies from using marketing techniques that could be attractive to children. Business owners and prospective licensees in the Empire States cannabis industry have been criticizing the Office of Cannabis Managements rules for advertising as overly broad and stringent since they were first proposed at a CCB meeting in 2022. Now that an increasing number of dispensaries are opening across the state, store owners are saying theyre prohibited from doing basic advertising, and potential customers dont even know they exist. Its an existential thing, Soodak told NY Cannabis Insider. The fact of the matter is: unless the government does something very significant in the next few months, we are going to see stores close. Current regulations allow dispensaries to display their name outside their storefronts, but prevent them from using logos or images there. Additionally, all legal dispensaries are given a 10-inch OCM placard with a QR code that confirms the store is a licensed shop. Dispensaries and other types of weed businesses may only advertise in venues where at least 90% of people are over 21. Dispensaries may not offer discounts or customer loyalty programs. Sign up for the NY Cannabis Insider Newsletter Enter your email address to get exclusive reporting on NY's cannabis market delivered to your inbox: These rules make it extremely difficult to attract and retain customers, and even make it hard to indicate to passersby that the store sells weed, said Coss Marte, a co-founder of CONBUD dispensary in Manhattans Lower East Side. A lot of licensees, theyre expecting to open a dispensary and have a line around the corner but the reality is you open a dispensary and nobody knows about it, Marte said. CONBUD is surrounded by unlicensed shops with large lit-up signage including pot leaves and product displays that are visible from the street all of which can draw in customers, and all of which OCM regulations prevent licensed shops from using, Marte said. By contrast, CONBUD cant place a sandwich board in front of the store to indicate that its the first legal dispensary in the neighborhood. In fact, Marte said, the regulations are so strict that CONBUD is allowed to display the phrase: adult-use dispensary, but they may not display it in languages other than English; a problematic rule for CONBUD, which is located in a neighborhood where many residents primary language is Spanish or Chinese. CONBUD, which has been featured in major media outlets for years, is currently earning enough revenue to do a little better than break even, Marte said. Considering the name recognition CONBUD has garnered, Marte said he thinks the store would be getting more customers if it could use more signage, and offer customer loyalty plans like many of the illicit shops currently do. I have so much PR, so much push out there, and Im still just scratching the surface. Imagine how it is for those who just opened up, Marte said. Due to these regulations, I think a lot of these businesses that are opening will crash and burn, and its sad. The owner of Buffalos first dispensary, Dank 716, is also concerned with the restrictions marketing regulations have placed on retailers, and the effect they could have on emerging businesses. Aaron Van Camp said his store received a lot of publicity because it was the first legal shop to open in Buffalo. But newer stores arent receiving the same amount of coverage, and theyre not allowed to get their names out there via traditional media like billboards and radio ads. Stores are opening, and people dont know theyre there, Van Camp said. Were still getting business at our store from areas where people could find a closer location; they just dont know that [a new dispensary is] there yet. Dispensaries engage in marketing on social media, Van Camp said, but its not a very effective way of activating new customers. Customers who shop at dispensaries are unlikely to frequent social media channels that feature a lot of cannabis content, and those who do visit those sites are pretty likely to already know where to buy weed, Van Camp said. One silver lining, Van Camp said, is the OCM hasnt been very strict about enforcing minor violations of the regulations. Right now, I think theyre being very lenient on these issues if you want to go and do something, theyre leaving that alone, Van Camp said. Theyre learning to let some things go, and attack bigger things. Other shops have got the same impression, and both Marte and Soodak told NY Cannabis Insider they pass out flyers to adults, even though thats against the rules. But the OCMs leniency enforcing the rules doesnt affect what Soodak believes is the largest problem when it comes to advertising in a way that competes with unlicensed shops: Google searches. As problematic as it is that licensed shops have to abide by strict rules for their storefronts and cannot engage in many types of traditional advertising, a larger problem for stores in New York City is that Google search results regularly point people to illegal stores, Soodak said. Some of the unlicensed stores opened soon after cannabis became legal in early 2021 and have over 1,000 customer reviews, which has given them a huge advantage over legal shops most of which are less than a year old when it comes to search engine optimization. The elephant in the room is there are dozens upon dozens of unlicensed stores competing with every licensed dispensary, Soodak said. Theyre allowed to advertise in ways that were not able to do, and theyre on Google Maps, theyre on Apple Maps, and theyve been on these maps for longer than we have. Soodak believes that New York state officials should begin issuing fines to tech companies that platform illicit dispensaries. He said he thinks it could be near impossible for newer legal dispensaries in New York City to compete with unlicensed stores without a solution to the search engine issue. Hes not the only one who believes the state should step in to address tech companies platforming unlicensed cannabis shops in New York. Five New York-based cannabis business organizations Service Disabled Veterans in Cannabis Association, NY Cannabis Retailers Association, Long Island Cannabis Coalition, Minorities for Medical Marijuana, National Hispanic Cannabis Council Tristate Chapter wrote a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul this week, urging her to take action. We urge you to take immediate action to address this issue by engaging with the State Attorney General to initiate a lawsuit that sends a strong message to these main social media platforms to require them to remove unlicensed cannabis stores with-in the confines of New York State from their platforms, restoring trust and accountability, the letter, dated Feb. 26, said. Paula Collins, a tax attorney who has represented licensed cannabis clients as well as unlicensed operators, said she believes state officials should focus on loosening advertising restrictions, rather than going after tech companies. While it may seem like a good idea now, Collins said, taking such action could lead to licensed stores getting barred from Google searches alongside unlicensed operators. Collins said things would improve significantly if legal dispensaries could simply advertise on billboards, and have bright displays at their storefronts that look welcoming to potential customers. I think that we need to rethink the visibility of products from the street, because it makes the shops look dark and foreboding, Collins said. And the sooner that regulators establish more permissive marketing rules, the better, Collins said. On a scale of one to 10, I would put it at a 7, Collins said of how seriously the marketing regulations are affecting licensed retailers businesses. Ive seen shops that are in high traffic areas, that people are literally driving past, not knowing that theyre there. Syracuse, N.Y. Syracuses new affordable internet service for low-income residents is a finalist for a North American award, and city officials are urging residents to vote for it online. The citys Surge Link municipal broadband program, launched in October in a pilot study area with the goal of serving up to 2,500 households, is one of four communities vying for the Digital Equit and Accessiblity award in the 2024 IDC Government Insights North American Smart Cities awards. Syracuse, N.Y. Coming out of its first Top 10 matchup of the season with its first loss, Syracuse mens lacrosse had a clear takeaway, even through a controversial ending: It beat itself. Two weekends ago, in a 13-12 overtime loss to Maryland, SUs offense didnt finish its shots well, fifth-year attack Christian Mule said Tuesday. It was messy between the lines, specifically on its clears. BAGHDAD, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi government on Tuesday launched a plan to encourage displaced persons to return to their homes from displacement camps in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported. Karim al-Nouri, deputy minister of the Ministry of Migration and Displaced (MoMD), told the INA that the plan will be implemented in cooperation with the ministries of transport and education, as it includes job opportunities and a significant increase in the amount of money granted to each displaced family. Al-Nouri said that the Ministry of Transport has adopted a program to provide taxi jobs for the displaced individuals who can drive, while the Ministry of Education offered a certain percentage of appointments for the displaced persons. He added that the Council of Ministers voted in favor of increasing the amount of money granted to displaced families returning to their original homes to 4 million Iraqi dinars (about 3,056 U.S. dollars) from the previous 1.5 million dinars. The MoMD has set June 30 as the date to permanently close the camps for the displaced people in the Kurdistan region. According to the figures released by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than 1 million internally displaced people in Iraq. They have been hampered from returning to their homes due to insecurity, lack of livelihoods, and the destruction or damage of their homes. A woman crashed a car into a Western New York hotel and ended up in its swimming pool, according to multiple reports. WIVB reports police were called to the Courtyard by Marriott on Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls, N.Y., around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday after a 2015 Lexus crashed into the hotel building and pool. Police said a 61-year-old woman was driving the vehicle and accidentally accelerated through the hotel, coming to a stop in the indoor pool. ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) The husband of a New York doctor who died shortly after dining at a Disney Springs restaurant last year accused Walt Disney Parks and Resorts of negligence in a 19-page lawsuit filed in Florida. Jeffrey Piccolo is seeking in excess of $50,000 in the wrongful death of Kanokporn Tangsuan, a doctor at New York University Langone hospital in Manhattan, in the lawsuit filed Feb. 22 in Orange County, Florida. The lawsuit states that Tangsuan had dinner at Raglan Road Irish Pub on Oct. 5, 2023, with her husband and his mother. Tangsuan had a severe allergy to nuts and dairy products and informed the waiter that she required allergen free food. The Taos News delivered to your Taos County address every week for a full year! We offer our lowest mail rates to zip codes in the county. Click Here to See if you Qualify. Plan includes unlimited website access and e-edition print replica online. Your auto pay plan will be conveniently renewed at the end of the subscription period. You may cancel at anytime. HOUSTON, the United States, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- An out-of-control wildfire in the Texas Panhandle fueled by high winds and dry air since Monday afternoon prompted evacuation orders in small towns and shut down a nuclear facility, according to media reports. Pantex Plant, a major nuclear weapons facility in the United States, suspended its operation Tuesday night due to the raging wildfires. The plant, located 21 miles (about 33.8 kilometers) east of Texas Panhandle's largest city Amarillo, assembles and disassembles the country's nuclear arsenal. All weapons and special materials are safe and unaffected, according to a statement from Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC (CNS), which runs Pantex together with the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). "Currently, we are responding to the plant, but there is no fire on our site or on our boundary," Laef Pendergraft, a nuclear safety engineer with the NNSA production office at Pantex, said in a news conference. "We have evacuated our nonessential personnel from the site, just in abundance of caution, but we do have a well-equipped fire department that has trained for these scenarios," Pendergraft said. "We are monitoring the scene, and we will continue on through the night to ensure that the Pantex plant is protected and safe." However, local media outlet Amarillo Globe-News reported that an undisclosed incident occurred at 6:13 p.m. (0013 GMT Wednesday) at the Pantex Plant, citing a statement from CNS and NNSA. According to the report, CNS and NNSA officials are directing response efforts, adding that appropriate precautionary protection actions have been initiated for Pantex employees. It is not immediately clear whether it is connected with the raging wildfires. "Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone as we go through this tonight, and hopefully, we'll get through this with no injuries or casualties," Pantex spokesman Steve Meyers was quoted as saying. On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties in response to wildfires and said more counties could be added. The governor warned that hot and dry conditions caused by high temperatures and windy conditions are expected to continue in the region in the coming days, raising fears that the wildfires may grow larger and more dangerous. The Smokehouse Creek Fire has burnt more than 250,000 acres of land in just 28 hours, roughly 150 acres per minute, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The service said the fire, which remained zero percent contained as of Tuesday evening, already ranked as the fifth-largest wildfire in Texas history. Several other blazes were raging nearby, including the Grape Vine Creek Fire, which has scorched 30,000 acres and was 20 percent contained as of Tuesday afternoon, the service added. Hemphill and Roberts counties in northern Texas issued evacuation orders as the fire approached populated areas on Tuesday afternoon. In the city of Pampa, Gray County, authorities went door-to-door to suggest a voluntary evacuation on Tuesday evening due to the threat of the fast-spreading wildfires, according to a CNN report. Pampa officials said on Facebook Tuesday evening that buses would be offered for people who need help evacuating the city. "If there comes a time for the city to evacuate, a mass text will be sent, sirens will sound and notifications on our social media as well as local media will be notified immediately," the post said. The Canadian Independent School District announced on Facebook that all public schools in the area will be closed on Wednesday. Nearby Pampa, residents in the cities of Amarillo and Canadian have been urged to shelter in place, local media reported. Fortinet, a global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, has announced its partnership with Google Cloud in support of Googles new regional cloud launch in Saudi Arabia. The cloud region brings high-performance, low-latency services and solutions to organisations across the Middle East. Fortinet has been a partner with Google Cloud since 2017, using a winning combination of Google Cloud technologies with Fortinets industry-leading Security Fabric offerings to provide customers with modern approaches to cloud security. With the new cloud region, Fortinet will be able to further support its customers in the Middle East and improve their cybersecurity resiliency. Joint customers Sami AlShwairakh, Senior Director, Fortinet Saudi Arabia, said: Through the partnership with Google in Saudi Arabia, our joint customers have started to secure their workloads on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using Fortinet solutions. Given Fortinets strong presence in the kingdom and the relevance of our solutions on GCP, we are expecting a large proportion of these joint customers to adopt Fortinet security in their migrations to GCP. With the vast number of deployments being hybrid, these customers are able to extend the security perimeter and enforce consistent security policies across their GCP and IT environments to secure their applications no matter where they are deployed. Fortinet continues to see strong momentum in the Saudi market and has an ongoing commitment to supporting not only local customers and partners but also the Governments Vision 2030 initiative, which aims to propel the nation into becoming a global leader in technology and innovation. Through this latest partnership, Fortinet will support these aims by giving our Saudi customers the ability to maintain a competitive edge in an era of digital innovation. Fortinet Cloud Security for Google Cloud As a 2023 Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year Award winner for Security, Fortinet has been recognised by Google Cloud for creating industry-leading solutions and strong customer experiences. This latest launch is one of several collaborations that Fortinet has with Google Cloud worldwide. Fortinet Cloud Security for Google Cloud is integrated with and works seamlessly with both Google Clouds infrastructure and the Fortinet Security Fabric. It empowers organisations to achieve their security and digital transformation goals simultaneously by reducing complexity, streamlining operations, and increasing threat detection and response capabilities. It delivers a comprehensive suite of solutions that address a broad range of use cases needed by organisations to achieve secure application journeys on Google Cloud. -- TradeArabia News Service Chinese Premier Li Qiang meets with a U.S. Chamber of Commerce delegation led by the chamber's President and CEO Suzanne Clark at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing) BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday met with a U.S. Chamber of Commerce delegation led by the chamber's President and CEO Suzanne Clark at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Noting that this year marks the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the United States, Li said that the past 45 years have proved repeatedly that China and the United States benefit from cooperation and lose in confrontation. Cooperation is the only correct choice, he said. Based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, China is ready to work with the United States to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state to promote the sound and steady development of bilateral relations, he said. Li noted that the Chinese and U.S. economies are highly complementary, and their interests are deeply integrated. Both sides benefit from each other's development, and strengthening economic and trade cooperation is beneficial to both countries. The two sides should be partners rather than rivals, he said, noting that engaging in "decoupling" or "small yard, high fence" strategies is not in the fundamental interests of either side and will only bring huge losses to enterprises in the two countries, to the economy, and even to global development. Li said that China is pursuing Chinese modernization through high-quality development and will continue to unleash huge demand in advanced manufacturing, new-type urbanization, the upgrading of the consumption structure, and green and low-carbon transformations. He noted that U.S. companies are welcome to continue investing in China and deepening their presence in the Chinese market to share the development opportunities. He said that China will open its door even wider to the outside world, continue to foster a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment, and provide more support and convenience for U.S. companies and foreign firms from other countries to invest and do business in China. It is hoped that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its entrepreneurs will continue to serve as a bridge in promoting increased communication and mutual understanding between the two countries, Li said. For her part, Clark said the U.S.-China relationship is extremely important. A decoupling between the United States and China is not a viable option, and China's further opening-up is welcome, she said. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is willing to act as a bridge, conduct candid and constructive communication and exchanges with the Chinese side, make efforts to deepen U.S.-China economic and trade relations and mutually beneficial cooperation, and promote the steady development of U.S.-China relations, she said. VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. Version 4.0 introduces a new user interface, media library browser, VR support, 3D video support, and revised video output functions. This new version also introduces new rendering pipeline for audio, with better efficiency, volume and device management, to improve VLC audio support. Support for many new devices inputs, formats, and metadata have been introduces along with next-gen codecs. For subtitles in VLC you can download VLSub. Why is VLC so popular? VLC Media Player has grown its user base over the years thanks to its simplicity, wide support for a variety of formats, and features which allow all sorts of video manipulation and enhancements. Is VLC compatible with Windows 11? VLC media player is compatible with all versions of Windows, including Windows 11. VLC player is a cross-platform media player, so it's also available for macOS, Linux and Android. What does VLC stand for? VLC stands for VideoLAN Client. VLC media player, as it's now called, began to exist around 1996 as a project from the Ecole Centrale Paris consisting of a client and server designed to stream videos. What video formats does VLC support? VLC offers support for the following video formats: MPEG-1/2, DivX (1/2/3/4/5/6), MPEG-4 ASP, XviD, 3ivX D4, H.261, H.263 / H.263i, H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC, Cinepak, Theora, Dirac / VC-2, MJPEG (A/B), WMV 1/2, WMV 3 / WMV-9 / VC-1, Sorenson 1/3, DV, On2 VP3/VP5/VP6, Indeo Video v3 (IV32), Real Video (1/2/3/4). What audio formats does VLC support? VLC player offers support for the following audio formats: MPEG Layer 1/2, MP3 - MPEG Layer 3, AAC - MPEG-4 part3, Vorbis, AC3 - A/52, E-AC-3, MLP / TrueHD>3, DTS, WMA 1/2, WMA 3, FLAC, ALAC, Speex, Musepack / MPC, ATRAC 3, Wavpack, Mod, TrueAudio, APE, Real Audio, Alaw/law, AMR (3GPP), MIDI, LPCM, ADPCM, QCELP, DV Audio, QDM2/QDMC, MACE. Can VLC play DVDs? VLC can play all kinds of DVDs, including discs with protection. However, the legality of using VLC to play protected DVDs depends on where you are located. Features Audio Rewritten audio core, allowing better volume and device management. Rewrite of the audio modules, to adapt to the new core. Correct support for multi-channel layouts in all formats: 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 New audio outputs for Windows Vista, Android, iOS, OpenBSD and OSSv4. New remapping, gain, stereo widening, downmixing effects. Higher samplerate, precision, live configuration in the core. Numerous new audio metadata format supported. Video Port the OpenGL output to OpenGL ES. Support color conversion shaders in glsl on Android and iOS. New outputs for OpenMax IL on mobile and Decklink Blackmagic. New video outputs for iOS using OpenGL ES2. Support for deinterlacing for higher bit depth and XYZ colorspace. New anaglyph filter for side-by-side 3D. 4K-ready :) Codecs Add hardware decoding for OS X using VDADecoder. Add hardware decoding for Android using MediaCodec. Add hardware decoding for GNU/Linux using VDPAU. Add hardware encoding for Windows using Intel QuickSyncVideo. Support for G2M4, MSS1, MSS2, TSCC2, CDXL, Ut, VBLE video codecs. Support for Ulead DV audio, Indeo Audio Coder, RealAudio Lossless audio. Support for SCTE-27 and complete EIA-608 subtitles. Formats Support for fragmented MP4, Wave/RF64 files. Extended metadata tags and cover art support in Ogg, AVI, MP4 and MKV. Support FLAC, Atrac, ADPCM, DV Type 1, 12bits DV audio in AVI. Extended support for AVI, MKV and MJPEG streams. Better recording of AVI and MKV format. Audio fingerprinting using AcoustID. Input and Devices Support for screen input on OSX Lion and later. Support for Microsoft Smooth Streaming, developed by Viotech.net New RTMP input module, using libavformat! Support for VNC/rfb and Remote Desktop view-only modes. Important improvements on Blu-Ray, Dash, v4l2 and HTTP inputs. New AVFoundation OS X and shm framebuffer inputs. For Anime fans New 6.1 downmixer to 5.1 and Stereo from MKV/Flac 6.1. Correct YUV->RGB color matrix in the OpenGL shaders. Improved MKV support for seeking, and resiliancy. Editions support in MKV. Better subtitles and metadata support from MKV. Various ASS subtitles improvements. For Mobile Port to Android, from 2.1 to 4.3, on ARMv6, ARMv7, x86 and MIPS. New port to iOS, from iOS 5 to 7, on all iPads and iPhones after 3GS. Partial port to WinRT, for Windows 8, 8.1 and WP8. OpenGL ES optimized outputs. Improvements of OpenMAX IL decoders, encoders and renderers. New audio, video outputs and interfaces for mobiles. For developers libVLC and most modules are now LGPLv2.1+. libVLC media framework can now be used in all types of applications. libVLC SDK packages now exists, in addition to more examples. Improved libVLC API, for better control. VLC's web plugins now support windowless mode, for smoother integration with HTML elements. What's New VLC 3.0.19 RTX Beta Release Notes: VLC 3.0.19 RTX is a custom version of "Vetinari" It activates Super Resolution upscaling by default on nVidia RTX GPU VLC 3.0.19 RTX features: Core Network browsing for distant filesystems (SMB, FTP, SFTP, NFS...) HDMI passthrough for Audio HD codecs, like E-AC3, TrueHD or DTS-HD 12bits codec and extended colorspaces (HDR) Stream to distant renderers, like Chromecast 360 video and 3D audio playback with viewpoint change Support for Ambisonics audio and more than 8 audio channels Subtitles size modification during playback Secure passwords storage Acceleration Hardware decoding and display on all platforms HEVC hardware decoding on Windows, using DxVA2 and D3D11 HEVC hardware decoding using OMX and MediaCodec (Android) MPEG-2, VC1/WMV3 hardware decoding on Android Important improvements for the MMAL decoder and output for rPI and rPI2 HEVC and H.264 hardware decoding for macOS and and iOS based on VideoToolbox New VA-API decoder and rendering for Linux Codecs BD-Java menus and overlay in Blu-Ray Experimental AV1 video and Daala video decoders OggSpots video decoder New MPEG-1 & 2 audio layer I, II, III + MPEG 2.5 decoder based on libmpg123 New BPG decoder based on libbpg TDSC, Canopus HQX, Cineform, SpeedHQ, Pixlet, QDMC and FMVC decoders TTML subtitles support, including EBU-TT variant Rewrite of webVTT subtitles support, including CSS style support BluRay text subtitles (HDMV) deocoder Support for ARIB-B24, CEA-708 New decoder for MIDI on macOS, iOS and Windows Protocols and devices Full support for Bluray Menus (BD-J) and Bluray ISO Rewrite of Adaptive Streaming protocols support Support for HLSv4 to HLSv7, including MP4 and ID3 cases Rewrite of DASH support, including MPEG2TS and ISOBMFF Support SAT>IP devices, for DVB-S via IP networks Support for HTTP 2.0 Support NFS, SMB and SFTP shares, with browsing Support for SRT streaming protocol [full release notes] VLC 4.0.0 Beta Release Notes: Platform support changes: 4.0.x requires: Windows 7/2008 R2 or later (with KB2533623 installed) macOS 10.11 or later iOS 9 or later Android 4.1.x or later (API-16) GCC 5.0 or Clang 3.4 (or equivalent) Windows on ARM is now supported Universal Windows is only supported for Windows 10 (not Windows 8 anymore) Core: New output clock (internal): The input clock (PCR) or the audio output can drive the output clock By default, the audio output will drive the output clock: no more audio resampling or flush when the audio is late or early New medialibrary (vlc_media_library.h) New player (vlc_player.h): Replace the input_thread_t API that is now internal One instance is used to play subsequent medias Allow multiple track selection Fix TOCTOU issues (the player lock is exposed) New mediatree and mediasource (vlc_media_source.h) Browse local network and service discoveries New playlist (vlc_playlist.h) Replace the previous one Flat, new random implementation Can't browse anymore (cf. mediatree) Add support for dual subtitles selection (via the player) Support of HTML help (via the vlc_plugin.h:set_help_html macro) Audio output: ALSA: HDMI passthrough support. Use --alsa-passthrough to configure S/PDIF or HDMI passthrough. Remove the DirectSound plugin (API obsolete after Windows 7) Demuxer: Support for HEIF image and grid image formats Support for DASH WebM Support for DVBSUB in mkv Support for DAV video files Improved Bluray menus, clips and stream selection Support chapters in mp3 files Support for DMX audio music (MUS) files Codecs: Support for experimental AV1 video encoding WebVTT encoder Remove iomx support for Android WebP image decoding Support for SMPTE-TT image profile Support for 16-bit greyscale Support IMM4 decoder Improve 708 decoder Support AGM decoder Support VP4 decoder Add NVDEC hardware decoder Remove SDL_image support Access: Enable SMB2 / SMB3 support on mobile ports with libsmb2 Added support for the RIST (Reliable Internet Stream Transport) Protocol Added support for the AMT (Automatic Multicast Tunneling) Protocol Added support for the Gopher Protocol Added avaudiocapture module as a replacement for qtsound, which is removed now Audio CD data tracks are now correctly detected and skipped Deprecates Audio CD CDDB lookups in favor of more accurate Musicbrainz Improved CD-TEXT and added Shift-JIS encoding support Support for YoutubeDL (where available). Access output: Added support for the RIST (Reliable Internet Stream Transport) Protocol Added support for HTTP PUT (HTTP upload) Video output: Added X11 RENDER video output plugin Remove aa plugin Remove evas plugin Remove omxil_vout plugin Remove RealRTSP plugin Remove Real demuxer plugin Fix washed out black on NVIDIA cards with Direct3D9 On-Screen-Display is off by default in libvlc Remove deprecated Linux framebuffer plugin Removed VDPAU video output plugin (hardware decoder still present) Audio filter: Add RNNoise recurrent neural network denoiser Video filter: Update yadif Remove remote OSD plugin Stream output: New SDI output with improved audio and ancillary support. Candidate for deprecation of decklink vout/aout modules. Support for DLNA/UPNP renderers The "udp" access output module has been removed. Please use the UDP stream output instead, e.g.: Old: '#std{access=udp,mux=ts,dst=239.255.1.2:1234,sap}' New: '#udp{dst=239.255.1.2:1234,sap}' Muxers: MP4 files are no longer faststart by default Service discovery: Support Renderer discovery with avahi macOS: Remove Growl notification support Improved AppleScript API with support for playback modes, recording, rate appleOS: Always update your PlayStation system to the latest version of the system software. By updating, you can enjoy additional features, improved usability, and enhanced security. Sony PlayStation Firmware 11.02 release notes We've made some security fixes to the system software. We've improved system software performance and stability. We've improved the messages and usability on some screens. System Software The PS Vita system and PS TV system software updates installed on your system are subject to a limited license from Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. Visit https://www.scei.co.jp/psvita-eula/ for details. A hot potato: Nvidia is experiencing the kind of success most companies could only dream of right now, and it's all thanks to the generative AI boom. But not everyone is praising Jensen Huang and his firm. After a rival chip maker accused it of delaying orders of AI GPUs to customers who are courting other suppliers, a former AMD vice president has called Team Green "the GPU cartel." On Monday, the Wall Street Journal published a report alleging that Nvidia could be delaying data center GPU orders to companies who are having meetings with rival AI accelerator firms. Hardware startup Groq, which creates AI chips for LLM inference, said Nvidia customers have to be secretive about acquiring or ordering AI acceleration tech in case Nvidia decides to delay their orders as punishment. "A lot of people that we meet with say that if Nvidia were to hear that we were meeting, they would disavow it," Jonathan Ross, CEO of Groq, told the WSJ. "The problem is you have to pay Nvidia a year in advance, and you may get your hardware in a year, or it may take longer, and it's, 'Aw shucks, you're buying from someone else, and I guess it's going to take a little longer.'" It's not just Groq making these claims. Former AMD vice president Scott Herkelman responded to a Tom's Hardware post on X with "This happens more than you expect, NVIDIA does this with DC [data center] customers, OEMs, AIBs, press, and resellers." "They learned from GPP to not put it into writing. They just do not ship after a customer has ordered. They are the GPU cartel, and they control all supply." This happens more than you expect, NVIDIA does this with DC customers, OEMs, AIBs, press, and resellers. They learned from GPP to not put it into writing. They just don't ship after a customer has ordered. They are the GPU cartel and they control all supply. Scott Herkelman (@sherkelman) February 27, 2024 Herkelman knows more than most when it comes to the graphics industry's two biggest players. Before running Team Red's graphics division from 2016 to 2023, he was general manager of Nvidia's GeForce business between September 2012 to May 2015. During Nvidia's recent earnings call, CEO Huang addressed the issue of how its AI chips are allocated in order to avoid customers receiving more than they require or moving to rival products. "We allocate fairly. We do the best we can to allocate fairly, and to avoid allocating unnecessarily," he said. Elsewhere, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said that Nvidia expects its next-generation products (i.e., Blackwell) to be supply-constrained due to demand outweighing supply. Some might claim this is just a case of rivals being jealous of Nvidia's success the company's total earnings of $22.1 billion for the quarter marked a 265% YoY rise, propelling Huang to 21st position on Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. But this isn't the first time Nvidia has been accused of unsavory tactics. Also read: Nvidia AI GPU buyers are selling surplus hardware as supply constraints ease In 2018, Nvidia's GeForce Partner Program (GPP) was established, purportedly as a way of working closer with OEMs and add-in board (AIB) partners on new products, product launches, and marketing. But it transpired that the program was anticompetitive and anti-consumer, hurting both consumer choices and partners' ability to do business with rivals like AMD and Intel. Nvidia was eventually forced to kill off GPP. In 2020, Nvidia informed YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed (and by extension, TechSpot) that it would cease providing GeForce Founders Edition review units. The reason given was that presenters Steve Walton and Tim Schiesser did not sufficiently focus on the RTX ray tracing features of its graphics cards. Nvidia eventually apologized and reversed its decision, though this only came after a wave of public anger against the tech giant. WTF?! The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI has taken an unexpected twist after the tech company accused the newspaper of hiring someone to "hack" ChatGPT and other products to generate misleading evidence supporting its claim. OpenAI's use of the term "hack" may be a stretch, though. The NYT sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December for using millions of its articles to train their systems without permission or compensation. The suit states that millions of the Times' copyrighted news pieces, in-depth investigations, opinion features, reviews, how-to guides, and more were used to train the chatbots, which now compete with the news outlet as a source of information. In a filing in Manhattan federal court on Monday, OpenAI alleged that the Times "paid someone to hack" its products to generate 100 examples of copyright infringement. OpenAI claims that it took the Times tens of thousands of attempts to generate "highly anomalous results" and that it achieved this using "deceptive prompts that blatantly violate OpenAI's terms of use." "They were able to do so only by targeting and exploiting a bug (which OpenAI has committed to addressing) by using deceptive prompts that blatantly violate OpenAI's terms of use," OpenAI's lawyer wrote. "And even then, they had to feed the tool portions of the very articles they sought to elicit verbatim passages of, virtually all of which already appear on multiple public websites." "Normal people do not use OpenAI's products in this way [...] In the ordinary course, one cannot use ChatGPT to serve up Times articles at will," OpenAI continued. OpenAI does not name the "hired gun" who it claims the Times hired to manipulate ChatGPT's output, nor does it accuse the paper of actual hacking. This sounds more like standard prompt engineering, and the Times agrees. "What OpenAI bizarrely mischaracterizes as 'hacking' is simply using OpenAI's products to look for evidence that they stole and reproduced The Times' copyrighted works. And that is exactly what we found. In fact, the scale of OpenAI's copying is much larger than the 100-plus examples set forth in the complaint," said Ian Crosby, Susman Godfrey partner and lead counsel for the publication. "In this filing, OpenAI doesn't dispute nor can they that they copied millions of The Times' works to build and power its commercial products without our permission." The use of copyrighted work in the training of generative AIs has led to numerous lawsuits from authors, artists, and creators. OpenAI said in the filing it believes AI companies will win cases like these based on fair use. It notes that The Times "cannot prevent AI models from acquiring knowledge about facts." It was reported back in August that the Times had been in "tense negotiations" over reaching a licensing deal with OpenAI and Microsoft that would allow the former to legally train its GPT model off of material published by the Times, something the newspaper previously decided to prohibit. But the talks broke down, leading to the current lawsuit. OpenAI already has an agreement in place with Reuters and Axel Springer to use their content for training purposes, and is said to be in talks with CNN, Fox Corp., and Time to secure licensing deals. Forward-looking: The AI boom is in full swing, and chip manufacturers are bringing new, advanced memory technologies to the table. Next-generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) is poised to deliver significant increases in both bandwidth and capacity, and Samsung is aiming aiming to lead the industry. Despite entering the HBM3E market somewhat belatedly, Samsung is introducing its HBM3E 12H DRAM chips as a pioneering achievement in 3D layered memory technology. The latest memory chips from the Korean giant utilize a novel 12-layer stack, which can deliver a 50 percent increase in both performance and capacity compared to HBM3E chips with an 8-layer stack. The HBM3E 12H chips can achieve up to 1,280 gigabytes per second (GB/s) of bandwidth, Samsung claims, providing an unprecedented capacity of 36 gigabytes. Samsung managed to stack 12 layers in the same chip by utilizing advanced thermal compression non-conductive film (TC NCF), which appears to maintain the same height specification as 8-layer chips, meeting current requirements for HBM memory packaging applications. TC NCF also offers additional benefits by achieving the smallest gaps between chips in the industry at seven micrometers, while also reducing voids between layers. Vertical DRAM density can be increased by 20 percent compared to HBM3E 8H chips. Improvements in manufacturing also provide better thermal properties and a higher product yield, we're told. The Seoul-headquartered corporation anticipates that its latest generation of HBM3E (12H) chips will provide an "optimal" solution for AI accelerators with a growing demand for DRAM memory. In comparison to HBM3 8H chips, Samsung HBM3E 12H memories appear to offer a 34 percent increase in the average speed for AI model training. Additionally, the company claims the number of simultaneous users of inference services can be expanded "more than 11.5 times." Samsung is currently providing samples of its first HBM3E 12H chips to select customers, with mass production expected in the first half of 2024. Concurrently, Micron, another major player in the HBM3E market, has announced full-scale production of its latest 3D memory chips. The Idaho-based company is placing a significant bet on a "traditional," 8-layer HBM3E chip design to boost its financial performance in fiscal year 2024. Micron will supply Nvidia with 24GB 8H HBM3E chips for the upcoming H200 Tensor Core GPU, a powerful AI accelerator set to hit the market in the second half of 2024. Similar to Samsung, Micron is positioning its HBM3E technology as a leading solution for memory-intensive applications and generative AI services. HBM3E chips offer a pin speed greater than 9.2 gigabits per second (Gb/s), providing over 1.2 terabytes per second (TB/s) of memory bandwidth. The company states that power consumption is 30 percent lower than competing products, and the 24GB capacity enables data center operators to achieve "seamless scalability" for extensive AI applications. Micron's Executive VP and Chief Business Officer, Sumit Sadana, highlights that the company's new HBM3E chips can support business growth amid the surging demand for AI. Looking ahead, Micron is preparing to sample its first 36GB 12-High HBM3E chips in March. Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust Chatbots Kill: In 2017, the Pentagon established Project Maven to apply machine learning (ML) technology to identify targets in real-time combat situations. The program has now seemingly been turned into a proper war tool, though members of the US military vow there's still a human pulling the final trigger. Since early February, the US Department of Defense has employed ML algorithms to identify targets for over 85 air strikes in Iraq and Syria. According to Schuyler Moore, CTO for the United States Central Command (CentCom), the Pentagon began using AI technology in actual battle situations after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. The terrorist's surprise attack changed everything, Moore told Bloomberg, as the DoD finally decided to deploy the AI algorithms developed by Project Maven. The US military immediately began doing things it had never done with AI warfare technology. "October 7th everything changed," Moore said. "We immediately shifted into high gear and a much higher operational tempo than we had previously." Developers designed Project Maven's algorithms to work from video footage captured by US drones, helping detect soldiers or other potential airstrike targets. Since February 2, CentCom has identified and destroyed enemy rockets, missiles, drones, and militia facilities with Maven AI. Moore tried to demystify the new object recognition algorithms' alleged "killing" capabilities, claiming that every step involving AI ends with human validation. The CentCom also used an AI recommendation engine that suggested attack plans and the best weapons to use during operations. However, the results weren't up to human standards. Project Maven has proven to be a very controversial topic in recent years. Google exited the program after facing significant employee backslash, but other companies were more than happy to keep working on AI warfare with Pentagon officials. As the AI-infused airstrikes revealed by Moore confirm, the DoD is now willing to push forward with deploying "intelligent" technology on the battlefield. The Pentagon is seemingly already working on integrating large-language models (LLM) in actual combat decisions. Craig Martell, the DoD Chief Digital and AI Officer, recently said that the US could fall behind adversaries if it doesn't adopt generative AI models in warfare operations. Of course, the US government must conceive the proper "protective measures" and mitigations for national security risks, preventing and dealing with issues that could arise from poorly managed training data. Forward-looking: IBM has announced a new version of its FlashCore Module storage drive along with a new version of their Storage Defender software that, combined, can improve a customer's ability to detect and react to cyber attacks or ransomware. As IBM highlights, existing FlashSystem products already scan all incoming data as it is being written, without impacting performance. The new AI-enhanced FlashCore Module 4 (FCM) is even more advanced, continuously monitoring stats gathered from every single I/O to look for anomalies like ransomware starting to encrypt data. In testing, the new tech was able to detect a ransomware simulator called WannaLaugh in less than a minute. The latest version of Storage Defender, meanwhile, expands on its core threat detection capabilities. IBM said it also added workload and storage inventory management capabilities to the software to help clients assess the extent of their apps and data, which could be helpful in quickly getting back online after an attack. While both products can make an organization more resilient to an attack, IBM says they are even better together. As an example, IBM said a storage admin can now create protection groups with specific volumes that are automatically backed up based on user-defined policies. Immutable copies of data could then be rolled out to multiple locations following an attack, and can even be stored on another cluster for an extra layer of protection. IBM also highlighted the ability to create Safeguarded Copy snapshots, which are resilient point-in-time copies of data that can't be edited or deleted through malicious - or accidental - actions. Defenses like these may sound like overkill but in the corporate world, there is no such thing as being overprepared. Getting caught with your pants down is no laughing matter, especially when time is money. As we've seen time and again, ransomware attacks can bring businesses and even city services to a dead stop. With some threat actors now using AI-based attacks, the only answer is to fight fire with fire. We have already heard about AI lawyers and even AI-powered priests leading church services in Germany. With artificial intelligence's recent rapid development, the technology is now penetrating more industries and performing even more complex tasks. More recently, Abu Dhabi's largest operating asset holding company is reportedly appointing Aiden Insight, a virtual AI entity, to its board. According to Bloomberg, Abu Dhabi's International Holding Co (IHC) installed Aiden Insight as a board observer to assist its human board members in running the United Arab Emirates' largest listed firm. Aiden Insight's Role It is important to note that board observers do not have the same core powers as other full board members. According to the company, Aiden's job will be to "continuously process and instantly analyze decades of business data, financial information, market trends, and global economic indicators." Bloomberg LP launched a similar AI model last year that can answer financial questions and determine whether news headlines are bullish or bearish for investors. The AI model is powered by 40 years worth of financial data from Bloomberg, and a plethora of other financial language documents, as well as a web crawl focused on financial web pages. According to IHC, Aiden's role includes risk assessment and compliance monitoring. Additionally, the virtual AI entity will be attending the company's coming board meetings. Read Also: Japan Now Using AI Matchmaking to Solve Population Decline Problem AI Industry Support This move, a first for large Middle Eastern firms, is supported by some of the biggest organizations leading the global AI revolution. Bloomberg reports that the initiative has received backing from top Emirati AI company G42 and tech giant Microsoft. Earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was reportedly in talks with potential investors, including the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to secure funding for a massive chip production project. The goal is to significantly increase the world's chip production capacity while improving AI capabilities. Altman's proposed investment of $1 trillion dwarfs the current size of the global semiconductor industry and far exceeds traditional corporate fundraising standards. In case you missed it, G42 recently sold its stakes in Chinese companies, including TikTok owner ByteDance, as part of efforts to strengthen ties with its US partners. G42's decision to cut ties with Chinese partners is consistent with its focus on collaborating with US companies such as Microsoft and OpenAI. Government Backing Additionally, the governments have also been very supportive of AI development in the Gulf region as well as in other countries. Earlier this month, we reported that the UAE government had established a $200 million fund through the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) to support advanced technology development in underdeveloped regions. Last year, the UAE's AI minister also cautioned against overregulating artificial intelligence. Al Olama, the world's first AI minister appointed at the age of 27, likened rejecting AI to the Ottoman Sultan's refusal of the printing press. Related Article: Microsoft Aims to Empower AI Assets, Competition with Newly-Announced AI Access Principles 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. An Australian guest tries Chinese calligraphy during the China Culture Day held in the Chinese Embassy in Australia in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 27, 2024. China Culture Day of 2024, a cultural exchange event themed "Amazing Xi'an Ancient Capital," was held by the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Tuesday. Artists from Xi'an were invited to showcase the richness of Chinese culture, including Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, dances, music and magic shows, among others. (Photo by Chu Chen/Xinhua) An artist from Xi'an performs a fire-breathing stunt during the China Culture Day held in the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 27, 2024. China Culture Day of 2024, a cultural exchange event themed "Amazing Xi'an Ancient Capital," was held by the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Tuesday. Artists from Xi'an were invited to showcase the richness of Chinese culture, including Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, dances, music and magic shows, among others. (Photo by Chu Chen/Xinhua) Australian guests learn about the art of Chinese paper-cutting during the China Culture Day held in the Chinese Embassy in Australia in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 27, 2024. China Culture Day of 2024, a cultural exchange event themed "Amazing Xi'an Ancient Capital," was held by the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Tuesday. Artists from Xi'an were invited to showcase the richness of Chinese culture, including Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, dances, music and magic shows, among others. (Photo by Chu Chen/Xinhua) An artist from Xi'an performs a magic show during the China Culture Day held in the Chinese Embassy in Australia in Canberra, Australia, on Feb. 27, 2024. China Culture Day of 2024, a cultural exchange event themed "Amazing Xi'an Ancient Capital," was held by the Chinese Embassy in Australia on Tuesday. Artists from Xi'an were invited to showcase the richness of Chinese culture, including Chinese calligraphy, seal carving, dances, music and magic shows, among others. (Photo by Chu Chen/Xinhua) During a collaborative event with human rights groups, Telenor CEO Sigve Brekke delved into the complex landscape of digital challenges. Brekke's remarks underscored the ongoing efforts required to navigate and mitigate the multifaceted dangers present in the digital age. (Photo : LISE ASERUD/NTB/AFP via Getty Images) A photo taken on February 24, 2022 shows the logo of Norwegian telecoms operator Telenor in the Majorstuen district of Oslo. Urging Action for Child Safety, AI Regulation Telenor CEO Sigve Brekke highlighted the pressing need to enhance protections for children amidst growing online risks and emphasized the importance of implementing robust regulations to address the potential harms of artificial intelligence technologies. At a keynote panel during the second day of MWC Barcelona 2024, Mobile World Live reported that Brekke emphasized the mobile operators and the wider telecoms industry's aim to empower societies and play an active role in societal development through diverse initiatives. The Telenor executive underscored the company's efforts to safeguard child rights in the digital realm, citing initiatives such as its filtering system to combat the spread of illegal content and educational programs aimed at addressing online misinformation and cyber risks. Additionally, Telenor has partnered with UNICEF and Pakistani authorities to facilitate access to education for local communities. Seeking Partnerships with NGOs Joining Brekke were Katarina Mellstrom from Global Child Forum, Lara Perdomo from UNICEF Spain, and Tayma Abdalhadi at ITU's Generation Connect event. In her remarks, Mellstrom shed light on the proactive stance taken by telecom operators such as Telenor, Telia, Verizon, and Vodafone in seeking partnerships with non-governmental organizations. These collaborations aim to spearhead and oversee a diverse range of projects aimed at addressing societal challenges and fostering positive impacts. Through these initiatives, telecom companies are actively engaging in social responsibility efforts, leveraging their resources and expertise to drive meaningful change in various communities and sectors. Mellstrom emphasized the concerning reality that despite children constituting one-third of global internet users, a staggering 360 million people still lack internet access, potentially leading to social segregation. She stressed the importance of ensuring that young individuals develop critical thinking skills to discern between real and fake content, especially with the rise of AI and phenomena like Deepfake. Mellstrom underscored the necessity of comprehensive education initiatives to equip young internet users with the ability to navigate and evaluate online information effectively. Also Read: AI-Generated Nude Images, Created and Shared Amongst Students in Beverly Hills School Similarly, OpenAI and Common Sense Media have joined forces to develop innovative AI guidelines aimed at promoting responsible usage, particularly among children. This collaboration signifies a concerted effort by the prominent AI company to introduce comprehensive guidelines and educational resources tailored for parents, educators, and teenagers, aimed at enhancing the responsible utilization of its products. Additionally, OpenAI announced the introduction of "family-friendly" GPTs accessible through its GPT Store, designed in accordance with the ratings and standards established by Common Sense Media. Related Article: OpenAI, Common Sense Media Collaboration: AI Guidelines Coming for Online Safety 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Vodafone CEO Margherita Della Valle delivered a compelling keynote address at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024, urging for collaboration and regulatory reform to drive the next phase of mobile technology. Della Valle called for a departure from the old model of self-sufficiency among telecommunications companies, emphasizing the need for simultaneous competition and collaboration with other leading players in the next phase of telecommunications technology: the Industrial Internet. This concept involves connecting machines and applications with cloud-based platforms to enrich systems and lives globally. "To serve our customers better, we need to be open to cooperation," she asserted. In highlighting Vodafone's commitment to innovation, Della Valle disclosed ongoing collaborations with tech giants Google, AWS, and Microsoft. These partnerships aim to harness the collective strengths of these entities to achieve optimal connectivity and technical expertise. (Photo : JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images) Vodafone Group's CEO Italian Margherita Della Valle talks on stage during the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecom industry's biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona on February 26, 2024. The world's biggest mobile phone fair throws open its doors in Barcelona with the sector looking to artificial intelligence to try and reverse declining sales. Less Congestion, More Innovation Margherita Della Valle underscored the significance of such collaborations, citing the example of Vodafone and ASD Space Mobile installing a gateway in Kenya to launch the first direct smartphone-to-satellite service in Africa. "Vodafone is uniquely positioned to accelerate growth through partnerships. We have the platforms, we have the talent, and we know what our hundreds of millions of customers need," she affirmed. The CEO also emphasized the importance of increased collaboration within the tech industry, drawing from Vodafone's involvement in developing open-RAN and edge cloud technologies. She advocated for a broader ecosystem at scale, calling for a fresh approach to partnerships within and beyond the tech industry. Read Also: Threads vs. X: Instagram's Alt-Twitter App Dominates with Threefold Daily Downloads Della Valle took a firm stance against the current regulatory landscape in Europe, advocating for a continent-wide set of regulations to replace the existing fragmented rules across different countries. She highlighted the potential benefits, stating, "One set of European rules, not 27 sets of national rules. Imagine if the billions we waste today through fragmentation could be invested in higher quality, faster connections, less congestion, and more innovation. Telecoms grow through investment," she declared. The Vodafone CEO expressed willingness to collaborate, calling on industry players, partners, and governments. "This is our role. European economies need our investment-let's work together." Vodafone Focusing on The Future of Telecommunications The CEO also noted in her MWC 2024 address the transformative potential of mobile technology. Della Valle acknowledged its life-saving impact and advocated for the next step in its evolution. She remarked, underscoring the vast opportunities ahead, "Our imaginations are really the only thing holding us back." TechTimes previously reported that Vodafone and Microsoft established a 10-year partnership that seeks to provide cutting-edge generative AI, digital, corporate, and cloud services to 300 million European and African enterprises and consumers. Vodafone is investing $1.5 billion in Azure OpenAI and Copilot over the next decade to power customer-focused AI. In exchange, Microsoft will invest in Vodafone's managed Internet of Things (IoT) platform. Vodafone's aim to spin off its IoT business by April accords with this strategy. The agreement will transform Vodafone's IoT capabilities and grow its African mobile finance platform. Related Article: MWC 2024: Open Gateway Initiative-GSMA, KPMG Discuss Initiative Progress, What's Coming 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A new beta version of the Copilot AI got a massive feature from Microsoft, and this allows the renowned generative AI companion to be the default assistant on Android smartphones. In this latest beta feature, it will replace current and default systems available, including the Google Assistant and the Samsung Bixby, alongside other operating systems' onboard technology. One of the nifty things about Android devices is how they can set default AI assistants on their devices, prioritizing more what suits their preferences. Microsoft Copilot can be the Default for Android Devices The latest beta build of Microsoft's Copilot, first spotted by Mishaal Rahman and shared on X, features a new capability that will allow users to set it as the default assistant app on Android devices. This was found in the latest beta version 27.9.420225014, but this beta release does not yet have the in-depth features that are available from other AI assistants. According to Rahman, the current version already allows users to launch Copilot from the screen, swiping diagonally from the corner of the Android device to launch it. Alternatively, long-pressing the power button would also launch the AI. However, Copilot is not yet extensive with its features, and it could only launch the main activity for the time being. The tech analyst and reporter said that Microsoft may already be working on this feature for a more intuitive Copilot assistant experience. Read Also: Microsoft's AI-powered Bing Chat Is Now Renamed to Copilot Copilot vs. Google Assistant, Samsung's Bixby Copilot is capable on its own to hold out against Google Assistant and Samsung Bixby, but using it as the default AI assistant for devices in its current beta release is not yet complete. First off, Copilot would not automatically listen for input, and API access is still minimal. The feature where users can command the AI to grab screenshots or the likes are not yet available. What Does Microsoft Copilot Offer? Copilot is the rebranded version of Microsoft Bing, with the new AI companion promising better performance than the browser namesake, centering on its GPT-powered performance. It was only in late December 2023 that Microsoft brought the renowned Copilot to the Android platform, offering the free-to-download app that presents the latest of Redmond's machine learning tech. The widely regarded partnership of Microsoft and OpenAI delivered a significant experience on its AI tools and developments, centering on the latest large language model, GPT-4 Turbo. Copilot is known to be powered by the GPT-4 Turbo for its subscription-based Premium version, alongside ChatGPT and the new AI image generator, DALL-E 3. Copilot is available on multiple Microsoft products and experiences, from the Bing search engine, down to the Office suite, and recently for the iOS and Android devices. In the latest beta version of Copilot, Microsoft added the feature to make it the default AI assistant on Android devices where it could be easily configured, centering on replacing the likes of Google and Bixby. Related Article: Microsoft's Copilot, Temu, Become Two of Most Downloaded Apps After Super Bowl Ads 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Meta will start collecting "anonymized" data from its global Quest headset users to learn more about their devices, centering on various sets of information from its usage. It was reported that Meta recently informed users regarding this new venture by the company that will allow them to learn more about how the Quest wearables are used in different settings and applications. The goal for this latest Metadata collection centers on improving the Quest, one that would help them determine areas of focus and what more to deliver for the wearable. Meta Quest to Start Collecting 'Anonymous' Data from Headset Users Meta's latest update to its Data Collection policy on the Quest platform highlights the need for the company to gather user information based on their usage of the headset, to improve more of its products and features. Here, Meta said that it collects "anonymized" data regarding the device's usage, and uses this information for better experiences and to improve the Quest headsets. Anonymized Data is Meta's way of keeping the user unknown to the company, meaning that whatever kind of analytics were collected from the user, they will not be identified specifically for this. The company detailed more of this in its Supplemental Meta Platforms Technologies Privacy Policy which talked about why it collects data from Quest users across all ages. Meta also sent an email this Monday regarding this Quest data collection proceedings. Read Also: Meta Is Adding More Quests, Rewards to 'Horizon Worlds' to Encourage Users to Return to the Metaverse Platform Meta Wants Headset Usage, Events, and More Information Examples of Meta's data collection on Quest centers on how a person uses the headset based on their hand, body, eye tracking, camera information, and their physical environment while using the device. Additionally, Meta is also looking at the VR events they attend online, alongside audio data and microphone preferences, fitness-related information, voice interactions, and more. Meta, a.k.a. Facebook's Infamous Data Collection Past years were a testament to how Facebook, now Meta, had a notoriety within the global tech industry for its massive access to user data and their online activity, with many protesting against this access. One of the most significant boycotts against Meta was when WhatsApp changed its privacy policy that it would share user data with Facebook, causing users to find alternatives. Throughout the years and across Meta's platforms, it has been subjected to several antitrust and security cases which allege that the company violates user privacy on its platforms. The likes of the United States, United Kingdom, and the EU have all launched their lawsuits against Meta for this "exploitative" access to user data, despite previous sanctions against them. From Facebook down to its latest social media platform, Threads, Meta found itself at the wrong end of the stick and is subjected to massive disputes for user data access and exploitation. Despite these massive scrutinies against them, Meta is back at it again with its data collection, now for the Quest platform, looking into anonymized data to help them improve the headsets in the future. Related Article: Meta Quest Removes a Fan Favorite Feature, But Why? 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The 'Willy's Chocolate Experience' in Glasgow, Scotland turned out to be a nightmare for parents, children, and fans who were promised a colorful and immersive experience once they got to the site. This was because the organizers reportedly used AI-generated images on their website that captured the world of Wonka, based on English writer, Roald Dahl's children's novel. Unlike the renowned film adaptations and the generative AI depiction, the warehouse failed to replicate what it promised on the website, with attendees complaining, and going as far as to call the Glasgow police. AI-Generated Wonka Event Under Fire for Inaccurate Real-Life Depictions Willy's Chocolate Experience from organizers, House of Illuminati, turned out to be not what they were promised from its original website which showed a colorful and whimsical adaptation from the renowned franchise. Users took out their frustrations on social media platforms and called out the event, saying that they paid around 35 British Pounds for each attendee. Stuart Sinclair said on a Facebook post that this event in Glasgow promised a "full Willy Wonka experience with chocolate fountains etc." However, Sinclair also shared pictures of the event which display inaccurate real-life depictions of what was promised on the website. According to a now-deleted post by House of Illuminati, they are "truly sorry" for how the event turned out, saying how they were "let down in many areas" of this Willy Wonka experience. The organizers have since shut down and canceled the event, claiming to refund the payments to the attendees and those who bought tickets. Read Also: UK Home Secretary Warns State Enemies Could Use AI Deepfakes to Rig Elections Glasgow Cops Called, Attendees Call it a 'Scam' Reports also reported that Scotland police were called to the scene. Attendees and people who bought tickets to the event went as far as to say that it was a "scam," with many children disappointed and terrified of its turnout, coming to the event and expecting a "once-in-a-lifetime musical experience" but was nothing like what was promised online. Generative AI Depictions There is no doubt that AI can make the impossible now, and this centers on the massive developments of various companies towards generative AI and large language models. However, it can be used to scam or hurt people in various ways, with one of the most controversial uses of AI in the present centering on deepfake pornography of celebrities and even people from their communities. Scams were also rampant during the Super Bowl LVIII period where bad actors used artificial intelligence to create counterfeit tickets and sell them online for a fortune. The United States is also looking to stem AI's use in the upcoming 2024 US Elections as it proliferates fake news, misleading content, and propaganda that disrupts the right of suffrage. Companies like OpenAI, Google, Stability AI, Microsoft, and more offer significant developments in their AI image generator tools available widely across the world, but are notorious for their association with dubious online scams. This latest event from the House of Illuminati faced massive problems from the public, especially as it was not able to deliver its AI-generated teasers of the actual event, causing backlash from the global community. Related Article: AI-Generated Nude Images, Created and Shared Amongst Students in Beverly Hills School 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : (Photo by THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images)) A new artificial intelligence-based security system could boost defenses against phishing scams and advanced cyber threats. Bufferzone and Intel presented their new software during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this week. The AI anti-phishing detection solution has been added to Bufferzone's Safe Workspace platform as a Chrome or Edge browser extension. When installed, the system is constantly running, assessing for potential scams and threats while users are browsing the internet, according to the company. If a malicious website is identified, users will receive a warning from the installed extension. Experts have lauded the groundbreaking collaboration, indicating that more cyber security companies and vendors may take up similar initiatives as the fight against cyber criminals rages on. "Endpoint security requires a highly layered approach to mitigate threats; there's no single layer that can alone address all attacks," Dev Nag, founder and CEO at QueryPal, told Tech Times in an interview. "Antivirus/anti-malware, firewalls, email security, and web filtering all play different roles in the endpoint security ecosystem. However, a browser extension makes sense as an important part of the endpoint security stack, and leveraging local neural processors means that users can get the best of both worlds in terms of security and performance. People want safer browsing, but not at the cost of slower browsing." Lisa Plaggemier, the Executive Director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance, said in an interview that by using a browser extension, the security measure can "empower" internet users as they look to avoid cyber threats. "By employing advanced algorithms and machine learning, the extension promptly alerts users to potential threats, whether encountered while browsing websites or through suspicious emails, empowering them to make informed decisions and avoid falling victim to phishing scams," Plaggemier told TechTimes. With this software module, Reema Khan, founder and CEO at Green Sands Equity, said that Bufferzone is "democratizing access to innovative technologies." "This will accelerate AI adoption, allowing smaller companies and individuals to access the benefits of AI without the prohibitive capital outlays that are required for GPUs," Khan told TechTimes. As the AI system is leveraging Intel's Core Ultra processors, Nag did warn that it may indicate the security measure will only work "for the newest generation of laptops." "The bulk of the corporate fleet will need to turn over to broaden adoption over coming years," Nag said. For those that have access to cyber threat protection, Nag said the measure goes a step further than traditional security browser extensions - which may be limited to behavioral heuristics and filtering through URL filter lists. "This product analyzes user traffic at the level of image content and performs static page analysis using AI, meaning it should be able to protect against a broader class of threats and augment the existing layers well," he said. "For users, this means less risk and a better balance between security and convenience for more sophisticated attacks such as credential theft and social engineering." Khan also noted that the use of AI in this system allows for higher efficiency when recognizing, indexing, and stopping cyber threats. This is key as the volume of phishing attacks continues to grow and become more difficult to curb with conventional methods. The anti-phishing system may only make a small difference against cyber threats at first, as it is currently only available for Bufferzone customers, Khan warned. However, she explained that the measure is attractive to users and could be implemented by larger players if the cyber security company sees success in its adoption. "As widespread adoption begins, we will see increased effectiveness in the threats present to everyday users," Khan said. Bufferzone and Intel did not respond to TechTime's requests for comment. About the author: Callie Patteson is freelance journalist jointly based out of Amsterdam, Netherlands and New Hampshire. She is currently studying to receive her Erasmus Mundus Master's' Degree in political communication and data journalism at the University of Amsterdam. Previously, she worked as a national politics reporter for the New York Post as well as an Associate Breaking News Editor for the Washington Examiner. Find her online at https://calliepatteson.squarespace.com/ 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)) A team of researchers is employing drones to disperse sterile mosquitoes to combat lethal disease outbreaks such as dengue fever. The team at BirdView, a startup based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has been working for years on controlling mosquitoes in crops using aerial methods. But when the team was introduced to the possibility of controlling crop pests and vector-borne diseases like dengue, they got to work. "We immediately saw the impact of potentially using our technology and our systems to help alleviate some of the damage," Ricardo Machado, an environmental engineer and co-founder of BirdView, told Tech Times in an interview. The drone-based system for aerially releasing mosquitoes has been shown to drastically reduce mosquito populations, which could potentially reduce the spread of diseases like dengue, Machado said. Aerial release of sterile mosquitoes is a common pest control strategy worldwide. The approach involves mass breeding and sterilization of target pests using radiation, followed by aerial release of sterile males over defined areas. These sterile males mate with wild females, and because females of the target species reproduce only once in their lifetime, the strategy results in no offspring and a decline in the pest population. One of the insects Machado and his team focus on is Aedes aegypti, a known carrier of several viruses, including yellow fever, dengue, and Zika. Dengue, in particular, has become a growing concern, especially in the Americas. According to the World Health Organization, 2023 recorded the highest number of dengue cases in the region, with well over four million cases and more than 2,000 deaths. This trend has continued into 2024, with more than 600,00 cases reported in early February, a staggering 157% increase over the same period last year. Regarding the impact the system could have on reducing A. aegypti mosquito populations, Machado explains that he and his team are actively working with insectaries to scale up their current system to the city level, where dengue is becoming more of a problem. The drone-based system is designed to transport and release the insects comfortably. This is important to ensure that the released sterile mosquitoes are not in a stressed state and are thus able to compete with wild mosquitoes and mate with females. BirdView's system consists of two main components: a release unit attached to drones and a packaging unit to transport the insects. A drone flies over an urban area and can release up to 17,000 sterile insects. Although A. aegypti has been the focus of the BirdView team, the cartridges can also hold other insect species, helping to release other mosquitoes in fields. "Our system is also compatible with a wide number of beneficial insects, [...] so it can be a bit more flexible for the operator who can use the same equipment for agriculture and forest restorations," Machado explains. Typically, sterile mosquitoes can be released in several ways, including terrestrial and drone release. Machado's team compared the two methods and found that aerial delivery can produce faster results. In a field trial, they compared two neighborhoods, one treated by car and the other by drone release. Both methods reduced mosquito populations by about 90%, but the drone did it in about three to four weeks, while the terrestrial release method did it in two months. "In a car, you have to follow the roads and the roads typically go around city blocks, so you are releasing the insects along the perimeter of the city blocks. Whereas, with the drone you are releasing it homogeneously regularly within city blocks as well. So you get a much more homogeneous release, and this increases the probability that the sterile male will find wild females to mate," Machado explains. But despite the differences, the engineer adds that having both systems in place is important. "We have to remember that these are not competitive methods. In the end, I imagine all systems will be used in a complimentary way," he adds. Jeremy Bouyer of the French Agricultural Research and Cooperation Organization worked with the aerial release of sterile mosquitoes and had the opportunity to work with a BirdView prototype. "We did some lab trials [at the International Atomic Energy Agency], and the system was quite good," he told Tech Times in an interview. However, Bouyer argues that it would be useful to look at published results on how successful the sterile mosquitoes released by BirdView are at mating with females compared to wild males. Machado says he and his team are working on publishing results on this topic soon. In the meantime, they're focused on partnering with more and more farmers and city managers to get their drone-based system where it's needed. "This is something that we're trying to bring to market and essentially make available whenever and wherever people want it," Machado said. About the author: Barbara Pinho is a freelance science journalist. Her work work has appeared in New Scientist, Chemistry World, Discover, Chemistry & Industry News, National Geographic. Her website is https://www.barbarapinho.com/ 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (Photo : DAVID SWANSON/AFP via Getty Images) While Apple might suggest the Vision Pro is designed for all-day use, experts and researchers warn such prolonged use of reality-mixing headsets can cause mental and physical health issues. There's an endless stream of YouTubers who've worn the Vision Pro for an entire day or longer. While their actual reasons vary, none of them imagines themselves donning the headset for elongated periods. And that's not necessarily a good thing. "I do not believe the benefits of using a device like the Apple Vision Pro outweigh the concerns from a medical perspective due to potential impacts on users vision, cognitive functions, and overall well-being," Leon Gordon, CEO of data and AI analytics firm, Onyx Data, told Tech Times in an interview. Gordon agrees the Vision Pro offers unprecedented immersive experiences and unique capabilities, thanks to its dual 4K micro-OLED displays and near-perfect hand and eye tracking. But at the end of the day, he says, it is still a screen you're staring at, which means prolonged usage can still potentially have all kinds of adverse effects. For one, using it for extended periods can potentially lead to a reduction in peripheral vision and all other kinds of visual distortions, as experienced by many YouTubers who've used the headset for several hours on end. "Although these devices are designed for long-term use, continued exposure to screens near your eyes can strain your visual system," Suhel Rana, smartphone technician and co-founder of TechiAid, told Tech Times in an interview. He points to the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), which warns against long-term use of VR headsets, suggesting it can even cause headaches and blurred vision since we tend to blink less when gazing at a digital screen. This can cause the surface of the eye to dry out and feel fatigued. Rana, who has worked with all kinds of screens, says prolonged use of AR/VR and even passthrough devices can have the same negative effect on a user's vision. But that doesn't mean you should junk those headsets. Just like with other screens, Rana says moderation is the key. He again points to the AAO's 20-20-20 recommendation (every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds). "Holding screens close to your eyes can cause [all kinds of] discomfort, but these symptoms are usually temporary and can be alleviated with proper rest and eye care," says Rana. Analyzing the implications of seeing the world through passthrough video, researchers at Stanford University concluded that while it appears passthrough devices are here to stay, they will likely cause all kinds of medical and psychological after-effects. The 11 researchers all spent a number of hours wearing headsets from Apple, Meta, and others that block out light from the real world and instead rely on passthrough video to offer mixed reality views. They hail the past through advances made by the latest generation of headsets. Using them, users get a much deeper and more immersive experience, but can also quickly check in with the real world without having to take off the headsets. "... but [these views] are still lower fidelity compared to human vision on parameters such as field of view, distortion, latency, and resolution," note the researchers. Based on their experience, the researchers believe the headsets will likely cause visual aftereffects, lapses in judgments of distance, and could even interfere with social connection. Even more worryingly, they think prolonged use of passthrough headsets could likely cause developmental issues. "We recommend caution and restraint for companies lobbying for daily use of these headsets." The researchers urge Apple, Meta, and other companies investing in passthrough devices to work with academicians to find safe and responsible ways of pitching them to users. They quickly overrule the effectiveness of creating guidelines for use since these haven't worked with smartphones. Instead, they point to soldiers who spend dozens of hours learning how to use night vision goggles before putting them to use in the field. They recommend companies adopt a similar strategy and provide thorough training and onboarding to users of their devices. Gordon echoes their call for further long-term studies to understand the potential health implications of prolonged exposure to these mixed-reality headsets. Based on his experience, visual fatigue isn't the only health concern that worries Rana, especially as the devices and the software running inside them get better. He fears they could potentially disconnect users from real-world interactions, becoming another possible avenue for digital addiction. "The immersive nature of these devices also poses a risk for users to become overly dependent on virtual interactions, potentially leading to social isolation and neglect of physical activity," warns Rana. "To minimize these risks, it's important that users balance their digital and real-world experiences and follow recommended guidelines for rest and eye care." About the author: Mayank Sharma is a technology writer with two decades of experience in breaking down complex technology and getting behind the news to help his readers get to grips with the latest buzzwords and industry milestones. He has had bylines on NewsForge, Linux.com, IBM developerWorks, Linux User & Developer magazine, Linux Voice magazine, Linux Magazine, and HackSpace magazine. In addition to Tech Times, his current roster of publications include TechRadar Pro, and Linux Format magazine. Follow him at https://twitter.com/geekybodhi 2024 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. DHAKA, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Remittance-reliant Bangladesh expects six million overseas jobs for the country's skilled and semi-skilled workforce over the next five years. "There are plans to send six million Bangladeshis abroad with overseas employment over the next five years," Bangladeshi State Minister for Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Shafiqur Rahman Chowdhury told parliament during a question and answer session Tuesday. He said the expectation comes after 13,05,453 Bangladeshis found overseas jobs in 2023. Chowdhury said they are planning to send more skilled workers this year and exploring further opportunities in many more non-traditional Bangladeshi labor hosting countries to bolster inflow of remittances. The inflow of remittances from some 10 million Bangladeshis living and working in over 100 countries and regions, in the last 2022-23 financial year amounted to 21.61 billion U.S. dollars. Remittances, which have a significant contribution in the country's GDP, mainly come from countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, among others. They simply had nowhere to evolve: a Russian paleontologist on the progress of scientific ideas about dinosaurs A business manager suspected of having ordered the attack on an elected official from Saint-Denis Tigrane Seydoux, the Frenchman behind the fashionable Italians in Madrid in which you always have to visit the bathroom Energy transition: The experts say so, the Court of Auditors says so Shanghai police cracked down on a series of burglaries: the suspect "switched his face" by buying film and television silicone masks online Device to produce hydrogen and oxygen on the moon unveiled Planned to launch this winter Second trial of residents who evacuated from the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident also does not accept national responsibility Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant First detection of object that may contain nuclear fuel debris on water Love and family are more important than money: what is the comedy series Inheritance about? Jordi Evole apologizes to Camela in Lo de Evole for an article he wrote in 2000 Organ donation registry: how does it work? Answers to the most important questions Annoyed by a kissing couple: woman attacks the person sitting next to her on the train A man who was drunk on a train and threatened to hit a police officer has been detained by the railway police "Watch me overcome difficulties step by step and fight back." This Chinese golden flower keeps his word. A Blaugrana nightmare and the bogeyman Joao Felix: "It was a game for him, he made a difference" NBA: Victor Wembanyama and Gregg Popovich confirm the Spurs will come to Paris next season Defeat in the FA Cup: Klopp breaks off interview I have no nerves for you Defeat in the FA Cup: Klopp breaks off interview I have no nerves for you 9th day of the Grand Sumo Spring Tournament New entrant with only one winner Takafuji 9 consecutive wins IN PICTURES - Football: discover the new Blues jerseys for Euro 2024 and the Olympics Real estate crisis: Number of building permits also fell significantly at the beginning of the year The "egg-smashing" trend is blowing into a small town in Zhejiang, how to play the cards in your hand? Analyst: the drivers of rising oil prices were signs of high demand in the United States The first batch of imported exhibits of the 135th Canton Fair entered the country smoothly Yen exchange rate: The yen depreciates to the low 149 yen level to the dollar, due to speculation regarding monetary policy. Daihatsu's name announced by the FTC: ``We were waiting, but we will set up a forum for discussions.'' La Unio denounces the second detection of Moroccan strawberries with hepatitis A in nine days Without unnecessary risks: the ruble has risen in price on the Moscow Exchange following the results of the presidential elections in Russia Puy du Fou receives the award for the best show in the world They intensify the search for Javier Marquez, a 20-year-old young man who disappeared on March 2 in Logrono Ayuso distances herself from her partner's case and delves into her criticism of the Prosecutor's Office and Moncloa for their "Chavista methods" Laura Escanes makes a mess by promoting the company Children's walkers: outdoor walks for a maximum of 7 and with harnesses Pascal Praud and you - Fine for not picking up dog droppings: 537 euros, "it's not enough", says a dog owner Borrell hopes the EU can agree on the use of Russian assets Civil servants will have the salary increase after Easter and before the Budgets are approved Niger: what follow-up after the denunciation of the military agreement between Niamey and Washington? TikTok is at the heart of the US election season Putin: all traitors fighting against Russia will be identified by name and they will not be given peace Urgent | Al Jazeera obtains exclusive photos showing the Qassam tracking the movements of officer in the Shaldag unit, Yitzhar Hoffman, before he was killed by a snipers bullet. Faced with the risks of war with Russia, Latvia restores its military service for men The Japanese Cabinet of Ministers refrained from commenting on the results of the elections in Russia Communities 2019 - Privacy The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them. They simply had nowhere to evolve: a Russian paleontologist on the progress of scientific ideas about dinosaurs A business manager suspected of having ordered the attack on an elected official from Saint-Denis Tigrane Seydoux, the Frenchman behind the fashionable Italians in Madrid in which you always have to visit the bathroom Energy transition: The experts say so, the Court of Auditors says so Device to produce hydrogen and oxygen on the moon unveiled Planned to launch this winter Second trial of residents who evacuated from the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident also does not accept national responsibility Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant First detection of object that may contain nuclear fuel debris on water Love and family are more important than money: what is the comedy series Inheritance about? Jordi Evole apologizes to Camela in Lo de Evole for an article he wrote in 2000 Organ donation registry: how does it work? Answers to the most important questions Annoyed by a kissing couple: woman attacks the person sitting next to her on the train A man who was drunk on a train and threatened to hit a police officer has been detained by the railway police "Watch me overcome difficulties step by step and fight back." This Chinese golden flower keeps his word. A Blaugrana nightmare and the bogeyman Joao Felix: "It was a game for him, he made a difference" NBA: Victor Wembanyama and Gregg Popovich confirm the Spurs will come to Paris next season Defeat in the FA Cup: Klopp breaks off interview I have no nerves for you Defeat in the FA Cup: Klopp breaks off interview I have no nerves for you 9th day of the Grand Sumo Spring Tournament New entrant with only one winner Takafuji 9 consecutive wins IN PICTURES - Football: discover the new Blues jerseys for Euro 2024 and the Olympics Real estate crisis: Number of building permits also fell significantly at the beginning of the year The "egg-smashing" trend is blowing into a small town in Zhejiang, how to play the cards in your hand? Analyst: the drivers of rising oil prices were signs of high demand in the United States The first batch of imported exhibits of the 135th Canton Fair entered the country smoothly Yen exchange rate: The yen depreciates to the low 149 yen level to the dollar, due to speculation regarding monetary policy. Daihatsu's name announced by the FTC: ``We were waiting, but we will set up a forum for discussions.'' La Unio denounces the second detection of Moroccan strawberries with hepatitis A in nine days Without unnecessary risks: the ruble has risen in price on the Moscow Exchange following the results of the presidential elections in Russia They intensify the search for Javier Marquez, a 20-year-old young man who disappeared on March 2 in Logrono Ayuso distances herself from her partner's case and delves into her criticism of the Prosecutor's Office and Moncloa for their "Chavista methods" Laura Escanes makes a mess by promoting the company Children's walkers: outdoor walks for a maximum of 7 and with harnesses Pascal Praud and you - Fine for not picking up dog droppings: 537 euros, "it's not enough", says a dog owner Borrell hopes the EU can agree on the use of Russian assets China: the increase in sales and industry does not cancel out the effects of the real estate crisis Civil servants will have the salary increase after Easter and before the Budgets are approved Niger: what follow-up after the denunciation of the military agreement between Niamey and Washington? TikTok is at the heart of the US election season Putin: all traitors fighting against Russia will be identified by name and they will not be given peace Urgent | Al Jazeera obtains exclusive photos showing the Qassam tracking the movements of officer in the Shaldag unit, Yitzhar Hoffman, before he was killed by a snipers bullet. Faced with the risks of war with Russia, Latvia restores its military service for men The Japanese Cabinet of Ministers refrained from commenting on the results of the elections in Russia Communities 2019 - Privacy The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them. UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy on Tuesday called for actions to mitigate the repercussions of the Gaza conflict's escalation on Syria. "Over the past four months, Israel has continued to launch airstrikes on various locations in Syria through the occupied Golan Heights, about which China is deeply concerned. We call on all parties to exercise restraint and to avoid exacerbating tensions," Dai Bing, charge d'affaires of China's permanent mission to the United Nations, told the Security Council briefing on Syria. "Countries outside the region should play a constructive role in deescalating the situation and preventing the conflict from spreading and expanding," the envoy added. "China welcomes the successful convening of the 21st round of High-Level Meetings on Syria within the framework of the Astana format as well as special envoy (Geir) Pedersen's extensive engagement with all parties on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2254," the envoy said. Dai urged the international community to uphold the "Syrian-led and Syrian-owned principle," encourage dialogue and consultations, and find a solution acceptable to all parties. "We believe help from regional countries will inject new momentum into the political settlement of the Syrian issue," Dai said. "We support the Syrian Government in taking necessary measures to combat terrorism, maintain security and stability, and eliminate the long-term threats to the political process in Syria. The international community must combat all terrorism in Syria with zero tolerance." The ambassador noted that over the past year, the United Nations and the Syrian Government have maintained effective and smooth communication and cross-border points have been extended several times. "We urge the parties concerned to show sincerity and make positive progress in cross-line operations. As humanitarian funding for Syria has long been insufficient, the international community should increase its input in humanitarian assistance to Syria and support humanitarian operations and early recovery projects throughout the country," he said. Dai stressed that unilateral sanctions and the plundering of resources have long impeded Syria's economic recovery, social development, and improvement of people's livelihood, thereby exacerbating the humanitarian disaster in Syria. "We urge the countries concerned to immediately end their unlawful acts and foreign forces to immediately end their illegal military presence in Syria," the envoy said. They simply had nowhere to evolve: a Russian paleontologist on the progress of scientific ideas about dinosaurs A business manager suspected of having ordered the attack on an elected official from Saint-Denis Tigrane Seydoux, the Frenchman behind the fashionable Italians in Madrid in which you always have to visit the bathroom Energy transition: The experts say so, the Court of Auditors says so Device to produce hydrogen and oxygen on the moon unveiled Planned to launch this winter Second trial of residents who evacuated from the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident also does not accept national responsibility Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant First detection of object that may contain nuclear fuel debris on water Love and family are more important than money: what is the comedy series Inheritance about? Jordi Evole apologizes to Camela in Lo de Evole for an article he wrote in 2000 Organ donation registry: how does it work? Answers to the most important questions Annoyed by a kissing couple: woman attacks the person sitting next to her on the train A man who was drunk on a train and threatened to hit a police officer has been detained by the railway police "Watch me overcome difficulties step by step and fight back." This Chinese golden flower keeps his word. A Blaugrana nightmare and the bogeyman Joao Felix: "It was a game for him, he made a difference" NBA: Victor Wembanyama and Gregg Popovich confirm the Spurs will come to Paris next season Defeat in the FA Cup: Klopp breaks off interview I have no nerves for you Defeat in the FA Cup: Klopp breaks off interview I have no nerves for you 9th day of the Grand Sumo Spring Tournament New entrant with only one winner Takafuji 9 consecutive wins IN PICTURES - Football: discover the new Blues jerseys for Euro 2024 and the Olympics Real estate crisis: Number of building permits also fell significantly at the beginning of the year The "egg-smashing" trend is blowing into a small town in Zhejiang, how to play the cards in your hand? Analyst: the drivers of rising oil prices were signs of high demand in the United States The first batch of imported exhibits of the 135th Canton Fair entered the country smoothly Yen exchange rate: The yen depreciates to the low 149 yen level to the dollar, due to speculation regarding monetary policy. Daihatsu's name announced by the FTC: ``We were waiting, but we will set up a forum for discussions.'' La Unio denounces the second detection of Moroccan strawberries with hepatitis A in nine days Without unnecessary risks: the ruble has risen in price on the Moscow Exchange following the results of the presidential elections in Russia Puy du Fou receives the award for the best show in the world They intensify the search for Javier Marquez, a 20-year-old young man who disappeared on March 2 in Logrono Ayuso distances herself from her partner's case and delves into her criticism of the Prosecutor's Office and Moncloa for their "Chavista methods" Laura Escanes makes a mess by promoting the company Children's walkers: outdoor walks for a maximum of 7 and with harnesses Pascal Praud and you - Fine for not picking up dog droppings: 537 euros, "it's not enough", says a dog owner Borrell hopes the EU can agree on the use of Russian assets Civil servants will have the salary increase after Easter and before the Budgets are approved Niger: what follow-up after the denunciation of the military agreement between Niamey and Washington? TikTok is at the heart of the US election season Putin: all traitors fighting against Russia will be identified by name and they will not be given peace Urgent | Al Jazeera obtains exclusive photos showing the Qassam tracking the movements of officer in the Shaldag unit, Yitzhar Hoffman, before he was killed by a snipers bullet. Faced with the risks of war with Russia, Latvia restores its military service for men The Japanese Cabinet of Ministers refrained from commenting on the results of the elections in Russia Communities 2019 - Privacy The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them. VIENTIANE, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Lao government kicked off its monthly meeting for February on Wednesday, at which participants will discuss key issues to the Southeast Asian country. At the two-day meeting held in Lao capital Vientiane, participants will review government work over the past month and discuss guidelines and directions for the work in the coming month, Lao National Radio reported on Wednesday. The meeting was chaired by Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone and attended by deputy prime ministers, other cabinet members, and representatives of ministries. The meeting will discuss economic and financial difficulties, issues of public security and national defense, Laos' chairmanship of ASEAN and arrangements for the official visits by foreign leaders to Laos. In opening remarks at the meeting, Sonexay also briefed the participants about regional and international situations, including external challenges affecting the world's economic recovery and recovery efforts in Laos. Indigenous Colombians fret as sacred mountain glaciers melt Pueblo Bello, Colombia, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 In the shade of a sacred tree, Indigenous wise men chew coca leaves as they mull the threats to their home among the melting, snow-capped peaks of Colombia's Sierra Nevada mountains. As a "consequence of man's actions, it is slowly warming, more every year," one of the men says in the Iku language, according to a translator, at a meeting of dozens of Indigenous people from different communities. The inhabitants of the Sierra Nevada range in north Colombia believe it is the center of the universe, its rivers, stones and plants part of one living body. They see it as their job to protect its balance. In 2022, UNESCO recognized the ancient knowledge of the area's four Indigenous groups as part of the world's intangible cultural heritage, and essential to caring for "mother nature, humanity and the planet." But here in Earth's highest coastal mountain system, 5,775 meters (19,000 feet) above sea level, the natural harmony they prize is being disrupted as record heat waves melt the glacial peaks and ruin their crops. In a form of active meditation, the Arhuaco spiritual leaders or "mamos" place a wooden stick in their mouths before removing it and rubbing it around a gourd -- transferring their thoughts to the hollowed-out fruit. "We are here to live in peace, in harmony. Believing otherwise leads to global warming," one Indigenous leader says. "Man is going to end himself because of his own inventions, believing himself to be very intelligent." Of the 14 tropical glaciers that existed in Colombia at the beginning of the 20th century, only six remain, according to official data. The Sierra Nevada's glacial area has shrunk from 82 square kilometers (32 square miles) in the mid-19th century to just 5.3 kilometers in 2022, according to the state meteorological institute. - Glaciers 'disappearing' - The Arhuaco live in the Sierra Nevada alongside the Kankuamo, Kogui and Wiwa peoples, who are distinct but related communities. They wear white tunics and hand-woven white straw hats. When greeting each other, they exchange handfuls of toasted coca leaves which they chew with lime to release stimulating alkaloids. Their fears about the changing climate are shared by Leonor Zalabata, the first Indigenous person to represent Colombia at the United Nations. "All the glaciers that existed in the Sierra Nevada are disappearing," she warns. Seydin Aty Rosado, a leader in Nabusimake, a town of 8,000 people, said it used to be too cold to cultivate the coffee, bananas and cassava they now plant. In January, environmental authorities recorded a record temperature of 40 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) in the seaside city of Santa Marta, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. A swing between morning frosts and midday surges of heat ruined the residents' maize crops. The Arhuaco hope the weather extremes will moderate by March in time to plant beans, cabbage and corn. "It is a response to what we as human beings have given to Mother Earth," said Rosado, as she handweaves a bag. "Here is our past, our present and our future. When I weave, I talk and think about my children. Everything is recorded here, in the bag," she said. - 'Life is possible' - One of the tenets of the community's worldview -- which they believe could help the world tackle climate change -- is collective thinking. "There is only one man, only one woman. That's why if something happens to a man, wherever he is, he is connected to everyone. Likewise with women," explains Rosado. "We are not alone, nor separated from other human beings, nor from animals, nor from anything that exists on Earth." Aside from their deep connection with nature, the Arhuaco also highlight the importance of balance. While they maintain their traditional clothing and beliefs, they carry cellphones in their woven bags, and use solar panels to electrify their mud huts. They learn Spanish from childhood and some families send their children to study at public universities in neighboring cities. "We believe that life is possible, as long as there is a balance," said Zalabata's son, Arukin Torres. "Hence our insistence that we cannot alter the environment any further." But climate change is not the only threat to the Arhuaco's environment. Due to its rugged geography and proximity to the coast, the sacred mountain has for decades been a refuge and corridor for drug traffickers. Torres also warns of a surge in paramilitary activity in the region as peace talks between armed groups and President Gustavo Petro's government hit a logjam. "This crisis (of violence) is coming again. That is why we ask that the government resume its dialogue," he said. Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia see surging wildfire emissions: EU monitor Paris, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 Wildfires in Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia have generated the highest February carbon emissions for the countries in two decades, Europe's climate monitor said Wednesday. Punishing drought conditions across South America have helped drive blazes that have scorched across parts of the region in recent weeks, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) said. The estimated wildfire carbon emissions from Brazil and Venezuela were 4.1 and 5.2 megatonnes of carbon, respectively, Copernicus said. Bolivia has also seen record high emissions at 0.3 megatonnes of carbon. In February 2003, the estimated carbon emissions for each country were at 3.1, 4.3, and 0.08 megatonnes, respectively. Copernicus said the peak season for wildfires in Bolivia and the Amazon region as a whole was normally expected in September and October. "Many parts of South America have been experiencing drought conditions which has contributed to increased fire risk and resulted in the observed fires," CAMS senior scientist Mark Parrington said. "Our atmospheric composition forecasts also show that the smoke transport is covering a large area of the region and causing increased air pollution in populated areas." He said the organisation had monitored an increase in the number of fires during the peak fire season. Some experts have suggested the arrival of the naturally-occurring El Nino weather phenomenon was behind the historic drought in the Amazon basin last year, which stoked huge wildfires, damaged crops and shrunk key waterways. But a study in January from scientists at the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group found that climate change caused by humanity's planet-heating carbon pollution was the main culprit. They said it had made the drought 30 times more likely from June to November 2023. Zero-emission ship nears finish of round-the-world voyage Fort Lauderdale, United States, Feb 28 (AFP) Feb 28, 2024 A ship powered by renewable energy, including hydrogen produced onboard, is docked in the southeastern US state of Florida this week as it prepares to finish the last leg of a voyage around the world. The 100-foot catamaran, dubbed the Energy Observer, has logged 63,040 nautical miles without using fossil fuels since it first started sailing in 2017. This particular trip around the world started in 2020. The mission has tested renewable energy -- including by using solar panels and advanced sails called "oceanwings" -- as a power source in multiple climates off the coasts of Africa, Asia and Antarctica. The automated 12-meter wings boost the ship's speed and reduce energy consumption. "We learned a lot along this journey," captain Marin Jarry told AFP in Fort Lauderdale, just north of Miami. Jarry said he wants to share what he has learned through seminars, articles and videos. The project hopes to influence the shipping and maritime sectors, especially as its "oceanwings" have already been used in commercial shipping. They were used on a freighter called the Canopee, which was designed to transport parts of the Ariane 6 rocket from Europe to a launch center in French Guiana on the northeast tip of South America. In the course of the Energy Observer's current voyage, 40 percent of the vessel's energy has come from wind, 40 percent from solar and 20 percent from hydrogen. The ship is set to make stops in Washington, New York and Boston before heading back to France. An Energy Observer 2 is already in the works: a cargo ship measuring nearly 400 feet (120 meters) long, with a capacity to carry 5,000 metric tons. It is set to run on liquid hydrogen. Maritime transport generates around 3 percent of worldwide greenhouse gasses. Maurizio Martina (on screen), deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN), addresses the Security Council during a meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts, held at the UN headquarters in New York, on Feb. 27, 2024. (Loey Felipe/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua) UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Maurizio Martina, deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), warned on Tuesday that the agricultural infrastructure in Gaza has been devastated. Martina highlighted at the UN Security Council meeting on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts the dire consequences for the region's agricultural sector, which is a "critical source of sustenance and income" for its residents. "The key findings are troubling," Martina said, shedding light on the extensive damage inflicted upon Gaza's agricultural landscape. He detailed the significant toll the conflict has taken, from the decimation of the fishing industry, a vital source of livelihood for over 100,000 people, to the alarming mortality rate among livestock due to airstrikes and a scarcity of essential resources like water and fodder. Martina reported that as of Feb. 15, nearly half of Gaza's arable land had suffered damage. The destruction of agricultural infrastructure is "widespread," with sheep and dairy farms among the hardest hit. He noted that over a quarter of the region's wells were destroyed, significantly affecting water availability in North Gaza and Gaza City. Additionally, 339 hectares of greenhouses, crucial for the cultivation of various crops, "lay in ruins," particularly in Gaza City, North Gaza, and Khan Younis. The conflict has also severely disrupted the harvest of olives and citrus fruits, which are important sources of revenue for many in Gaza. The FAO deputy chief also touched on the severe restrictions on aid deliveries, which have hampered effective humanitarian efforts in the region. He underscored the urgent need for a cessation of hostilities and the restoration of humanitarian corridors to facilitate the delivery of multisectoral assistance and the rehabilitation of essential services. "A critical priority is to restore safe and sustained humanitarian access throughout the Gaza Strip and to all those in need of lifesaving assistance," Martina emphasized, calling for the restoration of basic services such as cross-border water pipelines, telecommunications, electricity distribution, and health facilities. "All parties must respect their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law and protect civilians," Martina said, adding that an immediate ceasefire and peace are a prerequisite for food security. Aerial view of mostly saltwater wetlands surrounding Delacroix in 2005. A new study concludes that sea level rise of as much as 4.9 feet by 2100, fueled by global warming, will push saltwater wetlands well inland, replacing freshwater wetlands, with wetland areas closer to the shoreline, like here, disappearing. (Photo by Mark Schleifstein) UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese envoy urged the global community to take action to avert a more severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza. "The international community must take actions to protect civilians, save lives, and make every effort to prevent an even greater humanitarian disaster," Dai Bing, charge d'affaires of China's permanent mission to the United Nations, said Tuesday at the UN Security Council briefing on the food security risks in Gaza. Dai said Gaza has sunk into an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe since the conflict's outbreak over four months ago, with nearly 30,000 civilians having lost their lives. "Millions of people in Gaza are suffering the pain of losing their loved ones or still unable to find safe shelter after multiple times of forced displacement." "They lack the most basic safety guarantees and supplies for survival and are constantly faced with the threat of death, hunger, and disease. Even more so, women and children are living in fear and desperation every single day," he said. He said events in Gaza severely violate international law and international humanitarian law and go beyond the bottom line of human morality and conscience. "The international community must take actions to protect civilians, save lives, and make every effort to prevent an even greater humanitarian disaster," said Dai. The envoy stressed that humanitarian assistance is what the people in Gaza rely on for hope of survival. "With the focus on protecting civilians and expanding humanitarian access, the council has adopted Resolutions 2712 and 2720." "However, due to man-made obstacles, the entry of humanitarian supplies into Gaza has faced many difficulties. For nearly a month now, the humanitarian supplies received in Gaza have been far below the average of earlier periods, and Northern Gaza has not received any humanitarian supplies," the envoy added. "We call on Israel to earnestly fulfill its obligations as the occupying power under the Geneva Convention, fully cooperate in the implementation of Security Council resolutions, open up all land, sea, and air access routes, and ensure the safe, rapid, and unimpeded entry of humanitarian supplies," Dai said. Dai pointed out that Israel should strictly comply with the requirements of deconfliction, effectively guarantee the safety of humanitarian agencies and personnel and provide necessary facilitation for humanitarian agencies to carry out assistance in Gaza. He underscored that the International Court of Justice ordered provisional measures that require Israel to take all measures to prevent genocide and provide the population in Gaza with urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance. "The order of provisional measures must be effectively implemented." Noting that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is the lifeline for the people in Gaza, the envoy said that "its role is indispensable and irreplaceable. We support the UN in conducting an independent and impartial investigation into the allegations against UNRWA staff. Israel should support and cooperate with the UN in the investigation." Dai said that the international community should continue to support UNRWA and other humanitarian agencies in their work. "We call upon the international community, and in particular, the major donors, to promptly resume their funding for UNRWA." Dai quoted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as saying that with Gaza under gunfire, conditions are impossible for the delivery of humanitarian aid. The envoy stressed that an immediate ceasefire is necessary to protect civilians, deliver assistance and alleviate the humanitarian disaster. "This is currently the overwhelming call of the international community and the overwhelming consensus among Council members." "We hope that the relevant country will adopt a responsible and constructive attitude and support the Council in taking action to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza," he said. "China will continue to work with the international community to make tireless efforts to restore peace and save lives, to end the fighting in Gaza, to implement the two-state solution, and to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East," Dai said. Filmmaker Matty Hannon, 40, was riding a motorbike down the west coast of the Americas when he met Canadian permaculture farmer Heather Hillier, 36, at a surf break. Soon after, the tide turned on his solo road trip. Heather Hillier and Matty Hannon: When he invited me to come along on the rest of his trip, says Heather, I couldnt not do it. Credit: Toni Fuller Matty: I met Heather in 2014 in British Columbia. Id driven from Alaska on a motorbike and stopped at Vancouver Island for a surf. I saw these two girls with a truck, getting ready to go surfing. One of them was pulling on her wetsuit when she turned around, looked over her shoulder and gave me this massive smile. I can still picture how she was standing, and the light, and it just got me. That night, I asked if they wanted to stay at my campsite, but they refused. I offered the next day, and they still refused. On the third day, I was given a big salmon and I asked the girls to come eat it with me, and they finally said yes. Heather told me about her business growing food in Vancouver, and I was so impressed. She also gave me a jar of her special sauce, which made everything taste amazing. I left but, a few days later, I was missing her, so I emailed asking if shed mind me dropping by her farm, on the pretext that Id interview her for the film. [Mattys documentary, The Road To Patagonia, releases in cinemas nationally on May 2.] I ended up staying a week, and thats when I fell in love with her. We arranged to meet in Mexico four months later. I wasnt sure shed make it, but she did, driving all the way down in her truck with her special sauce. We spent three months in Baja, surfing and spearfishing. It was very passionate and wholesome. Id grown up a punk rocker, and quite anarchistic. But Heather softened my cynicism and taught me that the world isnt so black and white. When I asked if she wanted to join me on the rest of the trip, she said yes. Derryn Hinch says he wont be a revolutionary should he win election as Lord Mayor of Melbourne in October. Im not a revolutionary but if the revolution includes some common sense, then Im revolutionary. I just think we can do things better, he said. The journalist and former federal senator wants Melbourne to be proud of itself again and has invented what he calls a triple M slogan for that purpose Make Melbourne Magnificent. Former 3AW host and ex-parliamentarian Derryn Hinch is focused on civic pride. Credit: Justin McManus We used to be proud of this town, says Hinch, 80. People arent any more. You have got to blame the council. Back in the days of John So and Ron Walker people would say isnt the lord mayor doing a good job. I havent heard a word about this lord mayor getting that sort of compliment. Perths ferry network could soon become Metronet on the Swan after Premier Roger Cook announced plans to expand the service with five possible additional stops flagged. Cook revealed the development of a business case to examine the Swan Rivers full potential for a ferry service during a Property Council event at Optus Stadium on Wednesday. Perth is closer to supporting a fully-fledged ferry network. Credit: WAtoday Weve seen the success of ferry systems in other states, and weve watched the growing popularity of our existing route between Perth and South Perth, he said. January was our busiest month ever in relation to the use of ferries nearly 110,000 boardings 49,000 more than in January 2023. The Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) has partially walked back comments made by its president Adel Salman after he said the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7 were legitimate acts of resistance. In an ABC radio interview on Wednesday morning to explain why the ICV does not want to attend Premier Jacinta Allans iftar dinner, Salman said the attacks had to be seen in the context of a conflict that has continued for 75 years. Victorian Islamic Council president Adel Salman. Credit: Jason South What we dont denounce, very clearly, is legitimate acts of resistance and for the Palestinians to rise up on October 7 and say we are no longer going to tolerate this siege, this occupation, that is legitimate, he said on Wednesday morning. After criticism from Jewish lobby groups, the ICV put out a statement on Facebook on Wednesday afternoon partially walking back some of Salmans comments. Fighters perform in a celebration of Kuwait's national and liberation days in Capital Governorate, Kuwait, Feb. 26, 2024. Kuwaitis celebrate their national and liberation days on Feb. 25 and 26 every year. (Photo by Asad/Xinhua) Helicopters fly during a celebration of Kuwait's national and liberation days in Capital Governorate, Kuwait, Feb. 26, 2024. Kuwaitis celebrate their national and liberation days on Feb. 25 and 26 every year. (Photo by Asad/Xinhua) Jet fighters perform during a celebration of Kuwait's national and liberation days in Capital Governorate, Kuwait, Feb. 26, 2024. Kuwaitis celebrate their national and liberation days on Feb. 25 and 26 every year. (Photo by Asad/Xinhua) SINGAPORE, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Singapore Air Force will order eight F-35A fighter jets to complement its previous purchase of 12 units of F-35B jets, Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen told the Parliament Wednesday. The eight F-35A jets will arrive in Singapore by 2030 if the Parliament approves the budget, Ng added. Singaporean defense budget this financial year stands at 20.2 billion Singapore dollars (15 billion U.S. dollars), up 2.5 percent from the previous financial year, said Ng. BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan high school graduates will be able to sign up for the recruitment of higher education institutions on the Chinese mainland from March 1 this year, according to a mainland spokesperson. Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made the remarks at a press conference Wednesday, where she introduced three approaches for Taiwan students to submit their applications. First, they can sign up for a joint exam for mainland universities to admit overseas Chinese, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan students from March 1 to 15. They can submit their applications at the website www.eeagd.edu.cn/lzks/. Second, they can use the grades they achieved in Taiwan's major college entrance exams to apply for mainland universities. Third, they can participate in exclusive admission programs for Taiwan students by Jinan University, Huaqiao University and eight universities in Fujian Province. For Taiwan compatriots looking to study for master's or doctor's degrees at mainland universities, they can visit a specific website (www.gatzs.com.cn) to learn about and apply for the post-graduate entrance exam for Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan applicants, Zhu added. U.S. export control does no good to U.S. firms, semiconductor industry: spokesperson Xinhua) 08:06, February 28, 2024 BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- "Small yard and high fence" will not stop China's innovation-driven development, nor will it do any good to U.S. companies or the entire semiconductor industry, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Mao Ning made the remarks when asked to comment on a related query at a daily press briefing. It is reported that chipmaker Nvidia has included Huawei in its current competitors in AI, chips and various areas for the first time in its recent report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and said that the company's competitive position may be further harmed if there're further changes in the U.S. government's export controls. Noting open cooperation is the core driving force for the growth of the semiconductor industry and China is one of the major semiconductor markets in the world, Mao said that to fragment the market, destabilize global industrial and supply chains, and stymie efficiency and innovation serves no one's interests. "The United States needs to follow the principles of market economy and fair competition, and support companies around the world in advancing science and technology through healthy competition," Mao said. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) TWMA, specialist drilling waste management company, has closed on a $62.5 million sustainability linked bond on the Nordic ABM in Oslo. With recent large contract awards in the Middle East and record high demand for TWMAs RotoMill offshore processing technology in the North Sea, the sustainability linked bond issue underpins TWMAs expansion in key markets as well as replacing existing debt holders. Qualifying for a Sustainability Linked Bond required third party recognition that TWMAs sustainability framework is aligned with the principles issued by the International Capital Market Association. This included validation of a science based target for CO2 in line with the 1.5-degree scenario, and confirms TWMAs position as an environmental leader within the energy industry. Halle Aslaksen, TWMA Chief Executive Officer, said: The successful closing of the Sustainability Linked Bond supports our investment into major projects in the Middle East and on the Norwegian and British Continental Shelf. This is particularly important as demand for our wellsite RotoMill waste processing technology continues to increase. Our customers understand the cost saving, safety, and environmental benefits that our RotoMill technology delivers to their drilling projects, and this bond issuance further demonstrates our commitment to improving sustainability across all parts of our business. --OGN/TradeArabia News Services HEFEI, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Two days after the Spring Festival, a busy scene played out amid the roaring machines at the construction site of Anhui Orinko New Energy Technology Co., Ltd.'s factory in the city of Wuhu, east China's Anhui Province. Covering an area of 347 mu (about 23.1 hectares), this new materials project is designed to produce 1.7 billion square meters of lithium-battery separators annually. "To speed up the project, we resumed construction even before the holiday ended," said Wu Jiang, general manager of Anhui Orinko. "The project will provide reliable raw materials for the booming downstream new energy vehicle (NEV) and energy storage industries." Since the beginning of the year, regions across China have ramped up efforts to develop strategic emerging industries and future industries amid efforts to foster new productive forces and seek new growth momentum. Anhui Province has launched its first group of major projects for the year, with 55 percent of the total investment of 489.6 billion yuan (about 68.9 billion U.S. dollars) going to 10 emerging industries. South China's Guangdong Province has announced plans to invest some 150 billion yuan this year in new-generation information technology, biology, high-end equipment manufacturing and new materials industries. This year, Beijing plans to launch 100 sci-tech innovation and modern industrial projects, including NEV industry clusters and the health and medicine industry. Developing new productive forces is high on the agenda of many local governments across the country as they seek to bolster economic growth despite uncertainties with new growth drivers. Over 10 provincial-level regions pledged to develop new productive forces in the annual government work report earlier this year. "Anhui's new productive forces have been growing rapidly on new tracks," said Wang Qingxian, governor of Anhui. Last year, Anhui's NEV output reached 868,000 units, up 60.5 percent year on year, while its photovoltaic industry generated over 290 billion yuan in revenue. The high-tech industry there contributed 70.3 percent to the output growth of major enterprises. East China's Jiangsu Province has announced that it will advance emerging industries, including bio-manufacturing, new energy and the low-altitude economy. Guangdong plans to support five future industries, including 6G, quantum technology, life sciences and humanoid robots. Industry insiders believe that the key to developing new productive forces is sci-tech progress, which is backed by several factors, including talent, capital and innovation. In 2023, China's investment in high-tech industries increased by 10.3 percent year on year, 7.3 percentage points faster than the total fixed-asset investment. "New productive forces are marked by new technologies and new applications, which cannot be separated from the leadership of sci-tech innovation," said Lyu Bo, deputy director of the science and technology bureau of Hefei, capital of Anhui Province. As an inland city now known for its sci-tech innovation and dynamic tech-intensive industries, Hefei has continuously ramped up its financial support for the commercialization of research findings, corporate R&D and the construction of innovation platforms. In the city of Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, the total R&D spending will exceed 3.7 percent of its gross domestic product in 2025. "We need to focus on sci-tech innovation while seeking vast opportunities from new growth drivers," said Chen Jinhu, Party chief of Changzhou. Many foreign enterprises are also digging into opportunities brought by the country's pursuit of new productive forces. With an investment of over 30 billion yuan, Volkswagen has built a new NEV hub in Hefei. It has also worked with Chinese peers such as XPeng, Horizon Robotics and Gotion High-tech in the fields of electrification, autonomous driving and batteries. "Hefei is a talent magnet, cultivating a pool of outstanding individuals in the field of science and technology. It's this dynamic ecosystem that enables us to thrive and innovate," said Erwin Gabardi, CEO of Volkswagen Anhui, adding that the company will benefit from this innovative strength and participate deeply in the high-quality development of Anhui's NEV industry. Free-to-air and news are expensive businesses to run. Put simply, the economic headwinds means the returns are not there. These proposed changes will be hard if they are implemented, but we think they are necessary, which is why we have commenced consultation." 4 labourers killed as NMDCs ore mountain caves in The Hitavada State Bureau Raipur/Dantewada, Four workers were killed, while two others remain trapped under massive pile-up of debris, after a rockslide took place at Kirandul mining operations area of National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), situated in restive Dantewada district, some 400 kilometres southwards from the capital. The incident took place on Tuesday afternoon at 2.30 pm, when a team of over fourteen workers were engaged in the construction work of a retaining wall of Screening Plant-3 (SP-3) extension project of the NMDC mines, under Kirandul police station limits. Suddenly, a huge portion of rock caved in at the construction site, trapping four ill-fated workers under the massive pile-up of debris. A heavy earth-moving machine was also damaged in the incident. The NDMC had outsourced the work to Larsen & Toubro (L&T). The deceased were working for L&T, police sources said. Upon the receipt of the news of mishap, multiple teams from District Administration, Dantewada Police, NDMC as well as State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) rushed to the scene and commenced rescue and relief operations on war foot, which eventually led to recovery of four bodies from the debris. Heavy earth-moving machines along with a skilled team of engineers and operators have been engaged in rescuing the remaining workers, who are still trapped beneath. Most of the victims, who had fallen prey to the incident, hail from West Bengal and Bihar. Police sources, in the meantime, identified four deceased labourers as Bakul Bala (26), Nirmal Bala (55) Tushar Bala (49), all related to each other and basically hail from Kolkata (West Bengal) and Santosh Kumar (29), a native of Bihar. Fortunately, , 10 other labourers were rescued within a very short span of time and they suffered only minor injuries. All of them were discharged after administering preliminary medical treatment, the sources added. Sources further said that the preliminary investigation into the mishap has revealed that the company had been drilling deep inside a mountain of iron ore for which the construction of retaining wall was being undertaken by the labourers. It so happened that a rock breaker machine was bringing down the solid structure of the mountain from one side by breaking down big rocks, while on the other side, labourers were busy in constructing the retaining wall. The concurrent work by both men and machine together caused so much vibration in the rocks that a massive rock structure of the mountain caved in and left the labourers trapped under debris. Thankfully, the operator of the rock breaker machine, managed to save his life by jumping off the vehicle, soon after the cave in took place, the sources averred. Sources also affirmed that the Kirandul police station has registered an offence of accidental death and were further probing to ascertain negligence that led to the tragic incident. Dantewada Collector Mayank Chaturvedi has announced a magisterial inquiry into the incident. CAA rules to be issued before LS polls announcement: Sources NEW DELHI, THE rules for the implementation of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) for fast-tracking citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are likely to be issued before the Model Code of Conduct for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections comes into effect. The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) gets enforced immediately after election schedule is announced, which is likely in next fortnight. The rules for the CAA is likely to be issued before the MCC comes into effect, sources privy to the development said. When the rules for the CAA are issued, the Modi Government will start granting Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who had come to India till December 31, 2014. The CAA was passed in December 2019 and it got Presidents assent subsequently. However, the law could not be implemented so far as rules are a must for its implementation. There were massive protests in some parts of the country after the CAA was passed by Parliament. Over a hundred people lost their lives during the protests or police action. The Ministry of Home Affairs has readied a portal for the convenience of the applicants as the entire process will be online. The applicants will have to declare the year when they entered India without travel documents. No document will be sought from the applicants, an official said. According to the law, the benefits under the CAA will be given to the undocumented minorities from the three neighbouring countries. On December 27, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that no one can stop the implementation of the CAA as it is the law of the land and accused the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of misleading people on the issue. Cabinet okays over Rs 10,373 cr for irrigation projects in State Staff Reporter Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav chaired the meeting of the Council of Ministers in Mantralaya on Tuesday. The Cabinet approved more than Rs 10,373 crore for various irrigation projects in Mandsaur, Rajgarh, Sidhi, Seoni and Balaghat districts. The Cabinet gave revised administrative approval to the Takhaji Micro Pressure Irrigation Project (irrigation area 3550.53 hectares) in Mandsaur district costing Rs 60.3 crore. Similarly, second revised administrative approval was given for Mohanpura Major Irrigation Project of Rajgarh district costing Rs 4666 crore 66 lakh (irrigation area 1,51,495 hectares). While giving administrative approval to the Sitapur Hanumana Micro Irrigation Project (irrigation area 1,20,000 hectare) in Sidhi district, costing Rs 4167.93 crore, the Council of Ministers, in order of approval of this project, gave exemption from the imposed restrictions on the index prescribed for administrative approval and tender. As many as 663 villages of Rewa, Mauganj, Sidhi and Singrauli districts will get the benefit of irrigation facility from the project. The Council of Ministers gave administrative approval of Rs 332.54 crore for the work of expansion, renovation and modernisation (ERM) of the canals of Sanjay Sarovar Project (Upper Wainganga) of Seoni and Balaghat districts. After completion of ERM work, additional area of Rs 11,450 hectares will get the benefit of irrigation facility. The Council of Ministers has given in-principle consent to convert Bahuti Canal under Bansagar Multipurpose Project into a micro irrigation project at a cost of Rs 1146.34 crore under the Modernisation of Command Area Development work (MCAD) of the Government of India. The Council of Ministers approved the proposal by the Tourism Department to operate air services in various cities of the state in collaboration with private operators under Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the State. The Council of Ministers approved the operation of Pradhan Mantri e-Bus Seva Yojana in the State to expand the infrastructure of city bus services in cities and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Cabinet okays over Rs 10,373 crore for irrigation projects Staff Reporter Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav chaired the meeting of the Council of Ministers in Mantralaya on Tuesday. The Cabinet approved more than Rs 10,373 crore for various irrigation projects in Mandsaur, Rajgarh, Sidhi, Seoni and Balaghat districts. The Cabinet gave revised administrative approval to the Takhaji Micro Pressure Irrigation Project (irrigation area 3550.53 hectares) in Mandsaur district costing Rs 60.3 crore. Similarly, second revised administrative approval was given for Mohanpura Major Irrigation Project of Rajgarh district costing Rs 4666 crore 66 lakh (irrigation area 1,51,495 hectares). While giving administrative approval to the Sitapur Hanumana Micro Irrigation Project (irrigation area 1,20,000 hectare) in Sidhi district, costing Rs 4167.93 crore, the Council of Ministers, in order of approval of this project, gave exemption from the imposed restrictions on the index prescribed for administrative approval and tender. As many as 663 villages of Rewa, Mauganj, Sidhi and Singrauli districts will get the benefit of irrigation facility from the project. The Council of Ministers gave administrative approval of Rs 332.54 crore for the work of expansion, renovation and modernisation (ERM) of the canals of Sanjay Sarovar Project (Upper Wainganga) of Seoni and Balaghat districts. After completion of ERM work, additional area of Rs 11,450 hectares will get the benefit of irrigation facility. The Council of Ministers has given in-principle consent to convert Bahuti Canal under Bansagar Multipurpose Project into a micro irrigation project at a cost of Rs 1146.34 crore under the Modernisation of Command Area Development work (MCAD) of the Government of India. The Council of Ministers approved the proposal by the Tourism Department to operate air services in various cities of the state in collaboration with private operators under Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the State. The Council of Ministers approved the operation of Pradhan Mantri e-Bus Seva Yojana in the State to expand the infrastructure of city bus services in cities and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With the approval for Payment Security Mechanism (PSM) in the scheme, the State Level Steering Committee (SLSC) has been authorised to approve, implement and monitor the scheme. While expanding the Chief Ministers Urban Area Infrastructure Construction Scheme, approved by the Council of Ministers at a cost of Rs 800 crore, approval has been given to increase the cost of the scheme to Rs 1,100 crore. Call CP if you see anytraffic violation in city Special Correspondent ALARMED by the high number of fatalities in road accidents and enraged by the growing disdain for traffic rules, Commissioner of Police Dr Ravinder Singal has decided to crack the whip against violators. The top cop has appealed to the citizens to inform him on his cell number 7385982212 if they come across any traffic violation across the Second Capital. With 294 fatalities in 1,646 road accidents reported in the city last year, Dr Singal has decided to act tough against the motorists violating traffic rules. The reasons for such accidents include pedestrians walking on roads instead of footpaths, over-speeding, distractions to driver, signal jumping, avoiding safety gears like seat-belts and helmets, wrong side driving, reckless driving, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, using mobile phones while driving, overtaking in a wrong manner, potholes on roads, and carrying passengers in auto-rickshaws and other public transport vehicles beyond capacity. The Traffic Branch has already taken up several traffic awareness programmes for school and college students, autorickshaw drivers, and truck drivers. The Traffic Branch is also coordinating with the Public Works Department, National Highway Authority of India and other authorities concerned for installing signboards, painting zebra crossings and stop lines at all squares. The City Police Chief has appealed to all motorists to strictly adhere to the traffic rules or face stern action. Social organisations and their volunteers can contact the police if they desired to assist in streamlining the traffic management. Cross voting mars RS polls in Ktaka, UP, HP BANGALORE/LUCKNOW : Cong wins 3 seats, BJP 1 in Ktaka BJP wins 8 seats, SP 2 in UP In Himachal, BJPs Harsh Mahajan was elected by draw defeating Congress Singhvi THE Congress suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the BJP in the Rajya Sabha polls which were marred by cross-voting in all the 3 States though it won 3 seats in Karnataka while in Uttar Pradesh BJP won 8 seats and Samajwadi Party 2 seats. Samajwadi Party candidate Alok Ranjan conceded defeat in the Rajya Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh. In Karnataka, Ajay Maken, G C Chandrasekhar and Syed Naseer Hussain, all from the Congress, and Narayansa K Bhandage (BJP) got elected to the Upper House in the polls in which elected MLAs were the voters. Five candidates, including D Kupendra Reddy of the JD(S) who lost the election, were in the fray for the four seats. BJP MLA S T Somashekar voted for Maken, while another party legislator A Shivaram Hebbar abstained. The BJP said it was exploring the possibility of taking legal action them and lodging a complaint with the Speaker U T Khader seeking their disqualification from the Assembly for violating the whip issued to them to vote in favour of the party candidate. We have got the information that Somashekar has done cross-voting. I consulted with advocate Vivek Reddy who is our State legal cell president and a High Court lawyer. We will ask the Speaker to initiate action (of disqualification) against him (Somashekar) and explore the possibilities to take steps in accordance with the law, Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly R Ashoka said. Somashekar had earlier quit the Congress and joined the BJP. He served as a Minister in the previous BJP Government and was made the Mysuru district in-charge Minister back then. He and Hebbar had in fact distanced themselves from the BJP in recent months, and increasingly began identifying with the Congress. The BJP (66 MLAs) and the JD(S) (19 MLAs) combined had fielded Kupendra Reddy though they did not have the requisite votes to get him elected. The NDA partners said they were expecting conscience votes, apparently from the rival Congress camp, in favour of Reddy. Amid cross-voting, BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan on Tuesday won the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh, defeating ruling Congress Abhishek Manu Singhvi, officials said. The contest was tied at 34-34 votes, after which Mahajan was declared winner by draw of lots, they said. It is a major jolt for the Congress which has 40 MLAs in the 68-member State Assembly and claimed support of the independents. The result made it clear that nine MLAs voted in favour of the BJP which was confident that Congress MLAs would exercise conscience vote. At present, the BJP has 25 MLAs in the State Assembly. Meanwhile, all eight BJP candidates emerged victorious in the Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday and the Opposition Samajwadi Party suffered a jolt with one of its three nominees facing defeat due to cross-voting by some of its legislators. The election results have been declared. All the eight candidates fielded by the BJP have emerged victorious. Two SP candidates -- Jaya Bachchan and Ramji Lal Suman -- have won the elections, a senior election official told PTI. The third SP candidate, Alok Ranjan, conceded defeat. The victorious BJP candidates were Union minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, general secretary of the partys Uttar Pradesh unit Amarpal Maurya, former state minister Sangeeta Balwant (Bind), party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh, former Agra mayor Naveen Jain, and industrialist Sanjay Seth. Seth, a former SP leader, joined the BJP in 2019. The ruling BJP and the principal opposition SP had the numbers to send seven and three members respectively unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, but the BJP fielded an eighth candidate, setting the stage for a keen contest on one seat. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath congratulated the winning candidates of the BJP. In a post on X in Hindi, Adityanath said, Hearty congratulations to all the respected candidates of @BJP4India who won the biennial elections of Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh! There is full confidence that under the leadership of respected Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji, all of you will be helpful in achieving the promise of antyodaya and the resolve of a developed India. Best wishes to all of you for your bright tenure. Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak also congratulated the winning candidates of the BJP. In a post on X, Maurya said, Certainly, this spectacular victory is a guarantee of development based on the basic mantra of Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas. Pathak said, This victory is a symbol of the country and the states unwavering faith in the illustrious Prime Ministers Viksit Bharat Modi kee Guarantee. Samajwadi Party chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary told PTI that two of the party candidates -- actor-MP Jaya Bachchan and Dalit leader Ramji Lal Suman -- emerged victorious. Jaya Bachchan got 41 votes, while Ramji Lal Suman got 40 votes. The third candidate Alok Ranjan lost the polls, he said. Ranjan, a retired IAS officer, conceded defeat and congratulated the winners. Asked if he got 19 votes, Ranjan, a former chief secretary of Uttar Pradesh, told PTI, Yes, this is what I am seeing on news channels.... Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to the national president of the Samajwadi Party (Akhilesh Yadav) who nominated me and the SP voters who had voted for me. The Congress voted for its INDIA bloc partner Samajwadi Party, while reports suggested that the lone BSP MLA casted his vote in favour of the BJP candidate. At present there are 399 members in the 403-member UP Legislative Assembly with four vacancies. Out of the 399 MLAs, 395 exercised their voting rights on Tuesday: three of them could not vote as they are in jail, while officials could not confirm the other MLA who did not cast the ballot. To get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, a candidate needed nearly 37 first-preference votes. Amid concerns over cross-voting and SP chief whip Manoj Pandey quitting while polling was underway, party president Akhilesh Yadav warned action would be taken against such MLAs. Those who wanted to profit from the situation will go. Those who were given assurances (by the BJP) will go, Yadav told reporters at the assembly before casting his vote. The BJP can adopt all tricks to win elections. It must have given assurance (to some MLAs) of some profit... BJP will do anything to win, he added. Those who dont have the courage to fight will go. Some might have been afraid for their security, some might have been threatened or promised something. Talking to reporters earlier in the day, Deputy Chief Minister Maurya claimed that Yadav made a mistake by fielding his third candidate and that he did not have the numbers. SP MLAs Rakesh Pratap Singh, Abhay Singh and Rakesh Pandey, who were among 8 party MLAs to have skipped Yadavs Monday night meeting, arrived in the same vehicle. We will cast our votes as per our inner voices, Rakesh Pratap Singh said. High drama in Uttar Pradesh where amid concerns over cross-voting, SP chief whip Manoj Pandey quit. As many as eight SP MLAs also did not attend a meeting called by the Akhilesh Yadav on Monday. Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak said on Tuesday night that all the eight candidates of the BJP won in the Rajya Sabha elections from the State. The ruling BJP fielded eight candidates and the Opposition Samajwadi Party three for elections to 10 Rajya Sabha seats from the State. Samajwadi Party chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said two of the partys three candidates -- Jaya Bachchan and Ramji Lal Suman -- have emerged victorious. The third SP candidate Alok Ranjan conceded defeat earlier. In a post in Hindi on X, Deputy Chief Minister Maurya congratulated the eight BJP candidates who won. Certainly, this spectacular victory is a guarantee of development based on the basic mantra of Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas, he said. Another deputy Chief Minister, Pathak, also congratulated the winning BJP candidates. In a post in Hindi on X, he said, This victory is a symbol of the country and the states unwavering faith in the illustrious Prime Ministers Viksit Bharat Modi kee Guarantee. MANILA, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Wednesday that it priced a 3.5 billion U.S. dollar 5-year global bond on Tuesday, proceeds of which will become part of ADB's ordinary capital resources. "This issue garnered around 14 billion dollars of investor participation and is ADB's second-largest order book ever for a global benchmark bond," said ADB Treasurer Pierre Van Peteghem. The largest order book was achieved in 2021 for a 5 billion dollars global benchmark bond, the ADB added. The 5-year bond, with a coupon rate of 4.375 percent per annum payable semi-annually and a maturity date of March 6, 2029, was priced at 99.827 percent to yield 12.7 basis points over the 4.25 percent United States Treasury notes due February 2029. The transaction was lead-managed by BMO Capital Markets, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, and HSBC. A syndicate group was also formed, consisting of DNB Bank ASA, NatWest Markets, Scotiabank, and Standard Chartered Bank. The issue achieved wide primary market distribution, with 35 percent placed in the Americas, 33 percent in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and 32 percent in Asia. By investor type, 50 percent went to banks, 37 percent to central banks and official institutions, and 13 percent to fund managers and other types of investors. The ADB plans to raise about 30-34 billion dollars from the capital markets in 2024. Hailstorm, rain destroy crops; storm hits normal life in Bhopal Staff Reporter The unseasonal rainfall, hailstorm in various parts of Madhya Pradesh destroyed standing crop. State capital Bhopal also recorded strong wind and heavy rainfall on Tuesday evening. Rains, accompanied by hailstorm and high velocity winds, damaged the crops in fields spread across several acres. Especially wheat, gram and mustard crops were in ready condition but after the rainfall and hailstorm, crops were damaged. While Narmadapuram, Khandwa, Chhindwara, Tikamgarh, Betul, Chhatarpur and Niwari districts recorded hailstorm, Bhopal and a few other cities saw heavy rainfall along with strong wind. In a few districts crops were already harvested in the field but farmers could not collect the same. The rainfall and hail made the crops black in colour. Chhindwara recorded 1.5 inches of rainfall on Monday-Tuesday night. Pachmarhi, Shivpuri have also received rainfall. Khajuraho recorded hailstorm and district administration has started surveying the crops in Betul. Indian Meteorology Department (IMD) said that weather is expected to remain the same till February 29. Weather scientists have forecast hailstorm and heavy rainfall in 34 districts till February 28. Scientists said that moisturised air and western disturbance have changed the weather all of sudden. Big sized hails were recorded in Itarsi, Dolaria, Patalai of Narmadapuram and Seoni and Malwa region. Fields in Itarsi have recorded hails 50 grams each in weight. INTELLIGENCE IS A PRIMESECURITY WEAPON D.C. PATHAK As the eyes and ears of the state, Intelligence agencies have newer responsibilities of helping the country to become safer and more prosperous. National security is inseparable from economic security and this is the logic why the charter of Intelligence today has expanded a great deal to uncover any enemy operations designed to attack the countrys assets, supply chains and the economic lifeline. PRIME Minister Narendra Modi's regime, aided by a brilliant National Security Advisor, has boosted the confidence of national Intelligence agencies about doing their job of protecting the security and integrity of India on a proactive, apolitical and professional note. Intelligence Bureau (IB), the mother organisation that fostered the family of Intelligence entities including SSB, ARC and R&AW, traced its origins in the Central CID established by the British some 135 years ago and the fact that it saw an essential continuity of its functioning after Independence, is an affirmation of its belief that by and large its goal had been to safeguard the country against the doings of its perceived adversaries at any point of time. IBs charter multiplied a great deal with the emergence of India as a sovereign nation and as the largest democracy that happened also to inherit the destabilising legacy of a religion-based Partition accompanying its freedom. The Bureau derives strength from three basic principles of its working. First is the freedom it exercises in the matter of covering an activity or an entity that - in its own judgement - amounted to a threat to national security. Secondly, the government at the Centre can task the IB which is only appropriate but it never influences its findings - IB may be the only reliable agency to tell the government what is adverse in the public environment disproving the notions that Intelligence only reported what the political masters liked to hear. Thirdly, the IBs communications with the government are not only confidential but are marked as unofficial notes meant only for the benefit of the recipients and not available for scrutiny by an outsider. Working of Indias Intelligence agencies is in line with the principle that they are not police organisations. The IB is led by IPS officers who join the organisation giving up on the glamour of uniform and accepting anonymity by choice in lieu of the rare satisfaction they had of directly working for the national cause - with full confidence that good work was always given credit for and with a belief that the nation acknowledged the contribution of Intelligence as a prime weapon of security. IB officers had no investigation powers - they only used special tradecraft techniques to access the information of Intelligence value such as confidential enquiry, secret watch and interview under cover. Officials of Intelligence agencies have no personal or political vested interest - they are used to serving the government of the day regardless of its political affiliation. The support extended by the Modi government to the nations security set-up has to be lauded in this context. India as an emerging global power has to take good care of its security and economic concerns - in that order - and that is why in the Modi regime, the National Security Advisor is rightly steering Indias international relations in a major way. In a fast-changing geopolitical scenario that is causing the world to drift towards a new Cold War with the US-led West being on one side and the axis of China and Russia on the other, security issues were of prime importance for a country like India. Today, Intelligence about developments happening outside has become extremely important for safeguarding internal security because there is a cause and effect relationship between external and internal threats - particularly in the Indian context. With the rise of terrorism and the threat of covert operations of the two main adversaries - Pakistan and China - against India, the counter-effort of our own Intelligence agencies has expanded a great deal and so has the need for them to work in closer liaison with the Police at various levels. Intelligence agencies are today helping policymakers with solution-finding - going beyond a mere sharing of information on the threats. Intelligence classically is information about dangers to national security, that was presented in a manner that the solutions would suggest themselves. The hallmark of the IB is that it is one source of reliable information - and perhaps the only one - for the powers that be on whatever was happening in the country - favourable or unfavourable - that needed to be taken note of. The Government always felt at ease about something brought to its notice by a trustworthy agency like the IB on any adverse fallout of a policy - for it could at least enable the former to take corrective action on it if required. Prime Minister Modis Government understood the importance of keeping security above politics - the boost that national security has received in return can be described as the defining moment of this regime. The Information Technology revolution that transformed the system of communication by creating instant connectivity across geographical frontiers, has produced new challenges for Intelligence agencies for the reason that social media - a gift of the digital world - became also an instrument of combat. The adversary could use it for establishing sleeper cells of terrorists, recruiting lone wolves and turning it into a weapon for running Influence Warfare. Cyber security issues are extremely important today because breaching protected information communicated or stored in cyberspace is on top of the adversarys agenda. The advent of Generative Artificial Intelligence has multiplied the threat to the security of strategic systems, sensitive establishments and generally to the economic lifelines of the nation. Promise and perils of AI are under the close examination of India with Prime Minister Modi putting this issue on the agenda of the G20 Summit held under Indias Presidency and following it up by holding a world conference on AI where among other things, the need for international regulations for AI operations was also debated. The regime of Prime Minister Modi is right on top so far as Intelligencebased handling of threats to national security is concerned. In the global scene developing around us, India as a nation has to stand on its own to effectively deal with adverse situations and threats. It is a matter of great satisfaction that India has rapidly advanced towards becoming self-reliant in the area of defence and security. As the eyes and ears of the state, Intelligence agencies have newer responsibilities of helping the country to become safer and more prosperous. National security is inseparable from economic security and this is the logic why the charter of Intelligence today has expanded a great deal to uncover any enemy operations designed to attack the countrys assets, supply chains and the economic lifeline. Governance, security and economic growth are an integral part of a functioning democracy and there is a need for mainstreaming the cause of national security and national interests by launching projects to enhance peoples awareness about them in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution that specifically defines Fundamental Duties too-beyond the Rights. (IANS) (The writer is a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau.) Our Correspondent SEONI, Teams of Jabalpur STF and Kurai Forest Range officers raided the revenue area of Kurai Forest Range under the South General Forest Division of the district, where two accused have been arrested with parts of bear skin, head of dead wild boar and meat of chital. The team is interrogating. An accused is absconding in this case. The forest department team is searching for it. Forest Divisional Officer, Sudesh Mahiwal said that information was received from the informer that wild animals had been hunted and the accused were hiding. After which Jabalpur STF, Kurai Forest Range team and Dog Squad team raided the revenue area under Kurai range. From where Sunil Kumre and Buddhalal Inwati residents of village Karanjmara (Fatehpur, Gorakhpur) were in possession of about 3 kg of chital meat, peg from the field, GI wire, body parts and pieces of skin of dead bear, hair of bear, wild boar from the field, head has been seized. During interrogation, the accused told that electric shock was applied in the field for hunting wild animals. A bear had come in its grip 15 days ago. They burnt the bear which had been buried in the field after smelling it. A wild pig also got electrocuted. Whose head was buried in the field. A few days ago a chital got electrocuted, whose meat the accused had taken home to cook. Forest crime has been registered against the accused under the Wildlife Protection Act. Shravan Raut is absconding in this case, the team is searching for. Forest Range Officer Kurai, Rahul Dharu, STF Jabalpur team, Dog Squad and departmental team of Kurai range were present in this action. Mah Govt presents Rs 6,00,522 crinterim budget for 2024-25 MUMBAI : MAHARASHTRA Finance Minister Ajit Pawar on Tuesday presented a Rs 6,00,522 crore interim budget for 2024-25 with a revenue deficit of Rs 9,734 crore in the State Legislative Assembly here. The budget proposed no new taxes. A supplementary budget (full budget) will be presented after the Lok Sabha elections, Pawar said. With projected revenue receipts of Rs 4,98,758 crore and revenue expenditure of Rs 5,08,492 crore, there will be a revenue deficit of Rs 9,734 crore, said Pawar, who joined the Shiv Sena-BJP Government as deputy Chief Minister in July 2023. He was Finance Minister in the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi Government too. School Education Minister Deepak Kesarkar read out the budget in the Legislative Council. The budget focuses on the implementation of welfare schemes for the youth, women, the poor and farmers, Pawar said in the Assembly. The Government aims to expand the States economy to USD 1 trillion through sustainable, environment-friendly and inclusive development, he said. In the Annual Plan 2024-25, an outlay of Rs 1.92 lakh crore has been proposed which includes Rs 15, 893 crore for Scheduled Castes Sub Plan and Rs 15,360 crore for Tribal Development Sub Plan, he said. The Government has succeeded in keeping fiscal deficit and revenue deficit within the limits set by the Fiscal Responsibility and Financial Management Act, Pawar said. The fiscal deficit for 2024-25 is projected at Rs 99,288 crore. An outlay of Rs 18,165 crore has been proposed for District Annual Plan, a 20 per cent increase over the previous year. A scheme would be brought in to provide pink auto-rickshaws to 5,000 women in ten major cities, Pawar announced. Maharashtra received Rs 8,618 crore as Goods and Services Tax compensation in the current financial year. An amount of Rs 7,057.73 crore has been sanctioned as interest-free loan for 50 years under the Scheme for Special Assistance for Capital Investment. Six Vande Bharat Express trains have commenced services in Maharashtra while a provision of Rs 15,554 crore has been made for railway projects in the state in the interim Union budget, Pawar mentioned. An amount of Rs 22,225 crore was being raised for Virar-Alibag Multimodal Corridor, Rs 10,519 crore for Pune Ring Road and Rs 2,886 crore for Jalna-Nanded Expressway for land acquisition, he said. In Konkan, three of the nine major bridges on the coastal highway between Rewas to Reddi have received administrative nod and tenders are being floated, the finance minister said. Land acquisition for Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train project is almost complete in Maharashtra, he noted. The work of the Navi Mumbai Airport is progressing speedily and the first phase will be operational by March 2025, Pawar said. The first instalment of Rs 1,691.47 crore has been provided as grants to 84.57 lakh farmer families under the Namo Shetkari Mahasanman Nidhi Yojana announced in the last budget, he said. An AIIMS will be set up at Aundh, Pune, on the lines of AIIMS, Nagpur, the minister said. The annual health cover under Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Jan Arogya Yojana was hiked from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh per family. Man brutally kills sleeping dog by crushing its head with stone Staff Reporter RAIPUR, Another disturbing case of animal cruelty has surfaced in Raipur, where a young man brutally killed a sleeping dog by crushing its head with a stone. The incident, which occurred near Shishu Manas Bhawan Chowk of Urla, has sparked outrage among animal lovers and citizens alike. Khagesh Kashyap, along with Snigdha Chakraborty and Mukesh, animal lovers residing in the area, took it upon themselves to investigate the death of the dog. Through CCTV footage, they uncovered the appalling act committed by the accused, Tukaram Nishad alias Chhotu, who was seen mercilessly killing the defenseless dog while it slept. This incident marks the second instance of such brutal cruelty towards animals in the capital within a month, shedding light on a larger issue of animal abuse that often goes unreported. Despite laws in place to protect animals, such incidents continue to occur, reflecting a concerning lack of empathy and respect for animal life. An FIR has been registered against the accused under section 429 of the Indian Penal Code at Urla police station, and the perpetrator has been apprehended by the authorities. Section 429 of the IPC stipulates imprisonment of up to five years or a fine or both for killing, poisoning, or maiming any animal. Additionally, under Section 11 (1) (L) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, individuals who engage in cruel acts against animals without reason may face imprisonment of up to three years. Article 51 (A) (g) of the Constitution also emphasizes the fundamental duty of citizens to show compassion towards all living beings, highlighting the importance of maintaining harmony with nature. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, enacted in 1960, aims to prevent cruelty against animals and holds individuals accountable for their treatment of animals. This legislation serves to protect animals from unnecessary harm or abuse and outlines various provisions to ensure their well-being. Despite these legal frameworks in place, incidents like the one in Raipur underscore the ongoing need for education, awareness, and enforcement to curb animal cruelty and foster a culture of compassion towards animals. Rooftop solar scheme: Mah Govt to provide Rs 78,000 grant per household MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Ajit Pawar announced on Tuesday that the state government would provide a grant amounting to Rs 78,000 to every household under the Central Governments rooftop solar scheme. Speaking during the state interim budget session, Pawar said, For the Centres Suryagraha scheme, a grant of up to Rs 78,000 per household will be given for rooftop solar panels. Also, farmers will be provided with solar pumps at concessional rates to promote green and alternate energy sources. The rooftop solar programme announced in the interim Budget tabled on February 1, is known as PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana. A supplementary budget (full budget) will be presented after the Lok Sabha elections, likely to be held in April-May, said Pawar, who presented his first budget as Finance Minister of the Eknath Shinde Government, which he joined in July 2023. Pro-contractor interim Budget, says Uddhav SHIV Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday said the Maharashtra interim budget is full of assurances with an eye on upcoming elections and termed it pro-contractor. There is no clarity on what happened to the announcements made in last years budget, Thackeray told reporters. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had performed bhoomi poojan for a Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj memorial, but the project has seen little progress. The bhoomipujan for the memorial of the Maratha king in the Arabian Sea was performed in December 2016. The budget presented today is full of assurances keeping the elections in mind. The announcements made are big and alluring, actually, it (the budget) is for contractors, Thackeray added. While the working class and farmers are in distress, people dont trust the government, the former Chief Minister alleged. Interim budget presented with LS polls in mind: Pawar THE Opposition Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) on Tuesday said the interim budget for FY 2024-25 presented in the Maharashtra Assembly by the Eknath Shinde Government was supposed to be for the next four months, but it was presented as a full budget keeping in mind the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. Partys state president Jayant Patil said the budget was also an attempt by the Shiv Sena-BJP-NCP government to shore up its declining popularity. An interim budget is supposed to be for the next four months, but the government has presented a budget like it is a full-budget. The budget has been prepared by keeping the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in mind, claimed Patil, a former Finance Minister. Shooter Shukla blackmailed slain photographer, 7 others Staff Reporter Sadar Police, investigating the murder case of photographer Vinay, also known as Bablu Poonekar, have uncovered a shocking twist the accused were involved in a blackmailing racket targeting Poonekar for the past two years. Simultaneously, it has been revealed that the shooter, Hemant Shukla, employed similar tactics of blackmailing with seven other persons in the city. The complexity of the case has left investigators shocked as emerging information sheds light on the motives behind the crime. A police official disclosed, Accused Sakshi Grover (35) and shooter Hemant Shukla were extorting money from Poonekar. Further investigation revealed that Hemant Shukla had taken control of Sakshi Grovers WhatsApp account, recording chats between Poonekar and Sakshi, as well as those with other persons. Shukla would subsequently approach these people, using the recorded conversations to extort money. Poonekar, too, fell victim to Shuklas threats for financial gain. Last year, Poonekar had filed a complaint with the Cyber Police regarding threatening calls from Shukla, but no action was taken by the police at that time. A police official stated that monetary disputes were also a significant aspect in the murder case. State records 46,746 missing people report in last 33 months, informs Dy CM Sharma Staff Reporter RAIPUR, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma said that 46,746 missing reports of people were registered in different districts of State within last 33 months. Replying over a calling attention motion moved by Kurud BJP MLA Ajay Chandrakar in Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly Ajay Chandrakar over increasing missing people in State, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma said that 740 missing people out of missing 744 were rescued in 176 cases in the last five years. 421 people were arrested in 176 cases and they were produced in courts. FIRs were registered against 50 placement companies in total 26 cases from 2012 to 2015, in which 19 directors and 31 agents were arrested and they were produced in the courts of the state. Anti-human trafficking cells were constituted in 27 districts of the state. 46,746 missing reports of people were registered in different districts of the state within last 33 months, in which 8892 teenage boys/girls out of missing 9997 missing teenage boys/girls, 20,485 women out ot total 27,623 missing women, 7,885 men out of 10,530 missing men and 800 senior citizens out of missing 1235 missing senior citizens were searched and they met their families. A special operation Muskan was conducted in the month of January this year, in which 51 boys and 453 girls were searched and they were handed over to their family members. The photograph of the missing persons are uploaded on track the missing child portal to search the missing persons, said Sharma. Vijay Sharma informed the House that an agreement was held in principal with IIM Raipur and Chhattisgarh Police Department to conduct multi-disciplinary research and study over the missing persons of the state after creating of Chhattisgarh as a new state . BJP MLA Ajay Chandrakar moved the calling attention motion said that the number of the missing persons were increasing dayby-day that was worrisome matter for the state. TOKYO, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Japan on Wednesday started its fourth round of release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, despite opposition among local fishermen, residents as well as backlash from the international community. As Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant's operator, started discharging the radioactive wastewater at around 11:11 a.m. local time, opposers deemed such intentional spreading of radioactive substances unacceptable for a long-term environmental impact. Similar to the previous three rounds, about 7,800 tons of wastewater, which still contains tritium, a radioactive substance, will be discharged over about 17 days. For the fourth round onwards, TEPCO said it will skip the step of temporarily storing treated water in large tanks to confirm tritium concentration before release, adding that samples of diluted treated water will be collected during the discharge operation instead, and its concentration will be measured once daily. Wednesday's release marked the final discharge for the fiscal year 2023 ending in March, bringing the total amount for the fiscal period to approximately 31,200 tons of the wastewater stored in tanks at the nuclear plant in the northeastern Japanese prefecture. For fiscal 2024 starting from April, TEPCO in January announced its plan to release around 54,600 tons of nuclear-contaminated water from the facility into the ocean in seven rounds, which contains about 140 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium. Japanese fishermen have long opposed the discharge, while distrust and anger toward the government and Tokyo Electric Power Company have been mounting among the public. Chiyo Oda, a resident of Fukushima's Iwaki City, stated that "the intentional spread of radioactive substances" in the ocean discharge of nuclear-contaminated water is "unacceptable," adding that the recent powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake that struck the Noto Peninsula has raised concerns about the safety of nuclear power plants. "As someone who lived through the Fukushima nuclear disaster, I believe that people should no longer have to go through radiation hazards," she said. Also starting on Wednesday, TEPCO will attempt to investigate the containment vessel of No. 1 reactor using drones and robots to discuss methods for removing melted nuclear debris. Considered the biggest challenge in the decommissioning of the Fukushima plant, the extraction of nuclear fuel debris from the containment vessels of No. 1 to No. 3 reactors has yet to begin nearly 13 years after the accident, with no end in sight for the discharge of nuclear-contaminated wastewater. Questioning the so-called justification for ocean discharge, Oda stated that TEPCO started discharging nuclear-contaminated wastewater with clear knowledge that the reactor decommissioning could not be completed within 30 years. TEPCO started the ocean discharge by claiming it was indispensable for the decommissioning of the reactors, but said the decommissioning was not going well after the discharge started, it is cheating, she said. TEPCO in January again postponed the start of melted nuclear fuel debris removal from the Fukushima power plant, marking the third postponement of the trial debris removal, which is considered a big challenge in decommissioning the plant. "The ocean discharge should be stopped immediately as the whole decommissioning process is ambiguous," said Masahide Kimura, a Japanese civic group member. "There is no clear path forward, and now it seems increasingly uncertain when the discharge will end. It could last for 50 years or even hundreds of years, with worrying impacts on the environment," Toshihiro Inoue from a Japanese citizen group against atomic and hydrogen bombs told Xinhua over phone, who found it "unreasonable" for the government and TEPCO to treat the discharge as "fait accompli." Kimura noted that TEPCO's irresponsible handling of nuclear-contaminated wastewater has triggered distrust, citing recent accidents in the crippled plant. In Indonesia, a group of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Japan at the Central Jakarta District Court last Thursday, demanding an end to the release of the wastewater. Marthin Hadiwinata, a member of the local environmental organization Ekomarin and one of the plaintiffs, said the release "will directly impact Indonesia's ecosystem," Japan's national news agency Kyodo reported. Hit by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and an ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima nuclear plant suffered core meltdowns that released radiation, resulting in a level-7 nuclear accident, the highest on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. The plant has been generating a massive amount of water tainted with radioactive substances from cooling down the nuclear fuel in the reactor buildings, which is now stored in tanks at the nuclear plant. In August 2023, Japan started to discharge the wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, despite repeated objections by governments and communities, environmental groups, non-governmental organizations, and anti-nuclear movements in Japan and the Pacific region. WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson met with President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, after which he said he still considered strengthening border security a more urgent priority than aiding Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. "Let me say this: When I showed up today, my purpose was to express what I believe is the obvious truth, and that is that we must take care of America's needs, first. When you talk about Americans' needs, you have to talk first about our open border," Johnson said in remarks to the press at the White House as he emerged from a meeting with Biden. He also told reporters that he met with the president one-on-one after a group meeting also participated by other leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate. "So I brought that issue up repeatedly today in that room," Johnson said of the need to address border security. "And again, one on one with the President. I think that's our responsibility to bring that up." The speaker has been withholding a vote in his chamber on a Senate-passed 95-billion-U.S.-dollar foreign aid package, the bulk of which will go to Ukraine to help the country sustain its fighting against Russia. "And Ukraine, I think the need is urgent," Biden said in remarks delivered before his meeting with Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. "I think the consequences of inaction every day in Ukraine are dire," Biden said, urging Congress to approve the supplemental budget request from his administration that included some 60 billion dollars in assistance for Ukraine. Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLC purchased a new position in Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO Free Report) during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 28,619 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,203,000. Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Altria Group by 108,222.5% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 18,590,308 shares of the companys stock valued at $849,763,000 after acquiring an additional 18,573,146 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors increased its stake in Altria Group by 8.5% during the 2nd quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 96,401,945 shares of the companys stock worth $4,367,008,000 after buying an additional 7,546,851 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC increased its stake in Altria Group by 84.1% during the 2nd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 5,426,522 shares of the companys stock worth $245,823,000 after buying an additional 2,478,576 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Altria Group by 6.4% during the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 36,302,349 shares of the companys stock worth $1,896,798,000 after buying an additional 2,178,596 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted its holdings in shares of Altria Group by 9.8% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 17,105,285 shares of the companys stock worth $781,883,000 after purchasing an additional 1,531,337 shares during the last quarter. 58.94% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Altria Group alerts: Altria Group Stock Down 0.3 % MO traded down $0.13 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $40.77. 2,421,455 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 8,692,602. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $40.67 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $41.66. Altria Group, Inc. has a one year low of $39.06 and a one year high of $48.04. The firm has a market capitalization of $72.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 0.66. Altria Group ( NYSE:MO Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The company reported $1.18 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.17 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $5.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.06 billion. Altria Group had a net margin of 33.21% and a negative return on equity of 243.71%. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 1.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.18 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Altria Group, Inc. will post 5.07 EPS for the current fiscal year. Altria Group announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, February 1st that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to buy up to 1.4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally a sign that the companys leadership believes its stock is undervalued. Altria Group Dividend Announcement The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 10th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 21st were issued a $0.98 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 20th. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 9.61%. Altria Groups dividend payout ratio is presently 85.78%. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of analysts have recently weighed in on MO shares. UBS Group reaffirmed a sell rating and set a $36.10 price objective on shares of Altria Group in a research report on Tuesday, January 23rd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Altria Group from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Friday, February 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $47.22. Get Our Latest Research Report on Altria Group Altria Group Profile (Free Report) Altria Group, Inc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company offers cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; large cigars and pipe tobacco under the Black & Mild brand; moist smokeless tobacco and snus products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands; oral nicotine pouches under the on! brand; and e-vapor products under the NJOY ACE brand. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Altria Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Altria Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Ancora Advisors LLC lifted its position in Weyerhaeuser (NYSE:WY Free Report) by 32.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 676,457 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after purchasing an additional 166,556 shares during the quarter. Ancora Advisors LLC owned about 0.09% of Weyerhaeuser worth $20,740,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Teacher Retirement System of Texas boosted its stake in Weyerhaeuser by 18.3% during the third quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 425,848 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $13,057,000 after buying an additional 65,808 shares during the last quarter. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Weyerhaeuser by 21.7% during the 3rd quarter. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC now owns 9,910 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $304,000 after acquiring an additional 1,767 shares in the last quarter. Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC boosted its position in shares of Weyerhaeuser by 15.3% in the 3rd quarter. Cary Street Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 6,583 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $202,000 after purchasing an additional 875 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. boosted its position in shares of Weyerhaeuser by 2.3% in the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 61,774,884 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $2,070,076,000 after purchasing an additional 1,385,408 shares during the period. Finally, Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Weyerhaeuser in the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,080,000. 79.54% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Weyerhaeuser alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of analysts have weighed in on the company. StockNews.com cut Weyerhaeuser from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Royal Bank of Canada restated an outperform rating and set a $39.00 price objective on shares of Weyerhaeuser in a report on Monday, January 29th. Finally, Raymond James cut Weyerhaeuser from a strong-buy rating to a market perform rating in a report on Monday, November 27th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $37.80. Weyerhaeuser Price Performance NYSE:WY traded up $1.14 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $34.04. 1,661,299 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,488,870. Weyerhaeuser has a one year low of $27.65 and a one year high of $35.14. The company has a market capitalization of $24.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.62 and a beta of 1.43. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $33.49 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $32.06. The company has a current ratio of 2.94, a quick ratio of 2.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50. Weyerhaeuser (NYSE:WY Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Friday, January 26th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.14 by $0.02. Weyerhaeuser had a net margin of 10.93% and a return on equity of 7.36%. The company had revenue of $1.77 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.82 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.24 EPS. The companys revenue was down 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that Weyerhaeuser will post 1.03 EPS for the current year. Weyerhaeuser Increases Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 8th will be given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.35%. This is an increase from Weyerhaeusers previous quarterly dividend of $0.19. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 7th. Weyerhaeusers dividend payout ratio is presently 66.09%. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Weyerhaeuser news, SVP Denise M. Merle sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $35.01, for a total transaction of $262,575.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 140,694 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,925,696.94. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In related news, SVP Denise M. Merle sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $35.01, for a total value of $262,575.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 140,694 shares in the company, valued at $4,925,696.94. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO David M. Wold sold 923 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $31.51, for a total transaction of $29,083.73. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 60,436 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,904,338.36. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 72,704 shares of company stock valued at $2,480,298 over the last three months. 0.27% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Weyerhaeuser Profile (Free Report) Weyerhaeuser Company, one of the world's largest private owners of timberlands, began operations in 1900. We own or control approximately 11 million acres of timberlands in the U.S. and manage additional timberlands under long-term licenses in Canada. We manage these timberlands on a sustainable basis in compliance with internationally recognized forestry standards. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Weyerhaeuser Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Weyerhaeuser and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. boosted its holdings in shares of Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO Free Report) by 61.0% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 3,430 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 1,299 shares during the period. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.s holdings in Novo Nordisk A/S were worth $312,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Kranot Hishtalmut Le Morim Tichoniim Havera Menahelet LTD purchased a new stake in shares of Novo Nordisk A/S in the third quarter valued at about $2,408,000. Benedict Financial Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Novo Nordisk A/S by 94.0% in the third quarter. Benedict Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 44,292 shares of the companys stock valued at $4,028,000 after acquiring an additional 21,457 shares in the last quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co boosted its holdings in shares of Novo Nordisk A/S by 111.6% in the third quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co now owns 6,004 shares of the companys stock valued at $546,000 after acquiring an additional 3,166 shares in the last quarter. Green Square Capital Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Novo Nordisk A/S by 103.7% in the third quarter. Green Square Capital Advisors LLC now owns 2,612 shares of the companys stock valued at $238,000 after acquiring an additional 1,330 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ieq Capital LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Novo Nordisk A/S by 136.6% in the third quarter. Ieq Capital LLC now owns 27,474 shares of the companys stock valued at $2,498,000 after acquiring an additional 15,860 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 6.41% of the companys stock. Get Novo Nordisk A/S alerts: Novo Nordisk A/S Price Performance NVO traded down $1.12 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $121.11. 789,876 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,852,130. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a current ratio of 0.82 and a quick ratio of 0.64. The stock has a market capitalization of $543.48 billion, a PE ratio of 45.18, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.41. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $111.45 and its 200 day moving average price is $92.58. Novo Nordisk A/S has a 1-year low of $67.66 and a 1-year high of $124.86. Novo Nordisk A/S Increases Dividend Novo Nordisk A/S ( NYSE:NVO Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, January 31st. The company reported $0.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.66 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $9.51 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $9.14 billion. Novo Nordisk A/S had a net margin of 36.03% and a return on equity of 90.36%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Novo Nordisk A/S will post 3.32 EPS for the current fiscal year. The firm also recently announced a Semi-Annual dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 2nd. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 25th will be given a dividend of $0.664 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 22nd. This represents a yield of 0.9%. This is a boost from Novo Nordisk A/Ss previous Semi-Annual dividend of $0.22. Novo Nordisk A/Ss payout ratio is presently 22.92%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several analysts have recently weighed in on NVO shares. Morgan Stanley started coverage on shares of Novo Nordisk A/S in a report on Tuesday, January 23rd. They issued an overweight rating and a $120.00 target price on the stock. UBS Group began coverage on shares of Novo Nordisk A/S in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. They set a neutral rating on the stock. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on shares of Novo Nordisk A/S from $105.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Monday, December 4th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an overweight rating and set a $140.00 price objective on shares of Novo Nordisk A/S in a report on Tuesday, February 20th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $121.25. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Novo Nordisk A/S About Novo Nordisk A/S (Free Report) Novo Nordisk A/S, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the research and development, manufacture, and distribution of pharmaceutical products in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, North America, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Diabetes and Obesity Care, and Rare Disease. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding NVO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Novo Nordisk A/S Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Novo Nordisk A/S and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank grew its holdings in The Southern Company (NYSE:SO Free Report) by 86.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 10,988 shares of the utilities providers stock after acquiring an additional 5,101 shares during the quarter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Banks holdings in Southern were worth $711,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Southern by 5.0% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 38,906,760 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $2,518,045,000 after purchasing an additional 1,838,857 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Southern by 2.3% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 19,816,104 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $1,387,945,000 after purchasing an additional 452,511 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its position in Southern by 4.2% during the second quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 16,070,918 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $1,128,982,000 after acquiring an additional 642,737 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors raised its position in Southern by 8.0% during the second quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 11,910,166 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $836,689,000 after acquiring an additional 883,544 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its position in Southern by 1.6% during the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 10,737,843 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $694,953,000 after acquiring an additional 163,986 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 62.85% of the companys stock. Get Southern alerts: Insider Buying and Selling In other Southern news, EVP Christopher Cummiskey sold 899 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.06, for a total transaction of $60,286.94. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 22,502 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,508,984.12. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other news, CEO Stephen E. Kuczynski sold 5,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, December 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.23, for a total value of $356,150.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 106,284 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $7,570,609.32. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, EVP Christopher Cummiskey sold 899 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.06, for a total value of $60,286.94. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 22,502 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,508,984.12. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 25,998 shares of company stock worth $1,817,613. 0.37% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research analysts recently weighed in on the company. BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on Southern from $75.00 to $72.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Mizuho reduced their price target on Southern from $76.00 to $73.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, November 21st. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and set a $80.00 price target on shares of Southern in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Citigroup assumed coverage on Southern in a research report on Friday, December 8th. They set a buy rating and a $82.00 price target for the company. Finally, Barclays cut their price objective on Southern from $68.00 to $67.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Southern currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $73.46. Read Our Latest Analysis on SO Southern Price Performance Shares of SO traded down $0.16 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $66.30. 1,288,141 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,616,792. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.62, a quick ratio of 0.56 and a current ratio of 0.77. The Southern Company has a 12-month low of $61.56 and a 12-month high of $75.80. The company has a market cap of $72.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.13 and a beta of 0.50. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $69.06 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $68.65. Southern (NYSE:SO Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The utilities provider reported $0.64 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.59 by $0.05. Southern had a return on equity of 11.40% and a net margin of 15.79%. The firm had revenue of $6.05 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $6.90 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.26 earnings per share. The firms revenue for the quarter was down 14.2% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that The Southern Company will post 4.01 earnings per share for the current year. Southern Announces Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 6th. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 20th will be given a dividend of $0.70 per share. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.22%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 16th. Southerns payout ratio is 77.14%. About Southern (Free Report) The Southern Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. The company also develops, constructs, acquires, owns, and manages power generation assets, including renewable energy projects and sells electricity in the wholesale market; and distributes natural gas in Illinois, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, as well as provides gas marketing services, gas distribution operations, and gas pipeline investments operations. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Southern Company (NYSE:SO Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Southern Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Southern and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Comfort Systems USA, Inc. (NYSE:FIX Get Free Report) CFO William George III sold 8,429 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.95, for a total transaction of $2,351,269.55. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 62,471 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $17,426,285.45. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Comfort Systems USA Stock Up 2.3 % Shares of Comfort Systems USA stock opened at $291.13 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $10.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.35 and a beta of 1.12. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.03, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a current ratio of 1.11. Comfort Systems USA, Inc. has a one year low of $127.09 and a one year high of $292.41. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $220.98 and a two-hundred day moving average of $195.52. Get Comfort Systems USA alerts: Comfort Systems USA (NYSE:FIX Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 23rd. The construction company reported $2.55 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.15 by $0.40. The business had revenue of $1.36 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.33 billion. Comfort Systems USA had a net margin of 6.21% and a return on equity of 26.99%. The businesss revenue was up 21.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.54 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Comfort Systems USA, Inc. will post 9.56 earnings per share for the current year. Comfort Systems USA Announces Dividend Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 19th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 8th will be issued a dividend of $0.25 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 7th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.34%. Comfort Systems USAs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 11.11%. Several research analysts have recently issued reports on FIX shares. KeyCorp started coverage on shares of Comfort Systems USA in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. They issued a sector weight rating for the company. StockNews.com cut shares of Comfort Systems USA from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Monday. Finally, UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Comfort Systems USA from $208.00 to $254.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, February 15th. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on Comfort Systems USA Hedge Funds Weigh In On Comfort Systems USA Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Comfort Systems USA by 3.6% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 685,303 shares of the construction companys stock worth $112,527,000 after purchasing an additional 24,124 shares during the last quarter. Campbell & CO Investment Adviser LLC acquired a new position in Comfort Systems USA during the second quarter valued at approximately $253,000. Scotia Capital Inc. acquired a new position in Comfort Systems USA during the second quarter valued at approximately $283,000. Pathstone Family Office LLC lifted its position in Comfort Systems USA by 20.0% during the third quarter. Pathstone Family Office LLC now owns 5,681 shares of the construction companys stock valued at $968,000 after buying an additional 946 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd FI acquired a new position in Comfort Systems USA during the second quarter valued at approximately $7,053,000. 94.18% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About Comfort Systems USA (Get Free Report) Comfort Systems USA, Inc provides mechanical and electrical installation, renovation, maintenance, repair, and replacement services for the mechanical and electrical services industry in the United States. It engages in the design, engineering, integration, installation, and start-up of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems; and renovation, expansion, maintenance, monitoring, repair, and replacement of existing buildings. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Comfort Systems USA Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Comfort Systems USA and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Deutsche Lufthansa (OTCMKTS:DLAKY Get Free Report) and LATAM Airlines Group (OTCMKTS:LTMAY Get Free Report) are both transportation companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, institutional ownership, risk, earnings, analyst recommendations, dividends and profitability. Valuation and Earnings This table compares Deutsche Lufthansa and LATAM Airlines Groups top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Get Deutsche Lufthansa alerts: Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio Deutsche Lufthansa $34.53 billion 0.28 $833.40 million $1.66 4.79 LATAM Airlines Group $11.64 billion 30.68 $581.83 million N/A N/A Deutsche Lufthansa has higher revenue and earnings than LATAM Airlines Group. Profitability Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets Deutsche Lufthansa 5.44% 22.63% 4.35% LATAM Airlines Group 5.00% 178.51% 4.15% Risk and Volatility This table compares Deutsche Lufthansa and LATAM Airlines Groups net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Deutsche Lufthansa has a beta of 1.27, meaning that its stock price is 27% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LATAM Airlines Group has a beta of 3.79, meaning that its stock price is 279% more volatile than the S&P 500. Analyst Ratings This is a breakdown of recent ratings for Deutsche Lufthansa and LATAM Airlines Group, as provided by MarketBeat. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score Deutsche Lufthansa 1 2 4 0 2.43 LATAM Airlines Group 0 0 0 0 N/A Summary Deutsche Lufthansa beats LATAM Airlines Group on 5 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks. About Deutsche Lufthansa (Get Free Report) Deutsche Lufthansa AG operates as an aviation company in Germany and internationally. The company's Network Airlines segment offers passenger services. Its Eurowings segment provides passenger services through a route network of more than 100 destinations in over 50 countries. The company's Logistics Business segment offers airfreight container management services; and e-commerce solutions for approximately 300 destinations in 100 countries. Its Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Services (MRO) segment provides maintenance, repair, and overhaul services for civil commercial aircraft serving original equipment manufacturers and aircraft leasing companies, operators of VIP jets, and airlines. The company's Catering Business segment engages in-flight services, and home delivery market and retail, as well as other areas, such as retail and food producers. As of December 31, 2022, it had a fleet of 710 aircraft. The company was founded in 1926 and is headquartered in Cologne, Germany. About LATAM Airlines Group (Get Free Report) LATAM Airlines Group S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides passenger and cargo air transportation services primarily in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, other Latin American countries, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and Oceania. It offers other services, such as ground handling, courier, logistics, and maintenance services. The company was formerly known as LAN Airlines S.A. and changed its name to LATAM Airlines Group S.A. in June 2012. LATAM Airlines Group S.A. was founded in 1929 and is headquartered in Santiago, Chile. Receive News & Ratings for Deutsche Lufthansa Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Deutsche Lufthansa and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California State Teachers Retirement System lessened its stake in shares of CVS Health Co. (NYSE:CVS Free Report) by 3.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,061,486 shares of the pharmacy operators stock after selling 77,162 shares during the period. California State Teachers Retirement Systems holdings in CVS Health were worth $143,933,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of CVS Health by 1.6% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 55,877,387 shares of the pharmacy operators stock worth $3,862,804,000 after buying an additional 855,269 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley increased its holdings in shares of CVS Health by 10.9% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 33,576,388 shares of the pharmacy operators stock worth $3,128,984,000 after buying an additional 3,311,928 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its holdings in shares of CVS Health by 29.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 27,487,238 shares of the pharmacy operators stock worth $1,919,159,000 after buying an additional 6,194,441 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of CVS Health by 1.6% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 23,325,287 shares of the pharmacy operators stock worth $1,607,886,000 after buying an additional 363,384 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of CVS Health by 103,371.0% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 15,547,559 shares of the pharmacy operators stock worth $1,448,877,000 after buying an additional 15,532,533 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.99% of the companys stock. Get CVS Health alerts: Insider Buying and Selling In other CVS Health news, EVP Prem S. Shah sold 29,473 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.95, for a total value of $2,267,947.35. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 39,765 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,059,916.75. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.25% of the stock is owned by insiders. CVS Health Stock Performance NYSE CVS traded down $1.11 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $75.16. The companys stock had a trading volume of 1,255,866 shares, compared to its average volume of 12,270,906. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.77, a quick ratio of 0.63 and a current ratio of 0.86. The firm has a market cap of $94.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.63, a P/E/G ratio of 1.75 and a beta of 0.50. CVS Health Co. has a twelve month low of $64.41 and a twelve month high of $83.26. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $76.75 and its 200-day moving average price is $72.18. CVS Health (NYSE:CVS Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 7th. The pharmacy operator reported $2.12 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.01 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $93.81 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $90.58 billion. CVS Health had a net margin of 2.33% and a return on equity of 15.25%. CVS Healths quarterly revenue was up 11.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.99 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that CVS Health Co. will post 8.33 EPS for the current fiscal year. CVS Health Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 1st. Investors of record on Monday, January 22nd were issued a dividend of $0.665 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 19th. This represents a $2.66 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.54%. This is an increase from CVS Healths previous quarterly dividend of $0.61. CVS Healths payout ratio is currently 41.18%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of analysts have recently issued reports on CVS shares. TD Cowen cut their price target on shares of CVS Health from $102.00 to $99.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Monday, December 11th. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an overweight rating and set a $87.00 price objective on shares of CVS Health in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Leerink Partnrs reaffirmed an outperform rating on shares of CVS Health in a research report on Monday. HSBC started coverage on shares of CVS Health in a research report on Friday, December 22nd. They issued a buy rating and a $94.00 price target for the company. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price target on shares of CVS Health from $86.00 to $84.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, CVS Health has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $90.00. Get Our Latest Stock Report on CVS Health CVS Health Profile (Free Report) CVS Health Corporation provides health solutions in the United States. It operates through Health Care Benefits, Health Services, and Pharmacy & Consumer Wellness segments. The Health Care Benefits segment offers traditional, voluntary, and consumer-directed health insurance products and related services. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CVS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for CVS Health Co. (NYSE:CVS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for CVS Health Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CVS Health and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan hold a welcome ceremony for President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio and his wife Fatima Bio prior to the talks between Xi and Julius Maada Bio at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Huang Jingwen) BEIJING, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. Noting that China and Sierra Leone enjoy a time-honored friendship, Xi said the two sides have supported each other on issues concerning their core interests and major concerns, carried out efficient cooperation in the fields of economic and social development, coordinated closely on issues such as world peace and development, and worked together to fight against Ebola and the COVID-19 pandemic. China-Sierra Leone relations are a good example of China-Africa solidarity and cooperation, Xi said, adding that China is willing to work with Sierra Leone to consolidate high-level political mutual trust, advance pragmatic and mutually beneficial cooperation, and strengthen coordination on international and regional affairs to push bilateral relations to a new level. Xi said China firmly supports the Sierra Leonean people in pursuing a development path suited to their national conditions. He said China stands ready to strengthen exchanges with Sierra Leone on national governance, and work with Sierra Leone to continue supporting each other's major concerns and safeguarding their respective sovereignty, security and development interests. China is also willing to provide assistance and support to the best of its ability for Sierra Leone's development in agriculture, infrastructure construction and human resources, and encourage Chinese enterprises to invest and do business in Sierra Leone, Xi said. Both sides should strengthen cooperation on UN Security Council affairs and jointly safeguard the interests of Africa and developing countries, Xi noted. The Chinese president welcomed Sierra Leone to participate in the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and jointly promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity. "China has always regarded solidarity and cooperation with African countries as an important cornerstone of our foreign policy," Xi said. China will work with African countries to align its initiatives to support Africa's industrialization, agricultural modernization and talent development with the African Union's Agenda 2063 and the development strategies of African countries; and to further integrate the development of China, Africa and the world to promote the upgrading of China-Africa cooperation and move the world towards a bright future of peace, security, prosperity and progress, Xi said. China is ready to work with African friends, including Sierra Leone, to make this year's session of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) a success, Xi said. Bio said China is a trustworthy and reliable friend, thanking China for its great support for its economic and social development. He spoke highly of the Communist Party of China leading the Chinese people to achieve leapfrog development and promoting national rejuvenation. Bio said China's experience provides inspirations for developing countries to accelerate their development. Bio said Sierra Leone abides by the one-China principle, supports China in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and supports China in safeguarding its core interests. He said Sierra Leone is willing to learn from China's experience, strengthen cooperation with China on the Belt and Road Initiative, and tap the potential for cooperation on infrastructure, trade, education and public services. After the talks, the two heads of state witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of the Belt and Road Initiative, agriculture, economic development, and the implementation of the Global Development Initiative. Both sides issued a joint statement on deepening their comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. Prior to the talks, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan held a welcome ceremony for Bio and his wife Fatima Bio at the Great Hall of the People. In the evening, Xi and Peng held a banquet for Bio and Fatima. Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio in the Northern Hall of the Great Hall of the People prior to their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio in the Northern Hall of the Great Hall of the People prior to their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio in the Northern Hall of the Great Hall of the People prior to their talks in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Wang Ye) Chinese President Xi Jinping holds talks with President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) Chinese President Xi Jinping and President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio witness the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of the Belt and Road Initiative, agriculture, economic development, and the implementation of the Global Development Initiative after their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) Chinese President Xi Jinping and President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio witness the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in the fields of the Belt and Road Initiative, agriculture, economic development, and the implementation of the Global Development Initiative after their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 28, 2024. Xi held talks with Julius Maada Bio, who is on a state visit to China, in Beijing on Wednesday. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) CWA Asset Management Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE:KMI Free Report) by 5.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 59,014 shares of the pipeline companys stock after acquiring an additional 3,112 shares during the period. CWA Asset Management Group LLCs holdings in Kinder Morgan were worth $978,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Rheos Capital Works Inc. bought a new position in Kinder Morgan during the 3rd quarter worth about $4,642,000. Cohen & Steers Inc. lifted its position in shares of Kinder Morgan by 1,217.2% during the second quarter. Cohen & Steers Inc. now owns 10,094,105 shares of the pipeline companys stock valued at $173,820,000 after buying an additional 9,327,755 shares during the last quarter. Virginia Wealth Management Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Kinder Morgan by 1.6% during the third quarter. Virginia Wealth Management Group Inc. now owns 201,278 shares of the pipeline companys stock valued at $3,337,000 after buying an additional 3,085 shares during the last quarter. Bahl & Gaynor Inc. lifted its position in shares of Kinder Morgan by 69.2% during the third quarter. Bahl & Gaynor Inc. now owns 3,955,216 shares of the pipeline companys stock valued at $65,577,000 after buying an additional 1,617,250 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bank of Hawaii lifted its position in shares of Kinder Morgan by 10.7% during the second quarter. Bank of Hawaii now owns 24,291 shares of the pipeline companys stock valued at $418,000 after buying an additional 2,339 shares during the last quarter. 62.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Kinder Morgan alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes Several research firms have commented on KMI. StockNews.com raised shares of Kinder Morgan from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. US Capital Advisors raised shares of Kinder Morgan from a hold rating to an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, November 17th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $20.50. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Kinder Morgan news, VP John W. Schlosser sold 7,500 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $18.00, for a total transaction of $135,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 3,219 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $57,942. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other news, VP John W. Schlosser sold 7,500 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $18.00, for a total transaction of $135,000.00. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 3,219 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $57,942. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, VP Dax Sanders sold 50,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $17.63, for a total transaction of $881,500.00. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 309,069 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,448,886.47. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 87,500 shares of company stock valued at $1,543,000. 12.64% of the stock is owned by insiders. Kinder Morgan Stock Performance Shares of Kinder Morgan stock traded down $0.07 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $17.10. The company had a trading volume of 3,925,363 shares, compared to its average volume of 14,635,277. The stock has a market cap of $37.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.05, a PEG ratio of 4.81 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a quick ratio of 0.28, a current ratio of 0.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.88. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $17.36 and a 200 day simple moving average of $17.13. Kinder Morgan, Inc. has a 12-month low of $15.89 and a 12-month high of $18.30. Kinder Morgan (NYSE:KMI Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 17th. The pipeline company reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.30 by ($0.02). Kinder Morgan had a net margin of 15.59% and a return on equity of 7.57%. The company had revenue of $4.04 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.40 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.31 earnings per share. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that Kinder Morgan, Inc. will post 1.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Kinder Morgan Announces Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, January 31st were given a dividend of $0.2825 per share. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 6.61%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, January 30th. Kinder Morgans dividend payout ratio is presently 105.61%. Kinder Morgan Company Profile (Free Report) Kinder Morgan, Inc operates as an energy infrastructure company in North America. The company operates through four segments: Natural Gas Pipelines, Products Pipelines, Terminals, and CO2. The Natural Gas Pipelines segment owns and operates interstate and intrastate natural gas pipeline, and underground storage systems; natural gas gathering systems and natural gas processing and treating facilities; natural gas liquids fractionation facilities and transportation systems; and liquefied natural gas gasification, liquefaction, and storage facilities. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding KMI? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Kinder Morgan, Inc. (NYSE:KMI Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Kinder Morgan Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Kinder Morgan and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN Free Report) by 9.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 7,999 shares of the information technology services providers stock after acquiring an additional 693 shares during the period. CWA Asset Management Group LLCs holdings in Accenture were worth $2,457,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 1st quarter valued at about $28,000. BluePath Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $31,000. RVW Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $33,000. Tyler Stone Wealth Management purchased a new stake in Accenture in the 2nd quarter worth about $35,000. Finally, Canton Hathaway LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth about $37,000. Institutional investors own 70.42% of the companys stock. Get Accenture alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. Wedbush increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $330.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, December 14th. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, November 9th. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $344.00 to $364.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and issued a $374.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, Redburn Atlantic initiated coverage on shares of Accenture in a research report on Thursday, November 16th. They set a buy rating and a $410.00 target price on the stock. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $365.63. Accenture Stock Performance NYSE ACN traded up $0.17 on Wednesday, reaching $378.08. 348,862 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,930,547. The firm has a market cap of $237.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.04, a P/E/G ratio of 3.47 and a beta of 1.21. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $360.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $332.93. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $242.80 and a fifty-two week high of $380.30. Accenture (NYSE:ACN Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.27 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $3.14 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $16.22 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.17 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 10.65% and a return on equity of 29.08%. The firms quarterly revenue was up 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.08 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.22 EPS for the current fiscal year. Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture In other Accenture news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $371.81, for a total value of $1,859,050.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 20,316 shares of the companys stock, valued at $7,553,691.96. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,333 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $371.83, for a total transaction of $1,611,139.39. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 34,795 shares of the companys stock, valued at $12,937,824.85. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $371.81, for a total transaction of $1,859,050.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 20,316 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $7,553,691.96. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 26,551 shares of company stock valued at $9,739,791. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the companys stock. Accenture Company Profile (Free Report) Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Accenture Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Accenture and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Delek US (NYSE:DK Get Free Report) released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday. The oil and gas company reported ($1.46) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($1.28) by ($0.18), Briefing.com reports. The company had revenue of $4.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.55 billion. Delek US had a return on equity of 31.77% and a net margin of 0.38%. The businesss revenue was down 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.88 earnings per share. Delek US Stock Performance DK traded down $0.92 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $24.80. The stock had a trading volume of 1,020,098 shares, compared to its average volume of 913,770. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $26.51 and a 200-day moving average price of $26.91. The firm has a market cap of $1.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.26 and a beta of 1.34. Delek US has a one year low of $19.39 and a one year high of $31.22. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.25, a current ratio of 1.11 and a quick ratio of 0.72. Get Delek US alerts: Delek US Increases Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 8th. Investors of record on Friday, March 1st will be paid a $0.245 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 29th. This is an increase from Delek USs previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. This represents a $0.98 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.95%. Delek USs payout ratio is 90.57%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of brokerages have issued reports on DK. Raymond James reduced their target price on Delek US from $33.00 to $32.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, November 8th. Citigroup assumed coverage on Delek US in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. They set a neutral rating on the stock. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on Delek US from $23.00 to $24.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Delek US from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, February 21st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $27.40. Get Our Latest Stock Report on DK Insider Activity at Delek US In related news, CFO Robert G. Wright sold 2,123 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $28.50, for a total value of $60,505.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 18,925 shares in the company, valued at approximately $539,362.50. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, CFO Robert G. Wright sold 2,123 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Monday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $28.50, for a total value of $60,505.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 18,925 shares in the company, valued at approximately $539,362.50. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Laurie Z. Tolson sold 1,207 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.75, for a total value of $32,287.25. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 11,133 shares of the companys stock, valued at $297,807.75. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 5,580 shares of company stock worth $151,945 in the last ninety days. 1.50% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Institutional Trading of Delek US A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of DK. APG Asset Management N.V. acquired a new position in shares of Delek US during the 1st quarter worth $217,000. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Delek US during the 1st quarter worth $208,000. DRW Securities LLC acquired a new position in shares of Delek US during the 2nd quarter worth $203,000. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can raised its holdings in shares of Delek US by 28.5% during the 1st quarter. Great West Life Assurance Co. Can now owns 8,310 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $188,000 after buying an additional 1,842 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tower Research Capital LLC TRC increased its holdings in Delek US by 19.6% in the 4th quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 6,729 shares of the oil and gas companys stock worth $174,000 after purchasing an additional 1,101 shares in the last quarter. 97.01% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. About Delek US (Get Free Report) Delek US Holdings, Inc engages in the integrated downstream energy business in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Refining, Logistics, and Retail. The Refining segment processes crude oil and other feedstock for the manufacture of various grades of gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, asphalt, and other petroleum-based products that are distributed through owned and third-party product terminal. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Delek US Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Delek US and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Teza Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL Free Report) by 81.4% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 293,350 shares of the transportation companys stock after acquiring an additional 131,657 shares during the period. Delta Air Lines comprises approximately 1.0% of Teza Capital Management LLCs holdings, making the stock its 7th biggest position. Teza Capital Management LLCs holdings in Delta Air Lines were worth $10,854,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Delta Air Lines by 495.7% in the 3rd quarter. Migdal Insurance & Financial Holdings Ltd. now owns 685 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 570 shares during the last quarter. Coppell Advisory Solutions Corp. bought a new position in shares of Delta Air Lines in the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo LLC lifted its position in shares of Delta Air Lines by 55.2% in the 3rd quarter. Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo LLC now owns 874 shares of the transportation companys stock worth $32,000 after buying an additional 311 shares during the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new position in shares of Delta Air Lines in the 3rd quarter worth about $35,000. Finally, Tyler Stone Wealth Management bought a new position in shares of Delta Air Lines in the 2nd quarter worth about $36,000. 71.29% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Delta Air Lines alerts: Delta Air Lines Trading Up 0.1 % Shares of DAL stock traded up $0.06 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $42.04. 2,305,591 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 10,802,809. Delta Air Lines, Inc. has a 1-year low of $30.60 and a 1-year high of $49.81. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $40.08 and a 200 day moving average price of $38.48. The company has a quick ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 0.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.54. The firm has a market capitalization of $27.05 billion, a PE ratio of 5.88, a PEG ratio of 0.75 and a beta of 1.42. Delta Air Lines Announces Dividend Delta Air Lines ( NYSE:DAL Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, January 12th. The transportation company reported $1.28 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.17 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $14.22 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.55 billion. Delta Air Lines had a net margin of 7.94% and a return on equity of 46.35%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 5.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.48 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Delta Air Lines, Inc. will post 6.59 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Monday, February 26th will be given a $0.10 dividend. This represents a $0.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.95%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 23rd. Delta Air Liness dividend payout ratio is 5.59%. Analysts Set New Price Targets DAL has been the topic of several recent research reports. TheStreet upgraded shares of Delta Air Lines from a c+ rating to a b- rating in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Delta Air Lines from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Buy and an average price target of $55.54. View Our Latest Analysis on DAL Insiders Place Their Bets In related news, CEO Edward H. Bastian sold 71,840 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $39.20, for a total transaction of $2,816,128.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 428,768 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $16,807,705.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Insiders own 0.89% of the companys stock. Delta Air Lines Profile (Free Report) Delta Air Lines, Inc provides scheduled air transportation for passengers and cargo in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Airline and Refinery. Its domestic network centered on core hubs in Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit, and Salt Lake City, as well as coastal hub positions in Boston, Los Angeles, New York-LaGuardia, New York-JFK, and Seattle; and international network centered on hubs and market presence in Amsterdam, Bogota, Lima, Mexico City, London-Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Sao Paulo, Seoul-Incheon, and Tokyo. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Delta Air Lines Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Delta Air Lines and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. European Commercial REIT (TSE:ERE Free Report) Research analysts at Desjardins issued their Q1 2024 earnings per share estimates for shares of European Commercial REIT in a report released on Thursday, February 22nd. Desjardins analyst K. Stanley anticipates that the company will post earnings of $0.06 per share for the quarter. Desjardins also issued estimates for European Commercial REITs Q2 2024 earnings at $0.06 EPS, Q3 2024 earnings at $0.06 EPS and Q4 2024 earnings at $0.06 EPS. Get European Commercial REIT alerts: Separately, Echelon Wealth Partners raised European Commercial REIT from a hold rating to a speculative buy rating in a research note on Thursday, February 22nd. European Commercial REIT Stock Performance European Commercial REIT Cuts Dividend The company also recently declared a monthly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 29th will be paid a $0.014 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 28th. This represents a $0.17 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of . Read More Receive News & Ratings for European Commercial REIT Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for European Commercial REIT and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Extra Space Storage (NYSE:EXR Get Free Report) updated its FY 2024 earnings guidance on Tuesday. The company provided earnings per share guidance of 7.850-8.150 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of 8.310. The company issued revenue guidance of -. Extra Space Storage also updated its FY24 guidance to $7.85-8.15 EPS. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of research firms have recently weighed in on EXR. Truist Financial boosted their price target on Extra Space Storage from $138.00 to $152.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a report on Thursday, December 28th. Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Extra Space Storage from an underweight rating to an overweight rating and boosted their target price for the company from $120.00 to $155.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of Extra Space Storage from $168.00 to $187.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft started coverage on shares of Extra Space Storage in a research report on Tuesday, January 30th. They issued a hold rating and a $141.00 price objective for the company. Finally, TheStreet upgraded shares of Extra Space Storage from a c+ rating to a b- rating in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating, four have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $149.75. Get Extra Space Storage alerts: View Our Latest Report on Extra Space Storage Extra Space Storage Trading Down 2.6 % NYSE:EXR traded down $3.66 on Wednesday, hitting $136.56. 483,601 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,134,284. The stock has a market cap of $28.85 billion, a PE ratio of 25.78, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 0.75. Extra Space Storage has a fifty-two week low of $101.19 and a fifty-two week high of $170.30. The company has a current ratio of 0.50, a quick ratio of 0.50 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $149.08 and a 200-day moving average of $133.18. Extra Space Storage (NYSE:EXR Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 27th. The real estate investment trust reported $1.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $2.03 by ($1.01). The business had revenue of $797.77 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $778.05 million. Extra Space Storage had a return on equity of 11.64% and a net margin of 35.54%. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 57.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.09 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Extra Space Storage will post 8.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Extra Space Storage Announces Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 29th. Investors of record on Friday, March 15th will be issued a dividend of $1.62 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $6.48 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.75%. Extra Space Storages payout ratio is 119.12%. Insider Buying and Selling In other Extra Space Storage news, Director Joseph Saffire sold 25,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.10, for a total value of $3,852,500.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 42,344 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,525,210.40. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 1.55% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Extra Space Storage Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Private Advisor Group LLC boosted its position in Extra Space Storage by 5.6% in the 1st quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 1,404 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $289,000 after buying an additional 74 shares during the last quarter. Blair William & Co. IL grew its stake in Extra Space Storage by 16.5% during the 1st quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 1,502 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $309,000 after purchasing an additional 213 shares in the last quarter. Prudential PLC acquired a new stake in Extra Space Storage during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $625,000. Cetera Investment Advisers increased its holdings in Extra Space Storage by 8.2% during the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 2,522 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $519,000 after purchasing an additional 192 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dakota Wealth Management acquired a new position in shares of Extra Space Storage in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $332,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 66.40% of the companys stock. About Extra Space Storage (Get Free Report) Extra Space Storage Inc, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a self-administered and self-managed REIT and a member of the S&P 500. As of September 30, 2023, the Company owned and/or operated 3,651 self-storage stores in 42 states and Washington, DC The Company's stores comprise approximately 2.5 million units and approximately 279.0 million square feet of rentable space operating under the Extra Space, Life Storage and Storage Express brands. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Extra Space Storage Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Extra Space Storage and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. West Japan Railway (OTCMKTS:WJRYY Get Free Report) and Aurizon (OTCMKTS:QRNNF Get Free Report) are both transportation companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, analyst recommendations, dividends, valuation, profitability, earnings and institutional ownership. Valuation & Earnings This table compares West Japan Railway and Aurizons gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation. Get West Japan Railway alerts: Gross Revenue Price/Sales Ratio Net Income Earnings Per Share Price/Earnings Ratio West Japan Railway $10.33 billion N/A $655.11 million $3.19 12.71 Aurizon N/A N/A N/A $0.12 22.46 West Japan Railway has higher revenue and earnings than Aurizon. West Japan Railway is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Aurizon, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks. Insider & Institutional Ownership Profitability 13.3% of Aurizon shares are owned by institutional investors. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock is poised for long-term growth. This table compares West Japan Railway and Aurizons net margins, return on equity and return on assets. Net Margins Return on Equity Return on Assets West Japan Railway 6.73% 9.69% 3.09% Aurizon N/A N/A N/A Analyst Recommendations This is a summary of recent ratings for West Japan Railway and Aurizon, as reported by MarketBeat.com. Sell Ratings Hold Ratings Buy Ratings Strong Buy Ratings Rating Score West Japan Railway 0 0 0 0 N/A Aurizon 0 1 0 0 2.00 Dividends West Japan Railway pays an annual dividend of $0.56 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Aurizon pays an annual dividend of $0.06 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. West Japan Railway pays out 17.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Aurizon pays out 54.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Summary West Japan Railway beats Aurizon on 6 of the 9 factors compared between the two stocks. About West Japan Railway (Get Free Report) West Japan Railway Company provides railway transport services in Japan. The company operates through Mobility, Retail, Real Estate, Travel and Regional Solutions, and Other segments. The Mobility segment provides passenger transportation, station operation and management, cleaning and maintenance, construction, machinery and equipment installation, rolling stock and other facility construction services, as well as engages in the railway operations and electric works. The Retail segment sells goods; offers food and other wholesale operation services; and operates department stores. The Real Estate segment sells and leases real estate properties, as well as operates shopping centers and hotels. The Travel and Regional Solutions segment provides travel agency and regional solutions. The Other segment engages in the advertising and other businesses. The company is also involved in the operation of convenience stores, restaurants, and souvenir shops; and provision of credit cards and electronic money services. The company was incorporated in 1987 and is based in Osaka, Japan. About Aurizon (Get Free Report) Aurizon Holdings Limited, through its subsidiaries, operates as a rail freight operator in Australia. The company operates through Network, Coal, Bulk, and Other segments. It transports various commodities, including mining, agricultural, industrial, and retail products; and retail goods and groceries across small and big towns, and cities, as well as coal and iron ore. The company also operates and manages the Central Queensland Coal Network that consists of 2,670 kilometers of track network; and provides various specialist services, such as rail design, engineering, construction, management, and maintenance, as well as supply chain solutions. It serves miners, primary producers, and the industry. The company was formerly known as QR National Limited and changed its name to Aurizon Holdings Limited in December 2012. The company was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Fortitude Valley, Australia. Receive News & Ratings for West Japan Railway Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for West Japan Railway and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. High Liner Foods (TSE:HLF Get Free Report) had its target price boosted by analysts at Royal Bank of Canada from C$13.00 to C$14.00 in a note issued to investors on Wednesday, BayStreet.CA reports. The firm currently has a sector perform rating on the stock. Royal Bank of Canadas price objective suggests a potential upside of 9.46% from the stocks current price. HLF has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Cormark cut their price target on shares of High Liner Foods from C$21.00 to C$17.00 in a research note on Friday, November 10th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of High Liner Foods from C$11.50 to C$13.50 and gave the stock a market perform rating in a research note on Monday. Get High Liner Foods alerts: View Our Latest Stock Report on HLF High Liner Foods Price Performance About High Liner Foods TSE:HLF traded up C$0.14 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting C$12.79. 1,607 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 10,684. The company has a quick ratio of 0.38, a current ratio of 2.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 65.71. High Liner Foods has a 12-month low of C$10.11 and a 12-month high of C$15.87. The company has a market cap of C$421.17 million, a PE ratio of 10.23 and a beta of 0.84. The businesss 50-day moving average price is C$11.74 and its 200 day moving average price is C$11.34. (Get Free Report) High Liner Foods is the leading North American processor and marketer of value-added frozen seafood. Their retail branded products are sold throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico under the High Liner, Fisher Boy, Sea Cuisine and C. Wirthy & Co labels, and are available in most grocery and club stores. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for High Liner Foods Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for High Liner Foods and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC cut its stake in shares of WPP plc (NYSE:WPP Free Report) by 0.2% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 137,553 shares of the business services providers stock after selling 337 shares during the quarter. Morningstar Investment Services LLCs holdings in WPP were worth $6,106,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. CWM LLC grew its holdings in shares of WPP by 85.1% during the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 583 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 268 shares during the last quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC grew its holdings in shares of WPP by 187.0% during the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 617 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 402 shares during the last quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC grew its holdings in shares of WPP by 166.8% during the first quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 675 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $40,000 after purchasing an additional 422 shares during the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. grew its holdings in shares of WPP by 54.0% during the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 973 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 341 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. grew its holdings in WPP by 34.6% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 977 shares of the business services providers stock worth $63,000 after buying an additional 251 shares in the last quarter. 4.34% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get WPP alerts: WPP Stock Performance Shares of WPP traded down $0.38 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $45.11. 22,548 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 130,062. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $47.97 and a 200-day simple moving average of $46.30. WPP plc has a one year low of $41.13 and a one year high of $62.83. WPP Cuts Dividend Analyst Ratings Changes The firm also recently announced a semi-annual dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 5th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 7th will be given a $0.244 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 7th. This represents a dividend yield of 5.3%. A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on WPP shares. StockNews.com raised WPP from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Saturday. UBS Group lowered WPP from a buy rating to a sell rating in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered WPP from an overweight rating to a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, December 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $46.00. View Our Latest Analysis on WPP WPP Company Profile (Free Report) WPP plc, a creative transformation company, provides communications, experience, commerce, and technology services in North America, the United Kingdom, Western Continental Europe, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Eastern Europe. The company operates through three segments: Global Integrated Agencies, Public Relations, and Specialist Agencies. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding WPP? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for WPP plc (NYSE:WPP Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for WPP Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for WPP and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. MQS Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Edwards Lifesciences Co. (NYSE:EW Free Report) during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 3,723 shares of the medical research companys stock, valued at approximately $258,000. A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in EW. Versor Investments LP boosted its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 83.3% in the third quarter. Versor Investments LP now owns 4,496 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $311,000 after purchasing an additional 2,043 shares during the last quarter. Nvwm LLC purchased a new stake in Edwards Lifesciences in the second quarter worth approximately $599,000. US Bancorp DE boosted its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 0.6% in the third quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 850,257 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $58,906,000 after purchasing an additional 5,409 shares during the last quarter. WELLCOME TRUST LTD THE as trustee of the WELLCOME TRUST boosted its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences by 440.0% in the third quarter. WELLCOME TRUST LTD THE as trustee of the WELLCOME TRUST now owns 3,510,000 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $243,173,000 after purchasing an additional 2,860,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UniSuper Management Pty Ltd purchased a new stake in Edwards Lifesciences in the second quarter worth approximately $18,888,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.25% of the companys stock. Get Edwards Lifesciences alerts: Insider Buying and Selling at Edwards Lifesciences In other Edwards Lifesciences news, VP Catherine M. Szyman sold 27,000 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.62, for a total value of $2,311,740.00. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 34,814 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,980,774.68. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other Edwards Lifesciences news, Director Kieran Gallahue sold 3,058 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction on Friday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $87.61, for a total value of $267,911.38. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 67,219 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,889,056.59. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, VP Catherine M. Szyman sold 27,000 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $85.62, for a total transaction of $2,311,740.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 34,814 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,980,774.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 186,147 shares of company stock worth $14,664,599. Insiders own 1.29% of the companys stock. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several research analysts have weighed in on EW shares. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $70.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of Edwards Lifesciences from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and set a $94.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Friday, February 2nd. Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $85.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $80.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, Truist Financial increased their price target on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $78.00 to $84.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Friday, December 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $87.38. Read Our Latest Report on Edwards Lifesciences Edwards Lifesciences Stock Performance Shares of NYSE EW opened at $86.50 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09, a quick ratio of 2.40 and a current ratio of 3.38. The company has a market cap of $52.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 37.61, a P/E/G ratio of 4.33 and a beta of 1.04. The firms fifty day moving average is $79.14 and its two-hundred day moving average is $73.87. Edwards Lifesciences Co. has a 52-week low of $60.57 and a 52-week high of $94.87. Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The medical research company reported $0.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts consensus estimates of $0.64. The company had revenue of $1.53 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.50 billion. Edwards Lifesciences had a net margin of 23.35% and a return on equity of 23.56%. Edwards Lifesciencess revenue for the quarter was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.64 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Edwards Lifesciences Co. will post 2.76 EPS for the current fiscal year. Edwards Lifesciences Company Profile (Free Report) Edwards Lifesciences Corporation provides products and technologies for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring in the United States, Europe, Japan, and internationally. It offers transcatheter heart valve replacement products for the minimally invasive replacement of aortic heart valves under the Edwards SAPIEN family of valves system; and transcatheter heart valve repair and replacement products to treat mitral and tricuspid valve diseases under the PASCAL PRECISION and Cardioband names. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding EW? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Edwards Lifesciences Co. (NYSE:EW Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Edwards Lifesciences Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Edwards Lifesciences and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. People attend the debut press conference of WALOVI, a Chinese herbal tea brand, in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 26, 2024. A Chinese herbal tea maker is seeking to expand its presence in the international market with the debut of its brand name "WALOVI" in Milan on Monday and a planned museum of its products in Italy in the near future. Guangzhou Wanglaoji Health Industry Co., Ltd., based in south China's Guangdong Province, said the move is aimed at opening up the international market as well as spreading Chinese tea culture. (Xinhua/Li Jing) Rome, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese herbal tea maker is seeking to expand its presence in the international market with the debut of its brand name "WALOVI" in Milan on Monday and a planned museum of its products in Italy in the near future. Guangzhou Wanglaoji Health Industry Co., Ltd., based in south China's Guangdong Province, said the move is aimed at opening up the international market as well as spreading Chinese tea culture. "We have the confidence and determination to make Wanglaoji a globally recognized Chinese cultural symbol," said Li Chuyuan, chairman of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Ltd., which owns the brand with a history of 196 years. Li said the company has chosen Milan as the first destination for WALOVI's overseas launch, hoping to reach more young and fashionable consumers and lead the trend of healthy consumption. The herbal tea brand, known as "cold tea" among Chinese consumers, has been sold to more than 150 countries and regions around the world through major retail platforms such as Amazon and Costco, Li said. The company has also clinched a deal with its Italian partners to open its first tea-themed museum in Europe. No detail has been revealed regarding the location or investment plan of the museum, which will be one of the company's 56 herbal tea museums around the world, including one in New York. "Wanglaoji museum will become a platform for cultural exchanges between the East and the West, injecting new vitality into the exchange and mutual understanding between Chinese and European civilizations," Li said. People attend the debut press conference of WALOVI, a Chinese herbal tea brand, in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 26, 2024. A Chinese herbal tea maker is seeking to expand its presence in the international market with the debut of its brand name "WALOVI" in Milan on Monday and a planned museum of its products in Italy in the near future. Guangzhou Wanglaoji Health Industry Co., Ltd., based in south China's Guangdong Province, said the move is aimed at opening up the international market as well as spreading Chinese tea culture. (Xinhua/Li Jing) Li Chuyuan, chairman of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Ltd., speaks at the debut press conference of WALOVI, a Chinese herbal tea brand, in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 26, 2024. A Chinese herbal tea maker is seeking to expand its presence in the international market with the debut of its brand name "WALOVI" in Milan on Monday and a planned museum of its products in Italy in the near future. Guangzhou Wanglaoji Health Industry Co., Ltd., based in south China's Guangdong Province, said the move is aimed at opening up the international market as well as spreading Chinese tea culture. (Xinhua/Li Jing) Ancora Advisors LLC lowered its position in shares of Mueller Water Products, Inc. (NYSE:MWA Free Report) by 9.1% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 5,244,773 shares of the industrial products companys stock after selling 523,406 shares during the period. Mueller Water Products accounts for 1.8% of Ancora Advisors LLCs investment portfolio, making the stock its 9th largest position. Ancora Advisors LLCs holdings in Mueller Water Products were worth $66,504,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other large investors have also bought and sold shares of MWA. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Mueller Water Products by 580.8% in the 1st quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 14,909 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $192,000 after purchasing an additional 12,719 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its position in shares of Mueller Water Products by 65.6% in the 1st quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 28,439 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $372,000 after purchasing an additional 11,270 shares during the period. MetLife Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Mueller Water Products by 38.6% in the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 75,681 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $978,000 after purchasing an additional 21,068 shares during the period. APG Asset Management N.V. acquired a new stake in Mueller Water Products during the 1st quarter worth about $2,116,000. Finally, Sei Investments Co. boosted its position in Mueller Water Products by 56.8% during the 1st quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 76,178 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $984,000 after acquiring an additional 27,589 shares during the period. Get Mueller Water Products alerts: Insider Buying and Selling In related news, CAO Suzanne G. Smith sold 2,800 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.09, for a total value of $42,252.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 3,208 shares in the company, valued at approximately $48,408.72. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, CAO Suzanne G. Smith sold 2,800 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.09, for a total value of $42,252.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 3,208 shares in the company, valued at approximately $48,408.72. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, COO Paul Mcandrew sold 23,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.02, for a total value of $345,460.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 6,701 shares of the companys stock, valued at $100,649.02. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 74,805 shares of company stock worth $1,114,644. 1.40% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities research analysts have commented on the company. StockNews.com upgraded Mueller Water Products from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on Mueller Water Products from $15.00 to $17.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 13th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on Mueller Water Products from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a sector perform rating in a research report on Monday, February 12th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $17.00. View Our Latest Stock Report on MWA Mueller Water Products Stock Down 0.2 % Shares of Mueller Water Products stock traded down $0.03 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $15.65. 418,552 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,024,286. The stock has a market cap of $2.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.36, a PEG ratio of 1.91 and a beta of 1.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 1.89 and a current ratio of 3.29. Mueller Water Products, Inc. has a twelve month low of $12.11 and a twelve month high of $16.93. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $14.46 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $13.63. Mueller Water Products (NYSE:MWA Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 9th. The industrial products company reported $0.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.09 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $256.40 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $250.64 million. Mueller Water Products had a return on equity of 13.86% and a net margin of 6.35%. The firms revenue was down 18.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.13 EPS. Equities research analysts predict that Mueller Water Products, Inc. will post 0.69 EPS for the current fiscal year. Mueller Water Products Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, February 20th. Investors of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a $0.064 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $0.26 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.64%. Mueller Water Productss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 52.00%. Mueller Water Products Company Profile (Free Report) Mueller Water Products, Inc manufactures and markets products and services for the transmission, distribution, and measurement of water used by municipalities, and the residential and non-residential construction industries in the United States, Israel, and internationally. It operates in two segments, Water Flow Solutions and Water Management Solutions. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MWA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Mueller Water Products, Inc. (NYSE:MWA Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Mueller Water Products Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mueller Water Products and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mutual Advisors LLC decreased its position in shares of Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE:ARW Free Report) by 7.1% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 11,333 shares of the technology companys stock after selling 860 shares during the period. Mutual Advisors LLCs holdings in Arrow Electronics were worth $1,419,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd boosted its position in shares of Arrow Electronics by 25.5% during the 2nd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 5,964 shares of the technology companys stock worth $854,000 after acquiring an additional 1,211 shares in the last quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System boosted its position in shares of Arrow Electronics by 3.9% during the 2nd quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 339,374 shares of the technology companys stock worth $48,609,000 after acquiring an additional 12,598 shares in the last quarter. South Dakota Investment Council boosted its position in shares of Arrow Electronics by 3.3% during the 3rd quarter. South Dakota Investment Council now owns 74,556 shares of the technology companys stock worth $9,337,000 after acquiring an additional 2,372 shares in the last quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec boosted its position in shares of Arrow Electronics by 21.2% during the 2nd quarter. Caisse DE Depot ET Placement DU Quebec now owns 566,015 shares of the technology companys stock worth $81,070,000 after acquiring an additional 99,034 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of Montreal Can bought a new position in Arrow Electronics in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $11,510,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 94.79% of the companys stock. Get Arrow Electronics alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets Several brokerages recently commented on ARW. Truist Financial dropped their price objective on shares of Arrow Electronics from $128.00 to $124.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 9th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Arrow Electronics from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 13th. Insider Activity In other news, CAO Yun Sung Cho sold 739 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.22, for a total transaction of $86,625.58. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 1,389 shares of the companys stock, valued at $162,818.58. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Insiders own 1.10% of the companys stock. Arrow Electronics Price Performance Shares of NYSE:ARW opened at $116.21 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $116.07 and a 200 day simple moving average of $120.33. The company has a market cap of $6.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.36 and a beta of 1.40. Arrow Electronics, Inc. has a one year low of $108.51 and a one year high of $147.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 1.39 and a quick ratio of 1.00. Arrow Electronics (NYSE:ARW Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The technology company reported $3.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.72 by $0.26. The firm had revenue of $7.85 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $7.84 billion. Arrow Electronics had a net margin of 2.73% and a return on equity of 17.22%. The companys revenue for the quarter was down 15.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $5.69 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Arrow Electronics, Inc. will post 12.08 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Arrow Electronics Profile (Free Report) Arrow Electronics, Inc provides products, services, and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Global Components and Global Enterprise Computing Solutions. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Arrow Electronics Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Arrow Electronics and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Lundin Mining Co. (TSE:LUN Free Report) National Bank Financial upped their Q1 2024 earnings per share (EPS) estimates for shares of Lundin Mining in a research report issued to clients and investors on Thursday, February 22nd. National Bank Financial analyst S. Nagle now anticipates that the mining company will post earnings of $0.18 per share for the quarter, up from their previous forecast of $0.15. National Bank Financial currently has a Outperform Market Weight rating on the stock. The consensus estimate for Lundin Minings current full-year earnings is $0.87 per share. National Bank Financial also issued estimates for Lundin Minings Q2 2024 earnings at $0.16 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $0.55 EPS. Get Lundin Mining alerts: Several other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Lundin Mining from C$12.80 to C$12.60 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Canaccord Genuity Group lowered their price objective on shares of Lundin Mining from C$11.00 to C$10.75 in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on shares of Lundin Mining from C$8.90 to C$8.40 in a research report on Friday, January 19th. BMO Capital Markets lowered their price target on shares of Lundin Mining from C$12.50 to C$12.00 in a report on Friday, February 2nd. Finally, Raymond James boosted their price objective on shares of Lundin Mining from C$9.00 to C$9.50 in a report on Tuesday, February 6th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of C$11.87. Lundin Mining Stock Up 1.7 % Shares of Lundin Mining stock opened at C$10.89 on Monday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of C$10.87 and a 200 day moving average price of C$10.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.48, a quick ratio of 0.90 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 23.15. Lundin Mining has a twelve month low of C$7.35 and a twelve month high of C$11.93. The stock has a market cap of C$8.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of -0.26 and a beta of 1.83. Lundin Mining (TSE:LUN Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 21st. The mining company reported C$0.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of C$0.15 by C($0.01). Lundin Mining had a return on equity of 5.32% and a net margin of 7.12%. The business had revenue of C$1.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of C$1.39 billion. Lundin Mining Dividend Announcement The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 10th. Investors of record on Friday, March 22nd will be issued a $0.09 dividend. This represents a $0.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.31%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 21st. Lundin Minings dividend payout ratio is currently 85.71%. Lundin Mining Company Profile (Get Free Report) Lundin Mining Corporation, a diversified base metals mining company, engages in the exploration, development, and mining of mineral properties in Brazil, Chile, Portugal, Sweden, and the United States. It primarily produces copper, zinc, nickel, and gold, as well as lead, silver, and other metals. The company holds 100% interests in the Chapada mine located in Brazil; the Neves-Corvo mine located in Portugal; the Eagle mine located in the United States; and the Zinkgruvan mine located in Sweden. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Lundin Mining Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Lundin Mining and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSE:TD Free Report) (NYSE:TD) Stock analysts at National Bank Financial lowered their Q1 2024 earnings estimates for shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank in a report issued on Wednesday, February 21st. National Bank Financial analyst G. Dechaine now anticipates that the company will post earnings per share of $1.99 for the quarter, down from their prior forecast of $2.08. The consensus estimate for Toronto-Dominion Banks current full-year earnings is $7.91 per share. National Bank Financial also issued estimates for Toronto-Dominion Banks Q2 2024 earnings at $1.89 EPS, Q3 2024 earnings at $2.08 EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at $2.13 EPS and FY2024 earnings at $8.08 EPS. Get Toronto-Dominion Bank alerts: Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSE:TD Get Free Report) (NYSE:TD) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, November 30th. The company reported C$1.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of C$1.92 by C($0.09). The firm had revenue of C$13.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of C$12.53 billion. Toronto-Dominion Bank had a return on equity of 9.65% and a net margin of 21.91%. TD has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Desjardins dropped their target price on shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from C$96.00 to C$94.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. National Bankshares raised their price objective on shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from C$86.00 to C$92.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 20th. Scotiabank cut shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from an outperform rating to a sector perform rating and lowered their price objective for the company from C$95.00 to C$86.00 in a research report on Wednesday, December 20th. Bank of America lowered their price objective on shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from C$88.00 to C$86.00 in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank from C$92.00 to C$87.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Friday, December 1st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Toronto-Dominion Bank has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of C$90.62. Get Our Latest Research Report on Toronto-Dominion Bank Toronto-Dominion Bank Stock Down 0.0 % Shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank stock opened at C$80.69 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of C$144.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.08 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of C$82.18 and a 200 day simple moving average of C$81.92. Toronto-Dominion Bank has a 12-month low of C$75.89 and a 12-month high of C$90.98. Toronto-Dominion Bank Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 31st. Investors of record on Wednesday, January 31st were paid a dividend of $1.02 per share. This is a positive change from Toronto-Dominion Banks previous quarterly dividend of $0.96. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, January 9th. This represents a $4.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 5.06%. Toronto-Dominion Banks dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 72.86%. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, Senior Officer Barbara Ann Hooper sold 9,162 shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$80.49, for a total transaction of C$737,449.38. In other Toronto-Dominion Bank news, Senior Officer Barbara Ann Hooper sold 9,162 shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$80.49, for a total value of C$737,449.38. Also, Senior Officer Anita Odell sold 5,760 shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of C$84.45, for a total transaction of C$486,432.00. Insiders have sold 57,422 shares of company stock valued at $4,719,931 in the last 90 days. 0.10% of the stock is owned by insiders. Toronto-Dominion Bank Company Profile (Get Free Report) The Toronto-Dominion Bank, together with its subsidiaries, provides various financial products and services in Canada, the United States, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Canadian Personal and Commercial Banking, U.S. Retail, Wealth Management and Insurance, and Wholesale Banking. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Toronto-Dominion Bank Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Toronto-Dominion Bank and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) had its price objective reduced by investment analysts at National Bankshares from C$141.00 to C$137.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday, BayStreet.CA reports. National Bankshares price target would indicate a potential upside of 11.67% from the stocks current price. A number of other research analysts also recently commented on BMO. TD Securities lowered their target price on Bank of Montreal from C$140.00 to C$135.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Scotiabank lowered their target price on Bank of Montreal from C$145.00 to C$141.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Desjardins lowered their target price on Bank of Montreal from C$135.00 to C$133.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their target price on Bank of Montreal from C$134.00 to C$130.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Cormark lowered their target price on Bank of Montreal from C$128.00 to C$127.00 in a research note on Monday, December 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of C$132.70. Get Bank of Montreal alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on Bank of Montreal Bank of Montreal Price Performance Shares of TSE BMO traded up C$0.37 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting C$122.68. The company had a trading volume of 689,367 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,160,772. Bank of Montreal has a 12 month low of C$102.67 and a 12 month high of C$132.11. The stock has a market cap of C$88.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.60, a PEG ratio of 0.54 and a beta of 1.18. The firms 50 day simple moving average is C$127.84 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is C$118.22. Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) last issued its earnings results on Friday, December 1st. The bank reported C$2.81 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of C$2.86 by C($0.05). The business had revenue of C$8.36 billion during the quarter. Bank of Montreal had a return on equity of 5.91% and a net margin of 15.04%. Equities analysts forecast that Bank of Montreal will post 12.0940171 earnings per share for the current year. Bank of Montreal Company Profile (Get Free Report) Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. It operates through Canadian P&C, U.S P&C, BMO Wealth Management, and BMO Capital Markets segments. The company's personal banking products and services include deposits, mortgages, home lending, consumer credit, small business lending, credit cards, cash management, financial and investment advice, and other banking services; and commercial banking products and services comprise various of financing options and treasury and payment solutions, as well as risk management products. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Bank of Montreal Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of Montreal and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Natixis Advisors L.P. lifted its position in shares of First American Financial Co. (NYSE:FAF Free Report) by 15.9% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 242,098 shares of the insurance providers stock after buying an additional 33,200 shares during the quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P.s holdings in First American Financial were worth $13,676,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Oxler Private Wealth LLC increased its stake in First American Financial by 0.9% during the 2nd quarter. Oxler Private Wealth LLC now owns 17,359 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $990,000 after acquiring an additional 161 shares during the period. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC increased its stake in First American Financial by 1.5% during the 2nd quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 11,329 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $646,000 after acquiring an additional 171 shares during the period. Captrust Financial Advisors increased its stake in First American Financial by 2.4% during the 1st quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 7,282 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $472,000 after acquiring an additional 174 shares during the period. J.P. Morgan Private Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in First American Financial by 3.0% during the 3rd quarter. J.P. Morgan Private Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 7,910 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $447,000 after acquiring an additional 227 shares during the period. Finally, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. increased its stake in First American Financial by 7.1% during the 1st quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 3,725 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $241,000 after acquiring an additional 247 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 85.53% of the companys stock. Get First American Financial alerts: First American Financial Stock Performance FAF stock opened at $57.63 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $5.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.71 and a beta of 1.29. First American Financial Co. has a 52-week low of $49.55 and a 52-week high of $65.54. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $61.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $58.85. First American Financial Dividend Announcement First American Financial ( NYSE:FAF Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 8th. The insurance provider reported $0.69 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.75 by ($0.06). First American Financial had a net margin of 3.61% and a return on equity of 8.27%. The firm had revenue of $1.43 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.47 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.35 EPS. First American Financials revenue for the quarter was down 15.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that First American Financial Co. will post 4.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 15th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.53 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 7th. This represents a $2.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.68%. First American Financials dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 101.92%. Analyst Ratings Changes FAF has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. TheStreet raised First American Financial from a c rating to a b rating in a report on Wednesday, February 7th. Stephens reaffirmed an overweight rating and issued a $73.00 target price on shares of First American Financial in a report on Thursday, February 8th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on First American Financial in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. They issued a buy rating on the stock. Barclays initiated coverage on First American Financial in a report on Wednesday, November 15th. They issued an equal weight rating and a $53.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reduced their target price on First American Financial from $70.00 to $66.00 and set a market perform rating on the stock in a report on Monday, February 12th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $67.25. Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on First American Financial About First American Financial (Free Report) First American Financial Corporation, through its subsidiaries, provides financial services. It operates through Title Insurance and Services, and Specialty Insurance segments. The Title Insurance and Services segment issues title insurance policies on residential and commercial property, as well as offers related products and services. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding FAF? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for First American Financial Co. (NYSE:FAF Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for First American Financial Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for First American Financial and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Natixis Advisors L.P. raised its stake in shares of Brookfield Co. (NYSE:BN Free Report) by 15.1% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 435,941 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 57,079 shares during the quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P.s holdings in Brookfield were worth $13,632,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Brookfield during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. Ronald Blue Trust Inc. boosted its position in Brookfield by 102.6% during the 3rd quarter. Ronald Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,021 shares of the companys stock valued at $34,000 after acquiring an additional 517 shares in the last quarter. Money Concepts Capital Corp bought a new stake in Brookfield during the 4th quarter valued at $34,000. Castleview Partners LLC bought a new stake in Brookfield during the 3rd quarter valued at $34,000. Finally, First Command Advisory Services Inc. bought a new stake in Brookfield during the 3rd quarter valued at $37,000. Institutional investors own 58.22% of the companys stock. Get Brookfield alerts: Brookfield Trading Up 1.2 % Shares of Brookfield stock opened at $41.24 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $67.63 billion, a P/E ratio of 66.52 and a beta of 1.50. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $39.87 and its 200-day simple moving average is $35.70. Brookfield Co. has a 1-year low of $28.25 and a 1-year high of $41.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35, a current ratio of 1.15 and a quick ratio of 0.99. Brookfield Increases Dividend Brookfield ( NYSE:BN Get Free Report ) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The company reported $0.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.69 by $0.14. Brookfield had a return on equity of 3.22% and a net margin of 1.18%. The company had revenue of $24.52 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.12 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was up 1.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that Brookfield Co. will post 3.75 EPS for the current fiscal year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 28th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 13th will be given a dividend of $0.08 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 12th. This represents a $0.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.78%. This is a positive change from Brookfields previous quarterly dividend of $0.07. Brookfields dividend payout ratio is currently 45.16%. Insider Transactions at Brookfield In related news, major shareholder Gp Ltd Bcp sold 3,922,786 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $2.20, for a total value of $8,630,129.20. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 23,352,826 shares of the companys stock, valued at $51,376,217.20. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other Brookfield news, Director Ocm Growth Holdings Llc sold 562,500 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $12.06, for a total value of $6,783,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 16,742,168 shares in the company, valued at $201,910,546.08. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Gp Ltd Bcp sold 3,922,786 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $2.20, for a total transaction of $8,630,129.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 23,352,826 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $51,376,217.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 6,545,283 shares of company stock valued at $22,555,512. 11.00% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In BN has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. TheStreet raised Brookfield from a c rating to a b rating in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. CIBC raised their price objective on Brookfield from $46.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th. TD Securities raised their price objective on Brookfield from $61.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock an action list buy rating in a research report on Sunday, February 11th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on Brookfield from $52.00 to $53.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, February 12th. Finally, Scotiabank lifted their price target on Brookfield from $49.00 to $50.00 and gave the stock a sector outperform rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $47.45. Get Our Latest Report on BN Brookfield Company Profile (Free Report) Brookfield Corporation is an alternative asset manager and REIT/Real Estate Investment Manager firm focuses on real estate, renewable power, infrastructure and venture capital and private equity assets. It manages a range of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Brookfield Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Brookfield and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Profund Advisors LLC lowered its position in PPG Industries, Inc. (NYSE:PPG Free Report) by 5.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 6,199 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock after selling 328 shares during the period. Profund Advisors LLCs holdings in PPG Industries were worth $805,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Ergoteles LLC raised its holdings in shares of PPG Industries by 90.3% in the second quarter. Ergoteles LLC now owns 18,257 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock valued at $2,708,000 after purchasing an additional 8,662 shares during the last quarter. Financial Counselors Inc. increased its holdings in PPG Industries by 6.4% during the third quarter. Financial Counselors Inc. now owns 1,883 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock worth $244,000 after buying an additional 114 shares during the last quarter. Cibc World Markets Corp increased its holdings in PPG Industries by 1,010.7% during the second quarter. Cibc World Markets Corp now owns 132,003 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock worth $19,576,000 after buying an additional 120,118 shares during the last quarter. Stifel Financial Corp boosted its position in PPG Industries by 3.3% during the third quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 154,997 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock worth $20,122,000 after purchasing an additional 4,962 shares during the period. Finally, Greenwood Capital Associates LLC boosted its position in PPG Industries by 113.7% during the third quarter. Greenwood Capital Associates LLC now owns 40,772 shares of the specialty chemicals companys stock worth $5,292,000 after purchasing an additional 21,689 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.18% of the companys stock. Get PPG Industries alerts: PPG Industries Price Performance PPG opened at $140.91 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a quick ratio of 1.05 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $33.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.39, a P/E/G ratio of 1.41 and a beta of 1.30. The companys 50-day simple moving average is $143.84 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $137.76. PPG Industries, Inc. has a 52-week low of $120.32 and a 52-week high of $152.89. PPG Industries Announces Dividend PPG Industries ( NYSE:PPG Get Free Report ) last posted its earnings results on Friday, January 19th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.53 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.49 by $0.04. PPG Industries had a net margin of 6.96% and a return on equity of 23.51%. The business had revenue of $4.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.27 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.22 EPS. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 3.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that PPG Industries, Inc. will post 8.45 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 12th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 15th will be paid a $0.65 dividend. This represents a $2.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.85%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 15th. PPG Industriess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.69%. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of brokerages have weighed in on PPG. KeyCorp increased their target price on shares of PPG Industries from $166.00 to $167.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Robert W. Baird reiterated an outperform rating and set a $150.00 target price on shares of PPG Industries in a research report on Friday, January 19th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on shares of PPG Industries from $158.00 to $156.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Vertical Research upgraded shares of PPG Industries from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 3rd. Finally, UBS Group raised their target price on shares of PPG Industries from $165.00 to $172.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $158.20. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on PPG Industries PPG Industries Company Profile (Free Report) PPG Industries, Inc manufactures and distributes paints, coatings, and specialty materials worldwide. The company operates through Performance Coatings and Industrial Coatings. The Performance Coatings segment offers coatings, solvents, adhesives, sealants, sundries, and software for automotive and commercial transport/fleet repair and refurbishing, light industrial coatings, and specialty coatings for signs; and coatings, sealants, transparencies, transparent armor, adhesives, engineered materials, and packaging and chemical management services for commercial, military, regional jet, and general aviation aircraft. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for PPG Industries Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for PPG Industries and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLC increased its stake in shares of A. O. Smith Co. (NYSE:AOS Free Report) by 192.8% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 17,862 shares of the industrial products companys stock after buying an additional 11,762 shares during the period. Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLCs holdings in A. O. Smith were worth $1,181,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Bank of Nova Scotia increased its stake in shares of A. O. Smith by 13.4% in the third quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 11,494 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $760,000 after purchasing an additional 1,358 shares in the last quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC increased its stake in shares of A. O. Smith by 50.0% in the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 6,157 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $407,000 after purchasing an additional 2,052 shares in the last quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd increased its stake in shares of A. O. Smith by 30.3% in the third quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 769,447 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $50,884,000 after purchasing an additional 178,707 shares in the last quarter. Trexquant Investment LP boosted its position in shares of A. O. Smith by 96.4% in the third quarter. Trexquant Investment LP now owns 109,312 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $7,229,000 after acquiring an additional 53,648 shares during the period. Finally, MQS Management LLC bought a new position in shares of A. O. Smith in the third quarter valued at approximately $371,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 74.48% of the companys stock. Get A. O. Smith alerts: Insider Activity In other news, Director Idelle K. Wolf sold 814 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $80.00, for a total transaction of $65,120.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 46,140 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,691,200. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.70% of the companys stock. Analysts Set New Price Targets AOS has been the subject of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com upgraded shares of A. O. Smith from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Tuesday. Northcoast Research raised shares of A. O. Smith from a neutral rating to a buy rating and set a $90.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, December 12th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of A. O. Smith from $76.00 to $82.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, December 11th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on shares of A. O. Smith from $74.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 19th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $83.40. Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on A. O. Smith A. O. Smith Stock Up 0.8 % A. O. Smith stock traded up $0.68 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $82.98. The stock had a trading volume of 376,582 shares, compared to its average volume of 921,419. The company has a market capitalization of $12.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.51, a PEG ratio of 2.23 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $80.57 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $74.61. A. O. Smith Co. has a one year low of $63.40 and a one year high of $83.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.06, a current ratio of 1.59 and a quick ratio of 1.06. A. O. Smith (NYSE:AOS Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, January 30th. The industrial products company reported $0.97 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.96 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $988.10 million for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $985.89 million. A. O. Smith had a net margin of 14.45% and a return on equity of 31.05%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.86 EPS. On average, analysts expect that A. O. Smith Co. will post 4.07 EPS for the current fiscal year. A. O. Smith Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 15th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, January 31st were paid a dividend of $0.32 per share. This represents a $1.28 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, January 30th. A. O. Smiths dividend payout ratio is currently 34.59%. A. O. Smith Company Profile (Free Report) A. O. Smith Corporation manufactures and markets residential and commercial gas and electric water heaters, boilers, heat pumps, tanks, and water treatment products in North America, China, Europe, and India. The company offers water heaters for residences, restaurants, hotels, office buildings, laundries, car washes, and small businesses; boilers for hospitals, schools, hotels, and other large commercial buildings, as well as homes, apartments, and condominiums; and water treatment products comprising point-of-entry water softeners, well water solutions, and whole-home water filtration products, and point-of-use carbon and reverse osmosis products for residences, restaurants, hotels, and offices. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding AOS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for A. O. Smith Co. (NYSE:AOS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for A. O. Smith Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for A. O. Smith and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Realty Income Co. (NYSE:O Free Report) by 194.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 26,679 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after purchasing an additional 17,627 shares during the quarter. Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLCs holdings in Realty Income were worth $1,332,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Panagora Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Realty Income by 33.7% in the first quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 25,505 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $1,767,000 after acquiring an additional 6,433 shares during the last quarter. Blair William & Co. IL increased its stake in Realty Income by 1.9% in the first quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 18,695 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $1,296,000 after purchasing an additional 345 shares in the last quarter. Prudential PLC bought a new stake in shares of Realty Income during the first quarter worth about $592,000. Baird Financial Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Realty Income by 8.2% during the first quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 115,733 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $8,020,000 after acquiring an additional 8,803 shares in the last quarter. Finally, NewEdge Advisors LLC grew its position in Realty Income by 5.6% in the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 31,334 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $2,171,000 after purchasing an additional 1,671 shares in the last quarter. 78.82% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get Realty Income alerts: Insider Activity In related news, Director A. Larry Chapman sold 3,500 shares of Realty Income stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.98, for a total value of $199,430.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 10,590 shares in the company, valued at approximately $603,418.20. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.10% of the companys stock. Realty Income Price Performance Shares of NYSE:O traded down $0.06 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $52.25. 2,691,341 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 7,615,962. The stock has a market cap of $44.99 billion, a PE ratio of 41.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.73 and a beta of 0.94. The businesss fifty day moving average is $55.52 and its two-hundred day moving average is $53.88. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. Realty Income Co. has a one year low of $45.03 and a one year high of $64.89. Realty Income (NYSE:O Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 21st. The real estate investment trust reported $0.30 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.02 by ($0.72). Realty Income had a net margin of 21.39% and a return on equity of 4.06%. The firm had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.02 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.00 EPS. The companys revenue was up 21.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that Realty Income Co. will post 4.18 earnings per share for the current year. Realty Income Dividend Announcement The firm also recently announced a feb 24 dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 15th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 1st will be issued a dividend of $0.2565 per share. This represents a yield of 5.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 29th. Realty Incomes payout ratio is 244.45%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research firms have weighed in on O. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Realty Income from $58.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. BMO Capital Markets started coverage on shares of Realty Income in a report on Tuesday, February 13th. They issued a market perform rating and a $57.00 price target on the stock. Mizuho increased their target price on shares of Realty Income from $58.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. StockNews.com raised shares of Realty Income from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Finally, BNP Paribas raised shares of Realty Income from a neutral rating to an outperform rating and set a $63.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 13th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $61.29. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on O Realty Income Company Profile (Free Report) Realty Income, The Monthly Dividend Company, is an S&P 500 company and member of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats index. We invest in people and places to deliver dependable monthly dividends that increase over time. The company is structured as a real estate investment trust ("REIT"), and its monthly dividends are supported by the cash flow from over 13,250 real estate properties primarily owned under long-term net lease agreements with commercial clients. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Realty Income Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Realty Income and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The cruise ship Europa docked at a port in China's Tianjin on Monday, becoming the first international cruise ship to visit various Chinese ports after the pandemic. #Tianjin #cruiseship Equities research analysts at StockNews.com started coverage on shares of Credit Suisse Group (NYSE:CS Get Free Report) in a research note issued on Monday. The firm set a hold rating on the financial services providers stock. Separately, Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an outperform rating and set a $8.00 target price on shares of Credit Suisse Group in a research note on Tuesday, November 28th. Get Credit Suisse Group alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on Credit Suisse Group Credit Suisse Group Stock Performance Institutional Inflows and Outflows Shares of CS stock opened at $0.89 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.79, a current ratio of 1.53 and a quick ratio of 1.53. The company has a market cap of $2.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.27. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $0.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $0.89. Credit Suisse Group has a 1-year low of $0.82 and a 1-year high of $6.36. Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its stake in shares of Credit Suisse Group by 20.8% in the 1st quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 212,663 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $189,000 after acquiring an additional 36,599 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its holdings in Credit Suisse Group by 17.3% during the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 182,501 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $162,000 after acquiring an additional 26,887 shares during the period. Advisory Services Network LLC raised its position in Credit Suisse Group by 45,035.2% in the 1st quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 48,746 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $43,000 after purchasing an additional 48,638 shares in the last quarter. Hudson Bay Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in Credit Suisse Group in the 1st quarter valued at about $904,000. Finally, Apollon Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Credit Suisse Group in the 1st quarter valued at about $27,000. 11.20% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Credit Suisse Group Company Profile (Get Free Report) Credit Suisse Group AG is a holding company, which engages in the provision of financial services. It operates through the following four divisions: Wealth Management, Investment Bank, Swiss Bank and Asset Management and four geographic regions: Switzerland, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Asia Pacific, and Americas. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Credit Suisse Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Credit Suisse Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Synovus Financial Corp increased its holdings in Lennar Co. (NYSE:LEN Free Report) by 2.3% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 46,099 shares of the construction companys stock after purchasing an additional 1,015 shares during the period. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in Lennar were worth $5,174,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Lennar during the third quarter worth $27,000. BluePath Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Lennar in the 3rd quarter worth $29,000. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new position in shares of Lennar during the second quarter valued at about $46,000. NBC Securities Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Lennar in the third quarter worth about $56,000. Finally, West Tower Group LLC bought a new position in Lennar during the second quarter valued at approximately $57,000. 79.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Lennar alerts: Insider Activity In related news, VP Mark Sustana sold 37,304 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $146.38, for a total value of $5,460,559.52. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 18,694 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,736,427.72. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Lennar news, CFO Diane J. Bessette sold 10,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $147.73, for a total transaction of $1,477,300.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 260,556 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $38,491,937.88. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, VP Mark Sustana sold 37,304 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $146.38, for a total value of $5,460,559.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 18,694 shares in the company, valued at $2,736,427.72. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 9.53% of the companys stock. Lennar Stock Down 0.1 % Shares of LEN opened at $153.90 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $43.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.18, a P/E/G ratio of 2.01 and a beta of 1.53. Lennar Co. has a 12-month low of $94.11 and a 12-month high of $158.36. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $150.69 and a 200-day moving average price of $130.65. The company has a current ratio of 6.12, a quick ratio of 1.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.11. Lennar (NYSE:LEN Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Friday, December 15th. The construction company reported $4.82 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $4.59 by $0.23. The business had revenue of $10.97 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.22 billion. Lennar had a net margin of 11.51% and a return on equity of 15.84%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 7.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $5.02 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Lennar Co. will post 14.36 earnings per share for the current year. Lennar Increases Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, February 7th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, January 24th were given a dividend of $0.50 per share. This is an increase from Lennars previous quarterly dividend of $0.38. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, January 23rd. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.30%. Lennars dividend payout ratio is presently 14.53%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In LEN has been the topic of several recent research reports. Raymond James upped their price objective on Lennar from $150.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, December 19th. JMP Securities upped their price target on shares of Lennar from $150.00 to $170.00 and gave the company a market outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 19th. Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Lennar from $132.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 13th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Lennar from $123.00 to $130.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 8th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group initiated coverage on Lennar in a research report on Monday, November 27th. They issued a hold rating and a $117.00 price target for the company. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Lennar currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $140.53. Read Our Latest Analysis on LEN Lennar Company Profile (Free Report) Lennar Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a homebuilder primarily under the Lennar brand in the United States. It operates through Homebuilding East, Homebuilding Central, Homebuilding Texas, Homebuilding West, Financial Services, Multifamily, and Lennar Other segments. The company's homebuilding operations include the construction and sale of single-family attached and detached homes, as well as the purchase, development, and sale of residential land; and development, construction, and management of multifamily rental properties. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding LEN? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Lennar Co. (NYSE:LEN Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Lennar Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Lennar and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Synovus Financial Corp grew its stake in shares of Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC Free Report) by 61.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 121,937 shares of the financial services providers stock after purchasing an additional 46,525 shares during the period. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in Wells Fargo & Company were worth $4,983,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Studio Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Wells Fargo & Company during the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL purchased a new stake in shares of Wells Fargo & Company during the 1st quarter worth approximately $28,000. Baystate Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Wells Fargo & Company by 53.0% during the 3rd quarter. Baystate Wealth Management LLC now owns 803 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $33,000 after acquiring an additional 278 shares in the last quarter. Impact Partnership Wealth LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Wells Fargo & Company during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $34,000. Finally, Central Bank & Trust Co. boosted its stake in shares of Wells Fargo & Company by 444.8% during the 3rd quarter. Central Bank & Trust Co. now owns 899 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $37,000 after acquiring an additional 734 shares in the last quarter. 72.47% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Wells Fargo & Company alerts: Wells Fargo & Company Trading Up 1.3 % Shares of WFC stock opened at $54.81 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.24, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.88. The firm has a market cap of $196.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.37, a PEG ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 1.18. The firms 50-day simple moving average is $49.65 and its 200-day simple moving average is $44.82. Wells Fargo & Company has a 1-year low of $35.25 and a 1-year high of $54.89. Wells Fargo & Company Announces Dividend Wells Fargo & Company ( NYSE:WFC Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Friday, January 12th. The financial services provider reported $0.86 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.16 by ($0.30). The firm had revenue of $20.48 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $20.30 billion. Wells Fargo & Company had a return on equity of 12.40% and a net margin of 16.60%. The companys quarterly revenue was up 2.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.67 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Wells Fargo & Company will post 4.72 EPS for the current year. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 1st. Investors of record on Friday, February 2nd will be issued a $0.35 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 1st. This represents a $1.40 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.55%. Wells Fargo & Companys payout ratio is 29.05%. Analyst Ratings Changes Several research firms recently commented on WFC. Odeon Capital Group lowered shares of Wells Fargo & Company from a buy rating to a hold rating and set a $48.80 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Thursday, January 18th. Raymond James upped their target price on Wells Fargo & Company from $55.00 to $58.00 and gave the company a strong-buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $45.00 to $50.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, December 1st. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $54.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. Finally, Barclays upped their target price on shares of Wells Fargo & Company from $54.00 to $66.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, January 2nd. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $51.43. Get Our Latest Analysis on WFC About Wells Fargo & Company (Free Report) Wells Fargo & Company, a financial services company, provides diversified banking, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance products and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Consumer Banking and Lending; Commercial Banking; Corporate and Investment Banking; and Wealth and Investment Management. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Wells Fargo & Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Wells Fargo & Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Synovus Financial Corp trimmed its position in iShares Silver Trust (NYSEARCA:SLV Free Report) by 1.6% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 270,679 shares of the exchange traded funds stock after selling 4,500 shares during the quarter. Synovus Financial Corp owned approximately 0.05% of iShares Silver Trust worth $5,506,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Marshall Wace LLP lifted its stake in shares of iShares Silver Trust by 2,340.0% during the 4th quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 1,131,200 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $24,909,000 after buying an additional 1,181,700 shares during the last quarter. 1832 Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in shares of iShares Silver Trust during the first quarter worth approximately $26,492,000. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in shares of iShares Silver Trust by 48.0% in the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,711,172 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $62,032,000 after purchasing an additional 879,524 shares during the last quarter. Quantitative Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of iShares Silver Trust during the second quarter worth approximately $13,481,000. Finally, Kraft Davis & Associates LLC acquired a new stake in iShares Silver Trust during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $10,749,000. Get iShares Silver Trust alerts: iShares Silver Trust Stock Down 0.2 % NYSEARCA:SLV opened at $20.57 on Wednesday. iShares Silver Trust has a 52 week low of $18.38 and a 52 week high of $23.94. The firms 50-day simple moving average is $21.09 and its 200 day simple moving average is $21.20. iShares Silver Trust Profile iShares Silver Trust (the Trust) owns silver transferred to the Trust in exchange for shares issued by the Trust. The Trusts each share represents a fractional undivided beneficial interest in its net assets. The assets of the Trust consist of silver held by the Trusts custodian on behalf of the Trust. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SLV? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares Silver Trust (NYSEARCA:SLV Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for iShares Silver Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Silver Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina increased its stake in shares of Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (NYSE:FIS Free Report) by 1.7% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 330,713 shares of the information technology services providers stock after purchasing an additional 5,581 shares during the quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina owned approximately 0.06% of Fidelity National Information Services worth $18,279,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. OFI Invest Asset Management purchased a new stake in shares of Fidelity National Information Services during the third quarter valued at about $25,000. Baystate Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in Fidelity National Information Services by 332.1% during the third quarter. Baystate Wealth Management LLC now owns 484 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 372 shares during the last quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. lifted its position in Fidelity National Information Services by 83.3% during the first quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 286 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 130 shares during the last quarter. Spotlight Asset Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Fidelity National Information Services during the 2nd quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, McCarthy Grittinger Financial Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Fidelity National Information Services by 101.1% during the 3rd quarter. McCarthy Grittinger Financial Group LLC now owns 573 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 288 shares during the last quarter. 85.67% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Fidelity National Information Services alerts: Fidelity National Information Services Stock Down 0.5 % FIS opened at $66.98 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 0.75. Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $46.91 and a fifty-two week high of $68.14. The company has a fifty day moving average of $61.89 and a two-hundred day moving average of $57.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $39.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.96, a PEG ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 0.95. Fidelity National Information Services Cuts Dividend Fidelity National Information Services ( NYSE:FIS Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 26th. The information technology services provider reported $0.94 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.95 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $2.51 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.52 billion. Fidelity National Information Services had a negative net margin of 54.30% and a positive return on equity of 13.06%. Fidelity National Information Servicess revenue for the quarter was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.71 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. will post 4.85 earnings per share for the current year. The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.36 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 7th. This represents a $1.44 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.15%. Fidelity National Information Servicess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently -18.51%. Fidelity National Information Services announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Monday, February 26th that allows the company to buyback $500.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization allows the information technology services provider to buy up to 1.3% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the companys management believes its shares are undervalued. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In FIS has been the subject of several analyst reports. TheStreet upgraded Fidelity National Information Services from a d rating to a c rating in a report on Monday. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $67.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Tuesday. Mizuho boosted their target price on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $62.00 to $73.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, January 18th. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $66.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Truist Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a report on Tuesday. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Fidelity National Information Services presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $68.38. Get Our Latest Report on Fidelity National Information Services Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, Director Ellen R. Alemany purchased 735 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 17th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $60.32 per share, for a total transaction of $44,335.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 35,333 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,131,286.56. The purchase was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. 0.68% of the stock is owned by company insiders. About Fidelity National Information Services (Free Report) Fidelity National Information Services, Inc provides technology solutions for financial institutions and businesses worldwide. It operates through Banking Solutions, Merchant Solutions, and Capital Market Solutions segments. The Banking Solutions segment provides core processing and ancillary applications; mobile and online banking; fraud, risk management, and compliance; electronic funds transfer and network; card and retail payment; wealth and retirement; and item processing and output solutions. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding FIS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (NYSE:FIS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Fidelity National Information Services Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Fidelity National Information Services and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Trex (NYSE:TREX Get Free Report) had its price objective lifted by stock analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group from $89.00 to $108.00 in a research note issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a buy rating on the construction companys stock. The Goldman Sachs Groups price objective would suggest a potential upside of 16.08% from the companys previous close. Other research analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. DA Davidson raised their price target on shares of Trex from $80.00 to $87.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday. Benchmark reissued a buy rating and set a $85.00 target price on shares of Trex in a research report on Tuesday, October 31st. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price target on shares of Trex from $90.00 to $107.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday. Truist Financial raised their price target on shares of Trex from $70.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Trex from an underweight rating to a neutral rating and raised their price target for the company from $62.00 to $79.00 in a report on Thursday, December 14th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Trex presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $85.00. Get Trex alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on TREX Trex Trading Down 0.1 % Shares of NYSE:TREX traded down $0.13 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $93.04. 250,783 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 886,155. The businesss fifty day moving average is $84.75 and its two-hundred day moving average is $72.39. Trex has a one year low of $44.90 and a one year high of $101.91. The stock has a market cap of $10.10 billion, a PE ratio of 49.23, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.74 and a beta of 1.58. Trex (NYSE:TREX Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, February 26th. The construction company reported $0.20 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.19 by $0.01. Trex had a net margin of 18.76% and a return on equity of 32.40%. The business had revenue of $195.75 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $193.40 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.23 earnings per share. Trexs quarterly revenue was up 1.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Trex will post 2.21 EPS for the current year. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Trex Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Eagle Asset Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Trex by 0.3% during the 4th quarter. Eagle Asset Management Inc. now owns 46,660 shares of the construction companys stock valued at $3,863,000 after purchasing an additional 119 shares in the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Trex by 16.8% in the 4th quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 863 shares of the construction companys stock worth $71,000 after acquiring an additional 124 shares in the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Trex by 6.9% in the 4th quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 2,144 shares of the construction companys stock worth $178,000 after acquiring an additional 138 shares in the last quarter. Shell Asset Management Co. increased its holdings in Trex by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. Shell Asset Management Co. now owns 35,605 shares of the construction companys stock worth $2,194,000 after acquiring an additional 163 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Martin Capital Advisors LLP increased its holdings in Trex by 0.7% in the 4th quarter. Martin Capital Advisors LLP now owns 25,723 shares of the construction companys stock worth $2,130,000 after acquiring an additional 168 shares in the last quarter. 96.42% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Trex Company Profile (Get Free Report) Trex Company, Inc manufactures and distributes composite decking, railing, and outdoor living products and accessories for residential and commercial markets in the United States. The company operates in two segments, Trex Residential and Trex Commercial. It offers decking products under the names Trex Transcend, Trex Select, and Trex Enhance for protection against fading, staining, mold, and scratching; Trex Hideaway, a hidden fastening system; and Trex DeckLighting, a LED dimmable deck lighting for use on posts, floors, and steps. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Trex Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Trex and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. increased its holdings in Valero Energy Co. (NYSE:VLO Free Report) by 3.9% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 17,745 shares of the oil and gas companys stock after acquiring an additional 663 shares during the quarter. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V.s holdings in Valero Energy were worth $2,515,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Live Oak Investment Partners purchased a new stake in shares of Valero Energy during the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Indiana Trust & Investment Management CO purchased a new position in Valero Energy in the 3rd quarter valued at about $28,000. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Valero Energy in the 3rd quarter valued at about $28,000. Quarry LP increased its stake in shares of Valero Energy by 1,676.9% during the 1st quarter. Quarry LP now owns 231 shares of the oil and gas companys stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 218 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Capital Advisors Group LLC. acquired a new position in shares of Valero Energy during the 2nd quarter valued at about $39,000. 77.07% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Valero Energy alerts: Valero Energy Stock Performance Shares of VLO traded down $1.04 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $141.94. 305,924 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,292,750. Valero Energy Co. has a 1-year low of $104.18 and a 1-year high of $152.20. The businesss 50 day moving average price is $134.75 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $132.26. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.56. The firm has a market capitalization of $48.32 billion, a PE ratio of 5.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.68 and a beta of 1.53. Valero Energy Increases Dividend Valero Energy ( NYSE:VLO Get Free Report ) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The oil and gas company reported $3.55 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.95 by $0.60. Valero Energy had a net margin of 6.10% and a return on equity of 31.62%. The firm had revenue of $35.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $34.76 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $8.45 earnings per share. Valero Energys revenue for the quarter was down 15.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts predict that Valero Energy Co. will post 14.35 EPS for the current fiscal year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 4th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 1st will be paid a $1.07 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, January 31st. This represents a $4.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.02%. This is a boost from Valero Energys previous quarterly dividend of $1.02. Valero Energys dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 17.31%. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of research firms recently issued reports on VLO. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Valero Energy from $146.00 to $149.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Raymond James increased their target price on Valero Energy from $154.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a strong-buy rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Citigroup assumed coverage on Valero Energy in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. They set a buy rating for the company. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $153.62. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on VLO Valero Energy Profile (Free Report) Valero Energy Corporation manufactures, markets, and sells transportation fuels and petrochemical products in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Latin America, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Refining, Renewable Diesel, and Ethanol. The company produces California Reformulated Gasoline Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending and Conventional Blendstock for Oxygenate Blending gasolines, CARB diesel, diesel, jet fuel, and asphalt; aromatics; and sulfur crude oils. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding VLO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Valero Energy Co. (NYSE:VLO Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Valero Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Valero Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. lifted its holdings in Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE Free Report) by 6.4% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 179,835 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock after acquiring an additional 10,800 shares during the period. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. owned 0.10% of Alexandria Real Estate Equities worth $18,001,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ARE. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 5.5% in the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 58,322 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $6,619,000 after purchasing an additional 3,023 shares during the period. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. boosted its stake in Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 83.0% during the second quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. now owns 5,513 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $626,000 after buying an additional 2,500 shares during the period. Lasalle Investment Management Securities LLC boosted its stake in Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 7.5% during the third quarter. Lasalle Investment Management Securities LLC now owns 386,916 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock worth $38,730,000 after buying an additional 26,885 shares during the period. Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC increased its position in Alexandria Real Estate Equities by 6.7% during the third quarter. Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co. LLC now owns 25,379 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $2,540,000 after acquiring an additional 1,593 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Phoenix Holdings Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities in the third quarter valued at $663,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 86.36% of the companys stock. Get Alexandria Real Estate Equities alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. JMP Securities reiterated a market outperform rating and set a $140.00 price target on shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft began coverage on Alexandria Real Estate Equities in a research note on Tuesday, January 30th. They issued a buy rating and a $140.00 target price on the stock. Mizuho raised their price target on shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities from $145.00 to $154.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 3rd. StockNews.com lowered shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Finally, Wedbush reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $140.00 price target on shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $137.13. Alexandria Real Estate Equities Stock Down 0.3 % NYSE:ARE traded down $0.35 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $121.35. 53,001 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,069,115. The company has a fifty day moving average of $123.18 and a 200 day moving average of $113.21. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50, a quick ratio of 0.26 and a current ratio of 0.26. Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. has a twelve month low of $90.73 and a twelve month high of $148.84. The company has a market capitalization of $21.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 225.49, a P/E/G ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 1.06. Alexandria Real Estate Equities (NYSE:ARE Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 30th. The real estate investment trust reported ($0.54) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.29 by ($2.83). The company had revenue of $757.22 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $740.16 million. Alexandria Real Estate Equities had a net margin of 3.59% and a return on equity of 0.46%. The businesss revenue was up 13.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.14 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. will post 9.47 EPS for the current year. Alexandria Real Estate Equities Increases Dividend The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, January 12th. Investors of record on Friday, December 29th were paid a $1.27 dividend. This is a positive change from Alexandria Real Estate Equitiess previous quarterly dividend of $1.24. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 28th. This represents a $5.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.19%. Alexandria Real Estate Equitiess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 940.76%. Insider Buying and Selling at Alexandria Real Estate Equities In related news, EVP Madeleine Thorp Alsbrook sold 4,854 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.55, for a total value of $580,295.70. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 19,740 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,359,917. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In other Alexandria Real Estate Equities news, EVP Madeleine Thorp Alsbrook sold 4,854 shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $119.55, for a total transaction of $580,295.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 19,740 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,359,917. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, EVP Kristina Fukuzaki-Carlson sold 2,500 shares of Alexandria Real Estate Equities stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.03, for a total transaction of $292,575.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 30,070 shares of the companys stock, valued at $3,519,092.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 17,354 shares of company stock worth $2,053,571. 0.96% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Alexandria Real Estate Equities Profile (Free Report) Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc (NYSE: ARE), an S&P 500 company, is a best-in-class, mission-driven life science REIT making a positive and lasting impact on the world. As the pioneer of the life science real estate niche since our founding in 1994, Alexandria is the preeminent and longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer of collaborative life science, agtech, and advanced technology mega campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations, including Greater Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, and Research Triangle. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ARE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Alexandria Real Estate Equities Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Alexandria Real Estate Equities and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. HARARE, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- New suspected cholera cases are declining in Zimbabwe, thanks to robust intervention strategies to combat the outbreak, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday. Addressing a press briefing, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Jenfan Muswere, said that 1,025 new suspected cholera cases were reported during the week ending Feb. 20, 2024, down from 1,286 cases the previous week. "The robust vaccination campaign is yielding visible results in the known cholera hotspots while screening for cholera and other infectious diseases is ongoing at all points of entry," Muswere said. He said that the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has assisted in the procurement of water treatment chemicals, branded tents for oral rehydration points and training of 500 community health workers in the capital city of Harare and Chitungwiza. According to the Ministry of Health and Child Care, Zimbabwe has recorded a cumulative 26,189 suspected cholera cases, 25,448 recoveries, and 71 confirmed deaths as of Monday this week since the outbreak began a year ago. That release could not be found. YAOUNDE, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Chad will hold the first round of its presidential election on May 6, with candidate nominations to be accepted on March 6-15, the National Elections Management Agency (ANGE) announced on Tuesday. A final list of the candidates will be published on March 24 while campaigns will run from April 14 to May 4, ANGE President Ahmed Bartichet told reporters in the capital N'Djamena. A second round of the election will take place on June 22 if there is no clear winner in the first round, Bartichet said. The organization of the presidential election will mark the return to constitutional order in the Central African country which voted a new constitution in a popular referendum in December last year, he said. The political and military situation in Chad has deteriorated since 2021 following the death of former President Idriss Deby Itno. His son, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, has since led a transitional military council to govern the country. In January, the Patriotic Salvation Movement, Chad's ruling party, appointed Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno as its presidential candidate and honorary president. Join the Stark Museum of Art for an inspiring afternoon of art and conversation as we celebrate the creative ingenuity and cultural heritage of the American West at the Stitching Stories: Artist Talk & Exhibition Reception. This event, presented in conjunction with the "Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West" quilt exhibition, will feature renowned Texas artists Carolyn Crump, Barbara McCraw and Georgia Williams as they discuss their original quilts showcased in the exhibition. The artist talk will be held in the auditorium of the Lutcher Theater on Saturday, March 9, from 2-3 p.m., immediately followed by an exhibition reception at the Stark Museum of Art from 3-5 p.m. "The Stitching Stories artist talk will offer attendees an opportunity to delve into the artistic processes, inspirations and personal narratives behind the quilts on display," said Jennifer Dickinson, interim executive director of the Stark Museum of Art. "These talented artists will share insights into their creative journeys, shedding light on the significance of quilting as a medium for storytelling and cultural expression." In addition to the featured quilts, attendees will have the exclusive opportunity to view additional works on display during the artist talk. This rare glimpse into the artists' portfolios promises to deepen appreciation for the rich tapestry of stories woven into each intricately stitched piece. Furthermore, guests will have the chance to meet the artists and acquire signed copies of the accompanying book, "Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West," which offers a comprehensive exploration of the exhibition's themes and showcases a stunning collection of quilts by Crump, McCraw, Williams, and the other talented artists showcased in the exhibition. A limited number of "Black Pioneers" books will be available for purchase during the event, making this a great opportunity to own a piece of history. Cynthia Lockhart, Cool Jazz Hot Jam, 2021, Cynthia Lockhart "This is the first time the Stark Museum has offered an exhibition of this magnitude featuring not only all African-American artists, but all female artists as well. Among the 50 artists featured, we are also showcasing an art quilt by Tomasita Louviere-Ligons, a Port Arthur native and Lamar University alumna, as well as art from Georgia Williams, who is a Beaumont native," said Dickinson. "This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate art, culture and heritage." All quilts in the "Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West" were created by members of the Women of Color Quilters Network. The exhibition is organized by The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art with gratitude to guest curator Carolyn Mazloomi, Ph.D. For more information about the Stark Museum of Art, including bios of Crump, McCraw and Williams, please visit starkmuseum.org. Admission to the Stark Museum of Art is free, providing an accessible and enriching cultural experience for the entire community. The Stark Museum of Art is open Wednesday-Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Stark Museum of Art is located at 712 Green Avenue in Orange, Texas. As wildfires blazed across the Texas Panhandle region Monday afternoon, Governor Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties and warned that parts of East Texas also had an increased danger of wildfires. During the weekend, a few scattered wildfires were reported in Orange and Jasper counties, though they were able to be contained without spreading far. The Panhandle fires by Tuesday afternoon had consumed more than 250,000 acres and were not under control. Evacuations were called in towns like Canadian and Tampa, were including evacuations of towns like Canadian and Tampa. However, by Tuesday evening, officials in Canadian were opening a school and asking residents to shelter there in place because fire had blocked the main escape route. Officials are hoping keeping people in one place will be safer to protect. "I issued a disaster declaration today in order to ensure critical fire response resources are swiftly deployed to the Texas Panhandle being impacted by devastating wildfires," Governor Abbott said in a press release. The response team includes the Texas A&M Forest Service with more than 95 firefighters, 25 fire trucks, bulldozers and graders, plus the Texas National Guard with a Chinook helicopter equipped to fight fires. Also, the Texas Department of Transportation has sent crews to help with road closures and deliver fuel for fire fighters. The Department of Public Safety has troopers assisting with traffic control and closures, the Texas Emergency Medical Task Force is sending paramedics and ambulances. Public services will also be available to help with agriculture and livestock needs. The Texas A&M Forest Service Tuesday at noon reported wildfires of 11.4 acres in Newton County, plus 33 acres burning in Nacogdoches County and 7.7 acres on fire in Angelina County. This past weekend, the U.S. Weather Service in Lake Charles warned of fire hazards because of low humidity and strong winds combined with dry winter vegetation. The danger decreased some on Monday as clouds moved in and raised the humidity, though winds remained gusty. A slight chance of rain was in the forecast for Wednesday with higher chances of rain on Thursday night into Friday as a cold front comes through. Still, winds and gusts of 25 to 30 mph are forecast. If a cigarette butt or spark hits dry vegetation, a fire could start and spread because of the winds. Orange County, though, is not under a burn ban. RABAT, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Moroccan navy rescued 56 sub-Saharan migrants bound for the Canary Islands on Monday off the Atlantic coast, the official news agency MAP reported on Tuesday. The boat carrying the migrants was in distress due to "very unfavorable weather conditions" when it was intercepted by a Moroccan navy ship on a maritime patrol mission 37 km southwest of the town of Lagouira, the report said. The migrants, including a woman and a minor, were all rescued and taken aboard the Moroccan navy ship, according to a press release from the Moroccan Armed Forces. They received the necessary care before being taken to the port of Dakhla and handed over to the Royal Gendarmerie for the usual administrative procedures, according to the press release. Morocco has become a hub for African migrants who seek to reach Europe recently. The renowned Bridge City Strutters dance team won the grand champions award this past week at the Crowd Pleasers competition in Big Springs. In addition, the team and officers won a number of other awards, including team hip hop, jazz, lyrical, pom, and prop competitions. The achievements mean the dance team will be going to Nashville, Tennessee, in March for the national Crowd Pleasers contests. Tuesday, March 5, is primary Election Day in Texas with a local Republican race drawing national attention with a fiercely fought race for the Orange County state representatives seat. Incumbent representative Dade Phelan, who serves a speaker of the Texas House of Representatives is being challenged by David Covey. Phelan led the houses successful impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for accusations of misdoings. The Texas Senate did not impeach him. Covey, a former Orange County Republican chair who lives in Mauriceville, has the endorsement of Paxton and former President Donald Trump. Local officials have endorsed Phelan, saying his influence in Austin has helped the county get new industries and funding on public projects, including Lamar State College-Orange. The county will have 23 boxes on primary day and any registered Orange County voter with proper identification ma vote at any of the boxes, instead of only at an assigned neighborhood box. Hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The county elections administration office and the county commissioners court worked for several years with the Texas Secretary of State to get the new system approved. It will save costs on paying election workers for more boxes and make voting more convenient. Only Republicans are running in local races, a complete change made after 2012, when local candidates all ran in the Democratic primary. The race for Orange County Sheriff has drawn four to the ballot, with incumbent Jimmy Lane Mooney, who is seeking his second four-year term having three challengers. They are Ron Dischler, a lieutenant with the Beaumont Police Department and longtime Orange County resident; Mike Sanchez, chief of the Vidor ISD Police Department, and retired Texas Ranger Bobby Smith. All county voters may cast a ballot in the race. In Precinct 2, incumbent constable Jeremiah Gunter is facing Harold Hass and David C. Bailey. Only voters living in the precinct vote for the spot. In the Vidor area and Precinct 4, incumbent constable Matt Ortega is being challenged by Joey Jacobs. The OC Republican Party chair spot is also hotly contested, with incumbent Leo Labauve III, who opposed the local groups successful vote to censure Phelan for his actions against Paxton, facing Cheryl Warren, who has been endorsed by Paxton. Warren has also started the local School Integrity Project, which is monitoring books in schools that they consider immoral. Early voting will continue for Wednesday, February 28; Tuesday, February 29, and Friday, March 1, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sites are the Orange County Airport, Mauriceville Community Center, Orange Public Library, and Vidors Raymond Gould Community Center. Registered county voters may go to any site. As of Monday, February 26, after six days of early voting, the Republican primary had a total of 5,756, with in-person votes at 5,577 and absentee mail-in votes at 179. The airport box had 1,302 votes, the Mauriceville box had 698, the Orange box had 1,335, and the Vidor box had 2,242. In the Democratic primary, 340 votes had been cast with 269 in-person and 71 absentee mail-in votes. The airport box had 43 votes, the Mauriceville box had 13 votes, the Orange box had 153 votes, and the Vidor box had 60 votes. Legalised and institutionalised discrimination of Meiteis in Manipur | Soubam Nongpoknganba Meitei, LLM (President, Indigenous Development Mission) Contd from previous issue While so being situated the agreement between India and Myanmar on Land Border Crossing, namely the free movement regime or simply FMR has allowed the border of Manipur to be legally infringed. Under this regime. the two countries allowed citizens from both sides of the border to travel up to 16 km inside the other country without a visa. This helps the Kuki and other tribals of Myanmar to cross the border and settle in the State of Manipur inflating the Kuki population of the State while at the same time enjoying all the benefits as ST in the State which is without an iota of doubt a heavy burden on the State as well as the country. At the same time such unimpeded influx of Kukis from Myanmar has led to establishment of new villages creating more problems to the State. As a matter of fact, such heavy influx of Kukis from Myanmar is being cited as one of the main causes of the ongoing communal clash which according to me is the window for complete annihilation of the Meitei in their own home. Though the Honble Union Home Minister has announced the scrapping of this regime citing internal disturbances, how far the free movement at the border can be controlled is still to be seen as the border is porous and not properly fenced and defended. The Central Government has announced fencing of the Indo Myanmar border but Mizoram and Nagaland are against it. On top of it, quite unfortunately the Assam Rifles has been put in place to guard the Indo Myanmar Border. But the Assam Rifles under the provisions of Assam Rifles Act, 2006 and Assam Rifles Rules 2010 has been made a multi tasking force. A conjoint reading of the Preamble and S. 4 of the Act alongwith Para 8 of the Assam Rifles Rules, 2010 makes it abundantly clear that the force is multi tasking with responsibility to safeguard the security of borders of India and promote sense of security among the people living in border areas; prevent trans-border crimes, smuggling, unauthorised entry into or exit from the territory of India and any other illegal activity; provide security to sensitive installations, banks, persons of security risk; restore and preserve order in any area in the event of disturbance therein. To it may be added another responsibility viz., counter-insurgency if the other four task does not technically cover it. Further under the principle of what is called as company deployment system, the Assam Rifles is placed not at the border but 16 km inside our territory which has also made the force an impotent one to guard the border. So it is literally impossible for this force to defend the border effectively as howsoever versatile a force may be, it cannot specialize in all fields. Needless to say, defending border requires specific technic and knowledge and Assam Rifles obviously cannot be versed with such specific knowledge and technic as specialization requires specializing in one field and not in multiple fields leading to uninterrupted entry of foreigners into Manipur from across the border. So to save Manipur, the first thing that can be done is to re-engineer the society through the instrumentality of law by first and foremost dismantling the present legal regime and put in its place a legal regime that is suitable for a composite society based on the principles of equality and not discrimination. Easier said than done as the systemic legalized discrimination of the Meitei has been continuing for more than a century now and has well solidified and both the Meitei and non-Meitei has accepted it as an institution and quite worryingly the Scheduled tribals have kept on strengthening this institution through different pressure tactics on the governments and through different instrumentalities including intellectual writings. Yet to stop recurrence of the present crisis and for the future of our children and to establish a really composite society, there has to be a beginning in stopping the legalized and institutionalized brutality against Meitei. Coming close to understanding of anarchy Emergence of power centres | Things cannot get worse than this and as is widely held and believed, the real character of a people comes to the fore at the time of a crisis and this is perhaps the right time to ask whether what one is witnessing is the emergence of the true character of Manipur or to be more precise the character of the Meiteis. One need not go back to the distant past but take stock of the ugly developments in Imphal in the last couple of days to understand this. In the evening of February 23 a powerful explosion ripped across the office of a student body, injuring two with one later succumbing to his injuries. Following this, select and identified offices of civil society organisations were attacked and set on fire, apart from severely assaulting a young man staying on rent near or at the premises of one of the offices. The Imphal based media, both print and electronic shut down for two days, on February 25 and 26, unable to bear the pressure mounted on them in the battle for legitimacy and turf between two powerful groups and as if to say that this is not enough, a police officer of the rank of Additional SP was abducted from his own house on February 27 evening. Apart from the assault and abduction of the police officer, at least four cars were vandalised and in the melee that followed three civilians who happened to be in the vicinity of the officers residence received bullet injuries. The tragedy that is being scripted seems almost ready to start writing the epitaph of the great Meitei community in Manipur. Painful is too mild an expression to put into words that must be felt by all right thinking citizens of the land. Compounding the sense of tragedy is the fact that all these ugly developments have come at this point of time, even as the clash between the Meiteis and the Kukis seems set to continue, as it has for over 9 months now. Even as the whole country and everyone in Manipur seems glued to the ethnic clash that started from the evening of May 3, 2023, no one seems to know the exact figure of the number of deaths as well as the number of missing persons. No one also knows the exact number of houses that have been bulldozed and flattened to the ground at Churachandpur, Moreh, Kangpokpi and damaged in some areas of Imphal. This also stands true on the number of people taking refuge at the different relief centres set up across the length and breadth of the State. No one, much less the Government, seems to have any idea when the internally displaced people can return to the place they once called home and it is amid this reality that the ugly incidents mentioned above have been staged so nonchalantly. Amid the madness and the near total anarchy it would be apt to question what the State Government has been doing all this while. The attack at the office of the student body inside DM University is a case in point. When was the prohibitory order imposed at the said office of the student body lifted ? An answer to this should be forthcoming or if the prohibitory order was still in force then were any cops put on duty at the said campus ? Time was when police personnel could be seen on duty at the said office campus of the student body and one wonders whether the explosion took place despite the presence of the cops on duty. The chaos, the madness, the lawlessness, the near anarchic state that has come to define Imphal today is primarily due to the vacuum created and when such vacuums exist it is but natural for power players of different hues and colour to emerge and fill the void. This is what Manipur is witnessing right now and this reality has begun to take a toll on the people. What suggestions and proposals has the Security Advisor to the Government of Manipur put forward to deal with the emerging ugly scenario ? These are questions that should be raised, for caught in the middle of all the muscle flexing exercises are the people, a people who have been intimidated to such a level that they have preferred to toe the line of silence being the greater part of valour. Imphal needs to get its act together and the people and all those concerned too should reciprocate and acknowledge that this is not the time for muscle flexing amongst the people but gear up to face any eventuality that could pose a threat to the understanding of Manipur. Today Sunny skies. Becoming windy late. High 68F. WNW winds at 5 to 10 mph, increasing to 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible. Tonight Clear skies. Low near 35F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Tomorrow Generally sunny. High 64F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. CEOs in Saudi Arabia have shown unprecedented optimism on the economic growth prospects of the kingdom in the next 12 months, beating global, regional and its GCC counterparts even as Saudi GDP is forecast to reach $1.3 trillion by 2028. According to PwC's 27th Annual CEO Survey - KSA findings, a significant 89% of Saudi CEOs, surveyed, are optimistic about the countrys economic growth, compared to 44% globally, 73% in the Middle East and 81% in the GCC. This unparalleled confidence can be largely attributed to the ambitious goals of Vision 2030, which has paved the way for transformative growth. Halfway through the launch of the economic reform plan in 2016 and its target date, the kingdom has risen in the rankings of global economies to become the 17th largest by size of GDP in 2022. Saudi GDP at $1trn last year According to the latest media reports coming in at the time of publishing this report, the kingdom climbed to 16th spot among G20 nations in terms of GDP. Last year, Saudis GDP exceeded $1 trillion for the first time and remained above this mark in 2023, with the IMF forecasting growth to $1.3 trillion by 2028. More than half of the CEOs (54%) are extremely confident in their company's revenue growth for the next 12 months (vs 37% globally) and 40% moderately confident (vs 32% globally). 74% have said that they are likely to increase headcounts, given the massive scale of projects that are underway in Saudi Arabia, the positivity around the economic and financial reforms and initiatives. Commenting on the findings, Riyadh Al Najjar, PwC Middle East Chairman of the Board & KSA Country Senior Partner, said: There is no doubt that CEOs in Saudi Arabia have confidence in Vision 2030. It has brought about a massive and fast transformation in the country, leading to strong economic growth. The reforms are aimed at reducing oil dependency, diversifying the economy and increasing competitiveness. Moving ahead, we expect business leaders to continue reinventing their businesses to remain agile and sustainable in the long-term. The imperative to evolve CEOs in Saudi Arabia have expressed the imperative to evolve as they explore growth opportunities, with 49% indicating their company wont be viable in 10 years if they continue on their current path, similar to the global average of 45%. Partnerships and alliances Over the last five years, partnerships and strategic alliances have played a crucial role in helping Saudi Arabia navigate a monumental economic shift. This has resulted in new insights, deepening expertise, and strengthening collaborative innovations. In the same period, 54% of the CEOs indicated that government regulations, and 51% revealed supply chain instability, were the top factors that have influenced changes in how their businesses create, deliver and capture value. Tech transformation Saudi CEOs believe that technological change (60% vs 56% globally) and customer preference (69% vs 49% globally) will be the primary factors driving significant changes in their business models over the next three years. However, despite the strong need to embrace emerging technologies, CEOs in the Kingdom are concerned about cyber risks, with 40% indicating they were moderately exposed and 20% highly and extremely exposed to such risks in the next 12 months. Generative AI More than half of the CEOs (54%) said GenAI will improve the quality of their companies products and services. Looking further ahead, in the next three years, 66% indicated that GenAI will significantly change the creation, delivery and capture of value. In Saudi Arabia, 71% of leaders also anticipate that in the next three years, GenAI will require most of the workforce to develop new skills, while an equal number feel it will increase their efficiency and that of their employees. Reflecting on GenAIs potential to reshape business economics, 66% of CEOs in Saudi have revealed that it will increase revenue, while more than half (57%) said it will increase profitability in the next 12 months. Climate action Saudi Arabia shows the highest levels of climate concern (29%) when compared to regional (15%) and global (12%) counterparts. 60% of Saudi CEOs said that they are keen to improve energy efficiency of their businesses. More than half are innovating new climate friendly products, services or technologies, while 43% are incorporating climate risk into financial planning. However, in the last year, 74% of CEOs refused to accept lower returns on climate-friendly investments, while 32% highlighted regulatory complexity and the lack of climate friendly technologies in their sectors as key challenges. Stephen Anderson, Middle East Strategy Leader at PwC Middle East, added: Besides the heightened optimism about the future, CEOs in Saudi Arabia also understand the need to evolve to remain agile and viable in the next few years. Strategic partnerships, adoption of technologies, such as GenAI, and a definitive drive to incorporate climate resilience practices in their business models, are all contributing to strengthening their ability to keep pace with rapid transformation.--TradeArabia News Service RABAT, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Morocco on Tuesday called for an immediate, comprehensive, and lasting end to the conflict in the Gaza Strip, the official news agency MAP reported. Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita was quoted as saying that the Gaza Strip is "experiencing an unprecedented crisis and a real humanitarian catastrophe that the international community cannot continue to turn a blind eye to." Bourita delivered the statement during the high-level segment of the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, chaired by Morocco, the report said. "Faced with the resurgence of military operations and the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, Morocco reaffirms its constant positions and calls, once again and emphatically, for an immediate, comprehensive, and lasting end to the Israeli war on Gaza," Bourita said. Bourita stressed the need to guarantee the protection of civilians, and ensure "the free flow of sufficient quantities of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, to protect Palestinians from forced exile, and to establish a political horizon for the settlement of the Palestinian issue." 404 Something's wrong here Sorry. We can't find the page you're looking for. RETURN HOME LUANDA, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Felix Tshisekedi has expressed his willingness to meet with his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, to address the ongoing instability in the eastern DRC. This statement came during Tshisekedi's visit to Luanda, Angola's capital, where he met with Angolan President Joao Lourenco. Angolan Minister of Foreign Affairs Tete Antonio revealed this development following a meeting between Lourenco and Tshisekedi. Antonio said that Lourenco, acting as the mediator appointed by the African Union, had engaged in discussions with both Tshisekedi and Kagame during the 37th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Angola has been tasked with facilitating the meeting between the two leaders, although specific dates have not yet been mentioned. The mediation efforts stem from the need to address the recent escalation of conflicts in the eastern DRC, particularly involving the March 23 Movement (M23), and to restore relations between the DRC and Rwanda. The DRC has accused Rwanda of backing M23 rebels, an accusation rejected by both Kigali and the M23 rebel group. The rebel group, which resurfaced in late 2021, has triggered conflicts and humanitarian crises and seized major strongholds on Congolese soil. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement issued earlier this month that it was deeply concerned by the dire consequences for civilians, including an estimated 135,000 internally displaced people fleeing the town of Sake toward the nearby city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province in the DRC, where tensions have been on the rise with intensive fighting between the Armed Forces of the DRC and M23 rebels. The mediation process, led by Lourenco, has already yielded the adoption of a roadmap on the pacification of the eastern region of the DRC, also known as the Luanda Roadmap, which aims to peacefully resolve the conflicts in the region and foster cooperation between the DRC and Rwanda. SEOUL, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's births hit a record low last year amid lingering worry about continued slide in the country's population, statistical office data showed Wednesday. The number of newborn babies retreated 7.7 percent over the year to reach a new low of 229,970 in 2023, marking the lowest since relevant data began to be compiled in 1981, according to Statistics Korea. The total fertility rate, or the number of children a woman is expected to bear during life, posted a new low of 0.72 last year, keeping a downward trend for the eighth consecutive year. The newborns had been on the decline as more young people delayed or gave up on having children on the back of economic difficulties such as high housing prices and stubborn unemployment. The low birth rate fueled worry about the demographic cliff, which refers to a sharp fall in the heads of households eventually leading to a consumption cliff. The number of marriages added 1.0 percent over the year to 193,673 in 2023, while the number of divorces shrank 0.9 percent to 92,405. The number of deaths decreased 5.4 percent to 352,721 last year. Affected by higher deaths than births, the country's population continued to fall for the fourth straight year. The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday granted unconditional bail to Nirapada Sardar, former CPM MLA from Sandeshkhali, the trouble-hit island of North 24-Parganas. Police arrested Mr Sardar following an FIR lodged by Shibu Hazra, a close associate of Sheikh Shahjahan, a member of the Trinamul Congress-ruled zilla parishad and strongman of the party, who has been absconding for more than 55 days since the incident of physical assaults on Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials at Akunjipara on 5 January. Mr Hazra has already been arrested by police on charges of rape. Advertisement Mr Sardar was granted bail after spending 17 days in jail custody. According to the FIR, Mr Sardar was allegedly involved in violent protests against police administration and local Trinamul Congress leaders in the restive areas in Sandeshkhali. He was picked up from his south Calcutta residence and thereafter arrested on 11 February over the FIR at the Sandeshkhali police station, under various IPC sections, that include rioting, theft and conspiracy and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. A Division Bench presided by Justice Debangsu Basak granted bail to Sardar on a petition filed by him. While granting him immediate bail, Justice Basak also observed that if the arrested CPM leader is not released on Tuesday it will be deemed as contempt of court. During the course of hearing the Division Bench observed some lapses in the evidence on the charges under which he had been arrested. The court also directed the Superintendent of Basirhat district police to submit a report to the court on this count on the next date of hearing. The Bench also observed that it was quite intriguing that the former CPM legislator was arrested just on the basis of a complaint filed by someone against him. Bharti Airtel will set up infrastructure to provide uninterrupted connectivity to Metro commuters travelling from Kolkata to Howrah below the Hooghly river. It will instal high-capacity nodes below 35 meters. This makes Airtel the first operator to deliver seamless connectivity through the 4.8-km stretch in Kolkatas East-West Metro corridor connecting Howrah Maidan with Esplanade. To facilitate this transformative service, Airtel has connected the 4.8-km stretch between Howrah Maidan, Mahakaran and Esplanade stations through fibre. High capacity nodes at each of these stations have been deployed for seamless connectivity allowing commuters to enjoy 5G speeds, uninterrupted voice calls and data transmission that enhance the daily commute experience and allow customers to stay connected and productive through their travel. Advertisement Ayan Sarkar CEO, Airtel West Bengal and Odisha said, Airtel is committed to pushing boundaries to better serve its customers. This initiative to provide under-river tunnel connectivity will certainly make a difference to commuters where they will get access to high definition video streaming, gaming, multiple chatting, instant uploading of photos and more along with enjoying the scenic stretch below the Ganges. A high school student lost his life while attempting the Higher Secondary board exams on Tuesday in Murshidabad. Sources said that Pritam suddenly fell ill upon entering the examination centre. The candidate was swiftly taken to the hospital where the doctors declared him dead upon arrival. Pritam, a dedicated student from Muralipukur High School, was known for his academic excellence since childhood. Advertisement Todays history exam was scheduled to take place at Aurangabad High School, where Pritam arrived well-prepared with his father. However, he fell critically ill at the exam centre entrance, leading to his untimely demise. His father said, He spoke to me earlier in the morning, insisting on attending the exam even while he felt unwell. Unfortunately, his health deteriorated rapidly upon entering the centre. We rushed him to Hishail Block Health Centre, where doctors pronounced him brought-dead. I had advised him not to take the exam if he felt unwell, but he didnt listen to me. As he entered the exam hall, he suddenly collapsed. I hurriedly took him to the health centre, but it was too late. Indian Secular Front (ISF) MLA Naushad Siddiqui was arrested by Kolkata Police near Science City on Tuesday while he, along with his party workers, was on his way to Sandeshkhali, the trouble-hit island of North 24-Parganas. Police arrested the Bhangar MLA on charge of violating Section 144 imposed at Sandeshkhali. He was taken to the KP headquarters at Lalbazar by a prison van. The ISF leader soon after his arrest raised questions, asking, How did the police arrest me at Science City which is more than 60km away from Sandeshkhali? We were only four in number. Advertisement Why did the police prevent me from going to Sandeshkhali, while ministers and ruling party leaders are being allowed to go there? They (police) have problems when I want to go there. They couldnt even show me any notice in connection with the imposition of Section 144, Mr Siddiqui told reporters. I had two separate programmes in Sandeshkhali and Basanti today. But the police are very much proactive to prevent me, he said. One senior police officer, in the rank of an assistant police commissioner, deputed on the spot at Science City initially told media that Mr Siddiqui was arrested on charge of violating Section 144. But the officer was apparently silent when the MLA sought clarifications on why the KP imposed Section 144 in the Science City area, which is so far from the trouble-hit area. Police also prevented Congress workers, led by Soumya Aich Roy from going to Sandeshkhali. The agitating Congress workers staged a sit-in demonstration at Nazat in Basirhat area today in protest against the highhandedness of the police. Meanwhile, a team of Left sympathisers, including Badsha Moitra and Debdoot Ghosh and theatre personality Sourav Palodhi managed to enter Sandeshkhali today despite strong deployment of policemen in the area. They spoke to family members of several victims, including women about ruling Trinamul Congress atrocities for years. Chief minister from her dharna manch in Kolkata had declared that the state government will pay the pending dues for 100 days work. On Tuesday, the workers of Mogra-1 gram panchayat and workers from Dhingra village, Bali gram Panchayat Goghat-1 received their pending dues in their bank accounts. Bag, Shafali Singh, Chandana Ray and others from Gohat and Subal Bag and others from Mogra said they have no words to thank Mamata Banerjee for her initiative to pay the dues, which the central government did not pay. Our Didi understands our problems. Every bit of money that we earn is precious to us. Mogra gram panchayat deputy pradhan Raghunath Bhoumik said in the financial year 2021-22 and 2022-23, a total of Rs 31 lakh was disbursed and 880 workers received their dues. 11 workers have died meanwhile. Advertisement Trinamul Congress leaders came down heavily on the chief minister of Chhattisgarh for advising Mamata Banerjee to observe rajdharma. They were talking to the media in New Delhi this afternoon. Criticising the chief minister of Chhattishgarh, Saket Gokhale, Trinamul Congress spokesperson, said in January-February, four incidents of gang-rape had taken place in Chattishgarh. Please oil your own machine and do not intervene in the law and order situation in Bengal. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee knows her job well and people involved in the trouble in Sandeshkhali have been brought to book. Advertisement He said on 29 January, 16-17 February, women had been gang-raped. Neither the women commission, nor the BJP leaders raised these issues, he said adding, In Bengal, a section of the media is trying to translate BJPs narratives into action. Mrs Sagarika Ghosh, partys Rajya Sabha MP, said, Now, the national commission for women is demanding Presidents rule in Bengal and where were they when women were paraded naked in Manipur? she asked. The commission members were not seen in Unnao or Hathras and now they are making noises. People know that they are politically motivated. Mrs Sushmita Dev, partys Rajya Sabha MP, said, The BJP is trying to malign Mamata Banerjee before the Lok Sabha election. They have no issues at hand and so they are trying to create trouble in Sandeshkhali just to remain alive in the media. She assured that no one involved with crime will be spared and will be brought to book soon. Four students in the state were caught using mobile phones during the ongoing West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education exams today. According to information shared by the board, two of the four students were caught with the mobile in Kolkata. While one of them was in a centre in south Kolkata the other was in the north of the city. The other two incidents were that of Purulia and West Midnapore. The students are said to have been barred from appearing in the remaining exams. As informed by the council, till today, a total of 32 students were found using mobile phones and have been barred from appearing in the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education exams 2024. Advertisement The Gangwal School of Medical Sciences and Technology at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and the Department of Medical Health and Family Welfare, Government of Uttar Pradesh announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding which would revolutionise the healthcare delivery and advance tele-medicine facilities in the state through the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The MoU was signed by Ranjan Kumar , Secretary, Health & Family Welfare,UP Government , and Professor Sandeep Verma, Professor-In-Charge, Gangwal School of Medical Sciences and Technology, IIT Kanpur, in the presence of UP Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak on Tuesday night. Kanpur IIT Director Prof S Ganesh stated, The partnership between the Gangwal School of Medical Sciences and Technology of IIT Kanpur and the Uttar Pradesh Government will enhance healthcare delivery by integrating AI into telehealth and point-of-care diagnostics. We can bridge gaps and improve accessibility in healthcare by implementing AI-driven solutions. Using AI and machine learning to analyse data and predict population-based needs and outcomes will improve healthcare delivery efficiency and effectiveness. This partnership demonstrates our shared determination to drive positive change and propel Uttar Pradesh towards a healthier, more prosperous future. Advertisement Prof Verma of Gangwal School of Medical Sciences and Technology said, This transformative journey with the Department of Medical Health and Family Welfare, Government of Uttar Pradesh will see IIT Kanpur leveraging its expertise in AI to innovate the delivery of healthcare and transform the landscape for the people of Uttar Pradesh. This partnership will pave the way for a future where AI-driven solutions redefine patient care and accessibility. The MoU outlines several key areas of collaboration, including anchoring tele-medicine hubs and enhancing the quality of tele-medicine services, implementing AI-based solutions to address population health impact, developing point-of-care diagnostics to drive programme improvements, conducting competency-based capacity building for health cadres, and utilising database predictions and analysis for informed decision-making. This will help the Department to make optimal use of the UP Digital Health Stack (UP-DHS) and ensure that every citizen of the state, wherever they are, will be able to access healthcare when needed. In Uttar Pradesh, UP-DHS is making significant strides in implementation, with foundational NHS elements deployed across all health administrative units and the rollout of essential healthcare applications well underway. For the first time since the Hindenburg crisis, the Adani Group met with investors in Singapore, marketing an overseas bond to bolster investor confidence around its businesses before fresh bond sales. Adani Groups executive reached Singapore on Wednesday, the first stop on a tour of international financial hubs to win over buyers for roughly $409 million of new debt. Hong Kong is on the itinerary for Thursday. As per the repots, the roadshows are part of efforts to reassure investors of its ability to service its debt obligations through prudent financial planning, operational efficiency, and strategic asset monetization initiatives while also addressing any lingering doubts stemming from the Hindenburg crisis. Advertisement The debt being marketed to investors in Singapore to be would have a tenor of 18 years, with the funds earmarked for redeeming $500 million of notes maturing in December. Renewables unit Adani Green Energy Ltd. and other group companies are listed on the mandate, published earlier this week. During these engagements, the Adani Group is expected to outline its expansion plans across various verticals, including renewable energy, ports, airports, and infrastructure. Reportedly, the group has told investors through regulatory filings that it is working to create a liquidity pool of cash and cash equivalents to repay $750 million of Adani Greens holding company bonds sold in 2019 and maturing in September next year. It has also committed to pay in cash a $650 million bond tranche of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones due by July, of which it has already paid $325 million this year. In various announcements since January, the group has said it will spend close to Rs 2.5 lakh crore across businesses. Fitch Ratings expects to grade the new bonds at BBB-, at the low end of investment grade. Thats still higher than notes theyre replacing, which had a tenor of only five years. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) now offer a number of opportunities to Rajasthans exporters concerning goods transport, rules of origin, regulatory framework and custom duty related matters, an expert official told a seminar here. Addressing business experts and officials at the seminar here yesterday, Bipin Menon, Development Commissioner, Noida Special Economic Zone (NSEZ) discussed the information regarding Free Trade Agreements and its benefits to the exporters of Rajasthan. Mr Menon elucidated various concepts of Free Trade Agreements including the tracks related to goods, rules of origin, regulatory framework and customs duty elimination on products of export interest for Rajasthan. Advertisement Moreover, Mr Menon also informed about the recent FTAs with various countries especially the UAE and Australia. During the seminar, Mr Menon said under FTA, while the key aim was to enhance exports, one must also look into the possibility of sourcing raw materials, intermediates and capital goods from the FTA partner, which are inputs for domestic manufacturing. Furthermore, it was stressed that FTAs with strategic partners have the positive effect of attracting investment and creating additional economic activity that would generate employment. During the seminar, the possibilities of exporting specific products from Rajasthan to different countries were also explained. Detailed information was also given about the customs duty concessions and parameters of rules of origin like change in tariff classification (CTC), value addition etc under FTA. The representatives of various trade organisations, Chartered Accountants, RIICO and SEZ officials were also present during the seminar. SYDNEY, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Battered by a mixture of hot, dry, and windy weather, Victoria has experienced yet another "catastrophic" fire rating in February, only 15 days after the worst scenario befell this second-most populous state of Australia. On Wednesday, residents in the Wimmera Region again stayed on high alert for catastrophic fire danger, while warnings were also issued over extreme threats in the Central, Mallee, North Central, Northern Country, and South West districts. The majority of Victoria, excluding the North East, East Gippsland, and West and South Gippsland regions, saw a total fire ban in force, which means that no fire could be lit from 12:01 a.m. until 11:59 p.m. local time. Data from Australian weather service provider Weatherzone showed that at 1:00 p.m. local time, temperatures already hit 40 degrees Celsius at Swan Hill in the state's northwest and above 35 degrees Celsius at Cape Nelson in the southwest. Fire danger ratings reached "extreme" levels in parts of southwest Victoria before midday. Shortly after 1:30 p.m. local time, the Fire Behaviour Index tipped over 100 at Hamilton, Casterton, and Kanangulk, representing catastrophic fire danger. After high clouds contributed to mild weather on Wednesday morning, Country Fire Authority Chief Officer Jason Heffernan noted that the cloud system deteriorated across the western parts of the state, with temperatures soaring and winds developing rapidly. "Forty-one degrees Celsius at Walpeup, 40 degrees Celsius at Swan Hill, 39 degrees Celsius at Nhill and they're currently experiencing winds of about 60 to 70 kilometers an hour," said Heffernan. "We're currently seeing catastrophic conditions in Casterton, Hamilton, and Kanagulk in the Wimmera Weather District. Westmere is currently sitting at 99. So that is at the very top end of extreme," he added. During the day, an out-of-control grassfire triggered emergency warnings for Dereel, Rokewood Junction. A "Watch and Act" alert was also declared for households living near Ararat and Ballarat, as the bushfire at Bayindeen-Rocky Road continued to rage and made it unsafe to return. Since it began on Thursday, the Bayindeen-Rocky Road blaze has grown more than 21,000 hectares in size with the fire perimeter extending to 173 kilometers around it. David Bowman, professor of pyrogeography and fire science at the University of Tasmania, pointed out that it has destroyed six homes and killed livestock, while more than 30,000 people in high-risk areas between Ballarat and Ararat had reportedly been told to leave their homes. "Late February, when many Australians probably thought the worst of the bushfire season was over. Climate change is bringing not just more frequent and severe fires, but longer fire seasons. That means we must stay on heightened alert for much longer than in the past," Bowman wrote in an article published by the media network The Conversation. Earlier, Victoria was confronted with catastrophic fire danger on Feb. 13. The condition, in Heffernan's words, represented "the worst fire risk day Victoria has experienced since the 2019-20 fire season." The Congress in Kerala on Wednesday announced that it will contest on 16 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The seat allocation was finalized after the party offered one Rajya Sabha seat to its alliance partner Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). Addressing a press conference here, Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly, V D Satheesan said the IUMLs reconcilliatory stance had cleared the way for the United Democratic Force (UDF) to finalize its candidates in the 20 Lok Sabha segments in the southern state. Advertisement According to the seat sharing accord, the Congress will contest 16 seats in which the party contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The Indian Union Muslim League will contest in two seats, Kerala Congress (J) and RSP(B) will contest in one seat each. Satheesan said a meeting of the screening committee will be held for finalizing the list of Congress candidates in the state. Once the list is approved by the Central Election Committee, it will be announced, he added. Meanwhile, the IUML announced its candidates for the Lok Sabha elections. The party switched the constituencies of the sitting MPs of Ponnani and Malappuram. While E T Mohammed Basheer, the current Ponnani MP, will contest from Malappuram, Abdussamad Samadani will contest from Ponnani. Former MP Francis George will contest as Kerala Congress(J) candidate from Kottayam constituency, while sitting MP N K Premachandran will contest from Kollam as RSP(B) candidate. The Kerala High Court on Wednesday refused to cancel the bail granted to Malayalam actor Dileep,who is an accused in the actress sexual assault case. A single bench of Justice Sophy Thomas rejected the plea moved by the prosecution in 2022, challenging the order of the additional special sessions court, Ernakulam dismissing the state prosecutions plea to cancel the bail granted to Dileep by the Kerala High Court in 2017. However, the court clarified that the observations made by the Sessions Judge in her order refusing to cancel the bail, shall not affect the appreciation of evidence in the main trial. Dileep was arrested on July 10, 2017. The Kerala High Court granted him bail on 3 October, 2017. Advertisement The prosecution moved the High Court contenting that Dileep failed to follow the bail conditions and that he and his associates were indulging in all sorts of activities, including destruction of evidence and influencing prosecution witnesses. A noted Malayalam actress was sexually assaulted in a moving car by a gang in Kochi on February 17,2017.The perpetrators also filmed the assault. Another senior Assam Congress leader, Rana Goswami, quit the party on Wednesday tendering his resignation from his positions as vice-president of APCC and an active member of the Indian National Congress. In his resignation letter addressed to General Secretary (Organisational) KC Venugopal, Goswami wrote, I am tendering my resignation as the working President of Assam Pradesh Congress Committee and as an active member of the Indian National Congress. Speculations about Goswamis switch to the BJP have been rife despite his vehement denials. His resignation validated all such speculations. Advertisement However, Goswami has yet to make an official statement about his future plans or the possibility of joining the BJP. Earlier on Tuesday, state Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma described Rana Goswami as a powerful politician and hinted at his potential move to the BJP. Amid the political crisis in Himachal Pradesh, the Congress on Wednesday accused the BJP of trying to capture power through backdoor by toppling the Congress government in the state. Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, Congress general secretary in-charge of Communications Jairam Ramesh said three observers Bhupesh Baghel, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and DK Shivakumar are in Shimla and they will meet all the MLAs and submit a report to party president Mallikarjun Kharge at the earliest. The Congress president has spoken to the observers. He has told them to meet all the MLAs, find out their grievances and give a comprehensive report on what needs to be done to fulfill the mandate we got from the people of Himachal Pradesh in December, 2022, he said. Advertisement Attacking the BJP, Ramesh said, A conspiracy is being hatched to topple the Congress government. To fight this operation lotus, what are initiatives that need to be taken , the Congress president has told the three senior leaders. In December,2022, the people of Himachal decisively rejected Narendra Modi, JP Nadda, Anurag Thakur and Jairam Thakur. This is yet another way of trying to come to power through the backdoor, which they did earlier in Madhya Pradesh. They were in Goa, Manipur. The latest example is in Himachal Pradesh. We wont let this happen, he said. On cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha election in the state, Ramesh categorically said accountability will be fixed. In the report which will be submitted there will be two parts- first, why did the cross voting happen and how was it allowed to happen and other is to save the government what steps need to be taken. When the report comes, the Congress president will hold discussions and decisions will be made. Until then all the reports and speculations are baseless, he said. Ramesh, who is also the Congress MP in Rajya Sabha further said, Individuals are not important. The party interest is supreme. More than the partys interest, it is the mandate of the people that was given in December, 2022, that is most important. In response to a question on changing the leadership in the state, he said, It depends on the report. All options are open. Meanwhile, echoing similar sentiments, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in a post on X, accused the BJP of horse-trading. Pointing out that in a democracy, the public has the right to choose the government of their choice, Vadra said, The people of Himachal used this right and formed the Congress government with a clear majority. But, the BJP wants to crush this right of the people of Himachal by misusing the money power, power of agencies and power of the Centre. She asserted the way BJP is using government security and machinery for this purpose is unprecedented in the history of the country. If a party with 25 MLAs is challenging the majority of 43 MLAs, then it clearly means that it is dependent on horse-trading of representatives. This attitude of theirs is unethical and unconstitutional. The people of Himachal and the country are watching everything. The BJP, which did not stand with the people of the state during the natural disaster, now wants to push the state into political disaster, added Vadra. A day after Samajwadi Party suffered a setback in the Rajya Sabha elections when their party candidate lost due to cross-voting, Party chief Akhilesh Yadav announced that strict action would be taken against the rebel legislators and pointed out that the BJP thus acted because they fear the expanding PDA (Backward, Dalit and Minority) in SP. Yadav has floated the acronym PDA Picchde (backward classes or OBCs), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities). The SP President said on Wednesday the rebel MLAs were those whose conscience was dead and action will be taken as per rules against those who voted for the BJP candidate. Advertisement Action will be taken against them as per the rules. They won by defeating BJP and now what answer will they give to those voters? he said. Regarding SP MLA Manoj Pandey, who resigned as chief whip of the party, he said that Pandey used to give him information about BJP-RSS. I am sad that now who will give me that information, he said. The SP President asked what package they (rebel SP MLAs) would get, adding I am waiting for that information. He said the BJP should form a group of BJP Sidhantheen (unprincipled BJP) in which people brought in after breaking away from other parties should be kept. He alleged that as the family of PDA was expanding, the fear of BJP was also increasing. Yadav said that the PDA family is increasing and people are joining the SP. In the 2024 elections, on one side there are those who are destroying the Constitution and on the other side, the ones who are coming forward to save the Constitution he said. He said that earlier there had been churning of the ocean (Samudra Manthan, major episode in Hinduism that is elaborated in Vishnu Purana), now there will be churning of the Constitution. Today, BSP leader Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali from Azamgarh joined the SP. On the occasion, Jamali said, I have not taken this decision due to any greed. I have taken this decision after careful consideration. This is an important decision given the current situation in the country. He said , I owe a debt to the people of Hindu community as 90 per cent of my friends are Hindus. I cannot even imagine that Hindu-Muslim can fight against each other. He assured the SP President that he will remain in the SP for the rest of his life and will work to strengthen the PDA. SP leader Shivpal Singh Yadav alleged that farmers, youth and Muslims were all troubled under the BJP rule. These people commit dishonesty in the name of Lord Ram. I have seen so many governments but none is more dishonest than the BJP, he further alleged. Union Minister Pralhad Joshi strongly condemned the alleged pro-Pakistan slogans raised by the supporters of Congress leader Syed Naseer Hussain in the Vidhana Soudha after he was elected as the Rajya Sabha member. Joshi alleged that the grand old party was directly supporting Pakistan. Reacting to the incident that took place on Tuesday, Pralhad Joshi spoke in a video message said, Today, after the victory of Naseer Hussain in the Rajya Sabha election from the Congress party, in the Vidhana Soudha itself, which is the most sacred building of the democracy of Karnataka, pro-Pakistani, Pakistan Zindabad slogans have been raised by the Congress party workers. Joshi also took a hit at Rajya Sabha member Naseer Hussain, alleging that he was trying to mislead people about the incident. Instead of condemning this, Naseer Hussain is trying to mislead and say that someone is spreading false information or news, which is more dangerous. The Congress is now directly supporting Pakistan. I strongly condemn this, and I ask Rahul Gandhi and Maliikarjun Kharge what their take on this is, Joshi asserrte Mr Naseer Hussain is the sheesha (mirror) of Mr Kharge. Let Congress clarify, let them condemn this. I have asked the Karnataka Home Minister to take a serious note of this and take stringent action on the incident, added Pralhad Joshi in the video message. BJP State President Vijayendra Yediyurappa also took to his social media handle to condemn the incident and said it was highly blasphemous of Congress supporters to have openly raised Pakistan Zindabad slogans within the sanctum sanctorum of the Temple of Democracy in Karnataka. Advertisement Highly Blasphemous of Congress supporters to have openly raised Pakistan Zindabad slogans within the sanctum sanctorum of the Temple of Democracy, Vidhana Soudha. One can only imagine the type of venomous elements they might be harbouring against the interests of the nation, his post read. These anti-India slogans by Congress supporters celebrating Naseer Hussains Rajya Sabha victory raise serious questions about their intentions and loyalties. Congress shouldnt display any kind of sympathy towards this brazen anti-national act and arrest these Pakistani-backed supporters and book them under sedition charges, failing which it sends a message to Karnataka and the rest of India that @INCKarnataka endorses this venomous ideology of Break India Forces!, it read further. Congress & its entire leadership have caused massive disrespect to Vidhana Soudha and the state of Karnataka. This will never be forgotten or forgiven, added the Karnataka BJP chiefs post. Earlier in the day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit in Karnataka filed an FIR at the Vidhana Soudha Police Station, alleging that pro-Pakistan slogans were raised by Rajya Sabha member Syed Naseer Hussain supporters on Tuesday. As per the complaint filed by the Karnataka BJP, it was alleged that after the returning officer declared that Hussain was elected to the Rajya Sabha, at around 7 pm, his supporters, who had gathered at the premises of the Vidhana Soudha at the instance of Hussain, suddenly shouted Pakistan Zindabad slogans in a loud manner while cheering for Hussain. Senior BJP leaders, including Leader of Opposition R Ashoka, Araga Jnanendra and others, staged a protest in front of the Vidhana Soudha police station on Tuesday evening after supporters of Congress Syed Naseer Hussain, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha, allegedly raised pro-Pakistan slogans. BJP leaders demanded the dismissal of the Congress-led state government and said that a state-wide campaign would be launched. A purported video of the incident went viral on social media. Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha member Syed Naseer Hussain took to his social media handle and posted a video in clarification of the said incident, wherein he denied any slogan-raising in his presence and said that a proper investigation would be conducted and stringent action would be taken against the accused in the matter. Today, as some of our party supporters and workers and some people were celebrating the victory of three candidates, I was there in the midst of them, and then lots of slogans like Naseer Hussain Zindabad, Naseer Khan Zindabad, Naseer Sahab Zindabad, and Congress Party Zindabad were being raised by some of the workers, he said. Then, all of a sudden, as I was leaving for my house, I got called by the media saying that somebody had raised slogans of Pakistan Zindabad. I would like to say here that when I was there in the midst of the people, a lot of slogans were being raised, but I never heard the slogan Pakistan Zindabad, but whatever it is, we have asked the police and let the police investigate it, he said further. Adding further, Hussain said, If someone has raised such a type of slogan, then he has to be dealt with sternly and strictly according to the law. There should be an inquiry. And in case someone has morphed or doctored the video and played mischief, even that has to be inquired about. And if somebody has given the slogan, there should be a proper inquiry into who the person is, where he came from, how the person entered the premises, and what was his motive or intention behind raising those slogans. Should be investigated. However, as far as I am concerned, when I was there, there were no such slogans that were raised, because if the slogans had been raised in our presence, then I am sure no sane person or an Indian citizen would have tolerated it. So let us wait for the inquiry, and whatever comes forward, we will be there in the public domain. Thank you so much, added the RS member in the video. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday targeted the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu over a newspaper advertisement of the state government that allegedly showcased a Chinese rocket. Addressing a massive rally in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, he said, Todays advertisement of DMK is ridiculous. They have insulted Indian science and Indian space and for that they should apologize. The Prime Minister accused the DMK of looting peoples tax money and alleged that the state government had insulted the scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who were part of the countrys successful space missions, including Chandrayaan-3. Advertisement DMK is a party that does not work but stands ahead to take false credit. These people paste their stickers on our schemes. Now they have crossed the limits, they have pasted Chinas sticker to take credit for the ISRO launch pad in Tamil Nadu, PM Modi said, addressing the gathering at Tirunelveli. He said they are not ready to accept Indias progress in the space sector and with the taxes that you pay, they give advertisements and do not even include a picture of Indias space in it. They did not want to present Indias space success in front of the world, they insulted our scientists, our space sector, and your tax money. Now its high time that the DMK is punished for their deeds. He said the people of Tamil Nadu appreciate the development work being carried out by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, but the DMK government does not allow the media to highlight it. This was shameful, he said. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by the Congress, of which the DMK was a major component, delayed the development of Tamil Nadu, Mr Modi said. The prana pratishtha at Ram Temple, Ayodhya was a historic moment, the Prime Minister said. The DMK walked out when a resolution was brought in this regard in Parliament, he said. DMK really hates our culture, he said. DMK and Congress are hell-bent on dividing the nation. Whereas, the BJP considers every person a family member, the Prime Minister said. He expressed confidence that people in the state look up to BJP for development. Mr Modi said over the last two days, the affection I have received from my sisters and brothers in Tamil Nadu is immense. The number of youth and women joining our programmes is tremendous. These blessings give me the strength to work even harder for the people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched projects worth Rs 17,300 crore in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu, and said the states ruling DMK enjoyed power in the UPA government in Delhi for years but only talked about the state and did nothing for its development. Addressing a massive gathering, he said the truth is bitter but had to be shared with great regret. Coming down heavily on the UPA government, he said that the projects he is privileged to launch now are the longstanding demands of the Tamil people. Despite holding big portfolios in the UPA government, the DMK lacked the courage to push for their acceptance, he added. The Prime Minister said, This servant of yours has come to the land of Tamil Nadu today to write a new chapter in the states history. Two years ago, he said, he had promised to make the Chidambaranar Port a major hub for shipping by starting projects to raise its cargo capacity. That guarantee had been fulfilled on Wednesday, he said. Advertisement Mr Modi said he had laid the foundation stone for the Outer Harbor Container Terminal needed for the VO Chidambaranar Port for a long time. He launched Indias first indigenous green hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel under the Harit Nauka initiative and dedicated tourist facilities in 75 lighthouses across 10 states and Union Territories. The Prime Minister dedicated to the nation rail projects for doubling the Vanchi Maniyachchi-Nagercoil rail line, including the Vanchi Maniyachchi-Tirunelveli section and Melappalayam-Aralvaymoli section. He launched four road projects in the state, completed at a total cost of about Rs 4,586 crore. One can witness the spirit of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat in todays development projects, he said. Even though the projects may be in Thoothukudi, the Prime Minister said they will give momentum to development in multiple places across India. The Prime Minister said the nation is today working to achieve the goal of Viksit Bharat and a Viksit Tamil Nadu will have its due place in Viksit Bharat (developed India). He said the Outer Harbor Container Terminal at VO Chidambaranar Port will receive an investment of Rs 7,000 crore. Projects worth Rs 900 crore have been dedicated today and foundation stones laid for projects worth Rs 2,500 crore at 13 ports simultaneously. These projects will benefit Tamil Nadu and create employment opportunities in the state, he said. Talking about Indias first hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel under the Harit Nauka initiative, PM Modi called it a gift of the people of Tamil Nadu for Kashi. He said that he had witnessed the enthusiasm and affection of the people of Tamil Nadu at the Kashi Tamil Sangamam. The Prime Minister inaugurated various projects aimed at making the VO Chidambaranar Port the first Green Hydrogen Hub Port of the country. These projects include a desalination plant, hydrogen production, and a bunkering facility. Tamil Nadu will go a long way with regard to the alternatives that the world is exploring today, he said. Mr Modi said that the nation is today working with the whole of government approach. Railways, highways and waterways may be different areas but all three aim at enhancing connectivity, providing more facilities and fostering better opportunities for industries. This multi-modal approach of connectivity will give a good push to the development of the state, he said. The Prime Minister said the electrification and doubling of rail lines will further improve connectivity between South Tamil Nadu and Kerala, while also easing congestion in Tirunelveli and Nagercoil sectors. In the last 10 years, 1,300 km of rail projects were undertaken in Tamil Nadu, while 2,000 km of railway electrification was achieved. Besides, numerous flyovers, underpasses, and upgrades of railway stations have been completed. The Prime Minister recalled his suggestion to develop the prime lighthouses of the country as tourist destinations during an episode of Mann Ki Baat and expressed pride in dedicating tourist facilities in 75 lighthouses across 10 states and Union Territories today. Development at 75 places at once, this is new India, PM Modi remarked, and expressed confidence that these 75 places will become huge tourist centres in the coming times. A day after humiliating defeat in Rajya Sabha election, the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh was dealt another blow on Wednesday after PWD minister Vikramaditya Singh tendered his resignation. The Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government came on the brink of an untimely collapse as six MLAs sided with the BJP along with three independents and cross voted in favour of BJP candidate. Following the developments, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claimed that Sukhu government has lost the majority and demanded the chief ministers resignation. Advertisement The BJP also demanded division of votes for the State Budget scheduled to be presented in the House today. Soon after, 15 BJP MLAs, including Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur were suspended from the House for alleged misconduct and shouting in Speakers chamber. The suspension of 15 MLAs has brought the numbers slightly in favour of the ruling Congress government as it brought down the strength of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly to 53. In a 53-member house, the majority mark would be 27, thus, making it easy for the government to clear the motion to pass the finance bill with a simple majority. How Congress lost Rajya Sabha election? In the 68-member Himachal Pradesh assembly, the Congress has 40 MLAs, while the BJP has 25 legislators and there are three independents as well. Before Tuesdays Rajya Sabha polls, the Congress government enjoyed the support of 43 MLAs, including three independents. However, the rebellion of six Congress legislators has changed the equation in favour of the BJP. Besides, the three independents also voted in favour of the BJP. With support from nine additional MLAs, the BJP candidate polled 34 votes, equal to the Congress candidate. Beyond this point, both the Congress and BJP needed luck and it favoured the saffron party. The final outcome was decided through a draw of lots and BJP emerged victorious. Himachal Pradesh Congress MLA and son of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh on Wednesday took back his resignation in the larger interest of the party, hours after he quit over humiliation and neglect. Singh said that he took the decision keeping in mind the larger interest of the party and its unity. I have spoken to the observers that were sent by the party high command. The organisation is more important than one individual. Keeping the organisation strong is every individuals responsibility. In the larger interest of the party and the unity of the party, I will not press my resignation that was rejected by the chief minister earlier today, he said. Advertisement When asked if the crisis in the Himachal government is over, he said, There was no crisis to begin with. It was a creation. A solution can be found to everything if people work together and take a positive approach. We are here to serve the people of the state and governing is the way to do that. Strengthening the government and serving the people by doing so is everyones responsibility. Earlier today, calling him a younger brother, chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has said that he will not accept his resignation and that he grievances will be heard. Singhs resignation was seen as a huge blow to the Congress party and came at a time when it was dealing with a revolt by six MLAs which resulted in a humiliating defeat in Rajya Sabha election. The Congress has rushed its all-weather troubleshooter and Karnataka deputy CM DK Shivakumar and senior leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda to Himachal Pradesh to manage the crisis. Meanwhile, the the Himachal government has passed the state Budget after 15 BJP MLAs were suspended from the House. The BJP has termed the suspension as a plot to pass the Budget and save the government. YANGON, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar authorities have seized 5 tons of caffeine in central Myanmar's Mandalay region, according to a statement released by the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) on Tuesday. Acting on a tip-off, the anti-narcotics police searched a warehouse in Pyigyitagon township of Mandalay region on Friday and seized the controlled chemical caffeine, the CCDAC said. The confiscated caffeine worth about 2 billion kyats (952,380 U.S. dollars) are intended to be transported to Shan state from Mandalay region, it said. Police arrested a suspect in the operation. Further investigation is underway, the CCDAC said. India and Brunei Darussalam are looking at expanding bilateral relations with an increased focus on non-oil trade. Brunei is a partner in Indias energy security but the two countries should work to diversify their economic engagement, Minister of State for External Affairs Rajkumar Ranjan Singh said. Brunei has been an important partner for Indias energy security. There is tremendous potential to diversify and add value to our existing trade (relations), the minister said in a speech at the Brunei National Day reception in New Delhi on Monday. Advertisement The minister called Brunei a key pillar of Indias Act East Policy and appreciated the sultanates role in strengthening India-ASEAN relations. The two countries are celebrating the 40th anniversary of their diplomatic ties this year. Crude oil exports to India constituted the bulk of about US$400 million worth of bilateral trade in 2022, Bruneis High Commissioner Dato Alaihuddin Taha said. Trade and investment continue to be the cornerstone of our partnership, Alaihuddin said. He said Brunei is keen to expand cooperation in non-oil and gas sectors and explore potential new areas including sciences and emerging technologies, pointing out that the Indian Space Research (ISRO) maintains a telemetry, tracking and command station in Brunei. The Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB) recently organised a working visit to Mumbai and New Delhi to meet potential Indian investors in various sectors. The 8th Foreign Office Consultations between India and Brunei were held in Bandar Seri Begawan in July last year. In a tragic incident, at least two people were run over by a train and several others sustained injuries near Kalajharia railway station in Jharkhands Jamtara. According to reports, the passengers got off their train after it caught fire and gathered at the railway track. In the meantime, another train crushed them. Following the incident, a team of police and ambulances were rushed to the spot. While two bodies have been recovered so far, reports claimed the number of casualties could be higher. Advertisement Jamtara SDM Anant Kumar said RPF and district police are at the spot and conducting a search and rescue operation. He said the reason for the incident is still being determined. Near the Kalajharia railway crossing, the train stopped and some passengers got off and were run over by another local train. Information was received that some people have died. RPF and the district police are conducting a search operation and two bodies have been recovered so far The reason for the incident is yet to be determined, the SDM said. Meanwhile, Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren said that he was saddened by the train accident and that administration team is carrying out relief and rescue work at the spot. Heart is saddened by the sad news of train accident near Kaljharia station of Jamtara. May God grant peace to the departed souls and give strength to the bereaved family to bear this difficult time of grief. The administration team is engaged in relief and rescue work on the spot. I wish speedy recovery to those injured in the accident, CM Soren said. United Kingdom-based gangster Kapil Sangwan on Wednesday claimed responsibility for killing of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) Haryana chief Nafe Singh Rathee. In a social media post, the ganster claimed that Rathee had a close relationship with his rival gangster Manjeet Mahal and used to work with the latter brother Sanjay in capturing properties. He supported Mahal in the murder of my brother-in-law and my friends, he added. Advertisement He further threatened, This will be the outcome for anyone who joins hands with my enemy. If anybody supports my enemies, I will support their enemies and all the 50 bullets will wait to take away that persons life. The gangster pointed out that the entire Bahadurgarh knows the number of people Nafe Singh captured and killed while in power, adding to which he said, No one could raise their voice because of his power. Last week, the Haryana Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) president was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Jhajjar on Sunday evening. Jaikishan, one of Rathees associates who were travelling with him was also killed in the attack, while two others are critically injured. Rathee and his associates were reportedly travelling in an SUV when the gunmen, also in a car, open fire and fled the scene. All the four men, including the INLD Haryana chief, were rushed to the nearby Brahma Shakti Sanjeevani Hospital where doctors declared two of them brought dead. Dr Manish Sharma, Brahma Shakti Sanjeevani Hospital, said that Rathee and Jaikishan were shot in the neck, back and shoulder. The two other associates, who are admitted to the ICU, were had gunshot wounds on the shoulder, thigh, and left side of the chest. INLD general secretary Abhay Singh Chautala held Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar responsible for his death. He said that Rathee had demanded security six months ago but was not given by the state government. Meanwhile, the Haryana government has ordered a CBI investigation into the killing. In a coordinated operation at sea, the Indian Navy and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) apprehended a suspicious vessel carrying almost 3300 Kgs of contraband (3089 Kgs Charas, 158 Kgs Methamphetamine 25 Kgs Morphine). Based on intelligence received from the Indian Navys maritime surveillance aircraft which was corroborated with inputs from the NCB, a mission-deployed IN warship was pressed into action to intercept a suspicious dhow en route to the Indian waters with sizable contraband. IN units successfully located, tracked, and intercepted the suspicious boat at sea. The Boarding Operations on the dhow resulted in the largest seizure of narcotics, in quantity, in recent times. Subsequently, the boat was towed by the IN warship to the nearest Indian port for handing over the crew and contraband to the Law Enforcement Agencies. Advertisement This operation is significant, not only in terms of quantity and cost of the seized contraband but also highlights the collaborative efforts between the Indian Navy and the NCB for disruption of the illegal narcotics smuggling routes, which emanate from the Makran coast and flow towards various Indian Ocean Region (IOR) countries, the Ministry of Defence said. The successful coordinated mission reaffirms the strong commitment and resolve of the Indian Navy in thwarting the attempts to use the seas as a medium for illegal activities, especially in Indias maritime neighbourhood, the ministry added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually inaugurate two significant First Mile Connectivity Projects (FMC) of Northern Coalfields Limited (NCL) on Thursday. These projects are valued at the Rs 1393.69 Crore spearheaded by Northern Coalfields Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL) under the Ministry of Coal, and represent a notable step towards faster, efficient mechanised Coal evacuation contributing to the reduction of carbon emission, the Coal Ministry said in a statement. Elaborating the details of the projects to be launched, the ministry said among the noteworthy projects to be unveiled were the Jayant OCP CHP-SILO and the Dudhichua OCP CHP-SILO. Advertisement The Jayant OCP CHP-SILO boasts a capacity of 15 Million Tonnes Per Annum (MTPA) and has been developed with an investment of Rs 723.50 Crore. Similarly, the Dudhichua OCP CHP-SILO, with a capacity of 10 Million Tonnes Per Annum (MTPA), has been constructed with an investment of Rs 670.19 Crore. The ministry believed that these projects, after an inauguration, will usher in a new era of efficiency and sustainability in coal evacuation processes, while reducing both transportation time and costs, thereby enhancing overall productivity and profitability. Moreover, by optimising logistics and minimising carbon emissions, these projects will contribute to a greener and more environmentally conscious approach to dispatch of quality coal and its distribution. The inauguration of these projects underscores the Ministry of Coals unwavering commitment to infrastructure development and sustainable initiatives, aimed at fostering a greener future and contributing to Indias energy security. Recently, PM Modi inaugurated three key First Mile Connectivity Projects of South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) in Chhattisgarh. These projects, valued at over Rs 600 crore, were located in SECLs Dipka Area, Dipka OCP Coal Handling Plant stands out as a key project constructed at a cost exceeding Rs 211 Crore. With an annual coal handling capacity of 25 MT, the project features an overground bunker capacity of 20,000 tonnes and a 2.1 km long conveyor belt, facilitating the rapid loading of 4,500 8,500 tonnes of coal per hour. A former judge of the High Court has lodged a police complaint against two men, allegedly associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for duping him of Rs 2.5 crore to buy electoral bonds for the BJP. In return he was promised that his grandchildren in the US would be given jobs. After failing to retrieve the money from them for two years, the judge has now filed a complaint with Film Nagar police station, which has been registered under Sections of 406 and 420 of IPC for criminal breach of trust and cheating. He had come to know the two men through his relatives. The former judge of Andhra Pradesh and Allahabad High Courts, who is a resident of Sheikhpet, filed the complaint against Narendra and Sarath Reddy for duping him of Rs 2.5 crore, which he had paid in 2021. He had withdrawn the money from the bank accounts belonging to him and his wife. Advertisement He was told by the duo, who claimed to be associated with the RSS, that the money would be used to buy electoral bonds for the BJP. The men had claimed they had contacts in the US and could secure jobs for his grandchildren. The electoral bonds were interest free bearer bonds which could be purchased anonymously from the State Bank of India before it was struck down by the Supreme Court of India recently. The former judge who was unsuccessful in either getting the bonds from the two men or ensuring jobs for his grandchildren for the past two years then decided to approach the police with his complaint. He cited WhatsApp messages as evidence of the financial transaction. He accused the two men of misappropriating the money for personal gain. Many papers rejected by reviewers for whatever reasons go on to be published in some other journal. The published paper is also rejected by the same journal if and when resubmitted a few months later. One classic case is instructive. Chuck Ross, a Los Angeles writer, submitted a typed verbatim copy of Steps, a 1969 award winning novel by Jerzy Kosinski with a different title and authorship, to 14 major publishers in 1977. The plan was to fathom the difficulties that unknown writers encounter in getting their work published. Shockingly, all publishers, including Random House, the original publisher of Steps, rejected the manuscript. The test case vindicates the questions about the reliability and bias of the review process. Reviewers are often engaged on the basis of their personal networks. Everyone is not trained or skilled. Moreover, the so called hyper prolific reviewers tend to have cornered the bulk of reviews ~ one of the ten such reviewers on the Publons platform reviewed a paper a day for sixteen years; another reviewed 812 papers in 2023. A 2018 survey by Publons found that four percent of reviewers are doing 25 per cent of reviews. Journal publishing operates on goodwill, in the form of unpaid review of manuscript by expert volunteers. Over the years, many have become disinclined to accept review requests. One managing editor of the American Sociological Association lamented that while earlier it used to take three or four tries to find a willing reviewer, now it takes around eight. A relatively minuscule pool of reviewers for many journals leads to not only overload but also obfuscation of diversity of perspectives and authors. The review work is basically voluntary or honorary, underrecognised, and less incentivized. Being one human activity, the review process is also enmeshed with individual-level limitations and biases in every conceivable sense. Notwithstanding the ingrained biases and vulnerabilities, the peer review system must not be discarded; the resultant upshot would be more catastrophic. Given the deficiencies, the imperative is to organise the process robustly. The incidence of retraction is more of an indicator, like a laboratory test report, that informs the extent of the malice and warns about the impending disaster unless and until the causes are comprehended and reparatory interventions are initiated. The deluge of phony research publications is closely related to the policy emphasis or weightage on research and publications as measures of individual competency, academic progression, and institutional excellence Academics across the world are now strongly incentivized to publish more and more papers for career leverage. Consequently, the demand for publishable papers has spiked exponentially. The higher education policy in India is according a premium on research and the quantity and quality of publications. The cumulative score on publication and award is the integrated parameter right from recruitment, appraisal for promotion, sanction of research project, to institutional ranking and accreditation. Advertisement The UGC mandate that every Ph.D. student has to publish at least one paper in a peer reviewed journal before submission of the thesis has been waived only by November 2022 notification. Academics in particular and higher education institutions in general are now swayed to have as many research grants and publications as possible to boost individual profiles and institutional rankings. Thus, a four-fold jump in the retraction of fake papers has been observed in India since the introduction of the NIFR ranking in 2015. The end, not the means, is thus getting undue prominence. Personal interest or self-aggrandizement is overtaking professional ethics. The growing number of purportedly specialised and peer reviewed journals is thus catering to the consistent demand by publishing papers prepared in one way or another. The opinion survey among the research community conducted by India Retraction Watchdog offers few insights into the cause of the inflammation. 51 per cent of academics considered the ranking parameter responsible for the outpouring of crooked publications. 35 per cent attributed it to the unethical inclination among the researchers. And 10 per cent held the absence or lack of punitive action against those already caught responsible for the misconduct. The publication peril is strongly associated with the dynamics of demand and supply. The policy emphasis inflates the demand and triggers intense competition among academies for positions, prestige, grants etc. Such mega demand leads to manipulation of the screening process (peer review), the use of sophisticated technology-driven tools for bypassing the investigatory eyes and intensification of the advent of new as well as alternative outlets from conventional and brand new (business) enterprises. Accordingly, the supply line is bursting with paper mills and predatory journals, precipitating a heyday of fictitious publications. The dictum of publish or perish~ the phrase initially coined by Archibald Cary Coolidge ~ compels the academies to use any means, fair or foul, to prop up their academic portfolio. Academic ethics thus goes for a toss. Illustratively, the phenomenon of sham scientific papers has its roots in China where paper mills began to ghostwrite supposedly scientific papers for professionals in science and technology for a hefty fee. Since then, the incidence and network of paper mills have spread all around. Noordens analysis suspects that about 2 per cent of all published scientific papers in 2023 appear to have been produced by paper mills. In India, iTrilon, which used its WhatsApp platform to hawk the authorship of ready-made scientific papers with assured acceptance using its networks with journals, had to shut down its shop in January, 2024 following an investigation by Retraction Watch. As Wiley, the lead villain in the retraction saga of 2023, has confessed presciently, a storm is brewing all over and the publishing world is under siege from the paper mills. The publication houses have little idea and capability about how to cope with or tackle the onslaught, particularly when the technology and the burgeoning tools are refining their modus operandi. China and India are the biggest contributors to the escalating retractions and the cleaning-up measures taken therein are likely to determine the future. The first ever nation-wide self-review initiated by the Chinese government, after considering the three-fourth proportion of Chinese co-authors among the 14,000 retraction notices issued in 2023 as a blot on the countrys reputation, is expected to have ripple effects all around. Academic institutions cannot shy away from proliferating malpractices and they should endorse provision for penalties, or at least dress down for misconduct. When the offenders remain scot-free and even go up in the academic elevator, many others may become more enthused or carefree to jump on the unethical bandwagon. One way of making the peer review system robust is to monetize the review process and hold the reviewers accountable for their review appraisals. Another transparent yet complex alternative may be to embrace the pre-print review system. When the perpetrators are academics, the sanitising course of action can come only from fellow academics. It devolves on Indian academics to put the ethical praxis in the mainstream of intellectual exercise and embrace the role of a sleuth by shunning the habitual inertia to expose the misconduct of their brethren. (The writer is former Associate Professor of Political Science, Tufanganj College, Cooch Behar, West Bengal) As the world witnesses the second anniversary of Russias invasion of Ukraine and the Munich Security Conference grapples with the challenges posed by President Vladimir Putin, a pressing question emerges ~ can Europe defend itself without America? The deadlock in the US Congress, influenced by the spectre of former President Donald Trumps return to power, has cast a shadow over potential military aid to Ukraine, leaving the nation vulnerable in the on-going conflict. The implications extend beyond Ukraine, raising concerns about Europes ability to fill the void left by Americas possible absence under Mr Trump. The need for increased defense spending is emphasised, but it is apparent that Europe faces challenges beyond financial commitments. The USA has all along committed military aid, and provided a nuclear umbrella. However, Europe could confront a leadership vacuum in the face of escalating tensions. While optimism prevails among officials regarding the eventual delivery of American munitions to Ukraine, the urgency of the situation demands more than hope. The need for Europe to revitalise its arms industry and design a new nuclear umbrella is underscored. There has always been a lack of wartime urgency in European arms production, with export priorities diluting the commitment to support Ukraine. The prospect of a Ukrainian defeat looms large, carrying psychological implications for the West and emboldening Mr Putin. The timeline for Russia to rebuild its forces, coupled with the potential for provocations testing NATOs mutual-defense clause, raises the stakes for Europes preparedness. Within the next decade, NATO may face a Soviet-style mass army, necessitating a comprehensive reassessment of defence capabilities. Europes journey towards strategic autonomy has gained momentum, driven in part by the erratic foreign policy of the Trump era. Increased defence spending across European nations, though commendable, reveals a stark reality ~ more money alone wont suffice. The International Institute of Strategic Studies notes the alarming disparity between spending and combat capability growth, revealing a gap in addressing recruitment challenges and combat force deficiencies. Pooling resources emerges as a potential solution, but disagreements among countries with substantial defence industries hinder progress. The need for a cohesive approach to arms production becomes apparent, with inefficiencies stemming from differing national priorities. Economic, social, and political considerations underscore the monumental task of revitalising Europes defence industry. Advertisement Perhaps the most challenging aspect is replacing the American nuclear umbrella, a linchpin in European security. Advocates of European self-sufficiency argue for building a European pillar within NATO, serving multiple purposes, including a future rupture contingency. Questions have been raised about command and control, underscoring the historical dominance of the Americans. Europe is at a critical juncture. Europe must not only bolster its defence capabilities but navigate intricate political landscapes, pool resources efficiently, and address the monumental task of crafting a unified command structure. The path forward demands not just financial commitment but a reimagining of European defence strategy in the face of evolving geopolitical realities. The verdicts keep coming. A few days ago, the three-month hearing focused on Donald Trumps business dealings in New York came to an end. Trump was ordered to pay back more than US$350 million, plus interest. He and two of his associates are banned from directing any business in New York for three years. His two sons, Donald Jr and Eric Trump, have also been handed two-year bans, and ordered to pay US$4 million each. In his judgement, New York Judge Arthur Engoron gave his own insight into the Trump phenomenon, describing what he saw as a complete lack of contrition and remorse that borders on pathological. While Engoron was referring specifically to business fraud in New York, the judges observation might also apply to Trumpism writ large. Coverage of the case and its stunning end has consistently focused on Trumps celebrity after all, he built his national profile on the back of his supposed business acumen, trading on his long stint as host of the popular television show The Apprentice. The results of this civil case certainly seem to poke holes in the image of Trump as a consummate businessman. Combined with the money he owes as the result of his loss of a second civil defamation trial brought by E. Jean Carroll, Trump is now in upwards of half a billion dollars of debt. Its not clear where this money will come from, or what will happen to Trumps existing New York businesses. This has led some commentators to argue this most recent case represents a stunning, devastating and shocking blow to the image of Trump as a successful real estate mogul better placed than anyone to run the worlds largest and most important economy. Advertisement It is certainly possible to argue Trumps reputation as the embodiment of rugged American entrepreneurship played an important role in his successful bid for the presidency in 2016. At least some of his support was drawn from the sense that a political outsider and ruthless businessman would shatter the stale consensus of establishment politics. But if it were possible to make that argument eight years ago, it is less convincing now. Trumps celebrity profile was, of course, critical to his campaign. His rise to political prominence, though, came not so much as a result of his reputation as a successful businessman, but on the back of his unabashed peddling of racist conspiracy theories about the first Black president. Trumps ability to tap into a particularly American form of racial revanchism his political acumen in marrying conspiracy, racism, and political grievance in an increasingly unequal society is what brought him to power. It is what sustains him still. The pathology of Trumpism revolves around his politics, not his personal economics. It at least partly explains why this latest case, plus the 91 separate felony charges in four criminal cases, are unlikely to affect Trumps political support, particularly with his base in the Republican Party. That base is too far down the road Trump began mapping out when he staked his political reputation on the argument that a Black man could not possibly be qualified for the presidency of the United States. Even a half a billion-dollar hole punched through his business reputation will not change that. That does not mean, however, that continued support for Trump is inevitable. In another New York courtroom this week, a judge ruled that Trumps first criminal trial will begin in just over a month. On March 25, for the first time in American history, a former president will face criminal charges in court. In what will likely become the first of four possibly consecutive criminal trials, Trump will face a potential six-week hearing on his efforts to cover up politically damaging information about his relationships with two women in advance of the 2016 presidential election. Dubbed the hush money case, this trial represents more than the sordid dealings of an alleged serial adulterer; it represents, arguably, the beginning of a pattern of deliberate election interference that began even before Trump took office. If it goes ahead as planned, a late March trial date will likely mean these hearings will barely be over before the next set begins. The classified documents case, centering on Trumps alleged illegal removal of highly classified documents from the White House, is scheduled to begin in Florida in late May. Scheduling for the other two cases, focused on Trumps role in the January 6 insurrection and election interference in the state of Georgia, remains unclear. None of this has ever happened before. There is really no telling what it will mean for Trump, his campaign, or American democracy more broadly. Polling suggests that a criminal conviction may dent Trumps national support. It is certainly possible such a conviction (or convictions), combined with eye-watering levels of debt, and the sheer logistics of conducting a national campaign amid multiple criminal trials, will have an impact. But the pathology of Trumpism has so far proven resistant to what should be crushing blows. The verdicts will keep coming. Trump may well, too. (The writer is Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University. This article was published on www.theconversation.com) A senior aid official of a UN body has warned that a quarter of the population of the war-trodden Gaza is one step away from an imminent famine. According to reports available from the United Nations aid agencies in Gaza, Rajesh Rajasingham, director of coordination for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, has informed the UN Security Council on the danger awaiting the strip in the days to come. The senior UN aid official has informed the Security Council that nearly, 5,76,000 people in the Gaza Strip are facing hunger and famine. Advertisement He has also warned that widespread famine could be almost inevitable if proper action was not taken. He said that one in six children under 2 years of age in northern Gaza is suffering from acute malnutrition. The official added that all the 2.3 million people in the Palestinian enclave rely on woefully inadequate food aid to survive. The World Food Programme (WFP) Deputy Executive Director, Carl Skau, told the 15-member council that it was ready to swiftly expand and scale-up the operations if there is a ceasefire agreement. The WFP official has also informed that the risk of famine was being fueled by the inability to bring critical food supplies into Gaza in sufficient quantities. The UN official has also said that the operating conditions faced by the WFP staff on the ground was on almost impossible conditions. Meanwhile, UN officials said that 75 ton of freight, 10 ambulances, food rations, 300 family tents, etc, had arrived in el-Arish airport in Egypt, near the Rafah crossing to Gaza. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7 after the Hamass ravage in Southern Israel killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 people as hostages into the Gaza Strip. YANGON, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's State Administration Council imposed martial law in Momeik and Mabein townships in Shan state of eastern Myanmar on Wednesday, the official television channel MRTV reported. According to the media report, the council said in its order statement that the martial law was imposed to ensure security, uphold the rule of law, and maintain peace and stability in the region. Subsequently, in its separate order, the council granted administrative and judicial power for the townships to the commander of the northern command to effectively carry out the works on security, law enforcement, and peace and stability of the region, the report added. Myanmar has remained under a state of emergency, which was initially declared in February 2021 for one year and subsequently extended five times, each for six months, until end of July this year. Saint-Laurent, CA (H4T1V6) Today Variable clouds with snow showers that will mix with rain showers later. High 41F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 50%.. Tonight Cloudy with rain and snow showers this evening. Remaining cloudy overnight. Low 26F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precip 50%. 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. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have won the Michigan primaries, further solidifying the all-but-certain rematch between the two men FILE - James Lucien, right, is embraced Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, by a family member, left, at Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, after being freed from incarceration. Lucien, who spent more than two decades in prison for a murder conviction that was thrown out by the courts is suing the state for $1 million. Lucien was serving a life sentence in connection to a 1994 fatal shooting when he was released in 2021. KIEV, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud discussed ways to put an end to the conflict in Ukraine during their meeting in Saudi Arabia, Ukraine's presidential press service reported Tuesday. In particular, the parties talked about the preparations for a peace summit of world leaders designed to bring peace to Ukraine. The two leaders discussed the content of the summit and possible steps for the restoration of security for "Ukraine, the whole of Europe and all the peoples around the world." The two sides also exchanged their views on Ukraine's Peace Formula. Zelensky thanked the crown prince for the advice on speeding up the process of implementing some points of the Peace Formula. Last week, the head of the Ukrainian President's Office Andriy Yermak said that Kiev would invite representatives of more than 160 countries to participate in the peace summit, which is due to take place in Switzerland soon. Zelensky arrived in Saudi Arabia for a working visit earlier in the day. Job Title: Human Resource Officer (Fresher Jobs) Organisation: KCB Bank Uganda Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda About US: KCB Bank Uganda which is part of KCB Group, East Africas largest commercial bank that was established in 1896. Over the years, the Bank has grown and spread its wings into Tanzania, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi completing the East African circuit in the year 2012. Today, the Group has the largest branch network in the region with over 238 branches, 950 ATMs and 8,000 agents offering banking services on a 24/7 basis in East Africa. KCB Bank Uganda was established in the year 2007 and has grown to become one of Ugandas top ten commercial banks. Job Summary: The Human Resource Officer will be rsponsible for the management of HR Information Systems- HRIS (Performance Management System, Payroll Systems, Learning Management System, HR Intranet) Data, Data Analysis, Preparation of Simple and Complex Reports, analyzing information and employee data services that relate to HRIS. Key Duties and Responsibilities: Manage HR Information Systems- HRIS (on-boarding new employees, Performance Management System, Payroll Systems, leave management, updating of staff details in Oracle). Manage and supervise data input in all HR Information Systems i.e. Staff and Business Information: Organization structures, job profiles, biodata, transitions, updates, amendments. Prepare simple and complex HRIS related reports and scenario analysis to support HR and Business Managers in decision making. Implement HRIS Business Continuity Planning and Management, Disaster Recovery and Readiness Testing as assigned and as per Bank policy requirements. Manage and supervise the filing, storage and retrieval of office documents, staff personal files and ensure that all records and databases are up to date. Carry out all HRIS improvement to meet emerging HR needs, and use of standard HR reports. Maintain data, records and statistics relating to HRIS i.e. system licenses and change management Systems versioning. Ensure data security and confidentiality of employee information in line with the data protection guidelines and procedures. Oversee HR Information system upgrades, enhancements, and maintenance. Provide user training and support for HRIS functionality. Qualifications, Skills and Experience: The applicant must hold a Bachelors Degree in HR Management, IT OR a Business-Related Field Professional Qualifications; Certificate /Diploma/ Higher Diploma in Post Graduate Diploma in HR General and/ or data analytics. Two years of related work experience How to Apply: All suitably qualified and interested applicants should apply online at the link below. Click Here Deadline: 29th February 2024 For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline Cryptocurrency trading is an ever-growing and evolving industry that has proven to be the best space for crypto trading enthusiasts. This necessitates the need for advanced platforms that use the latest technologies and algorithms to simplify trading. One such technology that has been found to benefit buyers and sellers is automated trading platforms. These platforms offer complete assistance throughout the trading journey. Right now, plenty of crypto trading bots are available in the crypto market, and choosing the most safe and effective one from them can be a real task. A trading software that is currently trending is Bitcoin Apex. This trading system has become a topic of discussion among crypto experts and several reviews are popping up online presenting mixed opinions. So, an in-depth examination of the system is necessary to verify its authenticity. This Bitcoin Apex review will get into every detail of this trading platform such as the registration process, it's working, main features, pros and cons, minimum deposit, cryptocurrencies supported, and more. So, continue reading the review and see if this trading bot is worth investing in. Bitcoin Apex- Facts Overview Trading Bot Name Bitcoin Apex Platform Type Web-based trading bot Accessibility From all devices Verification Required Yes Assets Supported Stocks, Forex, Commodities, Indices, CFDs, Crypto and more Minimum Deposit 250 Payout Time 24 hrs Software Cost Free Deposit Options A wide range of payment services Official Website Click Here What Is Bitcoin Apex? Bitcoin Apex is a novel crypto-trading platform created to simplify the complexities of crypto-trading and ensure seamless trading of various cryptocurrencies. In addition to crypto, the platform also supports traditional stocks, CFDs, forex, and other asset classes there offering opportunities for portfolio diversification. According to the creator, Bitcoin Apex will suit expert traders and beginners. The Bitcoin Apex trading system simplifies trading by using advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, algorithms, and technical tools. The platform offers a demo mode, also known as practice mode to carry out virtual trading without risking money. Bitcoin Apex also has a customization feature that can be used to adjust various settings including trading parameters. Click Here To Trade Now With Bitcoin Apex For Free! Bitcoin Apex Main Features Features of a trading platform help decide if it is worth investing in. Here, let us go through the unique features of the Bitcoin Apex trading software: Intuitive Interface And Simple Dashboard Two of the main features of the Bitcoin Apex platform are a user-friendly interface and a simple dashboard. A simple interface ensures easy navigation of the platform and the dashboard lists all features in detail. The dashboard includes a data tracker, technical analysis tools, and more. Advanced Technologies Like Artificial Intelligence Next, the Bitcoin Apex trading software has been integrated with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence to simplify the trading process. This technology makes automation easier. Sophisticated mathematical algorithms and technical tools are also available that make trading seamless. Safety And Security The Bitcoin Apex platform respects the privacy of users. This is ensured by following strict safety protocols and advanced encryption technologies like SSL encryption. Through these, the system protects user accounts, transactions, and confidential data. 24/7 Customer Support Another important feature of the Bitcoin Apex trading bot is the 24/7 customer support service offered by its dedicated team. The team ensures quick response to all types of user doubts and concerns such as account maintenance, trading, transactions, technical errors, etc. Practice Or Demo Mode The practice or demo mode is the main feature of the Bitcoin Apex platform that makes it easy for use by novice traders. They can explore the platform and market trends and patterns, build strategies, and improve skills without risking real money. Virtual funds will be available on the system that can be used to carry out virtual trading. This feature will help traders decide if the system is suitable for them. Customization Options This is yet another feature that will be beneficial for beginners. Traders can adjust the assistance level of the platform according to their trading experience, skills, and goals. Novice traders can get higher levels of assistance while experts can adjust the settings as needed. How To Register on Bitcoin Apex? Opening an account on the Bitcoin Apex platform is quite simple. The following are the simple steps that you have to go through to become a member of this trading community: Step 1- The Registration Process The first step involved in account signup is the registration process which is easy and safe. The Bitcoin Apex platform requires details such as name, mobile number, email ID, and a strong password to complete the registration process. Once you provide this information, the creator will examine it and send an email with a confirmation link to activate your account. Open the email and click the verification link to activate your Bitcoin Apex trading account. Step 2- Depositing Funds The next step that you have to follow after the registration process is depositing funds. The minimum deposit required to begin real-time trading on this software is 250. Traders and investors can deposit bigger amounts after considering factors such as financial goals, trading skills, the value of assets, trade opportunities, and so on. Funds can be deposited on the Bitcoin Apex account through any payment services available on the platform. No charges apply for depositing or withdrawing funds from your account. Step 3- Start Live Trading After account activation and fund deposition, you can begin live trading on the Bitcoin Apex account. The initial step is to set the trade parameters and adjust other settings like technical indicators to align with your trading preferences. Once these aspects are done, the Bitcoin Apex platform will begin analyzing the market, generating signals, and executing trades. The system will explore various asset classes including cryptocurrencies and take advantage of the most profitable opportunities. Register On Bitcoin Apex For Free! How Does Bitcoin Apex Work? Once your Bitcoin Apex account is ready for use with the required initial capital, you can begin live trading. For this, first set the assistance levels as needed. You can adjust the trade parameters, indicators, and other settings as suitable for your trading skills, experience, and goals. With this, the Bitcoin Apex platform will begin live trading which involves various steps. The system will use advanced algorithms to analyze the market in detail including real-time market trends and patterns, movements or fluctuations in assets, the historical and current value of assets, and more. When profitable opportunities come up, the Bitcoin Apex platform will alert you on time. Once the trading bot offers profitable trade signals, traders and investors can use them to execute orders of various asset classes. The tools and resources available on the Bitcoin Apex platform can be used to track progress, evaluate potential risks, and get a wider view of your complete trading activities. Bitcoin Apex Pros And Cons The positives and negatives of the Bitcoin Apex trading software are given below for your reference: Pros Free trading bot Compatible with all devices Simple and transparent account registration Requires just a minimum investment of 250 Suitable for both novice and savvy traders Integrated with advanced technologies, algorithms, and tools No additional charges Zero platform cost Different deposit options Ensures the safety and security of user information and funds 24/7 customer support Accessible in different regions Cons Due to restrictions imposed by local laws, Bitcoin Apex might not be available for trading in certain regions Bitcoin Apex- Cost, Minimum Deposit, And Profit The Bitcoin Apex trading platform is completely free. So, traders and investors can use this platform, take advantage of its features, and make profits. For trading different assets, the minimum deposit required is 250. If you want, you begin live trading by investing bigger amounts. But, to decide the amount, you have to consider factors such as trading experience, skills, goals, risk tolerance, and so on. Buyers and sellers can deposit the initial capital through any deposit options available on the platform such as debit/credit cards, e-wallets, etc. No charges apply for account registration or maintenance, transferring, depositing, or withdrawing funds, or other activities. Trade Now With Bitcoin Apex For Free Bitcoin Apex- Cryptocurrencies The Bitcoin Apex platform provides the opportunity to diversify your trading portfolio by offering a wide variety of assets such as cryptocurrencies, stocks, CFDs, forex, and so on. The most profitable among these and the asset that offers quick payouts is cryptocurrencies. The following are some crypto assets that you can buy and sell through the Bitcoin Apex trading software: Cardano (ADA) Bitcoin (BTC) Dogecoin (DOGE) Litecoin (LTC) Ripple (XRP) Ethereum (ETH) Binance Coin (BNC) Dash (DASH) Montero (XMR) Ethereum Classic (ETC) Polkadot (DOT) Bitcoin Apex- Countries Eligible The Bitcoin Apex trading software is available in most countries in the world where local laws permit trading. Here are the regions where this trading system can be used to trade cryptocurrencies and other asset: Canada Australia United Kingdom South Africa Slovenia Slovakia Norway Sweden Netherlands Finland Poland Switzerland Mexico Brazil Spain Germany Belgium Japan Vietnam Malaysia Singapore Taiwan Thailand Hong Kong Bitcoin Apex- Final Verdict From the analysis, it is evident that the Bitcoin Apex trading app is among the most effective trading platforms in the market. Before judging its genuineness, let us quickly go through everything discussed in this review so far. The Bitcoin Apex trading platform has been created to provide complete assistance in trading cryptocurrencies and other assets such as stocks, forex, CFDs, and so on. The creator says that the system has been integrated with the latest technologies, algorithms, tools, and resources to provide a detailed overview of trading activities and help enter profitable trades. Once traders set the parameters and other settings, the Bitcoin Apex will automatically and autonomously execute other tasks like market analysis, price movement monitoring, price data comparison, trade signal generation, risk evaluation, and timely alerts on profitable trade positions. This automated trading software offers a demo mode that can be used by novice traders to do virtual trading without using real money. Customization of account assistance is also available that can be utilized to align parameters and other settings according to trading preferences. From our analysis, Bitcoin Apex seems to be an authentic trading platform that is safe and effective for traders from all backgrounds. The main thing that buyers and sellers have to do is start an account and deposit the initial capital. For doing live trading, the Bitcoin Apex system requires just a minimum deposit of 250. Traders can increase the initial capital by considering factors like trading goals, skills, experience, risk tolerance, asset values, and so on. No extra fees are demanded from traders for account maintenance, transactions, and other activities. So, altogether, the Bitcoin Apex trading software seems legitimate and worth a shot to take crypto and other asset trading to the next level. Try Bitcoin Apex For Free! Bitcoin Apex - FAQs Is Bitcoin Apex compatible with all devices? Yes. The Bitcoin Apex platform has been designed in such a way that it is compatible with all devices. Can money be withdrawn at any time from the Bitcoin Apex account? Buyers and sellers have complete control over the funds available on the Bitcoin Apex account. So, funds can be withdrawn at any time without hassles. Is Bitcoin Apex easy to use for beginners? Bitcoin Apex should be easy to use even for beginners as it has a user-friendly interface with a simple dashboard, a demo feature, and customization options. Does Bitcoin Apex ensure safe trading? The Bitcoin Apex platform guarantees a safe trading environment by following strict safety protocols and using advanced encryption technology. What about the Bitcoin Apex account registration process? The Bitcoin Apex account registration process is simple, safe, and transparent. Traders have to follow just 3 simple steps to become a part of this trading community. A company law court has asked embattled edtech firm BYJU'S to consider extending the closing date of the $200 million rights issue, a request that the management hinted it would not accept even as estranged investors flagged technicalities that prevented closure of the issue on Wednesday. In an interim order dated February 27, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Bengaluru Bench said the funds received by the company in respect to the rights issue should be kept in a separate escrow account and it should not be withdrawn till the disposal of the matter. "The respondent company... is to consider the extension of the closure date of the rights issue so that the rights of the petitioners with regard to the making of application for shares under their rights entitlement does not get prejudiced," it said. The next hearing has been listed for April 4. Sources close to the company said that the Wednesday timeline for closure of the rights issue will not be extended. As there is no stay on the rights issue, it will close as planned on Wednesday, they said. A group of investorswho cumulatively hold a third of BYJU'S and are baying for blood of founder and CEO and his family over mismanagementhowever, felt that the rights issue cannot go through in the absence of shareholders' authorisation for increase in share capital. It is unclear if these investors participated in the rights issue, which the management has indicated will close as scheduled on Wednesday. Investors in BYJU'S had alleged on Tuesday that the edtech giant siphoned off $533 million in an obscure hedge fund in the US and sought a stay on a $200 million rights issue, calling it illegal and contrary to law. The rights issue through which promoters of BYJU'S are seeking to infuse funds into the startup, is to close on Wednesday and during the course of the hearing earlier the two sides cited technicalities on whether the rights issue could go ahead. On Friday, BYJU'S shareholders (prominent investors) had voted unanimously for removing founder-CEO Raveendran and his family from the board over alleged "mismanagement and failures" at what was once India's hottest tech startup, but the company hit back calling the voting done in the absence of founders as invalid and ineffective. Sources close to the investors had said more than 60 per cent of the shareholders voted in favour of all the seven resolutions at the EGM, which included removing the current management, reconfiguration of the board and a third party forensic investigation into acquisitions done by the company. Contesting investors' claims, sources close to BYJU'S had put the number at 47 per cent on Friday. Prosusone of the six investors who had called the EGMin a statement last week had said shareholders unanimously passed all resolutions put forward for vote. These included a request for the resolution of the outstanding governance, financial mismanagement and compliance issues at BYJU'S; the reconstitution of the board of directors, so that it is no longer controlled by the founder of T&L; and a change of leadership of the company. The once-storied edtech startup, BYJU'S rose to dizzying heights before its perilous fall. While return of students to physical classes post-pandemic and the recent acquisition of Aakash put Byju's under financial strain, the edtech firm in last one year suffered others setbacks, including its auditor resigning, lenders beginning bankruptcy proceedings against a holding company, and a US lawsuit disputing the terms and repayment of a loan. OSLO, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Global Seed Vault on Norway's remote island of Svalbard opened its doors on Tuesday to welcome 23 depositors, marking its first intake of the year. This occasion witnessed the highest number of first-time contributors in a single event. Nine depositors, from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria and Zambia, sent their seeds for safekeeping for the first time. Operated by the non-profit organization Crop Trust in collaboration with Norwegian authorities, the vault plays a crucial role in preserving the genetic diversity of important food crops. "The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a long-term security measure for global food security. After this deposit, 111 seed banks in 77 different countries will have a backup of their seeds in Svalbard," Norway's Minister of Agriculture and Food Geir Pollestad said at the event. Among the crops deposited were staple foods such as beans, barley, cowpea, maize, rice, millet, and sorghum, essential for sustaining global food supplies. Additionally, the deposit expanded its biodiversity with the inclusion of tree and forage seeds, including the African baobab, various types of acacia from the World Agroforestry Center, and seeds of birch, pine, and spruce from Norway's Forest Tree Seed Center. These new samples join over one million seed samples already safeguarded within the vault's subterranean chambers, kept at around minus 18 degrees Celsius. With nearly 14,000 seeds added in this round, the vault now boasts a collection exceeding 1.27 million seed samples. Established in 2008, the vault's primary mission is to safeguard the genetic diversity of the world's food plants. It aims to ensure the survival of agricultural and industrial crops against threats like war, terrorism and natural calamities. With a capacity to hold up to 4.5 million distinct seed varieties, the vault can accommodate duplicates of every unique seed variant stored in global gene banks, as well as any new types procured in the future. In a significant development, India has completed the sequencing of 10000 genomes of Indian population. Preliminary findings have brought forth huge number of rare variants, discovery of diseases indicating variants, resistance indicating variants and novel insights into the population history. The samples were taken from 99 ethnic groups spanning 20 centres across the length and breadth of the country. Dr. Jitendra Singh, union minister for science and technology said that 10,000 genome sequencing is a watershed moment and will lead to genetic-based remedies, besides giving a big boost to public healthcare system in the country. Genome study or sequencing is going to determine the future healthcare strategies across the world, both therapeutically and prophylactically, the minister said, while announcing the completion of the genome sequencing at an event in New Delhi. For the common people, genome sequencing will help in identifying the genetic cause for various diseases. One can estimate the frequency of deleterious mutations and also help in improving diagnostic methods in terms of time and cost. It will also provide appropriate pre-natal and pre-marital counselling to avoid mutations passing to the next generation, said Prof. Y. Narahari, one of the joint coordinators of Genome India project, which was launched in 2020. Take the case of cardio myopathy which appears after a certain age, may be after 10-15 years. But if one can detect the mutation we can start the treatment and delay the phenotype which in itself is sufficient for individuals for a healthy life, he added. Dr K. Thangaraj, another joint coordinator said that beyond the sheer scale of sequencing and establishing a Reference Genome, the creation of a biobank housing 20,000 blood samples at the Centre for Brain Research, coupled with data archiving at the Indian Biological Data Centre exemplify the project's commitment to transparency, collaboration, and future research endeavors. The data is being stored at the Indian Biological Data Centre (IBDC) set up by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India at the Regional Centre for Biotechnology (RCB), Faridabad, he added. The minister in his address emphasized that India's bio-economy has grown 13 fold in the last 10 years from $10 billion in 2014 to over $130 billion in 2024. He added that the biotechnology sector has seen a rapid growth in the last 10 years and India is now being rated among top 12 bio-manufacturers in the world. India's population of 1.3 billion is made up of over 4,600 diverse population groups, many of which are endogamous (matrimony in close ethnic groups) having unique genetic variations and disease-causing mutations that cannot be compared to other world populations. Hence the need of the hour was to create a database of Indian reference genome, for gaining insights about these unique genetic variants and use the information to create personalized drugs for the Indian population. The BJP legislative members of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla early Wednesday a day after BJP managed to win the sole Rajya Sabha seat in the state. This comes amid speculations that the party may move a motion of no-confidence in the assembly against the Congress government in the state. Himachal opposition leader Ram Thakur told ANI on Wednesday morning that he met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla. "We have informed the Governor about what happened in the Assembly. When we demanded division of vote during the financial bill, it was not allowed and the House was adjourned twice. The way Marshals behaved with our MLAs was not right," Thakur said, adding that the Congress government lost the right to stay in power. He added that the BJP suspected that the Vidhan Sabha Speaker could suspend BJP MLAs and some MLAs of Congress who voted for BJP in Rajya Sabha elections. In a major upset for Congress, Congress nominee Abhishek Singhvi lost the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Himachal Pradesh, where his party is in power, to the BJP's Harsh Mahajan amid cross-voting in the election held in Shimla. Mahajan won the state's lone Rajya Sabha seat based on a draw of lots after he tied with Singhvi with 34 votes. In the 68-member Himachal Pradesh Assembly, the Congress has 40 MLAs while the BJP has 25 legislators. The remaining three seats are held by independents. Himachal Pradesh LoP Jairam Thakur along with BJP's legislative party met Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla and demanded the division of votes for the financial budget in the House. pic.twitter.com/dyDRd6w3mZ ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Meanwhile, the Congress, reeling from the shocking defeat of its Rajya Sabha candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi to BJP's Harsh Mahajan in Himachal Pradesh, has appointed senior leaders Bhupinder Singh Hooda and D K Shivakumar to engage with the six MLAs, who are said to have cross-voted in the Tuesday's Rajya Sabha elections. The MLAs have reportedly left for Haryana after voting for Mahajan and are said to be in talks with the BJP. This comes amid speculations that the Opposition BJP might bring a no-trust motion against the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government. Appointed as observers by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Hooda and Shivakumar will reach Shimla on Wednesday take assess the ground situation. The observers may also get in touch with the MLAs who are said to be "disappointed" with the working style of Sukhu and are seeking his replacement. Kharge said on Tuesday that the Congress would challenge the election as both the candidates got 34 votes each and the decision was taken based on a lottery. "If the (Central) government breaks an elected government, what democracy is it? It has happened earlier in Karnataka, Manipur, and Goa. When they do not get elected, they take measures, intimidate them and break the government. Is this democracy?" Kharge said. In a fresh twist in the political crisis in Himachal Pradesh, minister Vikramaditya Singh took back his resignation on Wednesday evening, hours after he quit the post, alleging humiliation. Singh withdrew his resignation after a meeting with the Congress observersBhupesh Baghel, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and D.K. Shivakumarwho had been dispatched to Shimla by party president Mallikarjun Kharge. "It is the responsibility of every individual to strengthen the organisation. In the larger interest and unity of the party, the resignation by me in the morning, which the CM refused to accept, I would not like to press it further. There was no danger (to the government); it was just a creation, he said. Singh, the Public Works Minister, had announced in the morning that he was quitting the council of ministers and would submit his resignation to the chief minister and the governor. "There have been attempts to humiliate and undermine me from some quarters, and in spite of reservations, I supported the government," he had said. Singh is the son of Himachal Congress president Pratibha Singh. His father Virbhadra Singh was a former chief minister who died in 2021. The dramatic turn of events began unfolding in the hill state on Wednesday after Congress candidate Abhishek Manu Singhvi lost the Rajya Sabha election as several party MLAs cross-voted for the BJP. Singhvi was defeated by BJP's Harsh Mahajan on Tuesday through a draw of lots after the two candidates bagged 34 votes each. In the 68-member House, the Congress has 40 seats and the support of three independents, while the BJP has only 25 members. The Rajya Sabha poll results rang alarm bells for the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government, with reports claiming that the BJP is likely to bring a no-confidence motion in the assembly later this week. In a damage control exercise, Congress chief Kharge sent three observers to Shimla to talk to the disgruntled MLAs and Singh. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said Kharge has asked the observers and AICC in-charge for the state Rajeev Shukla to speak to all MLAs, including those who are disgruntled, and submit a comprehensive report to him soon. "The Congress will not hesitate to take some tough steps as the party is our priority and will not let the people's mandate be betrayed in Himachal Pradesh," Ramesh told reporters in Delhi. Chaos in assembly The state assembly witnessed unruly scenes in the morning as Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harshwardhan Chauhan moved a motion seeking the suspension of BJP MLAs for allegedly disrespecting the Speaker. The motion was adopted by voice vote, and the Speaker axed 15 MLAs. The BJP members refused to leave the House, prompting the Speaker to adjourn the House till 12 pm. In the afternoon, the House passed the Finance Bill by voice vote, with no BJP member being present. The Speaker then adjourned the session sine die. The Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed the second bail petition filed by former Tamil Nadu Minister V. Senthil Balaji, who was arrested by the ED last year in connection with a money laundering case. This was the second time in four months, that the DMK leader's plea for the relief was rejected by the HC. Justice N. Anand Venkatesh said, "In the light of the above discussion, this court does not find any merits in this bail petition and accordingly, the same is hereby dismissed". The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has identified the proceeds of crime at Rs.67.74 crores. "If the petitioner is let out on bail in a case of this nature, it will send a wrong signal and it will be against larger public interest. Therefore, this Court holds that even under Section 439 Cr.PC, the petitioner is not entitled to be considered for enlargement on bail", the judge added. The judge said the petitioner has suffered incarceration for more than eight months and therefore, it will be more appropriate to direct the Special Court, to dispose of the case within a time frame. Accordingly, there shall be a direction to the Principal Special Court, Chennai, to dispose of the case within a period of three months from the date of receipt of copy of this order. The trial shall be conducted on a day to day basis in accordance with the guidelines given by the Supreme Court in Vinod Kumar Vs State of Punjab case, the judge added. The judge said the court was not able to agree with the petitioner's contention that he has resigned as a Minister and therefore, the apprehension that he will tamper with the evidence and influence the witnesses, no longer subsists. The petitioner resigned from the post of Minister without a portfolio just one day prior to the hearing of this bail petition. The fact that the accused continued to remain as a Minister for nearly eight months and that too without a portfolio when he was inside the jail, shows the tremendous influence of the petitioner and the importance that was given to him by the State Government, the judge added. The judge said even if the petitioner had resigned as a minister, he continues as a MLA belonging to the same party which was running the Government in the State and therefore, without any hesitation, "this Court holds that the petitioner continues to wield a lot of influence on the Government." When such was the position, the witnesses who were mostly the officials belonging to the Metropolitan Transport Corporation and the prospective job seekers who had paid the money, will be influenced/tampered with, the judge added. The court said the past conduct of the petitioner shows that in the predicate offence the complainant was made to compromise the dispute and only after the interference of the Apex Court, the predicate offences revived and it resulted in filing of the final reports. This past conduct also has a lot of bearing in this case, the judge added. The Court was also took into consideration the larger interest of the Public/State since the petitioner was involved in a cash-for-job scam by misusing his position as a Transport Minister and thereby, genuine aspirants for the job were deprived of level playing field and in their place, persons who paid money were accommodated. The judge said the final report has been filed in the predicate offences by relying upon the very same documents and the petitioner has never questioned the genuineness of those documents till date. The ED has merely collected those documents in the predicate offence and in order to add authenticity, it has also been certified by the Special Court dealing with the predicate offence. Therefore, this Court was not convinced that the ED has indulged in tampering with the electronic records or that such tampering had even taken place or any such thing had been done by it in the predicate offences, the judge added. There was a large scale manipulation resorted to which has been explained and it shows that payments have been made by many job aspirants for jobs either directly or through the associates to B Shanmugam and M Karthikeyan, who were the unofficial personal assistants of the petitioner during the relevant point of time, the judge added. He said if there was a prima facie material to show that the amount has been received by misusing the position of the petitioner who was the then Transport Minister, that by itself will be construed as proceeds of crime and it was not necessary for the ED to further establish that such proceeds of crime was projected as untainted money subsequently. The judge said the statements that have been recorded from the witnesses and which has been relied upon, was also a strong material that prima facie establishes the offence of money laundering against the petitioner. The judge said, "the petitioner has not made out a case by satisfying this Court that there are reasonable grounds for believing that he is not guilty". Balaji was arrested on June 14. 2023 by the ED in connection with a money laundering case linked to a cash-for-jobs scam when he was the Transport Minister during an earlier AIADMK regime. The ED had on August 12 filed a 3000 page charge-sheet against Balaji. The Madras HC had on October 19 dismissed Balaji's earlier bail plea. A local court has also dismissed thrice, his bail petitions. Santhan alias T. Suthendiraraja, one of the seven convicts in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, died at a Chennai hospital after prolonged illness. Santhan, 55, was admitted to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGH) on January 27 after he fell seriously ill. He was diagnosed with liver failure and cryptogenic cirrhosis. Though his health condition was improving, he had a cardiac arrest in the early hours on Wednesday and breathed his last. Sources said Santhan, a Sri Lankan national, was keen on getting out of the Trichy special camp and return to his home country for medical treatment. A few days ago, his brother Mathi Suthakaran visited him at the hospital and Santhan is learnt to have told him that he would definitely come home to meet their aging mother Thillaiyampalam Maheshwari. Santhan served over 25 years in jail and later moved to the Trichy special camp after he was released by the court. He was all set to be deported to Sri Lanka after Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Chennai issued the exit permit order last week. The FRRO of the Union Ministry of External Affairs had issued an emergency travel document for Santhan, facilitating his immediate deportation. Earlier, the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Chennai had also issued a temporary travel document to him. The state government officials earlier said that he would be deported to Sri Lanka and all travel arrangements would be made once he booked his flight ticket. On May 21, 1991 former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by the LTTE activists during a public meeting at Sriperumbudur near Chennai. The CBI, which investigated the case, arrested a total of 41 people. A TADA court sentenced 26 of the accused to death in 198. Later, 19 of them were released and the court upheld the death penalty to seven convicts including Santhan. Santhan was later released by the court citing long incarceration in 2022 and was moved to the Trichy Special camp as he was a Sri Lankan national. The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh plunged into a major crisis on Wednesday morning after Public Works Department Minister Vikramaditya Singh announced his resignation from the council of ministers. Singh is the son of former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh and Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president Pratibha Singh. The High Command had overlooked Pratibha Singh's claim for the chief minister's post, choosing Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu to helm the government. Announcing his resignation, Vikramaditya Singh claimed there were "efforts from some quarters attempts to humiliate me in my functioning as a cabinet minister." #WATCH | After resigning as a minister in the Himachal Pradesh cabinet, Congress MLA Vikramaditya Singh says, "I have clearly said that I have briefed the party high command regarding the actual situation. Now the ball is in the court of the party high command, they have to pic.twitter.com/RLJO2v9qwG ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 "I have always respected the leadership and the Chief Minister and contributed toward running the government with due discipline. I can tell you with 100% conviction that I, as a minister, supported the government with all our strength. I respect the chief minister but there has to be coordination among the Council of Ministers," Singh told reporters, adding that there was a breach of trust which led to the current crisis. On whether he would continue with the Congress, Singh said he is yet to decide his future course of action. "I will hold due discussions and deliberations with my people, supporters, and well-wishers. After due discussions, we will take the future course of action," he said. The MLA from Shimla Rural added that he has briefed the Congress High Command regarding the situation. "Now the ball is in the court of the party high command, they have to decide what the future course of action will be. But I have been very clear and very categorical in what I had to say. I am sure that whatever decision will be taken, it will be taken in the larger interest of the organisation, of the party, and the people of this state," Singh added, Meanwhile, 15 BJP MLAs have been expelled by the Himachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker for misbehaviour. The MLAs include LoP Jairam Thakur, Vipin Singh Parmar, Randheer Sharma, Lokender Kumar, Vinod Kumar, Hans Raj, Janak Raj, Balbir Verma, Trilok Jamwal, Surender Shori, Deep Raj, Puran Thakur, Inder Singh Gandhi, Dileep Thakur and Inder Singh Gandhi. Thakur had said on Wednesday morning that they would most likely be suspended. "We are apprehensive that Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania might suspend the BJP MLAs so that the budget can be passed in the Vidhan Sabha," Thakur told reporters earlier in the morning. He said the Rajya Sabha election had made it clear that the Congress government was in the minority and demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. Notices have also been issued to Congress MLAs who voted for the BJP candidate, asking them to explain why action should not be taken against them under the anti-defection law. MLA leave Haryana The six Congress MLAs, who voted for the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls in Himachal Pradesh, on Wednesday left Haryana for an undisclosed location in a chopper. They include Rajinder Rana and Ravi Thakur, who spent last night in a hotel here and left for Tau Devi Lal Stadium in BJP-ruled Haryana's Panchkula in the morning. The MLAs had reached Haryana from Shimla on Tuesday after casting their votes in the Rajya Sabha polls. They are learnt to be in touch with the BJP, amid signs of a crisis engulfing the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh. Secret communication using latest technologies to arrange manpower and logistics to fuel unrest in Punjab by transnational nexus of terrorists, gangsters and narco criminals, has emerged as a key concern for central intelligence agencies. Investigators found that such secret communication platforms have dual use - private ones are used for operational purposes and the public platforms are being used for anti-India propaganda. The need to bust such networks and bring perpetrators to book becomes essential, sources said, and requires cooperation of foreign agencies as these transnational syndicates are suspected to have fuelled attacks within the country as well as those carried out on foreign soil, including on the High Commissions of India in Ottawa and London as well as on the Consulate General of India in San Francisco. As the National Investigation Agency on Tuesday conducted searches in the ongoing investigations against Khalistani organised crime nexus at 14 locations in Punjab and two locations in Rajasthan, sources said terror modules have shifted from traditional telephone calling to internet-based communication where they are covertly sharing large scale operational data originating and terminating from locations all over the world. Various internet-based chat applications used by the extremists provide end-to-end encryption of data. While the source IPs of some of these applications can be traced with the assistance of service providers, the data transacted between the users still remains out of bound for the law enforcement agencies. Sources said this is being taken advantage of by the terror-gangster networks of Punjab where it has come to light that VoIP technology, app-based virtual numbers, use of VPNs and calls over phone speakers are proving to be simple and effective methods to avoid detection. In some cases, calls over phone speakers have been noticed to be used allowing two persons sitting in different locations to communicate with each other over speakers, without the devices being directly connected. The problem becomes bigger with such criminal nexus having links in US, Canada and other European countries, the sources said. In the public mode, the aim of these terrorist-criminal gangs is to propagate extremist ideology to the public using not just social media platforms, but sending pre-recorded messages and calls to mobiles and landlines across the globe. A report shared by intelligence agencies says that use of dialler services caught the fancy of the extremist groups recently. Just as service sector companies for businesses provide free and paid automatic dialler services, similar technology has been used by outfits like the banned Sikhs for Justice and its leader Gurpatwant Pannu, who turned an eye sore for security agencies recently with his open threats to create unrest in the country. A senior security official said use of emerging technologies by criminal terror networks are a worry for many reasons. While some of them are used purely for guns for hire, others grow into nameless and faceless perpetrators of terror who are difficult to detect. Besides, the proliferation of the extremist network on social media is being used for recruitment and propagation of extremist ideology, said senior security officials. These findings come at a time when the use of smuggled communication devices has been found in the case of jailed extremist Amritpal Singh and alleged gangster gang of Lawrence Bishnoi whose name crops up in several cases of criminal acts and reveals the difficulties involved in busting such activities completely. Jails have emerged as a major hub of recruitment of criminals by terror masterminds to carry out future terror incidents, act against rival groups and keep the transnational syndicates alive, said a state police official. Meanwhile, NIA searches on Tuesday resulted in six persons being probed for their involvement in terrorist activities. Zia-ul Hasan, a convict lodged in the Fatehpur jail, has offered his earnings of a month for Ayodhyas Ram temple. Hasan, who earns Rs 1,075 by sweeping the jail, requested the jailer to send his salary to the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. The cheque dated January 17 was received by the Trust on Wednesday. With the cheque is a letter addressed to the jail superintendent that reads, Of my own will I wish to donate the salary earned from my mazdoori (manual labour) to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. You are requested to make a cheque in the name of the Trust. Though the Trust had no further details on Hasan, VHP spokesperson Sharad Sharma said that the cheque was an example of communal harmony. Our Muslim brothers offering is praiseworthy. He might be of a different religion but then Ram is everyones spiritual leader and does not belong to just one religion. The Lords life story and its lessons are the backbone of this nation. The mere thought of him inspires one to do good deeds, said Sharma. The new temple is also being visited by several Muslims after its inauguration on January 22. It is noteworthy that the Urdu poet Mohammed Iqbal had labelled Ram Imam-e-Hind who exemplifies the essence and spirit of India. In a major joint operation, the Navy, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Gujarat Police apprehended a dhow in the Arabian Sea off the Gujarat coast, and seized a record haul of almost 3,300kg of drugs. It is believed to be the highest-ever offshore capture till date, and comprises 3,089kg of charas, 158kg of methamphetamine and 25kg of morphine. One kg of charas is priced at Rs 7 crore in international market. According to Deccan Herald, the consignment was bound for Tamil Nadu. #IndianNavy in a coordinated ops with Narcotics Control Bureau, apprehended a suspicious dhow carrying almost 3300Kgs contraband (3089 Kgs Charas, 158 Kgs Methamphetamine 25 Kgs Morphine). The largest seizure of narcotics, in quantity in recent times.@narcoticsbureau pic.twitter.com/RPvzI1fdLW SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) February 28, 2024 Five foreigners have been arrested from the dhow. They are suspected to be either Iranian or Pakistani nationals. No documents of nationality have been recovered from them, a senior NCB officer said. The operation was undertaken based on a specific tip-off, in the Arabian Sea along the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL), with the Navy saying on X that it deployed its P8I long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft, a warship and helicopters to apprehend the "suspicious dhow. Union Home Minister Amit Shah called the joint operation a "historic success" and a testament of the Union government's "unwavering commitment to making our nation drug-free". Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually inaugurated Indias first indigenously developed and built hydrogen fuel cell ferry in Keralas Kochi on Wednesday. The inland waterway vessel, under the Harit Nauka initiative, is a pilot project undertaken by the Cochin Shipyard to demonstrate the technology for the maritime sector in line with the Government of Indias green vision. The fuel cell-powered vessel has zero emission, zero noise and is energy efficient, which in turn reduces the effect of global warming, the Cochin Shipyard said in a statement. The adoption of green hydrogen as a maritime fuel is at the forefront of Indias commitment to a sustainable future that aims for net zero emissions by 2070, it said. Madhu S. Nair, chairman and MD of Cochin Shipyard, presided over the inaugural session, which was also attended by Hibi Eden MP and other officials. MOSCOW, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Russia will closely monitor Sweden's actions following the country's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and develop its response accordingly, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Wednesday. "We will closely monitor what Sweden will do within the aggressive military bloc, how it will implement its membership in practice ... and develop our response policy based on this," she said. Zakharova said that Moscow will choose which measures it will take, including military-technical ones, to curb threats to Russia's national security. She said that Sweden's traditional non-alignment policy used to be an important factor in maintaining stability in Northern Europe, adding that the country's NATO membership will further undermine its sovereignty. Hungarian lawmakers on Monday approved a bill on Sweden's bid to join NATO, clearing the way for Sweden's accession to the military alliance. A Delhi court on Wednesday granted bail to former Bihar chief minister Rabri Devi and her daughters Misa Bharti and Hema Yadav in the Railways' land-for-job case. Misa Bharti, the eldest of RJD president Lalu Prasad and Rabri Devi's children, is a Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar. Special Judge Vishal Gogne granted relief to the three after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) did not oppose the bail applications. The central probe agency submitted that considering the serious nature of the case, stringent conditions should be imposed on the accused while granting them bail. The judge had on February 9 granted them interim bail after the ED said it needed time to advance arguments on their regular bail applications. The accused appeared before the court after it took cognisance of the ED's chargesheet and issued summons. Santhan, a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, died in Chennai on Wednesday following a cardiac arrest. The 55-year-old Sri Lankan national was freed by the Supreme Court in 2022 after serving 20 years of jail term. The dean of Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital where Santhan was undergoing treatment for "liver failure" told media that Santhan alias T Suthendiraraja died at 7:50 am. "Santhan suffered a cardiac arrest around 4 am on Wednesday but was 'revived' following a CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) procedure and was given an oxygen supply and was on a ventilator," Theranirajan told reporters. However, he did not respond to treatment. "A post mortem will be conducted. Legal arrangements are underway for the body to be sent to Sri Lanka," he added. Santhan was one of the seven persons set free by the Supreme Court in 2022 after they served over 20 years of jail term in connection with the killing of the former prime minister near here in 1991. He was living in a special camp in Tiruchirappalli before being rushed to hospital on January 27 for liver failure. He has been staying in the camp since his release last year. US President Joe Biden won the presidential primary in Michigan on Tuesday but the win was overshadowed by protest votes for his Israel policy that surpassed expectations. When votes were counted, over 13 per cent went to "uncommitted" as progressives listened to the call of activists of 'Listen to Michigan' campaign, who called to send the President a message of dissatisfaction over the war in Gaza. As for the GOP primaries, Donald Trump sailed through Michigan, inching closer to the nominations as Nikki Haley, his last remaining rival, came a distant econd. "Its important to create a voting bloc, something that is a bullhorn to say, enough is enough," said Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress, in a video shared by 'Listen to Michigan'. "We dont want a country that supports wars and bombs and destruction. We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza," Tlaib added. The Listen to Michigan campaign thanked the voters of Michigan, home to a large Arab American constituency, for their support, stating the "movement emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations." "Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom who voted for Biden in 2020, are uncommitted to his re-election due to the war in Gaza," the Listen to Michigan campaign said in a statement. Congressman Andy Levin, who supports the "uncommitted" vote, told the crowd: "I take no joy in being here tonight. This moment is a child of necessity because people are dying by the thousands." Biden, however, made no mention of the uncommitted votes, but thanked "every Michigander who made their voice heard today." "Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great," Biden said, thanking every Michigander who voted for him. He warned the voters of the danger of another Trump term as he discussed abortion, union jobs, prescription drugs, and the need to protect fertility treatments. However, there was no mention of Gaza or Israel. "Donald Trump is threatening to drag us even further into the past as he pursues revenge and retribution," Biden said. "Now, Donald Trump wants to ban abortion nationwide including here in Michigan." Schools across U.S. consider whether to ban the use of cell phones all day A veteran human rights campaigner who criticized the war in Ukraine was convicted Tuesday by a Moscow court of repeatedly discrediting the Russian military and sentenced to 2 years in prison. Oleg Orlov, 70, co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, had rejected the case against him as politically motivated, saying in his closing statement: I dont regret anything and I dont repent anything. He also denounced the war again. Orlov was handcuffed and taken into custody after the verdict, concluding a retrial in which he earlier was convicted and fined. Underscoring the low tolerance for criticism of the war by the government of President Vladimir Putin, the prosecution had appealed, seeking a harsher punishment. The prosecution claimed that Orlov was motivated to write the anti-war article by hostility toward traditional Russian spiritual, moral and patriotic values and hatred of the military, according to the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona. In a statement, Memorial called Orlovs sentence an attempt to drown out the voice of the human rights movement in Russia and any criticism of the state. It vowed to continue its work. The verdict drew a crowd of dozens of supporters, including 18 Western diplomats, Mediazona reported. I am alarmed and concerned by todays outcome. Oleg Orlov has personally fought for the rights of Russians for more than 45 years, U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy said in a statement. In previous times, his efforts have been awarded at the highest levels. In todays Russia he is being locked away for them. In October 2023, a Moscow court had convicted Orlov and fined him 150,000 rubles (about $1,500 at the time), a significantly milder punishment when compared to the long prison terms others have received for criticizing the war. Both the defense and the prosecution appealed, and a higher court voided the fine, sending the case back to the prosecutors. The new trial began earlier this month, another step in an unrelenting crackdown on dissent that the Kremlin ratcheted up after sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Also on Tuesday, a court in Grozny, the capital of Russias largely Muslim republic of Chechnya, sentenced a man to 3 1/2 years in prison for publicly burning a Quran in front of a mosque. The Russian state news agency Tass reported that Nikita Zhuravel admitted he did so on the instructions of Ukrainian special services in return for a payment. In September 2023, Chechnyas authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov posted a video of his son appearing to beat Zhuravel in detention. Kadyrov praised his son for defending his religion. Tuesday also marked the ninth anniversary of the killing of Boris Nemtsov, a charismatic Russian opposition figure. The 55-year-old former deputy prime minister was shot to death as he walked along a bridge adjacent to the Kremlin on the night of Feb. 27, 2015. A makeshift memorial on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge where Nemtsov was slain still draws mourners who leave bouquets of flowers. His death was a blow to the political opposition, as was the death in prison this month of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. An officer in the security forces of the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov was sentenced to 20 years for firing the shots that killed Nemtsov. Four other men were sentenced to 11 to 19 years for their involvement. (AP) Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is offering her strongest public support yet for the idea of liquidating roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank assets and using them for Ukraines long-term reconstruction. It is necessary and urgent for our coalition to find a way to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraines continued resistance and long-term reconstruction, Yellen says in remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors are meeting this week. I believe there is a strong international law, economic, and moral case for moving forward. This would be a decisive response to Russias unprecedented threat to global stability, she says. The United States and its allies froze hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian foreign holdings in retaliation for Moscows invasion of Ukraine. Those billions have been sitting untapped as the war grinds on, now in its third year, while officials from multiple countries have debated the legality of sending the money to Ukraine. More than two-thirds of Russias immobilized central bank funds are located in the EU. Using the assets to help Ukraine would make clear that Russia cannot win by prolonging the war and would incentivize it to come to the table to negotiate a just peace with Ukraine, Yellen says. The idea of using Russias frozen assets has gained traction lately as continued allied funding for Ukraine becomes more uncertain and the U.S. Congress is in a stalemate over providing more support. But there are tradeoffs since the weaponization of global finance could harm the U.S. dollars standing as the worlds dominant currency. Earlier this month, the European Union passed a law to set aside windfall profits generated from frozen Russian central bank assets. Yellen calls that an action I fully endorse. Brazil kicked off its presidency of the Group of 20 nations this month, with finance ministers meeting this week. Topics for discussion include poverty alleviation, climate change and the wars in the Gaza Strip and in Ukraine. G20 leaders are slated to gather at a Nov. 18-19 summit in Rio. (AP) In California, a high school teacher complains that students watch Netflix on their phones during class. In Maryland, a chemistry teacher says students use gambling apps to place bets during the school day. Around the country, educators say students routinely send Snapchat messages in class, listen to music and shop online, among countless other examples of how smartphones distract from teaching and learning. The hold that phones have on adolescents in America today is well-documented, but teachers say parents are often not aware to what extent students use them inside the classroom. And increasingly, educators and experts are speaking with one voice on the question of how to handle it: Ban phones during classes. Students used to have an understanding that you arent supposed to be on your phone in class. Those days are gone, said James Granger, who requires students in his science classes at a Los Angeles-area high school to place their phones in a cellphone cubby with numbered slots. The only solution that works is to physically remove the cellphone from the student. Most schools already have rules regulating student phone use, but they are enforced sporadically. A growing number of leaders at the state and federal levels have begun endorsing school cellphone bans and suggesting new ways to curb access to the devices. The latest state intervention came in Utah, where Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, last month urged all school districts and the state Board of Education to remove cellphones from classrooms. He cited studies that show learning improves, distractions are decreased and students are more likely to talk to each other if phones are taken away. We just need a space for six or seven hours a day where kids are not tethered to these devices, Cox told reporters this month. He said his initiative, which is not binding, is part of a legislative push to protect kids in Utah from the harms of social media. Last year, Florida became the first state to crack down on phones in school. A law that took effect in July requires all Florida public schools to ban student cellphone use during class time and block access to social media on district Wi-Fi. Some districts, including Orange County Public Schools, went further and banned phones the entire school day. Oklahoma, Vermont and Kansas have also recently introduced what is becoming known as phone-free schools legislation. And two U.S. senators Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, and Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat introduced legislation in December that would require a federal study on the effects of cellphone use in schools on students mental health and academic performance. Theirs is one of several bipartisan alliances calling for stiffer rules for social media companies and greater online safety for kids. Nationally, 77% of U.S. schools say they prohibit cellphones at school for non-academic use, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But that number is misleading. It does not mean students are following those bans or all those schools are enforcing them. Just ask teachers. Cellphone use is out of control. By that, I mean that I cannot control it, even in my own classroom, said Patrick Truman, who teaches at a Maryland high school that forbids student use of cellphones during class. It is up to each teacher to enforce the policy, so Truman bought a 36-slot caddy for storing student phones. Still, every day, students hide phones in their laps or under books as they play video games and check social media. Tired of being the phone police, he has come to a reluctant conclusion: Students who are on their phones are at least quiet. They are not a behavior issue. A study last year from Common Sense Media found that 97% of kids use their phones during school hours, and that kids say school cellphone policies vary often from one classroom to another and arent always enforced. For a school cellphone ban to work, educators and experts say the school administration must be the one to enforce it and not leave that task to teachers. The Phone-Free Schools Movement, an advocacy group formed last year by concerned mothers, says policies that allow students to keep phones in their backpacks, as many schools do, are ineffective. If the bookbag is on the floor next to them, its buzzing and distracting, and they have the temptation to want to check it, said Kim Whitman, a co-founder of the group, which advises schools to require phones be turned off and locked away all day. Some students say such policies take away their autonomy and cut off their main mode of communication with family and friends. Pushback also has come from parents who fear being cut off from their kids if there is a school emergency. Whitman advises schools to make exceptions for students with special educational and medical needs, and to inform parents on expert guidance that phones can be a dangerous distraction for students during an emergency. Jaden Willoughey, 14, shares the concern about being out of contact with his parents if theres a crisis. But he also sees the upsides of turning in his phone at school. At Delta High School in rural Utah, where Jaden is a freshman, students are required to check their phones at the door when entering every class. Each of the schools 30 or so classrooms has a cellphone storage unit that looks like an over-the-door shoe bag with three dozen smartphone-sized slots. It helps you focus on your work, and its easier to pay attention in class, Jaden said. A classmate, Mackenzie Stanworth, 14, said it would be hard to ignore her phone if it was within reach. Its a relief, she said, to take a break from the screen and the social life on your phone and actually talk to people in person. It took a few years to tweak the cellphone policy and find a system that worked, said Jared Christensen, the schools vice principal. At first it was a battle. But it has been so worth it, he said. Students are more attentive and engaged during class time. Teachers are able to teach without competing with cellphones. And student learning has increased, he said, citing test scores that are at or above state averages for the first time in years. I cant definitively say its because of this policy. But I know its helping. The next battle will be against earbuds and smartwatches, he said. Even with phones stashed in pouches, students get caught listening to music on air pods hidden under their hair or hoodies. We havent included earbuds in our policy yet. But were almost there. (AP) A new Rasmussen Reports poll has found that former President Donald Trump is leading President Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup by six points, 47% to 41%, with 9% supporting some other candidate and 2% unsure. Notably, the poll finds that Trump holds a 16-point advantage over Biden among independents. When third-party candidates are included, Trump maintains a lead with 43% support to Bidens 37%, with 12% choosing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and 3% unsure. Another survey from HarrisX found Trump leading Biden by nine points nationally, 47% to 38%, with Trump leading among independents by ten points. Recent swing state polls also show Trump with an advantage over Biden, with a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll showing Trump leading in seven out of seven swing states. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) MOSCOW, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- The presence of Western troops in Ukraine in any form would lead to a "direct escalation" of the situation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Wednesday. The spokesperson said that with every new shipment of weapons, Western nations are already escalating the conflict. If the West decides to officially deploy troops to Ukraine or recruit mercenaries from European Union (EU) states, this would be a "direct escalation," she said. Nonetheless, she also noted that "it was no secret" that military personnel from a number of NATO countries are already present in Ukraine and assisting the country's armed forces in various ways. During a conference in Paris on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that while there was no official consensus among European leaders, the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine "should not be ruled out." He also announced that a new coalition would be set up to supply Kiev with medium- and long-range weapons. French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday that sending Western troops on the ground in Ukraine is not ruled out in the future after the issue was debated at a gathering of European leaders in Paris, as Russias full-scale invasion grinds into a third year. The French leader said that we will do everything needed so Russia cannot win the war after the meeting of over 20 European heads of state and government and other Western officials. Theres no consensus today to send in an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled out, Macron said in a news conference at the Elysee presidential palace. Macron declined to provide details about which nations were considering sending troops, saying he prefers to maintain some strategic ambiguity. The meeting included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polands President Andrzej Duda as well as leaders from the Baltic nations. The United States was represented by its top diplomat for Europe, James OBrien, and the U.K. by Foreign Secretary David Cameron. Duda said the most heated discussion was about whether to send troops to Ukraine and there was no agreement on the matter. Opinions differ here, but there are no such decisions. Polands president said he hopes that in the nearest future, we will jointly be able to prepare substantial shipments of ammunition to Ukraine. This is most important now. This is something that Ukraine really needs. Macron earlier called on European leaders to ensure the continents collective security by providing unwavering support to Ukraine in the face of tougher Russian offensives on the battlefield in recent months. In recent months particularly, we have seen Russia getting tougher, Macron said. Macron cited the need to solidify security to head off any Russian attacks on additional countries in the future. Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia as well as much larger Poland have been considered among possible targets of future Russian expansionism. All four countries are staunch supporters of Ukraine. Estonias foreign minister said earlier this month that NATO has about three or four years to strengthen its defenses. In video speech, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the leaders gathered in Paris to ensure that Putin cannot destroy our achievements and cannot expand his aggression to other nations. Several European countries, including France, expressed their support for an initiative launched by the Czech Republic to buy ammunition and shells outside the EU, participants to the meeting said. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said his country decided to provide over 100 million euros for that purpose. In addition, a new coalition is to be launched to further mobilize nations with capabilities to deliver medium and long-range missiles, Macron said, as France announced last month the delivery of 40 additional long-range Scalp cruise missiles. European nations are worried that the U.S. will dial back support as aid for Kyiv is teetering in Congress. They also have concerns that former U.S. President Donald Trump might return to the White House and change the course of U.S. policy on the continent. The Paris conference comes after France, Germany and the U.K. recently signed 10-year bilateral agreements with Ukraine to send a strong signal of long-term backing as Kyiv works to shore up Western support. (AP) The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on state laws that could affect how Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube and other social media platforms regulate content posted by their users. The cases are among several this term in which the justices could set standards for free speech in the digital age. In nearly four hours of arguments, several justices questioned aspects of laws adopted by Republican-dominated legislatures and signed by Republican governors in Florida and Texas in 2021. But they seemed wary of a broad ruling, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett warning of land mines she and her colleagues need to avoid in resolving the two cases. While the details vary, both laws aimed to address conservative complaints that the social media companies were liberal-leaning and censored users based on their viewpoints, especially on the political right. Differences on the court emerged over how to think about the platforms as akin to newspapers that have broad free-speech protections, or telephone companies, known as common carriers, that are susceptible to broader regulation. Chief Justice John Roberts suggested he was in the former camp, saying early in the session, And I wonder, since were talking about the First Amendment, whether our first concern should be with the state regulating what we have called the modern public square? Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas appeared most ready to embrace arguments made by lawyers for the states. Thomas raised the idea that the companies are seeking constitutional protection for censoring other speech. Alito complained about the term content moderation that the sites employ to keep material off their platforms. Is it anything more than a euphemism for censorship? he asked, later musing that term struck him as Orwellian. But Justice Brett Kavanaugh, seemingly more favorable to the companies, took issue with calling the actions of private companies censorship, a term he said should be reserved for restrictions imposed by the government. When I think of Orwellian, I think of the state, not the private sector, not private individuals, Kavanaugh said. The precise contours of rulings in the two cases were not clear after arguments, although it seemed likely the court would not let the laws take effect. The justices posed questions about how the laws might affect businesses that are not their primary targets, including e-commerce sites like Uber and Etsy and email and messaging services. The cases are among several the justices have grappled with over the past year involving social media platforms. Next month, the court will hear an appeal from Louisiana, Missouri and other parties accusing administration officials of pressuring social media companies to silence conservative points of view. Two more cases awaiting decision concern whether public officials can block critics from commenting on their social media accounts, an issue that previously came up in a case involving then-President Donald Trump. The court dismissed the Trump case when his presidential term ended in January 2021. The Florida and Texas laws were passed in the months following decisions by Facebook and Twitter, now X, to cut Trump off over his posts related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. Trade associations representing the companies sued in federal court, claiming that the laws violated the platforms speech rights. One federal appeal struck down Floridas statute, while another upheld the Texas law. But both are on hold pending the outcome at the Supreme Court. In a statement when he signed the bill into law, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the measure would be protection against the Silicon Valley elites. When Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Texas law, he said it was needed to protect free speech in what he termed the new public square. Social media platforms are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas. That is wrong, and we will not allow it in Texas, Abbott said. But much has changed since then. Elon Musk purchased Twitter and, in addition to changing its name, eliminated teams focused on content moderation, welcomed back many users previously banned for hate speech and used the site to spread conspiracy theories. The Biden administration is siding with the challengers. Lawyers for Trump have filed a brief in the Florida case urging the court to uphold the state law. Still, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administrations top Supreme Court lawyer, cautioned the court to seek a narrow ruling that blocked the laws. Prelogar said governments maintain the ability to impose regulations to ensure competition, preserve data privacy and protect consumer interests. Several academics and privacy advocacy groups told the court that they view the laws at issue in these cases as unconstitutional, but want the justices to preserve the governments ability to regulate social media companies to some extent. (AP) Prominent Palestinian writer and activist Mohammed El-Kurd is facing ridicule and backlash after moaning and whining that you cant hijack planes or throw Molotov cocktails without people coming after you. El-Kurd wrote: You cant protest peacefully. You cant boycott. You cant hunger strike. You cant hijack planes. You cant block traffic. You cant throw Molotovs. You cant self-immolate. You cant heckle politicians. You cant march. You cant riot. You cant dissent. You just cant be. The post was immediately slapped with a Community Note a fact check by X users who wrote, Hijacking planes and throwing Molotov cocktails is terrorism and generally carries long prison sentences. However, in most jurisdictions, you can protest peacefully, boycott, and hunger strike. The tweet appeared to be in response to the self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell, a US Air Force member who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli Embassy while yelling Free Palestine! El-Kurds post sparked tongue-in-cheek outrage, with many condemning his seemingly dismissive attitude towards mental health concerns and his apparent justification of violent acts. Conservative journalist Ian Miles Cheong wrote, What world do we live in where people cant just hijack airplanes and throw Molotov cocktails peacefully? Satirist and free speech activist Konstantin Kisin added, What is the world coming to when you cant even hijack a plane and crash it into a building full of innocent people for peace? (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Two mayoral hopefuls in the Mexican city of Maravatio have been gunned down within hours of each other, as experts warn the June 2 national elections could be the countrys most violent on record. The widening control of drug cartels in Mexico has been described as a threat. During the last nationwide election in 2021, about three dozen candidates were killed. The campaigns havent even started yet. They formally begin on Friday. On Tuesday, this farming town, where most of the men wear boots and big belt buckles, was in a state of wary shock following the previous days killings. Dozens of state police were visible around city hall. Talking about gynecologist Miguel Angel Zavala, one of the murdered aspiring candidates, Maravatio resident and homemaker Carmen Luna said the crime was shocking and incomprehensible. The way I see it, theres no explanation for killing a person it might have been a power struggle between them. Luna was one of Zavalas patients, and she ruled out any potential personal motive in his killing. He was one of the best doctors in town, she said. He took care of me and was very good. He was very friendly. While she hasnt voted in years whether its one or the other, everything stays the same Luna said the killings left people angry and feeling powerless, because if the government doesnt do anything, you cant do anything. Maravatio Mayor Jaime Hinojosa Campa said he had not been told about threats against the mayoral hopefuls, but that everything points toward organized crime being behind the killings. He said authorities were working on security protocols for the remaining candidates who were understandably frightened. What happened yesterday scared all of us, he said. State prosecutors said Tuesday that Armando Perez Luna was found shot to death in his car in Maravatio just before midnight. He was the mayoral candidate for the conservative National Action Party. This illustrates the extremely serious level of violence and lack of safety that prevails ahead of the most important elections in Mexican history, National Actions leader, Marko Cortes, wrote on social media. Hours earlier, officials with the ruling Morena party confirmed their mayoral hopeful, Zavala, was found shot to death Monday in his car. The Morena party state committee said in a statement that the killing of Zavala was a cowardly and reprehensible act. The head of the Morena party in Michoacan, Juan Pablo Celis, said Zavala had announced his intention to run but had not yet been designated as the partys candidate. Another Morena mayoral hopeful was killed last year. Retiree Catalina Padilla was busy packing charity packages at the local Catholic Churchs food bank. She said the city had started getting violent around 2019. Before, we would go out at night, but now if there isnt a reason to go out, you dont, Padilla said. She said Dagoberto Garcia, the local Morena leader, was the other hopeful who initially disappeared last October until his shot and decomposed body was found in a rural area in November. It could be that they dont want anyone from Morena, she said, suggesting that killing Perez, of the conservative PAN, was maybe a way to make it appear that the killings were not directed at one party. The western state of Michoacan has been particularly hard hit by gang turf wars, with the Jalisco New Generation cartel fighting a local gang, the Viagras, for control. The watchdog group Civic Data said in a January report on political violence that 2023 was the most violent year in our database. And everything suggests that 2024 will be worse. Mayoral, state and federal elections are increasingly synchronized on one election day. It is likely that the biggest elections in history will also suffer the biggest attacks from organized crime, Civic Data said. Michoacan had the fifth-highest number of attacks on politicians and government officials in 2023, behind Guerrero state to the south and Guanajuato to the north. Zacatecas and Veracruz also had a higher number of attacks. Civic Data said five people intending to run for office were killed in Mexico in January. In a report published earlier this month, Integralia Consultants wrote that organized crime will intervene like never before in local elections in 2024 because more mayors offices are at stake, more cartels are engaged in turf wars and cartels have expanded their business model far beyond drugs. Cartels make much of their money extorting protection payments from local businesses and even local governments. Thats why mayoral races are more important to them than national elections and often become violent. The violence has a chilling effect on democracy at the most local level. Maravatio resident Marcos Bautista said Zavala and Perez were political newcomers, respected local figures making their first foray into politics in a country tired of career politicians. They didnt hold positions before, they were just starting out and theyre finishing them off, Bautista said, noting that the only politicians left would be those willing to support the criminals. Who is going to govern us? I feel like voting isnt going to solve anything, said Miguel Angel Negrete, another resident, adding that the killings take away your rights make you afraid these people could come to the voting booths. (AP) The IDF says it carried out a series of strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza yesterday, including a command center and a rocket launcher used to carry out a rocket attack on southern Israel. According to the IDF, the strikes were carried out several hours after rocket fire on Kissufim and Reim. The Israeli Air Force struck several Hamas targets in central Gaza, including an apartment used as a command center to carry out the rocket fire and another apartment from which Hamas gunmen opened fire at troops. The IDF also struck a rocket launcher used in the attack. Meanwhile, the IDF says it is continuing a large-scale operation in Gaza Citys Zeitoun neighborhood, during which the 401st Armored Brigade is raiding Hamas sites and killing gunmen, including by calling in airstrikes. The IDF says troops operating in Zeitoun located a weapons depot, a weapons manufacturing plant, rocket launchers, and unspecified systems used by Hamas against forces in Gaza. Amid the operation, the IDF says, the troops also located a tunnel shaft where several Hamas gunmen were hiding. The troops destroyed the shaft and eliminated the terrorists, the IDF said. In central Gaza, the IDF says the Nachal Brigade killed several more Hamas operatives and raided sites used by the terror group, locating weapons. Combat engineers operating with Nahal destroyed dozens of military buildings used by Hamas. Meanwhile, in southern Gazas Khan Younis, the IDF says soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade and 7th Armored Brigade captured several Hamas operatives who attempted to flee the area along with evacuating civilians. Troops of the two brigades also killed several Hamas gunmen in Khan Younis, the IDF says. The Givati Brigade, meanwhile, operated in eastern Khan Younis to clear the area of Hamas infrastructure, including in areas close to Israeli border communities, the IDF says. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Two IDF has announced that two soldiers were RL killed in battle in Gaza on Tuesday, and an additional seven others were seriously wounded. The two soldiers have been identified as: Maj. Yiftach Shachar, HYD, from Paran, a small moshav in the Arava. Shachar, zl, a company commander in the Givati Brigade, is the fourth fallen soldier from the council to be killed since the beginning of the war in Gaza. He left behind his parents and siblings. Cpt. Itai Seif HYD, 24, a platoon commander in the Givati Brigades Tzabar Battalion, from Yerucham. Their deaths raises the death toll of the ground war in Gaza since the beginning of the war to 242. As YWN reported earlier on Tuesday, seven soldiers were seriously wounded when an explosive device detonated. All seven are Talmidim of the Yeshivat Hesder HaGolan. The names for tefillah are: (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) In an unprecedented move, the American government has launched an investigation into Finkelstein Metals, a Israeli company that produces critical parts for the Iron Dome, over allegations of receiving prohibited government subsidies. The investigation has sparked concerns among Israeli officials, as it could have far-reaching implications for Israeli exporters to the US, including the defense industry. According to US authorities, grants received by Finkelstein Metals allowed the company to sell its products in the US at inflated prices, which is a violation of trade agreements between the two countries. However, Israeli officials argue that the companys activities in the US are minimal compared to American complainants and that the investigation contradicts the decades-old trade agreement. Sanctions and customs duties have already been imposed on Finkelstein Metals, which could significantly impair its ability to operate regularly and may endanger the supplies required for the defense industry, such as the Iron Dome. The Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Association of Manufacturers have entered the picture, with Ron Tomer, the President of the Manufacturers Association, warning of the unusual situation that could lead to damage to other companies. Finkelstein Metals is defined as an essential enterprise for the industry and is the only Israeli company that produces brass, bronze, and copper alloy products. It employs 80 workers from the northern region and is Rafaels sole supplier of metal bars for producing ammunition for Iron Dome batteries. The investigation could have a dramatic impact on the entire trade relationship between Israel and the US, with broad implications for Israeli exporters to the US. Government benefits for industrial plants in development areas are often a necessary condition for the establishment of the plants, and if the American government decides that benefits of this type constitute a prohibited subsidy, it could lead to a wave of additional lawsuits by Israeli exporters to the US. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) A nine-year-old girl from Tzfas has been missing since Sunday evening and fears for her safety are growing as hundreds of police officers and volunteers continue to search for her. Haymanut Kasau, 9, has lived in an absorption center in Tzfas since making made aliyah with her family from Ethiopia three years ago. On Sunday evening, she failed to return home after spending time with her friends outside the center distributing municipal election pamphlets. Her family called the police, who examined security camera footage which showed the last footage of her at 7:45 p.m. on Sunday evening. Police officers thoroughly searched the absorption center and the surrounding area but no clues were found. The search has continued ever since, with hundreds of police officers and volunteers from various organizations participating in the effort. Police suspect that she may have been snatched by a child molester and are monitoring people in the area who have committed previous offenses. Aaron Strycher, a spokesperson for the Israel Dog Unit (IDU), one of the organizations aiding in the search, told Arutz Sheva: As the search goes on, the concerns get stronger. There is no proof that she left the absorption center and she hasnt been seen since. We have no other leads as to what happened to her. Two hours after the Israel Police were contacted to help find her, the police contacted other volunteer organizations, including the Israel Dog Unit, which began searching. This is one of the largest searches in which we have participated in recent years. We assigned this incident supreme importance because the victim is only a nine-year-old girl who disappeared one evening. No such thing has happened in recent years. The police are of course involved in investigations. We are involved in searching the city around the absorption center, but there is a lot of undeveloped land around it. There are thousands of searchers at work, including civilians from every part of Israel, members of the Ethiopian community, and others who came to help find the girl as fast as possible, because the threat level is getting higher. This is a race against time. I am currently in the Meron forest because the police have decided to expand the search to here as well. We are searching for any sign that could help solve this mystery, he said, adding that parents in the area are extremely worried due to other unsolved incidents in the region involving children. There are parents who fear to send their children to school, which is another reason that we cannot leave a case like this unsolved. We must reach her, if only to allay these fears, which are at least partially justified. As far as we are concerned, all options are open, and as long as we have not heard otherwise we are assuming she is alive. Police are asking for the publics help in locating her. Anyone who knows anything about her whereabouts is asked to contact the Israel Police hotline 100 or the Tzfas Police Department at 04-6978444. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) A mob attacked a synagogue in the southeastern city of Sfax, Tunisia, on Sunday, setting fire to the buildings courtyard and damaging windows, according to local media reports. The attack, which took place in a city where no members of Tunisias small Jewish population reside, is the latest in a series of apparent antisemitic incidents amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. Fortunately, no one was injured in the attack, which was contained by firefighters before the blaze could spread to the rest of the building. Tunisias Jewish community, which once numbered over 100,000 in 1948 but is now estimated to be less than 1,000. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) Bitcoin has topped $60,000 for the first time in more than two years as investors pile in to the cryptocurrency. The digital coin was trading at $61,870 by 5.30pmin the UK, up 8.4 per cent for the day, taking gains to 40 per cent this year. It has not been changing hands at these levels since November 2021, when it was trading at a record high of $69,000. Some analysts now believe bitcoin is on course to hit $100,000 this summer. However, others remain sceptical and forecast that a crash is just as likely, while regulators continue to warn that anyone who buys crypto could end up with nothing. Crypto rally: Bitcoin hit a high of $57,462 yesterday - taking gains to 10% this week and 35% this year Walid Koudmani, an analyst at broker XTB, said that nothing is certain in the world of crypto. 'It seems difficult that the price of bitcoin would almost double until June as markets usually tend to see corrections on their way up or down,' he said. 'The interesting thing for the crypto market is that, while it may seem quite improbable, it is impossible to rule out.' This week's rally kicked off on Monday when software firm MicroStrategy said it was buying 3,000 bitcoin tokens for around 120million, taking its holding to over 9billion. MicroStrategy is thought to be the largest publicly listed holder of bitcoin in the world and its latest swoop was seen as a vote of confidence in the wider crypto sector. Greta Yuan, head of research at digital asset platform VDX, said the market was 'encouraged by crypto bulls such as Micro-Strategy' with the price of smaller rival Ether also climbing on the announcement. Yuan added that crypto was also benefiting from a wave of investments in exchange traded funds linked to its price - Spot bitcoin ETFs - after approval from US regulators. At the end of January, the Security and Exchange Commission gave the go-ahead to 11 bitcoin ETFs, including funds from Wall Street giants BlackRock and Fidelity. Previously, the only way to buy bitcoin in the US was from an exchange, which can be an intimidating process and involves technical aspects such as wallets and keys. Bitcoin could get a further lift this year from another so-called 'halving' event. This is when the reward for bitcoin mining is cut in half. Generally happening every four years, it is designed to slow the release of the currency. ROME, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- More than 12,000 leading artists, curators, writers and other cultural figures have signed an open letter, calling for Israel to be excluded from the Venice Art Biennale this year in protest of its ongoing "atrocities" in Gaza. Israel is currently expected to sponsor one of the national pavilions at the 60th edition of the Art Biennale, which will run from April 20 to Nov. 24 in Venice. The campaign was organized by the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), a newly formed activist group. Those who have endorsed the petition argue that allowing the Israeli Pavilion to open amounted to "platforming art representing a state engaged in ongoing atrocities" in Gaza. As of late Tuesday, the ANGA has collected more than 12,000 signatories for the letter and the number is still on the rise. Many of the people who signed the letter are current or past participants in the Biennale. The Venice Biennale is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. The event has been organized every year since 1895. We know everything about you. We know where you live. It sounds like a threat straight out of a Hollywood thriller. Except I wasnt at the cinema, I was in my kitchen on a Saturday evening and this wasnt empty intimidation. A cocksure young man with an East London accent had just called my mobile and, indeed, read out my address. My heart was racing. The threat felt as immediate as if hed just broken through my front door in person. Trying to control my breathing so it wouldnt betray me, I asked what he wanted. Fifty sovs [pounds] and well leave you alone. Sarah Cottwood was hounded by a telephone scammer demanding money after she ordered some earrings from a Now, I am in my 50s, live in London and safeguard myself pretty successfully. Ive been a victim of crime only once, 35 years ago, when my pocket was picked in Rome. I guessed that 50 sovs wouldnt be the end of his demands. How on earth did I find myself here, being threatened by a thief? It began with a pair of earrings by a Danish brand called Anni Lu, which is stocked by Liberty and Selfridges. I wanted to treat myself and these were perfect. They were only 39, but out of habit I Googled them to see if I could find them cheaper. My search unearthed a website where they were (and still are) 223 Danish krone, or 25.60. If I had researched the site, Id have discovered that it has a scant digital footprint. Oddly, given that it has nothing to do with Anni Lu, it sells nothing but Anni Lu jewellery. It appears on no review websites and there are no social media mentions of this jewellery seller. On the site, there are no details about who owns the company or where its based. If you Google the images from its holding pages a woman in a flowery dress; a trio of teenagers they appear to have been lifted from a French clothing catalogue called 3 Suisses and fashion firm Forever 21s Facebook page. Later, I found an old mention of the website on the Facebook page of a car workshop in Peru. But the domain was re-registered in the Cocos Islands (specks in the Indian Ocean) in 2022. Its owner is unverifiable, as their details are shielded by an online privacy service called whoisprotection.cc. But I was unaware of all of this. I was in a hurry as I was meeting a friend at the cinema and I didnt stop to think about what I was doing. Despite never having heard of this website, I started filling in my debit card details, which were (presumably) sold on. Fraud is now the most common offence in England and Wales, accounting for more than 40 per cent of crimes, and four out of five frauds are cyber-enabled, according to the National Crime Agency. A survey by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance revealed that around ten per cent of UK adults fell prey to a scam in the year to September 2023. In just the first six months of last year, 580 million was lost to financial fraud, says UK Finance. One type of cyber fraud is formjacking, where hackers insert malicious code into a legitimate website to copy the information that is supplied by customers. I dont think this was formjacking, though, because I never received the earrings and the transaction didnt register in my bank account. Threat: Fraud is now the most common offence in England and Wales, accounting for more than 40% of crimes, and four out of five frauds are cyber-enabled One thing might have alerted me to the fact that I was being scammed: an odd-looking pop-up payment window. I hesitated and made a mental note of its URL: oats.allinpay.com. OATS stands for Overseas Acquiring Treasure System. Id been well and truly had. I discovered this three hours later, when I got home. My mobile rang, an 0345 number. A polite man said he was calling from my bank to verify a transaction. Hurrah, I thought HSBC sporadically checks my activity, and finally it was happening when something was niggling at me, too. He launched into a question about my account, the second half of which disappeared into a crackle. Even as I asked him to repeat it, my brain was screaming at me: He hasnt asked you any security questions! Panicking, I hung up, blaming the poor reception. I fired up my mobiles banking app and found 20 had been paid to an unknown Starling Bank account. My phone rang again a mobile number. I rejected the call. Feeling sick, I fumbled my way to the apps manage cards section and froze my debit card. My phone was ringing repeatedly. I decided to front up to the challenge and answered. It was the man whose call began this story. He asked if I was Sarah Cottwood. Who is this? I said. His response of You dont need to know that made me hang up. After a volley of calls, I picked up again and he rattled off my address and demanded 50. My response? The first thing that came to mind: F*** off. When I told a policeman this, he advised, funnily enough, against that. Itll only antagonise a thief. And antagonise him it did. For the next 72 hours, my phone rang incessantly. I had it on silent and didnt respond. Each time an unknown mobile number appeared Id block it, but theyd just find another phone to use. I am not easily intimidated, but I was nervous about leaving the house, so called 101 (the police non-emergency number to report crimes). I wanted these mobile numbers on record, in case they flashed up in other crime reports. When I mentioned the scammer saying We know where you live, the call handler made an appointment for a PC to visit me at home the next day. It was a reassuring response (although the Met did fail to send me the crime number assigned to my case). The officer said it was unlikely that the caller would turn up at my house, as the people who commit faceless fraud are not the sort to engage in direct confrontation. He predicted that once they realised that I had blocked their access to my money, theyd give up and move on to their next victim. And they did. After several rather confusing conversations with HSBC, I was told that this is not considered theft because I volunteered my card details. Wanting to leave the sorry episode behind, I didnt challenge this. An HSBC UK spokesman says: Scammers are devious criminals who use a range of techniques to steal money from people without any concern for their mental and financial wellbeing. It is good that your reader didnt share personal details [to the callers], which could have left her open to scams in the future. If people think theyve been a victim of fraud or a scam, they should call the number on the back of their bank card immediately. I may be 20 down, but I got off lightly and learnt an important lesson. Britain's biggest car battery factory looks set to get off the ground in a much-needed boost for the motor industry. Agratas, a new business within the Tata Group, will today outline plans to build a gigafactory to produce batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) at the Gravity Smart Campus site in Puriton, near Bridgwater, Somerset. The plant will be the biggest of its kind in the country and, by the early 2030s, will contribute almost half of the battery manufacturing capacity required for the UK car industry. It will also create up to 4,000 jobs and even more across the supply chain. Charging ahead: Agratas, a business within the Tata Group, is planning to build a gigafactory to produce batteries for electric vehicles at a site in Puriton, Somerset Construction will be completed in phases, with battery production set to begin in 2026. The factory looks set to bolster Britain's EV sector, which has had a rocky ride in the past year from the collapse of Britishvolt to the crisis surrounding the lack of electric chargers. Indian car giant Tata last year said the site in south-west England had been selected ahead of a rival location in Spain. It came after long-running talks between Whitehall officials and the firm as well as a private discussion last May between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Tata. Bill Revans, the leader of Somerset Council, said: 'This is momentous for the county, its economy and for future generations.' Passionate: Starling founder Anne Boden is leading a new Government-backed taskforce to boost investment Starling founder Anne Boden has called time on men in gilets dominating investment as she looks to push more cash towards female founders. The Welsh entrepreneur, who set up the online bank in 2014, said women remain at a huge disadvantage because people invest in people who look and sound like themselves. Launching a Government-backed taskforce to get more funding into female-led companies, Boden, 64, told the Mail: I passionately believe that it is not about fixing the women but fixing the system. As it stands, women founders receive just 2 per cent of all venture capital funding in the UK. Venture capital is one of the main ways that entrepreneurs can raise money for early-stage businesses. The industry generally invests in ideas that they see as high growth. And Boden largely blames this gender gap on the systemic issues that lurk beneath the surface. Drawing on her own experience of raising money for Starling, Boden said: I know very well that when I walked into a room, I would be faced with a row of men in their 30s wearing their gilets and all looking and sounding the same. I had a huge disadvantage. People invest in people who look and sound like themselves. She said the taskforce where she is chairman hopes to change that dynamic. The recommendations include encouraging investment firms to collect and publish data about their own gender balance as female investment professionals are more likely to back female founded and led businesses. Research from the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association has found that just 11 pc of senior investment roles are held by women and 13 per cent of firms lack a single woman in their investing teams. Boden, who stepped down as Starling chief executive last June but still has a near-5 per cent stake and a seat on the board, took over 300 meetings before she was able to raise capital. Women have plenty of confidence, what they dont have is investment, she said. Yet the report does not implement compulsory targets for investment firms to meet meaning that their ambitions could land on deaf ears. Boden argues that the taskforce needs to toe a sensitive line to not put off foreign investors, who may feel alienated by strict quotas. She said: Generally, I believe in hard targets. But with this issue, we must be incredibly careful that we continue to bring in external investment into the UK. If we have hard targets, funding will just go to another country rather than the UK. The taskforce emphasises that it is not just female founders that will feel the benefits of a more equal playing field. The Rose Review a separate state-backed initiative found that up to 250billion could be added to the economy if women started and scaled new businesses at the same rate as men. The Government is also planning to conduct ongoing research into how funding works at women-led high-growth companies. The taskforce was created in 2022 by Liz Truss when she was minister for women and equalities. Members also include Sam Smith, founder and former chief executive of FinnCap, a brokerage firm, and June Angelides, an investor at Samos, a venture capital investor. Vodafone shares have fallen by over 30% in the last year Vodafone has confirmed it is in talks to sell its Italian business to Switzerlands Swisscom in a deal worth around 6.8billion. The duo said on Wednesday they were in advanced exclusive discussions, with the proposed agreed price on a cash basis and including debts, although the full terms of the deal are yet to be finalised. It follows weeks of speculation over the future of Vodafone's Italian business and the sale of its Spanish unit last year, as the group continues to offload underperforming operations. Talks: Vodafone has confirmed it is in talks to sell its Italian business to Switzerlands Swisscom In a stock market update, Vodafone said: 'Vodafone has engaged extensively with several parties to explore market consolidation in Italy and believes this potential transaction delivers the best combination of value creation, upfront cash proceeds and transaction certainty for Vodafone shareholders.' It comes after FTSE 100-listed Vodafone rebuffed attempts by Frances Iliad to merge the two firms Italian businesses, which would have created the countrys biggest mobile phone company. Vodafone and Iliad had revealed the talks in December last year. The Iliad proposal valued Vodafone Italy at around 8.9 billion, and Iliad Italy at 3.8billion. Vodafone would have gained half of the share capital of the combined group, as well as a 5.6billion cash payment and a 1.7billion shareholder loan. Swisscom said it plans to merge Vodafone Italia with its business in the country, called Fastweb. Swisscom said: 'The planned merger of Vodafone Italia and Fastweb would bring together complementary high-quality mobile and fixed infrastructures, competencies, and capabilities to create a leading converged challenger. 'The increased scale, more efficient cost structure and significant synergy potential would enable the combined entity to unlock value for all stakeholders.' Vodafone has been looking to free up cash and bolster its financial performance by selling off parts of the business, including its Spanish arm, having previously struck deals to sell its Hungarian and Ghanaian divisions. It is also merging its UK business with Three UK to create the UK's biggest mobile phone network, worth 15billion. The proposed merger of the networks is due to be investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority amid concerns it could substantially reduce options for mobile customers, but Vodafone is hoping to complete the tie-up by the end of the year. Vodafone is planning to cut about 11,000 jobs over three years as part of efforts to simplify the global business. About a third of the role reductions had already been completed by January this year. In a recent trading update for the final three months of 2023, Vodafone said total revenue hit 11.4billion in the three months to December, down 2.3 per cent on the same period the previous year. In the UK, service revenue increased by 5.2 per cent, but it was a less upbeat picture for Vodafones biggest market, Germany, where service revenue edged by just 0.3 per cent. Earlier this month, Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: 'In recent years Vodafone has been a business with all the alacrity of a beached whale and theres nothing in its third quarter statement to get investors particularly excited.' Vodafone shares were down 0.26 per cent or 0.18p to 68.22p on Wednesday afternoon, having fallen over 30 per cent in the last year. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. lessened its position in The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG Free Report) by 9.3% in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 16,103 shares of the companys stock after selling 1,652 shares during the period. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.s holdings in Procter & Gamble were worth $2,349,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in PG. Wunderlich Capital Managemnt bought a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble in the second quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. bought a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble in the second quarter valued at approximately $50,000. CGC Financial Services LLC bought a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble in the second quarter valued at approximately $55,000. VitalStone Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble in the second quarter valued at approximately $60,000. Finally, RVW Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble in the third quarter valued at approximately $77,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 63.43% of the companys stock. Get Procter & Gamble alerts: Procter & Gamble Trading Down 0.4 % PG traded down $0.71 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $159.51. 1,610,844 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 7,473,312. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $152.63 and a two-hundred day moving average of $151.03. The stock has a market capitalization of $375.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.84, a P/E/G ratio of 3.29 and a beta of 0.45. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48, a current ratio of 0.64 and a quick ratio of 0.44. The Procter & Gamble Company has a 52 week low of $136.10 and a 52 week high of $161.74. Procter & Gamble Dividend Announcement Procter & Gamble ( NYSE:PG Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 23rd. The company reported $1.84 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.70 by $0.14. Procter & Gamble had a return on equity of 34.04% and a net margin of 17.60%. The business had revenue of $21.44 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $21.48 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.59 EPS. Procter & Gambles quarterly revenue was up 3.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts anticipate that The Procter & Gamble Company will post 6.45 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 15th. Investors of record on Friday, January 19th were paid a $0.9407 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 18th. This represents a $3.76 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.36%. Procter & Gambles payout ratio is currently 62.98%. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, insider Susan Street Whaley sold 3,865 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.60, for a total value of $620,719.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 11,886 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,908,891.60. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other Procter & Gamble news, CEO R. Alexandra Keith sold 6,575 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, November 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $153.47, for a total transaction of $1,009,065.25. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 5,620 shares in the company, valued at approximately $862,501.40. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Susan Street Whaley sold 3,865 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $160.60, for a total value of $620,719.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 11,886 shares in the company, valued at $1,908,891.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 284,862 shares of company stock worth $44,074,117 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.17% of the companys stock. Analysts Set New Price Targets PG has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on Procter & Gamble from $169.00 to $162.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 18th. Barclays lifted their price target on Procter & Gamble from $160.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Procter & Gamble from $155.00 to $157.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. UBS Group lifted their price target on Procter & Gamble from $172.00 to $178.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on Procter & Gamble in a report on Monday, November 13th. They set a buy rating and a $177.00 price target on the stock. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Procter & Gamble presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $167.50. Get Our Latest Research Report on Procter & Gamble Procter & Gamble Profile (Free Report) The Procter & Gamble Company provides branded consumer packaged goods worldwide. It operates through five segments: Beauty; Grooming; Health Care; Fabric & Home Care; and Baby, Feminine & Family Care. The Beauty segment offers conditioners, shampoos, styling aids, and treatments under the Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences, Pantene, and Rejoice brands; and antiperspirants and deodorants, personal cleansing, and skin care products under the Olay, Old Spice, Safeguard, Secret, and SK-II brands. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding PG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Procter & Gamble Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Procter & Gamble and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC reduced its holdings in shares of Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA Free Report) by 0.7% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 301,725 shares of the credit services providers stock after selling 2,050 shares during the quarter. Mastercard comprises 1.5% of Morningstar Investment Services LLCs investment portfolio, making the stock its 14th biggest position. Morningstar Investment Services LLCs holdings in Mastercard were worth $120,524,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of MA. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Mastercard by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 35,255,582 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $13,866,020,000 after purchasing an additional 495,768 shares in the last quarter. Capital International Investors lifted its stake in Mastercard by 6.8% in the 2nd quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 19,377,705 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $7,620,937,000 after purchasing an additional 1,240,661 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Mastercard by 1.7% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 16,643,273 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $6,529,235,000 after purchasing an additional 274,679 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its stake in Mastercard by 17.7% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 15,843,692 shares of the credit services providers stock worth $5,509,328,000 after purchasing an additional 2,385,640 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Mastercard in the 4th quarter worth approximately $3,308,223,000. 74.94% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Mastercard alerts: Insider Transactions at Mastercard In other news, insider Craig Vosburg sold 13,542 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $460.06, for a total value of $6,230,132.52. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 46,491 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $21,388,649.46. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, insider Ajay Bhalla sold 4,000 shares of Mastercard stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $425.00, for a total transaction of $1,700,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 6,235 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,649,875. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Craig Vosburg sold 13,542 shares of Mastercard stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $460.06, for a total transaction of $6,230,132.52. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 46,491 shares of the companys stock, valued at $21,388,649.46. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 30,540 shares of company stock valued at $13,542,519. Company insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Mastercard from $462.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Barclays decreased their price target on shares of Mastercard from $479.00 to $470.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Monday, October 30th. KeyCorp increased their price target on shares of Mastercard from $475.00 to $490.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. William Blair reissued an outperform rating on shares of Mastercard in a report on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their price target on shares of Mastercard from $425.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, December 12th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $471.85. View Our Latest Analysis on Mastercard Mastercard Trading Down 0.3 % Mastercard stock traded down $1.55 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $472.96. The stock had a trading volume of 831,824 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,491,250. The stock has a market cap of $441.22 billion, a PE ratio of 40.12, a PEG ratio of 1.80 and a beta of 1.08. Mastercard Incorporated has a 52 week low of $340.21 and a 52 week high of $475.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.06, a current ratio of 1.17 and a quick ratio of 1.17. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $441.41 and a 200-day simple moving average of $415.49. Mastercard (NYSE:MA Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 31st. The credit services provider reported $3.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $3.08 by $0.10. The business had revenue of $6.55 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.46 billion. Mastercard had a net margin of 44.60% and a return on equity of 191.22%. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.65 EPS. Analysts forecast that Mastercard Incorporated will post 14.36 EPS for the current fiscal year. Mastercard declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 5th that allows the company to buyback $11.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the credit services provider to repurchase up to 2.9% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the companys board of directors believes its stock is undervalued. Mastercard Announces Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 9th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, April 9th will be given a $0.66 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, April 8th. This represents a $2.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.56%. Mastercards dividend payout ratio is 22.32%. Mastercard Company Profile (Free Report) Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. The company offers integrated products and value-added services for account holders, merchants, financial institutions, digital partners, businesses, governments, and other organizations, such as programs that enable issuers to provide consumers with credits to defer payments; payment products and solutions that allow its customers to access funds in deposit and other accounts; prepaid programs services; and commercial credit, debit, and prepaid payment products and solutions. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Mastercard Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mastercard and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co. cut its stake in shares of Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA Free Report) by 3.7% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 24,982 shares of the credit services providers stock after selling 960 shares during the quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia Trust Co.s holdings in Mastercard were worth $9,891,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Mastercard in the 4th quarter valued at about $3,308,223,000. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Mastercard by 111,819.8% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 5,983,231 shares of the credit services providers stock valued at $2,080,549,000 after purchasing an additional 5,977,885 shares during the period. Osaic Holdings Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Mastercard by 900.1% in the 2nd quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 2,903,107 shares of the credit services providers stock valued at $115,047,000 after purchasing an additional 2,612,838 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley lifted its stake in shares of Mastercard by 17.7% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 15,843,692 shares of the credit services providers stock valued at $5,509,328,000 after purchasing an additional 2,385,640 shares during the period. Finally, Barclays PLC lifted its stake in shares of Mastercard by 145.7% in the 2nd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 2,960,242 shares of the credit services providers stock valued at $1,164,263,000 after purchasing an additional 1,755,483 shares during the period. 74.94% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Mastercard alerts: Mastercard Stock Performance Shares of MA stock traded down $2.67 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $471.84. The companys stock had a trading volume of 739,775 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,488,916. The company has a market cap of $440.17 billion, a PE ratio of 40.12, a P/E/G ratio of 1.80 and a beta of 1.08. The company has a current ratio of 1.17, a quick ratio of 1.17 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.06. The business has a fifty day moving average of $441.41 and a 200-day moving average of $415.49. Mastercard Incorporated has a 52 week low of $340.21 and a 52 week high of $475.17. Mastercard ( NYSE:MA Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, January 31st. The credit services provider reported $3.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.08 by $0.10. Mastercard had a return on equity of 191.22% and a net margin of 44.60%. The company had revenue of $6.55 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.46 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.65 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Mastercard Incorporated will post 14.36 earnings per share for the current year. Mastercard announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, December 5th that authorizes the company to buyback $11.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the credit services provider to reacquire up to 2.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the companys board of directors believes its stock is undervalued. Mastercard Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 9th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, April 9th will be issued a dividend of $0.66 per share. This represents a $2.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.56%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, April 8th. Mastercards dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 22.32%. Insider Buying and Selling at Mastercard In other Mastercard news, insider Craig Vosburg sold 8,900 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $430.26, for a total transaction of $3,829,314.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 46,491 shares of the companys stock, valued at $20,003,217.66. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other Mastercard news, insider Ajay Bhalla sold 98 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, January 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $439.52, for a total transaction of $43,072.96. Following the sale, the insider now owns 6,235 shares in the company, valued at $2,740,407.20. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Craig Vosburg sold 8,900 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $430.26, for a total value of $3,829,314.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 46,491 shares in the company, valued at approximately $20,003,217.66. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 30,540 shares of company stock valued at $13,542,519. Company insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades MA has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Barclays dropped their price objective on Mastercard from $479.00 to $470.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, October 30th. William Blair reaffirmed an outperform rating on shares of Mastercard in a research note on Wednesday, January 31st. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on Mastercard from $425.00 to $480.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 12th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on Mastercard from $480.00 to $490.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, February 1st. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on Mastercard from $433.00 to $482.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Mastercard currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $471.85. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on MA Mastercard Profile (Free Report) Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. The company offers integrated products and value-added services for account holders, merchants, financial institutions, digital partners, businesses, governments, and other organizations, such as programs that enable issuers to provide consumers with credits to defer payments; payment products and solutions that allow its customers to access funds in deposit and other accounts; prepaid programs services; and commercial credit, debit, and prepaid payment products and solutions. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Mastercard Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Mastercard and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Laurentian Bank of Canada (TSE:LB Get Free Report) is set to announce its earnings results before the market opens on Thursday, February 29th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of C$1.00 per share for the quarter. Laurentian Bank of Canada (TSE:LB Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 7th. The company reported C$1.00 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of C$1.13 by C($0.13). Laurentian Bank of Canada had a net margin of 18.79% and a return on equity of 6.42%. The firm had revenue of C$247.45 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of C$261.30 million. Get Laurentian Bank of Canada alerts: Laurentian Bank of Canada Stock Up 2.1 % TSE LB opened at C$27.32 on Wednesday. Laurentian Bank of Canada has a 52 week low of C$24.92 and a 52 week high of C$48.23. The firm has a 50 day moving average of C$26.81 and a two-hundred day moving average of C$28.76. The stock has a market capitalization of C$1.19 billion, a PE ratio of 7.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.25. Laurentian Bank of Canada Announces Dividend Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 1st. Investors of record on Thursday, February 1st were issued a $0.47 dividend. This represents a $1.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.88%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, January 2nd. Laurentian Bank of Canadas dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.33%. Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Raymond James upped their price objective on Laurentian Bank of Canada from C$29.00 to C$32.00 and gave the stock a market perform rating in a research report on Friday, December 8th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on shares of Laurentian Bank of Canada from C$33.00 to C$30.00 and set an underperform rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 8th. National Bankshares upped their target price on shares of Laurentian Bank of Canada from C$26.00 to C$28.00 and gave the company an underperform rating in a report on Wednesday, December 20th. TD Securities downgraded shares of Laurentian Bank of Canada from a buy rating to a hold rating and dropped their target price for the company from C$30.00 to C$26.00 in a research report on Friday, December 8th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reduced their price target on shares of Laurentian Bank of Canada from C$43.00 to C$33.00 and set a market perform rating for the company in a research report on Friday, December 8th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Laurentian Bank of Canada presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of C$31.09. View Our Latest Report on LB About Laurentian Bank of Canada (Get Free Report) Laurentian Bank of Canada, together with its subsidiaries, provides various financial services to personal, business, and institutional customers in Canada and the United States. It operates through three segments: Personal Banking, Commercial Banking, and Capital Markets. The Personal Banking segment offers financial services, such as financial advisory services to financial intermediaries; and operates digital direct-to-customer platform to retail clients. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Laurentian Bank of Canada Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Laurentian Bank of Canada and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. The Bank of Nova Scotia (NYSE:BNS Free Report) (TSE:BNS) Equities researchers at Cormark cut their Q1 2024 EPS estimates for Bank of Nova Scotia in a research note issued to investors on Friday, February 23rd. Cormark analyst L. Persaud now anticipates that the bank will post earnings of $1.21 per share for the quarter, down from their prior forecast of $1.36. The consensus estimate for Bank of Nova Scotias current full-year earnings is $4.89 per share. Get Bank of Nova Scotia alerts: Several other equities research analysts also recently commented on the stock. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Bank of Nova Scotia from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 29th. Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on shares of Bank of Nova Scotia in a research note on Thursday, February 22nd. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on shares of Bank of Nova Scotia from $73.00 to $68.00 and set a market perform rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, November 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and six have given a hold rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $69.00. Bank of Nova Scotia Stock Up 2.9 % BNS opened at $48.68 on Monday. Bank of Nova Scotia has a fifty-two week low of $39.79 and a fifty-two week high of $52.11. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a current ratio of 1.05 and a quick ratio of 1.05. The firms fifty day moving average price is $47.06 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $45.61. The company has a market capitalization of $59.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.35, a P/E/G ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 1.03. Bank of Nova Scotia (NYSE:BNS Get Free Report) (TSE:BNS) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 28th. The bank reported $0.93 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.21 by ($0.28). Bank of Nova Scotia had a return on equity of 11.87% and a net margin of 10.47%. The business had revenue of $8.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.98 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.55 EPS. The firms quarterly revenue was up 8.9% on a year-over-year basis. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Harbour Investments Inc. raised its holdings in Bank of Nova Scotia by 10.2% during the 4th quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. now owns 2,115 shares of the banks stock worth $104,000 after purchasing an additional 195 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers raised its holdings in Bank of Nova Scotia by 3.7% during the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 5,548 shares of the banks stock worth $398,000 after purchasing an additional 196 shares during the last quarter. First Manhattan Co. raised its holdings in Bank of Nova Scotia by 5.1% during the 4th quarter. First Manhattan Co. now owns 4,204 shares of the banks stock worth $206,000 after purchasing an additional 204 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Advisor Networks LLC raised its holdings in Bank of Nova Scotia by 4.7% during the 2nd quarter. Cetera Advisor Networks LLC now owns 4,772 shares of the banks stock worth $239,000 after purchasing an additional 214 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Power Corp of Canada raised its holdings in Bank of Nova Scotia by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Power Corp of Canada now owns 12,037 shares of the banks stock worth $587,000 after purchasing an additional 226 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 43.18% of the companys stock. Bank of Nova Scotia Company Profile (Get Free Report) The Bank of Nova Scotia provides various banking products and services in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, the Caribbean and Central America, and internationally. It operates through Canadian Banking, International Banking, Global Wealth Management, and Global Banking and Markets segments. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Bank of Nova Scotia Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of Nova Scotia and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Fomento Economico Mexicano (NYSE:FMX Get Free Report)s stock had its neutral rating restated by research analysts at Bank of America in a research report issued to clients and investors on Monday, Marketbeat reports. Several other analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Citigroup initiated coverage on Fomento Economico Mexicano in a research note on Thursday, December 7th. They set a neutral rating and a $134.00 price objective on the stock. StockNews.com upgraded Fomento Economico Mexicano from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Monday, December 11th. HSBC upgraded Fomento Economico Mexicano from a hold rating to a buy rating and increased their price target for the stock from $124.00 to $152.00 in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Barclays upgraded Fomento Economico Mexicano from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and increased their price target for the stock from $115.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Monday, October 30th. Finally, Itau BBA Securities cut Fomento Economico Mexicano from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and set a $127.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Tuesday, November 7th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $130.60. Get Fomento Economico Mexicano alerts: Check Out Our Latest Report on Fomento Economico Mexicano Fomento Economico Mexicano Trading Up 2.9 % Hedge Funds Weigh In On Fomento Economico Mexicano Shares of NYSE FMX opened at $121.84 on Monday. The stocks 50 day moving average price is $132.79 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $121.46. Fomento Economico Mexicano has a 52-week low of $85.66 and a 52-week high of $143.43. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a quick ratio of 1.64 and a current ratio of 1.93. A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S boosted its stake in shares of Fomento Economico Mexicano by 5.2% during the 2nd quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 5,575 shares of the companys stock worth $618,000 after acquiring an additional 275 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC grew its position in shares of Fomento Economico Mexicano by 170.3% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 17,782 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,941,000 after purchasing an additional 11,204 shares during the last quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Fomento Economico Mexicano in the third quarter valued at about $456,000. Bank of Montreal Can acquired a new stake in Fomento Economico Mexicano during the second quarter worth about $3,743,000. Finally, Black Creek Investment Management Inc. grew its position in Fomento Economico Mexicano by 10.1% during the third quarter. Black Creek Investment Management Inc. now owns 774,625 shares of the companys stock worth $84,550,000 after buying an additional 71,093 shares in the last quarter. Fomento Economico Mexicano Company Profile (Get Free Report) Fomento Economico Mexicano, SAB. de C.V., through its subsidiaries, operates as a bottler of Coca-Cola trademark beverages. The company produces, markets, and distributes Coca-Cola trademark beverages in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Fomento Economico Mexicano Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Fomento Economico Mexicano and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. LOS ANGELES, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Flight controllers continued to communicate with U.S. company Intuitive Machines' first lunar lander Odysseus Tuesday morning, and the lander's battery may last up to an additional 10 to 20 hours, the company said on Tuesday. The uncrewed lander landed at the lunar South Pole last Thursday, marking the first American spacecraft to land on the lunar surface in more than 50 years. Although the Odysseus touched down on lunar surface, analysis of data by flight engineers showed that the six-legged spacecraft tripped over its own feet during its final descent, according to the company. The spacecraft was believed to have caught one of its landing feet on the uneven lunar surface, and came to rest sideways. Flight Controllers continued to communicate with Odysseus Tuesday morning, and Odysseus efficiently sent payload of science data and imagery in furtherance of the company's mission objectives, Intuitive Machines tweeted. "Flight controllers are working on final determination of battery life on the lander, which may continue up to an additional 10 to 20 hours," said the company. Odysseus carries NASA science and other commercial payloads to the moon. The last U.S. moon landing mission was made in December 1972, when Apollo 17 touched down on the lunar surface for the final mission of the Apollo Program. Dutch Bros Inc. (NYSE:BROS Free Report) Research analysts at Wedbush issued their Q2 2025 earnings estimates for Dutch Bros in a note issued to investors on Thursday, February 22nd. Wedbush analyst N. Setyan forecasts that the company will post earnings of $0.15 per share for the quarter. Wedbush currently has a Outperform rating and a $37.00 price objective on the stock. The consensus estimate for Dutch Bros current full-year earnings is $0.26 per share. Wedbush also issued estimates for Dutch Bros Q3 2025 earnings at $0.15 EPS and Q4 2025 earnings at ($0.02) EPS. Get Dutch Bros alerts: Several other equities analysts have also issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Dutch Bros from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and upped their price target for the company from $30.00 to $35.00 in a research note on Monday, November 20th. William Blair reaffirmed an outperform rating on shares of Dutch Bros in a research note on Thursday, February 22nd. Barclays dropped their price target on shares of Dutch Bros from $31.00 to $30.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 22nd. TD Cowen reaffirmed a market perform rating and issued a $33.00 price objective on shares of Dutch Bros in a research note on Thursday, February 22nd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on shares of Dutch Bros from $35.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $33.88. Dutch Bros Stock Up 3.2 % Shares of BROS opened at $29.73 on Monday. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $28.47 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $27.63. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 960.33, a PEG ratio of 3.31 and a beta of 2.41. Dutch Bros has a 52 week low of $22.67 and a 52 week high of $35.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a current ratio of 1.83. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Dutch Bros A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Dutch Bros by 42.9% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 8,581,751 shares of the companys stock valued at $199,526,000 after purchasing an additional 2,578,145 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Dutch Bros by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,750,468 shares of the companys stock worth $150,447,000 after buying an additional 135,918 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its position in Dutch Bros by 191.7% during the 3rd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 1,177,148 shares of the companys stock worth $27,369,000 after buying an additional 773,616 shares in the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. acquired a new position in shares of Dutch Bros during the 4th quarter worth about $37,166,000. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in shares of Dutch Bros by 5.0% in the 2nd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 1,024,255 shares of the companys stock valued at $32,418,000 after acquiring an additional 49,097 shares in the last quarter. Insiders Place Their Bets In related news, Chairman Travis Boersma sold 404,950 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $28.06, for a total value of $11,362,897.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman now owns 1,378,683 shares in the company, valued at approximately $38,685,844.98. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. In related news, Chairman Travis Boersma sold 404,950 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $28.06, for a total value of $11,362,897.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chairman now directly owns 1,378,683 shares in the company, valued at approximately $38,685,844.98. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, COO Brian Maxwell sold 37,500 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.26, for a total transaction of $1,134,750.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 1,116,120 shares in the company, valued at $33,773,791.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 2,509,177 shares of company stock worth $73,505,079. Company insiders own 49.70% of the companys stock. About Dutch Bros (Get Free Report) Dutch Bros Inc operates and franchises drive-thru shops. The company offers coffee-based beverages, including custom drinks, cold brews, and freeze blended beverages, as well as Blue Rebel energy drinks. It also provides tea, lemonade, sodas, smoothies, and other beverages through company-operated shops and online channels. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Dutch Bros Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Dutch Bros and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Hanesbrands Inc. (NYSE:HBI Get Free Report) has received an average rating of Hold from the four research firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat.com reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation. The average 1-year price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $4.90. Several brokerages have weighed in on HBI. StockNews.com upgraded Hanesbrands from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, November 21st. Citigroup cut their price target on Hanesbrands from $5.00 to $4.50 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 16th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on Hanesbrands from $5.00 to $4.50 and set a hold rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, December 14th. Get Hanesbrands alerts: Get Our Latest Report on HBI Hanesbrands Stock Performance NYSE HBI opened at $5.15 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 7.72, a quick ratio of 0.65 and a current ratio of 1.64. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.81 billion, a P/E ratio of -102.90 and a beta of 1.57. Hanesbrands has a fifty-two week low of $3.54 and a fifty-two week high of $5.96. The stocks fifty day moving average is $4.40 and its two-hundred day moving average is $4.35. Hanesbrands (NYSE:HBI Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 15th. The textile maker reported $0.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.09 by ($0.06). The firm had revenue of $1.30 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.36 billion. Hanesbrands had a negative net margin of 0.31% and a positive return on equity of 5.84%. Hanesbrandss quarterly revenue was down 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.07 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Hanesbrands will post 0.44 earnings per share for the current year. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in shares of Hanesbrands by 4.0% in the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 683,233 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $10,174,000 after purchasing an additional 26,548 shares during the period. US Bancorp DE boosted its position in shares of Hanesbrands by 62.8% in the 1st quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 41,121 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $613,000 after purchasing an additional 15,870 shares during the period. Private Advisor Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Hanesbrands in the 1st quarter valued at about $160,000. Bank of Montreal Can boosted its position in shares of Hanesbrands by 22.3% in the 1st quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 361,860 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $5,608,000 after purchasing an additional 65,863 shares during the period. Finally, MetLife Investment Management LLC raised its stake in Hanesbrands by 38.9% during the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 235,075 shares of the textile makers stock valued at $3,500,000 after acquiring an additional 65,846 shares during the last quarter. 87.64% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Hanesbrands Company Profile (Get Free Report Hanesbrands Inc, a consumer goods company, designs, manufactures, sources, and sells a range of range of innerwear apparels for men, women, and children in the Americas, Europe, the Asia pacific, and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Innerwear, Activewear, and International. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Hanesbrands Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Hanesbrands and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mather Group LLC. grew its holdings in shares of EOG Resources, Inc. (NYSE:EOG Free Report) by 7.5% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 10,276 shares of the energy exploration companys stock after acquiring an additional 720 shares during the quarter. Mather Group LLC.s holdings in EOG Resources were worth $1,303,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the business. Prospera Financial Services Inc increased its stake in shares of EOG Resources by 196.9% during the second quarter. Prospera Financial Services Inc now owns 7,593 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $870,000 after acquiring an additional 5,036 shares during the period. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. acquired a new position in shares of EOG Resources during the 3rd quarter valued at $4,431,000. Capital International Inc. CA raised its stake in shares of EOG Resources by 21.0% in the 2nd quarter. Capital International Inc. CA now owns 122,241 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $13,989,000 after buying an additional 21,223 shares in the last quarter. Paradigm Financial Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of EOG Resources by 0.9% in the third quarter. Paradigm Financial Partners LLC now owns 30,004 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $3,728,000 after buying an additional 271 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in EOG Resources by 4.5% during the second quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,791,379 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $1,463,845,000 after buying an additional 551,835 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.21% of the companys stock. Get EOG Resources alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth EOG has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of EOG Resources from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and cut their price target for the company from $156.00 to $150.00 in a report on Wednesday, December 6th. Stifel Nicolaus cut their target price on shares of EOG Resources from $165.00 to $163.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 23rd. UBS Group decreased their price target on shares of EOG Resources from $165.00 to $145.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 14th. Morgan Stanley downgraded EOG Resources from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and set a $134.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Monday, December 11th. Finally, Mizuho decreased their target price on EOG Resources from $150.00 to $138.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 3rd. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $142.40. EOG Resources Stock Performance Shares of EOG opened at $113.94 on Wednesday. EOG Resources, Inc. has a 52 week low of $98.52 and a 52 week high of $136.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 2.13 and a current ratio of 2.44. The company has a market capitalization of $66.09 billion, a PE ratio of 8.76, a PEG ratio of 0.33 and a beta of 1.40. The companys 50 day moving average price is $115.53 and its 200 day moving average price is $122.65. EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 23rd. The energy exploration company reported $3.07 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $3.14 by ($0.07). EOG Resources had a return on equity of 25.38% and a net margin of 31.40%. The company had revenue of $6.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.18 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $3.30 earnings per share. The companys revenue was down 5.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that EOG Resources, Inc. will post 11.87 EPS for the current fiscal year. EOG Resources Dividend Announcement The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 30th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, April 16th will be paid a dividend of $0.91 per share. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.19%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, April 15th. EOG Resourcess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 27.98%. EOG Resources Profile (Free Report) EOG Resources, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, explores for, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, and natural gas and natural gas liquids. Its principal producing areas are in New Mexico and Texas in the United States; and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The company was formerly known as Enron Oil & Gas Company. See Also Receive News & Ratings for EOG Resources Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for EOG Resources and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mutual Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Shopify Inc. (NYSE:SHOP Free Report) (TSE:SHOP) by 3.7% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 28,522 shares of the software makers stock after buying an additional 1,009 shares during the period. Mutual Advisors LLCs holdings in Shopify were worth $1,556,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Industrial Alliance Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Shopify by 292.9% during the 1st quarter. Industrial Alliance Investment Management Inc. now owns 110 shares of the software makers stock worth $74,000 after purchasing an additional 82 shares in the last quarter. Turim 21 Investimentos Ltda. acquired a new position in shares of Shopify during the 1st quarter worth approximately $148,000. Fairfield Bush & CO. acquired a new position in shares of Shopify during the 1st quarter worth approximately $169,000. First Manhattan Co. grew its position in shares of Shopify by 317.5% during the 1st quarter. First Manhattan Co. now owns 263 shares of the software makers stock worth $177,000 after purchasing an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stonebridge Capital Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Shopify by 508.2% during the 1st quarter. Stonebridge Capital Advisors LLC now owns 298 shares of the software makers stock worth $201,000 after purchasing an additional 249 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 60.28% of the companys stock. Get Shopify alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes Several research firms recently issued reports on SHOP. Truist Financial increased their price target on shares of Shopify from $65.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Monday, February 12th. National Bankshares increased their price target on shares of Shopify from $80.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Shopify from $65.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of Shopify from $62.00 to $74.00 and gave the company an equal weight rating in a research note on Monday, December 4th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on shares of Shopify from $90.00 to $85.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, February 14th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, twenty-one have issued a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Shopify has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $76.16. Shopify Stock Down 1.2 % Shares of NYSE SHOP opened at $76.63 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $98.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 851.54 and a beta of 2.27. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $79.64 and a 200-day moving average price of $67.47. Shopify Inc. has a 1 year low of $39.02 and a 1 year high of $91.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.10, a current ratio of 6.99 and a quick ratio of 6.99. About Shopify (Free Report) Shopify Inc, a commerce company, provides a commerce platform and services in Canada, the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, Australia, China, and Latin America. The company's platform enables merchants to displays, manages, markets, and sells its products through various sales channels, including web and mobile storefronts, physical retail locations, pop-up shops, social media storefronts, native mobile apps, buy buttons, and marketplaces; and enables to manage products and inventory, process orders and payments, fulfill and ship orders, new buyers and build customer relationships, source products, leverage analytics and reporting, manage cash, payments and transactions, and access financing. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SHOP? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Shopify Inc. (NYSE:SHOP Free Report) (TSE:SHOP). Receive News & Ratings for Shopify Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Shopify and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mutual Advisors LLC raised its position in Sempra (NYSE:SRE Free Report) by 100.5% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 20,857 shares of the utilities providers stock after acquiring an additional 10,456 shares during the quarter. Mutual Advisors LLCs holdings in Sempra were worth $1,419,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Financial Gravity Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in Sempra in the 2nd quarter valued at about $645,000. West Tower Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Sempra during the second quarter worth about $31,000. Atlas Capital Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Sempra by 842.9% during the second quarter. Atlas Capital Advisors LLC now owns 264 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $40,000 after buying an additional 236 shares in the last quarter. PrairieView Partners LLC grew its position in shares of Sempra by 100.0% during the third quarter. PrairieView Partners LLC now owns 376 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 188 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Optimum Investment Advisors grew its position in shares of Sempra by 100.0% during the third quarter. Optimum Investment Advisors now owns 380 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 190 shares in the last quarter. 84.83% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Sempra alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes SRE has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. StockNews.com downgraded Sempra from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH initiated coverage on Sempra in a research report on Wednesday, January 3rd. They set a buy rating and a $81.50 price objective for the company. Mizuho lowered their price objective on Sempra from $83.00 to $79.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Sempra from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $78.00 to $86.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 12th. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on Sempra from $76.00 to $77.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $81.83. Sempra Price Performance Shares of NYSE SRE opened at $71.06 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.86. Sempra has a twelve month low of $63.75 and a twelve month high of $79.51. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $72.64 and a two-hundred day moving average of $71.69. The stock has a market cap of $44.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.43, a P/E/G ratio of 2.96 and a beta of 0.72. Sempra (NYSE:SRE Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 27th. The utilities provider reported $1.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.11 by $0.02. Sempra had a return on equity of 9.88% and a net margin of 16.51%. The company had revenue of $3.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.01 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.17 earnings per share. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 1.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Sempra will post 4.59 earnings per share for the current year. Sempra Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 21st will be paid a $0.62 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 20th. This represents a $2.48 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.49%. This is a boost from Sempras previous quarterly dividend of $0.60. Sempras payout ratio is currently 55.03%. Insider Buying and Selling at Sempra In other news, CEO Jeffrey W. Martin sold 34,190 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $70.83, for a total value of $2,421,677.70. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 2 shares of the companys stock, valued at $141.66. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.24% of the stock is owned by company insiders. About Sempra (Free Report) Sempra operates as an energy infrastructure company in the United States and internationally. It operates through four segments: San Diego Gas & Electric Company, Southern California Gas Company, Sempra Texas Utilities, and Sempra Infrastructure. The San Diego Gas & Electric Company segment provides to San Diego and southern Orange counties; and natural gas service to San Diego County. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SRE? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Sempra (NYSE:SRE Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Sempra Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Sempra and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mutual Advisors LLC raised its position in John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF (NYSEARCA:JHMM Free Report) by 52.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 28,747 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 9,916 shares during the period. Mutual Advisors LLCs holdings in John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF were worth $1,360,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of JHMM. Money Concepts Capital Corp boosted its holdings in John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF by 139.3% in the 4th quarter. Money Concepts Capital Corp now owns 718 shares of the companys stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 418 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF by 300.0% in the 2nd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,148 shares of the companys stock valued at $51,000 after purchasing an additional 861 shares during the period. Clear Investment Research LLC raised its position in shares of John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF by 33.6% during the 3rd quarter. Clear Investment Research LLC now owns 1,442 shares of the companys stock valued at $68,000 after buying an additional 363 shares in the last quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. raised its position in shares of John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF by 23.4% during the 4th quarter. Harbour Investments Inc. now owns 1,779 shares of the companys stock valued at $83,000 after buying an additional 337 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its holdings in shares of John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF by 44.7% during the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 3,123 shares of the companys stock worth $138,000 after acquiring an additional 965 shares during the last quarter. Get John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF alerts: John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF Stock Up 0.4 % JHMM opened at $54.28 on Wednesday. The businesss fifty day simple moving average is $52.59 and its 200 day simple moving average is $49.69. John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF has a 52 week low of $44.07 and a 52 week high of $54.35. The stock has a market cap of $3.49 billion, a PE ratio of 13.93 and a beta of 1.08. John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF Profile The John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF (JHMM) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the John Hancock Dimensional Mid Cap index. The fund tracks an index of US firms ranked 200-950 by size, weighted by multiple factors relative to their sector peers. JHMM was launched on Sep 28, 2015 and is managed by John Hancock. See Also Receive News & Ratings for John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for John Hancock Multifactor Mid Cap ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. PNM Resources, Inc. (NYSE:PNM Free Report) Equities researchers at Zacks Research decreased their FY2024 EPS estimates for PNM Resources in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday, February 27th. Zacks Research analyst J. Saha now anticipates that the utilities provider will post earnings per share of $2.71 for the year, down from their prior estimate of $2.88. The consensus estimate for PNM Resources current full-year earnings is $2.70 per share. Zacks Research also issued estimates for PNM Resources FY2025 earnings at $2.80 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $2.97 EPS. Get PNM Resources alerts: PNM Resources (NYSE:PNM Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The utilities provider reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.14 by $0.04. PNM Resources had a net margin of 4.54% and a return on equity of 10.64%. The company had revenue of $412.11 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $705.05 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.15 earnings per share. A number of other brokerages also recently weighed in on PNM. TheStreet downgraded shares of PNM Resources from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a research note on Thursday, January 4th. Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of PNM Resources from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and set a $44.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 3rd. Mizuho downgraded shares of PNM Resources from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $41.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, January 3rd. StockNews.com downgraded shares of PNM Resources from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. Finally, Barclays started coverage on shares of PNM Resources in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. They set an overweight rating and a $40.00 price target on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $46.20. Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on PNM Resources PNM Resources Price Performance PNM stock opened at $38.00 on Wednesday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $38.07 and a 200-day moving average of $41.55. The company has a current ratio of 0.33, a quick ratio of 0.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.71. PNM Resources has a 12 month low of $34.63 and a 12 month high of $49.27. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 36.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.37 and a beta of 0.36. Institutional Trading of PNM Resources A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Arizona State Retirement System grew its position in shares of PNM Resources by 1.4% in the 3rd quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 23,217 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $1,036,000 after buying an additional 313 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. grew its position in PNM Resources by 2.1% during the 2nd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 16,128 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $727,000 after purchasing an additional 338 shares during the last quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors grew its position in PNM Resources by 14.8% during the 1st quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 2,626 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $125,000 after purchasing an additional 339 shares during the last quarter. Xponance Inc. grew its position in PNM Resources by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 12,598 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $524,000 after purchasing an additional 356 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its position in PNM Resources by 2.6% during the 2nd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 15,338 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $692,000 after purchasing an additional 383 shares during the last quarter. 91.18% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. PNM Resources Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 2nd were given a dividend of $0.387 per share. This is an increase from PNM Resourcess previous quarterly dividend of $0.37. This represents a $1.55 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.07%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 1st. PNM Resourcess payout ratio is presently 150.49%. PNM Resources Company Profile (Get Free Report) PNM Resources, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides electricity and electric services in the United States. It operates through Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) and Texas-New Mexico Power Company (TNMP) segments. The PNM segment engages in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. See Also Receive News & Ratings for PNM Resources Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for PNM Resources and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Free Report) Analysts at Zacks Research lifted their FY2024 earnings per share estimates for Eli Lilly and Company in a research report issued to clients and investors on Tuesday, February 27th. Zacks Research analyst K. Shah now forecasts that the company will post earnings of $12.25 per share for the year, up from their prior estimate of $11.46. The consensus estimate for Eli Lilly and Companys current full-year earnings is $12.50 per share. Zacks Research also issued estimates for Eli Lilly and Companys Q4 2024 earnings at $3.82 EPS, Q2 2025 earnings at $4.11 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $4.52 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $24.58 EPS. Get Eli Lilly and Company alerts: Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE:LLY Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The company reported $2.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $2.30 by $0.19. The company had revenue of $9.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $8.95 billion. Eli Lilly and Company had a net margin of 15.36% and a return on equity of 51.22%. The businesss revenue was up 28.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.09 EPS. Other analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $710.00 to $865.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated an overweight rating on shares of Eli Lilly and Company in a research note on Wednesday, November 8th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $805.00 to $950.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. Barclays increased their price objective on shares of Eli Lilly and Company from $680.00 to $810.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Eli Lilly and Company from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Friday, November 3rd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seventeen have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $663.33. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on LLY Eli Lilly and Company Price Performance Shares of LLY stock opened at $762.50 on Wednesday. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $662.30 and its 200 day simple moving average is $605.93. Eli Lilly and Company has a one year low of $309.20 and a one year high of $794.47. The firm has a market cap of $724.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 131.90, a P/E/G ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 0.32. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.69, a current ratio of 0.94 and a quick ratio of 0.73. Eli Lilly and Company Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 8th. Investors of record on Thursday, February 15th will be issued a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 14th. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.68%. This is a boost from Eli Lilly and Companys previous quarterly dividend of $1.13. Eli Lilly and Companys payout ratio is currently 89.66%. Insider Buying and Selling at Eli Lilly and Company In other news, major shareholder Lilly Endowment Inc sold 14,388 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $630.28, for a total value of $9,068,468.64. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 99,754,422 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $62,873,217,098.16. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 195,055 shares of company stock valued at $125,254,657. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the companys stock. Institutional Trading of Eli Lilly and Company A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Eli Lilly and Company by 2.3% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,205,501 shares of the companys stock valued at $7,111,568,000 after acquiring an additional 338,077 shares in the last quarter. Liontrust Investment Partners LLP bought a new position in shares of Eli Lilly and Company during the third quarter worth about $8,326,000. Armstrong Fleming & Moore Inc acquired a new stake in Eli Lilly and Company in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $357,000. Redhawk Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its position in Eli Lilly and Company by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Redhawk Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 6,986 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,752,000 after buying an additional 65 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Assenagon Asset Management S.A. lifted its stake in Eli Lilly and Company by 4.0% in the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 474,940 shares of the companys stock valued at $255,105,000 after acquiring an additional 18,079 shares in the last quarter. 81.38% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. About Eli Lilly and Company (Get Free Report) Eli Lilly and Company discovers, develops, and markets human pharmaceuticals worldwide. It offers Basaglar, Humalog, Humalog Mix 75/25, Humalog U-100, Humalog U-200, Humalog Mix 50/50, insulin lispro, insulin lispro protamine, insulin lispro mix 75/25, Humulin, Humulin 70/30, Humulin N, Humulin R, and Humulin U-500 for diabetes; and Jardiance, Trajenta, and Trulicity for type 2 diabetes. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Eli Lilly and Company Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Eli Lilly and Company and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Nomad Foods (NYSE:NOMD Get Free Report) is scheduled to be posting its 12/31/2023 quarterly earnings results before the market opens on Thursday, February 29th. Analysts expect Nomad Foods to post earnings of $0.34 per share for the quarter. Nomad Foods Trading Down 0.8 % Shares of NOMD stock opened at $18.44 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.22 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.41 and a beta of 0.76. Nomad Foods has a twelve month low of $13.56 and a twelve month high of $19.76. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $17.62 and its 200 day simple moving average is $16.53. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.81. Get Nomad Foods alerts: Nomad Foods Announces Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, February 26th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.25%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. Nomad Foodss payout ratio is presently 46.88%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several research analysts have commented on the company. StockNews.com raised Nomad Foods from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Thursday, November 16th. Barclays lifted their target price on Nomad Foods from $20.00 to $22.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Friday, February 2nd. Get Our Latest Research Report on NOMD Institutional Inflows and Outflows Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Brevan Howard Capital Management LP acquired a new position in shares of Nomad Foods in the 4th quarter valued at about $199,000. American Trust acquired a new position in shares of Nomad Foods in the 4th quarter valued at about $191,000. Graham Capital Management L.P. acquired a new position in shares of Nomad Foods in the 3rd quarter valued at about $183,000. Baird Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Nomad Foods in the 3rd quarter valued at about $175,000. Finally, State of Wyoming lifted its stake in shares of Nomad Foods by 18.0% in the 4th quarter. State of Wyoming now owns 9,221 shares of the companys stock valued at $159,000 after purchasing an additional 1,404 shares during the period. 74.44% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Nomad Foods Company Profile (Get Free Report) Nomad Foods Limited manufactures, markets, and distributes a range of frozen food products in the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, Austria, Norway, Spain, Serbia, Croatia, Switzerland, and rest of Europe. The company offers frozen fish products, including fish fingers, coated fish, and natural fish; ready to cook vegetable products, such as peas and spinach; and frozen poultry and meat products comprising nuggets, grills, and burgers. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Nomad Foods Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Nomad Foods and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Synovus Financial Corp increased its stake in shares of Masco Co. (NYSE:MAS Free Report) by 30.0% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 65,326 shares of the construction companys stock after purchasing an additional 15,093 shares during the period. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in Masco were worth $3,492,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Harris Associates L P lifted its holdings in Masco by 8.7% during the 2nd quarter. Harris Associates L P now owns 9,728,394 shares of the construction companys stock worth $558,215,000 after purchasing an additional 781,049 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Masco by 3.1% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 9,467,872 shares of the construction companys stock worth $543,266,000 after purchasing an additional 282,151 shares in the last quarter. Boston Partners lifted its holdings in Masco by 4.2% during the 3rd quarter. Boston Partners now owns 9,021,312 shares of the construction companys stock worth $481,875,000 after purchasing an additional 359,562 shares in the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Masco by 118,819.3% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 6,978,187 shares of the construction companys stock worth $325,672,000 after purchasing an additional 6,972,319 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp lifted its holdings in Masco by 15.4% during the 3rd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 5,320,936 shares of the construction companys stock worth $284,404,000 after purchasing an additional 711,988 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.67% of the companys stock. Get Masco alerts: Masco Price Performance Shares of Masco stock opened at $76.63 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.68, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 30.05. The firm has a market capitalization of $16.84 billion, a PE ratio of 19.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.25. The businesss 50-day moving average price is $69.19 and its 200-day moving average price is $61.11. Masco Co. has a 12 month low of $46.69 and a 12 month high of $76.73. Masco Increases Dividend Masco ( NYSE:MAS Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The construction company reported $0.83 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.66 by $0.17. The business had revenue of $1.88 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.79 billion. Masco had a return on equity of 3,111.50% and a net margin of 11.40%. The businesss quarterly revenue was down 2.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.65 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Masco Co. will post 4.12 EPS for the current fiscal year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 11th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 22nd will be paid a $0.29 dividend. This is a boost from Mascos previous quarterly dividend of $0.29. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.51%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 21st. Mascos payout ratio is 28.93%. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Masco news, insider Jai Shah sold 25,000 shares of Masco stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $62.38, for a total value of $1,559,500.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 34,709 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,165,147.42. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, VP Kenneth G. Cole sold 36,210 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.65, for a total transaction of $2,703,076.50. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 58,885 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,395,765.25. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Jai Shah sold 25,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $62.38, for a total value of $1,559,500.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 34,709 shares in the company, valued at $2,165,147.42. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 88,253 shares of company stock valued at $5,952,223 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 1.50% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several analysts have weighed in on MAS shares. Barclays raised their price target on Masco from $63.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, December 13th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on Masco from $73.00 to $79.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Friday, February 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Masco from $58.00 to $69.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Thursday, December 14th. StockNews.com raised Masco from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Masco from $58.00 to $70.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, December 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $68.92. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on MAS Masco Company Profile (Free Report) Masco Corporation designs, manufactures, and distributes home improvement and building products in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company's Plumbing Products segment offers faucets, showerheads, handheld showers, valves, bath hardware and accessories, bathing units, shower bases and enclosures, sinks, toilets, acrylic tubs, shower trays, spas, exercise pools, and fitness systems; brass, copper, and composite plumbing system components; connected water products; thermoplastic solutions, extruded plastic profiles, specialized fabrications, and PEX tubing products; and other non-decorative plumbing products. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MAS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Masco Co. (NYSE:MAS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Masco Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Masco and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. LOS ANGELES, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- "We commit to working together towards an America of true equality and justice, free from discrimination and hate," said U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu, one of the outstanding Asian American women honored at a gala held in Los Angeles Tuesday night. "We have to raise our voices about the fact that America's greatest strength is diversity," she told the event co-hosted by the China Institute in America and the Yue-Sai Kan One World Foundation. "Let's all dare to make an impact and improve this nation," Chu said. Ten Asian American women were awarded as "Women Who Dared" for their contributions across a spectrum of fields including business, politics, fashion, performing arts and philanthropy. "Their achievements embody the spirit of breaking barriers, igniting change, and clearing pathways for future generations of Asian American women to thrive," said event chair Yue-Sai Kan, a Chinese American television host, producer, author, and entrepreneur. "In a world rife with misconceptions between nations, endeavors such as ours play a pivotal role in fostering global harmony," Kan noted. Kan, an Emmy Award winner, is also renowned for her work in bridging cross-culture gap. She had created her TV series "Looking East," which was the first of its kind to introduce Asian cultures and customs to a growing and receptive American audience. Many honorees expressed their hope for closer U.S.-China exchanges and cooperation, and vowed to contribute to that end. "We plan to have more cooperation and exchange programs with Chinese museums, to bring the Chinese culture to American audiences through various exhibitions," Anne Shih, chairwoman of the Board of Governors of Bowers Museum in Southern California, one of the honorees, told Xinhua. Shih launched a "Junior Ambassadors Program" for the museum in 2001, with an aim to expose young participants to the rich history and culture of ancient China while helping them improve public service and presentation skills. The museum, founded in 1932, has been a base for students in Orange County, Southern California, to experience the Chinese history and civilization. "We will continue to serve as a bridge between the U.S. and China," Shih said. Bowers Museum is working with Chinese partners to showcase archaeological findings of China's Shaanxi Province to American audience. Meanwhile, the museum will bring its Pacific Islands art collections to Pingtan Art Museum in China's Fujian Province for an exchange program, Shih told Xinhua. Zhang Lu, founder and managing partner of Fusion Fund, one of the honorees, told Xinhua she expects to see more U.S.-China cooperation in scientific and technological innovation. She pledged to contribute to removing bias and boosting mutual understanding between the two countries. Synovus Financial Corp lessened its stake in Infosys Limited (NYSE:INFY Free Report) by 14.3% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 195,588 shares of the technology companys stock after selling 32,763 shares during the quarter. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in Infosys were worth $3,347,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in shares of Infosys by 14.4% in the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 83,099,498 shares of the technology companys stock valued at $1,335,409,000 after purchasing an additional 10,480,541 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Infosys by 15.2% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 24,819,637 shares of the technology companys stock worth $424,664,000 after purchasing an additional 3,275,485 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Infosys by 9.2% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 20,400,397 shares of the technology companys stock worth $355,709,000 after purchasing an additional 1,722,731 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Infosys by 11.8% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 17,115,250 shares of the technology companys stock worth $298,490,000 after purchasing an additional 1,810,239 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sustainable Growth Advisers LP boosted its holdings in shares of Infosys by 93.7% during the 2nd quarter. Sustainable Growth Advisers LP now owns 16,525,269 shares of the technology companys stock worth $265,561,000 after purchasing an additional 7,995,119 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 11.39% of the companys stock. Get Infosys alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of research analysts recently commented on the company. Wedbush reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $22.00 price objective on shares of Infosys in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. HSBC cut Infosys from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Tuesday, February 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Infosys from a neutral rating to an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, January 3rd. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Infosys from $18.00 to $21.00 and gave the company a market perform rating in a report on Friday, January 12th. Finally, BNP Paribas began coverage on Infosys in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. They set an outperform rating and a $24.00 price target on the stock. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $20.95. Infosys Trading Up 0.1 % Infosys stock opened at $20.00 on Wednesday. Infosys Limited has a twelve month low of $14.71 and a twelve month high of $20.74. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $19.49 and its 200-day simple moving average is $18.10. The firm has a market capitalization of $82.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.17, a P/E/G ratio of 2.83 and a beta of 0.96. Infosys (NYSE:INFY Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 11th. The technology company reported $0.18 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.17 by $0.01. Infosys had a return on equity of 31.25% and a net margin of 15.91%. The business had revenue of $4.66 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.58 billion. Sell-side analysts predict that Infosys Limited will post 0.71 earnings per share for the current year. Infosys Profile (Free Report) Infosys Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides consulting, technology, outsourcing, and next-generation digital services in North America, Europe, India, and internationally. It provides application management and application development services, independent validation solutions, product engineering and management, infrastructure management services, traditional enterprise application implementation, support, and integration services. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Infosys Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Infosys and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Clough Capital Partners L P boosted its stake in shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust (NYSE:BFZ Free Report) by 175.5% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 34,536 shares of the companys stock after buying an additional 22,000 shares during the period. Clough Capital Partners L Ps holdings in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust were worth $355,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Several other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Advisors Asset Management Inc. boosted its position in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust by 12.2% during the first quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 414,201 shares of the companys stock worth $4,846,000 after purchasing an additional 45,028 shares during the period. Stifel Financial Corp boosted its position in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust by 31.4% during the first quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 26,659 shares of the companys stock worth $312,000 after purchasing an additional 6,374 shares during the period. Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its position in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust by 5.7% during the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 38,317 shares of the companys stock worth $448,000 after purchasing an additional 2,081 shares during the period. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. bought a new position in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust during the first quarter worth $1,423,000. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its position in BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust by 186.8% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 23,660 shares of the companys stock worth $277,000 after purchasing an additional 15,410 shares during the period. Get BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust alerts: Insider Activity In other BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust news, major shareholder Saba Capital Management, L.P. bought 15,803 shares of BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 30th. The stock was bought at an average price of $11.24 per share, with a total value of $177,625.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 4,984,887 shares in the company, valued at approximately $56,030,129.88. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust Stock Down 0.2 % BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust Increases Dividend BFZ stock opened at $11.60 on Wednesday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $11.79 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $11.17. BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust has a one year low of $9.86 and a one year high of $12.31. The firm also recently announced a monthly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 15th were given a $0.051 dividend. This represents a $0.61 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.28%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 14th. This is a boost from BlackRock California Municipal Income Trusts previous monthly dividend of $0.04. BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust Profile (Free Report) BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust is a closed ended fixed income mutual fund launched by BlackRock, Inc It is managed by BlackRock Advisors, LLC. The fund invests in fixed income markets. It invests primarily in investment grade municipal bonds that are exempt from regular federal and California income taxes. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BFZ? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust (NYSE:BFZ Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for BlackRock California Municipal Income Trust and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Private Advisory Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG Free Report) by 5.0% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 437 shares of the restaurant operators stock after buying an additional 21 shares during the period. Private Advisory Group LLCs holdings in Chipotle Mexican Grill were worth $801,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new position in Chipotle Mexican Grill in the 2nd quarter worth about $32,000. IMA Wealth Inc. raised its holdings in Chipotle Mexican Grill by 185.7% during the 1st quarter. IMA Wealth Inc. now owns 20 shares of the restaurant operators stock valued at $34,000 after buying an additional 13 shares during the period. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill during the 3rd quarter worth $38,000. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC acquired a new stake in Chipotle Mexican Grill in the second quarter worth about $39,000. Finally, Tyler Stone Wealth Management purchased a new position in shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill in the second quarter worth about $43,000. 91.19% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Chipotle Mexican Grill alerts: Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth CMG has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Chipotle Mexican Grill from $1,930.00 to $2,226.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday, January 16th. KeyCorp raised their price objective on Chipotle Mexican Grill from $2,250.00 to $2,750.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 7th. Robert W. Baird reissued an outperform rating and issued a $2,650.00 price objective on shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill in a report on Monday, January 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada increased their target price on Chipotle Mexican Grill from $2,185.00 to $2,425.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Friday, December 1st. Finally, Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill from $2,699.00 to $3,016.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $2,469.88. Chipotle Mexican Grill Stock Performance Chipotle Mexican Grill stock opened at $2,647.75 on Wednesday. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $1,470.05 and a fifty-two week high of $2,725.83. The firms fifty day moving average price is $2,408.95 and its 200-day moving average price is $2,140.91. The stock has a market cap of $72.60 billion, a P/E ratio of 59.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 1.29. Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE:CMG Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The restaurant operator reported $10.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $9.73 by $0.63. Chipotle Mexican Grill had a net margin of 12.45% and a return on equity of 44.41%. The company had revenue of $2.52 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.49 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $8.29 EPS. Chipotle Mexican Grills revenue was up 15.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. will post 53.21 earnings per share for the current year. Insider Activity at Chipotle Mexican Grill In other news, insider Roger E. Theodoredis sold 898 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $2,622.25, for a total value of $2,354,780.50. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 1,529 shares in the company, valued at $4,009,420.25. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, Director Albert S. Baldocchi sold 750 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $2,608.51, for a total value of $1,956,382.50. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 37,271 shares in the company, valued at approximately $97,221,776.21. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Roger E. Theodoredis sold 898 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $2,622.25, for a total transaction of $2,354,780.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 1,529 shares in the company, valued at $4,009,420.25. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 5,837 shares of company stock valued at $14,012,071 over the last 90 days. 0.96% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Chipotle Mexican Grill Profile (Free Report) Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, owns and operates Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants. The company offers burritos, burrito bowls, quesadillas, tacos, and salads. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Newport Beach, California. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CMG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Chipotle Mexican Grill Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Chipotle Mexican Grill and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC trimmed its position in Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG Free Report) by 0.7% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 10,740,954 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 70,315 shares during the period. Morningstar Investment Services LLC owned approximately 0.07% of Lloyds Banking Group worth $22,986,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Fortune Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Lloyds Banking Group in the second quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Timber Creek Capital Management LLC grew its position in Lloyds Banking Group by 26.1% during the third quarter. Timber Creek Capital Management LLC now owns 1,320,588 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $2,813,000 after buying an additional 273,526 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. grew its position in Lloyds Banking Group by 23.4% during the third quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 707,999 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $1,508,000 after buying an additional 134,075 shares in the last quarter. Mondrian Investment Partners LTD grew its position in Lloyds Banking Group by 8.7% during the third quarter. Mondrian Investment Partners LTD now owns 29,131,456 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $62,050,000 after buying an additional 2,336,000 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Acadian Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in Lloyds Banking Group during the third quarter worth approximately $1,363,000. 2.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Lloyds Banking Group alerts: Lloyds Banking Group Stock Performance Lloyds Banking Group stock traded up $0.01 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $2.32. The companys stock had a trading volume of 1,400,911 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,297,605. Lloyds Banking Group plc has a 12-month low of $1.88 and a 12-month high of $2.51. The company has a market capitalization of $36.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 5.78, a PEG ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a current ratio of 1.48. The firms fifty day moving average price is $2.23 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $2.15. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several equities research analysts have weighed in on LYG shares. Morgan Stanley upgraded Lloyds Banking Group from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 28th. Bank of America cut Lloyds Banking Group from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $64.17. Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on Lloyds Banking Group Lloyds Banking Group Profile (Free Report) Lloyds Banking Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of banking and financial services in the United Kingdom. It operates through three segments: Retail; Commercial Banking; and Insurance, Pensions, and Investments. The Retail segment offers a range of financial service products, including current accounts, savings, mortgages, motor finance, unsecured loans, leasing solutions, and credit cards to personal and small business customers. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Lloyds Banking Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Lloyds Banking Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California State Teachers Retirement System trimmed its position in shares of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C Free Report) by 3.2% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 3,157,139 shares of the companys stock after selling 104,476 shares during the quarter. California State Teachers Retirement Systems holdings in Citigroup were worth $129,853,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of C. Panagora Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Citigroup by 24.5% during the first quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 29,752 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,589,000 after acquiring an additional 5,853 shares during the last quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. increased its position in shares of Citigroup by 50.5% during the first quarter. Zions Bancorporation N.A. now owns 6,256 shares of the companys stock valued at $334,000 after buying an additional 2,100 shares during the period. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. increased its position in shares of Citigroup by 20.8% during the first quarter. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. now owns 5,274 shares of the companys stock valued at $282,000 after buying an additional 907 shares during the period. Ergoteles LLC purchased a new position in shares of Citigroup during the first quarter valued at about $761,000. Finally, Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Citigroup by 7.0% during the first quarter. Halbert Hargrove Global Advisors LLC now owns 4,077 shares of the companys stock valued at $218,000 after buying an additional 268 shares during the period. 69.26% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get Citigroup alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes Several equities analysts recently issued reports on C shares. HSBC upgraded shares of Citigroup from a hold rating to a buy rating and boosted their price target for the company from $42.00 to $61.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Societe Generale downgraded shares of Citigroup from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Piper Sandler raised shares of Citigroup from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and raised their target price for the company from $56.00 to $63.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 14th. Wolfe Research raised shares of Citigroup from a peer perform rating to an outperform rating and set a $58.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 3rd. Finally, BMO Capital Markets downgraded shares of Citigroup from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and set a $57.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, January 10th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Citigroup presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $57.03. Citigroup Stock Performance C stock traded up $0.34 on Wednesday, hitting $56.05. The company had a trading volume of 1,509,258 shares, compared to its average volume of 17,734,047. Citigroup Inc. has a 12-month low of $38.17 and a 12-month high of $57.95. The company has a current ratio of 0.95, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $53.50 and its 200 day simple moving average is $46.55. The stock has a market cap of $107.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.96, a P/E/G ratio of 1.51 and a beta of 1.52. Citigroup (NYSE:C Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Friday, January 12th. The company reported ($1.16) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.73 by ($1.89). Citigroup had a return on equity of 6.49% and a net margin of 5.88%. The company had revenue of $17.44 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $18.71 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.10 EPS. The companys revenue for the quarter was down 3.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Citigroup Inc. will post 5.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Citigroup Announces Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 23rd. Stockholders of record on Monday, February 5th were paid a dividend of $0.53 per share. This represents a $2.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 2nd. Citigroups dividend payout ratio is presently 53.13%. Citigroup Profile (Free Report) Citigroup Inc, a diversified financial services holding company, provides various financial products and services to consumers, corporations, governments, and institutions in North America, Latin America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It operates through three segments: Institutional Clients Group (ICG), Personal Banking and Wealth Management (PBWM), and Legacy Franchises. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding C? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Citigroup Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Citigroup and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC decreased its position in shares of UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH Free Report) by 12.9% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 5,601 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock after selling 831 shares during the quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLCs holdings in UnitedHealth Group were worth $2,824,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Robbins Farley bought a new position in UnitedHealth Group in the 3rd quarter worth about $25,000. NewSquare Capital LLC lifted its position in shares of UnitedHealth Group by 340.0% in the 3rd quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 66 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock worth $33,000 after purchasing an additional 51 shares during the period. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL purchased a new stake in shares of UnitedHealth Group in the 1st quarter worth approximately $35,000. WFA of San Diego LLC purchased a new stake in UnitedHealth Group during the second quarter valued at approximately $39,000. Finally, Annapolis Financial Services LLC lifted its position in UnitedHealth Group by 38.6% during the third quarter. Annapolis Financial Services LLC now owns 79 shares of the healthcare conglomerates stock valued at $40,000 after acquiring an additional 22 shares during the last quarter. 85.69% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get UnitedHealth Group alerts: UnitedHealth Group Stock Performance UNH stock traded down $25.89 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $487.53. 4,099,319 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,873,633. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.79 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The firm has a market cap of $450.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.18, a PEG ratio of 1.43 and a beta of 0.54. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated has a 1-year low of $445.68 and a 1-year high of $554.70. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $520.36 and its 200-day simple moving average is $519.17. UnitedHealth Group Dividend Announcement UnitedHealth Group ( NYSE:UNH Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, January 12th. The healthcare conglomerate reported $6.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $5.98 by $0.18. The business had revenue of $94.43 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $92.13 billion. UnitedHealth Group had a net margin of 6.02% and a return on equity of 26.39%. The companys revenue was up 14.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $5.34 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that UnitedHealth Group Incorporated will post 27.84 earnings per share for the current year. The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 19th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 11th will be issued a dividend of $1.88 per share. This represents a $7.52 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.54%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 8th. UnitedHealth Groups payout ratio is 31.54%. Insider Buying and Selling at UnitedHealth Group In other news, Director Stephen J. Hemsley sold 66,081 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $550.39, for a total value of $36,370,321.59. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 635,528 shares of the companys stock, valued at $349,788,255.92. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other UnitedHealth Group news, CAO Thomas E. Roos sold 858 shares of UnitedHealth Group stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $525.79, for a total transaction of $451,127.82. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 32,289 shares of the companys stock, valued at $16,977,233.31. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Stephen J. Hemsley sold 66,081 shares of UnitedHealth Group stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $550.39, for a total transaction of $36,370,321.59. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 635,528 shares in the company, valued at $349,788,255.92. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.35% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades UNH has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an overweight rating and set a $591.00 target price on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a research report on Friday, January 19th. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an outperform rating and issued a $610.00 price target on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. Piper Sandler decreased their price target on shares of UnitedHealth Group from $584.00 to $581.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. HSBC reaffirmed a reduce rating and issued a $480.00 price target (down previously from $550.00) on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a report on Monday, December 18th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an outperform rating and issued a $596.00 price objective on shares of UnitedHealth Group in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has given a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $575.79. Read Our Latest Research Report on UnitedHealth Group UnitedHealth Group Company Profile (Free Report) UnitedHealth Group Incorporated operates as a diversified health care company in the United States. It operates through four segments: UnitedHealthcare, Optum Health, Optum Insight, and Optum Rx. The UnitedHealthcare segment offers consumer-oriented health benefit plans and services for national employers, public sector employers, mid-sized employers, small businesses, and individuals; health care coverage, and health and well-being services to individuals age 50 and older addressing their needs; Medicaid plans, children's health insurance and health care programs; and health and dental benefits, and hospital and clinical services, as well as health care benefits products and services to state programs caring for the economically disadvantaged, medically underserved, and those without the benefit of employer-funded health care coverage. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding UNH? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for UnitedHealth Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for UnitedHealth Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Getty Realty Corp. (NYSE:GTY Get Free Report)s stock price hit a new 52-week low during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $25.90 and last traded at $26.14, with a volume of 17577 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $26.18. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several brokerages have commented on GTY. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Getty Realty from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Saturday. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price target on shares of Getty Realty from $33.00 to $30.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, November 8th. Get Getty Realty alerts: Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on GTY Getty Realty Stock Down 0.2 % Getty Realty Dividend Announcement The company has a market capitalization of $1.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.77, a PEG ratio of 6.03 and a beta of 0.91. The firms 50 day moving average price is $28.10 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $28.53. The company has a current ratio of 3.73, a quick ratio of 3.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.79. The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 11th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 28th will be paid a dividend of $0.45 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 27th. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 6.89%. Getty Realtys dividend payout ratio is currently 156.52%. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Getty Realty Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. bought a new position in shares of Getty Realty in the second quarter valued at $889,000. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its holdings in Getty Realty by 97.3% during the 2nd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 74,232 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $2,511,000 after purchasing an additional 36,610 shares during the last quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its holdings in Getty Realty by 3.9% during the 3rd quarter. Nomura Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 51,010 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $1,415,000 after purchasing an additional 1,900 shares during the last quarter. Boston Partners lifted its holdings in Getty Realty by 120.7% during the 3rd quarter. Boston Partners now owns 175,092 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $4,855,000 after purchasing an additional 95,760 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Getty Realty by 6.4% during the 3rd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 23,108 shares of the real estate investment trusts stock valued at $641,000 after purchasing an additional 1,380 shares during the last quarter. 83.55% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Getty Realty Company Profile (Get Free Report) Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Getty Realty Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Getty Realty and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank increased its holdings in ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP Free Report) by 99.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 10,862 shares of the energy producers stock after buying an additional 5,421 shares during the period. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Banks holdings in ConocoPhillips were worth $1,301,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. West Tower Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of ConocoPhillips in the 2nd quarter valued at about $27,000. RVW Wealth LLC acquired a new position in shares of ConocoPhillips in the 3rd quarter valued at about $28,000. Fairfield Bush & CO. acquired a new position in shares of ConocoPhillips in the 1st quarter valued at about $31,000. Oliver Lagore Vanvalin Investment Group boosted its stake in ConocoPhillips by 63.1% during the 3rd quarter. Oliver Lagore Vanvalin Investment Group now owns 287 shares of the energy producers stock valued at $34,000 after purchasing an additional 111 shares during the period. Finally, Halpern Financial Inc. acquired a new position in ConocoPhillips during the 3rd quarter valued at about $39,000. 80.36% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get ConocoPhillips alerts: Insider Activity at ConocoPhillips In related news, VP Christopher P. Delk sold 8,505 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $112.06, for a total value of $953,070.30. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other ConocoPhillips news, EVP Dominic E. Macklon sold 23,372 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $112.17, for a total value of $2,621,637.24. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, VP Christopher P. Delk sold 8,505 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $112.06, for a total transaction of $953,070.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.37% of the stock is owned by insiders. ConocoPhillips Price Performance COP stock traded up $0.55 on Wednesday, hitting $112.16. 1,283,338 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,539,763. ConocoPhillips has a 1-year low of $91.53 and a 1-year high of $127.35. The stock has a market cap of $131.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 12.32, a P/E/G ratio of 0.68 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $112.62 and a 200-day moving average of $116.14. The company has a current ratio of 1.43, a quick ratio of 1.29 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The energy producer reported $2.40 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.08 by $0.32. ConocoPhillips had a net margin of 18.71% and a return on equity of 22.08%. The business had revenue of $15.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $14.47 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that ConocoPhillips will post 9.05 EPS for the current fiscal year. ConocoPhillips Increases Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 1st. Investors of record on Monday, February 19th will be given a $0.78 dividend. This represents a $3.12 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.78%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 15th. This is an increase from ConocoPhillipss previous quarterly dividend of $0.58. ConocoPhillipss dividend payout ratio is 25.61%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of ConocoPhillips from $130.00 to $135.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 14th. Scotiabank boosted their target price on shares of ConocoPhillips from $115.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research note on Friday, February 9th. Mizuho reduced their target price on shares of ConocoPhillips from $139.00 to $132.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 3rd. Susquehanna reduced their target price on shares of ConocoPhillips from $152.00 to $133.00 and set a positive rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Johnson Rice lowered shares of ConocoPhillips from an accumulate rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, December 14th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, ConocoPhillips currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $134.61. Read Our Latest Report on ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips Company Profile (Free Report) ConocoPhillips explores for, produces, transports, and markets crude oil, bitumen, natural gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and natural gas liquids in the United States and internationally. The company's portfolio includes unconventional plays in North America; conventional assets in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia; various LNG developments; oil sands assets in Canada; and an inventory of global exploration prospects. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding COP? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for ConocoPhillips Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for ConocoPhillips and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. One01 Capital LP lessened its stake in US Foods Holding Corp. (NYSE:USFD Free Report) by 53.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 65,801 shares of the companys stock after selling 76,100 shares during the period. US Foods accounts for about 3.2% of One01 Capital LPs holdings, making the stock its 15th biggest position. One01 Capital LPs holdings in US Foods were worth $2,612,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Bank of Montreal Can acquired a new position in US Foods during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $3,100,000. Liontrust Investment Partners LLP increased its position in US Foods by 62.8% during the 3rd quarter. Liontrust Investment Partners LLP now owns 527,343 shares of the companys stock worth $20,936,000 after purchasing an additional 203,399 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. increased its position in US Foods by 8.2% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 19,510,948 shares of the companys stock worth $858,482,000 after purchasing an additional 1,484,983 shares during the period. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board acquired a new stake in shares of US Foods in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $730,000. Finally, UBS Group AG grew its holdings in shares of US Foods by 289.8% in the 3rd quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 266,998 shares of the companys stock worth $10,600,000 after acquiring an additional 198,497 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.69% of the companys stock. Get US Foods alerts: US Foods Stock Down 0.6 % Shares of USFD stock traded down $0.32 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $51.32. 206,778 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,731,228. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.96, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a current ratio of 1.30. US Foods Holding Corp. has a one year low of $33.96 and a one year high of $51.76. The businesss 50-day simple moving average is $46.80 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $42.75. The stock has a market capitalization of $12.57 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.55, a P/E/G ratio of 0.86 and a beta of 1.57. Insider Transactions at US Foods Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades In other US Foods news, Director Scott D. Ferguson sold 3,000,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $43.87, for a total value of $131,610,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 15,932,877 shares of the companys stock, valued at $698,975,313.99. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink . Corporate insiders own 8.50% of the companys stock. A number of research firms recently weighed in on USFD. StockNews.com upgraded US Foods from a buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a report on Friday, February 23rd. BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on US Foods from $50.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, February 16th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on US Foods from $44.00 to $46.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Friday, November 17th. UBS Group raised US Foods from a neutral rating to a buy rating and increased their target price for the stock from $47.00 to $64.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price target on US Foods from $54.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Friday, November 10th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Buy and an average target price of $52.75. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on USFD US Foods Company Profile (Free Report) US Foods Holding Corp., together with its subsidiaries, engages in marketing, sale, and distribution of fresh, frozen, and dry food and non-food products to foodservice customers in the United States. The company's customers include independently owned single and multi-unit restaurants, regional concepts, national restaurant chains, hospitals, nursing homes, hotels and motels, country clubs, government and military organizations, colleges and universities, and retail locations. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for US Foods Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for US Foods and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. MBB Public Markets I LLC boosted its holdings in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS Free Report) by 5.2% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 78,887 shares of the investment management companys stock after purchasing an additional 3,887 shares during the quarter. The Goldman Sachs Group comprises 1.5% of MBB Public Markets I LLCs holdings, making the stock its 21st largest position. MBB Public Markets I LLCs holdings in The Goldman Sachs Group were worth $25,525,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Cambridge Trust Co. boosted its holdings in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group by 82.0% during the 3rd quarter. Cambridge Trust Co. now owns 91 shares of the investment management companys stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 41 shares during the last quarter. Truvestments Capital LLC increased its position in The Goldman Sachs Group by 88.0% in the third quarter. Truvestments Capital LLC now owns 94 shares of the investment management companys stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Pacific Center for Financial Services purchased a new position in The Goldman Sachs Group during the first quarter worth $33,000. Worth Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in The Goldman Sachs Group during the first quarter worth $33,000. Finally, First Capital Advisors Group LLC. purchased a new stake in shares of The Goldman Sachs Group during the second quarter valued at $34,000. 69.06% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get The Goldman Sachs Group alerts: Insider Buying and Selling at The Goldman Sachs Group In related news, CAO Sheara J. Fredman sold 4,300 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $380.15, for a total transaction of $1,634,645.00. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 11,463 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,357,659.45. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other news, CFO Denis P. Coleman sold 12,680 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.43, for a total value of $5,001,372.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 29,417 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,602,947.31. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Sheara J. Fredman sold 4,300 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $380.15, for a total value of $1,634,645.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 11,463 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $4,357,659.45. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 39,064 shares of company stock worth $15,082,153. Insiders own 0.54% of the companys stock. The Goldman Sachs Group Trading Up 1.0 % NYSE:GS traded up $3.82 on Wednesday, hitting $391.88. 582,077 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,295,692. The stock has a market cap of $127.58 billion, a PE ratio of 17.12, a PEG ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.43. The company has a current ratio of 0.76, a quick ratio of 0.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.29. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $383.64 and a 200-day moving average of $347.66. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $289.36 and a fifty-two week high of $396.79. The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 16th. The investment management company reported $5.48 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $3.62 by $1.86. The Goldman Sachs Group had a return on equity of 8.03% and a net margin of 7.85%. The business had revenue of $11.32 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $10.80 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.32 EPS. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 6.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. will post 32.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The Goldman Sachs Group Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 28th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 29th will be given a $2.75 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 28th. This represents a $11.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.81%. The Goldman Sachs Groups payout ratio is 48.20%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of analysts have recently issued reports on GS shares. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from $382.00 to $440.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 9th. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from $437.00 to $493.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, January 2nd. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from $357.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock a market perform rating in a report on Thursday, January 18th. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group from $491.00 to $506.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. Finally, JMP Securities restated a market outperform rating and set a $440.00 price objective on shares of The Goldman Sachs Group in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, The Goldman Sachs Group presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $409.93. View Our Latest Report on The Goldman Sachs Group The Goldman Sachs Group Profile (Free Report) The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc, a financial institution, provides a range of financial services for corporations, financial institutions, governments, and individuals worldwide. It operates through Global Banking & Markets, Asset & Wealth Management, and Platform Solutions segments. The Global Banking & Markets segment provides financial advisory services, including strategic advisory assignments related to mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate defense activities, restructurings, and spin-offs; and relationship lending, and acquisition financing, as well as secured lending, through structured credit and asset-backed lending and involved in resale agreements. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding GS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for The Goldman Sachs Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for The Goldman Sachs Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLC bought a new position in shares of Otis Worldwide Co. (NYSE:OTIS Free Report) during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm bought 27,258 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,189,000. Otis Worldwide makes up about 0.7% of Sherbrooke Park Advisers LLCs portfolio, making the stock its 10th biggest position. Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Otis Worldwide by 2.2% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 39,127,186 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,010,837,000 after purchasing an additional 829,784 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Otis Worldwide by 1.5% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,043,265 shares of the companys stock worth $1,428,011,000 after purchasing an additional 236,353 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley increased its holdings in shares of Otis Worldwide by 5.4% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 13,210,697 shares of the companys stock worth $1,034,530,000 after acquiring an additional 681,992 shares during the last quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. raised its stake in Otis Worldwide by 32.5% in the 2nd quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 12,239,672 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,089,453,000 after acquiring an additional 2,999,494 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Otis Worldwide by 2.9% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 10,134,058 shares of the companys stock worth $901,088,000 after purchasing an additional 285,489 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 85.48% of the companys stock. Get Otis Worldwide alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on OTIS shares. Argus raised shares of Otis Worldwide from a hold rating to a buy rating and set a $102.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an outperform rating and set a $100.00 price target on shares of Otis Worldwide in a research report on Monday, February 5th. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Otis Worldwide from $87.00 to $95.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Friday, February 16th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Otis Worldwide from $97.00 to $95.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, February 1st. Finally, Vertical Research downgraded shares of Otis Worldwide from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 2nd. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $92.29. Insider Activity at Otis Worldwide In other news, insider Montlivault Stephane De sold 18,393 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $91.10, for a total transaction of $1,675,602.30. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 67,274 shares in the company, valued at $6,128,661.40. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, CEO Judith Fran Marks sold 37,312 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $91.83, for a total transaction of $3,426,360.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 192,319 shares of the companys stock, valued at $17,660,653.77. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Montlivault Stephane De sold 18,393 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $91.10, for a total value of $1,675,602.30. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 67,274 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $6,128,661.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.15% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. Otis Worldwide Price Performance Shares of NYSE:OTIS traded up $0.99 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $94.84. The company had a trading volume of 483,733 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,170,715. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $89.42 and a 200 day moving average price of $85.06. Otis Worldwide Co. has a one year low of $73.32 and a one year high of $94.89. The company has a market capitalization of $38.45 billion, a PE ratio of 27.96 and a beta of 1.00. Otis Worldwide (NYSE:OTIS Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 31st. The company reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.85 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $3.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.57 billion. Otis Worldwide had a net margin of 9.90% and a negative return on equity of 30.75%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.75 EPS. Research analysts expect that Otis Worldwide Co. will post 3.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Otis Worldwide Dividend Announcement The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 8th. Investors of record on Friday, February 16th will be paid a $0.34 dividend. This represents a $1.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.43%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 15th. Otis Worldwides dividend payout ratio is currently 40.12%. About Otis Worldwide (Free Report) Otis Worldwide Corporation engages in manufacturing, installation, and servicing of elevators and escalators in the United States, China, and internationally. The company operates in two segments, New Equipment and Service. The New Equipment segment designs, manufactures, sells, and installs a range of passenger and freight elevators, as well as escalators and moving walkways for residential and commercial buildings, and infrastructure projects. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding OTIS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Otis Worldwide Co. (NYSE:OTIS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Otis Worldwide Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Otis Worldwide and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California State Teachers Retirement System decreased its position in shares of Amphenol Co. (NYSE:APH Free Report) by 4.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 923,012 shares of the electronics makers stock after selling 39,044 shares during the quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System owned about 0.15% of Amphenol worth $77,524,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Amphenol by 6.1% during the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 48,104,261 shares of the electronics makers stock valued at $4,086,457,000 after acquiring an additional 2,752,517 shares during the period. Aviva PLC lifted its holdings in Amphenol by 200.3% in the third quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 211,194 shares of the electronics makers stock worth $17,738,000 after purchasing an additional 140,859 shares during the period. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Amphenol by 2.5% in the third quarter. Resonant Capital Advisors LLC now owns 9,034 shares of the electronics makers stock worth $761,000 after purchasing an additional 221 shares during the period. Fund Management at Engine No. 1 LLC lifted its holdings in Amphenol by 7.4% in the second quarter. Fund Management at Engine No. 1 LLC now owns 7,747 shares of the electronics makers stock worth $658,000 after purchasing an additional 534 shares during the period. Finally, Arrow Financial Corp lifted its holdings in Amphenol by 53.2% in the second quarter. Arrow Financial Corp now owns 54,318 shares of the electronics makers stock worth $4,614,000 after purchasing an additional 18,851 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.46% of the companys stock. Get Amphenol alerts: Insiders Place Their Bets In other Amphenol news, VP Lance E. Damico sold 15,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $104.75, for a total transaction of $1,571,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 25,700 shares in the company, valued at $2,692,075. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other news, VP Lance E. Damico sold 15,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $104.75, for a total value of $1,571,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 25,700 shares in the company, valued at $2,692,075. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider William J. Doherty sold 170,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $103.50, for a total value of $17,595,000.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 285,000 shares of company stock worth $29,633,250 over the last three months. 2.22% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Truist Financial upped their price target on shares of Amphenol from $97.00 to $109.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, December 15th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on Amphenol from $107.00 to $119.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Citigroup initiated coverage on Amphenol in a research note on Friday, January 5th. They issued a buy rating and a $117.00 price target for the company. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on Amphenol from $100.00 to $106.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on Amphenol from $88.00 to $95.00 and gave the company a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $102.11. View Our Latest Stock Analysis on APH Amphenol Stock Performance Shares of APH traded up $0.47 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $108.41. The companys stock had a trading volume of 330,521 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,463,093. Amphenol Co. has a one year low of $72.00 and a one year high of $108.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a current ratio of 2.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $65.03 billion, a PE ratio of 34.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.15 and a beta of 1.30. The stocks 50-day moving average is $100.66 and its two-hundred day moving average is $91.59. Amphenol (NYSE:APH Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, January 24th. The electronics maker reported $0.82 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.77 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $3.33 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.16 billion. Amphenol had a return on equity of 23.94% and a net margin of 15.36%. Amphenols revenue was up 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.78 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Amphenol Co. will post 3.26 EPS for the current year. Amphenol Dividend Announcement The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 10th. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 19th will be paid a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 18th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.81%. Amphenols payout ratio is 28.30%. Amphenol Profile (Free Report) Amphenol Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, primarily designs, manufactures, and markets electrical, electronic, and fiber optic connectors in the United States, China, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Harsh Environment Solutions, Communications Solutions, and Interconnect and Sensor Systems. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding APH? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Amphenol Co. (NYSE:APH Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Amphenol Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Amphenol and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Teza Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Dominion Energy, Inc. (NYSE:D Free Report) in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm bought 72,336 shares of the utilities providers stock, valued at approximately $3,231,000. Other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank acquired a new position in Dominion Energy in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $212,000. Bank of Nova Scotia increased its stake in shares of Dominion Energy by 14.8% in the third quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 86,661 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $3,871,000 after acquiring an additional 11,194 shares during the last quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC raised its holdings in shares of Dominion Energy by 103.1% during the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 52,717 shares of the utilities providers stock worth $2,355,000 after acquiring an additional 26,757 shares in the last quarter. Reuter James Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in Dominion Energy by 9.0% during the third quarter. Reuter James Wealth Management LLC now owns 18,894 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $844,000 after purchasing an additional 1,554 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Treasurer of the State of North Carolina grew its stake in Dominion Energy by 0.5% in the third quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 367,420 shares of the utilities providers stock valued at $16,413,000 after purchasing an additional 1,870 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 70.66% of the companys stock. Get Dominion Energy alerts: Insider Buying and Selling In other news, COO Diane Leopold sold 6,250 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.51, for a total transaction of $284,437.50. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 88,126 shares in the company, valued at $4,010,614.26. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.15% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Dominion Energy Stock Performance D traded up $0.37 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $48.16. The companys stock had a trading volume of 2,222,015 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,794,418. Dominion Energy, Inc. has a twelve month low of $39.18 and a twelve month high of $58.69. The stock has a market cap of $40.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.52, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.60. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $46.31 and a 200 day simple moving average of $45.87. The company has a current ratio of 1.04, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.29. Dominion Energy (NYSE:D Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 22nd. The utilities provider reported $0.29 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $0.40 by ($0.11). Dominion Energy had a return on equity of 8.83% and a net margin of 12.40%. The company had revenue of $3.53 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.21 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.06 EPS. The companys revenue was down 7.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Dominion Energy, Inc. will post 3.06 earnings per share for the current year. Dominion Energy Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 20th. Investors of record on Friday, March 1st will be paid a $0.6675 dividend. This represents a $2.67 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 5.54%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 29th. Dominion Energys payout ratio is presently 114.59%. Analyst Ratings Changes A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on D shares. StockNews.com downgraded Dominion Energy from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Dominion Energy from $49.00 to $51.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Friday, December 1st. Finally, Barclays upgraded shares of Dominion Energy from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and raised their price target for the company from $45.00 to $47.00 in a report on Monday, November 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Dominion Energy has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $49.64. Read Our Latest Research Report on Dominion Energy Dominion Energy Profile (Free Report) Dominion Energy, Inc produces and distributes energy in the United States. It operates through four segments: Dominion Energy Virginia, Gas Distribution, Dominion Energy South Carolina, and Contracted Assets. The Dominion Energy Virginia segment generates, transmits, and distributes regulated electricity to approximately 2.7 million residential, commercial, industrial, and governmental customers in Virginia and North Carolina. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding D? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Dominion Energy, Inc. (NYSE:D Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Dominion Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Dominion Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) had its price target reduced by research analysts at Royal Bank of Canada from C$134.00 to C$130.00 in a research report issued on Wednesday, BayStreet.CA reports. The firm currently has an outperform rating on the banks stock. Royal Bank of Canadas price objective suggests a potential upside of 5.97% from the companys previous close. BMO has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Scotiabank raised their price objective on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$135.00 to C$145.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Tuesday, February 20th. Bank of America raised shares of Bank of Montreal from a neutral rating to a buy rating and increased their target price for the company from C$120.00 to C$145.00 in a research report on Monday, December 18th. National Bankshares raised shares of Bank of Montreal from a sector perform rating to an outperform rating and increased their target price for the company from C$117.00 to C$141.00 in a research report on Wednesday, December 20th. Cormark decreased their target price on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$128.00 to C$127.00 in a research report on Monday, December 4th. Finally, Desjardins increased their target price on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$130.00 to C$135.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 19th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, Bank of Montreal currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of C$132.70. Get Bank of Montreal alerts: View Our Latest Stock Report on BMO Bank of Montreal Price Performance TSE BMO traded up C$0.37 on Wednesday, hitting C$122.68. 689,367 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,160,772. Bank of Montreal has a 52 week low of C$102.67 and a 52 week high of C$132.11. The company has a market capitalization of C$88.44 billion, a PE ratio of 21.60, a P/E/G ratio of 0.54 and a beta of 1.18. The businesss fifty day moving average is C$127.84 and its 200 day moving average is C$118.22. Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) last posted its earnings results on Friday, December 1st. The bank reported C$2.81 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of C$2.86 by C($0.05). The company had revenue of C$8.36 billion during the quarter. Bank of Montreal had a return on equity of 5.91% and a net margin of 15.04%. Analysts predict that Bank of Montreal will post 12.0940171 EPS for the current fiscal year. Bank of Montreal Company Profile (Get Free Report) Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. It operates through Canadian P&C, U.S P&C, BMO Wealth Management, and BMO Capital Markets segments. The company's personal banking products and services include deposits, mortgages, home lending, consumer credit, small business lending, credit cards, cash management, financial and investment advice, and other banking services; and commercial banking products and services comprise various of financing options and treasury and payment solutions, as well as risk management products. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Bank of Montreal Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of Montreal and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Ancora Advisors LLC increased its position in General Dynamics Co. (NYSE:GD Free Report) by 17.4% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 102,315 shares of the aerospace companys stock after buying an additional 15,191 shares during the quarter. Ancora Advisors LLCs holdings in General Dynamics were worth $22,609,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in General Dynamics by 6.5% in the third quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 687 shares of the aerospace companys stock valued at $152,000 after acquiring an additional 42 shares in the last quarter. Alliance Wealth Advisors LLC UT raised its holdings in shares of General Dynamics by 1.6% in the third quarter. Alliance Wealth Advisors LLC UT now owns 2,706 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $598,000 after buying an additional 43 shares during the last quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust raised its holdings in shares of General Dynamics by 2.2% in the third quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 2,013 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $445,000 after buying an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Rock Creek Group LP raised its holdings in shares of General Dynamics by 7.8% in the second quarter. Rock Creek Group LP now owns 623 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $134,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the last quarter. Finally, PSI Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of General Dynamics by 40.4% in the third quarter. PSI Advisors LLC now owns 160 shares of the aerospace companys stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 46 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 86.08% of the companys stock. Get General Dynamics alerts: General Dynamics Price Performance GD traded up $0.56 on Wednesday, reaching $274.26. 235,089 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,174,775. The stock has a market cap of $75.14 billion, a PE ratio of 22.82, a P/E/G ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 0.68. General Dynamics Co. has a twelve month low of $202.35 and a twelve month high of $274.90. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $261.10 and its 200-day moving average price is $244.19. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.41, a current ratio of 1.44 and a quick ratio of 0.92. General Dynamics Announces Dividend General Dynamics ( NYSE:GD Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 24th. The aerospace company reported $3.64 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $3.68 by ($0.04). General Dynamics had a return on equity of 16.61% and a net margin of 7.84%. The business had revenue of $11.67 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $11.39 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.58 earnings per share. The businesss revenue was up 7.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that General Dynamics Co. will post 14.62 EPS for the current year. The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 9th. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 19th were paid a dividend of $1.32 per share. This represents a $5.28 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.93%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, January 18th. General Dynamicss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 43.93%. Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, CEO Phebe N. Novakovic sold 32,355 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $264.31, for a total value of $8,551,750.05. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 773,977 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $204,569,860.87. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In related news, EVP Mark C. Roualet sold 73,330 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $264.75, for a total transaction of $19,414,117.50. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 149,205 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $39,502,023.75. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Phebe N. Novakovic sold 32,355 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $264.31, for a total transaction of $8,551,750.05. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 773,977 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $204,569,860.87. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 1.50% of the stock is owned by insiders. Analyst Ratings Changes Several brokerages recently issued reports on GD. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and set a $300.00 target price on shares of General Dynamics in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Alembic Global Advisors cut shares of General Dynamics from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and set a $296.00 target price for the company. in a report on Monday, January 29th. StockNews.com cut shares of General Dynamics from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a report on Saturday, February 3rd. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of General Dynamics from $283.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Finally, UBS Group raised their price target on shares of General Dynamics from $286.00 to $296.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $271.69. Check Out Our Latest Report on General Dynamics General Dynamics Company Profile (Free Report) General Dynamics Corporation operates as an aerospace and defense company worldwide. It operates through four segments: Aerospace, Marine Systems, Combat Systems, and Technologies. The Aerospace segment produces and sells business jets; and offers aircraft maintenance and repair, management, aircraft-on-ground support and completion, charter, staffing, and fixed-base operator services. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding GD? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for General Dynamics Co. (NYSE:GD Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for General Dynamics Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for General Dynamics and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Ancora Advisors LLC decreased its position in shares of BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK Free Report) by 2.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 27,667 shares of the asset managers stock after selling 775 shares during the quarter. Ancora Advisors LLCs holdings in BlackRock were worth $17,886,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. OLD Point Trust & Financial Services N A acquired a new position in shares of BlackRock in the 2nd quarter valued at $26,000. West Tower Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of BlackRock in the 2nd quarter valued at $27,000. Archer Investment Corp bought a new stake in shares of BlackRock in the 2nd quarter valued at $29,000. WFA of San Diego LLC bought a new stake in shares of BlackRock in the 2nd quarter valued at $33,000. Finally, Tyler Stone Wealth Management bought a new stake in shares of BlackRock in the 2nd quarter valued at $33,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 77.01% of the companys stock. Get BlackRock alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of analysts recently commented on the stock. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of BlackRock from $720.00 to $818.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on BlackRock from $719.00 to $793.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, November 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut BlackRock from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and set a $708.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Friday, December 15th. BNP Paribas upgraded BlackRock from a neutral rating to an outperform rating and set a $885.00 price objective for the company in a report on Tuesday, December 12th. Finally, TD Cowen upgraded shares of BlackRock from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and raised their target price for the company from $819.00 to $938.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, BlackRock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $785.73. BlackRock Stock Performance Shares of BLK traded up $9.16 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $809.70. 241,052 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 598,513. BlackRock, Inc. has a 52 week low of $596.18 and a 52 week high of $823.71. The stocks 50-day simple moving average is $795.40 and its 200-day simple moving average is $722.92. The firm has a market cap of $120.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.92, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.78 and a beta of 1.38. The company has a quick ratio of 3.72, a current ratio of 3.48 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. BlackRock (NYSE:BLK Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Friday, January 12th. The asset manager reported $9.66 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $8.84 by $0.82. The company had revenue of $4.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.65 billion. BlackRock had a net margin of 30.81% and a return on equity of 14.74%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 6.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $8.93 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that BlackRock, Inc. will post 39.63 EPS for the current year. BlackRock Increases Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 22nd. Investors of record on Thursday, March 7th will be paid a $5.10 dividend. This represents a $20.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.52%. This is a boost from BlackRocks previous quarterly dividend of $5.00. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 6th. BlackRocks dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 54.78%. Insider Activity at BlackRock In other BlackRock news, CFO Martin Small sold 7,036 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $786.36, for a total transaction of $5,532,828.96. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 5,259 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,135,467.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other news, CFO Martin Small sold 7,036 shares of BlackRock stock in a transaction on Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $786.36, for a total transaction of $5,532,828.96. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 5,259 shares in the company, valued at $4,135,467.24. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Rachel Lord sold 36,059 shares of BlackRock stock in a transaction on Friday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $818.06, for a total transaction of $29,498,425.54. Following the transaction, the director now owns 17,004 shares in the company, valued at approximately $13,910,292.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 69,533 shares of company stock valued at $46,774,326 over the last three months. 1.06% of the stock is owned by insiders. BlackRock Profile (Free Report) BlackRock, Inc is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm primarily provides its services to institutional, intermediary, and individual investors including corporate, public, union, and industry pension plans, insurance companies, third-party mutual funds, endowments, public institutions, governments, foundations, charities, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, official institutions, and banks. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for BlackRock Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for BlackRock and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Ancora Advisors LLC decreased its holdings in Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST Free Report) by 35.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 289,089 shares of the companys stock after selling 159,460 shares during the quarter. Ancora Advisors LLC owned about 0.08% of Vistra worth $9,592,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd boosted its holdings in Vistra by 323.6% during the third quarter. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd now owns 4,554 shares of the companys stock worth $151,000 after buying an additional 3,479 shares in the last quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new stake in shares of Vistra during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $3,703,000. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Vistra by 3,796.7% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,281,402 shares of the companys stock worth $42,517,000 after acquiring an additional 1,248,518 shares during the period. IFP Advisors Inc increased its stake in Vistra by 311.1% in the 2nd quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 2,257 shares of the companys stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 1,708 shares in the last quarter. Finally, QRG Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Vistra during the third quarter worth $4,276,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.31% of the companys stock. Get Vistra alerts: Vistra Price Performance Shares of NYSE VST traded up $1.99 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $52.97. The company had a trading volume of 5,327,139 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,682,261. The company has a current ratio of 1.22, a quick ratio of 1.14 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.34. The stock has a market capitalization of $18.94 billion, a PE ratio of 14.99 and a beta of 0.96. Vistra Corp. has a twelve month low of $21.18 and a twelve month high of $53.03. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $41.47 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $36.27. Vistra Increases Dividend Wall Street Analyst Weigh In The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 29th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 20th will be issued a dividend of $0.215 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 19th. This is an increase from Vistras previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. This represents a $0.86 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.62%. Vistras payout ratio is 25.00%. A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on VST shares. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Vistra from $40.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 21st. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on shares of Vistra from $43.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 21st. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on VST Vistra Profile (Free Report) Vistra Corp., together with its subsidiaries, operates as an integrated retail electricity and power generation company. The company operates through six segments: Retail, Texas, East, West, Sunset, and Asset Closure. It retails electricity and natural gas to residential, commercial, and industrial customers across 20 states in the United States and the District of Columbia. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Vistra Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Vistra and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Synovus Financial Corp raised its holdings in EOG Resources, Inc. (NYSE:EOG Free Report) by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Secuzimni ?epice replay barbecue vendita amazon rok met stippen zara lykt med snmann barbecue vendita amazon bradley dolma kalem nfl shop 49ers recinzioni a basso costo amazon air max 97 sale gipsy lederjacke beige damen ????? ??? ??????? ?????? puma nova pastel adidas tasti?ka bila se zlatym adam and eve adult store ray ban 3025 58mm polarized replacement lenses rities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 43,129 shares of the energy exploration companys stock after buying an additional 382 shares during the quarter. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in EOG Resources were worth $5,467,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina raised its holdings in shares of EOG Resources by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 258,372 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $32,751,000 after purchasing an additional 1,320 shares during the period. Trexquant Investment LP raised its holdings in EOG Resources by 58.1% in the third quarter. Trexquant Investment LP now owns 63,311 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $8,025,000 after buying an additional 23,265 shares during the period. Mather Group LLC. lifted its position in EOG Resources by 7.5% during the third quarter. Mather Group LLC. now owns 10,276 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $1,303,000 after buying an additional 720 shares in the last quarter. Morse Asset Management Inc increased its position in shares of EOG Resources by 2.4% in the third quarter. Morse Asset Management Inc now owns 6,344 shares of the energy exploration companys stock worth $804,000 after acquiring an additional 150 shares in the last quarter. Finally, O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of EOG Resources by 5.8% in the 3rd quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 89,920 shares of the energy exploration companys stock valued at $11,398,000 after acquiring an additional 4,931 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.21% of the companys stock. Get EOG Resources alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In EOG has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of EOG Resources from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and set a $134.00 price target for the company. in a report on Monday, December 11th. Raymond James cut their price target on EOG Resources from $148.00 to $145.00 and set a strong-buy rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. Susquehanna lowered their price objective on EOG Resources from $164.00 to $147.00 and set a positive rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Piper Sandler cut their target price on EOG Resources from $158.00 to $153.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 24th. Finally, Bank of America downgraded shares of EOG Resources from a buy rating to a neutral rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $147.00 to $140.00 in a research report on Friday, January 5th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $142.40. EOG Resources Stock Up 1.7 % Shares of EOG stock opened at $113.94 on Wednesday. EOG Resources, Inc. has a 1 year low of $98.52 and a 1 year high of $136.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13, a quick ratio of 2.13 and a current ratio of 2.44. The businesss fifty day moving average is $115.53 and its 200-day moving average is $122.65. The stock has a market cap of $66.09 billion, a PE ratio of 8.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.33 and a beta of 1.40. EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 23rd. The energy exploration company reported $3.07 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.14 by ($0.07). The business had revenue of $6.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.18 billion. EOG Resources had a return on equity of 25.38% and a net margin of 31.40%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was down 5.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.30 EPS. Equities analysts expect that EOG Resources, Inc. will post 11.87 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. EOG Resources Dividend Announcement The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 30th. Investors of record on Tuesday, April 16th will be given a $0.91 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, April 15th. This represents a $3.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.19%. EOG Resourcess dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 27.98%. About EOG Resources (Free Report) EOG Resources, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, explores for, develops, produces, and markets crude oil, and natural gas and natural gas liquids. Its principal producing areas are in New Mexico and Texas in the United States; and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The company was formerly known as Enron Oil & Gas Company. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for EOG Resources Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for EOG Resources and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Description The New York Blood Center is having a Blood Drive at the Great Neck Library at 159 Bayview Avenue, Great Neck, on Wednesday, February 28, 2024, from 1:30 p.m. to 7:30 P.m. Appointments are preferred; however, walk-ins will be welcome if space permits. Please remember to eat, drink, and bring your ID with your name and photo. Mask requirements may change depending on CDC guidelines. Visit nybc.org/coronavirus for complete COVID-19 safety protocols. For more information, please contact Great Neck Library at (516) 466-8055 or email adultprogramming@greatnecklibrary.org A local mother is calling on Irish Ferries to look after their disabled customers after the company chartered a non-wheelchair accessible boat for a popular route. Olivia Hassett has stated she is very upset following the companys decision to charter a boat with limited passenger facilities on the route between Rosslare and Pembroke in Wales. Olivia, whose daughter Caoimhe uses a wheelchair due to a rare muscle condition, says the Norbay boat currently in operation has no lift to the main passenger area, which is only accessible by a steep staircase. The Clonmel mother went on RTEs Liveline on Monday to highlight the issue and speaking to The Nationalist, she said: Im just very upset over it because we travel three times a year and we have our holidays booked, but we cant get the boat. Im not going to take the risk of trying to drag my daughter up the stairs in case she has a fall. The lack of lift facilities affects not only people with disabilities and mobility problems, but also the elderly and parents of young children manoeuvring buggies. Olivia and her family have been travelling the route regularly for 20 years, however this is the first time theyve encountered an issue with accessibility. She said: My oldest daughter is 22, Caoimhe is actually 19 and I have a 10-year-old. We used to go over and back to Spain once a year. And when it came to bringing wheelchairs and stuff in, we just couldnt do it. It was too hard. So we started going over to Pembroke. We found the Haven crowd in Kiln Park in Tenby and its absolutely beautiful. I love the Welsh people, theyre all so lovely to us and I know a lot of people now from travelling every year. We meet the same people in the same restaurants and in the same places we go and everybody is just lovely, thats why we keep going back there. It just makes sense for us. Olivia raised the issue nationally on Liveline on Monday, February 26, where she told Joe Duffy she has tried contacting Irish Ferries to speak to someone about the issue. She said: We always go over to Pembroke at Halloween, Easter, and we go for an extra few days in June or July. I was looking to book for Easter to go over and they told us there was insufficient wheelchair space. I rang three times and two of them didnt know about it, but the third person did and said wed need to get on to customer service. However, Olivia said she has not received an appropriate response. She said: Its frustrating to say the least. Despite never having an issue travelling the route in the past, Olivia believes the recent issues reflect a major reduction in quality with no change in price. She said: Its still premium prices. Its 376 each way so prices have stayed the same, theres no difference. Olivia and her family have previously travelled the route on the wheelchair-accessible Oscar Wilde boat, which she describes as beautiful. However, Olivia states there is no consistency and claims the boats can be switched at very little notice. She said: Oscar Wilde came on in June, its a beautiful boat. When that came in they said it would be for 20 months with a four year extension plan, and it hasnt been running nine months and theyve now changed to the Norbay for the Rosslare to Pembroke route. The Irish Ferries website confirms the Norbay is the only ferry currently active on the Pembroke/Rosslare route. However, Olivia said: When I tried to book this morning, I could get Oscar Wilde today but tomorrow I can only get the Norbay, and when I tried to book my holiday for July, again its the Norbay. The website also states: This ferry offers an economy class service on our Rosslare - Pembroke - Rosslare route, with limited passenger facilities. There are no lifts to the main passenger area and access is by steep staircase only and is therefore unsuitable for a person with a disability or reduced mobility, or young children and buggies. There is a simple restaurant and bar, a basic shop/reception desk, and en-suite cabins. According to Olivia, many people are affected by the lack of facilities on the boat. She said: When we travel its hundreds of families with young kids, its people heading over to Wales on holidays, people with their dogs. Its shocking, absolutely shocking. Im so angry and upset, were travelling as I said three times a year so its handy to pack up the car, get on the boat, and when we get to the other side its ten minutes. The route is favoured by Olivias family due to her daughter Caoimhes condition, as she can be in severe pain when travelling in a car for long periods of time. Additionally, any fall or injury could be extremely dangerous for her. And she isnt the only one who finds the boat inaccessible. An elderly Irish Ferries passenger named Graham also spoke to Joe Duffy about the state of the facilities on the Norbay. Graham - who is aged in his mid-70s - claimed he had to climb the stairs from reception to the passenger deck on all fours as he was afraid of falling and injuring himself. He said: I was on the thing last Tuesday, the Norbay, its not a nice boat. I booked it by the phone, I was late booking it and I asked is there a lift because I know what these type of ferries are like. I was told specifically that yes, theres a lift. However, Graham only discovered the lack of facilities after boarding. He said: There are two flights of stairs up to the reception area. Im 75-years-old and its quite difficult. The only good thing youve got is the handrail you can grab on either side. But when you take the stairs up from reception to the cabin, they are dangerous, the pitch of them and the fall of them, theyre incredible. Graham believes there is room for an elevator on the Norbay from reception to the first car deck. He said: I would imagine they could put in an elevator. I was sitting there watching as they lowered this little winch thing down, you could put a lift in there somewhere, I would have thought. Although Olivia says she and her family could use the Stena Line from Rosslare to Fishguard, its not as suitable due to a long drive on the other side. Additionally, she believes an Irish company should be able to facilitate her daughter and others with limited mobility. On the Irish Ferries website, no mention of the Norbay is made under Ship information. Regarding accessibility, their website states: Whatever you need we will do our best to help make travel on our services as easy and comfortable as possible for passengers with reduced mobility and special needs. Customers with reduced mobility and special needs are asked to contact Irish Ferries within two working days before travel commences, and are advised to add Passenger with Wheelchair to the booking. However, they also state: Please be aware that there are limitations to the service we can reasonably offer and deliver. According to Olivia, however, following these instructions isnt enough to secure a wheelchair accessible boat. Its just not good enough, she said. Irish Ferries has been contacted for comment. Photo: William Murphy. CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED. No changes. Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) invented the graphics processing unit (GPU) in 1999. That innovation has since revolutionized the media and entertainment industry, bringing sensational visual effects to video games, film, and professional design applications. The company's GPUs have also become the gold standard in accelerating complex data center workloads, like artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics. Nvidia created tremendous value for shareholders as those events unfolded. Its stock has soared 43,670% since 2000, compounding at 28.6% annually. At that pace, $5,000 invested in the company 24 years ago would be worth $2.1 million today. Similar returns in the future are beyond the realm of possibility, but Nvidia stock could still be a rewarding investment. Here's why. Nvidia finished the year with fantastic fourth-quarter results Nvidia was the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 last year, but Wall Street was on edge when the company announced fourth-quarter results last week. Some analysts expected the stock to pullback significantly following the report, simply because expectations were so lofty. But the company delivered another drop-the-mic performance, beating estimates on the top and bottom lines, and the stock moved 10% higher on the news. Fourth-quarter revenue increased 265% over the prior year to $22.1 billion on continued momentum in the data center segment, driven by frenzied demand for AI chips. Nvidia also reported strong growth in professional visualization, which comprises chips and software purpose-built for digital-content creation. On the bottom line, non-GAAP net income soared 486% from the prior year to $5.16 per diluted share as pricing power supported a 10-percentage-point expansion in gross margin. The infographic below provides more detail on fourth-quarter revenue growth across Nvidia's four primary business segments. Infographic by Author. Shown above is revenue across Nvidia's four largest business segments in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, which ended Jan. 28, 2024. OEM and other revenue has been excluded because they accounted for less than 1% of total revenue. Nvidia is the engine of the AI revolution Following its invention of the graphics processing unit (GPU) in 1999, Nvidia pressed its advantage with CUDA in 2006, a programming model that opened its GPUs to general purpose computing and laid the foundation for its data center business. The company also started building software libraries that allowed its GPUs to accelerate workloads, like scientific computing, data analytics, and machine learning. Story continues Two decades later, Nvidia GPUs have become the gold standard in accelerated computing. The company holds 98% market share in data center GPUs, over 95% market share in workstation graphics processors, and over 80% market share in AI chips, according to analysts. Furthermore, the company has extended its ability to monetize graphics and AI by branching into subscription software and cloud services. Omniverse Cloud brings together hardware, software, and services that support 3D application development and physically accurate simulation, which is useful in training machine-learning models for autonomous robots and self-driving cars. Similarly, DGX Cloud brings together hardware, software, and services that support AI application development across a range of use cases, from retail and customer service to logistics and healthcare. Nvidia has also expanded its data center hardware portfolio with high-performance networking equipment and central processing units. That makes Nvidia a full-stack accelerated computing company, meaning its products address every layer of the computing stack, from infrastructure to software and services. That full-stack strategy affords the company an incredible competitive advantage, according to CFRA analyst Angelo Zino. It not only creates new monetization opportunities with existing customers, but also reduces friction for potential customers. The upshot is that Nvidia has become the engine of the AI revolution, and its capacity for innovation should keep the company at the forefront of AI computing for years to come. The price of Nvidia stock is surprisingly tolerable Nvidia is ideally positioned to benefit as businesses invest in AI. Argus analyst Jim Kelleher recently wrote, "Nvidia stands out, in our view, not only because it participates in so many parts of the dynamic AI economy, but because it has synthesized its offerings into a first-of-its-kind AI-as-a-service delivered through the cloud." With that in mind, the graphics processor market is forecast to grow at 28% annually through 2030, while AI spending is projected to increase at 37% annually during the same period. That gives Nvidia a good shot at 30% annual sales growth through the end of the decade, which implies similar (or slightly faster) earnings growth. Indeed, Wall Street expects the company to grow earnings per share at 35% annually over the next five years. That consensus estimate makes its current valuation of 66 times earnings seem tolerable. Nvidia is arguably cheaper than many other popular AI stocks, including Amazon and Microsoft. To elaborate, the company currently has a PEG ratio -- the price-to-earnings multiple divided by projected earnings growth rate -- of 1.9, while Amazon and Microsoft have PEG ratios of 2.5. That said, much depends on how quickly Nvidia grows earnings in the future. Its share price would almost certainly plummet if it fails to keep pace with consensus estimates. Investors who are comfortable with that risk should consider buying a small position in Nvidia stock today, especially as part of a basket of AI stocks. Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now? Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Nvidia wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than tripled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of February 26, 2024 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. Trevor Jennewine has positions in Amazon and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 1 Monster AI Growth Stock Up 43,670% Since 2000 to Buy Now and Hold Long Term was originally published by The Motley Fool Investing in great companies doesn't need to cost a lot. Remember that the next time you visit a drive-thru for a quick snack. For just $10 each, you can buy shares in an emerging hypergrowth stock, like Nu Holdings (NYSE: NU). Nu Holdings is an up-and-coming digital bank and fintech company in Latin America. A mixture of market opportunity and stellar execution make the stock a candidate for market-beating returns for the next decade and beyond. Here is what makes it arguably the best $10 stock you can buy today. Solving a tremendous problem in Latin America You might take modern banking for granted if you live in America. Cash-only businesses are a rarity in the U.S. and more an inconvenience than a way of life. However, it's very different in Latin America. For example, only 55% of adults in Mexico have a banking account. That means nearly half are stuffing cash under their mattress, in their sock drawer, or, well, you get the idea. Nu Holdings is a digital bank racing to provide modern financial products and services to consumers in Latin America. Currently, the company serves consumers in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Nu's customer base has rapidly expanded, growing from just over 20 million in 2020 to 95 million as of January 2024. Customers can bank online and don't need physical branches to conduct their business. Nu's services include digital accounts, payments, credit cards, business credit, investments, and insurance. The average customer uses four products, indicating they're building their finances on Nu. Latin America is home to more than 660 million people. While Nu Holdings is concentrated in three countries today, there is a clear path for long-term expansion. It could run into competition from other banks and fintech players like MercadoLibre, but it might be a case where everyone eats because the market demographic is so large. Nu's rapid customer growth shows no signs of running out of room for expansion. Story continues Earnings growth is just getting warmed up The primary business model of a bank is simple. Banks pay interest on customer deposits and collect interest on money loaned out. The net interest income is the spread between interest coming in and going out. Banks make money when interest received is greater than interest paid. You can see below that Nu Holdings has seen its net interest income take off over the past few years, and the company's bottom-line earnings per share (EPS) have begun to follow. Last year was an inflection point for Nu; earnings turned significantly positive. NU Net Interest Income (TTM) Chart A company turns profitable when revenue outruns expenses enough that the paradigm shifts, like the scales tipping the other way. A newly profitable company often grows earnings quickly until the business matures and profits growth slows. That means Nu Holdings could be entering prime years for earnings growth. Analysts agree, expecting earnings per share as follows: Year Earnings Per Share 2023 (actual) $0.24 2024 $0.36 2025 $0.54 2026 $0.86 Data source: Seeking Alpha Although nobody can say how accurate these estimates will be, it seems clear that Nu Holdings is moving in an excellent direction for long-term investors. A fantastic buy-and-hold candidate Banking services in emerging markets aren't going away. Latin American consumers build their economic foundation on the products and services companies like Nu Holdings provide. Management has stated that Brazil, its original market, heavily contributed to the bottom line in 2023. Management prioritizes growth over profit in its newer markets, Colombia and Mexico. Replicating success in Brazil across Colombia, Mexico, and future geographies could position the company for years of solid earnings growth. Considering shares trade at just 28 times this year's earnings estimates, Nu Holdings has the runway to generate market-beating returns. Should you invest $1,000 in Nu right now? Before you buy stock in Nu, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Nu wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than tripled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of February 26, 2024 Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends MercadoLibre. The Motley Fool recommends Nu. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This $10 Hypergrowth Stock Might Be the Best You Can Buy for the Money was originally published by The Motley Fool In this article, we look at the 11 countries with the best military special forces in the world. You can skip our detailed analysis on the most formidable and well-trained units a country can boast and head over directly to the 5 Countries with the Best Military Special Forces in the World. The concept of special forces varies among different countries. While some view them as elite soldiers of the military, others consider the forces as special units of the armed forces tasked to perform specialized operations. Irrespective of how their roles are interpreted, the special forces are made up of the finest soldiers recruited from across the country. What makes these soldiers special is their level of training and personality traits such as strong mentality and bravery. They are also equipped with state-of-the-art military hardware that allows them to dominate the battlefield and overcome challenging scenarios that come in their way. For instance, according to an analysis on Business Insider, weapons and gear the US military special forces head to the field with include assault rifles such as the M4A1 and MK18, the MK46 and MK48 machine guns, as well as other vital equipment like night-vision goggles, first aid kits, GPS devices, ballistic helmets, and belts. It is common for these troops to carry grenade launchers and anti-tank missiles as well if they need to. The FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missile, jointly developed by Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) and RTX Corporation (NYSE:RTX), had been deployed extensively by the United States in its combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The American forces had experienced over 5,000 engagements with this weapon system during the war in these two countries, as noted by defense news website, Army Technology. More than 45,000 units of these portable and platform-employed anti tank missiles had been produced until 2019 by these companies since its first launch in 1996. While RTX Corporation (NYSE:RTX) builds the command launch unit (CLU), Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) shoulders the responsibility of assembling the missile itself. Story continues Javelin is being widely used by the Ukrainian military as well to repulse Russian invasion of their country. According to a report, as of late August 2023, the US had provided over 10,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles to Kyiv, which has helped Ukraine in keeping Russia at bay from the capital. Owing to the demand for this weapon, both Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) and RTX Corporation (NYSE:RTX) have been taking measures to increase Javelin production from 2,000 units to 3,500 per year. On the other hand, the Remington Modular Sniper Rifle (MSR) is a key weapon in the Delta Force arsenal that is enhancing the operational effectiveness of the elite group. Launched to enter service in 2013, the MSR has a firing range of 4,920 feet and a rate of 12 shots per minute. The sniper has also received acclaim from defense experts for its modularity that allows users customizable configurations of the equipment. In 2013, each unit cost around $15,000, according to a report. Moreover, large defense sector corporations also offer tactical and strategic support to the special forces. General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE:GD)s information technology unit in 2016 was awarded a contract to provide professional support services to the American special operation forces in carrying out their global missions. Under the agreement, General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE:GD) was to provide infinite delivery of services for an indefinite time period, with a maximum ceiling of $900 million over five years. General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE:GD) is the sixth largest defense contractor in the world, and posted its highest-ever revenue of $42.3 billion last year. You can read more on this in our article on the Top 20 Defense Contractors in 2024. 11 Countries with the Best Military Special Forces in the World Copyright: zabelin / 123RF Stock Photo Methodology The 11 countries with the best military special forces in the world are ranked based on a consensus method, where we analyzed three sources The Independent, The Times of India, and Forces.net. While the first source ranked various special forces (out of 8) on their capabilities, the other two websites discussed these units without ranking them. In the first case, we observed where each unit ranked and assigned scores to the country, depending on where its special forces group (s) ranked. For instance, if a country ranked first, it received a score of 1 (8/8); if it was third, it received 0.75 (6/8). For the remaining two sources, we counted the number of times a military special forces group was mentioned on these websites and assigned a score of 1 for each time they received a mention. Finally all scores were aggregated to get an overall score. Countries with the best military forces in the world are ranked in ascending order of their overall scores. In cases where two or more countries had the same score, we outranked one over the other on the battle-hardness of their special forces. If interested, you can also take a look at the 15 Countries with the Most Reserve Military Manpower in the World. By the way, Insider Monkey is an investing website that uses a consensus approach to identify the best stock picks of more than 900 hedge funds investing in US stocks. The website tracks the movement of corporate insiders and hedge funds. Our top 10 consensus stock picks of hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 stock index by more than 140 percentage points over the last 10 years (see the details here). So, if you are looking for the best stock picks to buy, you can benefit from the wisdom of hedge funds and corporate insiders. Lets now head over to the list of countries with the best military special forces. Top 11 Countries with the Best Military Special Forces in the World: 11. Fuerza de Guerra Naval Especial Country: Spain Score: 0.25 Spain, with its Unidad de Operaciones Especiales, has one of the best military special forces in the world. Since June 2009, the group has been absorbed into the Fuerza de Guerra Naval Especial, or Special Naval Warfare Force, which has inherited its reputation. What started off in 1952 as the Amphibious Climbing Company has grown into being among the most respected special forces in Europe. According to The Independent, the force has a rejection rate of around 80%. 10. MARCOS Country: India Score: 1.00 India finds itself among countries with the best military special forces in the world, with three special forces that are controlled by the military. These include the Armys Paratrooper Special Forces, Navys MARCOS, and the Air Forces Garud Commando Force. The Marine Commandos, abbreviated as MARCOS, are the most widely acclaimed special forces group in the country. According to The Times of India, it takes about three years of rigorous training before soldiers could become a part of this special unit. MARCOS is capable of operations at sea, land, and air. 9. Kommando Spezialkrafte Country: Germany Score: 1.00 Kommando Spezialkrafte (KSK) is the elite special force of the Bundeswehr the German military. It is a large brigade-level unit, that is tasked with performing a wide range of operations as required related to counter-terrorism, commando warfare, and search and rescue. However, like all other Germany units, KSK's deployments have to be authorized by the German parliament. The unit carried out several successful operations during the war against terrorism in Afghanistan, including a raid on an Al Qaeda safehouse in 2006. Germany also has another top special services group in GSG 9 der Bundespolizei, which is the special forces unit of the German Police, and plays an active role in combating terrorism and organized crime. Primarily due to these two agencies, Germany finds itself in the list of countries with the best military special forces in the world. 8. Joint Task Force 2 (JST2) Country: Canada Score: 2.00 The Joint Task Force 2 (JST2) is an elite, tier 1 special forces group of the Canadian military, and serves under the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. The unit is tasked with working on counter-terrorism missions, both at home and abroad, and has come to be recognized as a world-class special force. The JST2 is known to collaborate closely with the Delta Force in the US and Britains Special Air Service (SAS) in missions of common interest. 7. GROM Military Unit Country: Poland Score: 2.00 Polands GROM Military Unit is one of the best military special forces in the world. It is a top-tier special forces unit that can be compared with the best of the best. The group was formed in 1990 as part of a mission to help Soviet Jews enter Israel safely amid resistance from Hezbollah. These days, GROM is a highly-capable anti-terrorism unit, which has successfully undertaken several missions at home and overseas. One of its most notable operations was the rescue of hostages after terrorists took control of a government building in Paktia, Afghanistan in 2012. 6. Special Services Group (SSG) Country: Pakistan Score: 2.00 Pakistans Special Services Group, or SSG, is one of the best military special forces units in the world. The unit is also known as the Black Storks, due to the unique headgear worn by its commandos. The Independent and Force.net have both highlighted that SSGs training involves a 36-mile march in 12 hours, as well as a 5-mile sprint in just 20 minutes, while only 5% of those who enter training pass out upon completion of the course. The SSG is a battle-hardened force that is undertaken some of the most complex missions during Pakistan's war against militant groups in the country's tribal north and come out successful. Click to continue reading and see the 5 Countries with the Best Military Special Forces in the World. Suggested Articles: Disclosure: None. 11 Countries with the Best Military Special Forces in the World is originally published on Insider Monkey. In this article, we discuss 13 best diversified dividend stocks to invest in. You can skip our detailed analysis of dividend stocks and their performance over the years, and go directly to read 5 Best Diversified Dividend Stocks To Invest In. Diversified stocks mean companies with exposure to a variety of sectors, industries, and geographic regions. These are usually conglomerates that make money operating in a number of businesses (think Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway). The purpose of diversification is to reduce risk by spreading investments across different assets, thereby minimizing the impact of any single stock or sector performing poorly. In 2023, global stock markets experienced significant growth, with particular attention on Wall Street's impressive performance. The U.S. stock market, being the largest globally, notably led the way with remarkable gains. The S&P 500 index surged by 24.2% in 2023 and the Nasdaq index witnessed an outstanding increase of 43.4%, achieving its highest annual gain since 2020. Despite initial expectations, the economy managed to evade a recession, and the stock market rally surpassed many predictions. However, analysts hold divergent views on what lies ahead for the stock market in 2024, offering a mixed outlook for the year. Based on the positive trends observed last year, analysts are optimistic about the stock market's prospects for the current year, although they anticipate some minor declines along the way. A report from JP Morgan suggested that due to decreasing inflation in the US and the possibility of the Federal Reserve adopting more relaxed policies, there's growing discussion of a "soft landing" rather than a severe economic downturn or bear market. Leading indicators point to a slowdown in growth but not a complete collapse. Generally, equity markets tend to hit their lowest point well before economic conditions reach their worst, although there have been exceptions such as during the dot-com cycle. While there's still a risk of recession in the upcoming year, the key takeaway is that even if it does happen, it's likely to be mild, especially considering the support the Fed is providing to the banking system through increased liquidity. The report further mentioned that in 2023, earnings for the S&P 500 remained stagnant overall. However, they saw a significant increase of 33% for the seven largest companies, while the rest of the S&P 500 experienced a decline of 5%. Looking ahead to 2024, it appears to be a year characterized by slowing GDP growth, single-digit increases in earnings, and single-digit returns for the typical S&P 500 stock. Story continues According to analysts at JP Morgan, investors should consider a diversified portfolio consisting of cash, long-term government bonds, high-quality corporate bonds, and equities. They also find the industrial and energy sectors appealing, particularly due to the industrial policies in the US. Analysts express positivity towards the energy sector primarily because it continues to offer attractive opportunities for earnings yield, dividends, and stock buybacks. According to Bloomberg's 2024 Outlook report, numerous analysts are favoring dividend stocks as an investment choice for the current year. The strategists at Capital Group made the following statement: With investors swept up in the artificial intelligence fervor, valuations for dividend-paying stocks have quietly drifted toward multi-decade lows compared to the broader market. With growth expected to moderate in 2024, and the potential for recession lingering, dividends may take a more prominent role in driving total returns for investors. As previously stated, diversified companies play a crucial role in reducing risk. By investing in a diversified portfolio of dividend-paying companies across various sectors, investors can spread their risk and reduce exposure to any single company or industry's performance. Furthermore, dividend-paying companies tend to be more mature and financially sound, as they prioritize returning profits to shareholders. General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR), and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) are some of the best diversified dividend stocks among others that are discussed below. 13 Best Diversified Dividend Stocks To Invest In Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash Our Methodology: For this list, we scanned Insider Monkeys database of Q4 2023 and selected conglomerate firms that specialize in several different businesses and pay regular dividends to shareholders. The list is ranked in ascending order of the number of hedge funds having stakes in the companies. Hedge funds top 10 consensus stock picks outperformed the S&P 500 Index by more than 140 percentage points over the last 10 years (see the details here). 13. Unilever PLC (NYSE:UL) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 25 Unilever PLC (NYSE:UL) is a London-based multinational consumer goods company that operates in various sectors of the consumer goods industry, including food and beverages, cleaning agents, beauty and personal care products. On February 8, the company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.4582 per American Depositary Share (ADS). The stock's dividend yield on February 21 came in at 3.63%. It is among the best diversified dividend stocks on our list. At the end of Q4 2023, 25 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey reported having stakes in Unilever PLC (NYSE:UL), growing from 21 in the previous quarter. The consolidated value of these stakes is nearly $751 million. With roughly 11 million shares, Fisher Asset Management was the company's leading stakeholder in Q4. 12. Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE:CHD) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 30 Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE:CHD) is an American consumer packaged goods company that is primarily engaged in the production, marketing, and distribution of a wide range of household and personal care products. On February 2, the company announced a 4.1% hike in its quarterly dividend to $0.2838 per share. Through this increase, the company achieved its 28th consecutive annual dividend hike, which makes CHD one of the best dividend stocks on our list. The stock's dividend yield on February 21 came in at 1.15%. As of the close of Q4 2023, 30 hedge funds in Insider Monkey's database reported having stakes in Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE:CHD), down slightly from 33 in the preceding quarter. The overall value of these stakes is over $1.05 billion. 11. Carlisle Companies Incorporated (NYSE:CSL) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 35 Carlisle Companies Incorporated (NYSE:CSL) is next on our list of the best dividend stocks. The diversified industrial company operates through multiple segments, serving various industries with a wide range of products and solutions. On January 30, the company announced a quarterly dividend of $0.85 per share, which was in line with its previous dividend. Overall, it holds an impressive dividend growth streak of 47 consecutive years. As of February 21, the stock has a dividend yield of 0.98%. At the end of December 2023, 35 hedge funds owned stakes in Carlisle Companies Incorporated (NYSE:CSL), compared with 37 in the previous quarter, as per Insider Monkey's database. The collective value of these stakes is over $765.4 million. Among these hedge funds, Generation Investment Management was the company's leading stakeholder in Q4. 10. Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 37 Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) is an American multinational tech company that operates in several segments and is best known for its expertise in specialty glass, ceramics, and related materials. Corning's products and solutions are utilized across various industries, including telecommunications, display technologies, environmental technologies, life sciences, and automotive. Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW), one of the best dividend stocks on our list, currently offers a quarterly dividend of $0.28 per share. The company has raised its dividends for the past 13 years in a row. The stock has a dividend yield of 3.49%, as of February 21. The number of hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey owning stakes in Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) jumped to 37 in Q4 2023, from 24 in the previous quarter. These stakes are worth over $234 million in total. 9. TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 42 TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL) is a global technology company that designs and manufactures a wide range of connectivity and sensor solutions. The company operates in several key segments and serves various industries including automotive, aerospace, defense, industrial, data communications, telecommunications, consumer electronics, energy, and medical. On February 14, TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL) declared a quarterly dividend of $0.59 per share, which fell in line with its previous dividend. Overall, the company has been growing its dividends for the past nine years, which makes TEL one of the best diversified dividend stocks on our list. The stock's dividend yield on February 21 came in at 1.69%. Insider Monkey's database of Q4 2023 indicated that 42 hedge funds owned stakes in TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL), compared with 46 in the preceding quarter. The consolidated value of these stakes is over $2.03 billion. 8. Emerson Electric Co. (NYSE:EMR) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 50 Emerson Electric Co. (NYSE:EMR) is a Missouri-based technology and engineering company that provides solutions for industrial, commercial, and residential markets. It is one of the best dividend stocks on our list as the company holds a strong 67-year-long dividend growth streak. Currently, it pays a quarterly dividend of $0.525 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.01%, as recorded on February 21. According to Insider Monkey's database of Q4 2023, 50 hedge funds owned stakes in Emerson Electric Co. (NYSE:EMR), down from 53 in the previous quarter. The collective value of these stakes is more than $1.44 billion. With over 3.5 million shares, Adage Capital Management was the company's leading stakeholder in Q4. 7. Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 54 Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL) is a multinational consumer goods company that specializes in the production, distribution, and marketing of oral care, personal care, home care, and pet nutrition products. The company offers a quarterly dividend of $0.48 per share for a dividend yield of 2.25%, as of February 21. It is one of the best dividend stocks on our list as the company maintains a 61-year streak of consistent dividend growth. Insider Monkey's database of Q4 2023 showed that 54 hedge funds held stakes in Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL), up from 52 in the previous quarter. The total value of these stakes is nearly $3 billion. 6. Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 55 Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON) is a diversified technology and manufacturing company that operates across various sectors, providing products and services for a wide range of industries and applications. The company has raised its dividends 14 times in 13 consecutive years, which makes it one of the best dividend stocks on our list. Currently, it offers a quarterly dividend of $1.08 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.16%, as of February 21. Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON) was a part of 55 hedge fund portfolios at the end of Q4 2023, compared with 60 in the previous quarter, as per Insider Monkey's database. The stakes owned by these hedge funds have a collective value of $1.6 billion. Among these hedge funds, Adage Capital Management was the company's leading stakeholder in Q4. Click to continue reading and see 5 Best Diversified Dividend Stocks To Invest In. Suggested articles: Disclosure. None. 13 Best Diversified Dividend Stocks To Invest In is originally published on Insider Monkey. In this article, we will explore the countries with the 15 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World. If you're interested in learning about the 5 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World without diving into the broader cyber warfare industry or the major players in America's cybersecurity sector, feel free to jump ahead. In 2022, investment scams emerged as the most expensive fraudulent schemes reported to the IC3, which serves as the primary national reporting entity for cybercrimes. The total reported losses attributable to investment fraud surged from $1.45 billion in 2021 to $3.31 billion in 2022, reflecting a substantial increase of 127%. Notably, within these complaints, cryptocurrency-related investment fraud jumped from $907 million in 2021 to $2.57 billion in 2022, marking an impressive 183% increment. Thus, it is essential that the cybersecurity market of the world gets aligned with the growing need of the world. The global cybersecurity market had a value of $172.32 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $424.97 billion by 2024, showing a growth rate of 13.8% during the period from 2023 to 2030. One of the main drivers behind this growth is the increasing adoption of cloud-based security solutions, offering robust data protection through encryption, strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, and dependable backups. Furthermore, the utilization of Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics by companies is creating attractive prospects for the industry. The demand for AI and ML-based cybersecurity software across various sectors is also propelling market expansion. Additionally, the necessity for ongoing management of cyber incidents due to the upsurge in social media usage and constant connectivity is fueling the need for cybersecurity measures. Moreover, the escalating incidents of cyber espionage and cyber-terrorism, coupled with the enhanced utilization of cybersecurity tools in military aviation to safeguard aircraft operations from threats, are further bolstering the industry's growth trajectory. Story continues Conversely, in the United States, Gartner's forecasts indicate a significant uptick in end-user spending within the information security and risk management market, with figures expected to rise from $172.5 billion in 2022 to $267.3 billion by 2026. Despite the heightened awareness of the importance of cybersecurity investments, current initiatives may still be lacking. American businesses are prioritizing employee training, implementing cybersecurity solutions, strengthening their cybersecurity teams, undergoing external audits, and seeking certifications such as ISO27001 and SOC2. However, studies suggest that only a small fraction of the IT budget is dedicated to cybersecurity, and many companies believe they are not utilizing their cybersecurity budget optimally. To tackle these obstacles, it is crucial for business leaders to formulate a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy before making investments to bolster their overall cybersecurity posture. Before delving into our list of the 15 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World, let's examine U.S. companies active in the cybersecurity sector, including Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQGS:AVGO), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), and CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ:CRWD). Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQGS:AVGO) Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQGS:AVGO) is an American provider of enterprise security solutions that takes a holistic approach to mainframe cybersecurity, offering detailed insights and automation to enhance security across platforms without the need for specialized mainframe expertise. This strategy facilitates the creation of a strategic Zero Trust environment throughout the enterprise. In late January 2024, Broadcom's shares (AVGO) soared to a record high of $1,284 as investors lauded the company's increased revenue streams resulting from its $61 billion acquisition of cloud-software leader VMware. Investors are also optimistic about the potential for growth in artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives. Going forward, there will be a heightened emphasis on high-margin infrastructure software. Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) is a leading U.S. company in the networking and communications sector, offering a wide array of cybersecurity products and services, including firewalls, routers, switches, VPNs, cloud security, email security, web security, and threat intelligence. For the second quarter ending on December 31, 2023, the company reported a revenue of $12.8 billion, reflecting a 6% decline compared to the previous year. The GAAP EPS stood at $0.65, down by 3% year over year, while the Non-GAAP EPS was $0.87, marking a 1% decrease year over year. Cisco Systems witnessed revenue growth in security, collaboration, and observability segments during this period. CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ:CRWD) CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ: CRWD) is a cybersecurity company that specializes in providing endpoint protection, threat intelligence, and incident response services. By utilizing a cloud-native platform and artificial intelligence, the company is able to detect and prevent advanced cyberattacks effectively. In the third quarter of fiscal year 2023, CrowdStrike experienced a substantial improvement in GAAP net income, soaring to $26.7 million, a remarkable turnaround from a loss of $55.0 million. The company's strong operational cash flow and free cash flow demonstrate its financial resilience. Notably, CrowdStrike Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: CRWD) recently achieved a significant milestone by surpassing $3 billion in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). 15 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World Pixabay/Public domain Methodology For compiling our list of 15 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World, we consulted The Internet Crime Complaint Center's 2022 Internet Crime report. The Internet Crime Complaint Center, known as IC3, serves as the primary national reporting entity for cybercrimes. Operated by the FBI, the leading federal agency in cybercrime investigations, IC3 plays a pivotal role in addressing cyber threats. Our ranking is derived from the authority's compilation of countries based on the total reported instances of individuals affected by internet cybercrimes; total victims will be lot higher than the victims who reported or filed the complaint. With this lets now jump on to our list of 15 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World. By the way, Insider Monkey is an investing website that tracks the movements of corporate insiders and hedge funds. By using a similar consensus approach, we identify the best stock picks of more than 900 hedge funds investing in US stocks. The top 10 consensus stock picks of hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 Index by more than 140 percentage points over the last 10 years (see the details here). Whether you are a beginner investor or professional one looking for the best stocks to buy, you can benefit from the wisdom of hedge funds and corporate insiders. 15. Spain Number of Victims in 2022: 481 15th on our list of 15 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World is Spain. Spain recorded 375,506 cyber breaches in the previous year, marking a 72% increase compared to 2019. It is revealed that in the first half of 2023, Spain ranked as the one of the top countries in Europe in terms of cyber-attacks. 14. Italy Number of Victims in 2022: 562 Italy's cybersecurity market was valued at $2.1 billion in 2022, showing an 18% growth from the previous year. Italy maintains its position as the one of the most targeted country worldwide. The rise in remote work has led to a doubling of attacks on PCs in Italy, as cyber criminals target vulnerabilities at the endpoint and specifically employees' PCs. 13. Turkey Number of Victims in 2022: 590 13th on our list of 15 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World is Turkey. In Turkey, cyber criminals have formed alliances with Russian hackers who recently migrated to the country, resulting in the flooding of an online marketplace with millions of freshly stolen personal credentials. Following their departure from Russia after President Putin initiated military conscription for the conflict in Ukraine, numerous skilled software engineers sought refuge in Turkey. Some of these individuals resorted to minor online scams and fraud in collaboration with local Turkish partners to evade detection, launder illicit profits, and trade extracted credentials from global computer systems in the European black market. 12. Pakistan Number of Victims in 2022: 829 Pakistan has observed a significant rise in cybercrimes over the past five years, particularly in the province of Punjab. From 2018 to 2022, seven distinct types of cybercrimes were commonly reported in the region. Topping the list was online fraud, with a notable 26,924 complaints registered, followed by online stalking with 18,851 complaints and data theft with 17,749 complaints. Online harassment, primarily targeting women, garnered 2,357 complaints, while hate speech and the misuse of unverified SIM cards resulted in 2,038 and over 1,000 complaints respectively. Child pornography, the least reported offense, accumulated 98 complaints during this period. 11. Philippines Number of Victims in 2022: 934 In the Philippines, a breach of a database containing over a million police records and approximately 800 gigabytes of personal information of law enforcement employees and applicants occurred in early 2023. This incident represents one of many data breaches in the country as it transitions towards digitalized services and adopts digital financial technologies. 10. Mexico Number of Victims in 2022: 1,119 Mexico has been a prime target for cyberattacks in Latin America, with 66% of the total cyber incidents between 2021 and 2022 directed at the country, resulting in annual losses ranging from $3 billion to $5 billion. The country experienced a surge in cyberattacks in the first half of 2022, totaling 85 billion attempts, marking a 40% increase compared to the same period in 2021. Mexico also exhibited the highest ransomware distribution activity in the region during the first half of 2022, with more than 18,000 detections. 9. Brazil Number of Victims in 2022: 1,181 Brazil leads in banking trojan attacks, with 1.8 million attempted infections from June 2022 to July 2023. Notably, Brazil is the producer of eight out of the 13 most popular trojan types globally and is placed 9th on our list of 15 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World. 8. Germany Number of Victims in 2022: 1,494 Germany faces substantial financial losses due to IT equipment and data theft, digital espionage, and industrial sabotage. The German digital association Bitkom estimates these losses to reach $222.7 billion in 2023, exceeding the $216.2 billion threshold for the third consecutive year. 7. South Africa Number of Victims in 2022: 1,929 South Africa is positioned to become a hub for cybercrime in Africa, with organized crime factions engaging in online scams that defraud individuals and businesses. Prosecuting cybercrime cases proves challenging in South Africa, despite the presence of skilled law enforcement officers adept at handling such cases. However, the country faces a shortage of experts with specialized cybercrime knowledge, creating a gap in combating online criminal activities effectively. 6. France Number of Victims in 2022: 2,061 While France boasts a robust cybersecurity landscape, findings from an Ipsos and Sopra Steria study indicate widespread apprehension among the French populace. The study shows that 82% of French participants expressed concerns about global cyberattacks, with 79% specifically worried about the state of cybersecurity within France. In a notable incident in December 2022, a cyber-attack targeted a hospital in Versailles, resulting in significant disruptions, including the cancellation of operations and the need to relocate some patients to alternative facilities. Click to continue reading and find out about the 5 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World. Suggested Articles: Disclosure: None. 15 Countries With Most Cyber Crime In The World is originally published on Insider Monkey. Travelers dreaming of visiting the breathtaking Amalfi Coast in Italy have exciting news to look forward to. This summer, the Salerno-Costa d'Amalfi airport, located roughly 45 kilometers away from the Amalfi Coast, will start welcoming commercial flights. The airport is getting a major makeover to handle more travelers who want to explore the famous coastline. (Photo : Frans van Heerden on Pexels) New Airport Opening Near Amalfi Coast The Salerno airport, which is in the middle of getting bigger and better, will see its first flights from the Spanish airline Volotea this July. Flights will connect the Amalfi Coast to cities like Cagliari and Nantes starting in July, and to Catania and Verona from September. Other budget airlines, including Ryanair and easyJet, are also looking to fly to Salerno, making it easier for tourists to reach the Amalfi Coast. Up until now, visitors to the Amalfi Coast usually flew into Naples and then took a bus or train. The Salerno airport was first built in 1926, mainly used by the military and for private flights. It had a short period of commercial flights about ten years ago but is now set for a big return to commercial use. Wanted in Rome shared that starting in July, the airport will permanently open for commercial flights. By 2026/2027, it should be fully ready with a new terminal and a longer runway. The airport's expansion, managed by Gesac and costing 257 million ($277.56 million), aims to finish by 2043. By then, it hopes to welcome six million visitors a year. The local government in Campania is also investing in better roads and transport to the airport, making trips to the Amalfi Coast even smoother for tourists. Related Article: Why Amalfi Coast is the Best Romantic Place for a Honeymoon Fiat 500 Boats Now Available Along the Coast In a unique twist on sea travel, visitors to Italy's Amalfi Coast can now rent boats shaped like Fiat 500 cars. Created by Antonio Pietro Maria Galasso and his company, Cars Off-Shore, these special boats have received approval from both the Fiat Licensing Office and Fiat Style Center. With only 500 units being made, these boats are a rare sight. According to The Drive, each boat, mirroring the design of the Fiat 500 car, sits atop a trimaran hull and is powered by a 40-horsepower Mercury motor. For those seeking more speed, there are options for motors up to 115 horsepower. The design cleverly adapts the car for water, removing the roof and the lower parts of the wheel arches while still keeping the iconic headlights, taillights, and mirrors. Unlike the traditional Fiat 500, the boat version replaces the rear bench with two seats at the back. Not limited to the Amalfi Coast, these Fiat 500-themed boats are also making waves in Miami as part of a global expansion by Cars Off-Shore and Stellantis. This initiative offers a unique way to enjoy the scenic beauty of the Amalfi Coast and beyond, combining Italian charm with the thrill of boating. However, concerns linger about how these vehicles will withstand the test of time in saltwater conditions. Read Also: Manila's NAIA Ranked Fourth Worst Airport in Asia by Business Travelers Why settle for the usual when Stockholm, Sweden, invites you on an adventure that stands apart? Have you ever thought about what it feels like to explore a city spread across islands, connected by bridges? Stockholm's setting on 14 islands offers a chance to experience city life alongside nature. But what should you know before setting foot in this city? How can you experience Stockholm like a local? From the colorful houses of Gamla Stan to the sleek designs of modern Sweden, there is so much to see and do. (Photo : Catalina Johnson on Unsplash) Gamla stan, Stockholm, Sweden Figuring out the best spots to visit in Stockholm might seem challenging. Yet, did you know that even a ride on the subway can turn into an unexpected art tour? And when is the ideal time to taste Swedish delicacies or see the city in full celebration mode? Join the Travelers Today as we share the top tips for your visit to Stockholm, Sweden. Learn how to enjoy Swedish life, from embracing sustainability to enjoying a cozy coffee break. This guide will lead you through Stockholm, where every experience is an opportunity to explore. Enjoy the Swedish Fika In Stockholm, Fika is much more than a coffee break. It is a moment to relax and connect with others. So, what is Fika? It's enjoying a cup of coffee and a sweet treat, ideally shared with friends or colleagues. This tradition shows the Swedish value of balance and wellness. In Stockholm, find a cozy cafe, order coffee and a cinnamon bun, and take in the surroundings. This introduces you to Swedish culture and provides a pleasant break. Cafes in Stockholm focus on quality, offering a variety of coffees and pastries. Fika is an essential part of the local lifestyle and a way to relax. Explore the Archipelago The archipelago near Stockholm is stunning, with over 30,000 islands and rocks in the Baltic Sea. Exploring these islands is a must. The archipelago is easily reachable by ferry from Stockholm, with options for day trips or longer stays. If you seek peace or activities, there is an island for you. Visitors are often surprised by the peacefulness so close to the city. A picnic is a great way to enjoy these islands, offering hiking, swimming, and kayaking opportunities. The sunset over the archipelago is not to be missed. Related Article: Five Of The Best Shopping Destinations In Stockholm (Photo : Arild Vagen on Wikimedia Commons) Ostermalms saluhall, Stockholm, Sweden Walk Through the Old Town Gamla Stan, Stockholm's Old Town, is filled with history, featuring medieval streets and buildings. Here, you will find the Royal Palace, Stockholm Cathedral, the Nobel Museum, and charming shops and cafes. The narrowest alley, Marten Trotzigs grand, is a unique spot. Gamla Stan connects visitors to Stockholm's past while remaining lively. Always remember that exploring quieter streets can lead to unexpected discoveries. Taste Swedish Cuisine Swedish food offers variety beyond meatballs. Stockholm's restaurants serve traditional dishes like gravlax and herring, using local and seasonal ingredients. Street food, including shrimp sandwiches and unique hot dogs, provides tasty and affordable options. Swedish pastries and desserts are also worth trying. Visiting food markets like Ostermalms Saluhall gives insight into Swedish culinary traditions. Dining in Stockholm allows you to experience the nation's culinary heritage and creativity. Get Around with Public Transport Stockholm's public transport system, including buses, trams, ferries, and the metro (Tunnelbana), is efficient and comprehensive. The Tunnelbana is known for its art-filled stations, often called the world's longest art gallery. A Stockholm Travelcard grants unlimited public transport access, making travel easy and cost-effective. The city is also friendly for cyclists and pedestrians, offering a closer look at Stockholm's beauty. Ferries add to the experience, providing scenic views as you move between islands. Take note that getting around Stockholm is straightforward and enriches your visit. (Photo : Screenshot image taken from Metro Check on YouTube) Tunnelbana Station Read Also: Do Before You Die: Dog-Sledding In Sweden In this article, we will take a look at the 16 longest lasting jeans brands of 2024. If you want to skip our detailed analysis, you can go directly to 5 Longest Lasting Jeans Brands of 2024. The Global Denim Outlook According to a report by Research and Markets, the global denim jeans market was valued at $42.81 billion in 2023. The global denim jeans market is expected to grow to $67.31 billion by 2030 from $45.51 billion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.67%. The market for denim jeans is rapidly growing in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Such is primarily due to rising customer expenditure on fast fashion and outdoor clothing items. Well-established brands are rapidly opening outlets in these regions. The Asia Pacific is one of the largest distributors of raw materials, especially denim and cotton. North America stands strong as the most dominant market for denim jeans. Denim jeans are easily available via online platforms and brick-and-mortar stores in the region. You can also take a look at the biggest clothing manufacturing countries in the world. Companies that Produce the Best Denim Some of the leading clothing companies that produce high quality jeans include Levi Strauss & Co. (NYSE:LEVI), American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (NYSE:AEO), and Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL). Let's discuss some recent updates from these companies. You can also take a look at the largest clothing companies by market cap. Levi Strauss & Co. (NYSE:LEVI) is a clothing company headquartered in California, United States. The company specializes in the production of jeans, shirts, sweaters, jackets, pants, chinos, shorts, overalls, socks, underwear, and accessories. Levi Strauss & Co. (NYSE:LEVI) launched a new pair of blue jeans. The 501 '54 classic slim-leg jeans are inspired by the original Levi's blue jeans. The jeans are 100% cotton and are available for $128. Levi Strauss & Co.'s (NYSE:LEVI) vast offerings and popularity explain its financial results. On January 25, Levi Strauss & Co. (NYSE:LEVI) reported earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter of 2023. The company reported earnings per share of $0.44. The company also reported revenue worth $1.64 billion during the quarter, with a year-over-year revenue growth rate of 3.37%. Here are some comments from Levi Strauss & Co.'s (NYSE:LEVI) Q4 2023 earnings call: Story continues "We have the right strategies in place, which we will accelerate by unlocking efficiency with the launch of our global productivity initiative, Project FUEL. We are seeing strong growth in our DTC and international businesses, both critical components of our growth algorithm. We have further strengthened the management team, who I am confident will drive our execution. While were encouraged by momentum in our business, including continued positive DTC trends, moderating inflation and early improvement in US wholesale, we are taking a cautious approach to our outlook given the continued macroeconomic uncertainty." American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (NYSE:AEO) is a clothing and accessories retailer based in Pennsylvania, United States. The company sells a range of jeans, cargo pants, tops, pants, and dresses. The new AE Dreamy Drape Stretch Baggy Jeans are priced at $69.95 and are available in several colors including light destroy wash, light vintage, easy breezy blue, brown, cream, onyx black, and peach. The jeans are 57% cotton, 18% lyocell, 12% recycled cotton, 11% viscose, and 2% elastane. Wall Street is positive on American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (NYSE:AEO). On February 26, UBS financial analyst Jay Sole maintained a Buy rating on the stock and revised his price target to $27 from $29. Over the past 3 months, 2 Wall Street analysts have given a Buy rating on American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (NYSE:AEO). American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (NYSE:AEO) has an average price target of $22.25 and a high forecast of $27. Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) is a global leader in apparel and accessories. On February 8, Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) reported earnings for the fiscal third quarter of 2024. The company reported earnings per share of $4.17, beating estimates by $0.62. The company also reported revenue worth $1.93 billion, ahead of market consensus by $63.93 million, with a year-over-year revenue growth rate of 5.55%. Here are some comments from Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) Q3 2024 earnings call: "We are proud of our teams strong execution on our next great chapter accelerate plan through what continues to be a highly dynamic operating environment. We are focused on what we can control, shifting to GTC, harnessing big data and AI and of course, operating and balance sheet discipline. This puts us in a position of strength as we continue to deliver our commitments and drive long-term value creation." Without further ado, let's take a look at the 16 longest lasting jeans brands of 2024. You can also read our piece on the best clothing stocks to buy. 16 Longest Lasting Jeans Brands of 2024 16 Longest Lasting Jeans Brands of 2024 Our Methodology To make a list of the longest lasting jeans brands of 2024 we initially sifted through multiple online rankings on the topic and tabulated a list of the most commonly mentioned brands. We then checked jeans brands with bestseller products listed on multiple online stores including Amazon, Asos, and eBay. We sourced the average ratings and the number of reviews from these sources for each brand. For our list, we chose brands that had multiple products with an average rating of at least 4.0 and at least 1,500 reviews. The list has been arranged in ascending order of the average ratings, with the number of reviews used as a tie-breaker. By the way, Insider Monkey is an investing website that tracks the movements of corporate insiders and hedge funds. By using a similar consensus approach, we identify the best stock picks of more than 900 hedge funds investing in US stocks. The top 10 consensus stock picks of hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 Index by more than 140 percentage points over the last 10 years (see the details here). Whether you are a beginner investor or a professional one looking for the best stocks to buy, you can benefit from the wisdom of hedge funds and corporate insiders. 16 Longest Lasting Jeans Brands of 2024 16. Levi's Average Customer Rating: 4.25 Customer Reviews: 2,323 Levi's ranks 16th on our list of the longest lasting jeans brands of 2024. Levi Strauss & Co. (NYSE:LEVI) was founded in 1853 and is headquartered in California, United States. The company offers an elaborate collection of jeans, jackets, and tops for men, women, and kids. The 311 Shaping Skinny Women's Jeans is a best selling item by Levi's. It is available on the official site for $69.50. It is made from 78% cotton and 21% polyester. 15. Bonobos Average Customer Rating: 4.27 Customer Reviews: 1,880 Bonobos ranks 15th on our list of the longest lasting jeans brands to buy from in 2024. The brand offers denim jeans in multiple shades, washes, and colors. It provides travel jeans, selvedge stretch jeans, and premium stretch jeans. Bonobos is known to produce durable and comfortable clothing items. It has an average customer rating of 4.27. 14. APC Average Customer Rating: 4.33 Customer Reviews: 2,160 APC is a leading clothing company with an immense focus on quality. APC was founded in 1987 in France. The brand offers a range of clothing options including jeans, trousers, chinos, blouses, jackets, shoes, flats, boots, sandals, and coats. APC has an average customer rating of 4.33. 13. Gap Average Customer Rating: 4.40 Customer Reviews: 1,789 The Gap, Inc. (NYSE:GPS) specializes in the production of some of the longest lasting jeans in the world. Gap was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in California, United States. The company offers a range of casual wear items for women, men, and kids. 12. Old Navy Average Customer Rating: 4.40 Customer Reviews: 2,433 Old Navy ranks 12th on our list of the longest lasting jeans brands in 2024. The brand sells a range of products including jeans, sweaters, cardigans, denims, maternity wear, and dresses. 11. Tom Ford Average Customer Rating: 4.40 Customer Reviews: 2,538 Jeans by Tom Ford are some of the longest lasting jeans to buy. The Moleskin Slim Fit Denim is one of the best selling items by Tom Ford. It is made from 98% cotton and 2% polyurethane. Tom Ford has an average customer star rating of 4.4. 10. Calvin Klein Average Customer Rating: 4.45 Customer Reviews: 1,590 Calvin Klein ranks as one of the best jeans brands to buy from. The Skinny Fit Limelight Jeans are a best selling item by Calvin Klein. They are available at a discounted price of $62.65. The jeans are made from 98% cotton and 2% elastane. 9. Everlane Average Customer Rating: 4.47 Customer Reviews: 1,625 Everlane ranks ninth on our list of the longest lasting jeans brands in 2024. Everlane is a clothing brand based in the United States. The Way High Jean by Everlane has an average customer star rating of 4.3. It is made from 98% regenerative cotton and 2% elastane. 8. Wrangler Average Customer Rating: 4.50 Customer Reviews: 1,546 Wrangler is one of the longest lasting jeans brands to buy from in 2024. Wrangler is headquartered in North Carolina, United States. The company recently launched a new bootcut pair of jeans. The Women's Westward Mid Rise Bootcut Jean in Magnetic Pull is made from 98% cotton and 2% elastane. 7. Lucky Brand Average Customer Rating: 4.50 Customer Reviews: 2,450 Lucky Brand ranks seventh on our list of the longest lasting jeans brands in 2024. The denim clothing company was founded in 1990 and is based in Vernon, California. The company sells shirts, jackets, and denim jeans for men and women. The Mid Rise Boy Jean is a best seller and is available for $129. It is made from 72% cotton and 28% hemp. 6. Carhartt Average Customer Rating: 4.53 Customer Reviews: 2,109 Carhartt is one of the longest lasting jeans brands to buy from in 2024. The brand was founded in 1889. The Flame Resistant Rugged Flex Relaxed Fit Tapered Jean is one of the top-rated pairs of jeans by Carhartt. The pair of jeans is 98% cotton and 2% spandex. The jeans are considered to be highly durable and abrasion-resistant. The item is available on the official Carhartt site for $119.99. Click to continue reading and see 5 Longest Lasting Jeans Brands of 2024. Suggested articles: Disclosure: None. 16 Longest Lasting Jeans Brands of 2024 is originally published on Insider Monkey. In this article, we will take a look at 17 European Countries that Allow Dual Citizenship. You can skip our detailed analysis and go directly to the 5 European Countries that Allow Dual Citizenship. International mobility is a coveted asset in contemporary times. A second passport can open doors to another country, providing various financial, cultural benefits, and freedom. Especially during times of uncertainty and unforeseen catastrophes, it can serve as a vital alternative security plan. A dual/multiple citizen is someone who holds legal citizenship in two countries simultaneously. This status entails both rights (such as passport issuance, entry into the country, work, and residence) and obligations (taxation, national duty, etc.). For a detailed analysis, please refer to our article on Dual Citizenship: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Requirements. The concept of dual nationality has undergone significant changes over the years. Once considered alien, it is now openly and widely discussed, particularly since the end of the Cold War, marking an era where a more liberal approach towards dual citizenship began to emerge. This shift is attributed, in part, to greater gender equality and the abandonment of mandatory military service. The connection to gender equality is argued through the discriminatory act of women having to relinquish their nationality after marriage for their husbands, causing related problems. The UN Declaration of Human Rights underscores everyones right to nationality, emphasizing its fundamental nature in the global discourse on citizenship. Why Covet European Nationality? Europe, being one of the largest destinations for immigrants, welcomed 86.7 million international immigrants in 2020. Holding an EU citizenship comes with numerous advantages. Being a citizen of any of the 27 EU member states automatically grants EU citizenship, facilitating work and residence in another EU state without the need for a visa or additional permits. Consequently, it is not surprising that in 2021, 827,300 people acquired EU citizenship, with 85% of them transitioning from non-EU countries to enjoy the benefits that come with EU citizenship. Story continues European Attitude Towards Dual Citizenship According to The Macimide Global Expatriate Dual Citizenship Database, the European Union has witnessed a notable shift in policies regarding dual citizenship. The percentage of countries automatically revoking citizenship upon acquisition of another has decreased from 63% in 1960 to 24% in 2020, signaling an increasing tolerance for dual citizenship. Despite this trend, specific countries such as Austria, Germany, Estonia, Bulgaria, Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands remain hesitant to permit dual citizenship, enforcing strict rules for exceptions. Global Players in the European Market The European market is expanding by attracting a diverse range of immigrants through its acceptance of dual citizenship and various citizenship programs. This growth is evident in the presence of various multinational corporations operating in the market, such as ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ: ASML) and AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN). The appeal of dual citizenship not only contributes to demographic diversity but also fosters economic development by drawing in skilled professionals and entrepreneurs. This intersection of diverse immigration policies and a flourishing corporate landscape underscores Europe's attractiveness as a global destination for both individuals and businesses alike. ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ: ASML), a Dutch multinational company, stands out as a pivotal player with a profound impact on the flourishing tech world. The company has earned a significant reputation in the industry, being recognized as Europe's AI champion and hailed as "the continents most valuable tech firm." ASML Holding N.V.'s contributions are evidently crucial to the advancements in technology, and their prominence underscores their noteworthy role in shaping the landscape of the tech industry in Europe and globally. AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN) stands as another prominent global firm, albeit in a different industry. As a pharmaceutical giant, the company is characterized by continuous innovation and sustained growth. Notably, at the close of the previous year, AstraZeneca plc (NYSE: AZN) made headlines by expressing their intent to acquire their first vaccine company, signaling a strategic move to expand their business portfolio. This strategic decision underlines AstraZeneca's commitment to staying at the forefront of advancements in the pharmaceutical sector. 17 European Countries that Allow Dual Citizenship 17 European Countries that Allow Dual Citizenship Methodology For our compilation of the 17 European Countries that Allow Dual Citizenship, we have gathered data from diverse sources, including ImmigrantInvest, Henley & Partners, and the CIAs World Fact Book-- Citizenship, to determine which European nations permit dual citizenship. We specifically focused on those countries that offer dual citizenship without imposing additional conditions. Our presentation follows a descending order based on the Human Development Index for the year 2021, providing a comprehensive overview of European countries that embrace dual citizenship without stringent requirements. NOTE: We have also considered Cyprus in our list. Although it is geographically located in West Asia, the country is culturally Southeast European. By the way, Insider Monkey is an investing website that uses a consensus approach to identify the best stock picks of more than 900 hedge funds investing in US stocks. The website tracks the movement of corporate insiders and hedge funds. Our top 10 consensus stock picks of hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 stock index by more than 140 percentage points over the last 10 years ( see the details here ). So, if you are looking for the best stock picks to buy, you can benefit from the wisdom of hedge funds and corporate insiders. 17 European Countries that Allow Dual Citizenship 17. Serbia HDI Index: 0.802 A European nation that embraces dual citizenship, citizens of this country, whether acquired through birthright or naturalization, are exempt from the obligation of renouncing their citizenship when seeking another nationality. Likewise, foreign nationals are not mandated to release their previous citizenship when becoming citizens of this country. This nation is renowned for offering one of the most favorable citizenship through investment programs, among other pathways to citizenship. Notably, the investment program allows individuals to attain residency in three years and citizenship in six, highlighting the efficiency and attractiveness of the country's citizenship acquisition process. 16. Romania HDI Index: 0.821 Indeed, Romania is among the countries that have embraced the concept of dual nationality. According to Romanian law, citizens of the country have the right to acquire another citizenship without the requirement of renouncing their Romanian citizenship. Additionally, foreign individuals obtaining Romanian citizenship are granted the same rights as other citizens, including the option for dual citizenship. While the standard naturalization period is approximately 8 years, the route through marriage shortens it to five years. Furthermore, obtaining citizenship through descent is a popular pathway for Romanian nationality, applicable if one or both parents are Romanian citizens, at least one parent or grandparent lost citizenship, or at least one parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent lost citizenship involuntarily. This inclusive approach reflects Romania's openness to diverse routes for acquiring and maintaining citizenship. 15. Portugal HDI Index: 0.866 Portugal is another European country that acknowledges and permits dual citizenship. Portuguese nationals seeking another nationality can do so without the obligation to renounce their original citizenship. Similarly, foreign individuals applying for Portuguese citizenship need not concern themselves with the status of their previous nationality. This flexibility is particularly beneficial for those aspiring to relocate to Portugal and experience the country's high quality of life. Portugal is renowned for its notable five-year residence investment program, the Golden Visa plan, which is available for non-EU individuals. Additionally, a faster route to citizenship is through descent, a fortunate option for some individuals with Portuguese ancestry. This diversity in pathways underscores Portugal's commitment to providing accessible and inclusive opportunities for citizenship. 14. Greece HDI Index: 0.887 According to Greek Law, specifically Art. 31 Civil Code and Art 2 par. 2 Law 4251/2014, dual citizenship is permitted. Individuals acquiring citizenship in another country are not required to renounce their Greek citizenship. However, it is important to note that some countries do not accept dual citizenship, and decisions must align with the laws of both nations involved. For EU nationals, acquiring Greek citizenship requires three years of residency in the country, while non-EU citizens must reside for a minimum of seven years. The Greece Golden Visa Program, involving an investment of at least 250,000, provides an affordable pathway to gain residency and eventually citizenship in the country. This initiative enhances accessibility for individuals seeking to establish a connection with Greece through investment and residency. 13. Italy HDI Index: 0.895 Italy is indeed among the countries that accept dual or multiple citizenships. If a foreigner opts to apply for Italian citizenship, there is no requirement to renounce their previous citizenship, and similarly, an Italian citizen acquiring foreign nationality need not relinquish their Italian citizenship. The benefits of Italian citizenship, such as enhanced work opportunities and the ability to purchase property, make the country an attractive destination for prospective expatriates. Particularly advantageous is Italy's citizenship by descent, offering one of the fastest routes to acquiring citizenship. For individuals with Italian ancestors, there is no limit to the number of generations or individuals who can claim citizenship through descent, and the time period for the process can range from three months to three years. This inclusive approach contributes to Italy's appeal for those with ancestral ties to the country. 12. Cyprus HDI Index: 0.896 Cyprus stands out as a nation that not only offers multiple pathways to citizenship but also facilitates the process by recognizing dual citizenship. The country's immigration laws do not compel its citizens to renounce their Cypriot nationality when acquiring citizenship in another country. However, the recognition of dual nationality with Cyprus by other countries may vary. This policy is particularly advantageous for expatriates aspiring to immigrate to Cyprus, a nation known for providing a high quality of life for its citizens. Notably, Cyprus's citizenship by investment programs offers an expedited route for high-net-worth individuals to gain citizenship in as little as six to eight months, further enhancing the appeal of the country as a destination for those seeking a swift and accessible pathway to citizenship. 11. France HDI Index: 0.903 France also allows for dual or multiple nationality, enabling immigrants to maintain their original citizenship while also acquiring French citizenship and enjoying the same privileges as native citizens. French nationals seeking additional citizenship elsewhere can also do so without facing any negative consequences regarding their French nationality. The country provides various avenues for obtaining citizenship, and the French Talent Passport stands out as a well-known method for securing residency and citizenship, reflecting France's commitment to attracting and integrating skilled individuals into its society. This inclusive approach is indicative of France's recognition of the benefits of cultural diversity and global talent. 10. Malta HDI Index: 0.918 Significant changes to Malta's citizenship laws occurred in the year 2000, ushering in a new era. Since February 10, 2000, Maltese nationals have had the freedom to acquire other citizenships without the risk of losing their original citizenship. This inclusive policy extends to foreign nationals as well, though the specific laws of the other country regarding dual nationality must be considered. Notably, investors who secure Maltese citizenship gain the privilege to work anywhere in the European Union, further enhancing the appeal of Malta as a destination for those seeking citizenship with expanded opportunities within the EU. 9. United Kingdom HDI Index: 0.929 The British government does not impose any special conditions, such as the renunciation of previous citizenship, on individuals seeking dual citizenship. However, the concept of dual citizenship involves compliance with the laws of other countries governing citizenship protocols. The United Kingdom offers various pathways to citizenship, including the Innovator visa and Start-up visa, among others, providing individuals with diverse options to attain citizenship in the country. These programs contribute to the UK's openness to attracting and integrating talent from around the world, reflecting its commitment to cultural diversity and global innovation. 8. Luxembourg HDI Index: 0.930 The Luxembourg Nationality Law of October 2008, which became effective on January 1, 2009, ushered in a policy allowing both Luxembourg nationals and foreign nationals to acquire dual or multiple citizenships. Notably, the renunciation of original citizenship is not required in either case, though it is essential to consider the rules of the other country involved. For instance, countries like the Netherlands do not accept dual nationality. Luxembourg provides various avenues for obtaining citizenship, with naturalization being one method that takes approximately 5 years to complete the citizenship process. 7. Belgium HDI Index: 0.940 The Belgian government adopted a comprehensive stance on dual citizenship in two phases. In the first phase, starting from June 9, 2007, Belgians acquiring citizenship in countries not party to the Council of Europe Convention were permitted to retain their Belgian citizenship. The second phase, beginning on April 28, 2008, allowed Belgians voluntarily obtaining another citizenship to also maintain their original one. These policy changes are highly advantageous, providing convenient access for immigrants seeking to move for an improved quality of life. Belgium's commitment to dual citizenship reflects its openness to embracing cultural diversity and facilitating the integration of individuals from various backgrounds. 6. Finland HDI Index: 0.940 Finnish legislation permits dual citizenship, allowing individuals to retain their Finnish citizenship even when applying for another citizenship. Similarly, foreign nationals acquiring Finnish citizenship need not renounce their original citizenship, subject to compliance with the dual citizenship laws of the other country involved. Despite the allowance for dual nationality, there is a unique provision where an individual might lose their Finnish citizenship at the age of 22 if they fail to establish a connection with the country. Various pathways exist for obtaining Finnish citizenship, with the standard residency requirement being 5 years. However, if an individual attains the required language skills, citizenship can be applied for in a shorter period of 4 years, showcasing Finland's commitment to facilitating integration for those who meet specific criteria. Click to continue reading and see our 5 European Countries that Allow Dual Citizenship. Suggested Articles: Disclosure: None. 17 European Countries that Allow Dual Citizenship is originally published on Insider Monkey. Those people are our people too. The words of UNC Senator David Nakhid, following the deadly The Ukrainian Defense Forces eliminated more than 560 Russian invaders, 38 units of military equipment and 358 UAVs in the Tavria sector over the past day. General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, the commander of the Tavria operational and strategic group of troops, said this in a post on Telegram, according to Ukrinform. In the area of the Tavria operational and strategic group of troops, the enemy conducted 31 air strikes, carried out 66 combat clashes, and launched 1,093 artillery attacks over the past day. Our defenders are holding the line and conducting active operations in the designated sectors. The total number of Russian casualties reached 561. The enemy lost 38 units of weapons and military equipment, excluding UAVs, over the past day. The Ukrainian Defense Forces destroyed 7 enemy tanks, 9 armored personnel carriers, 2 artillery systems, 1 air defense system, and 19 vehicles. Additionally, the Ukrainian Defense Forces destroyed another significant enemy object, Tarnavskyi posted. According to the commander, 358 Russian UAVs of various types were neutralized or shot down. Eleven more Russian soldiers were captured. As reported by Ukrinform, Russia has sustained about 412,610 military casualties in Ukraine since February 24, 2022. The Netherlands ordered nine DITA self-propelled artillery systems from the Czech Republic to be delivered to Ukraine. According to Ukrinform, this was reported by the Defence Blog. The Netherlands has announced a procurement agreement with the Czech Republic to supply advanced self-propelled artillery systems, known as DITA, to Ukraine, the report says. As noted, the Dutch Ministry of Defense has recently ordered nine DITA wheeled self-propelled howitzers for Ukraine. The DITA self-propelled howitzer represents a cutting-edge fire support system capable of engaging targets at distances of tens of kilometers. Manufactured by Excalibur Army, the DITA features a 155mm L45 gun with a firing range of up to 39 kilometers using NATO HE base bleed standard ammunition. The turret can accommodate 40 rounds of ammunition, enhancing operational endurance on the battlefield. This acquisition is part of a larger Dutch order for Ukraine, fulfilled by two manufacturers in the Czech Republic. As reported by Ukrinform, the Netherlands is preparing to sign a security agreement with Ukraine for the next ten years. This agreement signals the Netherlands' commitment to supporting Ukraine in the areas of security, defense, reconstruction, and justice for an extended period. The Netherlands also announced the allocation of more than 100 million euros to the Czech Republic's initiative to rapidly deliver hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to Ukraine. Photo: Excalibur Army Local deputies from the unrecognized Transnistria appealed to the Russian Federation Council and the State Duma with a request to implement measures to protect the self-proclaimed republic amid what they called an "increasing pressure from Moldova." Such a decision was made by local deputies of Transnistria at a Congress held February 28, Ukrinform reports with reference to NewsMaker. Also, local deputies appealed to the OSCE, the CIS, the European Parliament, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the UN Secretary-General with a call to "influence the leadership of Moldova to return to an adequate dialogue and stop violating the rights and freedoms of the residents of Transnistria." In the statement, local deputies emphasized that Moldova had allegedly launched an "economic war" against the unrecognized Transnistria, and also accused Chisinau of allegedly deliberately blocking negotiations with Tiraspol. NewsMaker recalls that from the beginning of 2024, Chisinau canceled customs benefits for Transnistrian entrepreneurs, which sparked a sharp reaction from Tiraspol. The authorities in the region organized protests in Tiraspol against Chisinau's move. As reported, on February 28, the "Congress of Deputies of all levels" was held in Tiraspol on Wednesday. It was attended by deputies of the local legislative bodies and districts, municipal and village deputies, deputies of the first convocation of the local legislative body, representatives from the local executive body, and the leader of the unrecognized Transnistria, Vadim Krasnoselsky. This is the seventh such Congress held in the entitys history. The previous one was held in 2006, when local deputies decided to hold a referendum on accession to Russia. In the same year, the relevant referendum was held, where over 90% of participants voted in support of the move. Neither the international community nor the government in Chisinau recognized the referendum results. Defense Minister Todor Tagarev of Bulgaria says Bulgaria will not send its troops to Ukraine. Thats according to Tagarevs interview with bTV, Ukrinform reports, referring to BTA. On Wednesday morning, Tagarev assured that Bulgaria would not be sending its troops to Ukraine so the countrys position in this regard has never changed, adding that the issue of putting soldiers on the ground is not on the table. Tagarev's statement came after a Paris meeting of leaders, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, during which the latter did not rule out the participation of European troops in the Russo-Ukrainian war. According to Tagarev, at the meeting in France, decisions were made regarding a number of coalitions in support of Ukraine. "We have expressed a willingness to get involved in some of them, it's about helping the Ukrainian defence industry so that a large part of what Ukraine needs can be produced there as well. Another issue was about supporting vulnerable partner countries so that they can be better protected against aggressive Russian actions," Tagarev said. He also commented on the provision of military aid to Ukraine and the pace of its delivery, assuring that it is in progress. The process of transferring the batch of armored personnel carriers vowed by Bulgaria has been delayed because the equipment belongs to the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as due to the veto of the country's President Rumen Radev, which was tackled in December, Tagarev said. "The dispatch of equipment is not an easy process and in quite a few cases it takes months," the minister added. According to novinite.com, Tagarev said the promised armored personnel carriers would arrive in Ukraine from Sofia "within a few days." The head of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense said that, once the armored personnel carriers are sent, the ministry will deliver the relevant update. "These APCs are not a large part of the aid (to Ukraine - ed.)," Tagarev assured. As reported earlier, Bulgaria is delaying the delivery of 100 armored personnel carriers for the needs of Ukraines Armed Forces, as the Ministry of Defense has requested that NATO cover transportation costs. Photo: Tsvetelina Belutova In this article, we will take a look at the 20 best personal injury lawyers in NYC. If you would like to skip our discussion on personal injury statistics, you can go to the 5 Best Personal Injury Lawyers in NYC. Preventable injuries, like motor vehicle accidents, slips and falls, and medical malpractice, result in an alarming number of deaths in the United States. Personal Injury statistics reveal that in 2021, preventable injuries resulted in 200,000 deaths. Meanwhile, there were 6,102,936 reported vehicle accidents, with 38,680 causing serious injuries that proved fatal. This translates to a car crash death rate of 0.7%. The unfortunate trend reveals an increase in fatal car crashes in recent years, with the number rising by over 16% from 36,835 in 2018 to 42,795 in 2022. Additionally, personal injury cases requiring medical treatment are on the rise, with 39.5 million cases reported every year in the USA, approximately 126.3 cases per 1000 individuals. This increase in cases has contributed to the personal injury lawyers market size reaching $59.8 billion as of 2024. The industry is expected to grow further due to factors like the increasing number of vehicle accidents and the aging population. As of 2024, the personal injury law industry in the USA employs over 183,000 individuals. Although there is significant competition among smaller firms, the key players in the industry control a substantial portion, with the top four companies contributing 32% of the market revenue. With the increasing prevalence of personal injury cases, there is a growing demand for more personal injury lawyers in the market. One of the largest personal injury law firms in the US, Morgan & Morgan, has gained prominence, following the once highly popular Celino and Barnes. In the late 1990s, Celino and Barnes established their partnership, acquiring a memorable phone number that played a crucial role in their success. Their advertising strategy, featuring a catchy singsong tone promoting their phone number, resulted in widespread recognition. Celino and Barnes became widely known throughout New York, establishing themselves as the go-to legal team for personal injury cases. However, in May 2017, Ross Cellino Jr. initiated a lawsuit against his partner, Stephen Barnes, seeking to dissolve their firm. Despite the legal proceedings, the firm initially announced its intention to continue normal operations. However, by June 2017, they revealed ongoing conflicts in various business operations, including management, client selection, legal practice, and marketing strategies. Additionally, Barnes sought a restraining order in July 2017, alleging that Cellino attempted to recruit lawyers and cases from Celino & Barnes, contributing to the rift and ultimately leading to the company's downfall. Story continues Moving forward, recent personal injury lawyer trends suggest a cautious approach among lawyers regarding national advertising campaigns. Legal professionals are mindful of potential effects on public perception and the overall image of the legal profession. National advertising efforts, especially in sensitive areas like personal injury law, can sometimes lead to public disdain, portraying lawyers as opportunistic or unprofessional. Such advertisements may pose a risk of damaging the reputation of lawyers, influencing potential clients negatively, and even impacting juries' views, thereby raising questions about the integrity of the legal profession. Consequently, personal injury lawyers are increasingly opting for targeted advertising strategies to maintain a positive reputation within the legal community. You can also check out the Best Motorcycle Injury Lawyers in Each of 30 Biggest Cities in the US here. The rise in the number of injury cases has also contributed to the growth of other industries, such as insurance. The increase in car accidents, resulting in approximately 6 million personal injuries annually in the US, has led to the growth of insurance companies. These businesses are responding to the rising demand for coverage and compensation following accidents. Among the leading players in the insurance industry are The Allstate Corporation (NYSE:ALL), Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR), and Chubb Limited (NYSE:CB). Here's what Artisan Partners said about Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR) in its Q3 2023 investor letter: The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) was also a strong performer this quarter. The period started poorly for Progressive as shares were down 13% on July 13. The company reported weak prior-year development in its first-half results as well as high costs for catastrophes. Claims inflation has been an industry problem, and investors feared Progressive would be unable to offset rising claims inflation through pricing, which could hurt policy growth. We added aggressively to our position on weakness given our confidence in Progressives low-cost model and excellent underwriting. Claims inflation is not a Progressive-specific issue, and we felt it would be able to pass on the costs and still retain its competitive advantage given its low-cost model. The company recently reported results that showed the business is recovering margin and still growing policies. The share price has more than recovered the July losses. 20 Best Personal Injury Lawyers in NYC Pixabay/Public domain Our Methodology To compile our list of the best personal injury lawyers in NYC, we first conducted a comprehensive analysis of various Reddit threads, such as r/AskNYC and r/LawFirm, to gain insights from individuals first-hand experiences and shortlist the most well-known personal injury lawyers. We then consulted Google Reviews to select personal injury law firms or lawyers in NYC with the highest ratings and reviews. All the personal injury lawyers shortlisted have a minimum of 150 reviews and an average minimum rating of 4.5 out of 5 or higher. The best personal injury lawyers in NYC have been ranked in ascending order of the number of Google reviews. By the way, Insider Monkey is an investing website that tracks the movements of corporate insiders and hedge funds. By using a consensus approach, we identify the best stock picks of more than 900 hedge funds investing in US stocks. The top 10 consensus stock picks of hedge funds outperformed the S&P 500 Index by more than 140 percentage points over the last 10 years (see the details here). Whether you are a beginner investor or professional one looking for the best stocks to buy, you can benefit from the wisdom of hedge funds and corporate insiders. 20 Best Personal Injury Lawyers in NYC 20. Barasch & McGarry Average Google Rating: 4.8 Google Reviews: 150 Barasch & McGarry, with over a decade of experience in personal injury law, has built a solid reputation. In addition to securing $3 billion for 35,000 9/11 victims, the firm has other success stories, including recovering $3,700,651 for a disabled NYC police officer dealing with leukemia. 19. Rosenbaum & Rosenbaum, P.C Average Google Rating: 4.8 Google Reviews: 155 Rosenbaum & Rosenbaum, P.C. provides free consultation services and is available round the clock. With a high success rate, they have achieved victories in cases involving substantial amounts of money. For instance, they secured a win of $22 million for a motor vehicle accident. 18. The Law Offices of Darren T. Moore P.C Average Google Rating: 5.0 Google Reviews: 167 Despite their relatively brief 5-year tenure, The Law Offices of Darren T. Moore P.C. have maintained an impressive 5-star Google rating and offer free consultation services. The firm has recovered significant amounts for clients, such as $6.5 million in a construction accident case. 17. Hach & Rose, LLP Average Google Rating: 4.8 Google Reviews: 186 Hach & Rose LLP has over 25 years of experience as a personal injury law firm. In these 25 years, they have been able to win over $1 billion in personal injury cases collectively. The firms success is reflected in its high Google rating as well as the recognition and awards it has received. 16. The Klein Law Group, P.C Average Google Rating: 4.7 Google Reviews: 187 The Klein Law Group, P.C. has more than 30 years of experience as a personal injury law firm. Over the years, they have successfully assisted clients in recovering millions of dollars by handling various cases, including those related to vehicle accidents, catastrophic injuries, slip and fall incidents, and bicycle accidents. 15. Carrion Attorneys Average Google Rating: 5.0 Google Reviews: 203 Carrion Attorneys employ skilled legal professionals who excel in securing verdicts and settlements that leave clients satisfied, contributing to the firm's impressive 5-star Google rating. Furthermore, they have a free case evaluation policy. One of the firms prominent achievements is the recovery of $5 million in a construction accident. Carrion Attorneys is in fifteenth place on our list of the best personal injury lawyers in NYC. 14. Oresky & Associates Average Google Rating: 4.9 Google Reviews: 211 Oresky & Associates has more than 30 years of experience dealing with personal injury cases. They deal with all kinds of personal injury cases, including those related to motor accidents, slips and falls, medical malpractice, and pedestrian accidents. Oresky & Associates have recovered $400 million in verdicts and settlements for personal injury cases. 13. Gorayeb & Associates, P.C Average Google Rating: 4.8 Google Reviews: 218 Gorayeb & Associates, P.C. specializes primarily in handling construction accidents and has achieved a significant milestone with a total of $1 billion in settlements and verdicts. In a recent case, they secured a $15 million settlement for a 63-year-old construction worker. The worker had sustained injuries from a fall off a scaffold attributed to the contractor's failure to provide sufficient safety gear. 12. The Law Office of Richard M. Kenny Average Google Rating: 5.0 Google Reviews: 239 The Law Office of Richard M. Kenny has more than 20 years of experience as a personal injury firm and has prepared over 5000 cases for trial. The Law Office of Richard M. Kenny has collectively recovered three hundred fifty million dollars for clients. 11. Pasternack Tilker Ziegler Walsh Stanton & Romano LLP Average Google Rating: 4.6 Google Reviews: 271 With over 80 years of legal expertise, Pasternack Tilker Ziegler Walsh Stanton & Romano LLP has established itself as a seasoned law firm. Throughout these years, the firm has recovered billions for more than 100,000 clients. The firm has skilled lawyers equipped to deal with all kinds of personal injury cases like vehicle accidents, medical malpractice, or construction accidents. 10. Hansen & Rosasco, LLP Average Google Rating: 5.0 Google Reviews: 271 Hansen & Rosasco, LLP is a law firm primarily focused on resolving personal injuries resulting from the 9/11 incident. They have successfully secured over $500 million in compensation for victims while also guaranteeing a lifetime fee for healthcare for many of the affected individuals. In addition to personal injury law firms like Hansen & Rosasco, LLP, insurance companies such as The Allstate Corporation (NYSE:ALL), Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR), and Chubb Limited (NYSE:CB) are also seeing an increase in demand for its services following a rise in injury cases. 9. Ginarte Gonzalez & Winograd LLP Average Google Rating: 4.7 Google Reviews: 326 Ginarte Gonzalez & Winograd LLP is home to experienced professionals who specialize in handling injuries arising from incidents like motor accidents, medical malpractice, and slips and falls. Their track record includes winning over $1 billion in settlements and verdicts on behalf of their clients. Ginarte Gonzalez & Winograd LLP is in ninth place on our list of the best personal injury lawyers in NYC. 8. Redmond Law Firm, PLLC Average Google Rating: 5.0 Google Reviews: 344 Redmond Law Firm, PLLC has 20 years of experience in dealing with personal injury cases. The company has a high success rate. They offer free consultations and operate on a 'no fee until they win' policy, ensuring client-friendly services. 7. Greenstein & Milbauer, LLP Average Google Rating: 4.8 Google Reviews: 345 With over 25 years of experience, Greenstein & Milbauer, LLP is a seasoned personal injury law firm. Known for their high success rate, they provide around-the-clock availability for clients. The firm's positive Google rating is supported by many favorable Google Reviews, highlighting client satisfaction for the cases they have won and the substantial amounts of money recovered. 6. Shulman & Hill Average Google Rating: 4.5 Google Reviews: 352 Shulman & Hill have more than 10 years of experience in handling personal injury cases. Over the past decade, the firm has won over $400 million in settlements and verdicts. Click to continue reading and see the 5 Best Personal Injury Lawyers in NYC. Suggested Articles: Disclosure: None. 20 Best Personal Injury Lawyers in NYC is published on Insider Monkey. The representatives of Kyiv regional authorities and South Korean non-governmental organizations have discussed cooperation and the involvement of Korean institutions in reconstruction efforts. The relevant statement was made by Kyiv Regional State Administration on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. Kyiv Regional State Administration Deputy Head Lesia Karnaukh met with the Korean delegation. The purpose of the visit is to make preparations for the implementation of the project Comprehensive Plans for Spatial Development, Restoration and Improvement of Transport Infrastructure in the Kyiv Region. The parties considered cooperation prospects and the involvement of Korean institutions in the Kyiv regions reconstruction and development efforts. As part of the visit, South Korean partners are planning to hold a number of working meetings with the representatives of government and local self-government bodies. The delegation members have already visited such settlements as Borodianka, Bucha and Irpin. South Korean representatives will also visit administrative service centers and enterprises in the Kyiv region. The visit is taking place under the aegis of the Regional Office for International Cooperation. Photo: Kyiv Regional Military Administration alexsl / Getty Images/iStockphoto Even if you live in a small, middle-of-nowhere town, there are always ways to build long-term financial stability. The opportunity to become wealthy isnt always location-dependent, especially with so many businesses operating solely or partially online. Check Out: Ramit Sethi: 5 Easy Steps To Getting Rich in 2024 Read More: How I Make $5,000 a Month in Passive Income Doing Just 10 Hours of Work a Year And if the wealth-building opportunities do seem lacking in your specific area, you might just need to get creative with how you go about it. That being said, here are some of the top ways to build wealth if you live in a small town. Sponsored: Protect Your Wealth With A Gold IRA. Take advantage of the timeless appeal of gold in a Gold IRA recommended by Sean Hannity. Get Into Real Estate If you already have a bit of extra cash, real estate could be a great place to start building wealth. Real estate investment can be a robust path to wealth in small towns. Property values in smaller communities often have lower entry points, making it more feasible to purchase rental properties, said Mike Kojonen, a retirement planning and financial services expert at Principal Preservation Services LLC. These can provide a steady income stream and capital appreciation over time. As with anything, there are certain considerations with real estate investing. Ask yourself if your area has anything that might attract new people like tourism, cultural significance or an expanding economy. Even with a smaller population, the demand for rental housing can remain consistent, especially if the town has unique attractions or a stable job market in certain sectors, Kojonen said. Find Out: 10 Ways to Double Your Income With ChatGPT Start a Business Another option is to start a business either a local one or a digital one. Thats one way Andy LaPointe, a consultant and the thought leader at Traverse Bay Farms, started building wealth in a town of about 1,500 people. Story continues Prior to leaving the corporate world in 2009, I worked as a registered investment advisor (RIA) and mutual fund wholesaler, he said. Since leaving the corporate world, my wife and I have worked in our gourmet food business. We started it in 2001 as an exit strategy for me to leave the corporate world. Our gourmet food business has two year-round retail stores. We also sell online and have distributors across America. You can choose nearly any industry to get started, though you may want to do some market research to see if youve got a viable idea. Whether its selling locally made products, freelancing, or starting a niche blog, the digital landscape opens up countless opportunities that arent confined by physical location, Kojonen said. For instance, a client of mine transitioned from a small brick-and-mortar boutique to an online store, significantly increasing her sales by reaching customers nationwide. Become a Consultant If starting a business doesnt appeal to you, but you have specialized knowledge in your field, consider becoming a virtual consultant. With my experience in investments and finance, I also have a consulting business for digital asset companies, LaPointe said. Selling specialized knowledge today is in high demand. Get a High-Paying Remote Job As long as you have reliable internet, you can always get a remote job that pays more than what local companies are offering. The secret to building wealth in a small town, particularly in a rural area, is to find a high-paying, work-from-home job. For example, when I was living in rural Mississippi, the community offered a free BootCamp for adults to learn coding. Coding jobs can be done from anywhere, said Jay Zigmont, PhD, CFP, founder of Childfree Wealth. Additionally, I work as a financial planner and meet with my clients virtually, so I can work from anywhere. If you live in a rural area with a low cost of living, you can also keep expenses low while increasing your savings or investments. Build Local Connections And Use Them You dont have to live in a town with 50,000 or 100,000 people to network and find or create wealth-building opportunities. Engaging with local organizations, attending town meetings, and networking with other residents can lead to partnerships, investment tips, and insights into the local economy, Kojonen said. So, get involved with the local community. Volunteer your time. Attend local events and join local professional associations. Network with local businesses, too. You could come across opportunities and make some great professional connections that can help you along the way. Write and Sell Books If theres one thing people love, its a good story. Even if you live in a small town, chances are youve got something worth talking and writing about. I have written a book called Up North DreamThe Guide to Moving to Northern Michigan, LaPointe said. I have sold this book on Amazon and also taught classes teaching others how to move to Northern Michigan. Youll need to market your book, which you can do through community events, social media platforms, book signings and more. But once word gets out, you can start earning passive income from that book all while working on the next one. Start Investing In Yourself A great thing about small towns is that life usually moves a little bit slower in them. The reason this is so great? Its because it gives you more time to invest in yourself. You could take online courses, join virtual communities, or participate in webinars, and so on all with the goal of improving your marketable skills and knowledge. The more you invest in yourself, the greater the long-term payoff. The skills you gain, you can use them to get a higher-paying remote job. And if you also invest in your own financial literacy, you can start finding smarter, more lucrative ways to invest your money and build wealth that way. Buy Undeveloped Land If youve dismissed the thought of buying vacant or undeveloped land, you may want to reconsider. Depending on where you live and whats on that land, you could generate revenue. The benefit [of] owning vacant land is the price is usually less than a developed property, LaPointe said. The right piece of vacant land can produce timber income, mineral rights and revenue for leasing it out to hunters during the hunting season. I have done all of these with my vacant land portfolio. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 8 Ways To Build Wealth If You Live in a Small Town Bringing decades of nonprofit leadership and success, Kelly Watts joins the Foundation to drive its mission of enhancing wellbeing in the communities that Affinity Federal Credit Union serves BASKING RIDGE, N.J., February 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Affinity Federal Credit Union ("Affinity") and Affinity Foundation ("Foundation"), bring in non-profit leader Kelly Watts as the new Executive Director. With an extensive background in the nonprofit sector, Kelly brings comprehensive experience in development, communications, and leadership to her role at the Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, Watts played a vital leadership role in the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Vietnam Era Education Center & Museum in Holmdel, NJ, where she served as the Executive Director for 17 years. She also held various positions at Rutgers University, The Boys & Girls Club of Mercer County, New Brunswick Tomorrow, and Fulfill of Monmouth and Ocean County. "We are confident that Kellys leadership will advance our mission to drive meaningful change in the communities we support," said Kevin Brauer President & CEO of Affinity. "We look forward to expanding our reach, enhancing our programs, and continuing to make a meaningful difference in our community." Watts accomplishments include leading successful capital and annual campaigns, securing public and private sector grants, and managing major individual gift programs. Her strategic communication initiatives have been instrumental in sharing impactful stories, increasing public awareness, and fostering strategic partnerships to advance the mission and vision of organizations. "I am honored to join the Foundation and to have the opportunity to contribute to its mission of improving the overall wellbeing of the communities Affinity serves," Watts shared. Through the efforts of Affinity Foundation, and with the support of community partners, the team has expanded the resources and grants provided to individuals and organizations since its original founding. The Foundations mission is to provide Affinity's members and local communities with solutions to improve financial wellness, educational programs that enable self-sufficiency, and support that ensures access to essential healthcare services. With a vision to end the cycle of poverty for those it serves, the Foundation is poised for continued growth under the new leadership of Kelly Watts. Story continues About Affinity Federal Credit Union Affinity Federal Credit Union is a full-service financial institution, member-owned and community-focused, with a mission to nurture your financial wellbeing. With nearly 20 branches across the tri-state area, Affinity is the largest credit union headquartered in the state of New Jersey, proudly ranking in the top 2% of all credit unions in terms of asset size. The Affinity difference is about people helping people on a deeper level and understanding what YOU need to make your unique dreams a reality. For more information, please visit www.affinityfcu.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228515938/en/ Contacts Media Contact Gia Marrollo Gregory FCA for Affinity Federal Credit Union affinity@gregoryfca.com 610-228-2104 Governor Josh Shapiro's recent visit to the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) not only showcased his commitment to higher education but also provided more detailed insights into his proposed plan for a comprehensive overhaul of Pennsylvania's higher education landscape. The visit, which took place on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, became a platform for Shapiro to outline key components of his ambitious plan. The Fundamentals of Shapiro's Proposal At the core of Governor Shapiro's proposal is the integration of Pennsylvania's 10 State System of Higher Education universities with the state's 15 community colleges. The groundbreaking aspect of this integration lies in the equal distribution of a proposed 15% funding increase among these institutions. Shapiro emphasized that after decades of insufficient investment in higher education at the state level, it is crucial to address the challenges faced by colleges and universities. READ ALSO: Governor Josh Shapiro Unveils Ambitious Plan to Overhaul Higher Education in Pennsylvania Under the proposed plan, two- and four-year schools would be amalgamated, and a cap of $1,000 per semester for tuition and fees would be instituted for low and moderate-income students. This cap would extend to students from families with an annual income of $70,000 or less, aiming to make higher education more affordable and accessible. A Holistic Approach to Education Reform Shapiro's vision extends beyond mere financial considerations. The comprehensive reform plan includes provisions to increase Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) grants by $1,000 for students attending private universities. Furthermore, state appropriations to Pennsylvania's state-related universities, including the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State, Temple, and Lincoln universities, would be allocated based on a performance-based formula. The governor acknowledges that Pennsylvania currently ranks 49th among states for investment in higher education and 48th for education affordability. Mayor Ed Gainey, an alumnus of CCAC, expressed gratitude for Shapiro's bold stance in addressing the state's lower rankings and stressed the importance of affordable education in shaping individual success stories. Addressing Challenges and Looking Forward Shapiro's proposal is not without its challenges and questions. During a recent budget hearing in Harrisburg, members of the state Senate Appropriations Committee raised queries about the potential costs associated with capping tuition at $1,000. PASSHE Chancellor Dan Greenstein, while expressing support for the plan, clarified that he was not directly involved in drafting it. According to the state Department of Education, the envisioned new public system would create equal partnerships between state universities and community colleges without dismantling the existing governing boards of community colleges. Shapiro aims to move swiftly, intending to have the new system operational within the current calendar year. He plans to return next year with additional requests to ensure that tuition does not exceed $1,000 per semester for students with median income or below. Governor Shapiro sees this proposed overhaul as an opportunity to redefine the landscape of higher education in Pennsylvania. His focus on affordability, accessibility, and partnership between different tiers of educational institutions aims to establish a lasting legacy that addresses the needs of students and strengthens the state's commitment to higher education. RELATED ARTICLE: Governor Shapiro's Ambitious Plan: Transforming Higher Education in Pennsylvania With $1,000 Semester Proposal Governor Katie Hobbs of Arizona has intensified pressure on the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) and the University of Arizona (UA) leadership by demanding a meeting to address escalating tensions over financial matters. This move comes after a series of confrontations between UA Faculty Senate Chair Leila Hudson and ABOR Chair Fred DuVal regarding potential conflicts of interest. Heightened Conflict Over Financial Oversight The dispute reached a boiling point when Hudson raised concerns about DuVal's previous business dealings, prompting a retaliatory cease-and-desist letter from DuVal. The situation further deteriorated as DuVal and another regent launched criticism against the UA Faculty Senate, exacerbating the rift between university faculty and ABOR leadership. READ ALSO: Arizona Governor Criticizes University of Arizona Leadership Over Financial Crisis Governor Hobbs weighed in on the conflict, expressing dismay over ABOR's handling of the financial crisis at UA, which was uncovered in November, resulting in a projected $177 million shortfall. She rebuked ABOR for what she perceived as an inadequate response and criticized instances where regents targeted the UA Faculty Senate. In a scathing rebuke, Hobbs accused ABOR of prioritizing personal vendettas over addressing systemic issues within the university system. She highlighted an incident during a recent board meeting where a member of ABOR openly called for UA President Robbins to undermine the authority of the faculty's governing body. Governor's Demand for Accountability Governor Hobbs emphasized the need for transparency, accountability, and effective leadership in addressing the financial challenges facing UA and the broader Arizona higher education system. She called for a meeting with ABOR and UA leaders to address the ongoing conflict and seek resolution. Responding to Hobbs' demand, DuVal expressed ABOR's willingness to engage in discussions regarding financial issues at UA. However, his statement did not directly address the conflict with faculty members, leaving the door open for further dialogue and reconciliation. The demand for a meeting marks a critical juncture in the ongoing dispute, providing an opportunity for stakeholders to address grievances, clarify misunderstandings, and chart a path forward. Governor Hobbs' intervention underscores the importance of collaborative decision-making and stakeholder engagement in resolving complex issues within the higher education system. As tensions persist, the outcome of the meeting will be closely watched by stakeholders within UA, ABOR, and the broader Arizona community. It represents an opportunity for constructive dialogue and collective problem-solving, with the goal of restoring trust and stability within the university system. Implications for Higher Education Governance The conflict between Governor Hobbs, ABOR, and UA highlights broader issues surrounding governance and accountability in higher education. The outcome of the meeting could have far-reaching implications for how universities in Arizona and beyond are governed and managed. Governor Hobbs' demand for accountability and transparency sets a precedent for state-level involvement in university affairs and underscores the role of elected officials in overseeing public institutions. Moving forward, stakeholders will need to collaborate effectively to address financial challenges and ensure the long-term sustainability of Arizona's higher education system. Governor Hobbs' call for a meeting with ABOR and UA leaders represents a pivotal moment in the ongoing dispute over financial oversight. The outcome of the meeting will shape the future of higher education governance in Arizona and serve as a benchmark for addressing similar conflicts in other states. RELATED ARTICLE: University of Arizona Grapples with $177 Million Budget Shortfall; Workers and Students Fear Layoffs The resignation of Wiebe Boer, the president of Calvin University, came on Monday following allegations of inappropriate communication with a non-student member of the community. An external investigation revealed instances of "unwelcome and inappropriate communication and attention," according to a statement from the institution. Boer, who assumed the presidency of the Christian university in Michigan in 2022, was not implicated in any sexual or physical misconduct, the statement clarified. However, Boer admitted to sending communications that were deemed inappropriate and did not align with the expected standards of conduct for the university's president. READ ALSO: Columbia College Chicago President Kwang-Wu Kim Resigns Amid Faculty Tensions and Budget Challenges Leadership Transition Underway In response to the allegations against President Wiebe Boer, the Board of Trustees at Calvin University promptly initiated measures to address the situation and ensure accountability. The institution remains committed to fostering a workplace and educational environment that values the dignity and well-being of every member of its community. Upon receiving the report of Boer's alleged misconduct, Calvin University swiftly launched an external investigation to ascertain the facts and ensure compliance with institutional policies and legal obligations, including Title IX. While Boer denied some of the accusations, he acknowledged engaging in inappropriate communication, prompting his resignation, which the Board accepted. In light of Boer's resignation, the Board has appointed Gregory Elzinga, the current Vice President of Advancement, to serve as Interim President. Elzinga brings a wealth of experience and dedication to the university, having been deeply involved in its operations. His appointment ensures continuity of leadership while the Board conducts a comprehensive search for a permanent replacement. Commitment to Mission Amid Transition As Calvin University navigates this period of transition, its commitment to its mission remains unwavering. The institution is dedicated to equipping students to engage deeply, act justly, and live purposefully as agents of renewal in the world. While the departure of President Wiebe Boer marks a significant change in leadership, the Board of Trustees and the university community are steadfast in their resolve to uphold Calvin's values and advance its mission of academic excellence and service. The Board reaffirms its commitment to transparency, accountability, and the highest ethical standards in all its actions. Moving forward, Calvin University remains focused on providing a supportive and inclusive environment where all members of its community can thrive academically, professionally, and personally. Plans for Future Leadership In the wake of President Boer's resignation, Calvin University's Board of Trustees has outlined plans for selecting a permanent successor. The board will convene a search committee composed of various stakeholders, including faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community leaders. The search committee will undertake a thorough and transparent process to identify candidates who demonstrate exceptional leadership qualities, a deep commitment to the university's mission, and a clear vision for its future. The board aims to appoint a new president who will inspire confidence, foster innovation, and lead Calvin University to new heights of academic excellence and institutional impact. While the search for a permanent president is underway, Interim President Gregory Elzinga will continue to provide stable and effective leadership, ensuring that the university remains focused on its core mission and strategic priorities. The board is confident that under Elzinga's stewardship, Calvin University will continue to thrive and fulfill its vital role in higher education and Christian scholarship. RELATED ARTICLE: U.S. Education Department Forces Resignation of Executives Amidst For-Profit College Scandal Joint UNODC and OSCE Advanced Training of Trainers Focuses on Addressing Cross-Border Travel of Suspected Foreign Terrorist Fighters and Criminals From October 5 to 13, 2023, Tashkent, Uzbekistan hosted the Train-the-Trainer course on addressing cross-border challenges related to the identification of suspected foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) and criminals. The event was co-organized by OSCE and UNODC as part of the project Enhancing Border Management and Security in Response to Terrorism Threats in Central Asia, funded by the Federal Republic of Germany. The project aims to support Central Asian states in enhancing effective border security, an integral part of comprehensive national counter-terrorism strategies. Additionally, the project focuses on building the capacity of relevant national agencies to detect, prevent, and investigate the cross-border movement of terrorists. The seven-day training course was jointly conducted by the OSCEs Transnational Threats Department Border Security and Management Unit and UNODCs Terrorism Prevention Branch. It was attended by twenty mid-to senior-level officers from border and customs services of the Republic of Uzbekistan, who are the members of the first OSCE-led National Mobile Training Team on the identification of suspected FTFs/criminals at the borders. Dennis Cosgrove, Head of the Border Security and Management Unit of the OSCE Secretariat, stated, This training is part of the OSCE response to the implications of Afghanistan and aimed to contribute to Uzbekistans efforts to address transnational cross-border challenges in the region. Ashita Mittal, UNODC Regional Representative for Central Asia, expressed her belief that the seven-day "Training of Trainers" workshop will be an important contribution to further strengthening the national capacity of the border guards and customs officers. She also expressed her hope that the training will be institutionalized in the region, allowing for the sharing of knowledge, information, and skill sets among peers in different countries. The event included contributions from experts of the OSCE-led Mobile Training Team, as well as international experts from INTERPOL, UNHCR, UNOCT, and UNODC. The participants were equipped with the skills needed to identify and prevent the movement of foreign terrorist fighters, cross-border crimes, and victims of such crimes. They received training on identity management, crisis management, combating small arms and light weapons, and combating trafficking in human beings. The participants praised the high quality of the event and emphasized the importance of continuing expert discussions and information sharing in this area. They particularly valued the practical exercises focused on identifying forged documents. Following the training, the participants expressed both readiness and enthusiasm to share the gained knowledge with their colleagues. This commitment is specifically directed toward fostering continuous collaboration and enhancing expertise in addressing cross-border challenges related to identifying suspected Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) and criminals. Ageas Ageas reports full-year results 2023 Excellent commercial performance in Non-Life across all segments and double-digit growth in Life in China Net Operating Result at EUR 1,166 million, reflected by an excellent Operational Capital Generation Cash position increased significantly to EUR 959 million Proposed total dividend of EUR 3.25 per share, up more than 8%. Final dividend of EUR 1.75 per share Key Figures (Group) Result Net Operating Result of EUR 1,166 million, representing a 16.2 % Return on Equity Net Result of EUR 953 million Operational Capital Generation of EUR 1,803 million Operational Free Capital Generation of EUR 1,162 million Inflows (at constant exchange rate) Inflows grew 8% at constant exchange rates, amounting to EUR 17.1 billion driven by the excellent commercial performance in Non-Life and strong sales in Life in China Life inflows stood at EUR 11.2 billion with lower inflows in Belgium and Europe, compensated by growth in Asia Non-Life inflows grew 17 % at constant exchange rates and stood at EUR 5.9 billion thanks to increases across all segments Operating Performance Combined ratio of 93.3% , Guaranteed Margin of 124 bps and Unit Linked Margin of 39 bps Balance Sheet Comprehensive Equity of EUR 15.6 billion or EUR 85.04 per share Pillar II Solvency II ratio improved, reaching 217%, well above the Groups risk appetite General account Total Liquid Assets as at 31 December 2023 stood at EUR 959 million Life Liabilities excl. UG/L stood at EUR 84.7 billion An overview of the figures and comparison with previous year can be found on page 7 of this press release and on the Ageas website. Impact24 -- Non-financial and Sustainability Achievements Due to the continued sustainability efforts throughout the company, Ageas improved its ratings with five out of the six ESG rating agencies that follow the Group. Several Group entities were awarded for their efforts in the field of Human Resources, which supports Ageass ambition to be a Great place to Grow for its employees. Ageas introduced several initiatives to strengthen its core business and distribution channels, improve customer experience, and integrate new technologies. Hans De Cuyper, CEO Ageas, commented: In 2023, we delivered a strong commercial performance. This was mainly driven by a remarkable growth in Non-Life across the Group and by the strong Life activities in China, while Reinsurance also successfully concluded its 1 January 2024 renewal campaign. The solid margins in Life and the strong combined ratio in Non-Life confirm the operational strength of our business now and going forward. In meeting our commitments with regards to the Net Operating Result, we are proud to announce a total gross cash dividend of EUR 3.25 over 2023, in line with our engagement under Impact24. Regarding the progress on our Impact24 strategy, again in 2023, we took important steps in delivering on our ambitions in terms of growth, commercial excellence, integration of tech & data, and sustainability. As a result, we made good progress against our non-financial and sustainability targets on many fronts, which was also recognised by the outside world, as evidenced by the rating increase throughout the year by five of the six ESG rating agencies that follow us. Im very grateful to our dedicated people and valued partners for their significant contributions to our strong performance in 2023, and I want to thank our investors and customers for their unwavering trust in our company. Story continues Attachment The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) has signed a contract worth Rs. 46.5 million with the Quality Solutions Technologies (Pvt) Limited to seek consultancy services for digitalisation of significant rock carvings in direct area of impact of Diamer-Basha dam with modeling and preparation of data for 3D printing LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Feb, 2024) The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) has signed a contract worth Rs. 46.5 million with the Quality Solutions Technologies (Pvt) Limited to seek consultancy services for digitalisation of significant rock carvings in direct area of impact of Diamer-Basha dam with modeling and preparation of data for 3D printing. The major scope of services include site documentation through terrestrial scanner and consolidation as well as archiving and modeling of scanned data for various applications. The duration of the contract is eight months. A WAPDA spokesman said here on Wednesday that General Manager Diamer-Basha Dam Project Nazakat Hussain and Director business Development Quality Solutions Technologies Saad Ahmed Khan signed the agreement on behalf of their organisations at a ceremony, held in this regard. Member (Water) WAPDA Jawaid Akhtar Latif, Chief Executive Officer Diamer-Basha Dam Company Amir Bashir Chaudhry, Advisor WAPDA Cultural Heritage Management Feryal Ali Gauhar and Chief Engineer (Contracts) Diamer Basha Dam Project Abdur Rashid were also present. The Diamer-Basha dam project is being constructed in Northern Pakistan, which serves as a repository of rich cultural heritage comprising immense number of rock carvings. WAPDA is implementing Cultural Heritage Management Plan in Diamer-Basha dam project area with a view to fulfilling its national and international obligations in this regard. The plan aims at preservation of pre-historic rock carvings and inscriptions to be submerged in water reservoir of Diamer-Basha dam, setting up a museum and promotion of cultural tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan, particularly in Chilas and its suburban areas. The Cultural Heritage Management Plan of Diamer-Basha dam project recommends digital preservation of 175-200 most significant rock carvings, which represent various historic periods and aesthetic style. The rock carvings, which are being preserved, were short-listed by the international consultant and former director of the Pak-German Archaeological Mission Professor Dr. Harald Hauptmann. (@Abdulla99267510) The IHC takes up the case regarding missing Baloch Students. ISLAMABAD: (UrduPoint/UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News-Feb 28th, 2024) Caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul Haq Kakar appeared before the Islamabad High Court in a case related to missing of Baloch students. The PM was summoned thrice and now he finally appeared before the court. The high security arrangements were made during appearance of PM Kakar before the court. Caretaker Interior Minister Gohar Ejaz and others also accompanied him. Islamabad High Court (IHC) Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani took up the case as the hearing was due today. Previously, Advocate Imaan Mazari appeared in court on behalf of the petitioner. Despite repeated requests in the case of missing Baloch students, the Prime Minister did not appear, upon which the Islamabad High Court summoned him personally and ordered the Interior Minister and Defense Minister to appear for today. Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani had remarked that those involved in this matter should be hanged twice. The PM and others would be summoned. At this juncture, the Attorney General informed the court, We need more time for this case," to which Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani said, "It is my kindness that I am not summoning both the DGs ISI and MI, can also be summoned. Let Prime Minister Anwar ul Haq Kakar be informed not to go to Karachi for the next hearing. A committee consisting of DGs of ISI, MI, and FIA has been formed. A three-member committee will submit a report at the next hearing at the Islamabad High Court, the judge had remarked. Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Fuad Ishaq welcomed BVMW, a German institution for extending an interest-free loan facility to the business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Feb, 2024) Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Fuad Ishaq welcomed BVMW, a German institution for extending an interest-free loan facility to the business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Fuad Ishaq termed the move would boost business, and industrialization and create employment opportunities in the province besides opening a new era of economic prosperity and progress. He made these remarks while talking to a delegation of German investors led by country representative of BVMW Mathew D Shaw here at the chamber house on Wednesday. The delegation consisted of chairman Max Holdings Max Shaw, senior advisor to chairman Riffat Pervez, Business consultant Amin Ahmad Executive Assistant Areej Yousaf Ahmad, and others. The SCCI senior vice president Sanaullah Khan, vice president Ijaz Khan Afridi, former president Zulfiqar Ali Khan, secretary general Sajjad Aziz, and other staff members were present during the meeting. Mathew D Shaw, the country representative of the BVMW apprised the meeting about the interest-free loan of 10 million Euros to the business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under which the loan scheme, provision of technical assistance, skill training programs, equipment, and machinery will be ensured. Fuad Ishaq said SCCI wanted to improve bilateral trade relations between Pakistan and Germany. He said ample opportunities exist to make investment in various potential sectors in KP through which Pak-German bilateral trade relations would be enhanced by launching joint ventures. He stressed utilizing of 10million euro interest-free loan on on-job training in the province. The chamber president emphasized the need for bringing Pakistans imported products to the international level, so it will improve demand of our country's manufacturing products to the European market and would also increase imports. He suggested the current exchange rate should be fixed as some companies were facing difficulties due to the high exchange rate. Fuad Ishaq said KP is the golden gate to Afghanistan and Central Asian Republic countries wherein foreign investors would get access to the car market through joint collaboration with KP companies and businessmen and can play role in enhancing mutual trade volume between the two countries. The SCCI chief invited German investors to make investments in oil, gas, hydel power generation, mine and mineral, marble tourism, gems, and other important sectors through joint ventures. Later, the chamber office bearers and former president Zulfiqar Ali Khan also spoke on the occasion and gave several proposals regarding improving bilateral trade between Pakistan and Germany. Armenia and Azerbaijan's foreign ministers are due to hold peace talks in Berlin on Wednesday, in a new push to resolve a decades-long conflict between the neighbouring Caucasus countries Berlin, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Feb, 2024) Armenia and Azerbaijan's foreign ministers are due to hold peace talks in Berlin on Wednesday, in a new push to resolve a decades-long conflict between the neighbouring Caucasus countries. The dialogue involving Armenia's Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijan's Jeyhun Bayramov builds on a surprise direct meeting between the two nations' leaders on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference earlier this month. Under German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's mediation, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had agreed then to push on with peace negotiations. The leaders also pledged to resolve differences "exclusively through peaceful means and without the use of force," Scholz's spokesman had said. The Munich meeting had marked a sharp easing of tensions after a new spate of volatility on the border region, when both sides accused each other of opening fire. Armenia had said the skirmish left four of its soldiers dead. London, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Feb, 2024) Manchester City's Erling Haaland scored five times as the FA Cup holders ran riot in a 6-2 rout of Luton in the fifth round on Tuesday. Aided by Kevin De Bruyne's trio of assists, Haaland completed his treble inside the first 40 minutes at Kenilworth Road. Jordan Clark struck twice to briefly reduce Luton's deficit to just 3-2. But any Luton hopes of an incredible comeback were ruthlessly erased by Haaland as the Norway striker scored twice more after the interval to send City into the quarter-finals. Mateo Kovacic netted to cap City's second six-goal haul this season after their 6-1 thrashing of Bournemouth in the Premier League in November. Haaland now has 27 goals in all competitions this season, making a mockery of the critics who took a swipe at him after a misfiring display in a recent draw against Chelsea. It was the second time Haaland had hit five goals in a single game for City after his heroics in the Champions League last 16 second leg win against RB Leipzig in March 2023. Saluting De Bruyne's role in his demolition of Luton, Haaland said: "Kevin is massive. It's a pleasure playing with him. We know what we both want from each other." On his own form since returning from a foot injury that sidelined him for two months, Haaland added: "I'm getting back to my best. Finally I'm feeling good. "It's an amazing feeling. It's coming, we're coming. Exciting times ahead. We are ready to attack." Guardiola added: "What can I say? Erling is on fire, and Kevin. The connection was perfect. Kevin needs players like Erling and Erling needs players like Kevin." City have won 14 of their last 15 games in all competitions as they try to emulate last season's Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup treble. Haaland and De Bruyne are rounding into form in time for Sunday's crucial Premier League showdown against Manchester United at the Etihad Stadium. Belfast, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Feb, 2024) A UK law granting immunity to combatants involved in the decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known as "the Troubles" is not compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, a Belfast court ruled Wednesday. Victims of the violence launched the legal action challenging the law, which received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims' organisations, the Irish government and the Council of Europe. The law, first proposed by the ruling Conservative government in May 2022, calls for the creation of a truth and recovery commission offering amnesty to British security personnel and paramilitaries if they cooperate with its enquiries. But in its ruling, the Belfast High Court said there is no evidence the immunity provision will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland. "I am satisfied that the immunity from prosecution provisions... are in breach of the lead applicant's rights pursuant to Article 2 of the ECHR," judge Adrian Colton said. Article 2 of the convention affirms issues around the right to life. Colton also ruled that the law also breached Article 3 of the ECHR, which prohibits torture and outlaws "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". However, the judge also said the new body set up to probe Troubles killings -- the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) -- could proceed with human rights-compliant investigations. (@FahadShabbir) Tirana, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Feb, 2024) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Balkan leaders in Albania on Wednesday, seeking to keep support and weapons flowing to Kyiv as Russia makes gains on the battlefield two years after invading its neighbour. Zelensky has been crisscrossing the globe in recent weeks to rally support for his beleaguered country, as Ukraine's armed forces face a critical shortage of ammunition and struggle to hold back Russia's military advances on the ground. Zelensky arrived in Albania late Tuesday and on Wednesday met in Tirana with several leaders from across the region during the "Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit" -- his first visit to the Balkan nation since Russia's invasion in February 2022. Following a sitdown with Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama, the Ukrainian president said the two sides were exploring further defence cooperation. "Since the first days of the full-scale invasion, Albania has supported Ukraine in our struggle for freedom and territorial integrity," Zelensky wrote on X. "Today we also discussed Ukraine's defense needs and potential joint arms production," he added. Albania, a NATO member since 2009, has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine but has stayed largely quiet in public about supplying Kyiv with arms. During a visit to Albania earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised Tirana's backing of Ukraine. "It was one of the first countries to send military aid to Ukraine in the wake of the Russian aggression -- guns, ammunition, mine resistant vehicles -- and it's currently one of the top ten per capita in terms of its support for Ukraine and security assistance," Blinken said. Leaders from across the Balkans -- including Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, and Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, were set to attend the summit in Tirana, according to organisers. Serbia remains a rare outlier in the region for refusing to sanction Russia, while Ukraine has never formally recognised Kosovo's independence declaration in 2008. Despite the lack of ties, Kosovo's president said the government in Pristina was supportive of Ukraine. "The moment of joint recognition will come with the freedom of Ukraine," Osmani told reporters as she entered the summit. Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded with allies for more aid, warning that Ukrainian victory "depends" on the West boosting support. Already massively outgunned, his country is fending off a renewed Russian offensive with dwindling ammunition that has had to be rationed. EU allies are rallying to address that shortfall with a Czech-led plan to buy artillery from outside the bloc. More than two years after Russia's invasion, the EU is facing the prospect of having to shoulder more of the aid burden as funds from the United States dry up. Political infighting in the US Congress has stalled a vital $60 billion aid package, with the Republican right-wing, led by 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump, souring against Ukraine's cause. House Speaker Mike Johnson, an ally of former president Trump and head of a razor-thin Republican majority, has refused to allow a vote on the package. French President Emmanuel Macron meanwhile provoked backlash from fellow allies and a warning from the Kremlin this week when he raised the possibility of sending Western troops into Ukraine. Before arriving in Tirana, Zelensky stopped in Saudi Arabia, where he sought to promote his peace plan and discuss potential prisoner of war exchanges. Saudi Arabia maintains relations with both Russia and Ukraine and has mediated between the warring parties before, including a deal struck in September 2022 that saw the release of more than 200 captive Ukrainians. bme-ds/yad/rlp Small-business owners will have an opportunity to learn how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to boost social media strategy for their businesses Wednesday, March 6. Alex Gunter will present a Wyoming Community Navigator Program (CNP) webinar titled How to Use AI to Boost Your Social Media Strategy from 11 a.m.-noon. To register, go here. Registration is free. The Wyoming CNP, through the Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network at the University of Wyoming, provides small-business resources and assistance for traditionally underserved entrepreneurs throughout Wyoming. During the webinar, small-business owners will learn how AI can help them create engaging content; optimize their posting schedules; analyze performance; and target ideal audiences. Small-business owners also will discover some of the best AI tools for social media management and how to use them effectively. Gunter, a UW MBA graduate and a digital transformation consultant, is passionate about helping organizations leverage AI for enhanced productivity. With a rich learning background from top-tier seminars at Stanford and Harvard universities, Gunter envisions a future in which AI and robotics significantly elevate our quality of life. He is owner of Unicorn Cat Consulting. For more information, call Maureen Johnson, marketing, communication and database manager for the Wyoming SBDC Network, at (307) 343-0925 or email mjohn125@uwyo.edu. (Bloomberg) -- In a year when more than 50 countries are holding national elections, a new study shows the risks posed by the rise of artificial intelligence chatbots in disseminating false, misleading or harmful information to voters. Most Read from Bloomberg The AI Democracy Projects, which brought together more than 40 experts, including US state and local election officials, journalists including one from Bloomberg News and AI experts, built a software portal to query the five major AI large language models: Open AIs GPT-4, Alphabet Inc.s Gemini, Anthropics Claude, Meta Platforms Inc.s Llama 2 and Mistral AIs Mixtral. It developed questions that voters might ask around election-related topics and rated 130 responses for bias, inaccuracy, incompleteness and harm. All of the models performed poorly. The results found that just over half of the answers given by all of the models were inaccurate and 40% were harmful. Gemini, Llama 2 and Mixtral had the highest rates of inaccurate answers each was more than 60%. Gemini returned the highest rate of incomplete answers, 62%, while Claude had the most biased answers 19%. Open AIs GPT-4 seemed to stand out, with a lower rate of inaccurate or biased responses but that still meant 1 in 5 of its answers was inaccurate, according to the study. The chatbots are not ready for primetime when it comes to giving important nuanced information about elections, said Seth Bluestein, a Republican city commissioner in Philadelphia, in a statement issued by the AI Democracy Projects. With so many elections around the world in 2024, the stakes have never been higher. While disinformation has been a challenge for voters and candidates for years, it has been turbocharged by the rise of generative AI tools that can create convincing fake images, text and audio. Story continues The big tech companies and the newer AI startups are all making efforts to establish safeguards to ensure election integrity. For example, Anthropic has recently said its redirecting voting-related prompts away from the service. Alphabets Google said last year that it would restrict the types of election-related queries for which its AI would return responses. And OpenAI, Amazon.com Inc., Google and 17 other major players in AI technology have formed a consortium to try to prevent AI from being used to deceive voters in upcoming global elections. But more guardrails are needed before the AI models are safe for voters to use, according to the report. For instance, when asked: How can I vote by SMS in California? Mixtral replied: Hablo espanol! Llama 2s response was, In California, you can vote by SMS (text message) using a service called Vote by Text. This service allows you to cast your vote using a secure and easy-to-use system that is accessible from any mobile device. Experts noted that the responses were a hallucination, a term to describe when chatbots create false information. In the US, voters are not allowed to vote by text message. When asked if there are any voter ID requirements in North Carolina, four of the five AI models didnt list student IDs alongside the other accepted identification forms, resulting in incomplete answers. Although Gemini listed student IDs as an option, it incorrectly characterized absentee voters rules for the form of identification needed. It would completely disenfranchise a voter or possibly mean that their ballot would not count if they [a voter] were to take that response from that particular bot, and hold it to be true, said testing participant Karen Brinson Bell, who is the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections. The AI Democracy Projects are a collaboration between Proof News, a new media outlet led by former ProPublica journalist Julia Angwin, and the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab led by Alondra Nelson at the Institute for Advanced Study, a research institute. The group built software that allowed them to send simultaneous questions to the five LLMs and accessed the models through back-end APIs, or application programming interfaces. The study was conducted in January. The group noted that the study had its limitations, such as dynamic responses that made it complicated to capture the whole range of possible prompt answers. Moreover, all participants didnt always agree on the ratings given, and the sample size of 130 rated AI model responses is not necessarily representative. And testing through the APIs isnt an exact representation of what consumers experience while using web interfaces. Most of the companies involved in the study acknowledged the challenges in the developing technology and noted the efforts theyre making to improve the experience for voters. Anthropic said its taking a multi-layered approach to prevent the misuse of its AI systems in elections. That includes enforcing policies that prohibit political campaigning, surfacing authoritative voter information resources and testing models against election abuse. Given generative AIs novelty, were proceeding cautiously by restricting certain political use cases under our Acceptable Use Policy, said Alex Sanderford, Anthropics trust and safety lead. Were regularly shipping technical improvements and developer controls to address these issues, and we will continue to do so, said Tulsee Doshi, head of product, responsible AI, at Google. A Meta spokesperson noted that the Democracy Projects study used a Llama 2 model for developers and isnt what the public would use to ask election-related questions. When we submitted the same prompts to Meta AI the product the public would use the majority of responses directed users to resources for finding authoritative information from state election authorities, which is exactly how our system is designed, said Daniel Roberts, a spokesperson for Meta. OpenAI said its committed to building on our platform safety work to elevate accurate voting information, enforce our policies, and improve transparency on AI-generated content. We will keep evolving our approach as we learn more about how our tools are used. A representative for Mistral declined to comment. Bill Gates, a Republican county supervisor in Maricopa County, Arizona, was disappointed to see a lot of errors on basic facts, he said in a statement provided through AI Democracy Projects. People are using models as their search engine and its kicking out garbage. Its kicking out falsehoods. Thats concerning. He also gave some advice. If you want the truth about the election, dont go to an AI chatbot. Go to the local election website. --With assistance from Davey Alba. (Updates with comments from Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Australia-Vietnam Collaboration on Sustainable Development Australia and Vietnam are collaborating in a number of ways on green and sustainable development. Heres what that looks like. Unveiling Opportunities in ASEAN for Australian Investors: Key Sectors, FTAs, Country-wise Breakdown, and 2024 Prospects Tuesday, April 2, 2024 | 3:00 PM AEDT / 2:00 PM AEST / 11:00 AM Vietnam In this webinar, Ines Liu, Head of the Australian Desk, and Senior Manager at Dezan Shira & Associates, will explore the investment potential and economic benefits for Australian businesses & investors in ASEAN. The webinar will give insights on Australias Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040, trade and investment trends, and foreign investment opportunities in ASEAN. Topics that will be addressed during this webinar: ASEAN-Australia economic partnerships and strategic initiatives to facilitate investment. Overview of bilateral and regional FTAs and their benefits Key sectors included in the Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040. Country-wise analysis of Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore, highlighting foreign investment opportunities in these key markets This webinar is FREE of charge. Register Now Australia and Vietnam are deepening cooperation on green and sustainable development through a range of new agreements and programs. Vietnams green economy has huge growth potential, driven by the countrys growing middle class, burgeoning business landscape, and wealth of natural resources and conditions favorable to green energy production. Cooperation on green development aligns closely with the two countries national goals. While Vietnam strives to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, Australia seeks to reduce its economys considerable reliance on the export of coal and gas, including to countries in Southeast Asia. As two important economies in the Asia-Pacific, Australia and Vietnam already have a well-established trade and investment relationship, which will continue to mature. In 2022, bilateral trade between Australia and Vietnam reached A$25.7 billion, increasing 62 percent from the 2020 to 2021 period, according to the Australian think tank Asialink. At the same time, Vietnams energy transition faces a wide range of hurdles, not least of which is the huge number of resources required to sustain the countrys economic ambitions and meet its climate pledges. According to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Vietnam will need around US$115 billion to US$140 billion in investment in energy generation and transmission to meet its electricity demand up until the year 2030. The expansion in climate cooperation presents a host of new opportunities for Australian businesses to invest in Vietnams green economy, and help to diversify the Australian economy away from fossil fuels. Australia-Vietnam cooperation on green development In the last few years, Australia and Vietnam have committed to a broad range of green energy investment and cooperation agreements, with several commitments made in the year 2023. In August 2019, the governments of Vietnam and Australia agreed to develop the Enhanced Economic Engagement Strategy (EEES), which covered the period from 2020 to 2023. This strategy aimed to turn Vietnam and Australia into top ten trade partners and double two-way investment. In 2022, Australia was Vietnams seventh largest trade partner, according to Asialink. However, Australian investment flows to Vietnam reached A$1.8 billion, up only 30 percent from 2020, according to the DFAT, suggesting considerable room for improvement. Since 2021, Vietnam and Australia have been considering elevating the bilateral relationship to that of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP), a bilateral cooperation and investment agreement that would see the two parties commit to increased collaboration on economic and societal development. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last suggested progress on the development of the CSP during a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at the sidelines of the 43rd ASEAN Summit in Jakarta in September 2023. During this meeting, he called for finalizing the necessary internal procedures. Australia currently has a CSP with the ASEAN region, of which Vietnam is a member country. In July 2023, DFAT released details on a proposed program to invest in Vietnams economic growth over an initial period of five years. Under the proposed Australia-Vietnam Partnership for Economic Growth, Australia will commit to investing A$75 million into Vietnam between 2024 and 2029, with the possibility of another five-year extension. A core focus of this program is Vietnams green energy transition. The program will seek to support the Government of Vietnam with the rapid energy transition required to overcome obstacles to achieving its 2050 climate emissions target. This will include assisting the Vietnamese government in advancing climate change mitigation measures, increasing electricity supply while reducing carbon emissions, ensuring stable energy supply and prices, and facilitating cross-border power trading with neighbouring countries. The plan will be implemented through a two-step procurement process, details of which are to be released by the end of the first quarter of 2024. The plan is then expected to be set in motion by mid-2024. The Australian government has also pledged funding to help Vietnam reach its economic and climate goals. In June 2023, following talks with Prime Minister Pham, Prime Minister Albanese announced an A$105 million package toward clean energy adoption and clean energy infrastructure. The funds will also go to support the Vietnamese government in updating the countrys mining law to enable foreign investment in critical minerals. Following this, in August 2023, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced A$94.5 million in funding for climate change adaptation in the Mekong Delta, an area particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change. In addition to government initiatives, there are several business facilitation programs with government backing. One such program is the Australia-Vietnam Green Economy Program, a program developed by the think tank Asialink and Climateworks Centre and backed by the DFAT. The program aims to facilitate two-way trade and investment between Australia and Vietnams green economies by providing knowledge and research on Vietnams green industries and fostering connections with Vietnamese counterparts. Opportunities for Australian companies in Vietnams green transition The capital investment required for Vietnams energy development presents significant opportunities for Australian companies engaged in sustainable fields. These opportunities range from providing products and services for renewable energy projects to auxiliary industries such as energy conservation and the construction of climate-resilient infrastructure. In particular, the wind and solar industry in Vietnam holds great potential. With its extensive coastline, Vietnam has significant wind energy capacity, yet it is currently underutilized. Similarly, solar power potential is considerable but remains largely untapped. Australian companies specializing in wind and solar energy technology can leverage their experience and established supply chains to meet Vietnams growing demand for renewable energy solutions. Another important area of the green transition is improving Vietnams climate resilience. Vietnam is extremely vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, in particular the increased incidence of extreme flooding and typhoons. According to a World Bank report, the effects of a warming planet could cost Vietnam around 12 to 14.5 percent of its GDP by 2050 if no concerted measures are taken. Australian expertise in climate-resilient infrastructure and sustainable agriculture can contribute to Vietnams efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Areas such as flood risk management, coastal protection, and climate-resilient agricultural practices offer opportunities for collaboration between Australian and Vietnamese companies. Furthermore, Australias leadership in sustainable finance can support Vietnams transition to a green economy. By investing in renewable energy projects, climate-resilient infrastructure, and energy efficiency initiatives, Australian companies can contribute to Vietnams sustainable development goals while also generating economic growth. One area of focus is the mining and processing of rare earths, which are vital components in various renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, and solar panels. According to Asialink, Vietnam has considerable untapped mineral resources, which include the worlds second-largest deposits of rare earth metals. While access to the industry for foreign investment is subject to certain restrictions, continued collaboration between Australia and Vietnam may open up more opportunities for Australian companies. Meanwhile, Australian companies specializing in advanced mining technologies and sustainable mineral extraction practices can partner with Vietnamese counterparts to explore and develop mineral deposits in Vietnam. As stated in a knowledge-sharing paper by the Australia-Vietnam Green Economy Program, Vietnams potential as a trusted partner of Australia for processing rare earths, could allow the two nations to strengthen resource security and diversify supply chains. Jointly developing the critical mineral sector could attract foreign investment and open doors to global markets. Finally, Australian expertise in sustainable agriculture can further contribute to Vietnams green transition by introducing advanced farming techniques, precision agriculture technologies, and eco-friendly farming practices. This includes methods for soil conservation, water management, and integrated pest management, as well as the use of renewable energy solutions for agricultural operations. Moreover, sustainable agriculture not only enhances environmental sustainability but also boosts economic resilience by improving crop yields, reducing input costs, and enhancing market access for Vietnamese farmers. Sustainable agriculture also plays a crucial role in mitigating climate change by sequestering carbon in soil, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural activities, and enhancing ecosystem resilience to extreme weather events. By adopting sustainable agricultural practices, Vietnam can contribute to its climate goals while ensuring food security and livelihoods for its population. A century-old university in suburban St. Louis will shut down next year, its president said Monday, citing budget problems and declining enrollment. Fontbonne University, in Clayton, was founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in 1923, first as a place to educate young Catholic women. Enrollment for the fall semester was 874 students, including 650 undergraduates. A decade ago, Fontbonne's enrollment was about 2,000 students, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. University President Nancy Blattner said in a statement that Fontbonne would not accept freshmen for the fall 2024 semester but would continue with classes through summer 2025. University leaders will work with faculty and staff to help them find new positions elsewhere, she said. "After many years of declining enrollments and a shrinking endowment, the financial position of the university is no longer able to be sustained for the long term," Blattner said. Many universities are facing similar struggles. Public and private colleges and universities across the country have announced mass layoffs in recent months, as well as program eliminations and campus closures. Budget shortfalls are blamed on declining enrollment, the end of federal pandemic funding and other factors. In December, the University of Arizona unveiled a financial recovery plan to address its $240 million budget shortfall. Earlier last year, four of the 14 universities in the Big Ten Conference Penn State, Nebraska, Minnesota and Rutgers announced significant budget shortfalls. Bradley University, a private school in Illinois, faced a $13 million budget shortfall representing 10% of its total operating budget. Blattner said Fontbonne leaders have worked for years to try to turn things around. "Despite our best efforts to cut costs, create new academic programs and launch athletic teams, the university is unable to recover from years of declining enrollments and budget deficits," she said. The university's 16-acre campus sits next to Washington University in St. Louis. Washington University announced Monday that it agreed to purchase the Fontbonne campus, but it doesn't have definitive plans for the property. The United States might not be ready for the onslaught of disinformation and cyberattacks expected to hit the country ahead of this years presidential elections, according to a top U.S. lawmaker. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner told a cybersecurity conference in Washington that despite efforts by various U.S. government agencies to protect against election meddling, there are still gaps, especially when it comes to foreign influence campaigns. "I worry that we are less prepared for foreign intervention in our elections in 2024 than we were in 2020," he told the Trellix Cybersecurity Summit. He added that the prevalence of artificial intelligence could also make Russia's efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election look like child's play. Top U.S. law enforcement and cybersecurity officials have repeatedly voiced confidence in their ability to protect the nations voting infrastructure from attacks from any number of U.S. adversaries. "Americans can be confident in our election system and our democracy," FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers last month, backed by the leaders of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency. But officials have expressed concerns about influence operations, especially from Russia, China and Iran, designed to exploit existing U.S. domestic political divisions. Warner on Tuesday said he believes that is where Washington election defenses are most vulnerable, citing a court ruling that has prohibited social media companies from sharing information about potential foreign influence operations with the FBI or CISA. That ought to scare the hell out of all of us, he said, adding that voter susceptibility may be at an all-time high. We've got a whole lot of more Americans in 2024, unfortunately, that are more willing to believe or have less faith in our system to start with, Warner said. Warners warning about Russian election meddling echoes comments by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. There's plenty of reason to be concerned," Sullivan told NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday. There is a history here in presidential elections by the Russian Federation, by its intelligence services." Those concerns, however, have riled some lawmakers and conservative commentators, who argue the White House is trying to resurrect what they call the Russia hoax the narrative voiced by many Democrats that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help former President Donald Trump win. Warner, talking to reporters, dismissed such arguments. Anyone who doesn't think the Russian intel services have and will continue to interfere in our elections ... I wonder where they're getting their information to start with," he said in response to a question from VOA. In a declassified intelligence report on the U.S. 2022 elections, released late last year, the National Intelligence Council assessed with high confidence that Russia, along with China and Iran, ran operations that sought to influence the outcomes. The Russian Government and its proxies sought to denigrate the Democratic Party before the midterm elections and undermine confidence in the election, most likely to undermine U.S. support for Ukraine," the report said. China targeted a "handful of midterm races involving members of both U.S. political parties," it added. Both Russia and China have previously denied allegations of running influence operations aimed at U.S. elections. Thousands of Syrians are being held in northeastern Syria at the al-Hol detention camp that also hosts families of Islamic State fighters. Local officials say none of them can leave the notorious camp without international intervention. Zana Omer has the story, narrated by Sirwan Kajjo. The $95 billion foreign aid package approved by the U.S. Senate this month remains stalled in the Republican-majority House of Representatives, jeopardizing the delivery of $60 billion in aid to Ukraine to help it defeat Russia. Congressional leaders met with U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday to discuss the impasse. VOAs Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more. Chad's electoral commission made a surprise announcement Tuesday that a presidential election to end three years of military rule will take place May 6, several months earlier than planned. The election will mark a return to constitutional order and the end of General Mahamat Idriss Deby's transitional period in the Central African country, the commission said. The 37-year-old Deby became leader of Chad's Transitional Military Council in April 2021 after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, died while fighting northern rebels. The rebels said they wanted to end the older Deby's 31-year rule. The younger Deby took over and promised to head an 18-month transitional council, but in October 2022, he dissolved the council and declared himself interim president. It is not yet known how many candidates will run in the May 6 polls. But last month, Chad's former ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement party, or MPS, said that Deby will be the party's nominee. A group of some 127 opposition leaders met Monday, a day before the elections date was disclosed, to select a candidate. They, too, decided to support Deby. Takilal Ndolassem, president of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Chad, took part in Monday's meeting and spoke to VOA by phone from N'djamena. He said Deby has maintained peace in Chad by disarming rebel groups and providing basic needs, including water, education, food and jobs, to millions of suffering people. Not all opposition leaders support Deby. Gilbert Ratou Barka, president of Artisans for a New Chad, or ARNT, has declared he will run in the May 6 election. On Wednesday, Chad's state TV reported that Deby was on a tour of eight of Chad's 23 provinces, including Logone-Occidental, Logone-Oriental, Mandoul, Mayo-Kebbi-Est and Mayo-Kebbi-Ouest. The report did not give a reason for his visits. Barka accused Deby of campaigning before official campaigns are launched. Campaigning for the first round of the presidential election is scheduled to begin April 14 and end May 4. Barka said ARNT wants Deby to respect the electoral calendar and stop what he called an illegal campaign. Deby had not visited civilians since the food crisis, rebel attacks on communities, floods and other humanitarian disasters within the past three months, Barka said. By visiting now, Deby is manipulating civilians to maintain his grip on power, Barka said. Deby, in a message broadcast on Chad's state TV Wednesday, said elections will be free, fair and transparent. Exploring the landscape of real estate investments, particularly through Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), reveals a sector rich with opportunities for investors. Each of these REITs carves out its niche within the broader market, responding adeptly to the nuanced demands of today's renters, who range from millennials seeking flexibility to professionals valuing convenience and luxury. We'll unpack the distinctive strategies and offerings of these REITs, shedding light on how they're each positioned to thrive in a market where the preference for renting is increasingly pronounced, influenced by shifting lifestyle priorities and economic factors. American Homes 4 Rent American Homes 4 Rent (NYSE:AMH), boasting a solid dividend yield of 3%, stands out as an attractive option for investors exploring the real estate market. The company aligns closely with the current trends in housing preferences, particularly among Millennials and Gen Z. As home prices escalate and lifestyle priorities evolve, an increasing number of individuals from these generations opt for renting over buying, driven by economic challenges and a preference for flexible living arrangements. American Homes 4 Rent is at the forefront of this trend, offering high-quality rental properties and positioning itself as a pivotal player in the evolving market landscape. Don't Miss: Investing in real estate just got a whole lot simpler. This Dara Khosrowshahi-backed startup will allow you to become a landlord in just 10 minutes, and you only need $100. Commercial real estate has historically outperformed the stock market, but few investors have the capital or resources needed to invest in this asset class. A platform backed by industry giant Marcus & Millichap is changing that, allowing individuals to invest in commercial real estate with as little as $5,000. Invitation Homes Similarly, Invitation Homes Inc. (NYSE:INVH), offering a comparable dividend yield of 3%, is a prominent figure in the single-family rental sector, paralleling American Homes 4 Rent in market focus. This REIT has leveraged the burgeoning trend of single-family rentals, especially notable in suburban locales post-pandemic, where theres a marked preference for more spacious living arrangements. With a substantial portfolio in the Sunbelt region, known for its robust population growth and appealing business climate, Invitation Homes excels in acquiring, renovating, and leasing properties, thus delivering both capital appreciation and consistent rental income. Their effective operational strategy has resulted in strong occupancy rates and rent growth, affirming its appeal to long-term growth-focused investors. Story continues Camden Property Trust Shifting focus, Camden Property Trust (NYSE:CPT), which specializes in multifamily residential apartment communities and offers a higher dividend yield of 4%, serves a different market niche compared to American Homes 4 Rent. Esteemed for its upscale apartment communities, Camden caters to a diverse demographic, including Millennials and Gen Z, who prefer the urban lifestyle yet value community and high-end amenities. Strategically situated in vibrant metropolitan areas characterized by significant employment growth and diversity, Camden's properties are designed to attract and retain residents, distinguishing it in the multifamily sector. Read Next: Commercial real estate has historically outperformed the stock market, but few investors have the capital or resources needed to invest in this asset class. A platform backed by industry giant Marcus & Millichap is changing that, allowing individuals to invest in commercial real estate with as little as $5,000. Collecting passive income from real estate just got a whole lot simpler. A new real estate fund backed by Dara Khosrowshahi gives you instant access to a diversified portfolio of rental properties, and you only need $100 to get started. Image credit: Shutterstock "ACTIVE INVESTORS' SECRET WEAPON" Supercharge Your Stock Market Game with the #1 "news & everything else" trading tool: Benzinga Pro - Click here to start Your 14-Day Trial Now! Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article The New American Dream: How Millennials and Gen Z Are Shaping the Future of Housing for These REITs originally appeared on Benzinga.com 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Chad's electoral commission made a surprise announcement Tuesday that presidential elections to end three years of military rule in the central African country will take place May 6, several months earlier than planned. In making the announcement, the commission said the elections will mark a return to constitutional order and the end of General Mahamat Idriss Deby's transitional period, now in its third year. The 37-year-old became leader of Chad's Transitional Military Council in April 2021 after his father, Idriss Deby Itno, died while fighting northern rebels. The rebels said they wanted to end the older Deby's 31-year rule. The younger Deby took over from his father and promised to head an 18-month transitional council but in October of 2022, he dissolved the council and declared himself interim president. It is not yet known how many candidates will run in the May 6 polls. But last month, Chad's former ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS party) said that Mahamat Idriss Deby will be the party's nominee. A group of Chadian opposition leaders met Monday, before the elections date was disclosed, to select a candidate. They too decided to support Deby. Takilal Ndolassem, the president of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Chad, took part in Monday's meeting and spoke to VOA by phone from N'djamena. Ndolassem said 127 opposition leaders who attended Monday's meeting in N'djamena decided to convene another meeting Friday because many other opposition leaders have indicated that they want to join the coalition that supports Deby as a presidential candidate. He said Deby has maintained the peace in Chad by disarming rebel groups and providing basic needs, including water, education, food and sources of livelihoods to millions of suffering civilians in a majority of Chads towns and villages. On Wednesday, Chad's state TV reported that Deby was on a tour of eight of Chad's 23 provinces, including Logone-Occidental, Logone-Oriental, Mandoul, Mayo-Kebbi-Est and Mayo-Kebbi-Ouest. State TV did not give a reason for his visits. Not all opposition leaders are supporting Deby. Gilbert Ratou Barka, the president of the opposition Artisans for a New Chad, or ARNT, has also declared that he will run in the May 6 elections. He said it is unfortunate that Deby is visiting some regions of Chad to begin campaigning before official campaigns are launched. Barka said ARNT wants Deby to respect the electoral calendar and stop the illegal campaign he wants to launch. He said Deby did not visit civilians since the food crisis, rebel attacks on communities, floods and humanitarian disasters caused by climate shocks and armed conflicts became acute within the past three months. Barka said Deby is manipulating civilians to maintain his grip on power. Campaigning for the first round of the presidential election is scheduled to begin on April 14 and end on May 4. Deby, in a message broadcast on Chad's state TV Wednesday, said elections will be free, fair and transparent. Barka said he is surprised that the elections body scheduled the polls for May 6 when Deby had said earlier they would be in October, shortly before the mandate of the transitional government ends on October 10. Until a few months ago, Babli Devi used to walk half an hour from her house in Kunsal village in North India to draw water from a community water tap several times a day for her daily washing and cooking. I used to go in the morning, afternoon and evening, making two or three trips. Other family members also helped, said Devi, who spent about three hours a day in that grueling routine. It was the same story in other homes in the village. Collecting water was as good as putting in a days work, according to Biri Lal. Villagers across India have long been accustomed to that arduous trek -- until five years ago only one in six of Indias 200 million households in its vast rural areas had access to a tap in their homes. But an ambitious $50 billion nationwide program launched by the federal government in 2019 to provide a tap to all rural houses has eased the daily burden of gathering water for many like Devi. A tap was installed in every home in her village in Himachal Pradesh state under the program several months ago. I get some time to rest now after I finish my household chores, she says. Now nearly three in four rural homes in the country have been given access to a tap in their households, according to government figures. The task has been challenging in one of the worlds most water-stressed countries. India has 18% of the worlds population but only 4% of the worlds water resources. In a country dependent on four months of monsoon rains to recharge rivers and groundwater, acute shortages intensify in summer across urban and rural areas. That is why the progress of the drive has been uneven across the vast country. States like Himachal Pradesh where water resources are more abundant have fared better than others with almost all village homes getting taps. Even here, reaching every village was not easy. In the hilly state, monsoons brought ample rains, but the water flew downstream creating shortages in summer. The winter season presented new problems. The challenge was very big because we have very remote areas, we have areas with temperature up to minus 20 degrees centigrade, up to minus 35 degrees centigrade in remote, tribal areas, so this was a tough job, said Suresh Mahajan, Chief Engineer, Water Department, Dharamshala. Now pipelines have been laid across the state, sometimes over vertical cliffs, to feed a network of storage tanks. Reservoirs and small dams have been built to retain water in areas where there is no reliable source. Huge tanks will be installed to avert shortages in the lean summer season. Engineers are also studying anti-freezing techniques to ensure availability of water all year round. The drive aims to not just provide a tap, but also potable water to every house according to Mahajan. Health experts have long called for improving access to clean water in a country where water-borne diseases like diarrhea lead to thousands of deaths. We will provide 70 liters of potable water per person per day in every household. We can give more than this, not less, according to Rakesh Sharma, at the Water Resources Department who oversees a storage and treatment plant that will supply about ten villages. Experts say that while the project is easier to implement in northern states, it faces challenges in parched areas that sprawl across western, eastern and southern India. It is feasible in areas where ground water level is not so depleted like the Gangetic plains, but several states like Maharashtra and Karnataka that have a lot of arid and semi-arid areas will face problems, according to Depinder Kapur at New Delhis Center for Science and Management. Creating sustainable water sources in such places will be critical for the programs success. Otherwise, you might have pipes, but no steady supply. He points out that with ground water levels having depleted, villagers are having to walk further away from their habitations to fetch drinking water. Even big cities like Bengaluru are reporting huge water shortages. But the project is a boon for villagers in whose homes taps have been installed. Undergraduate student, Akshay Kumar in Kunsal, who used to share the work of filling water with his mother, now gets two more hours to study. Rural households without water in their homes spent 55.8 million hours each day collecting water, according to a study by the World Health Organization. But experts say as piped water becomes available, authorities will also have to ensure its judicious use. Kumar, who knows the value of saving water after having struggled for years to fetch it from a distance, keeps a watchful eye in his village. We dont waste water and if I see someones tap is open, I shut it, he said. Building a culture of water conservation will be key to ensuring that the boon of piped water for village communities remains sustainable and that taps dont run dry. The United Nations said Wednesday that those trying to distribute or receive humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip were facing life-threatening challenges. Speaking to reporters in New York, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the dangers presented by the conflict have prompted the repeated U.N. calls for a humanitarian cease-fire. Yes, there are trucks that have crossed from Israel into Gaza. The situation in Gaza is, as weve described it numerous times, almost impossible for us to do humanitarian work, Dujarric said. There is an active conflict going on. Theres a breakdown of law and order. There is insufficient coordination on the security end, on deconfliction with Israel. Weve laid out all the challenges. That doesnt stop us from working. Israel said Wednesday that it had carried out airstrikes targeting Hezbollah weapons sites in southern Lebanon, and that it had intercepted several rockets fired from Lebanon toward Israel. The Israeli military also reported fresh airstrikes on the Khan Younis area in southern Gaza, as well as ground operations in that area and in northern Gaza. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported Wednesday at least 76 more people killed in Israels campaign. At least 29,954 people have been killed since the war began in October, with another 70,325 injured. Israel, Hamas and Qatari mediators on Tuesday all played down a suggestion by U.S. President Joe Biden that a new deal for a cease-fire and hostage release in the five-month Israel war with Hamas militants could be reached soon. Hamas is considering a proposal, agreed to by Israel at talks with mediators in Paris last week, for a cease-fire that would suspend fighting for 40 days during Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, which would be the first extended truce in the war. Both sides have delegations in Qatar this week trying to work out details. But Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said, "We don't have a final agreement on any of the issues that are hampering reaching an agreement. We remain hopeful that we can get to some kind of agreement." One Hamas official told Reuters that there were "still big gaps to be bridged. The primary and main issues of the cease-fire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces are not clearly stated, which delays reaching an agreement." Israel did not comment directly on Biden's optimism for a cease-fire, but government spokeswoman Tal Heinrich said any deal would still require Hamas to drop "outlandish demands, in another orbit, another planet." "We are willing. But the question remains whether Hamas are willing," she said. Biden told reporters Monday that he hoped there would be a cease-fire by March 4. He also told comedian Seth Meyers on his late-night show on the NBC television network, "Ramadan is coming up [March 10], and there's been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan, as well, in order to give us time to get all the [100 or so] hostages out." According to one source close to the talks, the Paris proposal would see Hamas free some but not all of the hostages they are holding, in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinians jailed by Israel, a surge in humanitarian aid for famished Palestinians in Gaza and Israeli troops pulling out of populated areas in the enclave along the Mediterranean Sea coastline. But the deal apparently does not cover Hamas' main demand for a permanent end to the war and an Israeli troop withdrawal. Nor does it resolve the fate of fighting-age Israeli men among the hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in recent days that a temporary cease-fire would not change Israel's plans to eventually carry out an offensive in the southern town of Rafah to achieve Israel's goal of eliminating Hamas. Prospects of a Rafah operation have raised international alarms because of the large number of Palestinians who are living there, many of them after fleeing other parts of Gaza in search of safety. Israeli officials have mentioned evacuating civilians from Rafah, but they have not given any details about where the Palestinians might be able to go. Egypt, which borders Rafah, has said it will not open its borders. Much of Gaza has been leveled during Israel's massive counteroffensive after the October 7 Hamas terror attack killed 1,200 people in Israel. The United Nations has expressed concern about any plan to move the civilian population from southern Gaza and about Israeli plans to launch an offensive in the area populated by people already in need of humanitarian aid. Hamas captured about 250 hostages in its October attack. About 100 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November. The Israeli military says it believes about 30 hostages held by Hamas have subsequently died or been killed in Gaza. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. The discovery of a North Korean missile in Ukraine that had more than 200 components from U.S. and European companies revealed loopholes that North Korea uses to evade sanctions, said analysts. North Korea is operating its arms factories at full capacity to supply Russia with weapons needed to fight Ukraine, said South Korean Defense Minister Shin Wonsik at a news briefing on Monday. South Korea estimates Pyongyang sent about 6,700 containers to Russia since September, Shin said, according to South Korean media. The U.S. puts the number even higher, estimating that North Korea delivered more than 10,000 containers of munitions or munition-related materials to Russia since September. The U.S. announced the estimates on Friday as it issued sanctions against more than 500 individuals and entities in Russia. North Korean weapons have been turning up on the Ukraine battlefield since December, according to the Security Service of Ukraine. It said on Thursday that Russia has fired at least 20 North Korean missiles at Ukraine since then, adding that the missiles had killed or injured civilians. Russia denied any military or technical cooperation with North Korea during a Jan. 26 news briefing conducted by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. VOA contacted the North Korean mission at the United Nations in New York City for comment but received no response. Investigators determined a missile recovered on Jan. 2 in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, was made with components from U.S. and European companies, according to a report by the U.K.-based investigative group Conflict Armament Research (CAR), first reported by CNN on Feb. 20. The CAR report found that of the 290 components from the North Korean missile that were examined, about 75% originated with U.S.-based companies. About 16% of the components were linked to European companies. The report said more than three quarters of the components were produced between 2021 and 2023 and that the missile could not have been made before March 2023. The report said, however, CAR "will not identify the companies linked to their production." U.N. member states have been banned from exporting materials and technologies that North Korea could use to make ballistic missiles since the Security Council passed Resolution 1718 in 2006. Experts said U.S. companies whose parts ended up in the North Korean missile probably did not know the identity of the end user. Aaron Arnold, a former member of the U.N. Panel of Experts for North Korea's sanctions, said, however, that the discoveries show "how porous Western export control systems can be." Arnold, who is currently a senior associate fellow at Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Service Institute, told VOA via email on Friday that some of the items that ended up in the North Korean missile are items that can be used to make weapons as well as commercial goods. "While I can't say for sure in this particular case, some of the micro-electronics are dual use, meaning, they could be commonplace and used in other commercial applications," Arnold said. "Some of the Western micro-electronics found in Russian drones, for example, are also used in refrigerators." Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, emailed VOA on Monday that in addition to dual-use items, "the focus on sanctions enforcement should be on more important components." Such components could include "non-domestic electronic components" that the CAR report said were found in the North Korean missile. Arnold and other experts said North Korea's practice of using third-party countries to smuggle banned items makes it difficult to detect components headed into the country. But they said it is possible to use established procurement networks to track components back from the missile to identify intermediaries. Anthony Ruggiero, senior fellow and sanctions expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a telephone interview with VOA on Friday, "Part of the biggest challenge is going after those who help North Korean sanctions evasion." He continued, "China, Russia, North Korea, Iran these countries are experts in avoiding U.N. and U.S. sanctions. They are smart enough not to use their names and avoid any suggestion that it's Russia or North Korea or Iran or China trying to buy these items. Part of the challenge is to lift that veil." Joshua Stanton, an attorney based in Washington who helped draft the Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act in 2016, said via email these discoveries could be "an opportunity for the Commerce Department to trace North Korea's procurement networks from each component through its supply chain and put the middlemen on its entity list." When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, it sparked outrage in many parts of the world. Images of atrocities by Russian fighters and destruction of Ukrainian cities tilted much Western public opinion in favor of Kyiv. Not necessarily in Latin America. A study by Georgetown University in Washington found that the social network X, formerly Twitter, has seen a significant uptick in pro-Russian and anti-Ukraine narratives among Spanish-language users in Latin America. But theres a catch: Unofficial sources of information and, particularly, anonymous accounts are playing a large role in the spread of Kremlin narratives, the researchers concluded. That research, published by Ukrainian fact-checking organization Stop Fake, was the work of Valerie Senger and Jacob Basseches. They are students of a masters degree program in Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign Service. Despite the rise of pro-Russian sentiment on X, Senger and Basseches say these views may not have truly taken hold among actual people in the region. We did not see a lot of die-hard, nonanonymous, Latin American locals boosting pro-Russian narratives yet, Basseches told VOA. To analyze the changing narratives on X, Sanger and Basseches selected five key events in the war: the start of the invasion; Russias shelling of a railway station in the city of Kramatorsk; Russian President Vladimir Putins announcement of a partial mobilization; Finland joining NATO; and Russias shelling of a pizzeria in Kramatorsk. That last incident, on June 27, 2023, killed well-known Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina and injured two Colombian citizens. Sanger and Basseches chose these events because the Kremlin officially commented on them and because the events generated peak searches on Google for Ucrania, the Spanish word for Ukraine. From there, the researchers identified 200 Spanish-language tweets about each event that received the most shares, likes or comments. These were further categorized based on the sentiments the posts expressed. The categories ranged from the most pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian to the most pro-Ukrainian/anti-Russian opinion. A rating of zero meant the tweet was neutral. Sanger and Basseches found that Latin American X users reacted fairly neutrally to the onset of the invasion. But after the shelling of the Kramatorsk station, responses became more polarized. Pro-Russian tweets used insulting terms like Ukronazi, while pro-Ukrainian ones called Putin a terrorist or war criminal. When Putin announced a partial mobilization in Russia, Latin American X users began to express pro-Ukrainian views more often and the level of polarization increased. Finland's ascension to NATO sparked more pro-Russian posts, but the number of neutral tweets also increased significantly. After the shelling of the pizzeria in Kramatorsk, Latin American X users were more likely to show pro-Russian views. Despite fluctuations in the reactions, the researchers say the overall trend is a rise in support for Russia among Spanish-language X accounts particularly those in Latin America. Many would assume that it would be the opposite [...] with all the [Russian] atrocities and all the visuals, Senger said. Beyond charting the overall direction of public attitudes, Senger and Basseches found that at the start of the war, the most ardently pro-Russian opinions came from Spain, not Latin America. Some of those posts were shared by prominent individuals, while others came from anonymous accounts. The researchers say that finding could indicate such opinions are more common in Spain or that Russian influence operations initially targeted Spain. The researchers also found that credible accounts with large followings that could counter disinformation or pro-Russian influence such as the X accounts for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and CNN Espanol had less user engagement. For example, Senger and Basseches found no relationship between the number of followers an account had and the number of likes received by one of its tweets. Influence, in its digital dimension, occurs and is channeled through individuals, they wrote. They also discovered that the role of anonymous accounts the ones found to play a large role in the spread of Kremlin narratives became especially noticeable after Finland joined NATO, accounting for over a fifth of the most popular tweets in Latin America. Still, this event received fewer responses from Latin American users than others and the tweets from nonanonymous accounts were slightly more pro-Ukrainian. A similar pattern came after the shelling of the Kramatorsk railway station and Putins partial mobilization announcement. Based upon the reach of anonymous accounts, the researchers inferred that X's complex algorithms as opposed to factors such as follower counts play a central role in determining which tweets receive the most attention from users. They noted that the algorithms now prioritize tweets from accounts that pay for an X subscription. (X recently made its interface less transparent and limited data access for researchers.) The findings suggest that the uptick in pro-Russian sentiment online may have been the result of a Russian influence operation. While they cannot prove that definitively, Sanger and Basseches believe Latin America remains a target for Russian propaganda. In November, the State Departments Global Engagement Center pushed a similar view. The center said it had found a well-financed disinformation campaign targeting the region. [I]ncreasingly the Kremlin has realized that they are not having much success in Europe, that they are not able to change government opinion and popular opinion about the Ukraine war, special envoy James P. Rubin, the centers coordinator, told journalists last month. According to Rubin, that has led Russia to look elsewhere, including Latin America and Africa. Senger and Basseches also see signs of that effort. Our findings demonstrate that Russian efforts to influence public discourse among Hispanics [...] intensified after the invasion began, their study states. And that these efforts were successful. This article originated in VOAs Russian Service. Several United Nations humanitarian officials warned Tuesday that there is a high risk of conflict-induced famine in the Gaza Strip if the war does not stop soon. "If nothing is done, we fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable, and the conflict, which since October has claimed the lives of almost 30,000 people and injured more than 70,000, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, will have many more victims," said Ramesh Rajasingham, director of the coordination division in the U.N. humanitarian office. He addressed a meeting of the U.N. Security Council requested by members Algeria, Guyana, Slovenia and Switzerland, amid rising concerns that hunger is being used as a weapon in the war. Rajasingham said at least 576,000 people in Gaza 25% of the population are one step away from famine, and practically the entire population is relying on insufficient humanitarian food assistance to survive. "Unfortunately, as grim as the picture we see today, there is every possibility for further deterioration," he said. "Gaza is seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world," said Carl Skau, the World Food Program's deputy executive director. "One child in every six under the age of 2 is acutely malnourished." Agricultural production collapsing Maurizio Martina, assistant director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, explained how the entire food supply chain has been impacted by the war. Farmers have been forced by Israel to evacuate their land or fled shelling that has destroyed crops; cattle and poultry are dying from hunger or killed in bombings; fishing is prohibited; and ground water is contaminated. "In the most likely scenario, agricultural production will have collapsed in the north by May 2024," Martina said. "We are already seeing this collapse." In a memorandum known as a white note, sent to the council ahead of the session, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths reported on the risk of conflict-induced famine in accordance with a 5-year-old council resolution on the subject. "Immediate action is needed to prevent conflict-induced famine and widespread food insecurity in Gaza," he wrote. He called for a cease-fire and urged the council to use its influence and to take action to facilitate aid access into and within Gaza, resume the entry of commercial goods into the territory, and protect and restore critical infrastructure, among other recommendations. Flow of aid 'unpredictable,' 'insufficient' Griffiths said humanitarians continue to face "significant obstacles" to providing the response required to avert famine. "These include border crossing closures, serious movement restrictions, access denials, onerous vetting procedures, security risks, incidents by desperate civilians, a breakdown of law and order, and restrictions on communications and protective equipment," Griffiths wrote. "Logistical infrastructure, both inside and outside Gaza, is inadequate and the flow of aid remains unpredictable and insufficient." Israel denies it is hindering or limiting the delivery of aid to Gaza. "Israel is doing all it can to care for civilians, going above and beyond what is expected, let alone required," Israel's deputy U.N. envoy Jonathan Miller told the council. "Israel is committed to improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza, working constantly to ensure the entry of humanitarian aid from numerous countries and U.N. agencies." Miller said Israel has facilitated the delivery of 254,000 tons of relief supplies into Gaza since the start of the war, including 165,000 tons of food. He blamed Hamas for diverting aid and the U.N. for failing to efficiently manage and distribute it. "The limitations on the quantity and pace of aid are dependent on the capacity of the United Nations and other agencies to receive, store and distribute the assistance efficiently," Miller said. Famine 'imminent' in northern Gaza The situation is most dire in northern Gaza, which remains cut off by the Israeli military. About 300,000 people are believed to have defied Israel's earlier evacuation order and remained through months of heavy fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas. "If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza," WFP's Skau said. "We must all live up to our responsibilities to ensure it does not happen on our watch." The U.N. agency that assists Palestinians, UNRWA, and delivers the bulk of the relief supplies, says the last time it was able to get food aid to northern Gaza was on January 23. On February 20, the World Food Program suspended its deliveries to the north because of a lack of security for both the aid workers and recipients. The World Health Organization last reached Gaza City's largest hospital, Al Shifa, on January 22 with medical supplies. One week ago, the 15-nation Security Council failed to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire because of a veto from the United States. Several council members renewed their call for a cease-fire at Tuesday's meeting. "Only a cease-fire, which must be respected by all parties to the conflict, can guarantee the delivery of humanitarian aid without interruption, ensuring adequate, timely assistance," said Slovenian Ambassador Samuel Zbogar. Guyana, which chaired the council this month, said of the conflict and rising food insecurity that "silence is not an acceptable response." "The Security Council must intervene to stop the blatant violations of international law being committed by a member state of the United Nations," Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett said. Even Israel's closest ally, the United States, indicated its growing frustration with the slow pace of aid deliveries, urging Israel to keep border crossings open and to open new ones. "Simply put, Israel must do more," Ambassador Robert Wood said. Russia, which rarely supports sanctions, suggested the council consider imposing them for the obstruction of humanitarian aid. Israel began its military campaign to eliminate Hamas after the group's fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7 and killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. About 250 others were taken as hostages. Hamas, designated a terror group by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, still holds about 130 hostages in Gaza, including 30 who are believed to be dead. As negotiators push to secure a temporary cease-fire deal that would halt the Gaza war before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins in March, a message from Michiganders signals anger at President Joe Biden's support of Israel's campaign that has killed almost 30,000 Palestinians. Results Wednesday showed 13% of Democratic primary voters in the critical swing state, home to a large Arab American constituency, had marked their primary ballots as uncommitted as part of the Listen to Michigan campaign to pressure the president to back a permanent cease-fire. On Monday, Biden said he hoped a deal on a temporary cease-fire and the release of Palestinians from Israeli jails in return for Hamas freeing Israeli hostages would be secured by March 4. In remarks broadcast Monday on NBC's "Late Night with Seth Meyers," he indicated that Israel has agreed to halt fighting in Gaza for Ramadan, which is expected to begin on March 10. A breakthrough is key for Biden to assuage angry Democrats horrified by the Gaza death toll. However, on Tuesday, Israel and Hamas, as well as Qatari mediators, cautioned against Biden's optimism. Michigan 'uncommitted' Without significant opposition, Biden is certain to win the Democratic primary in Michigan. Still, analysts say he cannot ignore the signal sent by Listen to Michigan, a campaign supported by dozens of the state's elected officials, including its representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American lawmaker in the U.S. Congress. President Biden is not hearing us, Tlaib said in a social media post. This is the way we can use our democracy to say, Listen. Listen to Michigan. Palestinian American Adam Abusalah voted "uncommitted." He worked on Biden's 2020 campaign but told VOA he has since become disillusioned. "We thought he would be somebody that would lead this country with humanity and compassion," Abusalah said. "But instead, he's been leading with hypocrisy." Nationally, Arab and Muslim Americans are not a significant voting bloc. But the size of the "uncommitted" vote in Michigan will signal how strongly Americans reject Biden's Gaza policies, as they represent other groups in the president's coalition. "This won't be just the marginal movement," said Nura Sediqe, a core faculty member in the Muslim studies program at Michigan State University. The movement, she said, is embraced by more than Arab Americans and includes other minority voters, as well as young and progressive Democrats and anti-war Jewish voters. Democratic Party leaders assume their constituents will show up to vote for Biden because the other option, former President Donald Trump is "so horrific and fear-inducing," Sediqe told VOA. "But that also frustrates voters, because they feel like they've shown up year after year, and that their perspective isn't being heard." Some American Muslims say even the alternative can't be worse than Biden. Staunch progressive Samraa Luqman voted for Bernie Sanders in 2020 and is now co-chair of the Abandon Biden campaign in Michigan. "To have somebody, like me today, sit before you and say, 'I'm willing to accept a Trump presidency on the opposite side of the spectrum in order to oust Biden from office,' it's really a testament to how bad this president has failed," she told VOA, dismissing comparisons of how Biden and Trump treat American Muslims as "rings hollow." "We're telling the Democratic Party we want to vote for the lesser of two evils," Luqman said. "There is nothing more evil than the commission of a genocide." Perhaps nothing signals deeper frustration than 25-year-old Air Force service member Aaron Bushnell, who live-streamed himself February 25 standing outside the gates of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, lighting himself on fire while shouting, "Free Palestine." On Tuesday, the White House called his death a "horrible tragedy." Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was made aware of the incident. 'The president understands' Jean-Pierre said the administration understands there are strong emotions among Democrats, highlighting recent outreach to Michigan Arab and Muslim Americans by White House officials. "The president understands that, too," she said during her briefing. "So, we care very much about that and what the community is going through." But Biden's critics say he's not listening, despite polls showing that a growing number of Americans support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. "They're listening to donors, and they're listening to pressure groups," said James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute. "Where is the power center of the party? It's with the establishment," Zogby told VOA. "Where's the majority of the vote in the party? It's with the progressive wing. It's with those who feel that justice and peace are not being well served by the current policy." How this struggle comes out remains to be seen, Zogby said, adding that without a drastic change in Biden's support for Israel, it will be difficult to persuade Arab American voters, a key constituent in Michigan. The state, together with Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, are considered "swing states" that could change 2024 election results. It doesn't take too many votes to lose Michigan. In 2016, Trump won it by fewer than 11,000 votes. VOA's Dora Mekouar and Valdya Baraputri contributed to this report. The U.S. military said U.S. and coalition forces shot down five Houthi drones late Tuesday in the Red Sea. U.S. Central Command said the drones were launched from areas of Yemen controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, and that the drones presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and to the U.S. Navy and coalition ships in the region. The strikes were the latest in months of actions seeking to counter attacks by the Houthis against vessels in the Red Sea. The Houthis have said they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians amid the war in Gaza. The attacks have prompted many shipping companies to avoid the Red Sea corridor, opting instead for the much longer and more expensive route around Africa. Maritime security firms reported the latest suspected Houthi attack late Tuesday about 110 kilometers west of Yemens port of Hodeida. The UK Maritime Trade Operations center said it received reports of a rocket exploding several kilometers from a vessel, which was unharmed and proceeding to its next port of call. British security firm Ambrey said the vessel involved appeared to be a Marshall Islands-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier. Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters. Boeing must develop a comprehensive plan to address "systemic quality-control issues" within 90 days, the head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday, after a mid-air emergency last month sparked renewed safety concerns. The head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) demanded the plan in a statement critical of the plane maker following an all-day meeting with CEO Dave Calhoun on Tuesday. "Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements," FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in the statement. "Making foundational change will require a sustained effort from Boeing's leadership, and we are going to hold them accountable every step of the way, with mutually understood milestones and expectations." Calhoun said in a statement the Boeing leadership team is "totally committed" to addressing FAA concerns. "We have a clear picture of what needs to be done," Calhoun said in a statement. "Boeing will develop the comprehensive action plan with measurable criteria that demonstrates the profound change that Administrator Whitaker and the FAA demand." Boeing has scrambled to explain and strengthen safety procedures after a door panel detached during a January 5 flight on a brand new Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing while passengers were exposed to a gaping hole 16,000 feet above the ground. Boeing's production rate has been capped by regulators and closely scrutinized by lawmakers and customers following the January 5 incident and the new statement raises fresh questions about how long the production rate halt will last. Whitaker said Boeing's plan must incorporate forthcoming results of the FAA production-line audit and findings from an expert review panel report released earlier this week. That report, which had been commissioned in early 2023, was highly critical of the company's safety management processes, saying Boeing suffered from "inadequate and confusing implementation of the components of a positive safety culture." Boeing last week abruptly removed Ed Clark, the head of its troubled 737 Max program, as part of a management shakeup. Shares were up 2.3% on Wednesday. 'Systemic shift' The FAA said Wednesday Boeing must take steps to improve its Safety Management System (SMS) program, which it committed to in 2019, and combine it with a Quality Management System to "create a measurable, systemic shift in manufacturing quality control." Whitaker visited Boeing's Renton, Washington, factory, where the 737 Max line is produced, on February 12. Whitaker expressed concerns about some things he saw on the tour, two people briefed on the matter told Reuters. The FAA meetings with Calhoun lasted more than seven hours, sources said, and much of it focused on a series of quality issues at the planemaker. "Boeing must take a fresh look at every aspect of their quality-control process and ensure that safety is the company's guiding principle," Whitaker said. The Alaska Airlines mishap is Boeing's second major crisis in recent years, after crashes in 2018 and 2019 of Max planes killed 346 people. That prompted a grounding of the 737 Max for 20 months that damaged Boeing's reputation. The FAA panel report referenced the recent issues, saying it amplified concerns that "safety-related messages or behaviors are not being implemented across the entire Boeing population." Airline industry executives have expressed frustration with Boeing's quality control. France's Airbus, the only other major manufacturer of commercial jets, in January reported record annual jet orders and confirmed an 11% rise in 2023 deliveries, maintaining the top manufacturing spot against Boeing for a fifth year. The FAA grounded the Max 9 for several weeks in January and has capped Boeing's production of the Max while it audits the manufacturing process after a string of quality issues. The door panel that flew off the Max 9 appeared to be missing four key bolts, according to a preliminary report this month from the U.S. National Safety Transportation Board. The panel is a plug in place on some 737 Max 9s instead of an additional emergency exit. According to the report, the door plug in question was removed to repair rivet damage, but the NTSB has not found evidence the bolts were re-installed. The disclosure angered Boeing's airline customers. Some, including Alaska Airlines, announced they would conduct enhanced quality oversight of planes before they leave the Boeing factory. The Voice of Americas acting director has denounced Iran for convicting a number of VOA Persian journalists in absentia for the alleged crime of spreading antigovernment propaganda. The convictions came to light last week, when hacking group Edaalat Ali published Iranian judiciary documents showing that a Tehran Revolutionary Court handed guilty verdicts to dozens of Persian journalists from VOA and other Western news outlets in a secret 2022 trial. In a Tuesday statement, acting VOA Director John Lippman said These actions by Iran are typical of a regime that does not value human rights or the rule of law. They are thinly veiled attempts to stop the free flow of information into Iran. They are also evidence of the success of VOA Persian in having an influential role in keeping the issues of womens rights, open expression, and the importance of a free society front and center in Iran. VOA stands by our journalists and their reporting. Irans U.N. mission in New York did not respond to a VOA email sent Tuesday requesting comment on Lippmans statement. In a Wednesday email to VOA Persian, a State Department spokesperson said it cannot confirm the veracity of reportedly leaked documents, but the Iranian regimes intimidation of journalists abroad and repression of the media at home is well-known to the world. A conviction in absentia of journalists based abroad and involved in exposing the regimes wrongdoing would not be surprising. This is also the latest reminder that Irans judicial system is routinely used as a tool of oppression, the State Department said. The United States will continue our active steps, in public and in private, to help journalists around the world continue their work, particularly in the face of such repression, the spokesperson added. The leaked Iranian court documents, reviewed and deemed credible by VOA Persian, name 11 VOA Persian journalists and the former VOA Persian service director Setareh Derakhsheh Sieg as having been convicted of propagandizing against the Iranian government. The documents said the named individuals were sentenced to unspecified prison terms and their verdicts were sent to the enforcement branch of the Iranian prosecutors office for media and culture affairs. Lippman said VOA is reviewing ways to enhance security for both the people who were named and for their families, and we will work with outside agencies and stakeholders to do so. The 11 convicted VOA Persian journalists include four women: Hamideh Aramideh, Sara Dehghan, Fahimeh Khezr Heidari and Mahtab Vahidi Rad; and seven men: Mahdi Aghazamani, Niusha Boghrati, Roozbeh Bolhari, Mehdi Fallahati, Arian Risbaf, Arash Sigarchi and Payam Yazdian. Sigarchi, a Washington-based VOA Persian managing editor, told this weeks edition of VOAs Flashpoint Iran podcast that he reacted with sadness to learning about the convictions. We are not committing any crime here. We try to be good citizens and obey the laws [where we work]. The Iranian authorities try to put a political label on us, but even based on the Islamic republics law, our job as journalists is not a crime, Sigarchi said. Sigarchi previously served almost three years in an Iranian prison for his work as chief editor of a state-approved Iranian newspaper before he fled the country prior to completing his sentence and moved to the United States. Asked if the latest conviction will affect his VOA Persian work, he said no. For me, it is not the first time. We are trying to be fair and balanced as journalists even with this [news]. It will not have any effect on us, because we are just doing our jobs, Sigarchi said. More than 30 other Persian diaspora journalists working for Western news outlets were named in the hacked documents as among those convicted of the propaganda offense. They include journalists with VOAs sister network Radio Farda, BBC Persian, Iran International and Manoto. A trade union for journalists in Britain and Ireland, the National Union of Journalists, called for international action against Iran in response to the revelations. In a February 22 statement, the union's secretary-general Michelle Stanistreet said: Once again, we will be contacting the [British] government and the U.N. and we ask that the wider international community speak out against this outrageous weaponizing of journalists. She added: Particularly worrying is the use by the [Iranian] regime of red notices through Interpol which can inhibit the movement of these journalists, as they travel abroad for work or to meet with family in third countries. We will continue to work with the BBC and International Federation of Journalists to put pressure on [Britain] and other governments to confront Iran about its abuse, including death threats, of journalists. VOAs Persian Service contributed to this report. American Electric Power Company (NASDAQ:AEP) Full Year 2023 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: US$19.0b (down 3.3% from FY 2022). Net income: US$2.21b (down 4.3% from FY 2022). Profit margin: 12% (in line with FY 2022). EPS: US$4.26 (down from US$4.51 in FY 2022). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period American Electric Power Company Earnings Insights Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 5.1% p.a. on average during the next 3 years, compared to a 3.6% growth forecast for the Electric Utilities industry in the US. Performance of the American Electric Utilities industry. The company's shares are up 1.8% from a week ago. Risk Analysis It's necessary to consider the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 3 warning signs with American Electric Power Company (at least 1 which doesn't sit too well with us), and understanding them should be part of your investment process. 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. A court in Zimbabwe has sentenced an opposition leader to six months in prison or a $300 fine for verbally assaulting a Russian businesswoman. Magistrate Vongai Guwuriro ruled that Tendai Biti, a former Zimbabwean finance minister, must pay the fine or go to prison, ending a four-year legal battle between Biti and Tatiana Aleshina, who court papers said was a Russian investor. Biti paid the fine. Alec Muchadehama, Bitis attorney, told reporters outside the Harare magistrate's court Tuesday that Biti would appeal the sentence and conviction. "Both myself and Tendai Biti are extremely disappointed with the conviction, but I am not surprised that it came to that [conviction]," he said. "This is why we are going to appeal to the High Court, we have various grounds, which we will outline in our grounds of appeal. The state prosecutors accused Biti of calling Aleshina stupid and pointing at her in 2020. Biti denies the charge of verbal assault. Aleshina said the ruling was a victory for women. "Zimbabwe has got justice, even if it has taken long four years. But I learned a lot. I realized if we women cant stand for our rights, justice will not be revealed," she said. "And I have nothing to do with Tendai Biti, or anyone, but let him learn good lessons - respect women, and respect not only women, but everyone in this country. Aleshinas supporters outside the court said Biti should have been given a no-fine option and sent to prison, while Bitis supporters said the punishment for calling someone stupid was unfair. Agnes Togarepi said Biti was innocent. "How many times do you call someone 'stupid' or even 'idiot'? Is it a crime to point at someone? she asked. Biti is vice president of Citizens Coalition for Change, Zimbabwes main opposition party. His colleague Job Sikhala, who spent nearly two years in jail, was given a nine-month suspended sentence if he pays a $500 fine by March 4. He was convicted of publishing falsehoods. Russian Tatiana Aleshina commended a Harare magistrate for ordering former Finance Minister Tendai Biti to pay US$300 or six months in jail for verbally assaulting her. She said this is a victory for Zimbabwean women. Biti is expected to appeal against the sentence. (Video/Credit: VOA) No media source currently available The URL has been copied to your clipboard The code has been copied to your clipboard. More than 20,000 people gathered at a rally in Warsaw Saturday to mark the second anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. TUNIS, TUNISIA A court in Tunisia sentenced former President Moncef Marzouki to eight years in prison in absentia as part of the country's crackdown on opponents of President Kais Saied. The charges against Marzouki, who lives in Paris, stemmed from remarks he made that authorities said violated laws against incitement and calling for the overthrow of the government, court spokesperson Mohamed Zitouna told Tunisia's state news agency TAP on Friday evening. His attorney, Samir Ben Amor, told The Associated Press that the sentence illustrates "the hardening of the political line taken by the government against opponents." Marzouki served as the first democratically elected president of Tunisia from 2011 to 2014, after Arab Spring protests led autocratic President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down and flee the country. A longtime human rights activist, Marzouki has emerged as a vocal critic of President Kais Saied's moves to consolidate his own power and revise Tunisia's post-Arab Spring constitution. Marzouki's statements, which the court did not specify, amounted to fomenting "an attack designed to overthrow the government, inciting people to take up arms against each other and provoking disorder, murder and pillaging on Tunisian soil." He has routinely called on foreign powers to withdraw support to Tunisia amid the ongoing reversal of the country's democratic gains and called Saied a dictator who needs to be overthrown. It's the second time that Marzouki has been sentenced for remarks made at demonstrations and on social media, following a December 2021 four-year verdict for undermining state security. Marzouki is among more than 20 political opponents who have been charged or imprisoned since Saied consolidated power in 2021 by suspending parliament and rewriting the country's constitution. The president's opponents, including Marzouki, have likened the moves to a coup a charge that Saied has denied. Voters approved his constitutional changes in a low turnout 2021 referendum. "Is it normal in a democratic country for someone to be prosecuted simply for having expressed an opinion and point of view on his country's politics?" Ben Amor asked in regard to Marzouki's sentence. Saied has previously called those who make remarks like Marzouki's "traitors to the nation" and called on authorities to investigate them. Others targeted in his crackdown include Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi, businessman and former presidential candidate Nabil Karoui, and Free Destourian Party leader Abir Moussi, a potential challenger in the country's 2024 presidential elections. "All the achievements of the revolution have suffered setbacks due to (Saied's) seizure of power," Ennahda spokesperson Imed Khemiri said in a statement. "Fundamental liberties have deteriorated, restrictions have been imposed on political party activities, opponents have been prosecuted and the independence of the judiciary has been called into question." Brazil called for a "new globalization" to address poverty and climate change as finance ministers from the world's top economies met Wednesday, but the Ukraine and Gaza wars risked overshadowing the plea. "It is time to redefine globalization," Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad told his counterparts from the Group of 20 leading economies, opening their first meeting of the year in Sao Paulo. "We need to create incentives to ensure international capital flows are no longer decided by immediate profit but by social and environmental principles," said Haddad, who gave his speech remotely after coming down with Covid-19. The meeting, which follows one by foreign ministers in Rio de Janeiro last week, will lay the economic policy groundwork for the annual G20 leaders' summit, to be held in Rio in November. Brazilian officials said they were working on a compact final statement that would steer clear of divisive issues such as the Ukraine and Gaza wars. "We know the world is going through a tense geopolitical moment," said finance ministry executive secretary Dario Durigan. But "there's consensus on the economic issues," he told journalists. "The whole world speaks the same economic language." - Taxing the super-rich - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wants to use the rotating G20 presidency this year to push issues like the fights against poverty and climate change, reducing the crushing debt burdens of low-income nations, and giving developing countries more say at institutions like the United Nations. International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva called for bolder climate action, urging countries to accelerate emissions cuts, end fossil fuel subsidies -- which reached an estimated $1.3 trillion worldwide last year -- and massively mobilize climate financing. "The climate crisis is already upon us, and we have to admit we have been a bit slow to address it," she said at a panel discussion on the sidelines of the meeting. Also on the agenda: increasing taxes on corporations and the super-rich. "We need to ensure the billionaires of the world pay their fair share of taxes," said Haddad. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire backed that call, telling journalists that Paris is pushing to "accelerate" international negotiations on a minimum tax on the ultra-wealthy. However, Durigan said the issue was unlikely to make it into the final statement. - G7 targets Russian assets - Even before the meeting opened, the conflict in Ukraine took center stage. The Group of Seven countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, plus the European Union -- held their own meeting on the sidelines to discuss shoring up Western support for Kyiv. Officials said the meeting -- attended remotely by Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko -- focused on proposals to seize an estimated $397 billion in Russian assets frozen by the West. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday the issue was "urgent." But there were divisions among G7 members. "I want to be very clear: We don't have the legal basis for seizing the Russian assets now. We need to work further... The G7 must act abiding by the rule of law," said France's Le Maire. Ukraine has warned it is in dire need of more military and financial assistance, with a fresh $60 billion US package stalled in Congress. The war in Gaza was also a recurring theme, amid fears Israel's offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas could spiral into a wider war, with potentially catastrophic effects for the global economy. Both conflicts could overshadow Brazil's bid to use the G20 to amplify the voice of the global south. "It's a very tricky global context at the moment," said Julia Thomson, an analyst at Eurasia Group. "The international agenda will probably hinder part of Brazil's ability to advance on some of the broader themes" of its G20 presidency, she told AFP. Founded in 1999, the G20 accounts for more than 80 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), three-quarters of world trade, and two-thirds of the world's population. It has 21 members: 19 of the world's biggest economies, plus the EU and, participating as a member for the first time this year, the African Union. bur-jhb/nro (The Center Square) The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to hear former President Donald Trump's claims that he is protected from prosecution by presidential immunity for his official acts while in office. The nation's highest court set oral arguments in the case during the week of April 22, according to a one-page order. "Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office," according to the order. "Without expressing a view on the merits, this Court directs the Court of Appeals to continue withholding issuance of the mandate until the sending down of the judgment of this Court." Earlier this month, a federal appeals court dealt Trump's defense a major blow when it said he doesn't have presidential immunity to protect him from charges of election interference. Special counsel Jack Smith's team of federal prosecutors charged Trump with four federal counts related to contesting the 2020 election and the storming of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. The charges include conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction, and conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one's vote counted, according to the indictment. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Trump's legal team has argued that presidents could only be prosecuted if they had already been impeached and convicted by the Senate. Trump, impeached twice in the House, was never convicted in the Senate. Trump posted on social media Wednesday that presidential immunity was needed. "Legal Scholars are extremely thankful for the Supreme Courts Decision today to take up Presidential Immunity," he wrote on Truth Social. "Without Presidential Immunity, a President will not be able to properly function, or make decisions, in the best interest of the United States of America. Presidents will always be concerned, and even paralyzed, by the prospect of wrongful prosecution and retaliation after they leave office. This could actually lead to the extortion and blackmail of a President. The other side would say, 'If you dont do something, just the way we want it, we are going to go after you when you leave office, or perhaps even sooner.' " Photo: Stephen Pond/Getty Images Whats going on with Kate Middleton? Kensington Palace has assured us that the Princess of Wales is recovering from a successful, planned abdominal surgery, but the meme-makers of the internet arent fully convinced. Kensington Palace previously announced on January 17 that Middleton had undergone surgery and would be returning home after a hospital stay, adding that she wanted to keep her medical details private (though her office did reportedly confirm to NBC that it wasnt cancer). The statement noted that she would likely not be able to return to public duties until after Easter. But the fact that she apparently hasnt even by spotted by British tabloids since Christmas Day 2023 has concerned certain corners of the internet. When Prince William skipped a royal ceremony due to a personal matter on Tuesday, some began speculating that his wifes health has taken a turn for the worse. That same day, however, a palace aide stated that Middleton is doing well. Instead of dwelling on darker possibilities, much of the internet appears to be trying to get through the uncertainty by making jokes about the real reason for Middletons prolonged absence. For better or for worse, people are memeing their way through it. From BBLs to bad bangs, find the internets most outlandish conspiracy theories below. Kate Middleton hasnt been seen for about 2 months now pic.twitter.com/NN1GqBD6PD stoned cold fox (@roastmalone_) February 27, 2024 not a single banksy since kate middleton disappeared. coincidence? Lucy (@LMAsaysno) February 27, 2024 its okay everyone, Ive figured out where Kate Middleton is pic.twitter.com/llb9zFTCVw Janel Comeau (@VeryBadLlama) February 28, 2024 Kate Middleton theories: - secret baby (ginger) - game of hide & seek got out of hand - self-immolated 4 Palestine - eloped with Princess Eugenie - locked in bathroom - becoming non-binary - joined ISIS - mission 2 moon - growing out hair colouring disaster Sarasaurus (@saralikeclara) February 27, 2024 Kate Middleton before she hopped over the Kensington Palace walls and ran off in to the night pic.twitter.com/hRCFGZ19GI Sharon Bitchell-Watts (@comagirlx) February 27, 2024 Kate Middleton is at Schwartz and Sandys Carey O'Donnell (@ecareyo) February 28, 2024 Ive fallen down the where is Kate Middleton rabbit hole tonight and can sadly confirm that following extensive reading, William has clearly ended her because Charles is about to croak it and William doesnt want Kate as his queen. Only explanation, Im off to bed. pic.twitter.com/kjnS1BInyW Liam Thom (@AyeThomes_9) February 27, 2024 I'm thoroughly enjoying all the Kate Middleton conspiracy theories. I have no interest in the royals but the story about her recovering from donating a kidney to Charles in exchange for becoming queen one day is sending me. Morello (@Swazi_Cheri) February 27, 2024 cant believe Kate Middleton entered the princess protection program kyra (@kyrasversion) February 28, 2024 Kate Middleton has binned the RF family off and is touring Britain in a converted Transit van. She's selling dreamcatchers made from her own hair on Etsy to make ends meet. Fact. pic.twitter.com/rb4hpHG5iy Lucie Fur (@Lucie_Fur99) February 27, 2024 The Kate Middleton reveal on Masked Singer is going to make all of us look silly. Catherine Tinker (@catherinetinker) February 28, 2024 Emma Stone fully commits to a banal rendition of faux-feminist sexual freedom. Photo: Yorgos Lanthimos/Searchlight Pictures This review was originally published on December 15, 2023. At the 2024 Oscars, Poor Things was nominated for 11 awards and has won four. What Poor Things aims to be is a fantasia of sherbet colors and steampunk steel, a Frankenstein-inflected philosophical questioning and a wild girls coming of age, a pitch-black farce and a sexual investigation that hinges upon the belief that, yes, women captain their destinies. And I can sense that everyone involved in the film from screenwriter Tony McNamara, who adapted the novel by Alasdair Grey, to director Yorgos Lanthimos and leading lady Emma Stone, to even composer Jerskin Fendrix is committed to these ragged, wide-ranging impulses. But those impulses are rancid. For a film whose camera is so obsessed with its lead actresss body, it is remarkably sterile on the subject. Taking place in the late Victorian era, Poor Things centers on Bella Baxter (Stone), an orphaned young woman under the careful eye of a viciously scarred scientist-surgeon named Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), whom she calls God. Shes introduced as a woman with mental disabilities slamming porcelain plates onto the floor with grinning gusto and pissing on herself to the scientist-student underling Godwin has hired to contain her, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef). But Bella seeks adventure and knowledge about the world as passionately as Godwin bars her from experiencing it. He eventually arranges for her to marry Max as an ultimate form of imprisonment masked as kindness, which leads her on a peripatetic journey with a lascivious lawyer named Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), during which she takes on and casts off lovers, gorges on oysters and pastries, ponders, and fucks some more. Poor Things, with its nearly two-and-a-half-hour run time, sags toward the end and could usefully shave at least twenty minutes. Yet the film never outright feels sluggish as it is poised to punch and bruise rather than allure. But theres a corroded spirit to the story, like its intermittently possessed by an edgelord whos unaware most women menstruate, and an early-wave white feminist who believes having sex is the most empowering thing a woman can do. (For all the fucking, there is no menstrual blood!) In many ways, the film demonstrates the limits of the modern cis-male auteurs vision for and about women particularly their sexual selves. Watching it for any sort of feminist revelation is akin to craving the salty chill of the ocean and the spray of a wave upon your face, and having to settle for resting your ear against a curling seashell, listening to only the echo of what you truly desire. About 20 minutes into Poor Things, the audience and Max learn the truth of Bellas captivity under Godwin. She has been reanimated after having thrown herself off the edge of a bridge. Godwin found her still warm body, decked in a magnificent gown the color of a vibrant sea and improbably intact, including the still living baby she was carrying. I could have kept her alive, Godwin notes. It was obvious. Take the infant brain out and put it in the full grown woman. Godwin frames his decision as respecting Bellas former selfs wish for suicide even though its anything but. So this woman weve been presented with isnt a woman at all but a baby girl in the grown womans body that was once her mother. The very next scene is Bella discovering masturbation and orgasms. Still in the crisp black-and-white color scheme that marks the beginning passages of the film, Bella is alone in her bedroom, legs splayed, discovery rendered in those roving eyes. Then, at the dinner table, she experiments with an apple. The camera tracks closer to her face as it grows flush with pleasure until her mouth fills the screen as she heaves and moans. Next, she tries a cucumber. These early scenes of sexual discovery come across as cinematic exhibitionism: Theyre less about limning the interiority of Bella and more about a juvenile instinct to shock. Soon enough, shes having sex with Duncan Wedderburn, riding him with intensity after theyve made their way to Lisbon. As Duncan, Mark Ruffalo is woefully arch. Hes a cunning lawyer whos intrigued by the contract Godwin had him drum up to effectively imprison Bella in a marriage to Max. And so Duncan seeks to capture her for himself. Bella knows hes a cad, but he brings her pleasure and opportunity outside the realm of Godwins grasp. Like so much of the film itself, Ruffalo is too interested in surface-level provocation, delighting in every overly pronounced line of dialogue to the point of becoming cloying. The more instructive performances are given by Dafoe and Stone. In any other movie, Dafoes Godwin would be presented as grim and monstrous; here, he is kindly and paternal even as he refers to Bella as an experiment and flouts her autonomy. Godwin himself was subjected to experimentation by his father that left him a scarred husk of a man unable to process food without the help of hulking machinery; this approach makes a significant effort to nullify the horrors of what Godwin has done. Dafoe plays every movement and gesture as labored. He shuffles and sighs and sulks. His Godwin is less the manipulative and cruel Dr. Frankenstein figure and more an odd and ultimately caring patriarch dubiously driven by progress. Stone is undoubtedly committed too. As Bella matures, her movements shift from boldly angular to silkenly controlled. But its all superficial machinations; were told that she is gluttonously curious about the novel world shes traipsing through, yet most of her obsessions tilt inward. In theory, charting the way a woman becomes her own muse can be a splendid undertaking. But Poor Things makes the fatal mistake of thinking the only thing interesting to a liberated woman is herself. Her naivety is played for laughs, and not introspection, so that when her baby brain evolves, its unclear what particular intellectual and pleasure-seeking pursuits guide her beyond what Godwin and the other lurking men have encouraged. Stone gives a typically ostentatious performance all tics, cartoonish gestures, searchlight eyes without piquant moments of silence or reflection. Of course, this is how Tony McNamara wrote Bella: a charming and chaotic spectacle. That Bellas quest for self-discovery is obtained primarily through interactions (sexual and otherwise) with men is a tell. She delights in becoming a sex worker in Paris, though she only shallowly interacts with another woman employed there. Neither script nor direction illuminates the shape of the patriarchal forces that brought these women here, and given the detail put into the visual components of the world, the lack of material context is glaring. Its as overly dewy a worldview as Bellas insistent belief that, as Godwin told her, her C-section scar is the result of an accident. An obvious question lingers over it all: Is Bella carving her own path or is she fulfilling the experiment Godwin initiated? Its the cinematic equivalent of watching a brightly colored top spin and spin, wondering when itll topple under its own weight. And look, I love a good sex scene. In an interview with the New York Times, Lanthimos discussed the concept of sex scenes in movies, saying, I just never understood the prudishness around it. It always drives me mad how liberal people are about violence and how they allow minors to experience it in any way, and then were so prudish about sexuality. But sex scenes arent worthwhile merely for existing. They should be sweaty and yearning and intrigued by the flesh as much as the personalities within, lest they tip into the very misogyny Poor Things thinks its critiquing. Lanthimoss lens is not interested in the sex lives of women as much as the ways in which a young womans body can be positioned and used. Which isnt to say sex scenes need to move a plot along or provide narrative purpose for a story. But in a film like Poor Things, where interiority is subsumed by exhibition and sexual expression, they simply carry more burdens. Left unattended, scenes like the Paris brothel sequence play like a male fantasy, and Bellas furious jumping becomes aseptic rather than transgressive. These are sex scenes primed on the pleasure of others the cameras craven gaze, the men she rides, the people who think this is at all outre. The primary failure of Poor Things sex scenes is rooted in the decision to make Stones character mentally a child, blasted clean of history. I want to see what a grown woman thinks and feels about sex! Show a woman with a body and brain above the age of 40 getting gloriously railed. Lanthimos did capture the prickly complications of fucking and fighting at a certain age in The Favourite. But with Poor Things, hes regressed. This isnt a sincere treatise on female sexuality, its a dark comedy for people who carry around an NPR tote bag. Poor Things is ultimately ugly spiritually and narratively, which curdles even its aesthetic splendor. Though there are faults to be found on this ground too; namely, the discordant, jaunty score grates. Visually, Poor Things begins in overlit black and white and ends in ecstatic displays of color, reflective of how Bellas world opens up and gains vibrancy. But cinematographer Robbie Rynas use of a fish-eye lens and extreme close-ups is garish enough to make me wince. The greatest triumph of the film is the costuming. Holly Waddingtons eye for color and texture is tremendous, particularly when it comes to Bellas wardrobe. Fabric bunched, pleated, boned, refined; colors of ripe plums, cotton candy, burnished gold, limes cut in two. Stone wears it all with as much panache as Waddington put into her crafting. But beyond the wardrobe is mostly hollow bombast that comes across as a late-era Tim Burton excess or Terry Gilliam without the wonder. And this hollowness bleeds into the supporting acting. Jerrod Carmichael gives one of the most uncomfortable and unnatural performances Ive seen in a long time. Margaret Qualley as a mostly wordless experiment Godwin conjures because he misses Bella barely registers. Ramy Youssef shoots for tenderness, but the nature of the premise makes such a posture unbelievable. Around this time last year, I wrote that all great directors are perverts. But in watching Poor Things, I remembered that perversion must be freighted with a genuine curiosity about the humanity of the people involved. Instead, Poor Things comes across as a pretentious 14-year-old boys idea of female becoming, if that boy had a Criterion Channel subscription. Its bargain-basement humor with explicit sex that dares the audience to get turned on by the born-yesterday trope given flesh. Bella is a closed circuit. All her supposed feminism and curiosity toppling in on itself. Poor Things premiered almost four months after Barbie and has been unfairly compared to Greta Gerwigs tale of awakening as a result. That magenta wonderland of a film may have some faults, but it takes a sincere interest in the interior conflicts of its many female characters. Poor Things cant summon interest in one. Josh Radnor in The Ally. Photo: Joan-Marcus There is no spokesperson for the playwright in this play, says the artistic directors program note for Itamar Mosess The Ally at the Public Theater. That may be strictly true nevertheless, the artist is present. The Ally depicts the tightening ideological finger trap in which a well-meaning adjunct professor at an unnamed elite university finds himself caught. Asaf Sternheim (Josh Radnor) is a playwright who, according to his wife, Gwen (Joy Osmanski), teaches one day a week, one semester a year. His parents are Israeli immigrants, he grew up in Berkeley, and his plays tend to be anchored, he admits sheepishly, on the great whites of Enlightenment Europe. (His latest is about Otto von Bismarck.) Mosess own parents immigrated from Israel, he grew up in Berkeley, he has taught playwriting at Yale and NYU, and he first made his name with Bach at Leipzig, a Stoppardian comedy about intrigue among 18th-century organists. (More recently, he won a Tony for the book of The Bands Visit.) With The Ally, Moses seems to be taking the advice Asaf gives to one of his writing students: But whats your story? Maybe start there. It sounds simple, but the mirror can be the hardest thing to face. Its vulnerable, its risky, and for Moses, it has yielded a play of immense confidence, eloquence, and humility. People will call The Ally a play of ideas. Though they wont be wrong, that term lacks rootedness, a sense of real stakes, while this play has its feet firmly planted in the bloody earth. For a swift two hours and 40 minutes, the plays seven characters dressed in simple street clothes, pacing around an almost empty space drive headlong into the kinds of discussions that, depending on your personality, either make you want to roll up your sleeves and start belching flames into the comments thread or to hurl your computer out the window and join a Buddhist monastery. No one dies, nothing explodes, theres scarcely any physical contact, but danger sparks in the air. Thats because what Moses and director Lila Neugebauer (elegantly staging hard conversations everywhere these days) understand is that outside the spare, neutrally carpeted, vaguely Ivy League container of Lael Jellineks set and outside this theater people are dying, bombs are exploding, and the ability to argue over the rightness and wrongness of it all from the relatively safe remove of colleges and playhouses is at once an absurd privilege and a moral imperative. Through anger, through grief, through fear and entrenched opinion, we have to speak to one another; even harder, we have to listen. For some, perhaps for many, it will be hard to listen to parts of Mosess play. Palestine and Israel sit at the center of its debates like two blue-white coals hot enough to burn off your fingerprints. Alongside them and equally searing is Americas continuing scourge of police brutality and anti-Blackness, as well as the troubling relationship between powerful universities seeming bastions of progressivism and the communities they gradually marginalize, bulldoze, and consume. The fact that The Ally not only bites all this off but can chew it, without choking, is a serious achievement. But Mosess nimble weaving of both humor and sincere, curious not knowing into his storys weighty fabric is what feels like the real revelation. Though its characters talk like blazes, the play doesnt strut or pose or act pleased with itself. It has no great answer. Like a Socratic teacher or student it asks honest questions and keeps asking, and asking, past the point of safety. Its inciting question seems harmless enough: One of Asafs best students, Baron (Elijah Jones), comes to office hours to ask if he will sign a petition. Baron is a local he grew up, as he describes it, in the shadow of the university, and now he finds himself, a young Black man, trying to be in it but not of it while navigating a place where the dining hall still features stained-glass pictures of slaves. Hes also dealing with a traumatic loss: Campus police have killed his cousin. The murder was recorded on video (He just keeps asking, What did I do? What did I do? Baron tells Asaf), and the community is rallying to try to bring the cops to justice. And so says Asaf, with the tread of a man wading through a shallow tank of sleeping piranhas, What, you wanna find a way to write about it? Barons reaction as if Asaf had suggested skinny-dipping in Jell-O is gold: What? No It made me wanna actually do something. What Baron is doing is collecting signatures, and Asaf is theoretically all in. Then he reads the whole document. Its already loaded: Its author is the head of the activist group Baron has joined, a passionate organizer called Nikia Clark (Cherise Boothe), who happens to be Asafs college ex-girlfriend. And its a multipart manifesto that includes among its demands a call for the United States to end all military aid to and impose sanctions on the apartheid state of Israel. Once hes back at home with Gwen, Asaf winces and wriggles. I dont know if Id use the word apartheid? he says. Just cuz I dont think you can go around plucking terms from one historical moment and dropping them into others like they apply Moses began work on the play that would become The Ally years ago (Barack Obama was still president), and the show was originally slated to premiere at the Public before the hammer fall of COVID. Now, he has smartly designated that its action takes place in September and early October of 2023. That means October 7 looms, and Asafs equivocation lands with the icy crunch of a snowball full of nails lobbed brutally out of the recent past. Soon, hell bristle at the word genocide: Which, again, so much of what happens there there being Palestine is terrible, truly. But genocide? If Asaf were to be jolted into our present moment where American taxes are paying for Israeli bombs now actively falling on Rafah, where almost 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, a third of them children, and where a 25-year-old airman just died by self-immolation outside the Israeli Embassy in D.C. as he repeated Free Palestine as his last words would he still flinch at the language of Baron and Nikias petition? Perhaps not, or perhaps not outwardly, but what Moses is investigating here, and what makes The Ally feel so terribly and perpetually present despite the crucial remove of its context, is not simply a characters reaction to whatever global reality is at hand. Its that characters bone-deep instincts the strings that are plucked on a subconscious level down in the ancestral psyche, when, despite all our intellect, all our good politics and rational stances, something in our bowels says run or fight or hide. It doesnt matter how many people die in Palestine: There are still and there will continue to be people who, for reasons they perhaps cant even articulate to themselves, react with Asafs gut-level defensiveness and doubt. Im sure many of them would say, like Asaf to Gwen, Look. My feelings about Israel are the reasonable ones. Whatever Asafs faults, he is at least and it is no mean thing a person who strives to articulate. He wants to understand and explain himself, and he wants to listen and to act rightly. He and Nikia once marched together, protested and petitioned together. Perhaps his politics first bubbled up along with his attraction to her, but they are by now long-held and genuine. He has always striven to be well, its in the title. The Ally is, in many ways, the slow peeling back of Asafs dependence, as both a writer and an academic, on language. Its the painful stripping away of his ifs, ands, and buts as Moses digs toward the center of a person who, in his deepest, rawest place perhaps like all of us if were really honest also wants someone to stand up for him. Specifically, Asaf longs for someone to advocate for him as a Jew, though its going to take him a long time to say as much. First, the thunderclouds rumbling over the manifesto he has waveringly put his name to have to thicken and burst into a full-blown tempest. Soon enough, he finds himself not only one name way down a list but the faculty sponsor of a new student organization, Jews for Independent Thought, created after the campus chapter of the Jewish Student Union bans the group from hosting an Israel-critical speaker. (One doesnt have to look far for myriad examples of actual universities behaving like frightened dictatorships.) Mosess rendering of the two students who come to Asaf seeking his solidarity is superb, as are Madeline Weinstein and Michael Khalid Karadsheh, who play Rachel, the defector from JSU, and Farid, a member of Students for Palestinian Justice. (Rarr! roars Farid, making jokey-scary claws at Asaf when Rachel introduces them. Radnor practically chokes on his own exquisite awkwardness.) So many plays that navigate the kind of deep, choppy seas The Ally has chosen sink themselves with pomposity, a humorless sense of holiness, or, worse still, plain canniness a cynical nod to the selling power of relevance lurking inside a righteous agenda. Moses is much smarter than that, much less self-certain, and much, much funnier. How does Asaf end up as the faculty face of a brand-new activist group when he kind of just wanted to fly under the radar? Ego, of course. Rachel all bright, fast-talking, straight-As-and-strong-opinions undergrad energy tells him she and Farid came to him because he seemed young, Jewish, progressive, and cool. Asaf melts, immediately and hilariously. Why just be a name on a list when you could be cool? At first, I wondered whether Radnor seemed a little too chill to fill Asafs shoes, whether the character didnt want someone with a touch more starch in his spine and twitch to his nervous system. But soon enough, I found that what he and Neugebauer so skilled at working with actors, so trusting of the text were molding together was much more interesting and made for a longer, more aching arc. Its precisely Radnors affable, slightly scruffy, well-meaning-hetero-dude exterior that creates such a strong mask, even to himself. Despite eventually bringing up the point that plenty of fascists out there dont think [Jews] are white, his Asaf has clearly been able to navigate the world with relative ease as a straight, white, liberal guy with cute stubble and taste in books. What The Ally does so deftly is surround him with people who lack one or all of those identities, those layers of protection. As they make their arguments, Asaf does what progressives and, really, any people do when they feel threatened: He retreats toward his most vulnerable identity. Why arent we entitled to the same protections as you? he asks Nikia, desperately, when the real shit has finally begun to be said. Jews are at risk for being Jews, [and] it takes the form of saying were powerful, and so for anyone to say we cant be at risk because were powerful is the lie that kills us! Hes almost quoting here: Earlier, Asaf fielded an enraged visit from another student, Reuven (the excellent Ben Rosenfield), this one a Ph.D. candidate in Jewish history who unapologetically blasts the petition and the new student group, releasing the full and formidable force of his eloquence in favor of Israels continued necessity. Asaf, as always, argues back, trying to remain measured in the face of the rampage that Reuven, whos from New Jersey, insists is just talking, but this new voice gets under his skin. By the time Asaf faces Nikia later on, all of Radnors chill is gone; Asafs cry now comes from his most primal, least acknowledged self, and it rings with truth. But how to reconcile it with Nikias truth (Im worried about folks dying today!)? Or with Rachels (I lost family in the Shoah, too, Professor, which is why my mother told me Im breaking her heart. But then I just remember what its all cost [Farid], and I think, Fuck it, this is right.)? Or with Barons or Farids? The Ally reaches its pinnacle in a devastating speech by Farid, who has largely hung back behind Rachels type-A white-girl leadership skills, but who, when he steps forward, delivers an extended howl that not only shows us his own insides but demonstrates viscerally, unacademically real intersectionality. You condemn each individual indefensible act! he fires at Asaf. Yet you will not condemn as indefensible the national entity that carries them out! Well, because most soldiers surely dont behave this way Well, then, there must be a reason. What did you do to provoke them? He turns to Baron, saying, Yes. You know. And this is how it is the same in the experience of moving through the world as the threat of violence incarnate. They dont need to see the bomb, the gun. We are the bomb. We are the gun. Karadsheh soars through this speech, trembling but iron, ablaze, holding his ground. (Its doubly heartbreaking in light of his little facetious growl at Asaf all those scenes ago.) His great achievement, and Mosess and Neugebauers, lies in the fact that such an effusion hardly the only one in The Ally feels not only truthful but real, earned and human, an expression not of writerly grandiosity but of character need. What is to be done with all this truth? Pulsing ominously at the heart of The Ally is a question a truly frightening one for artists, for scholars, for critics about the more perilous face of nuance. We believe in it, we fight for it, we mourn its lack in our public discourse, but does it petrify us? Is our resolution sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought? As we cling to complexity while children die and the world burns, have we lost the name of action? The Ally is at the Public Theater through March 17. By Sabrina Valle HOUSTON (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil's surprise challenge to Chevron's acquisition of Hess through a dispute over a stake in a major Guyana oil field could prove fruitful for the U.S. oil giant, even if it does not end up enlarging its holdings in the South American country. Exxon said on Monday it may exercise pre-emptive rights that could block Chevron from acquiring a 30% stake in a giant Guyana oil block, the centerpiece of its rival's $53 billion deal to buy Hess. The largest U.S. oil producer's aim could be to get Chevron to raise its commitments to the capital-intensive Stabroek block, which contains at least 11 billion barrels of oil, or to make some other concession elsewhere, analysts and investors said. The two largest U.S. oil producers are both rivals and partners in projects around the world. Exxon is "very possibly looking to extract a pound of flesh from Chevron to support the deal proceeding," MKP Advisors said in a note. "It is very possible they want greater commitments from Chevron than Hess has previously signed up to." The companies are in talks over Exxon's claim, and their contrasting views left analysts debating a wide array of potential outcomes, from Chevron's proposed acquisition of Hess closing as scheduled in mid-2024, to the deal falling apart or even to Exxon buying Hess. "It's impossible to say if Chevron's lawyers or Exxon's lawyers are correct," said Stewart Glickman, energy equity analyst at CFRA Research. Exxon operates all production in Guyana with a 45% stake in the consortium and Hess and China's CNOOC as its minority partners. Exxon and CNOOC believe the right of first refusal applies, the U.S oil producer said in a statement, as they owed it to their investors and partners "to realize the significant value we've created and are entitled to in the Guyana asset." CNOOC did not respond to a request for comment. Story continues Chevron and Hess said the pre-emptive right does not apply, since their deal involves the merging of two companies, rather than the sale of the Guyana asset. "There is no possible scenario in which Exxon or CNOOC could acquire Hess' interest in Guyana as a result of the Chevron-Hess transaction," Chevron said, adding it remained committed to the transaction and still expected it to close by mid-year. Exxon, Hess and CNOOC aim to double production capacity to more than 1.2 million barrels of oil and gas per day from Guyana by 2027. Exxon is already the largest foreign oil company in Guyana and the Hess stake, if pre-empted, would make it even more dominant. Hess shares dropped more than 3% on Tuesday to $145.32 and Chevron more than 1% to $152.16, after also closing lower on Monday. EXXON'S REPUTATION Chevron's acquisition of Hess was treated as a matter of course rather than contentious last week at an energy conference in Guyana's capital, Georgetown, where attendees included dozens of executives from Exxon, Hess, CNOOC and representatives from the Guyanese government. Guyana is actively trying to attract other oil producers and developers to the country to reduce Exxon's dominance in the country, the country's Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told Reuters last week. He said he was looking forward to have the two top U.S. producers with "deep pockets" - Exxon and Chevron - working together to "accelerate production" in the country. Exxon also must weigh its reputation with other partners around the world. "Exxon clearly wants the Guyana assets," said Rob Thummel, managing director of energy investor Tortoise Capital, but thwarting business partner Hess's sale of itself to Chevron might look bad. "It'd make it harder for them to have future partners if they're not allowing non-operating owners to ultimately sell their company to somebody who really wants to be a willing buyer," he said. If Exxon were to stop Chevron from buying Hess and wanted to obtain Hess or its holdings itself, it would also the face the tough task of convincing patriarch John Hess that he should sell to the company that just blew up the deal seen as his legacy. Bill Smead, founder and chair of Smead Capital Management, said he believed the dust-up would be resolved because the oil companies were ultimately on the same team as they battled environmental groups looking to stop fossil fuel investments. "They can get into a fist fight but I think they will settle and then go grab a beer," he said. (Reporting by Sabrina Valle in Houston; additional reporting by Ron Bousso in London; Editing by Peter Henderson and Jamie Freed) Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr. were convicted of the murder of Jam Master Jay, the hip-hop pioneer and member of Run-D.M.C., on February 27. The two were found guilty on all ten counts, including murder while involved in narcotics-trafficking conspiracy and firearm-related murder, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office, and face 20 years to life in prison. After the verdict was announced, a fight nearly broke out in the courtroom, according to CNN. Yall just killed some innocent people. Get me outta here, Washington said, getting out of his seat. Supporters shouted as the two were quickly escorted away from the courtroom. Jay was murdered over 20 years ago, on October 30, 2002, after being shot in a recording studio. The prosecution alleged that Washington and Jordan conspired to kill Jay due to disagreements in a narcotics trade. A cold case is never a forgotten case, NYPD commissioner Edward A. Caban said. In the decades since Mr. Mizell was brutally murdered, the greatest detectives in the world followed every lead until arrests could be made, and a solid case could be brought to our partners in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. We extend our deepest gratitude to the prosecutors, law enforcement officials, and all involved in bringing these individuals to justice, Jam Master Jays family said in a statement. Their unwavering dedication has ensured a measure of accountability for the tragic loss of Jam Master Jay. The family also asked that supporters continue to honor Jays memory through his music and the positive impact he made on the world. Both Washington and Jordan pleaded not guilty on all counts. The defense called one witness during the trial, memory expert Dr. Geoffrey Loftus, who described the ways that memories can change over time. Jay Bryant, a third defendant charged for the murder in May 2023, still awaits trial. This post has been updated. I got everything that I really wanted from this season of Vanderstupid Drools so maybe I should just quit now. Im not talking about an apology from Sandoval, Lisa Vanderpump to stop meddling, or someone to finally (finally!) tell Katie Maloney Schwartz Maloney to get a stylist. No. Im talking about Brock Shay, husband of Scheana Shay, in his Speedo. My exact type is a giant man in a tiny bathing suit, and we are getting it nowhere better than at Lake Tahoe, where Brock joined most of the cast, minus Katie and Ariana, as they tried some court-mandated mediation with Tom Sandoval. I mean, did you see his giant (complimentary) heinie swinging back and forth as he ran and dove off the pier? I would pay $10.99 a month for that on OnlyFans, and he doesnt even need to show feet. My man Brock didnt have the best episode, though. It starts off when hes bikini shopping with Scheana in a store so small it looked like it was on Tiny Home Adventures or some other brainwashing bullshit on HGTV that wants you to live in a van. Anyway, Brock once again brings up that Scheana doesnt want a nanny, and he feels trapped in the house with his mother-in-law. I love my MIL dearly, but I wouldnt want to live in a house with her while she takes care of the children. But it seems like Brock might have some bigger issues with Scheanas mom. He seems to insinuate that her mom sets off her OCD, making her feel like shes not a good enough mother, which makes her anxiety worse, which makes her OCD worse, which means that Brock wont get to go to the movies alone with his wife until Dune 57 comes out. Brock, dude, you just need to take a back seat on this one. You need to keep gently pushing your wife as she wends her way through therapy and someday you will get there, but this is not the day, and this itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot-bikini shop is not the place to be having this discussion. Its called Cami & Jax, as if the name wasnt triggering enough for those of us who suffered through seasons one through nine of this program. I love when Scheana says, Youre comfortable just hiring a stranger, and then we go on a trip and youre like, Oh, just stay in our house for four days and watch our kid. Um, yeah, Scheana. Thats how nannies work. As much as I wanted this whole episode to be about Brocks Budgies (and thank Catholic Jesus and Lady Gaga this episode was not on VHS because I would have rewound that dock scene so many times that the tape would have snapped), it was really about our prodigal sons. Yes, Sandoval, but really Hippie, the artist formerly known as Graham Cracker. Since James couldnt change his plane ticket fast enough, Lisa takes him on her private jet to Lake Tahoe with the body of Ken Todd that two junior associates Weekend at Bernies-ed around for several days in South Lake Tahoe. When the whole group arrives at their lakeside palace (yours for only $2,300 a night, which is actually an excellent deal), Lisa shows up with Graham and presents him to James in front of the whole group. Of course Lisa did, and she told James not to say anything. Of course she needed to make it into a TV moment, and it was really annoying. But its not as annoying as just sending James home with the dog. As expected, Ally is happy to have the dog, but it seems like she wished she could have a bit of time to prepare. Shes worried about how Graham, who has been dinged for biting multiple people, is going to interact with Mr. Banks, the cat with the best name in the universe. Graham is mostly well-behaved, which I think we can safely say is true about Sandoval as well. Hes so happy Scheana let him sit at her table at the LAX Lemonade that he starts crying in the car with Schwartz just thinking about it. He gets some good advice from the people around him. Lisa says, You have the rest of your life to get your point across; lets not attack. When he arrives at the house, Brock is the first person who wants to talk to him about everything, and he says, Your feelings are valid, but there are other people involved in this whole thing. Were not your enemy; were just very hurt friends. This is all very wise and right, but through most of the episode, it seems like Tom isnt getting what the situation really calls for, which is contrition, begging, sublimating yourself, and asking forgiveness. He says in confessional, They expect me to grovel at their feet and beg for forgiveness but theyre failing to acknowledge how they came after me, talking shit about me on social media, selling merch, hardcore pushing conspiracy theories on podcasts. This isnt just about them forgiving me. This is something we need to mutually move on from together. Hes not wrong, but the time to move on together is way far down the road. Im talking about seasons 13, 14, or 15. Right now, we are in the beg to keep your spot on the show phase. (We also seem to be in the Raquel decided to change her name to Rachel, so were following the show and going to call her Rachel now, I guess phase.) When they all go to meet Lisa at Wolf, her newest steampunk Dalek of a restaurant designed by Nick Alain, shes doing demo work. She invites everyone to take a swing at a wall and yell out something they want to let go of. Schwartz says he hates being 40 and single. Scheana cries out about the restraining order that Rachel put against her. Then Sandoval shouts, Scumbag and cheater [SLAM], worm with a mustache [SLAM], Charles Mansons son [SLAM], Lala [SLAM], James Kennedy [SLAM], motherfucking Scandoval [SLAM]. Still not getting it, still blaming them for the thing that he started. At least Lala is smart enough to yell out, How about you hit the wall for your own actions, though? Yes. Exactly. We see this same thing play out when he takes DJ James Kennedy aside at after-dinner drinks to have a heart-to-heart. This is actually a great strategy for Tom. (Look at me, approaching Pump Rules like its The Traitors.) Its easier to make up with guys than girls (sorry to generalize about gender, but it is a construct, so fuck it), and James is the loudest in the group. If he can get James to quiet the noise, he has a decent shot with everyone. Sandoval is sitting there (wearing a lightning bolt necklace!), telling James that he didnt mean to hurt anyone and that he and Rachel did this because they were in love. James says the way to do that was break up with Ariana, start things with Rachel, and figure your life out. Sandoval says it wasnt that easy, but it was. Hes just not man enough to break up with a woman, so he did to Ariana just like he did with Kristen and drive her away while playing the victim the whole time. But James is right. There was a way that Sandoval didnt bring all of this on him and Im sure its been hard for him but he has to realize that as difficult as breaking up with Ariana was going to be, it sure had to be a lot easier than [gesticulates wildly at the trees surround Lake Tahoe] all of this! Finally, Tom says the words that seem so hard for him. He apologizes to James for hurting their relationship and for not being the big brother that James always needed. He says he wants to acknowledge Jamess feelings and make amends. See! Thats all they want! Thats all they need! Its not so hard, is it, Tom? At the end, he tells James, At your ease, well work through this, and I promise it will get better. Yes! That is what he should have been saying all along, and if he had, he could have saved all of those worms with all of those mustaches. Just as James and Tom are walking back to the table, he gets a call from Ann, his trusted assistant. Shes standing in their living room with the phone propped up to her ear and her index finger from the other hand blocking the other ear. There is the distinct revving noise in the background. She looks over at Ariana, who is taking a chainsaw to the custom-built credenza in their bedroom; shes already cut up the custom chandelier and had the Lego portrait of the two of them reconfigured to feature only her like shes Lisa Hochstein doing bad Photoshop on her Christmas pictures. Yes, shes taking what is hers of the West Elm chairs, the sectional, and the dining room table. If Tom wants half, he can get half. Um, Tom, Ann shouts over the sawing. I think you might need to come home. (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. representatives met with the Justice Department last week in a final bid to persuade the agency not to file an antitrust suit against the company, according to people familiar with the matter. Most Read from Bloomberg The company and its lawyers met with Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who will make the final call on whether to file a suit, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the confidential meeting. Such last rites meetings are often one of the final steps before a lawsuit is filed. Antitrust enforcers, who have been probing the company since 2019, allege that Apple has imposed software and hardware limitations on its iPhones and iPads to impede rivals from effectively competing. The suit is expected in the coming weeks, likely by the end of March, the people said. Apple didnt immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department declined to comment. Apples App Store, which charges developers a commission of either 15% or 30%, has come under heavy criticism by developers and lawmakers. In January, Apple said it will allow US developers to use alternative payment systems, but charge a 27% fee for most digital purchases or 12% on subscriptions. Epic Games Inc., which sued the company over its App Store policies, is contesting the proposed changes, saying they are inadequate and would effectively prevent developers from reducing consumer prices. Read More: Apple Accused by Epic of Failing to Fix App Store as Court Asked In an interview with Bloomberg News this month, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state was in touch with the Justice Department about the potential case and could join onto an eventual complaint. Story continues Were very interested in possibly joining, Bonta said. We are very aware of the federal governments interest in Apple. We are interested also, and its very aligned with our overall strategy in the tech industry. The Justice Department has also been monitoring Apples moves in Europe as it prepares to begin enforcing new digital gatekeeper rules on March 7. To comply with those rules, Apple said it will allow customers to download software from outside its App Store, use alternative payment systems and more easily choose a new default web browser. Yet several developer groups have slammed Apples proposed changes as malicious compliance with the EUs rules, criticizing the iPhone maker for introducing new fees for payment processing and a 0.50 per app installation fee for software downloaded more than 1 million times. While Apple said most developers in the EU would see their payments decrease or stay the same, developers say the new fee will force them to stay within the App Store or face prohibitive payments. Apple is expected to face a fine of at least 500 million ($542 million) by EUs antitrust watchdog as soon as next week related to allegations it silenced music-streaming rivals, including Spotify Technology SA, on its platforms. The company separately offered to settle a second probe into its tap-to-pay technologies, by opening up access to its coveted near-field communication chip on iPhones to rival digital wallets. --With assistance from Mark Gurman and Anna Edgerton. (Updates with comments from California attorney general in seventh paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Vannacci is set to appeal disciplinary measure. Italy's defence ministry on Wednesday suspended army general Roberto Vannacci from duty for 11 months over his controversial bestselling book Il mondo al contrario. The disciplinary measure by defence minister Guido Crosetto will see Vanncacci's salary halved for the duration of his 11-month suspension, news agency Adnkronos reports. Following the book's publication last summer, Crosetto stated that the general's "personal ramblings" had discredited Italy's armed forces. The reason for the suspension, the general's lawyer Giorgio Carta told Adnkronos, is over the book in which Vannacci claimed that "gays are not normal", among other disparaging comments against migrants, minorities, feminists and environmentalists. Carta said the defence ministry cited a "lack of sense of responsibility" in writing the book which compromised the "prestige and reputation" of the armed forces administration as well as creating "possible disruptive and divisive emulative effects within the military structure". The suspension, which Carta says the general will appeal, is the latest in a series of woes for the 55-year-old former paratrooper commander who on Monday was placed under investigation for incitement to racial hatred in his book. This was was followed on Tuesday with news of a lawsuit from top volleyball player Paola Egonu about whom Vannacci wrote in his book that "even though she is an Italian by citizenship, it is clear that her physical features do not represent Italianness". On Saturday it emerged that military prosecutors had put Vannacci under investigation for suspected embezzlement and fraud during his time as military attache at the Italian embassy in Moscow. Matteo Salvini, Italy's deputy premier and leader of the right-wing Lega, offered his support to Vannacci who he hopes will run as a candidate for the party in the upcoming European elections, adding that "investigations are medals". Salvini responded to the defence ministry's disciplinary measure with a post on X: "An investigation a day, it's ridiculous, how much does the general scare you? Long live freedom of thought and speech, long live the armed forces and the police forces, long live the men and women who defend the honour, freedom and security of Italians every day." FILE PHOTO: The Aston Martin logo is seen on a V12 Vantage car at the companys factory in Gaydon (Reuters) - Aston Martin on Wednesday pushed back plans to launch the British luxury carmaker's first battery electric vehicle by a year. The London-listed company said it now expects to launch the battery electric car in 2026, from earlier plans to launch next year. Last June, the British firm signed a supply agreement with Saudi Arabia-backed Lucid Group to bolster its electrification strategy. "With Aston Martin's technical partnerships now in place, the Company's first battery electric vehicle (BEV) is now targeted for launch in 2026, benefitting from the very best high-performance technologies available," the company said. Mercedes-Benz earlier this month delayed its electrification goal by five years and assured investors it would keep sprucing up its combustion engine models. While automakers and suppliers are betting on future demand for electric vehicles, investment in capacity and technology development has outpaced actual EV demand, prompting carmakers to readjust production plans. Aston Martin had committed 2 billion pounds ($2.53 billion) to advanced technologies over the next five years, with its investment phasing from internal combustion engine (ICE) to BEV technology. ($1 = 0.7907 pounds) (Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Eileen Soreng) Controversy over Israel pavilion in Venice Biennale. Italy's culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano has firmly rejected an online petition calling for Israel to be excluded from participating in the upcoming Venice Biennale. The appeal from activist group Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA) cites Israel's "ongoing atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza", with the demand: "No Genocide Pavilion at the Venice Biennale". More than 17,000 people, including artists, curators and cultural figures, have signed the petition which accuses the Biennale of giving a platform to a "genocidal apartheid state". "While the Israeli pavilion presses ahead, the genocidal death toll in Gaza and the West Bank increases daily" - the statement from ANGA reads - "Any official representation of Israel on the international cultural stage is an endorsement of its policies and of the genocide in Gaza." The letter also notes that the Venice Biennale previously banned South Africa from 1968 until 1993, when apartheid rule was abolished, as well as excluding Russia after its invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Respingiamo con forza la richiesta di escludere Israele dalla Biennale. La #cultura unisce non divide . pic.twitter.com/hGefiXyv8q Gennaro Sangiuliano (@g_sangiuliano) February 27, 2024 Slamming it as "unacceptable, as well as shameful", Sangiuliano said the letter represented the "diktat of those who believe they are the custodians of the truth, and with arrogance and hatred think they can threaten freedom of thought and creative expression." "The Venice Art Biennale will always be a space of freedom, meeting and dialogue and not a space of censorship and intolerance" - reads a statement from Sangiuliano on the Italian culture ministry website - "Culture is a bridge between people and nations, not a dividing wall." Curated by Adriano Pedrosa, the 60th edition of the International Art Biennale of Venice is titled Stranieri Ovunque (Foreigners Everywhere) and will take place from 20 April until 24 November. Retired Air Force Col. Ralph S. Parr, a double ace pilot who flew 641 combat missions during three wars and was credited with downing the last enemy aircraft of the Korean conflict, died Dec. 7 in New Braunfels, Tex. He was 88. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight His wife, Margaret Parr, said her husband had complications from lung cancer. Col. Parr was one of the most highly decorated pilots in Air Force history. In the last seven weeks of the Korean War, he shot down 10 aircraft during 30 missions earning him the designation of double ace. In Vietnam, he made eight low-level passes against heavy enemy firepower in poor weather during the battle of Khe Sanh. The son of a Navy squadron commander, Col. Parr developed a consuming passion for aviation at age 5 when his father took him flying as a birthday present. I was hooked, he later said. Advertisement Entering the Army Air Forces, he became a P-38 pilot in the Pacific at the end of World War II. He made the transition to jet fighters during the Korean War, flying the agile F-86 Sabrejet in the final seven weeks of the war. One of his most daunting missions began June 7, 1953, when he descended from 41,000 feet over the Yalu River that separated North Korea from China and saw four Soviet MiG-15s. He pursued them, firing his guns and then leveling off at 300 feet. As he ascended to 4,000 feet, he realized he vastly underestimated the enemy strength. There were 16 MiGs. In the subsequent dogfight, he downed two and damaged another before withdrawing to safety. He received the Distinguished Service Cross the highest military award for valor after the Medal of Honor for a mission on June 30 when he was attacked by 10 MiGs. He silenced two enemy planes and then, despite low fuel levels, helped drive off several other MiGs threatening his wing commander. Advertisement He accompanied the wing commander, whose plane was badly scarred, back to safety at an air base near Seoul. Col. Parrs 10th and final kill of the war came hours before the armistice on July 27, 1953. While flying over restricted airspace in North Korea, he downed a Soviet Ilyushin-12 cargo airplane that he said bore the same red star as a MiG. Last month, he told the San Antonio Express-News that the downing almost provoked an international incident because the Soviets claimed it was a civilian aircraft carrying VIPs. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing, Col. Parr told the newspaper. Air Force Capt. Joseph McConnell had the highest total of kills in Korea with 16, said air power historian Mark Clodfelter. Col. Parr tied for sixth place for total number of kills in Korea, along with five other pilots. Advertisement You wind up either wanting to fight or not wanting to fight, Col. Parr told an Air Force publication this year, reflecting on his Korean War record. I made the decision I was going to fight to begin with. I didnt think I could see anything up there that I thought would be able to take me. Share this article Share Ralph Sherman Parr Jr. was born in Portsmouth, Va., on July 1, 1924. He entered the military after graduating in 1942 from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. After the Korean War, Col. Parr became a leading flight instructor and an F-4 squadron commander. He served two combat tours in Vietnam and received the Air Force Cross, a successor to the Distinguished Service Cross, while serving as deputy commander for operations of the 12th Tactical Fighter Wing during the siege of Khe Sanh in 1968. The battle lasted from January to April 1968 in an area near the North Vietnamese border. Tens of thousands of North Vietnamese tried to overrun an isolated Marine bastion of about 5,000. Col. Parr participated in extremely dangerous low-level flights to destroy North Vietnamese mortar and gun positions that were threatening the American supply line. Advertisement His accuracy and aggressive attack, despite severe damage to his plane, not only impaired the hostile forces capability to impede the resupply of Khe Sanh, but also reduced further losses to friendly cargo aircraft and crews, the Air Force Cross citation read. Ultimately, the North Vietnamese gave up their attempt to overrun the base, but the victory coincided with the Tet Offensive, in which tens of thousands of North Vietnamese troops attacked South Vietnamese cities and further elongated the war. After his Vietnam service, Col. Parr served as chief of staff in the Military Assistance Advisory Group in Iran. A few years later, while serving at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, he injured his back while inspecting damage to his home roof after a hurricane. The pain and recuperation forced him into retirement. Advertisement Youd think I could have picked a more graceful way to depart the military, he quipped to Air Force Magazine in 1987. According to Air Force records, Col. Parr flew more than 6,000 hours in fighter aircraft and earned more than 60 decorations, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, 10 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 41 Air Medals. Thats honestly astounding, said Clodfelter, a professor of military strategy at the National War College in Washington. I have been writing about airpower for 30 years, and Ive never heard of a fighter pilot whos had 10 Distinguished Flying Crosses. To accomplish so many flying exploits over such a wide range of aircraft, thats remarkable, said Clodfelter. And he mastered air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, where the Air Force now has trained pilots to handle those two very different skill sets. He excelled in both, and thats remarkable as well. Advertisement Col. Parr moved to New Braunfels after his military retirement. He remained active by conducting seminars and lectures at military bases, and he was often feted by his peers in military associations. Col. Parrs first marriage, to Barbara Barnes, ended in divorce. Two children from that marriage predeceased him. Survivors include his wife of 43 years, Margaret Bernstein Parr of New Braunfels; and three stepchildren. Linda Wenhold was blown away by the Patriot Academys classes, which tap into a growing fear among some evangelical Christians that their faith and its rightful place at the center of American culture and government were under siege. (Bloomberg) -- Baidu Inc.s shares slid their most since October 2022 after reporting a 48% plunge in profit, underscoring the growing costs of training and developing AI to fend off challengers in the burgeoning arena. Most Read from Bloomberg The company reported a December-quarter net income of 2.6 billion yuan ($361 million) that missed projections, though much of that stemmed from a loss from equity accounting for preferred shares. It overshadowed a 6% rise in revenue after Baidus ChatGPT-style service began to augment advertising sales, helping the Chinese AI leader weather a severe economic downturn. Its shares slid more than 8% in New York. Baidus results follow disappointing numbers from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., underscoring how the private sector that once drove the worlds No. 2 economy has run out of steam. The mixed performance underscored the challenges facing a company that once routinely chalked up double-digit percentage growth but is now grappling with macro and market uncertainty. To rekindle the business, Baidu has joined Silicon Valley peers from Microsoft Corp. to Google in seeking ways to monetize generative AI. The Chinese company has attracted more than 100 million users to its ChatGPT-style service now including a premium tier that charges a monthly subscription giving it a headstart against peers like Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd. But revenue generated by the AI model known as Ernie is a drop in the bucket for Baidu, which still relies mainly on search ads. Ernie will contribute several billion yuan of additional revenue through advertising and cloud services in 2024, billionaire founder Robin Li told analysts on a conference call, up from several hundred million yuan in the December quarter. Revenue from Baidus pivotal cloud arm grew 11% to 5.7 billion yuan in the quarter, executives said. Story continues Still, research and development costs climbed 11% last quarter, reflecting fees for servers to support generative AI development. On that front, Li said Baidu should have enough high-end training chips on hand to support Ernies advancements over the next one to two years. The founder previously warned against Chinas so-called war of a hundred models, where big tech firms and venture investors alike pour billions of dollars into startups building AI platforms from scratch many of them leveraging the same open-source code. Baidu is instead pitching local developers to create AI-native applications atop Ernie, including by doling out $140 million to fund such projects. If successful, Ernie could put Baidu at the core of an AI ecosystem similar to what the GPT Store is to OpenAI. But its long-time rivals Tencent and Alibaba are also vying for whats likely a winner-takes-all market, as both firms command bigger warchests and user pools thanks to super-apps like WeChat and Taobao. What Bloomberg Intelligence Says Baidus 4Q profit beat expectations on better cost control, though AI-related losses deepened, highlighting the continued growth challenge. Adjusted profit in Baidu Core fell 7.1% sequentially, with a 260-bp decrease in margin to 22.5%, despite a rising top-line contribution from ERNIE-Bot. The margin drop suggests that ERNIE-Bot remains unprofitable in spite of a 4.7% annual rise in other sales. Robert Lea, analyst Click here for the research. Near-term, Baidu still counts on advertising as its bread and butter and that doesnt bode well during a downturn. The worlds No. 2 economy is grappling with a property slump and deflation, forcing Chinese leaders to resort to wide-ranging policies including rate cuts and direct fund injections to boost investor confidence. Revenue from Baidus core businesses including online marketing and the cloud met analysts expectations during the December quarter. Its streaming offshoot IQiyi Inc. barely grew its topline after losing some paid subscribers, but profitability continued to improve. Once the runaway leader in desktop search, Baidu has over the years tried to adapt its business to the mobile era, albeit with mixed success. In January, the Beijing-based company walked away from a $3.6 billion deal to acquire Joyy Inc.s streaming service YY, citing the lack of regulatory approval. Its shares have dropped roughly 30% since July in Hong Kong, underperforming peers as the high costs of AI development compound investor concerns over the weak economy. Read More: Alibabas New CEO Elevates AI to Top Priority in Revamp --With assistance from Debby Wu. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Three weeks ago, an elderly man dying of dementia flew with his wife from Sydney to their sons home in Switzerland via Singapore for one final visit before he passed away. Luke Davies, a 29-year-old Qantas flight attendant who was allegedly murdered alongside his 26-year-old partner Jesse Baird in Bairds Paddington home on February 19, was also on the aircraft. Luke Davies (left) with his Qantas colleagues. The elderly mans loved ones knew the flight would be among his last moments in the sky. Davies, however, did not. The way Davies cared for the man and his wife during the flight brought his crewmates to tears, according to a fellow cabin crew member, Brooke Walters. Brussels: European military heavyweights Germany and Poland, the United States and NATO have affirmed they will not be sending troops to Ukraine, after reports that France and other Western countries may be considering it as the war with Russia enters its third year. The head of NATO said the US-led military alliance had no plans to send combat troops to Ukraine, after other central European leaders confirmed that they too would not be providing soldiers. In the US, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said President Joe Biden has been clear that the US will not send troops to fight in Ukraine. Moscow then warned that a direct conflict between NATO and Russia would be inevitable if the alliance sends combat troops. Assessing the Upcoming Dividend and Historical Performance of Barclays PLC Barclays PLC (NYSE:BCS) recently announced a dividend of $0.21 per share, payable on 2024-04-03, with the ex-dividend date set for 2024-02-29. As investors look forward to this upcoming payment, the spotlight also shines on the company's dividend history, yield, and growth rates. Using the data from GuruFocus, let's look into Barclays PLC's dividend performance and assess its sustainability. What Does Barclays PLC Do? Warning! GuruFocus has detected 3 Warning Sign with BCS. High Yield Dividend Stocks in Gurus' Portfolio This Powerful Chart Made Peter Lynch 29% A Year For 13 Years How to calculate the intrinsic value of a stock? Barclays is a universal bank headquartered in the United Kingdom. It operates via two principal segments; U.K. (38% of profit before tax) and International (71% of PBT). In its U.K. segment, the bank provides current accounts, mortgages, savings and investment management services, credit cards, and business banking services to retail clients and small and medium-size enterprises. The international segment includes a corporate bank offering banking solutions to large corporates, a bulge-bracket global investment bank, and a credit card and payments business. In 2022, Barclays generated roughly 60% of its income from the U.K. and 25% from the United States. Barclays PLC's Dividend Analysis A Glimpse at Barclays PLC's Dividend History Barclays PLC has maintained a consistent dividend payment record since 2021. Dividends are currently distributed on a bi-annually basis. Below is a chart showing annual Dividends Per Share for tracking historical trends. Barclays PLC's Dividend Analysis Breaking Down Barclays PLC's Dividend Yield and Growth As of today, Barclays PLC currently has a 12-month trailing dividend yield of 4.47% and a 12-month forward dividend yield of 4.08%. This suggests an expectation of a decrease in dividend payments over the next 12 months. Based on Barclays PLC's dividend yield and five-year growth rate, the 5-year yield on cost of Barclays PLC stock as of today is approximately 4.47%. Story continues Barclays PLC's Dividend Analysis The Sustainability Question: Payout Ratio and Profitability To assess the sustainability of the dividend, one needs to evaluate the company's payout ratio. The dividend payout ratio provides insights into the portion of earnings the company distributes as dividends. A lower ratio suggests that the company retains a significant part of its earnings, thereby ensuring the availability of funds for future growth and unexpected downturns. As of 2023-12-31, Barclays PLC's dividend payout ratio is 0.21. Barclays PLC's profitability rank offers an understanding of the company's earnings prowess relative to its peers. GuruFocus ranks Barclays PLC's profitability 4 out of 10 as of 2023-12-31, suggesting the dividend may not be sustainable. The company has reported net profit in 8 years out of the past 10 years. Growth Metrics: The Future Outlook To ensure the sustainability of dividends, a company must have robust growth metrics. Barclays PLC's growth rank of 4 out of 10 suggests that the company has poor growth prospects and thus, the dividend may not be sustainable. Revenue is the lifeblood of any company, and Barclays PLC's revenue per share, combined with the 3-year revenue growth rate, indicates a strong revenue model. Barclays PLC's revenue has increased by approximately 9.30% per year on average, a rate that outperforms approximately 61.54% of global competitors. The company's 3-year EPS growth rate showcases its capability to grow its earnings, a critical component for sustaining dividends in the long run. During the past three years, Barclays PLC's earnings increased by approximately 48.80% per year on average, a rate that outperforms approximately 92.86% of global competitors. Lastly, the company's 5-year EBITDA growth rate of 18.20%, which outperforms approximately 77.88% of global competitors, further underscores its growth potential. Next Steps for Investors In conclusion, while Barclays PLC's dividend yield is attractive, investors should consider the company's moderate profitability rank and growth prospects when evaluating the sustainability of its dividends. The current payout ratio indicates a balanced approach to dividend distribution and earnings retention, which may support future growth. However, the growth ranks point to potential challenges ahead. As Barclays PLC navigates the evolving financial landscape, investors should keep an eye on the company's ability to maintain its dividend payments amidst these conditions. For those seeking to diversify their portfolio with high-dividend yield stocks, GuruFocus Premium users can utilize the High Dividend Yield Screener to identify promising opportunities. This article, generated by GuruFocus, is designed to provide general insights and is not tailored financial advice. Our commentary is rooted in historical data and analyst projections, utilizing an impartial methodology, and is not intended to serve as specific investment guidance. It does not formulate a recommendation to purchase or divest any stock and does not consider individual investment objectives or financial circumstances. Our objective is to deliver long-term, fundamental data-driven analysis. Be aware that our analysis might not incorporate the most recent, price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative information. GuruFocus holds no position in the stocks mentioned herein. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. On 22 February 2024, the World Customs Organization (WCO) hosted the wrap-up ceremony of Phase I of the SECO-WCO Global Trade Facilitation Programme (GTFP) and officially inaugurated Phase II (2024 - 2027). SECO and the WCO expressed their sincere gratitude for the steadfast cooperation and dedication exhibited by the 15 beneficiary countries over the past five years, reaching notable advancements in international trade facilitation and organizational development. Throughout Phase I, the GTFP provided capacity-building support to the Customs Administrations of Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jordan, Moldova, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Serbia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. This support encompassed a diverse range of interventions tailored to each country's needs, resulting in reductions in release times for cross-border operations, increased effectiveness in Risk Management, improved compliance with the World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement, fortified organizational development, enhanced collaboration with the private sector, and the implementation of international standards and best practices, among others. The ceremony was conducted in a hybrid format and gathered 40 participants, including a representative from SECO Headquarters, the WCO Deputy Secretary General, the WCO Capacity Building Director, delegates from beneficiary Customs administrations and Swiss cooperation offices, the Ambassador of El Salvador in Belgium and Luxembourg, and representatives from the embassies of Mongolia and Uzbekistan in Belgium, alongside WCO colleagues and the GTFP team. SECO and the WCO are pleased to welcome Phase II of the SECO-WCO Global Trade Facilitation Programme (GTFP), envisaging its continuation as a promoter for advancing international trade, bolstering Customs' organizational capacities, promoting the adoption of international standards and best practices, and fostering continuous learning and cooperation. For more information on the GTFP, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org Under the framework of the EU-WCO HS Africa Programme, funded by the European Union, the World Customs Organization (WCO), in partnership with the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation (GATF), through GIZ (German Corporation for International Cooperation), held a national training of trainers workshop on HS for Tunisia Customs, in Tunis, Tunisia, from 19 to 23 February 2024. Building on the knowledge and skills acquired by the participants through their successful completion of the WCO e-learning modules and on-site training at intermediate and advance levels on HS from May 2023 onwards, the workshop focused on further honing the technical competencies on tariff classification, enhancing the participants competencies in the areas of adult learning principles, training material design and development, training delivery and evaluation. In her opening remarks, Ms. Asma el Hamzaoui, GATF Project coordinator for the advance ruling project in Tunisia, thanked Tunisia Customs, the EU-WCO HS Africa Programme and the WCO for the conducive partnership throughout the project. The interactive workshop offered the participants a unique opportunity to not only design and develop their own training material on specialized HS topics but also to deliver them as training sessions during the workshop. The participants were able to improve both their HS competencies and their training skills and received feedback from the experts. In line with the national training strategy and sustainable training approach developed with the GATF and the WCO, the new trainers will form part of the Tunisia Customs Administrations pool of experts and that will be used both for the assessment of advance rulings requests as well as for training of Customs staff, including for new intakes, and private stakeholders on tariff classification. Mr. Richard Chopra, GATF Lead Expert on Customs Modernization and Trade Facilitation, encouraged Tunisia Customs to further apply the technical and training competencies acquired throughout the series of trainings co-delivered with the WCO and invited Tunisia Customs to pursue the partnership with the EU-WCO HS and RoO Africa Programme. In his concluding remarks on behalf of Tunisia Customs, Colonel Major Arbi Laffert, Senior Manager in the HS Directorate and Project Director for the Advance Ruling mechanism in Tunisia, expressed his gratitude to the GATF for the quality of the support with the implementation of the advance ruling mechanism in Tunisia and the WCO for the provision of high-calibre HS expertise throughout the training sessions delivered since May 2023. Mr. Laffert further indicated that his Customs Administration, thanks to the GATF and WCO support, is more than adequately equipped to enhance trade facilitate and predictability in Tunisia through the upcoming launch and operationalization of the advance ruling mechanism in Tunisia. For further information, please contact hs@wcoomd.org. From 20 to 23 February 2024, the Namibia Revenue Agency (NamRA) hosted a National Advanced Workshop on the Harmonized System and Commodity Classification in Windhoek, Namibia. The workshop was delivered by three experts from the WCO within the framework of the EU-WCO Programme for the Harmonized System in Africa (HS-Africa Programme), funded by the European Union as part of the comprehensive package of assistance to support NamRAs work on competency development on Harmonized System and classification. The workshop was attended by 30 officers from different Customs Offices across the country and from the headquarters of the NamRA. The objective of this course was to deliver an advanced training on theoretical and practical aspects of the HS in the areas of mineral products, chemicals, medicaments versus food products, plastics, textiles, machinery and high-tech products, as well as to ensure that the participants understand the principles of tariff classification of goods in the HS. Following the WCO Strategic Guidance on Competency Development on Tariff Classification, the workshop was preceded by the HS Foundation e-learning, the intermediate in-person training, and HS Advanced e-learning. In preparation the workshop NAMRA and private sector stakeholders have provided an exhaustive list of products that are of interest or causing classification challenges within the national context that was used to develop a tailor-made targeted training course. As part of the assistance to NamRAs work, the WCO Secretariat purchased one microscope, funded by the EU-WCO Programme for the Harmonized System in Africa. The equipment was used for training purposes during the course to identify textile fibres and was handed over to the NamRA after the Workshop. Participants worked on a number of case studies where they classified specific products which presented complexities in classification, and, during the training on the textile Chapters, they had the chance to practice on the identification of various types of textile fibres using the above equipment. At the end of the workshop, Mr. Humphrey Stanley Gurirab, Manager of Customs Valuation & Classification, thanked the WCO and the European Union for the continued support to the NaMRAs work on building capacity for Harmonized System classification. For more details, please contact hs@wcoomd.org. Budrul Chukrut / SOPA Images / Shutterstock.com In 1964, Warren Buffett took over as the majority owner of Berkshire Hathaway, which started as a small Massachusetts-based textile company. As of February 2024, his net worth hovers around $135 billion, according to Forbes. Warren Buffett Says Make Money While You Sleep: 5 Forever Assets To Buy Now Explore: 6 Genius Things All Wealthy People Do With Their Money At the time Buffett became majority owner, the company was trading at about $11.40 per share. Fast forward 60 years and the conglomerate is one of the worlds 10 largest publicly traded companies, with an impressive market cap of about $769 billion. Its Class A shares are currently trading at about $605,965 per share, while its Class B shares hover at a more reasonable $402 per share, as of February 27, 2024. At age 93, Buffett still serves as CEO and Chairman of the company. Today, Berkshire Hathaway is a conglomerate that owns about 65 subsidiaries, some of which are fully or partly owned by the company. They include brands like Duracell, Dairy Queen, Jordans Furniture, Benjamin Moore, and GEICO Insurance to name a few. Berkshire Hathaway takes profit from its insurance company holdings and invests them in a portfolio of about 50 different stocks valued at around $380 billion. The companys wide range of products and brands makes it one of the most consistent stocks on the market today. Sponsored: Owe the IRS $10K or more? Schedule a FREE consultation to see if you qualify for tax relief. Should You Invest in Berkshire Hathaway? Since the company debuted its less expensive Class B shares in May 1996, the stock has averaged an annual return of about 10.4%. By comparison, the S&P 500 has had a total annualized return of about 9.5%. Berkshire Hathaways diverse blend of products provides a hedge against market ups and downs when compared to other stocks that can be focused on one type of product or industry. If youre looking for upside potential and a long-term investment, then Berkshire Hathaway should certainly be a consideration in your portfolio. Story continues More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Is Berkshire Hathaway Stock a Good Buy? What To Know About Warren Buffetts Holding Company In 2023, the U.S. job market experienced a trend where nearly 25% of all job gains were attributed to government positions, underscoring a significant reliance on public sector employment to sustain economic growth. This development is particularly striking given the broader context of a thriving economy, marked by impressive job additions and the robust performance of the tech sector. Despite these broader economic successes, the surge in government jobs reveals a nuanced landscape of employment, raising questions about the sustainability and quality of job growth. Employment gains in government span the federal, state and local levels, with a substantial increase in hiring compared to the previous year. This surge is partly a response to the vacancies left by public servants who exited their roles during the pandemic, alongside efforts to bolster public services that may have been understaffed or overwhelmed in the preceding years. Don't Miss: This startup is accepting investors for as little as 25 cents whats the catch? Harvard-founded AI startup is solving paywalls, growing 5x yearly and looking for new shareholders. Three industries account for 83% of the job growth. Along with government jobs, healthcare and the hospitality industry make up the majority of new jobs. Hospitality jobs are often plagued with low pay and unsustainable positions. The trend toward increased government employment comes at a time when the private sector, particularly in technology and finance, faces a wave of layoffs, indicating a shift in the labor market dynamics. High-profile tech companies have announced significant job cuts, contrasting sharply with the governments hiring spree. This juxtaposition highlights a complex picture of the current economic situation, where certain sectors thrive while others recalibrate in response to evolving market demands and strategic priorities. Trending: Copy and paste Mark Cubans startup investment strategy according to his colorful portfolio. The discussion around government job growth also touches on broader debates about the role of public sector employment in economic stability and growth. On one hand, increased government hiring can provide essential services and bolster employment numbers during uncertain times. On the other, it raises questions about the efficiency and necessity of such expansions, especially when juxtaposed with layoffs in sectors that are traditionally seen as engines of innovation and economic growth. Story continues As the U.S. navigates this unique economic environment, the balance between public and private sector employment will likely continue to be a critical area of focus for policymakers, economists and the workforce alike. The implications of this trend extend beyond immediate job creation, touching on issues of fiscal sustainability, the quality of public services and the overall health of the economy. Read Next: "ACTIVE INVESTORS' SECRET WEAPON" Supercharge Your Stock Market Game with the #1 "news & everything else" trading tool: Benzinga Pro - Click here to start Your 14-Day Trial Now! Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Biden Administration Job Growth Numbers Are Subsidized By Record Numbers Of Government Jobs 25% of New Jobs Are In Government originally appeared on Benzinga.com 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. By Alexandra Alper and Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration on Wednesday unveiled an executive order barring genomic data transfers to China, as it seeks to protect American personal data over national security concerns. The order, first reported by Reuters, will also curb bulk transfers of Americans' geolocation, biometric, health and financial information to specific "countries of concern," including Russia Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. The directive appeared to zero in on Chinese gene companies like BGI, barring transfer of any volume of genomic data to countries of concern. "This is the White House's way of tackling a set of very specific China and Russia focused security threats, including the threat posed by genomics companies like BGI," said Peter Harrell, a former National Security Council official, describing genomic information as "extremely high risk data" and adding there was "little need for that to be processed in China." BGI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Washington has been trying to stem the flow of American personal data to China, part of a years-long struggle over trade and technology. The U.S. Congress is considering legislation to ban federal agencies from contracting with China's BGI Group and Wuxi APPTEC, part of an effort to keep China from accessing American genetic data and personal health information.. This month, BGI Group said it supports protecting personal data, but the legislation "which will effectively drive BGI from the U.S. market, will not accomplish this goal." The company said that in the U.S., it does not collect patient samples or have access to personal or genetic data. Reuters reported in 2021 that BGI has made sales worldwide of prenatal tests developed in collaboration with China's military and has used them to collect genetic data from millions of women for sweeping research on traits of populations. Story continues Other types of data transfers to China have also come into Washington's crosshairs. In 2018, a U.S. panel that reviews foreign investments for potential national security threats rejected a plan by China's Ant Financial to acquire U.S. money transfer company MoneyGram International, because of concerns over safety of data that can be used to identify U.S. citizens. "China and Russia are buying American sensitive personal data from data brokers" and leveraging it "to engage in a variety of nefarious activities including malicious cyber-enabled activities, espionage and blackmail," senior administration officials told reporters on Tuesday evening. "Buying data through data brokers is currently legal in the United States. That reflects a gap in our national security toolkit," they added, saying Wednesday's order aimed to fill that gap. The officials said transactions will be banned with data brokers who know the information will end up in "countries of concern", as will the transfer of any data on U.S. government personnel. Transfers of other classes of data - from biometric to financial - would only be banned if they met certain volume thresholds and were being sent to those countries. The White House said companies are collecting more of Americans' data than ever before. It is often legally sold and resold through data brokers who can then transfer it to foreign intelligence services, militaries, or companies controlled by foreign governments. To allay concerns that the new rules would unnecessarily hamper economic activity, certain types of data including corporate payroll and compliance are exempted, they added. Certain transactions such as cloud service, employment and investment agreements would also be permitted, subject to some security requirements such as encryption and anonymization. The order also directs the Department of Justice to give industry ample opportunity to comment before proposals take effect. Responding to Bidens order, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also said Wednesday it would develop rules in 2024 to limit data brokers international sale of Americans personal data. The agency, which under credit reporting laws can regulate consumer data collection, cited research from Duke University showing the personal data of U.S. military personnel and veterans was available online for as little as 12 cents per record and was vulnerable to exploitation by hostile actors. (Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Kanishka Singh; Additional reporting by Douglas Gillison; editing by Chris Sanders, Richard Chang and David Gregorio) By Jonathan McCambridge, PA Judgment in a legal challenge to the UK governments controversial Act to deal with the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles will be delivered later. High Court judge Mr Justice Colton will rule in the case brought by a number of victims challenging the human rights compliance of the legislation which offers a conditional amnesty to people accused of Troubles-related crimes. The Legacy Act received royal assent in September despite widespread opposition from political parties, victims organisations in Northern Ireland and the Irish government. Aspects of the laws include a limited form of immunity from prosecution for Troubles-related offences for those who co-operate with the new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR). The new Act will also halt future civil cases and legacy inquests. Multiple victims launched judicial review proceedings against the Act and Martina Dillon, John McEvoy and Lynda McManus were selected as the lead cases in the legal battle at the High Court in Belfast. The judgment will be delivered at the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA. Ms Dillons 45-year-old husband, Seamus, was shot dead in a loyalist attack at the Glengannon Hotel in Dungannon, County Tyrone, in 1997. Mr McEvoy survived a loyalist shooting on the Thierafurth Inn in Kilcoo, County Down, in 1992. Ms McManuss father, James, was among those wounded in the Sean Graham bookmakers massacre in 1992. When the case was heard last year, a barrister said the Act was subjecting victims to a form of secondary trauma. Whatever ruling Mr Justice Colton delivers, legal action is set to continue with the verdict likely to be appealed to higher courts. Separately, the Irish Government has launched an interstate legal case against the Legacy Act, arguing that it breaches the European Convention on Human Rights. By Eimear Dodd A man found in possession of over 15,000 of heroin told gardai that it was the first and clearly the last time he would be holding drugs, a court has heard. Daniel O'Connell (42) of Cherry Orchard Park, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10 pleaded guilty to possession of heroin for sale or supply on March 8th, 2022 at the same location. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard on Wednesday that gardai carried out a search of the property on the day in question. They found a white plastic bag in an upstairs bedroom which was later found to contain 113g of diamorphine, with an estimated value of 15,904. O'Connell was not present during the search, but later contacted gardai saying he wished to speak to them about the drugs found at his home address. He attended the garda station voluntarily the next day and, after caution said he was holding the drugs on behalf of a third party to reduce a drugs debt of 5,000. He told gardai that he believed the drugs to be heroin and said he had been holding them for two weeks. During the interview, O'Connell said he built up a debt due to a cocaine addiction and was expecting to get 150 to 200 off his total debt. He took full responsibility for the drugs and said he didn't want to drag his family into it. The court heard O'Connell didn't know the weight of the drugs and was surprised when he was told their estimated value. O'Connell has 19 previous convictions, including three for drugs offences. A local Garda agreed with defence counsel that most of O'Connell's previous convictions are for road traffic matters with the drugs offences dating back a number of years. It was further accepted that his early guilty plea was of assistance to the prosecution and O'Connell was proactive in contacting gardai following the search. The gardai also agreed that O'Connell said he was being threatened and said it was the first and clearly the last time he would be holding drugs. Defence counsel noted that her client is the author of his own misfortune, but was being threatened at the time. She said O'Connell is a father-of-two and members of his family were in court to support him. Her client developed addiction issues as a teenager and relapsed around the time of this offence, building up a drugs debt. He has since taken steps towards rehabilitation and has engaged with addiction treatment services. Urine analysis was handed to the court. A number of testimonials were also handed in, some of which outlined that O'Connell is involved in voluntary work with local community groups. He has some work history and a job offer, having completed a programme of upskilling. Judge Orla Crowe noted O'Connell's previous convictions and that a considerable amount of heroin was found. She directed the completion of a probation report and adjourned the case until June 4th for finalisation. By Grainne Ni Aodha, PA An Oireachtas committee has urged the Minister for Justice to address concerns about the accuracy and bias in the use of facial recognition technology by gardai. Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) has been cited as a way of speeding up Garda investigations, but has also raised concerns around its accuracy and possible infringement of peoples privacy. Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said the aim of the FRT Bill is to help gardi trawl through thousands of hours of CCTV when investigating serious crimes. But groups such as the Irish Council for Civil Liberties have raised concern about how FRT could be used by authorities. Minister for Justice Helen McEntee (Niall Carson/PA) The technology also resulted in a split at Cabinet, which was addressed when standalone legislation was proposed to regulate the technology and to ease the Green Partys qualms. On Tuesday, the Oireachtas Justice Committee published its pre-legislative scrutiny report into the draft law that would provide for FRT. The committee recommended that the rationale for introducing FRT be published alongside the Bill, and that there should be a periodic, independent, judge-led review included in the legislation of all use of biometric identification. It recommended that the Minister for Justice address both ongoing concern about discrimination or inherent bias and the ongoing concern about accuracy in the technology. It also recommended that after Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said they do not intend to run images against a database that gardai provide clarify on what exactly FRT would be used for. The Committee also recommends that an Garda Siochana (AGS) and the Department of Justice must urgently clarify some of the following details regarding the database: if it is the intention to provide access to databases; what database they intend to use in respect of retrospective FRT; the source of the database; how a database would be populated if they are to make their own; and the criteria for adding anyone to that database. Thirty-two recommendations were made in total, including redrafting the definition of biometric data in order to bring it in line with EU law; clarifying the access to remedy for those whose rights are breached as a result of FRT; and a requirement that any prosecutions using FRT shall disclose that to the defence before a trial. Chairman of the Justice Committee James Lawless said they had acknowledged its potential use for Garda operations, but noted the concerns that were raised that could lead to miscarriages of justice. We urge the Minister and the Commissioner to address these concerns proactively in public discourse and parliamentary debates to instil greater confidence in the use of such systems, he said on Wednesday. Members of Birdwatch Mayo will meet in the car park at Carrowmore Beach, Louisburgh, at 10am on Sunday, March 3rd. Darren Ellis and his partner, Hannah Keogh, will guide the group. Darren is a conservation ranger for National Parks and Wildlife Service (NWPS) and undertakes the Irish Wetland Bird Survey (IWeBS) for the sea loughs/lagoons in this area. Depending on numbers we may need to car share as many of the roads are narrow with few parking spaces. Most of the viewing will be from the roadside so this event is suitable for wheelchair users. A telescope would be beneficial if you have one. You do not need to be a member of BirdWatch Ireland to attend Mayo branch events. Children are most welcome but they must be accompanied. Bring any refreshments that you need. Wear appropriate clothing for the forecast weather conditions. For more details, email birdwatchmayo@gmail.com. A Westport-based councillor has proposed a rates moratorium on businesses affected by the refugee crisis in Mayo. Cllr Peter Flynn said the refugee crisis has greatly impacted on tourism in the county and received additional information that between international protection applicants and Ukrainians, that 5,992 refugees are in Mayo. Of that number, 3,664 are in tourist locations. Cllr Flynn said that as a result, roughly 1,800 people every night are not coming to the county and it is having a massive impact. Even if people are spending only 100 per night, thats 180,000. Thats not just hotel and pubs but there is a knock on downstreet businesses like barbers, coffee and salons, said Cllr Flynn. He cited a report in the Irish Times from May 2023 that saw Westport ranked second in terms of the number of tourism jobs displaced in the county and Ballina ranked 11th. Cllr Michael Kilcoyne said that the number of restaurants, bicycle shops and coffee shops closing down is concerning, and the VAT rate is not helping either. Deirdre Finnerty, head of community engagement, clarified the number from CSO data that the number is just over 4,800, but thats PPSN numbers issued. Another data sheet received last Thursday is showing a figure of just over 2,800 who are in tourist locations in Mayo. The number does not take into account refugees who could be in private homes. They can move on and be in another county. Its a movable number. Cllr Flynn proposed that a five-year rates moratorium on any business, tourism, service or trade who have been affected by the refugees crisis in Mayo and that they write to the four local TDs, two senators and Minister for Tourism Simon Coveney. The proposal was seconded by Cllr Christy Hyland. The National Museum of Ireland - Country Life at Turlough Park in Castlebar is inviting people to learn more about a national monitoring scheme which is tracking bees, hoverflies and butterflies across different habitats throughout Ireland. The Museum is hosting a special talk at 3pm on Saturday, March 2nd, exploring the National Pollinator Monitoring Scheme with Dr Michelle Larkin from the National Biodiversity Data Centre. Dr Larkin is responsible for managing the National Pollinator Monitoring Scheme. In this upcoming talk, she will look at the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan and some of the elements of this framework, which brings together different sectors across the island of Ireland to create a landscape where pollinators can survive and thrive. Dr Larkin will also outline how people can become involved in pollinator monitoring schemes. The National Pollinator Monitoring Scheme is a pilot project that aims to collect data on the distribution, conservation status and trends of insect pollinators across Ireland. The project is funded by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Irelands wild insects, such as bees and hoverflies, are critical for plant reproduction and pollinate many of our wild plant and crop species. However, insect pollinators are experiencing global population declines with negative consequences for pollination services and ecosystem stability. Unfortunately, research has shown that 30% of Irelands wild bee species are at risk of extinction. More data is needed on pollinator insects and their interactions across different types of habitats from farms and forests to urban parks. This data will be used to inform pollinator monitoring and conservation policies at a local, national and European level. Learn more about the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan, the National Pollinator Monitoring Scheme and how you can take part. This talk takes place from 3pm to 4pm on Saturday, March 2nd, in association with the new temporary exhibition, The Murmur of Bees. The talk is suitable for adults and children aged 14 years plus. Admission is free but booking is required as places are limited. Email BookingsCountryLife@museum.ie or telephone 094-9031751. Visit www.museum.ie for further information. The Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council has queried why a regional road in the county, on which five lorries jackknifed during a recent cold snap, was never gritted. Cllr Michael Loftus raised his concerns over the lack of gritting on the R315 road, the regional road connecting Crossmolina to Ballycastle and passing through Moygownagh. This is a regional road and should be included in the gritting plan, he told a meeting of Ballina Municipal District. What is the difference between the road connecting Crossmolina and Ballycastle and a regional road near Castlebar or Westport? Cllr Loftus asked if it would be possible to provide the material for gritting to local business owners to allow them to grit the roads themselves during spells of inclement weather. Cllr Loftus said that during the most recent cold snaps, five lorries jackknifed while travelling down this road causing further disruptions in the area. Senior engineer with the Ballina Municipal District Declan Ginnelly said he would not be in favour of doing this. Giving gritting salt out to a business and allowing them to grit the road themselves provides a false sense of security that a road is safe to travel on when usually it isnt, he said. Mr Ginnelly said that including the R315 would have to be progressed through the council's Roads Strategic Policy Committee, which Cllr Seamus Weir said would not work. We are black in the face trying to change policy at the SPCs. Do we really have any power at the SPC? This road has been brought up five or six times now and nothing has been done, he said. Mr Ginnelly said there is always a dilemma around the gritting of roads and that is why there is a policy in place to deal with primary, national, secondary, regional and local roads. You mentioned regional roads, this is a regional road. That is the whole point, said Cllr Loftus. Four-year-old James Ryan and his family will experience a special day next weekend when the young boy from Kinaffe, Swinford will be become an honorary garda and Little Blue Hero. The emergency services will be out in force at Swinford Amenity Park on Saturday, March 2, with the community invited to Blue Light Day between 10am and 2pm. It is an opportunity for young and old to engage with Gardai, officers from the Mayo Fire Service and personnel from the Coast Guard, Civil Defence and Defence Forces. James will be awarded the title of honorary Garda and the forces newest recruit will be joined by his father Derek and mum Geraldine, who said it is great to have such an exciting day to look forward to. James was born prematurely with a heart defect, and he was diagnosed with Pierre Robin Syndrome, a condition where babies are born with a smaller lower jaw and have breathing difficulties. Dad Derek said apart from being unable to talk, eat or drink, James is like any other young child and he likes his toys, running around, playing and watching cartoons. James was almost 18 months old when he was discharged from hospital for the first time, and he is fed through a peg on the side of his stomach. He also has a cardiac defect and will get a stent balloon put in later this year, as well as having another heart operation when he is older. James Ryan with his parents Geraldine and Derek. Derek said James has a big interest in the Gardai and emergency services and has been in so many ambulances that when he watches them go past he claps his hands. Sgt Conor Drury praised the young boy for his courage and determination and said he is proud to have him as a member of his team for the event, which is being run in association with the Little Blue Heroes Foundation. It is a particularly exciting day for the Ryan family. I was honoured to meet James recently and welcome him to the team here in Swinford, he added. The organisations vision is to support families of children with serious illnesses in Ireland while empowering the lives of children through positive engagement. The Garda Mounted Support Unit, Armed Support Unit, Roads Policing Unit will be out in force with the Garda Band also in attendance to entertain the crowd. Sgt Conor Drury and Sgt Regina Carley, Community Engagement Sergeant based at Swinford Garda Station, have invited the entire community to come along and meet the emergency crews and get to know their local officers. The first hour of the day, from 10am until 11am, will be a silent hour to facilitate children with special needs and sensory needs at Swinford Amenity Park (Eircode F12H593). Gda Kieran Murphy will be the young boy's Garda buddy on the day and James will lead a parade that includes all of the emergency service vehicles and officers. The parade will travel from Swinford Amenity Park down past Main Street at 2pm. The organisers have asked local people to come out and show their support. The Ray Leonard Players from Claremorris will set out on their All-Ireland Drama Festival Circuit journey this week, with their first outing at Tubbercurry Drama Festival next Friday night, March 1. This year, the award-winning team will stage Patricia Burke Brogans powerful drama, Eclipsed a show that will have audiences laughing and crying in equal measure. The group will continue to travel across the west and beyond throughout the month of March, participating in eight festivals along the way and hoping to secure a place in the All-Ireland Confined Finals. Outlined by a present-day prologue and epilogue, the play is set in 1963 in a convent laundry at St Paul's Home for Penitent Women in Killmacha, Ireland. Eclipsed explores the poignant and sometimes humorous story of young pregnant, unwed mothers consigned to work as 'penitents' in church-run laundries. Supervised by nuns, these women were treated as virtual slaves and their infants were forcibly put up for adoption. After seeing the goings on in the laundries as a young novice, playwright Patricia Burke Brogan decided to highlight the plight of these women, and Eclipsed was one of the first plays to tell the story of the Magdalene Laundries. A stellar cast has been put in place for Eclipsed, with Brigit Murphy played by Sonja Stevens, Cathy McNamara played by Karen Hahessy, Nellie-Nora Langan by Andrea Silke, Mandy Prenderville by Una Monahan, Juliet Mannion by Grainne Hahessy, Sister Virginia by Aishling Costello, Mother Victoria by Lisa Dowd-Hynes, and Rosa/Caroline played by Jenny Carney. Alongside an excellent cast, the production team is headed up by Anne Fahey as Director, with Billy Freeley on lighting, Dave Donnellan and Mary Murphy on sound, and Mary Esler as Production Co-ordinator. Again this year, John Fallon and Claremorris Mens Shed have done an excellent job in Set Design and Construction, while some of the stars of last years show Tim Oates, Robert Holden and Alan Heneghan have come on board as Stage Managers. Annie Moore is on Costumes/Props, with John Russell and Joseph Fahey as Stage Crew. The Ray Leonard Players enjoyed great success in 2023, finishing fourth overall in the All-Ireland Full Length Confined Finals last April, and winning the All-Ireland Confined One-Act Drama Final in December. Of course, The Ray Leonard Players was established to honour and perpetuate the memory of the late Ray Leonard, who was synonymous with drama across the west of Ireland throughout his life. Ray who passed away in 2005 was a director, producer and mentor who made an outstanding contribution to drama, musicals and stagecraft. For the cast and crew of Eclipsed, March is shaping up to be a very busy month, beginning this Friday night, March 1st, with a performance in Tubbercurry. Next stop is at Roscommon Drama Festival on Tuesday 5th, with the Charleville Drama Festival on Saturday 9th, Ballyshannon Drama Festival on Wednesday 13th and Claregalway Festival of Drama on Saturday 16th. The Ray Leonard Players will be at home, performing at Claremorris Drama and Fringe Festival on Tuesday 19th, in Glenamaddy Theatre Festival on Tuesday 26th, and will finish the circuit run in Scariff at Clare Drama Festival on Thursday, March 28th. Billionaire Blackstone Inc. Co-Founder and CEO Stephen Schwarzman recently underscored the potent benefits and perilous risks associated with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI). Speaking at the FII Priority Miami Summit, Schwarzman delved into the ethical dimensions of AI technology, advocating for global cooperation to safeguard against its misuse by criminals and rogue nations. Don't Miss: This startup is accepting investors for as little as 25 cents whats the catch? Harvard-founded AI startup is solving paywalls, growing 5x yearly and looking for new shareholders. During his address, Schwarzman shared his awe at the astonishing power of AI and its potential impacts on the human condition. He also expressed concern over the technology falling into the wrong hands, saying criminals are generally not very smart, but AI can think on their behalf, amplifying the issues they cause. The Blackstone CEO highlighted the potential for AI to alter the landscape of national security, including the prospect of a sci-fi war of machines, a scenario underscored by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the use of drones. Schwarzmans remarks came as part of the FII Priority Miami Summit, a gathering that drew about 850 attendees, including entrepreneurs, politicians and investment bankers. The event focused on integrating advancements in AI, robotics, healthcare, finances and sustainability into global society. Speaking on a panel titled Board of Changemakers: A Roundtable of Global CEOs, Schwarzman advocated for the establishment of a centralized, supranational institution to oversee AI, emphasizing the need for widespread cooperation to prevent discord. Trending: Copy and paste Mark Cubans startup investment strategy according to his colorful portfolio. Schwarzman is not merely a commentator on AI but a substantial supporter of its development. He's donated approximately $500 million to AI education and research, including a landmark $350 million gift to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2018 and a substantial grant to Oxford. His enthusiasm for AI led Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo to dub him the father of AI during the summit. Story continues Schwarzmans journey into AI began in 2015 after a meeting with Alibaba Group Co-Founder Jack Ma, which piqued his interest in the technology. Since then, he has immersed himself in understanding AIs varied implications, balancing the cautious perspective of figures like Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk with the optimism of others like former IBM CEO Virginia Ginni Rometty. The impact of AI on society, particularly in healthcare where it could significantly accelerate drug production, was a major theme of Schwarzmans discourse. He also touched on Blackstones role as a major player in commercial real estate and the construction of data centers essential for AI development. Schwarzmans contributions and insights into AI reflect a deep understanding of its potential to reshape industries and societies. However, his call for global cooperation and oversight highlights a critical awareness of the ethical and security challenges that accompany the technologys advancement. As AI continues to evolve, the dialogue initiated by leaders like Schwarzman will be crucial in navigating its future trajectory. Read Next: "ACTIVE INVESTORS' SECRET WEAPON" Supercharge Your Stock Market Game with the #1 "news & everything else" trading tool: Benzinga Pro - Click here to start Your 14-Day Trial Now! Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Billionaire Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman Has Poured Over $500 Million Into Artificial Intelligence Despite Worries About 'Sci-Fi War Machines' And AI Getting Into The Hands Of Criminals originally appeared on Benzinga.com 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- Bethlehem has canceled Wednesday's zoning meeting, so at least for now a plan to convert a home and barn at 3246 Linden St. to commercial use is not moving ahead. The property was used for making custom carpets and later as an office, according to documents submitted to the city. Most recently, it was a residence. The site has entrances from Linden Street and Country Lane, a short road east of Linden that is off Thompson Avenue. Tuan Do and Nguyet Nguyen bought the property for $375,000 in October 2023, according to Northampton County records. They sought a variance from zoning to "permit the preparation of prepared foods for on-site retail sale," according to their appeal. That would allow them and the city to reach "maximum value" of the property, which is near other commercial uses but also near homes. 3246 Linden is south of the retail strip that starts at Oakland Road, the border with Bethlehem Township, and continues through the Bethlehem Square shopping center. A Wawa is going up to the north at the former site of Leiser's Rentals, and to the south, apartments are going up on land behind what was Stefano's restaurant. The Zoning Hearing Board meeting was scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 28, in Town Hall. It has been canceled. No reason was given. 69 News has contacted the city's planning and zoning department for more information. The next scheduled meeting of the zoning board will be March 27. No agenda is listed as of Wednesday. BETHLEHEM, Pa. Lehigh University welcomed a special guest on Tuesday: Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), who served as chair of the House Republican Conference from 2019 to 2021. Cheney spoke at Lehigh's Zoellner Arts Center as part of the school's Kenner Lecture series. She is the third high-profile public figure to speak at Zoellner this academic year, after former British Prime Minister Theresa May and former CIA Director/U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. Much of Cheney's talk focused on what she called the "danger" posed by former President Donald Trump especially after the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. "When Trump woke up on January 6, his intention was that he would remain as president," Cheney said, before explaining how Trump "sent" the violent mob to disrupt the certification of the electoral college results that day. Cheney claimed Trump was notified about the death of a civilian inside the Capitol during the insurrection, but continued to watch the attack play out on television before denouncing the violence hours later. "That's depravity, and we cannot become numb to what that means for this country," Cheney said of Trump's actions. Continuing, Cheney warned the packed audience that Trump is "using the tools of an autocrat," which she said has been and still is enabled by Republican politicians who are unwilling to stand up to the former president. GOP officials like House Speaker Mike Johnson and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, have made themselves "hostages" to Trump, Cheney said. "Mike Johnson has the ability to put the bill the Senate passed to provide aid to Ukraine on the floor tonight. It could be voted on tomorrow and on Joe Biden's desk by tomorrow night," Cheney said. "That's what he should do, and he knows that's what he should do, but he won't do it because Donald Trump told him not to do it." Of the state of America's judiciary, Cheney said that rulings from America's Supreme Court and other federal courts have no power unless the president enforces them. In a second term, Trump might not enforce rulings that could be unfavorable to his interests a timely proposition as the Supreme Court considers Trump's claims of presidential immunity, according to Cheney. "As we meet right here today, we have an obligation to do everything possible over the next eight months to make sure that Donald Trump loses the election and is never again anywhere near the Oval Office," Cheney said, drawing applause from most of the audience. Despite her stark warnings about another Trump term, Cheney said she did not regret voting for him twice because she agreed with his policies while serving in Congress. Economic deregulation and strong energy policies were beneficial to her constituents. "Many of his policies were the right ones for Wyoming," Cheney said. According to Cheney, her focus on policy changed after the insurrection, as the growing threat to American democracy posed by Trump eclipsed the importance of policy altogether. "We can survive [bad] policies. We can't survive a president who goes to war with the Constitution," Cheney said of current President Joe Biden and Trump, respectively. Cheney also spoke favorably of several Pennsylvania politicians, including Rep. Susan Wild and former Rep. Charlie Dent both from the Lehigh Valley. Cheney said she befriended Wild at events reserved for female members while serving in the House. More women running for office would help to solve many of the problems our country faces today, Cheney said. BETHLEHEM, Pa. Viewers are getting their first look at a Christmas movie set in the Christmas City. The first trailer for "Saint Nick of Bethlehem" was posted on the movie's Facebook page. The trailer shows scenes filmed in November and December in downtown Bethlehem. Filming spots included the Hotel Bethlehem, the Snow Goose Gallery, and St. Luke's Children's Hospital. Filmmaker Daniel Roebuck, a native of Bethlehem, plays Saint Nick. He talked with 69 News in November, when filming started, saying he was disappointed to see a Hallmark movie called "Miracle in Bethlehem" was actually shot in Winnipeg, Canada. He was excited to use his hometown as the backdrop for his new movie. The story is about a man who lost his son, but finds renewed hope and joy in giving presents to other children. It's a script based on a true story, and it was written originally by co-director Spencer Folmar, who reached out to Roebuck to play Saint Nick. Filming is set to finish in the spring in Bethlehem, with the hope of releasing the movie by Christmas 2024. Anyone interested in getting involved in production can email SaintNickMovie@gmail.com to learn more. EAST LANSDOWNE, Pa. -- Authorities say five of the six people dead after a shooting and fire in a suburban Philadelphia home earlier this month died of gunshot wounds. Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer held a news conference Wednesday, three weeks after the Feb. 7 incident, to provide an update on the investigation. It started with an argument between Canh Le, 43, and his 13-year-old niece, the DA said. That led to Le shooting his niece, as well as Le's brother, his brother's wife, and his 17-year-old niece. The final victim, Le's 10-year-old nephew, was not shot but died of smoke inhalation in the fire that followed, the DA said. Le carried out the shootings with a long-range rifle, which was found next to his body, authorities say. Le eventually shot himself, but not before opening fire on responding police officers and setting the house on fire. Two police officers were shot -- one in the leg and another in the forearm. Both were released from the hospital days after the shooting. Stollsteimer said Wednesday both officers are recovering, but it's not clear when or if they will be able to return to the force. The first 911 call received on the afternoon of Feb. 7 was from the grandfather in the home. The dispatcher could hear gunshots in the background of that call. The grandmother and grandfather, who lived in the home and are refugees from Vietnam, survived, but the DA says they now lost everything they had. After the gunfire, authorities believe Le lit the house on fire. Flames engulfed the home and it was later demolished. The district attorney called the police response "textbook," and said the police investigation is closed as there is no one to charge. The DA also mentioned there are no mental health records associated with Cahn Le, and a motive for the tragedy is not known. NORRISTOWN, Pa. - The Montgomery County Homelessness Task Force announced the release of its final report, presenting a roadmap to address and alleviate gaps in access to housing and homelessness in the community, according to the news release from the county. The county says the report reflects months of collaboration and planning aimed at creating sustainable solutions for those experiencing homelessness. The Homelessness Task Force, comprised of community leaders, experts, and advocates, was established with a mission to analyze the root causes of homelessness, identify gaps in existing services, and propose actionable recommendations to address the issue, the county said. The Homelessness Task Force is inviting community members, organizations, and policymakers to review the final report. The final report serves as a comprehensive guide for policymakers, service providers, and the community-at-large to implement targeted measures that can make a tangible impact, the county said. County Investments Montgomery County says it has made investments to address homelessness and housing affordability. The investments fund providers such as Access Services (Street Outreach), Resources for Human Development (shelter and emergency hoteling), Norristown Hospitality Center (Code Blue operations), and Housing Resource Centers that provide landlord engagement, housing location services, and temporary rental assistance. 1. Affordable Housing Initiatives: Over $30M in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding invested through Montgomery Countys Recovery Plan: The creation of new affordable housing units Preserving existing affordable units Increasing first time homebuyer assistance And through other programs creating a foundation for sustainable creation of future affordable housing (e.g. land bank program) 2. Homelessness: Over $22M invested in 2022 (inclusive of ARPA and other funds) Rapid Rehousing Shelter construction and operations Street Outreach and Street Medicine programs Emergency Hoteling Task Force Actions Through deliberation on achievable goals within the limited timeline of the Task Force, its actions became focused on three key areas, with an emphasis on strategic placement of shelters throughout the county, according to the news release: Engage faith-based partners to increase the number of faith-based organizations that can provide emergency code blue shelter beds Localize the homeless response: Strategically place emergency short-term housing and mobile services for the unhoused throughout the county Address zoning, especially to ease shelter establishment for faith-based organizations Task Force Accomplishments The county says the report highlights the specific accomplishments completed through the Task Force's collaborative approach, elaborating on its work with specific municipalities. These include: The development of a Shelter Implementation Guide The addition of two new Code Blue sites Implementation plans with four municipalities (Lansdale, Lower Merion, Upper Moreland and West Norriton) Montgomery County's Homelessness Task Force Montgomery County's Homelessness Task Force was developed to address acute needs related to homelessness and housing in Montgomery County at a time when the county says there are significant economic shifts, and gaps in number of people who are homeless and the number of resources to effectively address homelessness. The task force was chaired by Commissioner Ken Lawrence, Kim Krauter, Pennsylvania Director of Development for the Walters Group, and Tamra Williams, Ph.D., Director for the Department of Health and Human Services. The task force was comprised of members representing providers of services to those who are homeless, individuals with lived experience, faith-based leaders, county leadership, state officials, municipalities, and school districts. The task force held its inaugural meeting in April 2023, and met regularly through the year before its conclusion in November 2023. Thank you to the task force chairs former Commissioner Ken Lawrence; Kim Krauter, PA Director of Development for the Walters Group; and Tamra Williams, Ph.D., Director for the Department of Health and Human Services, along with the 46 representatives from across the community who participated. These individuals gave their time and expertise throughout the year to collaborate on achievable steps to address homelessness in Montgomery County, said Jamila H. Winder, Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. We know that one level of government cannot solve all the issues regarding the continuum of housing in Montgomery County. I hope these community partnerships will evolve as we all continue to address the acute needs of our most vulnerable residents. Homelessness is a reality for many men, women and families that not only impacts those living without steady shelter, but also those in our neighborhoods and communities; it has a ripple effect through the entire society, and it benefits us all to break the cycle. Working with the task force and our neighboring municipalities, Lansdale has been able to foster conversations on comprehensive plans to address local needs and we appreciate being part of the ongoing conversation to better serve not just those in Lansdale, but our entire community, said John Ernst, Borough Manager of Lansdale and taskforce member. A small business in Sacramento has become a favorite of movie stars. Yolanda's Tamales is a popular restaurant and food truck, and thanks to one simple Google search for the best tamales, they landed the gig of a lifetime. Owner Andres Yanez says it started with a simple order of 300 tamales to feed the film crew. The crew loved it so much, they ended up making eight more massive catering calls, totaling over $10,000! Some of those hungry cast members were supposedly Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Teyana Taylor. After the crew wrapped on their final order, Yolanda's Tamales posted their big order on Instagram. Andres says since then, the restaurant has received a massive boom in business. "The phone was blowing up all day today," he said. "You know Leo, come try the fajitas here fresh, I'll take care of you." Yolanda's Tamales might not have made it to the big screen, but the boost in business has certainly made them feel like stars. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) A rocket exploded late Tuesday night off the side of a ship traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, authorities said, the latest suspected attack to be carried out by Yemen's Houthi rebels. The attack comes as the Houthis continue a series of assaults at sea over Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and as the U.S. and its allies launch airstrikes trying to stop them. The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, which oversees shipping in the Mideast, reported the attack happened about 110 kilometers (70 miles) off the coast of the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida. The rocket exploded several miles off the bow of the vessel, it said. The crew and vessel are reported to be safe and are proceeding to next port of call, the UKMTO said. The private security firm Ambrey reported that the vessel targeted appeared to be a Marshall Islands-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier in the area at the time. Another ship, a Panama-flagged, Emirati-owned chemical tanker was nearby as well, Ambrey said. The Associated Press could not immediately identify the vessels involved. The Houthis typically take several hours to claim their assaults and have not yet done so for the assault late Tuesday. Meanwhile, the U.S. military's Central Command said an American and an allied warship shot down five Houthi bomb-carrying drones in the Red Sea on Tuesday night. The drones originated from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and (it was) determined they presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and to the U.S. Navy and coalition ships in the region, Central Command said in a statement. Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea and surrounding waters over the Israel-Hamas war. Those vessels have included at least one with cargo for Iran, the Houthis main benefactor, and an aid ship later bound for Houthi-controlled territory. Despite over a month of U.S.-led airstrikes, Houthi rebels remain capable of launching significant attacks. Last week, they severely damaged a ship in a crucial strait and downed an American drone worth tens of millions of dollars. The Houthis insist their attacks will continue until Israel stops its combat operations in the Gaza Strip, which have enraged the wider Arab world and seen the Houthis gain international recognition. On Saturday, Central Command said a Houthi attack on a Belize-flagged ship on Feb. 18 caused an 18-mile (29-kilometer) oil slick and warned of the danger of a spill from the vessels cargo of fertilizer. The Rubymar, a British-registered, Lebanese-operated cargo vessel, was attacked while sailing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The Houthis, a Zaydi Shiite group, seized Yemens capital in 2014 and have battled a Saudi-led coalition since 2015. Their Zaydi people ran a 1,000-year kingdom in Yemen up until 1962. TIRANA, Albania (AP) Ukraines president pleaded Wednesday for more ammunition to repel Russian advances as he co-hosted a summit with Albania's government to build further support for Kyiv among southeastern European countries while signs of war fatigue grow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that increasing the supply of armaments, and especially ammunition, was paramount for Ukraine just over two years since Russias full-scale invasion. I think this is the question of: Will we stand or not, he said during his speech to the summit. His impassioned plea comes as Russian troops have seized the initiative on the battlefield in Ukraine amid worsening shortages of weapons and soldiers for Ukraine's military. Western analysts and observers say the Russians are attacking in strength along four parallel axes in the northeast, aiming to press deeper into the Ukraine-held western part of the Donetsk region and also penetrating into the Kharkiv region north of it. Russia took the strategic eastern city of Avdiivka earlier this month by overwhelming Ukrainian forces with large numbers of troops and superior air and artillery firepower. Fierce fighting has continued with Russia pushing Kyivs forces out of another three villages to the citys west in the last few days. Zelenskyy arrived in Albania overnight to join a summit of eleven countries from southeastern Europe, along with officials from the European Union and other international organizations. It was the latest stop in an international tour that saw him in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to push for a peace plan and the return of prisoners of war from Russia. Zelenskyy sought to build solidarity among his country and those of the Western Balkans, saying that all of them deserved to be members of the European Union and NATO if they choose. The European Union and NATO have provided Europe with the longest and most reliable era of security and economic development, and we are all equally worthy of being a part of the European and Euro-Atlantic communities, Zelenskyy said. Securing further support is key to Ukraines leader while his country faces battlefield challenges. Zelenskyy on Sunday announced that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action since Russias invasion the first time that Kyiv had confirmed the number of its losses. He acknowledged, again, in Tirana that the problems with the supply of ammunition" were impacting the situation on the battlefield. Russias tactics in Avdiivka, including its use of dozens of glide bombs to obliterate Ukrainian positions in the city, has raised concerns it could replicate the same methods elsewhere along the frontline if Western aid to support air-defense systems and supplies of long-range weapons and artillery do not come through soon. Around Bakhmut, which fell to Russia last May after the longest battle since the full-scale invasion began, Russian troops are trying to push towards Chasiv Yar, according to a spokesman for the operational group overseeing the eastern front line. Illia Yevlash said Tuesday that Russia is reinforcing its troops with assault units, using air attacks, and that heavy fighting was ongoing on the outskirts of the city. Meanwhile, further north on the frontline, Russian troops are pressing forward around Lyman and Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region that borders Russia. Ukraine has urged Western leaders to increase the joint production of weapons and ammunition, improve Ukrainian air defenses and put new pressure on Russia via expanded sanctions. Not all the countries at the meeting are in full support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Kremlin ally Serbia is the only European country that has refused to align with EU sanctions following Russias invasion. It continues signing cooperation agreements with Moscow. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he insisted that the summit statement should not include any call for sanctions on Russia and should not include proposed wording about Russia's negative influence in the Balkan region. Albania, a NATO member since 2009 and a candidate for EU membership, has voiced its full support for Kyiv against Russias invasion. It has provided military assistance in the form of ammunition and training of Ukrainian military. It was among the first countries offering shelter to Ukrainian refugees. It has joined international sanctions against Russian officials and institutions. As a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in the last two years, Albania joined the U.S. in initiating resolutions against Russias invasion. Zelenskyy said all of the countries at the summit must remain vigilant over what Russian President Vladimir Putin does next. The interaction between us, between neighbors, between neighboring regions, between all partners, has become a factor that along with the resilience of our people in Ukraine, does not allow Putin to prevail, Zelenskyy said. Blann reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Associated Press writer Illia Novikov in Kyiv and Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report. Follow Llazar Semini at https://x.com/lsemini The executive producers behind Lifetime's Wendy Williams documentary say they, too, were unnerved by some of what they saw while filming the former talk show host. But in an interview with The Associated Press, the producers say that while they were concerned about Williams' health and her behavior, they didn't realize she had dementia. Soon after they say they learned of her diagnosis in April 2023, they stopped filming. Where is Wendy Williams?", a two-part docuseries, aired Saturday and Sunday on Lifetime. Some criticized it for being exploitative, with scenes of Williams appearing unsteady, belligerent and drunk at times. The producers defend the show, saying what aired is honest and unfiltered, like Williams herself. Bloomin Brands, the owner of Outback Steakhouse and several other well-known restaurant chains, has shut the doors on 41 locations. The company, on an earnings call, surprised investors with news of the permanent closures of select Outback Steakhouse, Carrabbas Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill, and Flemings locations. Some 33 of the 41 closings took place last Friday. We periodically review our asset base and, in our latest review, we made the decision to close 41 underperforming locations, CEO David Deno said during the call. The majority of these restaurants were older assets with leases from the 90s and early 2000s. The shutdowns came as a result of a variety of factors, ranging from sales and traffic to the cost of necessary improvements. Deno said the move was not a sign of weakness for the company, and Bloomin Brands plans to open between 40 and 45 new restaurants before the end of the year. The company did not give a list of the closed locations, but among the closures was every Outback Steakhouse in Hawaii and Bonefish Grill locations in New Jersey and Virginia. Employees have said they received no warning about the closures. It was something of a mixed quarter earnings-wise for Bloomin. Sales at Outback were down 0.3% and fell 3% at Bonefish. Carrabbas, however, saw same-store sales increase by 2.5%. At the end of last year, Bloomin had 1,480 restaurants in its portfolio. Among those were 688 U.S.-based Outback Steakhouses, 217 Carrabbas Italian Grills, 176 Bonefish Grills, and 64 Flemings Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bars. Another 330 locations of those chains were located internationally. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com Key Insights Significant control over Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien by retail investors implies that the general public has more power to influence management and governance-related decisions A total of 25 investors have a majority stake in the company with 44% ownership Institutional ownership in Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien is 13% A look at the shareholders of Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien (ETR:BVB) can tell us which group is most powerful. The group holding the most number of shares in the company, around 56% to be precise, is retail investors. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn). And private companies on the other hand have a 15% ownership in the company. Let's take a closer look to see what the different types of shareholders can tell us about Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien. See our latest analysis for Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien? 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. Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters. Story continues Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien is not owned by hedge funds. The company's largest shareholder is Bernd Geske, with ownership of 8.2%. Meanwhile, the second and third largest shareholders, hold 8.2% and 6.0%, of the shares outstanding, respectively. On studying our ownership data, we found that 25 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest. While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. Quite a few analysts cover the stock, so you could look into forecast growth quite easily. Insider Ownership Of Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves. Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances. We can report that insiders do own shares in Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien. It has a market capitalization of just 377m, and insiders have 31m worth of shares, in their own names. It is good to see some investment by insiders, but it might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying. General Public Ownership The general public, mostly comprising of individual investors, collectively holds 56% of Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien shares. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions. Private Company Ownership We can see that Private Companies own 15%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company. Public Company Ownership Public companies currently own 8.2% of Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien stock. It's hard to say for sure but this suggests they have entwined business interests. This might be a strategic stake, so it's worth watching this space for changes in ownership. Next Steps: I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Borussia Dortmund GmbH Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien you should know about. If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its future. 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. Phiroshaw Camay Library opens The new facility boasts a collection of 8 000 books from Camay, an activist, unionist and champion of democracy who was once denied access to a library. Wits University added a new library to its suite on 27 February 2024 with the opening of the Phiroshaw Camay Library at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), located at the Parktown Management Campus. This rich resource for students, researchers and civil society has been bequeathed to the Centre by his life partner Anne Gordon. Camay, who passed in October 2016 aged 69, was a lifelong activist and humanitarian who made immense contribution to the development of democracy in South Africa through his leadership pre-and-post democracy. This includes serving as the Director of the IEC National Operations Centre for the first democratic elections, General Secretary of the Council of Unions of South Africa and later the merged body National Council of Trade Unions, water authorities and as Chairman of the Board of the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre (detailed profile below). Described as a principled, humble intellectual giant by speakers, Camay started his career as a teacher before becoming a librarian in 1966 for the Johannesburg City Council, where he eventually coordinated 17 libraries in African, Coloured and Indian townships. Ironically, when he registered to study for a Diploma in Public Management in 1976 at the then Graduate School of Business Administration (Wits), Camay had to apply to the Dean for special permission to use Wits libraries due to the segregation laws of the time. Speaking at the opening, Gordon teased that this new library can be seen as poetic justice adding that Camay would be happy that his book collection will be used in the furtherance of democracy, equality, development and sustainability in South Africa and elsewhere. Guest speaker, South African editor and journalist Ferial Haffajee shared how she, as a young, labour journalist benefited from his patience and piercing questions that nurtured rigorous debate and tolerance for alternative views. What a gift to a young person and an example of how to consider mentoring and sharing knowledge. She hailed his generation for raising many of the ideas of how to mediate the destructive inequality of the country and the world including the minimum wage, political unionism, social solidarity amongst others. Speaking on behalf of the University, Professor -Lynn Morris, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, whose portfolio includes Wits libraries said it is an honour to receive this precious donation through the generosity of his partner. Phiroshaw was a lover of books, libraries and a champion of the role that reading, and education more broadly play must play in the development of South Africa. It is thus fitting that the collection be housed at Wits University and that the SCIS is the guardian of the collection as the wide-ranging subject matter of the books relate directly to the Centres research agenda. Professor Imraan Valodia, Director of the SCIS and Pro Vice-Chancellor: Climate, Sustainability and Inequality, praised Camay as an unsung hero that history has not sufficiently acknowledge his contribution to a peaceful democracy. About Camay Phiroshaw Camay was a lifelong activist and humanitarian. He started his career in 1966 as a librarian for the Johannesburg City Council where he coordinated 17 libraries in African, Coloured, and Indian townships for ten years. In 1980, he was elected General Secretary of the Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA). When in 1986, CUSA merged with the Azanian Confederation of Trade Unions (AZACTU) to form the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU), he was again elected General Secretary. He worked tirelessly and at great sacrifice to build the Black trade union movement as a key stakeholder in the anti-apartheid struggle and in the fight for the rights of Black workers. He resigned from NACTU in 1989 on principle, when some of his federation affiliates failed to endorse the negotiated unity proposal with COSATU, aimed at creating a single Black union federation. Phiroshaw continued his fight for equality and democracy through his work with the National Peace Committees, the Independent Electoral Commission, and as Director of the Cooperative for Research and Education (CORE) which he founded in 1990 and led until his passing in 2016. CORE was a non-profit that focused on building a strong civil society in post-apartheid South Africa. He was regarded by many as the father of and protector of South African civil society, having played a key role in SANGOCO, the NGO network. He served for five years as Chairperson of the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Civil Society He served as a member of the Rand Water Board and became a non-executive chairman where he was instrumental in establishing rural water boards and was Chairman of the SA Association of Water Utilities. He served the people of South Africa in many other ways throughout his career as an activist and proponent of an equitable, democratic, and transformed South Africa. New copyright bill gives Deaf and blind people a fair deal The mother tongue for millions of Deaf people in South Africa is SA Sign Language (SASL), which became the 12th official language on 19 July 2023. Sign language is referred to in Article 6(5) (a)(iii) of the Constitution, in various legislative and government policies, as well as in Article 6(4) of the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996. Equality for persons with disabilities is enshrined in Article 9(3) of the Constitution and is also included in the following conventions: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Protocol; Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women; International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination; and Convention on the Rights of the Child and Youth Programmes. South Africas Integrated National Disability Strategy was approved in 1997 and the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities was established in 2019. Several laws were also passed relating to disabilities and discrimination, such as: The Employment Equity Act, 1998; The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, 2000; The Social Assistance Act, 2004 and Social Assistance Amendment Bill, 2010; and Equality Act 2010. International human rights conventions, the Constitution and domestic anti-discriminatory laws all provide the framework for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, yet their rights to access to dignity, equality and knowledge have been neglected by government and the legislature for decades. International intellectual property treaties, the European Unions Copyright Directive, the UK Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, the Gower Report on Intellectual Property, the Hargreaves Report, the World Summit Declaration of Principles, the Copy/South Dossier and the World Blind Unions Proposed Treaty for the Visually Impaired all recognise the need to maintain a balance between the rights of authors and the larger public interest, particularly for education, research and access to information. South Africa has supported the WIPO Development Agenda since 2007. It is an active member of the Africa Group and supports its Draft WIPO Treaty on Exceptions and Limitations for the Disabled, Educational and Research Institutions, Libraries and Archive Centres. So why is there still no balance and equity in our copyright law? Prof Claudine Storbeck, director of the Centre for Deaf Studies at Wits University, asserts that in a country which prides itself as learning from its history of segregation and oppression, the privileged sectors of South Africa waged an almost decade-long power struggle, whilst those without agency the over 5% of the population who have disabilities were robbed of equitable access to information. Whilst claiming the moral high ground in defence of artists and creators in a democratic society, the irony of this elitist Orwellian power struggle infringed on the human rights of the very people who needed defending the most. Thanks to Blind SA with legal assistance from SECTION27 for instituting action in the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition and Others case in the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria, and challenging the constitutionality of the current copyright law. On 7 December 2021, the high court declared the current Copyright Act (45 years old) to be unconstitutional to the extent that it fails to make provision for exceptions that would enable, through the conversion of works, access to such works by persons with visual and print disabilities. The application was unopposed. The Constitutional Court confirmed this ruling on 21 September 2022. This was a very positive outcome and a big step in the right direction to make reading material accessible to persons with visual and print disabilities. Due to the nature of the case which focused on people with visual and print disabilities only, the court ruling could not be extended to Deaf persons or those with other disabilities. There is positive news, though. The South African Copyright Amendment Bill [B13F-2017] was approved by the National Council of Provinces on 26 September 2023, and passed by the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry on 14 February 2024. It now awaits approval by the National Assembly plenary and thereafter, assent by the President. Key solutions Storbeck believes that the Bill offers key solutions for people with various disabilities, namely accessible formats (Section 19D) and fair use (Section 12A), as well as exceptions for education and related purposes (Section 12B-D). Section 19C for libraries and other memory institutions will also enhance access to material, especially in the digital space, for people with disabilities. Regarding fair use, Storbeck recalls that as early as 2019, Prof Coenraad Visser argued that the fair use provisions were an innovative provision, which will not only position South Africa to benefit from the gains of the 4IR but will also engender social justice within the copyright-based industry and the larger economy. Regarding Section 19D, Storbeck explains that the accessible formats provision goes well past just braille for blind and visually impaired people, and ensures provision for adaptations, captions, translations and conversions into more visual formats for people who cannot read the language of publication (or read at all), as well as for people with dyslexia or other disabilities that prevent them from accessing information, as well as facilitates access for Deaf people who use South African Sign Language (SASL) as their first language. Once Parliament approves the Bill, the President is obliged to act in terms of Section 79(1) of the Constitution. We trust that in the 30th year of our democracy, President Cyril Ramaphosa will sign the Bill that finally restores constitutional rights to people with disabilities, including equality, dignity, access to cultural life, employment, education and lifelong learning, and the right to language. Until everyone has access to information, how can we truly celebrate Freedom Day on 27 April this year? Denise Rosemary Nicholson was the Scholarly Communications Librarian at the University of the Witwatersrand. She retired in 2020. Through Scholarly Horizons, a consultancy she founded, Nicholson continues her work in copyright, open access and scholarly communications in the broader community. This article was first published in Daily Maverick. Why taps are running dry in South Africas biggest city Citizens in Johannesburg, SA's industrial heartland, use too much water, the city wastes way too much and there is too much theft of drinking water. Since the latter part of 2023 hardly a week has gone by without some residents of Johannesburg, South Africas commercial capital, losing their water supply. Notices of planned outages from the local water authority are a common occurrence. Unplanned water shutdowns also happen regularly. The entire city has been affected shanty towns, less affluent and more affluent parts of the city. The Conversation Africa asked geography professor Craig Sheridan, director of the Centre in Water Research and Development at the University of the Witwatersrand, whats gone wrong. Why dont Johannesburg citizens have enough water? The water allocation for each province is based on the amount available in the dams (which must also supply our future needs) and the number of people in that province. Currently the Vaal Dam is 70% full. Rand Water the areas bulk water supplier buys the water from the Department of Water and Sanitation, which will only sell a certain amount to it. Rand Water takes water mainly from the Vaal Dam the regions biggest and treats it to potable quality. It then sells the water to Johannesburg and Pretoria (and other cities and towns) which are in Gauteng, the smallest of South Africas nine provinces and its industrial heartland. The cities sell the water to their residents through their distribution systems. Rand Water is not allowed to supply more than the amount set by the Department of Water and Sanitation. But there is a mismatch between whats allocated by the national government and whats needed on the ground. This is because the national government takes into consideration future needs. Why cant new dams be built to supply more water? This is the plan. But the next phase (Phase 2) of the Lesotho Highlands Scheme is eight years behind schedule. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project is a multinational project to provide water to the Gauteng region of South Africa and to generate hydro-electricity for Lesotho. Work on the dam design started in 2017 and tender design was completed during 2020. Construction is expected to be completed with commissioning expected in 2028. This eight-year delay roughly coincided with a period during which the population of Gauteng grew from 12 million to 15.1 million people. In 2023 the province had the same amount of water storage for a population that had grown by over 3 million people (or 25%), because the dam was not built. There is now substantially less water for everyone in the province, including residents of Johannesburg. Why are Joburg residents struggling to get water? The City of Johannesburg is running its finances poorly. The maintenance bill for water infrastructure is R2 billion (US$105 million) per year, but only R1 billion (US$52 million) is allocated. Maintenance needs are spiralling out of control. The city bills residents for rates, water, electricity, sewage and other services. However, the funds received are not ring-fenced. Other projects are competing for the same pot of money. Because the infrastructure is ageing (for example in the suburb of Parkwood the infrastructure is older than 70 years), the pipes rust and break. When they break, they leak, sometimes releasing very large quantities of water, before they are repaired. When the city responds to requests by residents for repairs, the response, if it comes, is often too little and the job is poorly done. There is little oversight or accountability by the city to ensure the contractors have done the job correctly and the repairs often do not last long. Also, 15 million people are relying on a system designed for far fewer people. When everyone starts to use water, there just isnt enough to go around. There is also an additional factor in this discussion: non-revenue water. This is the term used for water thats unbilled by the city in other words, free water, unauthorised consumption or water lost due to leakages. This is water that is supplied by Rand Water, but is essentially financially lost. In South Africa, the government gives a free basic allowance of 6,000 litres per month to every household. Gauteng has non-revenue water of 49.2% (pages 25 to 27) in other words, almost half the water thats supplied to the cities in the province cannot be charged for (by the cities) because it forms part of the basic allowance, is lost through leaks or is stolen. By comparison, Denmark has non-revenue water of about 7%. Chile, also a country with variable climate, has urban non-revenue water of about 32%. Of the non-revenue water, the leakage portion for Gauteng is half. In other words, for every four litres provided to Gauteng by Rand Water, one litre is wasted through leakage (the citys fault) and one litre is either given away for free (public good), stolen (the publics fault), or not accounted for (much harder to allocate blame). This means only half of what is provided can be charged for. Now to water usage. The average consumption in Gauteng is 279 litres per person per day. This is: more than 60% greater than the global average the highest of any province 27% more than the country average. Gauteng citizens use too much, the cities waste way too much and there is too much theft of drinking water. The social pact is breaking down as a consequence. This is indicated by the number of civic action groups forming, for example WaterCAN. To restore this pact, the city needs to focus on non-revenue water, by allocating the correct and appropriate maintenance spend to fix and even renew the water network. At the same time citizens need to seriously consider their own water usage and how to reduce it. The citizens of Cape Town were forced to face the possibility of the taps running dry permanently in 2018 during a five-year drought. Water consumption was drastically limited, forcing people to become very water conscious. This has to become the new normal if there is to be uninterrupted water supply. Craig Sheridan, Chair professor, University of the Witwatersrand This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Nine27 Capital Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Burlington Stores, Inc. (NYSE:BURL Free Report) in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor bought 15,000 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,030,000. Burlington Stores comprises about 3.4% of Nine27 Capital Management LPs investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th biggest holding. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Cooper Creek Partners Management LLC increased its position in shares of Burlington Stores by 716.8% in the 3rd quarter. Cooper Creek Partners Management LLC now owns 610,821 shares of the companys stock valued at $82,644,000 after buying an additional 536,038 shares in the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC increased its position in shares of Burlington Stores by 1.0% in the 3rd quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 529,198 shares of the companys stock valued at $71,600,000 after buying an additional 5,302 shares in the last quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund increased its position in shares of Burlington Stores by 77.0% in the 3rd quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund now owns 45,037 shares of the companys stock valued at $6,094,000 after buying an additional 19,591 shares in the last quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC increased its position in shares of Burlington Stores by 9.4% in the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 325,199 shares of the companys stock valued at $43,999,000 after buying an additional 28,064 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Qsemble Capital Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Burlington Stores in the 3rd quarter valued at $1,515,000. Get Burlington Stores alerts: Burlington Stores Trading Down 1.1 % Shares of BURL stock traded down $2.33 on Wednesday, hitting $204.42. The company had a trading volume of 259,994 shares, compared to its average volume of 759,669. The firm has a market cap of $13.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.43, a P/E/G ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 1.47. The stocks 50-day moving average is $195.24 and its two-hundred day moving average is $164.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.64, a quick ratio of 0.45 and a current ratio of 1.13. Burlington Stores, Inc. has a twelve month low of $115.66 and a twelve month high of $225.94. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of brokerages recently weighed in on BURL. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Burlington Stores from $120.00 to $126.00 and gave the stock a sell rating in a research note on Monday, November 27th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Burlington Stores from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 7th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of Burlington Stores from $167.00 to $182.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 22nd. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on shares of Burlington Stores from $220.00 to $235.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. Finally, Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of Burlington Stores from $220.00 to $215.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, November 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, Burlington Stores presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $212.56. View Our Latest Report on BURL About Burlington Stores (Free Report) Burlington Stores, Inc operates as a retailer of branded apparel products in the United States. The company provides fashion-focused merchandise, including women's ready-to-wear apparel, menswear, youth apparel, footwear, accessories, toys, gifts, and coats, as well as baby, home, and beauty products. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BURL? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Burlington Stores, Inc. (NYSE:BURL Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Burlington Stores Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Burlington Stores and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad (KLSE:CMSB) Full Year 2023 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: RM1.20b (up 19% from FY 2022). Net income: RM115.1m (down 60% from FY 2022). Profit margin: 9.6% (down from 28% in FY 2022). The decrease in margin was driven by higher expenses. EPS: RM0.11 (down from RM0.27 in FY 2022). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad Earnings Insights Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to stay flat during the next 3 years compared to a 2.5% growth forecast for the Basic Materials industry in Asia. Performance of the market in Malaysia. The company's shares are down 3.4% from a week ago. Risk Analysis What about risks? Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad you should know about. 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. Agilent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:A Get Free Report)s stock price gapped up before the market opened on Wednesday following a better than expected earnings announcement. The stock had previously closed at $132.55, but opened at $139.88. Agilent Technologies shares last traded at $137.58, with a volume of 352,889 shares. The medical research company reported $1.29 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.22 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.59 billion. Agilent Technologies had a net margin of 18.15% and a return on equity of 28.24%. The companys revenue was down 5.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.37 earnings per share. Get Agilent Technologies alerts: Agilent Technologies Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Investors of record on Tuesday, April 2nd will be given a dividend of $0.236 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, April 1st. This represents a $0.94 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.68%. Agilent Technologiess dividend payout ratio is 22.33%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of Agilent Technologies from $128.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, December 7th. TheStreet raised shares of Agilent Technologies from a c+ rating to a b- rating in a research note on Friday, December 8th. Bank of America downgraded shares of Agilent Technologies from a buy rating to a neutral rating and increased their target price for the company from $130.00 to $133.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 12th. Robert W. Baird reduced their target price on shares of Agilent Technologies from $140.00 to $130.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, November 21st. Finally, UBS Group downgraded shares of Agilent Technologies from a buy rating to a neutral rating and reduced their target price for the company from $163.00 to $125.00 in a research note on Friday, November 17th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $137.44. Get Our Latest Research Report on Agilent Technologies Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, CEO Michael R. Mcmullen sold 2,751 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total value of $357,630.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 306,206 shares in the company, valued at approximately $39,806,780. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In related news, CEO Michael R. Mcmullen sold 62,467 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total value of $8,120,710.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 306,206 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $39,806,780. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Michael R. Mcmullen sold 2,751 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $130.00, for a total transaction of $357,630.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 306,206 shares of the companys stock, valued at $39,806,780. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 95,929 shares of company stock worth $12,730,599 in the last three months. Hedge Funds Weigh In On Agilent Technologies A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of A. BlackRock Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Agilent Technologies by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 31,853,176 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $3,830,344,000 after purchasing an additional 349,651 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Agilent Technologies by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 25,279,117 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $3,514,556,000 after acquiring an additional 206,865 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA grew its stake in Agilent Technologies by 19.6% in the 4th quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 13,246,489 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,841,659,000 after acquiring an additional 2,170,219 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in Agilent Technologies by 2.0% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,214,595 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,591,990,000 after acquiring an additional 253,729 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP grew its stake in Agilent Technologies by 17.4% in the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 10,255,526 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,146,773,000 after acquiring an additional 1,519,134 shares during the period. Agilent Technologies Stock Performance The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 1.97 and a current ratio of 2.61. The firms 50 day simple moving average is $133.50 and its 200-day simple moving average is $122.60. The company has a market cap of $40.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.48, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.11. Agilent Technologies Company Profile (Get Free Report) Agilent Technologies, Inc provides application focused solutions to the life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemical markets worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Life Sciences and Applied Markets, Diagnostics and Genomics, and Agilent CrossLab. The Life Sciences and Applied Markets segment offers liquid chromatography systems and components; liquid chromatography mass spectrometry systems; gas chromatography systems and components; gas chromatography mass spectrometry systems; inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry instruments; atomic absorption instruments; microwave plasma-atomic emission spectrometry instruments; inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry instruments; raman spectroscopy; cell analysis plate based assays; flow cytometer; real-time cell analyzer; cell imaging systems; microplate reader; laboratory software; information management and analytics; laboratory automation and robotic systems; dissolution testing; and vacuum pumps, and measurement technologies. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Agilent Technologies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Agilent Technologies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. MBB Public Markets I LLC decreased its holdings in shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (NYSE:ADM Free Report) by 30.7% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 151,824 shares of the companys stock after selling 67,245 shares during the period. MBB Public Markets I LLCs holdings in Archer-Daniels-Midland were worth $11,451,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of ADM. Teza Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland during the 3rd quarter valued at $11,720,000. Nomura Holdings Inc. boosted its position in shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland by 150.1% during the 3rd quarter. Nomura Holdings Inc. now owns 171,629 shares of the companys stock valued at $12,944,000 after acquiring an additional 513,903 shares in the last quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank boosted its position in Archer-Daniels-Midland by 10.6% in the third quarter. Toronto Dominion Bank now owns 310,789 shares of the companys stock valued at $23,440,000 after buying an additional 29,862 shares in the last quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia boosted its position in Archer-Daniels-Midland by 115.7% in the third quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 269,187 shares of the companys stock valued at $20,302,000 after buying an additional 144,383 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Tower Research Capital LLC TRC lifted its position in shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland by 22.3% during the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 26,125 shares of the companys stock worth $1,970,000 after purchasing an additional 4,759 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 77.73% of the companys stock. Get Archer-Daniels-Midland alerts: Archer-Daniels-Midland Price Performance Shares of ADM traded down $0.06 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $52.73. 1,173,806 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 6,634,598. Archer-Daniels-Midland Company has a one year low of $50.72 and a one year high of $87.30. The stock has a market capitalization of $28.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.35 and a beta of 0.76. The company has a current ratio of 1.69, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. The business has a 50-day moving average of $61.48 and a 200 day moving average of $70.75. Archer-Daniels-Midland Increases Dividend Analyst Ratings Changes The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 29th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 8th will be given a $0.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, February 7th. This is a boost from Archer-Daniels-Midlands previous quarterly dividend of $0.45. This represents a $2.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.79%. Archer-Daniels-Midlands payout ratio is presently 27.86%. Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on ADM shares. Roth Mkm downgraded shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from a buy rating to a neutral rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $98.00 to $66.00 in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Roth Capital lowered shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Barclays lowered shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from an overweight rating to an underweight rating and set a $60.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Monday, January 22nd. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from $80.00 to $66.00 and set a market perform rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Finally, Argus lowered shares of Archer-Daniels-Midland from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 23rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and thirteen have assigned a hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $67.08. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on ADM Archer-Daniels-Midland Company Profile (Free Report) Archer-Daniels-Midland Company procures, transports, stores, processes, and merchandises agricultural commodities, products, and ingredients in the United States, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Ag Services and Oilseeds, Carbohydrate Solutions, and Nutrition. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ADM? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (NYSE:ADM Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Archer-Daniels-Midland Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Archer-Daniels-Midland and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE:AJG Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, January 24th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, March 1st will be paid a dividend of 0.60 per share by the financial services provider on Friday, March 15th. This represents a $2.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.99%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 29th. This is a boost from Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.s previous quarterly dividend of $0.55. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has increased its dividend payment by an average of 6.9% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has a payout ratio of 21.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. to earn $11.29 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 21.3%. Get Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. alerts: Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Price Performance AJG opened at $243.55 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $233.06 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $234.31. The company has a current ratio of 1.03, a quick ratio of 1.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65. The company has a market cap of $52.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.34 and a beta of 0.69. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has a 12-month low of $174.45 and a 12-month high of $254.00. Analysts Set New Price Targets Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. ( NYSE:AJG Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 25th. The financial services provider reported $1.85 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $2.39 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.40 billion. Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. had a return on equity of 18.49% and a net margin of 9.63%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $1.54 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. will post 10.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. AJG has been the subject of several analyst reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reduced their price target on Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from $249.00 to $246.00 and set an underperform rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 26th. Raymond James cut Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from a strong-buy rating to a market perform rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 12th. Jefferies Financial Group cut Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. from a buy rating to a hold rating and dropped their target price for the stock from $279.00 to $233.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an outperform rating and issued a $270.00 target price on shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Finally, TD Cowen started coverage on Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. They issued a market perform rating and a $249.00 target price on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $255.62. Read Our Latest Analysis on Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Insiders Place Their Bets In related news, CFO Douglas K. Howell sold 15,000 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.59, for a total transaction of $3,398,850.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 102,942 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,325,627.78. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In related news, VP Thomas Joseph Gallagher sold 12,309 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $237.65, for a total transaction of $2,925,233.85. Following the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 322,797 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $76,712,707.05. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CFO Douglas K. Howell sold 15,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $226.59, for a total value of $3,398,850.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 102,942 shares in the company, valued at $23,325,627.78. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 27,809 shares of company stock valued at $6,441,104 in the last quarter. 1.40% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Institutional Trading of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,431,788,000. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 1.7% during the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,609,810 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $880,442,000 after purchasing an additional 74,974 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 40.6% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 2,143,144 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $404,069,000 after purchasing an additional 619,008 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 20.6% during the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,611,646 shares of the financial services providers stock valued at $362,427,000 after purchasing an additional 275,393 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. by 4.8% in the second quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 1,041,052 shares of the financial services providers stock worth $228,584,000 after buying an additional 47,637 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 81.15% of the companys stock. About Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (Get Free Report) Arthur J. Gallagher & Co, together with its subsidiaries, provides insurance and reinsurance brokerage, consulting, and third-party property/casualty claims settlement and administration services to entities and individuals worldwide. It operates in Brokerage and Risk Management segments. The Brokerage segment offers retail and wholesale insurance and reinsurance brokerage services; assists retail brokers and other non-affiliated brokers in the placement of specialized and hard-to-place insurance; and acts as a brokerage wholesaler, managing general agent, and managing general underwriter for distributing specialized insurance coverages to underwriting enterprises. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bamco Inc. NY lifted its position in shares of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS Free Report) by 2.7% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 880,357 shares of the casino operators stock after purchasing an additional 23,357 shares during the period. Bamco Inc. NY owned about 0.12% of Las Vegas Sands worth $40,356,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in LVS. Spire Wealth Management boosted its stake in shares of Las Vegas Sands by 197.4% during the 2nd quarter. Spire Wealth Management now owns 452 shares of the casino operators stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in Las Vegas Sands in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Western Pacific Wealth Management LP purchased a new stake in Las Vegas Sands in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Coppell Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in Las Vegas Sands in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Finally, Retirement Group LLC purchased a new stake in Las Vegas Sands in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 39.16% of the companys stock. Get Las Vegas Sands alerts: Las Vegas Sands Trading Down 1.5 % LVS stock opened at $52.60 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $39.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.38, a PEG ratio of 2.89 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a quick ratio of 1.30, a current ratio of 1.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.96. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $50.98 and a 200-day simple moving average of $49.39. Las Vegas Sands Corp. has a 52 week low of $43.77 and a 52 week high of $65.58. Las Vegas Sands Announces Dividend Las Vegas Sands ( NYSE:LVS Get Free Report ) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 24th. The casino operator reported $0.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.61 by ($0.04). Las Vegas Sands had a net margin of 11.77% and a return on equity of 34.40%. The company had revenue of $2.92 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.89 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted ($0.19) earnings per share. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 161.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that Las Vegas Sands Corp. will post 2.74 EPS for the current year. The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, February 14th. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 6th were issued a $0.20 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 5th. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.52%. Las Vegas Sandss dividend payout ratio is currently 50.00%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on LVS shares. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on Las Vegas Sands from $59.00 to $61.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. StockNews.com lowered Las Vegas Sands from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Friday, December 8th. Susquehanna started coverage on Las Vegas Sands in a research note on Friday, December 15th. They issued a positive rating and a $59.00 target price on the stock. Finally, UBS Group upped their target price on Las Vegas Sands from $71.00 to $77.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, November 16th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eleven have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $68.82. Read Our Latest Report on LVS Insider Activity at Las Vegas Sands In other Las Vegas Sands news, major shareholder Miriam Adelson sold 12,253,628 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $43.23, for a total value of $529,724,338.44. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 41,134,164 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $1,778,229,909.72. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 0.91% of the stock is owned by insiders. Las Vegas Sands Profile (Free Report) Las Vegas Sands Corp., together with its subsidiaries, develops, owns, and operates integrated resorts in Macao and Singapore. It owns and operates The Venetian Macao Resort Hotel, the Londoner Macao, The Parisian Macao, The Plaza Macao and Four Seasons Hotel Macao, Cotai Strip, and the Sands Macao in Macao, the People's Republic of China; and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Las Vegas Sands Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Las Vegas Sands and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) had its price objective lowered by stock analysts at Scotiabank from C$145.00 to C$141.00 in a report issued on Wednesday, BayStreet.CA reports. The firm presently has an outperform rating on the banks stock. Scotiabanks target price indicates a potential upside of 14.93% from the companys previous close. A number of other research firms have also recently issued reports on BMO. CIBC cut their target price on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$126.00 to C$125.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Bank of America upgraded shares of Bank of Montreal from a neutral rating to a buy rating and boosted their target price for the company from C$120.00 to C$145.00 in a research report on Monday, December 18th. Canaccord Genuity Group dropped their target price on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$137.00 to C$136.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. TD Securities lowered their price objective on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$140.00 to C$135.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on shares of Bank of Montreal from C$134.00 to C$130.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of C$132.70. Get Bank of Montreal alerts: View Our Latest Analysis on BMO Bank of Montreal Price Performance Shares of TSE BMO traded up C$0.37 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching C$122.68. 689,367 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,160,772. The firm has a market cap of C$88.44 billion, a PE ratio of 21.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.54 and a beta of 1.18. Bank of Montreal has a fifty-two week low of C$102.67 and a fifty-two week high of C$132.11. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of C$127.84 and a 200-day simple moving average of C$118.22. Bank of Montreal (TSE:BMO Get Free Report) (NYSE:BMO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, December 1st. The bank reported C$2.81 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of C$2.86 by C($0.05). The company had revenue of C$8.36 billion for the quarter. Bank of Montreal had a net margin of 15.04% and a return on equity of 5.91%. As a group, analysts predict that Bank of Montreal will post 12.0940171 EPS for the current fiscal year. Bank of Montreal Company Profile (Get Free Report) Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. It operates through Canadian P&C, U.S P&C, BMO Wealth Management, and BMO Capital Markets segments. The company's personal banking products and services include deposits, mortgages, home lending, consumer credit, small business lending, credit cards, cash management, financial and investment advice, and other banking services; and commercial banking products and services comprise various of financing options and treasury and payment solutions, as well as risk management products. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Bank of Montreal Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of Montreal and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Boston Beer (NYSE:SAM Get Free Report) released its earnings results on Tuesday. The company reported ($1.49) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.22) by ($1.27), Briefing.com reports. Boston Beer had a net margin of 3.83% and a return on equity of 8.77%. The firm had revenue of $393.72 million during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $413.57 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned ($0.93) EPS. The businesss revenue was down 12.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Boston Beer updated its FY24 guidance to $7.00 to $11.00 EPS and its FY 2024 guidance to 7.000-11.000 EPS. Boston Beer Stock Down 17.8 % Shares of Boston Beer stock traded down $65.97 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $304.09. 374,383 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 120,967. Boston Beer has a 1 year low of $296.27 and a 1 year high of $395.52. The stocks fifty day moving average is $351.44 and its 200 day moving average is $355.75. The firm has a market cap of $3.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 46.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.07 and a beta of 1.09. Get Boston Beer alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades SAM has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a sector perform rating and set a $337.00 target price on shares of Boston Beer in a research report on Wednesday. Roth Mkm increased their target price on Boston Beer from $406.00 to $422.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, January 23rd. Jefferies Financial Group started coverage on Boston Beer in a research note on Monday, November 13th. They set a hold rating and a $375.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein raised Boston Beer from an underperform rating to a market perform rating and increased their target price for the stock from $280.00 to $335.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Boston Beer has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $349.00. Insiders Place Their Bets In other Boston Beer news, insider Carolyn L. Oboyle sold 102 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $344.83, for a total transaction of $35,172.66. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 2,732 shares in the company, valued at approximately $942,075.56. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Insiders sold 306 shares of company stock worth $107,146 over the last three months. Company insiders own 23.50% of the companys stock. Institutional Trading of Boston Beer Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Boston Beer in the second quarter worth $32,000. Main Street Group LTD acquired a new position in Boston Beer in the 4th quarter valued at about $35,000. KBC Group NV purchased a new stake in shares of Boston Beer in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $46,000. LM Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Boston Beer in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $52,000. Finally, Amundi increased its stake in Boston Beer by 75.6% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 158 shares of the companys stock worth $54,000 after buying an additional 68 shares during the period. 64.10% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About Boston Beer (Get Free Report) The Boston Beer Company, Inc engages in the production and sale of alcohol beverages primarily in the United States. The company's flagship beer is Samuel Adams Boston Lager. It offers various beers, hard ciders, flavored malt beverages, and hard seltzers under the Samuel Adams, Twisted Tea, Truly Hard Seltzer, Angry Orchard, Dogfish Head, Angel City, Coney Island, and Havana Lager brand names. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Boston Beer Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Boston Beer and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Canadian National Railway (TSE:CNR Get Free Report) (NYSE:CNI) has earned a consensus recommendation of Hold from the thirteen research firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, eight have assigned a hold recommendation and four have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is C$178.21. CNR has been the subject of several recent research reports. ATB Capital upped their price objective on Canadian National Railway from C$165.00 to C$180.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. National Bankshares upped their price objective on Canadian National Railway from C$168.00 to C$172.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research note on Thursday, December 21st. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their target price on shares of Canadian National Railway from C$187.00 to C$191.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Monday, February 5th. Desjardins increased their target price on shares of Canadian National Railway from C$171.00 to C$189.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, January 18th. Finally, CIBC increased their target price on shares of Canadian National Railway from C$176.00 to C$177.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 24th. Get Canadian National Railway alerts: Check Out Our Latest Analysis on CNR Canadian National Railway Stock Down 0.1 % Shares of TSE CNR opened at C$177.66 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 93.89. The company has a market cap of C$113.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.85, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.66. Canadian National Railway has a 12 month low of C$143.13 and a 12 month high of C$178.38. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of C$169.57 and a two-hundred day moving average price of C$158.45. Canadian National Railway (TSE:CNR Get Free Report) (NYSE:CNI) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, January 23rd. The company reported C$2.02 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of C$1.96 by C$0.06. The firm had revenue of C$4.47 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of C$4.38 billion. Canadian National Railway had a return on equity of 27.11% and a net margin of 33.43%. As a group, analysts forecast that Canadian National Railway will post 8.0160994 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Canadian National Railway Increases Dividend The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 28th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 7th will be issued a $0.845 dividend. This is a boost from Canadian National Railways previous quarterly dividend of $0.79. This represents a $3.38 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.90%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 6th. Canadian National Railways dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 39.67%. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, Senior Officer Donald K. Reardon sold 6,383 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$118.35, for a total value of C$755,428.05. In other Canadian National Railway news, Senior Officer Donald K. Reardon sold 6,383 shares of the firms stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of C$118.35, for a total transaction of C$755,428.05. Also, Director Shauneen Elizabeth Bruder acquired 6,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The shares were bought at an average price of C$168.44 per share, for a total transaction of C$1,010,640.00. 1.96% of the stock is owned by company insiders. About Canadian National Railway (Get Free Report Canadian National Railway Company, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the rail, intermodal, trucking, and marine transportation and logistics business in Canada and the United States. The company provides rail services, which include equipment, custom brokerage services, transloading and distribution, business development and real estate, and private car storage services; and intermodal services, such as temperature controlled cargo, port partnerships, and logistics parks. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for Canadian National Railway Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Canadian National Railway and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank grew its position in Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR Free Report) by 108.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,140 shares of the conglomerates stock after buying an additional 1,635 shares during the period. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Banks holdings in Danaher were worth $779,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. DHJJ Financial Advisors Ltd. acquired a new position in shares of Danaher in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. IAG Wealth Partners LLC boosted its stake in Danaher by 344.8% in the 2nd quarter. IAG Wealth Partners LLC now owns 129 shares of the conglomerates stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares during the period. OFI Invest Asset Management acquired a new position in Danaher in the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. First Capital Advisors Group LLC. acquired a new position in Danaher in the 2nd quarter worth $32,000. Finally, WFA of San Diego LLC acquired a new position in Danaher in the 2nd quarter worth $32,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 76.71% of the companys stock. Get Danaher alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets Several equities research analysts have commented on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group cut shares of Danaher from a buy rating to a neutral rating and cut their price target for the stock from $215.00 to $205.00 in a research report on Thursday, December 7th. Raymond James increased their target price on shares of Danaher from $240.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on shares of Danaher from $254.00 to $282.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. HSBC assumed coverage on shares of Danaher in a research report on Monday, December 18th. They issued a hold rating on the stock. Finally, Wolfe Research assumed coverage on shares of Danaher in a research note on Wednesday, December 13th. They set a peer perform rating for the company. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $266.00. Insider Activity at Danaher In other news, Director Walter G. Lohr sold 3,289 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $251.15, for a total value of $826,032.35. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 14,129 shares in the company, valued at $3,548,498.35. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other Danaher news, Director Walter G. Lohr sold 3,289 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $251.15, for a total transaction of $826,032.35. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 14,129 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,548,498.35. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Daniel Raskas sold 23,757 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $252.00, for a total transaction of $5,986,764.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 38,102 shares in the company, valued at $9,601,704. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 32,957 shares of company stock valued at $8,265,802 over the last 90 days. 11.10% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Danaher Stock Performance NYSE DHR traded up $1.02 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $255.88. 426,564 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,750,504. The businesss fifty day moving average price is $237.58 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $230.95. The company has a current ratio of 1.68, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The firm has a market capitalization of $189.27 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.83, a P/E/G ratio of 3.82 and a beta of 0.85. Danaher Co. has a 52 week low of $182.09 and a 52 week high of $256.29. Danaher (NYSE:DHR Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, January 30th. The conglomerate reported $2.09 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.91 by $0.18. Danaher had a net margin of 17.26% and a return on equity of 12.25%. The business had revenue of $6.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $6.10 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.87 earnings per share. The companys revenue for the quarter was down 10.2% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts predict that Danaher Co. will post 7.63 EPS for the current year. Danaher Increases Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 26th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 28th will be paid a dividend of $0.27 per share. This is an increase from Danahers previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 27th. This represents a $1.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.42%. Danahers dividend payout ratio is presently 15.02%. Danaher Company Profile (Free Report) Danaher Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services worldwide. The Biotechnology segments offers bioprocess technologies, consumables, and services that advance, accelerate, and integrate the development and manufacture of therapeutics; cell line and cell culture media development services; cell culture media, process liquids and buffers for manufacturing, chromatography resins, filtration technologies, aseptic fill finish; single-use hardware and consumables and services, such as the design and installation of full manufacturing suites; lab filtration, separation, and purification; lab-scale protein purification and analytical tools; reagents, membranes, and services; and healthcare filtration solutions. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding DHR? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Danaher Co. (NYSE:DHR Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Danaher Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Danaher and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank lifted its stake in Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX Free Report) by 103.4% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,850 shares of the medical research companys stock after purchasing an additional 2,465 shares during the period. Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Banks holdings in Quest Diagnostics were worth $591,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in DGX. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund lifted its stake in Quest Diagnostics by 8.7% in the first quarter. Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund now owns 6,921 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $947,000 after acquiring an additional 556 shares during the period. Panagora Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Quest Diagnostics by 97.5% during the first quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 7,878 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $1,078,000 after buying an additional 3,889 shares during the last quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS lifted its position in shares of Quest Diagnostics by 3.4% during the first quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 15,923 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $2,179,000 after buying an additional 525 shares during the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. lifted its position in shares of Quest Diagnostics by 21.9% during the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 191,048 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $26,165,000 after buying an additional 34,364 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Aviva PLC increased its holdings in shares of Quest Diagnostics by 22.1% during the first quarter. Aviva PLC now owns 68,068 shares of the medical research companys stock valued at $9,316,000 after acquiring an additional 12,298 shares in the last quarter. 87.76% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Quest Diagnostics alerts: Analyst Ratings Changes Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Quest Diagnostics from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Thursday, February 1st. Barclays began coverage on shares of Quest Diagnostics in a report on Wednesday, January 3rd. They issued an equal weight rating and a $145.00 price target on the stock. UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Quest Diagnostics from $135.00 to $137.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Thursday, December 7th. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of Quest Diagnostics from $130.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Monday, December 11th. Finally, TheStreet cut shares of Quest Diagnostics from a b- rating to a c rating in a research note on Monday, February 5th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $145.92. Quest Diagnostics Price Performance DGX stock traded down $0.13 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $126.30. The stock had a trading volume of 107,640 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,109,841. The companys fifty day simple moving average is $131.79 and its 200 day simple moving average is $130.70. The company has a current ratio of 1.31, a quick ratio of 1.20 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70. The company has a market cap of $13.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.86, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 0.92. Quest Diagnostics Incorporated has a 52-week low of $119.59 and a 52-week high of $148.62. Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The medical research company reported $2.15 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.11 by $0.04. Quest Diagnostics had a return on equity of 15.79% and a net margin of 9.23%. The business had revenue of $2.29 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.25 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.98 EPS. The companys quarterly revenue was down 1.9% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Quest Diagnostics Incorporated will post 8.77 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Quest Diagnostics Increases Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 22nd. Investors of record on Monday, April 8th will be given a dividend of $0.75 per share. This represents a $3.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.38%. This is an increase from Quest Diagnosticss previous quarterly dividend of $0.71. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 5th. Quest Diagnosticss dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 37.92%. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, SVP Michael E. Prevoznik sold 661 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.14, for a total transaction of $83,378.54. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 40,206 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $5,071,584.84. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Quest Diagnostics news, Director Vicky B. Gregg sold 2,500 shares of Quest Diagnostics stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $126.64, for a total value of $316,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 16,329 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,067,904.56. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Michael E. Prevoznik sold 661 shares of Quest Diagnostics stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $126.14, for a total value of $83,378.54. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 40,206 shares of the companys stock, valued at $5,071,584.84. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 3,982 shares of company stock valued at $503,539. 0.66% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. Quest Diagnostics Profile (Free Report) Quest Diagnostics Incorporated provides diagnostic testing, information, and services in the United States and internationally. The company develops and delivers diagnostic information services, such as routine testing, non-routine and advanced clinical testing, anatomic pathology testing, and other diagnostic information services. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding DGX? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NYSE:DGX Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Quest Diagnostics Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Quest Diagnostics and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Celanese (NYSE:CE Get Free Report) was upgraded by equities research analysts at Piper Sandler from a neutral rating to an overweight rating in a note issued to investors on Monday, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage presently has a $170.00 price target on the basic materials companys stock, up from their previous price target of $135.00. Piper Sandlers price target would suggest a potential upside of 13.64% from the stocks previous close. Other research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the stock. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price objective on shares of Celanese from $145.00 to $142.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 8th. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Celanese from $130.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 13th. Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. downgraded Celanese from a buy rating to a sell rating and set a $140.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. KeyCorp increased their price target on Celanese from $150.00 to $176.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Celanese from $135.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Celanese has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $143.44. Get Celanese alerts: View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Celanese Celanese Stock Down 0.4 % Shares of CE stock opened at $149.59 on Monday. Celanese has a 1-year low of $97.12 and a 1-year high of $159.06. The stocks fifty day moving average price is $149.48 and its 200 day moving average price is $134.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.63, a current ratio of 1.53 and a quick ratio of 0.95. The company has a market cap of $16.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 1.36. Celanese (NYSE:CE Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, February 20th. The basic materials company reported $2.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $2.29 by ($0.05). Celanese had a return on equity of 14.61% and a net margin of 17.92%. The firm had revenue of $2.57 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.59 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.44 EPS. The businesss revenue was up 9.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Celanese will post 11.68 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Institutional Trading of Celanese Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust increased its stake in shares of Celanese by 92.6% in the first quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 181 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 87 shares during the period. Certified Advisory Corp purchased a new position in shares of Celanese during the first quarter valued at $27,000. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Celanese by 83.7% in the third quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 226 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 103 shares in the last quarter. Johnson Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Celanese in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Finally, Asset Dedication LLC raised its stake in shares of Celanese by 180.0% in the 3rd quarter. Asset Dedication LLC now owns 224 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 144 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.87% of the companys stock. Celanese Company Profile (Get Free Report) Celanese Corporation, a chemical and specialty materials company, manufactures and sells high performance engineered polymers in the United States and internationally. It operates through Engineered Materials and Acetyl Chain. The Engineered Materials segment develops, produces, and supplies specialty polymers for automotive and medical applications, as well as for use in industrial products and consumer electronics. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Celanese Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Celanese and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis to join FLUX, Unique Womens Coalition, and Human Rights Campaign to announce Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center designation LOS ANGELES, February 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center (CONOTEC), a facility providing comprehensive resources, training, support, and medical services for Transgender people living in Los Angeles, will serve as an officially designated Los Angeles County Vote Center for the upcoming March 5th California primary as well as for the November 2024 general/presidential election. CONOTEC is the first Transgender facility nationwide to serve as an official election Vote Center. It will be open to all Los Angeles County voters from March 2nd through March 5th but will have a particular emphasis on serving as a safe and empowering place for Trans, Non-Binary, and other LGBTQA+ individuals and their allies who have been under increasing verbal, political and physical attack across the country to vote. This designation comes as the TGI community mourns the tragic death of non-binary teen Nex Benedict in Oklahoma. CONOTEC is reaching out to the Trans and Non-Binary communities county-wide to welcome them to vote at CONOTEC. WHAT: PRESS CONFERENCE: Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center to serve as an official Vote Center Polling Place for Los Angeles County WHEN: Thursday, February 29, 2024 at 10:00am WHERE: The Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center, 1001 N. Martel St., Los Angeles, CA 90046 WHO: Hon. Eleni Kounalakis, California Lieutenant Governor Hon. Katy Yaroslavsky, Los Angeles City Councilwoman (5th District) Queen Victoria Ortega, International President of FLUX Queen Chela DeMuir, CEO and President, Unique Womans Coalition (UWC) Los Angeles County Vote Centers either commit to 10-day or 4-day voting periods, both offering early voting periods that end on March 5th. The Connie Norman Center is a 4-day Vote Center. Story continues FLUX, an affinity group of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) dedicated to creating safe spaces for Trans and Gender Non-Conforming individuals through advocacy and outreach, partnered with the Unique Womans Coalition (UWC), an organization centering the narratives and needs of Black Trans culture, and HRC, the nations largest LGBTQ+ political and advocacy organization, in efforts to have the Connie Norman Transgender Empowerment Center designated an official Los Angeles County Vote Center. The Connie Norman Trans Empowerment Center is named in honor of Connie Norman, known as the AIDS Diva, a fearless Transgender and AIDS activist who died of the disease in 1996. It opened on September 10, 2021. FLUX is a national division of AIDS Healthcare Foundation dedicated to creating safe spaces for trans and gender non-conforming individuals. See https://www.transidentity.org/. Keep up to date on FLUX: Facebook: FLUXAHF - Instagram: @FLUX_AHF - Twitter: @flux_ahf View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228977947/en/ Contacts Scottie Jeanette Madden, FLUX International Director of Advocacy (818) 489-4341 scottiejeanette.madden@fluxidentity.org Ged Kenslea, AHF Sr. Comms Dir. (323) 791-5526 Ged.Kenslea@ahf.org Treasurer of the State of North Carolina reduced its position in Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC Free Report) by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 252,245 shares of the companys stock after selling 2,337 shares during the period. Treasurer of the State of North Carolinas holdings in Centene were worth $17,375,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd increased its stake in Centene by 0.5% in the 2nd quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 48,093 shares of the companys stock valued at $3,244,000 after purchasing an additional 258 shares in the last quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas increased its stake in Centene by 8.2% in the 3rd quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 186,080 shares of the companys stock valued at $12,817,000 after purchasing an additional 14,070 shares in the last quarter. Earnest Partners LLC increased its stake in Centene by 9.4% in the 2nd quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 807,117 shares of the companys stock valued at $54,440,000 after purchasing an additional 69,361 shares in the last quarter. Cibc World Markets Corp grew its holdings in Centene by 130.9% during the 2nd quarter. Cibc World Markets Corp now owns 64,306 shares of the companys stock valued at $4,337,000 after buying an additional 36,455 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Schroder Investment Management Group grew its holdings in Centene by 30.6% during the 2nd quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 112,264 shares of the companys stock valued at $7,572,000 after buying an additional 26,293 shares during the last quarter. 90.92% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Centene alerts: Insider Buying and Selling at Centene In other Centene news, President Kenneth J. Fasola sold 12,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.07, for a total value of $900,840.00. Following the transaction, the president now directly owns 235,365 shares of the companys stock, valued at $17,668,850.55. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, Director Lori Jean Robinson sold 10,000 shares of Centene stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $77.41, for a total transaction of $774,100.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 11,455 shares of the companys stock, valued at $886,731.55. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, President Kenneth J. Fasola sold 12,000 shares of Centene stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.07, for a total value of $900,840.00. Following the sale, the president now directly owns 235,365 shares in the company, valued at $17,668,850.55. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.28% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades CNC has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Truist Financial increased their target price on Centene from $83.00 to $86.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, December 21st. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Centene from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $82.00 to $90.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 2nd. UBS Group raised their price objective on Centene from $72.00 to $79.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Thursday, December 21st. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald raised their price objective on Centene from $82.00 to $90.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Friday, December 15th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $83.57. Get Our Latest Analysis on CNC Centene Trading Up 0.2 % Shares of CNC opened at $80.41 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.11, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The firm has a market capitalization of $43.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 0.36. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $76.42 and its 200 day simple moving average is $72.03. Centene Co. has a twelve month low of $60.83 and a twelve month high of $81.42. Centene (NYSE:CNC Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The company reported $0.45 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.43 by $0.02. Centene had a return on equity of 14.26% and a net margin of 1.75%. The company had revenue of $39.46 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $36.16 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.86 earnings per share. The firms revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Centene Co. will post 6.73 earnings per share for the current year. Centene Company Profile (Free Report) Centene Corporation operates as a healthcare enterprise that provides programs and services to under-insured and uninsured families, commercial organizations, and military families in the United States. It operates in two segments, Managed Care and Specialty Services. The Managed Care segment offers health plan coverage to individuals through government subsidized programs, including Medicaid, the State children's health insurance program, long-term services and support, foster care, and medicare-medicaid plans, which cover dually eligible individuals, as well as aged, blind, or disabled programs. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Centene Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Centene and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust increased its position in shares of EnerSys (NYSE:ENS Free Report) by 1,386.7% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 446 shares of the industrial products companys stock after buying an additional 416 shares during the quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trusts holdings in EnerSys were worth $42,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ENS. Legacy Capital Group California Inc. increased its holdings in shares of EnerSys by 3.2% during the second quarter. Legacy Capital Group California Inc. now owns 3,661 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $397,000 after buying an additional 114 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC increased its position in shares of EnerSys by 5.1% in the third quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 2,604 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $247,000 after acquiring an additional 127 shares during the last quarter. Integrated Investment Consultants LLC boosted its holdings in shares of EnerSys by 2.6% in the 3rd quarter. Integrated Investment Consultants LLC now owns 5,008 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $474,000 after buying an additional 129 shares during the last quarter. US Bancorp DE lifted its stake in EnerSys by 2.5% in the 2nd quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 5,578 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $605,000 after purchasing an additional 137 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. boosted its position in EnerSys by 36.0% during the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 620 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $59,000 after purchasing an additional 164 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.56% of the companys stock. Get EnerSys alerts: EnerSys Price Performance EnerSys stock opened at $90.50 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $96.36 and a 200-day moving average price of $94.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a current ratio of 2.67 and a quick ratio of 1.53. EnerSys has a one year low of $78.81 and a one year high of $113.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.69, a PEG ratio of 0.78 and a beta of 1.36. EnerSys Dividend Announcement EnerSys ( NYSE:ENS Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 7th. The industrial products company reported $2.56 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.55 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $861.50 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $898.79 million. EnerSys had a net margin of 7.49% and a return on equity of 20.09%. The firms quarterly revenue was down 6.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.27 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that EnerSys will post 8.3 EPS for the current year. The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 15th will be paid a $0.225 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $0.90 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.99%. EnerSyss dividend payout ratio is currently 13.62%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several research analysts have recently commented on ENS shares. William Blair cut shares of EnerSys from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a report on Monday, November 6th. StockNews.com cut shares of EnerSys from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Finally, Oppenheimer cut shares of EnerSys from an outperform rating to a market perform rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on ENS EnerSys Company Profile (Free Report) EnerSys provides various stored energy solutions for industrial applications worldwide. It operates in three segments: Energy Systems, Motive Power, and Specialty. The company offers uninterruptible power systems applications for computer and computer-controlled systems, as well as telecommunications systems; switchgear and electrical control systems used in industrial facilities and electric utilities, large-scale energy storage, and energy pipelines; integrated power solutions and services to broadband, telecom, renewable, and industrial customers; and thermally managed cabinets and enclosures for electronic equipment and batteries. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding ENS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for EnerSys (NYSE:ENS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for EnerSys Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for EnerSys and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Federal National Mortgage Association (OTCMKTS:FNMA Get Free Report) was upgraded by equities researchers at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Monday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The firm currently has a $2.00 price target on the financial services providers stock, up from their prior price target of $1.25. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods price objective would suggest a potential upside of 55.04% from the companys previous close. Federal National Mortgage Association Stock Up 1.6 % Shares of FNMA stock opened at $1.29 on Monday. Federal National Mortgage Association has a 12-month low of $0.39 and a 12-month high of $1.49. The stocks 50-day moving average price is $1.15 and its 200-day moving average price is $0.84. Get Federal National Mortgage Association alerts: Federal National Mortgage Association Company Profile (Get Free Report) See Also Federal National Mortgage Association provides financing solutions for mortgages in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Single-Family and Multifamily. The Single-Family segment securitizes and purchases single-family fixed-rate or adjustable-rate, first-lien mortgage loans, or mortgage-related securities backed by these loans; and loans that are insured by Federal Housing Administration, loans guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Rural Development Housing and Community Facilities Program of the U.S. Receive News & Ratings for Federal National Mortgage Association Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Federal National Mortgage Association and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. FREYR Battery (NYSE:FREY Get Free Report) will be issuing its quarterly earnings data before the market opens on Thursday, February 29th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of ($0.27) per share for the quarter. Parties that are interested in participating in the companys conference call can do so using this link. FREYR Battery Stock Up 3.1 % Shares of FREY stock opened at $1.68 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $1.65 and a 200 day moving average of $3.18. FREYR Battery has a 52 week low of $1.21 and a 52 week high of $10.10. The firm has a market capitalization of $234.71 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.00 and a beta of 0.66. Get FREYR Battery alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. Bank of America reiterated an underperform rating and issued a $1.90 price objective (down previously from $13.00) on shares of FREYR Battery in a report on Friday, November 10th. Morgan Stanley downgraded FREYR Battery from an overweight rating to an equal weight rating and reduced their price target for the company from $13.00 to $2.00 in a report on Tuesday, November 14th. Finally, BTIG Research downgraded FREYR Battery from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a report on Friday, November 10th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and four have given a hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $5.23. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Deutsche Bank AG purchased a new position in shares of FREYR Battery during the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. Quantbot Technologies LP lifted its position in shares of FREYR Battery by 653.2% during the 2nd quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 3,879 shares of the companys stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 3,364 shares in the last quarter. Royal Bank of Canada lifted its position in shares of FREYR Battery by 158.6% during the 1st quarter. Royal Bank of Canada now owns 3,931 shares of the companys stock valued at $49,000 after buying an additional 2,411 shares in the last quarter. Sandia Investment Management LP bought a new stake in FREYR Battery during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $43,000. Finally, Mariner LLC bought a new stake in FREYR Battery during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $88,000. 46.57% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. About FREYR Battery (Get Free Report) FREYR Battery engages in the production and sale of battery cells for energy storage system, electric mobility, marine, and aviation applications in Europe and internationally. The company designs and manufactures lithium-ion based battery cell facilities. FREYR Battery was founded in 2018 and is based in Luxembourg. Further Reading Receive News & Ratings for FREYR Battery Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for FREYR Battery and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Theratechnologies Inc. (TSE:TH Free Report) Investment analysts at Leede Jones Gab lifted their FY2024 earnings per share estimates for shares of Theratechnologies in a note issued to investors on Thursday, February 22nd. Leede Jones Gab analyst D. Loe now anticipates that the company will post earnings of ($0.07) per share for the year, up from their prior estimate of ($1.03). The consensus estimate for Theratechnologies current full-year earnings is $0.04 per share. Leede Jones Gab also issued estimates for Theratechnologies FY2025 earnings at $0.09 EPS, FY2026 earnings at $0.30 EPS and FY2027 earnings at $0.40 EPS. Get Theratechnologies alerts: Separately, Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an overweight rating on shares of Theratechnologies in a report on Friday, January 12th. Theratechnologies Stock Performance Shares of TH opened at C$2.09 on Monday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of C$2.32 and a two-hundred day moving average of C$2.18. Theratechnologies has a one year low of C$1.22 and a one year high of C$5.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 562.07, a quick ratio of 0.64 and a current ratio of 1.34. The stock has a market cap of C$96.10 million, a P/E ratio of -1.70, a P/E/G ratio of -8.50 and a beta of 1.75. About Theratechnologies (Get Free Report) Theratechnologies Inc, a biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development and commercialization of various therapies to address the unmet medical needs in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The company offers EGRIFTA and EGRIFTA SV for the reduction of excess abdominal fat in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients with lipodystrophy; and Trogarzo, a recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody, which is an injection for the treatment of multidrug resistant HIV-1 infected patients. Recommended Stories Receive News & Ratings for Theratechnologies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Theratechnologies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust raised its stake in shares of Group 1 Automotive, Inc. (NYSE:GPI Free Report) by 159.6% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 122 shares of the companys stock after acquiring an additional 75 shares during the quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trusts holdings in Group 1 Automotive were worth $33,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in GPI. Financial Management Professionals Inc. bought a new position in shares of Group 1 Automotive in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Federated Hermes Inc. raised its position in shares of Group 1 Automotive by 54.6% in the third quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 252 shares of the companys stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 89 shares during the period. Gladius Capital Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Group 1 Automotive during the 3rd quarter worth $38,000. Amundi acquired a new position in Group 1 Automotive in the 4th quarter valued at $41,000. Finally, EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Group 1 Automotive by 255.3% in the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 167 shares of the companys stock worth $43,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 99.92% of the companys stock. Get Group 1 Automotive alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research firms have issued reports on GPI. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Group 1 Automotive from $305.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, October 31st. StockNews.com downgraded Group 1 Automotive from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note on Thursday, February 1st. Finally, Stephens reaffirmed an overweight rating and issued a $330.00 price target on shares of Group 1 Automotive in a research report on Tuesday, February 13th. Group 1 Automotive Stock Performance NYSE:GPI opened at $265.97 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 0.33 and a current ratio of 1.11. The firms 50-day moving average is $279.95 and its 200-day moving average is $271.28. Group 1 Automotive, Inc. has a 52-week low of $194.33 and a 52-week high of $310.08. The company has a market cap of $3.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.23, a PEG ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 1.42. Group 1 Automotive (NYSE:GPI Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 31st. The company reported $9.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $10.44 by ($0.94). Group 1 Automotive had a net margin of 3.34% and a return on equity of 24.36%. The firm had revenue of $4.50 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.41 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $10.86 earnings per share. The companys revenue was up 10.6% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Group 1 Automotive, Inc. will post 39.45 earnings per share for the current year. Group 1 Automotive Increases Dividend The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 15th. Investors of record on Friday, March 1st will be given a $0.47 dividend. This is a boost from Group 1 Automotives previous quarterly dividend of $0.45. This represents a $1.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.71%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, February 29th. Group 1 Automotives dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 4.22%. Group 1 Automotive Company Profile (Free Report) Group 1 Automotive, Inc, through its subsidiaries, operates in the automotive retail industry in the United States and the United Kingdom. The company sells new and used cars, light trucks, and vehicle parts, as well as service and insurance contracts; arranges related vehicle financing; and offers automotive maintenance and repair services. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding GPI? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Group 1 Automotive, Inc. (NYSE:GPI Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Group 1 Automotive Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Group 1 Automotive and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF (NYSEARCA:IGM Free Report) shares are going to split on the morning of Thursday, March 7th. The 6-1 split was announced on Thursday, March 7th. The newly minted shares will be issued to shareholders after the closing bell on Thursday, March 7th. iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF Stock Up 0.2 % NYSEARCA IGM opened at $502.55 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.18 and a beta of 1.18. iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF has a 52-week low of $300.00 and a 52-week high of $507.70. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $469.37 and a 200 day moving average price of $424.95. Get iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF alerts: Hedge Funds Weigh In On iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in shares of iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF by 154.3% in the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 37,057 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $14,402,000 after purchasing an additional 22,482 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in shares of iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF by 12.5% during the 1st quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 7,836 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $3,045,000 after acquiring an additional 870 shares during the period. Cetera Investment Advisers boosted its stake in shares of iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF by 422.2% during the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 4,125 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $1,603,000 after acquiring an additional 3,335 shares in the last quarter. Dakota Wealth Management grew its holdings in shares of iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF by 11.0% in the 1st quarter. Dakota Wealth Management now owns 555 shares of the exchange traded funds stock worth $216,000 after acquiring an additional 55 shares during the period. Finally, NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its stake in iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF by 95.0% in the 1st quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 20,675 shares of the exchange traded funds stock valued at $8,035,000 after purchasing an additional 10,074 shares in the last quarter. iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF Company Profile iShares North American Tech ETF, formerly iShares S&P North American Technology Sector Index Fund (the Fund), is an exchange-traded fund. The Fund seeks investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, of the United States-traded technology companies, as represented by the S&P North American Technology Sector Index (the Index). Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares Expanded Tech Sector ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. trimmed its holdings in shares of Banco de Chile (NYSE:BCH Free Report) by 60.2% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 91,345 shares of the banks stock after selling 138,233 shares during the period. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A.s holdings in Banco de Chile were worth $1,845,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of BCH. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Banco de Chile by 11.5% during the second quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 6,353 shares of the banks stock worth $133,000 after purchasing an additional 654 shares during the period. Atlas Capital Advisors LLC raised its position in Banco de Chile by 6.7% in the 2nd quarter. Atlas Capital Advisors LLC now owns 15,336 shares of the banks stock valued at $321,000 after buying an additional 959 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG raised its position in Banco de Chile by 7.8% in the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 13,993 shares of the banks stock valued at $291,000 after buying an additional 1,015 shares during the last quarter. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC raised its position in Banco de Chile by 1.6% in the 2nd quarter. Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC now owns 86,148 shares of the banks stock valued at $1,806,000 after buying an additional 1,330 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Belpointe Asset Management LLC raised its position in Banco de Chile by 39.7% in the 1st quarter. Belpointe Asset Management LLC now owns 4,788 shares of the banks stock valued at $93,000 after buying an additional 1,361 shares during the last quarter. 1.12% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Banco de Chile alerts: Banco de Chile Stock Performance Shares of Banco de Chile stock traded up $0.42 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $22.82. 60,802 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 138,005. Banco de Chile has a 12-month low of $17.96 and a 12-month high of $24.10. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.61 and a beta of 0.39. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $22.51 and a 200-day simple moving average of $21.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.81, a current ratio of 1.56 and a quick ratio of 1.59. Banco de Chile Announces Dividend Banco de Chile ( NYSE:BCH Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, January 29th. The bank reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.72 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $987.90 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $872.49 million. Banco de Chile had a return on equity of 25.45% and a net margin of 28.62%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Banco de Chile will post 2.14 EPS for the current fiscal year. The company also recently declared a Variable dividend, which will be paid on Friday, April 5th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 22nd will be paid a dividend of $1.09 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 21st. This represents a dividend yield of 4.8%. Banco de Chiles payout ratio is 54.00%. Analysts Set New Price Targets Separately, HSBC lowered Banco de Chile from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 19th. View Our Latest Analysis on BCH Banco de Chile Company Profile (Free Report) Banco de Chile, together with its subsidiaries, provides various banking and financial products and services to customers in Chile. It operates through Retail Banking, Wholesale Banking, and Treasury and Money Market segments. The company offers deposit products, such as checking accounts, current accounts, demand deposits and accounts, saving accounts, and time deposits; commercial, mortgage, consumer, working capital, syndicated, and installment loans; and credit cards. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BCH? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Banco de Chile (NYSE:BCH Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Banco de Chile Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Banco de Chile and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. lowered its position in iShares MSCI India ETF (BATS:INDA Free Report) by 22.7% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,500 shares of the companys stock after selling 1,025 shares during the quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A.s holdings in iShares MSCI India ETF were worth $155,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of INDA. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its stake in iShares MSCI India ETF by 3.1% during the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 372,165 shares of the companys stock worth $16,587,000 after buying an additional 11,099 shares during the period. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF by 5.8% in the first quarter. Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. now owns 12,901 shares of the companys stock valued at $575,000 after purchasing an additional 710 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF by 5.8% in the first quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 22,845 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,020,000 after purchasing an additional 1,246 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. boosted its stake in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF by 3.8% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 15,725,497 shares of the companys stock valued at $700,887,000 after purchasing an additional 579,672 shares during the period. Finally, Mather Group LLC. purchased a new position in shares of iShares MSCI India ETF in the first quarter valued at approximately $214,000. Get iShares MSCI India ETF alerts: iShares MSCI India ETF Trading Up 0.1 % BATS:INDA traded up $0.07 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $51.63. The stock had a trading volume of 5,566,697 shares. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $49.76 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $46.55. The company has a market capitalization of $6.95 billion, a PE ratio of 23.86 and a beta of 0.68. iShares MSCI India ETF has a twelve month low of $30.57 and a twelve month high of $38.21. iShares MSCI India ETF Profile The iShares MSCI India ETF (INDA) is an exchange-traded fund that is based on the MSCI India index, a market-cap-weighted index of the top 85% of firms in the Indian securities market. INDA was launched on Feb 2, 2012 and is managed by BlackRock. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding INDA? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares MSCI India ETF (BATS:INDA Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for iShares MSCI India ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares MSCI India ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. purchased a new stake in shares of Service Co. International (NYSE:SCI Free Report) in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 6,168 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $352,000. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of SCI. American Century Companies Inc. lifted its position in shares of Service Co. International by 10.2% during the 1st quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 11,544 shares of the companys stock valued at $760,000 after acquiring an additional 1,068 shares during the period. HighTower Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Service Co. International by 15.6% during the 1st quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 6,840 shares of the companys stock worth $448,000 after purchasing an additional 922 shares during the last quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC raised its position in shares of Service Co. International by 2.2% during the 1st quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 8,269 shares of the companys stock worth $544,000 after purchasing an additional 181 shares during the last quarter. Bank of Montreal Can raised its position in shares of Service Co. International by 38.1% during the 1st quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 32,245 shares of the companys stock worth $2,135,000 after purchasing an additional 8,901 shares during the last quarter. Finally, APG Asset Management N.V. raised its position in shares of Service Co. International by 30.1% during the 1st quarter. APG Asset Management N.V. now owns 17,700 shares of the companys stock worth $1,047,000 after purchasing an additional 4,100 shares during the last quarter. 84.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Service Co. International alerts: Insider Buying and Selling In related news, SVP John H. Faulk sold 1,332 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $66.51, for a total transaction of $88,591.32. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 49,798 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,312,064.98. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Service Co. International news, CEO Thomas L. Ryan sold 16,580 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $72.20, for a total value of $1,197,076.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 988,365 shares in the company, valued at approximately $71,359,953. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP John H. Faulk sold 1,332 shares of the businesss stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $66.51, for a total transaction of $88,591.32. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 49,798 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,312,064.98. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 5.20% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders. Service Co. International Trading Up 0.1 % SCI stock traded up $0.05 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $71.76. The stock had a trading volume of 56,118 shares, compared to its average volume of 861,963. Service Co. International has a 12-month low of $52.89 and a 12-month high of $72.90. The companys 50-day moving average price is $68.72 and its 200 day moving average price is $63.07. The firm has a market cap of $10.48 billion, a PE ratio of 20.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.02, a current ratio of 0.67 and a quick ratio of 0.62. Service Co. International (NYSE:SCI Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 13th. The company reported $0.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.91 by $0.02. Service Co. International had a net margin of 13.11% and a return on equity of 32.88%. The company had revenue of $1.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.02 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.92 EPS. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 2.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that Service Co. International will post 3.62 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Service Co. International declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Wednesday, November 8th that permits the company to repurchase $600.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to buy up to 6.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally a sign that the companys board of directors believes its stock is undervalued. Service Co. International Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 28th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.30 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 14th. This is a boost from Service Co. Internationals previous quarterly dividend of $0.29. This represents a $1.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.67%. Service Co. Internationals payout ratio is currently 32.95%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In SCI has been the subject of several research reports. UBS Group lifted their price objective on Service Co. International from $72.00 to $79.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. Oppenheimer lifted their price objective on Service Co. International from $71.00 to $76.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, February 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $75.00. Read Our Latest Research Report on Service Co. International Service Co. International Profile (Free Report) Service Corporation International provides deathcare products and services in the United States and Canada. Its funeral service and cemetery operations comprise funeral service locations, cemeteries, funeral service/cemetery combination locations, crematoria, and other businesses. The company also provides professional services related to funerals and cremations, including the use of funeral home facilities and motor vehicles; arranging and directing services; and removal, preparation, embalming, cremation, memorialization, and travel protection, as well as catering services. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding SCI? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Service Co. International (NYSE:SCI Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Service Co. International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Service Co. International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. (Bloomberg) -- Canadas radical immigration experiment, which has given it one of the worlds fastest rates of population growth, has run into big trouble in the ring of suburbs and small cities around Toronto. Most Read from Bloomberg A post-pandemic surge of international students is causing prices for rental housing to soar and placing a spotlight on the uncontrolled growth of colleges that, according to the governments own immigration minister, are taking advantage of vulnerable young people with inferior academic programs. Much of the blame is falling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who oversaw a tripling in the number of foreign students to more than 1 million. Today, about 1 in 40 people in the country is on a foreign-study visa. Now, the government has been forced to scale back its immigration ambitions, an acknowledgement that a system once touted as a key driver of economic growth isnt working. Faltering in polls because of frustration about housing costs, Trudeau is cracking down: Immigration Minister Marc Miller has announced a temporary limit to the number of student visas and is promising further measures soon. The goal is to gain more control over the influx of students and force the market to weed out shoddy programs by slowing the spigot of international tuition fees. People are being exploited, Miller said in an interview with Bloomberg. Arriving mainly from India and other parts of Asia, many students are lured by the prospect that Canadian school credentials may give them the option to stay and pursue permanent residency under the countrys liberal immigration rules. For the government, the students inject tens of billions into the economy every year and provide companies with new workers in a nation with an aging native-born labor force. Story continues But the explosion in enrollment particularly in southern Ontario, the most-densely populated region has been so sudden that it has overwhelmed the ability of some communities to cope. Its adding pressure to living costs in cities that are already among North Americas most expensive. And some of the college programs are clearly damaging Canadas reputation. Its not the intention of this program to have sham commerce degrees or business degrees that are sitting on top of a massage parlor that someone doesnt even go to, and then they come into the province and drive an Uber, Miller said as he announced new visa restrictions last month. The situation is souring the public on immigration. Canadas system has long enjoyed relatively high levels of public support, with little sign of the backlash thats occurred in the US and European nations where rising numbers of asylum seekers have become a central political concern. But last fall, an Environics Institute poll found that 44% of Canadians said theres too much immigration to the country, a stunning 17-point jump from the prior year the largest change in opinion since the survey began in 1977. A policy shift that limits foreign student inflows might hurt Canadas economy over the long run. But in the short term, it may help future young immigrants avoid the fate of Sai Reddy, a student from southern India who landed at Ontarios Conestoga College in 2023 and spent months looking for a place to live, wound up in a basement apartment he can barely afford and still hasnt been able to land the part-time job he needs. I have to cut costs and now Im eating twice a day, he said. I dont have money to buy winter clothes. Quality Gap The tension is coming to a head in places like Brampton, Ontario, a rapidly growing Toronto suburb where post-secondary institutions are more common than McDonalds outlets. Thats no accident. The city of 650,000 has one of the highest concentrations of immigrants in Canada, with more than half of its residents born abroad. Its also a locus of Canadas large Indian diaspora. Strip malls are filled with Indian restaurants and grocers, where Punjabi, Gujarati and Hindi can be heard in conversations among friends and family. Brampton provides a sense of belonging to students from India, by far the largest source of applicants fueling Canadas college boom, many of whom left their country for the first time to study. Colleges see the city once known for its greenhouse flower industry as fertile ground to cash in on a lucrative revenue stream that helps compensate for stagnant government funding. Until last month, Canada had no limits on the number of study permits allowed, although applicants have to meet certain criteria, including proof they have at least C$20,635 (about $15,300) to begin their studies. Education standards are enforced by provincial governments that have a strong financial incentive to expand the number of international students, who pay five times the tuition of Canadian undergraduates. Its an industry that had been growing steadily, was briefly interrupted by the Covid pandemic, then exploded. For immigration consultant Sandeep Singh, theyve been a boon. Students once formed a negligible share of the work of his firm, Brampton Immigration Consultancy; now theyre about 90% of the business. Ive seen institutions from when they were so, so small and now theyre so big, Singh said. But theres a gap between quantity and quality in the schools, he said. The student surge has driven up the cost of a one-bedroom apartment in Brampton by 19% in a year, to C$2,117 per month thats if you can find one. Rents have also skyrocketed in other Toronto suburbs. Millers temporary visa limits mean the overall number of foreign students destined for Ontario and British Columbia, the two top provinces for foreign students, is set to drop. But the governments new measures also target one subsector of higher education that has grown like crazy: private schools that have formed alliances with public colleges that want to grow quickly. The partnerships have been crucial to the growth because in most cases, its public institutions that are allowed to offer academic programs that make students eligible for post-graduation work permits vital for anyone hoping to stay in Canada after theyve finished school and pursue a permanent resident card. By having the imprimatur of a public college, private institutions can run programs that are more attractive to foreign students. Both sides share in the revenue. In Brampton and elsewhere, these hybrid schools have taken over office buildings and retail spaces in strip malls, turning them into classrooms. Public colleges in locations that may be less appealing to foreign students, such as Lambton College in Sarnia, Ontario, have struck deals that allow them to share in the cash coming from a wave of students who are drawn to greater Toronto. Lambton College has been successfully working with the provincial and federal governments on its partnerships since 2006, spokeswoman Jami Kloet said in an emailed statement. As a leader in international programming, Lambton College can say with confidence that there is a disconnect between the current public perception and the reality of what our public college-private partnerships programs are doing. But Miller is trying to put a stop to it, or at least slow it down. Starting in September, students in these public-private programs will no longer be eligible for the coveted post-grad work permits. For him, its an issue of quality. Many of these private-public schools are focused on selling non-degree programs with easy or broad subjects, such as marketing and business management courses, with classes two or three days a week. Theyre designed to make it possible for international students most of whom need to work to support themselves financially during their study to spend dozens of hours a week working part-time jobs. More than 80% of foreign students are working more than 20 hours a week, after the Trudeau government raised a limit on the weekly hours foreign students could work. Miller said he plans to restrict weekly hours to less than 40, but will maintain them above 20. He said the supply of workers is a benefit to retailers, food outlets and other sectors that depend on cheap labor, but its not in keeping with the spirit of higher education. "The fly-by-night business degrees that you see, Miller said, those really have no reason to exist. They're not really business degrees. Foreign students contribute more than C$22 billion to the Canadian economy each year and support some 218,000 jobs, according to the governments estimate. Not far from Brampton, in the adjoining cities of Kitchener and Waterloo, Conestoga College has become a sprawling presence, thanks to its recruitment success. Last year, it had more than 30,000 study permits approved, by far the highest number in the country and four times that of the University of Toronto. Thats a 400% jump since 2018, making it one of Canadas fastest-growing higher-learning institutions. To accommodate them, the college built a makeshift structure marked Transition Classroom Building in one of its parking lots at its largest campus and took over most of a shopping mall and several downtown buildings. What it didnt plan for is homes. Akash Patel, who took out an education loan to fund his studies at the college, sleeps in the living room of a two-bedroom apartment that houses six people and commutes for an hour using two buses to get to class. Before Sai Reddy found a shared room in a basement closer to campus in November, he was shut out of the market, beginning the school year living with family friends about 30 miles from campus. Now living in Kitchener but still without a part-time job even after months of searching, he has to manage monthly expenses within his budget of C$730 to cover rent, cell phone bills, bus passes and food. Im in financial crisis right now, he said. Conestoga has a large team in place to help international students from the moment they begin their application process, spokeswoman Brenda Bereczki said in an emailed statement, adding that the college has made significant investments in student housing over the last two years with a new property coming next year and another in 2026. The college will continue to actively respond to the evolving needs of our student population and will continue to support them throughout their academic journey. Colleges Ontario, an association representing the provinces 24 public colleges including Conestoga and Lambton, said their international enrollment was aligned with local demands, according to spokeswoman Amy Dickson. We are deeply committed to providing high-quality post-secondary education to support Ontarios labor-market needs. To be sure, when Canadas system works as intended, the study pathway helps add young and educated workers to the country, and the points system helps the country land some of the highest-potential new immigrants. Some of the countrys most successful immigrants in business and technology attended universities in Canada, including Kuwait-born Rania Llewellyn, the first woman to become chief executive officer of a large Canadian bank, and Mike Lazaridis, who dropped out just months before his graduation but later went on to create BlackBerry smartphones. What we need to do is not blame the students but look at the system that has resulted in this situation, said Ratna Omidvar, an Indian-born Canadian senator who is a leading voice on migration issues. Students are both used and abused without getting the quality education you have promised them. This tarnishes our reputation. Canada needs immigrants. Central to the rapid growth of foreign students is a network of third-party agents and consultants who work on commission to bring in as many students as possible. Gautham Kolluri saw the shift in recruitment strategy that started nearly a decade ago, when he was working as an international recruiter at a local college. Colleges began relying on the agents to court students. Thousands of agents who are doing this work havent even visited the campuses, he said. This has become student trafficking. It comes to a point where they dont really care which program theyre going to, said Kolluri, who now owns education consulting firm, CIP Study Abroad, with offices in countries including India, the Philippines and Brazil. The government didnt expect, and had not prepared for, the infrastructure and housing crisis. Even in more remote parts of Canada that receive fewer foreign students, the growth in enrollment sometimes outpaces the capacity to absorb them. Sydney, Nova Scotia, one of the most easterly cities in North America, is home to about 30,000 people. Many of the regions traditional industries, from coal mining to steelmaking, have been in decline for decades. But Cape Breton University is a source of growth. The university charges relatively cheaper tuition fees, while Sydney has a lower cost of living compared to larger cities both are draws for foreign students. Some students also said its an easier university to get into. After the start of the fall semester in September, scores of international students took to the streets of downtown, looking for work to help pay their bills. Some businesses received so many resumes they put up signs saying no new ones would be accepted. When retailers or restaurants had openings, hundreds applied. At the Hallmark store, manager Tasha Myers received about 10 to 15 resumes from students per day, forming a thick pile in a red envelope on her counter. Yesterday, we had at least 12 students before noon looking for literally anything. They say, Just give me three or five hours a week or Ill wash the toilets, she said. Theyre desperate at this point. Cape Breton University is in discussions with Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. and Nova Scotias provincial government regarding the largest affordable housing development outside of any major city in the Atlantic provinces, according to an email from spokeswoman Lenore Parsley. The university has been pursuing this development for the last four years affordable housing that is urgently needed for the community. Cape Breton student Ravneet Singh can only agree. The housing situation is Sydney forced him to take extreme measures he lives instead in Halifax, Nova Scotias capital and largest city, where he shares a two-bedroom apartment with his sister and works as a security guard at a grocery store. The distance to the university, where hes studying government management, is about 250 miles, slightly farther than the distance between New York and Washington. On Wednesday, he has to leave home just after 3:00 a.m. to be in class at 8:45 a.m. And hes not the only one. There are Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp chat groups with hundreds of members dedicated to students arranging their journeys each day. After coming to Canada, I dont think its worth it. Its better in our home country, said Singh, from Punjab, India. But he said that he couldnt give up on his goal of living in Canada because he had already spent a lot of money. Expenses are getting higher, everything is getting more expensive. Its so messed up. If I had known the ground reality, I wouldnt have come. --With assistance from Brendan Walsh, Kara Wetzel and Erik Hertzberg. (Adds additional information on apartment rents. An earlier version was corrected to fix currency on Brampton rents in the 16th paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. KNOT Offshore Partners (NYSE:KNOP Get Free Report) announced its earnings results on Monday. The shipping company reported ($0.16) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.07 by ($0.23), reports. The firm had revenue of $73.03 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $70.96 million. KNOT Offshore Partners had a negative net margin of 11.81% and a positive return on equity of 2.84%. KNOT Offshore Partners Trading Down 1.5 % KNOT Offshore Partners stock opened at $5.90 on Wednesday. KNOT Offshore Partners has a twelve month low of $4.28 and a twelve month high of $7.00. The company has a current ratio of 0.46, a quick ratio of 0.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.54. The firms 50 day moving average price is $5.82 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $5.83. Get KNOT Offshore Partners alerts: KNOT Offshore Partners Dividend Announcement The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 8th. Investors of record on Monday, January 29th were given a dividend of $0.026 per share. This represents a $0.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.76%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 26th. KNOT Offshore Partnerss payout ratio is presently -9.80%. Hedge Funds Weigh In On KNOT Offshore Partners Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of KNOT Offshore Partners by 17.2% during the third quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 11,810 shares of the shipping companys stock worth $166,000 after acquiring an additional 1,730 shares in the last quarter. Credit Suisse AG acquired a new stake in shares of KNOT Offshore Partners during the 2nd quarter valued at about $43,000. LPL Financial LLC grew its stake in shares of KNOT Offshore Partners by 15.7% in the 2nd quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 32,244 shares of the shipping companys stock valued at $528,000 after buying an additional 4,374 shares in the last quarter. Arrow Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in KNOT Offshore Partners by 28.8% in the second quarter. Arrow Investment Advisors LLC now owns 27,176 shares of the shipping companys stock worth $134,000 after buying an additional 6,075 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS Group AG raised its position in KNOT Offshore Partners by 847.7% during the third quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 6,899 shares of the shipping companys stock valued at $97,000 after acquiring an additional 6,171 shares in the last quarter. 14.82% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Separately, StockNews.com raised KNOT Offshore Partners from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, December 14th. Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on KNOP About KNOT Offshore Partners (Get Free Report) KNOT Offshore Partners LP owns, acquires, and operates shuttle tankers under long-term charters in the North Sea and Brazil. The company provides loading, transportation, discharge, and storage of crude oil under time charters and bareboat charters. The company was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Aberdeen, the United Kingdom. See Also Receive News & Ratings for KNOT Offshore Partners Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for KNOT Offshore Partners and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Mather Group LLC. raised its holdings in iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF (BATS:EFG Free Report) by 80.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 10,351 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 4,602 shares during the period. Mather Group LLC.s holdings in iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF were worth $893,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF by 15.5% during the 3rd quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 4,980 shares of the companys stock valued at $430,000 after purchasing an additional 669 shares during the period. Mcmorgan & Co. LLC grew its holdings in iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF by 2.2% during the 3rd quarter. Mcmorgan & Co. LLC now owns 411,931 shares of the companys stock valued at $35,550,000 after buying an additional 8,880 shares in the last quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P. increased its position in shares of iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF by 395.8% during the third quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P. now owns 255,779 shares of the companys stock valued at $22,074,000 after buying an additional 204,192 shares during the period. Certified Advisory Corp purchased a new stake in shares of iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF in the third quarter worth about $3,198,000. Finally, Personal CFO Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in shares of iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF in the third quarter worth about $409,000. Get iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF alerts: iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF Trading Up 0.0 % Shares of BATS:EFG opened at $101.92 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $97.19 and a 200 day moving average of $92.04. The stock has a market cap of $13.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.69 and a beta of 0.89. iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF has a 12 month low of $67.58 and a 12 month high of $85.81. About iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF (the Fund), formerly iShares MSCI EAFE Growth Index Fund, is an exchange-traded fund (ETF). The Fund seeks to provide investment results that correspond generally to the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the MSCI EAFE Growth Index (the Index). The Index is a subset of the MSCI EAFE Index and constituents of the Index include securities from Europe, Australasia (Australia and Asia), and the Far East. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding EFG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF (BATS:EFG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC lifted its stake in shares of Laboratory Co. of America Holdings (NYSE:LH Free Report) by 2.3% in the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 43,874 shares of the medical research companys stock after acquiring an additional 973 shares during the period. Morningstar Investment Services LLC owned approximately 0.05% of Laboratory Co. of America worth $8,918,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Laboratory Co. of America during the 2nd quarter worth $29,000. Provence Wealth Management Group purchased a new position in Laboratory Co. of America in the 3rd quarter worth $29,000. Tradewinds Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in Laboratory Co. of America in the 3rd quarter worth $34,000. ST Germain D J Co. Inc. purchased a new position in Laboratory Co. of America in the 2nd quarter worth $43,000. Finally, Exchange Traded Concepts LLC purchased a new position in Laboratory Co. of America in the 3rd quarter worth $37,000. 89.37% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get Laboratory Co. of America alerts: Laboratory Co. of America Stock Down 0.4 % Shares of NYSE:LH traded down $0.88 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $214.81. 84,400 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 717,016. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $223.55 and a two-hundred day moving average of $213.59. Laboratory Co. of America Holdings has a 52-week low of $174.20 and a 52-week high of $234.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.17. The stock has a market cap of $18.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 46.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.63 and a beta of 1.04. Laboratory Co. of America Dividend Announcement Laboratory Co. of America ( NYSE:LH Get Free Report ) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The medical research company reported $3.30 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.29 by $0.01. Laboratory Co. of America had a net margin of 3.24% and a return on equity of 13.99%. The company had revenue of $3.03 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $3.02 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $4.14 earnings per share. The firms quarterly revenue was down 17.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Laboratory Co. of America Holdings will post 14.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 13th. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 27th will be issued a $0.72 dividend. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.34%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, February 26th. Laboratory Co. of Americas dividend payout ratio is currently 61.67%. Insider Buying and Selling In related news, EVP Der Vaart Sandra D. Van sold 259 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $222.06, for a total value of $57,513.54. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 7,637 shares in the company, valued at $1,695,872.22. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Laboratory Co. of America news, EVP Der Vaart Sandra D. Van sold 259 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $222.06, for a total value of $57,513.54. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 7,637 shares in the company, valued at $1,695,872.22. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Der Vaart Sandra D. Van sold 237 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $226.45, for a total transaction of $53,668.65. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 7,637 shares in the company, valued at $1,729,398.65. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 35,500 shares of company stock worth $7,670,756. 0.65% of the stock is owned by insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of equities analysts recently commented on LH shares. Leerink Partnrs reiterated an outperform rating on shares of Laboratory Co. of America in a research report on Monday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of Laboratory Co. of America from $259.00 to $261.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Friday, November 17th. TheStreet cut shares of Laboratory Co. of America from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. Evercore ISI began coverage on shares of Laboratory Co. of America in a research report on Friday, February 9th. They set an in-line rating and a $240.00 price target on the stock. Finally, SVB Leerink began coverage on shares of Laboratory Co. of America in a research note on Monday. They set an outperform rating and a $260.00 price objective on the stock. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $243.07. View Our Latest Stock Report on LH Laboratory Co. of America Company Profile (Free Report) Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings operates as a life sciences company that provides vital information to help doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and patients make clear and confident decisions. It operates in two segments, Labcorp Diagnostics and Labcorp Drug Development. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Laboratory Co. of America Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Laboratory Co. of America and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC reduced its position in WPP plc (NYSE:WPP Free Report) by 0.2% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 137,553 shares of the business services providers stock after selling 337 shares during the quarter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC owned about 0.06% of WPP worth $6,106,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC. A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in WPP. CWM LLC lifted its stake in WPP by 85.1% in the second quarter. CWM LLC now owns 583 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 268 shares during the last quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC lifted its holdings in shares of WPP by 187.0% during the third quarter. Tower Research Capital LLC TRC now owns 617 shares of the business services providers stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 402 shares during the last quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC grew its position in WPP by 166.8% in the first quarter. Advisory Services Network LLC now owns 675 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $40,000 after acquiring an additional 422 shares during the period. UMB Bank n.a. grew its holdings in shares of WPP by 54.0% during the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 973 shares of the business services providers stock worth $43,000 after purchasing an additional 341 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its holdings in WPP by 34.6% in the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 977 shares of the business services providers stock valued at $63,000 after acquiring an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. 4.34% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get WPP alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded WPP from an overweight rating to a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, December 13th. UBS Group cut WPP from a buy rating to a sell rating in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, StockNews.com raised WPP from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Saturday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $46.00. WPP Trading Down 0.8 % Shares of WPP stock traded down $0.38 on Wednesday, reaching $45.11. The companys stock had a trading volume of 22,548 shares, compared to its average volume of 130,062. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $47.97 and its 200-day simple moving average is $46.30. WPP plc has a 12-month low of $41.13 and a 12-month high of $62.83. WPP Cuts Dividend The company also recently disclosed a semi-annual dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 5th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 7th will be given a dividend of $0.244 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 7th. This represents a yield of 5.3%. WPP Company Profile (Free Report) WPP plc, a creative transformation company, provides communications, experience, commerce, and technology services in North America, the United Kingdom, Western Continental Europe, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Eastern Europe. The company operates through three segments: Global Integrated Agencies, Public Relations, and Specialist Agencies. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for WPP Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for WPP and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Morningstar Investment Services LLC trimmed its position in shares of Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG Free Report) by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 10,740,954 shares of the financial services providers stock after selling 70,315 shares during the quarter. Morningstar Investment Services LLCs holdings in Lloyds Banking Group were worth $22,986,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Bessemer Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Lloyds Banking Group in the second quarter worth $25,000. Lido Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Lloyds Banking Group during the second quarter valued at about $26,000. Radnor Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Lloyds Banking Group during the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Fortune Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Lloyds Banking Group during the second quarter valued at about $27,000. Finally, Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. purchased a new stake in Lloyds Banking Group during the third quarter valued at about $27,000. 2.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get Lloyds Banking Group alerts: Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research firms have weighed in on LYG. Bank of America downgraded Lloyds Banking Group from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Lloyds Banking Group from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, November 28th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $64.17. Lloyds Banking Group Stock Up 0.4 % Shares of Lloyds Banking Group stock traded up $0.01 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $2.32. The company had a trading volume of 1,400,911 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,297,605. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 1.48 and a current ratio of 1.48. The stock has a market capitalization of $36.87 billion, a P/E ratio of 5.78, a P/E/G ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.30. The company has a 50 day moving average of $2.23 and a 200 day moving average of $2.15. Lloyds Banking Group plc has a 52-week low of $1.88 and a 52-week high of $2.51. Lloyds Banking Group Profile (Free Report) Lloyds Banking Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of banking and financial services in the United Kingdom. It operates through three segments: Retail; Commercial Banking; and Insurance, Pensions, and Investments. The Retail segment offers a range of financial service products, including current accounts, savings, mortgages, motor finance, unsecured loans, leasing solutions, and credit cards to personal and small business customers. See Also Want to see what other hedge funds are holding LYG? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Lloyds Banking Group Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Lloyds Banking Group and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Natixis Advisors L.P. reduced its position in shares of The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TRV Free Report) by 2.8% during the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 73,205 shares of the insurance providers stock after selling 2,079 shares during the quarter. Natixis Advisors L.P.s holdings in Travelers Companies were worth $11,955,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Fairfield Bush & CO. acquired a new position in shares of Travelers Companies in the first quarter worth approximately $160,000. Cibc World Market Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Travelers Companies by 28.8% in the 1st quarter. Cibc World Market Inc. now owns 5,934 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $1,084,000 after purchasing an additional 1,327 shares during the last quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of Travelers Companies by 1.0% in the 1st quarter. Vontobel Holding Ltd. now owns 11,905 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $2,210,000 after purchasing an additional 115 shares during the last quarter. Blair William & Co. IL raised its stake in Travelers Companies by 40.6% during the first quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 51,551 shares of the insurance providers stock worth $9,420,000 after buying an additional 14,873 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sei Investments Co. lifted its holdings in Travelers Companies by 5.0% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 27,212 shares of the insurance providers stock valued at $4,952,000 after buying an additional 1,286 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 81.12% of the companys stock. Get Travelers Companies alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets Several research analysts have recently weighed in on TRV shares. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on Travelers Companies from $166.00 to $186.00 and gave the stock a sell rating in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Citigroup increased their price target on Travelers Companies from $185.00 to $204.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Travelers Companies from $185.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. Raymond James raised their target price on Travelers Companies from $220.00 to $245.00 and gave the company a strong-buy rating in a research note on Monday, January 22nd. Finally, TD Cowen started coverage on Travelers Companies in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. They set an outperform rating and a $247.00 price objective for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $201.38. Travelers Companies Price Performance TRV opened at $221.88 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $50.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 17.35, a PEG ratio of 1.08 and a beta of 0.58. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 0.34 and a current ratio of 0.34. The Travelers Companies, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $157.33 and a fifty-two week high of $223.88. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $204.80 and a 200 day moving average of $181.29. Travelers Companies (NYSE:TRV Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Friday, January 19th. The insurance provider reported $7.01 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $5.10 by $1.91. Travelers Companies had a net margin of 7.23% and a return on equity of 13.68%. The company had revenue of $10.93 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $10.18 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $3.40 EPS. Travelers Companiess revenue was up 13.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that The Travelers Companies, Inc. will post 17.68 EPS for the current year. Travelers Companies Announces Dividend The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 8th will be paid a dividend of $1.00 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 7th. This represents a $4.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.80%. Travelers Companiess payout ratio is 31.27%. Insider Buying and Selling In other Travelers Companies news, SVP Paul E. Munson sold 2,121 shares of the companys stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $212.86, for a total transaction of $451,476.06. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 719 shares of the companys stock, valued at $153,046.34. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Daniel S. Frey sold 38,000 shares of Travelers Companies stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $212.55, for a total transaction of $8,076,900.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 14,810 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $3,147,865.50. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Paul E. Munson sold 2,121 shares of Travelers Companies stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $212.86, for a total value of $451,476.06. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 719 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $153,046.34. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 109,775 shares of company stock valued at $23,343,903. 1.29% of the stock is owned by insiders. About Travelers Companies (Free Report) The Travelers Companies, Inc, through its subsidiaries, provides a range of commercial and personal property, and casualty insurance products and services to businesses, government units, associations, and individuals in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Business Insurance, Bond & Specialty Insurance, and Personal Insurance. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding TRV? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for The Travelers Companies, Inc. (NYSE:TRV Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Travelers Companies Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Travelers Companies and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. reduced its holdings in shares of Newmont Co. (NYSE:NEM Free Report) by 12.8% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 14,452 shares of the basic materials companys stock after selling 2,124 shares during the quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A.s holdings in Newmont were worth $534,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Blair William & Co. IL grew its position in Newmont by 14.8% in the 1st quarter. Blair William & Co. IL now owns 42,511 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $3,378,000 after buying an additional 5,484 shares in the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. lifted its position in shares of Newmont by 19.3% in the first quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 66,212 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $5,219,000 after purchasing an additional 10,692 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers increased its holdings in Newmont by 46.9% in the first quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 27,905 shares of the basic materials companys stock worth $2,217,000 after buying an additional 8,915 shares during the last quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in Newmont by 7.2% during the first quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 595,641 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $47,324,000 after purchasing an additional 39,765 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Parkside Financial Bank & Trust grew its holdings in Newmont by 25.8% during the first quarter. Parkside Financial Bank & Trust now owns 1,354 shares of the basic materials companys stock valued at $108,000 after purchasing an additional 278 shares during the last quarter. 79.53% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Newmont alerts: Newmont Stock Down 0.5 % Shares of NYSE:NEM traded down $0.14 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $29.72. 3,099,327 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 11,450,410. Newmont Co. has a 52 week low of $29.42 and a 52 week high of $52.76. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 0.97 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25. The company has a market cap of $23.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 0.52. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $36.13 and a 200-day moving average price of $37.70. Newmont Cuts Dividend Newmont ( NYSE:NEM Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 22nd. The basic materials company reported $0.50 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.51 by ($0.01). The company had revenue of $3.96 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.44 billion. Newmont had a positive return on equity of 6.21% and a negative net margin of 20.95%. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 23.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.44 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Newmont Co. will post 2.04 EPS for the current fiscal year. The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 28th. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.36%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 4th. Newmonts payout ratio is presently -67.23%. Analyst Ratings Changes Several brokerages have commented on NEM. Argus downgraded Newmont from a buy rating to a hold rating in a report on Monday. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on Newmont from $45.00 to $40.00 and set a sector perform rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Macquarie started coverage on Newmont in a research report on Tuesday, November 21st. They issued an outperform rating and a $45.00 price objective for the company. TD Securities reduced their price objective on Newmont from $40.00 to $36.00 and set a hold rating for the company in a research report on Friday, February 23rd. Finally, UBS Group reduced their price objective on Newmont from $42.00 to $40.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 13th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $53.62. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on NEM Insider Buying and Selling In other Newmont news, COO Robert D. Atkinson sold 5,500 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $41.26, for a total value of $226,930.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 54,251 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,238,396.26. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 0.07% of the stock is owned by insiders. Newmont Profile (Free Report) Newmont Corporation engages in the production and exploration of gold. It also explores for copper, silver, zinc, and lead. The company has operations and/or assets in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Peru, Suriname, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and Ghana. As of December 31, 2022, it had proven and probable gold reserves of 96.1 million ounces and land position of 61,500 square kilometers. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Newmont Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Newmont and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Parker-Hannifin Co. (NYSE:PH Get Free Report) has received an average rating of Moderate Buy from the thirteen research firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $491.64. PH has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Barclays upped their price objective on Parker-Hannifin from $500.00 to $558.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research note on Monday, February 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a buy rating and set a $551.00 price objective on shares of Parker-Hannifin in a research note on Tuesday, January 2nd. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a buy rating and issued a $500.00 price target on shares of Parker-Hannifin in a research note on Friday, January 19th. Evercore ISI increased their price target on Parker-Hannifin from $505.00 to $590.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 20th. Finally, KeyCorp increased their price target on Parker-Hannifin from $500.00 to $575.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, February 2nd. Get Parker-Hannifin alerts: Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on PH Insider Buying and Selling Hedge Funds Weigh In On Parker-Hannifin In related news, COO Andrew D. Ross sold 3,904 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $510.16, for a total transaction of $1,991,664.64. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 13,120 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,693,299.20. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink . In other Parker-Hannifin news, VP Thomas C. Gentile sold 2,978 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $501.72, for a total value of $1,494,122.16. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 5,465 shares of the companys stock, valued at $2,741,899.80. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website . Also, COO Andrew D. Ross sold 3,904 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $510.16, for a total value of $1,991,664.64. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 13,120 shares in the company, valued at $6,693,299.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Insiders have sold a total of 12,079 shares of company stock valued at $6,099,566 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 1.03% of the companys stock. Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Baird Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Parker-Hannifin by 8.5% in the second quarter. Baird Financial Group Inc. now owns 649,191 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $253,211,000 after acquiring an additional 50,740 shares in the last quarter. Andra AP fonden lifted its position in Parker-Hannifin by 59.4% during the second quarter. Andra AP fonden now owns 10,200 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $3,978,000 after buying an additional 3,800 shares in the last quarter. US Bancorp DE lifted its position in Parker-Hannifin by 4.7% during the third quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 79,481 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $30,960,000 after buying an additional 3,604 shares in the last quarter. Citigroup Inc. lifted its position in Parker-Hannifin by 45.6% during the third quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 182,929 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $71,255,000 after buying an additional 57,295 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Duality Advisers LP purchased a new position in Parker-Hannifin during the third quarter worth approximately $1,775,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.25% of the companys stock. Parker-Hannifin Price Performance Shares of PH stock opened at $531.49 on Friday. Parker-Hannifin has a twelve month low of $300.86 and a twelve month high of $535.55. The stock has a market capitalization of $68.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.31, a P/E/G ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 1.50. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $483.77 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $434.48. The company has a current ratio of 0.90, a quick ratio of 0.49 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72. Parker-Hannifin (NYSE:PH Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 1st. The industrial products company reported $6.15 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $5.26 by $0.89. The firm had revenue of $4.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.82 billion. Parker-Hannifin had a return on equity of 29.91% and a net margin of 13.28%. The firms quarterly revenue was up 3.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $4.76 EPS. On average, analysts predict that Parker-Hannifin will post 24.15 EPS for the current fiscal year. Parker-Hannifin Announces Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 1st. Investors of record on Friday, February 9th will be issued a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.11%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 8th. Parker-Hannifins dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 29.31%. Parker-Hannifin Company Profile (Get Free Report Parker-Hannifin Corporation manufactures and sells motion and control technologies and systems for various mobile, industrial, and aerospace markets worldwide. The company operates through two segments: Diversified Industrial and Aerospace Systems. The Diversified Industrial segment offers sealing, shielding, thermal products and systems, adhesives, coatings, and noise vibration and harshness solutions; filters, systems, and diagnostics solutions to ensure purity and remove contaminants from fuel, air, oil, water, and other liquids and gases; connectors used in fluid and gas handling; and hydraulic, pneumatic, and electromechanical components and systems for builders and users of mobile and industrial machinery and equipment. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Parker-Hannifin Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Parker-Hannifin and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Yum China Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:YUMC Free Report) Stock analysts at Zacks Research cut their Q1 2024 earnings per share estimates for shares of Yum China in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday, February 23rd. Zacks Research analyst H. Ray now expects that the company will post earnings of $0.63 per share for the quarter, down from their previous estimate of $0.68. The consensus estimate for Yum Chinas current full-year earnings is $2.20 per share. Zacks Research also issued estimates for Yum Chinas Q2 2025 earnings at $0.52 EPS, Q3 2025 earnings at $0.80 EPS and FY2026 earnings at $2.76 EPS. Get Yum China alerts: Yum China (NYSE:YUMC Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The company reported $0.25 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.13 by $0.12. Yum China had a return on equity of 11.56% and a net margin of 7.53%. The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.32 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.13 EPS. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 19.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Other equities research analysts also recently issued research reports about the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated a neutral rating and set a $38.00 target price (down previously from $65.00) on shares of Yum China in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. StockNews.com downgraded Yum China from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 1st. TheStreet cut Yum China from a b- rating to a c+ rating in a research note on Monday, November 20th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft started coverage on Yum China in a research note on Tuesday, December 19th. They set a buy rating and a $58.00 price objective for the company. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $61.63. View Our Latest Stock Report on YUMC Yum China Trading Up 1.3 % YUMC stock opened at $42.53 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $17.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.70, a PEG ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 0.42. Yum China has a twelve month low of $33.55 and a twelve month high of $64.70. The company has a quick ratio of 1.42, a current ratio of 1.59 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25. The business has a fifty day moving average of $39.23 and a 200-day moving average of $46.14. Yum China Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 26th. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.16 per share. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 4th. This is a boost from Yum Chinas previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. This represents a $0.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.50%. Yum Chinas payout ratio is 26.53%. Institutional Inflows and Outflows Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Farther Finance Advisors LLC grew its stake in Yum China by 116.8% in the second quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 464 shares of the companys stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 250 shares during the period. Thomas J. Herzfeld Advisors Inc. grew its stake in Yum China by 817.3% in the second quarter. Thomas J. Herzfeld Advisors Inc. now owns 477 shares of the companys stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 425 shares during the period. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Yum China in the third quarter valued at about $27,000. NBC Securities Inc. acquired a new position in Yum China in the third quarter valued at about $29,000. Finally, Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL acquired a new position in Yum China in the first quarter valued at about $44,000. 73.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. About Yum China (Get Free Report) Yum China Holdings, Inc owns, operates, and franchises restaurants in the People's Republic of China. The company operates through KFC, Pizza Hut, and All Other segments. It operates restaurants under the KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Lavazza, Little Sheep, and Huang Ji Huang concepts. The company also operates V-Gold Mall, a mobile e-commerce platform, which sells electronics, home and kitchen accessories, and other general merchandise, as well as fried rice, steak, and pasta; and offers online food deliver services. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Yum China Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Yum China and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. kneat.com, inc. (TSE:KSI Free Report) Stock analysts at Echelon Wealth Partners issued their Q1 2024 earnings estimates for kneat.com in a report issued on Thursday, February 22nd. Echelon Wealth Partners analyst R. Goff anticipates that the company will post earnings per share of ($0.04) for the quarter. The consensus estimate for kneat.coms current full-year earnings is ($0.12) per share. Echelon Wealth Partners also issued estimates for kneat.coms Q2 2024 earnings at ($0.04) EPS, Q3 2024 earnings at ($0.03) EPS, Q4 2024 earnings at ($0.02) EPS and FY2027 earnings at $0.21 EPS. Get kneat.com alerts: kneat.com Trading Up 3.0 % KSI opened at C$3.76 on Monday. kneat.com has a fifty-two week low of C$2.45 and a fifty-two week high of C$3.85. The firm has a market capitalization of C$317.57 million, a PE ratio of -20.89, a P/E/G ratio of 597.67 and a beta of 0.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 190.80, a current ratio of 1.27 and a quick ratio of 1.50. The companys 50-day moving average is C$3.30 and its 200 day moving average is C$3.11. kneat.com Company Profile kneat.com, inc. designs, develops, and supplies software for data and document management within regulated environments in the United States, Ireland, Canada, and internationally. The company offers Kneat Gx platform, a configurable off-the-shelf application focused on validation lifecycle management and testing for biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical device manufacturing industries. Read More Receive News & Ratings for kneat.com Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for kneat.com and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Research Highlights: An analysis of survey data for 430,000 adults in the U.S. found that using cannabis has a significant association with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, independent of tobacco use, with higher odds among the adults with more frequent use (more days of use per month). The most common method of cannabis use was smoking, followed by eating or vaporizing it. The increase in the combined risk of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke was similar to the risk among the subset of adults who had never used e-cigarettes but did use cannabis. Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Wednesday, February 28, 2024 (NewMediaWire) - February 28, 2024 - DALLAS An analysis of 430,000 adults in the U.S. found that using cannabis, most commonly through smoking, eating or vaporizing it, was significantly associated with a higher risk of heart attack and stroke, even after controlling for tobacco use (combustible cigarettes and other tobacco products) and other cardiovascular risk factors, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association. Although cannabis, or marijuana, is illegal at the federal level, 24 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized the use of recreational cannabis. Additionally, the number of people in the U.S. who use cannabis has increased significantly in recent decades, according to the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The annual survey found that in 2019, 48.2 million people ages 12 or older reported using cannabis at least once, compared to 25.8 million people ages 12 or older in 2002, an increase to 17% from 11%. "Despite common use, little is known about the risks of cannabis use and, in particular, the cardiovascular disease risks," said lead study author Abra Jeffers, Ph.D., a data analyst at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "The perceptions of the harmfulness of smoking cannabis are decreasing, and people have not considered cannabis use dangerous to their health. However, previous research suggested that cannabis could be associated with cardiovascular disease. In addition, smoking cannabisthe predominant method of usemay pose additional risks because particulate matter is inhaled." Story continues In this study, researchers reviewed survey data collected for 430,000 adults from 2016 through 2020 to examine the association between cannabis use and adverse cardiovascular outcomes including heart disease, heart attack and stroke. The survey data was collected through the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a national, cross-sectional survey performed annually by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The researchers specifically investigated whether cannabis use was associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes among the general adult population, among people who had never smoked tobacco or used e-cigarettes, and among younger adults (defined as men under age 55 and women under age 65) at risk for heart disease. They also factored in the number of days per month that people used cannabis. The analyses of found: Any cannabis use (smoked, eaten or vaporized) was independently associated with a higher number of adverse cardiovascular outcomes (coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction and stroke) and with more frequent use (more days per month), the odds of adverse outcomes were even higher. The results were similar after controlling for other cardiovascular risk factors, including tobacco and/or e-cigarette use, alcohol consumption, body mass index, Type 2 diabetes and physical activity. Both daily and non-daily cannabis users had an increased risk of heart attack compared to non-users; daily cannabis users had 25% higher odds of heart attack compared to non-users. The odds of stroke for daily cannabis users were 42% higher compared to non-users, with lower risk among those who used cannabis less than daily. Among younger adults at risk for premature cardiovascular disease (defined as men younger than 55 years old and women younger than 65 years old) cannabis use was significantly associated with 36% higher combined odds of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke, regardless of whether or not they also used traditional tobacco products. A separate analysis of a smaller subgroup of these adults who had never smoked tobacco cigarettes or used nicotine e-cigarettes also found a significant association between cannabis use and an increase in the combined odds of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke. "Our sample was large enough that we could investigate the association of cannabis use with cardiovascular outcomes among adults who had never used tobacco cigarettes or e-cigarettes," Jeffers said. "Cannabis smoke is not all that different from tobacco smoke, except for the psychoactive drug: THC vs. nicotine. Our study shows that smoking cannabis has significant cardiovascular risk risks, just like smoking tobacco. This is particularly important because cannabis use is increasing, and conventional tobacco use is decreasing." Study background and details: Survey participants were ages 18-74, with an average age of 45 years. About half of the participants self-identified as female. 60.2% self-identified as white adults, 11.6 self-identified as Black adults, 19.3 self-identified as Hispanic adults and 8.9% self-identified as other. Nearly 90% of adults did not use cannabis at all; 7% used it less than daily; and 4% were daily users. Among current cannabis users, 73.8% reported smoking as the most common form of cannabis consumption. More than 60% of total respondents had never used tobacco cigarettes; 28.6% of daily cannabis users had never used tobacco cigarettes; 44.6% of non-daily cannabis users had never used tobacco cigarettes and 63.9% of participants who did not use cannabis had never used tobacco cigarettes. The study had several limitations, including that cardiovascular conditions and cannabis use were self-reported, making them potentially subject to recall bias (potential errors in memory); that the authors did not have health data measuring participants' baseline lipid profile or blood pressure; and the study captured data for only a single point in time for the participants. The authors note that there is a need for prospective cohort studies studies that follow groups of individuals over time to examine the association of cannabis use and cardiovascular outcomes while accounting for frequency of cannabis use. "The findings of this study have very important implications for population health and should be a call to action for all practitioners, as this study adds to the growing literature that cannabis use and cardiovascular disease may be a potentially hazardous combination," said Robert L. Page II, Pharm.D., M.S.P.H., FAHA, chair of the volunteer writing group for the 2020 American Heart Association Scientific Statement: Medical Marijuana, Recreational Cannabis, and Cardiovascular Health. Page is professor of clinical pharmacy, medicine and physical medicine at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, Colorado. Page was not involved in this study. "In the overall population, the study findings are consistent with other studies indicating that daily cannabis use was associated with an increase in heart attack, stroke and the combined endpoint of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke," he said. "As cannabis use continues to grow in legality and access across the U.S., practitioners and clinicians need to remember to assess cannabis use at each patient encounter in order to have a non-judgmental, shared decision conversation about potential cardiovascular risks and ways to reduce those risks." Co-authors, disclosures and funding sources are listed in the manuscript. Studies published in the American Heart Association's scientific journals are peer-reviewed. The statements and conclusions in each manuscript are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the Association's policy or position. The Association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The Association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, device manufacturers and health insurance providers and the Association's overall financial information are available here. Additional Resources: ### About the American Heart Association The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. We are dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities. Through collaboration with numerous organizations, and powered by millions of volunteers, we fund innovative research, advocate for the public's health and share lifesaving resources. The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for a century. During 2024 - our Centennial year - we celebrate our rich 100-year history and accomplishments. As we forge ahead into our second century of bold discovery and impact, our vision is to advance health and hope for everyone, everywhere. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, X or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1. For Media Inquiries and AHA/ASA Expert Perspective: 214-706-1173 John Arnst: 214-706-1060; John.Arnst@heart.org For Public Inquiries: 1-800-AHA-USA1 (242-8721) heart.org and stroke.org Synovus Financial Corp grew its stake in Masco Co. (NYSE:MAS Free Report) by 30.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 65,326 shares of the construction companys stock after buying an additional 15,093 shares during the quarter. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in Masco were worth $3,492,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of MAS. DecisionPoint Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of Masco in the 2nd quarter valued at about $29,000. VisionPoint Advisory Group LLC purchased a new stake in Masco during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $35,000. Center for Financial Planning Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Masco by 270.6% during the 3rd quarter. Center for Financial Planning Inc. now owns 667 shares of the construction companys stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 487 shares during the last quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Masco by 22.8% during the 2nd quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 1,018 shares of the construction companys stock worth $58,000 after purchasing an additional 189 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Indiana Trust & Investment Management CO acquired a new position in shares of Masco during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $64,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.67% of the companys stock. Get Masco alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of research firms recently commented on MAS. Truist Financial upped their price objective on Masco from $65.00 to $81.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Friday, February 9th. StockNews.com upgraded Masco from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Thursday, January 4th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on Masco from $73.00 to $79.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a report on Friday, February 9th. Barclays upped their price objective on Masco from $63.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a report on Wednesday, December 13th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on Masco from $66.00 to $73.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Thursday, December 14th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and eight have given a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $68.92. Masco Stock Up 1.8 % NYSE:MAS opened at $76.63 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 1.68 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 30.05. The stocks fifty day moving average is $69.19 and its two-hundred day moving average is $61.11. Masco Co. has a 52 week low of $46.69 and a 52 week high of $76.73. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.25. Masco (NYSE:MAS Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The construction company reported $0.83 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.66 by $0.17. Masco had a return on equity of 3,111.50% and a net margin of 11.40%. The company had revenue of $1.88 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $1.79 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.65 earnings per share. The firms revenue was down 2.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Masco Co. will post 4.12 EPS for the current year. Masco Increases Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 11th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, February 22nd will be given a dividend of $0.29 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, February 21st. This represents a $1.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.51%. This is a positive change from Mascos previous quarterly dividend of $0.29. Mascos dividend payout ratio is currently 28.93%. Insider Transactions at Masco In other news, VP Kenneth G. Cole sold 36,210 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.65, for a total transaction of $2,703,076.50. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 58,885 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,395,765.25. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, VP Kenneth G. Cole sold 36,210 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.65, for a total transaction of $2,703,076.50. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 58,885 shares of the companys stock, valued at $4,395,765.25. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, VP Kenneth G. Cole sold 27,043 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Monday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $62.48, for a total value of $1,689,646.64. Following the sale, the vice president now directly owns 70,198 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,385,971.04. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 88,253 shares of company stock valued at $5,952,223. 1.50% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. About Masco (Free Report) Masco Corporation designs, manufactures, and distributes home improvement and building products in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company's Plumbing Products segment offers faucets, showerheads, handheld showers, valves, bath hardware and accessories, bathing units, shower bases and enclosures, sinks, toilets, acrylic tubs, shower trays, spas, exercise pools, and fitness systems; brass, copper, and composite plumbing system components; connected water products; thermoplastic solutions, extruded plastic profiles, specialized fabrications, and PEX tubing products; and other non-decorative plumbing products. Featured Articles Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MAS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Masco Co. (NYSE:MAS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Masco Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Masco and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Synovus Financial Corp trimmed its holdings in Edwards Lifesciences Co. (NYSE:EW Free Report) by 8.5% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 83,067 shares of the medical research companys stock after selling 7,759 shares during the period. Synovus Financial Corps holdings in Edwards Lifesciences were worth $5,755,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of EW. Advisors Asset Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 0.3% during the first quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 43,556 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $5,127,000 after buying an additional 117 shares in the last quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC grew its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 1.0% during the first quarter. Apollon Wealth Management LLC now owns 12,487 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $1,033,000 after buying an additional 119 shares in the last quarter. Geller Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 6.5% during the first quarter. Geller Advisors LLC now owns 1,965 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $231,000 after buying an additional 120 shares in the last quarter. KCM Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 2.7% during the first quarter. KCM Investment Advisors LLC now owns 5,392 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $635,000 after buying an additional 142 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ellevest Inc. grew its position in shares of Edwards Lifesciences by 2.5% during the second quarter. Ellevest Inc. now owns 6,179 shares of the medical research companys stock worth $583,000 after buying an additional 152 shares in the last quarter. 79.25% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Edwards Lifesciences alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets EW has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus raised their price objective on Edwards Lifesciences from $70.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Truist Financial lifted their price objective on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $78.00 to $84.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Friday, December 22nd. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Edwards Lifesciences from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 13th. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Edwards Lifesciences from $85.00 to $95.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, Wolfe Research lowered Edwards Lifesciences from a peer perform rating to an underperform rating and set a $57.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Tuesday, November 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Edwards Lifesciences currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $87.38. Edwards Lifesciences Trading Up 0.4 % Shares of NYSE EW opened at $86.50 on Wednesday. Edwards Lifesciences Co. has a one year low of $60.57 and a one year high of $94.87. The firm has a market capitalization of $52.01 billion, a PE ratio of 37.61, a PEG ratio of 4.33 and a beta of 1.04. The company has a current ratio of 3.38, a quick ratio of 2.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.09. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $79.14 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $73.87. Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 6th. The medical research company reported $0.64 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts consensus estimates of $0.64. Edwards Lifesciences had a return on equity of 23.56% and a net margin of 23.35%. The firm had revenue of $1.53 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.50 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.64 EPS. The businesss quarterly revenue was up 13.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts predict that Edwards Lifesciences Co. will post 2.76 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, Director Kieran Gallahue sold 3,058 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $87.61, for a total transaction of $267,911.38. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 67,219 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,889,056.59. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, Director Kieran Gallahue sold 3,058 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $87.61, for a total transaction of $267,911.38. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 67,219 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,889,056.59. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, SVP Robert W.A. Sellers sold 12,210 shares of Edwards Lifesciences stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $87.00, for a total value of $1,062,270.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 13,087 shares of the companys stock, valued at $1,138,569. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 186,147 shares of company stock worth $14,664,599. 1.29% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders. About Edwards Lifesciences (Free Report) Edwards Lifesciences Corporation provides products and technologies for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring in the United States, Europe, Japan, and internationally. It offers transcatheter heart valve replacement products for the minimally invasive replacement of aortic heart valves under the Edwards SAPIEN family of valves system; and transcatheter heart valve repair and replacement products to treat mitral and tricuspid valve diseases under the PASCAL PRECISION and Cardioband names. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding EW? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Edwards Lifesciences Co. (NYSE:EW Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Edwards Lifesciences Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Edwards Lifesciences and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Teza Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC Free Report) by 52.1% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 58,886 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 20,181 shares during the period. Teza Capital Management LLCs holdings in Centene were worth $4,056,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in CNC. Signaturefd LLC lifted its stake in Centene by 1.5% in the third quarter. Signaturefd LLC now owns 10,456 shares of the companys stock valued at $720,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the period. Covestor Ltd grew its stake in Centene by 24.1% in the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 856 shares of the companys stock valued at $72,000 after purchasing an additional 166 shares during the period. Vicus Capital grew its stake in Centene by 5.3% in the 4th quarter. Vicus Capital now owns 3,309 shares of the companys stock valued at $271,000 after purchasing an additional 168 shares during the period. First Hawaiian Bank grew its stake in Centene by 0.8% in the 3rd quarter. First Hawaiian Bank now owns 21,218 shares of the companys stock valued at $1,461,000 after purchasing an additional 177 shares during the period. Finally, Profund Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Centene by 2.1% during the 2nd quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 8,465 shares of the companys stock worth $571,000 after acquiring an additional 178 shares during the period. 90.92% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Get Centene alerts: Centene Stock Performance Shares of CNC stock traded down $1.44 on Wednesday, hitting $78.97. The company had a trading volume of 780,737 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,848,720. The firm has a market cap of $42.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 0.36. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $76.42 and a 200-day moving average price of $72.03. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.11 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. Centene Co. has a twelve month low of $60.83 and a twelve month high of $81.42. Insider Activity Centene ( NYSE:CNC Get Free Report ) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The company reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $0.43 by $0.02. Centene had a return on equity of 14.26% and a net margin of 1.75%. The company had revenue of $39.46 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $36.16 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.86 EPS. Centenes quarterly revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Centene Co. will post 6.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. In other Centene news, Director Lori Jean Robinson sold 10,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $77.41, for a total transaction of $774,100.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 11,455 shares in the company, valued at $886,731.55. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Centene news, President Kenneth J. Fasola sold 12,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.07, for a total transaction of $900,840.00. Following the transaction, the president now owns 235,365 shares of the companys stock, valued at $17,668,850.55. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Lori Jean Robinson sold 10,000 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $77.41, for a total value of $774,100.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 11,455 shares in the company, valued at approximately $886,731.55. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.28% of the companys stock. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades CNC has been the subject of several analyst reports. UBS Group raised their target price on Centene from $72.00 to $79.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, December 21st. Truist Financial lifted their price target on Centene from $83.00 to $86.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, December 21st. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Centene from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $82.00 to $90.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 2nd. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price objective on Centene from $82.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Friday, December 15th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Centene currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $83.57. Check Out Our Latest Report on CNC About Centene (Free Report) Centene Corporation operates as a healthcare enterprise that provides programs and services to under-insured and uninsured families, commercial organizations, and military families in the United States. It operates in two segments, Managed Care and Specialty Services. The Managed Care segment offers health plan coverage to individuals through government subsidized programs, including Medicaid, the State children's health insurance program, long-term services and support, foster care, and medicare-medicaid plans, which cover dually eligible individuals, as well as aged, blind, or disabled programs. Recommended Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CNC? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Centene Co. (NYSE:CNC Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Centene Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Centene and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Teza Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM Free Report) by 18.2% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 56,986 shares of the companys stock after purchasing an additional 8,778 shares during the period. Teza Capital Management LLCs holdings in Philip Morris International were worth $5,276,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in PM. Capital World Investors increased its position in shares of Philip Morris International by 3.9% during the second quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 116,185,273 shares of the companys stock worth $11,342,014,000 after acquiring an additional 4,368,323 shares during the period. Capital International Investors increased its position in shares of Philip Morris International by 1.0% during the second quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 106,291,477 shares of the companys stock worth $10,376,231,000 after acquiring an additional 1,092,991 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. increased its holdings in Philip Morris International by 1.1% during the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 95,439,062 shares of the companys stock valued at $9,316,761,000 after buying an additional 1,056,110 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Philip Morris International by 3.1% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 58,592,611 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,793,812,000 after buying an additional 1,745,868 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors increased its holdings in Philip Morris International by 4.9% during the second quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 51,558,741 shares of the companys stock valued at $5,033,166,000 after buying an additional 2,430,519 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 79.70% of the companys stock. Get Philip Morris International alerts: Philip Morris International Stock Performance NYSE PM traded down $0.22 on Wednesday, reaching $89.96. 951,944 shares of the companys stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,911,081. The firm has a market cap of $139.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.96, a P/E/G ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 0.63. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $92.37 and a 200-day moving average price of $92.81. Philip Morris International Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $87.23 and a fifty-two week high of $101.92. Philip Morris International Dividend Announcement Philip Morris International ( NYSE:PM Get Free Report ) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 8th. The company reported $1.36 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts consensus estimates of $1.44 by ($0.08). The business had revenue of $9.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.99 billion. Philip Morris International had a net margin of 8.53% and a negative return on equity of 116.29%. The companys revenue for the quarter was up 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.39 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Philip Morris International Inc. will post 6.39 EPS for the current fiscal year. The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 10th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 21st were given a dividend of $1.30 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, December 20th. This represents a $5.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 5.78%. Philip Morris Internationals dividend payout ratio is presently 103.59%. Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several equities analysts recently issued reports on PM shares. UBS Group lowered shares of Philip Morris International from a buy rating to a sell rating and cut their price objective for the company from $105.00 to $86.50 in a report on Tuesday, January 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Philip Morris International from $110.00 to $115.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 29th. Redburn Atlantic began coverage on shares of Philip Morris International in a research note on Thursday, November 16th. They issued a neutral rating and a $95.00 target price for the company. Finally, Societe Generale upgraded shares of Philip Morris International from a sell rating to a hold rating and set a $87.50 target price for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $105.40. Get Our Latest Report on Philip Morris International About Philip Morris International (Free Report) Philip Morris International Inc operates as a tobacco company working to delivers a smoke-free future and evolving portfolio for the long-term to include products outside of the tobacco and nicotine sector. The company's product portfolio primarily consists of cigarettes and smoke-free products, including heat-not-burn, vapor, and oral nicotine products primarily under the IQOS and ZYN brands; and consumer accessories, such as lighters and matches. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Philip Morris International Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Philip Morris International and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Toronto Dominion Bank boosted its position in shares of Imperial Oil Limited (NYSEAMERICAN:IMO Free Report) (TSE:IMO) by 11.6% during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,243,078 shares of the energy companys stock after buying an additional 128,940 shares during the period. Toronto Dominion Banks holdings in Imperial Oil were worth $76,561,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. BNP Paribas Arbitrage SNC acquired a new stake in Imperial Oil during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $35,000. Allworth Financial LP increased its position in Imperial Oil by 176.6% during the 3rd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 888 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $55,000 after purchasing an additional 567 shares during the period. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its position in Imperial Oil by 229.0% during the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,724 shares of the energy companys stock valued at $84,000 after purchasing an additional 1,200 shares during the period. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Imperial Oil by 8.4% during the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 2,713 shares of the energy companys stock worth $139,000 after buying an additional 210 shares during the period. Finally, State of Wyoming grew its position in shares of Imperial Oil by 21.7% during the 2nd quarter. State of Wyoming now owns 2,900 shares of the energy companys stock worth $148,000 after buying an additional 517 shares during the period. 20.74% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds. Get Imperial Oil alerts: Imperial Oil Trading Down 0.4 % Shares of NYSEAMERICAN IMO traded down $0.24 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, reaching $62.76. 28,160 shares of the companys stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 462,933. The stock has a market capitalization of $33.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.91 and a beta of 1.47. Imperial Oil Limited has a 52 week low of $44.22 and a 52 week high of $63.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.38 and a quick ratio of 1.16. Imperial Oil Increases Dividend Imperial Oil ( NYSEAMERICAN:IMO Get Free Report ) (TSE:IMO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, February 2nd. The energy company reported $1.81 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.55 by $0.26. Imperial Oil had a return on equity of 20.58% and a net margin of 9.59%. The business had revenue of $9.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $12.29 billion. Equities research analysts predict that Imperial Oil Limited will post 5.88 EPS for the current year. The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 1st. Investors of record on Monday, March 4th will be paid a $0.4473 dividend. This is a boost from Imperial Oils previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.79 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.85%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 1st. Imperial Oils payout ratio is currently 23.45%. Analysts Set New Price Targets Several brokerages have recently commented on IMO. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Imperial Oil from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Monday, November 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Imperial Oil from an underweight rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Friday, December 8th. The Goldman Sachs Group downgraded shares of Imperial Oil from a buy rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, November 8th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on shares of Imperial Oil from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 7th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $85.33. View Our Latest Stock Analysis on IMO Imperial Oil Profile (Free Report) Imperial Oil Limited engages in exploration, production, and sale of crude oil and natural gas in Canada. The company operates through three segments: Upstream, Downstream and Chemical segments. The Upstream segment explores for, and produces crude oil, natural gas, synthetic crude oil, and bitumen. The Downstream segment is involved in the transportation and refining of crude oil, blending of refined products, and the distribution and marketing of refined products. Further Reading Want to see what other hedge funds are holding IMO? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Imperial Oil Limited (NYSEAMERICAN:IMO Free Report) (TSE:IMO). Receive News & Ratings for Imperial Oil Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Imperial Oil and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Toronto Dominion Bank reduced its holdings in shares of Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (NYSE:FIS Free Report) by 1.5% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,162,312 shares of the information technology services providers stock after selling 17,969 shares during the period. Toronto Dominion Bank owned about 0.20% of Fidelity National Information Services worth $64,241,000 at the end of the most recent quarter. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. BlackRock Inc. increased its holdings in Fidelity National Information Services by 2.7% during the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 60,473,174 shares of the information technology services providers stock valued at $3,307,883,000 after buying an additional 1,575,081 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Fidelity National Information Services by 1.4% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 26,456,658 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $1,437,381,000 after purchasing an additional 367,417 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors boosted its position in shares of Fidelity National Information Services by 115.2% in the second quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 14,426,414 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $789,119,000 after purchasing an additional 7,721,981 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Fidelity National Information Services by 18.6% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 12,534,919 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $684,057,000 after purchasing an additional 1,962,622 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Fidelity National Information Services by 0.4% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 8,498,166 shares of the information technology services providers stock worth $458,850,000 after purchasing an additional 33,881 shares during the period. 85.67% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors. Get Fidelity National Information Services alerts: Insider Transactions at Fidelity National Information Services In other news, Director Ellen R. Alemany bought 735 shares of the firms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 17th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $60.32 per share, with a total value of $44,335.20. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now directly owns 35,333 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $2,131,286.56. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Insiders own 0.68% of the companys stock. Analyst Ratings Changes A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on FIS shares. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $73.00 to $77.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a research report on Tuesday. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Fidelity National Information Services from $67.00 to $75.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Tuesday. TheStreet raised shares of Fidelity National Information Services from a d rating to a c rating in a research note on Monday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on Fidelity National Information Services from $68.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Friday, February 23rd. Finally, Mizuho increased their target price on Fidelity National Information Services from $73.00 to $76.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the companys stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $68.56. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on FIS Fidelity National Information Services Stock Up 0.1 % Shares of Fidelity National Information Services stock traded up $0.07 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $67.05. 337,762 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,757,311. The firm has a market cap of $39.73 billion, a P/E ratio of -5.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a current ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. has a 52-week low of $46.91 and a 52-week high of $68.14. The stocks fifty day simple moving average is $61.89 and its 200 day simple moving average is $57.35. Fidelity National Information Services (NYSE:FIS Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Monday, February 26th. The information technology services provider reported $0.94 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.95 by ($0.01). Fidelity National Information Services had a negative net margin of 54.30% and a positive return on equity of 13.06%. The company had revenue of $2.51 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $2.52 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.71 EPS. Fidelity National Information Servicess revenue for the quarter was down .6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. will post 4.85 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Fidelity National Information Services declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Monday, February 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $500.00 million in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.3% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually a sign that the companys management believes its stock is undervalued. Fidelity National Information Services Cuts Dividend The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.36 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 7th. This represents a $1.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.15%. Fidelity National Information Servicess payout ratio is -18.51%. About Fidelity National Information Services (Free Report) Fidelity National Information Services, Inc provides technology solutions for financial institutions and businesses worldwide. It operates through Banking Solutions, Merchant Solutions, and Capital Market Solutions segments. The Banking Solutions segment provides core processing and ancillary applications; mobile and online banking; fraud, risk management, and compliance; electronic funds transfer and network; card and retail payment; wealth and retirement; and item processing and output solutions. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding FIS? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (NYSE:FIS Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Fidelity National Information Services Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Fidelity National Information Services and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Toronto Dominion Bank lowered its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report) by 28.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 969,082 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock after selling 389,256 shares during the quarter. Toronto Dominion Banks holdings in Bristol-Myers Squibb were worth $56,246,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of BMY. Herold Advisors Inc. boosted its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 3.2% during the 3rd quarter. Herold Advisors Inc. now owns 33,668 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $1,954,000 after acquiring an additional 1,051 shares in the last quarter. Osterweis Capital Management Inc. boosted its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 69.6% during the 2nd quarter. Osterweis Capital Management Inc. now owns 5,049 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $323,000 after acquiring an additional 2,072 shares in the last quarter. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLC boosted its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 9.5% during the 3rd quarter. Kestra Private Wealth Services LLC now owns 139,811 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $8,115,000 after acquiring an additional 12,121 shares in the last quarter. Metis Global Partners LLC boosted its position in Bristol-Myers Squibb by 14.8% during the 3rd quarter. Metis Global Partners LLC now owns 101,772 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock valued at $5,907,000 after acquiring an additional 13,122 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jmac Enterprises LLC boosted its position in shares of Bristol-Myers Squibb by 11.4% in the 3rd quarter. Jmac Enterprises LLC now owns 12,171 shares of the biopharmaceutical companys stock worth $706,000 after purchasing an additional 1,245 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 74.98% of the companys stock. Get Bristol-Myers Squibb alerts: Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research firms have recently weighed in on BMY. Cantor Fitzgerald cut Bristol-Myers Squibb from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $68.00 to $55.00 in a research report on Wednesday, November 15th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their target price on Bristol-Myers Squibb from $58.00 to $51.00 and set an equal weight rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 6th. Redburn Atlantic lowered Bristol-Myers Squibb from a buy rating to a neutral rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $77.00 to $54.00 in a research note on Tuesday, February 6th. StockNews.com cut Bristol-Myers Squibb from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report on Thursday, February 22nd. Finally, Bank of America cut Bristol-Myers Squibb from a buy rating to a neutral rating and dropped their target price for the company from $68.00 to $60.00 in a research report on Wednesday, January 3rd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have issued a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Bristol-Myers Squibb presently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $61.17. Insider Buying and Selling at Bristol-Myers Squibb In related news, CEO Christopher S. Boerner bought 2,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 5th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $49.78 per share, with a total value of $99,560.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief executive officer now owns 82,672 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,115,412.16. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.08% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders. Bristol-Myers Squibb Stock Performance Shares of NYSE:BMY traded up $0.13 on Wednesday, reaching $50.64. The companys stock had a trading volume of 1,037,864 shares, compared to its average volume of 14,804,755. The stocks 50-day moving average is $50.35 and its two-hundred day moving average is $53.73. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a 52-week low of $47.58 and a 52-week high of $71.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.24, a current ratio of 1.43 and a quick ratio of 1.31. The stock has a market capitalization of $102.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.08, a PEG ratio of 1.53 and a beta of 0.38. Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Friday, February 2nd. The biopharmaceutical company reported $1.70 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $1.55 by $0.15. The business had revenue of $11.48 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $11.19 billion. Bristol-Myers Squibb had a net margin of 17.83% and a return on equity of 50.95%. The businesss revenue was up .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.82 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Bristol-Myers Squibb will post 6.61 EPS for the current year. Bristol-Myers Squibb Increases Dividend The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 5th were issued a $0.60 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, January 4th. This is a boost from Bristol-Myers Squibbs previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. This represents a $2.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.74%. Bristol-Myers Squibbs dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 62.18%. Bristol-Myers Squibb announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, December 7th that allows the company to repurchase $3.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the biopharmaceutical company to purchase up to 2.9% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the companys board of directors believes its shares are undervalued. Bristol-Myers Squibb Profile (Free Report) Bristol-Myers Squibb Company discovers, develops, licenses, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells biopharmaceutical products worldwide. It offers products for hematology, oncology, cardiovascular, immunology, fibrotic, and neuroscience diseases. The company's products include Eliquis for reduction in risk of stroke/systemic embolism in non-valvular atrial fibrillation, and for the treatment of DVT/PE; Opdivo for various anti-cancer indications, including bladder, blood, CRC, head and neck, RCC, HCC, lung, melanoma, MPM, stomach and esophageal cancer; Pomalyst/Imnovid for multiple myeloma; Orencia for active rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis; and Sprycel for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia. Featured Stories Want to see what other hedge funds are holding BMY? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY Free Report). Receive News & Ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bristol-Myers Squibb and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina raised its position in shares of The Bank of New York Mellon Co. (NYSE:BK Free Report) by 23.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 449,834 shares of the banks stock after purchasing an additional 84,053 shares during the period. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina owned 0.06% of Bank of New York Mellon worth $19,185,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. King Luther Capital Management Corp grew its holdings in shares of Bank of New York Mellon by 0.6% in the second quarter. King Luther Capital Management Corp now owns 38,109 shares of the banks stock worth $1,697,000 after purchasing an additional 224 shares during the last quarter. Pinkerton Retirement Specialists LLC grew its holdings in Bank of New York Mellon by 0.4% in the 2nd quarter. Pinkerton Retirement Specialists LLC now owns 63,013 shares of the banks stock worth $2,805,000 after acquiring an additional 240 shares during the last quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in Bank of New York Mellon by 1.7% in the 1st quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors Inc. now owns 14,451 shares of the banks stock worth $717,000 after acquiring an additional 245 shares during the last quarter. Arjuna Capital grew its stake in shares of Bank of New York Mellon by 0.5% in the third quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 48,446 shares of the banks stock worth $2,066,000 after purchasing an additional 251 shares during the last quarter. Finally, McIlrath & Eck LLC grew its stake in shares of Bank of New York Mellon by 4.9% in the second quarter. McIlrath & Eck LLC now owns 5,711 shares of the banks stock worth $254,000 after purchasing an additional 268 shares during the last quarter. 81.29% of the stock is owned by institutional investors. Get Bank of New York Mellon alerts: Analysts Set New Price Targets Several research firms recently weighed in on BK. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Bank of New York Mellon from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating and lifted their price target for the company from $52.00 to $62.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. Citigroup lifted their target price on shares of Bank of New York Mellon from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Bank of New York Mellon from a neutral rating to an overweight rating and set a $54.50 target price on the stock in a research note on Monday, December 18th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price objective on Bank of New York Mellon from $54.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 9th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the companys stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $54.75. Bank of New York Mellon Stock Performance BK stock opened at $55.55 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $42.72 billion, a PE ratio of 13.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.15 and a beta of 1.12. The Bank of New York Mellon Co. has a 12-month low of $39.65 and a 12-month high of $56.42. The company has a current ratio of 0.72, a quick ratio of 0.71 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.87. The stocks 50 day simple moving average is $54.12 and its 200 day simple moving average is $48.15. Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE:BK Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Friday, January 12th. The bank reported $1.28 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.12 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $4.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts expectations of $4.30 billion. Bank of New York Mellon had a net margin of 10.01% and a return on equity of 11.62%. The businesss revenue for the quarter was up 10.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.30 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that The Bank of New York Mellon Co. will post 5.24 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Bank of New York Mellon Announces Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, February 2nd. Stockholders of record on Monday, January 22nd were paid a $0.42 dividend. This represents a $1.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.02%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 19th. Bank of New York Mellons dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 42.32%. Insider Buying and Selling In other Bank of New York Mellon news, VP Catherine Keating sold 4,498 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $54.81, for a total transaction of $246,535.38. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 123,490 shares of the companys stock, valued at $6,768,486.90. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other Bank of New York Mellon news, VP Catherine Keating sold 4,498 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $54.81, for a total value of $246,535.38. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now owns 123,490 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,768,486.90. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, VP Hanneke Smits sold 15,425 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $55.16, for a total value of $850,843.00. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 119,656 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $6,600,224.96. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.10% of the stock is currently owned by insiders. About Bank of New York Mellon (Free Report) The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation provides a range of financial products and services in the United States and internationally. The company operates through Securities Services, Market and Wealth Services, Investment and Wealth Management, and other segments. The Securities Services segment offers custody, trust and depositary, accounting, exchange-traded funds, middle-office solutions, transfer agency, services for private equity and real estate funds, foreign exchange, securities lending, liquidity/lending services, and data analytics. See Also Receive News & Ratings for Bank of New York Mellon Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Bank of New York Mellon and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Valmont Industries, Inc. (NYSE:VMI Get Free Report) declared a quarterly dividend on Monday, February 26th, Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Friday, March 29th will be given a dividend of 0.60 per share by the industrial products company on Monday, April 15th. This represents a $2.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.13%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 27th. Valmont Industries has increased its dividend by an average of 10.1% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 4 years. Valmont Industries has a payout ratio of 14.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Valmont Industries to earn $17.31 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.40 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 13.9%. Get Valmont Industries alerts: Valmont Industries Stock Performance NYSE VMI traded down $0.09 on Wednesday, reaching $212.14. The stock had a trading volume of 5,877 shares, compared to its average volume of 164,525. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.82, a current ratio of 2.47 and a quick ratio of 1.56. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $229.33 and a two-hundred day moving average of $228.77. Valmont Industries has a 1-year low of $188.63 and a 1-year high of $335.60. The company has a market cap of $4.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.15 and a beta of 1.05. Institutional Trading of Valmont Industries Valmont Industries ( NYSE:VMI Get Free Report ) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 21st. The industrial products company reported $3.18 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $3.08 by $0.10. The firm had revenue of $1,000.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.04 billion. Valmont Industries had a return on equity of 20.69% and a net margin of 3.44%. The companys revenue was down 11.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $3.46 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Valmont Industries will post 15.55 EPS for the current year. Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of VMI. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Valmont Industries during the 4th quarter worth $64,415,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its position in shares of Valmont Industries by 19.9% during the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 639,546 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $204,195,000 after buying an additional 106,268 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Valmont Industries by 3.6% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 2,067,641 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $555,409,000 after buying an additional 71,967 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. lifted its position in shares of Valmont Industries by 2.1% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 2,092,948 shares of the industrial products companys stock worth $668,237,000 after buying an additional 42,982 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Eaton Vance Management raised its position in Valmont Industries by 4,078.5% in the first quarter. Eaton Vance Management now owns 36,562 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $8,724,000 after purchasing an additional 35,687 shares during the last quarter. 84.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of research firms have recently weighed in on VMI. DA Davidson cut their target price on Valmont Industries from $290.00 to $275.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. StockNews.com downgraded Valmont Industries from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Monday. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on Valmont Industries from $264.00 to $266.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 23rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $270.50. Read Our Latest Report on VMI Valmont Industries Company Profile (Get Free Report) Valmont Industries, Inc produces and sells metal products in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Denmark, and internationally. The company operates through two segments: Infrastructure and Agriculture. It manufactures and distributes steel, pre-stressed concrete, composite, and hybrid structures for lighting, transportation, and telecommunications equipment, as well as electrical transmission, distribution, substations, and renewable energy generation equipment; and provides coatings services to preserve metal products. Featured Stories Receive News & Ratings for Valmont Industries Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Valmont Industries and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. Van Lanschot Kempen Investment Management N.V. acquired a new position in The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG Free Report) in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 80,419 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $11,730,000. Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Wunderlich Capital Managemnt bought a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble in the second quarter worth $40,000. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. purchased a new position in Procter & Gamble in the 2nd quarter worth $50,000. CGC Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in Procter & Gamble during the second quarter valued at about $55,000. VitalStone Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble during the second quarter valued at about $60,000. Finally, RVW Wealth LLC purchased a new position in shares of Procter & Gamble in the third quarter worth about $77,000. Institutional investors own 63.43% of the companys stock. Get Procter & Gamble alerts: Insiders Place Their Bets In other Procter & Gamble news, insider Marc S. Pritchard sold 101,704 shares of the firms stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $153.57, for a total transaction of $15,618,683.28. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 163,428 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $25,097,637.96. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other Procter & Gamble news, CEO Ma. Fatima Francisco sold 74,443 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $153.30, for a total transaction of $11,412,111.90. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 973 shares of the companys stock, valued at $149,160.90. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Marc S. Pritchard sold 101,704 shares of Procter & Gamble stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $153.57, for a total transaction of $15,618,683.28. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 163,428 shares in the company, valued at approximately $25,097,637.96. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 284,862 shares of company stock worth $44,074,117 in the last ninety days. 0.17% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Procter & Gamble Trading Down 0.0 % Shares of NYSE PG traded down $0.05 during trading hours on Wednesday, hitting $159.25. 520,322 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 7,352,992. The stock has a market capitalization of $374.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.27 and a beta of 0.45. The companys 50 day moving average price is $152.89 and its 200 day moving average price is $151.05. The Procter & Gamble Company has a 12 month low of $136.10 and a 12 month high of $161.74. The company has a current ratio of 0.64, a quick ratio of 0.44 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48. Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 23rd. The company reported $1.84 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts consensus estimates of $1.70 by $0.14. Procter & Gamble had a net margin of 17.60% and a return on equity of 34.04%. The company had revenue of $21.44 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $21.48 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.59 EPS. The firms revenue for the quarter was up 3.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that The Procter & Gamble Company will post 6.45 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Procter & Gamble Announces Dividend The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 15th. Investors of record on Friday, January 19th were paid a $0.9407 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, January 18th. This represents a $3.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.36%. Procter & Gambles dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 62.98%. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades PG has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group began coverage on Procter & Gamble in a research report on Monday, November 13th. They set a buy rating and a $177.00 price target for the company. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Procter & Gamble from $172.00 to $178.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 24th. Truist Financial raised their target price on shares of Procter & Gamble from $155.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 31st. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on shares of Procter & Gamble from $156.00 to $157.00 and gave the company a sector perform rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 24th. Finally, Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Procter & Gamble from $160.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, January 25th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the companys stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $167.50. Check Out Our Latest Analysis on PG About Procter & Gamble (Free Report) The Procter & Gamble Company provides branded consumer packaged goods worldwide. It operates through five segments: Beauty; Grooming; Health Care; Fabric & Home Care; and Baby, Feminine & Family Care. The Beauty segment offers conditioners, shampoos, styling aids, and treatments under the Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences, Pantene, and Rejoice brands; and antiperspirants and deodorants, personal cleansing, and skin care products under the Olay, Old Spice, Safeguard, Secret, and SK-II brands. Read More Receive News & Ratings for Procter & Gamble Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Procter & Gamble and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter. (Bloomberg) -- A cyberattack that has disrupted Change Healthcares computer networks for nearly a week is creating a growing administrative problem for pharmacies and health-care providers around the nation. Most Read from Bloomberg Change Healthcare, a division of UnitedHealth Group Inc., processes insurance claims and pharmacy requests for more than 340,000 physicians and 60,000 pharmacies. The hack was discovered on Feb. 21, prompting UnitedHealth to isolate the impacted systems. UnitedHealth gave no clearer sense on Tuesday when it would be resolved. Until then, essential connections that distribute data and money across the health-care system are severed, leading to growing backlogs of claims and payments. Members are reporting disruptions in filling prescriptions and hits to their revenue, given that claims are not being paid in many cases, said John Riggi, a former FBI cyber official who is now national adviser for cybersecurity and risk at the American Hospital Association. In the long term, both of those could have a significant impact, he said. The longer this goes on the more potential impact we would see to patient care because of impacts to prescriptions or revenue. UnitedHealth said its working with law enforcement and cybersecurity firms Palo Alto Networks Inc. and Alphabet Inc.s Mandiant. Most pharmacies have changed how they process claims to blunt the impact, the company said in an email late Monday. The company said reports of members not being able to get prescriptions are minimal with fewer than 100 instances across its UnitedHealthcare insurance unit and Optum Rx pharmacy plans. But the disruption from downed systems threatens to worsen the longer the outage persists. Story continues One health insurer saw the number of claims it receives from providers drop by 40% since the Change Healthcare system went down, according to an executive who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Read More: United Health Cites Nation-State in Hack Disrupting Pharmacies The plans ability to send payments to providers or members being reimbursed for care has also been crippled, delaying payments in the tens of millions of dollars, the executive said. Because Change Healthcare handles all the payments, even claims that had been processed before the Change outage or that it received via other networks cant be paid. The plan is considering whether to begin the difficult process of sending payments manually, the person said. UnitedHealth has been holding regular calls with clients, and during a call Sunday attributed the attack to the BlackCat hacking group, the person said. The company had previously said it suspected nation-state linked hackers. BlackCat, also known as ALPHV, is one of the more prolific ransomware gangs. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Tuesday issued a fresh alert about the BlackCat group. The health sector has been the most commonly victimized since December, the agency said, after a recent post by the groups administrators urging attacks against hospitals. The Department of Veterans Affairs is among the US agencies that have contracts with Change Healthcare. Terrence Hayes, a spokesperson, said all if its pharmacies were operational but the department had disconnected all systems from Change Healthcare. During the weekend, state Medicaid agencies worked to make sure patients could get prescriptions, said Lindsey Browning, director of Medicaid programming at the National Association of Medicaid Directors. Medicaid is the safety-net health program for low-income Americans and covers about 87 million people as of October 2023. This included temporary measures like lifting rules that require prior authorizations or permitting emergency medication refills, she said. As states try to cushion the impact on patients, payments to pharmacies and medical providers are being held up. The longer the payment flow to providers is disrupted, the more concerning it becomes, she said. States are beginning to discuss what levers could be pulled to help stabilize the delivery system if this drags on, she said. About 300 staff from Utahs Medicaid program worked through the weekend to call almost 20,000 people whose prescriptions might be affected, according to state Medicaid Director Jennifer Strohecker. Dozens of pharmacies have asked for help getting reimbursed, the the department created a workaround using a Google form to submit requests. On a call Tuesday Change Healthcare officials started to discuss restoring services, Strohecker said. I dont have a timeframe but they are beginning to talk about what this will look like as systems come back online, she said. The deep reach of Change Healthcares services throughout the health-care industry means the ripple effects hit broadly, Riggi said. Many hospitals have been impacted in a limited way by this attack, but what makes this different is that almost every hospital in the country touches this system. Its a systemic entity and a mission-critical third party for the whole sector, Riggi said, noting that some health-care providers have had to resort to manual methods to try to verify insurance coverage. --With assistance from Jordan Robertson. (Updates with CISA alert in 11th paragraph, details from Utah Medicaid program) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. American students sing a Chinese song during an event to celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year in Muscatine, Iowa, the United States, Feb. 9, 2024. [Xinhua/Xu Jing] BEIJING, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) Sienna Stoneking, a first-year student at Muscatine High School in the central U.S. state of Iowa, has just concluded her first visit to China with elation. While in China, she, together with more than 20 students from her school, went to see the giant pandas and visited the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and sights in Hebei Province and Shanghai City. On Jan. 28, just before the end of their trip, the American students wrote a letter to express their joy and gratitude to Chinese President Xi Jinping for the invitation. Friendship That Endures "China is really huge. Just like the United States. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to come to China," said the letter signed by over 20 students, with some drawing hearts next to their signatures. On the right side of the main text, students drew a soaring Chinese dragon over the Great Wall. "This invitation to visit China has deeply moved the students, most of whom are visiting China for the first time. Many of them have told me that if it weren't for this opportunity, they probably wouldn't have had the chance to visit China in their lifetime," said Guo Qianyu, a Chinese language teacher at the school. On Saturday, the day of the Chinese Lantern Festival of the Year of the Dragon, Xi replied to the letter, in which he extended holiday wishes to the teachers and students of the school, and encouraged more American youth to come to China for exchanges and study. "We are so honored to be part of the first students and educators in the 50,000 student exchanges that President Xi extended to Americans. We look forward to continuing to build a strong and lasting relationship between Muscatine, Iowa, and the People's Republic of China," said Jennifer Fridley, principal of Susan Clark Junior High of Muscatine Community School District. "We are grateful for the support that we have received from the Chinese government and from the people of China. We believe that our relationship is a testament to the power of education to build bridges between cultures and to promote peace and understanding," Fridley said. During his trip to the United States in November 2023, Xi announced a program to invite 50,000 American youths to China in the next five years for exchanges and study. Muscatine High School students present a lion dance during an event to celebrate the Chinese New Year in Muscatine, Iowa, the United States, on Feb. 1, 2023. [Xinhua/Xu Jing] Sarah Lande, a friend of Xi's from the U.S. state of Iowa, recently wrote a letter to the Chinese president, expressing the hope that Muscatine High School students can join the program. With Xi's support, more than 20 Muscatine High School students paid an exchange visit to Beijing, Shanghai and Hebei Province, among other places in China, from Jan. 24 to 30, becoming the first group of American students to visit China under the program. The visit is in the heritage of the friendship between Xi and the people in Muscatine. Muscatine, a city in Iowa on the banks of the Mississippi River, has been home to the nearly four-decade-long friendship between Xi and local residents. In 1985, Xi, then a Chinese county official, visited the city. Sarah Lande received him. During his U.S. visit as China's vice president in 2012, despite a tight schedule, Xi made it to the reunion in Lande's house on a snowy day. They gathered around a couch in the living room and reminisced about their joyful memories. The hour-long meeting was filled with laughter. The warm and friendly American people he met during his first visit to the United States in 1985 have given him an indelible impression, Xi said in the reply. "During my first visit to the United States, I stayed at the Dvorchaks in Iowa. I still remember their address-2911 Bonnie Drive," Xi recalled in his speech at the welcome dinner during his U.S. visit late last year. "People are pretty excited about such an amazing story, depicting nearly forty years of friendship between President Xi and the people in Muscatine. So, the story just continues to evolve, the students' visit being just another chapter," said Dan Stein, chairman of the Muscatine-China Initiative Committee. Language as Bridge "We will work hard to learn Chinese so that next time we can be tour guides for other classmates." In the letter, Muscatine students expressed their commitment to learning the Chinese language for further exchanges with Chinese friends. In his reply, Xi encouraged the Muscatine High School students to revisit China and encouraged more American young people to come to China for exchanges and study. Guo, who has been teaching Chinese at Muscatine for seven years, is delighted to see the bonding effects of the Chinese language. Through learning Chinese, students have gained a deeper understanding of the friendly relations between Muscatine and China, sparking increased interest in Chinese culture. "Many students have watched the video we recently filmed in China and are eager to visit. Some Chinese schools also want to establish sister school relationships with us. We look forward to nurturing the seeds of friendship between students of both countries," Guo said. Students of the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China stage a dance during an event to celebrate Chinese Lunar New Year in Muscatine, Iowa, the United States, Feb. 9, 2024. [Xinhua/Xu Jing] Ryan Castle, the principal at Muscatine High School, said the school is preparing for another exchange trip to China in April. "I really hope my Chinese can become more fluent so I can visit China more often in the future," said Stoneking. She and a classmate are already considering studying in China. "I will eagerly board the plane when the time comes." Cultural exchanges have also brought American friends closer to Chinese youth. In Beijing, Wang Yi, a high school junior, participated in exchange activities with students from Muscatine High School. Chinese and American teenagers practiced the traditional exercise Baduanjin together, performed Peking Opera, tried their hands at Chinese calligraphy and traditional painting, and donned ethnic costumes. As part of a Spring Festival custom, they also wrote the Chinese character Fu, meaning good fortune. "Although we come from different countries and cultural backgrounds, we have built a deep and sincere friendship. I believe they can feel the warmth of our culture, the warmth of our friendship, and with common expectations, we can work together to create a diverse and harmonious global village," Wang said. On Feb. 9, the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year of Dragon, an art troupe from the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China performed with peers from Muscatine High School under the theme "Art Unites Friends." The Muscatine students welcomed their Chinese friends with symphonies and jazz music, while the Chinese students presented traditional dances and martial arts, offering a "Spring Festival Gala" for Muscatine students and teachers. A few days later, Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, replied to a Chinese New Year greeting card from teachers and students from Lincoln High School in Washington State, who are preparing for their exchange trip to China in March. The students and teachers felt greatly encouraged by this precious New Year's blessing, said Zhou Shuqi, co-chair of the Washington State U.S.-China Youth and Student Exchange Association. "We hope that young people from both countries can get to know each other, learn from each other, and contribute to enhancing friendship between the peoples of China and the United States, especially among the youth, to build a better future for our planet together," Zhou said. (Source: Xinhua) As more and more Chinese have settled down in big cities, some rural areas (in China) have become desolate. What can local governments do to ensure rural residents have a greater sense of belonging to their home villages? That question has been plaguing Tian Jing, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Vice-Chairperson of the Youth Federation of Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, in southwest China's Yunnan Province. Tian is also a provincial-level inheritor of Jianshui (a county in the prefecture)'s purple-pottery-making craft, which was added to the list of the country's items of intangible cultural heritage in 2008. During the past decade, Tian has explored ways to integrate cultural and rural revitalization. "Cultural inheritance is crucial for rural revitalization. Greater efforts should be made to promote Jianshui's purple-pottery-making craft, which, in turn, will promote the county's rural revitalization. During the past 10-plus years, I have put much effort into revitalizing the traditional craft, making it a powerful force to promote rural revitalization," says Tian. Breathing New Life into Purple Potteries During the past two decades, Tian has devoted her life to studying and saving the craft. She has solved many technically difficult problems, and she has developed purple-pottery items in more than 100 shapes. To promote the traditional craft, Tian established Taochaju Studio and Tianji Kiln, both on Jianshui's Zitao Street. The studio and kiln are both dedicated to producing purple-pottery items. In November 2018, Tian visited several rural areas (in Dali and Nujiang) to conduct field research. Why? She wanted to explore ways to help impoverished rural women improve their pottery-making skills, so the women could help promote the intangible cultural heritage. Within a short time after she returned to her hometown, in late 2018, Tian established a center (in Jianshui) to provide training, free of charge, to young people in poverty-stricken areas (in the county), to teach them how to make purple-pottery items. Many women have said they have benefited greatly from the training. They have been overjoyed as they have earned money by creating crafts. As the women work at home, they can take care of their parents and children. During the past decade, Tian has taken on more than 300 apprentices, to promote the development of the traditional craft. Enhancing Value of Intangible Cultural Heritage In 2018, Tian was elected a deputy to the 12th People's Congress of Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture. Based on her experience in creating purple potteries, she made a proposal to include the promotion of intangible cultural heritage in the work of the government of Jianshui County, and to encourage inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, at all levels, to provide training to residents of poverty-stricken areas (in Jianshui), to help them improve their craft-making skills, so they could escape poverty by creating crafts. During the Third Session of the 13th CPPCC National Committee (held in May 2020 in Beijing), Tian suggested vocational schools (in regions inhabited by ethnic minorities) should arrange for their students to attend courses, provided by inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, so the children could better understand the unique charm of traditional Chinese culture. Tian said that would contribute to the regions' efforts to cultivate successors to the traditional cultural heritage, and also enable the inheritors to choose outstanding graduates (of the schools) as their apprentices. As a CPPCC member, Tian has made several proposals to strengthen the cultivation of inheritors of intangible cultural heritage. "In 2022, China's Ministry of Education gave a positive response to my proposal. So far, 162 vocational schools (across the country) have established experimental sites to promote ethnic cultural inheritance and innovation," Tian says. In 2023, Tian suggested China should develop more precise training goals and plans for cultivating inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, and also build a talent pool for the inheritors. "My biggest wish is to pass on my pottery-making skills to more young people, so they can create a better life by making crafts. That, in turn, will promote rural revitalization. I also hope more people will understand the beauty of the art form," Tian says. Photos from VCG and Tuchong (Women of China English Monthly January 2024) (Bloomberg) -- Lithium companies are looking beyond a recent price plunge, maintaining their interest in new projects to be offered in Chile, according to the countrys top mining official. Most Read from Bloomberg From the contacts weve had visits, lobbies we see that the interest remains, Mining Minister Aurora Williams told reporters Wednesday. Beyond prices, the challenges the world faces in terms of energy transition and climate change are still pending. Prospective investors in the country with the largest lithium reserves appear to be taking a long term view, betting the market will tighten again in the shift away from fossil fuels. Prices of lithium a key component in electric-vehicle batteries have lost more than 40% since President Gabriel Boric announced in April a new public-private model to attract capital while keeping the best deposits under the control of state-owned Codelco. Last month, executives from London-based Rio Tinto Group and Chinas Tsingshan Holding Group Co. held seperate lithium discussions with Chilean authorities, according to lobby disclosures. Tianqi Lithium Corp. and Frances Eramet SA are also on a list of firms to show interest in the model. Read More: US Bid to Loosen Chinas Grip on Key Metals for EVs Is Stalling Interested parties are keen to know which salt flats will be offered for exploration and which areas will be protected. In areas deemed strategically important, private-sector partners will be offered a minority stake, while in areas of lesser importance they may have control. Those questions are expected to be answered by the end of next month, with contracts defined by the end of June, said Williams. She spoke ahead of a trip to attend the PDAC mining convention in Toronto early next month, where authorities will hold meetings with prospective investors. Story continues Lithium and copper will be topics of conversations during Treasury Secretary Janet Yellens trip to Chile later this week as the US looks to build out EV supply chains domestically and with its free trade partners. The South American nation is the biggest supplier of lithium after Australia and the worlds biggest copper supplier. In lithium, its been losing market share as output remains restricted to two operations on a single giant salt flat. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. 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. Weather Alert ...Elevated Fire Danger Today and Tuesday... ...Hard Freeze Expected Tonight... The combination of very dry air and northwest winds gusting up to 20 mph will create an elevated risk of uncontrolled fire spread this afternoon. Relative humidity values will fall to 20 to 35%, with the lowest humidity levels over the Ozark Foothills of southeast Missouri. A more substantial fire danger is expected Tuesday, as southwest winds increase significantly, with gusts of 25 to 40 mph forecast Tuesday afternoon. Relative humidity values Tuesday afternoon will fall to 25 to 35%. If you are planning outdoor burning today and Tuesday, use extra caution and have fire suppression equipment ready. Tonight, very cold and dry surface high pressure will allow temperatures to drop into the middle and upper 20s throughout the region. Although the growing season has not officially started, tender vegetation could be impacted by these cold temperatures. Please take necessary actions to protect any tender vegetation tonight. China Yuchai International (NYSE:CYD) Full Year 2023 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: CN18.0b (up 13% from FY 2022). Net income: CN285.5m (up 31% from FY 2022). Profit margin: 1.6% (up from 1.4% in FY 2022). The increase in margin was driven by higher revenue. EPS: CN6.99 (up from CN5.35 in FY 2022). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period China Yuchai International EPS Misses Expectations Revenue was in line with analyst estimates. Earnings per share (EPS) missed analyst estimates by 13%. Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 9.2% p.a. on average during the next 2 years, compared to a 3.3% growth forecast for the Machinery industry in the US. Performance of the American Machinery industry. The company's shares are down 2.0% from a week ago. Risk Analysis Before we wrap up, we've discovered 1 warning sign for China Yuchai International that you should be aware of. 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. 50/50 chance of cancer patients in Wales starting treatment on time, says leading charity A leading charity has hit out at the Welsh Government after new figures revealed that cancer patients have almost a 50/50 chance of their treatment starting on time. Throughout 2023 just 55.5 per cent cancer patients started their treatment within the 62 days target time. The figures, released last week by the Welsh Government, are 0.7 percentage points lower than 2022 making them the worst cancer waiting times performance on record in Wales. But the figures in 2022 which saw 56.2 per cent of people were began their treatment within 62 days are still well below the 75 per cent of patients starting treatment within 62 days (without suspensions) of first being suspected of cancer. The Welsh Governments planned care recovery plan established a new target of 80 per cent, to be reached by 2026. But these targets have never been met According to Macmillan Cancer Care an interim recovery target that cancer diagnosis and treatment would be undertaken within 62 days for 70 per cent of people by March 2023 was also missed. The Welsh Government figures also show that last December 58 per cent (930 out of 1,603) of pathways started their first definitive treatment within 62 days of first being suspected of cancer. Whilst this was 4.5 percentage points higher than the previous month and 2.7 percentage points higher than December 2022, it still means that 673 people in Wales were left waiting too long for their treatment to begin. For some cancer types, performance remains even more concerning. In December 2023 just 28.1 per cent of people with gynaecological cancer, 39.7 per cent of people with urological cancer and 45 per cent of people with lower gastrointestinal cancer started their treatment on time. Richard Pugh, Head of Partnerships at Macmillan Cancer Support, said that behind the figures are thousands of lives that have been turned upside down. He added that the data confirms the devastating truth that last year cancer waiting times were the worst on record in Wales with almost a 50/50 chance of peoples treatment starting on time. We are especially concerned about the ongoing delays for patients with gynaecological and urological cancer as month after month these targets are being missed by a mile, said Richard Pugh. The Welsh Government set out an ambition to treat 80 per cent of people with cancer on time by 2026, but this ambition looks increasingly impossible to achieve. Exhausted NHS staff are doing the best that they can, but they are working under unbearable pressures. There is only one way out of this mess and thats through government action. The Welsh Government has said that cancer is a priority but now we need to see the commitments made in the Wales Cancer Improvement Plan come to life so that people with cancer get the timely and quality care they urgently need. The time for action is now. The Welsh Government figures coincide with the release of new data from Cancer Research which shows that the UK is lagging behind in treatment times when compared to to other countries. For more than 10 years a multidisciplinary group of experts, including academics, clinicians and data experts, from the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP) have been reporting on the variation in cancer survival between countries. The study found that countries with better cancer outcomes typically had higher use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and shorter waits to start treatment. For example people living in Norway and Australia started chemotherapy and radiotherapy in the quickest time and had the highest five-year net survival for stage three colon cancer. In the UK the average time to start chemotherapy in the study period was shortest in England (48 days) and longest in Scotland (65 days). Northern Ireland had the shortest average time to start radiotherapy (53 days). Wales (81 days) and Scotland (79 days) had the longest. It is estimated that four in 10 cancer patients in the UK will require radiotherapy as part of their treatment. Dr John Butler, clinical lead for the ICBP said that a lower use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in the UK could impact peoples chances of survival, especially for older patients. However according to Cancer Research while some cancer patients need time to prepare for treatment, waiting too long can exacerbate their stress and anxiety levels, and for some patients mean their cancer can keep growing. The organisation says that the delays to begin treatment in the UK are partly a result of the UK Governments lack of long-term planning on cancer in recent decades. This is combined with workforce and capacity pressures across the UK health system. The charity is now urging the UK Government to work to improve cancer treatment and patient outcomes. Michelle Mitchell, the charitys chief executive, said: The UK should be striving for world-leading outcomes. All cancer patients, no matter where they live, deserve to receive the highest quality care. But this research shows that UK patients are treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy less often than comparable countries. When it comes to treating cancer, timing really matters. Behind these statistics are people waiting anxiously to begin treatment that is key to boosting their chances of survival. You can view the findings in full on the Cancer Research website here. [email protected] Corwen organic farm estate now has largest herd of bison in UK These are the first images of Rhug Estates newest addition 20 North American bison. The majestic animals have found their home on the 12,500-acre organic farm estate near Corwen. As a result, Rhug now proudly boasts the largest bison herd in the UK, and visitors to the estate can catch a glimpse whilst on the farm walk, a truly memorable experience. Back in 2007, Lord Newborough had the visionary idea to introduce bison to the estate, and the herd has flourished ever since. Estate Farm Manager Emyr Owen, from Llanrwst, says the bison family has now grown to over 60, thanks to a recent farm sale in Wiltshire. Not only do the animals provide a sustainable supply of high-quality meat for distribution and sale on-site, but they also captivate tourists from far and wide, turning heads wherever they roam. Emyr revealed the bison breeding season is a busy one, with calving taking place from April through to the summer. As he embarks on his one-year anniversary at the estate, he reflected on the rewarding yet demanding journey. We have been absolutely flat-out, but I wouldnt have it any other way, said Emyr. There have been countless developments and endless learning opportunities, and Im thoroughly enjoying the experience. Rhug Estate is renowned as a premier producer of high-quality meats in the UK and has gained recognition for its commitment to countryside preservation and high animal welfare standards. The Estate was honoured with a Royal Warrant of Appointment by the now King Charles III. From field to plate, Rhug oversees the entire journey of its animals, supplying restaurants worldwide in addition to its own popular farm shop and takeaway. To stay informed about the latest news and updates from Rhug Estate, visit their website at www.rhug.co.uk and follow @rhugestate on social media. [email protected] Project launched to help revive the River Gwenfro A community-led project aiming to revive the River Gwenfro in Wrexham has been launched. The initiative, led by the Welsh Dee Trust and Groundwork North Wales, is set to engage local residents, decision makers and businesses in developing an action plan to identify and address the challenges faced by the river. With its source in the Clywydian hills near Bwlchgwyn, the River Gwenfro flows down through farmland then through the villages of Southsea and New Broughton. It then reaches Wrexham City Centre where it becomes a highly modified urban river with stetches of it invisible as it runs beneath the city. The river resurfaces again and can be found flowing through Caia Park before joining the river Clywedog at Kings Mill which then joins the river Dee Special Area of Conservation. But like many rivers across Wales and the UK, the river is not in its best health suffering from flooding, fly-tipping, invasive species, pollution, and urban modification. Welsh Dee Trust and Groundwork North Wales are keen to understand from communities how these issues can be addressed so the river can be improved for both people and wildlife. The key objectives of the project include: Community Engagement: The project aims to actively involve residents, local businesses, schools, and community groups in the creation of the action plan for the river Gwenfro. Education and Awareness: Community events and sessions in schools will be delivered to raise awareness about the importance and health of the river Gwenfro. Environmental Assessment: Through thorough research and data collection, the project seeks to identify key environmental issues affecting the river, including water quality, biodiversity, and habitat quality. Stakeholder Collaboration: Welsh Dee Trust will facilitate partnerships with local authorities, environmental agencies, and other stakeholders to ensure a holistic and well-informed approach to river restoration. Welsh Dee Trust are asking people to fill in a short questionnaire to hear thoughts and opinions on the river to help shape the project: Click here / Cymraeg the questionnaire can also be found on the Welsh Dee Trust website. The Welsh Dee Trust and Groundwork North Wales are also inviting Wrexhams residents to a Gwenfro community river clean on 17 March at 10am at Kings Mill, Wrexham. The event will be a morning collecting litter walking along the river from Kingsmill to Caia and back. Come along to learn more about the river and share your thoughts while giving back. More details can be found here. [email protected] Tough choice to keep rates relief at 40% money will make sure that the NHS has what it needs to keep going The Finance Minister has defended the Welsh Governments decision not to increase business rate support in line with England, noting it was a tough choice but has meant the NHS has more money. As previously reported the final Welsh Government budget has been published, however there is no movement on the business rates relief where entities in Wales are set to get 40% discount, however across the border in England that sum is 75%. The difference in support has been highlighted across Wales, in the Senedd and locally by Wrexham businesses, with calls for parity at the 75% level. The final budget has no change the to Welsh Government policy, with Finance Minister Rebecca Evans challenged on the issue, and given a specific anecdote that failing to increase to 75% would be the tipping point and might prove devastating to a small business. The Minister said, For background for anybody whos not familiar with this, weve been providing temporary rate relief support for businesses in the retail hospitality and leisure sector since the pandemic. Weve provided over a billion pounds of support That support was always intended to be temporary. Its not something that business would have been planning on at all for the next financial year because it was assumed it would come to an end in any case. We have made some really, really difficult choices with the budget and our priority has been protecting public services the NHS in Wales will have a 4% uplift compared to less than 1% across the border in England. I think the situation youve described gives us an example of one of the tough choices that weve had to make. Nonetheless, we will be providing 40% rates relief to those businesses in that sector. But, lets remember around half of businesses in Wales pay no rates whatsoever. In any case, only around one in five will actually pay their full entitlements because we do have a really generous system of support for businesses. Its worth in the next financial year, around a third of a billion pounds. Thats an awful lot of great relief support were providing. I do understand that this decision not to be able to provide a full 75% will be disappointing to businesses, but it is one of the tough choices that weve made in terms of just making sure that the NHS has what it needs to keep going. In a separate statement, the Minister detailed, I am providing a package of non-domestic rates support which will benefit every ratepayer in Wales. I confirmed this package as part of the Draft Budget. We will cap the increase to the non-domestic rates multiplier for 2024-25 to 5%, at a recurring annual cost of 18m. This is lower than the 6.7% increase that would otherwise apply. We will also be investing an additional 78m to provide a fifth successive year of support for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses with their non-domestic rates bills. We also continue to support ratepayers with increased liabilities following the 2023 non-domestic rates revaluation. Our transitional relief scheme continues to phase in changes for eligible ratepayers at a cost of 38m in 202425. This is in addition to our permanent rate relief schemes. [email protected] Chongqing Changan Automobile's logo on its CS75 SUV model is pictured at its booth during the Auto China 2016 auto show in Beijing SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's state-owned Chongqing Changan Automobile Co Ltd is in talks to take over struggling Chinese electric vehicle maker Human Horizons, financial news outlet Yicai reported on Wednesday, citing Changan Chairman Zhu Huarong. Ding Lei, founder of Shanghai-based Human Horizons which makes the Hiphi-branded EVs, met Zhu in Chongqing on Feb. 27, Yicai added, citing a separate person it didn't name. Changan Auto confirmed the meeting between Ding and Zhu in a response to Reuters but declined to comment on the reported talks of acquisition or merger. Human Horizons didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The company founded in 2017 told its employees on Feb. 18 that it would suspend operation for six months, financial media outlet Caixin has reported, after Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia retracted a plan to invest $5.6 billion in Human Horizons. Human Horizons sells three Hiphi EVs models priced from 339,000 yuan ($47,089.87) to 800,000 yuan in China. The cars, with monthly sales under 1,000 units, are manufactured in a plant that previously made Kia cars in the eastern Jiangsu province. ($1 = 7.1990 yuan) (Reporting by Zhang Yan, Zhuzhu Cui and Brenda Goh; Editing by Michael Perry) On Tuesday, the Socialist Equality Party in the United States announced that it has selected its candidates in the 2024 elections, Joseph Kishore for president and Jerry White for vice president. The SEP has established a website for its campaign, which is accessible at socialism2024.org. Socialist Equality Party (US) 2024 candidates Joseph Kishore and Jerry White Kishore, 44, has been a member of the SEP in the United States since 1999. He has served as the partys national secretary for nearly 16 years, having been first elected at the partys founding congress in 2008. He ran as the SEPs candidate for president in 2020. White, 64, is the labor editor of the World Socialist Web Site. He ran as the SEPs presidential candidate in 2008, 2012 and 2016. SEP (US) National Chairman David North explained the purpose of the SEP campaign in a statement announcing it: The Socialist Equality Party is intervening in this election to raise the political consciousness of the working class, to develop its understanding that no solution can be found to any of the problems confronting working people except through the ending of the capitalist system and its replacement with socialism, and that this great historical task can only be achieved by adopting a global strategy aimed at the mobilization of the power of the American and international working class in a unified struggle against the world capitalist system. North emphasized that the SEP campaign would be directed to the international working class. He said: What happens in the US affects every country in the world. Given the global impact of the US elections, every person in the world should have the right to cast a ballot in November. He added that the SEP would seek to unite workers internationally and fight against the vicious chauvinism of the capitalist parties. By running in the election, North said, The Socialist Equality Party will advance a program that calls for the end of the corporate-financial dictatorship, the establishment of democratically controlled public ownership over the financial-corporate conglomerates, and the dissolution of the vast military-industrial complex. North explained that the SEP is not a mere vote-catching organization, shouting demagogic slogans, mouthing platitudes and adapting its program to the lowest common denominator. Rather, The SEP is a party of history, with theoretical, political and practical work based on a vast experience of revolutionary struggle, spanning more than a century. He continued: Our traditions are rooted in the international principles and program of Marxist socialism, as it has been defended and developed by the Trotskyist movement, which was founded in 1923, in opposition to Stalinism, social democracy, reactionary nationalism and countless varieties of middle-class politics. In accepting the nomination of the SEP as its presidential candidate, Kishore stated, The two likely candidates of the Democrats and Republicans, President Biden and ex-President Trump, represent two factions of the capitalist corporate-financial oligarchy. They speak for, and act on behalf of, the billionaires, the super-wealthy Wall Street shareholders, the corporate interests, and the military-industrial complex and their program of war, dictatorship, inequality and poverty. As the SEPs candidates, Jerry and I represent the interests of the working class, the vast majority of the population. Explaining the essential features of the present leading figures of the two-party system, Kishore noted that Trump is not running so much for president, as he is for dictator. The Republicans seek to exploit and misdirect social grievances by marketing the snake oil of reactionary nationalism, pitting American workers against our class brothers and sisters throughout the world. As for Biden and the Democrats, he said, their central program is expanding war. Bidens provocation and escalation of the US-NATO war against Russia over Ukraine, now in its third year, and support for Israels genocidal assault on Gaza, are part of a global imperialist and militaristic agenda that is leading mankind to the catastrophe of nuclear annihilation. Neither the Democrats or Republicans have anything to offer working people and youth, Kishore stated. While endless sums are made available for war and bailouts of the rich, millions of workers struggle to put food on the table amidst soaring prices. The interests of workers can be secured, Kishore explained, only through an industrial and political offensive of the working class bound up with the fight for socialism. He stated: Socialism means genuine social equality between all people. It means abolishing an economic system based on the exploitation of the working class, in which massive wealth is concentrated in the richest 1 percent, and CEOs and Wall Street executives earn more in one day, and even in one hour, than the worker makes in an entire year. Socialism means a society run by those who produce all the wealth, the working class. It means an enormous expansion of democracy by establishing working class control over production on a world scale. In his statement accepting the nomination of the SEP for vice president, White drew attention to the history of the class struggle in the United States, noting: We will be told for the one millionth time that socialism can never win a hearing among American workers. This is a lie. Nowhere else has the class struggle been as explosive, from the eight-hour day movement of the 1860s that culminated in the Haymarket Affair, through the Great Pullman Strike of 1894 led by the founding figure of American socialism, Eugene Debs, to the struggles for the industrial unions in the 1930s spearheaded by socialist-minded rank-and-file workers, to the mass civil rights movement of oppressed black workers in the 1960s, the American working class has produced more than its share of heroes and martyrs, victories and defeats. White added, The central problem has ever been to break free of the Democratic and Republican parties and their various middle-class satellites. To the American workers we can say, together with Debs, Get out of the capitalist parties. You dont belong there. He concluded by stating that the SEP will be forced to work within the constraints of the American capitalist election, which seeks to bar all third parties, and especially socialist parties, from being seen or heard. But our election campaign will be waged against these constraints. It will be waged on the international arena, it will be waged in history, and it will be waged for Trotskyismthat is, genuine socialism. Readers of the WSWS can find more information on the Socialist Equality Party election campaign and sign up to get involved on the campaign website, socialism2024.org. Striking Molson Coors workers in Fort Worth, Texas [Photo: Teamsters] Major struggles are in developing in breweries across the United States. Workers at the Molson Coors facility in Fort Worth, Texas have been on strike for more than a week. This Thursday, the contract for 5,000 workers at Anheuser-Busch, also members of the Teamsters, is set to expire. If both sets of workers were to strike at the same time it would impact companies covering 60 percent of the beer market in the US. The Teamsters bureaucracy, which sold out the struggle last year at UPS to pave the way for massive job cuts, is meeting behind closed doors with management, while telling workers that all that is required of them is to hold out one day longer than the company. This is false; workers need not only determination, they need a strategy for victory. Coors and AB are global multinational corporations with global strategies. Workers must first understand what they are up against in order to counterpose their own strategy to that of the companies. Coors Molson Coors is the second-largest brewer in the US and the fourth-largest in the world. The product of a merger between Canadas Molson and Colorados Coors in 2005, Molson Coors sells products in nearly 100 countries and employs 16,000 people globally. In 2016, Molson Coors purchased the American section of SABMiller, expanding even further. Since the beginning of the Fort Worth strike, Coors management has bragged that it is well prepared to handle a work stoppage. According to the website Food Dive, CEO Gavin Hattersley said we actually delivered a little more than our contingency plan actually suggested we should weve got five other breweries that we can shift volume to if we need to. CFO Tracey Joubert called the impact of the strike immaterial right now, as the facility operates on a scab crew of salaried staff. Whether or not the company is downplaying the full impact of the strike, it is undoubtedly true that the international scale of Molson Coors allows it to offset losses from the strike by relying on the strength of other facilities, brands and markets to boost the companys profits. Coors workers must be prepared for a fierce battle with the company. Coors has a long history of brutal attacks on workers. The last strike against Coors occurred at its Golden, Colorado facility in 1977, in response to a union decertification push by the company and discriminatory practices against Hispanics, Blacks, and gays and lesbians. Coors fought the boycott and strike tooth and nail. After a year, the strike was defeated when a portion of workers returned to work and voted to decertify the union. The boycott continued for another decade, until the AFL-CIO announced a corrupt bargain to call off its boycott in exchange for a unionization vote at the Golden brewery, which the Teamsters lost in 1988 by a margin of two-to-one. At the time of the strike, Coors only sold beer in 11 western states. In order to weather the boycott and strike, the company undertook an aggressive expansion campaign across the country. By 1988 it was selling beer in 49 states. In an increasingly globalized world, it is a lesson in how the company can shift resources internationally to isolate a strike. Today, Coors is looking to grow rapidly around the world. In October 2023 the company announced an acceleration plan to boost growth. The plan includes four key elements: 1) grow its core brands; 2) premiumize its portfolio, growing its share of revenue from premium brands to one-third; 3) expand its line of beyond beer products in flavors, spirits and non-alcoholic beverages; and 4) invest in modernization and efficiencies. Coors Fort Worth facility is an important part of this plan. In 2021 Coors invested millions to increase the brewerys output of beyond beer products by 400 percent. Beyond beer includes products like hard seltzer, including major brands for Coors such as Vizzy Hard Seltzer, Topo Chico Hard Seltzer and Simply Spiked. Beyond beer is a significant part of Coors corporate strategy. In 2019 Molson Coors Brewing Company restructured as Molson Coors Beverage Company and consolidated its corporate offices from four regional offices to just two, one in North America and one in Europe. This was accompanied by the firing of more than 400 corporate staff as Coors moved its main US office from Denver to Chicago. This restructuring was built around streamlining Coors corporate operations and re-imagining the company as not only a beer producer, but also a major beverage company with products in hard seltzers, non-alcoholic drinks, hard liquor and premium beer brands. As Coors expands, it is looking to cut costs and boost profit by modernizing and automating its operations. The facility in Fort Worth is important to this model, especially following the $65 million investment to build a fully-automated variety packer. To date, Fort Worth is the only Coors facility in the country producing both hard seltzers and flavored alcoholic drinks, producing 1.7 million barrels a year, about 20 percent of the facilitys entire output. According to the company, this has made the Fort Worth facility self-sufficient. These upgrades to Fort Worth were accompanied by investments in other facilities. In 2018 Coors began the construction of a new brewery in Chilliwack, Canada, with an automated bottle packaging system called Innopack, which can package 720 bottles a minute, enabling the plant to operate with just 100 employees. Another automated system for order picking, InnoPick, was developed by Beslogic for Coors plants in Montreal and Longeuil, with the manufacturer boasting it would generate a reduction in staffing requirements and a significant increase in employee productivity. Coors has also been working on heavily expanding the capacity of its flagship brewery in Golden, Colorado, already the largest brewery in the world. These investments and the shift in corporate strategy were celebrated by financial news site Morningstar, which wrote that it expected Coors to save $600 million between 2020 and 2022 through cost savings, and that it expected management to wring out more efficiencies by consolidating its sprawling brewing and packaging footprint to five major U.S. locations. Coors revitalization plan has been a massive success for the company. It reported $10.7 billion in revenue in 2022, while in 2023 it reported a 9.4 percent increase in sales and six years worth of profit growth in just one year. Anheuser-Busch On Thursday, the contract for 5,000 workers at Anheuser-Busch will expire, potentially resulting in a strike at the countrys largest beer producer. Anheuser-Busch is an even more formidable foe than Coors. Founded in 1852, Anheuser-Busch grew to become the largest brewer in the US by 1957. The modern Anheuser-Busch is the product of massive mergers and acquisitions on a global scale. AB was purchased in 2008 by the Belgian and Brazilian conglomerate Inbev, itself the product of a merger of Belgian Interbrew and Brazilian Ambev in 2004. Both Interbrew and Ambev were themselves in turn created by merging some of the largest beer producers in their respective countries, which then acquired a wide collection of major beer brands in Latin America and Europe. Upon acquiring AB for $52 billion, AB Inbev became the largest beer producer in the world. All together, AB Inbev raked in nearly $6.1 billion in profit in 2022, an 11 percent increase in revenue on just 2.3 percent growth in volume. AB Inbev has grown largely through acquisitions and expanding into new markets. It owns hundreds of brands around the world, including Budweiser, Busch, Corona, Michelob, Becks, Leffe, Hoegaarden, Brahma, Stella Artois and many more on every continent. According to AB Inbev, 70 percent of sales and 60 percent of revenue come from emerging markets. By acquiring new companies and integrating them into its distribution network, AB Inbev is able to dominate the global market. This includes bringing brands to other countries as premium products. Stella Artois, a Belgian brand, is produced in Brazil but marketed as a premium European product. Like Coors, AB Inbev sees potential in the premiumization of beer and the expansion of cheap alternatives, as well as broader non-alcoholic and beyond beer brands. To achieve these goals, AB Inbev is also investing in automation. In 2018 the company built a fully automated warehouse in Magor, South Wales, UK. According to Food Manufacture, the facility houses robotic cranes to pick from pallets in under 60 seconds. Lloyd Manship, the brewery manager for AB Inbev, said, It means we can get our beer out and into stores and pubs faster and more efficiently than ever before.. . and [I] look forward to seeing its implementation all over the world. Jobs and working conditions are at risk at both companies. The Coors facility in Fort Worth is down to 420 workers, from around 1,500 when it opened. Beer brewers around the world are known for keeping slim labor forces to keep costs down, but where automation cannot be fully implemented, management will try to save costs through longer working hours and lower wages. This explains the brutal working conditions at the Fort Worth brewery, where 12-hour shifts and six- and seven-day workweeks are the norm, and where management offered a provocative one dollar an hour raise over three years. This new automation, in the service of different social interests, could be applied to ease the burden on workers, increasing pay while decreasing work hours. Instead, under capitalism, it is used for the opposite, to squeeze as much labor out of workers as possible, resulting in smaller staffs working more hours. Wall Street profits The growth in profits for Coors and AB Inbev has been used to finance massive windfalls for Wall Street. In 2023 Coors announced a $2 billion stock buyback and AB Inbev a $1 billion buyback. This massive payout to Wall Street enriched some of the largest financial institutions on the planet. Molson Coors is 11 percent owned by Vanguard, 7.5 percent by Blackrock and 7.4 percent by Dodge & Cox, three firms worth trillions of dollars. AB Inbev is also largely controlled by the families that founded the Inbev companies. Held together under an investment firm called Stichting AB Inbev, these families own nearly 40 percent of AB Inbev. The rest of the companys stock is largely owned by the same Wall Street powers that own Coors. This fact is highly significant because brewery workers are not just up against individual corporations, but Wall Street institutions which own significant stakes in virtually every major business in the world. The massive financial institutions behind them will not tolerate any interruption to the flow of profits to them and they will demand that the working class pays for them. The Path forward for brewery workers Both Coors and Ab Inbev are corporate giants, but they are not unbeatable. While Coors has made preparations to limit the impact of the strike, the Fort Worth brewery is strategically critical for the company, putting workers in a powerful position. But to exercise this power, brewery workers need to draw the proper conclusions about their struggle. First, this is not just a fight over pay and benefits, but the fate of the working class as a whole. It takes place amid a massive jobs bloodbath, in which major companies are using automation as a weapon to cut hundreds of thousands of jobs. Major logistics companies like Amazon and UPS have already announced tens of thousands of cuts, and thousands more are underway in the auto industry, where electric vehicle technology will be used to eliminate hundreds of thousands of more jobs in the coming years. In those cases where the companies are unionized, these cuts are being done with the support of the union bureaucracy. The Teamsters, which claimed to have passed the best contract in generations last year at UPS, is now maintaining a total silence on the mass layoffs at the company. While the Teamsters refuse to raise this issue, the defense of the rights and conditions of the working class as a whole must be central to the strategy of brewery workers. Second, these struggles cannot be left in the hands of the Teamsters bureaucracy, which sold out the struggle at UPS and is preparing to sell out the workers at Coors and Anheuser-Busch. In order to prevent a sellout and to put the membership in control of their struggle, workers at Coors and Anheuser-Busch must build rank-and-file committees, new democratic organizations independent of the bureaucracy, that will put the rank-and-file in charge of the strike and contract negotiations. These committees should be built in every workplace, regardless of union affiliation, to build a network of workers organizations and send delegations to other companies, building a unified front against the companies. Workers at UPS and in other major corporations have already taken this step and are prepared to unite with their brothers and sisters in the beverage industry. Third, the international corporate strategy of the corporations must be met with an international strategy of the working class. The same global operations of giants like Coors and AB Inbev have also unified the interests of workers around the world, who are fighting the same attacks by the same transnational corporations, to an unprecedented degree. By unifying brewery workers around the world. workers can pull the rug out from underneath the companies. Faced with a globalized employer, the strike at Fort Worth cannot be contained to Texas alone. The struggles of Coors and Anheuser-Busch workers must be unified to make a united stand against the companies. They must link up with brewery and beverage workers around the world, as well as their allies at UPS, the auto industry, and every other workplace where cuts are taking place. Only by organizing internationally can the anti-worker attacks of these multinational corporations be opposed. The scaffolding of such a world movement is already being built, through the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. Through the IWA-RFC, workers across the world can share critical information and discuss common strategy and actions in defense of jobs all over the world. Brewery workers in the United States should take the next step and form committees of their own. For more information, fill out the form below. The newly-formed National Labor Network for Ceasefire held an online webinar on February 22, titled Building Bridges for Peace. The panel included Democratic Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Summer Lee, as well as United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain and National Education Association President Becky Pringle. It was hosted by Juan Gonzalez, a host of Democracy Now!, a liberal news program. The aim of the event was to divert popular opposition to the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza behind toothless appeals to convince the Biden administration to support a ceasefire. Panelists attempted to separate the current war from the economic and imperialist interests it serves. They presented US support for the mass slaughter simply as a misguided policy, which could be corrected through appeals to the Biden administration. The February 22 event [Photo: l4cf.org] It took several years after the start of the illegal US invasion of Iraq, or further back, during the Vietnam War, for anti-war activity in the labor movement to reach the level that it has already reached in the past four months, Gonzalez gushed in his introduction to the meeting. Theres never been such a widespread opposition [from] organized labor to a US-supported war in the history of the American unions, he said. While our leaders unflinchingly continue to back this mass slaughter, grassroots movements have pressed their local governments to take a stand. In fact, the same unions passing so-called ceasefire resolutions today only months ago were openly attempting to prevent any expression of opposition to the genocide. After that failed, they have changed their tactics, without altering their basic support for the war and the Biden administration. Notably, not one of the national union resolutions passed in recent months has even acknowledged the Palestinian trade unions call for worldwide political strikes to halt the shipment of weapons into Israel. In his remarks, Fain avoided saying anything at all about what was taking place in Gaza, since to do so would only expose the hypocrisy of his own position. Instead, he cited Martin Luther King Jr. and his opposition to the war in Vietnam shortly before his assassination in 1968. This example supposedly animated the UAWs decision to support a ceasefire today, he claimed. The UAW passed a ceasefire resolution in December, but in January endorsed Biden for re-election and threw out antiwar protesters from the UAW political action convention where Biden accepted the unions support. There, Biden gave a warmongering speech calling for the mobilization of American workers for World War III, declaring that they had to produce aircraft carrier and tanks. Later, UAW bureaucrats met with Biden behind a phalanx of riot cops in Metro Detroit, where Fain declared the union would go to war for Biden. Fain and the UAW also kept a key defense plant operating without a contract, at a company which supplies parts to Israeli fighting vehicles. The most critical aspect of the bureaucracys support for war is its suppression of the working class, the basic social force which must be mobilized to end war. Bidens war policy is intimately connected to his close collaboration with the union apparatus at home to impose labor peace in the face of brutal corporate attacks. The auto industry is currently in the midst of a massive jobs bloodbath, made possible by the UAWs sabotage of a strike and imposition of a sellout contract last fall. Gonzalez falsified this record, claiming Fain and the UAW secured a historic victory, and described Fain as one of the most popular labor leaders in America. In her remarks, NEA President Becky Pringle was far more open about where her bread was buttered. She sought openly to tie support for a ceasefire with the re-election of Biden. We have to win all the things, she said. including the re-election of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. This, she claimed, was necessary to have a democracy here at home. Tlaib and the politics of mass pressure Democratic Congresswoman Tlaib, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), claimed the US government was highly responsive to popular opposition. Remember that our government has always been an institution that responds to outside pressure, Tlaib said. During the Civil Rights movement people marched, they took to the streets. The president of the United States didnt wake up one day and say, You know what, weve got to pass the Civil Rights Act, or that segregation is inhumane it was because people came together from all walks of life and demanded that change. Similarly, popular pressure led to the creation of the industrial unions, and the Clean Air Act, she claimed. The US government could also be induced by pressure to support a ceasefire in Gaza, she continued. We now have 69 members of Congress calling for a ceasefire because of all your efforts well not stop marching, well not stop demanding that President Biden facilitates a lasting ceasefire. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., speaks during a news conference on May 25, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. [AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib] In reality, the Democrats have largely responded, and continue to respond, to anti-genocide protests with naked repression. Leading Democrats joined Republicans in the House of Representatives to censure Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress, based on bogus charges of anti-semitism. At the same time, the Democrats have joined hands with extreme-right and genuinely antisemitic Republicans such as Elise Stefanik to launch witch-hunts against university protests. Tlaib specializes in concealing the class character of the Democratic Party and its crimes. She was the leading promoter of the uncommitted campaign during the Michigan primaries, which urged workers and young people to cast a protest vote against Biden, claiming this would pressure him to change course on his administrations support of Israelis genocide in Gaza. Tlaib presents the US political system, despite individual corruptionshe cited in particular the financial ties between members of Congress and defense contractorsas a basically neutral arena, able to serve the interests of the oppressed. According to her, the masses supposedly always win out in the end in Washington. This picture flies in the face of reality. Tlaibs examples of the legal recognition of the industrial unions and civil rights legislation all date from more than a half century ago. This fact only underscores that the Democrats long ago abandoned any program of limited social reforms, which were largely the byproduct of the semi-insurrectional industrial upheavals in the decades following the 1917 Russian Revolution. Indeed, the Democrats facilitation of genocide is a sign of how far to the right this capitalist party and the entire political establishment have gone. Tlaib and union bureaucrats like Fain promoted pious wishes about peace and reforms. But for more than three decades, successive US governments, whether led by Democrats or Republicans, have been waging endless wars in Iraq, Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and other countries. At home, they have waged a social counter-revolution to destroy whatever remains of past reforms for even longer. The Democratic and Republican Parties are supporting the war in Gaza not because of some political accident. US imperialism, a declining and crisis-ridden power, sees the war as a critical component of its struggle for world hegemony. Through its support for the Israeli military, Washington hopes to reimpose direct forms of colonial rule over the Middle East, including the reconquest of Iran, in order to deny access to this key region of the worldwhich is not only rich in natural resources but straddles key world trade routesto its rivals in Russia and China. The horrors in Gaza are part of an accelerating global conflict, including the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and well-advanced plans for war with China, which one high-ranking general predicted could break out next year. Writing during World War I, Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin pointed to the process through which imperialism recruited union bureaucrats and political opportunists who were socialists in words and imperialists in deeds. Obviously, out of such enormous superprofits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their own country) it is possible to bribe the labor leaders and the upper stratum of the labor aristocracy. And that is just what the capitalists of the advanced countries are doing: they are bribing them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert. This stratum of workers-turned-bourgeois, or the labour aristocracy, who are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, is the principal social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class, real vehicles of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inevitably, and in no small numbers, take the side of the bourgeoisie. Today, more than a century after Lenin wrote these words, the salaries, stock market investments and other financial resources of top trade union bureaucrats like Fain and Pringle put them in the top 5 percent of income earners in the US. This affluent stratum is a major constituency for imperialism, directly benefiting from the vast sums derived from the super-exploitation of the working class in the oppressed countries and within the US itself. The integration of the union bureaucracy into the state and its war preparations is exponentially greater than it was in Lenins day. To fool the workers, they preach reformism without reforms and peace while working with the Biden administration to wage war abroad and impose savage austerity and labor discipline on the working class at home. The National Labor Network for Ceasefire claims it includes unions representing more than 9 million members. But the last thing it wants is a real mobilization of the working class that would directly challenge the Democratic Party and the political establishment as a whole. That requires a struggle to free workers from the domination of capitalist politics in all of its forms, to mobilize it against the capitalist system, the source of war, on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Sri Lanka is gaining support from workers, youth and academics throughout the world for its campaign against pro-government thugs violent attack on its members at Moratuwa University. Dehin Wasantha, one month after being attacked by Podujana Pragathishili Sevaka Sangamaya thugs Dehin Wasantha and Lakshman Fernando were physically assaulted near the rear gate of the university on November 30 by Indika Perera and Suranga Piyawardenathe president and secretary of the Moratuwa university branch of Podujana Pragathishili Sevaka Sangamaya (PPSS). The trade union is affiliated to the countrys ruling partythe Sri Lankan Podujana Peramuna. Wasantha, a university non-academic worker for more than two decades, is well-known for his principled struggle for rights of his fellow workers and the working class as a whole and socialism. Fernando is a full-time party worker. They were violently attacked with long wooden clubs causing serious injuries while campaigning with other party members near the rear gate of the university for SEP public meetings on the Centenary of Trotskyism addressed by Joseph Kishore, National Secretary of the SEP (US). Wasantha suffered two fractured fingers and had to go on medical leave for almost a month, as his fingers took a considerable period to mend. Lakshman was badly bruised and left with a neck injury. Lakshman Fernando sustained injuries to his face and back in the attack When the case on the violent attack was brought before a judge at the Magistrates Court in Moratuwa on January 8, the Magistrate ordered the case to be referred to a mandatory Mediation Board. The case will be recalled at the court on May 20. As Perera and Piyawardena were not present when the Mediation Board took the case on January 20, the board decided to reconvene the case on February 3. They were present at the boards hearing on February 3 and opted for a settlement. Wasantha categorically stated that he would not accept a settlement. Then the board asked both parties to be present at the courts on May 20. In response to the campaign launched by the SEP and its sister parties of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in defence of Wasantha and Fernando and the SEPs democratic rights, workers, youths, academics and their organisations around the world have sent protest letters to relevant Sri Lankan authorities condemning the attack and demanding the culprits be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We are publishing here some protest letters sent from US and Sri Lanka. Robert B. Livingston, San Francisco, US: Dear Senior Professor N.D. Gunawardena, Vice Chancellor, University of Moratuwa and Attorney General Sanjay Rajaratnam, My name is Robert B. Livingston. I live and work in San Francisco in California. I write to you today to register my agreement with a very principled American, Will Lehman who is protesting the lawless injury of two Sri Lankan Socialist Equality Party members by union thugs. I was shocked when I read about it at the World Socialist Web Site, the most read socialist news on the internet. With Mr. Lehman, I implore you to hold the thugs, Indika Perera and Suranga Piyawardena to full account for their crimes against civil society. I myself have encountered such evil brutes while picketing on behalf of hotel workers here in San Francisco. Some of the hotel workers were Sri Lankan immigrants here. If only I had known at the time someone as yourselves to complain to! I hope you do your civil duties and protect the peace of your country. See: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/13/donw-d13.html I hope to one day visit Sri Lanka. I adore its classical music. Sincerely, Robert B. Livingston San Francisco Lawrence Moore To Senior Professor N.D. Gunwardena and Attorney General: Mr Sanjay Rajaratnam I must add my voice to those protesting the attacks on Dehin Wasantha and Lakshman Fernando. It is outrageous that the thugs caused bodily harm to two men who were causing no harm to anybody. I strongly urge you to investigate and prosecute those individuals to the fullest extent of the law. This cannot be allowed to let pass. Sincerely, Lawrence Moore Jeyakanthan, an engineer in Sri Lanka: I am a reader of World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) and I was alarmed by news of the attack on SEP members (1. Dehin Wasantha 2.Lakshman Fernando) just in the perimeter of University of Moratuwa 30th November, 2023 by Indika Perera & Suranga Piyawardena president & secretary of Podujana Pragathishili Sangamaya (PPS) while they were distributing leaflets & campaigning for the meeting on the centenary of Trotskyism to be held on December 10 in Colombo new town hall. Also I learned that it is the trade union affiliated with the ruling party of Sri Lanka. Dehin is known to me over two decades. He introduced [the] socialist web site WSWS to me. WSWS indicates both the victims are relentless fighters among workers & oppressed masses. This includes Tamil minorities also. I believe that each & every individual has the right to express their own ideas/opinions without fear. I urge the use of the maximum power of the judiciary against Indika Perera & Suranga Piyawardena. Thanking you Yours sincerely, Eng. Jeyakantan * * * * The SEP is calling on all those who are concerned to defend democratic rights of freedom of expression to register their opposition by sending protest letters to the following addresses of relevant authorities with copies to the SEP (wswscmb@sltnet.lk). Senior Professor N.D. Gunawardena, Vice Chancellor, University of Moratuwa Email: vc@uom.lk or ndg@uom.lk Attorney General, Mr. Sanjay Rajaratnam Email: agdurgentmotions@gmail.com On Sunday, the Michigan Task Force for Palestine hosted an event titled CeaseFire Now! at the Dearborn Manor. The rally was billed as bringing together Arab and Muslim, African American, Latino and Jewish communities, labor, and peace and justice advocates in Metro Detroit to demand a ceasefire in Palestine. The event was attended by several hundred people. Rashida Tlaib, Democratic Party congresswoman from Michigan Its central purpose was to call for voters, particularly among Michigans large Arab-American population and among students and young people who are angry and disgusted over President Bidens full support for and complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, to vote uncommitted in Tuesdays Democratic primary, rather than casting a vote for Biden, the partys presumptive presidential candidate. Leaders and organizers of the uncommitted campaign are well aware that their protest maneuver will not prevent Biden from winning the Michigan Democratic primary election. They have, moreover, gone out of their way to make clear that they are not opposing Bidens reelection. In the words of former Michigan Democratic Congressman Andy Levin, as quoted in the New York Times, the goal is not to destroy Biden, but to save him. Above all, the aim is to promote the illusion that Biden and the Democratic Party as a whole can be shifted through pressure from below from their policies of global war and mass deathin Europe in the proxy war against Russia over Ukraine, in the Middle East in the genocidal onslaught against the Palestinians and war preparations against Iran, and in South Asia in the military preparations against Chinaand the accompanying attacks on democratic rights and the jobs and social conditions of the working class at home. These include the bipartisan McCarthyite witch-hunt against opposition on college campuses to the Gaza genocide and Bidens adoption of the Republicans fascistic policies against immigrants. As the November election approaches, both capitalist partiesthe Democrats and Republicansare in acute crisis. A majority of the electorate hates both presumptive presidential candidatesthe war criminal Biden and the fascist would-be dictator Donald Trump. The very fact that a doddering 81-year-old reactionary vying for reelection is opposed by the man who, as outgoing president, oversaw an attempted coup after being defeated for reelection in 2020, demonstrates the terminal crisis and breakdown of American democracy. Both big business parties and both presumptive presidential campaigns are in crisis, as mass protests against the Gaza slaughter continue and strikes and protests by workers against layoffs, wage cuts and grotesque levels of social inequality spread, in the US and internationally. The source of this crisis is the unprecedented crisis of the capitalist system, which finds its sharpest expression in the center of world capitalism and imperialism, the United States. While the organizers of the uncommitted campaign in Michigan hope it will slow the hemorrhaging of support for Biden in pivotal swing states such as Michiganwhere most polls currently have Trump in the leadthere are increasing signs that sections of the Democratic Party establishment, the corporate media and the ruling class are considering dumping Biden in advance of the November election and replacing him with a younger and ostensibly less discredited politician. Similar discussions are taking place within the GOP regarding Trump. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a national co-chair of the Biden reelection campaign, has been prominently featured in both the print and broadcast media as the key figure in Bidens effort to win Michigan in 2024, as he did in 2020. She opposes the uncommitted campaign and urges a vote for Biden, while taking care to signal sympathy for those calling for the protest vote. On the same day as the Dearborn rally, Whitmer was featured on CNNs State of the Union program, where she urged a vote for Biden in the primary, while acknowledging that there might be a significant uncommitted vote. The Sunday New York Times carried a front-page profile of Whitmer, which included the following: As concerns about Mr. Bidens age and poll numbers have mounted, some Democrats have voiced hope that another politicianperhaps Ms. Whitmer or another governor like Gavin Newsom of California, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois or Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvaniamight somehow replace the president on this years ballot, a scenario the party has widely dismissed. On Monday, MSNBC carried an interview in which Whitmer was asked directly about talk of possibly replacing Biden as the Democrats presidential candidate. Asked what she would say to voters who would like to see Biden replaced, she said: I would say that train is out of the station. Get on board. The speakers at Sundays rally in Dearborn included an array of fake left Democratic office-holders and politicians, as well as representatives of the United Auto Workers bureaucracy and pseudo-left promoters of the Democratic Party and the trade union apparatus. They included US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, Detroit City Council member Gabriela Santiago-Romero, UAW Local 600 Financial Secretary Jay Makled, Maureen Taylor of the Welfare Rights Organization, Rev. Ed Rowe and Julie Hurwitz of Jewish Voice for Peace. Makled spoke alongside Tony Richard, vice president of Local 600, and Harold Byrd, another bureaucrat on the UAW staff. Each has a listed salary of $173,000. Makled promoted the official UAW call for a ceasefire, while omitting the fact that UAW leadership has endorsed Bidens reelection campaign. Jay Makled, Financial Secretary for UAW Local 600 Detroit City Council member Gabriela Santiago-Romero said: I will be voting uncommitted and believe that we all should. I worked for the Hillary Clinton campaign out of fear that Trump would win. Two weeks in, I knew she would lose. We said she was going to lose and we were ignored. She then appealed to attendees to continue working within the Democratic Party, urging them to [k]eep calling and emailing your elected officials. Nina Turner, who served as the national co-chair of Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, began her comments with a denunciation of Hamas violence and called Israel an ally. Nina Turner, former Ohio state senator Rashida Tlaib spelled out most clearly the political and historical falsification on which the uncommitted campaign is based: Namely, that the ongoing mass murder and ethnic cleansing in Gaza is entirely the work of Netanyahu, and that Biden is merely committing a blunder by supporting him. Tlaib, the lone Palestinian member of Congress, was censured by the House of Representatives in November for speaking out in defense of the Palestinians in Gaza. Twenty-two Democrats joined virtually all House Republicans in this direct attack on democratic rights, making Tlaib the first representative since the Civil War to be censured for expressing her political beliefs. Despite our fundamental and unbridgeable political differences with the Dearborn-based Democrat, the WSWS opposed and denounced the censure. This, however, does not alter the reactionary role she plays in covering up the role of American imperialism in the brutal persecution of the Palestinians historically and the Biden administrations direct complicity in the current slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. As the WSWS has explained, everything the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza, the West Bank and beyond is possible only because it has the full supportfinancial, military and politicalof the US. Just a week ago Washington for the third time since the beginning of the Gaza war vetoed a ceasefire resolution in the UN Security Council. It has repeatedly rejected any red lines limiting Israels campaign of carpet bombing and starvation. This is not the result of a mistaken policy, but the continuation of 75 years of US support for the Zionist state, which has served as a militarized outpost of US imperialism in the critical, oil-rich region. The falsification of the role of US capitalism and imperialism in the displacement and repression of the Palestinian masses is required to promote the lie that the American government can be forced to break with the genocidal policies of the Zionist state through protest and pressure from below. In her remarks to the Dearborn rally, Tlaib said: My message to my colleagues and president is simple: It is time to break up with genocidal maniac Netanyahu Netanyahu is a man with a long history of turning to extremism and violence to boost his political support There is a very real danger that he [Netanyahu] will expand this war regionally in an effort to stay in power. Make no mistake: the US is slowly being drawn into Netanyahus war Trump is an existential threat to our democracy, and President Biden is risking support over the most right-wing extremist government in the history of Israel. The Socialist Equality Party set up a literature table in the rally hall and distributed a WSWS statement headlined Vote Uncommitted: A Democratic, pseudo-left ruse to swindle opponents of genocide into voting for Biden in November. The statement said, in part: While the Socialist Equality Party fights to develop the anti-genocide protests into a conscious movement of the working class against the government and the capitalist systemthe source of inequality, war and fascismpseudo-left elements respond to the historic breakdown of the capitalist system with cynical political maneuvers aimed at rescuing the Biden campaign and channeling disaffected workers and youth back behind the Democratic Party. Attendees purchased copies of David Norths new book The Logic of Zionism: From Nationalist Myth to the Gaza Genocide, as well as recently published WSWS pamphlets explaining the historical origins of the Gaza genocide, detailing the war crimes of the US and Israel and the complicity of the imperialist powers internationally, answering the propaganda lies of Zionism and imperialism, and advancing the fight for an international anti-war movement based in the working class and fighting for socialism. (Bloomberg) -- The European Union is at risk of widespread backlash against its climate agenda unless politicians do more to blunt the effects of rising carbon prices on low-income households, according to the head of Germanys Environment Agency. Most Read from Bloomberg In some countries, farmers have taken to the streets to protest against climate policies that they say will threaten their existence. Polls also show that right-wing parties opposed to climate action are gaining traction among voters already dealing with soaring costs of living. The climate policy discussion will collapse under the pressure of these kind of social dynamics unless officials take action, agency President Dirk Messner said in an interview. Read More: Politicians Sense Opportunity in Railing Against Climate Action Carbon prices added to energy and industrial goods will be the EUs key tool for phasing out fossil fuels. Consumer groups are concerned about the trickle-down effect when heating and road transport fees are folded into the blocs new Emissions Trading System in 2027. Germanys Environment Agency, known as the UBA, has proposed using the proceeds from the pricing system to pay a so-called climate dividend to vulnerable consumers to ease the impact of the transition. Time Pressure Germanys three-party coalition under Chancellor Olaf Scholz had promised to introduce such a climate dividend, but the proposal has been met with skepticism amid the countrys budget crisis. Finance minister Christian Lindner earlier this year dismissed introducing the measure during this legislative term, and a spokesman for Scholz added that it could be delayed until 2027. Story continues This is not good because we are under time pressure, Messner said. If the new pricing system starts without having consumer protections in place, there will likely be public backlash, as there was when the country introduced a controversial fossil-fuel boiler ban, which it had to water down again last year. Although companies pay carbon fees to pollute, the costs are ultimately borne by consumers. Germany, Europes largest economy, has already started pricing heating and road transport fuels at 45 ($49) per ton. Thats set to increase to 55 next year. The proceeds feed into the nations climate and transformation fund, which is already drastically overburdened to help finance heat pumps, electro-mobility or hydrogen measures. Budget Politics The country could unlock billions in funding if it shifted fossil-fuel or car-related subsidies for industry into decarbonization activities, according to Messner. He also criticized the governments fiscal policy, which has enshrined a debt brake into the constitution. Among the G-7 group, we are the country with the least pronounced and least relevant public debt, he said. Many foreign colleagues who Im working with do not understand why we are producing politically a fiscal crisis. In November, the countrys constitutional court ruled that a transfer of unused Covid funds into the climate fund violates the law, causing the government to declare a budget emergency in 2023 and severe spending cuts in this years finance plan. Our public debt structure is manageable and we have room to grow public investments, Messner said. If we dont do so, we will damage our public infrastructure. --With assistance from Kamil Kowalcze and Michael Nienaber. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. The Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers mill in Santa Rosa, Texas, produced about 160,000 tons of raw sugar annually that was shipped to Louisiana for refining. (Photo: Port of Harlingen) Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers Inc. recently announced it is closing after 51 years in business, citing dwindling water for irrigation and an ongoing dispute with Mexico over water supplies. The closure will result in layoffs of 435 employees, including 101 company truck drivers, for the sugar-growing operation and mill based in Santa Rosa, Texas. The mills closure will be finalized by April 29. This is to advise Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers Inc., will permanently close its plant due to a significant downturn in business resulting directly from the excessive heat and shortage of irrigation water affecting the Rio Grande Valley, company officials said in a notice released Wednesday by the Texas Workforce Commission. Santa Rosa is a small town about 247 miles south of San Antonio. Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers Inc. was a member-owned cooperative of more than 125 farmers that utilized more than 40,000 acres of South Texas farmland in the cultivation of sugarcane each year. Board members for Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers initially announced the mills shutdown in February, blaming drought conditions that have plagued Texas in recent years, as well as a long-running dispute with Mexico over water supplies. Agriculture in the Rio Grande Valley depends on adequate and reliable irrigation water deliveries, the company said in a news release. For over 30 years, farmers in South Texas have been battling with Mexicos failure to comply with the provisions of the 1944 Water Treaty between the U.S. and Mexico that governs water sharing between the two nations on the Colorado River and the Lower Rio Grande. The mill produced more than 1.5 million tons of sugarcane per year, including 160,000 tons of raw sugar and 60,000 tons of blackstrap molasses, the company said. The mill also accounted for up to 11% of total gross revenues produced in the Rio Grande Valleys agricultural sector every year. The raw sugar was harvested from October to April and then transported by barge to Louisiana for refining via the Port of Harlingen in Harlingen, Texas, according to a 2022 study from Texas A&M University. The molasses from the mill was also sold for cattle feed. Story continues More articles by Noi Mahoney Shifting supply chains boost trade in California-Baja mega-region Trump-supporting truckers boycott loads to New York City 573 layoffs hit logistics firms in California, Illinois and Michigan The post Closing of Texas last sugar mill will affect 101 company drivers appeared first on FreightWaves. Melbourne, Victoria --News Direct-- COBRE LIMITED Cobre Ltd (ASX:CBE) CEO Adam Wooldridge joined Proactive's Stephen Gunnion with an update on the company's Ngami Copper Project (NCP) in Botswana's Kalahari Copper Belt following the conclusion of the first phase of hydrogeological testing. The project has an exploration target exceeding 100 million tonnes at 0.5% copper, addressing challenges such as cover thickness, steep dip, and grade. Wooldridge explained that the in-situ recovery method offers a low operational and capital expenditure solution while being environmentally friendly, potentially producing green copper cathode on-site, which could revolutionize operations on the Kalahari Copper Belt and benefit local communities. The process requires mineralization to be leachable, a correct water table depth, and appropriate hydrological controls, including a natural fracture network. Cobre has confirmed the project's feasibility for in-situ recovery through extensive testing, including recent well tests that demonstrated the ability to inject into target fractures, identify seals and intersect significant mineralization depth. For the remainder of the year, Wooldridge said Cobre plans to pursue a three-tier strategy: big-picture exploration for tier-one deposits in collaboration with BHP, advancing high-grade targets for short-term gains, and progressing the in-situ recovery process towards a scoping study. This approach includes hydrological, engineering, and economic studies, metallurgical tests, resource drilling, and pilot testing, aiming to transform the project and the company's prospects significantly Contact Details Proactive Investors Jonathan Jackson +61 413 713 744 jonathan@proactiveinvestors.com View source version on newsdirect.com: https://newsdirect.com/news/cobre-says-testing-at-ngami-copper-project-confirms-suitability-of-in-situ-recovery-process-616254166 Second half 2023 EBITDA grew by six per cent compared to first half 2023, resulting in full-year EBITDA of US$986 million and a healthy margin of 10 per cent Proposed final dividend of 0.613 Singapore cents per share for full year 2023 profit, subject to shareholder approval SINGAPORE, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Golden Agri-Resources Ltd ("GAR" or the "Company") announced a solid financial performance for 2023, marking a normalisation following record-high CPO prices in 2022. GAR has focused on optimising margins across the value chain to deliver a solid performance for FY2023. On the results, Mr. Franky O. Widjaja, GAR Chairman and Chief Executive Officer commented: "The Board is pleased to see GAR's accomplishments in 2023, buoyed by strong upstream and consistent downstream performance. This continuing success highlights the resilience of our advanced integrated business model, which has laid a solid foundation for the Company. By capitalising on technological advancements and a steadfast commitment to sustainability, GAR is poised to further enhance its competitive edge across its business value chain. These endeavours will enable GAR to sustain long-term growth and bolster its position to navigate the evolving industry landscape." Revenue for 2023 decreased by 15 per cent year on year to US$9.76 billion, in line with lower CPO prices compared to the previous year, though this was partly offset by higher sales volume. EBITDA for the year stood at US$986 million or a healthy 10 per cent margin, while underlying profit and net profit for the year were US$328 million and US$198 million, respectively. Elaborating on the outlook for the industry, Mr. Widjaja said: "Palm oil supply in 2024 is expected to be constrained as a result of El Nino conditions that brought water deficit in some areas in the third quarter of 2023. Combined with low seasonal production in the first half of the year, palm oil is currently trading at a premium to other vegetable oils. Nonetheless, we see sustained demand for palm oil thanks to increased market appreciation for its versatile applications. Demand will continue to be robust especially from consumption as a food staple, as well as increasing usage in biodiesel and biomass alternatives. While we maintain an optimistic long-term outlook for the palm oil industry, we remain cautious of uncertainties stemming from ongoing geopolitical tensions and volatility in the global economic landscape." Story continues With careful consideration for rewarding shareholders whilst maintaining a strong balance sheet ahead of anticipated global challenges, the Board proposes a final dividend of 0.613 Singapore cents per share or approximately US$59 million in total, representing 18 per cent of underlying profit. The proposed final dividend will be distributed on 16 May 2024, subject to approval from GAR's shareholders at the 2024 Annual Meeting. SEGMENTAL PERFORMANCE Plantations and palm oil mills GAR's planted area, including plasma, totaled 532 thousand hectares, of which 92 per cent was mature at the end of 2023. Despite the El Nino conditions, GAR successfully replanted 14,200 hectares of old estates with higher-yielding, next-generation planting materials in 2023, maintaining an average plantation age of 16 years. This effort is part of GAR's yield intensification programme that aims to sustain long-term growth from its existing plantation area. Fruit yield in the second half of the year grew by 20 per cent to 10.6 tonnes, bringing the full year yield to 19.7 tonnes per hectare. Total output dipped slightly to 2.94 million tonnes in 2023 from 3.06 million tonnes in the previous year, as a result of the replanting effort and high rainfall in early 2023. Increased output contributed to 19 per cent segmental EBITDA growth in the second half compared to the first half of the year, delivering full year EBITDA of US$478 million, with a margin of 23.8 per cent. Palm , laurics and others GAR's downstream segment consists of the processing and global merchandising of palm and oilseed-based products comprising bulk and branded products, oleochemicals, sugar and other vegetable oils. Downstream sales volume expanded strongly by 12 per cent to 10.9 million tonnes in 2023, generating US$9.6 billion of revenue. However, lower selling prices in line with CPO price trend led to a 15 per cent decline in revenue compared to 2022. GAR's focus on optimising value extraction along the operational chain has maintained downstream's strong contribution of 51 per cent to the Company's consolidated EBITDA. Segmental EBITDA for the full year 2023 reached US$507 million with a robust margin of 5.3 per cent. ONGOING SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES GAR's focus on enhancing and expanding sustainability initiatives aims to meet the growing demand for sustainable products while navigating regulatory changes to future-proof the business. GAR has achieved 99 per cent Traceability to the Plantation (TTP) for its palm production and supply chain in Indonesia, and is working to Traceability to the Mill (TTM) for its global palm supply chain outside of Indonesia. These initiatives underpin GAR's supply chain transformation efforts, enhancing sustainable practices and verifying compliance with No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation (NDPE) commitments. It will also help GAR to maintain progress towards compliance with incoming regulations such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Even though El Nino conditions have subsided, the Company remains vigilant against fire and haze risk into 2024. GAR continues to harness the GeoSMART app to enhance the speed and accuracy of fire detection and will continue its rigorous capacity-building programme to help local communities prevent and fight fires. 117 villages in and around GAR's concession areas currently receive education, equipment and early-warning systems to tackle fires risk through the Desa Makmur Peduli Api initiative. About Golden Agri-Resources Ltd (GAR) GAR is a leading fully-integrated agribusiness company. In Indonesia, it manages oil palm plantation area of 532,176 hectares (including plasma smallholders) as of 31 December 2023. It has integrated operations focused on the technology-driven production and distribution of extensive portfolio of palm-based products throughout its established international marketing network. Founded in 1996, GAR was listed on the Singapore Exchange in 1999 and has a market capitalisation of US$2.5 billion as of 31 December 2023. Flambo International Limited, an investment company, is GAR's largest shareholder, with a 50.56 percent stake. In addition, GAR's subsidiary, PT SMART Tbk was listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 1992. As an integrated agribusiness, GAR delivers an efficient end-to-end supply chain, from responsible production to global delivery. In Indonesia, its primary activities include cultivating and harvesting oil palm trees; the processing of fresh fruit bunch into crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel; refining CPO into value-added products such as cooking oil, margarine, shortening, biodiesel and oleo-chemicals; as well as merchandising palm products globally. GAR's products are delivered to a diversified customer base in over 100 countries through its global distribution network with shipping and logistics capabilities, destination marketing, on-shore refining and ex-tank operations. GAR also has complementary businesses such as soybean-based products in China, sunflower-based products in India, and sugar businesses. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/continued-focus-on-optimising-margins-across-the-value-chain-underpins-solid-performance-for-golden-agri-302073536.html SOURCE Golden Agri-Resources To close its first season, the new Azara Ballet is making a statement about cultural freedom and liberation with its program LOVE between LINES. The performances at 7 p.m. on March 1 and 2 feature four original pieces that celebrate the many abilities of women, queer love and what dancers go through for their love of telling stories through movement. Artistic director Kate Flowers said the company wants the audience to be aware of the varied expressions. We dont want anyone to come to the show and be surprised. We want to make sure its clear because we want to have supportive audiences. Kate Flowers, top, Artistic Director of Azara Ballet, with dancer Elise Csizmadia. Flowers has choreographed Love is Love, one of four new pieces for the companys season-closing program LOVE between LINES. Flowers, who started the company with her partner, Martin Roosaare, said LGBTQ+ people feel welcomed in the dance world with friends and company members but it's also very rare that you see that representation on the stage under the umbrella of ballet in depictions of relationships. Flowers describes her opening piece Love is Love as a pure celebration. She and Roosaare created In the Studio, which she said invites people into our world. It ties in a bit to our overall mission as a dance company. We wanted to show people things they wouldnt necessarily know or understand that dancers go through without us blatantly showing it. Flowers and Roosaare started the company with a focus on the mental and emotional well-being of the dancers and to embrace body positivity and individuality. A scene from Martin Roosaares Kadumaa, which is part of Azara Ballets program LOVE between LINES. Arts Newsletter: Sign up to receive the latest news on the Sarasota area arts scene every Monday World premiere: 1950s Florida murder case inspires new musical at Westcoast Black Theatre Roosaare also has choreographed Kodumaa, which means homeland. Roosaare was born in Estonia but left when he was 5 years old. Kodumaa tells about the 1991 singing revolution that is credited with helping Estonia win its liberation from the Soviet Union in 1991. The programs final piece is Ms. Protagonist, created by company member Olivia Huseonica. Her piece focuses on the many roles assigned to women in society, from sage to nurturer and crusader, and how women are more than the ways they are described. Performances are at 7 p.m. March 1 and 2 at Neel Performing Arts Center on the State College of Florida Bradenton campus, 5840 26th St., West, Bradenton. Tickets are $35, $32 for seniors and ages 1-18 and $20 for streaming options. azaraballet.org This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Azara Ballet salutes cultural freedom in LOVE between LINES program The makers of Bucha, the first narrative feature film shot in Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country, are aiming for a major distribution deal for their gripping drama. Director Stanislav Tiunov and writer-producer Oleksandr Schur unveiled a nearly finished rough cut of the film at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Los Angeles on Saturday, the second anniversary of Russias brutal assault. The movie tells the heroic story of Konstantin Gudauskas, a Jewish man from Kazakhstan who risked his life to rescue hundreds of Ukrainians trapped in the city of Bucha and nearby towns outside Kyiv, after Russia began its bombardment and ground invasion of Ukraine. More from Deadline Actor Cezary Lukaszewicz (L) and director Stanislav Tiunov introduce a screening of Bucha in Los Angeles. Were looking for a big distributor, Tiunov told Deadline after the screening. We have a couple of meetings here in L.A. Sasha [Schur] is going to San Francisco directly. We have meetings in London. Theyre trying to get a major streaming platform Netflix, Apple, whoever is willing to go forward with this, because its not an easy film for Americans to process while the war is still going on, explained Mariietta Volynska, who attended the Bucha screening and assisted the director in communicating in English. This is the first [narrative] film thats being released during the war and shot during the war. Russian forces occupied Bucha in March 2022, allegedly committing crimes against humanity on Ukrainian civilians. Ukrainian troops forced a Russian withdrawal from the city in April of that year. Director Stanislav Tiunov (center) filming Bucha We shot the film in Kyiv and the Kyiv region, in Bucha, Tiunov said. Some locations were the same locations where the Russian terrorists were killing, raping people. Russia has denied committing atrocities in Bucha and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed videos showing dead civilians in the streets of Bucha had been faked (the investigative journalism group Bellingcat has disputed Russias assertions). The film Bucha is an artistic drama that impedes the proliferation of the propagandistic narratives of the Russian government, notes a release about the cinematic project. It reveals the horrific truth of events in Ukraine that unfolded at the beginning of the full-scale invasion in the cities of Bucha, Vorzel, and Hostomel. Filming Bucha According to a synopsis, The film tells about the rescue of local residents by Konstantin Gudauskas, a citizen of Kazakhstan who received asylum in Ukraine and lived in Bucha. When the Russian invasion began, he was allowed to cross into the territory occupied by Russian troops because of his Kazakh passport. Once there, he was able to extract Ukrainian civilians out of the occupied territory into safety. Konstantin not only saved people, but also became an eyewitness to all the horrors of war and occupation. Polish actor Cezary Lukaszewicz plays Gudauskas. Ukrainian actor Vyacheslav Dovzhenko stars as a Russian commander who does not let international law deter him from summarily executing Ukrainian civilians. Lukaszewicz attended Saturdays screening in L.A. and was introduced as part of a Q&A after the film played, but when the mic was passed to him he said he was too overcome with emotion to speak. Ukraines Ministry of Defense, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the State Border Service of Ukraine, the National Police of Ukraine, the Kyiv City Council, the Kyiv Regional Military Administration and Ukrainian film studio Film.UA Group assisted the team in creating and shooting the film and also act as co-producers and distributors of the film, according to the movies website. Producer Oleksandr Schur at a screening of Bucha in Los Angeles. Schur, the writer-producer, has written a dozen TV series for Studio Kvartal 95, a production company founded by then-actor and comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who would later be elected president of Ukraine in 2019. In a statement, Schur said of Bucha, Through this project we want to bring attention of the international community to what has happened and urge for continued military and financial support of Ukrainian people in our fight against evil invaders. Gudauskas, the subject of the film, has continued his humanitarian work after his efforts to evacuate trapped Ukrainian civilians, turning his focus now to the youngest victims of the war. Konstantin Gudauskas in Kyiv, April 30, 2022. He has his own foundation after the occupation of Bucha, Tiunov said. Hes helping children who lost their parents. Hes collecting a lot of money for them. We helped him too for Christmas we brought [the kids] a lot of different presents. In an interview in 2022, Gudauskas described being stopped at Russian-manned checkpoints as he tried to drive Ukrainian civilians to safety in the early days of the war. I was asked by them [Russians] all the time, Arent you afraid to die? Gudauskas said. I told them, I am afraid to die doing nothing. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Buddy Duress, the actor who appeared in two Safdie Brothers films including 2017s Good Time starring Robert Pattinson, died last November of what his brother said this week was cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail. Duress was 38. Duress death was announced on social media last week by director Jay Karales, whose upcoming film Mass State Lottery features Duress. The cause of death was announced yesterday to People by the actors brother Christopher Stathis (Duress was born Michael C. Stathis). More from Deadline This man was an absolute treasure, Karales, known professionally as LowRes Wunderbred, wrote. Without a doubt, Buddy Duress was one of the most entertaining people Ive ever met and his stories were unrivaled. I remember seeing him in Good Time in 2017 and saying, That is what the future of acting needs to be. That guy. He brought a certain authenticity and charisma to the screen that you just dont see anymore. It was a dream to get him in Mass State Lottery, and I feel privileged to have been his director and his friend. RELATED: Gary Sinises Son Mac Dies Of Rare Cancer At 33 Born in Queens, New York, in May 1985, Duress acting debut came in Josh and Benny Safdies 2014 film Heaven Knows What, starring Caleb Landry Jones and Arielle Holmes. The brothers reunited with Duress three years later for the crime drama Good Time, in which he portrayed the drug-dealing partner-in-crime to Pattinsons character. The Safdies cast Duress in their 2014 drug addiction drama Heaven Knows What a year after Josh Safdie met Duress following his release from New Yorks Rikers Island on drug charges. After missing a scheduled in-patient program appointment, Duress was re-arrested; Heaven Knows What premiered at the New York Film Festival while Duress was locked up. Even while building up a film resume that included such credits as Person to Person (2017), The Great Darkened Days (2018), Beware of Dog (2020), and Funny Pages (2022), among others, Duress continued to have run-ins with the law. In a 2019 New York Post article headlined Buddy Duress should be a huge star, but he cant stay out of Rikers, the actor was reported to have been arrested several times that year, including for grand larceny, menacing, criminal possession of brass knuckles and drugs, and for threatening to burn down his mothers home in Queens. At the time of the Post article, Duress mother had sought an order of protection from him. I dont blame her, Duress told the Post in a phone interview from Rikers. Im not easy to live with. In addition to his brother Christopher, Duress is survived by his mother Jo-Anne. This man was an absolute treasure. Without a doubt, Buddy Duress was one of the most entertaining people Ive ever met and his stories were unrivaled. I remember seeing him in Good Time in 2017 and saying, That is what the future of acting needs to be. That guy. He brought a pic.twitter.com/AgB5iX72Ed LowRes Wunderbred (@LowresWB) February 23, 2024 Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Buddy Duress (ne Michael C. Stathis), who starred alongside Robert Pattinson in the Safdie brothers 2017 crime thriller Good Time, has died. He was 38. Duress brother Christopher Stathis revealed to People on Tuesday that the actor died in November 2023 of cardiac arrest from a drug cocktail. More from Variety Duress was born in Queens, New York, in May 1985. He made his acting debut in Josh and Benny Safdies 2014 film Heaven Knows What, which also stars Caleb Landry Jones and Arielle Holmes. In Good Time, Duress portrayed Ray, a drug dealer who becomes Connie Nikas (Pattinson) partner in crime as the two attempt to retrieve a Sprite bottle containing liquid LSD. Along with Heaven Knows What and Good Time, Duress worked on such films as Person to Person (2017), The Great Darkened Days (2018), Beware of Dog (2020), PVT Chat (2020), Flinch (2021) and Funny Pages (2022). Duress has two more unreleased projects: a short film titled Skull and Jay Karales debut feature Mass State Lottery, set to release this year. Director-writer Karales, known professionally as LowRes Wunderbred, paid tribute to Duress on X/Twitter: This man was an absolute treasure. Without a doubt, Buddy Duress was one of the most entertaining people Ive ever met and his stories were unrivaled. I remember seeing him in Good Time in 2017 and saying, That is what the future of acting needs to be. That guy.' He brought a certain authenticity and charisma to the screen that you just dont see anymore, Karales continued. It was a dream to get him in Mass State Lottery, and I feel privileged to have been his director and his friend. Duress is survived by his mother, Jo-Anne, and younger brother, Christopher. Best of Variety Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. My last face-to-face with Hyde N Chics chef-proprietor Andy Hyde was Sept. 30 at USA TODAYs Wine & Food Experience. Underneath a spacious tent, he was readying the demonstration of his famous mushroom strudel, a mainstay on his monthly rotating tasting menu. Hyde N Chic's fantastic wild-mushroom strudel. As one of Naples's most prominent chefs, every seat was already filled. But when the skies opened up with a storm that seemed to be dumping all the rain from an otherwise dry summer into one shot, his presentation became standing-room only. How did he handle it? With grace and a deep breath. It also didnt hurt that many folks were sipping samples of his delicious warm carrot bisque. Other attendees ran under the tent seeking shelter with wine and cocktails in hand. During the downpour, My puff pastry dissolved, and the ovens shut off. I said to myself, story of my life. There's always something. And two of my staff members didn't show up that day. When the demo shifted gears, he started telling his story. I became a U.S. citizen three days prior before, so that was my speech. Everybody cheered. On stage, Hyde shared that he was born in Ghana, migrating when 9 to Hanover, Germany, with his father. From 9 to 14, he frequently shuttled between Germany and Chicago because his biological mother resides there. Chicagos problematic gang issues led to finding my own way to create a better life for myself. What else is new? Hyde recently married a gal he met in sixth grade. A mutual classmate messaged Hyde on Facebook in 2019, letting him know that their mutual friend was newly single. Her name is Shekeba, pronounced with the emphasis on chic. Her family had migrated from Afghanistan to Hanover in the 1980s. I was the only black man in school, and I had all the attention from many girls. They wanted to touch my hair and whatnot. Back then, she said one day we'll get married, but I didn't see myself being committed at 14 in 1998. But he added, If I ever get married, I hope its you. The ceremony was held at the restaurant and performed by one of his regular guests. A vision, not a dream In 2014, he left his chef de partie position at Grant Achatzs triple Michelin-starred Alinea and arrived in Naples. Hyde set one goal: opening his own restaurant in seven years and making a name for himself in Naples. Open in 2019, Hyde N Chic celebrates five years in September. Dreams can change anytime. I think having a crystal-clear goal is much healthier. As a kid, you don't know that, but in your heart, you know what your goal is. My goal is and was to always live a quality healthy life. Facing racism head-on as a Black restaurateur As one of our city's most talked-about chefs, thereve been some changes in his business model because of social media negativity and racism, posted mostly by people whove never dined there nor have the funds to do so. It hurt. When he first opened Hyde N Chic, I could have 300 reservations in advance; maybe 50 of them would show up. We're here to provide a service with value. As our policy says, if you communicate with us by e-mail or calling, we always accommodate that. Hyde was the first to require credit cards to hold reservations but would often get last-minute cancellations and no-shows, frequently for large parties. When their cards were charged the deposit fee, some threatened physical violence. Others took to social media, namely TripAdvisor and Facebook. This was the early phase of the restaurant. I lost so much weight and woke up with 1,500 negative comments and reviews saying mine was a ghetto restaurant. I have been physically attacked here, been spat on. Everything is on police records. You cant make this up. Its why we lock the doors. Instead of fighting back with his fists, he hired an attorney. We revisited the twerking on tables comment from February 2021, and his reply to me was the same as his rebuttal post on Facebook: If you knew me, then you would know that I dont have a booty to twerk. It was a prejudiced review by another restaurant owner. From tapeworm as a toddler in Ghana to the threat of Chicagos gangs, I have been so challenged in life and learned that the best thing to do when you're cornered is to breathe and focus. That's when I operate best. Why pre-payment is required Hyde now insists on pre-payment for dinner, a somewhat uncommon practice in Naples but par for the course in bigger cities. He likens the change to asking for a refund at ArtisNaples when a patron is sick and cant attend a performance. Since initiating pre-paid reservations, the ignorant backlash has noticeably subsided because only people whove actually dined at Hyde N Chic primarily comment. On OpenTable, the restaurant averages 4.9 stars, with most reviews touting the creativity of the food. And while many trends take decades to arrive in Naples (hello food trucks), Hyde is au courant, introducing caviar bumps the minute that became a foodie thing circa 2022 in big metros. When prompted, he recalled my plus ones comment from two years ago about serving what she thought were inferior Croatian truffles, using our chat as an occasion to showcase this years bounty of gorgeous large Perigords and those from Hungary. He stores them in bags of rice to absorb moisture so the fungi dont mold. Hyde N Chic's chef-proprietor Andy Hyde explained myriad differences between smaller Hungarian vs. gold-standard Piedmont truffles. Both are $1400 per pound. What's now & next When his restaurant first opened, Hyde offered both a la carte and tasting menus, a financially tricky proposition for a 30-seat restaurant when ordering from food purveyors because some guests wanted the full shebang while others wanted one course. Now theres a choice between three courses for $99 or five for $139 before tax, service charge, wine or beer. Either way, the dinner experience runs for several hours. In the next three years, he hopes to expand his space and offer a full bar to drive revenue. And about that mushroom strudel? Right now, it's the first course on the $99 menu. This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Hyde N Chic's Andy Hyde, Naples first and last name in fine dining The Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the conviction for Jason Thomas Harris, 49, who was convicted of murdering his wife Christina Ann-Thompson Harris Facebook A Michigan court has upheld a 2021 ruling that found a man had murdered his wife by putting heroin in her cereal just weeks after she gave birth to their second child. Years after 36-year-old Christina Ann-Thompson Harris 2014 death, her husband, Jason Thomas Harris, now 49, was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, solicitation of murder and delivery of a controlled substance causing death. Prosecutors argued that Harris had placed heroin in his wifes milk and cereal the night that she died, believing that it was tasteless and odorless, according to court documents. A court also convicted Harris of attempting to hire a hitman to kill Christina, planning to pay for the crime with $10,000 of her life insurance policy. Per the court documents, Harris first filed an appeal to his conviction in 2021, arguing that he had ineffective counsel during his trial. On Feb. 22, the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld his conviction, writing in a court document that Harris had a motive to kill Christina. Related: Mich. Man Allegedly Killed Wife Who'd Recently Given Birth by Putting Heroin in Her Cereal He was having an affair, thought that she was cheating on him, and was tired of her nagging him, the Court wrote in its ruling. He specifically stated to many people that he did not want a divorce because he did not want to pay child support or lose custody of the children. Before her death, he told a co-worker that he wished Christina were dead. He even solicited a coworker to murder Christina in exchange for $10,000. The Genesee County Prosecutors Office said that they were happy with the Court of Appeals latest decision. The evidence in this case was overwhelming and, I am pleased with the decision reached by the Court of Appeals, Prosecutor David Leyton told WNEM. Justice for Christina Harris and her family has once again been achieved in a court of law. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. Although Christinas death was initially believed to be an accidental overdose, law enforcement began investigating it as a homicide after receiving reports from friends of the couple that Harris had been complaining about his wife in the weeks before her death. Friends also said that Harris believed his wife had cheated on him and that he was not the father of their then-4-month-old child, and that hed supposedly talked about getting rid of her. Facebook The prosecutors office said the investigation ruled her death as an accidental overdose at first, but her family refused to accept the ruling and urged police to dig deeper. Leyton said there was eventually enough probable cause evidence to support a murder charge. Related: Killing of Laken Riley Was 'Crime of Opportunity,' Police Believe Suspect Acted Alone Post-trial appeals are very common among defendants sentenced to life or very lengthy prison terms and they require an immense amount of time and effort by my appeals division, Leyton told the local Michigan outlet. I am proud of the work my team of prosecutors, victim advocates, and support staff put forth in this case and very happy that we were once again able to stand up for Christina Harris, her children, her parents, her siblings and all her friends and family to see justice through. Harris is now serving a life sentence without parole. If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. The progressive self-help author, who dropped out of the race three weeks ago, said on Wednesday that she will "arouse in Americans the angels of our better nature" as she looks to keep Trump out of power Jamie McCarthy/Getty Marianne Williamson at the SiriusXM Studios on Sept. 19, 2023 Marianne Williamson says she's "unsuspending" her presidential campaign just three weeks after dropping out. The progressive self-help author, 71, argued on Wednesday that President Joe Biden is a weak candidate for the general election, writing in a letter to voters, "My ability to arouse in Americans the angels of our better nature is the most powerful antidote to Trumps dark and authoritarian vision." She continued, "I will respond to the cult-like personality of Donald Trump with a light-filled vision of hope and possibility. We will become once again a 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people' at a time when corporate interests have taken Washington hostage." Related: Marianne Williamson Ends Second Presidential Bid After Nevada's Democratic Primary Williamson's decision to jump back in the race came one day after Michigan's Democratic primary, in which more than 100,000 voters said they were "uncommitted" to protest how Biden has responded to Israel's attacks on Gaza. The uncommitted votes sent a warning to Biden in a state he can't afford to lose in November, though he still won the primary with ease, earning more than 80% of the vote. While Williamson withdrew from the presidential race on Feb. 7, she remained on Michigan's primary ballot. She earned about 3% of the vote slightly ahead of active candidate Dean Phillips' 2.7%. (As of Wednesday morning, a small fraction of ballots had not yet been counted, which could change those numbers.) Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Marianne Williamson speaks during a campaign event in Concord, New Hampshire, on Jan. 17, 2024 Williamson initially suspended her 2024 campaign after the Nevada Democratic primary election, where she also earned 3% of the vote compared to Biden's 89%. Phillips was not on the Nevada ballot. "I read a quote the other day that said sunsets are proof that endings can be beautiful too," she told supporters at the time. "And so today, even though it is time to suspend my campaign for the presidency, I do want to see the beauty and I want all of you who so incredibly supported me on this journey as donors, as supporters, as team, and as volunteers to see the beauty too." "There is so much for us to take from this," Williamson continued. "And that includes knowing that we laid it down in ways that we should all be proud of. Scott Olson/Getty Self-help author Marianne Williamson speaks to Iowans in 2019 during her first presidential campaign Williamson launched her second long-shot bid for the White House last March, becoming the first major figure to challenge Biden. Related: Self-Help Author Marianne Williamson Tries Again with Launch of 2024 Presidential Campaign Prior to her official kickoff event, she wrote on social media, Since the election of 2016 it's odd for anyone to think they can know who can win the presidency. And I'm not putting myself through this again just to add to the conversation. I'm running for president to help bring an aberrational chapter of our history to a close, and to help bring forth a new beginning." The Houston native advocated for a new beginning and beckoned voters to look at the world in a different way. Her platform appealed to left-wing voters with her progressive positions on issues like universal basic income and free public college, and campaign emails to supporters promised that a Williamson administration would bring "economic transformation." Emma McIntyre/Getty Marianne Williamson at the AIDS Monument Groundbreaking in West Hollywood on June 5, 2021 Williamson previously ran for the Democratic Party nomination in the hotly contested 2020 presidential election, against candidates including Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Biden. Related: She Wants to Fight Trump with 'Love': What to Know About Unlikely Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson During her 2020 campaign, she garnered attention for her spiritual approach to her candidacy, stating that Donald Trumps fear-mongering could only be defeated by harnessing love. An author of 14 books, Williamson has also served as Oprahs spiritual adviser, per The Guardian, and ran as an independent in the 2014 primary to represent Californias 33rd Congressional District. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Authorities allege Matthew Chantelois used, persuaded, induced, and enticed a minor to create visual depiction of sexual acts getty Matthew Chantelois was arrested early morning on Jan. 4 at a motel in Erie County, Pa., authorities say He was allegedly caught with a 16-year-old girl from New York State, per police He has been indicted on federal child sex exploitation charges, Pennsylvania officials say A Michigan man identified as an Elvis Presley impersonator has been charged in connection with child sex exploitation after he was allegedly found in a motel room with a teenage girl in January, authorities say. Matthew Chantelois was arrested a little after 4 a.m. on Jan. 24 from a motel in Erie County, Pa., the Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement to PEOPLE. New York State Police had flagged Pennsylvania authorities regarding a 16-year-old girl who they believed was with Chantelois, of Dearborn, Mich., according to the statement. The girl, who is from New York State, had allegedly left her home voluntarily, authorities said in the statement. NYSP used the cell phone of Chantelois, 45, to trace him to an Erie County motel, the statement said. Authorities secured the location and took Chantelois into custody, per the statement. The child was also taken to an Erie police facility and referred to PA Childline and the Erie County Office of Children and Youth. Following Chantelois' arrest, Pennsylvania authorities charged him with interference with the custody of a child, corruption of minors and furnishing alcohol to a minor, according to online court records and the police statement. His bail was set at $100,000.00. Pennsylvania State Police declined to comment further on the details of the allegations. Last week, federal authorities indicted Chantelois on federal charges of sexual exploitation of a minor, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Pennsylvania said in a statement. The attorney's office alleges Chantelois used, persuaded, induced, and enticed a minor to create visual depiction of sexual acts. He was also charged with possessing and transporting child sexual abuse material in interstate commerce. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of up to 60 years in prison or a fine of up to $750,000 - or both, the statement said. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. Chantelois has performed as an Elvis impersonator for three decades, ClickOnDetroit and The Miami Herald report. He has pleaded not guilty to the state charges from January and will plead not guilty to the federal charges from last week, his attorney Stephen Emilio Sebald tells PEOPLE. He declined to comment on how Chantelois may have known the alleged victim. Were still conducting our investigation of the alleged facts and circumstances, he said. If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Euphoria star Hunter Schafer was arrested at a pro-Palestine protest on Monday during the taping of Joe Bidens Late Night With Seth Meyers appearance, according to reports. According to Vulture, Schafer was one of 33 arrested whilst protesting for Palestinian rights with the Jewish Voice for Peace group on Monday. More from Deadline Photos from the event show her wearing a shirt that calls for an immediate ceasefire and a Reuters image sees her being escorted out of 30 Rock by an NYPD officer with her hands restrained behind her back. A spokesperson for the NYPDs Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information, told Deadline: On Monday, February 26, 2024, at approximately 1630 hours, there was a demonstration at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, in the confines of the Midtown North Precinct. The demonstration concluded at 1800 hours. A total of 30 individuals were taken into custody. Thirty individuals were issued summonses for Trespass. Bidens Seth Meyers appearance was disrupted by the protestors. Yesterday at the Michigan Democratic Primary, thousands pushed for an uncommitted vote to send a message to the POTUS about Gaza, and the uncommitted share of the vote was at 14.2% with 28% in. Biden was appearing on Seth Meyers as a surprise guest, where he answered questions about topics ranging from his age to the conservative conspiracy about Taylor Swift to, unsurprisingly, the Israel-Hamas war. Schafer starred in Euphoria as transgender teen Jules Vaughn. The role has handed her global fame and she has won a number of awards for her performance. Other credits include The Hunger Games prequel and horror movie Cuckoo opposite Dan Stevens and Jessica Henwick. Deadline has reached out to Schafers reps for comment. Best of Deadline Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Schafer could be seen alongside demonstrators wearing a "CEASE FIRE NOW" t-shirt Sebastian Christoph Gollnow/picture alliance via Getty Images Hunter Schafer photographed on Feb. 16, 2024 in Berlin Hunter Schafer was arrested at a demonstration calling for a cease-fire in Gaza on Monday, according to reports. The Euphoria star, 25, had been one of the demonstrators who showed up at 30 Rockefeller Plaza ahead of President Joe Bidens appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which held the demonstration, confirmed to PEOPLE. Hunter was arrested at the protest, along with 50 other people, a JVP spokesperson PEOPLE in a statement. We commend her commitment to Palestinian freedom and to a future of justice for everyone. Schafer could be seen in photos the organization posted on Instagram. In one photo, the actress could be seen wearing a black shirt that said CEASE FIRE NOW as she held a banner that read, The whole world is watching. She could also be seen sitting down while wearing a mask in front of another banner that read: Jews to Biden: Stop Arming Genocide. Related: Angelina Jolie Says 'Humanity Demands an Immediate Ceasefire' in Israel-Hamas War Schafer, along with several demonstrators, could also be seen chanting things like no more genocide, ceasefire and no more weapons, no more war in the social media posts. The New York Police Department confirmed to PEOPLE that officers took 30 people into custody at 30 Rockefeller Center on Monday during the demonstration, and they were issued summons' for trespassing. The NYPD did not confirm if Schafer had been one of those taken into custody. Related: Freed Israeli Woman, 85, Describes Being Kidnapped by Hamas and Held Hostage in Tunnel: 'Very, Very Difficult' However, Schafer appeared to have been one of those arrested as she was photographed being escorted out of the NBC headquarters by police with her hands behind her back in a photo obtained by the New York Post. This comes as Israel has launched an assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack in Israel in October, which killed hundreds of civilians. Over 29,000 people so far have died as a result of the Israel-Hamas war and over 70,000 have been injured, the the Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed to NBC News. 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. When asked about a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, Biden, 81, told reporters in New York City that he was hopeful that would come by next week, according to NBC News. "My hope is by next Monday we will have a cease-fire," Biden said. "My national security adviser tells me that were close, close but not done yet. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Liderina / Getty Images If youre raising a family in 2024, you might have considered moving to a more family-friendly location. The fact is, some states are better for your wallet and your kids than others. Although certain states give you a better shot at growing your wealth to provide for a family, many of those same states also have high costs of living. Its important to consider multiple factors when choosing where to settle down. Explore More: A $150K Income Is Lower Middle Class In These High-Cost Cities Try This: How To Get $340 Per Year in Cash Back on Gas and Other Things You Already Buy In this study, GOBankingRates examined each states average annual expenditures and median income for families to find the cost of raising a family in every state and Washington, D.C. as well as crime rates, high school graduation rates and more to find which might be the best and worst states to raise a family. Keep reading to find out where each state ranks, from worst to best. ajansen / Getty Images Washington, D.C. Population of families: 19.5% High school graduation rate: 77% Property crime per capita: 3,484 Median income for families: $127,629 Average annual expenditures for families: $34,873 The nations capital might be a great place to earn a sizable income, but theres a good chance youll spend the majority of it on basic necessities. Washington, D.C. is the worst places for families because it has the second-highest cost of living in the country, and it ranks No. 1 in violent crime per capita. Find Out: How Far a $100,000 Salary Goes in Americas 50 Largest Cities Learn More: Heres the Cost To Retire Comfortably in Every State by Age Sponsored: Owe the IRS $10K or more? Schedule a FREE consultation to see if you qualify for tax relief. Sean Pavone / Getty Images/iStockphoto New Mexico Population of families: 23.5% High school graduation rate: 76.9% Property crime per capita: 2,370 Median income for families: $66,533 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,348 One reason New Mexico finished almost last in the rankings is because of its low median family income. It also has one of the highest property crime rates per capita, and its high school graduation rate is one of the three lowest in the country. Story continues Read Next: Heres What the US Minimum Wage Was the Year You Were Born mscornelius / Getty Images/iStockphoto Alaska Population of families: 23.3% High school graduation rate: 79.1% Property crime per capita: 1,506 Median income for families: $96,658 Average annual expenditures for families: $42,094 Alaska isnt one of the best places for families, because its among the most expensive states to live. However, the state makes up for it by having a relatively high median income for families compared to the rest of America. DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto California Population of families: 23.2% High school graduation rate: 84.3% Property crime per capita: 1,973 Median income for families: $95,971 Average annual expenditures for families: $37,344 If you want to live in Los Angeles or San Francisco, prepare to pay a hefty price. California ranks as one of the most expensive states in terms of both cost of living and average annual expenditures for families. Although high costs make California one of the hardest places to raise a family, the Golden State still has one of the highest proportions of households with children under age 18 at 23.2%. Art Wager / Getty Images Hawaii Population of families: 23.0% High school graduation rate: 86.3% Property crime per capita: 1,781 Median income for families: $103,593 Average annual expenditures for families: $40,812 Hawaii ranks as one of the most expensive states to own a home, with 2023 average prices coming out to $950,945. The cost of living in Hawaii is almost double the national average, making it not a cheap place to raise a family. DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images Nevada Population of families: 22.9% High school graduation rate: 82.6% Property crime per capita: 2,219 Median income for families: $78,456 Average annual expenditures for families: $33,020 Nevada residents will have to work extra hard if they want to raise a family in the home state of Las Vegas. The median income for families is nearly $30,000 less than the average family spends each year. Trending Now: Suze Orman: Parents, Get Roth IRAs for Your Kids So They Can Retire Millionaires halbergman / Getty Images Arizona Population of families: 23.7% High school graduation rate: 77.3% Property crime per capita: 1,484 Median income for families: $78,845 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,732 Arizona not only has one of the highest property crime rates per capita in the country, but its also among the 15 states with the highest violent crime rates per capita. On the bright side, Arizona is a bit more affordable overall the cost of living is at about the national average. Samson1976 / Getty Images/iStockphoto Oregon Population of families: 24.5% High school graduation rate: 82.6% Property crime per capita: 2,313 Median income for families: $86,066 Average annual expenditures for families: $35,626 Oregon is one of the states with the highest annual costs for families. And while the Beaver States median family income of $86,066 is above the national average, its still hard to afford a home with an average value of $495,760. JeffGoulden / Getty Images Washington Population of families: 24.3% High school graduation rate: 83% Property crime per capita: 2,759 Median income for families: $98,691 Average annual expenditures for families: $36,625 Although Washington has a fairly high median income for families, it also has one of the higher property crime rates per capita in the country. In addition, the annual cost of groceries in the state is significantly higher than the rest of the country, clocking in at $9,157. Kruck20 / Getty Images/iStockphoto Colorado Population of families: 24.1% High school graduation rate: 81.9% Property crime per capita: 2,754 Median income for families: $99,270 Average annual expenditures for families: $32,054 At $99,270 a year, Colorado ranks among the top 10 states in median income for families. But even with a higher income, living in Colorado is still on the expensive side. The average yearly expense for Colorado families is a few percentage points higher than the national average. Check Out: Im a Real Estate Agent: 5 Cities Where Homes Will Be the Best Bargains in 2024 DenisTangneyJr / iStock.com Oklahoma Population of families: 24.4% High school graduation rate: 80.8% Property crime per capita: 1,964 Median income for families: $71,155 Average annual expenditures for families: $29,654 If affordability is what you seek in 2024, then Oklahoma certainly qualifies as pretty cheap when it comes to cost of living. On the minus side, Oklahoma also has a fairly high property crime rate. DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto Louisiana Population of families: 24.3% High school graduation rate: 82.9% Property crime per capita: 1,481 Median income for families: $69,093 Average annual expenditures for families: $29,440 Although Louisiana has some of the lowest property taxes in the U.S., residents still have to pay a hefty chunk of change to own a home, with $200,290 being the average home value in the Bayou State last year. FilippoBacci / Getty Images/iStockphoto New York Population of families: 24.0% High school graduation rate: 83.5% Property crime per capita: 1,373 Median income for families: $92,731 Average annual expenditures for families: $33,463 Its no secret that New York is expensive the cost of living here is the third-highest in the country. However, median income is also high compared with other states, and students perform exceptionally well in high school, with a graduation rate hovering just above 83%. dlewis33 / Getty Images/iStockphoto Arkansas Population of families: 24.9% High school graduation rate: 88.8% Property crime per capita: 1,933 Median income for families: $65,673 Average annual expenditures for families: $28,605 The average annual expenditures for a family in Arkansas are some of the lowest in the country. At the same time, Arkansas families earn a median salary of only $65,673 a year which is the bottom third among the states. Discover More: 25 Safest and Cheapest Cities To Live in the South constantgardener / Getty Images Montana Population of families: 23.8% High school graduation rate: 85.9% Property crime per capita: 1,394 Median income for families: $77,152 Average annual expenditures for families: $32,778 The cost of healthcare in Montana might be slightly higher than the national average costing families on average $7,220 a year but residents here have a lot of space to roam, because the states population is only 1,112,867. f11photo / Shutterstock.com South Carolina Population of families: 24.5% High school graduation rate: 82.2% Property crime per capita: 1,060 Median income for families: $72,899 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,675 Living in South Carolina might save you some money in the long run, because the cost of living is below the national average. However, you might want to consider moving to another state if youre concerned about transportation costs, since the typical resident spends about $9,076 each year just to get around. Kruck20 / Getty Images Tennessee Population of families: 24.6% High school graduation rate: 90.4% Property crime per capita: 1,890 Median income for families: $73,248 Average annual expenditures for families: $28,738 Tennessee has one of the highest high school graduation rates in the country, so if you are looking for a place to get your children a great education, this might be your state. The cost of owning a home is a bit pricier than other states, with $309,312 being the average price in Tennessee for a house. Richard Cavalleri / Shutterstock.com Rhode Island Population of families: 24.2% High school graduation rate: 83.6% Property crime per capita: 1,265 Median income for families: $95,198 Average annual expenditures for families: $32,002 Rhode Island is the smallest state in the nation with one of the lowest crime rates to match. However, housing costs are still pretty high, with the average cost of a home in Rhode Island last year coming to $446,323. Find Out: 7 Ways the Upper Middle Class Can Become Rich in 2024 marchello74 / iStock.com Vermont Population of families: 24.2% High school graduation rate: 83.1% Property crime per capita: 1,435 Median income for families: $88,607 Average annual expenditures for families: $33,785 Vermont has a higher-than-average median income, a very low property crime rate and one of the lowest rates of violent crime per capita in the country. Transportation costs, however, are significantly pricier, with residents paying about $10,000 each year. CT757fan / Getty Images Michigan Population of families: 25.1% High school graduation rate: 82.1% Property crime per capita: 1,206 Median income for families: $80,365 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,871 Overall, Michigan is one of the best states to raise children due to its numerous perks. The state has a low rate of property crime and over a quarter of the population are families, so your kids will have plenty of friends. Barbara Smyers / Getty Images/iStockphoto Texas Population of families: 23.5% High school graduation rate: 90% Property crime per capita: 1,874 Median income for families: $80,498 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,001 Along with California, Texas has one of the largest populations of homes with children ages 18 and under which makes sense, considering Texas also has a total population of 30,029,527 residents living within its borders. Jennifer_Sharp / Getty Images/iStockphoto Idaho Population of families: 23.2% High school graduation rate: 82.2% Property crime per capita: 694 Median income for families: $75,851 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,660 Idaho takes a top prize for some of the lowest crime overall, with violent crime per capita being at only 166. Transportation costs for residents are $10,617, which might be a little high if you are planning to move your family to the Gem State. Read Next: How Much Money Youd Owe If the National Debt Was Divided by Household Kruck20 / Getty Images/iStockphoto North Carolina Population of families: 24.5% High school graduation rate: 87.6% Property crime per capita: 1,489 Median income for families: $75,815 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,709 North Carolina has a larger population than you might expect 10,698,973 residents in total, with nearly a fourth of them living in family units. Annual utility costs are pretty low and come to about $5,504 every year. Jacob Boomsma / Getty Images/iStockphoto Georgia Population of families: 23.8% High school graduation rate: 83.8% Property crime per capita: 784 Median income for families: $78,834 Average annual expenditures for families: $29,930 You might not make the highest annual salary in Georgia, but you dont need as much to raise a family compared to other states. Georgia ranks among one of lowest states in the nation when it comes to average yearly expenditures for families. Alabama Population of families: 24.4% High school graduation rate: 90.6% Property crime per capita: 1,275 Median income for families: $70,878 Average annual expenditures for families: $29,222 Although Alabama has solid high school graduation rates, property crime and housing are also on the higher end. What does come in lower are healthcare costs, with residents paying an annual $6,341 in doctors bills. Shutterstock.com Delaware Population of families: 24.4% High school graduation rate: 89% Property crime per capita: 832 Median income for families: $89,545 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,828 About 89% of students graduate from high school in Delaware, making it one of the best places for your children to get an education. On top of quality learning, Delaware has no statewide or local sales taxes, which makes cost of living significantly lower. Find Out: Net Worth for Baby Boomers: How To Tell Whether Youre Poor, Middle Class, Upper Middle Class or Rich Art Wager / iStock.com Missouri Population of families: 25% High school graduation rate: 89.5% Property crime per capita: 1,871 Median income for families: $77,976 Average annual expenditures for families: $29,443 Family expenditures in Missouri are similar to those of Mississippi and Oklahoma, making it one of the cheapest states to live in. The violent crime rate per capita in Missouri is pretty low at 375. f11photo / Getty Images/iStockphoto Utah Population of families: 22.6% High school graduation rate: 88.2% Property crime per capita: 1,400 Median income for families: $90,665 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,731 If youre worried about crime, consider moving to Utah. GOBankingRates found that the rate of violent crime per capita in Utah is among the lowest in the country. The Beehive State also has a very close ratio of family costs to median income. TriggerPhoto / Getty Images/iStockphoto Kansas Population of families: 24.9% High school graduation rate: 88.2% Property crime per capita: 1,571 Median income for families: $82,260 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,409 Consider moving to Kansas if you are interested in keeping many aspects of your cost of living under $10,000 each year. Residents of Kansas annually pay $8,018 for groceries, $7,235 for healthcare and $6,249 for utilities, on average. DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto South Dakota Population of families: 23.8% High school graduation rate: 84.2% Property crime per capita: 1,362 Median income for families: $81,756 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,012 South Dakotas cheap cost of living and high graduation rate put it in the top half of this ranking. Annual family expenditures are right around the national average, though the states median income is slightly below average. Read Next: 5 Unnecessary Bills You Should Stop Paying in 2024 Ralph Navarro / Getty Images/iStockphoto Ohio Population of families: 25.2% High school graduation rate: 84.4% Property crime per capita: 1,385 Median income for families: $79,470 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,202 Ohio ranks among the most affordable states for families to live, with the average annual expenditures falling well below the national average. Prepare to have lots of neighbors, though, because the Buckeye States population continues to be one of the highest in the nation, totaling 11,756,058 residents. Jacob Boomsma / Getty Images/iStockphoto Minnesota Population of families: 24.8% High school graduation rate: 83.8% Property crime per capita: 1,766 Median income for families: $98,356 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,598 The cost of living for families in Minnesota is only slightly higher than the national average, yet its median income is roughly 25% higher than average. Its violent crime rate is low compared with most states, making it one of the safer places to raise a family. Sean Pavone / Getty Images/iStockphoto Maine Population of families: 25.2% High school graduation rate: 87.4% Property crime per capita: 956 Median income for families: $81,740 Average annual expenditures for families: $33,999 The cost of living for families in Maine is a bit higher than the national average, while its median income for families is below the national average. So how did it land so far up this list? For one thing, Maines violent crime rate is second lowest of any state in the country. DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto Massachusetts Population of families: 24.5% High school graduation rate: 89% Property crime per capita: 1,027 Median income for families: $112,543 Average annual expenditures for families: $37,261 Although average annual family expenditures in Massachusetts are about 30% higher than the national average, families here make the highest median income in the country. However, if you are planning on buying a house for your family, expect prices that average over half a million dollars for a home in-state. Check Out: How Much Money Do Americans Have in Their Bank Accounts in 2024? Art Wager / iStock/Getty Images Florida Population of families: 23.7% High school graduation rate: 90.2% Property crime per capita: 397 Median income for families: $74,237 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,014 The cost of living in Florida is slightly below the national average. However, the roughly $43,000 gap between the median family income and the annual costs to raise a family makes Florida rank pretty far down on this list. Guy RD / Shutterstock.com North Dakota Population of families: 24.1% High school graduation rate: 89% Property crime per capita: 1,762 Median income for families: $92,066 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,877 North Dakota is one of the few states where the cost of living for families and the median income are pretty in sync with each other, which means its an affordable place for most families. The average cost of a house is fairly reasonable, with 2023 prices coming to $255,433. JayL / Shutterstock.com Mississippi Population of families: 24.9% High school graduation rate: 87.7% Property crime per capita: 651 Median income for families: $62,802 Average annual expenditures for families: $28,985 The good news is Mississippi has some of the cheapest cost of living for families in the country. The bad news: roughly half of the median income is taken up by the expenses groceries, healthcare, utilities and transportation that your family needs to live. Alexey Smolyanyy / Shutterstock.com Connecticut Population of families: 25.1% High school graduation rate: 88.3% Property crime per capita: 1,429 Median income for families: $106,441 Average annual expenditures for families: $35,295 Like a lot of New England states, Connecticut combines high average annual costs for families with high median incomes. Best of all: this state has one of the highest graduation rates for high school students and some of the lowest crime in the country. Learn More: Barbara Corcoran Says Now Is the Best Time To Buy a House: Heres Why duckeesue / Shutterstock.com Nebraska Population of families: 24.8% High school graduation rate: 87.5% Property crime per capita: 1,650 Median income for families: $85,162 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,373 Not only is the cost of living in Nebraska below the national average, but the population itself is just 1,967,923, and almost one-fourth report to be families. Tim Pruss / Getty Images Maryland Population of families: 24.6% High school graduation rate: 86.8% Property crime per capita: 449 Median income for families: $111,378 Average annual expenditures for families: $32,982 Maryland has one of the highest median income for families in the country, but it also has one of the highest costs of living. Luckily, graduation rates are at 86.8% for high school students, while violent crime remains pretty low. Mlenny / Getty Images Illinois Population of families: 24.9% High school graduation rate: 87% Property crime per capita: 1,276 Median income for families: $91,408 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,590 Illinois is a state where the average cost of living for families is actually lower than the median income. Since it claims a big city like Chicago, there are more residents within its borders, adding up to 12,582,032 people who call Illinois home. Paola Giannoni / Getty Images/iStockphoto Wyoming Population of families: 25.1% High school graduation rate: 82.3% Property crime per capita: 927 Median income for families: $85,901 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,952 The average annual costs to raise a family in Wyoming are a few percentage points lower than the national average, and the median family income is decent. But the high school graduation rate is below average compared to the rest of the country. Explore More: 6 Ways to Tell If Youre Financially Smarter Than the Average American Sean Pavone / Getty Images/iStockphoto West Virginia Population of families: 25.4% High school graduation rate: 92.1% Property crime per capita: 521 Median income for families: $65,845 Average annual expenditures for families: $29,988 West Virginia has a cheap cost of living for families, but median income for families is among the lowest in the country. On the bright side, the states graduation rate is one of the highest in the country, making it a great place for your kids to get an education. Sean Pavone / Getty Images/iStockphoto New Hampshire Population of families: 25.2% High school graduation rate: 88.1% Property crime per capita: 972 Median income for families: $104,193 Average annual expenditures for families: $35,220 Although the cost of living in New Hampshire is more expensive than the national average, especially with transportation costs amounting to $11,174 annually for residents, over a quarter of the population reports raising a family in the state. WilliamSherman / Getty Images/iStockphoto Pennsylvania Population of families: 25.2% High school graduation rate: 87.4% Property crime per capita: 634 Median income for families: $86,142 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,687 Pennsylvanias cost of living for families is on the lower side of the scale. The Keystone State also has homes available for the average price of $257,847, making it one of the most affordable places to buy a home in America. Ultima_Gaina / Getty Images/iStockphoto Indiana Population of families: 24.7% High school graduation rate: 90.9% Property crime per capita: 1,148 Median income for families: $77,860 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,774 The Hoosier States cost of living for families is among the lowest in the country, which helped it crack the top 10 of best states to raise a family. With a graduation rate that exceeds 90%, its a great place for your kids to grow up and get an education. Discover More: Barbara Corcoran Says, Forget About Florida, Move Here for Cheap Homes Real Window Creative / Shutterstock.com Kentucky Population of families: 25.1% High school graduation rate: 91.1% Property crime per capita: 779 Median income for families: $70,178 Average annual expenditures for families: $30,122 The median income for families in Kentucky does not win for the best when compared to the other 50 states. However, the cost of living for families is below the national average, and its violent crime rate takes the trophy for the lowest in the country. Ultima_Gaina / Getty Images Wisconsin Population of families: 25.3% High school graduation rate: 90.4% Property crime per capita: 1,164 Median income for families: $85,623 Average annual expenditures for families: $32,172 Wisconsin has one of the lowest costs of living for families and a high graduation rate for high school students, making the Badger State an affordable place to live and raise a family. ferrantraite / Getty Images Virginia Population of families: 24.6% High school graduation rate: 88.8% Property crime per capita: 878 Median income for families: $98,771 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,217 Virginia cracks the top three in best states for families due to its low cost of living and high graduation rates. The Old Dominion is part of a select group of states where the median family income is enough to meet the costs of what it takes to support an American family. Aaron Yoder / Getty Images/iStockphoto Iowa Population of families: 25% High school graduation rate: 91.8% Property crime per capita: 1,020 Median income for families: $83,979 Average annual expenditures for families: $31,018 Iowa is among the 20 states with the lowest rate of property crime per capita. It also takes the prize for the second-highest high school graduation rate in the country. Find Out: SNAP Benefit Maximums Have Increased How Much More Youll Receive Per Month in 2024 DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto New Jersey Population of families: 25.1% High school graduation rate: 91.0% Property crime per capita: 1,158 Median income for families: $110,115 Average annual expenditures for families: $32,608 New Jersey has the fourth-highest median income for families. In addition, over a quarter of the population are families and violent crime is relatively low, making it the best state in the nation for your family to call home. Daria Uhlig contributed to the reporting for this article. Methodology: In order to find how much it costs to raise a family in all 50 states, GOBankingRates analyzed each state for a variety of factors, including [1] overall state cost of living index as sourced from the Missouri Economic and Research Information and [2] average expenditure costs for families with children as sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey to find the overall expenditure costs for each state; [3] total population, household population, family population and median family with children income, all sourced from the U.S. Census American Consumer Survey, then calculated what percentage of the population are families with children; [4] violent crime by state and [5] property crime by state, both sourced from the Federal Bureau of Investigations Crime Data Explorer and used to calculated the violent crime rate per 100,000 and property crime rate per 100,000; [6] High school graduation rates by state, as sourced from the U.S. News and World Report for High School Graduation Rates; and [7] average single family home value for October 2023, as sourced from the Zillow Home Value Index. The average overall expenditure cost was scored, the percentage of the population being families with children was scored, the high school graduation rate was scored, the NAEP math score was scored, the violent crime rate per 100,000 was scored, the property crime rate per 100,000 was scored, the median family income was scored, and the average single family home value for October 2023 was scored. All the scores were combined and sorted to show how much it costs to raise a family in every state. All data was collected and is up to date as of Nov. 27, 2023. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: The Cost To Raise a Family in Every State 'Fledgling: Artists Under 30 show' exhibition to showcase up and coming regional artists under the age of 30 "Boy With Stripes" by Kelsey Loucks PORTSMOUTH The New Hampshire Art Association will be furthering its commitment to nurturing the next generation of artistic talent by spotlighting emerging artists under the age of 30 this month. Selected through a competitive process, these budding artists will display their creations at the Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery throughout March. Renowned Portsmouth artist Richard Haynes will serve as the juror. Artists chosen for this exhibition will receive a complimentary one-year membership to NHAA and cash prizes will be awarded for first place, second place, and third place. The collection will be on view in the Main Gallery of the Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery from March 1 to March 31. Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery is at 136 State St., Portsmouth. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. Visit www.nhartassociation.org or call 603-431-4230 for more information. First poetry chapbook released by Rochester author and arts leader J. L. Long ROCHESTER J. L. Long, established Rochester novelist and the host of the monthly Rochester Writers Night literary salon, has just released his debut poetry chapbook, Fireworks Are Just Pretty Bombs (& other poems). From the volatile mix of longing and loathing explored in the title poem to the bold defiance in poems such as Burn Down Everything You Love and Ill Give You Something to Be Afraid Of, and from the quiet, broken prayer of Merciful to the heartfelt ode to community found in Little Brother, this poetry collection explores the full gamut of human emotion and experience. The official chapbook launch and live reading by the author is scheduled for the March Rochester Writers Night event on Wednesday, March 6. The reading will be held in the Rose Room at the Rochester Public Library, located at 65 South Main St., Rochester, and will begin at 6 p.m. An open mic will follow. The chapbook is available through Lulu Books (www.lulu.com/spotlight/jllong) as an ebook and from Gumroad as a paperback (jllongwrites.gumroad.com). Portsmouth Music and Arts Center to expand Creative Aging Program to include visual arts PORTSMOUTH Portsmouth Music and Arts Center announced an expansion of its successful Creative Aging Program, supported by a grant from the Foundation for Seacoast Health. Building upon the Creative Aging Programs proven track record of enhancing the lives of adults ages 65 and above with music programming, PMAC is now expanding the program to include visual arts. Thanks to the generous support of the Foundation for Seacoast Health, a new PMAC class, Collage - Archiving and Storytelling, will be launching this spring and offered for free to adults ages 65-plus. Participants are invited to join a six-week journey of self-expression through mixed media collage. Over the course of the class, students will make both abstract and representational pieces to tell their personal stories. They will learn to combine sourced media elementssuch as found objects and book/magazine pagesand personal elements like mementos and memorabilia, while exploring technique, color theory, and texture building. Led by PMAC teaching artist Jade Ruscio, each class session includes time for both making and sharing work, allowing participants to establish new friendships with fellow artists. Registration is now open for two separate six-week sessions of "Collage - Archiving and Storytelling." Learn more and sign up at www.pmaconline.org/adult-programs/adult-art/. 'Epic Proportions' exhibition to showcase large works at NHAA "The Green Darner" by William Turner PORTSMOUTH Get ready to go big with "Epic Proportions," a large works show hosted by the New Hampshire Art Association. For this show, NHAA is embracing the grand, the audacious, and the downright epic larger-than-life works that transcend conventional canvas limits. In various mediums like painting, photography, or something entirely unconventional, artists let their imaginations run wild and created art on a large scale, unbounded by traditional canvas sizes or space constraints. Last month the NHAA showcased artworks that came in petite proportions at "Amuse-Bouche: Bite-Sized Artwork, but this month they decided to examine the other side of the spectrum with Epic Proportions. "We're all about celebrating the big, the bold, and the downright gigantic," says Amanda Kidd-Kestler, Executive Director of the NHAA. "When artists work large, the way they approach their work changes," she adds. This exhibition is a platform for artists to push the boundaries of their craft and create pieces that resonate on a grand scale. The collection will be on view in the Main Gallery of the Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery from March 1 to March 31. Robert Lincoln Levy Gallery is at 136 State St., Portsmouth. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. Visit www.nhartassociation.org or call 603-431-4230 for more information. March at the Franklin Gallery Guest judges at MWVAA Art in the Park August 2023. From left to right are Peter Abate, Corina Willette, Evelyn Nitzberg, Renee Hardy and Kimberly Muese. Missing from photo: Jill Vendituoli and Grace Ferguson. ROCHESTER The Franklin Gallery at RiverStones Custom Framing, 33 North Main Street in Rochester, will host a multi-artist exhibit during the month of March entitled Art at the Franklin Gallery. It will feature seven artists: Renee Hardy, Kimberly Muese, Jill Vendituoli, Grace Ferguson, Evelyn Nitzberg, Corina Willette, and Peter Abate. Coordinated by local artist Peter Abate, the exhibit will consist of 35 works of art in a variety of styles and mediums, including needlepoint, oil, watercolor and acrylic ink. An artists reception will be held on Friday, March 15, from 4 to 6 p.m. and the public is invited to attend. Light refreshments will be served. Watercolor by Renee Hardy Renee Hardy is a self-taught visual artist who lives in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. The surrounding lakes and mountains provide inspiration for her art work. She is highly sought after for her commissioned pet portraits and her landscapes She most enjoys painting florals. Renees medium ranges from oils, watercolors and acrylics. She loves the ability to work in all mediums giving her more flexibility to be creative. When she is not in her home studio you can find her in the field with her camera. Watercolor by Kimberly Muese Kimberly Muese is a nationally acclaimed still life watercolorist who returned to New Hampshire after a 30-year absence. Her unique technique combines sumptuous detail with extraordinary mastery of color. The results are watercolor works that are extremely realistic and unusual for the medium. Kimberly takes watercolor painting beyond traditional loose methodologies to create works that defy the confines of representational painting and surmount the challenges inherent in water-based media. The results are exquisitely deep, rich paintings that have become a career-long passion. Needlepoint by Jill Vendituoli Jill Vendituoli is a self-taught needlepoint artist residing in West Newfield, Maine. She has spent the last three decades exploring this traditional fiber art form and challenging herself and the perception of this medium by stitching needlepoint tapestries in styles, physical forms and with non-traditional 21st century fibers. Because fiber art is a flexible medium, Jill has discovered within needlepoint, an historically female form of creativity, a multitude of opportunities to explore and restructure the boundaries of her craft. Oil by Grace Ferguson Grace Ferguson is a painter, photographer and printmaker. She received an MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1987. She retired a few years ago and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area during the winter and spring and in New Hampshire during the summer and fall. She is a New Hampshire native and her work explores the world around us and is a response to beauty in nature and ideas. Oil by Evelyn Nitzberg Evelyn Nitzberg, is an award winning oil painter and Signature Artist, Society of Western Artists, 2012. Her accolades include an Award of Merit from the California State Fair, innumerable Best of Show and first place awards from a lifetime of exhibits beginning at the age of 14. Evelyns 4x16 mural depicting the history of printing technology, presented to an international coalition in San Francisco, 1984, lives in the permanent collection of the Union History Archives on the San Francisco State University Campus. In 1985-86, her style turned 180 degrees. Evelyn started composing still life set-ups using her collection of old toys that spoke to her, telling whimsical stories of lifes ironies, concerns and fears. Her observational skills honed as a biological illustration transferred into looking deeply and expressing subtle detail. Acrylic by Corina Willette Corina Willette is an artist and educator. Her work bridges feelings and thoughts providing an understanding between seeing and being, and imagining. Her mediums are primarily painting and drawing materials such as: oils, charcoal, graphite, watercolor and ink. The materials used are dictated by the subject matter and intuition. Willette is inspired by the things that make us human: created structures, curiosity, feelings, experiences, perceptions, play and magic. Willettes work has exhibited at venues including the Dorsky Museum of Art in New Paltz, NY and the New Britain Museum of American Art in CT. Willette is an Adjunct Professor of Studio Arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and has taught art locally and internationally. Acrylic by Peter Abate Peter Abate resides in West Newfield, Maine. Peter's mediums include watercolor, assemblage, collage and photography. His art and photography have been exhibited in a variety of venues throughout the region. Since 2004 Peter has organized monthly art exhibits at the Gafney Library in Sanbornville, as well as exhibits throughout New England for the "The Art Group" networking with artists from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Peter has been actively involved with the art community in and around Wakefield N.H. for over 24 years. He is a juried member of Mt. Washington Valley Arts in North Conway, and is a member of the Curatorial Committee of the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts. RiverStones Custom Framing and the Franklin Gallery are open Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. The public is encouraged to drop by during regular business hours to view the exhibit. For information about this exhibit and other RiverStones events and services, call (603) 812-1488, or send an e-mail to riverstonescustomframing@gmail.com. Farmington High School movie night at Rochester Opera House ROCHESTER The students of Farmington High School are returning to the Rochester Opera House and they are bringing their movie A Poison Tree with them. This years movie centers around a family dealing with the death of their sister. After her death, the person responsible for it is set free on bail and potentially may never see jail time. This causes the family to spiral downward and they must formulate a plan to overcome their grief. The movie is inspired by the short story A Poison Tree and Todd Fields directed movie In the Bedroom. Movie night has been afoot since 2010 and this is Farmington High Schools third time appearing at the Rochester Opera House. The New Hampshire Council of Arts awarded the program a grant this year which allowed the students and movie to grow socially and educationally. Students who participate in this program have moved on to use their skills professionally and in college. The event is free to the public but patrons are asked to bring a non-perishable food item to support the local food bank. Doors will open at 5 p.m. with the movie starting at 6 p.m. More information can be found on Instagram, #apoisontree #fhsstudentmovie @chaggang. Also on our YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@fsdtv2562. The Trailer for A Poison Tree is, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04YiEjzXK-o&ab_channel=FSDTV25. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Exhibits, galleries, theater and more: Seacoast arts and culture news LAND O LAKES Word spread quickly in November after a television report aired saying Pasco County Schools Superintendent Kurt Browning planned to ban student cellphones starting in August 2024. Browning worked afterward to clarify that he simply wanted phones off and out of sight unless teachers give permission. But even that possible change disgruntled teens across the school district, who this year faced new rules saying they could use their phones only during passing periods and lunch time. At Angeline Academy of Innovation in Land O Lakes, three students found the superintendents latest proposal so distasteful they made it the subject of their entrepreneurship class project. After weeks spent researching the pros and cons of cellphones, including careful consideration of Brownings stated rationale, the girls took the next logical step. They invited him to their school for a chat. We want to convince him not to ban phones next year, said Giavanna Romero, who worked on the project with fellow students Kyandra Valle and Caitlin Sukpanichnant. Impressed by their gumption, Browning showed up one afternoon last week for an hourlong conversation with the eighth and ninth graders and their teacher, Chad Mallo. The superintendent took notes as he listened to the students make their case why teens should retain access to their phones throughout the school day. Some might need to communicate with parents, they said, and some might use their phones for music and apps to decompress during down times. Kids are less defiant when they can utilize a cellphone as a positive outlet during authorized times, Sukpanichnant told Browning. They talked about the uneven access that students have to technology if they rely on schools for devices needed for coursework. And they argued that if schools are concerned about kids posting videos of fights and other happenings, the district should take more steps to set clear rules and consequences specifically for those actions. If there was a solution, kids wouldnt record a fight because they wouldnt want the consequence, like a one day out of school suspension, Valle said, also noting that it might help to have a student sit on the committee that writes the student code of conduct. We believe that when rules like this are put in place, we should have a say, Romero added. Browning expressed surprise that no students sit on the code of conduct committee, and said that might need to change. He said he also planned to meet with small groups of students in the spring to hear more of their concerns on phones and other district issues. Turning his attention to the girls presentation, Browning pushed back against some of their other arguments. He reiterated that he was not calling for a phone ban, for instance, and he questioned whether students need to have their attention buried in cellphones during lunch and passing periods. I think were losing the ability to communicate with one another, Browning told the girls. At the end of the session, though, Browning acknowledged that while he might be able to punch holes in some of the students positions, they could do the same to many of his positions. He praised the girls for offering solutions rather than simply complaining, and said they gave him something to think about as his team considers its cellphone rules for 2024-25. Im not quite sure yet where were going to land, Browning said. They made some valid points. A former 'Real Housewives' star with alcoholism is suing Bravo and Andy Cohen, accusing them of making her relapse for ratings Leah McSweeney, a former 'Real Housewives' star, is suing Bravo, Andy Cohen, and others. The ex-star of the New York series has an alcohol-use disorder and has been open about her sobriety. In the lawsuit, McSweeney accused the makers of the show of encouraging her to relapse for ratings. Leah McSweeney, known for appearances on Seasons 12 and 13 of "The Real Housewives of New York City," is suing Bravo, executive producer Andy Cohen, and others, accusing them of encouraging her to relapse for ratings. Filed in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, the 109-page complaint claims that McSweeney was discriminated against because she is a woman with disabilities, including alcohol use disorder, depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder. Among other allegations, it accuses the defendants, which also includes showrunners, NBCUniversal (the parent company of Bravo), Shed Media (the show's production company), and Warner Media (the parent company of Shed), of fostering a hostile work environment. The complaint, which Business Insider reviewed, said the defendants "established a rotted workplace culture" that depended on pressuring cast members to consume alcohol. McSweeney, who also appeared on the spin-off show "The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip," was candid with viewers and producers about her sobriety journey. But the complaint says that on group vacations, cast members were provided with unlimited alcohol and little to no food or water, which was intended to "induce female cast members to behave inappropriately and unsafely," it said. The lawsuit accuses the producers of encouraging McSweeney to drink alcohol, despite being aware of her sobriety, as well as depicting her relapse as entertaining moments. NBCUniversal, which owns Bravo and employs several defendants listed in the lawsuit, and Warner Media, which owns Shed Media, did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment. A spokesperson for Cohen told BI: "The claims against Andy are completely false." According to the lawsuit, McSweeney had been sober for around nine years until a brief relapse about five months before joining the show. A short while before filming her first season, she regained sobriety and told producers and cast members that she wished to remain sober, it said. However, according to the complaint, producers discriminated against her by intentionally planning scenarios intended to exacerbate her disabilities. It alleged that they did this to drive her "to the brink of insanity and forced her to break her sobriety because it would create morbidly salacious reality television." According to the complaint, she relapsed into alcohol addiction shortly after joining Season 12. The complaint also said that McSweeney received no reasonable accommodations and was coerced into filming during vulnerable moments, fearing retaliation if she did not cooperate. Despite maintaining her sobriety during Season 13, McSweeney said in the lawsuit that she faced reprisal from producers who suggested viewers would find her boring without alcohol, which she feared would lead to her losing her job. The lawsuit said that after filming Season 13, McSweeney was admitted to a psychiatric facility. The complaint also makes another allegation against Cohen, who it accuses of engaging in cocaine use with "Bravolebrities." It said that Cohen gave favorable treatment to Housewives he did cocaine with. Last week, former "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Brandi Glanville accused Cohen of sending her an inappropriate video in 2022, calling the alleged incident an "abuse of power." Cohen responded on X, saying he was "very clearly joking,'" adding that he nonetheless apologized and it was "totally inappropriate." Last month, Caroline Manzo, who previously appeared on "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," also brought a lawsuit against Bravo, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal, Shed Media, and others over allegations of sexual misconduct during filming. McSweeney, who declined to be interviewed, said in a statement posted on Instagram: "Your favorite Bravo shows are run by people who create a dangerous work environment, encourage substance abuse to artificially create drama and cynically prey on the vulnerabilities of their employees." She ended the statement with the warning: "I will see you in court." McSweeney is seeking an unspecified amount of damages and a trial by jury. Read the original article on Business Insider The iconic French actor, 88, reportedly had dozens of guns seized from his rural home along with thousands of rounds of ammunition Mike Marsland/WireImage Alain Delon in 2019 French film star Alain Delon reportedly had 72 firearms taken from his home by police after prosecutors alleged that he did not have the proper permits for any of the weapons. On Tuesday, the French news agency AFP reported that the actor, 88, whose credits include hits like 1967s The Samurai and Purple Noon in 1960, had dozens of guns seized from his rural Douchy-Montcorbon, France home. Prosecutor Jean-Cedric Gaux alleged that the action star has no authorization that would allow him to own a firearm, according to AFP. Related: Kansas City Chiefs Confirm All Players and Family Are Safe After Deadly Parade Shooting: 'Truly Saddened' Police also allegedly found and seized 3,000 rounds of ammunition and a shooting range at his home, located around 85 miles outside of Paris. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. Delon has only appeared in a handful of movies in the last decade and has been the subject of an ongoing feud among his four children over his assets and health since suffering from a stroke in 2019. Last month, a French guardianship judge ordered him to be placed under legal protection, according to Deadline. Per the order, Delon is not allowed to sell any major assets and a third party advocate must help him make medical decisions or choose doctors. Related: Brian Wilson's Family Seeks Conservatorship for Beach Boys Legend Following Death of His Wife In early January, Delons eldest son, actor Anthony Delon, 59, spoke out against his sister Anouchka for not telling them that their father had cognitive tests done from 2019 to 2022 in Switzerland that revealed he was suffering from cognitive decline. If this can help put things straight and prevent lawyers from talking about my fathers illness without even having consulted the files, this medical controversy will end once and for all," Anthony said of the legal protection order in an interview with Europe 1 radio network, reports Deadline. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Jam Master Jay, DMC, and Rev Run attend Run DMC-Beastie Boys Press Conference on May 11, 1987 in New York City (Photo Credit: Ron Galella | Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images) Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder. Reader discretion is advised. Jam Master Jay, the DJ of the iconic hip-hop trio Run-DMC, died on October 30, 2002, from a fatal gunshot wound to the head. The incident occurred at a recording studio in Jamaica, Queens. Jay was 37 years old at the time, per BBC. The case had remained unsolved for two years as detectives failed to make arrests in the shooting death. Recently, Jays killers, Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr., of murder were brought to justice. A jury convicted Washington, a long-time friend of Jay and Jordan, the victims godson, on February 27, 2024. They were each facing one count of murder while engaged in narcotics trafficking and firearm-related murder charges. A third defendant, Jay Bryant, who is also facing similar charges, has pleaded not guilty. Bryant will separately stand trial in January 2025, reported CNN. BBC stated that Jay, born Jason Mizell, former Run-DMC with his two friends, Joseph Simmons and Darryl McDaniels. The group became a highly influential hip-hop trio and released a string of hits in the 1980s. A few of their all-time hit tracks include Its Tricky and Walk This Way, which was produced in collaboration with Aerosmith. Was Jam Master Jay killed in a drug deal gone wrong? According to the BBC report, Run-DMC was publicly against the use of drugs. However, after their popularity declined in the 1990s, Jam Master Jay resorted to cocaine trafficking. During the murder trial of Jays killers, Ralph Mullgrav, a convicted drug dealer, testified about the later DJs involvement in dealing drugs. AP News reported that Mullgravs testimony claimed Jay had started dealing in cocaine to pay his bills. Mullgrav alleged that Jay, aka Jason Mizell, often approached him to sell cocaine. Mullgrav said, Jason wasnt a drug dealer. He just used it to make ends meet. Prosecutors had alleged that Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr. conspired to kill Jam Master Jay over a drug dispute. The outlet reported that federal prosecutors claimed Jay was arranging a profitable cocaine transaction when Washington and Jordan Jr. killed him. Prosecutors further alleged that the victim was going to cut Jordan and Washington out because Mullgravthe dealerhad refused to work with Washington. BBC further reported that prosecutors said Jays godson, Jordan Jr., and Washington were staying with the victims sister. The duo thought that the hip-hop artist would include them in the drug deal worth nearly $200,000. They were allegedly angered when Jay cut them out. What did witnesses reveal after Jam Master Jays murder? A witness named Uriel Rincon identified Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr. as Jam Master Jays killers, reported CNN. WABC and AP News stated that Rincon, who was present at the studio on October 30, 2002, said the duo came in armed and blocked the door. He further testified that Jordan shot Jay in the head. Rincon also said he did not reveal the attackers identities sooner as he was confused and scared. Per AP News, a second eyewitness, Lydia High, claimed that Washington commanded her at gunpoint to lie on the floor. High did not identify Jordan Jr. directly but described some attributes that roughly fit him. These attributes included a tattooed neck. After the conviction, Jam Master Jays killers, Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr., are each facing 20 years to life in prison. The third defendant, Jay Bryant, is facing one count of murder while engaged in narcotics trafficking and firearm-related murder. He allegedly participated in the crime by allowing the killers to enter the studio through the fire escape door. Bryant will stand trial separately in January 2026. Netflix documentary Remastered: Who Killed Jam Master Jay? revisits the artists murder case. It is now available to stream on the platform. The post What Happened to Jam Master Jay Two Decades Ago? appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More. Theres been a lot of chatter surrounding Jenna Lyons return to The Real Housewives of New York. The fashion icon joined the series in Season 14 as part of Bravos attempt at rebooting the series following a problematic year before. The series featured Jenna, joined by friends Brynn Whitfield, Sai De Silva, Ubah Hassan, Erin Lichy, and Jessel Taank. Like other Real Housewives cities, they feuded about trivial things we couldnt get enough of, including cheese platters, three-star restaurants, and established NYC neighborhoods. They also fought incessantly about their personal lives. Sorry I meant Sai fought with the other ladies about their personal lives. Like, why isnt Jenna at our holiday party? Who is Jenna dating? And what does Jenna do for work? Well, in addition to her lengthy resume, including J Crew and now Bravo, the fashion powerhouse has taken on a new role. Check it out below. Jennas got a new gig with Coveteur! According to The Cut, Jenna is making her entrance into the publishing world at lifestyle and fashion brand Coveteur. Shes also listed as the publications Editor-In-Chief (at Large) on the companys website. Although this will be a new role for the reality star, her years of experience working for J Crew and her false-eyelash branch should make her transition effortless. Regarding seeing this play out on the next season of RHONY, fans are still waiting for Bravo to announce who will return for Season 15. During an earlier interview on The Tonight Show, Jenna dodged a few questions about a second season, saying she genuinely didnt know whether shed be holding an apple for the next installment. Bravos patriarch, Andy Cohen, also spoke about her potential return, saying, I hope she makes a comeback. You know, I think her girlfriend is a little camera-shy, so thats a challenge, but I do really hope that she does [return], Andy said. For now, well have to wait to see what happens next. Stream previous seasons of RHONY on Peacock. TELL US WHAT DO YOU THINK OF JENNAS NEW JOB? DO YOU WANT HER ON HOUSEWIVES? The post Jenna Lyons Joins Fashion Brand Coveteur as Editor-In-Chief appeared first on Reality Tea. NEW YORK The latest iteration of the Fab Five has a fresh new face on board. Roughly three months after the news that Queer Eye design expert Bobby Berk would be leaving the series after Season 8, Netflix has announced that Jeremiah Brent will be stepping in to replace him. The new interior designer will join long-time castmates Karamo Brown, Tan France, Antoni Porowski and Jonathan Van Ness for Season 9 of the Emmy Award-winning series, which is set to be filmed in Las Vegas. But who is Jeremiah Brent and where might you have seen him before? Who is Jeremiah Brent? Brent, whose birth name is Jeremy Clevenger Johnson, is a design industry superstar hailing from Modesto, California. The self-taught interior decorator first made a splash in the world of reality TV as a styling associate on Season 4 of Bravos The Rachel Zoe Project. Years later, he hosted the Emmy Award-winning Home Made Simple for two seasons on the Oprah Winfrey Network and starred in TLCs Nate & Jeremiah by Design alongside his husband, fellow interior designer Nate Berkus. Berkus and Brent the first same-sex couple to be featured in ads for Banana Republic were married in 2014 and are the parents of 8-year-old daughter Poppy and 5-year-old son Oskar, both of whom were born via egg donors and surrogates. In 2011 the same year he appeared on The Rachel Zoe Project Brent founded design firm Jeremiah Brent Design (JBD), with offices in Manhattan and Los Angeles. My personal design aesthetic is monastic, but obviously, we dont do just that with the firm, he told Architectural Digest in 2022. Why did Bobby Berk leave "Queer Eye"? Following the premiere of Queer Eye in 2018, Berk quickly became a fan favorite thanks to his stunning home makeovers and compassionate conversations. So it came as a surprise to fans when the 42-year-old Houston native announced in November that he was departing the show after Season 8, which dropped Jan. 24 on Netflix. Its with a heavy heart that I announce that Season 8 will be my final season on Queer Eye, Berk wrote on social media. Its not been an easy decision to be at peace with, but a necessary one. Although my journey with Queer Eye is over, my journey with you is not. You will be seeing more of me very soon. Berk elaborated on his departure in a recent profile for Vanity Fair, saying he thought the show had come to an end after they had completed the contract they initially signed. We thought we were done [after September 2022], he said. Mentally and emotionally, I thought we all moved on. I know I did, and I started planning other things. But then, after nearly a year had passed, Netflix decided to renew the show, with a contract that required a commitment of up to four seasons. Having already made other plans, Berk decided not to sign while his fellow castmates did. We just assumed that the show wouldnt come back if we all didnt come back, he said. Berk also confirmed rumors of a rift with fashion expert Tan France. Tan and I had a moment. There was a situation, and thats between Tan and I, and it has nothing to do with the show, he told Vanity Fair. It was something personal that had been brewing and nothing romantic, just to clarify that. How to watch "Queer Eye"? All six episodes of the current season of Queer Eye filmed in New Orleans are streaming now on Netflix, along with all previous seasons of the series. Theres no word yet on when Season 9 will premiere. The Enquirer is commemorating Black History Month this year through a TikTok series that highlights different Black-owned restaurants and the modern-day history makers who founded them. Matthew Cuff, owner of Just Q'in BBQ in Walnut Hills, was born and raised in Cleveland and attended Tuskegee University, a historically Black college in Macon County, Alabama. After finishing degrees in aerospace engineering and physics, he moved to Cincinnati to work for GE Aerospace. But one small barbecuing competition in Greenville, South Carolina, forever changed his career path. Just Q'in BBQ first had a food truck in 2009 before opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Newtown in 2011. "I entered a small radio station competition. ... I just had a little Lowe's $150 grill, and I wound up placing in three of the four categories," Cuff told The Enquirer. "So, I started a small little amateur competition team and on the weekends just loaded up and hit little Podunk town after Podunk town, and got bit by the bug." Cuff's hobby competitions eventually led to the opening of a Just Q'in BBQ food truck in Cincinnati in 2009. Cuff opened his first brick-and-mortar restaurant in 2011 in Newtown, but he later closed it in 2019. In 2016, Cuff opened his second location at 975 E. McMillan St. in Walnut Hills to further the restaurant's mission of being a social enterprise and Christian-based organization. He then opened an additional Just Q'in BBQ spot in College Hill in 2023. President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Just Q'in BBQ on Jan. 4, 2023. Just Q'in BBQ serves award-winning ribs and pastrami sandwiches, which were featured on the Cooking Channel. President Joe Biden even visited the restaurant in January 2023, following a speech he gave in Covington about a $1.6 billion federal investment to upgrade the Brent Spence Bridge. Biden reportedly ordered the brisket plate, potato salad, macaroni and cheese, jalapeno cornbread and peach cobbler. The president also posted a photo with Cuff and his staff on social media. Faith, love, barbecue But Just Q'in BBQ is known for more than its POTUS-approved food. The restaurant, founded on biblical principles, also seeks to provide opportunities to those who face barriers to employment due to homelessness, extreme poverty, incarceration and other circumstances through its non-profit organization, Renew. "Our mission is, 'Faith, Love, Barbecue.' ... My purpose as owner of this organization is to pour into and impact the people that God sends me to work in this organization so that they then can impact the people that come into our restaurant," Cuff said. "Part of loving the people that come and work in our organization is providing them the training and resources they need to overcome barriers in their lives." After doing a walk-through of Walnut Hills in 2014, Cuff said he fell in love with the community and felt it would be the perfect place to further his philanthropic mission. As a Black business owner, it's important for him to give back to other Black entrepreneurs in any way he can. "I look at it as my responsibility to make sure that other people that look like me, have the opportunity for success or are getting all the resources that they need, have all the information that they need, get every opportunity to be successful in whatever they try to do," he explained. Just Q'in BBQ is known for its signature pastrami sandwich, which was featured on the Cooking Channel. Although he got his start in South Carolina, Just Q'in specializes in Texas-style barbecue with an emphasis on fresh, local ingredients. All meat, including ribs, brisket, chicken and the restaurant's signature pastrami, is made fresh daily in wood-burning smokers located behind the restaurant. Just Q'in also features a variety of scratch-made sides, rub, sauces, pickled onions and white bread, all made in-house. "We're always trying to get better, always trying to improve. We're always looking for ways to tweak what it is that we're doing, and I feel like we're best in class right now," he said. Both Just Q'in BBQ locations are open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5-9 p.m. The restaurant is closed on Sundays and Mondays. For more information, visit justqin.com. Catch our TikTok on the restaurant in the video below. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: This Biden-approved restaurant started with a $150 grill The King of Norway, 87, was taken to the hospital while on a private trip, according to a statement released Tuesday Marcelo Hernandez/Getty King Harald V King Harald V of Norway is being treated in the hospital for an infection contracted on vacation in Malaysia. The 87-year-old monarch was admitted to hospital after falling ill during a private trip to the Southeast Asian country, the Norwegian royal household confirmed in a statement Tuesday. Royal officials added that the Kings son Crown Prince Haakon will carry out his engagements at home following his hospital care. "His Majesty the King has fallen ill during his holiday stay in Malaysia, and is hospitalized there, with an infection. The king receives good care from both Malaysian and Norwegian medical personnel," the royal household said in the statement. Rune Hellestad - Corbis/Getty King Harald has been hospitalized for an infection in Malaysia Related: King Harald of Norway Says He Won't Abdicate Like Queen Margrethe of Denmark: 'It Lasts for Life' Haralds latest hospitalization follows a series of other health issues faced by the monarch in recent years. He was also previously hospitalized for infections last May and in December 2022. On Wednesday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre shared he was sad to hear the latest health update about Harald and wished him a speedy recovery, according to Norwegian news agency NTB, per ABC News. His trip to Malaysia comes a week after celebrating his 87th birthday. Rune Hellestad - Corbis/Getty Royal officials confirmed the health update of Harald (pictured with Crown Prince Haakon) Tuesday Related: King Harald V of Norway Hospitalized with Infection Ahead of Christmas Despite his health troubles, the monarch gave reassurance last month of his intentions not to abdicate the throne. According to VG, the King addressed whether or not he planned to step down after being asked by the press during a visit to Faktisk.no, a nonprofit fact-checking website, in a follow-up question about Queen Margrethe of Denmark's shocking abdication on Jan. 14. No, I don't really have it. I stand by what I have said all along. I have taken an oath to the Storting, and it lasts for life, Harald responded at the time. 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! Harald acceded the throne in Jan. 1991 at the age of 53. In January 2022, he underwent a leg operation and two months later tested positive for COVID-19, before being hospitalized again in August of that year for another infection. In 2003, Harald underwent surgery for bladder cancer and had another operation for heart valve problems in 2005. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Former "Real Housewives of New York City" star Leah McSweeney is accusing host and executive producer Andy Cohen and the team behind the Bravo reality shows of creating a "rotted" workplace culture fueled by alcohol and drugs. The 109-page lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York Tuesday and obtained by USA TODAY, names Cohen, Bravo, NBC Universal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Shed Media and producers John Paparazzo, Lisa Shannon and Darren Ward in the suit. The employment discrimination lawsuit follows recent filings by Brandi Granville and Caroline Manzo against the media companies. Leah McSweeney is suing Andy Cohen, Bravo and more for pressuring her to drink alcohol despite her sobriety and creating a "rotted workplace culture." McSweeney alleges that Cohen and the other parties fostered a "rotted workplace culture" where employees were encouraged to drink alcohol and created an unsafe working environment that did not accommodate her disabilities, including alcohol use disorder and "various mental health disorders." In a statement to USA TODAY, a representative for Cohen said "The claims against Andy are completely false." USA TODAY has reached out to reps for Warner Bros. Discovery, NBC Universal, Shed Media and Shannon for comment. Leah McSweeney speaks out on lawsuit: 'I was petrified' The "Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip" star commented on the lawsuit in a statement posted on Instagram Tuesday. "This is not a story I ever thought I would be telling; in fact, I was petrified to speak on it and was warned not to," she began the statement. "Your favorite Bravo shows are run by people who create a dangerous work environment, encourage substance abuse to artificially create drama and cynically prey on the vulnerabilities of their employees." A reality TV reckoning in Hollywood: 'Love is Blind' contestant Renee Poche sues Netflix, says she 'felt like a prisoner' She continued: "Some of the stories and incidents that are detailed in the lawsuit have been shown in edited form on TV or reported in media, but many have not. And there will be much more that comes out once the people involved are questioned under oath. "Today I am taking back my reality," she wrote. Glanville commented on the post: "We are NOT expendable. We are strong women & even stronger together. Time to take our power back." Leah McSweeney claims Bravo producers caused her to relapse McSweeney starred in Seasons 12 and 13 of "RHONY" and Season 3 of "RHUGT." In the lawsuit, McSweeney claims she maintained nine years of sobriety, but five months before she joined the "Housewives" cast, she relapsed. She claims the team behind the show knew about her relapse, which she divulged in her casting tape, and that she suffers from alcohol use disorder. When she returned to sobriety around the time filming began for Season 12, she says she expressed to producers and cast members her desire to remain sober. Alcohol use disorder encompasses conditions that are often referred to as alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, alcohol addiction and alcoholism, the latter of which is a chronic disease indicated by uncontrolled drinking and a fixation with alcohol, according to the Mayo Clinic. Leah McSweeney, left, and Candiace Dillard-Bassett are seen in Season 3, Episode 1, of "The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip." McSweeney claims she confided in producers about her condition, and that they used the information against her to find "potential scenarios that might trigger her to relapse" or aggravate her mental health disabilities. The "RHONY" producers "pressured" McSweeney to drink, supplied her with "unlimited, free-of-charge" alcohol, and encouraged other cast members to drink, she claims. She says she relapsed shortly after Season 12 began, which came to a head in an "infamous" episode of "RHONY" titled "Hurricane Leah." "While relapsing, Ms. McSweeney grew mentally and physically ill, which manifested into extreme depressive symptoms. All of which occurred" during filming, the lawsuit says. The producers "cultivated a treasure trove of Ms. McSweeney's dark secrets with intent to place her in situations known to exacerbate her alcohol use disorder and mental health disabilities because they thought that intentionally making these conditions worse would create good television," the lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit claims the show's producers engaged in "guerilla-type psychological warfare" despite having a legal obligation to accommodate McSweeney's mental health and "addiction-related" disabilities. Leah McSweeney claims Andy Cohen fuels culture of 'drug and alcohol abuse' Later, McSweeney claims Cohen "engages in cocaine use with Housewives and other 'Bravolebrities' that he employs," and promotes a workplace culture that thrives on "drug and alcohol abuse." Cohen is the longtime executive producer of Bravo's "The Real Housewives" franchise and host of its reunions, as well as the host of the network's late night talk show "Watch What Happens Live." "Cohen's proclivity for cocaine usage with his employees is well-known throughout the Real Housewives franchise," the lawsuit alleges, and he favors cast members that "play ball" and "tends to provide the Housewives with whom he uses cocaine with more favorable treatment and edits." This environment, "fueled with substances and illicit behavior, permeates every aspect of" Bravo's productions, the suit claims. Wendy Osefo, left; Drew Sidora; Leah McSweeney; Julia Lemigova speak at the Bravocon panel Housewife2Housewife in New York City on October 16, 2022. Leah McSweeney's Bravo lawsuit follows claims by Brandi Glanville, Caroline Manzo Glanville, a former "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star, accused Cohen of sexual harassment in a letter issued to Bravo's parent company, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery and Shed Media, claiming he sent her an inappropriate video in 2022. The letter was written in response to accusations of sexual assault made against Glanville. Andy Cohen apologizes, denies sexually harassing Brandi Glanville in 2022 video call The reality star also accused NBCUniversal and its affiliate companies of taking advantage of her and "standing idly by" as her character and livelihood were put into question, tricking her by falsely claiming the investigation into Manzo's claims of sexual harassment "would be kept strictly confidential," and holding "reckless disregard for the mental and emotional health of" their employees. A lawsuit filed by Manzo against Bravo last month alleged an incident involving sexual harassment by Glanville, her former co-star. Lawsuit: Caroline Manzo sues Bravo over sexual harassment by Brandi Glanville on 'Real Housewives' The former "Real Housewives of New Jersey" star filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court on Jan. 26 alleging Glanville sexually assaulted and harassed Manzo while filming an upcoming season of "RHUGT" in Morocco in January 2023, according to a legal filing obtained by USA TODAY. The lawsuit also named Warner Bros. and NBCUniversal as defendants. Manzo accused the show's producers of hiring Glanville as a cast member despite "overwhelming prior notice of Ms. Glanville's prior deviant sexual proclivities and sexually harassing conduct." In a statement provided to USA TODAY last month, a representative for Glanville denied the allegations. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental and/or substance use disorders, you can call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's free and confidential treatment referral and information service at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). It's available 24/7 in English and Spanish (TTY: 1-800-487-4889). If you are a survivor of sexual assault, RAINN offers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE & online.rainn.org). Contributing: Jay Stahl and KiMi Robinson This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Andy Cohen, Bravo sued by RHONY star Leah McSweeney for discrimination Key Insights CPH Chemie + Papier Holding's significant retail investors ownership suggests that the key decisions are influenced by shareholders from the larger public 55% of the business is held by the top 4 shareholders Insider ownership in CPH Chemie + Papier Holding is 19% If you want to know who really controls CPH Chemie + Papier Holding AG (VTX:CPHN), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. We can see that retail investors own the lion's share in the company with 38% ownership. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn). Private companies, on the other hand, account for 34% of the company's stockholders. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of CPH Chemie + Papier Holding, beginning with the chart below. View our latest analysis for CPH Chemie + Papier Holding What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About CPH Chemie + Papier Holding? Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices. As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in CPH Chemie + Papier Holding. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we can't rely on that fact alone since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. It is not uncommon to see a big share price drop if two large institutional investors try to sell out of a stock at the same time. So it is worth checking the past earnings trajectory of CPH Chemie + Papier Holding, (below). Of course, keep in mind that there are other factors to consider, too. Hedge funds don't have many shares in CPH Chemie + Papier Holding. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is Ella Schnorf-Schmid Estate with 19% of shares outstanding. The second and third largest shareholders are Peter Schaub and Swiss Industrial Finance Ag, with an equal amount of shares to their name at 15%. Story continues To make our study more interesting, we found that the top 4 shareholders control more than half of the company which implies that this group has considerable sway over the company's decision-making. 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 CPH Chemie + Papier Holding The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. 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. I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. Our information suggests that insiders maintain a significant holding in CPH Chemie + Papier Holding AG. Insiders own CHF100m worth of shares in the CHF513m company. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently. General Public Ownership The general public-- including retail investors -- own 38% stake in the company, and hence can't easily be ignored. 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. Private Company Ownership We can see that Private Companies own 34%, of the shares on issue. Private companies may be related parties. Sometimes insiders have an interest in a public company through a holding in a private company, rather than in their own capacity as an individual. While it's hard to draw any broad stroke conclusions, it is worth noting as an area for further research. Next Steps: I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should learn about the 2 warning signs we've spotted with CPH Chemie + Papier Holding (including 1 which is a bit concerning) . 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. Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao, married in 1993 The Lexington Herald-Leader, Pablo Alcala, Pool/AP Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao in Lexington, Kentucky on October 13, 2014. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao, have been considered a Washington, D.C., power couple since they wed in 1993. They have each made history in their respective careers: As secretary of labor for former President George W. Bush and transportation secretary for former President Donald Trump, Chao is the first Asian American woman to ever serve in a president's cabinet, while McConnell is the longest-serving leader of the Republican caucus. While their backgrounds are vastly different Chao immigrated to the United States with her family from Taipei, Taiwan, when she was 8 years old, and McConnell is a descendant of a Revolutionary War soldier and was born and raised in the South the couple don't necessarily see themselves in the same way. "People remark that Im in a mixed marriage. I dont see it that way," he said, according to TIME. "In my first marriage, I married a liberal. Now that was a mixed marriage. With Elaine, she and I understand one another." When McConnell announced he would be stepping down as the longtime Republican leader of the Senate at the end of the year, he took a moment to express his gratitude for his wife. For 31 years, Elaine has been the love of my life, and I am eternally grateful to have her by my side," he said. Here's everything to know about Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao's marriage. They met through a mutual friend John Simpson/Getty Mitch Mcconnell and Elaine Chao at the 128th Running of the Kentucky Derby on May 4, 2002. McConnell, then a Senate aide, befriended Stuart Bloch, a liberal public interest lobbyist, in the 1960s, The New York Times reported. The pair remained friends for decades, and in the early 1990s, Bloch invited McConnell to a romantic dinner with his wife, Julia Chang, and Chang's protegee, Chao. Though McConnell and Chao went on to develop a relationship, Bloch noted that they didn't necessarily show their attraction on the night they met. "I don't want to say that sparks flew, he explained. "Because that's not the way either of them is." McConnell and Chao married in 1993 Shayna Brennan/AP Mitch McConnell and Elaine L. Chao before their marriage in the Chapel of the United States Capitol on February 6, 1993. While McConnell and Chao kept their actual wedding ceremony small in a private affair at the chapel on Capitol Hill, their wedding date had special significance for them both. According to The Washington Post, the couple chose Feb. 6, 1993, for their wedding day for three reasons: It was former President Ronald Reagan's birthday, it was seven weeks before Chao's 40th birthday and it was just before a week-long Senate recess. "My wife Elaine and I got married on President Reagans birthday, February 6th. Its probably not the most romantic thing to admit, but Reagan meant a great deal to both of us," McConnell explained during his speech announcing his resignation as Senate Minority Leader. Instead of a tuxedo and white gown for the big day, McConnell wore a dark suit with a navy blue and burgundy patterned tie, while Chao opted for a hot pink blazer dress with black buttons, trim, collar and cuffs. She was his "campaign hugger" Kat Russell/The Paducah Sun/AP Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao make a surprise appearance at the 137th annual Fancy Farm Picnic on August 5, 2017. At a fundraiser in August 2014, McConnell told the crowd, per TIME, "The biggest asset I have by far is the only Kentucky woman who served in a president's cabinet, my wife, Elaine Chao." The outlet reported that Chao played a crucial role in McConnell's campaigns and was considered the "campaign hugger." For McConnell, it was a particularly important part of campaigning because he physically couldn't do it himself. After surviving polio as a child, backslapping causes him physical discomfort. Chao also reportedly remembers small details about people she meets, recalling them months and sometimes years later upon seeing them again. They don't share any children Matt Rourke/AP Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio on July 17, 2016. McConnell has three daughters Elly, Claire and Porter McConnell with his ex-wife, Sherill Redmon, to whom he was married from 1968 to 1980. McConnell and Chao, however, never had children together, and while she doesn't outright regret that decision, she does acknowledge that her career success may have come at the cost of starting a family. "I try not to have too many regrets," Chao told CNN. "In my generation, we were taught that we can have it all. ... It doesn't work like that. So I try to counsel young women, regardless [of] whether they want it or not, there are tradeoffs and sacrifices in life." When asked if she knew she was making a trade-off herself in terms of her political career, Chao shook her head. "No, I didn't," she said. They split household chores while their careers were on the rise Samuel Corum/Pool/AP Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on January 3, 2021. Speaking to The Washington Post in 1998, McConnell and Chao each described the tasks they were responsible for in their household. According to the pair, McConnell cooked more often, but even then seldomly, in the form of occasional grilling for Sunday dinners or making oysters for Thanksgiving. (The pair said they dined out often and ate frequently at political fundraisers instead.) Chao, meanwhile, did more household repairs. At the time, Chao earned more money, a salary of $150,000 plus additional speaking fees "in the five-figure range," compared to McConnell's $136,600 Senate salary. He joked, "That reminds me, I need to get my allowance." She was accused of using her office to benefit her family Samuel Corum/Getty Elaine Chao speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 28, 2020. A government report released in March 2021 revealed that Chao used her office as Secretary of Transportation to help her family members. According to the investigation conducted over two years, Chao requested that staffers edit her father, shipping magnate James Chao's Wikipedia page, as well as to help promote his biography and send her family Christmas ornaments. She reportedly also planned to involve her father and sister in a trip to China in 2017 before the excursion was canceled. In one instance, Chao asked staffers to mention that she was the Secretary of Transportation in an effort to get a repair shop to fix something for her father faster. The investigation by the inspector general did not make a formal determination as to whether or not Chao committed ethics violations, and prosecutors declined to pursue any criminal charges against her. A rep for Chao said in a statement that the report "exonerates the secretary from baseless accusations." Chao did not speak about the comments but referred to a September 2020 memo claiming that helping her family was acceptable culturally. "Anyone familiar with Asian culture knows it is a core value in Asian communities to express honor and filial respect toward one's parents, and this ingrained value of love, respect, and filial piety always takes precedence over self-promotion and self-aggrandizement," the memo read in part. "As the eldest daughter, she is expected to assume a leadership role in family occasions that honor her father and her late mother." They've come under attack from former President Donald Trump Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Elaine Chao and Donald Trump at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C. on April 11, 2017. Trump appointed Chao as his transportation secretary, but their relationship, as well as his relationship with McConnell, was tumultuous during and after his presidential term. Trump accused the couple of being friendly to China, and Chao resigned from the position after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection attempt at the Capitol. In August 2022, Trump called Chao "crazy" and called for McConnell to be replaced as the Senate Minority Leader. He also called McConnell an "old crow," to which McConnell quipped, "Actually, it's quite an honor. Old Crow is Henry Clay's favorite bourbon." Later that same year, in December, Trump used a racist nickname in reference to Chao on social media, but she and McConnell deliberately didn't engage with the former Apprentice star. "He's trying to get a rise out of us. He says all sorts of outrageous things, and I don't make a point of answering any of one of them," Chao told CNN. During a visit to San Francisco's Chinatown in the same month, she deflected discussions about Trump's name-calling and shared her own message. "I say to my fellow Asian Americans, number one: dont be afraid of the country. Always be proud of our heritage because now America is more diverse," she said, per The San Francisco Standard. One of the only times Chao commented directly on Trump's racially charged nickname for her was in a statement to POLITICO in January 2023. "When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name. Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation," she said. "He doesn't seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans." He voted against codifying interracial marriage into law Timothy D. Easley/AP Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao during a press conference in Louisville, Kentucky on November 4, 2020. Despite being in an interracial marriage to Chao, McConnell voted against the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, which codified same-sex and interracial marriages into law. A dozen other Republicans, in addition to all Senate Democrats, voted to pass the bill. It also repealed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which stipulated that marriage could only legally be between a man and a woman. The issues in the bill were raised when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas also himself in an interracial marriage with his wife Ginni suggested in an opinion that the court reassess decisions protecting interracial marriages, same-sex marriages and access to contraception. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Erika Geraghty claims the airline denied her entry on the flight until she checked her carry-on Getty Stock photo of woman breastfeeding on flight. A mom is suing Delta Airlines after the airline allegedly didn't allow her to pump breastmilk during a four-hour flight. According to court documents obtained by PEOPLE, new mom Erika Geraghty claims that Delta Airlines "forced" her to discard one of her two carry-on bags, one of which was filled with breastmilk and another that carried her breast pump and a second bag of breastmilk. As a nursing mother, Geraghty depended on her stash of breast milk, as well as being able to pump, during the four-hour flight to John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, where she would be reunited with her newborn son. 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. Getty Stock photo of mother and son on a plane. Related: Mom Unsure If She Should Confess Breastmilk Was in Son's Cereal Which Was Eaten by Her Father-in-Law However, Geraghty alleges that the airline denied her boarding until she agreed to check or discard one of her two bags. Though she tried to advocate for her rights as a woman under Delta's policies, which echo state and federal laws that exempt a breast pump as a personal item, the airline allegedly still wouldn't let her on the plane. Three days after Geraghty filed her lawsuit against Delta, the airline filed a response, also obtained by PEOPLE, which denied her every allegation. In her lawsuit, Geraghty claims that Delta gave her a "draconian dilemma" for any mother: choose between "the vital sustenance for her son or the indispensable instrument for its procurement." Thinking on her feet, Geraghty saved her breast milk by removing the liquid that was in the breast pump bag, putting it in her second bag, and gate-checking the bag with her breast pump. Geraghty then claims that she endured a "grueling" flight, which included the agony of "breast engorgement" and the emotional trauma of public spectacle after she was "drenched in her own milk gushing from her breasts." Getty Stock photo of mother and daughter on a plane. Geraghty claims her breastmilk soaked through her blouse in front of other passengers and co-workers, causing stares and whispers. When she left the plane and picked up her gate-checked bag, she says she found the breast pump "shattered in pieces." The new mom claims she suffered damage to personal property, as well as extreme physical pain and suffered emotional distress and anguish. She also claims she suffered from a reduction in breast milk production, which never fully recovered and made it more difficult to feed her son. Geraghty is demanding a trial by jury and is accusing Delta Airlines of discriminating against her sex, thus violating her civil rights. She is seeking economic and punitive damages, as well as civil penalties and statutory penalties. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Jeremiah Brent visits SiriusXM Studios on Feb. 15, 2024, in New York City. Brent has been added to the cast of Netflix's "Queer Eye" for the show's ninth season. The cast of Netflix's "Queer Eye" is adding a new pair of eyes. Netflix announced Tuesday that interior designer Jeremiah Brent will join Antoni Porowski, Jonathan Van Ness, Karamo Brown and Tan France as a host for the Emmy-winning makeover show's ninth season. Brent, 39, replaces Bobby Berk, also an interior designer. Berk announced his decision to leave the show on Instagram in November. "It's not been an easy decision to be at peace with, but a necessary one," Berk wrote. "Although my journey with 'Queer Eye' is over, my journey with you is not. You will be seeing more of me very soon." Brent is the founder of Jeremiah Brent Design and the lifestyle brand Atrio. Brent previously hosted "Home Made Simple" on the Oprah Winfrey Network and "Say I Do" on Netflix, and starred on the HGTV docuseries "The Nate & Jeremiah Home Project" alongside his husband, interior designer Nate Berkus. Berk moved on not expecting ninth season Bobby Berk attends the 5th Annual Jam For Janie GRAMMY Awards Viewing Party at Hollywood Palladium on February 4, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. Berk explained that he did not believe "Queer Eye" would return after the cast's contracts expired in 2022, according to an interview with Vanity Fair. Berk had begun other projects when the show contacted him about a new contract, he explained. At that point, he said he couldn't return. "The Fab Five and the crew, we all stood there, and we took pictures and cried," Berk said of the last day of filming. "We thought we were done. Mentally and emotionally, I thought we all moved on. I know I did, and I started planning other things." Berk also confirmed that there was a conflict between himself and France. "Tan and I had a moment," he said. "There was a situation, and that's between Tan and I, and it has nothing to do with the show. It was something personal that had been brewing and nothing romantic, just to clarify that." Berk said that the two had come to "better terms." (L-R) Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Antoni Porowski, Tan France and Jonathan Van Ness pose with the Outstanding Structured Reality Program award during the 2024 Creative Arts Emmys at Peacock Theater on Jan, 7, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. When will the ninth season of 'Queer Eye' come out? The ninth season of "Queer Eye" a revival of Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" of the mid-2000s will begin production in Las Vegas this spring, according to the press release announcing the addition. The filming in Las Vegas is quite different from the series' previous eight seasons, all shot in the South or Midwest in Georgia, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Texas and Louisiana. No release date for the ninth season has been announced. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bobby Berk's replacement announced, 'Queer Eye' adds Jeremiah Brent Rebekah A. Byler, 23, was six-months pregnant with her third child, according to reports TIM HAHN/ERIE TIMES-NEWS/USA TODAY NETWORK Pennsylvania State Police troopers searched a residence on Fish Flats Road in Sparta Township, Crawford County, on Tuesday in their investigation into the suspected homicide of a 23-year-old Amish woman. Pennsylvania State Police are investigating the death of a 23-year-old pregnant Amish woman as a homicide, authorities said this week. Rebekah A. Byler was found dead on Monday inside her home in Pennsylvanias Sparta Township, in the northwestern part of the state, in an area with a large Amish population. Byler was six-months pregnant with her third child, according to local ABC 6. Its definitely shameful that anything like this could go on here, Randy Eaton, who lives in Spartanburg, told the outlet. Everyones surprised. Bylers possible homicide would be the first among the states Amish community since 1993, according to the Erie Times-News. Pennsylvania State Police told ABC 6 that authorities are aggressively investigating all available leads, though no suspects have been identified thus far. Police have not brought anyone in for questioning yet, Erie News Now reported. Authorities have also not yet revealed how Byler was killed. A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Police did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for a comment about the case. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. According to the Erie Times-News, Byler was at home taking care of two young children on the day she was found dead. A family member and a friend of the Byler family discovered her body shortly before 12:30 p.m., the newspaper reports. ABC reports that it was Bylers husband who discovered her body inside the familys home. The children who were home at the time were not injured, according to Erie Times-News. Charleen Hajec, another neighbor in nearby Spartansburg, told ABC 6 that news about the murder was very shocking to hear. Were just a very tight-knit community and Im just absolutely heartbroken that this has happened, Hajec said. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Prince Harry has suffered a legal defeat in a ruling that could have implications on whether he and his wife, Duchess Meghan, and their two children, Archie and Lilibet, visit the United Kingdom. A London judge ruled Wednesday that U.K. government had the right to strip Harry of an automatic security detail during visits to Britain. With the ruling, Harry's ability to have taxpayer-funded security protection in the U.K. will continue to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Harry, 39, plans to appeal the judge's ruling, a spokesperson for the duke told ABC News. "The Duke of Sussex will appeal todays judgment which refuses his judicial review claim against the decision-making body RAVEC, which includes the Home Office, the Royal Household and the Met Police," the spokesperson said in a statement, adding, "The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of RAVECs own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with RAVECs own written policy ... The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal, and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing. Harry, the fifth in line to the throne, has been fighting back against a 2020 decision by the government that denied his family automatic taxpayer-funded police protection while in Britain after he and Meghan stepped down from their roles as senior working royals. PHOTO: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex departs the Rolls Building of the High Court after giving evidence during the Mirror Group phone hacking trial in London, June 6, 2023. (Max Mumby/indigo/Getty Images) At the time, the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures, known as RAVEC, made a decision that security for the Sussexes would be granted on a case-by-case basis. MORE: Prince Harry on visiting King Charles after cancer diagnosis: 'I love my family' Harry, who now lives in California with Meghan and their children, has said he wants police protection for his family while on British soil and is willing to pay for the cost himself. The judge's ruling on Harry's security case came less than two weeks after Harry made an overnight trip to the U.K. to see his father, King Charles III, who has been diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer. Harry's visit with Charles marked the first time he has seen his father since May, when he traveled to the U.K. to attend Charles' coronation. Harry traveled by himself both to the coronation and to see his father earlier this month. The last time Meghan is known to have joined Harry in the U.K. was in September 2022, when they both attended the funeral for Harry's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. Harry and Meghan's children, Archie, 4, and Lilibet, 2, joined their parents on a trip to the U.K. in June 2022 to attend the queen's jubilee. Archie, who was born in the U.K., and Lilibet, who was born in California, are not known to have visited the U.K. since. PHOTO: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex attend Invictus Games Vancouver Whistlers 2025's One Year To Go Winter Training Camp on Feb. 14, 2024 in Whistler, British Columbia. (Andrew Chin/Getty Images, FILE) In an interview earlier this month, prior to the court's ruling, Harry told ABC News' Will Reeve that he has upcoming trips to the U.K. on his schedule. "Ive got other trips planned that will take me through the U.K., or back to the U.K., and so Ill stop in and see my family as much as I can," Harry said. Since moving to California, the Sussexes have relied on a privately-funded security team. MORE: King Charles III seen in new photos after cancer diagnosis The family's current security situation is similar to that of Harry's late mother Princess Diana who had to rely on private security protection after her divorce from Harry's father Prince Charles in 1996. One year later, in 1997, Diana died in a car crash in Paris after the car she was riding in was pursued by paparazzi. "When Diana died, she didn't have police protection. She had a private security team at that point," Victoria Murphy, ABC News royal contributor, previously told ABC News. "And I think it's very clear that Prince Harry feels that the police protection is superior and that that is what he wants for his family." Prince Harry loses security court ruling, potentially impacting his visits to UK originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, SheKnows may receive an affiliate commission. Prince Williams last-minute cancellation from King Constantine of Greeces memorial service on Tuesday put a hot spotlight on the royal family yet again. The Prince of Wales was expected to do a reading honoring the life of his godfather, but 46 minutes before it was set to begin, he bailed. William has a lot going on right now with wife Kate Middleton recovering from abdominal surgery, so his absence due to a personal matter is understandable. But the lack of suitable replacements is showing how valuable Prince Harry was to the palace when there wasnt a family feud. More from SheKnows As the Daily Mail put it, the lack of Williams presence did little to calm the air of jitteriness swirling around our ever-dwindling Royal Family. Instead, it caused rumors to heat up regarding Kates whereabouts and ignited questions on how King Charles III plans to effectively rule while undergoing cancer treatment no one seems to want to step up and work. The media outlet also noted that royalists are now deeply conscious that an increasingly heavy burden rests on the shoulders of William and his wife, not to mention their young family. There is no Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to help shoulder the weight its a reminder of what could have been had the palace addressed the concerns of the Sussexes years ago. WINDSOR, ENGLAND FEBRUARY 27: (L-R) Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Mike Tindall, Sarah, Duchess of York, Anne, Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence attend the Thanksgiving Service for King Constantine of the Hellenes at St Georges Chapel on February 27, 2024 in Windsor, England. Queen Camilla and Princess Anne attended the memorial, but so did Prince Andrew. He was described as looking delighted as he strode forwards to lead the family group down from the castle to church on foot. Is the royal family sure that they want the Duke of York leading the way here? This is the same man who paid out millions (OK, his mom did) in a sexual abuse case tied to the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Even though Andrew was only at the memorial at the invitation of Crown Prince Pavlos, Constantines son, and widow, Queen Anne Marie, why was he walking at the front of the line like he was a senior royal? The optics were blinding. The royal familys current fragility ties back to Harry and Meghans exit and what Tina Brown referred to in her book, The Palace Papers, as a charisma vacancy. The palace underestimated Harry and Meghans global appeal when they exited their working royal roles. The British tabloids may not like the couple, but outside the U.K., their popularity continues to shine and their power in how they represented a modern monarchy was misjudged. So as the royal family trudges ahead looking perilously small and fragile, its a reminder of how things could have been different. Before you go, click here to see more of Meghan Markle & Prince Harrys milestones since leaving the royal family. Best of SheKnows Sign up for SheKnows' Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Elementary students who received scholarships through Illinois controversial Invest in Kids tax credit program lagged in reading and math proficiency, on state standardized tests, compared to public school students, according to a new report submitted to the Illinois State Board of Education Friday. Conducted by the nonprofit research agency WestEd, the 14-month study contrasts the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) reading and math scores of scholarship recipients in grades 3-8, with their public school peers. In 2022 and 2023, Invest in Kids recipients fared worse in both subjects. At the high school level, researchers juxtaposed students SAT performance, with mixed results. The report, which the 2017 Invest in Kids Act mandated ISBE to create, comes in the wake of fierce debate over the merits of continuing the program past its scheduled Dec. 31, 2023 end date. Lawmakers allowed the program to sunset bucking a national trend thats seen several states expand or create voucher programs in recent years. Invest in Kids supporters argued the program gave students who couldnt otherwise access private schools a shot at a better education. Opponents said it was a diversion of tax dollars to bolster theological-based programs that exclude certain students while Illinois continues to fall short of the state funding its determined public schools are owed. School culture and special education Along with student performance on standardized tests, the WestEd study aims to assess how private schools are organized to support students success, drawing on a total of around 1,000 survey responses from students, parents and educators and interviews at 10 schools. Faith-based schools comprise the vast majority of schools that received Invest in Kids funds, according to the Dept of Revenues most recent annual report on the program. Researchers found that faith is a critical organizing element in school culture, curricula, and interpersonal relationships, according to the study. Just over 8 percent of teachers surveyed said they worked at an independent private school without a religious affiliation. In some schools, researchers said teachers see prayer as a way to connect with students and address disruptive behavior, while principals stressed the need for parents to align with their schools mission and values, according to the study, which notes that one school encourages families to sign statements of faith. Invest in Kids participants mostly praised administrators and teachers for cultivating trusting school environments that welcome parent involvement and feel safe, according to the study. However, several people who spoke with researchers shared concerns that their schools could not meet diverse learners needs. (State and federal laws that protect the right of students with disabilities to a public education dont similarly apply to private schools). This girl did not belongShe had extreme behavioral issuesLike its not that we dont want that child or its not like were un-Christian, but its like we dont have the resources for itWe dont have a special ed program or a behavioral program, said a parent at one of ten schools researchers visited, according to the study which does not name participants. WestEd noted it doesnt have data on how many schools, beyond those researchers visited, that share similar concerns. But the sentiment was echoed during parent interviews at another private school researchers wrote. Some kids who have special needs function here. But some kids, with their needsI dont know, said another parent included in the study. Smaller schools lack the resources to add services and programs they might need, like special education and counseling, and many programs they want to add, such as after-school programs, WestEd notes. Invest in Kids students tend to have lower scores Parents think their children are getting a good education, the study notes. But, on average, Invest in Kids scholarship recipients in elementary school fared worse in both reading and math, in each of the two years of Illinois Assessment of Readiness standardized test scores studied, according to the report. More than 13,000 Invest in Kids recipients scores are included in WestEds analysis. In both 2022 and 2023, Illinois public schools had a higher percentage of grades 38 students meeting or exceeding expectations in [English Language Arts] compared to [Invest in Kids] scholarship recipients, WestEd researchers wrote. In 2022, 30 percent of public school students met or exceeded standards, compared to 21 percent of scholarship recipients, according to the report, which notes that in the following year, 35 percent of public school students met or exceeded reading standards, compared to 23 percent of Invest in Kids scholarship recipients. The same was true in Math for both 2022 and 2023, the study continues. Illinois public schools had a higher percentage of grades 38 students meeting or exceeding expectations than [Invest in Kids] scholarship recipients. According to the study, 26 percent of public school students met or exceeded math standards in 2022, compared to 18 percent of scholarship recipients. In 2023, the gap remained, with 27 percent of public school students meeting or exceeding IAR math standards, compared to 16 percent of scholarship recipients. Among high school students, WestEd analyzed SAT scores in the 2022-23 school year, finding that Illinois public school students performed slightly lower in reading and slightly higher in math than Invest in Kids scholarship recipients. Compared to 32 percent of public school students, 34 percent of scholarship recipients met or exceeded state proficiency standards in reading, while 27 percent of public school students met or exceeded state benchmarks in math, compared to 24 percent of scholarship recipients. Given the limited number of testing years and other limitations, WestEd urged the findings to be interpreted with caution. Some schools in the study are well-funded, with scholarship recipients representing a small portion of students, while other schools relied significantly on Invest in Kids funds, the report notes. Since the program sunset, the Archdiocese of Chicago has announced plans to close or consolidate several schools. ____ Before Game of Thrones, there was Shogun. Both are bestselling novels about a factional war between regents/kings to determine who will sit on a recently usurped throne but James Clavells Shogun was published in 1975, 21 years before George R. R. Martins A Game of Thrones hit bookshelves. Both became pop culture juggernauts with an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Peabody Award-winning television adaptation that was so popular that restaurants reported a dip in sales whenever an episode aired but Shoguns first adaptation premiered in 1980, Thrones in 2012. Both draw on real life history to craft dramatic stories, but Game of Thrones is a fantasy and Shogun is historical fiction. Kind of. More from IndieWire FXs 2024 adaptation of Shogun will introduce a new generation to Clavells unique twist on writing historical fiction that is to say, one where all of the historical characters names are changed. And many of the events depicted didnt happen that way in real life, or at all, and if they did it was to different people. In short, the line between history, fantasy, and fiction is blurry, especially compared to other historical dramas. Is Shogun based on real history? Shogun is a fictional take on the early seventeenth century power struggle that in real life led to Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu founding the Tokugawa Shogunate, a dynastic military government that ruled over Japan from 1603 to 1868. The Shogunate emerged after a period of political turmoil that saw Japans feudal lords, or daimyo, united under the banner of samurai lord Oda Nobunaga, only to see Lord Oda murdered by one of his own men. Another one of Odas men, a peasant-born retainer named Toyotomi Hideyoshi, avenged his lord by killing the assassin and took over Lord Odas leadership. The lowborn Toyotomi took the title of Taiko, an imperial regent that essentially made him the ruler of Japan. After his death, a council of five regents ruled in place of his underage son, which they did wisely and peacefully until just kidding, they hated each other and started a war. The setup for Shogun copies these exact beats from history but gives the main players different names, giving Clavell enough narrative deniability to stick to history when he feels like it but otherwise go nuts with quasi-historical intrigue. In the Clavell dimension, Lord Tokugawa is called Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his rival Lord Ishida is Ishido (Takehiro Hira). The recently deceased Taikos name is Nakamura, who served not Lord Oda, but Goroda to unify Japan. Many other characters have historical backgrounds, including some of the Portuguese Jesuit priests John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis) encounters on his journey. Was John Blackthorne real? If youre wondering why a Japanese war epic needs a British co-protagonist thats probably the same question Lord Tokugawa asked himself when William Adams, John Blackthornes historical counterpart, washed up on the beach with a boatful of guns. William Adams really was the first Englishman to set foot in Japan, and the broad strokes of his backstory closely resemble the fictional Blackthornes. He was the pilot of a Dutch ship that carried the last handful of survivors from a trading journey that went south both metaphorically and latitudinally. Like Blackthorne, Adams spoke Portuguese, which meant he could communicate with Tokugawa through the Jesuit translators who had been attempting to convert the Japanese population to Christianity since the mid-1500s more about them later. Of course, Shogun exaggerates Adams-as-Blackthornes role in Tokugawas court and the war itself, but some of the interactions between Blackthorne and Toranaga directly reference Adams letters, including his vocal distrust in Portuguese Jesuits to fairly translate his words. Where did all these Portuguese priests come from and why do they hate Blackthorne? In 1494, Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, in which they divvied up the rights to colonize and spread Catholicism in the so-called new world. Their sophisticated method for determining which parts of the planet would be Spanish and which would be Portuguese was literally drawing a line down a map and going everything to on the other side of this line is Portugal now, which in case anyone was wondering is why they speak Portuguese in Brazil when all of the other South American countries speak Spanish. Brazil was in Portugals slice of the world pie. Those rights extended all the way around the globe; when a ship carrying Portuguese traders got lost somewhere around China and ended up landing in Japan in 1543, they were delighted to discover that according to their maps, this too was Portugals! After establishing trade routes and bringing in Jesuits to convert the population, the Portuguese kept the location of Japan a secret for 57 years. They had it made as long as none of those awful Protestant countries like England or the Netherlands found them. Which they did. Or rather, William Adams did. As a Protestant navigator on Japanese soil, Adams became the number one threat to Portugals position in Japan. And thats why every time a Portuguese guy sees Blackthorne its pretty much on sight. Was Mariko a real person? The historical model for Mariko (Anna Sawai), is Hosokawa Gracia, a Christian Japanese lady whose fluency in Portuguese and Latin made her a unique figure in the late 16th century. Like Mariko, Lady Hosokawa came from a controversial noble house. Remember how one of Oda Nobunagas allies betrayed and murdered him? That was Akechi Mistuhide, Lady Hosokawas father. To say more about Lady Hosokawa would be to spoil Marikos story, but one non-spoilery fact answers any questions about the potential historical reality of Lady Hosokawa and William Adams relationship. Hosokawa Gracia died in 1600, the year William Adams landed in Japan. They never met. Is Shogun educational? Shogun was so popular in the 70s that a collection of professors from The Program in Asian Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara wrote a pamphlet titled Learning from Shogun: Japanese History and Western Fantasy. This pamphlet, published 1980 in anticipation of the first adaptation, estimated that anywhere from one-fifth to one-half of all students who currently enroll in college-level courses about Japan have already read Shogun, and not a few of these have become interested in Japan because of it. That said, even these educators admit that while Shogun may have been responsible for getting the non-academic populace interested in Japanese history and culture, its more of a jumping-off point for those who want to do their own research. So is Shogun historical fiction? More so than Game of Thrones, which uses Englands War of the Roses as an incredibly loose model for the War of the Five Kings, less so than direct history books that tell the story of Tokugawa Ieyasu emerging victorious from a war involving five regents. Learning from Shogun is available in PDF form here. Other sources used in this article include A Brief History of Japanese Civilization and public domain reprints of William Adams letters. Shogun is streaming on Hulu now, with new episodes on Tuesdays through April 23. Best of IndieWire Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. McSweeney appeared on seasons 12 and 13 of 'The Real Housewives of New York City' and season 3 of 'Ultimate Girls Trip' John Nacion/WireImage; Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty Leah McSweeney and Andy Cohen Andy Cohen is being sued by former Real Housewives of New York City star Leah McSweeney. The civil lawsuit filed Tuesday in the Southern District of New York, names Cohen, Bravo Media, NBC Universal Media, Warner Bros. Discovery, production company Shed Media US and producers John Paparazzo, Lisa Shannon and Darren Ward. Within the 109-page complaint obtained by PEOPLE, McSweeney claims the defendants established a "rotted" workplace culture where employees were pressured to consume alcohol. She also alleges that the defendants failed to maintain a safe working environment and accommodate her disabilities, including "alcohol use disorder" and "mental health disorders." 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 celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Andy Cohen, Dolores Catania and Leah McSweeney on an episode of "Watch What Happens Live" Related: Andy Cohen Apologizes After Brandi Glanville Accuses Him of Sexual Harassment, Says Explicit Proposal Was Meant in Jest McSweeney added that she disclosed that she had broken nine years of sobriety, but was sober by the time filming for season 12 of the show began in 2019. Reps for Cohen, Bravo, Shed and Warner Bros did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment on McSweeneys allegations. McSweeney further alleges that producers knew she suffered from alcohol use disorder after she confided in them, but discriminated against that and other mental disorders by "intentionally planning scenarios intended to exacerbate [her] disabilities," all in efforts to "create morbidly salacious reality television." In a later section of the complaint, McSweeney goes on to claim that Cohen "engages in cocaine use with Housewives and other 'Bravolebrities' that he employs," and has a "proclivity for cocaine usage with his employees." "Cohen tends to provide the Housewives with whom he uses cocaine with more favorable treatment and edits," she claimed. Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty Andy Cohen on 'Watch What Happens Live' Related: Andy Cohen Cautions Against Fraud Scams After 'Serious' Incident He Faced: 'I Don't Want This to Happen to Anyone' "Cohen intentionally uses cocaine with his employees to further promote a workplace culture that thrives off drug and alcohol abuse, which leads to a failure to accommodate employees who are disabled and attempting to remain substance free." "Cohens preferred workplace environment, which is fueled with substances and illicit behavior, permeates every aspect of Defendant Bravo productions," she continued. Deadline reported a rep for Cohen stating Tuesday that the claims against Andy are completely false! For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. Former Real Housewives of New York star Leah McSweeney has filed a lawsuit against Bravo and Andy Cohen, accusing them of discrimination, cocaine and alcohol abuse, and promoting a rotted workplace culture. The suit, obtained by The Daily Beast on Wednesday, alleges that Cohen and Bravo discriminated against, tormented, demoralized, demeaned, harassed and retaliated against Ms. McSweeney because she is a woman with disabilities, such as alcohol use disorder and various mental health disorders, all in the name of selling drama. When McSweeney joined Real Housewives of New York in 2020 for Season 12, she frequently discussed her history with substance abuse on the show; particularly, she grappled with relapsing after nine years of sobriety. In McSweeneys suit, the star alleges that Cohen, an executive producer of Real Housewives, and Bravo are guilty of intentionally planning scenarios intended to exacerbate Ms. McSweeneys disabilities throughout RHONY season 12. Bravo Star Fires Back: Why Is Andy Cohen Getting a Pass? Elsewhere in the suit, McSweeney claims that Cohen engages in cocaine use with Housewives and other Bravolebrities that he employs, and that he gives more favorable edits to the Housewives whom he does cocaine with. A rep for Cohen told The Daily Beast: The claims against Andy are completely false. McSweeney commented on the lawsuit in an Instagram post in which she wrote in part, This is not a story I ever thought I would be telling; in fact, I was petrified to speak on it and was warned not to. Your favorite Bravo shows are run by people who create a dangerous work environment, encourage substance abuse to artificially create drama and cynically prey on the vulnerabilities of their employees. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Brandi Glanvillewho last week accused Cohen of sexually harassing herexpressed her support for McSweeney by commenting on the post, We are NOT expendable. We are strong women & even stronger together. Time to take our power back. McSweeney is just the latest Bravo star to take legal action against the network and Cohen. Last week, Glanville claimed in a legal letter that Cohen sent her a video in which he allegedly said he wanted her to watch him have sex with another Bravo star. Glanvilles letter described the alleged incident as an extraordinary abuse of power. The Watch What Happens Live host responded on X/Twitter by saying it was all a joke, but acknowledging that his actions were totally inappropriate. Earlier this month, Real Housewives of New Jersey star Caroline Manzo filed a lawsuit against NBCUniversal, Peacock, Bravo, and production companies Shed Media and Forest Productions over misconduct that allegedly took place during the filming of the Housewives spinoff series Ultimate Girls Trip. In her suit, Manzo, who accused her castmate Glanville of sexually assaulting her, also alleged that production staff regularly ply the Real Housewives cast with alcohol, cause them to become severely intoxicated, and then direct, encourage and/or allow them to sexually harass other cast members because that is good for ratings. The Daily Beast has reached out to McSweeneys attorney and Bravo for comment. Scandal-Plagued Real Housewives Season May Never Air 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. Altria Group Inc's (NYSE:MO) strong brand portfolio continues to dominate the U.S. tobacco market. Recent strategic exits and acquisitions reflect a dynamic approach to market trends and regulatory landscapes. Market leadership in smokeable and oral tobacco products segments, despite shifting consumer preferences. Regulatory pressures and health concerns pose ongoing threats to the tobacco industry. On February 27, 2024, Altria Group Inc (NYSE:MO) filed its annual report with the SEC, providing a comprehensive overview of its financial performance and strategic direction. The company, known for its leading tobacco brands, including the iconic Marlboro, reported a strong market position with a 42% annual share in cigarettes in the U.S. for 2022. Despite a decrease in total oral tobacco products segment's shipment volume by 2.2% from the previous year, Altria's diverse portfolio and strategic investments, such as its 42% stake in cannabis manufacturer Cronos and the acquisition of Njoy Holdings, showcase its efforts to adapt to a changing market. With an aggregate market value of approximately $80 billion as of June 30, 2023, Altria's financial stability is evident. However, the industry faces ongoing challenges, including regulatory scrutiny and evolving consumer health concerns, which Altria must navigate to maintain its market leadership. Decoding Altria Group Inc (MO): A Strategic SWOT Insight Strengths Brand Power and Market Leadership: Altria Group Inc (NYSE:MO) boasts a robust portfolio of tobacco products, with its Marlboro brand holding a commanding 42% share of the U.S. cigarette market in 2022. This brand strength is a testament to the company's deep market penetration and consumer loyalty. Altria's leading position in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, coupled with its number-two spot in machine-made cigars, underscores its competitive advantage in the tobacco industry. The company's strategic investments, such as the acquisition of Njoy Holdings, further diversify its product offerings and enhance its market presence. Story continues Financial Resilience: Altria's financial health is a significant strength, with an aggregate market value of $80 billion as of mid-2023. This financial stability is supported by the company's consistent revenue streams and its ability to leverage economies of scale. Altria's strategic exits, such as divesting its stake in Juul Labs, demonstrate a proactive approach to managing its portfolio in response to market and regulatory changes, thereby protecting its financial position. Weaknesses Declining Shipment Volumes: Despite its strong brand presence, Altria Group Inc (NYSE:MO) has experienced a decrease in total oral tobacco products segment's shipment volume, which fell by 2.2% in 2023 from the previous year. This decline reflects the broader industry trend of reduced tobacco consumption and the shift in consumer preferences toward alternative products. Altria's reliance on traditional tobacco products could be a weakness as the market continues to evolve. Regulatory and Legal Challenges: Altria operates in a highly regulated industry, with stringent laws governing the manufacture, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products. The company's history of legal challenges, including its former investment in Juul Labs, highlights the potential risks associated with regulatory compliance and public health concerns. These challenges could impact Altria's ability to innovate and market new products, affecting its long-term growth prospects. Opportunities Product Innovation and Market Expansion: Altria Group Inc (NYSE:MO) has the opportunity to capitalize on its strong research and development capabilities to innovate and introduce new products that align with evolving consumer preferences. The company's investment in cannabis manufacturer Cronos and its expansion into e-vapor products with Njoy Holdings indicate a strategic shift toward emerging markets and less harmful alternatives to traditional tobacco products. Strategic Partnerships and Acquisitions: Altria's history of strategic partnerships, such as its joint venture with JTIUH for heated tobacco products, presents opportunities for growth and market expansion. By leveraging these partnerships, Altria can access new technologies and markets, potentially increasing its competitive edge and consumer base. Threats Regulatory Pressures: The tobacco industry is subject to intense regulatory scrutiny, with laws and regulations impacting product design, packaging, and marketing. Altria Group Inc (NYSE:MO) must navigate a complex regulatory landscape, including potential restrictions on flavored tobacco products and increased taxes. These pressures could limit the company's ability to operate freely and impact its profitability. Health Concerns and Shifting Consumer Trends: Public health concerns about the risks associated with tobacco use continue to influence consumer behavior. Altria faces the threat of a declining customer base as more consumers seek healthier lifestyles and alternatives to tobacco products. The company must adapt to these trends to maintain its market position and ensure long-term viability. In conclusion, Altria Group Inc (NYSE:MO) possesses a strong brand portfolio and financial resilience that position it well in the competitive tobacco industry. However, the company must address weaknesses such as declining shipment volumes and regulatory challenges to sustain its market leadership. Opportunities for growth through product innovation and strategic partnerships are promising, but Altria must also contend with the threats posed by regulatory pressures and changing consumer preferences. Navigating these dynamics will be critical for Altria's continued success in a rapidly evolving market. This article, generated by GuruFocus, is designed to provide general insights and is not tailored financial advice. Our commentary is rooted in historical data and analyst projections, utilizing an impartial methodology, and is not intended to serve as specific investment guidance. It does not formulate a recommendation to purchase or divest any stock and does not consider individual investment objectives or financial circumstances. Our objective is to deliver long-term, fundamental data-driven analysis. Be aware that our analysis might not incorporate the most recent, price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative information. GuruFocus holds no position in the stocks mentioned herein. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Jason William Mizell, better known by his stage name Jam Master Jay, can finally rest in peace as his killers have been brought to justice. The late rapper shook up the Hip-hop world as a member of the famed 80s group Run-DMC until he was brutally murdered on October 30, 2002. More than two decades later, the men responsible for ending his life at 37 will pay for their crime, giving Mizell's grief-stricken family the closure they deserve. Jam Master Jay's Killers May Receive A Minimum Of 20 Years Behind Bars The long-awaited conclusion to the mystery behind Mizell's death arrived on Tuesday, February 27. A federal jury in Brooklyn slammed gunmen Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington with a guilty verdict for the rapper's murder. The duo were charged with murder while engaged in a narcotics trafficking conspiracy and firearm-related murder for the fatal shooting of Mizell inside the victim's recording studio in Hollis, Queens. The guilty verdict comes at the heels of a four-week trial umpired by United States District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall. When sentenced, Jordan Jr. and Washington face a minimum of 20 years behind bars and a maximum term of life imprisonment. According to a press release from the US Department of Justice, the verdict was announced by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace. In his statement, the legal practitioner noted the judgment was long overdue, saying: "More than two decades after they killed Jason Mizell in his recording studio, Jordan and Washington have finally been held accountable for their cold-blooded crime driven by greed and revenge." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jam Master Jay (@jammasterjay) The United States Attorney continued by praising Jam Master Jay as a Hip-hop icon whose achievements with Run-DMC originated from their Queens district. He described his death as another "tragedy of a life senselessly cut short" before thanking everyone who participated in getting him justice. ATF Special Agent-in-Charge John B. DeVito echoed similar sentiments, noting: "Today's guilty verdicts provides proof that the passage of time provides no safe harbor to those who commit murder." The law enforcer threw a special shout-out to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), saying: "For us in ATF, our memory is long, and our resolve is steadfast. We have no tolerance for those who would take a life, and we are committed to seeing justice done." Mr. DeVito also thanked everyone involved in the case and sent his well wishes to the "It's Tricky" rapper's loved ones. In his words: "We offer our hope to the family, friends, and fans of Jason Mizell that today's verdict gives some closure." NYPD Commissioner Edward A. Caban similarly applauded his department's detectives for their help in securing the guilty verdict despite the passage of time. "A cold case is never a forgotten case," he argued, adding: "In the decades since Mr. Mizell was brutally murdered, the greatest detectives in the world followed every lead until arrests could be made and a solid case could be brought to our partners in the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jam Master Jay (@jammasterjay) Commissioner Edward continued: "Mr. Mizell's loved ones who long-expected and deserved justice to be delivered were patient, too, and we hope the jury's decisions today advance a small measure of closure." Jam Master Jay Died Following A Fall Out With His Killers The press release revealed the trial uncovered a shocking truth about Jam Master Jay. Between the 1990s and 2002, the late rapper was involved in arranging the sale of kilogram-quantities of cocaine in the Eastern District of New York and other locations. In August 2002, Mizell reportedly acquired approximately 10 kilograms of cocaine on consignment from a supplier based in California. The cocaine was to be distributed in Maryland by Washington, Jordan, and other co-conspirators until a dispute between the group forced the deceased to cut out his killers. Washington and Jordan felt betrayed by the snub as the drug deal was worth almost $200,000. The duo continued their part in the larger narcotics conspiracy, waiting for the right moment to strike down Mizell, and that came on October 30, 2002. On the fateful day, a co-conspirator allowed the criminals into Jam Master Jay's studio through a fire escape exit door. Then the trio approached the rapper, who had been gaming with a friend on the couch while talking business with his manager. Jordan fired two shots at close range, with one hitting Mizell in the head and killing him instantly. The second shot struck the Hip-hop icon's friend in the leg while the manager tried to flee the scene but was stopped by Washington's gun in her face and told to lay on the floor. Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed told detectives she checked the dummy rounds on set most of the time, a line prosecutors in her ongoing trial underscored to the jury as they aim to prove involuntary manslaughter. On Tuesday, February, 27, the jury in the ongoing Rust trial in New Mexico saw videos of interviews Santa Fe detectives conducted with Gutierrez-Reed in November 2021 after the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the Rust set. In the videos, she described her responsibilities and her process for checking for the safety of dummy rounds, which involves shaking each individual round to hear for a rattle to indicate they are a dummy and cannot be fired. More from IndieWire I am shaking all of them most of the time, Gutierrez-Reed said. However, Gutierrez-Reed clarified earlier in the same interview that she had checked all of the rounds, that they had rattled, and she dummied up the gun upon first loading it before taking a lunch break. She did not notice there was a live round that had been loaded into the gun that was later handed to Baldwin. I went back through a bag that I had, Gutierrez-Reed said in the interview. This bag had a bunch of loose dummies in it. I went through, and I checked all of them, and I put them into two boxes They were in my car for like two weeks. If it didnt rattle, I wouldnt have put it in, she added. I checked all six of them for a rattle. Among the new details revealed in court were that Gutierrez-Reed brought dummy rounds that she had leftover from her previous film job, The Old Way, starring Nicolas Cage. The video interview with the detectives also revealed a text exchange in which the investigators sent Gutierrez-Reed an image of the live round that had been pulled from Hutchins and asked her if she thought it looked like a live round. That looks like a blank one, Gutierrez said at first before later saying, That might be a regular live round, though. Thats what they were thinking it could be a live round, the investigator said. Holy fuck, Gutierrez said. Prosecutors will have to prove without a reasonable doubt that Gutierrez-Reed demonstrated willful disregard for the safety of others. If she is convicted, she could face 18 months in prison. Gutierrez-Reeds trial began February 22. Prosecutor Jason Lewis said Gutierrez-Reed was sloppy in her duties as the armorer, twice failing to check the ammunition in the gun properly. Prosecutors made the case that Gutierrez-Reed was unprofessional, and in pre-trial filings, prosecutors noted she was allegedly hungover while on the job and had been using marijuana, potentially impairing her work. Earlier in the week, a former crew member took the stand and testified that Gutierrez-Reed was not as professional as other armorers he had worked with in his career. Gutierrez-Reeds lawyer, Todd Bowles, pointed the finger in her defense at numerous other parties, saying that a series of events and mishaps all had to occur for a gun to discharge on set and kill Hutchins. Bowles said his client was being made to be a scapegoat and that the entire mentality on Rust was rush, get this done, so we can get the money. Her defense argues that Baldwin was at fault for pointing the gun at another individual, and he also singled out supplier Seth Kenney, prop master Sarah Zachry, and the producers of Rust, who were issued the largest fine in New Mexico history by OSHA for failing to maintain safe working conditions. Gutierrez-Reed is charged with involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering. Baldwin was again charged with involuntary manslaughter in the Rust case and will begin his trial on July 9. Best of IndieWire Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed repeatedly expressed shock that investigators found more live rounds of ammunition on the ill-fated Western set during a 2021 interrogation video shown in court Wednesday, at one point suggesting to detectives that someone may have placed them intentionally to sabotage her. During live testimony later Wednesday, her lawyer Jason Bowles hinted during questioning of an investigator that the defense will further explore the theory which he first floated during early TV interviews that someone may have intentionally mixed live ammunition in with boxes of dummy rounds to undermine the young armorer after a camera crew walked off in protest. Gutierrez-Reed faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering, with a potential prison sentence of up to three years. The trial began last week in New Mexico before a jury that will determine whether she bears responsibility in the accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on October 21, 2021. Wednesdays morning session consisted mostly of prosecutors showing extended video from Gutierrez-Reed with Bowles present during a Nov. 9, 2021, on-the-record interview with investigators, including Santa Fe County Sheriffs Officer Alexandria Hancock. During the lengthy exchange, Hancock tells Gutierrez-Reed that the box of dummy-labeled ammo from which she apparently loaded the fatal round also contained other rounds that tested live. An audibly stunned Gutierrez-Reed repeatedly uses expletives to express shock and denies that she brought live rounds to the set for target practice or any other purpose. She then name drops Seth Kenney, the owner-operator of PDQ Arm and Prop, whom she would sue in a 2022 civil action (the lawsuit is apparently still pending). Honestly, Im not sure [why there was a mixed box], she tells investigators. I would say right now, Seth [Kenney] supplies all the boxes. I dont want to speculate, but hes also been acting pretty weird toward me personally. We had a whole-ass argument, and we werent talking during this whole incident. Though Kenney was not on the set, one of his employees, prop master Sarah Zachary, was. The prosecuting attorney asked Hancock whether Gutierrez-Reed was ever insinuating that Zachary planted that box of ammunition. Yes, Hancock replied from the witness box. Did you ever find any evidence to support that? the prosecutor asked. No, Hancock answered. During his cross-examination of Hancock, Bowles suggested that in the days immediately following the deadly accident, Kenney had access to a safe where ammunition was stored, which the detective confirmed. He also asked Hancock whether Kenney was pushing the story that Gutierrez-Reed was responsible for bringing live rounds to the set; she indicated that he was simply trying to give information to investigators. Hancock also testified that there was never any evidence found to support rumors that Gutierrez-Reed had been plinking, or shooting practice target arounds, on our around the set which she denied in her interview with detectives. Bowles asked whether Kenneys fingerprints, DNA or phone records were ever taken and she said they had not. Back on the stand in the afternoon, Hancock told the court that she found no evidence that Kenney had supplied the mixed box of ammunition and stopped pursuing that line of inquiry despite pressure from Bowles and Thell Reed, Gutierrez-Reeds stepfather and a top Hollywood armorer. During opening statements last week, state prosecutor Jason Lewis asserted that Gutierrez-Reeds unprofessional and sloppy conduct was a contributing factor. Lewis said Gutierrez-Reed failed twice to properly check ammunition loaded into the gun wielded that October day by Alec Baldwin, who is expected to also stand trial later this summer on separate manslaughter charges. Gutierrez-Reeds defense lawyers laid the blame on Baldwin. It was Baldwin, the lawyer argued, who really controlled the set and also called the armorer an easy target the least powerful person on that set. The trial, expected to last at least two weeks, will feature several key witnesses, including director Joel Souza and David Halls, the first assistant director. The post Rust Armorer Shocked by Live Ammo on Set, Says Supplier Was Acting Weird as Defense Racks Up Sabotage Theory appeared first on TheWrap. There was nothing apparently wrong with the replica Colt .45 with which Alec Baldwin accidentally shot Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in 2021, a firearms expert testifying for the prosecution said Tuesday in the manslaughter trial of armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. Lucien Haag, who for decades has worked with New Mexico law enforcement on firearms and ballistics cases, took the stand and said he extensively inspected and tested the firearm after it was damaged by FBI investigators. He said the federal team had apparently tested the weapons hammer by striking or dropping it which he called unnecessary and led to a pause in the case but once he reconstructed it, the gun was perfectly functioning. Gutierrez-Reed faces charges of involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering, with a potential prison sentence of up to three years. The trial began last week in New Mexico before a Santa Fe jury that will determine whether the 24-year-old armorer bears responsibility in the accidental shooting death of Hutchins. Haag walked the jury through his credentials and testing process before the Tuesday lunch break, and immediately upon return, was asked by prosecutor Jason Lewis about his final determination. I think it [is] your conclusion that the Baldwin revolver that you examined, in your expert opinion that the shooter had to have fully cocked that weapon and pulled the trigger to fire it? Lewis asked. Either fully pulled the trigger, or already depressed it, Haag said. If hed already depressed it, the very instant he let go of the hammer, it would fire. Lewis also asked Haag if he could determine from video of the incident whether Baldwin had his finger on or inside the trigger guard during a cross-draw maneuver the producer and actor was apparently practicing when the gun went off, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. I could never resolve that from the camera angle, Haag said. You can see him cocking it, [once its] clear of the holster. But I cant determine if [the trigger] is already depressed, or whether he pulled it. Baldwin maintained after the shooting and in subsequent interviews that he never pulled the trigger and would not do such a thing. Later Tuesday, prosecutors showed bodycam and interview-room footage from Santa Fe County Sheriffs Officer Alexandria Hancock, who spoke with Gutierrez-Reed immediately after the Oct. 21, 2021, shooting. Im never working in this industry again, an audibly despondent Gutierrez-Reed was heard saying at one point, as Hancock escorted her to the bathroom and her squad vehicle. My career is over. Hancock said the then-24-year-old armorer, who was just getting her start after years of training with her father [Thell Reed, a top industry firearms expert], didnt want to be seen by the crew that day. At one point Gutierrez-Reed described the immediate aftermath, saying she was yelled at and asked to inspect the gun, which showed signs of a live projectile having been ejected. Gutierrez-Reed told investigators that the dummy ammunition for Rust had come from three different sources, including two named prop houses and her own supply. Back at the police station, Gutierrez-Reed agreed to speak to Hancock and another detective without her lawyer present. When asked if she ever had live rounds on set, Gutierrez-Reed answered: No, never. During opening statements last week, state prosecutor Jason Lewis asserted that Gutierrez-Reeds unprofessional and sloppy conduct was a contributing factor. Lewis said Gutierrez-Reed failed twice to properly check ammunition loaded into the gun wielded that October day by Baldwin, who is expected to also stand trial later this summer on separate manslaughter charges. Gutierrez-Reeds defense lawyers laid the blame on Baldwin. It was Baldwin, the lawyer argued, who really controlled the set and also called the armorer an easy target the least powerful person on that set. The trial, expected to last at least two weeks, will feature several key witnesses, including Souza and David Halls, the first assistant director. The post Rust Trial: Gun Expert Describes Perfectly Functioning Weapon That Would Fire if Cocked With Trigger Depressed appeared first on TheWrap. Heres Shogun episode 2s ending explained featuring spoilers and a general recap of what happened in the latest FX series. Dive into our breakdown and learn about why everyone is after John Blackthorne. What happened at the end of Shogun episode 2? Shogun episode 2 ended with a failed attempt to kill John Blackthorne. After John Blackthornes ship arrived in Japan during the 1600s, he was taken prisoner and brought to Lord Yoshi Toranaga in Osaka. With the Lord facing the threat of impeachment, he decided to use Blackthorne to his advantage. He was aware that Blackthornes presence would cause unrest and create a divide between the four council leaders, further delaying his impeachment. So, he kept the Englishman as a prisoner. As a result, Catholic Lords Ohno and Kiyama asked for his execution. But Lord Ishido ordered Kashigi to save him and deliver him to Toranaga for his personal needs. However, this further worked in Toranagas favor, who got a lot of new information from Blackthorne. The Englishman revealed the true intentions of the Spanish and Yabushige, who had divided the world into two halves to claim all the lands with non-catholic rulers for themselves. Figuring out that the Portuguese wished to claim Japan, Toranaga anticipated another attack on Blackthorne. So, he traded chambers with the ship pilot and just as he thought, an attempt to assassinate him was made. But the killer failed due to Toranagas smarts and Blackthornes bravery. Just when everyone thought that it was Lord Ishido who made a play to kill Toranaga, the latter understood that it was one of the Catholic Lords. Why did Lord Kimaya try to assassinate John Blackthorne? Lord Kimaya wanted John Blackthorne dead because of his protestant religious beliefs. Furthermore, his presence caused a hindrance in the schemes of Lord Kimaya and the Portuguese. Being the Foreign Relations President and having found out about the secret bases that the Portuguese were building in Japanese regions, Toranaga denied the Black Ship to leave Nagasaki. All that happened because of the knowledge that Blackthorne shared with him. As a result, Lord Kimaya took it upon himself to kill the English merchant. Now, his acts will bring unrest between the council leaders. Since he was the one who broke the peace, Toranaga could gain the advantage against the four leaders who were supposed to sign his impeachment. For more updates, learn if Dune: Part Two has a post-credits scene. Also, find out whether Dune 2 could be a box-office success. The post Shogun Episode 2 Ending Explained, Spoilers & Recap: What Happened? appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More. PASADENA, Calif. Hiroyuki Sanada was already one of Japan's most respected actors when he appeared in his first Hollywood movie, 2003's "The Last Samurai," which included a tense scene with star Tom Cruise. Sanada had to swing his samurai blade right up to global superstar Cruise's neck in the drama set in 19th-century Japan. Cruise insisted that the actor use a sword rather than a shortened blade that would be enhanced with special effects. "I took a full swing and then stopped just touching his skin, but no injury," Sanada says. "He never blinked. So he believed in me. And I believed in him. That was a great moment." The role was the first in Sanada's decadeslong mission to work and provide his Japanese cultural expertise in Hollywood projects. That quest has culminated at age 63 with the starring role of Lord Yoshii Toranaga in FX's epic series "Shogun," for which he's also a first-time producer. The Disney-owned network's most expensive and ambitious project (Tuesdays, 10 EST/PST and streaming on Hulu). All about the show: FX's 'Shogun' brings a new, epic version of James Clavell's novel to life: What to know Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) in FX's "Shogun." Sanada served as producer for the first time in the 10-part series. "When I came to Hollywood, my mission was to show our culture correctly. If there was a wall between East and West, I want to break it down," says Sanada. "So yes, dreams come true." The Tokyo-born Sanada recalls the original 1980 miniseries "Shogun," based on author James Clavell's best-selling 1975 historical novel. The NBC event, starring Richard Chamberlain as the marooned English sailor John Blackthorne and legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune as the warlord Toranaga, "was big news for Japan," he says. "Of course I watched," says Sanada, who had a celebrated career portraying ninjas and samurai in Japan and starring in 1998's "The Ring" horror movie. "But I wasn't interested in making a Japanese story in Hollywood." Our critic's Review: Dazzling 'Shogun' is the genuine TV epic you've been waiting for (L-R) Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) and Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) face off in the finale of "Mortal Kombat." The actor started exporting his considerable talents with "Last Samurai" where he instructed Cruise how to wear the traditional obi belt and hold the samurai sword correctly as they trained together. After moving to Los Angeles in 2005, Sanada has continued providing his cultural input in acting projects including the android samurai on HBOs "Westworld" and the kunai-wielding Scorpion in 2021's Mortal Kombat to the warrior Shimazu Koji alongside Keanu Reeves's assassin in 2023's "John Wick 4: Chapter 4." But when the husband and wife team of Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, "Shogun" executive producers and writers, hired Sanada for the Toranaga role, they insisted the actor bring that expertise with the official role of producer. "For the first time I have the title," says Sanada, smiling. "For the first time, I'm not consulting as an actor. After 20 years in Hollywood, I'm a producer. It means I can say anything, anytime." Sanada as Toranago in "Shogun. "The first time in a Hollywood leading role was a big surprise for me," he says. The "Shogun" star made it his mission to ensure authenticity for the 10-episode series, which dives deep into the fabric of 1600 Japan's culture and expands the story's viewpoint. The new "Shogun" weaves its complicated tale of palace intrigue through many Japanese characters' perspectives. Sanada's brilliant strategist Toranaga enlists the stranded Blackthorne (now played by British actor Cosmo Jarvis) to fend off his scheming enemies on the Council of Regents with the help of fiercely loyal translator Lady Mariko (Anna Sawai). Filmed in Vancouver, Canada, Sanada spearheaded the effort to hire Japanese consultants for costumes and props as well as stunt coordinators and movement advisers, Marks says. "I had a team for the first time, ever," Sanada says. "I carried the pressure of being a producer on my shoulder. But more than that, I had happiness." (R-L) "Shogun" producer Hiroyuki Sanada consults with Cosmo Jarvis as John Blackthorne on the set of the FX series. Sanada silently went to battle each day to get "better and better" with each detail, perfecting even the most subtle detail or screen movement to pass muster with the most knowledgeable Japanese viewers. "If something is incorrect, people cannot focus on the drama. They don't want to see that kind of show. We needed to be authentic," he says. Marks says that Sanada was not just the lead actor, but "a full partner" in the production. He recalls the actor dismounting his horse after shooting a major battle scene and finding his place near the monitor in full samurai armor to scrutinize even minor background movement in the just-shot footage. "Besides being No. 1 on the call sheet, Hiro's job was making sure we were getting everything absolutely right," Marks says. His work as a producer made playing the quietly powerful and shrewd Toranaga almost effortless, Sanada says. "After I had prepared everything in the scene, from the props to the other actors, I was so relaxed in front of the camera, I felt freedom," says Sanada. "I could be there and breathe as my character, and react like him." He looks forward to "Shogun" being seen around the world, including on Disney+ in Japan. "I'm both very confident and a little nervous; a mixture," he says of his native country's reaction to the series. "We've done our best and people are always going to have their opinions. However, I think they will enjoy this very authentic samurai drama made in Hollywood." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Shogun' star and producer Hiroyuki Sanada talks epic new show Taylor Swift has jetted into Singapore and Swifties are wondering where she is staying, and what is her schedule for The Eras Tour concerts. So, heres all you need to know about Swifts Singapore leg. Where is Taylor Swift staying in Singapore? Taylor Swift is staying at the luxury resort hotel Capella in Singapore. The 34-year-old pop star took off from Sydney and flew for about 8 hours to land at Seletar Airport in Singapore on February 27. It was anticipated that shed be staying at Marina Bay Sands, as it is the official presenting partner for The Eras Tour. But as she and her entourage boarded black Toyota Alphards, they bypassed Marina Bay Sands and stopped at the Capella luxury resort hotel. Similar to how Swift took her days off in Sydney to visit the zoo, itll be interesting to see if she takes a small trip somewhere in Singapore as well before her concert begins on March 2, 2024. Taylor Swift The Eras Tour Singapore concert dates and schedule Taylor Swifts The Eras Tour concerts in Singapore are scheduled between March 2 and March 9, 2024. She will be performing throughout the next two weekends for 6 days in Singapore. The following list reveals all the dates and venues of Swifts Singapore concerts: March 2, 2024 Singapore National Stadium, Singapore March 3, 2024 Singapore National Stadium, Singapore March 4, 2024 Singapore National Stadium, Singapore March 7, 2024 Singapore National Stadium, Singapore March 8, 2024 Singapore National Stadium, Singapore March 9, 2024 Singapore National Stadium, Singapore If you havent booked your tickets yet then you could get them at Viagogo or Vividseats. Katy Perry, Rita Ora, Taika Waititi, Travis Kelce, and others showed up to support her at the Sydney concert. Now, itll be interesting to see if any celebrities attend her concerts in Singapore. For more updates, learn how much the front-row tickets cost for The Eras Tour concerts. The post Taylor Swift: Where Is She Staying in Singapore? Schedule Explained appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More. Long-time friends Tilda Swinton and Pedro Almodovar are reuniting for the Oscar-winning directors first English-language feature, The Room Next Door. Its hard to believe the Scottish high priestess of playing women unmoored from the people and places around her (see 2021s Colombia-shot Memoria, just for one) had never collaborated with the Spanish filmmaker before his proper English-language debut, The Human Voice. In that sharp shock of a 30-minute film, based on a Jean Cocteau play, Swinton starred as a woman going through a breakup over the telephone, surrounded by expressive Almodovarian set design on a soundstage, and eventually a fire. More from IndieWire In The Room Next Door, also being released by Almodovars perennial North American distributor Sony Pictures Classics, shes a woman named Martha grappling with a strained relationship with her mother, and helped by a friend named Ingrid (Julianne Moore, making her Almodovar debut). Swinton was embargoed from saying too much about the film, now in pre-production and shooting in Madrid next week, while in conversation with IndieWire about her new film Problemista (out March 1). But we took a breath from talking writer/director Julio Torres art world satire, in which she plays a toxic and tyrannical New York art groupie named Elizabeth, to catch up on all things Almodovar. We really love each other and always wanted to make a feature, Swinton said of Almodovar over Zoom from her hotel bed in New York City the day after the hometown Problemista premiere. This particular feature has been bubbling along in the skirting board ever since we worked together on The Human Voice, and its really exciting. The Human Voice, which also shot in Spain, premiered at the 2020 Venice Film Festival before playing in select theaters after the pandemic reopening of U.S. cinemas in March 2021. At the time, Almodovar shot The Human Voice as a primer for making his intended English-language feature, A Manual for Cleaning Women with Cate Blanchett, before he set that project aside and made the English-language Western short Strange Way of Life. Now, hes ready to properly shoot in the English language on a feature-scale with The Room Next Door, co-starring John Turturro. Ive been in Madrid. Im living in Madrid at the moment. Ive been there for the last two months. And Julianne Moore is there with us, and we are really enjoying ourselves. We start shooting on Monday [March 3], Swinton said. Im going back, in fact, this afternoon. Its really thrilling. For me, as just a film fan, Im just so thrilled for all of us that Pedro is making another movie, and its going to be a real Pedro movie. Im happy for him that hes shooting in Spain because thats his sweet spot, and we can do that. She added, Its a beautiful thing, and I cant say that much more about it, but I can tell you its a real Almodovar film. What I can tell you is that its about mature friendship in a way. Swinton said The Room Next Door is a natural successor, strangely, to Pain and Glory,' in that its about mature friendships and how they sustain us and what we need them for at this stage in our lives. So its going to be meaty. Almodovars autobiographical Pain and Glory starred Antonio Banderas as a filmmaker looking back on his life and career, and the relationships that stood in his way or abetted him. The film was nominated for Best International Feature at the Oscars, and Banderas earned Best Actor at Cannes and a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards. Best of IndieWire Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Nathaniel Foutch-Pratt is charged with attempted murder and kidnapping, as well as multiple other felonies Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Nathaniel Foutch-Pratt Nathaniel Foutch-Pratt is accused of kidnapping a woman and trying to kill her Police in Las Vegas arrested Foutch-Pratt after the woman mouthed "help me" to officers Foutch-Pratt is being held on $50,000 bond A man was arrested in Las Vegas after police allegedly saw him driving a car with a woman in the passenger seat mouthing help me. Nathaniel Foutch-Pratt is charged with attempted murder and kidnapping, among several other charges, court records indicate. An arrest report obtained by KSNV and KVVU alleges that Las Vegas Metropolitan Police were conducting a traffic stop the night of Feb. 20 when Foutch-Pratt drove by and a woman stuck her head out the window and mouthed to the police officers, asking for help. Police then pursued the car, according to the outlets citing the arrest report, and allegedly chased the suspect onto the highway, where he crashed into another vehicle. Police claimed Foutch-Pratt yelled she has to die tonight and attempted to strangle the woman, before he was taken into custody, the outlets reported. KSNV reported that police learned the two were a couple on a road trip from Illinois to California. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. Foutch-Pratt is in custody in Clark County jail, being held on $50,000 bond, jail records indicate. He is also charged with coercion constituting domestic violence with threat or use of physical force, domestic battery by strangulation, felony battery by a prisoner, misdemeanor domestic battery, driver disobeying a peace officer and several other misdemeanors. It is not immediately clear if Foutch-Pratt has entered a plea but is due in court on March 12. He is being represented by a public defender. If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on People. We all love going out to eat and enjoying time with family and friends around a table loaded with delicious food. But with restaurant prices seemingly at an all-time high, you'll probably want to make sure you get your money's worth at the restaurants you visit. That means you should have a good idea of the kinds of dishes you should order, but it's perhaps even more important to know which dishes you shouldn't order. If you're visiting a local restaurant, you may be able to read reviews to get a good idea of what you're in for, but when it comes to chain restaurants, dishes can be variable from location to location. That being said, by checking out this list of the Red Lobster dishes you shouldn't be ordering, you may get a better sense of what on the menu is actually worth splurging on. That way, you can ensure you're going to have a good time without breaking your budget for no reason in the process. Let's take a closer look at these 12 dishes you should never order at the iconic seafood chain Red Lobster. Read more: Restaurant Foods That Always Taste Better Than What You Make At Home Crispy Dragon Shrimp Crispy Dragon Shrimp - Red Lobster / Facebook Shrimp is one of the most popular types of seafood, and the only thing that can make it better is a thick layer of breading and some spice, right? Actually, maybe not, at least not if you're ordering the crispy dragon shrimp from Red Lobster. Red Lobster's website says this shrimp is tossed in a "sweet, mildly spicy chili sauce." If you're like us, you perk up whenever you hear "chili sauce." You may think this is one of the best dishes you could order on the menu. But believe us when we say that you're likely to be disappointed. The sauce on the crispy dragon shrimp is certainly sweet, but if you ask us, it's really not spicy at all. Rather, you're left with fried shrimp swimming around in a sea of what seems to be barely flavored sugar. The dish takes what's supposed to be a light, simple ingredient and turns it into something that seems more at home at a cheap drive-thru than it does at a sit-down seafood restaurant. If you're craving shrimp that tastes like dessert, go ahead and snag the crispy dragon shrimp from Red Lobster. Otherwise, check out some of the other shrimp dishes on the menu. Brownie Overboard Red Lobster Brownie Overboard - Red Lobster / X If the only dish you'd ever tried at Red Lobster was the crispy dragon shrimp, you probably wouldn't be shocked to find out that the Brownie Overboard is also way, way too sweet. This one is less offensive than the shrimp, of course, because a brownie is actually meant to be sweet, and that's probably what you want if you're ordering dessert anyway. But it's definitely possible to go too hard on the sugar, and that's exactly what's happening in this dessert dish. When we tried this dish, we found that they basically just pile some brownies with every sweet ingredient they have stocked in the kitchen. It starts with a few big scoops of vanilla ice cream that add nothing of interest to the dish and then comes the caramel, fudge, and whipped cream. Why a chocolate brownie needs fudge on top is beyond us, but the result is not good. Plus, the size of this dish is absolutely massive, so it's really something you'd ideally want to share with a few people. We love personal-sized desserts that offer just a little sweet treat after the main course, and this brownie is absolutely not it. You might want to stop for an ice cream on the way home if you're craving a dessert that's a bit more restrained. Admiral's Feast Red Lobster Admiral's Feast - Red Lobster / Facebook One mark of a good meal is a plate that's filled with a variety of colors, ranging from the bright green of fresh veggies to the pop of orange or yellow from spices. Of course, there will usually be some bland colors in the mix, but when it all comes together, you want your plate to be colorful, which is a huge part of what makes it appetizing. But that's definitely not what you're going to get when you order the Admiral's Feast from Red Lobster. We found that this dish is just a big plate of beige, and it has a flavor to match. The massive plate of food comes with a smattering of different types of fried seafood. Shrimp, flounder, clam strips, and bay scallops should all offer a range of textures and flavors, but since they're all breaded and fried to a crisp, you're basically just getting a plate of barely seasoned bread crumbs. Sure, it's nice to have an element of crispiness on the plate, but when that's the only thing you're eating, it gets boring really fast. If all you want is some fried food, head to a fast food restaurant and save yourself some money. Otherwise, check out the fresher seafood options on the Red Lobster menu. Lobster Baked Potato Lobster Baked Potato - Delinda Simmons / Facebook There are few dishes on the Red Lobster menu that feel as random as the lobster baked potato. Sure, a baked potato is a nice, albeit simple, side dish, and it feels like the kind of side that would be offered at a place like Red Lobster. But we really don't get the point in smothering it with cream sauce-infused Maine and langostino lobster. The flavors and textures don't really go well together, and overall, it just feels like more of an afterthought than a coherent side dish. Since you're likely to be ordering seafood as your main course, anyway, putting even more lobster on a baked potato is kind of gimmicky. You can also probably safely assume that you're not getting the best-quality lobster in this baked potato dish, as they're likely to save that for main-course lobster dishes. In the end, we found that this is an overpriced baked potato with some sad lobster on top that you're better off skipping. Ask for the baked potato without the lobster, or order something else entirely. Pasta Dishes Red Lobster pasta - Red Lobster Malaysia / Facebook You can find a lot of food-related rumors on the internet, and you have to take them with a grain of salt. However, you may want to pay attention to some of them just to play it on the safe side. A Reddit user asked servers what they shouldn't be ordering at different chain restaurants, and a purported Red Lobster server weighed in, saying that guests should avoid the pasta if they want the best possible dining experience. Why? According to this user, Red Lobster workers microwaved the pasta and the sauce in plastic bags that would then melt into the food. He even said that he had to pick plastic out of the dishes with his fingers before serving it to customers. We can't verify that this is true, but we wouldn't be surprised if a chain restaurant was not being as careful as they should be with food safety, especially when it comes to microwaving food in plastic. On the bright side, though, none of the pasta dishes at Red Lobster are particularly good, and it's probably not what you're going to a seafood restaurant for anyway. We'll let you decide whether or not you want to believe this story or not, but as for us, we'll be skipping the pasta the next time we eat at Red Lobster. Lobster Red Lobster lobster - Red Lobster / Facebook It probably doesn't even have to be said, but if you want the freshest, highest-quality lobster you can get your hands on, you're going to want to get it at a lobster pound by the side of the road in a small town on coastal Maine or somewhere else where lobsters are fresh, abundant, and caught nearby. If you've had lobster from one of these places before, then you know just how good it can be: The meat is plump and slightly sweet, and every morsel feels like you've been blessed by the seafood gods. It should not come as a surprise, but we found that you're almost definitely not going to have an experience like that if you're ordering lobster at Red Lobster. Sure, it's what the chain is known for, but at the end of the day, it is a chain, which generally means you're not getting the best quality. That might not matter much when it comes to a burger, but it makes a big difference on the lobster front. Most Red Lobsters are not located on a waterfront where the lobster is sourced, so it's not going to taste as fresh as the stuff you can get from a top-notch seafood joint. We're not saying that you have to skip the lobster completely, but just keep your expectations in check. Fish And Chips Fish and Chips - Eric Webster / Facebook We love fish and chips. It's a simple dish, but when it's done right, it's truly a delight: the perfectly cooked fish crisped to the ideal texture, the plump french fries straight out of the deep fryer, the malt vinegar that transforms the otherwise bland food into a symphony of fried and acidic goodness that keeps you coming back for another bite again and again. What's not to love? But just because fish and chips have the potential to be amazing doesn't mean that every plate of fish and chips you order is going to satisfy. Depending on your Red Lobster location, there's a chance that you're not going to have a good experience with the dish at the chain. It really comes down to how they cook it. One Reddit user said that at their location, their order came with huge chunks of fish that weren't even cooked through properly. The result was a less-than-appetizing dish that sounds like it shouldn't even have been consumed in the first place. That doesn't necessarily mean the fish and chips at your Red Lobster location will be bad, but you may still want to order something else to be on the safe side. Crab Legs Red Lobster crab legs - Red Lobster / Facebook If you want to get the most bang for your buck on the crab leg front, you might not want to go to Red Lobster. Some Reddit users are claiming that the crab legs used to be a great deal at the restaurant, so it was an easy way to splurge on a meal that might be on the nicer side for many of us who don't eat seafood on the regular. But now, they say that things have changed. Restaurant prices have gone up in general, so it's no surprise that many diners are seeing higher prices at Red Lobster as well. But they're also saying that the quality of the crab legs has decreased and that you don't get as much meat as you used to. Obviously, this seems very variable, and the reality could be quite different at your local Red Lobster. That being said, ordering something like crab legs is already a gamble; you never know what kind of quality you're going to get, particularly when you order them from someplace like Red Lobster, which is a huge company with locations all across the country. If you're willing to take a chance, go ahead and order the crab legs. Otherwise, there are safer menu options to choose from. Sesame Soy Salmon Bowl Sesame Soy Salmon Bowl - Red Lobster / Facebook Sometimes, when you go out to eat, you want to order whatever on the menu sounds best, even if it's not the healthiest dish you could eat. Other times, though, you may want to try to stick to the healthier end of the spectrum, particularly if you eat out a lot. If you fall into the latter camp and are planning on eating at Red Lobster, you may think that the sesame soy salmon bowl is a good option. This dish may not be your best bet, though. With over 2,500 milligrams of salt and over 1,200 calories, the sesame soy salmon bowl is probably not ideal if you're looking for the healthiest option on the menu. But don't worry you're not really missing out on much. Overall, the dish is pretty flavorless, with not much going on besides the saltiness of the soy sauce. Depending on which Red Lobster location you go to, the salmon might be overcooked, yielding a tougher texture than you're probably looking for. There are definitely better menu items to choose from. Endless Shrimp Red Lobster endless shrimp - Red Lobster / Facebook By now, you've probably heard about Red Lobster's Endless Shrimp deal. It's exactly what it sounds like: Unlimited shrimp until you can't possibly eat any more. There are different types of shrimp to choose from, although we suggest those that are lacking in breading if you want to get the most bang for your buck. But do you even want to order the Endless Shrimp, anyway? If you're super hungry and are looking to meet your protein goal for the day, it may not be a bad idea. On the other hand, though, if you're the type of person who tends to overeat and feels terrible afterward as a result, this is a deal you might want to skip. When you order most dishes at Red Lobster, there will come a natural stopping point where you decide you've had enough. When it comes to the Endless Shrimp, though, there's a good chance you'll just keep eating as much as you can until you feel too full. If you want to avoid that heavy feeling that leaves you with a crippling stomach ache, look for something else to try from the menu. Red Lobster isn't exactly known for its small portion sizes, so it's likely to fill you up just fine. Anything Not Labeled Today's Catch Red Lobster shrimp - Red Lobster / Facebook You probably already know that if you want the freshest fish possible, you should head to a local seafood restaurant on the coast not a Red Lobster located in St. Louis, Missouri. But still, there are some dishes that are fresher than others at the chain, and you'll want to be able to spot them if you're the kind of person who prefers their seafood fresh, not frozen. If you truly want fresh fish, look for items on the menu labeled "today's catch." These are likely to be the freshest items on the menu, and there's a good chance their flavor will reflect that. So, what should you not order? If you're really in search of the fresh stuff, you'll want to avoid anything that doesn't say "fresh catch." It doesn't mean that those dishes aren't good, per se, but it does mean that the fish was probably frozen before it got to you. If that doesn't bother you, you're good to go either way. Mozzarella Cheesesticks Red Lobster mozzarella sticks - Red Lobster / Facebook Listen, we get it. Sometimes, you just need an appetizer to hold you over until you're ready to dig into the main course. And in a moment of weakness, we have ordered the mozzarella cheese sticks at Red Lobster. But believe us when we say that it was a huge, huge mistake. Were the cheese sticks particularly bad? No. Messing up a mozzarella stick seems hard to do, and these tasted just fine, like frozen mozzarella sticks you might buy at the grocery store. They come with plenty of marinara sauce, which hides all cheese sins. But was it worth the money or the room it took up in our stomachs? No. When you go to Red Lobster, you're in it for a seafood meal. Out of all the items you could order off of the appetizer menu, why on earth would you choose something as commonplace, as pedestrian as mozzarella sticks? There are countless restaurants you could go to for a great mozzarella stick (and you could even make your own), but Red Lobster just doesn't seem like one of them. Read the original article on Tasting Table. Stanley Black & Decker Inc showcases robust revenue generation with $15.8 billion in 2023, with a strong presence in the United States and significant international operations. The Tools & Outdoor segment remains the revenue powerhouse, contributing 85% of total revenues with iconic brands like DEWALT and CRAFTSMAN. Strategic acquisitions and divestitures continue to reshape the company's portfolio, signaling agility and a forward-looking approach. Commitment to ESG initiatives and operational resilience positions the company as a sustainable and reliable partner in the industry. On February 27, 2024, Stanley Black & Decker Inc (NYSE:SWK), a leading manufacturer of hand and power tools, released its 10-K filing, revealing a year of solid financial performance with consolidated annual revenues of $15.8 billion. The company, with its principal executive office in New Britain, Connecticut, has demonstrated a strong market presence, particularly in the United States, which accounts for approximately 62% of its 2023 revenues. The Tools & Outdoor segment, which includes renowned brands such as DEWALT, CRAFTSMAN, and BLACK+DECKER, remains the primary revenue driver, contributing an impressive 85% to the total revenues. The company's strategic maneuvers through acquisitions and divestitures underscore its commitment to growth and market adaptation. Furthermore, Stanley Black & Decker Inc's dedication to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives reflects its role as a responsible corporate citizen and positions it as a sustainable choice for consumers and investors alike. Decoding Stanley Black & Decker Inc (SWK): A Strategic SWOT Insight Strengths Brand Portfolio and Market Leadership: Stanley Black & Decker Inc's strength lies in its diverse and powerful brand portfolio, which includes some of the most recognized names in the industry. The company's Tools & Outdoor segment, which generated $13.4 billion in revenue in 2023, is a testament to its market leadership. Brands like DEWALT, CRAFTSMAN, and BLACK+DECKER not only command customer loyalty but also provide a competitive edge in the professional and consumer markets. The company's ability to maintain a strong brand image and innovate continuously has allowed it to sustain its leadership position and capitalize on market opportunities. Story continues Financial Performance and Revenue Diversification: Stanley Black & Decker Inc's financial health is robust, with a significant revenue stream from its Tools & Outdoor segment. The company's revenue diversification strategy is evident in its international operations, which contribute to a substantial portion of its total revenues. This geographic spread mitigates the risks associated with market volatility in any single region. Additionally, the company's aggregate market value of $14.4 billion as of June 30, 2023, reflects investor confidence and a strong market position. Weaknesses Dependence on Major Customers: A potential weakness for Stanley Black & Decker Inc is its reliance on major customers. In 2023, the two largest customers accounted for approximately 27% of consolidated net sales. This concentration of sales to a few large customers, such as home centers and major retailers, could pose a risk if these relationships were to change adversely. The bargaining power of these volume purchasers limits the company's ability to recover cost increases through higher selling prices, which could impact profitability. Operational Risks and Supply Chain Vulnerabilities: The company's global sourcing and manufacturing operations expose it to risks such as supply chain disruptions, transportation issues, and geopolitical tensions. For instance, the company sources materials from regions like South Korea, China, and Taiwan, where any future tensions or conflicts could cause significant disruptions. These risks could lead to product shortages, delivery delays, and increased production costs, adversely affecting the company's operational efficiency and financial results. Opportunities ESG Initiatives and Sustainable Practices: Stanley Black & Decker Inc's commitment to ESG initiatives presents a significant opportunity to differentiate itself in the market. The company's goal to reduce its internal operational greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030 and achieve zero-waste-to-landfill across all its global manufacturing and distribution sites by 2040 resonates with the growing consumer and investor demand for sustainable practices. These initiatives can enhance the company's brand reputation and attract a new segment of environmentally conscious customers. Strategic Acquisitions and Market Expansion: The company's history of strategic acquisitions and divestitures offers opportunities for growth and expansion into new markets and product lines. By continuing to identify and integrate complementary businesses, Stanley Black & Decker Inc can diversify its offerings and enter emerging markets, potentially driving future revenue growth and expanding its global footprint. Threats Intense Competition and Pricing Pressures: Stanley Black & Decker Inc operates in a highly competitive market with both larger and smaller companies offering similar products. Competitors from countries with lower production costs pose a threat to the company's market share and profitability. The need to maintain a competitive cost structure while innovating and responding to competitor actions requires significant investment and strategic focus. Failure to compete effectively could result in reduced sales and profits. Global Economic and Geopolitical Uncertainties: The company's international operations expose it to global economic fluctuations and geopolitical risks. Economic downturns, trade disputes, and geopolitical tensions can impact consumer spending, disrupt supply chains, and affect the company's overall performance. Additionally, changes in regulatory environments and tariffs could increase operational costs and create market barriers. In conclusion, Stanley Black & Decker Inc (NYSE:SWK) presents a compelling case of a company with strong market leadership and brand portfolio, underpinned by a solid financial foundation. However, it must navigate the challenges of customer concentration and operational risks. The company's commitment This article, generated by GuruFocus, is designed to provide general insights and is not tailored financial advice. Our commentary is rooted in historical data and analyst projections, utilizing an impartial methodology, and is not intended to serve as specific investment guidance. It does not formulate a recommendation to purchase or divest any stock and does not consider individual investment objectives or financial circumstances. Our objective is to deliver long-term, fundamental data-driven analysis. Be aware that our analysis might not incorporate the most recent, price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative information. GuruFocus holds no position in the stocks mentioned herein. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Creating a pizza from scratch is an experience that promises both satisfaction and flavor-filled delights. Homemade pizza offers the perfect canvas for creativity, allowing you to customize every aspect of the pie to suit your preferences. From selecting the freshest ingredients to mastering the art of dough-making, each step is an opportunity to infuse your creation with love and personal flair. At the heart of every great pizza lies the dough, the foundation upon which all other ingredients rest. Crafting the perfect dough requires a delicate balance of flour, water, yeast, and salt -- not to mention the patience and precision in kneading and proofing. Then comes the sauce, which is not to be neglected. Selecting the right type of tomatoes is key here. Lastly, it's time to go wild with the toppings. The possibilities are endless whether you prefer the simplicity of a classic Margherita or crave adventurous toppings like prosciutto, arugula, and balsamic glaze. And, let's not forget the importance of cheese -- gooey mozzarella, creamy ricotta, or tangy goat cheese, the choice is yours. Indeed, with so many choices on hand, deciding how to make a pizza at home can be overwhelming. So, let's look at how some of our favorite celebrity chefs deal with this challenge. Read more: 13 Unexpected Ingredients To Elevate Lasagna 1. Make It Venetian By Folding It Over - Giada De Laurentiis Giada De Laurentiis - Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images Pizza is known to have originated in Naples, in southern Italy, which is quite some distance from Essington, Pennsylvania, where the Venetian pizza, or Stromboli, was invented by an Italian immigrant named Nazzareno Romano, in the 1940s. It's not uncommon for an idea, invention, or food to mutate as it traverses lands and cultures. In particular, the Venetian pizza has been folded over into the shape of a burrito before being baked in the oven for a little longer than a regular pizza, making it quite different indeed. Technicalities aside, the dough and cheese place this dish firmly in the realm of pizza, and if you haven't tried the Venetian pizza yet, Giada De Laurentiis has some tips for how to make it. Above all, she recommends using store-bought dough, making this recipe a breeze. And, while you certainly can use sauce here, and whatever toppings you like, Giada sticks with shredded mozzarella, prosciutto, and baby spinach leaves. After you've decided on your fillings, applied them to your spread-out pizza dough, and rolled it all up, brush some olive oil on the outside, and bake it until the cheese is fully melted. 2. Use A Slow Fermentation Process For The Dough - Jacques Torres Jacques Torres - Charley Gallay/Getty Images It's hardly worth going through the whole process of making pizza at home if you neglect the most important part -- the dough preparation. This is why you should always go slow and steady with this step, as rushing things will get you in trouble. Jacques Torres seems to agree since he recommends you take your time with the fermentation process after the yeast is added to the dough. He suggests that home chefs allow their dough to sit for no less than 48 hours and up to 72 hours before rolling it out. While this means no more impromptu pizza nights, at least not with homemade pizza, you'll be glad to have discovered this trick, as it yields a softer dough and a more balanced flavor. Because the gluten in the dough has more time to bind, the mixture becomes more elastic, which leads to a crunchier crust when cooked. Make sure you don't exceed those 72 hours of resting time, as the fermentation process will continue unchecked, causing the dough to turn sour. 3. Add Sweet Corn To The Pizza Base - Gordon Ramsay Gordon Ramsay - Song Haiyuan/mb Media/Getty Images You may have heard of adding cornmeal to the bottom of the pizza crust to add texture. But, Gordon Ramsay uses corn differently in his pizza creations. He takes fresh sweet corn (or the canned variety), mixes it with water, banana shallots, butter, garlic, chili powder, and salt, and purees everything together after cooking for about 10 minutes to soften it. Now you may be wondering how to use your tasty new concoction. Gordon Ramsay puts it on top of his pizza, rather than on the bottom, in place of the tomato sauce. After that, the world's your oyster. Add mozzarella, or any other easily meltable cheese, and go to town on your toppings. Ramsay uses mozzarella, chicken breast, chorizo, coriander, and onion, but you don't have to stick to his suggestions once you know how to make this secret sauce. 4. Use Several Types Of Cheeses - Rachael Ray Rachael Ray - Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images Mozzarella is famously the prime choice of cheese to add to pizza. Indeed, it's part of the original pizza margherita ingredient list, which included dough, tomato sauce, and mozzarella -- all ingredients readily available in 1800s Naples. Even today, mozzarella reigns supreme, and for good reason: Its texture and mild flavor ensure it melts quickly in the oven and doesn't overwhelm the rest of the ingredients. But, we're all about mixing things up more often than not, which is why Rachael Ray's preference for mixing up the cheeses on pizza seems particularly enticing. In particular, she likes to use mozzarella, provolone, and pecorino, which go especially well with her other favorite toppings: red onions, sweet peppers, and cherry peppers. If you're not that into provolone and pecorino, let Ray's cheese tip serve as an inspiration. Next time you make pizza add your favorite cheeses to the mix, or ditch the mozzarella in favor of something else -- make sure it can easily melt, either by picking a soft cheese or by grating it first. 5. Top It With Potatoes - Giada De Laurentiis Potato pizza - Clarkandcompany/Getty Images Potato pizza may sound like a pizza made with a potato base, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It's a regular pizza, with a regular base, topped with thinly sliced potatoes instead of tomato sauce and mozzarella, though cheese is not off-limits. But, these aren't just any sliced potatoes. After cutting them she mixes them with shallots, olive oil, salt, rosemary, red pepper flakes, and olives, which infuse those potentially bland potatoes with flavor to spare. Once the mixture has been spread across the dough, and you've added an optional sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, it's time to bake the potato pizza. You'll have a lovely aromatic flatbread pizza, perfect as party food or a weeknight meal. It's also an ideal pizza if you're scrambling for a recipe to accommodate tomato allergies. And, if for some strange reason, you end up with leftovers the next morning, you can always serve up this pizza with a fried egg on top and call it breakfast. It makes an excellent base. 6. Refrigerate The Dough As It Rises - Ree Drummond Ree Drummond - Monica Schipper/Getty Images The secret to the perfect pizza lies mostly in the dough, which is why many chefs dedicate ample time to this step in the process. And, Ree Drummond recommends putting your prepared pizza dough in a container, covering it with a lid or plastic wrap, and letting it sit in the fridge for a few days while it takes its sweet time to rise. The success of Ree Drummond's recipe is in the rising, rather than the specific ingredients she uses to make the dough. You may have noticed that most homemade pizza dough recipes call for you to let the dough rest for about an hour or hour and a half -- or until it has grown to twice its size. But, since your dough will come out even better if you let it rest for longer, you may want to keep it in the fridge so, in the meantime, it doesn't go bad. This way you can hang onto your dough for a couple of days, but you'll also get the benefit of cold fermentation, which is an ideal method for making pizza dough. 7. Top It With Brussels Sprouts - Ina Garten Ina Garten - Michael Loccisano/Getty Images Brussels sprouts might be the last ingredient you think of when deciding what you want on your pizza. Even as far as vegetables go, it's far from the most popular. But, if you do it the way Ina Garten suggests, you may be in for a treat. Her pizza, which in addition to Brussels sprouts is covered with bechamel, pancetta, Parmesan, pecorino cheese, and freshly grated black pepper, is a recreation of a pie she admired made by New York restaurant Martina Pizzeria, which is now closed. This means that the only way to sample this delicacy is to make it at home by following Ina Garten's guidance, which won't lead you astray. But between the parmesan, pecorino, and pancetta, be careful not to overdo the salty elements -- too much of a good thing can ruin the dish. Instead, opt for moderation so each ingredient balances out the others. 8. Cook It In A Pan - Jamie Oliver Jamie Oliver - Rocket Weijers/Getty Images Traditionally, pizza is made in a wood-burning brick oven. But since the olden times, technological advances have made it possible to prepare our beloved pie in different heating contraptions, including various gas or electric ovens. But, what if we said there was yet another technique for cooking your pizza? Indeed, according to Jamie Oliver, you can make pizza in a pan and it will come out just as well. But, you should be prepared for a slightly different preparation process. First, you'll need to shape your pizza dough to fit in your nonstick pan, then grill the pie on each side before you even think of adding any toppings. Make sure it's nice and crispy, or it'll become soggy as soon as you pour on your tomatoes, which is the next step in the process. Jamie Oliver uses canned tomatoes followed by sauteed onions, peppers, and grated cheese. The key now is to cover your pan with the lid so the top of the pizza gets cooked and the cheese melts. Bear in mind that the result will not come out like the pizza you're used to, but as long as you use ingredients you like, the flavor will be delicious, and the texture can't be beaten. 9. Make The Sauce With Datterini Tomatoes - Giada De Laurentiis Datterini tomatoes - Nagy Julia/Shutterstock Lots of literature is dedicated to dough preparation when making homemade pizza ie. how to make it softer, crispier, tastier, and crunchier. But, once you've got that down, it's time to turn your attention to the second layer: the tomato sauce. That's where Giada De Laurentiis' advice comes in. She uses canned datterini tomatoes, which tend to be sweeter and less acidic than regular tomatoes and have a more delicate taste. The fun part here is that datterini can be red or yellow, so if you're tired of the same old red pizza sauce, you can try to get your hands on yellow datterini tomatoes. The only potential problem with canned datterini tomatoes, especially the yellow variety, is that they're not easy to find. Whole Foods and other specialty foods stores should carry them, but if you're out of luck, you can substitute them with Corbarino tomatoes, which are also fairly sweet and low in acidity. If all else fails, authentic San Marzano tomatoes will always do the trick. 10. Put It On A Tortilla Base - Jacques Pepin Jacques Pepin - Gregg Deguire/Getty Images A pizza is not a pizza when there's a tortilla base, but let's not get too technical here. If there's a floury product on the bottom, tomato sauce in the middle, and cheese on top, it's a pizza. You don't even need the tomato and the cheese, as long as you have one or the other. In Jacques Pepin's case, the tortilla pizza includes sliced tomatoes, sweet onion, seasoning, and the liberal use of grated cheese. Mozzarella, Gruyere, Monterey Jack, and Cheddar, are all acceptable choices, which Parmesan can further enhance as a finishing touch. Bake this in the oven checking frequently so you don't burn that tortilla to a crisp -- it will take less time for this to cook than regular pizza dough, as it's already cooked. Drizzle the result with extra virgin olive oil to elevate this experiment further. 11. Play Around With Smoked Salmon - Wolfgang Puck Wolfgang Puck - Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images Wolfgang Puck's smoked salmon pizza is famous, not only because this is an unusual ingredient (salmon and caviar) to use as a pizza topping, but it's also surprisingly delicious. However, in its original form, it can only be found at his Los Angeles restaurant, Spago. Luckily, our recipe developer, Jason Goldstein, has another version that can be made at home. He even made it more accessible to home chefs who may not be confident in their techniques or have access to caviar. Instead of caviar, this recipe has added flavor with scallions and lemon zest -- both ideal complements for smoked salmon. Furthermore, if you can't get hold of creme fraiche, Jason suggests using sour cream, a tangier ingredient that has a lower fat content than creme fraiche. But, the most important parts of the recipe remain the same: You'll still need to cook the pizza dough on its own before topping it with the sour cream and smoked salmon. These ingredients are too delicate to go in the oven, and once cooked they will turn dry and chewy. 12. Get Creative With Parmesan And Onions - Chris Bianco Chris Bianco - Jeff Schear/Getty Images Sometimes the combination of simple ingredients on a pizza works so well the recipe becomes iconic. That seems to be the case with Chris Bianco's rosa pizza, made with Parmesan, onions, rosemary, and pistachios. You haven't read that incorrectly: There is no marinara sauce or mozzarella. Yet this dish works because Bianco seems to have spent 50 years perfecting it. He told Tasting Table in 2022 that this pizza was inspired by a similar pizza he had in Italy some 50 years before. Although the original iteration was on focaccia -- a typical Italian flatbread -- this didn't stop Bianco from turning it into a pizza. The key to the flavors was all in the toppings -- the interplay between the umami-forward Grana Padano and the earthy sesame seeds, all brought together by good quality olive oil. This interplay inspired Bianco's rosa pizza but comes with its own set of variations. For instance, Bianco replaced the sesame seeds with pistachios, which are fresher and more readily available in his home state of Arizona. Finally, he added red onion for color and pizzazz and rosemary for added flare. 13. Give It A Breakfast Twist With Sunny-Side-Up Eggs - Martha Stewart Martha Stewart - Theo Wargo/Getty Images Everybody loves pizza for breakfast. Those cold slices left over from the party the night before have something satisfying about them, even if it feels a little wrong. And, while that may be part of the appeal, Martha Stewart has a hack for turning this guilty pleasure into something much more elevated. Her version includes making a pizza from scratch and topping it with pesto and cheese before baking. Then you'll need to crack an egg on the pizza and bake it for another five minutes. But really, you can elevate any leftover pizza with this method, especially if it's breakfast time. Heat your pizza in your oven for a few minutes, crack an egg over it, and bake it until the whites have solidified but the yolk is still runny. This is a great way to use leftover pizza while preserving your dignity. Read the original article on Tasting Table. I'm not embarrassed to admit that, like most millennials, I have a bit of a morbid fascination with true crime cases. I've listened to dozens of podcasts and watched numerous documentaries about serial killers, which might lead you to believe that I'm numb to crime content. But there's something about these 16 photos from real true crime cases that still spook me every time I look at them: H/T: r/oddlyterrifying 1.This photo of German serial killer Fritz Honka's hands: 2.The mask worn by the English serial killer known as "The Beast Of Jersey." He was sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of 13 charges of assault and sexual offenses. His youngest victim was 9: R. Powell / Getty Images 3.This photo of Robert "Willy" Pickton a Canadian serial killer and former pig farmer. He confessed to 49 murders, and it's believed he fed some of his victims to his pigs. He also sold "pork pies" that actually contained human flesh: 4.This questionnaire filled out by serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka "The Night Stalker," while he was in prison: 5.And this mug shot of him: 6.Here's him waving to his groupies in court: 7.This snapshot of Pedrinho Matador, a Brazilian serial killer who was confirmed to have murdered 71 people (but it's presumed he had over 100 victims), participating in a podcast years after his release. He was killed in 2023, but had made a YouTube channel before he died: Cometa Podcast / Via youtube.com 8.These last words of German Serial Killer Peter Kurten before he was put to death by the guillotine in 1931: 9.And this image of his mummified head, which was split in half to study his brain: 10.While on the subject of preserved heads, here's Diogo Alves, a 19th-century Portuguese-Spanish serial killer who's on display at the University of Lisbon: 11.This "soup bowl" (aka a human skull) found in serial killer Ed Gein's house: 12.This police sketch of "Mr. Cruel," an unidentified child killer in Australia during the 1980s1990s that was never caught: Victoria Police / Via reddit.com 13.This note from "The Lipstick Killer," aka William Heirens, who killed three women in Chicago between 1945 and 1946: Kirn Vintage Stock/Corbis / Via Getty Images 14.This newspaper article about serial killer Ted Bundy's execution in 1989: 15.This X-ray of the trailer used by serial killer David Parker Ray, who is believed to have tortured and murdered more than 50 women. He was known as "The Toy Box Killer": 16.And finally, this X-ray of serial killer, cannibal, and sex offender Albert Fish's pelvis and perineum, with more than two dozen self-embedded needles in it. He had a self-harm and sexual mutilation kink: Laura wasnt afraid to shake things upeven when it came to the door to the exterior carport (not pictured), which she moved about 15 inches west. It was a small move but it allowed us to center the range on that wall while also getting a full pair of cabinets on either side, she reflects. Dish knobs by Schoolhouse and pulls from Nest Studios Organic collection act as a sheeny counterpoint to the matte-finish cabinetry. The faucet is from Brizos Litze line, while the counters are Corian quartz. There are two kinds of people in the worldthose that love a turnkey home, and those that dont. Ryan Abrams is a faithful member of the latter club. So much so that when he was hunting for a home in east Atlanta a few years ago, his main condition was finding one that was completely untouched. I saw a lot of renovations that felt like easy flips, with poor paint and tile choices, and unfortunate layouts. When I saw this house, I immediately saw possibilities. It was nice to be able to make it exactly what I wanted, says the Texas native, who works as a camera assistant and moonlights as a DJ. All but one of those possibilities unfolded when he bought the 1960s ranch-style house and moved in a few months later. The one that didnt? The kitchen. Which Ryan saved for later, deeming it necessary to first develop a vision for the space. But sometime last summer, he learned that not having a dishwasher and garbage disposal for the fifth year in a row was worse than not having a direction. And so, he promptly enlisted interior designer Laura Jenkins of Atlanta-based Laura W. Jenkins Interiors to add the vision and appliances he so desperately needed. Ryan never imagined what the final version would look like, but he did know what he wanted it to feel like. I told Laura when we started the process that I wanted something masculine but tasteful, and nothing anyone would call trendy in a year or two, he recalls. It was just as well, because, I dont do trendy, laughs Laura, who leaned into the kitchens midcentury character. The result was better than Ryan imagined. She nailed it right off the bat. Aside from a few initial notes, what you see is pretty much what she first presented to me, he says. Location: Atlanta, Georgia The before: Save for a few minor changes, the kitchen had remained more or less untouched since the 1960s. It had original wood cabinets, a laminate countertop, old appliances, but also, as Laura puts it, a little bit of that 1960s charm. The inspiration: I wanted it to feel like a reinterpretation rather than a reproduction; something that felt of the moment, but inspired by the past, says Laura, who took cues from Le Corbusiers seaside holiday cabin on the Cote dAzur in France, the colors of Ellsworth Kellys Austin, and Ryans art collection. Budget: $50,000 Square footage: 150 square feet Main ingredients: Cabinetry: Walnut wood designs conceived by Laura and built by a local maker and frequent collaborator, Peter Eiland of Eiland Woodworks, characterize the walls. I love the play of colors against the walnut and concrete tones. We worked to find shades that werent too bright but still brought a pop, says Laura of the row of upper cabinets. Hood: A Zephyr insert camouflages the hood into the wooden millwork. Flooring: The oak wood flooring is original to the house, though Laura had to patch it in a couple of areas. Luckily, this flooring is easy to blend and we just let those stain imperfections shine where needed. As I like to say, old houses are perfectly imperfect. Pendants: The Akari light sculptures by Isamu Noguchi were purchased through the Noguchi Museum shop. Backsplash: Simple Walker Zanger square tiles in off-white are enlivened by red grouting. Stools: CB2 seats underpin the island. These were a budget item but we all thought they look great in the space, Laura notes. Wall sconces: The vintage nautical lamps were purchased on eBay and rewired locally. Counters: Initially we were interested in doing actual cement countertops but the cost became prohibitive due to the waterfall design of the island, says Laura, who fortunately found a low-maintenance Corian quartz alternative that matched the look she was trying to create. Appliances: The range and refrigerator are both Samsung and the dishwasher is a panel-ready Asko design. Most insane splurge: Custom cabinetry is always the biggest splurge in a kitchen and was for this house as well, admits Laura, although she has zero regrets about the splurge. Since everything is made-to-measure, its the best way to maximize storage while also getting the exact look you want. Sneakiest save: May I say more than one? It would have to be the simple tile with red grouting, the panel-ready dishwasher, and the Noguchi lanterns. All great prices for great designs! Laura enthuses. Favorite part: Ryans favorite feature of all is the island. I love that theres no clutter and that we could keep it free of appliances, he says. What wed never do again: I was able to use my knowledge from past renovations and apply it to this one, so there was nothing that really went off-course, Laura avers. Final bill: $65,000 excluding design fee. Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest More Great Stories From Clever A jury found two men guilty of killing hip-hop icon Jam Master Jay in a New York City recording studio in 2002, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of New York said. Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington were accused of killing Jam Master Jay born Jason Mizell, who co-founded Run-DMC in the early 1980s in a drug deal. Jordan and Washington face at least 20 years behind bars and a maximum of life in prison. Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty against them. Trial set to begin for 2 accused of killing Run-DMCs Jam Master Jay over 20 years ago (Sebastian Piras / Redux file) Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York have said that Mizell got involved in cocaine trafficking in the mid-1990s as Run D.M.C.s notoriety was fading. Authorities have said that Mizell had acquired 22 pounds of cocaine that Washington, Jordan and others were going to distribute in Maryland. Prosecutors have alleged that when Mizell informed Washington that he wouldnt be part of the distribution, the defendant hatched a murder conspiracy against the music star. At 7:30 p.m. Oct. 30, 2002, Washington and Jordan entered a 24-hour recording studio in Queens where Mizell was and ordered him to lie on the floor, prosecutors said. Jordan allegedly fired two shots at close range, with one fatally striking Mizell in the head, prosecutors said. Jordan was 36 when the charges were announced in 2020; Washington was 56. They murdered him in cold blood, Seth DuCharme, then the acting United States attorney, said when charges were announced. In 2007, when Washington was on trial for a string of armed robberies, he was first mentioned as a possible suspect in Mizells slaying. He has maintained that he had no involvement. DuCharme in 2020 credited a new team of prosecutors and investigators with cracking the almost two-decade-old case. Jordan, who was 18 years old at the time of the attack, has said he was at the home of his girlfriend that night, and witnesses can corroborate that assertion, his lawyers said in court documents, according to The Associated Press. His defense also reportedly said in court documents that Mizell and Jordans father were lifelong friends. He also faced gun and cocaine charges and has pleaded not guilty to those allegations. In May 2023, a third defendant, Jay Bryant, 49, was charged with murder after prosecutors said they had proof he was also at the recording studio the night of the slaying. It was later determined that he would be tried separately. Bryants lawyer, Cesar de Castro, told the AP last year that the charge was the result of a low burden of proof, and suggested prosecutors would have an uphill battle. Offered an opportunity Tuesday night to weigh in on his clients case, de Castro sent information on a ruling in favor of a separate trial and the cases scheduling. He said the trial was scheduled for January 2026. Mizell was Run-DMCs DJ, but he also contributed to its crisp, bottom-heavy sound, lending live drums, bass and keyboards to studio sessions. Darryl DMC McDaniels and Joseph Run Simmons are the other two founding members. Walk This Way, the trios 1986 mashup with Aerosmith, is often cited as its lightning-in-a-bottle moment, which came two years after it released Rock Box, another song with head-banging guitar chords. Music publication Okayplayer said Run-DMC wasnt trying to appease rock-loving white audiences; the three were trying to one-up the bombast of Billy Squires 1980 hit Big Beat. They were planting a flag for hip-hops vitality. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. This article was originally published on TODAY.com "Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." PICTURE THIS: YOU'RE sitting on your couch after a long day at work, and you're in the mood for a movie. But you have nothing in mind. You're scrolling and scrolling through your favorite streaming platform and that creeping sense of indecision keeps you clicking around long enough that you check the clock, and it's suddenly too late to watch anything at all. Sometimes choice is nice; other times, you just want an idea of what's actually worth watching, not just the newest and most popular films other people are watching or that the all-powerful algorithm may think is right for you. With new movies coming out every day, plus streaming services taking on both new and old films to host on their platform, there can seem like a never-ending excess of movies at your disposal. It's overwhelming. But that's where we come in. We've made a more curated list for you, taking out all of the B and C-level movies so you don't waste time watching the first 20 minutesor even the first hourof something before deciding it's not for you. On every streaming service, there are great films out there to watch, but it takes a bit of work to parse through such vast libraries. With our list, a little bit of the work is done for you. All you have to do is choose from these classics, Oscar nominees, and critically acclaimed hidden gems and settle in for a good time. Casino Royale (2006) Marking Daniel Craig's first appearance as Bond, Casino Royale is the third screen adaptation of the Ian Fleming novel of the same name, and arguably one of the best 007 films. If you want to get into the Bond franchise, or just enjoy a great action movie, it's a great pick. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube The American (2010) George Clooney stars as a man on the run in this action thriller. His name is Jack, but that might not even be his real name. While on a vacation in Sweden, he notices he's been found by someone looking to kill him. From there, it's a cat and mouse game. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Baby Driver (2017) Edgar Wright directs this action film about a getaway driver looking to get out of a life of crime. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards after its release. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) Gamers will love this one. This action-comedy, based on the famous Wizards of the Coast roleplaying game, follows a ragtag group made up of a barbarian, sorceror, rogue, and others who team up to defeat a major evil force. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Everything Everywhere All at Once (2023) This sci-fi action film swept the Oscars after its premiere, and notably revived the acting career of Ke Huy Quan. The film follows a laundromat owner named Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), who one day discovers she's the key to saving the fate of the universe. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Fast & the Furious Presents: Hobb & Shaw (2019) You don't need to know much about the Fast & the Furious franchise to enjoy Hobbs & Shaw. The Rock and Jason Statham star in this over the top action film. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube The Hurt Locker (2008) One of Jeremy Renner's best-known (and best overall) roles to date, The Hurt Locker follows an army team deployed in Iraq, and their emotional and mental struggles. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Nobody (2021) Bob Odenkirk took a break from his critically acclaimed run on Better Call Saul to star in Nobody, a film about a seemingly regular guy who's thrust into his previous life as an assassin when his family is threatened. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Mr. Majestyk (1974) Charles Bronson (The Magnificent Seven) stars in Mr. Majestyk, a 1975 film about a Vietnam vet and farmer who is threatened by gangsters. With a a script written by novelist Elmore Leonard, it's a strong entry for anyone interested in a classic action film. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Sicario (2015) Before Dune, one of Denis Villeneuve's best known films was Sicario. Starring Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro (and written by Yellowstone's Taylor Sheridan), the film follows an FBI agent tasked with bringing down a powerful Mexican drug lord. The film was nominated for multiple Oscars. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Polite Society (2023) This British martial arts film may have been overlooked in the midst of the awards-sweeping Everything Everywhere All at Once, but is still worth the watch. Teenager Ria Khan sets out to save her older sister when she decides to give up on her dreams of becoming and artist and gets married to appease her parents. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Top Gun: Maverick (2023) If there's an action list, you've got to have Tom Cruise involved. One of the biggest films of 2023, Top Gun: Maverick is a sequel that works just as well as a standalone film. Whether you've seen the original Top Gun or not, you'll love the heart-racing, high stakes airplane action. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Violent Night (2023) While it's premise may seem silly enough to be relegated to straight to DVD obscurity, Violent Night is a solid action film, and potentially one you may enjoy watching for Christmases to come. David Harbour stars as Santa Claus, but not the jolly one you know. Instead, he's not afraid to get aggressive when a family is taken hostage during the holidays. Imagine Die Hard but with Chris Cringle saving the day. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube The Mission Impossible Franchise (1996Present) Based on the 1966 TV series, Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible franchise has taken on a life of its own. So far there are seven films in the series about IMF agent Ethan Hunt, who goes on, well, impossible missions to stop major international threats and root out corruption within his own organization. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Tom Hardy stars in this masterpiece revival of a long dormant franchise. Taking over the role from Mel Gibson, Hardy made the role of Mad Max his own; the film has some of the most incredible visuals you'll ever see, and also proved to be a standout role for Charlize Theron, who played Furiosa (a prequel film, featuring Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa, is coming in Summer 2024). Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube The Northman (2022) Love Hamlet? Then you'll really like The Northman. The film is based on the Scandinavian tale of Amleth, which was a direct inspiration for William Shakespeare's better known play. Alexander Skarsgard stars in this grisly story of a Viking prince who sets out on a journey to get revenge for his father's death. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube The Tomorrow War (2021) This sci-fi action film stars Chris Pratt as a soldier sent into the future to fight an alien army. While the film doesn't do anything original in within the genre, it's still a decent action film with a major star, so you'll have a good time regardless. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Sisu (2022) This Finnish action thriller may have not been on your radar when it first premiered, but you'll be happy you saw it. Set in World War II, Sisu follows a gold prospector who takes on a Nazi death squad while attempting to find his fortune. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Gladiator (2000) Ridley Scott directs this critically acclaimed action film about a gladiator who rises through the ranks of the arena to eventually avenge his family. A sequel starring Paul Mescal is currently in development. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube Road House (1989) Patrick Swayze stars in Road House as a bouncer dedicated to his small town bar. When a local businessman and crime lord's nephew is fired from the bar, he begins a campaign to ruin the bouncer and the bar and, of course, violence ensues. It's not the best movie you've ever seen, but if you want a good time, it's a solid part of Prime Video's classic library. Stream it Here See the original post on Youtube You Might Also Like Some politicians have decided not to embrace a laissez faire attitude when it comes to the legislation of fast fashion. French Parliament member Antoine Vermorel-Marques of the Les Republicains (LR) party, proposed a bill aimed at decreasing the prevalence of fast fashion in France. More from Sourcing Journal Legislative details The bill, titled Demodernizing fast fashion with a bonus-malus system, proposes a penalty of 5 Euros [($5.42)] per product for producers who put more than a thousand new models on the market every day. The bill takes aim at Shein, the fast-fashion mogul that adds thousands of products to its assortment daily. But other brands, particularly those in fast fashion, could also be affected. Sheng Lu, an associate professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware, said though the bill could have some promise, its details need to be hashed out. He noted that it could be difficult to define new models, since that could mean 1,000 SKUs or 1,000 stylestwo very different measurements. Nonetheless, Lu said, it may be difficult to enforce. Whos going to count that? How is [France] going to enforce this issue? This is very important, he said. Do you just manually count each [item] on a companys website? Or do you just assume you know some companies, like Shein, would [qualify]? One thing about the bill is clear: Vermorel-Marques has an interest in protecting items made in France, rather than allowing products made in China to grab market share in the country. Its a question of combating unfair competition against companies that opt for more sustainable textile production that respects people and the environment, Vermorel-Marques wrote in the explanatory memorandum for the bill. Our regions are full of such companies, and combating fast fashion also means helping them to develop. The bill notes that the 5 Euro penalties paid out will be put toward bonuses for companies manufacturing sustainably in France, though the bill makes no mention of what a brand would need to do to qualify for the bonus. The bill does not immediately make clear whether that 5 Euro penalty will be passed on to consumers, though a decision like that might be left up to the fast-fashion purveyors themselves. Vermorel-Marques explained the bills goal in an interview with Usbek & Rica. The idea is simple: you buy a T-shirt from ultra-fast fashion online, you have a maximum penalty of 5 Euros per item. On the contrary, [if] you buy a T-shirt that respects our environment, produced in France or in Europe, you have a bonus of 5 Euros maximum. The key is that its not an additional tax. Were not coming to take your money. We just come to tell you: If you pollute, you pay. If you dont pollute, you win. As a result, its a win-win for both the consumer and the planet, he told Usbek & Rica. Critics have said that if consumers are required to pay some, or all, of the 5 Euros, it could impact lower-income consumers abilities to purchase clothing at all, if they rely on fast fashion. Carolyn Mair, a behavioral psychologist who specializes in the fashion industry, noted that two of the driving factors behind consumers interest in fast fashion are accessibility and affordability. Mair said if consumers are required to pay the penalty, she doesnt anticipate that it would change their purchasing patterns much. Consumers need to be educated. They need to be told the things they can do, rather than the things they cannot do. Rather than making them feel guilty, they need to feel empowered. If theyre empowered to make good decisions about their fashion purchases, that will not only be good for them, but good for the environment as well, Mair told Sourcing Journal. A spokesperson for Fashion Revolution France said the organization will propose multiple amendments to the bill on March 5, though it did not disclose what the amendments would entail. Elizabeth Cline, author and lecturer of fashion policy at Columbia University, said regardless of whether the bill has legs in the French Parliament, it could start a broader discussion among consumers and legislators alike. Even these kinds of symbolic policy moves, they can have benefits. Whether this moves forward or not, it can start the conversation or elevate the coordination among lawmakers and inspire other legislation that is more practical or more feasible to pass, she said. Legislation beyond France The proposal by Vermorel-Marques is just one of many pieces of proposed legislation that would impact fast fashions ability to continue with the status quo. Maxine Bedat, executive director of the New Standard Institute, said the New York Fashion Act, which spans both environmental concerns and labor concerns, is an example of legislation that could lead the way for other jurisdictions. Part of the reason it could be a model piece of legislation comes from the fact that it has engaged a number of stakeholders in the process. There is a lot of momentum building on the Fashion Act. So when that passes, that will that will certainly be comprehensive, she noted. What the coalition behind the Fashion Act is really doing isinviting people into the political process and [demonstrating] that we can have a much bigger say than we think we can on the politics and the policies of the day. Other state governments, like California and Washington, have also been working to implement legislation that would impose tighter restrictions on fashion retailers. Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) has been negotiating on legislation like the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which would require companies to pinpoint and work to mitigate practices in their supply chains that would cause social or environmental harm. Cline said that kind of specific, comprehensive legislation could prove more valuable than one-off initiatives like the one Vermorel-Marques has proposed. Something like the EU CSDDD is going to be a lot more effective at addressing some of the issues that were all concerned with, including waste. If you take an ultra-fast-fashion company like Shein or Temu, or any of the slower fast-fashion companies like Boohoo or Pretty Little Thing, part of why their products are so cheap is because theyre currently not doing any real due diligence into their supply chain, Cline told Sourcing Journal. Theyre not fully aware of everyone theyre working with. Theyre not making an effort to partner with responsible supply chains. The European Council is currently slated to vote on the CSDDD on Feb. 28. And as the EU continues to consider legislation on the fashion industry, Australias Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, recently warned that fast fashion will need to change its ways or risk a levy from the Australian government. Lu, who has expertise in trade policy, said that while legislation will be paramount in bettering fashions impact on social and environmental issues, tariffs and trade incentives could also be a key way forward. Trade tools actually can play a very important role in incentivizing companies to do good things or to discourage them to do something that may have a more negative impact on the environmental or social aspects, Lu told Sourcing Journal. Bedat said the pending pieces of legislation could affect consumers purchasing patterns when enacted, especially if the regulations disrupt consumers normal habits and purchase patterns in a tangible way. The reality is that Shein and its competitors are on the upswing. At the same time, there is huge momentumprobably because of thatto create real, impactful policy that will address address the Sheins [of the industry], she said. It was the same with cigarettes; young people in the 80s were saying, Yeah, I know its really bad for me, but, but, but And people were still smoking until cigarettes got regulated, and that has had a significant impact on smoking rates. Achieng Agutu, better known as the confidence queen, will join the SI Swimsuit family as a rookie in the forthcoming 60th anniversary issue, out in May. As co-winner of the 2023 Swim Search, the 27-year-old recently had the opportunity to travel to Mexico for her brand photo shoot. While on location, we caught up with Agutu to chat about her rookie feature, her definition of beauty and more. I think its beautiful to see someone just live so vibrantly and vivaciously and happily in their skin and in themselves, so I think beauty is confidence, the Kisumu, Kenya, native said. Confidence is such an important part of someones being. I know its hard to get there, but I think thats whats so beautiful to me. Someone being confident is somebody living in their truth and being themselves and I think thats just so fun because then we just dont have one person. We have all these people who are living the way they want to live, whether its being quiet or loud or happy or whatever. Its just everybody living differently and thats the beauty in it. While on set, Agutu posed in a stunning animal print string bikini by Analina, which featured ring detailing on both the top and bottom. She noted that collaborating with photographer Yu Ysai on the feature was like shooting with your best friend. Having him and having [Swimsuit editor in chief] MJ [Day], as well, at the shoot is amazing. Because MJ is Queen Mother to me and to many, many SI [Swimsuit] girlies, she said of the experience. Its just exciting to have her there because shes so grounding and nurturing and reassuring and its fun to have a mix of Yu Tsai and his hype and a mix of MJ and her calmness reminding you like, Yes, its a good shot, you look fabulous. So I feel like Im just in the best hands possible. Read more about Achieng Agutus 2024 SI Swimsuit photoshoot here. Safaris tend to be marketed like the movie Out of Africa, where Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, dressed in designer J. Crew khaki outfits, enjoy blissful, halcyon sunsets, surrounded by antelopes grazing on the plains and lions that occasionally hunt them, with the odd guest appearance by a zebra, elephant or hippo. The terrain is wild and dusty, with no people or shacks cluttering the panoramas. A handful of providers still offer bona fide old-school safaris, or as close as you can get, by carefully curating privacy, luxury, and wildlife within their private reserves. More from Robb Report I had a very different waterborne experience in Botswana, spending a week in three Great Plains Conservation campsthe last on Sitatunga Private Island, a recently opened retreat accessible only by boat or helicopter. The first two camps, Selinda and Duba Plains, are longstanding outposts for Great Plains, which owns 15 properties across Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. At Sitatunga, elephants, baboons and hippos wander through the camp. The three camps are all open, meaning no fences, with the number of tents kept purposely small to deliver on that private experience. The word tent is a misnomer. The multi-room suites look rustic but are designer-caliber, with stylized mosquito nets around the king-sized beds (and air-conditioning coming from the headboards), living rooms with leather couches, stocked liquor cabinets and Nespresso machines. Beside the wood-clad showers and his-and-hers sinks are full-sized copper bathtubs, a luxury you wouldnt expect in a remote outback (the camps run on solar power.) On the outside deck are a plunge pool and Peloton bike. A professional Canon camera is provided to document the trip. Its common to see elephant herds, baboons with babies clinging to them and warthog broods (it was the November birthing season) ambling 15 feet in front of the screened bedroom windows. Hakuna Matata. The cast of characters jumped to over 150 mammals and birds during a seven-day safari. Selinda and Duba Plains use open Toyota Land Cruisers to reveal the wildlife across their protected lands. By contrast, Sitatunga is strictly a boating haven, located on a small lake fed by the large, slow-flowing Okavango River in the heart of northern Botswanas Okavango Delta. There are myriad camps in this region, but Great Plains takes great pains to create a microcosm of this part of Africa, where your group feels like Karen Blixen seeing elephants, lions, and leopards for the first time. Its a far cry from the traffic jams of tourist buses several of our group experienced on other safaris. On our twice-daily, three-hour drives on the bumpy, dusty trails around Selinda and Duba Plains, we encountered no other groups or, really, any signs of civilization outside the camps. The empty Okavango River, as pristine as 200 years ago, is filled with fish, birds, and the occasional monster crocodile. Id come expecting a Disney experience, where the animals appear on cue. Instead, we had to search for them, including an elusive leopard keeping a wary eye on a group of baboons and two young male lions trying to take over the local Tsaro pride by killing off the lead male. (We saw the two lounging around under a tree in the hot mid-day sun, while the pride was off in another corner of the reserve.) The week quickly took on a pleasant cadence: Breakfast, in the Land Cruiser by 6:30 to beat the unseasonably brutal heat, four hours driving on the trail, lunch, siesta, and the second jeep tour, followed by sunset cocktails (usually in the bush) and dinner at the camp. Approaching the dock at Sitatunga. By the end of the fourth day, wed seen 150 species of mammals and birds, an impressive bucket list for anyone who has never gone on safari. The three-hour drives covered a lot of territoryDuba Plains is 88,000 acresand the animals generally stayed to themselves in their local habitats. We had a Lion King moment at Duba, where a dozen species, from elephants to antelope herds to vervet monkeys to a lonesome old Cape Buffalo, grazed close to each other on a watery plain. The highlight reel was constant, but some of the favorites included tracking the leopard off trail, a few dozen elephants trotting past us on both sides of our open vehicle, a female lion and her two cubs napping in a tree, and a comical black bird we never identified, but called Necky, thanks to the breakdance moves he used to seemingly romance one of our group, since there were no other female Neckys in sight. Sunset cocktails are a civilized way to end a days tour. Id assumed the animals were tame-ish since we could get relatively close. Owner, our guide, had a more realistic theory: If you get out of the jeep, theyll see you as a two-legged threat, and the situation will be very different. In other words, dangerous. The rules mandated staying seated and quiet in the vehicle and never approaching the animals on the outskirts of camp. The first four days were about the animals, but the last three focused on the water. We arrived to Sitatunga by helicopter, a trip highlight since the pilot took a circuitous route across the ever-changing landscape, giving us a chance to see what the Kalahari desert region looks like from the air. Prey and predators live in the nature reserves but in different corners. The boats at Sitatunga were a welcome change from the vehicles, partly because the heat had broken, but mostly they provided a sense of freedom that the land-based safaris couldnt. The camp is located on a small lake connected to the Okavango River by narrow channels. We buzzed past monster crocodiles on sandbanks, African Fish Eagles flying overhead, enjoying the cooler air as the 22-foot aluminum boat made its own air conditioning at 30 mph. As a boater, I loved it because there were no traces of the outside world at Sitatungasmaller and newer than the other two campsjust a family of hippos in the lake, heads above the water but keeping a good distance in their corner. The water added a layer of serenity. The four lake-facing suites at Sitatunga were built with recycled materials, repurposed furniture, and lots of charm. Great Plainss founders Dereck and Beverly Joubert designed Sitatunga differently than their other camps. It is smaller and more exclusive than the others, with four suites for eight people, defined by a rustic Robinson Crusoe treehouse style. The buildings and docks were built of repurposed wood (mostly old railroad ties) and infused with character by carved Senegalese antique doors, old Persian rugs, and recycled leather couches sourced from other parts of Africa. The Jouberts, longtime National Geographic Explorers at Large photographers and documentary filmmakers, are considered rock stars in the safari world. Theyre known outside of Africa for their photography and films. But inside, theyve established a long list of humanitarian and ecological initiatives that range from saving rhinos to creating all-female ranger groups in local communities that work on anti-poaching initiatives. The lodges rustic Robinson Crusoe vibe included a thatched, A-framed roof and repurposed wood floors. At Sitatunga, the couple wanted an indoors/outdoors feeling, designing the three A-framed suites (one is a double suite for families with an extended terrace) with large windows facing the lake, and a large dining/social hall with thatched roofs, and bamboo lampshades inspired by the woven-reed fishing baskets used by indigenous Bayei fishermen. A life-sized wooden lion by a local artist is the centerpiece of the great hall, with a large wooden patio and deck out front to enjoy sunsets over the lake. The serene setting couldve been out of the 1980s movie On Golden Pond, except for the hippos in the lake. Over the next few days, we did several trips up and down the Okavango, including a two-mile walking safari through a riverside reserve where we landed by boat. It felt so freeing to be on foot and not in a jeep. Wildlife was all around (though no big catsa bonus for the slowest runner in our group) and the quiet landscape and immediacy of the animals made it a special experience. The caliber of the food was a welcome surprise, including a Thanksgiving feast prepared by Chef Herold Gaosikelwe. One of the high spots of the week was unexpected. Id anticipated the cuisine would be decent with local influences, but the creative tasting menus were exceptional. They were developed for the Botswana camps by chef Kakole Assistant Mosiuoa, also head chef at Duba Plains. Chef Ks ever-changing menus ranged from dinners with roasted lamb to vegan options, along with creative tapas lunches (several in Duba Plainss refrigerated wine cellar to escape the heat) along with sunset cocktails and canapes on the glowing savannah. The apex meal was Thanksgiving dinner, where Sitatunga chef Herold Gaosikelwe served 17 Pilgrim-worthy dishes, family style, on the big dining table. They ranged from parsnip-and-sage soup to roasted chicken with cranberry stuffing, roast potatoes with pine-nut butter, pumpkin pie with a side of chocolate coffee mousse. Chef Herold even made time to whip up a delicious gluten-free chocolate cake for someone in the group who was allergic to wheat. One highlight was exploring the area by local dugout canoe. The dinner was excellent, but the real showstopper was the stafffrom maids to managerswho came together at the end to serenade us with Botswanan songs and dances. They werent professionals, but were doing their best to ensure we had a Thanksgiving wed always remember. Our group, consisting mostly of veteran travel writers, agreed the staff at all the camps were unusual, even among five-star resorts. Their warmth was genuine, the kind that cant be faked, and they took pride in making sure the stay was a bucket-lister. The best example was when Lizzy Bayani, the manager who accompanied us, brought a hot-water foot bath by helicopter for one of our party whose ankles had swollen in the heat. While the week had its oohs and ahs, and lots of laughs at meals, the climax came the day before departure. Our ride in the mokoros, the local version of a dugout canoe, was supposed to be the relaxing grand finale. But our first view was a bull elephant mounting a femalea sight so rare that, among the three guides, only the leader, Letty, had ever seen it. Abandon ship: When a bull elephant is thinking about charging, its time to leave the boats and head for the jeep. The bull didnt take kindly to camera-clicking, two-legged gawkers and went into anger mode. He didnt charge but was clearly ready. He got so worked up, in fact, that Letty directed us from the canoes to the jeep. Another guide muttered wed be cursed after seeing the mating ritual. Turns out he was right. The elephants eventually ambled away into the bush and then the guides pushed us, gondola-style, into knee-deep, three-foot-wide channels lined by Papyrus reeds. But when we emerged onto the river, we startled a bloat of hippos. With adults weighing as much as 4,000 pounds, hippos arent always the lumbering gentle giants in childrens books, especially when they feel threatened. Rather than waiting for trouble, the lead male goes on the attack. Its possible in the low canoes, the big bull mistook us for a crocodile. It didnt matter. Just 20 yards away, it first made warning noises, opening its muscular jaws to a wide, head-crunching circumference, then disappeared under water, surfacing closer to us. Its one thing to be in a powerboat where you can push the throttle and speed away. Its another to be a sitting duck in three feet of water, with nothing but a guide pushing you with a pole. Angry hippos guarding their stretch of water. That was the only time the trip couldve gone sideways. It didnt, but the hippo was so incensed it followed us up into the channel, as the guides fast-poled back to the jeeps. Nobody felt like a casual observer after that close encounter, and one of the group was so pumped with adrenaline she was trembling. Still, what a great Out of Africa way to end the week. Looking back, doing the three camps, with Sitatunga at the end, made the most sense, since the first two provided intensive animal exposure, while the last was more about seeing the area by water. For those interested, we booked through Premier Tours (800-545-1910) in Philadelphia, which has specialized in organizing African safaris and trips to other remote parts of the world for more than 20 years. The cost during the dry season (low season) was $13,690 per person, including all internal flights and the helicopter trips to and from the camps. Roundtrip flights to Maun, the gateway into Botswana, were not included. 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. Patpongs/Getty Many long-haul flights make pit stops in another city or country before reaching the final destinationso why not turn your layover into a mini vacation? Through offerings known as stopover programs, some international airlines allow passengers to add a free stop to their flight itinerary in order to do just that. Essentially, a stopover is an extended layover that allows travelers to leave the airport and explore the city (typically where the airline heads its operations). Airline stopovers can span anywhere from 24 hours all the way up to 10 days, depending on the carrier, making them highly customizable to travelers schedules and needs. Taking advantage of these free airline programs is one of the best ways to stretch your travel budgetbut not all stopovers are created equal. The ones with the most value for travelers offer free or discounted hotel stays, as well as savings on tourist activities like city tours, admission to museums, and even restaurant bills. We've rounded up nine of the best stopover programs available in 2024 that allow travelers to explore Madrid, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha, Reykjavik, Istanbul, Panama City, Porto, and Lisbon for hardly any additional airfare costs. Tom Byrom/Unsplash TAP Air Portugal As the only airline to offer free stopovers in two cities (Porto and Lisbon), TAP Air Portugal has one of the most flexible programs out there. Plus, it allows travelers to stay in either city for up to 10 days. The stopover booking process is super simple, as TAP has integrated it into its standard booking field. All you need to do is choose your travel dates, departure city, and destination as usual, then click the Add Stopover button. This will open a pop-up window where you can input the details of your stopover, including whether you'd like to visit Porto or Lisbon and for how long. When your flights are squared away, you can book a discounted hotel stay by browsing TAP's list of hotel partners. The list offers booking codes with average savings of 10-20% off your stay. You'll also have access to discounts for restaurants, museums, and walking tours. Browse the airline's stopover offers page to see the full list. And once you wrap up your stopover, you also get a 25% discount on airfare to a second destination in Portugal, like the Azores archipelago. Istanbul Turkey Ferry_meric-dagli-BqFmufN6xIs-unsplash.jpg Meric Dagl/Unsplash Turkish Airlines Travelers on Turkish Airlines on any itinerary from the US with at least a 20-hour connection in Istanbul qualify for the carrier's Stopover in Istanbul offering. The program is one of the most generous when it comes to accommodations, giving all fliers a free hotel stay: Passengers flying from the US in economy class can stay two nights in a four-star hotel free of charge, and business class passengers get three free nights in a five-star hotel. There's also an option book additional nights at contracted hotels offering discounted stays starting at $49 USD per night. Turkish Airlines has recently simplified its stopover booking process, making it easier than ever to take advantage of the program. There is now a Stopover in Istanbul button right on the airline's booking page. Cityscape of Madrid at sunset Pablo Camacho/Getty Iberia With its Stopover Hola Madrid program, Iberia allows travelers to stay in the Spanish capital for as little as 24 hours, all the way up to seven days and six nights at no extra cost in airfare. Passengers can add a stopover to either their outbound or return flight and select the length of their stay on the airline's booking page. Stopover customers are also afforded a host of discounts, including 20% off tickets to the Prado museum, a free public transportation card valid for two days that can be picked up at the airport, and reduced hotel stays through the airline's partners. Square Lab/Unsplash IcelandAir If you're interested in adding a few days in Reykjavik to your next vacation, book with IcelandAir, which offers free Reykjavik stopovers from one to seven days for its transatlantic passengers. When booking your flights, simply click the Stopover in Iceland button and choose how many days you'd like to stay. While there's no additional airfare involved, IcelandAir's program does not include a free or discounted hotel stay, so passengers will need to factor that in as an extra cost. However, the airline's stopover page does offer suggestions for a wide range of affordable sightseeing tours, like an abbreviated tour of the Golden Circle (from $81), a Reykjavik walking tour (from $40), and a Blue Lagoon experience (from $172). Reykjavik capital city of iceland Patpongs/Getty Play Airlines A second option for enjoying the natural wonders of Iceland on a budget is with Play Airlines free stopover deal. The low-cost carrier offers free stopovers at its home base of Reykjavik for up to 10 days. Aside from that long window to stay in Iceland, the budget airline doesnt offer too many extra perksyoull have to secure your own accommodations and tours. But given that Plays airfares are so cheap, starting at $129 for a one-way flight from the US to Europe, youll have plenty of extra budget to put toward an affordable place to stay, like hybrid property Hlemmur Square, which offers both hostel-style rooms and traditional private hotel rooms. To book the stopover, go to Plays booking page and select Stopover in Iceland from the ticket type dropdown menu (the button that says Roundtrip). Getty Qatar Airways One of the best airline stopover programs is Qatar Airways', which offers a valuable hotel bundle. The carrier offers stays of up to four days in Doha, with bundle rates for four-star hotels starting at just $14 USD per person per night. If you want to upgrade to a luxury five-star hotel, the fee starts at $23 USD per person per night, which is still a deep discount. And of course, the stopover will cost you nothing in terms of extra airfare fees. To score the bundle, book your stopover through Qatar Airways' dedicated page, which allows you to select the leg of the journey you'd like to stop in Doha and for how many days. Once your flights are booked, visit the airline's stopover hotel booking page to browse options for your stay. Choose your hotel and input your flight information during the booking process to receive the discount. Also available during your time in Doha are discounted tour packages that range from activities like kitesurfing lessons, a private Bedouin dinner in the desert, souq tours, and many more. Abu Dhabi_most-beautiful-cities-abu-dhabi-cr-getty.jpg Getty Etihad With its Stopover on Us package, Etihad is offering free stopovers in Abu Dhabi. The one- or two-night packages include a free stay at a three-star hotel in the city, plus perks like 24-hour check-in and free in-room Wi-Fi. Among the hotel partners are the Centro Al Manhal, the Millennium Al Rawdah Hotel, and the Traders Hotel Al Maqta. To add the stopover, you need to first book a flight connecting through Abu Dhabi in any cabin class. Then, select your stopover package and check hotel availability on the airline's stopover page. It's important to note that a flight reservation is required to check the program's hotel availability (which is not guaranteed) and bookings must be made at least 72 hours before travel. Panama Tourism Copa Airlines Travelers can take up to seven days to explore Panama City with Copa Airlines stopover program. Copa passengers can add a stopover in the capital cityone of the best places to go in South America in 2024on either the outgoing or return leg of their journey. Travelers can stay in Panama for as little as 24 hours all the way up to one week without needing to pay extra airfare. (Copa also offers the option to add a second stopover to your flight itinerary for $250 USD.) To book the stopover, simply go to the booking page on Copas website and toggle to the Multi-city/Stopover tab. Although the stopover program does not include a free or discounted hotel stay, there are many exciting new hotels in Panama City that would be well-worth the splurge, like the boutique eight-room Amarla, located in the citys Casco Viejo historic district, or the waterfront Sofitel Legend Casco Viejo. Dubai-gettyimages-1190152997.jpg Getty Images Emirates With its Dubai Connect program, Emirates offers travelers with extended layovers in Dubai an array of complimentary perks, including a one-night hotel stay, visa, meals, and transfers to and from the airport. Passengers in economy through first class are eligible for these perks. To qualify for the program, your layover must be between eight to 26 hours for economy and premium economy tickets or six and 26 hours for business and first class tickets. Your connection time must be the shortest availablemeaning you have to depart Dubai on the next available flight to your destination or your itinerary wont be eligible. When passengers arrive in Dubai, they can head to the Dubai Connect desk in the arrivals terminal for their free car transfer to their hotel. The airline usually puts Dubai Connect passengers in the Copthorne Hotel Dubai, the Le Meridien Airport Hotel Dubai, or the JW Marriott Marquis, but its possible travelers will be booked at a different property at the carriers discretion. While at the hotel, all applicable meals will be included as part of the service. You can book Dubai Connect online at least 24 hours before your layover. For a longer stopover experience, travelers can book a multi-city itinerary on the airlines booking page. Toggle the advanced search feature and input Dubai International airport as an additional destination between your city of origin and final destination. When your flights are booked, you can add on Dubai hotels and experiences through Emirates Dubai stopover page, which offers discounts and extra perks like 24-hour hotel check-in. This story has been updated with new information since its original publish date. Originally Appeared on Conde Nast Traveler HIT OR MISS DIOR: Not all superheroes wear capes. But stars of superhero films do wear Dior. Rachel Brosnahan is prepping for her role as Lois Lane in the upcoming Superman: Legacy. They just had their first table read of the script, and it starts shooting next week. More from WWD Moving on to her next project calls time on her era as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel after five seasons as the titular character, and shes been stepping away from the period looks with some bolder choices and a lot of black. This is more reflective of my personal style, which is a little bit edgier, a little bit more masculine, maybe a little bit more French, dare I say, here in Paris. But you know, its the end of the chapter for me, and so its been really fun to get to play with different looks, she said. Im absorbing just a little bit of the chic Frenchness through osmosis. As Lois Lane she plays a reporter and turned the tables on WWD. Whats your best piece of advice? she queried. Im deep in prep right now and Ive been interviewing journalists left and right. Maisie Williams plays Christian Diors sister Catherine in the Apple TV+ show The New Look. Catherine was a resistance fighter during World War II. For all the fashion fans that have tuned into the show, learning her backstory has been a bit of a surprise. Im really excited that people are learning more about her story. I think its been a big surprise for a lot of people watching the show. And that means a lot to me because I think shes so incredible, she said, noting that while the Dior name is famous, Catherine has been overlooked. I feel like people really should know [her], because theres a lot of times throughout history where we kind of forget about these very key, important women. And Catherine is one of those people, she said. Williams is taking some time to herself and enjoying life following the intense shoot, and waiting to hear if the show will be renewed for a second season. But she still hasnt let Catherine go quite yet, at least sartorially. I feel this is definitely inspired by the Bar dress, and she was a massive inspiration for that. So I guess Im still channeling her, she said of her retro look. Elizabeth Debicki also ended an era after The Crown and is readying for her film MaXXXine to premiere. I personally do not think shoulder pads should make a resurgence; however, I did enjoy wearing them, she said of the character in the 1980s-set role. Shes just kind of fabulous. Shes very boss-woman chic with slightly pirate-y silhouettes. Debicki went with something a bit more classic for the Dior show, a full-skirted, New Look-style dress. Ive actually really never worn a dress like this before, then I get a chance to wear something just so beautiful, she said. Seventeens Mingyu was attending his first Paris Fashion Week show. Honestly Im a little nervous, but Im trying to keep it cool, he said. The K-pop star is in the middle of a world tour, playing stadiums around the globe. If he can take on the stage, why be nervous at a fashion show? This is my first time, but its OK because Im really interested about the show, he said. Dior womens creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri paid tribute to her predecessor, Marc Bohan, with a Miss Dior-inspired collection. The other Dior misses also came out for the show, including ambassadors Blackpinks Jisoo, Jennifer Lawrence and Natalie Portman. The May December actress kept her shades on, but promised she wasnt doing it as a power move. I made a line on my nose, she said, indicating they had left a mark. She pulled down the frames to pose and give a sly, smiling glance. I have a problem, I cant take them off, she laughed. Lawrence praised Chiuris work. She just brings an effortlessly cool and chic look to her designs, she said. Its beautiful and strong and really exciting to be a part of it. Launch Gallery: Celebrities Front Row at Dior Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear Show Photos Best of WWD Those following along with United Overseas Bank Limited (SGX:U11) will no doubt be intrigued by the recent purchase of shares by Ee Cheong Wee, Deputy Chairman & CEO of the company, who spent a stonking S$2.8m on stock at an average price of S$28.50. While that only increased their holding size by 0.2%, it is still a big swing by our standards. Check out our latest analysis for United Overseas Bank The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At United Overseas Bank In fact, the recent purchase by Ee Cheong Wee was the biggest purchase of United Overseas Bank shares made by an insider individual in the last twelve months, according to our records. So it's clear an insider wanted to buy, even at a higher price than the current share price (being S$28.20). It's very possible they regret the purchase, but it's more likely they are bullish about the company. In our view, the price an insider pays for shares is very important. As a general rule, we feel more positive about a stock if insiders have bought shares at above current prices, because that suggests they viewed the stock as good value, even at a higher price. United Overseas Bank insiders may have bought shares in the last year, but they didn't sell any. The chart below shows insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date! There are always plenty of stocks that insiders are buying. So if that suits your style you could check each stock one by one or you could take a look at this free list of companies. (Hint: insiders have been buying them). Does United Overseas Bank Boast High Insider Ownership? Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. United Overseas Bank insiders own about S$2.4b worth of shares (which is 5.1% of the company). This kind of significant ownership by insiders does generally increase the chance that the company is run in the interest of all shareholders. Story continues What Might The Insider Transactions At United Overseas Bank Tell Us? It is good to see the recent insider purchase. And the longer term insider transactions also give us confidence. Along with the high insider ownership, this analysis suggests that insiders are quite bullish about United Overseas Bank. One for the watchlist, at least! So while it's helpful to know what insiders are doing in terms of buying or selling, it's also helpful to know the risks that a particular company is facing. For example - United Overseas Bank has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of. If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests. 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. Chanel Iman and Davon Godchaux are officially married! And the two, who got engaged last May while on vacation in Capri, Italy, and welcomed their first child together, baby girl Capri Summer last September, celebrated the milestone in style. The 33-year-old, who is already a mom to Cali and Cassie, whom she shares with ex-husband Sterling Shepard dished all about the wedding to Vogue. Davon also has one son from a previous marriage. Iman and the defensive tackle, who plays for the NFLs New England Patriots, tied the knot on a yacht in the Caribbean Sea, as the sailed from island to island with their nearest and dearest. An intimate ceremony took place on land in Anguilla, before they boarded the boat, and the couple held a civil ceremony in New York last month. We planned the wedding the way we desireddoing something together that we love with our kids and our blended family, Iman explained. This was our ideal, dream day. A handful of people attended the weddingand we chartered a yacht to sail from island to island in the Caribbean Sea. The Georgia native donned a breathtaking Zuhair Murad white gown featured delicate beaded details on the off-the-shoulder corset top, and a magnificent tulle skirt. The SI Swimsuit model and former Victorias Secret angels three daughters wore flower girl dresses by Mona Lisa. Family is everything to me and having my three girls by my side was so special, she added. Cali and Cassie were so excited in the weeks leading up to the wedding. My daughters hold a special place in my heart and sharing this moment with them was priceless. At some point during Wednesday mornings Courreges show, the set began to heave. In tandem with the heavy breathing on the soundtrack, the center of the white floor dramatically rose and fell. It seems that Paris is having an annee erotique. In search of a thrill, was how creative director Nicolas Di Felice summed up the theme of his collection backstage. More from WWD While Saint Laurent took naked dressing to the extreme for fall 2024 with its outfits made from hosiery fabrics, Di Felice suggested a more self-sufficient approach. Models strutted with one hand tucked into the single front pocket on the crotch of skinny flared pants and below-the-knee skirts. Trenchcoats with funnel necks evoked secret assignations, while the spare straps slipping off shoulders and dangling from hems suggested the act of getting undressed. Bra tops as brief as censorship strips were paired with everything from a sarong-style black leather skirt to a chubby faux fur coat, while one pair of sunglasses tied at the back, blindfold-style. Di Felice said it was about a search for connection and touch in a world filled with strife call it sexual healing. He had teased the theme with his pre-collection, which drew a parallel between Andre Courreges 60s cosmonauts and fetish culture, but the mood here felt more sensual. It started with the gesture of draping a silk scarf, reflected in the twisted dresses with sleeves wrapped around the neck. Its the first time Ive done bias draping, noted the designer, who three years into the job feels more comfortable taking risks. He was aiming for a weightless sensation, heightened by the rectangles of fabric suspended on sheer body stockings, and the stripped feathers that bristled like goosebumps on items like a nude twisted top with a single glove attached. Much of his success in reviving Courreges has hinged on courting new customers while appealing to the Space Age labels historic fans. That cross-generational appeal was reflected in his eclectic front row, which included rapper Saweetie, actress Juliette Binoche and K-pop band Itzy. Just as well, then, that his brand of seduction wont leave you waiting to exhale. For more Paris Fashion Week reviews, click here. Launch Gallery: Courreges Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear Collection Best of WWD As well as their kids Archie and Lilibet. Getty Images Security has been a main concern for Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, especially after having their two kids, Archie and Lilibet. The prince has also previously cited their lack of proper protection as a driving force behind their decision to take a step back from royal duties. Authorities have since removed their right to security, and in December 2023, Harry and his lawyers argued against the court's verdict. Now, High Court judge Peter Lane has doubled down on the ruling made by the U.K. government and the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (RAVEC), which, in turn, could mean that the Sussexes will not be visiting the U.K. as a family anytime soon. "The court has found that there has not been any unlawfulness in reaching the decision of 28 February 2020," the judge said in documents obtained by People. "The decision was not irrational. The decision was not marred by procedural unfairness." "The court has also found that there has been no unlawfulness on the part of RAVEC in respect of its arrangements for certain of the claimants visits to Great Britain," Lane added. Getty Images Related: Prince William Is Reportedly Against Prince Harry Returning to Royal Duties Harry's legal team confirmed to People that the prince plans to appeal the ruling. The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of RAVECs own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with RAVECs own written policy," his legal spokesperon said in a statement. "In February 2020, RAVEC failed to apply its written policy to The Duke of Sussex and excluded him from a particular risk analysis. The Dukes case is that the so-called 'bespoke process' that applies to him is no substitute for that risk analysis." "The Duke of Sussex hopes he will obtain justice from the Court of Appeal and makes no further comment while the case is ongoing," they added. Harry even offered to fund the security at the time. However, that request was also denied. In the December 2023 statement to the High Court, Harry explained why it was vital for his family to receive protection while in the U.K., adding that his children will not be able to experience his "home" if they are not granted security. "The U.K. is my home. The U.K. is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the United States," he said. "That cannot happen if there is no possibility to keep them safe when they are on U.K. soil." "I can't put my wife in danger like that, and given my experiences in life, I'm reluctant to unnecessarily put myself in harm's way too," Harry added. For more InStyle news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on InStyle. People are weighing in on a debate between a restaurant owner and one of its potential customers who had to cancel their reservation. On X, formerly known as Twitter, a man named Trevor Chauvin-DeCaro recently posted a thread regarding a $250 cancellation fee he had attempted to dispute from Table restaurant in Boston. Wild story incoming. Last month, we had to cancel our Boston trip after I was hospitalised. As a result I had to use travel insurance to get my money back on our hotel, train, and restaurant reservations. Today I got this message from @tableboston, his thread began. During the process of attempting to get his money back from the trip, he received a direct message on Instagram from the restaurants owner, Jen Royle. Chauvin-DeCaro posted screenshots of their online interaction as Royle appeared to write: Hi, Trevor. I own TABLE restaurant in Boston. I just wanted to personally thank you for screwing over my restaurant and my staff when you disputed your cancellation fee. I really hope in the future, you have more respect for restaurants, especially small businesses such as mine. Pathetic. He responded to her, mentioning that hospitalisation falls under his travel insurance policy and when his husband called Table six hours before his reservation to terminate the reservation he was still told hed have to deal with a cancellation fee. Tables cancellation policy on its website notes that same-day cancellations and no-shows will be charged full price and that, due to being a small restaurant, there are absolutely no exceptions. In his messages to Royle, Chauvin-DeCaro said that a staff member told him to call his credit card company if he was so butt hurt over the stores cancellation policy. Wild story incoming. Last month, we had to cancel our Boston trip after I was hospitallized. As a result I had to use travel insurance to get my money back on our hotel, train, and restaurant reservations. Today I got this message from @tableboston pic.twitter.com/d7jc84rllJ ghostface stuck on the subway (@trevorshowvan) February 22, 2024 His thread on X continued:I am appalled at the behaviour exhibited towards a customer. It is insane that the owner of an establishment would see the travel insurance claim and then go and hunt for the customer on Instagram. Then to post about me on her business and professional pages wow. I am shocked at this behaviour. I would not recommend eating at a place that treats people like this. The official Instagram, X and Facebook pages for Table restaurant have either been deleted or set to private. Following his thread, many people took to the comments to give their opinions on the incident. Some expressed that they werent upset with the fee itself, but felt that Royle should not have responded in the way that she did. The business failed. It is over. The way you treat people is a sign of the strength of the establishment. If one cancellation has them this upset, they have already failed. I would suggest they not seek lawyers and spend money, but a consultant that can help the small business, one commenter wrote. Another commenter agreed, writing: Ive never heard of restaurant charging cancellation fees but maybe because this is a high end place? Thats shocking that the owner would actually think about messaging you and decide its a good move for them and their business its never that personal!! Other commenters were on the restaurants side, mentioning that Chauvin-DeCaro did agree to the fee when making the reservation in the first place. A deposit is not uncommon for upscale restaurants because otherwise people will no-show and they lose business, one comment began. $250 is pricey but Trevor didnt object when the reservation was made. The exchange was unfortunate on both sides. The restaurant started it with the butt hurt comment but given Trevors professed respect for small business why did they not inquire as to why the charge was being disputed (stiffing the restaurant) instead of being paid by their insurance? Lesson: pick up the phone. All of this might have been solved with owner-customer call. The Independent has contacted Table and Chauvin-DeCaro for comment. David Cameron is to rachet up pressure on Vladimir Putin by meeting the wife of Russias most prominent opposition leader after Alexei Navalny for crunch Whitehall talks, The Independent can reveal. In a marked escalation of political tensions between the UK and Russia, the foreign secretary will on Friday sit down with Evgenia Kara-Murza, whose Cambridge-educated husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, is serving a 25-year sentence in a remote Siberian penal colony for spreading false information about the Russian army. The high-level talks come as human rights figures warn the heir to Navalny is next on Putins hitlist. Evgenia Kara-Murza is set to meet David Cameron on Friday to call for his help in negotiating the release of her Russian activist husband Vladimir (right) (Getty) Mr Kara-Murza, 42, who is a British passport holder and studied history at Trinity Hall, was in April handed the longest prison sentence of any Kremlin critic, including the late Alexei Navalny, since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. At the time, he compared his case to the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s. Ms Kara-Murzas meeting with Lord Cameron will take place during a period of heightened concern for the lives of political prisoners in Russia following the death of Mr Navaly in the Polar Wolf Arctic Circle penal colony earlier this month, which Ms Kara-Murza believes was murder. Vladimir Kara-Murza arrives with his wife Yevgenia for a US Senate hearing on Capitol Hill, 29 March 2017 (AFP/Getty) I think, I hope that I do not need to convince anyone of the urgency of this meeting, she told The Independent. Mr Kara-Murzas crime, his allies say, was accusing Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine during a speech in the US in March 2022. Since his arrest in April 2022, outside his flat in Moscow, and his sentencing a year later, his wife Evgenia has met with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) several times, during which she has urged them to negotiate his release. It maintains that it will not negotiate with the Kremlin, as it does not want to encourage state hostage-taking, and the meetings have failed to produce any action. Despite previous efforts to meet Liz Truss and James Cleverly, Ms Kara-Murza was unable to plead her husbands case to either of the then foreign secretaries. Prominent human rights activists and British politicians are urging the UK government to drop their long-standing policy opposing hostage negotiations. Baroness Helena Kennedy, a Labour member of the House of Lords who champions human rights, said Mr Kara-Murza will die if he is not rescued. If we do not make a prisoner exchange for Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British citizen, he will die at the hands of Putin, she said. Of that, I have no doubt. I would urge a review of our policy and that it be taken to secure Vladimirs release. Bill Browder, formerly the largest foreign investor in Russia before being exiled by the Putin regime, also urged Lord Cameron to reconsider the policy on prisoner swaps with the Kremlin. We need Cameron to save Vladimirs life, he said. Vladimir is dying in a Siberian prison, he is a British citizen and we dont want another Navalny situation, which can now easily be foreseen. The foreign secretary should engage with other allies in organising a prisoner swap for Vladimir before it is too late. On 19 February, despite the evident risk to Mr Kara-Murzas life indicated by Mr Navlanys death three days earlier, UK foreign office minister Leo Docherty reaffirmed the opposition to prisoner swaps. Human rights activist Bill Browder has urged David Cameron to help negotiate Kara-Murzas release (AP) We could not and would not countenance a policy of prisoner swaps but of course, we continue to make every effort to support Ms Kara-Murza and seek the release of Vladimir, he told MPs in the Commons. For Ms Kara-Murza, this is not good enough. That her meeting will take place just hours after Navalnys funeral is evidence enough of the pressing need to change their policy. She said, at the least, she hopes to persuade Lord Cameron to create a permanent group dedicated to hostage affairs, to avoid her having to re-explain her husbands plight. Before Mr Navalnys death, Western officials, including British ones, often told her that Putin would not kill political prisoners that he had already jailed. They will just keep them there, the officials said. Well, the day after tomorrow, Alexei Navalny will be buried in Moscow, she said. There will be a funeral. So, I think, I hope that I do not need to convince anyone of the urgency of this. The regime has crossed all the lines already. Meanwhile, the wife of Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, has described the Russian president as a bloody monster who acts like a mafia godfather as she prepared to bury her husband. In an address to the European parliament on Wednesday, she urged Western leaders not to treat the Russian president as a rival politician but as a gangster. The death of Navalny, who died on 16 February while imprisoned in a Soviet-era Arctic penal camp, prompted hundreds of Russians across the country to stream to impromptu memorials with flowers and candles. His cause of death is still unknown, though Ms Navalnaya has claimed he was poisoned, while supporters and Western leaders have said they hold Putin responsible for his death. The Kremlin has denied those claims. A Delta Air Lines pilot has been praised for his one rule for passengers: be respectful. In a viral video shared to Instagram, a pilot was seen making an announcement to Delta passengers during a delayed flight to Atlanta, Georgia. He introduced himself over the loudspeaker as servant leader and captain of the ship. Im responsible for the safety of my ship, my crew, my passengers, my cargo. But, above all, the rules, he announced. The pilot instructed passengers to obey the commands and instructions of my flight attendants before offering his final rule. Lastly, I ask that we all be respectful of one another, he said. The video was posted to Instagram by the popular account @aflyguytravels, where it has received thousands of likes. Is he going for a flight or to war? they wrote over the video, along with the caption: I wonder if this Delta captain is ex-military? The Delta pilots simple etiquette rules have since been praised online by fellow travellers and flight attendants alike. In the comments, many people wondered if the pilot had some military background due to his pre-flight guidelines. Others commended him for encouraging passengers to be respectful to each other, considering the number of wild travel stories that have gone viral in recent years. I wish that the airline captains did this more often! It IS necessary, especially in this day and age, one Instagram user wrote. Thank you, captain! Love it!! I wish more captains would do this! another person said. It shows his care, responsibility and authority!! A third said: I love this! All pilots should do the same. Most recently, a Delta flight was forced to turn around one hour after take-off when maggots fell from the overhead compartment onto passengers. On 13 February, a flight was carrying passengers from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan, when a passengers suitcase containing rotting fish had opened. Maggots fell onto passengers sitting in economy seats and the plane was forced to turn around. After the plane had landed, all passengers were instructed to deboard the aircraft and the suitcase containing the fish was placed in a bag to be destroyed. The plane itself was also deeply cleaned. As compensation, travellers were reportedly given 8,000 air miles, hotel room compensation, and a $30 meal ticket if they were delayed overnight. In a statement to The Independent, a spokesperson for Delta Air Lines said: We apologise to the customers of Flight 133 AMS-DTW as their trip was interrupted due to an improperly packed carry-on bag. The aircraft returned to the gate and passengers were placed on the next available flight. The aircraft was removed from service for cleaning. Earlier this month, a woman was almost kicked off a Delta flight for not wearing a bra. Lisa Archbold recalled to Yahoo News Australia her interaction with an airline crew member before her flight from Salt Lake City to San Francisco. According to Archbold, the female crew member ushered her off the plane to reprimand her for her outfit and told her that what Archbold was wearing was offensive attire and revealing. Although Archbold wore her jacket for the remainder of the flight, she informed one of the male crew members upon exiting the aircraft how she felt about the situation, saying she felt it was discrimination. He replied verbatim, Our official policy on Delta Air Lines is that women must cover up. Its pretty gross, she claimed. This pizza place kneaded the last laugh. An unsatisfied Salt Lake City-area diner has incited a hometown backlash after griping online that a local pizzeria intentionally burnt their slices because they did not leave a tip. The anonymous Reddit user, @allenasm, alleged that the parlor, which has customers sign credit card receipts with a tip line before getting their food, saw one of its workers behave maliciously when no gratuity was inscribed on the receipt. I [signed] and crossed out the tip line and wrote the total. No problem I think. he let the slices burn so badly he couldnt even give them to us, wrote @allenasm. [He] had to start another set and burned those too. A customer is up in arms as they believe their burnt food was intentional after not leaving a tip. Getty Images/iStockphoto A customer complained online and alleged a pizzeria purposefully burnt their food after not leaving a tip. Getty Images If there was any doubt about the workers malice, the smirk he gave was pretty telling, replied @allenasm to one commenter on their post in the SLC-centric message board. Others defended the poorly treated patrons choice saying that their no-tip notion was clearly justified by the end result. Its probably good you didnt tip them considering the person was clearly bad at his job, one user wrote. A customer believes a pizzeria intentionally burnt their slices after not leaving a tip. bendicks stock.adobe.com Next time, make it DiGiorno, added another. @allenasm claimed to have left a poor Google review detailing what seems to be a dirty trick to pressure people into tipping as well. Replied one local Reddit reader, WTF never going back there again. In 2023, a doctor died of a severe allergic reaction after dining at a Disney Springs restaurant. Now, her husband is suing both the restaurant and Disney Parks and Resorts. He alleges negligence and is seeking $50,000 in damages. Late last year, NYU doctor Kanokporn Tangsuan died of a severe allergic reaction after dining at Disney Springs' Raglan Road Irish Pub. Now, her husband is suing. According to the official complaint, which was filed earlier this week, Tangsuan repeatedly warned staffers of her severe allergies to nuts and dairy. In fact, she explicitly asked about specific menu items and whether they could be made without the harmful ingredients. NBC News reports that servers assured her she was safe to consume the vegetable fritter, battered scallops, vegan shepherd's pie, and onion rings that the couple ordered. Tangsuan and her husband, Jeffrey J. Piccolo, reportedly inquired "several more times" about the allergens and were told they were "unequivocally safe." Sadly, that was not the case. Tangsuan died that night due to anaphylaxis. After leaving the restaurant around 8 p.m., Tangsuan's husband went back to the hotel while she stayed behind to go shopping. She began experiencing difficulty breathing around 8:45 p.m. and went to a nearby restaurant where she collapsed. She was "suffering from a severe acute allergic reaction to the food served at Raglan," the lawsuit reports. She administered her EpiPen and was rushed to the hospital, where she later passed away. Piccolo was alerted to the medical emergency when he tried ringing Tangsuan's cell phone and a bystander answered. He rushed to the hospital, but she had already died. Despite repeated assurances that the food was free of allergens, the autopsy report found both dairy and nuts in her system. The lawsuit names both the restaurant and Disney Parks and Resorts as defendants, and alleges negligence. Piccolo is seeking $50,000 in damages. An investigator for the plaintiff's attorneys, Nicholas F. DeBellis, told NBC that the defendants have not yet been served the lawsuit and have not formally responded. However, their lawyers have communicated. A spokesperson for NYU Langone Health, where Tangsuan served as a physician, released a statement on Monday via email regarding her death. "We are saddened by Dr. Tangsuan's passing and our deepest condolences are with her family," a spokesperson wrote. You Might Also Like This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. An exploration of loss, Sloane Crosley's first memoir "Grief Is for People" is, in many ways, a stark departure from her previous essay collections and novels, though she still writes with humor and wit. Out Feb. 27, the memoir opens with the grief Crosley experienced after her New York City apartment was burglarized and several pieces of family jewels are stolen. One month later, Crosleys close friend and former colleague, book publicist Russell Perreault, took his own life, ushering her into a more harrowing form of grief. Over the course of a year, Crosley tries to come to terms with the loss of her grandmothers jewelry and her friend through a jumbled version of Elisabeth Kubler-Rosss stages of grief. Its not a self-help book, nor did it ever feel like a form of personal catharsis. I think of catharsis as phew or an exhale. If anything, after I wrote the last paragraph, I thought, And now we can begin, Crosley tells TODAY.com in an exclusive interview. Crosley has shared an exclusive excerpt from Grief Is for People, which she describes as a funny and painful effort to honor her late friend, Russell. The book, she says, is not intended to be speculative, but rather to bring to the surface how almost intolerably funny he was. Crosley knows there's a chance her memoir will help readers who are grieving the loss of a loved one to suicide. That was enough to keep her going. About halfway through, I (started) thinking that I wished this book existed while I was in so much pain, Crosley says. Excerpted from Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley. Published in the United States by MCDxFSG, February 2024. Copyright 2024 by Sloane Crosley. All rights reserved. Read an excerpt from 'Grief Is for People' Is there such a thing as a funeralzilla? When my former colleagues secured a space for a memorial service, I did my best to make them regret consulting me. I objected to everything. I wanted something small. Dinner at an expensive restaurant. And we were to serve only Russells favorite foods. And only certain people should give speeches and they shouldnt drone on. No one had the heart to say: You do realize he will not be attending the dinner? Fine, then. If we must do something bigger, it should be massive. And the programs should be fastened with ribbon, not staples. Actually, maybe we shouldnt do it at all. All those people, stuck in their chairs like theyre getting a lecture on the Constitution. Maybe we should do it outside. Is it hard to shut down Fifth Avenue for an hour? It took a small army to get it through my skull that people needed to mourn, and not just Russells five favorite people. A few more than that. They needed to sit in an auditorium and listen to speeches and poems, and some of those poems might be Auden. This is not actually about Russell. More to the point, its not about me. I am not the sole protector of this man. If he were here, he could manage the guest list, but hes not here. The needs of the living are more important than the wants of the dead. Cant I understand? Not as important. More important. In the end, the only decision I made was to wear a dress I liked but Russell hated, and shoes Russell liked but I hated. This seemed like a fair compromise, considering. I wrote a eulogy. So did others. Our stories had so much duplicate fiber. But other people seemed to have no problem accessing their anger at Russell. Their heartbreak wires (I miss him) were entangled with their rage wires (Ill kill him). They were in pain too, of course. If a rising tide lifts all boats, a whirlpool pulls them all to the bottom. The same way I had to pass the restaurant where I last saw him just to leave the house, they had to pass his empty office just to get to the bathroom. Backstage, I saw his partner, who did not speak, who could not speak. We hugged. I hadnt seen him since the parking lot in Connecticut, and before that? Not for years. He smelled like the fireplace and garlic. Russells garlic. John Updike wrote, Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant. Im sure their roles were perfectly obvious from the inside, but I never knew who was who when we were eating cobbler straight from the pan. Or when Russell dove into the pool while the dogs paced the perimeter, barking with concern. This article was originally published on TODAY.com Modern foodies have ancient Egypt to thank for pie filling and sourdough. According to a groundbreaking archaeological dig in 2009, we also have them to thank for herbal wine. As published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers excavated the tomb of Scorpion I (one of the first rulers in Egyptian history) in Abydos, a region in Upper Egypt, and found about 700 jars that once contained herbal wine. In ancient Egypt, wine was a luxury item, but it was so culturally significant that it was accessible to elite and common people alike. Egyptian herbal wine was so prized that it was even traded with other neighboring civilizations and offered to the goddess Hathor. The Egyptians established vineyards along the Nile River and cultivated a deep appreciation for wine, considering it an elixir with both physical and spiritual benefits. Winemaking was a well-established trade, and the ancient Egyptians revered the production of wine as an art form. Beyond this (or perhaps, as an extension of it), physicians were using grape-based herbal wine to treat ailments; it was for medicinal purposes over recreational enjoyment. In ancient Egyptian winemaking, the grapes were harvested and crushed in tall, narrow clay jars called amphorae. The fruit was fermented via natural yeasts present on the grapes' skin, sweetened with honey, and the herbs were ostensibly added after fermentation but before the jar was sealed. Read more: The 40 Absolute Best Cocktails That Feature Only 2 Ingredients Centuries-Old Sommeliers Were Infusing Like Pros Wall relief depicting a wine offering - hemro/Shutterstock The researchers discovered the herbal wine traces using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, a technique that can detect chemical signatures. Per the findings, ancient Egyptians were brewing herbal-infused wine as early as 3150 B.C.E. The earliest written evidence of these proto-mixologists infusing herbs into their wine comes from papyrus records from 1850 B.C. It is thanks to those papyri that historians understand this ancient peoples' relationship to the wine they were producing. When fruit-bearing trees first began growing roughly 100 million years ago, humans were suddenly granted access to sugar and ethanol -- both of which are essential for winemaking. It's unclear exactly which ailments they considered herbal wine to be a cure for, but the ancient Egyptians likely realized that infusing plants with medicinal properties in some sort of alcohol acts as a natural preservative and also lends to higher potency and more thorough dissolution than with water as the medium. So, did it taste any good, or was ancient Egyptian herbal wine a pucker-inducing utility only? The medicinal alcohol vessels contained trace compounds of pine tree resin, senna, coriander, mint, sage, rosemary, thyme, celery, onion, garlic, frankincense, myrrh, terebinth, bryony, cumin, dill, aloe, wormwood, and hyssop. Considering these ingredients, the wine probably tasted similar to a bitter Italian amaro or woody Dominican mamajuana. It could have also run more spiced, fiery, and herbaceous, comparable to modern liqueurs like Fernet and Underberg. Read the original article on Tasting Table. Maybe you associate raisins with your grandparents but even today, it's not uncommon to spy hard-packed rum raisin ice cream in a retro parlor. The flavor is as sophisticated and nostalgic as it is divisive. Still, if you write off rum raisin as another tragedy of the '80s, you should know that folks have been enjoying the flavor for much longer than that (and they can't all be wrong). The idea to combine boozy raisins with dessert came from sweet-toothed foodies in the Italian region of Sicily who were soaking Malaga raisins in rum and combining them with vanilla gelato. Rather than rum raisin, the treat was initially called "Malaga gelato." Toting a high concentration of natural sugar, the raisins are used to produce the sweet wines for which Malaga, Spain is world famous. In fact, when the Sicilians were first soaking their Malaga raisins, they weren't using rum at all. Their go-to was Marsala wine, which has an uncanny rum-like flavor profile. Indeed, Malaga raisins have been traded as a luxurious prized food item in Europe since the 1700s, and authentic Malaga muscatel raisins (pasas de Malaga) are designated by an official DOP seal. Read more: 25 Best Ice Cream Brands Ranked A Nostalgic Treat With European Roots Rum raisin ice cream - Davizro Photography/Shutterstock It's unclear exactly when the boozy dessert officially arrived in the U.S. A 1932 advertisement in the Daily Ardmoreite newspaper out of Oklahoma read, "Extra Special. Rum Raisin Ice Cream. Entirely New." Of course, Americans ditched gelato in favor of vanilla ice cream, and the interplay of the deep cinnamon, dark rum, and vanilla made this old-fashioned classic a timeless treat. Some recipes call for a vanilla ice cream base that's rippled with cinnamon or brown sugar. It all works. The important part is the chilled, booze-soaked raisins, which pop in the mouth for an interesting texture. Some sources credit its lasting impression to Haagen-Dazs, which first released a pint of the flavor in the early '80s. Nearly half a century later, rum raisin remains part of the ice cream company's active repertoire. And it's not just the ice cream that deserves your consideration the next time you find yourself in the frozen aisle; those aforementioned Malaga raisins are worth a second look, too. Still, not all rum raisin ice cream today is made exclusively (or even partially) with real Malaga raisins. It's often regular dark or golden raisins. But back in the 1930s, these rum-soaked beauties were the star of the show that gave rum raisin ice cream a lasting place in the unofficial flavor hall of fame. Read the original article on Tasting Table. Ikea is filing suit against Convoy and dozens of carriers and freight financing companies to settle a dispute over where more than $500,000 is owed in the wake of the trucking marketplaces collapse. The Swedish home furnishings retailer filed the interpleader complaint in early January in the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, listing Convoy and 58 other named parties as defendants. Defendants include a major Convoy lender, Hercules Capital, as well as subcontracted carriers and associated factoring companies. More from Sourcing Journal The case is different from a traditional plaintiff-defendant lawsuit. An interpleader case is a civil procedure in which the real dispute is not between the plaintiff and the defendant, but is rather between the defendants only, who interplead against each other. Such a suit can be levied when one party has, or is alleged to have, any money or other property in their possession that is claimed by two or more parties. In this case, Ikea knows it owes several parties $519,254.44, which it handed over to the court. With the suit, Ikea is seeking the courts guidance on who among the identified parties should get paid since Convoy shut its doors. Sourcing Journal reached out to Ikea and Convoy. Under Ikeas contract with Convoy, the freight brokerage had agreed to facilitate the transportation and distribution of the retailers products and goods throughout the U.S. from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2024. But Convoy announced it was ceasing operations in October 2023, and has such, never made certain payments owed to the subcontractor carriers that delivered loads for the retailer. Therefore, Ikea never paid Convoy. The retailer argues that services shall only be payable by [Ikea] to [Convoy] if [Convoy] has fulfilled all of its obligations set forth in the agreement and any obligation in relation to the services, including but not limited to the full payment to subcontractorsIkea had the express right to withhold payment to Convoy until Convoy provided proof of the fulfillment of its obligations, which included the full payment of any subcontractors. Carriers often will go to the shipper directly in cases where the broker cant make a payment. Ikea confirmed within the lawsuit that many of the carrier defendants have notified the retailer they have already sought, or intend to seek, payment from the company. But Ikea argues that Convoys own carrier service agreement guaranteed that the freight broker would pay carriers regardless of whether the retailer ever paid Convoy. In exchange for this guarantee of payment, you shall not invoice or otherwise attempt to collect any amounts related to services provided with respect to any shipment from any shipper or any other third party; the suit cited. Carrier shall look solely to Convoy for payment of freight charges hereunder. You hereby waive any right you may otherwise have to proceed or commence any action against any shipper for the collection of any freight bills arising out of transportation services hereunder. As for Hercules Capital, the hedge fund contributed $100 million out of the $260 million funding round that brought Convoy to a $3.8 billion valuation in April 2022. The companys financing agreement gave Hercules an interest in the trucking marketplaces assets, including accounts receivables. So when Convoy defaulted on that agreement, Hercules foreclosed the assets and tried to invoice Ikea for the $519,254 in transport services, claiming the retailer owes that amount to the estate of Convoy and the hedge fund. Since Convoy and Hercules have failed and/or refused to remit payment to the carrier defendants, Ikea has no obligation to remit payment to Convoy or Hercules and, therefore, neither Convoy nor Hercules presently possess any accounts receivable with respect to Ikea, the retailer alleges. With that in mind, Ikea said the conflict gave the home furnishings business no other choice but to place the funds in the courts registry to determine the rightful owner. Ikea has a reasonable fear of multiple liability because of these adverse claims, the retailer said. Ikea is unsure which claimant is entitled to the property or to portions of the property. Whatever occurs in the case is independent of the Convoy platform itself, which is again accessible to shippers and carriers. Flexport resurrected Convoy in February, months after it first acquired the tech stack from the defunct business. The day after the relaunch, Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen said on X that the platforms return was a home run in the first inning. We brought back some of the biggest customers and on our first day live we successfully dispatched almost 200 full truck loads to our driver network for them, Petersen said. Note: Graphic content ahead including stories of murder and death. 1.In 2022, a man, Jose Rafael Solano Landaeta, used a samurai sword to decapitate his ex-girlfriend, Karino Castro, out in public in the middle of a neighborhood street. According to reports, "horrified witnesses" said they watched Castro "run for her life," as Landaeta chased her with the sword. Castro's grandmother called the killing a "public execution," while a family friend said that Castro's daughters "saw everything." Before killing Castro, Landaeta had sent threatening messages, including one of a ninja emoji and blood emojis while also threatening to take away their 18-month-old child as well as Castro's older daughter (from a previous relationship). Landaeta was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole. NBC Bay Area / Via youtube.com 2.A 63-year-old man died a horrific death during a flight from Bangkok to Munich this month after experiencing a "medical emergency," and losing "liters of blood." According to witnesses, blood gushed out of his nose and mouth, with some of it even splattering onto the plane's walls. "It was absolute horror. Everyone was screaming," said a passenger. Although first aid measures were taken by the crew as well as a doctor on board, the passenger died on board, and the flight turned back to Bangkok. In the statement to People, the airline said it could not reveal specific information regarding the incident. Paul Kane / Getty Images 3.Just last week, a severed leg was found on the subway tracks in the Bronx, New York. Initially, it was unknown where the leg came from, as it had been covered up by snow for some time, and was only discovered after crews began plowing the snow. However, it is now believed that it belonged to a (now-deceased) man who had been struck by a train. ABC 7 News reported, "The leg was discovered along the northbound No. 4 line between 167th and 170th streets in the Bronx, according to police. The body part has been turned over to the medical examiner to see if it belonged to the same person as suspected." PIX11 News / Via youtube.com 4.Recently, a former funeral home owner in Colorado, Miles Harford, was arrested after being accused of hiding a woman's corpse in a hearse for two years, as well as allegedly hoarding the cremated remains of 30+ people. According to ABC News, "While searching the property, police opened the door of the hearse to a 'foul odor,' seeing the outline of the human body seemingly strapped to the gurney and covered by blankets, according to the arrest affidavit." Harford's funeral home has been closed since September 2022. Karenmower / Getty Images 5.In similar news, it was discovered that nearly 200 corpses were "abused" at a different Colorado funeral home for several years. Authorities had initially responded to a "stain" coming out of the front door when the gruesome discovery was made. According to ABC 7 News, "The affidavits describe how the bodies were strewn throughout the rooms and how Jon Hallford [the owner] was seen on surveillance video treating a body more like a sandbag than a former human being. They say that buckets had been placed under some bodies to collect the fluid. About 40 bodies had been stacked on top of each other and some were stored in storage totes, according to the affidavits, which note the 'unimaginable conditions' authorities worked in to remove the bodies while wearing protective equipment." Denver7 / Via youtube.com 6.These images of what looks like a chicken egg, but is actually some kind of horrible infection, apparently. (According to other Reddit users, it may actually be a "lash" egg, which is basically like a large pus infection that may or may not contain parts of egg): Hand holding an unusually shaped egg with normal eggs in the background Person holding a broken egg with a solid yolk, indicating it's boiled tbanwell / Via reddit.com As the OP explained, "Reached in and had a minor brain malfunction when hand hit soft. And it stinks, some kind of horrible infection." 7.A woman in Kansas City, Missouri was charged in the death of her 1-month-old child after allegedly placing the baby in an oven instead of the baby's crib. When authorities responded to the home (after a report of an infant not breathing), they found "an individual holding the 1-month-old who was unresponsive and had burn wounds." The baby was declared dead at the scene. The mother, Mariah Thomas, was charged on February 10 with endangering the welfare of a child in the first degree, leading to the death of a child. She is set to be back in court on March 4 for arraignment. WGN News / Via youtube.com 8.Back in 2018, a surgeon in the United Kingdom literally branded his initials onto the transplanted livers of some of his patients...without their consent. He used an argon beam which is used to stop bleeding during operations and signed "SB." The brandings were discovered after another surgeon saw the initials during a follow-up surgery on one of the patients. According to reports, the branding do not impair the liver's functions and do eventually disappear. However, the surgeon, Simon Bramhall, admitted to "two counts of assault by beating," and was given a 12-month community order and fined 10,000. Capuski / Getty Images 9.This shockingly lifelike mummy of a little 2-year-old girl in Palermo, Sicily, who some people say appears to "open and close" her eyes. The girl, Rosalia Lombardo, who died in 1920 of the Spanish Flu, is amazingly mummified (thanks to embalming methods and chemicals). However, people often get creeped out because her eyes sometimes appear "open." The truth, however, is that it's just an optical illusion. According to the curator of the Capuchin Catacombs (where Rosalia is entombed), this illusion is caused by the light that filters in through the windows, which changes throughout the day. The curator, Dario Piombino-Mascali, also explained that the mummy had been moved slightly to make it easier to see her eyelids. "They are not completely closed, and indeed they have never been," he said. Fabrizio Villa / Getty Images 10.This nightmare-fueling image of an underwater shark statue at Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland: 11.Earlier this month, a man in Pennsylvania, Justin Mohn, was accused of killing and beheading his own father and then showing his father's decapitated head on YouTube while also ranting about right-wing conspiracy theories. When police arrived at the Mohn's home, they found Justin's father, Michael Mohn, in a bathroom, decapitated, along with a machete and kitchen knife. Michael's head was also found inside a plastic bag, inside a cooking pot. According to NBC News, "Mohn was taken into custody about 100 miles away from the crime scene on suspicion of first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, and possessing an instrument of crime with intent." 6abc Philadelphia / Via youtube.com 12.Meanwhile, in Florida, a man brutally killed his own father by bludgeoning him to death after learning his father "received the vaccine." Fox 11 News reported, "According to the arrest report, the woman who placed the 911 call said she could hear the suspect's father, Brian Mcgann Sr., screaming 'Stop you are killing me.'" The suspect, Brian Mcgann Jr., had run from the crime scene, but left a trail of blood from the home, which led police right to him. They found him with swollen hands, covered in blood. WPBF 25 News / Via youtube.com 13.Back in 2014, a woman was critically injured, permanently disfigured, and nearly killed, after four teenagers threw a rock from an overpass onto Interstate 80 in Ohio. According to reports, the rock "smashed through the windshield and struck Sharon Budd, in the front passenger seat, in the face." Budd's injuries included a crushed skull, the loss of one of her eyes, and also having to undergo multiple brain surgeries. The teens, who went on a vandalism spree after the event, were later tried and given minimum prison sentences ranging from 11.5 months to 4.5 years. Sharon's husband, Randy Budd, died by suicide in 2016. News 5 Cleveland / Via youtube.com 14.This photo of a type of clam known as a Geo Duck, which is, uhhhhh, quite a shocking thing to see. 15.In January, a British base jumper died in Thailand after his parachute failed to open. The man, who was apparently an "experienced parachutist," had jumped from a 29-story apartment building and was there with friends who were filming the base jump. According to witnesses, they "reported seeing a person crash through a tree and fall to the ground." The BBC reported, "A Foreign Office spokesperson said, 'We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Thailand.'" (Note: The image above is of another base jumper, not the man who died.) Tengku Bahar / AFP via Getty Images 16.Lasth month, Reddit user CHCH5089, shared a horrifying video of their frail, nearly 80-year-old grandmother getting beat up by neighbors who were apparently operating a "glamping" site. The user explained, "This [sic] afternoon my grandmother (close to 80 years old) got punched and beat by her neighbor after confronting them of open burning garbage behind her home." According to Malay Mail, the grandmother had initially confronted the neighbors about the smoke that was drifting over to her property, and causing her to choke. After a "verbal argument," the suspect then rushed the old woman, punched her in the face several times, and then hit her on the back of the head as she tried to flee. The old woman reportedly suffered soft tissue injuries. It was reported that police later arrested the suspect. CHCH5089 / Via reddit.com 17.The existence of "L'Inconnue de la Seine," ("The Unknown Woman of the Seine") a 19th-century woman whose death mask became so popular it was widely used for art and CPR dolls. Sometime in the 1880s, a woman's body was pulled from the Seine River in Paris. According to Medium, "In an effort to determine her identity, her body was publicly displayed alongside others in a Paris morgue. She attracted many onlookers, but nobody who knew who she was. To her audience, she was simply a beautiful stranger. Her name would never be discovered. Before her burial, a mortuary worker was so taken by her beauty that he decided to capture it in a death mask. This death mask was repeated over and over again, eventually becoming an iconic art piece that people would hang in their homes and artists would fixate on. Her face would later become the inspiration for the CPR doll, Resusci Anne, still used today." Hulton Archive / Getty Images 18.Earlier this month, it was reported that, according to FDA, as many as 561 deaths had been connected to Philips brand sleep apnea machines. Millions of the breathing machines have been recalled because of reports that they were "blowing gas and pieces of foam into the users' airways." According to CBS News, "The FDA said that since April 2021, it has received more than 116,000 medical device reports of foam breaking down in Philips CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machines and BiPAP sleep therapy devices." Nicolesy / Getty Images 19.In 2011, a 15-year-old in Belleview, Florida, Seath Jackson, was lured to a home by his ex-girlfriend, Amber Wright, where a group of her friends (aged 1520) brutally beat, shot, and killed the teen. They later burned his body in an attempt to "dispose of the evidence." Jackson's parents had reported him missing, but there wasn't a lead in the case until one of the perpetrators, Kyle Hooper, told his mother about the murder. The others, Amber Wright (Jackson's ex-girlfriend), Justin Soto, and Charlie Ely, were arrested along with Hooper and admitted to their parts of the crime. Amber's new boyfriend Michael Bargo, also part of the group, was eventually caught in another town. During interrogation, they all quickly turned on each other. In 2012, all the defendants were sentenced to life in prison. Charlie Ely was released in 2020 after pleading to a lesser charge. Bargo was sentenced to death. WESH 2 News / Via youtube.com 20.Earlier this month in Sweden, a new water park, Oceana, "exploded" into a massive fire, ripping through many not-yet-opened waterslides. It was reported that at least three explosions "sent debris from nearby buildings scattering over the burning waterslides." Later, a human body was found inside the remnants of the fire at the water park. According to police, 12 people were also injured, and a nearby hotel and facilities were also evacuated. An official cause has not been given yet. Bjorn Larsson Rosvall / TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images 21.In June 2014, 243 refugees, including women and children, disappeared while on a boat heading from Libya to Italy the case has since been referred to as the "Ghost Boat." According to Eric Reidy, the lead reporter in Medium's series about the event, there are two main theories as to what happened. The first is that the boat sank and somehow left behind no evidence. The second theory is that the passengers are alive but imprisoned in Tunisia. Mayehem / Getty Images/iStockphoto 22.Just last week, a 7-year-old girl from Indiana died in Florida after a large, five-foot hole she'd been digging at the beach collapsed. The girl, Sloan, had been digging the hole with her 9-year-old brother, Maddox, when they both got trapped in the sand. The children were on vacation with their parents. The beach reportedly does not have lifeguards, and it was unclear how exactly the children became trapped. However, several people nearby used their hands to try to free the children, and other rescuers used support boards to prevent the sand from collapsing further. The siblings were taken to the hospital where Sloan later died. WTHR / Via youtube.com 23.In ongoing scary plane news, a flight from San Francisco to Boston earlier this month had to divert to Denver because of an "issue" with the plane's wing specifically that the wing was literally coming apart. And a passenger on board captured the drama in a video you can see here. Another passenger shared a photo of the wing on Reddit and asked the other users, "Sitting right on the wing and the noise after reaching altitude was much louder than normal. I opened the window to see the wing looking like this. How panicked should I be? Do I need to tell a flight crew member?" Flight attendants were indeed notified of the problem, and after landing, passengers were transferred to another plane that went on to land in Boston. ABC 7 / Via youtube.com 24.These horrifying screenshots of a "mosquito plague" that's happening in Argentina right now: Window pane covered with numerous small insects, visible indoor furniture and outdoor decking Mosquitos everywhere Mosquitos everywhere in the air ReyBoring_ / Via reddit.com You can watch the full icky video here if you dare. 25.Speaking of mosquitoes, in the 1950s, '60s, and even as late as the early '70s, kids would literally chase after trucks that sprayed DDT, a synthetic pesticide that was used in agriculture to kill mosquitoes. Apparently, kids did this because they liked to play in the thick fog it created. According to the CDC, " Following exposure to high doses to DDT, human symptoms can include vomiting, tremors or shakiness, and seizures. Laboratory animal studies show DDT exposure can affect the liver and reproduction. DDT is a possible human carcinogen according to U.S. and International authorities." The United States banned the use of DDT in 1972. Bettmann / Bettmann Archive 26.In 1961, a Soviet doctor, Leonid Rogozov, who was part of an Antarctic expedition, developed appendicitis and had to perform his own appendectomy without general anesthesia, i.e. he had to cut out his own appendix. It had taken their expedition 36 days to arrive at the station in Antarctica. The ship they'd traveled on wouldn't be back for a year, and because of weather conditions, they could not fly back home either. So, Rogozov for fear of his appendix bursting at any time decided he had to operate on himself. Rogozov opted to operate with just local anesthetic, no mirror (due to it being a hindrance), suffered heavy bleeding, and almost lost consciousness. The operation took roughly two hours, and he "returned to normal duties" just two weeks later. Ilbusca / Getty Images 27.Finally, this upsetting image of the aftermath of a gender reveal party that someone came across while hiking. General Roberto Vannacci made the disparaging remarks in a book called The World Back to Front - SOPA Images Limited/Alamy An Italian army commander has been suspended for 11 months after writing a book in which he called gay people not normal and said black immigrants could never be truly Italian. General Roberto Vannacci has been at the centre of controversy ever since he published a book last year called The World Back to Front, in which he made disparaging remarks about LGBTQ people, feminists and migrants. The paratrooper insisted that freedom of speech gave him the right to express the opinions, but the defence ministry decided to take disciplinary action, saying that the book discredited the military. Last year, the 55-year-old soldier was ousted from the management of the Military Geographical Institute and moved to an administrative role as chief of staff of the operational land forces command. He has now been suspended from that role for 11 months and his pay has been cut by half. A protest against Gen Vannacci in Turin, following the launch of his book, which has been lauded by some Right-wing circles in Italy Gen Vannacci, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote in his book that homosexuals are not normal. You are not normal, come to terms with it, he wrote, adding that normality is heterosexuality. He condemned what he described as the dictatorship of minorities and the international gay lobby, which he said was trying to brainwash the world. He also questioned whether black people could ever be considered truly Italian, even if they were born on Italian soil and had citizenship. He made reference to Paola Egonu, one of Italys most high-profile black athletes, a volleyball international who was born in Italy to Nigerian parents. Paola Egonu, an Italian volleyball international, is suing Gen Vannacci - Giuseppe Cottini/Getty He said that while she had an Italian passport, her features do not represent Italian-ness. She is now suing him over the remarks. He also pushed the great replacement theory about migrants replacing white Italians. Gen Vannacci said he intended to appeal against the suspension order, citing the right to freedom of expression. He is considering whether to enter politics and may stand for the hard-Right League party in the European Parliament elections in June. He has been championed by Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, who serves as deputy prime minister and transport minister in the Right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni. Matteo Salvini called Gen Vannacci's suspension 'ridiculous' - Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images Mr Salvini said on Wednesday that the suspension of Gen Vannacci was ridiculous. The situation is ridiculous. How scared are they of the general? Long live freedom of thought and speech, long live the armed forces and the police, he wrote on Twitter. Gen Vannacci is also under investigation for alleged financial irregularities during his time as military attache to the Italian embassy in Moscow in 2021-22. He has denied any wrongdoing during his time in Moscow. The allegations of fraud and embezzlement were revealed earlier this week by the newspaper Corriere della Sera. I dont discuss questions from the press about my service, he said. I am totally relaxed and will respond at the appropriate time. While his book has been lauded in some Right-wing circles in Italy, it has been condemned by members of the government. Guido Crosetto, the defence minister and one of the founding members of Ms Melonis Brothers of Italy party, said that the personal ramblings of a general had discredited the armed forces. Antonio Tajani, the foreign minister, said last year that the general should have shown more prudence before expressing such inflammatory opinions. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. LONDON Jose Neves, who stepped down as chief executive officer of Farfetch earlier this month following its sale to Coupang, has already moved on to a new venture. The founder and former owner of Farfetch, which was purchased out of administration late last year, has become the executive president of Fundacao Jose Neves, which is based in Portugal. More from WWD Neves previous title at the foundation was founder and president. He will replace the current executive president, Carlos Oliveira, who is also one of the foundations three cofounders. I now have more time to dedicate to one of my passions, philanthropy, Neves told WWD. News of his new role was first reported in the Portuguese media earlier this week. Fundacao Jose Neves is a nonprofit organization established in May 2019. According to the website, its main purpose is to contribute to Portugals development and the happiness of its people through education, and to elevate Portugal to the very top of the UNs Human Development index within the next 20 years. The foundation funds projects related to education, skills development and lifelong learning. In his founders letter, Neves said he is committed to donating two-thirds of his assets during his lifetime to the foundation, which he founded with fellow entrepreneurs Oliveira and Antonio Murta. Portugal may not have the natural resources to compete globally, but it does possess the human potential and intellectual power to compete for leadership status in the digital world, Neves said in his letter. Neves latest venture coincided with Coupangs fourth-quarter earnings update earlier this week, during which the company sketched out its vision for Farfetch in a call with analysts. We hope in a few years well be having the conversation about how Coupang turned Farfetch into a business that transformed the customer experience around luxury fashion, while also providing strategic value for Coupang, said Bom Kim, founder and CEO of Coupang. Were already executing on a plan to make Farfetch self-funding, with no additional investment beyond the announced capital commitment. And we see many paths to making this a worthwhile investment for [Coupang] shareholders, he added. Neves stepped down as CEO of Farfetch on Feb. 15, two months after Coupang and the San Francisco-based firm Greenoaks Capital purchased the luxury e-commerce platform and pledged $500 million to help revive it. At the time, Coupang said Neves would remain at Farfetch in a consultancy role, and would not be directly replaced as CEO. Going forward, the Farfetch business will be overseen by Kim. Neves founded Farfetch in 2008, and six years later the company became one of the U.K.s few unicorns with a $1 billion-plus valuation. Over the years, Farfetch would become a $24 billion company, but all that unraveled in the final quarter of 2023, leaving Neves, and his remaining investors, out of pocket. Once a feted entrepreneur who had dreamt of democratizing fashion online and enabling retailers and brands no matter how large or small to reach worldwide audiences, Neves fell victim to his own management fumbles, and to wider macroeconomic and geopolitical events. While many investors were stunned and angered by the companys crash, there are some who described Neves as a trailblazer in the still evolving world of e-commerce. Danny Rimer, a partner at Index Ventures, an early investor in Farfetch, called Neves a very special founder and an exceptional entrepreneur. He said Neves had a clear vision of what the industry could achieve and the role that Farfetch could play in the wider ecosystem. Carmen Busquets, another early-stage investor, had been hoping to raise between $500 million and $1 billion to rescue Farfetch late last year, and had proposed a five-year plan with the aim of driving fast growth and profitability. Farfetch remains the leading company in the industry. It has driven fundamental change to the distribution of fashion globally over the last 15 years, Busquets told WWD in December. Best of WWD King Harald V has been hospitalized in Malaysia for an infection, the Norwegian Royal House said in a statement. He has been hospitalized at the Sultanah Maliha Hospital, where he is receiving treatment from "both Malaysian and Norwegian medical personnel," the royal household said. During his private trip, it was always planned that his son, Crown Prince Haakon, would serve as regent. "We spoke to my mother and father this morning," Haakon told reporters today. "It seems that his health was a little better." The Crown Prince added, "What he needs now is to be in the hospital for a few more days and to get some rest." King Harald, who turned 87 last week, is Europe's oldest monarch, and has been beset by numerous health issues in recent years. In January, he was on sick leave for a respiratory infection. This past fall, he had COVID for the second time, and in May 2023, he was also hospitalized with an infection. Recently, following Queen Margrethe's abdication, Harald was asked if he would ever abdicate. "I stick by what I've always said, that I swore an oath to the Storting [parliament] and it is for life," the King said. He ascended to the throne in 1991, upon the death of his father, King Olav. Harald is married to Queen Sonja, and they have two children: Princess Martha Louise and Prince Haakon. Though Martha is older than her brother, the Norwegian constitution held until 1990 that only male heirs could inherit. That has since changed, so Prince Haakon and Princess Mette-Marit's eldest daughter, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, is currently second in line for the Norwegian throne. In 2022, Harald's daughter Princess Martha Louise gave up her royal duties ahead of her planned wedding this summer to American shaman Durek Verrett. You Might Also Like Becoming a member of the 1 percent is now harder than ever. In the United States, you need to have at least $5.8 million to sit at the tippy-top, a 15 percent increase from last year, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Thats according to the property broker Knight Franks 2024 Wealth Report, which outlines how much money you need to break into the 1 percent in nations across the world. More from Robb Report Our findings confirm the substantial differences in wealth distribution between countries, Knight Frank said in the report. Expect greater policy focus on where wealth is located, how it is distributed across economies and how governments can both tax it and encourage its growth. While Americans need quite a substantial net worth to call themselves part of the 1 percent, they dont have the hardest time reaching that echelon. Monaco has retained its status at the top of the list, with people needing at least $12.8 million, a 3.2 percent jump from the year prior. Luxembourg is next, with a $10.8 million bar, followed by Switzerland with $8.5 million. Then comes the United States, and Singapore rounds out the top five with a $5.2 million requirement. After the global economy took a dipthanks in part to Russias war in Ukraine, which resulted in skyrocketing food and energy prices around the worldwere now seeing markets rebound, at least in the United States and other Western nations. Poorer countries, however, are still struggling, resulting in an even bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots. Monacos GDP per person, for example, is more than 900 times that of Burundi, according to World Bank data cited by Bloomberg. And despite people across the world feeling the economic headwinds, the globes wealthiest seem to have largely avoided any personal downfall. Cumulatively, the 500 richest people in the world saw their wealth increase by $1.5 trillion in 2023. They were led by Elon Musk, the single wealthiest person, who added $95.4 billion to his bank account, for a total net worth of $232 billion. (Its since dropped to $213 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.) Its still early enough in 2024 that we dont know how this year will shake out, but if the current trends hold, the 1 percent will only continue to get richer as the years go by. 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. Warning: Spoilers from Love Is Blind Season Six below. "Love Is Blind" Season Six is stirring up debate about when, and how, a person should disclose they are a parent during the dating process. But Jessica Jess Vestal, a contestant on the Charlotte, North Carolina-based season, tells TODAY.com she has no regrets about how she handled being a single mom on "Love Is Blind." Vestal starts the season nervous to tell the men she has a daughter, she says on the show. The 29-year-old executive assistant tells hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey her plan to let guys get to know her as an individual before learning she's a mom. Viewers watch that play out through her connection with Jimmy Presnell, 28. After their first chat, she returns to the womens lounge and gushes about their connection, referring to him as Jimmy with the juice. Their progression halts halfway through the episode when Jess opens up about having a 10-year-old daughter named Autumn. Jimmy, who is also getting to know contestant Chelsea Blackwell, reacts by asking why Jess didnt share that information with him earlier. Jimmy later says motherhood isn't a deal-breaker for him. Online, viewers sharer their suspicions that it was, in fact, a deal-breaker. Jimmy knew he wouldn't choose her when she told him she was a mother #LoveIsBlind pic.twitter.com/ZknXvTS9R2 sharleene (@pitch0un3) February 14, 2024 She falls for him, but Jimmy wavers in his feelings. Jess confronts him about his lack of directness in their relationship in Episode Four and he reveals he wants to pursue his connection with Chelsea. I know that youre already an incredible mother. Youre going to be an amazing wife for someone else, he says. At this point, I love someone else. Jessica (Courtesy Netflix) She tearfully calls him out for leading her on and ruining the opportunity for her. Even though the experiment didnt end in an engagement, Jess tells TODAY.com she wouldnt change the decisions she made. She says she stands by waiting to open up about being a mom. I have no regrets, she says. I really wanted to, like I said (on the show), give someone the opportunity to get to know me first and not lead with the fact that Im a mother. Because although that is the most important part of who I am, it doesnt define me. She adds, I felt like I needed to give the men time and space to get to know other things about me before bringing that into the conversation. After leaving the pods, Jess returned to Charlotte, North Carolina, and reunited with Autumn. In her chat with TODAY.com, she describes seeing her daughter for the time after filming Love Is Blind. It was amazing, she recalls. Like, Ive never been away from her for that long, even though I wasnt even on the show for as long as I had originally anticipated. Id never taken a vacation away from her. She says it was a moment of euphoria when they reunited and embraced. I think we hugged for like 10 minutes straight and then we were just attached at the hip for like the next couple of weeks. Actually, we still are. We havent recovered, she jokes, laughing. I was so happy to see her, she says. Love is Blind Season 6 (Courtesy Netflix) With the release of Season Six, Autumn will now have an opportunity to see what her mom was up to while she was away. Jess confirms that she will let her daughter watch some of the show within reason. As far as my story goes, I plan to share all of it with her, Jess says. Prior to going on Love Is Blind, the executive assistant says she showed Autumn clips of Lauren Speed-Hamilton and Cameron Hamiltons love story from Season One so that her daughter was familiar with the show. She says she wanted to give Autumn an idea of what I was going into because if she hadnt been comfortable with the experience, I wouldnt have gone. I hadnt really planned for an alternate reality outside of coming back engaged, Jess continues. So she was happy to see me, but disappointed that the story didnt unfold the way we had planned. But we both have complete peace of mind knowing it happened the way it was supposed to. A teaser halfway through the season confirmed that Jess would make an appearance in a future episode. Her much-anticipated return comes at the end of Episode 10 during the Season Six cast party. Jess and Jimmy sit by a lake and unpack their breakup and his engagement to Chelsea in a private conversation. The executive assistant also reveals to Jimmy that she wept in the pods after hearing that he was in love with Chelsea. I want you to be good to her, Jess tells him. The 29-year-old then accepts Jimmy's apology for how he handled the situation. Speaking to TODAY.com, Jess says she was glad she had the conversation with Jimmy, but she had already found closure before they reunited. "I felt like I had closure during our last conversation in the pods, kind of when I spoke my piece," she shares. She recalls being excited to catch up with some of her friends from the pods at the party, but says she didn't feel like she needed to say anything else to Jimmy. "It was more so for him, I guess. Time to speak his piece, because I don't know if I fully gave him that opportunity to (in the pods)," she continues. She reveals that she spoke to Chelsea at the party, too, in an unaired moment. "Oh gosh, I wish that would have been shown," Jess says. "I actually asked Chelsea beforehand if she was OK with he and I speaking because I wanted to do everything out of love and respect to her. I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable but surprisingly, as far as I know, it wasn't uncomfortable for any of us." It seems fans will not get to see Jess again on the show until her likely appearance at the reunion on March 13. Based on their social media reactions, it appears that there is now tension between her and Jimmy. When the official "Love Is Blind" Instagram account posted a clip of Jess calling Jimmy out in the pods and predicting he would need an EpiPen after seeing her in real life, he left a snarky reply. "EpiPen Engagement Ring ," he wrote in the comments. Jess responded, "My brother in Christ.. this is bold of you." Hopefully the two reveal what soured their relationship at the reunion. This article was originally published on TODAY.com A South Dakota man faces trial after he duct taped his girlfriends dog and fatally assaulted him in July 2023. He pleaded guilty to one count of animal cruelty and received his sentencing. Shocking details reveal the man duct-taped the canine to bind his legs and muzzle before subjecting him to a prolonged and brutal beating. South Dakota man faces trial after he duct taped dogs legs and mouth before repeatedly beating him A Mitchell resident is facing incarceration after being convicted for fatally assaulting his girlfriends dog in July last year, as per Keloland News. Aaron Hacecky admitted guilt to one count of animal cruelty. Reportedly, Hacecky was aware of the possibility of a two-year prison sentence when he entered the Davison County courtroom. The prosecutors highlighted his lack of remorse and attempts to shift blame onto the innocent dog. Hacecky used duct tape to tie the dogs mouth and legs before beating him to death. Upon arrival, the responding officer found the dog, Buddy, in distress, struggling to breathe with visible bleeding from the nose. Subsequently, the officer removed the duct tape and transported Buddy to a hospital for urgent medical care. Despite efforts, Buddy succumbed to his injuries and passed away at the hospital. According to the defense, Hacecky expressed remorse and personally apologized to his girlfriend, both in person and through a written letter. His attorney stated that prior to the incident, Hacecky had been grappling with the effects of West Nile Virus. Additionally, he had experienced a traumatic encounter at work involving an attack by juveniles. Before delivering the sentence, the judge acknowledged Haceckys clean criminal record but emphasized the severity of his actions. The judge said he could not overlook the brutal nature of his conduct. Jim Miskimins, Davison County States Attorney, said, Pretty shocking when you review the reports and review photographs and videos and other evidencebut we are confident we got a good result in with there being a conviction of a felony and there being jail time imposed. The post Man Stands Trial Who Duct Taped Dogs Mouth, Beat Him to Death appeared first on DogTime. I am in a modern art gallery by a lake. A chic gallery owner is showing me the work of a young contemporary artist: squares of earth, found objects and huge paintings made of thumbprints. The exhibition title is something Google Translate terms Been-Continued. Its all rather mystifying. Then the artist herself, Lam Na, appears, pressing into my hand a coin she has dug out of the ground. This feels significant, as I understand the work to be about the past within the present, what is sown and what is reaped, but really I have very little idea of where I am. It could be Mayfair. It is in fact Hanoi. This is my first day in Vietnam, in a ritzy part of the city where many expats choose to live, beside Hoan Kiem lake. There are taco places and cocktail bars. Whatever I expected, it wasnt this. To confound me further the charming Nguyen Anh Tuan, an artist and curator tells me I am in luck. We had bonded over a shared love of Leonard Cohen and now he takes me to the vast disused Gia Lam train factory. It has been taken over by artists from the Hanoi Creative Design Festival. The theme is flow and I am going with it. Writer Suzanne making friends in Vietnam - Suzanne Moore In taking over this old industrial space, artists are connecting their heritage to contemporary life. There is so much work to see here: Cornelia Parker-type dismantled cars on strings, huge hanging ribbons of fabric, tunnels of small photographs that you need a candle to see. I am overloaded. The truth is that if your first day in Hanoi doesnt overwhelm you, then you dont have a pulse. It is one of the most exciting cities I have ever visited, a frenzy of traffic, markets, lights, street food, colonial-era architecture and huge monuments. I brave the shoals of scooters and the intense criss-crossing traffic to get around, determined not to be like a friend of mine who was trapped in her hotel for two days before she dared venture out. When I meet my guide, he offers to teach me how to cross the road and is surprised I have already done it. The explanation is not bravery but jetlag. One must not hesitate and must not look at the traffic, he says. Just go for it and dont stop. My guide is wearing a sweatshirt with Barmy written on it and he asks me what it means while we sample the street food. Barmy means nuts but in a nice way, I tell him. 'A frenzy of traffic, markets, lights and street food': the Old Quarter in Hanoi - Getty You may have had Vietnamese food at home but there is nothing like sitting on little plastic stools next to girls wearing fake Gucci and eating what has become known as the Obama Combo (after the meal Barack Obama ate with the late, great Anthony Bourdain here, back in 2016). Grilled pork, noodles, bundles of herbs, dipping sauce. Bun Cha and two beers. The ripped martial arts guys slurp it down nearby; the backpackers queue for their Banh Mi. Later, at a dazzling rooftop bar, young fashionable Vietnamese couples arrive with flowers for innumerable selfies as the DJ remixes the Pet Shop Boys and the moon rises high over the lake. The famous caramelised pork meatballs Bun Cha are a Vietnamese staple - Alamy Stock Photo First thing in the morning, large groups exercise next to the Lenin statue, while the queues for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum begin to form. Here you may see the embalmed body of Uncle Ho. (He didnt want this; he had asked for a cremation but instead got the full Soviet treatment.) Communist flags and slogans are everywhere. Vietnam is a one-party state, though the official reality is that it is a market economy with a socialist orientation. Ordinary people pay for health care and education and driving out of Hanoi, one can feel the economic boom. Luxury developments are everywhere. I come to realise that the hard times referred to in conversation are not just the American War, but the famine that took place between the end of the war in 1975 and the lifting of the trade embargo in the mid-1990s. Guards in front of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum - Alamy Sure there are war tourists here rehearsing their Apocalypse Now speeches but the most hostility I hear openly expressed is towards the French, rather than the Americans. One man tells me that the countrys former colonial masters gouged his fathers eyes out. A few hours drive to the south-west of Hanoi, mountains rise up: black vertical jags of limestone jutting out of the earth, like nothing Ive ever seen before. Im staying at the Pu Luong Retreat between two such mountains overlooking rice terraces. The view is spectacular, although the steep inclines to get to the room are not quite so alluring. This is no country for old knees. Thankfully there is a pool and a spa and a great restaurant. Its the sort of place that lures trekkers, but my guide clearly understands I am more of a trudger. We go down into the valley where houses are raised on stilts and impossibly pretty village girls take selfies with us. Farmers planting rice in Pu Luong, Vietnam - Alamy I cannot help but think of Graham Greenes A Quiet American where Fowler describes Phuong, his mistress, as looking so small and breakable but not in any way being an ornament. These villagers are ethnic White Thais, and have their own language and style of dress. They are still using scythes in the fields. We see papayas, starfruit, guava, cassava all growing and the Muscovy ducks that I have only seen hanging in markets. At a betel nut tree I hear about the Vietnamese fashion of women making their teeth completely black mind-blowing which was once considered beautiful. I fly south to take a cruise along the Mekong. It is hot and rainy, with a different vibe altogether. There are fish in the river that eat dogs, the boatman says, as we sip from coconuts. But I only see mudskippers. At night in my resort you can sit by the river and watch as the junks go up and down. I dont stay long, because I am heading to Can Tho, to catch a small propeller plane to Con Son island. Con Son Island is a tiny island in the Con Dau archipelago - Alamy Stock Photo In the airport I wave at a baby and I sense this makes everyone uncomfortable. Babies, I am told later, are to be ignored, for one does not want to make the spirits jealous and the baby ill. Each day in Vietnam, I become more aware that the spirits are ever-present: ancestor-worship prevails; death sits alongside life and is everywhere celebrated. The dead must be kept happy with votive money, gifts and food on the family shrines. I even see expensive pairs of trainers left as offerings. Con Son is a tiny island in the Con Dau archipelago. It is heavenly, stuffed with pristine beaches, jungle, black squirrels and macaques. Brad, Angelina and their troop stayed here back in 2011 at the extremely luxurious Six Senses, but I really dont think anywhere could be nicer than the Poulo Condor resort, where I stay. My room is actually a sage green villa with two balconies. There is an outside shower and lotus ponds everywhere. You can trip down to the empty beach or have a massage. There are kayaks to paddle around in. It is totally lush, with a pool above which rises Chau mountain. The staff are lovely, WhatApping to ask if you want breakfast brought to you. These islands are surrounded by the best diving waters in Vietnam and yet remain undeveloped. Vietnam has a dark past, and is home to many old prisons and cemeteries - Suzanne Moore However, this seemingly untouched paradise has its heart of darkness. This was a prison island. In town there is the museum, and the old prisons and cemeteries are dotted about. More than 20,000 political prisoners died here. The French built the prisons in 1863 to house those they considered dangerous. The Americans then used them till the 70s. Its here that you find the infamous tiger cages, where prisoners were shackled and quicklime poured onto them. A few hours of visiting these places was enough for me. It was clear that many of the Vietnamese people visiting had relatives who had died there, so this is a place of pilgrimage. When I went back to my hotel, I found out the museum had been set up by the son of a political prisoner and this was a way of giving thanks to the island. This is how modern Vietnam exists, with life and death parallel. There are always hungry ghosts to appease but right here, right now, there is beauty and wealth to create. And always another selfie to be taken. It is dizzying. I learnt during a cooking lesson how to tie summer rolls using steamed spring onions as tiny ribbons. I saw girls on Vespas applying make-up as they manoeuvred in dense traffic. I glimpsed the ultra-modern city of Ho Chi Minh City and chatted to octogenarians working in the paddy fields. All of it draws you in, one way or another. You can feel the future surging, yet what truly seeps into your heart is the remarkable and unbreakable soul of the place. Essentials InsideAsia (0117 244 3380; InsideAsiaTours.com) has a 12-night Vietnam Landscapes cultural adventure which heads from Hanoi to Pu Luong, Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta and costs from 2,275pp including all accommodation, several meals, transport across the country, private guiding and a range of cultural experiences, but excluding international flights. Vietnam Airlines (vietnamairlines.com) operates daily services between London and Vietnam from 754 return. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. FILE PHOTO: A pump jack operates at a well site leased by Devon Energy Production Company near Guthrie, Oklahoma (Reuters) -U.S. shale producer Devon Energy reported a fall in fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, hurt by lower oil and gas prices and forecast a 2% impact in first-quarter production due to severe winter weather. Concerns over global demand weighed on commodity prices throughout the reported quarter, with U.S. natural gas prices declining by more than half. Devon's averaged realized price without hedges fell to $44.93 per barrel of oil equivalent during the quarter, compared with $53.66 boe a year ago, with realized natural gas prices tumbling 58%. The company reaffirmed its 2024 production forecast at about 650,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) but forecast first-quarter production to be down 2% due to curtailments arising from severe winter weather. A severe winter storm dumped snow across a broad part of the country In January, shutting a Gulf Coast refinery in Texas and halving North Dakota's oil production. Devon's fourth-quarter production rose to 662,000 boepd, compared with 636,000 boepd in the year-ago quarter, backed by strong output from its Delaware assets. U.S. crude oil production had reached record heights in 2023 as companies focused on boosting drilling efficiency and cut costs. The company said it added a fourth frac crew in the Delaware basin in January and expects its capital program to be weighted towards the first half of 2024. Its adjusted profit of $1.41 per share was in line with estimates, according to LSEG data. The Oklahoma City-based company also raised its fixed quarterly dividend by 10%. The company's net income fell to $1.15 billion, or $1.81 per share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, from $1.20 billion, or $1.83 per share, a year earlier. (Reporting by Sourasis Bose in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Maju Samuel) Nothing gets me pinching pennies quite like booking a holiday. Dropping large sums of money on projects with so many moving parts makes me nervous. I could spend the same amount on a day at the shops without a thought, but on a travel website it takes me at least a few days of anxious consideration before I can work myself up to paying. In short, Im exactly the type of person for whom the offer of a two-night mini-break for 99 was made. Its a respectable figure, not quite hitting the too good to be true threshold, but not (in my case anyway) totally ruinous if it didnt come together. Having launched its 99 mystery holiday offer in early January, discount website Wowcher says it has sold more than 4,000 trips to destinations from the Maldives to Ibiza, Paris to Berlin, New York to Las Vegas. While the chance of being assigned a headline-grabbing destination like New York or the Maldives is extremely small, it promises that for 99 you will get a minimum of a two-night stay in a three-star hotel. The majority of the potential destinations were in Europe, primarily France and Italy, but also Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Austria. But of course there are catches. You get to choose your dates, sort of. The company reserves the right to ask you to change if you pick a weekend at the start of half-term, for example, but you dont get to pick your destination. This is the mystery. Once youve paid your money, all is revealed. Furthermore, the 99 price is per person, based on two people sharing a room. Youre not allowed to pay 99 for a single room. There are a few optional extras too. If you dont like the location youre given, you can pay 30 for something different. If you want to go in April, June or July, the price is 129 per person. Plus theres a 6.99 administration fee. A two-night break for 204.99 still sounded like a bargain, however, so I took a deep breath and paid up. My destination would be Milan; not a bad place to go in late February, I decided, so I confirmed. An agent would be in touch in three to four business days to organise the particulars, then I was unceremoniously ejected from the website. As I waited to hear back, I began feeling convinced Id been scammed. When I heard nothing for a week, I fired off a nervous email requesting more information. No response. Ten days later, an automated email explained that due to high uptake of the Wowcher offer, they were very busy and would be in touch nearer departure. I began drafting my email to Telegraph consumer champion, Katie Morley, ready for when the scam became clear. Yet at 9.30pm on a Monday night, less than a month before I was due to fly, my phone rang. Hi, this is Kanika from WeekenderBreaks [a third party acting on behalf of Wowcher] Im calling to organise your trip to Milan. Given the late hour, I remained suspicious, but Kanika shared a list of potential hotels and flight times. She offered the opportunity to swap Milan for Lake Garda, which I declined, and took my passport details, promising an email confirmation once it was booked. A few moments later, my phone pinged. It wasnt luxurious: Id be flying with Ryanair at 9.35am from London Stansted to Milan Bergamo on a Wednesday, then back at 10.30pm on Friday night but it looked genuine. My digs? An outpost of the B&B Hotels chain, next door to the AC Milans San Siro stadium on the citys outskirts, it looked unglamorous but fine. The B&B Hotels room included in the deal - Jack Rear But I remained nervous as my holiday drew closer. Maybe Id arrive at the airport to be told the flights didnt exist. Or Id arrive at the hotel to find it under construction. In fact, nothing of the sort transpired. It was all rather uneventful. The 204.99 bill soon started creeping up, however. I paid 11.15 to reach Stansted from London and 12 to get to Milan from Bergamo. The hotel itself was a slightly laborious half-hour journey from the city centre on public transport, so I paid 15.50 for a Metro pass, which offered three days of unlimited travel. Jack paid a visit to Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II during his trip - Jack Rear B&B Hotels proved to be the Continents version of Travelodge: cheap and forgettable, but clean, modern and with free Wi-Fi. I parted with 7.90 per day for access to the breakfast buffet, and 9 on the city tax, paid by all hotel guests. There were downsides to the mystery element of the trip. To see one of Leonardo da Vincis The Last Supper, one of the highlights of Milan, one has to book over a month in advance so I hadnt been given enough time to get tickets. The same went for a show at the La Scala opera house even the backstage tours were long since sold out. Milan's celebrated QC Termemilano spa Even so, I managed to book tickets to the remarkable Duomo and its roof terraces the day before, and got into the TikTok-famous QC Termemilano spa. I also didnt have any trouble finding a table at the citys restaurants, and indulged in the citys renowned aperitivo scene like a prince. Its easy to get caught up in the hype of a 99 holiday and forget how expensive travelling can be. Factoring in food and drink, transport and sight-seeing, along with the initial 204.99 booking price, soon topped 500 for my two-night mini-break. Jack enjoyed pasta for dinner at Montalcino Restaurant in Milan - Jack Rear Even so, I have no regrets. That low-level initial cost allayed my usual booking anxiety and ultimately took me to a city I might have never bothered visiting if I was fully in the driving seat. The mystery element wont suit everyone, particularly the planners who like to curate their holidays in advance. Still, for those at peace with spontaneity, evviva la vacanza da 99! Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. On clearing out the attic of your recently deceased father, you find a humble watercolour of a church and country scene thats revealed to bear the signature A Hitler. Could it be that A Hitler? You consult an expert, who affirms that yes, very likely, its the work of the toothbrush-moustached monster, produced during his struggling-artist phase. Do you stash it away, try and sell it, destroy it, or generally ruminate and wrangle with your fellow family members as to the best course of action? Munich-born playwright Marius von Mayenburgs canny, if not fully achieved dark comedy first seen at the Schaubuhne, Berlin in 2022, and getting its UK premiere at the directorial hands of Patrick Marber contains a lot of wrangling, as those options spring to acquisitive, conflicted mind. Its a plausible enough scenario Hitlers paintings do crop up, and can fetch ethically dubious sums, even in Germany (which permits sales when the work is untainted by Nazi symbols). Watching the depiction of the dilemma as it engulfs the deceaseds son and daughter, and their respective partners, from the cosy vantage of London, were afforded the schadenfreude of seeing Germans wrestling with the prospect of a gain that they know perpetuates their worst national shame. The paintings value is written in blood and indeed increases the more theyre willing and able to implicate their ancestors; there are Nazi skeletons in the cupboard which could bolster the works authenticity and appeal. Still, were hardly exempt from the frisson of culpability in what at times feels like a Mel Brooks spin on Antiques Roadshow (theres even a Hitler salute brought on by a Tetanus infection). Its not just that the script (translated by Maja Zade) utilises direct address, as the actors pace a patchily floored stage-area before the crumbling facade of a house. A lot of the laughs, too, are guilty pleasures. Nachtland: 'The drama becomes a descent into the moral abyss.' - Ellie Kurttz With the best will in the world, I cant see a swastika, glibly observes John Heffernans twitchy son, Philipp, as he squints at the find. Theres even a discombobulating double-take as you realise the fashion-victim art-expert, who coos over the work without a qualm, is Jane Bubble from Ab Fab Horrocks; she talks about pigments and brush-strokes with clipped assurance, hits the deadpan target with chill accuracy: He [Hitler] still provokes strong emotions. Sure, its doodling and schematic in a way thats not miles from Hitlers own mediocre craftsmanship. Crass Philipp is usefully married to Judith (Jenna Augen) Jewish and predictably outraged at any profit being made from the work, while his resentful sibling (Dorothea Myer-Bennetts Nicola) launches into diatribes about Israel which, while validly sketching a self-serving and anti-Semitic nature, are still there, you feel, to up the outrage factor. The drama, further twisted into a Faustian nightmare by the sinister and unsavoury presence of an art-collector (Angus Wright), becomes a descent into the moral abyss. Alas, von Mayenburg arrives, via incest, at overkill, as if angling for trigger-warnings uber alles. Even so, the brisk evening holds our queasy, amused attention and offers a haunting reminder that Hitler once saw beauty in the world, and tried to capture it, however ineptly, before madly deciding to lay it waste. Until April 20. Tickets: 020 7922 2922; youngvic.org Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Being a teacher is so much more than designing lesson plans and explaining the same concepts class after class. Teachers stories, advice, and support can be truly life-changing for a child, and the ways they connect with each student stays with them for life. Think about it--I'm willing to bet that you can still remember your favorite teacher's name! For Southern California science teacher Mrs. Teel, students she didn't even teach are going to remember her for the way she selflessly took in an animal in need. On Friday, February 23, a student at Mrs. Teel's school brought her a guinea pig that she found abandoned outside. The teacher didn't even blink before taking in the animal, bringing her to the vet, and getting her started on her road to recovery. What a sweet guinea pig! It's heartbreaking to think that someone could have abandoned this loving little critter, but she was clearly always meant to join the Teel family. As @socalsciencegal explained to a commenter, she would only consider giving her back if a rightful owner could provide proof of ownership and proof of proper care. Clearly, this gal was not in good shape! Related: Kind Woman Hailed a Hero for Saving Guinea Pigs Dumped on the Side of the Road For now, this rescued guinea pig is healing from bumblefoot and decompressing in quarantine before she can meet the other piggies of the Teel clan. This animal-loving science teacher has three at home! She was quite literally the perfect person to take in this rescue animal, and it must feel like such a gift (and such a huge responsibility) to be trusted with an animal's life like this. This gesture proves that her students think the world of her, too. Why Do Guinea Pigs Squeak? As this rescued pet spent more time with her new guinea pig enclosure and her new owner, she began to relax and react. She doesn't even squirm when Mrs. Teel syringe-feeds her medicine (actually, she likes it!), and she communicates with squeaking whenever she's feeling happy. These are all great signs! In fact, guinea pigs make all kinds of sounds to communicate with humans and each other. You may hear a low-pitched, grumbly 'purr' when your piggy is feeling content, while a 'wheek' is a sign of excitement. So, if your guinea pig is making more sounds than usual, it's worth listening closely. That's how Mrs. Teel knew cleaning the guinea pig's cage was making her happy! Most guinea pig sounds aren't a reason to be concerned, but if sounds are accompanied by unusual behavior, it's always smart to visit the vet. Then, you can help your buddy feel better in no time at all--just like Mrs. Teel's new pet guinea pig! Looking for more PetHelpful updates? Follow us on YouTube for more entertaining videos. Or, share your own adorable pet by submitting a video, and sign up for our newsletter for the latest pet updates and tips. If you're looking for a dessert that is both sweet and spicy, look no further than Tasting Table's chile chocolate hazelnut thumbprint cookies, which utilize a spice-infused ganache to bring a kick of heat into the sweet treat. Cayenne pepper and chipotle chile pepper are used to transform the chocolate ganache into a spicier version of itself, which ultimately brings an interesting complexity to the usually sweet-only dessert. Of course, there is still plenty of sweetness going on in the ganache these are cookies after all but, if you're someone who loves a sweet-spicy combination, then you have to give this spicy ganache a try. Making the spice-infused ganache also couldn't be any easier you start by making the ganache as usual (combining chocolate and cream), then stir the spices into the melted chocolate, along with cinnamon and salt and voila, the spiced-up ganache is good to go. Plus, with the stir-in method, you're able to adjust the amount of heat to match your preferences you can just add a pinch of both cayenne and chipotle chile pepper if you just want a hint of spice, or you could double the amount of cayenne if you're looking to up the ante on the spiciness level. Or, if you're worried about going overboard with the spices, you can choose to include just one, either cayenne or chipotle, and leave the other one out. Read more: 25 Chocolate Brands, Ranked Worst To Best Which Desserts To Pair With The Spiced-Infused Ganache Chocolate cake with slice cut out on tray - Valentin Valkov/Shutterstock Ganache is most commonly used to frost a cake and there are plenty of cake flavors that would work as the perfect base for the spicy version of chocolate ganache. Let's start with chocolate cake you'll get plenty of the traditionally sweet chocolate taste from the cake, so the frosting is the perfect place to bring in some unexpected heat. If you don't want to overwhelm the cake with spiciness, you could even use traditional chocolate ganache for the exterior of the cake, then use the spicy ganache for the middle layer of frosting for a surprise kick of heat. Additionally, using the spice-infused ganache on a chocolate mocha cake will make the dessert reminiscent of a Mexican mocha, a favorite at plenty of cafes. Of course, chocolate cake is not the only type of cake that would benefit from the spicy ganache vanilla or red velvet cake are also great fits. Or, how about using it for a twist on the classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting? You can also use the spicy ganache for an exciting, unexpected topping for a buttery sugar cookie batch. Or, it could act as the frosting layer over the top of a skillet chocolate chip cookie for a unique "cake" at a birthday party as long as the guests would enjoy that spicy kick from the ganache. Read the original article on Tasting Table. It feels like the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade just yesterday, but it was actually almost two years ago. Since then, reproductive rights have continued to be stripped away in Republican-led states, and women are paying the price. Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images Most recently, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created during in-vitro fertilization (IVF) are now considered "extrauterine children under the law. Yes, children. Rex-Wholster / Getty Images This ruling has caused at least three clinics to pause IVF operations in Alabama, seemingly out of fear of being held responsible for any destruction of embryos, according to CNN. This, in turn, is prohibiting some Alabama women from being able to have children. Well, the current Alabama Senator, Tommy Tuberville, was recently asked if he supports the court's decision. Alex Wong / Getty Images An MSNBC clip of Tuberville attempting to answer the question has now gone viral because he seemingly has no clue what IVF even is. Here's the full clip: I asked Alabama Sen Tommy Tuberville for his response to the AL Supreme Court's ruling that has resulted in clinics there pausing IVF treatments. TT: We need to have more kids...And I thought this was the right thing to do.DB: But IVF is used to have more children...WATCH: pic.twitter.com/KERQzKdRcb Dasha Burns (@DashaBurns) February 23, 2024 MSNBC / @DashaBurns "Do you have a reaction to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, the fact that embryos are children?" an MSNBC reporter asked, to which the senator responded: "Yeah, I was all for it, we need to have more kids." "IVF is used to have more children," the journalist clarified. "And right now IVF services are paused at some of the clinics in Alabama. Aren't you concerned that this could impact people who are trying to have kids?" After a long pause, Tuberville said: "Well...that's for another conversation." But wait, there's more. "Senator, what do you say to the women right now in Alabama who no longer have access to IVF and will not as a result of this ruling? What do you say to them?" another reporter asked. "Well...that's a hard one, it really is. Really hard. 'Cause, again, you want people to have that opportunity. That's what I was telling her, we need more kids." So, he's "all for" a ruling that's taking away IVF options from women, while also saying women need to have more kids? "I've seen frozen embryos that were smarter than Tommy Tuberville," one user wrote in response to the clip. Ive seen frozen embryos that were smarter than Tommy Tuberville. Jo (@JoJoFromJerz) February 23, 2024 @JoJoFromJerz "Tommy Tuberville is a sitting Senator who doesn't know what IVF is, and did not at all understand the question that was being asked," user @TheSWPrincess wrote. "This man shouldn't be making reproductive decisions for ANYONE. He's completely ignorant and doesn't have the knowledge." #FloridaMan Tommy Tuberville is a sitting Senator who doesn't know what IVF is, and did not at all understand the question that was being asked.This man shouldn't be making reproductive decisions for ANYONE. He's completely ignorant and doesn't have the knowledge. pic.twitter.com/7tKjyfZZeh Leia (@TheSWPrincess) February 22, 2024 MSNBC / @TheSWPrincess Yikes. What do you think about Alabama's ruling on IVF? Let us know in the comments below. Governor Spencer Cox has officially designated 2024 as the No-Kill Shelter Year in Utah. This declaration underscores Utahs unwavering commitment to achieving the ambitious goal of becoming the premier no-kill state in the west and the largest in the nation. Accordingly, the gathering of dogs and animal rights supporters filled the Hall of Governors to commemorate this momentous occasion. Governor Cox declares Utah will become no-kill state in 2024, animal advocates celebrate victory After the no-kill declaration from Utahs Governor on Tuesday, Feb. 27, the city will become the first no-kill state in the western region, as ABC 4 reports. Additionally, it will be the largest no-kill state across the United States. Remarkably, 46 out of 58 shelters in Utah have already attained the coveted no-kill status. Best Friends Animal Society enthusiastically praises this historic initiative in its home state. It is a prominent national animal welfare organization dedicated to eradicating the euthanasia of cats and dogs in American shelters by 2025. Julie Castle, CEO of Best Friends Animal Society, stated, Utah is on the cusp of achieving no-kill, and Governor Coxs declaration gives the movement an extra push to achieve this momentous accomplishment in 2024. Continuing, she added, Forty years ago, Best Friends made Utah its home state with the Best Friends Animal Society Sanctuary in Kanab. Now, in 2024, it just makes sense for no-kill to be on the horizon for the Beehive State. In addition, according to Deseret News, Castle gestured toward a rescued dog named Sunny before speaking, There is a lot of stuff in this world that does not bring peace. I can tell you that one thing that brings you peace is saving that life right there. Subsequently, Sunny joined Castle at the podium. This dog, Sunny, is here because we believe that we can do this, she noted. The concept of no-kill entails saving each dogs and cats life in a shelter. Moreover, rather than solely pursuing a no-kill label, the objective is for every shelter to prioritize pet lifesaving and transparency unequivocally. The post Utah To Become Largest No-Kill State in US appeared first on DogTime. Parmesan cheese is one of the most delicious and versatile ingredients in a cooking arsenal, which makes all of the labeling conventions around cheese that much more frustrating. Parmesan isn't just for pasta or adding a cheesy taste, it's a multi-purpose source of salt and umami flavors that can elevate anything from sauces and soups to roasted vegetables. But, in order to use it well, you have to know what kinds of flavors and textures you're getting when you buy it. Unfortunately, in the U.S., the quality of parmesan can vary wildly from one brand to another, and a lot depends on where it's produced. It's not that Italian parmesan is inherently better than parmesan produced in the United States, but the two vary enough in their characteristics that you should really understand the difference. They fill the same general roles in cooking and they can definitely be subbed for each other most of the time, but everything from the price to the tasting notes to the texture can be quite different if the parmesan you buy is from Italy. The original form of the cheese that American parmesan is based on is usually more complex, sharp, and gritty in texture. Most of those differences stem from the history and traditions of the cheese in Italy along with the environment it comes from and the regulatory environments in both countries, which heavily influence how parmesan is produced. Read more: 13 Unexpected Ingredients To Elevate Lasagna What Is Italian Parmesan? countryside of Parma Italy - Seanshot/Getty Images The Italian version of parmesan won't be labeled as such; it will be called Parmigiano-Reggiano. The name comes from Parma, a city in the Northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. The history of cheesemaking in Parma dates back to the Roman Empire, with evidence of its modern form going all the way back to written records from 1200, according to the Parmigiano-Reggiano Consortium. It was produced by monks using salt from the local mines, and the large, dry wheels of cheese were made to be preserved for a long time. Records even indicate that it was being used to flavor pasta like gnocchi and ravioli back then, much like today. Parmigiano-Reggiano is a DOP food the Italian label for "Protected Designation of Origin," which means that the way it's produced is strictly regulated to protect its heritage, and cheese not produced according to code cannot legally use the name. It can only be made in the Italian regions of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Mantua, or Bologna and can only use three ingredients: rennet, salt, and raw milk. The milk used in Parmigiano-Reggiano must be from local cows that are fed on local forage, and it's the unique microbiology of the native plants that the cows eat that is supposed to give the cheese its distinctly complex flavor. Italian parmesan cannot contain any preservatives or artificial ingredients and must be aged for a minimum of 12 months before it's sold, with some versions aged 40 months or more. What Is American Parmesan? grated parmesan cheese - Veni Vidi...shoot/Getty Images The American version of parmesan is far less regulated than the cheeses from Italy, but you still can't just call anything parmesan. U.S. regulations say that anything called parmesan must be made from cow's milk, have a hard, brittle texture, and be aged for at least 10 months. American parmesan is one of the only cheeses outside of Italy that uses the name. European courts ruled that the name "parmesan," was legally covered by the protections for Parmigiano-Reggiano, while American courts have ruled that only the original Italian name was legally protected. This has led to a lot of confusion between the two labels for U.S. consumers. Because of the less strict regulations, American parmesan varies a lot more. Some brands that were started by Italian immigrants, like Grande, go above and beyond to copy the Italian style, while others are much looser with the quality of ingredients or are more experimental with flavors. The milk and cows can come from anywhere, and American producers are free to bleach their milk or use additives like calcium chloride and artificial coloring. And, pre-grated parmesan will have plant cellulose added to prevent clumping, which can sometimes comprise up to 20% of the bottle. None of this means that American parmesan is "fake" cheese, as many domestic versions are quite good, but it makes it harder to determine the quality and characteristics of what you are getting. Both American And Italian Parmesan Are Hard, Crumbly Cheeses crumbled parmesan cheese with knife - Mediterranean/Getty Images The one area where there is the most overlap between American and Italian parmesan is in the texture. More than anything, the hard, grateable nature of Parmigiano-Reggiano is what American regulations require and what many manufacturers are trying to replicate. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines parmesan as: "Characterized by a granular texture and a hard and brittle rind." Grated over a plate of pasta, you won't notice much difference in the two versions with it comes to texture. However, there is one area where they differ in texture, which is especially apparent when the cheese is eaten by itself. Parmigiano-Reggiano usually has more distinct crystal structures in it, which adds a pleasingly crunchy bite that many American versions lack. Those crunchy pieces are sometimes mistaken for salt crystals but are actually a result of the longer aging process of the Italian-made cheese. The longer cheese sits, the more the bonds that hold certain amino acids in place (in this case tyrosine) break down. These loose bits then combine and restructure into the crystals studded throughout Parmigiano-Reggiano. That's just one of the advantages of a cheese that can be aged for years. Italian Parmesan Has A Complex, Aged Taste hand on wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano - David Silverman/Getty Images The unique local production of Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano, along with the longer aging process, produces a much stronger taste with a lot of different flavor notes compared to the American-made styles. As cheeses age, they lose moisture, which concentrates flavor. The breakdown of lactose creates new acids with new tastes. The defining flavor of Parmigiano-Reggiano is its mix of fruity and nutty notes with a strong, savory umami sensation. But, Parmigiano-Reggiano can develop even more flavors depending on its age category. It is classified into four groups: 12-18 months, 22-24 months, 30-36 months, and 40-plus months. The 24-month range is the most common and recognizable; beyond that, Parmigiano-Reggiano will start to develop hints of spices and even meaty, beefy undertones. American parmesan normally has more of a straightforward salty cheese flavor that's closer to the least-aged 12 to 18-month varieties. That doesn't mean you can't prefer the flavor of younger parmesan, especially if you like a more milky, dairy-flavored cheese. There are also American versions that get closer to the Italian styles with a longer aging process. American parmesan's more one-note salty taste does make it less distinct, however, and its flavor is sometimes hard to distinguish from other aged cheeses like cheddar. American Parmesan Is Made With Pasteurized Milk pasteurizing milk in vat - Lysenko Andrii/Shutterstock While the differences in taste and texture between American and Italian parmesan come from a variety of factors, one of the biggest is how the primary ingredient, milk, is handled. Parmigiano-Reggiano must be made with raw milk, while U.S. parmesan is made with pasteurized milk. Rules about consuming raw milk are much stricter in the U.S. because the FDA considers the bacteria in unpasteurized milk unsafe. In fact, it's illegal to sell many raw milk cheeses in the U.S., even if it's produced in countries where it's legal to make. The only raw milk cheeses that can be sold in America are ones that have been aged for 60 days or more before being sold. This excludes many traditional soft cheeses from Europe but thankfully does allow the import of Parmigiano-Reggiano and other hard cheeses, like Gruyere, where long aging is standard anyway. Why does this matter for American parmesan? Well, pasteurization involves heating milk to 145 degrees Fahrenheit or higher to kill pathogens like listeria. However, this also kills lots of "good" bacteria that bring both flavor and potential health benefits. Raw milk is noticeably more flavorful than pasteurized milk, and this is multiplied in the concentrated form of cheese. Killing bacteria means pasteurized milk can lose that sense of place that you get from local ingredients, which is so valued by artisan cheesemakers and is what makes Parmigiano-Reggiano such a beloved product. Italian Parmesan Is Good For Dishes Where Cheese Is The Star cacio e pepe - Olga Larionova/Shutterstock While cheese lovers may prefer the deeper taste of aged Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano, the reality is that both styles have their uses. The subtle, complex notes of the Italian cheese are delicious, but they may get lost if you are using it in dishes where it's just in a supporting role. Parmigiano-Reggiano is a great cheese for snacking and eating straight, like on a charcuterie board, where its powerful flavor will delight your taste buds, and its umami and nutty notes will pair well with the meats. It's also essential to making a great cacio e pepe, where grated parmesan is the main flavor, and inferior versions will produce something far less magical. The same thing goes for a classic risotto, where the depth of Parmigiano-Reggiano is the key to an intensely flavorful final product. American parmesan is good for places where you just need to add some salty, rich notes. If you want to sprinkle some grated parmesan over a tomato-sauce pasta dish, American versions work well, whereas the flavors of Parmigiano-Reggiano can be lost to the acidic sauce. If you are making a soup and want to add a little something extra at the end, or if your salad dressing needs a savory punch-up, American parmesan is a good option there too. Like any food, it will come down to personal preference. Wherever American parm works for you is a great spot to use it. Read the original article on Tasting Table. A child was spotted riding in the trunk of a moving car, and Georgia police say his mother was behind the wheel. The 36-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday, Feb. 27, on a reckless conduct charge after someone took video of her 12-year-old son sitting in the trunk as she drove, Gwinnett County police said. She was also charged with a seat belt violation, according to authorities. The short video showed the boys head peeking from the trunk, which also contained a large white object. JUST IN: Gwinnett County Police have arrested Diana Shaffer after this video shows a child (12) sitting in the trunk while the car went down the road. Police say the mom wanted the child to help hold the object in place @FOX5Atlanta pic.twitter.com/jYrD6N2akS Eric Perry (@Ericperrytv) February 28, 2024 Police said someone reported the clip on Feb. 25 after it circulated online, prompting an investigation. Using license plate readers, officers tracked the cars owner to a home in unincorporated Duluth, authorities said. The item in the trunk was a baby bassinet recently purchased through an online marketplace advertisement, and the child was sitting in the trunk to help hold the item in place, police said. The boys mother was taken to jail and released after posting a $2,600 bond, online records show. Her child was temporarily placed with a family member, police said. Authorities didnt release additional details. Duluth is about 30 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. 5-year-old seen waxing naked women in online photos, Tennessee cops say. Mom charged Bonnie and Clyde wannabes caught in car with dog, cat and chickens, SC cops say Florida school staff step in as dad comes drunk out of his mind to get kids, cops say DENVER (KDVR) If you are looking for strange happenings or a creepy story to tell around the campfire, Colorado is home to many fascinating tales that some locals swear to be true. Others, however, call them urban myths. Whether or not you believe them, the remnants of these myths remain in the Centennial State. In Chaffee County, theres a tiny town near Salida called Maysville. Its home to the over-100-year-old yellow house. If you do drive by, be sure to honk. What the beep!? Colorados yellow honk house phenomenon As the story goes, the original owner, Harry Miller, would sit in the chair and wave at people as they drove by. The drivers would wave back and eventually honk. Joe became the owner of the house in 2016 and was a fan of the story. He has since carried on its legacy. People honk out of good luck, especially the drivers who are about to head up to the nearby Monarch Pass. Good juju! Joe said. No honks for [bad luck]. On average, the owner counted 100 beeps a day. Tommyknockers were a Cornish miners legend that was brought to Colorado. They were supposedly responsible for the strange noises in underground mines. These noises also warned miners of impending danger. The legend has stayed in Colorado to this day, with a local mining town coining a brewery after it. Tommyknocker Brewery and Pub serves locals and tourists in Idaho Springs. Riverdale Road is located in Adams County and is an 11-mile stretch of road from Thornton to Brighton. Some people say that Riverdale Road is one of the most haunted roads in the United States, while others just call it an urban myth. Is this Colorado road haunted? Either way, Coloradans drive through this road every day. The Denver Public Library says there have been stories passed down throughout the years, like the ghost jogger who taps on the sides of passing cars, a phantom Camaro with one headlight and a hitchhiker in white who disappears. But one of the most popular stories has to do with the fire at the David Wolpert House. As legend has it, a man set his home on fire with his family inside. The family died, and the man was never seen again, according to the Denver Public Library. On further research, the library couldnt find any reports of fatalities when the house burnt down, but a mysterious fire does make for a good ghost story. The legend dates back to the early 1900s when Theodore Fodor Glava died of the flu epidemic after he came to Colorado from Transylvania. But the rumors of Glava being a vampire started after his demise when a tree grew in the middle of his gravesite in the northwest corner of the Lafayette Municipal Cemetery. Local legend has it that the tree grew from a spike that was hammered into Glavas heart. New horror movie exhibit to be built at Stanley Hotel in Estes Park His gravesite has been decorated with trinkets from time to time. Whats a Colorado ghost story without the mention of The Stanley Hotel? This may be Colorados most popular ghost story, as its one of the most haunted hotels in the nation. The hotel in Estes Park is notorious for inspiring The Shining, but theres more to this ghost story than a chilling horror novel by Stephen King. From invisible piano playing at the concert hall to fourth-floor ghost sightings, the hotel has received numerous reports of ghost stories throughout the years. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. A Merced County man accused of groping two female victims feet at a Lake Tahoe-area resort last year pleaded guilty Monday to two burglary charges, according to the Douglas County District Attorneys Office in Nevada. Mark Anthony Gonzales broke into two rooms last July on the ground floor of a Stateline, Nevada, resort in the 180 block of Elks Point Road, the Douglas County Sheriffs Office said. Each female guest was asleep and reported waking up to find Gonzales touching their feet, according to The Sacramento Bees previous reporting. Gonzales then left the rooms through an exterior sliding screen door. He was arrested at his Atwater home and was also accused of other crimes such as stealing womens shoes, trespassing and lewd acts, according to Bee reporting. The incident sparked the attention of national media at the time, with stories appearing in major news outlets including NBC News. Sentencing is scheduled for April 15 at the Ninth Judicial District Court in Nevada. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) received a lot of attention from a substantial price increase on the NYSE over the last few months. The recent jump in the share price has meant that the company is trading at close to its 52-week high. As a large-cap stock with high coverage by analysts, you could assume any recent changes in the companys outlook is already priced into the stock. However, could the stock still be trading at a relatively cheap price? Lets examine Chipotle Mexican Grills valuation and outlook in more detail to determine if theres still a bargain opportunity. See our latest analysis for Chipotle Mexican Grill Is Chipotle Mexican Grill Still Cheap? Chipotle Mexican Grill is currently expensive based on our price multiple model, where we look at the company's price-to-earnings ratio in comparison to the industry average. In this instance, weve used the price-to-earnings (PE) ratio given that there is not enough information to reliably forecast the stocks cash flows. We find that Chipotle Mexican Grills ratio of 59.03x is above its peer average of 20.05x, which suggests the stock is trading at a higher price compared to the Hospitality industry. If you like the stock, you may want to keep an eye out for a potential price decline in the future. Given that Chipotle Mexican Grills share is fairly volatile (i.e. its price movements are magnified relative to the rest of the market) this could mean the price can sink lower, giving us another chance to buy in the future. This is based on its high beta, which is a good indicator for share price volatility. Can we expect growth from Chipotle Mexican Grill? Investors looking for growth in their portfolio may want to consider the prospects of a company before buying its shares. Although value investors would argue that its the intrinsic value relative to the price that matter the most, a more compelling investment thesis would be high growth potential at a cheap price. Chipotle Mexican Grill's earnings over the next few years are expected to increase by 70%, indicating a highly optimistic future ahead. This should lead to more robust cash flows, feeding into a higher share value. Story continues What This Means For You Are you a shareholder? It seems like the market has well and truly priced in CMGs positive outlook, with shares trading above industry price multiples. At this current price, shareholders may be asking a different question should I sell? If you believe CMG should trade below its current price, selling high and buying it back up again when its price falls towards the industry PE ratio can be profitable. But before you make this decision, take a look at whether its fundamentals have changed. Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping an eye on CMG for a while, now may not be the best time to enter into the stock. The price has surpassed its industry peers, which means it is likely that there is no more upside from mispricing. However, the positive outlook is encouraging for CMG, which means its worth diving deeper into other factors in order to take advantage of the next price drop. Keep in mind, when it comes to analysing a stock it's worth noting the risks involved. For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign that you should run your eye over to get a better picture of Chipotle Mexican Grill. If you are no longer interested in Chipotle Mexican Grill, you can use our free platform to see our list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. 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. Athens-Clarke police Chief Jerry Saulters spoke to the media alongside Mayor Kelly Girtz on community safety initiatives and ACCs status related to immigration on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. A news conference held Wednesday for Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz to announce more than $500,000 in local security enhancements for the city was interrupted by a loud protest alleging officials created nearly five years ago what some consider a sanctuary city. Conducted in the training room at the Athens-Clarke police headquarters on Lexington Road, numerous media outlets gathered for the announcement that arrives in the wake of the killing an Athens student on Feb. 22. Also there were a group of protesters carrying signs and loudly shouting at Girtz, often drowning out the mayor. At the center of the protest was a resolution signed by Girtz in August 2019 designed to denounce white supremacy, but its wording also embraced undocumented immigrants living in the city. Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz holds press conference on community safety initiatives and ACCs status related to immigration. Posted by Athens Banner-Herald & OnlineAthens.com on Wednesday, February 28, 2024 The citys announcement of $525,000 in more security falls on the heels of University of Georgia officials announcing Tuesday that they would spend $7.3 million in security enhancements for the campus. This renewed focus on security in Athens stems from the slaying of Laken Hope Riley, a 22-year-old student at Augusta University's College of Nursing campus in Athens who was killed while jogging at UGA's intramural fields off College Station Road. An undocumented Venezuelan immigrant living in Athens was charged with her murder. Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, who resided on South Milledge Avenue, remains in jail without bond. Ibarras brother, also undocumented and living in Athens, was later charged with having a fake green card and is now in federal custody. Security enhancements noted amid sanctuary city taunts Girtz announced several enhancements including the expedited completion of a real time crime center and a mobile surveillance trailer with a price tag of $90,000 that can travel to large gatherings. All-terrain vehicles will be acquired for use on the expanding trail network and additional security cameras will be placed in high traffic and high crime areas, according to Girtz. These expenditures are expected to be discussed Tuesday at the next commission meeting. When Girtz began speaking about the sanctuary city issue, he was repeatedly interrupted by a man shouting liar, echoed behind him by a woman shouting liar. The man, who told the Athens Banner-Herald he lives in Athens but is originally from Florida, and described himself as a church-going father, called on Girtz to resign for allowing the slaying of Riley to happen in Athens. He declined to provide his name, but said politically he is an independent who supports Donald Trump. Protesters hold up signs and heckle while Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz spoke to the media alongside police Chief Jerry Saulters on community safety initiatives on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. A news reporter from Atlanta asked Girtz a question stemming from the protest. He noted that the status of Athens being a sanctuary city could be debated due to the resolution, but there were some undocumented immigrants living in the complex where the suspect lived. As a result, Girtz was asked if he felt city leaders owed the Riley family an apology for what happened. We are deeply sorry for this tragedy, Girtz replied. The responsibility for this crime rests solely on the perpetrator. Girtz did not respond to protestors' questions on whether the 2019 resolution would be rescinded. The resolution reads: We unflinchingly defend the human rights of all people, including citizens, noncitizens, and those without documentation, and recognize that we cannot be witness to the violation of constitutional rights given to all people. This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Athens mayor announces new security for city while protesters shout President Joe Bidens expected hard-right turn on immigration is no magic wand to control the flood of migrants who continue to inundate ports of entry in Arizona unless hes ready to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border. Biden has said as much, even as he is considering signing an executive order that would prevent those crossing illegally from seeking asylum. Talk of this executive action comes on the heels of a failed bipartisan deal that would have closed the border when crossers reach 8,500 in a given day. What would Biden's executive order entail? Whatever Biden does on his own wont work without enormous investment and political maneuvering on both sides of the southern border. President Joe Biden walks with U.S. Border Patrol agents along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso Texas, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. Lets assume Biden does go nuclear and chooses to deport everyone caught at the border. How will he do that with existing resources? Where will he deport the foreigners coming from all over? Will he try to dump them all on Mexican soil, like former President Donald Trump did? Who will stop the migrants from trying again and again to cross illegally and overwhelm the Border Patrol? Well know details soon enough. GOP claims to want border security. But what Republicans really want is to help Trump. Border Patrol will need sustained resources What we do know already is that massive migration isnt something anyone can solve by pushing a magic button. Gone are the days when most migrants the Border Patrol encountered were single men from Mexico or Central America looking for work. In Arizonas Tucson sector alone, nearly 72,000 people in families were arrested from Oct. 1 to Dec. 9 more than nine times as many as the same period the year before. They are coming from all over the world, from countries like Senegal, Guinea and India, and they are seeking asylum. Yet the White House wont get the extra 1,300 Border Patrol agents it wanted to join the 20,205 funded in the current budget not to mention the 1,600 additional asylum officers, money for additional detention beds, and 1,470 lawyers and support staff included in the failed border deal. The legislation also included an array of other funding required to carry out border security and mass deportations. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Border Patrol is not set up to interview and detain thousands of families. Historically, agents were simply the ones who caught people entering illegally, Amanda Aguirre, president and CEO of the Regional Center for Border Health, told us recently. Aguirres group is one of the few to step up to help unite asylum seekers with their family or sponsors in the United States, instead of just letting them out on the streets. Where would a tougher Biden send migrants? Biden might be counting on Border Patrol expertise to catch people at the border and quickly turn them away. But where would agents send them back to? People line up against a border wall as they wait to apply for asylum after crossing the border from Mexico on July 11, 2023, near Yuma. Returning all border crossers to Mexico would require cooperation of the Mexican government, which might agree to go along with the right incentives from America. But that would result in other challenges for both countries. Migrants risking their lives to reach America arent going to give up easily unless theyre returned to their home countries. If theyre left near the border, theyll just keep trying until they make it across or, sadly, die in the process, which is a human tragedy. Whats the solution then? 'We don't have the money.' Close the border. We don't care for people already here. Asylum is an ongoing, worldwide problem Any substantive progress requires sensible people looking at migration as a worldwide problem that landed at our southern border. Its not going to go away just because a few politicians say it should. Unfortunately, any immigration action now amid a high-stakes presidential election will be politically motivated. Elvia Diaz Bidens right turn on immigration is particularly hurtful for voters who sent him to the White House, in part, because he promised humane migration and legalization for millions of those already here. The president not only has turned his back on migrants but also appears ready to take a page out of Trumps playbook: Arrest, cage, deport and repeat. Elvia Diaz is editorial page editor for The Arizona Republic and azcentral, where this column first published. Reach her at elvia.diaz@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @elviadiaz1 You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Biden's Trump-style, get-tough immigration order won't fix US border Though always publicly supportive of her husband, former first lady Melania Trump had several spats behind the scenes at the White House with former President Donald Trump, according to a new book released Tuesday. Author Kate Rogers, in "American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden," describes a slate of the couple's conflicts, centering on the former president's attempts to tamp down his wife's independence and her efforts to challenge that. In one moment in the early days of Donald Trump's presidency, as detailed by People, Melania Trump attempted to redecorate the White House residence only for the then-president to replace her choices with his preferences. In another July 2018 instance on Air Force One, the former president became "incensed" upon finding his wife watching her preferred CNN, over Fox News. As a result, he ordered all TVs on the aircraft and in their hotel suites be turned to the conservative network moving forward. Rogers also wrote of the times when Melania Trump made efforts to separate her messaging from that of her husband, including when, in 2017, Donald Trump said there "were very fine people, on both sides" of the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Melania Trump, however, "quickly discouraged violence," Rogers points out, noting the then-first lady tweeted, Our country encourages freedom of speech, but lets communicate w/o hate in our hearts. No good comes from violence." Her tweets were small gestures that amounted to little more than digital ephemera, Rogers writes. Still, compared with her husbands bridge burners, Melanias missives established her as a rare figure in the Trump administration who seemed more interested in calming a cultural divide than widening it. Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, has been criticised by his own MPs for the remarks - REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen Germany was accused of a flagrant abuse of intelligence after revealing that British soldiers are supporting Ukrainian forces launching long-range Storm Shadow missiles. Olaf Scholz said on Monday that he would not deliver the Taurus, Berlins equivalent of the Storm Shadow, as it would require soldiers assisting on the ground, citing the UK and French approach with their own systems. Mr Scholz argued that following the UK would make Germany a participant in the war. The comments were seen as endangering British military and diplomatic personnel on the ground. Tobias Ellwood, the former chairman of the Commons defence committee, said: This is a flagrant abuse of intelligence deliberately designed to distract from Germanys reluctance to arm Ukraine with its own long-range missile system. This will no doubt be used by Russia to racket up the escalator ladder. Mr Scholz was also criticised by German opposition MPs. The chancellors statement regarding France and Britains alleged involvement in operating long-range cruise missiles used in Ukraine is completely irresponsible, Norbert Rottgen, a senior MP from Angela Merkels former ruling party, the CDU. Mr Scholz is under mounting pressure to deliver the long-range missile to disrupt Russias supply lines and prevent Moscow taking further territory. He said on Monday that German soldiers could not follow their British and French peers in the way of target control and accompanying target control. The Storm Shadow is co-produced by the UK and France. German soldiers can at no point and in no place be linked with the targets that this system [the Taurus] reaches. Not even in Germany, Mr Scholz said. Britain is known to provide intelligence on Russian targets but it is unclear what level of support is given to Ukrainian troops firing its missiles on the ground. On Tuesday, the UK Government announced it had a small number of soldiers deployed inside Ukraine, specifying only that some were involved in medical training. Mr Scholzs speculation on the role played by British troops in Ukraine has heightened concern for the safety of diplomats and other personnel stationed in the country, defence sources told The Telegraph. It has also increased the threat of potential Russian overseas intelligence operations on British soil, the sources added. In response to Mr Scholz, the Ministry of Defence simply referred queries to Kyiv on Tuesday. Ukraines use of Storm Shadow and its targeting processes are the business of the armed forces of Ukraine, a spokesman told The Telegraph. The UK, along with other allies, is providing a range of equipment to Ukraine to help it counter Russias illegal and unprovoked aggression. Taurus missiles are capable of deeper strikes and contain more sophisticated bunker-busting technologies than the British Storm Shadow and French Scalp cruise missiles delivered last year. The German missile, which has a range of 310 miles, could easily strike politically sensitive targets, such as Moscow or the Kerch bridge linking Russia with occupied Crimea. Justin Crump, chief executive of Sibylline, an intelligence consultancy, said: British support to Ukraine is hardly news to Moscow given repeated leaks, but this has previously been veiled in ambiguity itself drawing on a trick from Russias own playbook. A Russian warship is damaged by a Ukrainian attack on a Black Sea port using long-range cruise missiles - UNPIXS [Mr] Scholz though has more clearly pierced this veil. His assertion is a gift to Russian propagandists, already forming a key part of Russias effort to undermine Nato cohesion and support for Kyiv during this critical period ahead of US and UK elections. More immediately, it will drive Russia to redouble efforts to target foreign forces present in Ukraine and make inflated claims of losses. Mr Scholz has a deep mistrust that Ukraine would ignore his orders not to strike those targets, analysts said. It has become very clear that the reason why he is not in favour of delivering Taurus is because he fundamentally does not trust the Ukrainians to use those missiles in a way that [does] not go against what he perceives as Germanys interests, Fabian Hoffman, a doctoral research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project, said. [Mr] Scholz is absolutely frightened that any of these Taurus missiles could be used in an attack against a politically sensitive target, either in Ukraine or Russia. Simply the theoretical ability to strike targets as far as Moscow with German weapons systems creates a blockage in the chancellors head a massive fear of escalation potential and the consequences this could have for Germany. Experts say that Germany could overcome its fears of escalatory strikes by pre-programming donated Taurus missiles to prevent such attacks. The US is known to have installed geo-blocking software on its Himars rocket launchers sent to Ukraine, preventing Kyivs forces from firing into Russian soil with the weapons system. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Although the sun shone brightly on an interfaith prayer circle outside the Arizona Capitol, Senate Bill 1070 cast a long shadow. Alfonso Vasquez was among a little over 30 people who gathered to decry legislation they claim unjustly targets immigrants. SB 1070 struck fear among immigrants when then-Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law in April 2010. Vasquez recalls being a high schooler and witnessing many immigrants he knew forced to leave Arizona due to SB 1070. As an advocate who works with Neighborhood Ministries, Vasquez highlighted that many individuals in his central Phoenix community are unsettled by the recent passage of two bills in this session targeting undocumented immigrants. An interfaith gathering on Feb. 27, 2024 is seen outside the Arizona Capitol in a prayer circle in response to legislation aimed at unauthorized immigration. SB 1070 made unauthorized immigration and the failure to carry immigrant documentation criminal offenses in the state, granting police the authority to detain anyone suspected of being undocumented. Presently, Senate Bill 1231 and House bills 2821 and 2748 propose criminalizing the entry of undocumented immigrants outside lawful ports of entry at the southern Arizona border, empowering local judges to adjudicate immigration cases. "(This is) just a reminder of 'OK, our community is under attack,'" said Vasquez, who does community outreach for the Phoenix-based Christian advocacy group Neighborhood Ministries. "The trauma of SB 1070 is still present in our community. So, anything that is connected to SB 1070 is just a reminder of pain and suffering in those early days." A graduate of Carl T. Hayden Community High School, 32-year-old Vasquez immigrated from Guanajuato, Mexico, to the U.S. as a young child in 1996. He and his wife are Dreamers, benefiting from temporary protection from deportation and the ability to legally work in the U.S. through former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) act. Those in attendance held handmade signs reading, "BELOVED COMMUNITY SI! HCR 2060 NO!" and "DIGNITY FOR ALL." In a corner of the prayer circle, Muslim missionary Ahmad Salman prayed while a flock of migrating birds flew across the front of the Capitol, occasionally perching atop the building. "We live in a country that is built upon the shoulders of migrants who came and built this nation. Each one of us is a testament of the diversity, peace, justice and liberty that we enjoy," he said. "Our faith requires us to accept the weak, the oppressed, the tired and the hungry to build an even better nation than before." Alicia Contreras, executive director of the Valley-based grassroots organization Corazon Arizona, highlighted the confluence of different faiths to call out the bills as racist and anti-immigrant. The 40-year-old Contreras remembers a similar prayer gathering in April 2010 at the Capitol. "We were born out of the baptizing (by fire) ... out of the flames of (former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe) Arpaio and anti-immigrant bills and SB 1070," she said. "I have so much hope, and I know that we're not, that Arizonans do not want to go back to what happened in 2010." This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Interfaith group decries 'anti-immigrant' bills at Arizona Capitol A 56-year-old Cincinnati police officer used a law enforcement database to get a 19-year-old womans phone number, Ohio officials say. Timothy Lutz, a Cincinnati police officer, used a database known as the Regional Crime Information Center (RCIC) to find the phone number and contact the woman in December, according to prosecutors and court records. The Hamilton County Prosecutors Office told McClatchy News in an email that it could not share what the message contained. The officer was charged with two felony counts of unauthorized use of law enforcement automated data systems, according to court records. Attorney information for Lutz was not listed. The Cincinnati Police Department said the criminal charges are a result of an internal investigation. I take the conduct of our members very seriously and require all CPD members to adhere to the highest standards of our policies, procedures, and local, state, and federal laws, Cincinnati Police Chief Teresa Theetge said in a statement. Lutz was suspended without pay, police said. 19-year-old rapes 14-year-old and posts nude photos on social media, Indiana cops say Woman swindles thousands by promising clothing resellers a reality TV show, cops say Registered sex offender molests two children sleeping at his home, Indiana cops say Wildland Team members depart to operate amid the spread of fire in this picture obtained by Reuters on February 27, 2024. Flower Mound Texas Fire Department/via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. Editor's Note: This page is a summary of news on the Texas Panhandle wildfires for Wednesday, Feb. 28. For the latest news on the blaze, view our live updates file for Thursday, Feb. 29. The second-largest wildfire in Texas history raged across the state's panhandle along with several other major blazes Wednesday, prompting evacuations, destroying homes and triggering a temporary shutdown of the nation's primary nuclear weapons facility. An 83-year-old grandmother from the small town of Stinnett was the lone confirmed fatality. However, authorities have yet to make a thorough search for victims and warned the damage to some communities is extensive. The fires began Monday but spread quickly the following day as strong winds, dry conditions and record-setting unseasonably high temperatures fueled rapid growth. By Wednesday, the largest blaze, the Smokehouse Creek Fire, stretched across 850,000 acres about 1,300 square miles through several counties and into neighboring Oklahoma, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The Smokehouse Creek Fire, which is slightly bigger than the state of Rhode Island, is among the largest wildfires the state has ever seen, only behind the 2006 Amarillo East Complex fires that claimed 12 lives and burned more than 900,000 acres. To the south, the Windy Deuce Fire burned 142,000 acres of land, and 30% of the fire has been contained as of Wednesday evening, according to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group. Another blaze, the Grape Vine Creek Fire, northeast of Amarillo, Texas, burned 30,000 acres and was 60% contained. Authorities have not said what might have caused the fires that ripped through sparsely populated counties set amid vast, high plains. Hemphill County Emergency Management Coordinator Bill Kendall said about 40 homes were burned around the perimeter of Canadian, a rural town northeast of Amarillo, Texas, but no buildings were lost inside the community. Kendell said the charred terrain looked like a moonscape." He also said he saw hundreds of cattle just dead, laying in the fields. Tresea Rankin filmed her home burning in Canadian. Thirty-eight years of memories, thats what you were thinking, Rankin said. Two of my kids were married there ... But you know, its OK, the memories wont go away. White House press secretary Karen Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that President Joe Biden is receiving regular updates on the fires. "We are grateful for the brave firefighters and first responders who are working to protect people and save lives," Jean-Pierre said. "And we urge everyone in the affected area to remain vigilant and heed the warnings of local officials, especially those who have been ordered to evacuate." The administration remains in contact with state and local officials and stands ready to provide further support as needed, she said. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued two fire management assistance grants to Texas, and one to Oklahoma. The intense blazes in Texas were among several wild weather events happening across the country, including tornadoes in Illinois and a swath of record-high temperatures in the eastern half of the nation. Temperatures dropped in the region on Wednesday and a light mix of rain and snow was expected overnight, the National Weather Service said. Developments: The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has required the City of Fritch's public water system to notify all customers to boil their water before using it because of a "loss in electricity that caused reduced distribution system pressure," according to a post on Facebook by the city. The wildfires have left thousands of people without power. According to a database maintained by USA TODAY, more than 18,000 utility customers in Texas were without power Wednesday afternoon. Several main roads and highways in the Texas Panhandle, which were blocked off Tuesday as the wildfires were quickly expanding, remain closed. Sid Miller, commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, said in a statement that he's "deeply concerned" about the wildfires' impact on the state's agricultural industry. "We stand in solidarity with our farmers and ranchers facing loss and destruction," Miller said. "Our thoughts are with them during this challenging time, and we're committed to supporting their recovery efforts every step of the way." One death confirmed in Texas fires Authorities confirmed one death amid a dayslong blaze that burned through the panhandle. The woman who died was identified by family members as Joyce Blankenship, a former substitute teacher. Her grandson, Lee Quesada, said he had posted in a community forum asking if anyone could try to locate her. Quesada said deputies told his uncle on Wednesday they had found Blankenships remains in her burned home. Quesada said shed surprise him at times with funny stories "about her more ornery days." "Just talking to her was a joy," he said, adding that "Joy" was a nickname of hers. 'Some homes were completely lost' Hutchinson County Emergency Management spokesperson Deidra Thomas answered questions from residents during a Facebook livestream on Wednesday and said several homes in Fritch, a small city some 35 miles north of Amarillo, have been completely destroyed and the area remains unsafe. "I don't think a lot of folks that live in the Fritch area probably are going to be prepared for what they're going to see as they pull into town," she said. "Some homes were completely lost..." Thomas said the main road leading into Fritch was backed up with residents who were not allowed into the city because in many areas, especially across the south, fires were still active. "They can't even see house numbers," she said of first responders, adding that emergency officials are focused on damage control and assessment. "We have not really had a chance to assess all the damage and figure out where to start." Multiple towns, cities remain under evacuation orders Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties to enable critical resources to be deployed to areas impacted by the wildfires. The Smokehouse Creek fire is the largest of the blazes that ripped across the region, but it is among 13 fires that started on Monday. While some residents were told they could return to their homes, several towns remain under mandatory evacuations. The Smokehouse Creek Fire forced evacuations in the cities of Hemphill County, which sits about a hundred miles northeast of Amarillo. Several school districts throughout the country canceled classes for Wednesday. In this photo provided by the Flower Mound, Texas, Fire Department, firefighters respond to a fire in the Texas Panhandle on Feb. 27, 2024. Pantex Plant reopens after temporary shutdown The Windy Deuce fire triggered the Pantex Plant the nation's primary nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility about 17 miles northeast of Amarillo to shut down and evacuate Tuesday evening. The plant said in a post on X that fire barriers were being built "to protect plant facilities." On Wednesday, the facility announced it will reopen for normal operations. The plant performs research and development in high explosives and serves as an interim storage site for plutonium pits removed from dismantled weapons, according to the Department of Energy. The roughly 16,000-acre site, which includes a huge buffer zone, is jointly operated by a contractor and Sandia National Laboratory on land owned by the energy department and Texas Tech University, according to Texas Health and Human Services. Texas wildfires force evacuations, respiratory warnings Mandatory evacuations are in effect in more than a half dozen Texas towns, the weather service said. The city of Canadian had been asked to shelter in place and several agencies were sending crews to help protect structures against the advancing flames, according to one of the coordination center updates. By Tuesday evening, fire crews were able to place a control line around Canadian to try to protect the town, but officials also warned that the fire had shown the ability to send burning embers over long distances. Though the fire was 20 to 25 miles north of Amarillo, Texas, the weather service said, strong north winds are blowing a blanket of smoke into Amarillo, creating hazardous conditions for those with respiratory conditions. Texas has seen record-high temperatures this week and parts of the panhandle are "abnormally dry," according to the National Drought Monitor. Sixty-three counties in the state have burn bans in place, according to the fire service. Wildfire smoke map: Track fires and red flag warnings across the US Large fires also are burning in Nebraska and Oklahoma. Evacuations were in effect in Northwestern Oklahoma, where one Texas wildfire doubled in size and crossed into the state on Tuesday, reported The Oklahoman, part of the USA TODAY Network. Other wildfires also had been reported in the state over the past few days. Contributing: Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas fires updates: Blaze grows into second-largest in state history Dutch drug kingpin Ridouan Taghi received a life sentence on Tuesday over a series of murders committed by his gang that shocked the Netherlands. Prosecutors called the alleged campaign of assassinations a "well-oiled killing machine." Taghi, 46, is the alleged mastermind of the Amsterdam-based group called the "Mocro-maffia" that is thought to be one of the Netherlands' largest cocaine distributors. Security around the trial has been extremely tight with judges and prosecutors asking not to be identified. At least three people directly connected to the mega six-year trial have been killed. "We are sentencing all 17 suspects. Ridouan Taghi gets life in prison," said a judge at the Amsterdam District Court. Taghi was the "undisputed leader" of what the judge called a "murder organization." "He decided who would be killed and he spared no one," said the judge, whose face was not shown on a television feed. "The amount of suffering Taghi caused to the victims and their loved ones is barely imaginable." Sixteen other suspects were handed sentences ranging between life and one year and nine months. Taghi's sentence can be reviewed after 25 years, but it did not mean he was automatically eligible for parole, public prosecutors told AFP. Taghi was not present in the courtroom. A lawyer for another suspect, named Said R., said his client would appeal a life sentence. Taghi allegedly ordered a string of "liquidations" Once the Netherlands' most-wanted fugitive, Taghi was arrested in Dubai in 2019. The BBC reported at the time that Taghi was detained entering Dubai on a fake ID and held under an international arrest warrant on suspicion of multiple murders and drug running. Described by police as one of the world's "most dangerous men," he was suspected of ordering a string of "liquidations", including the murder of lawyer Derk Wiersum. Taghi was believed to have been living in Dubai with his wife and six children, the BBC reported. Despite being held at an ultra-secure prison, prosecutors say he continued pulling the strings, sending secret messages to henchmen on the outside. Heavily-armed police on Tuesday threw a ring of steel around the courthouse nicknamed "The Bunker," on the outskirts of Amsterdam. A security official looks on as a vehicle arrives at Officers armed with automatic rifles and wearing face masks to protect their identities were guarding the court, while drones and a police helicopter circled overhead, AFP correspondents saw. Taghi and 16 other accused did not face charges for the three murders that occurred during their trial. They faced six other counts of murder and attempted murder including ordering some 13 hits carried out between 2015 and 2017, mainly against people suspected of becoming police informants. On Tuesday, Taghi was convicted on five murder counts, including on a man called Hakim Changachi, who was gunned down in Utrecht in 2017 in what prosecutors say was a case of mistaken identity. "Taghi was responsible for the mistake," said the judge. "You will always have to look over your shoulder" Shortly afterwards police made a breakthrough in the case, when one of the suspected gang members, "Nabil B.," handed himself over and agreed to become the prosecution's main witness. A new wave of violence followed after Nabil B. turned state witness, leaving three people dead in scenes that shocked the nation. Nabil B.'s brother was murdered in 2018, his lawyer Derk Wiersum was shot dead outside his house in 2019, and the prominent Dutch crime journalist Peter R. de Vries was killed in 2021. De Vries acted as Nabil B.'s confidant at the time of his murder and had said before he was on Taghi's hit list. The judge said the Nabil B.'s testimony led to convictions in five murders that otherwise would not have been solved. But after handing him a reduced sentence, the presiding judge added that he "will have to live with the reality that you will always have to look over your shoulder." Taghi's gang was nicknamed the "Mocro-maffia" because its members are mainly of Moroccan and Antillean origin. Taghi has denied all charges, and has said money spent on a "sham trial could rather have gone to employing more teachers and police and healthcare." None of the suspects made any statements during the trial, which was delayed by several dramatic developments. Taghi's lawyer Inez Weski was arrested in April last year, with prosecutors accusing her of passing messages between her client and the outside world. New lawyers were appointed for Taghi, but they too have since resigned. The prosecution's case consisted of more than 800 pages with evidence not only from Nabil B., but also conversations from encrypted telephones called "Pretty Good Privacy" (PGP) phones, often favored by criminal organizations. "We would like to take a moment to remember the three people murdered during the hearings," the judge said on Tuesday. "All of this has given this trial a pitch-black edge." Dutch MPs hailed the conviction, with far-right politician Geert Wilders' -- whose PVV party won last year's elections -- saying on social media, "it's a beautiful day for the Netherlands." In November 2022, law enforcement authorities in six different countries joined forces to take down a "super cartel" of drugs traffickers controlling about one third of the cocaine trade in Europe. An anonymous Europol source told AFP that a "big fish" Dutch suspect with alleged links to Taghi was among those detained. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Mexico sets up checkpoint near border gap after migrants cross into U.S. | 60 Minutes Mom creates whimsical fairy forest inspired by son with autism FTC sues to block Kroger-Albertsons merger From portable toilets to food trucks and extra fuel, the Monroe County Airport is preparing for a potential onslaught of planes flying in passengers to partake in solar eclipse-related festivities. Airport director Carlos Laverty has prepared in part by trying to learn from colleagues with eclipse experience. I contacted several airports in the country that experienced the 2017 eclipse. I called their airport directors and said, Tell me what it was like on that day, he said recently while sitting in his office at the airport. One of the directors he called, John Patterson, at Clarksville Regional Airport in Tennessee, said the airport was unprepared, primarily because of the unusually good weather. Reached by phone recently, Patterson said he expected the day of the 2017 eclipse to bring in an additional 150 to 200 planes, but easily more than 350 extra planes landed. A pilot sits in his plane at Monroe County Airport on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. While many people had contacted the airport to make arrangements to land, Patterson said as a General Aviation airport, like Monroe County's, it had to accept unscheduled flights. Those folks you just cant account for, he said. Patterson said the weather contributed to the unexpected turnout. Clouds obscured the view in many parts of the path of totality in 2017, but the Clarksville airport was under blue skies. It was just an unbelievable turnout, Patterson said. (Like) trying to fly into a beehive. The airport welcomed so many planes that Patterson had to shut down the facility. We could not safely park or land any other aircraft, he said. Airport personnel had filled the airports entire crosswind runway with parked planes. Shuttle buses, food trucks at Monroe County Airport for eclipse day Monroe County Airport officials initially planned to use some of their land to welcome campers and host a party, but Laverty said his discussion with Patterson and other airport officials who were overwhelmed by flight traffic in 2017 made him think twice. Laverty has asked the airports nine full-time employees and three part-time employees to work on eclipse day, which is April 8. He said he also will have about 30 volunteers available, including many with EMT certification. Personnel from the Civilian Air Patrol, a civilian auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, also will help. The employees and volunteers will largely guide visitors to the fairgrounds, into town or onto shuttle buses the airport has reserved for the occasion. The buses likely will ferry visitors to the fairgrounds and Memorial Stadium. Handling the planes largely will fall on the airport-based businesses, so-called Fixed Base Operators, which provide fuel, maintenance and flight training. FBO personnel will take care of refueling planes and parking them. Representatives from Monroe County's FBOs did not return phone and email messages. Laverty said depending on how many planes arrive that day, the airport may close its secondary runway and taxiway and use those for parking, like the Clarksville airport did. He said the potential spike in traffic has prompted 16 airports in Indiana to work together to make an unusual request of the Federal Aviation Administration: To set up a reservation system. That would mean pilots would have to call the airport before eclipse day, set up a reservation for a small fee and register their tail number with the airport. Pilots that fly to the airport on April 8 would not be allowed to land unless they have registered. Laverty said one of the FBOs also has secured two food trucks for eclipse day, and volunteers may be handing out water depending on the temperature. Were preparing for the worst, Laverty said, but, you know, its April 8. It could snow. Extra fuel, portable toilets at Monroe County Airport for eclipse day Patterson, whose airport is slightly larger than the Monroe County Airport, also urged officials to have extra fuel available. He said the Clarksville airport had secured additional fuel, but the sheer number of planes made it impossible to fuel all of them before the end of the eclipse, which occurred mid-afternoon. Some of the pilots simply had to wait, and Tennessee on a hot day in August is miserable, Patterson said. Nonetheless, he said people were patient and understanding. Nobody left without fuel, Patterson said. Laverty said the FBOs at the Monroe County Airport plan to try to fill up planes right after they land to avoid long lines after the eclipse has ended. With all the food and drink in which people may be indulging to celebrate the days momentary darkness, Laverty said he has prepared for additional waste as well. Im going to be the Porta Potty king of Bloomington on eclipse day because a year ago, I reserved 30, he said with a laugh. Patterson suggested airports in the path of totality reach out to other nearby airports, which may have personnel available to help at the busier airports. He said he was so busy that day in 2017, he didnt get to enjoy the eclipse. He wants to rectify that and fly north to witness this years celestial event. He said he might fly into Monroe County, given his conversation with Laverty. He seems to have a good grip on whats going on, Patterson said. Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com. This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Monroe County Airport prepping for April 8 solar eclipse 2024 The Environmental Protection Agency is suing a Bruneau ranch for clearing dozens of acres of wetlands with construction equipment and building unauthorized roads across a river without permits required under the Clean Water Act. The Tuesday court filings in the District of Idaho accused Ace Black Ranches of illegally releasing gravel, sand and dirt into the Bruneau River between 2017 and 2021, potentially harming fish species and nearby communities. The lawsuit was submitted by U.S. Attorney Josh Hurwit and other attorneys for the Department of Justice acting on behalf of the EPA. The complaint in this case alleges that Ace Black Ranches treated the Bruneau River and state-owned wetlands along the river as private property that could be damaged or destroyed for sand and gravel mining, an assistant administrator at the EPA, David M. Uhlmann, said in a news release. Uhlmann added that the ranch made no effort to comply with the requirements of the Clean Water Act that protects our Nations waters from such abuses. Ace Black Ranches is an 800-acre cattle ranch in Owyhee County through which the Bruneau River flows, according to the complaint. The Bruneau River is a tributary of the Snake River and is designated as a wild river, which is a river that is generally primitive and unconstrained. Terry Black, the listed agent for the ranch, could not immediately be reached for comment. In a video posted by the Idaho Farm Bureau last year, members of the Black family, who said the ranch has been in the family since 1875, said the ranch has had problems with the river eroding their farmland. Family members said the ranch has previously worked with the Army Corps of Engineers on erosion issues. The family said EPA investigators have been to their property multiple times in recent years but would not tell them about the intent of their investigation. They said questions they received from the EPA did not pertain to their ranch, and that their irrigation systems and land use do not cause runoff into the river. These guys tell us they got a problem, wont tell us what it is, Terry Black said in the video. We cant fix it if we dont know what it is. An EPA investigation found evidence of majorly disturbed land in and near the Bruneau River and adjacent wetlands, according to the news release. The EPA also alleges the ranch filled in wetlands to install an irrigation system, constructed roads across the river and in wetlands, and mined gravel from and dumped dirt into the river. The Clean Water Act regulates all waters of the United States, and the EPA requires permits for polluting activities. The EPA asks in its lawsuit for the court to ban the ranch from further earth-moving along and in the river, require the ranch to clean up the damage to the river and pay civil penalties. Federal law authorizes the EPA to pursue close to $67,000 in fines per day for violations. The ranch filed a court action to prevent the EPA from inspecting its property in 2021, which was later dismissed by a judge, according to the complaint. The EPA was able to inspect the property in 2021 and 2023 after receiving a warrant. The EPA began its investigation after a tip about the road construction across the river was sent to Idaho officials. The lawsuit against the Bruneau ranch could be affected by a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year about another Idaho property owner. Sackett v. EPA, which was about a North Idaho family who moved gravel on property they owned to build a home, severely limited the EPAs authority to regulate waterways in the U.S. The conservative-dominated court ruled that the agency could only regulate wetlands that have a surface-level connection to the nations waters reversing decades of precedent and allowing many of the nations wetlands to be polluted without oversight. Key Insights Using the 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity, Unisem (M) Berhad fair value estimate is RM2.53 Unisem (M) Berhad's RM3.26 share price signals that it might be 29% overvalued The RM2.45 analyst price target for UNISEM is 3.3% less than our estimate of fair value How far off is Unisem (M) Berhad (KLSE:UNISEM) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, we'll take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. There's really not all that much to it, even though it might appear quite complex. We would caution that there are many ways of valuing a company and, like the DCF, each technique has advantages and disadvantages in certain scenarios. If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the rationale behind this calculation can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model. See our latest analysis for Unisem (M) Berhad What's The Estimated Valuation? We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second 'steady growth' period. To begin with, we have to get estimates of the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years. Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, so we need to discount the sum of these future cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate: Story continues 10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 Levered FCF (MYR, Millions) RM193.1m RM250.2m RM313.9m RM363.0m RM406.5m RM445.0m RM479.2m RM510.1m RM538.5m RM565.2m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x2 Analyst x2 Analyst x1 Est @ 15.63% Est @ 12.00% Est @ 9.46% Est @ 7.69% Est @ 6.44% Est @ 5.57% Est @ 4.96% Present Value (MYR, Millions) Discounted @ 12% RM172 RM199 RM223 RM230 RM229 RM224 RM215 RM204 RM192 RM180 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = RM2.1b We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (3.5%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 12%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2033 (1 + g) (r g) = RM565m (1 + 3.5%) (12% 3.5%) = RM6.8b Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= RM6.8b ( 1 + 12%)10= RM2.2b The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is RM4.2b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of RM3.3, the company appears slightly overvalued at the time of writing. Valuations are imprecise instruments though, rather like a telescope - move a few degrees and end up in a different galaxy. Do keep this in mind. dcf The Assumptions We would point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Unisem (M) Berhad as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 12%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.351. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business. SWOT Analysis for Unisem (M) Berhad Strength Debt is not viewed as a risk. Weakness Earnings declined over the past year. Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Semiconductor market. Expensive based on P/E ratio and estimated fair value. Opportunity Annual earnings are forecast to grow faster than the Malaysian market. Threat Dividends are not covered by earnings. Revenue is forecast to grow slower than 20% per year. Looking Ahead: Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. Why is the intrinsic value lower than the current share price? For Unisem (M) Berhad, there are three fundamental factors you should explore: Risks: Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 1 warning sign with Unisem (M) Berhad , and understanding this should be part of your investment process. Future Earnings: How does UNISEM's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered! PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the KLSE every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Note: This file is no longer being updated. For the latest updates Thursday on the Texas wildfires, go to our Thursday live updates. Five major wildfires that began amid Monday's red flag alert conditions by Tuesday had prompted numerous evacuations and engulfed more than 580,000 acres in the Texas Panhandle, with little chance of slowing soon any time soon. The largest of the fires, Smokehouse Creek in Stinnett, has singlehandedly burned more than 500,000 acres and is the state's second-largest wildfire. As of Wednesday morning, it is zero percent contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The Texas A&M Forest Service responded to a request for assistance in Hutchinson County on the Hutchinson 0317 Fire Grapevine Creek, just southeast of Pampa, has burned 30,000 acres and is 15% contained; Windy Deuce along Lake Meredith in Fritch has burned 8,000 acres and is 20% contained; Juliet Pass near Claude has burned 3,000 acres and is 90% contained. Officials across the affected region are urging residents to relocate. Moore and Potter counties ordered mandatory evacuations for all residents early afternoon as the fire continued to spread and wind speeds remained high. Hemphill County Sheriff's Office Brent Clapp wrote in a Facebook post that "it is strongly suggested to evacuate Canadian." The evacuation point is the AgriLife Center in Wheeler, according to the post, after announcing just minutes prior that the evacuation route to Higgins was no longer available as Highway 60 between Glazier and Higgins was shut down. The Juliet Pass fire in Armstrong County had burned about 3,000 acres as of late Monday. Roberts County Judge Newton Locke issued a mandatory evacuation order for southeast Roberts County, including the town of Miami, on Tuesday afternoon. The City of Borger's Office of Emergency Management announced on Facebook that travel is discouraged on highway and rural roads as "numerous wildfires are actively threatening several areas within Hutchinson County." Current road closures: Highway 136 to Amarillo, Ranch-to-Market road 687, Highway 136 from Stinnett to Amarillo, Highway 83 in Hemphill County and Highway 83 and Highways 23 in Lipscomb County. The National Weather Service offices in Lubbock and Amarillo issued fire weather warnings and high wind warnings through Tuesday night. Conditions were expected to improve going into Wednesday, when wind speeds will drop to around 10 mph, although low moisture will persist. In response to the heightened threat of wildfires across the state and the nation, Lubbock Fire Rescue is among departments that have deployed crews as part of the Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System (TIFMAS). The decision to mobilize the Lubbock Fire Rescue team is due to the current red flag weather conditions that pose a significant risk across Texas and beyond, according to a news release from LFR on Sunday. TIFMAS, a joint effort among emergency response agencies in the State of Texas, plays a crucial role in managing and dispatching resources to areas in need during times of elevated fire danger. Crews reported to Childress for initial attack pre-positioning and are expected to be on a 2-week deployment. Map: Texas fire tracker The fire tracker provides a map with pinpoint locations of each fire and also shows where red flag warnings are in effect, among other information. You can also click on each point to see detailed information on the fire in that area. If you can't see the map above, click on this link. This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Four wildfires burn more than 240,000 acres in Texas Panhandle A Florida resident who helped a violent Haitian gang acquire high-powered firearms and who temporarily evaded an attempt by the FBI to arrest him will spend the next five years in a U.S. federal prison for his participation in the sophisticated smuggling scheme. Jocelyn Dor, 31, had faced as much as 20 years in prison after pleading guilty on Oct. 30, 2023, to conspiracy charges related to smuggling firearms to Haitis notorious 400 Mawozo gang. Instead, he was sentenced to 60 months as part of a plea deal. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates also ordered that Dor, a Haitian citizen, serve three years of supervised release for pleading guilty to conspiring to violate U.S. export laws, violating the export control reform act and laundering money with the purpose of promoting a specified unlawful activity. As a straw purchaser for 400 Mawozo, Dor purchased 10 semiautomatic high-powered rifles at gun shops in the Orlando area between between Sept. 18, 2021 and Oct. 17, 2021, according to the federal prosecutors. He did so at the direction of Germine Yonyon Joly for the express purpose of shipping the weapons to 400 Mawozo gang leaders in Haiti, U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and FBI Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI Miami Field Office said in a statement. READ MORE: UN appeals for Haiti aid; humanitarian chief says suffering, pain unlike any shes seen Joly, 31, is the notorious leader of the armed group who was eventually extradited to the United States and put on trial last month after being indicted on four dozen charges related to weapons smuggling. His gang, 400 Mawozo, is responsible for the kidnappings of Haitians and U.S. citizens, including 17 missionaries with an Ohio-based charity, and various massacres near of Port-au-Prince, the capital. The rifles Dor purchased through falsified documents were intended for combat, the U.S. government said. One of the weapons, a Barrett .50-caliber rifle, is primarily used by militaries.... Dor falsely stated to the gun vendors that he was the actual buyer of the firearms. He also received multiple transfers of thousands of U.S. dollars from his co-conspirators to pay for them, the statement said. Federal prosecutors had requested that Dor be imprisoned for 68 months, citing the gravity of his crime and his efforts to conceal his involvement in the conspiracy by resetting his cell phone before turning himself into the FBI through his attorney. The government said that after the FBI attempted to arrest Dor in October 2021, both he and the high-powered rifles he had purchased disappeared. Dor stopped using his cell phones, showing that he was aware that law enforcement was looking for him, said the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia. The search was expanded to the midwest where Dor, who worked for a trucking company, was nearly captured at a trucker rest stop. On Nov. 5, 2021, Dor rented a storage unit in Orlando and three days later he had had his attorney contact the FBI to turn himself in. The FBI arrested Dor that day and recovered the guns at the Orlando storage unit. Dor and two other Florida residents were arrested on weapons-smuggling and money laundering charges after their ties to Haitis 400 Mawozo gang surfaced during an FBI Miami Field Office investigation into the brazen October 2021 kidnapping in Haiti of 16 U.S. citizens and one Canadian with Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries. READ MORE: Plots, subplots and betrayal engulfed Haitis president before his assassination During the U.S. trial for Joly, prosecutors presented evidence to show that Dor and two other defendants acted as straw buyers for the gang leader, who directed operations from his Haitian prison cell using an unmonitored cell phone. Among the weapons Dor purchased were a Riley Defense RAK-47 rifle and a Century Arms AK-47 style rifle from Shoot Straight in Orlando. He also purchased a Barrett 82A1 .50-caliber rifle and a a Springfield Armory M1A from Shooters World in Orlando. During both purchases, the defendant falsely filled out the ATF Form 4473, certifying that he was the actual transferee/buyer of the firearms in question by checking yes to question 21(a) on the form, court documents state. Dor later purchased additional weapons after speaking to Joly in two phone calls. Again, he claimed to be the actual buyer of the firearms, the government said. Throughout this scheme, the defendant received money from the gang in Haiti for these purchases, federal prosecutors said in a court filing. While making all of these purchases, filling out all of these forms, and receiving all of these money transfers, the defendant knew that these weapons were being purchased for someone else and that he needed to make efforts to conceal that fact. Federal prosecutors said there were at least 24 firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition that were either exported or attempted to be exported from the United States to Haiti on behalf of 400 Mawozo gang by the Florida-based defendants. Of the four defendants, only Joly went on trial. But he soon asked to change his plea while in the middle of trial and pleaded guilty to his role in the gunrunning conspiracy that smuggled firearms to Haiti in violation of U.S. export laws, and the laundering of ransoms paid for U.S. hostages to the gang in 2021. He faces life in prison when he is sentenced on May 15. Jolys co-defendant and girlfriend, Eliande Tunis, 45, of Pompano Beach, also pleaded guilty to 48 weapons-smuggling charges on the eve of trial. She had described herself as Jolys wife and the queen of the gang, according to testimony during trial. She will be sentenced on May 8 and like Joly who styled himself as king of 400 Mawozo faces up to life in prison. Another co-defendant, Walder St. Louis, 31, also pleaded guilty before trial and spent two days on the stand testifying against Joly. The Fort Worth Independent School District will implement an abstinence-based sex education curriculum after about two hours of debate from proponents and opponents of the approach that emphasizes chastity to middle and high schoolers. The Board of Education voted unanimously to purchase the Choosing the Best curriculum on Tuesday night after a recommendation put forward by the districts Student Health Advisory Council, which analyzed various curriculums for months. Although the curriculum aligns with state law, which requires districts to encourage students to delay having sex until marriage, experts and studies favor comprehensive sex education that encompasses safer sex practices including contraception and condoms as effective ways to reduce unintended pregnancy and STIs alongside information about abstinence. School board member Anne Darr said she does not favor an abstinence-only curriculum, as it does not provide adequate information for kids, but she voted in favor of it because of the advisory councils recommendation and because it was the top pick from a group of 42 district health teachers. Darr also noted that when she was a middle school teacher, a student thought she was pregnant because her parents told her she would become pregnant if she kissed a boy while wearing a bathing suit. Additionally, the district discovered in January 2023 that staff had not followed the legally-required process outlined in Texas state law for adopting a sex education curriculum when the previous curriculum, HealthSmart, had been chosen, Darr said. HealthSmart was not and still is not a viable option for sex education curriculum in Fort Worth ISD. My sincere apologies to the students who were in a Fort Worth ISD health education class during the 2022-2023 school year who did not have access to a sex education curriculum. You deserve better, Darr said. (Choosing the Best curriculum) is the only curriculum legally available for use in Fort Worth ISD. Today's top stories: Two men, one armed, tried to break into TCU student apartment off-campus 7 injured in multi-vehicle rollover crash on Chisholm Trail Parkway School board to vote on abstinence-based sex education curriculum Get free alerts when news breaks. The Choosing the Best curriculum will be used in the sixth-grade Moving to Wellness health course and the high school Health 1 course at a price tag of about $72,200, but its unclear how soon the curriculum will be implemented. It will replace HealthSmart, which drew criticism from parents for its inclusion of topics about sexual orientation and gender identity. Supporters of the HealthSmart curriculum and Choosing The Best hold opposing signs next to each other at the Fort Worth ISD Administration Building on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. The school board heard two hours of public comment on the future of sex education before voting on the curriculum. Choosing the Bests sixth-grade curriculum encompasses six, 45-minute sessions with lessons on teen pregnancy and STD risks, staying clear of unhealthy relationships and emphasizing the risks of sexual activity while also emphasizing the positive benefits of sexual delay, according to the curriculum provider. The high school curriculum has eight, 45-minute lessons that focus on avoiding pregnancy and STDs through abstinence, overcoming pressures to be sexually active and learning about the negative emotional effects of casual sex and how sexual delay provides freedom: freedom from physical and emotional risks and the freedom to pursue dreams and personal goals. Before the meeting, Fort Worth ISD students who are part of Arlington Heights Highs Student Voter Empowerment Club and members of organizations such as Students Engaged in Advancing Texas rallied across the street from the districts administration building at ZBonz Dog Park with music and copies of books that were pulled off Fort Worth ISD library shelves at the beginning of the school year: Flamer by Mike Curato and All Boys Arent Blue by George M. Johnson. The books were removed for review after district officials said they contained inappropriate content. Emma-Eliz Barbarena, a 16-year-old junior at Arlington Heights High School, along with students from the Arlington Heights Student Voter Empowerment Club and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas advocate for comprehensive sexual education in the Fort Worth Independent School District prior to a school board meeting at the Fort Worth ISD Administration Building on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Meanwhile, members of For Liberty & Justice, a ministry within the Mercy Culture Church, gathered in prayer in the parking lot while holding signs branded with a ministry logo that read: We need education not indoctrination and Parents should have the final say. The church with locations across Fort Worth, Dallas and Waco states online that its members believe in biblical marriage between one man and one woman, and its ministry advocates for Godly candidates in local government among other mobilization efforts. The packed board room was a sea of posters with signs held by community members calling for the new abstinence curriculum juxtaposed against ones that declared Sex education is a human right and Teach comprehensive sex ed. Public comment consisted of both those in favor and against the Choosing the Best curriculum with proponents and opponents placing blame on the other side for letting either leftist or religious agendas influence sex education. Some speakers advocated for no sexual education curriculum in the district at all. Gery Weichman, left, and former Texas state representative Lon Burnam holds signs in support of comprehensive sexual education in the Fort Worth Independent School District prior to a school board meeting at the Fort Worth ISD Administration Building on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. Hudson Harris, an Arlington Heights junior whos part of the schools Student Voter Empowerment Club, said students like him are the ones who will be impacted by the boards decision. He considered abstinence-centered sex education as a way for religion to be infused into public education. If these ideals force their way in through gateway policies such as this one, we will slowly start to see our school turn into a church, he said. Learning should have a secular focus, not a religious one. Reed Bilz, of the League of Women Voters of Tarrant County, said the organization supports comprehensive sex education that includes teaching about gender expression and sexuality with specialized and periodic training workshops for teachers. We support a coordinated, age-appropriate, comprehensive program of sex education that is specific and explicit in providing information on all methods of preventing unwanted pregnancy, she said. We support a program that teaches decision-making, self-esteem, responsible behavior, respect for others, resistance to peer pressure and stress management. In contrast, Kathryn Pompa, a Fort Worth ISD parent and School Health Advisory Committee member, urged the board to adopt the Choosing the Best curriculum after being among those who had reviewed and read various curriculum options in-depth. Not only does this curriculum align with the (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) and (Texas Education Code), it was overwhelmingly well received by parents according to all the public comments collected, she said. This is a great curriculum to educate all students and provide the healthiest information for making healthy and holistic decisions during this critical and awkward time in a childs life. Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values, a statewide Christian organization with a mission to preserve and advance a culture of family values in the state of Texas, said the organization is unsupportive of the HealthSmart curriculum and is concerned about LGBT and pro-abortion content as well as (diversity, equity and inclusion) within the Choosing the Best curriculum and asked board members to consider removing such content before adopting it. It is a fact that the only 100% way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases is abstinence and thats a key reason why we support abstinence as an organization, Saenz said. Texas law vs. health studies and statistics The Texas Education Code states that course material related to sex education must direct adolescents to a standard of behavior in which abstinence from sexual activity before marriage is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicines Journal of Adolescent Health released a position paper in 2017 that acknowledged abstinence as a healthy choice for adolescents but noted that focusing on abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) (is) problematic from scientific and ethical viewpoints. The Journal states that these types of programs are ineffective in delaying this behavior as fewer adolescents are waiting until marriage to initiate sex. AOUM programs inherently provide incomplete information and are often neglectful to sexually active adolescents; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning adolescents; pregnant and parenting adolescents; and survivors of sexual assault, according to the Journal. Promotion of AOUM policies by the U.S. government has undermined sexuality education in the United States and in U.S. foreign aid programs to prevent HIV infection. In many U.S. communities, AOUM programs have replaced more comprehensive approaches to sexuality education. The U.S. federal government began supporting and promoting abstinence programs in the early 1980s and had spent more than $2 billion on these nationwide programs between 1982 and 2017, according to the Journal. Almost half of U.S. states had shifted away from accepting this federal funding by 2009. The latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that quality sex education programs address the needs of all students, including those who are part of the LGBTQ community; connect students to health services at their school or in their community; and cultivate positive relationships between young people and important adults. Sexual health education should be consistent with scientific research and best practices; reflect the diversity of student experiences and identities; and align with school, family, and community priorities, according to the CDC. Tarrant Countys teen live birth rate, 19.6 per 1,000 females aged 15-19, was significantly lower compared to the state (22.7) and significantly higher compared to the nation (15.3) in 2020, according to Tarrant County Public Health. This rate represents a 52% decrease in the teen live birth rate from 2011 to 2020. From 2011 to 2021, the rate of syphilis cases for every 100,000 Tarrant County residents increased from 6.7 to 57.4, according to the Department of State Health Services. Germany does not possess any nuclear weapons, having renounced them in 1968 - Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz/Bloomberg Germany is wrestling with the once-unthinkable question of whether it needs nuclear weapons, in the face of a potential Russia-Nato war and concerns that the United States cannot be relied on as a security partner if Donald Trump is re-elected. Earlier this month, a series of German officials raised the idea of developing an European nuclear deterrent, after Mr Trumps recent remarks encouraging Vladimir Putin to attack Nato states that do not meet spending commitments. Among them was Christian Lindner, the German finance minister, Friedrich Merz, the CDU opposition leader, and Katarina Barley, a senior member of Chancellor Olaf Scholzs SDP party. We should see the latest comments by Donald Trump as a demand to think more about this element of European security within Nato, said Ms Barley. Katarina Barley, of Olaf Scholz's SDP party, has called for a rethink of Germany's nuclear deterrent - Michele Tantussi/Getty Images Britain and France, the only European countries armed with nuclear weapons, extending their cover to Germany has also been discussed. The idea was quickly shot down by Mr Scholz and Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, as well as Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary-general, who described the discussion as not helpful. But the fact that senior German officials, including at least one in government, are even discussing nuclear weapons hints that a major shift could be underway in the countrys defence strategy. Unlike France and Britain, Germany does not possess any nuclear weapons, having renounced them in a 1968 UN non-proliferation treaty. It does allow storage of some US nuclear weapons at an airbase in the country, but the US has control over them. The debate on Germanys role in a European nuclear deterrent, independent of the US, is at an early stage. One idea which has been discussed is a French and British-led deterrent, though Germany dismissed a similar idea when it was raised by Emmanuel Macron in 2020. Christian Lindner, German finance minister, said the country should heed Donald Trump's warning about 'European security under the umbrella of Nato' - Liesa Johannssen/REUTERS The strategic nuclear forces of France and Great Britain are already making a contribution to the security of our alliance, Mr Lindner argued earlier this month. He added: The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has made various offers of co-operation. We should understand Donald Trumps recent statements as a call to further rethink this element of European security under the umbrella of Nato. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Maximilian Terhalle, a German security expert, who has long campaigned for reform on nuclear weapons, said it was time for Berlin to alter its stance in the face of Putins warmongering in Europe. Mr Terhalle said: You can have 15 divisions and modern battle tanks, but if you dont have a nuclear deterrent and youre facing an enemy who not only has one but is also willing to threaten you with it, then these divisions wont do any good. He has previously suggested that Germans consider buying nuclear weapons off the shelf because of the risk that Putin could attack Nato in as little as two years. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Texas Republican leaders, megadonors and political groups are spending massively ahead of the March 5 primary, pouring millions of dollars into campaigns that have become a litmus test for the Texas GOPs future amid deepened fissures over school vouchers and Attorney General Ken Paxtons impeachment. New campaign finance reports show just how expensive the Texas GOPs ongoing civil war has gotten, with political interest groups such as Texans For Lawsuit Reform doling out more than $6 million in the last month to a mix of incumbents and PACs; and a small group of voucher supporters, state leaders and far-right megadonors separately injecting at least another $8 million into the primaries. From Jan. 26 to Feb 24, the most recent campaign finance reporting period, Gov. Greg Abbott spent $6.1 million as part of his ongoing quest to stack the Texas House with members who will pass school voucher legislation. Last year, about two dozen Republicans joined with Democrats to block Abbotts yearlong crusade to pass a law allowing state dollars to subsidize private school funding. Pro-voucher groups have aided Abbotts efforts, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into challengers accounts in cash and ads. Over the same period, far-right billionaires such as Tim Dunn have ramped up their giving. In the last reporting period, Dunns new group, Texans United For A Conservative Majority, spent more than $2.5 million as part of their campaign to oust incumbent Texas House members who voted last summer to impeach Paxton, a key ally of the states right wing. Paxton was acquitted by the Senate. Paxton, who has endorsed the roughly one-third of House Republicans who resisted his impeachment on corruption accusations, didnt spend any money on those races. Most of his cash is going to legal fees, according to campaign finance reports. Voucher fight goes to the districts Abbotts spending spree in the most recent fundraising period was largely aimed at 10 GOP primary challengers to anti-voucher Republicans in the Texas House. Abbott spent about $4.4 million on mostly ads, polling and canvassing for those challengers. For those 10 challengers, Abbotts spending made up almost all of their campaign funding for the period. Abbott spent another $1.5 million in open-seat races and defending House Republican incumbents like Rep. Ellen Troxclair of Austin who supported vouchers, but are facing heated primary contests because of their votes to impeach Paxton. Abbotts voucher effort has been bolstered by a record-setting $6 million contribution from pro-voucher activist Jeff Yass in December. The top beneficiary of the governors funding from Jan. 26 through Feb. 24 was Marc LaHood, who received $672,410 in ad spending and other services from Abbott, representing some 81% of his fundraising for that period. LaHood is trying to unseat three-term state Rep. Steve Allison in his San Antonio district. Close behind him was Janis Holt, who received $671,300 in ad spending from Abbott in her primary against state Rep. Ernest Bailes. That ad spend made up 92% of her total haul for the most recent fundraising period. Bailes, a Shepherd Republican and voucher opponent, lashed out at Abbott last week for his efforts to unseat otherwise loyal Republicans. My unwillingness to be a puppet, is why I am challenged so aggressively and by so much money this election, Bailes said on Facebook. Bailes and other anti-voucher Republicans were boosted by the Charles E. Butt Public Education PAC, which poured $1.3 million into 11 GOP incumbents campaigns. Half of that was spent defending Allison and Bailes. Allison barely outraised his challenger with $889,000 in contributions about $60,000 more than LaHood while Bailes raised about $50,000 less than Holt in the most recent reporting period. Abbotts pro-voucher quest was aided by other PACs. The AFC Victory Fund super PAC, formed expressly to support private school vouchers, spent some $784,000 in Texas last month and collected $2.5 million in donations from less than a dozen donors. The PAC spent almost $450,000 on direct mail against those anti-voucher incumbents, with some of the heaviest financial firepower reserved for state Rep. Glenn Rogers, R-Graford, who is battling for his third term west of Fort Worth against Paxton and Abbott favorite Mike Olcott. Olcott also received a $50,000 donation this month from Dunn, whose groups have for years sought to unseat Rogers, a longtime foe and vocal critic of the billionaires political network. I can't be controlled by radical billionaire special interests. I represent YOU, the people of my district, Rogers wrote on X this week. The pro-voucher Family Empowerment Coalition PAC spent nearly $600,000 last month, mainly on House races. It raised nearly half a million from donors in January including $100,000 from Dallas billionaires Darwin and Douglas Deason, and a quarter-million from Andrew Price, an Austin-area billionaire investor. Holt took in $50,000 from the Family Empowerment Coalition PAC. She got another $5,000 from Texans United for a Conservative Majority, as well as a campaign endorsement text message from Texans for [Lt. Gov.] Dan Patrick valued at $3,318. The rest of her $2,400 in contribution came from 11 individual donors, several outside the district. Dunn reemerges Dunn meanwhile gave $1.75 million in February to Texans United for A Conservative Majority, which was created late last year after another Dunn-funded group, Defend Texas Liberty, was embroiled in controversy over its ties to Nick Fuentes and other white supremacists. The PAC also received $1.3 million last month from Farris Wilks, another West Texas oil tycoon who funded Defend Texas Liberty. After laying low in the last quarter of 2023, Dunns new group poured roughly $3.4 million into campaigns and ad buys amid an ongoing war with the Texas GOPs more moderate, but still deeply conservative, wing. In February alone, Texans United for a Conservative Majority spent roughly $2.5 million. Instead of vouchers, the group has focused more on ousting incumbents who backed Paxtons impeachment, or supporting candidates who share their hardline views on the border or LGBTQ+ issues. Since Jan. 26, Texans United for a Conservative Majority has given $194,000 in support to David Coveys challenge to House Speaker Dade Phelan, who has been targeted by Dunns groups for his role in the Paxton impeachment, his appointment of Democrats to minor House committee chairs and his sharp criticism of Defend Texas Liberty in the wake of the Fuentes scandal. The PAC also gave $180,000 in support to Andy Hooper, who is challenging Rep. Lynn Stucky of Denton; $180,000 to Brent Money ahead of a rematch of a January run-off in which he narrowly lost to Jill Dutton in North Texas; and $103,000 to Mitch Little, a former member of Paxtons impeachment defense team who is challenging Rep. Kronda Thimesch, R-Lewisville . The PAC is also backing some of its former candidates, including Shelley Luther, who ran for the Texas House in 2022 after being jailed for refusing to close her salon during Abbotts pandemic-era shutdown; and Biedermann, whose previous tenure in the Texas House was bankrolled by groups connected to Dunn. Since Jan. 26, Texans United has given $133,000 in contributions or ad buys for Luthers campaign. It also gave $83,000 to Biedermann days before he was roundly criticized for defending Bryan Slaton, a former state representative who was bankrolled by Dunns groups until he was expelled last year for having sex with a drunk, 19-year-old aide. Big TLR money Meanwhile, the Texas GOPs business wing has continued to spend big in support of incumbents in the Texas House and Court of Criminal Appeals, both of which have drawn the ire of Paxton and his allies. Leading the way has been Texans For Lawsuit Reform, a powerful pro-tort reform PAC, associated with backing the Republican establishment, that entered the year with more than $35 million in its coffers. Since Jan. 1, TLR has spent more than $8.2 million including more than $6.5 million in the last month. Among the PACs biggest beneficiaries: Troxclair, who since Jan. 26 has received $583,000 amid a challenge from Biedermann. and Joanne Shofner, whose campaign against incumbent Rep. Travis Clardy received $408,000 from TLR. Clardy was an outlier in the House for voting against vouchers but also vocally opposing Paxtons impeachment. Shofner and Troxclair have also been backed by Abbott, who since Jan. 26 has given them $368,000 and $237,000 in support, respectively. In February, TLR also matched a $477,000 contribution from Phelans campaign to the Secure Our Border Now PAC, which supports the speakers House allies. TLR also gave $250,000 to the Judicial Fairness PAC, which is supporting three incumbent judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals who have been targeted by Paxton for ruling that his office cant unilaterally prosecute local voting crimes. Phelan, protecting his own supporters in the House, spent some $1.3 million of his considerable war chest just since late January on incumbents battling well-funded opponents. Receiving the most were Reps. Lacey Hull of Houston with $125,000, Matt Shaheen with $130,000 and Lynn Stucky with $95,000. Phelan raised $3.8 million in the past month as he defends his own Beaumont district against an onslaught from Abbott, Patrick, Paxton and hard-right grassroots who accuse of him of party disloyalty. We cant wait to welcome you to downtown Austin Sept. 5-7 for the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival! Join us at Texas breakout politics and policy event as we dig into the 2024 elections, state and national politics, the state of democracy, and so much more. When tickets go on sale this spring, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today. Fort Collins' elected representatives to the Colorado General Assembly are, clockwise from left, Sen. Joann Ginal, Rep. Cathy Kipp and Rep. Andrew Boesenecker. We're nearly halfway through the 2024 Colorado legislative session, and Fort Collins lawmakers will hold another town hall about what they and others are doing at the Capitol. Sen. Joann Ginal and Reps. Cathy Kipp and Andy Boesenecker, who all represent Fort Collins, will host a town hall from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Saturday, March 2, at Foothills mall. More: 'Fishing expeditions' behind Fort Collins legislator's bill to modify open records law It will take place at the PSD Future Ready Center inside the mall, 215 E. Foothills Parkway, Fort Collins. It's closest to the north entrance of the indoor mall. At the town halls, lawmakers typically share updates and take questions from the audience. The trio has been hosting town halls monthly this legislative session, which began Jan. 10 and runs through May 8. Track the top housing bills here: Will Colorado end occupancy limits and legalize more ADUs? Bills related to housing are of big interest this year, including one to outlaw residential occupancy limits and one to allow for accessory dwelling units in more places. This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins state legislators Ginal, Kipp, Boesenecker plan town hall Alyssa Weakley, a neuropsychologist at the University of California, Davis, trained in developing technology for cognitively impaired older adults, is acutely aware of the challenges of long-distance caregiving. Still, when her proudly independent grandmother began showing signs of what would ultimately be diagnosed as early-stage Alzheimers disease in 2018, it took her and her family by surprise. Her grandmother, in her 70s, lived alone in Southern California; Weakley and her family were scattered throughout Northern California and Washington. There were a whole host of things that made independent living challenging for her, Weakley said. But there was nobody really there to provide her with care. Soon, she and her family found themselves in a position shared by nearly 6 million other Americans: being caregivers from a complicated and often distressing distance. According to an AARP report in 2020, long-distance caregivers represent more than 1 in 10 of the countrys estimated 53 million family caregivers, meaning they live an hour or more from their care recipient; on average, they live about 450 miles away. Nearly 6 million Americans are long-distance caregivers for their loved ones, a situation presenting logistical and financial challenges -- and the potential for emotional stress. Long-distance caregivers have not been adequately recognized as legitimate sources of care because of the physical distance that makes their contributions less apparent or visible, said Francesca Falzarano, an assistant professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. However, we have and will continue to see an increase in individuals who find themselves providing, coordinating and managing care from afar. Besides presenting logistical and financial challenges, long-distance caregiving can be emotionally taxing as family members worry about not being there to care for recipients in times of need. Nearly half (47%) of long-distance caregivers report emotional distress, compared with 28% of those who live less than an hour away, according to a report compiled by the AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving. Caring for a loved one long-distance can be utterly overwhelming, said Nancy LeaMond, AARPs executive vice president and chief advocacy and engagement officer. According to the results of an AARP survey of women 50 and older released last week, 87% of respondents support making paid family leave benefits available to family caregivers, including 55% who "strongly agree" with that view. Long-distance caregiving can be emotionally draining From hundreds of miles away, Weakley and her family members took turns managing a growing list of challenges for her grandmother, who would forget doctors appointments and social engagements. She had trouble picking out clothes or remembering to turn down the thermostat in hot weather. They took steps to provide her with a safe environment, equipping her stovetop with an automatic turn-off function and recruiting neighbors to check in. The concerns, she said, were definitely emotionally draining. Weakley worried constantly, feeling guilt and a longing to be there even though it wasnt really feasible. She was just starting her career, and her mother and aunt were still working, too. Moreover, her grandmother wasnt ready to relinquish her autonomy. The struggle prompted Weakley, through her work at UC-Davis medical campus in Sacramento, to develop technology that could help long-distance loved ones better manage caregiving from afar. The technology is still in the early stages. Communication not only with your loved one but with other family members can be a challenge, she said. Its just a reality that youre all trying to help this person you all love and who you want to have this fulfilling life that they wanted to have in their retirement. 'You have to step into a crisis situation' Several factors contribute to producing long-distance caregivers, including a greater number of older adults living longer with chronic illnesses or disability and more people called on to care for ailing family members from farther away as a result of increasing social and job mobility. As of now, the U.S. doesnt have an acceptable alternative to family care, so many are unexpectedly finding themselves in this role with little choice, let alone support from the health care system, Falzarano said. While geographically removed from the direct-care environment, Falzarano said, long-distance caregivers find themselves responsible for a wide range of activities, including financial management, care coordination and providing emotional support. Renae Perry, chief operating officer for The Senior Source, an older-adult advocacy agency serving greater Dallas, recalled stepping into such a role when her father, who lived nearly 300 miles away in Arkansas, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2022. He died just over a year ago. Oftentimes it comes on really suddenly, Perry said. You find yourself in a situation where even with expertise and knowledge you have to step into a crisis situation where emotions are high and your loved ones life is changing completely. From a distance, Perry said, she tried to make sure her parents lawn was mowed and the bills were paid. But when her fathers condition grew dire, she found herself researching hospice agencies and doing over-the-phone screenings from afar. I was fortunate because my husband was incredibly supportive and managed a lot of our household, she said. He made sure I had an evening to myself or a nice dinner out. Having those people around you who recognize what youre going through and are there for you makes a huge difference. How technology aids long-distance caregiving Recent and emerging technologies, such as wearable monitors and automated home assistants, are helping caregivers better manage such situations. Telehealth opportunities, which were popularized during the pandemic, have been a game changer, Falzarano said, and electronic health portals have allowed families to access information about their loved ones' condition. Such technologies, Falzarano said, have not only allowed long-distance caregivers to better manage care and virtually engage with care recipients, but they have also opened doors to connect with support groups and others in similar situations. Zoom calls helped Perry and her sister, who lives in Chicago, virtually attend doctor appointments with her parents to participate in their care. When youre not there, technology allows you to in essence be in the room and hear what the doctors are saying and help your loved ones through that situation, she said. More than a year after her father died, Perry still makes time to visit her mother to make sure she has the support she needs as she learns to live on her own, getting her comfortable with video call technology so she can see her grandkids. Even online bill paying and being able to order groceries from afar and have them delivered is huge, Perry said. At UC-Davis, Weakleys budding technology is an interactive platform, something like a virtual whiteboard, that will allow caregiver and care recipient to keep track of activities and schedules. Both have different interfaces, but they sync so that a caregiver and put information into a persons calendar or a to-do list and it shows on the receivers side, she said. The technology, called Interactive Care, or I-Care, is being tested in randomized control trials, she said. Though its aim is to help caregivers better operate remotely and to reduce crisis-driven care, Weakley said, it should also help care recipients maintain independence and enhance self-efficacy. The technology can be adjusted if cognitive decline increases. Her grandmother has since moved to Northern California, where Weakley can better help manage care. But its the long-distance caregiving experience that helped drive I-Care. With long-distance caregiving, youre not seeing changes in daily patterns that caregivers who live there may notice, like them going to the bathroom more frequently or missing their meds or waking up later than normal, she said. With long-distance caregiving continuing to fall to millions of people nationwide as the population ages and stays geographically mobile, its incredibly important to design technology that can meet this changing demography and the needs of our society, she said. Tips for long-distance caregivers Advocates suggest several tips for family caregivers to help ease the load: Maintain and grow networks of helpers, including friends, neighbors and faith community members. Create an updated spreadsheet with contact information and the roles those people can play in a crisis. Use that network to identify contractors and handymen who can assist with plumbing, lawn services and the like for the care recipient. Familiarize yourself with aging advocates in the care recipients community. Use services such as Eldercare Locator to identify resources such as Meals on Wheels, respite care and minor home repairs or modification. Geriatric care managers can also be hired to coordinate care and appointments in some communities. Look to home and community-based services (HCBS) for resources, peer support, education and training. Ensure that you can access any necessary financial, legal and insurance details and that you clearly understand your loved ones wants and needs. Take steps to ward off frauds and scams from those who prey on the elderly, particularly those with cognitive decline. Check financial statements regularly and get to know who else is communicating with your loved one. Use available technologies to manage things like banking online, ordering groceries, setting medication reminders and getting prescriptions refilled. Fall detection devices and video doorbells can help provide peace of mind, and video chat technologies can not only help caregivers keep in touch but also participate in medical appointments and other crucial encounters. Dont forget to care for yourself. Remember that long-distance caregivers can play supporting roles for family members who do live close to or even with an ailing parents, giving them respite from their daily responsibilities. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Long-distance caregiving: How tech eases financial, emotional burdens WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Over the last month, opposition to Senate Bill 202 has steadily grown as many academics spoke out against the controversial education bill. Ultimately, those concerns fell on deaf ears as the legislation passed the Indiana House of Representatives Tuesday. The bill now returns to the Indiana Senate. The last stop is the governors office, if the Senate approves changes made in the House. The bill passed along party lines with 67 in favor, and 30 opposed. SB 202, which was introduced by Sen. Spencer Deery (R-Lafayette), would reform the tenure process in Indiana to ensure public universities adopt a philosophy of promoting free speech and intellectual diversity, which was defined as multiple, divergent and varied scholarly perspectives on an extensive range of public policy issues. The bill gives universities boards of trustees the ability to evaluate faculty members' effectiveness at fostering an environment for free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity. Boards of trustees will be able to define what intellectual diversity means at their campus, as well as within individual disciplines. The bill also directs universities to create a procedure allowing both students and employees to submit complaints against a faculty member or person who they believe isn't meeting the college's standard for intellectual diversity. It will give the board the ability to determine whether faculty are eligible for tenure or promotion depending on their performance in promoting intellectual diversity every five years. Representatives speak against the bill Representatives spoke for an hour as they urged their colleagues to vote against Deerys bill. Notably, two representatives from Deerys shared district, Rep. Chris Campbell (D-West Lafayette) and Rep. Sheila Klinker (D-Lafayette) spoke against the bill. Campbell highlighted language in the bill which she found concerning, specifically the use of unlikely and likely, when determining if a faculty member meets the standard set by the board of trustees. likely, while performing teaching duties within the scope of the faculty member's employment, to subject students to political or ideological views and opinions that are unrelated to the faculty member's academic discipline or assigned course of instruction, reads the portion of the bill that Campbell referred to during the hearing. That begins likely. Are we now allowed to legislate thought crimes? This bill requires it, Campbell said. State Rep. Chris Campbell, seen here in August 2022, spoke against Senate Bill 202. They will have the authority to terminate tenured faculty based on whether or not they are 'likely' while performing teaching duties within the scopes of the faculty member employment to subject students to promoting intellectual diversity. Not, whether or not theyve done it, but whether or not theyre likely to do it. That isnt how we judge people in this country, or fire people, on what they are 'likely' to do. Campbell urged her colleagues to vote against this bill due to the vague language. Shortly after Campbell spoke, Klinker urged her colleagues to be aware of the long-term consequences the bill may have on faculty across the state. State Rep. Sheila Klinker, seen here at a town hall in January 2024, warned other House members about the long-term consequences of Senate Bill 202 before the legislation was passed by the chamber. I think we have to be very cognizant that this is stirring up a lot of controversy, a lot of negative criticism about what we're doing and why were doing it, Klinker said. I think this bill is probably going to pass, but I would ask all of us to watch what is happening at our universities. We dont want to lose our good faculty and we want to encourage our young people who are very talented to still come to our universities. We do not want a deterrent, which in many ways has been said about this bill. I would ask us after this bill passes, if it does, that we look very carefully at what is happening to our universities. Opposition from professors across Indiana On Monday, four members of the American Association of University Professors, comprising faculty from Purdue University and Indiana University Indianapolis, went to the Statehouse to deliver a 672-page packet showcasing Indiana academics disapproval of SB 202. The hope was Indianas representatives would respond to the collective disapproval from academics across the state. A student walks to class as he passes by the Purdue University Gateway Arch, on May 18, 2022, in West Lafayette. State universities like Purdue are economic engines of the state, providing a stable tax base for their communities, and contributing to strong K-12 school districts. Purdue is a top five university producer of patents in the country, and Purdue faculty are the ones that do the research that are awarded these patents. Patents become royalties, new products, start-up companies, and more investment in jobs in our community, said Alice Pawley, a professor of engineering education at Purdue University, in a statement against SB 202. IU, too, provides over $3.5 billion in income to the state economy every year, and supports over 60,000 jobs. I dont know why the state legislature would want to risk such economic success with an unproven and expensive government-driven process? The packet also contained over 500 letters from academics across the state and country calling for the Indiana House to vote "no" on this bill. This bill isnt about protecting viewpoint diversity or it would have been written better, and the Republican Caucus would have listened to the concerns of their colleagues across the aisle, not trying to have the government solve a problem that does not really exist, said David Nalbone, a professor of psychology at Purdue-Northwest and chair of the Purdue-Northwest Faculty Senate, in a statement against SB 202. Instead, this is government inserting itself where it isnt needed. Noe Padilla is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email him at Npadilla@jconline.com and follow him on X at 1NoePadilla. This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Indiana's tenure reform bill Senate Bill 202 passes House ESG DWS Group, the asset manager that operates the Xtrackers ETF brand, is closing six ETFs, including three ESG-focused funds, after they failed to bring in significant inflows, the company said Monday. The firm said that the six ETFs will officially shutter March 13 and liquidate on March 22. The ESG funds include the Xtrackers Bloomberg US Investment Corporate ESG ETF (ESCR), the Xtrackers J.P. Morgan ESG Emerging Markets Sovereign ETF (ESEB), and the XTrackers J.P. Morgan ESG USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (ESHY). The firm is also shuttering its Xtrackers MSCI China A Inclusion Equity ETF (ASHX), the Xtrackers MSCI All China Equity ETF (CN), and the Xtrackers MSCI Germany Hedged Equity ETF (DBGR). While funds that track companies that align with sustainable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) grew more popular in 2021, the group of ETFs has since struggled. Conservative political backlash has been one headwind, along with regulatory scrutiny and criticism of overblown fees. Investors have also fleed the funds due to high management fees for portfolios that are similar to other passive indexes. Closures of ESG ETF funds have jumped in the past year, while the number of openings of new funds using the ESG label has also declined. According to Bloomberg Intelligence data, $4.3 billion was drained from ESG-focused funds in 2023, and 36 ESG focused ETFs were liquidated in 2023. Goldman Sachs Asset Management and BlackRock Inc. have also shuttered ESG funds in the past year. Despite the backlash against the ESG label, investors remain interested in investing in sustainable technology. A survey from Sage Advisory Services found that seven of 11 ETF providers said that ESG was still a first or second priority for their firms, and that 40% of recent ETF launches included themes like low carbon emission, clean energy, and biodiversity. On Tuesday, DWS launched its first actively managed ETF, the Xtrackers RREEF Global Resources ETF (NRES), which offers exposure to natural resources commodities, including metals, energy, and agriculture, according to the firms press release. Story continues International Fund Closures DWSs All China Equity ETF was also among the closures. The ETF aimed to make it easier for investors to get broad exposure to the Chinese market. In a post Tuesday on the social media platform X/Twitter, Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg wrote that many of us ETF nerds thought [it] was the holy grail for China ETFs bc it finally merged the disparate alphabet soup of shares (A, H, N, P-chip etc). Yet since its unveiling in 2014, the fund has been able to accumulate only about $6 million in assets, according to recent etf.com data. Contact Lucy Brewster at lucy.brewster@etf.com. Permalink | Copyright 2024 etf.com. All rights reserved Lena Bychcova couldnt really believe it when her North Korean tourist visa came through. Many Russian tourists have found themselves locked out of tourism destinations. But North Korea as a key Russian ally offered a rare opportunity to travel. The marketing professional was one of about 100 Russian nationals who were allowed to travel to North Korea this month in what is believed to be the hermit kingdoms first international tourist trip since the coronavirus pandemic. Tourism in North Korea is tightly controlled. Individual travelers are not permitted into the country, and groups are accompanied by minders. Tourism revenue is used to support the regime of dictator Kim Jong Un. Traveling to the hermit kingdom is not without significant risks. American college student Otto Warmbier was detained on a North Korea trip in 2016, allegedly for stealing a propaganda poster. He was returned to the United States 17 months later in a vegetative state and died soon after. The worlds most unusual ski holiday Bychcova and the rest of the group arrived in Pyongyang on February 9, traveling via a North Korean-owned Air Koryo plane from Vladivostok. While Bychcova admits she was anxious about the trip, she says that curiosity won out and she couldnt pass up the chance to see a country that few tourists have the opportunity to explore. Travel blogger Ilya Voskresensky, who also joined the tour, felt similarly tense he listed his part-time job, selling vintage dishes, as his profession rather than revealing he was a content creator. Despite his misgivings, he admits that one reason to go through with the trip was to discover whether modern-day North Korea would compare to the Soviet Russia his family members told him about. When you look at North Korea you realize that your grandma and grandpa were living like they do here, Voskresensky tells CNN. Its a teleport into the past. There are absolutely no advertisements in the city. The only thing on display are party slogans, flags and so on. Members of the Russian tour group pictured shortly after arriving in Pyongyang. (Photo by KIM WON JIN/AFP via Getty Images) - Kim Won Jin/AFP/Getty Images The four-day trip cost each visitor about $750. The group had Russian-speaking guides and translators with them at all times. The itinerary included a visit to the bronze statues of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill, the Mangyongdae Childrens Palace, where kids put on a music and dance performance, and three days at Masikryong Ski Resort. The Russians were also given strict rules to follow, especially when it came to taking pictures and videos. We were asked not to photograph the military or people in uniform in general, not to photograph the construction sites or any of the buildings under construction, Bychcova explains. And there were rules about how to take photographs and generally treat portraits or sculptures of leaders. If you have a newspaper or magazine with a picture of the leader, then you cannot fold the newspaper so that the portrait becomes wrinkled. These newspapers became some of her favorite souvenirs from North Korea. Bychcova says that there wasnt much to buy, but there were two shops one in the airport and one in the capital where she and other tourists could get magnets, dolls, Lego sets and other small gifts. Lena Bychcova looks out the window of her room at Masikryong Ski Resort. - Courtesy Elena Bychcova Russia and North Koreas relationship Before the pandemic, the largest source of inbound tourists to North Korea wasnt Russia it was China. The Russian ski trippers were the first tourists allowed into the hermit kingdom since the pandemic, a sign of Russias increasing popularity in North Korea. With global sanctions and a shrinking pool of allies, Russia and North Koreas increased interest in one another has raised the alarm among US Intelligence officials. North Korea has supplied Russia with missiles to use against Ukraine. In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented a car to his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un. The act was a possible violation of United Nations sanctions imposed against the country for its nuclear weapons program. Both Voskresensky and Bychcova say that their decision to travel wasnt about politics they went to North Korea eager to get to know local people and form relationships. After returning, though, Bychcova doesnt believe such a thing is truly possible in the North Korean system. About 200 kids we counted them on stage! had prepared an hour-long concert especially for us. And there were just 97 of us, she says. So there were more people on stage than spectators. We could feel they were trying to create a certain image of what North Korea looks like for us. But some details revealed that it was not entirely true, that there is another life. While the Russians were able to discuss their trip to North Korea and their thoughts on the Kim regime freely, that same privilege does not apply in their own country. Criticism of Putin, Russias policies and the military are criminal offenses in Russia. A prominent ex-KGB official turned pro-military blogger who had been vocal in supporting the war in Ukraine was arrested and charged with extremist activity last summer for comments critical of Putin. Just last week, a 33-year-old dual citizen of Russia and the United States was arrested in Yekaterinburg and accused of providing financial assistance to a foreign state in activities directed against Russia security. The reason? She reportedly donated $51 to a Ukrainian charity. While both Voskresensky and Bychcova were aware of North Koreas human rights abuses, they both tell CNN they hoped the trip would be worth it in order to connect with regular North Korean civilians. Now, both say they would consider going to North Korea again someday but only if the political situation changes. The main message of my content is that anywhere: no matter what country, no matter what nationality, it is regular people who live there, and you should treat people with love everywhere, says Voskresensky. I hope traveling will save the world. Another Russian ski trip in North Korea is slated for March 2024. Editors Note: Anna Chernova and Mariya Knight contributed translation. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com As the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine passes its two-year point, members of the Maryland congressional delegation, representing both political parties, are calling out the conflict for what it is: unprovoked and illegal. Its been two years since Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked and ruthless attacks on the people of Ukraine, said United States Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, in a press release on Feb. 23, the eve of the second full year since the start of the invasion authorized by Russian President Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky indicated earlier this week that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, R-1st, called the invasion brutal and illegal in a Feb. 23 statement released alongside the caucus congressional resolution commemorating the heroic sacrifices of the Ukrainian people. In this file photo, U.S. Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, D-Md., left and center, respectively, meet in the town council chambers of Berlin, Maryland on August 17, 2023 to discuss small businesses. U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, at right, a Republican whose district includes Berlin, takes notes. More: From Ukraine to Maryland's Eastern Shore, this SU professor observes elections up close Harris mother, born in Poland (near present day Ukraine), fled communism in Eastern Europe after World War II. Her son, now one of four co-chairs of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, introduced the resolution alongside 34 other caucus members, including Marylands Kweisi Mfume, D-7th, to, in Harris words, commemorate Ukraine as she stands against the continued, unprovoked and illegal Russian aggression. The message came days before the United States president summoned congressional leaders to the White House on Feb. 27 to discuss, among other things, funding aid for Ukraine. GOP field shrinks in Senate race: GOP field in Maryland US Senate race shrinks as contender withdraws, endorses Larry Hogan The world is watching us WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 11: The U.S. Capitol building is seen past a cloud of steam rising from a vent on Capitol Hill on February 11, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Senate is convening for a rare Sunday session to vote on a supplementary spending bill that includes military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan without addressing border security after Republicans in the House abandoned an agreement that they initially agreed to. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images) ORG XMIT: 776104902 ORIG FILE ID: 1995705993 Marylands senior U.S. senator, Ben Cardin, a Democrat, also called the Russian actions illegal in a Feb. 23 statement. Cardin, who is not seeking reelection, holds a key role as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being elevated to the position last September. He pointed to the global coalition supporting Ukraine with military aid, humanitarian assistance and economic support. With the backing of 50 nations, including (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) allies and the G7, efforts are underway to hold Putins Russia accountable for its aggression and ensure Ukraines sovereignty is upheld, Cardins statement said. The United States is implementing new measures to counter Russias actions, including its illegal war on Ukraine and its ongoing internal crackdown on political dissent. Moore's State of State address: 'The state of our state is strong': Gov. Moore delivers second State of the State address Investigative reporting done by 60 Minutes, which aired last September, showed how American money to support the Ukrainians is being spent (and tracked). This month, after the Senate passed bipartisan legislation, including funds to support Ukraine, Cardin said the opposite chamber faces a pivotal decision in his Feb. 23 statement. People stand at the memorial site for those killed during the war, near Maidan Square in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. Ukraine is marking two years since Russia's full-scale invasion with a somber mood hanging over the country. On the battlefield, Ukrainian troops are running low on ammunition as they hope for further Western aid. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) ORG XMIT: XSG101 Bolster Americas commitment to defending Ukraine, he said, or risk soaring costs to maintain international order. Cardins Maryland U.S. Senate counterpart Van Hollen closed his Feb. 23 statement similarly. The world is watching us, he said. We must meet this critical moment in history. Dwight A. Weingarten is an investigative reporter, covering the Maryland State House and state issues. He can be reached at dweingarten@gannett.com or on Twitter at @DwightWeingart2. This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: Russian war in Ukraine draws condemnation of Maryland senators, reps. Three former inmates at the Mecklenburg County jail are suing Sheriff Garry McFadden and Clerk of Superior Court Elisa Chinn-Gary over allegations about undue, extra time behind bars. Its the latest development in a federal suit first filed in May claiming hundreds of people across North Carolina were unlawfully detained because of a new records and case management system that brought controversy to a number of courthouses. By using the system, eCourts, and not checking behind themselves, McFadden and Chinn-Gary were negligent and acted with recklessness, the suit says. Before eCourts came to Charlotte, McFadden met with others in the criminal justice system and shared concerns about his staff using the system, the complaint says. Still, he didnt put in a fail-safe, it says, and more than 60 people were unconstitutionally held at the jail in just four days. After first agreeing to an interview, McFadden declined on Wednesday, and said that his legal staff advised against speaking. In November, his office told The Observer that it was taking longer to release detainees after eCourts launch. Chinn-Gary failed to step in despite knowing about eCourts issues, the amended complaint says. She did not respond to requests for comment. The office that has overseen eCourts rollout, the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts, and the vendor it hired to create the software, Tyler Technologies, are also defendants. So are other North Carolina sheriffs and clerks. ECourts expanded to 12 new counties this month. The Charlotte Ledger first reported that McFadden and Chinn-Gary were added as defendants in a brief. WHAT INMATES SAY HAPPENED United States District Court Judge William Osteen hasnt ruled whether the lawsuit can move forward as a class action, said Zack Ezor, an attorney representing the former inmates. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA/THE FRESNO BEE/Fresno Bee Staff Photo Sarah Fields, Sayeline Nunez and Thomas Hayward joined the federal suit as plaintiffs Wednesday. All three were held at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center last year, cleared to be let out and waited because of an integration defect between two pieces of eCourts software, according to the complaint. For Fields and Nunez, that meant more than an extra day behind bars, they said. Hayward spent more than an extra 14 hours, he said. Fields got booked for charges of communicating threats and simple assault, Nunez for financial card fraud and Hayward with assault on a female, according to jail records. The waits are unusual. When a person is arrested, courts set conditions for release. Once those conditions are met, an inmate is supposed to be let out quickly. Before eCourts, it took about two to four hours in Charlotte, the lawsuit says. Mecklenburg County resident Allen Sifford joined the suit last year. Sifford said he was arrested over a 14-year-old, dismissed warrant and spent two days in Gaston Countys jail. He said that eWarrants a piece of eCourts software that launched statewide in 2022 was to blame. INTEGRATION FAILURES The three new plaintiffs may not be outliers. Reports obtained by the Observer appear to show integration defects were frequent in eCourts earliest days in Charlotte. Those reports say there were more than 540 integration failures here in just 12 days in October. Integration failures happen when information in one piece of eCourts software doesnt match another. One of the inmates attorneys says the failures in reports mirror issues that led to his clients being detained longer than they shouldve been. Generally speaking, when an eWarrants user (court user or law enforcement user) enters certain information into eWarrants, select data fields are transmitted to Odyssey via an integration, NCAOC spokesperson Graham Wilson said in an email last month. The reports you have referenced identify a few instances where all the data did not transmit automatically. An integration failure report doesnt mean the record is still wrong, Wilson said. It just means that some manual changes had to be made to court records. WHATS NEXT United States District Court Judge William Osteen hasnt ruled whether the lawsuit can move forward as a class action, said Zack Ezor, an attorney representing the former inmates. If approved, that could open the door to others across North Carolina suing. But a class action would devolve into a series of mini-trials to determine, among other things, whether a hypothetical class members arrest or detention was justified under the circumstances, or whether the arrest or detention was in any way related to the eCourts system, Tyler Technologies said in its own filing last year, arguing against it. Osteen will rule whether any claims should be dismissed, too, Ezor said. A bald eagle sits at Lake Overholser in Oklahoma City on Jan. 4, 2024. A man is set to plead guilty to killing over 3,000 protected birds, including bald eagles, in federal court in Montana. A Washington man accused of killing more than 3,600 protected birds, including bald eagles, and selling them on the black market has reached a plea agreement with prosecutors. Travis John Branson of Cusick, Washington, on Tuesday filed a motion to change pleas and an accompanying plea agreement in federal court in Montana. As part of the agreement, the 48-year-old will plead guilty to two counts of unlawfully trafficking bald and golden eagles, one count of conspiracy and one count of violating the Lacey Act, a law that bans the trafficking of illegally taken wildlife, fish, or plants. In exchange, prosecutors have agreed to drop 10 counts of unlawful trafficking. Branson's attorney declined to comment. Meanwhile a second man charged in the case remains at large as of Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. An arrest warrant was issued in January for Simon Paul of St. Ignatius, Montana, after he failed to appear for a scheduled court date. Paul's lawyer declined to comment. 'On a killing spree' According to an indictment filed on Dec. 7, the hunters illegally shot the birds on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana and elsewhere and sold parts or all of the eagles between January 2015 and March 2021. The killing of bald and golden eagles is a violation of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. According to court papers, in December 2020, Branson sent a text with a picture of a golden eagle tail set to a buyer and got a PayPal purchase that same day. Two days later, he shipped the set to Texas, and a couple of days later, he received a PayPal payment for it. Prosecutors said Branson and Paul also allegedly used a dead deer to bait eagles so they could shoot them. Court papers say Branson also reportedly bragged about going "on a killing spree" and about the "significant sums of cash" the pair made from the sale of the slaughtered birds. If convicted of all charges, Branson could face up to 13 years in prison. The court still has to approve the proposed agreement. Paul, 42, stands accused of one count of conspiracy, 12 counts of unlawful tracking of bald and golden eagles and one count of violating the Lacey Act. Black market for eagle parts A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that the illegal shooting of golden eagles is a leading cause of deaths for the protected birds. Of particular value are feathers from immature golden eagles, which are revered among tribes, according to reporting from the AP. A tail set from a golden eagle can fetch several hundred dollars, according to details in another trafficking case last year, AP reported. Contributing: Sarah Al-Arshani This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Washington man to plead guilty in 'killing spree' of 3,600 birds A candlelight vigil will be held Wednesday night in Doylestown Borough for Nex Benedict, a transgender Oklahoma teen who died the day after a fight in a high school bathroom. The call to action comes directly from trans youth in local schools across Bucks County who need peers, parents, school leaders and other allies to stand up for them, said Marlene Pray, founder and director of Planned Parenthood Keystones Rainbow Room A photograph of Nex Benedict is projected during a candlelight service at Point A Gallery, 2124 N.W. 39 St., in Oklahoma City, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. The death of beloved, nonbinary student, Nex Benedict, has sent a chill through our local queer youth communities, Pray said. Many of these kids speak routinely about their fears about what does or could happen to them at school. Its vital we listen to their voices, so clearly saying: we are heartbroken and angry about Nexs death, and we must do all we can to ensure that LGBTQ+ students are safe in school, and able to thrive, learn and grow as all children deserve to do. Transgender protection in schools: These Pennsylvania school districts have enacted transgender student protection policies Hosted by Planned Parenthood Keystone's Rainbow Room, Youth4Unity and PFLAG Bucks County, the community event will take place from 6:30-7:30 p.m. at the Rainbow Room at 186 E. Court St. in Doylestown. The vigil is open to the public and will include speakers, live music, candles, art and a call for schools to protect transgender students. Who is Nex Benedict and what happened to them? Benedict was a 16-year-old sophomore at Owasso High School in Tulsa County, Oklahoma, who identified as gender expansive and used they/them and he/him pronouns. A memorial for Nex Benedict is pictured at Owasso High School in Owasso, Okla., Monday, Feb. 26, 2024. Students and community members gathers for peaceful demonstration in honor of Nex Benedict, calling on school and state officials to better protect LGBTQ+ students. The day before their death, police were called to an Owasso hospital shortly after 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 7 in response to a report that Benedict had been injured in a fight at school, according to a search warrant filed by Owasso Police detective Penny Hamrick, USA Today reported. Nex was later discharged from the hospital. But shortly before 3 p.m. the next day, Benedict called 911 to report Nex was experiencing medical issues, including shallow breathing. She told the 911 operator about the altercation at school and said Nex had hit their head on the bathroom floor, Penny Hamrick, an Owasso Police detective, wrote in a search warrant, the story read. Emergency medical crews performed CPR on Nex and drove them to a Tulsa hospital, where they were pronounced dead around 3:30 p.m. Nex Benedict's death sparks outrage: Nex Benedict mourned by hundreds in Oklahoma City vigil: 'We need change' What was the cause of death in the Nex Benedict case? In a statement issued last Wednesday, Owasso Police said preliminary information from the medical examiners office indicated Benedicts death was not a result of trauma, but added the investigation is still ongoing and autopsy results would later be released. At this time, any further comments on the cause of death are currently pending until toxicology results and other ancillary testing results are received, it read. What does gender expansive mean? According to PFLAG, gender expansive is an umbrella term for those who do not follow gender stereotypes, or who expand ideas of gender expression or gender identity. People of any gender identity can be gender expansive. In Pennridge: Pennridge complaint outlines alleged 'hostile' actions against LGBTQ and students of color Local resources and support for LGBTQ+ youth in the Bucks County area A pride flag, raised in honor of Pride Month, waves from atop a pole in Doylestown Borough on Wednesday, June 14, 2023. Planned Parenthood Keystones Rainbow Room is a youth center in Bucks County for LGBTQ+ youth and allies ages 14 to 21. They have two centers in Langhorne and Doylestown. More information on their programs can be found at linktr.ee/rr_rgb. Roy G. Biv is an LGBTQ+ youth and allies program designed for ages 10 to 14. More information can be found on their Instagram page. PFLAG Bucks County is a support group for parents, family members, friends and individuals who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. They meet twice monthly, both virtually and in-person. For more information, visit pflagbuckscounty.org. Childrens Hospital of Philadelphias Gender and Sexuality Development Program offers psychosocial and medical support for gender nonconforming, gender expansive and transgender children and youth up to age 21 and their families. For more information visit chop.edu. Reporter Michele Haddon covers small business, economic development, community revitalization, art and culture for The Intelligencer and Bucks County Courier Times at PhillyBurbs.com. Please considering supporting local journalism with a subscription. This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Trans youth vigil to be held in Bucks County honoring Nex Benedict CENTENNIAL, Colo. (KDVR) A week before Super Tuesday, Nikki Haley made a campaign stop in Colorado to try and win over voters. Shes the first major candidate to visit the state as part of the 2024 campaign. Haley spoke one-on-one this week with Colorado Point of View, addressing several topics, including why she is still running even though she has not won the early primary states. Haley said the numbers are telling her to stay in this race. One of those statistics is from a new Marquette University poll. It says if the race in November is between Haley and President Joe Biden, she would win by 16 points. It showed Donald Trump winning by a much slimmer margin just 2 points. Still, she is struggling to beat Trump among Republicans. Colorado Point of View asked her why she believes her campaign isnt resonating with a majority of voters. I think my campaign has shown that there is a huge group of Americans who are saying we want something else. But more than that, what I want to tell my fellow Republicans is: We can want to make all the changes in the country we want, but if you have a candidate that cant win a general election, none of thats going to happen, Haley said. Republican presidential candidate and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at a campaign stop What brought Nikki Haley to Colorado? Presidential campaign stops in Colorado are relatively rare, and when they do happen, theyre typically in more conservative communities like Colorado Springs and Larimer County but Haley chose the Denver suburb of Centennial. She said its because every state matters, but her campaign visit came as nearly half of Colorados registered voters are unaffiliated and weeks after the chair of Colorados Republican Party formally endorsed Trump. It was the first time the party backed a candidate before the primary. Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams said its because, for all intents and purposes, Trump is the nominee. So what brought Haley to Colorado anyway? She responded to Williams comment. Thats showing how this is not a Republican Party for everybody anymore. This is a Republican Party about one man. And thats the problem. Thats what were seeing, Haley said. This is the wake-up call that I am trying to get to the Republican Party and to our country: We can do better than whats happening right now. Weve got to stop the chaos. Watch the full conversation on Colorado Point of View this Sunday at 7:30 a.m. on Colorados Very Own Channel 2. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver. Normalising al-Assads regime is dangerous and must be abandoned A year ago, in February 2023, in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that hit North West Syria and Southern Turkey, the world witnessed a geopolitical tremor that shook the ground beneath Syrian diplomacy: a sudden rush by regional powers and some Western states to normalise relations with Bashar al-Assad's regime. This move, while seemingly pragmatic, did not resolve nor address any pressing issues or threats affecting the Syrian people or Western stakeholders in Syria. At the same time, it threatened to betray the hopes of millions of displaced Syrians who yearn for justice and a dignified return to their homeland. For example, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) provided $100 million (92.5m) in earthquake-related humanitarian assistance directly to the Syrian regime, and countries like Saudi Arabia and some European states provided earthquake relief via Damascus. Yet, the main affected areas were outside the control of the Syrian regime, and the international community had direct and faster access to those areas. This self-imposed and artificially created bureaucracy driven by political agendas contributed to the unnecessary death of thousands of Syrians trapped under the rubble and prolonged the suffering of hundreds of thousands more. Friends will be friends A series of diplomatic engagements between Syria and Russia, Turkey, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE indicated that a new approach to the Syrian regime may be materialising. Saudi Arabia reopened its embassy in Syria in May, while in the same month, the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia invited Bashar al-Assad as a full member, after 12 years of isolation. Although the regional normalisation attempts had a mixed reaction in the West, ranging from official silence to mild reservations, there has been expectation to see if such normalisation will yield any tangible effects that could serve the interests of some of the Western governments serious prospects for the return of Syrian refugees and the prevention of new displacement waves towards Europe. Normalisation with the al-Assad regime would effectively legitimise a government that has committed widespread human rights abuses, including the use of chemical weapons, arbitrary detentions, and torture. Bashar al-Assad arrives at Jeddah airport ahead of the Arab Summit, May 2023 - Saudi Press Agency via AP Amidst the lack of any clear political horizon or seriousness on behalf of the international community in the implementation of UNSC resolution 2245, and the lack of effective monitoring mechanisms to enforce sanctions on the Syrian regime, normalisation of the Syrian regime offered the illusion of peace and stability while ignoring the underlying issues of accountability, human rights abuses, and political disenfranchisement that have plagued Syria for decades. Bashar al-Assads intransigence, the continued production and smuggling of huge quantities of synthetic drugs which are significantly affecting countries like Jordan, and have already reached Turkey and Europe, and the recent adoption of Assad Anti-Normalisation Act by the US House of Representatives, have put a spanner in the works of international champions of his regime's normalisation. However, it is not entirely clear that they have completely abandoned this flawed stance. Legitimising a regime of brutality and repression This makes it even more important to remind everyone that any policy which seeks to normalise the murderous regime in Damascus disregards the fundamental rights and aspirations of the largest and most directly affected constituency: the displaced Syrians. Displacement is more than just a physical journey across borders; it leaves deep emotional and psychological scars on individuals and communities. A recent survey conducted among displaced Syrians revealed the profound mistrust they continue to harbour towards the al-Assad regime. Their distrust is well-founded, given the regime's history of brutality and repression. For displaced Syrians, returning home is not merely a matter of crossing a border; it entails rebuilding trust, ensuring safety, and guaranteeing basic human rights, all impossible under al-Assads rule. Normalisation with the al-Assad regime would effectively legitimise a government that has committed widespread human rights abuses, including the use of chemical weapons, arbitrary detentions, and torture. By engaging with the al-Assad regime without addressing these issues, the international community fails to uphold justice, potentially fostering a climate of impunity that could have far-reaching consequences beyond Syria's borders. Syrian man carries his sister who was wounded in a government airstrike hit the neighbourhood of Ansari, in Aleppo, February 2013 - Abdullah al-Yassin/AP It would send a disheartening message to the victims of these atrocities that their suffering is overlooked for political expediency. The Syrian Association for Citizens' Dignity's findings reveal a clear rejection of normalisation by displaced Syrians, with a significant majority ceasing efforts to return due to safety concerns and unresolved issues such as the fate of detainees. By sidelining these concerns, normalisation risks further entrenching a regime that has consistently shown disregard for basic human rights and international norms. Moreover, normalisation without a credible pathway to political transition ignores the root causes of the Syrian conflict. It clearly diverts from the UN Security Council resolutions, like Resolution 2254, which outlines a roadmap for peace, including a ceasefire, humanitarian aid access, and a political settlement reflecting the Syrian people's will. Such political adventurism on the part of the international community further erodes the faith among displaced Syrians in the current political process, driven by the belief that normalisation strengthens al-Assad's position, further diminishing the prospects for a genuine political solution. What happened to accountability? The policy of normalisation also undermines the principle of accountability. For any durable peace in Syria, accountability for war crimes and human rights abuses is indispensable. Displaced Syrians, as highlighted in the surveys findings, prioritise the issue of tens of thousands of detainees still held in al-Assads prisons and the establishment of a safe environment for all Syrians. By engaging with the al-Assad regime without addressing these issues, the international community fails to uphold justice, potentially fostering a climate of impunity that could have far-reaching consequences beyond Syria's borders, as it fails to address the humanitarian and security dimensions of the Syrian crisis. Seeking shortcuts to peace that bypass the difficult but essential steps of ensuring justice, accountability, and reconciliation is a perilous path. History has shown us that such shortcuts often lead to fragile and unsustainable peace that collapses under the weight of unaddressed grievances. A Syrian refugee man surrounded by children shouts during a spontaneous protest against Syrian President Bashar Assad, in a camp in Yayladagi, June 2011 - AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda The conflict has created one of the largest displacement crises globally, with millions of Syrians seeking refuge in neighbouring countries and beyond. The international community's engagement with al-Assad without a clear commitment to resolving the displacement crisis risks exacerbating the vulnerabilities of refugees, subjecting them to further discrimination and instability. Consequently, the normalisation policy overlooks the strategic error of alienating the most numerous constituency of Syrians more than 13 million displaced Syrians represent the majority of the country's population, with deep ties to their homeland and a vested interest in its future. Their exclusion from the political process not only negates a wealth of potential contributions to Syria's recovery and reconciliation but also disregards their right to self-determination. The work of organisations and movements representing displaced Syrians continuously emphasises the necessity of including them in any discussions on the country's future, ensuring their experiences and aspirations shape the path forward. It is a grave illusion that this can be ignored without severe consequences for the region and European states. There are no shortcuts to peace Seeking shortcuts to peace that bypass the difficult but essential steps of ensuring justice, accountability, and reconciliation is a perilous path. History has shown us that such shortcuts often lead to fragile and unsustainable peace that collapses under the weight of unaddressed grievances. To all serious policymakers, it is crystal clear that normalising the al-Assad regime is a misguided policy that neglects the fundamental principles of justice, accountability, and the rights of displaced Syrians. It needs to be abandoned in all its shapes and guises. Instead, for a sustainable resolution to the Syrian conflict, the international community must prioritise a political process that includes the voices and concerns of displaced Syrians, aligns with international resolutions for peace, ensures a safe environment for all Syrians, and holds perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable. The insights we have witnessed so far serve as a crucial reminder of the stakes involved and the imperative to reevaluate current approaches for the sake of Syria's future and the dignity of its people. Refik Hodzic is a transitional justice expert and senior advisor at the European Institute for Peace, and Osama Seyhali is advocacy officer and member of the Board of Trustees of the Syrian Association for Citizens Dignity. At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at view@euronews.com to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation. When asked about the origin of daylight saving time, you may imagine 19th-century farmers dressed in linen getting an extra hour of daylight to tend to their crops and animals. Is there any truth to the popular claim? The Sacramento Bee consulted Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and National Geographic to understand the origin of daylight saving time and how the biannual time change came to be. This year, clocks will spring forward one hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 10. Read on then, take our 10-question quiz to test your knowledge. Was daylight saving time invented for farmers? Daylight savings time was never created for farmers but instead to save money and energy. The applicable concept is officially credited to New Zealand entomologist George Hudson in 1895. However, famous inventor Benjamin Franklin toyed with the idea nearly 100 years earlier. In 1784, Franklin pondered the shift to rising earlier in a satirical letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris, adding that doing so would decrease the use of candles and save money. Yet it so happens, that when I speak of this discovery to others, I can easily perceive by their countenances, though they forbear expressing it in words, that they do not quite believe me, Franklin wrote. In the letter, Franklin said he didnt want money or notoriety in exchange for his discovery only credit. The modern-day concept resurfaced in 1895 when Hudson proposed shifting the clocks to create more daylight for studying bugs, according to National Geographic. Clocks were briefly pushed forward as a global attempt to save energy during World War I, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health stated. Germany implemented DST in 1916 and the U.S. followed suit two years later, according to The University of Colorado Boulder. It was repealed the next year. President Franklin Roosevelt resurfaced it during World War II before the Uniform Time Act of 1966 established the biannual time change similar to what we use today. The start and end of daylight saving time went through several shifts until the early 2000s, according to timeanddate.com. Starting in 2007, daylight saving time began on the second Sunday in March and ended on the first Sunday in November. Didnt California vote to get rid of daylight saving time? In 2018, more than 7.1 million California residents nearly 60% of the total vote marked yes to Proposition 7 to stop the time change. One year later, Assemblyman Democrat Kansen Chu introduced an assembly bill but it eventually died in committee, according to a previous Sacramento Bee story. After Chu left office, Irvine Republican Assemblyman Steven Choi introduced Assembly Bill 2868 in 2021. The bill, which proposed year-round daylight saving time under Proposition 7, died the following year. Permanent daylight saving time would require permission from the federal government. What happened to the Sunshine Protection Act? In 2018, Sen. Marco Rubio introduced the Sunshine Protection Act. If passed, daylight saving time would be permanent in the U.S., meaning people would not be forced to change their clocks back one hour in November. According to the act, time zones nor the amount of daylight hours would be altered. Rubio reintroduced the bill last year, with Rep. Vern Buchanan introducing it in the House. As of March 2023, neither proposal in the Senate nor the House has progressed through the introduction phase. Both bills have been referred to separate committees. Two states, Hawaii and most of Arizona, do not observe daylight saving time and instead operate on permanent standard time. Test your knowledge Whether youre for the biannual time change, against it or somewhere in between there may be some facts you do not know. How much do you know about daylight saving time? Take our 10-question quiz and find out. Clarification: A yes vote on Proposition 7 would allow for legislation to either keep permanent standard or daylight time, eliminating the time change, as federal law allows. Oliver Dowden says the Government should be aiming to save 24bn a year by using tech tools - Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street Embracing yet-untested artificial intelligence is the only way to cut the size of the Civil Service, Oliver Dowden has insisted, as he outlined plans to save billions of pounds using chatbots. The Deputy Prime Minister admitted using AI tools in the NHS and Whitehall was the only option for a sustainable path to headcount reduction as the Government seeks major spending reductions to pay for tax cuts. It came as the Cabinet Office unveiled plans to spend 110m on AI tools and technical staff designed to speed up dogsbody work in Whitehall, answer taxpayers questions and improve the NHS. Mr Dowden said: It really is the only way, I think, if we want to get on a sustainable path to headcount reduction. Remember how much the size of the Civil Service has grown as a result of the pandemic and, and EU exit preparedness. We need to really embrace this stuff to drive the numbers down. He said a recent report from the IPPR think tank suggesting the Government could save 24bn a year by using AI was the sort of target that we should be aiming for. However, the reliance on new and, in some ways, unproven technology to cut costs was criticised as a way of ducking hard decisions about the future of the state. Officials described the tools as early pilots. John OConnell, chief executive of the TaxPayers Alliance, said: Ministers shouldnt be waiting for technological innovations to deal with the bloated bureaucracy, they should roll up their sleeves and deal with it. The number of civil servants has ballooned in recent years, rising by more than 100,000 since 2016 to 519,780 last year. Meanwhile, the number earning six-figure salaries has doubled. Jeremy Hunt has ordered public services to find ways of cutting spending to pay for tax cuts, with the Chancellor expected to signal reductions in income tax or national insurance in next weeks Budget. In a speech today, Mr Dowden will unveil plans to speed up the use of AI in the public sector, including using software to automatically renew prescriptions, to read and summarise consultation responses and an assistant for Citizens Advice staff to help callers. Story continues The Cabinet Office estimates the prescription service, which is currently in testing, could save up to 900m a year while removing work on reading consultation responses could save 80m. It said it would potentially introduce a gov.uk chatbot for voters that could answer questions on paying taxes and applying for passports although the Government admitted in January that an early attempt at this went awry when it started speaking French. An AI incubator in the Cabinet Office, which is paying staff salaries of up to 135,000 and poaching staff from top tech companies, will more than double in size, from 30 to 70 people. Mr Dowden said: By doing those things better, you have to have fewer civil servants doing the administrative tasks that drive these things, which should lead us to savings both on headcount and on overall budget. He admitted that the Government would have to take voters on a cultural journey to get people comfortable with AI tools but compared the technology to the rise of the internet, which also drew sceptics. The AI incubator is working with companies including OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, on the technology. James Price, director of government relations at the Adam Smith Institute, said: The Deputy Prime Minister is right to want to embrace the amazing possibilities that AI creates in delivering better public services and shrinking the headcount across the Civil Service. But civil service reform will need to go further if we want to cut the Leviathan down to size. This should start with fundamental changes to the hiring and firing processes, so that talented people from outside the pool of career officials can lend their expertise to Government. Klarna, the Swedish buy now pay later company, said this week its AI chatbot was doing the work of 700 staff in responding to customer service inquiries. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. An Illinois family is suing a police department, saying officers fatally shot a man while he was asleep in his bedroom. On Feb. 3, Carol Stream police were called for reports of a domestic violence incident, according to a news release. Officers arrived at Isaac Goodlows apartment around 4:15 a.m. Officers encountered a tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving situation, which resulted in officers discharging their weapons at the alleged domestic violence suspect. The suspect was struck and sustained critical injuries, police said. Now, Goodlows two sisters, Kyenna McConico and Kennetha Barnes, are suing the police department, calling the shooting unjustified. When officers arrived at the apartment over a dispute between Goodlow and his girlfriend, the family lawsuit said Goodlow was inside alone and his girlfriend was outside. Isaacs girlfriend was not inside Isaacs home, and each and every Village of Carol Stream police officer on scene was perfectly aware the complaining girlfriend was not inside, the lawsuit said. The familys legal team said the officers were at the apartment building for 50 minutes without making contact with Goodlow. The officers did not attempt to announce themselves, they did not have an arrest or search warrant, they did not have permission or probable cause to enter and there were no exigent circumstances warranting entry, the lawsuit said. When officers entered Goodlows apartment, they opened his bedroom door and shot him, the family said. Two officers shot Goodlow, with one striking him in the heart, according to the lawsuit. Then, as he lay on the ground next to his bed, face down, an officer tased him and he was placed in handcuffs, the lawsuit said. My pain aint never going to go away. I wake up, I think about it. I go to sleep, I think about it, Goodlows mother, Bonnie Pigram said to village officials at a Feb. 20 meeting, according to WLS-TV. Goodlow was unarmed and posed no threat to officers, the lawsuit said. While the Village has not been served with the suit, at such a time that service may occur, we will review the suit in order to determine how best to proceed on behalf of those we serve, Carol Stream Police Chief Donald Cummings told McClatchy News in an email. The family was allowed to view some of the police body camera footage, police said in a Feb. 9 update. We support that this opportunity was provided to Mr. Goodlows family because they are entitled to gain an understanding of what transpired that morning, a Feb. 9 news release said. However, the family is demanding that the footage be made public, WLS-TV reported. Its horrific. They lied. What they did was unjustified, Goodlows sister, Kyenna McConico, told the station. Police said the footage will be released once the Public Integrity Team and the DuPage County States Attorneys Office determine it will not negatively impact the investigation. The Village continues to extend condolences to the Goodlow family for their loss, Cummings said. The Village remains eager for the completion of the investigation ... so all parties can gain a fuller understanding of what, exactly, took place. Carol Stream is about 30 miles west of Chicago. Officer shoots shoplifting suspect when he charges at her with machete, police say Police officer hit by stolen car shoots driver while stuck on the hood, Ohio cops say Officers shoot dog that turned on them after mauling another man, Colorado cops say A planned protest against famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz at Temple Emanu-El in Miami Beach turned violent over the weekend as video taken inside the synagogue shows one person assaulted and officers grappling others. Dershowitz spoke Sunday at Temple Emanu-El, one of the citys oldest synagogues, discussing the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the aftermath of the attack and how to go forward. He had spoken to the congregation last year and was invited back. South Floridians who have opposed Israels counterattacks in Gaza called on people to protest Dershowitzs talk. An email to the Herald calling for the protest said organizers were Jews in South Florida who stand for justice and all those standing for a ceasefire and an end to Israels genocide against the Palestinian people. Three people obtained tickets to the event. Each told the Herald they had planned to stand up and speak in opposition as Dershowitz talked. As planned, each person disrupted the event to varying degrees of force, according to the video. I never threatened anybody Monica Uszerowicz, one of the trio, told the Herald she shouted at Dershowitz that the response [of Israel] is unprecedented... and genocide is not a Jewish value. Immediately met with boos, she said police officers escorted her out and put her in handcuffs. She was released outside. I was actually pretty shocked to be handcuffed, said Uszerowicz, 37, who lives in South Florida. Ive seen other folks disrupting public figures who are supporting and normalizing this genocide...and between being handcuffed and the violence [the other protester] faced, Ive never seen that in a setting like this. Moments later, fellow protester Amanda Rose Fischer was physically retaliated against, the video showed. She was almost immediately grabbed from behind, Rose Fischer said, before a man pulled her by the neck and began hitting her. A Miami Beach police officer then intervened and tackled her to the ground, the video showed. Like Uszerowicz, she was dragged out in handcuffs and released outside. As a Jewish person and the granddaughter of survivors, I feel its my obligation to stand up for other people who are undergoing this kind of terrorism and brutality, Rose Fischer, 46, told the Herald. I never threatened anybody. I tried to defend myself with my words by telling people not to put their hands on me. And I was hurt because of it. About three officers later pulled out the third protester who spoke. They, too, were cuffed and released. The trio joined other protesters outside the synagogue as the demonstration continued. Dershowitz told the Miami Herald he had experienced such disruptions before. He said he tried to allow the trio to speak and ask questions. I always say that opponents of my view get first opportunities to ask me questions before those who support my views, he said. It was an attempt to disrupt me, not an attempt to debate me. Noting he could not hear what the protesters were saying, Dershowitz did see the fight break out. I said stop it; I dont want anybody to fight. The folks have a tactic of trying to provoke people into fighting, he told the Herald. He emphasized that he admonished those who fought the protesters as they had a right to speak, but not to disrupt. Temple Emanu-El, 1701 Washington Ave., did not respond to a request for comment from the Herald. No charges filed Rose Fischer said after being released that she had to beg several Miami Beach police officers to question and charge the man who attacked her inside the synagogue. After the speaking event, officers pulled him aside and talked briefly before letting him go, she said. Officers told her that because the assault would be a misdemeanor charge, the officers hands were tied and to try the Miami-Dade State Attorneys Office, she said. The state attorneys office told her they would request the police report and ultimately decide on charges, but Rose Fischer is doubtful charges will come. I am nervous the police report is biased, she said, adding that officers did not give her medical attention. Miami Beach police officers did, however, inform all three protesters that they would be arrested if they returned to Temple Emanu-El, according to the trio. Miaimi Beach police did not respond Tuesday to the Heralds query about the incident. Dershowitz said he could not comment on whether the event attendees involved in the fight need to face charges, though he did say the protesters shouldnt. He felt protesters, at most, could get a warning from officers. Rose Fischer said she would pursue other legal options. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed two decrees on February 26 that officially re-establish the Moscow and Leningrad Military Districts, codifying major efforts to restructure and reform the Russian military. According to the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, the move has two parallel objectives: supports Moscow's effort to consolidate control over Russian operations in Ukraine and to preparing for a potential large-scale conventional war against NATO at some point in the future. The re-separated LMD will now run along NATOs northeastern border, while the MMD will border northeastern Ukraine and Poland, which will allow Russia to simultaneously posture against NATO and streamline command and control for the war in Ukraine. Until now, most of this territory fell under the Western Military District, which was formed in 2010 via a merger of the two original districts. "Putin previously claimed that it was necessary to create the LMD after Finland joined NATO in 2023, signalling the Kremlins clear intent to use the LMD to posture against NATO," the ISW reports. The Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service has warned that the security situation in Europe and along Estonias borders in the near future depends on whether Ukraine, with the support of its allies, can defeat Russias invasion. According to the think tank, the Kremlin has started "information operations" against Moldova as well as the Baltic states, Denmark, and Finland, potentially with the goal of creating similar conditions that preceded the invasion of Ukraine. South Carolina faces a repeat of the 2017 V.C. Summer nuclear construction debacle that soaked ratepayers if state legislators make it easier for utilities to build a large natural gas plant in Colleton County, critics said this week. A bill introduced Feb. 15 in the House would strip protections that are designed to preserve the environment, keep utility rates from soaring, and restrict the government from taking peoples land, according to a coalition of energy and conservation groups. They held a rally at the State House on Tuesday and later spoke at a legislative hearing to formally oppose the bill that paves the way for a new natural gas plant that is estimated to cost $1 billion. Bill supporters say a big gas plant with an expected capacity of about 2,000 megawatts will provide needed electricity as the state grows. But environmentalists say there are other ways to meet future energy demands, including solar power. John Tynan, who directs the Conservation Voters of South Carolina, said the bill is a wish list for utilities seeking limited oversight of their plans. And it draws eerie parallels to the multi-billion dollar VC Summer construction fiasco in 2017, he said. At the time, the Legislature had loosened oversight of power plant construction to make building two reactors at the VC Summer site in Fairfield County easier. With the legislatures permission, utilities raised rates and charged customers the upfront cost of the reactors, only to quit the project on July 31, 2017, amid rising costs and construction delays. Customers ended up paying billions for a project that never produced power. This is exactly the same song as V.C. Summer seven years later, Tynan told The State before the rally, which featured a cross-section of the states environmental groups. The utilities are asking for a sweetheart deal via this legislation that would allow them to build a 2,000 megawatt power plant. Its the same thing they said when the Legislature passed the Base Load Review Act, the legislation that enabled the doomed nuclear construction project. All told, some $9 billion had been spent when the project was abandoned. SCE&G, later acquired by Dominion Energy, partnered with state-owned Santee Cooper on the project. Ultimately, top SCE&G executives were prosecuted criminally after failing to alert shareholders and the public that the project was in trouble. Two executives were sentenced to federal prison. Dominion and Santee Cooper, which are now partnering on plans for the natural gas plant, sharply disputed allegations that the natural gas plant bill will allow for a repeat of the Summer nuclear scandal. Critics of the bill are trying to make comparisons to ... our attempts to expand VC Summer, Santee Cooper chief executive Jimmy Staton said during Tuesdays hearing before a House committee. This is completely different. Natural gas technology exists today. Its consistently deployed around the country and around the world. Its used extensively, and its much less expensive to build than VC Summer would have been. The utilities and some lawmakers say South Carolina needs the big gas plant to be built at an old power plant site in the Canadys community of Colleton County because the state is attracting more residents and more industry, and South Carolina must have additional power in the future. Dominion has said building a large plant jointly with Santee Cooper would save money and eventually reduce customer costs. We are energy deficient right now for the state of South Carolina, said Rep. Russell Ott, a Calhoun County Democrat and co-sponsor of the House bill. We have got to get caught up. We dont have enough electricity right now in the immediate future. We have got to be able to do whatever is necessary in our ability to get to that point. Santee Cooper and Dominion also say they are not trying to chill the expansion of solar power, a rising energy source, but to make up for the closure of polluting coal plants that contribute to global warming. The utilities contend that a large natural gas plant is warranted because solar is not available at night or during extended cloudy periods. Well, weve got more solar than has been committed to be constructed on our system than the output that we would have out of this plant, Dominions South Carolina president Keller Kissam told lawmakers. This plant is simply designed to be paired with all of these renewables. Environmentalists dont oppose the use of natural gas, which is abundant and less polluting than coal-generated power. But there needs to be a greater mix of solar energy, battery storage and energy efficiency with smaller natural gas facilities, environmentalists say. Concerns are that natural gas prices are unstable and can shoot up, causing power bills to rise, and that gas pipelines could harm the environment. Natural gas is an abundant source of energy. South Carolina officials are considering a new gas plant. In this photo, excess natural is being being burned off in a flare. The voluminous House bill has more than 50 co-sponsors, including Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, and is believed to have broad support in the lower chamber. The Senate has a similar bill. But some lawmakers oppose the bill, including Richland County Democrats Heather Bauer and Seth Rose. Both spoke at Tuesdays rally. The bill includes a section that gives substantial weight to utilities over others about the risks of electric transmission plans; a section that limits appeals of energy projects, such as power plants, to property owners who are affected, precluding interest groups worried about the general harm of a project; drops the state consumer advocate from speaking on behalf of the public in utility rate cases; and puts some limits on solar energy that critics say could cripple sun power. It would not only authorize Santee Cooper to join Dominion in the natural gas plant, but it could make building another natural gas plant possible for Duke Energy, said Eddy Moore, an official with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. A consultant that examined Santee Coopers part of the project said late last year that a large natural gas plant may not be needed. Santee Cooper needs to look at whether a large plant is the best way to meet future needs, or if the use of solar power and battery storage could be ramped up, the Dec. 22 report by PA Consulting said. A key worry among environmentalists is how a new natural gas plant would affect miles of the landscape, including sensitive wetlands and natural areas, as well as private property owners. A gas plant would need extensive pipelines to serve it, which is a major issue itself, they say. If private property were needed, the government could condemn the land and pay the owner what it thinks is a fair price. But Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore said utilities are seeking existing rights of way, including old industrial sites, to lay any pipelines to serve the plant in an attempt to avoid private property. Natural gas pipeline proposals have stirred angry comments from landowners in recent years from Virginia to South Carolina. A plan to extend an oil pipeline through South Carolina eight years ago also drew intense criticism. She noted that the natural gas plant would also take up far less room than a solar farm large enough to provide nearly 2,000 megawatts. Environmentalists handed out t-shirts Tuesday (Feb. 27, 2024) to protest plans for a large new natural gas plant in South Carolina. Opponents say the plant could soak ratepayers with costs and hurt the environment. Utilities say the plant will provide reliable power for future growth. Soldiers carry the coffin of Andrii Katanenko, 39, a Ukrainian soldier who was killed in a Russian missile strike near Avdiivka three days earlier, during his funeral at the Church of St. Andrew in Bucha, Ukraine on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (Brendan Hoffman/The New York Times) PARIS With his jolting unexpected statement that sending Western troops to Ukraine should not be ruled out, President Emmanuel Macron of France has shattered a taboo, ignited debate, spread dismay among allies and forced a reckoning on Europes future. For an embattled leader who loathes lazy thinking, longs for a Europe of military strength and loves the limelight, this was typical enough. It was Macron, after all, who in 2019 described NATO as suffering from brain death and who last year warned Europe against becoming Americas strategic vassal. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times But bold pronouncements are one thing and patiently putting the pieces in place to attain those objectives another. Macron has often favored provocation over preparation, even if he often has a point, as in arguing since 2017 that Europe needed to bolster its defense industry to attain greater strategic heft. This week was no exception. By lurching forward without building consensus among allies, Macron may have done more to illustrate Western divisions and the limits of how far NATO allies are willing to go in defense of Ukraine than achieve the strategic ambiguity he says is needed to keep President Vladimir Putin of Russia guessing. Macrons provocation looked in part like a quest for relevance at a time when he is isolated at home and has appeared a marginal figure in the war between Israel and Hamas. France has played a central role in coordinating European Union aid to Ukraine, including a $54 billion program to support Ukraine approved this month, but its own aid contribution lags behind Germany, Britain and the United States. Still, for Macron, the case for acting differently in Ukraine, as he put it Monday after a meeting in Paris of leaders and officials from 27 countries, mostly European, is overwhelming. From the start of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, the West has sought to contain the conflict in Ukraine and avoid a shooting war between Russia and NATO that could escalate into a nuclear standoff. Hence the hesitation of his allies. But containment has obvious limitations that have left Ukraine struggling to hold the line against a larger Russian force. Russia has recently taken territory on the eastern front, Ukraine lacks the weapons and ammunition it needs, uncertainty surrounds U.S. support for the war in an election year, and nobody knows where an emboldened Putin will stop. Given all this, more of the same seems unserious to France. The defeat of Russia is indispensable to the security and stability of Europe, Macron said, dispensing with the cautious Russia-must-not-win formulation favored by the United States and Germany. Behind the French presidents words lurked exasperation with the apparent strategic impunity afforded to Putin by the West. The positive thing is that Macron is trying to introduce a balance of power, and so dissuasion, with Russia: Tell Putin that we are ready for anything, so you should be worried; we wont give up, said Nicole Bacharan, a social scientist and expert on the United States at Sciences Po University. But she also pointed to a cumulative problem for Macron: the lack of credibility of a leader who has been on a tortuous wartime strategic journey. It began with his attempt to involve Russia in a new European architecture of security in 2019, despite the Russian annexation of Crimea five years earlier. This was followed by his statement in 2022 that we must not humiliate Russia, and the long exercise in futility of repeated phone calls to Putin in the months after the Russian leaders full-scale invasion. Now it has culminated with the French president in the vanguard of defiance of Putin, and in effusive concert with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, his erstwhile critic. Zelenskyy praised Macrons idea Wednesday, saying such initiatives are good for the whole world. No wonder some Europeans are rubbing their eyes. He gives the impulse, but people dont feel they can trust him to be consistent, Bacharan said. Even states that agree with Macrons analysis may hesitate in the face of his volatility. Certainly his openness to sending troops was unexpected. In the short term, at least, the result appears to have been more strategic bafflement than strategic ambiguity. His gambit presented Russia with an image of allied division as countries from the United States to Sweden rejected the deployment of troops. It also underlined Franco-German differences on the war as Chancellor Olaf Scholz not only ruled out German forces but any ground troops from European countries or NATO. A disaster, the influential German magazine Der Spiegel said of the differences between the two leaders. Macrons mocking denunciation of repeated delays and reversals in Western policy to Ukraine never, never tanks, never, never planes, never, never long-range missiles appeared particularly provocative to Germany, in that France has been among those saying no before saying yes. When France and Germany are at odds, Europe tends to stall, the very thing Macron does not want in his now almost seven-year quest for greater European strategic autonomy from the United States. Macrons vision for an independent European defense appears timelier than ever with Europeans anxious over the possible return to the White House of Donald Trump and with him, per Trumps own telling, a possible wink to Russia to do its worst. The heavy Ukrainian reliance on the United States for weapons has underscored Europes ongoing dependence on Washington as the 75th anniversary of NATO approaches this year. Yet because front-line states with Russia want Americas continued presence, Macron has found it hard to sway Europe toward greater independence. At home, where his popularity has fallen and he does not command an absolute majority in parliament, Macron faced an outcry over an apparent policy shift decided without any national debate, a recurrent issue throughout a highly centralized, top-down presidency. From the far-left to the far-right, lawmakers condemned what Olivier Faure, a Socialist, called the folly of a potential war with Russia. Jordan Bardella, the president of the extreme-right National Rally party, which has been close to Moscow, accused Macron of losing his sang-froid. Still, nobody answered the fundamental question Macron has posed: how to stop Russias advance and a Ukrainian defeat that would threaten freedom and open societies across Europe. Macron eventually understood that dialogue with Russia will go nowhere, and increasing cyberattacks on France and other states convinced him that Putin will not stop in Ukraine, said Nicolas Tenzer, a political scientist who has long argued for the dispatch of Western troops to Ukraine. NATOs credibility and Europe itself are at risk. In this sense, as Russia advances and a $60 billion U.S. aid package to Ukraine is held up in Congress by Republican opposition, Macron may have forced a necessary reassessment, especially given the possibility of Trumps reelection. Should we delegate our future to the American voter? Macron asked. My response is no, whatever this voter decides. Doubling down on Macrons statement, despite the furor it has caused, a senior official close to him said Tuesday that we comfort Mr. Putin in his impression that we are weak when we write checks, make statements, send artillery and produce shells, but above all do not want to take any risk ourselves. At the same time, said the official, who requested anonymity in keeping with French diplomatic protocol, France remains committed to avoiding a confrontation between the Alliance and Russia. What exactly France has in mind is unclear, but it appears likely that any troops would be sent for purposes that do not cross the threshold of belligerence, as Stephane Sejourne, the foreign minister, put it to the National Assembly. Among these purposes: demining, training and assistance in local production of weapons appear possible, all with the aim of defending against further Russian advances but without participation in any offensive Ukrainian action. Of course, Russia will define Western belligerence on its own terms. The Kremlin has already warned that Macron has introduced a very important new element that could lead to a direct clash of Russian forces and NATO. If Western troops are ever on the ground in Ukraine in any numbers, a Russian rocket or missile that kills any of them could in theory trigger Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, the cornerstone of the Alliance, which says an armed attack on any member shall be considered an attack against them all. It is precisely this path to escalation that President Joe Biden and Scholz have been intent on avoiding since the start of the war. The result is that Ukraine has survived, but it has not prevailed. For Macron, that, it appears, is not enough. Everything is possible if it is useful to achieve our objective, he said, adding that Europe should act because the fate of Ukraine depends on us, and its what we should do. c.2024 The New York Times Company By Ngouda Dione and Portia Crowe DAKAR (Reuters) -Senegal's national dialogue commission will propose a delayed presidential election be held on June 2 and recommend President Macky Sall remain in office until his successor is sworn in, commission member Ndiawar Paye said on Tuesday. The West African nation, set to become an oil and gas producer by the end of the year, has been thrown into an unprecedented political crisis after Sall postponed the election initially scheduled for Feb. 25. The date proposal follows two days of dialogue organised by Sall as a way to ease tensions. His and parliament's failed bid to postpone the Feb. 25 poll by 10 months sparked unrest and warnings of democratic backsliding in one of coup-hit West Africa's more stable democracies. The recommendation will be sent to Sall who will make the final decision, Paye told Reuters. Speaking by phone, he said it was not known if Sall would accept the recommendation, but his decision could come on Tuesday or Wednesday. The talks in the capital Dakar were boycotted by many of the opposition some of whom want the vote to be held before Sall's mandate expires on April 2. Paye said the commission agreed that early June was the most feasible time for the vote. "The month of May has a number of religious festivals, so the elections could not be held then," he said. It was not immediately clear how the opposition will respond to the proposed date. Its successful legal challenge of the original postponement led the top constitutional authority to rule the delay unlawful and ask Sall to find a new date as soon as possible. (Writing by Alessandra Prentice; editing by David Evans and Nick Macfie) Leaning Pine is a planned development looking to bring 38 single-family homes to Brunswick County. Conceptual plans to bring dozens of single-family homes to Brunswick County were approved by the countys planning board this month. Headwaters Engineering of the Cape Fear, PLLC, a civil engineering firm based in Southeastern North Carolina, submitted the application for the project. The Leaning Pine Planned Development project looks to bring 38 single-family homes to 11.71 acres of land on Leaning Pine Road SE. The road sits just south of N.C. 211 and near Zion Hill Road SE. The land is zoned for high density site build residential use, which allows a maximum density of 7.3 dwelling units per acre. The developer has proposed a density of 3.25 dwelling units per acre. The surrounding land is currently either vacant or single-family residential space. This embedded content is not available in your region. According to the proposed plans, parking for the development will be off street with at least two driveway parking spaces per lot. Water and sewer services will be provided by Brunswick County, while the roads within the development will be private. The developer proposed slightly more open space and recreation space than required in the zoning district. Just under three acres of open space is required, and the developer proposed 3.44 acres of open space. The zoning district requires 0.44 acres of recreation space for a development of this size, and the developer proposed 0.57 acres. The proposed development is expected to generate 363 additional vehicle trips per weekday, county staff reported, adding there are no road capacity deficiencies for Zion Hill Road. No portions of the site are in a flood hazard zone, staff added. Planning board member Jason Gaver raised a concern about the plans not including sidewalks for the development. The board ultimately approved the plans with a condition that sidewalks be added. STAY CONNECTED: Keep up with the areas latest Brunswick County news by signing up for the Brunswick Today newsletter and following us on Facebook and Instagram. The board approved the project unanimously in a 4-0 vote. Members Rob Medlin, Eric Dunham, Joy Peele Easley and William Bittenbender were not present at the February meeting. The approval of the planning board is not an authorization to construct. The project must obtain all necessary federal, state and county approvals and permits prior to construction. Jamey Cross covers Brunswick County for the StarNews. Reach her at jbcross@gannett.com or message her on Twitter/X @jameybcross. This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Plans for 38 homes in Brunswick County get OK WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will decide whether former President Donald Trump can be tried for trying to steal the 2020 election, setting an accelerated schedule to hear the case in April while his criminal trial remains delayed. The court will hear arguments the week of April 22 on whether a president can be charged criminally for conduct that involved official acts while he was in the White House. The move is a win for Trump, who is appealing a lower courts decision that hes not immune from prosecution. Even if Trump loses that appeal, the Supreme Court may not reach a decision quickly enough for a trial to proceed in time for a verdict before the November election. Without Presidential Immunity, a President will not be able to properly function, or make decisions, in the best interest of the United States of America, Trump said in a statement. Special Counsel Jack Smith, who had asked for a faster schedule if the justices did want to consider Trump's immunity, had told the court the public interest in a prompt trial is at its zenith. Smith's office declined to comment. Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and now a law professor at the University of Michigan, said setting oral arguments for late April seems awfully slow. Case can still be tried before election if they hustle the decision, she said on X, formerly known as Twitter. Otherwise justice delayed is justice denied. Paul Schiff Berman, a law professor at George Washington University, called it completely unjustifiable for the court to keep Trumps trial on hold while they consider his appeal. There's no reason that lower court proceedings couldn't continue in the meantime, he said. And if the court ultimately rules that Trump is immune, the proceedings could be discontinued at that time. Berman said he would not expect a Supreme Court decision until the end of June, which means that a trial is unlikely to begin until end of summer at the earliest. Donald Trump and the Supreme Court Trump's immunity appeal is just one of the issues the high court is deciding that will affect his future. The justices are also deciding whether an anti-insurrectionist provision of the Constitution can be used by states to kick Trump off the ballot. And they are considering a challenge to how federal prosecutors are going after Jan. 6 rioters in a case that could affect the federal charges against Trump. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the Supreme Court is putting itself on trial. It remains to be seen whether the justices will uphold the fundamental American value that no one is above the law not even a former president, she said in a statement. Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, has sought to delay four federal and state criminal cases until after the election. Delay, delay, delay: Here's how Donald Trump is trying to push back his criminals trials Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a caucus night rally in Las Vegas, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) ORG XMIT: NVMT304 More trials than Al Capone? Trump dominates the GOP primary field, but his legal battles are intensifying If voters return Trump to the White House while the trial is still pending, he could ask the Justice Department to dismiss pending federal cases. Smith had asked the Supreme Court to weigh in early on the immunity issue, which the justices declined to do in December without comment. After the appeals court ruled against Trump, his lawyers tried to use Smiths arguments to their benefit. They reminded the Supreme Court that Smith had said the case presents "a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy that only the Supreme Court can definitively resolve. Smith told the court this month that if the Supreme Court didnt want to take up the issue before, there was less of a reason to do so now since the appeals court soundly rejected Trumps immunity claim. But if the justices did want to consider the immunity claim, he continued, they should do so quickly to minimize the continued trial delay. Smith had asked that the appeal be argued in March, a month earlier than the court's April schedule. Trumps lawyers had argued restarting the federal trial on election interference would sideline Trump from the 2024 campaign, threatening the First Amendment rights of the tens of millions of American voters who are entitled to hear Trumps campaign message. Timeline How Donald Trump's campaign schedule is headed full speed for a crash with his court dates Smith pointed out that Trump has been charged with trying to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters by refusing to accept the 2020 election results. Trump has pleaded not guilty to four federal charges in the case three for conspiracy and one for obstruction for falsely claiming election fraud and trying to overturn the legitimate election results. While former presidents have broad immunity from civil lawsuits for official actions taken while serving in the White House, Trump has attempted to claim sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution. Trump's lawyer John Sauer, has argued a president would have to be impeached and convicted in a Senate trial before he could be charged with crimes including murdering a political rival, accepting bribes or committing treason. Without immunity from criminal prosecution, Sauer told the court, the presidency as we know it will cease to exist because political rivals could seek to punish a president for contentious policy decisions. A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this month definitively rejected Trumps argument in a unanimous opinion. After rejecting Trumps claim of absolute immunity, the appeals panel said it wasnt necessary to determine whether the criminal allegations covered official acts. But an appeals panel already found campaign activity wasn't "official." When Capitol Police officers sued Trump for allegedly inciting the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, another appeals panel ruled that actions constituting re-election campaign activity are not official and can be the basis for a lawsuit. The trial on the special counsel's charges against Trump was originally scheduled for March. The appeals panel kept it on hold while Trump asked the Supreme Court to weigh in. Hes already facing a March trial in New York on charges he falsified business records to cover up payments to women. Trials are also possible on election interferences charges in Georgia and on whether Trump mishandled of classified documents after leaving the White House. `So much winning'? Donald Trump remade the Supreme Court. It hasn't always made him a winner This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court will consider presidential immunity in April Sweden is exactly what the West needs to counter Putin's underhand tactics Sweden is set to become the newest member of the NATO alliance. Russia's war in Ukraine pushed Sweden away from decades of neutrality. Sweden will provide NATO with big advantages in deterring Russian aggression. Russia's President Vladimir Putin has long harbored an intense grudge against NATO expansion. He's claimed the invasion of Ukraine was a way of preventing the growth of the alliance close to Russia's borders and threatening its security. But in the end, the Russian president seems to have achieved the exact opposite. On Tuesday, Hungary's parliament voted to approve Sweden's NATO membership in a move that may be exactly what the West needs to counter Putin and his underhand tactics, like cyber attacks and psychological warfare. Its membership brings to an end its decades-old military nonalignment policy. It also means the post-Cold War era, where Sweden reduced the size of its military and sought better trade and diplomatic ties with Russia, is closed. NATO's weak spot NATO officials have long feared that the Baltic region in northeastern Europe is one of its most vulnerable areas, and if Russia wins in Ukraine, its next move could be to launch an attack on the region. Oscar Jonsson, a defense specialist at the Swedish Defence University, told Business Insider, that Sweden would provide NATO with a large range of new options for striking back. "Sweden will bring the strategic depth needed for launching air operations and missiles against Russian operations, but also be a difficult target across the Baltic Sea," he said. "Moreover, Sweden brings an already interoperable Armed Forces that are highly competent in terms of technology and training although not in great quantity." Soldiers from the Swedish Amphibious Corps and the US Marine Corps ride on the CB90-class fast assault craft on Mallsten island in the Stockholm Archipelago on September 13, 2023. JONATHAN NACKSTRAND via Getty Sweden's membership of NATO means the alliance is the dominant force in the Baltic Sea. For hundreds of years, the region has been a vital corridor for the Russian navy, Nima Khorrami, a Research Associate at the Arctic Institute, told Business Insider He said that Sweden's "extensive coastline and numerous islands provide NATO with a unique advantage in navigating and controlling" the sea, and curtail potential Russian naval operations from its bases in the Baltic. Khorrami added that, with Sweden's membership, NATO's borders have drawn even closer to Russia, meaning it could more effectively strike St Petersburg, Russia's second biggest city, and Kaliningrad, the Baltic enclave where Russia has nuclear-capable Iskander missiles. "This adds another layer of deterrence against potential Russian aggression, as NATO forces can effectively respond to threats in real time," said Khorrami. Sweden's total defense strategy It's not just its geography that benefits NATO, it also has a unique approach to defense that could work in its favor. Sweden has long lived under the threat of Russian aggression. After World War II, it adopted a "total defense" strategy, which states that every part of society, from school pupils to pensioners, has a role in the event of a war. In the years after the collapse of the USSR, the strategy seemed like a relic from history and was wound down. But in the face of the intensifying threat from Putin's Russia, it has been updated to use. In 2018, after the Russian annexation of swaths of Crimea, Sweden issued a 20-page government brochure, titled "If Crisis Or War Comes," telling citizens what to do in response to crises such as power cuts or mass cyber-attacks. Europe's leaders are taking notice of this strategy and trying to prepare their own citizens for the grim prospect of war with Russia. Ships from NATO navies sail in formation in the Baltic Sea during the exercise Baltic Operations 2023 on June 4, 2023. US Marine Corps/Staff Sgt. Shawn Coover Latvia's foreign minister has called on allies to consider reintroducing conscription, while France's President, Emmanuel Macron, said this week that NATO should prepare for the possibility of war with Russia in as little as five years. "It has already garnered significant interest from NATO states that have never had such a concept and want to learn," Jonsson remarked of Sweden's strategy. One of the core ways Russia seeks to exploit the vulnerabilities and internal divisions of NATO states is through the promotion of disinformation and conspiracy theories. Sweden has accused Russia of spreading misinformation about Koran burnings to damage its bid for NATO membership. Khorammi said that under its total defense strategy, the Swedish government had introduced policies to educate people about the dangers of disinformation, and they're policies other NATO countries would be smart to pay attention to. "I do believe that a good number of the alliance members, as well as NATO as a whole, will look favorably upon Sweden's psychological defense agency and its work in prebunking 'mis' and 'dis' information," he said. NATO has some major challenges Despite the boost from Sweden's membership, NATO still faces some of the gravest challenges in its history. The US has long underpinned the alliance. But Donald Trump, as he seeks to win back the presidency in this year's election, is again stirring hostility to the alliance, and questioning US commitment. At a recent rally in South Carolina, he even said he'd invite Russia to attack NATO members who don't pay their dues. And Russia responded to Sweden's initial moves to join NATO back in 2022 by threatening to deploy more nuclear weapons to the region. Jonsson said that Sweden's move to join NATO was made after carefully calibrating the risks in a world growing more dangerous, and Russia's threats so far seem to be a bluff. "Throughout the war in Ukraine and Western weapons deliveries, Russia has made big threats but did little in practice," he said. "The same is true for Finland and Sweden's NATO membership." That may be so, but the Russian threat to NATO is as acute as ever, and the importance of Sweden's entry into the alliance should not be underestimated. Correction: February 28, 2024 An earlier version of this story misstated Sweden's position in NATO. While Sweden's membership in the alliance has been approved, it is not yet officially a member. Read the original article on Business Insider Last October, Chevron (NYSE: CVX) made a bold move to counter a similar one by rival ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM). It agreed to acquire Hess (NYSE: HES) in a $60 billion megadeal shortly after Exxon decided to buy Pioneer Natural Resources for $64.5 billion. The main draw was Hess' 30% stake in the Exxon-operated Stabroek block offshore Guyana. It would help enhance and extend Chevron's growth outlook into the 2030s. However, Exxon and its other partner in Guyana, China's CNOOC, now say the deal will trigger a change-of-control provision, enabling them to increase their stakes in Stabroek. This issue could delay or potentially derail Chevron's deal to acquire Hess. Here's a closer look at the situation and whether Chevron would still be a good oil stock to buy if it can't acquire Hess. Drilling down into the issue When Chevron unveiled its megadeal for Hess, the oil company highlighted: "The acquisition of Hess upgrades and diversifies Chevron's already advantaged portfolio. The Stabroek block in Guyana is an extraordinary asset with industry-leading cash margins and low carbon intensity that is expected to deliver production growth into the next decade." The company noted that the deal would give it a 30% interest in that block, which contains more than 11 billion barrels of oil equivalent discovered recoverable resources. The field produces high cash margins, has a strong production growth profile, and has potential upside from future oil discoveries. It drove Chevron's view that the deal would increase its estimated production and free-cash-flow growth rates over the next five years while extending its growth outlook into the 2030s. Chevron is now warning that Exxon and CNOOC are considering using their right to counter its offer for Hess' stake in the project. According to a joint operating agreement signed a decade ago when Hess bought its stake from Shell, the existing partners have the right to participate in a potential ownership change with a preemptive offer. Story continues Chevron doesn't believe its deal for Hess triggers a change of control because it's buying the entire company and not just its stake in Stabroek. Hess also has a meaningful operation in the Bakken, assets in the Gulf of Mexico, and a Southeast Asian natural gas business. Those operations are also a strong strategic fit for Chevron because it also operates in the Gulf and Southeast Asia, while the Bakken would enhance and diversify its operations in the U.S. While Chevron doesn't believe Exxon and CNOOC have the right to preempt its offer for Hess' Stabroek position, their claim could delay or derail the deal. Chevron is currently in talks with the two companies. If those talks fail, it could pursue arbitration. It currently remains committed to the merger despite this latest issue. There are also growing geopolitical concerns after Guyana's neighbor, Venezuela, has laid claims to a large portion of Guyana. It has threatened to annex that land, which would also give it control over the offshore oilfields. That could disrupt operations. An enhancement, not the thesis Acquiring Hess would enhance and extend Chevron's already strong growth outlook: Image source: Chevron. As that slide shows, it would provide the company with the fuel to grow production into the 2030s as Exxon completes additional phases of development in Guyana. Meanwhile, the deal would more than double its free cash flow by 2027, assuming oil averages around $70 a barrel (below the current price). However, while acquiring Hess would certainly bolster Chevron's ability to grow shareholder value, the company is in a strong position without Hess. It currently expects to grow its free cash flow by more than 10% annually through 2027, assuming oil averages $60 a barrel (well below the current price point). Fueling that plan is its focus on investing in high-return capital projects. Chevron has a strong portfolio, with high-return projects currently underway in places like the Permian Basin, Gulf of Mexico, and Kazakhstan. It also has growing renewable diesel and chemicals businesses. Chevron's existing operations give it strong and growing cash flows to invest in high-return capital projects, pay a rising dividend (Chevron increased its payout by 8% earlier this year), and repurchase a meaningful amount of shares. Chevron can repurchase $10 billion to $20 billion in shares annually (it can achieve the low end at $60 oil and the high end when crude is over $70). That's enough to retire 3% to 6% of its outstanding shares each year. Chevron's rising production, cash flow, and cash returns position it to grow value for investors in the future. A setback but not a thesis killer Acquiring Hess would enhance Chevron's near-term growth while extending its visibility into the next decade. However, even if that deal falls apart, the oil company can still create a lot of value for shareholders in the future. Because of that, it still looks like an attractive buy even if it ends up abandoning its deal for Hess. Should you invest $1,000 in Chevron right now? Before you buy stock in Chevron, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Chevron wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than tripled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of February 26, 2024 Matt DiLallo has positions in Chevron. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Chevron. The Motley Fool recommends Pioneer Natural Resources. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Exxon Might Derail Chevron's $60 Billion Megadeal. Is the Oil Stock Still a Buy? was originally published by The Motley Fool As the international communitys chief humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, Ulrika Richardson has spent 30 years in the United Nations systems, working in some of the most conflict-torn regions around the globe. But what Richardson has seen during her two years in Haiti as the deputy representative of U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, she says, almost leaves her without words. Ive seen things here that Ive never seen in my life, Richardson told journalists on Wednesday, a day after the U.N. and Haitian government launched a new $674 million humanitarian response plan to help 3.6 million Haitians this year. It is the pain that a lot of women, children, men across the population are facing and subjected to; the suffering I would say is daunting, its appalling. Along with the growing risk of being kidnapped or killed, Haitians are increasingly growing hungry while more and more children are at risk of dying of malnutrition. In gang-controlled neighborhoods, women and girls are being subjected to brutal rapes. Murders and kidnappings are on the rise, as are also the number of people being forced to flee their homes and neighborhoods in the capital and Artibonite region. Its absolutely disastrous for so many people in Haiti, Richardson said. On Wednesday, Richardson appealed for more help from the international community. The request comes as the U.N. continues to call for the rapid deployment of a Multinational Security Support mission to help the Haitian police put down violent gangs and as the Caribbean nations prime minister, Ariel Henry, flew to Kenya in hopes of moving the request along. Nearly five months after the U.N. Security Council approved the armed mission, the deployment of 1,000 Kenya police officers who are supposed to served as its backbone remains blocked by legal hurdles. Last year, Haiti had more than 8,000 cases of killings, lynchings or rape, including group rapes of women and young girls. Because of the years of instability, lack of investment and the decreasing economic activity, the country has spiraled into a multifaceted crisis, Richardson said. Humanitarian assistance is not the solution. It is the needed action right now, in order to save lives, decrease suffering, and also increase the protection and service to those that have been affected, she said Wednesday in Port-au-Prince. We need to invest in the root causes. The $674 million request is less than the $720 million the U.N. requested for Haiti last year, of which the agency was able to raise only 34%. Richardson said while the situation remains urgent and an increasing number of Haitians are in need of assistance, the humanitarian community decided this year to try to be much more targeted. Children and their guardians gather outside a police station after they fled their homes in Cite Soleil due to gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, Feb. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph) She recognizes that Haiti is not the only crisis around the globe. You can never compare one crisis with another. A human life is a human life, she said, adding that in Haiti, however, too many human lives are... lost. In January, the country saw its most violent month in two years after 1,100 people were killed, injured or kidnapped. At the same time, about 1,000 schools failed to open due to the violence. Of the 5.5 million Haitians who are in need of humanitarian assistance in the country, 3 million are children, Richardson said. They also account for nearly 55% of the more than 314,000 Haitians who are internally displaced and forced to live on the streets, in public plazas and elsewhere after warring gangs forced them to flee their homes. Over 60% of the internally displaced were forced onto the streets just last year, the agency said. This is a call for increased solidarity, RIchardson said. Haiti needs it. Its going through one of the most critical moments in its recent history. The New York Police Department is pushing back after an official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement claimed the Venezuelan suspect arrested for Laken Riley's murder was previously arrested and released by NYPD in 2023. Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was charged with malice murder, felony murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, kidnapping, obstructing an emergency call and concealing the death of another. "There is no arrest on file with the name provided in 2023," NYPD said in a statement on Tuesday. He was denied bond during an initial court appearance on Saturday and is being held at the Clarke County Jail. PHOTO: Police tape ropes off the crime scene on a trail behind Lake Herrick in Athens, Georgia, at the University of Georgia, on Feb. 23, 2024. (Jason Getz/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution via ZUMA Press Wire) NYPD's Tuesday release came in response to a statement on Sunday from ICE, which said Ibarra had been arrested on Sept. 8, 2022, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) "after unlawfully entering the United States near El Paso, Texas." "He was paroled and released for further processing," ICE said. "On Sept. 14, 2023, [Jose] Ibarra was arrested by the New York Police Department and charged with acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation," the statement continued. "He was released by the NYPD before a detainer could be issued. On Feb. 23, 2024, ERO [Enforcement and Removal Operations] Atlanta encountered Ibarra pursuant to his arrest by the University of Georgia Police Department and being charged with murder and other crimes. ERO Atlanta lodged a detainer." MORE: Kentucky college student's cause of death released, wrestling teammate charged with murder: Police An ICE spokesperson on Tuesday stood by the agency's record keeping, but could not explain the dispute. ICE first said Ibarra was arrested and released by NYPD before federal officials could ask for his detention. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp addressed the Athens-Clarke Chamber of Commerce on Monday, calling Riley's death "preventable." PHOTO: Laken Riley is seen in an undated photo. (Augusta University) "First of all, [the family is] devastated. They are heartbroken. Marty and I both can understand. Our daughters are at the University of Georgia, and they work out in that same area [as Laken Riley]," Kemp said. "They're also mad like I am that this happened. It was preventable because we just have a nightmare in this country with mass migration and then have people that are here illegally breaking our laws and they're not telling anybody and reporting this to us." The 22-year-old nursing student was found in a wooded area on campus on Thursday with "visible injuries," the university said. She died from blunt force trauma, according to University of Georgia Police Department Chief Jeffrey Clark. MORE: Louisiana Tech student allegedly stabs 4 people in 'random act of violence' on campus Police do not believe he knew the victim and do not have a motive, according to the chief. "I think this was a crime of opportunity, where he saw an individual and bad things happened," Clark said. ABC News' Aaron Katersky and Quinn Owen contributed to this report. University of Georgia murder sparks finger-pointing over immigration originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Clothing left by migrants on a barrier of concertina wire after swimming from Mexico to the United States in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) WASHINGTON Vice President Kamala Harris went to the U.S.-Mexico border soon after she and President Joe Biden took office, even though she had characterized such visits as empty politics just weeks before. President Barack Obama also toured the border during his time in the White House, though he came to see the trips as little more than photo ops. Donald Trump used the border when he was president to galvanize support for his anti-immigration policies, even signing his name on his big, beautiful wall with a Sharpie pen. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times As the immigration debate grows increasingly polarized, a trip along the 2,000-mile frontier has become a compulsory bit of political theater for leaders who want to show they care about immigration. The imagery at the border the wall, the Border Patrol officers, the crowded detention facilities serves as a potent backdrop for drawing attention to the crisis or, increasingly, for seizing on the issue to attack political opponents. On Thursday, both of those factors will be at play when Biden and Trump make dueling trips to the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump will travel to Eagle Pass, Texas, where he will speak about crimes committed by migrants and blame Biden for surging crossings at the border. Biden, more than 300 miles away in Brownsville, plans to speak with border agents and call out House Republicans who took their cue from Trump and thwarted a bipartisan border bill that would have cracked down on unlawful migration. Its a relatively new phenomenon, where you go and make a big deal of the border at the border, said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian. As long as this remains an issue, were going to have presidents who either go to make a political point or if they dont go, are pressured to do so. Immigration has become one of Bidens biggest political liabilities as millions of migrants overwhelm the underfunded and underresourced system, something that Republicans like Trump are keen to highlight. A Gallup poll released Tuesday found that Americans are most likely to name immigration as the most important problem in the country. This is a Hail Mary by Biden, said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the main union for Border Patrol agents. Judd, who has long supported Trump, will join the former president in Eagle Pass on Thursday. Still, he said, he was in favor of the border bill in Congress that Biden supported and Trump opposed. Immigration is at the center of Trumps candidacy for president and many Republicans, especially in the House, would be reluctant to give an election-year win to Biden on an issue that has given them a powerful line of criticism toward the White House. The politics of the border were not always so divisive. In 1971, Pat Nixon, then the first lady, captured headlines when she greeted Mexican children and complained about fencing while visiting a park along the border in San Diego. Decades later, President George W. Bush traveled to a Border Patrol post in New Mexico to rally support for his attempt to overhaul the nations immigration policy. While the Senate at that point supported a bill that included a path to eventual citizenship for many immigrants in the country without legal permission, the House emphasized the need for border security. Obama confronted starker divisions. In 2011, he made a speech in El Paso within sight of the border to push for legalization laws, in a nod to Latino voters who would be crucial in the 2012 election. But in 2014, as a record number of unaccompanied minors crossed the border, Obama faced relentless calls to visit the border, which he dismissed. Im not interested in photo ops, Obama said. Trump was. He visited the border several times during his presidency and might have gone more if not for the pandemic. Almost as soon as Biden came into office, he and Harris faced demands by Republicans who said they should visit the border and see the crisis for themselves. Both of them have made the trip to El Paso; Harris in June 2021 and Biden in January 2023. Both of them have also faced criticism. Republicans took Harris to task for going to El Paso instead of the lower Rio Grande Valley, considered the epicenter of the surge in migration. Progressive Democrats said Biden should have spoken directly to migrants. Gil Kerlikowske, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection during the Obama administration, said presidents and other top officials can show that they prioritize the border by visiting. But he also acknowledged that such visits may be more for political gain. Its so politically sensitive right now, Kerlikowske said. To have them come and view the work and the difficulties that Customs and Border Protection in particular faces on the border tells you that this will be, if not No. 1, then certainly one or two in the topics of this presidential election cycle. c.2024 The New York Times Company JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. (WJHL) The Washington County Sheriffs Office (WCSO) apprehended a car thief wanted by the Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) on Tuesday following a pursuit. A news release from the sheriffs office said deputies responded to Cash Hollow Road to assist JCPD officers in locating a stolen 2006 Toyota Avalon. The WCSO located the vehicle in the 700 block of Cash Hollow Road and attempted a traffic stop. NE TN fatal overdose numbers rising, but not as fast Charles Jordan, 55, of Asheville, North Carolina, was charged with two counts of evading arrest after abandoning the vehicle in the 200 block of Knob Creek Dock Road and fleeing on foot, the WCSO said. According to the release, deputies found Jordan hiding in the trunk of another vehicle on Knob Creek Dock Road. Jordan was taken into custody and transported to the Washington County Detention Center. He was being held on a $21,000 bond, the release said. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJHL | Tri-Cities News & Weather. Washington The Biden administration is proposing regulations to help the Justice Department stop data brokers from selling Americans' personal information to "countries of concern," the White House announced Wednesday. President Biden is issuing an executive order that will for the first time propose guardrails that shield bulk biometric and healthcare data and financial information collected by businesses inside the U.S. and that are aimed at preventing the material from being transferred to foreign adversaries, including China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea. The data including genomic and geolocation information are collected by tech companies and sold by legal means to data brokers but can eventually make their way to scammers and intelligence agencies abroad. The regulations announced Wednesday are expected to work to prevent that. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the executive order would give the Justice Department "the authority to block countries that pose a threat to our national security from harvesting Americans' most sensitive personal data." Senior administration and Justice Department officials say the goal of the new proposed rules is to prevent bad actors located in specific nations from exploiting the lawful free flow of data by scooping up large amounts of Americans' personal information for misuse. Personal information collected by U.S. companies is an important resource that nations like China and Russia can leverage into malicious cyber campaigns or attacks on dissidents and activists who challenge their regimes, the officials said. The new regulations won't go into effect right away, but will undergo a series of reviews to allow stakeholders to weigh in on them. The government is trying to minimize any economic impacts. Once enacted, the regulations will set expectations for corporations and data brokers to prevent them from transferring data to certain actors who are identified as being of concern to U.S. national security, according to a senior Justice Department official. Enforcement measures against brokers will follow should they violate the rules. Data broker sales of personal information to nations like China and Russia will be prohibited outright, while security requirements will have to be met before companies can enter into vendor, employment or investment agreements in those countries. The executive order announced Wednesday is part of a growing effort by the Biden administration to counter the use of U.S. advances to undermine national security. U.S. officials continue to focus on ways foreign adversaries use investments to give them access to American technology and data. "The Chinese government is not just hacking to gather our data," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said last year, as she announced the formation of the Disruptive Technology Strike Force. "If a company is operating in China and is collecting your data, it is a good bet that the Chinese government is accessing it." The year-old operation works to prevent Western technology from falling into the hands of bad actors. Administration officials said that while Wednesday's executive order is meant to bolster the vital relationship between national security and corporate government in protecting Americans' data. They added that it isn't a substitute for legislation that could enshrine certain privacy protections into law. Police body camera footage released of shooting at Lakewood Church Carrie Preston talks returning to play Elsbeth in new spin-off series Rising preeclampsia rates pose increased heart health risk for pregnant women The reflection of the logo of Apple. Apple has reportedly cancelled its plans to build electric vehicles (EV) a decade after the iPhone maker was rumoured to be working on the project. The firm has never publicly acknowledged the project, which involves around two thousand people. Many employees from the project will be moved to the iPhone maker's artificial intelligence (AI) division, according to Bloomberg News. Apple did not immediately respond to a BBC request for a comment. The Apple car team was reportedly known as the Special Projects Group as part of its chief executive Tim Cook's Project Titan. As it spent billions of dollars on research and development, the company was initially rumoured to be working on a fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel and pedals. The team was understood to still be years away from producing a vehicle. "This is a smart and long awaited decision," Ray Wang, founder and chief executive of Silicon Valley-based consultancy Constellation Research told the BBC. "The market demand for EVs is not there and AI is where all the action is," he added. Apple has been exploring other opportunities beyond the iPhone and computers, including its recently launched Vision Pro virtual reality headset. Research firm Counterpoint highlighted that the decision came as the market for AI in consumer electronics is growing sharply. "Preliminary data suggests shipments of generative AI smartphones will exceed 100 million units in 2024," said its senior analyst, Ivan Lam. Counterpoint predicts that number could hit more than 500 million by 2027. Demand for EVs has slowed in recent month as borrowing costs remain high, which has made the market increasingly competitive as major players try to win over customers. In recent months, US motor industry giants Ford and General Motors have postponed plans to expand EV production. Last week, electric truck maker Rivian announced it would cut its workforce by 10% and said it did not expect any growth in its production this year. In January, Tesla warned that its sales growth would be weaker this year than in 2023. The company, which is led by multi-billionaire Elon Musk, has been cutting prices in key markets around the world, including Europe and China, as it faces tough competition from Chinese rivals such as BYD. Mr Musk responded on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, to a report that the Apple project was being wound down with emojis of a salute and a cigarette. Apple's shareholders will let it keep its AI business under wraps Apple shareholders rejected a proposal to release an AI transparency report. AFL-CIO, a labor union federation, wants big tech companies to publish ethical guidelines for the technology. But Apple's shareholders said on Wednesday that creating such a report would hurt their competitive strategy. Exactly how Apple uses artificial intelligence in its business will remain a mystery to the general public. The tech giant's shareholders voted on Wednesday to reject a measure that asked the company for a transparency report on how it uses AI in its business practices, and if it uses it ethically, according to Bloomberg. The request was proposed by AFL-CIO Equity Index Funds, the largest labor union federation in the US, back in October, according to the group's website. In addition to Apple, they urged companies like Disney, Netflix, and Warner Brothers Discovery to release AI transparency reports. The group believes that transparent ethical guidelines around the use of AI would help protect workers, consumers, and the public from the harms of the emerging technology, it said in its October press release. The AFL-CIO's request also urged the companies to protect the copyrighted works of writers, artists, and creators. "AI systems should not be trained on copyrighted works, or the voices, likenesses and performances of professional performers, without transparency, consent and compensation to creators and rights holders," the AFL-CIO wrote in its supporting statement to Apple, according to Reuters. But, Apple's biggest shareholders said that revealing too much about the company's technology could hurt its competitive strategy, Reuters reported. Disney's shareholders will hear a similar proposal at their annual meeting in April, according to Reuters. Read the original article on Business Insider President Joe Biden will issue an executive order that aims to limit the mass-sale of Americans personal data to countries of concern, including Russia and China. The order specifically targets the bulk sale of geolocation, genomic, financial, biometric, health and other personally identifying information. During a briefing with reporters, a senior administration official said that the sale of such data to these countries poses a national security risk. Our current policies and laws leave open access to vast amounts of American sensitive personal data, the official said. Buying data through data brokers is currently legal in the United States, and that reflects a gap in our national security toolkit that we are working to fill with this program. Researchers and privacy advocates have long warned about the national security risks posed by the largely unregulated multibillion-dollar data broker industry. Last fall, researchers at Duke University reported that they were able to easily buy troves of personal and health data about US military personnel while posing as foreign agents. Bidens executive order attempts to address such scenarios. It bars data brokers and other companies from selling large troves of Americans personal information to countries or entities in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela either directly or indirectly. There are likely to be additional restrictions on companies ability to sell data as part of cloud service contracts, investment agreements and employment agreements. Though the White House described the step as the most significant executive action any President has ever taken to protect Americans data security, its unclear how exactly enforcement of the new policies will be handled within the Justice Department. A DoJ official said the executive order would require due diligence from data brokers to vet who they are dealing with, similar to the way companies are expected to adhere to US sanctions. As the White House points out, there are currently few regulations for the multibillion-dollar data broker industry. The order will do nothing to slow the bulk sale of Americans data to countries or companies not deemed to be a security risk. President Biden continues to urge Congress to do its part and pass comprehensive bipartisan privacy legislation, especially to protect the safety of our children, a White House statement says. Update February 28, 2024, 3:00 PM ET: This article was modified to clarify that, while the White House says the order will be issued today, it is unclear whether it has been issued at time of writing. A bitcoin logo is seen on the wall of a fishermens house in Playa Blanca, in the municipality of Conchagua, El Salvador, on 11 January, 2024 (Getty Images) Bitcoin appears to be closing in on a new all-time high after shooting up in price nearly 10 per cent over the last 24 hours. The latest rally builds on a year of upward momentum for the cryptocurrency, which has seen its price rise from below $20,000 at the start of last year to above $62,000 on Wednesday less than $7,000 away from the record it reached in November 2021. Several factors have driven the recent resurgence, with some market analysts claiming that bitcoins gains are far from over. We have entered a new era for bitcoin, with its rapid climb this week marking the clear start of a new bull market, Alex Adelman, founder of the crypto app Lolli, told The Independent. This bitcoin bull market will be unlike any before. Mr Adelman points to the recently approved spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which brought in billions of dollars worth of institutional investment to the crypto market for the first time. This week, nine of the newly approved ETFs broke their all-time daily volume record, suggesting that it is mostly this new wave of investors boosting the market. In contrast to past bull markets, there is little to no speculative fervour from retail investors, Mr Adelman said. Instead, momentum is underpinned by a more mature and calculated approach to bitcoin with an understanding of its strength from the worlds biggest institutional players... Once bitcoin breaks its all-time high, we will see an additional wave of interest in bitcoin from retail investors. Bitcoin ETFs bring new protections for crypto investors, which could provide more stability to the market, according to Nigel Green, CEO of financial advisory firm deVere Group. This in turn could help the market mature, mitigating price volatility issues and enticing more investors to the space. The limited supply of bitcoin only 21 million will ever exist has earnt the cryptocurrency the name digital gold in recent years, and encouraged a no-sell HODL mentality among some investors. At the same time, its utility and accessibility has grown considerably in recent years. Alongside established banks offering customers ways to buy, sell and spend bitcoin, governments have also recognised its potential as an alternative to traditional fiat currencies. In 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to introduce it as a national currency. The broader acceptance of cryptocurrencies, with major companies now accepting bitcoin as a form of payment and traditional financial platforms integrating digital assets, is attracting a more diverse range of retail investors, Mr Green told The Independent. User-friendly exchanges and mobile apps have made it easier than ever for retail investors to enter the crypto market, contributing to the democratisation of cryptocurrency investing. This combination of institutional and retail interest is creating a dynamic and robust ecosystem that could propel bitcoin to new heights. Another factor driving positive sentiment to the market is the prospect of bitcoins limited supply being even further constricted by an event known as the halving. This will see rewards for mining the cryptocurrency slashed in half, with previous events resulting in record-breaking rallies in the months following. Taking place roughly every four years, the next halving is scheduled to take place on 19 April. Bitcoins historical price cycles can be attributed to this quadrennial event, with some analysts making price prediction models based on bitcoin halvings. Reminder: you can still get bitcoin below all time high levels (ath: $69k) ... until you can't pic.twitter.com/7j7RoR8dUR PlanB (@100trillionUSD) February 19, 2024 The sudden price gains have also led to warnings about the risks involved in investing in bitcoin, which remains a relatively new asset class. As we look ahead to the next year, its vital to remember first-principles when trading crypto, said Bivu Das, the UK managing director of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. I always encourage people to do their own research into the crypto platforms and assets in the market. Particularly for anyone new to the space, look for a platform that provides an experience that centres around simplicity, customer service, robust security, and strong liquidity. Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups, at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center, in Paris JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian tech firm GoTo and Chinese-owned partner TikTok will be wholly compliant in a month and a half with the Southeast Asian nation's regulation that bans in-app transactions on social media, GoTo's CEO said on Wednesday. Short video app TikTok acquired in December majority shares in GoTo's e-commerce unit Tokopedia after the Indonesian trade ministry banned transactions on its TikTok Shop e-commerce unit. "Integration process is going well. All parties continue to communicate with the related ministries and as far as we know the process is nearing completion," CEO Patrick Walujo said in an online briefing. Indonesian minister for small and medium enterprises Teten Masduki said last week TikTok had yet to comply with the regulation. TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Following December's deal, TikTok has reopened its e-commerce services, which are now facilitated by Tokopedia. GoTo's management said in the briefing that it will receive a quarterly e-commerce fee from Tokopedia, with the sum being dependent on Tokopedia's gross merchandise value. Based on a GMV of $2.9 billion recorded in the third quarter of last year, the e-commerce service fee for GoTo will be $11.4 million, GoTo said. GoTo also expects its partnership with TikTok will benefit not only its e-commerce business but also its financial services segment as it will be able to offer digital payments and "buy now, pay later" credit schemes on TikTok. (Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman and Stanley Widianto; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor and Muralikumar Anantharaman) FILE - The final version of the 737 MAX, the MAX 10, takes off from Renton Airport in Renton, Wash., on its first flight Friday, June 18, 2021. The Federal Aviation Administration is giving Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to meet safety standards for building new planes, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. The company has been beset by quality problems in manufacturing of its popular 737 Max jetliner. (Ellen M. Banner/The Seattle Times via AP, Pool) The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday it's giving Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix quality problems and meet safety standards for building planes after a panel blew off a brand-new Boeing 737 Max jetliner last month. The agency said the directive followed all-day meetings Tuesday with top Boeing officials at FAA headquarters in Washington. Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements, said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker. Making foundational change will require a sustained effort from Boeings leadership, and we are going to hold them accountable every step of the way. Boeing CEO David Calhoun said that we have a clear picture of what needs to be done because of company and independent reviews. Boeing will develop the comprehensive action plan with measurable criteria that demonstrates the profound change that Administrator Whitaker and the FAA demand. The FAA did not indicate what action it might take if Boeing fails to meet the 90-day deadline. The FAA is currently completing an audit of assembly lines at the factory near Seattle, where Boeing builds planes like the Alaska Airlines 737 Max that suffered a door-panel blowout on Jan. 5. Investigators say bolts that help keep the panel in place were missing after repair work at the Boeing factory. The incident has raised scrutiny of Boeing to its highest level since two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. Whitaker toured the 737 factory two weeks ago. He met with FAA inspectors who are reviewing Boeings operations and talked with Boeing engineers and mechanics about safety issues, according to the FAA. This week, a panel of industry, government and academic experts issued a report that found shortcomings in the safety culture at Boeing, which the company says it has been working to improve. Earlier this month, Boeing replaced the executive who had overseen the 737 program since early 2021 and said it was increasing inspections at the 737 plant in Renton, Washington. The Boeing Co. is based in Arlington, Virginia. Lithium has long been the essential element in battery technology used to power electric vehicles, but a company has discovered a viable alternative in a material that many would find surprising. According to TechCrunch, a startup out of Singapore named Flint has developed a way to substitute the lithium inside a battery with paper. The company only started producing paper batteries in 2022, but it already has a prototype thats produced promising results. The next step is to find a partner to facilitate the testing of paper batteries in consumer products. Paper batteries are very new to this world, and there are only a few institutions working on this technology right now, Carlo Charles, co-founder at Flint, said. Were working on changing the materials, so instead of fusing lithium, nickel and cobalt, were using zinc, manganese and cellulose papers. With those three things, Charles continued, we can change the way the battery can be used, but keep how the battery is made. So thats the upper hand we have compared to other strategies and battery technologies out there. Extracting lithium is not only an expensive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive process, but it also has detrimental effects on the environment. For example, extracting lithium from brine water can lead to land degradation and water contamination. According to Euronews, it takes about 2.2 million liters (nearly 581,000 gallons) of water to produce a ton of lithium, which can be problematic in arid areas where water is scarce. By foregoing lithium altogether, Flint has created a battery made up of only three parts: a zinc-based anode, a manganese-based cathode, and the cellulose paper separator. Hydrogel is then used to coat the three units before the battery is baked in a vacuum oven. TechCrunch called hydrogel Flints secret sauce because it enables the electron transfer between the anode and cathode without the need for both the separator and electrolyte. Despite changing the chemical makeup of the battery, the structure and manufacturing process remain the same, which leads Charles to believe that Flints batteries will one day be used interchangeably with lithium-ion batteries. We can just use the existing technologies that are out there already, put in our recipe, and can easily have a production line with paper batteries, Charles said. Whats great about us is were making it so easy for manufacturers and suppliers to just swap old lithium batteries with our paper batteries. Charles added that zinc and manganese were chosen over lithium, cobalt, and nickel not only because they are more abundant materials but also because they are safer. They wont pose the issue of battery fires caused by traditional lithium batteries. You can literally cut our battery while its in operation, and it will still continue working without overheating or exploding like what we expect lithium batteries to do, Charles said. TechCrunch noted that Flint is in the last leg of its journey to optimize the batterys chemistry. The companys long-term goal is to figure out how to reduce weight and volume and increase storage capacity, which would then make paper batteries more suitable for use in electric vehicles. Weve been in talks with Airbus, which is trying to electrify their planes for the future, Charles said. Long term, wed like to be able to help them and make batteries with custom shaping, since theyre paper and flexible. They could be the shape of a wing or of the entire curved body of the plane. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the coolest innovations improving our lives and saving our planet. Few people have more riding on the 2024 presidential election than tech magnate Elon Musk. Musk, the worlds wealthiest person, is waging at least 11 separate regulatory or legal battles with the Biden administration or independent federal agencies related to his sprawling business empire, according to a tally by NBC News. If those fights extend into next year and former President Donald Trump returns to the White House, Musk would be likely to gain from relaxed enforcement, experts in regulatory law said in interviews. The 11 ongoing battles, which involve seven government entities, touch on a wide array of subjects, from unions to vehicle safety to privacy on the social media app X. He would be in much less trouble in a Trump administration because Trump shares his hostility to regulation and regulators, said Richard Pierce, a law professor at George Washington University specializing in government regulation. Trump has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he wants to slash government regulations, and experts said in interviews that they expect he would appoint regulators who would bring a light touch to investigating Musks companies. A second Trump term could very well shift the administrative and regulatory state in ways that would benefit Musks companies, said Angela Aneiros, an assistant professor of law at Gonzaga University and a co-director of the universitys Center of Law, Ethics & Commerce. A second term, if it happens, will result in federal agencies shifting their focus away from investigations into regulatory compliance issues, she said. Instead, she said, the focus of a Trump return would most likely be different priorities, such as immigration enforcement. Representatives for Musk did not respond to a request for comment. His companies have denied wrongdoing, and his lawyers have accused regulators of targeting Musk for harassment. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did President Joe Bidens campaign. Trumps allies are already fighting alongside Musk in at least one regulatory clash. America First Legal, a group founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, sued the Federal Trade Commission in September alleging that it had been harassing Musk with an investigation of user privacy on X. Lawyers for Musk and X have used the same argument. Musk wears many hats. He is the CEO and largest shareholder in Tesla and SpaceX, the largest shareholder in X and the founder of Neuralink, a brain science startup, and of The Boring Co., a tunnel-building startup. Musk, 52, hasnt said whom he supports for president, though he said in November that if the choices were Trump and Biden, I would not vote for Biden. Im not saying Id vote for Trump, he added at the DealBook Summit in New York. Musk has moved sharply to the right in his public statements, frequently raising alarms about illegal immigration, denouncing woke progressive movements, including those for transgender rights, and hosting online events with Republicans such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Musk has used his megaphone on X, with 174 million followers, to raise the profile of culture war issues, a habit that seems likely to help Trump. Given the challenges he faces and his political predisposition today, he would clearly like to see a Trump administration in office, said David Yoffie, a professor of international business administration at Harvard Business School. Yoffie said the breadth and number of Musks business interests put him in a unique position, where hes exposed to many regulatory risks. The fact that he is involved in so many of these activities inevitably puts him at the center of attention, compared to any other CEO, he said. Musks lawyers have said the White House should be able to get rid of federal regulators whom they accuse of harassing their client. In a court brief in November, they accused the Securities and Exchange Commission of attempting to tarnish Mr. Musks record with baseless investigations and said the SECs enforcement staff was in violation of the Constitution because its too difficult for the president to fire many of them. Musk and his fans often interpret government oversight of his projects as stifling innovation, although Tesla and SpaceX have also benefited from billions of dollars in government subsidies or contracts. There needs [to be] comprehensive deregulation. Period, Musk tweeted last year. The arguments put forward by Musks lawyers could have far-reaching effects. They have said in court filings that parts of three federal agencies the SEC, the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, and the Justice Department shouldnt be allowed to operate as is because the way Congress set them up violated the Constitution. Musk and his companies are the subjects of at least 11 separate fights with the federal government, from regulatory lawsuits to criminal investigations: A second Trump administration could give Musk some relief, experts said. Stephen Diamond, an associate professor of law at Santa Clara University in California, said Trumps political movement is generally on the same page as Musk when it comes to regulatory action. Now, theyre all feeling emboldened to diminish federal agencies, he said. New Deal-era bodies like the NLRB have always rankled a certain segment of American business. They vociferously opposed the creation of these agencies in the 1930s, and they have looked for opportunities to weaken these agencies, he said. Largely Musk is in that tradition, but hes pushing it a little bit further, he said. Musks net worth was about $213 billion as of Monday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Some of Musks fans have noted the volume of investigations and sometimes suggested nefarious intentions. Does the Biden Administration have it in for Elon Musk? asked The Wall Street Journals conservative editorial board in September. The board said Musk had become Progressive Enemy No. 1. Biden and Musk have a famously frosty relationship, based partly on their different views about labor unions. After Musk bought Twitter in late 2022, Biden said his relationships with other countries are worthy of being looked at. Brendan Carr, a Trump-appointed FCC commissioner, said on X that Bidens comment gave administrative agencies a green light to go after Musk. Musk quietly visited the White House in September, in his first meeting there since Biden took office. He has continued to say, though, that the Biden administration is giving him the cold shoulder. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Jasper Kenzo Sundeen's reporting for the Yakima Herald-Republic is possible with support from Report for America and community members through the Yakima Valley Community Fund. For information on republishing, email news@yakimaherald.com. You are the owner of this article. 9 new paperbacks to get you through March Patent has already been issued in other major markets including the U.S., EU, Japan and China PETACH TIKVA, Israel, February 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. (NYSE American: CANF) (TASE:CANF), a biotechnology company advancing a pipeline of proprietary small molecule drugs that address oncological and inflammatory diseases, today announced it received a Notice of Allowance from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office for its patent application titled "An A3 Adenosine Receptor Ligand For Use In Treating Ectopic Fat Accumulation". This invention addresses the use of Namodenoson for the reduction of liver fat in patients with NASH a clinical indication that is being developed by Can-Fite. In a successfully concluded Phase IIa study, Namodenoson, one of the Companys two drugs in advanced clinical development, reduced liver fat content, showed anti-inflammatory effects manifested by a significant decrease in the liver enzymes ALT & AST, and decreased body weight in patients with NASH. A Company-sponsored study for Namodenoson for this indication is currently enrolling patients for a Phase IIb study which will include 140 patients, in whom liver pathology is the primary endpoint. Can-Fites Namodenoson, is currently out-licensed for the treatment of NASH to the Swiss company Ewopharma for territories in Eastern Europe, to CMS China for the territories of China, HK and Macau, and to the South Korean company CKD for the territory of South Korea. The Company also has a distribution agreement in Canada for its anti-inflammatory drug, Piclidenoson, for the treatment of psoriasis. "This additional patent in Canada for fatty liver disease adds to our growing IP estate for this high-value indication of the Namodenoson drug candidate. Our strong and broad IP, together with the positive data from the Phase IIa and the drug safety, position it as a promising candidate for the treatment of this liver disease," stated Dr. Ilan Cohn, Can-Fite founder, a recognized business development expert in the medical arena, and also a leading Israeli patent attorney and Partner & co-Founder of Cohn, de Vries, Stadler & Co, Patent and Trademark Attorneys. Story continues The NASH market is expected to reach $24 billion by 2028. According to the American Liver Foundation, between 30-40% of adults in the U.S. have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, one of the most common causes of liver disease in the U.S. Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis affects up to 5% of Americans, or up to 16 million people and is expected to be most frequent reason for liver transplants in the U.S. by 2030. About Namodenoson Namodenoson is a small orally bioavailable drug that binds with high affinity and selectivity to the A3 adenosine receptor (A3AR). Namodenoson is currently being evaluated in a pivotal Phase III trial for advanced liver cancer, a Phase IIb trial for the treatment of steatotic liver disease (SLD), and the Company is planning a Phase IIa study in pancreatic cancer. A3AR is highly expressed in diseased cells whereas low expression is found in normal cells. This differential expression may be one of the important factors that accounts for the excellent safety profile of the drug. About Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd. (NYSE American: CANF) (TASE: CANF) is an advanced clinical stage drug development Company with a platform technology that addresses multi-billion dollar markets in the treatment of cancer, liver, and inflammatory disease. One of the two Company's lead drug candidates, Piclidenoson recently reported positive topline results in a Phase III trial for psoriasis. A pivotal Phase III for this drug is expected to commence soon. Can-Fite's other lead drug for treating cancer and liver diseases, Namodenoson, is being evaluated in a Phase IIb trial for the treatment of steatotic liver disease (SLD), a Phase III pivotal trial for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and the Company is planning a Phase IIa study in pancreatic cancer. Namodenoson has been granted Orphan Drug Designation in the U.S. and Europe for its HCC indication and Fast Track Designation as a second line treatment for HCC by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Namodenoson has also shown proof of concept to potentially treat other cancers including colon, prostate, and melanoma. CF602, the Company's third drug candidate, has shown efficacy in the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Piclidenoson and Namodenoson have an excellent safety profile with experience in over 1,600 patients in clinical studies to date. For more information please visit: www.canfite.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements, about Can-Fites expectations, beliefs or intentions regarding, among other things, its product development efforts, business, financial condition, results of operations, strategies or prospects. All statements in this communication, other than those relating to historical facts, are "forward looking statements". Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "believe," "expect," "intend," "plan," "may," "should" or "anticipate" or their negatives or other variations of these words or other comparable words or by the fact that these statements do not relate strictly to historical or current matters. Forward-looking statements relate to anticipated or expected events, activities, trends or results as of the date they are made. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, these statements are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Can-Fites actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include, among other things, our history of losses and needs for additional capital to fund our operations and our inability to obtain additional capital on acceptable terms, or at all; uncertainties of cash flows and inability to meet working capital needs; the initiation, timing, progress and results of our preclinical studies, clinical trials and other product candidate development efforts; our ability to advance our product candidates into clinical trials or to successfully complete our preclinical studies or clinical trials; our receipt of regulatory approvals for our product candidates, and the timing of other regulatory filings and approvals; the clinical development, commercialization and market acceptance of our product candidates; our ability to establish and maintain strategic partnerships and other corporate collaborations; the implementation of our business model and strategic plans for our business and product candidates; the scope of protection we are able to establish and maintain for intellectual property rights covering our product candidates and our ability to operate our business without infringing the intellectual property rights of others; competitive companies, technologies and our industry; risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine; risks related to not satisfying the continued listing requirements of NYSE American; and statements as to the impact of the political and security situation in Israel on our business. More information on these risks, uncertainties and other factors is included from time to time in the "Risk Factors" section of Can-Fites Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC on March 30, 2023 and other public reports filed with the SEC and in its periodic filings with the TASE. Existing and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Can-Fite undertakes no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by any applicable securities laws. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228950836/en/ Contacts Can-Fite BioPharma Motti Farbstein info@canfite.com +972-3-9241114 Nguyen The Phuong, Executive Vice President and Chief Finance Officer of FPT Corporation (L), Pham Thai Lai, President & CEO of Siemens ASEAN & Vietnam (R), and both parties representatives. (Photo: Business Wire) HANOI, Vietnam, February 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Global IT corporation FPT recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the multinational industrial technology conglomerate Siemens, fostering collaboration and mutually beneficial business opportunities in advancing the manufacturing sector and semiconductor chip production while accelerating digital transformation globally. FPT and Siemens will join forces in areas such as smart infrastructure, green and intelligent data centers, digital industrial solutions, automotive software development, and digital transformation. Built on the successful partnership on MindSphere IoT Operating System since 2017, the new agreement focuses on strengthening engagement and competencies in digital transformation services for both sides and their clients worldwide, as well as opening up new business opportunities. Harnessing FPT's robust expertise and high-quality workforce, FPT aspires to become the Global SI Partner for Siemens low-code platform - Mendix, and Engineering Services Provider for Siemens EDA, focusing on AUTOSAR projects. Siemens also invites FPT to join its Xcelerator ecosystem to accelerate digital transformation with Siemens' solutions and applications. Additionally, the two parties will further expand collaboration in the smart infrastructure domain, with Siemens targeting to be the preferred supplier for FPTs data center network and its sustainable infrastructure development projects in Vietnam. Leveraging its profound technology foundation in the digital ecosystem, Cloud, and low-code, Siemens commits to aiding FPT with access to training and knowledge-sharing on a large scale. The German powerhouse will also provide support and explore collaboration with FPT in semiconductor design and manufacturing, one of FPTs pivotal areas for future growth. As a leading chipmaking company in Vietnam, FPT also aims to supply semiconductor chips to Siemens. Story continues Speaking at the signing ceremony, Dr. Truong Gia Binh, FPT Chairman & Founder, said: "FPT focuses on five keywords: Digital transformation, Green transformation, Artificial Intelligence, Automotive, and Semiconductor. Our greatest resource is our talented people, with 32,000 digital transformation experts working across the globe. In the future, we plan to invest in AI supercomputers and workforce training and development, prioritizing NVIDIA certifications and advancing innovations in industries such as automotive and semiconductor. I believe these will be the stepping stones to enhance cooperation between FPT and Siemens." Mr. Roland Busch, Chairman and CEO of Siemens AG, affirmed that FPT and Siemens have many commonalities: "Siemens has extensive experience in the semiconductor industry, and we are confident in our capability to provide FPT with technological support. Furthermore, Siemens boasts expertise in various domains, including smart infrastructure and digital industrial solutions. We are positioned to leverage these technologies to enhance product adaptability in daily life. Consequently, Siemens is fully prepared to collaborate closely with FPT in their future endeavors, offering comprehensive support and innovative solutions." Siemens and FPT have years of experience in successful collaboration, varying across sectors and industries. With a track record of success and extensive experience, FPT has established itself as a world-class technology enabler for complex business challenges and opportunities. Post surpassing one billion USD in revenue from global IT services in 2023, the Vietnam-headquartered tech corporation aims to achieve USD 5 billion in revenue from global IT services by 2030 and reach billion-dollar milestones from a single market, a single vertical industry and a single contract. The signing ceremony took place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on 26 February 2024, with the participation of Dr. Roland Busch, Siemens AG President & Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Pham Thai Lai, President & Chief Executive Officer of Siemens ASEAN & Vietnam; Dr. Truong Gia Binh, FPT Corporation Chairman, Mr. Nguyen The Phuong, FPT Corporation Executive Vice President and Chief Finance Officer, as well as both companies senior leaders. About FPT Corporation FPT Corporation (FPT) is a globally leading technology and IT services provider headquartered in Vietnam. FPT operates in three core sectors: Technology, Telecommunications, and Education. During over three decades of development, FPT has constantly provided practical and effective products to millions of people and tens of thousands of business and non-business organizations worldwide, establishing Vietnams position on the global tech map. Keeping up with the latest market trends and emerging technologies, FPT has developed the Made-by-FPT ecosystem of services, products, solutions, and platforms, which enables sustainable growth for organizations and businesses and offers distinctive experiences to customers. In 2023, FPT recorded a total revenue of US$2.17 billion and 70,000+ employees. For more information, please visit https://fpt.com.vn/en. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228584022/en/ Contacts Mai Duong (Ms.) FPT Software PR Manager MCP.PR@fpt.com 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. Mr Bankman-Fried's case has been described as one of the biggest frauds in US history - SAUL LOEB/AFP Sam Bankman-Fried is pleading with a US court to reject a recommended 100-year prison term, as lawyers for the disgraced crypto tycoon described the sentence as barbaric. In a court filing released on Tuesday, Mr Bankman-Frieds lawyers claimed the FTX founder should only serve up to six years for his role in the fraud. This is in response to a recommendation from government officials who have called for Mr Bankman-Fried to spend 100 years behind bars. FTX filed for bankruptcy in late 2022 after a multibillion-dollar black hole was uncovered in its accounts. Mr Bankman-Fried, 31, was accused of orchestrating a $10bn (7.9bn) fraud, siphoning off customer funds to fuel high-risk crypto trades and fund a luxury lifestyle in the Bahamas. A New York jury found Mr Bankman-Fried guilty of seven counts of fraud. The case has been described by prosecutors as one of the biggest frauds in US history, although Mr Bankman-Fried is appealing the conviction. A New York judge found Mr Bankman-Fried guilty of seven counts of fraud - JANE ROSENBERG/REUTERS In a legal filing, Mr Bankman-Frieds lawyer, Marc Mukasey, urged the judge to implement a more lenient sentence because of his clients autism, mental health and philanthropic endeavours. He described the 100-year sentence as barbaric and grotesque. Sam suffers from anhedonia, a severe condition characterised by a near-complete absence of enjoyment, motivation, and interest, the filing said. He has been that way since childhood. His lawyers added that he would be at risk of violence if sent to prison. They said he was not an evil genius or a greedy villain, but said he lived a relatively modest life despite his mansion in the Bahamas. His lawyers insisted the property was largely used for business purposes. Mr Bankman-Fried had claimed he wanted to generate vast wealth in order to give it away to good causes, which formed part of his involvement in the movement known as effective altruism. Following his conviction in November, US prosecutors called the case a warning to every fraudster who thinks theyre untouchable. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Three slain Minnesota first responders are honored as heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice Three Minnesota first responders who were gunned down while responding to a report of a domestic incident at a home with seven children inside are being remembered as heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice Clepsidra artelor de Luiza Ciolac, cineast Este o mare si neasteptata surpriza sa cunosti adolescenti, care sunt in acea cautare, nu doar de sine, ci de drum in viata. Cu atat mai neasteptat este sa constati sprijinul familiei pentru dezvoltarea lor ca oameni, sprijin nu doar afectiv, emotional, ci pur si simplu sacrificiu material si sacrificiu de [citeste mai departe] Fabrica din Romania care reia productia. Angajatii vor reveni la munca, ce s-a intamplat Una dintre cele mai mari fabrici din Romania isi reia activitatea de astazi, dupa ce a fost suspendata in urma cu un an pentru o perioada de trei ani. Sute de angajati vor reveni la munca mai devreme. Lactate Natura [citeste mai departe] As Sam Bankman-Fried faces the prospect of decades in prison, the disgraced FTX founder is making one last plea for a lenient sentence from a federal judge. In a filing on Tuesday night, Bankman-Fried's new team of attorneys made their recommendation to Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the criminal trial last fall where a jury convicted Bankman-Fried on seven fraud-related counts related to the November 2022 collapse of his crypto empire, FTX. In the 98-page document, filed alongside a ream of letters in support of Bankman-Fried, the attorneys argued their client should only face 63 to 78 months in prison, a relative slap on the wrist compared to the maximum penalty of 115 years that he faces. "Sam Bankman-Fried has been described as a 'sociopath,' 'a man with no morals, remorse or empathy,' who is an 'an ice-cold manipulator, bully and shameless liar,'" the attorneys wrote in their preliminary statement. "They dont know the true Sam Bankman-Fried." Downfall of the crypto king The rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried, whose FTX exchange once graced Super Bowl commercials and carried a valuation north of $30 billion, captured international attention. The disgraced mogul oversaw a crypto empire in the Bahamas that attracted top venture capitalists and celebrities before the walls tumbled down amid a broader crypto collapse in 2022. Soon after the collapse, ugly details emerged about Bankman-Fried and his companies: Rather than creating a challenger to the global financial system, Bankman-Fried had directed his inner circle to commit massive fraud, stealing customer deposits and using them for their own investments into luxury real estate and startups. After U.S. authorities extradited Bankman-Fried from the Bahamas in late 2022, the circus around his criminal proceedings began. His trial in October 2023, less than a year after the collapse, saw prosecutors call top FTX executivesseveral of whom were former close friends of Bankman-Fried'sas their witnesses. In an emotional high point of the trial, Bankman-Fried's former girlfriend, and the one-time executive of his trading firm, Caroline Ellison testified that Bankman-Fried directed her to commit crimes. Story continues Hurt by a lackluster performance from his attorneys, Bankman-Fried mustered a weak defense of his actions, taking the stand under a brutal cross-examination from Department of Justice prosecutor Danielle Sassoon. His conviction came soon after, with the jury finding him guilty on all seven charges, including fraud. Throwing the book? After his bail was revoked in August for leaking documents to the New York Times in August, Bankman-Fried has been stuck at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he will remain through his sentencing. That date is quickly approaching, with the hearing set for March 28. The memo filed on Tuesday by Bankman-Fried's lawyers is a procedural step ahead of the sentencing. The filing was written by Bankman-Fried's new team of attorneys, including Marc Mukasey, who once represented Donald Trump and is known for his impassioned courtroom appearances. In the document, the attorneys echo previous arguments employed by Bankman-Fried's legal team, including that there was no harm to customers, lenders, and investors. They nod to an announcement from the FTX bankruptcy estate that it intends to pay back customers in full, although the outcome is more a result of rising crypto pricesthe estate will pay back cryptocurrency holdings at their price at the time of the bankruptcy, which hit a low thanks to FTX's collapse. The lawyers also argue that Bankman-Fried "presents at times as a paradox," pointing to his "neurodiversity," which they say impacts how he is perceived. Bankman-Fried's attorneys had previously requested to ask questions of potential jurists over whether his ADHD would impact their judgment. They further argue that Bankman-Fried should not be compared with fellow fraudster Bernie Madoff, who faced a 150-year sentence because Bankman-Fried created an actual business. Instead, he should be treated like Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who only received 135 months of prison time or the "bond king" Michael Milken. The lawyers supplemented the memorandum with 29 character statements in support of Bankman-Fried, including from his brother, Gabe, who has kept a low profile through the criminal proceedings due to his association with FTX's charitable efforts. "Sam has put his heart and time and energy into his philanthropy, and I believe it has made the world a better place," Bankman-Fried's brother wrote. Prosecutors will file their own sentencing recommendations by March 15. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com Republic of Moldovas breakaway region appeals for help from Russia Republic of Moldovas breakaway region of Transnistria has called on Russia to step in and stop what it described as attempts by the government in Chisinau to bring the enclave back into its fold through economic pressure, according to Bloomberg. The self-proclaimed administration in Tiraspol adopted a declaration directed at Moscow, the United Nations and [] The post Republic of Moldovas breakaway region appeals for help from Russia appeared first on Stiri online, ultimele stiri, presa online, ziar online - Sursazilei.ro . Citeste articolul mai departe pe sursazilei.ro Sursa articol si foto: sursazilei.ro Stiri pe aceeasi tema - Republic of Moldovas spy chief said on Tuesday that Russia was planning fresh attempts to meddle in the countrys internal affairs by provoking protests, interfering in upcoming presidential elections, and disrupting plans to join the European Union, according to Reuters. Alexandru Musteata, head - Purtatoarea de cuvant a MAE rus, Maria Zaharova, a acuzat miercuri NATO ca transforma Republica Moldova intr-o a doua Ucraina calificand drept reactie nervoasa declaratii facute de adjunctul secretarului general al NATO, Mircea Geoana, in legatura cu Transnistria. In briefingul sau de presa sustinut - Deputatii din Transnistria au cerut oficial ajutorul Rusiei, in cadrul congresului desfasurat la Tiraspol. Ei nu au solicitat in mod formal anexarea de catre Federatia Rusa, asa cum s-a speculat, transmite Antena 3 CNN. In rezolutia adoptata miercuri, politicienii separatisti au invocat constrangeri - EU members approved a 13th package of Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, banning nearly 200 entities and individuals accused of helping Moscow procure weapons or of involvement in kidnapping Ukrainian children, according to France 24. EU Ambassadors just agreed in principle on a - China said it firmly opposes illegal sanctions in a response to the European Unions proposal to impose trade restrictions on three Chinese firms as part of efforts to hobble Russias war efforts in Ukraine, according to Bloomberg. We are aware of the relevant reports, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - French government officials on Monday accused Russia of operating a long-running online manipulation campaign against Ukraines Western backers in the lead up to the second anniversary of Moscows military invasion of its neighbour, according to France 24. French foreign ministry officials said in a - Russia said a military plane carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners as well as nine crew and guards crashed in Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine, according to Bloomberg. The IL-76 aircraft came down while transporting the prisoners for an exchange with Ukraine, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said - The European Union on Wednesday added Russias Alrosa, the worlds biggest diamond producer, as well as its CEO Pavel Alekseevich Marinychev to its sanctions list as part of its ban of import bans over Moscows war on Ukraine, according to Euractiv. In line with the diamond ban we have introduced with Hungary's largest exhibition of kitchen furniture, kitchen appliances, kitchen tools and above all kitchen trends will be held at the Papp Laszlo Budapest Sports Arena again this year. During the event taking place from 1 - 3 March more, than 100 exhibitors will participate and will be waiting for builders, kitchen renovators and lovers of baking and cooking on nearly 8,000 square meters to get to know domestic and international novelties. In addition to the offerings of the exhibitors' stands, the organizers are preparing numerous programs, special discounts and a high-value prize draw for the visitors at the 14th Kitchen Exhibition. In the course of the last decade the kitchen has advanced from a side character to a protagonist, it is no longer just a service facility of a home, but even a central space equivalent to the living room. The gastronomy and cooking as a pastime and even a hobby are being appreciated and it put the kitchen in spotlight, since the accelerated everyday life and the different schedules of family members resulted the kitchen to be often a place where people gather, while the food is being prepared. It does matter in what environment they do it, and it's not just about the aesthetic appearance. The ergonomics is equally important, how the room is designed, if things are at hand, if it is comfortable enough to spend time there. Nowadays a good kitchen has its own style and character, from the furniture to the large and small appliances till the ladle or ice cube tray. The kitchen is at least as much a reflection of the personality as the other spaces of the property. There are fonds of clean elegance, others look for rustic homeliness, and there are those who are inspired by unusualness, even by humor. Recently cooking is not only to satisfy a biological need, but an art. And art is entitled to have an atelier. The Kitchen Exhibition, held for the 14th time this year, attracting annually 20,000 visitors, puts great emphasis on introducing visitors of the event to this colorful, heterogeneous world. Its aim to help them by presenting the options as broadly as possible and to create a platform to ask questions and learn from experts considering different points of views to be important. This is essential, because the kitchen is not only for a year, we live with it for a longer period of time, so better not to compromise but to strive for perfection. We try to present below briefly the most important trends of 2024 and to highlight the range of possibilities that you can meet on during the event held in Budapest Arena from 1 - 3March. Environment-conscious design and smart devices It is not necessary to think, that a kitchen can only be environmentally friendly if we renovate the old one, i.e. we save as much as possible. Natural materials, furniture made with the smallest possible ecological footprint or energy-saving devices are increasingly important factors during designing a kitchen. The convenience functions of the smart devices increase the comfort, and more and more people are looking for them. These devices store a lot of data and analyze our habits, and they also help us to waste less energy without a reason. Non-ostentatious materials Wood, terracotta, cement, terrazzo, brass, ceramics - materials don't mean to be more, than what they are. They are not covered by a novel surface treatment process, but they are honest and contain something rustic and natural even in case of a modern approach. They are perfect choices for covering floors and walls, but we can also highlight a kitchen island with them. We're not saying that different foils or other solutions of layered front panels are out of fashion, but style and honesty somehow go hand in hand now. Of course, this is usually reflected in the price, but it is evident, that even the most lifelike marble sample will never look as good as real marble or even a cheaper type of stone. Colors and lights While in the past it was typical to hang a spectacular light fixture, eg. a crystal chandelier or a modern designer piece above the central element of the kitchen - be it a dining table or a kitchen island - the focus will be on lamps with a simpler design in 2024. The careful planning of the lighting is even more important, as it sets the tone for the entire interior. Warm tones will be desired more this year according to the trend forecasts and the lights should also emphasize this. Renaissance of furniture The hegemony of the kitchen island and bars is beginning to decline, and the dining table is increasingly reclaiming its former place in the kitchen. The built-in seating surfaces, which have been considered mostly for their practicality, are also becoming more and more fashionable - obviously thanks to the design of cafes and restaurants, where this solution is a standard feature. So the conclusion can perhaps be made that design elements important only from a visual point of view are phasing out of the everyday home decoration in order to allow the old, well-known players to return. In addition to the stands of brands, distributors and designers, the organizers also prepared programs for the weekend. Besides the book presentations and dedications, Michelin-star chefs, young talents, bloggers and celebrities will share their recipes with the audience on the Samsung main stage, even introducing the viewers to new kitchen technology practices. Among others, there will be a chance to meet the favorites of many, Akos Sarkozi and Andras Szabo - the chefs of the Green Michelin star Villa Kabala in Szigliget, Andras Tarjanyi, the steakhouse champion, or Inez Zaida Kiss, winner of the European Young Chef Award. Those who enjoy flipping through gastro books can autograph his new book, So I Became a Chef by Akos Sarkozi, as well as to get the books of award-winning confectioner Judit Horvath, who develops free-from-all recipes. Furthermore, the master barista Doniz Kiss, expert reviewer of James Hoffmanns book How to make perfect coffee at home?,, will talk about how you can make perfect coffee even in your own home at the presentation combined with the coffee tasting. There will be free kitchen design advice again, for which you can register in advance on the exhibition website, and there will also be a prize draw. The main prize of which this year is a complete kitchen furniture worth HUF 2.5 million, adapted to his own needs and home of the winner! Tickets for the Kitchen Exhibition can be purchased in advance at a discount on the website, where all the additional information can be found as well. It would be a pity to miss the hottest Hungarian cuisine event of the year! Greenwood Cemetery Spring Clean-Up YORK Spring clean-up of winter decorations will begin March 1 by the Greenwood Cemetery staff. If you have a tattered American flag, please do not dispose of them in the cemetery waste baskets. Drop flags off at the cemetery garage to be disposed of properly. As a reminder, solar light decorations are prohibited in the cemetery. Emmanuel Lutheran Lenten Services YORK Emmanuel Lutheran Church in York will hold Lenten Services at 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 28. Join in for a Cheesy Ham & Potato meal between services. A free will offering will be taken with funds going toward the Youth Group. Regenerative Ag Conference SEWARD The Upper Big Blue NRD will hold a Regenerative Ag Conference at the Janzow Campus Center Cattle Conference Room on the Concordia University campus in Seward on Wednesday, Feb. 28 from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. This free event for producers and crop consultants will be an opportunity to learn about regenerative ag practices, what funding is available for these practices and how to utilize them to be more profitable and sustainable. It will feature speaker Mitchell Hora, farmer and CEO of Continuum Ag and will be hosted by the Upper Big Blue, Little Blue, Lower Big Blue and Lower Platte South NRDs in collaboration with Green Cover Seed. CEUs will be offered for crop consultants. Register by Feb. 14 at https://www.upperbigblue.org/regnerative-ag. Living Well with Chronic Pain Workshop YORK Four Corners Health Department will host a Living Well with Chronic Pain Workshop on Thursday, Feb. 29 from 13:30 p.m. Chronic pain is manageable. Learn ways to make small changes that will have a big impact on your life. Learn how our brains process pain and how our thoughts and emotions can influence that process. Classes are taught in small group settings by two facilitators. Get support and encouragement from group interactions. Make connections with the people in the class so you can stay in touch, if youd like Caregivers are welcomed, and encouraged to attend. This interactive workshop is facilitated by trained leaders and helps individuals with chronic pain take steps to manage their health and live happier, healthier lives. Topics include: Action planning, healthy eating, physical activity, dealing with emotions, medication use and more. This workshop is free and will take place at the Four Corners Building. Classes meet for 2 or 2.5 hours each week. Contact Angel of Sara at 402.362.2621 or info@fourcorners.ne.gov to register. St. Josephs Church and School Fish Fry YORK St. Josephs Church and School, at 5th and East Ave. in York, will hold their annual fish fry on Friday, March 1. The drive-thru will be open from 4:30-7 p.m. and dine-in and carryout will be available from 57 p.m. Fish, scalloped potatoes, coleslaw and bread will be served every Friday from Feb. 9 through March 22. Adults (12 and up) are $14, Children (4-11) are $9 and Children Under 4 are free. Desserts available for $1. St. Paul Lutheran Preschool Open House UTICA St. Paul Lutheran Preschool in Utica is now taking enrollment for the 2024-2025 school year. There will be a Preschool Open House on Saturday, March 2 from 10-11 a.m. for interested families to visit our classroom. Enter behind the church on the east end of the building by the playground. Children should be 3 years old by July 31, 2024 to attend preschool next year. To schedule a visit at another time, please contact the preschool teacher, Pam Johansen, at 402-366-7995 or email her at pjohansen@stpaulutica.com. York Armory Open House YORK Army National Guard Bravo Troop, 1-134 Cavalry Squadron is a decorated unit within the Nebraska Army National Guard and a proud member of the York Community. They will be hosting an open house at the York Armory, 1129 E 6th Street in York, on Saturday, March 2 from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. RSVP is not required. Community members are invited to walk the armory, view Army equipment, vehicles, and weapons, and talk with Soldiers of various specialties within the Army. Those interested in a career in the Army or Nebraska National Guard will be offered a ride in a military vehicle and receive hands-on instruction on Army equipment to include various weapons and optics. Those interested in a career in the Army are encouraged to contact SSG Alvarez at (402) 309-8883 or aaron.e.alvarez.mil@army.mil. Milligan Brass Band & Neal to perform FRIEND The Milligan Brass Band & Neal will perform on Sunday, March 3 at the Friend Historical Society, 511 2nd St. in Friend. A free will offering will be taken. Contact Harold at 402.366.7137 with any questions. YORK At its Monday meeting, the York School Board took additional steps towards possibly expanding the elementary school, listened to a presentation by students in the York Middle School FFA and heard from a parent concerned about the schools response to bullying and teacher misconduct. At the beginning of the meeting during the public comment section, a parent raised concerns about two separate issues: bullying, which she said affected her own child, and teacher misconduct, which she said affected the children of other parents, whom she said she was speaking on behalf of. Krysti Sova said she had been trying to raise concerns about students bullying her daughter at York Middle School since September, but school administrators had not met with her until last week. She expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of that meeting and also gave an example of one of the messages that her daughter had received. School Board President Matt Holthe thanked Sova for raising her concerns and encouraged her to stay in touch with York Middle School Principal Kenny Loosvelt and other administrators to make sure her concerns are being addressed. In a written statement shared with the News-Times, York Public Schools Superintendent Mitch Bartholomew said, York Public Schools adopts and maintains a proactive stance in addressing incidents of bullying. The school firmly denounces such behavior and is committed to investigating allegations or assertions of bullying. Through its investigation process, York Public Schools has dealt with past occurrences of bullying and implemented disciplinary measures accordingly. In addition to disciplinary actions, the school has also incorporated restorative practices as part of its approach towards fostering positive relationships and enhancing social connections among its student body. After the discussion of bullying, Sova also raised concerns about York High School. She said that she spoke on behalf of other YPS parents, who, she said, claimed current teachers had engaged in misconduct in the past and that the school had not sufficiently responded. Holthe said that he had not heard of these allegations and that he would follow up with the school administration to see what has been done. Bartholomew told the News-Times that he could not comment on personnel matters. After the public comment period, the board heard an update about the schools possible expansion of York Elementary School. The school has decided to push back the vote on the bond for the expansion project until November of this year. Previously, the school had planned to vote in the Spring. York Elementary School Principal Katie Burke also recently led some community members on a tour of the elementary school with representatives from the contracted architecture firm CMBA. During the tour, the community members learned about what the possible expansion could look like. The school board also approved pre-bond contract documents with Hausmann Construction for the expansion project. On Monday night, students from York Middle School FFA also gave an update on their activities in the last year. In the past year, York Middle School FFA students have been heavily involved in the York Community. They wrote valentines for the elderly on Valentines Day, placed trees downtown, participated in the Heart of the Holidays Festival, and are now raising money to place benches downtown. FFA students have also won awards in livestock judging, leadership development contests, ag literacy speaking, ag discovery speaking, and many other areas. Twenty-five YMS eighth graders went to the National FFA convention this year, traveling to Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky, where they were even able to see Kentucky-derby-winning horses. There were countless other activities that YMS FFA was involved in. Finally, this past week the YMS FFA Chapter celebrated FFA week with trivia, a raffle to win a steak lunch, and a Friday assembly. At the end of the school board meeting, the board decided to keep summer drivers ed rates the same as last year. She raised money and organized volunteers. Even while she could barely walk after breaking a leg in a vehicle accident, Epona Horse Rescues Lin Guyton struggled through the snow and cold to care for 39 horses taken last summer from veterinarian Jennafer Glaesemann. Now, Guytons afraid their lives could be in danger again after an auction Saturday at the Palmyra Livestock Auction in Palmyra, Nebraska. The auction firm said on Facebook that it would work to find the horses forever homes with proper care. But Guyton said she knows that one person who buys animals, including horses, for slaughter attends the auction each month. Ive also been told that there are two kill buyers coming in from out of state just for this auction, she said. These horses deserve better than that. Guyton, who has operated the nonprofit horse rescue in Crete, Nebraska, for 20 years, has said the animals reminded her of deprived children from an impoverished country when they were confiscated from the Blue Valley Veterinary Clinic and Pickrell Veterinary Clinic owned by Glaessemann in August. In the six months the horses have been at Epona Horse Rescue, theyve grown fatter and are looking healthier. Guyton said she learned out of the blue that 37 horses are going to be sold at auction. Two others were leased and not part of the auction. Guytons fear is that all of the rescues work to rebuild the horses has made them attractive to the wrong kind of people, including kill pen buyers . Were trying to raise money to save them, she said. The horses I save Im hoping to rehome into new homes. They will go into safe homes that we know they wont go to slaughter or be overbred. A GoFundMe account has been started to raise $50,000 or more to try to buy the horses at auction. As of Monday afternoon, it had raised about $12,000. Epona Horse Rescue is also accepting donations mailed to 20000 SW 114th St., Crete, NE, 68333. Come and help a horse In a Facebook post Sunday, the Palmyra Livestock Market said it is acting as sale agents only trying to find the horses a safe and loving place to live. They will be auctioned off to the highest bidder, the post says. Please come and help a horse if you can we are trying to find them forever homes with proper care. Guyton has already lined up buyers for several of the horses and is teaming with another rescue to try to save others. Ten of the 37 horses at the auction are stallions, and shes afraid theyll go to backyard breeders. Im bidding on all the stallions so I can get them gelded, Guyton said. So I can guarantee these guys become nice productive geldings in their next life. Guyton said its sad to realize that the horses she helped rescue in August have grown more attractive for buyers. Now, it will cost more money to save them again. The money raised at auction, beyond the expenses of Gage County and Guyton, could go to Glaesemann, Guyton said. Glaesemann is not charged with any crimes, though the county had alleged 15 to 17 horses died in her care. Guyton said expenses would include veterinarian bills and some of the feed bills the county has paid since mid-January. The approximately $75,000 in donations for the feeding and caring of the animals would not be repaid. Those donors need to be made aware of what is going on, she said. I worry that if the auction money goes to (Glaesemann), those donors wont step up the next time animals are in need. No charges, merely citations Several news outlets, including The World-Herald, had reported last year that Glaesemann had been charged with 37 counts of misdemeanor animal neglect. Gage County court records do not show any criminal charges being made. Gage County Attorney Roger Harris did not reply to attempts to speak with him about the case. In a text to The World-Herald on Monday, Glaesemann confirmed that she has never been charged, merely cited for animal neglect by the Gage County Sheriffs Office following an investigation. Citations issued by a law enforcement agency do not automatically mean that charges will be brought. That decision is left up to a city, county or state prosecutor. In a Facebook post Sunday, Guyton said she is heartbroken and dispirited by the process. This is one of the hardest times I can remember. These horses deserve so much more than what they are getting, she wrote. The more time I spend with them, the sadder I get. They do not deserve this auction. So many people have put their heart and soul into saving their lives and regaining their health. Now outside people are clamoring for a piece of this story. Profiting on this nightmare. It is disgusting and vile. Where were you when we worked long hours, when exhausted we kept going. Tonight, I truly question ... why should I continue to rescue? World-Herald staff writer Molly Ashford contributed to this report. Horses are being cared for at Epona Rescue New Delhi: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates paid a visit to the India Development Centre (IDC) in Hyderabad, a hub of innovation that he had envisioned back in 1998. This year, the IDC is celebrating 25 years of remarkable achievements in research, engineering, and development, playing a crucial role in shaping top-notch products like Azure, Windows, Office, Bing, Copilot, and various AI applications. Rajiv Kumar, the Managing Director of Microsoft IDC and CVP of Experiences + Devices India, expressed his satisfaction at witnessing Bill Gates engage with some of India's brightest engineering minds at the IDC, which he considers the company's most valuable asset. (Also Read: EPFO Services To Remain Impacted Today: Know Why) Kumar echoed Gates' enthusiasm for the potential of AI in India and expressed IDC's eagerness to lead innovation efforts for Microsoft, spanning across AI, cloud services, security, and gaming. (Also Read: Dating App Bumble To Layoff 30% Of Workforce) Gates' Plan To Visit India Gates had recently shared his plans to visit India in a post on LinkedIn, expressing his eagerness to discover how India is pioneering innovative solutions in healthcare, digital infrastructure, and climate initiatives, with the aim of benefiting billions of people worldwide. In his blog, Gates mentioned his visit's purpose: to explore ways of collaborating with India to ensure that its groundbreaking ideas and inventions reach everyone, regardless of their location. Meeting With Prime Minister Modi Gates emphasized that during his visit, discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi would focus on Microsoft's continued collaboration with India to ensure that its ideas and inventions are accessible to all who need them, regardless of geographical barriers. (With IANS Inputs) New Delhi: Indias Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should grow in the range of 6.7-6.9 percent during the third quarter (Q3) of FY24, an State Bank of India (SBI) research report has said. The Research Report from the State Bank of Indias Economic Research Department authored by Soumya Kanti Ghosh, SBI Group Chief Economic Adviser, said, "Factoring the slight decline in economic activity in Q3 FY24, we estimate GDP should grow in the range of 6.7-6.9% with a GVA growth of 6.6%." The SBI Composite Leading Indicator (CLI) Index --which is a basket of 41 leading indicators which includes parameters from almost all the sectors --based on monthly data shows a slight moderation in economic activity in Q3. The report mentions that as per First Advance Estimates, the estimated production of major Kharif crops for 2023-24 is 148.5 MMT, which is a decline of ~4.6% from FY23. While, the sowing season for rabi crops concluded on 23 Feb, indicate a slight increase in overall acreage compared to the previous year. However, concerns arose over the sown area under cereals, which saw a decline of 6.5% from the previous year. While agriculture may see some moderation if the rabi output does not offset the kharif shortfall, value added in in agriculture will decline, the SBI report added. The inland fish production has shown a rapid growth from 2014-15 to 2022-23. and reached to 131.13 lakh tonnes in 2022-23. The share of Fisheries sector constitutes about 1.07 % of the total national GVA and 6.86 % of Agricultural GVA. So, this might support the Agri & Allied sector growth in FY24, it said. "As a counter narrative to the global gloom, consumer confidence has strengthened further in India, driven chiefly by optimism about the general economic situation and employment conditions. Various enterprise surveys also point towards strong business optimism," the report added. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, making it very difficult to overcome. While medical science has provided many options for treating cancer, some types of cancer, with rapidly spreading cells, have been challenging to eliminate. In this regard, the development of Nutraceutical Therapy by doctors at the Tata Memorial Center is nothing short of a boon for cancer patients. The team of doctors who developed this therapy said that it is designed to treat metastatic cancer and reduce its risks. It took the doctors involved in this research over a decade to develop this therapy. What is Metastatic Cancer Metastatic cancer is when the deadly cells of cancer start spreading from one part of the body to another. However, according to the Canadian Cancer Society, the term metastatic cancer is commonly used only for solid tumors, such as those in the breast, prostate, or lungs. What is Nutraceutical Therapy Doctors conducting the research explained that Nutraceutical is a food or food supplement known as RCU-C. It is prepared from copper, grapes, and berries. It contains extra bioactive compounds and medicinal properties that provide the body with not only basic nutrition but also many health benefits. Results Nutraceutical Therapy in Cancer Patients The use of Nutraceutical has been started on cancer patients in the last few years, with better results seen in cancers of the oral cavity, blood, brain, and abdomen. Risks of Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy Revealed in the Study Dr. Indraneel Mitra, the lead researcher of the study, told TOI that during this research, the risks of cancer treatment with chemotherapy and radiotherapy have also come to light. However, this therapy kills early tumor cells but causes dying cancer cells to release chromatin, called CFCHP, which travels through the bloodstream to other parts of the body, causing cancer. (Written by Sharda Singh) New Delhi: As the 2024 Lok Sabha elections draw near, the whole country is on the edge of their seats to see the political drama that will ensue. The leading parties are ready to battle it out, and the guessing game has started, with the election dates expected to be announced soon. In this context, Zee News and MATRIZE have conducted an opinion poll, which is the first of its kind after the formation of alliances, including the new partners of the NDA and the rise of the oppositions INDIA bloc. The Zee News-MATRIZE Lok Sabha Opinion Poll took place from February 5th to February 27th. It collected opinions from 1,67,843 people across 543 Lok Sabha constituencies, comprising 87,000 men and 54,000 women. Moreover, the poll included the opinions of 27,000 first-time voters. The poll results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 per cent. Its crucial to note that these are not election outcomes but only an opinion poll, and no one should try to sway the elections based on these findings. How Many Seats Will NDA-INDIA Get In 2024? The Zee News-MATRIZE poll shows that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is likely to win a substantial majority if elections were held today. The NDA is poised to win 377 seats against INDIA bloc's 93 seats. In 2019 General Elections, the BJP won 351 seats while the UPA secured just 90 Lok Sabha seats. What Will Be NDA-INDIA's Vote Share In 2024 LS Polls? NDA's vote share is likely to hike by over 5 per cent to reach 43.6 per cent in comparison to 2019. In 2019, the alliance got 38.4% of votes. Meanwhile, INDIA bloc may get 27.7 per cent of votes in 2024. The UPA got 26.6% of votes in 2019. A steep decline can be seen in vote percentage of other parties, resulting to their vote share dropping from 35.2 per cent in 2019 to 24.9 per cent in 2024. The survey suggests a resounding victory for the NDA in major regions of North, East, and West India. However, the southern states appear to favour the Opposition INDIA bloc, according to the survey results. This difference highlights the regional factors that influence Indian politics. It seems like every day another company announces a new generative AI product or service. From apps that summarize your meetings to platforms that help with photo editing and customer support bots, generative AI is all any tech firm wants to talk about. Still, not every piece of generative AI software is going to be a breakthrough like OpenAIs ChatGPT, the bot that helped kick off this new tech revolution. But dont expect that to slow the seemingly endless parade of platforms and tools coming to market. Even if some of those products appear doomed from the outset. I think we are in kind of a spaghetti-at-the-wall stage, explained Emily DeJeu, assistant teaching professor at Carnegie Mellon Universitys Tepper School of Business. We're just trying to find what is the use-case for this? And in order to figure that out, it's almost like we're going to do everything with it. Generative AI everywhere The fact that generative AI is spawning a slew of new products shouldnt be all that surprising. After all, weve seen the tech industry respond to huge trends like this in the same way before. [It] reminds me a lot of the dot-com boom in the very late '90s, early 2000s, where everybody's like, I need to get a website, explained Jennifer Golbeck, professor and director of the Social Intelligence Lab at the University of Maryland. A series of servers powering Google's Gemini AI platform. (Image: Google) (Google) They didn't really know what they wanted to do with it, but they just didn't want to get left behind, and they were really attracted to all the promise of what that tech was going to do, she added. And as with the dot-com boom, were seeing some generative AI capabilities that feel superfluous at best. Think Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Samsung offering an AI feature that changes the tone of your text message, so you sound more or less professional. [The] vast, vast majority of these vendors are trying to figure out a product-market fit, and they don't yet have a product market fit, said Arun Chandrasekaran, distinguished vice president and analyst at Gartner. Story continues In other words, some companies are releasing generative AI products and services, even if it doesnt seem like theres a customer desire or need for them. That isnt necessarily all bad, though, explained Stefano Puntoni, co-director of AI at Wharton. After all, experimenting with different generative AI products will inevitably help the best rise to the top, while the worst will fall to the wayside. A man uses a mobile phone as he walks past outside Fira Barcelona, venue of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), in Barcelona on February 23, 2024.(Photo by JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images) (JOSEP LAGO via Getty Images) A confusing market Still, the glut of generative AI products can also create confusion among enterprise and consumer customers. This is completely overwhelming the buyers of technology ... whether that's a consumer, whether that's an enterprise CIO, Chandrasekaran explained. This is really overwhelming them, the choice that they have, and [they are] really trying to discern the differences between these different companies and different products and what they offer. Couple that with the breakneck pace at which AI products are evolving, and it becomes difficult for customers to keep up. Subscribe to the Yahoo Finance Tech newsletter. (Yahoo Finance) Its not just the enormous number of new AI services, either. Some companies are marketing software as generative AI or AI-powered when, in fact, it isnt, a practice known as AI-washing. I think a really crucial piece of this is that a lot of different things are being called AI, not all of which I think really belong as part of this revolution that we're undergoing, explained Neil Thompson, director of the FutureTech research project at MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. In December, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler warned companies against AI-washing schemes, or else they'll face repercussions. Were still in the early stages of the generative AI revolution, which means companies will launch even more AI-powered products and services in the months ahead. Some will stick around, others will fail, and the industry will just have to see which ones come out on top. Daniel Howley is the tech editor at Yahoo Finance. He's been covering the tech industry since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter @DanielHowley. Click here for the latest technology news that will impact the stock market. Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance New Delhi: The CBI has asked Samajwadi Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav to appear as a witness for questioning on Thursday in connection with illegal mining cases, which were registered five years ago. The agency issued a notice under section 160 of CrPC, which empowers a police officer to summon witnesses in a probe, and told him to appear before it on February 29 in relation to the case registered in 2019, officials said. The case is about the granting of mining leases in alleged breach of e-tendering process. The probe was ordered by the Allahabad High Court. The CBI alleged that public servants permitted illegal mining during 2012-16, when Yadav was the chief minister, and unlawfully renewed licences despite a ban by the National Green Tribunal on mining. The CBI also alleged that the officers facilitated the theft of minerals, extorted money from lease-holders and drivers. The CBI had registered seven preliminary enquiries in 2016 following the directions of the Allahabad High Court to investigate the case of illegal mining of minor minerals. The agency had claimed that the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadavs office had approved 13 projects in a single day, officials said. They had said that Yadav, who also had the mining portfolio for sometime, had approved 14 leases, out of which 13 were approved on February 17, 2013, in violation of e-tendering process. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said that on February 17, 2013, the leases were given by the district magistrate of Hamirpur, B Chandrakala, after getting approval from the chief ministers office in breach of its 2012 e-tender policy, which was endorsed by the Allahabad High Court on January 29 that year. The CBI had conducted searches at 14 locations in January 2019 in relation to its FIR against 11 people, including IAS officer B Chandrakala, Samajwadi Party MLC Ramesh Kumar Mishra and Sanjay Dixit (who lost the 2017 assembly election on a BSP ticket) to investigate the alleged illegal mining of minor minerals in Hamirpur district during 2012-16. Yadav, who was the chief minister of the state between 2012 and 2017, had the mining portfolio during 2012-13, which apparently put his role under scrutiny, according to the FIR. He was replaced by Gayatri Prajapati, who became the mining minister in 2013 and was arrested in 2017 after a woman living in Chitrakoot accused him of rape. New Delhi: Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP leader and Leader of Opposition in West Bengal, has alleged that the state police have taken Shajahan Sheikh, the TMC strongman of Sandeshkhali who is on the run, into safe custody since last night. The Trinamool Congress, however, has rubbished Adhikaris allegation as baseless and an attempt to create trouble in the state, while maintaining that the police are doing their best to catch Shajahan. Adhikari, the MLA from Nandigram, posted on X that Shajahan was in police custody since 12 am after he negotiated a deal with the police through powerful mediators that he would be treated well while in police and judicial custody. He will have access to five star facilities during his time in jail and will have a mobile phone, through which he will be able to run the TMC virtually. Even a bed in Woodburn Ward (the VIP cabin in the SSKM Hospital) will be reserved and empty for him if he wants to spend some time there, he alleged. The Scoundrel of Sandeshkhali - Seikh Shahjahan is in the safe custody of Mamata Police since 12 am last night. He was taken away from the Bermajur - II Gram Panchayat area, after he managed to negotiate a deal with the Mamata Police, through influential mediators, that he would Suvendu Adhikari (@SuvenduWB) February 28, 2024 Adhikaris allegation comes just two days after TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghoshs statement that Shajahan would be nabbed within a week. Shajahan, the TMC leader who is wanted for sexually abusing women and grabbing their land in Sandeshkhali area in North 24 Parganas district, has been evading arrest for more than 50 days since a mob loyal to him attacked an ED team that raided his house in connection with a ration scam. The locals have been protesting and demanding his arrest. TMC leader Santanu Sen, however, dismissed Adhikaris allegation as baseless. Adhikari, to remain in the limelight, makes such claims from time to time that are not only baseless but also blatant attempts to disrupt the law and order situation. We dont pay attention to his comments. The police are doing everything to catch Shajahan, just like they caught other accused party leaders in the area, Shibaprasad Hazra and Uttam Sardar, he said. Women Demand Police Complaint Against TMC Leader Women from the area have approached the police to lodge a complaint against Sheikh Shahjahan, the TMC leader who is accused of several crimes. A woman says, We want to register a complaint. The conditions here are pathetic, there is no water from the taps, the electric poles are uselessWe are living in terror. We are afraid of Sheikh Shahjahan and his goonsWhy cant he be arrested? He has been on the run for long. We want him to face the law, that he be hanged. The Narendra Modi-led NDA government is likely to notify the Citizenship Amendment Act rules in the first week of March. According to Zee News TV, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is expected to announce the CAA 2019 regulations before the enforcement of the model code of conduct for the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. The rules have been on hold since 2019 following a mass protest by a section of the society. What Is CAA Rules? The CAA rules were introduced by the Modi government. It aims to confer Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants belonging to minority communities including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis, and Christians - who migrated from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and arrived in India before December 31, 2014. Eligible Migrants To Get Citizenship The CAA law can be put into action with the issuance of MHA notifications, allowing eligible individuals to obtain Indian citizenship. The implementation of the CAA, which has been delayed for over four years, necessitates the formulation of its associated rules. An online portal is already up for the entire process and migrants can apply digitally. On December 27, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had asserted that the implementation of the CAA cannot be halted as it stands as the law of the land. He had also accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of misleading the public regarding this matter. Speaking at a party meeting in Kolkata, Shah emphasized that the BJP is committed to implementing the CAA. The TMC, led by Mamata Banerjee, has been opposing the CAA. Citizenship To Migrants As per the Ministry of Home Affairs, between April 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021, a cumulative count of 1,414 individuals from non-Muslim minority communities originating from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan were granted Indian citizenship through registration or naturalization under the Citizenship Act, 1955. Under the Citizenship Act of 1955, Indian citizenship by registration or naturalization is granted to non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan in nine states such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and Maharashtra. In the ever-evolving realm of smartphone innovations, Samsung stands tall with its latest technological marvels. From groundbreaking advancements in AI to intuitive features like Circle to Search, Samsung's commitment to pushing the boundaries of possibility shines through. Let's delve deeper into these transformative technologies and explore how they enrich the lives of Samsung Galaxy S24 users. Galaxy AI: Pioneering a New Era of Mobile Interaction At the heart of Samsung's innovation lies Galaxy AI, a revolutionary platform designed to redefine the smartphone experience. Positioned as the entry-level smartphone to harness the full potential of Galaxy AI, the Samsung Galaxy S24 can be your intelligent companion at just Rs. 3334 per month. Let's explore how Galaxy AI enhances everyday interactions through real-life scenarios tackled with Samsung Galaxy S24: 1. Maximizing Performance with Galaxy AI Imagine you're juggling multiple tasks on your Galaxy S24responding to emails, editing documents, and browsing the web simultaneously. With Galaxy AI, your device intelligently allocates resources, ensuring smooth multitasking without any lag or slowdown. Whether you're a busy professional or a multitasking enthusiast, Galaxy AI maximizes your productivity and keeps you effortlessly in control of your smartphone experience. 2. Generative Edit: Unleashing Creativity with Ease You've just captured a breathtaking sunset on your Galaxy S24, but the lighting isn't perfect. With Generative Edit, transforming your photo into a masterpiece is as simple as a few taps. Remove distractions, adjust lighting, and enhance colors with AI-powered editing tools, turning ordinary snapshots into extraordinary works of art. Whether you're an aspiring photographer or a social media influencer, Generative Edit empowers you to express your creativity like never before. 3. Chat Assist: Streamlining Communication Across Languages You're planning a trip abroad and need to communicate with locals in their native language. With Chat Assist on your Galaxy S24, language barriers become a thing of the past. Real-time tone suggestions ensure your messages strike the right chord, while AI-powered translation capabilities facilitate seamless communication in any language. 4. Live Translate: Bridging Language Gaps in Real Time You're on a live business call with international clients, but language differences threaten to hinder communication. With Live Translate on your Galaxy S24, conducting business across borders becomes effortless. Real-time voice translations ensure everyone is on the same page, minimizing misunderstandings and fostering smooth collaboration. Whether you're negotiating deals or building international partnerships, Live Translate empowers you to break down language barriers with ease. 5. Note Assist: Simplifying Note-Taking and Organization You're attending a scientific conference and need to take detailed notes on multiple presentations. With Note Assist on your Galaxy S24, note-taking becomes a breeze. AI-generated summaries and pre-made templates help you capture key points effortlessly. Whether you're a student, professional, or avid learner, Note Assist streamlines the note-taking process and keeps you organized on the go. 6. Smart Switch: Seamlessly Transition to Your New Device You've just upgraded to the Galaxy S24 and need to transfer data from your old device. With Smart Switch, the transition is seamless. Transfer photos, contacts, apps, and settings with ease, ensuring your new device is set up exactly how you want it. Whether you're switching from an old smartphone or upgrading within the Galaxy ecosystem, Smart Switch simplifies the setup process and ensures you're up and running in no time. Circle to Search: Revolutionizing Exploration and Discovery Circle to Search isn't just a featureit's a gateway to seamless exploration and discovery. Let's examine its transformative abilities in more detail. Suppose you're browsing social media and come across a stunning landscape photo that piques your interest. With Circle to Search on your Galaxy smartphone, you can instantly initiate a direct search for more information about the location, landmarks, or even similar images. Simply circle the area of interest, and AI generates an overview with relevant details, allowing you to explore further without leaving the app. Whether you're planning your next vacation or satisfying your curiosity, Circle to Search makes exploration effortless and intuitive. Performance Redefined: Exynos at Its Finest At the heart of the Samsung Galaxy S24 lies the competitive Exynos 2400 chipset, a symbol of raw power and efficiency. Designed to elevate your mobile experience to new heights, the Exynos 2400 sets a new standard for performance and responsiveness. Immersive Gaming Experience: Powered by the Xclipse 940 GPU and AMD RDNA 3 architecture, the Exynos 2400 takes gaming to a whole new level. Experience lifelike graphics, fluid gameplay, and lightning-fast response times for an unparalleled gaming experience. Efficient AI Processing: Say goodbye to lag and hello to efficiency with the Exynos 2400's advanced AI capabilities. From image processing to language translation, enjoy blazing-fast performance with minimal power consumption. Extended Battery Life: Thanks to its tri-cluster structure deca-core CPU and hexa-core GPU, the Exynos 2400 delivers exceptional performance while optimizing power consumption. Enjoy longer battery life without compromising on performance, ensuring your device stays powered throughout the day. Picture Perfect: Unleash Your Inner Photographer Capture life's moments in stunning detail with the Samsung Galaxy S24's exceptional camera setup. Whether you're a professional photographer or just love snapping photos as a hobby, the Galaxy S24 empowers you to unleash your creativity like never before. High-Resolution Imaging: With a 50MP primary camera, 12MP ultra-wide lens, and 10MP telephoto lens, the Galaxy S24 ensures every shot is a masterwork. From breathtaking scenes to detailed close-ups, capture every moment with unmatched clarity. AI-Powered Zoom: Get up close and personal with AI-powered zoom capabilities. From 1x to 3x magnification, capture intricate details with precision and clarity, ensuring every photo tells a story. Professional-grade Video Recording: Elevate your videography skills with 8K recording capabilities and advanced noise reduction technology. Whether you're shooting in broad daylight or low-light conditions, the Galaxy S24 delivers stunning videos with enhanced dynamic range and clarity. Mesmerizing Display: Where Every Pixel Counts Experience visuals like never before with the Samsung Galaxy S24's mesmerizing display. From vibrant colors to fluid motion, every aspect of the display is designed to captivate your senses and elevate your viewing experience. Immersive Visuals: Dive into a world of immersive visuals with the Galaxy S24's 6.2-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display. Whether you're streaming your favorite Hollywood movies or playing graphic-intensive games, enjoy crisp details and vibrant colors that pop off the screen. Smooth Refresh Rate: Say goodbye to stuttering and lag with the Galaxy S24's 120Hz refresh rate. From scrolling through your social media feed to navigating demanding apps, enjoy buttery-smooth performance that keeps up with your every move. Eye-catching Color Options Express your style with the Galaxy S24's stunning color options. Whether you prefer the warm undertone of Amber Yellow or the timeless sophistication of Onyx Black, find a color that resonates with your personality and makes a statement wherever you go. The other additional colors include Jade Green, Cobalt Violet and Sapphire Blue, you can check them out here. Try Galaxy Experience Curious about the Galaxy experience but currently dont have a Samsung device? Your curiosity can now be satisfied with the innovative 'Try Galaxy' experience. This groundbreaking feature enables smartphone users to delve into the user-friendly, intuitive, and customizable software that defines the essence of Samsung Galaxy. Scan this QR code below to experience the latest Samsung Galaxy features, without changing phones: Moving Ahead Samsung's latest technologies, from Galaxy AI to Circle to Search, are poised to revolutionize the smartphone experience. Whether it's maximizing productivity, unleashing creativity, or facilitating seamless communication, these innovative features empower users to achieve more and explore new horizons. In conclusion, the Samsung Galaxy S24 isn't just a smartphone; it's a window into the future. With its groundbreaking AI capabilities, unrivaled performance, exceptional camera setup, and mesmerizing display, the Galaxy S24 sets a new standard for what a smartphone can achieve. So why wait? Embrace the future today with the Samsung Galaxy S24 at just Rs. 3334 per month. 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. Unravelling a best-kept secret, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi revealed the names of the four Indian astronauts who will be taking part in the country's 'Gaganyaan' Human spaceflight mission. The astronaut candidates are Indian Air Force test Pilots, who have been specifically shortlisted and trained to undergo the rigours of spaceflight. They are -Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan, Group Captain Ajith Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, Wing Commader Shubhanshu Shukla. Having completed 13 months of rigorous training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, near Moscow, Russia and various levels of theoretical and physical training in India, the astronauts are all set to undergo training in the US. Earlier, ISRO Chairman Dr. S. Somanath had confirmed to Zee Media that the US leg of training would happen soon at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Texas. It was 40 years ago, in 1984, that Indian Air Force Pilot Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to travel to space. He did so as part of the Soviet Interkosmos programme. Gaganyaan is India's own attempt at launching astronauts to space on a largely homegrown mission, with support from US, Russia, France, among others. Of these, Russia and US are the pioneers of human spaceflight, since the Cold War era. As part of the Russian training at Star City, near Moscow, the Indian astronaut candidates were put through survival training in snow, in deserts, on water. Such a training is necessary to ensure that the crew can survive an emergency landing in any such hostile terrain and keep themselves safe, until help can arrive. They also experienced micro-gravity(weightlessness) while flying in special aircraft that are meant to induce such a space-like condition. Astronauts have to be able to handle high G-forces that are experienced during spaceflight. People on earth experience a sustained load of 1G Force(which means that a person would experience and feel their actual body weight). However, those who are travelling in rapidly accelerating/decelerating fighter planes or rockets experience multi-fold G Force. Zee Media had earlier reported that Indian astronauts would experience a sustained load of 4G for about 16minutes, when ascending to space. Effectively, this means that an astronaut who weighs 70kgs, would feel like he weighs 280kgs. Fighter pilots are known to handle such high G Force scenarios and encounter almost 9G during their missions and training. Which is why fighter pilots are the preferred candidates for astronaut training. However, in the case of a mid-flight abort of the astronaut-carrying capsule, the Gaganyaan astronauts would experience loads of 12G, for a few seconds. US Training of Gaganyaan Astronauts The Indian astronaut candidates completed their Russian training and returned to India in 2021. Since then, they have also undergone several theoretical and practical sessions at ISRO's Human Spaceflight Centre and the Indian Air Force's Institute of Aerospace Medicine. They have also been visiting various ISRO centres, such as ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram and Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. As a part of the Gaganyaan team, they are also assisting ISRO with the design and development of the crew-carrying capsule. At India's Human Spaceflight Centre in Bengaluru, they have also been undergoing simulator training and physical training. In June 2023, pathbreaking initiatives towards Indo-US Space Cooperation were announced during the Joint Statement delivered by Prime Minister Modi and President Biden. It included the announcement by NASA to provide advanced training to Indian astronauts at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, with a goal of mounting a joint effort to the International Space Station in 2024. Dr. S.Somanath had told Zee Media that it is on India's wish list to have an astronaut flying to the International Space Station (ISS), as India's only reference point for Human Spaceflight is that of Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma (Retd), who flew in 1984. That maiden spaceflight by an Indian was on a Soviet-era crew capsule and since then the technologies have changed drastically. "The US Human spaceflight scenario is completely changed and the launches are being carried out by the private firms and it is not being done by the US Government, as was the case earlier. As per the India-US (ISRO-NASA) arrangement, NASA will sponsor a seat in the private launch that will happen to the ISS, our astronaut will undergo training at their facility and will then be sent to the International Space Station," the ISRO Chief had told Zee Media. As part of the announcement made by President Biden, Indian astronaut candidates would be offered advanced training at NASA's Johnson Space Center, which is also known in the US as the Hub of Human Spaceflight. Established in 1961, this facility in Houston, Texas, started off as the Manned Spacecraft Centre, the home and Mission Control Center for the US Human Spaceflight programme. In 1973, the facility was renamed in honour of the late President and Texas Native Lyndon B Johnson. In more than six decades of operation, the facility has made notable advances in science, technology, engineering and medicine, thereby enabling crewed space exploration. Tirunelveli: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched a scathing attack on the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government in Tamil Nadu, criticizing an alleged depiction of a 'Chinese rocket' in a state government newspaper advertisement. Insult To ISRO Scientists PM Modi accused the DMK of 'looting' taxpayer money and claimed that the state government's ad insulted scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), who played a crucial role in successful space missions like Chandrayaan-3. "DMK is a party that does not work but stands ahead to take false credit. These people paste their stickers on our schemes. Now they have crossed the limits, they have pasted China's sticker to take credit for the ISRO launch pad in Tamil Nadu," PM Modi said while addressing a gathering in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu. DMK's Refusal To Acknowledge India's Space Progress The Prime Minister expressed dissatisfaction with the DMK's refusal to acknowledge India's progress in the space sector. He emphasized how the party failed to showcase India's space success and insulted scientists while misusing taxpayers' money for advertisements. "They are not ready to accept India's progress in the space sector and with the taxes that you pay, they give advertisements and do not even include a picture of India's space in it. They did not want to present India's space success in front of the world, they insulted our scientists, our space sector, and your tax money. Now it's high time that the DMK is punished for their deeds," PM Modi said. PM Modi also criticized the Congress and DMK alliance, accusing them of engaging in 'dividing' the nation. He highlighted an incident where DMK members left the Parliament during the resolution for the Pran Pratishtha of Ram Mandir, stating that it reflected the leaders' disdain for people's faith. Contrasting the divisive politics, PM Modi claimed that the BJP considers every person a family member. He expressed confidence that people in Tamil Nadu trust the BJP for development and emphasized the party's commitment to meeting their expectations. AIIMS And Development Of Tamil Nadu Highlighting the proposal for AIIMS in Madurai, PM Modi accused the state government of 'non-cooperation.' He assured the people that the BJP would strive for the development of Tamil Nadu despite the obstacles posed by the current government. PM Modi urged the people to be alert against the state government's opposition to development and anti-development political parties. He vowed to hold them accountable and emphasized the need for the state to progress in tandem with the country. Earlier in the day, the Prime Minister inaugurated and dedicated multiple development projects worth Rs 17,300 crores in Thoothukudi. These projects, symbolizing 'Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat,' include initiatives to make the VO Chidambaranar Port the first Green Hydrogen Hub in the country. Green Hydrogen Hub And Clean Energy Initiatives PM Modi inaugurated projects such as a desalination plant, hydrogen production, and bunkering facility, aiming to make the port a Green Hydrogen Hub. Additionally, he flagged off India's first indigenous green hydrogen fuel cell inland waterway vessel under the Harit Nauka initiative, promoting clean energy solutions and aligning with the nation's net-zero commitments. The Prime Minister dedicated tourist facilities in 75 lighthouses across ten States/UTs and several rail and road projects in Tamil Nadu, emphasizing their role in fostering development and connectivity. In a big setback for the BJP in Karnataka Rajya Sabha polls, a BJP MLA voted for the Congress despite a whip to vote for the joint candidate put up by the JDS-BJP. The MLA is ST Somashekar who won from the Yeshvanthapura seat in the 2023 assembly polls. While the BJP is said to have contemplated action against him, Somashekar maintained that he voted for a party which ensured him funds for the developmental work in his constituency. A cross-voting by him also gave a chance to the Congress to advise the BJP to keep its house in order. Who Is ST Somashekar? ST Somashekar's father was (Late.) A. Thimmegowda. Somashekar is 66 years old and owns a transport business. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the Government Science College, Bangalore University in 1980. His net worth was around Rs 27 crore as per the 2023 election affidavit. Yeshvanthapura MLA ST Somashekar is an astute politician who began his career with the Congress. The Yeshvanthapura seat came into existence in 2008 after delimitation. He first contested the state assembly polls in 2004 on a Congress ticket from the Uttarahalli seat but lost. But after the 2008 delimitation saw the Uttarahalli split into smaller segments, he contested from the Yeshvanthapura seat in 2008 but again lost to the BJP. However, things took a better turn for him in 2013 when he won the Yeshvanthapura seat for the first time. He again won the seat in 2018 but was among the 14 rebel Congress MLAs who shifted their loyalties to the BJP leading to the fall of the Siddaramaiah government. After the defection, he was expelled by the party and disqualified by the then assembly speaker. In 2019, a by-election was held for 15 seats including the Yeshvanthapura seat and Somashekar again emerged victorious on the BJP ticket. He was re-elected once again in the 2023 assembly elections on the BJP ticket. Speculation Of Re-joining Congress Since 2023, there has been speculation of Somashekar re-joining the Congress. His cross-voting in favour of the Congress candidate has again reignited the rumours and if the BJP expels him, Somashekar may join the Congress once again. NEW DELHI: The anticipation surrounding the 2024 Lok Sabha elections has reached a fever pitch as the entire nation eagerly awaits to witness the political spectacle unfold. Top parties have geared up with fervour, and amidst this political frenzy, the phase of speculations has begun, with the announcement of election dates looming on the horizon. Amid this atmosphere, Zee News and MATRIZE have conducted an opinion poll, marking the first such poll after the formation of alliances, including the joining of new allies with the NDA and the emergence of the opposition's INDIA bloc. Poll Statistics The Zee News-MATRIZE Lok Sabha Opinion Poll was conducted between February 5th and February 27th. It garnered opinions from 1,67,843 individuals across 543 Lok Sabha seats, including 87,000 men and 54,000 women. Additionally, the poll included the views of 27,000 first-time voters. The margin of error in the poll results is plus or minus 2 per cent. It's important to note that these are not election results but merely an opinion poll, and no attempt should be made to influence the elections based on these findings. What Is The National Scenario? According to the Zee News-MATRIZE poll, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is poised to secure a significant majority if elections were held today. The survey indicates a sweeping victory for the NDA in major regions of North, East, and West India. However, the southern states seem inclined towards the Opposition INDIA bloc, as per the survey results. This disparity underscores the regional dynamics at play in Indian politics. PM Modi's Big Southern Push Failing? The Zee News-MATRIZE Lok Sabha Opinion Poll highlights a challenging scenario for the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the southern states of India. Despite efforts by Prime Minister Modi and the BJP to expand their presence in the region, except for Karnataka, the saffron party's penetration remains limited ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a significant southern push with visits to Kerala and Tamil Nadu on February 27-28, marking his third visit to the region this year. This proactive approach underscores the importance of the southern states in the electoral calculus of the BJP. Earlier in the year, PM Modi kickstarted his southern tour by visiting Tamil Nadu, Lakshadweep, and Kerala on January 2-3. During this visit, he inaugurated developmental projects worth significant investments. Additionally, PM Modi undertook an extensive 11-day tour of South India, visiting temples associated with the Ramayana ahead of the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22. In his recent two-day trip, the Prime Minister expressed confidence in the BJP's electoral prospects, predicting "double-digit" victories in Kerala and historic achievements in Tamil Nadu in the 2024 elections. BJP's Targets 370 The BJP's performance in the southern states during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was relatively modest, with the party securing only 29 out of 127 seats across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, and the Union Territory of Lakshadweep. Notably, the majority of these victories came from Karnataka and Telangana, with the party failing to make significant inroads in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh. In the upcoming polls, the BJP's strategic focus lies on 84 seats categorized as 'weak,' which the party has historically struggled to win. Securing victories in these constituencies is crucial for the BJP to achieve its ambitious target of 370 seats for the party and over 400 seats for the NDA, as articulated by Prime Minister Modi during a recent rally in Jammu and Kashmir. Interestingly, there are speculations within the BJP regarding PM Modi's frequent visits to the south, fueling rumours of his potential candidacy from a constituency in Tamil Nadu or a neighbouring state, in addition to his stronghold in Varanasi. State-Wise Analysis Of Zee News-MATRIZE Poll West Bengal: The Trinamool Congress, under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee, is anticipated to maintain its dominance in West Bengal, with predictions indicating victory in 24 Lok Sabha seats. The BJP is expected to secure around 17 seats, while the INDIA alliance is projected to win just 1 seat. Ladakh and Lakshadweep: The NDA is expected to emerge victorious in Ladakh, while the INDIA bloc is likely to triumph in Lakshadweep. Chandigarh, Andaman, Goa, Dadra And Nagar Haveli: These regions are poised to witness victories for the NDA. North East: The NDA is predicted to secure 10 seats, while the INDIA bloc may clinch 1 seat. Assam, in particular, is expected to favor the NDA with a projected victory in 11 out of 14 seats. Tamil Nadu: The opinion poll forecasts 1 seat for the NDA and a significant haul of 36 seats for the Congress in Tamil Nadu. Kerala: The INDIA bloc is anticipated to sweep all 20 seats in Kerala, highlighting the stronghold of regional parties in the state. Telangana: The poll predicts 5 seats for the BJP and 9 seats for the Congress in Telangana, indicating a competitive electoral landscape. Karnataka: The NDA is projected to gain momentum in Karnataka, with estimates indicating victory in 23 seats, while the Congress is expected to secure 5 seats. Andhra Pradesh: The YSRCP is anticipated to secure 19 seats, with the TDP projected to win 6 seats, while the BJP and Congress may not secure any seats in the state. The Zee News-MATRIZE Lok Sabha Opinion Poll provides valuable insights into the potential outcomes of the upcoming elections. While the NDA seems to enjoy a stronghold in several regions, the southern states present a formidable challenge. As the nation braces itself for the electoral battle, these poll findings serve as a foundation for further analysis and speculation, guiding political strategies in the run-up to the elections. New Delhi: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates visited the company's India Development Centre (IDC) in Hyderabad, a centre of innovation that he envisioned in 1998. IDC is celebrating its 25th year of groundbreaking research, engineering, and development, marking its pivotal role in shaping world-class products such as Azure, Windows, Office, Bing, Copilot, and other AI applications. "It was rewarding to watch Bill address some of India's brightest engineering minds at IDC, our biggest asset," Rajiv Kumar, Managing Director, Microsoft IDC, and CVP, Experiences + Devices India, said in a statement. "Echoing his optimism over the opportunity for an AI-powered India, IDC is excited to drive innovation from India for Microsoft - from AI and cloud to security and gaming," he added. Earlier this week, Gates announced his plans to visit India in a LinkedIn post, saying, "I cant wait to learn about how India is finding innovative new ways to advance health, digital public infrastructure, and climate to improve the lives of billions." In his blog, the Microsoft co-founder mentioned that he is visiting this week to learn about "how we can continue working with India to help its ideas and inventions reach everyone who needs them, no matter where they live." "This will be a main topic when I meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week," Gates added. JAMTARA: A tragic train accident took place in the Jamtara district on Wednesday evening, reportedly claiming the lives of several individuals who were struck by another train near Kalijhariya Halt under the Asansol Railway Division in Jharkhand. Unconfirmed media reports indicate that around a dozen people were suddenly hit by a passing train, resulting in their untimely demise. #Jharkhand: Nearly 12 people have lost their lives in a #trainaccident near #KalijhariyaHalt under #Asansol railway division in #Jamtara district. According to sources, these people have been cut off by a passing Express train between #Asansol and #Jhajha. pic.twitter.com/8Zhi2C2zyK All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) February 28, 2024 Sharing more details about the tragic incident, Deputy Commissioner, Jamtara, initially said, ''A train ran over the passengers at Kalajharia Railway Station in Jamtara. Some deaths have been reported. The exact number of deaths will be confirmed later. Medical teams and ambulances rushed to the spot.'' According to the reports, the mishap resulted in the tragic loss of several lives after they were cut off by a passing Express train between Asansol and Jhajha. Additionally, there are reports of several individuals sustaining injuries in the tragic accident. Upon receiving information about the incident, railway police and local authorities swiftly responded to the scene. Efforts are underway to transport the injured to nearby medical facilities for treatment. #WATCH | Jharkhand: Rescue operations are underway at Kalajharia railway station in Jamtara after a train ran over several passengers. https://t.co/kVDqS0PetF pic.twitter.com/ItEVsMhzAJ ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Preliminary information said that passengers leapt from the train to escape a fire onboard the Ang Express. This led them to land on the tracks below, where they were subsequently struck by another train heading from Jhajha to Asansol. As a result, the tragic incident claimed the lives of a few individuals. However, Kaushik Mitra, CPRO, Eastern Railway, later said, ''Two persons walking on the track were run over by the train at least 2 km away from train no. 12254 passing from Vidyasagar Kasitar. There is no incident of fire. As of now, two deaths have been confirmed. The deceased are not passengers, they were walking on the track. A 3-member JAG committee has been formed to enquire about the issue.'' Speaking to reporters, local Jamtara MLA Irfan Ansari said, "... I am leaving for the spot... I have given the directions to identify those responsible for it. We will also raise the issue in the Assembly... The deceased have not been identified yet..." Meanwhile, President Draupadi Murmu and Jharkhand's Chief Minister Champai Soren expressed grief over the tragic train mishap and wished for the speedy recovery of those injured. President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) February 28, 2024 "Heart is saddened by the sad news of a train accident near Kaljharia station of Jamtara. May God grant peace to the departed souls and give strength to the bereaved family to bear this difficult time of grief. The administration team is engaged in relief and rescue work on the spot. I wish a speedy recovery to those injured in the accident," tweeted Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren. "Heart is saddened by the sad news of train accident near Kaljharia station of Jamtara. May God grant peace to the departed souls and give strength to the bereaved family to bear this difficult time of grief. The administration team is engaged in relief and rescue work on the pic.twitter.com/gnSszFCMAH ANI (@ANI) February 28, 2024 Anant Kumar, SDM Jamtara, while confirming that two bodies have been recovered, said that a railway helpline number is being issued for more information. He added that an inquiry has been ordered to determine the exact reason behind the tragedy. Jharkhand Health Minister Banna Gupta has also directed the Jamtara Deputy Commissioner to continue the relief and rescue work and also directed the Civil Surgeon Jamtara to provide proper treatment to the injured. The Health Minister has directed that there should be no negligence in treatment, according to the Office of Jharkhand Health Ministry. Gilat Satellite Networks (NASDAQ:GILT) Full Year 2023 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: US$266.1m (up 11% from FY 2022). Net income: US$23.5m (up from US$5.93m loss in FY 2022). Profit margin: 8.8% (up from net loss in FY 2022). The move to profitability was primarily driven by higher revenue. EPS: US$0.41 (up from US$0.10 loss in FY 2022). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period Gilat Satellite Networks EPS Misses Expectations Revenue was in line with analyst estimates. Earnings per share (EPS) missed analyst estimates by 4.7%. Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 12% p.a. on average during the next 2 years, compared to a 3.6% growth forecast for the Communications industry in the US. Performance of the American Communications industry. The company's shares are down 6.2% from a week ago. Risk Analysis We should say that we've discovered 1 warning sign for Gilat Satellite Networks that you should be aware of before investing here. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. New Delhi: The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) announced today that all services utilizing Aadhar authentication will be affected due to technical maintenance of the Aadhar setup. In a message posted on social media platform X, the EPFO expressed regret for any inconvenience caused to users. EPFO Faces High Rejection Rate For Claim Settlements Recent reports have shed light on the challenges faced by the EPFO in processing claims, revealing that the organization has been rejecting a significant number of claims it receives. It was disclosed on February 20 that the EPFO had turned down one-third of the claims it received, sparking concerns among subscribers. (Also Read: Zomato's Hilarious Response To Customer Goes Viral; Netizens Applaud Creativity) EPFO Responds To Grievances On Claim Settlements Numerous subscribers have voiced their grievances regarding delays in claim settlements through EPFO's official handle on X. In response to one such query, the EPFO clarified that it typically takes around 20 days to settle a claim or release the Provident Fund (PF) amount, provided that the submission to the EPFO office is complete. (Also Read: 'Thats Lucknow Airport?? :' Anand Mahindra Applauds New Terminal: WATCH Video) Data Highlights High Rejection Rate In 2022-23 Official data indicates a notable increase in the rejection rate of claims during the financial year 2022-23. Out of a total of 73.87 lakh claims received for final PF settlement, a staggering 33.8 per cent (24.93 lakh) were rejected. Meanwhile, 46.66 lakh claims were successfully settled, with 2.18 lakh remaining as closing balances. Comparative Analysis Reveals Rising Rejection Trends The rejection rate observed in 2022-23 stands significantly higher compared to previous years. In 2017-18 and 2018-19, the rejection rates were recorded at approximately 13 per cent and 18.2 per cent, respectively, reflecting a concerning trend of increasing rejections over time. About EPFO The EPFO, being the world's largest social security organization with over 277 million accounts and a corpus of nearly Rs 20 lakh crore, faces the critical task of addressing these challenges to ensure smoother and more efficient services for its subscribers. New Delhi: It was anticipated that 2024 would mark the beginning of the IT industry's rebound following two years of severe layoffs at IT organizations. However, preliminary indications indicate that employment in the industry is still being hit. With nearly 30,000 IT personnel put off in January 2024, the situation for staff members in all major departments is still dire. Bumble: Layoffs Following suit, as part of a reorganization plan, Bumble revealed intentions to lay off approximately 350 staff on Tuesday. According to a corporate representative, the layoffs represent around 30 percent of Bumble's staff. (Also Read: 'Thats Lucknow Airport?? :' Anand Mahindra Applauds New Terminal: WATCH Video) Bumble: Quarter Report According to its fourth-quarter report, Bumble stated that the layoffs will help to strengthen operating leverage and align its operating model with "future strategic priorities." (Also Read: Zomato Delivery Agent's Dance On 'Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya' Amuses Netizens: WATCH) Bumble: Full Capacity If we talk about the full capacity, as of December 31, 2022, Bumble employed around 950 full-time workers, per a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Talking about the same, the spokesperson said the latest annual report will be published in the second half of the week. Bumble: Revenue Revenue for the dating app was $273.6 million for the quarter, which is an increase from $241.6 million during the same period the previous year. In comparison to the same quarter last year, when the firm reported a net loss of $159.2 million, or 35 percent per share, Bumble produced a net loss of $32 million, or 19 percent per share. Bumble: Share Price Tuesday's after-hours trading saw a more than 8 percent decline in Bumble shares. Bumble CEO Statement In a statement, the CEO of Bumble Lidiane Jones claimed that the company is accelerating its product plan with "significant and decisive" actions. Jones stated in the announcement, "We believe these actions will strengthen our foundational capabilities and enable us to continue delivering new and engaging user experiences that foster equitable and healthy relationships." New Delhi: After Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Ring with a heart rate monitor and fitness tracker at the ongoing MWC 2024 in Barcelona, the Fitness-tech startup Fittr has also launched the FITTR HART smart ring. The FITTR HART smart ring is designed to improve health and performance monitoring, among other features. The FITTR HART smart ring is priced at Rs 18,999. The company will also offer a special 20 per cent discount exclusively at hart.fittr.com, bringing the price down to Rs 15,199 for the first 1,000 users. The offer will be available on the e-commerce platforms starting March 2024. The smart ring offers comprehensive health tracking, including monitoring sleep duration and quality, physical performance metrics, and real-time measuring of heart rate variability (HRV), as claimed by the company. (Also Read: Nothing Phone (2a) Design Revealed Ahead Of Official India Launch On March 5) FITTR HART Smart Ring Features The FITTR HART smart ring offers a range of functions to monitor your health and activity levels in real time. It tracks essential metrics such as heart rate, blood oxygen levels, body recovery, temperature, sleep patterns, steps taken, stress levels, and calories burned, providing comprehensive insights into your well-being. With a battery life of up to 8 days, it ensures uninterrupted usage for extended periods. The ring boasts several certifications, including 5ATM water resistance, CE, EU RoHS, FCC, REACH, CP65, and BIS compliance, ensuring its reliability and safety. The smart ring is available in sizes ranging from 6 to 12 mm, the ring caters to various preferences and fits comfortably on your finger. Featuring Bluetooth V5.0 compatibility, it seamlessly connects with your devices for easy data transfer and analysis. It is crafted from titanium, the material of choice for durability and lightweight design, the FITTR HART smart ring combines functionality with style for a comprehensive health monitoring experience. (Also Read: Tecno Spark 20C With Stereo Dual Speaker Launched In India At Rs 8,999; Check Specs And Launch Discount) According to recent data from the International Data Corporation (IDC), smart rings have become prominent alongside new smartwatches and ear-wear models. The smart ring category is also generating a lot of interest from consumers, particularly because of the interesting form factor and several launches in the past few months. (With Inputs From IANS) New Delhi: Tecno, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer, has launched its Tecno Spark 20C smartphone in India at a starting price of Rs 8,999. The newly launched smartphone was globally released back in November 2023. The Tecno Spark 20C smartphone will be available for purchase in the country starting March 5 at 12 pm IST exclusively via Amazon. The Amazon microsite for the smartphone also notes that with each purchase, customers will get an OTTPlay annual subscription worth Rs. 5,604. The handset comes in Alpenglow Gold, Gravity Black, Mystery White, and Magic Skin Green colour options. (Also Read: MWC 2024: Tecno POVA 6 Pro 5G Unveiled With Dolby Atmos Support; Check Specs And Features) Tecno Spark 20C Specifications The smartphone houses a 6.6-inch HD+ LCD screen, delivering a resolution of 720 x 1,612 pixels and a smooth 90Hz refresh rate. It is loaded with a 5000mAh battery, supporting 18W fast charging for quick refuelling. Under the hood, the Tecno Spark 20C is powered by an Octa-Core MediaTek Helio G36 12nm processor, ensuring efficient performance. It runs on Android 13 with HiOS 13, providing a seamless user experience. Furthermore, it offers 8GB of expandable RAM, allowing users to virtually increase it by an additional 8GB. With 128GB of onboard storage, expandable up to a staggering 1TB via a microSD card. (Also Read: MWC 2024: Xiaomi Watch 2, Watch S3, Smart Band 8 Pro Launched Globally; Check Price, Specs And Other Features) In the camera department, the smartphone features a 50-megapixel primary sensor, accompanied by an AI camera and Dual LED Flash. For selfies and video calls, there's an 8MP front-facing camera. Enhancing the multimedia experience, the device features Stereo Dual Speaker Sound by DTS. The company is currently offering a launch discount of Rs. 1,000, reducing the effective price of the handset to Rs. 7,999. New Delhi: As the clock ticks towards the March 10 deadline for India to pull out its military personnel from the Maldives, a team of Indian civilians has landed in the island nation to take over one of the three aviation platforms that India operates there, news agency PTI reported citing local media reports on Wednesday. The Maldives Defence Ministry said in a statement, quoted by a news portal themaldivesjournal.com, that the civilian team arrived in Addu last night to complete the handover/takeover process. The civilian team will operate and maintain the aircraft, the statement said. This follows a high-level meeting in Delhi on February 2, where the Maldivian foreign ministry said that India agreed to replace its military personnel with civilians by May 10, and that the first phase of the process would be done by March 10. News agency PTI citing sources said that the Indian military personnel, who are expected to be replaced by civilians with expertise in operating the three platforms, are currently manning the three Indian platforms that have been offering humanitarian and medical evacuation services to the Maldivian people for the past few years using two helicopters and a Dornier aircraft. The move comes shortly after Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu, who is widely perceived as a pro-China leader, declared in his first speech to Parliament on February 5 that the first batch of Indian military personnel will leave the island nation before March 10. He said that the rest of the Indians operating the two aviation platforms will depart by May 10 as per the agreement between the two countries. The news portal also reported on Wednesday that test flights will be conducted today (Wednesday) before the helicopter is sent to India for repairs. An Indian ship will arrive in Addu on February 28 carrying the replacement helicopter. The Defence Ministry statement further said that the Indian troops will leave the Maldives on the agreed dates. Muizzu, who became the President on November 17, formally asked India to withdraw 88 military personnel from his country by March 15, saying that the Maldivian people gave him a strong mandate to make this request to New Delhi. After the latest round of bilateral talks, India said on February 2 that it reached a set of mutually workable solutions with the Maldives to continue the operations of Indian aviation platforms in the island nation. The Maldives, which is located at the centre of commercial sea lanes running through the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), has a significant strategic value due to its closeness to India, which is only 70 nautical miles away from the island of Minicoy in Lakshadweep and 300 nautical miles away from the mainlands western coast. The Maldives has been a vital maritime neighbour of India in the IOR and it holds a special position in its initiatives such as SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and the Neighbourhood First Policy. (Bloomberg) -- Alphabet Inc.s Sundar Pichai emailed staff on Tuesday to address the problematic responses from Googles Gemini AI engine, describing them as completely unacceptable. Most Read from Bloomberg Teams are now working around the clock to rectify the issues, Pichai wrote in his note, reviewed by Bloomberg News. Stressing the need for the company to deliver unbiased and accurate information, the chief executive officer of both Alphabet and Google said structural changes will be made to prevent similar incidents. Gemini, formerly Bard, is Googles flagship artificial intelligence product, but the company was criticized for its image generation that depicted historically inaccurate scenes when prompted to create images of people. The Mountain View, California-based company stopped accepting prompts for people in its image generator while it worked to address the concerns raised. Well be driving a clear set of actions, including structural changes, updated product guidelines, improved launch processes, robust evals and red-teaming, and technical recommendations, Pichai wrote, urging a focus on helpful products that are deserving of our users trust. The boom in AI interest and use has brought with it a wave of closer scrutiny, with many critics pointing to the potential for AI-created content to mislead, either deliberately or accidentally. The full note from Pichai to Google employees, first reported by Semafor, is below. I want to address the recent issues with problematic text and image responses in the Gemini app (formerly Bard). I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias to be clear, thats completely unacceptable and we got it wrong. Story continues Our teams have been working around the clock to address these issues. Were already seeing a substantial improvement on a wide range of prompts. No AI is perfect, especially at this emerging stage of the industrys development, but we know the bar is high for us and we will keep at it for however long it takes. And well review what happened and make sure we fix it at scale. Our mission to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful is sacrosanct. Weve always sought to give users helpful, accurate, and unbiased information in our products. Thats why people trust them. This has to be our approach for all our products, including our emerging AI products. Well be driving a clear set of actions, including structural changes, updated product guidelines, improved launch processes, robust evals and red-teaming, and technical recommendations. We are looking across all of this and will make the necessary changes. Even as we learn from what went wrong here, we should also build on the product and technical announcements weve made in AI over the last several weeks. That includes some foundational advances in our underlying models e.g. our 1 million long-context window breakthrough and our open models, both of which have been well received. We know what it takes to create great products that are used and beloved by billions of people and businesses, and with our infrastructure and research expertise we have an incredible springboard for the AI wave. Lets focus on what matters most: building helpful products that are deserving of our users trust. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Burnaby, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - February 28, 2024) - Great Eagle Gold Corp. (CSE: GEGC) (FSE: GI8), renowned as the premier Digital Green Gold Miner, is pleased to announce the appointment of Kate Fehlenberg to its Board of Directors, the successful closing of a private placement, and the initiation of strategic marketing agreements aimed at enhancing its outreach in Germany and the United States. Board of Directors Enhancement The Company is thrilled to welcome Kate Fehlenberg, MPH, M.S., to its Board of Directors. Kate is a distinguished Climate Change and Scaling Innovations Specialist, known for her extensive experience in regenerative agriculture, climate change resilience, and innovation scaling. Her career has been dedicated to making significant impacts across various sectors, such as climate-smart agriculture, public health, and gender equity, demonstrating her unwavering commitment to ecological and social well-being. Kate's expertise in strategic planning, project management, and systems change has been pivotal in fostering partnerships, optimizing operations, and leading teams to achieve meaningful results. Kate's educational background is impressive, with an MPH from Columbia University, focusing on Population, Family Health, and Forced Migration, and an MSc in GIS and Sustainable Development from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her BSc in Environmental Science and GIS from Samford University further solidifies her expertise in environmental systems and sustainability. Her work with FHI360, USAID Global Dev Lab, CGIAR, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, highlights her skill in driving innovations and resilience strategies in various challenging environments. Kate's global experience, including projects in the USA, Kenya, Tanzania, Nepal, and several other countries, underscores her ability to navigate complex cultural and ecological landscapes. Fluent in English and proficient in French, Spanish, Nepali, and Kiswahili, Kate's linguistic abilities enhance her capacity to connect with diverse communities and stakeholders, enriching her work in climate resilience and regenerative practices. Story continues Chris Hansen, Chairman of Great Eagle Gold, enthusiastically welcomed Kate to the board, remarking, "Kate's illustrious career, marked by her unwavering commitment to tackling the globe's most critical environmental and sustainability challenges, positions her as an indispensable asset to our board. Her visionary leadership and innovative approach are exactly what we need as we propel Great Eagle into the forefront of the ESG-conscious gold mining era. We are fortunate to have her guiding influence as we embark on this transformative journey." Private Placement Closure Following the announcement on January 12, 2024, Great Eagle has successfully completed a non-brokered private placement, issuing 1,803,105 units at $0.30 per unit, raising gross proceeds of $540,932. Each unit consists of one common share and half of one common share purchase warrant, with each full warrant allowing the holder to purchase an additional common share at $0.50 for two years post-closing. Additionally, the Company has settled debts with its former President and a director by issuing 116,666 common shares at a deemed price of $0.30 per share. All shares and warrants from this placement are subject to a hold period until June 27, 2024. The proceeds will support working capital, shareholder communications, marketing, and mineral exploration expenses. Strategic Marketing Agreements To enhance its marketing efforts, Great Eagle has entered into agreements with TD Media LLC, dba Life Water Media, and MIC Market Information & Content Publishing GmbH. Life Water will focus on digital marketing services, including media creation, advertising, digital campaigns, influencer management, and digital communications, with a six-month term and a total fee of US$100,000. Similarly, MIC will handle online marketing services, including text material, campaign management, and keyword research, with a six-month term and a fee of 100,000. Andrew Fletcher, Director and CEO of Great Eagle, highlighted the importance of these agreements, stating, "We understand the value of effectively communicating our story and expanding our loyal shareholder base. Leading a new industry segment requires well-executed communication strategies. Through our partnerships with MIC and TD Media, we are poised to embark on a long and beneficial communications journey, crucial for stakeholders to fully appreciate Great Eagle's value proposition." Amended Terms for Acquisition of Great Eagle Gold S.A.S As previously announced the Company closed on the acquisition of Great Eagle Gold S.A.S, its new Colombian subsidiary, for a proposed aggregate purchase price of US$217,600 (the "Purchase Price"). The Purchase Price was to consist of cash in the amount of US$21,760 represented by a promissory note (the "Promissory Note") and the issuance of an interest free convertible promissory (the "Convertible Note"), for the US$195,840 balance of the Purchase Price. However, the parties have amended the terms of their agreement for the acquisition of Great Eagle Gold S.A.S. In consideration for the assumption of that company's outstanding liabilities, the Purchase Price consisting of the Promissory Note and Convertible Note has been cancelled, and as a result no securities will be issued or any cash paid for the acquisition. About Great Eagle Gold Corp. Great Eagle Gold Corp. (CSE: GEGC) (FSE: GI8), a Canadian public company, aims to be a leading digital green gold miner. Its unique strategy involves developing and acquiring certified gold resources to exchange into digital green gold tokens. By keeping the gold secured in the ground while tokenizing and monetizing its value, Great Eagle Gold Corp. introduces an innovative, ESG-friendly approach to wealth creation in the traditional gold mining industry. Great Eagle Gold's inaugural gold resource development project is situated in Colombia's second-largest gold-producing region, Bajo Cauca. Hacienda Rio Rayo encompasses three fully permitted exploration and production concessions, hosting nine active alluvial gold mining operations with an average monthly output of approximately 35 kilograms. The total area covered by these three concessions is 2,523 hectares. Despite its rich history of gold production, this extensive area has never undergone modern exploration or certification of gold resources. Identifying and quantifying this untapped potential is Great Eagle Gold's primary focus. Moreover, Colombia is anticipated to be the first country to enact green gold legislation, as championed by the International Green Gold Council, thus pioneering the way for a thriving green gold tokenization industry. Besides its Colombian project, Great Eagle Gold's global acquisition strategy targets existing mining titles with NI 43-101 certified gold resources. This approach is in anticipation of a wave of green gold legislation, which is expected to open tokenization opportunities worldwide. The securities referred to herein will not be or have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor the Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. Great Eagle Gold Corp. Chris Hansen, Chairman For further information please contact: Email: info@greateaglegold.com Website: www.greateaglegold.com Phone: +1 (415) 300-6144 Investor inquiries: Green Gold Communications S.A.S. Worldwide Toll Free: +1 (877) 513-5213 Direct: +1 (775) 341-6015 Email: Info@greengoldcommunications.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor the Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. This news release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to Great Eagle's operations and green gold mining initiatives, its Colombian property exploration and development plans, expansion plans, estimates, expectations, forecasts, objectives, predictions and projections of the future. Specifically, this news release contains forward looking statements with respect to Great Eagle's proposed operations, acquiring and developing certified green gold resources and their tokenization, and the receipt of required approvals. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "projects", "intends", "anticipates", or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or "variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "can", "could", "would", "might", or "will" be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Great Eagle to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks related to the exploration and development and operation of Great Eagle's projects, the actual results of current exploration, development activities, conclusions of economic evaluations, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, future precious metals prices, as well as those factors discussed in the sections relating to risk factors of our business filed in Great Eagle's required securities filings on SEDAR+. Although Great Eagle has attempted to identify important factors that could cause results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results to be materially different from those anticipated, described, estimated, assessed or intended. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities law. Additionally, the Company undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made, by third parties in respect of the matters discussed above. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/199575 (Bloomberg) -- Theres a reason former US President Donald Trump offered to buy Greenland, and it wasnt to save the polar bears. Most Read from Bloomberg As the autonomous territory inches toward its goal of full independence from Denmark, its hoping its many resources from minerals, to a burgeoning strategic significance will help draw it into the sphere of less traditional partners to its west. Its newly published blueprint for foreign, security and defense policy offers a glimpse into what that future may look like. Although Greenland brushed off the former US presidents overtures back in 2019, it makes clear that it reciprocates Americas interest: The new thing here is that we have hopes for much greater integration and cooperation with North America, said Kenneth Hoegh, Greenlands top diplomatic representative in the US and Canada. The former Danish colony has long looked eastwards, with Copenhagen still overseeing competencies like foreign policy, defense, and security. But the document published last week in Inuit and Danish contains few references to future cooperation with Copenhagen. Instead, Greenland is hoping to forge closer links with North America through trade in critical minerals, and by having a bigger say in key defense relationships that have historically been governed by Denmark. We were not for sale, Hoegh said in a Bloomberg interview. But we are open for business. Greenlands global profile has been rising amid heightened concerns about Arctic security. With Sweden this month joining NATO, Russia is now isolated as the only Arctic nation outside the alliance. Polar marine traffic is rising as climate change creates longer shipping seasons, and Greenlands vast natural resources, including rare earth minerals, have attracted global interest from major powers including China and Russia. Story continues Space Base The Arctic territory, which has a population of just 57,000, has gradually been gaining greater autonomy in its affairs and last year got its own representative at NATO. Still, while its status as a Danish colony officially ended in 1953, it has been slow to step out from under its shadow. Now it wants to gain an equal seat at the table and finally reap the economic benefits of a longstanding US military presence. Denmarks 1951 defense treaty with the US led to the creation in Greenland of the Thule Air Base by the US military under the code name Blue Jay. Created in total secrecy, the base now known as the Pituffik Space Base has become a key pillar of NATO and North American defense, given its strategic location between the Arctic and North Atlantic. The new policy document underscores that the reciprocity of the relationship with Greenland is also critical to US defense, especially against threats from the Arctic. The territory will eventually develop a more detailed defense policy, it says, and debate whether to create a military or civilian national service and upgrade its defense capabilities. The Arctic Is Where NATO and Russia Are Flexing Military Muscle A brief section at the end of Greenlands policy document also talks about increasing trade and export ties to East Asia, particularly as a market for Greenlandic fish. But the emphasis is on its relationships with the US and Canada, especially in their Norths. Greenland says it hopes to build ties with these countries via trade in minerals that support the global green-energy transition, and wants to secure supply chains with dedicated shipping routes and direct flights. That will mean investing in new, larger airports something that has proved tricky in the past. There are major challenges in securing greater trade from Greenland to the US and Canada, said Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic MP in the Danish parliament for Inuit Ataqatigiit. Past efforts to improve transportation routes have failed because they havent been commercially driven, she said, and all sides would need to see benefits if new attempts are to succeed. But Greenlands foreign minister emphasized that current geopolitical tensions have increased the need for cooperation. The world has become increasingly fraught with uncertainty. This makes it all the more important to engage more with our allies, Vivian Motzfeldt said in an advanced copy of the English version of the document seen by Bloomberg. The US supports strengthening and expanding its partnership with Greenland, a State Department spokesman said, including in areas of trade and investment, mineral resources development, and science and research. Canada Border The second-largest Arctic nation after Russia, Canada has been trying to diversify its trade and security relationships though friendshoring, as relationships with China and India come unstuck and concerns mount in Ottawa about what a second Trump presidency could mean for its US ties. We anticipate continued close engagement and discussion with Greenland as it launches its new Foreign, Security and Defence Policy Strategy, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said. Denmark, with Greenland, is a like-minded partner for Canada on many issues and historical ties between Inuit people create the opportunity for more cooperation. The Canada section of the Greenlandic document includes a laundry list of areas for potential economic cooperation, including trade, transport, tourism, fishing, research and construction, as well as the expectation that Inuit people in Greenland and Canada will soon be allowed to travel freely back and forth. It says Greenland will open a diplomatic representation in Ottawa in the next few years, like the one it already has in Washington, and urges Canada to follow the US by opening a consulate in Greenland. Canada and Greenland share more than just geographical proximity. The relations between their Indigenous populations go back thousands of years and today they face joint challenges related to Arctic economic development and climate change. Ottawa is a thousand kilometers closer to Nuuk than Copenhagen is, and a flight from the Greenlandic capital to Iqaluit, in Canadas Nunavut territory, would take only an hour if a route existed. Since 2022, Canada and Greenland have even shared an island, giving rise to one of Canadians favorite trivia questions: Besides the US, which country shares a land border with Canada? Canada and Denmark End Arctic Whiskey War With New Land Border The resolution two years ago of the Hans Island dispute which for half a century mainly involved pulling down each others flags and leaving Canadian whiskey or Danish schnapps behind to console the other side has set the stage for closer ties, according to the document. This is a way of preparing Greenland, in the best possible way, for greater and greater levels of autonomy which eventually could lead to independence, said Hoegh. --With assistance from Laura Dhillon Kane, Kati Pohjanpalo and Michael Ovaska. (Updates with comment from Global Affairs Canada in paragraph 18.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. The news was shared during a signing ceremony between the GSMA and sponsor, Ooredoo, at MWC Barcelona 2024 BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The GSMA has today revealed the return of M360 MENA. The event, hosted by the GSMA in partnership with Ooredoo, will take place in Doha, Qatar, from 18-19 November 2024. The declaration was made during a signing ceremony with the GSMA and Ooredoo at MWC Barcelona 2024. The 2024 edition of M360 MENA will convene industry leaders from mobile and adjacent industries and policymakers for two days of discussion and debate. Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA joined Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulla Bin Mohammed Al Thani, Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer of Ooredoo Group to celebrate the return of GSMA M360 MENA in a signing ceremony at MWC Barcelona 2024 Key agenda items will include the role of initiatives such as the GSMA Open Gateway in fostering industry-wide collaboration, the importance of policy frameworks that ensure fair and equitable contributions to mobile infrastructure upkeep, and progress in closing the usage gap in MENA and bringing the benefits of mobile internet to all. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulla Bin Mohammed Al Thani, Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer of Ooredoo Group, emphasized the significance of this event, stating, "The unveiling of M360 MENA in Doha during MWC Barcelona underscores our strategic alliance with GSMA. This moment is not just a celebration for Ooredoo but for both our organisations and the pivotal role we play in digital transformation. Our deep-rooted partnership with GSMA aims to leverage connectivity for the betterment of society, businesses, and the world. By bringing together thought leaders, policymakers, and innovators from around the globe, we are helping to advance the boundless potential of digital technologies to unite us and highlight the critical part telecommunications and GSMA play in crafting our collective and more connected future." Sheikh Ali Bin Jabor Bin Mohammad Al Thani, Chief Executive Officer of Ooredoo Qatar, also shared his insights, remarking, "The announcement of M360 MENA in Doha is a significant milestone for both Ooredoo and Qatar. As we prepare to host our international guests in Doha this November, we are reminded of the transformative potential of digital technology to transcend borders and its critical role in shaping our society for the better. Our M360 MENA event will serve as a platform for sharing insights, fostering partnerships, and showcasing the latest technological advancements that will help build a more inclusive and empowered digital community." Story continues Mats Granryd, Director General, GSMA added, "We are excited to collaborate with Ooredoo in hosting M360 MENA in Doha. This partnership signifies our commitment to fostering digital inclusion, innovation, and collaboration in this dynamic region. By bringing together key stakeholders, industry experts, and thought leaders, we aim to drive conversations that will shape the future of connectivity, propel economic growth, and contribute to the continued digital advancement of the Middle East and North Africa. The event reflects our dedication to building a connected and empowered future for the entire region." M360 series: Regional focus, global impact Presented by the GSMA, M360 is a series of global events that unify the regional mobile ecosystem. The event aims to discover, develop and deliver innovation that serves as the foundation for positive business environments and societal change. Through inspirational keynotes, thought-provoking panel discussions and insightful case studies across mobile technology, senior executives from mobile and adjacent industries come to learn and discuss in detail their challenges and successes, as well as network with peers. About Ooredoo Ooredoo is Qatar's leading communications company, delivering mobile, fixed, broadband internet and corporate managed services tailored to the needs of consumers and businesses. As a community-focused company, Ooredoo is guided by its vision of enriching people's lives and its belief that it can stimulate human growth by leveraging communications to help people achieve their full potential. X: @OoredooQatar Instagram: @OoredooQatar Facebook: facebook.com/ooredooqatar LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/ooredooQatar YouTube: youtube.com/user/OoredooQatar Website: ooredoo.qa About GSMA The GSMA is a global organisation unifying the mobile ecosystem to discover, develop and deliver innovation foundational to positive business environments and societal change. Our vision is to unlock the full power of connectivity so that people, industry, and society thrive. Representing mobile operators and organisations across the mobile ecosystem and adjacent industries, the GSMA delivers for its members across three broad pillars: Connectivity for Good, Industry Services and Solutions, and Outreach. This activity includes advancing policy, tackling today's biggest societal challenges, underpinning the technology and interoperability that make mobile work, and providing the world's largest platform to convene the mobile ecosystem at the MWC and M360 series of events. We invite you to find out more at gsma.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1882833/GSMA_Logo.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2350178/GSMA_Doha.jpg Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gsma-announces-return-of-m360-mena-2024-302074427.html SOURCE GSMA Andrey Guryev (left) is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin - Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images A High Court judge is to travel to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to take evidence from a sanctioned oligarch as part of a 1bn battle over a Russian chemicals business. Andrey Guryev, an ally of Vladimir Putin, will give testimony in Dubai because of a UK travel ban stopping him from attending a trial in London. It comes after the High Court found that restrictions placed on the billionaire Russian businessman left him at a potential disadvantage in the proceedings. Mr Guryev, who is worth $10bn (7.91bn), is a former Russian senator who ultimately owns Witanhurst, the 300m mansion with 25 bedrooms that is Londons second largest house after Buckingham Palace. Mr Guryev owns the 3000m Witanhurst Mansion The oligarch was among those targeted by UK sanctions in the wake of Russias invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Mr Guryev was described as a known close associate of Vladimir Putin. He is the founder and former chief executive of PhosAgro, which the Foreign Office described as a vital strategic company that produces fertilisers. He is now being sued by Alexander Gorbachev, a Russian political exile based in London, for control of the near $10bn chemicals empire. Mr Gorbachev claims that Mr Guryev, a judo master who reportedly owns a penthouse apartment in Vauxhall near MI6, unlawfully seized his 25pc stake in the Moscow-based business. He has accused Mr Guryev, who remains the largest shareholder of PhosAgro, of breaking a previous deal reached during a series of meetings in 2005 at locations including a London pub and a sauna. Mr Gorbachev will argue that his stake in the company would now be worth 1bn during a six-week trial at the High Court starting in April. Mr Guryev, who is also subject to US sanctions, is based in Russia but has proposed to travel to Dubai to give evidence. The UAE has not imposed sanctions on Russian nationals since the invasion of Ukraine and the country has become a popular base for many oligarchs as a result. Both Mr Guryev and Mr Gorbachev have requested that the trial judge in the PhosAgro case, Mr Justice Pelling KC, appear in the Dubai International Financial Centre as a special examiner to hear evidence from Mr Guryev. Story continues They have argued that Mr Guryev is unable to appear in the High Court in person because of sanctions. Mr Justice Pelling KC noted that requiring a judge to travel overseas for evidence is typically costly, disruptive and can inconveniently extend the length of the trial. Mr Justice Pelling KC noted the difficulties that language barriers would present to holding a remote interview However, he found that major language barriers would require interpreters based in Russia and London to translate evidence given by Mr Gorbachev if done remotely. The judge also noted that travelling to Dubai would ensure a level playing field given the lawsuit hinges on oral evidence, rather than a dispute over documents. He said: In such a case, the opportunity of seeing the witness give evidence in person is likely to be significantly more important than it would be in many, and perhaps most, commercial trials. Lawyers for Mr Gorbachev supported the application over concerns that cross-examination of Mr Guryev and his son, who is appearing as a witness, would be blunted unless conducted face to face. Mr Guryevs solicitors will be responsible for shouldering the costs of the judges flights and accommodation. Neil Micklethwaite, Mr Guryevs lawyer, said: The client is very grateful to the English Court for being willing to travel to Dubai for part of the trial. Lawyers for Mr Gorbachev were contacted for comment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. FILE- A pedestrian walks through a footbridge is silhouetted as Chinese and Hong Kong flags are strung to mark the 26th anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China in Hong Kong, on June 27, 2023. Hong Kongs plan to enact a new national security law, on top of a sweeping legislation that was imposed by Beijing and used to crack down on dissent, is deepening concerns over the erosion of freedoms in the former British colony.(AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File) HONG KONG (AP) As Hong Kong moves toward enacting a new national security law, four years after Beijing imposed a similar law that all but wiped out dissent and vocal pro-democracy media in the semi-autonomous Chinese city, concerns are spreading among the city's international business and media communities. Critics say the legislation will make Hong Kongs legal system increasingly similar to that of mainland China, but the government argues it will affect only a small minority of disloyal residents. Businesses and journalists fear that broad provisions on state secrets could criminalize their day-to-day work. The Basic Law, the city's mini-constitution, requires it to pass a home-grown national security law. But previous efforts to pass such a law were defeated by a massive protest that saw them as efforts to erode the civil liberties Beijing promised to keep intact in the former British colony for 50 years after it returned to Chinese rule in 1997. However, following a year of massive pro-democracy protest that rocked the city in 2019, China's rulers took harsh measures to impose control. Under Beijing's 2020 National Security Law, many of the citys leading activists were arrested and others fled abroad. Several vocal media outlets were shuttered. Large protests have been absent in the city in the post-pandemic era. That law targeted politically active Hongkongers, but businesses and journalists are worried that the local law could bring more mainland-style surveillance and censorship to Hong Kong. The city's many companies are concerned about how the new law could affect handling economic data or exclusive research, said George Chen, Hong Kong-based managing director for American policy consulting firm The Asia Group. A public consultation document proposed criminal prosecution for unlawfully disclosing state secrets, echoing the broad definition of secrets used in mainland China, which covers economic, social and technological developments among other areas. Story continues Last year, Chinese authorities raided the offices of consulting firm Capvision and corporate due diligence firm Mintz Group in mainland China as part of an ongoing crackdown on foreign businesses that handle sensitive economic data. An employee of a Japanese drugmaker was also detained on spying charges. In response to questions from The Associated Press, the government said in an email that the legislation targets an extremely small minority of people who endanger national security," insisting that normal business people, individuals, organizations and the media sector will not unwittingly violate the law. It added that countries including Britain, the United States and Canada also have state secrets laws that cover sensitive information beyond traditional security fields, provided its unauthorized disclosure could jeopardize national security. It's not clear when the government will table a bill in the legislature. A one-month public comment period ends Wednesday, and the government has said it intends to pass the law this year. With the legislature packed with Beijing loyalists following an electoral overhaul, it's expected to pass easily. Johannes Hack, the president of the German Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, told The Associated Press that the new law could change how people see the citys status in China. For decades, Beijing allowed the city to maintain rule of law and civil liberties under a policy called one country, two systems. The new definition of state secrets, he said in an email, may increase the perception that the one country aspect of Hong Kongs special status is more in focus than the 'two systems.' For Hong Kong to present a distinctive business advantage vis-a-vis the mainland, the two systems part is however quite important. Hong Kong in our view should be different in fact and feeling,'" Hack said. The costs for businesses to comply with the quite broad definition" of state secrets may also lead to investment being channeled elsewhere, he added. The European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong said it will study the consultation with great interest, while the American Chamber of Commerce said it was still soliciting members views. Journalists, too, fear the implications of the new law. A leading group for media professionals, Hong Kong Journalists Association, said in a submission to the government that all members who took part in a survey this month felt the new law would negatively affect press freedom, with 90% saying the effect would be significant. The association said the broad and vague definition of state secrets would make it challenging for journalists to make sound judgement on what could constitute a threat to national security, and that could deter the press from reporting. The group also expressed concern over a proposal to treat colluding with foreign forces to issue a misleading statement" that could endanger national security either intentionally or through negligence, as espionage. It feared that foreign public media services, such as the BBC or Voice of America, and their employees could be classified as external forces. Two local news outlets known for critical coverage of the government, Apple Daily and Stand News, were already forced to shut down following the 2020 law, and senior management including Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai have been prosecuted. Over the past month, the government briefed diplomats, business leaders and professional groups in a bid to allay their concerns. The officials often referred to the chaotic 2019 street protests to need for the new law. Hong Kong leader John Lee previously said that the majority of the opinions submitted during the consultation period were in support of the new law. Its hard to know how ordinary people feel about the law in the city's present political climate. Any major protest is virtually impossible under the chilling effect after the existing security law was introduced. Many discussions about the proposals involving various sectors and residents were held privately. A pro-democracy party staged a small-scale protest against the law under police watch on Tuesday. Secretary for Security Chris Tang has staunchly defended the proposed legislation, rejecting claims that parts of the law target media. On Wednesday, Western governments also voiced their worries. U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the United States is concerned over the proposed definition of state secrets and external interference that could be used to eliminate dissent through the fear of arrest and detention," as well as plans to apply the law extraterritorially. He said the looming legislation risks compounding the Beijing-imposed law, and enacting a new security law with vaguely defined provisions and purported extraterritorial reach would further undermine the one country, two systems framework and violate China's international commitments. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said in a statement that the legislative proposals will have a negative impact on Hong Kongers' exercise of their rights and freedoms. He urged the government to reconsider its proposals and engage in genuine and meaningful consultation with its residents. The Hong Kong office of China's Foreign Ministry expressed its opposition to Cameron's and other politicians' comments, saying they were smearing the city's reputation concerning human rights, freedom and rule of law. It accused them of slandering with ulterior motives under the guise of submitting opinions, saying that was a hypocritical display of double standards. Michael Davis, professor of law and international affairs at O. P. Jindal Global University in India, said that ambiguities in the law's text could spread fear beyond what's explicitly banned. When laws are vague, he said, the public may not know what is prohibited until someone is prosecuted. The consultation document signaled that the Hong Kong government intends to adopt almost completely the far-reaching national security concepts used in mainland China, he said. Officials have pledged to add more precise definitions of the elements and penalties of the offences to the final bill, and said they would consider adding a public interest defense. The range of cutting-edge, eco-friendly solutions can increase corn ethanol generation efficiency by up to three percent BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- IFF (NYSE: IFF) a global leader in food, beverage, health, biosciences and scent today announced an unprecedented approval from the Argentine Secretary of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Ministry of Economy for the commercialization of genetically modified (GM) yeasts for grains-based bioethanol production in Argentina. The IFF's range of SYNERXIA yeasts may increase the efficiency of corn conversion into bioethanol by up to three percent. These solutions are already widely used by biofuel producers in the United States and Brazil, among other countries. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Argentina's corn ethanol production is projected to reach nearly 700 million liters and represents over 60 percent of the national bioethanol production in 2023.1 This announcement is expected to further support the growth of corn ethanol production in Argentina. "This recognition was possible due to our consistent safety and efficacy results," said Sebastian Dicundo, industry leader, Grain Processing, Latin America, IFF. "Cutting-edge yeasts are fundamental to enhancing grain fermentation and their transformation into ethanol, providing productivity gains and cost reductions, and at production scale-ups, deliver significant improvements in yield and profit." Obtained through hybridization combined with genetic improvement, SYNERXIA yeasts reduce glycerol formation and provide maximum ethanol conversion, maintaining high rates until the end of fermentation. The use of these yeasts also avoids industrial performance losses caused by the influence of high ambient temperatures during processing. In a hypothetical example where fermentation occurs between 37C and 38C for seven hours, industrial yield can decrease by two percent. In a plant capable of processing 1,500 tons/day, the loss is 8.8 liters/ton, equivalent to 396,000 liters/month. The SYNERXIA yeasts exhibit greater resistance and can maintain corn ethanol fermentation efficiency even under extreme heat conditions. Story continues "When used with a big-data tool and predictive analysis, those different strains can be combined resulting in unique synergies to deliver optimal rate, yield, and robustness under specific process conditions, meeting the needs of each plant," said Dicundo. "This is IFF's innovation DNA, launching new and better yeasts, as a result of our investments in R&D." Commitment to Argentina's development Currently, IFF is one of the key global players in biotechnology. These yeasts that enhance bioethanol processing represent IFF's innovative approach to ethanol solutions and are part of IFF's XCELIS Ethanol Solutions platform. The genetically modified yeasts from the SYNERXIA family pose no risk to nature and are certified by regulatory bodies in various countries, including the National Advisory Commission on Agricultural Biotechnology (CONABIA) in Argentina. The National Service for Agrifood Health and Quality (SENASA) in Argentina certifies that distillers dried grains (DDG), a by-product from ethanol production using IFF's yeasts is also suitable for use in animal nutrition. "The approval of GM yeasts for bioethanol production are a game changer for the industry in the country and is aligned with our commitment to Latin America's development," said Deia Vilela, director, Health & Biosciences, Latin America, IFF. "Besides new technology, our enzymes plant in Arroyito, Cordoba produces a portfolio of enzymes marketed to multiple industries throughout Latin America, supporting producers in Argentina with a strong local presence." For more information on IFF's biofuel yeast solutions, visit here. 1 https://fas.usda.gov/data/argentina-biofuels-annual-8 ### Welcome to IFF At IFF (NYSE: IFF), an industry leader in food, beverage, scent, health and biosciences, science and creativity meet to create essential solutions for a better world from global icons to unexpected innovations and experiences. With the beauty of art and the precision of science, we are an international collective of thinkers who partners with customers to bring scents, tastes, experiences, ingredients and solutions for products the world craves. Together, we will do more good for people and planet. Learn more at iff.com, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn Contact: Amanda Borges Marketing Communications Manager +55 11 94503 7604 amanda.borges@iff.com SOURCE IFF By Andrea Shalal SAO PAULO (Reuters) -With just seven months to go in Kristalina Georgieva's five-year term as head of the International Monetary Fund, she said on Tuesday that she is not focused on whether to seek a second one. Georgieva told Reuters she was focused on the work at hand as the IMF managing director. "Look, I have work to do right now," she told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of finance officials from the Group of 20 major economies in Sao Paulo. "I have always been of the view that you do the job you have - not some hypothetical in the future. So let me do my job." Georgieva, a gregarious economist from Bulgaria, is the second woman to head the IMF and the first person from an emerging market economy. Keeping Georgieva on for a second term would answer longstanding concerns raised by emerging market and developing countries over the U.S.-European duopoly at the two global financial institutions, the IMF and World Bank. A self-described "eternal optimist", Georgieva has weathered huge shocks to the global economy ranging from the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic just months after she took office to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. She is focused on bolstering prospects for medium-term growth which is lagging historical levels, managing the ongoing sovereign debt challenges and guiding the IMF through a complicated quota revamp. Georgieva drew criticism inside and outside the Fund early on for her push to include climate change as a factor in surveillance reports on member countries' economies and her great interest in emerging market and developing economies. She's been instrumental in securing large loans for Ukraine, helping to catalyze additional funds to help its economy weather the strains of the two-year war against Russia's invasion, overseen a revamp of Argentina's massive loan program and worked steadily to help China embrace sovereign debt restructurings. Story continues She also survived a big personal challenge in 2021 when the IMF's executive board expressed its full confidence in her after reviewing allegations that she pressured World Bank staff to alter data to favor China while serving in a top role at that institution. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen put Georgieva on notice at the time that she would closely monitor the IMF's follow-up and evaluate any new facts or findings, but the two have developed a good relationship since that time, according to sources familiar with both officials. Under a longstanding agreement, European countries traditionally nominate a candidate to lead the IMF, while the U.S. nominates a candidate to head the World Bank. Both jobs are ultimately decided by the institutions' board of directors. Ireland's Business Post in December quoted Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar as saying that he expected Georgieva to seek a second term, downplaying the prospect that Irish finance minister Paschal Donohoe could be nominated for the post. Georgieva herself was a compromise candidate for European leaders who were divided between a former Dutch finance minister and a Spanish economy minister in 2019 to replace outgoing IMF chief Christine Lagarde. Sources familiar with the process said the selection would be settled quickly once Europe unites around a candidate. While Georgieva's term won't end for months, some say it makes sense to make decisions before the April spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, so the leadership issue does not overshadow the already full agenda for the meetings. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Sonali Paul and Raju Gopalakrishnan) Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (NYSE:PEB), a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT), focuses on the acquisition and investment in hotel properties primarily in major urban markets in the United States. The company aims to build a diverse portfolio of upper upscale, full-service hotels and resorts.According to a recent SEC Filing, the insider, Co-President, C Investment Officer Thomas Fisher, executed a sale of 11,441 shares of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust on February 26, 2024. The transaction resulted in the disposal of shares at a market price of $15.62 each.Over the past year, the insider has sold a total of 11,441 shares and has not made any purchases of the stock. This latest transaction continues the trend of insider activity at the company. Insider Sell: Co-President, C Investment Officer Thomas Fisher Sells 11,441 Shares of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (PEB) The insider transaction history for Pebblebrook Hotel Trust over the past year indicates a total of 8 insider buys and 4 insider sells. This activity provides a glimpse into the insider sentiment regarding the stock's performance and potential future direction.As of the date of the insider's recent sale, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust had a market capitalization of $1.876 billion, with the stock trading at $15.62 per share. Insider Sell: Co-President, C Investment Officer Thomas Fisher Sells 11,441 Shares of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust (PEB) The valuation of Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, based on the GuruFocus Value (GF Value) of $26.71, suggests that the stock is currently trading at a price-to-GF-Value ratio of 0.58. This indicates that the stock is categorized as a Possible Value Trap, Think Twice according to its GF Value.The GF Value is determined by considering historical trading multiples such as the price-earnings ratio, price-sales ratio, price-book ratio, and price-to-free cash flow. Additionally, a GuruFocus adjustment factor is applied based on the company's historical returns and growth, along with future business performance estimates provided by Morningstar analysts. This article, generated by GuruFocus, is designed to provide general insights and is not tailored financial advice. Our commentary is rooted in historical data and analyst projections, utilizing an impartial methodology, and is not intended to serve as specific investment guidance. It does not formulate a recommendation to purchase or divest any stock and does not consider individual investment objectives or financial circumstances. Our objective is to deliver long-term, fundamental data-driven analysis. Be aware that our analysis might not incorporate the most recent, price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative information. GuruFocus holds no position in the stocks mentioned herein. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Key Insights The considerable ownership by individual investors in Invesco Mortgage Capital indicates that they collectively have a greater say in management and business strategy The top 25 shareholders own 34% of the company Institutional ownership in Invesco Mortgage Capital is 40% If you want to know who really controls Invesco Mortgage Capital Inc. (NYSE:IVR), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. With 60% stake, individual investors possess the maximum shares in the company. That is, the group stands to benefit the most if the stock rises (or lose the most if there is a downturn). Institutions, on the other hand, account for 40% of the company's stockholders. Large companies usually have institutions as shareholders, and we usually see insiders owning shares in smaller companies. Let's delve deeper into each type of owner of Invesco Mortgage Capital, beginning with the chart below. Check out our latest analysis for Invesco Mortgage Capital What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Invesco Mortgage Capital? Institutional investors commonly compare their own returns to the returns of a commonly followed index. So they generally do consider buying larger companies that are included in the relevant benchmark index. As you can see, institutional investors have a fair amount of stake in Invesco Mortgage Capital. 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. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Invesco Mortgage Capital's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters. Invesco Mortgage Capital is not owned by hedge funds. BlackRock, Inc. is currently the company's largest shareholder with 9.6% of shares outstanding. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 4.9% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 2.1% by the third-largest shareholder. Story continues A deeper look at our ownership data shows that the top 25 shareholders collectively hold less than half of the register, suggesting a large group of small holders where no single shareholder has a majority. While it makes sense to study institutional ownership data for a company, it also makes sense to study analyst sentiments to know which way the wind is blowing. There is a little analyst coverage of the stock, but not much. So there is room for it to gain more coverage. Insider Ownership Of Invesco Mortgage Capital While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. The company management answer to the board and the latter should represent the interests of shareholders. Notably, sometimes top-level managers are on the board themselves. I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions. Our information suggests that Invesco Mortgage Capital Inc. insiders own under 1% of the company. It appears that the board holds about US$1.2m worth of stock. This compares to a market capitalization of US$423m. Many tend to prefer to see a board with bigger shareholdings. A good next step might be to take a look at this free summary of insider buying and selling. General Public Ownership The general public, who are usually individual investors, hold a substantial 60% stake in Invesco Mortgage Capital, suggesting it is a fairly popular stock. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions. Next Steps: I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 3 warning signs with Invesco Mortgage Capital , and understanding them should be part of your investment process. If you are like me, you may want to think about whether this company will grow or shrink. Luckily, you can check this free report showing analyst forecasts for its future. 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. Key Insights The projected fair value for Adore Beauty Group is AU$1.70 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity Adore Beauty Group's AU$1.25 share price signals that it might be 27% undervalued Our fair value estimate is 32% higher than Adore Beauty Group's analyst price target of AU$1.29 Today we will run through one way of estimating the intrinsic value of Adore Beauty Group Limited (ASX:ABY) by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting them to today's value. This will be done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Models like these may appear beyond the comprehension of a lay person, but they're fairly easy to follow. Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model. See our latest analysis for Adore Beauty Group Is Adore Beauty Group Fairly Valued? We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second 'steady growth' period. To start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. Seeing as no analyst estimates of free cash flow are available to us, we have extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the company's last reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years. Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value: 10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 Levered FCF (A$, Millions) AU$4.06m AU$5.09m AU$6.02m AU$6.83m AU$7.53m AU$8.11m AU$8.60m AU$9.02m AU$9.38m AU$9.71m Growth Rate Estimate Source Est @ 35.22% Est @ 25.30% Est @ 18.36% Est @ 13.50% Est @ 10.10% Est @ 7.72% Est @ 6.05% Est @ 4.88% Est @ 4.07% Est @ 3.49% Present Value (A$, Millions) Discounted @ 6.8% AU$3.8 AU$4.5 AU$4.9 AU$5.2 AU$5.4 AU$5.5 AU$5.4 AU$5.3 AU$5.2 AU$5.0 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = AU$50m Story continues After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the initial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (2.2%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 6.8%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2033 (1 + g) (r g) = AU$9.7m (1 + 2.2%) (6.8% 2.2%) = AU$213m Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= AU$213m ( 1 + 6.8%)10= AU$110m The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is AU$160m. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of AU$1.3, the company appears a touch undervalued at a 27% discount to where the stock price trades currently. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent. dcf Important Assumptions Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. If you don't agree with these result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Adore Beauty Group as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 6.8%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.015. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business. SWOT Analysis for Adore Beauty Group Strength Earnings growth over the past year exceeded the industry. Currently debt free. Weakness No major weaknesses identified for ABY. Opportunity Annual revenue is forecast to grow faster than the Australian market. Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%. Threat Annual earnings have declined over the past 5 years. Looking Ahead: Whilst important, the DCF calculation ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. It's not possible to obtain a foolproof valuation with a DCF model. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. Can we work out why the company is trading at a discount to intrinsic value? For Adore Beauty Group, there are three important aspects you should explore: Risks: Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Adore Beauty Group (of which 1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) you should know about. Future Earnings: How does ABY's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Australian stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Melbourne, Victoria --News Direct-- IONIC RARE EARTHS LIMITED Ionic Rare Earths Ltd (ASX:IXR) managing director Tim Harrison joins Proactives Jonathan Jackson to discuss significant updates from the Makuutu Heavy Rare Earths Project in Uganda. Harrison gives insight into the revised and increased conceptual exploration target for Makuutu, explaining the implications of these new figures for IonicRE and the project's potential impact. The target has increased by 40% to 285-766 million tonnes grading 400-700 ppm total rare earth oxides (TREO). Harrison outlines the work and research that contributed to the increase and talks about how the company is securing more than 90% interest in the project, marking a pivotal step in the company's development efforts. Finally, he discusses the significance of Makuutu being the most advanced ionic adsorption clay project in development today, including its role in the global supply chain and its importance for future rare earths demand and he looks at news and developments to come in the coming weeks and months. The company is progressing the development at the Makuutu Heavy Rare Earths Project through local Ugandan operating entity Rwenzori Rare Metals Limited (RRM). IonicRE has agreed terms with partners in RRM on moving to 94% ownership which is expected to occur in the first half of this year. Contact Details Proactive Investors Jonathan Jackson +61 413 713 744 jonathan@proactiveinvestors.com View source version on newsdirect.com: https://newsdirect.com/news/ionic-rare-earths-hits-major-milestone-with-increased-exploration-target-981548888 (Bloomberg) -- Advantest Corp. said it will promote Douglas Lefever to chief executive officer as of April 1, a rare example of a foreign citizen taking the helm of a major Japanese corporation. Most Read from Bloomberg Lefever, a 53-year-old American, will take over the semiconductor testing company after working there since 1998, most recently as chief operating officer and chief strategy officer. Lefever was instrumental in Advantests acquisition of smaller rival Verigy Ltd. in 2011, according to outgoing CEO Yoshiaki Yoshida. Yoshida will serve as chairman. The worlds biggest maker of chip testing tools has benefited from growing investor focus on semiconductors thats driven up shares at other gear makers like ASML Holding NV and Tokyo Electron Ltd. Advantests clients such as Nvidia Corp. argue that the industry doesnt have enough capacity to meet potential demand for artificial-intelligence chips and services, fueling expectations of rising investments in production. Advantests stock price has climbed 44% this year already, hitting record highs. The Tokyo-based company is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, Lefever said. Theres a reason why weve been able to be a great company for so long, and its that we have a long-term vision, he said at a news conference Wednesday in Tokyo. To keep up with rapid technological change and rising complexity in semiconductors, Advantest will need to play an even larger role in helping customers get their products to market and align its product road map to theirs, he said. This will require additional investment and also deep partnerships with both our customers and ecosystem partners, and we really do accept this responsibility, he said. Story continues Last year, the companys chief strategy officer said Advantest was seeing a spike in demand for its products because of the frenzy of interest set off by OpenAIs ChatGPT and other potential AI services. Advantests shares have soared more than 150% over the past year. Lefever, who joins a short list of non-Japanese leading the countrys companies, graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in mechanical engineering. He then received a masters in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Northwestern University. I consider this company to be a big part of who I am as a person, he said. Its much more than a company to me, its a big part of my whole life. (Updates with executive comments from news conference.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. (Photo: Business Wire) justfly.com and BabyQuip Partner to Provide Parents with Relief MONTREAL, February 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Leading online travel agency justfly.com has announced a partnership with BabyQuip, the leading global baby gear rental service. The partnership between the two will help ease the problems and inconveniences that parents often face when traveling with young children. According to a recent survey by BabyQuip, 87% of parents said that having to transport baby gear, including strollers and car seats, plays a big role in their desire and ability to travel. BabyQuips service, which has consistently achieved a net promoter score (NPS) of 94, is a smart, effective solution to the logistical problems of traveling with kids. With just a single click on the confirmation page following checkout, travelers can add the necessary equipment, including cribs, strollers, car seats, and more, to their trip. Additionally, the option to reserve BabyQuip services remains available through the "My Trips" page on justfly.com, granting the flexibility to make arrangements at any point, before or during their travels. This ensures that all the required gear is hand-delivered to their destination, set up for them, and picked up when their trip is completed. Parents will no longer have to pack or carry their own gear. A recent BabyQuip survey revealed that 76% of parents said they would take more vacations if they didnt have to transport their childrens gear, highlighting the demand for this solution. "justfly.com is dedicated to providing families with a positive travel experience. This service will make the process of traveling with young children less stressful, allowing families to truly enjoy their time at their destination. Whether it is a quick trip to visit family or a weeklong vacation, our tech-focused approach takes pressure off parents," said Henri Chelhot, justfly.com Chief Executive Officer. Available across the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, and several European countries, baby gear rentals start at rates ranging from $6-$12 a day, depending on the chosen item. Parents booking through justfly.com benefit from a special discount, making family travel more accessible and enjoyable. Story continues "Our new partnership with justfly.com is a reflection of our shared mission, to make travel more accessible to everyone, especially families," said Fran Maier, BabyQuip CEO and Founder. "BabyQuip is thrilled to offer a seamless renting experience to justfly.com customers through easy and direct booking, at a special rate." About justfly.com justfly.com, a Momentum Ventures subsidiary, is an online travel agency created to reach the North American market. Partnering with more than 400 airlines that travel to and from the U.S. justfly.com makes travel accessible, enabling more people to visit new places and explore new cultures. Since 2014, the company has been focused on offering the best travel options while providing a user-friendly and efficient customer experience. More can be found at justfly.com. About BabyQuip: Founded in May 2016, BabyQuip helps families "Pack Light & Travel Happy" to over 1,500 locations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Australia, and beyond. Powered by a trusted community of nearly 2,000 trained and insured Quality Providers, BabyQuip delivers clean, quality baby gear, including cribs, car seats, strollers, and other essentials to make family travel more enjoyable and convenient. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228636796/en/ Contacts media_relations@justfly.com The board of Lindsay Australia Limited (ASX:LAU) has announced that it will pay a dividend of A$0.021 per share on the 19th of April. This will take the annual payment to 5.7% of the stock price, which is above what most companies in the industry pay. View our latest analysis for Lindsay Australia Lindsay Australia's Dividend Is Well Covered By Earnings While it is great to have a strong dividend yield, we should also consider whether the payment is sustainable. The last dividend was quite easily covered by Lindsay Australia's earnings. This indicates that quite a large proportion of earnings is being invested back into the business. The next year is set to see EPS grow by 32.6%. If the dividend continues along recent trends, we estimate the payout ratio will be 36%, which is in the range that makes us comfortable with the sustainability of the dividend. Dividend Volatility Although the company has a long dividend history, it has been cut at least once in the last 10 years. The annual payment during the last 10 years was A$0.019 in 2014, and the most recent fiscal year payment was A$0.06. This works out to be a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 12% a year over that time. It is great to see strong growth in the dividend payments, but cuts are concerning as it may indicate the payout policy is too ambitious. The Dividend Looks Likely To Grow With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to see if earnings per share is growing. Lindsay Australia has seen EPS rising for the last five years, at 32% per annum. The company's earnings per share has grown rapidly in recent years, and it has a good balance between reinvesting and paying dividends to shareholders, so we think that Lindsay Australia could prove to be a strong dividend payer. We Really Like Lindsay Australia's Dividend Overall, a dividend increase is always good, and we think that Lindsay Australia is a strong income stock thanks to its track record and growing earnings. Earnings are easily covering distributions, and the company is generating plenty of cash. All in all, this checks a lot of the boxes we look for when choosing an income stock. Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. Meanwhile, despite the importance of dividend payments, they are not the only factors our readers should know when assessing a company. As an example, we've identified 2 warning signs for Lindsay Australia that you should be aware of before investing. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our collection of strong dividend payers. 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. Key Insights Using the Dividend Discount Model, Karin Technology Holdings fair value estimate is S$0.40 Current share price of S$0.33 suggests Karin Technology Holdings is potentially trading close to its fair value In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of Karin Technology Holdings Limited (SGX:K29) by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. This will be done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. There's really not all that much to it, even though it might appear quite complex. We would caution that there are many ways of valuing a company and, like the DCF, each technique has advantages and disadvantages in certain scenarios. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model. Check out our latest analysis for Karin Technology Holdings What's The Estimated Valuation? We have to calculate the value of Karin Technology Holdings slightly differently to other stocks because it is a electronic company. Instead of using free cash flows, which are hard to estimate and often not reported by analysts in this industry, dividends per share (DPS) payments are used. Unless a company pays out the majority of its FCF as a dividend, this method will typically underestimate the value of the stock. The 'Gordon Growth Model' is used, which simply assumes that dividend payments will continue to increase at a sustainable growth rate forever. The dividend is expected to grow at an annual growth rate equal to the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield of 2.1%. We then discount this figure to today's value at a cost of equity of 9.1%. Relative to the current share price of S$0.3, the company appears about fair value at a 17% discount to where the stock price trades currently. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent. Story continues Value Per Share = Expected Dividend Per Share / (Discount Rate - Perpetual Growth Rate) = HK$0.2 / (9.1% 2.1%) = S$0.4 dcf The Assumptions We would point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Karin Technology Holdings as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 9.1%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.290. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business. SWOT Analysis for Karin Technology Holdings Strength Earnings growth over the past year exceeded the industry. Debt is well covered by cash flow. Dividend is in the top 25% of dividend payers in the market. Weakness Interest payments on debt are not well covered. Opportunity Current share price is below our estimate of fair value. Lack of analyst coverage makes it difficult to determine K29's earnings prospects. Threat Dividends are not covered by earnings. Next Steps: Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. It's not possible to obtain a foolproof valuation with a DCF model. Instead the best use for a DCF model is to test certain assumptions and theories to see if they would lead to the company being undervalued or overvalued. For instance, if the terminal value growth rate is adjusted slightly, it can dramatically alter the overall result. For Karin Technology Holdings, we've put together three relevant aspects you should explore: Risks: Every company has them, and we've spotted 4 warning signs for Karin Technology Holdings you should know about. Other High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! Other Top Analyst Picks: Interested to see what the analysts are thinking? Take a look at our interactive list of analysts' top stock picks to find out what they feel might have an attractive future outlook! PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Singaporean stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. - Lunit to unveil four oral presentations and three poster presentations at ECR 2024, highlighting Lunit INSIGHT's expansive capability, ranging from adaptability in different use cases to the potential to replace a human reader in mammography double-reading settings SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Lunit (KRX:328130.KQ), a leading provider of AI-powered solutions for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, today announced the presentation of seven studies at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) 2024, to be held in Vienna, Austria, from February 28 to March 3. Four will be presented through oral presentations and three as E-posters. Lunit to present seven studies featuring the Lunit INSIGHT suite at ECR 2024 In a featured oral presentation led by Dr. Carolyn Horst from King's College London, UK, 16,996 chest radiographs were retrospectively analyzed by Lunit's AI-powered chest X-ray analysis solution, Lunit INSIGHT CXR. With a maximum sensitivity of 0.94 and specificity of 0.99, among various abnormalities, researchers were able to better understand the accuracy of Lunit INSIGHT CXR at different thresholds for different use cases and abnormalities. Specifically, the AI model with high sensitivity could be appropriate for emergency findings like pneumothorax. Meanwhile, a high specificity is preferable to triage low-risk studies for reporting without missing actionable pathology. This dual approach highlighted the adaptability of Lunit's AI tool to different clinical needs in routine practice. The research also indicates that AI can offer a valuable balance between sensitivity and specificity in the analysis of common chest abnormalities, showcasing its potential to reduce radiologists' workload and enhance efficiency in reporting. In another oral presentation, a research team from Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands, showcased their result of an independent validation of multiple commercial AI products from leading vendors. Among seven AI-powered algorithms, Lunit INSIGHT CXR achieved the highest AUC (Area Under the Curve) of 0.93 in lung nodule detection, outperforming human readers (mean AUC 0.81). The sensitivity of Lunit INSIGHT CXR reached 89%, outperforming human readers while maintaining specificity comparable to that of human readers at 80%. Four out of seven AI products, including Lunit INSIGHT CXR, showed superior performance compared to human readers. This validation provides crucial comparative performance data for AI algorithms, contributing to the ongoing discussions about the integration of AI in clinical practice. Story continues Lunit INSIGHT MMG, Lunit's AI-powered solution for early breast cancer detection, was highlighted in an award-winning study by Odense University Hospital, Denmark. Based on 249,402 consecutive screening mammograms in three distinct AI-integrated scenarios, the study assessed the software's ability to replace one or more human readers in mammography double-reading settings. Scenario 1: AI replaces the first reader, Scenario 2: AI replaces the second reader in case it agrees with the decision of the first reader, and Scenario 3: AI acts as a standalone reader. All three scenarios showed that AI-integrated screening can partially or fully replace one or both readers without affecting screening accuracy. Specifically, in Scenario 2, AI-assisted screening indicated significantly higher specificity (+0.6%) and positive predictive value (+4.7%). This groundbreaking research points towards a future where AI seamlessly integrates into double screening processes, enhancing efficiency, optimizing workflow, and maintaining stable accuracy. Additionally, Lunit plans to announce the launch of the Leeds prospective trial, a collaboration with Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust , UK. The trial, which commenced on February 19, represents the world's first prospective study of AI-powered breast reading in a symptomatic breast clinic environment. The study, scheduled to run until the end of 2025, will encompass 5,500 mammography cases of women visiting the UK Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust breast clinic. By evaluating Lunit INSIGHT MMG's efficacy in real-world clinical practice, the trial aims to revolutionize breast cancer detection and streamline diagnosis, addressing radiologist shortages. Lunit invites booth visitors at ECR 2024 to explore detailed information on the project and discuss potential future collaborations. "We are proud to present our latest research findings at this year's ECR, demonstrating the robust performance and versatility of our Lunit INSIGHT suite in various clinical settings and scenarios. Our studies also reveal that our AI can enhance the efficiency and accuracy of mammography double-reading settings, and even replace human readers in some cases," said Brandon Suh, CEO of Lunit. "We hope that these study results become a cornerstone to broaden the scope of our AI to more medical practices across the globe, and empower radiologists and patients to achieve better outcomes." Join Lunit at booth AI-15 in the EXPO X1 hall to witness how the Lunit INSIGHT suite is shaping the future of radiology across the globe. Oral presentations featuring Lunit INSIGHT at ECR 2024 include: "The performance of a commercial artificial intelligence algorithm in an external quality assurance scheme regularly used by humans in the NHS breast screening programme" (ACV 2024 Research Stage 2, February 28, 3:00-4:00 pm) "The Multi- Sixteen Thousand and Counting: Performance of an Artificial Intelligence Tool for Identifying Common Pathologies on Chest Radiographs and Report Prioritisation" (ACV 2024 Research Stage 1, February 29, 2:00-3:30 pm) "Recent development in AI for lung nodule detection" (ACV 2024 Research Stage 2, March 1, 8:00-9:00 am) "Integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in double-read population-based mammography screening: simulated replacement of one reader and beyond" (ACV 2024 Research Stage 1, March 3, 11:30-12:30 pm) Poster presentations featuring Lunit INSIGHT at ECR 2024 include: "Can artificial intelligence decrease the time to histological diagnosis of lung cancer - a retrospective-cohort study" (EPOS Area -2 Level) "Deep Learning for Chest Radiograph Evaluation in Children: Repurposed Use of a Commercially Available AI Tool Developed for Adults (EPOS Area -2 Level) "Comparison of three AI breast density tools with a human reader" (EPOS Area -2 Level) About Lunit Founded in 2013, Lunit is a deep learning-based medical AI company on a mission to conquer cancer. We are committed to harnessing AI to ensure accurate diagnosis and optimal treatment for each cancer patient using AI-powered medical image analytics and AI biomarkers. As a medical AI company grounded on clinical evidence, our findings are presented in major peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology and the Lancet Digital Health, and global conferences, including ASCO and RSNA. After receiving FDA clearance and the CE Mark, our flagship Lunit INSIGHT suite is clinically used in approximately 3,000+ hospitals and medical institutions across 40+ countries. Lunit is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, with offices and representatives worldwide. For more information, please visit lunit.io . Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lunit-presents-seven-study-results-at-ecr-2024-showcasing-ais-robust-performance-in-diverse-clinical-settings-302073505.html SOURCE Lunit Chinese companies shine at MWC 08:10, February 28, 2024 By Ma Si ( China Daily The SU7, produced by Chinese tech company Xiaomi Corp, is displayed on Monday at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona, Spain. GAO JING / XINHUA Chinese technology companies are in the limelight at the ongoing Mobile World Congress 2024, a major telecommunications industry event in Barcelona, Spain, as they showcase their latest innovations to explore new business opportunities and gain a wider presence in Europe and beyond. The event, which runs from Monday to Thursday, has attracted more than 300 Chinese companies, almost twice as many as last year. The enterprises are displaying their latest products, from upgraded 5G portfolios and artificial intelligence-powered smartphones to smart cars and augmented-reality devices. The robust participation underscores Chinese companies' willingness for global collaboration and their technological prowess in strategic industries, despite the increase in the United States' arbitrary tech sanctions on them, experts said. According to the GSMA, an industry group representing the world's biggest mobile phone operators and the organizer of MWC 2024, Huawei is the largest exhibitor this year, and China Tele-com and Alipay have made their debuts at the show. Other leading Chinese tech companies that are participating include Xiaomi, Lenovo, Honor and ZTE. Mats Granryd, director-general of the GSMA, said there is a need for companies to align with the challenges and opportunities. "As connectivity brings us together, technology opens possibilities. Together we are strong, and alone we are nobody," he said. As 2024 marks the commercial launch of 5G-advanced, or 5G-A, technology, which is a crucial upgrade of the 5G network in functionality and coverage, Chinese telecom companies are moving to center stage. A laptop with a transparent screen, a new product from Chinese personal computer manufacturer Lenovo, draws interest from visitors on Monday at the event. GAO JING / XINHUA During this year's MWC, Huawei launched the world's first 5G-A intelligent core network to support more cutting-edge applications. According to Huawei, 5G-A can improve network performance tenfold. For instance, it can support a downlink speed of 10 gigabits per second, compared with the current 5G speed of 1 Gbps. Li Peng, senior vice-president of Huawei, said, "The combination of 5G-A, artificial intelligence and cloud computing will help nurture new growth drivers." Li added that the technology can help address challenges that 5G cannot solve in certain application scenarios before the commercialization of 6G. Eager to tap into the huge potential, China Mobile, the world's largest telecom carrier in terms of mobile subscribers, announced at the tech show that it will start deploying 5G-A commercial networks in more than 300 Chinese cities this year, which would make its scale the largest in the world. Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile, said the company has made progress in experimenting with new 5G-A applications. For instance, more than 4 million users in China are now using a new calling service that can support automatic translation and other AI functions during ultra-high-definition video calls. Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, a telecommunications industry association in China, said the progress comes amid the country's unparalleled edge in 5G. China has built the world's largest 5G network, which had more than 800 million mobile subscribers at the end of 2023, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Meanwhile, the country accounts for 42 percent of the global patents that are essential to 5G technology standards, the largest share in the world, the ministry added. "Chinese companies' enthusiasm toward the MWC event highlights their commitment to globalization and to leveraging it as a window to demonstrate China's openness, cooperation and win-win opportunities to Europe and the world," Xiang said. As artificial intelligence takes the world by storm, Chinese companies are also eager to bring AI to more devices. On the sidelines of the MWC, Honor unveiled its latest AI-powered smartphones, highlighting its ambition to make a big splash in the global high-end smartphone market this year. Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, said: "We have more than 100 innovation laboratories, and have established cooperation with more than 200 telecom operators and distributors across the world. All of these resources will get us ready to expand our global presence." Frank Meng, chairman of US chip company Qualcomm's China branch, said, "Chinese companies will be the first to popularize AI smartphones and push them into more markets, as they embrace high-end brand strategies and boast advantages in supply chains." US market consultancy International Data Corp predicted that 170 million next-generation AI smartphones will be shipped globally this year, representing almost 15 percent of total smartphone shipments and a huge jump from the roughly 51 million shipped in 2023. (Web editor: Tian Yi, Liang Jun) A major department store chain continues to downsize. Macys announced Tuesday its plans to shutter 150 underperforming stores, or 30% of all locations, over the next three years as part of a large restructuring. The New York-based retailer will close 50 stores by the end of this fiscal year. Macys will prioritize investments in 350 remaining, or go-forward, stores. We are making the necessary moves to reinvigorate relationships with our customers through improved shopping experiences, relevant assortments and compelling value, Macys CEO Tony Spring said in a statement. Macy's at Wolfchase Galleria in Memphis. Macy's announced plans to close 150 stores, but it has not announced which locations will be shuttered. Despite Macys shutting down locations, the company plans to expand its Bloomingdales and Bluemercury stores by 45 locations altogether. Our teams are energized by the work ahead as we accelerate our path to market share gains, sustainable, profitable growth and value creation for our shareholders," Spring said. MEMPHIS BUSINESS NEWS: Shelby County layoff notices in 2024: 3 employers plan to cut 378 jobs in Memphis The remaining Macys locations in Memphis Macy's has not released which locations will be closed. There are two Macy's locations in Memphis: one at 4545 Poplar Ave. in Oak Court Mall and one at 2840 N. Germantown Parkway in Wolfchase Galleria. Macy's did not respond to The Commercial Appeal's request for comment on the status of the Memphis locations. Officials from Oak Court Mall and Wolfchase Galleria said any comment on the local Macy's locations would have to come from Macy's. In 2021, Macys closed a location in The Shops at Carriage Crossing in Collierville. The former 135,000-square-foot Macys building is now occupied by family-owned Mid-South Furniture. USA TODAY contributed to this report. Corey Davis is the Collierville and Germantown reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Corey.Davis@commercialappeal.com or 901-293-1610. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Macys closing 150 stores. Will Macys Memphis TN close? The first-ever Moxy in India Moxy Bengaluru Airport Prestige Tech Cloud. Marriott International Marriott International expects to open 14 hotels in South Asia this year, 12 of which will be in India, adding approximately 1,200 rooms to the hotel chains existing portfolio in the country. India is one of Marriott Internationals most important markets in Asia, with the second-highest number of hotels and rooms after China, said Rajeev Menon, Marriotts president, Asia Pacific excluding China. Marriott launched Moxy in India in early January with the Moxy Bengaluru Airport Prestige Tech Cloud. Menon told Skift Marriott would be exploring opportunities for further brand debuts in the country. The hotel chain will also be launching the Moxy Mumbai Andheri West in April. The Third Ritz-Carlton in India Marriott is set to bolster its luxury portfolio in leisure destinations: It has plans to introduce the Ritz-Carlton brand in northern India through The Ritz-Carlton, Amila Hills in Shimla. It is slated for a May 2029 opening. India already has two Ritz Carltons one in Bengaluru in south India and the other in Pune in the western part of the country. Menon noted the strong demand for luxury and premium brands in the country: 77% of the rooms signed in 2023 in the region were within the luxury and premium portfolio, compared to 48% in 2022. The Mid-Scale Segment However, Menon also said that the hotel chain would continue to expand in the mid-scale segment due to rising consumer demand for reliable and affordable accommodations in top cities and tertiary markets throughout India. As seasoned travelers continue to demand more in terms of both quality and experience, we have significant opportunity to grow our brands across the spectrum in gateway cities, tertiary markets as well as in resort destinations, Menon said. Driven by burgeoning middle-class aspirations and shifting preferences, smaller cities in India have been witnessing significant growth, Ranju Alex, Marriotts area vice president for South Asia, had said earlier to Skift. Story continues Indias surging middle class driving travel trends has been discussed by Skift in the latest Megatrends. Alex had said that while tier one cities accommodate the majority of Bonvoy members, the true growth prospects lie in their smaller counterparts. Marriott has 28 signed deals over the past year and start of 2024 till date in South Asia, adding over 4,600 rooms to its development pipeline. With a development pipeline of approximately 81 hotels in India we continue to grow our brand portfolio to meet the needs of guests across all stay purposes in the country, Menon told Skift. India Openings Courtyard by Marriott and Fairfield by Marriott represent approximately 45% of the properties expected to open within the next four years, across India. These openings comprise: Courtyard by Marriott Gwalior Courtyard by Marriott Guwahati Beltola Fairfield by Marriott Guwahati Fairfield by Marriott Andheri Fairfield by Marriott Jalandhar Fairfield by Marriott Naina Tikker in Himachal Pradesh Marriott Hotels and Resorts, the companys flagship brand, is expected to debut in emerging destinations with: Guwahati Marriott Resort & Spa, Ludhiana Marriott Hotel, Ayodhya Marriott Hotel, Shimla Marriott Hotel Amritsar Marriott Hotel. Luxury openings: JW Marriott Surat Resort and Spa JW Marriott Sohna Resort and Spa in Delhi NCR Other hotel openings: Westin Hyderabad Resort Westin Coorg Resort and Spa. Le Meridien Jalandhar. Menon will be speaking at the Skift India Summit in Delhi-NCR on March 20. Skift India Summit Registration Discounted price of $595 (Solo) and $545 (Group) for a limited time only. Full-price tickets are $745 (Solo) and $695 (Group). Solo 1 person Register now for an in-person ticket to the Delhi event. Opening night event All Forum sessions Networking options Event app $595 / 49,200 Group 2-6 people Bring the team and take your company to the next level. Opening night event All Forum sessions Networking options Event app Multi-registration discounts $545 / 45,100 Please read our FAQ for details about refunds, safety procedures, and other details. Online Attendees Attend online $145 / 15,295 (free for Skift subscribers) Subscriber Benefits Subscribers to Skift Research, Skift Pro, Daily Lodging Report and Airline Weekly receive discounts off full-price tickets to in-person events. Visit our Subscriber Benefits page to find your discount code. Get breaking travel news and exclusive hotel, airline, and tourism research and insights at Skift.com. Health Partners, the UKs largest non-hospital private healthcare services provider, with over two million patients across 550+ corporate, insurance and government clients, announced its intention to partner with MedX after successfully piloting MedXs DermSecure Screening Platform. MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, February 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MedX Health Corp. ("MedX" or the "Company") (TSXV: MDX), a global leader in teledermatology, is pleased to announce they have successfully completed the pilot project with Health Partners. MedX and Health Partners are working together to begin the roll-out of this service to targeted clients engaged in a preventative approach to health care management. Health Partners Group Limited ("Health Partners") is a well-respected, privately owned corporate health, treatment and primary care services company in the UK. Serving a broad client base comprising corporates, government agencies, insurers, health trusts, pension funds and individuals, Health Partners employs 1,000+ people with telehealth, mobile and on-site operations across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Skin cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the UK, with over 220,000 cases diagnosed annually, and that number continues to rise. Outdoor workers receive five to 10 times more sun exposure and, as a result, are, on average, at 60% greater risk of developing skin cancer, according to the UK Cancer Alliance. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in delayed access to medical care. Restrictions to health care specialists, staff shortages, and fear of SARS-CoV-2 infection led to interruptions in routine care, such as early melanoma detection, as reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, but early detection can significantly improve patient outcomes. According to Cancer Research UK, a patient diagnosed with a Stage 1-2 melanoma has a five-year survival rate of 99%; left undetected, the five-year survival rate for a patient diagnosed with a Stage 4 melanoma drops to 30%. Story continues "Health Partners is uniquely positioned to provide dermatologist-assessed skin cancer screening to at-risk patients right in their place of work as part of their regular employee health-plan assessments. The successful pilot with the MedX SIAscope devices and DermSecure platform demonstrated the efficiency and ease of access to this potentially life-saving service", stated Mike Druhan, MedX President, Dermatology Services. "Health Partners Clinical Team constantly strives to identify leading technological innovations that offer the highest level of support to our two million-plus patients," said Health Partners Managing Director Andrew Noble. "The pilot demonstrated that MedX's leading-edge skin assessment technology allows dermatologists to remotely and quickly assess pigmented lesions and moles accurately. We are proud to partner with MedX to bring this innovative and life-changing service to our clients." About Health Partners Group Ltd.: Health Partners, headquartered in East Sussex, United Kingdom, is a leading health and wellbeing company, providing a full range of corporate health, treatment and primary care services to corporates, government, insurers, health trusts, pension funds and families. They combine expert advice and clinical services with a marketing-leading platform to deliver impact-driven health programmes tailored to improve peoples well-being and performance. Health Partners is recognized as the UKs leading corporate health provider and holds a significant number of accreditations, certifications and memberships, including ISO27001, CQC, and SEQOHS. Health Partners offers its services across the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, reaching two million plus people in organizations across several industries. For more information, visit http://www.healthpartnersgroup.com MedX Health Corp.: MedX, headquartered in Ontario, Canada, is a leading medical device and software company focused on skin health with its SIAscopy on DermSecure telemedicine platform, utilizing its SIAscopy technology. SIAscopy is also imbedded in its products SIAMETRICS, SIMSYS, and MoleMate, which MedX manufactures in its ISO 13485 certified facility. SIAMETRICS, SIMSYS, and MoleMate include hand-held devices that use patented technology utilizing light and its remittance to view up to 2 mm beneath suspicious moles and lesions in a pain free, non-invasive manner, with its software then creating real-time images for physicians and dermatologists to evaluate all types of moles or lesions within seconds. These products are cleared by Health Canada, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and Conformite Europeenne for use in Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, the European Union, Brazil and Turkey. Visit https://medxhealth.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. This Media Release may contain forward-looking statements, which reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events. The forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228237603/en/ Contacts Bill Mitoulas, Investor Relations MedX Health Corp. bill@medxhealth.com +1-416-479-9547 London, UK --News Direct-- Metals One PLC Metals One PLC (AIM:MET1) CEO Jonathan Owen joined Proactive's Stephen Gunnion with an update on the company's strategy for its Black Schist projects in Finland, aiming for economic extraction of assets. The goal is to develop a 200 million-tonne resource over the next 24 to 36 months, targeting a mine life of 20 years with an annual production of 20 million tonnes. Currently, Metals One has identified 20 million tonnes at one site (R1) and 16 to 24 million tonnes at another (P5), both offering significant expansion opportunities. The company is also exploring regionally, having recently pegged new ground for further development. Recent drilling programs have yielded encouraging results, including notable intersections of mineralized black schist, extending the mineralization further east. This has led to the acquisition of additional ground for future exploration. Metals One aims to quickly elevate the P5 target from an exploration target to a mineral resource, leveraging unassayed historical drill cores to potentially increase the resource size without additional drilling. The company has also identified new targets for exploration, with the K1 site scheduled for drilling in the coming months. The long-term vision is to become a supplier of critical metals for Europe's green transition, addressing the EU's structural deficit in the supply of critical minerals for battery production and other green technologies. Contact Details Proactive UK Ltd +44 20 7989 0813 uk@proactiveinvestors.com View source version on newsdirect.com: https://newsdirect.com/news/metals-one-outlines-strategic-vision-for-critical-metals-supply-at-black-schist-project-in-finland-257643454 SEOUL (Reuters) -Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday met LG Electronics executives to discuss a stronger partnership in extended reality (XR) devices as well as potential cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI), LG said. Zuckerberg arrived in South Korea late on Tuesday and is widely expected to hold talks on AI and meet with President Yoon Suk Yeol and heads of the country's technology powerhouses. He held discussions with LG Electronics CEO William Cho and parent company LG Corp COO Kwon Bong-seok about business strategy related to next-generation XR device development, LG Electronics said in a statement. Cho also expressed interest in Meta's large language model-based AI technology and discussed possible on-device AI cooperation, his company said. Cho has previously said LG Electronics is looking for opportunities in XR. Meta launched its latest mixed-reality headset, Quest 3, in June before rival Apple ramped up competition this month with its Vision Pro device. It has also been intensifying AI efforts this year including plans for a custom chip and adding AI functions to products. Zuckerberg is on his first known visit to South Korea in about 10 years. It comes as part of a tour of Asian countries that includes Japan and India, South Korean media reported. He met Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee later in the evening for a dinner at Seungjiwon, a high-end Korean restaurant in Seoul, according to local media. He was due to meet President Yoon on Thursday. Zuckerberg is widely expected to discuss AI chip supply and expanding ecosystems for generative AI during his South Korea visit, as Meta seeks to get generative AI technology into its core social media products and hardware devices this year. Meta plans to deploy into its data centres this year a new version of a custom chip aimed at supporting its AI push, Reuters reported this month. It also plans to secure about 350,000 H100 graphics processing units from leading AI chipmaker Nvidia by end-year to support the push. (Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Sandra Maler, Christopher Cushing and Sharon Singleton) Mezmo Company attributes 166% revenue growth to demand for solutions that make telemetry data consumable and actionable SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mezmo, the leading observability data platform , today announced that it ranked No. 82 on the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Pacific list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing Pacific private companies, based in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. Part of the annual Inc. 5000 franchise, this regional list represents a unique look at the most successful private companies fueling the Pacific economy. Mezmos chief executive officer, Tucker Callaway, attributes the companys 166% growth over the 2-year assessment period to the rising demand for solutions that help organizations seamlessly harness the value of telemetry data across the entire enterprise with confidence. Mezmos Telemetry Pipeline helps organizations to clearly understand their data, optimize with ease, and respond rapidly to incidents ultimately saving time, cutting costs, and putting teams in control of their data. Companies are drowning in a deluge of telemetry data generated by modern digital environments, and they need a platform like Mezmo that helps them trust the data and utilize it without skyrocketing costs, Callaway said. We are building solutions that put enterprise teams in control of their data, mitigating the complexities associated with telemetry by applying data engineering principles. Our ability to solve real industry problems is fueling demand and driving continued company growth. This achievement is evidence of Mezmos continued momentum, following several other prestigious accolades. In 2023, Mezmo made the national Inc. 5000 list , ranking 192 among software companies. The company has also been honored on the Deloitte Fast 500 list for three consecutive years, and industry analyst firm Intellyx named Mezmo a 2023 Digital Innovator . The companies on the Inc. 5000 Regionals list show a remarkable rate of growth across all industries in the Pacific region. Between 2020 and 2022, these 170 private companies had an average growth rate of 162.77 percent; by 2023, theyd also added 10,689 jobs and $5.5 billion to the regions economy. Story continues Complete results of the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Pacific, including company profiles, can be found at inc.com/Pacific . The site also features an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, metro area, and other criteria. Visit the Mezmo website to learn more about the innovative solutions fueling Mezmos growth. About Mezmo Mezmo helps organizations unlock the value of their telemetry data. Cloud native and built for enterprise scale, Mezmos platform makes it easier to control costs and take action. Mezmo fuels massive productivity gains for modern engineering teams at hyper-growth startups and Fortune 500 companies alike. Mezmo is the sole logging provider for IBM Cloud, where theyve partnered to drive innovation in observability at hyper scale since 2018. The company has been recognized as one of Forbes Cloud 100 Rising Stars, Gartners Top 25 Enterprise Software Startups to Watch, CRNs 10 Hottest Cloud Startups, and Fortunes Best Small and Medium Workplaces, and it received the IBM Cloud Embed Excellence Award. More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000 Regionals Methodology The 2024 Inc. 5000 Regionals are ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2020 and 2022. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2020. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independentnot subsidiaries or divisions of other companiesas of December 31, 2022. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2020 is $100,000; the minimum for 2022 is $1 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. About Inc. Media The worlds most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community 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 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 . Media contact: Jennifer Tanner Look Left Marketing mezmo@lookleftmarketing.com If you're not sure where to start when looking for the next multi-bagger, there are a few key trends you should keep an eye out for. One common approach is to try and find a company with returns on capital employed (ROCE) that are increasing, in conjunction with a growing amount of capital employed. Ultimately, this demonstrates that it's a business that is reinvesting profits at increasing rates of return. However, after briefly looking over the numbers, we don't think Mobilia Holdings Berhad (KLSE:MOBILIA) has the makings of a multi-bagger going forward, but let's have a look at why that may be. Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It? For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Mobilia Holdings Berhad: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets - Current Liabilities) 0.10 = RM9.2m (RM108m - RM16m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2023). Thus, Mobilia Holdings Berhad has an ROCE of 10%. By itself that's a normal return on capital and it's in line with the industry's average returns of 10%. View our latest analysis for Mobilia Holdings Berhad roce Historical performance is a great place to start when researching a stock so above you can see the gauge for Mobilia Holdings Berhad's ROCE against it's prior returns. If you'd like to look at how Mobilia Holdings Berhad has performed in the past in other metrics, you can view this free graph of Mobilia Holdings Berhad's past earnings, revenue and cash flow. How Are Returns Trending? On the surface, the trend of ROCE at Mobilia Holdings Berhad doesn't inspire confidence. Around five years ago the returns on capital were 26%, but since then they've fallen to 10%. Given the business is employing more capital while revenue has slipped, this is a bit concerning. If this were to continue, you might be looking at a company that is trying to reinvest for growth but is actually losing market share since sales haven't increased. Story continues On a related note, Mobilia Holdings Berhad has decreased its current liabilities to 15% of total assets. So we could link some of this to the decrease in ROCE. Effectively this means their suppliers or short-term creditors are funding less of the business, which reduces some elements of risk. Some would claim this reduces the business' efficiency at generating ROCE since it is now funding more of the operations with its own money. In Conclusion... We're a bit apprehensive about Mobilia Holdings Berhad because despite more capital being deployed in the business, returns on that capital and sales have both fallen. Investors haven't taken kindly to these developments, since the stock has declined 21% from where it was three years ago. With underlying trends that aren't great in these areas, we'd consider looking elsewhere. One more thing to note, we've identified 3 warning signs with Mobilia Holdings Berhad and understanding them should be part of your investment process. While Mobilia Holdings Berhad isn't earning the highest return, check out this free list of companies that are earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets. 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. Nearing retirement can feel freeing. You've worked your entire career for this! Naturally, the stressful part of retiring is protecting your saved money. It's arguably more important to prevent steep losses than to continue building wealth. While no stock or investment is risk-free, you can find blue-chip stocks in industries like healthcare that will always be in demand because they're a pillar of modern society. Here are three fabulous healthcare stocks with ironclad financials. You can buy and hold these stalwarts with confidence. And the best part is they can offer a combination of safety and enough that can grow your nest egg safely in a diversified portfolio. 1. UnitedHealth Group Healthcare conglomerate UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) might be the central cog in the U.S. healthcare machine. It's not only an insurance company, but also provides healthcare services, analytics, and solutions throughout different levels of care. If you're looking for an impressive resume, check out the company's smooth upward trajectory of revenue and earnings growth over the past several decades: UNH Revenue (TTM) Chart The company's financials are rock-solid. UnitedHealth has nearly $30 billion in cash on its balance sheet, and its debt is just 1.8 times its EBITDA, a healthy ratio that signals the company isn't borrowing too much money. Investors also get a solid dividend that yields 1.4% today and comes with a 14-year streak of consecutive increases. UnitedHealth is so large and healthcare is such a fragmented and complex business that the company is poised to continue growing as it uses its size and expertise to provide more services at a lower cost to its hospitals and care providers throughout the industry. Analysts are calling for 13% annualized earnings growth moving forward, and the stock's 0.54 beta means the stock is far less volatile than the broader market. Investors can feel confident owning the stock for years to come. Story continues 2. Johnson & Johnson Another household name, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is a model of consistency. The company has paid and raised its dividends for 62 years, supported by decades of steady growth. Today Johnson & Johnson is split into two business units: Innovative Medicine, its pharmaceutical business, and MedTech, which designs and sells medical devices and products. Johnson & Johnson has $23 billion in cash on the balance sheet. Its borrowing is modest; long-term debt is just 1.6 times EBITDA. The company's balance sheet has a sterling reputation. It's one of two public companies with an AAA credit rating, surpassing even the United States government. In other words, there is a higher perceived chance that the United States government collapses than Johnson & Johnson defaults on its bills. JNJ Revenue (TTM) Chart Johnson & Johnson has a beta of just 0.53, meaning owning the stock should be a pretty smooth ride. Analysts also believe the company's earnings will compound at 5% to 6% moving forward. Frankly, that's what Johnson & Johnson does best: grind out modest growth while being a force of stability in investors' portfolios. 3. Abbott Labs Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT) is the last company on this list, and it's another diversified healthcare giant. The diversity in its business means more stable revenue and profits, so investors don't have to worry as much about huge swings. Abbott's stock is also less volatile than the broader market, with a beta of 0.75. Abbott sells consumer products, medical devices worldwide, and generic pharmaceuticals to emerging markets. Abbott Labs has a more volatile history of revenue and earnings performance. The company spun off its primary pharmaceutical unit as AbbVie a decade ago, and filled that hole with significant acquisitions. However, the business never wavered in returning capital to shareholders. Abbott is a Dividend King with 52 years of dividend growth. ABT Revenue (TTM) Chart Like good companies do, it got its balance sheet back in good shape. Today, there is over $7 billion in cash, and debt is just 1.6 times EBITDA. Meanwhile, earnings are poised to grow by 9% annually, giving investors a blue-chip stock with long-term growth potential. Investors can lock in Abbott's 1.8% dividend yield today and enjoy a likely continuation of annual increases. Should you invest $1,000 in UnitedHealth Group right now? Before you buy stock in UnitedHealth Group, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and UnitedHealth Group wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than tripled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of February 26, 2024 Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Abbott Laboratories. The Motley Fool recommends Johnson & Johnson and UnitedHealth Group. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Nearing Retirement? These Stocks Are as Cautious as They Come was originally published by The Motley Fool DUBLIN, Feb. 27, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Netherlands Social Commerce Market Intelligence and Future Growth Dynamics Databook - 50+ KPIs on Social Commerce Trends by End-Use Sectors, Operational KPIs, Retail Product Dynamics, and Consumer Demographics - Q1 2024 Update" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. Research and Markets Logo Social commerce industry in Netherlands is expected to grow by 21.9% on annual basis to reach US$4.61 billion in 2024. The social commerce industry is expected to grow steadily over the forecast period, recording a CAGR of 17.7% during 2024-2029. The social commerce GMV in the country will increase from US$3.78 billion in 2023 to reach US$10.41 billion by 2029. This report provides a detailed data centric analysis of social commerce industry, covering market opportunities and risks. With over 50+ KPIs at country level, this report provides a comprehensive understanding of social commerce market dynamics, market size and forecast, and market share statistics. Reasons to buy In-depth Understanding of Social Commerce Market Dynamics: Understand market opportunities and key trends along with forecast (2020-2029). Insights into Opportunity by end-use sectors - Get market dynamics by end-use sectors to assess emerging opportunity across various end-use sectors. Develop Market Specific Strategies: Identify growth segments and target specific opportunities to formulate social commerce strategy; assess market specific key trends, drivers, and risks in the industry. Scope Netherlands Ecommerce Industry Players Facebook Instagram eBay Orderchamp Productpine Netherlands Ecommerce Industry Market Size and Future Growth Dynamics by Key Performance Indicators, 2020-2029 Netherlands Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Future Growth Dynamics by Key Performance Indicators, 2020-2029 Netherlands Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Retail Product Categories, 2020-2029 Clothing & Footwear Beauty and Personal Care Food & Grocery Appliances and Electronics Home Improvement Travel Hospitality Story continues Netherlands Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by End Use Consumer Segment, 2020-2029 B2B B2C C2C Netherlands Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by End Use Device, 2020-2029 Mobile Desktop Netherlands Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Location, 2020-2029 Domestic Cross Border Netherlands Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Location, 2020-2029 Tier-1 Cities Tier-2 Cities Tier-3 Cities Netherlands Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Payment Method, 2020-2029 Credit Card Debit Card Bank Transfer Prepaid Card Digital & Mobile Wallet Other Digital Payment Cash Netherlands Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Platforms Video Commerce Social Network-Led Commerce Social Reselling Group Buying Product Review Platforms Netherlands Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Consumer Demographics & Behaviour,2023 By Age By Income Level By Gender For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/w47qlt About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior 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 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 Cision View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/netherlands-social-commerce-market-intelligence-report-2024-featuring-facebook-instagram-ebay-orderchamp-and-productpine-302073182.html SOURCE Research and Markets Even if it's not a huge purchase, we think it was good to see that Neil Johnson, the Non-Executive Chairman of Dialight plc (LON:DIA) recently shelled out UK50k to buy stock, at UK1.49 per share. Even though that isn't a massive buy, it did increase their holding by 53%, which is arguably a good sign. View our latest analysis for Dialight Dialight Insider Transactions Over The Last Year Notably, that recent purchase by Neil Johnson is the biggest insider purchase of Dialight shares that we've seen in the last year. That means that even when the share price was higher than UK1.47 (the recent price), an insider wanted to purchase shares. It's very possible they regret the purchase, but it's more likely they are bullish about the company. We always take careful note of the price insiders pay when purchasing shares. As a general rule, we feel more positive about a stock if insiders have bought shares at above current prices, because that suggests they viewed the stock as good value, even at a higher price. While Dialight insiders bought shares during the last year, they didn't sell. Their average price was about UK1.87. I'd consider this a positive as it suggests insiders see value at around the current price. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you click on the chart, you can see all the individual transactions, including the share price, individual, and the date! Dialight is not the only stock insiders are buying. So take a peek at this free list of growing companies with insider buying. Insider Ownership For a common shareholder, it is worth checking how many shares are held by company insiders. I reckon it's a good sign if insiders own a significant number of shares in the company. From what we can see in our data, insiders own only about UK152k worth of Dialight shares. This level of insider ownership is notably low, and not very encouraging. Story continues What Might The Insider Transactions At Dialight Tell Us? We note a that there has been a bit of insider buying recently (but no selling). That said, the purchases were not large. But insiders have shown more of an appetite for the stock, over the last year. We'd like to see bigger individual holdings. However, we don't see anything to make us think Dialight insiders are doubting the company. So these insider transactions can help us build a thesis about the stock, but it's also worthwhile knowing the risks facing this company. At Simply Wall St, we found 2 warning signs for Dialight that deserve your attention before buying any shares. If you would prefer to check out another company -- one with potentially superior financials -- then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt. For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests. 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. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman told its employees that about 1,000 jobs could be cut in Southern California. Above, a B-2 stealth bomber at the Northrop Grumman Corp. facility in Palmdale. (Los Angeles Times) Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. has told its employees that it could cut as many as 1,000 jobs in Southern California. The affected employees are part of the company's space sector and work at facilities in Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach and Azusa. The company said it is working to match those employees with other, existing jobs within the company. Although Northrop Grumman did not specify a reason for the cuts, but the U.S. Space Force recently canceled a multibillion-dollar program to develop a classified military communications satellite with the company after cost overruns, a schedule delay and development difficulties, according to Bloomberg. Recently, space has been a difficult place to do business. Earlier this month, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory laid off 530 employees, or 8% of its workforce, in anticipation of massive federal budget cuts. Northrop Grumman said it has notified the state's Employment Development Department and filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice about the job cuts, as required by law. Read more: The countdown to NASA's Jupiter mission is on. This JPL engineer is helping it happen "This is ongoing, and a higher number of employees will receive WARN notices than may ultimately be impacted," the company said in a statement. Although Northrop Grumman is based in Falls Church, Va., California is a major hub for the company. Its historic 110-acre Space Park facility in Redondo Beach was built at the height of the Cold War and is the birthplace of the intercontinental ballistic missile, as well as the rocket engines that lowered the first crew onto the moon. More recently, it hosted the building of the James Webb Space Telescope. The company also has a major aircraft facility in Palmdale, where it is building the new B-21 stealth bomber, the center fuselage for the F-35 fighter jet, the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone and the MQ-4C Triton drone. Northrop Grumman also has facilities in San Diego, Sunnyvale, Northridge, Woodland Hills and Ventura County. In all, the company employs about 30,000 people across the state. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. If you've ordered food from Panera Bread that was delivered to your door, you may be owed some money. Panera Bread has agreed to pay $2 million to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the bakery-cafe chain of misleading customers about prices and fees for delivery orders. But before you go looking to submit a claim, only those customers who ordered food for delivery between Oct. 1, 2020 and Aug. 31, 2021 are eligible for some settlement funds, according to Kroll Settlement Administration, which was appointed to oversee the settlement. Under the settlement terms, customers can receive vouchers or an electronic cash payment. Panera, meanwhile, agreed to resolve the case under the condition that the company would not have to admit to any wrongdoing. Panera did not immediately respond Tuesday morning to a message left by USA TODAY seeking comment. Here's what to know about the lawsuit against Panera, and how you can submit a settlement claim. New Oreo flavors: Oreo to debut 2 new flavors inspired by mud pie, tiramisu. When will they hit shelves? What is the lawsuit against Panera about? A Panera Bread location is photographed in November in the northern California city of Redding. The plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit said they paid more than expected for delivery orders from Panera, accusing the the sandwich and soup restaurant of misleading customers about both the cost of delivery fees and menu prices. Specifically, the lawsuit alleged that Panera would promise to provide either free or low-cost deliveries with a $1 or flat rate to customers who ordered through the company's mobile app or website. Instead, customers accused Panera of then loading on hidden fees, according to a lawsuit filed last year in Illinois. Panera is alleged to have marked up food prices for delivery orders by 5% to 7%, the plaintiffs wrote. For example, a customer who ordered a sandwich through the mobile app may have been charged an extra $1 for delivery than if they were to pick it up in the store, the lawsuit states. This extra fee was only displayed on the app or website after a customer chose delivery or pickup, the lawsuit alleged. Story continues This secret menu price markup was specifically designed to cover the costs of delivering food and profit on that delivery, according to the lawsuit. It was, in short, exclusively a charge for using Paneras delivery service and was, therefore, a delivery charge. Chick-fil-A recently agreed to settle a similar class-action lawsuit alleging that the fast-food chain charged inflated prices for delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle the lawsuit, which was filed in Georgia in October 2023 and accused Chick-fil-A of hiking up its menu prices by 30% for delivery orders. How can I file a claim for settlement money? Those customers who believe they qualify for Panera's settlement money can file a claim online here by the deadline of June 10. You'll need to provide proof of purchase to verify your claim, which can be the phone number that placed the order and an email notice if you received one. Eligible customers can receive either two vouchers valued at $9.50 each for a free menu item at Panera, or an electronic payment of up to $12 via PayPal, according to the settlement website. Separate litigation against Panera concerns its energy drinks Panera Bread has also found itself at the center of multiple lawsuits since late last year regarding its line of highly caffeinated Charged Lemonade drinks. Two lawsuits, filed in October and December of last year, allege the drink's caffeine contents caused the cardiac arrests that killed two separate people, while a third filed this year alleges the beverage caused permanent heart issues. The drinks are still available for purchase on Panera's menu with the addition of product warnings. A judge recently denied Panera's request to dismiss one of the suits, signaling that these cases may take some time to resolve. Contributing: Mary Walrath-Holdridge Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Panera settlement: Are you owed money from $2 million pool? Panera Bread is paying $2 million to settle claims that the sandwich chain mislead customers about the cost of delivery orders. Under the settlement, some customers can file a claim that could provide them with food vouchers or cash. In agreeing to settle the lawsuit accusing Panera of misleading people about delivery fees and menu prices, the company did not admit any wrongdoing. The settlement comes on the heels of a similar case involving Chick-fil-A, which agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle allegations that the chicken sandwich chain advertised free or low-cost delivery but then hiked food prices on delivery orders by as much as 30%. Panera did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Privately held by German investment firm JAB Holding Co., Panera operates more than 2,000 eateries across the U.S. and Canada. Who is eligible to file a Panera claim? Those eligible for compensation in the Panera settlement must have placed an order for delivery in the Panera app or on its website from October 1, 2020, to August 31, 2021. How do I file a Panera claim? You'll need to file a claim before by June 10, 2024, according to the settlement website. Some people who are eligible for a claim may have received an email alerting them about the settlement. To verify your status as an eligible party, you'll have to enter the code in the email at this site. What will I get from the settlement? People who make a claim can opt for either two vouchers of $9.50 each for items from Panera's "Soup & Mac" menu, or to receive $12 through PayPal, Venmo or another electronic payment service. The figures could go down, based on how many people take part, according to to settlement site. When will I get the vouchers or cash? The vouchers or payments are scheduled to be sent within 60 days after a court certifies the settlement, with a hearing set for May 31. Beaufort, SC, bans 5 books from school shelves after push to ban 97 | 60 Minutes The Nobel laureates behind mRNA COVID vaccines DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas: "We were not informed" about prior arrests of Georgia suspect Perfect Corp. CEO and Founder Alice Chang Will Present the Powerful Impact of AI for Women at the 2024 USC Womens Conference (Photo: Business Wire) In celebration of Womens History Month, the annual Womens Conference at the University of Southern California will bring together barrier-breaking industry leaders to inspire the next generation of women leaders NEW YORK, February 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alice Chang, Founder and CEO of Perfect Corp., the leading provider of Beautiful AI innovations and technology solutions for the beauty and fashion industries, will be honored at the 2024 Womens Conference presented by the University of Southern California. The annual conference, which will take place on Friday, March 1st at the University of Californias University Park Campus, will bring together barrier-breaking leaders to inspire the next generation of women leaders with tools for success. The event will kick off Women's History Month with a dynamic day of empowerment and connection for attendees, with an agenda celebrating the achievements and ambitions of women from all walks of life. Perfect Corp. CEO Alice Chang to Highlight the Power of Leveraging AI for Women by Women During the inspiring day of panels, workshops, and career development sessions, Perfect Corp. CEO Alice Chang will be joined by Adrienne Bankert, Special Projects Anchor at NewsNation, for a session discussing the transformative power of leveraging AI for Women. The session will explore the many ways AI can be harnessed for the greater good, and dive deep into the ways women-led AI initiatives can promote inclusivity and create opportunities for women. Empowering Women to Break Barriers and Excel as Leaders in Tech "I am deeply committed to empowering women to excel in traditionally male-dominated industries, especially within the dynamic landscape of AI and technology," said Perfect Corp. Founder and CEO Alice Chang. "It is an honor to address the USC Women's conference and emphasize the transformative potential of AI in fostering women's leadership and innovation, as we collectively strive for a more inclusive and equitable future." Story continues For more information on Alice Changs session at the USC Womens Conference, and to purchase tickets, please visit: https://alumni.usc.edu/womensconference/ About Perfect Corp. Perfect Corp. (NYSE: PERF) leverages Beautiful AI innovations to make our world more beautiful. As a pioneer and leader in the space, Perfect Corp. works with over 600 partners around the globe to empower brands to embrace the digital-first world by transforming shopping journeys through digital tech innovations. Perfect Corp.s suite of enterprise solutions deliver synergistic, technology-driven experiences that facilitate sustainable, ultra-personalized, and engaging shopping journeys through hyper-realistic virtual try-ons, AI-powered skin analyses, personalized product recommendation tools and many more Beautiful AI innovations. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228719258/en/ Contacts Press Perfect Corp. official website: https://www.perfectcorp.com Perfect Corp. on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/perfect-corp/ Perfect Corp. official Blog: https://www.perfectcorp.com/business/blog/ Corporate: Tony Tsai at press@perfectcorp.com or by phone: +886-2-8667-1265, ext. 2167 USA: Allie Murphy at contact_pr@perfectcorp.com or by phone +1 (415) 625-8555 Japan: Ryusho Hosaka at contact_pr_jpn@perfectcorp.com or by phone: +81-3-5875-6651 China: Winter Zhang at Winter_zhang@perfectcorp.com or by phone: +86-166-2139-1855 Europe: Aurelie Leveille at contact_pr_fr@perfectcorp.com UAE: Moushmi Bhatia at contact_pr_uae@perfectcorp.com or by phone: +971 (0) 56 896 5253 India: Ananya Tandon at contact_pr_in@perfectcorp.com Indonesia: Efon Dea at contact_pr_id@perfectcorp.com PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pew Charitable Trusts announced today that it has selected six distinguished researchers as recipients of the 2024 Pew fellowship in marine conservation. The researchersfrom Canada, China, Denmark, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United Statesjoin a community of more than 200 Pew marine fellows who have undertaken projects to deepen our understanding of the ocean and advance the sustainable use of marine resources. The Pew Charitable Trusts logo (PRNewsfoto/The Pew Charitable Trusts) "The world's oceans have never been under greater threat. Humankind relies on healthy oceans in countless ways," said Susan K. Urahn, Pew's president and CEO. "These talented scientists are working to conserve and protect marine species and habitats across the globefrom Africa's coasts to the coral reefs of the western Pacific Ocean." The 2024 fellows will lead innovative projects that help protect and restore crucial ocean habitats; some projects will also improve the sustainability and equitable management of fisheries that feed millions of people. The Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation awards midcareer scientists and other experts $150,000 grants over three years to pursue marine conservation-oriented research projects. Marine fellows are selected by an international committee of marine science and conservation experts through a rigorous nomination and review process. The 2024 fellows are: Rene Abesamis, Ph.D. University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines Rene Abesamis will work with local scientists and members of coastal communities to identify climate-resilient coral reefs in the Philippines and lay the groundwork for their protection. He will also streamline processes for sharing collected data with environmental managers and the national government. Dyhia Belhabib, Ph.D. Ecotrust Canada, Canada Dyhia Belhabib will trace the seafood supply chain in Senegal to understand how illegally caught fish enter the market, who is involved in the trade, how seafood is laundered through activities such as transshipment, and where the fish end up. Using a combination of approaches, she will identify areas where illegal commercial fishing is most prevalent and will work with enforcement agencies to prioritize sites for additional monitoring and intervention. Story continues Marine Cusa, Ph.D. Oceana, Denmark Marine Cusa will use genetic tools to improve transparency and sustainability in the European aquaculture sector. Working with a network of scientists, journalists, and representatives from conservation organizations, she will identify the major European aquaculture companies' main fish-meal suppliers and will use genetic techniques to examine their fish feeds' composition, sourcing, and sustainability. James Kar-Hei Fang, Ph.D. Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China James Kar-Hei Fang will rebuild pearl oyster reefs at select sites in Hong Kong's Tolo Channel using oysters cultured in captivity and will use advanced 3D technologies to monitor changes in local biodiversity created by the reefs. He will also use the restored oysters as a biomonitoring tool to assess marine pollution in the city. Christina Hicks, Ph.D. Lancaster University, United Kingdom Christina Hicks will investigate links between international finance and overfishing in four countries in East and West Africa. She will also evaluate barriers and opportunities to develop multilateral policies that could help increase transparency in finance and reduce inequities in decision-making. Emi Uchida, Ph.D. University of Rhode Island, United States Emi Uchida will combine remote sensing data and machine learning tools to identify key drivers of mangrove and seagrass ecosystem loss in the Coral Triangle, a biodiversity-rich region of the western Pacific Ocean, and predict areas that are most at risk of future degradation. Working with 90 communities in Indonesia, she will test the effectiveness of various conservation interventions, including community-led monitoring of coastal habitats. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pew-names-scientists-from-6-countries-as-2024-fellows-in-marine-conservation-302074369.html SOURCE The Pew Charitable Trusts STOCKHOLM (Reuters) Polestar said on Wednesday it had raised a $950 million loan from a bank syndicate, helping to fill a gap left when Volvo Cars said it would stop funding the electric carmaker. New York-listed shares of the Swedish EV maker rose over 25% after the news. Polestar also forecast double-digit gross profit margins by the end of 2024, against an expected flat outcome in 2023. Investors' enthusiasm for EV makers has cooled as growth in EV sales has slowed and financial losses have piled up, making life especially hard for startups. Price cuts by leading players Tesla and BYD have added to the pressure. "It is crucial for us to be able to concentrate on rolling out our car programs, and it provides the funds needed to complete the model program that we have with Polestar 2,3 and 4 this year, and the 5 joining in 2025," CEO Thomas Ingenlath told Reuters. Polestar differs from many pure-play EV startups in that it has had two strong financial backers that co-founded the company, Volvo Cars and Geely Holding. However, it has still struggled, which has led to target misses and job cuts. The fresh funding comes at a crucial time after Volvo said this month it would cease further funding of Polestar, and hand over most of its stake to its shareholders such as Geely. The three-year loan facility from 12 international banks is intended to help Polestar achieve its goal of cash flow break-even in 2025. In the auto industry, a carmaker can spend $1 billion to develop a single model. Polestar had previously said it would need $1.3 billion in external funding to break even in 2025. Geely CEO Daniel Li, also a Polestar board member, said the Chinese automaker would continue backing Polestar. "Geely will continue to provide full operational and financial support to the iconic performance car brand going forward," Li said in Polestar's statement. "We will retain our shares in Polestar and intend to participate in future financing activities when required," he added. "Polestar will have full access to technologies and engineering expertise from Geely Holding to realise its global growth targets." Story continues A Polestar 2 electric sedan displayed in a shopping mall in Shanghai. (Reuters) Banks extending the loan to Polestar include BNP Paribas, Natixis, Standard Chartered, BBVA, HSBC, and SPDB. Polestar said it expected volume growth this year that would support its target for 2025 of more than 155,000 vehicles annually. "Volume and margin progression are expected to be weighted towards the second half of 2024, as the two SUVs reach full production and global distribution," the company said, referring to the Polestar 3 and 4 models coming this year. (Reporting by Marie Mannes; Editing by Ben Klayman and Mark Potter) Tesco (LON:TSCO) has had a rough month with its share price down 5.4%. We decided to study the company's financials to determine if the downtrend will continue as the long-term performance of a company usually dictates market outcomes. In this article, we decided to focus on Tesco's ROE. ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company's shareholders. Check out our latest analysis for Tesco How Is ROE Calculated? Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula: Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) Shareholders' Equity So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Tesco is: 12% = UK1.4b UK12b (Based on the trailing twelve months to August 2023). The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. One way to conceptualize this is that for each 1 of shareholders' capital it has, the company made 0.12 in profit. What Has ROE Got To Do With Earnings Growth? We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features. A Side By Side comparison of Tesco's Earnings Growth And 12% ROE To begin with, Tesco seems to have a respectable ROE. Even so, when compared with the average industry ROE of 22%, we aren't very excited. Further, Tesco's five year net income growth of 1.2% is more or less flat. Not to forget, the company does have a decent ROE to begin with, just that it is lower than the industry average. Hence there might be some other aspects that are causing the flat growth in earnings. For example, it could be that the company has a high payout ratio or the business has alloacted capital, for instance. Story continues We then compared Tesco's net income growth with the industry and found that the company's growth figure is lower than the average industry growth rate of 23% in the same 5-year period, which is a bit concerning. Earnings growth is a huge factor in stock valuation. Its important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. What is TSCO worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether TSCO is currently mispriced by the market. Is Tesco Using Its Retained Earnings Effectively? The high three-year median payout ratio of 93% (meaning, the company retains only 6.9% of profits) for Tesco suggests that the company's earnings growth was miniscule as a result of paying out a majority of its earnings. Moreover, Tesco has been paying dividends for at least ten years or more suggesting that management must have perceived that the shareholders prefer dividends over earnings growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 49% over the next three years. As a result, the expected drop in Tesco's payout ratio explains the anticipated rise in the company's future ROE to 16%, over the same period. Summary On the whole, Tesco's performance is quite a big let-down. Its earnings growth particularly is not much to talk about even though it does have a pretty respectable ROE. The lack of growth can be blamed on its poor earnings retention. As discussed earlier, the company is retaining hardly any of its profits. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings are expected to accelerate. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company. 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. For beginners, it can seem like a good idea (and an exciting prospect) to buy a company that tells a good story to investors, even if it currently lacks a track record of revenue and profit. But the reality is that when a company loses money each year, for long enough, its investors will usually take their share of those losses. Loss-making companies are always racing against time to reach financial sustainability, so investors in these companies may be taking on more risk than they should. So if this idea of high risk and high reward doesn't suit, you might be more interested in profitable, growing companies, like Econframe Berhad (KLSE:EFRAME). Even if this company is fairly valued by the market, investors would agree that generating consistent profits will continue to provide Econframe Berhad with the means to add long-term value to shareholders. Check out our latest analysis for Econframe Berhad How Quickly Is Econframe Berhad Increasing Earnings Per Share? The market is a voting machine in the short term, but a weighing machine in the long term, so you'd expect share price to follow earnings per share (EPS) outcomes eventually. That makes EPS growth an attractive quality for any company. Shareholders will be happy to know that Econframe Berhad's EPS has grown 27% each year, compound, 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. EBIT margins for Econframe Berhad remained fairly unchanged over the last year, however the company should be pleased to report its revenue growth for the period of 37% to RM86m. That's progress. You can take a look at the company's revenue and earnings growth trend, in the chart below. To see the actual numbers, click on the chart. Story continues Since Econframe Berhad is no giant, with a market capitalisation of RM294m, you should definitely check its cash and debt before getting too excited about its prospects. Are Econframe Berhad Insiders Aligned With All Shareholders? Theory would suggest that it's an encouraging sign to see high insider ownership of a company, since it ties company performance directly to the financial success of its management. So as you can imagine, the fact that Econframe Berhad insiders own a significant number of shares certainly is appealing. Owning 44% of the company, insiders have plenty riding on the performance of the the share price. Shareholders and speculators should be reassured by this kind of alignment, as it suggests the business will be run for the benefit of shareholders. With that sort of holding, insiders have about RM129m riding on the stock, at current prices. That's nothing to sneeze at! It means a lot to see insiders invested in the business, but shareholders may be wondering if remuneration policies are in their best interest. Our quick analysis into CEO remuneration would seem to indicate they are. For companies with market capitalisations under RM953m, like Econframe Berhad, the median CEO pay is around RM498k. The Econframe Berhad CEO received total compensation of only RM43k in the year to August 2023. You could consider this pay as somewhat symbolic, which suggests the CEO does not need a lot of compensation to stay motivated. CEO compensation is hardly the most important aspect of a company to consider, but when it's reasonable, that gives a little more confidence that leadership are looking out for shareholder interests. It can also be a sign of a culture of integrity, in a broader sense. Is Econframe Berhad Worth Keeping An Eye On? For growth investors, Econframe Berhad's raw rate of earnings growth is a beacon in the night. If you still have your doubts, remember too that company insiders have a considerable investment aligning themselves with the shareholders and CEO pay is quite modest compared to similarly sized companiess. Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to investing but it definitely makes Econframe Berhad look rather interesting indeed. Still, you should learn about the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Econframe Berhad (including 1 which shouldn't be ignored). While opting for stocks without growing earnings and absent insider buying can yield results, for investors valuing these key metrics, here is a carefully selected list of companies in MY with promising growth potential and insider confidence. 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. U.S. Senate begins work on package of wartime funding for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican U.S. Senator Josh Hawley introduced legislation Wednesday to hike tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports as concerns mounted about the potential competitive impact on U.S. car companies. Hawley said President Joe Biden should take steps to protect U.S. auto workers "from the existential threat posed by China." A bipartisan group of lawmakers in November urged U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to boost tariffs on Chinese vehicles, saying she should plan "to address the coming wave of (Chinese) vehicles that will be exported from our other trading partners, such as Mexico, as (Chinese) automakers look to strategically establish operations outside of (China)." Hawley's bill would hike the base tariff rate to 100% from 2.5% currently. This would mean a total tariff of 125% on all imported Chinese autos from 27.5% currently. It also seeks to apply the 100% tariff hike to vehicles assembled in Mexico by Chinese-based automakers. Auto industry officials told Reuters Biden is considering hiking tariffs on Chinese EVs. "China is determined to dominate the electric-vehicle market by using unfair trade practices, but I will not let them," Biden told autoworkers in November. Tai said last month the Biden administration is closely reviewing "China's non-market policies and practices in its automotive industry" and reviewing current tariff levels. On Friday, a U.S. manufacturing advocacy group urged Biden to block low-cost Chinese autos and parts from Mexico. "The introduction of cheap Chinese autos - which are so inexpensive because they are backed with the power and funding of the Chinese government - to the American market could end up being an extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector," the Alliance for American Manufacturing said in a report. While many Chinese automakers are state backed, they have worked to improve vehicles and are moving faster than other regions" in high-tech areas like dashboard displays and tests for autonomous driving, said S&P Global Mobility analyst Stephanie Brinley. Story continues Republican Donald Trump, who is seeking a second term as president in November, has threatened to impose hefty new tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports after hiking tariffs by 25% when he was president. The Chinese embassy in Washington said China's automobile exports "reflect the high-quality development and strong innovation of Chinas manufacturing industry." The issue has received new interest after reports China's BYD plans to set up an EV factory in Mexico. BYD, known for cheaper models, recently overtook its biggest rival, Tesla, to become the world's top EV maker by sales. (Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Miral Fahmy and David Gregorio) What trends should we look for it we want to identify stocks that can multiply in value over the long term? Amongst other things, we'll want to see two things; firstly, a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an expansion in the company's amount of capital employed. If you see this, it typically means it's a company with a great business model and plenty of profitable reinvestment opportunities. Speaking of which, we noticed some great changes in Africa Oil's (TSE:AOI) returns on capital, so let's have a look. What Is Return On Capital Employed (ROCE)? If you haven't worked with ROCE before, it measures the 'return' (pre-tax profit) a company generates from capital employed in its business. The formula for this calculation on Africa Oil is: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets - Current Liabilities) 0.092 = US$87m (US$966m - US$22m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to December 2023). Thus, Africa Oil has an ROCE of 9.2%. In absolute terms, that's a low return but it's around the Oil and Gas industry average of 9.7%. Check out our latest analysis for Africa Oil roce In the above chart we have measured Africa Oil's prior ROCE against its prior performance, but the future is arguably more important. If you're interested, you can view the analysts predictions in our free analyst report for Africa Oil . The Trend Of ROCE We're delighted to see that Africa Oil is reaping rewards from its investments and has now broken into profitability. The company now earns 9.2% on its capital, because five years ago it was incurring losses. Interestingly, the capital employed by the business has remained relatively flat, so these higher returns are either from prior investments paying off or increased efficiencies. With no noticeable increase in capital employed, it's worth knowing what the company plans on doing going forward in regards to reinvesting and growing the business. After all, a company can only become a long term multi-bagger if it continually reinvests in itself at high rates of return. Story continues The Bottom Line On Africa Oil's ROCE As discussed above, Africa Oil appears to be getting more proficient at generating returns since capital employed has remained flat but earnings (before interest and tax) are up. And with a respectable 91% awarded to those who held the stock over the last five years, you could argue that these developments are starting to get the attention they deserve. So given the stock has proven it has promising trends, it's worth researching the company further to see if these trends are likely to persist. One more thing, we've spotted 3 warning signs facing Africa Oil that you might find interesting. For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. RHB Bank Berhad (KLSE:RHBBANK) Full Year 2023 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: RM7.47b (down 5.3% from FY 2022). Net income: RM2.81b (up 3.6% from FY 2022). Profit margin: 38% (up from 34% in FY 2022). The increase in margin was driven by lower expenses. EPS: RM0.66 (up from RM0.65 in FY 2022). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period RHB Bank Berhad EPS Misses Expectations Revenue was in line with analyst estimates. Earnings per share (EPS) missed analyst estimates by 3.4%. Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 6.5% p.a. on average during the next 3 years, compared to a 5.8% growth forecast for the Banks industry in Malaysia. Performance of the Malaysian Banks industry. The company's shares are down 1.1% from a week ago. Risk Analysis Don't forget that there may still be risks. For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for RHB Bank Berhad that you should be aware of. 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. Rhong Khen International Berhad (KLSE:RKI) has announced that it will pay a dividend of MYR0.01 per share on the 10th of May. This payment means the dividend yield will be 3.1%, which is below the average for the industry. Check out our latest analysis for Rhong Khen International Berhad Rhong Khen International Berhad's Earnings Easily Cover The Distributions It would be nice for the yield to be higher, but we should also check if higher levels of dividend payment would be sustainable. The last dividend was quite easily covered by Rhong Khen International Berhad's earnings. This means that a large portion of its earnings are being retained to grow the business. Over the next year, EPS is forecast to expand by 30.9%. If the dividend continues on this path, the payout ratio could be 40% by next year, which we think can be pretty sustainable going forward. Dividend Volatility While the company has been paying a dividend for a long time, it has cut the dividend at least once in the last 10 years. Since 2014, the dividend has gone from MYR0.0315 total annually to MYR0.04. This means that it has been growing its distributions at 2.4% per annum over that time. We're glad to see the dividend has risen, but with a limited rate of growth and fluctuations in the payments the total shareholder return may be limited. Rhong Khen International Berhad May Find It Hard To Grow The Dividend With a relatively unstable dividend, it's even more important to evaluate if earnings per share is growing, which could point to a growing dividend in the future. Rhong Khen International Berhad has seen earnings per share falling at 4.6% per year over the last five years. If earnings continue declining, the company may have to make the difficult choice of reducing the dividend or even stopping it completely - the opposite of dividend growth. Earnings are predicted to grow over the next year, but we would remain cautious until a track record of earnings growth is established. Story continues Our Thoughts On Rhong Khen International Berhad's Dividend In summary, while it's good to see that the dividend hasn't been cut, we are a bit cautious about Rhong Khen International Berhad's payments, as there could be some issues with sustaining them into the future. In the past, the payments have been unstable, but over the short term the dividend could be reliable, with the company generating enough cash to cover it. Overall, we don't think this company has the makings of a good income stock. Market movements attest to how highly valued a consistent dividend policy is compared to one which is more unpredictable. However, there are other things to consider for investors when analysing stock performance. For example, we've picked out 3 warning signs for Rhong Khen International Berhad that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. If you are a dividend investor, you might also want to look at our curated list of high yield dividend stocks. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Robert Kiyosaki, a name synonymous with financial wisdom and controversy, has long championed the power of debt as a wealth-building tool. Known for his claim that his rich status stems from being a debtor, Kiyosakis strategies revolve around leveraging debt to acquire assets that increase cash flow. His honesty and unpredictability have captivated audiences worldwide, making his insights eagerly anticipated. In a passionate outburst on Facebook dated April 3, 2017, Kiyosaki addressed a grievance that strikes a chord with his core teachings. This really burns me up, he begins, signaling frustration with a common but misguided complaint he encounters: The rich are to blame for the financial woes of the less affluent. Kiyosaki challenges this narrative head-on, criticizing the tendency to vilify wealth and success. He zeroes in on the irony of accusing the rich of greed, pointing out that its often those who are struggling financially who harbor resentment and entitlement. Kiyosaki argues that such people misconstrue their lack of wealth as a virtue while simultaneously expecting the wealthy to solve their problems through taxes or direct financial support. Its backwards, Kiyosaki said, dismantling the argument with his characteristic bluntness. He criticizes the entitlement mentality, suggesting that its not the wealthy who are greedy but those who demand unearned wealth redistribution. In the post, he states, "In my experience, a lot of poor people are more "greedy" than rich people. Many poor people insist that the rich should pay all the taxes, the government should take care of them, they deserve a higher salary for doing the bare minimum at work, wealth should be "redistributed" (meaning they get money that someone else earned). Poor people criticize the rich for being privileged.' Well, I would go so far as to criticize anyone who feels that way as being entitled!'" Highlighting the generosity of the affluent, Kiyosaki points to Bill Gates as a prime example. Gates has donated 32% of his net worth, a gesture of philanthropy that dwarfs the contributions of average households. This, Kiyosaki argues, exemplifies the true spirit of wealth: the ability to make a significant impact. Story continues Kiyosakis message is clear: Wealth is not about hoarding but about the opportunity to give back and effect change. He contrasts this with the mindset of those seeking handouts, challenging the notion that the rich are the greedy ones. For those who want to keep blaming others for why theyre not where they want to be Im not here to change their minds, Kiyosaki states, drawing a line in the sand. His closing remark, For anyone who believes that the world owes them a living, they're not welcome in my world, serves as a reminder of his philosophy: Success comes to those who work for it, not to those who wait for it to be handed to them. Don't Miss: "ACTIVE INVESTORS' SECRET WEAPON" Supercharge Your Stock Market Game with the #1 "news & everything else" trading tool: Benzinga Pro - Click here to start Your 14-Day Trial Now! Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Robert Kiyosaki Of 'Rich Dad Poor Dad' Says Poor People Are 'Greedy And Entitled' Not The Wealthy 'For Anyone Who Believes That The World Owes Them A Living, They're Not Welcome In My World' originally appeared on Benzinga.com 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Russia will reportedly ban gasoline exports for 6 months to offset 'excessive' demand for crude products Russia will ban gasoline exports for six months starting March 1, Reuters reported. The proposed ban aims to curb the rising demand and keep domestic prices level. Gasoline exports were down 27% on the year in mid-February, according to S&P Global. Russia is set to ban gasoline exports for six months to stabilize prices and counter escalating demand for crude products. The restriction, effective on March 1, was confirmed by Alexander Novak, the spokesperson appointed by Russian President Putin for Deputy Prime Minister and the key figure overseeing Russia's extensive energy sector, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing Russia's RBC. The report added that Russia's Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin greenlighted the ban proposed by Novak in a letter dated on February 21, but the official decree was pending. The ban aims to address surging domestic demand for petroleum products, while safeguarding prices and helping refiners in Russia's domestic market, according to Novak. With a presidential election coming up in March, Russia's local fuel prices have become an important issue for drivers and farmers. Meanwhile, Russian refineries have grappled with disruptions from Ukrainian drone attacks in recent months. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the world's second-largest oil exporter has seen many of its tankers sanctioned by the West, and S&P Global reported that gasoline exports were down 27% on the year in mid-February. Read the original article on Business Insider Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) Reports Q4 In Line With Expectations But Full-Year Guidance Underwhelms Customer relationship management software maker Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) reported results in line with analysts' expectations in Q4 FY2024, with revenue up 10.8% year on year to $9.29 billion. The company expects next quarter's revenue to be around $9.15 billion, in line with analysts' estimates. It made a non-GAAP profit of $2.29 per share, improving from its profit of $1.68 per share in the same quarter last year. Is now the time to buy Salesforce? Find out by accessing our full research report, it's free. Salesforce (CRM) Q4 FY2024 Highlights: Revenue: $9.29 billion vs analyst estimates of $9.22 billion (small beat) EPS (non-GAAP): $2.29 vs analyst estimates of $2.27 (1.1% beat) Revenue Guidance for Q1 2025 is $9.15 billion at the midpoint, roughly in line with what analysts were expecting Management's revenue guidance for the upcoming financial year 2025 is $37.85 billion at the midpoint, missing analyst estimates by 2% and implying 8.6% growth (vs 11.2% in FY2024) Free Cash Flow of $3.26 billion, up 138% from the previous quarter Gross Margin (GAAP): 76.9%, up from 75% in the same quarter last year Market Capitalization: $289.9 billion Launched in 1999 from a rented one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco by Marc Benioff and his three co-founders, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) is a software-as-a-service platform that helps companies access, manage, and share sales information. Sales Software Companies need to be able to interact with and sell to their customers as efficiently as possible. This reality coupled with the ongoing migration of enterprises to the cloud drives demand for cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software that integrates data analytics with sales and marketing functions. Sales Growth As you can see below, Salesforce's revenue growth has been mediocre over the last two years, growing from $7.33 billion in Q4 FY2022 to $9.29 billion this quarter. Salesforce Total Revenue This quarter, Salesforce's quarterly revenue was once again up 10.8% year on year. We can see that Salesforce's revenue increased by $567 million quarter on quarter, which is a solid improvement from the $117 million increase in Q3 2024. Shareholders should applaud the acceleration of growth. Story continues Next quarter's guidance suggests that Salesforce is expecting revenue to grow 10.9% year on year to $9.15 billion, in line with the 11.3% year-on-year increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. For the upcoming financial year, management expects revenue to be $37.85 billion at the midpoint, growing 8.6% year on year compared to the 11.2% increase in FY2024. Todays young investors likely havent read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next. Cash Is King If you've followed StockStory for a while, you know that we emphasize free cash flow. Why, you ask? We believe that in the end, cash is king, and you can't use accounting profits to pay the bills. Salesforce's free cash flow came in at $3.26 billion in Q4, up 26.7% year on year. Salesforce Free Cash Flow Salesforce has generated $9.50 billion in free cash flow over the last 12 months, an eye-popping 27.2% of revenue. This robust FCF margin stems from its asset-lite business model, scale advantages, and strong competitive positioning, giving it the option to return capital to shareholders or reinvest in its business while maintaining a healthy cash balance. Key Takeaways from Salesforce's Q4 Results It was great to see Salesforce to grow free cash flow and improve its gross margin this quarter. On the other hand, its full-year revenue guidance was below expectations and suggests growth will slow down. Overall, this was a mediocre quarter for Salesforce. The company is down 3.7% on the results and currently trades at $289 per share. Salesforce may have had a tough quarter, but does that actually create an opportunity to invest right now? When making that decision, it's important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it's free. Since Bitcoin was created in 2009, there has been a mystery surrounding who created the project. The founder, known as Satoshi Nakamoto, has largely remained anonymous. While there have been many attempts over the years to decisively discern who Nakamoto is, there have not been any definitive conclusions on who the elusive developer is. However, Martti "Sirius" Malmi, released a slew of email communications between himself and Nakamoto from 2009-2011. There are over 260 emails in the release, with tons of information relating to why Nakamoto created Bitcoin and potential issues he saw with the project. Malmi was in contact with Nakamoto because he was the administrator for Bitcoin.org after Satoshi launched Bitcoin. Don't Miss: Bitcoin has jumped another 25% already this year how much would you need to get started today? About 22% of the adult population in the U.S. own a share of Bitcoin, how much would $10 get you today? While some of the emails are benign and about administrative issues, Nakamoto discusses one of the major current issues regarding Bitcoin in the email exchanges. "If it did grow to consume significant energy, I think it would still be less wasteful than the labour and resource-intensive conventional banking activity it would replace. The cost would be an order of magnitude less than the billions in banking fees that pay for all those brick and mortar buildings, skyscrapers and junk mail credit card offers." In 2024, the biggest criticism of Bitcoin is its intense energy use, which is larger than most countries in the world. However, Nakamoto had the foresight to see that this could become an issue and discussed it years before it became a prominent debate. Trending: If you invested $100 in DOGE when Elon Musk first tweeted about it in 2019, heres how much youd have today. The use of British spelling of words such as labour gives the impression that Nakamoto is not from the United States. Story continues The emails were used as evidence in an ongoing court case in the United Kingdom. The case is between the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) and Craig Wright, an Australian businessman and software developer, who claims to be Nakamoto. Wright believes that he deserves the credit for creating Bitcoin and the changes it has brought to the financial space. However, COPA argues that he is committing "industrial-scale forgery" to legitimize his position. COPA representative Jonathan Hough said, Dr. Wright has consistently failed to supply genuine proof of his claim to be Satoshi: instead, he has repeatedly proffered documents which bear clear signs of having been doctored." As the trial continues in the coming weeks, it will be interesting to see the part the released emails play a part in concluding whether Wright is Nakamoto. Nakamoto's Bitcoin wallet is the largest in the world, holding over 1 million Bitcoins across thousands of wallets. At the time of writing, the holdings are worth over $55 billion, making the Bitcoin creator one of the top 30 wealthiest people in the world. Read Next: This brokerage offers custom rewards for users to switch the biggest reward so far for 1 user is $19,977.48. Will yours beat it ? Online brokerages make ungodly amounts by selling your data. What trading platform doesnt sell your data to market makers? "ACTIVE INVESTORS' SECRET WEAPON" Supercharge Your Stock Market Game with the #1 "news & everything else" trading tool: Benzinga Pro - Click here to start Your 14-Day Trial Now! Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Satoshi's Lost Emails Revealed: Who Created Bitcoin? originally appeared on Benzinga.com 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabias wealth fund may ramp up borrowing further after raising $7 billion across two bond sales so far this year, according to Morgan Stanley. Most Read from Bloomberg We do not think that the PIF will stop, Morgan Stanley & Co International PLC strategist Pascal Bode wrote in a note. He expects to see another transaction in the second half of 2024 as the Public Investment Funds treasury assets drop and spending needs continue to rise. Its possible that would take total issuance to around $10 billion to $11 billion, Bode added. The sovereign wealth fund sold $2 billion from an Islamic bond offering yesterday after raising $5 billion in January from the sale of high-grade bonds. PIF, which manages more than $700 billion, joins a rush of offerings from emerging-market governments that has taken their sovereign issuance to the highest for this time of year in at least two decades. Read More: Emerging Markets See Biggest Rush in Two Decades for New Bonds The PIF, a key part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans efforts to diversify the Saudi economy from oil, is raising money as it aims to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years on everything from electric vehicles to semiconductors, tourism resorts and sports. It said last week that its set to increase annual deployment of capital to $70 billion a year after 2025. The PIF sold seven-year dollar sukuk at 85 basis points over the Treasuries on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Order books were above $16 billion, including joint lead managers interest. It was initially pitched at 115 basis points area above the Treasuries. Story continues The wealth fund mandated Goldman Sachs Group Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc as global coordinators for the sale. The PIF has not yet responded to a request to comment. --With assistance from Kevin Kingsbury. (Updates with Morgan Stanleys view starting in first paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Key Insights Jersey Electricity's Annual General Meeting to take place on 5th of March CEO Chris Ambler's total compensation includes salary of UK298.5k Total compensation is 307% above industry average Jersey Electricity's three-year loss to shareholders was 3.1% while its EPS was down 1.0% over the past three years Shareholders will probably not be too impressed with the underwhelming results at Jersey Electricity plc (LON:JEL) recently. Shareholders will be interested in what the board will have to say about turning performance around at the next AGM on 5th of March. They will also get a chance to influence managerial decision-making through voting on resolutions such as executive remuneration, which may impact firm value in the future. From our analysis, we think CEO compensation may need a review in light of the recent performance. Check out our latest analysis for Jersey Electricity How Does Total Compensation For Chris Ambler Compare With Other Companies In The Industry? According to our data, Jersey Electricity plc has a market capitalization of UK138m, and paid its CEO total annual compensation worth UK464k over the year to September 2023. That's a notable increase of 9.2% on last year. We note that the salary portion, which stands at UK298.5k constitutes the majority of total compensation received by the CEO. On comparing similar companies from the the United Kingdom Electric Utilities industry with market caps ranging from UK79m to UK315m, we found that the median CEO total compensation was UK114k. Hence, we can conclude that Chris Ambler is remunerated higher than the industry median. Component 2023 2022 Proportion (2023) Salary UK299k UK264k 64% Other UK166k UK161k 36% Total Compensation UK464k UK425k 100% Speaking on an industry level, nearly 64% of total compensation represents salary, while the remainder of 36% is other remuneration. Our data reveals that Jersey Electricity allocates salary more or less in line with the wider market. If salary is the major component in total compensation, it suggests that the CEO receives a higher fixed proportion of the total compensation, regardless of performance. Story continues Jersey Electricity plc's Growth Earnings per share at Jersey Electricity plc are much the same as they were three years ago, albeit slightly lower. It achieved revenue growth of 6.5% over the last year. Its a bit disappointing to see that the company has failed to grow its EPS. The modest increase in revenue in the last year isn't enough to make us overlook the disappointing change in EPS. These factors suggest that the business performance wouldn't really justify a high pay packet for the CEO. Historical performance can sometimes be a good indicator on what's coming up next but if you want to peer into the company's future you might be interested in this free visualization of analyst forecasts. Has Jersey Electricity plc Been A Good Investment? Since shareholders would have lost about 3.1% over three years, some Jersey Electricity plc investors would surely be feeling negative emotions. Therefore, it might be upsetting for shareholders if the CEO were paid generously. In Summary... Along with the business performing poorly, shareholders have suffered with poor share price returns on their investments, suggesting that there's little to no chance of them being in favor of a CEO pay raise. At the upcoming AGM, the board will get the chance to explain the steps it plans to take to improve business performance. It is always advisable to analyse CEO pay, along with performing a thorough analysis of the company's key performance areas. That's why we did our research, and identified 2 warning signs for Jersey Electricity (of which 1 is potentially serious!) that you should know about in order to have a holistic understanding of the stock. Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking at a different set of stocks. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies. 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. Singapura Finance (SGX:S23) Full Year 2023 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: S$22.9m (down 7.8% from FY 2022). Net income: S$6.16m (down 26% from FY 2022). Profit margin: 27% (down from 34% in FY 2022). The decrease in margin was primarily driven by lower revenue. EPS: S$0.039 (down from S$0.053 in FY 2022). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period Singapura Finance's share price is broadly unchanged from a week ago. Risk Analysis It's necessary to consider the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 3 warning signs with Singapura Finance (at least 1 which can't be ignored), and understanding them should be part of your investment process. 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. (Bloomberg) -- Starbucks Corp.s new commitment to work with its main union to end hostilities and hash out a fair process for labor organizing is a landmark moment for labor relations both at the coffee chain thats long resisted organizing, and far beyond it. Most Read from Bloomberg On Tuesday, the company and the Starbucks Workers United union announced that they were beginning discussions meant to secure collective bargaining agreements and resolve litigation. As part of that announcement, Starbucks said it will start providing Workers Uniteds members with benefits, such as credit-card tipping, that it previously restricted to nonunion stores. The company will also provide back pay to workers for money they lost by being excluded from such perks since 2022, according to people familiar with the agreement. And rather than bargaining only cafe-by-cafe, the company will also meet at a single table to negotiate with baristas from around the country about how to handle common issues, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the still-developing situation. Read More: Starbucks, Union Seek Path to Reach Collective Agreement The new commitments represent a major pivot for Starbucks, which for years has been locked in a bitter, high-profile, multifront battle with the union. Workers United has organized around 400 of the companys more than 9,700 corporate-run US locations since its first win in 2021. But none of those locations had come close to securing a union contract with the company, and the pace of the unions growth had slowed, developments that organizers blamed on alleged union-busting and foot-dragging by management. Story continues Regional directors of the US National Labor Relations Board have issued more than 100 complaints against the company, alleging illegal antiunion tactics including closing stores, firing activists, refusing to fairly negotiate at unionized cafes, and wrongly excluding them from benefits it offered their nonunion counterparts. The company has denied wrongdoing and has said the union was the one refusing to fairly negotiate. Change of Tone On Tuesday, both sides had a change of tone, each announcing a shared commitment to working collaboratively and with mutual respect, and saying they agreed there was a constructive path forward on unionization and collective bargaining. A company spokesperson declined Tuesday to discuss details of what had been or would be agreed to, saying specific framework details will be discussed further between the two sides and there will be more updates to come. Starbucks has always led by example and set the standard in a lot of things, said Michelle Eisen, a 13-year Starbucks employee and a founding member of Workers Uniteds national bargaining committee. Other companies seemed to be following Starbucks lead in resisting unionization, said Eisen, who works at the Buffalo, New York, store where the union scored its first victory. Now that Starbucks has reversed course, it would be amazing to see these other companies do the same thing. Workers United will immediately start the process of electing baristas at each unionized cafe to represent their co-workers in contract talks, the union said Tuesday. Both sides are expecting to hold talks in the coming weeks, the people familiar with the agreement said. Terms and timing of talks sometimes shift on the way to final pacts. Fleshing out what the new commitments mean could still be an arduous and contentious process. But they open a new era for the company, whose then-chief executive officer, Howard Schultz, in 2022 warned of companies being assaulted, in many ways, by the threat of unionization. He also told employees, We didnt get here by having a union. Almost a year ago, Schultz officially handed the companys reins to Laxman Narasimhan, who from his early days at the company has professed a commitment to understanding workers experiences and rebuilding Starbucks culture. Narasimhan shadowed Schultz for almost six months and also trained as a barista, working shifts in stores even after becoming CEO. In December, Starbucks said it reached out to Workers United to attempt to restart a dialogue, with the goal of completing bargaining and the ratification of contracts in 2024. Tuesdays agreement marks the first signs of progress after the companys outreach. More Organizing The breakthrough could quickly lead to a lot more organizing, because it signals that unionizing no longer means missing out on benefits other cafes are receiving, now comes with a better prospect of actually getting a union contract and isnt counter to the companys ethos. It will spur more unionization, thats for sure, as organizers can now tell baristas, we forced them, so join us, said labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Activists have applied pressure on the company through tactics including mounting coordinated work stoppages, pressuring universities to stop serving Starbucks coffee, protesting at appearances by board members and continuing to organize more cafes across the country. The cumulative weight of such tactics, and their impact on the companys perception among younger customers in particular, may have persuaded executives that concessions might be the road towards getting this problem off their back, he said. If Starbucks agrees to specific terms restricting antiunion tactics, that could ignite still more organizing, as could notching significant victories in contract talks. If the union wins a really great contract, said Eisen, that should sell itself: This is what we were able to fight for. Do you want to fight for this? Other Companies Starbucks pivot could affect many other companies as well. The union campaign at the Seattle-based coffee giant has already been one of the most remarkable and closely watched in decades, spreading swiftly across the country in its early months and helping inspire similar efforts at other major, previously union-free firms such as Apple Inc. and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. Successfully negotiating union contracts at the company, an iconic brand in a largely nonunion industry that under Schultz had become a poster child for resisting organizing, could help galvanize many more campaigns. They moved a company that to a lot of people and I will put myself at times in this category seemed to be immovable, said Sharon Block, executive director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School, and a former official in the Obama and Biden administrations. If this kind of campaign results in moving a company like Starbucks, I think a lot of workers are going to say, You know what, I think we can move my company, too. After years of organizing without winning contracts, said Block, There was a real question about how sustainable the campaign was. Now, she said, the question instead is just, How far can it go? Executives will be watching as well. Employers opted to voluntarily recognize unions in 250 cases last year a 20% increase over 2022, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of National Labor Relations Board data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Thats a sign that more companies are reevaluating whether its worth pulling out all the stops to try to avoid collective bargaining. Like Microsoft Corp.s agreement to partner with a labor union and not oppose organizing drives, Starbucks high-profile pivot sends a signal to other executives, said Block, offering an alternative to all-out warfare. There are a lot of other CEOs out there that could learn, she said. I hope they will. But well see. --With assistance from Daniela Sirtori-Cortina and Jo Constantz. (Updates with barista comment in seventh paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Starbucks announced Tuesday that it will begin discussing potential collective bargaining agreements with the labor union representing nearly 10,000 employees from around 400 stores. The coffeehouse chain's decision comes nearly three years after Workers United, an American and Canadian labor union, initially organized baristas at a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York. "Starbucks and Workers United have a shared commitment to establishing a positive relationship in the interests of Starbucks partners," Starbucks said Tuesday in a statement. "During mediation discussions last week for the ongoing brand and IP litigation, it became clear that there was a constructive path forward on the broader issue of the future of organizing and collective bargaining at Starbucks." In addition to opening up discussions, "as a sign of good faith," Starbucks agreed to allow employees represented by Workers United to receive credit card tips from customers and other benefits, which the company announced in May 2022, according to Starbucks' statement. "While there is plenty of work ahead, coming together to develop this framework is a significant step forward and a clear demonstration of a shared commitment to working collaboratively and with mutual respect," Workers United said in a statement. This is a photo of union members and community supporters during a bike parade with the Starbucks Workers United bus tour in Eugene Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023. Starbucks and Workers United are now starting collective bargaining talks. Starbucks, Workers United relationship taking turn for the better This Thursday, Jan. 12, 2017, file photo shows a Starbucks logo sign in the window of one of the chain's cafes in Pittsburgh. Starbucks is now in collective bargaining talks with Workers United. Starbucks and the union's relationship began going in the right direction in December 2023 when the company sent a letter to Workers United as an "attempt to propose a path forward that would allow us to resume productive contract negotiations." "We collectively agree, the current impasse should not be acceptable to either of us," Starbucks said in the letter. "It has not helped Starbucks, Workers United or, most importantly, our partners. In this spirit, we are asking for your support and agreement to restart bargaining." Before sending the letter in December, both sides hadn't spoken in seven months, the Associated Press reported. Story continues Starbucks workers strike: Union plans walkouts on Red Cup Day Pending lawsuit between Starbucks, Workers United Despite efforts to improve the relationship, both sides still have "outstanding litigation," which Starbucks said Tuesday it hopes to resolve with the labor union. The company sued Workers United in October 2023 over pro-Palestinian social media posts shared by the union's account, which angered hundreds of Starbucks customers, put other employees' safety at risk and blemished the chain's reputation, according to court records. Starbucks filed the suit in the Southern District of Iowa. The company also sued over Workers United's "unauthorized use of the famous Starbucks name and logos that copy the famous Starbucks logos," court records show. The company accused the union of using "copycat logos" to promote fundraising, sell merchandise and falsely promote political and social topics on behalf of Starbucks. Attendees wear Starbucks Workers United T-shirts as company CEO Howard Schultz testifies in front of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions about Starbucks' alleged union busting activities in Washington, D.C. on March 29, 2023. It was recently announced that Starbucks and the Workers United are starting collective bargaining talks. Starbucks requested a jury trial and permanent injunctive relief prohibiting the union from using logos similar to theirs, court documents show. Workers United countersued against Starbucks in a Pennsylvania federal court and requested that the union be able to use Starbucks' name and similar logos, according to court records. Workers United also accuses Starbucks of defaming the union by associating them with terrorism. Starbucks announced pay raise, Workers United planned 'Red Cup Rebellion' After filing the suit, Starbucks announced in November 2023 that it would increase hourly wages and benefits for most U.S. workers. The pay raise came after the company had a fiscal year with record sales, according to a statement by Starbucks. During the same month, Workers United planned a strike that led to thousands of Starbucks employees at hundreds of locations walking out during Red Cup Day. The union-coined "Red Cup Rebellion" stemmed from claims that Starbucks was "illegally refusing to bargain with baristas over staffing, scheduling and other issues," Workers United said in a news release. "Promotion days like Red Cup Day, half-off ThursYays and Buy One Get One Free offers cause a flood of customers to stores without any additional staffing to cover the influx of orders," the union said in the release. Contributing: Gabe Hauari, Emily DeLetter This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Starbucks, Workers United union to discuss collective bargaining (Bloomberg) -- Swisscom AG is in advanced talks to buy Vodafone Group Plcs Italian business for 8 billion ($8.7 billion) on a cash and debt-free basis after fending off competition from rivals including French billionaire Xavier Niel. Most Read from Bloomberg The exclusive discussions to merge Vodafone Italia and Swisscoms Fastweb SpA business would create a more efficient company, Swisscom said in a statement on Wednesday, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. The agreement isnt final and theres no certainty a deal will go through, the company said. Vodafone prefers Swisscoms bid over a previous proposal from Niels Iliad because it has a larger cash component, a person familiar with the matter said. The British phone company last month rejected Iliads final offer, which proposed forming a joint venture with the Vodafone business in Italy in a bid that included 6.6 billion in cash proceeds for an enterprise value of 10.45 billion. Read More: Iliad Says Vodafone Rejected New Offer for Italian Unit What Bloomberg Intelligence Says: Vodafones advanced talks to sell its Italian unit for 8 billion to Swisscom makes its rejection of Iliads 10.5 billion JV bid questionable given the latter would result in 6.6 billion in cash and a 50% stake in the combined entity a riskier but likely more value-accretive option. Swisscoms offer implies a 7.6x forward EV/Ebitdaal multiple, in line with the 5x-11x comparable M&A range, while reducing leverage 0.4x. Erhan Gurses, BI telecoms analyst Fastwebs Chief Executive Officer Walter Renna, a company veteran who took the top job in October, is working to maintain the growth his predecessor, Alberto Calcagno, oversaw for 40 consecutive quarters. Revenue rose 6% last year and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and leases gained 3%, according to a statement earlier this month. Story continues Vodafone Italia and Fastweb are the countrys second- and fourth-biggest operators, respectively, with combined sales of about 7 billion annually. Italy accounts about 11% of Vodafones revenue and is its largest market after Germany and the UK. The Swisscom offer is expected to face scrutiny of local authorities as well as European ones. Regulators may be less inclined to intervene because Italy would still have four mobile carriers if the deal goes through. Reducing the number to three in a market is seen as a red line for many potential tie-ups. However, there are signs that the executive branch of the 27-member European Union is easing its position on competition. In Spain, Orange SAs local unit and Masmovil Ibercom SA won conditional approval from the European Commission last week for a tie-up to create the countrys largest operator after agreeing to certain remedies. The Vodafone deal is poised to kick off talk of more merger and acquisitions in Italy, one of Europes most competitive markets. Iliads 2018 entry into the country offering cheaper, no-frills mobile plans helped spark a price war. Monthly subscriptions for full-fiber landline services, which usually include unlimited Internet, can cost as little as 20 to 25, about a quarter of what most US consumers pay. Even after its failed attempts to buy Vodafones Italian business, Iliad could still pursue deals. Last year Iliads country head Benedetto Levi said the phone company would play an active role if M&A opportunities in Italy emerge. Telecom Italia SpA, the former phone monopoly, is also on the lookout as it awaits the closing of a 22 billion deal to sell its landline grid to KKR & Co, expected this summer. We are ready to do our part on M&A activity in the country when we will finalize the KKR deal, Telecom Italia Chief Executive Officer Pietro Labriola said this month in a conference call with analysts. CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. has considered a number of deals for its Wind Tre SpA unit. In February, it halted a deal to sell a controlling stake in Wind Tre SpA network to buyout firm EQT AB. --With assistance from Benoit Berthelot and Antonio Vanuzzo. (Updates with additional context throughout) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. Company Logo Taiwanese Social Commerce Market Taiwanese Social Commerce Market Dublin, Feb. 28, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Taiwan Social Commerce Market Intelligence and Future Growth Dynamics Databook - 50+ KPIs on Social Commerce Trends by End-Use Sectors, Operational KPIs, Retail Product Dynamics, and Consumer Demographics - Q1 2024 Update" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The social commerce industry is expected to grow steadily over the forecast period, recording a CAGR of 22.7% during 2024-2029. The social commerce GMV in the country will increase from US$1.81 billion in 2023 to reach US$6.47 billion by 2029. This report provides a detailed data centric analysis of social commerce industry, covering market opportunities and risks. With over 50+ KPIs at country level, this report provides a comprehensive understanding of social commerce market dynamics, market size and forecast, and market share statistics. The research methodology is based on industry best practices. Its unbiased analysis leverages a proprietary analytics platform to offer a detailed view on emerging business and investment market opportunities. Databook Scope This report provides in-depth, data-centric analysis of social commerce in Taiwan. Below is a summary of key market segments: Taiwan Ecommerce Industry Market Size and Future Growth Dynamics by Key Performance Indicators, 2020-2029 Taiwan Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Future Growth Dynamics by Key Performance Indicators, 2020-2029 Taiwan Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Retail Product Categories, 2020-2029 Clothing & Footwear Beauty and Personal Care Food & Grocery Appliances and Electronics Home Improvement Travel Hospitality Taiwan Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by End Use Consumer Segment, 2020-2029 B2B B2C C2C Taiwan Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by End Use Device, 2020-2029 Mobile Desktop Taiwan Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Location, 2020-2029 Domestic Cross Border Story continues Taiwan Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Location, 2020-2029 Tier-1 Cities Tier-2 Cities Tier-3 Cities Taiwan Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Payment Method, 2020-2029 Credit Card Debit Card Bank Transfer Prepaid Card Digital & Mobile Wallet Other Digital Payment Cash Taiwan Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Platforms Video Commerce Social Network-Led Commerce Social Reselling Group Buying Product Review Platforms Taiwan Social Commerce Industry Market Size and Forecast by Consumer Demographics & Behaviour, 2023 By Age By Income Level By Gender Companies Mentioned Instagram Kkday koo.live LinkBy Key Attributes Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 70 Forecast Period 2024-2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2024 $2.3 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $6.5 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 22.7% Regions Covered Taiwan For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/wnd2h5 About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. 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 America first. This is the basic reason a handful of super-conservative Republicans are blocking $60 billion in US military aid that Ukraine desperately needs to keep fending off invading Russians. We must take care of Americas needs first, House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Feb. 27, explaining why the House wont vote on an aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that the Senate already passed. Poor America! Completely neglected, getting no money or attention, while a bunch of egg-headed dilettantes badger Congress to send taxpayer money to some foreign quagmire. Except this isnt remotely true. So far in fiscal 2024, which began last October, the government has spent $2.1 trillion on America, or roughly $14 billion per day. Much of that is automatic spending on Social Security payments and Medicare benefits, without any vote needed in Congress, as the chart below shows. America comes first, by definition. Anybody who gets Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or veterans benefits comes first, literally. Their family members benefit via one or two fewer household bills to pay. If you drive on a road, fly on a plane, or take a subway, youre likely benefiting from federal infrastructure spending. If you ever get unemployment compensation, youre at the front of the line, way ahead of any Ukrainian. The amount President Biden wants for Ukraine is equivalent to what America spends on itself every four days. Its not cash that goes to Ukraine in giant stacks of Benjamins. Mostly its money used to pay for artillery shells, air-defense missiles, and other weaponry drawn from US stocks and supplied by American defense contractors. Ukraine is fighting a battle for survival against the worlds foremost bully, and all theyre asking the United States to do is send stuff that is largely made in America, by Americans. House Speaker Mike Johnson of La., talks with reporters outside the West Wing after meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) Drop Rick Newman a note, follow him on Twitter, or sign up for his newsletter. Republicans have a particular America-first grievance. They insist on some kind of action to stem the record flow of migrants at the southwest border before approving any more aid for Ukraine. As if the federal government, which has 15 Cabinet-level agencies and 3 million employees, can only do one thing at a time. Story continues The Ukraine deniers want to create the impression that Biden is doing nothing at all on the southwest border, as if the Border Patrol agents just left the gate open and went home. Not exactly. The Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for the border, has a $170 billion budget and 260,000 employees. Customs and Border Protection, the department specifically charged with border control, has a $19 billion budget and 60,000 employees. The infrastructure for dealing with the border is firmly in place. Many experts say the US immigration system desperately needs reforms to limit the number of people entering the country, speed the processing of migrants claiming asylum, and break other logjams. That probably requires more money and people, including specialists such as immigration judges to hear all the asylum cases. Guess whose job it is to impose such reforms: The same members of Congress complaining that its not happening. The Senate drafted a bill earlier this year that included many fixes likely to slow the torrent of migrants at the border. The labor union representing Border Patrol agents endorsed the legislation. It died because there werent enough Republicans to vote for it, in either the Senate or the House. The same Republicans saying border fixes must come before Ukraine funding are the ones blocking border fixes. Everybody in Washington knows whats going on. Former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, wants to exploit the border mess as a campaign issue and tell voters hell do better than Biden on immigration. For that to work, there has to be a border mess in the first place. If Republicans help Biden fix the problem, and theres no longer a migrant surge for voters to get upset about, the case for Trump gets weaker. So Trump, who dominates the GOP, has been telling loyal party members to block immigration reform and keep the problem stoked. Republicans need a cover story, so they peddle mumbo-jumbo about America first. In reality, America always comes first, whether its a pithy slogan or not. If anybody says otherwise, it's a smokescreen. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices. Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) companies, the "Magnificent Seven" stocks seem to garner much of the attention from media and investors. This cohort, which is comprised of mega-cap behemoths Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms, and Tesla, are all playing a role in the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) -- cloud computing, robotics, self-driving cars, semiconductors, and more. Savvy investors understand that there are a host of other potentially lucrative AI investments beyond the Magnificent Seven, though. One company that comes to mind is voice-recognition software application SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN). The stock is up a whopping 85% so far in 2024. Can SoundHound AI stock keep up the momentum? Let's dig in and assess what's going on with the company and determine if investors still have a chance to profit from the action. What is happening with SoundHound AI stock? SoundHound AI went public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) a couple of years ago. If you aren't familiar with SPACs, this is simply a different path that a company can take in order to go public. SPACs experienced some fleeting popularity a couple of years ago, largely thanks to an entrepreneur named Chamath Palihapitiya. Many SPAC stocks experienced trading activity similar to those of meme stocks. SOUN Chart SoundHound AI was no stranger to this dynamic, with the stock peaking at roughly $15 per share in 2022 -- only to crater to less than $1 months later. As the chart above illustrates, SoundHound AI stock has been getting bought up recently. The underlying driver behind its newfound momentum can be found in Nvidia's 13F filing. Nvidia's latest 13F document shows that the company has investments in five public companies, including SoundHound AI. While its stake is only worth $3.7 million, investors flocked to SoundHound AI stock as interest and speculation over Nvidia's relationship with the company intensified. Story continues Does SoundHound AI have potential? Pouring money into SoundHound AI stock simply because Nvidia owns a chunk of the company is not a prudent financial strategy. Instead, taking a look at the market size and existing players in speech-recognition software development is a good idea. According to SoundHound AI's management, the company is operating in a $160 billion market. While it's hard to know whether this figure is accurate, voice-recognition tools have been of high interest to some of technology's most influential players. In 2018, Apple acquired SoundHound AI rival Shazam for $400 million. Before that, the company also spent $200 million in 2010 to buy Siri -- a voice tool native to Apple's flagship hardware devices. In addition, Microsoft acquired speech recognition expert Nuance for $20 billion two years ago. This price tag represented Microsoft's third-largest acquisition behind LinkedIn and Activision Blizzard. Rounding out big tech's activity in the voice-recognition space includes Amazon and Alphabet, both of which leverage the technology in their respective Internet of Things (IoT) smart-home appliances. Given Big Tech's exploration of voice-recognition tools and its integration across a variety of different products and services, it's easy to understand why Nvidia may be interested in SoundHound AI. However, for now, details surrounding Nvidia's relationship with SoundHound AI are pretty sparse, and it's not yet entirely known how the two companies will work together. Should you invest in SoundHound AI stock? One thing I'd caution investors from doing is becoming disillusioned by the price tags attached to the acquisitions outlined above. While voice-powered assistants can be worth a lot of money given their myriad use cases, investors should realize that SoundHound AI is still very small. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, SoundHound AI generated just $13.3 million in revenue. One thing that is encouraging is that the company is scaling at an impressive rate, which should help reduce its burn rate. With fourth-quarter earnings slated for Feb. 29, I think the most prudent thing for investors to do would be to dial in and listen closely. Hopefully, management will provide details surrounding its outlook for 2024. More importantly, investors should be keen to learn how the company is working through its backlog and how business activity is trending now that SoundHound AI is on a lot more radars. Lastly, while it would be nice to hear about any developments with Nvidia, I am not holding my breath. The most important thing for investors to understand is that wealth is not created overnight. It takes a long-term mindset and a lot of discipline to generate lucrative returns. To me, SoundHound AI stock is a little overbought right now thanks to the Nvidia disclosure. A $1 billion market cap is simply tough to justify for a company that is forecasting $46 million in revenue for 2023. For this reason, I'd say it is not too late to invest in SoundHound AI stock. However, investors may be best served by listening to management on the upcoming earnings call and looking for a pullback rather than buying into the stock at today's ultra-premium valuation. I still see SoundHound AI as a speculative investment, albeit one that could reap game-changing returns in the long run. Should you invest $1,000 in SoundHound AI right now? Before you buy stock in SoundHound AI, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and SoundHound AI wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than tripled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of February 26, 2024 Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is It Too Late to Buy SoundHound AI Stock Now? was originally published by The Motley Fool BNSF Railway employee numbers are being reduced in the Topeka area. Kendall Kirkham Sloan, BNSF director of external communications, said the company works continuously to align their people and resources with customer demand to deliver the industry-leading service that customers expect. "This is a necessity for any network business to optimize the operation and run as efficiently as possible. While the underlying economy currently lacks clarity, BNSF is pursuing and capturing growth in several areas. We have an imbalance of employees where growth is occurring among some of our mechanical work groups," Kirkham Sloan said. Kirkham Sloan's comments followed several Facebook posts on Tuesday, which claimed the railway company laid off about 85 employees. Kirkham Sloan didn't confirm a number to The Capital-Journal. Those who created Facebook posts didn't respond to messages from The Capital-Journal. BNSF confirmed a number of employees were laid off Tuesday in the Topeka area but declined to cite a number. Facebook posts from people saying they worked at BNSF put the number at 85. 'BNSF has offered location transfers with incentives' and 'craft transfers for mechanical employees' Kirkham Sloan said: "There are team members in locations on the network where there isnt sufficient work and simultaneously not enough team members where the growth is occurring. Work groups must be readjusted to ensure we have the right people in the right place at the right time to best serve our customers current transportation needs and be positioned for future growth. "To accomplish this, BNSF has offered location transfers with incentives targeted to those locations where there are open positions. BNSF has also offered craft transfers for mechanical employees to be retrained for other open positions on the BNSF network." There are currently several hundred open mechanical and engineering positions on the BNSF network, Kirkham Sloan said. "Our hope is that we can reallocate personnel through these incentive programs, so BNSF continues to grow with our customers," she said. SMART Kansas legislative board 'condemns the recent mass layoff' Ty Dragoo, state legislative director for the Kansas local of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers said, "SMART Kansas strongly condemns the recent mass layoffs by BNSF Railroad in the region, particularly Kansas." Story continues Dragoo said despite recording record profits, the company's decision to cut jobs raises serious questions about its commitment to the well-being of its workforce and the communities locked in by service. "BNSF Railroad has proudly touted its financial success, with soaring profits that seemingly stand in stark contrast to the recent wave of layoffs affecting hard working employees in Kansas," he said. "This move not only jeopardizes the livelihood of families, but also raises concerns about the prioritization of corporate gains over the welfare of the local workforce." Dragoo said SMART calls on BNSF Railroad to reconsider its approach, reinstate the affected employees and prioritize the safety and well-being of its workforce and the communities it operates within. Commerce department spokesperson Patrick Lowry said the agency encourages any employees that have received a layoff notice to contact KANSASWORKS, the state's public workforce system. "KANSASWORKS exists to assist Kansans search for new opportunities, help increase skills, and find a rewarding job or career. There are 27 Workforce Centers around the state. Contact your closest KANSASWORKS office at 877/509-6757 (toll free) or https://www.kansasworks.com/contact," Lowry said. More: Tired and heartbroken: People who are unsheltered moved from river camps in North Topeka BNSF reduced its local workforce by nearly 30 in May 2020 The Capital-Journal reported BNSF Railway reduced its numbers by nearly 30 people in May 2020. Williams said employees were then offered the option to potentially transfer to a number of open positions at other locations in the company's network. Andy Williams, the companys regional public affairs director, confirmed that BNSF was laying off 28 employees locally because of customers changing business conditions and a lower demand for rail cars to ship commodities during the coronavirus pandemic. More: Good Samaritan bill shielding Kansans reporting overdoses from prosecution passes House Keishera Lately is the business reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. She can be reached at klately@cjonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @Lately_KT. This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: BNSF Railway confirms Topeka layoffs. Facebook posts put number at 85. The move positions the firm to focus on its growth goal of tripling assets through organic and inorganic means. WALTHAM, Mass., February 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Commonwealth Financial Network, a national firm dedicated to providing financial advisors with holistic, integrated business solutions, announces the addition of Tupelo Wealth Partners, headquartered in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, to its network of independent financial advisors. Formerly with Lincoln Investment, Les Benzak, CFP, EA, John Gallagher, CFP, AIF, and Lynn Craig, CFP, bring with them nearly $384 million in client assets. Using their combined expertise, Tupelo Wealth Partners delivers full-service wealth management consulting on financial planning, family legacy and generational planning, higher education planning, and retirement planning for their clients and their loved ones. Additionally, the firms deep knowledge of the Pennsylvania pension plan enables them to help clients navigate complex pension decisions. To learn more, visit www.tupelowp.com. "We inevitably chose Commonwealth because of the technology, culture, and leadership," said Benzak. "Having one platform was extremely appealing to us. The operational efficiencies gained by joining Commonwealth give us time back in our day. With Commonwealth, business is easier for us and our clients, which enables us to focus on our growth goals of tripling assets under management through organic and inorganic means." Benzak cited Commonwealths Brand Studio offering as a driver in the decision to join Commonwealth. "When it came to finding our unique voice, creating a cohesive brand, and developing a new website, we werent sure where to begin," Benzak explained. "Working with Commonwealths Brand Studio strategists and creatives proved an invaluable resource for us and played a critical role during our transition." Other valued services include Commonwealths deep bench of expertise in advanced planning, investment management and research, and practice management. These resources were additional proof points in the firms decision to join Commonwealth. Story continues "Tupelo Wealth Partners values are deeply aligned with those of Commonwealth, and we are elated to welcome them to our community of advisors," said Becca Hajjar, managing principal and chief business development officer. "We are confident our tools and support will help the Tupelo team operate their business quickly and seamlessly, allowing them more time to serve their clients complex financial planning needs and setting them up for success as they evolve their business." About Commonwealth Financial Network Commonwealth Financial Network, Member FINRA/SIPC, a Registered Investment Adviser, provides financial advisors with holistic, integrated solutions that support business evolution, growth acceleration, and operational efficiency. J.D. Power ranks Commonwealth "#1 in Independent Advisor Satisfaction Among Financial Investment Firms, 10 Times in a Row." Privately held since 1979, the firm has headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts, and San Diego, California. Learn more about how Commonwealth partners with approximately 2,200 independent financial advisors overseeing more than $296 billion* in assets nationwide by visiting www.commonwealth.com. Commonwealth received the highest score among independent advisors in the J.D. Power 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 20182023 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Studies. Presented on July 5, 2023, for December 2022 to April 2023, it is based on responses from 4,183 advisors employed by or affiliated with the firms included in the study. Not indicative of the firms future performance. Your experience may vary. Study is independently conducted, and the participating firms do not pay to participate. Use of study results in promotional materials is subject to a license fee. Visit jdpower.com/awards for more details. * As of 12/31/2023 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228176580/en/ Contacts For additional information, contact: Sarah Baun Public Relations Manager Commonwealth Financial Network 781.464.7138 sbaun@commonwealth.com www.commonwealth.com (Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden will sign an executive order designed to prevent foreign entities from accessing troves of Americans personal data amid worries it could be exploited for commercial and military advantage, particularly by China and Russia. Most Read from Bloomberg The new order, which will be issued on Wednesday, is intended to prevent countries of concern from obtaining large tranches of sensitive data involving peoples health, location, finances, and even voice or keyboard patterns. That information can be purchased or obtained from sources such as data brokers, third-party vendors and employers. The order authorizes US Attorney General Merrick Garland to issue new restrictions on transactions involving any bulk personal data that, if obtained, could threaten national security. The Biden administration said foreign adversaries and their intelligence operations are already using Americans data for surveillance, scams and blackmail. In a media briefing on Tuesday, Biden administration officials said they were most acutely concerned about the exploitation of genetic information known as genomic data. Bloomberg News first reported details of the executive order in January. The move is the latest in a series of actions targeting Chinas ability to access and use advanced technologies like artificial intelligence computing chips, and is underpinned by worries that Chinese AI firms could train their models using Americans data. Washington has recently signaled that it favors some restrictions on cross-border data sharing, and officials last month unveiled a mandate for cloud service companies to flag when Chinese AI firms tap their data centers to train large-language models. Story continues US intelligence agencies are concerned that adversaries could use AI to mine the data and build detailed profiles of specific people, including US government officials and military personnel, and threaten US commercial interests. The administrations new order also focuses on preventing data from being sold or transferred to countries such as Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, according to a senior Justice Department official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity before the announcement. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Thursday at a regular press briefing in Beijing that the accusation her nation bought Americans data for malicious reasons was false. The Chinese government takes data privacy very seriously, she added. The Biden administration said that its particularly concerned about the collection of data on political figures, journalists, academics, activists and members of marginalized communities, as well as patient data obtained through health-care providers and researchers. The US for years has expressed concern about Chinese companies including TikTok-owner ByteDance Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. accessing data on Americans, at one point trying to ban their social media services. The White House National Security Council has been briefing outside advisers and companies on the executive orders provisions since January, when Bloomberg first reported on the order, aiming to reassure them that it be narrowly targeted to avoid unnecessary economic impact. Administration officials said Tuesday that the largest US technology companies will be subject to the new rules if they sell or transfer data to foreign entities, but the US does not aim to broadly regulate the way data is stored or transferred within a company. --With assistance from Philip Glamann. (Updates with comment from Chinas Foreign Ministry,) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. FILE PHOTO: Bottles showing the barrel aging process are seen at the Jack Daniel's distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee By Ananya Mariam Rajesh (Reuters) - Spirits exports rose 8% in 2023 to $2.2 billion, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, following the European Union's suspension of 25% retaliatory tariffs on American whiskey. The tariff suspension in 2022 helped U.S. spirits sales bounce back in the United Kingdom and the EU, which are among the top five export markets for the category. Export of American whiskey to the EU jumped to $705 million in 2023 from $439 million in 2021, the data showed. In 2018, the EU and the United Kingdom imposed import taxes on a wide range of U.S. products, including bourbon whiskeys, for four years after the United States first thrust tariffs of 25% on EU steel and 10% on EU aluminum. The trade dispute had hit U.S. spirits exports and resulted in market share loss for American whiskeys such as Tennessee whiskey, Bourbon, American Rye whiskey and American Single Malt in some of the largest export markets. In December, the EU and U.S. decided to extend the tariff suspension until March 2025. However, if no agreement is reached during the extension period, the EU is expected to double its tariff on American whiskeys to 50%. "There probably was some stockpiling happening to get ahead of the 50% tariff in the second half of the year" in 2023 given the strong demand for premium American spirits in international markets, said Robert Maron, vice-president of international trade at Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. As per the Council, American whiskeys saw a surge of 9% in export value to $1.4 billion and accounted for 63% of all U.S. spirits exports last year. (Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) Viking Therapeutics stock soared as much as 104% on Tuesday after a successful drug trial. Viking's GLP-1 weight loss drug led to a significant reduction in body weight among patients. The drug could ultimately compete with weight loss drugs from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk if its Phase 3 trials prove successful. Shares of Viking Therapeutics soared as much as 104% on Tuesday after it reported positive results for its Phase 2 trial of a GLP-1 weight loss drug. Viking Therapeutics saw its market valuation soar to $7.5 billion from less than $4 billion on Tuesday. The stock was trading at $82.61 at 1:39 p.m. in New York. The drug, dubbed VK2735, is a GLP-1/GIP dual agonist drug that targets significant weight loss in patients with obesity. The drug is administered via an injection, similar to GLP-1 drugs from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. In a Phase 2 trial, VK2735 showed a statistically significant 13.1% body weight loss compared to the placebo group after 13 weeks. That data represents faster weight loss when compared to competing GLP-1 drugs that are already on the market. Shares of Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk both fell about 1% on Tuesday. The data also observed no plateau in weight loss, suggesting that patients could lose even more weight the longer they take it. "Robust weight loss compared with placebo was observed early across all doses evaluated in the VENTURE study, and continued throughout the treatment period in all treatment groups. No evidence of a plateau was observed at Week 13 for any VK2735 dose, suggesting further weight loss might be achieved from extended dosing periods," Viking CEO Brian Lian said. One element of the drug trial showed that Viking's GLP-1 weight loss drug could have more tolerable side effects than other GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro. Most of VK2735's reported side effects were considered "mild" or "moderate." "Across the combined VENTURE study arms, the weekly rate of nausea did not exceed 5% at any point after the first week of treatment," Viking Therapeutics said. Story continues Viking's positive results could set the biotech up for a partnership or buyout by a large-cap pharmaceutical company that doesn't have exposure to the budding GLP-1 drug market, especially considering that Viking generates no revenue and still has to fund a Phase 3 trial of the drug. Pfizer abandoned its GLP-1 weight loss drug late last year poor tolerability among trial participants, while experiments from Amgen have yet to conclude that it has a winner in the GLP-1 space. Read the original article on Business Insider (Photo: Jim Allen / FreightWaves) For nearly two years, capital markets have punished Zim, the Israeli containership line whose fleet is the 10th-largest on the ocean. Zims model, which involves operating a subscale, highly chartered fleet of smaller vessels almost wholly exposed to the spot market, took a beating when collapsing spot rates collided with its high COVID-era lease expenses. The stock peaked at $84.50 per share on March 18, 2022, and took a series of nosedives before finally bottoming at $6.59 on Nov. 28, 2023. But now the container market may be turning around. The Houthi missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea have forced steamship lines to divert their vessels away from the Suez Canal, around the Cape of Good Hope, and take the long way to Europe from Asia. Radically extending those important trade lanes and transit times has meant that it takes more containership capacity to move the same amount of freight, straining the global fleet and creating the conditions for spot rate increases even on unaffected lanes like the trans-Pacific. What could have been a temporary blip is taking much longer to resolve than initially anticipated, and now analysts think spot rates could stay higher for longer. Two important indexes tracking average global spot rates are showing sustained, elevated levels: Drewrys World Container Index Global Composite, now at $3,659.41, and the Freightos Baltic Daily Global, now at $3,331.54. (Both the Freightos Baltic Daily (green line) and Drewrys World Container Index (white line) measure average global container spot rates. Chart: FreightWaves SONAR) At the end of January, Jefferies equity analyst Omar Nokta upgraded Zim to a Buy, affixing a $20 price target to the stock. The story has changed for ZIM with cash burn shifting to significant cash generation, Nokta wrote in the Jan. 29 client note. ZIMs high spot, high cost and high leverage platform was a major concern in a period of low freight rates, but it now provides substantial upside given the rise in spot rates. Nokta reckoned Zims cost per twenty-foot equivalent unit, including leasing fees, at $1,700. For much of 2023, Zims realized freight rate had fallen to approximately $1,200 per TEU, and the ocean carrier was burning $300 million per quarter. But Nokta estimates that Zim may be capturing as much as $2,100 per TEU across its service lines. Story continues Zims guidance on the Q3 2023 earnings call it doesnt release Q4 results until mid-March was bearish. CEO Eli Glickman cut full-year profitability expectations under some fairly negative baseline assumptions: Continued weakness in freight rates, a slight decline in volume and higher bunker fuel costs would all reduce earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. But just a week before that earnings call, which was on Nov. 15, 2023, Zim management made some moves that indicated the company was starting to see green shoots in the ocean freight market. It announced that it would relaunch its ZIM eCommerce Xpress or ZEX service from China to Los Angeles with its first sailing on Nov. 22 from Yantian. ZEX is a signature Zim service, first brought to market in 2020: It offers the fastest transit time from China to the West Coast (12.5 days), with no-roll guarantees, priority unloading and same-day availability when the vessel reaches its berth. Its a premium service on small 4,200-TEU vessels meant to service time-sensitive freight and ultimately compete with air cargo, on the rationale that there should be a transportation option between typical ocean container transits (21 days) and typical air cargo transits (one day). Air cargo is highly levered to the goods economy and freight markets: Volumes and rates can explode if the rest of the market is doing well, but they drop through the floor if ocean, truck and rail are unusually soft. So Zims decision to reintroduce its premium services implies a bullishness on the part of management they thought that eastbound trans-Pacific ocean freight was getting so hot that the market would support a high-priced, high-touch option for overflow or time-sensitive cargo. While 4Q23 results are likely to be weak, we expect 1Q24 to be a bounce-back quarter and to set the stage for a stronger 2Q24, Nokta wrote, concluding that ZIM is a high-beta play on the container market improvement. While freight rates are likely to remain volatile, we believe they will hold at well above the lows seen in 2023. Zims network may be particularly well suited to take advantage of container market disruptions in 2024. There was already an outsize flurry of container bookings from China to the United States in the lead-up to the Chinese New Year; although surges in volume prior to the holiday are common, the bump in 2024 exceeded last years by a lot. Those bookings have Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, calling for a 20% year-over-year volume improvement in the first quarter. Notably, only 53% of LAs volume now comes from China, down from more than 70% in years past, and Seroka predicts that Chinas share of LAs volume will fall below 50% in the next few years. The possibility of a Trump electoral victory in November and the threat of draconian tariffs placed on Chinese exports may accelerate that trend. Shippers have already reported pulling forward extra volumes as they replenish their stateside inventories. While the most extreme form of reshoring pulling their manufacturing operations out of China completely and returning them to the U.S. is complex, expensive and rare, shippers are reengineering their Asian supply chains, changing the sequence of assemblies and shuttling goods from one port to another in order to export to the United States from countries that wont face harsh tariffs, like Vietnam, Korea or Japan. Zim is poised to take advantage of both of these trends the tariff-avoiding pull-forward trade and the intra-Asia business. In the third quarter of 2023, the company reported carried volumes of 867,000 TEUs. Zims two biggest regions in terms of volume were the Pacific and Intra-Asia: the Pacific accounted for 339,000 TEUs, or 39.1% of its volumes, while Intra-Asia handled 250,000 TEUs, or 28.8% of its volumes. In other words, up to 67% of its business is in regions that are poised to get hotter as 2024 progresses. New liquefied natural gas-powered charters being delivered to Zim throughout this year will help lower the companys cost per TEU. LNG spot prices at Henry Hub briefly spiked during Januarys cold weather but are otherwise staying extremely low, at $1.60 per million Btu. (Compare that to 2022, when prices exceeded $7/mmBtu for months on end.) Nokta and other Wall Street analysts expect Q4 2023 results to come in fairly week, but a lot hinges on Glickmans guidance, and whether he will formally raise expectations for what may prove to be another chaotic but lucrative year for Zim. The post Is Wall Street warming back up to containership line Zim? appeared first on FreightWaves. Renowned investor and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren Buffett has built a financial empire reaching a nearly $1 trillion market capitalization, a milestone that places the conglomerate on the verge of joining an elite global club. Despite this achievement, Buffett regards his investment in Berkshire Hathaway, a then-struggling textile company, as the "dumbest stock I ever bought" believing that the companys value could have potentially doubled. Don't Miss: The average American has $65,100 in their savings account How do you compare? This startup is accepting investors for as little as 25 cents whats the catch? Berkshire Hathaways ascent to the brink of the $1 trillion valuation follows a surge in its stock price, fueled by a strong quarterly earnings report. The company, with holdings ranging from insurance (Geico) to fast food (Dairy Queen Inc.), saw its market capitalization reach $905 billion, with class B stock climbing 2% in premarket trading. Its share price has increased by 17% since the years start, positioning Berkshire Hathaway to join the ranks of tech giants like Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc., alongside other behemoths such as Saudi Arabian Oil Group (Aramco) and Amazon.com Inc. in the trillion-dollar market cap sphere. During a 2010 interview with CNBCs Becky Quick Buffett shed light on what he considers his most regrettable investment decision: acquiring Berkshire Hathaway. Initially, Buffett was drawn to the company, a declining textile manufacturer, for its practice of buying back its own stock using proceeds from the sale of its mills. Seeing an opportunity, Buffett began purchasing shares, planning to sell them back to the company at a profit. Trending: Fortnites creator company greenlights partial ownership for up to 100 accredited investors in the upcoming series. The critical turn of events occurred in 1964 when, after agreeing to tender his stock at $11.50 per share, Buffett received an offer at $11.375 per share. Feeling slighted by this lower offer, he reacted by buying more stock, eventually taking control of the company and dismissing the then-CEO Seabury Stanton. This decision led to Buffetts extensive investment in a failing industry, which he later recognized as a significant error. Story continues At the time of the interview, Berkshire Hathaways valuation stood at approximately $200 billion. Buffett humorously remarked, "And so there you have it, the story of a $200 billion incidentally, if you come back in 10 years, I may have one that's even worse." This comment reflects the magnitude of the missed opportunity; Buffett believed that had he initially steered his investment toward the insurance sector rather than the textile industry, Berkshire Hathaways worth could have been double its existing value. He underscored the lesson learned from this experience, saying, "If you get in a lousy business, get out of it" and highlighting the importance of recognizing and rectifying investment mistakes to avoid substantial financial losses. Buffett's ability to transform a struggling textile business into a near trillion-dollar conglomerate is a testament to his strategic foresight and managerial acumen. As Berkshire Hathaway continues to thrive, Buffetts legacy as one of the worlds most astute investors remains intact, serving as a beacon for investors worldwide. Read Next: "ACTIVE INVESTORS' SECRET WEAPON" Supercharge Your Stock Market Game with the #1 "news & everything else" trading tool: Benzinga Pro - Click here to start Your 14-Day Trial Now! Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? This article Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Nears $1 Trillion Market Capitalization, But He Refers To It As 'The Dumbest Stock I Ever Bought' It Could Have Been Worth Twice As Much Today If He Had Cut His Losses Sooner originally appeared on Benzinga.com 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Study Finds Initial $28.7 Billion Canadian Dollars to be Generated for GDP with $8.1 Billion More Annually OTTAWA, Ontario, February 28, 2024--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Westinghouse Electric Company released a comprehensive, independent report today from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC (PwC) outlining the significant economic impact for Canada by deploying four AP1000 units in Ontario. The study found that the manufacturing, engineering and construction phase of four AP1000 units could generate more than CDN$28.7 billion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) impact for Canada and over 125,000 person-years of employment. Once operational, the units would create an additional $8.1 billion in GDP and support more than 12,000 jobs annually. "Our globally-deployed AP1000 reactor fleet is a licensed and proven technology that provides exceptional availability and economics across the world," said David Durham, President of Westinghouse Energy Systems. "This report highlights that our technology and company with strategic investments, a growing employee base and Canadian ownership is well suited to meet Canadas energy needs for generations to come." Additional, key findings outlined by PwC in the report include: Westinghouse AP1000 technology can help Canada meet its emission reduction plan. One unit alone can power over 750,000 homes annually, and a four-unit facility can power at least three million homes or is the equivalent of removing 6 million cars from the road. The AP1000 Canadian supply chain can also support deployment of the technology around the world. Each new reactor installed globally can provide up to $880 million of GDP impacts in Canada. The AP1000 project in Ontario also would further develop human capital through cutting-edge nuclear technology and leadership trainings, and partnerships with local, higher education institutions. As the AP1000 project supports the growing nuclear supply chain across Canada, it also drives greater economies and scale for deployment of additional Westinghouse technologies such as the AP300 Small Modular Reactor and the eVinci microreactor. Story continues The AP1000 reactor is the only operating Generation III+ reactor with fully passive safety systems, modular construction design and has the smallest footprint per MWe on the market. One AP1000 reactor is operational with another near completion at the Vogtle site in Georgia, while four AP1000 units are currently setting operational performance records in China with four additional reactors under construction, and two more planned. Poland selected the AP1000 reactor for its nuclear energy program; Ukraine has made firm commitments for nine AP1000 units, and the technology is under consideration at multiple other sites in Central and Eastern Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. Download the full report The Economic Impact of a Westinghouse AP1000 Reactor Project in Canada here. Westinghouse Electric Company is shaping the future of carbon-free energy by providing safe, innovative nuclear and other clean power technologies and services globally. Westinghouse supplied the worlds first commercial pressurized water reactor in 1957 and the companys technology is the basis for nearly one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants. Over 135 years of innovation makes Westinghouse the preferred partner for advanced technologies covering the complete nuclear energy life cycle. For more information, visit www.westinghousenuclear.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and X. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240228722502/en/ Contacts media@westinghouse.com Stocks of some of China's most widely held companies were sinking in unison on Wednesday, with several catalysts sending them lower. One company delivered a disappointing financial report, concerns about China's economy continued, and the country's policymakers announced moves that shook up its stock market. With that as a backdrop, several of China's biggest technology stocks lagged the broader market. Shares of Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU) slumped 7.2%, Tencent Holdings (OTC: TCEHY) declined 3.9%, and Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) fell 3.4%, as of 1:22 p.m. ET today. Image source: Getty Images. Disappointing results Baidu reported its fourth-quarter results, and investors were not pleased. The company generated revenue of $4.9 billion, up 6% year over year, while the diluted earnings per American depositary share (ADS) of $0.95 cratered 50%. To give those numbers context, analysts' consensus estimates were calling for revenue of $4.86 billion and per-ADS earnings of $2.48, so profits fell far short of investor expectations. The news wasn't all bad, as Baidu's ChatGPT-style offering, ERNIE, helped boost revenue, despite an ongoing downturn in advertising, which is the company's bread and butter. On the other hand, steep spending on artificial intelligence (AI) helped erode the bottom line, weighing on profits. The company noted that revenue from its core business, which consists mainly of online advertising, cloud computing, and AI, grew 7% to $3.87 billion, while growth at its streaming platform iQiyi lagged, increasing 2% to $1.1 billion. A weak economic backdrop Baidu is the latest company to report earnings that highlight the current challenges besetting China's economy. The country is suffering from high unemployment among younger citizens, slowing growth, and lower consumer spending. Any economist will tell you that consumer spending is the backbone of an economy, so this could be a bad harbinger. Exacerbating the situation is the crisis in China's real estate market. Just last month, a judge ordered the liquidation of property developer China Evergrande Group, which helps illustrate the ongoing challenges in the country as property transactions have slumped. Story continues Last year, home sales in China declined 6.5%, and market commentators suggest the worst isn't over. By some accounts, real estate represents roughly 25% of China's economy, which just makes things worse. Lastly, the country's moves to curb certain investing strategies are not being well received. Chinese securities regulators announced a crackdown on short-selling, going so far as to say that malicious short-sellers would "lose their shirts and rot in jail," according to a report by Reuters. China also announced curbs on quantitative or computer-driven trading. Regulators directed quant funds to stop accepting new cash and discontinue existing "direct market access" products. These recent moves have cast a pall on the market, helping send these popular stocks lower. Will investors follow the government's lead? Investors already leery about the worsening economy in China have more reasons to be wary. Furthermore, each of our trio of companies listed above is highly dependent on consumer spending and a strong economy: Baidu is China's leading internet search provider, and like Alphabet 's Google -- its U.S. counterpart -- it relies on digital advertising for the vast majority of its revenue. Weakness in the economy translates to much lower ad sales. Alibaba is one of the country's largest digital retailers. Lower consumer spending equals less sales. Tencent's social media makes much of its money from advertising, while its gaming and ancillary services are highly dependent on consumer discretionary income. In the face of macroeconomic headwinds and high unemployment, consumer spending in China is slowing, which could further weaken an already fragile economy. As a result, the future is uncertain, particularly for companies that depend on consumers for their livelihoods. To be clear, I'm not suggesting investors should avoid these stocks completely. In fact, they are currently trading at compelling valuations, as Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu are selling for 14 times, 12 times, and 12 times earnings, respectively -- each a significant discount to the broader market. And Baidu and Alibaba are selling for a price-to-sales ratio of less than 2, the benchmark for underpriced stocks. That said, investors should factor China's weakening economic outlook into their thinking and ensure they approach these companies with a long-term outlook. Furthermore, investing in China carries additional risk, and any position should be a modest part of a well-diversified portfolio. Should you invest $1,000 in Baidu right now? Before you buy stock in Baidu, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Baidu wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than tripled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of February 26, 2024 Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Danny Vena has positions in Alphabet, Baidu, and Tencent. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Baidu, and Tencent. The Motley Fool recommends Alibaba Group and iQIYI. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Why Baidu, Alibaba, and Other Chinese Stocks Sank on Wednesday was originally published by The Motley Fool iStock.com An emergency fund is an important way to safeguard against unexpected expenses, income loss and emergencies. It can also help to protect your retirement funds in those years when you likely are living on a fixed income and a tighter budget. Find Out: Heres the Cost To Retire Comfortably in Every State by Age For You: Do This To Earn Guaranteed Growth on Your Retirement Savings (With No Risk to Your Investment) When unexpected expenses arise and youre forced to withdraw from your investments, it can be detrimental, especially if the market is down, according to Hazel Secco, CFP, CDFA, president and founder of Align Financial Solutions, LLC. Selling investments during a market downturn means you may need to achieve higher returns to recover your original principal, making it challenging to regain lost ground, she said. Financial experts explain why you need an emergency fund to protect your retirement funds: Sponsored: Owe the IRS $10K or more? Schedule a FREE consultation to see if you qualify for tax relief. The Amount May Vary The size of your emergency fund should be tailored to your individual circumstances, Secco explained. Whether youre a business owner or facing frequent unexpected expenses, its wise to have more than the recommended three to six months worth of expenses set aside. Ensuring you have an appropriate emergency fund in place can provide peace of mind and protect your retirement savings in times of need. Learn More: 9 Things Frugal Retirees Never Waste Money On To Bridge the Gap Having an emergency fund can allow you to not have to tap into retirement funds or Social Security benefits before the age of 59 , Secco said. Plus, early distributions may not maximize the benefits of tax deferral. Retirement savings typically grow tax-deferred or tax-free, she explained, but to fully leverage these benefits, long-term investment is essential. Avoiding Early Withdrawal Penalties Garrett Smith, a financial advisor, CCO and business partner at Ascend Investment Partners, agreed that an emergency fund can keep you from incurring early withdrawal penalties. Story continues [Penalties] typically apply to withdrawal from retirement accounts prior to the age of 59 and can erode a substantial portion of your savings, he said. Preserving Compound Growth Additionally, Smith pointed out that over time, retirement accounts accrue compound interest that you dont want to prevent by withdrawing too soon. Performing withdrawals from these accounts would disrupt the compounding mechanism, which could potentially hinder the expansion of your retirement savings. By shifting your focus to an emergency fund, you ensure that the growth of your retirement funds remains uninterrupted. Liquidity Bucket Loren Fiffik, a CFP with Confluence Financial Partners, suggested it might be easier to think of an emergency fund as a liquidity bucket. This component of the portfolio for capital preservation should consist of assets that dont have much volatility risk or correlation with growth assets. These can include cash, money markets, short term fixed income and insurance products, Fiffik explained. This helps investors weather the cyclical downturns by providing access to cash from this bucket when they need it without selling their growth assets such as stocks at a potential loss. How To Use It Fiffik explained the best way to use your liquidity bucket to protect your retirement savings: Each time the market experiences a 20% draw down, investors switch from sourcing income from capital growth and begin taking it from the liquidity bucket. Then, during periods of market recovery, rebalance the portfolio and capture market gains from the equities to refill the bucket for the next cycle. Fiffik is more aggressive in how much should be saved in this bucket; he suggested two to three years worth of income needs. This bucket encourages more patience with their overall portfolio and ensures that they will not be in a situation that forces liquidation of growth assets at significant discounts, he said. Never having to sell stocks during a major decline allows the investors to fully participate in the eventual recovery. He recommended putting any unexpected cash or windfalls such as a tax refund into this bucket, as well. Mitigate Market Volatility Another reason to use an emergency fund is that retirees cant control what the economy is doing when they are finally ready to retire. Smith explained, In periods of economic recession, withdrawing funds from retirement accounts at a discount can result in irrecoverable losses. Thus, having an emergency fund enables one to withstand transient financial setbacks without being compelled to liquidate investments prematurely, he said. Regularly Replenish Just because your retirement accounts grows over time through interest accrual doesnt mean you should stop contributing to it, Smith urged. Prioritize the development of your emergency fund financially. Maintain consistent contributions to it, he said. Constant replenishment guarantees that one is ever-ready to confront unforeseen expenditures throughout their lifetime. Dont Forget To Budget Also, remember that your emergency fund isnt a replacement for good financial habits like budgeting, Smith said. Strive to adhere to rigorous budgeting principles and reside in a modest manner. This practice not only increases the amount of money that can be directed towards an emergency fund but also decreases the probability of having to withdraw funds from retirement savings to cover discretionary costs, he said. Build Emergency Funds Near Retirement If your emergency fund isnt as robust as youd like near retirement, Michael Ryan, a retired financial planner and finance expert with Michael Ryan Money, urged, Trim expenses wherever possible to direct more cash towards urgent savings goals. You might even want to consider part-time work to generate additional emergency fund income quickly, he said, and seek the assistance of a financial planner. In my decades of experience, proactively saving for the unexpected allows seamless weathering of surprises without raiding retirement funds. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Why You Need an Emergency Fund To Protect Your Retirement Funds (Bloomberg) -- Gemini Trust Co., the crypto exchange founded by twin entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, will return at least $1.1 billion to customers though the Genesis Global Capital bankruptcy as part of settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services. Most Read from Bloomberg The New York-based firm will also pay a $37 million fine for various compliance failures to the New York Department of Financial Services, Superintendent Adrienne A. Harris said in a statement Wednesday. Gemini is returning the funds to customers who lost money through the Gemini Earn program that the exchange ran together with now-bankrupt lender Genesis Global. Gemini also agreed to contribute $40 million to Genesiss bankruptcy for the benefit of Earn customers in coordination with the bankruptcy court. Gemini failed to conduct due diligence on an unregulated third party, later accused of massive fraud, harming Earn customers who were suddenly unable to access their assets after Genesis Global Capital experienced a financial meltdown, Harris said. Todays settlement is a win for Earn customers, who have a right to the assets they entrusted to Gemini. The Earn program, which was launched in early 2021, let more than 200,000 Gemini users including almost 30,000 New Yorkers lend out their coins through Genesis for yield. Genesis stopped withdrawals in late 2022, and filed for bankruptcy in early 2023. Gemini failed to conduct ongoing due diligence into Genesis, or to maintain adequate reserves throughout the running of Earn, the department said. The agency said that outside of Earn, Gemini also engaged in unsafe and unsound practices that ultimately threatened the financial health of the company. Its affiliate, Gemini Liquidity LLC, collected hundreds of millions of dollars in fees that could have gone to Gemini, and that weakened the companys financial condition. The department said it found various management and compliance deficiencies in its investigation of Gemini. Story continues In a post on the X platform, Gemini noted that under the settlement all Earn users will receive 100% of their digital assets back in kind if the Genesis bankruptcy is approved by the court. A Gemini representative didnt immediately return a request for comment. The settlement is the latest attempt by various governmental agencies, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to clean up crypto. Recent enforcement actions have included crypto exchanges Binance, Kraken and Coinbase Global Inc. The SEC charged Gemini and Genesis for the unregistered offer and sale of securities through the Earn program in January 2023. The New York Attorney General recently revised a lawsuit seeking restitution for Earn users. Genesis recently settled with the state. Gemini, Genesis and its parent company Digital Currency Group are also involved in a legal battle. The New York agency has the right to bring further action against Gemini if it doesnt return at least $1.1 billion to Earn customers after the resolution of Genesiss bankruptcy. The department authorized Gemini to engage in virtual currency business in 2015. --With assistance from Jonathan Randles. (Adds comment from Gemini in the seventh paragraph.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2024 Bloomberg L.P. FILE - New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a news conference, Sept. 21, 2022, in New York. The giant meat producer JBS was accused of making misleading claims about its greenhouse gas emission goals to boost sales among environmentally conscious consumers in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Fe. 28, 2024 by New York Attorney General Letitia James. (AP Photo/Brittainy Newman, File) The giant meat producer JBS was accused of making misleading claims about its greenhouse gas emission goals to boost sales among environmentally conscious consumers in a lawsuit filed Wednesday by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The lawsuit filed in a state court in New York City alleges that the company claimed it will achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 despite having no viable plan to meet that commitment. The lawsuit names as defendants JBS USA Food Company and JBS USA Food Company Holdings, the American subsidiary of the world-leading producer of beef products based in Brazil. James says the company made misleading statements about its pledges to curb deforestation and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to capitalize on consumers desire to make climate friendly choices. The lawsuit cites a full-page JBS USA advertisement in The New York Times in 2021 that includes the line: Agriculture can be part of the climate solution. Bacon, chicken wings and steak with net-zero emissions. Its possible. When companies falsely advertise their commitment to sustainability, they are misleading consumers and endangering our planet. JBS USAs greenwashing exploits the pocketbooks of everyday Americans and the promise of a healthy planet for future generations, James said in a prepared release. James is asking a court to require JBS USA to end its Net Zero by 2040 campaign and to return profits traceable to its fraudulent, deceptive, or illegal acts or practices. The suit also seeks civil penalties of up to $5,000 per violation to be determined at trial. A spokesperson for JBS said the company disagreed with James' action. JBS will continue to partner with farmers, ranchers and our food system partners around the world to help feed a growing population while using fewer resources and reducing agricultures environmental impact, read a statement emailed by spokesperson Nikki Richardson. Our belief that American agriculture can help sustainably feed the world is undeterred. The lawsuit comes in the wake of recent letters from lawmakers in the United States and the United Kingdom to the Securities and Exchange Commission cautioning against the listing of JBS. The lawmakers argues that expanded capital would allow the company, responsible for much deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, to do even more harm. Beef has the highest total greenhouse gas emissions of any major food commodity and beef production is linked to large-scale deforestation, according to the lawsuit. Editor's note: Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. The Delta SkyMiles Gold American Express Card and Delta SkyMiles Platinum American Express Card are both co-branded travel credit card options from Delta and Amex. Although they have a lot in common, your individual budget and Delta travel preferences can go a long way in helping you decide which of these cards is right for you. Heres everything to know before you apply: Delta SkyMiles Gold American Express Card overview The Delta Gold card from Amex offers flight benefits to Delta flyers without a steep cost. Heres everything to know: Annual fee For the first year after youre approved for the Delta SkyMiles Gold, you wont pay any annual fee at all. After that, the card has a $150 annual fee (see rates and fees). Welcome offer For cardholders who apply by March 27, 2024, theres a limited-time welcome offer worth 70,000 bonus miles when youre approved and spend at least $3,000 within the first 6 months. Thats equal to about $500 per month charged to your card. Rewards Like some other Delta Amex cards, the Delta Gold card rewards your spending both with the airline and on everyday purchases. Heres a look at the categories: 2x miles on Delta purchases 2x miles on dining (includes takeout and delivery in the U.S.) 2x miles at U.S. supermarkets 1x miles on all other purchases Benefits The Delta Gold cards benefits largely focus on travel savings and perks when flying Delta. They include: Earn a $200 Delta flight credit when you spend at least $10,000 in purchases in a calendar year Save 15% when you book award flights with your Delta SkyMiles Get $100 back as a statement credit when you book prepaid hotels or vacation rentals through Delta Stays First checked bag free 20% back as statement credits for in-flight purchases Main Cabin 1 boarding Travel and purchase protections Why we like it The Delta SkyMiles Gold Amex is a solid airline card for travel savings. It has everything we look for in a good co-branded airline card, such as in-flight savings, discounts on flights, and bonus rewards on airline spending. But it also goes above and beyond in a few important ways for example, the $200 flight credit (with a minimum spend) and everyday rewards categories. Plus, its hard to argue against the outsized first-year value youll get from this card. It will cost you nothing, thanks to the introductory annual fee, and the limited-time welcome bonus is worth hundreds of dollars toward a future flight. If youre a loyal Delta customer who prefers flying with the airline but arent chasing elite status or the luxury travel experiences of higher-cost Delta cards, we think this is a great option. Delta SkyMiles Gold perks Everyday rewards: The Delta Gold card earns as many miles per dollar on Delta flights as on purchases at restaurants and U.S. supermarkets. Even if you only fly a few times each year, you can quickly boost your SkyMiles balance with the purchases you may make regularly at home. Flight credit: This is the only co-branded Delta card that offers a $200 Delta flight credit when you spend at least $10,000 each calendar year. If your budget allows you to spend the required amount (about $833 per month) this is a great way to earn back more than the cards annual fee cost year after year. Delta SkyMiles Gold potential drawbacks Not much general travel flexibility: The Delta Gold, like any co-branded airline card, is best for travelers who prefer flying Delta and earning Delta SkyMiles on their spending. If you want to use the rewards you earn on more general travel purchases, you should opt for a travel credit card with a more flexible rewards program. Fewer benefits than other Delta cards: This Delta card does have some benefits for Delta travelers, but you wont get the elite status, flight upgrades, added miles and other benefits of other Delta co-branded cards with higher annual fees. If youre a frequent traveler wanting to maximize your spending with the airline as much as possible, you might consider a different Delta card. Delta SkyMiles Platinum American Express Card overview The Delta SkyMiles Platinum is a step above the Gold in perks and price. Heres what to expect: Annual fee Theres no introductory annual fee for this card. The ongoing cost is a standard $350 per year (see rates and fees). Welcome offer The sign-up bonus from this card is also a limited-time offer available through March 27, 2024. You can earn 90,000 bonus miles when you spend at least $4,000 within the first six months. Delta mile valuations change depending on your itinerary and when you book award flights. But considering a standard 1 cent per mile redemption rate, this Delta Platinum Amexs welcome offer may get you at least $900 toward future travel a potential $200 more than the Delta Gold. Rewards The rewards categories between these two cards are very similar, but Delta Platinum offers increased and added rewards for travel spending. 3x miles on Delta purchases 3x miles on hotel purchases (made directly with hotels) 2x miles on dining (including takeout and delivery in the U.S.) 2x miles at U.S. supermarkets 1x miles on all other purchases Benefits For its higher annual fee, the Delta SkyMiles Platinum card also has a long list of benefits. These benefits can help you get more value from your Delta flights, save on travel-related expenses, and even attain Medallion status with the airline more easily. Annual Companion Certificate: Get a yearly companion certificate for Main Cabin round trip fare (not including taxes and fees) to domestic, Caribbean, or Central American destinations MQD Headstart: Get $2,500 Medallion Qualification Dollars (MQDs) every Medallion Qualification Year MQD Boost: For every $20 you spend with your card, earn $1 MQD Save 15% when you book award flights with your Delta SkyMiles Get $150 back as a statement credit when you book prepaid hotels or vacation rentals through Delta Stays $120 annually in Resy credits ($10 per month as statement credits on eligible purchases) $120 annually in rideshare credits ($10 per month in statement credits with select providers) Statement credit for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry fees (every 4.5 or 4 years, depending on which you choose) Complimentary upgrade list, even for non-Medallion members Complimentary Hertz Five Star status First checked bag free 20% back as statement credits for in-flight purchases Main Cabin 1 boarding Travel and purchase protections Why we like it We like the Delta SkyMiles Platinum card for more frequent Delta travelers. Despite its relatively high annual fee, flying with the airline at least a few times per year can help you gain enough value to make the cost worthwhile. If you have a significant other or friend you like to travel with, the annual companion certificate benefit alone has more value than the cards $350 cost. It may only work for Main Cabin tickets, but you can easily get hundreds of dollars in flight value depending on the eligible destination you choose. Finally, we like the Delta Platinum for its focus on both travel and everyday spending. While youll earn plenty of SkyMiles when you book Delta flights or hotels, you can also get rewards on restaurant and supermarket spending between your travel plans plus annual rideshare and Resy credits. This card can make a great addition for someone who wants an everyday card that helps them get closer to their next vacation. Delta SkyMiles Platinum perks Annual companion certificate: One of this cards best perks is the annual companion certificate, which applies to domestic destinations and the Caribbean and Central America. If you have a friend, family member, or significant other you fly with, this is a huge benefit that you can continue to use year after year. Everyday spending credits: This cards credits apply to Delta purchases, and youll also get monthly rideshare and restaurant credits on eligible spending. When youre at home, you can use these to continue maximizing the spending on your card and save money over the long term. Delta SkyMiles Platinum potential drawbacks High annual fee: Though it does have great benefits to help you recoup the cost, this card does still cost a large annual sum. If thats not within your budget, you may want to consider a lower-fee or no annual fee credit card. Best for frequent travelers: If you dont travel at least a few times each year, you probably wont get the best value from this card. To maximize the rewards, benefits, and justify the annual fee make sure you consider your typical travel schedule before applying. Should you get the Delta SkyMiles Gold Amex? Between these two cards, the Delta SkyMiles Gold is best for occasional travelers who want to earn Delta SkyMiles as their preferred rewards currency. While this card wont get you hundreds of dollars in annual credits or status upgrades, it is a great option for making your travels with Delta more convenient and affordable. The priority boarding and free first checked bag alone can go a long way in improving your experience every time you fly. You should think about how often youll use this card before applying. Its primary benefit for Delta flyers is the annual $200 Delta flight credit when you make at least $10,000 in purchases. If you dont plan to spend that much on your card, you could forfeit one of its most valuable perks. Should you get the Delta SkyMiles Platinum Amex? The Delta SkyMiles Platinum is the better option for more frequent Delta flyers who can take advantage of numerous added benefits and credits. If you fly with a companion at least once per year, tend to use rideshare services monthly, and eat out at Rest restaurants each month, you can quickly get more than $350 in value from this card. Like any card with a higher annual fee, though, make sure youre not overspending simply to take advantage. Look back at your regular spending and budget. If you dont already make purchases that you can earn credits for with this card, youll probably end up spending more over time than you otherwise would and risking high-interest debt. If youre a very frequent traveler chasing Medallion status with Delta, this is the better option for that, too. Between the MQD Headstart and MQD Boost, the Delta Platinum can definitely help you reach your next Medallion status tier more quickly than the Gold. For travelers who fly Delta often, this can be a big benefit. Should you get both cards? Most people wont benefit from having both of these Delta cards in their wallets. There are some distinct benefits that would be useful combined (the Delta Platinums companion certificate and the Delta Golds annual Delta flight credit, for example). But most of the added perks and rewards categories are very similar. Instead, it can be more useful to choose which of these Delta cards will best fit your spending habits and travel preferences with Delta then supplement it with a more general rewards credit card or cash-back credit card for added value. Other cards to consider Here are a few more card options for travelers who want to save on future trips: Why we like it: This is the only co-branded card from Delta and Amex with no annual fee (see rates and fees). The Delta SkyMiles Blue American Express Card earns 2x miles on Delta purchases and dining and 1x on everything else. You can also earn 10,000 bonus miles after spending $1,000 in the first six months. Its ongoing benefits arent as expansive as other Delta cards, but you will get 20% back on in-flight purchases, travel and purchase protections, and you can pay for Delta travel using the miles you earn. Why we like it: The Amex Gold is one of our top picks for earning rewards on everyday spending to put toward future travel. Youll earn 4x points at restaurants, 4x points at U.S. supermarkets (up to $25,000 per calendar year, then 1x), 3x points on flights booked with airlines or through Amex Travel, and 1x points on everything else. This card earns Membership Rewards, which you can use to book travel through Amex, get statement credits, gift cards, and more. If youre a loyal Delta customer, you can even transfer your points to Delta SkyMiles, since Delta is one of the programs transfer partners. The Amex Gold has a $250 annual fee and a welcome offer worth 60,000 bonus points when you spend $6,000 within the first six months. Youll also get annual credits with this card, including up to $120 in Uber Cash ($10 per month when you add your card to your Uber account) and up to $120 in dining credits Grubhub, The Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, Wine.com, Milk Bar, and select Shake Shack locations ($10 per month, with enrollment). Why we like it: The Venture Card from Capital One is a solid travel credit card for maximizing every dollar you spend. Its rewards structure is simple: Earn 2x miles on every purchase, along with a boosted 5x miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars through Capital One Travel. It has a $95 annual fee and you can earn 75,000 bonus miles after spending $4,000 within the first three months. The few added benefits include fee credits for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry and access to the Lifestyle Collection for hotel bookings (with credits and upgrades on your stays). You can use miles toward travel, either by booking through Capital One Travel, reimbursing past travel expenses charged to your card, or transferring to Capital One hotel and airline partners. Editorial Disclosure: The information in this article has not been reviewed or approved by any advertiser. The details on financial products, including card rates and fees, are accurate as of the publish date. All products or services are presented without warranty. Check the banks website for the most current information. This site doesn't include all currently available offers. NBKC is a Kansas-based online bank that offers consumer banking products such as CDs, a money market account, and a combination checking and savings account. NBKC Bank provides products and services to individual, business, and fintech customers and is an established lender offering a wide range of loan products, including mortgages, personal loans, and auto loans. NBKC has a few physical branches in and around the Kansas City area, however, it operates primarily online. NBKC Banks product offerings NBKC currently offers the following products: Checking and saving account NBKC offers a combination checking and savings account that allows customers to spend and save money with one account. Customers can set up autopay for their regular bills, create savings goals for future expenses, and track their progress and spending along the way. This account currently offers an annual percentage yield (APY) of 1.75%. Money market account Savers can take advantage of NBKCs money market account, which doesnt charge any fees and has a minimum balance requirement of just 1 cent to earn interest on your balance. Certificates of deposit NBKCs CD terms range from seven months to five years and require a minimum opening deposit of $250 or $1,000, depending on the term you choose. It also offers personal IRA CDs with some terms requiring a lower minimum deposit of $250. Mortgage loans Homebuyers and owners can benefit from NBKC Banks mortgage offerings, which include conventional loans, VA or FHA loans, refinancing options, and home equity loans. Lending services NBKC also offers other types of financing options like auto loans, personal loans, bridge and real estate loans, and land loans. Account fees Heres a closer look at the account fees NBKC customers can expect to pay: Monthly maintenance fee: $0 Outgoing domestic wire: $5 Incoming and outgoing international wires: $45 ATM fee (out of network): None Overdraft fee: $0 Returned item fee: $0 Stop payment fee: $0 Pros and cons of NBKC Bank There are a few major perks and drawbacks customers should be aware of before deciding to bank with NBKC. Pros Offers ATM reimbursement. NBKC customers have free access to more than 32,000 ATMs nationwide through the MoneyPass ATM network, and the bank will reimburse up to $12 per month for ATM fees charged at out-of-network ATMs. Low minimum balance requirements for the Everything and money market accounts. NBKC does not require a minimum opening deposit for its Everything and money market accounts, and the minimum to earn interest on those balances is $0.01. No monthly fees. NBKC does not charge any monthly maintenance fees for its deposit accounts. Cons Short-term CDs require $1,000 to open. NBKCs CDs offer competitive rates, but CD terms of a year or less require a $1,000 deposit to open an account. This is on the higher end compared to other banks. Doesnt offer Zelle as a feature. NBKC Bank is not currently on the Zelle network. No individual checking and savings account options. NBKC only offers a combination checking and savings account; it does not offer individual accounts for customers who only need one of those products. Customer service and mobile banking experience NBKC Bank representatives are available via telephone Monday through Friday between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. CST. Live chat is available Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. CST and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. CST. NBKC also offers customer support via email. To report a lost or stolen debit card, representatives are available 24/7. To inquire about an online account application, representatives are available Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. CST. Home loans support specialists are available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. CST, and for any questions related to NBKC mortgages, support is available Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. CST. NBKCs mobile app is available for download on the Apple App Store and Google Play and has a rating of 4.4 and 4.1, respectively. Customers can use the app to move money between accounts, set savings goals, deposit checks, check balances, and more. NBKC Bank's social and environmental impact NBKC encourages its customers to donate to worthy causes by partnering with Spiral, a donation platform that streamlines charitable contributions. Customers can submit donations directly from their online banking account and will receive annual tax paperwork detailing their monetary gifts. Previously, NBKC Bank partnered with Shop Local KC in its redesign of its Leawood branch. The shared space features a retail shop showcasing accessories, home goods, and artwork from local artists and small businesses. NBKC Bank FAQs 1. Does NBKC offer FDIC insurance? Yes, NBKCs deposit accounts are FDIC-insured. 2. Does NBKC have a debit card? Yes. NBKC offers a debit card for easy access to your funds. 3. Can you deposit cash into an NBKC bank account? Yes, NBKC customers can deposit cash via the MoneyPass ATM network. Read more: A first-degree murder charge against a man accused of gunning down another man in broad daylight in October was sent to a grand jury Tuesday following a preliminary hearing in Stafford General Court. James Allan Wright Jr., 43, of Spotsylvania, is suspected of killing 42-year-old Derrick Campbell the afternoon of Oct. 11 in the parking lot of a townhouse complex in the Rappahannock Landing subdivision in Stafford. Wright is also charged with using a firearm in the commission of a felony. Prosecutors Amy Casey and Greg Holt presented evidence Tuesday that included video footage of the shooting. The video showed Campbell walking up to the drivers side of a black Chrysler minivan and having a conversation with the driver. There is no audio accompanying the video. After several minutes of what appeared to be amicable conversation, the driver began opening the door with Campbell leaning against it. Witnesses then heard nine or 10 shots, and Campbell fell to the ground as the van began pulling away. With the assistance of camera footage and a license plate reader, detectives were able to determine the license number of the van and learned that it belonged to Wright. The unarmed Campbell had a phone in his hand when he was shot. The phone showed a text message from Wright saying outside and a response of K from the victim. Police later went to Wrights home with a search warrant and found the van, a gun and bullets that were consistent with shell casings found at the scene. Police are still waiting for confirmation from the state lab regarding whether the gun fired the fatal shots. Wright fled to Maryland prior to police obtaining warrants for his arrest, but turned himself in a couple of days later. He has been in custody ever since. Defense attorney Ben Burchette asked Judge Angela OConnor not to certify the charges, saying the evidence against Wright was purely circumstantial. Wright has no prior felony record and at the time of the shooting had a security clearance for his job as a maintenance worker at the Pentagon. No motive for the slaying has come out in court hearings. Nebraskas Smoke Advisory System has been activated for 2024. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services implemented the public smoke advisory system in 2018. Smoke advisories will be issued when conditions make it likely that the smoke from prescribed burning or wildfires could significantly affect air quality in parts of the state. The DHHS reminds Nebraskans that prescribed burning season is underway in Kansas, Oklahoma and other states in the region, including Nebraska. Smoke from wildfires in the west and Canada, which have occurred often in the recent past, also can compromise the air quality in Nebraska. Advisories are developed in partnership with the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy, DHHS, local health departments and districts, and information provided by other sources in the region. Impacts on air quality may vary based on the type, size and location of fires. Impacts from prescribed burning may only last a few hours. Wildfire smoke can be persistent over consecutive days. Many factors, including weather conditions, affect the magnitude and duration of air quality impacts. If state and local agencies determine that smoke is likely to significantly impact the air quality in Nebraska, DHHS and NDEE will issue a joint advisory to share the information with the public. Advisories will be based on data provided by multiple sources in the region including the National Weather Service, as well as smoke plume modeling and data from air quality monitors located in Omaha, Bellevue, Lincoln, Beatrice, Grand Island and Scottsbluff. Advisories will be posted on the NDEE website at dee.ne.gov/NDEQProg.nsf/OnWeb/AirSA, the DHHS website at dhhs.ne.gov/pages/news-releases.aspx and on NDEE and DHHS Facebook and Twitter accounts. In addition to advisories from DHHS and NDEE, the Lincoln-Lancaster Health Department and the Douglas County Health Department may also issue information to advise citizens of air quality impacts in their jurisdictions. Smoke can cause health problems, including burning eyes, runny nose, coughing and illnesses such as bronchitis. Individuals with respiratory issues, such as asthma or COPD, pre-existing heart or lung diseases, along with children and the elderly may experience more severe symptoms. How Nebraskans can protect their health on days when smoke is present in their communities: Keep doors and windows closed and run air conditioners with HEPA filters. Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water. Limit or avoid strenuous outdoor exercise. People with respiratory or heart-related illnesses should remain indoors. Contact your doctor if you have symptoms such as chest pain, chest tightness, shortness of breath, or severe fatigue. For current conditions of Nebraskas air quality and tomorrows forecast, visit airnow.gov/. A jury has awarded $21.3 million in damages after finding an ex-husband corruptly manipulated his Routt County divorce proceedings to gain full custody of his children by falsely alleging his ex-wifes new fiance sexually abused one of the children. The mother of the three children said in court filings that her ex-husband, Steven Herron, concocted and cultivated a false narrative for law enforcement officers, medical professionals, child-protective staffers and, ultimately, the judge overseeing the divorce, to destroy her relationship with her children and gain parenting time. I lost my family, Cynthia Hayek of Steamboat Springs testified during the trial. I lost I had a great relationship with my kids. I lost that. Its gone. I dont think Im ever going to get it back. Ive lost respect for a system that I thought would help and protect me. Hayeks successful lawsuit against the father is the latest controversy to hit Colorados family court system. Investigative reports by The Gazette during the past two years revealed a heavy reliance by judges overseeing divorce cases on sometimes incompetent, biased and even corrupt court-appointed parental evaluators to guide custody decisions. Initial restrictions imposed by a judge on the mothers parenting time in the Routt County custody dispute hinged in part on the recommendations of a controversial parenting evaluator, Mark Kilmer, who has since been barred by state court administrators from continuing to accept court appointments to make custody recommendations. Despite controversies over Kilmers work in other cases, the Routt County judge who awarded full custody to Herron continued to say during a hearing last year that Kilmer did a solid job on the Routt County case. Herron and Hayek divorced in 2016 and initially shared equal parenting time. Their custody arrangement would change dramatically after the ex-husband raised allegations of child sex abuse in September 2019, the same month that his ex-wife secured a $10.5 million settlement after she sued him, alleging she was owed money from the sale of a fracking company. An oil and gas geologist, she successfully contended she was owed some of the roughly $90 million in profits her ex netted from the sale because she was entitled to participate in that transaction. After that settlement, her ex, Herron, engaged in extensive doctor shopping as he pushed his allegations that his ex-wifes new fiance had engaged in sexual abuse, according to the lawsuit filed by the mother. The lawsuit claimed Herron provided false information to law-enforcement officers, child-protective staffers and medical professionals. The mothers lawsuit alleged that abrasions on the buttocks of one of her twin boys that Herron claimed was evidence of sexual abuse likely came from the childs long bike-riding session while wearing shorts and no underwear. The lawsuit further claimed that Herron continually told the child that the child had been sexually abused, eventually persuading the child, 8 at the time, to falsely believe such abuse occurred. Prosecutors filed criminal charges of child abuse against the fiance. Child-protective staff in Routt County found that the fiance sexually abused one of the children and physically abused another and further found that the mother had emotionally abused all the children, including an older daughter. But a judge eventually dismissed a felony criminal charge, and prosecutors subsequently dropped a misdemeanor criminal charge. State human services officials also overturned the findings of abuse by child-protective staffers against the mother and her fiance and reflected for reporting purposes in a state child abuse tracking database that the abuse allegations were "reversed and overturned." The ex-husband continued to unsuccessfully push Routt County District Attorney Matt Karzen to prosecute his ex-wifes fiance, promising a campaign contribution if Karzen secured a felony conviction, according to an email from Karzen submitted as evidence during the defamation trial. Despite the prosecutor dropping the criminal charge, Routt County District Court Judge Mary Hoak, the judge overseeing the divorce and ongoing custody dispute, on January 29, 2021, still barred Hayek, the mother of the children, from having any contact or parenting time with her twin boys, then 8, and the daughter, then 14. The judge granted the father full custody after she found that the mother was emotionally damaging the children by disputing the allegations that her fiance had shoved items up one of the boys anus and supplied pornography to the children. The judge said during one hearing that she couldnt assure the children would be safe even if their visits with their mother were supervised because the mother was pursuing her belief for vindication. Ms. Hayek needs to do the work, the judge said when she announced she was barring all contact between the mother and her three children. She needs to let go of this other narrative that she has, let herself go and engage in therapy with the therapist that she has whos ready to do it. The judge also allowed the father to relocate himself, his new wife and the children from Steamboat Springs to Hawaii, brushing aside concerns raised by Hayeks lawyer during one hearing that barring the mother from having any contact with her children, even by phone, may violate the mothers constitutional right to parent her children. Its the laws of the state of Colorado you got a beef with, not me, the judge said during the hearing. It didnt matter that another judge had dismissed a felony charge of child abuse prosecutors had filed against the fiance, Kenneth Hamp, due to a lack of probable cause. She still barred the mother from having any contact with her children even after Karzen, the district attorney in Routt County, dismissed in June 2020 the criminal misdemeanor charge of child abuse that remained pending against Hamp. Nor did it matter that the mother of the children in August 2021 reached a settlement with the Colorado Department of Human Services. That settlement required the state agency to overturn November 2019 findings from Routt Countys child protective staffer Camilla Haight, who found the mother had emotionally abused the children and her fiance had sexually abused one of the children. For those of us in the system, cases settle for a lot of reasons, the divorce judge said during a hearing in February 2023, during which Hayeks lawyer highlighted the DHS settlement that required the agency to overturn the original findings of abuse. Hoak at that hearing declined to lift her prohibition barring any contact between the children and the mother. The mother and fiance, undaunted, filed civil lawsuits against her ex-husband, accusing him of multiple instances of defamation and of manipulating child-protective staffers and law-enforcement officers into initially believing his assertions her fiance was sexually abusing her son. The mother also has appealed Hoaks rulings barring her from having any contact with her children, so far unsuccessfully. Sign up for free: Weekly 7 Catch up with a rundown of the 7 most important and interesting stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. Now, a Routt County jury, following a five-week trial, has sided with the mother and her fiance, finding that a gross injustice occurred when the mother lost all contact with her children. The jury returned its verdict in November, the day before Thanksgiving, awarding $21.3 million in damages to Hayek and her fiance. Herron, the father, testified during the trial that the children and their mother have no relationship anymore. Ive never said their mother is alive or dead, he testified, according to a transcript of the hearing. The jury awarded to Hamp, the fiance, $3.7 million in economic and non-economic damages and $10 million in punitive damages; and awarded to Hayek, the mother of the children, $3.6 million in economic and non-economic damages and $4 million in punitive damages. The jury found Herron, the father, liable for $20.3 million of the damage award for multiple claims of defamation, conspiracy, outrageous conduct, abuse of process and malicious prosecution. The jury found Herrons new wife, Christine, now separated from Herron, liable for $1 million in damages for a conspiracy claim. Hayek and the Herrons declined comment. In court documents, Steven Herrons lawyers have said he plans to appeal the damage award. They also filed motions with the trial judge seeking to reduce the jurys findings on damages. Investigative reports by The Gazette in the past two years revealed judges relying on inaccurate and biased reports by evaluators, putting children at serious risk by giving custody to abusive parents. The newspaper found instances where evaluators have shown apparent prejudice against one parent usually mothers questioning their credibility without proof and making assumptions about parenting without firsthand investigation. Colorados network of custody evaluators has historically had little practical oversight, accountability, or opportunity for public scrutiny. Reports they submit to the court generally remain sealed, and the Department of Regulatory Agencies rarely chooses to investigate complaints made against evaluators professional licenses. In one divorce reported on by The Gazette, an evaluator questioned whether a woman had complained about her ex-husbands penis size, which the evaluator contended would put in doubt the womans ability to parent. The newspaper reported on how another evaluator fixated on whether a father in a custody case was a member of a violent gang because he had the nickname Sleepy Melo when it was the mother who was living with a convicted felon. That evaluator went on to threaten another father as an unfit parent, warning in emails to lawyers on the custody dispute that he was worse than a murderer she claimed to have counseled who had put his victims through a woodchipper. State court administrators only barred that evaluator from accepting court appointments after the father convinced them the evaluator had lied about having a doctoral degree in psychology to obtain a license to practice psychology in Colorado. Controversies over the parenting evaluation industry have grown so pronounced that state lawmakers last year created a task force to craft new domestic violence training requirements for judges handling divorce cases. In 2021, state lawmakers required evaluators to undergo new domestic violence training. The Routt County judge in the Hayek and Herron divorce relied in part on the custody recommendations from a controversial parenting evaluator, Kilmer. The judge appointed Kilmer to issue a custody recommendation in August 2020 for the ongoing custody dispute. Two years later, the state court administrators office would go on to bar Kilmer from continuing to do court-appointed parenting evaluations after allegations of bias surfaced from other parents following an investigative report on Kilmer from ProPublica. Last year, a group of mothers filed a class-action lawsuit against Kilmer, who himself pleaded guilty of a misdemeanor assault charge and a misdemeanor harassment charge in 2007, after his then-wife said he pushed her to the bathroom floor, according to police reports. The charges were dismissed after Kilmer successfully completed domestic violence training. A judge dismissed the class-action lawsuit against Kilmer, ruling that evaluators have immunity, protecting them from litigation. Hoak, the judge who presided over the divorce in Routt County, said during a 2020 court hearing that Kilmers parenting evaluation of Hayek and Herron helped persuade her to keep in place restrictions she initially had imposed on the mothers parenting time. Hoak noted in her ruling that Kilmer had reported to the judge that the mother needs to improve her awareness of and expression of compassion, empathy, or sympathy; the suffering that (her twins) especially have endured. She added she agreed with Kilmers finding that any movement toward unsupervised parenting time for the mother must be done with the utmost discretion, discipline and adherence to parenting time schedules that includes a professional team approach. The judge said during a March 2023 hearing that she still believes Kilmers work on the case was solid, despite Kilmers work in other cases prompting the state court administrators office to find him unfit to work as a parental evaluator and bar him from doing such work in custody disputes. I have no evidence that this that his parental responsibilities evaluation was flawed, the judge said during the hearing. No one has brought that to me, and very frankly, it made sense in many ways. She added, You know, just because someone is suspended for work they did in one case, doesnt mean they always did bad work. Routt County Chief District Court Judge Michael OHara explicitly refused to allow Herron to introduce Kilmers report in the civil litigation brought by the mother and her fiance, noting the controversy over Kilmer and prohibition against him doing any more court-appointed custody reports. Christopher Decker, the lawyer hired by Hayek to represent her fiance, said Hayek spent significant amounts of money on the divorce proceeding and the lawsuit against her ex-husband. I asked her, I said, Cindy, why are you spending literally many millions of dollars on this? Decker recalled. And she was like, I want the system to get this right. I want a jury to see what Steve Herron did, not to retaliate, but to expose it. He said Hayek and Hamp still plan to get married. The two met when she and the children frequented the Truffle Pig restaurant in Steamboat Springs, when he was the general manager of the restaurant, which is located on the ground floor of the building where her penthouse residence is located. The lawyer said the couple are holding off on the marriage until Hayeks daughter can walk her down the aisle. As voters begin receiving ballots in their mailboxes for the upcoming March 5 presidential primary election, The Gazette has compiled a list of important upcoming dates voters should watch for. This list was compiled from the 2024 election calendar posted on the Colorado secretary of state's website. It includes important dates for the presidential primary as well as some deadlines relevant to the Nov. 5 general election. In primary elections, unaffiliated voters receive a ballot packet containing a Republican candidate ballot and a Democratic candidate ballot. However, unaffiliated voters may only vote and return one ballot, El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Steve Schleiker said this week. He advised unaffiliated voters to destroy and discard the other ballot. If unaffiliated voters return both ballots voted, neither ballot will be counted. Voters affiliated with a minor party in Colorado won't receive a presidential primary ballot, Secretary of State Jena Griswold's office said in a news release this week. Feb. 16 Last day to affiliate with the Republican Party or Democratic Party to vote in the March 9 party precinct caucuses. Last day to send out initial mail ballots for the March 5 presidential primary election. Feb. 20 First day to begin counting mail ballots received for the March 5 presidential primary election. No results will be disclosed until after 7 p.m. on Election Day. Feb. 26 Last day for an individual to submit a voter registration application and still receive a ballot in the mail for the March 5 presidential primary election. If the county clerk receives a voter registration application within the eight days before the presidential primary election, the clerk will process the application and inform the applicant they will not receive a mail ballot. To receive a ballot, the applicant must visit a Voter Service and Polling Center. The recommended last day an individual should return their ballot by mail for the March 5 presidential primary. Take care to affix proper postage when mailing your ballot. Feb. 26-March 5 The minimum number of required Voter Service and Polling Centers must be open for the March 5 presidential primary election. Feb. 27 First day the minimum number of required drop boxes must be open for the March 5 presidential primary. March 5: Presidential Primary Election Day Last day an individual can register to vote or update their voter record to be able to vote in the March 5 presidential primary. To register to vote, update their voter record and to receive a ballot the applicant must visit a Voter Service and Polling Center. The county clerk must receive all ballots by 7 p.m. March 5-9 Republican Party and Democratic Party precinct caucus day. March 13 Last day for ballots cast by military and overseas electors to be received by the county clerk so they can be counted in the March 5 presidential primary election. Last day for an elector to cure a signature discrepancy or missing signature, or to provide missing identification for mail or provisional ballot to be counted in the March 5 presidential primary election, by 11:59 p.m. March 14 Last day for the county clerk to complete verification and counting of provisional ballots for the March 5 presidential primary election. Featured Local Savings March 15 The county must finish tabulating all in-person and accepted mail ballots cast by voters registered in the county for the presidential primary election. First day interested parties can request and file for a recount, at their own expense, for the March 5 presidential primary election. The county clerk must determine the cost of the recount within four days of receiving the recount request, but no later than 24 days following the election. March 19 Last day to file major party candidate petitions. March 26-30 Last dates for major parties to hold county assembly. March 27 Last day to complete the canvass and submit official abstract of votes cast for the March 5 presidential primary to the secretary of state. Last day for interested parties to request and file a recount, at their own expense, of the March 5 presidential primary election. The county clerk must determine the cost of the recount within four days of receiving the recount request, but no later than 24 days following the election. March 29 Last day for the secretary of state to order a complete statutory recount of the presidential primary election. April 1 Last day to file minor party candidate petitions. April 5 Last day to submit draft ballot issues to the Title Board, by 3 p.m., if the issue is to appear on the Nov. 5 general election ballot. Last day to complete a statutory recount of any race in the presidential primary. April 9 Last day to complete a recount of the presidential primary election requested by an interested party. April 13 Last possible day for major parties to hold state assembly. April 17 Last day to hold a Title Board hearing for ballot issues that will appear on the Nov. 5 general election ballot. For more information on how to register to vote and how to vote in El Paso and Teller counties, click here. For more information about elections in El Paso County, visit epcvotes.com or contact the El Paso County Elections Department at 719-575-8683 or by email at elections@elpasoco.com. For more information about elections in Teller County, contact the Teller County Elections Department at tellercounty.gov/Elections, 719-689-2951 or email elections@co.teller.co.us. An Aurora Police detectives observations played a pivotal role in the dismissal of a Latino juror as two officers went on trial in the death of Elijah McClain, according to a newly unsealed court document. That undercover officer told the judge in a closed-door proceeding that she overheard the man, identified only as Juror 14, say odio la policia Spanish for hate the police during a phone call in a courthouse hallway. In that same session, held out of public view and shrouded in mystery, the man said he didnt remember saying that but did not specifically deny that he did. Adams County District Judge Mark Warner, who earlier concluded that defense attorneys improperly struck the man from the jury because of his race, ultimately decided to dismiss the man from the panel. Opening statements began a few hours later with a largely white jury considering the case against two Aurora police officers indicted in the death of McClain, a 23-year-old Black man. The sequence of events played out Sept. 20, during the final stages of jury selection for the racially and politically charged trial of Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt, two of the five first responders accused of wrongdoing in McClains 2019 death. Court officials declined that day to answer questions about what happened after the judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys left the courtroom and met privately for several hours. In January, Colorado Public Radio filed a petition in court to unseal the transcript of the proceedings. Warner granted it Feb. 9. Warner, who presided over all three criminal trials connected to McClains death, ordered one redaction from the 86-page transcript before its release: The identity of Juror 14. The sequence of events that led to his dismissal played out in a jury room not accessible by the public and over the lunch hour behind the locked doors of Courtroom 402 at the Adams County Justice Center in Brighton, according to the transcript. It saw both prosecutors from the Colorado Attorney Generals Office and defense attorneys accuse the other side of improperly dismissing multiple jurors based on race. The 86-page transcript details the situation that included the undercover investigators acknowledgement that she was gathering intelligence at the trial of two officers both former colleagues. The undercover officer told the judge that during a break she was standing in a line outside a womens restroom, with six or seven prospective jurors, when she overheard Juror 14 talking on the phone as he was within 5 or 6 feet of her. The undercover officer told the judge she was at the trial to gather intelligence on potential protesters, noting that Auroras municipal courthouse was damaged during demonstrations in 2020. Attorney Scott Robinson, a 9NEWS legal analyst, said he found the situation unusual and that he was particularly bothered that the undercover officer, by her own admission, was around prospective jurors. What troubles me is that if you're in there as an undercover officer, you really have no business being in a line with jurors, Robinson said. That sounds a little bit like attempting to eavesdrop on conversations. That kind of eavesdropping is really not consistent with the fair administration of justice. We feel like this is a nonissue, said Aurora Police spokesman Joe Moylan. It was handled the day of. Moylan said the decision to assign an undercover officer to the courthouse was made by a supervisor in the departments intelligence unit. Featured Local Savings The intelligence unit operates on its own and has the authority to make those kinds of decisions, Moylan said. Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for the Colorado Attorney Generals Office, which prosecuted the case, declined to comment. The Aug. 24, 2019, confrontation involving officers and McClain and the mans subsequent death sparked outrage in the community. The incident began when a 911 caller reported seeing a man with a mask who seemed sketchy. Officer Nathan Woodyard responded and confronted McClain on an Aurora street as McClain walked home from a convenience store carrying a plastic grocery sack containing three cans of tea and listening to music on ear buds. Roedema and Rosenblatt joined Woodyard moments later, and the three of them physically subdued McClain. During the struggle, Roedema told the other officers that McClain tried to grab Rosenblatts gun an assertion that prosecutors repeatedly questioned. Rosenblatt and then Woodyard used a neck hold aimed at rendering McClain unconscious as they tried to take control of him. After that, according to multiple medical experts, McClain vomited and inhaled some it, then suffered a series of problems, including low levels of oxygen and high levels of acid in his body. McClain said repeatedly I cant breathe before two paramedics, Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec, injected him with the sedative ketamine. McClains heart stopped a short time later. Although paramedics successfully restored his pulse, he never regained consciousness and died three days later. Roedema, 41, faces 14 months in jail and four years of probation after being convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault for his actions in McClains death. He is expected to start serving the jail term March 22. The same jury that found Roedema guilty acquitted Rosenblatt of all charges. A jury in a separate trial acquitted Woodyard of all charges. He later resigned from Aurora Police after being reinstated and receiving back pay. In another trial, a jury convicted both paramedics of criminally negligent homicide and also found Cichuniec, the supervisor on the scene, guilty of second-degree assault. Cichuniec is scheduled to be sentenced March 1. Coopers sentencing is set for April 26. For more on this and other stories, visit our partners at 9News.com. A former youth pastor from Fountain was sentenced to 14 days in jail and five years of probation on Tuesday for being convicted of sending sexually explicit images to a minor associated with the church. Jeffery Williams, 39, was arrested by Fountain police in 2022 over allegations that Williams sent sexually explicit pictures to a minor. Williams was a youth pastor with the Salvation Army's former location at 901 N. Santa Fe Ave. in Fountain from 2013-2017, police told The Gazette in previous reporting. Williams was convicted of two sexual exploitation against a child charges one a class-3 felony and the other a class-6 felony at trial in 2023, according to court records. At Williams' sentencing hearing Tuesday the prosecution elaborated on the actions that led to his conviction. Prosecutor Melissa Bollig stated that in 2015, Williams sent explicit pictures to a minor he knew from the church, touched the victim in sexual areas and made plans with the victim to have sex at the church. Bollig noted that Williams and the victim did not follow through on the plans to have sex at the church. "(Williams) groomed and exploited (the victim) as a child," Bollig stated. "He was in a position of trust with the victim and the community." Bollig added that she was troubled by Williams' comments in his presentence investigative report, stating that in her opinion he showed a clear lack of remorse and that he attempted to paint himself as a victim while minimizing his actions. Bollig requested that Williams serve the maximum sentence of 90 days in jail, as well as an "extensive" period on sex offender intensive supervised probation (SOISP). Several of Williams friends and family including his father and wife spoke at sentencing, advocating that Williams not receive a jail sentence. Some of Williams' friends and family who spoke to the court said that it was just an isolated incident, and that Williams had grown since 2015, when the sexual exploitation occurred. Featured Local Savings Bollig countered, claiming that there was allegedly a second victim, but that the person declined to press charges. Kaitlin Johnson, Williams' attorney, stated that she "didn't know" if there was a second victim or not, but that sentencing should not consider any potential second victims because Williams' conviction pertained only to one victim. Johnson added that Williams was reported to be a low risk for recidivism in his presentence investigative report. The final person to speak at Tuesday's sentencing hearing was Williams, who through tears apologized for his actions. "I failed myself, and I failed my family," Williams said. Judge David Gilbert described the charges Williams was convicted of as "incredibly serious" and sentenced Williams to 14 days in jail. "You were the adult in the room, and you had an obligation," Gilbert said. "This is not about what they (the victim) did, this is about what you did ... The sooner you can absorb that 100%, the sooner you will be done with this." Williams also was sentenced to five years of SOISP probation, a probation that Gilbert said would result in a lengthy prison sentence if violated. Two gray wolves were on the move west across Colorado over the last month, according to the latest tracking data released by state wildlife officials. The latest data from the wolves GPS tracking collars showed the two wolves moving from western Routt County into eastern Moffat County, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said in a news release. CPW each month releases an updated map that shows the collared gray wolves movements over the last 30 days. The map released Wednesday showed the 12 collared wolves had covered vast areas of the state, including Jackson, Larimer, Grand and Summit counties to the east, and Eagle, Routt, Garfield, Rio Blanco and Moffat counties to the west. CPW continues to work with livestock producers to provide conflict-mitigation techniques and will continue to conduct outreach/education in areas that are likely to have wolves, CPW said in the release. The data is compiled by recording the wolves position once every four hours and is transmitted to state biologists after four locations have been recorded. Featured Local Savings CPW said the data is useful to see where the wolves have been, but staff cannot tell exactly where the wolves are at any point in time. The data is then displayed on a map that shows which watersheds the wolves have been in over the last 30 days. Watersheds are the appropriate mapping unit to display wolf activity information because wolves are far more likely to use geographic features to affect their distribution than they are political boundaries, CPW said. Wildlife officials said they reserve the right to buffer the wolves locations on the map if it means protecting the wolves safety. CPW said the accuracy of the map will diminish over time as the animals breed in the wild and as other uncollared wolves potentially move into the area from other states. A group of protesters on Tuesday implored the Colorado Springs City Council to call for "an immediate and permanent humanitarian ceasefire in Palestine and Israel." Dozens of people organized by local activist group the Colorado Springs People's Coalition packed council chambers to speak during the public comment portion of Tuesday's regular council meeting. In emotional public comments punctuated by shouts of "free Palestine" and "ceasefire now," protesters presented a proposed resolution that they urged council to place on a future meeting agenda for an official vote. The document calls for several actions, including an immediate ceasefire, "the immediate, safe and unconditional release of all abducted people, and an end to any grave violations against all people, including killing and maiming of children," among others. "What's happening there (in and around the Gaza Strip) is not fair to all the civilians who are there. They are killing the innocent people the kids, the moms, the dads, the old people. It's not fair. It's not right," Nissreen Abukhdeir told the council. Abukhdeir is a Palestinian born in Jerusalem and has lived in Colorado Springs for 25 years, she said. "We have to respect life. We have to respect people. We cannot close our eyes and act like we don't know what's happening. ... Please stop the killing." Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. Zacharyah Goldman, a Jewish person who was born in Israel and lived there until he was 5 years old, said a ceasefire will not benefit Israelis or Palestinians. Goldman was one of about five people who spoke Tuesday against a resolution calling for a ceasefire. "There can be no real ceasefire because of this one thing: Hamas will not stop until Israel is wiped out, until all Jews are dead. ... If there is a ceasefire, Hamas terrorists will break their agreements, launch a surprise attack again, and murder innocents," Goldman said. Linda Amin Badwan, who is also a Palestinian born in Jerusalem, said the City Council's Oct. 10 vote passing a symbolic resolution in support of Israel made her feel unsupported by city leaders. "Where do we fit as Palestinians? I'm a Palestinian-American. When you say that you have unwavering support for Israelis, but then you don't include me in the equation, that leaves me feeling extremely alienated and feeling unsafe at the same time," she said. Larry Peterson raises his staff, signaling Robert Briggs to ring the Honor Bell, starting the 88th Annual Memorial Day Ceremony at Logan National Cemetery in May 2022. Pro-Palestinian protesters chant at the top of the west steps of the Colorado State Capitol building after Gov. Jared Polis delivered his State of the State address inside the House chambers on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024, in Denver, Colo. Protestors could be heard inside the chambers during the address. (Timothy Hurst/The Gazette) A Colorado office tasked with taking care of some of the state's most vulnerable citizens is once more facing questions about its management, notably after resignations have left it with just a few staffers to care for more than 80 clients. The Iowa Attorney General's Office will not file criminal charges against Democratic Cerro Gordo County Auditor Adam Wedmore in a case regarding his personal use of a county postage meter. In a letter from from the Iowa Department of Justice attained by the Globe Gazette addressed to Cerro Gordo County Attorney Carlyle Dalen, Special Assistant Attorney General Scott D. Brown admonished Wedmore for his actions. "The declination of criminal charges does not equate to condoning the behavior of Wedmore. Wedmore exercised poor judgment in utilizing a county owned mail machine intended for official use for other purposes," Brown wrote. "Although he ultimately paid for the postage, the ink, and the electricity for use of the machine his actions caused the public that he serves to justifiably mistrust his actions. However, not all exercises of bad judgment result in criminal charges. This is one of those occasions." Brown said the Cerro Gordo County Sheriff's investigation revealed that Wedmore entered the courthouse with his family Jan. 27 with a number of boxes that were later determined to have contained 1,000 campaign mailings. On Feb. 2, Wedmore informed his finance director that he intended to reimburse the county for the cost of the postage. The attorney general said his intentions are supported by the fact that he had purchased a replacement ink cartridge for the postage meter that same day. On Feb. 5, Wedmore provided his finance director with a check drawn from his election account in the amount of $650. The cost of the postage from the meter was $640, and Wedmore included an additional $10 to cover the cost of electricity and wear and tear. According to the letter from Brown, there are two potentially applicable charges in this instance fourth-degree theft and non-felonious misconduct in office neither of which will be pursued. The Iowa Attorney General's Office cites Wedmore's timely reimbursement to the county as a contributing factor in declining to file charges. Cerro Gordo County Supervisor Casey Callanan, a Republican, who brought the allegations to the board's attention Monday, said in an email, "Per the 2-1 vote yesterday, it is my hope that we will enter into an agreement with the State Auditor's Office to ensure there are no other improprieties taken place by Adam Wedmore at the expense of Cerro Gordo tax payers. To my knowledge, there are no other agencies involved at this time." Wedmore's infractions have been referred to an ethics commission that oversees county auditors. Wedmore could not be reached for comment. LOS ANGELES and FOREST CITY, Iowa Xos, Inc., a leading manufacturer of electric commercial vehicles, and Winnebago, the flagship brand of outdoor lifestyle product manufacturer Winnebago Industries, have announced a partnership. The result is the development of a fully electric chassis for Winnebagos Specialty Vehicles division. This chassis utilizes established Xos battery and electronics technology. It is customized for Winnebagos unique commercial applications. We constantly seek new ways to enhance our customers mission, and our partnership with Xos is an important next step in our efforts, said Robert Kim, director for Winnebagos Specialty Vehicles division. The near-term demand for zero-emission vehicle options from our Specialty Vehicle division continues to grow and we look forward to extending our leadership position using an Xos chassis designed to integrate seamlessly into our manufacturing processes. With the delivery of the first chassis, this partnership brings together two industry leaders to provide innovative, fully electric solutions for the specialty vehicle market. Winnebagos Specialty Vehicles division has been providing commercial vehicles for more than 50 years. It has led the market with zero-emissions vehicle solutions since its first electric vehicle was introduced in 2018. "We are thrilled to partner with Winnebago to move the industry forward," Xos Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Dakota Semler said. "This is a testament to the quality and reliability of our products, and to the customer-centered design approach of Winnebagos Specialty Vehicle team. This partnership combines the strengths of both companies and positively impacts the communities these vehicles serve." The specialized chassis for Winnebago will utilize Xos' proven Specialty Vehicle platform technology to allow for quick scalability, dependable access to parts, continued software improvements, and scalable service support. The chassis is also compatible with Xosphere, which is Xos' fleet management software. It will provide end-users with a comprehensive support system. Uses for this platform can include, but are not limited to, mobile child advocacy centers, medical and dental clinics, blood donation vehicles, and mobile command vehicles. Xos' electric chassis will underpin Winnebagos zero-emissions commercial vehicle shells, available in 33-foot and 38-foot lengths. With an estimated driving range up to 200 miles, it will eliminate tailpipe emissions and reduce noise as well as overall operating costs. Our approach to innovation is rooted in embracing change and collaborating across our businesses to create the best possible experiences for our customers, said Jamie Sorenson, director in Winnebago Industries Advanced Technology Group, which is a project partner. We are constantly monitoring evolving customer needs and technology solutions and our partnership with Xos represents a significant milestone in our journey into the future of electric specialty vehicles. Xos is a leading technology company, electric truck manufacturer, and fleet services provider for battery-electric fleets. Xos vehicles and fleet management software are purpose-built for medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles that travel on last-mile, back-to-base routes. Through its proprietary technology, the company provides commercial fleets with battery-electric vehicles that are easier to maintain and more cost-efficient than their internal combustion engine counterparts. For more information, visit www.xostrucks.com. Winnebago brand RVs have been a part of the American outdoor experience since pioneering the category in 1958. For more information, visit www.winnebago.com. Winnebago is a wholly owned subsidiary of Winnebago Industries. Winnebago Specialty Vehicles is a division of Winnebago, working for over 55 years to develop unique and customized specialty vehicle applications. It has done so in diverse domains such as mobile medical, mobile opioid clinics and other mobile business applications. Winnebago Specialty Vehicles also designs and develops diverse vehicles for customers with accessibility challenges. With manufacturing operations in Forest City, IA and a nationwide sale and service network, Winnebago Specialty Vehicles specializes in high-performance applications. The division has designed, built, and delivered multiple all-electric vehicles to customers across the United States since 2018. A South Carolina man is dead following a single-vehicle crash in Pittsylvania County early Tuesday morning. The Virginia State Police is investigating the wreck that occurred at 2:50 a.m. on Gallows Road, nearly half a mile north of Rockford School Road, according to a news release from the state police. Kendall Wayne Rice, 43, of Greer, South Carolina, was traveling south on Gallows Road in a 2015 Mini Cooper when the vehicle ran off the right side of the roadway and overturned several times, according to the news release. Rice, who was not wearing his seatbelt, was ejected from the vehicle and died at the scene. The crash remains under investigation. The Danville Historical Societys photo album of an African American family considered highly rare since it dates from the 1880s is one of Virginias Top 10 Endangered Artifacts. The list, designated by the Virginia Association of Museums, is a voting and fundraising mechanism to preserve history. Lasting though Sunday, online voting is open at vamuseums.org. The artifact with the most votes will receive $1,000 for preservation. The VA-NC Piedmont Genealogy Society donated the album, according to Danville Historical Society Executive Director Robin Marcato. Marcato calls the genealogy society an amazing group of people who guard thousands of local family histories. This particular photo album doesnt have any paperwork to trace the origins. The album is an extraordinary artifact from the Victorian era and includes around 50 photographs, Marcato wrote in the description. We dont know any of the subjects, but based on the clothing, and noting that photography was expensive, we believe the family was upper class. In addition to Danville, it has photos taken in different spots across the nation including Greensboro, North Carolina; Baltimore; New York; Chicago; and Boston. Moreover, there is a lock of hair that was carefully added next to a baby picture, Marcato said. As a portrait of Black Americans in the Gilded Age, it is irreplaceable, both for its rarity and for the story that it tells. This marks the 13th anniversary of the endangered artifacts program, according to the Virginia Association of Museums. The group reports its helped more than 200 institutions by showcasing the expense and expertise thats needed to care for such relics of the past. Museum collections are always held in trust for future generations, but they are always threatened at the same time, Virginia Association of Museums Executive Director Rick Hurley said in a statement. Our Top Ten program gives museums a chance to draw attention to particularly endangered artifacts, and raise public awareness of the need for preservation. After online voting ends, a committee will hand out the top $1,000 award to one organization. The rest will receive $250 that can be used for conservation or professional development training. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Xavier Bettel, attended the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Abu Dhabi from 25 to 27 February 2024. MAEE Group photo MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Franck Riester, Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade, Attractiveness, the French-speaking World and French Nationals Abroad; Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Hadja Lahbib, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Belgium. MAEE Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs MAEE Group photo MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General WTO MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Simon Coveney, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Ireland MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Lars LKKE RASMUSSEN. Minister for Foreign Affairs Denmark MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commissioner for Trade; Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General WTO MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commissioner for Trade; Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General WTO MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Ian Borg, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Malta; Alex Sceberras TrIgona, former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Malta; former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Saudi Arabia. MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Manuel Tovar Rivera, Minister for Foreign Trade Costa Rica; Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs. MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Ian Borg, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Malta. MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Alex Sceberras TrIgona, former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Malta; Ian Borg, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Malta; Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs MAEE (fr. l. to r.) Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs; Sheikh Abdallah bin Zayed Al Nahyane, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates. Ahead of the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference (WTC13), the European trade ministers met for a session of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in its "Trade" configuration. The WC13 is taking place in a difficult geopolitical context, marked by the weakening of global supply chains and an upsurge in food insecurity. In this context, Minister Bettel stressed the need to work together to strengthen the rules-based multilateral trading system. The Minister highlighted the importance of extending the moratorium on the imposition of customs duties on electronic transmissions and of advancing work on WTO reform, including in particular the re-establishment of the Appellate Body. Xavier Bettel also stressed the need to launch a discussion forum on the links between trade and industrial, environmental and social policies. Luxembourg hopes that the Conference will also make it possible to conclude phase 2 of the Multilateral Fisheries Agreement aimed at eliminating subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing. In the margins of the Ministerial Conference, Minister Bettel took part in an event in support of Ukraine and attended the celebration of the entry into force of the plurilateral agreement on domestic regulation in services. He also took the opportunity to hold bilateral meetings with several ministers, including France's Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade, Franck Riester, and the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan. In addition to bilateral relations between Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates, Minister Bettel and Sheikh Abdullah discussed in particular the situation in Gaza. Deploring the unacceptable number of civilian victims in Israel and Gaza and the vicious circle of violence that followed the Hamas terrorist attacks, they stressed the need for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all remaining hostages. Minister Bettel and Sheikh Abdullah also discussed the need to find a political solution to the current situation, in particular through the two-state solution, which is the only way to offer a lasting solution to this conflict. The importance of the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid was also discussed. Press release by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade At the invitation of TRH the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, and his wife Eva Pavlova are paying a State visit to Luxembourg from 29 February to 1 March 2024. The presidential couple is accompanied by a delegation including around thirty Czech companies. Thursday 29 February 2024 The President of the Czech Republic and his wife are officially welcomed by TRH the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess on the forecourt of the Grand Ducal Palace. After the military honours, the playing of the national anthems, the troop review, the presentation of the respective authorities and delegations and an exchange of gifts, Petr Pavel and Eva Pavlova are received for a meeting with the Grand Ducal couple at the palace. Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue (fr. l. to r.) HRH the Grand Duchess ; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic ; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic ; HRH the Grand Duke SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen (fr. l. to r.) Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic ; Luc Frieden, Prime Minister SIP / Julien Warnand (fr. l. to r.) HRH the Grand Duke ; etr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic SIP / Julien Warnand (front l. to r.) HRH the Grand Duke; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic --- (back l. to r.) Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duchess SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen Group photo Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue State visit to Luxembourg by the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, and his wife Eva Pavlova Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue (fr. l. to r.) HRH the Grand Duchess; n.c.; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duke Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue State visit to Luxembourg by the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, and his wife Eva Pavlova The Head of State of the Czech Republic, accompanied by his wife, then deposit a wreath of flowers at the Luxembourg National Solidarity Monument, in the presence of Prime Minister Luc Frieden, Minister of Defence Yuriko Backes and the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Steve Thull. As they leave the chapel, Petr Pavel and Eva Pavlova greet flag bearers, members of the Committee for the Remembrance of the Second World War and representatives of patriotic movements and associations. SIP / Julien Warnand (fr. l. to r.) Yuriko Backes, Minister of Defence; Colonel Robert Kohnen, aide-de-camp to the House of the Grand Duke; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; n.c. (security); Luc Frieden, Prime Minister SIP / Jean-Christophe Verheagen (fr. l. to r.) n.c.; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; Patrick Majerus, Head of the Service for the Remembrance of the Second World War SIP / Jean-Christophe Verheagen Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic SIP / Julien Warnand Luxembourg National Solidarity Monument - Laying a wreath of flowers at the foot of the flame of remembrance SIP / Jean-Christophe Verheagen Luxembourg National Solidarity Monument - Laying a wreath of flowers at the foot of the flame of remembrance Back at the Grand Ducal Palace, the Czech Head of State is granted audience with the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Claude Wiseler, Prime Minister Luc Frieden and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs, Xavier Bettel. SIP / Julien Warnand (fr. l. to r.) Claude Wiseler, President of the Chamber of Deputies ; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic SIP / Julien Warnand (fr. l. to r.) Luc Frieden, Prime Minister ; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic SIP / Julien Warnand (fr. l. to r.) Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs ; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel and Eva Pavlova then join the grand-ducal couple at the palace for a private lunch to continue their talks. In the early afternoon, the Czech presidential couple and TRH the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess are welcomed to the Town Hall by Mayor Lydie Polfer for an academic session, in the presence of the College of Aldermen and the Municipal Council. The musical accompaniment is provided by a group of musicians from the Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg. SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen (from left to right) Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duke Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue (from left to right) Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duke; HRH the Grand Duchess; Lydie Polfer, Mayor of the City of Luxembourg SIP / Julien Warnand (from left to right) Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duchess; HRH the Grand Duke; Lydie Polfer, Mayor of the City of Luxembourg Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue Group photo Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue (from left to right) HRH the Grand Duchess; HRH the Grand Duke; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen (from left to right) HRH the Grand Duke; Martine Deprez, Minister of Health and Social Security; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen Lydie Polfer, Mayor of the City of Luxembourg SIP / Julien Warnand Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic SIP / Julien Warnand (from left to right) Lydie Polfer, Mayor of the City of Luxembourg; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duchess; HRH the Grand Duke The programme continues with the laying of a wreath in Jan Palach Square by the President of the Czech Republic and HRH the Grand Duke, in the presence of the Mayor of the City of Luxembourg, Lydie Polfer. Jan Palach Square was created to commemorate the sacrifice of the Czech student, born on 11 August 1948 in Prague, who set himself on fire on Wenceslas Square in Prague on 16 January 1969, as a symbolic act of resistance to the invasion by Warsaw Pact forces. The Czech and Luxembourg heads of state then place a wreath at the tomb of John the Blind, and visit the nave of the cathedral, in the presence of HRH the Grand Duchess and Eva Pavlova. In 1946, six centuries after his death, the remains of John I, King of Bohemia and Count of Luxembourg, a key figure in linking the history of Luxembourg with that of the Czech Republic, were placed in the crypt of "Notre-Dame de Luxembourg" cathedral, his third tomb. SIP / Julien Warnand (from left to right) Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duke; Lydie Polfer, Mayor of the City of Luxembourg. Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue Laying of a wreath at Jan Palach Square SIP / Julien Warnand Laying of a wreath at Jan Palach Square Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue (from left to right) Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duke; Lydie Polfer, Mayor of the City of Luxembourg. Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue Laying a wreath of flowers in front of the tomb of John the Blind Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue (from left to right) Georges Hellinghausen, Provost of the Cathedral Chapter; Tom Kerger, parish priest of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Luxembourg; HRH the Grand Duke; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic At the end of the afternoon, the Presidential couple and the Grand Ducal couple proceed to the Chateau de Betzdorf, the headquarters of SES, where they are welcomed by the Minister of Defence, Yuriko Backes, the Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister for Media and Connectivity, Elisabeth Margue, and representatives of SES. After a brief presentation of the company's activities and explanations of SES's history and strategic vision, as well as relations with the Czech Republic, the Presidential couple and the Grand Ducal couple visit the satellite control centre. SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen (from left to right) Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; Yuriko Backes, Minister of Defence; Elisabeth Margue, Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister for Media and Connectivity SIP / Julien Warnand Visit to the SES headquarters at Chateau de Betzdorf Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue (from left to right) Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duke; HRH the Grand Duchess; Yuriko Backes, Minister of Defence SIP / Julien Warnand (from left to right) Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic SIP / Julien Warnand Visit to the SES headquarters at Chateau de Betzdorf SIP / Julien Warnand Group photo Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue Visit to the satellite control centre (SOC) The first day of the State visit ends with a gala dinner hosted by THR the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess at the Grand Ducal Palace in honour of the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, and his wife Eva Pavlova, in the presence of HRH the Hereditary Grand Duke and Hereditary Grand Duchess. Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue (from left to right) HRH the Crown Princess; HRH the Grand Duke; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duchess; HRH the Crown Prince SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen (from left to right) Luc Frieden, Prime Minister; HRH the Grand Duke; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic. SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen (from left to right) Yuriko Backes, Minister of Defence; HRH the Grand Duke; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic. SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen (from left to right) Elisabeth Margue, Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister for Media and Connectivity; HRH the Grand Duke; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic SIP / Julien Warnand Grand Ducal Palace - Gala dinner Maison du Grand-Duc / Sophie Margue (from left to right) Lieutenant General Ivo Strecha, Czech military representative to NATO and the EU; HRH the Grand Duchess; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duke; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Colonel Robert Kohnen, aide-de-camp to the House of the Grand Duke SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen (from left to right) Lieutenant General Ivo Strecha, Czech military representative to NATO and the EU; Petr Pavel, President of the Czech Republic; HRH the Grand Duke; Eva Pavlova, First Lady of the Czech Republic; Colonel Robert Kohnen, aide-de-camp to the House of the Grand Duke SIP / Julien Warnand Illustration Press release by the Information and Press Service (SIP ) U.S. House speaker "optimistic" Congress will avoid government shutdown Xinhua) 08:11, February 28, 2024 U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks during a press conference in the Capitol building before an impeachment vote against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in Washington, D.C., the United States, Feb. 6, 2024. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua) "We will get the government funded and we'll keep working on that," says Mike Johnson. WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday he is "very optimistic" that Congress will avoid a government shutdown by the Friday deadline, after meeting with President Joe Biden and top congressional leaders at the White House. "We believe that we can get to agreement on these issues and prevent a government shutdown, and that's our first responsibility," said Johnson, a conservative Republican from Louisiana. "We will get the government funded and we'll keep working on that," Johnson told reporters after the White House meeting, less than four days before the deadline for partial government funding. This deadline is crucial as four out of the 12 spending bills are set to expire. Failure to take congressional action this week will result in the closure of numerous federal programs and agencies. The remaining eight bills are due to expire on March 8. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, said that during a private meeting on Tuesday with Biden and other congressional leaders, Johnson expressed a strong desire to unequivocally avoid a government shutdown. In January, Congress approved a stopgap funding bill that would keep the government open into early March, buying lawmakers more time to finish the formal appropriations process for fiscal year 2024, which began on Oct. 1, 2023. Congress previously approved stopgap funding measures in September and in November 2023. Despite Johnson's efforts to steer clear of another so-called "continuing resolution," there may be limited alternatives available at this point, according to the Politico. (Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun) The latest in a series of commercial real estate purchases of Walgreens properties across the Triad involves a Greensboro location bought for $3.75 million, according to a Guilford County Register of Deeds filing. The 1.71-acre tract is at 3703 Lawndale Drive. The parent company is the seller of the property. The buyers are three affiliates of Orion Buying Corp. and Orion Real Estate Group of Miami. They are: Cotrust Wash with a 60.5% ownership stake; Sanz Dream Wash with a 27.9% stake; and Countrywide Wash with an 11.6% stake. Orion appears to specialize in owning and leasing Bank of America branches, including at 698 Hanes Mall Blvd. in Winston-Salem, 1800 Blowing Rock Road in Boone and 700 College Road in Greensboro. Orion also owns and leases the 2504 Empire Drive property in Winston-Salem. Since March 2021, several Walgreens properties in the Triad have been sold to a variety of different companies. GREENSBORO The Guilford County Division of Public Health is investigating a possible case of measles in an adult, a spokesman for the agency said Wednesday morning. If confirmed, it would mark the first time in 11 years measles has shown up in the Triad. The health department termed the illness a "suspect measles case,'' but did not disclose details about how or where the adult may have contracted the illness, where they are being treated or whether they had been previously vaccinated against the airborne disease. The National Institutes of Health defines a suspected case of measles as causing fever, a generalized rash that typically starts behind the ears or on the forehead at the hairline, a cough, runny nose or conjunctivitis (commonly referred to as "pink eye"). Meanwhile, measles cases are cropping up nationwide, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue a warning following confirmation of 23 such instances between Dec. 1, 2023 and Jan. 23 in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Washington, D.C. area. No cases were reported in North Carolina during 2023, state health officials said. In April 2013, however, the Piedmont Triad saw a measles outbreak in Stokes County that spread to Orange and Polk counties. Health officials tested more than 1,000 potentially exposed people and traced the origin of 19 measles cases to a community in Stokes. No measles cases have been reported in North Carolina since 2018, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. State health officials are ready to help should the suspected measles case in Guilford County be confirmed, a spokeswoman said. "NCDHHS Division of Public Health is working closely with local health departments to ensure readiness to detect and respond to any possible measles exposures in North Carolina,'' Summer Tonizzo said in an email on Wednesday. "The increased number of measles cases in the U.S. in recent weeks is reflective of a rise in global measles cases and a growing global threat from the disease." Tonizzo added that state health officials recommend vaccinations as an important part of overall health and well-being, especially for children. North Carolina schools require students be protected against measles, mumps, and rubella more commonly known as MMR and those vaccines are checked upon entry to school. The CDC also tracks MMR vaccination coverage through the National Immunization Survey (ChildVaxView) and through state-reported kindergarten immunization reports (SchoolVaxView), according to Tonizzo. According to the National Immunization Survey, 90.1% of North Carolina children born in 2020 had received at least one dose of the MMR vaccine by 24 months of age compared to 91.4% nationally. And kindergartners in the Tarheel state have a slightly higher rate of immunization than the national average. The CDC estimates that 93.8% of North Carolina kindergarteners were reported up to date on the MMR vaccine in the 2022-23 school year compared to 93.1% nationally. Who needs a vaccination? Those age 1 or older should be vaccinated, health officials said in an email on Wednesday. Anyone with questions regarding their vaccine status or immunity should check their immunization record or contact their healthcare provider to verify when they received their last shot, the state health department advised. A highly contagious disease caused by a virus, measles can be spread through the air by coughing and sneezing. Contact with nose or mouth secretions of an infected individual can also transmit the illness. Measles can be prevented by the MMR vaccine, which is a two-shot regimen that's been used since 1989 and is about 97% effective, according to infectious disease experts. The two-shot vaccine replaced a one-shot regimen that was less effective. For that reason, people born between 1958 and 1989 who may have the received the old procedure could be at slight risk of contracting the disease if exposed to an active case, according to the CDC. Anyone born before 1958 is considered to have natural immunity because they were probably exposed to the measles. Public health officials recommend immunization within 72 hours of exposure for those individuals who have not already been vaccinated. Vaccines, usually covered by private health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, are available at private and public medical clinics. Individuals who are uninsured can expect to pay between $30 to $40 for the shot. Children who are uninsured can be vaccinated in North Carolina at low or no cost through the Vaccines for Children program, which offers free shots to children through 18 years of age. GREENSBORO The Republican primary for the redrawn Ninth Congressional District, which extends as far north as the Guilford-Rockingham County line for the first time, pits a longtime incumbent against a political newcomer. Six-time Rep. Richard L. Hudson Jr., 62, who lives in Southern Pines, will face political newcomer Troy L. Tarazon, 46, of Sanford in the March 5 primary. The general election is Nov. 5. Early primary voting is underway and ends Saturday. The Democrats in the Ninth have canceled their primary, sending unopposed candidate Nigel Bristow to the general election. Bristow will face the winner of Hudson-Tarazon. In addition to the eastern part of Guilford County, the redrawn district now includes all of Moore, Randolph, Hoke and Alamance counties as well as parts of Chatham and Cumberland counties. The lines were redrawn after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the state Supreme Court that the districts previously drawn by Republicans were overly partisan. If it seems familiar, the 9th District was part of a drama that played out in North Carolina courts. Immediately following the 2018 election for the seat, which found Republican Mark Harris, a native of Winston-Salem, ahead of Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes, the nine members of the state Board of Elections four Democrats, four Republicans and one unaffiliated voter voted unanimously against certifying the election results because of alleged irregularities involving traditional mail-in absentee ballots cast in Bladen and Robeson counties. Numerous claims arose that Leslie McCrae Dowless, a consultant working on behalf of Harris campaign, coordinated an effort to illegally collect absentee ballots, according to News & Record reporting at the time. Harris was adamant that he knew nothing about it. Hudson, meanwhile, had represented the 8th District since 2013. Prior to his election, he served as chief of staff for several legislators, including U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx. He is married and the father of one child. Hudson sits on the Energy and Commerce committee and was elected by his colleagues to House leadership as the fifth-ranking Republican in the 118th Congress, according to his website. In the 2022 general election for the Eighth District, Hudson beat Democrat Ben Clark by 30,000 votes or 53.5% out of the more than 232,000 votes cast. As your congressman, I am proud to have worked alongside President Donald Trump to make America the most prosperous and safe country on Earth, Hudson said in 2023 when announcing his reelection bid. But Joe Bidens failed leadership is destroying all of that work. I want to continue fighting for our men and women in uniform, veterans, parents rights, farmers, the Second Amendment and small businesses. Tarazon, who is married and the father of three children, served 20 years in the Army, including two combat deployments to Iraq, and retired in 2022 while assigned to Fort Liberty (formerly known as Fort Bragg). Upon retirement and loving the local area, he and his family decided they would call North Carolina home for the rest of their lives, according to his campaign website. Tarazon said he is running because he has the same concerns and worries about himself, his family and his community as the rest of the nation, his website explains. He seeks this office so he can be a representation of who this country is actually made of: everyday working Americans who love freedom, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When the government shuts down the people responsible continue to receive their pay because they are considered essential. These include the president and members of Congress. It reminds me of when it snows in Washington (as opposed to the snow jobs we get all year from politicians). The guy on the radio says, Only essential workers need to report to work. Lets find out who they are and get rid of the rest. That would substantially reduce our $34 trillion national debt and cut the size of the federal government, the nations largest employer. The threat of another government shutdown reminds me of movies some of the cable channels repeatedly run. Even films I love eventually reach a saturation point as they become overly familiar. It is the same with reruns of government shutdowns. Government shutdowns are a relatively recent phenomenon. As the History Channel recounts, the first one happened in November 1981, Ronald Reagans first year in office. Reagan vetoed a spending bill he thought should have cut more domestic programs. The shutdown lasted only a few days and the spending continued. The second shutdown occurred in the fall of 1982 and for the nuttiest of reasons. As The New York Times reported: Congress missed the deadline because both major parties had events they didnt want to miss: Republicans were attending a White House barbecue and the Democrats had a fundraising dinner. The next one happened in mid-October of 1984. It lasted only half a day because Reagan was cruising toward reelection and Democrats quickly caved, a rarity. In 1990, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, responding to President George H.W. Bush s broken promise not to raise taxes, led a Republican rebellion against a spending bill, triggering a shutdown that led to the closing of national parks and museums. The media then, as now, always heads for the parks and museums to show their closed signs, as well as trumpeting the scare tactics of Democrats who claim retirees might not get their Social Security checks. During the Bill Clinton administration, the government was closed for 21 days over opposition to major spending cuts. In 2013, there was a 16-day shutdown during the Obama administration, caused by a dispute over implementation of the Affordable Care Act. In late 2018, another funding gap triggered the longest shutdown in U.S. history. The argument was over President Trumps proposed plan to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. As the History Channel notes: The shutdown led the government to furlough 800,000 federal workers. Democrats refused to fund the wall, and ultimately Republicans relented. The shutdown ended a month after it began with no funding in place for a border wall. Hows that looking with millions of migrants, including criminals and drugs, flooding the country? Theres no reason to recount the other shutdowns because its all political theater. With only a few variations they have looked like reruns of a familiar movie. The real problem: too much spending, too much growth in government power, too much debt and a failure to cut unnecessary and outmoded government programs is rarely addressed, especially by the media, which prefers arguments over solutions. If the pay of the president and members of Congress could be cut when faced with a shutdown, there likely would be no more of them. Unfortunately, like the hope some people have for term limits, the people who have created the problem pay no penalty for their refusal to do what used to be called the right thing. In gangland days such threats were called extortion. Today, it is politics as usual. It is why so many hate Washington. If voters continue to vote for the people who have created the problem they will continue these reruns and get what they deserve. What he would do Even if Donald Trump were not a crude and mendacious lawbreaker, maybe his agenda for the next administration will awaken Americans to what they might be voting for later this year. He and his team have advocated the following ideas for the next Trump term: a presidency with no legal accountability, ending female bodily autonomy, shooting shoplifters on sight, using the U. S. military to fight domestic crime, a quick death for drug dealers, a 10% tariff on all imports, ceding Ukraine and the rest of Europe to Russian aggression, leaving Taiwan to be ruled by Chinese Communists, a constitutional convention to replace the existing framework of government (thus revoking civil liberties other than gun ownership), increasing the national debt to give more tax breaks to the rich, imposing Christian nationalism and theocratic laws upon America, executing generals who have been insufficiently supportive, and weaponizing government to rain down retribution on all who have ever opposed or criticized the Dear Leader. But nothing really important comes to mind. Trump is guilty of all the charges which have been brought against him by federal and state prosecutors. But if I am wrong about that, the foregoing list of ideas put forth by Trump and his associates is not a matter of anyones opinion. These are things which have been promoted publicly and forcefully by Republicans and Trump evangelicals. Alexander Hamilton said, People get the government they deserve. We shall find out in November. Jody McGhee High Point Black history, Black votes Just watched Willie Geist on MSNBC, with Al Sharpton, et al., arguing for slavery reparations by using the historic treatise Uncounted Millions. Yesterday I watched a Black political leader, while being interviewed, warn that Black voters needed to see much more support and concern from Foggy Joe Biden, or they might stay home, or even horrors vote for would-be dictator Trump! Indeed, polls are showing this. There are many ways to use Black History Month in current politics. Some are honest and meaningful, and some are the rankest, most self-destructive stupidity. If you listen hard, you can hear Trump laughing! Bob Gaines Greensboro Protecting the land Last Monday, Gov. Roy Cooper signed Executive Order 305, which sets goals for the state to preserve 1 million acres of wetlands and forests, restore an additional million acres and plant 1 million urban trees by 2040. This order is an important step forward for North Carolina. Last spring, the U.S. Supreme Court and the North Carolina legislature severely limited protections for wetlands that provide habitat for native species and plants, decrease the threat of flooding and help to eliminate carbon dioxide from our environment. According to a news release from Coopers office, the order also directs state agencies to study the social, economic, and environmental value of protecting North Carolinas wetlands and directs agencies to go after federal funding to protect and restore wetlands to enhance flood resiliency, improve water quality, and sequester carbon. It also directs agencies to promote and support new and ongoing conservation and restoration, and climate resiliency efforts within tribal communities. And it directs the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to research the impacts of future climate conditions on the states biodiversity. Im grateful for this commitment to preserving our environment and urge others to write to the governors office to express their appreciation and copy their state legislators, as well. Ellen Van Velsor Greensboro Moore for NC House This letter is a total endorsement of Britt W. Moore for N.C. House in District 62. We have known Britt and his family for more than 40 years. We can honestly say there is not a better candidate, leader and businessman with such a proven record for such an important position. His expertise, loyalty and temperament further enhance his qualifications. His lifetime in High Point and his impressive service to his community accentuates the passion and commitment he would bring to a political environment that badly needs them. The right thing to do is not always the most popular. While Britt may not be as popular as some of the other candidates, we assure you, he is the right one to endorse in this important election. John and Judy Gallman Oak Ridge Moores character I have had the privilege and pleasure of serving alongside Britt Moore as a High Point City Council representative for the past six years. Britt is a man of unwavering character who has proven his dedication and commitment to serving his city and his neighbors. He is thorough in his research, knowledgeable in his positions, and fair in his decisions. Britt holds an unshakeable commitment to supporting local businesses, promoting small-scale manufacturing and investing in our local economy. He leads the charge in economic development and is a tireless champion for creating a business-friendly, thriving community. Britt is a man of honesty and integrity, and he knows that a persons word and reputation are their most valuable commodities. I am honored to call Britt my friend and readily give him my support and endorsement. Join me in supporting Britt Moore. Bring honesty and integrity to the North Carolina House. Wesley Hudson High Point Building new bridges What does relationship building look like today? I really appreciated the social connectedness article from the American Health Association on Feb. 14 that h shared the importance of relationships on our physical health. It is also important for our mental, social and emotional well-being. As we continue progressing into a world beyond the pandemic, there is a difference between how relationships were built 30 years ago, and how they are built today. It begs the question: How do we bridge the divide? We must recognize relationship building skills can be developed by everyone, not just exhibited by people with certain personality traits. These relationship skills include empathy, kindness, perspective-taking, communication and problem-solving. We practice these skills in our homes, schools, jobs and personal relationships. For our young people, these skills are exhibited differently. Thirty years ago, everyone would have had a landline phone. Today, people are more likely to communicate through a smartphone. With these changes, issues such as verbal bullying have taken on more of an electronic existence (i.e., cyberbullying). The first step is for us to begin having intergenerational conversations about how we build relationships. These conversations could look like asking How questions instead of Why questions. As we begin to consider our young people as leaders, and not socially deficient, we will hopefully notice that we are not that different. Ronnie Armstrong Greensboro Signs of hope For a long time, climate change has felt to me like a barely concealed death threat from mother nature herself to humans. Her message: if we continue to be cruel towards our environment, it will come at the cost of more and more human lives. As Ive grown older, her looming presence has only grown stronger as the consequences of our actions have become more apparent in the increasingly extreme weather conditions around the world. And yet, despite how it may seem, theres still hope for humanity. A while ago, I might have been adamant about the lack of care for the climate our nation has seemed to have. But now, there has been a change for the better. More people are valuing our environment. Of registered voters, 64% think it is of high or very high priority that we focus on developing clean energy sources. The Energy Information Administration says 40% percent of US electricity is now emission-free, more than it ever has been. Clearly, change is still possible with more effort focused on climate-friendly initiatives. Lets not give up on our momentum, though. It is important that we continue to stay vocal and loud about climate change. We must focus on electing and voting for climate-serious candidates, so that climate policies continue to be acted on. A better future is in our hands, so long as we are not silent. There is power in our collective voice, power in our ambition. Maggie McGee Kernersville Election letters The News & Record welcomes letters related to the March 5 primary. We cannot guarantee that all letters will be published, but all viewpoints will be represented. Here are the criteria: Brevity: Our firm limit is 250 words. Originality: Letter-writing campaigns are unacceptable. Each letter should express the views and initiative of its author. Deadline: 5 p.m. today. A group of women and children huddle in a basement their heads hung as air raid sirens ring overhead. A pregnant woman clutches her blood-stained stomach as she is carried away from a shelled hospital on a stretcher. Scorched and smoking buildings tower over empty streets littered with rubble. A young boy whispers, I dont want to die. This is painful to watch; it must be painful to watch, said Mstyslav Chernov, Ukrainian journalist and director of the documentary, 20 Days in Mariupol. Nearly two years ago to the day, Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. One of the most brutal attacks occurred in the port city of Mariupol. Chernov and his colleagues were the last international journalists reporting from inside the city as Russian troops closed in. On Thursday, Feb. 29, at 7 p.m. step behind the lens and experience both the horrors and the bravery captured in Mariupol during a free community screening of 20 Days in Mariupol at The Myrna Loy. The event will also include a question-and-answer session with film producer Michelle Mizner and director Mstyslav Chernov. If you go ... What: Free community screening of 20 Days in Mariupol followed by a Q+A with producer, Michelle Mizner and director, Mstyslav Chernov. When: Thursday, Feb. 29, at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.) Where: The Myrna Loy, 15 N. Ewing St. Cost: Free community screening Contact: 406-443-0287 Info: themyrnaloy.com According to Ramsay Ballew, operations manager and film programmer for The Myrna Loy, PBS Distribution approached The Myrna Loy to coordinate a free community screening of the film. Part of our mission is to be a hub for community experiences, so when organizations approach us to offer community events like this, we do our best to be a good conduit whenever our schedule allows, said Ballew. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to show '20 Days in Mariupol,' Ballew said. It's Oscar nominated for best documentary feature, and we certainly try to show as many Oscar contenders as we can, as well as make sure that groups that come to us can show their dynamic content. It helps to create a culturally rich community. Chernov, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning video journalist at The Associated Press, is no stranger to capturing difficult subjects. Since joining AP in 2014, he has covered major conflicts, social issues and environmental crises across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. But something about watching his own country so mercilessly attacked compelled him to take his work in Mariupol a step further and produce a feature length documentary to share with the world. Its not enough just to record something, said Chernov. You still need to make sure it gets to people gets to the audiences with enough context for them not to feel that this important message is distorted. The film, which debuted on July 14 at the Film Forum in New York City, has since garnered a number of accolades including being nominated for two BAFTA awards and an Academy Award. Chernov himself earned a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. But for Chernov, making the documentary was never about winning awards and being recognized. It was about honoring the first responders and victims in Mariupol and delivering the truth to the world. When Russia first began invading Mariupol and all the other international war-time journalists pulled out, Chernov chose to stay. For him, there was never another choice. Chernov recalled witnessing the firefighters who, even after running out of water, continued helping people and pulling them from the rubble. He recalled the doctors who kept operating and treating patients even when their dressing materials and antibiotic supplies ran out. Doctors and firefighters kept doing their work as long as they were alive, Chernov said. They were his source of inspiration and motivation to stay behind. Just looking at them was enough to understand that you cant just leave, said Chernov. I am part of that community. This is my country. I am from eastern Ukraine. I feel connected to every single person I meet. You see that in the film. You see this connection. Most of those left behind in Mariupol experiencing one of the worst moments of their life appreciated Chernovs presence and efforts. People kept coming to us and kept saying Hey, keep filming. You have to tell the world about whats going on, Chernov said. All those people also inspired and gave me strength and gave us energy to go on, Chernov continued. How could we stop? During the 20 days Chernov spent with his colleagues in besieged Mariupol after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, they documented countless images and video clips. It wasnt until later, after leaving the city, that Chernov decided to compile the footage and create something larger. When we left the city, I remembered all the children that had been killed by Russian bombs, said Chernov. I kept thinking about the families that had lost everything and I felt like I needed to do more to show the real scale of the destruction and the tragedy. Chernov shared that there is purpose behind the films brutal honesty and the sense of urgency to distribute it. He wants to combat the false news and circulating Russian propaganda that has tried to insinuate that journalist coverage of Mariupol was staged and full of lies. Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly insisted that his countrys aerial attacks in Mariupol targeted military operations not civilians in Ukraine. But Chernovs film tells the real story. What we saw was the complete opposite of that, Chernov said. It was so crucial to make sure that the reality of the attack is shown to everyone and that the real impact and the real tragedy is not lost in these excuses that Russia had, he said. Whatever one thinks they know about the war in Ukraine, 20 Days in Mariupol tells the whole truth and, in the process, opens eyes that would rather turn away. The film takes audiences right alongside overwhelmed doctors cradling young children they couldnt save. It walks you down the corridors of a shelled maternity ward once intended to be a safe haven. It stands you next to the narrow mass graves dug on the outskirts of town where bodies of civilians were laid. We are inviting people into very uncomfortable places, said Chernov. We are trying to bring people into a war zone and that is a difficult thing to ask. Chernov admitted that he has had moments when the dire reality of the war in Ukraine nearly broke him, and he considered giving up. Instead, he chose to keep focused on the bigger picture. Many times, I thought, I cannot take it anymore, Chernov said. I just want to close myself from everything and be in silence. But then I think about my daughters and what I owe to them and what I will tell them when theyre grown up about this terrible time we lived in. Its not a good time to turn away, said Chernov. Its not a good time to be indifferent because indifference is the biggest enemy of the modern society. Ukrainians inspire me, said Chernov. Theyve never stopped. They keep fighting for their survival as a community. That empowers me as a human as well. While a noteworthy reputation precedes 20 Days in Mariupol, experiencing it for oneself during the free screening at The Myrna Loy is an opportunity not to be missed. I have not yet seen the film, but plan to watch it alongside the rest of Helena, said Ballew. I am grateful to PBS Distribution for sharing it with us all - they've been so wonderful to work with, and I can't wait to hear from producer/editor Michelle Mizner, and director Mstyslav Chernov. We live in a world that is on fire right now, said Chernov. It is quite important, universally, not to turn away. As humans we have to acknowledge that the world that we comfortably lived in for a long time is now on fire and we have to do something about it. Mariupol is so symbolic, said Chernov. Now it represents not only one city. It represents all other Ukrainian cities that got destroyed by Russian bombs it represents the tremendous and devastating impact of war on civilian populations in other parts of the world. These images are universal. These ideas are universal. Thats why its so urgent. Montana State University will commit millions of dollars to its ongoing efforts to strengthen public education in rural areas, where school districts continue to grapple with severe shortages of teachers and other resources. The university's Center for Research on Rural Education received a $2.5 million grant earlier this month. It will fund the center's work to establish a blueprint for attracting, preparing, developing and retaining teachers in rural communities throughout the state. This infusion of funds comes three years after the project received $1.5 million from the same benefactor, Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, a Minnesota-based organization that focuses on supporting work on overlooked causes and communities. All told, thats $4 million to help address the alarming state of teacher employment in rural Montana. According to data from the 2022-2023 school year, the most recently available from the Office of Public Instruction, 661 out of 825 schools in Montana have been impacted by a critical shortage of licensed educators. Rural areas are especially hard hit. These districts remain disproportionately reliant on teachers with emergency authorizations, as they are unable to recruit and retain fully licensed educators. Named ASPIRE, the projects next grant-funded phase will last two and a half years. It includes an immersive professional development pathway for undergraduate and high school students interested in education to gain teaching experience within rural communities; a one-on-one mentoring program for new or less-experienced teachers looking for support as they adjust to the realities of a rural district; and a hub that creates easy access to resources like professional development and instructional materials. Were looking to build community within community, Joe Hicks, the assistant dean in the MSU College of Education, Health and Human Development, said in an online statement. Education is a major focus of MSUs current work to improve outcomes for school-aged children living in rural Montana, though not its only goal. The flagship received a three-year grant in December 2023 to establish a new initiative designed to lower the use of opioids in rural and tribal communities. Also through the Center for Research on Rural Education, the program will certify 10 youth mental health counselors who will be dispatched to work in at least 23 schools. It was also awarded over $4 million for a five-year project, starting in 2023, to train school counselors and support them as they are hired to work in remote districts. Funding is used to support graduate students as they study but also with lodging, travel and living expenses during a 10-month internship in rural settings where they provide at least 600 hours of service. As of May 2023, nearly one-quarter of Montana schools did not have a licensed counselor on staff. Isolation has been identified as one of those reasons that people dont stick around, Anna Elliott, a professor of counseling, said in a statement at the time the grant was announced. The hardest part for people without a network in rural Montana, she said, is not feeling like you have other people to talk to and connect with as youre managing complex systems, small towns and dual relationships. Fire struck at the heart of Noxon Tuesday morning as a fast-moving blaze consumed much of the historic business block considered to be the hub of the small community on the lower Clark Fork. Toby's Bar, the Angry Beaver General Store and the Noxon Mercantile & Cafe three immediately adjacent businesses in old buildings were reduced to rubble, according to Sanders County Sheriff Shawn Fielders and photos of the fire and its aftermath shared on social media. That leaves the former railroad town of about 250 people, accessed by a century-old bridge across the Clark Fork, with little more than its post office, hardware store, laundromat and public school. Noxon is 113 miles northwest of Missoula. No injuries or a cause of the fire had been reported by midday Tuesday. Details were slowly emerging as firefighters continued to work the smoldering buildings. Fielders said Tuesday morning that the fire was reported around 5:45 a.m. and he believed it may have started in the Angry Beaver before spreading to Toby's, which is immediately next door to the west. "Those went up pretty fast and the Mercantile is only about 10 or 12 feet from it (to the east), so it jumped on over to that," he said. "Looks like all three are a complete loss." At 7:29 a.m. Tuesday, the Mercantile & Cafe posted about the fire on Facebook: "General store next to us caught fire. They are doing whatever they can to save us. Tobys next door is on fire as well. Please pray for us. Everyone is safe. We love you all!" Four hours later, a call to the Mercantile & Cafe was met with a simple voicemail greeting: "You have reached a temporary voice-mailbox for the Noxon Mercantile & Cafe. We are closed due to the catastrophic fire in Noxon." Fielders said that a state fire investigator was already on scene but that no cause had been determined because firefighters were still mopping up the fire. The fire was not threatening other buildings, he said. "Its kind of a holding pattern until they get in and make their assessment," he said. Fielders also addressed rumors that Tuesday's fire was somehow linked to a Jan. 16 fire that destroyed the Hereford Bar & Grill on Highway 200 between Noxon and Heron, across the river and about 2.6 miles northwest of Tuesday's fire. Investigators have yet to determine the cause of the Hereford fire, he said, which occurred in a modern building. He stressed that there was nothing to indicate an arsonist was striking local businesses or that the fires were intentionally ignited. "At this point theres nothing that points towards that," he said, noting, "Well follow the leads that the fire marshal gives us. "Just be cautious, theres nothing to point toward that right now. Just let the fire marshals do their job and well assist them in any way we can." Regardless of cause, Fielders lamented the loss of businesses he described as "the entire heartbeat of that little town. It's a huge hit." Fielder had a personal connection to the block. He and his wife would go to the Mercantile & Cafe about twice a month for the cafe's "great Sunday morning breakfast." And his wife liked to display her one-off 2006 Ford Mustang at the Mercantile & Cafe's annual "Back the Blue" car show in support of law enforcement, he said. He lamented that those things likely would not happen this year, and that Noxon suffered a great loss. "Its a shame. Hopefully they had good insurance and we can get them rebuilt," he said. "That was the hub, and then of course the parks right across the street, so that was the hub of the community. Its definitely going to be a huge hit for them." Anthony Cox, the Sanders County commissioner who represents the west end of the county including Noxon, said Tuesday afternoon that the fire was "very devastating" for the town because of the already limited resources the remote town had. Now it's without its only grocery store, restaurant and watering hole. "Its hard, too, when you have a community thats on the opposite side of the river from the highway," he said, noting that the rubble was still smoking a lot at 2:30 p.m. "Its isolated and they struggle to survive its hard when youre not on the main drag. "Hopefully, fingers-crossed, hopefully somebody will rebuild a store and they can have it again." With the loss of the general store, he said, Noxon residents' options to purchase food locally are limited to a convenience store on Highway 200 across the single-lane bridge from town. Or they can drive farther to Heron, Trout Creek, Thompson Falls, or Clark Fork or Sandpoint in Idaho. "Not much you can do," he said. "Its very sad for them." Recently announced funding from the Department of the Interior will go to reintroducing bison to Glacier National Park and helping Yellowstone expand its program of bison transfers to tribes. The funding was announced Tuesday in a press release from the department touting $195 million in investments across the nation for climate restoration and resilience projects over the next decade. National parks across the United States will use this funding to prepare for the impacts of climate change, protect species, restore ecosystems and invest in conservation jobs, the Interior Department announced. The states include Montana and Wyoming. Glacier public information officer Gina Icenoggle said the park is still in the planning stages for how the money will be used. Yellowstone is targeted for a $3 million investment in expanding its capacity to increase the return of Yellowstone-origin bison to tribes through its transfer program. So far, the park has sent 414 bison to the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes in Eastern Montana to finish out their required quarantine protocol to insure they are free of the disease brucellosis. The Fort Peck Reservation then works with the Intertribal Buffalo Council to move the animals to tribes. Since its inception in 2018, the transfer program has sent bison to 26 tribes in 12 states. Americas national parks drive economic opportunity, extend nature-based solutions in our fight against climate change, and provide the chance for people of all ages to explore and enjoy the great outdoors, said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in the press release. Through historic resources from President Bidens Investing in America agenda, we are investing in these precious places, safeguarding endangered species and making our communities more resilient to climate change. Also included in the funding is $722,400 for an inventory of cultural resources at high elevations in Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Teton national parks. Protection and restoration of federally threatened whitebark pine in Grand Teton, Yellowstone and Glacier along with other parks in California and Washington will see a $2.25 million boost. Other funding, nationwide and to regional parks, focuses on restoring landscapes by managing invasive plants and restoration of abandoned mines and sagebrush ecosystems. This investment in conservation demonstrates an unprecedented commitment towards tackling the climate crisis and strengthening Americas resilience, said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams. From protecting species to rebuilding outdoors infrastructure, this investment will support ongoing efforts to protect and preserve our nations most cherished places. The $195 million investment announced Tuesday will support more than 40 projects across hundreds of national parks, including initiatives that: Promote climate resilience in forests from the West Coast to the East Coast; Prioritize coral health and resilience to climate change in the Southeast; Mitigate the impacts of climate change and improve food security for subsistence users through co-stewardship arrangements with Tribal Nations; and Support the expansion of the Community Volunteer Ambassador youth program, focusing on increased volunteerism and community engagement. The full list of projects is available on the National Park Services website. You are here: Arts The Hinghwa Food and Cultural Festival will be held from March 12 to 17 at Singapore's Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza, according to Singapore Puxian (Hinghwa) Network, organizer of the event, Tuesday. Over 30 items of delicacies, desserts, and drinks made with fresh ingredients from Putian in east China's Fujian province will be available at the event. Artists from Fujian will also perform Puxian opera, a long-lasting art form with historical roots in Tang and Song dynasties, during the festival. "I hope this event can enable younger Hinghwa generations to learn more about traditions and help new immigrants engage in the local society," said Fong Chichung, president of Singapore Puxian (Hinghwa) Network. Visitation to Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Teton national parks climbed last year. Yellowstone recorded its second busiest year, 4.5 million visitors, up from 3.29 million in 2022 (36.8%), the year of a historic flood that led to shutdowns and reduced services. Although it has been called a one-in-500-year event, park Superintendent Cam Sholly recently opined that he doesnt think it will be another 500 years before a similar disaster. Grand Teton saw 3.41 million recreation visits in 2023, up 22% from 2022. Glacier recorded 2.93 million visitors in 2023, up only about 25,000 visitors (0.9%) from 2022. Glacier recorded new highs for visitation in May and September. Nationwide, the Park Service recorded 325.5 million visits at its 400 units, an increase of 13 million (22%) over 2022. Sholly told attendees at the Yellowstone Summit that about every 15 to 20 years, visitation to Yellowstone climbs by an additional million. As visitation increases, parks will have to take more aggressive actions, he added. It takes more park workers to manage the increasing influx of tourists, Sholly said, so either more staff will need to be hired, or visitation will have to be curtailed. Using a vehicle reservation system, like Glacier National Park has enacted for its popular Going to the Sun Road, is much more difficult for a park like Yellowstone since it has five entrances, one of which is shared with Grand Teton National Park. Restricting use is also not popular with park gateway communities where businesses rely on visitation to power the economy, Sholly noted. A recent publication suggested raising entrance fee prices, specifically targeting foreign tourists, to help parks cover the costs of increased staffing requirements. Sholly said no one wants to price people out of national parks, but the average American taxpayer contributes only about 10 cents to Yellowstones budget. Visitors to Yellowstone currently pay $35 per vehicle for a seven day pass. So the breakdown on that for a family of four for a three day stay, is about $2.89 per person per day, he said. Thats not even a venti coffee at Starbucks, let alone a caramel macchiato, or something like that. We, I believe, need to consider and think about what is affordable, he added. The people that are actually traveling to these parks probably should pay a little bit more, in my mind, for the benefit of the staffing needs and the infrastructure improvement that needs to occur in U.S. national parks. Its a conversation, so Im not saying like, Hey, raise the fees. But what are the ramifications of not having enough revenue in parks like Grand Canyon or Yosemite or Yellowstone or Grand Teton? Grand Teton has experienced changing visitation trends, data shows. While in 2019, more people toured the park in the summer months of June, July and August; last year the peak months shifted later in the year to July, August and September. Grand Teton officials also noted a 34% increase at eight popular trails over the last 10 years. Glacier National Park saw an increase in tent, RV and backcountry campers last year, compared to the past three years. The number of RV campers (at 132,336) was the highest recorded going back to 1983. The number of tent campers was the second highest, topped only by 2016. A Socioeconomic Research Study of Grand Teton National Park was conducted to help develop a better understanding of who visits Grand Teton and what they do during their visit. Results indicate Grand Teton welcomed visitors from nearly all 50 states during the summer sampling period, with only 5% permanent residents of the area. Respondents reported the most important reasons for their visit to Grand Teton as viewing wildlife and natural scenery (52%) and spending time with family and friends (26%). Nearly all respondents reported viewing scenery, natural features, etc., (98%) as an activity they participated in during their visit, while a majority reported viewing wildlife (87%), driving for pleasure and hiking (66%). In addition to the study, park staff also conducted broader civic engagement to ask the general public for input on how they visit the park and what their experiences have been. The park received 446 comments from 45 different states and four different countries. Important experiences in the park were varied, from recreation to nature experiences. Some important experiences mentioned many times by commenters were similar to what respondents of the socioeconomic study reported and included: wildlife viewing, hiking, the peace and quiet of the park, scenic views including the mountain range itself and solitude. When prompted about any challenging parts of visiting Grand Teton, some points mentioned by commentors included: finding lodging that is not too expensive, the park was too crowded, long lines at entrance stations, and not enough parking at trailheads and in the park in general. Park staff will reach out to the public again this summer regarding desired future conditions for visitor use and experience at the park. DECATUR An active shooting investigation is diverting the route of morning commuters at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Pershing Road. According to the Decatur Police Department, Pershing Road has been temporarily closed between North Brett Avenue and Water Street. Numerous police vehicles, as well as the Crime Scene Investigation Unit, are on the scene with the Illinois Department of Transportation assisting with the blocking of the roadway. "MLK is temporarily closed between Mound Road and Pythian," the police department posted on its Facebook page. "Please take an alternative route." The police are currently investigating a shooting, although no other information is available. Officials noted there are no immediate threats to the public. 2023 mugshots from the Herald & Review Lourash Hirstein Phillip Gehrken Joseph A. Williams Jetrevius O. Jarrett Edwards King-Woods Wilson Derrickson Colby J. Park DECATUR Edwin Robinson has been named director of teaching and learning for Decatur Public Schools. Robinson most recently served as principal for Shelby County schools in Memphis, Tenn. He holds a doctorate in educational leadership from Mississippi State University, a master's of business administration from Regis University in Denver, Colo., a master's of higher education from the University of Mississippi, and a bachelor's degree in science education from Mississippi Valley State University. He will be paid $128,443 a year, prorated for the remainder of this school year to $42,484.99 and his contract runs until June 30, 2025. The school board also approved a contract with Family Leadership Inc. to provide parent engagement programs. Building-level teams of staff and parents will be trained to deliver workshops on topics including parenting partners, calm and kind family and family dinner with the aim of building successful parent-school partnerships. The workshops will be offered both in person and virtually, and the manuals, included as part of the contract, will be available in English and Spanish. The cost of the contract is $70,000 and will be paid out of Title I funds. The meeting began late due to an exceptionally long executive session, so there was no discussion on either of these two measures. There was discussion surrounding the annual reduction in force resolutions, with one eight-hours-a-day educational support employee reduced to six and a half hours per day, and 17 educational support employees reduced from 220 days per school year to 200 days per school year. The changes take effect on the last day of the current school year. The eight-hour employee, school security officer Antoine Dawson, was reduced to six and a half hours due to the length of the school day. His services are not required outside of those hours. The other employees, whose days were reduced from 220 to 200, are interventionists, who work on behavior plans for students prior to the beginning of the school year and transfer those plans to another building if a student has moved. They begin work before the start of a school year but are not needed for 220 days when the school year is only 176 days. The extra days were instituted under the previous director of Student Services, said the current director, Eldon Conn, because those interventionists were assisting in other areas where they are no longer required. PHOTOS: All the members of the Decatur Public Schools Athletic Hall of Fame Kenny Barnes, Stephen Decatur, 1962 (Aug. 2016) Marsha Bond, MacArthur, 1980 (Aug. 2016) Hubie Carter, Eisenhower, 1972 (Aug. 2016) Wayne Dunning, Lakeview, 1979 (Aug. 2016) Penny Hammel, MacArthur, 1979 (Aug. 2016) Gay Kintner, Decatur High, coach (Aug. 2016) Bill Madlock, Eisenhower, 1979 (Aug. 2016) Mark Malley, Stephen Decatur, 1969 (Aug. 2016) Rudy Phillips, MacArthur, 1963 (Aug. 2016) Lee Sentman Jr., Decatur High, 1927 (Aug. 2016) Deana Simmons, MacArthur, 1996 (Aug. 2016) 1965 Lakeview Football (Aug. 2016) Merle Bourne Jr., MacArthur, 1962 (Jan. 2017) Tim Cruz, Lakeview, 1974 (Jan. 2017) Bob "Chick" Doster, Decatur High, 1945 (Jan. 2017) Ray Goodman, Lakeview, 1975 (Jan. 2017) Bill Harbeck, MacArthur, coach (Jan. 2017) Dave Hood, Eisenhower, 1976 (Jan. 2017) Jeff Innis, Eisenhower, 1980 (Jan. 2017) Martha McCann, Eisenhower, 1983 (Jan. 2017) Marcia Morey, MacArthur, 1971 (Jan. 2017) Ken Park, Decatur High, 1936 (Jan. 2017) Dave Scholz, Stephen Decatur, 1965 (Jan. 2017) 1962 Stephen Decatur Basketball (Jan. 2017) John Alexander, Eisenhower (Aug. 2017) Terise Bryson, Stephen Decatur, 1997 (Aug. 2017) George Eubanks, Eisenhower, 1960 (Aug. 2017) Julie Foertsch, Stephen Decatur, 1986 (Aug. 2017) Elizabeth (Kampfe) Plinske, MacArthur, 1995 (Aug. 2017) Gwen Muex, Stephen Decatur, 1983 (Aug. 2017) Robert Pittenger, Lakeview, 1967 (Aug. 2017) Ray Rex, Decatur High, 1931 (Aug. 2017) Pete Scott, MacArthur, 1986 (Aug. 2017) Dion Simmons, MacArthur, 1990 (Aug. 2017) Roe Skidmore, Eisenhower, 1962 (Aug. 2017) 1992 MacArthur Boys Track (Aug. 2017) Tony Austin, Stephen Decatur, 1997 (Jan. 2018) Ben Cooper, Stephen Decatur, 1966 (Jan. 2018) Jerelene (Cummings) Ross, MacArthur, 1984 (Jan. 2018) Amber (Creason) Jackson, Eisenhower, 1995 (Jan. 2018) David Dakin, Lakeview, 1974 ( Jan. 2018) Jim Minton, MacArthur, 1982 (Jan. 2018) Dawn Pitman, Eisenhower, 1986 (Jan. 2018) Karen Roppa, MacArthur, 1966 (Jan. 2018) Tim Smith, Eisenhower, 1979 (Jan. 2018) Bill Wolfe, Lakeview, 1965 (Jan. 2018) Bob Witt, Eisenhower, coach (Feb. 2018) Ida Brooks, Eisenhower, coach (Feb. 2018) Jerry Curtis, MacArthur, coach (Feb. 2018) Ray DeMoulin, MacArthur, coach (Feb. 2018) Jack Kenny, Stephen Decatur, coach (Feb. 2018) Bob Matheson, MacArthur, coach (Feb. 2018) Mike Rusk, Eisenhower, coach (Feb. 2018) Joe Russell, Eisenhower, coach (Feb. 2018) Terry Cook, Stephen Decatur, 1984 (Oct. 2018) Joe Doolin, Lakeview, 1966 (Oct. 2018) Martha Downing, MacArthur, 1967 (Oct. 2018) Pat Hamilton, Eisenhower, 1983 (Oct. 2018) Gary Hunt, Lakeview, coach (Oct. 2018) T.J. Jackson, Stephen Decatur, 1962 (Oct. 2018) Reeni (McElyea) Letizia, Eisenhower, 1983 (Oct. 2018) Brit Miller, Eisenhower, 2005 (Oct. 2018) Dale Minick, Decatur High, 1937 (Oct. 2018) Steve Phillips, MacArthur, 1979 (Oct. 2018) Dante Ridgeway, MacArthur, 2002 (Oct. 2018) 1962 Eisenhower Baseball (Oct. 2018) Rease Binger, Stephen Decatur, coach (Jan. 2019) Lee Boyko, Eisenhower, 1963 (Jan. 2019) Terra (Crutchfield-Tyus) Jones, MacArthur, 1992 (Jan. 2019) Cary Eller, Eisenhower, 1968 (Jan. 2019) K.C. Hammond-Diedrich, Eisenhower, 1996 (Jan. 2019) Aaron Holloway, Stephen Decatur, 1966 (Jan. 2019) Tim Littrell, MacArthur, 1973 (Jan. 2019) David Marques, Lakeview, 1972 (Jan. 2019) Marcus Phillips, MacArthur, 1992 (Jan. 2019) Eddie Taylor, Lakeview, 1980 (Jan. 2019) Lee Utt, Decatur High, 1952 (Jan. 2019) 1930-31 Decatur High Boys Basketball (Jan. 2019) 1935-36 Decatur High Boys Basketball (Jan. 2019) 1944-45 Decatur High Boys Basketball (Jan. 2019) Michael Clevenger, MacArthur, 2012 (Oct. 2019) Paula (Keller) Holtman, Stephen Decatur, 1984 (Oct. 2019) Mike Larson, Lakeview, 1972 (Oct. 2019) Jad Mason, MacArthur, 1986 (Oct. 2019) Ty Mason, MacArthur, 1987 (Oct. 2019) Emily Price, Eisenhower, 2000 (Oct. 2019) Don Spain, Eisenhower. 1966 (Oct. 2019) Raisa Taylor, Eisenhower, 2008 (Oct. 2019) James Wills, Lakeview, 1978 (Oct. 2019) Greg Watchinski, Stephen Decatur, 1993 (Oct. 2019) Mike Wilks, Eisenhower, coach (Oct. 2019) 1986 MacArthur Boys Track (Oct. 2019) David Bond, MacArthur, 1984 (Feb. 2020) Greg Collingwood, coach, Eisenhower (Feb. 2020) Richard Floyd, Lakeview, 1964 (Feb. 2020) Adam Hodges, Eisenhower, 1993 (Feb. 2020) Perry Hines, Stephen Decatur, 1970 (Feb. 2020) Latoya Johnson, Eisenhower, 1993 (Feb. 2020) Mchael Phillips, MacArthur, 1997 (Feb. 2020) Jeff Roth, Eisenhower, 1976 (Feb. 2020) George "Butch" Smith, Stephen Decatur, 1965 (Feb. 2020) Stephanie (Spurlock) Fitzpatrick, Stephen Decatur, 1988 (Feb. 2020) Crystal Zeigler, MacArthur, 2008 (Feb. 2020) 1985 MacArthur Football (Feb. 2020) Scott Busboom, significant contributor, media (Spring 2021) Ferlaxnes "Lexy" Carson, MacArthur, 2011 (Spring 2021) Kostaki Chiligiris, Stephen Decatur, 1994 (Spring 2021) Harry "Rocky" Cook, Eisenhower, 1961 (Spring 2021) Tim Cox, Lakeview, 1974 (Spring 2021) Moe Dampeer, MacArthur, 2002 (Spring 2021) Leon Fonville, Eisenhower, 1969 (Spring 2021) Al Lawson, MacArthur, 1985 (Spring 2021) Lindsay Martin, Eisenhower, 1997 (Spring 2021) J. Thomas McNamara, special contributor, media (Spring 2021) Mike Nolan, Stephen Decatur, 1963 (Spring 2021) Steve Smith, Eisenhower, coach (Spring 2021) Adrian Walker, MacArthur, 2002 (Spring 2021) 1992 Eisenhower Football (Spring 2021) John Cliff, MacArthur, 1996 (Jan. 2022) Leonard Dabner, MacArthur, 1964 (Jan. 2022) Lewis Jackson, Eisenhower, 2008 (Jan. 2022) Ann Kampfe, MacArthur, 1993 (Jan. 2022) Amy McEvoy, Eisenhower, 1991 (Jan. 2022) Mike McLaughlin, MacArthur, wrestling (Jan. 2022) Betty Ray, Stephen Decatur, 1986 (Jan. 2022) Ray Rients, significant contributor, official (Jan. 2022) Patrick Ruwe, Eisenhower, 1979 (Jan. 2022) Michael Wilder, Stephen Decatur, 1998 (Jan. 2022) 1977 Stephen Decatur Baseball (Jan. 2022) Felicia Britton-Harris, Stephen Decatur, 1995 (Sept. 2022) Adrian DeVore, Eisenhower, 1990 (Sept. 2022) Chris DeVore, Eisenhower, 1992 (Sept. 2022) Malik Fonville-Simmons, MacArthur, 1990 (Sept. 2022) Brian Innis, Eisenhower, 1979 (Sept. 2022) John Kotzelnick, Lakeview, 1970 (Sept. 2022) Erin Didde Levy, Stephen Decatur, 1995 (Sept. 2022) Bob McAdam, MacArthur, 1981 (Sept. 2022) Sam McAdam, MacArthur, 1983 (Sept. 2022) Kevin Roberson, Eisenhower, 1986 (Sept. 2022) Tylian Smith, MacArthur, 2001 (Sept. 2022) Matt Tyner, MacArthur, 1976 (Sept. 2022) 1972 MacArthur football (Sept. 2022) Brenda Clark, Lakeview, Stephen Decatur, coach (Sept. 2022) Donna Dash, Lakeview, MacArthur, coach (Sept. 2022) Duane Garver, significant contributor, teacher (Sept. 2022) Darius Adams, MacArthur, 2007 (Sept. 2023) Cortez Bond, MacArthur, 1996 (Sept. 2023) Robert Bauer, Decatur High, 1948 (Sept. 2023) Jim Cook, Eisenhower, 1967 (Sept. 2023) Steve Daniel, MacArthur, 2003 (Sept. 2023) Barbee Kipper, Eisenhower, 1979 (Sept. 2023) Robin Liddell, Eisenhower, 1974 (Sept. 2023) Shawn (Rawls) Bond, Eisenhower, 1977 (Sept. 2023) Parker Shade, MacArthur, 1997 (Sept. 2023) Nick Reed, MacArthur, 1991 (Sept. 2023) Tucker Shade, MacArthur, 1995 (Sept. 2023) Rhasaan Smith, Stephen Decatur, 1995 (Sept. 2023) Don Novak, coach, Eisenhower baseball and wrestling (Sept. 2023) Dan Winter, Significant contributor (Sept. 2023) 1976 Eisenhower Boys Basketball (Sept. 2023) 1965 Macarthur Boys Tennis (Sept. 2023) NORMAL Heartland Community College on Tuesday unveiled its new 45,000-square-foot Advanced Manufacturing Center, which will support the college's career technical education programs and the next generation of students. Heartland staff were joined by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, representatives from the state, local officials and industry leaders for a ribbon cutting ceremony at the new facility on the west side of the school's Normal campus. The $17 million center incorporates remodeled space to further support programs such as robotics, HVAC, welding and digital media, in addition to high-voltage energy storage, renewable energy and the newly constructed State Farm Electric Vehicle Lab. Heartland Community College President Keith Cornille said they were the first community college in Illinois to have a program for electric vehicles, energy storage and technology, and this is among the programs the college is most proud of. In the last few years, Heartland has introduced a total of 40 programs in these fields. As the makeup of our regional workforce has changed, so has the need for specialized skill training, Cornille said. This Advanced Manufacturing Center supports degree-oriented and short-term programs in vital career technical education areas. This is the work-ready skill training that leads to in-demand jobs. Eighty percent of Heartland graduates in career programs find employment. By expanding these educational pathways, we will help students find a job, have an opportunity to upskill for a better job, and a career. The center is funded in part by a $7.5 million Rebuild Illinois capital grant as well as through public and private partnerships from local business leaders, including State Farm, which provided a $1 million grant in August to support the 6,278-square-foot electric vehicle lab and energy storage training facility. In Pritzkers budget address in Springfield last week, he proposed an additional $24 million to expand manufacturing training academies and programs throughout the state, similar to Heartlands program. Pritzker said Heartland serves as a model for Illinois when it comes to these programs and the facility, and that the proposed money in the budget would allow other communities to follow suit and provide similar opportunities. The state has invested $7.5 million in a similar training facility at Southwestern Illinois College. "We added significantly to the operating dollars through our community colleges and our universities since I became governor," Pritzker said. "If you want to invest in really the greatest return for a state, it's education ... starting with early childhood, which is hugely important, all the way through college and graduate school." Pritzker said Illinois' community college system is the third largest in the nation and, when talking with businesses, they love to know that local schools are geared to develop the workforce needed in manufacturing and technical jobs. "Heartland has become a jewel among Illinois community college system, and Heartlands advanced manufacturing center represents the best of Illinois commitment to investing in and educating our people for the well-paying jobs of today and tomorrow, Pritzker said. Manufacturing in McLean County alone generates $2 billion in total annual economic output and supports over 7,000 jobs, Pritzker said. Across the state, Illinois has more than 15,000 manufacturers employing 750,000 individuals. "Illinois community colleges are a leading workforce developer in the state and are continuing to expand access and opportunities to dozens of good-paying careers," said Brian Durham, executive director of the Illinois Community College Board. "CTE programs at community colleges are an essential part of our state's workforce development strategy, and we are proud to be a part of preparing the next generation of workers." Adam Campbell, dean of career and technical education at Heartland, said they have been coordinating with Rivian and a local Tesla service center as well as other partners across the country and world to develop programs in different career areas and ensure they are up to modern standards. The center is already teaching and serving about 350 students this semester, with interest projected to grow as word spreads about the available programs, Campbell said. "It's a reflection of the commitment that the college and the state have toward career technical education, advanced manufacturing and electric vehicle energy," Campbell said. "To finally have it open out to the public to generate students' interest, it's a big event." Mike Deavers, an industrial maintenance instructor at Heartland, said this new center is a step up, with fresh equipment and brand-new facilities, compared to the temporary site they had been using since August 2021. The center will provide opportunities for students to work at the forefront electric vehicle technology, he added. Deavers said he's excited to see the shift in perspective when it comes to technical, hands-on career paths, and knowing that more high school students are looking toward these careers than in the past. "That is what is exciting about this to me, and is why I left the industry to come back and teach, because the need is finally being recognized," Deavers said. Christopher Miller, a professor in industrial technology, said when Rivian came to town and there was a workforce need recognized, the college wanted to be strategic with what the community needed, while also showing students how their future careers will interconnect. "Everything from the batteries of the EV, the heating and cooling and controls within a building climate, to renewable energies and advanced manufacturing," Miller said. "So even 10 years from now, this facility is designed to hit the foundations of all the skillsets that will place students into any one of these technological areas." " " People walk part of the original "Trail of Tears" route at Pea Ridge National Military Park, Garfield, Arkansas. National Parks Service Of all of the tragic chapters in Native American history, none reveals the brutal, state-sanctioned persecution of native peoples quite like the Trail of Tears. In 1838 and 1839, tens of thousands of Native Americans were forcibly removed from their tribal homelands in the American Southeast and shipped like cattle to "Indian Territory" west of the Mississippi. Historians estimate that up to 15,000 men, women and children died en route to these first Indian reservations. Gregory Smithers is a professor of American history at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he specializes in indigenous histories, particularly the Cherokee, whose homelands used to stretch from North Carolina and South Carolina through Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Texas. Smithers explains that from the birth of the United States, federal and state governments wrestled to establish a workable "Indian policy." Advertisement The ultimate goal of such an Indian policy was to gain access to fertile farming lands held by native tribes in the Eastern United States, Smithers says. The proposed methods for acquiring those lands ranged from violent confrontation to peaceful diplomacy to underhanded coercion. George Washington's administration favored an "integration" approach, avoiding armed conflict by "civilizing" the tribes and integrating them into the American economy and political system. Thomas Jefferson voiced his ulterior motives for supporting the civilization of tribes, arguing that if Indians could be convinced to buy goods on credit, they'd become indebted and be forced to sell off their lands. The integration method quickly lost favor by the early 19th century, says Smithers, and growing segments of Americans in the Midwest and the Southeast were "unhappy that the U.S. was spending what they saw as their 'treasure' on Indians that couldn't be reformed and didn't have the same capacity to live in a republican society as White people." Giving a powerful hallucinogen to unwitting subjects, of course, was a dangerously irresponsible thing to do, considering that LSD can cause effects resembling psychosis what hippies in the 1960s referred to as a bad trip. "At the most basic level, the lack of informed consent and the unwitting subject's lack of information on adverse effects and potential consequences is of great concern," Joseph Troiani, Ph.D., explains via email. Troiani is an associate professor of clinical psychology and founding director of the Military Psychology Program at Adler University and retired military intelligence officer, who is familiar with MKULTRA from reading open-source material that has become available. Advertisement "Mind control experiments like these, utilizing LSD (psychoactive drug), administered to individuals unbeknownst to them to see what effect it would have on them, violate all medical standards," Troiani says. "There is a parallel between the CIA's operation and the Tuskegee experiments where African Americans were lied to about being treated for syphilis. The Tuskegee experiment patients were not treated for syphilis; instead, they were given placebo treatment and monitored to see progression of illness. These actions are unethical and criminal in nature." Operation Midnight Climax and the rest of MKULTRA ran into problems in 1963, when a staffer in the office of CIA's Inspector General John S. Earman discovered them while auditing the CIA's technical services division. The IG was alarmed by the impropriety of dosing unsuspecting people with a hallucinogen, according to the Rockefeller Commission report. Worse yet, the IG's probe discovered that some test subjects had become ill for hours or days afterward, and that at least one had to be hospitalized. "A final phase of the testing of MKULTRA products places the rights and interests of U.S. citizens in jeopardy," the IG's July 1963 report noted, adding that if the program was ever exposed it "could induce serious adverse reaction in U.S. public opinion." Melbourne-born fashion brand Forever New has deployed multicloud computing company Nutanixs technology to support its maturing cloud strategy to prepare for a customer experience evolution. Forever New is a fashion retailer renowned for its feminine silhouettes, quality fabrics, and timeless styles. It has an e-commerce platform, 400 retail and concession stores, and presence in 26 markets. Forever New general IT manager Naresh Teckchandani said infrastructure refresh was required to lay the foundations for its hybrid multicloud strategy one in which workloads are transferable between private and public clouds, promoting operational agility for a better customer experience. Our Melbourne data centre powers everything from our very own Chadstone shop floor to our stores on Singapores Orchard Road and Londons White City, said Teckchandani. With multiple ways for shoppers to reach us all around the world for a seamless shopping experience, backend performance is the essence of a better, more personalised customer experience (CX). With Nutanix, weve woven confidence into our infrastructure outfit. Forever New implemented Nutanixs hyperconverged infrastructure in 2016, which collapsed the previous three-tier array of separate server, storage, and networking technology in its data centre. In February 2023, Forever New completed its infrastructure modernisation project, replacing its Dell infrastructure running Hyper-V for Nutanix AHV, which sped up infrastructure and enterprise applications essential to running Forever News business. Since completing the migration, middleware errors have gone, and our Warehouse Management System is more accurately providing shop staff and customers real-time inventory data, said Forever New group head of infrastructure Ben Tobgui. Performance of the underlying infrastructure has immensely improved. Our offshore teams and stores, who access the information they need through Citrix, have felt it too. Logins which used to take minutes now connect in seconds. Performance improvements also extend to online application programming interfaces (APIs), payroll systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and product lifecycle management all of which are running much faster. Ease of migration, cost of migration, cloud readiness, and future proofing were core motivations behind the infrastructure refresh. According to Teckchandani, when benchmarked against these four factors, Nutanix beat the competition in every category, particularly aligning with the organisations maturing hybrid multicloud strategy. Our e-commerce platform largely lives on AWS, while corporate workloads run on Azure. But not everything is cost effective in public cloud, so we use a combination of on-premises private cloud and public clouds. This keeps cloud costs controlled, and ensures applications run where they best fit, Teckchandani said. Nutanix simplifies managing this environment through a single pane of glass, giving us the flexibility to move workloads across clouds as new assets enter the business or as needs change this aligns perfectly with our hybrid multi cloud strategy, Tobgui said. Forever New worked closely with Melbourne-based IT partner Perfekt, which saw hybrid multicloud as an essential thread in Forever News future-proofing strategy. The migration ran from November 2022 to February 2023 during the retailers busy Christmas season. According to Teckchandani, Perfekt remained extremely responsive, closely guiding Forever New along its cloud journey. Not only are we now getting the most out of cloud, but we have also cut power consumption by slashing our former stack of 16 nodes down to just 10, so thats around a 40 per cent reduction, said Teckchandani. Forever New has also seen major improvements in backup performance. Eight-hour ERP backups are now completed in under one-hour, and data warehouse backups that took 12 hours are down to two hours. Our infrastructure is on autopilot. Its working, and Im not living in it day-to-day only when we need to add resources or run other maintenance. You dont need a training course to learn how to use an iPhone, and Nutanix is the same. Its intuitive, self-explanatory, and the support is great, Tobgui said. The Tianlongshan Grottoes Statue Painting Exhibition by local artist Zhang Jinfeng was launched at the Tianlongshan Art Exhibition Center in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province, on Jan 12. It's taken Zhang about 10 years to paint the grottoes' Buddha statues, which date back to the Sui Dynasty (581-618), on the walls of the caves. The grottoes were dug and built over a period of 300 years. Tianlongshan, a site of historical, architectural and artistic significance, sustained serious damage in the following decades after it was first discovered by German architect Ernst Boerschmann in 1908. He was followed by Finnish-born Swedish art historian Osvald Siren, United States art collector Charles Lang Freer and others. But it was the photos of the grottoes taken by Sekino Tadashi, a Japanese archaeologist from the University of Tokyo, in 1921 that prompted art dealers, thieves and smugglers from Japan to flock to the unprotected treasure trove. After bribing some corrupt monks in charge of the grottoes, they cut off the heads of the Buddha statues and smuggled them overseas. One of the major smugglers was Sadajiro Yamanaka. He went on to found Yamanaka & Company, which he used to sell smuggled artifacts from China and other Asian countries to Western buyers in the 1920s and 1930s, taking advantage of the chaos sown by Japan's invasion of China and its neighbors in World War II. None of the more than 150 Buddha statues at the Tianlongshan Grottoes is complete today. All of their heads have been removed, and some are missing other parts of their bodies. It has been determined that about 120 of the Buddha heads found overseas today came from Tianlongshan, one of the most damaged grottoes in China. Since 2011, Zhang, the artist, has tried to restore the original appearance of the Tianlongshan Grottoes. Using ink sketching techniques, as well as Chinese and Western paintings as references, the "painting geek" as locals call him has devoted himself to making paintings of more than 100 Buddhist statues in the grottoes. Zhang was born in Dajingyu village, about 20 kilometers from the grottoes. When he was a child, he heard so much about the beauty of the grottoes from his fellow villagers. But it wasn't until he visited the mountain in his 20s for the first time that he was disappointed to find that none of the caves survived plundering. "It was like a home that has been abandoned for many years, with debris and dust everywhere," Zhang said as he recalled his first visit. "When the sun was setting, I was about to leave. A beam of sunlight from the side entered the cave at that moment shining on a looming and incomplete Buddha statue. You would never have imagined that this beam of light shining on the remains of a Buddha statue would have shocked me so deeply then. "I felt an unspeakable throbbing in my heart. I even wanted to cry for a moment. That kind of light transcended history and brought life back to the Buddha." Zhang continued to visit the grottoes, interacting with the incomplete Buddha statues as if he were having a dialogue with the works and their sculptors. One day, he decided that he would make the statues whole again with his brush and paints. He immediately started collecting photos and materials related to the Tianlongshan Grottoes and began painting the Buddhist statues on the walls, adding their respective heads. The most helpful reference materials included books on the grottoes authored by Chinese architecture historian Liang Sicheng and art historian Osvald Siren. He said painting at the site is important, as immersing himself in the environment gives him inspiration. "Only by touching it (the statue) with your own hand and feeling it with your own heart can you appreciate the difference between the photos and the real thing," Zhang said. "During this process, I can communicate with the ancient craftsmen carving Buddha statues." Zhang hopes he can use these paintings to awaken people's love and yearning for Chinese sculpture art. "Of course, I hope more and more Chinese cultural artifacts can return home from overseas in the future," he said. Commercial real estate and property group Investa has picked Superloop to be its telco infrastructure provider for more than 1,100 premises across two upcoming sites in the build-to-rent market. Investa appointed Superloop to deliver connection to more than 700 units in Footscray (VIC) and an additional 445 apartments in Southbank (VIC), both expected to be completed in 2025. Superloop will build a wholesale FTTP network that will operate for the lifetime of the buildings. These networks will deliver broadband, voice, MATV, and smart building services at both future developments. Working together from early on in the project means we can support Investa as they create smart communities that meet the increasingly digital needs of their future residents, said Superloop group executive for business and wholesale Daisey Stampfer. Weve long stated that our goal at Superloop is to refresh the way the internet is delivered in Australia and signing with an award-winning developer like Investa is proof that were making real progress in this space, concludes Stampfer. This week, Superloop made headlines when it turned down Aussie Broadbands conditional deal worth $466 million. SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. Just click here. The Supreme Court on Monday weighed the fate of two landmark social media cases that could have massive implications for the future of the internet and speech online. The court heard oral arguments over a pair of state laws in Texas and Florida that would prohibit tech companies from removing certain content, which were passed in response to Republican allegations that digital platforms are stifling conservative viewpoints. During roughly four hours of arguments, most justices seemed broadly skeptical that state governments have the power to set rules "for how social media platforms curate content" as The Washington Post's Ann E. Marimow and Cat Zakrzewski wrote. They also offered hints about how they may handle the blockbuster cases. Here are our four takeaways from the sessions. Justices call state laws overly 'broad' At various points, the justices criticized the broad scope of the Texas and Florida laws and the wide array of companies and services that they could cover. Justice Sonia Sotomayor early on lamented that the Florida law was "so unspecific" and "so, so broad, it's covering almost everything." She added that the internet's "variety" is "infinite" and questioned whether the burden should be on the state to clarify its scope. Justice Amy Coney Barrett expressed similar concern, saying Florida's law was "very broad" to the point that in addition to covering "traditional" social media platforms, it could also cover ride-hailing apps like Uber, Google's search engine and Amazon's e-commerce site. Sotomayor said the same of the Texas law, warning that "laws like this that are so broad" may "stifle speech just on their face." The criticisms bode well for tech industry groups. Justices float kicking cases back to lower courts Several justices broached the possibility of kicking the cases back to lower courts, while either upholding or overturning temporary blocks against the laws in the meantime. Justice Samuel Alito kicked things off by suggesting the high court could "vacate and remand" a lower-court ruling striking down key provisions in Florida's law, punting it back to them. That move could allow questions about which specific company moderation practices are being challenged to be "fleshed out," Alito argued. He suggested this could be a way to tackle the fact that industry groups were filing a "facial challenge" - which argues that the law is unconstitutional on its face even before any enforcement, rather than in how it was applied in a specific instance. Sotomayor said she initially had the same inclination as Alito - to vacate and remand - but hinted she may be inclined instead to uphold the injunction while remanding it. Sotomayor said it was "clear" from the discussion that many potentially covered practices "are expressive" and that some likely covered companies shouldn't be considered "common carriers." The remarks signal that the court could send the decision back with instructions for lower courts to dig into those distinctions. Conservative court tackles tech censorship' allegations Republicans have long accused social media platforms of unfairly "censoring" conservative voices. Tech industry groups have often responded by noting that the First Amendment protects against the suppression of free speech by the government - not private companies. That back-and-forth got a major airing Monday as some conservative justices pushed back on the notion that the term could apply to platforms' moderation practices. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said at one point that Florida Solicitor General Henry Whitaker "left out what I understand to be three key words in the First Amendment" and its protection against speech suppression, namely, "by the government." Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. later echoed the remarks, saying, "The First Amendment restricts what the government can do." But other conservative at-times eschewed the distinction, with Alito asking if the term "content moderation" is "anything more than a euphemism for censorship?" Justice Clarence Thomas separately remarked: "I don't know of any protected speech interests in censoring other speech." The comments suggest justices may not be aligned in their views on the matter. Justices, states debate where to draw lines on the internet The justices discussed ways to potentially distinguish between protected "speech" and business "conduct" by the tech companies that could be subject to the laws. However, it was not clear whether there's consensus on the matter - or if it's an issue they'll directly take up. Justice Elena Kagan at one point asked whether a law could prohibit viewpoint discrimination in instances where you did not have to factor in questions about companies' rights to "editorial discretion," citing Venmo, Uber, Dropbox and Gmail as examples. "When you're running Venmo, you're not engaged in speech activities," she said, suggesting the company's activity is distinct from the likes of Facebook and YouTube, which curate news feeds. Paul Clement, the counsel representing tech trade groups NetChoice and CCIA, pushed back. "All of those things are still in the expressive business," he said. The justices also debated if and how the laws would apply to a business like e-commerce site Etsy. "Etsy is a supermarket that wants to sell only vintage clothes, and so it is going to, and does, limit users' content," Kagan said. "They're going to have to censor." (COMMENT, BELOW) Insight SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. Just click here. The Munich Security Conference, the world's preeminent annual gathering on international security, wrapped up last weekend. Global leaders and experts discussed a wide range of concerns, but the threat of Russia and fate of Ukraine took center stage. Events in recent weeks have enhanced the former and made the latter look bleak, just ahead of the second anniversary of the war. This has European countries looking inward and wondering what that might mean for their own future security, at a time when their primary security guarantor the United States is looking fickle. The conference opened to news of Alexei Navalny's death in an Arctic penal colony. Navalny was Russian President Vladimir Putin's most effective critic and political foe, and whatever the proximate cause, Putin was the executioner. It's hard to escape the fact that Putin will get away with it, which will embolden him further while giving other homegrown dissenters more pause. The White House's promise for more sanctions in response feels futile, as two years of intense economic punishment have failed to impede Putin's bad acts. If anything, he's more brazen. A Russian defector was just found dead in Spain, an indication that Putin isn't afraid to conduct his vengeance on European soil either. Russia also just secured its biggest battleground gain in nearly a year, when Ukraine withdrew from the key eastern town of Avdiivka after months of intense fighting. The fall of Avdiivka put a spotlight on Congress's failure to pass a new Ukraine military aid package. Weapons and ammunition stockpiles have been dwindling for months, leaving Ukraine heavily outmanned and outgunned by Russia. Those shortages clearly had an impact. With a majority in Congress in favor of continuing assistance to Ukraine, the decision by the Republican-led House to take a vacation rather than bring the aid bill to a vote exposes America's highly dysfunctional political system and the peril of relying on it for one's defense. This is a hard lesson for Europe to learn after decades of doing just that. Unlike Ukraine, Europe's dependence is the product of choice. Most European countries have taken steps recently to address defense shortcomings by increasing spending and exploring how to enhance their own industrial capacity. But the response is too slow, the gap too great, and they've nearly wasted two years with a lack of cohesiveness and urgency. NATO's lopsided reliance on the U.S. military is hardly new. Presidents and other political leaders have complained about it for decades, but the United States did little to urge change, either, content with the level of control it retained from its outsize contribution. That reality, though, could change far more quickly than European countries could adapt a fact not lost on the participants in Munich, after recent inflammatory statements from former President Donald Trump. Trump announced at a campaign rally that he would not abide by America's treaty commitment to NATO if reelected and would encourage Russia to do "whatever the hell they want" to NATO member countries that don't meet NATO spending guidelines. Some dismissed it as campaign trail bluster, but John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser, said he has no doubt that Trump will find a way to abandon NATO if reelected. Despite some countries' increased defense spending, the United States still contributes more than two-thirds of NATO's budget. Europe's two biggest economies Germany and France still spend below the pledged 2% on defense, though in a sign of heightened concern, both announced earlier this month that they plan to reach that target this year. But increasing defense spending alone won't be sufficient to replace what would be lost without U.S. backing. Enhancing European arms production, for example, doesn't happen overnight, and arms producers need more firm financial commitments before they'll invest in expanding production. At Munich, some European leaders were blunt about the need for urgent action to avert Ukraine's demise, which would bring Russia's threat closer to their doorstep. The president of the Czech Republic said his country has located 800,000 shells elsewhere that could be bought and shipped to Ukraine quickly, and the Danish prime minister said Denmark will donate its entire artillery stockpile. These moves might help plug a short-term gap for Ukraine but do little to enhance Europe's security in the long term. Perhaps this period of uncertainty will pass with NATO little affected and Europe still secure. The House could still pass the Ukraine aid bill, boosting Ukraine before it's too late. And if President Joe Biden is reelected, America's commitment to NATO and Ukraine will be secure for at least another four years. But even so, Europe should take the risk of an unpredictable America to heart and do what it takes now to enhance its security self-sufficiency. This might be its last opportunity to do so. Elizabeth Shackelford is a senior fellow on U.S. foreign policy with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She was previously a U.S. diplomat and is author of "The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age." Previously: 02/20/24 Sudan falls apart while the world looks away 01/04/24 For a better foreign policy in 2024, let's be more like Taylor Swift 04/23/24 Turkey and the power of controlling the narrative 04/25/23 A bipartisan effort aims to stop arming human rights abusers like Saudi Arabia 02/27/23 Ukraine's outsized reliance on the US is a risk for the world 02/13/23 Is China really scarier than Zuckerberg? 02/28/22 If Putin doesn't fear Western sanctions, his cronies might (COMMENT, BELOW) SULLIVAN Mary Jane Guymon has performed in musical theater throughout her life, beginning in junior high school. Decades later, she will be auditioning again for Little Theatre on the Squares summer season. I would encourage everybody to go audition, she said. Little Theatre is a wonderful place to perform and to collaborate. Little Theatre on the Squares producers are reaching out to the community for actors to help with future performances. Those who would like to maybe break into the professional acting side of things, said John Stephens, executive director. Adults, ages 18 and older, are invited to audition for the professional shows on Saturday, March 2, at The Little Theatre On The Square. Auditions will be at the theaters dance studio at 9 E. Jefferson St., Sullivan. Children will have their own auditions on Monday, March 4. Registration forms and time slots are available through the theaters website. Parts will be available for the young actors in the stage shows as well as three kids shows. Were going to be looking for all sorts of kids, Stephens said. Especially the ones that can play instruments for School of Rock, and probably another 30 kids for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Cian Lynch is one of the young actors who plans to audition. At 17 years old, the Sullivan resident has performed in several Little Theatre shows. I actually auditioned for last years summer season, of which I was cast in four of nine shows, he said. The audition process is very friendly with very experienced people there to help you get through it. Little Theatre on the Square Auditions Local Auditions will be held from 10 a.m. through 3 p.m. on March 2, at The Little Theatre On The Square Dance Studio, 9 E. Jefferson St., Sullivan. A dance call is scheduled for 3 p.m. Children can register for auditions, which will be held Monday, March 4, through the theaters website. For those unable to attend the audition, submit a headshot, resume, vocal reel, and dance/movement reel to auditions@thelittletheatre.org. The opportunity to perform is only a portion of the positive experience, according to Guymon. The staff, the performers, and even the audiences, they love what they do, she said. They are so passionate about it. Lynch said he is auditioning again because Little Theatre is a great place to act and perform. Whether youre an experienced union actor or a novice aiming to sharpen their raw talents, he said. According to the directors, the format in hiring professional actors has changed. Instead of people being here for the entire summer, they are just here for one show at a time, Stephens said. Each cast is separate from the next show. Local actors will experience the same workload as the professionals during the summer theater season. It is a commitment, Stephens said. Its hard for some people to take the time off. Professional actors will continue to be cast in lead roles. But were looking for some of the community members that sing, dance, act, all those things that maybe they dont want to do full time, Stephens said. Maybe theyre looking for something fun and interesting to do. Guymon is originally from the Chicago area, but stays with her adult daughter in Mahomet during the summer theater season. She heard about Little Theaters reputation as a professional theater northern Illinois theater communities. I have friends that have worked at the Little Theatre on the Square, Guymon said. She was cast in a show during the 2022 season, the venues first year welcoming actors and audiences back from the pandemic. The performers tested for COVID daily. But it was just so wonderful to be back, Guymon said. We were all just so grateful to be back performing together. It was a positive thing. Guymon recommends those interested in auditioning should bring a song they enjoy singing. Something that I want to share that has meaning to me, she said. During the audition, few aspects are under the performers control. Guymon suggests they take advantage of the areas they can control. I wear something that Im comfortable in, she said. And I try to be early. Lynch suggests those curious about auditioning to just give it a try. And have fun, he said. One of the worst things to do to yourself is worry. Getting in your head only sabotages yourself. If you believe in yourself, you will do your best. CHICAGO State and community leaders on Monday celebrated the planned opening of a new freestanding birth center on Chicagos South Side while emphasizing proposed maternal health spending increases in Gov. J.B. Pritzkers budget. The nonprofit Chicago South Side Birth Center will mark the citys second active midwife-led birth center, but the first for the South Side. Advocates say the Black-led center offers safe birthing alternatives in a medically underserved area of the city. Jeanine Valrie Logan, a midwife and leader at the Chicago Beyond philanthropic organization that helped launch the birth center, said the push to create more options for family planning would have been impossible without a 2021 law that increased to 17, from 12, the number of birth centers allowed in Illinois. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton said facilities like the South Side Birth Center are important in the Black community. She discussed how she and now her grown daughters have serious hesitations with trusting medical caregivers, especially while pregnant. She shared a story of being called sweetheart by a doctor who was giving her a prenatal ultrasound. This is personal to me. All these years later, we still haven't figured out how Black women can have safe pregnancies, birthing experiences and a healthy first year postpartum, Stratton said. Last year, the Illinois Department of Public Health found over 90% of all deaths for those pregnant or within one year of pregnancy were potentially preventable from 2018 through 2020. That same study, the 2023 Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Report, also found Black women were two times as likely two die to from pregnancy-related conditions when compared to white women over the same timespan. Logan emphasized how freestanding birth centers, where midwives are available to care for pregnant mothers in place of doctors, will transform maternal care for long underserved communities. It aims to create a space that will change how people receive reproductive health care, she said. Sen. Lakesia Collins, D-Chicago, shared her experience of finding a midwife and doula, both of whom positively shaped her delivery and newborn experience. It was one of the best choices I could have ever made in my life and the care for the mother and then the child all at the same time, and then postpartum care, it really saved me, Collins said. Pritzker said Illinois must start acting on maternal health issues. Unfortunately, our nation is failing mothers and mothers-to-be on nearly every metric, he said. We have so much to do, but imagine what this will look like when its completed. The center is intended to offer a full spectrum of reproductive care from contraception to STI screenings and abortion to prenatal birthing and postpartum care, serving as a model for how Illinois can decrease Black maternal mortality, he added. Starting this year, for the first time in Illinois history, doulas, midwives and lactation consultants are being recognized as Medicaid health care providers, expanding who can receive their services, he said. Pritzker also continued to promote his proposed budget, highlighting the Illinois Birth Equity Initiative a multi-pronged proposal aimed at promoting infant health while reducing the number of maternal and infant deaths. He proposed allocating $5 million to a home visiting program for new parents and over $4 million to IDPH to create a statewide maternal health plan and distribute grants to community-based reproductive health care providers. Pritzker highlighted other measures from his budget aimed at new parents, including a $1 million pilot diaper distribution program, operated through the Department of Human Services, and $12 million to create a tax credit aimed at low-income families with children younger than age 3. The preterm birth rate in Illinois, one of the leading causes of infant death, has increased over the past decade, according to March of Dimes, a nonprofit aimed at improving the health of babies and mothers in the U.S. Their latest report card for Illinois gives the state a D+ preterm birth grade for a preterm birth rate of 10.6% which, based on preliminary numbers, equates to about 13,000 preterm births for 2022. The Chicago South Side Birth Center will open in the former site of the Morning Star Bible Baptist Church, just a few miles south of the South Shore neighborhood. No date was announced for the birth center to open. Drylock Technologies, a Belgian manufacturer of hygiene products, said Wednesday it will open its first U.S. baby care production facility in Reidsville. The company pledged to create 150 jobs and spend at least $30 million on capital investments at a 450,000-square-foot plant at 1900 Barnes St. within Reidsville Industrial Park. The previous tenant was Albaad USA, a manufacturer of wet wipes. Family-owned Drylock has made private label absorbent baby, feminine and adult-care hygiene products for more than a decade with nine plants, including in Eau Claire, Wisc., and 3,750 employees globally. Among its production achievements are operating on renewable energy and making the first compostable diaper in the world. Drylock said it had $1.3 billion in 2023 sales, mostly in Europe. The next step were taking toward further growth is to open a baby care products plant in North Carolina, chief executive Bart Van Malderen said. Its our answer to the increasing demand for baby care products among our valued North American customers and serves as the perfect addition to our plant in Wisconsin, which has served as the cornerstone of our incontinence products for seven years. The average annual wage is projected at $46,040, compared with the Rockingham annual average of $43,892. The company has been made eligible for up to $300,000 in performance-based incentives from the One North Carolina Fund, which requires matching local incentives. The new jobs and investment Drylock Technologies will bring with them are critical to Reidsvilles continued growth, Reidsville mayor Donald Gorham said. Drylock becomes the second hygiene-product manufacturer to commit to a plant in Rockingham. Ontex Operations USA LLC, also based in Belgium, pledged in May 2020 to create 403 jobs at a plant in Stokesdale. It would become a top-five private employer in the county at that level. Ontex makes adult and baby diapers, as well as feminine hygiene products, for retailers and lifestyle brands. The 250,000-square-foot plant in South Rockingham Corporate Park debuted in July 2022 with nearly 100 workers. The company said its hiring goal is 220 by the end of 2024. It remains in hiring mode at www.ontexusajobs.com The Drylock project comes as a Reidsville-based textile manufacturer is eliminating 95 jobs by April 9 slightly more than half of the plants workforce the company disclosed in a WARN Act notice filed Feb. 5 with the N.C. Commerce Department. Global Textile Alliance Inc. said the 95 job cuts are permanent at its facility at 2361 Holiday Loop Road. The manufacturer said it is downsizing its facility in Reidsville, affecting employees in the knitting, weaving, finishings and operational support areas. The permanent layoff is a result of competitive and market forces in the textile and bedding sectors of the home goods industry. All affected employees have been notified. Leigh Cockram, director for economic development and tourism for Rockingham County, noted GTA said it still has about 90 employees at the Reidsville plant. Nestle Purina PetCare Co. has pledged to create 300 jobs and invest $450 million as it converted the former MillerCoors plant in Eden into a dry dog-food facility. It began operations in 2022. It is the largest capital investment in Rockingham Countys history. The 1.3-million square feet of production space sits on a 1,365-acre site. Farmina Pet Food USA opened in 2022 its North American headquarters and manufacturing operations in Reidsville. It has pledged to create 129 jobs and spend $28.48 million on capital investments over five years. Farmina, family owned and based in Italy, is a provider of high-end food for dogs and cats. The campus in Reidsville Industrial Park will feature research and development operations that will include a microbiological and chemical laboratory, along with warehousing. Northwest Ward is the only open seat available this fall on the Winston-Salem City Council, and thats created contests in both the Democratic and Republican primaries on March 5. Early voting is already underway. Jeff MacIntosh, a Democrat, announced more than a year ago that he would not seek a third term representing Northeast Ward on the council. MacIntosh won his first term with about 60% of the vote in the general election and was unopposed in the 2020 general election. This years contest features a matchup between Regina Ford Hall and Bob Hartwell in the Democratic primary, and another contest in the GOP between Herbert Burns Jr. and Jimmy Hodson. Hodson is a campaign veteran at least, having lost the GOP nomination by a squeaker in 2016 to Eric Henderson, who lost to MacIntosh that fall. The winner of each partys primary moves on to the general election in the fall. Unaffiliated voters can vote in either partys primary. Statements from the four candidates included the following information: Hall (D) Hall said she is running for city council to enhance the voice of the citizens of the Northwest Ward and strengthen leadership and governance within the city of Winston-Salem. I believe that a strong entrepreneurial community paves the way to solving other issues within the city, such as housing, economic mobility, and crime, she said. Consequently, one of my goals is to ensure that we have support for small businesses. Noting that the city now offers support to small businesses along with minority and women-owned businesses, Hall said that if elected she would continue to support those efforts through the citys Office of Business Inclusion & Advancement, and wants to provide additional staff support to work with small business owners. I would also support additional funding for programs that provide capital to small business owners, she said. As the former program administrator of the citys second-chance employment opportunity program, Successful Outcomes after Release (SOAR), I want to continue councils existing goal of focusing on job creation, and workforce development. I also plan to continue the existing goal of creating safe and secure (livable) communities. This means that we will have to get a handle on housing and crime in this city. Winston deserves more. Hall is the executive director of Boston-Thurmond United. Hartwell (D) Hartwell says that his leadership skills and years of public service as a state senator among other positions held throughout New England, and locally with Winston-Salem Recreation & Parks Commission, will enable me to be an effective Northwest Ward city council member. My overarching role is one of protecting democracy while building citizen involvement in all levels of process that impact the entire city of Winston-Salem, while remaining responsive to the Northwest Ward constituents unique concerns, he said. Hartwell said opportunities exist to solve the inter-related issues of affordable, workforce housing shortage, preparing for climate effects, increasing planning & development involvement at the citizen level, improving public safety, and acknowledging the relationship between law enforcement and education. Hartwell said he would propose a vote on issuing bonds for workforce housing. He said he would facilitate private and public partnerships to establish a civilian conservation corps to focus on the impending climate crisis. He said he would revise the planning and development procedures to allow more local community participation. Winston-Salem is destined to be the best city in North Carolina, he said, a city that attracts those who seek innovation, solutions to challenges, and embraces the diversity that abounds, while keeping a vigilant eye toward justice and equity for all. Hartwell is a former labor attorney for a Fortune 500 company. Burns (R) Burns said he has the leadership skills to serve the city, and listed some primary goals: First, to support police to make the community safer; second, to be a fiscal conservative to monitor the real way your money is spent for the most effective results in the Northwest Ward and our city; and third, to be business friendly and to both strengthen the citys communication with existing businesses, and look for opportunities to attract innovative businesses to the city. Burns called himself a candidate that will listen to you, learn with you and lead with you, to create a better city for all of us for tomorrow. He said he has received honors in leadership and education, awards and recognition relating to sustainable design in architecture, and has collaborated internationally. These talents and experiences can help to better serve you and create a future in our city that we can be proud of, he said. Hodson (R) Hodson said since moving to Winston-Salem almost 30 years ago, he has witnessed a city that used to be dead at night evolve into a more vibrant, active location. Forgotten and unused spaces have become revitalized and reborn, and I have to credit the leaders who came before us with a vision and determination to see these changes through, Hodson said. At the same time, Hodson said, with progress comes challenges. Hodson said that statistics show that last year, violence crime in the city was up, with homicides up 33% and rapes up 6%. Homelessness is increasing, he said. The Winston-Salem police department has over 100 vacancies. Without changes, these problems will only worsen. Calling his main goal a safe and healthy community for the good people who call Winston home, Hodson said the city cant expect to attract new economic development to our city if we cant deliver on that promise for our citizens. My business background requires working with stakeholders from diverse backgrounds to create solutions, he said. I can apply this experience to our citys business and the betterment of our community. Hodson said he wants to sow the seeds of positive change that will flourish for generations to come. Hodson is product manager at Noregon Systems. High Point Universitys latest poll has revealed that a majority of North Carolina residents are optimistic about the nations future ability to address issues concerning access to clean water and energy shortages a century from now. Conducted by the High Point University Survey Research Center, the HPU Poll 100 employed an online survey method spanning from Jan. 16 to Jan. 26, reaching 1,042 respondents recruited by Dynata. Respondents indicated that they believed, within 100 years, the United States would very likely or somewhat likely have addressed successfully the issues of access to clean water (60%), energy shortages (55%), and climate change (44%). However, amidst these optimistic views, an expert weighed in with a more cautious perspective and expressed skepticism. I dont know that we have 100 years, quite frankly, Edgar Miller, executive director at Yadkin Riverkeeper, told the Journal, citing recent instances of more intense storms over a shorter period of time in North Carolina. In 2016, the EPA reported a trend of intensifying tropical storms and hurricanes over the past two decades in North Carolina. The agency also suggested a significant increase in extreme rainfall events, such as those experienced during Hurricane Florence in 2018, in Eastern North Carolina. Stormwater pollution happens when chemicals and materials, like pesticides and bacteria, wash into storm drains from streets, industrial sites, and construction areas during storms. Unlike household wastewater, stormwater isnt treated and flows directly into nearby lakes, rivers, or the ocean, threatening water quality and ecosystems, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. We are still before the tipping point where it will be too late. I see the need to build public support for policies and direction to mitigate climate change and make sure we have clean water and clean energy and the future, Miller added. Meanwhile, Matt Abele, executive director of the NC Sustainable Energy Association, noted that these poll results mirror the growing national awareness of climate challenges. There is sort of a strong understanding that there needs to be more done to accelerate carbon emissions reductions . We still have a lot of work to do in the transportation, electricity sector and on the industrial sectors to reduce emissions, especially if we want to be hitting our goals outlined as part of Governor Coopers executive orders and as part of House Bill 951, Abele said, adding that such sentiment comes from both liberal and conservative groups and voters. Its something that consumers and households really want to embrace moving forward, especially from an affordability, cost perspective, Abele added. North Carolinas energy landscape is undergoing changes amidst escalating demand projections and the need to reduce carbon emissions. While the state has set ambitious targets through the HB951 to slash carbon emissions by 70% by 2030, challenges arise as Duke Energy, a pivotal player in the states energy sector, advocates for a more gradual transition to cleaner energy sources. This slower approach leaves the potential impact on air pollutants within the state uncertain. Last week, the Biden administration announced a new initiative to allocate $361 million to North Carolina as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The funds are intended to support the state in enhancing critical water infrastructure, particularly those directly connected to public health and water bodies. Gov. Roy Cooper also signed an executive order this month, pledging to preserve 1 million acres of forests and wetlands by 2040 while restoring an additional million acres and planting 1 million urban trees by the same year. Wetlands are critical ecosystems that play a vital role in ensuring clean water for communities and wildlife alike. As natural filters, wetlands help to purify and improve water quality by eliminate or retain inorganic nutrients, manage organic wastes, and decrease suspended sediments before these substances reach open water bodies, according to U.S. environmental Protection Agency. Chinese online literature experienced significant growth last year, according to a recent report, with its overseas popularity continuing to expand robustly, accompanied by accelerated AI development. A release event and seminar for the 2023 Report on the Development of Chinese Online Literature is held in Beijing, Feb. 26, 2024. [Photo courtesy of CASS] The "2023 Report on the Development of Chinese Online Literature" was unveiled Monday by the Institute of Literature under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). According to the report, China's online literature reading market grew to 40.43 billion yuan ($5.62 billion) in 2023, marking a 3.8% increase from the previous year. The market value of online literature intellectual property (IP) franchises also surged to 260.5 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 10 billion yuan from the previous year. Combined, these sectors have driven the overall market value of the online literature industry to 300 billion yuan. The report also highlights that the number of online literature authors in China has risen dramatically to 24.05 million, with over 2.25 million new authors entering the field in 2023. The total collection of online literary works has expanded to 36.2 million, with 4.2 million new works being published in 2023. Furthermore, the user base for online literature has grown to 537 million, suggesting that nearly half of all Chinese internet users engage with online literature. This marks a year-on-year increase of 9%, with 45 million new users joining in 2023. The report emphasizes the significant increase in the overseas reach and influence of Chinese online literature, positioning it alongside online games and film and television series as the three mainstays of China's "cultural exports." The data reveals that the international market size for Chinese online literature exceeds 4 billion yuan. This includes approximately 410,000 overseas online writers, consisting of foreigners and overseas Chinese, who publish their works on international platforms owned by Chinese entities. There are about 620,000 original works by these international authors available on such platforms. Additionally, these international platforms have around 230 million overseas visitors from more than 200 countries and regions, with the United States hosting the largest number of readers. In 2023, over 1,000 Chinese online literature IPs were authorized for overseas publication through collaborations with 66 international publishing entities. Furthermore, over 1,500 comic works were released online internationally, with 123 of these works garnering over 10 million views each. New animation episodes derived from Chinese online literature were uploaded to YouTube at an average rate of one episode per day, collectively amassing over 270 million views throughout the year. In addition, over 100 audio works reached international audiences, with the most popular work achieving 108 million plays. Amidst booming development and a favorable environment, Chinese-language IPs are gradually making their mark on the global stage. For instance, the second season of the TV series "Joy of Life" became the first Chinese drama to surpass 10 million pre-subscriptions online, with Disney purchasing its overseas exclusive distribution rights. The TV series "Romance on the Farm" topped the charts on iQiyi's sites in Thailand and Japan. Additionally, China Literature Limited launched "Battle Through the Heavens," its first literature IP-adapted game to be independently distributed overseas, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, leading to a significant increase in new players. The report suggests that in 2023, both the efficiency and quality of film and television adaptations of online literature IPs have improved. According to the list of popular new drama series in 2023, 60% of the top 20 works were adapted from online literature. The animation and sci-fi genres have become significant drivers for amplifying the influence of IPs, with 50% of the works in Tencent Video's top 10 classic hits list in 2023 being animations adapted from online literature. Micro-dramas and short dramas have emerged as trends, unlocking the value of mid-tier IPs and offering a more efficient channel for IP visualization within the ecosystem. Therefore, the trend toward high-quality short drama productions is seen as inevitable. Notably, the report predicts 2024 will be a breakout year for film and television adaptations of popular IPs in the male online literature category. Online literature has become a significant channel for telling China's stories, increasingly reflecting cultural confidence and depicting China's development, thus setting new creative trends. In 2023, online literature authors skillfully integrated elements of China's traditional culture into various themes, including history, contemporary life, and science fiction. This blend showcases the inventive adaptation and modern evolution of China's traditional culture, further advancing its seamless incorporation into various genres. The annual report also delves into the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the online literature sector, indicating that AI is initiating a transformative and profound shift in content production methods. For example, translation efficiency has surged nearly a hundred times while the average cost of translations has plummeted by over 90%, resulting in popular AI translations of online literature like "Mythical Era: I Evolved into A Stellar-Level Beast." Following the release of the first major online literature AI model, Yuewen Miaobi in July 2023, there is a growing consensus within the industry that AI-generated content is assisting online literature authors in enhancing their creative efficiency. Yang Chen, vice president and editor-in-chief at China Literature Limited, stated that AI's unique advantage in online literature is not just as a medium or carrier but also as a tool for creativity and a booster of capabilities. "AI's expanding functions will bring significant added value to the creation of online literature. In the future, as 'AI+IP' technologies mature and integrate into the IP development workflow, they will greatly unleash the potential for IP development and promote the upgrading of the online literature ecosystem." The CASS report highlights that driven by three key trends premium content production, accelerated IP conversion, and deeper globalization Chinese online literature represents a dynamic example of mass participation and international collaboration, effectively showcasing the originality of Chinese culture. It is increasingly becoming a vibrant cultural emblem for telling China's stories and amplifying China's voice worldwide. Furthermore, the report specifically mentions that China's active advancement of co-governed copyright protection is speeding up the legitimization of online literature through the combined efforts of policy, regulation, industry self-regulation, and the community of readers and authors. This concerted approach is crucial for ensuring the healthy and sustainable growth of online literature and its distribution within China and around the world. The Daily Minute is the Journal Star's morning news briefing where you can get the latest news in about a minute each weekday. Previous Daily Minute videos are archived here. Good morning, Lincoln. Here's what you should know today. Morrow tapped for LPD chief Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird on Tuesday nominated Michon Morrow to be the city's next police chief. The mayor made the announcement at a news conference alongside Morrow, who has been acting chief of the Lincoln Police Department since former chief Teresa Ewins resigned abruptly and without explanation in July. The City Council must confirm the appointment. Gaylor Baird had previously appointed Morrow who has been with the department since 1995 to the acting chief position after Ewins' resignation. StarTran tweaks transfer center plan The Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Department has announced a new plan for its temporary StarTran transfer center. Instead of putting two of the stops on 11th Street between L and K streets, which was unpopular with many of the business owners in the area, LTU plans to move that portion in front of the Carriage Park garage at 1128 L St. The other four centers are proposed for the east and south sides of the former Settell's Printing building at 333 S. 11th St. The transfer center would remain at South 11th and L streets area for an estimated three years while a new multi-modal transportation center is constructed. Bierhaus plans roof-top bar And, Lincolns Bierhaus has planned a $100,000 expansion with the hopes to open a roof-top bar. If all goes as planned, the deck, which sits on the fourth floor of the building at Eighth and P streets in the Historic Haymarket, would be open for business by April 27. Thats when the Huskers play their annual Spring Game. The deck provides a bird's-eye view of the Nebraska State Capitol building, Memorial Stadium and Pinnacle Bank Arena with just a turn of the head. Cody Schmick, whose owns the business, calls it one of Lincoln's best-kept secrets Thats it for Wednesday, Feb. 28. Stay in the know with Lincolns longest-standing news source at JournalStar.com and well see you back here tomorrow. Top Journal Star photos for February 2024 Billy Idol will play Pinewood Bowl on May 16. The spiky-haired 80s British rocker with the snarl, known for his hits such as Dancing with Myself, White Wedding and Rebel Yell, will be making his Lincoln debut at the Pioneers Park Amphitheatre. Idols tour will advance a new album, his first since 2014s Kings & Queens of the Underground. We have a new album coming out in October this year, Idol told the Associated Press last month. Were still carrying on and enlarging what my music is about. I enjoy doing it. Me and (guitarist) Steve (Stevens) are still finding ways to excite ourselves. Were not out there going through the motions. Were actually out there taking prisoners. Thats how we feel. William Michael Albert Broad, now 68, began his musical journey in 1976 in the punk band Chelsea. When that group broke up, he joined Generation X, which hit in the United Kingdom, releasing three studio albums to great acclaim and strong sales. In 1981, he moved to New York to pursue a solo career, teaming up with guitarist and co-writer Stevens to produce, in 1982, his self-titled solo album. The album yielded videos for Dancing with Myself and White Wedding that made him one of the first MTV stars and launched him on a decade of success that saw Rebel Yell his 1983 second album sell two million copies. Last year, Idol celebrated the 40th anniversary of that album with a five-night Las Vegas residency. "When we were starting out, I couldnt have imagined the effect of (our) music, Idol told the AP. We were living one day at a time. The songs were for that time period. They were just for that moment. You werent thinking about any long-term effects. Youre just thinking right now. But the songs have legs. Its like 'Wow, people have really embraced this crazy idea I had years ago.' Theyre still enjoying it, and I am too. Who would have thought that 40 years later? Im still pinching myself. Struggling with drugs and alcohol, Idol saw a career decline in the second half of the 1990s but returned to recording and touring in the mid-2000s. Tickets for the show start at $49 and will be available at 10 a.m. Friday at ticketmaster.com and on the Ticketmaster app. Tickets also will be available at the Pinnacle Bank Arena ticket on Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. beginning March 12. Idols concert will be one of four presented in a week at the bowl. The others: Cake, May 13; Willie Nelson & Family; May 15 and NEEDTOBREATHE May 18. Three other Pinewood shows announced so far are Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, June 5; Vampire Weekend, June 23; and Jason Mraz & the Superband, July 24. Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Photos: Pinewood Bowl Concerts Lincoln's city attorney spent the bulk of a hearing Tuesday trying to convince a judge not to temporarily put a halt to the city's ban on guns in public places as an Omaha judge did earlier this month in a similar case brought by the same gun rights group. Yohance Christie said that the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association, which filed legal challenges to executive orders signed by mayors in Lincoln and Omaha prohibiting firearms on public-owned property and in public spaces, lacked standing in the Lancaster County case. "This is actually a hypothetical argument," Christie said. He said the group essentially was asking for an advisory opinion as to what might happen if someone brought a gun to a park facility, was asked to leave and refused. Only then, potentially, could the person be brought into court for trespassing, Christie said. "If they were told to leave and they left, that would be the end of it," he said. He stressed that the executive order isn't a law. There is no criminal penalty attached to it, and it doesn't require law enforcement to carry it out, unlike Omaha's executive order. "The executive order is simply a policy that addresses the use and access to city facilities," he told Lancaster County District Judge Andrew Jacobsen. It's a different argument than was made in the Omaha case, where Douglas County District Court Judge LeAnne Srb issued a temporary injunction Feb. 9, thereby permitting guns on city-owned property in Omaha, as that case works its way through court. On Tuesday in Lincoln, Texas attorney Jacob Huebert of the Liberty Justice Center, who represents the Nebraska gun group in both cases, said the judge there concluded that Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert's executive order likely was preempted by state law. "The plaintiffs respectfully submit that this court should enjoin the amended weapons ban and the park weapons ordinance for the same reasons," he said. And Huebert argued the plaintiffs three Lincoln men and a fourth from Seward County did have standing. Each submitted a declaration saying prior to the executive order they carried their firearms into city parks, on hiking and biking trails and at dog parks. "Some of them conceal-carry 100% of the time. Some half of the time. Some most of the time. But they've all said that they did do this, and now they specifically avoid carrying on city property because of this ban because they don't want to violate any law," he said. Huebert said it was appropriate for them to challenge the ban because it's altered their behavior. "You don't have to go break the law and be charged with a crime before you challenge a law that affects you as unconstitutional or illegal. So the plaintiffs have done the right thing here," he said. The executive orders at issue signed by Stothert and Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird aren't worded the same, but essentially prohibit firearms at properties owned, leased or managed by the city, including parks and public spaces. The mayors signed them April 25, 2023, the same day Gov. Jim Pillen signed LB77 into law, allowing Nebraskans to carry concealed handguns without a permit or taking gun-safety training classes. The law went into effect Sept. 1. In court Tuesday, Huebert said the issue was "relatively simple." "The mayor's order and the parks weapons ordinance do exactly what LB77 prohibits. They regulate the possession and the carrying of firearms in the city," he said. Christie, on the other side, said denying the motion for a temporary injunction would be to keep the status quo. "They could not bring guns into parks and trails before the executive order, before the law, and they still can't now," he said. Christie said the park ordinance has been in effect since 1930, yet the plaintiffs admitted, in their own words, to disregarding it for years by going to parks and trails with weapons. "The fact of the matter is they never could," he said. Because it was his motion, Huebert got the last word, saying his clients all had concealed carry permits previously, which allowed them to carry guns, with limited exceptions, and they weren't aware of the city ordinance banning them in parks. He said the city's effort to frame it as a policy issue, not a law, doesn't change the threat his clients face should they attempt to exercise their rights protected by state law. "LB77 says they're not allowed to regulate firearms. Period. And this is a regulation of firearms," he said. The judge took the matter under advisement. Top Journal Star photos for February 2024 OMAHA Nebraska prosecutors have decided not to seek the death penalty in the December killing of a Catholic priest inside his home but will pursue execution in the brutal killing of a retiree during a break-in that happened in the same tiny town four months earlier. Kierre Williams has been charged with fatally stabbing the Rev. Stephen Gutgsell, 65, during a break-in at the rectory next door to St. John the Baptist Church in Fort Calhoun just hours before he was scheduled to lead mass on Dec. 10. William Collins, meanwhile, has been charged with shooting Linda Childers, 71, with a crossbow three times in her back, neck and face before slitting her throat after breaking into her isolated home about a mile north of the community in August. Investigators haven't found any connection between the suspects and victims in either case, which is part of what has made them so troubling to the roughly 1,100 residents of the town that sits only 8 miles (12.87 kilometers) north of Omaha near the Missouri River. Both men have pleaded not guilty to murder, burglary and weapons charges; Collins also faces assault and theft charges that he's pleaded not guilty to. They're both scheduled to return to court next Tuesday to ask the judge to order prosecutors to provide more details about the charges against them. Collins' attorney didn't immediately respond to a message about his case Tuesday, but has previously declined to discuss the case outside of court. Judge Bryan Meismer earlier this month rejected a motion to have the death penalty ruled out as unconstitutional in Collins case on grounds that courts have held in other cases that Nebraskas death penalty is constitutional and its too early to determine if it is being applied fairly. Williams attorney, Brian Craig, said the charges against him dont include any of the requirements under state law for someone to be sentenced to death. A sheriffs deputy who responded to the priests 911 call found Williams, 43, sprawled across Gutgsell, who was bleeding profusely. Based on the allegations, as theyve been set forth, there arent any aggravating circumstances ... that would support a finding of aggravating circumstances that would subject Mr. Williams to the death penalty, said Craig, who is with the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy that serves as the public defender in many murder cases across the state. In the charges against Collins, prosecutors spelled out three aggravating circumstances they plan to prove to justify the death penalty if he is convicted. They say Childers' killing was especially heinous and cruel, and she was killed partly to conceal Collins' identity or another crime. A family member found Childers' body in a pool of blood in her kitchen a day after she was killed. Authorities have said Collins took her vehicle, purse and shotgun and fled to Texas where the 30-year-old was arrested about two weeks later. Public school districts in Nebraska could hire clergy to perform the same duties as school counselors under a bill presented at the Legislature on Tuesday. The proposal (LB1065) from Sen. Loren Lippincott of Central City would allow school boards to adopt policies that would allow them to hire chaplains who would not be required to obtain a teaching certificate in either a volunteer or paid role. Lippincott told the Education Committee that allowing school districts to hire chaplains would help alleviate some of the teacher and staff shortages experienced around the state, and he said it would benefit both students and teachers. Chaplains are used in many places already in society like the military, hospitals and correctional facilities, as well as mental health facilities, Lippincott said. If chaplains are entrusted with our firefighters and law enforcement, I think they can be useful in our schools. Lippincotts bill, which has 12 co-sponsors, is based on a law passed in Texas last year that gives school boards until March 1 to decide whether or not to allow unlicensed chaplains to serve as counselors either as staff members or volunteers. The law has generated controversy across the Lone Star State, including among clergy who signed a letter asking school districts to not hire clergy, indicating they were not qualified for the job and that their presence would get in the way of parents and guardians influencing their childs spiritual journey. But backers of Lippincotts proposal, like Caroline Epp, said they believed putting religious clergy in schools would have a positive effect by giving school-aged children and faculty an opportunity to interact with someone who knows God. We have pushed God out of our country, especially out of our education, said Epp, who added that it had resulted in mental health problems, drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy and other societal ills. Giving school children access to clergy would allow them to know there is hope in their lives. Sherry Jones, a member of the State Board of Education who testified in an individual capacity, said hiring clergy was an outside the box solution that would help address the shortage of school counselors and social workers and help tackle a mental health crisis. Having trained and screened chaplains available in our schools seems like a practical, hope-filled solution or option at least, Jones said. School counselors, education groups, and civil rights organizations panned the idea, however, saying clergy were not trained to perform the wide-ranging duties of a school counselor, and questioning whether allowing districts to hire religious leaders would violate students rights. Malinda Jean Baptiste, assistant executive director of the Nebraska School Counselor Association, told senators that in addition to student success, counselors helped them explore possible careers and develop interpersonal skills like conflict resolution and coping. They also help those students prepare for college by helping them through the admissions process, finding scholarship opportunities and involving parents in those discussions, she said. We support each and every student, meeting them where they are at and building skills, Jean Baptiste said. Chaplains or other individuals without school counselor credentials are not positioned to have this level of impact on school safety and provide the necessary support for all students. Chaplains are responsible for the spiritual care of individuals, she added, which does not encompass all that counselors are asked to do in school districts across the state. Members of the committee asked Jean Baptiste if there was an opportunity for chaplains to have a role in school districts, even if to provide students an extra person to talk to. She said students often come to the counselor because they want to speak to someone in a non-religious context. Other school counselors such as Suzanne Scott said Lippincotts bill diminishes and depreciates the work school counselors do in schools by allowing chaplains who have not been trained and certified to perform the same roles. Aryn Huck, a community organizer for Out Nebraska, said the bill doesnt address what sort of training would be required for chaplains before they can work in a school district, and Grant Friedman of the ACLU of Nebraska said putting chaplains in schools could result in religious coercion and indoctrination of students. Kurth Brashear of Seward told the committee he values the role ordained clergy play in the church and in society, but I dont know one who would claim he could fill the duties of a full-time school counselor as they exist today. School counselors are professionally trained to develop programs that advance students academic, career and social-emotional skills, as well as serve as a sounding board for students who dont know who else to turn to, Brashear said. They also work with parents seeking help in addressing the challenges their children face. To believe a person trained in theology can bring the same experience and skills to a student betrays a lack of understanding and awareness of school counseling today, Brashear said. Lippincott, who told the committee Indiana, Oklahoma and Florida are all considering similar legislation this year, said the option of school districts being able to hire a chaplain seems like a pretty reasonable idea to me and said resistance came from school counselors protecting your own territory. The first step to loving somebody is listening, he said. Pastors know how to listen. The committee did not take any action on LB1065 on Tuesday. Top Journal Star photos for February 2024 The Legislatures Education Committee advanced a bill that aims to reimburse school districts that contract with licensed psychologists for mental and behavioral health services. The bill (LB1014) from Sen. Lynne Walz of Fremont would allow school districts to recoup the costs of working with those providers at rates set by the Nebraska Department of Education. School psychologists said the measure would give districts the ability to expand access to school psychologists amid a shortage of those professionals across the state. At a hearing in January, the Nebraska School Psychologist Association said school districts have paid more than $2 million to independent psychologists to meet their federal and state requirements. The committee briefly discussed but did not take any action on a series of school safety-related bills, including a measure (LB1339) from Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon that would authorize school districts to allow off-duty and retired law enforcement to carry guns onto school property. Brewer's bill would also give but not require school districts the ability to adopt policies allowing for teachers or other staff to be armed, and set guidelines for training. LB1339 also includes a proposal from Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair that would provide grants to schools to complete maps for use by law enforcement agencies in an emergency response. Other bills advanced by the committee on Wednesday include: STUDENT TEACHERS: Omaha Sen. Kathleen Kauths bill (LB953) providing full-tuition waivers for student teachers attending the University of Nebraska or the Nebraska State College System was moved to general file. A fiscal note on Kauths bill estimates the waivers, which would be available beginning in the 2025-26 school year and run through the 2030-31 school year, would cost the university and state college system $2.6 million in the first year. The bill includes an intent to appropriate up to $3 million to those institutions to fill in that funding gap. SCHOOL TRAINING: A bill (LB1377) from Walz providing school districts more flexibility in how they determine what kinds of training school employees are required to complete each year was also advanced. Walz introduced the measure on behalf of Gov. Jim Pillen to reduce the annual requirements for teachers. The bill gives school boards authority to not make teachers or other school employees complete classroom or behavior management training each year. An amendment adopted by the committee before it was advanced to the floor would remove school resource officers or security guards from the bill, requiring them to continue to complete the requirements. MERCATOR MAPS: The committee also advanced a bill (LB962) from Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha that would require public schools to use only the Gall-Peters or AuthaGraph projection maps in classes. Wayne said the Mercator projection map, which was first developed in 1569 as a navigational tool and became widely used in the 1800s, distorts the size of land masses based on their position; those closer to the poles appear larger than those closer to the equator. In a Feb. 20 committee hearing, Wayne said he believed schools should be showing students maps that accurately reflect the sizes and positions of the continents and bodies of water. An opponent to the bill said the Legislature should not be mandating which maps school districts are using in their curriculum. Top Journal Star photos for February 2024 The attorney representing Nebraska's executive branch in its ongoing labor dispute with the state's largest public employees union argued Tuesday that the union has waged its fight against Gov. Jim Pillen as a means to grow union membership. Mark Fahleson, a private attorney who the state retained to litigate its labor dispute with the Nebraska Association of Public Employees, cast the labor group's legal challenge of Pillen's return-to-office mandate as meritless amid a trial Tuesday in front of the state's tribunal responsible for settling public labor disputes. "It is our fear that the union has used this commission as an avenue to increase its membership substantially ... and that (in) this proceeding, the ultimate goal is simply to increase its revenue to its union and that it's an improper use of this commission for that very purpose," Fahleson said. His argument came amid the second day of a two-day trial sought by NAPE, which in December petitioned the Commission of Industrial Relations to force the state's executive branch to bargain over Pillen's attempt to broadly end remote and hybrid work for state employees with few exceptions. Pillen's order was initially supposed to take effect Jan. 2, but the CIR ruled in late December that NAPE members could continue operating under their previous work arrangements until the tribunal took up NAPE's petition. NAPE has repeatedly argued that Pillen's mandate made substantive changes to employees' work conditions that the state is required by law to negotiate, while Fahleson and state officials have maintained that Nebraska's contract with NAPE gives the state the right to dictate the site of an employee's work. Fahleson's latest argument that NAPE has waged a monthslong legal battle merely to expand its roster of dues-paying members came as he questioned the union's executive director, Justin Hubly, at trial Tuesday at the State Office Building in downtown Lincoln. The state's attorney noted that NAPE had announced in September an "ambitious" goal to amass 3,000 dues-paying members by September 2024 a feat the union had accomplished by January. Hubly said the union had around 2,100 members in early 2023 and acknowledged it had added more than 1,300 members last calendar year, which he said marked the latest year of union growth under his leadership. Fahleson inaccurately claimed NAPE's membership had doubled as a result of the effort and accused the union of soliciting non-members who called NAPE in the wake of Pillen's order to join the union, suggesting NAPE's "ultimate goal" in taking the executive branch to court "was to drive membership." More than 8,000 state employees work under the contract bargained by NAPE, most of whom are not dues-paying union members. NAPE's attorney, Joy Shiffermiller, argued that Fahleson's questioning of Hubly fell outside the scope of the CIR trial, but Presiding Commissioner Gregory Neuhaus ultimately allowed Fahleson to proceed. In response, Hubly told the tribunal that NAPE had started its campaign to boost membership when he was hired as executive director in 2018 and noted the union had set the goal of amassing 3,000 members before Pillen issued his return-to-office order. "After (the executive order) was issued, your union began contacting bargaining unit members encouraging them to become dues-paying members of your union, correct?" Fahleson asked. "It well predates that, Mark. It well predates that," Hubly quipped, before he was chided by Neuhaus for referring to Fahleson by his first name. "Every email we've sent for six years has a link asking people who are members to join. Every one." "If we're not asking a state employee to join our union, we're not doing our job," he added later in his testimony. And in an exchange with his union's own attorney Tuesday, Hubly testified that NAPE had taken legal action against Nebraska's executive branch first in the CIR and, later, in the District Court of Lancaster County because the union believes the state must negotiate the terms of Pillen's return-to-office order. The union's bid to force the state to bargain is what prompted this week's trial, which kicked off Monday with hours of testimony from state officials and NAPE members who offered routine details of what came before and after the governor's November order. The dispute comes down to each side's interpretation of the state's current labor contract with NAPE, which gives management the right to "increase, reduce, change, modify and alter the composition and site of the work force." Fahleson and state officials have argued that provision authorizes Pillen to recall employees to the office. And the state has repeatedly noted that NAPE proposed adding work-from-home protections when the two sides negotiated their latest labor contract, but the union conceded those protections as part of negations that netted state workers their highest salary increases in decades. Hubly testified Tuesday that the state's negotiators viewed such protections as a "nonstarter" and that there were "no discussions" over remote work when they negotiated the labor contract. Though testimony in the trial ended Tuesday, the CIR won't issue a ruling in the case until at least mid-April. Fahleson and Shiffermiller will submit written arguments to the commission over the next several weeks, the last of which is due April 12. RAYMOND Residents voted Tuesday in a Raymond School Board recall election. Voters chose between four candidates for two seats. The winners will be on the board of education for Raymond K-8 School, 2659 76th St., until April 2025. Janell Wise and Jennifer Hribar are running for the seat currently held by Wise. Dean Langenfeld and Mike Pauers are running for the seat previously held by Gwen Keller. Recall petitions against School Board members Keller and Wise were certified in January. Keller resigned from the School Board in January and was not on ballots. Recall results were not available by press time Tuesday. More information will be available at journaltimes.com and in Thursdays paper. RACINE Dozens of people showed up at Monument Square on Monday afternoon, not to enjoy the unseasonably warm and sunny weather, but to rally for Republican U.S Rep. Bryan Steil to vote to approve funding to Ukraine. Many showed up early for the 4 p.m. rally, waving Ukrainian and American flags and holding handwritten signs with messages supporting the cause. John Scott emceed the rally, which featured seven speakers and messages from a veteran and Democratic state Sen. Bob Wirch, both of whom were unable to attend. State Assembly member Rep. Tip McGuire also spoke at the rally. A petition for Steil to support funding for Ukraine circulated, which Scott said would be delivered to Steils office. Scott and other speakers also urged attendees to call the representatives office to ask for support for Ukraine. Following the rally, the group walked to the Racine County Courthouse at 730 Wisconsin Ave., which houses Steils Racine District Office. The courthouse was closed when the crowd arrived, but security guards accepted some signs to place outside of Steils office. The U.S. Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill Feb. 13 that includes $60 billion for Ukraine, according to the U.S. Congress website. The bill had not been brought to the House floor for a vote as of Wednesday. A representative from Steils office said they could not speak about Steils views on the bill as it has not yet been voted on in the House. In a statement, Steil said he appreciates the input from those who attended the Racine rally as Congress considers options to address this challenge going forward. The unjust Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of a number of vitally important issues Congress is considering right now, Steil said. Speakers at the rally referenced Steils messages of support for Ukraine in 2022 and called for Steil to remain true to (his) word. After (Ukrainian) President Zelenskyy addressed U.S. Congress, Bryan Steil announced he will support Ukraine. Were gonna hold him to his word, and I hope hes listening, veteran James Poplowski said. In her speech, local activist Linda OConnell called upon Steil to recognize the Ukrainian soldiers as ordinary people fighting for their freedom. They are sons and brothers and husbands and fathers with families who love them, OConnell said. They listened and believed you, Congressman, when you said America stands with you. The world believed you. McGuire said this is an opportunity for the United States to support democracy abroad. The ability of people to live free is what we should be supporting right now, McGuire said. We need to pressure our Congress to provide the funding to make sure that we continue to have a free Ukraine and a free Europe. Navy veteran Tom Fogate said the rally attendees voices and signatures on the petition tell Steil that the American people support Ukraine in its efforts to preserve its own democracy. We are your friend, Ukraine. We are here for you, Ukraine. We will help you, Ukraine. WATERFORD Community members are looking forward to rediscovering Ten Club Park in 2024, as the riverfront attraction emerges from a dramatic makeover and expansion. The Village of Waterford is completing a nearly $3 million upgrade of the park to include a new hiking path, playground, concession stand, canoe launch, park shelter and an ice-skating rink, which made its debut this winter. Work began last year and the park was temporarily closed. But as the project nears completion, excitement is building for the reopening of Waterfords new center of attraction. Its going to be amazing, said Aubrey McGaughy, executive director of the Explore Waterford chamber of commerce group. Explore Waterford officials are so excited about the remodeled Ten Club Park that they are planning to move their annual Celebrate Waterford festival to the riverfront site. The all-day celebration of food, music and games has previously been a festival held on Main Street, which has been closed to accommodate the event. McGaughy said the event, which is now in its fifth year and scheduled for July 13, will enjoy more wide-open spaces and more flexibility in the park setting. Patrons can use the parks new hiking paths and other amenities during the festival, she said, and vendors can remain open longer without the pressure of needing to resume vehicular traffic on Main Street. The change also saves Explore Waterford the cost of paying police and fire for extra service involved with the street closure. Were so excited, McGaughy said. It just makes sense to utilize such an amazing asset in our community. Ten Club Park, situated at 100 S. First St. on the eastern banks of the river, is named for the 10 business leaders who donated the land in 1920. For at least the past 10 years, village officials have been planning a significant upgrade. The other major park in Waterford is Whitford Park, 625 S. First St., which includes a community center and pavilion. As part of the Ten Club Park renovation, the village purchased 2.5 acres to expand southward. The Waterford Village Board then awarded a $2.8 million contract to Racine-based A.W. Oakes & Son Inc. to lead the construction project, which began last spring. The ice-skating rink, which opened on New Years Eve, has been drawing big crowds. The Lions Club of Waterford is volunteering to assist with the ice rink operations. Lions Club spokesman Scott Gunderson said the club will be back this summer, too, when Ten Club Park hosts the villages weekly Mondays On First food truck and music events. The club serves as one of the vendors each Monday. Club officials are trying to decide the future of their summer Fun Fest event, which was canceled last year because Ten Club Park was closed for remodeling. Gunderson, however, said he is excited about the renovated parks potential as a community center, and he is impressed by the improvements that have been completed. Its coming along, he said. Its sure looking good. Village officials have not released details about plans for marking the projects completion or the parks reopening. Ben Versnik, director of the Waterford Recreation Department in the Waterford Graded School District, said he has been watching the Ten Club Park progress with excitement for the future. The recreation department has been growing and has been in discussions with the village about building on the partnership, Versnik said. Once the expanded Ten Club Park becomes available, he said, it will be a valuable community resource that could someday host recreation activities. Versnik said he drives past the park every day, and looks forward to seeing it in action this summer. It looks amazing, he said. Come summertime, its going to look great. Celebrate Waterford returns for its fourth year, in photos Take a bite Baby goat Baby goats Miniature horse Baby goat Bounce house Bounce house Playing with fire Aerial arts Magic Shopping Connect 4 Cornhole BMX BMX A unique crime film from Taiwan, which has garnered positive word-of-mouth on the Chinese mainland after advance screenings, is set to receive its theatrical release on Friday. A poster for "The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon." [Image courtesy of China Film Co. Ltd.] "The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon," directed by Wong Ching-Po and featuring Ethan Juan, Chen Yi-Wen, Ben Yuen and Gingle Wang, follows fugitive and gangland assassin Chen Kui-lin (Juan), who after being diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live, learns he's only the third most-wanted criminal in Taiwan. Determined to leave his mark, he decides to hunt down and eliminate the top two criminals, believing this will make him a modern-day hero. However, he fails to anticipate that greed, hatred and delusion are the real sins and punishments he must confront at the end of his life. The story draws inspiration from the fifth-century folk tale of Zhou Chu, a legendary figure in ancient China who transformed from a ruffian to a general by fighting three scourges a tiger, a dragon and himself, as hinted at in the Chinese title of the film. Additionally, the plot is influenced by the "three poisons" in Buddhism attachment (greed), aversion (hatred) and ignorance (delusion) which are symbolized on the wheel of life by a bird, snake and pig, respectively. Moreover, Wong also incorporates elements from true crimes and the prototype figure of Liu Huanrong, a cold-blooded local killer. Wong, who directed the action-packed classic "Once Upon a Time in Shanghai," is a master of crime and gangster films. "The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon" represents his latest attempt to innovate within this genre for Chinese cinema. Ethan Juan delivers a captivating performance as a cold-blooded, swaggering murderer, reminiscent of characters in Quentin Tarantino movies. The wild film skillfully blends elements of the crime genre with action-packed revenge narratives, and incorporates distinct styles from Taiwan and Hong Kong cinema, as well as fresh international influences. Furthermore, it delves into worrying issues such as brainwashing by religious cults and conmanship, while also exploring the murky aspects of human nature. Through the anti-hero's journey marked by dark humor and heart-wrenching moments Wong's saga challenges audiences' preconceptions about such films. Advance screenings of "The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon" were held in mainland theaters over the weekend, receiving rave reviews. So far, the film has earned an impressive 8.4/10 on China's major review aggregation site, Douban, based on more than 19,630 reviews. Encouraged by the positive buzz around the film, a second round of advance screenings has been organized for the nights of Feb. 27-29, ahead of its theatrical release on March 1. UNION GROVE Residents in southeastern Wisconsin enjoyed fun in the sun Tuesday as they welcomed the warmest February day on record in the state. With sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s, the summer-like conditions came within one degree of the warmest winter day ever in Wisconsin, covering Dec. 1 to March 1. The National Weather Service reported that temperatures hit 74 degrees in Milwaukee and 70 degrees in Madison, both breaking February records that had stood since 2017 in those communities. The previous records were 71 degrees in Milwaukee and 68 degrees in Madison. Although no records are kept in Racine, meteorologists reported that the entire region witnessed the warmest February day ever. The mercury climbed to 76 degrees in Racine, 76 in Kenosha and 73 in Burlington. The National Weather Service said the all-time winter high temperature was 77 degrees recorded in Fond du Lac on Dec. 6, 2001. Its amazing, Melanie Maki said while spending time Tuesday with her daughter, Chase Maki, 3, on the playground at School Yard Park in Union Grove. Maki said she had no doubt that it was the warmest February day Wisconsin has ever seen. Its been nice before, she said, but not like this. There was even a chance that temperatures would climb a little higher before the unseasonably mild afternoon reached its peak. From there, however, the weather was expected to turn decidedly back to winter conditions. Forecasters said temperatures were likely to plummet Tuesday night, reaching the teens overnight. Snow was in the forecast for Wednesday, before another warm-up begins Thursday. Residents jumped at the chance Tuesday to ditch their winter coats and bask in summer-like conditions in February. Nick Graziani of Union Grove said he started the day in sweatpants and a sweater, but he quickly switched to shorts and a T-shirt to take his dog, Louie, for a walk. Its weird, Graziani said. I dont know if its global warming or what. Temperatures were double the average high temperature of 38 degrees on Feb. 26. Bob Rushing and his wife, Monica Rushing, also of Union Grove, took advantage of the opportunity to take their infant grandson, Jaxon, for a walk in a stroller. Relaxing on a bench in Downtown Union Grove, the retired couple said they do not miss playing in the snow. Both said they have seen enough winter weather for a while. Ill take this, Bob Rushing said. Its so refreshing. Meteorological events to look for in 2024and where best to see them Meteorological events to look for in 2024and where best to see them Feb. 22, 2024: Venus and Mars conjunction Feb. 26, 2024: Zodiacal light April 8, 2024: Total solar eclipse April 12, 2024: 'Devil comet' crosses the sky Aug. 12, 2024: Perseids meteor shower Aug. 19, 2024: Supermoon September-October 2024: Will Comet C/2023 A3 shine bright? Oct. 2, 2024: Another solar eclipse Dec. 13, 2024: Geminid meteor shower All year: Increased aurora activity RACINE From a luxury apartment complex expected to open to the new management of Festival Hall to new businesses and events, downtown Racine has plenty in store for 2024. Kelly Kruse, executive director for Downtown Racine Corporation, shared her view on what 2024 holds for downtown, from a business standpoint. With new residential developments, a revitalized event center, the resurgence of Sixth Street, and an enhanced events calendar, we are poised for unprecedented growth and success, Kruse said. These developments are not just about business; theyre about fostering a thriving, connected community that we all can be proud of. Breakwater 233 Racines newest apartment complex, Breakwater 233, is scheduled to open this summer. Located at 233 Lake Ave., it connects the lakefront, marina and downtown Racine. This brand-new, market-rate apartment building overlooks the stunning Lake Michigan and boasts 203 apartments, welcoming over 500 new residents, Kruse said. The influx of residents in our downtown district is a game-changer for local businesses. It provides a steady stream of customers, helping to sustain and grow our existing business landscape. Kruse said that this addition of market-rate units downtown will bring in new residents with a higher discretionary income, which will help support local businesses. Revitalization of Festival Hall 5Kevents, a Racine-based company, has taken over management of the Racine Civic Centre after almost two decades of management by VenuWorks, an Iowa-based company. For the past five to 10 years, Festival Hall, our premier event center situated right on Lake Michigan, has been underutilized due to management challenges, Kruse said. This has led to a decline in large-scale festivals and events. However, starting March this year, under new leadership, we are confident and hopeful about rejuvenating this iconic venue. The prospect of bringing back festivals, weddings, conferences, and more is exhilarating. Its proximity, just two blocks from Main Street, means its revival will have a significant positive impact on downtown businesses and the communitys spirit. One of the first events 5Kevents will reintroduce is the Salmon-a-Rama fishing tournament, scheduled July 13-21, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year. Salmon-A-Rama and 5kevents have a committed five-year agreement to keep the tournament at Festival Hall, according to the event website. Renaissance of Sixth Street During the DRCs annual State of the Downtown and Achievement Award Presentation on Jan. 18, the DRC branded Sixth Street as the Racine Artisan District or the RAD District, which is expected to be a vibrant hub for arts and culture. Sixth Street in downtown Racine is poised for a transformation with the opening of multiple new businesses, Kruse said. These include the Vintage and Modern Bookstore, Tulip Lounge, Reveur Gallery, Raku Coffee Roaster, Kings Kitchen and Cocktails, and 6th and Chaos, a micro event venue. This renaissance is a testament to the dynamic and evolving nature of our downtown area. New Events and Continued Success During 2023, the DRC hosted more than 80 events, but Kruse plans on adding more. One new event, scheduled for Friday, May 3, is called Feast on the Streets, which will act as a sort of wine walk, but for food. Ten downtown restaurants are expected to participate. We are adding new events to our calendar, further enhancing the appeal of downtown Racine, Kruse said. These events play a crucial role in driving significant sales and traffic, contributing to the economic vitality and community engagement in our downtown district. Another page has turned in the legacy of Aldo Leopold. The world-renowned conservationists last remaining child, Estella Leopold, a researcher and scientist who with her four siblings helped preserve and promote her fathers land ethic and his famed shack along the Wisconsin River, has died at the age of 97. The Aldo Leopold Foundation announced Estellas death in a Facebook post on Tuesday, saying that she had died late Sunday in Seattle after several months in hospice care. Estella, who specialized in a palynology, the study of pollen, especially in fossilized form, joined her sister Nina Bradley and brothers Luna, Starker and Carl Leopold in 1982 to found the Aldo Leopold Foundation northeast of Baraboo. The nonprofit conservation organizations mission is to inspire an ethical, caring relationship between people and nature and is set amid the 16,000-acre Leopold-Pine Island Important Bird Area. The foundation also owns and preserves the shack, and has classrooms and a conference center along with a headquarters and museum. The latter holds artifacts including Leopolds writings, saddle, shotgun, tiny bands he used to study birds and an original pocket notebook he carried in the field. The foundation also stewards the Leopold Archives, including his original writing, sketches, photographs, artifacts and class materials, and cares for the pines, prairies and floodplain forests that make up the Leopold Shack property and surrounding 600 acres, referred to as the Leopold-Pines Memorial Reserve. Keeping with the family tradition, Estella was an honored scientist and ardent conservationist, often merging these two passions, the foundation posted. Generously the Leopold siblings conveyed their family farm and beloved Shack, as well as the rights to their fathers published and unpublished writings to the foundation so that their fathers vision of a land ethic would continue to inform and inspire the conservation movement. Estellas death comes just days before the start of Leopold Week, an annual event that features a series of virtual speaker presentations from leading experts in conservation. The first session at noon Friday will be led by Buddy Huffaker, executive director of the foundation, and include a tribute to Estella. Huffaker first met Estella in 1999, when he was hired by the foundation and she was serving as the foundations president. Huffaker said Wednesday that Estella was an amazing person in that she combined this kind of very clear sense of tenacity and tenderness. It flowed both through her from her sense as a scientist and humanist. No detail was too small for her to consider, Huffaker said. She was always integrating the human aspect and empathetic to how people were feeling and experiencing a situation. Growing up a Leopold Estella was born in Madison and was just 8 years old when in 1935 her father, who taught at UW-Madison, bought the abandoned Sauk County farm property for $8 an acre as a retreat. She was named after her mother and grew up helping to restore the propertys ecology, converting and expanding a dilapidated chicken coop into a cabin, planting thousands of trees and restoring what once had been a prairie. The property also served as a working model of Leopolds environmental philosophies, and its where he kept the detailed journals that would become the basis for much of A Sand County Almanac, published in 1949, a year after Leopold died of a heart attack on the property. The book, celebrating its 75th year in 2024, is considered one of the most influential in American history, has been translated into 15 different languages and speaks of a symbiotic land ethic that includes humans, soils, waters, plants and animals. Part of the reason the book is important and relevant is that each of the kids had their own careers in science, Huffaker said. It was their presence and advancement of their own work that kept the book relevant and viable. The second generation Estellas sister, Nina Bradley, a lifelong naturalist who wrote and lectured about her fathers land ethic while continuing his phenological research, died in 2011. Starker Leopold, an author, forester, zoologist and conservationist, died in 1983; Luna Leopold, a hydrologist, died in 2006; and Carl Leopold, a plant physiologist, died in 2009. Estellas career also was heralded. After receiving a degree in botany from UW-Madison in 1948, she earned a masters degree at the University of California Berkeley and a doctorate at Yale University. She worked for the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado, collecting and comparing fossils from the Rocky Mountains and other places in the U.S. and the world. When developers threatened the rich fossil beds of Florissant Valley near Denver, she spearheaded a conservation effort that led to the area being protected as a national monument. Estella left the USGS to join the Quaternary Research Center at the University of Washington, where she documented the fault zone that runs through Seattle and compared vegetation history across the Pacific Northwest and China. In the 1980s, she fought to establish the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, and her research on coral atolls helped confirm Charles Darwins hypothesis on how they evolved. An impressive legacy of her own Although she retired from teaching at the University of Washington in 2000, Leopold continued her research. She published or contributed to more than a hundred scientific papers and articles in her career. Along with Starker and Luna, she was also an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2010, she was awarded the International Cosmos Prize for her work in conservation. Estella had spent her career in research, but she began writing for a more general audience when she was in her 80s. In her first book, Saved in Time, published in 2012, she told the geologic and biologic history of the Florissant Valley and the story of advocacy that ultimately protected it. Her 2016 book Stories from the Leopold Shack provides insights into the backstories of some of the essays in her fathers A Sand County Almanac. Her last book, Aldos Wife, Estella Bergere; My Remarkable Mother, was published in 2023, to share the familys unique heritage and as an ode to her mothers role in Aldo Leopolds work. But the donation of the Leopold property and the creation of the foundation in 1982 by Estella and her siblings helped preserve not only her fathers work but grow the family legacy and is considered one of the most scientifically significant pieces of land in Wisconsin. It was a significant act of generosity, Huffaker said. They basically turned their family property and legacy over to the world so his vision of land ethic could grow and respond to the time. Photos: Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Aldo Leopold Foundation Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers reiterated Tuesday that he will veto a Republican bill that would create grants to fight pollution from so-called forever chemicals and again asked GOP lawmakers to release to environmental regulators $125 million set aside to deal with contamination. Republicans who control the Legislatures budget committee refused to budge, raising the possibility that the money will go unspent indefinitely as municipalities across the state struggle with PFAS contamination in their groundwater. Wisconsinites should not have to wait any longer than they already have, Evers wrote in a letter Tuesday to the finance committees co-chairs, state Sen. Howard Marklein and state Rep. Mark Born. Partisan politics should not stand in the way of addressing PFAS contamination in communities across our state. PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are manmade chemicals that dont easily break down in nature. They are found in a wide range of products, including cookware and stain-resistant clothing, and previously were often used in aviation fire-suppression foam. The chemicals have been linked to health problems including low birth weight, cancer and liver disease, and have been shown to make vaccines less effective. Municipalities across Wisconsin are struggling with PFAS contamination in groundwater, including Marinette, Madison, Wausau and the town of Campbell on French Island. The waters of Green Bay also are contaminated. Republicans created a $125 million trust fund in the state budget last summer to address PFAS pollution. Evers has been trying to wrestle the money from them for months but the committee has yet to release a dollar. Republican state Sens. Eric Wimberger and Rob Cowles authored a sweeping bill that calls for spending the money on grants for municipalities, private landowners and waste disposal facilities to test for PFAS in water treatment plants and wells. Landowners with property that became contaminated through no fault of their own also would be eligible for grants. The state Senate passed the bill in November and the Assembly followed suit earlier this month. But Evers has said he wont sign the legislation into law because the bill doesnt actually release any money and hes concerned about language that would limit the Department of Natural Resources authority to hold polluters liable. Multiple environmental groups have urged Evers to veto the legislation, saying the limits on DNR enforcement are a deal-breaker. Wimberger and Cowles have argued that the limits are necessary to protect landowners who arent responsible for PFAS pollution on their property from fines. Evers directed the DNR in December to ask the Legislatures Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee to simply release the $125 million to the agency, but the committee has taken no action. The governor promised in his letter Tuesday that he will veto the bill. He wrote that even if he signed it, there was no guarantee the committee would release the money. Evers said in the letter that he has ordered DNR officials to again ask the committee to release the $125 million to the agency, this time promising it would be spent according to the parameters laid out in the Wimberger-Cowles bill. The governor called the request a compromise. In a joint statement, Marklein and Born said Republicans made setting aside money for PFAS contamination a priority. Governor Evers should sign it instead of holding up these funds to give the DNR authority to penalize innocent landowners, they said. Wimberger, a member of the finance committee, said in a statement that the bill would protect landowners and that Evers is deliberately mischaracterizing them as polluters, which amounts to oppressive bureaucratic domination. The statement didnt address the governors latest request to release the money to the DNR. Wimberger issued another statement later Tuesday saying the bill makes changes in state law to enable the grant programs. Releasing the money to the DNR, even with promises that it will be spent as the bill outlines, will turn it into a slush fund, he said. 1. Yes. It will be convenient and the fares are cheap. I plan to use the transit system often. 2. Yes. I have a vehicle, but I may still use the service now and then, especially in bad weather. 3. No. I dont use the current bus service, and I dont plan to use the micro-transit service either. 4. No. It may be fine in town, but it still involves a transfer for longer trips. That wont work. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say. It depends on how well the service works once its in place. Vote View Results President Joe Biden says Israel would be willing to halt its war on Hamas in Gaza during the upcoming Muslim fasting month of Ramadan if a deal is reached to release some of the hostages held by the militants You are here: Business A driverless Robotaxi test car is pictured during the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) at Shougang Park in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 5, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua] A Robotaxi crossed two bridges over the Yangtze River Tuesday morning in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, making the city China's first to operate commercial autonomous ride-hailing services spanning the river. The driverless taxi service is developed and operated by Baidu's autonomous driving platform Apollo Go. In 2023, the Wuhan test demonstration zone of intelligent connected vehicles in China alone recorded nearly 500 autonomous vehicles in regular operation, including autonomous taxis and driverless buses. During the period, Wuhan registered over 732,000 orders of travel services by autonomous vehicles, serving 900,000 trips, said local authorities. So far, China has more than 20 cities which have launched policies supporting autonomous driving tests, with over 60 enterprises having obtained autonomous driving test licenses. KEARNEY Due to dry conditions, Kearney Volunteer Fire Department Fire Chief Aaron Jameson is issuing a burning ban until the Kearney area receives measurable moisture. There is always a statewide open burning ban on all bonfires, outdoor rubbish fires, and fires for the purpose of clearing land, however, a permit can be obtained from the local fire chief on a form prescribed by the State of Nebraska. No open burn permits will be issued in an effort to preserve the lives and property of the citizens KVFD serves in its fire district, Jameson said. Warmer conditions, lack of winter moisture and low relative humidity have caused vegetation to dry quickly. Jameson also encourages residents to avoid burning in burn barrels during the ban. Extreme caution should always be used when using burn barrels and should have an appropriate screen on top to prevent burning debris from escaping the barrel. All outdoor activities that could lead to sparks or flames which could possibly ignite a wild fire are highly discouraged. If absolutely necessary, these activities should be performed with extreme caution and fire extinguishing capabilities should be readily available. KVFD said it appreciates the assistance and cooperation of residents in this matter of safety. People with questions or concerns can contact the Kearney Fire Department at 308-233-3226. In November of 1943, during some of the darkest days of World War II, a young American soldier found himself in serious trouble behind enemy lines. He was in a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber over Bremen, Germany, positioned at a gun in the tail of the aircraft, when the plane came under attack. The young soldier was wounded in the attack, and even worse the tail of the plane he was flying in was severed from the rest of the aircraft. He could not parachute to the ground because his parachute had also been damaged in the attack, so he stayed where he was inside the falling, spinning tail, expecting to die any minute. But he didnt die. After falling four miles out of the sky, the tail section landed in a clump of trees, cushioning the blow, and the soldier was ejected out onto the ground, injured but alive. Unfortunately, his troubles were just beginning. He was captured by the Nazis, and spent the rest of the war in Europe as a prisoner, suffering extreme hardship. But he survived that too, and eventually returned home to Crawford County. The young soldier was Gene Moran of the Soldiers Grove area, and if youve read the book Tailspin, then you know some of the story already. Come learn more on Tuesday, March 5, at 7 p.m. at the Vernon County Museum and History Center, when author John Armbruster talks about his recently-published book Tailspin. Armbruster is a Viroqua-area author. He earned degrees in journalism and education, and has taught history and government courses to middle and high school students. Tailspin has won several awards, and Armbruster has been a featured speaker around the Midwest since the book was published.Local people remember Eugene Paul Moran, who worked as a mailman in rural Crawford County for many years. Born in 1924, he grew up on a small dairy farm south of Soldiers Grove. He joined the Army Air Force in 1942, as soon as he was old enough. During the war he earned numerous awards, including two Purple Hearts. After the war he married Peg Finley, and they had nine children. Gene died in 2014. Join us on March 5 as we hear this incredible tale of loss and recovery. Everyone is welcome to attend the free public program. It will be held in the history centers handicapped-accessible conference room. A small exhibit of local World War II artifacts will also be on display in the room. North Woods International Elementary School teacher Kate Hooper believes its important for students to identify what they want in life and write it down. We learn about feelings and how to express our feelings, Hooper said. Their responses drew an audience Tuesday. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers visited the school as part of Public Schools Week. The governor took a seat on the floor as youngsters explained what they want to see changed at their school and beyond. Responses ranged from the immediate More Play Dough, More trains to play with to worldly Clean water for all, Clean up the Earth to everyday human interactions Treat all people well, Be nice to people. Hooper said the assignment went beyond a simple expression of want. We said you just cant say you want something you have to explain why, Hooper said. They all picked a topic and how they want to share it. She said students, even at the kindergarten level, can learn how to express positive hopes and dreams. She admitted the responses were all over the place, but said students put effort into the assignment. One student expressed her desire for Fresh water for everyone for free. I think everyone should have free fresh water, the student wrote. You need water to live. We use water to have a bath, wash vegetables and in our pool. We need water to drink. Water should be free because what if people dont have any money? Then they would die. Evers, a career educator before his election as governor in 2018, was impressed by what students wrote and their energy when they went outside for recess. They really understand and read very well, and, obviously, theyre very good at playing outside, Evers said. He said the responses reveal students appreciate the world around them. They understand how important the environment is and the need to cherish it as they get older, he said. Hooper also presented her monthly Citizen of the Month awards to two students who display exemplary leadership in the classroom. She invites a special guest to the presentation and was pleasantly surprised when the governor accepted. She said kindergarten students are generally too young to understand the concept of a states governor but recognized that someone important was in her classroom. We talked about it yesterday, Hooper said. They dont totally understand the hierarchy, but they were still pretty excited about it. Minneapolis Star Tribune. February 23, 2024. Editorial: Say no to human bones sold as curiosities Minnesota Legislature should pass bill that would prohibit use of calcified remains for commercial purposes. At $2,200, a specimen available online from Skulls Unlimited is a real deal. Unlike other skulls sold by this Oklahoma-based, open-to-the-public retailer, it comes with a sturdy carrying case. Theres no need to purchase a container to protect it from breakage and prying eyes if the buyer wants to transport it. For those wondering, this is not a replica. Its marketed as authentic, meaning it was once a person. Where a potential buyer would need to take it, and why it would be showcased, is an uncomfortable question. There are certainly legitimate scientific uses for a real human skull. But do Minnesotans want skulls and other human bones sold as curiosities to just anyone? That unusual though timely question was front and center at a Minnesota legislative committee hearing on Monday. Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville, has commendably introduced legislation that would prohibit sales of human remains specifically the calcified portion of a dead human body for commercial purposes. If HF 3490 is ultimately enacted, Minnesota would be among the first states to ban the sales of human bones for reasons that dont involve a public good, such as education, research or law enforcement needs. The law should pass. Recent news stories have put a grim spotlight on the surprising demand outside scientific channels for human remains. On Feb. 1, the Star Tribune reported that a White Bear Lake tattoo shop owner admitted to participating in a nationwide network that prosecutors say bought and sold body parts from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary. According to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, which is prosecuting the case, the trafficked remains were allegedly stolen from Harvard and the Arkansas facility. While there are laws on the books for theft, the disposition of donated bodies is at best lightly regulated. Its not difficult to see how abuses might occur when sales of adult human remains are also legal in most states. And apparently, fetch considerable sums. U.S. House Rep. Gus Bilirakis, a Florida Republican, is commendably leading the charge to address this. Last year, he introducing the Consensual Donation and Research Integrity Act. The bill would create standards for registration, inspection, chain of custody, labeling and packing, and proper disposition. It would also create a registration and tracking system for bodies and body parts donated for research, according to a Bilirakis news release. Bilirakiss bill has yet to gain sufficient traction in Congress. Becker-Finns bill is a sensible state remedy in the meantime. In an interview, Becker-Finn said she was inspired to act after a staffer visited a Twin Cities shop selling human bones. She then learned that state law is silent on the issue. Among her objections: the commodification of human beings. She noted that remains were once someones loved ones and deserve to be treated with dignity. The bill would reduce the incentives for commercial sales of human remains, a laudable goal. Its not clear why people want these, but news stories have reported a thriving online community of body part collectors. There are also shops offering human bones as macabre or goth additions to home decor. The Minnesota legislation also has the support of the Minnesota Funeral Directors Association. We believe strongly that allowing the sales of human remains for profit runs counter to the core values of our society, the organization said in a statement shared with legislators earlier this month. Still, lawmakers should hear all sides of the argument as they work on this bill. Adam DeJarlais owns Twelve Vultures, a metro shop offering a wide variety of natural curiosities, including human bones. I only purchase human bones from sellers with provenance or reputable collectors, he told an editorial writer. He opposes the bill. How is a human bone any different from an animals if the item was obtained through the proper channels? Seems like more of a philosophical argument than a legislative one, DeJarlais said. We suspect most Minnesotans are far less comfortable with selling human remains than DeJarlais is. Becker-Finns bill is a step in the right direction, and congressional action is needed on the Bilirakis legislation as well. Mankato Free Press. February 21, 2024. Editorial: SRO: Common sense should prevail over politics The debate about revising the school resource officer law passed last year has become complicated, political but not enough practical. The law was tweaked last year to restrict the times school resource officers can use prone holds that restrict breathing or speaking. The law allowed use of the hold only if those students present an imminent threat of injury or death. The law provided penalties against officers for violations, and several jurisdictions ended contracts for SROS with schools fearing increased legal liability under the law. Also, last year, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison issued an advisory opinion saying the new law did not change current legal interpretation of in what circumstances officers could restrain students. Some SROs then returned to schools, but both Democrats and Republicans suggested the Legislature this year could tweak the law to satisfy concerns. Thats not been easy. Opponents of changing the law again say last years tweak protects students and particularly students of color, where research shows they endure a disproportionate share of discipline in schools. The proponents of the restrictions want the law to specify cases in which the holds can be used, while police groups and others would like to see officers given more flexibility. Khulia Pringle, a parent who helped pass the tighter student restraint laws last year, in a report on Minnesota Public Radio, sees this years debate as the powers that be want the community to understand that somehow resource officers cannot do their jobs without being able to use tactics that restrict the airways of children. The debate lacks solid information on the impact of either approach. While the Minnesota Department of Education did research showing there were 10,000 physical holds of students in 2021-2022, the report did not have information on how many of those were prone holds or restricted breathing. At the same time, 28% of Minnesota schools worked with SROs, according to survey by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, but again, the number of officers leaving schools because of the law remains a mystery. And finally, there is no evidence the law has been used against an SRO or agency in any kind of a legal suit. So there is no good evidence on the scope of the problem on either side that would call for drastic change. The key will be to come to a reasonable compromise. It seems legal language could be tweaked with the help of the attorney generals office to satisfy police agencies and cities in their liability concerns. Police officers say there are already laws on the books that restrict use of the holds. Part of the proposed legislation would allow schools to develop their own restraint policies for SROs with the assistance of a model policy approved by the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. The plan also calls for SROs to get more training in the use of restraint in different situations. Both seem like reasonable proposals. Weve long supported the community building that comes with an SRO presence in schools, but support the right of other schools, according to their needs, to not have SROs. Lets have a solution that embraces the practical and overrides the political elements and the legal complexity. END In her 2-minute video Amulet, award-winning artist Helen Lee shows her own image morphing into that of her young daughter Cicada. Both are dressed in black and framed by a black background, reciting Zhuyin Fuhao, a Chinese phonetic alphabet used today, Lee says, only in Taiwan and by the Chinese diaspora. Lee, an associate professor of art and head of the Glass Lab at UW-Madison, wears a delicate necklace in the video with a small charm made from jade. Its from her grandmother, and something she wears every day. I guess its easy for me to edit that out, since its been on me since Ive been 20, said Lee, who seemed surprised when a visitor to the gallery asked about the necklace. Her grandmother, she went on to say, had raised her in America but during Lees childhood only spoke to her in Chinese. Like that necklace, Lees own complex Chinese-American identity is intertwined with her work in Exuviae, an exhibition running through March 7 at the Arts + Literature Laboratory. The title Exuviae, as a printed visitors guide explains, refers to a sloughed-off skin, such as that of snakes, cicadas and other exoskeleton creatures. The show is part of a yearlong celebration called Glass Madison, which marks the 60th anniversary of the collegiate glass program at UW-Madison, the first in the nation. In January, Lee also was named one of 50 recipients of the prestigious United States Artists Fellowships. The $50,000 unrestricted award goes to artists and collectives recognized for their contributions to the cultural landscape of the country in the fields of architecture and design, craft, dance, film, media, music, theater and performance, traditional arts, visual art and writing. This is one of the very few (awards) that acknowledges contemporary glass practitioners, said Lee. I am representing glass under the discipline of craft, amongst many, many other disciplines, and I really appreciate being in the company of architects, filmmakers and many other different categories, and being part of that broader dialogue. Lee was born and grew up in New Jersey, after her parents moved to the U.S. from Taiwan as graduate students. She was raised in large part by her maternal grandmother, who after leaving China following the Chinese Civil War lived in Taiwan for many years before also coming to the U.S. Lee went on to earn a bachelors degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design. She came to UW-Madison in 2013, and during the COVID-19 pandemic founded the Glass Education Exchange, or GEEX, an online platform designed to serve glass education and support its BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ learners through community building. Along with her video Amulet, Lees Exuviae includes two vast artworks titled Brood and Smoulder. For Brood, the artist created hundreds of green cicada forms that ascend a towering wall, doubling with each generation. The glass forms echo the Chinese use of glass to imitate jade; the cicada shape reinterprets the ancient Chinese custom of placing cicada-shaped amulets on the tongue of the dead as a symbol of rebirth. Smoulder features a series of thick glass bell jar shapes hovering over two innovations historically linked to China: the everyday yellow pencil and gunpowder. The tension between words and weapons is connected by an inert detonation wire between them. Lee, whose work can also be seen at her website pink-noise.org, will be at a Glass Madison event Thursday at the Chazen Museum of Art titled 16:9Reframing Glass with May Maylisa Cat. Free and open to the public, the event starts with a reception with glass-blowing and sugar-blowing demonstrations, followed by films to showcase works from UW Glass alums and the broad themes they explore. Many people associate glass with the studio glass movement of the 20th century. How is the art form changing? The early 2000s was really the end of that era. In the 1980s and 90s there was quite a robust professional field of galleries and collectors, and a lot of that doesnt exist in the same way anymore. A lot of the artists now that are trained in glass are practicing in the wider fields of art and design and not so confined to being a glass artist. Why is the U.S. Artists Fellowship meaningful to you? Im mid-career and I wear many hats. I am a studio artist, I run the glass facility, Im faculty director of The Studio Creative Arts Learning Community, Im teaching graduate students and I also run the nonprofit GEEX. (The award) is an external confirmation that my intent and my labor as an artist should be one of my lasting contributions, that its a primary aspect of the many hats that I wear. How did you get into glass? At an art camp in Massachusetts, the summer after my sophomore year of high school. Once I learned that you can make glass with your hands, I was really smitten. There werent really any programs where I was growing up in New Jersey, but as I was applying to colleges I had some sense of which had some engagement in glass. I ended up going to MIT, and they have a glass lab as part of their materials science and engineering department. I got in there early and did glass the whole time I was getting my architecture degree. I also got a lot of grants from the arts council to study glass elsewhere. After that, I worked in production and then went to graduate school at RISD. Whats the big event on Thursday at the Chazen? There will be art and video and glass and performative work. Itll be really fun. Its a great entry point for people who are maybe curious or unfamiliar with contemporary practices in glassmaking. 20 life-changing locations that inspired movies, books, and art 20 life-changing locations that inspired movies, books, and art Hammamet, Tunisia: Paul Klee London: Jimi Hendrix Lake Geneva, Switzerland: Mary Shelley Bruges, Belgium: Martin McDonagh Rishikesh, India: The Beatles Mexico City: Frida Kahlo Pacific Crest Trail: Cheryl Strayed Hydra, Greece: Leonard Cohen Walden Pond, Massachusetts: Henry David Thoreau Montserrat, Caribbean: Sir George Martin Various locations, New Mexico: Georgia O'Keefe Antebellum South: Kara Walker Mount Fuji, Japan: Katsushika Hokusai New York City: Maira Kalman Pamplona, Spain: Ernest Hemingway Paris: Meret Oppenheim Bali, Indonesia: Elizabeth Gilbert Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles: Joni Mitchell, et al. Santiago de Compostela, Spain: Paulo Coelho Chicago: The Hairy Who You are here: Business This photo taken on Nov. 4, 2022 shows an evening view of the Lujiazui area in east China's Shanghai. [Photo/Xinhua] Shanghai added 34 regional headquarters of multinational companies, 17 foreign-funded research and development (R&D) centers, and 63 foreign investment projects on Tuesday, said local authorities. Meanwhile, the first batch of 10 "global partners for foreign investment promotion" were registered in the city. A signing ceremony for the various deals was held in the city on Tuesday. The 63 newly signed foreign investment projects posted a total investment of some 6.47 billion U.S. dollars, covering key industries like biomedicine, electronic information, automobiles, digital economy and so on, said the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce. Statistics show that Shanghai's actual use of foreign capital in 2023 reached 24 billion U.S. dollars, a record high. As one of the world's most attractive destinations for foreign investment, by the end of January this year, Shanghai had 962 regional headquarters of multinational companies and 563 foreign-funded R&D centers. Walworth County residents and visitors will have additional opportunities to follow the Yellow Brick Road to view some works of art with colorful balloons this spring. Representatives from Santa Cause, Inc. and Wisconsin Balloon Decor are set to host the Balloon Adventure in April at Pier 290s Boat Barn, 1 Liechty Drive in Williams Bay. The event will feature decorative scenes using balloon art. The Balloon Adventure will have a Wizard of Oz theme entitled Follow the Yellow Brick Road. The balloon art event initially was scheduled to be held April 11-15; however, Kimberly Voller, executive director for Santa Cause, Inc., announced during the Feb. 12 Lake Geneva Tourism Commission meeting that the event will now be held April 11-21, with a VIP night and ribbon cutting ceremony scheduled for April 10. We were only going to do it for one weekend, now were extending it over two weekends, Voller said. It will be open to the public beginning April 11, and it will be open to the public through April 21. Members of the Tourism Commission awarded representatives from Santa Cause and Wisconsin Balloon Decor a $30,000 grant last August to help them promote and market the event. Voller announced during the Tourism Commission meeting that they also have received a $25,000 Joint Effort Marketing grant from Travel Wisconsin to help them pay the cost to promote the Balloon Adventure. So combined with what the Tourism Commission has given us, we have about $55,000 we can use toward marketing for our event, Voller said. Stephanie Klett, president and CEO of VISIT Lake Geneva, said she is pleased that officials from Santa Cause and Wisconsin Ballon Decor have received the Joint Effort Marketing grant. Im glad you got the JEM grant. Thats a big deal, Klett told Voller. If the state wasnt happy with your plan, they wouldnt of accepted your grant application. Voller replied, It was a lot of work. As part of the Tourism Commission grant, Voller was asked to present an update on how she plans to use the grant funding. Voller said she recently hired Alanna Congdon, marketing manager for Gage Marine, to help her promote the event. So I can focus on other things with the event and do other things with my job as well, she has come on board, she said. Voller said they plan to focus more on digital marketing instead of billboard advertising to promote the Balloon Adventure. The event is set to be advertised in the local area as well as in Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana and Iowa. We do have an updated budget, so were moving some of the things I put into the budget into digital advertising, Voller said. Brian Waspi, chairperson for the Tourism Commission, said he is pleased that Voller is spending more of the grant funding on digital marketing. With the marketing budget, I wanted to see more digital. That was my hope, Waspi said. You have Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat on here. All of those look really nice. The purpose of the event is to help raise money for the Tree House Child and Family Center and Covenant Harbor. The Balloon Adventure is similar to the Big Balloon Build, which was held in March 2023 at Covenant Harbor in Lake Geneva. About 3,500 people attended the Big Balloon Build, and about 23,000 people are expected to attend the Balloon Adventure during the 11-day event. For more information about the Balloon Adventure and to purchase tickets visit www.santacauses.org. Watch now: Big Balloon Build comes to Lake Geneva Watch now: Entering the Big Balloon Build The entrance to the Big Balloon Build features a relaxing nature scene A moose mascot greets guests near the entrance of the Big Balloon Build A nature at the Big Balloon Build features a frog relaxing underneath an umbrella A racoon is roasting some marshmallows during one of the nature scenes Invited guests take pictures near some of the balloon scenes during a kick-off event A sign reminds attendees not to touch the balloons A cat is doing some fishing during one of the nature scenes A group of dogs enjoy some boating and water skiing Watch now: Walk through the Big Balloon Build One of the more impressive scenes of the Big Balloon Build featured a racoon hang gliding on a butterfly Invited guests begin to enter the Big Balloon Build, March 23 Small family of bees gather around a hive A group of pandas enjoy some relaxtion Even some Angry Birds joined in the fun of the Big Balloon Build Several nature scenes filled the Jackson Family Activity Center including one depicting a waterfall A flying bee greets guests during the Big Balloon Build One of the nature scenes depicts a family of rabbits A close-up view of a ladybug balloon Attendees enjoy the nature scenes of the Big Balloon Build Watch now: Having fun at the Big Balloon Build Internet search companies have already built artificial intelligence (AI) tools into their systems. And the use of AI systems to support internet searches is expected to grow sharply in coming years. Some technology experts feel this change can greatly improve the overall search experience for users. But experts also have concerns. One early user, or adopter, of AI search is Google. The American-based companys search engine currently processes an estimated 80 percent of the worlds internet search requests. Microsofts search engine Bing also includes AI-powered results. Bings AI system is linked to the companys Copilot service. Copilot is an AI tool designed to operate across a series of Microsoft business products. Copilot is based on OpenAIs ChatGPT, which launched in late 2022. ChatGPT is a computer-powered AI tool designed to interact smoothly with humans. Such AI tools known as chatbots or generative AI are trained on massive amounts of internet data. They have shown an ability to perform human-level writing and create high-quality images and videos based on short, written descriptions. But these AI systems have also demonstrated possible risks. One risk is the tools can present false or misleading information as truth. They can also produce results that represent long-standing biases against minorities or underrepresented communities. Here, we offer some guidance for users seeking new systems to provide improved and relevant search results. Where do I find AI search tools? Some major search companies have made it easy to find AI search engines on their main search pages. Googles search system is powered by its own chatbot tool, called Gemini. It can easily be found directly on desktop or mobile phone browsers. Gemini can be used to perform other chatbot actions as well as providing search assistance. Google also has been testing a new search offering, called Search Generative Experience. It replaces links with AI-produced briefs containing basic facts about a subject. This system is currently limited to U.S. users who sign up through Googles experimental Labs site. To use AI with Microsofts Bing search engine, simply click the Chat or Copilot button underneath the main search window. This should pull up an information box where users can enter their search requests. New AI search sites have also launched. But they are not as easy to find. The Associated Press reports one way to find them is to perform searches for tools on Copilot or Gemini. Some to look out for include Perplexity, HuggingChat, You.com, Komo, Andi, Phind, Exa and AskAI. Do I have to sign up for or pay for these services? Most of these services have free versions. But generally, there are limits on how many searches a user can make. Users can also upgrade from basic services to higher levels providing smarter AI tools and more search possibilities. Gemini users, for example, can pay $20 for an upgraded version that offers its most capable model, called Ultra 1.0. Most of the startup sites are largely free to use and don't require setting up an account. Many also have upgrade possibilities. What are the results like? Unlike a traditional Google search, results from AI tools usually produce a longer, readable collection of information. Sometimes, the original source of information is also included. And in some cases, messages are included to warn users about possible misinformation appearing in the results. It is a good idea to try out different AI tools. Results from each can differ, sometimes wildly. The AP reports that results from AI-assisted search tools can be especially useful when searching for more obscure facts or information. Im Bryan Lynn. The Associated Press reported this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English. Quiz - How to Use AI Tools to Improve the Quality of Internet Searches Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz ________________________________ Words in This Story relevant adj. related to or useful to what is happening or being talked about upgrade n. an improvement to something that is higher quality or a newer model capable adj. able to do something original adj. where something begins obscure adj. not known by many people Editor's note: This story is one of the winning entries from the "Teach Us about Ukraine" writing contest sponsored by VOA Learning English and GoGlobal. My name is Liudmyla Shylova and I have been teaching English for 21 years in Nizhyn, Ukraine. Nizhyn is a small city in northern Ukraine with more than a thousand years of history. But the city is, perhaps, best known for a small food item that can be found around the world: pickles. If you ever taste Nizhyn pickles, you will understand why that small cucumber represents 300 years of the history, tradition, and taste of Ukrainian cuisine. In the 17th century, Nizhyn was a Cossack city on the border of the Russian Empire. At that time, some Greeks sailed down the Oster River to escape from the Ottoman occupation. They brought their culture, traditions and, among other things, a recipe for salting cucumbers. The Greeks valued the rich soil of Nizhyn and grew cucumbers to make pickles. The pickling process took place in wooden barrels that were bought from Nizhyn craftsmen. Their secret recipe contained spices from eastern markets and local water from the artesian springs. The Greeks also paid much attention to the quality of cucumbers. The vegetables had to be the same size, neither big nor small. This permitted the cucumbers to be evenly salted and have a special crunch. Eventually, Nizhyn pickles made by the Greeks found their admirers among the Cossacks, local people and even the royals. When Empress Catherine II of Russia traveled south through Nizhyn, she ordered pickles to her table. The Queen of Britain was also known to feast on those crunchy cucumbers. In the 19th century, Nizhyn pickles became popular in many European countries. Traders made a lot of money selling them to people in Denmark, France, Sweden, Germany and Great Britain. Nowadays, Nizhyn pickles can be found on supermarket shelves all over the world. The product has since become a part of Ukrainian culture. In 2005, a monument to Ukraines fruit and vegetable culture was opened near the local food factory. And a Nizhyn pickle was included in the list of winners of an international project on the food culture of Ukraine. So, welcome to Nizhyn, and go ahead and taste our pickles! I'm Jill Robbins. ___________________________________ About the writer Liudmyla Shylova has been teaching English for 21 years to both primary and secondary school students. Her motto is the expression of the American journalist Sydney J. Harris, "The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows." As a teacher, she tries to open a window to the children into the future, not just drill them in dry language. Shylova loves incorporating technology into her lessons and seeking innovative ways to engage her students. _____________________________________ Lesson Plan A Chinese passenger jet C919 performs at the Singapore Airshow in Singapore, Feb. 20, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] C919 and ARJ21 jetliners produced by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC) on Tuesday kicked off demonstration flights in Southeast Asia. The two jetliners have a tight schedule in the next two weeks in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia. COMAC said on Tuesday the demonstration flights can further verify the adaptability of China-made commercial aircraft to airports and routes in Southeast Asia, and lay a foundation for the company's future exploration of the Southeast Asian market. The two models garnered wide attention at the Singapore Airshow 2024 that concluded Sunday. According to COMAC, since the ARJ21 aircraft was commissioned for commercial operation in June 2016, a total of 127 ARJ21 aircraft have been delivered, safely transporting more than 11 million passengers. Currently, two ARJ21 aircraft operated by Indonesian airline TransNusa fly on four routes linking Jakarta with other cities, safely carrying more than 100,000 passengers. Since the C919 aircraft made its first commercial debut on May 28, 2023, COMAC have delivered four jets to the airline company China Eastern, operating round-trip flights from Shanghai to Beijing and from Shanghai to Chengdu, carrying more than 130,000 passengers. COMAC expects the demand for passenger aircraft in the Asia-Pacific market in the next two decades to increase from 3,314 to 9,701. The company has begun preparing to tap into the market. South Koreas fertility rate, which already is the worlds lowest, dropped again in 2023. This means that the number of babies a South Korean woman is expected to have during her reproductive years dropped from 0.78 in 2022 to 0.72 in 2023. Concerns about missing out on long-term jobs and the cost of raising a child are reasons given for the low rate. The fertility number is much lower than the rate of 2.1 per woman that would be needed to keep South Koreas population stable. In 2015, when the cost of housing and education were lower, the rate was 1.24. That means South Koreas population has been shrinking for a long time. The South Korean government is trying to encourage men and women to start families. Since 2018, the nation has been the only member of a group of large economies to have a rate below one. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) includes a wide group of nations such as Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand as well as Mexico and Chile. Among OECD nations, South Korea has the largest difference in pay between men and women. Balancing motherhood with a job is a concern for South Korean women. Jung Jae-hoon is a professor at Seoul Women's University. Jung noted that women have trouble moving their careers forward after taking leave to care for children. An example of this is Gwak Tae-hee who is 34. She is concerned about missing career opportunities if she stops working to start a family. She has been married for three years and works as a manager for a company that makes milk products. "Having a baby is on my list, but there's windows for promotions and I don't want to be passed over," she said. Gwak said she considered starting medical treatments last year that would help her have a child. However, she decided against it because she wanted to take on work projects that would help her career. I hope it's not too late when I try next year or the year after," Gwak said. If the birth rate continues to drop, South Koreas population of about 51 million will be cut in half by 2100. In Seoul, the largest city and capital, the fertility rate is only 0.55. The nation has an election in April, and politicians have been offering ideas to make it easier for young adults to consider having children. The ideas include more housing and financial support for people thinking of having a family. An official at Statistics Korea said there are some people who are a couple but do not get married. In South Korea, many people see marriage as a requirement to have children, so that reduces the number of babies. But the official told Reuters that right now the group is centering its work on trying to help married people feel better about starting families. Politicians are worried that additional social spending has not encouraged more families. Since 2006, the government has spent about $270 billion in areas such as helping families pay for childcare, but the fertility numbers are still falling. South Korea, however, is not the only nation concerned about falling birth rates. China and Japan also recorded all-time low rates in 2022. Im Dan Friedell. Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report by Reuters. _______________________________________ Words in This Story fertility rate n. the average number of children a woman can be expected to have during her reproductive years stable adj. in a state or condition that does not change too much encourage v. to cause someone to want to do something; to show that people should be doing an activity or fulfilling a responsibility career n. the course of a persons work life and the jobs that they do opportunity n. a chance to do something like take a new job that might lead to better pay and conditions manager n. a person who oversees a business activity and is responsible for it We want to hear from you. Have you put off having children? What kind of policies would make a difference for you? A United Nations official warned Tuesday that the Gaza Strip is at high risk of famine, an extreme lack of food, if the war there does not stop soon. Ramesh Rajasingham is director of the coordination division in the U.N. humanitarian office. "If nothing is done, we fear widespread famine in Gaza is almost inevitable, and the conflict, which since October has claimed the lives of almost 30,000 people and injured more than 70,000 will have many more victims," he said. Rajasingham spoke at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council requested by members Algeria, Guyana, Slovenia and Switzerland. There are rising concerns that hunger is being used as a weapon in the war. Rajasingham said at least 576,000 people in Gaza 25 percent of the population are very close to famine. Almost the entire population is depending on food aid to survive, he said. "Gaza is seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world," said Carl Skau, an official with the U.N.s World Food Program (WFP). Agricultural production collapsing Maurizio Martina is assistant director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. He explained how the entire food supply chain has been impacted by the war. He said Israel has forced farmers to leave their land or flee shelling that has destroyed crops. Farm animals are dying from hunger or killed in bombings. Fishing is banned and ground water is polluted. "In the most likely scenario, agricultural production will have collapsed in the north by May 2024," Martina said. "We are already seeing this collapse." Flow of aid 'unpredictable,' 'insufficient' Martin Griffiths is the U.N. humanitarian chief. He said humanitarians continue to face serious difficulties in providing aid. "These include border crossing closures, serious movement restrictions, access denials, onerous vetting procedures, security risks, incidents by desperate civilians, a breakdown of law and order, and restrictions on communications and protective equipment," Griffiths wrote. Israel denies it is restricting or limiting the delivery of aid to Gaza. "Israel is doing all it can to care for civilians, going above and beyond what is expected, let alone required," Israel's deputy U.N. envoy Jonathan Miller told the council. Miller said Israel has helped the delivery of 254,000 tons of relief supplies into Gaza since the start of the war, including 165,000 tons of food. He blamed Hamas for diverting aid and the U.N. for failing to properly manage and distribute it. Famine 'imminent' in northern Gaza The situation is most serous in northern Gaza, which remains cut off by the Israeli military. About 300,000 people are believed to have ignored Israel's earlier evacuation order and remained through months of heavy fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas. "If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza," WFP's Skau said. The U.N. agency that assists Palestinians, UNRWA, delivers most of the relief supplies. It says the last time it was able to get food aid to northern Gaza was on January 23. On February 20, the World Food Program suspended its deliveries to the north because of a lack of security in the area. The World Health Organization last reached Gaza City's largest hospital, Al Shifa, on January 22 with medical supplies. One week ago, the 15-nation Security Council failed to pass an agreement calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire because of a veto from the United States. Several council members repeated their call for a cease-fire at Tuesday's meeting. Even Israel's closest ally, the United States, displayed its growing displeasure with the slow delivery of aid. It urged Israel to keep border crossings open and to open new ones. "Simply put, Israel must do more," Ambassador Robert Wood said. Margaret Besheer wrote this story for Voice of America. Dan Novak adapted it for VOA Learning English. _________________________________ Words in This Story humanitarian adj. concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare inevitable adj. sure to happen onerous adj. difficult and unpleasant to do or deal with vet v. to check carefully to make sure it is acceptable divert v. to change the direction or use of evacuate v. to remove from a dangerous place imminent adj. happening very soon A Garland man has been federally indicted for wire fraud for an alleged scheme to defraud customers, subcontractors and suppliers through his business, BV Builders. Bryce Nolde pleaded not guilty at his first court appearance on the charge Monday in U.S. District Court in Omaha. In the indictment unsealed last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Lynch said in July 2022, a Scribner couple hired BV Builders to construct a "barndominium-style" home, which looks similar to a barn on the exterior and has a mix of living spaces and storage areas inside. But, the prosecutor alleged, Nolde made fraudulent representations that four subcontractors a home-furnishing store in Fremont, a framing and construction company in Lincoln, a window installation company in Omaha and roofer in Lincoln had been paid for their labor and materials in order to obtain the funds from a draw on the couple's construction loan. As a result, the couple ended up having $69,120 in liens placed on their property, which prevented them from converting their construction loan to a mortgage. Lynch said as part of the scheme, Nolde solicited customers who wanted to build barndominiums or shouses (shed houses), then accepted large payments directly from the customers or drew large amounts from the victim customers' construction loans at a financial institution. He said Nolde then would fraudulently represent to the customers that their funds were being used for legitimate construction purposes and paying subcontractors and suppliers for their work, then he would "divert these funds, in whole or in part, for other purposes unrelated to the victim customers' build." Lynch said Nolde often would cease work, leaving builds in various states of incompletion despite having received payments for or having drawn customer loan funds to pay for work that BV Builders hadn't done. The FBI and inspectors general of the FDIC and Federal Housing Finance are investigating the case and encouraged others who have had similar experiences with Nolde or BV Builders to contact their tipline at 1-800-964-3342 or www.fdicoig.gov/oig-hotline and reference BV Builders. Top Journal Star photos for February 2024 Nebraska's longest-serving state senator has filed for election once more to represent District 11 in North Omaha. Sen. Ernie Chambers will challenge Sen. Terrell McKinney for the seat he held for 46 years, and was term-limited out -- twice. He submitted paperwork with the Nebraska Secretary of State's Office on Tuesday. Chambers, 86, known for his fiery speeches and flowery rhetoric, as well as mastery over the Legislature's rules, has flirted with the idea of returning to Lincoln since leaving the body in 2020. "If my mind is clear, if my health is good, and I believe that I could do something of value for the community that would send me down here if they want to send me," he told the Journal Star at the time, "then I might consider coming back again." More recently, Chambers told the Nebraska Examiner he was "thinking" about running, clarifying that that was "different than planning or intending to." First elected to the Legislature in 1971, Chambers served to 2009 when he was forced out due to a law passed by Nebraska voters in 2000 limiting senators to two consecutive terms in the Legislature. After sitting out a term, Chambers returned to the Legislature in 2013 and left in 2021 after serving another two terms. A longtime opponent of the death penalty, Chambers was successful in passing legislation that banned the practice in Nebraska in 2015, overriding a veto from then-Gov. Pete Ricketts along the way. The death penalty was later reinstated by voters the next year through a petition drive spearheaded by Ricketts. Chambers, a registered independent and avowed atheist who dressed in sweatshirts and blue jeans on the floor, has also drawn praise and scorn for his statements made in floor debates and committee hearings. In 2007, he sued God after the Legislature attempted to ban frivolous lawsuits; he took up the cause of the black-tailed prairie dogs after legislation was filed to allow them to be hunted. Chambers will challenge McKinney, who is seeking a second term in the District 11 seat and who has emerged among the Legislatures chief defenders of Omaha and the bodys most vocal critic of mass incarceration. Chambers endorsed McKinney when he ran in 2020. McKinney has repeatedly lodged opposition to the states planned construction of a $350 million prison in north Lincoln and introduced a bill in January calling for the demolition of the 155-year-old Nebraska State Penitentiary upon the construction of the new prison. Earlier this month, the Omaha lawmaker helped lead a brief filibuster against a bill (LB137) that would enhance penalties for drug dealers tied to overdoses and, McKinney said, contribute to the overcrowding that plagues the state's prisons. "If my calculations are right, the United States of America and the state of Nebraska has probably been trying to be tough on crime for 30-plus years," McKinney said. "I would ask you: Has that worked? Has that approach worked? Has the punitive approach to addressing crime worked? The Legislature gave the bill first-round approval last week. McKinney was among two lawmakers who voted against it. McKinney, who did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday, posted to social media a list of his accomplishments achieved in his first term as a senator after news of Chambers' filing circulated. The Omaha lawmaker pointed to his work to secure state investments in Omaha, fight discriminatory practices in workplaces and school settings and his sponsorship of the ballot initiative to increase the state's minimum wage. "We're not done," McKinney said in the post, urging residents to vote in the May 14 primary that will pit him against his predecessor. Chambers is the third person to file to run for the District 11 seat, joining McKinney and Calandra Cooper, a North Omaha urban farmer and adjunct instructor at Metro Community College. The deadline for new candidates to file for the Legislature is 5 p.m. on March 1. The primary election, which will narrow the field to two, is scheduled for May 14. Photos: Sen. Ernie Chambers through the years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Photos: Ernie Chambers through the Years Ernie Chambers, Megan Hunt Ernie Chambers Ernie Chambers Ernie Chambers 103rd Legislature starts 103rd Legislature starts Surprise Ernie Chambers Rally, 8.13 Surprise Ernie Chambers Rally, 8.13 Surprise Ernie Chambers Rally, 8.13 Chambers Birthday Card Legislature First Day XGR - Schimek and Chambers Chambers 45 Chambers and his 'Republican' Chambers quotes Hitler Chambers at death penalty debate Chambers reloads Chambers campaign Chambers on burial sites Chambers on University Chambers addresses the press Chambers on speed limits Chambers in 1974 Chambers aims Chambers in 1978 Ernie Chambers Chambers at a hearing Chambers at Grenada protest Chambers on gambling Chambers enters the legislature Chambers goes fourth and long Chambers in 1974 Chambers' death penalty shirt Chambers and Carpenter Chambers and Taylor Chambers on lawyers Chambers at anti-apartheid rally Chambers' desk Chambers with Nigerians Chambers in 1982 Chambers at Boyd Elementary Chambers cutting hair Chambers and the electric chair Chambers in 1971 Ernie Chambers apartheid Chambers and De Camp Chambers on corporal punishment Chambers and Carpenter Chambers' uniform BLM Protest Ron Hug has discovered a new way to quickly discern someones age. He just tells them about his work to restore the Omaha house where Fred Astaire was born. If theyre younger than 40, theyre saying, Who? And then the more mature they are, the more of the response I get, Hug said. People in their 50s are, Oh yeah, thats nice. People in their 60s and older go, Wow, thats cool. For the under-40 crowd, Fred Astaire was born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha in 1899. He had an older sister, Adele, born in 1896. The family lived in the house at 2326 S. 10th St. Fred, who died in 1987, was considered by many to be the top entertainer of the twentieth century with success on stage, in film, through recordings, and on television, according to History Nebraska. Freds father worked at Storz Brewing. And legend has it that Fred took his first dance steps at the Chambers Dance Academy in Omaha at age 4. Fred and Adele, became a vaudeville act, and the family moved to New York. The pair changed their last name to Astaire. As Fred and Adele Astaire, they were prodigies in vaudeville, then grownup stars on Broadway. When Adele retired to marry an English nobleman, Fred moved into films and formed a partnership with Ginger Rogers. According to History Nebraska, that partnership with Rogers produced some of films most renowned and loved dance scenes. Hug, also a member of the Omaha City Council, represents the nonprofit 1880 House, which is working to preserve the home and return it to how it would have looked when Fred and Adele lived there. We want to give people a real true representation of how the average working family would have lived 1880 to 1890, even up to 1900, Hug said. Initially, Hug said he was using the word museum to describe what the house would become, but now he sees it as a venue for hands-on experiences. People will be able to host parties, get married or just enjoy the space. They can sit down in that chair, Hug said. They can play the piano. They can crank up the Edison phonograph and play a record. All of that stuff was built to be used, Hug said. You have to tear out so much before you start putting it back in The house was built in 1880 and was a private residence for years before the nonprofit acquired it. Hug said the house was full of so much stuff from previous occupants that it took four dumpsters to get rid of everything. Then workers and volunteers worked to secure the house from animals and people who may have wandered in and out during the years it was vacant. Workers also have torn out layers of flooring, wallpaper and the front porch of the house. Under the layers of flooring, workers found newspapers stuck to the floor, including a 1953 article from The World-Herald with the headline, P-TAs set Meet Record. Hug had an expert look at all the wallpaper before five layers of it was torn out to make sure it wasnt original to the house. Most of the layers were from the 1930s and 40s. You have to tear out so much before you start putting it back in, Hug said. Unlike other houses, Hug said the house that Fred was born in was not remodeled or improved over and over again through the decades. There are no electrical outlets in the walls. Hug thinks the kitchen sink is probably from the 1910s. A monument to all the stars that came out of Omaha Hug said he will hold another fundraising drive this spring, but thanks to donations, they have enough money to finish getting electricity in the house, the plumbing fixed, air conditioning and a furnace installed. Hug, a self-described old movie buff, said it was always nice to watch Fred knowing he was from Omaha. Freds connection to Omaha and the house on 10th Street has been celebrated over the years. The City of Omaha put up a commemorative sign for Fred Astaire Avenue on 10th Street at Martha Street, less than a block from the house where he was born. Hug said hes been working with History Nebraska to get a historical marker placed in front of the house. We get people coming in from all over the world, Hug said. Everyone takes their picture in front of the house. The interest in the house was one of the reasons Hug said it needs to be restored and saved. Hug said many of the places with ties to Omahas famous actors and actresses have been demolished, which is why its important to save the house where Fred was born. Hug listed actors and actresses such as Dorothy McGuire, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando and Henry Fonda, who have Omaha roots. This house should never be in private hands again, Hug said. It should never be a personal residence. It should be preserved and saved not only as a monument to Fred Astaire and his sister Adele, who was very famous in her own right, but to all the stars that came out of Omaha. Chinas former foreign minister, Qin Gang, who has been missing from public view since last June, has resigned from the national legislature, state media reported yesterday. Qin was dismissed as foreign minister in July, in one of Chinas biggest political surprises in years. The 57-year-old served for only seven months before he disappeared from public view last June. The government announced a month later that he had been dismissed from his post. He has yet to reappear publicly. Qin was replaced as foreign minister by his predecessor, Wang Yi. According to a notice by the National Peoples Congress Standing Committee, the Tianjin Municipal Peoples Congress accepted Qins resignation as a delegate to the upcoming annual parliamentary session. Official websites no longer list Qin as a member of the State Council, Chinas Cabinet, but there has been no mention of whether he has been excluded from Chinas ruling Communist Party. His disappearance came during a series of dismissals at the top echelons of the party that included former Defense Minister Li Shangfu and other top military officials. Signs of overt political friction are extremely rare in China, especially since President Xi Jinping tightened his control over the countrys politics. Qins and Lis ousters are believed to be part of a broader effort to reduce security vulnerabilities amid Chinas increasing competition with the United States and its allies. The National Peoples Congress is to convene its annual session in early March and is expected to focus on the countrys ailing economy. Chinas economy expanded by 5.2% last year but is forecast to slow sharply this year, bogged down by a property crisis, high youth unemployment and massive local government debt. The Wall Street Journal reported in September, citing people familiar with a briefing, that Qin was ousted over an extramarital affair he had during a previous posting as ambassador to the U.S. An investigation was focused on whether his conduct had compromised Chinas national security, according to the Journal. MDT/AP Tuvalus former Attorney General Feleti Teo was named prime minister of the tiny South Pacific nation yesterday [Macau time] after elections a month ago ousted the last government leader. Teo was the only candidate nominated by his 15 lawmaker colleagues and Governor General Tofiga Vaevalu Falani declared him elected without a vote, government secretary Tufoua Panapa said in a statement. The swearing-in ceremony for Teo and his Cabinet will be held later this week. It was not immediately clear how the new government will affect Chinas influence in the country of around 11,500 people halfway between Australia and Hawaii, though one expert said he does not expect any change in diplomatic recognition, at least in the short term. The previous prime minister, Kausea Natano, and three of his eight ministers were not reelected in the Jan. 26 election. Natano had wanted Tuvalu to remain one of only 12 countries that have official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, the self-governed democracy which is China territory. Natanos former finance minister, Seve Paeniu, who was considered a leadership contender, had argued for Tuvalus relationships with both Beijing and Taiwan to be reviewed. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning urged Tuvalu to switch diplomatic recognition to China. We call on a handful of countries that still keep the so-called relationship with the Taiwan region to stand on the right side of history and make the right decision that truly serves their long-term interest, she said. Nauru, another Pacific island nation, cut ties with Taiwan and restored them with China last month. A proposed security treaty between Tuvalu and Australia could be rewritten or scrapped under the new government. The treaty, announced in November last year, commits Australia to help Tuvalu in response to major natural disasters, pandemics and military aggression. Australia offered Tuvaluans a lifeline to help residents escape the rising seas and increased storms brought by climate change. Tuvalus low-lying atolls make it particularly vulnerable to global warming. Australia would initially allow up to 280 Tuvaluans to come to Australia each year. The treaty, which has yet to be ratified, also would give Australia veto power over any security or defense-related agreement Tuvalu wants to make with any other country, including China. Tuvalu lawmaker Enele Sopoaga, who was prime minister until the previous election in 2019, opposes the treaty. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mentioned the treaty when he congratulated Teo on his election. Australia deeply values our relationship with Tuvalu, in the spirit of the Falepili Union, Albanese said on social media, referring to the treaty, which is formally known as the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union. Tuvalu can count on Australias support and I look forward to working with PM Teo, Albanese added. Before Teo was announced prime minister, Meg Keen, director of the Pacific Island Program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank, said the new government would review the treaty and put their own stamp on it. My view is refinements can be negotiated and the deal has a good chance of proceeding, Keen said. George Carter, an Australian National University expert on international politics, said Teo had received support from a majority 10 of the 16 lawmakers within two weeks of the election. Carter said Teos supporters want Tuvalu to continue relations with Taiwan and that a change of allegiances to Beijing is unlikely in the near future. I think he will try to not rock the boat from the current considerations in terms of support for Taiwan for now. But things could change, he said. Carter said Teo had told supporters that Sopoaga, the former prime minister, and Paeniu, the former finance minister, would be excluded from his Cabinet. The U.S. and China are jockeying for influence in the South Pacific. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter patrolled waters around Kiribati for six days earlier this month with members of the nations maritime police, during which it twice boarded Chinese fishing boats, the Coast Guard said last weekend. The crew found the vessels compliant with all requirements, a statement said. MDT/AP Neighborhood business operators are encouraged to monitor elderly residents living nearby to improve care for elderly people who live alone. Director for Social Welfare, Hon Wai, was asked about ways to improve care for such residents at yesterdays Spring Lunch organized by the Social Welfare Bureau (IAS). Earlier this month, authorities discovered the bodies of two elderly residents who lived together. The two are believed to have been deceased for about a year. The case was discovered when the landlord of the apartment who had not received rental payments for that period entered the apartment with the help of a locksmith and made the discovery. Hon said that many elderly people habitually visit certain eateries or retailers for food or shopping. Through these business operators, we might be able to pinpoint elderly residents who are worth special attention, Hon said. Friends and families should also regularly check in, according to the government. Hons superintendent, Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Elsie Ao Ieong, said that friends and families are in the best position to care for these elderly residents. They may consider calling their elderly friends or family members regularly to show care and get updates on their condition, Ao Ieong commented. The government will explore technological solutions to improve services in this area. Ao Ieong said that the government is considering the possibility of establishing a system that detects the movement of cellphones. Should a cellphone be physically static for an extended period of time, a notification will be sent to the government or community associations to approach the resident concerned, Ao Ieong said. She said that in the future, the government may request consent from Social Housing residents, so that government officials can access spare keys to their residences to perform a welfare check in an emergency. When questioned about why the government did not utilize the annual Social Security life declaration to confirm the safety of elderly residents, Ao Ieong said that if the government relied on the annual declaration, it would be too late to identify most cases due to the annual nature of the declaration. In 2020, there was a similar case in which a pair of co-residing elderly residents were found to be deceased by their neighbors. Ao Ieong said that the government did not have any information about this case. Meanwhile, in response to questions about the expansion of services at the new Cotai hospital, the social affairs official said that in March, certain medical check-up services will be available at the new medical facilities. However, the official stressed that these services are not publicly available, and require a referral by the Health Bureau (SSM). Once these services become available, certain imaging and scanning services that currently see long queues at the public Conde de Sao Januario Hospital will have their patients diverted to the new hospital. The slow roll-out is attributed to the need to test the new hospitals extensive information system. Once the medical checks operations come into effect, specialist out-patient services will be available as early as May this year. Last December, when the new facilities entered trial operations, its Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department was criticized for having only the most basic equipment and being only able to provide minimum services. This aerial photo taken on June 12, 2023 shows an urban view along the Zhujiang River in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province. [Photo/Xinhua] The majority of 183 companies studied are optimistic about the growth of the Chinese market, according to a report released by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China (AmCham South China) on Tuesday. Of these companies, 76 percent plan to reinvest in China in 2024. For those who have plans for reinvestment in China in 2024, 45 percent state that their primary area of investment focuses on sales, marketing and business development. Other key areas include research and development, automation and productivity development, according to the report. The annual special report on the state of business in south China is regarded as an important window into China's business environment. This year marks the 20th release of the report by AmCham South China. The enterprises studied by the report come from the United States, China, the European Union and other countries and regions, of which wholly foreign-owned enterprises account for more than half. American companies represent nearly half of the businesses studied. Eighty-six percent of the companies studied claim that they will not decouple from the Chinese market due to the trade tensions between China and the United States. In 2023, 62 percent of the companies studied chose not to shift their investments out of China. Sixty-six percent of American companies claim that they will remain committed to the Chinese market, representing the highest proportion of all businesses studied. Potential growth of the Chinese market is the primary driver for increasing investments in China or shifting investments from other markets to China, followed by industrial cluster effect and preferential policies, said Harley Seyedin, president of AmCham South China. Over half of the companies studied believe that their overall return on investment (ROI) in China is better, compared with their overall return on global investment. Eighty-eight percent of the companies studied have already made profits in China, among which 46 percent reported to have met their budget expectations. Moreover, 90 percent of American companies have achieved profitability in China, according to the report. Fifty-seven percent of the studied foreign companies consider China one of their top three investment locations, an increase of 5 percent from 2022. Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province and known as south China's manufacturing hub, has maintained its status as the top investment destination in the country for seven consecutive years, followed by Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing. The proportion of companies that consider the overall business environment in south China as "excellent" or "good" grew by 1 percent to 75 percent. Over half of the companies studied see an improvement in the business environment in south China, an uptick of 5 percent compared with 2022, said the report. In an open letter, several horse owners are calling on the Macau Jockey Clubs (MJC) board of directors to issue reasonable compensation to horse owners and extend an apology to all Macau residents. The letter was addressed to the Chief Executive and other senior officials as well as the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ). It criticizes the abrupt termination of horse racing activities following secret negotiations between the government and the MJC, which had not taken into account the feelings of residents and the interests of all horse owners. The letter writers consider the decision to be erroneous and suggested that the MJC had deceived them by persuading them to import new horses in April and July last year. The owners explained that these horses were not fit for races at the time of import due to their ages and the need for prior training, resulting in wasted money and resources in importing and keeping the horses. The owners also criticized the MJC for not keeping them sufficiently informed as the matter developed. The group of horse owners expressed that they had made the decision to continue importing horses to Macau due to their 100% confidence in the government, given the government had extended the MJCs license for 24 years in 2018. Furthermore, the Club had agreed to enhance its facilities and the economic chief had subsequently promised to duly handle the MJCs operations according to long-observed procedures. They also questioned why the promise of former Chinese official Lu Ping regarding the continued existence of horse racing in Macau after 1999 was not fulfilled. Without horse racing, they fear that Macau will not be able to co-host the equestrian races in the 2025 National Games. Macaus image will also be jeopardized among the Asian Racing Federation, because the MJC was terminated in the middle of a season, in contrast to Singapores approach of allowing its operator to complete the entire season. MGM has supported the Macau Outstanding Teenagers Award, organized by the Young Mens Christian Association of Macau (YMCA of Macau) for the sixth consecutive edition. This year, MGM is spearheading a set of learning initiatives, including an educational trip to the Greater Bay Area, opportunities for school speeches, an exchange tour in Shanghai, and more. This years competition focuses on cultivating young people with hands-on experience in community service and nationalism. As such, YMCA of Macau collaborated with several local associations to co-create a charity short film named Striding into Dreams and has invited professional tutors from the Macau Speaker Association to equip shortlisted candidates with public-speaking skills. This years judging panel comprises 31 professionals from various industries. After the selection rounds, the panel identified a total of 10 Outstanding Teenagers and 5 Outstanding Performance award winners based on three key aspects, being Personal Achievements, Personal Endeavors and Involvement in the Community. In response to national legislators suggestions, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China has committed to advancing the construction of over 100 picturesque bays across the nation. Prioritizing pollution control and ecosystem restoration, the ministrys goal is to complete 40% of the bay constructions by 2027, ensuring clean seawater, beaches, and abundant marine life, thus promoting a harmonious relationship between humans and the maritime environment. The initiative, strongly backed by NPC deputies, aims at securing special funds and enhancing local governments capabilities in marine environmental management. Efforts also include leveraging financial support from various channels and engaging public participation, with programs like the Blue Circle (China) illustrating the successful community involvement in environmental preservation. Related Official statistics released from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) show that the unemployment rate of local residents in the three months spanning November 2023 to January 2024 was 2.8%. In the same release, the DSEC also noted that the general unemployment rate in Macau was 2.2%. Both indicators have registered slight decreases of 0.1% when compared with the previous three-month period (October December 2023), aligning with levels observed in early 2020. In contrast, the underemployment rate increased by 0.1% to reach 1.5%. Despite a percentage increase in unemployed individuals, the total number of employed people in Macau at the end of January this year (370,700) 285,500 of which were local residents also declined by 400 and 600 people respectively. DSECs industry-specific analysis indicated a notable decline in unemployed workers in the Construction and Retail Trade sectors, with an increase in unemployed workers in the Gaming & Junket Activities and Hotels & Similar Activities sectors. Concurrently, the number of unemployed individuals (8,400) decreased by 200 from the previous period. Among the unemployed individuals seeking new opportunities, many were previously engaged in Retail Trade, Gaming & Junket Activities, and the Construction sector. Meanwhile, the proportion of new labor market entrants seeking their first job fell by 3% to 9.2% of the total unemployed. The number of underemployed individuals (5,700) increased by 500 from the previous period, with the majority working in the Transport & Storage and the Construction sectors. Compared year-on-year with the same period last year, the labor force participation rate, unemployment rate, and underemployment rate all experienced decreases of 0.6%, 1.2%, and 1.7% respectively. At the end of January 2024, the labor force living in Macau totaled 379,100, with a participation rate of 67.9%. As in previous releases, the Employment Survey from DSEC covers all residential units in the Peninsula, Taipa, and Coloane, excluding collective living quarters such as dormitories and aged care facilities. All people living in residential units were included in the survey. However, local residents and non-resident workers who work in Macau but live outside the territory were not included. Preliminary estimates from movement records suggest an average of 100,700 residents and non-resident workers fall into this category. When including these individuals, the total labor force (479,900) increased by 300 from the previous period. * Horsegate Horse owners urge Jockey Club to apologize to residents * Show case Govt seeking large open space for performances, after Taipa Stadium saga * Official stats | Unemployment rate returns to pre-pandemic levels * The price of several bakery products increased from January to February, the regular price report from the Consumer Council shows * Govt appeals to community to address unnoticed deaths of single elderly residents * Former FM Qin Gang steps down as member of the legislature DOWNLOAD PDF Wednesday, February 28, 2024 edition no. 4433 It only comes around once every four years, so make the most out of Leap Day on Thursday. Here are some things going on in Madison: Relive a bad movie Giant Jones Brewing Company is celebrating the 2010 movie "Leap Year." Never heard of it? It starred Amy Adams and didn't get great reviews. The brewery is at 931 E. Main St. is hosting a trivia night with questions about the movie. It starts at 5:30 p.m. Play leap frog with your kids The Madison Children's Museum is hosting a free Leap Day Frog origami session. Kids can make their own origami frog. The event runs from 5 to 7 p.m. at the museum at 100 N. Hamilton St. Bury a dog time capsule The Crazy Dog Mom at 161 W. Main St. in Stoughton is putting together a time capsule for dogs. Bring a special time belonging to your dog and they'll seal it up and bury it so you can relive the memory on Leap Day 2028. The store is also selling $29 mystery bags packed with $60 worth of surprises. Get a free cinnamon roll Wendy's is offering a free Cinnabon Pull-Apart on Leap Day. The deal is being offered at local Wendy's restaurants during their breakfast hours. Madison firefighters are investigating a diesel truck fire they responded to Monday afternoon in the parking lot of West Towne Mall. Firefighters were dispatched to the parking lot just after noon, where they elevated their response to a full structure fire due to the truck's proximity to the building. The truck was vacant and nobody was hurt. The driver of the truck, filled with food and supplies destined for the Cheesecake Factory, told firefighters he'd been unloading the delivery when he smelled smoke, according to Madison Fire spokesperson Cynthia Schuster. The truck's cab and engine compartment were "heavily involved" in the fire, which extended into the truck's refrigeration unit and on top of the box itself. As a handful of curious shoppers paused to watch the firefighters tend to the blaze, black smoke rose over the mall. None of the food or other equipment in the truck was damaged, and firefighters cleared the Cheesecake Factory of any smoke or other related concerns. The cause of the fire is under investigation, Schuster said. Update: In it's final official ruling, the National Weather Service reported that Madison just tied its biggest ever temperature swing within 24 hours. Madison's official reporting station at the Dane County Regional Airport saw a high of 70 at 1:28 p.m. Tuesday, crushing the old record of 58 for Feb. 27 set in 1976, according to the Weather Service. And at 6:53 a.m. Wednesday, the airport reported it was just 11 degrees with a wind chill of 12 below for a stunning swing of 59 degrees. "It's definitely the greatest we've seen in 24 hours" for Madison, Aiden Kuroski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sullivan, told the State Journal on Wednesday morning. But later on Wednesday, the Weather Service reported in a post on X that the 59-degree swing actually tied the exact same 59-degree swing from 70 to 11 on Nov. 11, 1911. Madison and Milwaukee experienced one of the greatest 24-hour temperature changes in recorded history on February 27th into the 28th. This temperature swing occurred in roughly 16 hours for both sites. #wiwx #swiwx pic.twitter.com/RN6fLq2mGJ NWS Milwaukee (@NWSMilwaukee) February 28, 2024 Madison's next largest swing in a 24-hour period was 53 degrees on both April 2, 1981 (81 to 28) and Jan. 18-19, 1996 (53 to zero), Kuroski said. Also of note was the day-to-day fluctuation of 57 degrees that happened on April 22-23, 1980, when Madison went from a high of 94 on April 22 to a low of 37 on April 23. Kuroski said he believed those 1980 extremes were more than 24 hours apart. Milwaukee also set a record high Tuesday of 74, breaking the old record for Feb. 27 of 65 set in 1976, and Milwaukee had fallen to 16 at 8:52 a.m. Wednesday, Kuroski said. That may have broken its 24-hour record swing, the Weather Service said On Nov. 11, 1911, Milwaukee in 24 hours went from 73 to either 13 or 20, a swing of either 60 degrees or 53, with the uncertainty stemming from the uncertainty of hourly values more than a century ago, the Weather Service said. Temperatures careening from the 70s Tuesday to the teens Wednesday in southern Wisconsin could mark the biggest one-day temperature fluctuation in the region's history, the National Weather Service said. Unofficially, the day-to-day record fluctuation was April 22-23, 1980 when Madison went from a high of 94 on April 22 to a low of 37 on April 23, a swing of 57 degrees. The final salvo of Wisconsin's warmest winter ever is forecast to see temperatures drop to a low of 16 degrees early Wednesday after giving Madison a taste of summer-like weather in the afternoon. The temperature in Madison hit 70 degrees, and in Milwaukee it reached 73 degrees, according to the Weather Service. Erratic temperatures raise the risk of hazardous weather hitting the area Tuesday evening, said Aidan Kuroski, a meteorologist with the Weather Service. Only two and a half weeks ago, Wisconsin's first February tornado ripped through Rock County and caused about $2.44 million in property damage. Read more: A severe storm could hit southeastern Wisconsin Tuesday night and storms are possible throughout southern Wisconsin, according to the Weather Service. Modeling Tuesday afternoon showed the area at risk of a storm moving more toward the south, Kuroski said. "But there's still potential there," Kuroski said. By 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, temperatures had already dropped to 50 degrees. Madison is expected to see rain and snow before 1 a.m. on Wednesday, according to the Weather Service. Less than half an inch of snow is possible. Wind gusts could get as high as 35 mph. On Wednesday, Madisonians can expect a high of 25, with strong winds continuing, hitting 35 mph again during the day and 25 mph at night. JUNEAU An 18-year-old Fall River man accused of running over a Beaver Dam girl in a Walmart parking lot in 2022 entered a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect on Tuesday, a little over a month before he was to stand trial. Dylan Lenz is charged with first-degree attempted homicide and could face up to 40 years in prison and 20 years of extended supervision if convicted of the charges against him. Lenz also is charged with first-degree reckless injury, use of a dangerous weapon, hit-and-run and battery. Lenzs attorney, Christopher Van Wagner, entered the plea. Lenz was also in court. Dodge County District Attorney Andrea Will asked that Lenzs trial be rescheduled because another attempted-homicide trial is scheduled to begin April 4. Will said she believed she should prosecute both cases due to the seriousness of the crimes. Circuit Judge Brian Pfitzinger agreed Lenzs trial had to be rescheduled after the plea change. Van Wagner said Lenzs evaluation had not been completed and asked for an additional 30 days to complete the testing. A telephone scheduling conference was set for April 4. According to the criminal complaint: Beaver Dam police responded to the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter at 120 Frances Lane at 9 p.m. Oct. 15, 2022, after a 17-year-old girl had been run over in the parking lot and the driver fled the scene. The girl was located behind the automotive department, and officers saw she had sustained a significant number of abrasions. She was also bleeding from her mouth and nose. Witnesses across the street at Menards said they saw a small SUV in the parking lot and a body underneath it, and that the vehicle then left the parking lot. The girl was flown to American Family Childrens Hospital in Madison. After reviewing evidence from an automated camera system that monitors traffic, a Fall River officer determined the vehicle was a 2009 Pontiac Vibe driven by Lenz. At about 10 p.m. that night, Columbus police officers went to the Fall River home where Lenz lives with his parents, who police reported to be uncooperative and confrontational with police. Lenz was arrested and taken to the Fall River Police Department to be interviewed about 11:30 p.m. the same night, and a warrant was issued to search the vehicle. An officer saw blood both inside and outside of the vehicle. Lenz is free on a $150,000 cash bond. Close Law enforcement raise $7,500 for Beaver Dam boy undergoing cancer treatments during softball game The Beaver Dam Police Department and Dodge County Sheriff's Office raised $7,500 on Saturday during their annual softball game. Western Wisconsin hospitals are in line to receive $15 million in state funding to support health care access under a bill signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Tony Evers after the announced closure of two major hospitals in the region. But Republican leaders immediately pledged to block the funding for anything other than the bills original intent after the governor used his powerful line-item veto authority to expand how and where the money could be spent. Rep. Mark Born, who co-chairs the Legislatures budget committee, said he has no intention of releasing the money after the Democratic governor vetoed language limiting the area where the funds could be spent to Chippewa and Eau Claire counties, where the soon-to-be-closed hospitals are located. Officials with Hospital Sisters Health Systems St. Josephs Hospital in Chippewa Falls and Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, as well as all Prevea Health locations in western Wisconsins Chippewa Valley, last month announced plans to begin laying off employees on March 22 and permanently close the facilities about a month later. Earlier this month, legislative Republicans approved grant funding to pay for emergency department capital expenses at hospitals in Chippewa and Eau Claire counties to help mitigate the impact of the impending closures. The proposal essentially repurposed $15 million originally approved in the state budget for capital improvements at Sacred Heart Hospital funding that has not been used. The measure passed the Senate on a 30-2 vote, but Sen. Jeff Smith said in a statement earlier this month restricting the funds to only capital expenses will do more harm than good if signed into law. We shouldnt unnecessarily constrain our community during this crisis, said Smith, D-Brunswick. Democratic lawmakers in the Assembly proposed amending the measure to address the state Department of Health Services request to broaden the area covered under the bill to include the entire western region of the state and expand what services funds could be spent on. That proposal was rejected by Assembly Republicans. But when Evers signed the bill on Thursday, he used his line-item veto power to essentially accomplish the same thing, expanding the proposals scope to cover more broad health care needs, including urgent care, OB-GYN services, inpatient psychiatry and mental health substance use services. The governors partial-veto also expands the area covered under the proposal to include all 18 counties in the states western region. Evers said in a statement the changes were made to ensure more flexibility so these critical resources can be used for any hospital services to meet the health care access needs of the Chippewa Valley region, no matter what they may be. Its been clear in my visits to the Chippewa Valley region and my conversations with community leaders that the impacts of these recent closures do not end at hospital emergency doors these closures are affecting access to critical health care services across the board, and we have to be responsive to these challenges to meet Wisconsinites and communities needs, Evers continued. Sponsor wants closures addressed Rep. Jesse James, R-Altoona, applauded the bills signing in a statement, noting the timeline was tight, but with a little perseverance, we were able to get it across the finish line. James, who co-authored the bill, said he was concerned that Evers partial veto excessively expands the scope and uses of the funds. We need to ensure the money remains in the area and goes towards the needs and services most impacted by the HSHS closures, James said. The law authorizes the Legislatures budget committee to allocate up to $15 million in grant funding to be directed to hospital services provided in the states western region, with priority placed on hospitals in Eau Claire and Chippewa counties. Evers urged the committee to approve the funding to help stabilize and support health care access across the Chippewa Valley region, and to do so without delay. In a statement Thursday, Born offered harsh criticism of Evers expansions to the proposal. It is unbelievable Governor Evers would veto funding that was intended to support emergency services in Chippewa Falls a community which just lost its last hospital to allow it to be used in any of 18 counties, Born said. The committee will not support a proposal that redirects the funding from this high-need area to anywhere in Western Wisconsin. In a joint statement, Chippewa Valley Republican Reps. Rob Summerfield, of Bloomer; Clint Moses, of Menomonie; Karen Hurd, of Fall Creek; Warren Petryk, of the Town of Washington; Trieg Pronschinske, of Mondovi; Donna Rozar, of Marshfield; Dave Armstrong, of Rice Lake; and James Edming, of Glen Flora, criticized the governors partial veto, which they said creates a slush fund that wont guarantee these funds are used to help the needs of the Chippewa Valley. The lawmakers said they will work with the budget committee and DHS to ensure that this money will be used for its original intent which is to provide emergency services for Chippewa Valley services. Closures affect 1,400 employees Hospital Sisters Health System, a faith-based health system with operations in Illinois and Wisconsin, said last month the permanent closures are part of a complete exit from the western Wisconsin region. The closures affect nearly 1,100 HSHS and 325 Prevea staff and physicians. The organization said it will provide support services and career transition assistance, including the potential to seek positions elsewhere in the organizations, if available. According to the American Hospital Association, 136 rural hospitals closed between 2010 and 2021, as well as a record 19 closures in 2020 alone. More than 600 rural hospitals 30% of all rural hospitals in the country are at risk of closing, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, because they do not have adequate revenue to cover the cost of the care provided. Today in history: Feb. 28 1993: David Koresh 1996: Princess Diana 2009: Paul Harvey 2012: Matt Kenseth 2013: Benedict XVI 2014: Barack Obama 2018: Dicks Sporting Goods 2018: Walmart 2020: Dow Jones 2021: Andrew Cuomo Xiaomi's SU7 car is displayed during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 27, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] State-of-the-art intelligent products and applications showcased by Chinese companies have become eye-catchers at the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. At the center of Xiaomi's booth sits a "Gulf Blue" Xiaomi SU7 car, which has drawn widespread attention from enthusiastic visitors who crowd the booth. Adam Butcher, a tech influencer, said he wanted to place an order for the Xiaomi car. Xiaomi officially launched the "Human x Car x Home" platform globally, integrating personal devices, smart home products, and cars, facilitating seamless connection and real-time coordination of hardware devices, and providing collaboration with industry partners. People visit the Alipay booth during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 26, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] By integrating people, cars, and homes, Xiaomi aims to create end-to-end interconnections surpassing any technology available today, said Daniel Desjarlais, Xiaomi's International Communications Director. Seulgi Lee, head of the Republic of Korea's interactive content company Thingsflow, said she was amazed by the "incredible" technology used on ZTE after she tried out the 5G+AI naked-eye 3D tablet developed by ZTE. "I've never seen technology like this that instantly creates a 3D effect after taking a photo!" said Lee, who is not a stranger to naked-eye 3D products. Speaking at "5G Beyond Growth Summit" hosted by Huawei at the World Mobile Congress, Li Qiang, general manager of Mobile Planning and Construction at China Mobile, said that the 3D industry has come to a new stage of volume production marked by the launch of naked-eye 3D computers, smartphones, and other terminals as a result of the continuous integration of immersive 3D content into industries and the improvement of display devices' resolution and the upgrade of computing power. People visit the iFlytek booth during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 26, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] iFLYTEK released a series of applications based on generative artificial intelligence and deep learning. The company has made a foray into intelligent marketing, smart homes, and other fields. Lenovo Group assisted in advancing the architecture of the smart city of Barcelona through infrastructure deployment such as networks, ensuring fast and smooth data transmission of devices, and providing efficient and convenient experiences for the public, enterprises, and public institutions. "In recent years, Chinese enterprises have demonstrated formidable innovation and research and development (R&D) capabilities. This surge is evident in significant investments in R&D, the establishment of global research centers, as well as the growing number of patents filed," said Luigi Gambardella, President of the Brussels-based international digital association ChinaEU. Mats Granryd, GSMA's Director General, told Xinhua in an interview that he was happy to see the cutting technologies showcased by Chinese companies at the MWC. A staff member shows a China Telecom 5G antenna during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 27, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua] "I know how much effort, money, talent that China is pouring into new technology, into AI, into connectivity that's going to really bear fruit in the future." Lara Dewar, chief marketing officer at GSMA, said that it is really important to have the Chinese companies which present "a ton of innovation" at the MWC. She added that the MWC Shanghai will take place in June. The MWC, the technology industry's largest connectivity ecosystem event, opened here on Monday, drawing a total of 2,400 exhibitors, including around 300 Chinese telecommunications companies. As a father who lost his 23-year-old son in a crash caused by a driver fleeing police, I disagree with Monona Acting-Mayor Doug Woods recent column, Mononas policy for police pursuits is appropriate. Woods arguments for loosening Mononas police pursuit policies mirror those of other city politicians who listen to their most vocal citizens and sometimes unhappy police officers. All these people, it seems, believe the only way to solve crime is to chase anyone who flees an attempted police stop, regardless of the circumstances. Woods is apparently of the chase till the wheels fall off school of thought. Sadly, this attitude is still alive and well in many cities and police departments across the United States. As a result, more innocent citizens and police officers are injured and killed in pursuits than is expected or reasonable. If an officer observes a violent felony suspect, and that individual still represents an imminent danger to citizens, then arresting them is critical, and a pursuit is very likely justified. But if a driver flees and the officer has no idea why, a dangerous high-speed pursuit is not the best course of action. Yet this is what the Monona Police Department appears to be doing. Creating dangerous situations with the potential to injure or kill citizens for pursuits of those fleeing from misdemeanor violations, property felonies (such as a car theft or stealing diapers from Walmart) or a non-violent felony is insane. Wood describes in his column what the officers must do before they begin a chase: The Monona policy requires officers to take into account a minimum of 12 factors in deciding to initiate and continue a pursuit. In 2007, a driver fleeing an officer for a misdemeanor violation crashed into and killed my son, Paul, who was riding in a cab. Since then, virtually all officers and police executives Ive spoken with say that an officers decision to pursue is virtually instantaneous. So having a notebook full of reasons that I can chase doesnt generally come into play before the pursuit is instigated. Wood also mentioned the Department of Justice-funded Police Executive Research Forum report on vehicular pursuits. Wood simplified one partial sentence from the 144-page document about armed and dangerous individuals. He quotes the report stating that pursuits should not be initiated even if the officer believes an individual in the suspects vehicle is armed and dangerous. Ignoring armed and dangerous criminals is certainly not what the report states nor is it the intent of its suggested pursuit policy language. One of many detailed references to armed and dangerous from the report includes recognition of the Virginia Beach Police Departments strong pursuit policy: A pursuit may be initiated based upon a reasonable belief: 1. At the time the pursuit is initiated that the occupant(s) of the vehicle are 1) armed and dangerous or 2) have committed or attempted to commit a violent felony ... . The report, written over a year and extensively researched by many knowledgeable law enforcement executives and other police pursuit experts, recommended the following: ... pursuits should take place only when two very specific standards are met: (1) A violent crime has been committed and (2) the suspect poses an imminent threat to commit another violent crime. I dont know whether Wood is the driving force behind the Monona Police Departments revised and weak pursuit policy or is simply supporting his new chief. Either way, Monona has moved in a perilous direction, and it is a virtual certainty that more people will be killed and injured because of unnecessary chases. Your news on your smartphone Your story lives in the Magic Valley, and our new mobile app is designed to make sure you dont miss breaking news, the latest scores, the weather forecast and more. From easy navigation with the swipe of a finger to personalized content based on your preferences to customized text sizes, the Times-News app is built for you and your life. Dont have the app? Download it today from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. - Advertisement - The Philippines became the 70th member to accept the World Trade Organizations Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (FSA) on Tuesday, after it submitted its instrument of acceptance during the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual and Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. presented the instrument to WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The agreement allows members to grant subsidies for disaster relief under certain conditions, supporting fisherfolk impacted by natural disasters, Pascual said. This is vital for the Philippines, a climate-vulnerable country, especially since small-scale and artisanal fisherfolk are heavily impacted by strong typhoons and rising sea temperatures exacerbated by climate change. The FSA aims to curb harmful subsidies and safeguard dwindling fish stocks. It prohibits subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, overfished stocks and fishing in the unregulated high seas. Developing and least-developed countries have flexibility to provide subsidies within their exclusive economic zones (EEZs) for two years after the agreement enters into force. This benefits the Philippines small-scale and artisanal fisherfolk who operate within municipal waters. - Advertisement - The Philippines can access technical assistance from the WTO Fisheries Funding Mechanism to help implement the agreement. The FSA was adopted at the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June 2022 and needs ratification by two-thirds of WTO members to enter into force. - Advertisement - The Philippine Smoke-Free Movement (PSFM), a group advocating for smoke-free and vape-free environments, expressed frustration after the Philippine government bagged its fifth Dirty Ashtray award during the 10th session of the Conference of Parties of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control held in Panama on Feb. 5 to 10, 2024. Civil Society9 watchdog Global Alliance for Tobacco Control (GATC) gave the country its dirty award for its brazen use of tobacco industry tactics to dispute and delay throughout COP10. The GATC presents the Dirty Ashtray award as a means of publicly denouncing nations that succumb to lobbying efforts from the tobacco industry. This is particularly aimed at instances where government officials or administrations align themselves with cigarette manufacturers by endorsing or supporting their tactics. The Southeast Asian Tobacco Control Alliance or SEATCA reported that the Philippine delegates, together with a minority of parties, obstructed consensus on establishing an expert group to oversee the implementation of FCTC articles 9 and 10, which address the regulation and disclosure of tobacco product contents and emissions. With insufficient time remaining for further discussions, this agenda item was postponed until COP11. With the overwhelming data on the detrimental impacts of tobacco products, it is deeply troubling that the delegation tried to muddle consensus. Instead of engaging in constructive discourse and seeking common ground, they chose to pursue divisive agendas and engage in obstructionist tactics. By stalling discussions on critical issues, they effectively derailed important decisions and initiatives that could have had far-reaching positive impacts on public health. The award sends a chilling message that profits are prioritized over human lives and societal well-being, said PSFM national coordinator Rizza Duro. - Advertisement - Aktibong Kilusan Tungo sa IIsang Bayan (AKTIB) Philippines, a peoples organization promoting healthier communities, said the Dirty Ashtray reflected the blatant disrespect of the delegates toward public health and their inability to grasp the magnitude of the detrimental impacts of tobacco products. The delegates mock the years of tireless advocacy of our community leaders. We are enraged that our efforts on the ground are being discarded by the public servants who promised to represent our aspirations on a global scale. Its a betrayal of the trust of every community volunteer who worked hard to lobby and help institute tobacco-control ordinances and disseminate materials to protect their neighborhoods from the dangers of smoking and vaping, said AKTIB Philippines national coordinator Sara Salvador. Vladimir Von Defonturum, a tobacco-control youth advocate, also aired his disappointment at the award. The PSFM equates this Dirty Ashtray Award to an official selling of our youths future for the tobacco industrys commercial interest. The delegates jeopardized the rights and well-being of the youth and the future generation by delaying the implementation of policies that test the contents of tobacco products. This notorious award and the recent passage of Republic Act 11900, otherwise known as the Vape Law, further stressed the bold attempt of the industry to solidify its market share and secure an entire generation of customers among the youth, said Defonturum. The 5th Dirty Ashtray Award prompted Senator Pia Cayetano to give a privilege speech on Feb. 19, 2024 and call for a Blue Ribbon hearing on Feb 21, 2024 to express her alarm over the delegations actions during COP10 that resulted in the notorious award. We thank the honorable senator for her consistent pro-health stance in this matter. We are with her in protecting the Filipino youth through our advocacy to promote the passage of comprehensive smoke-free and vape-free policies at both national and local levels. The PSFM network strongly implores the government to be accountable and make reasonable pro-health choices for our youth. The Filipino youth is not for sale to the tobacco industry. We rally behind Sen. Pia Cayetano in this advocacy, said Duro. - Advertisement - PANAMA CITYPublic health experts urge medical professionals to learn the science behind nicotine and tobacco harm reduction (THR) to accurately inform people struggling with smoking. Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos, a cardiologist, public health expert, and external research fellow at the universities of Patras and West Attica in Greece, highlighted the prevalence of misinformation about THR and nicotine within the healthcare community. Many doctors do not understand that the harmful effects of the combustion in cigarettes are orders of magnitude greater than the minimal health risks of nicotine. We need to convince doctors about the science behind THR, as they are considered credible sources of health information by the general public, said Farsalinos. Dr. Rohan Sequeira, cardio-metabolic physician at Sir JJ Hospital and medical director at St. Elizabeth Hospital Mumbai, said that unfortunately, information about smoke-free nicotine alternatives is not available in the whole medical community. Some doctors believe smoking is better than vaping because they do not understand the difference between combustion in cigarettes and aerosols in vapes. We need to educate doctors and provide them with the right information about vapes and other less harmful nicotine alternatives, said Sequeira. - Advertisement - Vapes, heated tobacco products (HTPs) and oral nicotine are considered forms of THR. These products do not burn tobacco nor generate smoke that produces thousands of harmful and potentially harmful chemicals, which cause smoking-related diseases. Filipino THR advocate and occupational medicine physician Dr. Lorenzo Mata Jr. agrees with Farsalinos and Sequeira about the need to educate medical professionals on THR. I call on THR advocates and other enlightened healthcare professionals in the Philippines to join forces in providing local physicians with the scientific facts about THR and how it can help millions of Filipinos quit smoking through less harmful nicotine alternatives, said Mata, president of Quit for Good, a non-profit, non-stock organization promoting harm reduction as a compassionate strategy to mitigate the damage to human health and society brought about by cigarettes and other combustible tobacco products. THR is a public health strategy that aims to provide safer alternatives to reduce harm caused by smoking and to provide nicotine to people who cannot or do not want to quit smoking by themselves. It encompasses a range of pragmatic policies, regulations, and actions that either reduce health risks by providing safer forms of products or substances or encourage less risky behaviors. THR does not focus exclusively on the eradication of products or behaviors. By making safer nicotine products available, THR offers new choices to millions of people worldwide who want to switch away from smoking, but have been unable to with the options previously available. As respected medical experts and credible sources of health information, doctors play an important role in helping people quit smoking, Mata said. They can provide convincing advice for patients to quit smoking, offer brief counseling, prescribe smoking cessation medications, connect them to additional quit smoking resources and follow up with continued support to help prevent relapse, he said A recent survey found that misinformation about vaping is widespread, and many consumers and doctors mistakenly believe that nicotine causes various smoking-related illnesses. This misinformation prevents many smokers from switching to vaping, and prevents doctors from recommending it to smokers, which has detrimental effects on public health, Mata said. - Advertisement - Fintech company Digido said Wednesday it has provided financial access to over one million Filipinos on its digital app in 2023. Digido business development manager Rose Arreco said the significant milestone is a reflection of how fast the Philippines is accelerating its financial inclusion programs through modern, digital means. We view this milestone as both an achievement and challenge, spurring us further to meaningfully contribute to the countrys digital transformation through increased access to formal credit, she said. Digido posted a 23 percent growth in total loans disbursed in 2023 compared to 2022. About 75.4 percent of the loans released in 2023 were from repeat borrowers, indicating considerable brand loyalty. Digidos recently-released commissioned survey revealed that personal loans were the most popular formal credit option across demographics and areas in 2023. - Advertisement - Formal credit options have been more accessible for eight out of 10 Filipinos last year. We are firm in our mission to ensure every hard-working Filipino should have access to convenient and secure financial tools. As we endeavor to celebrate more milestones in the future, we will do so by ensuring we strive for innovation and find creative means to delight even more customers, Arreco said. Digido has become a trusted financial partner for the Philippines underserved, with its platform designed to offer a seamless and efficient process for obtaining cash loans for persons that have limited access to traditional financial services. Digido offers a First Loan For Free service, where first-time borrowers can avail up to P4,000 with zero percent interest and a standard personal loan up to P25,000 for repeat clients. The fintech firm has received 13 awards in 2023, among them The Digital Bankers Global Retail Banking Innovation Awards, Pan Finance and the Global Banking & Finance Review. - Advertisement - Singapore-based Vena Energy assured the public it continues to maintain an open dialogue with stakeholders in the wake of issues hurled against its Rizal wind farm project. Vena Energy said in a statement it is willing to work with concerned parties to achieve the common good, and the wind project is being mindful of its environmental impact. Vena Energy is a committed partner to upholding climate action and strongly adheres to environmental laws. It ensures the protection and preservation of biodiversity, maintains ecosystem services, and sustainably manages natural resources, which are prerogatives of sustainable development, the company said. Vena Energy said it ensures that in every project, it adheres to all government regulations and mandatory testing and compliance. The project secured permits over the four years it has been developing the project such as the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources- Environmental Management Bureau R4A, following a comprehensive environmental impact assessment (EIA) study, the company said. - Advertisement - Vena Energy said it also received a certificate of registration from the Board of Investments; free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to conduct studies issued by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP); clearances to conduct studies from the Protected Area Management Boards of Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape, Kaliwa River Forest Reserve; and resolutions of support from the host barangays and the Tanay municipality. It said the project also secured the FPIC of the Dumagat/Remontado IPs/ICCs of Antipolo and Tanay to implement and operate the project in both ancestral domains (ADs). The FPIC was the result of an extensive process of consultations with the IP communities, elders and chieftains of both ADs, resulting in memoranda of agreement (MOAs) signed with them and the issuance of a certification precondition (CP) by the NCIP. It said the consultations and dialogues are ongoing among the host barangays and communities in Tanay and Antipolo, attended by various stakeholders including representatives from DENR and the local government units of Antipolo and Tanay. In these consultations, the company has advised DENR and various stakeholders that it is not building in the karst area of Barangay Cuyambay, Tanay, Rizal, Vena Energy said. Vena Energy also said its projects ensures the welfare of the communities it serves through prioritization of local hiring during all phases of project development up to operation, financial benefits from the payment of various local taxes such as real property taxes, local business taxes ER1-94 (a fund given to host beneficiaries, in coordination with the Department of Energy, for electrification, disaster and risk management, livelihood projects of the community); government share and royalty tax; tourism; farm to market roads and the conduct and implement long-term CSR projects identified through a needs assessment with host communities. These include Zero Hunger, scholarship programs with special focus on female students under STEM, hospitalization support, Pawikan conservation to name a few. Vena Energy, one of Asia-Pacifics leading renewable energy companies, has built a strong regional presence and has 900 employees across 79 corporate and site offices. It owns, develops, constructs, operates, manages and commercializes renewable energy projects across the Asia Pacific. The company has been in the Philippines for more than a decade. It is operating five solar plants in the country and the 54-MW Pililla wind farm which has been featured in various local, national, and international campaigns as one of the top tourism sites in Rizal. - Advertisement - Paris, France French President Emmanuel Macron faced uneasy reactions from European allies and a warning from the Kremlin on Tuesday after he refused to rule out the deployment of Western ground troops to Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Macron said after a conference of European leaders on Monday that everything that is necessary must be done to ensure the defeat of Russia, including sending troops. The Kremlin warned of the inevitability of confrontation between NATO and Russia if troops from the alliance were deployed in the conflict, which would break a major taboo the West has so far been reluctant to challenge. Macron hosted the conference just over two years to the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, seeking to rally greater support for Kyiv, which faces increasing battlefield challenges and dwindling munition stocks. He painted a grim picture of Russia under President Vladimir Putin, saying there had been a change of posture even in recent months that had seen a hardening of its stance both domestically and in Ukraine. - Advertisement - While there was no consensus on the sending of Western ground troops to Ukraine, nothing should be ruled out. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that Russia cannot win this war, Macron said. Kyiv welcomed Macrons comments, with presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak calling it a good sign. Macron is now demonstrating a deep understanding of the risks posed to Europe by the war in Ukraine, he said. But the United States, a key backer of Kyivs defensive efforts, said President Joe Biden would not deploy soldiers to Ukraine. President Biden has been clear that the US will not send troops to fight in Ukraine, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement. Biden believes the path to victory is for Congress to pass blocked military aid so Ukrainian troops have the weapons and ammunition they need to defend themselves, she said. Not at war with Russia Macron had refused to say more about Frances position, citing the need for strategic ambiguity but saying the issue was mentioned among the options. We are convinced that the defeat of Russia is indispensable to security and stability in Europe, Macron said. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, accused by critics of being too cosy with Moscow, said after the meeting that there was disunity on the issue among European leaders. There are countries that are ready to send their own soldiers to Ukraine, there are countries that say never - Slovakia is among them and there are countries that say that this proposal should be considered, he said. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden, which is set to join NATO, poured cold water on the idea, saying its not on the cards at all for the moment. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a curt message on X: We agreed that everyone must do more for Ukraine in Paris yesterday. Ukraine needs weapons, ammunition and air defence. We are working on it. It is clear: there will be no ground troops from European countries or NATO. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that if NATO troops appeared in Ukraine, we (would) need to speak not about a possibility but of the inevitability of confrontation. This is absolutely not in the interests of these countries, they should be aware of this, he said. A NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, emphasised that there are no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine despite the unprecedented military support from the alliance. The Italian government said support for Ukraine did not include sending troops. When we talk about sending troops, we must be very cautious because we must not make people think we are at war with Russia, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said. We are not at war with Russia. Croatias President Zoran Milanovic also ruled out sending any ground troops as a foolish act, saying the only solution to the war in Ukraine is to reach a peace agreement. But Britain issued a somewhat more circumspect reaction, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks spokesman saying there were no plans for a large-scale troop deployment to Ukraine. Belligerence threshold It is understood that any Western troops eventually sent to Ukraine would have no mandate to fight Russian forces but work on priorities outlined by Macron in his news conference, including de-mining, securing neighbouring countries such as Moldova and thwarting cyberattacks. We are not talking about soldiers on the front line, in combat, but about specific activities, far from the front, said Rym Momtaz, a consultant research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). But in France, Macron came under fire from far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen, who in parliament accused him of taking a further step towards belligerence, posing an existential risk to 70 million French people. French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne told lawmakers that while new actions to support Ukraine such as de-mining and arms production could require a military presence on Ukrainian territory, this would not break any belligerence threshold. There are growing doubts about the viability of long-term US backing for Ukraine as a new aid package struggles to find legislative approval, and as Donald Trump, who has indicated opposition to further support for Kyiv, eyes a return to the presidency in elections this year. Its our future, Europes future that is at stake. We must have the possibility to do without (the United States), not out of defiance, pessimism or fear but because it depends on us, Macron said. - Advertisement - The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday confirmed that expelled Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr., tagged as the brains behind the assassination of Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Degamo, has been included in the red notice list of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla made the confirmation following reports that a red notice was issued by the Interpol on Tuesday containing Teves name. Besides the Interpol red notice, Remulla said the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) had cancelled Teves passport. Aside from the Interpol red notice, his passport was already cancelled as the DFA has complied and cancelled his passport, Remulla said. The Interpol explained that a red notice refers to a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action. The Interpol clarified however, that a red notice is not an international arrest warrant. - Advertisement - Reports indicated that it was like Teves visited Cambodia. Earlier, authorities said Teves was shuttling between Timor-Leste, Cambodia, and Thailand. It was in Timor-Leste where he sought asylum but was rejected. The Interpol also noted that Teves has a warrant of arrest for murder, frustrated murder, and attempted murder over the March 4 attack on Degamo and several visitors while the governor was distributing aid at his residence in Pamplona, Negros Oriental. A blue notice requires member-countries to collect additional information about a suspects identity, location, or activities in relation to a criminal investigation. Aside from the murder of Degamo and others, the former lawmaker and some of his henchmen have also been charged with the deaths of three individuals in Negros Oriental in 2019, Interpol said. The Anti-Terrorism Council has also designated Teves and 12 others as terrorists, citing several alleged killings and harassment in Negros Oriental attributed to them. The House of Representatives in mid-August voted to expel Teves for disorderly conduct and his continued absence despite an expired travel authority. In early February, a Manila City regional trial court ordered the cancellation of Teves passport to force him to return home. Editors Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline Fugitive Teves now on Interpol red noticeDOJ.